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goodproofingwater · 4 years

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Chapter 16 | Tinder Tommy

Words: 1953 Notes: hello my lovelies, i am so sorry that this has taken so long - i feel like this has literally been months and you deserve better! lots of shit has been happening in my life which has meant that i haven’t really had the focus to do anything but watch brooklyn 99 or peaky blinders for the 500th time, but ya girl is back for now! I hope that you are all still with me and are looking forward to seeing how Tommy works with his new found affection! This chapter pairs directly with @idesiretomhardy‘s Mr Solomons story (in that the dialogue is the same in parts, and the timelines are the same. These stories exist in the same universe. Enjoy!

Taglist (just send me a message if you would like to be added):

@a-dorky-book-keeper @ishoutmarcoandyoushout @idesiretomhardy @theamuz @blinderscaps @peakywriting @justanothershelby @contemporary-mary @auroravipers @moonyscardigans @peakysxshelby @miss-shelby-barnes @vintage-fantasyyy @ly—canthrope @morgan-1830 @i-love-you-green @l0tsofpennies @exploringmycosmicsoul @maah-chan @peakyblindersengland

The journey to Birmingham was almost pleasant. The first class ticket his assistant had scored him came with whiskey and although he couldn’t smoke, the journey was so seamless that he was only craving a cigarette when he stepped into the fresh air of Birmingham new street.

It had always amazed him in the way it only could a local to Birmingham that he could get to between the London office and the place it had all began in a matter of hours. He remembered when he had to call a car to get to the London office when it just started up, when the trains were so shit that he had to rely on his own mileage to get there. But so much had changed since then. He had changed since then.

Tommy Shelby crawled into Small Heath four hours after he had reluctantly left his home in Mayfair, the staff he had in the midlands office a far cry from the suit wearing, polished people in Canary Wharf.

“Good afternoon Mr Shelby,” the receptionist spoke, smiling at him and looking toward the old knocked down wall which led to the rest of what they loosely called the Birmingham office.

The large room had once been three or four terrace houses but had long since been knocked through, a small platform allowed for John to stand by a massive touch screen where he was checking stock prices and the market which was much further from their legitimate business.

The business in the north was far different from the import and export business in the south, and far from legal.

Shelby Company Limited were the first company in history to produce software which allowed the significant players in import and export of illegal goods to check market price, and buy and sell illegal goods on a secure server which was entirely untraceable.

The software was a massive success, and had gained the Shelby name infamy with even the most brutal and violent drug cartels still operating in the 21st century.

“So what was so urgent that I had to get a train up here immediately?”

John stepped aside and showed him the spreadsheet he was working on, and pulled up the share prices for drugs so it sat next to it.

“By all accounts, the cocaine market is following the same pattern as it did 5 years ago”

John didn’t have to go into detail for Tommy to remember the influx of cocaine into the country via a rival London based company, and the price drop which followed due to supply heavily outweighing demand. It had been the main reason Tommy had set up the office in the south.

“Is it Kimber again? Because I swear to god—“

“Not Kimber. His company uses our software now and he called the support team thinking it was a fucking glitch in the system”

Tommy’s brow furrowed as he eyed the prices and the spreadsheet which showed the fluctuations John had been keeping track of since the incident so long ago.

“And uh.. that’s not all” John spoke, gesturing for Tommy to follow him into his office and he did, taking a seat in one of the plush leather chairs which sat on the other side of Johns desk while his younger brother poured them whiskey and placed the glasses in front of them. “As well as the share prices I’ve been keeping track of the weight of the product coming in and going out. It’s been declining steadily for the last week. Not by much, not even enough to alert me at the start but it’s going down an ounce each time.”

“So you’re telling me someone is skimming off the top?” And John nodded, sipping his whiskey as he unintentionally mirrored Tommy’s posture, leaning back in his chair with one ankle resting on the other knee.

Tommy let out a sigh, hating that there was yet another issue that he had to deal with. External problems like share prices and supply and demand came with the territory. Internal problems were not something he had patience for.

“Any theories who it is?”

“You mean except Michael?” The malice in Johns voice was matched only by his expression, his hate and disdain for his cousin clear in everything from his brow to his clenched fingers around his glass.

Tommy responded only by rolling his eyes, Michael’s drug problem being something he was fully aware of.

“Michael pays for what he takes. And he pays double. Any real theories?”

John remained quiet, sipping his whiskey and allowing his silence to speak for itself.

“Fantastic.” Tommy sighed, downing his whiskey in one gulp and plucking a cigarette from the case he had pulled from his inside pocket. “Do we at least know which office?”

“Oh it’s definitely up here. The coke is lighter way before it even touches county lines”

Tommy lets out a sigh with the exhale of his cigarette, smoke billowing from his nose as the prospect of someone stealing and the punishment they deserve runs through his mind.

“Alright. I’ll speak to the managers up here separately and let them know what’s going on, ask them to keep an eye. I don’t want either of us up here if there’s a supply/demand problem in case we get raided. These people will get away with saying they were following orders, but we’re the fucking captains.”

John nods, sipping his whiskey and glancing out of the window, his mind clearly trying to puzzle out who it could be as Tommy did the same.

Later that evening, Tommy slipped into a bar in new street to wait for an old friend. One that he couldn’t quite believe was even stepping foot in the city.

The room seemed to part for Alfie Solomons, the very air around him bending as he walked into a bar Tommy had picked for its proximity to Alfie’s hotel. The older man was one of the few he would make allowances for, and it had been so long that he would rather take a private car the half an hour into central Birmingham than make the effort to convince him to come to small heath and listen to him complain the whole time.

“Thomas” his booming London accent turned the heads that weren’t already staring at Tommy, and he couldn’t help the bemused smile which washed over his features as he shook his hand and settled to drink his whiskey.

“Alfie, it’s been a while,” he speaks, sipping at his glass knowing full well which comment is coming next.

“Yeah well you don’t get to London as much these days,” He catches the bartender's attention, a woman who eyes up Tommy when she comes over to take his order, her eyes only leaving his friend to make Alfie’s drink.

“You could always come here,” Tommy suggests, causing Alfie to snort. His disdain for the northern city clear in both his response and his body language.

“Mate, the only reason I’m in this shit city is cause of that fucking meeting, couldn’t get me here any other way,” he comments, Tommy giving him a hint of a smile behind his glass which only widens as he watches his friend attempt to hide a selfie of all things which had made its way to his lock screen.

“So, how’s the family then?” Alfie asks.

“Arthur got married,” Tommy tries and fails to keep his distaste for Linda from his voice, and Alfie smirks as he relishes in the hate which is so evident to someone who is also quick to anger.

“And I wasn’t invited? What’s she like?” He quips

“She’s good for Arthur,” is all Tommy says, the comments he could make about his brother’s new wife unsavoury at best.

It’s then that Alfie’s phone buzzes once again, and with a second glance at his lock screen Tommy can’t keep his comments to himself any longer.

“Who’s that then aye?” Tommy says, inclining his head towards Alfie’s phone. “Got yourself a girlfriend, have you?”

“Yeah mate, I have. She’s fucking brilliant she is,” Alfie says, rolling his eyes at the smirk that crosses his friend’s lips.

“You’re going soft Solomons.”

“Fuck off,” Alfie says, the smile which splits his face something that was a rarity, and the bashfulness something Tommy had never seen in him before. “She wrote that piece on me for The City Scoop.”

“I wondered why that interview was so flattering, fucked your interviewer did you?”

“Took her out to dinner first mate,” he says with a grin, making Tommy shake his head. “I’m telling you, it’s fucking nice having someone around who wil-“

“Suck your cock?”

“She is good at that mate. Nah I’m telling you, it’s nice having a woman around to keep me company,” he says, and Tommy rolls his eyes.

“Fuck, you have gone soft,” Tommy mutters, shaking his head.

“Maybe so. It ain’t that bad though. Maybe it’s time you find yourself a girl, might be good for you.”

Tommy rolls his eyes, downing the rest of his drink to avoid replying which only causes Alfie’s grin to spread wider his face lighting up.

“Or do you already have a girl Thomas?”

“I’ve been talking with a woman yes,” he offers, though doesn’t elaborate as he orders another drink.

“Talking aye? And where did you meet her?”

“Tinder,” Tommy mutters, fingers itching to reach into his pocket for a cigarette the no-smoking laws the only thing stopping him.

Alfie scoffs, shaking his head as he runs a hand through his beard while Tommy glares at him.

“What?”

“Fucking tinder? Can’t meet a girl the old-fashioned way, aye?”

Tommy clenches his jaw at the insinuation, choosing not to rise to the comment as his hand reaches into his pocket, fingers brushing against his cigarette case.

“Like having a magazine send a journalist to your work? That old way you mean?” He runs the cigarette along his bottom lip and glares at the bartender who moves to tell him that he can’t smoke indoors, piercing eyes daring anyone to test him.

Tommy’s phone lights up and he immediately turns it face down, “besides, easier isn’t it? Haven’t got time to be spending on women in bars or journalists I need to write a good profile about me because I punched someone without thinking.”

The smirk on Tommy’s face tells Alfie that he’s joking, but the bearded man takes a sip of his beer without a hint of amusement washing over his features.

“Never knew Tommy Shelby to be so desperate that he’d turn to fucking Tinder.“ Tommy scowls and takes a long drag on his cigarette

“And I never knew Alfie Solomons to be so soft that he’d have his girl as the fucking wallpaper on his phone.”

Alfie shakes his head, hours flying before he finished what could have been his third or sixth drink, his hand resting on Tommy’s shoulder as he stood.

“I’ll be off now then,” he says, before leaning in to speak directly in Tommy’s ear. “And by the way mate, I was thinking before I punched Sabini.”

Patting Tommy’s shoulder, he makes his way out of the pub turning back to look at his friend.

“Nice seeing you mate, give me a call next time you’re in London.”

What Tommy has failed to tell his friend was that if things went well, he saw himself spending a lot more time in the capital. He suspected his friend might have something to say about his admission that he would want to spend more time away from his hometown, and he had won the battle of who was more whipped. At least for now.

#tinder tommy #tommy shelby au #modern peaky blinders au #its been a long while lads im sorry

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scribbleseas · 4 years

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The Indignant Pawn, Chapter II: The Woman In Beige

Description: You are Y/n Y/l/n- formerly known as Princess Helena, the runaway princess.

You're an assassin for hire who only agrees to find the worst of London's criminals at the business end of your knife; until a mysterious woman hires you to end the likes of Ciel Phantomhive, the King of the Underworld. You find yourself trading your weapons for your abandoned family crest in order to infiltrate his home as none other than Princess Marie-Louise, your twin sister. What's to happen when you find that the young Earl is more than a callous businessman?

OVERALL STORY WARNINGS: sexual assault, objectification, death, detailed description of blood/gore, detailed description of murder, lying, impersonation, theft, weapons, detailed panic attacks, symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Author’s Note: If you have any questions or concerns about these warnings, please don’t hesitate to contact me! Otherwise, I hope you enjoy this chapter!

-Dan

⇠ PREVIOUS CHAPTER | NEXT CHAPTER ⇢

. . .

DECEMBER 17TH, 1891

LONDON, ENGLAND

The outside of the Globe theater was alight with bustling crowds as Oscar Wilde's London premiere of Salome had just concluded for the evening.

You were never partial towards theater. In fact, it made you wonder how a show could captivate such a diverse audience, as you watched formally clothed aristocrats and their servants cringed amongst the middle-class plebeians as they exited the theater through the matching front doors. Little did they know, the real show would take place inside of the closed carriage you waited in, peering through the red blind that covered it. Your thumb ran over the smooth pommel of your dagger. You focused on its smooth entirety as you sat back in the carriage to wait, distracting yourself from the consuming darkness.

Thankfully, Felix Keating, the wealthiest factory owner from Birmingham, valued his privacy. He opted for a carriage that had a single window on the door. This made his carriage an ideal place for you to intervene and elude any potential witnesses, considering the man had little to no time alone. In your case, it was less than optimal, but strategically, it was going to do the trick.

You stared at the wall of the carriage across from you before squeezing your eyes shut. You tried to focus on something concrete- perhaps the weight of your weapon, the tickle that your wool scarf gave your lip as it concealed the bottom half of your face. You inhaled deeply, reaching out for the drape of the window to let a fraction of light, but you froze and for a moment, you were...gone. When you opened your eyes again, you found yourself in the hallway of your home, a lantern burning dimly in your hand as you heard two men talking- one voice familiar, the other strange.

'Lass? I haven't the slightest-'

'Just hand over the money and we won't have to blow no one's brains outta their skulls.'

Gunshots. Blood.

'Has she already been broken in? Lord knows what she was doing here with that old bum.'

'Doesn't matter, she's ours now, isn't that right?'

'Whore?'

Cold.

Piercing pain in your neck reminded you that you were in a carriage with years of difference from that morning. You had a job to do as you heard approaching steps and the posh voice of the factory owner himself. Before sinking to the corner furthest from the door, you took a generous inhale of the drafty air and focused on how it filled your lungs, rather than the poorly timed panic that the darkness insisted on showing you towards. You wiggled your toes in your black boots and wrinkled your nose, which served as tics that you had cautiously picked out years ago to help ground yourself when necessary. You held the dagger in your hand, the blade ready to pierce a sinner's flesh.

"That playwright will bring tears to the steeliest of lads. Quite brilliant. I must write to Wilde," Felix Keating's dulcet voice sounded as his coachman greeted him. "Reckon I could stick my nose into the theater enterprise, Her Majesty is quite interested in renovating these rubbish theaters," Keating mused, his muffled voice growing closer by the step.

"A clever investment, Mr. Keating," the coachman validated as you hugged your legs, making yourself smaller in the corner of the carriage, your head down and hood up. The door opened and you held your breath, as your heart pounded against your ribcage in protest. "May I offer you extra linens for warmth? The wind's just startin' up."

This wasn't the first time you've had to hide in order to carry out an assignment, yet the adrenaline between waiting and pouncing was always riveting.

"Ah, no Horace, I'll be 'right," Keating took his seat, more focusing on lighting his cigar. The scent caused you to tense, reminding you of the conman, someone smoked as if his life depended on it. He was a smart man that would scold you for the way you grew past his death. He'd be disappointed in you, a relentless advocate for diplomacy. Ask questions, shoot later.

"Right. If you change your mind, you gimme a holler," Horace, the coachman, shut the door as Keating settled himself with an exasperated sigh. He pushed the short drapes that were concealing the window, allowing the city lights to illuminate the small quarters and simply watched the street go by as Horace told the horse to "get walkin".

Without wasting another moment, you got to your feet, your dagger precariously reflecting light that shone through the window.

"Who is it? Who's there-" Keating started to shout, immediately sitting to attention as you used the whole of your arm's strength to shove him back against the wall that he was previously reclining against. Your nondominant hand barely fit around the circumference of his clammy neck, but nevertheless you were able to force his head back completely, his torso following in suit. You squeezed firmly, your fingers digging into the warm flesh and you could feel his hurried pulse with ease as you kept your back straight and legs strong. The angle was awkward, seeing as you were bent over in a moving carriage, but your balance was more than you gave it credit for. "Why- please!" he gasped for air, his glasses low on his nose, threatening to fall to the floor. "Stop! I have...money! Take anything you want. H-Horace!"

"Shut up!" Unintentionally, your grip tightened as you shoved his head back into the wall again, causing Keating's extinguished cigar to fall on the cushioned seat next to him. His hands flailed in panic as his chest tensed with effort as he tried to yell out to Horace again. "Maggie Calvert," you snarled as your petticoats moved with your short steps closer. Your nose could have touched his while you held his sightline. You adjusted your hold on the wooden handle of your dagger in your dominant hand before impelling the blade between his fourth and fifth ribs and close to his midline. "This is for her."

His body froze, his mouth agape. You couldn't tell if he recognized the name, but you wanted him to. A greedy businessman of his caliber deserved to think about someone other than himself during his last few moments alive. You pushed your dagger until both quillions were making contact with his white shirt. You have the dagger a small jerk for maximum damage before pulling it out, allowing blood to immediately gush out of his wound. Finally, your heart rate was beginning to slow with the rush of merely completing the task and you let go of his neck, your fingers aching from being tense. Keating was choking as he tried to yell or scream, or perhaps curse you, but the blood that was rushing into his collapsing lung was going to keep him from doing so.

"Maggie Calvert," you repeated solemnly, using Keating's long coat to clean off your dagger and tuck it into your pocket bag, one of the two large pouches that were nestled between your skirts. The body was limp and the strangled hacking had finally come to a stop. After all, the blood had stained your stomacher as it had come up through his mouth during his final moments of struggle. However, the compensation you were about to receive for this task would more than cover it. Unfortunately, it left Horace with more than a mess to clean up. Blood was a stubborn substance.

. . .

DECEMBER 20TH 1891

BIRMINGHAM, ENGLAND

Before you could knock, the door of the brick building flew open, causing you to jump in surprise.

"Miss Y/l/n," Eric Calvert's muddy green eyes were glassy with unshed tears as you pushed the hood of your cloak off of your neck out of respect for the modest home. The housing in Birmingham, an industrial town, was much different than London's. It was more compact, the air was more polluted with factory smoke. The Calverts seemed to be better off than most common families, but that meant nothing in this case. Factory conditions were poor, even after the reform laws from the 1830s. You were blessed to be introduced to more lucrative work upon your arrival- drawing money straight out of pockets with the most genuine man to have strolled down the cemented walkways of the city. "Please, come right in," he gestured with his gloved hand, moving out of your way as he removed his hat and bowed.

"Mr. Calvert," you offered a tight-lipped smile at the bowing man. In the hand that pressed against his chest, Eric pressed his grey hat into it, like a proper gentleman. The gesture had only fed into your discontentment, while Eric seemed no better off. You weren't blind to the pallid shade of his face, the withheld energy in his stance. "You mustn't bow to me," you assert, waiting for the man to right himself as he frowned.

