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#because then the seagulls descended

notjustjavierpena · 6 months

Note

Oops, I accidentally sent the request before actually typing it, lol

Here we go again:

The family is away for summer vacation and reader bumps into an old high school boyfriend of hers at the beach while Javi is playing with the kids (making an adorable mess with sand castles), and he sees it at some distance and get super jealous about it, but only get to talk to her about it after dinner when the kids are asleep in their hotel room. Idk, something about that with obviously make up sex for reader to show him how much she’s all his and etc

Random thoughts, I know, but I’m sure you’ll be able to work magic with this

Sand

Series Masterpost | Main Masterpost

A/N: Hi hi hi, and so sorry for the wait. I hope this fulfils your heart’s desires, my friend. Thank you for following my work ❤️

Summary: You bump into your high school sweetheart on holiday and Javier is not a fan.

Pairing: Javier Peña x Reader/You (No y/n)

Tags: +18 smut, jealousy, javi is whipped for reader, dirty talk, piv sex, rough sex, bit of roleplay, creampie, use of papi, possessiveness, aren’t they just the cutest?

Word count: 3.1k

Link to this work on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/51262198

Sand

Children’s laughter travels through the air to meet your ears along with the sound of a soft summer breeze, making you put down the book that you’ve been holding in your hands. It’s impossibly sunny hence why you’ve decided to hold up the book, shielding its pages from the rays, and the skin of your back glistens with sweat. There are seagulls in the air, busy noises from families around you, and the therapeutic push and pull of the waves.

Beside you, you have a glass of strawberry lemonade and in front of you, you have a view of your husband enthusiastically digging moats around the various sandcastles that have been scattered across your chosen spot on the beach. You feel refreshed and relaxed; just how you’re supposed to feel on your vacation during the hottest days of summer.

It had been Javier’s idea to go away for a week to your hometown. You are thankful for his suggestion because you would never have voiced your wish for a break out loud yet he had sensed it despite your silence.

You’ve visited your parents, yes, but the majority of days have been spent on the beach where you’ve gotten some quality time with yourself. Javier has managed to tire out both of your kids with endless activities, and the evenings have been filled with long, slow kisses on the hotel room balcony. You have hoped for more but a shared hotel room means that you will have to keep everything PG-13.

“Look, Mommy!”

Your thoughts are interrupted by Inés’ excited shout. She has placed seashells on the biggest of the sandcastles’ walls, making them imitate grand windows.

“They’re beautiful, baby,” you praise adoringly.

Lucas is by the shore with a bucket, filling it with water for the moats. He beams at you when he returns, and you smile right back at your beautiful boy.

“Remind Papá to take a picture of you when you’re finished,” you say loudly for Javier to hear as well. He looks back at you, grinning with genuine joy and happiness but you’re too busy staring at his happy trail just above the hem of his bathing shorts. He notices.

“What’re you looking at?” He winks.

“Nothing,” you say back and shoo him, holding up your book for show, “Go keep an eye on your offspring, Dad. I’m very busy.”

The day continues. You manage to go through a few more chapters, occasionally watching Javier over the top of your book as he is enjoying himself.

And then it is late afternoon but the sun is nowhere near descending yet. You are interrupted in your reading by a shadow above you, and you don’t manage to catch yourself as you automatically tell Javier off, “Honey. You’re standing right in front of the great big reading lamp in the sky.”

The shadow laughs and then you realize it isn’t your husband. You look up to stare at a familiar face anyhow, and your face grows hot. With quick motions, you put your book down and push yourself to stand.

“Jonathan!” You exclaim in what you hope is a calm and collected voice. You know it is a possibility, being in your hometown, that you run into your high school ex-boyfriend but it still catches you off guard.

“You mean ‘honey’ right?” Jonathan jokes. You laugh politely and awkwardly, and despite the ring on his finger, Jonathan doesn’t seem to back down. He hugs you, splaying his large palm on your back - right under where your bikini top sits.

Afterward, he gives you a once over with his eyes, and out of the corner of your eye, you spot Javier glancing in your direction.

“God, you look well,” Jonathan continues, “Still in Laredo?”

“Still in Laredo,” you confirm, curling your toes into the warm sand. Jonathan looks almost exactly the same; blond, wide-eyed, and pale. He still sports a t-shirt with a print of a ‘70s band logo on the front that you remember him buying when it was cool.

You realize that you haven’t done anything to make conversation, quickly adding, “And you? You haven’t aged a day.”

“Never escaped, teachin’ at our old school,” he shrugs. He eyes Inés and Lucas but only briefly, turning back to you when he realizes that you are here with a man too. Javier is throwing daggers his way but for once, he has no intention of interrupting which is fair since he would have to leave his children unattended for the time it took to play macho.

“Course you are,” you smile genuinely. It suits him perfectly to be one of the people who keep the cycle of the quiet town alive, even if it is by simply replacing your old teachers, “And the ring? I couldn’t help but notice that we’re both married.”

Jonathan tells you briefly about his wife and kids. You don’t actually care, but he lights up as he speaks about his two daughters and that’s the most important thing in this whole conversation. He has a dreamy look in his eyes as he finishes, “And to think we thought it would be us.”

By instinct, you reach out to touch his arm and then you giggle softly because the image of the two of you getting old together is absurd. You have everything you need in Javier Peña… Who is fuming without you noticing.

You hug Jonathan goodbye and the rest of the afternoon is suspiciously quiet.

Inés and Lucas fall asleep quickly, exhausted from the amount of fresh air they’ve breathed in today. Outside the sky is turning rose-colored from the evening catching up on you; the sunset will be long and beautiful. But you don’t want beauty with how much tension is between the two of you.

You are brushing your teeth side-by-side in the hotel bathroom. It’s been a tight-lipped dinner. You honestly just want to go to sleep so you can start over tomorrow.

Javier finishes brushing his teeth first. He waits for you, looking like someone who is contemplating whether to say something or not.

You finish brushing your own teeth just as he finally makes a decision, off-handedly throwing a remark at you.

“You sure were friendly with Jonathan earlier,” he says simply.

You let out a long sigh, stepping away from the sink after putting away your toothbrush, “Jesus, Javi, I knew this would happen.”

“What?” He leans against the sink.

“You don’t have to act like a fucking… I don’t know. It is every damn time a guy even looks at me - and it’s just not very attractive,” you are exhausted.

“Excuse me for liking you to myself,” he looks away, “I like having you alone.”

You decide on something at that moment.

“You already have me. Don’t you know?” You ask in a voice close to a purr. Javier raises a brow in annoyance, but you don’t give in to a fight so easily. Instead, you go to close and lock the bathroom door.

“Know what?” He asks impatiently.

“That you’re the only one?” You watch him standing against the sink counter. He doesn’t look as annoyed after those words but he still isn’t overly impressed with your actions earlier. There’s no way that he doesn’t know what clicking the lock means though. If only he knew the power you have over him, the power that you’re soon to make a display of.

You cross the room to stand in front of him. You tilt your chin upwards to look up at his face but his eyes stray from yours the second you catch them. He can get so pissy sometimes, a part of the game, but you’ll take the challenge especially when you haven’t had his cock inside of you for a week. At this point, your core aches for him.

Gently, you put two fingers under his chin and pull it down towards his chest so he is forced to look at you. Your smile is sweet as honey, “Thoughts of you keep me up all night sometimes. Hot and bothered, legs barely knowing what to do.”

There’s a pause where you can only hear his breathing matching yours. His pupils have blown wider, signaling desire for you.

“What do you think of?” He finally gives in.

“I think about all the ways you turn me on,” you tap his chin but then let your hand go down. It skims down his bare chest and over each ripple of muscle that quivers with each touch.

“Yeah?” He murmurs. His eyes flick down between the two of you for less than a second when your hand hovers over his happy trail. The second you catch him doing it, your own eyes follow suit. It’s too hot to wear his usual pajama bottoms, so it’s so easy to spot that he is hard already, showing off the outline of his dick in his gray briefs. There’s a stain of precome.

“Yeah, baby,” you don’t even hesitate, reaching down to palm the length of him. His breath hitches in his throat the second he is touched, and your voice lowers to a whisper, “All I do is fantasize about you. The way you kiss, the way you touch me, and mmm, the way you fuck me.”

“Mhm,” he hums softly in the way men do when they don’t really know what to say during their current state of mind. You have him scatterbrained with your touch, a moan falling from his lips and replacing the hum when you snake your hand into his underwear, wrapping your fingers around his cock to stroke him lazily.

“You like this?” You ask but don’t give him time to answer since you tighten your fist around his girth. He forces a nod and you lean up to kiss his lips teasingly soft, “You really think I would ever touch another man like this? There’s no way. No comparison to how you look when I do it.”

“Go on and I might forgive the eyes you were sending him,” he tells you with a hint of edge in his voice. He sounds more desperate than confident, more wanting than he might want to let on. It fills you with self-satisfaction because you know that what you are saying about him goes for you too; you’ve ruined everyone else for each other.

“I told you I was doing no such thing,” you reply. He pulses in your hand, precome sliding down over your knuckles when you make your fist a tighter fit, reminding him of what waits between your legs. You go a little faster, and Javier’s breathing speeds up.

“Liar,” he challenges raggedly.

“As if he could ever make me come as hard as you,” you egg him on, patiently waiting for him to lose control with you, “There’s only you, Papí.”

That seems to do something. Javier yanks your hand away, and you know the strength behind the action because he breathes the same way that he breathes when teetering on the edge of release. He has stopped himself but it’s only to enter your personal space more than you even thought possible.

He grabs at your hips almost violently, steers you backwards a few paces so he can flip the positions. Now, you are the one against the sink counter and it gnaws painfully into the small of your back. There’s an air of consideration for a moment as he checks in on you during the beginning of what can be regarded as playing with each other. You give him a dirty look, a small nod and he smirks back.

“Javi,” you mumble in fake confusion, reaching up to put your hands on his chest but you don’t get to do much because one of Javier’s hands comes up to catch one wrist after the other. It’s so easy for him to do, both because of his job and his physical superiority.

He twists your hands behind your back and roughly shoves you down over the sink. He lowers his voice as he speaks, “You’re not gonna wake up anyone, are we clear?”

“We’re clear,” you promise, finding his eyes in the mirror. If he touches you now, he’ll find you wetter than you have been in a long while. What is it about holidays and hotel rooms? Mixed with not having been able to touch each other since you have arrived here, it is a dangerous combination.

“Te deseo mucho, amor,” he says softly and out of character.

“I love you,” you reply.

He dives back into the scenario. His other hand tugs at your cotton shorts, dragging them over the curve of your ass and down your long legs. You step out of them as soon as they lay around your feet.

“I’m gonna let go,” he says and shakes your hands in his grip to indicate what he is talking about, “But only so you can cover your mouth for me and I can get out of these fucking underpants.”

He does as he said he would. You move to prop yourself up on your elbows, neck already having strained from the mere moments you’ve had to feel the cold porcelain against your chest.

Behind you, there’s shuffling. You cover your mouth as he enters you swiftly, jerking forward at the intrusion that has you panting damply into your palm. He fills you to the brim, stretches your cunt as only he can, and then he fucks you - hard, rough, and fast.

Your head spins, your knees bang against the cabinet’s front, and you try to strain the muscles in your legs so they don’t. He knows the ticking bomb that is your children sleeping soundly in the room next door, but he cannot help himself as he drives into you. He leans over you.

“No one but me,” he growls lowly, “This little cunt belongs to no one else. She gets red and puffy for me, no? Filled up with only my come.”

“Sí,” you practically sing out but then quickly cover your mouth. He gets rougher with you then, each snap of his hips a reminder of how only he can make you feel like this. He is getting exactly what he wants, and he has you a moaning mess soon after.

Your first orgasm tears through you after a rough pounding of your g-spot, sending shockwaves down your spine to burn at the base and throwing your upper body forward with such a force that you nearly lose touch with the floor, standing only on your toes as you clamp rhythmically down on Javier’s cock.

“That’s it,” he praises quietly, not relenting, “You can do one more, can’t you? Gotta remind you who makes you feel this good.”

You nod through sobs. More, more, more.

Suddenly, he leaves you empty. The feeling has you on edge, makes you look at him over your shoulder because gaining eye contact in the mirror is somehow not good enough for the look of betrayal you want to give him. He takes a step back from you whilst panting frantically, gesturing to you by drawing a circle in the air, “Turn around.”

You straighten without thinking and flip around, so you are positioned as you were at the beginning of this. He seizes your hips, hands going down your thighs to grab at them and lift you up onto the edge of the counter.

Your hand clasps around the back of his neck. He lifts your legs up to settle them around his waist, and then he guides himself back into you and continues fucking you with a force that has you lifting your free hand up behind you to brace yourself against the mirror.

“Javi,” you whimper repeatedly, clutching at the curls at the base of his skull. He had wanted to cut it before summer came, but you are so glad that he did not.

“Shh,” he soothes your growing cries and you know that he’ll make you come again soon, “Be quiet for me, baby.”

You don’t think he is quiet enough himself to demand such a thing from you. His stamina has always impressed you, but it’s the sound of his breaths that tears your own from your chest. Alongside the hungry eyes that bore into you, you don’t think that it’ll take long for this to reach its peak for both of you.

“I can’t,” you stutter a little more high-pitched than you intended.

“You have to,” he says with a hint of sternness but he cannot keep it up. Especially not, when he has to take the consequences of reaching down between your legs to thumb at your clit.

You come so fast that you don’t even have time to warn him, and you cry. So loudly that he needs to kiss you to swallow the sound of you reaching your second, over-sensitive high.

You throw your arms around him as he chases his own peak, whimpering at the hard thrusts he is giving you to reach his end. You hear him let out a drawn-out fuuuck as he spills inside of you. He pulses, settling deep inside you. He kisses you lazily.

Everything goes quiet except for your shared breathing. You want to say something to finish the argument that almost never took place but a knock is heard on the locked bathroom door.

