#and the sky has continued to get even muddier looking

[stardusted-owl]

#the wind's kicked up so much dirt the mountains are disapearing #and the sky has continued to get even muddier looking #landscape #clouds #desert #my photo #more crappy phone photography from a moving car

[beautifulterriblequeen]

B2:S - Chapter 5

Much of this series will be about the differences and additions in the novel version, and how they contribute to my understanding of story canon. But there will be character appreciation, the odd theory and headcanon, and suchlike as well.

Here be lots of Viren deets, Best Boy Soren deets, some writing/continuity stuff, worldbuilding appreciation and half of a theory, Detective Rayla, Moon Temple geeking, Claudium and dark magic, and more!

Spoilers for Book Two: Sky below.

(I know for darn sure that I wrote up a post for chapter 4, but I can't find it anywhere so I guess Tumblr ate it and I'll have to redo it at some point, but today is not that day)

Viren, my evil dude, my bad guy, coming in clutch with the worldbuilding and backstory again! If you want to know decades of information, you gotta talk to Viren. Or read his scenes, at least. Here, he seems to not sleep much when he has a big problem to analyze his way through. Solutions trump pretty much everything else in this guy's life, and he's had a really hard week with a lot of new and complicated problems. Of course he's getting sleep-deprived trying to find his way through them all.

Harrow put so much trust in Viren when he made him High Mage! He just threw himself extra hard at that Lady Justice blindfold, didn't he? Didn't really want to see what Viren was doing in his magic study, so he left Viren to his devices. And Viren has a lot of devices.

Also, this is fascinating: Viren made the secret passage to his "less official study" in Katolis Castle! And he was inspired to do so by the way his own mentor kept the Puzzle House. What else could a Puzzle House be, except a place with secret passages? Yay! secret headcanon that "the Puzzle House" is just "Katolis Castle" from Kid Viren's perspective tho

So either Viren built all of those passageways, or at least the ones to his dungeon. Which means he has to have, or know where to get, a stash of those glowing blue Moonshadow crystals. Hmmm.

I can't wait to learn more about Kpp'Ar and young Viren, btw. From this description of Viren and all his literal secret ways, it feels like another parallel between Viren and Runaan, with the whole "secretive paths, members only, insider knowledge" type stuff. Only the really cool members of this cult club get to know the secrets, and guess what, kid, you're cool now but you can never tell anyone, okay? Our secret.

Yeahhh, that'll never backfire in any way for either of them.

Kpp'Ar calling puzzles and secrets "man-made magic," though. Yes sir, knowledge is indeed power.

This chapter mentions Runaan by name, from Viren's perspective. Generally that would imply that Viren knows his name, even though assassins do not share their names, and Runaan didn't seem to give his to Viren in the first book. However, there was a scene in book one where the last paragraph switched perspective from Viren to Runaan - a technique that's very common in visual media like movies and shows and gives you that "ohoho they left the room and didn't notice this, but you do!" vibe. Using Runaan's name there in book one, where Viren couldn't see it but readers could, helps them keep track of the assassin's story arc while maintaining Viren's racism.

So in book two, in which Runaan has no onscreen scenes (alas), using his name in a scene that calls back to the events in book one helps us remember what happened in that dungeon cell. It would be a bit muddier to recall the specifics if Viren kept thinking about Runaan as "Elf." So I'm cool with the perspective nudge because it serves a narrative purpose: clarity. But I'm also enjoying the angst of considering that, somehow, Viren learned Runaan's name either during or after the coining spell. Mwa ha ha haaa. (Obligatory "Keep my pretty name outta your mouth" goes here)

Okay, back to Viren's scheming! He took the mirror because it was human-sized in a dragon lair. He knew it didn't really fit there, and that made it interesting, so he stole it. But he realized it was really powerful when Runaan wouldn't tell him squat about it - the assassin's instinct to protect Xadian secrets from human hands meant that Viren was holding a very powerful Xadian secret. And that just made him want it all the more. Ah, Runaan, if only your relationship with lying was, like, the exact opposite of what it is. Nyx could've spun Viren a believable tale in 2 minutes flat.

Also of interest: Viren considers his cursed coins to be a final fate. He expects Runaan to remain in his coin forever. With the Chekhov's coins still extant in the storyline, we can assume that they'll come up again eventually, but Viren has no current plans to do anything with his elf money except carry it around.

It's worth noting that Viren admits that he got impatient when he trapped Runaan in the coin. Runaan's first fate in Katolis was supposed to be death at Soren's hands, but Claudia "saved" him from that. His next fate was to become spell components, but Viren's frustration with his stubbornness "saved" him from that fate, too. So now he's in a coin, where no one can chop him up at all. Yay? No, boo!

We get one last line about Runaan before Viren shifts gears: he makes a point of noting for us that Runaan's shackles are still locked shut. However much of Runaan made it into that coin - body, soul, hair care products - he was magicked there, pulled right out of his restraints.

The creepy black liquid that Viren pours right into his eyes is the last of a powerful potion he got from Kpp'Ar, and its recipe is ancient! Humans used it back in the age of Elarion to see through the illusions of the world. And we get a delightfully creepy bit of description about the preparation of this serum, which makes it abundantly clear that it's a Moon magic-based concoction, harvested from eyeless vipers on a moonless night, with the threat of irrevocable madness ("madness" by whose definition, though) if it's done wrong-

Hang on. Hold up. This is a Plato's Cave reference. OH MY GOD.

No no I'm fine, this is brilliant. Sorry, sorry, I couldn't figure why there was so much description for a potion prep that Viren didn't even have to perform himself. But now I get it. I see the light. HA. I should make a separate post for this, it's amazing.

Anyway, for reference, the humans who used this serum were called the Oracles of Ophidia, and Ophidia is a taxonomy group that includes all modern snakes. Can you say "creepy ancient snake rites"? I can! Woo!

Viren activates the serum with a spell, but apparently he's never done it before. He's not sure if it's supposed to be hot and bubbly, and he worries that it's been tainted by moonlight.

Oh, I do hope so.

The magic potion hurts, a lot. Viren will do just about anything, to himself or anyone, to do what he believes is necessary. He just risked madness and blindness to find out what this mirror does! Viren. Can you just. Take a nap or something. Have a Snickers.

This chapter gives us a fun clue that I don't remember from the show: when Viren's vision clears and he can see, his reflection has white pupils and the room reflected in the mirror has inverted colors. You know where else has inverted colors?

You know who else got white pupils for a hot second?

Okay, now it makes sense! Viren and Lujanne were both seeing into the realm beyond life and death. Him with his moon magic potion, and her with her moon powers on a full moon night at the Moon Nexus. Which is Very Interesting! Is it a direct hint about Aaravos's location, or just a separate cool detail? Orrr, does it look like a direct hint because Aaravos is actually trapped in the world beyond life and death, but it's actually separate and we'll see something about white pupils again later on?

Viren really does have self-esteem issues, we all picked up on it with his rant at his reflection. He throws a fit when he catches himself wondering if he's actually worthless. In the book version of his tantrum, he shoves the mirror and hurls a candelabra instead of flipping a table. He didn't need to shove the mirror to set the fire, but it's in here. Foreshadowing that perhaps, if push comes to shove, Viren will choose himself over Aaravos? Giving Aaravos time to peek through and see that the coast is clear?

Soren, my boyyyyy. He has a rough night at the Moon Nexus because two sides of him are fighting with each other. He struggles to understand Callum's friendship with Rayla, and he also fantasizes about chopping off Rayla's head. One of these is a pretty ordinary thing to do. The other is Soren's internalization of what he needs to do to gain his father's approval. If he brought his dad a chopped off elf head every week, he'd probably feel a lot more confident because Viren would praise him a lot more.

Okay, okay, omg, is it just me, or does the "Moonshadow Madness" story, as it's told in the book, seem like Soren just doesn't know what a monsterfucker is? He thinks an elf bite puts humans under a spell. But vampires are sexy, and some people want them to do more to them than just bite them. A passionate kiss under the moonlight could look very bitey, especially if one of the participants has horns and you're already culturally trained to hate them. No yeah, I'm already headcanoning an actual human-elf kiss that got misunderstood by an observer long ago.

it's Lujanne isn't it, we all know, because what is a love spell but a sweet soft illusion, I mean how else does she get supplies for her Caldera, I ask you, and also Corvus was totally sent to investigate once and he told Soren at camp what he saw

And then back to magefam angst: Soren pretending that his sister's nose-tapping is stupid, even though he actually thinks it's cool, just because their dad thinks it's stupid. Viren, istg. Let your kids like harmless things. It's so cute that Soren taps his nose back at her, though! Like they have their own sibling code. I hope we get to see the nose tap again, especially now that they've chosen different sides. It could mean so much, that they're not too far apart yet.

Rayla knows what buttery pancakes smell like. I love this. Do Moonshadow elves have butter and pancakes, does Rayla eat a stack of eight giant pancakes in the morning? Orrrr it is just illusion food? I don't care, let Rayla have pancakes! Everyone loves pancakes. Pancakes will save the world. this message brought to you by the fact that I can't eat pancakes rn, send help

I love that Rayla is both sus of the pancakes and hungry, and that combines into a very motivated "I will get to the bottom of this" attitude. She kind of goes into Poirot Mode when she inserts herself into Soren and Ellis's conversation about Ava, explaining about the wolf's illusion leg and segueing into her claim that the pancakes taste sus. Claudia confirms she used dark magic, and Rayla is furious. It's different than the show's version in that it puts Rayla in detective mode, as the only Moonshadow elf in the scene, and boy does she take that role seriously. Also, she doesn't actually swallow the dark magic pancake bite. It ends up on the ground just like Lujanne's grubs from that earlier meal. These poor kids are so nutrient-starved. You guys gotta eat!!

Rayla's determination and prejudices and the fact that she super knows Harrow is dead all dovetail to make her try repeatedly to persuade Callum that Soren and Claudia are Not To Be Trusted. It's nice that the book keeps taking the time to point out that Rayla is Well Intentioned But Flawed, just like Callum and pretty much every other character in the show. No one is Right All The Time, no one Knows More Than Everyone Else.

Callum loving the sound of Claudia's unique voice is so wholesome. When you like someone, it only makes sense that you like all the things about them that they can't change - like the sound of Claudia's voice. Her choices with dark magic, not so much!

Claudia seems to have the same concerns Soren does about Callum's relationship with Rayla, but she comes out and asks him. The inherent possession implied in "your elf" is interesting, though. Elves are not people to Claudia. They're enemies who can be disassembled for the magic inside them. So maybe more like robots than living beings, if she knew what a robot was. Maybe she heard Soren's "Moonshadow Madness" story and realized he totally missed the kissing implications - but she didn't, and now she's genuinely worried that Rayla could kiss Callum under a full moon and enchant him to do her will. Good thing it's only a half moon, then!

Okay, Callum nervously making a puppet hand and then not knowing what to do with his hands and freaking out about itching and moving and pointy elbows is such a ND mood. The sudden stress of knowing that someone else is noticing your existence and maybe you're Not Existing Right, amirite? Ugh, poor Callum.

The Moon Temple! Omg it's so pretty in the description! Made to be beautiful and useful, full of knowledge but also allowing light and life inside (butterflies and vines). Lujanne, when can I move in, please? Also, it's all the more angsty because Lujanne is the only one who gets to see this beautiful place, but it has lots of chairs and shelves and tables, and it was meant to be used by lots of people. :(((

Claudia knows some of the runes on the walls. She isn't in a hurry to copy the rest of them down or anything, either. Her spellwriting is very precise, and she's a skilled mage. Her father would have made sure she was aware of the dangers of drawing sloppy runes, as much as he made her aware of the dangers of doing dark magic wrong. And the whole point of dark magic is that it's easier to learn than primal magic. Claudia supports her dad and their shared knowledge and life path. She's not gonna go nuts over an elf library she can't translate.

Side note: Between Claudia knowing some Moon runes and Viren building a secret passageway and a dungeon and lighting it with the same blue crystals that Lujanne and Ethari use for light--and Claudia exclaiming that she loves ruins--I wonder once more if there are really Moonshadow ruins somewhere in Katolis, which Viren has found and looted. Father-daughter relic hunting trip, maybe while Soren is away at camp? Omgsh that would be so wild!

Callum out here having a Viren moment with his "I feel powerless unless I've got magic that lets me help" vibes. God. I love their complicated mirroring. One of the hard differences between them is that Callum is very sure dark magic is bad because you have to kill stuff and take its power to cast spells, and he doesn't want to be a person who kills and takes like that. The line he walks to be nice to Claudia on their tour of the Cursed Caldera because he likes her, while telling her that he doesn't want to do her magic, like, ever, is so fine that it might as well be a shifting shadow on the ground. It's a very fitting conversation to be having during the half moon, with its tricks and little white lies.

Callum being out of the castle and his comfort zone, having to deal with the fact that the Claudia he loves is not quite the Claudia who's chasing him down across the kingdom, but of the two of them, he's the only one with a problem with this.

They say that if you really want to get to know someone, you should spend time with them outside their comfort zone - in heavy traffic, with a small baby, taking care of a new pet, trying a new skill, following unfamiliar directions, etc. While the castle is familiar territory for them both, Callum's never really found his comfort zone yet, while Claudia is pretty comfortable with her growing skill set. The creepy part starts to kick in when Callum begins to realize that Claudia's comfort zone encompasses a whole bunch of stuff that seems like it should make her uncomfortable... but it doesn't. But that'll be for a future chapter!

#book two: sky spoilers #book two: sky #b2:s #tdp spoilers #viren #harrow #rayla #runaan #callum #claudia #soren #lujanne #moonshadow elves #aaravos

[dameronology]

somewhere only we know {obi-wan x reader}

summary: after a rough patch in your relationship, obi-wan takes you back to the place where it all began (based on somewhere only we know by keane) 

warnings: swearing, angst 

it’s 6.30am and i’m writing this so pls don’t expect the proof reading to be that good lmao i’m so sorry but i hope you enjoy❤️

- jazz

Things weren’t the same as they used to be. 

Relationships changed. Times changed. People changed. You knew that. It felt a little stupid to let yourself think that your relationship with Obi-Wan Kenobi was always going to be a constant. Even when he had promised himself to you and sworn that he’d never leave your side, you’d had your doubts. But, despite those qualms, he was your escape during hard times. You hadn’t truly known love until you’d known Obi-Wan. He never failed to make you feel safe and he could always bring a smile to your face. The solace you sought in each other had bonded you for life. The Council would have had a field day if they’d found out but it never mattered - not in the moment, at least. 

Things got harder. Your jobs were hard enough before the Clone Wars, let alone during. You were both all over the place - Corellia; Tatooine; Bespin; literally anywhere that Obi-Wan wasn’t, it seemed. Your long weekends together turned into stolen kisses behind pillars and rushed moments in dark corners. Catching a break was wishful thinking but catching one together was laughable. What had once been your forever felt like it was running on borrowed time. 

You reached your breaking point on a cold Thursday afternoon. There was a grey cloud hanging over Coruscant; the air was filled with a mix of fog and petrichor, marking the end of summer and the beginning of another long autumn. That meant colder, darker nights fighting Separatists and muddier, messier battles. You used to enjoy fall time as a kid. What a sad fucking thought. 

You hadn’t expected to see Obi-Wan. He was supposed to be on a distant planet, investigating a threat to the Republic. That’s why you almost uppercut his left jaw when you felt someone grab you. The feeling of his hands on your waist should have been familiar but who you were kidding? It had been ages. You’d forgotten what he felt like. He was practically a stranger. Maybe that’s why your first instinct was to cry. The man you loved had become a foreigner to you and seeing him would force you to admit that. 

'It’s me!’ Obi-Wan grabbed your hand when it was mere millimetres from his face, holding you by both the wrists. ‘Calm down!’

‘Fucking hell - you scared me.’ You fell back against the wall, taking a deep breath. 

‘It’s lovely to see you too, darling.’ His tone was teasing, but you could see the tiredness in his eyes. ‘Come here.’

In one swift motion, you fly-tipped any worries you and fell forward, allowing yourself to fall into his chest with a hearty thud. Obi-Wan wrapped his arms tightly around you, pinning you to his body as he rested his head on top of yours. It took all the self-control you had not to burst into tears there and then. The sudden warmth and familiarity was something you hadn’t realised you’d been craving. It was like coming home after months away. 

‘I thought you were on Dantooine.’ You glanced up at him, arms still firmly on his waist. 

‘The mission ended early.’ He replied. ‘Alternatively, I ended it early because I heard you had the weekend off and I haven’t seen you in weeks.’

You both tried to communicate where you could - but, with the presence of the Council and the stress of your jobs, it could become hard. The fact you spoke to the man you loved as often as you spoke to your distant colleagues was fucking heartbreaking but it was also a fact of life. It was one you’d been accepting for a long time. When long become too long, you didn’t know. You might have reached your threshold already and simply lacked the ability to admit. 

‘That’s so sweet of you.’ You forced a smile, softly brushing your lips against his.

‘What is it?’ Obi-Wan frowned.

‘What?’

‘Something’s off.’

Fucking Force connection. Not only was he closely connected to you, but Obi-Wan was one of the best Jedi out there. If you were feeling something, chances are that he knew about it. Stubbed your toe? He felt it. Tripped over nothing again? He felt that too. Crying over how cute a little droid was? Ditto. You couldn’t hide anything from him. It really took the element of surprise out of your relationship.

‘I’m fine.’ You insisted. ‘Better now that you’re here-’

‘- please don’t lie to me.’ Obi-Wan’s grip on your waist tightened. ‘Something’s bothering you.’

‘I...’ you trailed off, eyes falling to the floor. ‘Can we talk somewhere private? I feel a little exposed behind this pillar.’

‘Of course.’ He faltered slightly - why did you want to talk in private? Surely, that wasn’t a good sign.

You both waited a moment before breaking off and heading to your quarters. As to avoid suspicion, Obi-Wan took a different route to you. It was something you did out of habit, really. After years of sneaking around, you’d both learnt to start taking precautions. Once you were both there, you unlocked the door and headed inside.

‘Is it bad?’ Obi-Wan asked. ‘Has something happened? I know I’ve been away for a while but I try to keep up with-’

‘- nothing’s happened.’ You turned away from the door as you shut it behind you, coming to face him. ‘Not physically, anyway.’

‘Talk to me.’ He put his hands on your shoulders, gently trailing them down your arms and to your hands. 

‘Things have been hard, lately.’ You admitted. ‘I...I keep thinking about how things used to be - like when we could wake up next to each other and spend actual days together. Now, it’s like you’re here and I’m there and we’re never in the same place anymore.’

Obi-Wan pondered for a moment. ‘We’re in the same place now.’

‘Look at the bigger picture, Obi.’ You murmured. ‘I haven’t seen you for weeks. I know our relationship has never been conventional but we’re really taking the piss here.’ 

‘What are you saying?’ He didn’t even try to hide the worry in his voice. Cloaking his emotions was never something he’d had to do with you - not then and especially not now. ‘Do you want to break up?’

‘No!’ You quickly replied. ‘I just...I miss you. I miss you so fucking much and I don’t know what to do about it.’

Obi-Wan paused for a moment, pondering to himself. He missed you more than anything; every time he got to saw you, he took a moment to look at you. He let himself stare, to ensure that your smile was engrained in his head and that your laugh was fresh in his mind. Those memories of you were what kept him going when things got rough. The idea of you was what brought him back to you. 

It was your earlier memories that he held closest to your heart. Before the war - before shit had been thrown into the intergalactic ceiling fan - you’d often explore different planets together. On your weekends off, you’d choose whatever place in the Outer Rim that your heart desired and you’d just go. You could escape the watchful eyes of everyone at the Temple and just be together. If it hadn’t been for those days, you probably wouldn’t have made it this far now. 

‘I miss you too.’ Obi-Wan finally broke the silence between you. ‘What if we went somewhere tonight?’

‘Like...for dinner?’

‘No.’ He shook his head, pondering for a minute. ‘Somewhere off of Coruscant - not too far, but far away enough to get out of our heads for a little while.’

‘I would love to.’ You smiled. ‘I’m not sure I know anywhere though - at least not somewhere that isn’t plagued by the war.’

Obi-Wan returned your smile. ‘I know a place.’

--

Yavin.

You could have recognised the place anywhere, even if you hadn’t been there in years. The little village that you used to frequent was almost identical to how you’d left it almost seven years ago - a little more gentrified, perhaps, but the fact it was even still standing was amazing. It was an acclimation of white huts and mud trails, winding in and out of different streets. The sky was tinged pink with the impending evening, blending in beautifully with the remaining blue of the day. The air was clear and crisp, a refreshing change from the stuffy air of the capital city.

‘It hasn’t changed at all.’ You murmured to yourself, glancing up at the sky as you stepped off the jet. 