"Oh, please... Mr. Calvert's my father." Eric said with a miffed shake of his head, raking his fingers through his sloppy waves of hair. The two of you walked down the short hall that led into a big foyer. A fireplace was on the far side with several articles of outerwear hanging on the mantle to help warm them from snow, you presume. The scent of the burning wood brings you a foreign nostalgia that ideally, you would've failed to notice. The past deserved to stay where it belonged- in the past. The only hearth you were to be a part of was your own.

"Evelyn, dear! Draw some tea, she's come back!" Eric called his wife, who seemed busy in the kitchen that was located in an attached room. "Hurry!" You presumed that he felt apprehensive about being left alone with you, which was fair.

"Just a minute!" Evelyn called from the attaching room, the door left ajar. You were right to assume that it was a kitchen of some form, seeing as the general layout of this building resembled that of your own home, the fuss of her brown petticoats catching your eye. You wished she'd move with more urgency. You had yet to eat properly, seeing as you were more occupied with moving efficiently over the past day or two. At least the vicinity was warm, allowing you to pull off your thick gloves and tuck them into either pocket bag as Eric led you to a small area near the fireplace. There were two big loveseats across from each other and with a rug in between. The cushions were patched together with random sheets of fabric.

There was a single photograph in a hanging frame over the fireplace's mantle, the glass dirty. It was Eric and Evelyn, jubilant in light, fancy clothing as they cradled their baby girl between them. You understood how the couple found themselves in such desperation to acquaint themselves with someone like you when they had once smiled without any semblance of malignity. She was stolen from them, and it had seemed that the world was prepared to let the men at fault see their own children grow up. You were the one to right that wrong- by driving your knife between the ribs of Felix Keating and watching him choke as blood filled his lungs. His eyes tearing as he begged for mercy when Maggie Calvert, who was no more than nine, died in his workhouse because of his cheaply built machinery. She wasn't given a chance, so who was Keating to think he deserved one?

"She'll be uh...right out," Eric smiled at you again, repeating the words of his wife, those of which you had no problem hearing. You could see the tension in his shoulders, the uncomfortable way he held himself, as opposed to the haughty attitude he sported during your first meeting. He was dubious that a mere lady like yourself (months shy of twenty) could hurt a fly, much less hold a body count to her name. Yet the morning prior, the bustling headlines of The Daily Telegraph reached Birmingham, selling quickly as they covered the murder of Felix Keating, owner of many iron manufacturing factories who narrowly escaped an immense prison sentence for a major accident in his Birmingham factory a week before.

"Oh my, Eric," Evelyn entered the main room, precariously balancing a steaming teapot and a modest spread of small bites on a tarnished, silver tray. "Where have your manners gone?" she tutted, setting it down on the oakwood table before turning her attention to you. Her blonde hair was tied in a disheveled bun, droopy and with tendrils falling out of it like spider legs that swayed as she moved.

"My manners?" Eric began to protest, only to be interrupted by his wife again. You found their dynamic as a couple quite refreshing. After all, you would not have been there, had Evelyn worked to contact you without her husband's knowledge.

"Miss Y/l/n, allow me to take your cloak," Evelyn gestured to the many hooks that were nailed into the fireplace mantle where there were drying articles of clothing hanging, narrowly dodging the short flames.

It was difficult to compel yourself to smile, but the corners of your lips turned upwards anyhow. There was a line where social niceties ended and another where gullible kindness started. This was the latter as they knowingly welcomed you, a murderer into their home because you made an ally out of yourself. "Don't trouble yourself any more than you have, Mrs. Calvert. My time here is brief," you found satisfaction when she shook her head and began to pour you a cup of the steaming tea, despite your words. Thankfully, she made no attempt to sit with you.

"Brief?" Evelyn repeated, gently passing the delicate teacup to you. The warmth spread over your palms on contact as you brought the rim to your lips. Your hold was improper, though necessary, seeing as the finest details are what make the best disguises. Only the wealthy held their teacups with so much consideration. Besides, the warmth was much more satisfying when it went beyond the tips of your fingers. "I reckon a woman such as yourself is a tad busy," she concurred, causing you to tense in surprise. You were rarely referred to as a woman.

"Quite," you mused after her, taking a contemplative sip of your tea. "I ought to be at the station in less than an hour," you lied, gently tapping the tips of your short nails on the warm cup. All that was necessary was payment and crucial parting words. The assorted bites on the tray were beginning to seem unappealing, the longer you stood there. "But we must discuss a few things-" you start, only to be interrupted by Evelyn, which was common.

"Your fee. We have the first installment," she gestured to Eric with her chin, her smile long gone as he offered a small pouch made of different, threadbare, fabrics. While you had already discounted your normal charge for the couple's situation, they could hardly afford a fraction of the sum.

"We've tried to save as much as possible. Take it. It's the least we can do at the time," Eric spoke, linking his arm with his wife's. Reluctantly, you hold your cup in one hand and deftly slide the pouch into the pocket bag between your petticoats. They would have felt worse if you refused to take their money. After all, you avenged the silenced death of their girl.

"It's plenty, thank you," after finishing the rest of your tea, you proceed with your original thought before they could try to pass their relief for protest. You had to recite the practiced discourse that you gave to every one of your patrons before making your leave. "Now, the two of you will be suspects to the Yard, be cautious," you put emphasis on your words by meeting each of their gazes. "You must avoid London and keep your heads down. Do you understand?"

"And... what happens to you?" Eric asked, sipping out of his own teacup. His shoulders were still unnaturally squared and attentive as he actively avoided your sightline. "Where are you off to?" his focus quickly turned to Evelyn, who was untangling her arm from his and bringing the tray back into the kitchen.

"The distance from Birmingham to London is great, she'll starve before she returns!" Evelyn stopped to yell from over her shoulder before leaving the door open behind her. In the kitchen, she promptly began to wrap the biscuits in napkins.

"Nevermind me," you coaxed Eric back to the conversation by answering his question. You smiled once again as you put your cup on the table and begin to put your gloves back on their respective hands. "You need to make certain that you both have an alibi for the night of December 17th, I cannot stress this enough, Mr. Calvert," you looked up from your gloves, pulling them so they covered your forearms again.

"I assure you, Miss Y/l/n. We were both working in that refinery- until dawn," you had no doubt about the truth to that statement, though any Peeler would press further. That part was to the Calverts to handle, seeing as you had played out your role. Pursing your lips, you took a generous inhale to soothe the ominous pit of anxiety that had settled in your stomach.

"Sure," you pulled your hood back over your head as Evelyn returned with a minute basket. It was covered and you wished you still had your appetite from when you had entered their home.

"Here you are," Evelyn allowed you to take the handle in your non-dominant hand. In a city, it was always smartest to have your dominant hand free, which was yet another insignificant habit that you had inherited from the old conman. What was the date? December 20th, which meant there were still a few weeks before it was the anniversary of his death. Otherwise, the most difficult twenty-four hours to bear out of a calendar year.

Evelyn was smiling, but it didn't reach her eyes. After all, for most women, motherhood was a privilege and it had been torn away from her. She was attempting to care for you as she would have for Maggie...had she lived to nineteen. Tears were welling in her eyes as she watched your hand extend to briefly touch her shoulder. "Take care," you said, finally meeting Eric's green hues that were tearing up as well. "I can show myself out," you shook your head dismissively when he moved to go to the front door with you. Evelyn needed to be coddled more than you did.

. . .

JANUARY 5TH, 1892

LONDON, ENGLAND

Evenings at home always unsettled you, being the start of an all-too boring night, which made you feel restless- itchy for action. Rather, your quiet home always put you on the height of your guard, even as you were sitting behind the short shed, submerging your assorted gowns and petticoats into the warm, soapy water that bubbled in your wooden tub. It was a tedious, once a week process that perhaps irked you more than cooking. With a huff, you directed your stress into the iron grip that you kept your washboard upright with, rubbing fabric over its ridges.

The water made your fingers prune and the stool under you caused your bottom to grow sore, the longer you had to sit there, toiling away until each article was hanging on your makeshift clothesline- fastened with pins. When you were a girl, you had about twice the amount to wash and yet, you enjoyed the task because there were two more hands to make light, fun work of it. The conman liked to sing to pass the time- the lyrics had taken you ages to comprehend, seeing as your English had challenged for years. He was anything but a schoolteacher.

You cringed as your hand slid down the washboard too quickly, causing the hot water to splash back up at your face. The weather was foul, the winter in London was always tempestuous and the warm water on your face had only reminded you of how little warmth your wool scarf provided. It was wrought with holes by now, but you couldn't bring yourself to give it away, you've had it from the day you arrived...nine years ago. Dismissing the thought, you allowed the cooling water to run down your forehead, passing the slope of your nose, until it finally fell and assimilated with the top of your stomacher.

You squeezed the wet petticoat, turning it in order to ring the water out. Although you could have been more thorough, the boredom that came with domestic chores was causing you to rush and find something more occupying to start. The tranquility of the night was eerie, an uneasy contrast to the violent life you led.

The sound of approaching voices caused you to pause, your hands pulling the washboard out of the water to hold, ready to swing. The petticoat that you had been wringing out fell back into the wooden tub with a quiet splash. The soap suds ran down your forearms, dampening the brown sleeves of your gown.

"No entiendo por qué la señora quiere una chica. Podríamos bombardear el sitio de Phantomhive más rápido que esta pérdida de tiempo," the voice of a woman spoke quickly, in a language that you couldn't identify. A denomination of Latin? Knitting your eyebrows, you conceded, deciding to focus on what you could understand. Bombard, Phantomhive. Bomb?

Vaguely, you recognized the name 'Phantomhive' from the newspaper. The Earl Phantomhive ran the Funtom Company, children's' toys and confectionery.

"Quiere su nombre lo más lejos posible de esto. La chica es una asesina exitosa, así que sería más discreta que los explosivos," a masculine voice responded, a stiff twig cracking beneath one of their shoes. You scowled as you shifted your weight from your left side to your right. The washboard was a viable weapon, but it was simply a matter of timing. Their silhouettes were getting closer, each short and clad in neutral earth tones.

"A menos que te interese en enredarte con ese mocoso," the man chuckled. He wasn't secretive or trying to be discreet. By the way he trudged, he was probably leaving deep tracks in the slushy excuse for snow.

"No tengo un deseo de muerte, a diferencia de ti. Callado!!" The woman said, her voice suddenly at a harsh whisper.

"Ah. There," the man spoke in English, finally a language that you could comprehend. "Y/n Y/l/n?" He asked, pulling down his scarf to expose the rest of his face. In comparison to yours, his accent was much thicker. Your grip on the washboard didn't waver.

"Who are you?" You demanded, stepping forward to stand your ground as they approached you. The pair wasn't visibly armed, their figures weren't particularly threatening to you. The man merely smiled at you while the woman to his side scowled.

"Diego- and uh, Carmen. Peace! We come in...uh, peace," Diego stammered, stopping at a respectful distance from you while showing you his empty hands as they beckoned with his rapid words. He seemed amused with your choice in weapon and assertive stance. "Carmen," he elbowed the sour-faced woman, causing her to grunt and hold her gloved hands up as he was.

"What brings you here?" They must have knocked at your door and came around when there was no response and a dim light behind the shack. Their winter gear suggested that they had some tier of wealth or deft hands in thievery. If it was business, this wouldn't be the first time you were asked to aid in stealing. However, as tempting as the offers were, you turned each one down.

"Business." Carmen answered this time, her hand slowly reaching into her jacket pocket. "No fret. Is just a letter," her English was just as mediocre as yours had been, years ago. Your eyes followed her hand as she pulled out an envelope with a dark red seal. "Business for our...líder?" She explained and looked at the man, leaving a long pause before her last word. It was essentially 'leader', but the stress was on an 'i' sound instead.

"Yes. Leader," Diego cleared his throat in a weak attempt to mask a laugh as you dropped your washboard back into the washbasin with a short splash. You ignored him as you took the letter from the woman, your wet hand causing the ink on the front to smear. It read your name, Y/n Y/l/n, in a pompous script, the illegible type that royalty and aristocrats penned. "All you needa know is there."

The Undertaker was supposed to be the partition between yourself and clients. Who did he think he was to give these servants your address? You'd have to give him a stern reminder for the next time you cross paths. With a frown, you pushed the envelope into your pocket bag, allowing it to jut out due to its dimensions.

"Is this all?" You asked as you waited for them to either leave or proceed with more broken commentary. Your lips were pressed together in a tight purse, a fresh lump of apprehension growing in your stomach. However, you couldn't let it show as the man sheepishly removed his hat with a shallow bow. It was more unctuous than anything as it only caused your scowl to deepen.

"Yes, Miss. We can... be going now," Diego righted himself and put his hat back over his dark curly hair. You didn't offer either of than a proper dismissal for the favor of going back to your washing and ruminating over the letter. It merely had a location, date, and time with no further information. No explanation of identification. You could appreciate the impudent nature of it, as this 'leader' assumed you had no plans for January 10th or presumed that you would handle any conflicts yourself when they were approaching you for your services. It was crude of them to assume that you still took orders.

. . .

JANUARY 10TH, 1892

READING, ENGLAND

Perhaps it was curiosity or a lapse of judgment that led you to board a train and throw caution to the wind. Whatever it was, your default prudence seemed to abandon you at each instance you dared open the letter that you were given- if you could call it that. The paper inside merely had your name, a distinct address, time, and date all in a presumptuous formality that made you want to tear it to shreds. But you refrained and instead, rolled your shoulders back and down as you knocked on the painted door of the lofty residential home that coincided with the address in the letter. The walls were constructed with sturdy brick and there was smoke wafting out of the chimney. As you predicted, the entirety of the property before you suggested wealth, just as the note and the delivery had.

You knocked on the door, the letter in your hand as you waited several long, cold moments before a woman greeted you. Most of her features matched Carmen's, deep olive skin and brown hair that was tied back. "You are late," she spoke, disdain clear in her voice as she ushered you through the open door and into a foyer. You were only late by a few minutes, according to the clock on a passing wall. "My mistress is impatient," the woman added as an afterthought as if that fact was supposed to faze you into an apology. Her accent was quite notable, pronounced, and sharp like the other servants.

As she led you to a winding staircase as your gaze trained on each room that you passed. They were each decorated in a modest fashion and the colors were left to a simple tan palette. It was more simple than you would have expected from the manor's proud exterior. The woman cleared her throat, "Doña, she has arrived," she knocked twice on the closed door before opening it, revealing another woman. She stood behind a mahogany desk, watching you with relaxed shoulders. The bay window behind her illuminated the silk of her beige dress, contrasting her tan skin as it hugged her slender figure. Beige was uncommon at the time, given the dullness of it, although this woman wore it like a badge, using the simple color to allow other parts of her appearance to stand out.

"Leave us, Andrea," the woman's gaze had yet to leave yours, causing you to look away in mild discomfort. Once the door was closed again, she extended her hand to you, speaking again as you cautiously shook it. Her grip was confident and warm against your bare palm. "It is my pleasure, Princess Helena. I feared you would disregard dear Carmen and Diego." You retracted your hand, the name causing you to meet her eyes again.

"Y/n," You corrected, your mouth running dry as you calculated each of your words, down to the syllable. This foreign woman was able to unravel each of your lies within the latest nine years and frankly, it took every bit of your skill to remain composed. The conman would assess the person standing in front of him and decide if they were entitled to the truth that they were trying to extract. He would run through each advantage and disadvantage and return to the same conclusion- murder was always an option. After all, it was the only sure way of containing sensitive information. "Y/n Y/l/n," you repeated, causing the woman to laugh, her rounded cheeks eclipsing her eyes.

"We may both employ our pseudonyms, then. Address me as Doña," she sat in the red, cushioned chair behind her. Doña raised her eyebrows at you expectantly as she motioned towards the decidedly less opulent wooden chair across from her. You complied, frowning at her as she leaned towards you. Her smile only seemed to expand. "I have a task for you, Y/n. Only you can complete it for me."

"I know there are other services in London you might have requested," you contradicted, sitting back in the uncomfortable chair as you showed no qualms in testing her.

"No," Doña said with a simple shrug of her slender shoulders, "I need you to eliminate the Earl Phantomhive- the Queen's Guard Dog who puts an end to anyone she names. The graveyard to his name exceeds even yours. Although... it seems to be watered with the blood of the innocent, instead," her smile finally melted, causing her red lips to lay in a natural frown. In the streets of London, her lip color was enough to impose any of the filthiest assumptions about her.

"How does this concern me, specifically?" You asked. As your interest piqued, your eyebrows furrowed and you found yourself leaning towards the edge of the desk, rather than sitting slack against the wooden chair. The notion of the proprietor of a children's company having blood on his noble hands was more endearing than anything, especially to someone such as yourself, living substantial evidence that no one was who they appeared to be.

Your eyes followed Doña's hand as she opened a drawer in the desk, pulling out a pristine, folded newspaper. The masthead read 'DIE SUEDLlCHE POST' (THE SOUTHERN POST), a German newspaper with the headline of 'PRINZESSIN MARIE-LOUISE GIBT IHRE VERLOBUNG MIT PRINZ ARIBERT VON ANHALT BEKANNT' (PRINCESS MARIE-LOUISE ANNOUNCES ENGAGEMENT TO PRINCE ARIBERT OF ANHALT). There was a picture within the columns of words of your twin sister as she sported a gaudy dress and faux-smile as she beckoned the public into her personal life. Seeing Marie's matured face resemble yours so flawlessly was disarming and you only remembered to release a breath you had been holding when Doña spoke again. "The Queen trusts the Earl implicitly- enough to put the safety of her granddaughter in his...capable hands. At any mere threat, the Princess will come overseas to stay under his protection," she paused, smiling again as she unfurled the groundwork of a meticulous plan. "The monarchy is quite predictable, no?"