You freeze. Javier pulls out of you. The bathroom counter is a mess.

“Mommy?” Inés’ little voice sounds anxious. You figure that it’s far from nice to find your parents’ bed empty on holiday.

“Just a second,” you say with a weak voice.

“We’ll be right there, mí vida,” Javier says as well.

“What are you doing? Why is Mommy crying?” You hear her ask and Javier’s face twists in surprise for a moment before he starts laughing, burying his head in your neck as he holds you close. You slap his shoulder.

“I’m not crying, baby,” you reassure. With a glare that’s anything but actually angry, you push Javier away from you to get cleaned up.

“I have to pee,” Inés continues with a hesitant tone to her voice.

Javier kisses you one last time, and you draw it out for a few more seconds than you have time for. It’s still romantic despite you holding a hotel towel between your legs.

“One moment, mija,” Javier says and gets dressed in his briefs. He waits for you to dress too.

When you walk towards the door, he smacks your ass and you whip around to slap his hand away. There’s a grin on your face though, “Dog.”

“Go to bed, I’ll take her,” he just says.

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#pedro pascal characters #javi pena #javier pena one shot #javier pena x reader #javier pena smut #javier pena fanfiction #javier pena imagine #javier pena fic #javier pena narcos #javi peña #javier peña #pedro pascal fanfic #pedro pascal smut #pedro pascal fanfiction #narcos fanfiction #narcos #my writing #husband!javi

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bruhstation · 2 months

Note

Wait a sec, so if Hiro was a time traveler who fast forward through 100 years did he leave anyone behind in the past like say.. a wife or maybe a child?

Did Hiro have any family ?

hiro does, sadly. his family never knew what happened to him despite the outrage his disappearance sparked in japan, and hiro in casa tidmouth didn’t know how the entirety of his nuclear family got destroyed by one of japan’s greatest natural catasthropes.

hiro’s wife and children (except satoko) were eventually wiped out the Great Kanto Earthquake in 1923, but he does have descendants of his own that he managed to meet after the events of casa tidmouth’s Hero of the Rails arc.

(more info about them under the cut)

THE YEAR IS 1894.

Hiro Hideki

秀紀弘 Hideki Hiro

Age: 57 (before transportation, canon Casa Tidmouth is 62)

The patriarch of the Hideki family. Wise, calm, level headed, but has a tendency to overwork himself and put others before himself. He has a mindset of finishing his work first before rewarding himself with the most basic necessities such as eating or going to the bathroom which exasperated Kamome.

Hiro originated from 1894, the Meiji era. Before he was transported to 1994, he’s a civil engineer and railway inspector that was heavily involved during the modernization and westernization of Japan and oversaw the construction of the Tokyo to Yokohama railway in 1872 and its subsequent expansion to Kozu in the following years.

In an attempt to further the connections with the United Kingdom and as part of a collaboration to improvise their engines and railways, the Emperor formed a research group and sent them to England and its surrounding islands – one of them being the Island of Sodor, infamous for its rumored supernatural influence and cases of outsiders going missing (not a great idea, Emperor). Hiro was sent there alongside his colleagues and seniors and the next thing he knew… his environment was alien, his clothes were tattered, he cannot remember anything, and he’s all alone in a steep siding.

Kamome Hideki

秀紀鴎 Hideki Kamome

Age: 54 (83 at death)

Hiro’s wife. Their marriage was arranged by their parents but Hiro fell in love with her at first sight. While Hiro speaks gently and avoids unnecessary conflict, Kamome is blunt and goes straight to the point when talking. She was constantly seen wearing a tasuki sash and was well-toned for her age. The neighbors and family’s acquaintances see her as a scary woman with a sharp tongue and even sharper eyes, but… that’s just how her face is. Kamome doesn’t take compliments well and instead of smiling, she usually purses her lips or scrunch her eyebrows to express her happiness (Hiro thinks it’s cute).

During the early years of Hiro’s disappearance, Kamome put on a strong facade for their children. She didn’t have much financial worries because their children already had jobs. Hirokazu’s and Akira’s families visit from time to time, and Kamome quickly came into terms with Hiro’s disappearance, but the loneliness and frustration inside her heart still well.

I took her given name from the limited express train service that JR Kyushu operated, Kamome. Her name also means “seagull”.

Hirokazu Hideki

秀紀弘和 Hideki Hirokazu

Age: 34 (63 at death)

Hiro’s eldest son. He was named after his father. Hirokazu was a serious, rigid man — always bent on following every rule there in his line of work and wouldn't hesitate to reprimand people for messing up. He liked expressing his thoughts (usually related to Japanese politics) without sugarcoating anything and got a knack for debating with his peers, so he’s often exhausted with his father who’s always calm and open to anything Hirokazu says without refuting much of his opinions. Despite being polar opposites, Hirokazu greatly respected and adored Hiro — hence why he followed in his footsteps to become a civil engineer.

Ever since Hiro disappeared, everytime Kamome looked at Hirokazu she felt like he resembled Hiro more and more. Hirokazu’s responsibility in taking care of his family (especially his elderly mother) grew stronger and his need to live up to his father’s legacy eats away at him.

Akira Hideki

秀紀明 Hideki Akira

Age: 31 (60 at death)

A shy, stoic woman whose social battery drains quickly. She’s soft spoken and doesn’t talk much because of her social anxiety, so he enjoyed conversations with her gentle father more. Akira is also kinda awkward at socializing — behind her neutral face, she’s constantly nervous when faced with a crowd or an unexpected acquaintance of either his father or mother who wanted to chat with her, something she’s extremely self conscious about (Hiro told her she’s fine the way she is). When she succeeded in a conversation, however, she got all fired up and overly proud of herself Akira married a wealthy textile businessman who’s been seeing her for a while and is incredibly smitten with her.

After Hiro went missing, Akira’s husband, mother, and siblings often find her wandering around the train station, sitting solemnly or even asking railwaymen and random passersby if they’ve seen her father. She wasn’t doing mentally well, but luckily her family was there for her.

Masaharu Hideki

秀紀雅治 Hideki Masaharu

Age: 24 (53 at death)

A student from the Tokyo Imperial University. He studies medicine and was an apprentice of his professor at a hospital in Tokyo. He’s timid, always stressed out, and have trouble standing up for himself, especially against his professor who always reprimand him for even the smallest things such as being late to a conference or being too slow to hand him an operating tool. Masaharu was also a mama’s boy. Kamome fusses over him and always tells him to eat more. Hiro too, but he’s not the most stern.

His professor used his connections to help Masaharu look for his father. Rescue teams, fellow colleagues from Europe, even autopsy labs and funeral homes — he looked everywhere, yet he and Masaharu are stumped. Masaharu felt so useless and even considered dropping out, but Kamome and Hirokazu dragged him back to reality, which made Masaharu end up crying.

Hisae Hideki

秀紀久愛 Hideki Hisae

Age: 21 (50 at death)

Spunky, stubborn, and always up-to-date. She is IN LOVE with western fashion and a HUGE francophile. She’s a tad spoiled and always asks Hiro for some money whenever new clothes hit the market. Hisae likes dressing up her younger sister Satoko in various clothes she made or bought. She also worked at Irohanayama’s tea house because government officials and their wives always visit in their western attire. She’s also good at talking with people and pleasing upper-crusts. She dreamed of visiting France someday, though this is mostly because of the rose-tinted glasses she has for Europe.

After Hiro went missing, Hisae spent most of her days moping, not wanting to eat or leave her room until Hirokazu and Satoko convinced her to. One day, she suddenly stopped holing herself up in her room, quit her tea house job, and planned on opening her own clothes shop.

Satoko Hideki

秀紀聡子 Hideki Satoko

Age: 17 (46 during Great Kanto Earthquake)

Being the youngest and most obedient, Kamome frequently asked her to go out to town to run errands. Generally a quiet person, though she always butt heads with her more hotheaded sister Hisae. Most of her clothes during her late teenage years are hand-me-downs from her. She didn’t really have any notable abilities or talents, but she likes collecting hairpins and combs.

In 1923, Satoko survived the Great Kanto Earthquake because she lived at her husband’s hometown far from Tokyo, making her the only living member of Hiro’s nuclear family (some grandchildren from the Hideki family survived but that’s another story. It’ll make this tree longer)

She is Kenji and Kana’s great grandmother.

———

THE YEAR IS 1999.

Kenji and Kana met Hiro during their visit to the Great Kanto Earthquake Memorial Museum. When Kana was taking pictures of the memorial hall for her school assignments, Kana spotted Hiro staring at the list of names. Kenji went to the bathroom for a second, and Kana saw Hiro sitting alone on the bench. Kana sat beside him and sparked a conversation, leading to them eventually becoming friends. Kenji joined them shortly after, and they parted ways soon after it got dark and Kana urged Kenji to take her home so she can print her photos. Hiro bid them farewell, looking wistful but also satisfied with himself.

Neither of them knew that they’re Hiro’s great great grandchildren… until much, much, later.

Kenji Shirogane

白鐘健二 Shirogane Kenji

Age: 22

Lives in Shinjuku, Tokyo, with his younger sister, Kana. Ever since their parents went abroad for work-related purposes, Kenji has been acting as a guardian for his sister. He studies biomed at Tokyo University in Bunkyou. He goes there via the Yamanote line.

Kenji’s great at cooking and Kana only likes his curry rice because he doesn’t put any “weird” vegetables in it. He likes Japanese variety shows like Takeshi’s Castle and Gaki no Tsukai.

Kana Shirogane

白鐘華菜 Shirogane Kana

Age: 16

Lives in Shinjuku, Tokyo, with her older brother, Kenji. Second year in high school. She’s in the sports club at her school and is a star for the girls’ running team. A cheerful and hyperactive girl, Kana is rather mischievous and can put on crocodile tears whenever Kenji doesn’t allow her to do something. She frequently gets into trouble at school because of her purple inner dye and grommet belt.

Kana is also quite foul-mouthed and has little respect towards most adults that boss her around, labeling her as a problem child at school. Kenji’s fond of her, but he also describes her as “disrespectful towards older folks”. She would also pull on his nose whenever she’s hungry in the middle of the night and saw Kenji sleeping by the couch to wake him up. However, she truly cares about her family and loves her older brother. Kana’s just a kid being a kid.

#asks #isjssjsjshuuuuuuuuuuuuyyyyyyyyyy #ttte hiro #ttte kenji #ttte kana #kamome (oc)#hirokazu (oc)#akira (oc)#masaharu (oc)#hisae (oc)#satoko (oc)#casa tidmouth #casa tidmouth act 2 #senjart #(insert spencer whispering into hiro’s ear about how nobody is waiting for him in japan)

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doodle-pops · 2 months

Text

Seconds Chances Are Worth Living For

Maglor x human!reader

Request: Hi can I request an fic (or onehsot) where a human finds Maglor wondering the beach where he threw the silmaril and they help him? - anon

Warnings: human!reader, light angst with happy ending/comfort, depressed and gloomy Maglor

Words: 1.3k

Synopsis: Nobody ever said second chances in life were easy, nor were changes necessary to bring them.

“Will you not come with me?”

His heart twisted painfully; your words lingered in the air like an unwelcome odour he desperately wished to dispel. Too often had these haunting words surfaced in his mind during the agonizing days of solitude. Too many times, he found himself yearning for them to materialize into reality, yet he remained resolute in his pride, steadfast against the prospect of accepting forgiveness. Deep within, he longed for the warmth of a fireplace, enclosed by walls of solace and finality—enough respite from the harshness of the ocean waves and the mournful cries of seagulls.

His posture, detached upon the rugged rocks, nearly melding into the static structure, remained unmoved. On the contrary, you stood unwavering before him, your gaze fixed upon his threadbare form draped in the remnants of shame and despair. It was a clash between an immovable object and an unstoppable force, and you were determined not to be the one to yield. Whether it was destiny or the cosmic alignment that led you to his desolate presence on the shores of Forlindon, you were resolved not to depart without pulling him away.

Defiance surged through your veins as you continued to face his statuesque figure, yet you restrained yourself from encroaching upon his personal space.

“If you stay another hour, you may succumb to fatal illness,” you pleaded, voice above a whisper. A strong gust of wind roamed the shores, prompting you to curl your cloak around your shoulders tightly to your body. There was a faint chattering of your teeth as you gathered the courage to speak up again. “Please, there is a cabin not too far away from these shores. The least you can do is come with me for something warm to eat and drink, perhaps a warmer change of apparel?”

Maglor’s gaze stretched into the distance, fixed upon the horizon, while his fingers gracefully danced through the air, as if caressing an unseen harp. Murmuring unfamiliar words, too delicate for mortal ears to grasp, his lament echoed the sorrows of a bygone era when the world was in its infancy. This was the poignant scene that unfolded before you: Maglor, singing with a voice textured like sandpaper, tears encrusting his eyelids, lips weathered and parted, fingers weaving through the invisible threads of melody, and eyes reflecting a profound abyss of desolation.

In a single glance, your heart welled with empathy, and tears threatened to spill from your lashes. In a burst of compassion, you implored and beseeched him to find solace within the confines of your cabin, offering a glimmer of hope to bring an end to his eternal torment.

“Please,” –you stepped closer, dwarfed by his largeness despite his malnourished physique– “I’m not asking you to stay forever if that is what you believe I seek. I only wish to help you—”

“Why?” He spoke or rather, croaked!

“Well…” you fumbled, stunned at his ability to communicate after minutes of attempting to capture his attention. “Because it is the right thing to do.”

“Why?”

Flapping your lips like a fish and furrowing your brows to mimic confusion, you stammered, “W-Well, I mean—You shouldn’t be alone out here in the element…suffering. You deserve a warm bed and comfort.”

“Why?” You never imagined that reaching out to aid a person would become so difficult. Indeed he was proving to be an unmovable object, but you were willing to be that unstoppable force who spoke wisdom into him.

