#green and golden swamp frog | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

vulpes-fennec · 10 months

Text

Love on Water Lilies 🪷 (Ch 1)

Summary: Prince Lucien Vanserra of the Autumn Kingdom is all play, no work. Elain Archeron, a waitress and aspiring restaurant owner in the city of Colibri, is all work, no play. Caught in a larger scheme of politics and war, Lucien and Elain are turned into frogs. Will Elain get her restaurant back? Will Lucien ever become Fae again?

Read on AO3

An Princess and the Frog inspired story for @elucienweekofficial Day 5: Nature 🍃

“Fried plantains and fresh fruit salad! Two vanilla golden toasts with honey syrup! Banana pudding!” The line cooks’ voices rang out from the sizzling kitchen.

“Coming right on up!” Elain Archeron plastered on a bright smile and cheerful voice as she dished out plate after plate of breakfast at Roy’s Cafe. The heavenly smell of fresh coffee was barely enough to keep Elain awake—she was exhausted. Elain glanced at the clock. Five more minutes…

Her shift at the Purple Flamingo Cabaret last night had certainly taken its toll, for the Summer Kingdom’s Mardi Gras festivities had begun. The swamp city of Colibri, known for good food and even better music, drew thousands of visitors every Mardi Gras. And this year, a special celebrity was in their midst: Prince Lucien Vanserra of the Autumn Kingdom, who had arrived just yesterday.

Although Elain hadn’t seen this prince yet, she heard plenty about him last night at the Purple Flamingo. The fourth and youngest son of King Beron Vanserra, Lucien was young, rich, handsome…and most importantly, single. He would probably remain that way, too, for word on the street was that Lucien was a total flirt. Gallivanting his way across Prythian’s kingdoms, taking on new lovers each week, partying all night long…

Elain grabbed a beignet to-go when she finally clocked out. Gulls squawked in the distance, green-painted trolleys clanged as they rolled by. Mardi Gras revelers walked by, decked out in chic outfits of green, purple, and yellow. With her food-stained yellow apron, worn ballet flats, and frazzled honey-brown hair, Elain felt a pinch of resentment.

Must be nice to never have to work a day in your life. Every year, the promise of generous tips during Mardi Gras dangled before food service workers like a carrot, tricking them into taking extra shifts.

It wasn’t always this way. Elain remembered the Mardi Gras celebrations of her childhood, the way she and her sisters danced to lively jazz and ate their way through delicacies all night long. The Archeron home used to be in the Marigold District, where all the wealthy Fae lived. But then Elain’s mother passed away, leaving her father depressed. Reginald Archeron rallied himself enough to fight in the Hybern War seven years ago, but lost his leg during one of the early battles.

Elain loved her father dearly, but it was plain fact that he had practically given up on life after becoming handicapped. The familial roles had reversed: instead of their father ensuring his daughters’ needs were met, Elain, Feyre, and Nesta were forced to take odd jobs in order to survive. Nesta delivered and occasionally edited for The Colibri Tribune. Feyre cleaned the art studios and landed the occasional art commission. Elain juggled multiple shifts between Roy’s Cafe, the Purple Flamingo Cabaret, and Emile’s Seafood Bar.

Though her shifts were grueling, Elain tried to view them in a positive light. It was career training of sorts: she paid attention to different management styles, brushed up her conversational skills with all sorts of Fae as a waitress, and improved her culinary skills as a cook. Ever since she was a little girl, a riverfront cafe to call her own had been Elain’s dream. When her family fell from wealth seven years ago, that dream was almost lost.

But now, Elain was closer to achieving that dream than ever. She was fairly confident in her capabilities as a cook and waitress. She had strong accounting skills, enough to ensure her restaurant wouldn’t go bankrupt. And more importantly, she had been in serious talks with realtors for a decrepit riverfront pavilion. The pavilion was a little run-down, but it was perfect in Elain’s heart. She juussttt needed a little more money…which was where the Mardi Gras cooking contest would come into play.

Because in addition to the multiple parades, balls, concerts, and parties, Mardi Gras featured local cuisines in a series of cooking concerts.

Today was the jambalaya cooking contest, which was taking place at Firefly Square. Tomorrow, Elain was slated for the baking contest, where she planned to wow the judges with her peach cobbler. The day after, she would participate in the fry contest, having perfected her fried chicken spice rub.

Elain stopped home to briefly freshen up. It was a tiny, cramped space—an utter downgrade from their old home. She and her sisters had squeezed three narrow beds into a room, the sole closet overflowing with clothes. The living room wasn’t much better: Feyre’s art supplies were strewn across every available surface, and Nesta’s second-hand books tilted in precarious stacks. Only the kitchen, Elain’s domain, remained spotlessly clean and organized.

Elain powdered her face, brushed her curls, dabbed a bit of lipstick, and donned a new dress. She needed to look fresh and proper, and a cute face never hurt.

She then hurried to Firefly Square, wheeling a little wagon full of ingredients and her trusty steel pot. Savory dishes were not her specialty, so Elain needed all the luck she could get. However, she was fairly confident that her jambalaya would at least place in the top three. Her best friend, Vassa La Bouff, and her sisters had helped refine the recipe over the last year, and the ladies could be trusted to give their honest opinion.

“Name?” The event attendant held a clipboard at the check-in table.

“Elain Archeron,” Elain replied cheerfully. The event attendant wrote her name on a wooden placard and placed it on the scoring rack. The five judges, a mix of renowned cooks and locals, were seated under a rich purple tent. Onlookers had gathered on the sidelines of Firefly Square to watch the judges sample each entry and announce their points.

Several other participants were already present, busying away at their own cooking stations. While there was no set “start” time due to the participants’ varying culinary skills and recipes, the judges would begin tasting at one o’clock in the afternoon. So Elain got to work.

First, she braided up her honey-brown hair and donned a flowery pink apron. Then, she began expertly mincing: peppers, celery, onion, garlic, and tomatoes. The heated oil sizzled the chicken and sausage, bringing fragrant notes of paprika, bay leaf, and thyme into the air. The meat was taken out, the vegetables added in. Elain cleaned the rice, poured in homemade chicken stock, and added more salt, pepper, and herbs.

Elain stirred the bubbling mixture, using the time to observe the other participants. There were ten competitors total. Some appeared to be seasoned chefs, others looked like novices. Regardless, everybody was making good progress on their jambalaya. And more importantly, everyone looked like they were having fun.

Elain’s mouth watered from the scents wafting from her pot alone. The consistency of her jambalaya was thick, but not mushy—it was all coming together nicely. Elain did a final taste test and smiled. Spicy, savory, and tangy…it was her best pot of jambalaya yet.

The judges seemed to think so, too, when they sampled her dish.

“Wonderful aromas.”

“The chicken is the right amount of tender, Miss Archeron.”

“Tastes just like my grandmother’s home-style jambalaya!”

This—this was exactly why Elain loved to cook: seeing people enjoy her food made her happiest. She was the last contestant up for tasting, which meant the score the judges awarded would be her final placement for the contest. Elain’s breath caught when she tallied up the judges’ marks. Third place…third place! Oh, she was going to walk away with prize money! Elain ducked her head and tried to squash her victorious beam. One step closer to—

“Excuse me! Excuse me!”

The most beautiful male Elain had ever seen strode into the courtyard, lugging a steaming pot with bare hands. His skin was a burnished brown, his long red hair tied up in a haphazard bun. She found herself eyeing his corded forearms, exposed thanks to the rolled-up sleeves of his white linen shirt. The male’s straight-legged olive green pants accented his muscled thighs, and his shiny black shoes with their gold details indicated expensive taste.

An entire entourage of Fae, mostly female, had followed the male into Ironwood Square, inevitably shoving Elain to the back.

“It’s Prince Lucien,” the crowd murmured to each other. “What is he doing here?”

Prince Lucien? Well…that explained how he could hold such a hot pot without any oven mitts. The Autumn Kingdom’s royal family possessed fire magic, which meant they could manipulate flame and were essentially immune to burns. Elain even overheard at The Purple Flamingo last night that Autumn males—especially the royal princes—fucked with an intensity that matched the fire in their veins.

Elain had practically snorted upon hearing such words last night, though looking at Prince Lucien now, it was certainly believable. But the delighted giggling of several females when the prince stepped up to the podium snapped Elain out of her reverie. Ugh! Prince Lucien was a playboy at best, a heartbreaker at worst, she reminded herself. No, she would not encourage the fantasies that had been surely planted in her mind thanks to his impromptu appearance, lest she turn into a tittering female over a male like him.

“Good afternoon, honorable judges.” Prince Lucien’s voice was rich and buttery, with a slight accent. For some reason, it reminded Elain of sunlight. He turned towards the crowd, and Elain stifled a gasp upon seeing the scar that ran down his face and cut through his left eye, which had been replaced by a mechanical gold eye. Such a brutal injury, yet the prince was made more handsome even with the scar.

“Welcome, Prince Lucien!” The lead judge leapt to her feet, a wide smile on her face. The crowd cheered again. Some females even screamed hysterically.

Prince Lucien gestured grandly to the entourage that followed him, gold earrings twinkling off the tips of his pointed ears. “I am here to enter the jambalaya competition. As there was no kitchen in my hotel suite, I had to borrow the kitchen at Restaurante Genevieve. Chef Michel and these citizens can attest that I made the jambalaya all on my own.”

The prince peered intently at the scoreboard, already stacked with ten other names and numbers. Elain could have sworn his brows raised in subtle surprise.

“Though I see now that I was tardy…” Prince Lucien trailed off as his eyes swept the crowd, as if he were looking for someone.

“The entry period closed thirty minutes ago but ah…we can make an exception, can we not?” The lead judge said quickly, and the audience clapped in agreement. The other judges nodded eagerly, clearly delighted at the presence of royalty. “Well, Your Highness, we would be honored to sample your jambalaya!”

Elain’s jaw slackened. A prince, participating in a jambalaya contest? She had never heard of such a thing. Royals had their own chefs. They probably wouldn’t even know how to boil an egg.

The prince’s russet and gold eyes were still scanning the square with unusual interest. Elain eyed him skeptically from the back, observing the confident smile on Lucien’s face and the swaggering cut of his broad shoulders. There was the off chance that Prince Lucien possessed culinary skills…but he was from the Autumn Kingdom. He wouldn’t know a thing about authentic jambalaya, Elain told herself. Elain relaxed, knowing she was safe and secure in third place as the judges sampled Lucien’s entree.

“Cauldron, this is absolutely divine!”

“Look at the colors on the spoon! So vibrant, so fresh!”

“I could eat this for the rest of my life and die happy.”

“Last call to score…and…first place! We have a winner!” The crowd cheered raucously.

Elain’s mouth completely fell open when the score attendant placed Prince Lucien Vanserra’s name placard on the top of the board, shifting everybody else down. Which meant…which meant she had been knocked off third place.

Elain was in shock. She wasn’t going to make it to the podium, and she wasn’t going to earn any prize money. Prince Lucien bowed, and then turned to the crowd that had gathered.

“Good food is meant to be shared! Please, feel free to finish the pot!” he announced, voice dripping with pride. More cheers and claps rang out as Elain was jostled out of the way in the mad stampede for the winning jambalaya.

This was not possible. This could not be happening.

Elain’s face grew hot with embarrassment, as she hurriedly packed up her wagon. It was time to go; she could not bear to spend another minute in the square with knowledge of her loss. Elain half-wondered if she should join the crowd and really try Prince Lucien’s jambalaya for herself. It couldn’t be that good. But the notion of a rich, playboy prince edging her off the podium in a cooking contest he had no stakes in was too shameful to consider. She could’ve done better. Should’ve done better.

Elain didn’t look back as she wheeled her wagon home, the rusty wheels click-clacking over the cobblestoned streets. Her half-full pot of jambalaya would become leftovers for her sister and father. At least they didn’t have to spend more money on groceries this week.

Some humility would do her good, Elain knew, as she was not a “professional” chef yet, but gods…would she ever be? If a prince could beat her in a cooking contest? If she couldn’t even win a couple judges’ favor, how was she going to draw the Colibri Fae to her restaurant?

—Later that evening—

After a fitful afternoon nap, Elain decided to stop by her cafe before heading to Vassa’s house. Well, it wasn’t hers yet, but Elain had recently begun treating it as such. She sat on a bench, listening to the lapping of the Mayhaven River, watching the steamboats chugging by.

“I’m almost there,” she whispered to herself. “People are going to come here from everywhere, I’m almost there.” The riverfront pavilion was a shabby brick building that had been a mess hall for dock workers in its previous life. The interior’s open layout would be the perfect place to install a stage for local musicians. Each table would have fresh flowers, the walls would be painted a creamy tan, the big windows would offer river views and plenty of natural light… oh, it was all coming together.

The door swung open. Hudson Jennings, Elain’s realtor, walked out with a folder tucked under his arm. Elain leapt up from her bench, ready to bid him hello. But she froze when a head of red hair ducked through the doorway. No…it couldn’t be…

“Pleasure doing business with you, Your Highness,” Hudson said, shaking Lucien Vanserra’s hand firmly. Even without his entourage of fans, Lucien held himself with a regal grace and winning smile.

“Of course,” Elain could hear the prince respond smoothly. “I look forward to establishing a second residence in Colibri.” Elain could only watch in horror as the realtor handed Lucien a set of keys before parting ways. Keys to her riverfront cafe!

“Mr. Jennings!” Elain ran as fast as her little feet could carry her as soon as Lucien had walked away. Oh gods, oh gods, oh gods. This must be a bad dream.

“Oh! Miss Archeron!” Hudson blinked his cat-like eyes in surprise. “I wasn’t expecting to see you here!”

“Mr. Jennings, did you just sell the property to Lucien?” Elain was breathless. Please say no, please say no, she begged silently.

“Ah, yes I’m afraid I just did.” Hudson patted the folder of papers. “I know, I know…you have been eyeing that property for some time, Miss Archeron, but the prince showed up with ample cash! We have several other properties available in town for your cafe, though. Let us talk more next week.”

