#everyone else has paid the piper at some point

[densewentz]

man i love guillermo but if this little freak isn't forced to actually Experience a Consequence for once in this entire series I'm going to scream

#he always runs away/lets someone else take the fall/finds a way to weasel out of feeling guilty/gets a spontaneous get out of jail free card #and quite frankly i am sick of it!! #everyone else has paid the piper at some point #gumball the hubris is coming for u bitch #can not BELIEVE #guillermo couldnt stomach killing a stranger to survive as a vampire #but was willing to kill a friend for want of being human #hypocritical boyyyy #youre the biggest monster on this show and i love you #but i want this fruit bruised for once #wwdits #wwdits spoilers #guillermo de la cruz

[dragons-nest-black-dragon]

What if…

I want to remind you that English is not my native language! I'm very sorry if there are any mistakes!

And what would happen if Ray did not have time to help his sister get out of the paws of his father, when he had already torn off her limbs and the main crystal on her chest? The answer is simple: She would have died. But would it all end there?

Of course not.

Despite his disgusting act and anger at his children, Eivingard loved his firstborn very much. He would kill anyone who dared to offend his children, especially his little flower - Piper, then still called Cassandra.

But since he loved his children so much, why did he attack them?

The last years of the wars, the king did not feel very well emotionally and psychologically. He even sent his children and wives to another city so that he himself would not do anything bad to them. Wars tormented him greatly, he wanted peace, both in the whole world and in his soul, but some restless creatures did not allow him to live in peace.

The whole of Akurdalar has always been considered the strongest area of Taytjer, both in terms of government and in terms of the strength of its inhabitants. The North has always seemed to the inhabitants of the world something so majestic that they believed that if they conquered this country, then they could live in clover and not care about anything. Often, it was Lumair, the East of Taytjer, who thought so.

Lumair was famous for its lightness, its wealth and peacefulness at all times. This lasted until the throne of the cent of Lumair was occupied by the greedy and striving for greatness Matsada, werewolf-tiger, named Beibas Weissman. Since childhood, he listened to the stories of his old nanny who told him about every country in the world, Akurdalar hooked the little tiger the most. Since childhood, he boasted to everyone that he would capture the North and become the most powerful king of Taytjer. His desire and actions in adulthood paid off, the cities gradually quarreled, and with the ascension to the throne, new wars began, which the world had not seen for a long time. Baybas's actions paid off and made old Eivingard doubt everything, even the loyalty of some of his allies.

Doubts crept into his soul more and more, he so wanted peace and stop all wars that at some point he relaxed. Trying to rest at least a little, the birds, that is, the messengers of Baybas, brought him the news that two of his children and a couple of other residents want to escape to another world. Eivingard took this with hostility and the fact that his own children sided with the East. Strong anger seized him and, having overtaken the refugees, he attacked them.

When the Ancient Crystal Dragons are under the influence of severe stress and aggression, they cannot always immediately understand what they are doing at that moment. Unfortunately, it was precisely this moment that overtook the king himself, who at that time did not realize what he was doing. He literally killed his own children with his own hands.

In the canon story, Piper managed to save Ray, even if he himself received severe injuries for this. But in this alternative, Ray did not have time to help his sister.

As mentioned above, Eivingard dearly loved his children and would never allow someone else to offend them, even he himself did not allow himself to raise a hand against them. When he came to, he saw what he had done. His hysteria and grief knew no bounds. The old king was ready to tear himself apart for what he had done to his own daughter, he was ready to do anything to make her start living again. But alas, it was no longer possible - he tore out the most important crystal on her chest, tore off her limbs. The girl had already bled to death when her father came to.

Gathering all his will into a fist, Aivingard himself brought the body of his daughter to his native castle. By that time, her body had completely turned into a crystal, and tears were frozen on her face in crystals. He hated himself, did not want to do this to her, but he could not cope with his own aggression. He reproached himself for being so quick-tempered. He could not bury his daughter's body and took it to her favorite place - a garden with a lake, over which a beautiful weeping willow towered. Little Cassandra always loved this place and when her father kept her company, she always called him there. The king-father had many memories with this place and he put her "statue" there. He strictly forbade the servants and all the inhabitants of the castle to enter that garden, and he would cut off the head of the disobedient.

A couple of days later, he was informed that the letter from Baybas was just a trigger to make the king doubt even his own children, when in fact they did not even plan to leave the city and the world itself, but simply take their young children away from the war. Having understood the whole situation, Aivingard hated himself even more and was afraid to return to his own children and wives while the war was going on. But every day he came to his daughter imprisoned in a crystal and talked to her, often apologizing and crying that he could not protect her and that he had killed her with his own hands, even though he understood that in response he would no longer hear the voice of his little and dear girl.

With the end of the war, he became callous and closed from everyone. The king loved his remaining children, but after what happened, he no longer wanted to have children and participate in wars. During the events, he had one daughter from his first wife, he saw the child only at the end of the war and when his wives and children were again able to return to him. The girl was strikingly similar to their firstborn, which even gave her a name - Cassandra. Eivingard vowed that he would protect her from everyone, love and care as he did not care about anyone else and would never allow this little flower to be offended. Cassandra also became the only creature that Eivingard allowed to go to the garden with the lake.

The war took one daughter from him, but the world gave him a chance, making such a gift of fate.

Statue of Cassandra in the garden with a lake.

Screenshot for closer review. Lack of hands, horns and feathers.

#beemoov #eldarya #eldarya_a_new_era #eldarya oc #eldarya_oc #eldaryaoc

[commonwealthoccurences]

Companions React: Masked, Teenager Sole

Note: Deacon has a full imagine due to it being the original request, which can be found under the title “The Kids From Yesterday.” Enjoy!

Cait:

Nosy about Sole’s identity

The fact that they’re so secretive makes her extra suspicious about their motives, especially when she first becomes their companion

Will probably straight up start arguments about it, and it honestly does become a barrier in her trusting them

(Maybe it’s just an excuse she’s using not to trust them)

Eventually it settles into an unspoken agreement that they agree to disagree; Sole knows she doesn’t like their secrecy and Cait knows they don’t fully trust her either due to how guarded they have to be

Doesn’t appreciate it when other people push to find Sole’s identity, though

She can yell at them about it but no one else can, that’s her job

When she eventually has to remove Sole’s helmet due to them getting injured, she’s outwardly horrified

They remind her of herself when she was younger; young and vulnerable and put in dangerous positions no teenager should be a part of

She’s terrified for them and that shows itself as anger, considering that’s the only way she really knows how to show emotion

When they wake up they argue, but eventually she gives them her reasoning

She becomes extremely protective and is more ready than ever to spill blood over someone threatening Sole

No one was around and willing to protect her when she needed it as a teenager; Sole doesn’t have to deal with the same if she’s there, though

Curie:

Doesn’t particularly let the anonymity bother her

She notices, of course, how closely they guard their identity and the fact that they never show their face, or any part of their body, but that doesn’t hinder their efficiency so she doesn’t think much of it

Finds them to be delightful company and doesn’t need a face to know that

That’s about it. She may ask the occasional question about their background out of curiosity or ask their reasoning for hiding identifying features, but other than that she doesn’t really react to the hiding

When Sole gets injured and she finds out their identity she’s definitely surprised

She asks them what led them to taking up the mantle they have (General, Railroad recruit, etc) when they shouldn’t have to have that responsibility at such a young age

They’ve clearly proved themself capable, so she doesn’t tend to question them so much

However she does make sure to sneak in ways to let them be a teenager and not the Sole the Commonwealth knows

She asks them to join her on short walks, help her cook, etc

Makes sure to help them stay anonymous to others

Danse:

Absolutely not impressed

A security threat he doesn’t want to deal with

How is he supposed to verify they’re decent and vouch for them if he doesn’t even know who they are

Not to mention the potential for someone to pretend to be them and gain access to the Prydwen

Makes a begrudging exception if Maxson requests so or they turn out to be a fantastic asset

Doesn’t really stop prying, though (A small part of that is his own curiosity)

After they’ve known each other a while he gets defensive over other people prying into Sole’s identity

“They’re highly respected for a reason, I don’t think their appearance is any of your business, now is it?”

When he has to remove their helmet he’s shocked but doesn’t fully react

Sure, the situation’s unfortunate, however many Brotherhood recruits start young

Does have doubts as to whether or not a teenager can handle the workload and make the decisions required of Sole, but realizes eventually that they’ve already been making those choices

Is wary of them overworking themself but it isn’t a big conversation

Gage:

Struggles a bit with not being in the loop, but plenty of raiders don’t show their faces

If they get their work done and don’t fuck things up, he doesn’t particularly care what they look like or where they come from

Sure he’s curious and makes small attempts to find out what they look like but it’s not a big issue for him

Does ask about their past every now and then just to see if they’ll slip up

When he finds out their age and what they look like he finds himself more upset than he’d expected

The things he’d required them to do weren’t pretty and yet they hadn’t hesitated, even seemed to be trying to surpass his expectations

They lived in a shitty world but things like this really hit him in the gut and drive that point home

Goes a little easier on them afterwards but doesn’t make a discussion out of it and no longer pries

Also uses the respect angle as a way to get raiders to stop asking questions

Hancock:

Unashamed prier

Doesn’t hesitate to try and get them to expose their past

It’s playful teasing to him so unless Sole draws a line or seems extremely uncomfortable, he’s not gonna stop

Doesn’t really think there’s anything to their anonymity other than maybe them having a situation similar to Mac; someone hiding from raiders or the Gunners

Once they earn his respect his jokes get a little less invasive and he starts letting them have their secrets

When he sees they’re a teenager he’s pretty upset

They’ve been travelling the Commonwealth fighting things that no sane adult would go up against in their dreams and they’re just a kid in his eyes

Doesn’t really know what to do

Has a talk with them about letting him protect them a bit more

He doesn’t feel right having a teenager try and take bullets for him

He’s not upset at them he’s upset for them and all they shouldn’t’ve had to do

Haylen:

Another believer in the security risk issue

If they prove themself loyal, though, she doesn’t have too much of a problem

Does ask questions about their past but not to pry, more because she genuinely wants to get to know them

As long as they’re capable, though, she leaves anything regarding their appearance and past alone

That’s about it before they reveal their face

Afterwards she’s somewhat upset

She doesn’t often question Maxson, but he’s sending a teenager on dangerous missions that should be completed by the upper ranks of the Brotherhood

Mostly just angered by the fact that they have no one to stand up and protect them when a bunch of adults are asking them to do dangerous things for their own benefit

MacCready:

Respects the anonymity

Honestly a little jealous he didn’t think to go anon

Doesn’t ask anything in the beginning; he’s getting paid to protect them not for small talk

Does suspect they’re running from something

As they get closer he asks a few questions but doesn’t really pressure them to talk about their past

When he finds out Sole’s a teenager he’s possibly the most effected out of all the companions

He feels sick and immediately thinks of Duncan; this was somebody’s child. What if it was his kid in this position, with all these expectations on his shoulders?

Immediately activates dad mode, to the point where Sole might find it a little suffocating

“There has to be someone out there missing you, kid. Why are you out here doing all this dangerous sh- stuff?”

The dad mode thing doesn’t really switch off unless they’re in public; implying a familial connection could make things more dangerous

He does protect them in combat situations more, though, and usually has an eye on them at all times

Nick:

A little wary of their unwillingness to be identified, but can’t be too annoyed about it

There’s plenty of tactics to stay alive in the Commonwealth and theirs seems to be working for them quite well

Does wonder how they manage to avoid slipping up and revealing something about themself so well (he is a detective after all)

May make sly comments to see if they do mess up but other than that he leaves the identity situation alone

They’re respectable and they respect him, so that’s enough in his eyes

When he finds out they’re a teenager he, like Gage, is reminded of just how much the world has changed

He’s disgusted that a teenager has been put in a situation where they feel they need to make theses sacrifices for everyone

God knows the adults aren’t really doing it

Becomes a lot more defensive of them but not to the point Mac goes to

Checks up on them a lot more often, too

Makes sure they take breaks from the difficult tasks

Piper:

She’s a reporter; you really expect her to do anything other than pry?

Seriously does everything she can think of to get them to slip up and reveal something about themself

Even tries to bribe them

When it doesn’t work she sulks a little and mulls over her next plan

Eventually she isn’t so forthright with it but she never really stops trying

Makes it clear that she does respect Sole for their personality and what they do, though

When she finds out it all makes sense to her and she feels guilty for being so persistent

Becomes a bit protective over them as well; she couldn’t imagine if Nat was put in their position

Tries to make it clear through her actions that they have a home with her and Nat if they need somewhere to go or a family, since it seems like they don’t have one of their own

Preston:

Are they efficient? Do they respect the settlers? Do they have a good heart and want to help the Commonwealth? Good enough for him

He doesn’t have the time or energy to try and dig into why they don’t want to show their face

He’s admittedly a little curious but it’s none of his business and he makes sure that they know he knows that

A little more reluctant to just let it go once they become General considering there’s more at stake, but what else is he gonna do

It’s not like anyone else was willing to lead, and they seem to be doing a damn good job at it

When they get injured and he finds out why they hid their appearance, he’s somewhat upset

At himself for putting so much pressure on a teenager, at Sole for not being straightforward and allowing him to push them so much, and at the world for putting them both in a situation where there’s no other option

Moving forward he asks a little less of them and tries to step up even more to take some of their workload

Definitely helps quell the settlers asking questions about Sole and their identity

Sturges:

Pretty similar to Preston

Doesn’t ask too many questions as long as they’re a respectable leader

When he finds out he takes a minute to be frustrated with the situation and then moves on

Their armor and weapons are always priority for repair, however, and he asks them quite often if they need his assistance with something

X6-88:

Internally he’s quite unwilling to believe they’re good enough for the job the Institute’s given them, but he doesn’t express this other than with a few snide comments

They could be a major security risk but the decision has been made and he’s not in much of a place to protest

He does try to investigate them on his own, without asking them questions directly, but comes up empty handed, which irritates him further

When he finds out he’s alarmed

The fate of the Institute, and therefore the Commonwealth, as been put in the hands of a teenager

His reaction to protect them even more isn’t quite out of concern for their wellbeing, and more out of concern for the Institute if they were to die

Isn’t impressed

#fallout 4 #fo4 #fallout 4 companions react #fallout 4 headcanons #fallout 4 hcs #cait #curie #paladin danse #deacon #gage #hancock #rj maccready #scribe haylen #nick valentine #preston garvey #sturges #x6-88 #piper

[bottlecapbaby]

Touchy Subject| Gage/SoSu

Pairing: Porter Gage/Fem!Sole Survivor

word count: 1432 

Summary: Gage doesn’t like being touched. But he’s starting to want to make an exception.

Sole was an intimate person by nature. Despite all her ruthlessness and capacity for sustained cruelty, she could be damn near cuddly. Probably too cuddly for her own good, too. Just another of the many traits working against her and her reputation as Overboss. 

The first time she touched Gage, it felt like ice water had been dumped all over him. And not in the poolside summer fun way, where he was in his swim trunks and totally ready. This was in the ‘he opened the door and the bucket precariously placed on the door fell over and soaked him, his favorite shirt, and all the shit in his pockets’ kind of way. One touch to his forearm and he was holding back a straight up scowl. Needless to say, Gage did not like to be touched.

And she read that, awkwardly withdrawing, leaving the heat from her soft palm behind. The touches did not come for a while after. At the time, he was thankful for it, despite the little tug he felt deep inside his blackened heart whenever he saw her wrist flinch backwards as she caught herself. 

Sometimes, Sole would leave. That’s just the way it was, everyone has their own shit to deal with, no one minded. She was never gone for too long, and compared to Colter’s entire year of doing fuck all, she packed enough action in Nuka-World to last the next decade. Sometimes, when she came back, there’d be some dog on her heels. Sometimes literally. 

The Irish brawler. The wide-eyed French medic. The mouthy reporter. The grouchy merc. A fucking super mutant. 

That last one got her some major reputation points. She even let him in on some of the Pack’s cage matches, where he literally tore apart the competition. 

But no matter who she brought, she was draped all over them for the whole visit. She kept her legs over Piper’s lap while they chatted on the couch. Linked arms with Curie on every elevator ride. Slung her arm around MacCready’s shoulder, and surprisingly he didn’t seem to mind. Even Strong was guided everywhere by the hand. And goddamn if Gage wasn’t starting to feel a little left out. The last time he was touched in a positive way from outside of the context of a casual fuck with some jet-fueled raider chick was… Well, it was that touch from Sole. And before that, his parents. Which left a pretty big gap he hadn’t really bothered to process before. 

Gage. Well known cyclops, tough ass, and manipulator, touch starved after a little touch on the forearm from the boss. Unbelievable. 

—————

Another park down, Safari Adventure, and it had gone to the pack. As if Sole needed any more brownie points from Mason. But how could she not give it to them? Animals were their whole thing, after all. She went straight to the Amphitheater upon their return. The flag had sent the news ahead of time, even if no one admitted that they waited with baited breath to see it raised after she and Gage had been out for a while.

 But she liked to inform the leaders personally. To be polite, to flex that she could do what none of their dumbasses could manage in a whole year in just a few days, or to demand respect and tribute, he did not know. The Pack celebrated her arrival. Gage was largely ignored, but he was fine with that. That was the price he paid for being the right hand man instead of the boss, and he didn’t like to be fussed over anyhow. 

But Mason. That son-of-a-bitch Mason. He got up to see her. Approached her almost tenderly, his form towering over hers. Confidently, but with measured caution, he laid his hands to grasp her shoulders. He leaned in, and she followed. Their foreheads touched, and in theory that may not sound so bad, but right then? It looked like the most important thing in the world. Like they’d established a complete link— total understanding. He lowered a yao guai necklace over her head, one not unlike his own, and that was intentional; it showed her complete acceptance from the Alpha, and therefore, the rest of the Pack. 

“Y’done good by us, Overboss. Kept your promises, and the promises made before you. The Pack thanks you. Now, everyone? Go fuckin’ wild!”

Mason let her sit on his throne— which kinda dwarfed her, by the way— while he sat on the arm. They watched the revelry, sneaking snide remarks to one another which Gage couldn’t hear from where he stood (nearby, but not crowding). The Alpha kept his hand on her shoulder, shooting the older raider a challenging leer. Gage glowered back, against his better judgement. 

When Mason went off to micromanage or whatever the fuck, she called him over. Clearly she didn’t want to yell, but did want to be heard over the noise of the party. Something in him fluttered at the excitement in her voice, which she never bothered to contain. Something about the way she said his name just made it sound a bit better than he’d ever heard it from anyone else. 

He took a knee. So she wouldn’t have to yell, given that he was already much taller than her and her stature had been further reduced in a seated position. He had found himself doing thoughtful shit like that for her, things he’d rather have dropped dead than do for Colter. Something about her made pretty much everyone around want to try a little harder, and he was no exception.

“What’s up, boss?” 

“Thanks for sticking around. Don’t know what I’d do if I was alone out here. You’re not too bored, are you?”

And there she was, being all thoughtful n’ shit when it came to him. He chewed on those words a little more. Surrounded by the Pack, in spitting distance of Mason, she’d be alone, but with Gage right there, she wasn’t? Fuck if that didn’t make him feel an alarming amount of special. The kind of special that gives a man ideas. Makes a man wanna act up. 

“Nah boss, don’t worry about me. I’ve sat through worse. Next time you’re at a disciple party I might have to abandon you, though.”

She giggled. Clear as a bell. She didn’t laugh a lot in public, and he could see why. She had a kiddie kinda laugh when she was really tickled by something. It made him smile every time. Then, her arm moved and her wrist twitched backwards in that telltale way. She was thinkin’ about touching him. And again, maybe against his better judgment, he spoke up. 

“S’okay, boss. You can touch me if you wanna.”

God, had he dreamed of saying that, but never in his imagination did it sound so stupid. The raider cringed inwardly at his own voice. Goddamnit, he was getting soft. She was making him get that way. And he couldn’t bring himself to dislike it. 

“Really? I mean. I do, but I don’t wanna make you uncomfortable, Gage. Even if I’m your boss, there can be boundaries.”

Sole interpreted the strain in his voice for discomfort with the idea, and for that she worried about him. Just like always; she was always thinking of him and his comfort. There was that little uninhibited twinge of excitement when she said ‘really?’ that was about to fucking end him. On top of that, she said his name again in that sweet, comforting way. He didn’t stand a chance. 

“I mean it, Sole. I mean it,” he all but sighed, like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He only used her name like that to make points and be personal, which was seldom. 

She put her hand on the forearm he had resting on the armrest of the chair. Her hand slid its way, slowly, with her hypersensitive to any discomfort. Gage felt like he had to hold his fucking breath, or everything would disappear. It would all end. Her fingertips reached his wrist. He took a chance. 