For a fleeting moment, your gaze descended from his lean countenance to the weathered rock upon which he perched, his nimble fingers still weaving through the breeze in search of a haunting melody. A serene ambiance enveloped both of you, juxtaposed against the impending unease hanging in the air. The turbulent seas clashed vehemently against the headlands and platforms, while the sky hinted at an impending tempest, prompting you to ponder earnestly on what he sought from you amid the impending cataclysm.

Rubbing your cheek to battle against the frost nipping at your skin, you pinched your lips, then scratched your head as though an oncoming headache was surfacing. “Because I want to help you and I believe you are in need of help. My mortal compass would not rest well knowing that I left someone out in the element to suffer when I could relieve some of it.”

“And…what if you are…” He never finished his words for his throat seized up on him, but they lingered in the air ringing obviousness to what he was conveying.

“Wrong? Then I will learn a life lesson to not trust strangers who are on the brink of death.” Releasing a chuckle as you crinkled your nose, you looked at him once more. “I rather spend my time helping someone in need of it instead of having restless days and nights knowing I left you to suffer. If I am wrong…—everyone suffers differently, the good, the bad and the indifferent. What matters is that I helped; what you choose to do after is your choice and path.”

For the first time since your encounter, his lacklustre gaze fixed upon your earthly form, shrouded in ebony. His eyes meticulously studied every nuance of your being, from the strands of your hair down to the contour of your chin, even discerning the intricacies of your skin that radiated vitality. It was a quality of his that had languished in purgatory for countless eons. Compelling his lips to part, his pallid complexion yielded, producing droplets of moisture that emerged, imparting a semblance of colour to his wistful countenance. “But…am stran…ger.”

Resisting the urge to physically shake him by his shoulder before being beyond complex, you huffed and widened your eyes, tears threatening to spill as your emotions swallowed you. “Yes, yes! I know you are a stranger! You could be a sea creature too for all I know, who crawled out the depths of the ocean to lament his sufferings to the surface world! But none of that matters because I know a suffering person when I see one because I too… Please, let me help you. Don’t…give up without trying. Let me help...”

Maglor drew in a slow, measured breath before exhaling. It felt as though some divine intervention, dispatched by the Valar to alleviate his torment, had arrived in the form of your unwavering determination. Perhaps the burden of his endless years wandering the shores had become too much for even the Valar to bear, prompting their counsel for his return. Alternatively, this could be yet another vivid dream, a product of years spent attempting to conjure solace. Regardless, it all seemed serendipitous.

Though he longed to inquire about his fate should he accept, the strength to articulate a single syllable eluded him. As his eyes locked onto yours in search of sincerity, he grappled with the duality of seeking both truth and deceit, yearning for the former.

Setting aside his infamous pride, swallowing it like a scalding-hot, white rod, a new chapter unfolded. The courage amassed since ancient days returned, instilling confidence in his actions. However, the lack of physical strength betrayed him, causing his legs to give way, sending him tumbling into the damp sand. In that moment, he felt an overwhelming desire to weep at the transformation he had undergone and the shame he carried. Your arms delicately extended, encircling his waist, as he clung to your figure. From a once-great prince to a desolate wanderer in need of mortal compassion, Maglor held onto you as you struggled to lift him onto his feet, leaning his weakened body against yours.

“All is fine, I have you. Just walk with me, small steps and we shall get there safely and securely,” you softly reassured as you carried him towards a new beginning.

Masterlist

Taglist: @lilmelily @ranhanabi777 @mysticmoomin @rain-on-my-umbrella @asianbutnotjapanese @batsyforyou @sakurayaxd @ladyenchanted @involuntaryspasms @stormchaser819 @aconstructofamind @addaigio @lamemaster @hermaeuswhora

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girlbossblackbeard · 6 months

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throwing all logical predictions for the finale out the window because this show has consistently chosen to do the most batshit insane things that I could never even dream of in a million years so here are my new theories for things that are gonna happen in episode 8:

-Ed and Stede open up an Inn together in that ramshackle house we saw in the NZ videos

-We won't get a Zheng/Olu/Archie/Jim polycule but we WILL get a Pete/Lucius/Izzy polycule but Izzy is only there to be a bitch and blue ball himself. and also whittle cool things

-Buttons and a massive legion of seagulls descend upon a navy ship and just pick it up and fly away

-Wee John gets hired at Spanish Jackie's to do a drag show every night and a drag brunch on the weekends

-Roach and Fang hookup

-Frenchie meets an honest-to-god mermaid, possibly after falling off the boat and being rescued by them

-Rick coins the term "Getting Rick Roll'd"

-A THIRD BADMINTON BROTHER APPEARS AND IT'S RORY KINNEARN ONCE AGAIN

-Anne Bonny and Mary Read show up on a dope ass ship to help kick the navy's ass and also hookup with Zheng. Calico Jack is also there with a comically dented abdomen from getting cannonballed in s1 ep8 but he makes plenty of jokes about being an inny now

-Doug, Mary, and the kids stay at Ed and Stede's Inn so Ed and Mary can bond over Stede's quirks and Stede can bisexualize Mary's boyfriend again. Also Alma just has a lot of knives

#ofmd #our flag means death #ofmd s2 #ofmd predictions #ofmd s2 spoilers #blackbonnet #gentlebeard #edward teach #stede bonnet #that's all I've got for now maybe I'll add more as inspiration strikes

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thisbelongsto-nohbodys · 6 months

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[Anne is on her lunch break, video chatting with Sasharcy]

Anne: So, you two ready for your first date since we’ve gotten engaged?

Sasha: Totally, I’ll admit that it feels a bit different but in a good way.

Marcy: It’ll be great! Sashy and I have a very romantic plan for the date, I just wish you could be there too Annie-Bananie.

Anne: It’s fine, I’ll be there for the next date when one of you have the same day off as me. Just have fun.

Sasha: Oh we will <3. Tho’ first we gotta stop by the Thai Temple, your mom said she needed our help real fast.

Anne: hmmm, I don’t remember hearing about anything…wait…no, don’t go! It’s a trap! She’s luring you into a Ba Train Trap! Now that we’re engaged they’ll be even more excited to see you two!!

Marcy: Oh comeon Anne, it can’t be that bad.

Sasha: Yeah, plus those old ladies love us, don’t worry.

[One hour later, Anne answers her phone while cleaning the amphibian tanks. A disheveled and panicked Sasharcy come into view on screen]

Sasharcy: You were right Anne, it was a trap!

Sasha: As soon as we got to your parent’s booth, Oum alerted the others and they descended upon us like seagulls at the beach! They kept asking questions about our engagement and suggestions on the wedding and other things that I don’t remember because it was all overwhelming!

Marcy: We managed to hide in one of the closets at the temple and are waiting them out but they’re hunting us like raptors, it’s only a matter of time before they find us!

Anne: Hmmhmm. This is a good early lesson for later when we’re married, that…

Sasharcy: “You’re right about everything”.

Anne: Exactly. I’ll come by and save you in a bit. Gotta make sure you can go on your date.

Sasharcy: Thanks Anne, love you.

#amphibia #anne boonchuy #sasha waybright #marcy wu #Sashannarcy

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breannasfluff · 8 months

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Legend’s lost too many people to go through this again.

Marin’s voice echoes on the salty breeze, in the call of the seagulls in Wind’s era. Her smile is caught in the pressed hibiscus framing the front of his journal. The flare of her dress echoes when Wild and Hyrule spin, laughing, as they descend upon chests of clothes.

Marin is everywhere and nowhere; an echo with no form. Legend can’t let her go, but he’s learned to live with the hole she’s left in his heart. He builds walls and moats; holds everyone at arm's-length in case they get pulled from him, too. Ravio might have wormed his way in, but he’s an anomaly. At any moment he could return to Lorule and Legend’s made his peace with that. Or—he’s made enough peace that he can avoid thoughts of future pain. At least, if he’s gone, he’s still alive.

Then this ragtag collection of heroes, ranging in age, experience, and nature were thrown together. Plucked from time and dumped into an adventure with a single binding theme: the hero’s spirit.

And oh, how courageous they all are. Despite the walls and moats, they climb or swim and smile for the trouble he causes. Hyrule somehow bypasses them entirely and sits at Legend’s side, watching the others make their way in. He’s still unsure how the traveler became such an intrinsically important part of his life without realizing it.

Wild should never have bothered to try getting past Legend’s walls. When the champion first joined, Legend had nothing but sharp words and blunt truths for him. Instead of scaring him off, Wild accepted them and kept moving forward. Slowly, they bonded over shared experiences—ones Legend never would have ascribed to the wild hero.

Despite it all, something in the champion resonates with Legend and reminds him of himself. Perhaps partway through his adventures; a little tired, but still willing to move forward and care for others. Before Marin. Before Legend learned the Goddesses cared little for his well-being as long as he performed the task at hand.

And suddenly, Wild stood beside Hyrule, past Legend’s defenses. Entwined in his life and carving out a spot in his heart to call his own. To lose his brother would be to lose a part of himself.

Legend learned to live without Marin, barely.

He’s not sure he can do it again.

Sky and Time are arguing; voices rising despite their precarious position so close to the enemy. Wild traded himself to free Sky, yet whatever backup plan he has is obviously not working.

Hyrule chokes when Wild screams and saliva pools in Legend’s mouth. He swallows quickly; he will not be sick.

He starts running through plans, discarding them as rapidly as they appear. They are no closer to an answer now than they were before Sky returned. Worse, even, because Sky is injured. If Hyrule heals him, he’ll be low on magic later. Thunder alone won’t be enough to kill the numbers in the other room. Legend has a sword, but he’s without his arsenal of items. Even if they send someone back up the steps–how long will the yiga toy with their prize?

Twilight clenches and unclenches his fist, butting into the argument with Time and Sky. The chosen hero sways and Legend nudges Hyrule, who stepped back. “Go help him before he falls over,” he hisses.

“But—”

“Go!”

Hyrule goes. Sky doesn’t even brush him off, which is telling of his condition. They need to be at their best to save Wild.

Read the rest here! If you haven't read any of this before, I highly suggest you start at the beginning of Saving You before reading this.

#linked moments #saving you #lu wild #lu legend #lu sky #lu hyrule #lu time #lu twilight #linked universe #linkeduniverse #tw blood #tw angst #tw death #breannasfluff #my writing

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witchofthesouls · 5 months

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(Sighs) Look, I've gone deep into the barbarian aus, so-

Very self-indulgent TFP!fic where some Others (including humans) from Earth found themselves on Cybertron as they pushed back a Quintesson invasion on their home planet. Elsewhere functions as a nexus of liminal spaces; time and space are warped as gateways to other planets (and universes) open and close.

Like TFP Sparkling!AU with the barbian/city-dweller twist. Also, humans-into-Cybertronians and Magic-Exists!AU because it’s my ridiculous, self-indulgent AU. (Ehhh, more like human characters that always been Cybertronians, but whatever; humans found themselves on Cybertron because of Quintesson invasion/expansion in the Milky Way or something, and they mixed into the locals since Cybertronians and humans are very much cousins and there are members in their respective species that will bang a monster for fun and profit.)

So, D-16 is the most “civilized” one. Like no, D-16 is no senator’s son, nor does he hail from a high-caste lineage. He’s the bitlet of miners and a child slave worker, but he has creators that try their best for their unexpected, little one. Little D-16 had been raised in a communal underground cohort and had never even seen the surface since he took his first cries. Of course, the supervisors get a train of newcomers, including a couple of sparklings from the untamed Wilds that were deemed too “much” for the sensibilities of the middle/higher castes. Too old to forget. And too violent to make it worth it an adoption.

Before Optimus was even Orion, there was a sparkling that scavenged in the Wastelands. He’s a goddamn, feral raccoon with the tenacity of a seagull and a crow's love for tasty things. He’s clever enough to avoid the obvious traps, but hunger had driven him to gamble his luck on a caravan. His luck ran dry since-

It was a raiding caravan, specialized in capturing creatures and mecha. And it was successful snatching a few beings, including June.

She came on a rescue mission and had managed to free a few other sparklings but was unfortunately caught when she made the choice between retreat or free a flyer with a teleporting ability to take the youngest ones.

The raiders were prepared for specific tribes that had practitioners and artificers because of the “monsters” that traveled with them, and shoved her into a cage that neutralized such abilities.

For some reason, magic falls under sigma abilities, so the suppression mechanisms work.

Que Alpha Trion wandering in the “wrong” areas and completely missing his protégé-to-be/reincarnated little brother because of other mecha's last second decision change.

June/Juno is no dainty, wee thing that’s defenseless and cute. Oh no, gentle planets make gentle people. Young Earth was not a gentle planet, and its lost inhabitants made their home in the untamed wilds and Wastelands of Cybertron and warred with the natives to keep it as such. After she recovers, she’s a little hellion that confirms all the negative stereotypes that mecha in city-states have of the Wilders/barbarians of the Wastelands.

The only reason why she wasn't bought by another party is because she's a monoformer and seemed to have none of the famed talent. It would have been too much to bring this little ankle biter to yield without the fantastical benefits to offset it.

Same to be said with Orion-to-be. That sparkling had broken a mech's wrist, straight down to the struts with his teeth. It took a couple of shocks from an electro-staff for him to let go because he was trying his damn best to break something off.

No matter her appearance, June is still a descendant of a hybrid coupling, so many things were a learning curve between them and her. Same with a feral, little nameless convoy.

She got terribly sick with a basic Neocybex language installment. Feverish, delirious, and unable to keep down Energon.

A few of the more tenacious miners still alive and kicking had managed to keep her fueled with a slurry mixture of clay, coal, and crushed crystals. Liquid is easy to purge, but the clay and coal will coat the tank and keep it settled.

Downloads from slugs and chips do not agree with her, so she needed to learn and absorb the language on her own.