You turned around to face Obi-Wan, letting him wrap an around your waist and pull him into your side as you walked. Not much had been said on the jet: things were a little tense, but that was to be expected when the words break and up had been thrown into the conversation just an hour earlier. Perhaps the idea of coming to such a special place had come from a moment of panic, but Obi-Wan realised now it was the right choice. You were no longer tense, no longer acting like you were walking on eggshells and he wanted nothing more than for you to be able to relax with him. That was his main concern. 

‘Do you remember what happened last time we were here?’ Obi-Wan asked.

He intertwined your fingers with his and lead you away from the small village, towards a dirt path. It veered up a hill, twisting and turning around tangles of trees and a few seating areas. Your body automatically moved, as if it knew exactly where it was going. 

‘Hmmm.’ You thought for a moment. ‘I’m pretty sure this place is logged under the relationship milestones sector in my brain but my filing system is a little fried.’

‘This, my dear,’ he continued, dragging you to a grassy verge at the top of the hill, ‘is where I told you I loved you for the first time.’ 

Of course. It was not long after you’d passed the knight trials. You’d had a stressful first few weeks on the job and Obi-Wan had packed you onto a jet and insisted that he knew a place. After a short ride and a little walk, he’d taken you here. You couldn’t remember the exact speech he’d given you - something about your eyes, the stars and leaving the Order - and then he’d dropped the L-bomb. Come to think of it, that might have been the last time you truly felt at peace. 

‘I remember.’ You smiled, dropping down onto the grass next to him. ‘I’m surprised you remember the exact place.’

‘And I’m insulted that you don’t.’ Obi-Wan flung an arm over your shoulders, allowing you to rest against his side. You dropped your head onto his shoulder, savouring in his touch for the moment. ‘It’s a flashpoint moment in my mind.’

‘Mine too.’ You quietly murmured, observing the tangle of trees and greenery around you. 

‘I thought I’d been in love before, you know.’ He continued. ‘Then I met you and I realised that I didn’t have a clue. I still don’t, really.’

You laughed slightly. ‘Me neither. I wish there was a manual on this thing because I don’t know what to do sometimes.’

Obi-Wan briefly released his grip on you, shuffling around to face you. He guided you with him so that you sat opposite one another in the grass, his hands clasping yours. For once, his expression was unreadable. He looked...worried, maybe? A little concerned, at the very least. 

‘Neither do I.’ He said. ‘I promised that night that I would always love you and that I’d never let you go. I still mean that, now more than ever. I know things are tough at the moment, probably tougher than they’ve ever been, but I am holding onto you. Onto this.’

That’s when the tears finally sprang. You knew that Obi-Wan couldn’t read minds - but if anyone could, it would be him - but he’d managed to say exactly what you needed to hear. He always said things as they were, never sugarcoating anything or taking shortcuts to soften the blow. If he said that you could pull through, he meant it. And you believed him. 

‘Everything in the universe is so complicated.’ Obi continued. ‘But I never feel that when I’m with you. It’s you and it’s me and nothing else matters.’

‘I love you.’ You tearfully smiled. ‘I love you so much.’

‘I love you too.’ He pulled you towards him. 

The kiss was passionate; deep and fiery. A testament to everything he’d just told you. Obi-Wan had always had a way with words but he’d never laid himself that bare before. It was terrifying for both of you because it meant committing to your love - seeing it through to whatever grisly end this war had. It also meant relying on strength that you weren’t sure either of you had.

It was worth the gamble though. That had always been the case with Obi - your love for him was never in doubt. Whether it was breaking the Jedi code or promising to commit to each other no matter what, you never questioned if he was worth it. You just knew - and that was enough. 

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#obi-wan kenobi x reader #obi-wan kenobi imagine #obi-wan x reader #obi-wan imagine #obi-wan kenobi angst #obi-wan angst #obi-wan kenobi fluff #obi-wan fluff #star wars x reader #star wars imagine #star wars angst #star wars fluff #star wars imagines #star wars fanfics

[moonflowerlesbians]

I took a quick break from prompts to write 5000 words of pure angst. I hope you’ll forgive me. 

“we let precious time go by”

Read on AO3.

Summary: “The day will come when she returns to an empty flat, or she’ll wake to a cold pillow beside her. If she’s lucky, she’ll be there when the beast pounces. She’ll get to say goodbye. 

A piece of her will die that day, she knows. 

Dani will die that day.”

Word Count: 5088

They live together thirteen years after Bly. Thirteen wonderful years in a little flat in a small town in Vermont that looks like the spirit of Christmas itself retched on every building in the wintertime. They sell poinsettias and wreaths of holly for the holidays and budding perennials in the warmer months. They find the cheapest grocer, the best plumber, the man who drives into town selling fresh eggs on Wednesdays.

They befriend an elderly woman with three toy poodles, who stops by The Leafling every Sunday morning before mass to purchase flowers for her late husband’s grave, and they try not to think of Hannah. The daycare center three doors down marches the children to the park twice a day, right past the shop, and they try not to think of Rebecca and the Wingraves. They learn the quickest route to their favorite take-away place by heart, and they try not to think of Owen.

It’s hard, though, when your world’s been shattered and everyone else is carrying on as if nothing’s happened. But, thirteen years go by, and they manage. They manage, even as Dani becomes a bit less like herself every day, and Jamie struggles to pretend everything is fine. She pretends not to notice when she finds a sock in the freezer or Dani’s toothbrush between the couch cushions. Pretends not to notice when the lines on Dani’s face grow deeper, etched into her fair skin like stone, and she pretends not to notice when Dani wakes in the dead of night to gaze out the window for hours on end, then returns to bed as if she never left.

She’d brought it up with Dani over dinner. She had grasped Dani’s hand ever so gently, running a soothing thumb over the knuckles. Dani looked as if she hadn’t slept in days. Maybe she hadn’t. A tear tracked down her cheek and dropped onto her lap.

“Please, love, please let me help,” Jamie had begged, and she had never meant anything more in her life, save the night she had accepted Dani’s ring.

Dani had observed her sadly, centuries of knowledge weighing heavy behind her eyes. “You can’t.”

“Please, Dani.” She hadn’t meant to break down, she hadn’t. She had meant to be strong, a steadfast rock in a stormy sea.

“Jamie…” Dani’s voice had been soft, resigned. “It’s her.” She looked down at her clasped hands, as if unwilling to bear witness the damage sure to show on Jamie’s face.

This was meant to be dinner, a question about a frozen sock, an easy explanation. Just a little swamped with the shop’s finances. A natural remedy she had read about in a magazine. Not this. Anything but this.

Jamie had known the day might come, when the memories they’d repressed would reappear to haunt them like Peter fucking Quint. She had hoped with every fibre of herself that the ghastly woman from that terrible night at the lake would slumber for decades yet.

Christ, how long had the Lady been awake? How long had Dani kept this from her?

Dani had seemed to sense her question. She’d become too good at that as of late.

“Only a few months.”

A few months.

Jamie’s lips had tightened into a thin line, and she forced herself to swallow back a sob, eyes closed.  

“Dani, why-?”

Why didn’t you tell me?

Why now?

Why this?

Why them?

“You don’t deserve this,” Dani had said, and Jamie’s heart shattered. “It’s my burden, not yours--”

“No. No, no--”

“--I can’t ask you to take this on. I invited her in; I condemned myself, not you.”

“Stop, Dani, stop.”

“Jamie, please…” Dani had sounded so small, so broken. “You have to go.”

“No,” Jamie had refused outright. “Never.”

“Then me. I’ll leave.”

“No one is going bloody anywhere.” Jamie had been steely calm, even as her ribcage threatened to break with the effort. “You and I are staying right fucking here. You hear me, Dani? Right here.” She hadn’t been able to hide the crack on the final syllable. Her ring caught the warm glow of the kitchen light.

Jamie took a steadying breath. “When you came home with that wee plant, you know what I thought? I thought, ‘ah, shite, she’s gone and found another lost cause.’” Here, Jamie had given a small smile. “‘And I bloody love her for it.’”

Dani wouldn’t meet her eyes.

“Haven’t got a clue how you always see the possibility in everything. No one’s too far gone to save with you around, Poppins. It’s exhausting, really,” Jamie had continued. “I took your ring, and I’ve never regretted it. Not once, yeah? Not once. I knew what I signed up for: lovin’ you, relentless optimism an’ all.” Her laugh had been watery. “So, we’re not goin’ anywhere. It’s us, yeah? Always has been, always will be.”

So Dani had stayed. And Jamie redoubled her efforts to support her.

She runs the errands on the evenings where the dark feels all too familiar and returns to Dani huddled beneath a fleece blanket. She wraps Dani in her arms and soothes the nightmares away with feather-light kisses. She’s there in every way she can be, never pressing, never rushing, and never letting Dani see just how utterly terrified she is.

To tell Dani would be to ruin the careful dynamic they’ve reached. Dani is scattered, rain moving with the wind; Jamie has to be grounded, a stake dug deep into the earth. But the slopes grow muddier the longer the rain pours, and dirt washes away, gone like a rushing stream. Jamie knows she can’t keep this up forever. She’s already lost so much, and her most important person is fading fast, swept up in the rising current.

She loves Dani to the stars and back. Which is why Jamie must bear this load alone. Dani is already carrying the sky on her shoulders, and Jamie cannot burden her with this.

Call her stupid, call her noble. She calls it mercy.

She knows she’s pulling the same shit Dani did not telling her that Her Royal Lakeness was stirring. She knows, and she resents herself for it. She also knows that Dani would look at her with such guilt for causing Jamie strife. Dani would try to mask her hurt to spare her wife, and Jamie’s gut wrenches at the thought. Her brow would crinkle, lips pursed, and Jamie would yearn to kiss the stress from her face.

Jamie is rewarded for her silence. Dani is getting better about vocalizing her nightmares, telling Jamie when the Lady makes an appearance as she slumbers. They embrace beneath the covers and speak between labored breaths, where Dani finally caves and Jamie does her best to hide the way she’s become afraid of the dark. She murmurs reassurances and tells herself they’re for Dani, pressing kisses into her forehead.

Dani sleeps tucked into Jamie’s side as though it’s enough to ward off the ghosts, a formidable wall against things that go bump in the night. She sleeps, and Jamie lies awake. Her defense is slipping. She can’t keep them both afloat.

She can try. She can hold out as long as Dani will have her. She will. She doesn’t know anything else. Jamie swears, she swears on her plants, she swears on her life, she swears to anyone who will listen that she will be there for Dani, even if she can’t be there for herself.

The weeks pass and more socks freeze, more toothbrushes go missing, and Dani drifts. Some days are better than others. Some days, Jamie’s Sisyphean task is easy, and Dani meets her at the top of the mountain with a flirty smile and sunshine on her greedy tongue, with hands that grab at Jamie’s belt and tug her shirt up and over her head. On those days, they feel like themselves.

But, on other days, days when the whole world is overcast and the tide is rising, they shutter the shop and lock the doors to their second-floor flat. They wear matching pajamas, while the television set plays classic cinema. Jamie makes tea; Dani still hasn’t mastered it in a decade, and Jamie doubts she ever will. Their legs tangle in a heap, ankles sliding along calves.

Jamie comes to rest her head on Dani’s sternum, allowing the beat of her heart to remind her that they’re here. Dani is here, breathing steadily and weaving their fingers together like it’s the simplest thing in the world. Like they aren’t living borrowed years. Like Jamie’s mantra of one day at a time doesn’t feel like a splintered crutch beneath her arm, supporting the weight of an impossible situation.

Every day feels like the last, and Jamie hates it. She hates the feeling of inevitability that lurks just out of sight. The beast in the jungle, Dani had said. It prowls between streetlamps and seeks refuge in their walls, skittering away when Jamie shines a torch, only to return the instant she turns her back. The creature is waiting for something Jamie can never see, and it terrifies her. She cannot prevent what she cannot see. All she can do is wait, hopeless, at the mercy of a fucking ghost.

The day will come when she returns to an empty flat, or she’ll wake to a cold pillow beside her. If she’s lucky, she’ll be there when the beast pounces. She’ll get to say goodbye.

A piece of her will die that day, she knows.

Dani will die that day.

And, god, she feels so bloody selfish for thinking of her own fucking self-preservation when the woman she loves might one day disappear from the world, but, Christ, how can she be expected to go on like this? Just waiting for the days to pass until she’s alone again. Again.

She’s lost more people than she can count. Some to time, some to death, some to drink, some to the shelter of a warm embrace Jamie could not provide. Each loss is different, yet each brings about a sting that is painfully familiar. An old bedfellow she’s forced to accommodate. It settles in her bones, nestling into the hollow spaces between her ribs, cold and unwelcome. Once it latches on, it never truly leaves.

The ache is ever-present, a plate of steel, layering and building into a grim suit of armor that clashes and clanks and frightens people away with its noise, and, after a while, she forgets. Forgets what it’s like to be free of those reminders that she wasn’t good enough for people to stay. Wasn’t good enough for her parents, nor her foster parents. Wasn’t good enough for classmates and teachers who deemed her a waste of effort. Wasn’t good enough for women who hid themselves from the world or from their own judgment. Hell, she wasn’t even good enough for the prison system, released early on account of behavior.

She forgets how to breathe without each inhale taking the strength of someone who’s had a scarlet letter branded across her chest her whole life. Forgets how it feels to extend a hand in invitation without her own fear dragging her down, the fear that results from rejected companionship and harsh words. She forgets what it’s like to touch and be touched and to lay yourself bare before another, trusting that you are safe and wanted.

Dani had taken her proffered hand and held it to tender lips. She had glacially pried away nearly three decades of fine steel with the care of a dutiful lover, uncovering the origin of each piece as she went. She had never once flinched away, only nodded with sweet understanding and kissed Jamie a little more fervently that night.

Then, one day, Jamie had found herself the lightest she’d ever been, open and vulnerable beneath Dani’s affectionate gaze. She had breathed, and it had felt like a sigh. The old ache was not gone; it could never truly be banished. But the act of sharing her very soul, and receiving Dani’s in return, had turned bruises into mere memories and fear into excitement.

Her armor had sat, gathering dust in a corner of their life, no longer needed. She had been content to let Dani, or, rather, the security of their relationship, be her protection.

Now, though, with the ground they walk upon growing perilous, Jamie is defenseless. Her own beast hungers, prepared to strike with familiar claws, and Jamie loathes that she is reaching for her old guard. Loathes that she even considers distancing herself. That Dani cannot escape the cruelty of a fate brought on by selflessness, and Jamie is pondering how life will go on without her.

It feels so bloody selfish that it makes Jamie sick to her stomach. It’s only human to fret about the future, but this feels like an especially abominable twist of the knife. And Dani can never know. No, never. Jamie will be strong for her. She needs to be unwavering in her dedication to their love.

She manages, though it feels like standing in the middle of the road, watching a lorry drive toward her at a hundred kilometers an hour and choosing not to move out of the way. Rather, she plants her feet firmly on the asphalt and stares down what will surely splinter every bone in her body if it doesn’t kill her.

For Dani, she tells herself.

Dani, who startles at unseen reflections in their dishes and damn near scares the living daylights out of Jamie. There’s a haunted look in her eye, and, suddenly, Jamie can hear their countdown clock ticking away the seconds without Dani having to say a word. Her chest is heaving as Jamie steps in front of her, inspecting her for signs of physical harm, and blocking the faucet from her line of sight. Dani can’t meet her eye, craning her neck to see the sink.

Her voice is hoarse, ragged. “I saw her.”

No. No, no, no, no. Dreams are one thing. Dreams, Jamie can handle. Bad dreams can be banished with soothing caresses and warm tea, but this? They are both very much awake.

Breathe.

“What did you see?” Jamie seeks confirmation to calm her racing pulse.

Dani’s lip trembles, and she clutches frantically at the countertop. “Her.” It’s little more than a whisper, but the meaning is unmistakable. Dani continues, with painstaking deliberacy. “I keep seeing her.”

Christ. Keep seeing her? The sheer terror in Dani’s tone implies this isn’t the first time the ghost has appeared to her. But it is the first Jamie is hearing of it. No, not this again. Not Dani keeping from her the details of the most horrific secret of their lives.

She can’t stop to process this now. Dani is shaking, and Dani is frightened, and Dani needs her here, in this moment, not dwelling on what this means for the course of their lives.

Jamie turns the tap off and pulls the drain. “We’re gonna be okay. You can’t think the worst.” The words sound hollow, even to her own ears, but she tries, god, does she try to mean them with everything she has.

“Jamie…” Dani’s tone is warning.

Don’t lie to me.

I have to, love, Jamie thinks, I have to, or we’ll both give up, and I’m not ready.

“We could have so many more years together.”

Could.

It’s not technically a lie. ‘Could’ leaves room for uncertainty, the unpredictability of an entity so far beyond the scope of their control that they’d be institutionalized for suggesting such a thing exists. ‘Could’ allows them to pretend they aren’t trapped on a preordained path, walking side by side into inevitable grief. ‘Could’ is hope.

“It’s okay,” Jamie hears herself repeating. Distract. “I’ll do the washing up from now on, yeah? You’re shit at it, anyway.”

It earns her a weak chuckle from Dani, and it’s enough. Jamie holds her close, speaking soft comforts, though her stomach roils and knots. Dani trembles in her arms, and Jamie curls a soothing hand to the back of her head.

It’s going to be okay.

It isn’t.

It isn’t, and, deep down, Jamie knows it isn’t, but she holds onto the falsehood like it’s the only thing keeping her from drowning. She has to believe that there’s hope, that there is a chance for a future for them, because if she doesn’t, she doesn’t know what she’ll do. Her mind screams to prepare for the inevitable worst, but a part of her, that bright, sunshiney part, where she holds her fondest thoughts, tells her to pretend just a while longer.

She does. She does, because she loves Dani too much not to. They’ve been through far too much together for Jamie to withdraw now, when Dani needs her most.

She cannot control who lives and who dies. She said as much to Dani, years ago, in the forest behind the manor. Knowing that everything must come to an end dictates life’s joys. Temporality is the driving force of sanctity. The moments we hold most dear are the ones that have come to an end. They are forever preserved in amber memory, pressed between book pages, and flowing through veins. You are left warm, free to continue and free to leave more life behind in the hollows of lingering remorse.  

‘Live in the moment,’ say thousands of song lyrics. If only it were that simple. If only Jamie could simply ignore the consequences and allow herself to just exist with Dani in the life they’ve created. She can’t, though, and it is agonizing.

Instead, she dons the facade of a woman who believes that there is still good in the world, chances for miracles, despite countless experiences to the contrary. In private, she grieves a life she hasn’t yet lost.

Dani sees her shoulders shake only once, the day Jamie returns to a flooded flat and eerie silence and Dani with her face mere centimetres above the water in their overfilled bathtub. The tips of her hair are submerged, and her breath sends ripples across the surface. It’s unclear how long she’s been hunched over the side of the tub, but judging by the pool around her, quite a while. Jamie turns off the tap and draws Dani back onto her heels. Dani lets out a panicked gasp, and her eyes dart around the room before they finally flick to Jamie and back to the water.

“Do you see her?” Dani rasps, returning to her position bent over the rim.

Jamie peers into the tub, too, unsure of what she might find. She does not know whether to be elated or dismayed when only Dani’s heterochromatic reflection stares back at her.

“I only see you,” Jamie says, and it seems to pull Dani from wherever she’s been. The sleeves of her bathrobe are soaked, and she notices the puddle around her knees. She stammers an apology, but Jamie could not care less. Dani sags against Jamie’s firm grip on her upper arm.

Her voice comes subdued, as if each syllable takes monumental effort. “I’m so tired, Jamie.”

Jamie understands. She feels it, too, the toll this has taken on the both of them. The constant glances over her shoulder, always on alert for any sign of danger, living their lives like prey. She cannot hope to equate her exhaustion with Dani’s, but she understands all the same.

Dani continues, using such frightful terms as “fade away,” and it’s all Jamie can do to swallow the lump in her throat and the tightness in her chest. Dani sounds so timid, so lost, and she’s looking to Jamie for answers she hasn’t the faintest notion how to find and the soil is eroding and the current is quickening and it all becomes too much.

“You’re still here,” she says, like that will make everything alright. The wet tile seeps into her trousers, cold and clammy.

“It’s like I see you right in front of me,” Dani says softly, “and I feel you touching me. And, every day, we’re living our lives, and I’m aware of that, and it’s like I don’t feel it all the way.” She readjusts to study the water again. “I’m not even scared of her anymore. I just stare at her, and,” Dani takes a shuddering breath, “it’s getting harder and harder to see me.”

Jamie’s already strained resolve is rent in two. All of the air is sucked out of her lungs at once, and her heart constricts. She cannot help the well of tears that rises behind her eyes and threatens to spill over. She needs to be resilient, needs to set her emotions aside. For Dani.

