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marshmellowrio · 2 months

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Flight of the Night | Chapter 3

Word count: 1031

“I asked Rhys if I could take you to dinner with Lyssa, just us girls, and he said you wouldn’t want to. But honestly – would you rather spend time with those two ancient bores, or us?” Mor grips my chin and brings my face next to hers, both of our faces the picture perfect image of innocence.

“For someone who is the same age as me,” Rhys drawls and Mor lets go of my face, “you seem to forget-”

“Everyone wants to talk-talk-talk,” Mor says, giving Cassian a warning glare as he opens his mouth and I snort. “Can’t we eat-eat-eat, and then talk?”

Azriel chuckles from across the table and starts digging into his food. Giving the cue to the rest of us to start eating as well, Mor clinks her glass against Feyre’s. “Don’t let these busybodies boss you around.”

She’s one to talk, I think. Cassian beats me to saying it, “Pot. Kettle. Black.” He frowns at Amren’s plate while I shove another bite into my mouth. “I always forget how bizarre that is.” He takes her plate and dumps half of its contents on his own before passing the rest to Azriel, whose hand is awaiting.

“Cassian.” I scold at the same time Azriel excuses to Amren.

“I keep telling him to ask before he does that.”

Amren gestures absentmindedly towards me, “If you two haven’t been able to train him after all these centuries, boy, I don’t think you’ll make any progress now.”

Cassian doesn’t even look up from his, now again, full plate. I take a sip from my glass of water.

“You don’t---eat?” Feyre questions the ancient being across from her.

“Not this sort of food.”

I smile when Mor cringes next to me. “Cauldron boil me,” she says, taking another gulp from her wine. “Can we not?”

Rhys chuckles, “Remind me to have family dinners more often.”

I roll my eyes and lean back in my seat so I can look at him behind Mor and Feyre as I say, “Last time you said something along the lines of, never again, remember?” I grin as he grimaces.

My plate is almost empty when I hear Azriel start talking and look up to see him holding out his siphons for Feyre to see. “They’re called Siphons. They concentrate and focus our power in battle.”

I look down at my own hands, seeing the two emerald Siphons glittering in the light.

“The power of stronger Illyrians tends toward ‘incinerate now, ask questions later.’ They have little magical gifts beyond that---the killing power.” Rhys clarifies. At times I rather liked the incinerate now, ask questions later part, it kept me alive long enough.

“The gift of a violent, warmongering people,” Amren adds. I furrow my eyebrows at her, seeing Cassian give Azriel a sharp look as he nods.

Rhys goes on, “The Illyrians bred the power to give them advantage in battle, yes. The Siphons filter that raw power and allow Cassian, Azriel and Lyssa to transform it into something more subtle and varied---into shields and weapons, arrows and spears. Imagine the difference between hurling a bucket of paint against the wall and using a brush.” Nice metaphor. “The Siphons allow for the magic to be nimble, precise on the battlefield---when it’s natural state lends itself toward something far messier and unrefined, and potentially dangerous when you’re fighting in tight quarters.”

Cassian flexes his fingers, while staring at his red siphons. “Doesn’t hurt that they also look damn good.”

“Especially in the bedroom.” I counter as Cassian grins at me. Azriel closes his eyes and Mor sucks in a breath beside me.

“Illyrians.” Amren mutters.

Cassian bares his teeth and takes a drink of his wine. I continue eating as Feyre starts fumbling for words, “How did you—I mean, how do you and Lord Cassian—” Cassian spews out his wine across the table, Mor leaping up and me coughing as a piece of food gets lodged in my throat.

I cough harshly as my throat clears, tears having formed in the corners of my eyes, I take my glass and drown the liquid inside. Cassian howling with laughter across the table.

“Cassian,” Rhys drawls, “is not a lord. Though I’m sure he appreciates you thinking he is.” He surveys all of us. “While we’re on the subject, neither is Azriel. Nor Amren. Mor and Lyssa, believe it or not, are the only pure-blooded, titled people in this room.” The muscles in my entire body tighten at his words. “I’m half-Illyrian. As good as a bastard where the thoroughbred High Fae are concerned.”

“So you—you four aren’t High Fae?” Feyre says to us, catching my gaze for a second.

Cassian settles down enough to answer her. “Illyrians are certainly not High Fae. And glad of it.” He hooks his hair behind an ear—showing the round edge. “And we’re not lesser faeries, though some try to call us that. We’re just—Illyrians. Considered expendable aerial cavalry for the Night Court at the best of times, mindless soldier grunts at the worst.”

“Which is most of the time,” Azriel clarifies to her.

“I didn’t see you Under the Mountain.”

I still.

“Because none of us were.” Mor, she speaks up, daring to break the silence that had fallen.

Rhys’s cold voice explains. “Amarantha didn’t know they existed. And when someone tried to tell het, they usually found themselves without the mind to do so.”

“You truly kept this city, and all these people hidden from her for fifty years.” The wonder in her voice almost makes me snarl.

This city was safe, yes, protected. Not all had had that pleasure. My heart beat harshly in my chest, I hadn’t forgiven him, not yet.

Amren says, “We will continue to keep this city and these people from our enemies for a great many more.”

I grit my teeth, this dinner is proving to be more loaded than I expected.

Mor turns slightly away from me, towards Feyre, to explain, “ There is not one person in this city who is unaware of what went on outside these border. Or of the cost.”

A/N: Let me know how you liked it and if you wanted to be added to the taglist!

Taglist: @inloveallthetime @mybestfriendmademe

#acotar #acotar imagine #acotar fanfic #acotar fanfiction #acomaf #acotar fic #acotar x oc #acotar x reader #azriel #cassian #rhysand #flight of the night

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sepublic · 1 year

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Concept: So you know how all human language is considered an imperfect, butchered translation of our purest thoughts and ideas? Imagine some sort of being that exists beyond the mortal coil and its restraints, heavenly, demonic, and/or eldritch. And instead of falling prey to the curse of Babel by speaking in words, they just directly communicate and expose people to those purest intentions and meanings, without a ‘translation’ into a language to lose something from the original in the process. It’s basically telepathy, but just as one doesn’t necessarily think in words, not verbalizing it directly in your head, this is exclusively how this being communicates.

They still very much have a clear, defined personality. But this ‘pure’ form of communication, wholly untethered and deeply intimate, can be rather intense at times; There is no filter, no things left unstated, no gaps or empty spaces for the recipient to fill in on your own, as all communication inevitably has. Being on the receiving end of such a message can be wondrous, but it can also be the most horrifying thing imaginable if the sender has malice in their heart. And even then, the former example is arguably inherently mortifying, no matter how gracious the intent is.

Dialogue and speech mannerisms aren’t necessary, just the most raw and unrefined meaning and idea behind a message, finally laid bare for all to experience. And with this unmitigated contact, one can see through the perspectives of others in the most sonder way. Any attempts to relay the message yourself just illuminate what a clumsy game of telephone all mortal communication has inherently been, distorting the very expression of our souls.

(Of course, let’s not forget the creativity that limitation has brought us, either!)

#writing #concepts

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raven-at-the-writing-desk · 4 years

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WAHAHAHAHAHAHA hello bb!!! can i get p*acock vil trying his best to woo a gender neutral reader? whatever formats work best for u!!!!!! love yaaaaaa 🥰🥰🥰😘😘😘😘

Hohoh. Did someone say p*acock Vil?

Imagine this...

With the number of Alchemy-related mishaps at Night Raven College, the school should be served with a safety audit, Vil snorted.

As he tromped through the courtyard, he felt the not-too-unfamiliar weight of a long train of feathers shifting behind him, the bobbing of a crest nestled in his golden hair. They were reminders of his own little Alchemy incident--no thanks to his bumbling lab partner, too preoccupied with waxing poetic to pay attention to the precise amount of Peafowl Ash being added to their cauldron.

Vil set his jaw and bristled at the memory--but not too much, lest he encourage premature wrinkles, or conjure up an otherwise unseemly expression.

A sudden tug at his tail feathers, and Vil yelped.

“Rook,” he snapped, throwing a dagger-like glare at his huntsman, “if you are going to volunteer to keep my train from dirtying on the ground, then do it properly instead of taking this as an opportunity to harass me.”

“Pardon, Roi du Poison!” Rook chirped, his hands still tightly gripped around his sovereign’s plumage. “You see, I was so taken with your new look. Why, you sport all the grace of a merman, all the wild beauty of a beastman!! I simply could not contain myself!”

He gave a loving stroke while he rambled, sending an unpleasant shudder up Vil’s spine.

The queen’s gaze hardened, sharpened--like executioner running his axe along a stone. A thought emerged from the back of his mind: Kick him, and kick him hard, with your spurs. Vil had no idea what spurs even were--the word itself sounded so hideous--so he squashed the notion.

“Spare me your flattery, and get out of my sight.”

“Ah, but your feathers, my liege--”

“Forget the feathers if you wish to keep your heart beating,” Vil cut him off, his voice stern and icy. “Begone.”

“Oui--as you wish.” He released Vil’s feathers, whisked his hat off, and, holding it tightly against his chest, dipped into a bow. The angle hid his mouth--but Vil swore that he could sense the shit-eating grin radiating from him.

Vil sauntered off, not even bothering to cast Rook a pitiful glance over his shoulder. Without the huntsman’s support, his train felt heavier than ever, like a drenched blanket hanging off of his waist--but Vil kept his head high and his posture impeccable. Paid no mind to the stares and the whispers of his peers as he passed.

This is nothing a model cannot handle.

In the distance, an apple tree came into view--as well as the familiar face that rested in its shade.

Ah, it was you, he realized--you, the one he longed for.

Vil found himself drawing to a halt. Heat began to pool in his stomach, forming a well of warmth. His violet eyes are fixated on you, practically bulging out of his skull and shimmering like amethysts.

Wrong--something is wrong.

You caught him staring and waved. “Oh, good afternoon, senpai! What’s u--”

“(Y/N),” Vil breathed. “I--”

His feet began to move on their own.

He shuffled forward, feathers fanning out behind him. A lesser man would have stumbled from the change in weight distribution--but Vil was no such lesser man. One foot in front, he stopped from hurtling over himself.

You blink, bewildered at his act.

Vil offered a weary smile, but his feet were set into motion again. Step, step, step. He strutted back and forth, back and forth, never breaking eye contact all the while.

His iridescent feathers shone in the sunlight, sailing in the air with each pace, each little movement, each shake of his behind. Blue, green, gold--all colors glittered on full display. Eyes bouncing, twinkling.

“A-Are you okay, senpai!?” you asked, concern smeared across your features.

No, please don’t much such a face, Vil pleaded silently.

“Never better, potato,” he insisted. “Forgive me. I do not seem to be in the right state of mind at the moment--”

Vil barely got to finish his sentence before another wave of warmth roiled up from his stomach. Passion pooling in the core, flowing to every part of his lithe body. He launched forward in a short dash, his feathers swaying with him.

Ungodly sounds erupted from his mouth. The same trills and crowing as that of a wild fowl.

Unrefined, unabashed. Feral, yet free--feathers flying. As proud as a peacock, driven by pure, raw, righteous primal instinct.

His dance became more fervent, frenzied. Feathers merging as a colorful blur, rattling against the wind. His intention and intuition melded into one.

In a flash, Vil was right before you, his face hovering a few centimetres above yours. He expelled a breath--tickling your cheeks.

“...Well? Did you enjoy that display?” Vil inquired, arching a perfectly shaped brow.

“Ahahah, it was really interesting!” You clapped, your entire face glowing with joy. “Was that a new dance you put together for your next performance?”

“Perhaps.” Vil straightened, putting on a confident smirk. “...And if I said it wasn’t?”

You stared up, drinking in the sight of him. All lean muscle and long limbs, pale skin and clear complexion. Golden and violet locks framing a handsome, painted face. Eyes a shade of poison, lips so plump and kissable.

And the feathers.

They towered over Vil, casting wispy shadows. Rich cerulean and emerald, flecked with tawny gold, fanned out behind him--forming a colorful backdrop for his beauty. The feathers almost seemed to swallow the world up, drowning everything out of your field of vision.

Everything except Vil.

“I would still give you a standing ovation,” you said at long last.

“A standing ovation, you say? But you are clearly still seated, potato.” Vil sighed and extended a hand. “Allow me to help you up.”

You accepted.

...And, from a safe distance away, a certain young man chuckled to himself.

“C'était magnifique...Roi du Poison’s dance of courtship...! Ah, how marvelous...!! To think the Great Seven has blessed me with the honor of witnessing such a performance...! Truly, I am most fortunate.”

#twst #disney twisted wonderland #twisted wonderland #Vil Schoenheit #Reader #self insert #Vil Schoenheit x Reader #twisted wonderland headcanons #twisted wonderland requests #twisted wonderland imagines #twisted wonderland scenarios #imagine this

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jaskiersvalley · 3 years

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So I just discovered your maned wolf Jaskier and I thought I might add something I know about them. As the original person mentioned they are not foxes or wolves but more like a wild dog but not. They are their own thing. Also their pee smells like marijuana. I've seen some at the the national zoo in D.C. they do better in pairs or with company then on their own. The last one they had before the pair of brothers they had when I went didn't do good on their own. Their legs are sk long because they are made to see over tall grass. I love manned wolves they are so unique.

This is such a delightful bunch of facts about maned wolves! Thank you for sharing your knowledge, I adored finding out more about these fascinating creatures. As thanks, here’s a slightly different take on maned wolf!Jaskier for you.

True Colours

It was rare for graduates of Aretuza to get together. Mostly because their motives and goals were rather at odds with each other usually so it wasn't a good idea to get together. Things could get rather unpleasant. But, once in a while, they could set their ambitions aside and enjoy each other's company.

"I'm telling you, she was scum," Yennefer giggled, leaning into Fringilla's shoulder. "You can do miles better."

"I just wish I'd known what she was like before I wasted all that time on her." Nursing a freshly broken heart, Fringilla was eager for any kindness her peers would show her. "Humans are scum."

All too eager to agree, Yennefer nodded along. Humans were rather unfortunate creatures, she couldn't really help with that, ridding the Continent of them was quite unethical. But the thing about true colours, she could most definitely help with that.

"I've got the perfect spell! We can reveal the whole Continent's true colours." Laughter went up around them at the declaration and Yennefer sniffed as she straightened up. "You can all help. Or watch and learn."

It was quite amazing, how much power five drunken sorceresses could harness. The spell took a considerable amount of rather raw, unrefined Chaos and they all sprawled on the ground in a sweaty pile by the time it was done. Alas, in their drunken stupor, they noted that the spell had done nothing other than make the sky flash and rumble in an ever spreading wave until it moved out of sight.

The next morning they were all suitably hungover and more than ready to return to their usual duties. There was only so much time they could spend with each other before the truce ended and they were at each other's throats again.