Orion got his name for the trouble he gets into for every scrap of fuel and for his keen senses. Little thing isn't afraid to rummage into the scrap pile or to claw his way up the shafts to get a tiny cluster of crystal root. In fact, Scraplet was a major contender for his name, especially since he had a habit of biting people.

Orion had a tendency to use proto-language, even with the full access of basic Neocybex and Kaonite. He struggles with using full sentences. Frustration had led to biting, and that isn’t good, especially at his age where he can do damage with his thick denta. Sometimes, he refuses to speak and just flops into the pen with all the younger sparklings, much to the amusement to the Watchers: mecha too old and worn down for the long hours.

The adults were confused by June's adamant refusal to part with her flimsy dressings. (Sigils and runes sewn into the hardy fabric to hide her magical presence.) And then alarmed over her thin armature. More malleable like a newspark rather than an active sparkling. No wonder she gets sick easily!

It's due to her heritage. The mix between Earth and Cybertron meshed well. The inhabitants had gone local, and their descendants had to adapt with every new generation. In June's (and others like her), they have a far more extended development for plating density and growth. It helps limit the strain on their mothers, and some tribes utilize it to carve sigils while soft before hardening.

Eating a large amount of raw minerals and metals. Orion has a similar habit, but due to deprivation.

D-16 manages to strike up a friendship with them due to proximity and that his creators' cohort took them on.

He likes the pictures Juno draws in the dirt between shifts as everyone rests together.

Language is a slow process for different, yet similar reasons. Juno's lexicon isn't compatible with Ilmentite - a Neocybex dialect used by underground Tarnians (fitting as its name comes from a common mining metal), nor does she have the heavy plating and long streaks of biolights to communicate. Orion, however, struggles with verbal communication and has the body language of a wild animal rather than another mech.

Juno is fast and slippery, and if it wasn't for the tracker/inhibition collar, then she would have escaped. She's able to slip between tighter spaces with her lack of bulk. Unfortunately, she has a tight leash, so she can drop to the ground when she passes a certain perimeter.

Orion and Juno get confused over D-16's queasiness over eating a dead animal. It's drained and it isn't sick, what's the matter?!

Someone (D-16 or his parents) needs to stop Orion from rummaging through the garbage.

#transformers #transformer prime #tfp #fic ideas #megatron #june darby #optimus prime #optimus #bitlets #sparklings #creature #culture clash #maccadam #magic #my thoughts #my writing #trash panda feral OP bitty strikes again #cybertronian culture #cybertronian biology

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tanoraqui · 6 months

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Trick or Treat! Something Silmarillion?

In the early Third Age when Turgon has returned to life and he and Elenwë and Finrod & Amarië are finally fulfilling their long-held plan of having children at the same time, that they might grow up close as siblings like Finrod and Turgon had, Idril and Tuor say, "Hey, we could also do that! We always meant to have more than one child, and there's nothing actually stopping us!"

So they do. Now, there actually is something stopping them a little - the bearing of Elvish or half-Elvish children is more...metaphysically participatory? than that of Men (or Dwarves, etc). For both parents. Tuor had done it once and been fine, but that was in his native land, and even with Ulmo's guardianship and life on Tol Eressëa, which was fairly mild in terms of blessing-intensity, at roughly 3,500 years of age, his fëa is now worn a little thin.

But their daughter is born hearty and whole, and if Tuor is abed for a few weeks with weariness, well, he's back on his feet soon, and Idril is more than strong enough to bear a single mother's spiritual burden now that the babe is born. Indeed, she insists. Unequivocally.

Moriwen ("dark-crowned maiden") is named for her grandmother Rian and the dark brown hair she inherited from her (to no small amusement to many, given that her parents were both very blond). Her hair never quite achieves the natural luster of Elvish locks - instead, it easily gets tangled, bedraggled, and encrusted with sea-salt like her father's.

She grows up on Tol Eressëa at a nearly Elvish pace, because that feels most natural to her, and chooses to live and die (or not) as an Elf. All her friends and family are Elves (or as close as one semi-retired prophet of the sea can be) so why should she wish to be otherwise?

(The Choice is natural to all first-generation half-bloods, though after that, majority-genetics determines it unequivocally, and mortality wins in a coincidentally 50/50 balance...unless complicated by Maiaran blood, see: the heirs of Lúthien. That extends the Choice for a couple more generations, though mortality is still a heavy draw. Usually. Several Valar very quietly wish those guys would stop reproducing because tbh it's freaking them out.)

But the Mannish half of her heritage did enrapture her as well, and even more eagerly than Tuor, she sought tales of mortal Arda from every newcomer to the immortal shores. What were her distant cousins up to now? How was their mastery of metallurgy going? Were Elrond's youngest (her great-niece!) walking yet? Was that cathedral in Osgiliath still under construction?

She started recording accounts, new and old, and copying any books people brought with them when they Sailed. She blinked and she'd founded a library, soon the greatest in Aman for records of mortal lands. She was called Moriwen Peradan ("half-Man"), and for at least half of the Third Age had a thriving covert correspondence with Elrond via specially bred seabirds. (If you combine the migratory endurance of the arctic tern with the seagull's ability to get everywhere, and you're very patient, long-lived, determined, and by a precise intersection of Ainu blood and favor have a particular knack with seabirds, you can create an all-new species that can travel back and forth along the Straight Road, and discreetly share them with family!)

Moriwen ends up marrying Maeglin about a century after his re-embodiment, after he awkwardly shyly sidles into the Great Library of Tol Eressëa to find out (without, god forbid, talking to anyone involved) what happened to Idril's descendants after they survived, y'know, Stuff; and some rom-com mistaken identity shenanigans ensue.

#aniseandspearmint #ask meme #idril #tuor #my fic #ficlet #aman ever after #the silmarillion #peredhil

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hushed-chorus · 11 months

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Hello babes, sweeties and gentlefolk of all stripes! And thank you all for your tags last Sunday!

I didn't do much writing last week, just some hand-writing of the Shipwreck COTTA and editing the Selkie!Simon fic, The Selkie and his Boy. The first chapter should be dropping in the near future! I'm aiming for funny and cute with some light angst, but it's all Baz POV (and that boy be pining) so I've needed to adjust the tone in a few places. I think I'm getting there, though!

Here's a little snippet of Selkie!Simon doing selkie stuff.

I’m briefly struck mute when Simon kneels and starts sweeping away sand. He slumps down, belly settled in the small dip, huffing out a breath contentedly. I glance around, notice some of the early beachgoers giggling. “Would you prefer to lie on your back?” “Pfft. No.” He tilts his head towards me. “Why not?” “Because it feels like I’ll get stuck.” He sets his head back down and closes his eyes. “…On your back?” “Yeah.” I chuckle. “You’re absurd.” “What if a seagull lands on my belly?”

Short ramble about WRATS under the cut!

Oh my god the last chapter of What Remains After The Storm will be posted next week. I won't be sharing an excerpt, but being so near completion has made me reflect on how it started. And how hard it was to think of a title. I chatted at length with @erzbethluna, and our serious suggestions rapidly descended into silliness.

Sooooo here are some of my favourite of our silly possible titles.

Baz is a hot fish prince and he demands fishy tribute

2. Baz has a nice ass as a fish but what’s new

3. Slippy Slidy Bazzy gets goat lickies

4. The Saltlick Prince

5. Stupid sexy Gollum (credit to @cutestkilla and @bookish-bogwitch for inspiring this one🤣)

6. Fucking kiss already

I was a bit disappointed I couldn't use The Saltlick Prince. Really didn't fit the tone. But maybe I'll use it in a follow-up one-shots 😂

Hellos and tags! And anyone who wants to join this, consider this my eager invitation!

@johnwgrey @bookish-bogwitch @artsyunderstudy @facewithoutheart @captain-aralias @raenestee @aroace-genderfluid-sheep @yeonjunenby @cutestkilla @ivelovedhimthroughworse @larkral @stitchyqueer @you-remind-me-of-the-babe @ileadacharmedlife @confused-bi-queer @aristocratic-otter @tea-brigade @whogaveyoupermission @nightimedreamersworld @fatalfangirl @thewholelemon @onepintobean @chen-chen-chen-again-chen @shrekgogurt @theearlgreymage @martsonmars @blackberrysummerblog @orange-peony @palimpsessed @valeffelees @j-nipper-95 @rimeswithpurple @wellbelesbian @imagineacoolusername

#wip wednesday #simon snow #simon snow fic #baz pitch #snowbaz #what remains after the storm #selkie!Simon #the selkie and his boy

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directdogman · 1 year

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Hello, hi!! Quick question and I'm v sorry if it sounds dumb, but when making Dialtown OCs is it okay to make the head any object? I've seen some that aren't phone or typewriter orientated and think they're v swell!! The reason I'm asking is because my OCs head is a bit silly,, like i don't think anyone's seen a blanket for a character's head before, I'm just curious for an answer is all ^^;

What, a blanket for an object head? I say go for it! Nothing really matters anymore anyway. society is breaking down. I saw a horse just wandering around outside my house the other day. I don't think anybody OWNED the horse. Christ, Mr BEAN has an NFT line! We have nobody to blame for how bad things have gotten but ourselves. Anyway, as we become more and more divided, our collective faith in the systems that govern us break down further. Some people are so scared that they won't even drink tap water! Me, though? I'd drink from a puddle.

Hey, speaking of: i was always told as a kid that if i drank the tap water in the bathroom (aka, the water that came from our boiler), seagulls would enter through my open window, descend on me in the night and peck at my belly. no, im not making a word of that up. granted, i'm sure the unfiltered boiler water isn't exactly drinking quality either... but really, i'm questioning a lot of things i thought i knew. why did my dad jump straight to seagulls? why not just explain what limescale is, y'know? it's a great way to develop trust issues and begin to question the powers that once governed your life. like, i know ALL previous threats of animal violence can't have been lies. Some add up, y'know. Like, entering the baboon enclosure at the zoo WILL logically lead to a baboon attack, I get that. I'm just wondering where exactly the line is, y'know? where's the TRUST.

Sorry, what was the question? Atypical Dialtown head? I say go for it!

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botwstoriesandsuch · 11 months

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Also there were 7 total murals with the last 3 obstructed at there are 7 total tears as depicted in the first mural and there are 4 Champions plus Zelda plus Rauru plus Ganon and that makes 7 and HAND SYMBOLISM with Link and Zelda and there is Clearly a connection between Rauru and the other incarnation of Zelda as they are both literally in the fucking shrines (They always say "WE bestow upon you this blessing") that give you shit and YET the recall ability is SEPARATE to ability of Rauru/Rauru's hand as bestowed to us by Zelda who may be ACROSS TIME because when we give the Master Sword we are in the SAME LOCATION and the Recall Rune on the Rauru hand GLOWS and IN ADDITION TO THAT why would The Upheaval both raise Hyrule Castle and ALSO the Zonai Sky Islands because wouldn't those be two opposing ambitions why would You as The Demon King want to also bring the Zonai and it's technology closer yet to the kingdom that doesn't like you AND Ganon corpse falls down into the Chasms so he doesn't NEED to go up so why are the Sky Islands also there Because first off we known Rauru communicated with Zelda but currently he is clearly dead and Ganoncorpse also spoke of Rauru placing his faith in Link THEREFORE the most logical solution to this inconsistency would be that it is a TIME LOOP that is organized by ZELDA (as I feared) and yet the evidence stacks even more when you look at the fucking LOGO and also there would then be a PARALLEL between Link/Zelda and Rauru/Zelda Incarnation because THE IMPRISONING WAR MURALS confirm that the Royal Bloodline is descended from a union between the Zonai of the heavens and a Hylian right and if we translate the runes on the two Dragons within HIRIGANA it becomes THE MEETING OF TWO LOVERS so the HANDS foreSHADOW the MEETING and REUNION through a TIMELOOP and temple of time seven sages the DECAY of the Gloom is the foil to the RECALL of Zelda because to make time move forward and corrupt and age would be in defiance of an attempt at recalling and timeloop and I KNOW THIS BECAUSE THAT DRAGON ISN'T NAYDRA it is GOLD SCRUFF that is just swimming around in the sky around The Great Sky Island the Hylia-damned Garden of TIME and WHAT were dragons before? OH they were SPIRITUAL GUARDIANS that represented the Golden Goddess near each important shrine so why not have a FOURTH to represent ZELDA/HYLIA near a SHRINE/IMPORTANT BUILDING dedicated the fourth aspect of the universe besides courage, wisdom, and power and that is Time and it is TEARS because the tears drop from the sky and ripple down below but then we REVERSE IT all BACK into the heavens and woah there is a seagull guy with goggles I gotta go talk to him now

#totk #totk spoilers #tears of the kingdom

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clay-pidgeon · 10 months

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seagulls fucking SUCK man

Hello, readers who I will assume also hold a grudge against seagulls based on the fact you’re reading this knowing what the title says! Let me regale you with an needlessly dramatic tale of betrayal earlier today (by seagulls) (the betrayal not the tale) (the tale is by me) (seagulls can’t write) (I think?)

Now, before I begin, here are some Indubitable Truths that will be relevant:

I am an animal lover first and a person second.

Yesterday, I got my braces tightened. As such, my front teeth are a bit sore still. It would be hard for me to eat, say, a particularly chewy tortilla.

I have a tendency to ignore common knowledge in favor of being nice to birds.

Here is where our story begins. I am at a nice little street near the beach, with other people, on a “history” camp trip. “History” is in quotes because it’s 60% going to museums (most interactive) and 40% looking at the attractions around the museums.

So I am at this cute little street with a couple of places you can get food. So I got food. Specifically a (large) burrito, a bag of tortilla chips, apple juice, and some guacamole.

As aforementioned: it is hard for me to eat the burrito because of the chewy nature of the tortilla. And there are a Lot of seagulls near the table where I’m eating.

Are you picking up what I’m putting down?