But Dani is nodding. She’s nodding and crying and saying things like, “Maybe I should just accept that and go.” It’s excruciatingly similar to the conversation they’d had at the dinner table, all those many months ago.

And Jamie breaks. “No. No, no, no.” Her thumb rubs circles into Dani’s wrist. “Not yet.”

You can’t leave me. I’m not ready.

“Jamie…” Dani says in that same, horrid, broken tone, and suddenly, Jamie knows. Their hourglass contains mere grains. They are nearing the end, and it hurts, and the pain is so much worse than she could have ever anticipated.

Dani has all but given up, and Jamie is fucking furious.

Not with Dani. Never with Dani.

Rather, Jamie has a bone to pick with the universe and its sense of righteousness. There’s no such thing as fairness in the world, as has been proven to her time and time again. But this? This is shit, and it’s not fucking fair. Just this once, she’d like to strike a bargain. Allow her to be selfish, just this once. Allow her to remain at Dani’s side until they grow old and grey and their eyes fail and their joints creak. Allow her this one thing, and she will never ask for anything again.

The universe, in all its cruelty, remains silent, and Jamie resents it even more. She resents the set of circumstances that led them to this point, Dani tearful on the bathroom floor. She resents the world that made the woman she loves hurt in unfathomable ways. She resents that the most marvelous woman Jamie has ever met has been reduced to a shell of herself, harboring an invisible intruder.

She resents that all she has to offer is herself, when Dani deserves so much more. It’s all Jamie has, though, and maybe, this time, it will be enough.

“If you can’t feel anything,” she says, voice wavering, “then I’ll feel everything for the both of us.” Dani opens her mouth with quivering lips to speak and is cut off. “But no one is going anywhere. Okay? You’re still here.” A tear escapes, tracing a trail down her cheek.

“What if,” Dani whispers, more afraid than Jamie has ever seen her, “I’m here, sitting next to you. But I’m just really her?”

Jamie chokes down a sob. She exhales. “One day at a time.”

They clean up the water and blow out the candles and eat a quiet meal of pasta and sauce from a jar, holding hands all the while, as if any loss of contact would be to admit defeat. Dani is here, and Jamie is here, and they are together, and when they lay in the dark that night, they do not sleep.

Jamie hovers over Dani, pressing gentle kisses to every bit of skin she can reach. Dani’s eyelids, her knuckles, her wrists. The hollow on the underside of her knee, her clavicle, the sensitive patch just below her ear. Anything to reassure Dani that she can still feel, she is loved, and she is safe. The act is not erotic, nor is it meant to be.

She pours every ounce of passion into every caress, touching Dani as if it was the first time. She endeavors to convey her message, clear as crystal, that Dani is the single most important thing in her life. Their love is all that matters. For this one night, let them forget about ghosts and manors and lost friends and be wholly present in this moment of solemn intimacy.

Jamie commits every kiss to memory, savoring Dani’s smooth skin beneath her lips. The way she sighs and whimpers when Jamie finds a particularly tender spot, the way she relaxes into Jamie’s embrace when they finally settle, a leg thrown haphazardly between Jamie’s thighs, her face pressed just above Jamie’s breast, sending small puffs of air against Jamie’s sleepshirt.

Dani sleeps, and Jamie’s mind wanders to all the words she wishes she could say. She sighs them into the night air, a hand cupping the nape of Dani’s neck.

I love you, she thinks, and I’m going to lose you, and I don’t know what I’m going to do. She inhales the faintly floral scent of Dani’s shampoo. It’s not fair. It’s not fucking fair that you’re going to go, and I have to go on without you. Think of me, Dani. Think of me and stay because I can’t explain to your mother what’s happened to you. Stay, because I’m not ready for our life to end.

She’s crying, now, and her tears dampen the top of Dani’s head as she tries to remain still.

You’re in pain. I see it, love, and I never, never want you to hurt. You’ve been so damn brave. You’ve fought so hard. For yourself. For us. I will be forever grateful for the time you’ve given me. You are everything I never thought I could have, my love.

Dani stirs against her with a hushed, confused noise. “Jamie? Wha-?”

“Go back to sleep, baby,” Jamie murmurs, her eyes shut tight. Dani nuzzles into her chest, and only when her breathing evens out once more does Jamie release the tension from her limbs.

Rest, sweetheart, you’ve earned it.

Three days go by, and Jamie spends them at Dani’s side. They walk the streets of their little Vermont town, and they greet the old woman with her three toy poodles. They watch the line of children toddle by on their way to the park, shepherded by exasperated adults, and share a smile. They wrap themselves in blankets and bundle on the sofa, Jamie with a book and Dani with a crochet project that Jamie’s been teasing her about finishing. The tea is hot, and the company is good, and Jamie is happy. The rain comes down against their windows, but they are shielded from the deluge, though the soil outside turns to slick mud.

The sun rises on the fourth day, and Jamie blinks awake. The pillow is soft under her head, and she is loath to move. She reaches a tentative hand to Dani’s side of the bed to pull her closer, but she finds the sheets are cold. Jamie’s stomach leaps to her throat. She sits up, peering around their room, listening for any sign that Dani has simply risen early. The clock on the bedside table reads six-thirty-eight in the morning. Beside it, a single sheet of paper folded in half.

Perhaps Dani has run to the coffeehouse to bring back breakfast. Perhaps she has gone for a walk. Perhaps she has done anything except Jamie’s worst fear come to fruition, but what Jamie knows in her soul to be true. She takes a steadying breath as she examines the thing in her hands. With shaking fingers, she unfolds the note.

The script is slanted, a mixture of cursive and print, as if written in a hurry. The ink has smeared in places, where the page appears to have been wet. Dani’s normally neat lettering is scattered.

Jamie,

I can’t risk you.

Not for one more day.

I love you.

Dani

Her heart stops.

The silence is deafening. Her whole world narrows to the thin yellow paper in her hand. Her last piece of the woman she loves.

She knows what has happened. She knows where Dani would go, where Dani has gone, deep in her core. But she has to be certain.

It is her first plane ride without Dani. She spends the six-hour flight clutching the armrest, knuckles white, as she looks straight ahead. The flight attendant has the decency to only appear mildly perplexed by Jamie’s lack of luggage. When she lands, Jamie can only nod at the cabbie’s futile attempts at conversation.

She gazes up at the daunting manor house, its brick overgrown with English ivy. The grounds lay vacant. The path to the lake is unkept, yet she treads it anyway, past the church, past the cemetery, slowing as the water comes into sight.

How badly she wants to be wrong. How badly she wants to return home and find Dani worried out of her beautiful mind.

The water is unseasonably warm, but that does not stop the chill that permeates Jamie’s bones. She swims out as far as she can bear before holding her breath and plunging below the surface. It’s nigh torturous to keep her eyes open, but she needs to see. She needs to be sure.

Everything is blurry through the liquid lens, fuzzy around the edges. Something stands out from the landscape of green and blue. A spot of porcelain and red against a backdrop of emerald.

No.

Jamie shakes her head.

No, please, no.

But it is.

And she screams. She screams out thirteen years of rage and sadness and grief and frustration and love. The sound is muted, but she does not care. Dani is gone, and she is alone and it burns and stings like nothing Jamie has ever felt.

Everything Jamie could give, she gave. It wasn’t enough. Nothing will ever be enough. Nothing will bring Dani back.

She rises to the surface with a cry, paddling to the muddy shoreline and crawling up the bank to collapse in the shallows. Her ring rests heavy on her left hand. A reminder of promises made. Eternity.

Together. They were supposed to stay together.

It’s us. Always has been, always will be. That’s what we said, Poppins.

She gasps, taking in great lungfuls of air that Dani will never breathe again. Her hair hangs limply, plastered to the sides of her face. She shivers, but she cannot move.

She sits in the shallows of the lake at Bly Manor, and she weeps.

Dani is dead.

And Jamie is alone.

#so....thoughts? #I woke up and I chose violence #someone give Jamie a hug #im only mostly sorry #I hope you enjoy this though #I’m kind of proud of this one actually? #let me know what y'all think! #writing #the haunting of bly manor #Bly Manor fanfic #damie #damie fanfic #fic #fic writing #jamie #dani clayton #Owen sharma #Hannah grose #viola lloyd #flora wingrave #miles wingrave #Peter quint #the haunting of Bly Manor fanfic #dani x jamie #jamie x dani #my writing #angst #hurt no comfort #thobm #thobm fanfic

[intricate-oeuvre]

On how to be deadly || Geralt of Rivia || part II

Word count: 2.8+

Summary: Axelia is Witcher experiment herself and has gone through same harsh Trials as Geralt, but she wasn’t so lucky with the outcome. Her vision didn’t become better. Therefore, she was rendered blind in the end. And because of that, she solely uses her Witcher senses to make her ways. Only potions can give her false sense of sight for limited time.Somewhere along the way she meets the Rivian. Who’s interested to know how she’s been killing monsters and hasn’t been killed herself yet.

Warnings: strong language; hints at implied smut

part I || part II || part III || part IV || part V || part VI || part VII || part VIII || part IX || part X || part XI || part XII || part XIII | Epilogue

With a grunt the male witcher let go of the girl.

“What are you doing here? I got everything under control.” Axelia hissed, running her forearm under her nose to get rid of the blood and dirt.

“You look like…” Geralt was looking for appropriate word to describe Axelia. Her once white hair now was full with dirt, mud and blood, little pine needles stuck in the ends. Her fair skin seemed to have gone through same, dirty and bruised, thin layer of sweat making it look even muddier.

“What? Like shit?” Axelia offered and stretched out her hand, waiting for Geralt to give back her her sword. Once she felt the cold hilt of the sword in her palm, she yanked her hand back, retrieving her sword and securing it on her back.

“Thank you very much.” Axelia rolled her eyes and stepped around the witcher. For a second she froze, swiftly looking both ways and with a sigh reached behind her and took the black tulle blindfold and fastened it across her eyes. There at her feet was the head of the monster, both antlers dirty, some moss and grass wedged in them. She reached down to grab its antler, first time missing it, but then with a huff she picked it up.

“You killed my monster.” Geralt observed, turning to look at the dead carcass on the ground.

“Apologies. Didn’t see your name on it.” Axelia said sarcastically and made her way to get out of the forest.

“Weren’t you supposed to stay at Kaer Morhen?” Geralt asked catching up with her.

“To do what?” Axelia tilted her head at the sound of his deep voice.

“Winters there with Lambert and Eskel became unbearable.” She opted for explaining further. Only receiving deep Hm from the witcher besides her.

For the rest of the journey to the field, there was silence. Geralt only looking at her from time to time, trying to understand how she was still alive.

“I know you are staring, Rivian.” Axelia spat at him as both of them reached the edge of the forest. “I can sense it.” All this time, her head was bowed, but nonetheless she put her feet, one in front of another with such confidence, that one could not tell that she was blind. Geralt was about to say something to her, but Axelia’s head shot up and she stared into the distance.

“You got a horse. Excellent.” She beamed, making her way faster to the horse.

“You are going nowhere near Roach.” Geralt called after her.

“I am not carrying this head all by myself on this fine day.” Axelia huffed almost reaching the horse. She heard a whistle coming from Geralt and then the horse trotted pass Axelia to her owner.

Girl sighed and with the leshen’s head in her hands, turned around to face the fellow witcher.

“Fine! I’ll carry it myself then.” She rolled her eyes and turned to continue the walk across the field towards the grove. Axelia still could hear him and his horse walking some steps behind her.

“I don’t hold you here, you can go. Coinless that is, but free to leave.” She stopped once again, letting her shoulders sink lower. Not the first time she has said something along those lines. His presence here made her remember things she didn’t want to remember. Taking a deep lungful, she looked up at the murky sky. Dropping the leshen’s head near her feet she sighed.

“How did you know it was me? You haven’t seen me in years.” Axelia said, when she heard that the witcher had stopped somewhere behind her.

“The scent.” He stated simply.

“I stink that bad, huh?” Axelia murmured loud enough for Geralt to hear.

“Velvet rose and sandalwood.” He said making her look to the side, brows furrowing underneath the tulle.

“Sensed it before I even stepped into that forest. It seems to accompany you wherever you go.” He explained to her. She swallowed thickly, not sure what to tell him.

“Since when you trust only your nose?” She tried to play it off, reaching for the antler to grab on.

“Why do you even know that smell?” She shook her head, trying to rid her head of thoughts.

“I don’t know.” Geralt answered, more to himself, because he genuinely didn’t know the answer himself.

“You know what? Forget that you met me today. I got money to collect.” She said frankly and made her way through the sporadic grove. Well, today she didn’t think that she’ll need to stop on so many occasions. But here she was again, because somebody was pulling on the other antler.

“Hey! Go find your own! This is mine! You are not getting my payment!” Axelia hissed as she spun around, still not letting go of her antler.

“Why are you here?” Geralt asked, still holding other antler, Roach looking upon both from a distance. Axelia didn’t answer, huffed and pulled on her antler, hoping that Geralt will let go. But he didn’t.

“Can you not?” She let deep breath through her nose. He still waited for her answer while pulling the scull back to him.

“For fucks sake! I will punch you, Geralt!” Axelia yelled at him. Her head raising to look somewhere near his head as she pulled the scull to her with both hands on the antler now.

“I have no doubt that you will.” Geralt tilted his head to the side, the corner of his lips slightly raising. This time pulling the antler that was in his hand, harder away from her.

With angry and annoyed grunt, Axelia pulled on the antler once more. Geralt wasn’t so keen on letting her pull it. With a crack, similar to one that thick, dry wooden branch would make, the scull with only one antler was left in Axelia’s hand, while the other was left in Geralt’s. For a second there was silence. Both of them confused on why it broke so easily.

“Hmm.” Geralt hummed in his deep voice.

“LOOK WHAT YOU DID NOW, YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE, GERALT!” Axelia screamed as she swung back the scull and tried to hurl Geralt in the head with it. But his reflexes were faster and he duck out of the way, only Fuck leaving his mouth.

“You. Broke. My. Antler. Idiot.” Axelia screamed. Each word punctuated with swing of a scull as Geralt was stepping back and ducking out of her way.

“Someone has to file off those horns of yours!” Geralt said as he ducked out of her way again.

“MY HORNS? Who do you think I am?!” Axelia yelled again, getting ready to make another blow at the witcher. Now, using the antler that was still in his hand, Geralt clashed it against the scull. One of it’s branches getting caught in the eye socket of the scull, thus expertly yanking the whole thing out of Axelia’s hands. With infuriated sigh she stopped, her hands balled in fists at her side. She stared at him, her peaked witcher senses allowing her to see enough to look him in the eyes.

“Can I do my job peacefully?” She asked, almost sounding delirious because of all the yelling beforehand, yanking the antler from Geralt’s hand. Witcher didn’t answer. This whole situation funny to him. He always liked to rile her up, when they both were younger back at Kaer Morhen.

“How did you know it was me?” She asked again, pinching the bridge of her nose and turning away.

“I said. The scent of velvet rose and sandalwood.”

“How did you know it was me? It could have been anyone else with that fragrance.”

“But I have only met one person with that scent. And it is you. Every single time I stepped into those stone walls, there was that smell. Even back when we went through those trials, if I felt that scent, then I knew I was still alive.” He explained, his eyes catching every single movement of her. Axelia stopped her pacing and looked at Geralt. She didn’t want to remember what they had gone through to become what they are now. What she is now. Why is he telling this?

“You talk too much, Geralt.” Axelia sighed, turning towards the village.

“Only when you are around.” He hummed.

“Since when do I own such niceties from you, Rivian?” She brushed her palms against each other, rubbing off some dirt and dried blood from them, antler wedged in her side for a moment. To Geralt she seemed distant and cold. Witchers were never know to be the ones to show emotions, but even taking that into accord, Axelia was more chirpy toned. Less- this unbothered person. It seemed as if both of them had switched their moods. He was the broody one, and she was the joyful one, trying to make the best out of everything. Suddenly, it seemed that that had switched these personas.

“Why didn’t you turn away? Why did you walk into the forest? You know that I can handle myself.” She turned her head to look across her shoulder at him.

“I wanted to. But my gut told my I shouldn’t.” He said, taking a quick glance at Roach as she was feeding on the grass that grew in the grove they were standing in.

“If that would have been Yen, then—” he started to explain, but was stopped by how quickly Axelia had turned around and hissed at him:

“Ah, yes, Yennefer. How could I forget her? How could you forget her? You know what?” Axelia spat at him, exaggerating her point by throwing up her hands, antler still in her right hand.

“Will you let me finish?” Geralt said, getting tad annoyed by her attitude. He already had Jaskier to get on his nerves, he didn’t need her too, he didn’t want her to get on his nerves.

“Oh, no, no, no.” Axelia said pointing that antler at him. He narrowed his eyes at her, being cautious if she thinks of hitting him again.

“I know what is about to come out of that mouth of yours.” She shook the antler at Geralt. He was about to protest when she sighed and held up one finger.

“Keep the head.” She threw the antler at his feet.

“You killed the monster, its your money.” Geralt pointed out.

“I can’t deal with you right now. I didn’t ask you to be here. Why don’t you just leave, then? The same way that you left me to rot on the doorstep of Kaer Morhen?” She exhaled and turned to walk to village and get away from there sooner.

She remembered that night as if it had happened yesterday. It had been a pleasantly dark evening. Air was still crisp, spring had barely come after a long, cold winter. Axelia had watched how Geralt packed all the stuff he needed for his next journey, as he was the last to leave. She had been dressed in her own armour. He seemed oddly quiet that night. Not that he ever talked much. Axelia, even with-out her eyesight, could see that he was planning on doing something. But she couldn’t tell what it was that he was planning. As much as she knew, he was leaving. That’s what she gathered from Vesemir.

As both of them were walking through now empty halls of the witcher school, Axelia was trailing behind Geralt. Tense silence between them. Girl with light hair, knew that it was spring and Geralt was about to leave for whatever was next for him. And she had thought that this could be that one time they could both leave together. Now she felt ready, finished all her witcher training, learned what there was to learn in the school. Both of her swords, just like Geralt’s, sat snugly on her back.

“What’s the next stop?” she had asked while he was fastening his bag on the back of his horse.

“Velen. At start. Then wherever the coin is.” He said with a grunt as he pulled the belts of his bag tighter. Axelia hummed in approvement as they both made their way back up to school. Stepping in the kitchen/dining room, Geralt looked around some shelves, as if to make himself busy.

“You seem a bit lost there.” Axelia chuckled sitting at the table and looking how he was picking and putting down various items. Only response she got from him was his iconic deep hum.

“Need help there, good sir?” She asked kind-spirited.

“No.” was his clipped answer.

“Alright then… What are you looking for?” she asked, her brow slightly furrowed.

“Nothing.” He turned to look at her. He looked around for a second and then half-awkwardly said:

“I’m leaving now, then.”

“I know.” Axelia smirked at him and got up to follow him out.

“You are staying.” He stopped to look at her when he heard her follow.

“You know very well that I am not, you stupid.” Axelia rolled her eyes and walked around him to go to his horse.

“I’m serious. You are staying here.” He dead-panned, leaving no room for defences.

“What? I thought that after… I thought we…” Axelia furrowed her brows at him, feeling slightly stupid.

“Don’t follow me.” He said getting a hold of her shoulders and spinning her around.

“I’m leaving.” He pointed at her and turned to walk away.

“Not with-out me.” She said stubbornly and still followed him.

“Axelia.” Geralt warned.

“Geralt.” She said in same tone. “You are not leaving me here. I am not staying here basically all alone anymore.” She said almost pleading.

“I can’t take you with me. You have to stay. Look after school.”

“The fuck do I look like to you? Inn keeper?” She pushed him out of her way. But before she could actually take any steps further, Geralt had grabbed her from behind and pulled her against his chest. Both of them falling silent for a moment.

“You can’t leave me here. Not again.” She whispered, trying to force her voice not to waver. The deal with Axelia was that, she was like a failed experiment as one could say. She wasn’t the best that Kaer Morhen could offer when it came to excellent witchers. She needed to hone her senses and use what she still got. One was to be with sharp eyesight and dull emotions, while Axelia was complete opposite: blind emphatic girl with sharp reflexes and inhuman strength. And yet, somehow, she made it to the top, with some minor setbacks to still fix, but good enough to go out there.

“You can’t come with me, Axelia.” Geralt had said gravely in her hair.

“No. Please don’t leave me. You are the only one that believes in me.” She whispered, her milky eyes brimming with tears. Geralt looked at the door. He couldn’t stay any longer.

“Close your eyes.” Geralt order to her.

“We’re too old to play games.” Axelia said, her brows furrowing again, as her hands wrapped around his.

“You didn’t oppose the last time when we were in bed.” He whispered, his chin now on her right shoulder. With sigh she closed her eyes. Geralt pressed his lips against her temple, not something he did usually. Somehow, she felt that he was lingering in that one kiss. Moments later, his hands left her waist, and she was left feeling cold.