“But—” Elain tried to say, then deflated. Her realtor was already walking away. There was no use. Unless she somehow managed to alter Hudson’s memory, rip up the sale papers, and steal the keys from Lucien, the property was gone. And so were her dreams of owning a riverfront cafe.

It seemed the prince was hell-bent on ruining her life. Lucien had fame and fortune, and got everything Elain wanted because of his name. Perhaps Elain had angered the Mother, somehow. For how else could so much go wrong in less than 24 hours?

Elain tried very hard not to cry as she rode the trolley to Vassa’s house. One, she was in public, and ladies did not cry in public. Two, the La Bouff Mardi Gras ball was starting in a few hours. Elain had been looking forward to the event all month, and crying right now would make her eyes puffy.

The La Bouffs resided in the Dorado District, the richest district in all of Colibri. Vassa’s “house” was actually a grand, three-story mansion of pale white marble, elegant columns, iron lace accents, and sweeping gabled roofs. When Elain arrived, the bustle of the musicians tuning their instruments and the servants, the gurgling fountain, and the beautiful lanterns of green, yellow, and purple faelight made her smile. A good party always made her feel more alive, even though she attended very few of them in recent years.

Vassa’s parents were one of the Mardi Gras royalty this year, and had invited Elain to the La Bouff Mardi Gras ball. Vassa was a true friend: she didn’t shun Elain after the Archerons fell into poverty, and for that Elain was eternally grateful. The footmen, used to her comings and goings, offered Elain warm greetings when she entered the mansion via the servants’ gate.

While Elain spent her days working, Vassa spent her days studying. The young La Bouff was finishing her last year at the prestigious Colibri Academy for Witchcraft, and was determined to be the top of her class. The only thing in Vassa’s way? Briallyn, a rival witch from the Continent. During the unfortunate occasions Elain had to interact with Briallyn, Elain felt the witch resembled a beady-eyed lizard.

Elain made her way down the spacious hallway and knocked on Vassa’s bedroom door.

“Elain! I’m so glad you’re here!” Vassa threw her arms around Elain. Her best friend’s orange hair was styled into loose waves, her bright blue eyes already lined with gold shadow. “Come, let us get ready together!”

“Vassa, it’s so good to see you,” Elain sighed, her voice still thick with emotion from earlier.

“What’s wrong?” Vassa asked, her brow creasing with concern. “Was it the jambalaya contest? Did you not get first place? I mean, second place is also fine, and so is third.”

Elain sat down on Vassa’s bed, hugging her knees to her chest. “The jambalaya concert was fine, until Prince Lucien Vanserra showed up at the last minute,” she said bitterly. “I had placed third, but that was before the judges awarded him first place. I got bumped down and I didn’t get any prize money.”

“Oh no,” Vassa rubbed Elain’s back sympathetically. “I’m so sorry, Elain.”

“It’s just not fair!” Elain complained, her face heated with anger. “The judges gave him special treatment, letting him enter the contest even though the judging window had closed! Lucien was cooking off-site, how could anybody truly tell he was the primary chef? And perhaps they didn’t want to upset a prince, so they put him first even though he didn’t deserve it!”

“I see what you mean,” Vassa hummed. “Did you end up tasting his jambalaya? Surely it couldn’t be as good as yours. Those judges must not have working tastebuds.”

“No, but that’s not even the end of it. I found out he bought the riverfront property from Hudson Jennings this afternoon. Vassa, you know how long I’ve been saving up for my cafe! To think the perfect location would be gone, just like that…”

“Cauldron boil and fry him,” Vassa muttered darkly, shaking her head.

“I’m sorry, Vassa. I know you’ve been looking forward to meeting Prince Lucien, that you want him to court you.” Elain sighed. “I shouldn’t be bad-mouthing him.”

“No, no, no,” Vassa shook her head. “Of course, I want Prince Lucien to court me, have you seen how handsome he is? But, your restaurant is something that I’ve been waiting for ever since we were little girls, Elain…when I see him tonight I will convince him to rescind the purchase.”

“Thanks, Vassa,” Elain smiled, feeling better. What Vassa set her mind to, Vassa achieved. She had no doubt her friend’s beauty and persistence would get the prince to change his mind. “He did say he wanted the property as a second residence.”

“Well! It wouldn’t be too hard to convince him to buy property in other Colibri districts!” Vassa raised her brows excitedly. “He could move in with me.” Vassa jumped to her feet, trying to inject some more life into Elain’s forlorn posture. “Now I know today hasn’t been the best day, Elain. But this ball will turn it all around! I have just the perfect dress for you, and I know you’ll have plenty of males to dance the night away with. It’s in the closet, come see!”

***Lucien***

“Just look at all of this, Jurian,” Lucien said to his best friend when they regrouped after the dance ended. “One of the best parties I’ve been to in a while.”

He had left his entourage of pretty females at the La Bouff mansion gate. Not that it really mattered, since there were even more females inside the ball. The musicians played lively tunes, inviting attendees to kick up their feet and whirl across the marbled outdoor dance floor. The La Bouff Mardi Gras decorations were simply exquisite, from the soft faelight lanterns hanging off trees to the flower arrangements on tables. Fae wine and cocktails flowed freely, wait staff walked around with platters of delicious food.

“Don’t tell Tarquin, but I’m enjoying myself far more here than the Mardi Gras balls in Adriata,” Jurian slurred slightly. The male lifted a pair of deviled eggs off a waiter’s tray and handed one to Lucien. “Though it is positively boiling in Colibri.”

“Of course, we’re near the Bog of Oorid,” Lucien remarked. He had donned an emerald green jacket with embroidered gold leaves at the cuffs, a freshly pressed white shirt, and black pants. The layers made him sweat profusely, though Lucien wicked away the excess moisture with a slight release on the damper of his magic. He looked good, and that was what mattered at the end of the night.

“Gods, I’m so hungry,” Jurian muttered as he inhaled a fried catfish filet within seconds. “They ate all your jambalaya before I could eat some.”

Lucien laughed. “Better clean up those crumbs and drink some mint julep before the next dance, Jurian. The females won’t appreciate fish breath.” Jurian only rolled his eyes as he turned his attention to a slice of Mardi Gras king cake.

Lucien scanned the rows of vendors, looking for the baked goods. But none of the vendors’ name tags read “Elain Archeron”. He sighed inwardly. He had no idea what Elain Archeron looked like, but had been hoping to try some of her famed treats. Tarquin, Prince of Adriata, could not stop talking about the hummingbird cake, peach cobblers, and powdered sugar beignets Elain made when she catered his Mardi Gras event in Adriata last year.

“If you’re visiting Colibri, you must try Elain Archeron’s food,” Tarquin had told him. “Elain’s cafe should be open by now. She is a very kind female as well, and please tell her I said hello.”

Elain Archeron had been one of the jambalaya contestants earlier in the afternoon, but the female did not bother introducing herself to him. Odd.

“Looking for Vassa?” Jurian inquired. Lucien was supposed to meet the Mardi Gras princess and ask her for the first dance, but her parents claimed Vassa was running late for the ball.

“I suppose,” Lucien murmured, even though that was not the case. Jurian knocked back another glass of Fae wine beside him. “Cauldron, Jurian. Save some space for the mint juleps before you get too drunk.”

“Aha! That reminds me…I’ll find those mint juleps while you’re looking for your princess. All this heat has me parched. Be right back.” Jurian clapped Lucien on the shoulder before disappearing into the crowd.

Lucien lingered on the side, trying to assess which pretty female he would dance with next, when he felt someone tap him on the shoulder. A pale-faced female, with onyx black hair and equally dark eyes, was standing behind him. There was something cunning in her face, something odd Lucien could not quite place. Nevertheless, the female was dressed as one of the wait staff and innocuously offered him a platter of powdered beignets.

“Beignet, Your Highness?” she asked, her voice peppy. “I heard the prince has a sweet tooth.”

“Thank you.” Lucien picked one up with a napkin and absentmindedly brought it to his mouth. It was only when Lucien swallowed his first bite that he realized something was wrong. The beignet was slightly bitter, the powdered sugar chalky on his tongue. Suddenly, everything seemed bigger. Everything was bigger.

Lucien blinked, feeling like his eyes had doubled in size based on how long it took for him to fully blink. The grass…it was eye-level, the blades of green sharp and extra vibrant. His body was hunched over on all fours. He was…a frog?

Oh gods. What the hell just happened?

A looming shadow darkened the space around him. Lucien looked up just in time to see the waitress, monstrously tall with a wicked glint in her eyes, poised to slam a bowl over his head.

Act first, think later.

Booiingg! Lucien moved on instinct, his frog legs launching him into the air like a spring. He dove straight into the crowd of Fae party-goers, stalling the waitress from pursuing him any further.

Shit. Shit, shit, shit. That was new. Fear seized Lucien like a vise, the adrenaline sending him into flight mode. Where the hell did Jurian go? Everything was so damn big…the distance he normally crossed in three quick strides now required multiple leaps.

There! Jurian was near the tree line, mint juleps in hand. Lucien hopped towards his friend, gaining more mastery over his new limbs with each leap.

“Jurian!” Lucien blinked, surprised that he still retained the ability to speak. “Jurian! Down here!” he called out, louder this time.

The Fae male above him glanced down and promptly dropped the drinks in shock. Lucien flinched reflexively when minty sweet alcohol rained down, but it didn’t matter any more. As a frog, he had no clothes to protect from spilled drinks.

“Fuck, I must be more drunk than I thought.” Jurian blinked twice and chuckled. “I could have sworn that a frog with Lucien’s voice just spoke to me.”

“That’s because it is me!” Lucien hissed, hopping up and down insistently. “Jurian!”

“Holy shit.” Jurian knelt on the ground, scooping him up in his hands. “Lucien, is that you?”

“How many times do I have to say it’s me?” Lucien grumbled. Jurian’s green-brown eyes peered down.

“Cauldron, you still have your scar and your gold eye. Well, it’s not made of metal anymore, but…fuck.” Jurian lifted Lucien up to perch on his shoulder. Lucien brought a webbed hand to his face, feeling at his left eye. Sure enough, he could see out of both eyes—truly see, without relying on a metal contraption. “Fuck, I probably look like I’ve gone mad, talking to a frog.”

The male took some deep breaths, pacing back and forth. Lucien clung onto Jurian’s purple jacket for dear life. “Jurian, can you stop moving?”

“Sorry. We need another drink.” Jurian swiped two goblets of wine off a passing tray and ducked behind a drooping willow tree. Lucien hopped down, sitting on all fours on top of Jurian’s thigh. “Okay, Lucien. What the fuck happened?”

“I ate a beignet from this waitress, and then I turn into a frog and she’s trying to trap me under a bowl!” Lucien glanced furtively at their surroundings, but did not see the wretched female’s face.

“What did the waitress look like?”

“High Fae. Pale, with black hair and black eyes. She was wearing the La Bouff servant’s uniform.” Jurian’s gaze darkened with protective instinct.

“Why would she put a curse on you?”

Lucien shrugged. “Not sure. She knew who I was, though, so that’s strange. I’m Beron’s youngest son, with a slim path to the throne. What good would come out of cursing me?”

“Perhaps she wanted money. Ransom a prince, you know.”

“As if Beron would pay more than a couple coppers to get me back,” Lucien said bitterly.

“You’re right, your father is a bastard.” Jurian frowned. “Could you undo the curse yourself?”

“I can try.” Now that he had Jurian to keep watch, Lucien closed his eyes and tried to tunnel deep down into his well of magic. He had always had a knack for spells and curses. It wasn’t like that of witches, who required specific ingredients, tools, and conditions to generate any effect. Rather, it was pure magic—power that stemmed from being the son of a High Lord.

He found the dark stain of the curse, but despite all his efforts to extract it, the stain remained stubbornly present. It was as if it was interwoven into his very essence. Lucien yanked and prodded and threw wave after wave of magic against it, but to no avail.

“It’s not working,” he announced glumly.

“We should find the La Bouffs…tell them that one of their staff, or the food they served, turned the visiting Autumn Prince into a frog,” Jurian proposed, his fists clenching with concern. “If they cannot resolve this, then they should be held liable.”

“Isn’t that a little harsh?” Lucien replied dryly. “Lord and Lady La Bouff can only do so much. But Vassa…she’s studying to be a witch. I heard she’s the top of her class…perhaps she could assist with undoing the curse.”

“Perhaps,” Jurian mused doubtfully.

Lucien hopped onto the rim of the wine goblet and stuck his tongue into the chilled liquor. The sweet and tangy notes were far more sensational thanks to his new taste buds. Unfortunately, his added weight was an imbalance to the delicate stem, and Lucien promptly tipped backwards. Red wine poured over his entire underside, drenching him.

Jurian began to laugh.

“You know frogs absorb liquid from their underbelly skin, right? You’ll be drunk in no time.” Lucien stuck his tongue out at Jurian and rolled around the grass for a bit, trying to clean himself off. “I suppose Vassa would be glad to help a prince for fame, or fortune.”

“Also, we have the old tale of princesses kissing frog princes,” Lucien reminded Jurian. “With the laws governing witch magic, it’s very likely that this curse follows the same path of resolution.”

Jurian snorted. “Good luck trying to convince a princess—even if it’s a Mardi Gras princess—to kiss a frog. We are better off pleading directly.”

Lucien tried to grin, but it felt strange with a new mouth and new facial muscles. “You seem to underestimate me, Jurian.”

“Let’s bet on it: if you can get the princess to kiss you, I’ll walk Eris’s dogs for the next month.”

“I do enjoy a challenge. I offer you this, just for fun. If the princess kisses you, Jurian, then I’ll buy you a new sword. Out of Illyrian steel.” Lucien stood on his hind legs, straightening his back and tilting his chin up with the regal air of a prince. Jurian rolled his eyes.

“As if a princess would want to kiss a lowly Autumn Kingdom foot soldier over its prince.”