If not, I will spell it out: I rip off pieces of tortilla to give to the seagulls. Win-win, they get food and I don’t have to try to eat a tortilla when my canines are so sore.

(pictured: 2 messages sent to @dreamsy990 before the Horrors ensue)

I would like to add I DO realize that feeding wild animals is a Bad Idea™️. Like, I read the Diary of a Wimpy Kid book where Greg gives a seagull a Cheeto and they just immediately attack him. And I listen to park rangers when they talk. (Mostly the first one.)

But alas, I am no more than a poor imitation of Icarus, flying too close to the sun that is feeding wild birds tortilla pieces. Also I just really like birds and would do anything for them if they could talk I would be so fucked

I grab the bag that the food was in—there’s still food left, I just don’t want to be a litterbug and let the bag blow away. I get up from the table.

IMMEDIATELY, they descend upon my food like the ravenous bastards they are. I cry “DUDE! WHAT!” They knock over my apple juice. One flys away with the rest of the tortilla. They leave the chips and guacamole alone (for now).

I am Extremely Pissed, but still a Responsible Citizen, so I grab the chips and the rest of the trash (which has increased since it DOESN’T HAVE ANY FUCKING FOOD LEFT IN IT) and go to the trash can. When I return, they’re eating the guacamole. I yell “YOU CAN’T EVEN RECYCLE!” (Because they’re birds, they wouldn’t know how to properly dispose of waste. Assholes.)

Tragic. However, I am a person who values rolling with the punches (there’s a good story I have about that, but it’s less interesting and harder to remember/make funny) life gives you, so I suck it up and go buy an ice cream cone to ease my sorrows. (I AM frowning the whole time, though.)

I then go eat the ice cream cone while sitting against the wall of the arcade (because I needed to charge my phone) and when I finish the ice cream I attempt to eat the chips I salvaged. Bit hard, considering the whole “sore teeth” thing. Then, I get in the bus to go home, and I write a needlessly dramatic tumblr post about the whole experience.

#dove chirps #my stuff #SIGH.#seagulls #seagulls are bastards #I turned on autocapitalize for this #birds #:(#animals

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axieta · 1 year

Text

Hungry eyes

Henry Winter x reader

Chapter 7

|Eyes, that do not tell lies|

Waves came and went crashing to the shore with a slight, delightful splash. The water was brown, cold, unwelcoming, more like a puddle than any proper sea. And the shore was flat, pebbled, dun, and tawny, yesterday’s snow long gone from its surface. In the distance, a sharp, pencil-like monument shot up into the sky with an ambition to cut into the cluster of clouds above and gut them for all the rain they’ve got. So far, however all that it got from them was a suspended, wet mist. A few meters from the thin strip of land stretched grey, damp pavement leading straight to the heart of evenly as cold and damp conurbation. Unremarkable buildings with rooftops green and brown from the moss gathered over them grew there, like mushrooms after rain, small, crumpled and crooked. Soft, Scotch mist grazed over their forlorn, dim windows, as if inviting their invisible residents to come out and bathe in the gloomy atmosphere, and above all that reigned, undivided, a yellow-brown cathedral, strangely proud and tall. That’s Largs for you. Not really a town, not really a resort, not really anything. Rather a luminal space, full of empty rooms, abandoned cars, desolate streets, forlorn cafes. And nothing but us, and the seagulls in sight. The six of us were already there, struggling to enjoy the freezing sea breeze, our warm coats and scarfs tossed to the winds, cheeks red, noses frozen off.

White vapour escaping our mouths in long, phantom streaks.

I went there with them, on their invitation. What they had in mind was a relaxing Monday afternoon spent by the beach, watching the snow that had fallen in the morning. Unfortunately, nothing came of it, as witnessed by us around forty minutes into our car ride, as it seemed that only Hampden has been clogged by snows. In the seaside, you could still smell the faint fragrance of rotten leaves and pumpkins gazing at you mischievously from the window stalls in the air. Oh, and the salt. The pleasant, although quite harsh mell of salt and algae and fish. I don’t know if Largs ever was or is a fisherman cottage, but it certainly smelled so on that afternoon when I sauntered about its gravel beach. Camilla had opted not to descend into the nightmarishly dirty surface, least to say, after her previous experience with stones and water and a cut foot, she not as much as did not desire but almost rejected the thought of ever coming closer to the sea than the paved-in concrete lane allowed. Charles stayed with her, very patient and understanding, slowly stroking her hair as he mumbled something into her ear. She giggled from time to time, likely just to be court and not discourage her brother from talking, because, as I saw it, he posed a perfect cover for her cloudy stare. As long as he talked, the stubborn dug of her irises, a dug of a most persistent and durable nature, could be taken for a stare of thoughtful hesitation or meditation. So long you didn’t look at the direction she was gazing at, it all seemed natural, very effortless. But once you followed that unrelenting gaze and came to the dark, hunched over silhouette in a dark, slightly dishevelled coat that, even then bore a few iridescent pieces of glass woven into it, the stare lost on its neutrality and instead took in a quality rather obsessive and stubborn.

But who could ever blame poor Camilla for that intense, devoted stare? After all, clad in that coat stood Henry Winter. Pretentious, cold-hearted, dense, gorgeous. He was limping bare foot around the beach, with his trousers pulled up to his calves, constantly bending down to pick something up and hide it in the inner folds of his clothing. A seemingly ever-present scowl graced his face, and I couldn’t decipher if it was from all the walking on the cold, sharp stones of the beach or the thoughts that swarmed his mind. Because from the slight furrow of his brows, the angry purse of his lips, and a general absence of his mind on that day, especially during Julian’s class, anyone could tell that he has been thinking and thinking hard. I did not like that scowl. That confused grimace on his face, as if he was wondering what had he done wrong, what transgression had he made. As if he was still thinking of her. From time to time his hand soared to his hair, or his cheek or his neck, only to fall, limp, by his side as if overtaken by a sudden infirmity. As if the mere thought, or a glimpse at a memory of her sucked him dry of all his forces.

And I hated the worried but also quite angered grey gaze that followed his every bend and pull up. Somehow, I felt wrong watching Camilla, as she watched him, as he surely thought of that bright apparition from the night before. I wanted to step into the line of Camilla’s sight and cover that sorry excuse for a beau. I could not, however do that, for the nuisance that clung to me as soon as we got into Henry’s car. Bunny. I think that on that day, his blonde mope of hair was slightly lighter, almost gilded by the dimmed rays of sun, and that his smile was brighter, touch gentler, he himself, much nicer. He gripped my arm with both of his hands, clinging to me like a barnacle, chatting nonsense over my head as we perused along the quay.

‘And can you believe this fag, God, fuck that fucking prick, grabs me by the collar, can you believe this?! – me! By the collar?! And drags me out of the restaurant before I could even open my mouth. Sharon ran just behind him and heard all the things that fag had said… what a cock-up, I tell you.’

Sometimes I wondered what he was even doing in a classical course that focused on literature with that foul tongue of his and distasteful manners.

‘Like what?’

‘What?’ He commented dumbly, his thoughts absorbed by something else already.

‘What had the waiter said to you?’

A strange almost incredulous look twisted his sun-kissed face. It would be funny, the unbothered shrug of his shoulders and helpless rose of his palms, if I hadn’t known already why he had dragged the poor Sharon into that restaurant in the first place.

‘You know, the usual.’ His smile was as bright as a summer sun, although a bit sharper and more repulsive. ‘That I’m their best costumer, and they simply cannot wait to see me again.’

He elbowed me right in the ribs. As he said that, his ribald laugh carried across the silver tile of the sea. I cringed inwardly but feigned an unsure laugh as well.

‘I don’t think I will be ever able to come back there. Shame, Henry didn’t pick up, what a prick. Oh, well. You win some, you lose some. I must admit it to you, I was already growing weary of the food they serve in that kennel.’

‘Totally,’ I murmured as my eyes focused away from Bunny and onto the lithe and tall figure of Francis, blazing against the grey skies with his fiery hair, forlorn while on his look-out for her. His coat flayed on the wind, unbuttoned in that romantic, tragic way he had always treated all his clothes. White frill peaked from beneath it, not doing much to shelter him from the cold onslaught of the wind. Bunny must’ve followed my eyes because he snarled and nudged me once again.

‘How do you think she’s going to get here this time?’

His pale eyes shined strangely when he looked at me with that menacing grin of his. Strange, how similar he was to Henry. Well, not Henry per se, but the Henry from the night before, the starved, hungry little creature. A crocodile lurking from beneath the surface of water, waiting for the slightest jitter, to lunge forward and capture an unsuspecting prey. I felt that Bunny has been waiting for me to bring up the subject of her, and when I stayed mute about it, he somehow managed to weave her semi-naturally into the conversation.

‘Dunno,’ I shrugged.

‘Let’s pray that she does not intend on arriving here on foot. I’m not entirely keen on waiting ten hours for her to get here.’

I did not respond, suddenly not so keen on upholding a conversation with him. In response to my lack of response, Bunny breathed deeply, as if to swallow all the oxygen in the air around us and bent down to fish a rock that caught his eye. He broke for me and with a skilled, clearly practiced swing of a wrist he sent the rock bouncing off the strangely still sea. One, two, three, four times it bounced, sending a myriad of shaky circles across the brown water. I had to give it to him, he knew how to play ducks and drakes.

‘She looked most exquisite today, did she not?’

The muscles of his back strained and shrunk beneath the pale dustcoat he donned that afternoon, as he drew his arm back. A studious, thought-out gesture I believe it was. One he would practice with his brothers or cousins or friends from previous schools. Did he chat with those friends about girls and restaurant trips that backfired, like he did with me? Or was he more open with those people? Less stand-offish. Maybe Bunny wasn’t always a prick but got turned into one by some terribly tragic turn of events? I imagined Bunny, one or maybe two years younger than as he was on that beach, sitting on a rock, near some lake, surrounded by tall, green trees, smoking a roll-up, shag all over him. I tried to think and imagine him, how he would be in that scenario. Would he laugh, like he did now, or would his temper be a little bit numbed? If so, how would he smile? Would that fiendish spark in his eyes diminish gradually or start to pulse, brighter and brighter until there was nothing left of his pupils? I wondered, as I thought of much younger, a bit more muscular Bunny if Henry could excel at skipping stones as much as his blonde friend did.

‘Who…?’

‘Who? Who? What are you, an owl? Come on, Richard!’

He threw one of the rocks in his hand at me and although he did it rather lightly, even let the rock bounce on the uneven surface of the beach a few times, it still hurt terribly, when the small, brown pebble hit my tibia. I gathered my hurting leg up to my chest to embrace it and maybe massage the pain a little bit out of my system, while his bellowing laugh waltzed over the tranquil sea once again.

‘Oh, yeah, right. Stunning.’

Massaging did not help. Nor did his laughter which he did not mask, pretentious, and full of self-delight.

‘Although… I must admit she looked quite tired…’ now a deep frown of thoughtfulness cut straight through his bright forehead, smile long forgotten. With a slight tilt to his head, his finger slowly rose, still kind of wet and dusted with minuscule specs of sand that managed to not get washed up from the beach, and pressed them to him lower lip, caressing it, no, pushing it forcefully back and worth, as if bullying his own lips could help him formulate thoughts into words. ‘As if she had a huge fight the night before. You must’ve seen it. She was rather on the edge today. The way she refused to engage in the lecture… Completely out of character, if you ask me.’

He returned to picking and skipping stones for a while and so he did not catch the displeased grimace on my face when I hummed at him, seemingly in agreement.

‘And the…’ His hand graced slowly, almost seductively over his collar bones, indicating what already had known was the unfortunate sign of her and Henry’s ministrations. I had nothing to say to him on that matter. To spill something like that, gossip about her and Henry behind their back, and to him… I don’t think I could think of a blemish more non-launderable than that. After a while of standing in silence, after all it would be rude of me to just simply leave him there, he snapped his fingers at me, not even turning to look back, and spoke once again. And once again his mind and voice and overall, his whole being seemed coldly attached to the distant silhouette of her. His constant fascination with the topic of her started to tire my patience out.

‘And the note Henry tossed her. Did you see that? I thought she was going to read it. She always reads my notes.’ There was a sense of pride in those words. As if reading one’s chitty determined its remarkable quality or the quality of the sender. ‘Wonder, what Henry did to piss her off like that. To crumble the paper from him and not even read it! Brutal! He must’ve fucked up real bad!’

For that I did not have an answer as well, so I simply feigned a slightly amused laugh and pushed my hands into my pockets, just like she did this morning, the small difference being, mine were empty. Hers, on the other hand, fisted around the damned chit.

‘Say, Richard, I had heard that you’ve spent a whole week at her apartment.’

‘Who told you that?’

‘Never mind. So, did you?’

Something bubbled in me at that dismissive tone of his. Sudden urge to stab at him, to be better choked me from within.

‘Ya, I did. What of it?’

‘Nothing,’ He shrugged. ‘Nothing, really, don’t look at me like that.’

He buried his chin deep into the flange of his coat, bit around his fiercely green scarf. And he skipped stones some more. I stood beside him, waiting. Because I knew he was going to ask. And I wanted him to. His blue eyes darted to me from time to time as I feigned thoughtfulness, gazing into the horizon. Dark clouds mingled right before me, just at the edge of the skyline.

‘So… what did you two do? While you were there.’

I had to fight the shit-eating grin that threatened to stretch my cheeks.

‘Nothing much.’

‘I’m serious, Richard. What did you do? You can tell me.’

‘I’ve already told you. Nothing much.’

There was a strange delight being pulled from his frustration with me. Bunny could have his schemes and his secrets, that he hid from me. He could have made a fool out of me and Sharon and many other, different people before I even appeared on his horizon. But then, on that pitiful, rocky beach, I was the one with power, the knowledge for which we thirsted. So as pushy as he was, when he came closer to me with that nauseating, sweet smile and asked me the same question a several more times, I did not grow tired or less satisfied with giving him the same answer.

