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league-of-sam · 9 months

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As Grim as the Reaper | Simon 'GHOST' Riley PREQUEL

Ghost x Reader, Graves x Reader

CHAPTER TWENTY

Phillip Graves x AFAB!Reader!OC 18+ MINORS DNI! t.w // angst, mental health, language, violence, death, sexual themes/SMUT, military inaccuracies, language inaccuracies (google translate).

As Grim as the Reaper: Masterlist

Once again, you found yourself stood in front of a helo, strapping on tactical gear.

There was no cheerful greeting for you this time.

No tease from Stevens about your knives, no cocky comment from Orlando about how he'd out-stealth you one of these days. No sweet talk from Trace about how much he looked forward to missions with you, and how he finally felt like part of the team.

You were alone now.

Tight, black clothes sucked onto your body. There was no room for the rustling of loose fabric on a solo stealth mission; you were lucky you got a tac-vest and a small pistol 'just in case'.

Your hair was tied back in two braids, woven tightly to keep it at bay. Small wisps of hair too short to stay put framed your face elegantly, and the black of your mask made the outfit look somewhat fashionable.

If you didn't have the job you did, dare you say, you looked fucking hot.

With one final run through your mental checklist, you patted yourself down before slipping your comms into your ear, throat mic strapped securely around your neck. No room for bulking radios, either.

The sun was starting to set, casting a beautiful orange glow over you.

"How is it possible for someone to look that good in a tac vest?"

"Not now, Graves." you mumbled.

He approached you slowly, hands landing on your arms, rubbing up and down. "You don't gotta do this, baby. Say the word and I'll give Shepherd a piece of my mind I swear-"

"I do." you cut him off, moving to latch your hands to his elbows. "I have to do this. I have to know why they came for us, why they knew our names...I need it."

"And what happens if you don't get those answers?"

You frowned, not having thought that far ahead.

"If not, then...I-I don't know-"

"Hey, hey..." Graves spoke, taking your head in his hand and pressing you against him, "Shhh, don't get upset darlin'...it's alright, we're gonna be okay."

"You promise?"

He took a deep breath, before releasing it with a "Yeah." but you were too consumed in his comfort to notice.

It didn't take long for the two of you to be interrupted, with Laswell coming over saying it was time to leave. This only sparked Graves' anger once more, leading him to yet another rant about how ridiculous it was that you were being separated.

"It's only a few hours, she'll be fine, you know that. I'll call you as soon as we're extracted." Laswell tried to reassure him.

"See?" you spoke, "Simple recon. Gonna be fine."

"That's what you said last time." he whispered under his breath, but you caught it.

Of course you did.

The way your eyes widened told him you heard it, too. He let out a sigh, placing a kiss to your forehead and walking away, not once looking back to you.

You didn't utter a word, shocked at your fiancé's behaviour. Laswell placed a hand on your shoulder, urging you forward with small steps, uttering words of support and wisdom to you.

God knows you fucking needed it.

In no time at all, you were approaching the location of the AQ safehouse. You knew as much without seeing, because you could already hear the multiple voices of the soldiers echoing through the trees around you.

You were wading through the forest, steps so silent you could barely hear the leaves crunch beneath your feet.

The building came into view, and you squatted down behind a larger tree, taking in your surroundings.

It was much smaller than the warehouse, with two armed soldiers guarding what looked to be the only entrance. They were standing idly, clearly in an amusing conversation from the way their shoulders rolled.

"Actual to Reaper, how copy?"

"Solid copy, Laswell." you responded, "Two on the door, more inside."

"Copy that. Stand by while we switch to picture."

While you waited on permission to engage, your mind wondered as you scanned the countryside.

You were here, alone. Your parents couldn't see you now. John couldn't see you now. And your team...

Fucking snap out of it, (Y/N).

A small drone whizzed by you, circling the property at an altitude where it wouldn't be detected by the AQ below, and you took that as your signal to move forward. Diving onto the ground, you rolled, before manoeuvring your way behind a damp, moss-covered rock.

"Alright. Permission to move in once overwatch takes care of the two on the door."

"Copy, ma."

"Don't forget, we have other soldiers on the ground. Do not engage alone."

"Yes ma'am."

As you waited, your fingers moved up, opening the small pouch on your vest, and pulling something out of it. The white of the polaroid looked bright and crisp against your darkened gloves, and it made the image stand out all the more.

The smiling faces looking back at you made your eyes sting - but it gave you a sense of purpose. You were here to answer those questions, and you'd do it for them.

You had to do it, for them.

Slipping the picture back into your pocket, you looked up just in time to see the two soldiers on the door drop with a soft thud, which meant overwatch was on point. With quick confirmation with Laswell in your ear, you moved forward, towards the building.

Quietly, you moved the bodies, hiding them behind the large bin - trash can - that was around the side of the west wall.

It also gave you the opportunity to scope it out further.

There were several windows, some were broken, cloudy, old. Others had no glass at all, which made your ability to hear the voices inside much easier.

Peaking through, you counted eight AQ soldiers, speaking in broken English. Clearly, not all of them were from the same place, and that was the only universal tongue.

Made your job a whole lot easier.

"Reaper to Actual, eight enemies inside - gonna try and get closer to see what's going on." you spoke from your spot below the window at the back of the building.

"Copy, Reaper. Stay low and unseen."

From your location, you could see three of the men leant over the kitchen table, looking at what you assumed was a map, or some sort of tactical document, perhaps discussing their next moves.

Two more sat on the sofa opposite, playing a video game on the grainy box tv that had been propped up next to a window to get better signal.

One more was watching, yelling every time one of the soldiers playing fucked up, or clapping their shoulders if they won. The final two sat in the far corner, bagging up blocks of white powder, with lumps of cash running through an automatic counter.

What the fuck?

You relayed the information back to Laswell, who didn't sound nearly as surprised as you were. There was something more going on, since when did the AQ deal with drugs? This was just another thing you weren't sure about.

That quickly became unimportant to you, though, as the voices of the soldiers inside flowed out to you, drowning out any thought you had.

"Did you hear what happened? The others didn't catch the Reaper."

"No, but they got the other motherfuckers. Echo 6 team, fucking dead once and for all. They won't have shit on us now."

"Do you not remember those clips we were sent? If Reaper comes she'll kill us."

"We need to deal with that bitch, same way we dealt with her team."

So they did know.

It was a fucking hit list that you found.

They knew you were coming, and they knew EXACTLY who to look for. You knew what that meant - you and your team were set up to fucking die.

"Leave it, that is not our responsibility. Hassan will deal with her when he sees fit. Get back to fucking work."

Your heart was beating violently in your chest. They didn't know who you were, but they knew of you, and that was enough.

You rolled back, hand clutching at your chest as you pressed your back against the wall, desperate to calm your breathing.

"K-Kate," you squeezed out, "Tell me you got t-that."

"Loud and clear, Reaper. Calm down. Do not engage."

"They knew. They fuckin' knew...they came to kill me, Kate. They fucking knew!"

Laswell knew you were losing it, and your pained voice cut her so deep, her own eyes were tearing up, "I mean it, (Y/N). Don't lose your head in this."

"It's already gone."

Blind rage consumed you.

You didn't even register turning off your comms until you'd done it, and the sound of Laswell screaming for you to stop, and for your back up to get the hell out there, stopped abruptly.

You were too far gone, and now these fuckers were about to meet the Reaper they so feared.

Standing with your head held high, you approached the door, knives turning in your hands as you did so. With a crack of your neck, you knocked the door with the butt of your knife.

The one who was watching the video game answered, and you gave no time for him to speak before ramming your blade into his neck. Blood splattered across your face and down the wall, and his body dropped to the floor.

"What the fuck?!" one of the men yelled.

You looked up at him, cocking your head to the side, "Reaper's come to collect her dues."

With that, all motherfucking hell broke loose.

You burst into a sprint, tossing your knives to the two who were packing blocks, taking their lives from them swiftly. Pulling your third blade from your vest, you let out an almost-primal yell as you collided with one at the table, knocking the other two over as the table overturned.

You drove the blade down over and over, as more blood collected onto your clothes, skin, and hair.

Expertly, you took out the rest of them, retrieving and throwing knives like Alex trained you to do so well...until one remained.

Terrified and hunkered down in a corner.

You couldn't even begin to imagine what you must have looked like to him; bursting into the room, slicing through his comrades as if they were a piece of paper to your scissors, covered head to toe in black, masked.

No wonder he was terrified.

You let out a laugh at this thought as you squatted down, watching the quivering man.

"What was it you said?" you spoke as you recognised the man, "'we need to deal with that bitch'?"

He gasped, realising who you were, and what you heard him say.

"So quiet now." you laughed. "Let's make sure it stays that way."

Before the man could beg for his life, your arm moved quickly, the blade cutting into flesh so frighteningly easy. He gargled at your feet, clawing at you as the life faded from him.

Mission complete.

Your back up finally arrived, much too late, and all of them audibly gasped as they entered the building. You were still stood over the last body, breathing heavily as tears fell silently down your face.

You'd got one back for your team, so why did you feel so wrong? So...not you?

One of them approached you slowly, a woman that you'd had a few interactions with before. She was sweet, kind, and you knew you could trust her. Yet, the second she reached for you, you crumpled. Falling to your knees, panic rising in your chest.

"Laswell we need you here now!" one of them yelled, but you couldn't hear the responses.

"Hey, hey...Reaper don't focus on him, focus on me." the woman in front of you tried to wipe the blood away, but you pushed her away.

"No no no no d-don't fuckin' touch m-me...don't, don't..." you yelled, crawling away, tears streaming.

You could see her try to speak to you, but the words were muffled, motions blurred.

As you shuffled away, you caught a reflection of yourself in the glass of the television. You might have been wearing black, but there was enough blood covering your body to know that it was exactly that.

You were a mess; a terrifying, out-of-control, mess. And you didn't recognise yourself at all.

The mask stared back at you, as if begging for you to do it again.

You tore it off your face, tossing it across the room, and let out a scream so agonisingly painful, it made your allies in the room falter, wincing in your anguish.

On your knees, you folded in on yourself, sobbing. And that's how you remained until Laswell burst through the door, eyes widening at the massacre you'd left in your wake until she landed on you, bloodied and broken.

"Oh honey," She spoke quietly. "What did you do?"

#simon ghost riley #simon riley #task force 141 #ghost mw2 #ghost cod #ghost fanart #call of duty #cod mw oc #cod mw2 #cod mwf2 #callofduty #gaming #cod mw19 #captain price #john mactavish #phillip graves #graves x reader #ghost x reader

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distracteddaintydemon · 8 months

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Spoonie Life: Research & Development

My current goal in improving my wellbeing is to gather and reassess all scales I'm using to get through my day. Pain scale, mood scale, anxiety scale, and so on and so on. I'm gonna examine how I use them, whether there is more useful version available, how I need to alter them to make them more useful for me and so on and so on.

When I'll be sufficiently sure it's a right set for me, I'm gonna pay an artist to arrange them all into the MMO RPG interface. With two versions, "play mode" and "tutorial mode" with all the gauges and meters explained. And then I'll print it A3, frame it and hung over my desk to use as a help option if I'll ever become too overwhelmed to remember how to help myself. Also because I believe it's a cool idea.

And I'll probably publish this here for other spoonies to twist and alter to their needs.

Tools I am using/testing for now:

mood scale, but going from -5 to +5 with 0 as a neutral "meh okay" mood (I'm bipolar, both extremes are problematic in different ways)

energy scale, also -5:+5, with 0 as "just enough energy to keep myself going without generating chores-debt"

pain scale 0:10 but explained for autistic folks (I'll post it later here because I believe it's too useful to not be a common knowledge)

Goldstein Expanded Pain Index aka GEPI, which splits "pain" into "intensity of pain"+"difficulty of doing tasks"+"difficulty of talking/communicating"+"difficulty of moving around" (I just found it and it's awesome, thank you forever Tumblr for this one, I'm experimenting how well it suits me. I think I'll twitch it to go 0:20 instead of 0:16 because it's more round of a number and round numbers are easier for me, but it's awesome anyway)

fear/anxiety scale (it used to be simple 0:5 scale but I need to readjust it for background level of anxiety vs sudden spikes of anxiety, I don't know yet how)

fidgeting/anchoring need - how much I need to do something to make myself more centered. It's not actually a scale I can read... more like a little widget glowing gold (nice) or red(?)/deep dark purple(?) (alarming) if I have buffs available to cast or debuffs possible to neutralize. I can assess how do I feel exactly, what tasks I need to do, what resources and stats I need to do them, what activities do have available and how exactly will every one of them alter my state. Usually it translates to something like "brain very very tired, body anxious, I'll make some backstitch on this petticoat until my tiredness spread more evenly so I'll be able to get some actual rest". Or "would be nice to get some sense of success and accomplishment, I think I'll invest an hour to sew that little non-urgent repair". It has so incredible variety to it that I feel like buff/debuff mechanism is really the best approximation I can come up with

Spoons. And Spell Slots. I use them, but none of them are not quite good for me. It's not that amount of spoons varies day-to-day (although it does). It's more that spoon-cost / mana-cost of different actions varies day-to-day. It seems that in my case it's somehow based on category of task and particular task can be assign to multiple categories at once. Repetitive, Creative, Crafting, Organizing, One-Time, Intellectual, Manual, It Will Be Judged, Scheduling Involved, etc etc etc. Also size differences. There are days when certain categories seems almost cost-free. And others have hard limits. I'm thinking maybe I should switch to Resources or Willpower Points that I need to burn to power through those categories of tasks that are Cursed Today? And develop better categories for tasks, to better assess which are Free Today and which are Cursed Today?

Is it everything? Remains to be seen.

Physical Health Maintenance. Particularly How Much Hungry I Feel gauge and Accumulated Calories Debt meter. But also checklists related to my physical illnesses.

with all the other things out of the way, I'm starting to see there's also an area of Mental Clutter, where if I have too much things to do, I cannot muster energy to do neither of them. And clear priorities seems to add to my energy level. But that remains to be examined as I work all the other parameters out of the way.

#spoonie #spoonie life #life as RPG #i play on Hard/Nightmare i need to pay attention to my numbers #visualization #visualization but with extra flair #live your life with whimsy. you usually only get one so you can't do it fancier the second time #distracted dainty demon rants

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soemriffxiv · 1 year

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Roevember Day 3: Mountain

The task Soemrifaeld had been assigned was one of his least favorite kinds, but the researcher insisted on it's urgency and importance, so he went regardless. Here he is, hiking up a mountainside in Gyr Abania, looking for a specific mineral deposit that had properties unique to the location. What properties, he wasn't informed of. All he knows is that the woman looked like she was on the verge of tears from excitement, and he might be weaker willed than originally thought.

Soemrifaeld has been sweating profusely from the exertion for the past few hours of hiking, worrying he'll run out of water by the time he makes it to the general area of the deposit. For the time being, he takes a break, practically throwing himself onto a nearby pile of flat rocks that looked like a perfect place to sit. After taking a large swig of water, he pants heavily, desperate for this assignment to be over soon. Climbing is, out of all other strenuous activities, the absolute worst for him. He lacks both upper and lower body strength, and every step up the steep slopes leaves him more and more exhausted. A part of him wants to call it off, leave it to another gleaner who's more physically fit, but on the other hand he's not too far from a promotion to supervisor. A few more accomplishments and he has the position in the bag, which means less field work and more desk work. Exactly the job he was made for, quite honestly.

Soemrifaeld picks himself up and stretches, pulling his already sore muscles into shape once again. There's maybe an hour's journey left before he reaches the location and can begin his search for the outcrop, collect some samples, and head back. The sun is still high in the sky, meaning he has plenty of time left to go.

Though the air is dry and hot, the sparse trees provide enough shade to not be unbearable. Soemrifaeld walks and walks, feet trudging through the dirt and dust, until the rocks turn from the now familiar deep brown to a dark red, with hints of green. This is the spot he's been looking for.

He drops to the ground, pulling out a soil tester and shoving it into the tightly packed earth, taking measurements as he goes. As the numbers get closer to what he's looking for, he pulls out his specimen bags and begins digging. In goes dirt, then more rocky substances, and finally he hits what looks almost like a dark, dull patch of quartz. He isn't sure whether it is a type of quartz, or if this is just the special properties of the mineral the researcher had mentioned, but it's unexpectedly pretty, regardless. It doesn't seem to be especially affected by aether, based on what he can sense from it, so it’s more likely to be a natural phenomena. Despite being tired and a touch irritable, his curiosity is peaked, and he can’t help but mentally go over what possible uses this rock sample could have. Could it have some kind of health benefits? It isn’t likely to be detrimental, as they would have warned him first of any caution needed. He hopes that’s the case, at least. Is its use in the realm of mechanical engineering? Maybe not as a main component, given how easily it breaks under the barest pressure from the trowel, but as an additive, perhaps? The current soil quality is much too basic to be used for plant growth, and the surrounding area is barren of any life, so that possibility is ruled out.

Once he starts going through a checklist of possibilities, he realizes he’s filled all of his specimen bags to the brim. Embarrassingly full, like a new gleaner overcompensating for their lack of experience with enthusiasm. He quickly scoops just enough out so that it doesn’t reflect negatively on his record.

Soemrifaeld sits back, taking a moment to breathe after another completed job, and looks around. He didn’t notice at first, but the clearing where the mineral laid opens up to a fantastic view. Behind him, several yards away, a tall cliff hangs overhead, rocks catching the sunlight and nearly glowing red and gold. The direction he came from stretches out for miles, trees spanning the distance in alternating patches of dense and sparse. In front, a drop, looking out over the vast desert of Gyr Abania, rocky structures picturesque in their natural sculpts. It’s quite the sight, even he can admit, and the sun no longer feels like a weight upon his back, now a gentle warmth against the temperature drop at the elevation he’s scaled.

Normally, he’d get up and head back down the mountainside in haste to get back home, but for once, he takes the opportunity to just look out on the expanse of a place he may never even come back to again. The wind blows, rocking the trees and sending chills down his skin.

After some time has passed, Soemrifaeld finally packs up his things, standing and brushing the dirt off of his pants. He slings his bag over his shoulder, and with one last look, makes his way back down. Back to his old sights once again.

#roevemberxiv #ffxiv fic

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transparentarbiterdream · 2 years

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The Worst Advice You Could Ever Get About pre roll blunts

Examine This Report on Cannabis Pre-roll

Table of ContentsCannabis Pre-roll Things To Know Before You BuyPre-rolls Fundamentals ExplainedGet This Report on Cannabis Pre-rollNot known Details About Pre-rolls - Thc Design Cannabis Cultivator

All would certainly dangle along with himeven if he was actually sort of a cock. Nowadays, whether you can easily spin your very own smokes or otherwise is pointless. Between smoothing equipments, pre-rolled conoids, as well as other tools of the field, there is actually truly no explanation to buy your papers independently from your ozs. Actually, I 'd contend that the greatest way to acquire a coveted chair in the circle, to enjoy a solo smoke, or to receive special along with someone special on the best of higher vacations is actually to bypass all the work totally and also purchase your joints pre-rolled (pre roll pack).

What issues very most, naturally, is what is actually inside, but with apologies to the rom-com group, appeals issue, too. Below is actually a checklist of pre-rolled joints that inspect each containers, to assist you buy and lightweight with confidenceso long as they are lawful to appreciate in your state, certainly. (Canndescent) Canndescent has some attractive pre-roll products, however it's the assortment pack offering that truly create this brand name worth grabbing. pre rolls pack.

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The pink tips are refined, and the tensions, After Hours, Air Castle, and also Glow Upmake for some excellent, situation-specific usage scenarios. what is a pre roll. Our preference was actually the blissful Castle in spain high, which would go wonderful instead of (or alongside) ros times and also breakfast afternoons. It's fair to claim true men smoke pink, but brilliant guys (and ladies) ranges possess one thing available for every taste.

