#don’t know how royal courts work but their agenda can squeeze this in!

[nanstgeorge]

and when final acotar book epilogue is feysand nessian and elriel exploring the continent like the sisters were supposed to

#don’t know how royal courts work but their agenda can squeeze this in! #this is equivalent to kingsflame blooming GIVE IT TO ME NOW

[defleurtradingco]

The Merry Month of Mirth- Melodramatic

(Previous: Hair , Next: Motto)

“Maybe you’re kinda going deaf month by month but didn’t I TELL YOU like a million times that we DON’T want to be involved?” Ray was being melodramatic as per usual, as he and Aaron sat at their respective places at the long table in the conference room.

Solaina hardly noticed he’d said anything, her nose was deep into her laptop screen. “Hm? I’m sorry-” She hadn’t been paying attention.

Ray threw his hands in the air. “Why do I even bother.” “Perhaps if you had filled out that report like I had asked you to.” “THAT’S BEYOND THE POINT!!” Before Ray could get any more worked up, Aaron put a hand on his shoulder and gave it a squeeze, shaking his head.

He knew Ray had been putting it off. RAY knew Ray had been putting it off.

“Besides, I need everyone here so that I may see all the evidence I have collected so far in front of me. Anecdotes included.”

Aaron gave a low hum that sounded more like a rumble coming from his chest. “Could we not have video conference’d this?”

“The situation is growing somewhat dire, I am sorry.” Solaina answered, half paying attention again. Her phone beside her computer buzzed and she glanced at it, only to be interrupted by the sound of the door opening.

“Right this way gentlemen,” It was Lowrey. Fortunato came in first, followed by a timid-as-always-looking-Liam, followed by Adrian, and then the vampire himself.

They all took a seat (save for Lowrey, of course) near the door rather than moving up to the front.

“There you are. I am glad to see all of you.” “’Course Solaina, wouldn’t miss it for the world.” Lowrey gave her a wink as he popped a cigarette into his mouth.

“I would have.” Fortunato muttered.

“Me too! This is ridiculous.” Of course Adrian would start complaining immediately. Everyone expected that.

Liam sat quietly, wringing his hands nervously. “Just what IS going on exactly? I haven’t heard anything about the situation at all,” It must have been important enough to call HIM in. What did they need HIM for? “Well, I-” Just as Solaina stood up to start, a patch of floor near the corner of the room turned black and gooey, like ink. One figure rose up from the puddle and eventually lightened in color.

“HOW DARE YOU BEGIN THIS MEETING WITHOUT THE PRESENCE OF THE MASTE-” Then a second figure rose from behind. The angel himself.

“Fabio, please, calm yourself.” The consort made a show of grumbling and displaying his disapproval but quieted down.

“Ah, there you are, I had been wondering when you were going to arrive. My apologies.” Solaina nodded towards them. Towards Hedous specifically.

The angel shook his head. “Not to worry.” His gaze fell onto Fortunato, who only slumped into his chair in response, as if to hide. “I see you have gathered ALL of us here. How lovely.” He didn’t meant that.

“Great, WHO invited the FREAKS-” Ray started again.

Solaina cut him off before he could continue however. “I am glad to see you all today. Now then...this is what has been going on for those who are not aware of the situation in its fullest.” She told them everything she knew, from beginning to end, with other people filling in the blank areas with their own accounts.

“And that leaves us in the present. This council of thirteen Jesters and their supposed king are following their own agenda, whatever that agenda may be. I have searched all available avenues I could possibly think of in order to uncover more information, but I am quickly running out of options.”

“And yet no one wants to leave this alone, as I keep on saying we should.” Fortunato rolled his eyes. Even Lowrey made some sort of motion that conveyed he felt the same way about it all.

“You know very well that I cannot do that.” Solaina frowned.

“Eh, let us hope.” Lowrey shrugged.

“Anyway...this Mirthful King is likely an alias, I have concluded. Names are important in the fae realms, after all. And that is most likely why they choose to remain as anonymous as they are.”