“I beg to differ, Jurian. I’m a frog this time…I think that evens the playing field.” Lucien winked. “Besides, stop discrediting yourself. You’re one of our most skilled warriors. Anyways…best of luck, I’m off to find the princess!”

“You bastard,” Jurian muttered darkly, shaking his head with amusement. He finished his wine in two large gulps, holding the empty glass up in a mock toast. “I would say I hope you lose, but life would also be boring if you were stuck in frog form.”

With that, Lucien hopped off towards the La Bouff mansion. There was a slim chance Vassa was still getting ready for the party—truly, females needed all the time possible plus more for these elaborate events.

Most of the ball’s festivities were taking place in the garden and first floor, and Lucien could hear Lord and Lady La Bouff—the Dorado Mardi Gras King and Queen—chatting with guests. That meant the light emanating from the window on the second floor was none other than Vassa La Bouff’s.

Clinging to small nooks in the marble, scaling up vine to vine—which was made harder thanks to his slippery frog mucus, Lucien made his way to the golden window.

Princess Vassa was standing on the balcony, and simply put, she was the most beautiful female Lucien had ever seen.

The female’s wide eyes were cast towards the heavens, her expression a mixture of hope and despair. Honey-brown hair was swept up into an artful bun studded with luminous pearls. A tiara of rose gold rested on her brow, glittering in the moonlight. Her soft curves and elegant shoulders were accented by a strapless lavender gown with a heart-shaped neckline.

“Please, please, please,” the ethereal princess whispered, clasping her gloved hands to her chest. “Please.”

Lucien hopped closer, the world spinning out of view. Ah, damn it. The alcohol was kicking in faster than he’d anticipated. Princely charm now had to be mobilized in full force if he wanted to receive a kiss.

He cleared his throat, but only a ribbet came out. The princess glanced down, spotting him. Gods, she was beautiful. Those doe brown eyes, that golden skin still warm under the silver moon, and those pretty rosebud lips that hooked Lucien in like a moth to a flame.

“If you wanted a kiss, all you had to do was ask.”

#elucien #elucienweek2023 #elain archeron #lucien vanserra

36 notes · View notes

dimalink · 6 months

Text

Messages and adventures – a message from 10 kings

Pixel art for today based on videogame Ax Battle a Legend of Golden Axe for game console Sega Game Gear.

And this is my drawing about the same theme. As idea itself it can be another. It is some 2d adventure with elements of role-playing game. It can be something like early games of YS for console Super Nintendo. Or like Zeliard for PC MS DOS. So, it is 2d action adventure. A little role playing.

Your way is lay through forests and mountains. You have passed mountains. And have passed deep forests. To enter defensed lands of sorcerer Arglik. It is last magical lands. There are lots of ruins here. And somewhere it is even snow. Arglik is living in the castle. It is a rumor that Arglick – it is a lord vampire. And nobody sees him during the day. He all the time in a dark cloak and can fly. That’s for sure he is not a typical human. Your way is lay to his castle. To bring him a message from ten kings. To invite to evergreen castle.

And next your way will lay though rivers and swamps. There are living gremlins, goblins, rattlings. And strange little forest people, they are like little humans. You are also need to give them an invitation. In a place where it is a one big swamp, there are living a frogs, big intelligence frogs. There is invitation for them too.

And for last time, in a sands, near the sea, there are sands lands, where lives a jeans, that can control fire. And people who travel to this place using ships. They came from no one know places. Now they live there. Near the sea at the sands lands. There is a castle of stone council. Nobody knows why it has such a name. There are rumors that it is controlled by 16 mages. Mages of a stone castle. There is ivitation for them too.

And next your way is to go near the mountains. And forest again. And plains. With invitation to elves and people of bright green grass. People of bright green grass. They call themselves like this. There are living big bees there. They are doing a delicious honey. And foxes and bears. And also, there are living there a lepricorns at the corner of the plains.

At your way you will find lots of adventures.

8 notes · View notes

pleistocene-pride · 1 year

Photo

Baron's mantella, also known as the variegated golden frog or the Madagascar poison frog, is a species of small poisonous frog in the family Mantellidae which sports is native too East-Central Madagascar, inland from the east coast, and spanning north to south from Fierenana south to Andringitra. This moderately social species communicates via intense sequences of short, single-click notes throughout the day and inhabits rainforests, swamps, montane forest, bamboo groves, riverine woodlands and agricultural orchards. They are diurnal predators that feed upon ants, crickets, beetles, isopods, spiders, and mites. By ingesting these various poisonous/ venomous arthropods mantilla frogs are able to repurpose and secrete said toxins as pharmacologically-active alkaloid concentrations in their skin, in turn making the frogs themselves poisonous to potential predators. The intensity of this poison alkaloid can flux both temporally and geographically, depending on the frogs dietary diversity. Reaching around 1- 1.25 inches (28 -32mm) in length Baron’s mantella is the second largest species of mantella frog after the green mantella, with females being slighty heavier than males. The head & flanks are solid black. A yellowish rostral stripe is apparent, generally ending past the eye. The front limbs are yellow to green with this coloration continuing up the flanks into a large, rounded flank blotch. These flank blotches occasionally expand across the back and connect to the opposite side blotch, resulting in a more yellow dorsum. The hindlimbs are orange with irregular black stripes. The belly, throat, and limbs are black and marked with a few yellow to greenish, rarely blue blotches. Females can lay up to 130 unpigmented eggs in a single clutch, and almost always do so near a source of water, into which the resulting tadpoles get washed by rainwater. Under ideal conditions a barons mantella will reach sexual maturity at around 1 year of age and may live upward of 8.

#Baron's Mantella #mantella #frog #madagascar #poison frog #poison #variegated frog #golden frog #variegated golden frog #variegated #golden #pleistocene #pleistocene pride #amphibian

4 notes · View notes

sociallyawkwardtoaster · 2 years

Text

Tomorrow and Tomorrow

AO3

There are days when Anne wonders if she made a mistake.

Most days are good, of course. The aquarium’s leadership are always receptive to her ideas for the amphibian room, and constantly astonished at the passion and drive this newly-minted herpetologist, barely in her twenties, brings to the job. With a constant flow of wide-eyed children and adults alike coming into her domain on a daily basis, any remaining doubts over her singular vision for presenting practical amphibian biology as a fantastical word waiting to be discovered were firmly squashed.

But there are moments when a certain pink tree frog would look at her in a certain way, or the texture of the moss and bushes would brush against her skin, or the golden letter hanging in front of a hollowed-out stump would catch her eye, and her tears would flow. Far too many times her coworkers would ask if she needed anything, and she would have to smile and wave them off, unable to explain how much she missed a world they could only imagine, the second family she would never forget.

Sometimes, when the ache was too much to bear, she wondered if she had been wrong to follow this calling and surround herself in things that served as constant reminders of what she might never have again.

But all it ever takes is another look at how far she has come, all that she had accomplished here and far away, and into those tiny, pale green eyes, to remind her of why she chose this. Because it is so much better to embrace the memories, bittersweet as they may be, than to let them fade in the dark.

*~*

There are days when Sprig fears he can’t step outside.

Not for any practical reason – he is still the same adventuresome frog he’s always been, hopping from one journey to the next, his curiosity never sated. He and Ivy had traveled the world together, seeking out so many new discoveries it scarcely felt like the universe had anything left to surprise them. And yet there was always something new and wonderful around the corner, just waiting to be found and scribbled down in an ever-growing journal.

But stepping outside meant going into town and seeing her.

The statue had already gained a few cracks and spots of moss here and there. Her un-shoed foot had grown unnaturally smooth from all the frogs who had made the pilgrimage to see the hero of Amphibia, just for a single touch in the hope that something of what made her exceptional would rub off on them. Every day, little tadpoles stood in awe of its majesty, unable to believe that such a strange creature from another world was the reason they were here today.

And sometimes Sprig wished he could tear it down, stuff it in his pocket, and hide it in the deepest depths of the swamp. The last memory of his dearest friend, hidden from those who could never understand, locked away to be his and his alone.

And then he looks again at the children staring in disbelief, and he knows that the past is something to be shared, and who was he to deny them the privilege of knowing who she was, and not just what? And so he sits in the shadow of his best friend, and invites them in as he brings his greatest adventure to life once again.

#amphibia #amphibia spoilers #the hardest thing spoilers #anne boonchuy #sprig plantar #my writing #i don't even remember what my writing tag was it's been so long lol #but anyway YEAH HOW ABOUT THEM AMPHIBIANS

24 notes · View notes

serene-sun · 1 year

Text

WIP?

Idk but I want to write, I crave on writing something that’s not ghost. My own characters and their own personalities. Two ghosts that done actually exist, two lovers that are forced to Mary with tragic love. I want to write and draw something that brings me away from the city, I want to write something about the ghostly pale women who roam the swamps and cemeteries. I wanna write about a lone bastard who is taken back to the corrupted churches. I wish to draw the ocean of grass, the rivers that connect, swamps with hazy green life, and the mossy savanna trees that whisper like ripped fabric in the humid chill air in the night. I wanna make someone head the owls that prey in the night, or the frogs and cicadas that put on an elaborate orchestra. Maybe I should write about the golden eyes that peek from the woods and murky water. Idk really, I just wanna write and draw something that brings me back home.

#serene sun nocontext #serene sun art homework

1 note · View note

goforth-ladymidnight · 1 year

Note

👀

From this ask:

An excerpt from my WIP - A still-untitled Frog Prince retelling.

For those unfamiliar with the original fairy tale, here is a short summary on Wikipedia.

In my rendition of the story, Princess Briony of Silvenia throws her golden ring (instead of a golden ball) into the swamp when she learns her parents are trying to marry her off. She cries because she is angry, not because she lost a toy. This excerpt is the part where she meets a certain frog:

She did not know how long she had been crying; only that an unusually loud croak sounded by her foot and startled her from her tears. She lowered her hands to see a speckled, swamp-green frog sitting next to her at the water’s edge. Watching her.

She sniffed with a frown. “What are you staring at?” she muttered.

“Oh, sorry. Didn’t mean to be rude,” the frog said, awkwardly turning away.

Briony’s eyes widened and her mouth fell open. It was one thing to hear a human voice coming from a creature no larger than her fist, it was another to watch it behave as though it had manners.

She stammered, “Did you just—”

“Speak? Yes,” the frog said, turning back around.

She swallowed hard and sank to her knees. She was scarcely aware of the cold, wet mud seeping into her dress.

“How?” she managed to ask, her tears forgotten.

The frog blinked thoughtfully, for it could think and speak apparently well. “Do you know anything about magic?”

Briony chuckled and wiped at her wet cheeks with her sleeves. “More than you think.”

The frog croaked nervously and said, “Well, I don’t know much at all. Suffice to say that I didn’t always look like this. And I’d advise you to stay away from the willow tree on the other side of the swamp.”

Briony glanced up across the water. “Who did this to you?” she asked, straining to see which tree it meant.

“A swamp witch.”

She shook her head. “How horrible…” She glanced down at the frog with a grimace, wondering if an arranged marriage was worse than a curse. “Will you be like this for the rest of your life?”

“I think she means me to be eaten, so… in a way, yes,” the frog said grimly. Then its tone lightened as it added, “But she did say that I could be free… if I met some conditions first.”

“What conditions?”

“A kiss, for one thing.”

Briony smiled. “Well, that’s easy enough.”

She reached down and picked up the frog. It wriggled in her grip, then her hands were suddenly warm and wet with something other than swamp water. She dropped it with a yelp of disgust, and it landed with a wet plop in the shallows. She shook her hands with a disgusted grimace, then swirled them through the swamp water to clean them.

The frog’s head popped up out of the water. If frogs could look embarrassed, this one did.

“I am so sorry… That’s the frog in me. I would never do that.”

Her nose was still crinkled as she wiped her hands dry on her skirt.

“Would you really have kissed me?” the frog asked when she did not reply.

She glanced down at the sorry little creature and forced a smile. “Of course. I know a thing or two about spells. You could say it runs in the family.”

The frog crawled onto the shore with a croak. “I would be in your debt if you could help me break this spell… Is there anything I can do?”

Briony pursed her lips in thought. There was very little a frog could do for her that a servant couldn’t.

“Why were you crying?” the frog asked, interrupting her musings.

She sighed. “I don’t think you’d understand. My parents are trying to marry me off to some stranger.”

The frog perked up. “Break my spell, and you can marry me!”

Briony laughed and gracefully waved her hand. “Ah, yes, Princess Briony… crowned Queen of the Swamp.”

“You—you’re Princess Briony?”

She looked down in surprise. It stared at her, its eyes wide, even for a frog. She shrugged with a bemused smile. “This is Silvenia. I am the only princess… Who else would I be?”

“You’re no swamp witch, that’s for certain,” it said firmly. “But I don’t know of any princesses who visit swamps.”

She chuckled. “I’m one of a kind.” She tilted her head thoughtfully. “Yet you wanted to marry me anyway?”

The frog was silent for a long moment, then murmured, “Yes, actually.”

She smiled. “What’s your name?”

“Ahh… That’s unfortunate. I can’t tell you. It’s part of my spell.”

“What shall I call you, then? I can’t just call you ‘Frog’.”

“You could call me ‘Prince’.”

She chuckled. “Oh, so you’re a frog prince, are you?”

“Just a prince.”

Her smile disappeared and her head jerked back in surprise. “But you don’t look like a prince.”

“And you don’t look like a princess,” the frog argued.

She pursed her lips and looked at him askance. “How do I know you’re telling the truth?”

“I’m a talking frog in a swamp. What reason would I have to lie?”

She crossed her arms. “You could ask anyone who passes by for a kiss. This could be your perverse idea of having fun.”

The frog made a strange sound between a croak and a laugh. “Ah, yes. I love waiting in the swamp for pretty girls to pass by. It passes the time between dodging hungry birds and snakes.”

Briony tried to frown, but a smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. She lowered her arms with a sigh. “All right. I’ll trust you… Prince.”