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Pre-roll Blunts And Joints For Sale Online Fundamentals Explained

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Wonderful companies don't produce bad items. The brand name responsible for the preroll has to yearn for to give a superior adventure (and also worry their track record suffering, typically), because nothing at all is stopping all of them coming from raising frames utilizing uneven techniques. Despite pitfalls, there go to this factor in the arc of legal pot a lots of remarkable junctions on the market. pre roll weed.

Look at 5 prerolls I like, smoked and also rated. Glass Property Farms Glass House Farms as well as their remove company Industry can be found in very hot along with these little Marine Layer diamond-infused pre-rolls. These are some very seriously sturdy little junctions. When I price junctions I just like to begin with one thing called a dry smash hit.

The flavor of the blossom was actually a musky mix of fruit product as well as citrus (pre rolled blunt). While the junction really did not have much of a smell, which is actually common with pre-rolls, it struck hard as screw. I was actually surprised, actually, through exactly how powerful they were actually. I blacked out on pot for some time there as well as don't truly remember what I was performing since I was actually so spaced.

A Biased View of Pre-roll

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I found that I managed to think clearly and coming from a more pleased standpoint. packwoods. The anxiousness which typically leads to postponement simply failed to exist. I managed to compose without obtaining sidetracked as well as produce unique suggestions easily. I LOVED these. Great for daytime usage, thrilling, and sharp. Equally as satisfied for working all time as they are for heading out.

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staszki · 4 years

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heyitsgigisadventures · 8 months

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The Ultimate Glow Up Checklist | Glow Up Challenge, Printable Workbook

The Ultimate Glow Up Checklist | Glow Up Challenge, Printable Workbook Do you want to become That Girl literally overnight? This is the printable workbook for you! With more than 50 pages for you to print and study, you’ll be able to create a whole new you in just 24 hours! Hey, pretty people! Are you looking for an effective way to level up in your life without completely changing…

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mor-beck-more-problems · 3 years

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Reading Rainbow || Morgan & Leah (feat. Sundew and her pixie troop)

TIMING: Current

PARTIES: @phoenixleah & @mor-beck-more-problems

SUMMARY: The White Crest Supernatural Literacy Initiative has its first test run. Results are....mixed.

Pixies fly in the sky I can go twice as high Just take a look It's in a book A reading rainbow

“Are you sure you’re good to go?” Morgan asked, rocking along the edge of the woods. She had secured her keys and phone to her carabiner and tucked everything else she needed in her knapsack: water, taser, knife, snacks, offerings, stationary. She’d asked Deirdre for advice on what pixies liked best. She’d gone through her checklist, and she had a good feeling about this expedition. The fae were so insular and some of the smaller of the bunch, so underserved by the world. Living out in the wild, away from even an Aos Si, surely they could use a leg up for when they had to deal with humans, or if they wanted to engage with the rest of supernatural society. Literacy had been Leah’s idea, of course. But while she had seemed plenty excited by it when they’d talked, Morgan still worried about that knack for suppression she’d mentioned, and the wolf injuries that were only just healing. Was this too much too soon? Was she being a bad friend for not waiting longer?

Morgan squinted behind her over the glare of mid-morning sunlight. Her friend’s hiking bag was at least half her sized, packing everything from a small library’s worth of board books and mini books, to shiny offerings, to camping equipment, including a tent, for some reason. She was one strong wind away from being knocked over, and Morgan couldn’t help but laugh a little. “We can always come back if you’re not up to it, or if you feel like you uh, need more supplies before going in.”

Leah looked over at Morgan, adjusting the bag over her shoulder with a determined nod. “I’m fine, really”, she said, although her eyes didn’t quite meet her friends. She was fine, right? She’d gone out plenty of times since her incident with Ada, and physically, she was fit as a fiddle, thanks to Nisa. Still, it seemed every time she ventured out lately- first with Nicole and then with Kaden, she was faced with another monster attack to deal with, all before fully processing the trauma of what happened with Ada. But she wanted to be over it- an encounter with a monster was never much of a bother before, and she was determined not to let it be now. “I’m fine”, reiterated. “I’m excited, actually… I really think we could do something good here.”

They had been talking for months about spreading literacy around White Crest, and so doing it here and now was the perfect way to clear her mind from all the annoying anxieties that seemed to be popping their way in these days. She shook her head playfully, a smirk playing on her lips. Nicole, too, had something to say about the size of her bag. “It never hurts to be prepared”, she said, holding up her hands in mock defense. “I’ve genuinely thought of everything, Morgan. There’s not one thing we could go back for.” As they walked toward a small picnic table in the distance, she glanced at her friend again, smiling softly. “Besides, it’d just be rude to back out now, don’t you think?”

“No, I don’t, actually,” Morgan said. “I can handle this just fine on my own if you wanted to take it easy for today. I know you’re all shiny and healed, but that doesn’t mean you have to go running into the trees to look for pixies.” But Leah seemed sure, and they did have all the supplies they needed, and then some. “Come here,” she sighed, reaching for her friend’s hand. “Thank you for doing this with me. Lets poke a little way’s into the trees, okay?”

She squeezed Leah’s hand, securing her grip, and walked to where nature clustered the thickest.

“Oh no!” She called. “I think we’ve already lost our way back to the park! I sure hope no one comes to try and take advantage of us! Don’t you?” She winked and Leah, encouraging her to add to the ruse.

Morgan’s insistence that she didn’t need her help was sweet, but Leah didn’t want to miss out on an opportunity like the one they were about to take. Maybe Morgan could handle it on her own, but Leah needed to be there, for her own mental health. She took a deep breath, stepping forward slightly and letting Morgan’s hand wrap around her own. She was fine. Her eyes were alert for any tiny creatures buzzing by, knowing that in order to teach a pixie to read, they’d have to find one first.

She nodded at Morgan with a smirk, her eyes becoming comically wide and her arms outstretched. “I do hope we do not run into any tricks, dear Morgan. We are just two small friends, trying to find our way home! However will we solve this predicament?” Her voice was a bit too loud to be believable, but she was really committing to this act they were putting on. “If only there were someone to play a game with us!”

A high pitched giggle emerged from behind them, followed by a slight rustling of the brush. She pressed her lips together to suppress a smile, glancing at Morgan to see if she’d noticed.

“What’s that?” Morgan said, still exaggerating her voice for the benefit of any pixies hiding deeper in the trees. “Did you hear something? It sounded kind of scary, don’t you think?” She turned and started walking backwards, nodding encouragingly at Leah. “I think I’ll stop and have some of this candy to make myself feel better.” She slung her bag to one shoulder and took out a bag of candy fruit slices, crinkling it as loud as she could.

A hum of fluttering wings tickled her ears. Morgan turned. “Hello--?”

“GOT YOUR NOSE!”

The pixie was so close, she could only see a glowing blur of pink and green. There was a quiet pop like bubbles bursting under fingertips and then a gory impression of Morgan’s severed nose appeared in the pixie’s arms. She flitted back, cackling so hard with delight she started flying in backflips.

“I’ll take that!” Another pixie squeaked. The fruit candy bag was ripped from her grasp and plunked to the floor. Morgan turned, dazed, and saw two tiny sets of legs sticking out of the opening and kicking to find their balance.

“Wha--oh, Stars!” Morgan felt for her nose, just in case. She wasn’t sure if she got to grow a new one if anything happened to it.

“Made you look! Willowbud, look how dumb she is! I made her look!”

Sighing with relief when she felt it, Morgan finally let herself laugh. “You sure did! That was--whew!--some big magic. But I have much better candy if you and your friends will talk to me.” She grinned slyly at them. “And I have it on some very good authority that it’s one of your favorites.”

Leah followed Morgan slowly, her eyes still wide with fake fear, trying to grab the attention of the pixies that were sure to be nearby. “I am feeling very, very scared right now, Morgan. Thank goodness you brought so much candy to keep us well fed and nourished.” There was somewhat of a robotic tone applied to her put upon acting voice, but she felt it was doing the job all the same.

It was fascinating to be able to watch the pixies from so close, and she savored every moment, hoping she could remember it all to document later. She had seen a few as a child, and read about them tons, but being this close was a real treat. She wondered if the excitement shone on her face as much as it fluttered in her heart.

Strands of her hair floated above her head, and she heard the faint buzzing of wings as another pixie held it up, pulling and prodding as if it were the most interesting thing the pixie had ever seen. It flew directly in front of her face, it’s glow shining bright on her nose. “You’ve got a stain on your shirt!”, the pixie squeaked, pointing down toward Leah’s chest. She looked down, mocking shock, before it flew up playfully, poking her in the nose. “MADE YOU LOOK!”

The other pixies erupted in fits of giggles before marveling at Morgan’s news, all rushing toward the candy offered to them. Leah, for her part, got to work on setting up the mini chairs and table she’d borrowed from her niece’s play set, a perfect size for the pixies before them. “You can even sit down, if you’d like!”, she offered, grinning slyly and excitedly at Morgan. This plan might actually work!

Morgan eased to the ground, tearing open a handful of pixie sticks and hold them out. The pixies abandoned the candy fruit slices and flitted over, pulling at their favorites and dousing themselves in sugar.

“That one’s mine!” One of them cried.

“I saw it first!” Said another one.

“It has my name on it! See? It’s Appleseed!”

“They all say the same thing!”

“It’s okay, I have enough colors for everyone!” Morgan said. “But maybe one of you can tell me what these words on the candies do say?”

“Why? Don’t you know, Dummy-Boob?”

Morgan squinted. There was something strangely familiar about this one, the way she fluffed her pollen-strewn hair or flew a little ahead of the others, like she was the boss, or the name she called her. “I asked you first,” she said. “What’s your name, anyway?”

“Sundew,” the pixie said. “Can I have yours?”

“No. Deirdre told me all about your little tricks, and she would be mad if you used our friend offerings to trick me. You wouldn’t make a fae mad on purpose, would you?”

The pixies swarmed into a tittering argument about whether Morgan could possibly mean their Deirdre, and who had last visited her and knew how she was doing, and could they trust this human to know anything about her?

“Not a human,” Morgan tried to interject. “And you can call me Morgan, and you can call my very good and also not-human friend here, Leah!”

“Oh! The Morgan Thing! Yes, yes, yes, I knew it all along,” Sundew said. “I remember you! Your face still looks like a Dummy Boob, but I guess since you gave us Pixie Stickses, you’re good for something.”

That was definitely not how to pronounce Pixie Sticks, but Morgan could see the mistake froSundew flew lazily down to the doll furniture and started munching on her treats. Only then did the other pixies join in. If Sundew thought it was alright, then they could enjoy what was being put in front of them. Morgan side-eyed Leah. She had never been especially good at speaking queen bee unless she was bartering something she knew was wanted, and how were they supposed to convince the pixies that this was a ‘them’ thing?

Leah had no doubt that Morgan would be well versed on how to deal with the pixies, especially after she avoided Sundew’s trick about names. She chuckled at the attempt, observing how the other pixies deflated with disappointment as Morgan refused.

She smiled shyly at the pixies as she was introduced, offering them a small wave as some of them swarmed around her in curiosity. “Morgan’s good for a lot of things, actually”, Leah said, noting how much the other pixies seemed to follow this Sundew’s lead. If they needed to get through to any of them first, it was definitely her. “If you think her Pixie Stickses are good, just wait until you get a look at her flowers and cakes.” Locking eyes with Morgan, she sent her a quick nod, a plan quickly forming in her head.

“Here’s the thing, Sundew. These human treats that the Morgan thing brought?...”- she glanced at Morgan at that, amused, before continuing. “...there are tons of them, all over the world. And they’re totally delicious, right?” The pixies around them tutted tiny noises of agreement as they munched on their own, and Leah sat down on the grass before she continued on, planting a dramatic, sad look on her face. “The problem is that Morgan thing here only brought us the very best tastes. Some of the tastes of the treats? Just awful. You get your tongue on one of the bad ones, it’ll be the only thing on your mind for weeks!”

Dramatic gasps erupted around them, and Sundew seemed to lean forward in her tiny chair. “There’s only one sure way to know which taste you’re about to get, Sundew, and that’s being able to read what flavor treat you’re about to eat.” She sighed dramatically, sitting back on her hands in the grass. Maybe, if Sundew thought this was her idea, she’d actually go for it. “Do you know how to read, Sundew?” She stared at the sky as she asked, as if the question was as casual as asking someone if they knew how to ride a bike (reading was obviously much more important).

“Of course I can read, Lee-lee,” Sundew said, puffing out her tiny, glowing chest. “And I can write too! Which is more than a dummy boob can do. How else would I know it says pixie stickies?” She proudly rippled open a blue pixie stick and dumped a heap of it onto her face to wipe and lick off her face.

“Okay, well, what about you?” Morgan asked, pointing to another pixie. “How do you know which one tastes the best?”

“Your face knows which one is the best!” Sundew interrupted.

“Obviously red always tastes best,” the other pixie said. “That’s why I get all the red ones.”

“See? We knowsy-knows everything we need to, Morgan Dummy Boob,” Sundew said. “You can tell Deirdre thank you for all her presents and I got that sexy spriggan’s number for her just in case she changes her mind, you’re welcome very much for--”

“Okay, moving on!” Morgan said, growing shrill.

Another pixie flitted up to Leah, pulling on her ear to get her attention. “Do you have any more of the stripey ones with the crinklies? I love the minty ones so much, they’re so good, and the stripes are so pretty and then if you get them sticky, you can put them under people’s fingers and toes and make them scream and it’s sooo much fun.”

“What’s this?” Two more said, picking at the doll furniture she’d brought. Together they pulled up one of the tiny cabinets with mini books and spun it around before letting it fall and tumble on the ground. Then up again, and down again, higher, letting the doors snap on their fragile hinges and all the carefully assembled books fall into the dirt.

“Oh, but you wouldn’t want to make people scream, would you?” Leah chided, tilting her head to the side. “That wouldn’t be very nice.” She was too focused on the pixie in front of her to notice the rumblings of Sundew and some of the others, who conspired with tiny whispers and giggles behind her.

Leah let out a sharp gasp as her ear was yanked, the action taking her off guard and causing her heart to flutter. She closed her eyes and let out a breath, and a flash of snarling, hungry werewolf teeth snapped into her vision. She had sworn that the flashbacks were over with, that they’d no longer be disrupting and distressing her at the drop of a hat, but somehow, she kept being proved wrong. Opening her eyes with a start, she swallowed a hard lump in her throat, attempting to focus all of her energy on here, on now, on this.

She reached into her bag, about to feel around for another candy cane to hand over to the small fae with some more coaxing toward reading when the commotion with the doll furniture caught her attention. “Don’t!, ...-stop!” All that hard work, all the arranging and careful planning she’d done, it was a waste if the pixies weren’t going to take it seriously. She reached forward, ready to pull the furniture away from them and carefully piece back together, but the pixies were quicker than she was.

“Don’t stop? Okay, we won’t!” one of them giggled, picking up the nearly destroyed, tiny books and dropping them again and again.

She pushed herself up into a standing position, determined to snatch the books and furniture away from them for good, when the pixies who had been conspiring behind her let out another raucous round of giggles, and Leah only realized why when it was too late.

In a matter of seconds, they had managed to tie her shoelaces together, causing her to tumble back toward the ground with a scream, landing on her hands in front of her with a grunt. Her mind flashed again, and suddenly, she could feel herself tumbling down her hall stairwell with the wolf, breaking and bending and bruising something new with each passing moment. No. No no no. She didn’t want to break anymore, she needed to get away and find a way out and-

“I think we do want to make people scream, Lee-Lee. Even not-human people, like you!”

She wasn’t in her house, it wasn’t that night, everything was healed. So why did she still feel so broken?

As she attempted to push herself back up, the pixies swarmed her, tugging at her hair, her ears, her fingers, her clothes- anything they could to elicit more silly screams and prove their point. Tears stung at her eyes, but she was essentially useless against their tricks, and even as she successfully pushed herself up into a sitting position, they continued to taunt her.

Morgan tried to shield Leah with her body, but there was no point when the pixies could fly over and around her to keep pinching, pulling, and laughing at Leah. “That’s enough!”

“You’re right, we should move onto tickle torture!” Sundew squealed.

“No, that is not what I mean--”

“But she’s so funny when she screams!”

“I know, a-and I understand that but…” But what? What was more important to a pixie than tormenting someone for fun? Panic tensed through Morgan’s muscles. She couldn’t hurt them. She couldn’t scare them. “WHAT IF I KNEW A BETTER WAY!” She shouted. “I know a better way to mess with humans!”

The pixies didn’t stop, but they did look up with eager faces, and some paused in pulling on her hair.

“It’s so fast, once you really know how, and the humans make it so easy, they won’t even know it!”

Sundew folded her arms and flitted up to stare Morgan in the eyes. “Oh, yeah? And what’s that?”

“I won’t tell you anything about it until you leave Leah alone.”

Sundew didn’t seem to like putting a stop to her fun, but she and the other pixies came to the same conclusion with one exchange of looks. Yes, finding easy ways to trick the humans did sound like more fun.

One by one they let go of Leah and flitted over to Morgan and as they each crowded around her vision, she realized that she had no ideas in her head but one, and she would have to hope very hard that this went over very well. “I--need you all to come over here and give me a little space while I show you.”

She took out a notebook and one of the markers she’d brought and wrote very carefully, one word on each set of lines. She was tempted to add an artistic flourish but remembered from her friend crying behind her that these pixies were not as child-like as they seemed, and she wasn’t in the mood to have her art critiqued. “Okay,” she said, donning her teacher-voice. “Can anyone tell me what this says?”

Silence from the pixies.

“This is a way to get humans to do almost anything you want,” Morgan said. “If you can get them to say this or agree to this in writing, You can have so many kinds of fun. Better kinds. And, it works both ways, so you should probably know how to read it.”

“That doesn’t look like anything so special to me,” Sundew said, glaring skeptically.

“We can break it down. It’s definitely a long phrase. You all know the first word, right?” They did. “And the second one?” Only Sundew knew agree, which she was very proud of. But when they got to terms and conditions, the little pixie folded her arms and stuck up her little nose.

“If you’re lying about these words, you’re going to be in sticky-sticky trouble,” She said. “No one gets away with lying to pixies.”

Morgan held out the marker to her. “If you really think I’m lying, then you should be able to check the box without any worries, shouldn’t you?”

All the pixies looked at her, waiting to see what would happen.

“I could tell you first, though, if you want to trust me,” Morgan said.

Sundew got as far as hovering the marker above the checkbox before her doubt came in. “Fine,” she huffed. “What does it say?”

And Morgan told her which each word meant, one by one, helping the others sound it out slowly. “Alright, so put together what does that mean?”

“I agree to your terms and conditions!” Willowbud cried. Her face fell as she realized what she’d said. “..Oops.”

“That’s okay, Willowbud. I release you,” Morgan said. “But you see, you don’t have to speak words to make them powerful. You can do all kinds of magic if you learn to write them down and leave them for other people to find. And there’s even more words than that out here. I could teach you some more of them, but, I’m definitely going to need you to do some things for me first.”

Sundew reluctantly agreed and the rest of the pixies let out the rest of their enthusiasm. Morgan would exchange one lesson in exchange for staying on task while they were in the learning area, which would be in her garden next but might change and be established by her later. And she would get one favor for releasing Willowbud so quickly and recognizing Sundew as her very special teaching assistant. When this was settled, Morgan helped the pixies gather all their candy into the spare dinner napkin they’d brought and waved at them as they flew away, carrying the stash between them all.

When the pixies were gone, really, completely, and not even in earshot gone, Morgan sagged on the ground with relief and crawled over to Leah. “Hey…” she said gently. “That was uh...pretty wild huh? Definitely not how I planned to do things. Are you okay? I brought some first aid stuff, if they did anything to you. Is it okay if I take a look? Leah?”