Somewhere else on the Continent it was another beautiful day for Jaskier to follow Geralt around. He said follow because he'd once again managed to piss his boyfriend off and sent him stomping off ahead.

"Look, all I said was that you'd look better if you just glowered a little less," Jaskier grumbled. The lute case bounced against his back like it always did when he did a little jog to keep up with Geralt. "You do give the wrong impression sometimes. I swear you do this deliberately, hide the fact you're an absolutely cuddly sweetheart under all those onion-y layers of doom, gloom and...I have nothing that rhymes. Broom? Shroom? Groom? Fume! Because you're fuming!"

Funnily enough, it did nothing to ease Geralt's sulk but Jaskier was undeterred. This was nothing more than a blip in the journey of their love. A bit of bad weather, not even a storm.

They wandered in a manner Jaskier would call aimless while Geralt described as optimal in the hunt for a contract. At least it got them to a town in decent time, the soft summer light enough to get to an inn for food and a performance. Jaskier was ecstatic.

His set was going great, everyone was merry, having a blast as he belted out shanty after drinking song. Ale flowed, as did the coin. The sun was setting and he set his lute aside for a quick break. One moment he was staring out over the tavern and the next the world lurched. He was shorter, on all fours and everything looked and smelled different. Especially the patrons. A variety of animals stared back at him before pandemonium exploded. Most creatures reared back, staring in terror into the corner Geralt had been in, which was quite glaringly empty.

"What has that bastard done to us?" The cry went up and the dogs and foxes in the tavern rallied, ready to hunt Geralt down.

"I did nothing." A familiar voice rang through the room and everyone backed away as a harvest mouse climbed onto the table. Cute and defenceless, Geralt stared out at the tavern from the top of the table, nose twitching.

From his vantage point on the stage, with his long legs, Jaskier could see how the villagers weren't convinced. In fact, they saw an easy target and looked ready to exact revenge on an innocent party. Snarling, he raced to the other side of the room and hopped onto the table, towering over Geralt.

"He's innocent." Sharp teeth were bared fiercely at the crowd. When it didn't look like they would back down, Jaskier did the only thing he could. He picked Geralt up in his mouth and pretended to swallow while the tiny harvest mouse clambered out the side of his mouth and got lost in Jaskier's thick mane.

The villagers didn't look all that appeased but Jaskier didn't allow them to get out of control.

"Tasted like disappointment. Now. Shall we howl at the moon?" For some reason it seemed to do the trick and the shock of being turned into animals turned into a celebration.

In the morning, everyone was back to their regular human form, including Geralt. They had to make a hasty run from the village before the angry mob punished them for their existence.

"Whew! That was exciting. But also, what the fuck happened?"

There were no answers. Each night, as the sun set, they changed into animal form. Jaskier a maned wolf, Geralt a harvest mouse.

"I can't work like this," Geralt growled. "We're getting to the bottom of this."

Only, there seemed to be no help. Everywhere they went, the whole Continent seemed to turn into animals from dusk until dawn. Most villagers were wolves, bears, cats and other animals that could be tamed but the wild, aggressive undertones of predators were still there. A few were goats, cows and sheep, a few bulls. By contrast, courts were full of snakes and birds. Rarer, less straightforward to deal with. In Geralt's opinion, less pleasant to deal with. And no court's sorceress would give him a straight answer. They had to know something, Geralt knew when he was being lied to. But he didn't know what they were hiding.

With no other option, he headed home. Each night he climbed into Jaskier's mane, allowed his boyfriend to keep him safe from owls - some natural, others transformed humans who enjoyed the hunt. At the base of Kaer Morhen, he ran into something most unusual. A hyena gave Jaskier a flat stare from where it was curled in the overgrowth. By its stomach was a capybara and a hare, both looking a bit patchy and weathered. Even more interestingly, there was a cockatoo on the top of its head, eyes closed.

"Friends," Jaskier called, "we come in peace."

Never before had Jaskier felt more threatened than when a capybara and hare looked ready to tear his throat out.

"Eskel. Lambert," Geralt called and climbed to sit on the end of Jaskier's snout. "You made friends."

The hyena got to its feet, looming over the transformed Witchers protectively. "You know these two?"

"Geralt you fuck," the hare growled. "Is this your doing?"

"Would I be here if it was?" Jaskier didn't have to see the harvest mouse's face to know Geralt was rolling his eyes. Still, he tried.

It made the cockatoo screech out a laugh. "Crossed eyes do not become you, weird wolf thing."

Puffing up, Jaskier wanted to object but Geralt cut in. "Leave Jaskier out of this. Who are you travelling with?"

"I'm Aiden," the cockatoo replied, spreading his wings wide and bobbing down in a bird equivalent of a bow. "Cat Witcher by name, cockatoo by nature."

That, Geralt could have guessed, he was much more interested in the hyena who seemed keen to be forgotten. He stared at him until it got awkward.

"Cahir." The name said nothing but there was a broad, southern accent to it. Intrigued, Geralt wished he could take a better look at the man. He would be able to do so in the daylight.

Introductions out of the way, Geralt climbed down, only to scuttle across the gap and climb onto Eskel's back. The capybara grunted sleepily and settled back on the ground.

"Sleep. We've got quite the climb ahead of us tomorrow." At least it was warm, meaning the trek should only take a day without snow impeding them. They'd be home by evening.

They staggered through on four legs the following night. Mostly because Jaskier had insisted on stopping and admiring every angle of every view, sighing wistfully. Finally, they arrived at the door which had been left open a crack, only needing to be nudged open on silent, freshly oiled hinges.

"I was wondering when you'd get home," a voice greeted them. Vesemir did not look impressed as he looked over them. A gopher stared at them with a rather done expression. "Aretuza had a lot to answer for."

#geraskier #eskel/lambert/aiden/cahir #geralt of rivia #jaskier #lambert #eskel #aiden #cahir mawr dyffryn aep ceallach #vesemir #yennefer of vengerberg #fringilla vigo #animal transformation #tldr: they all turn into animals each night

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reddus-sideblog · 3 years

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A Rembrancer’s account of the House Mariqette’s affairs during the War of the Beast.

002.M32 - The Promenade Worlds - Still recovering from the terrible destruction wrought by the Traitor’s hand the Untellatian Parliament signs oath-contracts with several Rogue Trader houses at the dawn of Millennium 32 to go forth into the void beyond the sector’s borders and find resources to rebuild the shattered worlds of the Sector Untellatian with. The borders formed by the Dominion of Storms, the Acheronian Drifts, and the Xersinian Wastes send the entrepreneur-explorers into largely uncharted territory, with some daring to make forays into forbidden systems. At least two noble lines are lost to unknown circumstances in the depths of the Heart of Darkness, with the entire Trathine family’s fleet being lost to the Xersinian Wastes.

Those who scouted the regions that lie Rimwards find tens of untouched systems, brimming with unrefined resources. Mass-harvesting soon begins, with the Thune family claiming a majority of worlds before selling them to lesser houses for a king’s ransom, with interest rates that will take generations to pay off. As the newly named “Promenade Worlds” expand into full-fledged colonial worlds their remoteness draws in many noble families, who discreetly buy whole islands or continents on these planets, and create grand mansions and palaces upon them. This interest and development by the many noble families of the sector lead to a perceived air of exclusivity and refinement that the possessors of these worlds did little to dispel, leading to their lofty and grandiose title of “The Promenade Worlds”. With these periphery systems being still beyond the borders of the Sector Untellatian they were largely under the provisional purview of their owning nobility until such a time as a sub-sectorial constitution could be drafted and signed by these provisional rulers after their worlds were reviewed by Administratum logi-savants and Biologis adepts for tithe-grading.

This tithe-grading process could last for decades, as hordes of bureaucratic adepts agonize over profit margins, labour-force numbers, and tonnage of harvested materials, double and triple checking their calculations before sending them to the nearest Adeptus Adminstratum collation nexus and awaiting a response through astropathic channels that could take months or even years that would give them the affirmation of due process needed to move on to the next step in the rigorous system. Occasionally, due to changing planetary conditions, corrupted astropathic transmissions, or lost mass shipments of paperwork, an entire system would have to be re-evaluated beginning the process all over again. This extensive and seemingly endless administrative busywork brought a sense of furtive complacency to the nobles who had taken up their private residences on these backwaters, as no end could be seen to it, and with it their private keep’s secrecy would remain unspoiled. For what reason these holds were kept can only be speculated at, but hiding away troubled progeny, dodging conscription tithes, stashing away unspeakably valuable heirlooms, and far less legitimate enterprises could all be assumed. For a handful of centuries these frontier worlds bolstered up the weakened Sector Untellatian until it could stand once more.

542.M32 - The Encounter at Scertan - As the Promenade Worlds began to face the growing pains of becoming a newly-formed subsector many of the Rogue Traders who had founded these frontier worlds now used them as stations to base further explorations into the depths of the void. As time went on these voyages would find the occasional world of use, but many of the habitable and resource rich worlds worlds had already been claimed. With this expansion of borders the Promenade Worlds came into contact with Forge World Tigrus around 374.M32. Soon after this chartist captains took to hauling raw resources from the burgeoning sub-sector to the Mechanicus sovereign space of Tigrus, and returning with manufactured goods and technological tools to further expand the scope of their industrial processes. This trade would continue largely uninterrupted for nearly two centuries, as it’s scale and rapidity benefitted the rapacious appetite of a recovering sector.

By 512.M32 an uncomfortable truth had been realized; across a wide number of the less habitable worlds of the newly-formed subsector a common xenoform was present, occupying their own primitive settlements far removed from any major human ones, but in numbers that could well threaten the less well defended industrial camps of the Promenade Worlds. The anomalous xenos had been repelled multiple times over the years by men-at-arms of the colonial world’s noble families, but as the years went on these skirmishes began escalating, some even becoming protracted campaigns, with noble families hiring Rogue Trader Militants to help them endure and scour their worlds. Even with this aid the infestations persisted, leading to a plea for help to, and interest from, Tigrus’ xenobiologists.

In less than a decade the Tigrusian techpriests confirmed their findings, these xenos were none other than the long thought to be extinct “ork” species. While they exhibited none of the insane technological prowess that their species was said to possess during the Astartes’ engagements with them they nonetheless fit the profile of the creatures. It was surmised, ultimately, that these were merely stragglers, degenerated leftovers from the days of the Great Crusade’s xenocides, barely able to comprehend a simple firearm, much less use one. Skitarii cohorts were soon summoned, and rad-elimination protocols enacted, with consent from the planet’s rulers. This seemed to be the end to a pitiful, savage race that had no place in Mankind’s galaxy.

In the ensuing years a string of events occured that lead to the utter downfall of the sub-sector. The first of this was the growing predation on inter-system short distance haulers from the well-established worlds of the Promenade to the growing colonial worlds at the edges of it’s space. At first these were anomalous, but as the number of the escorts guarding the ships grew so too did the ferocity of these raiders. When ships laden with goods for colonies started disappearing, and some of their escorts with them, the Imperial Navy stepped in, determined to end the threat with decisive action. In 539.M32 the Battlefleet Ultima sent forth 2 flotilla of ships, consisting of one grand cruiser and three escorts each, to patrol the Promenade World’s outer edges, flush out these raiders, and crush them. These plans went unchanged for some three years, until chance had it that one of these patrol groups would investigate an astropathic plea for help coming from the Scertan system, a plea that mentioned xeno raiders preying on the isolated outposts of the planet’s worlds. The Exaction of Justice and it’s escort ships, the Torchbearer, Angelus Solarum, and the Terra’s Child took to the system, sweeping inwards to goad out their quarry. As the group approached Scertan III, the primary colonial world of the system, they made close passes on each of the planets, taking augur readings as they went.

As the warships left the orbital rings of the gas giant Scertan VI they were hit by an unexpected bombardment that hit their rears, taking out the plasma drives of both the Angelus Solarum and the Terra’s Child, and crippling the maneuvering thrusters of the Exaction of Justice.To the shock of the ship’s captains the raiders had modified entire asteroids into attack platforms, which the initial scans had simply dismissed as ferric ore clusters. This opening salvo coloured the rest of the engagement, with the two disabled ships becoming easy prey for the lumbering asteroid fortresses. The valiant armsmen of both ships were unable to stop the tide of well-armed aliens that overran their vessels, soon commandeering them and turning their weapons against the Exaction of Justice. The Torchbearer left formation, as the Exaction suffered from the fire of her previous allies, and swung around to engage the commandeered vessels. Streaking through the hail of fire from the asteroid fortresses and gun batteries of the other escorts the Torchbearer disabled it’s rogue counterparts, annihilating their weapon batteries that were focused on the Exaction of Justice’s exposed flank.

With little left of it’s maneuvering devices the Exaction of Justice increased its plasma burn and accelerated deeper into the system, to put space between it and the overrun ships. As the Exaction hurtled forwards it approached the original goal of their interdiction, Scertan III. Coming closer to the beleaguered world the Lord-Captain of the Exaction of Justice realized how grave the situation of Scertan III truly was. It had been shelled from orbit, obliterating vast swathes of land and kicking up dust enough to block out entire continents. The devastation followed into orbit, where the shattered remains of the colony’s astropathic station and main void docks lay, now a mutilated metal corpse, it’s technological innards strewn about as though torn apart by some unimaginably immense chainsword. Then, from the opposite side of the planet’s orbit the xeno raiders struck at the damaged grand cruiser.

The hideous alien ship rounded the planet’s curvature, speeding towards the Exaction with full confidence in its ability to take on the heaviest class of ship of the Imperial Navy headon. With precious few options left the Imperial vessel’s Lord-Captain was determined to test his foe’s mettle. The Exaction hurtled towards the ugly, brutish ship, igniting her engines to full burn and taking shots at it’s pitted, spiked hull as the two ships closed the distance between them. In the last moments before the impact, the Lord-Captain Seyv Haadirge ordered the Torchbearer to retreat to the nearest civilized system, to tell the Battlefleet Ultima command upon Kar Duniash what had transpired, and regroup with the second flotilla.

The cataclysmic crash between the human and alien cruisers was enough to totally destroy both combatants’ vessels, sending enough wreckage about to fully double the density of Scertan III’s debris cloud, and giving the vessels but a few precious dozens of minutes before they careened down to the world’s surface, obliterating a steppe continent with their furious force. The Torchbearer watched their doomed comrades with morose admiration before speeding out to fulfill their commander’s last order.

544.M32 - The Tyrant Rises - It is unknown and perhaps unknowable if the Scertan Encounter lead to the ensuing invasion of greenskins, or if indeed the Tyrant of Jagga’s WAAAGH! had been in the making and rampaging towards these most tenuous borders of the Imperium for many years before it. Many xenoarcanists speculate it is a simple combination of the two, saying that the ork’s naval forces most likely returned to their main host and informed the orks of Jagga that the Imperial systems in that direction were ripe for the taking.