“Geralt?” Axelia asked, still not opening her eyes. That moment she heard the deadbolt of the kitchen door fall shut.

“Not where we e—” She opened her eyes, standing alone in the room, door locked from outside.

“Geralt?” She questioned again this time louder. “This isn’t funny.” She walked to the door and tried to open them, but it was no use.

“You can’t leave me!” she called out yanking on the handle.

“Vesemir is never going to let me leave!” she continued, not caring if she was about to wake someone up.

“Geralt! Please don’t leave me!” She banged on the door, hitting her shoulder against it, trying to break the door. With unholy swear leaving her mouth she run to the back door of the kitchen, even if it meant taking the longer route, she was not letting him leave her. Running down the lengthy corridor and passing through armoury and two training rooms, she ran through big hall, pausing momentarily too look at the locked kitchen door.

“Geralt!” Axelia called, not feeling him anywhere near her. She run to the threshold of the School of Wolf and with her empty eyes looked around.

“Please, no…” She whined pathetically as she realised that she has been left behind. Another year to waste all alone while other witchers were gone.

She remembered very clearly how that night she had slept and cried in his pillows. She was weak, something that witcher shouldn’t be.

~~~~~

part I || part II || part III || part IV || part V || part VI || part VII || part VIII || part IX || part X || part XI || part XII || part XIII | Epilogue

tags: @boiled-onionrings @fandomwithnolifesblog​ @901seconds​ @kingniazx​ @shesakillerkween

#geralt of rivia #geralt of rivia x reader #geralt x reader #geralt imagine #the witcher #the witcher x reader #witcher netflix #witcher oc #netflix #henry cavill #witcher yennefer #jaskier #lambert witcher #witcher eskel #roach the horse

[fightevilandthengetblownup]

FIC: when the weather gets hot

---

The sun was just over the skyline as they’d pulled up - best to get an early start, after all, had been her argument when they’d been discussing how and when to get going the night before. The orange of the sky glowing as the first rays of light were lighting up the few fluffy, lazy summertime clouds above them. It was as golden as it could be, and just the perfect start to a day to hop out of the car to the crisp air and the scent of dew on the ground not yet heated and gone.

Jo smiled widely as she moved to grab the backpacks from the trunk and give the other a few minutes to recompose himself. They didn’t often drive places, most of their favorite places being in walking distance or more useful to just arrive wherever they wanted to go, but there was nothing like driving up towards a lookout parking space as the sky started to lighten and the silhouettes of the growing number of trees cutting a dark, jagged line against the sky as they got closer to start off hiking than just suddenly appearing there. It’s the travel, the journey, the experience, every bit of it, and Grey was already going to be responsible for enough travel or appearances that day that Jo’d suggested the drive and sweetened it with his favorite tunes on the drive up.

Fishing the bottle of bug spray out of the heavier pack - two large water bottles for each of them, and sunscreen, the bug spray, a first aid kit and some trail mix concealed inside of it, compared to the picnic rug, trail mix, sketching and water-painting equipment, and spare pairs of socks packed into the other one - she spent a good few minutes spraying every bit of herself she could reach in the spray. It was supposed to get hot later in the morning, and she’d dressed for that in her jean shorts and tank top, but that just left a lot of spaces available for hungry bugs to snack on without the right amount of coverage between the tops of her knee-high socks and the shorts and her bare arms. Tucking the spray away afterwards, she shrugged the heavier pack over her shoulders and clipped the central cord around her waist before taking the other bag around the other end of the car.

“You ready to go, hunny?”

“Yeah, just had to, uh, get some fresh air.”

Jo gave a little laugh at the sheepish look on the other’s face as Grey pushed himself up to standing freely from where he’d been slumped against the side of the car. Holding out the other backpack to him, she smiled toothily at the tiny frown he gave before throwing the pack onto his back with a sigh.

“Did you need any water?” “I’ll be fine - let you know if I do need it though, Jo.” “Best set off then before it gets too hot, then!”

The nod of agreement seemed less enthused than her own excitement to go hiking across the Magney-Snively nature park, but she couldn’t expect him to be as excited as it was. He hadn’t grown up needing to just get out and run into the wilds sometimes, and she was sure the tall hardwoods that circled the carpark and ran throughout the whole nature reserve were probably less exciting and more dauntingly familiar to him than to her. But regardless, he was grinning at her with a smile that made her stomach flip a little as he looked up through the short pieces of hair hanging over his eyes as he’d been working to clip his own bag into place. He was happy to be there with her, and that felt all kinds of special for her.

After locking the car and tucking her keys away into Grey’s bag, Jo smiled all the brighter at his hand slipping into hers before they took off towards the nearest hiking trail.

When Jo had first made a comment about wanting to go hiking sometime when the weather was nicer, she’d not expected Grey to say it sounded fun and to want to come along with her, but the blissfully happy feeling had stuck with her. They’d talked back and forth about where to go - a few easier tracks closer to home, or if they went for nicer trails rather than convenience - and then to devise the plan for the day when it would come. Spring had been too wet and muddy all around gross, and then summer had come with an early vengeance but finally it had mellowed out somewhat with some promised cool winds off of Lake Superior that would keep the temperature from absolutely sweltering. They’d planned that they’d hike for as long as Jo wanted, or as long as Grey could keep up - as she’d teased him, and then stop for a nice picnic lunch wherever looked pretty, before he’d smoke them back to the car rather than the added distance home.

Holding hands as they wandered down the start of the trail, Jo found herself smiling as brightly as the rays shining over the sky above them at each time she felt his hand squeeze hers back. A game of its own as they walked along through the lush hardwood forest over the dewy leaves and bark and gravel of the pathways that led them through the woodlands. The red oaks and sugar maples of the earliest parts of the trail giving dappled light as the morning started, and there was still frost clinging to the bluebead lilys and other flowers that covered the forest floor.

The first half an hour of walking was at a slow, sedate pace, hand in hand, and stopping regularly as they made their way along the section of the Superior Hiking Trail that led from the carpark. They stopped to watch the odd bird flitter by, and on two separate occasions paused to watch small families of late-spring bunnies hop across the path not far before them. Grey stopped frequently to snap some photos of various birds, plants and the sunrise sky through the lush trees above them; while Jo would take similar photos of the dew dripping spiderwebs that glistened when the sun caught them just right. They made a comfortable pace, not pushing too hard, and both just enjoying the slightly crisp morning that nipped at Jo’s bare skin between her socks and shorts, and colored the tips of Grey’s ears and nose pink.

They eventually stepped off of the much longer trail, that spanned the whole from the Minnestoa-Wisconsin border up to the Canadian border that was definitely beyond either of their wishes, and instead onto the much less well-tred cross-country loop that would take them to a spot Jo was most excited for. The path was muddier underfoot from the lush dropped leaves and thick grass that was clearly battling for control over the gravel, but between Jo’s hiking boots and Grey’s sneakers they were both relatively sure-footed.

Or at least they were until the track took a turn for the steep, weaving it’s way up towards the highest peak, Ely’s Peak, in the park that would overlook the full glistening lake far, far below and away.

Jo had heard that from that peak point there was a great selection of boulders for rock climbing or, rather fittingly, bloudering, and she wanted to clamber all across whatever outcropping there was before any other people showed up. Theirs had been the only car in the parking lot, and she intended to squeeze in as much fun as she could that day.

Their pace decreased dramatically though as the incline increased. Jo bounced along merrily, talking about the latest gaming night they'd had with their friends just a few days earlier and just how badly Spruce had played the whole night. Beside her, Grey nodded in agreement and huffed quietly every few steps as Jo's excitement seemed to push his desire to move faster onwards but he struggled to even maintain the previous pace of before.

"What do you think was wrong with him?"

"Mhmm, you're right."

"Whatcha mean I'm right?"

"Whatever you say, Jo."

Jo let out a bit of a laugh as she looked across at the red and sweaty look to Grey's face as they hit the hour mark and the first half hour of the higher inclined walking. His eyes were focused on the path in front of him, and clearly glazed over.

"Hey, let's take a little breather and have some water. I'm parched." Jo replied rather than trying to pick up the conversation, pointing towards a fallen log a few steps off the track up ahead. "I could do with a drink."

"Yeah?" Grey's head swung up off of the path at that, looking brightly and lovingly towards her at the prospect of sitting down, before looking to follow her pointed finger to the logs. There was a flicker of disappointment on his face, the realisation it wasn't a bench signifying they'd reached the peak, before he nodded enthusiastically anyway. "Water sounds really good."

"And you've got some trail mix in your bag we should have too."

"Good idea, pretty one, we only had those quick egg and bacon sandwiches on the way out-"

"-and you can't hike on an empty stomach after all!"

The shared smile lit up his face in a way that made Jo feel like swooning as they got to the log and sat down. Grey fished the trail mix from his bag while she tugged one of the water bottles to share from hers. Taking a short swig, just enough for a few gulps, Jo held it out to the other before fishing in the trail mix bag with her free hand, chewing happily over the mix of nuts, sultanas, chocolate nibs and dried fruit she'd grabbed.

Grey likewise chewed and swallowed a mouthful of the mix, before lifting the water bottle to his lips. Glancing out the corner of her eye, Jo let out a little giggle as she watched him drink almost the entire bottle thirstily. His whole face was red now, and not from the cool air that was slowly starting to warm up, and she could see the way his hair was plastering to his forehead from the starts of sweat. But his smile was big and bright, and as he set the bottle between his knees, he turned to look back at her. "Okay, right, you were saying something about Spruce?"

"He played terribly."

"True."

"And I was just wondering is something was going on with him?"

"It's this girl at his work. He thinks she's cute," Grey said with a small smirk, taking another, smaller, sip from the water bottle before he sat it back between his knees and continued. "She is a little bit older than him, and has a kid that likes Dungeons and Dragons. So obviously he thinks she's the perfect woman."

"Naturally!"

"Which is of course a fallacy, given you are the perfect woman-"

"Grey…"

"Sorry, off topic. But anyway, he had asked us guys what he should do to woo her a few weeks ago…" The way he trailed off, waving one hand for a moment before picking out another handful of trail mix and chewing thoughtfully delivered the right balance of drama and storytelling to have Jo on the edge of her log.

Wide eyed and disbelieving, wanting to hear any and all the suggestions. "And?"

Grey let out a chuckle, swallowing his mouthful before shaking his head. "Well, Ed said he should go around and 'help the kid with some D&D, before giving her some PIV'-" The slight confusion on her face disappeared at the accompanying hand gesture, getting a whoop of a laugh out of her and a corresponding snicker from the other before he continued. "Harry said he should ask her out for coffee. Which Spruce pointed out he hadn't even done for Sophie yet which derailed the discussion for a while."

"Of course. What did Garth say?"

"Garth said much like Harry he should be upfront and ask her out. Tell her he thought she was beautiful and ask politely if she'd be interested in going to dinner with him when it was appropriate for her."

"That charmer!"

"It's so surprising he doesn't have a girlfriend." Grey shook his head sadly, thinking over their friend while Jo took another handful of trail mix, slowly popping individual pieces into her mouth as she looked at him expectantly. There was a few seconds before the other grinned back at her cheekily, quirking an eyebrow at her. "Oh, I suppose you want to know my suggestion?"

"I mean, I would like to know how you'd have woo'd a normal woman," she replied with a corresponding smile, bumping her shoulder against his arm after a second. "So?"

"First off, you are both a normal woman and so extraordinarily special that what I said would never have worked to remotely let you think I was worth your time."

"Let me be the judge of that."

"Fine, so secondly - my suggestion was that he find out her favorite coffee from the cart downstairs. And pre-order one a day for her for the whole week so she could not worry about the expense and would have a fresh coffee each morning. Having a kid as a single mom must be exhausting after all-" Grey let out his thoughts in a rush of air, taking in a huff as he had to that sounded much like the huffed breaths he'd been making climbing up the mountainside so far. "And that he should stop by on Wednesday, not earlier and not later, to say he'd gotten her coffee for the week to help her out some, welcome her to the company, and maybe as a promise to take her out for coffee sometime in future if she was interested. But to make it clear the coffees were a friendly thing and not contingent on her going out for coffee with him in future!"

Jo's eyes widened as he talked, her mouth dropping open and a look of abject horror crossing her face the more he spoke. The idea as an adorably sweet, selfless and caring gesture that of course only Grey would come up with - that blend of friendship at its core but with the hint of something else if you happened to want to look at it that way, so perfectly him. And yet…

"Oh god! How badly did he fuck it up?"

"...badly enough he had a HR meeting about appropriate workplace behaviour."

The loud guffaws of laughter from the both of them as Jo shook her head in shock. Only Spruce.

"And?"

Grey shrugged a shoulder. "The meeting was for the day after our game, so that's probably why he was so bad. But he texted to say that he'd properly explained himself better in the meeting and he was neither fired nor disciplined." There was a pause before he smiled a bit. "And the lady in question has said she will have that coffee now she knows he isn't 'trying to buy her for five coffees'."

"How did he fuck it up that badly?!"

"I don't know!"

"Fuckin' hell, hunny, don't give any of the guys advice again. They all don't have the default adorableness you do to pull it off!"

"Oh? You mean that wouldn't've worked on you?"

"Of course not." Jo beamed back at him, bumping her shoulder to his again. "I can only be charmed by bein' nursed better and the beauty of my bein' discussed as I get undressed."

Jo let out a giggle as she watched the tips of his ears go red all over again, the normal color coming back to his face with the extended rest turned right back around to red at her words. Grey's eyes widened a fraction, blue swallowed up for a moment by pupils, before he noticed the cheeky grin and shot her a rueful one in response.

"Ah, of course that is how to woo the lovely Joanna Harvelle." He replied with a smile, shifting his arm to wrap around her bare shoulders and bring her into a side cuddle with a sigh. "How lucky for me I stumbled right upon the perfect pick-up lines?"

"Very lucky," she answered, turning to kiss him briefly but sweetly as they just soaked in the slightly cool breeze and the starting warmth from a few sunny rays.

They went through another few handfuls of trail mix, and Jo finished off the last of that water bottle, before they packed both the bag of snacks and the empty water bottle away into Grey's pack this time before they set off again towards the peak.

---

It took almost another hour to reach the lookout - the incline slowing at least half of them down, and the excited bird and animal spotting slowing the other half's pace to almost the same as Jo'd run ahead and excitedly point out various animals that would disappear just as Grey'd caught up. The family of white-tailed deer a hundred feet through the trees were the only ones that stayed long enough for the other to see and enjoy them, grazing on the grass and berry bushes away from the track. Jo happily still showed the photos she'd snapped of the cheerful little squirrels, a chipmunk hoarding a mouthful of nuts, and the most exciting spot for her was the pine marten that had scurried up and down a tree as she'd set pieces of dried fruit from her pack of trail mix out for it to take. Grey watched the video, smiling as he listened to the record gasps and quiet excited squeaks Jo had let out, as well as laughing at her trying to talk to the creature.

When they finally reached the point of Ely’s peak, both let out exclamations at the beauty of the landscape. Lake Superior spread out before them - a deep rich blue mirroring but darker than the soft blue of the sky. The fluffy clouds spaced across the sky at random dispersion all the way to the horrizon which was still not the other side of the Greta lake. Duluth was below them but tucked off to the side - hidden by the lush forest reserves or wide Green farm pastures more than the city itself. All down the hillside before them were boulders upon boulders stretching down a not quite sheer cliff face, the odd bush and tree springing out from in the grey rock formation like bursts of life. It was stunning.

Jo turned towards her lover with a wide smile, exclaiming happily. "Oh my god, it's so lovely!"

"Yes, yes it is." Jo frowned as she looked over her shoulder towards him, noticing the way those eyes as blue as the sky were focused upon her face and then slowly glided off to view the picturesque landscape beyond. "So beautiful, almost as beautiful as you."

That got a gentle punch to his shoulder as Jo blushed, and after a few quick kisses and a few more happy couple photos that Jo snapped with the view behind them, she unclipped her bag and set it down by the nearest viewing bench.

"Can you do my sunscreen before I go leapin' off rocks?"

"Sure thing, Jo. Did...did you need company?"

"Don't worry hun, I packed your things in your backpack so you can paint and sketch instead."

"The most thoughtful woman in the world," Grey grinned, rubbing his nose against hers affectionately before moving to slather her shoulders, arms, neck and chest with sunscreen. He moved onto her legs while Jo took care of coating her face and then fitting a cap over her head with her pony tail sticking through the back hole just right. "You let me know if you need help though?"

"Of course." Jo smiled back as she used the remaining sunscreen on her hand to cover his face, neck and the tiny amount of sweaty chest visible at the neckline of his tshirt as Grey covered his arms as well. There was a water tap nearby for them to wash the greasy feeling off of their hands before they both got to doing their own activities.

Grey was set up with a little help from Jo with his watercolor paper sketch book and charcoal pencils beside him to one side and his water color palette to the other with a small container of water. One of the water bottles was left with him, along with both their packs on the ground beside the bench as he finally focused on the vista and sketching out the faintest lines in preparation for a first image. The spot that he’d chosen wasn’t as shaded as some of the others, but sunburn was the least of his worries compared to getting an accurate view of the rich and vibrant colors he’d be trying to replicate and wanting to ensure he got them just right in the sunshine.

On the other hand, Jo threw herself into having fun clambering over the rocky outcrop with reckless abandon. The moment she’d left the other on his bench, set up and happy to spend quite some time just relaxing, catching his breath and doing something he enjoyed with his paints, she’d jumped off one of the highest boulders and down onto one further down. The ebb and flow of climbing and leaping warmed up her muscles as she clambered down as low as she could down the cliff face, uncaring to the worries of climbing all the way back up later. She would have to jump and scramble on occasion to reach the next rock up or gently scrape herself down the side of another to find a safe foot hold down - but that was half the point and half the fun between the warm sunshine, cool breeze and bird calls that would come after a whoop of laughter or enjoyment from her.

Jo lost track of time entirely as she got to the base of the outcrop, sitting atop one of the biggest rocks nearby to soak up the sun and catch her breath, before the tranquility was broken by a voice shouting.

“Jo?!” Grey’s voice carried down from the peak, and it took a few moments for her to realise the startled tone as she tilted her head back was because she could not see the top of the mountainside from where she was beside a slow trickling waterfall she’d set out to find. He called again, the tone borderline panicked, “Jo? Where are you?!”

“I’m fine hunny,” she called back as loudly as possible, hands cupped about her mouth before pushing herself to her feet so just the very top of her cap and eyes were visible over the big boulder face between her and the peak. There was a second before she had to wave a hand to catch the panicking man’s attention, a wide, affectionate grin on her face he probably couldn’t see as she called up again. “Here I am! Don’t worry! I’m all good!”

“Fuck, you scared me.” Grey shouted back down, and she could just make out the jittery nervous energy in his hands flapping a few times from the distance before she let out a loud laugh. “Don’t you laugh at me! I couldn’t see you for a whole half an hour!”

“Sorry, hun!” Jo replied, chided at just how much and how long he must have been looking for her as she’d climbed, scrambled and ducked about the rockside. Glancing down at her watch, she let out a surprised noise to see it was already midmorning and that she had spent the last hour running about the rockface. “I’ll come up now-”

“No, no, don’t rush if you’re-” “I’m gettin’ hungry and we still gotta find a picnic spot.” “Hmm… okay, I’ll start packing up up here.”

“Okay, be there in a minute!” She called back happily before turning her gaze from where he’d been to looking at the somewhat intimidating climb in front of her to get back up to the top.

Jo shrugged a shoulder and tucked a strand of stray hair back under her cap and behind her ear as she swiped a bit of sweat from her brow before starting the daunting climb back up. The rocks were so much taller going back up, and on more than one occasion she had to back up for a run up before leaping to try to grasp the top of the next rock up. Some she could wind her way through small wild life paths between rockfaces, but others she had to muscle and shuffle her way up awkwardly, all dirt and moss and hot stone under her fingers as she scrambled her way back up towards the peak. It took longer than a minute, that was for sure, and by the time she got up there Grey’d already repacked his backpack and had the second water bottle of the day ready and waiting for her with a smile.

Gulping down the remaining half of the bottle, Jo grinned widely back at him before tucking the empty bottle into his bag and then shouldering her own back on. “I bet we look like we match now.”