There was no end in sight, no stop to the pulling, and picking, and flashbacks. The torment- it was everlasting, even with Morgan’s muted voice in Leah’s ears trying to talk the pixies down. But the endless did have an end, even in the darkest of moments, and slowly but surely, whatever Morgan was saying seemed to lure them away.

As soon as it was possible, Leah pushed herself up, crossing her arms over her chest and walking briskly away from the group to lean against a nearby tree, trying to steady her breathing. The trees around them, despite staying in the same space, felt like they were closing in on her, inching and inching until she’d soon have no space left to breath. Suddenly, she was pinned under the wolf again, with no way out of the darkness that encompassed them. There was a sweat above her brow that hadn’t been there earlier.

Why did she still feel like this? Why couldn’t it just be over? She knew she was safe, she knew a bunch of pixies couldn’t hurt her- so why did her brain keep insisting on flashing back to that one, fateful night?

Something in Morgan’s tone shook her out of her thoughts, and Leah’s attention was turned back to her friend and the pixies, who were now surrounding Morgan. How much time had passed since she walked away from them? It had felt like hours, at least, but the position of the sun suggested it had merely been a few moments.

I agree to the terms and conditions.

Suddenly, a new wave of panic bubbled up inside her at what Morgan was saying, at what she was doing, and she closed the distance between them in a flash.

“Morgan-”, she warned, but it was too late- the pixies were already fluttering away with satisfied grins, clearly already planning the tricks they’d play with all they’d learn from Morgan. Her body slunk back down to the ground, in shock and disbelief at what her friend had just done.

“What did you just agree to?” she asked, her eyes wide and angry. Her voice sounded foreign in her ears. It was raspy and uneven and held emotion that she was not yet ready to let spill over. “Why would you… They’re going to torment the whole town, Morgan! Do you have any idea how dangerous what you just did is? How much damage it will do?”

She ignored Morgan’s offer of first aid, too enveloped in the thought of what the pixies might do with all they were about to learn. She was fine. She told Morgan as such, crossing her arms over her chest again.

Morgan flinched back, bewildered. “What did I--” Leah didn’t look tormented anymore, she looked furious. Instinctively, Morgan inched further away. She replayed the last few minutes, but the only thing she could see as wrong was abandoning her friend for so long. But she couldn’t have done things any faster. Or if she could have, but she didn’t know how. “I--I did what I could. I negotiated a no mischief or violence in the learning area agreement so this doesn’t happen again! I got them to leave you alone! What do you mean damage? They--it’s gonna be fine. They’ll have to write a whole lot more convincingly than Sundew’s chickenscretch before they can scam the town into hopping on one foot til they pass out.”

She still had this impulse that she should do something. Her bag was close by. She should check Leah for injuries, right? But stronger than this impulse was her confusion. “I--don’t understand what’s happening right now, Leah. You need to tell me what’s happening because I don’t--I-I know it wasn’t great but isn’t this what we--what is it you think I should be doing?” Morgan finally met her gaze, her look accusing through her hurt.

This was too much. There was a thought, somewhere in the back of her head, that maybe Leah wouldn’t be reacting the way she was if she hadn’t just been tormented by the pixies- if she hadn’t spent the last few weeks tormented by nightmares of being attacked by werewolves, and tiny snowmen that liked to stab your ankles. If the town hadn’t been plagued with people falling into sleep and never woken up again. “And you don’t think they’ll find a way around that? They’re pixies, Morgan. They’re known for their tricks! Giving them the power of those words is like tossing a lit match into a dry forest. They’ll learn… they’ll teach each other, and handwriting be damned, they’ll torment the whole damn town with this.”

She held Morgan’s gaze for a moment, her breathing shallow and heavy, before sucking her teeth and looking at the ground below them. “I don’t know”, she muttered finally, her voice small. “I don’t...know”. A panic began to rise in her chest, building and building in neverending wave of worry. “Everything feels like a big deal, Morgan. Everything feels like it’s about to come crashing down, all the time and all at once. I can’t differentiate between real danger and everyday mishaps, I can’t-...” She let out a sob and put a hand over her chest, struggling to catch her breath.

“No! They’re not going to take over the world! And what’s wrong with appealing to what they like? We’re not here to change them or make them like humans! I don’t--I don’t--I---” Morgan sputtered, quivering as she tried to assemble the pieces between them faster. Her mind whirred in place, nothing made sense, nothing fit. Weren’t they supposed to accept supernaturals the way they were, as long as there wasn’t recreational murder involved? Sure, the pixies might get up to some intense stuff, but education wasn’t about programming people to be like you. The pixies would always be themselves, that wasn’t something to fix.

But Leah breathed, and then she quieted, and then she cried, and then she panicked. Panic, Morgan knew how to handle.

“Hey. Hey, Leah...can I come close?” She inched towards her, hands in plain sight. “I just want you to breathe with me. You know all about breath control, yeah? It’s, um, it’s actually a nice game to play when your lungs don’t regulate themselves anymore because you’re dead.” She let out an uneasy laugh, unsure if levity was something that would help at a time like this. “Breathe slowly with me, and tell me how you feel.” Tentatively, she reached for Leah’s hands and tapped the familiar rhythm on her knuckles. “In, hold, out. In, hold, out. Where did you go, when they hurt you? Come back to me, help me understand…” She kept tapping, kept breathing, and strained all her dead senses toward the earth, searching for more answers.

Leah’s ears felt like they were clogged, and Morgan’s words were far away and muffled, and she could barely make them out. But she continued to hold her eyes, silently pleading with her to help stop whatever magic the pixies had sprouted that was making her lose her breath. This had to be the pixies, right? But then Morgan was requesting to come closer, clear as day, and Leah did what she could to let out a nod. Breath control. Yes. It was one of the first things she learned as a child in phoenix training. Controlling your breath was often the first step in controlling your fire, or even in focusing your heat. Focus, focus ,focus.

She tentatively let Morgan take her hand- it had felt like an anchor on her chest, as if before Morgan had reminded her about breath control it was the only thing keeping her grounded. In, hold, out. It was hard, now, but she kept trying. In, hold, out. Focus. In, hold, out. “I-I...my house, that night…” In, hold, out. She was here, not there. There was far away and gone and didn’t exist anymore, right? “...with A-...with the, ...werewolf”. She let out another sob, squeezing Morgan’s hand tight. “I… it’s still… I can’t stop…” In, hold, out. In, hold, out. “I thought I could… be over it. I thought I could forget. I can’t even get myself into my fucking guest room to clean up the mess we made, I … I can barely sleep through the night without waking up with a start thinking she’s there again, I…” She looked at Morgan again, clinging to her for answers, or comfort, or anything. “...I can’t stop feeling like this.”

“Oh, Leah,” Morgan whispered. She pulled herself closer to her friend and put her free hand on her shoulder and tugged, gently. You can fall, she wanted to say. I’ve got you. Let me catch you. I’ve got you. “Keep focusing. In, hold, out.” She did it with her even if her lungs didn’t need the exercise. “You’re with me now. You’re not alone. I’ve got you, and I’m not going to let anything happen to you. You’re safe now, Leah. Keep breathing with me.” In, hold, out. In, hold, out…

Steadily they went, one round after another, and all the while Morgan told her I’m here, you’re safe, I’m here. At last, when the worst seemed to be ebbing away, Morgan said, “You can’t hide from it, Leah. It’ll just jump out of the shadows at you like this. Love sorrow. She is yours now, and you must take care of what has been given.” She reached up to comb her fingers through Leah’s hair. “I’m sorry. I am so, so very sorry you must carry this with you. That you can’t pretend like it never happened, that you can’t go back to being someone this hadn’t happened to. But you can control it, if you look at it, if you hold it long enough, you can keep it calm and quiet, and one day it won’t be so big or so heavy.” She tugged on Leah again, urging her into her arms. “You have to be the one to decide, though. We don’t have to talk about it right now if you don’t want to. Whatever you need is what we’ll do. I am your friend and I love you and I am here for you as much as you’ll let me.”

In, hold, out. It was helping, Leah thought. In, hold, out. It seemed to be helping. The breaths started entering her lungs more willingly, although the pit in her stomach didn’t cease. And she let herself let go. For the first time since the incident, she let herself be cradled and held and cared for. It wasn’t to her sister, or Bea or Jas, who’d all offered countless times to help her pick up the pieces, but it was here, with Morgan, in the middle of the forest, when her resolve finally cracked. It felt ironic, but she didn’t know why. She listened to Morgan’s words, her voice grounding and soothing as she let herself be pulled back to earth. As she was wrapped into Morgan’s arms, she closed her eyes, her breathing finally… finally feeling steady enough to speak.

“I don’t know...how to look at it”, she admitted, anxiety bubbling up in her chest again. “I-... I’m so used to… I know about the supernatural, you know? I know how to d-deal with them, and handle the dangerous, and help them, and I thought that if something like this ever happened, I wouldn’t be so… sh, so shaken by it.” She let out a quick breath, bringing her hand up to wipe away at the tears that were falling down her cheeks. She swallowed a hard lump in her throat, slowly sitting up and pulling away from Morgan, a bit embarrassed at the whole ordeal. “I didn’t mean to yell at you”, she told her friend, catching her eyes.

Morgan bundled Leah into her arms as tight as she dared. She would have fallen to the forest floor with relief if she could have. Leah’s cries sounded as though they broke her body on the way out, as if her pain had become an invisible creature, clawing its way out. Morgan did her best to soothe the monster away with soft hushes and circles rubbed into Leah’s back, but that was only a bandaid at best. “Hey, don’t worry about me,” she said, brushing the issue aside. “We don’t have to talk about that today. I know you didn’t mean it now.” She kept on, soothing Leah while she held her and hoping with all she had that her dead arms were enough.

“You’re still a person, Leah,” Morgan said into her shoulder. “You can’t theory your way out of being a person, or suffering. You can’t skip around your pain. And feeling pain, carrying suffering, doesn’t make you any less strong or kind or wise, Leah. You are still every bit as valuable, as yourself, as you ever have been. And it’s so hard to feel that sometimes, I know. But nothing is going to be taken away from you if you look at it. If anything, Leah, you will understand more and have an even greater capacity to help people who’ve been hurt after you face this and learn to carry it better.”

Morgan’s skin was an interesting contrast to Leah’s, her friend’s cool and icy while her own burned red hot with embarrassment and sorrow. It was soothing. She let herself sink into it as she closed her eyes and listened to the logic that was flowing around her. She had been so in her head about everything that had happened with the wolf, and all that had happened after too. The snowmen with Nicole, the ballybog and vodnik with Kaden, and now the pixies with Morgan- they seemed to all be adding to an ever piling list of emotions that Leah was determined to deal with in some sort of metaphorical ‘later’ that she would never let come. But now, Morgan offered an out- a way to start digging through the pile and know she could still be herself once she reached the other side of it. And what better way to start than to just… look at it? To see it, to relive it, so that when the flashbacks inevitably came again, they wouldn’t be so jarring or scary. The idea scared her beyond belief, but it made so much sense that Leah couldn’t deny it was a good one.

After a long beat of thinking and sighing and breathing again, Leah let her eyes lock with Morgan’s, wondering if they looked as vulnerable as she felt. “You’re right”, she said finally, her voice just starting to sound like her own again. “I… I’ve been working so hard on pushing it all back- burying myself in work and scribe things so that I could move on and forget about what happened… but how can I expect to forget about it when I’ve not even let myself really remember it?” As she spoke, she picked at the grass awkwardly, needing something to do with her hands. She was fully embarrassed at the scene she’d caused, even if it was just between the two of them. Because of that, her attention was brought back to the mess the pixies had left- the wrappers and doll furniture were strewn about the grass around them, left without a care in the world. “Perhaps we should start cleaning up…”

Morgan took Leah’s face gently in her hands and held her steady while they looked into each other’s eyes, gently and clearly. “So remember. On your terms. And it doesn’t have to be alone.” She stroked her friend’s hair as she looked at the mess around them on the forest floor. “That won’t take so long. I still have the store bags, we can put the wrappers in one until we find a recycling bin and put your niece’s furniture in another. Maybe order her some upgrades to make up for the damaged stuff.” She smiled, relieved and confident. “What I want you to do is think about where you want to go next. Anywhere in town, as long as it’s just for you. No tumbling back into work, okay?” Giving Leah one more knowing look, a gesture to show that they were really okay, Morgan reached into her bag and started scooping up the mess.

Leah let herself sink deeper into Morgan’s touch, losing herself in the sheer gentleness that was presented to her. She let out a slow breath and nodded. “On my terms”. As they cleaned up, she thought about what Morgan said. Normally, she’d probably head to the library basement after an encounter like this, and write down everything she could remember. But she wanted to be better- to stop feeling like the world might fall apart at the drop of a hat, and so for once, she opted to take a break and take Morgan’s advice instead. “Morgan?”, she asked as they picked up the last of the garbage, moving on to the tiny furniture. “Would you like to go to the movies when we’re done here?” She leaned down to pick up the small table, one of its legs barely hanging on. “The Nordica is showing old classics tonight… it might be fun.”

Morgan beamed down at Leah as she stuffed the last of the wrappers and tied off the bag. “Oh, yeah? Hmm, I don’t know…” She scrunched up her face, pretending to give it some very serious thought. “You, me, and the rom com double feature with Irene Dunne and Katherine Hepburn?” Then she burst into laughter and pulled her friend up with a helping hand. “I would be delighted, Leah.”

#reading rainbow #wr leah #wr chatzy #wr leah chatzy #wr pixies #wr pixies chatzy

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oldsilverblood5 · 4 years

Text

Doctor

This follows the story of Eyes and Flowers

Danny couldn’t understand how he managed to get a cold in the Ghost Zone. The area they were in was a little cooler than what he was used to, but he spent most of his time in the artificial sunlight of Pandora’s garden, which was a perfect temperature for him. Plus, he hadn’t thought he could even get human viruses here.

He guessed ghosts could get it too, his week and a half spent here had taught him ghosts had a biology just as complicated as humans. Though they were different, and even differed between the ghosts, he figured if some ghosts could breathe, then they could get colds too.

The lack in proper nutrition had probably lowered his immune system too. Pandora had first developed her garden when the human world was still open to them, and it was more for decoration than purpose. It’s not like they could have guessed they’d have a human trapped here for an unknown amount of time and made sure to have plants with all the nutrients one needed.

It would work short term, and Danny thought that would be fine. He’d just hoped his parents would have figured out a way to reopen the portal by now. This was his ninth day in the Zone and still nothing. Pandora had let him join the scouts to go to the area a couple times when he asked, but she didn’t want to risk the rest of the Ghost Zone finding out about the human in their midst, so he wasn’t allowed to stay for long.

He knew it was for his own safety, but he got so bored waiting around all the time. He just wanted to go home, hug his family and eat a pizza or two.

‘At least my cooking skills have gotten better.’ Danny thought as he sat down with his fresh bowl of warm soup. It lacked a lot of flavour with his limited ingredients, but he was eternally glad that Pandora had garlic in her garden.

He’d only had a few spoonfuls before the door to the private kitchen opened and revealed two of the ghosts he’d gotten close to in his time here. Phantom and Ember were arguing loudly about something, but Danny’s head was pounding too much from their volume to pay attention to the words.

“Guys, not so loud. I have a headache.” He murmured with his head in his hands.

“A headache?” Phantom’s worried, but thankfully quieter, voice spoke up as he shifted closer to Danny. “What happened? Are you okay?”

He waved a hand in Phantom’s general direction, “I’m fine. It’s just a cold.”

“What’s up with your voice, dipstick?” Ember asked, floating a little bit behind Phantom.

Danny looked at them, squinting a little at their bright glow in the darkish room. “Do ghosts even get colds?” He figured he may as well ask.

Ember frowned and spoke unsurely. “Uh… Some ghosts can get cold if they don’t have a temperature core?”

Danny shook his head, “No, I mean like, sick colds.” He didn’t have much time to dwell on the notion that ghosts apparently did not get colds before Phantom was reaching out to him worriedly. Just like he did back in the garden over a week ago, but this time they were comfortable enough with each other that he felt it okay to touch his shoulder.

“You’re sick!?” The sudden shout made him wince, which made Phantom draw back apologetically. “Sorry.” He continued quietly. “Is it the sunlight? Do you need to go back to the garden? How do you feel?”

Danny started laughing at the ghost’s worry over him. Phantom had been particularly worried about his health ever since Pandora mentioned that humans needed sunlight or they got sick, and though it got a little overbearing at times, it was kind of cute that he fretted so much. And the laughter turning into a small coughing fit didn’t help matters either. Danny held up a hand to placate the ghost while he drank his water and listened to the him and Ember frantically discuss if having a cold meant he was cold and if they should make him warmer.

“Guys, it’s not that big of a deal.” He said when he put the glass down and picked up his soup again. The warmer liquid was much more soothing on his throat.

“Yes, it’s a big deal! You’re sick!” Danny watched, amused as Phantom ran a hand through his hair. He probably would have shared one of those teasing looks with Ember about Phantom’s overprotectiveness if it weren’t for the ghost looking similarly worried. “I have no idea how to help a sick human. We’re going to need a doctor.”

He stood from his crouch and probably would have bolted for the door if Ember hadn’t spoken up. “But ghost doctors wouldn’t know how to help a sick human either.”

“Then we need Pandora. She knows the most about humans than anyone here.”

“I think I know more about humans than anyone here.” Danny mumbled, but went unheard as Ember told Phantom stay and watch him while she went to get the older ghost.

Danny rolled his eyes, “You don’t need to bother Pandora with this. I’m fine!”

As Phantom started questioning him on what a cold was and if he could do anything to help Danny, the human sighed fondly and continued to eat his soup in between answers. As over the top as this all was, he was glad Phantom cared enough to worry like this. It reminded him to add another thing to his mental checklist of things to do when he got home.

Tell his parents that ghosts are not the evil beings they told him they were.

#continuation of days 1 and 2 #dannymay 2020 #dannymay day 11 #dannymay doctor #danny phantom #danny fenton #phantom is a full ghost #fenton and phantom are separate people #pitch pearl #stuck in the ghost zone #sick fenton #worried phantom #ember mclain

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johannstutt413 · 4 years

Text

(Requested by anonymous) - Meant to queue this but I’m on my phone so...oh well!

The Doctor was going through a stack of reports when a familiar-as-of-late face stepped through his door. “Excuse me, Doctor, but...I was informed I need to complete my regular medical examination today.”

“Today?” He looked at the calendar and clock behind him. “Time has gone by a lot faster than I expected, then. Alright, well, that certainly takes priority over the busywork in front of me right now. Care to walk to the exam room together?”

“Yes...They won’t ask to speak with me if we go together.” Reed waited for him outside his door, her tail gliding along the ground and her heart-stone glowing in time with her breathing. Once he’d gathered the few things he couldn’t leave in his office, the Doctor stepped out and walked with her to the exam room slightly ahead of her.

All things told, Reed hadn’t been with RI for very long - a couple of months at most by this point - but as the Doctor was the only physician she trusted outside of Sussurro, who performed her initial examination and was available when the Doctor himself wasn’t, he’d gotten to know her rather quickly from a medical standpoint. More than anyone else in RI, he could relate to the experience of being plucked from a battlefield into the test-tube that was Rhodes Island’s treatment facilities, and he was more than willing to help her adapt to her new environment...Unfortunately, she’d been rather reluctant to do so. Whatever secrets she couldn’t reveal to the others, Reed was adamant - or at least as adamant as her natural soft-spokenness would allow - that she be left alone by most other Operators.

Which only made his position something to cherish all the more.

Once they were in the exam room, the Doctor locked the door behind him and started a recording. “July 25th, 1213 pm. Regular physical examination of Operator Reed. Good afternoon, Miss Reed.”

“Good afternoon.” Her heart-stone’s pulse was accelerating, but that was normal. Whenever she was alone with someone, from his observations, she was more nervous, and the necessity of recording worsened it.