She leaned forward and laid the back of her hand on the ground.

Prince stared at her open palm. “What are you doing?”

She nudged her hand closer and said, “I’m going to help you break your spell.”

This was one of the first scenes I ever wrote for this story! I'm very proud of it, but nervous to be sharing it online for the first time. If I can ever finish the last couple chapters, I want to self-publish and put it out there in the world... Being brave enough to share an excerpt with strangers online is the first step! *cue internal screaming*

Thanks for the ask, nonny! ❤️

#ask game #wip #my writing #the frog prince retelling

1 note · View note

leahalexiscolesblog · 2 years

Text

All Zoo Animal Species Of The Wild

African Lion

Amur Tiger

Grevy's Zebra

Pygmy Hippo

Eastren Black Rhinoceros

Reticulated Giraffe

Colobus Monkey

Patas Monkey

Goeldi's Monkey

Black - Handed Spider Monkey

Squirrel Monkey

Allen's Swamp Monkey

Great Horned Owl

Western Gray Kangaroo

Western Lowland Gorilla

Giant Panda

Grey Seal

Bottlenose Dolphin

Grizzly Bear

Polar Bear

Bornean Orangutan

Common Chimpanzee

Humboldt Penguin

Ring - Tailed Lemur

Two - Toed Sloth

Orinoco Crocodile

Indigo Snake

Black Rat Snake

Amazon Milk Frog

Waxy Tree Frog

Green Tree Python

Emerald Tree Boa

Rainbow Boa

Chinese Giant Salamander

North American River Otter

Asian Small - Clawed Otter

White - Cheeked Gibbon

Golden Lion Tamarin

Angolan Colobus

Red - Tailed Guenon

Dwarf Seahorse

Leopard Shark

Addax

Nayla Antelope

Kirk's Dik Dik

Gerenuk

Kilpspinger

Woma Python

Hairy - Nosed Wombat

Rodrigues Fruit Bat

Westren Gray Kangaroo

Bennet's Wallaby

Emu

California Seal Lion

Mangrove Snake

Amercian Bison

Amur Leopard

Snow Leopard

Clouded Leopard

Okapi

Bractrian Camel

Slender - Tailed Meerkat

Cape Porcupine

Sloth Bear

Grizzly Bear

Polar Bear

Madagascar Cockroach

Black Widow

Green Basilisk

Andean Condor

Bald Eagle

Laughing Kookburra

Binturong

White - Billed Pangolin

0 notes

funkyfrogoftheday · 3 years

Text

today’s funky frog of the day is: litoria aurea! commonly known as the green and golden bell frog, green and golden swamp frog, or ground-dwelling tree frog, they are native to australia. they can reach up 4.5 inches in length, making them one of australia’s largest frogs, and true to their name, they are colored gold and green. they generally feed on insects, but will also eat larger prey like worms and mice. despite their classification as tree frogs, they do not spend much time in trees and usually stay close to the ground. they are often found in areas of infrequent disturbance, such as golf courses, disused industrial land, brick pits, and landfill areas. they can also be seen basking in the sun on vegetation, rocks, and reeds, and unlike most frogs, they are active during the day. they can live up to 15 years.

#frog #frogs #litoria aurea #green and golden bell frog #green and golden swamp frog #ground-dwelling tree frog #funky frog of the day

321 notes · View notes

harrypotter-imaginess · 3 years

Text

Part 2 Here!

Commission info for a Love Letter from you favorite character here!

- You’re probably someone on his morning routine, or who could easily become apart of his daily routine

- Maybe a friendly barista at a café he’s curious about on the way to the his store

- But I like to think you’re someone that works at the local flower shop

- He catches you on his way to work one morning, choosing to walk that day to stretch his legs

- Apparating is convenient, but if he’s not careful he’ll get out of shape pretty fast.

- He see’s you across the street, watering the plants you keep outside the shop, talking to each of them, a smile across your face as you do

- The morning light hits you just right, the golden glow spreading across your face

- “Well aren’t they quite cute?”

- He starts walking to work everyday from then on

- It’s on the fourth or fifth day you notice him-

- Well really you notice his hair, it’s such a rich red

- A livelier shade than any rose or hibiscus you could grow

- “I bet it’s hair dye.” Your co-worker tells you “you know how these city boys are-“

- Well your store is in the heart of the city, on the Jump Street, sandwiched between a book store and a boutique

- And yeah, most of the guys around here do seem impeccably dressed,

- one of your very handsome regular's who comes in to get flowers for his husband every Tuesday even admitted he has a running bi-monthly appointment at the spa, he gets a spray tan, dye job, eyebrows tweezed, the works.

- “It’s just what I have to do to compete, there’s so many young CEO’s now, you’ve got to keep up appearances.”

- And you’re sure he’s not the only one

- Still.. you can’t help but believe that a shade of red that vibrant- that beautiful- can’t be from just hair dye

- “Maybe” you mumble, turning your attention to the peony’s

- You wonder if you’ll see him walk by at the end of the day when all the offices close

- But even though you keep your eyes glued to the store front window, he never shows up

- You see him again the next morning, walking across the street

- This time you take a little more of him in

- He’s pretty tall, though you can’t make out much of his build when he’s wearing that rust colored coat

- And a splatter of freckles across his face, almost like constellations

- He’s got a long nose, but it works with his face

- He’s pretty handsome

- What comes next shouldn’t surprise you, but it does

- Perhaps he felt your eyes on him, silently assessing him- studying him

- Because his eyes lift up to meet yours

- They’re the deepest brown you’ve ever seen, especially when the morning light hits them just so

- Oh sh*t, he caught you staring

- Sh*t. Sh*t. Sh*t. Sh*t. Sh*t. Sh*t.

- Okay, it’s fine

- Just okay- Just play it cool

- So, you pretend like you weren’t just staring at this handsome stranger admiring his features

- And shamelessly offer your best smile and a wave

- To your surprise he grins, smile spreading across his face

- A light pink dusting his face as he waves back

- And so you become waving friends

- Waving to each other every morning

- Which slowly evolves into trading morning greetings

- “How’s your morning going?” He asks from across the street

- Miffed commuters give him disgruntled looks as they walk around him rushing to work, but he stays rooted to the spot

- “It’s alright can’t complain!” You shout back from your spot by the gardenia bush, earning several looks as well

- “How about you?”

- He gives a teasing look to all the angry passerby’s and gives a “so-so” hand motion

- You almost laugh so hard you cry

- This goes on for a few more days, and your co-workers take notice

- “Flirting with the red head (Y/N)? On company time?” Your co-worker mock gasps and you roll your eyes

- “Oh hush, I’m just being friendly to a neighbor.”

- Your co-worker doesn’t look like they’re buying it, but they don’t say anything else

- It’s late in the afternoon when the shop bell rings

- You’re up to your elbows trimming and re-potting the hydrangeas

- You figure one of the others will get

- You hear some footsteps but ignore it,

- This part is tricky, if you damage any of the roots the plant might not be able to make it

- “Um excuse me, I was wondering if you might help me with something?”

- Ugh, don’t they see you’re in the middle of something

- You’re about to turn around and tell them that customers aren’t supposed to be in back room-

- When you catch a glimmer of vivid red in the corner of your eye

- No that can’t be right, he doesn’t even walk back this way in the afternoon

- Your heart stutters in your chest, face growing hot

- Your crush is getting out of control-

- When you look up, there he is

- His adorable freckles face in all its glory

- Here in the homely, rather dirty, back-plant room at your flower store

- A hesitant smile curled on to his lips

- “I’m sorry, it looks like I’m interrupting, the clerk in the front said you would be back here-“

- Of course they did

- So well what’s he here for?

- Is he here to ask you in a date??

- You might just combust from joy at the thought

- Or maybe he’s here to order a large bouquet for his lover, and the rest of your co-workers think it’s time you get yourself out of this little crush of yours

- The thought fills you with both embarrassment and despair

- Only extreme highs and lows with you, it seems

- “- I’m a business owner a few streets over, and I thought some flowers might add some atmosphere, they said you’re the expert”

- He gives you a boyish grin, his hands shoved into his pockets

- So somewhere in the middle then

- Aright you can work with that

- “Do you have an idea of what kind of flowers you might want?” You’re already moving towards the sink, washing the fertilizer off your arms.

- George blanks, he hasn’t really thought that far

- “Not particularly, do you have any recommendations?”

- You nod, lips pursed as you grab the order form

- “Well what kind of store do you have? Peonys’ and orchids’ are always good with boutiques”

- You figure he owns an upscale boutique or maybe a restaurant, those tend to be the places that do the best in this area.

- And by the looks of his taupe coat, his store is doing very well

- “Hmm well-“ his hand rubs his chin

- Technically it’s a joke shop, but it’s grown to be more than that isn’t it?

- He sells potions, charms, stationary, prank goods (of course), muggle novelty’s- it makes sense to him- but his store has grown to be quite eclectic over the years

- Besides he doubts he can explain it you

- He’s still on the fence whether you’re a muggle or from magic like him

- You’re plants have him suspicious, no way a muggle could grow a gardenia that would put Neville Longbottom to shame-

- Still, if you were a witch there’s no way you wouldn’t have recognized him by now

- The Weasleys have all become some sort of warrior clan war hero, he’s even on a chocolate frog card now.

- Well, he would rather not risk it

- He’s always been the cautious one

- “It’s sort of a hobby store? Well it started out as one, but now we’ve been expanding and we sell a bit of everything.”

- “So kind of like a department store?”

- Department stores are a bit more tricky, each room has a different vibe, but the overall tone has to be neutral

- Hmmmm

- “Maybe some white roses? Orchids might be nice too, and if you’ve got a bit of a green thumb I might recommend succulents or some devils ivy?”

- This is all going straight over George’s head, he never did pay much attention in herbology

- But you’re talking to him as if he’s an equal and he doesn’t want the cutie who works at the local flower shop think any less of him because he doesn’t know a d*mn about plants

- “Those sound lovely”

- He’s not entirely sure how it happens, but by the time he’s left he’s got an armful of plants, and a rolling order at your store to pick up plants every Tuesday

- “Are you sure you’re alright? We deliver for free you know?”

- “No no it’s fine-“

- The tall leafy plant shakes every time he shakes his head

- “Besides I wouldn’t want to miss the chance to see you again” he winks before turning to leave

- You feel your heart skip a beat

- “Did you ask if it was a dye job?” You co-worker yells from the other side of the store as soon as he’s gone

- “Of course I didn’t Ainsley! For one that’s awfully rude”

- They nod knowingly

- “Yeah that’s really fifth date talk”

- They laugh when you throw one of the cards at them

- And like clockwork George comes in every Monday afternoon, and leaves with a handful of arrangements and plants

- You still talk to each other on the street

- “How are the hydrangeas working out for you?” You ask and he gives a ‘ditto’ hand gesture

- “They’re class! I was wondering if I could get a few more?”

- You nod

- “We’ll have more ready for you on Monday, are you sure you don’t want delivery?”

- He manages to carry them off every time, but it sure makes you nervous, just one tumble and they would be ruined

- “We’ve been over this, how would I get to see you then?”

- He gives you a lopsided grin and you find yourself reflecting the expression

- “Oi! Would you two stop flirting in the middle of the street, you’re blocking traffic!” Someone shouts

- He just laughs and offers you a wave

- “What’s with all the plants?”

- They’re the first words out of Ron’s mouth when he steps inside the shop, he’s already shrugging off his coat making his way to where George is fiddling with a new contraption

- “I thought they would make the place livelier”

- False.

- He just wanted an excuse to talk to you.

- He does like the plants though. The white hydrangeas you recommended for the potions section are absolutely lovely

- Though he did use a few charms to make them larger, and stay fresher longer.

- He’s basically got a wall covered in hydrangeas now

- Still lovely though

- “It does look nice” Rob admits

- “So where are the products you need help fixing?”

- George groans waving towards a few oddly stacked boxes

- The packaging on his restock of the portable swamps came in the wrong color, not a big deal he can always change it with a spell

- But it is tedious work, especially when you have to do it one by one, otherwise it might upset the contents.

- And he does not want a swamp in his store

- Ron only nods, unpacking the box

- “You want purple right?”

- There’s a moment of silence between the two

- Purple was Fred’s favorite color

- He used to joke it was because that’s the color Snape turned when he was mad

- But George knows it’s because purple’s the color of the first fireworks they saw.

- He, Fred, Ron and Ginny had snuck away when they were younger to a muggle festival in the village, awestruck by the shapes the fireworks took.

- Fred would have carved that moment into his bones if he could.

- George clears his throat

- “Yeah, purple, same shade as the shop sign”

- Ron nods, pulling out a products wordlessly, motioning with his wand

- “So what’s really the deal with all these plant?” Ron asks, and George sighs

- “Nothing I just thought it might be good for business”

- “Did you get swindled by an attractive salesman?”

- “I wouldn’t say swindled” you gave him a pretty generous discount, and you were even offering free delivery

- That’s kind of a lot to give for a muggle shop

- “So they were attractive then?” Ron says with a grin, he’s only ribbing

- But George’s inquisitive look and the pink flush across his freckles nose makes Ron think he’s on the nose

- “(Y/N)’s fairly attractive”

- Fairly is putting it mildly though, George thinks your adorable

- Ron stutters halfway through the transfiguration spell

- “(Y/N)? Like hot (Y/N)? From the flower shop?”

- George is puzzled but nods

- “You went to hot (Y/N)‘s shop?!?!? WITHOUT ME?” Ron looks like he’s about to cry

- “How would Hermione feel is she heard you talking about another person like that?”

- Ron just gives him an incredulous look

- “She would say ‘I can’t believe George went to hot (Y/N)‘s shop and didn’t invite us’!”

- Apparently you’re quite popular in the shopping district. Your flowers have won the city award twice, before you opened your shop you won a contract as the city’s horticulturist.

- “Last Valentine’s Day Harry and I stood in line for two hours to pick up our bouquets” Ron tells him, he’s already done with the first box

- He figured business was good, it’s almost impossible to run a flower shop in the middle of the city if it isn’t.