He uncurled his fingers, and moved to face his palm upwards. Probably the most open body language he’d displayed in years. Her nails tickled him just slightly as her hand continued up his palm, leaving electricity in their wake. Her fingers slid perfectly into the gaps between his. Or at least, that’s how it felt. He mirrored her actions. 

They held hands. 

And honestly? It was more intense and emotional and intimate than anything he’d had before. 

#writing #fallout #fallout 4 #fo4 #drabble #porter gage #gage x sole survivor

[longitudinalwaveme]

Longitudinalwaveme Reviews Old Comics, Part 7

Today, I will be reviewing Flash #307.

The Flash #307 (1982): “Prey for the Piper”, was written by Carey Bates, drawn by the legendary Carmine Infantino, and inked by Bob Smith. 

The story stars the Barry Allen Flash as the protagonist and, as the title suggests, the Pied Piper as the main antagonist. This story is also historically important for the Piper-it’s the first issue to give him an origin story. That’s right. Despite having debuted in Flash #106 in 1959, the Piper wasn’t given a backstory (or a real name!) for 22 years! 

The story opens with two guys in a helicopter flying a giant gong across the city. Evidently, it’s going to be a new display at the Centrex Museum and...why in the world did they decide to transport the thing by helicopter? Couldn’t they have used a truck? That seems safer. 

Regardless, the Pied Piper, who is in a nearby skyscraper, uses his pipe to hypnotize the pilots and get them to fly the gong into a building that’s under construction. Barry Allen, who is nearby buying what I believe is a newspaper but could also be a magazine or, knowing Barry, a comic book, notices the collision that’s about to happen and springs into action as the Flash. 

The pilots release the giant gong and it cashes into the building, making a horrible noise but surprisingly not causing any structural damage. Barry stops the gong’s descent and goes to ask the helicopter pilots what’s happening. We then cut to Piper (who, as usual for this time period, looks like a demented elf), who notes that he only needs one more really loud sound to put “Operation Sound-Off” (I’m sure that sounded awesome in his head) into action and defeat the Flash. 

Meanwhile, Barry is puzzling over why the helicopter pilots suddenly dropped the gong into the building, as when questioned about what happened, they had no idea. He knows that someone must have hypnotized them, but isn’t sure who or why. Meanwhile, in the police department’s record room, a young officer named Morty, who has been giving a reporter information about some as yet unrevealed story, walks the reporter (who works for Picture News just like Iris did) to her car...only for him to be whacked over the head and her to be kidnapped! We also see that the files she was interested in involve the Pied Piper, who is operating under the alleged name of Henry Darrow.

Barry comes outside just as Morty comes to, and the younger man tells him about what happened. Barry thinks that someone kidnapped her because of the story she was working on, and, because it was about the Pied Piper, Barry assumes that it was the Piper who had her kidnapped. In speaking of the demented elf, he’s in a state park fifty miles outside Central City, known as Summit Canyon, creating an avalanche in order to gather the final decibels needed to enact his evil plan. He notes that, once it’s complete, he’ll “finally be able to rid myself of the two curses which have plagued my life with the most pain and misery: my arch-enemy the Flash-and my despicable family!” 

Meanwhile, in his apartment, Barry is trying to work out the details of the kidnapping (which he still thinks the Piper is responsible for), noting that the man’s past has always been a mystery. We then cut to “the posh Ridgeway Hills community easy of the city”, where one of the kidnappers wonder why someone so rich hired them. The other one basically tells him “who cares, we’re getting paid a ton of money and now we can go to Vegas!” 

Inside a mansion, the people who paid the kidnappers note that the reporter is waking up, addressing each other as “Osgood” (snicker) and “Rachel”. The reporter tells them that they won’t get away with this, to which they basically respond that they totally will, because they’ve got tons of money to bribe her with. We then see that she’s tied up at one end of a ridiculously long table. The reporter, whose name is Marcy Dunphy, exclaims that she’s seen the people who had her kidnapped in the society pages. The man then introduces himself and his wife as “Hazel and Osgood Rathaway”, which, as this is only two panels after the use of the “Rachel” name, may hold the record for the least amount of time passing before Cary Bates forgot a character’s name. The reporter identifies them as the heads of the Rathaway Publishing Empire and is completely bewildered as to why such wealthy people would have her kidnapped. Their response? She’s uncovered a very embarrassing family secret, and they want it to stay hidden. Which does raise the question of why they decided to have her kidnap before trying to bribe her. Wouldn’t she be more amenable to the idea if you hadn’t had her kidnapped? 

While the Flash races to stop the Pied Piper from robbing a museum, the Rathaways for some reason decide to tell Macy the whole story. Their son, Hartley Rathaway, was born deaf, so they spent a ton of money to ‘cure’ his deafness, and because this is comic books, they actually found a doctor who could do it. Hartley subsequently became obsessed with music. Mr. and Mrs. Rathaway had big plans for their son, but, as time went by, it became clear that Hartley wasn’t interested in excelling in anything or in “upholding the prestige of the Rathaway name”. Instead of addressing the problem (or, alternatively, not attempting to force their son to become famous), Osgood decided to start bribing the heck out of people. He bought Hartley’s way into the best colleges and then bribed them into giving him good grades he hadn’t earned. After Hartley graduated, Osgood paid his way into an executive position at a major firm and...seriously, just how rich are these people? 

Meanwhile, the Flash manages to get through the sonic barrier that the Piper set up around the museum, only to be attacked by the Piper and his “Sonic  Boomatron” which is in the shape of bagpipes because of reasons. The stupidly-named device hits Flash with the equivalent of 50,000 decibels, before we cut back to the Rathaways’ explanation of how awesome bribery is. They apparently gave Hartley a silver-plated flute for his sixteenth birthday (in case it wasn’t clear that they’re made of money yet, I guess), and they tell Macy that their son had always liked tinkering with musical instruments. Somehow, they completely missed that their son was a super genius who created hypnotic and weaponized music until he actually put on the costume and became the Pied Piper. HOW DID THEY NOT NOTICE THAT? It clearly started when he was still a teenager, as he used it to hypnotize his tutor into getting out of a test. 

Now with the power to hypnotize people, his life was even easier than it had been before, and Hartley was bored out of his mind. So bored, apparently, that he decided that white-collar crime was overrated and decided to go into the “robbing banks in costume” type of crime. I also find it amusing at how shocked the Rathaways were that Hartley became a criminal. What, do nonstop bribery and literal kidnapping not count? Because they were bribing people left, right, and center LONG before he became the Piper. 

Meanwhile, Piper’s weapon somehow turns the Flash into sound, because this is comics and comics don’t have to make sense. He proceeds to walk off with his loot, surrounded by a sonic barrier that protects him from police gunfire. 

So yes, the Pied Piper is Hartley Rathaway, his family is rich, and he became the Piper because, at least according to his parents, he was an “emotionally disturbed” child who got bored. Apparently the elder Rathaways have kept the secret through EVEN MORE BRIBERY, giving money to everyone from the local police chief to the FBI to keep things quiet. The FBI were the ones who created the identity of Henry Darrow. By the way, Mrs. Rathaway is back to being Rachel again. Rachel reiterates the fact that kidnapping and then bribing the reporter to also keep things quiet was the only logical solution to the problem...at which point the Piper himself shows up! 

Meanwhile, Barry uses his mental control over all his molecules to reassemble himself while the Piper tells his parents that he’s paid his debt to them. Apparently, he turns over most of his loot to his parents in order to pay “back every Rathaway dollar my parents spent on trying to mold me into something I could never be.” The elder Rathaways had to keep all of it because doing anything else would reveal the secret. Osgood tells his son that he and his wife only wanted what was best for Hartley, to which Hartley replies “Not quite, Pop. You wanted what was best for the Rathaway name! What I wanted never really matter much to either one of you.” According to Hartley, then, it seems that he became the Piper not so much because he was bored...but rather because he feels that his parents were more concerned with their reputations than with loving him. 

Then the Flash pops up, punches him out, and rescues Macy, who says that they should give the Rathaways a few minutes alone with their son. I guess that we can assume that the Rathaways never got arrested because they’re made of money. Or something. (Could that be why we also rarely saw the Piper in prison during the Silver and Bronze Age?) 

Well, it may have taken Piper 22 years to get an origin (and a name), but in this case, I think it was worth it. With the possible exception of the Golden Glider, the Pied Piper has what is by far the most interesting Silver/Bronze Age origin of any of the Rogues, and I’m glad it’s stuck around. Props to Carey Bates for giving the Piper an incredibly memorable origin story. 

#flash comics #flash rogues #pied piper #dc comics

[fantasmalforces]

Piper Headcanons: Post-Rook

// Because I had the idea while talking with @maximuses and now I feel the need to elaborate on it-

The main reason Piper took up a job on Rook was because it paid big. When you’re supporting 22 people on basically two salaries one of them has to pay big. Piper needed to make enough money to pay for the place they lived, keep food on the table, cover medical bills, and education for everyone planning on going to college or even public school. She was desperate, which was why she was so willing to compromise her moral compass for the money.

Following the base timeline of Far Cry 3, after Jason fucks everything up and everyone’s dead, Pip ends up leaving and finding mercenary work with one of Hoyt’s other big connections. She stays in the job for five years until basically they have enough saved up in terms of expenses that she can finally go home.

In any verse where the Rook tyrants end up surviving, she just stays there for another 5 years before handing in her resignation and going back home to her family.

At that point, she finds herself suffering with extreme nightmares and PTSD of basically everything she was bottling up on Rook. She wasn’t doing well to begin with before she went and her mental health only worsened as she stayed there to work and went untreated. She ends up opening up to her older brother Gideon about the incident, what she did, everything she saw. He recommends she goes to therapy but Piper is too scared that telling anyone else will get her in serious legal trouble. After all the hell she went through just to see her family again and out of dire straits, she doesn’t want to risk that.

Hearing this, Gideon tells her that she’s sacrificed enough. That it might be time for her to finally go off and claim some feeling of freedom and independence. He acknowledges all that she’s sacrificed and thanks her but that she should feel able to live her life now. Most of the younger kids barely know her anyway and the rest are either grown up or already on their way out the door. He recommends that Piper go out there and start living her life finally.

So for the next three years following that, Piper tries. But the problem is, she has never known anything but living for other people. She doesn’t know how to be her own person anymore. On Rook she built up a persona of toughness and confidence so that the people around her would see her more as a Badger than a Bunny; she was not easy prey, she was not one to be fucked with.

So for three years, Piper is having a crisis over her sense of self and identity. She’s having a crisis over the realization that she’s in her forties and she has nothing- no job, no actual home, nothing to her name, no accomplishments or achievements, no career. Ends up staying in an apartment in Darwin where she has all her breakdowns and trauma-induced panic attacks from nightmares.

She turns to two things to try and gain a sense of feeling in the haze of numbness: fighting rings and breeding parties— both of which are exactly what they sound like.

Piper would sign up for underground fights against others for money, hoping that the pain would wake her up or knock some sense into he’d about what she’s supposed to do. She played into her badger half hoping that she could get some joy out of the thrill but she just felt hollow beating on people and getting beat on all the time.

Breeding parties— basically the mythic equivalent of orgies— were her attempt to appeal to her bunny half. She tried to find some lasting sense of satisfaction or pleasure from sleeping with multiple people. She didn’t feel like she had enough understanding of relationships to actual pursue long-term or short-term commitments beyond having sex with people. But again, it didn’t fill the void and she still felt hollow. The momentary high didn’t follow her out of the bedroom and she’d always just end up back at her apartment crying.

During this time, Piper got really isolated from people. She felt like she was falling apart, had nowhere to go, and had nothing left to live for because she’d wasted her life doing something she was never supposed to do: raising her own siblings because her parents were too shitty to do it themselves. She’d gone off the grid and a lot of people were worried.

Around this part of the timeline is where things can begin to diverge based on things like plotting and verses.

Towards the end of the third year of this, Holly eventually tracked her down and got back in touch. The two of them reconnected and Holly expressed she was really concerned. Piper ended up telling Holly everything and the two met up and decided to try and formulate a plan on how to help Pip work through things.

In the end, they decide that Pip might just need a fresh new start altogether. At this point, Holly feels she needs a break from the life she’s been living too. She hands the reins of her business over to her brother for a while and the two decide to start traveling the world together for a bit.

Between finally getting therapy for their issues and finding comfort and company in each other, the two end up having so much fun and spend the rest of their forties just traveling together and getting a whole new lease on life.

They head back to the States at some point so Pip ends up getting cyborg augments like the stuff Holly has going on. It comes because Holly starts getting concerned at how Pip can’t keep up with her as much as she used to and she doesn’t want her friend to start missing out on life so she casually just... extends that for her.

Eventually down the line, if they don’t end up settling with other people along the way (in plots/verse), Pip and Holly and end up getting together and having a proper, long-term committed relationship. They head back to Australia together and get married surrounded by their family. They end up moving back to the States and have a summer home in Alice Springs, and they take yearly trips around the world to keep things fresh. They don’t end up having kids but they’re alright with that because they end up being the kickass aunts to all their niblings from both sides of the family anyway.

They work in Holly’s shop together and live out eternity comfortably as a kickass cyborg couple.

#// having ocs means you gotta write the whole damn character arc yourself smh #// this is just the canon ending for these two #// obvs is varies by plot and verse and relationships with other muses #// adhering to this timeline is NOT mandatory at all #{ guaranteed to blow your mind : about } #{ keeps their moet et chandon in their pretty cabinet : headcanon } #{ ‘’ never looked back never feared never cried ‘’ | piper } #{ ‘’ friends will be friends ‘’ | holly }

[souvcniir]

*   bopping  along  to  forever  by  drake  is  𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐈𝐑 𝐒𝐀𝐋𝐀𝐙𝐀𝐑  ,  the  twenty  two  year  old  cis  man  thrown  back  to  their  business  days  with  none  of  his   memories  .  voted  most  likely  to  move  out  the  country  ,  alis  was  known  for  being   resilient &   facetious ,  go  figures  you'd  always  find  them  being  threatened  to  be  kicked  off  of  the  football  team  ,  but  grew  up  to  be   audacious &  untrusting  .

what’s  happening  cuties  !   listen  ,  i  cannot  join  a  group  without  giving  the  fattest  and  biggest  warning  that  despite  being  in  the  rpc  for  a  minute  now  ,   i  still  suck  at  introductions  .  embarrassing  luv  ,  i  know  asdj  .  i’m  gi(anna)  ,  i’m  nineteen  years  old  ( a  big  old  baby   )  ,  i  go  by  she  and  her  pronouns  and  i  currently  live  on  the  east  coast  which  throws  me  in  the  est  timezone  !!!  this  is  one  out  of  two  of  my  children  that  i’ll  be  bringing  you  ,   and  um  can  i  just  say  im  obsessed  with  the  fc  pairing  i  got  going  on  for  alistair  .  aron  piper  and   giuseppe  maggio  ?   this  is  what  heaven  is   asdfgh  .    down  below  you’ll  find  a  little  about  alistair  !  and  if  you  want  to  plot  you  can  either  smash  the  heart  button  ,  send  me  a  message  ,  or  message  me  on  discord  at  𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭'𝐬 𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡 𝐛𝐮𝐝𝐝𝐲#1776  .

*   𝐎𝐍𝐄                          𝐓𝐇𝐄   𝐀𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐓𝐈𝐂𝐒  .

a   black   eye   in   response   of   words   of   provokement   ,   lonely   nights   concealed   by   random   bodies   ,   gold   rings   sitting   on   bruised   knuckles   ,   calloused   digits   shielding   a   bright   sun   from   bloodshot   eyes   ,   distant   chatter   drowned   out   by   loud   thoughts   ,    salty  drops   gleaming   on   tan   skin   ,   enchanting   pearly   whites   ,   thunderstorms   singing   pretty   hues   to   sleep     .

*   𝐓𝐖𝐎                          𝐓𝐇𝐄  𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐂𝐒 .

full   name.   alistair  aurelius  salazar  .   nickname(s).    alis  ,  ali  .   preferred   name.   alistair  .   past  age.   twenty  two  .   present  age.   thirty  two  .   date  of  birth.   november  first  .  zodiac.  scorpio  . gender.    cis  man .   pronouns.   he  and  him  .   sexuality.  pansexual  .   younger  faceclaim.   aron  piper  .   older  faceclaim.   giuseppe  maggio   .   character  inspiration.    hardin  scott  ,   niccolo  govender  rossi  ,  lip  gallagher  ,  and   bellamy  blake  .

*   𝐓𝐇𝐑𝐄𝐄                          𝐓𝐇𝐄  𝐑𝐎𝐎𝐓𝐒  .

(   physical  abuse  ,  slightly  detailed     )

    sorrows  and  raindrops     ,   remnants  of  a  first  breath  that  established  the  tone  of  the  upbringing  of  curly  locks  and  pearly  whites  that  never  flashed  for  too  long  .      he  was  a  prisoner  in  a  punishment  meant  for  another  .   he  was  a  prisoner  to  rage  .

   he’s  made  up  of  pleads  ,   and  sobs  that  still  haunt  his  childhood   .   neglected  of  forehead  kisses  and  bedtime  stories   ,  gifted  fists  against  previously  bruised  flesh  in  substitution  .    black  and  blue  decorating  his  body  so  frequency  that  for  a  while  he  forgot  what  he  looked  like  without  them  .   

   one  night  ,  he   held  his  broken  arm  in  his  lap  and  begged  her  to  tell  him  why  ,  why  did  she  hate  him  so  much  ?    she  never  answered  ,   didn’t  even  move  a  muscle  .   left  her  seven  year  old  child  to  pull  himself  off  of  the  floor  and  out  the  door  .  that  was  his  last  memory  of  her  .

    left  in  the  care  of  the  foster  system    and  a  year  later  was  put  into  the  custody of  a  man  who  was  suppose  to  be  his  father  .   a  politician  who  had  cared  more  about  his  image  then  his  own  blood  eight  years  earlier  .   not  an  excuse  ,  his  father  would  learn  that  with  the  help  of  guilt  eating  him  from  the  inside  out  .  did  everything  he  could  think  of  to  make  it  up  ,    not  an  easy  challenge  .  

*   𝐅𝐎𝐔𝐑                         𝐓𝐇𝐄   𝐏𝐀𝐒𝐓 .

walked  hand  in  hand  with  being  difficult  .      labeled  the  broken  bird  .  the  dirt  bag  .   found  traces  of  himself  in  chaos  and  so  he  became  it  .    a  smart  boy  drowning  in  a  hurt  he  had  not  fully  recovered  from  .    got  better  as  the  years  went  ,   and  twenty  two  was  his  golden  years  of  doing  his  very  best  to  not  self  destruction  .  

kept  himself  busy  ,  but  that  does  not  mean  he  kept  himself  out  of  trouble  .  a  smart  boy  who  had  the  ability  to  stumble  into  class  with  black  rims  covering  regrets  from  the  previous  night  .   cannabis  was  the  best  form  of  therapy  and  getting  blacked  out  on  weekdays  was  his  favorite  sin  .   

careless  and  impulsive  ,  everyone’s  favorite  partner  in  crime  .  bruised  knuckles  and  a  fat  lip  were  the  consequence  of  a  insolent  mouth  that  never  knew  when  to  stop  .   smiled  with  blood  dripping  from  his  mouth  and  returned  to  his  dorm  with  bruised  knuckles  ,  now  he  remembered  what  he  looked  like  .    

charming  words  and  wandering  hands  might’ve  fooled  you  ,  but  commitment  for  him  was  unreachable  .   he  was  stuck  in  the  mindset  that  he  was  too  fucked  up  for  someone  to  love  him  and  it  showed  in  every  relationship  he  had  ever  had  .   he  was  the  heartbreaker  ,  or  more  so  the  cold  hearted  .  used  others  to  silence  the  demons  in  his  head  and  left  before  the  sun  crept  through  curtains  .  