“So what then? Ok, we don’t know who they are, don’t know WHAT they want, don’t know who they’re bein’ run by. I’d say they’ve done a fucking good job to outrun YOU.” Ray huffed angrily.

Aaron pinched the bridge of his nose. “….What he means to say is-” “That IS WHAT I MEAN TO SAY!-” “-is that if they have hidden this much about themselves, how are we to find anyone who may possibly know more??”

Before anyone could reply, Solaina’s laptop made a ringing sound. She looked down and saw an incoming call coming from the library. “How convenient.” She clicked it. “Yes Tahrek?” “Solaina? Oh good there you are. I’ve done some more digging and I have some information that I believe you would be very interested in.” “How very, very convenient.” Adrian mimicked in a mocking sort of way. Albeit quietly.

“Let us hear it.”

“Right,” The minotaur cleared his throat. “Now, after compiling everyone’s accounts- can you please turn me around…. Thank you. Now after compiling everyone’s accounts as well as what little documented material we have on them, I’ve made some faint connections between several factors that may in the end turn out to only be theories, but-”

“Tahrek, simpler, please.” Tahrek’s nostrils flared visibly, but he kept his composure. “Of course. I’ve drawn connections between several glaring similarities that both the Jesters and fae share.

Now then...This ‘Mirthful King’ of theirs, could very well be a fairy king. Solaina has brought this concern to me and I am inclined to agree. The usage of the term king is no mere coincidence. I will spare you some of the history in the efforts to save time but it is German in origin.

But, seeing that Europe shares many things between countries, it would be foolish to only hone in on one location. Ireland and Scotland are culprits as well, with legends of the aos sí, who live underground in the mounds,” He picked up a book and squinted before reading aloud. “’Across the western sea they walk, alongside man in an invisible world.’ That could mean a number of things but as far as I’m know, WE lie across the ‘western sea’. And we are painfully aware of the In-Between as well. Not to mention, these aos sí are quite fond of wearing masks and costumes (due to reportedly being ‘ugly’) as well as partying and going overboard, which fits the entire theme. But, then again, many faeries are like that to begin with.

This is my first theory: this soon to be identified fairy king and his group of faeries, are directly responsible for releasing wild magic into public areas. Now, this is extremely unusual as it is. Faeries are very independent creatures, especially ones as powerful as a ‘king’. They are territorial and typically do not take on lessers, preferring to live in solitude.

If all this is so, then we have a very dangerous situation on our hands I’m afraid.” Solaina kept her arms crossed, thinking about it all again like she had been. “And your other theory?” “Yes,” Again Tahrek cleared his throat. “Now taking into account your descriptions of how human they appeared to be, the Jesters that is, my second theory is that they are indeed not faeries. But changelings instead.”

“People we ain’t exactly on th�� best of terms with, might I add.” Lowrey squinted as he gave a smile. “Like, at all. Never have been, never will be the way I see it.”

“Considering there are thirteen of them, I can already tell you this is no- and bear with me with all the ‘word-play’ in place here- ‘court’ of Jesters (as those tend to be quite large and do not fit with their description.) They are also not considered an order, despite being named The Royal ORDER of Jesters, as those typically tend to help other changelings and we’ve no knowledge or record of this whatsoever. I would also not consider them to be a cadre either, due to what I previously stated.” “Again, probably the whole damn point,” Ray interrupted. Tahrek ignored him and kept going. “There are two other kinds. Stalkers, and hunters, who fit the description FAR better. Both can and do serve faeries directly, and their names imply just what it is they do. Their primary targets being other changelings.”

“Why would they want to take out their own like that?” Liam asked, trying to sit still. He couldn’t get his leg to stop bouncing nervously.

“Changelings are not exactly seen as being equal to a faerie, you know that right?” Tahrek answered incredulously. “Maybe pets, maybe playthings, or nuisances at most, but never equal. Inferior is a word for it. They view the rest of us in similar ways no doubt.”

Fortunato leaned forward, rubbing his temples. “So say then these Jesters are in fact, ‘stalkers’ and ‘hunters’, who are going after changelings instead, what does that matter to any of us? Why would they be searching for them but putting a hand into regular society? I do not understand.”