“Oh?” “Well, I’m all hot and sweaty and I bet red-” “Yes, very prettily so though.” “Naturally. And in about ten minutes you’ll look the same!” “How dare you-”

Grey cut off his admonishing with a laugh, pulling her in about the waist - hand slipping into the space between the curve of her back and her backpack, to kiss her thoroughly. They only pulled back after a long moment when their lips were tingling with the sensation of the other’s and the loss of them. Jo let out a laugh of her own before shaking her head free of the floaty, unfocused feeling his kisses left her with before gesturing back to the path to get going.

They hiked again, following the path winding back down from Ely’s peak at a much quicker and more comfortable pace for both of them with the downhill decline far easier than the hiking up had been. Grey’s hand slid into hers within a few minutes and neither let go as they kept a happy pace back down to the join of the previous track within half the time as before. Jo frowned as she glanced back the way towards the carpark before giving a tug and setting off into the denser forest cut through with another trail instead. There’d been no where suitable for a picnic the way they had come, and she was determined to find somewhere private and beautiful to spend their time.

Following the new path took them through basswood’s rather than redwoods, the foliage thicker and more shaded as the sun was moving towards overhead, but the undergrowth was still filled with the mixture of bluebead lilys and other shrubberys and wildflowers that thrived under the thicker canopy above. It was cool even though each poke of sun felt hotter than before and the warmth of the day was starting to set in. They wandered, up and down hills across the park as they went for another half an hour - much to Grey’s consternation he got hot, sweaty and red as quickly as Jo predicted as they started on the inclines, to a lot of teasing from the smiling blonde.

They’d just turned a corner when Jo noticed a creekline ahead and a small footbridge across it. “Oh! Come with me!” She tugged gently on the other’s hand as they approached, stepping off the path and instead following the lush, moss covered creek line down stream. Grey made a confused noise for a moment, before she grinned over her shoulder at him. “This is Sargeant Creek. I saw a little pond or inlet type place in Google Maps off this stream earlier, we should try to go there for our picnic?”

“Oh. That sounds like a great idea, pretty one,” he agreed readily, pressing a quick kiss to her cheek as he nodded and followed further along the creek and left the path behind them. Not that he’d had disagreed, following a creek means walking down hill and no more inclines. “Any idea how long it’d be?”

“Awww, are your feet hurtin’?” “As a matter of fact, yes, yes they are.” “Poor Grey!”

The teasing swat he gave to her backside at her joking at him got a squeal of laughter that set the birds hidden in the trees around them off, the ringing of bird call and happiness fitting so perfectly for the pair as they trekked onwards.

About ten minutes down the creek a large downed tree fell across the creek line, and giving a whoop, Jo tugged Grey in for a quick peck. “You’re it.” She whispered against his lips before pulling back and dashing across the log with a laugh. It took a moment, long enough for her to get to the other bankside before he seemed to realise what had happened and took off after her.

Their game of tag, kisses exchanged each time one or the other was caught and playful ducks out of grasp, took them back and forth across the creek. Jo’d even leaped just out of reach one time across a wider part of the creek and when turning back to tease the other couldn’t spot him until two hands grasped her cheeks and pulled her into a kiss for a long moment before Grey let go and smoked back across the creek with a rougish grin. They were moving slower and less productively with the game, but it kept both of them laughing and the focus off their feet and just how long they’d been walking in search of their picnic spot.

---

When Jo was finally skipping ahead out of Grey’s grasp and stepped out from under the thicker tree coverage to a sunny clearing and the widening of the creek it came as a surprise to have reached their location, and even surprised her enough to be caught up on a quick, hot kiss like the sunshine coming down on them before they both looked about. It was less a natural pond and more clearly a small beaver dam before continuing down the creekline on the other side of the pond. The slope around the dammed water was gentle and covered in lush grass, and brightly lit in the clearing, clearly caused by the beavers work a long while ago.

Moving over the grass and looking at the dam, Jo smiled widely as she turned about to see Grey setting his pack down and getting out the picnic rug.

“This looks pretty alright, don’t it?” “Yeah. You were right, Jo, this is much nicer than somewhere that there could be crowds and that.” “I know right?”

Smiling together, they set the picnic blanket out and Jo fished out one of the water bottles from her bag as she set it down before spraying more bug spray on her skin having noticed the croak of frogs from the pond and the number of bugs flying about the waters edge. Grey sank happily into the blanket and pulled off his backpack followed by his shoes and socks to rub at the soles of his feet happily before taking the water offered. “I’ll get the picnic in a minute-”

“No rush, hun.” Jo smiled gently at his insistence, shaking her head and kicking her own boots off and wiggling her socked toes with a groan. “God, you never notice your feet hurt ‘til you stop.”

“Oh, do your feet hurt, huh?” “Yes yes, payback’s a bitch!”

Grey laughed warmly as he moved to lean back on his elbows before reaching out to tug her down against him. They play wrestled for a few seconds before laying back in the sunshine happily together, each catching their breaths and enjoying the quiet of the thick forest around them. The fluffy clouds above, the warm sun, and the cool ground soft beneath them was as comforting as the other’s presence as they relaxed and recovered from the hiking so far.

It was another few minutes before Grey pushed himself into sitting up again, Jo shifting around to rest her head in his lap with a little yawn, before he finally felt up to summoning their packed picnic. The basket had been packed that morning, padded with cooling packs and everything they could need carefully tucked into tupperware containers and bowls, and left on the kitchen counter for easy summoning later on. It wasn’t a hard task to bring it to them, and Grey’s fingers ran through Jo’s hair once he was sure he’d brought their picnic basket correctly to them, just enjoying the moment. Eventually the smell of food roused Jo out of the happy doze she’d found herself lulled into by the warmth of the sunshine and the comforting touches from the other to push up and help start unpacking their early lunch.

They’d worked together the night before the prep and pack their picnic - Jo baking chocolate chip cookies mixed with strawberries and some coconut, choc-chip muffins with the express discussion about the choice of ingredients and some teasing laughter from both of them over just how many kisses she had wanted; Grey cooking pasta and whipping up pesto for their salad filled with feta, shaved corn and fresh cherry tomatoes from Jo’s plant in the back yard. They’d had grilled chicken for dinner the night before and packed away the leftovers to be added in for their lunch with some spicy hot sauce in a tub for Jo too. Taking the various containers out and cracking them open, Jo made a curious noise waving a tub filled with balled melons towards the other before getting a sheepish look in response before she picked one out with an excited moan at the slightly spicy but obviously sweet syrup coating the balls. Someone had been busy when she was getting dressed. Grey took the large thermos filled with blueberry-sweetened lemonade and started pouring the drinks as Jo took out the plates and utensils in tandem.

Sinking back to their sides, they tucked into their picnic lunch with a lot of exclamations over how nice certain things were - pasta salad and chicken eaten first and foremost, leaving the cookies and muffins for later. Jo teased Grey into warming her chicken up for her, and then got further teased at the way her encouragement got him to blush brightly in turn. And he got her in return by asking just why she’d picked chocolate desserts again, ribbing her gently back.

Stomachs full and not quite ready for their desserts yet, Jo shuffled about to rest back against Grey’s side as he pulled out his sketch book to show her the paintings and sketches he’d been working on. The first a richly colored vista of the lake, the lighter sky and the endless view of green that would have once stretched all the way through where their home city now was. The second was a more contemplative image of what might have been the lake shore itself, pebbled and sandy shore and the sky reflecting off the gentle swells of the water. A few sketches, darkly filled in with charcoals of the trees that filled the forest, and even a sketch of the cute pine marten Jo’d shown him was on the third page, the marten’s little nose looking extra cute and like it was in the middle of wriggling happily at the scent of food. The last page was faded grey boulders and the odd tree but clearly the figure leaping between two rocks was the main focus of the picture, long legged and arms out stretched and radiating childish glee. That got him a lot of those teased about kisses as they lay back down on the blanket, stretched out in the warm sunshine.

They whiled more time away cloud gazing, making shapes and stories out of the fluffy figures that danced across the sky as their stomachs settled, and Jo cuddled into Grey’s side happily. A duck with a top hat fought against a teddy bear with a cane, a clown which neither of them could agree was good or creepy disappeared rather quickly on the summer breezes pushing it along before they could quarrel longer, then a little girl spinning a pirouette was followed by a school of fish being lectured by an octopus. They’d giggled loudly when a very obvious cloud floated past that had Grey covering Jo’s hand with a mouth as she’d squealed out the word ‘penis’ loud enough to send a few birds flitting away from the canopy above them.

“Ugh, I feel so sticky.” Jo complained quietly as she snuggled her nose in against Grey’s shoulder when he finally uncovered her mouth with a smirk. “It’s so warm today!”

“Sorry pretty one, I didn’t pack a cold shower in the basket for you.” He teased quietly, tapping her wriggling nose with a finger before making a surprised noise and Jo’s jerking to a sitting position and then to her feet. “Jo?”

“You didn’t, sure, but there’s a nice cold pond right there!” Grinning widely back at him, she quickly tugged her knee-high socks off and piled them with her boots before tugging her tank top over her head followed by her shorts. Reaching into her backpack and ignoring the confused squawk from the other, she held the sunscreen out to him with a smile. “Slather me up, hun?”

Grey gave her a confused look for a moment before taking the bottle and checking it was a natural, grey water safe product, and shifting to sit up enough to cover her back, and arms all over again with the protective cream while she took care of her exposed stomach, chest and legs to save time rubbing it all in. Grey teased her quietly about wanting to be a tanned summertime goddess with the amount of sunshine she was getting that day, only to be teased back he was just mad she’d already rubbed it in on the bits of her breasts not covered by her bra and taunting whether he’d join her.

“To quote that movie you love - wouldn’t that defeat the purpose?” “Oh?” “I mean, the best vantage point for me would be here to see your figure while you’re playing around in the water.”

Jo let out a peal of laughter, nodding and pressing a quick kiss to his lips at that, before dashing off to the waters edge, careful not to startle or step on any frogs. It was a fairly clean and clear pond, and at it’s deepest would only just come up to under her chest - the perfect depth to see the muddy, pebbly pond floor and float around without fear of something unexpected catching her unawares. There were frogs and the odd baby trout swimming about in it as she splashed about, chasing tadpoles and floating on her back as the sun reached it’s crest of midday.

After she’d splashed about enough to acclimate to the cool water, she’d looked over to their little picnic to see Grey sat up with his sketch book all over again. Tilting her head curiously at him, Grey waved a hand at her and called out gently with a smile, “I’m good, pretty one. You have your fun in the water.” She waited a few seconds to watch him pick up one of the cookies with his spare hand before turning about and diving under the water to splash about some more.

The water was the perfectly cool temperature - breaking her out in goosebumps as she would sink under the water and then float to the surface - and the dappled sunlight coming from the trees lining the other side of the pond than their clearing left her cold despite the warmth in the air. Little fish swam up, mouthing at her toes occasionally before swimming away, and Jo even backstroked over to the reeds edge to look at the clusters of frog spawn sticking around the waterline of the water plants. She floated gently across the water quietly, eyes closed and just enjoying the peaceful silence as she drank in the sunshine.

By the time she got out of the pond and laid out on the blanket - now clear of their lunch dishes packed away and the two containers of muffins and cookies left out with the watered down lemonade - her toes and fingertips were all pruny and wrinkly. Grey let out a laugh looking at her fingers before kissing the tips and bunching up a spare corner of blanket to give her a pillow to lean back on as he continued to work on his sketches. The number of birds crowded to one side of the clearing - bird seed scattered on the ground before them that Grey must’ve summoned at some point bringing them close enough for him to sketch - chirped happily and their voices and song floated away on the breeze.

Curling on one side, she watched him quietly as he worked - those talented hands sketching carefully the array of different birds chirping and hopping about the place, from chickadees to wrens and even a bright red cardinal had flown down and pecked at the seed before digging out a worm as well. Two yellow warblers, clearly a mated pair, hopped about on the edge of the group for a little while - one grabbing a seed before handing it to the other who would fly off and return a few moments later before going again - probably taking seeds back to their nest for their little family. Jo watched the birds quietly, soaking in the peacefulness of their secret little space as Grey continued his sketching.

“You almost dry?” The question broke through the silence a while later, after the sun had helped warm her back up, and Grey raised a brow over at her as he flipped his sketchbook shut as the last bird had finally departed. “Or at least dry enough to drive home?”

“I think so. You feel recovered enough to get goin’ back to the carpark?” “Yep, I’m all rested, and we’ve got a bit of a drive home still.” “And still some lemonade in case you get nauseous again-” “So mean.”

Giggling quietly Jo got to her feet as Grey packed the remaining tupperware away into the picnic basket and shook the crumbs off of the blanket into the grass as she got dressed back into her shorts and tank top. Rather than pull the old socks on, Jo slipped the spare ones from his pack on and tucked hers back in their place, before clipping her backpack into place. Grey did the same before picking up the picnic basket in one hand and taking hers with the other, before they disappeared away from the sunny, secret clearing.

The forest was shaded but thick and muggy without the breeze permeating through to the underbrush as Grey appeared them ten feet off the trail and just out of sight of the carpark. Quickly making their way to the path and not spotted by any of the family groups slowly making their way along the hiking trail at the midday time, they slowly made their way to the car.

The walk back wasn’t long, but it was just long enough for the pair of them to hold hands and exchange smiles and teasing touches as they made their way back along the path. They passed some unruly children and their exhausted looking parents, lugging picnic baskets behind them, with angry looks towards the happy, peaceful couple clearly swinging their joined hands and very much young and in love. There were heavy duty climbers with harnesses already around their waists, jangling with clips that would scare off any of the animals that they’d managed to spot walking so quietly earlier in the morning if the screaming, running children hadn’t already. There was even a younger couple, clearly high school sweethearts, all blushing and twigs in their hair despite being not even twenty feet from the carpark as Jo and Grey had almost made it to the carpark.

Sharing a smirk to one another at the embarrassed look on the teens’ faces, Jo giggled loudly as they made it to the car and packed away the picnic basket and their backpacks into the trunk of the car. “So… when are we goin’ to be like those two?”

“What? You want to have bark-rash on your back?” “Oh, that’s true, that doesn’t seem particularly appealin’.” “Or perhaps you were thinking in a bush?” “That does seem to be what they’d been doin’!”

“Maybe next time,” Grey replied with a shake of his head, smirking across at her. “Or back in that little clearing, we should take advantage of those chocolate cookies-”

“And the muffins.” “That’s very true.” “Well, why didn’t we?”

Jo tilted her head at him, smiling gently before blinking in surprise as the other moved around the car to crowd her up against the warm metal side on her back as Grey leaned in to kiss her - hot and needy and all kinds of ways that made her weak in the knees - before he pulled back with a smirk. Grey leaned into her, lips against the shell of her ear, before speaking softly. “I didn’t want to scare away the birds.”

“Very fair!” Laughing together, Jo drew him in for another quick kiss, pressing all up against him, before they pulled apart and finally piled back into the car. The seatbelt metal was hot but clicked away quickly, and sharing a few sips of water from the last water bottle, Jo threw the car in reverse and then pulled out of the carpark towards home.

Glancing to the side as she drove them down the winding roadway down the other side of the mountain, going slow and cautious for the other’s usual motion sickness, Jo smiled softly to herself watching him press his face to the cool glass of the passenger window - figuring they could stop at the ice cream shop on the way home for a creamy treat and maybe even some Sprite to settle the other’s stomach before they would get home to their likely still dozing baby ready to go out to the backyard. Looking out the front window as the trees slowly got high enough and the road flattened out that the deep blue of the lake disappeared from sight behind them, she couldn’t help but smile over the loveliness of the day, noticing an equally loving smile directed her way out the corner of her eye.

---

#jopov #cc #ca

[loopy777]

Potential outline/ideas/headcanons for an Avatar Ty Lee AU? (Also, for some crazy reason I like the idea that if Aang died in the Air Nomad Genocide, and we get a Water Avatar who lives to be in her thirties or forties, that the Earth Avatar is Long Feng, who makes no effort to go on the offensive against the Fire Nation, nor tries to learn the other elements, instead holing up in Ba Sing Se as the Fire Nation conquers the rest of the Earth Kingdom.)

(Wow, Avatar Long Feng? I can see him doing what you say, deciding to devote his power to protecting just Ba Sing Se, and I’m getting chills thinking about what he would do to make sure that no one knows that he’s the Avatar.)

Anyway, Avatar Ty Lee! Let’s make up something interesting…

Ty Lee has always paid attention to her dreams. The most frequent, one that has visited since before she can remember, has her standing in battle before a shadow shaped like a man, a wall of fire erasing the world around them. The sky above them bleeds as the shadow roars the sound of war…

Ten years before her legend begins, Ty Lee and her sisters were examined by the Fire Sages. It was entirely routine, something all children in the Homeland had to undergo by order of the Fire Lord, one part of an initiative to ensure the continuing health of the nobility. But Ty Lee was always been shy around authority, and something about the Fire Sages especially creeped her out. She persuaded her sister Ty Lin to substitute for her, a frequent trick the sisters used to play. Even Mommy didn’t notice Ty Lee slip out, and Ty Lin twice was poked and prodded and had a very flammable ball of tinder held under her nose. It became known that none of the seven sisters was a Firebender- or, of course, any other kind.

Nine years before her legend begins, she met Princess Azula and Mai. By this time, Ty Lee had gotten tired of how easily she was mistaken for one of her sisters, and the exclusive attention of the Princess seemed to be a gift from the spirits. Ty Lee was less sure of the quiet and gloomy Mai, but one time Mai protected Ty Lee from Ty Woo’s bullying so that was good. Ty Lee quickly learned, though, that she couldn’t fully trust her friends. Azula could be cruel, could be scary, and both Ty Lee and Mai would follow the princess’s commands if the alternative was worse. Plus, Mai blushed around Azula’s brother Prince Zuko, and for some reason that made Ty Lee’s stomach clench.

Four years before her legend begins, Ty Lee had become resigned to the fact that she would always be an outsider. She never quite felt like she could fit in, not even amongst her sisters. She felt like she was always holding a part of herself back, hiding something fragile out of an instinct for self-preservation. She dreamed, sometimes, of living amidst beautiful mountain-temples, but those dreams always ended in fire and pain and fear. So she tried to make the best of life, always chose to see the positive side of things, and took some solace in how Mai seemed to be just as much of an outsider but in completely different ways.

Four and a half years before her legend begins, Ty Lee decided one day to make a surprise visit to Mai. She skipped the front door and climbed in through Mai’s bedroom window, making use of the skills she was learning at the Academy’s Advanced Defense Classes. And so she saw Mai lounging on the bed, making a motion like throwing a knife except there was no knife in her hand. Nevertheless, the wooden target hanging on the far wall was sliced in half as though by a full-sized saber. Ty Lee’s gasp startled Mai, who ran over and dragged her in through the window and begged in a whisper to tell no one about this. It was only then, in a moment stinking of the fear of discovery, that Ty Lee realized Mai had been Airbending. Ty Lee still didn’t trust Mai completely, because Azula would always be in their lives and sometimes she blushed at Zuko. But having the power to destroy Mai by revealing such a dangerous secret was a kind of safety, one that made Ty Lee feel better (and feel a little bad for feeling better), and they grew closer as friends.

Three years before her legend begins, Zuko went away. Ty Lee never caught Mai crying, but no one caught Ty Lee crying either.

Two years before her legend begins, Ty Lee started making plans for running away. She was spending as much time away from home as possible; the mind games her sisters played were becoming intolerable. Their auras grew muddier day by day, and they were so good at tricking Ty Lee, at agreeing on things which weren’t true with such a sureness and solidarity that she sometimes wondered if she was going crazy. She told Azula, but the princess said that it was Ty Lee’s problem to solve and spent weeks teasing about it. Only Mai seemed sympathetic, but the advice to stab her sisters over it didn’t seem entirely practical. Besides, Mai’s aura was growing muddier, too.