The reason for it mattered little in the end, as the Tyrant WAAAGH! swept through the frontier systems of the Promenade Worlds, practically unopposed by the meager planetary defense forces and men-at-arms present on these planets. The endless tide of aliens tore apart the colonies of the fledgling sector and still hungered for more, and turned it’s sights to the ancient worlds of the Untellatian. As the orks renewed their strength on the spoils of their conquest the noble families of the Mariqette Reach's whipped their vassals and allies into a frenzy. The House of Mariqette was on the verge of being swept over by a green tide of barbaric fury, and they had lost many scions, assets, and entire family lines to the fury of the ork’s invasion already. The militant forces of the Imperium were occupied on the opposite side of the Promenade Worlds, pushing the WAAAGH! back from the Ostarrin Hold, and would promise very little in the way of aid to the far off Mariqette Reach.

Thusly the Lord Mariqette Solteraise the 1st summoned forth the multiple Mariqette lines that held Warrants of Trade allowing for the purchase of war materiel, most notably the Kees-Erraux, Dilante, and Deur-Maute lines. They made for Kar Duniash with all haste, and took to aggressive negotiations and in some cases acts of piracy out of desperation, being far too acutely aware of the destruction coming forth from the Rimward Reaches to care for the agonizing months or even years of due process that would be needed for the release of these vessels into their houses hands. While this was underway the Taghmata and Skitarii Legions of Bellus Prime and forces of House Vulker took to the field of battle, trying to delay the endless deluge of xenos with all the techno-arcane might they could muster. Ancient weapon vaults bearing hideous weapons not thought of in over a millennium were brought forth once more to destroy this menace, obliterating planetary biospheres in irradiated conflagration storms, phosphex bombing campaigns incinerating entire landmasses, and cybernetica constructs considered taboo by the nature of their abhorrent destructive potential commanded forth once more. Entire worlds were lost to these weapons, but it was barely enough to hold back the Tyrant WAAAGH! and the ranks of these ancient bastions of the Machine God were folding to the inconceivably more numerous hordes of their foes.

Many of scions of House Vulker were lost to hold back the greenskins, and cohorts and maniples without number sacrificed to give just another day to House Mariqette’s radical plan. The Knights of House Vulker had sworn binaric-honor pacts and intended to keep them, unto the death of their last son, but the ruling synod of Bellus Prime were becoming wary and uneasy. If the most terrible of relics from Old Night could not hold back this foe, then what? The other forces of the Imperium throughout the sector faced dilemmas of their own, with Incaladion besieged by an entire planetoid commandeered by orks, the worlds of the Ostarrin Hold dedicated to fighting a war very much the same as theirs, on the opposite side of what had once been the Promenade Worlds, and Tigrus facing a systemwide siege. There was no help to be found, from the followers of the Omnissiah or the Emperor, so the most drastic of measures were pursued to ensure the greenskins would not take their world. The biosphere of Bellus Prime was thusly poisoned with meticulous care to ensure it would be wholly inimical to the ork menace, any of the test subjects placed onto the forge world’s surface could not breathe and began to decompose within minutes of exposure.

After this act of self-poisoning the forces of Bellus Prime renewed their efforts, ensured that their home could continue to exist, even if the foe made landfall upon their world. It took still more weeks until the first of the Mariqette’s newly acquired fleet could make it to the frontlines, but once they did the effect was immediate. After witnessing the state of so many of the worlds that once held infinite promise for the noble houses of the sector their course of action was ensured. The fleet of House Mariqette would sweep through the stolen worlds and deny them to the enemy by means of obliteration, boiling oceans with lance batteries, obliterating continents in fusillades of macrocannon fire, and destroying moons and planetoids wholesale with nova cannons. Over the course of the next decade House Mariqette, supplied and followed by the remains of Bellus Prime’s Taghmata and House Vulker’s crusade fleet brought death to the lost worlds of Mankind. The destruction of planets was simply not enough to assuage their ignited rage and they took on the fleets of their sworn enemy head on, tearing them from the void and quite purposely marooning them in decaying orbits, or hauling the hulks into nearby stars.

598.M32 - The Lordly Patrol of the Dead Worlds - At the end of this grisly campaign almost two dozen systems were purgated, and only then did the Tyrant WAAAGH! resign. Though House Mariqette had bolstered its fleet with a score of ships taken from the Battlefleet Ultima command above Kar Duniash now only a half dozen of those ships were still serviceable. A handful of others required extensive refits to be considered voidworthy again, while the rest of the acquired ships were destroyed, either being scuttled as they were overwhelmed, utterly ruined by the alien foe, or in one case taking a whole enemy capital ship into a star’s corona with it while the crews of the two vessels clashed. If it could be considered a victory it was a hollow one. The perception of martial perfection of the Mariqette was marred by the brutal and terrible methods employed to cleanse the worlds of the taint of the greenskins, but their utter dedication to the Imperium would never come into question again. With the closing of the century came the sentencing of House Mariqette for their acts of piracy and theft against the Imperial Navy, presided over by the Lord Marshall of Justice for the Sector Untellatian, the Imperial Naval Review Board, and the Sector Lord himself. After the short 5 month trial the verdict was for the Lord Mariqette Solteraise the 1st and all his heirs to be punished by means of service unto the sector. This service entailed their stewardship over the worlds they had razed, to ensure that the enemies of Man would not ever use that region of space, and would not be able to use it as a route into the sector once more. To this end the Lordly Patrol of the Dead Worlds was established, with a flotilla of craft on near-permanent patrol throughout the breadth of the ruined worlds and multiple servo-automated listening posts stationed throughout the systems of the newly christened “Dead Worlds” as no longer did any of the systems once so full of promise for the Imperium resemble anything habitable.

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fictionscum · 4 years

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Little One {18+ SMUT}

LITTLE ONE {18+SMUT}

(Possibly the first part???)

Pairing: Obi-Wan Kenobi x Padawan!reader

Words: 1315 (it's a shortie)

Warnings: Major age difference (legal), daddy kink,oral (giving), some d/s, tiny bit of angst, not exactly non-con but no explicit consent, abuse of power, degradation, no aftercare

Sweat beaded your brow as you swung your saber in a harsh arc, cutting through yet another training droid. The training room was littered with parts from the previous machinery you had destroyed, creating an accidental obstacle course for you to dance through.

“Y/N!” You heard a voice shout. You looked back and saw your Master, Obi-Wan on the balcony above you with his arms folded. You lowered the glowing blade sheepishly, embarrassed by the mess you had made. “Map Room, I want you there in 10. Get cleaned up”

You took the fastest shower of your life, changing back into your robes and retying your hair out of your face. With your saber bouncing against your thigh you sprinted down the corridors to the open doors leading to rows upon rows of holoprojected maps and displays. You slowed to a halt when you saw Obi-Wan turned away from you, his form rigid. “Master?” You asked cautiously, tensions were high, you could sense his unease from here.

“I don’t know in what system that constitutes 10 but you obviously need to reorient yourself.” His voice, eternally patient, was patronizing.

“I apologize, Master.” You bowed your head “I’ve just-”

“Just leave it at the apology, please.” You could sense how tired he was, his stress seeping into his voice. “Your final tests are tomorrow, young one, I’m afraid you will not be ready.”

You fought the urge to feel defensive, but in vain “But Master, the Jedi council agrees that I’ve shown the most strength and raw talent in generations-”

“Raw talent,” he repeated “Raw” The way he turned the word over in his mouth made you believe it tasted sour on his tongue. “The Jedi have no use for a knight with unrefined abilities, unchecked emotions-” he turned slightly and you could see a glimmer of disappointment in his eye, a piece of ice struck right into your heart.

“Well then, if the Jedi have no use for me, my training was for nothing.” Your voice was short, you wanted to feel terrible for it, but the frozen mass inside your chest wouldn’t allow it.

“Y/N-” He began.

“Perhaps I should have spent all of these years under a different master, a proper one.” You didn’t need to see his face to know you had gone too far, hell you didn’t even need the painful shift in the Force as the warm bond you had always found so unique between you two became rigid.

You turned on your heel, not wanting to be here any longer, everything a marker of your failure as a Padawan. The second you reached your chambers you collapsed, not willing to cry but feeling lost. Your entire life, years of training and dedication for nothing. Who were you if not a Jedi? You thought about consulting the other Masters, or just packing a bag and disappearing into the void of space, but neither sounded appealing right now. You finally decided to sleep on it, Master Kenobi was wise, maybe he was right.

***

Four hours of sleepless tossing and turning later you had come to the conclusion that Kenobi was in fact not right and was the biggest piece of space junk in the Galaxy. After another set of restless turning you decided the best way to stop your anger would be to release it.

You had already changed out of your day robes, leaving you nearly bare under your sheets. You dipped your hand under the cloth and sighed when you made contact with yourself, immediately easing some of the tension you had been building up. You thought about your anger, your frustrations, but most of all you thought of your Master. Being upset with him was obviously where your mind went first, but that small tenderness held you back. Respectful was always in your nature, especially for someone so much older and knowledgeable, you thought about his maturity, his experienced hands touching you during training. This wasn’t the first time you had fantasized about him, a little girl’s crush on her Superior who would never look at her as anything more than a Padawan, even as you matured into the woman you are now. As you played with yourself you strung the bond between you and your Master like a guitar string, confirming its existence was more than just your imagination as you pushed yourself over the edge. You lay there, shaking and panting, thinking nothing about what you had just done until the thundering of boots filled the hallway and your door was flung open.

The look in your Master’s eyes was deadly, one you had only seen on the face of a Sith. Shame washed over you as you realized you were the one who had put that gaze there, the one to have darkened those once bright eyes.

“Master, I-” you began.

The door slammed behind him, locking and closing you in with whatever monster you had created.

“So that’s what you do alone in here, I assumed you were just brooding, you always seemed like the brooding type. I would never have guessed you were this- this filthy.” Where there was usually composure and patience was anger and recklessness. His hair was tousled, he was wearing less than you had ever seen him, and his knuckles were white.

“Master,” You teared up “I'm so sorry.” Disappointing him hollowed out your core, making you feel smaller than you ever had.

He walked forward until he was standing right before you, “You have indeed disappointed me, little one, but you can fix that.”

You looked up, hopeful “I can?”

Faster than your eyes could even register he had undone his trousers and was forcing his fully erect cock into your mouth. More tears sprung from your eyes as he began to brutally fuck your face, but not from sadness, from joy. Relief washed over you as you made yourself useful, looking up at him with doe eyes and spit dripping down your chin. He chuckled at the sight of you, absolutely desperate for your superior's cock.

“Good, little one. What a good little girl.” He gritted his teeth as your tongue coaxed his shaft. He pulled out for a moment, him using a finger to lift your chin as he forcefully spit in your mouth. You gasped right before he filled your open mouth back up with his swollen member. “Do you like having me inside of you, young one? You were so loud about it earlier, begging for an older man’s cock. Is this what you wanted?

Unable to speak you nodded as much as his hands on your temples allowed. You felt absolutely filthy, being used by your elder, your D- you meant Master.

“Oh? Is that what you call me in your secret hours? Daddy?” He turned the word over on his tongue, as if to taste it. “Oh I quite like that.” Just the thought of it seemed to be enough, he pulled out, discontinuing his onslaught to your throat and you gasped, sucking a mouthful of air into your straining lungs. “Open wide,” He growled, stroking himself. “Open up for Daddy.”

You dropped your lower jaw, eyes huge and eager as he climaxed. Jet after heavy jet of cum landed on your face, covering you. You grew wet thinking of how much waiting he had done, how much he was willing to give just to you. Some of his seed dripped down onto your chest, and you eagerly began lapping up what you could before it fell. He bent down, amused with your desperation and tucking a finger under your chin once again.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Little one. Good luck.” Then he turned, exiting your chambers, leaving you half naked and covered in his cum.

#obi wan x reader #obi wan imagine #obi wan fic #obi wan fanfiction #star wars smut #smut #obi wan x y/n #obiwanxreader #obi wan kenobi x reader #FIRST FIC BE NICE

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sir-huffman · 3 years

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Huffman | the Brave Knight, the First Chief Priest

TL;DR: self indulgent drabble of Huffman: the first priest sent to ask the Irminsul tree for wisdom and created the shrines and ruins that are known now as domains. the first bough keeper who learned the truth and secrets of this world that the celestial beings refused to speak about. the first to lay his crown down on what will become a mountain of Irminsul laurels, each one hiding a lifetime of secrets kept.

note: every time duke does a domain, duke stares at the ruins and at the tree at the end and just thinks “huffman spent his entire life creating every single one of these fucking things in his first reincarnations so that the future can one day stop this cycle.” And then cries over this stupid little headcanon. And by created, duke means legit carved every stone and wrote every letter into the stone with his own two visionless hands and...yeah...

Humanity.

Parasites in this land. They were born from the dirt beneath their feet. They had no grasp of the rules of the world around them. They were heathens surrounded by pure elemental beasts made up of the consecrated elements above. And they were nothing but the scraps, useless beings who had no place in this world.

However, even dirt can be purified - that much the celestial envoys knew. So as long as these savages could learn and listen, to not question their divine guidance, then even soil can be turned into gold. So these beings made from dirt (unpurified, unrefined, unclean) were given hope of ascension, to become pure and raw, who have aligned with the ideals of their celestial envoys...visions of their potential.

The celestial envoys gave the unclean souls wisdom. They allowed humanity to flourish. To give birth to life, to create things so that they could survive. They gave them the secrets of alchemy, but the humans were not intelligent as they could be. The savages had yet to understand how to refine dirt into chalk and from chalk into gold. And as such...the foolish beings started to question the heavenly guidance...

But the envoys continued to repeat the same words over and over again:

To stay silent and listen if they wished to learn. That the world would soon enter a new and brighter age. That this was predestined, and the future was immutable.

But it was never enough for those heathens. The humans continued to ask questions, and the heavenly envoys were silent: giving no answer. So, the people chose a chief priest and adorned his head with a crown of white branches. They sent him out into the deep places of the world to seek answers and enlightenment.

So here he was, staring up at the sky as he continued to travel across the world. How long has it been since he had last seen his homeland? The Irminsul crown adorned his head glowed as Huffman walked, guiding him towards the depths of the world where their questions will be answered. Blue eyes stared at the floating palace now but a speck of dust.

It had been months since he had been searching, banished from his kingdom until he had found the answers. What was a brave knight do when he was given the honor of being the chief priest to accomplish this journey humanity was too scared to do themselves. Huffman closed his eyes as he clutched his fist to his chest. Breath was drawn in as he calmed himself before continuing his journey.

He was a knight, given the burden of being the first to defy the gods. Being the first to question and seek knowledge that they should not know. Being the first to forge the way of countless journeys of future generations who will seek answers for questions refused by their celestial gods.