“Alright, let’s start with the simple things.” He looked over his checklist. “You’ve kept up with the self-care treatments?”

“Yes, Doctor.”

The Doctor smiled. He could tell she had. “You haven’t been in the field for some time, but have you used your Arts in a training setting?”

“Monday, yes, but no other point in the week.”

“Good, good,” he nodded. “Have you noticed any strong crystal growth in a particular area?”

Reed blushed. “Um...I have, actually. My back feels tougher than last week.”

“Okay, so we’ll start there. Anything else you’ve noticed?”

“Some of the crystals seem to be receding.” She took a deep breath in and out. “The ones that were forming in my chest are gone - I haven’t had any issues breathing since my last exam.”

The Doctor frowned. “That’s rather strange, but your case has never been completely straightforward. Is there anything else you want to mention, Oripathy-related or otherwise, regarding your current physical health?”

“Not at this time?”

“I’ll accept that.” He set down his checklist and put on a pair of tear-resistant gloves. “Alright, now for the exam proper...Before we begin, are you sure you don’t want Sussurro to do this part? I’m legally required to ask if you want a same-sex doctor to perform this procedure.”

Reed looked him in the eye. “I prefer when you do it, Doctor.”

“Alright...” She always insisted on that, which, well, if the Doctor was honest with himself, it complicated things rather massively. There were portions of the exam he simply couldn’t perform as well because of the awkwardness he felt, no matter how much of him insisted it was entirely clinical.

“Can I make a request regarding today’s exam?” She asked, breaking him out of his thoughts as she disrobed. “Well, I have a request and several questions.”

The Doctor nodded; he wasn’t quite mentally prepared to start yet. “Sure.”

“Before I do, though...I need you to stop the recording.”

“Um, I’m not sure I can do that.” He knew he shouldn’t, actually. “Legal concerns, you understand.”

Reed sighed. “Never mind, then.”

“...Pause recording.” The machine stopped itself. “Reed, why do you need to ask this off the record?”

“It’s not completely about the examination...Doctor, why do you try not to look at me while examining me?”

Shit. “I...I have a duty to perform as a medical professional, but I’m still not used to caring for female patients the same way I might, say, Flamebringer, if her ever came into the clinic...”

“Would it help if you had my consent?” Reed’s heart-stone was beginning to smoke.

“Your consent?” His brow furrowed. “I’m not sure I’m following you.”

She sat up straight, taking on a strangely regal character even with most of her attire thrown into a chair next to the examination table. “My body temperature doesn’t hurt you, and I...I like when you touch me. There have been times I wondered...if I could ask you to do it outside of an examination.”

“As a medical professional, that violates the ethical agreement I made-”

“Then I ask you directly.” Reed stepped off the table. “I know it makes your work more difficult to not be able to approach me...but you have nothing to fear from me, Doctor. If your mind wanders, if your heart skips a beat, or even if you find me...my condition repulsive...”

He sighed, setting his head in his hands. “This company, I swear...Reed, you are impossibly beautiful, and I can’t focus on my work if I look at you for too long. I also don’t think your insistence about your giving me consent justifies me using work hours for more personal interaction...But.”

“But?” She watched him carefully, waiting for him to restore her hope. He had called her beautiful, after all.

“Tell me one thing, before I follow this line of thought any further.” The Doctor looked back at her, all of her, ignoring his more polite notions but not giving into anything more immediate. “If I can no longer act as your primary physician because of this change in our relationship, and the only way for me to continue seeing you is something more legally binding, will you agree to it?”

Reed smiled. “Doctor, if you had a ring, I would ask for it right now.”

“I...I suppose that answers that question.” Now he knew the universe was out to get him.

“So, Doctor?” She took a tentative step towards him, then another, and a third more confident than the other two as she felt his gaze on her. “Will you be able to look at me during our exams?”

The Doctor wiped the sweat from his brow before nodding. “Yes.”

“And later today, after work...will you let me return the favor?”

“Ahhh...” If you could actually get a nose bleed from being aroused, he’d certainly be in danger of one. “Um...You know what? I’m sick of pretending at this point. Why not right now?”

Reed closed the distance. “You mean it?”

“The room’s reserved, and we both seem to have reached a breaking point...And if we do get in trouble, it won’t be for me taking advantage of you in a moment of weakness or whatever other accusations might be leveled at me...”

“Thank you.” She wrapped her arms around him, his chin resting on her breast. “I won’t have to worry about your being gentle, but rest assured...I will not be so forceful with you again. I just...”

He let his hands do as they willed, which meant settling below her waist, as he let go of the last holdout of his willpower and kissed her mid-thought. This was a dangerous game they were playing, but the Doctor was not one to lose a gambit...and for the chance to show Reed the affection she so clearly craved, any risk was fair.

#arknights #reed (arknights)#so like i said #reed is super pretty #and her whole thing is super tragic #part of me connected her and Blue #cuz one’s got rumors about being untouchable #and the other might actually be #and then there’s her third pre-trust/promo dialogue #so...yeah #apparently we do actually doctor #never saw that coming #arknights fic

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dishonoredrpg · 4 years

Photo

Congratulations, TARYN! You’ve been accepted for the role of THE MOON with the faceclaim of FRIDA GUSTAVSSON. In spite of a few understandable bumps in the road, you really blew me away with Maiden! The Moon is a very understated character, to me, in that their subtleties and smaller notes are what really make them interesting. You took them in a direction I wasn’t expecting, but I enjoyed the ride nevertheless -- I also enjoyed the ups-and-downs of the plots quite a lot, and how you tied everything together with a nice little bow in regards to her interest in botany and the past which she is still trying to uncover. Altogether, this was a delight to read, and I can’t wait for Maiden to grace the dash!

Please review the CHECKLIST and send your blog in within 24 hours.