‘You are not a very good friend, you know that, Richard Papen?’

I noticed that recently all of them started to call me by my full name, just like she always did. However strange it was, it also gave me a sense of belonging. Now there was a patch on me, left by her, that they identified me by. It wasn’t a nickname that would showcase their attachment or affection towards me, but still, somehow it was something that distinguished me from the crowd of other, bland first and last names of other pupils at Hampden.

‘Oh, come on! Don’t make me beg you!’

I backed away from him, letting the grin to bloom on my face. I shrugged, mimicking his signature, disinterested gesture. He snapped his fingers at me, a knowing look shining in his eyes.

‘Aha! So you did something! I see it in your face, tell me! Tell me now!’

Very clever of him, I thought as I spun on my heel, to see through me, only when I allowed him to. I pushed off the rocky shore and darted forward, giggling away, like a silly little schoolgirl. I don’t know, there was something utterly exhilarating about being in the centre of his attention, the object of his desire, no matter that I was being only used as a vessel for what he truly desired to know. Funny, how much one can grow, hidden in the brilliant shade of another.

‘Even if so, I’m never going to tell you!’

I did not expect Bunny to jump after me, but he did. With all his athletic built and clearly a natural talent and prowess for sports I stood no chance. And yet I gave it my all. Not like in PE in high school, when I would do anything not to participate in the exercises. I pushed my feet into the ground, rhythmically, with focus and strain, hell-bent on gaining an upper hand over that blond-haired bruiser. My breaths caught in my throat, my muscles burned as jumped into the shallow water and circled the boats at bay. Brown, dirty-looking water splashed around me as I forced my knees up to my chest to jump over the water more efficiently. Bunny lunged into the water right after me, cursing and slurring offensive terms on top of his lungs. The stunningly light mop of hair bounced up and down his forehead with every jump he took to get closer to me. He was slowly gaining on me, as my weak puny lungs started to betray me, and ragged breath clogged my airways with every froggy leap around the boats.

‘Richard, you maggot, it’s freezing-fucking-cold!’

I laughed dumbly, and swirled just past him, making a dash back to the shore. As I run, I looked back over my shoulder to see him tumbling behind me. My tongue darted out to mock him. A mistake. Because as I was focused on my childish antics, one of my feet slipped disastrously over some particularly moist rocks. And as in one second, I was faster than Mercury himself, swiftly manoeuvring almost above of the uneven plain of the beach, in the next I was lunging at it, hands first, pebbles digging into my skin, ripping it to shreds. Behind me, Bunny howled a triumphant roar. As if the pain of hitting a rocky, sharp shore wasn’t enough, seconds after I did so, another, much heavier body pushed me further down. White-hot pain soared up my spine and crawled into my lungs and two strong arms snaked around my shoulders and throat, forcing my head up.

‘Now, you’ll sing everything to me, nice and easy, won’t you, Richard?’

His hot breath fanning my ear, rocks digging into my chest and thighs, the weight of his body growing more and more precarious, the longer he pushed into me. I could feel on my back how the muscles of his torso strained, and between my legs, how his own brushed down on them, hiking my trousers up, as I writhed helplessly in his ironclad grip. And for a second, just for the tiniest morsel of time, a scene flashed before my eyes. Two different bodies, one astral, white, the other terribly nocturnal, crumpled together, gripping at each other’s bodies in a way that was eerily similar to the twist of Bunny’s fists. Something, like a slime or oil slid from the back of my throat and plopped into my stomach.

‘How’s it gonna be, huh? Will you sing?’

Blood rushed into my head, filling it with a low, systematic buzz. Somehow, I did not find the courage to writhe and struggle against his hold, the quick flash of memory burning on my corneas. I fear, as the oxygen started to alleviate from my lungs, and my neck started to strain with acidic pain, craning unnaturally between Bunny’s strong arms, that only seconds divided me from screaming everything to him. Betraying her and just singing to him all that was there to be sung. Just so I could breathe again, just so I could drag myself from beneath his blazing-hot, bronze-tangled body. And when that moment finally approached, when my lips parted and a feint, but eager rasp for air filled the space between us two, a quiet drag of rocks put an end to all of it. Suddenly, Bunny’s hold on me weakened, his arms slid down to my shoulders and his weight seemed a little bit less forced. He did not roll off me, but his body relaxed and did not seem to be pushing at me anymore.

Two bare feet came into field of my vision. Pale, slim, very graceful, although dirtied with forlorn grains of sand and marine sort of flora. A cold, stern voice followed, and the breath I seemed to regain before, once again escaped me.

‘What are you two doing.’

Henry gazed at us, or rather, graced us with a distant glare from the altitude of his station. His face serious and pulled tight, even more so than usual, hair wet from the constant drizzle sticking to his face like seaweed or tentacles of a dead octopus. He run his fingers through that damp main of his and gathered the mist from the glasses, sightly crooked on his nose, with a shaky, reddened hand. We could only watch, too dumbstruck by his sudden appearance to think of any kind of response. I don’t know why Bunny stayed silent, I for one, felt shame mixed with an astral kind of fright gripping at my throat and twisting my stomach, rendering me unable to speak. I saw him… I saw him then, in those positions… the daft, wet body before me was the same of that nocturnal, divine from the night before. The small shards of glass lodged in the wool of his coat, the same glass that from which I drank. The shallow cuts on his fingers and the deep one in the middle of his palm, covered by a long and very white Band-Aid, the same ones I saw bleed not so many hours before.

‘I asked you a question. What are you two imbeciles doing?’

Bunny was the first one to budge. With a sweet, almost infantile voice, in which I could plainly hear that dumb grin stretching his features wide into a smiling moon.

‘Nothing dearest, just having a friendly chat, isn’t that right, Richard?’ His elbow dug into my ribs, and I nodded without much conviction. “See? Now, why don’t you go count some rocks, so we could continue?’

If stares could kill, Bunny would be lying on me dead. And if they could incinerate, he would be not weighting on me at all, for his body would be pure dust.

‘Why won’t you go and do that for me?’

Bunny shifted on my back, somehow unsettled with Henry’s tone. Strangely, on any other day that kind of exchange would go unnoticed between those two, their frisky and stern attitudes playing off each other, today though, was much different. Henry’s aura screaming not disinterest, but quietly fuming with cold anger. The dark frown on his otherwise impeccable forehead, forcing me to draw a conclusion that he had overheard our little chat and after concluding whatever he had to conclude from it, he came to us to straighten things out. Quick contractions of his fists mirroring that of a beating heart. For a second, when he leaned forward, and a deep shadow crossed his face, I thought that their final grip might close on that green scarf of Bunny’s, but no. a sharp scream cut through the air from behind us. Something between a screech of a seagull and scared whine of a feline.

‘Ma belle!’

Another scream followed in a loud, but much more melodic response. And that feminine, honeydew voice seemed to have shaken the whole firmament.

‘Mon chat! Mon Nero fougueux!’

Like a thunder it cracked between me, Henry and Bunny and in the matter of seconds Bunny was scrambling off me and standing straight up, hauling my disoriented, limp body from the ground right with him. Forcing me onto my own two feet, he dragged me with purpose and decision towards the source of our disruption. My coat shrieked, stretched by his dragging hand, me seemingly following the material, silently praying for it not to tear.

There wasn’t a faster casual walker than Edmund in that moment, when he yanked me up every three seconds so that I wouldn’t fall face first to the ground once again. Maybe Henry, but I could not be the judge of that, because when I looked back at him, to check his expression, he was gone, his black coat nowhere to be see on the rocky plain of the beach.

What I could see thought, when I returned to facing forward, was a volatile little silhouette surrounded with a pale swirl of a dress tugged mercilessly by the air currents, conjoined with a large tippet, similarly mistreated as it danced the dangerous line of being tugged of her neck at any minute and a long coat that whirred on the wind constantly catching at the spokes of the silver collapsible, she was riding. One hand, safely covered by a glove, raised to the air, waving desperately, as if to catch our attention. No need. She could’ve rolled on the beach without a word and all our eyes would be pinned on her regardless.

With a grace of a ballerina, she jumped off the bike, tossing it promptly onto the pavement and run, giggling, straight into the outstretched arms of Francis, who just in two jumps found himself at her side. They fell into an encompassing embrace and screamed something at each other, although I could not understand a word of it, for all the cut-away snarls. It was as if they had not seen each other for ages, although, in fact, they had, just that morning. Only singular words could be entangled from that onslaught of nonsense, such as triathlon, gold-medal, Olympic sportswoman, and something that bordered on ducking fire or fucking tired. Even from where I stood, I could see her reddened cheeks like the ripest of apples and sweet nose that seemed to be running, because she constantly nudged it with the back of her hand.

‘So, bike, huh?’ I almost forgot about Bunny, but with that remark his importunate existence came once again into the plain of my consciousness. I gazed at him, sideways, tasked the hand that he had tossed around my shoulders and came to a surprising conclusion, that all of a sudden, he seemed to have shrunk. And his hair wasn’t as luminescent as I thought before. Rather, a dirty shade of gold. And his muscles did not seem as rippling as they did, when he had laid on me.

‘So it would seem,’ I said, picking his arm off myself, pinching the cuff of his coat in-between two fingers. With a swift motion I stepped away from him and forward, beaconed to do so, by those pearly sounds elicited before me.

‘Where are you going, hey?!’

‘To count some rocks.’

And I was off, almost soaring towards her. Despite being away from her only for about two hours, I already longed for her, for all that she had to offer. That laugh, those stares, the cynicism, sarcasm, the know-it-all tone. We walked together to Hampden that morning. Conquered every hill and valley the snow had forged and heroically crawled up to the school premises, whining in the process like wounded animals. She did not seem to be moved at all by the events of the previous evening. What’s more, she did not seem to acknowledge that what I saw happened at all, and after chatting with her for a while I started to question the legitimacy of my own recounting. But her face and body betrayed her in every way. She walked slowly, somehow crooked, as if she was walking off a big soar, her lips shined sweetly like fresh cherries, slightly swollen and her hands, twins to Henry’s bore the markings of shattered glass. She however did not cover them, as he did, rather wore them with silent, challenging pride. And when we reached Julian’s class, and she sat down, unwrapped herself from the coat and the shoal, from beneath the soft curve of her cleavage peaked a reddened halo of teeth, like an obscure broach it mocked at anyone who dared to stare. And oh, did they stare. Most of all Bunny, who during the lecture seemed to be absolutely hypnotised by that jagged mark. Francis smirked at the sight of it, even commented on it, as his ling, bony fingers grazed over her skin, pushing her to shiver at his cold touch.

‘Quelle belle broche tu as. Ou avez-vous faufile des framboises sur vous-même?’

She shot him that look, the cold, unimpressed, unamused look she, oh so often, reserved for Bunny and his antics. Francis only laughed, and run his finger over her chest, withstanding the blazing glare like a champ.

Camilla and Charles seemed indifferent to it, but their eyes darted from time to time to it, as if to check if that blatant expression of lewdest abandon and distaste was still there. They tried their utmost to look unbothered, but I could see that vicious, judgmental spark in both their eyes. And no matter how beautiful or alluring Camilla appeared to be with that slight frown and purse of her delicate, rosy lips, I could not help but to feel somehow offended at the way she glared at my accomplice. There was no way for me to stop the churning of my stomach even when her eyes darted upwards and hid slightly beneath the soft arches of her brows. I had always thought that beauty trumps everything; age, knowledge, experience, honour and all that is sacred. I thought that something so feeble yet breath-taking should always be regarded as the most valuable asset of a person, precisely for the volatile, fickle nature of the quality. And in that aspect Camilla reigned over her tenfold. There was no denying it, with her rose cheeks, short, golden locks, and those beautiful, soft lips not many people could point to themselves and say that their beauty surpassed her. I’m thinking, actually, that only Aphrodite herself could do it, and only for the inborn tendency for vanity of the Devine. And yet, with all that knowledge, and emotions roaring a tempest inside my chest, when I saw Camilla regarding my Diogenes with that slightly mocking, steel-grey stare, I had to press my lips into a painfully thin line to prevent myself from barking at her. It was a vile, unwelcomed and strangely foreign emotion, to be so defensive over a person like her. Overwhelmed with the intensity of my need to protect her, to stick to her side like a faithful companion, to protect her neck from the sharp canines of judgment, I trained my eyes on the other side of the class, to the real object of my ire.

Henry was the only one truly uninterested with the whole raspberry business. Or at least he seemed not to be, majorly, because the whole plane of reality did not bother him at all as well. Absentmindedly, he just scratched the surface of his pulpit with one finger, closely observing the smallest trace of the destruction he was bringing onto the seasoned oak. Like a catatonic or a shadow of himself he did just that, and nothing else. His darkened eyes bore into the poor desktop with such intensity and fervour I truly started to fear for the varnished wood. Only once did he manage to tear himself from the tedious task of vandalism, somewhere between the mention of Thucydides’ trap and Bunny’s remark on how America is the modern-day Athens. As if shaken out of trance, he jolted and scoffed, almost simultaneously with her. Their eyes crossed and in an instant the air in the class seemed to drain. His head fell to his chest in a shameful gesture of a kid that broke their mother’s favourite vase. If Julian hadn’t spoke to him then, he might’ve broken down, or at least that’s what it looked like to me. I knew I saw a small, wet drop hit the inside of his glasses when he hung his head down.

‘Why are you scoffing, Henry? Do you not think America to be the greatest military power, naval power, of our time?’

That seemed to rouse him a little bit, although not enough to ignite the fire that alighted him every time topics like that came to play in our classes. Maybe because she turned sideways to face Bunny, rather than him. When he spoke, his tone was flat, drained of anything. Not even his usual snarky attitude shined through the thick cover of numbness present in his very posture, his face, his miserable, reddened waterlines. His words, void of his signature attitude sounded utterly unconvincing, as if he was forced to spew them out loud.