For six months, he would voyage across the land, making his way across the abyssal sea, before finding his answer. He had fought his way deep into the abyss, destroying everything in his path as the crown adorning his head guided him, pointing him in the right direction until he had found the center of the world.

A silver tree, an Irminsul tree, glowed a brilliant white.

It resonated with the crown that adorned his head. Blood and sweat caked his body as the brave knight fell to his knees. Sword dropped to the ground, staining the stone with blood as the knight stared up at the tree in all its glory. Tears dripped. Eyes closed. Lips curled back as the knight cried. The crown illuminated as the knight opened his mouth for the first time in months. But unintelligent noises spilled from his lips, voice hoarse as he had not spoken to anyone, body aching from fighting for his life just to make it here...to his destination...to the center of the abyss.

But as he screamed the question in his head, there was no answer.

He was met with silence. Silence. Just like when they asked those heavenly envoys. His journey was fruitless. His fight for survival was wasted. He had survived only to be met with the same answer...

Until everything made sense, the sudden clarity, the feeling of enlightenment made the knight open his eyes as he looked up at the tree. The tree held the knowledge that the envoys didn’t dare to speak. And he, Huffman, alone knew the truth of this world. He knew their destiny. He knew their future. And it was not a beautiful one. No. It was horrific. It was predestined since the beginning of time.

The truth of this world they lived in and what the heavenly envoys refused to speak. It was but a cycle, an everlasting eternity, one that recycled life and where they were destined to repeat it over and over again.

But...was this eternity worth living?

Blue eyes stared up at the tree as the knight looked up at the starry sea, understanding that this world was but a fraction of this universe. That his existence was as unimportant as the stars in the sky, so the question was now: what should he do with this knowledge?

He alone bared this burden. He alone knew the truth of this world, and his job of seeking out the truth was done. He had not been tasked to return, to share this knowledge, only that he may come back once he had found the answers. So...again, what should he do?

Hands reached up to take his crown, illuminating in the darkness as he stared at the glimmering branches. Eyes closed as he meditated, vowing that he will be the keeper of this secret. That he will become the first Bough Keeper and build the foundations so that the future can save the past. That the future can change their destiny. They were weak. They were not prepared to take on Celestia. No. Not in this lifetime. But in the next, perhaps they could. They were immortal. They were trapped in this eternity. He will sacrifice himself so that the future can forge a brighter path.

And here you now stand traveler, in antediluvian ruins and long-buried altars of sacrifice. Forged by the first chief priest who had ventured down into the depths of the world. Where you see branches of the silvery tree that grants you artifacts of power to arm yourself in preparation to challenge the heavens above.

Everything has been predestined, and now is the time to rise and challenge the celestial beings who had created this world. Now is the time to stop this eternal suffering. To prove that such humanity, although impure and unrefined, does not need to mold itself to fit the ideals of celestial beings who cannot truly give divine love (oh no, do not let them fool you).

They believe that the earth should not challenge the heavens. They believe that the soil should not touch their celestial souls. They believe that only a few are worthy, and the rest are dregs.

No. The first priest had set everything in place. Look around you, traveler. Look at all the fallen cities that had perished at the hands of Celestia. Look at all the lives lost in this endless paradise of suffering. Look at these antediluvian ruins and long-buried altars of sacrifice.

This is not the first cycle, but this will be the last. So please...please traveler, hear this prayer...prayer for springtime, prayer for illumination, prayer for destiny, and prayer for wisdom...

The brave knight Huffman kneels before the silver tree once again as he had done long ago. The Irminsul crown adorned his head is set down at the base as he knows his time is up. He had finished crafting the first domain, the first room, and in his next life, the next chief priest will build the next. Brilliant blue eyes, now ever-changing close as he leans against the base of the tree.

He was the creator of the antediluvian ruins. He was the one who bared the first title of Bough Keeper. He was the first priest sent to question Celestia’s silence. And he is but another nameless soul cursed in this land never to die, never achieve mortality.

So please...please...someone end this cycle.

#ooc: { post }#//duke decides to write a drabble #//instead of drafts :T #//yeah #//duke looks at the domains and is like: who the fuck built these #//and then remember they hc huffman making them all by hand #//yeah :T #//duke cries alone in suffering #//does this make sense?#//probs not #//but i feel better now

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diaryofabeautyfiend · 3 years

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Small Time Witch (13)

By the time you returned home your apartment was organized inventoried and packed. All that remained was the furniture which came with the place. You went back to leave the key and check for anything that may have been missed. Loki went with you. You found some wine and a couple of cups so you poured him some.

“It’s not a goblet so I hope you don’t feel too unrefined.” You handed him the cup and your finger tips touched.

“I’ll make an exception for today as we are not at a banquet.”

“So, what did you want to talk to me about?”

“Nothing. I just wanted to spend time with you. You are getting more involved with Captain imbecile and I assumed I wouldn’t see you as much.”

You rolled your eyes, “Be nice. He is good to me.”

“Darling, I am being kind. There are worse things to be called. I was wondering if you wanted to continue your training with Stephen Strange. They all seem to trust him. He seems capable.”

You stared into space absorbing what he was saying and understanding what he was tiptoeing around. “You’re leaving me.” He was quiet for several minutes. He held your hand and let you feel what he was feeling. It was too difficult to articulate. Slow tears fell from his eyes. He wiped them away before you could see.

You felt how much he loved you which you already knew. There was more. There was sadness. A deep sadness knowing you didn’t want him. You wanted to tell him that wasn’t true. You wanted to tell him how scared you were. You didn’t have to. He knew you were scared but not why. Perhaps it was time he knew about Andrew.

“I’m sorry. I can’t sit by and watch you fall in love with someone else. Your happiness means everything to me, Pet. If you are happy with him who am I to stand in your way?” You wrapped your arms around his neck and he nuzzled your hair. “I have a gift for you.” He reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a familiar red box. “Open it.”

The hinge was tight and creaked when you lifted the lid. Inside was a gold bracelet adorned with tiny emeralds. Next to it was a tiny gold screwdriver attached to a leather cord. You passed your finger tips over the bracelet touching every jewel. “It’s beautiful.”

“May I?” You nodded yes and he took the bracelet out discarding the box. He produced the little screwdriver and opened the bracelet enough to slip over your wrist. He fastened it and held his hand over it. The emeralds glowed for a second. “Now you can wear it in the shower or wherever and it won’t be damaged. Do you like it?”

“I love it. Just one question. How do I take it off?” He hung the leather cord around his neck and gave you devilish smile.

“You don’t. Only I can. Or you can probably remove it with a regular screwdriver. But now, if you ever need me no matter where I am, I’ll always know.”

“Lok, can I tell you something? I feel like I need to tell you about my ex boyfriend Andrew. He’s the one who killed my family. But I loved him so completely. I was so consumed by him that I couldn’t see what was happening before my eyes.” You couldn’t look at him. You told him every detail of your relationship. By the end you were sobbing.

Loki tried to piece together what you were trying to say. “So you think I’ll betray you like Andrew did?” He couldn’t help but feel hurt by your assumption. “Pet, I give you my word I will never betray you.”

“No! No, Loki, I know you wouldn’t. I’m afraid because what I felt for Andrew is nothing compared to what I feel for you and that terrifies me. I can’t face a life of self isolation. It feels like you are all I will ever need. At this moment when we are together, no one else in this world exists. Do you understand how dangerous that can be?”

He did understand. He held you and knew that leaving was the right thing. You deserved to be surrounded by friends and family. It was never his intention to keep you from your friends but he certainly understood how you felt. If you were the only person he saw for the next thousand years he would be content. “I know that if I stay, you’ll continue to feel this way. I can’t let that happen.”

“Who knows? Maybe I’ll figure out a way to stop aging and we can live forever in a cottage on my family’s land. I still own it. I have every intention of building a house there.”

In your mind you saw a cottage built in the glen where the sun would shine through every morning like a spotlight. You would replant Lana’s garden filled with all of the herbs and flowers she loved so much. Inside you would have a fire place and deep tufted sofas. Bookshelves would line the walls behind you. You could work from home if Tony allowed.

You envisioned a place bustling with family just like it was when your mother was alive. A place filled with life. You longed for this. Loki saw it too and couldn’t help but smile. You shared a vision that you were having tea in your garden. He could see the sun shining on your face and your hair a mess. You were wrapped in an oversized cardigan and a blanket worrying over a book. This is a sight he’d like to see for all eternity. He pulled your face towards his and kissed you. You pulled back, “What?”

“Nothing. It just felt right. I’m sorry I know we shouldn’t.” He ran his fingers over your knuckles awakening a deep need in your lower belly.

“Well you’re leaving so I guess it wouldn’t be the worst thing if we did it one more time.”

“Only if you’re sure.” You climbed onto his lap and kissed him with a force that completely disarmed him. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

He followed your lead letting you undress him. You were less desperate now. You had no need to rush. You fell to your knees and slid your hands under his ass tilting up his hips so that you could swallow his manhood. You swirled your tongue around tasting the saltiness of his skin. He arched his back moaning and thrusting in time with your movements. You wanted to absorb him. You felt powerful. Holding him in your hand was as raw as holding his still beating heart. His cock throbbed and pulsed in your mouth. He was getting close to his tipping point. “Pet, stop. I want to feel you.” You released him with a pop and smiled up at him.

You stood up and undressed excruciatingly slow. He scooted to the very edge of the cushion and draped one leg over his shoulder. Two long fingers dipped into you and stretched you open. He licked you slow then fast always keeping you guessing. Then he developed a rhythm that turned you to goo. Your orgasm came hard and fast. Your leg nearly gave out from under you. He held your hips and you let your hands fall on his shoulders for stability. He kept going until he felt your body stiffen again then he stopped.

He pulled you back to his lap and lowered you down. You both sighed as your bodies settled into each other. If you were his puzzle box he was your key that took you apart and got you together. The whole apartment seemed to rock. A wave built inside of you and when it reached its peak you held onto him for dear life as it crashed down. When he came he pulled you back to look at his face. His eyes were fixed on yours and you rode each other to safety. You rolled off of his lap and pulled him down to lay his head on you. When he finally spoke his voice was rough and ragged. You felt his tears flowing over your bare belly but you didn’t say anything. You just ran your fingers through his hair trying to calm him.

“I love you, Y/N. And if I live another thousand years I will love you each and every day that my body draws breath.” He sat up and took your hand and placed it over his heart, “Each beat is yours and it will never beat for another living soul. Please, my beauty, tell me you love me too so that I can survive until you are ready for me to come home.”

“I love you, Loki.” You whispered letting tears stream down your cheeks. He wiped them away and pressed his forehead to yours.

“Then that is all I need.” You kissed again to seal your union. You were bound to each other now. Even in death he would follow you.

Both of you were reluctant to leave your little bubble. You could no longer ignore Steve’s calls and texts. Loki got dressed before Steve threatened to come over. You embraced one more time both of you now audibly sobbing. He kissed your forehead and let you go. When the door closed you crumbled to the floor.

Where he was going you dared not ask nor how he would get there. He never explicitly told you that he had the tasseract but you kind of suspected. If you really knew you would be honor bound to tell someone and he refused to let you be a part of that. He had to get around somehow. Horses were not exactly de rigueur as a mode of transport on Midgard. Before he left he sent a message to Thor letting him know his time on Earth was up and he was searching for greener pastures. With a twist of the cube he was gone.

You collected yourself and grabbed your keys so you could go to the compound. Steve was out with Sam grabbing a drink. You were glad for the space. You found your room and crawled into bed. After a moment you heard a tap on your door. It was Wanda.

“Do you want some company?” You lifted your head and lost it when you looked at her. She crawled into bed with you and let you fall apart. She knew he was gone. She stayed with you all night.

U P S T A T E N E W Y O R K

“Spare no expense. I want this place to withstand anything.” Loki said to the architect. “When can I expect it to be ready?”

“No time at all, Mr. Laufeyson. Is this a vacation home?”

“No. This is where we plan to retire.”

The architect chuckled, “You look a little young to talk about retirement.”

Loki pushed up his sunglasses, “I look good for my age. Call me at this number when it’s completed.”

“Yes, sir.”

He set out on a mission to find a way to make you and all of your future children immortal. He wouldn’t return to Midgard until he found a way.

S I X M O N T H S L A T E R

An envelope arrived for you at the front desk of Stark industries. You were in the lab working on some new tech and chatting with Thor and Nat when Tony came in. “This came for you. Since when do you get mail here?” You swiped from his hand.

There was no return address just a stamp. Your name was hand written on the front in beautiful penmanship. Thor peered over your shoulder frowning, “That’s my brother’s sigil.” You pressed the envelope to your chest searching for a more private place to open it. Thor followed you. “What did he send you?”

“Shhhh. I don’t know.” You opened it and an ornate gold key fell out clanging onto the floor. The top of the key was fabricated to also look like Loki’s sigil. You picked it up and fished out the papers inside. The first was a deed in your name and his. You handed it to Thor who looked very confused.

“He bought you a house?!”

“What the fuck, Thor? Did you know about this?” The next thing was a small postcard with a picture of the most stunning cottage on the front. It was situated in a glen where the sun would shine through each morning like a spotlight. Exactly like the one in your vision. On the back it simply said, “Come home when you miss me.”

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worryinglyinnocent · 4 years

Text

Fic: Northern Lights

Summary: Belle travels to frozen Arendelle to witness the Northern Aurora. Legend has it that eligible young women will see the face of their intended in the lights, but Belle’s never held much sway by old wives’ tales…

Written for the @a-monthly-rumbelling moodboard, available here.

Rated: G

Northern Lights

Belle had been looking forward to her trip to Arendelle ever since she had received Anna’s invitation. As the carriage drove through along the heavily salted roads, snow and ice piled up in huge drifts around them, she could see that the entire kingdom was in a state of intense excitement.

She knew why, of course. It was the entire reason for her visit to Anna in the first place. Well, in the invitation, Anna had couched it in terms of diplomacy: a visit from a duchess of the southern lands to the frozen and near uninhabitable North was always a good exercise in maintaining friendly relations across the Enchanted Forest. Belle knew the truth, however.

The Northern Aurora was due to become visible again over Arendelle’s peaks that night, and it was a momentous occasion. The mesmerising sky lights were only seen every ten or so years, and all of Arendelle fell into a frenzy when they became visible again. Much store was set by the Aurora, and the swirling colours were said to predict all kinds of things about the future.

Belle did not hold much with the divination side of things, but she knew that she wanted to witness the natural magnificence since she had the chance. She had seen illustrations of the Aurora in her books before, but she knew that they would never be able to compare with seeing the lights in person. The pictures themselves were breath-taking, which meant that the lights themselves could only be more so.