You had to give her credit for her unwavering confidence. The idea that she implied was beyond mad and yet, she sold it well. "We intercept her transportation before she reaches the port," Doña raised her chin as she explained, her expression smug to challenge you. Someone had trained her to manipulate others, just as the conman had done for you. She was reflecting your body language, while keeping her own polished mannerisms as a subtle attempt to establish trust, but express her own certitude.

"And you intend for me to take her place," you finished mapping out her plan for her, almost speaking in disbelief. Reclaiming your past? Your sister represented the whole of what you had resented in Germany; the wealth, the social faux pas, down to each ruffle of every gown. "Kill the Earl within his own estate," you bit the inside of your bottom lip, keeping yourself in the present.

The door opened behind you, the startling sound of a crying baby caused you to jump and turn your head to the source. A frazzled Andrea, the servant who greeted you, held a crying infant in her arms as it squirmed. "Doña, su hija te necesita ahora," she said, offending you as again as the two individuals conversed in a foreign tongue, ignoring your confusion.

At the sight of the distressed child, Doña's expression curled such as milk did. Her nose wrinkled, her eyes staring at it in disdain. Her glowered response came quickly as she gestured with her hands, "debes llevártela. Andrea, deberías saber mejor que interponerme cuando estoy ocupado con los negocios."

Immediately, and to your relief, Andrea left the office with a mumbled curse that you couldn't decipher. The baby was still crying. "You never learned Spanish?" Doña mused, her hands slowly returning to the wooden surface that separated herself and you. At least you had been correct in assuming it was from a Latin dialect. "That was my daughter," she explained with a careless shrug, causing you to frown. Your mother always spoke of you with the same amount of indifference, if not more than what this woman expressed, calling her daughter a 'that'. Bearing witness to that treatment left you vulnerable to frustration, an emotion that distracted you from the clear thinking you were trained to maintain.

"Earl Phantomhive," you said, bringing her back on topic before she could fiddle with your strained heartstrings any more. "It's a personal vendetta, is it not?"

"Ah. Correct," her face grew serious again as she brought her heavy stare back to yours. For a moment, you looked down at the newspaper- at your beaming sister and her Prince. "The Earl killed my husband after my whole family," Doña said as she shifted in her seat. Her eyes pried into your soul as if she was weighing each of your sins and virtue against each other in that moment. "I cannot rest until he feels the same anguish. What do you say?" She asked, raising her thin eyebrows, leaning forward in her seat.

For the first time that afternoon, you understood the woman sitting before you. You understood the lingering pain behind every smile, the loneliness behind her confident handshake. For that, you didn't need her to prove that the Earl was deserving of just intervention when normally, you required a means that ensured you that you weren't being sent to murder an innocent. The Calverts allowed you to read the court records of Keating's failed prosecution. But in this case, you recognized the raw emotion in her face. You saw it weekly in your employers and it used to stare back at you in the mirror...before you grew.

"Fine," your shoulders relaxed as you shifted in on the wooden chair, tempted to retreat, the more she invaded your space.

"We will begin our preparations immediately, then. We may discuss the finer details over tea."

. . .

JANUARY 17TH, 1892

READING, ENGLAND

"Diego and Carmen have returned," Doña entered your room without the formality of knocking, even though Andrea was in the middle of preparing you for your arrival to the Phantomhive Manor while you were attempting to keep yourself present. You gave your toes a discrete wiggle while they were crushed in tall heels. At least the slight pain was grounding. "Your personal effects will be included with ours," she added as a suggestion for you to respond. Over the week you had spent in her presence, you learned that talking to her was an exhaustive endeavor when most of the time, all you needed to do was listen. Meanwhile, Andrea was finishing your complicated hairstyle behind you. She tied strands of your hair into braids that led into a single low ponytail behind your head. Frankly, the steps she took had you standing there for ages, but you didn't protest, as opposed to the riot you always threw in Germany.

"At last," you stared at your reflection in the mirror before you, willfully ignoring the addition of her behind you. It was almost difficult to recognize yourself, considering you were staring at the visage of your sister, Marie as you dawned a sky blue gown that was embroidered with white designs around the bodice and top petticoat. The neckline had simple ruffles that covered the top of your stomacher, alternating with lace. Your skin was smooth to touch, almost delicate with the amount of cold cream that Andrea had insisted on smothering over every inch of you each morning and night. Even the apples of your cheeks were lightened with a gentle hand of pink rouge. "Putting that off to the last day was careless."

"At least our princess needs not to remember her privilege," Doña smarted, her red lips pursing in a sardonic grin. "Only her grace."

"And what of the princess?" You asked, turning away from yourself to give the packed trunks in your room a quick once over. They were each packed with fine clothing and luxury products that Doña had procured over the week, whilst important belongings of your own had just arrived, according to the woman herself. The conman's watch stayed with you for each task, whether you wore it, forced it into your pocket bag, or wrapped around a garter.

"Her steamship was supposed to dock about an hour ago. It should be in the process of sinking in the North Sea." The words had no effect on you, other than perhaps, relief. While Marie was your sister, you grew up in her looming shadow, her constant jibes, and haughty smiles. Her death secured your role in perhaps, one of the most complicated schemes you have ever dared take part in and did well to rid the world of another self-absorbed leech. Doña's hand gave your shoulder a patronizing pat as she smiled, "peace, Y/n. Your face is too young for frown lines. Remember, princesses haven't a care."

"You would know?" you asked, pressing your lips together and gathering your breath in a shallow inhale. The statement affected you more than it should have, but you blamed the superior tone that Doña attempted to pull over you. Although there were many years separating the two of you, it gave her no right to treat you as a child. You believed that Evelyn Calvert said it best- you were a woman, a lady that deserved every brutal sentiment that the world had to offer. "I believe the monarchy in Spain ended years ago."

"Someone did their reading."

"Enough," you glared, "I believe it would be best to allow Andrea to finish here. Before I stain this gown with your-" Andrea gave your hair a slight tug to tighten the hold before she gave you a quick once over. She seemed proud of her work- turning a runaway back into a princess. Quickly she patted a bit of power over the exposed junction between your neck and shoulders, adding some to your throat. Rather than making you appear paler, it was mostly translucent and served as a more natural aromatic while hiding blemishes. Andrea then left and quickly returned with a white coat that ran down to your mid-thigh. Deftly, she buttoned down the middle of it, closing both sides with little effort, seeing as it was made to be snug over all of your tight layers.

"-No, I believe that is quite enough, Y/n. Don't forget- we are allies, love." Doña reminded you with a smile. "In fact, I retrieved something else of yours to prove it," her hand disappeared into the deliberate fold of her pocket bag, revealing a small box. It was a black velvet that was soft in your hand. "Go on, she prompted, nodding at the box with her chin, "open." Slowly, you opened the box as it revealed a breathtaking emerald ring. The band's soft rose gold shone in the sunlight that came through the windows as small diamonds lined its circumference and outlined the expensive gem itself.

It couldn't be-

Your breath hitched as you took the ring out, putting the box on the vanity to your side as you looked at the interior of the band, your eyes wide as the engraving read 'Prinzessin Helena Victoria, 5/3' (Princess). It was your family ring, the exact one that you had given to a young boy because he was too poor to buy himself a proper jacket. All he wanted were a few coins for you to buy his newspaper, but you had no currency at the time. Instead, you gave him the ring and changed his life, rather than allowing the damned thing to burden you any more than it already had.

"That ring has seen...nearly all of Europe before returning to you," Doña said as she watched you slide the ring back over your satin glove. It fit your ring finger perfectly. Marie was made a completely identical ring, emerald, rose gold, and diamonds. You shared the same birthdate with her, being twins. "It would have been wiser to procure hers, but we must make do. You may never take it off." She was right. Though the ring was in fact, a smart decision to make your appearance more legitimate, the engraving could just as easily be the end of you.

"I understand." You confirmed, with a generous inhale. You felt your chest expand against the confining corset you wore.

"Andrea, ¿está lista ahora?" (Andrea, is she ready now?) Doña asked the servant, who was cradling her daughter, a chubby infant in her skinny arms, seeing as she finished tending to you. Andrea was not given enough credit, seeing as she took care of you, the baby, and everyone else within the household. She seemed to be around the age of Doña herself, perhaps younger, though missing a ring on her own finger. You owed her more respect than Doña, seeing as she took the time to teach you bits of conversational Spanish. Sitting in that house for a week while most individuals spoke in their native tongue was frustrating to you, and she cared enough to alleviate some of that pressure.

"Yes. You all should be going. Marie would have been near to our destination." Andrea said, before leaving your room to presumably, get Diego and Carmen to load the carriage with the aforementioned trunks. She left you and Doña alone, in temporary silence.

"Diego and Carmen are escorting you," she spoke, ushering you to leave the room behind her and start to the carriage that waited in front of the brick manor. "They are dock workers to you since the Queen called for finesse; minimum security." Marie's steamship was private- it made sense that she'd only have a few individuals as personnel. Although, they were likely dead at the bottom of the sea with the intended princess. "I will be in contact," her eyes, once again, stared into you, but you refused to falter. At a time like this, it was important to appear confident, even when there was residual panic racing through you.

"I won't be long," you replied, quite sardonically. The Earl Phantomhive was just a boy, about two years younger than you. He had a butler and four servants and an opulent estate that gave you plenty of opportunities, space, and minimal witnesses. You have surmised much harder conditions in the past, considering you've posed as a maid and drowned a woman in her own bathtub since she kidnapped and sold little girls to the highest bidder. That case had reached a particular soft spot within you, although it made you sensitive to the scent of rose water.

For a moment, you were back in that bathroom. The steam of the heated water hit your face in droplets as the curvaceous woman thrashed, her knees peeking out of the water, kicking. She was screaming, but it was garbled by the water as she choked on it. You had to use both of your soapy hands to press her forehead against the porcelain tub and apply moderate pressure around her trachea before she went limp...

"I'm sure," Doña rolled her eyes as she opened the carriage door for you. Diego and Carmen came out the front door with the small trunks in their arms. Carmen's tan features were still warped in her perpetual scowl, but Diego beamed at you, his eyelashes fluttering. You squeezed your eyes closed before opening them again, repeating the process multiple times while wrinkling your nose. It was, naturally, still cold and unlike the staff, you were only given a coat and gloves to stay warm. How Doña stood her ground without sleeves in this weather was lost to you.

"Andrea, fixed you up real good, Your Highness," Diego said, leaving Carmen to finish packing the carriage as he approached you. He bowed at his waist, over-exaggerating the movement. You had come to the conclusion that he was an excitable puppy dog, personified in a man. It was hard to imagine a man like that had the nerve to use the handgun in his holster. You frowned, the sight of firearms never failing to unsettle you, despite your line of work.

Trap the gun.

You urged yourself to focus on the people in front of you and the task that was rapidly coming into fruition. "You ought to ask her for a hand," you shrugged dismissively, the jab subtle as you shrugged and showed yourself through the carriage door. You sat down on the cushioned seat, closing the door and staring out the window of the carriage. Though you could have afforded a simple goodbye to the staff, your growing demand to be alone was overwhelming. Even the carriage, though it was white and an unassuming beige upholstery lined the seats, you had to force yourself to stay present.

Felix Keating.

"Y/n, we're pulling out now!" Carmen's grumpy voice announced as she knocked twice on the closed door to get your attention. She and Diego were to be driving the carriage- as Doña said, they were acting as port attendants to substitute Marie's dead servants. Your fingers wrapped around the pommel of your dagger, giving it a long squeeze.

"Fine!" You responded, watching the street from your window as it slowly passed by, paired with the trotting hooves of the horse that dragged you to your possible demise.

. . .

JANUARY 17TH, 1892

LONDON, ENGLAND

The Phantomhive manor was on the outskirts of London, shielded within the countryside by a thin forest line. As it rolled into your sightline through the small window of the carriage, you shamelessly allowed yourself to gape at the sheer size of it- the height of the walls, the militant stone masonry, and expansive stone garden that surrounded the cobblestone path. The cobblestone caused the carriage to bump clumsily and you could hear the sound of the packed trunks shifting around, even though they sat in the front with Carmen and Diego. To you, having so much space for one person was simply a waste- you made do in a shoebox that was going to be comparable to a linen closet on this property.

There was no describing the intimidating grace of the noble manor that stood proudly before you- although it was the furthest from your first complicated infiltration and as much as you tried to repress it, grew up in a castle. However, even Glücksburg was feeble in comparison to the fortress that your carriage slowed to a stop in front of. Diego wasted no time in opening the door, allowing more of the afternoon light in. You shuddered as the cold, once again, attacked your face and outer extremities, despite the petticoats that Andrea had precariously piled under your gown.

"We have made it, Your Highness," the joke was obvious in Diego's face, the apples of his cheeks too perky with his enthusiastic smile. He needed some of Carmen's restraint while the latter required at least a semblance of his warmth.

Your Highness. The form address was foreign to you. It was nothing but a burden that weighed just as much as the genuine metal around your ring finger and the tight corset that restricted your torso. But this was your role- at least for the next week or so. Your smile was small enough to not seem horribly forced, though anything but enthused. Restraint was something Governess Lydia always stressed, making it one of the single things she had in common with the conman, who never let you forget about the strength of words. This task required you to heed lessons from the both of them, which was unfortunate, considering the conman represented the best two years of your life, while Governess Lydia was the embodiment of your poisonous girlhood.

"Your prudence is more than appreciated," you accepted his hand as he helped you down the two, rather short stairs of the carriage. This was it- now you were Princess Marie of Schleswig-Holstein. Her identity belonged to you- rather than a withering corpse in the sea- however Doña had managed to get her there. For your own sake, you found it easier not to ask. You didn't need the blood of your sister on your conscience while you embodied her likeliness. Or at least...what you could recall from your spoiled bias and hourly etiquette classes in the castle. "Thank you, Diego," you let go of his hand once you stood on your own feet. You didn't need to look at him to know that he was shaking his head, discouraged that you were being kind to him simply because you had to. Prior to the carriage ride, you'd told him to see Andrea and give her a chance to improve his scraggly appearance.

"Of course," he responded with a hasty bow. Diego shut the door with a slam, clumsier than he needed to be. You pretended that all of your doubts were conveniently left sitting on a cushioned seat- as dispensable as a glove. Confidence in your own vast skill sets was going to get you through this and the blade of your dagger between the Earl's ribs. "To the door, Your Highness. You'll catch cold." Diego led you to the door, leaving Carmen to unload your baggage. The door opened immediately after he knocked, revealing a simpering man.

"Wir heißen sie herzlich willkommen, Eure Hoheit. Ich hoffe, dass Ihre reise bis zu diesem punkt angenehm war.," (Our deepest welcome, Your Highness. I do hope your journey was pleasant to this point,) he spoke, his German succinct as if he was a native speaker himself. Following his practiced welcome, he bowed, the silver accessory that was pinned on his lapel moved as he did. A gloved hand pressed politely over his heart as he righted himself at your nod. In this case, you would have preferred him to speak to you in English, seeing as the whole of the experience was already quite out of body for you. "Bitte, treten sie ein." (Please, come in).

You complied, reluctantly crossing the tall threshold. Diego was behind you and silent as you took a moment to look over the barren foyer around you. "Sie haben ein schönes anwesen. Danke, dass sie mein Refugium beherbergen - Ihre Majestät kann mehr als exzessiv sein," (You keep a lovely manor. Thank you for housing my retreat- Her Majesty can be more than excessive,) you replied, noting the butler's endearing features. His face was pale as if the moon decided to bless him with natural illumination and in contrast, his hair fell in black tresses that framed his face. His smile was too perky for his darker disposition.

"Es ist unser privileg, mit ihrer sicherheit betraut zu werden." (It is our privilege to be entrusted with your safety.) The unctuous pleasantries were in excess. A little went a long way, especially for you, who tended to be brief towards every accessory- every pawn. As a girl, that efficiency labeled you as ill-mannered, as Lydia, the uptight Governess, cautioned you.

"Gibt es einen namen für sie?" (Is there a name to call you by?) It was more appropriate for his master- the rudely absent Earl, to introduce him properly, but you were growing weary of having no name to associate with the man. You tilted your head, thinly smiling at the butler who immediately stood to attention to respond. He had more effortless poise than you did, but at its essence, it couldn't be hard. Between your intense life in the monarchy was nearly a decade of living amongst the middle class and working for anyone with the fortune to pay you.

He bowed again, the palm of his right hand returning to his heart. "Natürlich. Mein Name ist Sebastian, mein meister-" (Of course. My name is Sebastian, my master-) he was interrupted by the door opening again, proceeding with three individuals and Carmen entering the foyer, bringing the trunks that were in the carriage. There were only six boxes, but the shorter boy out of the group was holding three heavy boxes instead of one.

"Sebastian! Where should we be putting these?" A woman asked rather loudly, as opposed to the smooth dulcet of Sebastian's German. Her voice had a clear, animated quirk of an English accent and it took you a moment to return your brain to the language, seeing as focusing on one at a time rather than two at once was simpler. Then you entered her sightline, causing her to shriek in surprise as she gasped. "Princess Marie- Your Highness!" she dropped the box, sinking into a clumsy excuse for a curtsy. At your side, you could hear Diego attempting to stifle his laughter. As for yourself, you weren't one for sudden noises and had to feign understanding. By the end of the day, your cheeks were going to ache from constantly having to smile.

"Your Highness, these are the other servants of the house," Sebastian finally spoke in English as he gestured with an arm to the two men and the woman. As the three other servants put the trunks down. The woman's face was red under her disproportionate glasses as she looked from the older man to the younger one at her sides, searching for validation for her abrupt enthusiasm. "Our gardener, Finnian-"

"-Finny!" He interrupted with a bright smile, before meeting Sebastian's eyes and shrinking. Finny cleared his throat, his gloved hand rubbing under the hat that covered the nape of his neck. "Please, um...call me Finny, Your Highness." In front of him were the three trunks that he had been carrying- stacked vertically. One alone was heavy for even yourself, but he seemed unaffected.