*   𝐅𝐈𝐕𝐄                         𝐓𝐇𝐄   𝐂𝐔𝐑𝐑𝐄𝐍𝐓  .

ten  years  formed  a  new  label  ,  the  phoenix  .   the  businessman  .    moved  around  until  he  settled  in   san  francisco  where  he  soon  opened  up  a  bar  with  his  business  partner  .   successful  ,  finally  funded  his  own  life  with  money  that  he  earned  .  but  there  was  more  to  him  then  just  expensive  cars  and  days  being  referred  to  as  boss  . 

healed  in  more  ways  then  he  had  been  ten  years  ago  ,  thanks  to  the  help  of  actual  therapy  (  though  cannabis   was  still  a  friend  )   .   greatest  achievement  was  finding  forgiveness  in  his  heart  for  his  father  and  building  a  normal  son  -  father  relationship  .    

decided  early  he  didn’t  want  kids  and  instead  adopted  a  pitbull  named  kyson  .   his  best  friend  and  as  those  around  him  joke  ,  his  son  .   is  his  background  a  picture  of  him  and  his  dog  ,  yes  .  mind  your  business  .

now  a  known  playboy  ,  though  most  aren’t  surprised  .  says  he’s  too  busy  for  relationships  but  it’s  just  the  fact  that  some  things  never  change  and  commitment  was  still  a  scary  thing  .  

recently  ,  as  in  the  last  three  years  ,  moved  to  riccione  ,  where  he  opened  up  his  fourth  bar  .   lives  in  a  house  on  the  beach  and  only  returns  home  every  few  months  (  plus  the  holidays  )  .  has  become  a  big  beach  bum  ,  but  he  likes  the  environment  .  does  the  whole  beach  life  activities  too  ,  the  hiking  and  the  surfing  (  though  he’s  not  very  good  )   .  

no  longer  a  fighter  ,  and  instead  is  the  one  breaking  them  up  .   realized  there  was  one  thing  he  never  wanted  to  be  ,  his  mother  ,  and  so  he’d  never  resort  to  using  his  fist  unless  in  the  act  of  defense  and  even  then  he’s  had  a  good  job  of  walking  away  .  

*   𝐒𝐈𝐗                         𝐓𝐇𝐄   𝐏𝐀𝐒𝐓  𝐈𝐍  𝐓𝐇𝐄   𝐏𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐄𝐍𝐓   .

back  to  square  one  .  no  memories  of  who  he  grew  up  to  be  ,  just  the  old  feeling  of  anger  and  hurt  .   sad  to  see  his  process  thrown  out  the  window  ,  his  healing  cracked  open  .  the  biggest  question  ,  is  will  he  get  to  his  end  point  once  again  or  will  a  second  chance  be  his  downfall  ?

*   𝐒𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐍                          𝐓𝐇𝐄  𝐄𝐗𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐒  .

has  always  taken  very  good  care  of  himself  in  the  sense  of   what  he  puts  into  his  body  ,  even  in  college  he  paid  important  attention  to  diet  and  exercise  .  

doesn’t  speak  of  his  mother  ,  or  at  least  he  didn’t  .  you  asked  a  question  and  got  silence  in  return  .  most  never  actually  knew  what  the  first  seven  years  of  his  life  was  ,  which  left  many  in  shock  when  he  finally  decided  to  open  up  about  it  .

he  doesn’t  like  nicknames  and  prefers  to  be  called  just  alistair  ,  though  some  people  do  get  a  pass  ,  even  if  that  pass  comes  with  a  hard  look  .

his  drink  of  choice  is  bourbon  but  he  hasn’t  been  a  bigger  drinker  since  his  college  days  ...  his  friends  would  joke  it’s  because  he  overdid  it  too  many  times  in  his  younger  years  . 

*  𝐄𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓                          𝐓𝐇𝐄   𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐍𝐄𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒  .

*   these  are  simply  just  ideas  to  give  us  something  to  start  with  ,  i  am  open  to  anything  that  is  not  mentioned  as  well  am  completely  and  totally  okay  with  switching  things  around  and  adding  things  to  these  ideas !!!  i  love  plotting  and  bouncing ideas  off  of  each  other  so  don’t  be  afraid  to  stray !

                    YOU’RE  BAD  FOR  MY  HEALTH  ,  YEAH  YOU  SHOULD  HURT  SOMEBODY  ELSE  (  PAST  CONNECTION  ┋  OPEN    )  .    he  was  bad  for  their  health    ,   a  rollercoaster  that  consisted  of  too  many  downs  .  toxic  ?  yes  .  in  love  ?  in  denial  .  but  whatever  was  between  these  two  ,  it  kept  them  at  each  others  throats  and  in  each  other  bed  .   this  was  not  the  one  who  got  away  ,  it  was  the  one  he  needed  to  stay  away  from  . 

                   WILL  HE  ALWAYS  BE  MINE  ?   ( PRESENT  CONNECTION  ┋  OPEN   ) .    his  first  adult  relationship  ,  and  like  alistair  himself  it  was  not  always  easy  .  long  nights  ,  busy  days  ,  sometimes  this  relationship  felt  like  it  was  set  up  to  fail  ..  and  then  they  got  their  moments  where  butterflies  flapped  their  wings  and  rose  spreaded  to  cheeks  and  it  really  seemed  like  it  would  work  ...  but   good  moments  ,  they  come  and  go  and  this  relationship  leaves  the  other  thinking  how  long  they  might  have  alistair  . 

                  I  GOT  A  BAD  IDEA  ( PAST  CONNECTION  ┋  OPEN   ) .    he  looked  to  his  left  and  saw  them  ,  and  when  he   looked  in  front  of  him  he  saw  the  bars  and  regrets  forming  .   these  two  were  a  duo  that  wreaked  havoc   ,  being  around  them  meant  cop  sirens  and  bad  decisions  .  these  two  were  ,  what  do  they  say  ?  young  and  dumb  .

                  WHOLE  SQUAD  MOBBIN  EVEN  THOUGH  WE  ONLY  SIX  DEEP  ( PAST  CONNECTION  ┋  OPEN   ) .    his  best  buddies  (  that  i  manage  are  still  apart  of  his  life  in  present  time  )  made  up  of  two  to  three  others  .  they  are  his  people  ,  his  picked  family  .   

                I  SWEAR  IF  I  EVER  LEFT  YOU  IN  THE  COLD  ,  IT’S  CAUSE  IT  WAS  COLDER  INSIDE   (  PRESENT  CONNECTION  ┋  OPEN   )  .   a  old  friend  who’s  no  longer  that  ,  a  friend  .  i  picture  this  to  be  more  complicated  then  what  it  seems  ,  but  picture  these  two  going  from  being  attached  at  the  hip  to  not  speaking  to  one  another  .

                  CAN  YOU  IMAGINE  ?   ( PAST  CONNECTION  ┋  OPEN   ) .    that  one  person  who  badly  wanted  something  more  from  alistair  and  got  exactly  the  opposite  .   lovers  in  the  way  of  intimacy  but  one  sided  emotionally  .  

#again.intro #◟ ♡ ⋅ . mun . ﹛ 𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐈𝐑 ﹜ : introduction . #abuse tw #the fact that this took me forever to write and its what ? #TRASH . #asdfghj #my goal is to get rizo's up tonight too but i cannot make any promises #also sorry because i feel like .. this is kind of long ??? #if i forgot any trigger warnings please lmk #and please ignore all mistakes asdfg

[btssunnyboy]

Mistakes- Jeon Jungkook

Being drunk is such a cliche excuse, but being sober only makes matters worse.

Word Count- 3,087

Warning - Cheating, implied sexual themes and mentions of alcohol.

Also this was inspired by the amazing @hobisgorgeousass and their Shattered fic! I really hope you don’t mind me tagging you!

Masterlist

——————————————————————-

It definitely wasn’t a spur of the moment type thing.

It took months, more specifically four months. It was all good at the start, almost too good to actually be true. The longing kisses and the desperate touches were something you began to crave the longer you stayed. It was all so delectable, who would want to willingly leave something so amazing like that. Through your eyes it seemed like a perfect relationship.

Oh god, where would you begin to describe why it was immaculate. For starters the luscious dates he’d always prepare. Moonlit dinners with soft candle light, or a cheesy, but very wonderful walk on the beach. He’d wrap his arms around your waist and sway to an unheard rhythm. It was peaceful and beautiful, as were all of his dates.

His perfect words. He had a way to hook you in with a single syllable that dripped past those honey like lips. They’d wrap around you like a fluffy blanket, trying to provide you with some sort of comfort. You should’ve paid more attention to often he spoke those caring words, versus what he does now. He’d usually treat his words like a poem, making sure they follow a pattern and definitely making sure they express all the feelings that run a muck in his oh so troubled mind.

His touch and his overall scene of love. At the start, it was like being on cloud nine. He showered you in affection every chance. His large hands clasping over your smaller ones. Rubbing those comforting circles over your smooth knuckles. Pressing his soft lips your tender neck and painting a beautiful masterpiece of the blank canvas. As possessive as it sounds he loved letting everyone know your heart is already taken and not up for sale.

The thing is he’s worked out a routine. A precise and well thought out routine. It has to be perfect he can’t get caught, but he can’t fall behind and accidentally mix two things that should never mix as long as he’s alive. He has to make sure you received the gentle smooches and the others received the rough part of him that is begging to be released. The tequila that lingered on his breath done more then just sting, it made his body reactions a bit more uncalled for. He had control, but at the same time he didn’t.

He knew it was a bad idea to mix stress with the overwhelming amount of alcohol. Yet he did it. Despite all the nagging in his ears, he grabbed his keys and raced to a secluded bar. Filled with only ones who could keep a secret or those who were going through the same famous troubles as him. A soft hand, kinda like yours, but the difference between the two were easily noticeable.

He should’ve stopped it right then and there. Let this stranger know his love was at home, and he couldn’t betray her. Yet he allowed one drink to quickly turn into another which then led to another. Pretty soon her face was slightly distorted and the sight resembled you in a weird way. Her lips were so inviting, so damn inviting. He couldn’t help himself.

Do you wanna take this somewhere else?

The question hung heavy in the air, but his body reacted before his mind. His tattooed fingers cling to her ink-less skin within a second. The walk to the car sobered him up a bit, but his mind was already set. There was a beautiful woman — not as beautiful as you — giving him bedroom eyes, and he needed to release. His inner roughness was clawing at his insides and the way this mystery women was talking it seemed like he hit the jackpot. Saying she could last a few rounds, and she was already half way undress in the car.

The moment the car pulled up to the doom he led her to his room as quietly as he could. The soft giggles she was letting out were distracting, and he’s do anything to get that horrendous sound to spot echoing in his head. So he grabbed her waist and held her against the wall. The steaming hot kiss between the two leaving them breathless. Her shaky breathes were edging him on as he attacked her neck with this honey lips. The same lips that placed loving kisses on your forehead, but now instead of honey they’re venom.

They’re a substance to be used with caution, it’s dangerous to play with something like this. She knew as she pulled him into another kiss and it was at that moment she knew this wouldn’t be the last time they met. When his bedroom closed and the legs opened, he knew this was a mistake. It went on to happen though, with the sound of the headboard assaulting the wall. Making the paint chip with the harder it happened.

He was careful as can be the first time. Besides one thing. He didn’t plan on someone banging on the door with urgency. The sound made him shoot up and his eyes dart to the sleeping body placed beside him. The mystery stranger, whose name he soon found out was Piper. He shook her wildly and tossed her discarded clothes in her direction and made her hide in the closet. It was such a childish thing to do, hide the one who just slept with. Why not own up and just say you got laid.

Oh that’s right he can’t, because that’s not you in the closet. But that could be you at the door, and he can’t let these two situations meet in the middle. Time, that was all he needed, but he knew he didn’t deserve it. He deserved to be caught in his dirty tracks. He deserved to have his dirty laundry aired out for the entire fucking world to see.

She blew him a kiss when he shut the wooden door once more and raced to other. He swung it open and a sight of relief passed through his body. It wasn’t you, but it someone he knew would keep this secret. Jimin eyed his out of breath figure suspiciously and soon let his gaze linger around the room.

“I thought Y/n hated pink?” He questioned, what was supposed to be an innocent question as well. His head tilted in confusion before he put the small puzzle together. You hated pink with a passion, and he knew that bra definitely wasn’t your style. “You mother fucker.”

“Jimin I can explain!” Jungkook gasped out as he yanked the man into his room.

Jimin let out a dry scoff as he watched the women come out of the closet. Jimin forcefully yanked himself away from Jungkooks touch, like the mere brush of his fingertips burned him like a raging fire. His face held a mix of emotions, but disgust was overtaking them all.

“You screwed up big time.”

“Is anyone else here.” Jungkook panicked as he peeked his head out of the door. Seeing no one insight he grabbed a handful of cash and said get a cab to the women. When he finally heard the front door slam shut he turned to a pissed off Jimin. “Don’t say anything! Please!”

“And why the hell should I keep this a secret. You fucking cheated on y/n!” Jimin bellowed as he made wild hand gestures to prove his point. “Besides I don’t even have to open my mouth for her to find out.”

Jungkook held a confused look until he followed Jimin’s gaze down to his neck. At neck breaking speed he raced to his bathroom. His canvas was painted. Purple with splotches of red littered his neck. For once, you weren’t the paintbrush in this example. He knew he was royal screwed now, oh god he didn’t want this to happen.

“Jimin please I’m begging you I love her! I swear this’ll be the only time.” Jungkook sobbed with his bloodshot eyes. He couldn’t lose you, he just couldn’t bare the thought.

“You better not be lying.”

Those five little words lifted a weight off of Jungkook’s shoulders. After this he went on his day as usually, just making sure his neck was covered. On the other hand Jimin was a ball of nerves. The stress from this secret was eating him alive. He should’ve said something and made you’d leave Jungkook once in for all. When he decided to keep this secret he thought it was for a once time mistake, what he didn’t realize was this one time mistake was growing into a common occurrence.

𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁

He’s being distant. A lot more then he is usually. You knew the stress of the upcoming tour, and he needed to sort things out. It was best you kept your distance as well. If only you knew what that meant. Right now he wasn’t complaining about the stressful choreography, but he was praising the women beneath him. After the usually session was done he grabbed his clothes and bolted.

“What took so long?” You questioned as you sat up from the floor.

“Yeah just needed a longer bathroom break.” Jungkook shrugged as he placed a sweet kiss onto your cheek. Your eyes lingered on the sweat that was dripping down his neck and the stain right above the collar of his shirt. Before you had the chance to speak up another voice beat you to it.

“How about we all go out and eat. I can ask Piper to arrange something.” Namjoon suggested as he downed his water.

“I’m up for it.”

𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁

Jimin felt like he was going to throw up all over his meal. He couldn’t believe that’s she of all people got hired as a personal assistant. He wished he could just scream at the two of them and let this shit get settled. He almost gagged at the sight of them giving sideways glance to each other each time you turned around.

That fucker promised him it was a one time mistake. He’d lost count of how many times he’s caught then since then. The other members are beginning to catch on and oh how they wished they had the balls and tell you. Their breaths hitched slightly when Piper has to excuse herself due to a so called urgent phone call. Like clockwork, Jungkook excused himself to the bathroom.

“Geez, you could cut the tension with a knife.” You commented lightly as you picked up a piece of your meat. Your softly chewed under the tense eyes of the others.

“He’s cheating.”

It caught you off guard. In the process making your meat go down the wrong pipe. Seokjin softly sighed as he hit the boy next to him.

“Are you being serious?”

“Y/n-“

“Don’t say my name when it’s not relevant, are you being serious? Is there any proof?” You asked worriedly as you bounced your leg up and down. Their eyes stayed casted downward and that was all the evidence you needed. You quickly excused yourself and hastily walked towards the restroom. As soon as you yanked opened the bathroom door two figures stepped out of a stall.

You’d remember those red bottom heels anywhere. And those black combat boots as well.

“You’ve got be to fucking kidding me!”

Both stopped dead in their tracks when their eyes landed on you. Your eyes were glossy and tears were screaming to fall over your waterline. Your legs felt like jello as you fell into the nearby wall. Out of instinct Jungkook’s arms began to wrap themselves around your fragile form. When his skin touched your all those suppressed feelings surfaced and a sob raked through your body.

You yanked yourself away and quickly wiped underneath your eyes. If anyone saw you like this then they’d know what happened in this stupid bathroom. You couldn’t afford to cause a scene, if this got out who knows what would happen to the boy’s reputation. Even though you wanted so desperately to take everything away from Jungkook you couldn’t do that to the rest of them, even if they know all along.

𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁

You should’ve connected the dots sooner. From the red wine stain on his white shirt, he drinks tequila and you never drink red. Next, was the late night hours he’d come back home. You knew he worked hard, but he was unusually tired and you never would’ve guessed that the reason was another woman. Lastly, you should’ve known your nose wasn’t fooling you. That cheap perfume was a dead giveaway, since you’d never use something that, well cheap.

If you had just paid a smidge more attention you could’ve avoided this whole thing. The boys wouldn’t have had to lie and keep this dirty secret. Right now you probably wouldn’t have all of his belongings in a box ready for it leave your sight at once.

“Get your shit.”

The harshness of your voice took him back more then a bit. He came not only because of his stuff, but he wanted to make peace. He wanted to try to win you back. It was a stupid plan, at least that’s what everyone was preaching to him, but he needed to make things right.

“Baby please it was an honest mistake.”

“Don’t baby me, and besides cheating is a choice not a mistake.”

The conversation died after those words. They echoed in his brain like a taunt. He deserved it though, is what he kept telling himself. He deserved every ounce of pain and guilt that were gonna come his way. If anything he deserved for his whole career be destroyed, just like destroyed your relationship.

“I know your legs work, use them and leave.”

You have no remorse for him. You wanted him out of your house, and out of your life completely. Not caring about how harsh you sounded, you were not going to be gentle and caring version of yourself. You were going to be a stone cold bitch. Jungkook eyed the box once more with a guilt stricken face. His eyes soon glossed over, and he almost let the sob loose.

“I’m still so sorry, y/n.”

“You should be, now get out.”

𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁

He’s a total wreck, from his head to his toes. Everyone could only watch on as his light dimmed each and every day. They felt bad, but he brought this on himself and he needed to learn from his actions. Just because he was famous doesn’t mean his actions can’t have consequences.

“Y/n, he’s a mess.”

That didn’t bother you one bit. It’s only been two weeks since the breakup and in all honesty you were doing fine. Not perfect, but you were getting along just fine without him. By the sounds of it, Jungkook seemed to be taking this hardest.

“Should I care?” You shrugged as you nonchalantly sipped on your drink. “Why am I even here?”

“We just wanted to see if you’d consider just talking to him for a few minutes, the poor boy looks like he could use some time with you.” Yoongi softly spoke, as he rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. He knew how the whole ordeal happened, and he knew this was a touchy subject. Surprisingly, he was the only one who didn’t know this was happening at the start.

“I get it you guys care about him, but he broke my heart. He cheated on me and now I’m gonna have to live with this constant doubt that I’ll never be good enough.”

“You’re more then enough, Y/n.” Jimin stated rather quickly as he soon zipped his mouth shut. His cheeks burned a bright red as he kept his head down.

You ignored those words as your mind kept replaying that night. As you watched the two walk out of that stall. Her burgundy lipstick smeared across her chin, and the shoulder strap of her dress hanging limply beside of her arm. His arm was wrapped around her waist and his lips were still pressing soft kisses to the base of her neck. Then their eyes met yours and the color drained from their faces.

In all honesty, you wished you’d slapped him. Tell him how much of a fucking idiot he was. Make him wither in a pit of his guilt and despair, but you didn’t. You let yourself go in that moment and you swore to yourself that you’d never let yourself get caught up in anything like that again.

“He still texts me a lot.” You sighed as you ran a hand though your hair. The soft sensation calming you down slightly. You shouldn’t have said anything, but you needed to get this off of your chest. “I barley open them, but if I do I never respond.”

“Are you ever gonna talk to him again?” Hoseok asked while his fingers tapped away at the table. As much as you tried to focus on that sound you still couldn’t get the situation out of your head.

“I want to say no, I really do, but in all honesty I’ll probably give in like I always do.” You scoffed at your pathetic self. He cheated, he’s the one who destroyed this relationship. You shouldn’t even give him the time of day. Now here you are actually thinking of talking to him again. Talking to the one person who single handily destroyed the way you see yourself.

“Just talk for a few minutes and get every last thing off of your chest. It might help you feel better.” Taehyung suggested as he gestured to the buzzing phone on the table. The screen lighting up multiple times with a phone number. “Did you take him out of your contacts?”

“I had too, because the temptation to text him got stronger every time I looked at his name.” You mumbled, while fiddling with the sleeve of your worn out sweater. “I thought he would’ve got the hint by now.”

“Y/n, please just try to give him one more chance to get some last minute things off of his chest.”

You took their advice too heart and tried to settle things out. You typed your heartfelt text and poured every ounce of your hatred and sorrow into as well.

Let’s just hope he finally gets the hint, you’re done. And you want him to finally leave and go be with another. Considering it wasn’t that hard for him when you were together, now he’s free real-a-state anyone can have him.