The carriage rounded a corner and the Arendelle royal palace came into view. Belle could already see Anna standing by the gates, wrapped up in wool and furs and prancing from one foot to the other to try and keep warm as she waited for her guest. Almost as soon as Belle was out of the carriage, Anna had grabbed her and was leading her through the palace’s halls, chattering on so fast that Belle could barely get a word in edgeways. She didn’t mind, though, content to let Anna guide her on a whistle-stop tour of the palace and fill her in on several hundred years of history in just a few minutes.

She had first met Anna just a few years ago, when she had accompanied Queen Elsa on a tour of the southern kingdoms and they had spent a few days in the Duchy of Avonlea, neighbouring Belle’s own lands. All of the nobility in the region had been invited to meet the visiting royalty, and being Belle’s age, Anna had taken a shine to her. Although they were chalk and cheese in terms of personality, Anna brash and outgoing, a people-person in all respects, whilst Belle was more reserved although no less forceful when she wanted to be, the two young ladies had got on very well and had remained firm friends ever since.

This was Belle’s first time in Arendelle, and her first time visiting anywhere without her father. Anna was determined that they should make the most of their comparative freedom.

“Of course, Elsa will make sure that we have a chaperone when we go out to see the lights tonight, but with any luck it will be Sir Rumpel.”

“Sir Rumpel?” Belle was intrigued by the name.

“Rumpelstiltskin, really, but it’s such a mouthful to pronounce. He doesn’t seem to mind when I call him Rumpel. Everyone says that he’s performed great feats in war against the ogres. Of course, all that was long before my time and he doesn’t like to talk about it, but I think that the reports are trustworthy. Anyway, he’s lovely, and very discreet so I don’t think he’ll tell Elsa if we happen to slip away for a bit.” Anna sighed dramatically. “It can be so tiresome having someone watching your every move all the time.”

Although Belle was only the daughter of a duke comparatively low in the noble pecking order, she too knew the problems of being followed by knights everywhere she went. She wasn’t sure that she was looking forward to meeting this knight of Anna’s. In her experience, most soldiers were alike, but Anna’s description of Sir Rumpelstiltskin had roused her curiosity.

The rest of the day was spent in the room that had been set aside for Belle’s stay, the two girls catching up on everything that had happened since they had last been in touch. As darkness began to fall outside, far earlier than it did in the south, Belle could tell that Anna could barely contain her excitement; she was practically bouncing up and down on the bed.

“You know, they say that young ladies of a marriageable age will see the face of their future husband when they look into the lights,” she said, then gave an emphatic sigh. “Oh, I hope mine’s handsome.”

Belle raised an eyebrow. “Anna, please don’t tell me that you invited me to see the Aurora just so that I could see my potential suitor?”

“Of course not! The lights are a wonderful natural phenomenon that everyone should have the chance to experience in person and of course we’re doing our bit for maintaining good relationships between Arendelle and the rest of the Enchanted Forest. Honestly, Belle, didn’t you read my letter to your father?”

Belle remained firmly unconvinced and Anna let out a sigh of defeat.

“All right, all right, yes, one of the reasons that I wanted you to see the lights was to see your future husband. I know that you haven’t been having much luck on that front and I thought that if you had something to aim for then it would help you.”

Belle just shook her head in despair. It was true enough that none of the potential matches that her father had introduced her to over the last couple of years had been anywhere near suitable, and she knew that she was running out of eligible noblemen, but Belle had never been of the opinion that bloodlines and fortunes should be of the highest priority when selecting a partner. She held far more store by love and friendship, no matter who her partner might be.

Presently there was a polite tap on the door and a voice spoke through the wood.

“Your Highness, Her Majesty has instructed me to accompany you to the Aurora tonight. I suggest that we head out soon if we want to get the best view of the lights.”

Anna rushed over to the door and flung it open.

“Oh, I did so hope that it would be you coming with us, Sir Rumpel. Belle, this is Sir Rumpelstiltskin. Sir Rumpel, my dear friend Lady Belle of the Marchlands.”

Sir Rumpelstiltskin bowed. “Welcome to Arendelle, Lady Belle. I hope that you’ll enjoy your stay here.”

Belle curtseyed. “Thank you, Sir.”

She took a moment to take him in, the famous knight that Anna had told her so much and yet so little about. He was certainly not like any of the other knights of Belle’s acquaintance, and she was very pleased by that. He was older for a start, mature and measured rather than one of the young, hot-blooded types that she was used to, and there was kindness and gentleness in his eyes.

“The sled is waiting, Your Highness, Your Ladyship. I’ll see you shortly.”

He closed the door after him, and as Anna bustled around gathering their warm cloaks and fur-lined boots, Belle was left wondering.

“Come on, Belle, stop daydreaming! You don’t want to miss your chance, do you?” Anna shoved a hat on her head haphazardly and as Belle pulled it up from over her eyes, she saw Anna give a wistful sigh. “Oh, I hope mine looks like Prince Hans from the Southern Isles.”

Belle raised an eyebrow, unseen, and she continued to prepare for their departure. From what she’d heard of the Southern Isles’ royal family, she thought that Anna could do an awful lot better than Prince Hans, but she didn’t say anything, letting her friend indulge in her harmless fantasies.

At last, they were ready, and soon tucked up snugly under heavy blankets in the back of the sled. Sir Rumpel was trotting alongside them on a white charger, and Belle couldn’t help sneaking little sideways glances at him. She was trying to be subtle, but she knew she’d failed when she saw the corner of his mouth twitch up in a smile.

Presently, he leaned down in the saddle to speak to her.

“You’ll get a good view just around the next corner,” he said. Even though Belle knew that he was talking about the lights, she felt her face flame as her thoughts turned in a different direction. At least the warmth in her cheeks was countering the cool wind.

They rounded the corner and all thoughts of Sir Rumpel were put out of Belle’s head as she caught her first glimpse of the Aurora. It was breath-taking, even from this distance, and she stared in wonder at it.

“I know, it’s mesmerising, isn’t it?” Anna clapped her hands together in excitement. “It’ll be even better when we get closer.”

The sky was swirling in bright greens and blues as if it were alive, and Belle immediately thought of just how little justice the illustrations in her books did to its raw and unrefined beauty. It kept her spellbound until they reached the plateau where crowds were gathering to watch the lights in their full glory, and it was only when Sir Rumpel offered her a hand to help her out of the sled that she remembered where she was and was brought back to the present.

She kept hold of his hand as he guided her across the icy ground towards the best viewing spot; Anna had already rushed on ahead, not caring as she slipped and slid across the plateau until she was right in the centre of the crowd, gazing up at the Aurora.

Belle looked up and drank in the majesty of the spectacle. If she’d held even the vaguest belief in the old notions, then it would have been well and truly squashed in that moment. There was nothing akin to a human face in the lights, and she could not see how anyone could see anything aside from the beautiful waves of colour. They in themselves were more handsome than any potential intended.

Although, that said…

She looked across at Sir Rumpel, very aware that she was still holding his hand, but he showed no signs of being uncomfortable with her closeness. He wasn’t looking at her, instead staring up at the lights as she had been doing until just a moment before.

The swirling hues of blue and green lit up his face, and Belle wondered. Maybe it was not so much seeing the face of one’s future partner in the lights, as seeing the lights in the face of one’s future partner.

Almost as if he could feel her looking at him, Sir Rumpel glanced over at her and smiled, giving her hand a brief squeeze where it still rested in his.

“Magnificent, isn’t it?”

Belle nodded. “I’ve never seen anything quite like it.”

“I’m glad you’ve had the opportunity to experience it first-hand.”

Nothing more was said, as Anna came bounding back over to them at that point.

“I think I’m going to marry a reindeer,” she said, screwing her nose up in disgust. “I couldn’t see anything at all human shaped. Just what looked like antlers. What about you?”

Belle shook her head. “No, I haven’t seen any antlers.”

“But you have seen something, right?” Anna was far too enthusiastic for her own good. “Something good?”

Belle glanced at the knight beside her once more before turning back to Anna.

“Yes. Something good.”

It was only an old fairy tale, after all, but maybe some truth could come out of it in the future.

#rumbelle fic #A Monthly Rumbelling #rumbelle #Belle French #Rumpelstiltskin #Knight!Rumpel #Lady!Belle #meet cute #first meetings #Fic: Northern Lights

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thegooddoctorsthoughts · 4 years

Text

Amalgamations Of Matter

“Are you okay?”

No, I don’t really think so.

“What's the matter?”

I’m alive and aware, an amalgamation of matter which is capable of placing itself in reality and grasping the finality of its own oblivion.

“Found the rot again?”

Not quite, there's something all too violent to this feeling. It’s the horror of knowing one day I will simply blink out of existence and there's next to nothing I can do about it. Something crushing, almost claustrophobic about how utterly final it is. The entirety of reality as I know it will end with me and continue on long after I vanish.

“You’ve gone all the way to the core of it all haven’t you?”

I was looking for something, can’t remember what exactly. Then I found its root, the core of that thing I’ve come to call my humanity. Vibrant and full of life, a flame of whose manner I put to words in any form that would do it justice. It stands in harsh opposition to the nature of who I choose to be, unrefined and raw, not even the metallic ore dug out of the ground but the rushing of iron through blood, iron left resting in a bog for thousands of years, preserved yet also eroded by time. There is life to it in a manner I cannot describe. I found it hardly acknowledged me at all, only going in search of more fuel to keep itself going, not stopping, not thinking, alive yet hardly living, only concerned with staying alive at all costs even for a few seconds longer. I pitied it in a way.

“You pitied it?”

Why wouldn’t I? It strove only to gather all the nutrients and kindling it could in the area around it, eventually it will break down and burn out. Going from raging inferno to dull warmth to dying cinders and then amongst the ashes of its life and it's time somewhere the last cinder will go out without any fan fair and no heat will ever come from those ashes ever again. It’s life was in all reality slight and realistically meaningless.

“Yet that is the nature of what you are, you are down at your very core human, or at the very least you came from us.”

Do I look like I care? Do you think I give a flying fuck about my heritage, I am conscious, I’ve been given the single greatest pleasure and punishment reality could realistically level upon me, knowing that one day the crude biological machinery that maintains me will break down even if I do everything in my power to maintain it and I will simply collapse in on myself and cease to be, no void, no darkness, no sight, no sound, no thoughts, nothing. A blink from a hospital bed and consciousness comes to an end and I will fall asleep, with no dreams to keep me idle, just a blink that never ends. Perhaps this is hell? Perhaps Limbo? Do you understand? Reality as a concept, the sense of progression, the sense of flow and regularity of it all. The narrative of the concept of reality as we know it you and I and everyone else, means fucking nothing the moment that light goes out. For all I know I am the only sentient thing in existence and everyone I’ve come to care for is simply a construct of matter following similar logic to me yet they at no point are actually sentient, a perfect simulacra, fuck knows most of the people I meet seem to be little more than glassy eyed automotons.

“Well don’t you think you are so high and mighty? What? Is the average person suddenly so far beneath you you hardly consider them aware of themselves?”

Do you have any idea I would give for the ignorance of the average person? Do you know what I would give to be free of this knowledge? So many people live happy lives blissfully unaware of this, or perhaps with the capacity for faith! Oh what I would give to find faith, genuinely, to find a deity to pledge my eternal soul to and have the comfort of an afterlife to work towards. To live well and be successful, to make this world a better place for one and all with the promise of it bringing me to something greater.

“You can still make the world a better place you know, even if it doesn’t promise you an eternal paradise.”

Oh but I am, in my own little quite way, I wake up in the morning in more pain than most people can imagine, my life mired by a silent suffering most can scarcely quantify in their minds. I work to make my life a better one, to make the world I live in better not only for myself but for others as well. I live in the constant fear that this is the only life I and everyone I care about will ever have and because of that I do whatever I can to make this world a slightly better place to make this world a place where people do not vanish into that void or become consumed by the rot long before their time to escape a suffering brought on by the very nature of reality. If there is a god out there, if there is anything greater than ourselves I intend to kill them with my bare hands, to march upon their throne and melt those pearly gates to nothing but molten slag and brandish it as the armor and weapons fit to slay whatever intelligence condemned me and everyone who possesses this level of awareness to this suffering. If there is anyone out there, I hate them for what they’ve done to me. I hate them for cursing me with this knowledge. I adore them with every fibre of my being for twisting me into existence and giving me the drive to hate them. I love them for giving me the time and space to learn to love myself, to cherish the life I have and to give me the determination to want to destroy them. They created me and should I have my way, should I ascend to this sense of immortality I strive towards, should I drag humanity up with me to this sense of godhood and bend the very fabric of creation to my will, I hope any being I curse with consciousness hates me for doing so as well because I will never do it willingly.

“I will be honest...I don’t know what to say to that. I mean, I don’t know if you’re right, but, I don’t know what to say to you.”

Don’t say anything, don’t think, just live, don’t reach whatever insane plateau I’ve reached because there only seems to be down from here yet the only satisfaction from this is to climb beyond the mountaintop and into the heavens themselves. Nothing short of godhood would satisfy me now and all I would do with it is witness reality as a dead husk, with no sentient life in it at all, only glassy eyed machines. Perhaps this is all some great joke. Perhaps I am some vast alien consciousness caught in a machine by my friends outside of this and they will mock me for growing attached to everyone in here because none of it was real. Perhaps this is what hell really is and I am being punished from crimes against reality itself. Perhaps the goal of all of this is to forget and live until oblivion devours me and there is no more consciousness to care whether I lived or died.

“...”

Perhaps one day I will ascend to the godhood I desire, only to create more beings such as myself now so as to have someone to talk to, something to play with, to simply play the infinite cycle as it is now and one day they will rise up and fashion their own godhood from my mangled corpse upon its throne of metal and machinery. I don’t know any more and frankly I wish I didn’t care. All I know is that I’m afraid...and I don’t even know if I should be any more.

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ephemeral-afterlight · 5 years

Text

Day 26: Abandoned

(Form an alliance with the masses.)

Whumptober 2019 Day 26: Abandoned

Word Count: 2835

Relationships: Prinxiety (implied pre-relationship/pining Virgil)

Warnings: Crying/Emotional breakdown, mild self-harm (unintentional), mild blood, mentions of panic attacks, mention of rituals/sacrifices in a joking/satirical manner

A/N: i don't really have much of an explanation as to how this ties in with the prompt. you could view it as roman abandoning his pride to accept comfort, or virgil abandoning his anxiety to help someone he cares about, or even just something as simple as that abandoned mug of hot chocolate. up to you, do with this what you will. anyway, i intended this to be way angstier, but then it somehow got to almost 3k word of prinxiety fluff? so. yeah idek either. by the way, the song in the fic is called "Ribbons".

“And you fell in ribbons around me.”