"Right...Mey-Rin, the maid," Sebastian continued. Mey-Rin's face was still red as she looked at Sebastian and then you, uncomfortable with the attention of the room on her. "Our cook, Baldroy."

Baldory seemed to be the most composed of the three. Notably, there were strands of grey in his blond hair as he regarded you with an easy simper, his shoulders relaxed. "Good to meet ya," he said with a simple nod of his head. His voice reminded you of the conman's- perpetually at ease.

"And ...Tanaka- the executive director of the Funtom Company," Sebastian said, guiding your attention to a small man that watched you from behind Baldroy's legs. He wore a monocle and seemed to hold a cup of tea as he bowed. The executive director of the Funtom Company was a frail man?

"Oh but, that's how he is- he rarely goes into his full size," Finny chimed in, once again, cutting himself off at Sebastian's pointed gaze. He only gave you more questions than he had answered. How was such a large estate taken care of by such a small cast of individuals?

"Might I ask about the Earl himself?" You didn't feel the need to properly introduce Carmen and Diego, seeing as they were only supposed to be distant dockworkers to you. Marie wouldn't have thought twice about them, seeing as she was her own sun, moon, and savior. Instead, she would be miffed that a mere Earl had the self-importance to show tardiness in meeting her.

"Our master should be with us in a moment. Please allow me to show you to his study," Sebastian said, easily making a transition from the exhaustive introductions to sitting in. "In the meantime; you three, take Her Highness's belongings to her quarters." This time, Baldroy picked up Carmen's neglected box as she stood at Diego's side. The three of them responded enthusiastically as if they were excited to be given a laborious task from their superior.

"Sure," you agreed, more than aware that this was going to be a temporary goodbye to Diego and Carmen, the final allies you'd speak to before heading into a minefield of social complexity, corsets, and lies. You turned to Diego, almost unsure of how to let him depart. It was almost pathetic of you, growing tongue-tied from a simple goodbye. The duo had no semblance of sentimental value to you. All you had was yourself, a dagger, and a large sum of money waiting for you.

"We leave you in capable hands, Your Highness," Diego smiled as he bowed, before quickly winking at you.

"Farewell," Carmen added, her expression illegible as she too, bowed and left with her counterpart.

"Right then," Sebastian led you up the massive staircase. Each step was narrow and troublesome but you attempted to tread smoothly. "Would you care for tea? You toiled through quite a long trip..."

. . .

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#ciel phantomhive #ciel x reader #black butler #black butler fanfic #strangers to lovers #anime fanfiction #sebastian michaelis #murder #angst #historical romance #historical fiction #victorian era #the indignant pawn #the woman in beige

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smolbeandrabbles · 4 years

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Still - Director Keller x OC (Captain Marvel)

Out Of Nowhere Girl (For Reference): Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3

Author’s Note: I wrote this as soon as I got out of the theatre when I saw Endgame... As the eventual ending to ‘Out Of Nowhere Girl’... Anyway, basically I spent so long talking about these two to @mendelskrull and this fic was basically finished anyway, that I decided to put it out! 😁

UGH. I love them. They must be my second OTP after Lorennic... Now they need a name...

I also realise that he’s referred to as Keller for the majority of this story... 🤔 We’ll just roll with that.

Keller’s astronomy ring is like this.

Disclaimer: We’re going to pretend that timelines don’t exist. / MCU characters/plots/events not mine / lyrics not mine

Premise: When Thanos snaps away half the universe, Maliyah loses everything. It’s a long and difficult 5 years, but now the battle is won...

Words: 1830

Warnings: N/A. I mean we talk about stuff that happened in Infinity War and Endgame, so, a little bit of angst.

_____

Remember when I told you you were mine, all mine I couldn't get you, baby, off my mind Me and you we were the real thing You didn't know but I had butterflies 'Cause I knew then, leaning in Baby I was never looking back again Every day changes but it doesn't change The way you make me smile when you say my name And when you laugh, it makes me laugh And when you cry, it makes me cry Yeah like it did back then When we were just beginning And girl it always will I want you, I need you, still And I don't care how many times that story is told Cover to cover, it never gets old Like a fairy tale, gets better and better Boy meets girl and spends forever together Yeah and, oh my God You are my whole world And we're spinnin' When you look my way Everything stops And time stands still

---

The Snap

Maliyah had barely been able to face Keller’s family.

His parents had lost their only son, and their grand-daughter. His sister had lost her best friend, and her niece. Maliyah had tried to make sure they hadn’t lost her too. Turning up on their doorstep two days after their worlds had been utterly devastated, it was nothing more than constant hugging and crying. She should have been there for them before then, but for those first few days she was in too much pain – it was beyond unbearable. The bond between their DNA was very suddenly ripped apart, the brightly lit patterns that used to cross her body were now solid black lines. She’d told him once that was never something she wanted to happen; and now Maliyah had failed to protect him, so these marks of shame were his. Maliyah wanted to stay with what family she had left on Earth, but there was so much to help Carol take care of around the Universe – that was before adding on trying to settle whatever was left of the Xandarian’s. Her home destroyed by Thanos even before he’d done the unthinkable. Maliyah was their Supernova – it was her duty to help them rebuild what they could. It kept her preoccupied, a fact for which she was glad. There was so much pain that those two names bought her she wasn’t able to return to Keller’s family easily. Maliyah knew she shouldn’t, but she wanted to face this alone. There were many memorials around the world to the victims of what Earth was calling ‘the Blip’, but this one was her favourite. If that was even the right way to talk about it. Maliyah touched his name gently, but her lip quivered and pretty soon she found herself with her forehead pressed against the letters and her tears wetting the stone. Why? Why had they taken him from her? Why had they taken their daughter? This wasn’t right. Maliyah’s name should be on this, not theirs. She knew she didn’t deserve to live on, not instead of them. Talia was nothing but innocent, and Keller, he’d pretty much single handily raised her. He was a good man - a better husband and father than Maliyah would ever be mother. And yet she lived... She had never deserved anything less in all her life.

She remembered her final conversation with him. Thanos had taken her home from her, Xandar was no more. And he was coming for Earth for the infinity stones, and then god knows what would happen if he succeeded. “You’ll get him. Maliyah. You’ll stop him.” “What if I can’t? Even with help, what if it just doesn’t happen? What if he wins? With those stones-” “If. IF he gets them, Mali... then you can reverse it. I know you can. I know you will. But it’s a big if.” And that smile he’d give her, of assurance. Keller was always so sure. “And I know it won’t come to that.” But it had, and it had taken her family away from her. Maliyah had watched too many turn to dust with shock on that initial battlefield before pain shot through her. At first she thought that she was dying too, but Maliyah hadn’t been that lucky; curled up in pain and screaming as her body warned her that he was in trouble. Just like that Keller was gone, wiped away so unnaturally that her body still didn’t know how to react. Panic for her daughter had eventually spurred her to the house – still too young to be able to fend for herself alone. Maliyah had found nothing but an empty home. And all she’d felt was empty ever since. It had been hard to walk around with the silence hanging the way it was. Uncomfortably loud. The only real indications that anyone had just disappeared was the computer system was still on, pages of notes with a word half written… drawings and crayons on the floor – too peculiar to look like two people had just left in a hurry. Keller’s astronomy ring sat on his desk in open position – that wasn’t insignificant. He knew what was happening, he’d have left it for her. Maliyah picked it up delicately, closing it back to a single gold band: an unusual choice of wedding ring. She’d worn it on a chain around her neck ever since. It had been 5 years, and some had simply accepted and moved on. Maliyah was one of the few that couldn’t – he’d told her not to give up, and she never would no matter how long it took. She refused to believe that Keller was gone forever. And with the help of the assembled team, constantly in contact over video link, she would get him back; everything would be as it should. Maliyah could afford to wait for eternity…. But his family couldn’t. They needed closure and answers: she vowed to help them.

*** The Aftermath.

Maliyah and Carol arrived on the battlefield together, Earth bound shooting stars. They were used to teaming up by now – and with the Universe corrected, there was only one thing left to do. Win the battle and the war. She knew before the battle was even won: the energy and serenity that suddenly flowed through her could only have one source. How, despite him being a few thousand miles away, Keller’s colours ignited over her skin as she fought. Time to show them what a real Supernova could do… The funeral of Tony Stark was a quiet affair, even if it was well attended. She stood respectfully back, nearer to Carol and Nick than the rest of the group. They were probably her closest friends here, standing slightly forward for Peter Quill – he’d been missing for the past five years too. Maliyah had too much to catch up on. There was a lot of quiet contemplation between the groups. A lot of where to next. For Maliyah there was only ever one answer to that question. Before she jetted off to the stars, or helped anyone with anything. “Maliyah... won’t you stay??” She shook her head at Nick with a small smile, “What’s left of the S.H.I.E.L.D organisation could really use you...!” Carol scoffed, arms folded, “No! She needs to come with me!” She gave Maliyah a soft wink, “What do you say? Marvel and Supernova saving the universe?” Maliyah couldn’t help but laugh, “If you wait for me Carol, I’ll take you up on that... but right now I’ve got somewhere else to be...” “... Right. Of course, Maliyah Keller has somewhere else to be!” She turned from Carol’s big smile and grinned across to Nick Fury with a nod, knowing how perfectly he understood, “You’re damn right!”

***

Flying halfway across America was not what was sending Maliyah crazy. Her palms were sweaty and her heart was beating so fast as she landed herself softly in front of the country home. Surrounded by acres and acres of land, it was in the middle of nowhere for so many reasons... It reminded her so much of his parents.

The breeze tousled her hair as it played through the trees. It had been 5 long years - or short - but it felt to her like a lifetime. Every time she read those two names on the mural she broke down in tears. It only served to shatter her heart into more pieces. But all that was reversed now... The door opened, and Maliyah didn’t think her heart had the ability to beat as quick as it did. She couldn’t breathe. He was standing in a three-piece suit. Sans jacket. Sleeves rolled up, he placed both hands in his pockets. The sun hit his face, his hair, his eyes; that gorgeous blue she hadn’t seen in 5 lifetimes... and he smiled taking the two steps down to the driveway, she illuminated in blue and white - brighter than she ever had before. His emotion hit her full force and she could feel herself start to cry. She wanted so badly to sprint to him, but he engulfed her. Her senses were overwhelmed by Keller. Something they had yearned for for 5 years.

It didn’t matter, because Jonathan sprinted to her, and suddenly she was in his arms. She couldn’t grab enough of him close to her; and he couldn’t either. “You did it, you did it... I knew you would.” Keller’s voice was soft as he held her to him, breathing her in as much as she was him. He’d woken up in the same place he’d watched their daughter disappear into thin air. The same place he’d done exactly the same thing - but years after... he’d known life without Maliyah for maybe a month. She had been without him far longer. She laughed through her tears, “I think my input was minimal!” He cupped her face in his hands and kissed her forehead. Her colours burning a new level of bright. “We’re back. Because of you.” There was nothing she could say back, it was hardly true but Keller wasn’t about to let her argue with him – she knew that, pushing up on her toes to press her forehead against his, Maliyah slipped the chain from her neck, taking his hand to reunite him with the ring. “I knew you’d have taken it with you.” “I needed you.” “You didn’t give up. Not that I expected you to, Supernova.” Keller pulled her back to him, capturing her lips. “MOMMY!!” Maliyah left Keller’s arms, kiss cut short, to see her daughter now sprinting down the same steps. “Tali!” She ran, skidding to her knees. She was still 6; still her baby. Maliyah had missed to much already, she was glad she wouldn’t miss anything else. She placed her head gently against her daughters, Keller watched with a smile as they both lit up in the same amalgamation of purples, pinks and soft blues. There was a communication there he would never understand, but that didn’t mean he didn’t know what it meant.

Maliyah stood, gathering Talia in her arms, and Keller wandered to them, taking them both in his own arms. His girls were both okay. And they were both here. Talia wrapped her arms tightly around Maliyah’s neck and entwined her tiny fingers with his. Keller kissed her again. A real kiss, one she savoured with her eyes closed; gentle, nice and slow. “Stay...” He breathed it. “This time, please stay.” She knew Jonathan wanted nothing more than for her to be here. For them to finally be a family. For Maliyah it had been 11 years: for 6 she’d been unprepared to be a mother, for the last 5 she hadn’t had a choice. Those five years put the three of them into real perspective. She smiled; as if she really had a choice? “I’ll stay.” Maliyah took his hand, “I’m going to stay.”

---

Thank you for reading! 😅

#My little Space Girl deserves her OG story #But I don't feel like I'm at OG level yet I really do #There's much work to be done yet.#Director Keller #Maliyah x Keller #Maliyah #Captain Marvel #183 #Note: His sister knows that she's from Space but his parents don't.#Not that that makes an overall difference to the story - buuut!#It's been sitting in my notes too long and I just kinda want it gone so we're going to get it gone.#I wish I could do these two better justice than this... Buuuuut #They're certainly not my forte #Linzi writes #Smol Bean Drabbles #we'll bury this and move on.#Wont tag Mendo this time

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wasalwaysagreatpickle · 4 years

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Friday 21 May 1830

5 1/2

11 20/..

Fahrenheit 62˚ at 5 3/4 a.m. – fine morning – streets dry after all the rain last night – off at 6 35/.. – (without breakfast) took fiacre on the boulevard to my apartment rue Saint Victor – Monsieur de Mèrbel’s 2nd lecture from 7 33/.. to 8 1/2 – took a little ink stand this morning (1st time and found I could very comfortably take my notes in ink – much better than pencil – lecture on the internal structure of plants as seen with the naked eye and with a loupe – breakfasted very comfortably on my brown bread and 4 sols worth of good milk at the laiterie in about 10 minutes, and home at 8 3/4 –

At my desk at 9 – I find this French ink so bad I really must write to Miss Maclean to bring me a bottle in addition to the 2 bottles sent by Sowerby with the books – read over what I wrote yesterday to Mariana mention the talk between Lady Stuart de Rothesay and me about going to the Pyrenees in July, and had very kind letter from Lady Gordon last week, and if I go from home at all this summer and not with the Stuart de Rothesays shall probably go with her – ‘she asks if I will go to Spain next – what I shall do, of course, I cannot tell so long beforehand – But all this is quite between ourselves – I never name any of my maybes to anybody but you – I shall, I hope, see you again one of these days; and you may be quite at ease, whatever I determine on’ –

Wish her not to forget, when she has time to remember, French and the use of her pencil – mention Amici’s camera lucida – and Miss Maclean’s intention of being off from London on the 27th – then wrote a little more mention my good breakfast for 7 sols – (milk 4 sols – bread suppose 3 sols) – ‘the luxury of life is independence with a competence – I often enjoy leaving at home carriage and servants, and stealing in among the petit monde, and seeing how it is, that some can live where others would starve – In fact the carriage is at the coach makers again, for the present – Do for pity’s sake believe, that a certain portion of the ‘mammon of unrighteousness’ is absolutely necessary; and let us all do the best we can for living not starving – Let us have the option of having carriages and horses, and all that the world deems comme il faut – we can leave them at home as often as we like – I should be thankful to get you into this way of thinking – If Charles thought as I do, I should not trouble myself about your opinions; for he would take care to provide for you to the utmost of his ability – he would move heaven and earth, and leave brick and mortar forever as they are at Lawton, to leave you not induced to less than five hundreds a year after having shared with him more than as many thousands – How times are changed! I, who never cared for money till you taught me, am now to teach my teacher! well! do what you think best, - but remember that living where others would starve might be even to you less easy, and less comfortable than you may have sometimes imagined, were you obliged to try it – Do not, I beseech you, mistake me – I mean nothing which ought to annoy or disquiet you for a moment – all I ever ask myself is this – How is that she who, in early days when life, and hope, and friendship, all were young, could do so much – how is it that she should seem so careless now? Charles pays all now; and you are rich – Have you misunderstood me? tell me honestly – if you have, I never dare let another word upon the subject escape me in joke or earnest’ –

Had written the last 1/2 page 3 and 1 1/2 end of my letter to Mariana very small and close, and so far of today at 10 3/4 – at which hour and before this Fahrenheit 70˚ - then wrote a full 1/2 sheet and 2 1/2 pp. of another 1/2 sheet to Miss Maclean exceedingly kind letter – long to see her but not impatient – beg her do what she is persuaded is best, and take her own time, and rest a day or 2 at Boulogne set her at ease about having so long prevented my asking anybody – ‘making always such exceptions, including yourself, as you perfectly well understand, I care less and less about having anybody with me – I am never at home till evening, and then my aunt, and dinner, and going to bed, are quite enough – It was from last August to October that so unsettled me – you were my physician and balm of gilead, in that case – I am well enough now, and could go on long enough in this way, if nothing occurred to rouse my memory from her slumbers – you do me the greatest kindness to come – the next greatest to leave me the power of saying I can ask no one so long as I am expecting Miss Maclean you always miscalculate your usefulness – Do set your mind at ease on this point – were it not for you, I might feel some obligation to do one or two things I escape now – Besides, if I take it into my head to wish to go from home while you are with us, I shall make no scruple…….It will amuse you to find how I consume my time, and how immeasurably little I trouble myself about anyone for whom I do not feel some interest at heart’ –

Then read over what I wrote yesterday to Miss Hobart dated Friday (today) but mentioning its being a fête day, just wrote over the sentence’ ascension day Thursday not Friday’ – ‘Have you got any more stories lately? the cuisinère of an English family that was here in the winter went the other day to Madame Galvani, to entreat her to try and get her a place – ‘Oh! mon dieu! Madame! Madame sait bien que quant ou sort d’une maison anglaise, ou a bien de la peine à en trouver – personne ne vous vent, parci qu ou a tout de suite la main rouiellée Madame Galvani Et pourquoi ça dout? mais madame [suit] bien que ces anglais ça ne fait pas comme tout le monde – ça mange des radis et du beurre aprés l’entremet!’ I hope that inimitable ça ne fait pas – ça mange – is not lost upon you – Ever affectionately yours AL’ –

Had just done all and written so far of today at 1 1/4 – at 1 1/2 letter from Mariana (Lawton) 3pp. ends and under the seal – she and Mr Charles Lawton had a most providential escape from a thunder storm – the horses took fright and ran away – luckily ran into a hedge – narrowly missed throwing them into a horse-pond where Mariana would have been undermost, and where, if not water enough to drown them, they would have been very seriously inconvenienced – she glad I have not ordered the gowns – my explanation of the modes so clear, Watson can do all that is required –

Explains about money matters if I had only myself in view I do not hesitate to say I should think very little of the subject with regard to you I know your habits are yearly becoming more expensive therefore I should be glad to feel that I was likely to bring more to the exchequer than was sufficient to cover my own expenses of dress and maintenance and those who have hitherto benefited by any over plus in my income must of course be minus any future advantage now bearing in mind that these were the thoughts that dictated the sentence in my last which you have transcribed I am quite at a loss to guess what idea presented itself to you when you wrote immediately after it –

‘I shall not comment much upon this paragraph – it must surely be unnecessary; for you yourself on reading it over, cannot fail to be struck with much that cannot fail to have occurred to me’ – now, my darling if you wish me to know what did occur to you, you must explain, for in truth I cannot guess for in my conscience nothing ought to have occurred but a very satisfied feeling that at least I was not mercenary, and should not cost more than my own means would provide. In as much as I cannot bring myself to say more than I have already done on money matters you may perhaps think I am still unconcerned but I do not mean to say, that I would throw away any just or fair way of improving my pecuniary advantages’ – August cottage given up – Charles could not get the money without a mortgage, and would not (could not)’ give that – filled the other end of my letter in answer to Mariana saying I was satisfied – had I had her letter the 1st thing this morning, should not have written what I did some hours ago – all I meant was one could not prudentially be indifferent on the subject of money matters –

Mariana’s argumentation not very logically deducible from the paragraph in question she writes heavily and formally and I like not her style she may well talk nowadays of not being mercenary when she will have her jointure and my fortune to come to she could be mercenary for herself when she married Charles but she cannot now be mercenary for me? the fact is I had better see her again and see how she pleases me nowadays I have my doubts [I] not she is changed?