#jeongguk #bts #park jimin #jung hoseok #bts jeon jungkook x reader #bts jeon jungkook #bangtan #jeon jungkook imagine #jeon jungkook angst #bts angst #jungkook scenarios #jungkook x reader #jungkook x reader imagine #jungkook x reader angst #jungkook fanfic #jungkook reader insert #kim namjoon #kim seokjin #min yoongi #kim taehyung #masterlist #cheating au

[salmankhanholics]

★ Well done Salman Khan”: Single screen exhibitors react to Radhe – Your Most Wanted Bhai’s hybrid release announcement!

Apr 23, 2021  The industry, trade and moviegoers were left surprised with the sudden announcement that Radhe - Your Most Wanted Bhai, the much awaited film of Salman Khan, would release in cinemas on Eid. However, it’ll also simultaneously arrive on Zee’s pay-per-view platform, ZeePlex. It’s the first time something of this sort is being attempted. Ideally, a massy movie like Radhe - Your Most Wanted Bhai is best enjoyed in cinemas but due to the never-ending second wave of Coronavirus, it seems that the makers had to make this decision.

Shariq Patel, Chief Business Officer, Zee Studios says, “Wherever theatres are operational in India, our film will release. And internationally, cinemas are anyway open. So wherever theatres are functional, we’ll follow the theatrical windowing of that particular country.” In other words, internationally, the film will release only in cinemas, provided theatres are functioning in that region. In India, it’ll have a hybrid release.

He justifies this move by stating, “Internationally, Warner Bros has been following this practice. Last year, we experimented with just a PVOD (premium video on demand) release of Khaali Peeli. We shortened the theatrical window of Suraj Pe Mangal Bhariand Solo Brathuke So Better. We need to adapt to the existing market scenario. One has to understand that a lot of money has been invested. So one can’t keep waiting for the ideal scenario to arise. The pandemic and the resulting restrictions have been going on for a year now and there’s no end in sight. So, the point is that we have to evolve, find a solution to a given situation.”

Trade Speak Trade analyst Taran Adarsh says, “The producers did the right thing. Since it’s a Salman Khan film, the costs are huge. And it’s a film which was supposed to release one year ago. Imagine the interest he must have incurred due to this delay. He has all the money in the world, I am not denying that. But every film has an economic baggage. How long can you hold on?”

He adds, “As for the exhibitors, they were hoping that Salman Khan will bail them out. As I have always said, he is the pied piper of Bollywood. His films, irrespective of the merit, command a terrific initial. Now a hybrid release announcement comes as a jolt for them. It’s going to take some time for them to absorb the reality.”

He also feels that in these sensitive times, cinema is the last thing on people’s mind, “On social media, 99% discussions are only about Covid-19. Cinema doesn’t even feature anywhere as priority. So it’s a wait and watch situation right now. We don’t know how it’s going to pan out.”

Girish Johar, producer and film business analyst, however, is more critical of this development, “This scenario has to be seen through various perspectives. Definitely, it’s a big blow for cinemas. We have already lost around 1000 screens to Covid-19 last year. And now Radhe - Your Most Wanted Bhai, which is like a crucial oxygen cylinder, has gone away on digital. So it’s sure to affect the health of the exhibition sector.”

He says he fails to understand how someone of the stature of Salman can opt for such a model and adds, “If you are an individual producer in need of cash flow, then one can understand if one opts for such a model. After all, the interest adds to the budget with each passing month.” He also feels that the stars have been unfair to the theatres, which made them so popular in the first place. He emphasizes, “These actors, in their 30 or 35 year old careers went to various theatres to promote their films. Kuch actors ne toh ticket window pe tickets bhi bechi hai, for promotions. Pichle ek-dedh saal mein cinemas bandh kya hue, inhone toh tweet bhi nahi kiya for helpingthis sector. It’s the cinema that made you. They should have been a little considerate about them.”

He further tells why the PVOD release is not ideal, “From infrastructure perspective, it is not the right move. It’ll stop the growth of multiplex screens. Also, OTT is an urban market and mostly patronized by viewers of 10-12 cities. Toh Radhe - Your Most Wanted Bhai log ZeePlex pe Delhi aur Mumbai mein dekhenge ya Ichalkaranji mein dekhenge? Obviously, it’ll be the former. And Mumbai and Delhi were the top revenue generating centres for most films. As for audiences in smaller towns, they’ll access the film through Telegram or other pirated means.”

“How long can you keep waiting?” We then asked the exhibitors on their reaction to this development. While the representatives of multiplex chains were unavailable, the single-screen cinema owners shared their views to this writer. Surprisingly, till now, they have always been against a big, feature films releasing anywhere else other than the cinemas first. This time, their viewpoint has slightly altered.

Vishek Chauhan, owner of Roopbani Cinema in Bihar, says, “It’s high time they took this step and no one is to blame here. How long can you keep waiting? It’s a crisis situation for everyone. It’s not like cinemas hi marr rahe hai. Sab marr rahe hai. Everyone is suffering. Zee has paid around Rs. 230 crores. How long can they hold their investment?”

Akshaye Rathi, film exhibitor and distributor, adds, “Given the scenario given in the country right now, the decision is quite practical. I don’t expect a significant number of cinemas to be even allowed to open by May 13. It’s an interesting experiment and I truly hope that the Indian consumers rise to the occasion and actually pay per view rather than hacking the movie through piracy.”

He continues, “As an exhibitor, however, I would have loved it had the movie’s release plans been delayed a bit and was brought to the theatres when things were coming close to normal. Now that the vaccination drive is getting accelerated, I am sure that day isn’t too far out that cases would reduce. Fingers crossed and here’s wishing the team luck.”

Raj Bansal agrees with Akshaye Rathi as he states, “If they really wanted to come in a big way in theatres, they should have waited for two months.”

Question mark over its domestic box office performance However, due to the rise in cases, one wonders how many cinemas will be open in India by May 13. Also, prime markets like Mumbai, Delhi etc. might still be shut. In such a scenario, one wonders what the domestic box office of Radhe - Your Most Wanted Bhai would look like. Vishek Chauhan minces no words as he tells, “Theatre India mein kahan khule hai? Jo bhi khule hue hai, woh naam ke khule hue hain. The way cases are rising exponentially, cinemas will be lucky to be operating by Diwali in this country. The current crisis is unprecedented.”

He also feels that it’s a long way to go for cinemas to reopen. He explains, “First, you need the cases to go down and for people to feel confident to roam around. Then the government should feel confident to open cinemas. Then, theatre owners should feel that it’s viable to resume operations. Lastly, producers should feel that it’s a good time to release their films. Yeh hote hote aisa na ho ki phir se saal nikal jaaye.”

Raj Bansal tells, “Half of cinema theatres in India might be shut during Eid. May 13 is just three weeks away. I doubt if we can open up looking at the lockdowns that are happening in several places. The election rallies and kumbh mela have led to the increase in cases majorly. We can’t afford to do the same during Eid by opening up cinemas.” Even Akshaye Rathi is in agreement that theatres in most regions will still be shut during May 13.

Vishek Chauhan, then, tries to understand the rationale behind this move, “Salman and Zee must have got slightly bolstered since UK cinemas will resume operations from May 11. The USA market, meanwhile, is fully recovering. UAE is perfectly fine while Australia and New Zealand is alive and kicking. So the domestic losses they’ll face, they’ll make up from overseas markets to some extent. Domestic box office, meanwhile, will be zero. Kahan release karenge? The government might refuse to open cinemas for this film, fearing that it’ll lead to crowding.”

‘Radhe’ model to become the norm? Like Radhe - Your Most Wanted Bhai, there are several big ticket films awaiting release. The question is whether these films would also follow suit and opt for a hybrid release. Shariq Patel says, “I am fairly certain. A lot of films have been held on for so long. No producer has the capacity to hold on to their film for such a long period. However, equilibrium will be reached once the situation is back to normal. But when that normal situation would arise is something that no one knows. Today, we are in April 2021 and it’s worse than the circumstances in April 2020.”

Vishek Chauhan also has a similar point of view, “Other makers should follow suit. How long will they wait for? And we cinema owners are in no position to dictate terms to them. But one thing is proven that when cinemas are open, theatres are the best place to release a film. Theatres will be back and theatres will be the main medium to release films.”

Akshaye Rathi however disagrees, “I think a lot of filmmakers would observe what actually happens to Radhe - Your Most Wanted Bhai in terms of its PVOD release. India as a market has traditionally not succeeded too well with the pay-per-view model. Having said that, this is the biggest film to take this route. If it succeeds, then maybe a few more producers might consider it. So I think that it’s a wait-and-watch scenario. Personally I don’t expect too many people to take up this model yet.”

Raj Bansal adds, “It’s too early to decide. We have to wait and see how Radhe - Your Most Wanted Bhai performs, and also how much it affects theatrical business. If the box office gets impacted, then the Multiplex Association of India might now allow such hybrid release. However, since 15 months will pass without any major film, the MAI might allow this model for a few films initially.”

#salman khan #radhe #hybird release #hybird

[moonstone-blues]

A Spark By The River - Chapter 6: Memories

As River and Nick walked down the dank streets, River couldn’t help but look around. It wasn't difficult to see how bad the conditions in Goodneighbor were. Ghouls slept on the street and all the citizens had their weapons drawn at as if they were ready for a fight at any time. It was… shocking to say the least.

"Why does everyone live like this?” River asked, looking back at Nick. “Can't they all go to Diamond City?"

Nick sighed. "Well Diamond City has a strict entry policy."

River furrowed her brow in confusion. "But I was allowed in with hardly any trouble."

Nick pinched the bridge of his nose. "Well you're human.” He looked at River from head to toe, examining her. “Clean. Pretty. And being a vault dweller surely helped since they're known to be friendly folk to human settlements."

"Wait…” River paused as she processed Nick’s information. “They only let you in if you're human?"

"Well, have you seen any ghouls in Diamond City?" Nick asked.

River shook her head. "No… But they let you in and you're not exactly human yourself."

"That was before the wonderful mayor came up with an idea during his campaign years ago. People call it ‘the ghoul ban’. Ghouls used to be all over the place in Diamond City but as soon as McDonough was elected, all the ghouls were evicted from their homes. With nowhere else to go, they all soon came here." Nick explained.

"No wonder Piper hates him..." River clenched her fists. She hated people like that. Discriminating others for no reason. Next time she was in Diamond City, she would be sure to march right up to McDonough’s office and give him a piece of her mind.

Nick then suddenly stopped, patting his pockets with a blank look on his face. River turned to look at him. She raised an eyebrow. “Nick? What’s wrong?”

Nick suddenly slapped his own head with a loud, frustrated groan. “I’m so stupid!”

After seeing River’s confused look, Nick looked down at her with a look of embarrassment. He scratched the tear in his cheek. “I was in too much in a hurry, I forgot something pretty important.” Nick sighed. “The bastard’s brain.”

River let out a frustrated groan. “Do we really have to go all the way back?” She didn’t feel like running into another suicidal monster again.

“No.” Nick stated. “You don’t have to go all the way back but I will. I’ll get you a room at the hotel here and you can stay there while I go get the brain.”

“But didn’t you say this place is dangerous?”

River shifted uncomfortably, seeing another argument break out in the streets. A man with a machine gun -who River assumed was a sort of guard- soon ran over and eventually broke up the fight. The two fighters stormed off in opposite directions, still clearly angry at each over. River moved closer to Nick.

“You’ll be fine as long as you stay in your room, okay? Come with me.” Nick said before he began walking in a different direction, eventually standing in front of a building with a large neon sign saying ‘Hotel Rexford’.

Nick soon got River a room and escorted her up to it. At the door to River’s room, Nick put his hand on her shoulder. “Remember, do not leave this room under any circumstances, okay? I don’t want you getting hurt.”

River nodded her head, understanding. She opened the door to her room and smiled at Nick. “Same could be said for you, Mr Valentine.”

Nick rolled his eyes. “I always am.”

River chuckled. “Right. That’s why I had to rescue you from countless amounts of thugs in a highly secured vault which you had been imprisoned in for a few weeks at the least.” She flashed a smirk, aiming it towards the detective.

Nick playfully glared at her. “Better watch it, Mrs McConnell.”

“Yeah, yeah. Now go before the smell of your coat rubs on my clothes.” River made a ‘shoo’ motion with both of her hands.

“I get it, I smell.” Nick huffed before he waved to her. “Goodbye.”

River waved back. “Don’t be long.”

River walked into her room and looked around. It was nothing special. There was a bed, a table and a few other pieces of furniture. River walked towards the boarded up window and peeked out of it through the small cracks between the wooden boards. A minute went by and River eventually saw Nick leaving the hotel. Nick walked past a building in the distance and eventually disappeared from River’s sight. River backed away from the window and thought for a moment. She tried to think about the place they were going to go.

The Memory Den.

River remembered Nick telling her about it a couple of weeks ago. It was a place where people went to relive their memories. To get lost in the past. River looked towards the door and thought for a moment.

One little trip couldn't hurt...

River shyly walked into a large room. She noticed large machines, lining the walls. In the far side of the room was a platform where a chaise was placed and a woman lay down in it. Once she saw River, she sat up.

“May I help you?”

River cleared her throat. “Umm hello. My name is River McConnell. I heard that you can revisit memories here?”

The woman smiled. “Why yes, of course we can do that.”

River sighed. “May I… relive a memory? Please?”

“Honey, if you want to go back to the past, I'm gonna need some caps. Can't run a business if I don't get paid.” The woman told her.

River thought for a moment. She checked her pockets, only counting about twenty. Doubtful that would be enough. “I don't have much… but I can assure you, if this is really what I think it'll be then you can garentee yourself a regular customer. I'll pay you whatever you want. Please, It doesn't even have to be a long memory!” She looked down slightly. She was ashamed of her begging but there was someone she just had to see again.

The woman thought for a moment, resting her chin in her hand. “Well… I suppose a little taste wouldn't hurt. And you do certainly seem troubled…” The woman smiled at River. "Just this once though. Don’t tell my coworker.” She added with a wink.

River beamed. “Thank you so much!”

The woman couldn't help but chuckle at River’s enthusiasm. “Amari!” She called out. “We have a new client!”

A woman in a lab coat soon entered the room. She looked River up and down. "Get in the lounger, please."

The woman pointed to a strange looking pod. River swaalled, doubting herself for a moment before climbing in. Some weird machine attached itself to her head. She could heard the doctor speak just a little away from her by a computer, though the machine prevented River from turning her head.

"Please tell me what memory you want. Something strong the machine can cling to."

She needed no time getting to work.

"I want a memory of my husband… Well, my late husband." River asked.

"Describe him."

"He was from Ireland. Had the typical red hair and green eyes. He was very tall, very handsome. We met when we were teenagers and he had such an accent." She chuckled to herself as she remembered.

"Got one!"

The woman River first met spoke up. "Now, just relax, dear."

River took a deep breath as the pod closed. She continued to breath in and out. She still had her doubts about this whole thing but maybe that would change when she relaxed…

Then, the memory came to her.

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River walked down the long hallway of her school, books in hand. She let out a sigh as she made it to her locker, gently moving her fringe out of her face with a calm sigh. She had so much homework to do and so little time. She opened her locker and put her books in, taking out some stuff she would need for her next class. She closed her locker once more to see her very own sister.

"Hey River." The girl smiled, her own books close to her chest.

"Hi Jane." River responded, leaning against her locker. She raised a confused eyebrow. "I thought you were in maths right now. What are you doing all the way over in the english department? Did you forget your bag?… Again?”

"I cut. Mr Johnson is so freaky. I'm pretty sure that he constantly checks me out. It's super gross.” Jane cringed, sticking out her tongue.

River rolled her eyes. Jane was always the drama queen. “Jane, you think that everyone checks you out.”

Jane huffed. “Hey, I can't help it if a lot of people think I'm very attractive!”

“Whatever you say.” River shrugged her off, beginning to make her way over to her next class, Jane following close next to her.

Jane suddenly let out a gasp as she suddenly remembered something she had forgotten to tell River earlier. “By the way, guess what?”

Jane didn't let River answer.

“There's cheerleading tryouts going on after school. You should totally try out!" Jane suggested. "You don't have to actually do anything, just be there and I'll show you where all the cute guys are." She winked. "By the way… I hear jocks have a thing for blondes."

"I'm fine, thanks. Cheerleading isn't really my... thing." River began walking to the courtyard. “Besides, you know I'm not into assholes.”

Jane followed close behind. "Oh come on, sis! Don't be a stick in the mud! Let your hair down for once!" She then stepped in front of River and pushed her bottom lip out with a pouty face in an effort to convince her. "Please?"

River stared at her for a second before letting out a groan. "Fine! But don't be mad when I don't make it into the squad!”

River tightened her ponytail before grabbing her pom poms. She couldn't believe she actually made it in the cheerleading squad. She looked at the main girl -someone called Lena- who was talking about what their routine would be. Jane nudged River with her elbow and pointed in the direction behind them.

"Hey. Cute guys, twelve o'clock."

River turned around, seeing a few jocks talking and laughing. She rolled her eyes. What was it about them that made Jane so attracted to them?

"You have no taste, Jane."

Jane scoffed. "Speak for yourself."

Soon they got in position for their routine, River trying her best to do it correctly while Jane lazily struck a pose.

Lena spoke. "Ok for this part, I'm thinking of something big..." Her eyes fell on the other cheerleaders as she placed her hands on her hips, eyeing everyone up. "Can anyone here do a backflip?”

There was silence among the others. Lena waited for a few seconds before letting out a groan. "Look. If we want to amaze everyone at the next football game, we've gotta make this good. Now-"

"I might."

Everyone's attention turned to River. Jane's jaw hung open. River immediately regretted speaking up. "I-I mean I took gymnastics a while ago outside of school and I learned a few things..." Her voice trailed off.

A grin appeared on Lena’s face. "Perfect! Now everyone except for River get into the pyramid formation we discussed earlier.

She then went on to explain what River had to do in full detail. After she explained, River got on top of the pyramid. She suddenly felt extremely nauseous. She shook her head, trying to clear her nerves before she was thrown into the air by the other cheerleaders. She managed to just barely complete a single backflip before landing in an awkward split.

Lena thought for a moment. "Ok. It needs some work but we have enough time to practice. Well done.” She clasped her hands together with an exhausted sigh. “Ok everyone! I think we should have a little break. You've done good up to now!"

River sighed. She was about to walk over to Jane when she heard clapping coming from behind her. She turned around to see all of the jocks staring at her. A few of them were flashing a disgusting smirk, others held beer cans which they had somehow hidden from their coach. However, there was one jock who sat a couple of feet away from the rest of the group who was… clapping. River simply rolled her eyes and turned back to the other cheerleaders, assuming that the jock was just patronising her.

After practice River and Jane were discussing the work they had to do before they walked home together. Jane had been slacking in her work and as usual, River had been asked by Jane’s teachers to help her. River didn’t mind helping Jane; she was her sister after all. However, River would rather study herself or just hang out with Jane as sisters, not study partners. Jane was complaining about her english homework. The pair were interrupted when a voice stopped them.

"Excuse me?"

River and Jane looked at each other before turning around to face the figure. River's eyes widened. It was the jock from before who was clapping.

Jane immediately smirked. Jocks were a... personal favourite of hers to say the least. "Can we... help you?"

"Well, I just wanted to say... you were really good back there." The guy nervously smiled at River, scratching the back of his neck. He had a very strong irish accent. Jane’s smirk grew. He was exotic.

"Umm thanks?" River said, a little unsure what response she could've gave to the jock. Was he trying to… flirt with her?

"Listen, I was wondering if you wanted to... I don't know... go to Joe's? I'd really like to get some lunch with a really pretty-"

"No." River cut him off.

"W- What?" The guy was slightly taken back.

River held up one finger. "First off, I don't even know you." She raised another. "Second, you don't know me." Then a third finger. "Third, you only want to go on a date with me because you think I'm pretty and four? You think that just because you're a 'hot jock', you can get with any girl. Well not me. Sorry but I'd rather study. Goodbye!" River turned away. "Come on Jane."

Jane walked closer to the guy, twirling her hair. "Well I'M free if you wanna hang out... umm... what's your name?"

"It's-"

"JANE." River called out, annoyed.

"Wow, I'm coming! Jeeze..."

The next day, as River was walking towards her locker as usual, she noticed a group of jocks approaching her.

“Hey babe.” The one at the front spoke with a flirtatious smirk. River knew who he was. Randy Sullivan. Captain of the football team. He wasn't really classed as a ‘bully’ but he had been known to steal other kid's lunch money back in seventh grade.

“My name is River.” River crossed her arms, eyeing Randy up and down. “And you know that, Randy.”

“Don't be like that.” Randy smirked down at her. “I saw your performance yesterday. I can tell that you're quite… flexible.”