- But he didn’t imagine you were award winning or anything

- He sighs so you are a muggle, and you’ve got no need for magic, you make up the difference in talent and skill

- He likes that, maybe he should get some shirts or art prints that say something like that

- He feels a small smile creep onto his face

- Oh well, probably for the best, he’s not sure he has time to date what with how busy things have been

- “Free for dinner? We can go wherever you want, my treat.” George says, slipping on his coat as they finish with the last of the products.

- “How about (Y/N)‘s flower shop?”

- George laughs

- “I’m pretty sure they close at 5....also they don’t have food Ron”

- Ron sighs like he’s just been told Christmas is just cancelled

- “The leaky cauldron is fine too I guess”

- But George can’t stop thinking about you for the rest of the weekend.

- It’s not really that big of a deal if you’re a muggle, but-

- Well how would that even work?

- The closest thing to a muggle he’s personally known is Hermione- who’s a witch and just muggle born

- He wouldn’t be able to tell you about being a wizard- not until you were married, or at least serious enough that he knew you both were going to get married. Which he doesn’t know how he feels about

- So he would have three full time jobs

- Taking care of the store, being your boyfriend, oh and hiding his magical powers from you

- Lovely

- But Merlin- wouldn’t his family love it if he brought you home?

- His Dad would be over the moon, and his Mum, well she’d be happy he found anyone at all. But she wouldn’t mind the pointers you gave her on how to get pinker roses.

- Percy wouldn’t really care either way. He might even like it, a muggle in the family might help his political agenda.

- Good for optics and all

- He already knows Ron likes you

- He and Hermione will be quite pleased they get to ogle you all they want at holiday dinners

- Ginny will like having another person in the family, she would personally give you a tour of the burrow

- Fleur will like having another in law in the family- and Bill will be happy that she’s happy

- Charlie would love it, asking you all about what kind of plants his dragons might like, and if you might plant a few for him, come visit in Romania- the port key’s always open for family-

- Actually he might have to watch out for Charlie, his older brother might legit steal you away from him

- .

- ...

- Fred would have loved you

- Fred would have never let it go on this long

- Fred would have seen George’s lovestruck expression the first time he saw you and said-

- “Well are you going to ask them out?”

- Fred always was the bold one, George was just following his lead most of the time.

- That fireworks thing in their last year was entirely Fred’s idea.

- George would sputter and shrug in response

- ‘I was just lookin’, a man can look can’t he?’

- Fred would have given him one of his wicked grins and said:

- “Look if you don’t ask them out now, then I will”

- And pushed him across the street, holding him to it

- And then when he was halfway across the street towards you Fred would shout:

- “And see if they’ll give us a friends and family discount for the store!”

- George is grinning just imagining it

- Fred wouldn’t have cared at all that you were a muggle.

- All he would care about is that you would make his brother, his best friend, happy.

- “Honestly George, you get hung up over the dumbest things-“ Fred would have said

- “You like them don’t you? They make you feel good about the world and life?”

- And George would just dumbly nod

- “Then that’s all that matters doesn’t it? That you care about someone, and that you can see a future with them. All that other stuff- it’s just noise”

- Alright he’ll try then

- Not just for Fred, but for himself too.

- George strolls into your shop on Monday, an hour before you open-

- “Oh hello George! You’re a little early, I’ve got your hydrangeas trimmed I just need to get your potted plants ready and-“

- “Would you like to go out sometime?”

- “-then I’ll fix up the roses for y-“

- Huh?

- You freeze for a moment, almost dropping the plant in your hands

- Did he just ask you on a date?

- “If dinner is too much, maybe just tea- or coffee?”

- Maybe it’s not exciting enough for you

- Ugh! He knew he should have suggested something more fun like the zoo or maybe a botanical garden?

- But you’re around plants all day, he didn’t want to make you think he only knows one thing-

- “Friday?”

- His eyes shoot up to look at your face, he hadn’t even noticed he was staring at his shoes

- “What?”

- “Friday” you repeat, you’ve got a smile that seems lovelier than any of the flowers you grow.

- “Is Friday good for dinner? I close up at six”

- He grins so wide he’s afraid his face might break

- “Friday is perfect”

#harry potter imagine #george weasley imagine #george weasley #fred and george imagine #george weasley x reader #fred weasley imagine #weasley imagine #harry potter reader insert #harry potter headcanon #george weasley headcanon #harrypotter-imaginess

304 notes · View notes

meadow-of-mogai-melodies · 2 years

Text

🌼warmlonlic!🌼

a gender related to swamps, snakes, frogs, being lonely, longing for affection, stars, and warmth

[Image ID: A flag with nine equally-sized horizontal stripes. From top to bottom, the colors are pastel pink, magenta, blue-purple, mid turquoise, deep green, dull green, lilac, orange, and golden. End ID.]

term and flag by me, requested by @undeadgossiper :3

#reigns terms #xenogender #xenogender coining #new gender #gender coining

23 notes · View notes

safeshadows · 2 years

Text

An Unfilled Grave

The grave had been left open and was now more swamp than mausoleum. Like the others, it was miles away from the path that led walkers to the woods and, if they were lucky, back out again. Here damp moss ruled, embracing every tree and rock in its velvet smother. Fauna had fed well on the flesh and quickly covered in the blessing of April rain; the ecosystem had thrived on the sacrifice.

“It’s only been a month this one,” Dad said as he stepped over logs and weeds, “maybe two.”

He moved through the undergrowth strong and stooped, like an ox that had dragged one too many carts to market. He found the pit quickly and beckoned me over. The hole didn’t look like a grave, more of a puddle nestled under a tree, sloppy and thick with mud. Ferns leaned over the crumbled rim like inquisitive mourners, peering into stagnant water hoping for a better look. There was something in there. Someone in there. I could see- bits of them. Weeds had plaited themselves into floating hair and one barely fleshed hand floated with fingers of frogspawn.

It smelt slippy. That slimy rich rankness so rare you would only smell it dead yourself in a ditch. But not to Dad. He inhaled deeply through chapped nostrils, “Smell that girl!” His voice boomed through the trees, down warrens and through nests. A frog scarpered over his overlarge boot to get away.

“That’s the smell of nature. Real nature. None of that glamping the kids do nowadays, eh?” He elbowed me just lightly enough to keep me from the slick grass that sloped and slid into the small swamp. I hummed noncommittally, partially agreeing, partially trying to keep the bile in my stomach where it didn’t burn too much.

Dad dug into one of his many overall pockets. Older than me but never worn thin. That’s good old-fashioned manufacturing for you, he would say. Out came the trusty old pair of gardening gloves, as brown and cracked as the earth. They were quickly followed by my pair. Bright pink, they had daisies on. He had a sick sense of humour sometimes.

He pulled his gloves slowly over arthritic hands, took off his jacket and with no further ceremony creaked his knees and performed a limping jump into the pit. Black, green slime splashed over his overalls and onto my exposed ankle. It was warm. I focused as best I could on not fainting. Which was not helped in the slightest by Dad passing out a-a “Is that an arm?”

“C’mon Mace, start packing this up. There’s some bags in my jacket, for god’s sake perk up!”

Gloves on and bags retrieved I gritted my teeth and willed my eyes not to fall out of my head and into the meaty sludge. I started bagging up bits. A hefty leg bone stripped clean. A hand with three fingers missing and one very obviously chewed. An ear that was barely anything but black sludge with earrings of emerald snakes and golden bees shoved through it. One of the studs feel onto my lap.

“Don’t forget that!” shouted Dad over the slosh of his arms waving wildly around in the opaque slush. “That’s how you identify them y’know!”

“Is it? Is it how you identify them?” I shoved a finger- no toe- no ear bone into a bag and tied it in a squelchy knot. “Or is just disrupting another crime scene?”

“Oh, Ellis doesn’t mind, she’s just happy we’re finding these sites for her! She’d be lost without us you know. Mace, quick quiz!” He straightened up, or as best he could, waving a mid-sized bone, split like a log down the centre. His grey stubble was dotted so green and brown you could have worn it as camouflage. “How,” He paused for effect, “did this bone break?”

“Murder.” I deadpanned.

“Come on Macey! Have some fun. Theorize.”

“They got axed. By a murderer.”

“Good thinking! It is a clean split; she must be strong my girl.” Dad winked at me as he tossed me the bone, brown and thick as oak.

I hated the way he said that. My Girl. Like he knew her, if the killer was even a her in the first place. He never said Mum’s name like that. He always said “Daisy.” Short and strong. There was love in it, I guess, but that earth bound sensible love. Childhood sweethearts and kids after marriage. Nothing salacious. Nothing suggested. Not like My Girl. The way he said it was as slick as the ditch water she dumped her victims in. Made me retch the same as well.

“Ah-ha! Got it!” He exclaimed. I grimaced. This was always the worst part. “The Piece de la resistance! Isn’t she a beauty?”

She wasn’t. The skull was an empty hut with a collapsed roof. Small scraps of scalp and straggly blonde hair hung like hay, stretching between jigsaw pieces of bone ready to fall into the gaping hole at the back of the skull. The skin had been stripped away but the muscle between the jaw gaped like sad violin strings. Three vertebrae strung with flesh jangled off the end like a child’s rattle. I hated it.

“She always hits from behind.” Said Dad, handing me someone’s head. “Smart one My Girl is, that’s the best way to catch them out!” Someone’s head that still had scraps of brain inside. Someone who wore the most beautiful earrings and had been killed from behind. Someone who rotted in the woods for months until a pair of perverse explorers found them. Someone who was buried with no dignity and dug up with even less. I bagged the skull up.

Dad climbed out of the ditch and wiped his face with a once muscled arm. The dank water found new homes in the lines on his tanned brow. He smiled happily and slapped me on the back, hard. “It’s always nice getting out with you Mace.” I smiled guiltily. “Wish your sister loved her dad this much too. No idea why she doesn’t want to come, she used to love walking these woods when she was younger.”

He sighed, the air let out like a balloon and hung still in the stifled woods. “C’mon then, we better get this to the station.” He grabbed a bag and slung it over his shoulder, only stopping his march to grin back at me, “I cannot wait to see Ellis’s face!”

“God,” I muttered following after him, trailing bags of bodily bits through muddied grass, “I wish you had a better hobby.”

#writeblr #writing #writblr #writer #spilled ink #writbr #writebrl #writers of tumblr #writers and poets #female writers #writers on tumblr #short story #creative writing

7 notes · View notes

myth-lord · 3 years

Text

D&D Madness

My newest list of D&D monsters in my own worldbuilding project (for fun)

There are no more devils and yugoloths in my D&D realms, they are all demons/fiends now.

Aarakocra - Kenku - Nagpa - Vrock (Corrupted Aarakocra) Abeil (Worker / Soldier / Queen) Aboleth - Chuul (Aboleth Creation) - Cloaker (Aboleth Creation) - Kuo-Toa (Skum) (Aboleth Creation) Ahuizotl Air Elemental - Breathdrinker - Invisible Stalker - Lightning Elemental - Ragewind - Tempest Almiraj ANEMONE - Giant Anemone ANGEL (Most have bizarre otherworldly real-forms, but can shapeshift into winged humanoid to hide it.) - Aasimar (Half-Angel) - Angel of Decay (Undead Angel) - Archon (Hound) - Cherub (Erote) - Deva (Guardian Angel) - Erinyes (Fallen Angel) - Justicator (Extreme Law Angel) - Lillend (Muse) - Planetar (Trumpet Archon) - Solar (Healing Angel) - Valkyrie (Battle Angel) ANIMATED OBJECT - Carrionette (Animated Puppet/Doll) - Helmed Horror (Animated Armor) - Rug of Smothering (Animated Carpet) - Scarecrow - Tome Guardian (Animated Book) - Xaver (Animated Weapon) Ankheg - Craud (Sea Ankheg) - Kruthik (Corrupted Abyssal Ankheg) ANT - Abyss Ant - Giant Ant APE - Barlgura - Dire Ape (King Kong Size) - Girallon Araton (Desert Sand Devil) Arrowhawk - Steelwing Assassin Bug (Like the real-world insect) Assassin Vine - Bloodsipper - Choke Creeper Astral Stalker Aurumvorax Axe Beak (Terror Bird) - Achaierai (Corrupted Abyssal Axe Beak)

Babau (Blood Demon) Baku Balor Basilisk - Behir (Dracolisk) - Frost Salamander (Frost Basilisk) - Id Fiend (Fear Basilisk / Gila Monster) BAT - Eyewing (Small) - Fire Bat - Mobat (Really Big) Bebilith - Retriever BEETLE - Agony Beetle - Bombardier Beetle - Fire Beetle - Hoard Scarab - Siege Beetle - Slicer Beetle (most aggressive) - Water Beetle (mixed with Giant Water Bug) BEHEMOTH (all unique really-big, really-powerful monsters) - Astral Dreadnought - Kraken - Tarrasque Beholder - Eye of the Deep (Aboleth Creation) - Gazer (Very small) - Gorbel (Primitive Beholder) - Nothic (Beholder Creation) - -- Shardsoul Slayer (Phthisic)(Greater Nothic) Belker Black Dragon - Shadow Dragon (Undead Black Dragon) Bladeling (Weapon animates automatically when Bladeling dies) Blink Dog - Cooshee (more nature abilities) - Moon Dog Blue Dragon (Storm Dragon) BOAR - Dire Boar - Fhorge (Corrupted Abyssal Boar) - Tusk Terror (Fey Boar) Bonesnapper (Intelligent smaller T.Rex) Boobrie (Giant Hesperornis) Brown Dragon (Wingless) Bulette Bullywug - Banderhobb (Aberration Bullywug) - Grung (Smaller than Bullywug, but much more powerful, poison) - Hezrou (Pod Demon) (Abyssal Corrupted Bullywug)