Sealed up the envelope containing my letter in envelope to ‘Miss Maclean 1 half sheet full and 2 1/2pp. of another 1/2 sheet unluckily not sealed, and this and 1/4 sheet letter full to Miss Hobart in envelope to ‘Miss Hobart Honourable Lady Stuart’s Whitehall’, and at 2 5/.. gave this to George for the Embassy, and gave him for the great post my letter (3pp. and long ends small and close) to ‘Mrs Lawton, Lawton Hall, Lawton, Cheshire, Angleterre’ –

Somehow I knew of leaving the letter to Miss Maclean unsealed but unluckily did not think of it might be disagreeable if Miss Hobart saw line seven from the bottom of page last but one –

Had just written so far of today at 2 55/.. – then till 4 3/4 reading over Mariana’s letter, and writing her 1 page and 4 lines very small and close –

In answer to the crypt on the other side –

A useless day this for science – I will take care to have less to explain with Mariana in future –

Lovely day – I read last night while undressing and this morning in the fiacre [Δcɑλojos] à, my school edition nonnulli è Luciani Dialogis (London 1726), and brought the book and my Greek grammar here with me this morning – off at 5 1/4 – sauntered along the quais – home at 6 25/.. – dressed – dinner at 6 3/4 – came to my room at 8 1/2 – settled with George – said I was much annoyed at the answer he gave me yesterday – he said he was very low – very well, said I, you have been in the family almost 10 years you ought to have known me better but the next time it occurs I shall take it as a warning – now take notice if I say I will do a thing no entreaty can prevail –

On coming home this afternoon found on my desk long rigmarole note from Monsieur Saint Romain explaining who he is, fancying from my asking on Wednesday at Daly C’s why he adopted the name of Saint Romain that he ought to give me a long explanation for fear I should think him wishing to make himself greater than he really is – nonsense – sat musing – violent thunder storm between 7 and 8 – very heavy rain and loud thunder and lightning even till now after 9 – coffee at 9 5/.. – came to my room at 10 25/.. at which hour Fahrenheit 65 1/2 – fair, but raining heavily till about 10.

#anne lister #anne lister code breaker #Mariana Lawton #Miss Hobart #Miss Maclean #1830

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kazlifeadventures · 5 years

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Trinidad & Tobago - Carribean dreams...

I am so ‘vex’ that I won't be ‘liming’ in this beautiful place any more. I have been one lucky person to have been able to come here and hang with a local for almost a week. Jasmine has shown me her Trinidad and for that I am truly grateful. I have eaten so many local foods and they have all been fantastic. I have impressed the locals no end with my love of pepper sauce. The food here is tasty, spicy, and pretty much specific to this island. ‘Nah boy’, I am so very much enamoured with this country! One of my friends asked me if I had posted photos of the food. Truth be told, I don’t have a lot of pics, its not the most photogenic, and I seriously just wanted to eat it! I have partaken in the local speciality of doubles, with ‘plenty’ I might add - for those unaware that is with extra hot sauce and/or the mango bone that is infused with more pepper. Doubles is made with 2 baras filled with a curry channa (chick peas), it originally started as a breakfast food, progressing to be an anytime of the day food. It’s nutritious, tasty, and sold at street side vendors everywhere. Apparently even pizza and KFC taste better over here. This I can now say I agree with. Not sure if the food tastes better, or if its adding the ketchup, mustard, and pepper sauce that assists with the taste upgrade.....

Jas took me to the home of street food a little town called St James, and made sure I got to have saheena, (seriously amazing spicy little deep fried spinachy deliciousness ) as well as alloo pie...amongst other things. The locals only really eat out at restaurants on special occasions so that meant Jas cooked for me a lot of the time, and wow, just wow. I loved the chicken curry (brown), smoked herring, baigan choka, salt fish, home made roti, the fabulous goat curry.... I could rave on, but google Trinidadian food and you’ll understand. Jas lives out in the ‘country’ to the South of Port of Spain, the capital. We spent one evening heading around to some of the local rum bars. Rum bars are everywhere here. Beer is cold and cheap (and made here - love the Stag and the Carib!). I got to meet a few of the locals. Over here they will buy you a drink even for something as simple as the fact that they had to order over you slightly. At the bar. They loved to meet the ‘white girl from Austalia’, as out here they dont see a lot like me... The good thing is none of it was them just trying it on with the foreigner. These are genuinely lovely, polite, caring people. I had a dance off with some girls from Venezuela, and ended up drinking way more drinks then I paid for, eating (they sell bar snacks and’cutters’ only at the rum shops) some tasty wontons at one place, and some really tasty fried chicken at another. We then got some free food from another lovely local who bought us a drink, and also then brought us across some Souse and Corn soup from his food stall (across the road from the rum shop). Anyway I can now say I have tried Souse, not sure I’d eat it again, it was flavourful, but pigs trotters in broth with onion and cucumber is not on my list of things to eat again! I think I have decided that I need to come back to Aus and start my own Trini food store, I think it’d be a huge hit. Love the local beers. Love the rum here. Jas made sure I tasted the Puncheon rum - 75 % and you never get a hangover or upset stomach... I wanted to bring some home, but alas no room in the suitcase! One of the biggest things, I was not aware that this is the home where Angostura bitters is bottled. It was first created in the town called Angostura in Venezuela by a German surgeon stationed in Venezuela, originally produced there between 1824 - 1830. In 1875, the plant was moved to Trinidad and that’s where it’s secret recipe is still produced today.

One of the main religions here is Hindu, they have a giant (85 feet - 26m) statue of Lord Hanuman Murti located in the grounds of Dattatreya Yoga. The statue is the second tallest in the world, and the tallest one in the western hemisphere. When we pulled up onsite there was one man looking after the bookstore who allowed us to enter the grounds and take photos. We weren't allowed to enter the temple/yoga centre as we weren't appropriately dressed. The gentleman then showed us the book explaining how the statue had been built and answered all my gazillion questions. It was like having our own private tour! Jas then took me down the road a little further to show me the temple in the sea. This temple was originally constructed by hand 1947 -52 by Sewdass Sadhu an immigrant from India. It has since been added to, and tidied up, but it's an amazing place, and a site of pilgrimage for Hindus. It's also one of the designated locations for Hindus to perform the funeral pyre. Hindu religion requires that the dead are burned near water and a holy place.

Brian Lara is still HUGE here. He is a home town Trini boy so I completely understand. Cricket is massive, and the new Brian Lara stadium is a huge landmark. They had a cricket game on when I was here (Trinidad vs Jamaica) but they had sold out the tickets otherwise we would have gone.

I spent a day at the beautiful Maracas beach, located on the northern part of Trini. On the way there we stopped at the lookout and had a quick look at the food stalls. I got to try some ‘Chow’, a garlicky spicy way of preserving such things as Pineapple, apple, mango, cucumber... its yummy and not too spicy and I really appreciated the stall holder giving me a taste ( and Jas’s friend Isabelle for buying some of the pineapple one). Maracas beach is a favourite with the locals and its a thing to do to have a ‘bake and shark’ when you go to the beach. Betcha cant guess what I had... Can I say amazing (again!!) You not only get your bake (which is a deep fried Roti) You get beautiful fresh deep fried shark fillet inside it, then you go to a buffet like area and add as many of the additions as you want . Yep, of course I added a bit of EVERYTHING . I had to taste it all. Seriously that thing was amazing. BTW I do taste everything first before adding pepper sauce... pepper sauce heightens the flavours. Jas’s friend Isabelle got her son in law to give us a shout out on the radio station he worked at ( they had it playing at the beach), so ‘Karen from Australia’ is now Trini Famous... love it!!

Jasmine took me out to the Pitch lake, in La Brea, and I’ll admit, I had no idea what it was ( I thought it was a lake!!) Anyway, some how we ended up with a colourful local as our personal guide, he was You tube famous and has apparently featured on David Attenboroughs visit to the lake. I have to sit and edit my ‘documentary’ when I’m back in Australia, it’ll be awesome.. I promise. Suffice to say the lake is the most amazing tar pit. Seriously amazing tar pit. The roads leading into the area are all like travelling over mini crazy hills due to the impact of the tar movements in the area. You have to use an authorised guide on the site, which is fair enough as a wrong step could see you disappear forever into the tar... literally... Trinidads pitch lake is the largest natural deposit of asphalt in the world (estimated to hold about 10 million tonnes) Its covers about 100 acres and is about 250 feet deep. There is a cool legend involving the origin of the lake the involves a hummingbird (I like the story), Historically Walter Raleigh re-discovered the lake on his expedition there in 1595. It has that charming rotten egg smell, and the mud and sulphur water apparently have healing properties. Locals were there immersing themselves in some of the pools while we were there. As we didnt have swim suits we had to settle with getting coated in the mud on our legs, and for me, also my face...lol!!! I didnt get a chance to put it on myself, out guide was very keen to smear it all over my face... (and shirt and hair.. etc...). Rinsing it, after it had set, was a whole other process involving splashing what looked Iike green water all over my face (and legs), all I wanted to do was rinse my face with some fresh water afterwards - and it took over an hour or so until I finally got somewhere to do it. Let’s not talk about how much scrubbing it required later that night to get the last bits of our skin! A great fun day though, made all the better for our colourful guide! I have had a crash course in some of the Trinidadian slang/words and between that and their accents I am sometimes lost in a conversation... (definitely accents particularly when you are trying to enter the country and the border control guy is talking to you and you have to continually say, sorry what??? ) I’m a lot better now!!

Jas couldn’t make it over to Tobago as she had work scheduled at her house that she needed to be around for. So I decided to head over for a night, hire a car, and see what I could see. Its literally a 20 min flight over (only costs about 50 US return) FYI 24 hrs isn’t really enough to see everything. I didnt get to the water fall or national park. I had headed down to Store bay beach when I first arrived with instructions to try the curry crab, conch and dumplings in Tobago (its their local specialty, amongst a few other things). Have to say I liked the conch, crab was over cooked and dry, and dumplings were kind of chewy. The ‘provisions’ that I got with it were really nice though - Plantain, Potato, green banana, avocado ..I would have liked to have tried another outlet to give a second opinion, but didnt have the time. I did get to the beautiful Pigeon Park, a natural reserve area, filled with some shops, water sports hire, beautiful beaches and glorious spot to watch the sunset. I also got out to the Fort of King George in Scarborough hiking up the giant hill to take in the glorious views. Hilariously there was a traffic hold up on my way there due to some goats being herded along the road. Island time boy. I would have to say, as much as its a part of the one country, Tobago island is completely different to Trinidad. Its a lot more touristy for a start, it has more servicible beaches. The roads are not as pot holed as Trinidad. The people are still lovely, but you get the tourist scouters who are looking to sell you on anything they can. Its a beautiful place and I’m so glad I got to go across and visit. As always, I can always go back!

My time in the Caribbean has come to a close. (9-16 Oct). What an adventure. I have had a fabulous time, and recommend to anyone to come here and see this place, taste the food and meet the people for themselves. The country has their own issues with government corruption which impacts the improvement of infrastructure like roads etc. And there are warnings around safety as there are elements involved in crime that impact locals and tourists alike. This just makes Trinidad Tobago, not unlike a lot of other countries that I have visited on my adventures. It just means the more prepared you are to be open to new things, different ways of doing things, different cultures. The more you are aware of your own safety, and that of your belongings , the more you can avoid crime. Crime can impact you anywhere in the world, countries like this dont have it any more or less than others, it just seems to be in the media more....

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themagpieandthespider · 6 years

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Title: Professor Moriarty’s Secret

Location: London Docks

Date: 1 June, 1830

Status: closed

The wolves remained at the race-course, they were brought in early that buyers who desired to inspect them might enjoy that privilege, although none of them were sold at private sale. For these preliminary days the docks were constantly visited by spectators. The wolves were examined with as little consideration as if they had been brutes indeed; the buyers pulling their mouths open to see their teeth, pinching their limbs to find how muscular they were, walking them up and down to detect any signs of lanes, making them stoop and bend in different ways that they might be certain there was no concealed rupture or wound; and in addition to all this treatment asking them scores of questions relative to their qualifications and accomplishments.

It was nothing so lewd as the scrambles that were often hosted in the British West Indies. Wolves newly transported would be herded into a pen, surrounded by eager buyers, often pushing and shoving in order to position themselves to grab hold of the finest specimens. A starting gun would be fired, and the buyers would surge into the pen to try and collect the best individuals. Often, fights broke out among the buyers and some were even bitten. The system while flawed had many advantages for the sellers of wolves. A captain arriving in port typically wished to sell his cargo as quickly as possible, in order to realize his profit and to minimize personal risk.

All these humiliations were submitted to without a murmur and in some instances with good-natured cheerfulness where the wolf liked the appearance of the proposed buyer, and fancied that he might prove a kind master. The buyers, who were present to the number of about one hundred, clustered around the platform while the wolves who were not likely to be immediately wanted, gathered into sad groups in the background to watch the progress of the selling in which they were so sorrowfully interested. The wind howled outside, and through the open side of the building the driving rain came pouring in. The bar ceased for a short time its brisk trade as the buyers lit fresh cigars and readied their catalogues.

The first lot of wolves were led upon the stand, not by a man, but by a wolf himself and who seemed to regard the selling of his brethren, in which he so assisted, as a capital joke. The expression on the faces of all who stepped on the block was always the same, and told of more anguish than it was in the power of words to express. Blighted homes, crushed hopes and broken hearts was the sad story to be read in all the anxious faces. Some of them regarded the sale with perfect indifference, not caring to cast even a look at the buyer who now held all their happiness in his hands. James regarded the auction with an auspicious eye, knowing too well that all would be sold.

James Moriarty was the organizer of half that was evil and nearly all that was undetected in this great city. He was a genius, a philosopher, an abstract thinker. His brain was of the first order and anyone who stood in his way, stood in the way of a mighty organization, the full extent of which they would never be able to fully understand. Therefore any sensible human would stand clear or be trodden underfoot. He moved through the crowd, blending in, in his dark tail coat and three piece suit. He moved past the main auction block, finding a captain and six men wrangling one much larger specimen. From what he deduced he was a war mutt, a force to be reckoned with even when he had seen better days.

A shot rang out through the crowd, stopping the wolf in his tracks and the men along with him. James Moriarty lowered his weapon, pleased to see he could gain his attention. “I’ll take him.” The captain moved forward, his yellowed teeth and hunched back displaying his long years at sea. “He’ll bite your hand off he will. You don’t want that one.” James picked the man up by the throat, hoisting him as far as his small frame would allow. “I’ll take him and you’ll thank me for doing so.” He dropped the man, watching as he coughed and sputtered. The Napoleon of Crime threw money at his feet, not bothering to watch the man attempt to peel it from the mud as he snapped his fingers.Two young pups, dressed in bowlers and suits came out of the crowd, helping the crewmen shove him into a box and load him onto the awaiting truck outside.

#themagpieandthespider #sherlock au #sherlock rp #mormor rp #starter

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emergenciesstory · 6 years

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Nats sis Part 3

Pairing: Sister!Nat x Jessabelle (OC), Tony x OC, Stucky

Word Count: 2,176

Chapter summary: Tony and Jesse are, well, soulmates.

Notes: Just a couple parts left!