River cringed. Why did jocks always have to be so… vulgar? “Randy, I need to get to my locker, can you move please?”

Randy wrapped an arm around River’s waist. “Don't be such a spoilsport, River. I saw the way you looked at us yesterday…”

“With complete and utter disgust? Yeah that sounds about right.” River tried to move away but Randy’s grip on her tightened. “Let go of me, you creep!” River tried to push him away.

“Playing hard to get isn't really a turn on, babe, so you can stop now.” Randy stated with a frown.

“I'm not your ‘babe’ so cut it out!” River snapped.

Randy used his other hand to grab the back of River’s hair. River yelped and tried to move with it having not much effect. Randy moved his head closer towards hers until a voice called out to them.

“She said let go.”

Randy turned his head to see someone stood in front of him. He rolled his eyes.

“Walk away, jackass, this one's mine.”

“Oh haha, Randy. Very original.” The male stated sarcastically before giving Randy a small round of applause. "Stop being a dosser and leave her alone."

“You got a problem?” Randy asked, displeased.

“Yeah. My problem is you're trying to kiss a girl who clearly doesn't want you to. Pretty sure you can get in some deep shite for that.” The male walked closer. “I always knew you were a manky creep, Randy.”

Randy paused for a second. He turned to the group of other jocks around him. “Grab him.”

River’s eyes widened as the jocks surrounding Randy ran towards the other male. He managed to dodge a leaping jock and punch another in the face. But soon after that, he was forced to the ground. He tried to get up but his arms and legs were held down. Randy let go of River and walked over to the fallen male and began to kick him hard in the gut. He let out a pained yell. River’s eyes widened.

“Get off of him!” River cried.

River ran towards Randy and pulled on his arm, trying to get him away from the struggling male. Randy eventually got annoyed and turned around, smacking River across the face. River yelped and fell to the ground, holding her cheek in pain. Tears threatened to fall down her face. River turned and saw that Randy had gone back to kicking the other guy. River clenched her teeth and stumbled back to her feet. She took a deep breath before she walked up to Randy.

"Hey!" She yelled.

As soon as Randy started to turn around, River punched him in the face. Randy fell to the ground with a cry and River held her fist, biting her lip. That hurt… a lot.

This surprised the other jocks, causing them to loosen their grip on the male on the floor. The male quickly broke free of the other jock’s grasps and jumped to his feet. He immediately grabbed River’s arm and began to run down the hallways, dragging her behind him. River looked back to see the jocks chasing them. River’s eyes widened and she looked back in front of her. The male holding her suddenly pulled her into a room, closing the door behind them. Nearly in sync, River and the male slid down against the door and panted, out of breath.

River let out a sigh. “Thanks for helping me back there.”

“No problem. I can’t believe I'm on the same team as that arse…” The male groaned, looking back at the door.

River then realised something as she examined his face properly. “Wait a second…” River pointed an accusing finger towards the now recognisable jock. ”You’re the jock that tried to flirt with me yesterday!”

The male awkwardly scratched the back of his neck. “When you put it like that, it makes me sound like a loser.” He flashed a nervous smile and outstretched his arm. “And thanks for getting Randy off of me, by the way. What’s your name?”

River looked at the male’s hand before she shook it with a small chuckle. From a flirtatious ass to a gentleman. “River. River Bellafield.”

The male smiled. “The name’s Jack McConnell.”

“Nice to meet you Jack.” River moved her hand away before she thought for a moment. “You know what? I might just take you up on that offer you made. I’ll pay though. It’s the least I can do for my hero.” She sarcastically batted her eyelashes at him.

Jack burst out laughing, eventually being joined by River. After the laughter died down, Jack folded his arms and tried his best to look offended. “Okay, now I know you’re purposely trying to make me sound like a loser.”

“Your accent… Irish, right?” River questioned.

Jack blushed slightly, embarrassed. “Um… Yeah. Is it that obvious?” He chuckled to himself. “I've only been here-”

Suddenly a scream rang out. River and Jack turned to see a girl screaming, while she stared at Jack. River sighed.

“You dragged me into the girl’s bathroom, didn’t you?”

“Yes. Yes I did.”

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The pod opened and River was snapped out of her memory. She carefully climbed out of the pod and turned to the women ahead of her with a grateful smile. The woman in the lab coat had left. “Thank you. I'll definitely come back here. I'll pay whatever you want.”

The woman who lay in the chaise nodded her head before she paused, narrowing her eyes as she noticed something. “Dear, are you alright? You're crying.”

River paused for a moment and raised two fingers to her face and wiped under her eye. River looked down at her pale hand. The woman was right. River had been crying.

“Oh umm…”

River quickly wiped both of her eyes with a small sniffle and flashed a smile, trying her best to look like she was fine.

“It's okay. I'm fine. Thank you so much.”

"I'm sorry for prying but we have to watch the memory to make sure we know if we have to pull you out if something goes wrong." The woman explained. "That memory looked clean. The people looked clean… what's your name, dear?"

"River McConnell."

The woman gasped. "That's it. You're the woman out of time!"

River tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, slightly embarrassed. "Didn't realise the paper came out this far."

"It doesn't. But word of mouth travels far." The woman smiled. "I assume you didn't just come here for a trip down Memory Lane then?"

“I'm... actually working with someone to help look for my son. He's a synth called Nick Valentine. We’ll be coming here later. Can you… not say anything to him please? Don't tell him I was here. He told me not to leave the hotel but I just wanted to see what this place was like. He wouldn’t understand...” River politely asked.

The woman thought for a moment before she nodded, understanding. “My lips are sealed.”

River took out her twenty caps. "Like I said, I don't have much, but-"

"No, no." The woman shook her head. "Please keep it. You need all the help you can get with your tough times."

River nodded. "Thank you again…" She turned to leave but stopped. "I'm sorry, I never got your name."

"Irma. Now you hurry off before Mr Valentine comes back!"

River smiled and walked out of the Memory Den. She stuck close to the buildings, avoiding anyone who looked like trouble while she made her way back to the hotel and entered her room once again. River closed the door with a sigh and took her bag off, throwing it to the side before she flopped onto the bed. It was even scratchier than Nick’s. River sat up, the sheets irritating her skin too much and thought for a moment.

She missed Jack.

River brought her knees up to her chest and hugged them. She first thought Jack was just another jerk jock that was in a constant competition to sleep with the most girls but he was different. He was kind and gentle, willing to stand up to Randy and those other jerks. She wanted to see him again. She wanted to feel his embrace again…

River was crying again.

Nick sighed as he came up to a familiar wooden door. He adjusted his tie. He couldn’t look too unprofessional. River was still a client after all. Maybe… a friend… But still a client. It took him a little longer than expected but he had Kellogg’s brain… or well, whatever it was. Nick raised his hand, ready to knock when he heard a faint sound. He knew he shouldn’t be nosy but he couldn’t help but press his ear to the door. He heard crying. Nick backed away slightly. He cleared his throat and decided to call out.

“River? It’s Nick. Are you in there?”

There was a gasp and after a moment, River replied. “Hold on a second! I’m just… putting my stuff back in my bag!”

Nick frowned. She didn’t have to lie to him.

River soon walked out of the door, flashing a smile. “Sorry about the wait. All of my stuff fell out of my bag when I put it down.”

Nick nodded his head. “Mm hm. Come on, let’s go.”

The pair made their way over the brightly lit building with Nick glancing at River occasionally, seeing her sniffle and rub her eyes.

“You okay?” Nick asked.

“Huh?” River looked up at him. “Oh… Yeah… I just have a stupid cold. Hope that isn’t deadly out here.” She let out a nervous chuckle.

Nick nodded before he looked away. He would talk to her about this later.

They approached the double doors and walked inside the large building. River saw the same woman as before laying in her chaise. She smirked once she saw Nick and sat up, making her way over to the detective.

"Well, well. Mister Valentine. I thought you had forgotten about little ole' me." She batted her eyelashes at the old detective.

Nick chuckled. "I may have walked out of the Den, Irma, but I would never walk out on you." He gave her a wink.

"Hmph. Amari's downstairs, you big flirt." Irma chuckled, pushing Nick away.

River gave Nick a ‘look’ to which he simply rolled his eyes with a chuckle. Nick began to walk, waving at River, gesturing for her to follow him. River looked back at Irma and flashed a sheepish smile, mouthing ‘thanks’ so that Nick wouldn’t hear her. They walked down some stairs to see another woman at a machine. River identified her as the one who set up the pod she climbed into earlier.

"Doctor Amari?" Nick called out.

The woman turned around. "Yes?" She looked at the two. She saw River and quickly glanced back at Nick.

"We need a memory dig, Amari, but it's not gonna be easy. The perp of our case, Kellogg, is already cold on the floor." Nick shoved his hands in his pockets.

Amari's eyes widened, looking at the both of them. "Are you two mad? Putting aside the fact that you're asking me to defile a corpse, you do realize the memory stimulators require intact, LIVING brains to function?"

River bit her lip, nervous, before she spoke. "Please. Nick told me you're the only one that could make this work."

"This dead brain had inside knowledge of the Institute, Amari." Nick stated. "The biggest scientific secret of the Commonwealth. Imagine what we could gain from this sort of information." He tried his best to convince the doctor.

Amari sighed, eventually giving in. "Fine. I'll take a look, but no guarantees." She looked at each of them. "Do you... have it with you?"

"Here's... what we could find." Nick handed the small mechanical part of Kellogg’s brain over to Amari.

Amari took it carefully with a look of utter confusion. "What.. is this? This isn't a brain! This is... wait..." She examined it closely. "That's the hippocampus! And this thing attached to it... A neural interface?"

Nick frowned, scratching his cheek where he could feel a couple of wires poking out of his ‘flesh’. "Those circuits look awfully familiar..."

Amari raised an eyebrow. "I'm not surprised. From what I've seen, all Institute technology has a similar architecture."

"Is the brain still good?" River asked, hopeful.

"Possibly. I think the tech preserving the tissue so there is some hope. However, there's no way to access the memories inside without a compatible port." Amari explained.

Nick cleared his throat, deciding to step up. "Hey.” He said, getting their attention. “I'm an old synth. If the Institute built me out of similar parts, we might have an in. If you plug that thing into me, we could make this work."

Amari paused. She took a deep breath before saying her next words. "There... could be long-term side effects. I don't know where to even begin with listing the risks."

Nick held up his hand, stopping her. "Don't bother. I don't need to hear them.” A determined look was now present on his face. “Plug me in, doc."

River stepped towards him. "Nick, you heard what she said. You could suffer from this. I don't want you to-"

Nick gave her a small smile. "I said, we'd find your boy, didn't I? Well if I have to have something from a psychopath plugged into my brain then that's what i'm willing to do."

"I..." River looked down with a sigh before she looked back up, smiling at Nick. "I really appreciate this, Nick. Thank you."

Nick chuckled. "You can thank me when we've found your son." He looked over at Amari. "All right. Let's do this."

"Whenever you're ready, Mister Valentine. Just sit down." Amari gestured to the chair she was standing next to.

Nick sat down with a nervous chuckle. "If I start cackling like an old, grizzled mercenary, pull me out, okay?"

Amari carefully plugged the cybernetics into Nick. She cleared her throat then spoke. "Are you... feeling any different?"

Nick looked around, frantically as if what he saw in his mind was all around him in the real world. "There's a lot of... flashes... static... I can't make sense of any of it, Doc."

"That's what I was afraid of." Amari sighed. "The mnemonic impressions are encoded. It appears the Institute has one last failsafe."

"Wait.” River said. “Is Nick going to be okay?" She asked, concerned. She didn't want Nick to be hurt because of her.

Amari sighed. "Yes, the connections appear to be stable. But we need to solve the current problem first."

Amari continued. "The memory encryption is too strong for a single mind, but..." Amari gave her full attention to River. "What if we used two? We load both you and Mister Valentine into the memory loungers. He'll act as a host while your consciousness drives through whatever memories we can find." She explained.

River nodded. It was the best shot they had right now. "All right." She still wasn’t entirely sure about this but she was willing to go through anything now.

Amari pointed to an open memory lounger. "Just sit down over there. And…” She shrugged. “Keep your fingers crossed."

Nick smiled at River before he climbed into a memory lounger. He waved before speaking his next words.

"See you on the other side."

River climbed into the empty memory lounger and bit her lip, nervously. As it closed, she looked back at Nick then at the screen in front of her.

River could hardly hear Amari over her own thoughts but she noticed that she was quickly beginning to slip into a deep sleep. She only heard Amari tell her to hold on before she was completely submerged in total darkness.

#asbtr #a spark by the river #nick valentine x sole survivor #sole survivor #fanfic #fanfiction #fallout fanfic #amari #irma #fallout 4 #River McConnell

[vulpinmusings]

Letters from Buxcord #7 - A Patch Job

Three sessions in the making, Ash and company go to fix something I broke the last time around.

Samantha,

It’s rather annoying to suffer wounds that I can’t just sleep off, but that fey spider’s acid spit did such a number on me that I’ve had to spend a week in the hospital and deal with skin grafts.  At least it’s not anywhere as bad as the last time I was obliged to go the hospital.  I don’t have to avoid using magic, for one thing.

While I was convalescing, Sheriff Greyson showed up to get an official statement for the spiders-man incident.  I gave him all the key details, naturally, even admitting to accidentally causing a small forest fire.  The Sheriff found the tale a bit beyond belief, but dutifully recorded what I said and then went off to ask Lea about the case.  Presumably after that he tracked down Penn, because the news report that eventually came out referenced three eyewitnesses, and declared all of us so traumatized by the events that our memories were addled.  Also, the police decided that spiders-man was the work of the same guy behind the so-called Razorback copycat killing (aka that time we fought a pig-masked ghost in the slaughterhouse).

 I’ve wondered why Sheriff Ragland wasn’t the one to collect our statements, since he’d been the officer in charge at Bizier’s house and has demonstrated a more open mind about the reality of the world.  Considering the official report, however, I suspect that Ragland’s own sanity has come into question.

I have half a mind to put on a bit of a show in front of the police station if the authorities are going to continue to be pig-headed about magic and mythics.  Skvetch, seems like half the people in this town who are in the know are devoted to keeping up a masquerade of non-magic.  More trouble than its worth, if you ask me.

Lea was discharged several days ahead of me, on account of not needing to replace any skin.  On her way out, she paid me a visit to have a chat about her recent realization that she’s (probably) a Faerie and has magic.  She said that she suspected herself of indirectly causing Bizier to be targeted and converted by the spider.  Back during the Razorback incident, Bizier had been the deputy Lea had tried to heal but accidentally drained.  Later on, she’d visited him in the hospital and managed to reverse what she’d done.  Lea feared that that had marked Bizier somehow, luring the fey spider to him.

I know all about carrying guilt for actions performed in… less than enlightened states of being, and I know the sorts of things to say to someone carrying that weight (search me if I can remember who learned it from, though).  Point is, even if Lea had marked Bizier somehow, she’d done it unconsciously, as she only recently became consciously aware of her mythical nature.  I told her so, and she seemed to accept it.  She then asked if I could help her get a grasp on her magic.  I said I would try, but admitted that I’m not an expert in how Faerie magic works, and I’m unsure if teaching her Weaves would be helpful.

Once I was freed from the hospital, I set to exploring Buxcord to find a Fey Way other than the one out in the bayou.  I’d rather not have to hassle with Bayou Boating every time I have business with the Faerie King or need to drop off some wayward pixie.  I managed to find a mushroom ring in the park, so mission success.  Still haven’t made any progress on restoring my lost memories or finding Nollthep.

Scratch that last bit! Nollthop’s still at large, but Madam Weaver finally came through and found someone who was able to restore my memory of the M’Dales and Carmilla!  I can picture them, recall their names.  Skvetch, I mentioned them in passing in a previous letter and only now remember doing so.

Before I explain the details of this restoration, though, there’s something else big that happened before, a few days after I got out of the hospital.

As I was walking to the local diner for breakfast, I noticed that Buxcord seemed strangely quiet.    Upon arrival, I saw everyone in the diner – customer and employee alike, slumped in a state of extreme lethargy.  The only exception was Mr. Penn, who was glad to see someone else in a normal state.  While Penn investigated someone’s food for unusual elements, I tried to coax words from some of the waiters.  I couldn’t get much from them, but from a glance at the ambient magic around them I got the sense that the lethargy was stemming from a loss of energy down to the very soul.

I called Lea to check on her.  She reported that she was feeling fine, but that she’d witnessed a bartender nearly pass out late last night after she felt a strange pulling sensation at her core.  I hadn’t felt anything of the sort, so it’s likely the draining wasn’t able to penetrate the magical defenses on my apartment.

We agreed to split up and search Buxcord for anyone else who wasn’t lethargic or a possible source of the problem.  Lea took the north side since she was already up that way and found Madam Weaver’s house.  The odd old lady was unaffected, and she and Lea had a productive little introduction.  Mr. Penn’s search took him along the outskirts of Buxcord and at some point came across Piper, who was not affected by the lethargy but rather unhelpful.

As for myself, I was searching through the south side when I came across a young woman in a hoodie.  She was acting nervous, and my bold approach probably didn’t help matters.  I quickly established that I was looking into what was going on, and after coaxing I got her to open up and offer her story.  Her name is Simone and she comes from a magical family with close ties to Buxcord’s history, although she wasn’t entirely convinced about the validity of magic at the time. Still, she’d been spared from the soul-draining and had just finished following a vague hunch that had taken her into the marshlands around the bayou.  There she had discovered an old cottonwood tree that would normally have been fully hidden from view, except there was a big hole in the barrier.

Yes, that same tree with the demonic aura I’d discovered while hunting the fey spider.  In my haste to catch up to the spider, I’d forgotten to close up the hole I’d made and had later assumed that a barrier of that age and strength would have some kind of self-renewal function Woven in.  Either that’s just not how things work in this universe, or the original casters of the barrier didn’t think to include such a function.

In any event, whoops.

Since Simone had prior knowledge of the sealed tree and a magical heritage, and thus was a potential source of very crucial help in fixing the problem I’d caused, I brought her with me when I went to meet up with Penn and Lea at the diner to compare notes. The only thing I learned from the other two is that Madam Weaver already knew the source of the problem and whose fault it was, because of course she did.

Our next order of business was to hike out to the bayou so I could get a good look at the breach and determine if I could just Weave up a patch.  We arrived to find a shadowy figure hovering above the water near the tree.  It looked familiar, although it took me a minute to realize why.  I’d seen this thing only once, shortly after my first little adventure, after that massive ripple of magic rolled through town. The figure didn’t move, although it did engage Lea in a conversation that I could only hear her half of. According to Lea, when Penn asked her about it a bit later, the gist of the conversation was that the figure admitted to stepping out of the barrier for a “snack” but that it was still mostly bound to the tree.  It didn’t offer a name or outright admit to being a demon, but it tried to cut a temptation deal to locate Lea’s human family if she helped it get out.  The barrier I’d ignorantly punched a hole in is the middle of three seals on the creature, with the cottonwood tree as the core and another barrier around the whole town.

As to the hole, it didn’t take me long to determine that the barrier was every bit as thick and complex as you’d expect a seal for an ancient evil to be; not the sort of thing you can just throw a quick patch over and expect it to keep holding.  That’s a lesson I don’t need to learn twice. So, I turned to Simone and asked if she has any old family records that might be of help.  She said maybe and, after I put a simple barrier to prevent the demon from taking another “walk” in the meantime, she led us back into town to her house.

Once we were settled in Simone’s house, she undertook a little search and came back with an old leather-bound book embossed with a mystical brand.  The book had some kind of spell on it to prevent strangers from reading its secrets, but my mental discipline proved enough to resist the effects enough to render the words legible, if slightly wavy.  After skimming about halfway through the book, I found an account of a time when the middle barrier had needed repair, and a description of the ritual involved.  It’s not particularly complex or demanding of material components; all we needed were enough mages to perform the steps, a warding amulet for the ritual’s leader, and “blood of the ancients.”

The first two things were easy to find.  Penn has dabbled in magic enough to be confident in taking part, I’m me, and I was willing to take a chance on Lea’ fey abilities counting once we’d secured the assistance of a couple more mages as back-up.  Simone was untrained but possesses the gift, and Lea was able to talk Rocky into helping as well.  Simone also supplied us with the warding amulet: a sun-shaped necklace given to her by her grandmother and likely the reason the demon hadn’t been able to drain her.