OOC NAME: Taryn PRONOUNS: She/her AGE: 21+ TIMEZONE, ACTIVITY LEVEL: PST & currently I’m stuck at home and rarely allowed to leave the house because I’m immunocompromised… bleh. In a week or so I’ll be considered okay to rejoin people, and then I’ll be on the job hunt - which I only mention because it may change my activity ability once that’s happening! I also do help out behind the scenes at another roleplay, so some creative juice goes there. Overall, ideally I’m at least online everyday to chat, plot, or post a reply. Some days the ole mental health needs me to stay off screens for a bit or just says You Aren’t Writing Today, but I’d say it’s been a while since I’ve gone more than 3 days without posting on an rp account, so whatever that translates to -- 7/10, maybe? ANYTHING ELSE?: Other than what I already messaged you about (and thank you again for your understanding!!), I just want to say I interpreted things a little differently than the recent skeleton edit/your anon answers imply -- I thought her magic manifested at thirteen with the instance of Moon freezing her mother’s arm, meaning her mother knew from that early age that Moon had powers, and only told Moon to leave when the rumours spread. I think that switches up the dynamic you might have imagined, but hopefully you still like it! I was also a little confused as to whether or not the Moon’s mother ever instructed her in the work she does -- because there is the “All she ever does in return is chuckle and pat you on the head, but you figure that she’ll tell you one day.” line, but it seems that’s when she’s younger, and I figured if she’s working as a botanist at the castle she must have been lessoned in the stuff to some degree. So there is mention of her mother teaching her botany in her history, but it’s not an ~important detail at all and could literally just straight up be removed from the bio without issue. Can you tell I’m anxious and need to over-clarify everything? Lmao. Anyway, thanks again Julie!! IN CHARACTER SKELETON: The Moon NAME: Maiden Mallorian / “Triss” I don’t largely go into naming conventions but I think there’s some worth in discussing it here! The use of Maiden as a given name is meant to embody an Otherness by using a commonly-used noun in place of a traditional name (... though I guess all names are nouns too… anyway), as well as a mystique. EG: If every young, unmarried woman is a maiden, then who is the girl we call Maiden? Is she all of those young women, or none of them - is she a person, or a concept? Can a woman even have an identity with a moniker shared by so many -- a similar question to can a girl have a sense of self if she is raised in isolation, if her teachers are not people but the meadows, the crows and the heaths and the moors? There’s also certainly the archetype of The Maiden in literature, particularly in relation to the trio of Maiden / Mother / Crone. Beyond her mother embracing this triumvirate of feminine archetypes and deliberately naming her after as much, there’s just that very literal interpretation - I’ve named her after the maiden archetype, pure and simple. Her mother is, clearly, the mother, and I see the High Priestess rounding out that divine feminine trio as the crone -- the most aged of all, the closest to death, and the bearer of the most knowledge. Furthermore you have the scrubbing of this name and the replacement of it with Triss -- a simple, short nickname that bares no importance or meaning, and instead effectively erases the things that made her unique. Maiden tends to forget or, at least, forgo introducing herself with the alias both because she dislikes and genuinely forgets to use it -- so you may have a smattering of people who know her in-character as Triss, but to those that she knows better and/or takes a liking to immediately, they’ll know her as Maiden. Which, if I’m continuing to be a little extra with the name analysis, is also a good representation of her duality/contradiction -- two names, two selves, two parts to the moon (glowing at night; invisible by day-hours), the illusion/deception part of the moon tarot, and all that jazz. FACECLAIM: (1) Frida Gustavsson (2) Ashley Moore AGE: Twenty-five DETAILS: So, full disclosure, I’ve said it a dozen times to a dozen different people but I had the hardest time deciding on a character -- I was literally stuck between five or six skeletons until like 48 hours before the submit closed. They were as varied as The Moon to Temperance to even the dark horse of The Hermit plowing its way through my heart, and what attracted me to that array of characters on the whole was just the ability to see a story in them. I could find in each of them a distinct past and complex future, but the Moon ended up pulling ahead as I started to collect inspiration and jot down notes -- it was Maiden’s story that wouldn’t leave me alone. And I will go into an attempt to tell you why below, but realistically that’s almost the best reason I could give you -- because they won’t unstick from your shoulder or let you reach for someone else. They demand to be spoken for. Truthfully, I love tales of daughters and their mothers. I love the narrative passed between them, how one can be an extension of the other -- I love a retelling of an immaculate conception where the magic is found in the mother, not an absent-holy father (even if said immaculate conception is just myth, because who says a story isn’t as important as a truth). I love women and their stories, and how no girl is ever so far from being a witch -- basically, I adore that Girl Magic, so it was her background that appealed to me first. Because while we’re talking about Girl Magic, there’s such a potential for that with The Moon. I saw her at the crux of an eccentric mage and a clumsy apprentice, possibly hovering in the middle because she has no instructor, only herself -- so she is forced to experiment and create and learn all at once. I also love archetypes of wild women, though that doesn’t have to mean the ones that run with wolves -- sometimes it means the ones who sleep next to them. I’m very drawn to stories of the Others, the ones a half-step from society, who hold something unusual and distinctly enchanted about them -- and Maiden, whose magic has manifested in a way that may prove unique to all humanity, certainly has that Otherness going for her. Women in real life (and in fiction) are so often grouped into homogenous categories or expectations that being able to write one who not only defies societal conventions, but exists outside them entirely, and with contradictions inside her -- phew. That’s some shit I can fall in love with. I do find it difficult to dissect and lay out who Maiden is so plainly -- to me, that’s like writing an analysis on a novel I haven’t finished yet. I can’t separate her bones for you yet on the table because I’m still unrolling them from the skin myself, measuring out the angles of her joints, sizing up her feet, etc. But I like that I know this muse is going to unravel for me with time, despite how much I already have done -- that’s actually a very important note to me in a character, feeling that there is still progress to be made as both myself and the muse go through the roleplay together. Though, that being said, I also don’t remember the last time I’ve been able to create such a long-term character arc from the get-go -- which is super exciting, tbh, and yet another reason I got drawn into the Moon’s lunar pull over the others. Got me out here feeling like I could write a novel 😭 BACKGROUND: let us begin, as all stories do - and as they must - at the beginning. to be fair and honest, as stories never are, we must admit that this is not quite the true beginning. that beginning, in this case and all others, would mean the black-star start of the world (or in the very least, if we are to cheat just slightly, the origins of magic - but i digress), when everything came from nothing and nothing meant everything. but for both your time and mine, we will skip past the first red, slashed dawn of the world, and even beyond the fantastic sky-breaking initiation that brought magic, though they did not come all that far apart, as you may think. i also feel that it is my duty to you, dear reader, to state my bias. that is all. i state it. i type it in bold letters, black like stones from the bottom of a cold ocean and just as cold. it has been relayed, and i have done what is necessary. i have no obligation to further explain to you what it may be, or to who i am favored or embittered - indeed, i staunchly oppose such action, as you yourself must have an active part in this tale, a responsibility to seek out what is truth and what is exaggeration - and there is no point in asking. but don’t read too much into this. all this facetious, drawn-out text is only a disclosure. this is a story, real as your whale-blubber bones, and i am not lying about any of it. all i mean to say is this: it is a sign both of humanity and of narration that we should always, must always, pick a side. it is simply necessary, just as it is necessary to remember this when one is the listener. never believe a narrator who does not disclose themselves upon the opening of a story, and never trust one that calls themselves impartial. they are lying. it is only natural to crave loveliness, or wickedness, or both, and it can only be expected that a tongue slants and bends to accommodate such reactions of the heart. there is no story that is all truth. there is only love and the words we create to try and express it; never quite accurate, never quite enough, like a burr soaked in honey and left on your tongue. stinging and sweet, but no matter how you try, you cannot spit it out. (remember, look closely, but not too hard). this is our story. i leave it in your mouth. there are three things in succession: a bargain, a girl, and magic. the order of these both matters and does not. it does not matter because all these things are one and the same in the end. it does matter for reasons that will become apparent shortly. there is, as many tales go, an unhappy woman (why it is never a man that is so morose and dissatisfied with life in these stories, we shall leave for the scholars to explain). she lives in a stretch of land where few who are not seeking her come, and spends her days shucking the cures and harms out of flowers and counting the wolves that pass by her road. the first bargain, by all accounts, happens some time ago, before we begin the meat of our tale: the woman lives simply but she lives alone, and for that fact alone she is considered both strange and in necessary want of a companion, for it is a truth universally acknowledged that even a peculiar woman is in want of a husband. yet no sojourner or knight come to her door seeking remedy is invited to stay longer, no boots left at her doorstep despite the impressive if not daunting presence of her beauty, and in the absence of romance the people in the farmlands grow restless, then talkative. what does a woman want beside a mate, they wonder? particularly when she is young, and beautiful, and alone, they add, because in these stories and every one that will be told thereafter until my throat is split in a great red grin, that is all that matters to an active audience. a child, they murmur finally. it must be a child. there are varying accounts of what happens next, but let me give you the gristle: a swell comes to the solitary woman’s belly, and in more moons, so comes a daughter. no one remembers when she is born, and it is something of a wonderment that she exists at all; far and wide she is eyed thrice-over by all those who see her babe form swaddled in her mother’s arms, wondering over which crib she has been snatched from. the farm-folk in the nearby flatlands believe that she was not stolen or bred but placed, a changeling offered to her mother in exchange for a bargain made with the undying god, or conjured up by spell and pure maternal desire alone (for you were a fool if you believed these simple folk saw a woman, young and beautiful and alone and with her fingers in the dirt, and never called her witch). others still swear the child came from the unfolded petals of a white flower, her minute form bundled up where the pollen was meant to be. whether this gossip speaks to the audacity of the men in the telling of the lie or the stupidity of the listener for believing something so unnatural, i will let you decide. or perhaps you believe in magic. do you? i digress. so as you are learning, the first bargain is both unimportant and not. completely individual and irrevocably part of a far larger, grander whole, indistinguishable from the rest. but next comes the girl, as i promised. and she is very, very important. she is our story. she is her mother’s in full, because blood and magick are one and the same, and the farmers are right in this alone: her mother loves her as meat loves salt, as lions love flesh and blood and not cabbages, and there is no unnatural thing in this world she would not do to make her borne. she loves her from dusk to dawn and dirt to moon, and so she gives her a name stitched with irony so that the fates will not sew it into her bones: maiden. a thing from every story, a girl on every street. she names her after a concept so that she will always be real, made of life. so that the tales whose paths she walks will not decide for her. mother and maiden live in the little cottage in the wide grasslands between wicked wood and dry cropland, and in the nothingness they have everything they need. mother hunts for their supper and teaches maiden to carry a bow when it is time, and more importantly how to give thanks to the beasts they carve up on the wooden table. they collect logs for fires and till the gardens by hand, taking from the earth all that they need and never - as mother instructs - a drop more. they play games of knots and crosses in the dirt and maiden makes dramas with the figures mother whittles, and to give you the very best truth of all, they want for very little that they do not have. she learns how to be a raven (observing), a fox (clever), a rabbit (swift), a riddle (everything all at once, and only sometimes a girl) from mother and the animals both, and she walks about the meadows barefoot and learns from the trees and birds, loves them the way she never loves people only because she has not had the chance. mothers and fauna are all well and good to take lessons from, but they do make a strange girl. she tells her secrets to the bees and watches the far-off puffs of smoke from the farmlands, pretending they are streams from a dragon’s nostrils and not the warmth of a hearth with children her age sitting next to it so that she does not feel sorry for herself. to her, there are but two people: her mother, and the people she trades with. it is not so bad; they are both very good at being alone, and the people of the nearest town are even better at reminding them to stay that way. when they blow into the hamlet on the western breeze maiden makes games of hanging off porches and climbing things that should never be touched, and she laughs so freely all the other children cannot help but come out from their hiding places and join her until their fathers call them back in. not with her, they say. not that one. — but o, how sweet and precocious a child she is when the visitors come, wrists knotted behind her back and eyes tied forward as she questions their intentions and demands, as if in secondary payment, life stories as recompense for mother’s skills. how you would have loved her, i tell you, that girl with her flaxen hair and moon-eyes, tugging on sleeves and walking the verbal-stride of a child who never learned how to shrink herself — how i love her even now! and if i must tell you something else: magic is rarely courteous, and almost never consolatory. when it arrives, no matter how many pieces of furniture i have shifted in my heart to make way for a girl called maiden, it comes with no such open space in its pit. where i have crafted an open sitting parlour it has bedroom sets and wicker fruit baskets and even a few grand lamps (never mind the fact that lamps do not yet exist; in the cavity of magic, there are always lamps), and so when it arrives she feels the weight of all these things dropped upon her head. and mother, who does so well at holding her silence it resembles a newborn babe swathed in cloth, still grips the quiet as carefully as church glass - even with one arm in disuse. you know by now, of course, what has happened. it is no secret to you or i what occurred that day, as some pieces of stories swell until they brush up against the audience independent of the narrative altogether. the effect was grand even if the moment was not, for unfortunately sometimes even the greatest plot devices happen when the writer is sleeping and cannot pause to fancy it all up. one moment a hand is merely a hand passing twine and foxglove, the next it has frozen in place. it might have been a lovely image under any other circumstance: the look of a pale, slim arm grasping a hanging purple head of flowers beneath thick, glittering ice like a delicately painted carving in a snowglobe. But indeed, how the image shook them instead of the other way around. in an effort to distract her, mother peels open the earth’s secrets at the seam and lets her peek into the sticky, moist centers and slurp the knowledge for herself. she shows her how to unfold plant-magic on the large wood table and lessons her on how to use it kindly in poultices and elixirs and bunches of dried ravensmaw. she learns what is used for fresh wounds and the herbs best combined to stave off heartbreak, and they are more similar than you think. but things are, distinctly, never the same: in a house that has only ever had two voices, there arrives a great sweeping of silence. mother is far-away in a place of wondering, the spot where mothers are ought to go when considering how best to protect their child. maiden too spends time in that same seat questioning who it is that has made her and why they stole from two separate bowls of clay, though the pair never seem to sit down and share a table in that place in peace. life goes on this way, i am loathe to report, until it gets worse. there is an awful quiet that does not leave that house, suspended between the unasked questions of what to do and what am i? maiden is kept from leaving the cabin or its surrounding pasture in ever-climbing extents until she is nought but bound to them, and mother makes the trips to the farmlands for supplies alone and ushers her out of the room when clients arrive. so, here she is in full, with flaxen hair and a moon hidden underneath her tongue: clever and strange, curious and lovely, tall and just a little too spindly-boned. a raven, a fox, a rabbit, a riddle, and sometimes a girl. magic bound in bones. a shut-in who never had reason to grow a heart, but did anyway, and now she is left to the lonesome. truly, can we blame her for what she did next, for answering the door all those moons later simply because someone knocked, and letting them in without checking if their teeth were bicuspids or fangs? can we fault that lonely creature for believing she could help, and fixing the tonic herself rather than waiting for mother, as instructed? can we accuse her for what came next, the slimmest moment of ice crystals skittering across a workbench, cold little diamonds that another less-shrewd eye might have ignored, but this one picked out? and what of the day the child got lost with a thorn in its foot, how she snuck from the cabin and cooed for them till it was yanked free, the simple smoothing of her thumb over the sole leaving it smooth as milk — i ask you that, in true: what crimes would you charge her with? do you blame the tiger for its hunting? it is only following nature, after all. or do you cast your stones on the people who threw nets through the trees and called it protection, expecting not to bleed. one cannot take in a wolf and expect it to never look back at the forest, no matter how well fed it is kept. like a flower cannot choose its colour, we cannot help what we become. she could not help what she did. it was only in her nature. so like rain, like a black cloud, like bad omens, the rumours come for the maiden, the one in the meadow, the one in the little wooden hut with the strange-beautiful-alone mother. daughter is even worse than the mother, they say. i heard it was ice — no, wind — nay, she is vitalus too — they build and rise until mother-maiden can hear the gossip in the air, having travelled by raven-feather and west-wind. of course none of it is the truth, for she bares a reality that no one yet knows — something hidden away like an egg inside an egg at the deepest part of the world — but it does not matter. audiences do not look for fact, they clutch only to wickedness or sweetness, as i have already told you. mother grows panicked with hydrangeas of fear spouting out of her ears, demanding a flight to be taken, and daughter lies awake at night wondering how to do so without wings — questioning how it has come to pass that she knows the roots and berries and grass, but not the woods or how to survive in them. you know, still, what happens next. there is another knock at the door, and despite lessons learned, the maiden answers the call: and this time it is death standing there waiting. they come to an agreement. sometimes death, too, is kind. history peeks its lazy, pinned-down eyes around the corner when the maiden of this story leaves her little hovel, fingers made of revolutions and religions clinging tightly to the doorframe to watch her go. the journey is perilous and full of dark places and occasional humour, if you are interested in that kind of adventure. i will tell it another time, when the back of my tongue has been given rest. i wish i could tell you, dear reader, which sort of story this will be: drama or comedy, mask one or mask two. but i don’t know yet. we will find out together, which makes us accomplices, you and i - like colleagues. two thieves after the same jewel. i have told her story because i love her, this much you know to be true by now, because we do not let the ones we love tell war stories. which is, in essence, what every story we can ever tell is: a battle of wits, or a conflict of hearts, or the combat of self against self. there is always a fight against something. it’s the nature of humanity, to push and poke and burn. —- – and now you see what i meant at the beginning of this tale: bargain. girl. magic. all of it comes in that necessary order and none at all. bargain. it arrives first, before her birth, a rumour; at the same time, it is the last twist, the thing that brings her to this castle. girl. she is born; she exists. magic. her blood, her marrow; a complexity of sparks and hope. a beginning, a middle, an end. a circle. a moon. PLOT IDEAS: These are laid out in a potential arc/chronological order of when I see them happening, but with the exception of a few, almost any combination could work! I. SHUCKED FROM PETALS. I’d like to grow Maiden’s role as a botanist -- both in terms of having her interest in botany itself swell, and also expand this into something of an inventor or potioner function. While she’s currently making strange concoctions at the King’s request, as an inherently curious woman I see these demands as something that will spark interest in her to create on her own. While in her youth she quizzed her mother on the applications of leaves and stems, now that she has no mentor for the process, she can only question and find answers by working through the hypotheses and methods herself. II. ON THE BASIS OF MORALITY. I see very strongly Maiden descending further into the plot to assassinate Septimus and joining the group of revolters in a more tangible way. Her ability to fight and knowledge of courtly life are both lacking, but she offers a unique vantage point of visiting all manner of individuals with the perfect excuse -- their health. As she becomes more decidedly entangled in the rebellion efforts and subsequently offers up her services to them, she begins to craft salves and potions with hidden effects, used in application against those they stand against (a poultice made with an herb that lends to truth when tending to someone with information / a drought with added pollen so that a guard may sleep through their shift that night, etc). Less fleshed out, but still worth noting: if the laced salves and elixirs are a no-go, she could slide into something of a spy/informant role fairly easy. Again, she has easy access to any array of people as the castle, and can come and go from different bedsides silently -- listening in on conversations all the while. III. FASTER THAN MINE ARROW. At the behest of the revolution -- where intentions ring with righteousness yet impact may be less virtuous -- I see Maiden encouraged to embrace her Inferni powers by rebel cohorts. While it’s not a path I see her arriving at and walking on her own, as she entrenches herself in the ideals and plots of the revolution, it would still be a willingly-made choice -- albeit perhaps still a reluctant one. She far prefers to heal than harm, but as the plot to kill Septimus ripens, she would accept the notion that an offensive skill gained by her becomes a shield and sword to the cause. I interpret this as less of an embrace of violence and more an eventual acceptance of her magic in all its parts; Maiden removing her gloves and making attempts at practicing Inferni magic brings with it an acknowledgement that not only are these powers part of her but they are hers alone to control. If she can develop some mastery over them, she can use them as she sees morally right, rather than their use dictated to her by others (so she believes). I want to see her not think of her magic as an intrusion and a mystery, but rather some native at the pit of her -- like stone in a fruit. As long as it is there, one could not bite straight through her. Sub-bullet because it’s not a huge thing, but I’d love a moment where she’s practicing with the ice in the greenhouse and loses control, subsequently destroying much of the flora in there beyond salvation -- cue a sobbing Maiden. Also! Would love to use this as an excuse for the Hierophant to become a sort-of mentor for her -- a dynamic she would undoubtedly seek out and beg for if the time came. IV. WHERE TRUTHS CONFLICT. As clearly as I envision Maiden’s loyalties knotting tighter to the revolutionaries, I don’t believe her resolution is iron in every aspect. While she may agree that King Septimus needs to be removed, deciding which successor she wishes to support would be far harder. This plot could be as simple as indecision and uncertainty on Maiden’s part, or could be as complex as a more nefarious individual taking advantage of her courtly ignorance and indecisiveness by manipulating her into backing their pick for future ruler. V. THE CURE & THE RUIN. Working intimately with anything lends to cross-contamination -- including poisonous plants. My thoughts on this fork a few different ways here, albeit my personal fave is the first bullet: Through her own misinformation or inexperience, Maiden accidentally begins to poison herself through prolonged exposure to toxic flora and their materials. Seeing as she’s in the greenhouse for hours at a time nearly every day, this would lend to a good, steady incline of symptoms -- paranoia, delusion, hallucinations, etc until they potentially culminate in a kind of temporary “madness.” An individual or party on the loyalist side discovers what she is doing for the revolters, and applies the same concept -- a slow poisoning, made to look accidental by exposure to the wrong flower. This may be less likely as it might be implausible for another character to have a knowledge of botany that surpasses her own and plant something toxic in the Greenhouse without Maiden realizing, but I’m totally open to it! Similar to the last, rather than a loyalist poisoning Maiden, they find a way to access her stash of concoctions and alter them so that they harm rather than heal those she is working with. Could be particularly dramatic if she is working long-term on a member of royalty or influential revolution member -- ie. something like visiting them daily to apply salve on a new wound that needs consistent tending. VI. WHAT ARE YOU, SWEET CREATURE? Maiden’s dual powers are bound to come into public knowledge eventually, and I think there’s the opportunity for some terror and delight there. I’ve been ruminating a lot on what the hybrid of her Inferni and Vitalus powers mean -- An Inferni rarely lives past thirty, and Maiden is already twenty-five. I’ve been imagining that she has not seen or felt the costs of her power like other Inferni due to the innate nature to heal, which is undoubtedly something other Inferni would desire. Whether Maiden willingly lays herself down to experimentation in the name of aiding the Hierophant or she’s literally captured by Septimus and crew for a less careful kind of research -- I’d love to see her secret blown up and her safety compromised as a result. VII. IT HURTS TO BECOME. I have little octopus tentacles coming out of this plot because I can see multiple variations on the same idea, so -- As inspired by the “Vitalis magic often manifests itself in nobility” line from the magic page, Maiden is discovered as the descendent of a noble bloodline. This could mean her father was the bearer of a title, or that even in a Mother Gothel-esque fashion her mother took her from a family in the desire to have her own child (though I favour the former). This is less about an advancement in her social standing/hierarchy and more about playing further with the themes of birth and identity. Particularly as an individual that isn’t well-matched to courtly manner and expectations, what would it be to disturb her peculiar existence further and force her into a lifestyle she has no interest in? How does it detract from her purpose and goals? Her mother is found out as someone who previously stayed at the Temple of the Undying and departed in some form of scandal known to the High Priestess. I think this would be particularly impactful if her mother’s time there overlapped directly with the High Priestess, and their relationship marked by some form of betrayal on her mother’s end. This would make her mother a necromancer, a fact that if going from this route was certainly kept from Maiden, or we could work with the concept that perhaps she was merely an emissary there. This bullet is less formed as it would require plotting with at least one other player, but essentially it boils down to braiding the High Priestess into her backstory (or, at least, the Temple of the Undying) -- a completion of the maiden/mother/crone build, if you will. Realistically, the above could be combined -- her mother has a past tied to both the Temple of the Undying, and her father is of noble descent. Lastly, this idea could also be twisted into a falsehood/manipulation of someone from Septimus/the Loyalist side -- she does not have noble blood and/or her mother’s past is made up, but they have fed her this story(s) in an attempt to distract/derail her from her purpose, or otherwise sway her onto the side of the Crown. VIII. THE MAIDEN IN THE TOWER. I see very clearly what Maiden could be in years time -- in the same way the King has the Tower, or perhaps even The High Priestess, I envision the capacity for Maiden to become an advisor in the arcane arts to the future ruler. This is very epilogue-esque content, the resolution to a tale long told, something far-off and subject to change depending on how the roleplay unfolds -- but if I was planning her arc from where I stand now, that would be the resolution. A femme!Merlin now in tune with her magicks, a strange figure forever working away in her greenhouse-laboratory in the highest room in the tallest tower, descending to the court only to offer counsel and smile at a few bugs… art. And maybe, just maybe, there’s even a bard out there singing about a strange moon-touched woman and her magic, who came from the Farmlands and ended up in a castle. That, I think, would make an awfully good story. CHARACTER DEATH: I’m definitely not opposed to it! If you see a plotline where her death makes sense I’m open to at least having the discussion -- it would probably depend how I’m feeling about her character development, as I do see quite clearly how far Maiden could develop with extensive, long-term rping (the Merlin-esque shit) and it’d be super cool to get there. WRITING SAMPLE SAMPLE #01. TWENTY-FIVE. CASTLE TYRHOLM, THE GREENHOUSE. Based on headcanons found in the extra section! it is the damnable wine she calls to blame for her recession from the great hall. yet still unused to its potency, it turns her stomach and her mind with it, until she is unbalanced and sure a marble placed upon the centre of her would roll only to one side, lolling comically behind her left ear. maiden swears she can hears it as she takes her leave from the night’s feast, a hideous clacking circling around her skull as she takes the steps to the greenhouse. the sound was a well accompaniment to the noise of heart against rib, that lub lub that reminisced so closely to collection of stones in a velvet satchel. how is that for an appraisal, she thinks. an inferni and a vitalus yet, and yet you cannot even hold your liquor. down below, music begins. septimus is performing one of his many wonders, conjuring up new entertainments like a foreigner’s god and his labours – things meant to fell mortal men in their spectacle. the sound, though muffled by stone, is light and deceptive with a beat kept by tambourine and wound through with panpipes. it crashes and crawls as a serpent through brush, dragging its body across the span of men’s shoulders and up the marble spires until it reaches the slender ankles of maiden high above, who slips from the darling (albeit pinching) satin slippers borrowed from the magician. o, that that song had teeth. it would sink them pit-deep into that lovely, exposed ankle. the footfalls that emerge from the far entrance are remote in distance, yet the cadence of it -- quick and spry, in the pattern of a courtly dance -- are close and recognized by ear in an instant. “your skill is in the making of noise, bard. so i would suggest --” she calls to armel with a bland hum, bent over a troop of growing windflowers as she cuts the largest at the stalk, her sharp fingernail used in place of scissors. “leaving behind these foolhardy attempts to remove sound from your being altogether.” maiden looks up then to the musician’s hiding place, half-covered as he is by bushes camellias and hanging vines. the look given beneath her brows is chiding, but it is a reproach with a single candle lit within, a glance perhaps warmed by liquor despite its meaning. “how do you always do that?” he asks, and maiden decides there is something rather feline about him as he emerges from the brush, shoulders rolling with that mandolin hoisted over one. “i didn’t say a word.” “you do not need to. your stroll speaks for you.” the air is moon-hot and the music swells below them, rising like tide to their knees, now their hips. her voice is cut-rope, one end loose in the water, and maiden lets the tide of the pull her, only one end remaining on shore. “asides…” she sighs, “you limp on the left.” “i do not.” “indeed you do. like a horse with a lame leg.” it is a full-force lie, dropped into a casket of wine and pulled out stinking, and armel catches her half-crescent smile at the same moment he spots her bare feet. “i suppose you won’t be returning to the ball, then.” maiden turns and takes to walking the length of the greenery. her back turns to him, but not unkindly; instead her slow, graceful gait seems an invitation to join, though he does not follow. she listens to armel as she winds through the tall grass, eyes upon the stalks, searching for anything that might catch her eye. in the moonlight she is all silhouette and odd-shapes, ever and always a little too-tall, a little too sharp-boned at the joints. but when she moves like this, slow and easily-flooded as moonlight itself, one could forget all that. “dancing slippers are quite unsuitably named,” she says by way of answer as the bard begins an absent strum on his instrument. “they give me no motivation at all to partake in such merriment.” armel does not answer, instead quite pensively continuing to pluck at notes while looking at the near distance -- assumedly undergoing great internal debate as to whether or not he was, truly, a lame horse. “a peace —” she slides the long stem of a gore-red windflower behind his ear when next she passes, as natural a move as though it were but tucking a strand of her own hair behind her ear. maiden smiles. “you actually limp on the right.” //

SAMPLE #02. AGE FIFTEEN. A MOMENT OF WEAKNESS & A DESPERATE ATTEMPT. Fire, it would seem, had ceased to be a friend to her. As a girl she had delighted in it, waving her hands above it, warming herself on it, staring at every passing wooden cart laden with people in the chance that one of them could be a fire-eater. Ice, that thing that ate and yawned across lakes and thatched roofs as if it remembered it had once devoured the world, was far more cruel in Maiden’s opinion. Could I not, at least, have had that which heats and provides sustenance? And more than even these sweet instances from childhood, she knew of fire intimately as an adult. It was a different kind of flame that brewed in her than what ran free in the wild; it was less violent and more warm, meant for thawing out the cold hands of children or creating delightful ever-shifting silhouettes on walls. She walked alone because she liked it, and spoke to strangers for great lengths of time because it excited her. That was her kind of fire, and so Maiden - it could be said - was as much flame as anyone, even as she chilled the air around her with her very presence. That was why, as she sat on her knees before the great outstretching flames of the parlour’s hearth, she had no caution as she threw paper into its guts. “Enough of this!” The girl was alone, but spoke aloud: it was part of her charm. Like a girl in a folktale who was subjected to life in a tower, she existed brightly when on her own because she knew no other way. The Mallorian girl did not need the accompaniment of another to prove her own worth. The fire sputtered charmingly in response, engorging itself as it swallowed paper and turned it into little pieces of nothingness. “No more curses, no more ice or damned magic!” Her hand shakes, but her heart holds its breath and remains steady. Stained at the tips with ash and melted ink, Maiden sits back on her thighs with a great tremble and stares into the flames before she falls to the pose of prayer. “Undying God, harbinger of all things, if this is your doing, let it be undone. I have wronged you not at all, nor my mother; I am not your child. Please.” Her ears burned pink with fear for addressing a deity with the same volume she would have a man standing before her, but it was too early to stop now. She pauses momentarily, straining to listen for a rumbling voice come from within the fire or swung in on the wind and branches. There is nothing but the crackle of pop of breaking wood. “Then -- then if it is the household spirits come for me, unhappy gnomes with rumbling tummies ‘for we have not been feeding them, emerge now! Or call it all off! Call it off, I say, spirits - take this magic from me so I may live in peace!” Again, she waits. And perhaps, if you would hold your hands over the ears of your heart and allow this young woman to admit it, she might have told you that she truly expected a troll-like little fellow with a green cap and scowling mug to emerge from beneath the ottoman. But there still is nothing, not even the tap of impatient little feet from behind the curtains, and her brows furrow as she stares into the hot gold and rose colours of the fire. Maiden sighs, a heavy breath that drops out of her mouth and rolls into the soot of the hearth. She suddenly feels much too old for these follies. Looking over at the pile of hastily-written spells and official decrees of intent (from Maiden to the Undying God, officially) to rid herself of this curse, the wheat-and-snow coloured girl pauses (and it pains me to say it, dearest reader, but the truth of the matter is that in the light of this blaze, she very much resembles the beautiful women you read about who either have very tragic ends or very wonderful ones in tales you all know). She had burned not even half yet, each one a representation of a day that had been ruined by questions or cold or mother’s worry, and there were still more to go. But no sign of the Undying in her great black steed, or impish house elves crawling out from the cracks beneath the woods. For a moment, she considers stopping. She considers picking up the remainder of the letters, tying them up with some of mother’s twine, and returning them to their proper drawer in the study. But as her hand hovers of the papyrus, her heart protests and causes her to pause. She is, after all, no girl in the tower. She will not sit in anybody’s stomach and wait for the woodsman. And if, in the odd and unusual chance that this circumstance of odd and unusual proportions is caused by something otherworldly, Maiden Mallorian shall not bow to it. No, no bowing indeed. “Now listen here --” Her voice raises, grows taller and older. It might be imagination, but the fire seems to as well. “Whether you be Undying God or lowly household gnome, I shall have no more of this. Do you understand? Are you listening, creatures?” There is nothing so impressive as unafraid, youthful folly. “I shall not be carried away to a cold temple to be a child of misery, and will not let this magic ruin me if you shall not bring me answers. If one of you are indeed responsible for this, it ends now. I am Maiden Mallorian, daughter of Yareli; and a right all in my own!” The sweet curves of her breasts rise and fall like toppling empires as she throws the remainder of the pages into the fire, staring fiercely into the contents as if to decipher an answer in their ash. There is a sudden seizure in her instead, a tight and pressing thing foreign to her soft-spun body. It demands something of her, as intent as fingers pressing into her ribs. She picks up the letter opener at her side, brought from the study to slide open old envelopes, but now she raises it to her chin and cuts in one fell swoop. It does not happen with ease, but off comes a handful of her hair. The edges of her locks are jagged, but the pieces in her palm look like fine oat straw that glitter in the light. She throws that, too, into the pile, and does not realize it has chilled. “There.” She speaks. It is solid and sure and sane. “There is my tribute.” Magic cannot be made by offering someone else’s liver. You must tear out your own and never expect to get it back. “Please... take it away.” Her voice, once grand and ringing of dynasties past, now calms. She begins to sound once more like only a girl of this century. “I am… Maiden Mallorian… and I do not wish to live a life of unhappiness.” The strength that once held her shoulders aloft departs in a gentle breath, leaving her soft to touch -- quivering. “If you shall not take this from me... I will make my own way, no matter who has done this -- be it God or beast or some creature in between --” She stands, in possession of some quiet power. “One day I will find my truth. And then I will know a free heart at last.” She leaves before the paper and hair have all disappeared, trusting the fire -- that once-longtime friend, that formerly beloved and willingly indentured servant -- to do as it is meant to. As the cold evening wages on the flame starts to die, and, left unattended, everything turns to ash. All that is left in the hearth of the Mallorian home is the same colour: black. But it is not a frightening colour if you look closely. It seems, perhaps, the ink in this story is drying. It is time for a new chapter.