Masterlist Nat’s Sis Masterlist

Sketching on the holograms was more fun than on the tablet. I had been working on his design flaws for who knows how long, weeding out the ones that wouldn’t work in practice to the ones that could be saved. Tony had given me a tablet to use while here, with access to all the files. ‘No need to keep manipulating the system’ he claimed. Tony moved behind me, putting together the mechanics on the first design from this morning. I occasionally heard him grunt or shock himself, but had gotten lost in the plan before me. While the idea sketched out, the description didn’t follow the sketch, nor was the formula right for what he wanted to do. Different from the others, this wasn’t a gun or improvement for his suit, but a bracelet to track and aid everyone. While it had benefits to Tony for his suit, it also was to call select weapons with a small chip installed in it. I had been busy, but running into the error of the chip situation. Sighing, I dove back into design of the chip.

“What’s wrong?” Tony looked up at me, the hologram I was facing becoming a blur of colors and numbers.

“Nothing, just running some schematics for the Call chip.”

“Call chip? Are you already on the last file?” His voice was closer now, and I noticed he was wringing a rag on his grease covered hands. Pinching out of my work, I scrolled back through the designs, each with a note or writing all over it.Tony took control and was evaluating them.

“The first few were good ideas, but impractical. For the function you want, the size is too great with the technology available. Even using some of Hydra or Russian technological advances- What?” Tony was staring at you with Jaw dropped.

“You used their technology?” He turned back, analyzing the few sketches I had fixed.

“Well, of course. What else would I have been stealing from the mission? That’s what I’ve been doing, hacking into servers, stealing weapons to analyze. If something technological goes missing, it was probably me for study. I destroy it after so no one can have it, or to put some kinks in their plans.” I jumped onto the work desk behind us, crossing my legs under my lap, watching Tony look at the design I was stuck on, picking up the pen and writing in yellow.

“Are you the reason one of the quinjets disappeared?” he mused, focusing on the new plans.

“No, that one wasn’t me. I wish though, I’ve always been curious about the cloaking device and tiles.”

“It’s not difficult technology. Basically big mirrors, just more fun.”

“I see.” Tony had sketched another idea on the plan, a magnet rather than blaster on the gun. “Why didn’t I think of that?!” Grabbing my pen, I finished the calculations for a magnet from where I was perched, the technology actually looking like it would work on paper. Clicking his pen off, satisfied, Tony turned back to me.

“Because, you’re not a genius like me.” He was standing in front of me, smirking at eye level. “Hungry?”

“Are you egotistical?” Tony quirked an eyebrow at my comment. “The answer to both is yes.”

Tony escorted me from the lab and into the lift down to the commons. The clock on the wall read 1830, we had been working for eleven hours straight. The storm outside was still pouring rain, but the atmosphere of the commons was bright and lively. Steve and Nat were dancing around the kitchen cooking while Bucky and Bruce sat at the bar. Music played out through the room, Clint asleep on the couch with the controls in hand. Tony took my hand and pulled me from the elevator.

“What’s for dinner?” He called out, still not letting me go. I tried to pull my hand away, shrink back and let the fun play out how it should have been but it was too late. Nat looked up at us and saw our fingers intertwined and smiled, hitting Steve who answered.

“Chilli and Corn bread! Been working on it all day.”

“It smells good.” I said, sincerely.

“Don’t worry. Clint told us you were vegetarian. You have your own pot.” Steve smiled gesturing to the smaller pot on the stove simmering.

“You didn’t have to go through the trouble.” a smile spread on my face, this felt right, light and airy, warm like a home. Much better than eating from a can while trying to remain invisible.

“No trouble, besides, only the best for Nat’s sister.” Bruce chimed in, smiling. Tony released my hand to go mess with Steve, a very endearing expression on his face. I felt my eyes shift again, but tried to not let it get to me so it would settle back to green.

“Blue.” Nat whispered beside me. I hadn’t seen her move from the other side of the island. “But nothing to be jealous of, Steve is taken, Tony is single. Use your training and open your eyes.” She placed a warm bowl in my hands before leading us over to the table.

She pointed to a chair to sit in and sat across from me, the others joining quickly. Nat sat between Bruce and Clint, with Steve settling into the head of the table, Bruce on one side and Bucky to his other beside you. Tony came in last, sliding into the seat beside me. They all began chatting while you listened to what Nat had said. Looking over at Steve, you saw the silver band, barely traceable on his ring finger. His hand lingered near Bucky, who’s flesh hand sat close, but not touching. Looking to his metal hand, I noticed a matching thin band missing into his ring finger. I looked at Nat whose smirk confirmed my suspicions, Captain America and the Winter Soldier were together.

“So, Jessabelle, What did you do today?” Steve’s voice brought your attention back to the tables conversation.

“Jesse, please. I um, well,” I stammered, face turning red.

“Jesse here was helping me work on some old plans I had scrapped. She actually got a couple cool things to work, so new inventions from Daddy’s lab should be out for training this week.” I choked on my food at his comment of his lab, enticing laughs, and concern, from around the table. Composing myself with the glass of water Tony placed to my lips, I muttered apologies.

“No worries, Doll. Not the first time we’ve been flustered from his, openness.” Bucky gave your knee a squeeze and returned to eating.

“Hey, grandpa. Just because you and your boo over there are from the 40’s doesn’t mean this isn’t acceptable now a days.” Tony quibbed back. The room went silent as Steve’s face went red, Bucky’s sheet white looking like murder.

Steve chuckled slightly, rubbing the back of his neck. “Well, cat’s out of the bag.”

“It’s okay. I knew. Just didn’t want to make you uncomfortable.” I said quietly.

“Who Fucking told you?” Bucky whispered, eying you.

“Chill, Barnes, she found out the same way I did.” Nat said, looking like she’d stab him with her fork of possessiveness.

“I do like how the band is from Bucky’s finger though. It’s cute, very innovative.” I mumbled, my chili suddenly the most interesting thing in the room. At this, Bucky turned red, looking at Steve’s hand, now interlocking in his.

“Yes, he is.”

The rest of dinner was quite uneventful, Everyone discussing their days and projects for the week. I was asked to come to training the next afternoon, Wednesday, and Tony asked if I’d help him finish a couple of designs. Agreeing, it was as though I was part of them. After dinner, Tony asked me back to the lab to finish the first design tonight, and get a head start on the others. Nat and Bruce had a date planned, Clint was going to join Wanda and Vision on a mission early and wanted to go to sleep soon, and Bucky and Steve made plans to watch a movie or something. I excused myself to go change back into the shorts Nat had loaned me before going back to work.

Following Tony back to the lab, we immediately went back to our tasks, him finishing the blaster, and I looking at some of the plans I had scrapped, seeing if I had made another rookie mistake like the magnets. I was chewing on a pen, looking over a plan, cross legged on the bench like before. I had dredged up a plan for improving the security system, and seeing how easy I could hack into it, I was focusing on the codes, many of them a lot more intricate than I had deciphered this morning.

“You know, I think there’s a lot more to you than you let on.” Tony said, snapping me from my daze.

“What do you mean?” I looked over at him fidgeting with attaching the small blaster.

“I mean there’s no way a confident, brilliant, metamorphmagus such as yourself just steals technology and learns about it for no reason.”

“There is a reason, I enjoy it. It was all I was good at. When Natasha and I were taken, they trained her to be a fighter, but when I had guns to my head, I dismantled them quicker than pulling they could pull the trigger. Yeah, I can hold my own, but what’s the point.” His gaze never wavered, so I continued, leaving out a small detail. “So they sent Natasha to kill me. Steel bullet, but luckily they didn’t realize the gun was too powerful. It went clear through my hip, the shock rendering me unconscious.” I slid the shorts and watched the tattoo disappear, showing him my scar. “They believed me dead. When I came to, I realized what had happened, so I changed my appearance and left. Been alone since, changing to do a job, stealing technology, plans, weapons, learning everything I could, and moving onto the next base.” Tony watched with wrapped attention as I told my story, fingers absentmindedly tracing the scars from the bullet.

“How’d you find Nat again?” He tilted his head to the side, sitting on the stool in front of me.

“I actually found Clint first. I had run into him back where he has his farm. Literally. We got talking and it was, easy, like talking to you. So I spent a while with him and Laura and the kids. When he was gone, I helped Laura with the work that had to be done in exchange for living there. One day, Clint came back while we were painting the sunroom. I heard the kids say ‘Auntie Nat’ and I knew the secret was out. We agreed to not say anything and I disappeared again.”

“Wow. Just, wow.” Tony had his hand resting on my knee, smoothing his calloused thumb over me. It was calming.

“Yeah.” I watched him as he processed the information.

“Smart, strong, and beautiful.” He smiled up at me, eyes deep. Not again, I thought, feeling the amethyst color come back into mine. “I do like your eyes, they’re very telling.”

“And what do they say now?” I whispered, keeping eye contact.

“If I’m correct, they’re confirming my feelings aren’t one sided.” Tony spoke slowly while standing, his face inches from mine when he stopped. Glancing at my lips, I barely processed what he had said before I felt his lips on mine, softly pressing as though he was timid. I kissed him back, dropping my legs to either side of him, begging to be closer. I felt his tongue on my lip before he pulled back slightly, smirking

“I hate you” I murmured, before sliding my tongue in his mouth. My hands laced their way to behind his neck, threading into his hair. I felt his hands move up from my knees, snaking up my thighs to caressing my ass, pushing the shorts off my legs. He kissed me deeper, need laced into his lips as I slid to the edge of the table to be closer to him. Suddenly, he broke the kiss, resting his forehead against mine, smiling as we locked eyes.

“Violet opal and Amethyst. You imprinted.” He whispered, breathing heavily.

“How do you know that? The only one who knows my colors is...”

“I may have asked her out of curiosity how to get to know you better, and I may have intentionally left the file where you’d hopefully find it. When I saw you flash dark sapphire before dinner, I wanted to know more. So when you changed, I asked about them all. It’s intriguing.”

“If you wanted to know so bad you could’ve asked.” I whispered, still not letting go of my hold around his neck and waist.

“But now I knew how you felt before I did what I wanted to,” he smiled.

“Damn these eyes,” I mused, kissing him again.

#Nats Sis

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heathertonspirits · 6 years

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Part 1, The Shadow Man.

As promised, here’s the first part of the preview for my first story, The Shadow Man. I’ll be posting a few more pages Nov.1st & Nov. 2nd.

Happy Halloween!

Taya sat at the front of the lecture hall. It was the second week of the fall semester and the class was nearly empty. Her mind wasn’t on the homework she had laid out in front of her. Rather, it was on something else. Strange things had been happening since the school semester started. All around campus people were telling stories about the recent rise in activity from the University's ghosts. The ghost in the old library for instance was blamed for the sudden power outages in the downstairs computer labs in retaliation for moving most of the books to the new library across campus. The ghost in the Art Department basement was blamed for the missing art supplies which inexplicably ended up scattered around the outside bushes. These were all blamed on the *Greek houses for their rush week.

(*As a side note, every Greek House took extreme offence at being blamed for that, of all things.)

Events easy to be chalked up as nothing but there was more. The campus police have claimed to see Samuel, the ghost boy reported to haunt the station, appear physically before students. Even pulling a few pranks on the police themselves. Taya didn’t think much of it since things like that occurred often at Heatherton University, since the days before it even was a college.

Heatherton Texas is an often forgotten about old town rich with history. From its founding in 1830 in time for the Texas Revolution, its founding couple, The Douglas family, provided support for revolutionary soldiers at Fort King. When the Civil War reared its ugly head the Douglas family supported the soldiers once more, though husband and wife were divided between which side to support. What would become the University campus library was once the old hospital. The art building and its two wings were once the cavalry building. The campus police station was once the town's old jail.

At just the university grounds alone there was enough activity to get any ghost hunters hot and bothered. But like most ghosts they were picky to whom they’d show themselves to. Largely at night and only to certain people. Yet recently Heatherton University’s local ghosts were acting out more than usual, eager for attention. Throughout all of it Taya had a foreboding sense that there was something more to it. Every time she had seen one of the school's ghosts they were always trying to warn her of something. Warnings. Of course, it was incredibly vague and didn't make any sense.

Looking back on it, if she had tried to pay a little more attention to what they were saying it might have saved her some trouble.

She still persisted on going to class, in spite of the bad feeling she had wriggling in her gut like a worm. Class that evening seemed ordinary. Their professor was late. Well, no problem, it was only the second week of school. It made sense. Ten minutes rolled by and nothing. Students began leaving, no text or email from the professor. Fifteen minutes passed, then twenty. When the professor had yet to notify the class, it became clear that their teacher wasn’t coming. She looked to her left where her boyfriend, César Cho sat. Ever one to take advantage of free time, he was working on another class assignment while they waited. Taya wanted to leave but he insisted that they wait another ten minutes. Still no teacher.

Two more students stood up to leave. Another followed suit. Then only César and Taya.

"César let's just go. He's not going to show up."

César took a deep breath and exhaled. "OK. Just let me finish these last few paragraphs."

Taya sighed, frustrated. "Fine."

At least he was using his time productively. She looked down at her desk at the open book in front of her. Shakespeare's Hamlet out before her but she couldn't read it. She came here to study the stars, not do homework for other classes. Frustrated she leaned back in her chair. They were the only ones left in the class now. Why the crap didn't their teacher say he wouldn't be coming? Taya closed her eyes and let her mind wander. The sooner they left the better.

When Taya had been accepted into Heatherton University, César was the first person she told when she received the acceptance letter. They'd been best friends since the ninth grade and were inseparable. What was supposed to be a two-week tutoring job for César turned into something more. It was amazing how fast they connected. Their favorite thing to do together was star gazing. It was César who suggested that they take the same science class together. What better place to start their school year than at the new Astronomy Lab?

But things weren't going as Taya had imagined. From the moment, she stepped foot into the building something seemed...wrong. She got a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach that wouldn't go away. There was a heaviness in the air that made it hard to breath. It was always too dark in the hallways and in the classrooms, now especially. Even when all the lights were on there were shadows everywhere. More than once she had the suspicion she was being watched but she never said anything to anyone. No one would have believed her.

It was a disappointment. Out of all of her classes, she’d been most looking forward to starting her new school year studying at the Astronomy Building. Heatherton University's STEM program boasted numerous majors in different branches and more than half the campus had a different building dedicated solely to said major. For Taya, this one was her favorite. With a generous donation made by long time benefactors the Riordan family (hence its official title being the Riordan Astronomy Lab but no one called it that) it was well furnished, two story building. It carried an 18.5" refracting telescope and the coolest part, to Taya at least, was what the student body affectionately referred to as the Trek Lab.

The observational astronomy lab was based on the old Star Trek command center, right down to the color scheme and chairs. Students, teachers and visitors could tour around the observatory and looking through a double-sided window where the students worked. What was doubly impressive was that it had access to the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, to study gravitational waves. It was all Greek to her, but to her older sister Mayra and best friend César, it was everything. Taya just liked the excuse to look at the stars.

But things weren’t ideal. Thinking back, Taya had known instinctively there was something wrong from the first day. At the beginning,things were...obvious. The electricity throughout the building would periodically have blackouts that lasted from five minutes to nearly an hour. The air conditioning had a mind all of its own. Some classrooms, like this one, were normal. But in the rest of the building it was like walking into a freezer. The air was so cold it made you go numb. She remembered stepping past on the classrooms, feeling like she’d just brushed past an ice cube.

Then there were the shadows.

That was what had frightened her the most. She could sense that there was something else in the building. She’d had enough encounters with the supernatural to known when she was in a cold building...and when she saw something inhuman. Taya would swear that she had seen something moving in the darkness, out of the corner of her eye, just out of her peripheral vision.

Right now, for instance.

Taya noticed something was moving toward them out of the corner of her eye. She turned her head, thinking it was another student, but only César and herself were left. She rubbed the sleep from her tired eyes and leaned forward in her chair, when she saw something move past her feet on the floor.

"What was that?" She asked.

"Hmm?" César was too distracted to notice anything.

"I--nothing."

She was beginning to wonder if there would be an outbreak of rats next. Her attention turned to her watch. 9:35 P.M. on a Friday and this was where she was. She swiveled to her left to speak with César when she paused. She saw a shadow, like a black blot hovering on the wall across from her. She turned around, no one else was here but them. She turned back to look at it but it had disappeared. She turned in her seat to look for it. It wasn't on the walls or on the floor. Where had it gone? Could she have imagined it? No, that was to vivid to not be real, Taya thought.

She began packing her things. “César, let’s go. The professor's not coming…”

A sudden hush fell over the room. Standing up, she walked around her desk and came to stand in the center of the room. She turned around, saw César sitting at his desk, hunched over at his computer. From where she was standing she could also see herself, sitting at her desk. She heard a growl and Taya was sitting in her chair. She lifted her eyes to the ceiling, seeing a black blob move from side-to-side like a pacing tiger. She was more curious than afraid at first, uncertain if it was dangerous or not. Taya had seen shadows before. Not the shadows people and animals make, not the shadows of objects but living shadows. As if they were people, made of evil thoughts and deeds. She knew to stay away from them, remembering what her grandmother had once told her.

Shadows like that can think, mi niña . They like to hurt those who are unfortunate enough to come across them.

Please leave me a comment and/or critique!