The blood of the ancient was going to be the tricky part, as we had no idea what that term could be referring to.  We decided to split up again and try two avenues of inquiry: Penn and I would check at Professor Thomas’s lab while Lea and Simone consulted with Madam Weaver.  To put it simply, the girls wound up choosing the right path.  The Madam said she could supply us with genuine ancient blood, whereas the lab would only be able to provide a synthetic substitute that wouldn’t last.  The real stuff would produce a proper fix, but getting it would set in motion some other calamity that Madam Weaver wouldn’t elaborate on.  The woman operates under some set of rules I haven’t sussed out yet.

Lea called me to discuss our options, and we decided that being sure of fixing the barrier for good was worth the price of some other trouble down the line.

So, with the materials in hand and personnel recruited, we went back to the cottonwood and got to work.  As the most accomplished mage in the group, I took the warding amulet and led the ritual.  It went smoothly, although the demon tried to distract us with temptations.  It offered to find me a way home, but also called my motives into question.  Although my memory of the core of the Order-naries hadn’t been restored yet, I still recalled enough to be rightly offended at the demon’s intimations that I had no reason to be helping Buxcord’s people.

Nobody bent to the demon’s words and we sealed it away without a hitch, and then went our separate ways.  I escorted Simone home, mostly as an excuse to ask to borrow her book again at some point and study up on Buxcord’s magical past.  Things are going to keep happening, and I’d prefer to be forewarned of anything old that may wake up.

Once I’d gotten Simone home, a letter materialized on the ground in front of me.  It was from Madam Weaver, informing me that the friend she’d asked to help with my memory had finally arrived.  I went straight to her house and met one of the tallest women I have ever seen.  Her name, or at least the name she said I could call her, was Minosity (Pretty sure I spelled that wrong; sounded Hellenic.) Mnemosyne, after a mythical titan of memory.  Fitting.

She was all business, but gentle.  I am normally quite reluctant to let somebody I’d just met mess around in my mind, but I was desperate to get my memories back, so I let all my barriers down as she searched for whatever the block was.  She did it with such ease, I’m almost envious, although she looked concerned about what she’d found. Apparently, Nollthep’s power comes from some sort of “Elder being.” As a bonus, she also put a protection spell on my mind, which I accepted with grace because my own natural defenses against mental influence are demonstrably insufficient in this world.  Or, maybe, my resistance is just wearing out after multiple assaults from exotic sources? That’s not a pleasant thought...

So, it’s starting to feel like I’ve dropped right into the middle of a multi-sided conflict over a relatively small patch of territory.  Between Faeries, sealed demons, at least one and possibly two old orders of protection, and whatever is behind Nollthep, there is a lot I’m going to need to learn about just to survive here.

Not too unlike the old days.

-Ash

#MOTW #Vulpin plays

[siribear]

come find me after you visit valentine.

valentine’s, she thinks, can wait until the storm passes.

alice enters diamond city, into where the baseball field used to be. now, instead, there are more constructed buildings packed together in concentric circles half-circles, following the walls of the stands. more buildings are situated up where the seats used to be, connected by scrap metal bridges and stairs. 

diamond city, above all else, is loud. not even above the rain pounding against the pavement, traders call out for customers desperate enough to be shopping as it pours. the awnings over the merchant stands shelter customers from the rain.

she passes by piper talking to a little girl in a smaller red jacket and pink dress. in what looks like a garage sits a printing press and a stack of newspapers. piper pats the girl (daughter? sister?) on the head before going inside. leaving alice still in the rain.

‘hey lady, you just gonna stand there?’

alice sidesteps to place herself just under the awning of the garage. ‘sorry, just trying to catch my bearings.’

the little girl snorts. ‘ten caps for dripping near the papers, miss.’ alice rolls her eyes and obliges. ‘my sister mentioned you. new to town?’

sister, then. ‘something like that.’

‘here.’ the girl hands her a copy of the ‘newspaper.’ though it’s mostly just a sheaf of paper and not the old boston bugle. ‘newest copy of the publick occurrences.’

 ‘the synthetic truth. huh, thanks, kid.’

‘name’s nat. and that’ll be another ten caps.’

-

so alice stands, again, in the rain, the newspaper over her head. rain slides off the paper and onto her shoulders, but at least it keeps her head dry. she takes two steps toward the center of the city before someone stops her.

‘looking to get out of the rain?’

she turns and squints through the sheets of rain. it’s the same guard who escorted her to diamond city. he holds a leather jacket over his head. ‘yeah, this place is, uh.. bigger than i’m used to.’

‘you’re lookin’ for the dugout inn,’ he says, and leads her down an alley opposite piper’s house. up to her right is an old construction lift that leads up past another row of houses to a building that overlooks the city. ‘up there’s the upper stands.’ he points to the houses. ‘and then the mayor’s office.’

he stops outside the dugout inn, appropriately named. a couple of empty chairs and tables sit outside. ‘best booze in town. they serve food, too, but everyone eats at power noodles. everyone.’

‘uh-huh,’ she says, nodding. ‘thanks again, officer.’

‘i’m off the clock. name’s sam.’ he holds out a hand. one side of his jacket-umbrella falls against his face but he shakes it off.

she does the same. ‘alice. join me for a few drinks?’

‘nah, gotta get home to the wife. take care of yourself out there. and welcome to the great, green jewel.’

-

the dugout inn is quiet, at least compared to the rain and merchants barking outside. there’s a small sitting area fitted with couches and chairs, and a bar that doubles as reception. a few patrons mingle about, most dry, though some look like they just came in from the rain as well.

‘hello!’ the bartender calls with a wave. his accent is heavy and his smile wide. ‘come, come. buy a drink.’

‘actually, i was looking for a place to stay. and get out of these,’ alice says, pulling at her wet clothes.

‘hmm.’ his smile falls, and he grumbles with no real malice. ‘talk to my brother, yefim. he’ll sell you a room.’

‘thank you. i’ll be back down to drink in a bit,’ she says with a wink.

thankfully, she doesn’t have to look far. yefim looks exactly like his brother, though much less cheerful. when she asks him for a room, he looks her over. ‘10 caps a night.’

alice hands over the caps with a cheery smile. ‘not a problem. thanks,’ she says when he gives her a set of keys carved with the room number.

the room itself is small and sparse. better than the worst hotel she’s ever been in, but definitely not the best. at least there’s a bed. she opens the dresser in the corner to find a long sleeved flannel shirt and pair of blue jeans. she sniffs - they smell more like dresser drawer than anything else, probably long unused. she sets it on the bed.

through another door is a small bathroom, big enough for a sink and mirror, a toilet, and a shower. at that, she strips, peeling off her drenched clothes in a rush. the cold water makes her gasp, but soon it rises to lukewarm. she finds a bar of soap on a ledge and scrubs, watching the water at her feet turn a mix of red and brown.

after the shower, she catches a glimpse of herself in the mirror and stops to stare. she’s thinner than she remembers being, cheekbones prominent against the bruises under her eyes. her hair’s gotten longer, light blonde spilling over her shoulders in waves. it occurs to her that the last time she really looked at herself in the mirror was just before the bombs fell, when she and nate were getting ready -

alice grips the edge of the sink and closes her eyes against the memory, the ghosting of his fingers on her skin. with a gasp, she comes back to reality, feeling sick to her stomach. can’t think about it now, she tells herself.

she hangs up her wet clothes on the towel rack and changes into the flannel shirt and jeans. at least aired out a little, it doesn’t smell as strong, and the scented soap covers the rest. she leaves her bag in the room, takes a pouch of caps, and returns to the inn lobby.

by the time she gets there, it’s packed with more people. some huddle around the jukebox, others are packed together on the couches, sharing stories and drinks. alice finds a place at the bar. this time, when she’s offered a drink, she accepts. the alcohol burns on its way down, and the bartender laughs at the face she makes.

‘enjoying bobrov’s best?’ he says, turning his attention back to the other patrons.

someone takes the seat next to her and orders his own drink. she pays him no attention until he throws her a casual hey.

she recognizes him, the guard from earlier, with the sunglasses. she leans back and uses her arms to hold herself up against the bar. ‘hey yourself. don’t have to keep the city safe from scary reporters anymore?’

he laughs, takes a sip from his drink. ‘just the one. enjoying the city?’

she reaches behind her to take a sip from her own drink. it still burns, but she’s expecting it this time. ‘i’ve only seen this place, so far. but it’s... different, from the little town i’m used to, that’s for sure.’ different from the baseball field, too. it’s strange - the population that should be spread out across boston all crammed into fenway park.

‘town, huh? not from a vault?’ the guard spins in his seat and taps her pipboy with a knuckle.

‘oh.’ she lifts it up. ‘no. picked this up on my way here. the one wearing it... didn’t make it.’

‘poor bastard.’

they raise their glasses. she drinks claire away.

‘what about you? your accent is different.’

he grins; she raises an eyebrow. ‘you know how it is. ran away from home, traveled with some caravans, ended up here. thought i’d make something of myself.’

‘respectable, choosing to be a guard. seems just as easy to become a raider.’

his face is unreadable behind those damn sunglasses. ‘yeah. so, what do you need valentine for?’

‘hm. you’re full of questions, aren’t you?’

‘we like to know what kind of people are coming into the city,’ he says with a shrug. ‘can’t be too cautious, these days.’

‘i’m getting the feeling that’s true no matter where you go.’ she twirls a strand of hair between her fingers.

‘and valentine?’

‘you’ll have to buy me another drink for that one, officer,’ she says.

‘afraid that’s out of an officer’s pay, ma’am.’

she finishes off her drink. ‘too bad for you, then.’

a shout from the door draws the attention of the room, alice included. a man walks in, hand raised in a wave. ‘vadim! how’s it going?’

‘hawthorne!’ vadim returns, accent heavy on the h. he leans over the bar, forcing alice to shift to the side. in that short distraction, the guard sitting next to her has disappeared. ‘it has been too long, my friend.’

‘too long,’ hawthorne agrees, taking the offered cup. he doesn’t even flinch after taking a drink. ‘you would not believe the things i’ve been hearing out there, man.’

‘going to try to beat my mirelurk story?’

‘easy. try the minutemen coming back. i was going to make a few caps up north, but i guess things are turning around up there.’ alice shifts in her seat.

‘bah.’ glasses rattle when he slaps the bar. ‘rumors.’

‘well, how about - ’

‘wait, hawthorne?’ alice asks. hawthorne looks toward her. ‘i have a letter for you.’ at an eyebrow raise, she adds, ‘from lucy abernathy.’ she retrieves the letter from her room right across from the lobby.

‘lucy? good to know she’s doing well.’ he tucks the letter in the pocket of his jeans. ‘you part of a caravan?’

‘minuteman,’ she says with a wink. ‘not just rumors about us coming back, by the way. we’re set up in sanctuary and everything.’

‘told you.’

vadim groans. ‘fine. drink’s on me. for you, too, then.’

she holds up a hand. ‘i’m fine, thanks.’ scanning the shelves, she adds, ‘a nuka-cola instead?’

vadim passes her a bottle, along with the caps she paid for her earlier drink. the soda is cold, but flat, once she pops it open and drinks. she pockets the bottle cap. ‘any more rumors?’

‘have you heard about salem?’ hawthorne begins. alice picks up her nuka cola bottle and makes the short walk back to her room.

-

there are no dreams that night. there are memories of a familiar bar, dancing with nate, taking him back to her place, his hands on her slow and nervous. waking up to him sleeping next to her in the morning.

the memory fades. she wakes up alone.

#oc: alice ward #siri drabbles #series: we will all go together when we go #deacon wasn't even supposed to be in this part #but he refused to go away #not keen on the ending but alas

[pcrks]

01. TOMMY SCHULTZ twenty-one • pace student & twitch streamer • nicholas galitzine

introduction a mathematics student with too much time on his hands and not enough goals to keep himself busy • born in wisconsin but moved to new york for school (and to get away from his family) • has adapted fairly well to the city despite being from a small town • was living with his ex-girlfriend for the past three years before she finally gave him the boot • they only dated for a year so it was to be expected, but he really misses his cats • made a twitch account nearly six months ago and has committed himself to the idea that he can make it big • a genuinely nice guy that just wants to play video games, solve equations, and eat his weight in ramen • a bit of a pushover, will do just about anything someone asks of him if they don’t appear to have bad intentions • good at making friends on the fly, not so great at keeping up with plans and remembering important dates

connections his ex-girlfriend • fellow pace students • friends he’s made through twitch • a friend group formed thanks to a shared love of video games • fellow transplants from the midwest • girls he’s chatted up but never got around to asking out because he’s been living with his ex and he was making an effort to respect her space • people that have/will abuse his niceness and willingness to help

02. RUBÉN SANDOVAL twenty-two • nyu student • xavier serrano

introduction a beautiful airhead • born and raised in manhattan, has never really stepped foot outside of it unless he had a very good reason (like a hook-up) • absolutely obsessed with any form of social media that allows him to flaunt his body • catch him in a few tiktok cringe compilations on youtube biting his lip and dancing shirtless • only made it into nyu because his parents worked a bit of magic behind closed doors, only picked business as his major because his father terrifies him • a phi kappa legacy that doesn’t understand greek life but thinks it makes him even more superior to your run of the mill nyu student • thinks he’s god’s gift to womankind • respects boundaries but only if they’re brought up repeatedly • idolizes leonardo dicaprio’s ability to pull models in their early twenties despite being in his mid-forties • has adapted a woke persona in the hopes that it will also allow him to pull models in their early twenties • doesn’t have any real talent or skill and makes up for it by maintaining a flawless exterior

connections older sister • it girl group • phi kappa brothers and other greek members • fellow nyu students • other wealthy, privileged kids that don’t do anything productive • past, present, and future hookups • numerous ex-girlfriends • old money rivals • fellow man whores

03. GABRIELLE MORETTI thirty-two • art dealer • adelaide kane cw: abuse

introduction the hades to her brothers’ poseidon and zeus • new york native and has never left unless it was to travel abroad • had a difficult childhood (see: massive parental expectations and a bruising cheek if those expectations weren’t met) • has learned to do well under pressure because of her father and refuses to acknowledge or speak about what happened behind closed doors when she was younger • obtained a degree in art history from columbia just to spite her parents • columbia? great • art history? not so great • has done extremely well for herself as an art dealer to well-known celebrities and other high-uppers in new york • dreams of opening up her own art gallery one day but dreams are for the weak • extremely protective of her brothers and will do anything she can to see that they’re happy • with everyone else, she can be quite stern and to the point • doesn’t have time for games and she’ll push anyone to the wayside who tries to get her to play them

connections fellow columbia alumni • artists & buyers she’s worked with • friends and acquaintances of the moretti family • a few friends she’s grown close to in adulthood • childhood friends she grew apart from • a handful of past hookups • a few exes of any gender

04. ADRIAN BERGMAN twenty-one • columbia student • arón piper cw: abuse, parental death

introduction biology student at columbia • noble in the church of the basilisk • one half of a set of fraternal twins that were raised by a single father after their mother passed during childbirth • had an idyllic childhood from the outside looking in but was subjected to a lot of emotional abuse and trauma when his father was actually around • raised primarily in new york city by paid staff but lived in germany with his paternal grandparents for a few months at a time every so often when his father was busy with work and everyone had quit • has a difficult time opening up unless he’s around his twin sister, who is his better half in all aspects • extremely power hungry and willing to do anything it takes to get what he wants • some might call him heartless but he’s not entirely, he just has few things he truly cares about • has yet to decide on a career path which only infuriates his father • smart as a whip with a sarcastic, bordering on cruel, sense of humor • has no time for relationships but all of the time to play games with people’s feelings

connections his fraternal twin sister • the church of the basilisk members • other columbia secret society members • power plays group • childhood friends he’s grown distant from • current friends, if you can call them that • exes of any gender from when he actually attempted to maintain relationships • past, present, and future lovers • fellow columbia students • distant cousins & other family members

#notoriousrp #c. tommy schultz #c. ruben sandoval #c. gabrielle moretti #c. adrian bergman #did i copy and paste from my previous post on adrian? yes

[foxrun-fluffery]

The Greatest Distance

Summary: Thorin’s company is displaced in time by Gandalf, due to an emergency. They land in front of country girl Piper and her son. After recognizing them, mostly, she realizes that in no way can they be left on their own in this modern world, and now she has to cope with some of the strangest house guests ever!

OC/Canon ship to develop.

Tag List: @sdavid09, @fallnangelcreations

CHAPTER THREE

READ FROM BEGINNING | PREVIOUS CHAPTER | NEXT CHAPTER

A pillow fight and a drink with a king

Hours after everyone was fed, dressed in new clothes, Piper had let Riordan out to play in the yard, and he had dragged Fili, Kíli, and Ori out to play kickball, Piper went on to climb up to the little attic and bring down spare bedding, realizing that she might have house guests for some time. She pulled the ladder down from the ceiling door when she heard someone coming up. Seeing Bofur, in his brown flannel shirt and khaki pants, she grinned. He had kept his hat and scarf, and his gloves and boots, but the rest he had put aside for now. “Hey, Bofur. Whatcha need?”

“Jus’ came t’ give ye a hand if ye need it.” He replied, walking over to her. “Ah, that’s a good little hidey hole!”

“Mm? Oh it’s just attic storage. Spare stuff and whatnot.”

Bofur nodded, eyeing the construction of the folding ladder. Interesting. “I see. Did yer husband build it?”

Piper chuckled and shook her head. “My grandparents built this place. Then my parents had it, and we lost them two years ago, so I inherited it.”

“Oh! My condolences then.” Bofur took his hat off, holding it to his chest as he gave her a slight bow. “It’s a very nice place.”

She smiled, amused. “Thank you. I loved coming to visit here when my grandparents still lived here,” she explained as she climbed up the ladder. “Never expected to own it though. Guess it was logical, I mean, we paid off the land fairly early and my parents finished the few payments on the house my grandparents couldn’t make. So it was all paid up by the time mom and dad moved in.” Her voice faded some as she reached the top of the stairs, but she returned to peer down at him. “I’m gonna toss down blankets, ok?”

“O’ course!” He agreed, holding his arms out. “So your husband didn’t build a home for you?”

“Haven’t got a husband. Never married.” Came her muffled voice before a pile of dusty blankets dropped down on him.

“Wha—!?” Bofur started to question her but the dust got sucked into his lungs and he started coughing. When he looked up again, he spotted her head hanging out of the doorway, with a humored grin, and she giggled when she saw him looking at her. “Aye, just laugh at ol’ Bofur! Don’t mind me down here dyin’!”

“Oh, don’t be so dramatic!” She rolled her eyes, but was still chuckling. “Just dust!” Another pile of blankets and some pillows came tumbling down after that. One caught the dwarf in the face and he yelped and had thrown it back at her before he realized what he had done. Luckily she took it in good humor and began aiming pillows at him. It wasn’t long until most of the pillows were in a disarrayed pile around Bofur and they were both laughing. Piper was bringing the last few down the ladder when she stepped on the corner of a blanket draped over the rung. It slid and she went sprawling with a loud yelp, confused when she felt herself caught by strong arms. “Oof!”

Bofur, pinned under the woman, her legs across his chest, his arm behind her back in a desperate attempt to prevent her from striking her head on anything, winced when her shoe that had fallen off in the tumble, was wedged in his back. He was supporting her mid back, her rather nice rump on his shoulder, and he just smiled up at her. “Ye a’righ’?”

“Uh… yeah, yeah I am.” Surprised at their situation, she looked around, glad he appeared uninjured, if a touch squished.

Up the stairs thundered a number of dwarves, and they rounded upon the two heaped on the floor. Piper was looking up at the ladder, while trying to detangle herself from Bofur.

“I’ve never fallen on that… crazy.” Shaking her head, she looked back to see the crowd of dwarves, and gladly accepted Bifur’s offered hand as she stood. “Thanks, and thank you, Bofur. I bet you save me from getting hurt.”

The miner just grinned from his spot on the floor and reached behind him, handing her back the shoe. Everyone else but Bofur and Bifur gathered up blankets and pillows and carted them down to the den.

“For a dwarf who was nearly flattened, you look quite pleased.” Bifur smirked at his cousin, speaking of course in Khuzdul.

“You’re awfully mouthy!” Bofur shot back with a wide grin. Still, as much as he didn’t want to draw attention to the fact his cousin was right, he couldn’t even try to deny it.

Bifur reaches down and clasped his arm with Bofur, pulling the other dwarf to his feet. As Bofur swept his dislodged hat from the floor, dusting it off as though that might actually accomplish something, the older dwarf shook his head. “She’s married, cousin. Else how did she have that boy?”

There was a twinkle of light in Bofur’s eyes. “She’s not. Never has been.” He shrugged, unable to help the grin that was starting to spread on his face. “Even Gandalf said things were different here. Maybe it’s not unusual?” He sad, seeing the skepticism in Bifur’s face. “Ye know I’d be de last t’ judge.” When he had been near Fíli’s age, he had a wild streak in him that had involved certain ladies of a particular employment. No dwarven female would ever work thusly, so they had been females of the race of men.