‘Oh, no. I am sure, that America, more than any other country deserves to be called a Hegemon, or even, the hegemon of our civilisation. But is It rational to compare it to ancient Athens?’

‘What do you mean?’

Julian seemed intrigued, while Bunny only rolled his eyes at that, as if he had already heard that argument repeated on end before. His eyes darted to her, and mine did as well, surprised to find her almost beat-red and with lips pressed so tight they appeared as a white, ghostly blemish on her face. She fisted her dress at her knees with a passion of a person undergoing a herculean effort.

Intrigued I glanced back to the shadowy figure that remained in the corner of my eye. To my surprise, Henry was still digging at the desktop, now with newfound ferociousness, his eyes digging stubbornly into her hunched back, hurrying with an explanation, as if his words were the only thing that could get to her, a girl sitting only two sits away from him.

‘Don’t you think it a tad bit ridiculous to compare that dirty slum, that parody of a country, a colossus whose clumsy steps smother its citizens, whose greedy hands grasp and tear at anything in its proximity – more oil, more gold, more power, more influence – to the cradle of democracy and free-thinking? Is it not ludicrous to compare that semi-liberal, fundamentally flawed gendarme to the beautiful muse of culture and military art? How can we call a cheap copy of one thing its new form?’

Something in the monotony of his voice resounded with such eerie, gloomy feel and sacred conviction, there was no other way but to read them as pure spite. I could not figure though, at whom that venom was directed. Usually, when a snake spits its venom out, the target is clear, big, obvious. Not this time. Bunny was the instigator of the discussion – he mentioned the comparison. But he was not the one at whom Henry’s eye were digging at so feverishly. He was not the one Henry’s words were directed at. Up to the point when she gritted her teeth and exhaled through her nose, with an exasperated impatience, I could not understand what his motive was.

‘America is a republic,’ she’d said, patient, although clearly balancing on a thin line between angry whisper and a shout. ‘The design of the founding fathers, no matter what we think about them and their legacy, accounted for the flaws and inborn malice of the humankind. They prepared the ground for a great, strong, and yes, militarized nation to rise and be a power like no other. To control the seas, and be the source of new, liberal thoughts, just like Athens were. So no, I don’t think it ridiculous, actually.’ With a sharp inhale, she interrupted whatever though Henry might’ve had, as she continued, her words suddenly rapid and furious. It was strange, so strange to see her, shaking her head, gripping at her knees, as if restraining herself, cheeks red and clearly hot, eyes dug deep into the pale, disoriented orbs of Bunny, while Henry clawed more and more viciously at the desk, virtually begging her back with his eyes to turn. Like a chase in which she was the prey, he chased her, but contrary to the conventional understanding of a hunt, she was with the power there. He might’ve provoked her, how, don’t ask me, I suppose that the topic of America came before in one of their debates and left a particularly sour taste in her mouth, but she was the one who would decide if she ever wanted to have a real dialogue with him. She was the one to decide, if he was going to receive, what he so desperately tried to squeeze from her. ‘Whatever Enlightenment dictated them, stemmed from antiquity, so what you deem a cheap copy, is in all truth, its upgraded, modernized version.’

Henry scoffed again, only his face did not shift one bit, giving him a strange look of an animatronic.

‘Upgraded? How does one upgrade perfection? How does one change the unchangeable?’

As always, the two of them locked themselves inside their own world and did not let any of us in. not even Julian, who was now hoovering close to his cathedra, wringing his hands in a helpless gesture. Normally, he would be a moderator in that kind of discussion, not today though. Not on the day the emotions of the two disputants were at their zenith. Julian opened his mouth a few times, but neither Henry, nor she let him squeeze even the slightest whine in. so he just stood before us, tightening and loosening up his jaw, like a fish fresh out of water.

‘And what is so unchangeable in Ancient Greece, so remarkable and unquestionably unique it simply cannot be replicated?’

‘Simple – the way of living. The culture. War. You seldom see genius strategists making their names on the battle fields, brilliant formations forming for the first time in the history, new plans appearing and ensuring a sure end to the grey mass of opponents. No, you no longer see things like that, there is no finesse left in this world. All they know is mindless destruction.’ His voice stayed levelled, calm, void. If someone were simply to listen to that exchange, they would surely take Henry for the rational, normal side of the exchange, and her, for the crazed, manic and irrational. Watching them though, added another interesting depth to the conversation. The way they looked gave it all away. Mainly Henry.

‘Ugh!’ We all jumped up when she slammed her fists right into her thighs, a loud slap filling the whole room. ‘Do you not understand? That is precisely the point! The nature of a human, the nature of war remains ever unchanging, what changes however is its character. And that’s what America is doing now with the legacy of antiquity. They take ands modernize it. The concepts – hard and soft power, hegemony, the balance of power – those are terms that had already been existing for thousands of years already and America merely adapted them. That’s why they’re called the Athens of the modern world. Because of their massive potential and the modernization of old laws.’

‘Frankly, I don’t see the correlation. The barbaric state will always be it. Barbaric. Nothing to compare to Athens.’

Her head snapped back at him, finally, fury mixed with utter betrayal, as if they had been talking about it previously, and now, he had behaved in the most disloyal manner possible.

‘Take a book in hand why don’t you, before spewing nonsense like that.’

‘I don’t see why should I. Comparing America to Athens is like comparing, I don’t know… Moscow to Rome. Are you trying to tell me, you see Moscow as the third Rome?’

His eyes shined with unkept triumph, as she finally, in a moment of particular agitation turned to him. I saw a battle won, and not in her favour, she did as well. It was not a battle of wits, nor was it a battle for who had been in the right.

‘I suppose, with a certain influx of money every savage could manage to become, what did you say, a power? Yes, power, to a certain degree. It is the finesse that America lacks in, and what Athens had an abundance of, that makes the two so different, and in turn, incomparable.’

Awful anger flashed in her eyes, when those words had left his lips, but nothing more than that managed to get through her impeccable defences. Something like a cool drizzle sprinkled onto her face when their eyes crossed, and suddenly no battle mattered, she as not interested in prolonging that skirmish.

‘Mayhaps. Pardon me, please.’

She then rose to her feet, hurt and disappointment painted across her stern face, excused herself from the lecture and disappeared from the room, only to return fifteen minutes later, her hands shaky and wet, snow on her collar, pieces of ice, like the broken glass from the night before, in her hair. A chitty, one passed first through Francis, and then through me, laid already on her desk, facing down, so no one but her could read what Henry had scribed on it. To his biggest dismay, she but crumbled the paper and pushed it deep into the pocket of her coat, dismay written all over her face.

The rift between them was palpable, so much so, even Bunny managed to pick up on it. After Julian ended the class, a bit earlier than he usually would, the blond boy run up to her, frisk air in his hair, rosy blush on his cheeks. I walked with her, but he did not seem to notice me, only her.

‘Look at the snow, huh?’

His hands grasped at her elbow, exuding a shiver, almost like a visceral, whole-body reaction from her, that he must’ve taken as a sign of good fortune, for the dumb smile on his lips only widened at that.

He offered to take her to see the sea, in order to relax a bit, because, as he mentioned, she seemed rather tense. He also offered birdwatching and playing in the snow in the least court or alluring way possible, pointing out amongst many things, that white would look marvellous on her face. Henry overheard it, and in two sweeping steps he was next to Bunny, glaring daggers into his skull.

‘May you repeat?’

His pale, cut-up hand dug into Bunny’s duster, wrinkling it beneath its iron hold. The boy hissed through his teeth and jerked his shoulder forth, successfully freeing it. He however did not manage to free himself of Henry, as his massive, lean form came into the other’s space, knocking him further from her.

‘Nothing, really nothing. I was just asking our girlie here to go and see the sea.’

‘Splendid,’ Henry’s pursed lips indicated that this idea was anything but splendid to him. His feet dragged along the frozen ground with a bone-chilling shriek. ‘Shall we all go then?’ While his lips almost brushed the shell of Bunny’s ear, his eyes darted impatiently to her, still standing amongst us with a sour look on her face. Henry’s eyes catching that and challenging for more. ‘I can only suppose the snow has already covered the shore; one would be most unfortunate to miss that view.’

I thought she intended on refusing him, but no, she just nodded her head and with a slight gesture of a hand she summoned Francis to her side.

‘Mon coeur, be a deary and call Charles and Camilla over here. We’re going to the beach.’

And so we went, the six of us by car, she on her collapsible bike.

As I went up to her, leaving Bunny in the dust, alone and clearly disturbed with my response I felt somehow lighter on my feet, more daring, courageous. She and Francis had been quarrelling over something in that slightly joking, bordering on rude manner they both used in each other’s proximity. Francis was now jumping around, with one hand raised to the sky, fist high and whitened from the effort, as his other hand was trying to push down her tightly wrapped arms from around his waist.

‘Heya,’ I’d said, not really bothered by their little spar, as in the case of those two, fooleries like that were commonplace. Francis grinned at me, his eyes winking from behind his spectacles. First one eye, then the other and then both at the same time.

‘Richard! Thank heavens you’re here! Listen I need you to hold on to that…’

He leaned over to me, mocking a gesture that would suggest a handing-over of some sorts, but as soon as she darted towards his soaring hand, it had once again shot up to hights she was not able to reach. With that new imbalance to her posture, he somehow managed to wriggle himself out of her hold and jump onto a nearby bench.

‘Aaah, bad doggy! Richard, hold her!’ and he straightened out a piece of crumbled paper from his fist, unravelling it over his head with a frown of deepest thoughtfulness, as if presenting a sacred script. Green ink shimmered briefly amongst the many creases he was trying to iron between his pressed palms. Without thinking I jumped forward and gathered her into my hold, pressing her hard, slithering body into mine.

‘Richard, you traitor! Et tu Brute contra me?!’ there was no true sense of betrayal in her voice, so I did not loosen my arms, just stumbed backwards a bit from the effort it took me to hold up straight with her kicking at me, even with playful fervour.

‘Good, Richard, good! At lest we know at whose side your loyalties lay!’

The great priest Francis flaunted his hands about in a substantial expression of praise. I scoffed, although laughter climbed upwards my throat right after the snarl.

‘At my own side, that is. Now, read the damned chitty, or I let her loose.’ And as if to confirm my words, I mockingly tossed her to the side, never unwrapping my arms from her midsection, but making it look as if I intended to do so. She giggled uncontrollably, when her feet dangled in the air for a second, and Francis rose his hands in a defensive gesture.

‘Fine, fine. Just don’t let go of her.’

‘Scared, are we?’

‘Most definitely. Now shut up, I’m reading.’ He cleared his throat, straightened his back, and took upon the most serious of expressions, just like she did, when she recited poems. I wonder which one stole this pompous tactic of reciting from whom.

Her efforts to wriggle her way out of my hold subsided. She had not read yet, to my understanding, the note passed onto her from Henry, and now her curiosity took a hold over any other emotion she might’ve felt.

‘My dearest, oh that’s sweet, he calls you dearest… Don’t look at me like that, I’m reading, am I not? Anyways, my dearest, I am not writing this note to remind you of my sentiments, which are still the source of my greatest agony and joy, and which you decided to disregard with as little though as possible, but to offer a truce. Come with me to Largs today, as soon as the class ends, and let us talk, like the two rational, intelligent adults I’m sure we are. Signed – Henry.’

Her palms wrapped around mu forearms, as if looking for some kind of support. I gladly granted it to her by pulling her even closer, letting her back rest against my chest. In my embrace, when her face was hidden from my gaze by the tempest of her frizzed hair, she felt surprisingly small, no matter the bronze weaves of her muscles and the impossible, palpable power that slept in them.

‘Fucker…’ She muttered and Francis snorted, expression of pure amusement written all over his face.

‘Who? Henry? And you make that discovery only now?’

She waved her hand dismissively, completely disregarding what he had said.

‘No, not Henry. Bunny. That fucker must’ve read the chit when you passed it to me. That’s why he asked me to come to the beach.’

I shrugged, still holding her, because she made no effort to loosen my hold.

‘And what of it? It’s not like he had a real chance at succeeding at seducing you either way.’

I could feel her deep sigh right in my chest. When her back expanded and pressed against my sternum, it was as if warm honey dripped right against the bridge of my chest and settled delightfully in my stomach.

‘Oh, Richard… It is not the matter of whether he read it or not, or if he had a chance with me or not. It is the fact that he tried to use something… dear to me and Henry.’

The sweet honey froze into an uncomfortable block of ice in my stomach. I cleared my throat, flabbergasted.

‘The beach is dear… to you and…?’

Francis scoffed again, although now he seemed irritated, more than anything. His long, pale fingers gripped around the chitty, as if it was the source of all evil in this world.

There were some things, the beach, the Athens-America debate, the coffee, the plants. So many things that I noticed but never seemed to grasp at the deeper matter of them. Like the sea, they talked about, it was all murky and dark for me, but no matter how dense and blind I was at that time, I could see that both she and him, Henry, they were woven into the fabric of their lives. Francis knew that as well, and he did not seem to like it, no matter how tragically romantic it had seemed to me.

‘Bullshit!’

‘Fran, dear…’

‘No, mon framboise, I call bullshit. And you wanna know why? Because there is nothing dear, I say nothing, that might be connected to him. That… that reversed Midas… he ruins things. Most importantly, he ruins you.’

Francis tossed his head around in an exhibition of utter frustration and anger. His hair flew around his head in a brilliant, fiery halo and if he did not look the way he looked, angular, gaunt and flamboyant in that pretty, feminine way I would think that Nero himself had come to us with a cithara in his hand to torture us with his singing. She in turn, averted her gaze from that display.

‘You know what? Look, this is how much I care, and by the way, how much you should care about your Artemisium and any other beaches in this world, if the thought of them comes with the thought of him.’

Francis pulled something out of the pocket of his coat, a small package in the shade of bottle green with an indigenous man in full head of plums and a big, red letters right next to his floating head – RED MAN.