“Well, changelings live among humans, much as Weres and the undead can, and do. Some more so than others of course. I am unable to examine the particulars of the magics placed on the cigarette box Solaina provided to me, unfortunately, so I could not tell you if these magics were created to track or weed out their potential targets. Which, if this line of thinking is all correct, would be HIGHLY likely.”

“This has to do with us,” Solaina narrowed in on Fortunato. “We are here to protect them from those who wish them harm. Were, undead, fae, it does not matter.” She would have said she couldn’t believe what she was hearing, but she could. Believe it that is. “Then what do you propose we do, exactly?” Fortunato was starting to fight her again.

Hedous remained in place, unmoving, quietly absorbing everything he’d heard. Not that he didn’t all know about it before. But Solaina asked him to come and listen, and so he had. “For centuries I kept these creatures at bay. They were...out of control. Man could not thrive with their presence heavily weighing them down.” He glared at Fortunato with empty red eyes. “They are a threat, I agree. One we must locate quickly if we are to contain the situation as a whole.”

Solaina sighed, though it was in agreement. “Yes, however, that is where I am stuck. They met with me once, and they will likely not reveal themselves again. I do not know where to go from here.” “You,” Hedous turned his head to look at Aaron, who, in turn, pointed to himself nervously. The angel gave a single nod to confirm, “You are a werewolf correct?”

“...Yes, I am,” Aaron answered cautiously.

“What a terrible curse… A most cruel joke played on mankind by the fae. A werewolf especially. Your kind were once the guardians of the spaces between, did you know that?”

No one replied.

“Ah… a story for another time then...Anyway… You should be able to track them, I believe.”

Aaron shook his head in disbelief. “N-no I...I do not think I can. I have never tried before and I would not even know what to look for-”

Solaina had a hand on her chin, deep in thought again.

“It’s easy, ya just take a big whiff of whatever it is’s belongings yer lookin’ for and follow yer nose.” Lowrey explained lazily, making light of the situation as always. “C’mon I’m sure ya do it fer all three meals of the day without even realizin’ it. Yer just sniffin’ for a different kind of meat, heh...”

“Perhaps...It may be worth a try.” Solaina eyed Aaron slowly.

The werewolf shook his head, “Solaina I really do not-”

“He ain’t doing ANYTHING this emo FREAK TELLS HIM TO DO-” Ray hissed.

“DO NOT SPEAK ABOUT THE MASTER THAT WAY SWINE-” “OR HIS DND LACKEY-”

“This is the most idiotic idea I’ve ever heard from you. This won’t work. We are just going to get into MORE trouble than we are already in-” Fortunato started to kick off.

“They almost KILLED ME!” Adrian joined in.

Liam sunk in his chair and almost disappeared under the table entirely as voices began to raise and arguments broke out, throwing the room into relative chaos.

Then, out of the noise rose only one voice, though it was through a computer speaker. “QUUIIIIIIEEEEEEEEETTTTTTTTTTTT!”

And indeed, silence fell over the room. Even through a laptop speaker, Tahrek’s voice still rattled them with how loud it was. Maybe they even felt it from the depths of the library itself.

“While I would love to pick your brains about the fae further,” That much was directed towards Hedous, “Searching for them in this manner may be the only viable way we have of searching for them AT ALL, right now. At least until we can find another lead.” “Thank you Tahrek.” Solaina cringed as her ears continued to ring. “I am decided on this route. This is what we are doing. Mr. Ahmed you will attempt to see if you can follow their scent. I would ask that you go along with him.” She motioned to Fabio.

“Ugh...” Fabio crossed his arms. Hedous looked down at him, giving him a bit of reassurance, before he piped up again enthusiastically this time. “I mean yes, of course. The Master wills it then it shall be done!” Better.

“As for the rest of you, you will stay back here with me, and we will be on guard until they return. Understand?” No one protested. Ray was about to, but once again, Aaron held him back with a look of defeat on his face. None of them would be able to change her mind now.

Several quiet yes’s came fluttering here and there. And that was good enough.

“Then let us get started.”