The axe-headed dwarf heaved a breath and shook his head. “And here I thought you just had a particular taste in females!”

Scoffing, Bofur reached out to playfully cuff his cousin on the shoulder. “Hey now!” They both chuckled and made their way downstairs. Though at the top of the stairs they had heard a commotion, not one of any sort of panic or ill-naturdeness, and by the time they had come down and around the corner of the short hall leading to the den, they came into sight of an epic battle. Of pillows.

Riordan seemed to be the instigator in all of it. The young lad shrieked and giggled, laughing at he swung his pillow at unexpected nimble dwarves. Oin and Balin has wisely stepped away into the dining room adjacent this open room. Dwalin was standing guard in front of a glass case with fancy knick knacks, while Dori had been stationed in front of a large black rectangular thing. Kíli and Fíli were running about, both avoiding pillows either swung or thrown at them by the boy. Ori and Nori were whacking each other and occasionally Gloin. What surprised the two coming into this scene was Thorin was crouched, pillows in hand, jousting with Riordan as he came by.

As stoic and majestic as the king was, he has helped raise his nephews, and did greatly enjoy children’s antics and playfulness. Even if he didn’t get to indulge often now that the boys were grown.

“Where’s Bombur?” Bofur asked after a moment of watching the group playing.

“Went to the washroom.” Dwalin said, his eyes tracking the small child, even he was grinning. With so few dwarrowdams, a child was precious. Even in these strange circumstances, it did the hearts of the company good to see the boy, so full of innocent laughter and lightheartedness. Though they didn’t know it yet, this was turning out to be just the break they needed, better even than when they all nearly destroyed Bag End.

Wincing a little, Bofur turned and started towards the hall. “Which is…?”

“Two doors to the right, yeah down that hall.” Piper grinned at him, pointing him in the direction of the bathroom. She was promptly distracted by the backswing of Nori’s pillow as he tried to get his brother, and had hit her in the face behind him. This started a scuffle, that the woman gladly joined in. The dwarves, while accepting, were mindful of the woman and child.

With a grin at them, Bofur walked away to check on his brother. Whom he found just stepping out of the bathroom, with a disturbed expression. “What happened?”

“It’s pourin’ water everywhere!” Bombur hissed in quiet panic. He pushed the door open to show the water running out of the toilet bowl. “What do we do?!”

Bofur ran in, ignoring the splashing of his heavy boots. He gave the strange toilet a quick look over, not recognizing how exactly the device worked. “Mahal’s beard…” Turning to his brother with a helpless look, he shrugged, a gesture which Bombur repeated.

Soon Dwalin peered around the corner, rolling his eyes. “You two imbeciles are messin’ up the lass’s house!” He growled at them, shaking his head. Of course they were already making trouble. “Fix it!”

“We can’t!”

Gradually one after another, a dwarf disappeared from the romping about, until there were only a few left, and Piper, realizing something was going wrong, looked about. Where had they all gone? Then she followed the sounds of poorly hushed whispers, and found them crowded around the bathroom, and backed up toilet. One had the lid to the tank in his hand, and she had to muffle a laugh at the panicked expressions, and the pile of towels they were using to sop up the seemingly endless mess.

“Okay, okay! Boys! BOYS!” She called over the anything but quiet whispering. Going to the sink, she pulled the plunger from the cabinet, “Let me at it.” And in a few minutes she had taught most of the company of Thorin, how to plunge a toilet. Shooting the dwarves off to the den, she got the rest of the mess cleaned up, and bleached.

“Quite sorry about all of this, Mrs. Morgan,” came a quiet voice from the doorway. Bilbo smiled politely when she turned to him, just as she was putting things away. “They did rather the same to my toilet, with less of a… puddle.” He grimaced. “I hate to think what it may look like now.”

Piper chuckled, walking over to him. He was just the size of her boy, so finding clothes for him had simply meant giving him Riordan’s nice outfit. “I bet you’ll get it sorted just fine. You seem quite ingenious, and from what I hear of hobbits, there’s not much that can stop a hobbit from making a fine home.”

Under her praise, Bilbo stood to his full height, looking quite self satisfied. “Bag End is very much a fine home, if I do say so myself. I doubt it would be possible, but for whatever it means, I would very much like to show it to you. You’ve opened your home to us, Mrs. Morgan, it would only be fair.” He hesitated a moment before grinning, a touch of playful humor glinting in his merry eyes. “Though, perhaps after I’ve repaired my plumbing first.”

The woman laughed and gently clapped him on the shoulder. “I appreciate that, I really do, Mr. Baggins.”

“Bilbo, please.” He insisted.

She grinned at him, “Only if you call me Piper. And it would be miss, anyway. I never married.” Seeing his look of surprise she chuckled, “Different social structure. A woman doesn’t have to marry, not even to enjoy a man’s company.” She waited, amused by his further shock. “I’m not some wild party girl, but I did… get a little wasted and had a very good time. Rio’s a bit of a souvenir from that. It was tough at first, but I love my little boy, wouldn’t change history if I could.” There was a warm sort of smile on her face.

The hobbit fought to remind himself that this was a different time and a different world, but he saw the look of love on her face, and he smiled. “I can see how much you love him. I may be grown now, but seeing you two makes me miss my own mother.”

Piper smiled at him, nodding slightly, unable to deny she missed hers as well. “My parents died in an accident. I hate that Rio doesn’t have a grandma to spoil him, I hate not having her around to ask her advice. But… I hope she’d be proud of us.”

“I also lost my parents in an accident,” Bilbo looked up at her, the two sharing a moment of sympathy.

“Hey, c’mon, why don’t you come help me fix up a batch of tea, and you can tell me about your parents.” Piper motioned for him to follow her to the kitchen, a nice large kitchen with a bay window and long curved counter, double ovens, central island stovetop, deep sinks, and a number of nice contraptions.

A broad smile spreading on his face, Bilbo nodded, “I’d be happy to! And you must tell me about your family in return.”

And so the two went off to fix up tea, and a good sized plate of Milano cookies, for the company. By the time they had tea and snacks, the others had set up a living space for themselves and the absent hobbit, Bofur once more looking out for his little friend. All of her guests were happy to have a cup of tea, and they calmed from their bustling and joking about to sit and drink, even if a number of them would have rather had ale or the like, they weren’t going to turn down a freely offered cup. They took this time to chat amicably with their hostess, many telling her something about themselves, and answering her questions.

“This is quite nice!” Dori chirped up after a few sips. “What is it?”

“Orange spiced chai.” Piper replied as she sipped her own tea, now and then watching Riordan, who was laying across one of the dwarves’ claimed spots, on the supplied bedding, sound asleep. He had crashed after the pillow fight, when the plumbing disaster had struck.

Balin, quite enjoying this milk tea, looked up, licking his lip still, and spoke softly so as not to wake the boy. “Miss Piper, while we appreciate that you’ve taken us in, more than you could know, lass, dwarves are very hard to house and feed. You’ve already had to buy what I imagine was a great deal more food than you two would eat, and we seem to have made a mess of your toilet. Which I’m relieved could be repaired so easily.” He saw her starting to object, and held his hand up to hold her off for a moment. “There must be some way we can either make ourselves useful, or somehow take the financial burden off of you.”

Understanding how he, and likely the others, felt, Piper contemplated his words for a few moments. “Well… I had been thinking of going back into my grandpa’s trade. He was a logger, sold firewood mostly, to people who couldn’t go out to get their own. We’ve still got his equipment, and this place could use some tree thinning. A few good loads should give us some funds to keep you all fed.”

“Logging? Like some kind of—” Dwalin was cut off by his king.

“That would be perfect. We’ve felled trees before, at least some of us. It’s a good trade, and we can work fast.” Thorin said with a sense of finality. They had to do something to earn their keep. And it was highly unlikely they could use their skills that they were more accustomed to. He had neither seen nor heard mention of a forge. “We are smiths, miners, toy makers, and the like, but we can easily adapt to becoming woodsmen.”

“Typically we use the term woodcutter, but that works.” Piper assured him. “I dunno if you’ll be here long enough, but in two weeks we’re having a market sale, handcrafted items and such. I’m bringing my decorated candles to sell.”

“Yer a candle maker then?” Bofur asked, curiously, his eyes lighting up to hear she too worked handcrafts.

“As a hobby, I enjoy it.” Piper got up and walked around to a bookshelf, pulling down a colorful intricately carved and shaped candle. “See? I make these sort of things. People like to buy them for parties and special occasions, since we have electric lights.”

“The magic lights you mean?” Ori piped up, pointing up to the ceiling light. It wasn’t any sort of fancy chandelier, but a simple round glass covered light.

“Magic… well I suppose it might look like magic, but they’re far from. It’s electricity, uhm… kind of like harnessed lightning? Well… it’s created by machines mostly, but yeah.” Piper pursed her lips, the way they were learning she did when she wasn’t certain how to explain something.

“There is a lot of your world that is strange to us.” Balin smiled kindly. “We understand, it’s difficult to explain things one might take for granted.”

“Exactly!” Piper cried with a sense of relief, a bright smile dawning on her face as she felt pleased he understood her horrible attempts at trying to help them understand. “A lot of it is things I’ve never thought I’d have to explain, I don’t even understand how it works myself. The more developed we, as a society become, the more complex machinery and technology becomes. I’ve kept up with some of it, mostly what applies to my work, but I can’t tell you how everything works.” She half shrugged. “Happy to explain what I can,” she offered, tacking quickly on, “Within reason and not constantly,” as she looked over, seeing Ori had his mouth open already, and he snapped it shut sheepishly. “But for now, let’s take it slow and see if we can make this all work for us, okay? I bet you guys are all turned around and messed up, this can’t be easy for you!”

Bofur stood straighter, just slightly, feeling a surge of what he could only imagine was pride, perhaps a touch of happiness, to hear her so concerned about them like that. “Aye, ‘tis no’ an easy nor comfortable journey for us, but we’re lucky t’ have ye, lass.”

“Mmm say that when you see me tomorrow before I have my coffee.” She teased him. Her mind flitted about to how she would feed them the next day and what to do after that, so thankful she worked at home.

Thorin seemed to recede into his own thoughts, sitting on the sofa, watching everyone around him quietly. How long would they be stranded there? He was itching to continue his quest, his impatience allayed only by the remembering of the wizards words. They would return mere seconds after they had left. Still, to be interrupted so soon after beginning the journey! They had hardly left Bree, but four days ago. He couldn’t help but feel this did not bode well for the rest of the journey. After a moment he felt eyes on him, and looked up to find their hostess looking at him while the others had broken off into quiet conversations of their own. He was startled to see that she had a sort of encouraging expression, as if by some strange magic she could understand his thoughts. Then she made a subtle motion with her head for him to follow and she rose, excusing herself, and slipped away to the kitchen.

Waiting for the king, Piper pulled the step stool over and climbed up to reach her liquor cabinet. Heading his heavy steps and he walked in, she pointed over her shoulder, “Grab a couple glasses, huh?” Then she pulled down a bottle of old scotch she used to drink with her grandfather. It was still a favorite of hers, though she didn’t drink it very often anymore. “My grandfather and I used to drink this together, whenever I needed to get something off my chest.” Hopping down lightly, she went to fill the glasses. “You look like you need to say something.”

Thorin watched her for a moment, contemplating her offer. He picked up his glass when she did, and brought it to his face, first smelling the contents. His brows rose, and he looked down at the dark amber liquid. Bringing it to his lips he sipped it first, appreciating the slow burn and the spicy flavor, though the sweet after taste was a pleasant surprise to him. “You claim that our world is a story in yours. Tell me of it.”

“I can’t.” Piper replied in an adamant tone. “I wish I could, but I can’t.”

Raising a brow, Thorin lowered the glass, his eyes darkening in a faint scowl. “Can’t, or won’t?”

The woman sighed, cradling her half-filled glass in her hands. “Both? I can’t let myself tell you something that could possibly change the outcome, I won’t hurt your world. We have a theory in our world, called the Butterfly Effect. I don’t remember the exact details about it, but it’s something how the wings of a butterfly on one side of the world can cause a hurricane on the other.”

“Mmm… the echoing anvil. It’s not unique to your world.” Thorin nodded. He hated it, but he understood what she meant. “You fear telling us anything would become disastrous.”

Piper nodded, “I will tell you this much, the tales on your world do not stop with your time. There are other great tales, epic stories, or rather events for you. That will matter greatly to many, human, elf, and dwarf alike. I can’t tell you anything that would change your decisions now, because it could change even the littlest of details, which might have bigger repercussions in the future.” Her eyes met his imploringly, and she watched his expression as he thought it over, gradually softening.

Thorin sighed, taking a slow drink once more. “Very well. I will not push you on the matter further.” He relented, for now recognizing that she had a point. It didn’t, however, mean he wouldn’t try to find out information in other ways. He would speak with some of the others and work with them to discern as much as they could before they left.

“Besides,” Piper added, “It’s all written up as a story, who knows what details were changed to make it a better one.” She gave one of her half shrugs, and glanced towards the doorway. “I think I can tell you one thing, though, if you swear you won’t repeat it.”

“On my grandfather’s throne, I swear I shall not.” Thorin answered immediately, and he meant it.

“Gloin’s boy, Gimli? He will be a part of a great adventure, and do many wondrous things.” She told him in a soft voice, to be sure it didn’t carry to the other room.

Thorin’s brows rose again, and he glanced to the doorway before chuckling. “That dwarf is so proud of his lad. I’m sure he’ll be insufferable if that comes to pass.” He looked back at her, “I caution you not to mention his family unless you have an hour or more to spare.” The two shared a laugh, and finished their drinks to lighter talk of logging and what equipment she had to do it with, until Riordan had woken, and had convinced some of the others to go play outside, teaching them the finer points of kickball.

Meanwhile, Piper and Bombur, who was happy to volunteer his aid, worked on making dinner. She had bought, not long ago, very large roast, that she intended to cut up into smaller portions that evening, and store away in her freezer. But it seemed a perfect meal for the dwarves now. Plus she had a large box of potatoes in her pantry and they soon had the roast, cut in half, baking in the twin ovens. Bombur was delighted by them, and looked longingly at the devices. If only he had something like that to use! The potatoes were set to boil, and Bilbo had joined them, and he and Bombur debated seasonings, looking over the spice rack that Piper had.

When she stepped out to check on everyone, she found Oin had curled up on her couch for a nap, and Balin was perusing her bookshelf, holding one of her father’s old books about car repair. A certain set of books weren’t there, so she didn’t worry about him stumbling across anything he shouldn’t. Then she went to the window to watch the antics in her yard. Thorin and Dwalin had gone off to look at the trees on her property, to best discern which would sell well, she had indicated that there was a good sized stand of tamaracks near the back. The rest of the dwarves were happily engaged in what was becoming quite the unusual game of kickball. Shaking her head, she was amazed at the very strange turn her life had taken.

Then she turned her head when she heard muttering from the kitchen, in that language she didn’t know. Coming back, she found Bifur had joined them, but he was hiding something in his big hands, and was visibly upset. “What’s wrong?” She hurried over, hoping to help.

Bombur sighed, “Ah, lass. Seems me cousin sort of got carried away tryin’ t’ figure out how yer lad’s toy worked and… he can’t seem t’ fix it.”

Bifur turned to her, actual tears in his eyes, holding the little broken toy fire engine. He said something in a softer tone, glancing to Bombur to translate.

“He says he’s very sorry, an’ would like t’ make it up t’ ye somehow.” Bombur informed her, his accent not quite as thick as his brother’s but definitely there.

Piper saw the little bits of broken plastic, and quickly guessed the dwarf had never seen the likes of it, only to find it more brittle than he realized. She smiled, scooping it all up and dropping it in the trash can. “Don’t worry about it, accidents are bound to happen, and it was just a little toy Rio’s mostly grown tired of anyway.”  Looking back at the language-bound dwarf, she saw there was still distress in his eyes, so she stepped up to him and took one of his large calloused hands in hers. “Tell you what, Bofur mentioned earlier you were a toy maker, so I’m guessing that’s what had you curious about this toy.” He rapid nod had her lips quirking into a smile. “Well then, why don’t you make him something unique to replace it? Then he’ll always have something to remember his new dwarven friends by.”

Bifur’s face lit up with her words, and he spoke, excited and animated, before he swept her into a nearly crushing hug, and dashed away to get his tools.

Piper ran to the doorway after him, calling out, “There’s a big oak behind the house, if you want to use that!” She turned back to find the strangest look on Bombur’s face. He seemed to happy, but his face was scrunched up with tears in his eyes. “Bombur?”

“Oh, lass, ye… he jus’... tha’ was very kind of ye.” With a sniffle, he turned back to the quiet hobbit and the boiling pot of potatoes. As he stirred them, he was smiling, seeing Bifur from the kitchen window, already running out to the oak tree and inspecting it. Yes, a kind lass indeed. As strange as their stay here was, he wasn’t too displeased by it. “Ah, lass, have we cream?”

“Hmm… just condensed milk in a can.” Piper replied, before quickly realizing she had more explaining to do. If someone calls me Lucy, I’m gonna scream.

While she was doing that, she missed a little pack of dwarves sneaking curiously into her garden shed…

Next Chapter

#TheGreatestDistance #TheHobbit #Thorin #Bofur #Bifur #Bombur #Balin #Dwalin #oC #Etc etc etc #Tale Teller’s Plot Bunny Challenge 2019

[diveronarpg]

Congratulations, GREY! You’ve been accepted for the role of BENVOLIO with an FC change to FRANCISCO LACHOWSKI. Admin Rosey: Benvolio is a multi-faceted character who, in my opinion, is one of the most difficult to capture in a single application. There are so many different ways to pull him and he will cry out against all of them. Whether you wish to bloody his hands, have him save a Capulet, or send him away from the city again; all of them end in tragedy, all of them are never quite right. But Grey, in your application you managed to get to the very quick of his character. You gave him a distinct voice and an even more distinct heart. I can’t wait to have you ruin us all with him. Please read over the checklist and send in your blog within 24 hours.

WELCOME TO THE MOB.

Out of Character

Alias | Grey

Age | 31

Preferred Pronouns | She/Her

Activity Level | Currently I’m off work on extended medical leave (unknown end date), so mostly don’t have any major claims on my time and should be able to be around most days. With that said, medical issues and meds will crop up from time to time. Once I return to work, I work 3-4 days a week, so will still have multiple days a week free.

Timezone | Australian Eastern Standard Time (AEST/GMT +10)

How did you find the rp?  | Rogue seduced me over, so blame her for everything please

Current/Past RP Accounts | Bellavie (from a very short-lived rp) -  I’ve also played with Rogue in several places over the years.

In Character

Character | Benvolio / Bellamy Santa-Domingo. Preferred FC of Francisco Lachowski.

         ✧ Bellamy ⟶ What’s in a name? For Bellamy, a wealth of self-discovery, definitions laid out ahead of him at birth, a path his feet have never wavered from. Fine Friend his mother called him, and perhaps bought upon them all their disappointment in his gentility with a name bereft of the thorns they so coveted. Fine Friend he was named, and so he lives, a shoulder for everyone’s burden while he struggles solitary with his own.

         ✧ Santa-Domingo ⟶ Saint of the Lord, he is labelled; baptised in the blood of his family, the holy mandate by which his father demands respect. What is a saint, after all but someone to venerate, to esteem, graced by God? But Bellamy knows that that is but the least of what a saint is, for saints are pained and fragile things burned in holy fire, martyrs all; sacrificial lambs to the glory of God — and the truest god his family bends knee to is that known as Montague.

        ✧ Benvolio ⟶ Thrice he is named and the third feels like a lie, ashes on his brow. Well-wisher they call him, Benevolence — yet they would ask him to be anything but. He feels the hollowness of the name as Damiano settles it on his shoulders, the calculated sop to his reluctance and he wonders how long he will be allowed to keep the illusion of truth before he must sacrifice it on Damiano’s altar, how long before the name is nothing but mocking contempt of the perceived weakness of his dream ( he knows too well how often in war softness becomes synonymous with weakness ).

What drew you to this character? | Benvolio was the first of the open characters I read, and I think that reading is probably what tipped me from considering the rp for the future to immediately applying. Even as I read through the rest of the open characters, I kept returning to the tab with his bio in it. While I did briefly consider Halcyon instead, I think my choice was pre-determined from the start.