One year before her legend begins, Ty Lee stowed away on a ship carrying a circus troupe to the colonies to find fame and fortune. This was not an accident, as odd as it sounded, because she knew that in the circus she could be herself. She could tumble, she could dance, she could be ignorant, and she could stand out as an individual and receive the acclaim of the audiences. There would be no sisters, no Princess. There wouldn’t be Mai, either, and Ty Lee was sad about that, but she told herself that it would be better if no one in the Capital knew Mai’s secret. Better for both of them. Probably.

50 weeks before her legend begins, Ty Lee was an official member of Shuzumu’s Traveling Circus and practicing her brand new routine. She was happy, cartwheeling across a rope stretched taught between two barrels just inches off the ground, happier than she had ever been before. Everyone here had such pink auras, and Ty Lee could do what she loved! The joy became so overwhelming that she turned her cartwheel into a dance, and she didn’t notice how the heat in her feet spread to light the rope on fire, nor how the motions of her arms summoned the winds to join her dance in a small tornado. She didn’t notice, that is, until the rope broke beneath her, and she opened her eyes to find all the other wind-whipped performers staring at her. She wondered if that was how she herself had looked when she found Mai, that time. The juggler called out that Ty Lee had been bending both Fire and Air. Ty Lee ran and didn’t look back once.

Six months before her legend begins, Ty Lee realized she hadn’t managed to stay in any town for more than a few days. Whenever she thought she might be safe, that this time she might be far enough away from the colonies, she’d start to feel itchy and the dreams would turn into nightmares. The man of shadows would loom over her, roaring like a storm, and the flames were so hot that she woke up screaming in a sweat. Even if the locals didn’t see her Bending, they’d soon talk of her as crazy, as spirit-touched, and it felt like being back with her sisters all over again. Ty Lee loved the places she got to visit, but she never stayed.

By the day her legend begins, Ty Lee is used to running, used to not having a home. She is more than eager to leave this Chin Village, where she thought she could maybe find something positive about her existence during their ‘Avatar Day’ festival. (She was very, very wrong about that.) She is passing next to a massive burning effigy of the Child Avatar, the flames consuming his grin and arrow tattoos, when she bumps into a soldier. But no, he’s not a regular soldier. He’s is far too short, and there’s gold trim on his armor. He scowls at her in the light of the flames with a hand-shaped scar twisting the skin over his eye.

She recognizes Prince Zuko and can’t help but blurt out, “What are you doing here?”

He blinks at her, recognizing her in turn, and says, “Me? What are you doing here?”

And so the Legend of Avatar Ty Lee begins.

#Anonymous #tylee #ty lee #zuko #tyluko #ty luko

[supergraphicultramoderngirl]

i’d still do it again

a tyrus songfic based off again by sasha sloan (warning: super angsty with a sad ending !!!)

forgive any mistakes i wrote this for a different ship forever ago but never posted it and figured this worked for them too and also i’m tired so there’s definitely grammar mistakes

word count: 1,061

—————————

salt in your kiss from the 2am swim

i wish i could put my arm around your memory

TJ walked up the familiar sidewalk that led to his home, staring at the dark yet pale blue sky. Strong gusts of wind blew in his face, pushing away and drying any remnants of the tears on his face. The path was muddier than usual, which only motivated him more to get back to his bedroom, which was safe and warm, unlike his shitty windbreaker.

Or his now ex boyfriend.

The two of them never fought. Ever. Their relationship had always been easy, comfortable. They goofed around, and really, they were practically each other’s home. TJ honestly thought Cyrus might be the one to make him want to spend the rest of his life with him. Guess not.

They’d been hanging out again, sneaking out and hiding away from everyone like usual— they’d be dead if anyone found them together, high school was evidently twenty times more homophobic than they thought, and yeah, they might be exaggerating, but regardless, it’s still fucking scary. Terrifying.

They sat on the swings they’d found in a nearby woods, their spot. They used to use the one in the park, but this one was more private. More them. It was an easy night, they were joking around, occasionally kissing, as usual.

you can’t control it, you can’t help it when you fall in love

“Hey, you’re really adorable, you know that?” Cyrus said, laughter twinging his tone.

“I am not! I’m a tough bitch!” TJ replied, sticking his tongue out, a blush still dusting his cheeks.

He shrugged, “You’re only proving my point, Teej.”

“Well, it’s not like anyone else needs to know that,” he chuckled, leaning into Cyrus’ shoulder.

“Sounds like our relationship,” Cyrus joked.

...TJ didn’t think that was funny.

“We are gonna tell people eventually, right?” he asked, the smile on his face quickly fading as he looked up at him.

“Well yeah, but certainly not anytime soon, that’s for damn sure,” Cyrus said, still laughing a bit. Bad move, loverboy.

“Would it really be so bad if people find out? It’s not like they wouldn’t be expecting it, we get teased anyways and we’re not even out. Might as well give them a reason to, right?” TJ reasoned, still not finding the humor in this.

“I know, but... I don’t know. It just feels better to play it safe. That way I can keep you as my little secret, you know?” Cyrus’ small smile never faded from his face. Yikes.

“I get that, but why don’t you want them to know if I’m not bothered by it? It’s not like they’ll pull shit against you, I’m like one of the toughest guys there. They all know they can’t do shit, especially when there’s me and Buffy,” TJ continued, sitting up straighter.

“No, it’s not that, it’s just...” he trailed off, leaning back a bit.

“What? What could possibly be so important that you still have to hide me? It damn well isn’t my friends, it surely isn’t your friends because that wouldn’t make any fucking sense, and I know it seems scary but we’re supposed to be in this together. I’m always gonna be there for you, and so are our friends, Cyrus. We have nothing to be afraid of anymore. Things might be shitty sometimes, but that’s why we’re not alone,” TJ rambled, slowly growing more and more irritated.

Cyrus hung his head forward, closing his eyes, trying to find something to say.

TJ’s eyebrows furrowed in hurt. “Are you... are you ashamed of me?”

Cyrus looked at him and opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out.

“So you are. That’s great.” TJ stood up, gathering his few little things he brought with him. “That’s wonderful. Good to know my boyfriend, the one person who’s supposed to see me for me, sees me like the guy I thought he saw past.” He turned to look at him, a wall of ice overcoming his face. “Get with the fucking program, Cyrus, I’m not a bad person anymore. I thought you would know that better than anyone.”

Cyrus finally stood up, reaching out to put his hand on TJ’s shoulder as he began to leave. “TJ, wait.”

He turned around, “What?”

“I don’t think you’re a bad person, I never have. I’m just scared about it, it’s something really new and—“

He only spoke cold, “With me, you’ve never had a problem defying your fear before, why is being with me the dealbreaker?”

Cyrus just shut his eyes.

TJ scoffed, shrugging his hand off his shoulder. “And to think I only wanted to become a better person for you.”

i gave you everything, and now i gotta give you up

TJ’d run off crying after that, not wanting anyone to see it. And now he was trudging up the hill, regretting everything. He truly lost everything now, He no longer had his old friends, no matter how toxic they were, He didn’t have his new friends because he certainly wouldn’t be comfortable around them, and now he lost his boyfriend, his rock, one of the few things that made him truly happy.

TJ’d thought about texting him, calling him, running back to him and telling him that he regretted cutting things off with him, but he didn’t. He couldn’t, he had more dignity than that. If he really only saw him as how he used to be, then he didn’t need him anyway.

No matter how much his heart told him otherwise.

He reached the street his house was on then, the blue building looking more pathetic and gloomy than usual. He knew Amber would confront him, or his mom would worry, and he could never tell them about what was going on. But, they knew him. He has a place there, unlike how he now did with Cyrus. That was long gone now.

He’d never admit how much he truly regretted that night, and the fact that he never tried to fix it, or make up with him. He would only dwell on everything that used to be, which he seemed to find himself doing more and more lately.

even if i knew it would end,

even if i knew we wouldn’t walk away friends,

i’d still do it again.

#sorry in advance yall lmao #andi mack #tyrus #cyrus goodman #tj kippen #my fic #my writing #fic

[cranberrybogmummy]

More Afflicted’s gift

She went back to the funeral, feeling empty, lost and sad, not just for her sister, but for the loss of a friend and lover.

Hypatia spent a fortnight getting ready for her trip to Fordsley, her clothes, toiletries and sundries where packed, but she was trouble deciding which grimoires to pack. There were mother’s women’s magic spells  and rituals of protection, healing,  encryption, nature, warp and weft, soothing and mending: women’s magic. There were her father’s offensive spells, spells of flight, and  transformation men’s magic. There were also grimoires for those rituals, spells and invocations that fell in between and things she knew already that had not been set down. Hypatia was wondering what she should do, she could feel Dolly nearby running her fingers over the spines of the books. Despite not having a voice, and not being able to dress herself, Dolly could read, write and use hand signals to communicate in life. Much like their famous Ancestress Catherine the mute… though they were descended from her youngest son’s youngest son…

Hypatia’s mind wandered, until Betty came in bearing a neatly folded note.

“I’m busy,” Hypatia said attempting to  get back to the problem in hand.

“Patti, it’s form Lady Stedwell, she wishes you to call on her,” Betty said.

“Then I’m doubly so, I don’t wish to see that wretched woman or husband,” Hypatia grumbled.

Betty sighed: “Ms. Patti, I think you have too, for form’s sake.”

“Why in the name of Mother Night, do I have to that? She has rained misfortune on me and my family.” Hypatia said making a hand gesture to dismiss her housekeeper.

“I understand, but it’s thing that has to be done, think of Mr. Tallyworth, think of your father.” Betty sighed. “You have to keep on good terms with these people.”

Hypatia bit her lip and clenched her fist. “FINE! I WILL,BUT THIS WHOLE THING IS NONSENSE!” She stomped her foot.

Betsy tsked, and got her cup of tea to calm Hypatia. Hypatia drank it and dressed. She wore black, to show that was mourning Dolly, and  added to that  she best bonnet which she conspicuously trimmed with black. After she had dressed, she set her face in a hard expression and left the sky outside was blanketed in light grey clouds, but through them the sun hung in the sky like a silver coin. But she could feel Dolly with her, walking along beside her.  The familiar roads of the town seemed muddier, and she loathed setting foot on the well tread path to Stedwell Hall, where as children, She, Dolly and Fitz had spent many happy hours playing. Their parents had been friends, but both sets of parents were now dead. Ftiz’s elder brother James had inherited the title and even as a child, he’d never been exactly a friend. Once Dolly had discovered a spell that turned the three friends into rabbits or mostly rabbits and they had spent a summer twilight frolicking in a raspberry bush and eating the berries. James, who hadn’t been able to play such games, found her, Dolly and Fitz in this half transformed state, and run away eyes wide with horror. Of course by the time he brought the Nanny, they’d all become fully human again, even though they were all punished for the rips and tears to their clothes.  She smiled and giggled a little at the memory. She whispered it to Dolly, who nuzzled her shoulder affectionately.

As she  grew closer to the gate of Stedwell hall she felt Dolly getting fainter and fainter. Hypatia clutched at the lock of hair tied off with a ribbon but soon there was nothing, as if Dolly had stopped halfway down the path. The gate was never closed, Hypatia took a breath and went through them. Stedwell Hall was a respectable manse made of  light brown stone, it was four stories and enormous, but to Hypatia it was as familiar as well worn slipper. A footman answered the door for her, he did not speak but took her cloak. The footman, Charles who she knew form the village, didn’t so much as glance at her or say word, it was for the best as she felt anger inside of her like hot coals in her belly. Any word form Charles and she would unleash it. Hypatia knew that speaking ill, to the Stedwells’ or their servants would cost her.  Charles lead her to the small drawing room, which was decorated in newer style of white, gold, and light blue. In one of the light blue chairs sat James Tallyworth, Lord Stedwell. He had the same blue eyes as Fitzarthur, but he was shorter, stockier and his hair was a light brown. He was in day outfit, of browns and reds nothing special but the fabrics and cut indicted it would be far more than she could afford. He looked over to her and said in tone of mawkish pity:

“Ms. Long, I am so very sorry that we meet again under these circumstances.”

Hypatia looked away from him, she had been taught better but she could see the familiar lines of that FACE and say anything that would not come off as rude or angry.  

“Are you?” She ventured, looking over and  behind  him to a portrait on the wall of his grandfather, maybe his great grandfather, she didn’t know but it was dead ancestor with a ruff and a beard.

“Yes, it couldn’t be helped, you understand Dolores— your sister, hurt those men, and could have killed them,” He continued. “It was my fault, I knew she could do magic and she was feeble minded—”

Hypatia realized she must have been scowling, when she saw him pause in his speech. She worked very hard to keep her tone even. “…yes?”

“—well not feebleminded, dumb?” He hazarded. “Anyhow, you understand I couldn’t look the other way this time, in this case. I’m the magistrate of this village and I had to act. It isn’t fair the creator gave the gift of magic to the afflicted, those who are eccentric, mad, dumb and feeble-minded.”

Hypatia looked down and clenched her fists, she could feel a charge building inside of her, but she had to keep civil, keep calm, she breathed deeply and thought of Mother night, thought of her parents.

That’s when Lady Stedwell came in, Winnifred Stedwell was a woman of three and twenty, her auburn hair, peeking out from under a lace bonnet, her eyes were small, bugling and close set, her nose long and pointed, her top lip was to thin and bottom one wide and thin. She had long reedy neck like a  heron. But worse of all she always looked so impeccably smug and superior. Maybe it was her title, maybe it was the fine clothes she wore and maybe it was because she was nearly six months pregnant.

She grinned like a weasel when she saw Hypatia:

“Oh Ms. Long, it is SO nice to see you! La, tis so BRAVE of you to wear that!”

“How so? I’m mourning my sister,” Hypatia asked half earnestly the charge was still building.

“Hmmm, well one does have to follow convention doesn’t one?” Said Lady Stedwell in an evil tone.

“But I loved my sister,” Hypatia said trying to keep the harshness out of her voice.

“Considering how she died, it might be seen as indelicate,” Lady Stedwell added. “And I can’t see how one would get suitors looking like a black clad beldamn?”

“Suitors?” Hypatia was surprised by this. “Whatever do you mean, I’m not looking for suitors.”

“Considering your situation you should be dear,” Lady Stedwell added with a smirk. “I know you placed some hope in my brother-in-law but he is at Fordsley  now surrounded by the most accomplished of sorceress.Perhaps it would be wise to look elsewhere, I mean you don’t want to be a spinster living on a meager allowance, do you?”

Hypatia felt something in her deflate, yes she had placed hope in Fitz and Lady Stedwell was probably right, then she recalled the letter Fitz had given her.

“Tis a good thing then, Lady Stedwell that I too am going to Fordsley,” She said with grin. “I got a letter this very week securing me a place. There are many fine sorcerers  there, I am told, and well, Mr. Tallyworth.”

Lady Stedwell’s complacent smirk left her face and her brow furrowed in distress. “Ah, really? Good for you, Ms. Long… Say, James isn’t that lovely?”

Lord Stedwell looked up with the same expression. “Yes, Winifred it is. “

They drank some tea and ate biscuits after that in in silence for the most part, Hypatia continued to smile to herself right out of the door of Stedwell hall. On the way home with Dolly at her side, holding her hand she’d come to decision about what grimoires to take, all of them because magic had no sex.

@beau--brummell

#The afflicted's gift #Writing #original writing #fiction #Autism

[dusty-traveler]

Reddington stooped to pour two drinks, one for him, one for her. "Odysseus spent a decade at war, but his biggest battle? Was finding his way home." He replaced the stopper in the decanter and set it on the table, resisting the urge to hand Liz's to her. Instead, he simply reached for his own and straightened up, giving a sharp laugh when she suggested he'd make a great captain. He smiled and murmured into his drink, "I don't know…" He swallowed and continued contemplatively, "You can't do every silly thing you want to in life. You have to make your choices; you have to try to be happy with them. I think we've done pretty well…?" He lowered his eyes to where Liz sat in front of him on the couch. "I'm not saying it's easy to ignore... the way people... look at you." Unable to maintain eye contact, Liz looked down at the floor. Intending comfort, and not additional shaming, Reddington hurried on. "But I hope you can find some...solace...in the fact that...when I look at you…" Liz looked up to find Reddington smiling almost sadly at her. Her heart squeezed, and she gave her own miserable attempt at a smile in return. Trying to break the awkwardness, Reddington raised his glass toward her, and she raised hers in response before they both took a sip. He inclined his head toward one end of the room, indicating she should follow him as he punched in the code to open the container doors. The pair stepped out into the warm night air, and after a brief moment of searching the sky, Reddington pointed over Liz's shoulder, off to her left. "That's Polaris. The North Star. That's how sailors used to find their way home. "When I look at you, that's what I see. I see my way home." Reddington continued to stare up at the star, even though he could see Liz had turned to look at him. She shifted slightly toward him, and he rocked back in response before he'd had time to process the action. Liz immediately turned back to look at the sky, letting out a slow breath. After a moment, Reddington took another step away from her. "Shall we go back inside?" he asked, turning to look at the interior of the comfortably appointed container behind them. "We have some dessert…?" he continued, his tone more of an offer than a request. "Can we…" Liz didn't move, continuing to stare up at the sky. "I'd like to stay out here a little bit longer. If that's okay?" Reddington nodded. "Of course." He retreated momentarily back inside, and reemerged holding the two light wooden chairs from the table set. Standing at the mouth of the container, he waited until Liz turned to look at him before lifting one slightly off the ground. "If you'd like to sit?" he asked, replacing the chair on the ground, only to lift the other one slightly as he referred to it. "...and only if you don't mind the company?" Liz motioned him forward, and Reddington placed the two chairs just behind where she stood. He went back for his drink before he joined her outside, sitting down slowly with a sigh. "Sometimes the best medicine is a dark night, some fresh air, and a limitless sky of stars and endless possibilities above you," Reddington said, gesturing grandly. "Thank you," Liz said after a moment. "That actually makes me feel a lot better about my current...situation." Reddington took a sip of his drink and raised his eyebrows as he swallowed. "What? The fresh air? The idea that possibilities are endless?" After a very long pause, Liz finally answered, "I like the idea that...something as beautiful as an endless starry sky... can only be seen in a certain amount of darkness. Things can still be beautiful in the dark. Some things are only beautiful when it's dark. Sometimes darkness is... necessary." Reddington let the silence stretch, somewhat saddened by Liz's apparent reconciliation with her new, muddier self-perception. "'I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream.'" Reddington said. When Liz looked at him, curious whether he was quoting someone or just being overly eloquent himself, he added, "Van Gogh." Liz nodded thoughtfully, and turned back to her drink. "Did you ever want to go to space? Ever want to be an astronaut?" Liz asked. "No, no," Reddington answered quickly. "The sea was always big enough for me; held enough promise... of danger...adventure...freedom. No, space was always for other men. Not me." Reddington cast a glance in Liz's direction, relieved to see her gaze unwaveringly locked on the sky above them. "There are certain things in life that are too beautiful to approach, and you're better off admiring them from afar." Reddington leaned his head back and looked up again. "I adore the night sky...but I don't need to blast up into it in a spaceship. The view from the deck of a boat is quite enough to satisfy me." Liz sipped her drink, and tucked a section of her wind-blown hair behind one ear. "I thought leaving everything… my life, my friends, my job, my home… I thought it would make me sad. I thought it would be harder. But now, I just feel…" Liz dropped her eyes to study the glass in her hands. "I know you're here with me, but… I don't know… I still feel alone. I feel very, very isolated." "You're on a ship in the middle of the ocean, and no-one knows your location. A feeling of isolation is completely rational, given the circumstances. But it should also give you some comfort. No-one can harm you if no-one can reach you. If you're untouchable, you're free from danger." Liz took another swallow, and cut her eyes sideways at Reddington. "Is that how you live your life? Is that the way you look at it? If you're alone, you're safe?" "Not 'alone' so much as..." Reddington considered his words before starting again. "Pretend you're the moon. You can look down on Earth; you can look out at the stars around you. You're a part of the universe, but your exact position isn't easily accessible to anything that could hurt you. And yet you can exert a great deal of influence. Tides, religion, people's moods…" Liz gave a small smile and bobbed her head slightly. "Still looks like a lonely life. She doesn't have anyone to share it with." "Oh, but she does," Reddington said, furrowing his brow. "There's a poem about it… I don't remember the exact words, but the general idea was that the sun? He adores the moon. So much so that every night he dies to let her breathe. He's more powerful than anything else in the solar system, but… he's always willing to walk away so that she might rise again." Liz found herself staring at him as he spoke. For his part, his eyes were directed out toward the horizon, but she got the sense he wasn't watching anything in particular. "Still lonely," she whispered. "The sun and the moon… they never get to be together." Reddington tilted his head and raised his eyebrows. "You've never seen the moon before the sun has set? It happens occasionally…" "But they're on opposite sides of the sky…?" Liz argued, her voice soft, almost pleading. Reddington finally turned to look at her, and offered her a melancholy smile. "Like I said… some things in life are too beautiful to approach… And some people just don't deserve to get too close to them." Liz opened her mouth to speak, but Reddington reached for her glass and stood. "You look like you could use a refill," he said lightly, with a practiced smile. "And there's a slice of tiramisu in there that's calling my name." Reddington wove his fingers around the stems of both glasses in one hand while he picked up the back of his chair with the other. "Take as much time out here as you'd like… dessert will be waiting for you whenever you're ready." Liz watched him retreat into the container and busy himself with dishes and dessert for a moment before turning her attention back to the night sky. With the North Star on her left, and the moon on her right, Liz sank back against the chair, unwilling to give up her view just yet.