Carbuncle CARNIVOROUS PLANT - Giant Sundew - Greenvise - Mantrap Carrion Crawler - Gravecrawler (Undead Crawler) - Rot Grubs (The crawlers young) - Ulgurstasta (Very big intelligent Crawler) CAT - Elven Cat (Cat Sith) - Grimalkin (like the Matagot in Fantastic Beasts) - Luck Eater (Golden cat with golden gem in forehead like Pokemon Persian / Can hover in air like Cheshire Cat) CATTLE - Catoblepas - Gorgon - Rothe Cave Fisher - Avalancher Centaur - Armanite (Corrupted Abyssal Centaur) CENTIPEDE - Adaru (Abyssal Centipede) - Giant Centipede - Megapede - Remorhaz Chasme - Cifal (Can be created with one of the Chasme abilities) Chathrang Chimera (Different look) Choker - Skulk (Choker that can change color of skin, better assassin) Cockatrice - Pyrolisk (Touch burns, not gaze) Copper Dragon (keep behavior and gain behavior from Brass Dragons / neutral alignment) CRUSTACEAN - Giant Crab - Hammerclaw - Sea Hermit Crystal Dragon (There are good, neutral and evil variants)

DARK TREE - Hangman Tree - Orcwort - Quickwood Deadly Dancer Deepspawn Destrachan Dharculus Digester (Feeds on oozes) DINOSAUR - Ankylosaurus - -- Sauropelta (More aggressive variant) - Brontosaurus - -- Amargasaurus (Smaller but much more aggressive) - Compsognathus - Deinonychus - Dimetrodon - Elasmosaurus - -- Plesiosaurus (Smaller and more friendly) - Ichthyosaurus - -- Eurhinosaurus (Larger and more dangerous) - Mosasaurus - Pachycephalosaurus - -- Stygimoloch (Smaller but much more aggressive) - Pteranodon - -- Quetzalcoatlus - Stegosaurus - -- Kentrosaurus (Smaller and much more aggressive) - Tanystropheus (Bigger and much more aggressive than the real creature) - Therizinosaurus (new) - Triceratops - -- Styracosaurus (Smaller but much more aggressive) - Tyrannosaurus Rex Disenchanter (not a joke monster) Displacer Beast Domovoi (Good, Neutral and Evil variants) Doppelganger - Maurezhi (Abyssal, Corrupted Doppelganger) Dragon Eel (Dunkleosteus appearance) Dragon Turtle (There are also Swamp variants with Snapping Turtle features) DRAGONFLY - Giant Dragonfly DRAKE - Air Drake (Like the Pathfinder Mist Drake) - Ambush Drake - Earth Drake (Much like the Rock Reptile, but Chameleon) - Fire Drake (Much like the Zezir) - Rage Drake (Negative Energy Drake) - Ravid (Positive Energy Drake) - Water Drake (Looks like a Plesiosaurus a bit, but more magical) - Wyvern - -- Abyss Drake Drow - Aranea (Meet the new handmaidens of Lolth, which make much more sense to me.) - Drider (Drow who passed the test of Lolth) - Ettercap (Drow who failed the test of Lolth) Dryad - Hamadryad (Very powerful Dryad, controls entire forest) - Myconid (Fungus underground Dryad) - Splinterwaif (Corrupted undead Dryad) - Vine Horror (Swampy Evil Dryad) - Wood Woad (Male more violent and protective Dryad) Duergar - Automaton (Duergar who replaced most of their flesh with iron) - Derro (Duergar who became insane after being send to the Far Realm) - Nightshade (Insane Duergar who love poison, venom and plants, and use their own skin to grow plants) Dustdigger - Silt Horror (Bigger and thinner Dustdiggers) - Voracia (Very big abyssal Dustdiggers)

Earth Elemental - Galeb Duhr - -- Bowler (animated stones Galebs) - Mudman - Necromental - -- Tomb Mote (Smaller parts that fall off a Necromental animate into these) - Sandman (Sleep abilities) - Skriaxit (Living Sandstorm) - Zaratan Eblis EEL - Cave Moray - Giant Moray Eladrin - Ghaele (The leaders and most powerful of the Eladrin) - Wild Hunt ENERGON - Xag-Ya - Yeg-Yi Executioner’s Hood (Ooze)

Fachan Faerie Dragon Fihyr Filcher - Temporal Filcher Fire Elemental - Immolith (Hellish fire elemental) - Magma Brute (Magma Hurler) - -- Magmin (Magma Brutes throw magmins as ranged weapons) - Phoenix (Good, Evil and Neutral phoenix exist) Firefriend (While very friendly and curious, their abilities are very dangerous and destructive when around fire) Flumph Fomorian - Eldritch Giant (The beautiful non-cursed form of the Fomorian) - Plague Spewer (Undead Fomorian who went too far with magic to become beautiful again) - Protean (Fomorians who became even more powerful by accident, master shapeshifters) Foxwoman (Kitsune / More like a Foxwere than a Werefox) FROG - Blindheim (non-humanoid, underground bioluminescence frogs) - Froghemoth (mutant frog from far realm) - Giant Frog FUNGUS - Ascomoid - Basidirond - Gas Spore - Phycomid (Very dangerous abyssal fungus / Much like pathfinders Terotricus) - Violet Fungus

GAR - Giant Gar Gargoyle (Evil, Good and Neutral variants exist) - Kapoacinth - Margoyle (Demonic Spirits entered normal Gargoyles) Gelatinous Cube GENIE - Dao - Djinni - Efreeti - Jann (light-based good-natured Genies) - Khayal (shadow-based evil-natured Genies) - Marid - -- Qorrashi (Ice-based Marid) Ghost - Allip - Banshee - Caller in Darkness - Einherjar (Warrior spirits raised by Valkyries) - Poltergeist (the psychic remains of a psionic child) - Trap Haunt (Animates and possesses traps of all kinds) - Wraith (red spirit of vengeance, allip is black) Ghoul - Berbalang (can separate it’s body-parts like Manananggal.) - Devourer (Abyssal Demonic Ghoul) - Ghast (Tyrantfog) - Wendigo (Very powerful Ghouls that inflict hunger, famine and cannibalism) GIANT - Cloud Giant - -- Fog Giant (Banished primitive Cloud Giants) - Cyclops (4e version / replaces Stone and Hill giants as the Earth-based giant.) - Death Giant - Firbolg (Animal-plant based druid-giant) - Fire Giant - Frost Giant Giant Owl (neutral and non-intelligent now) - Noctral (This is the giant intelligent owl) Gibbering Mouther (Chaos Beast) - Argos (Bigger, better and more intelligent Mouthers) - Skybleeder (Abyssal, floating mouthers) Glabrezu Gloomwing (Attracted to doom, evil places and disasters) - Gloom Crawler (Tenebrous Worm / Less aggressive) Gnoll - Flind (demonic corrupted Gnolls) - Marrashi (demonic corrupted Marru) - Marru (Jackal-headed more civilized Gnolls) - Witherling (Deadborn Vulture ability, some Gnolls raise as undead instantly after dying.) Goblin - Barghest (Demonic Goblins) - Bugbear (Bagman abilities, D&D’s true bogeyman) - Nilbog (Not unique, but very rare) - Norker (Pech abilities) - Spriggan (Fey Goblins) GOLEM - Clay Golem - -- Alchemical Golem - Flesh Golem - -- Drolem (Dragonflesh Golem) - -- Rotripper (A monstrous Flesh Golem that rips off flesh and adds it to itself) - Iron Golem - -- Adamantine Golem - -- Clockwork Horror (Clockroach) - -- Iron Cobra - -- Shield Guardian - -- Silver Golem (Anti-Evil golem, slayer of evil) - -- Steel Predator - Stone Golem - -- Coral Golem - -- Diamond Golem (Aura grants defense to allies) - -- Dwarf Ancestor (Every dwarf/duergar’s soul will go into this statue, turning this statue more powerful with every death, protectors of dwarven cities, one in each city) - -- Eidolon (stone golem with part of a soul of a god inside it, thinks it is a god itself) - -- Emerald Golem (Controls teleports around it) - -- Hellfire Engine (Juggernaut made from abyssal obsidian and fire) - -- Ruby Golem (Aura grants attack-power to allies) Gravorg Gray Dragon Gray Render - Braxat (Desert Renders) - Cadaver Collector (Renders that choose a necromancer/lich as their favorite become their slaves and collect undead for them) Green Dragon Green Slime - Arcane Ooze - Corrupture (very powerful and ancient Green Slimes, much bigger as they didn’t split like most Green Slimes do) Grimlock - Geonid (Grimlocks that use stones/rocks as cover) Gold Dragon (not all Gold Dragons are good, some are very greedy treasure hoarders that can animate the treasures they collected into golem like constructs) Gremlin - Quarrak (twin demonic Gremlins) Griffon (sorry no Hippogriff, I really dislike them)

Hadozee HAG - Annis Hag - Bheur Hag (Frostwind Virago) - Green Hag (Turns victims into frogs or insects) - Night Hag - Sea Hag (More powerful) Hamatula (Jovoc Aura / Demons of Pain) Harpy - Siren Hatori (Sand-Swimming Mosasaurus/Crocodile) Hell Hound - Canoloth - Death Dog - Howler - Yeth Hound (Always borns as triplets, if one dies the others become more powerful and bigger as they absorb their died kin.) Hippocampus Hook Horror Hydra

Imp - Gadacro (Sight and eye-obsessed Imps) - Mephit (Bigger imps that can absorb elements into their skin, and turn into the element they desire.) - Quasit (More powerful wingless Imps)

JELLYFISH - Belabra (Floater / Land based floating jellyfish) - Dybbuk (Demonic corpse-controlling jellyfish) - Giant Jellyfish

Kalothagh (Giant intelligent pufferfish) Kelpie (Still a seaweed plant creature) Kirin (Not a horse, more like a Celestial Stag) Kirre Korred Krenshar - Carcass Eater (Undead Krenshar) Kyton - Gorechain (Large giant using chains, much like Jack-in-Irons)

Larva - Lemure - Rutterkin Lava Ooze LEECH - Giant Leech - Puppeteer Leprechaun (Neutral, Good and Evil variants, Evil Leprechauns wear red and call themselves Clurichaun, but still same creature) Leucrotta Lich - Death Knight (Just a physical damage lich) - Demilich (Weaker Lich, could not fully reanimate) - Dracolich - Skull Lord (More powerful lich that killed other liches and added their skulls to its form) LIZARD - Muckdweller - Shocker Lizard Lizardfolk - Draconian - Drakkoth - Kobold - -- Urd - Salamander (Fiendish, Demonic Lizardmen) - Troglodyte (Much bigger prehistoric underground lizardmen) LYCANTHROPE - Werebear - -- Urskan (More feral Polar-Werebear) - Wereboar - Wererat - -- Uridezu (Corrupted demonic Wererat who hates beauty) - Wereshark - Werewolf

Mandragora Manticore - Jarilith (Fiendish, wingless Manticore) MANTIS - Ethereal Slayer (Fey Mantis with anti-teleport abilities) - Giant Mantis Marilith - Spell Weaver (Marilith who use spells and magic instead of physical attacks and weapons.) Masher (Much like a giant version of the Bobbit Worm) MEGAFAUNA - Glyptodon - Mammoth - Megaloceros - Megalodon - Megatherium - Smilodon Merfolk - Merrow - Triton - Wastrilith (Corrupted, Demonic Merfolk) Merregon - Arrow Demon (Other name needed) - Barbazu (More rare and more powerful Merregons) Merrenoloth Mimic - Trapper (Bigger Mimics can transform into bigger objects, entire floors or ceilings or even into huts and houses.) Mind Flayer - Brain Collector - Cerebrilith (Demonic brain-things created by Mind Flayers) - Elder Brain - Githyanki - Grell (Creations of the Mind Flayers) - Intellect Devourer - Ulitharid Minotaur - Goristro (Demonic, Corrupted Minotaurs) Mohrg (Actually the real creature is the pink-organs, which is a Aberration who feeds on murder, not an undead.) Mummy - Crawling Apocalypse - Grisgol (Magical Mummy, instead of bandage used with normal mummies, they used scrolls and magical incantations. - Skirr (Very ancient and powerful Mummy-Dragons.)

NAGA - Guardian Naga (Good) - Spirit Naga (Dark Naga) (Evil) - Water Naga (Neutral) Nerra - Fetch (Corrupted and demonic Nerra) Nightmare - Cauchemar (Nightmare Beast abilities, it’s huge aura causes nightmares in sleeping creatures. Purple flames instead of normal fire.) Nightwalker - Bodak (Created from the victims of Nightwalkers, behave and move like the Grudge) Nuckelavee (Like the Pathfinder version, not the D&D old version.) Nymph - Lampad (Shadow Nymphs of the Underdark) - Nereid (Water Nymph) - Oread (Earth Nymph) - Sylph (Air Nymphs)

Obliviax OCTOPUS - Darktentacles (Watcher in the Water) - Decapus (Tree Octopus) - Giant Octopus Ogre - Ettin - Oni (Demonic, magical Ogre) Oliphant (Much like the Oliphaunts from LOTR) Orc - Orog (Replaced the Hobgoblins / Smart war-veterans) - Tanarukk (Demonic Orcs) - Tulgar (Very powerful spiritual shaman-like antlered Orcs who got a demon-lords favor) Osyluth (Uses its own bones in battle. / Bones grow back instantly) OTTER - Giant Otter (Dobhar-Chu, playful but in a bad way) Otyugh - Abyssal Maw (Corrupted and demonical Otyugh) Owlbear - Winterclaw (Snow Owl + Polar Bear / Winged)

Paeliryon (The smell, perfume demon, sucks in air and turns it corruptive, corrupts air around it.) Pegasus Peryton Phane PUDDING - Black Pudding (Negative energy, underground Pudding, bones animate as Skeletons.) - Gray Pudding (Looks like rocks and stone until it is too late.) - White Pudding (Absorbs heat, not flesh) Purple Dragon - Brainstealer Dragon (Creation of the Mind Flayers) Purple Worm - Ashworm (Younger Purple Worms who gather in Deserts until they mature) - Fiendwurm (Demonic, corrupted Purple Worms) - Neothelid (Creation of the Mind Flayers)

Quickling Quipper (Bigger, more dangerous, more aggressive magical Piranha fish.)