EXTRAS A NOTE ON ~MAGICK: I just wanted to state that while I loved imbuing her story/personality with themes of oddity and enchantment, I don’t expect any of these things to be real. Her biography was supposed to be an exaggerated verbal retelling, and in example: the rumour that Maiden’s birth was the result of not a normal conception but pure willpower and magic is just that -- hearsay crafted by unnerved townsfolk trying to justify a strange, unmarried woman in the woods and her peculiar daughter. I’m also not sure what balance you’re looking to strike between realism and fantasy, so if things like her pet owl are too much the former -- no problem!! I could definitely tone down anything you think is too out there! PINTEREST: here. MUSE TAG: here. CHARACTER INSPIRATIONS BIG AND SMALL!: Kayley (Quest for Camelot), Garrett (Quest for Camelot), Phoebe Buffay (Friends), Amalthea (The Last Unicorn), Rapunzel (Tangled), Merlin (The Sword in the Stone), Arthur (The Sword in the Stone), Taran (The Black Cauldron), Eilonwy (The Black Cauldron), Katrina van Tassel (Sleepy Hollow (1999)), Nimue/Lady of the Lake (Arthurian mythology), Honey Lemon (Big Hero 6), Vasya Petrovna (The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden), Kida (Atlantis: The Lost Empire), The Mage (King Arthur: Legend of the Sword), Luna Lovegood (Harry Potter), Thumbelina (fairytale), Circe (Circe by Madeline Miller), Yvaine (Stardust) HEADCANONS: She has a mild form of associative prosopagnosia, a type of facial blindness. While Maiden can distinguish faces from one another, it’s essentially difficult for her to recognize those she’s newly met or has not known (and subsequently seen) for a certain amount of time. As her youth in the woods meant infrequent visits from varying strangers and acquaintances, Maiden learned from a very young age to identify those she met with other signifiers -- the pitch of their voice, their cadence, the pattern of their boots on her mother’s shop’s creaky wood floor -- and she has become exceptional at it. While she may struggle to associate new faces with names, if she has heard your voice or the template of your gait, it is likely she can recognize you from the sound of these alone in the next room. Contingent on the above, I like to picture a longstanding game between Armel and Maiden with him attempting to sneak up on her, trying to outdo her hearing abilities only to be smoothly called out each time -- like the first twenty seconds of this scene from Tarzan. -- And obviously this was inspo for one of my writing samples! Major sweet tooth, and most likely has a standing relationship with The Hanged Man who provides her with desserts in exchange for tonics or pouches of seasoning curated from Maiden’s personal collection up in the greenhouse. Alternatively, she’s The Hanged Man’s personal Garfield, constantly being chased out of the kitchen before she can stick a finger in icing or steal a hot bun. Another Armel headcanon because I’m a sucker for a Found Sibling dynamic: Maiden has been teasing him for ages with the concept of knowing (and withholding) an Epic Folksong that her mother taught her and that would be just perfect for him to perform. There’s every likelihood that there is no song and she’s made it up to amuse herself, but every once and a while she hums a foreign tune or drops a few words from the “lyrics” to keep him interested. If it is a real song, bonus points if she’s making Armel do little chores etc to earn another piece of the song. Subject to plotting with Death’s player, I imagine her nickname/alias Triss was borne from a singular moment where they introduced her to someone within the castle upon arrival -- only to bluster that she used that strange name, Maiden, which confused the third party. Death makes a quick save by adding that “she means only that she is a maiden from the Farmlands,” and creating the assumed name on the spot, forcing Maiden to adopt it. Both due to falling asleep atop a text after extensive nights reading and researching and the comfort of being around plants, Maiden often sleeps in the greenhouse -- in fact, she prefers it to the cramped quarters she’s been given, and keeps a spare blanket there at all times. In the greenhouse has also come into residence a fat, one-eyed grey cat who she has named Augrunn, known affectionately (or otherwise) Auggie. Grumpy and demanding, Maiden found him taking shelter in the greenhouse on a particularly rainy day, and though he comes and goes as he pleases, it’s now effectively his home. Auggie is known to both yowl for personal space if you’re too close and swipe if you stop petting him too early. Similarly, Maiden has an owl-friend whose name I haven’t decided on, but the front-runner is currently Archimedes. Unbothered by Augrunn’s attempts to snatch him out of the air, he’s a chill little feather-loaf that watches the comings and goings of the greenhouse from the carved wood perch she has made him. He is aware of the location of Maiden’s sleeping quarters, and can occasionally be found sitting on her windowsill when she’s there. She bruises very easily, even in circumstances unrelated to use of her Inferni magic -- just as likely to get a mark from walking into a corner as she is to scar from the use of her ice powers. Insects don’t bother her in the slightest. Growing up in a small home filled with plants, there were always bugs crawling around the flora, and Maiden appreciates them all. She will 100% pick up the scary spider you’re flinching from and make sure they get back to their web. Prefers to be barefoot, and likely does not share the same feelings of taboo around exposed skin as most others -- to her, flesh is only flesh, and a very natural thing at that. Temperature is a funny thing for her -- given that she seems to emanate a kind of cold, I think it stands to reason that she doesn’t easily chill, but that it is also hard to heat her up. I picture it like a normal hand held above a flame, then one stuck in the snow -- it’s going to take longer for her to melt before she feels any pain from the fire. CONNECTIONS: *Obligatory these are just ideas and I’m totally open when it comes time to plotting with these players! THE HIEROPHANT: Chihiro and Haku vibes (that sort-of-romance entirely unnecessary, though I would be down for Maiden to have a little crush), basically. Give me a Maiden as impressed by their showy nature as their inner fire to overthrow Septimus -- an Inferni mentor, even, or just an individual that helps guide her through the dangers of Tyrholm’s court. Also… ice and fire... I meant to do more but ran out of time rip

#accepted #accepted: the moon

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izastar · 5 years

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Mental Health Month

Hello there bright beautiful stars! I hope you’re having a very good day and remember to take good care of yourself. If not, take a deep breath for 4, hold it for 4 and exhale for 4. Unclench your fists and jaw, drop your shoulders, and lay back!

It’s the month for Mental Health and my stars do I have a master list for you. I am currently a second, onto my third year, college student. Before college my self care was pretty much everyday because of the low intensity of high school. Now.. I admit I do some pretty down spiraling things and have had my share of breakdowns. BUT NOW I’m not saying it’s gone, I still have my days. I just wanted to share a couple of things that have given me a more healthy way of dealing with the stress, homesickness, sadness, etc. I am a very passionate person on advocating for self-care, mental health and well-being. So here’s a couple of things that have definitely lifted my spirits and how many little things can make a difference.

Apps: As a generation based on technology, figured it could be useful!

Aloe Bud

Aloe Bud is an all-in-one, self-care pocket companion. It gently brings awareness to self-care activities, using encouraging push notifications, rather than guilt or shame. Helpful reminders from yourself, to yourself; saved within Aloe Bud so you can keep doing you. I kid you not, I am so busy and forget that I never to remember to eat on time but this app helps me track that along with taking my birth control on time too!

Eternal Sunshine

Daily inspiration, meditation exercise and inspiration podcast. This app is the cutest, most wonderful app I have current. The quotes I post from time to time are from this app. Every quote, mantra, affirmation is beautiful. It brightens up my day every day. ALSO! Some of these quotes, and stuff have actually inspired some of my work and I hope it can too for you poets, writers, artists, etc.

Flo

This is for my lovely stars that have to deal with periods!! This is a period tracker and ovulation calendar. It’s has pregnancy and post pregnancy mode where you can track your baby’s development and learn the essentials of being a parent with special visuals and articles!! They also have daily insights, timely reminders and a community. I just love this because I never track her & I actually like to read the articles they have and the insights they do based on my symptoms etc.

Oak

Oak helps you decompress by transforming meditation practices from experiments into habits. They support you from your first session to your 500th, with mindful, loving-kindness, and sleep meditations as well as unguided sessions and breathing exercises. Individualize your meditations by duration, and customize with silence or calming background sounds. Oak tracks your progress and encourages you to continue building a healthy meditation practice. They include meditation, breathing, sleep, meditation timer, and progress tracking. Truth be told I have a hard time sleeping so I use this app for breathing exercise before going to bed and it helps a tremendous amount.

Simple Habit

Another meditation app!! Simple Habit is the best meditation app for busy people. Meditate for just 5 minutes/day to reduce stress, improve focus, sleep better, relax faster, breathe easier, and more. I use this app for when I really don’t have anything BUT 5 mins and I actually really enjoy the meditation.

#SelfCare

This app is just where you can interact with things within the room, e.g. plants, the cat, clothes on the floor, anything in the room. If for those who are staying home for the day, your space, our shelter. It’s really cute I saw. I love the colors and the art and the activities.

Books: They can always be useful, whether for coloring, writing in a journal, or reading!

Creative Haven Spring Scenes Coloring Book

An effective and fun-filled way to relax and reduce stress. This version specifically is beautiful. I love Spring and I love flower and anything and everything nature and green so this is a LOVELY purchase!

The have other themes too; Summer Scenes, Celtic Mandalas, Sea Life, etc.

How to Be a Wildflower: A Field Guide

A fresh perspective, an outdoor exploration, a new adventure about to begin—How to Be a Wildflower is the book to celebrate these and other wide-open occasions. Encouraging self-discovery through encounters with nature, beloved artist Katie Daisy brings her beautiful paintings and lettering to this collection of things to do and make, quotes, meditations, natural history, and more. OKAY SO I JUST BOUGHT THIS BUT IT’S SO CUTE :(

Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur

Milk and Honey is a collection of poetry and prose about survival. About the experience of violence, abuse, love, loss, and femininity. Okay listen I’m sure many are tired of these books but I truly love this book. I love the collection of poems. I love how some make you cry, some give you hope and other inspire you. For me seeing how others grow, glow, sometimes fall, but come up is beautiful.

The Sun and Her Flowers by Rupi Kaur

This is Rupi Kaur’s second collection of poetry book. This one is vibrant, transcendent journey about growth and healing. Again I know most are tired of these or feel as if they are overrated but I just love the little pictures/doodles and how some are long and short yet so meaningful.

The Wildflower's Workbook: A Journal for Self-Discovery in Nature

Brimming with gorgeous artwork from New York Times bestselling author and artist Katie Daisy, this fresh-as-a-daisy guided journal features thoughtful prompts to encourage engagement with the natural world. From bird-spotting advice to camping checklists, each exercise is executed in the artist's lovely signature style. AGAIN this is so pretty and I just bought it but I KNOW I’m gonna love it so much.

Hobbies To Pick Up: Here mare some that I picked up or am in the process, it’s fun to learn something new and you never know how good you could be at something!

Baking/Cooking

I’m not the best baker but I always feel so warm and fuzzy when other people bake for me. Don’t you love that happiness you give to others? Doesn’t that make you happy? This might be a little hard to start off with if you’re scared of burning something down or ruining food. But don’t fret my little stars, failure is only a part of success and who knows even a funny story to tell!!

Creative writing

Short stories, prompts, even just a sentence or two could really make a difference! I do a lot of creative writing, give yourself even ten minutes just to write whatever you’d like, it’s a nice feeling

Drawing/doodling/sketching

Listen I’m not one who strays from stick figures but every ONCE in a while I like to sketch something that I just can’t find online for my stories or prompts, etc. Practice makes perfect and give yourself patience.

Dancing

Who says people with 2 left feet can’t dance?? I don’t have 2 left feet and not to toot my horn but I have good rhythm.. but STILL don’t let comments like those discourage you. Dancing can be something fun.

Exercising/hiking/biking

Believe it or not exercising can be a hobby and it can be fun! Spice it up and sign up for a class! Enjoy the great outdoors! Nature to me is the best stress relief!

Gardening

I currently own 18 plants in my dorm room... it’s a LITTLE bad. I breath so much better with them in my room and they are so cute to look at and take care of! Start off with something small like succulents or bamboo!

Journaling

I promise it will make you feel better if you’re someone who likes to do things like this. You can make so many lists like for gratitude, places you want to travel, people who are currently crushing on etc!!! You can make it as you go and this is something you can truly personalize for you!

Painting

Watercolor is the prettiest thing I have ever seen in my life. Of course you can use other types of paint and paint on what whatever you liked like some pants you want to spice up or a canvas or even your wall!

Poetry

It doesn’t have to an acrostic poem or one that rhymes, just whatever comes to you! you’ll be surprised at how good you could be!

Photography

Even if it’s just with your iPhone camera on portrait mode along with VSCO, trust me you might find it interesting messing with filters and how you can make it look more sunny or more spooky to fit what you’d like!

Pick up an instrument

I brought a UKULELE! It’s fun and cute and it makes me very happy! I also own a violin but that’s a little harder.. but it’s lovely. Learning to play a new instrument takes patience but in the end it’s worth it when you’re able to produce a sound so beautiful and lovely.

Reading

Even if it’s a fic from ao3 or wattpad, reading something is better than nothing! I read a lot and have many books and series I need to finish. If you’d like a recommendation don’t hesitate to reach out!

Singing

You ever had a song come on shuffle and you just HAVE to sing? Doesn’t it feel good? Why not make it a regular thing? My shower is my STAGE!

Video games

I love animal crossing it’s so cute and it’s my life. I also have nintendogs & a bunch of Legend of Zelda, Pokemon, & Mario games. It’s a nice break away from reality and some of the plots are cute!

Volunteering

Giving back is the best type of stress relief and it makes me so happy to see I can help others. Make it a hobby/habit of yours, maybe you’ll find something you’re really passionate about. I try to volunteering once a week and even if I’m exhausted it still makes me feel better doing something so small yet meaningful.

Daily Reminders: just daily activities good for your mental health and well-being

Eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner

Of course with snacks included!

Drink water, juice, lemonade, a venti strawberry acai from starbucks

anything drink that’s your favorite!

Sleep at a reasonable time

Listen as a college student.. I don’t follow this but I TRY to the best of my ability and that’s what matters!

Skin care routine!

Listen a face mask feels so good, yes it may burn here and there but your skin looks soft and cute and is thanking you for giving the time in your day to do something nice.

Some of my favorites are Shea Moisture Raw Butter Hydrating Mud Mask, ANY of the Freeman Mask, Laneige Water Sleeping Mask, Fresh Lotus Youth Preserve Rescue Mask

Thoughts to Remember: just things I think you should know and remember and at my worst days and bad breakdowns I tell myself

Remember that: things out of your control are NOT your fault.

I know we are so quick to place blame on ourselves and get so upset when what we planned out doesn’t follow the script. But listen to me when I say this, if it is out of your control it is NOT your fault and you had NO part in that.

The aim of life is not perfection, but happiness

Try not to dwell on the bad for long, instead use that time to do something else that makes you happy

The little things matter

Even if you skipped all your classes or decided to cancel plans and not leave your bed, I’m happy that you woke up

Try not to be so harsh on yourself

It’s hard I know it is. When someone goes bad in my day I spend time blaming myself and telling myself I deserve it but truth be told it was totally out of my control.

Uncertainty is an aspect of life we must accept

It’s okay not to know. This gives us an opportunity to dream & write our own stories

You are important!

Your hard work and effort does NOT go unnoticed and I am so proud of you.

Your feelings are valid

In any situation, context, etc. YOUR FEELINGS ARE VALID. Don’t be harsh on yourself and say you’re overreacting, or you’re being dramatic. Be genuine in how you feel because you’re feelings are valid.

Your mental health is important

Don’t let others comments tell you otherwise, if you need to remove yourself from a situation for your mental health, DO IT!

I hope this post helps you on your journey of either self-discovery, healing, adventure, etc. I hope you all remember to take care of yourselves and how much you matter. Life gets hard, and I understand that not everyone has the same background and culture growing up but I do hope regardless of that you are able to take care of your mental health and your overall well-being.

If you need anything from me, I’m always open for a chat. If that makes you nervous then you can also send me an ask!

with lots of love and stars,

stargirl

#just a little something from me to you #mental heath support #positive mental attitude #mental health #mental health month #master list #my masterlist #health #self care #self love #take care of yourself #take care of your body

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jaouinedcan · 7 years

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The Angel from my Nightmare [NedCan Week: Day 4 - Joy/Sorrow]

Silly Alternative Title for a Serious Fic: Go Home, Ned, You’re Drunk

Indonesia declared independence from the Netherlands following WW2. Out of desperation and belief that they needed the Dutch East Indies to recover their economy, the Netherlands attempted to take back their colony from the revolutionaries. The war and what followed was as complicated as it was terrible and both sides were responsible for awful things, so while this is written from the Netherlands’ point of view and Indonesia doesn’t actually appear, I stayed away from portraying either nation as solely ‘good’ or ‘evil’ and tried to root them both in a moral grey area.

He walked into the makeshift office, weary but determined to maintain some semblance of dignity even as he felt the devastation deep in his bones; hidden wounds that had no chance to heal before they were opened again. Despite his best efforts to avoid thinking about it, he felt the eyes of the world upon him, their judgement lacking mercy. They were all extremely aware that he and his forces had limped all the way there, and now, after extensive, bloody, desperate fighting, he must have exhausted every ounce of international sympathy available. Even England and his brothers within the United Kingdom, after fighting for him by proxy while he'd been busy picking up the pieces of his shattered and starving nation, had turned against him once America began to speak out against his actions. Never mind that she was capable of and had committed her fair share of wartime atrocities. Never mind that it wasn't so long ago that England was in this very same situation, except without the sheer depth of desperation behind his actions. Never mind that England had never needed America the same way the Netherlands needed the Dutch East Indies.

And yet, now that America was threatening to cut him out of the Marshall Plan and every dollar of its aid and investment, he was now in the even more tenuous position of being unable to afford a war he could not afford to lose while the rest of the world did little more than send him dirty looks from afar. He could no longer see a future in which he was not bankrupt and universally reviled while his people continued to starve with no hope for employment until they finally began to despise the fact that they had been born Dutch. Would he truly have survived the Nazi occupation only to die while struggling to get back on his feet?

It was with those desolate thoughts that the Netherlands stepped over the threshold and into the office. It seemed that most of his officers were out, either sleeping in the dorms or out drinking, enjoying what rest they could in the current stalemate, but his new switchboard operator, recently promoted to desk work by a bullet to the knee, was still occupying his desk, his heavily bandaged leg stretched out before him. Perhaps he considered that 'rest' in itself, as he was still learning how to manoeuvre with the aid of crutches. From where he sat, it was likely more work to get up and return to the dorms than it was to sit and stay.

That was fine--someone had to stay behind to receive emergency messages, regardless--but what gave the Netherlands pause was that the young man, horrifically slender thanks to malnutrition in his late teens and sombre at best since the Netherlands had met him mere weeks ago after he was released from the infirmary, was excitedly speaking to someone over the phone line, his enthusiasm rolling waves of cheer throughout the otherwise empty room. So focused was he on the conversation, he hadn't noticed the door open, let alone his nation now quietly observing him. Quietly, because it had been far too long since the Netherlands had seen one of his people so honestly happy without the aid of alcohol, he lacked the resolve to interrupt even though protocol dictated that he should discipline the boy for tying up the line with a personal call.