#blacklist #Raymond Reddington #starry night #sun & moon

[starrdew]

@wardati:

( wished upon a star for CASSIE ROBINSON┊continued from ❥ )

i. Day drinking is not his day job. No it’s much deadlier then familiarizing your self with a bottle of gin. But his day job doesn’t taste as bitter and it doesn’t make him forget for a little while who he is. It just makes him feel worse, so he drinks anyway.

ii. He skips two weeks of yoga classes because Anda is good at breaking promises. Well maybe he never promised but somewhere along the lines he could go home breathing a little easier, sleep through a night without waking up restless, hear the beginning of her laugh in the middle of a quiet room and call it his nirvana, it’s as close as he would ever get to meditation anyway. Sue him. He comes back with no explanation, he barely even thinks about his poses, he leaves ten minutes before the class is finished and convinces himself when he exits the double doors that she does not care. And that he does not care either.

iii.  It’s coke and whiskey. Another coke and whisky another shot of tequila and then another and another and then Anda finds himself walking down a familiar neighborhood. And then Anda is calling her. Pressing on all the buttons, knocking on all the doors ‘Comeoutcomeoutcomeoutcomeout’.  'Whereareyouwhereareyouwhereareyou’.He laughs when wrung out neighbors curse him out for waking them up at the umpteenth hour of the night. He runs to the next house and then the next till he finds hers.  

iv. He falls short when he actually see’s her. His mind blanks, the slick of silver courage and the run of luck evaporate the moment his body slumps against a wall. He covers his mouth as if he’s already said something to offend her. His presence he thinks, should be enough. It takes him a solid three minutes to realize he must form words to explain himself.

“Cassandra.” It comes out much more deeper, more concerned then he wants, so he tries again. “Cass I just.. wanted you…. to know that um sorry.” He nods to himself as if he’s cleared all misconceptions, this is a drunkards fairy tale.

“And that I don’t like that you’re really hard to read sometimes…. I mean, I’m good at it with everyone else but you’re a fucking steel bunker… a fallout shelter. I mean.. if a bomb exploded right now,” the dumbass makes a show of miming a bomb scattering from the sky and landing with a crushed noise he pulled his lips together to make, “you’d probably not even feel shit.”  

He laughs only a little, there’s no joy in his eyes. He knows that’s what he likes about her the most anyway (it frustrates him nonetheless). The silence between them grows and he nods again. “I should go…” He should. He will. Its early or it’s late he can’t tell but the sun will be up soon. Anda picks himself off the wall and puts one foot in front of the other. He rubs at his swollen cheeks before turning to her for the last time. “Yo..you you wanna watch the sunrise with me?”

It’s hard to not notice the absence of a tall, mouthy student in her class. But to say that she noticed that in any form or manner is to stroke his ego. He didn’t give her much of an opportunity to do that, or try to avoid doing it, today. He came in distracted and left in the same matter. It plagued her meditation space, and surely it did for the other regulars in the class as well. She’s used to opening her door to welcome people, but she can’t say the same for Anda. She can’t help someone who doesn’t open his doors to allow her in though. 

Some people open doors, while others drunkenly stumbles to the former. Anda falls into that latter category. 

The sound of her full first name signals that she’s in for a long ride. She crosses her arms as a way to strap herself in. This proves to be an interesting scene. He’s there, being Anda but enhanced with alcohol, on her “You are not what happens to you, but the choices you make” mat. And she’s here in her sleeping robe and headscarf out past midnight. A screenwriter can’t have a better set up than this.

She misses his joke completely. Laughter often indicates humor but she fails to pick up on the joke itself. The look on his face says that he missed his own joke as well. It’s a little concerning to say at the least. Leaving a man, particularly this man,  in this state to wander around at this time has to be a hazard–– Either to others or himself. Maybe both. 

“Come inside. Let’s get some water and ginger ale in you.” No promises are made, but he’s still her student even when he doesn’t deem it convenient for himself. Turning her back on him is irresponsible. “C’mon in,” she motions inside once she stepped aside to clear the pathway. 

Her nose wrinkles at the acrid stench of alcohol. She ducks her head and subtly fans her nose. He must have really been through it today. She doesn’t know what exactly his problem is, what he thinks he’s apologizing for, or what time it is in his head right now. Either way his aura is scrambled and he needs to relax before his head becomes any muddier. 

“Make yourself at home.”

#wardati #anda byun #cassie robinson #even better #she just ignores his question completely jsdsjsd

[spicynbachili1]

HyperX Cloud Alpha review | Rock Paper Shotgun

HyperX clearly have a factor about clouds – no, not that mopey RPG chap, however the true, white fluffy stuff you discover within the sky. I had fun with their wi-fi Cloud Flight headset earlier within the yr, as an example, however since then the variety of Clouds of their audio line-up appears to have grown exponentially. Right now, I’ve received the Cloud Alpha, which isn’t to be confused with the Cloud Revolver, Cloud Stinger, Cloud Earbuds or, certainly, simply the common Cloud.

What makes this gaming headset completely different from all the opposite Clouds on the market? In keeping with HyperX, the Alpha has the particular distinction of getting two chambers inside every audio driver to assist separate the bass from the mids and highs, which supposedly produces a cleaner, smoother sound than single-chamber headsets the place the whole lot is all mixed in. Is it sufficient to interrupt into our greatest gaming headset record, although? Let’s discover out.

I have to admit, I used to be all however able to crown the Cloud Flight as my gaming headset champion after I examined it again in January. Its battery life was virtually double that of my current favorite, the Steelseries Arctis 7, and its audio high quality was nigh-on similar. The one factor holding it again was the truth that it wasn’t fairly as snug because the competitors, a trait that, sadly, has made its method to the Cloud Alpha as effectively.

This will not be the case for everybody, after all. For causes unknown, my head is clearly a poor match for many over-ear headphones, because it looks as if 99% of all gaming headsets begin pinching the highest of my cranium after about 30 minutes. The Cloud Alpha’s reminiscence foam headband lasted just a little longer than that, however I nonetheless felt like I needed to readjust it now and again with the intention to preserve that preliminary stage of consolation.

It’s a disgrace, actually, as its big, 50mm fake leather-based earcups felt immensely smooth and plush towards my face and jaw for everything of my testing, and I’d have fortunately saved them there for hours. What’s extra, there’s loads of adjustment to be present in its quite pretty purple aluminium body, too, making it a great match for small and bigger head sizes alike. As I stated, others could discover the headscarf completely wonderful for lengthy durations of time, however for me it’s nonetheless nowhere close to as nice because the Arctis’ ski goggle design.

Fortunately, the remainder of the Cloud Alpha’s construct high quality is great. I do know black and purple are a bit ‘peak gamer’ lately, however the mixture of the purple stitching on the headscarf, the purple body and black, braided cables simply make this some of the enticing headsets I’ve seen in ages. It definitely appears like a £90 / $100 headset, and considerably extra upmarket than the plasticky Corsair Void Professional RGB, which is at present only a smidge cheaper. I additionally drastically want the Cloud Alpha’s onerous, matt (however ever so barely glittery) end to the smooth, rubbery contact of the costlier Arctis 7.

Talking of braided cables, the Cloud Alpha comes with not one, however two removable ones within the field. The primary is a mixed three.5mm audio jack with a built-in quantity management and microphone mute button, so you should use it along with your laptop computer, console and cellphone and whatnot, whereas the second is a twin three.5mm splitter to your PC, giving it much more versatility than the USB-based Void Professional RGB. What’s extra, the PC splitter truly pops onto the top of the primary cable, providing you with a complete wire size of three.3m to play with – helpful, in case your PC occurs to be related as much as your TV, as an example.

So how about these closed-back, twin chambers then? Nicely, whereas it’s tough to say precisely how effectively it’s isolating the bass from the remainder of the mids and highs on provide, there’s no denying the Cloud Alpha produces a wealthy, detailed soundscape when enjoying video games.

In Doom, for instance, the pumping background music sounded completely balanced towards my weighty Tremendous Shotgun blasts and the dripping viscera left over from busting in demon heads with my fist, and I by no means felt like something was being misplaced on the expense of one thing else. Equally, whereas the Cloud Alpha doesn’t technically have any particular digital encompass sound gubbins on board, I used to be nonetheless capable of pinpoint the place enemies had been coming from subsequent because of its exact demon loss of life rattles and correct fireball arcs swerving between every ear cup as I raced around the wilds of Mars.

You’ll discover the Cloud Alpha’s quantity curler and microphone mute button on its inline management.

The Cloud Alpha additionally made the hairs on the again of my neck rise up on finish after I listened to the opening sequence of Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice as effectively. Not solely did every voice in Senua’s head really feel prefer it was proper there behind me, whispering deep into my ear, however smaller particulars such because the mild drips of water from Senua’s boat and the rumbling thunder within the distance all labored collectively to supply a wealthy, immersive soundscape that basically enhanced the sport’s sense of menace and unease.

Final however not least, Last Fantasy XV sounded as pretty as ever, with the cries of Noctis and the remainder of his anime boy band coming by loud and clear over the teleporting zips, clanging swords and monstrous roars of battle. The sport’s orchestral rating was additionally superbly detailed, with the strings, drums, guitars and trumpets all complementing one another with out one muscling out one other.

As a extra normal listening headset, nevertheless, the Cloud Alpha’s crisp sense of readability began to collapse barely. Whereas Last Fantasy XV sounded nice in-game, for instance, enjoying its soundtrack by iTunes was noticeably muddier in tone. Piano sections particularly sounded just a little distorted in locations, no matter whether or not they had been enjoying on high of simply a few sparse strings, or an enormous mattress of accompanying bass devices.

The Cloud Alpha’s headband has fairly a decent pure arc, which can begin pinching these with barely wider heads

In actual fact, a number of recreation soundtracks I attempted sounded a bit cludge-like in locations, as if the headset had abruptly misplaced all of its earlier element and stability. Equally, vocals on rock and pop tracks had been nearly universally quieter than their respective backing tracks, making a number of my favorite music sound a bit off. That’s to not say it’s the worst factor I’ve ever heard, simply that it wasn’t fairly nearly as good as I used to be anticipating given its in-game efficiency.

The removable, flexible mic was additionally mildly problematic as effectively. Not solely did my PC fail to recognise there was a functioning microphone more often than not, however as soon as I had managed to get it working, I needed to flip the recording quantity all the way in which up in Audacity for it to even decide up what I used to be saying. There was additionally a good quantity of static current after I listened again to my vocal ramblings, however you may assist mitigate this by turning the general quantity down. Nonetheless, that’s not at all times what you need if you’re attempting to listen to what your mates are saying on the opposite finish if you’re enjoying on-line, so it’s possible you’ll simply must put up with it relying on how a lot noise there’s elsewhere.

For me, then, the HyperX Cloud Alpha simply falls in need of true gaming headset greatness. Whereas there’s little to fault with its in-game audio efficiency, its mic and normal listening capabilities simply aren’t nearly as good because the equally priced Corsair Void Professional RGB, which may at present be had for £82 within the UK and simply $66 within the US. By all means go for it in order for you a wise, well-made headset that’s purely for taking part in video games and nothing else, however at this value the Corsair continues to be my headset of alternative.

from SpicyNBAChili.com http://spicymoviechili.spicynbachili.com/hyperx-cloud-alpha-review-rock-paper-shotgun/

[dunmerofskyrim]

Intermission: Marked, Part 7

It dawns slow as a Winter day, a crawling, yawning thing. And it comes over me not as some new knowledge, but as the slow flowing in of something old. I know what’s going to happen, but don’t yet know what it is. What I feel is this: I am deep within the grasp of something, and have been for some time.

I don’t tell Simra. I don’t know that I could explain if I did. And I think he already thinks I’m mad – half-mad at least – and talking to him about this would wax the crescent moon of my madness full.

But it makes it easier to carry on. He thinks perhaps I’ve pulled myself together. In truth I’ve only given myself up to something, and it pulls me forward, and onward, with all the slow force and weight of a rising tide.

I wonder if this kind of knowing is how it started for Nanrahamma, when she started seeing forward in time as well as sideways and a little backwards like the rest of us. I ask myself if it’s my inheritance from her. Or perhaps her working through me, now she’s gone to join our Ghostline.

But I can’t feel my ancestors here. Only the low idiot hum of the Ghostline that I made, years ago. Only my own past, and the ghosts of who I’ve been. Former selves; skins upon shed skins. I think: We all become our present selves by flaying off the past. All but Simra, who it clings to, grain-deep, bone-deep — memory stored in his marrow.

My thoughts come strange. I don’t tell Simra. I don’t know that I could explain if I did.

Walking, we come to a kind of shrine. It’s set into an alcove, off from the tunnel’s main run, crowded with earthenware jars; cramped with kreshweave sacks.

“A place to pray,” I say to him and me, and myself and the stone. “To ask for an end to the storm that’s trapped you down here.”

Simra makes a close-mouthed sound. It means he is taking note; taking interest. “Think we ought to? While we’re here?”

“No…” I decide after a moment. “Dunmer of the Houses speak to the gods too lightly. This shrine is to them. Our eldest ancestors…”

It’s a hole carved out from the brick and daub wall, three-sided, and with fetishes to each of the three Good Daedra hanging from braided threads within. Its faces are stained with ages of smoke. Its bottom is littered with bowls — for the burning of incense, or the leaving of other things? I wonder if this is, in its way, a shrine to her now. The Sadras must leave her food — offerings of one kind or another, besides silence and solitude.

“I was only joking, I think.”

“Oh.”

“Besides, it’s a different kind of storm we’re weathering, right? Down here. It’s different reasons that’ve put us in the dark.” Simra doesn’t speak with malice, only unease. “Just wish we didn’t have to be. I’d take daylight or nightdark over this any time. Least with sun or stars I’d have some magicka flowing back for what I let go...”

I think: His magic is stored up inside him like oil, ready to burn, but gone when it’s gone. I have taught mine to be a slow-flowing spring, even away from the lights of the sky.

He let his magelight blink out hours ago, thinking to save what shreds of power he has left. Now we’re bathed in nothing but the colours of mine — bright moonlight seen through ocean water. It takes the edge from his features. He seems softer, shy, and tired.

We carry on, washed in green and stained with blue.

Silence reigns for a long-walking while.

“I didn’t think it’d be like this.” When Simra speaks again, it’s careful, turned and turned like clay at the potter’s wheel. He has been considering it as we walked on together, in dark and in silence.

I ask him: “What did you think it would be like?”

“Different. More…lined up with me.” One hand slips down to fidget at the hilt of his sword and he thumbs free a fingerswidth of blade. “Find your punarigash. Stop her. And whatever shamblers she’s got bound to her — stop them from stopping you stopping her.”

“You expected swordwork then? Simple work?”

“I expected to feel useful,” he mutters. “I’m no good here. Not to you.”

He is stooped by the slouched low ceiling. He squints into the black, giving out his attention into it and always dreading expectant that it will give something back. I am small, built well for these stormtunnels, and need not hunch as he does. I am well-used to the failings of sight and long ago learnt not to lean on it.

“Is that how you’ve lived then? Five years?” I say. “The work you’ve done? These use you’ve seen?”

“Not entirely. There’s more than one string to my harp. Just…I noticed plucking on one drew better crowds, paid better coin.” He lets go a dry sniff of laughter. “More applause…”

It’s a strained strange idiom, not native to the tongue we speak, but once I comb it out I am not surprised by its meaning. The way he sees himself, he is good for nothing else. Seeing him otherwise falls to me, and others perhaps… I wonder if there are others. What friends has he had these past five years? Has he been loved? Or has he been as I have? Two feet in the dust; one line of steps; the wind blowing them clean before any can follow or find where they lead.

“You’ve been a killer then?”

“D’you ever stop being one once you’ve started?”

“Please…” I know his deflections and know to deflect them.

“Fuck…” He sighs. “How’ve we not had this conversation before now? Do we really have to? Here?”

I consider keeping quiet. But no — need is need. “It helps,” I say. “It’s good to have one voice to listen to. Otherwise my senses search for others. I get strained thin.”

“Fuck…” he says again. “I’ve been a sellsword, yes. There were times I was something else. Set myself up as a scrivener once or twice, believe it or not, writing for people who couldn’t. Letters, contracts, deeds. Things people wanted copied any number of times. That was early days — good practice back when my Dunmeris was still a mess. But other than that? Hiring out as a show of force, bounty work… Short-term soldiering if I had to but…fuck it, I’d sooner scull pots.” He pauses. “There were fucking…extenuating circumstances, right? I needed the money quick. It paid. Now — right or left?”

We come to a fork. An unlit lantern is bracketed to the wall ahead. Simra knows by now to be quiet as I choose. I reach out, feeling our way ahead in the dark. The thread has grown stronger. A texture of sound that spools and draws — a beckoning building certainty. I walk right and he follows.

“Way I see it and from what I know – and sure that’s rumours and half-truths, half-talk – what your life’s made of’s not much different. Not on the face of it. Some outpost has problems with a living breathing bleeding fucker, they band together, save up, pay me to put out their problem. Same lot have problems with something dead? They hope you’ll hear eventually, and you do, and they – what? – have you over for dinner? Leave you milk and honey in a dish to lap up by moonlight? Tsscht. Difference is that I know my price and take it in coin. You? You take what you’re given.”

“It’s not so simple,” I say. Duty has no price. The gifts are part of the path, but the path is a purpose is a prize in itself, for hearing the dead and being heard by them is a trackless land to be lost in…

“Clearly,” Simra kisses his teeth. “This job though… I get the feeling it’s muddier than most. If it was simple…” He tails off.

I glance at his face, sidelong, side-on. He goes on my left. I see the ragged tear through the lobe of his right ear; the broken bridge of his nose. His eyes turn tired towards me. I wither my gaze away. He has slept a little since his stint in bringing us here, but that debt is far from paid in full. Still, I think: It’s enough. Still, I think: It’s time.

And I try to explain, to myself as much as to him. I say in broken terms that we’re here as much to undo my sin as to stop the sacrilege of another. He makes me start from the beginning. And I realise there is none. I don’t remember where I first picked up this trail and started to follow. Startless, ceaseless, and no end in sight.

…

“Remember,” she says. “Remember why we came here. It was never for the weather, was it? Nor the food, nor the sweet voices of bleating milk-skins. Was it? D’you remember why, Tam?”

I look into her face. Her age has never been a certain thing. Not like Tanet and Nanrahamma — she wears it on the inside.

She places a hand on my shoulder and shuffles on her knees to my side. “It was so we could remember, freely, who we are. Know who we are and keep being it.” With deft hands she begins to braid my hair.

“Nan and Tan say I don’t know yet. That I need to learn or else I’ll stay being nothing.”

“Nanra and Tan are too old to know otherwise. They can’t remember what it’s like to be young and not-sure and waiting to be certain.” Her voice is a humming lullaby, when she speaks and when she’s speechless. Now it sounds like sharing secrets. “You were born who you are, Tam. It’s always been in you.” She touches a finger to my chest, my brow. “It’s forgetting that’s the problem. You need to learn not to forget.”

…

“You spent weeks stuck staring at my face after that. After Bodram. Shit luck on your part,” Simra rubs his fingertips against the corner of his mouth. Jaw loose, it stretches the flesh of his cheek hollow and his scars show silver as starlight. “But did you once in all that while see me bat a lash over what you did?”

I shake my head. No. He stayed. I remember his face. The first time I saw it after Bodram lay behind us, his features were puzzled into something like amazement — adoration born from awe. Now he wears soft disbelief where they hung before. But no judgement.

“What did I know?” he continues. “Not enough to have qualms to hold against you. I knew what I saw, and knew fuck-all else.”

I make a small noise in the back of my mouth. An objection that wasn’t quite born before it became a whimper.

“You saved dozens of lives and only used what was already lost.” He says it so firm it’s almost a growl. His hands twitch, flutter, clench, then fan out. “Imagine a shipwreck. A ship founders up on an island. Those that don’t drown are stranded, nothing but black rocks and broken ship and washed up bodies to live by. And they know they’ll die. Starve. Or, fuck it, there’s sea all around and if there’s no rain then thirst’ll get them long before. Now imagine someone takes all the loss and the wreckage and turns it into hope. They build a raft from the broken bits of ship. Who in their right mind would tell them, ‘No, better we all die than live with that disrespect’? Say they use the corpse-gas bloated bodies for fucking flotation! Who gives a fuck? Not the survivors. Not the ones it saved!”