#Original Work #SPIRITS #ghosts #shadows #shadow people #supernatural #paranormal fiction #Happy Halloween

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jjkookie07 · 7 years

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Always and Forever- Chapter 1

Jungkook x Reader ( Mayze) warlock x vampire AU

genre: Angst x Fluff x Smut

Preview / Chapter 2

March 12th 1830

Namjoon ran through the dark forest holding a precious girl ,wrapped up in a blanket, in his arms. He held her so tight pressed against his chest that Jin was afraid he might break her. The witches came and killed the girl’s mother because of Namjoon. He felt like the tiny girl will hate him forever for that, but he was not afraid of anything, as long as his little girl was safe. He wouldn’t change a thing because in the end he still had the most precious treasure, her, Mayze. His deepest fear was not that he was inadequate for fatherhood. His deepest fear is that he was powerful beyond measure when it came to her and he would do anything to see her happy. It was his light, not his darkness that most frightened him. She was his life and only she got the power to destroy him and so he ask himself if he was able to protect her innocence as long as possible. She was conceived on a red moon night when magic is so strong it could give life to anything a witch desires. And so her mother was able to break into the ancient book that contained all the spells and she ripped only a page that was going to make a vampire able to procreate. She helped him and magic was indeed born nine months later. The child remained in the small village with her mom while Namjoon was watching them protectively from afar, only visiting them once in a while bringing the child gifts from all over the world.

The child lived a quiet life in the small town. She was going to school and was playing with her friends believing that her father was an artist that was traveling across the earth to play music to the most powerful kings and queens. Until she came ,he was a reckless vampire ,thirsty for blood and with an empty heart.

July 18th 1833

"Jimin-ah come here. The tree is so tall, I can see the entire city from up here" Mayze called for her little brother.

"Dad is going to be mad if you fall from there. Come down here" He called holding his hands around his mouth.

"You are a scaredy cat" She replied back singing the words. Jimin dropped his fists next to his body angry that his sister was going to get them in trouble. He came closer and grabbed a branch proceeding to climb up. When Jimin got closer to her she held her hand out for him to take, helping him next to her. They were the same height even if she was born first. When he was seven he got to meet his older sister. When Namjoon brought her she was so small, afraid and different. Her hazel eyes, her blonde hair, her white skin, it startled him at first but then all he wanted to do was protect her.

"You know it's unladylike like to do such boyish acts" They were both startled by Namjoon's voice as he was resting his back against the tree. "Seokjin made lunch. You better hurry if you like a hot meal" He then disappeared into the house.

"Can I sleep with you?" She stood by Namjoon’s bed waking him up by shaking his body with her small hand. He stirred in his sleep, his eyes shooting open finally setting them on the figure of his daughter that was clenching his shirt. "Sure baby" He moved closer to Seokjin and placed his arms on her waist raising her body on the air before gently placing her on the bed, under the covers. "I dreamed of the bad guys again" She whispered and nuzzled her head against Namjoon's chest. His arms were wrapped protectively around her small, frail body. "Don't worry princess they are long gone" Seokjin said, starling both Namjoon and Mayze. Ten seconds later little Jimin opened the door and walked towards the bed." I want to sleep here too" He whispered rubbing his eyes. "In the middle. The kids in the middle" Said Seokjin making Jimin crawl on top of Namjoon and then next to Seokjin. He grabbed his sister's hand and kissed it. " Don't worry. I will protect you. Hearing his words the two parents smiled as their hearts were filled with love and adoration for the bond that formed between the two little souls.

August 20th 1834

"How did you meet Jin-appa" Jimin asked curiosity playing in his eyes as he was holding Namjoon's finger and walking back home. He took the little male on a walk through the woods in search of wild fruits.

"I met him before you were born. It was a really really cold night and I was returning from an expedition in the far lands of England. He was in front of a house on fire holding you in his arms. He was so burnt but he still refused to put the baby you down." Namjoon stopped and squatted in front of Jimin. His big arms were holding the little male's elbows. "I approached your father but he was so scared that he wouldn't let me help him. He was dying, I could see his life floating away through his eyes but he was fighting for you. I gave him to drink my blood and I took you both to my house." Namjoon wiped the tears that were running down Jimin's chubby cheeks and pulled his little body in his arms, against his chest, slowly patting his back. "How was my mommy?" The question startled Namjoon that was watching in distance with widened eyes. "That's a story that papa is going to tell you okay?" He stood up still holding Jimin and sprinted home.

"I love you Namjoon-appa"

"I love you too little man"

March 10th 1835

"Happy birthday to you! Happy Birthday to you!" Namjoon and Seokjin sang as the kids were waiting patiently in front of the baked pink and blue cakes that Seokjin kindly offered to make. It was their 10th and 12th spring. The flowers were bloomed and the bees already invaded the big garden that was extended on 3 yards of land. This wasn't the day they were born but the day they choose to celebrate another chapter in the book filled with their memories from the year that passed. Spring suited them so well. The nature was coming back to life, fighting the horrors of the winter. It was a reminder that no matter how much evil is in this world there was still light and nothing can harm you as long as you have family. Always and forever. It was a promise they made and they were going to fulfill.

Jimin gave Mayze a small box wrapped in a silk hand-chief. Inside was a doll with red hair made of cloth. "Daddy helped me sew it because I am not allowed with sharp objects" Mayze took the doll and hugged it close to her chest. It was a very precious toy that she was going to keep forever.

"I have something for you too" She handed him a wooden box that she could barely hold. He opened it and took out from there a horse and 3 soldiers made of clay. She carefully spend the past month trying to make them look as realistic as possible. She even painted them brown,red and black. "I love them. This is amazing" He started jumping up and down next to the table. This was a night they were not going to forget.

March 10th 2009

He lit the incense and candles and placed them on his altar. Passed the sachet through the incense smoke and put it on one side, next to the body. The brunt scent invaded the room and it was making breathing difficult.

Jungkook dipped the knife in the blood then sliced the heart right in the middle. The blood dripping from the heart was mixing with the one in his bowl. He dipped the tip of his fingers in the bowl and wiped them in strange shapes along the man's body while repeating " Three times three, Now set me free.Free me from my dark despair. Uncross! Uncross! I break this curse. But let not my simple spell reverse I wish no ill, nor wish him pain I wish only to be free again." The man opened his eyes and stood up from the table. Jungkook just performed an exorcism spell on the mayor of the city freeing him from the dark demon that was controlling his body, making him kill almost half of the city.

"You've got really great powers there little boy." The mother said to her 12 years old son. Jungkook smiled and took a towel to clean the mess from his hands. "I want to be the greatest warlock that ever lived on Earth." He confessed his goal to the women.

"And you will be my dear."

September 2nd 2010

As he was walking back from the woods with his backpack full of plants and rocks he felt like he was followed. He turned around but none was there. Jungkook stopped and let out a piercing scream, releasing a great power that sent the vampire that was behind him flying away, impaling him on a branch. There was nothing that was scaring him ,the vampires always came but not even one got the privilege to touch him. He arrived home but the door was ripped off. He threw his backpack and ran inside. The scene in front of him was going to mark him for the eternity. Three wolves pulling his mother apart. Instead of crying like a normal child at his age would, he raised his arms above his back and closed his eyes whispering "Ventum veni, da mihi potestatem. Perdere omnia." A strong wind formed, flying the wolves away in their human form with deep cuts across their bodies. Jungkook walked closer to her and caressed her bloody face that was unrecognizable . His mother was holding tightly in her palm a bracelet that he took and placed it in his pocket. He needed to consecrate her so her power will go to the ancestors. A little boy was arranging the funeral of his mother.

May 14th 2016

Namjoon looked at Mayze with cold eyes. His fist was clenching tighter and tighter seeing the rebellious attitude of his daughter. She looked at him still trying to look confident despite the fear that was sending chills down her spine. She loved him but now she was wondering if he loved her. Her own father trapped her into a marriage she did not want. Hoseok was a real gentleman and he loved her despite being rejected several times. He could wait for her because true love can't rush in, and her was someone Hoseok wanted to hold forever.

"Why are you looking at me like that, father?" She asked leaning more comfortable in the big chair across the fireplace.

"You are disrespecting your husband." Namjoon motioned towards Hoseeok that was busy putting more wood on the fire. The smell of brunt wood was invading the big open living-room.

"And you are disrespecting me" She fired back. "I would not be able to look at him and not remember that it was your choice. You could have at least compelled me" She was talking calmly trying to hit the nail and make her father angry.

Seeing that her father wasn’t going to reply to her,suddenly she stood up, turned around and walked out the door. Hoseok stood up as well and followed her out the doors.

"Don't follow me!" She yelled hearing his steps close behind.

"Hey! Give me a second. Please, let me tell you how I feel" He grabbed her elbow to stop her ,turning her around to face him. His hands were placed securely on her lower back forcing her to stay pressed against his chest.

"Talk..." She shuttered unable to look at him in the eyes.

"I don't want to hurt you okay? I just want you to understand that I really want to have a family with you. I was also left heartbroken by someone. I had her in my mind for centuries and then I saw you. You took my breath away. I have never seen someone so beautiful. Your eyes hide such sadness that I want to erase and replace it with joy. I want your cheeks to hurt from smiling. The witch made the bond marriage but it's us that will make this least forever. "

Evil is always possible. And goodness is eternally difficult. The world changes but we are not. We just try to keep up with it, to survive to get used to every new thing. How long does that take? What if the world changes everyday? We get trapped in the new universe and in our run to accumulate information, we lose ourselves. We should just pick up from the world what suits us. So we don't have to change everyday. She saw kings raise and fall, she saw people have power then being consumed by it. Now she was wondering if all this is worth it without love? Is it worth living an eternity playing pretend with someone your father decided to bond you with? She was torn between being the perfect daughter and having what she always craved for, love, love, love. She had so much love to give and it was making new cracks on her heart everyday. What if she could love Hoseok? But what if she couldn't?

June 17th 2017

"Kookie" Taehyung called the younger male that was slowly walking on the side of the road. "I need more daylight rings" He said and grabbed Jungkook's shoulders to stop him.

"How many?" Jungkook asked slowly raising and eyebrow, intrigued by the older male's request.

"About 50 or more." Taehyung saw the shock on Jungkook face and felt the need to explain. "I need an army.I need power to control the city."

"Do you realize how many stones you need? " Jungkook pushed past Taehyung and started walking towards the city.

"I do and I have them. And as for power you can chanel someone really powerful." Taehyung said appearing again in front of Jungkook.

"Like whom?"

"Namjoon"

Hearing the name, a smile creeped its way on Jungkook's face. "I actually wanted to go and make an alliance with him. We have a deal."

"I will send someone to bring you the money and the stones" Taehyung called after his friend that was moving further and further away, towards New Orleans"

July 28th 2017

"We have a dinner tonight" announced Seokjin earning the attention of everyone in the room. "We always have dinner like at night, that's when we eat dinner." Hoseok replied making Mayze laugh.

"Well we have a more special dinner. There is a new warlock in town and we'd like to keep him on our side." Namjoon completed what Seokjin just said.

"Is it safe to bring Hana?" Jimin asked being concerned about his daughter's safety.

"I can stay at home with her. I am not in mood for family quality time" Yoongi offered. Him and Namjoon never really got along. Maybe it was because all he cared about was Hana and Jimin and Namjoon was always a control freak. He remembered well how he laughed when they expressed their desire to adopt a human child. He was against it at the beginning but seeing how bubbly and adorable Hana was he gave in the role of grandfather, always spoiling the little girl with everything she desires and her parents were not going to give it to her.

"Okay so it's set. We will actually need to cook. He is human." Seokjin walked happily towards the kitchen followed by Mayze and Jimin. “ Actually he is a witch that eats human food” said Jimin. “You make it sound like <he is a cat that eats dog food>” Mayze mocked Jimin, earning a slap on the arm with a spatula. “ Seokjin! Jimin is hitting me with your new spatula” Mayze called for her father in a fake crying voice.

As they were waiting for their guest the large dinning room was filled with a calm melody from the grand piano placed in the corner of the room. The whole house was decorated in rococo style. Every piece of furniture being white and gold. Everything was spotless no dust no blood spots on the floor from the natural lunch Namjoon delighted himself with. Suddenly the three meters doors were opened against the wall and a black shadow made its way inside. The stranger took off his hood and smiled at everyone that was eyeing him from head to toe.

“I was born on the night of Samhain, with both dark and white magic inside me. I am the new warlock in the quarter and I may be your ally and your friend in the darkest hour and offer you my powers to protect your loved ones” Jungkook said walking closer towards the table.

#jungkook smut #jungkook angst #jungkook warlock #jungkook fluff #namjoon angst #bts vampire au #bts scenarios #jimin vampire au #jimin x yoongi #jin x namjoon #seokjin angst #taehyung angst #jungkook x reader #hoseok angst #hoseok x reader

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goldeagleprice · 4 years

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The Capped Bust Half Dollar, 1807-1836

by R.W. Julian

Mint Director Robert Patterson.

Today we think of the quarter dollar as the most useful coin in ordinary transactions. This was not always true. Prior to 1964, and the Kennedy half dollar, the half dollar was equally popular in many parts of the United States. The mass hoarding of the Kennedy version and the disappearance of this denomination from our pocket change has served to make us forget the former importance of the half dollar.

When the basic mint act was signed into law by President George Washington in early April 1792, one of the coins on the list was the 50-cent piece or half dollar. This denomination came about because our monetary system was based on the Spanish silver dollar (eight reales), and the four-reales piece was the same as our half dollar.

While coinage of half dollars had been very heavy as early as 1795, it was not until 1801 that full-scale minting resumed. At first, the mintages were hesitant because bullion depositors really did not want half dollars; instead, they wanted silver dollars for export in payment for foreign goods.

Finally, at the end of March 1804, Mint Director Elias Boudinot stopped the production of silver dollars and forced the bullion owners to accept half dollars instead. From this small beginning, the coinage of half dollars grew until, by 1808, it had passed the million mark.

In 1806, the design on the half dollar was the same as had been first used on this denomination in 1801: a Draped Bust head of Liberty on the obverse and the heraldic eagle on the reverse. By any standard, the Draped Bust design was one of quality, and the United States had something to be proud of when its coins found their way to foreign shores. However, all of this was to change after Robert Patterson became Mint Director in the summer of 1805.

The Draped Bust design had first been used in the days of President George Washington, who was considered a Federalist in politics. However, in 1801, Thomas Jefferson, a Republican, had been elected president, and there were several changes made in the way that the country was run. Patterson, who had been appointed by Jefferson to the mint post in 1805, was well in tune with the times and decided that a new design was required on all of our coins to reflect the political changes. (The modern Republican party dates from the 1850s, and the Republican Party of President Jefferson is now called the Democratic Party.)

Patterson did not think that the current chief engraver, Robert Scot, was capable of executing the new artwork, so the President was asked to authorize the employment of an assistant engraver named John Reich. Patterson believed that Reich, an indentured servant freed by Chief Coiner Henry Voight, was better suited to carry out the new artistic direction on the coinage.

It was made clear to the President that Reich was wanted for the specific task of redesigning our coinage. Jefferson, of course, knew that there already was an engraver at the Mint but that he was a Federalist, and one assumes that a member of the President’s political party would, of course, do a better job.

The President, whatever his views on coinage design, had very clear ideas about spending public money, and it was not until March 1807 that Director Patterson was able to persuade the Chief Executive to permit Reich to be hired as an assistant engraver at the sum of $600 per year. (Scot received $1,200 per annum). Shortly thereafter, Reich arrived at the Mint and began to prepare designs under Patterson’s supervision.

In his letter of March 25, 1807, to the President, Patterson noted that the “beauty of our coins would be greatly improved by his [Reich’s] masterly hand.” Modern collectors are not quite so charitable when it comes to this statement, and most think the design was a step backward. Yet the finished product has a distinct charm of its own, and many numismatists specialize in the half dollar coinage of 1807-1836.

The first Reich design to be approved was for the half dollar, then considered the most important coin being struck by the Philadelphia Mint. Within a matter of weeks, Reich had produced drawings that were acceptable to Patterson.

Because of a Mint memo that was written in the 1860s and later published by a researcher, there is a persistent rumor that the model for the new Liberty head was Reich’s “fat mistress.” Considering that Philadelphia was a relatively small town in those days, it seems unlikely that the memo was reporting the truth, however. It was more likely a case of sour grapes from someone who simply did not like the design.

Patterson was closely involved in the design work and would certainly have known had Reich, in fact, used a mistress as a model. Under no circumstances would such a woman have been portrayed on our coinage in those days. There would have been political fallout for the President had this become known, and Patterson would have been aware of the risks.

Oddly enough, there was a second rumor, in the 1850s, that Reich had portrayed Mint Director Patterson’s wife on the coinage. The story was furnished to a French numismatist, Alexandre Vattemare, who published this attribution in 1861. One suspects, however, that Mint officials were having a little fun at Vattemare’s expense because he also reported Pocahontas as the model for the Draped Bust Liberty head of 1795.

The reverse of the new Reich half dollar has an equally interesting story in that Director Patterson had ordered that the Great Seal, as found on the silver and gold coinage of 1796–1807, be altered so that the eagle would have a more natural pose. Even the motto (E PLURIBUS UNUM) was retained to show what was intended.

Later mint directors, including Dr. Samuel Moore, felt that the retention of the motto was a mistake, and it was dropped from the coinage by the mid-1830s. It was Moore’s contention that the motto properly belonged with the Great Seal but not the new eagle, since the meaning of the motto was little different from the words “United States of America.” In 1873, the motto returned, because by then it was thought that the motto was supposed to be there, regardless of the historical background.

Whatever the source of the design, half dollar coinage with Reich’s new dies began towards the end of 1807. In the late 1850s, Mint Director James Ross Snowden stated that about 750,000 of the new coins were made, as compared to 300,000 or so of the 1807 Draped Bust half dollars.

There are reasons for believing that Snowden simply fabricated the figures when he was unable to find anything in the mint records about the changeover. He certainly did so for at least one other coinage: the cents dated 1823.

Half dollars of 1807 are scarcer than indicated by the 750,000 mintage figure. According to the monthly price guide appearing in Numismatic News at the time of this writing, in XF40 the value is a strong $750 for the most common variety, which compares to $480 for the 1814 in this grade with a mintage of barely over one million. The true mintage of the 1807 Reich design was probably less than a half million pieces.