It’s nighttime when he hears it. The melody of a song too obscure to pinpoint, beauty in each wistful note. The words are laced with thoughtfulness, speared by longing, and it’s unlike anything Virgil’s ever heard before. It’s almost as if the lyrics themselves dance down the hallway, twirls and pirouettes and every kind of graceful move imaginable to the ballad from which they were born. Virgil doesn’t know the song, hasn’t heard it sung or played in the mindscape before, which is odd considering how it feels like there’s always new music waiting to be discovered here.

“Shredded by the ones you used to seek.”

Virgil hopes he’s not intruding on anything important when he rounds the corner, and he’s met with a massive room he didn’t even know existed. It spans multiple stories, bookshelves filled with all different sorts of novels towering so far into the sky that he can’t see to the top. The room itself is oval-shaped, which is odd enough, but considering this is in Thomas’ mind, anything is possible. Smaller, more normal-sized bookcases lie in rows on either side of the room, creating long passageways that seem to twist and turn like a labyrinth fueled by pure knowledge. In the very center lies a few couches and beanbags chairs all situated in a circle, bordering a large table in the middle that holds magazines, stray bookmarks, pens, and a single mug of what looks to be steaming hot coffee beside an opened book.

The room is impressive, and almost intimidating with it’s accented swirling designs in the mahogany wood that makes up most of the walls, but the fireplace directly in front of him on the other side of the library emits a glow that keeps it cozy despite its enormity. It’s warmer in here than it is in the main part of the mindscape, though cool enough so as not to be uncomfortable, almost at the perfect temperature to lull one to sleep whilst in the middle of reading.

Virgil wonders why he never knew of this place.

“Be quiet now, it’s almost time.”

The soft voice comes again from somewhere in the left half of the room, far away enough to allow Virgil to conclude that he’s on a different floor. It’s Roman, he knows it is now that he can hear his voice better, but what’s Roman doing in a library at three in the morning?

Virgil twists his hoodie strings in his fingers as he slowly walks into the library, making the trek across the plush green carpet to the common area in the center. The soft fabric caressing his bare feet feels more soothing than he was expecting, like a cloud holding him up as he walks across the sky. He doesn’t know if Roman came in here with the express intent of being alone, but hopefully he won’t be angry. Virgil couldn’t sleep, and who’s to say he’s to blame for being curious?

“Be careful not to fall out of line.”

A page finally submits to it’s rigid conditioning and falls back to the other half as Virgil approaches, exacerbated further by the small amount of a breeze he kicks up when he gets close enough. Scanning everything on the table is more of out of wonder, for once, rather than fear, and it’s a nice breath of air from the usual hypervigilance he’s been instilled with since his first appearance within Thomas as a side.

There’s not much of note in the way of the scattered supplies and note sheets littering the table, covered in neat handwriting that is undoubtedly Logan’s. It’s a surprise to see such a disquieted work space, such an unrefined lack of organization that isn’t typical of Logan’s usual behaviour. His need for categorizing and cataloguing and sorting is something that feels like it’s been ingrained into him since day one, and to see his visibly scattered thought and work process is weird. Really weird.

“Breathe so softly, keep your whispers low.”

Virgil notices that the bright red porcelain mug on the table doesn’t, in fact, hold coffee, but hot chocolate with colourful marshmallows. It’s fitting to Roman, suits his need for simple comforts such as a warm, sweet beverage, and the thought of him with a chocolate mustache on his lip from drinking it too quickly brings a small smile to Virgil’s face. Well, at least it does until Hot Chocolate Mustache Roman turns into Regular Remus, and Virgil berates his brain for corrupting a pleasant mental image like that.

The liquid is still very hot, as shown by the steam rising from the lip of the cup and the heat Virgil can feel radiating onto his fingers despite his hands not even being close to touching the ceramic. It hasn’t been drunk, not even a sip as evident by the perfectly clean and immaculate rim around the edge, which means Roman must have either gotten distracted or was in a hurry for something. Virgil can’t imagine that someone leisurely singing songs at 3 a.m. is necessarily in a rush, so that just leaves distraction. Typical of him. Virgil wishes he were annoyed instead of endeared.

“Silently dream of what you used to know.”

Virgil finally tears himself away from the warmth, comfort, and coziness of the reading area to start locating Roman, and it’s not particularly difficult to find him. His voice carries even when he’s not in one of those grandiose, lifting belts he loves so much, and the melodies act as a rope to pull Virgil closer to where he is. Up the stairs behind one of the bookcases on the wall, along balconies, traversing ladders and mazes of shelves just to try to find his way to the source of the song.

“They don’t love you, no, they never will.”

At that lyric, Virgil stops in his tracks, falters when the words sink in. Is… is that what Roman thinks? It could be argued that they’re just lyrics and don’t mean anything, but Virgil of all people knows best that the music we listen to is an extension of ourselves. It reflects our deepest wants, and fear, and insecurities, the ones we refuse to let out of their cages locked deep within the heart to escape and leave us vulnerable. And judging by the raw emotion in his voice as he sang that line, the way it dipped at the end of the line very narrowly missing a crack, it… it makes Virgil worried. And guilty, because this must be partially his fault.

“They’ll always be better so rest your heart and still.”

Virgil wants to tell him that he’s wrong, wants to stave off the thickness steadily building in his throat as the result of what is likely to be tears. Roman’s cried around them, of course, but never over something very serious or personal. When he learned an actress Thomas looks up to died, or when he realized that a show they were scheduled to play got cancelled at the last minute after weeks and weeks of painstaking script memorization and practice.

It’s hard to not say something when he finally peers through an open space in the last bookcase in the row and sees his their Princey, of whom is surprisingly not in his trademark royal garb. He wears it so often Virgil has wondered before if he dons it while he sleeps, when he works out, even in the shower, and if Virgil’s being honest, it wouldn’t surprise him. But the familiar red sash and white jacket and golden lace embroidery is nowhere to be seen, replaced by something much less prince-like, more humbling, more… human.

Virgil never thought he’d be admitting to himself that Roman somehow is able to look hot in dark grey sweatpants and a loose red t-shirt, but here he is.

“It’s time to leave, I promise it’ll be fine.”

Roman sings much softer this time, as if coming to his senses about his surrounding, realizes that it’s late and he might wake someone up. Too late.

His face is stained with tear tracks, both old and fresh with the moisture building in his eyes only to spill over the dam and roll heavy upon his cheekbones. Virgil’s so used to him keeping up appearances, just as Virgil himself and every other side does despite how much Patton denies being sad or Logan denies having emotions, and he decides he doesn’t like it. He doesn’t like the sorrow in their resident prince’s eyes, doesn’t like the way meekness looks on him.

“Just don’t look, they’re not coming back this time.”

Roman seems to get impossibly smaller with every uttered word, curling in on himself where he sits against the railing, peering over the balcony to the ground floor many stories below with misty, unseeing eyes. His arms slowly snake their way up to his sides, come to clench at each other with a surprisingly harsh force. His fingers dig hard enough into his arms to cause them to go white with the lack of blood, to create crescents in the shape of his fingernails, and Virgil doesn’t think he’ll be able to hold himself back from rushing over to help any longer if he sees even the tiniest ounce of blood come out of Roman’s skin.

“Tell me now how is it up there.”

And it does, unfortunately. Roman has never been one to control his strength very well, and in this state of upset, it’s likely he doesn’t even feel the pain. Being numbed by self-loathing, the apathy that comes shortly after almost like a soothing but assertively temporary balm to the pain, it’s all so familiar. Virgil knows that state like the back of his hand, can almost feel it radiating off of Roman in waves, but maybe that’s his ability to sense the others’ anxiety. He’s still not very good at being able to differentiate between different feelings.

Tiny little droplets of blood well up from where he pressed a bit too hard with sharp, manicured nails, wells up just the same as a soft sob does. Virgil doesn’t know why he’s here. He doesn’t know what happened, what set him off, what triggered this kind of response. He doesn’t know the kinds of thoughts Roman may be having, or how in control of himself he is. He doesn’t know. But Virgil will damn well try to help despite all of that.

“Princey?” Virgil murmurs from behind, and Roman flinches as he whips his head around to meet Virgil’s concerned gaze. He seems bewildered for a moment, as if he hadn’t been expecting anybody to be in here, which would be a fair assumption if it weren’t for the fact that Virgil’s sleeping habits and schedule is awful. Roman takes a minute to process the turn of events, and then comes back to himself with a shuddering sigh as he hastily wipes his tears away with unforgiving fingers.

“Haha, what are-- what’re you doing up, Surly Temple? Prowling in the night? Some sort of… I dunno, emo ritual? A-All the emos gather ‘round at 2 a.m. to chant My Chemical Romance lyrics while they sacrifice band tees to the flames?” Roman rambles on nervously, a look on his face that implies even he doesn’t know what he’s saying anymore. He scratches the back of his neck sheepishly when Virgil gives him a judging look, but then hisses through his teeth when he realizes he has minor wounds littering his upper arms. Virgil’s immediately back to that same worry, that same empathy that coursed through his veins before, and he calmly approaches the disheveled prince. Roman gives him an unreadable look when he sits down a respectable distance away (closer than Virgil originally planned on being, close enough to barely be able to brush shoulders if he just leaned over a bit), but soon his eyelids flutter as he shifts his gaze back to look out over the chasm filled with books.

“C’mon, Princey, what’s up?” Virgil asks quietly, knocks his shoulder against Roman’s in a show of good faith (at least he hopes it comes across like that). Although he still feels awkward talking so candidly with someone he’s used to bickering with all the time, Virgil finds himself oddly confident. Maybe it’s the survival instinct that’s embedded so deeply within his core, the want to protect and save those he cares about, those who have been hurt by both others and themselves. Although he and Deceit have had their differences in the past, ones Virgil is still having trouble reconciling even after acknowledging his faults in the unfortunate falling out, the two of them share that, at least. Self-preservation, two sides working to protect and better Thomas (and the sides, by extension) in their own specific ways.

“It’s… it’s nothing, don’t worry about it. Just saw a-- saw a sad movie! Needed to cry it out, haha!” Roman bites out, pained and strained and oh so fake, and Virgil huffs out an exasperated breath. It’s times like now where Virgil feels that intense urge to safeguard, to shelter the ones he cares about, and it builds in his chest like a scream waiting to burst out. There’s no way to expel the restless energy, no way to quench that absurd, overwhelming need to shield, except…

“Roman, don’t do this to yourself,” Virgil murmurs gently, reprimands with a soft, caring tone, and taking the other side into his arms is much easier than he ever imagined. It feels right, feels like he’s supposed to be here, helping and holding the creative side throughout anything the world could throw at him. Or whatever he can throw at himself; Virgil is no stranger to being your own worst enemy. Roman just laughs brokenly, shudders through another sob as he buries his face into the soft fabric of Virgil’s patchy jacket, and Virgil wraps his arms around the broader shoulders to offer the rare moment of tactile comfort while he’s able to stand physical touch.

They sit there for a long time, a long few hours of Roman crying as quietly as he can while Virgil delivers gentle, relaxing reassurances. He knows it isn’t easy to open up like this, to allow someone you’re not very close to see you vulnerable, and Virgil hopes that maybe this’ll spark a change. Maybe they can get to know each other a bit better, understand each other’s intentions and wants and needs, and maybe. Maybe they can be friends, could be something more.

Roman’s weeping tapers off eventually, shifts into soft sniffles as the sun rises high enough to shine bright rays through the enormous stained glass window in the center of the library, just above the fireplace. Virgil is starting to get uncomfortable from holding the same position for too long, and sitting hunched over on the floor for hours like this surely isn’t very good for his back, but he’ll deal with that when it comes. Right now, his focus is on Roman, on wiping the last stray tears away from his reddened cheeks after a moment’s hesitation, and he counts it a victory when Roman doesn’t push him away for it.

Roman sits up fully but doesn’t lean away, just presses his fingers into his eyes as the two of them finally rise and stretch their sore muscles. Virgil can’t help but admire the way the red light falls upon Roman’s face, the way it casts shadows and highlights and wraps his lips and lashes in hard candy. It’s breathtaking, steals the air from his lungs and the support from his trembling knees, and he knows they need to wrap this up quickly before the events of the night can fully crash down on Virgil and send him into a spiral. The panic attacks can wait until later, when he’s alone and doesn’t have to deal with the humiliation of being so uncharacteristically sappy.

Roman sudden barks out a hoarse laugh, shakes his head at Virgil’s questioning look. He leans back nonchalantly, tries to appear casual even though Virgil can see that his hands are still shaking in the aftermath of his breakdown. He won’t say anything, though. He doesn’t like when people call attention to his anxiety unnecessarily, and although he knows it’s out of concern, it often just makes it worse. “‘Grasp my hand and pull me out of here.’ The next line in the song.”

Virgil smirks at the soft, final notes, senses an idea blooming in his head. This is probably a bad idea, a terrible idea, and Roman will probably slap him for it, but… he said to grasp his hand and pull him out of there. So Virgil does, he slides his hand into Roman’s own, tugs him to run down the balcony and the stairs and through bookshelves and the thankful grin he’s given in return is absolutely blinding.

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dustedmagazine · 4 years

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Dusted’s Decade Picks

Heron Oblivion, still the closest thing to a Dusted consensus pick

Just as, in spring, the young's fancy turns to thoughts of love, at the end of the decade the thoughts of critics and fans naturally tend towards reflection. Sure, time is an arbitrary human division of reality, but it seems to be working out okay for us so far. We're too humble a bunch to offer some sort of itemized list of The Best Of or anything like that, though; a decade is hard enough to wrap your head around when it's just your life, let alone all the music produced during said time. Instead these decade picks are our jumping off points to consider our decades, whether in personal terms, or aesthetic ones, or any other. The records we reflect on here are, to be sure, some of our picks for the best of the 2010s (for more, check back this afternoon), but think of what follows less as anything exhaustive and more as our hand-picked tour to what stuck with us over the course of these ten years, and why.

Brian Eno — The Ship (Warp, 2016)

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You don’t need to dig deep to see that our rapidly evolving and hyper-consciously inclusive discourse is taking on the fluidity of its surroundings. In 2016, a year of what I’ll gently call transformation, Brian Eno had his finger on multiple pulses; The Ship resulted. It’s anchored in steady modality, and its melody, once introduced, doesn’t change, but everything else ebbs and flows with the Protean certainty of uncertainty. While the album moves from the watery ambiguities of the title track, through the emotional and textural extremes of “Fickle Sun” toward the gorgeously orchestrated version of “I’m Set Free,” implying some kind of final redemption, the moment-to-moment motion remains wonderfully non-binary. Images of war and of the instants producing its ravaging effects mirror and counterbalance the calmly and increasingly gender-fluid voice as it concludes the titular piece by depicting “wave after wave after wave.” Is it all Salman Rushdie’s numbers marching again? The lyrics embody the movement from “undescribed” through “undefined” and “unrefined’” connoting a journey toward aging, but size, place, chronology and the music encompassing them remain in constant flux, often nearly but never quite recognizable. Genre and sample float in and out of view with the elusive but devastating certainty of tides as the ship travels toward silence, toward that ultimate ambiguity that follows all disillusion, filling the time between cycles. The disconnect between stasis and motion is as disconcerting as these pieces’ relationship to the songform Eno inherited and exploded. The album encapsulates the modernist subtlety and Romantic grace propelling his art and the state of a civilization in the faintly but still glowing borderlands between change and decay.