But they followed me. They followed as I walked with the run of the river. As they froze and coughed and carried on. And Old Ebonheart grew from the distance and crowded closer. Delta, mainland and island, then island, then island, spilt beads on a broken string. The landbridge over Scathing Bay, where the water boiled and the winds blew hard, and the voices of the dead rose and scalded me like steam…

“But I failed them,” I say. “In the end I failed them.”

“But first you saved them,” Simra hisses. “First you let them live.”

But who They are is a wide-open wound. The followers I fooled and scattered when I had to turn back. My shamed ancestors. The Ghostline I birthed and abandoned. And Simra was gone by then — not there to see us shatter. I thought if the reason was right then whatever I did could never be wrong. But the path I led them down went nowhere but back on itself. And the sin of what I did was deeper than I let myself know…

“I did something worse than I thought,” I say, and my voice comes flat and hard as slate, resigned with the ring of prophecy. “And I saved less in doing so than I’d hoped.”

“And that’s why we’re here now? Duty means you have to undo what you did?”

“Yes.”

“Like duty back then meant you had to do it in the first place? Tsscht. Sounds like your duty needs to make its mind up. Get its priorities solid.”

I begin to cry. I choke back a sob and three more take its place, coughing up from my clenching lungs to foam on the twist of my lips. There are tears, hot on my stinging cheeks — a language saying something too torn and fluid and everyway-pulled to ever be put to words.

“Oh fuck. Oh fuck, no, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—… What’s wrong? Hey. Look at me, I’m sorry, what’s wrong?”

Me, all along, for all I know. The purpose all my life and learning has been wrapped around til now. “I don’t know!”

“Please, Tammu…” Panic enters Simra’s voice. “Not here. Not now!”

“I’ve lost it…”

“Lost? No. No no no, not down here.”

“…don’t know anymore.”

“No. Listen. Listen to me. Religion or not, what you did was good. The bravest best maddest most selfless fucking thing I’ve ever known anyone to do, and if you had to feel like you sold part of yourself to do it? Give up a bit of what makes you feel right? All the fucking more so, Tam! That’s why they followed you. That’s why I came back looking for you.” His voice cracks. His dialect slips. “Because you’re good! You’re kind. And you tell yourself it’s all just inevitable obligatory crowshit – the dead needing their dues – but it’s the living you’re helping! Every fucking time! They’re the ones deserve you, ‘cos the dead don’t give a fuck..!”

I feel fingers against my cheeks and fingers in my hair and I know they can’t be his. I hear a lullaby, swimming my mind away from itself. A sinking feeling, like sleep.

…

“We Velothi,” she begins. “What do we do for our dead?”

I know the answer. Rehearsed, I recite it: “We give them to the flames, the wind, the waters.”

“Why?”

To this I have no answer ready. I struggle. “So they don’t go to the Void? We make them a part of something big. Something deathless, so they can never die?”

“Yes and no, Tam… You know it’s not just fire, wind, and water. The Urshilaku and inland Ahemmusa have their bone-caves and put their dead deep, in mountains, cliffs, and gullies. Vereansu like me? We give our dead to the sky. And d’you know why that is? I’ll tell you, little one. We make them part of things that’re constant in our lives so that they’re with us, constantly. Ready to aid and advise, and ready to catch us if we fall, because the Void is hunger and wants nothing but to eat, and eat, and eat…”

I frown. “I don’t understand.” I let myself say it, knowing that she is not Nanrahamma or Tanet, who would grow frustrated, pinch my flesh, lose hope in my future. But Noor lets me ask questions. She has always asked many of her own.

…

Inevitability, running the joints and joists of my limbs and straightening the paths of my mind. The feeling of formless knowing grows. From formlessness it tries on shapes. Some are familiar, others strange. It wants to push forward. I want to linger on. It’s good to lie down.

I am curled on my side, no longer being held. My back is to a wall, safe-feeling and solid, and my eyes are turned on Simra. He crouches like he does, sitting on his bunched thighs and calves so as not to touch the ground. He leans against the tunnel’s back wall.

The world has gone red once more. My magelight must have gone out as I fell away from myself. His face is stiff and drawn with maintaining the glow. Wordless, I relieve it, giving out my own green-blue whisper. He nods thanks and lets his light go out. The nod remains, becoming a shallow bow. His head hangs down.

The angle of his face pulls away from me, bruised-herb bashful for what he said before. He’s buried his words and his passion already, ashamed at the outburst. I’ve held onto them, warm in my mind. I let myself look on his face.

“I watched your lips for weeks,” I say. “After Bodram. My bad luck, you told me. I learnt to read them, until I could tell how much time you’d already spent apologising for them. Stiff and twisted; like trying to listen to talk from a maimed tongue. But I listened and learned…”

I see his jaw clench and lax. I see his teeth work against his bottom lip. I put down an elbow, then a hand, and come to sit upright with legs tucked beneath me.

“I think I’d known you since Blacklight…”

“A few days after,” he remembers. “The night after we left New Soluthis, everyone either hungover or still drunk. Everyone able to be…”

“And you ask me, how long have I known what your marks mean? The insult written on your face. And I tell you now: it was almost as long as I’d known you. I read your face, and thought, ‘No, better I believe they mean nothing than that.’ The truth of your lying, written on you in script you were never taught to read… But even your name was a lie at first. The whole first stretch of my knowing you, I knew a lie. And I thought, ‘Perhaps it was a warning after all.’”

Simra takes a drink from his waterskin. Still his eyes are elsewhere, and his face turns hard with conflict.

“Let me go on,” I say. “A month or two I’d known you, but never looked you in the face longer than a moment, and I thought that was enough to read it. And then suddenly we were never apart. After Bodram, when we travelled on. We were so close it exhausted us both. Still we stayed together. Deaf and tongueless, I had to stare at your face to hear you speak in my mind. My mouth and my hands and the way my body spoke — you had to do the same. At first it felt like burning, seeing so much and being so seen. But then I grew to like the warmth.”

He’s turned to me. His lips part to talk.

“Please. Please, let me finish.” I break my eyes away from him and speak what’s left to the ceiling. “I want you to understand. The broken half of the marks at my mouth that say I’m One Who Speaks. The not-completed copy you wear — I thought that meant, One Who Half-Speaks. One Who Speaks Half-Truths. The broken half of the marks I remember my sister wore, at your eye, I thought meant you were One Who Half-Sees. One Whose Eyes Are Ignorant. Do you see..? I’m sorry… But do you see?”

“I don’t see why you’re telling me this.” His voice lays open as a wound.

“Because I was wrong. I think I was wrong. I remember you used to tell me the things I couldn’t sense. What the other travellers spoke about — stories they told. The voices of the stones as the river ran over them. The sound of the sea as we drew close. And it came to me: a new sense of what the marks your mother gave might mean. Both marks were halved to show they were two parts of the same whole. A sentence. I wondered if maybe they might mark you as One Who Speaks As They See. One who records and reports. Do you see? Not a clan- or harrowmark known to me, or perhaps to anyone else, but…it suits you.”

Simra frowns. A hand goes to his neck, touching and gripping. I see the knuckles flex white in thought. “A hoarder and teller of tales..? Someone who collects and gives out stories?” A crack opens in his voice, then closes, hiding itself. “…That’s better. Much better. Thank you.”

We sit in silence after that, until the time comes again to stand.

…

Deflated domes and broken spires. We shelter in the long lean-to of a half-collapsed porchway. A mosaic of scattered rooftiles splays across the courtyard. Cracked pillars of scented wood. Shadows still scorched onto the outside walls.

We had thought Bodram was a ruin. I had thought it was full of ghosts. What’s left of Old Ebonheart is worse. And this is only the outskirts. We are still on the mainland.

Simra and I sit. Our backs are to a fallen statue that wind and grit have smoothed faceless into a menhir.

There is meat. The Vereansu have good hunters among them. They killed a kagouti and brought me a choice share of its tender cheeks, roasted over stones that Simra’s helped them to heat. And the course along the River Balda was good earth once, patched with croplands — millet on the high grounds, wickwheat in the low. The once-tame crops broke free long ago with no-one to tend them. We gathered wild grain as we came. So there is grain too, cooked in bone-broth.

But by night the chills come down. We huddle for warmth around fire-warmed flame-bleached stones.

Even Simra curls into my side as I curl over him, smaller, cooler, wrapped about the heated core of him. He stifles himself and goes sleepless, all his thoughts taken up with willing himself to just be still — silent breathing, stammering heart.

I am almost asleep when he uncurls. The dark is total but I hear him speak.

“You’re shivering.”

After touch, hearing is the next to return, among the things that Bodram tore  from me. I can’t feel my toes or my fingers. A weird white heat fills my bones. Beyond that, there’s only his eyes on me, useless in the dark. They are a kind of warmth, alongside the share of nameless flesh he’s left, faint-pressed against me.

My voice is still gone. My lips shape the words, ‘I’m sorry’, before I remember he won’t see them.

It starts like a long-drawn note, serrating through me. Something I’ve not felt in so long, but failed to forget for all the times I’ve relived it. A bookshop in the Grey Quarter; Senvalis, and the lock of dark hair that always escaped his topknot. Atadi’s gleaming arms and the smooth crease of her cheeks when she smiled. The last I saw of Talhril; his sleeping face.

My lips part now as they long to be parted against. I have no voice to ask him.

Something comes flat across my hip, then flexes down to fit its form. A hand, long-fingered, unsteady. I hear his breath almost make words, but in the end there comes nothing but air, on my cheeks and eyelashes as his face nears mine.

Like picking up a pot still hot from the fire, the touch lasts only as long as he can bear it. He snatches away his hand, and turns away. With his back to me, he tries to sleep.

My lips make the words again: ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry.’ I would have said yes.

In the morning, Winter reigns. Frost lies stiff on our clothes, and the wind off the sea is fanged with unseen ice.

…

His sword is drawn and levelled at the darkness. My magelight gives the metal a dull and inward gleam, like clouds have when hiding a pair of shining moons.

“Fucking saw something…” he hisses.

I feel her around me so strong now that it’s like a storm, a downpour. A beckoning welcoming openness. I can’t sense shifts or subtleties for all the force of her noise and my eyes are too bad to rely on. Instead I help Simra to see.

The magelight throbs, welling up with a soft pulse of sound and light. Its glimmering heart stays hovering still, but the pool of light it throws moves flowing forward, along the tunnel ahead. A wave of liquid light that breaks and dies after probing the darkness.

“There! See that? Something moved.”

“What kind of something?”

“Low. Hunched down.” Simra grimaces. “Size of a man maybe, but not moving like one. Shambler, maybe? A hand of hers, like you said last time?”

“Maybe…” Was it sent to watch or catch? Hand or eye? I handle the thought with care, working to build and complete it…

“Tsscht. Only surprised it’s taken this long. Just need to be ready for when the fuckers get braver… D’you have weapons? Armour? If you do, now’d be the time.”

My hand goes to my side, where Josket hangs at my belt. Flint and horn, bone and hair. “I’ll be fine,” I say.

I think: There’ll be no call for them. Perhaps, perhaps… I’ve known for longer than I’ve known this. Perhaps, perhaps… The pieces come together. Still, I don’t ask Simra to sheathe his sword. I don’t think she’ll hurt us now. She’s had her chances and hasn’t, with us crawling deep along the strands of her web. I try not to think that we must hurt her, all the same…

“Not far now,” I say to Simra.

“You’ve been saying that for days.”

“It’s grown truer every time.”

“So how true is it now, really?” He talks more than he needs to, when his nerves pull tight.

“Not far.”

The chamber where we find her is no different from the rest of the tunnels and rooms we’ve passed through. Only size sets it apart. Even then, it’s no bigger than the cornerclub room we rented and slept in, but webs off in half a dozen split directions, tunnel by tunnel off from its heart. A slow gentle dome forms its ceiling — yurtlike, I think. Yes, I see why she would choose this chamber.

Her body is here but she’s elsewhere. Everywhere, perhaps, except inside the hunched down bundle that sits, legs crossed, in the room’s dark middle. The room’s air reeks of hunger and neglect.

Simra prowls the chamber’s slim perimeter. His legs are bunched, half-crouching. His sword is held ready in uneasy fingers. He expected urgency — a fight and then victory. This still and tomblike hush gnaws at him.

He looks at me, pointed and questioning. His eyes have gone wide and quick again, like he’s deep-gone into the grips of guljana again. And, expecting a fight, perhaps he has. Or perhaps it’s only uncertainty.

I shake my head and make of my face a soft calm mask. I go to my knees and sit before her as he stares at me, incredulous.

Coat and tassel-hemmed shawl, threadbare guar blanket. String on string of beads hang rank as waterlogged moor-ropes around her bird-scrawny neck and shoulders. Under them, she has wasted with stillness and starved down til nearly nothing remains. Her face is tilted down and covered by long-draping hair. Once it had all the brown shine of wood made precious and polished by age, but now is knotted and haggard with grey. Hidden face and change-bleached hair, I still know her, like I knew I would know her, like I know now that I have all along…

“Blessings on you, Noor.”

I feel a shift of the air around us. A presence congeals from the chamber’s stale space. I close my eyes and bow my head, mirroring her.

“Tammu?” Simra’s voice comes close to panic.

It rides over the growing plague of sound that comes from the chamber’s edges and side-tunnels. Slithering, dragging, dry and breathless motion.

“You know her?! Tammu..!”

I hear a kindling sound. The roaring whisper of newborn flames.

“Don’t!” I hiss. “Do not move. Do not speak. Do not listen, do not see.”

His obedience is a muteness amidst what follows. A pestle-and-mortar grinding and wing-flap leathern sigh as things that need not breathe try to shape air into speech.

“And blessings on you, sweet brother…” It is whisper, shout, and grumbling roar. Simra’s breath stutters beneath it. “What news of the world you’ve been walking?”

When the dead speak in the world of the living, it’s never so sweet as in the minds of the wise. I know this, and do not cringe as Simra does.

“The air is cool and the wind cold, but the sun is warm and kind. It’s almost Winter, Noor. The mountain streams here are skinny with coming ice.”

“I had thought—…” the dead voices begin to say. “I’d thought it was Summer still. Tam… Sweet brother, I was so warm. You’ve brought the Winter with you, little one. So bright and white and cold…”

“I’ve brought the world back to you, Noor. The feeling changing world.”

“The merciless cold. The driving rain. My deafened mind. Or did their tongues fall silent..?”

“You’re young. There’s blood yet in your heart. Breath yet in your chest. You’ve left yourself behind too soon. And not for your own ancestors, but for this… My mistake. Why?”

“I have no ancestors!” The voices lash out in a chorus of snapping sinews, plucked nerves, shattered bone. “I couldn’t hear them. Not in the wind or the flames. Not in my dreams. Nothing. I’d forgotten the quiet I knew as a child… They abandoned me. And in their silence I heard the Void.”

“You were afraid…”

“I knew what waited without them! No Ghostline to tie me to this world..!”

“This is no Ghostline, Noor. There’s no honour or ancestry in this. No reverence working both ways.” Her words clench and claw at my heart. It’s hard to speak soft and calm, but I must. Like to a child…

“It’s all I have!”

“Then all you have, you’ve stolen. Pieces of family, scraps of memory, braided in to strengthen what I left behind — the sin you taught me to commit…”

“Yes. Yes. What you left behind. You were here – family – all I had now, here in the Ghostline you made for me. A hope. I had hoped you would come. Join me. I had hoped…”

The voices fall into canon and disarray. They speak out of time, muddling their words. The confusion tears at her, piece by fragmented piece.

“You hoped and I came,” I say. “I’m here with you, in life. Join me.”

I put my palms together and open them out. My magelight comes back reborn. My eyes open a moment before hers. Noor’s head lifts, stiff and weak and slack. She is One Who Sees, say the marks round her eyes. She is One Who Mourns, say the lines down her cheeks. She is One Who Heals, say the marks on her lower lip. Her hollow face looks into mine, and I look to Simra, who stands with his sword poised.

“Now,” I tell him.

“No.”

“What? Now, I said — kill her!”

“Ghosts and bones, I said no! I won’t!”

“Tam…” Noor’s voice creaks from her mask-fixed face. “Please..?”

Shadows creep beyond the light I cast. Dessicated muscle moves rasping over bones. Her confusion turns to fear. Her cornered panic shows in the shadows and shapes of the dead, even if not yet in her stiff face or small cold voice.

My hand goes quick inside my clothes and closes round the warm bone hilt of my knife.

“Tam, listen…”

My heart catches and wrenches, furious to be heard as I try not to hear it. Before, I thought I could surprise myself — do it before the feeling rushed in, fingers tight and teary-eyed-hot round my wrist. But my knife-hand comes up. A stinging crash of pain meets it on the way, jolting the blade from my fingers.

“Tammu!”

I yelp, a moment late. Simra has struck me with his blade. The hand is still whole. How? The flat, then. Even so, there are tears smarting at the corners of my eyes. My wrist swells, filling up with ache.

“Why not?” My voice comes broken and childish. “I must! I have to!”

“Why the fuck must you!? To punish your sister or fix your own fuck-up?”

“To free the dead she’s bound to her!” I sob. I don’t want to, but I will, but don’t want to, but when has what I want ever joined with what I have to do..?

“Please… You’ll set them loose,” Noor croaks. “The Void, without me... It’ll be the Void. For them and for me. That’s not freedom. I preserved them. Please…”

“Please…” I whimper.

“Listen,” Simra hisses. “Listen!” And his hand closes round the collar of my smock, yanking me away, onto my back and onto the ground. His face snarls close to mine. “A stranger, I could understand, but this? This’ll tear you to pieces! I won’t let it. I won’t let you.”

“Why?” The sound is almost soundless.

“Because I need you, or her, and if you kill her then I’ll have as good as neither, you sanctimonious duty-bound holy-hobbled little—”

“Tammu?” Noor’s voice cuts through the chaos, stilling my struggle and Simra’s restraints. “A story. I want to know if you remember. I want to know… Do you remember why the Vereansu give so much to the sky?” Slow and staggering, she finds her strength. “Burnt offerings and the smoke of our fires; the steam of our breath in Winter and the souls of our dead when they die… Do you remember why I told you? It’s to get what the sky will give us in return. So that it will show us the sun. So it will grant us rain. A story, only a story, but it teaches something I tried so hard to teach you…”

“‘Why make Ghostlines at all?’ you asked me. ‘What are they for? Why do we give them the gifts we do?’”

“And I told you what Nanra and Tan never would. That we give to them so they’ll give back. That Ghostlines are for the living. They give a wisewoman her wisdom, to help the clan. They give a warrior strength. But to all Dunmer, Velothi or not, they give the gift we made them for: they wait to welcome us, with us always, so Dunmer may live without fearing death. We catch the dead, and keep them from the Void, so in time they will do the same for us. Even so, they lose themselves with age. Who’s to say they’re really their selves any longer—”

“Punarigash heresy. Is that why you outcast yourself?” I ask, soft. “From Nanrahamma and Tanet and me?”

“They outcast me! I asked questions. Believed it was better to find ways to help the living than blindly serve the dead. I tried to teach you those ways – old ways and new – and they sent me walking. Cut me from my Ghostline. Can you imagine the terror..?”

Simra nods. “I was born with it. I lived with it. I don’t want to die with it too, knowing there’s nothing but nothing after. I’d’ve fixed it too, like you, if I knew how. From you or from her or by any means — that’s…that’s all I wanted.”

I look at him now, knowing the answer he refused to give me. This is why he needed me. This is why he returned.

Noor sees him too, in a new and blazing light. “Can you still not understand?” she turns to me and asks. “Do you still blame me for questioning the old ways when they would have had you kill your mother’s own daughter?” Hope shines in her eyes. She looks just as I remember her. Almost, almost… “And for what? I saved the fading dead and gave them safety. Peace!”

My tongue knots, dry and wooden; a choke-solid line of indecision down my throat.

“I only want what she wanted,” Simra says. “What you and all the others have. For you to find my Line and bind me into it. To not be afraid anymore…”

“I wiped away the blood that made this place reek and kept it a ruin, and I gave its people back their homes! That choice was mine and you think your ancestors would see me damned for it? What else have they made you do, Tam? Would your ancestors ever have asked this of you in life? Did death make them cruel, or make them something new, no longer themselves?”

“I came to you because I knew you. You don’t just serve the dead. You help the living. Always and every fucking time, Tammu. The secret beating heart, kind at the core of all your fucking duty…”

His sword is sheathed again. He has leant his weight from off me once more. They fall silent. In their quiet I could reach for my waist and call Josket: the sivami spirit I made to protect me from the living — to hurt and kill them, so I would never be hurt again. But Josket has tasted too much blood. And I have missed Noor too much, missed Simra too much, years and all these years. I have walked so long, serving the dead, I forgot that love is for the living. The dead asked no favours but that I forget myself. Starve, go sleepless, suffering in service.

I wonder if Noor has always been right… I will give her a chance to be. I will give myself a chance not to be alone.

“Will you come with us?” I ask her. “To the Grazelands. Is that right?” I turn to Simra. “The Grazelands? You are Zainab, aren’t you?”

“I hope to be,” he says. “If we go. If you’ll help me.”

“Will you come?” I ask again, hoping, needing Noor. I’ll be weak with my choices being only my own. I am small when I’m only myself. “Or is this your place now? With your clan..?”

Her neck dips, halfway between a nod and a bow. “Without me, they are only bones.” The creeping shapes we tried not to see sink from the edges of our vision, the limits of my light, and slip into silence. “But the Line will linger, waiting, and a whisper of it will come with me. Besides, you were part of it, from the root. You and they are all the clan I have now. I’ll come…” She stands, a slow unbending of whining limbs.  “What was it you said? About the sun?”

“Warm,” I say. “And kind.”

The intermission ends here. Simra’s adventures will resume in the upcoming third part of his story which may or may not end up being called Forth and Back.

#TES #Morrowind #Dunmer #Tammunei Ereshkigal #Simra Hishkari #SH Intermission 1 #SH new canon