Rakshasa - Akchazar (White, more powerful and magical Rakshasa.) - Naztharune (Black, less powerful and less magical assassin Rakshasa.) RAT - Cranium Rats - Giant Rat - Moonrat - Osquip (Can eat its way through any material spare for Adamantine.) - Rylkar (Intelligent and dangerous Rat creatures.) Red Dragon - Hellfire Wyrm (Corrupted and Fiendish Red Dragons.) Redcap Roc Roper - Piercer (Young of the Ropers) ROSE - Firethorn (Feed on the ashes of their victims.) - Vampire Rose (Bloodthorn) Rust Monster - Annihilator (One of the most dangerous monsters around, turns everything it touches into black dust.)

Sahuagin - Morkoth (Sahuagin that entered the Far Realm) - Skulvyn (Demonic corrupted Sahuagin.) Satyr - Bulezau (Oinoloth) (Pestilence demons, corrupted Satyrs.) SCORPION - Giant Scorpion - Hellstinger Sea Cat (Mishibizhiw / Very different than the normal Sea Lion) Shadow (Can animate corpses) - Darkweaver (Shadow Spider) - Shadow Demon (Undead demons that can possess anything weaker than itself) - Shadow Mastiff (Bad luck shadow dogs) Shambling Mound - Tendriculos (Bigger Shambing Mounds mostly found in the Abyss) Shardmind - Chaos Shard (Creations of the Shardmind, magical weapons of the Shardmind) - Crysmal (Creations of the Shardmind, pets of the Shardmind) - Crystal Ooze (Creations of the Shardmind, Failed experiment) - Gulgar (Creations of the Shardmind, look more like half-diamond Rhinoceros now, not like humanoids. Used as siege weapons and mounts by the Shardmind.) SHELLFISH - Giant Clam Sibriex Silver Dragon (Only dragon that is always gentle and good) - Mercury Dragon (Corrupted/tortured/captured Silver Dragons turn into vile slithering and liquid horrors of their former selves.) Simpathetic (Half parrot and half crow, very annoying) Skeleton - Bone Golem (Not a Golem at all, a bigger Skeleton with more bizarre form, still undead not a construct.) - Boneyard (Collection of all types of bones, absorbs more bones to become even bigger.) - Flameskull (The skull of a giant to make it different from Demilich) - Giant Skeleton (Gashadokuro) - Huecuva (Skeletons who heal other undead.) - Reaper (Like the Grim Reaper it hunts for dying creatures.) SKUNK - Giant Skunk - Witherstench (Magical fiendish Skunks with powers over stench.) SLUG - Balhannoth (Slugs from the Far Realm.) - Flail Snail - Giant Slug - Metalmaster - Sea Snail (Extremely poisonous and beautiful) SNAKE - Amphisbaena - Boalisk (It’s gaze causes victims to become breathless and see snakes everywhere, these are illusions though.) - Couatl (There are neutral, good and evil narcissistic Couatl) - Jaculi (They use their sharp head as a spear-like weapon) - Sea Serpent (Extremely long.) Solamith SOLIFUGID - Giant Solifugid Sphinx (Sphinxes can be Neutral or Evil.) - Lamia (Fiendish and corrupted Sphinxes) - Lammasu (Friendly, good and Celestial Sphinxes.) SPIDER - Bristle Spider (Very large plant-like spider.) - Dreamweaver Spider (Spider feeds on dreams and souls and weaves these dreams/souls into strange temporary monster minions.) - Giant Spider - Phase Spider (White and Blue colors, doesn’t have human face.) - Snow Spider (Much like a tarantula with the fur of a polar bear.) - Tomb Spider - -- Web Golem (Also known as Adherer / Not a real golem, more of a created minion from the Tomb Spider, who uses a corpse and magical webs to create these.) Sprite - Nixie - Pixie SQUID - Giant Squid SQUIRREL - Kercpa (Behave much like Robin Hood, steal from the wealthy.) - Skiurid (Very evil Squirrels which attack in large groups.) Stirge Su-Monster - Julajimus (Giant fey variants of the Su-Monster.) Succubus - Cambion (Tiefling) - Incubus Swordwing (Collectors of stuff and skulls)

Tabaxi Thri-Kreen - Gelugon (Corrupted and demonic Thri-Kreen) TICK - Bloodsilk Spider (Not actually a spider, but a tick that uses webs as a spider, the webs drain blood.) - Giant Tick - Soul Tick (Giant tick who sucks out the soul of a victim instead of blood, when the soul is absorbed entirely, the Tick will slowly turn into a copy of the dead victim.) Titan - Hundred-Handed One Tlincalli Treant - Saguaro Sentinel (Desert treants shaped like huge cacti) Tri-Flower Frond (All types of colors exist) Troll - Rot Troll (Undead Trolls, which is a very hard thing to create, their regeneration-abilities can’t handle the undead-status and they spread this rotting curse with their aura.)

Umber Hulk Unicorn - Dusk Unicorn (Ecalypse / Shadow Unicorn) URCHIN - Land Urchin - Silver Urchin (Large coastal Urchins which shoot their beautiful quills to their victims.)

Vampire - Blood Spawn (Vampire Spawns) - Lhiannan Shee (Female Vampires who are very beautiful and which feed on Charisma, ideas and creativity.) - Nosferatu (Ancient vampire lords, born undead.) - Varrangoin (Vampires who went to long without blood can turn into these bat-like humanoids, very bestial vampires.) Vampiric Mist - Blood Amniote (These blood-ooze creatures are created by vampiric mists who drip too much blood on unholy ground. They can animate corpses by replacing the blood.) - Crimson Death (Very large mist monsters.) - Mihstu (These mist monsters can harden the blood they absorbed into spiky spear and sword-like weapons.) Vargouille

WASP - Advespa (Fiendish and corrupted Giant Wasps) - Giant Wasp - Hellwasp Swarm (The swarm has a hive-mind and can create humanoid or monstrous forms by working together.) - Quanlos (Mind-controlling poison wasps, much like giant magical Emerald Wasps.) - Spider Eater Water Elemental - Caller from the Deeps (Undead Water Elementals) - Ice Elemental - -- Chraal (Evil intelligent Ice Elementals.) - Leviathan (Some have the size of an entire animated lake.) - Water Weird (More intelligent and vile than normal Water Elementals who are non-intelligent and neutral.) White Dragon Will o Wisp - Nyth (Magic-draining Will o Wisps.) - Trilloch (Undead Will o Wisps, absorb happiness and turn their victims into negative evil shadows of their former selves.) - Visilight (Vain will o wisps who steal the beauty of their victims, turning their victims ugly.) WOLF - Winter Wolf (Very big, Amarok sized and behavior.) - Worg Wolf-in-Sheeps-Clothing WOLVERINE - Dire Wolverine (Gulon)

Yellow Dragon - Sunwyrm Yellow Musk Creeper - Corpse Flower - Twilight Bloom Yeti Yochlol (Not a handmaiden for Lolth anymore as those are Aranea now, these are handmaidens for Juiblex) Yrthak (Sound Dragons) Yuan-Ti (Look very human-like but snake-like eyes, some scales and a tongue, love poison and venom of all types.) - Abomination (More powerful leaders of the Yuan-Ti.) - Medusa (Female variants of Yuan-Ti, but were once vain humans, who got cursed into becoming a type of Yuan-Ti.)

Zombie - Atropal - Crawling Claw (There are also bigger variants of course.) - Drowned (Weaker drowned zombies, non intelligent.) - -- Skuz (Much more powerful drowned zombies, intelligent.) - Dustblight (Zombie who died in desert by drought and uses drought as a weapon.) - Entombed (Zombie died by cold who controls ice and uses it as an armor.) - Hullathoin (Zombie Dragon/Drake that controls and creates other undead.) - Revenant (More powerful zombies, reanimate from any form of damage, until they got their revenge.) - Wight (More intelligent insane zombies, died while insane.) Zorbo

Others I really like but I don’t know what to do with them.

Meenlock / Slithering Tracker / Boneclaw / Alkilith / Narzugon / Meazel / Phoelarch / Famine Spirit / Skin Kite / Formian / Thoqqua / Vaporighu / Ragewalker / Skindancer / Evistro / Draudnu / Ethereal Defiler / Ghaunadan / Sand Hunter / Ant Lion / Kamadan / Caligrosto / Gray Jester

17 notes · View notes

angiestown · 4 years

Text

Animal Crossing Town Name Ideas - Updated

I made this post last week with the assumption that town names in NH would be limited to 8 characters like in previous games. After today’s direct, we know that towns can have at least 10 letter names! I decided to update this list to include 6 and 7 letter words because of the new flexibility those two extra letters add (along with more short words that I didn’t think of the first time). Just choose 2-3 words you like that add up to 10 letters or less, and you’ve got a town name!

Island/Water words:

3 letters: Bay, Sea, Wet, Eel

4 letters: Isle, Tide, Dock, Port, Boat, Ship, Sand, Lake, Flow, Damp, Pond, Palm

5 letters: Shore, Shell, Beach, Pearl, Ocean, Moist, River, Water, Coral

6 letters: Cruise, Summer, Bubble, Harbor, Marine

7 letters: Seaweed, Mermaid, Harbour

Animal words:

3 letters: Cat, Dog, Paw, Cow, Cub, Pig, Fox, Zoo

4 letters: Fish, Frog, Bird, Wing, Tail, Lion, Bull, Deer, Bear, Duck, Goat, Crab, Horn, Wolf, Gull, Tuna

5 letters: Horse, Bunny, Tiger, Eagle, Hippo, Koala, Kitty, Puppy, Mouse, Moose, Rhino, Sheep, Shark, Whale

6 letters: Rabbit, Monkey, Badger, Parrot, Salmon

7 letters: Firefly

Forest words:

3 letters: Oak, Nut, Dew, Sap, Elm, Fir

4 letters: Wood, Weed, Seed, Bark, Tree, Fall, Leaf, Root, Vine, Pine, Bush, Moss, Dirt, Snail

5 letters: Maple, Field, Acorn, Grass, Nymph, Plant, Wheat, Swamp, Cliff, Birch, Cedar

6 letters: Acacia, Nutmeg, Willow, Mildew, Canopy, Cotton, Spruce, Walnut

7 letters: Hemlock, Hickory

Flower words:

3 letters: Bug, Bee

4 letters: Rose, Lily, Bulb, Iris, Puff

5 letters: Bloom, Tulip, Spring, Cosmo, Pansy, Daisy, Honey, Poppy, Lilac, Lotus, Peony

6 letters: Violet, Spring, Bumble, Beetle, Garden

7 letters: Blossom, Ladybug

Food words:

3 letters: Pit, Cup, Egg, Pie, Bun, Tea

4 letters: Pear, Sour, Lime, Plum, Cake, Milk, Bean, Farm, Bake, Cook, Roll, Mint, Tart

5 letters: Apple, Peach, Lemon, Berry, Fruit, Sweet, Grape, Mango, Sugar, Jelly, Cream, Layer, Candy, Mince, Fudge, Donut, Pecan, Toast

6 letters: Banana, Potato, Carrot

7 letters: Dessert, Mustard, Cupcake

Sky/Weather words:

3 letters: Sky, Sun, Day, Ray, Fog, Sol

4 letters: Moon, Star, Rain, Dark, Wind, Drop, Mist, Warm, Luna, Gust

5 letters: Night, Cloud, Shine, Light, Foggy, Comet, Storm, Dream

6 letters: Cosmos, Breeze, Meteor, Bright

7 letters: Thunder, Eclipse, Rainbow

Winter words:

3 letters: Ice, Nip

4 letters: Snow, Slip, Bite, Cold, Coat, Yule, Noel, Cozy

5 letters: Frost, Chill, Flake, Holly, Jolly, Slush, Polar, Scarf

6 letters: Winter, Tundra, Aurora, Toasty, Mitten, Arctic

7 letters: Snowman

Colours:

3 letters: Red

4 letters: Blue, Aqua, Teal, Pink, Navy, Grey, Gray, Cyan, Gold, Jade

5 letters: Black, Green, Brown, White, Amber, Color, Azure, Ivory, Blush

6 letters: Purple, Silver, Golden, Ginger

7 letters: Crimson, Saffron, Verdant

Months:

3 letters: May

4 letters: June, July

5 letters: March, April

6 letters: August

7 letters: January, October

Music words:

3 letters: Tap

4 letters: Tune, Beat, Drum, Sing, Song, Sung, Bell

5 letters: Music, Flute, Rhyme, Choir, Tempo, Strum

6 letters: Chorus, Melody, Rhythm

7 letters: Harmony

Spooky words:

3 letters: Urn, Ash, Bat, Web, Sad, Rib

4 letters: Goth, Bone, Jack, Grim, Crow, Scar, Cage, Tomb, Weep, Wail

5 letters: Ghost, Quiet, Witch, Death, Mummy, Demon, Devil, Raven, Skull, Scare, Ghoul, Grief, Blood, Scary, Haunt, Grave

6 letters: Spooky, Creepy, Autumn, Plague, Broken

7 letters: Pumpkin, Lantern, Haunted, Twisted, Weeping

Rocks and Gems:

3 letters: Jet

4 letters: Rock, Ruby, Onyx, Opal

5 letters: Stone, Agate, Amber, Beryl, Flint, Lapis, Nacre, Topaz

6 letters: Marble, Basalt, Gypsum, Garnet, Jasper, Quartz, Lazuli, Spinel

7 letters: Citrine, Diamond, Emerald, Peridot

Other:

3 letters: Row, Way, Tip, Top, Low, Out, Run, New, Old, Big, Rip, Fly

4 letters: York, Lane, High, East, West, Over, Road, Trim, Past, Slow, Tiny, Gift, Land, Cape, Comb, King, Well, Wild, Town, City, Fire

5 letters: South, North, Under, Short, Small, Range, Crown, Glory, Peace, Queen, Speed, Angel, Happy, Ville, Cross, Sword

6 letters: Desert, Canyon, Castle, Battle, Shield, Steady

7 letters: Welcome, Glimmer, Slipper, Glitter, Unicorn

#animal crossing new horizons #acnh #animal crossing #guide #tyvm @beacon-of-chaos for a lot of these new words!!!#some of your words I had to google to figure out what section they'd go under lmao #I also spent my break at work writing down as many as I could in those 15 minutes

2K notes · View notes

moonlightchess · 3 years

Text

a brief interlude in which a young mortician finally meets his patron saint.