#mirth #this one i was struggling cuz it was long #and i started to go offnotes a lil #due to new developments anyway

[canaryatlaw]

Well today was pretty good. I couldn't fall asleep for my life last night, I just couldn't get comfortable between my back and my stomach hurting me it just wasn't happening, and I ended up being up till some time after 4 am, which meant when my alarm went off at 9 I was hella tired, but I still managed to drag my ass out of bed like a good little soldier and get ready for church. Got there and checked in with the babies room to make sure they had enough people for the 11 am service as someone cancelled last night, then headed back down for the actual service. It was pretty good, starting a new series called "managing the money monster" which was interesting. It's kind of weird because I know this is the only sermon from the series I'll be there for, and it's not a topic that's super relevant to me because I don't have a job and I'm not earning any money (well, I have a job, but I'm not earning any money, that's the crucial part here). It was generally good advice though, obviously a lot about believing in God to help you handle things, and how finances can kind of be the last hold out for that type of thing. So yeah, it was good. After the service was over I went back upstairs to the babies room and set up for the next service. I was supposed to be joined by the high school girl who helps out pretty often, but she ended up just straight up not showing up, which happens sometimes, so it was just me. I've never really had an issue with it because I know it's not like she has her own car and can drive herself, but the girl who's in charge was slightly miffed about it and ended up texting her about it so *shrug* I'm not terribly invested either way. It ended up being completely fine though, the service went on without a hitch. I ended up with 3 little guys, each almost 2 years old (like they were all 22-23 months) and everything was entirely peaceful pretty much the whole time. First there was a little girl who's been in and out a bit and last I saw was still throwing royal fits for her parents, but surprisingly she calmed down within about 5 minutes with me talking to her and her watching Cinderella on her Amazon Fire, lol. Hey, if it helps, I'm definitely not opposed to using technology to satisfy children that would otherwise be screaming (and it's actually a very helpful trick when there are many of them). So she was content pretty much the whole time. I tried to get her interested in the toys, and she did eventually end up picking up one of the little squeaky ones and squeezing it for a while, so that felt like some progress lol. Then there was my tiny girl, who sadly I think might've had her last service with me because she's about to turn 2 and I'm gonna be gone for the rest of the month. She was good though, enthusiastic as always, and we ran around and played and did everything. She kind of started saying some variation of my name, very very roughly haha, like when you tell her to say "thank you" she makes like a two-syllable noise that sounds vaguely like the words, and that's pretty much what she was doing with "Ra-chel" but hey it's progress so I was pleased lol. Then the last one was the little boy who had previously stayed by the gate the whole service and refused to move, but he apparently also had a change of heart from the last time I saw him because right from the start he ran in with a smile on his face and couldn't have been a happier camper, so I was like okay I'll take it haha. He was a bit rambunctious, mostly because the kids got a heck of an arm on him for a not-quite-yet 2 year old, and took pleasure in throwing the plastic balls from the little ball pit (which was somewhat deflated and apparently a new one is coming) across the room, but then we just made a game of throwing them back so it was fine. And yeah, I have no complaints, it legit went as smoothly as an service ever has haha especially when there's only one person, so I was pleased. The other ladies helping out did check in with me frequently to ensure I was still managing, which I appreciated of course. So, when that was over I headed home, train to the bus, except by the time I got there the bus was still a solid 17 minutes away, and I figured now would be a good time to try the super epic donut shop that's right next to the train station that I've been passing every time I go to work or church since August and have yet refrained from trying (because I don't like eating out on things I know are just gonna be massive calories, or at least when I'm alone, which is often) but I figured now was as good a time as any to give it a try. Chicago has several rather legendary donut places, and this is one of them. They have a few locations around the city but are definitely a Chicago exclusive thing (it's called Stan's Donuts if you're interested). So I go inside and get on the decent sized line, but by the time I got to the counter I still hadn't been able to make up my mind haha because the choices were too awesome, so the lady helping me recommend the "Biscoff pocket" which was a yeast donut