The first Capped Bust half dollars were struck in the fall of 1807. (Images courtesy of Stack’s Bowers)

There are several varieties of the 1807 half dollar that are collected by specialists, including obverses with large and small stars, a reverse where the figure “50” was punched over an erroneous figure “20,” and the “Bearded Goddess” obverse. The latter, which brings as much as $4,000 even in VF20, is the result of a damaged die.

For the years from 1808 to 1814, the values are much more reasonable, and in most cases, an XF40 specimen can be obtained for as little as $350. Those collectors specializing in the half dollars of 1807-1836 tend to go after the higher-grade pieces because they are, after all, relatively common. This is partly due to the fact that banks used these coins as backing for their paper currency, and as late as the 1930s, half dollar hoards were still being discovered.

The fact that banks used these as backing for paper currency has led to an erroneous belief that half dollars really did not circulate in the years before 1840; nothing could be further from the truth. Except for the copper cent, the half dollar was the most common United States coin to be found in daily use.

In just one case, the famous Economite hoard of the past century, more than 100,000 half dollars from before 1840, were found. Even the rare 1815 date was uncovered to the amount of more than 100 specimens, probably forming a fair part of those in collections today.

Not only were half dollars widely used along the Eastern seaboard, where the bulk of the population lived, but they were also to be seen on the frontier. Indian treaty payments were often made in half dollars, which were promptly spent by the natives in local stores and with itinerant peddlers.

Although little noticed today by collectors, the half dollars of 1807 and 1808 did not strike up well in the presses; for this reason, Reich executed a new hub, in lower relief, of the Liberty head, and this was introduced in 1809. There was another minor redesign in 1812, perhaps because of some dissatisfaction with the 1809 revision. There were other changes from time to time, but these are of little interest except to specialists.

The half dollars of 1807-1836 all have lettered edges that read FIFTY CENTS OR HALF A DOLLAR. Because the denomination was put on the reverse in 1807, the wording on the edge was pointless (no one read it anyway), but the presence of lettering did have the specific purpose of deterring counterfeits. (Some of the 1809 issues have a special edge in which “XXXX” or “IIII” is found between certain letters.)

1836 was the last year for Capped Bust half dollars with lettered edges. (Image courtesy of Stack’s Bowers)

Although half dollars are relatively plentiful today for the years 1808 through 1812, in 1813 the supply of silver bullion began to decline. In those days, the government did not coin money on its own account, and all gold and silver coinage was derived from private deposits. In 1814, the mintage dropped to barely over one million, well below the peak of 1.63 million in 1812. Even though 1814 mintage is lower, in XF40 the value is a reasonable $480.

The War of 1812 created an unstable economic market; as a result, people began to hoard silver coins, and very little bullion found its way to the Mint after the middle of 1814. One firm (Jones, Firth, & Company of Philadelphia) brought in a quantity of silver in late 1815 and, just after the end of the year, in early January 1816, some 47,150 half dollars were struck with the 1815 date. A few were paid out to others, but most of the coins went to this particular firm.

The half dollars of 1815 were actually struck in January 1816. (Image courtesy of Stack’s Bowers)

The 1815 is a rare date and the most difficult to find for any year after 1797. Even in G4, the value is an impressive $1,400, while a VF20 tips the scales at a strong $4,800. All of the 1815s are actually overdates, 1815/2, there being only one obverse die used for this coinage.

1817 Overdate Half Dollar with Caption: One of the rarest Capped bust half dollars is the 1817/4 overdate. (Image courtesy of Heritage Auctions)

In mid-January 1816, there was a fire at the Mint that damaged some of the outbuildings. Unfortunately, the rolling mills were contained in one of these structures and were destroyed by the flames. Director Patterson took the opportunity to order special rollers from the English firm of Belles and Harrold.

With the new rollers on hand, half dollar coinage resumed in May 1817, and through the end of this series in 1836, the number struck continued to grow. The best year was 1836, with more than 6.5 million produced.

The increased coinage means that specimens from the 1820s and 1830s are progressively cheaper for the collector to obtain. By the 1830s, an XF40 specimen can be obtained for about $120, certainly a bargain in view of the age and historical importance of these coins. Those of the 1820s vary of course by date but usually can be found in about the same price range for most dates.

Perhaps the most interesting issue of the 1820s is the 1823, which has some odd figure 3’s in the date. One is called a “patchwork 3” while another is simply called an “ugly 3” with good cause.

The figure 3 in the date 1823 is known for its poor quality. (Image courtesy of Stack’s Bowers)

A modified portrait was executed in late 1833 by Chief Engraver William Kneass, and coins of the final three years, 1834 through 1836, used the revised motif.

Regular proof coinage began at Philadelphia in 1817, although for the early years such pieces are few and far between when it comes to finding one for a specialized collection. Probably the reason for the silver or gold proofs from that time was the new rollers, which gave a better finish to the strips of metal. Most proof half dollars before the 1830s bring strong prices; the 1820s, for example, have a book value of at least $50,000.

A stylized view of a screw press in operation. All Capped Bust half dollars with a lettered edge were struck on this kind of press.

In 1836, the Mint finally introduced steam coinage in place of the antiquated screw presses, but this meant that the lettered edge would have to be dropped; only plain or reeded edges could be struck in the new machines. This, in turn, meant that new dies were required. There was an abortive attempt to coin the new pieces in November 1836, but it was not until early 1837 that the reeded-edge coinage got underway. It was still the Reich design but modified by a new engraver, Christian Gobrecht.

The collector may encounter some lettered-edge half dollars dated after 1836, but these are counterfeits. Pre-1837 dates also exist, usually made from copper-nickel or some similar metal in color. There is a certain value to these contemporary counterfeits, and a market for them does exist.

With the end of the lettered-edge half dollar coinage in 1836, only the collector was left to appreciate the coin that had once served the nation so well.

The post The Capped Bust Half Dollar, 1807-1836 appeared first on Numismatic News.

#Precious Metals

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upvoteanthology · 7 years

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The American Dream

Late-1700's On the day the Articles of Confederation were signed, the United States found itself flung back to an empty world. They later discovered they were transported back to 4500 BCE, before any major cities were founded in the Americas. The three million Americans ISOTed were shocked to find the lack of anyone on their borders. Many people thought of it as an escape from European influence, a sign that the American experiment would carry forward. Others thought that it was a message from God showing how the Americans were doomed to fail. After people realized what had happened, food began to run out, and state governments had trouble working together. In 1784, Virginia seceded from the United States, tired of the restrictions implemented. In such a time of crisis, Virginia couldn't make any compromises with the federal government. After fighting off any militia the federal congress could afford to send in, they made an effort to switch many of their tobacco farms into ones that could produce food for the people in the country.

Quickly, other states seceded from the United States as well. New York abandoned ship next, hoping that they could first quell the rebellion of Iroquois while also being allowed to build up their own military. After Georgia and North Carolina followed. In 1794, the United States was formally disbanded, with acting congress leader Alexander Hamilton renaming himself the "President of Pennsylvania and Delaware". Each country had trouble finding their footing, and one or two nearly collapsed entirely from the lack of authority and clear laws. One such country was North Carolina, which never expanded due to the fact that the government never responded to the people's need for food. Those who could afford it packed up and moved to the west, where the breakaway Republic of Hawkins was formed in 1798. Needless to say, the two decades after the Poena (The given name for the event, after the Latin word for "punishment") were plagued by death and destruction, and the collapse of a nation that had tons of potential.

Early-1800's In 1803, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island banded together to form the Republic of New England. Within a year, Connecticut joined as well. They were arguably the immediate success story after the Poena, though they didn't have the initiative to become the major military power of North America. After their brief stint in 1804 in which they lost Vermont to the New Yorkers, they decided it best to quietly expand up the coast, the first country to really expand into virgin land. They interacted with the few natives in the area, and flooded the region with poor serfs who didn't really have a place to farm. In the post-Poena climate, even the elite found themselves farming for their families, if only to keep themselves alive. The colony of New Quebec was one of the larger ones; settlers from New Hampshire and even Vermont created New England's only Francophone colony. Pennsylvania and New York, seeing the success of New England's farming programs, began to expand west.

After the chaos of the late-1700's, the two countries were better equipped to nail down their old claims to American land. In 1811, New York and Pennsylvania signed a treaty to divide up colonial land, and tried to peacefully expand. Eventually, the same would be done between Pennsylvania and Virginia, dividing up the Mississippi Basin. At this point in time, however, the countries down south weren't as successful. Georgian expansion into Florida was met with stiff resistance by the majorly hunter-gatherer natives, as well as the few Georgian Native Americans who decided to fight alongside their ancestors. They were able to expand, but it was grueling in comparison to the north, which was a swamp-less region where the natives had mostly been wiped out from American disease. Virginia used the virgin land to expel their natives out of the country, convincing Georgia to do the same. The Confederation of the Five Fires was formed in 1814 out of the wreckage of previous settlement, but it was unstable due to constant intervention from Virginia. It ended up collapsing to expanding Virginian armies in 1823.

In 1821, South Carolina formally renamed itself to the Kingdom of Drayton, after the governor (John Drayton) who had ruled with an iron fist for nearly two decades. He was the one who cemented South Carolina's place in the sand, turning it into a backwater until 2016. Luckily, there wasn't a John Drayton ruling over every country. In most places, exploration continued, albeit tentatively. This was, of course, until the Quebecois Revolts rocked the New English colonies, offsetting exploration for a while. Many of the French settlers, already having a solid foundation of agriculture, disconnected themselves from the government they had few ties with. As the earlier New English colonies were poorly absorbed, it was easy for the thousand-or-so settlers to stop calling themselves New English and begin calling themselves Quebecois. Even still, New Quebec was the second independent state outside of the original US (or the third, if you count Hawkins, which most people don't), and the prospect of an actual non-American nation had become almost foreign in the world's two generations away from "home". So, colonial expansion slowed down ever so slightly, with New England taking the brunt of the economic collapse, until the 1830's. In 1831, a man named Christian Seddon approached the President of New York with a prospect. Instead of trying to directly absorb all their colonies, why not form some colonial businesses much like the East India Company of the Old World? The president liked the idea, and a second rendition of the Hudson Bay Company was formed in the north. Since it was basically a business, it was able to generate revenue both for the people who ran it and for the state. In addition, it actually populated the virgin lands because workers had to move there to work. New York became pretty rich off using the idea, and many other countries followed suit in similar ways. While the early-1800's were okay for expansion, it was the second half of the 19th century where things would begin to expand in really big ways.

Late-1800's The late 19th century, at least in most history textbooks, is normally classified as the "Age of Exploration". Civilization moved from merely the eastern half of North America to Europe, Africa, and South America. In 1856, the Amplus Company of Pennsylvania, a trading company that had existed since the 1830's, founded the settlement of Villelibre on the site of OTL Lorient. It was the first real settlement in Europe since the Poena, and was basically a dumping ground for the few French Pennsylvanians who dared to break the law. However, after the Amplus Company proved that Europe was a viable settlement option, people began to move back to their ancestral homelands. Many Pennsylvania Dutch formed settlements in the lands formerly known as the Netherlands. People whose families had been loyalists in the war moved to East Anglia or Wales, where they'd eventually break away from New York to form the New Kingdom of Britain. Priests from Massachusetts worked to painstakingly rebuild Rome, and went on to rebuild Jerusalem decades later. However, the ultimate settlers were the companies. The people back home needed more food, more slaves, more of everything. The settlements in Spain, France, and Scotland were essentially all turned into gigantic farms, so that the artisans could turn from farming back to anything else they cared to do (and maybe buy food from the companies in the process ). Virginia moved from forcing most of its populace to work in food farms for their whole lives to inventing a rudimentary version of the steam engine in 1878. Pennsylvania became rich enough off of its French colonies to re-brand itself as the "United States of the North", especially after population began to boom. The nation with the most success was New York, as they began to kick off something of an Industrial Revolution after producing new kinds of ships in the 1890's.

In contrast to the profitable nature of the European colonies, the African colonies were startlingly different. New York claimed most of Western Africa, mostly in order to get chocolate and ivory. As slavery was abolished completely for them in 1887, the colonialism was much tamer than it was from Virginia and Georgia. Obviously it wasn't without it's flaws, as the North Americans were notorious for ignoring the natives. New York commonly "encouraged" its freed slaves to settle down in Africa, where they were given land and slightly safer conditions than back home. Of course, Virginia didn't abolish slavery until 1978, and Georgia never really got over that phase in their life. In South America, the colonies at play were far more Americanized. Instead of the companies holding agricultural ownership in Europe, or the slave colonies in Africa, the South American colonies were formed by people with little political investment at all. It was mostly just a means of expansion for Virginia, Georgia, and other smaller countries. The settlements of Rossjour, Tiswe, and Norport were all Virginian settlements along the coast, founded in 1892, 1894, and 1898 respectively.

In addition to all the colonies, there were some new independent countries that fared swimmingly. Cinctorres, for example, was a town founded on the Yucatan peninsula. Mostly formed out of Spanish immigrants from Georgia, it quickly expanded and interacted with the more sophisticated hunter-gatherer tribes. It would end up forming the Union of Tabasco in 1977. Or, further north, there was the Union of Scottish America, which later separated into the Kingdom of MacBaird and the State of Gowson. With the Scottish and Irish being persecuted by Virginia (who had recently absorbed Hawkins at the time, a nation with a large Scottish population) and the USN, many fled to the Pict Lake (OTL Salt Lake) to set up shop. It was honestly pretty profitable in spite of the Virginians, and tended to gather religious people who needed somewhere shady to do their business. Ultimately, the second half of the 1800's was a pretty good time, but that boom in population began to quiet, even during the forefront of invention...

1900's The 1900's could be described as the Age of Industrialization, but it was also the age of corrupt business. Not that business wasn't corrupt in the 1800's, but any corruption that was previously there only seemed to get bigger with time. The 1900's began with the Industrial Revolution spreading into the USN and New England. Of course, with the steam engine only being invented twenty years earlier, it was a bit difficult for any significant progress to occur until the mid-1920's. But, with industrialization came bigger business, business less tailored to the likes and dislikes of federal governments. The Amplus Company began branching out, from colonialism and trade to producing things like garments and toys from their vast factories in Villelibre. Sadly, in addition to small trinkets becoming a commodity for the first time, slaves also made their reappearance. In Virginia, abolitionist movements had gotten so close to winning in the 1910's, but the surplus in industry meant they needed people to work in the factories. The colonies in Africa, while they were on the grow, were also extremely bad regarding basic human rights. There was also a bit of a Gold Rush that happened from 1910 to 1925, where a large group of Germans migrated to formerly unexplored California to settle down, and discovered an abundance of gold in the process. After that, many more immigrated to the area, some companies massively profiting from reselling slave-mined gold for a higher price. After getting rich off their own product, many businessmen saw it their duty to expand their wealth and the so-called American Way to the rest of the world. A man named John Bateman was the cause of a large religious revival movement causing people to flood into Mesopotamia and Egypt. Bateman was the owner of the Bate-Ulster Company, and took it upon himself to bring the "joys of American industry and sophistication" to the agricultural societies of the 44th century BCE. In 1951, he journeyed across the Mediterranean and met up with missionaries in New Jerusalem, where he was directed east towards the city of Uruk (or Erech, as the religious Americans liked to spell it). Founded around the same time the Americans landed, Uruk was a bit shaken by diseases spread by the New English who settled in New Jerusalem. However, it was still even more glorious than it was before American contact, with the king wielding a gun and its citizens using paper currency. Of course, Bateman disrupted the agreements the people of Uruk had with New Jerusalem, and forced the king to give him political power. He called Americans to take back the civilization that had created them (that civilization being the Mesopotamians), to show their complete and total domination over the Earth. Many of the more conservative folk followed his dogma, setting up their own little states in what Bateman called the "League of Erech". He was followed by supporters in "Philistine" (even though none of the natives actually called it that) and Egypt. On the side, Keftiu was a kingdom heavily influenced by American culture, but was never fully taken over by it (although civilization there wouldn't have existed for another few millennia without some form of influence or another). With the spread of business to the ancient world, Islamic freed slaves from the Njinga family took it upon themselves to rebuild the Muslim Holy Land. By 2016, the Njinga Caliph is arguably one of the more powerful people in the Middle Eastern region, but that doesn't mean much considering how small the other fifteen countries in the area really are.

In 1983, there were some big steps made on the military side of technology. While the wars of the past were mostly small and contained (such as when Virginia took over North Carolina in the '60's, and no one batted an eye), the next war had the opportunity of breaking out in five continents. Something of an arms race between Virginia and New York occurred, where New York slowly gained the upper hand. The aeroplane, which had been invented only fourteen years earlier in Syracuse, was militarized and used to transport guns and ammunition across the continent. The idea of the "trackless train" (kinda like a bus, it was never adapted into a car) was invented in 1978, along with the gas engine. Both were used to plan military ventures if any nation were to declare war on the other. By the year 2000, nearly every country that knew what was good for them spent a significant portion of their budget on innovating new military technology.

2000's So far, the 21st century has been marked by an odd lack of exploration. After the Mesopotamian Boom ended and aeroplane technology became more developed, most of the former exploratory companies focused on connecting the regions they owned in more intuitive ways. If we were going off of OTL standards, technology would probably be somewhere around where it was in 1940 in 2016. The Oil Boom is currently all the rage in the Middle East, and even smaller countries like Goldstaub (the original German settlement in California) are starting to get rich. There was even a World Union formed in 2003, potentially initiating scientific exploration of Asia and Africa. Of course, that doesn't mean everything's somehow perfect and happy. Two hundred and forty years since the Poena, it looks like the world is getting ready to have a war, especially with the tension building between New York's ally of New England and Virginia's ally of Georgia. And with the idea of a "bomb made by splitting atoms" floating around, it might not end well...

#map #united states

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