(Diaphanous).

Around five years old, when he first started hearing them. Soft, muted weeping echoing lightly through the cavernous halls just beyond his bedroom door, and by ten he was accustomed to sliding out of bed, yawning, padding to his doorway to step out into the endlessly shadowed maw veining through the upstairs of his family’s home. The moaning creak of the floorboards was easily avoidable if you knew where to slide your feet, which by then he did, and he’d whisper into the dark: “You’re okay. It’s all over now, but stay as long as you need to. You’ll be getting along when you’re ready.” And even then, there was something profoundly tender and melancholy wrapping itself around little Theodore like an aura, to which the ghosts usually responded favorably. On occasion, they’d even slip into his bedroom after he climbed back into bed, gently tugging his duvet over him in thanks.

Sixteen, and Pere introduced him to the family business in the most definitive sense yet, bringing him down into the embalming room. There, he was shown how to drain the bodies, to sew their gums securely closed, to carefully apply powders and lotions to suggest sleep despite death. Pere helped him to remove the heart and lungs of a corpse in the preparation process of the old fashion, despite it having fallen out of favor in more recent years. Bellefontaine, Louisiana, lingered a decade or two behind much of the nation, in every way from embalming practices to racial sensitivity, both topics having already been addressed with young Theodore. “A person is a person, deserving of respect and love and dignity regardless of their skin, wealth, or any other such thing that the ignorant might think defines them,” Theodore senior had informed his small son firmly, long ago, meeting his midnight-blue eyes that were so solemn and sympathetic even then. “Do you understand?”

“Yes, Pere.” Theodore had not understood, not entirely, back then. But at sixteen, hunched over the dead body of a local bait shop owner whose wife made the softest, sweetest beignets he’d ever tasted, clarity rose sharp and bitter. “Monsieur Dumonde,” had escaped him before he could swallow the words in the interest of professionalism. “I knew him. Used to buy worms from him when the boys wanted to go fishing, but it’s been so long. I didn’t know he was sick.”

“Everyone dies, ti-Theodore,” and he’d been in love with the way his name rolled from his father’s tongue in a thicker cajun accent than his own - tee-tay-oh-doure, Theodore junior. It was enormously soothing, even now as he considered shaving Monsieur Dumonde’s thick mustache away for his funeral - but in the end, he placed the straight razor back onto his father’s table of sharp tools, aware that his decision had been a test. “No. We leave the mustache, he always had one when he was alive. He used to tug on it and laugh at our homemade fishing poles whenever we went into his shop. His mustache was a part of him, and it’s important that we send him to the next with as much of the man he was intact as we can.” He’d been a little nervous, meeting the dusk-colored eyes that he’d inherited from his beloved father, holding his breath.

“Good boy,” and he’d exhaled. “There are many who would have shaved him, cut his hair, put on some strange new clothes he never would have chosen himself. But you, my sweet and quiet boy, you understand.”

Mere had been a dancer, once. Ballet had been her life, her identity, until a careless would-be principal prince had stumbled into her leap - during a rehearsal no less, she’d been denied even the dignity of a grand disaster to end her career in the middle of a soaringly tragic performance - and her ankle had snapped, had never healed properly. She limped a touch even then, bringing sweet tea out to their wraparound porch thick with creeping ivy and heavy flowers bursting open at random, studding the lush green like jewels in a necklace, where her teenage son sat cross-legged on a battered loveseat long since dragged out to face the elements of the swampland. Together, they would count the darting fireflies, tiny pinpricks of golden light waging a valiant war against the encroaching southern dark. “I was beautiful once,” she’d said to him. “They all used to come watch me dance, in the city.”

“You’re still beautiful, Mere.”

She’d only sighed, slipping a hand into the pocket of her pea-green silk skirt to retrieve a shot bottle of bourbon, hoarded from the liquor store in town, and poured it into her tea.

They were both gone now, six, seven years proper. He’d prepared their bodies, and in death all of his mother’s pain and longing had been exposed to him with the first incision into her cold and rigid flesh for the draining, sixty-two years of ballet and resentment filling up the glass reservoir of the tubing’s end, dark red. She’d always done up her soft, honey-colored hair into elaborate braids, draped over one shoulder or both or trailing down her back or even wound up into a twisted crown if she was in a happier mood than usual. Theodore had sat beside her, holding her stiff milky hand with his own and with the other, scrolling through youtube tutorials on how to create the perfect fishtail braid until he was confident.

Pere had gone five years after, the light in him having drained out as clear and real as every fluid in his wife’s body had eventually found its way into the belly of their aspirator in the basement. Pneumonia had taken his mother - she’d always had a poor and fragile immune system - but his father had been just shy of seventy and to this day, at thirty-two years old, Theodore had never been offered a satisfying cause of death for him. “Just his time, sug,” a nurse in powder blue scrubs had tried, patting his hand soothingly and because this was the south, “I’ll be praying for y’all - well, just you I suppose. Oh lord, you’re the only Bissonette left now, ain’tcha?”

He was. They’d left the entire mortuary to him, and with it all the responsibilities of being the local mortician and funeral director at such a tender age, and his head had at first swum dizzily with all the pressure and expectations. Theodore senior and his wife Lisette had been fixtures of their country community, familiar and comforting, always there whenever someone had passed on to arrange flowers and platters of cold cuts, to deliver gentle words to cushion the grief. They’d been known, trusted, but Theodore junior, well. Ti-Theodore Bissonette, so young to be running the whole house himself, and the folk of Bellefontaine just weren’t sure. Until the death of little Suzette Marchande.

Hit by a car, she’d been, some hideous beast driving drunk through the winding access road circling their little cajun town and pointed out toward Nola proper. He was in prison now, but Suzette remained dead, and in his huge, capable hands Theodore had poured every bit of his father’s knowledge and sensitivity into that girl. He’d dressed her in yellow, one of her own dresses supplied by her mother, but he’d also remembered that she’d loved frogs. She’d catch them in the swamp and hold them in both hands, laughing at their croaky sounds, but then she’d carefully deposit them onto some leaf somewhere. “They got big ones, in the jungle. The Amazon,” he remembered her saying when the Bissonettes had run into she and her parents in town once, years ago. “Big as cars, they are. I’m gonna go there someday and study ‘em.”

So he’d bought sparkly little green frog clips for her hair online, pinning it back from her freckled face. Her favorite stuffed froggie, named Monsieur Ourauron, Mister Ribbitt, had been lost in the crash, but he’d found one in the Amazon - or at least on amazon - that looked largely the same. When her parents had seen her during the open-casket service, they’d wept and clutched his hands, thanking him in a babbling blend of French, English and grief. That day had declared the end of one life and the beginning of another, as little Suzette had been delivered unto whatever waited after, but thirty-year-old ti-tay-oh-doure had been manifest and confirmed.

There was something to be said for how tall he was. He would have thought some would find it intimidating, difficult to relate to considering that he was six-seven or perhaps a touch over, impossibly long limbs and a hawkish nose, soft mouth borne of his Mere and his father’s nearly indigo eyes the color of a sky five minutes before the moonrise. His was soft, floppy, peanut-brown hair and a quiet timbre resonating in his voice that was immediately associated with the unthreatening sense of calm authority that his father had once carried around easy as an old sweater. Theodore would take care of everything, Bellefontaine knew. They’d be left free to grieve their lost, because he was here with his huge hands and endless legs and fleeting smile.

He lived alone, now. There had been flings, lovers, Audrey from Nola with her autumn-brown skin and fox-gold eyes, elegant and sure, but she hadn’t stayed long. “This place is charming, but you can’t actually expect to stay here all your life, can you?” she’d told him once, after the sex, the two of them naked and wrapped around each other in his sprawling bed with a gentle breeze from outside floating through his open window. She didn’t understand, and neither did the men, not even sweet Peter with his auburn curls and dimples.

“You’re all alone out here, doesn’t it get boring? Lonely? My god, you live in a mortuary.” His shiver had been all that Theodore had needed to kiss him tenderly and send him on his way. His father had been extraordinarily lucky to find Mere, he knew - so few understood, the nature of a curator of death. The ancient contract they’d signed, the tradition they’d inherited. It was sacred but horrifying to most, because everyone wanted the convenience of their holy order at the end of all things, but no one actually wanted to have to think about dying. About the fact that literally all of them, rich or poor, pious or skeptical, afraid or unafraid, was going to die. The repulsion, he understood, was instinctive, and he’d only made his lovers breakfast in the morning and never called any of them back.

Some of the ghosts never left, as it was, and there were mornings in which he’d make his way into the kitchen to find his black tea already steaming, his chair already pulled away from the table. Some of them had found their peace here with him, and so he’d leave his cello out on occasion so that they could pluck the strings or plink a few keys on his mother’s old baby grand in the living room. He was happy too, his natural introversion leaving him largely content in his solitary life. There were those who sought comfort in his touch after the funerals of their loved ones, holding onto his hands a beat too long as he bade them goodbye, meeting his eyes meaningfully, but he always released them to the hazy swamp air outside. They were hurting, vulnerable, and he was a gentleman.

It rained the night the stranger arrived, or stormed rather - Theodore’s lights had been flickering throughout the manor all night. He’d collected candles and charged his phone, but his power had soldiered on even as the thunder crashed and jagged needles of lightning slashed open the churning charcoal sky outside. He’d yanked open the heavy oak door in response to some insistent knocking, only to find a man roughly his age standing there on the porch. He was oddly untouched by the rain despite no car present behind him, moon-pale, spilled-ink hair thick and soft over limpid, silver-mirror eyes, colorless as a deep-sea creature’s, slicing through the dark.

“Saints alive, are you lost? Are you all right?” The man, he didn’t know personally, but a truth and clarity rolled from him like steam off the swamp, and he felt enormously familiar somehow.

“I wouldn’t say lost, no. May I come in?” His voice, soft and polite, still clear and steady over the storm.

“Yes, forgive me. Please.” He stepped aside, watching him enter, translucent eyes sweeping over the yawning, shadowed maw of the grand old manor’s entryway. “Who are you? I’m sorry, but I’m not taking in any bodies until morning.”

“I understand. Terribly sorry to intrude upon your evening like this, but you and I, we have a matter to discuss.” His accent was not local, nor was it unfamiliar. It felt like a forgotten dream, abruptly remembered, an old song once loved playing on the radio years later.

“I’m afraid I don’t recognize you, Sir. Have you been to one of my funerals?”

“Sweet Theodore, I have been to all of them.”

“I don’t understand.”

The stranger clasped his hands behind his back, idle as a museum patron, gazing thoughtfully up to the enormous and heavily framed oil paintings of Bissonettes past lining the walls of the entryway. “It’s my fault for allowing myself to become so fond of you, but you’ve never really understood just how rare a person you are, have you Theodore? I shouldn’t have come here, but I had no choice. I couldn’t let you leave here tonight, that tree would have rendered your car to a smoking wreck and your body to worse. And you, sweet Theodore, you deserve so much better. After all the respect and care and compassion you have shown so unfailingly to myself and my vocation over the years - I’ve come to love you, and you deserve a soft and quiet end. So much sweeter than the one planned for you, I had to make sure you didn’t die in that crash. I had to come here, on this night. For all your kindness, tonight I will be kind to you.”

Drunk, perhaps. Some sauced-up tourist stumbling through the bayou after a bar crawl, but - this far from the city proper? “I’m afraid that you’re still losing me, will you please tell me who you are?”

He turned then, colorless gaze meeting Theodore’s, an echo of sorrow in his faint smile.

“You know who I am.”

In the end, it was true. He supposed at least a part of him had known from the moment he’d opened the door.

“I do. I didn’t think I’d meet you this young in life, but I’m pleased to find you a gentleman, Sir. I can only hope that in the time you’ve allowed me, I’ve done you proud.”

“You and your whole dear family. You don’t know how much I owe you, all of you. You would have lingered, in pain, on life support, for months. It was unbearable, unacceptable. Not you, not my Theodore who has served me so gently and so diligently for so much of your life.”

“I suppose it’s time, then.” He was not afraid. Death, he knew. He’d existed out here in a kind of stasis for years, honoring his patron saint, the man standing before him in a soft black sweater and reaching out to slip an arm through his.

“It is. But I think the storm is winding to a close, and the mists are always so lovely. Why don’t we go see.”

Nodding, Theodore allowed himself to be led to the door, turning briefly to look back just one last time into his beautiful old house, his shrine to a softer death than most knew existed. He’d always done his best, to make the transition as easy as possible for those on their way to some other place, and now it was time to go.

“Will it hurt?”

“Not for you, no.” The stranger opened the door then, and Theodore couldn’t be sure that the new world laid before him looked the same to both of them, but he smiled at what he saw.

“You were right. It’s beautiful.”

The house and the ghosts left wandering its halls signed in unison with the departure of their beloved Theodore, but the rain had slowed and the moon had risen and they were patient enough to wait a while. Someone would come, someone as warm and bright as him, someone who would take care of them as tenderly as he had, some new Theodore born. In the end, after all, nothing ever really died, and daylight was coming on soon, sure as a promise.

#writeblr #writing #my writing #fantasy #death #louisiana #i'm still feeling shy about my writing but i'm completely obsessed with this character right now #just a little something i hope y'all like it

16 notes · View notes