stuffed with cookie butter, and it was every bit as amazing as it sounds. I'm always slightly hesitant about cookie butter (only slightly though) just because the texture is similar to peanut butter and I hate peanut butter with every fiber of my being, but it didn't bother me too much. I sat in the window for a few minutes before heading back outside shortly before the bus arrived, so I'd call it a successful adventure. Took the bus the rest of the way home and dove into my schoolwork, first up with trial ad which I had to write an opening statement for. No problem writing it, but the annoying part is the assignment was like "don't even think about using notes" when legit every lawyer uses notes for an opening??? Ever??? So it's basically bullshit that I'll have to work on getting down over the next few days which is annoying, but oh well. Writing it wasn't too difficult, just banged out a few paragraphs and we're good. Then I had to deal with the field observation paper I have to give a presentation on tomorrow in my mission based lawyering class, which I was low key dreading, until I actually looked at the assignment and realized it was just supposed to be a summary of our field observation, not like a "reflection" or something similar that would require substantial bullshitting on my part. Just summarizing my day? Oh, I can do that very well, I do it every night on here for these posts. And of course I took copious notes on the cases, which helped immensely. So I started typing it out and within an hour I had 4 and a half pages (the range was 3-5) ready to go that I was quite happy with, so I'm glad that is done. Lastly there's crim pro, which probably wasn't totally necessary to do because we're backed up on cases and may not even get to these cases this week, but it was only 20 pages so I figured I'd just get it done. Two cases, easy enough. I finished just at 8, which was of course my goal, because I'm actually so good at meeting deadlines like that lol. During this time I was also running back and forth to do laundry, which was super overdue and I ended up doing 3 full loads, haha. The weird part was that when I got down there there was a solid two inches of water just chilling in the bottom of the washer and not appearing to be going anywhere. I didn't want to stick my clothes in there if it was having a problem, so I texted my landlord and he said that happens sometimes when people overload it, but if I run a load on empty it should work again. So that's what I did ($2 in my precious laundry quarters down the drain, not that I'm actually annoyed enough to make an issue of it though) and it was back to normal afterwards so I was able to start and was happy to get that done, especially because the end of this week is the start of spring break and I'll need clean clothes to pack, so it was really a necessity to get it done. For the evening I first tried to find the episode of Powerless my dvr supposedly didn't record, only to find it apparently just doesn't exist yet (thanks for nothing, IMDb) so I moved on to Suits which I watched the rest of the season of. I have to say I'm much more satisfied with the ending of this season than I was last season, so I'll give them credit there. I think it helped that they were a lot more focused on actual cases instead of inter-firm drama and personal agendas, even if those cases were brought in relation to personal agendas. I have to say though, they do so much sketchy shit there's no way they would've have been caught so many times over and so screwed over. And I'm sorry, there is zero chance of Mike ever getting admitted to the bar in reality. Like, ZERO CHANCE. Are you fucking kidding me??? That's ridiculous. I am mostly willing to overlook it though because I'm interested in seeing Mike as a lawyer lol so I can forgive their ridiculousness. The ending with Louis was sad of course, but it was still a much better and a much more joyful season finale than last season so I appreciate that. And JESSICA. YAAAS. Only Jessica Pearson could manage to appeal to compassion and blackmail someone at the same fucking time. She is legit like, lawyer goals and I don't even care if that's sketchy lol she is a boss. And of course it was hysterical when she was like "yeah let New York disbar me, they won't give a fuck in Chicago" for obvious reasons. So overall I was pleased with my watching and catching up, especially since I'd lost a good amount of faith in the show at this point, some of which was restored here. And yeah, that about sums up my day. Get to sleep in tomorrow thanks to yet another weird Chicago holiday that closes the courts and gets me the day off (I swear I'm never going to actually make it to the DV clinic at this point, but I'm not complaining about the extra time). It's like Casamir Polaski day I think? I don't know, some crazy made up Chicago holiday but hey, like I said, no complaints here. Still have class at night with presentations, but that should be easier enough and at least I get to sleep in, which is the important part really, and speaking of sleep that's what I'm going to do now. Goodnight angels. Stay beautiful.

#daily journal #March 2017