Though, how could it be personal? The military lines should not be so easily accessible by civilians, and this switchboard in particular took several hurdles to actually reach, since it was set aside for his use, after all. The only calls coming through ought to be from the royal family, the government, top military brass, or the increasing messages from other nations calling him an asshole because his first act as a liberated country was to subjugate another budding nation that had just declared her independence. He usually ended up disconnecting those calls after a few moments of hearing the same rant he'd endured before, delivered by nations he carried more respect for--or used to respect more, at least. Sometimes one of them would talk like they'd been the ones to personally save his country (usually England or America) and he would reward that nonsense with a few knocks of the receiver against the wooden desk before hanging up as noisily as possible. Those calls were the most bittersweet because once he managed to dial himself back down from impotent rage, he quite comfortably settled into a few choice memories of the nation that actually had saved him, and how far and beyond simply chasing German soldiers out of his borders he had gone to protect his people's safety, health, and identity. The Netherlands still sometimes laid awake in bed staring at the ceiling in wide-eyed astonishment, stuck on the thought that they barely even knew each other before Canada had appeared out of nowhere to spirit him away from that Nazi camp, carried him on his back right out from under their noses, and whispered all fifteen stanzas of the Wilhelmus into the night, calling him back from the brink as he stumbled over pronunciation with a strange accent of mixed French and English.

He shook himself out of that memory, still clear enough that he could feel the phantom texture of hair against his face, and focused again on his young soldier chatting happily into the receiver. Between the healthy glow in his cheeks and the smile on his face, the Netherlands wondered if the boy knew exactly who (or perhaps in this case 'what') he was talking to, because now that he had gone through the mental checklist of who could be calling to get that sort of reaction from one of his citizens, there really was only one entity that could get a Dutch heart racing with just the sound of their voice.

The Netherlands, meanwhile, didn't need to hear it--just the realization was enough. Unfortunately, that brief jolt of joy sent him careening into a deep well of anxiety as he understood that it was finally Canada's turn to shame him for his actions, and out of all nations, he was the only one with the right to say 'I didn't liberate you so you could turn around and become an oppressor'.

He could have been killed at any moment during the war. He could have surrendered to oblivion, leaving his people to struggle without a unifying spirit binding them together. It would have taken years or decades after he vanished, but they would have eventually allowed their land to be claimed by neighbouring countries, once most of the population left for nations with stronger economies and land not torn apart by explosions and trenches, and soon enough there would be no 'Dutch' people left walking the earth as they chose to embrace other nationalities in his absence. He'd carried on back then for their sake, knowing that his strength was also theirs, clinging to the edge of a cliffside crumbling around his fingers until he finally caught that offered, steady hand, but if he had to look up now and see those eyes dull with disgust and disappointment, the Netherlands would have preferred to fall.

Perhaps he had felt the sudden descent into despair, because that was when the Netherlands' presence was finally noticed by his young soldier, who immediately began to panic, apologising quickly into the receiver before setting it aside and trying to stand. The Netherlands held up a hand to stop him, a moment too late to prevent a painful wince as he jostled his wounded leg against the desk. He approached in case the boy needed help, but he settled back into the chair on his own and hastily swept his arm across watering eyes to maintain at least some sense of decorum--he was still Dutch, after all. "I'm sorry, sir," he said, and though it was unlikely he knew he was speaking to his own nation, he instinctively knew of his importance, and strived to be considered capable, just as he would for any of his official superiors. It certainly didn't help that the Netherlands' neutral expression could be considered anywhere between 'bored' to 'severe'. "I didn't mean to get so carried away on the phone..." He glanced at the receiver again, though it appeared to be more out of longing than regret.

Of course, the Netherlands was still in no mood to reprimand him, and though he already knew the answer, it was easiest to avoid the subject of discipline to simply ask, "Who is it on the line?"

It was enough to ease the boy back into a more muted form of his earlier excitement. "It's a Mr. Matthew Williams calling for you, sir," he explained quickly before going on a brief tangent. "I had the pleasure of meeting him once back in Holland--he'd been visiting homes all over the city and one night he and a few soldiers were invited over by my parents for supper. The rations they brought with them fed us for a week, and Mr. Williams was the one who introduced my sister to the soldier she would marry later that year. I recognized his voice immediately and he started telling me how well my sister has been doing in Canada--I'm going to be an uncle soon! Can you believe that, sir?"

Indeed, the form of this young, skinny, injured and malnourished boy was hardly fitting for the image of an 'uncle'. "Congratulations," he said, instead. "Surely there must be a letter well on its way." It was likely that the sister was unaware of her brother's service, so the news would have gone to their parents first before it could be passed along to him.

"Thank you, sir," his soldier replied, growing wistful. "I was just a boy when she left." He was still a boy now. "She went on a boat with thousands of other women--a lot of them already with young children--and I heard that there were even some men among them that had married Canadian nurses. She promised to write often, and I all but memorised the dozens she sent before I was conscripted, but none so far have reached me here." The wistful expression began to erode into desolation as he glanced down at his ruined leg, the light leaving his eyes. "I wish..."

The Netherlands wasn't prepared to hear the rest of that sentence, whether it was 'I wish I could have stayed in Holland' or 'I wish I wasn't Dutch' or 'I wish I could have married a nurse and gone to Canada with my sister even if it meant that I would be lovingly heckled for the rest of my life for being a male war bride'.

He couldn't stall the inevitable much longer. "Finish your conversation," he interrupted, nodding toward the receiver. "Transfer it to my office when you are done. There is no hurry."

The soldier was torn between surprise and gratitude, as though he'd just remembered he was speaking to someone not exactly known for idle conversation. "Th-thank you, sir! It won't be for much longer!"

The Netherlands nodded and left the open area for the small room that functioned as his private office. He looked back once more before he closed the door, not bothering to lock it. The boy was already back on the phone, happily chatting with the nation he was enamoured with, discussing his newly Canadian sister, making it no secret how he longed to see her and his imminent niece or nephew. He went to his cabinet and poured himself two fingers of Canadian whisky, then brought the glass and bottle to his desk. If the coming conversation was going to kill him, then he wasn't about to let the carefully rationed gift go to waste, and if his last act as a nation was to allow one of his soldiers a few more minutes to hear news of his sister, that was fine. Maybe Canada could remember him fondly for that, if nothing else, and find a way to reunite the separated siblings along with countless other families. Hell, he could take each and every one of his orphaned citizens and the Netherlands would be grateful for it. He couldn't think of another nation he trusted more to take care of them--he'd already been taking care of them within their own borders as it was.

He'd finished two glasses and was drinking straight from the bottle by the time his phone began to ring, and the gentle buzz was doing well to take the edge off his anxiety. One hand reached for the receiver while the other grasped for his pipe before he remembered that he'd finished off the last of his tobacco weeks ago, then decided to chew on the tip anyway as he answered the phone. "Hallo," he greeted as gruffly as he could manage, but the receiver was slippery in his grip and he nearly dropped it when, instead of hearing any sort of greeting in return, Canada, almost frantic, began with an apology of all things.

"Ned, I'm sorry! I didn't mean to waste your time like that! I recognized your switchboard operator's name and voice and started talking to him and got carried away! Please don't reprimand him for my mistake!"

The Netherlands had to grasp the receiver with both hands, else it would have ended up on the floor. His pipe was left dangling from his lips, forcing him to mumble around it. "Ah--I... won't." A bit of careful manoeuvring later, and his pipe was back on the desk and his palms were wiped off on his pants. "Don't think that kid's smiled since the medic told him he'd likely rely on a cane for the rest of his life." Then he glared at the whisky bottle for loosening his tongue because Canada sure as hell hadn't needed to hear that of all things!

"Oh, my God, Ned, I'm so sorry..."

One of these days, he was going to find out who taught Canada to apologise for things that weren't his fault, and... Okay, who was he kidding? He didn't need another reason to punch England, but this would be his favourite one, and it would be a good excuse to sock France, too, while he was at it. Maybe he could get the opportunity to break his hand on America's face, too, because it couldn't be a coincidence that he never apologised while his northern neighbour apologised often enough for both of them combined.

'What took you so long?' one of his more isolated and devastated communities had demanded once the Canadians finally rolled in. Canada had endured their misplaced rage with apologies, holding back tears as he stripped himself of everything minus his uniform, weapons, and ammunition, giving everything he could. The Netherlands didn't see him eat for a week after, and it was only over a bottle that he had finally admitted that the Canadian forces had been preparing to liberate Holland nearly a year ago, but America and England had prioritised Operation Market Garden instead and he couldn't have gone on his own without the diverted supplies and support. How could any of them have known that the Germans would destroy the dykes, flood the farmland, and sentence twenty thousand people to die slowly by starvation? 'What took you so long?' his people had cried, clutching photographs and mementos of their children, their parents, their grandparents, as the Canadians stayed to distribute food and supplies, to rebuild dykes and buildings and homes, while England, America, and all the rest left for glory in the Battle of Berlin, leaving only Canada to apologise and pick up the pieces. It wasn't long before his people learned the whole story and stopped blaming Canada for not being strong enough to charge in on his own, but, hey, as long as he wanted to hit people for teaching Canada to apologise for other nations' mistakes, he may as well start with himself, right?

He probably shouldn't have slapped himself while the phone was still pressed to his ear, because Canada definitely heard the impact along with his muted gasp as the heat spread across his face, mimicking a blush. He really ought to be thinking more about his words and actions, but the whisky was making that a bit difficult. Canada was calling out in concern, now, so he better actually say something not stupid.

"You shouldn't apologise," he finally managed to interrupt. "Both him and his sister, and their parents, and possibly even their entire community--they would all be long dead were it not for you. Don't even try to tell me that anyone else could have done what you did for them. Your Canadian soldiers, never learning the meaning of giving up, pushing on and completing objectives that other generals called impossible... And can you name anyone else who could have put military action on hold in order to negotiate with Germany to allow your planes to drop food and supplies for my people? Would Germany have trusted any other nation aside from you to keep your word? That rapport you built with him over two world wars... Hell, it isn't even a joke to say that Germany respected you more than your so-called allies ever did..."

He was rambling and exaggerating and Canada knew him well enough to know what that usually meant. "Ned, have you been drinking?"

"A little." There was still half a bottle left of that whisky to go before he could disappear. "But that's not the point. Don't apologise for his leg. He's only here because of me. The fact that he was alive enough to be conscripted is just an unfortunate coincidence, you understand?"

"I understand," he answered, just a bit of humour in his voice. "But, listen, I need you to have at least a partially clear head for this so you'll remember... Well, I guess I could just call again in the morning to remind you, but I wouldn't want you suffering from a hangover either, so go easy, all right?"

"All right," he agreed, though it still remained up in the air whether or not he would last the night at all. "You better... go ahead and tell me what you called to say."

Canada was quiet for a moment, and the Netherlands' anxiety deepened with each second until he finally asked, so quietly, "Ned, what's wrong?" Then, when he was too stupefied to respond immediately, added, "Don't tell me that you're fine because I can hear quite clearly that you're not."

"What... do I sound like?" he asked, genuinely curious.

"Like you're carrying the world on your shoulders. Tired... Resigned..."

That was accurate enough. The world was on his back, after all. They could hop off at any time and leave him be, too, if they had any generosity whatsoever. "Sounds about right," he agreed, resisting the urge to reach for the bottle because Canada had just asked him to lay off the booze.

"Will you talk to me about what's going on?" Canada asked.

Why couldn't he just hurry up and pass along the message that his government had ordered him to say? That Canada wouldn't stand for the Netherlands' actions and threaten to cancel all aid until each and every soldier was on a boat enroute to Europe? "You don't live under a rock... or an igloo... or anything that would block out the news, Canada. You already know everything there is to know about it." The big bad Netherlands imposing his will upon the innocent victim Dutch East Indies... Hell, he may as well get used to the idea of calling her Indonesia because there was no way for him to win the war now... if there ever was in the first place.

"I've heard plenty of opinions," Canada pressed on, "but I've yet to hear what you have to say about it." The Netherlands held his tongue for a moment too long, and Canada pulled out the big guns, whispering in his gentlest tone, "Trust me, Ned, I've seen both sides of this. It's never easy, or as black and white as everyone likes to pretend."

In his Golden Age, the Netherlands could have crushed the telephone receiver in his grip. Right now, the plastic only creaked a bit, but his small gasp was louder when a blood vessel popped in his hand, prompting him to share his pain. "I'm... worried," he said, choking on the words because he'd very nearly said 'I'm scared' which would have been nothing short of mortifying even though he could trust Canada to keep the conversation to himself. He'd never told a soul about the state he'd been in during the liberation, emaciated and in tears over a picture of tiny Princess Margriet born in Ottawa in a maternity ward hastily declared temporarily extraterritorial so she would only inherit her mother's Dutch citizenship and thus remain eligible for the throne, while Canada fed him small portions from his rations and told him about how his people had celebrated her birth in the street alongside Dutch-Canadians and that they'd even flown the Dutch flag over their parliament building, knowing that such an open display of national pride was not possible back in their occupied homeland forced to endure the swastika.

He found a brief safe haven in that memory, the two of them huddled in an abandoned cottage while they waited for extraction because Canada wouldn't wait another moment to feed him something and allow him some rest, knowing that even just a few bites would give his people enough strength of spirit to hold out for just a few more days until aid could reach them. Canada had covered him in a blanket and had him pull on his uniform jacket, Canada himself left in a simple white undershirt but showing no sign of minding the cool pre-dawn air. He'd been surprised when Canada wrapped an arm around his torso, not so much by the intimacy--he'd been raised by France in his earliest years, after all, and he did just spend a couple hours carried on the young nation's back--but the warmth of his touch had been shocking now that he was aware enough to feel it. What little he'd known about Canada previously had mostly amounted to a cold, frozen wasteland only marginally more welcoming than Russia, but that day, Canada had smiled and said that not many nations were aware of it, but there was rarely a single moment in which there were not a hundred wildfires burning in his vast wilderness, many of them burning for years at a time. Even during winter, the embers would continue to smolder under a blanket of snow, waiting for spring to spread again. 'Not even General Winter can snuff them out,' he'd claimed with wry amusement, and the Netherlands understood a little better why that soft spoken and polite nation's soldiers were among the most formidable on the battlefield.

"Why are you worried?" Canada asked, because it seemed that he would not be satisfied until he'd chased away each and every demon from his borders, corporeal or otherwise.

"My economy won't be able to recover without her," he said, the words springing forth like ocean waters flooding in from a bombed out dike. "I've been through depressions before, but none so terrible as this. I don't have the finances or the infrastructure to recover on my own. The Nazis stole everything of value they could take with them, from art to bicycles, and bombed the rest. Supply routes are still in shambles, many bridges are still unsafe to cross, and railways are still a work in progress. Not to even speak of the farmland still flooded--I can't even pay my people with food and countless people are still begging in the street for their next meal. Industries and their assets have to be rebuilt before they can even do something about reducing unemployment and so many remain homeless even now. Without my hand in East Asia, the only money coming into my country is foreign aid and investment, and my efforts to take back Indie... Indonesia is so internationally unpopular that I may not even have that for much longer. Not only that, but instead of anyone actually reaching out to help me out of this mess, all I've been getting is rants from former empires blind to their own sordid pasts telling me I'm no better than Hitler himself...!"

The Netherlands slumped back in his chair, still feeling awful, but somehow lighter, or at least empty, as though he had just finished confessing his sins to a priest. "Have a drink, Ned," he suggested, once it was obvious his rant was complete, and the Netherlands obliged, taking a swig directly from the bottle. Canada waited to hear the long exhale after swallowing, then asked, "Setting everything else aside... are you ready to let her go?"

He couldn't have missed his effort to call her by her chosen name, after all. "Canada, all I want to do right now is go home." The fact that he couldn't was eating him alive.

"Hold on for just a bit longer, then," Canada assured him. "With a bit of luck, I think we can work something out."

"Hah?" the Netherlands asked, not feeling particularly eloquent at the moment.

"It took a lot of fancy footwork... but I finally got a foot in the door. I've established rudimentary diplomatic ties with Indonesia and convinced her to reconsider peaceful negotiations with you. I can't promise much but I think she might be open to the idea of letting you keep control of some areas in return for her sovereignty over the rest. She seemed receptive to the idea that the transition to self-government would be easier with a smaller area to work with--at first. She's definitely going to want you to pull out completely one day soon, but if we play our cards right, I'm sure we'll be able to stall that until you're well on your way to a full economic recovery."

"Hah?" he said again, because what. He couldn't even picture Canada and Indonesia standing in the same room without some sort of hurricane of pure ideological differences raging around them.

"I'm not going to lie, Ned--we get along about as well as oil and water but we should be fine as long as nobody lights a match. It's just that I find her methods in her fight for independence awfully barbaric while she considers my gradual separation from the United Kingdom a bit... Well, let's just say that she thinks I'm a wuss and leave it at that, eh?"

That sparked a round of ugly, half-drunk laughter that quickly spread to the other end of the line. To consider Canada of all nations a wuss... Did Indonesia even know who had liberated the nation she was currently in a stalemate with? He really ought to tell her sometime that choosing not to fight was no sign of weakness, because if Canada had chosen differently, he could have taken all her islands for himself within the year. She was not so heavily fortified as the Germans has been, after all, and Canada was no stranger to her current preference for guerrilla warfare. 'La Petite Guerre', he'd overheard France muttering under his breath on several occasions, and Canada had been conscripted to fight for the United Kingdom against the Boer in South Africa as well, which would have been an uncomfortable personal connection if the resulting peace treaty had not been so generous toward the Dutch-descended farmers, and the Netherlands had to wonder if Canada had a hand in that decision as well. Indonesia didn't have any tricks up her sleeve that Canada hadn't seen before and overcome.

They settled down after a while and spent a few moments simply breathing into their receivers. The Netherlands, with a smile on his face and a glowing heart, could barely believe that he'd been mentally preparing to fade from existence only minutes ago.

"Oh--" Canada suddenly began the conversation anew. "Before I forget, I was also supposed to tell you that I've gotten America on board with this, too. He said that his boss won't strike you out of the Marshall Plan as long as you maintain the current ceasefire and make a sincere effort during the negotiations. You can handle that much, can't you, Ned?" he gently teased.

"It sounds like all you'll actually need me to do is sign the dotted line," the Netherlands replied. "You've already done all the actual work on your own." He sighed into the receiver. "After nearly an entire decade now of coming to my rescue, I'm so deeply in your debt, I'll be sending you tulips until the end of time. What I ever did to deserve this first-rate Canadian service is what I'd like to know."

"What you did?" Canada replied, feigning surprise, still teasing. "Oh, no, Ned, it wasn't like that at all. You see, England pretty much sent Princess Juliana and her daughters to me almost without asking first, like he'd known from the start what they were going to do and wanted nothing to do with it, because the way it happened, it surely must have been planned somehow. Princess Juliana denied it, of course, but I saw that twinkle in her eye when little Princess Beatrix toddled over and stared up at me, knowing without having to be told exactly who I was. She tugged on my shirt sleeve and I crouched down to hear what she had to say. 'Mr. Canada?' she asked, in heavily accented but recognisable English--she'd had to have been practicing, you see--and so I replied, 'Yes, Princess Beatrix?' and I think she was surprised that I knew her name already and had been planning to introduce herself, so I'd thrown her off a bit, but she recovered like a champ, staring me straight on with her wide open innocent eyes as she said, 'Please save Mr. Ned.' And you know as well as I do that you can't just say no to a request like that, and I take my commitments to little princesses very seriously."

"Oh, my God," the Netherlands replied, halfway between astonishment and laughing himself sick, "she's done the same exact thing to me every time she wanted a piece of candy. It's an inherited skill. Queen Wilhelmina was livid every time she caught me giving candy to young Princess Juliana, though she's been much more lax with me indulging her granddaughters."

"Ah, that was a common trend back in Ottawa as well--she and her sisters would corner me on every opportunity whenever I had to return to the capital for one reason or another. They caught me unprepared once and I've been compulsively hiding treats in my pockets ever since--and that included while I was fighting on the frontlines."