Bellamy touches a lot tropes that I love to play with; Rogue once summed up one of my main types as ‘Damaged boys with daddy issues’ and on that Bellamy is almost a solid bullseye, the tragic figure of Atlas carrying everyone else’s burdens. There are conflicts within him, conflicts and contradictions that pull him in different directions, forcing him to play a delicate, and exhausting, balancing act in order to keep himself whole. Criminal yet cop, loyal yet selfish, duty yet refusal, peaceful yet fighter, ideals yet realistic — the inability to reconcile the disparate portions of himself leaves him feeling hollow with self-loathing as he counts his sins ten times over and values his virtues at half their rate.  Bellamy has ever been thus, a duality at war with himself; as play-Mercutio says: “Nay, an there were two [of you], we should have none shortly, for one would kill the other!”

APatroclus saddled with two Achilles to save from their own divinity, Bellamy is irredeemably entangled with his closest friends, unfailingly loyal and dependable. Roman and Marcello are his heart and soul, his very being — and yet he left. Oh, he came back, and the texts and emails flew thick and fast in his absence, yet still, he left, leaving them bereft in the middle of war. An abandonment — necessary, yes, but ultimately selfish, running to save himself without those who he would gladly lay down his life for.

Yet Benvolio’s biggest contradictions, deepest complexities lie in the very area that most would dismiss as his simplest aspect: his kindness, his softness, his gentility. So often, these traits are those that people write off, dismiss as naïveté or innocence, chalk up to an ignorance or blindness of the darkness of the world. Bellamy is none of those things, was never given the luxury of being unaware. Even as a child, the war shaped his life; even as a youth he knew too much of blood and cruelness and the rotted heart of Verona.  

No, Bellamy is not kind out of some innate inability to see otherwise, some childlike artlessness that means he could never be aught else — he chooses to be kind, he chooses to trust; and he does it in the full and grim understanding that doing so is the emotional equivalent of sticking your hand in the fire and asking it not to burn you. He chooses it because it allows him to live with himself, wears it as an armour that keeps him from breaking, because whatever cost he pays in scars for that gentility, however much he kicks himself for an idiot when it blows up in his face… if he chose otherwise would he ever be able to find his way back?

Likewise many dismiss his voice when he raises it for peace — idealist they call him, young they scoff at him, yet sometimes Benvolio feels like he’s the only one at all who sees. They celebrate victory while he counts bodies, count winnings while he watches the city crumble. He wonders when they all stopped seeing people and started seeing gold instead, when costs stopped being about finance and were first paid in blood. Could they not see that this tragedy was leading nowhere, that this tit-for-tat, blood-for-blood would only end with all of them blind? Could they not see that they were past the point where a victory could be anything more than Pyrrhic?

A warrior for peace; an absurd idea really, almost hypocritical, almost oxymoronic in nature, and yet, and yet — Benvolio learned, as the war poets learned ( battered paperbacks of Owen and Sassoon accompany him around the world, the margins slowly filled with all manner of scrawled notes in different colours of ink ) that people will dismiss the words of a non-combatant as cowardly, that only by engaging in the very thing they wished to end could they earn the right to speak out against it, that only by speaking from alongside them would the war-torn hear his voice. And so he takes his place in the trenches, stands shoulder to shoulder with his comrades and tries not to think too much about what they do, so that, one day, he will be able to end it for all. If the cost for the whole of Verona is his own blood spilled, his own soul crushed, how can he refuse to pay it? And yet how can he survive its paying?

What is a future plot idea you have in mind for the character? |

✘ dulce et decorum est, pro patria mori⟶  ( price of duty )

Sitting in that airport, staring down at his phone as it rang, Mama picked out on the screen, his thumb hovered over the red end call button as he fought with despair. He could go, he knew, could let the message go to voice mail and answer the boarding call for his flight instead, jump another flight at the other end and head to the Andes, the Sahara, the Australian Outback. Say he hadn’t gotten the message, had been out of signal range. It would be easy, simple.

He’d plead conscientious objector to get out four years ago, but now the piper has come due. He answers the phone ( had it always been this heavy? ) halfway through the final ring and allows himself to be conscripted.

Bellamy has always been dutiful, responsible, loyal. Innately, intrinsically, he puts his duties and friends ahead of himself time and again, often at the cost of his own self, his own soul. A soldier in a war he despises, fighting a battle he despairs of no matter the outcome, Bellamy is quickly approaching the point where duty and ideals will clash more and more heavily, where he will no longer be able to wiggle through loopholes or forge a middle path. One day, war and duty and loyalty will push him, without mercy or respite, to the moment he dreads most, will require him to do something he doesn’t know if he’s capable of living with.

His hands are going to get dirty, and he fears he’s too brittle to survive it ( he fears he may not have as much issue with it as he should ).

✘ i would know him in death, at the end of the world ⟶ ( friends )

They are many and yet one, together and undivided since a time of vague memories and impressions. Bellamy doesn’t remember meeting Roman or Marcello, can’t recall a time when they weren’t sashaying into trouble together. Their bond is inviolate, one of the surest things in Bellamy’s life and by far the most precious.

They have always been inseparable — and yet they separated.

Bellamy parted them, and when he came back there was a harshness to the light inside his friends, as though the warm light of the sun had turned to nuclear glow; the fires of war. ( He wonders if that will be him in a couple of years. ) There are cracks in all of them now, cracks in their souls and their bond, even as they pass the whiskey bottle between themselves and try to pretend that nothing has changed.

Bellamy blames himself. He left, he thinks, and that laid the first crack between them. Now, he struggles to deal with that betrayal as he sees it, trying to amend for it by taking more and more for his friends, his brothers, while squashing all his own needs ( pretends he is naught but the balm and bandage as he bleeds out himself ) — how could he ask them for aught, now?

Cracks can be fixed, but Bellamy needs to learn again to take as well as offer, before he subsumes himself under everyone else’s needs and is killed by his own gone unmet.

✘ forgive me father, for i am only fucking human ⟶ ( loyalty challenged )

Mark Twain once said “But who prays for Satan? Who, in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner who needed it most?” and those words have always resonated for Bellamy, printed large on his heart. Odin has done appalling things, he knows, things that should maybe be unforgivable, but if he is trying to make amends then can Bellamy do aught but help him? Sinners need forgiveness far more than good men ( sinners are who forgiveness was made for ) and so he listens, and absolves him in his heart as they sit in a patrol car on a dark street sucking spilled take-out sauce off their fingers.

And yet in this day, when the merest of mercies to the other side raises cries of fraternisation and both sides lay pressure upon pressure on their soldiers to prove their loyalty he wonders if perhaps this will be the thing that causes them both to burn. They have no choice in who they share a car with but he wonders if that will matter before paranoia has run its course and they have done more than that, haven’t they? Drowned their sorrows together, doused themselves in the whiskey that may yet fuel their funeral pyre — and yet if Odin asks for help, can Bellamy do aught but hold a hand out to him? A lifeline, a hangman’s noose, rolled into one.

Are you comfortable with killing off your character? | Yes - but not until I’m so attached that it will break my heart. GRRM says that you should mourn when a character dies, that you should care and that sort of attachment I feel is one that takes time to develop. But oh yes, I’m definitely okay with charactercide - just with an initial cooldown period please!

In Depth

What is your favourite place —

His favourite place? His mind swirls, an agitated snowstorm of images: the hot sun on his back as he sits on the ancient stairs in front of the Parthenon; the bright, airy, treasure-filled rooms of the British Museum; the serene weightlessness of floating in the Dead Sea; the sky shaded a brilliant sunset on a beach in Brazil, cocktail in hand…

— in Verona?

The rider on the question brings his thoughts to a sudden halt, leaves an echoing quiet in his brain. His favourite place in Verona? The city he’d run from as soon as he was able and had never wished to revisit?

As a child, Bellamy had fallen in love with Verona’s Library: the arching ceilings, the ornate decoration, the heavy books bound in rich and sometimes flaking leather, the dry and musty smell of ancient pages holding the words of worlds and centuries. It felt… reverent, almost Holy.

And then he’d learned of what lay upstairs, that above the rooms devoted to knowledge, to history, to making sure humans never forgot the mistakes of the past, Damiano and his court engaged in the deliberate repetition of humanity’s greatest fuck up. And then all it felt was tainted, sacrilegious.

As a teen, he’d come to love Castelveccio Bridge for the fragile peace that surrounded it. He’d perch on the edge with a book, back up against one of the buttresses, and let the river wind rustle his hair as he read or skimmed stones, or, later, passed around a bottle of jack with his friends.

But that too was marred now, stained in so much blood and death, and he wonders if there is anywhere in the city that has not been spoiled by this abominable feud.

“ To Tame A Soup, ” he says, eventually “ I guess. At least some good comes of it. But really, this whole city, it’s…” he shakes his head with a sigh, gesturing at the woman to continue.

What does your typical day look like?

He’s sprawled across the couch in the police therapist’s office; one leg dangles half-off, just enough for the toe of his boot to brush the floor, the other ankle resting on the armrest, one arm over the back of the couch. His sister always wondered why he was so neat and tidy in his living, books alphabetised, everything in its place, yet just threw himself in a pile where ever he landed ( he doesn’t tell her its because his books are actually worth taking care with ).

( He wonders what would happen if he deliberately failed this review, what Damiano would do if he got himself sent home on mental health leave — but then, he’s probably already bought out the shrink. )

“ Much the same as anyone else’s, probably. ” He tips his head back over the armrest to look at her, upside down. “ Work, food, sleep, a book here and there… I adopted a cat last week, so there’s that. ”

What has been your biggest mistake?

“ Coming back. ” The worlds fall out before he can stop them, almost tripping over the end of the question in their hurry to break free. For a moment he wonders if he should take it back, prevaricate, maybe say that leaving had been worse ( though nothing in his life had ever felt so right as that moment the plane had lifted from the ground ). But — no, there is no need. If she was in the Montague pocket then well… Damiano, the rest… they already knew how he felt about being back. And if she wasn’t reporting, what did it matter?

She watches him for a moment, as though expecting him to elaborate, but when he doesn’t she moves onto the next question with a faint sigh.

What has been the most difficult task asked of you thus far?

“ The same, ” he says, mussing up his hair with one hand. Uneasiness pricks him; it’s far too difficult to ignore the foreboding in the words thus far. He’s well aware that so far, he hasn’t been asked for anything completely outside his comfort zone, that, for whatever reason, the hardest of his boundaries have been respected. He thinks he might have Roman’s influence to thank for that, but he doubts it will last. No, more than that, he knows it won’t. And, as much as he wants to reassure himself that when it comes to it he will do what is right… some part of him, buried deep, knows that he’ll answer the call.

What are your thoughts on the war between the Capulets and the Montagues?

There is a freedom in this answer, for as neither Bellamy nor Benvolio has he ever hidden his opinion on this front. “ It’s bloody fucking stupid, isn’t it. ” He snorts, then sighs and waves a hand. “ No one even remembers what started the whole thing off, and it’s well past the point where anyone can actually win anything… even if one side cleared up tomorrow, more has been lost than they’d ever get back so what’s the bloody point? At this point it’s just mutually assured destruction.” He sighs, and wilts a bit. “ Not that either side will ever admit that. ”

Extras: Pinterest board

#accepted #accepted: benvolio

[lokilickedme]

Okay so I promised a bunch of pics from ScotFest 2018, and I’ve been stuck posting from my phone for the last two days so - sorry for the delay, but here we go with the good stuff.  It’s long, but stay with me, you’re gonna enjoy this mad trip.

First, let me say this.

FUUUUUCCCCCCCKK.  I knew I was gonna be having McClary flashbacks the whole time but it started out ridiculous and just got worse as the day went on.

The moment we pulled up the first thing that stepped into view was a dude in an anarchy tee shirt with a kilt and Docs and long black hair strutting down the sidewalk.  If Chem!Tom was Scottish...oh wait a sec, didn’t he say at some point that he was a bit, on his mother’s side?  Works for me.  So anyway, we arrive at ScotFest and walk the long way to the shuttle bus pick-up with a bunch of kilted guys and an elderly couple dressed in ancient clan clothing (they looked awesome).  And before we even get off the bus at the festival grounds, we’re blasted with bagpipe music as a full regalia marching pipe band parades past the entrance.  Something smells REALLY.GOOD. and off to the left of the entrance is a field where two Mol-pups are chasing sheep around while their shepherd whistles commands loud enough to split your head open.  Yep, McClary flashbacks, right off the bat.  And big Scottish athletes are throwing things that don’t look like they were meant to be thrown, though the biggest and most impressive athletes on the field are the females who are using pitchforks to hurl big bags of sand backwards over their shoulders over a bar that’s about 20 feet above their heads.  Big is looking at me like “What the hell, mom??” so I tell him the ancient Scots were farmers and they made games and competitions out of their farm chores.  He’s like “No, I mean why are you breathing so hard?”

No comment.  Did I mention that the females were really impressive?  Good start to the day.

So we move on past the games into the main festival area and everywhere are man-knees.  I’ve never really paid much attention to man-knees before, but to be honest they’re kinda...hot.  I don’t even know why.  And there were so many of them...hundreds and hundreds of man-knees on open display, it’s almost like I shouldn’t be looking but they’re RIGHT THERE all over the damn place and I feel like a pervert scamming peeks.  And calves.  Man calves.  Not normally a fan, but there were some good ones on display.

The first thing we did was hit the tribal music tent and it was over for me before it even got good and started...because on the stage inside the tribal music tent was THIS Scottish god:

Don’t worry, the picture quality will get better.  So we settle in to enjoy the music and this guy is eating up the stage and spanking the shit out of that drum, and then he starts blowing on a flippin’ didgeridoo (yeah, a nine foot long Australian horn, don’t ask me why but omg that man’s lung power was making the ground rumble under our feet and all I could think was how that skill might carry over, if you know what I mean).

Suddenly I’m really interested in nine foot horns.

A really cool thing about hitting the afternoon shows was the fact that you could go right up to the side of the stage and nobody cared.  So I did.

Physically painful, let me tell ya.  I could just almost look up his skirt.

That horn is vibrating the ground where I’m standing and I’m actually relieved when he switches back to the drum because all that vibration has shifted my panties about two inches to the left and it’s getting uncomfortable.  The drum isn’t much better though, and neither is the view from where I’m standing - he’s a big stout bull and I’m three feet away from him while he beats that drum to a whimpering death.  I could reach out and tickle his bare knee if I felt like getting divorced.

So I go back and sit with my guys again and he starts doing this:

KNEES.  I mentioned man-knees before, didn’t I?  Well here, have a pair.  I’ll post a video later of what he did to this poor little drum, and to his own thick neck - because I can’t even describe it, and you know words are my thing.  He played his freaking adam’s apple or something, I don’t even know.

There were actually two other musicians on the stage with him, but I sort of forgot they were there.

There were also lots of adorable father/son kilted combos present - and yep, a bagpiper rounds out the onstage trio.  But again...man knees.  The ones on the left specifically.

So the show ends after a lot of insane drumming, war cries, didgeridoo blowing, bagpiping, and a really nasty little ditty about a girl who’s been touched so much she’s smooth as a stairway bannister (followed by an anthem to an unhealthy relationship that proclaimed “I’d rather be drunk a thousand years than be sober one minute with you”).  Nice, guys.

As soon as their set is over we leave the tent to go wander around, but most everyone else stays because it is as hot as the freaking surface of the sun on this day and the tent is like an oasis on Mars - which means when the band comes out to let the next band hit the stage, we’re pretty much alone outside with the bull and his two stagemates (sorry backup drummer and bagpiper, you guys were awesome and I loved you but didgeridoo guy vibrated my panties two inches to the left, you know how it is).

Anyway, we’re outside at the merch tent and Husband is buying something and I look up and nearly slam bodily into this:

Drummer/didgeridoo guy.  I vaguely recall yelling to Husband during the deafening noise of the show that he looked like Aquaman, and when I end up face to face with him it’s confirmed.  I think it’s the cranky eyebrow.

I also get to ogle the piper’s bagpipes up close and personal, which was hard to do as didgeridoo guy - whose name is CJ - is standing right behind me while I ooh and ahh over this weird thing, and he’s laughing at me for reasons unknown:

Maybe it was the stupid comment I made about squeezing the bag?

And then the three of them pose for a pic:

Goobers.  At this point Little walks up to them and they all sort of huddle around him and start laughing (Little has light-blindness and has to wear special shades outside so he was half blind and I think he rammed right into the guy with the hat), so I hand my phone to Husband and go to get him.  When I get close, didgeridoo guy puts an arm the size of a tree trunk around me and hugs me up next to him while the other two are tickling Little.  Husband starts snapping pics with my phone, but no, I’m not sharing them because 1) my face, 2) Little’s face, 3) shellshock at being touched by this stud ox without having initiated it myself, and 4) the look on my face clearly says MY PANTIES ARE CROOKED AND HIS SWEAT IS SOAKING THROUGH MY SHIRT AND PHEROMONES PEOPLE OMG PHEROMONES I’M IN PAIN HELP I MAY BE PREGNANT

Yeah, he was drenched in sweat from jumping all over that damn stage schlepping a drum that probably weighed more than me.  My hand was on his back and it came away soaked.  You can consider that a euphemism if you want, it works both ways.

Also - red boots.  Urgh.  And then he goes like this:

Boy was solid as a whiskey barrel, let me tell you.  We came back later to listen to another band and he was out there again, and the girls from the face painting tent had lured him over and braided his hair.  He looked flippin cute.  And by cute I mean Jesus Wept.

So before this turns into an exclusive didgeridoo guy fest (too late, yeah I know) let’s move along to this fine specimen that I found at the blacksmith tent:

Ladies and gentlemen, meet King McClary’s work kilt.

Dude was nice from the front too:

Definitely an Auchinleck, for those of you familiar with The McClary Chronicles.  Check out the tattoo.  And he was making maille battle armor, which I got to touch.  It didn’t shift my panties quite as hard as the drums did, but there was definitely a quiver.

This guy was at the tent next door to the armor tent, making I dunno, bong pipes or something and he was hilarious:

And then there was this guy, listening to ballads in the historical folk music tent and looking all angsty and authentic, like his love just died of a fever and his crop failed so he joined a ships’ crew to find his fortune in a faraway land but the damn boat sank fifteen feet from shore and now he’s just fucking stuck in Scotland and contemplating becoming a villain:

And he was glaring at my child, I don’t know why.  Prissy prick.  I was hoping to see his dick but he was so anal he tucked his kilt under his ass from the front.  Definitely a villain.

After a couple of teary ballads about wailing winds and failed crops or whatever, I dunno, I wasn’t listening because I was too involved in trying to see Prissy Prick’s ballsack, we wander over to the Highland Dance competition and walk in on this:

We’re in there for all of about twelve seconds before Big starts giggling, then Little starts giggling, then I start giggling.  We promptly leave the Highland Dance competition tent, because these girls really worked hard and I don’t want to get arrested for being a dick.

We go watch the Mol-pups chase the sheep around, because nobody cares if you disrupt the proceedings in the middle of a field full of sheep.

And then we watch some more of the Highland Games, in which guys threw stuff while making the best faces I’ve seen since that time Husband wanted to try setting the mirror next to the bed:

Yeah, we giggled.

After that we went back to listen to some more music, because damn.  Scottish rock is da bomb.  Heard a punk band that Husband immediately fell in love with, so I guess we’re evensies on the lusting after Scottish musicians thing now:

Dude on the bagpipes grinned like that through the whole set, I think he was puffing something out of one of those tubes.

And then we walked out into the big freaking middle of about four billion of these:

Noisy effers.  And they don’t stop for anybody - we literally had to jump out of the way because when they paused in front of us, they went into this formation thing and backed up right into where we were standing.  Had to grab Little and yank him up off the ground before he was trampled by some dude wearing a dress and giving an octopus a blow job.

Turned to look at a woman sitting next to us a little later and watched her pull a dagger out of her sock and shine it on her kilt like she was getting ready to go assassinate someone in the crowd.  We left soon after, so I didn’t get to see it go down.  I hope it wasn’t the didgeridoo player, he was cute AF.

All in all it was an 11/12 day, marred only by the outrageous heat and the fact that I’ve been off my supplements and medications for a week in prep for surgery on Tuesday, so I was exhausted and my blood’s gone back to being water again.  We didn’t stay as long as we would have otherwise, but we had fun and experienced a lot of weirdness - I ate haggis on accident, Husband sat down with a plate and I thought it was meatloaf (it was good and I didn’t die, so bonus) - and I got to spend the day surrounded by all the clans that tried to assassinate Thomas The Fucking Marauder.

We’ll be going again next year.  Husband is a descendant of one of the border clans, so he’s heavy into this...and of course you all know what my connection is to it :)

Let me leave you with a picture of a guy about to bullrush a scarecrow.  I don’t know why, I didn’t ask.  Scotland’s weird, ya’ll.

#ScotFest 2018 #long post