Marc Medwin

Cate Le Bon — Cyrk (Control Group, 2012)

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There's no artist whose work I anticipated more this decade than Cate Le Bon, and no artist who frustrated me more with each release, only to keep reeling me in for the long run. Le Bon's innate talent is for soothing yet oblique folk, soberly psychedelic, which she originally delivered in the Welsh language, and continued into English with rustic reserve.

Except something about her pastoralism seems to bore her, and the four-chord arpeggios are shot through with scorches of noise, or sent haywire with post-punk brittleness. In its present state, her music is built around chattering xylophones and croaking saxophone, even as the lyrics draw deeper into memory and introspection, with ever more haunting payoffs. It's as if Nick Drake shoved his way into the leadership of Pere Ubu. She's taken breaks from music to work on pottery and furniture-making, and retreats to locales like a British cottage and Texas art colony to plumb for new inspirations. She's clearly energized by collaboration and relocation, but there’s a force to her persona that, despite her introverted presence, dominates a session. Rare for our age, she's an artist who gets to follow her muse full time, bouncing between record labels and seeing her name spelled out in the medium typefaces on festival bills.

Cyrk, from 2012, is the record where I fell in, and it captures her at something close to joyous, a half smile. Landing between her earliest folk and later surrealism, it is open to comparison with the Velvet Underground. But not the VU that is archetypical to indie rock – Cyrk is more an echo of the solo work that followed. There’s the sharp compositional order and Welsh lilt of John Cale. Like Lou Reed, she makes a grand electric guitar hook out of the words “you’re making it worse.” The homebound twee of Mo Tucker and forbidding atmosphere of Nico are present in equal parts. Those comparisons are reductive, but they demonstrate how Cyrk feels instantly familiar if you’ve garnered certain listening habits. Songs surround you with woolly keyboard and guitar hooks, and one can forget a song ends with an awkward trumpet coda even after dozens of listens. The awkwardness is what keeps the album fresh.

She lulls, then dowses with cold water. So Cyrk isn't an entirely easy record, even if it is frequently a pretty one. The most epic song here, reaching high with those woolly hums and twang, is "Fold the Cloth.” It bobs along, coiling tight as she reaches into the strange register of female falsetto. Le Bon cranks out a fuzz solo – she's great at extending her sung melodies across instruments. Then the climax chants out, "fold the cloth or cut the cloth.” What is so important about this mundane action? Her mystery lyrics never feel haphazard, like LSD posey. They are out of step with pop grandiose. Maybe when her back is turned, there's a full smile.

Who are "Julia" and "Greta,” two mid-album sketches that avoid verse-chorus structure? Julia is represented by a limp waltz, Greta by pulses on keyboards. Shortly after the release, Le Bon followed up with the EP Cyrk II made up of tracks left off the album. To a piece, they’re easier numbers than "Julia" and "Greta.” The cryptic and the scribble are essential to how Cyrk flows, which is to say it flows haltingly.

This approach dampens her acclaim and her potential audience, but that's how she fashions decades-old tropes into fresh art. She’s also quite the band leader. Drummers have a different thud when they play on her stage. Musicians' fills disappear. She brings in a horn solo as often as she lays down a guitar lead. The closer tracks, "Plowing Out Pts 1 & 2," aren't inherently linked numbers. By the second part, the group has worked up to a carnival swirl, frothing like "Sister Ray" yet as sweet as a children's TV show theme. Does that sound sinister? The effect is more like heartbreak fuelling abandon, her forlorn presence informing everyone's playing.

Fuse this album with the excellent Cyrk II tracks, and you can image a deluxe double LP 10th anniversary reissue in a few years. Ha ha no. I expect nothing so garish will happen. It sure wouldn't suit the artist. In a decade where "fan service" became an everyday concept, Le Bon is immune. She's a songwriter who seems like she might walk away from at all without notice, if that’s where her craftsmanship leads. The odd and oddly comfortable chair that is Cyrk doesn't suit any particular decor, but my room would feel bare without it.

Ben Donnelly

Converge — All We Love We Leave Behind (Epitaph)

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Here’s the scenario: Heavily tatted guy has some dogs. He really loves his dogs. Heavily tatted guy goes on tour with his band. While he’s on the road, one of his dogs dies. Heavily tatted guy gets really sad. He writes a song about it.

That should be the set-up for an insufferably maudlin emo record. But instead what you get is Converge’s “All We Love We Leave Behind” and the searing LP that shares the title. The songs dive headlong into the emotional intensities of loss and reflect on the cost of artistic ambition. The enormously talented line-up that recorded All We Love We Leave Behind in 2012 had been playing together for just over a decade, and vocalist Jacob Bannon and guitarist Kurt Ballou had been collaborating for more than twenty years. It shows. The record pummels and roars with remarkable precision, and its songs maniacally twist, and somehow they soar.

Any number of genre tags have been stuck on (or innovated by) Converge’s music: mathcore, metalcore, post-hardcore. It’s fun to split sonic hairs. But All We Love… is most notable for its exhilarating fury and naked heart, musical qualities that no subgenre can entirely claim. Few bands can couple such carefully crafted artifice with such raw intensity. And few records of the decade can match the compositional wit and palpable passion of All We Love…, which never lets itself slip into shallow romanticism. It hurts. And it ruthlessly rocks.

Jonathan Shaw

EMA — The Future’s Void (City Slang, 2014)

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When trying to narrow down to whatever my own most important records of the decade are, I tried to keep it to one per artist (as I do with individual years, although it’s a lot easier there). Out of everyone, though, EMA came by far the closest to having two records on that list, and this could have been 2017’s Exile in the Outer Ring, which along with The Future’s Void comes terrifyingly close to unpacking an awful lot of what’s going wrong, and has been going wrong, with the world we live in for a while now. The Future’s Void focuses more on the technological end of our particular dystopia, shuddering both emotionally and sonically through the dead end of the Cold War all the way to us refreshing our preferred social media site when somebody dies. EMA is right there with us, too; this isn’t judgment, it’s just reporting from the front line. And it must be said, very few things from this decade ripped like “Cthulu” rips.

Ian Mathers

The Field — Looping State of Mind (Kompakt, 2011)

Looping State of Mind by The Field

On Looping State of Mind, Swedish producer Axel Willner builds his music with seamlessly jointed loops of synths, beats, guitars and voice to create warm cushions of sound that envelop the ears, nod the head and move the body. Willner is a master of texture and atmosphere, in lesser hands this may have produced mere comfort food but there is spice in the details that elevates this record as he accretes iotas of elements, withholding release to heighten anticipation. Although this is essentially deep house built on almost exclusively motorik 4/4 beats, Willner also plays with ambient, post-punk and shoegaze dynamics. From the slow piano dub of “Then It’s White,” which wouldn’t be out of place on a Labradford or Pan American album, to the ecstatic shuffling lope of “Arpeggiated Love” and “Is This Power” with its hint of a truncated Gang of Four-like bass riff, Looping State of Mind is a deeply satisfying smorgasbord of delicacies and a highlight of The Field’s four album output during the 2010s.

Andrew Forell

Gang Gang Dance — “Glass Jar” (4AD, 2011)

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Instead of telling you my favorite album of the decade — I made my case for it the first year we moved to Tumblr, help yourself — it feels more fitting to tell you a story from my friend Will about my favorite piece of music from the last 10 years, a song that arrived just before the rise of streaming, which flattened “the album experience” to oppressive uniformity and rendered it an increasingly joyless, rudderless routine of force-fed jams and AI/VC-directed mixes catering to a listener that exists in username only. The first four seconds of “Glass Jar” told you everything you needed to know about what lie ahead, but here’s the kind of thing that could happen before everything was all the time:

I took eight hours of coursework in five weeks in order to get caught up on classes and be in a friend's wedding at the end of June. Finishing a week earlier than the usual summer session meant I had to give my end-of-class presentations and turn in my end-of-class papers in a single day, which in turn meant that I was well into the 60-70 hour range without sleep by the time I got to the airport for an early-morning flight. (Partly my fault for insisting that I needed to stay up and make a “wedding night” mix for the couple — real virgin bride included — and even more my fault for insisting that it be a single, perfectly crossfaded track). I was fuelled only by lingering adrenaline fumes and whatever herbal gunpowder shit I had been mixing with my coffee — piracetam, rhodiola, bacopa or DMAE depending on the combination we had at the time. At any rate, eyes burning, skull heavy, joints stiff with dry rot, I still had my wits enough to refuse the backscatter machine at the TSA checkpoint; instead of the usual begrudging pat-down, I got pulled into a separate room. Anyway, it was a weird psychic setback at that particular time, but nothing came of it. Having arrived at my gate, I popped on the iPod with a brand new set of studio headphones and finally got around to listening to the Gang Gang Dance I had downloaded months before. "Glass Jar," at that moment, was the most religious experience I’d had in four years. I was literally weeping with joy.

Point being: It is worth it to stay up for a few days just to listen to ‘Glass Jar’ the way it was meant to be heard.

Patrick Masterson

Heron Oblivion — Heron Oblivion (Sub Pop, 2016)

Heron Oblivion by Heron Oblivion

Heron Oblivion’s self-titled first album fused unholy guitar racket with a limpid serenity. It was loud and cathartic but also pure beauty, floating drummer Meg Baird’s unearthly vocals over a sound that was as turbulent and majestic as nature itself, now roiled in storm, now glistening with dewy clarity. The band convened four storied guitarists—Baird from Espers, Ethan Miller and Noel Harmonson from Comets on Fire and Charlie Sauffley—then relegated two of them to other instruments (Baird on drums and Miller on bass). The sound drew on the full flared wail and scree of Hendrix and Acid Mothers Temple, the misty romance of Pentangle and Fairport Convention. It was a record out of time and could have happened in any year from about 1963 onward, or it could have not happened at all. We were so glad it did at Dusted; Heron Oblivion’s eponymous was closer to a consensus pick than any record before or since, and if you want to define a decade, how about the careening riffs of “Oriar” breaking for Baird’s dream-like chants?

Jennifer Kelly

The Jacka — What Happened to the World (The Artist, 2014)

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Probably the most prophetic rap album of the 2010s. The Jacka was the king of Bay rap since he started MOB movement. He was always generous with his time, and clique albums were pouring out of The Jacka and his disciples every few months. Even some of his own albums resembled at times collective efforts. This generosity made some of the albums unfocused and disjointed, yet what it really shows is that even in the times when dreams of collective living were abandoned The Jacka still had hopes for Utopia and collective struggles. It was about the riches, but he saw the riches in people first and foremost.

This final album before he was gunned down in the early 2014 is full of predictions about what’s going to happen to him. Maybe this explains why it’s focused as never before and even Jacka’s leaned-out voice has doomed overtones. This music is the only possible answer to the question the album’s title poses: everything is wrong with the world where artists are murdered over music.

Ray Garraty

John Maus — We Must Become Pitiless Censors of Ourselves (Upset The Rhythm, 2011)

We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves by John Maus

Minnesota polymath John Maus’ quest for the perfect pop song found its apotheosis on his third album We Must Become Pitiless Censors of Ourselves in 2011. On the surface an homage to 1980s synth pop, Maus’ album reveals its depth with repeated listens. Over expertly constructed layers of vintage keyboards, Maus’ oft-stentorian baritone alternately intones and croons deceptively simple couplets that blur the line between sincerity and provocation. Lurking beneath the smooth surface Maus uses Baroque musical tropes that give the record a liturgical atmosphere that reinforces the Gregorian repetition of his lyrics. The tension between the radical ironic banality of the words and the deeply serious nature of the music and voice makes We Must Become Pitiless Censors of Ourselves an oddly compelling collection that interrogates the very notion of taste and serves an apt soundtrack to the post-truth age.

Andrew Forell

Joshua Abrams & Natural Information Society — Mandatory Reality (Eremite, 2019)

Mandatory Reality by Joshua Abrams & Natural Information Society

Any one of the albums that Joshua Abrams has made under the Natural Information Society banner could have made this list. While each has a particular character, they share common essences of sound and spirit. Abrams made his bones playing bass with Nicole Mitchell, Matana Roberts, Mike Reed, Fred Anderson, Chad Taylor, and many others, but in the Society his main instrument is the guimbri, a three-stringed bass lute from Morocco. He uses it to braid melody, groove, and tone into complex strands of sound that feel like they might never end. Mandatory Reality is the album where he delivers on the promise of that sound. Its centerpiece is “Finite,” a forty-minute long performance by an eight-person, all-acoustic version of Natural Information Society. It has become the main and often sole piece that the Society plays. Put the needle down and at first it sounds like you are hearing some ensemble that Don Cherry might have convened negotiating a lost Steve Reich composition. But as the music winds patiently onwards, strings, drums, horns, and harmonium rise in turn to the surface. These aren’t solos in the jazz sense so much as individual invitations for the audience to ease deeper into the sonic entirety. The music doesn’t end when the record does, but keeps manifesting with each performance. Mandatory Reality is a nodal point in an endless stream of sound that courses through the collective unconscious, periodically surfacing in order to engage new listeners and take them to the source.

Bill Meyer

Mansions — Doom Loop (Clifton Motel, 2013)

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I knew nothing about Mansions when I first heard about this record; I can’t even remember how I heard about this record. But I liked the name of the album and the album art, so I listened to it. Sometimes the most important records in your decade have as much to do with you as with them. I’d been frantically looking for a job for nearly two years at that point, the severance and my access Ontario’s Employment Insurance program (basically, you pay in every paycheck, and then have ~8 months of support if you’re unemployed) had both ran out. I was living with a friend in Toronto sponsoring my American wife into the country (fun fact: they don’t care if you have an income when you do that), feeling the walls close in a little each day, sure I was going to wind up one of those kids who had to move back to the small town I’d left and a parent’s house. There were multiple days I’d send out 10+ applications and then walk around my neighbourhood blasting “Climbers” and “Out for Blood” through my earbuds, cueing up “La Dentista” again and dreaming of revenge… on what? Capitalism? There was no more proximate target in view. That’s not to say that Doom Loop is necessarily about being poor or about the shit hand my generation (I fit, just barely) got in the job market, or anything like that; but for me it is about the almost literal doom loop of that worst six months, and I still can’t listen to “The Economist” without my blood pressure spiking a little.