"I consider that a fine habit to have," the Netherlands objected. "I lost count of how many times I noticed you and your soldiers giving chocolate to any small child that approached them. You shouldn't overlook the effect that had on morale, when all those kids ran home to their parents with wide smiles and excited voices telling tales of their everyday adventures, sharing the streets with their heroes."

"If we're talking about morale, don't forget the effect those smiles had on my troops, either. So many of them lost dear friends and family among the ranks, but they found solace in the happiness of those children. They could look into those wide open innocent eyes and tell themselves 'this is why I'm here'."

The Netherlands had never been much for affectionate gestures, but right now he longed to reach out and hold Canada close. As a sorry substitute, he pressed his lips against the receiver, imagining it to be his temple or cheek, or mouth, or perhaps even the nape of his neck, if he ever were to find himself physically carried away from his troubles on Canada's back again, or even if he simply drank himself into such a sorry state that he was unable to even walk home. If that were to happen, he hoped to at least be able to hold on to the memory, if nothing else. "Canada," he asked, after a moment, wetting his dry lips, "will you be mediating at the upcoming negotiations with Indonesia?"

The audible sigh was an answer in itself, and he slumped a bit in his chair as Canada explained, "If my relations with Indonesia were anything more than tenuous, I might have been able to be an effective mediator. But she has so much more respect for America and his revolution, he was the better choice to handle it. Honestly, it was considered a better use of my time to mediate between your government and America's than anything else, and as I mentioned earlier, he's already fully on board with the idea."

"I see," he said, trying not to sound too disappointed. But, well, the whisky struck again.

He certainly wasn't expecting Canada's tone to abruptly turn playful. "So, you see, instead, I'll be accompanying America to a short series of meetings with you prior to the peace negotiations with Indonesia. He's got to have a good understanding of your side of the dispute, after all, if he's going to do the job properly. And even though I won't have an official role in the talks with Indonesia, my government is still prioritising aid to the Netherlands. I've been asked to stick around to provide personal support. I might even be able to talk my way into attending the negotiations alongside the UN's Security Council--one of my generals is the current president, after all. And if all else fails, I doubt anyone would notice if I just... snuck in."

It was almost unfair how easily Canada was able to pull him out of his darkest thoughts, but he wasn't going to complain. Well, he might complain about having to endure America's presence, but certainly having Canada there as well would help offset at least some of his resentment towards the nation who seemed to have completely forgotten the Dutch role in his independence. Canada, on the other hand, had negotiated for independence entirely on his own and at his own pace, and his reward, it seemed, was a slow reaction to his presence in the international community. His tendency to fade into the background on the world stage given his significant contributions was troubling, but the ability to move under the radar of other countries was also an invaluable asset. And yet... "I'd notice," he said, and planned to say more, except he suddenly got hung up on the earlier phrase of 'personal support' and what that was supposed to mean.

"Well that would be the point," Canada joked back, falling into his odd self-depreciating humour, and it's just then that the Netherlands realized that the younger nation was actually flirting with him, had been flirting with him for at least the past few minutes now, and he had no idea how to respond aside from his somehow successful, painfully honest sentiments that he would not have been able to confess were he not drunk, but still simmered under the surface while sober.

"I'll always notice you," he said. "I'll never forget you. Your face is burned into my memory. I see you in every act of kindness and heroism, and in places like this, where such things are few and far between, I dream of you instead."

He couldn't imagine what sort of face Canada was making at that moment. Was he smiling? Blushing? Did his jaw fall open slightly in surprise? At the very least, he hoped his heart had jumped in a brief burst of excitement, because it wouldn't be fair if he was the only one with a racing pulse.

"I'm going to keep reaching out to you," Canada whispered back. The Netherlands could barely hear him, and only because he was concentrating so hard on his voice. "One day, after all this, I hope you'll take my hand."

"I want to," the Netherlands insisted. His free hand even stretched out over his desk, almost knocking over the bottle. The glass clattered noisily as he struggled to keep it upright, succeeding just in time to hear his response.

"You're drunk, Ned," he replied, though there was no trace of judgement or accusation to be found, "but that's okay. You're not in a position to make that decision right now, anyway. Just keep this in mind--I'm not only keeping a promise I made to a two-year-old princess anymore. That time we spent hiding together in that abandoned cottage, waiting for my soldiers to catch up to us--I still think about it every day. I met a side of you that no one else knew about, and I wanted so badly to impress you..."

"You did," he said. "You do." How many months had he carried that photograph of little Margriet through active battlefields? How many hours had he spent learning the Dutch national anthem from Juliana in the early years when England preferred he stay home and train pilots and sink German U-boats threatening the shipment of food and supplies to the allied forces?

"It's mutual," Canada said, surprising him. "Your reputation was awful, Ned. Everyone told me that you were stingy and obsessed with money, and it seemed only Princess Juliana and her daughters thought differently--except they also said that you were stingy and obsessed with money, just in a more endearing tone. When I found you, I was halfway expecting you to demand ledgers and accounts from your government the second I pulled out my radio to report our position. Instead, you just asked question after question about your princesses and even wept over Margriet--not exactly something one would expect from a miser. You... you almost died, Ned. The Nazis took everything else from you, but they couldn't take your love for your people away. All they could do was try to force you to give up--but you didn't. You didn't give up, Ned. Love kept you alive."

"You kept me alive," the Netherlands argued, but not really, because in his opinion, the phrases may as well be synonymous. "Little Margriet--during the worst times, when I felt myself slipping, when I was reaching out for something, anything, to hold on to--I felt her, in a place that should have been well out of reach. I couldn't see her, but I knew she was there. A little Dutch princess you refused to take away from me. I couldn't fade away without having known her--or the nation that kept her and her family safe until their return."

"I couldn't let myself become an accessory to murder," he explained, and there was a hidden sadness there, likely blaming himself for all sorts of past failures, there being no nation on earth without regrets, but the Netherlands was drunk and not so easily distracted from the surfacing memory of that tiny angel in Juliana's arms as her mother carried her off the ship toward him and Canada. Beatrix and Irene, five years older than he'd seen them last had raced to his side first, excited to be home and tugging on his trousers until Canada stole their attention with a few pieces of that ever-present candy. The Netherlands would greet them properly later, but at that moment, he'd been trapped under Margriet's gaze. Her eyes had been caught on his gaunt face and feeble form for an eternal moment before she lit up like a lamp, smiling and reaching for him. She'd never met him but she knew him anyway; never seen someone in such a sorry state but loved him anyway. Juliana let him hold her and the Netherlands only gave her back when he felt his arms were about to give out.

He'd turned his head back toward the other girls after a moment to watch them cheerfully converse with Canada about all he'd missed after having to leave them behind in Ottawa to fight for their country. He'd crouched down to speak to them face-to-face and gave them his full attention, and if he noticed their father, Prince Bernhard, silently judging such behaviour in between directing nearby sailors and overseeing the unloading of his family's possessions, Canada certainly didn't mention it or make any effort to appear more dignified. On the other hand, the Netherlands and Juliana were like-minded in finding his uninhibited affection for the girls endearing as he shared their enthusiasm over their schooling, the voyage, and especially their baby sister whom he'd barely gotten to know himself before he'd left, and was barely a baby at all anymore. While he was still distracted, Juliana had stepped a bit closer to conspire with her nation, wanting ideas on how to thank Canada for providing shelter for both her and her children and for everything he'd done for the Netherlands, and the answer that sprung from his lips was as apt as it was mortifying to watch that knowing smile slowly curve across her face right before she asked which colours would be best.

Back in that abandoned cottage, in-between inquiries about his displaced royalty and the status of the liberation effort, Canada had told him a number of things about himself, sometimes asked and sometimes unprompted, filling the silence of the night with quiet words as they waited for their military escort. As it happened, they wouldn't arrive until after dawn, and considering his state, it was unsurprising that the Netherlands eventually fell asleep, drifting off after he'd been encouraged to lean against Canada's shoulder. When he'd woken again, many hours later, the sun was rising and he'd been moved to sleep on his back, his head propped up against a makeshift pillow that turned out to be a rucksack minus anything hard or with sharp corners. He'd looked up to see Canada, still dressed down to his undershirt, leaning against the wall next to a broken window with his rifle resting against his shoulder while turning his head just enough to see outside with minimal risk of being seen. He was attentive but not quite tense, so rather than worrying about whether German soldiers had found them first, the Netherlands decided he must have been roused by the slight crunch of glass beneath Canada's combat boots as he made his rounds through the single room structure, pausing at each door, window, and hole in the wall to watch for any sign of activity. He endured a brief twist of guilt as he understood Canada would not have had an opportunity to sleep at all that previous night, but even as he hoped the allied forces would arrive soon so he could rest, the Netherlands caught himself hoping for the moment to last long enough to fully commit to memory. He hadn't painted for years, even before the war, but now he wanted to know if he could replicate the sun shining in his hair, reflecting off his eyeglasses, and lighting up those curiously violet irises. He wondered if he could successfully showcase the strength he could see beneath the thin white material of his undershirt.

The moment was interrupted as Canada released his breath and the Netherlands realized that he'd been holding his, too, and followed suit. Canada ducked under the window and mirrored his previous stance, gazing out from the other side this time to minimise his blind spot as much as possible. After a few minutes of the Netherlands trying to decide which pose had better lighting and composition, Canada stepped away from the window entirely, intending to continue on to the next vantage point before suddenly stopping, then crouching down.

It took a while for the Netherlands to see it, too--he'd had to lift his head a bit and ignore the protests of his bruised everything--but once his sight overcame the small pile of rubble on the floor, he could clearly see the small white tulip blooming just inside the building, its bulb displaced by a mine, bomb, or shell that had blasted a small hole in the wall, letting in just enough light for it to thrive right where it was.

Canada reached for it and the Netherlands thought for a brief panicked instant that he was going to pluck it from the earth, but, instead, he gently brushed his fingers against the soft petals and breathed deep to enjoy its subtle scent while a peaceful smile blossomed on his face.

The Netherlands felt frozen in that instant for a lifetime, but it was still not long enough before a distant echo of an engine summoned Canada back upright, this time looking through the window with the aid of his rifle's scope, but his finger carefully extended instead of resting on the trigger.

The sound was joined by more engines and the distinct crunch of tires on gravel. Whichever army it was, they'd have to move quickly, so the Netherlands grit his teeth and forced himself to sit up. It was impossible to do so soundlessly, so he ended up distracting Canada for a moment, his eyes flashing over to meet his briefly before his attention was back out the window, but his stance didn't falter and a few anxious seconds later, he lowered his weapon and leaned it against the wall so he had both hands free to help the Netherlands to his feet. The smile on his face was one part relieved, one part reassuring, and altogether charming. 'Good morning, Ned,' he'd said. 'Let's take back your country.'

Smoldering embers under a blanket of snow. 'Red and white,' he'd told Juliana, uncomfortably aware that she'd never say a word yet he'd never hear the end of it, either. He hadn't even known at the time that they just happened to be Canada's national colours, but he would later claim to have been aware all along while he privately marvelled at the coincidental clash of symbolism. Canada was fire and ice, but also love and peace, all of the above in perfectly measured amounts. If he could travel back in time, he'd make a point of shaking King George V's hand for his prophetic vision. He'd said that to Canada once over drinks, but he'd just laughed and said that it was more along the lines of red for England and white for France than anything else, but the Netherlands preferred his own opinion, partially because it was better, but mostly because he couldn't see England and France coming together to create anything other than an unholy abomination. Canada smiled weakly at that, and the Netherlands decided that he must have been switched with America at birth, which of course lead to a round of laughter because while Canada wasn't always up for jokes about his family's various eccentricities, his brother was always fair game.

"Ned?" Canada asked, over the line. "Are you still there?"

"Yes," he said, quickly, hoping that he hadn't been caught daydreaming for too long, because Canada wouldn't mention it either way. Shit, what had they been talking about again? "I was just--thinking."

"Thinking?" he repeated, sounding a bit nervous, but the Netherlands decided he meant it as a joke and beat him to the punchline.

"Dangerous, I know," he said, trying to mimic Canada's earlier teasing tone.

"That's not what I--" Canada started, then stopped, sighed, and tried again. "Thinking about what?"

"About... you," he answered, for a lack of anything more eloquent. "About me. About... how I could be walking through hell barefoot but barely notice the burning if you were there with me. About how stupid I was to just... run away at the first opportunity and bury myself in misery when I know, I know, I know everything is better when you're around. About how I sat here for years, talking myself out of calling you until you finally came to dig me out again. About how I should be stronger than this. I just..."

Canada waited for him to trail off instead of interrupting. "You're not stupid or weak, Ned. You're just not ready and that's fine. I'm patient. I can wait. Honestly, I'd rather wait even if you were ready."

The Netherlands wiped at his eyes furiously. Nobody could see him but that didn't make it any less embarrassing. About the only thing that could be worse would be if he dissolved into unintelligible sobbing, but thankfully he hadn't yet fallen so far. "I miss you," he said, once his voice felt more stable. "I'm sorry I left and didn't call."

"I miss you, too," Canada replied, his voice sounding just as watery. "I'll call you tomorrow and every day after until I see you again if that's all right?"

"Please," he agreed, because he couldn't trust his sober self to manoeuvre the tangled web of emotions long enough to connect the call. "I wish you were here."

"I'll get there as fast as I can, I promise. Just hold on a little while longer, okay?"

He's drunk, and if Canada were with him, he'd hold on to him until one or both of them passed out, and possibly until one or both of them woke up again and who knows how much longer after that. Without a war being waged around them, Canada wouldn't have to get up and stand on guard like before--not in this stalemate that would hopefully last until the end.

"I love you." The words tore out of him like a confession of guilt; a sober impossibility, hopefully temporary, because Canada's breath hitches and he doesn't deserve to wait for something that would never happen just because the Netherlands was afraid of his own feelings. He deserved to hear it every day until the end of time, so he said it again. "Canada--I love you."

"I--" he began, choked, and struggled. "I... I know. I could see it in the way you stared sometimes. I could feel it in the way you lingered nearby even if you have somewhere else to be. Most of all, I could tell when you keep your distance when you thought other people were looking. I know all that because... because I did it, too, maybe just a little less noticeably because I hid under the cover of small talk while you were more conservative with words, but I did all that, too, and I'm scared, too, because sometimes I think you think I'm perfect and flawless, and I'm not, Ned. You want to know someone else who isn't ready to be in a relationship? He's on the phone with you right now freaking out because not only is it illegal in his own house for him to be with another man, but he can't even know for sure if that other man would even still like him if he ever slipped up and revealed any number of his countless flaws and failures!"

Honestly, he'd been expecting a gentle rejection before all of that--and he hadn't been expecting a rejection at all, really, because he wasn't nearly so oblivious to feelings to not know when someone was interested in him... most of the time. This was just the first time he'd experienced those feelings himself and had absolutely no idea how to handle them, and they'd just grown stronger and stronger until he lost his mind and hopped on board a boat to Indonesia without so much as a 'see you later!' Ironically, it was in this pit he'd dug for himself that he found a leg to stand on and support the near hysterical Canada. "You realize you're talking to the newly liberated Netherlands using American foreign aid dollars to finance an attempt to reacquire his recently independent former colony, don't you? Jesus Christ, no wonder America is so pissed off at me--that's just all around awful. How can you even stand to talk to me? God would absolve your sins without question if I simply stood beside you in comparison."

Sure, he was being a bit facetious there--he did have a front row seat to the not-so-black-and-white confrontation, after all--but it was worth it to hear Canada recover enough to softly snort back at him. "I think you're forgetting that all you need to do to absolve sins is to confess them, and you just did, didn't you? Not to mention the way you wear your flaws on your sleeve like badges of honour."

"'Stingy and obsessed with money'," he repeated. It was an accurate assessment. "Something about needing love to survive, too--you shouldn't leave me with a deficit like this. It's cruel and fiscally irresponsible."

"Damn it, Ned," he complained, "you weren't supposed to be drunk for this. Are you even going to remember in the morning?"

He retrieved a piece of pen and paper from his desk, unconcerned that it was already full of words and simply flipped it over to use it's unused side. "Don't worry, I'm taking notes."

"Fine," he sighed, but the Netherlands discerned a smile. "I love you, too. I love you, too, I'll call you in the morning, and I'll see you in a couple weeks. Good luck deciphering your drunk handwriting with your hangover tomorrow."

"...'hangover tomorrow'..." he repeated as he hastily took down the words, his handwriting definitely affected, though hopefully still readable with a clear head. He frowned a bit as he looked it over and noticed his creative spellings of various words, wondering if he would be able to 'designfer' that last line at all--and then realized that Canada hadn't meant for him to write that part down at all... or maybe he did, and that was why he was snickering a bit over the line. "Brat," he complained, but it was easier to smile than to maintain the frown.

He laughed another moment more before reeling himself in. "You should probably get some rest. Don't forget to drink some water before you sleep, all right?"

"All right," he agreed, and though he hated the thought of hanging up, added, "Good night."

"It's only noon over here," Canada teased him. "I won't be sleeping until after I call again, so wish me a good night then."

"Good day," he amended, briefly baffled by the fact that they were quite literally on opposite ends of the Earth and yet he couldn't feel the distance anymore.

"Good night," he replied. "Sleep well; sweet dreams."

"Impossible not to, while I'm dreaming of you," the Netherlands insisted.

"I'll be thinking of you, too," Canada promised and hung up the phone.

The Netherlands waited another moment before returning the receiver to its cradle, then paused a moment more before he stood up, left the pen and paper on the desk to find in the morning, and drank from the pitcher of water he kept on hand. That duty done, he started to put away the remaining whisky, but thought better of it, grabbing a clean glass and pouring out a small amount before putting the bottle away, intending to save the rest for when Canada arrived.

His switchboard operator was dozing when the Netherlands stepped out of his private office, but he roused when the glass lightly clattered against the wooden desk.

"A toast," he explained, "to our mutual Canadian friend, who first returned our country to us, and will now be returning us to our country."

His soldier stared back up at him, and he could see the moment that understanding dawned. Had his eyes not already been shining with moisture, they would have been after the whisky burned down his throat. "Mr. Williams... He must be an angel..." he whispered upon recovery.

The Netherlands knows that even angels could fall from paradise, like Lucifer himself, and understood Canada's worries about being worshipped rather than simply being loved. He didn't correct the soldier, though, as nations were just as otherworldly a notion to humans, and just as beautiful and terrible as angels could be.

His young soldier was soon relieved from his post for the night by an equally young pair with a deck of cards to amuse themselves with, so the Netherlands accompanied him to the dorms. The night was quiet aside from the occasional patrol; the city under a strict curfew.

"When you return to Holland," the Netherlands spoke up, "you should speak to your parents about emigration. There are far more opportunities overseas even for you with your injury than there will be at home. Canada will continue to welcome Dutch refugees for quite some time." He imagined he should be feeling guilty about being unable to provide for his people, but at least they had a safe place waiting for them.

His soldier nodded, smiling again. "The way Mr. Williams spoke of my sister and the community she joined, it seems like they brought Holland with them instead of leaving the Netherlands behind. He called them Dutch-Canadians instead of just Canadians who were formerly Dutch... It would be such an honour to be both Dutch and Canadian instead of just one or the other..."

Liberating their land, stopping the war, and providing homes for his people without ever once asking them to give up their identity... his heart truly had held out for the best before it had finally fallen. "Ja," he agreed, smiling too.

[Me: *gets fuzzy feelings from reading about real world NedCan postwar relations for the nth time*

Me: Oh, hey, the Indonesian War of Independence happened right after WW2 didn’t it? I wonder if Canada tried to get involved...

Me: *googles ‘Canada Indonesia relations’ after a few other searches and opens the wiki entry*

Me: ARE YOU KIDDING ME?????]

#nedcanweek2017 #nedcan #aph netherlands #aph canada

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