‘You lot wanna see a magic trick? I had learned it recently, it is the most entertaining party stunt, or so I hear.’

He gathered some of the brownish shavings from the back and with an expertly trained hand, he sprinkled it onto the paper folded slightly between the index finger and thumb, then rolled it all into a neat tube, pressing some sort of small, white sponge into the folds. Then, the green bag got switched in his hand to a lighter, and before any of us could react in any sort of way, he lit it all. Blaze of fire lit his face and a tall pole of light shot into the air. A strained shriek escaped her mouth, as she jolted forward, straining my arms, not agile enough though to break their hold. I just tilted forwards and staggered ahead a few steps.

‘Now, bear witness, Nero fiddles while Rome burns!’

The flaming roll-up looked like a cigarette, and Francis inhaled it from the other end like a cigarette, but it most certainly did not burn like one. The tall flame fed off the parchment paper, so different from the usual rolling one, rose higher and higher as it run across the length of the provisory cigarette. She fell limp against me, as the flames reached the halfway point of the paper, and the flames kissed softly the twin, red strands of Francis’ hair with an angry hiss.

‘Oh, you are a monster! A monster I tell you! Put it out and give it back to me this instant!’

With a deep inhale he let a puff of dark, fuming smoke out of his nostrils.

‘Quamvis nunc tuum consilium sit et votum celeriter reverti me… yada, yada, yada.’

The blaze of the cigarette reached his knuckles, and he threw the butt to the ground with eager distaste.

Dusted piece of ashy paper, no longer than three millimetres, that’s what was left from the note Henry had sent her. It sizzled miserably on the wet rocks for a bit more, until the last slither of life escaped it and floated up, to dissolve into the mist surrounding us.

‘Some party trick it was, Fran,’ I said, eyebrows raised. ‘You just smoked a fag, that’s all.’

‘And that’s where you are mistaken, Richard Papen dearest, I just made the note disappear. Hence, I really did present you with a trick – a disappearing trick!’

I breathed a laugh, although brief, because in the corner of my eye I saw a dark silhouette moving about, stalking closer to us, as it moved up and down, across the beach. I let go of her. She turned to me, cheeks red, nose almost purple from the cold and tasked me with a questioning look.

‘Well, you do not look much bothered by the arson we just witnessed.’

The mischievous twist of her rosy lips gave me an idea of a playful sprite giggling at me.

‘He’d already read it, so it is no difference to me. Chitty or no chitty, its contents are safely stored here.’

She knocked on her temple. Francis turned on his hills and jumped down to level with us.

‘Ya, run off you mouth all you want Moneta, there’s no way you memorised all that after just one reading.’

‘Oh-hooh, I bet you real life moolah, I did.’

In the corner of my eye, the dark silhouette moved closer, now digging through its pockets, emptying them with a fervour, small, big, shiny and matte rocks falling around his limping feet, until he found a rock that suited his tastes and closed it in the palm of his hand.

To my right, the two of them did not seem to notice. Shaking their heads at each other, widening their eyes with silly smiles plastered on their faces, they mocked each other.

‘Real money, you say. How much?’

‘How much you’ve got on your person, smarty.’

‘Four hundred and fifty. Are you prepared to pay such a salty price?’

‘I won’t need to pay a broken penny, since everything. Is. In. my head. Engraved.’

‘Then cite away, the floor is yours. And my four hundred and fifty pounds. If you’ll manage to prove to me that what you’re saying is actually what has been written on that piece of paper.’

One punch from her sent him few jumps back, grasping at his forearm and wincing in discomfort. Her giggle got swiftly replaced with a deep inhale and the stiff stillness of her body. From the way her eyes twinkled I knew she was readying herself to recite. As Henry got now closer and closer in my field of vision, I clutched her elbow quickly, maybe too swiftly because she scrunched her nose.

‘Better not now.’

She looked at me, incredulously, but then her gaze fell somewhere over my shoulder and her eyes took in a look of cold understanding.

‘Thank you, Richard.’

Her soft hand patted me gently on the shoulder, then drifted down to my hand, her skin very cold and very stiff, like marble, the veins on the back of it strangely similar to the purple and gold streaks in many fancy, stone floors. Francis threw a glance our way, massaged his jaw as if it was sore and kicking a rock, he sulked away, eyes full of mist.

Rocks grated beneath a new set of feet, bare, and I did not have to turn to know, that behind me hoovered the ghostly pale and twisted by torment of Henry Winter. The smell betrayed him. A strong, kind of earthy king of fragrance that made you think of money and men with frozen hearts. My shoulder now took its turn to be held into his grasp, his palm bigger and colder than hers. Shivers run up and down my spine, my stomach turned and swirled, the cold from his body seeping deep into me, into my soul, freezing it worse than the ninth circle of heel could. I felt the air retract from my nape as he took in a dep breath, surely to speak. I acted, before he had the chance to do so, out of fear I must admit it. A fear of being pulled into yet another of their strange, complicated tapestries.

‘Oh, Henry, wonderful to see you. Again. Well, if you excuse me,’ I waved my hands about, slowly stepping away from him, shrugging his hand from my shoulder. ‘I must catch Francis. We have… a big thing… with the, well, Greek. You get it.’

I throttled quickly away, not waiting for him to even respond. I knew I was not the one he came over to talk to. I was not the one he intended to give the small, round and beautifully opal he was turning between his slightly trembling fingers, to. I was not the one he wished to waste his spit on, so I happily spared him the inconvenience.

As I walked away and towards Francis idly, although not very smiley, rolling a cigarette, I took one last look over my shoulder.

Amongst the heavy whitened mists of the beach, two figures stood, once again distant and unsurprisingly divine. Dark and light, inches away with his hand stretched between them, like a dark, shiny with broken glass, woolly bridge, a tiny green stone at the very end of it. His lips moved, although I could not hear nor decipher what he was saying. Her arms were folded over her chest, closed to him, although it was plane and prominent in the slight tilt of her body, she was willing to open. Her eyes begging him for something. His brows feel and then rose multiple times on his forehead, bruising it with deep, long frowns. He spoke slowly, although one could read a strange urgency, from the way his muscles twitched, and his hair swirled about with the sharp moves of his head. He spoke, I could see it even from the distance, with preciseness and devotion I had not seen him throw himself into, even when speaking of Homer. His hand still extended, he continued for quite a long time, with his spectacles sliding off his nose and eyes big like saucers, possessed by an emotion I could not read, but most of all, and most surprisingly, genuine and clearly pure in their intent.

The sea moved in slight, gentle waves behind them, as they lips moved, as their hair swayed in the wind. Camilla and Charles were sitting far behind, but even with those two in the distance, Henry and she seemed strangely isolated. No birds, no sounds, no people, not really in their vicinity, their space. Now it was her turn to speak. From the slight curve of her lips, from the tilt of her head I could tell she was joking, but the joke was soft and sweet, because Henry smiled as well. It wasn’t a thaw that could break the permafrost of Winter, but maybe a small, defrosted creak.

The sound of lighter clicking to life jolted me from my snooping.

‘It’s not nice to spy on others, Richard Papen, is it now?’

Francis’s tone was chirpy and upbeat, his face however remained stone-cold, the laugh in his tone not reaching his eyes at all. I shrugged, ruffled my hair, not quite knowing what to say.

‘A cigarette? I can roll you a real nice one.’

I shook my head, no. In all truth, all I wanted to do was to turn again, to dig my eyes greedily into the two figures, whose proximity I just abandoned. There was a strange, dangerous pull about them. A gravitation that made you sick and disoriented when near, but beaconing you, luring from afar. Like a drug. Francis hummed. From the slight squint of his eyes, I read that he knew, or rather, thought he knew, something that escaped my keen eyes.

‘Well, nonetheless, no snooping around anymore. They’re moving someplace else.’

His lips pursed into a tight, almost apologetic line, as he pointed his cigarette behind me, towards them. And truly, when I turned, I saw them walking away, arm to arm, with a distance between them, that would be considered appropriate, if not the turned head of Henry Winter. Unchangingly enchanted by something in her profile, something I could not see. His nose was sharp in the grey light of the day, his hair shined, not absorbed it, for the first time I saw him, he seemed to be emanating the glow she so often did in his presence.

They stopped at the line where the water met the rocky shore, the waves lazily washing over their feet – his, bare, pale, and hers, clad in some tall, leather shoes. They spoke of something, smiling like good friends… well no. Not friends. They liked each other, but in the grand scheme of things, those two divine creatures, my private little gods, were just… two people in love. Ever since I got to know them, maybe even long before that, and long after. They hid behind their books, their tricks, silly reasons. They thought up those elaborate, frustrating obstacles, and till the end they could not find a way to tear them down. But on that day, on that beach, and for some time after that, till the snow bund the whole of Vermont, and then let it go of its frightful, biting hold, they were happy, and free to love. And they did, they gained some time thanks to that talk they had in Largs, and they clawed at it, tore like a feral cat tears at a curtain, so just to gain a second longer. They had weeks, which is far longer than any other tragic couple from the old texts they both loved so much had. But in my mind, this particular advantage they had, I revel in. Because even with their nonsensical squabbles, and hermetic obsessions, only the other of the two could understand, they were superior to all those whiny aficionados. because they took the step and they talked.

I never got to know what he had told her on that beach. And I never had the pleasure of hearing the joke she told him in response. All I knew and will ever know is that whatever it was, it somehow fitted right in their tapestry, somewhere between the sea, Athens and coffee.

I watched them for the rest of the afternoon with Francis. He smoked a roll-up after roll-up, and I just stood there, my frozen hands deep in my pockets, eyes deep into them. We did not talk much, for we knew why and who we were standing there for.

They had not moved until the sky started to turn from grey to the unpleasant colour of a fresh bruise, and Charles’ whines of cold and discomfort forced us back into the cars, and her, onto her bike. As she waved me off, I saw something glint in her hand. The opal.

#bunny corcoran #charles macaulay #camilla macaulay #francis abernathy #henry winter #henry winter x reader #richard papen #the secret history #afab reader

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themousefromfantasyland · 6 months

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Journey Through the Disneyverse: Halloween Edition 🎃

I practically had to do one more after watching Disney's most iconic Halloween property. Yes, I'm speaking of Hocus Pocus. And no, I won't review Nightmare Before Christmas. You can fight me later, but I consider that more a Christmas film than a Halloween film.

Hocus Pocus (1993)

I never watched this as a kid, so I am not blinded by Nostalgia when I say this is one of the best Halloween movies of all time.

I was having problems getting into the Halloween mood this year. College stress and the depressing headlines were huge factors. But this movie put me in the mood immediately.

It's extremely funny, campy, colorful. It represents the fun, mischief, and magic that I always associated with the Halloween season.

The Sanderson Sisters are Queer icons. I Put A Spell on You It's such a contagious scene. They are the closest thing straight cis women will ever come to drag queens.

The film also has a huge heart to it, something that fans don't talk too much about. From the colonial teenage boy who watched his young sister be MURDERED by the Sanderson Sisters and was cursed to be an immortal cat, to the oldest son having to assume a protective role over his young sister. As an older brother who loves to death his annoying young sister, this hit me in the feels.

And to my last point, the film has a strange mature humor that doesn't quite fit Disney. Sometimes it makes me chuckle, and sometimes it makes me cringe. What's it with all the cast shaming a 14-year-old for not having sex?

Hocus Pocus 2 (2022)

I struggled to get through this one.

This reminded me a little of Disenchanted, being both unnecessary sequels that aren't as good as the originals. But while Disenchanted is campy and has enough original ideas to justify its existence, this film is completely transfixed with the original to do anything original.

Even the few original ideas this have, like showing the Sandersons as kids, or they wanting revenge on the town's mayor because he is a descendant of the Reverend that tried to take them apart, or the protagonists being semi young witches, are very underutilized and not very well executed all together.

It's sad, because I feel like there are elements to make a decent, or at least, watchable sequel here.

Heck, the main trio is back, and they are giving their best, but they are so tired, and the script isn't helping.

@ariel-seagull-wings @thealmightyemprex @tamisdava2 @princesssarisa @angelixgutz @the-blue-fairie @natache

#disney #halloween #journey through the disneyverse #hocus pocus

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justslowdown · 6 months

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I finally had my surgery consult appointment about my forehead. Too late for the weirdness to be removed without a true Lot of scarring, because of it suddenly going nuclear at the beginning of the month. I'm mostly just feeling relief that it's finally almost gone.

It was a good day and I felt very lucky to be alive in the body I've got right now.

Reminders I wrote down to myself of what touched my heart today (with Sufjan music as a perpetual backdrop of course because: me):

The thick fog, evergreens, and fall colors driving into Portland in the morning--the moss and ferns growing out of the ramps and barriers. There's something so evocative about fog and forest. The mystery delights me in a wistful kind of way.

The flocks of seagulls, crows, and geese all reveling in existence in their own magically unique ways.

The moss forest, a universe its own, on one particular boulder along a rock beach struck me deeply, and I teared up. I'm still not sure why this was the particular trigger.

Seeing people rowing a boat in perfect sync, so small across the river that I could barely see the trees behind them. In and out as one being. Wakes behind them.

Smaller moments, not as close to hitting the joy-cry nerve but stacking up:

Old, old signs rising in the fog, driving into town.

The perfect Enjoy Your Rabbit song coming on when I descended into the parking garage after suddenly entering Portland Driving proper. Immersion in jarring artificiality.

Someone playing fetch with their border collie out on an empty soccer field.

Spiderweb made magic by droplets of water. Center of my universe for a little while.

Dried up old fish mummy on the bank, perfectly scaled and boned but statue-like. Fascinating!

Another person! out there to enjoy the environment and not just to exercise, walking the other way down the rocky river beach we maybe? weren't supposed to be on, and exchanging smiles

As I left town after my appointment, the sheer contrast of roads suddenly going straight up a hill. Fall colors obscured the higher you got.

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