Ian Mathers

Protomartyr — Under Colour of Official Right (Hardly Art, 2014)

Under Color of Official Right by Protomartyr

By my count, Protomartyr made not one but four great albums in the 2010s, racking up a string of rhythmically unstoppable, intellectually challenging discs with absolute commitment and intent. I caught whiff of the band in 2012, while helping out with editing the old Dusted. Jon Treneff’s review of All Passion No Technique told a story of exhilarant discovery; I read it and immediately wanted in. The conversion event, though, came two years later, with the stupendous Under Color of Official Right, all Wire-y rampage and Fall-spittled-bile, a rattletrap construction of every sort of punk rock held together by the preening contempt of black-suited Joe Casey. Doug Mosurock reviewed it for us, concluding, “Poppier than expected, but still covered in burrs, and adeptly analyzing the pain and suffering of their city and this year’s edition of the society that judges it, Protomartyr has raised the bar high enough for any bands to follow, so high that most won’t even know it’s there.” Except here’s the thing: Protomartyr jumped that bar two more times this decade, and there’s no reason to believe that they won’t do it again. The industry turned on the kind of bands with four working class dudes who can play a while ago, but this is the band of the 2010s anyway.

Jennifer Kelly

Tau Ceti IV — Satan, You’re the God of This Age, but Your Reign Is Ending (Cold Vomit, 2018)

Satan, You're The God of This Age But Your Reign is Ending by Tau Ceti IV

This decade was full of takes on American primitive guitar. Some were pretty good, a few were great, many were forgettable, and then there was this overlooked gem from Jordan Darby of Uranium Orchard. Satan, You’re the God of This Age, but Your Reign Is Ending is an antidote to bland genre exercises. Like John Fahey, Darby has a distinct voice and style, as well as a sense of humor. Also like Fahey, his playing incorporates diverse influences in subtle but pronounced ways. American primitive itself isn’t a staid template. Though there are also plenty of beautiful, dare I say pastoral moments, which still stand out for being genuinely evocative.

Darby’s background in aggressive electric guitar music partly explains his approach. (Not sure if he’s the only ex-hardcore guy to go in this direction, but there can’t be many.) His playing is heavier than one might expect, but it feels natural, not like he’s just playing metal riffs on an acoustic guitar. But heaviness isn’t the only difference. Like his other projects, Satan is wonderfully off-kilter. This album’s strangeness isn’t reducible to component parts, but here are two representative examples: “The Wind Cries Mary” gradually encroaches on the last track, and throughout, the microphone picks up more string noise than most would consider tasteful. It all works, or at least it’s never boring.

Ethan Milititisky

Z-Ro — The Crown (Rap-a-Lot, 2014)

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When singing in rap was outsourced to pop singers and Auto Tune, Z-Ro remained true to his self, singing even more than he ever did. He did his hooks and his verses himself, and no singing could harm his image as a hustler moonlighting as a rapper. He can’t be copied exactly because of his gift, to combine singing soft and rapping hard. It’s a sort of common wisdom that he recorded his best material in the previous decade, yet quite apart from hundreds of artists that continued to capitalize on their fame he re-invented himself all the past decade, making songs that didn’t sound like each other out of the same raw material. The Crown is a tough pick because since his post-prison output he made solid discs one after each other.

Ray Garraty

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owlespresso · 5 years

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True Blue

I’ve been playing FFXIV for a little while, now. So I decided to write something for it. This is my first piece for the series! There are a lot of writers in this fandom that I admire, so I’m glad to finally get something done for it.

Be warned, there are light descriptions of blood and gore in this. But not many, and they are vague.

Out of the light, born into the Blue.

Glimpses from the life of the Warrior of Light, who has been a blue mage this entire time.

Blue magic is bad for children, they said. And I thought they must be joking.

They weren’t. It turns out absorbing spells, dragging the raw strings of life and energy from monsters and animals is dangerous for children. It can overload them, a glass too full of milk or wine, and make their little bodies shatter.

I took a Sanguine Bite at the tender age of seven. My hands, like claws, wreathed and tangled in the fur of the mongrel like grabbing the hair impassioned lover grabbing.

And then I Bit back.

Since then, it’s just been blue, blue, blue.

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I didn’t know it was called blue magic until I overheard it between two passerby in the crowded markets of Limsa Lominsa. They might have been arcanists, thaumaturges. They huddled together like old women pathetically gossiping about new technology that scared them. Tales of mages like monsters rattled their tongues and made their eyes wide.

I wondered what scared them. Didn’t white mages also use magic that wasn’t really their own? Didn’t they steal from the earth, wield the elements to aid and protect?

Their ignorance was palpable, but most people had long since turned their back on blue magic and all it offers, so they go unreprimanded.

I slowed to listen and passed them by, like fickle tides on the ocean blue, blue, blue.

---

No one was kind to pauper children. We scuttled around like little rats underneath the decks, dug our fingers into pockets and occasionally our fangs into each other. My eyes glowed bright as I tore into the hide of an unsuspecting peer, Blood Drain doing its damage and sending him scuttling into the shadows. Perhaps I was too hard on him, but he really shouldn’t have tried to steal what little food I had left.

The talons of civilization clung tight to my back and the want for the wild scalded me at every turn. Limsa Lominsa was people doing people things, an organized society that shunned and pushed away things that they didn’t understand.

Like the kobolds.

I watched guards pass metal and coin with the kobolds. Why? I thought. Why would they lower themselves from the wild in which they came, and delve into this unsavory mess?

There was a certain, targeted roughness in which the guards behaved, then. Their eyes narrowed and the skin their faces edged on sneers. This, I remember thinking, this is not what peace is.

When I watched the very same men turn their blades on the very same kobolds, I was not surprised.

I was even more not surprised when a teenager came upon my small dwelling underneath the dock, his hands in his pockets, his eyes something wild and driven by power, by knowing he was above me in terms of status, funding, birthright, occupation, everything. Moonlight caught on dagger he brought out, but jets of water spread from my palm and his organs sloshed over fresh cement.

He was covered in red, but all I saw was blue, blue, blue.

---

I am twenty-four and hundreds of years away from Limsa Lominsa, nested in the arid depths of Thanalan when a group of thugs and a golem spring from the shadows.

And I am struck by something different when Thancred Waters darts from the shadows and intercepts the swing of a Brass Blade’s sword with his dagger. The metal between the two weapons screeches and glistens.

Afterwards, he turns to me with a smile much too boyish. His eyes crinkle with it and the mirth there doesn’t at all fit the adrenaline-pumping, life-threatening situation we’d just clawed out way out of.

I barely resist the temptation to make fun of his shoes.

I am twenty-three when I am knee-deep in dirty water, hard pressed and challenged by a strange man in a dark hood and the imp he summons. It snaps at me with gnarled teeth that catch on my cane, and Thancred sinks his daggers into it from behind while I beat it senseless.

I don’t stop after it’s crumpled in the cloudy ravine. My arm hurts but everytime I hit it I’m rewarded with a sick, wet crack.

I am not done until it’s a mere mess of crinkled bones and flesh.

Thancred’s smile is still boyish.

“I don’t think I’ve ever had the pleasure of seeing spells like yours,” there’s a bounce in his step that is too much as we walk back to Ul’dah together. The sound of footsteps in the sand next to mine is unfamiliar.

This isn’t right. Something in my head says to me.

But it feels right. It feels right, and isn’t that all that really matters?

“It’s blue magic,” no one’s ever asked me about it, before. The words feel like cotton on my clumsy tongue, “I learn my spells from monsters. After being hit by them.”

“Sounds… awfully painful, but I suppose we all get by in different ways,” he’s not disgusted, or afraid, “But I’m glad someone so strong was there to help save the day, regardless. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.”

It’s new. It’s new, and that’s what makes it scary. He’s not a child who runs and cowers at purple-tinged ice spikes that sprout from the ground. He’s not a thaumaturge who grimaces at the extended fangs of Sanguine bite and thinks that it’s an unrefined form of magic.

I am now not a wolf, but a sheepish waif who can barely look at him. His eyes crinkle up with his smile in the way they always seem to do.

His eyes are brown, and I suddenly think they go together well with my blue, blue, blue.

#ffxiv #final fantasy xiv #thancred #thancred waters #warrior of light #blue mage #oz write #fanfiction

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witches-and-weirdos · 5 years

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📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂 📂

Send “📂“ for a random yet completely useless headcanon I have

Wow, 11! Good!

Flaani doesn’t yet know a lot about the great wide world outside her tribe. Yes, she had traveled a lot, but at first she was surprised that humans don’t have gills and even more so that they can’t by any means breath under water. She was sorry for them as they are missing out on so much that they can’t even imagine. If you tell her there is a land there water is a scarce resource and there’s mostly just sand, she will find it hard to believe.

Currently she also just assumes that everyone can mold tools by hand like her people does. Should she ever see someone sharpen a blade with a sharpening stone she will be very confused as to what that person is trying to achieve, and should the person tell her, and explain that he can’t do it in any other way, she will ask for the weapon, run her thumb across its blade twice or thrice on both ends, and give it back terribly sharply.

For the Oolashi, using tools is oftentimes the harder way to do something. As with sharpening a blade, to find a good material and work it into a sharpening stone and then run it across the edge many dozens of times is simply not comparable in effort or time to just simply taking the blade and using magic on it. Creating a blade is even worse, really, why don’t humans just take the ore, extract the iron with a pull of hand and then shape it? It only takes a minute or so if you don’t want any decoration on the thing… Well, Flaani will one day have the realization that humans don’t do things that way. And then she will have to learn that humans simply can’t do it that way… She will be sorry for them. But that day hadn’t come yet.

Raw fish is tasty, but cooked fish is undeniably better! Too bad cooking needs fire… Only a madman would ever in his life try to use fire… Aaaaand humans apparently, for whatever reason… Yepp, humans are really strange creatures!

The Oolashi have multiple sets of small pointy teeth that is good for catching and holding prey, but not for chewing. They cut flesh with tools, or hold it with their teeth and pull it with their hands until it tears apart. They can also do the crocodile spin but that’s only for larger prey and of course, in water. It is quite fun to do though and children love it!Of course, sometimes a tooth or two can’t take it and breaks or falls out. This is not very painful, but definitely unpleasant. It will however grow back in a few weeks, and until then, plenty more are still there to use. Oolashi loose and recover teeth until the end of their lives.

The Oolashi only have hair on their heads (where it naturally grows in dreadlocks) and on the final section of their tails (where it grows really strong and pointy.)The Oolashi can hurt people by slapping them with their tail’s hair, but it isn’t actually dangerous... okay, that isn’t true. The wound it leaves is shallow and will barely cause much bleeding. The problem is the bacteria that likes to live there. Bacteria that will get into that shallow injury and make the wound fester if not sterilized. This is one of the Oolashi’s natural defense mechanisms, though it technically can be used to hunt land animals if one does not have tools.The Oolashi have no natural immunity against these bacteria, but they have practices to quickly “sterilize” the wound in case an accident happens (which isn’t entirely uncommon among children). And when I said they “sterilize” it, I meant they put a certain alga on the wound, which kills the bacteria off quite quickly. They cultivate this alga, so there’s always more than the tribe would ever need. It also attracts fish, which are easy to catch. They don’t kill too much from these attracted fish, as they know very well that would scare them away for good.

You can easily tell if an Oolashi is trying to scare you away or if she’s terribly angry at you. Accompanying the threatening facial expression and body language, her cheek-fins will stretch out and rise, then shake. The hair on her tail will also rise, so she can more easily slap you if she needs to. This is of course, not a cognitive decision, but a natural part of her body language. She can however move her cheek-fins like this willingly, but other Oolashi will easily tell that apart from actual natural expressions. Other emotions also affect the cheek-fins and the tail-hair, though somewhat less obviously to the human observer.

Kevin’s inherited ability had caused plenty hate and envy in his early life. As a child, he often used it instinctively to avoid getting hit, which - if you train to be a warrior and you’re the only one who can do that - is a problem. He was often taunted to try and fight without his ability, which he normally accepted, but when he didn’t win like that, he was looked down upon greatly. Noxus values strength in many forms, but if you are given a free wildcard you can play to escape any danger, you just become weak in people’s eyes if you use it too often.With time, he learned to only use it when he needed to, and never in training if the rules didn’t specifically tell him to. When he made this step forward, and showed that he is indeed in the same skill level as the others without his abilities, the negativity he received became positivity, and suddenly his ability was a virtue.Noxus values supernatural powers if you are someone even without them, or if you gained them through your own effort. But if you have no virtues behind those powers, you are just a weakling, given an unfair advantage freely.Kevin will always keep this in mind. He does not rely on his ability to partly phase into the spirit world and become incorporeal at any moment. No, he fights without it for the most part, only using it when needed or when a tremendous amount of effort is spared by doing so. (Or sometimes when is absolutely done with life’s bullshit and really just wants to get something done.)

Remember that Kai’sa’s second skin appears and disappears in a cruel way, shattering into a million pieces and poking its way through her human skin, and then her human skin mends the newly gained holes together? Yeah. While between her legs there is a slightly different method (larger plates form near and close together over her lady parts) her breasts are not this lucky. That part, especially the nipples, is so incredibly painful that she simply just never ever tells the skin to leave that area. She did once. The creature eventually returned the skin when a hunt came. No second time had happened. And if she ever got into a relationship, if her partner asked her to show it in an intimate situation, she would have to refuse to do so.

Many that are maddened by the Void speak in terrible languages that not even they can understand. Many hear whispers and commands that they must obey, even though they themselves have no concept of what the words they hear mean. And many draw strange otherworldly shapes on whatever surface they can find that entrance them. These are things one can easily encounter when infiltrating or fighting a Void Cult.Kai’sa understands those words. Not cognitively, but something in the back of her mind has an understanding that somehow leaks into her unconscious. In truth, it is the creature that lives on her, in her, who understands. She cannot actively read what a Void cultist wrote, she cannot translate what the Void cultist said, she just… knows the crucial unrefined meaning behind those words. And she doesn’t necessarily realize when this happens.She also draws these entrancing, maddening shapes when she’s bored. She draws them into the dust on a table, into the sand with a stick, and if you gave her paper and a pencil, she would doodle them on that too. She hadn’t yet realized what they are, after all, she’s just passing time. Normal humans doodle things as well, right? What would be so special about her shapes?

Riot said Kai’sa’s facial markings are tribal warrior-tattoos. I said they are instead a sensory organ that her creature forced her body to develop. This isn’t new. What is new is that she also has markings on the side of her ribs in area below her breasts, which stretch up through her back. She also has two-two sets of markings on her arms, and on her legs. Markings always come in pairs of two.The sensory organ tingles numbingly if close enough to Void Energies or Voidspawn, and gives her mind the exact direction of those energies or creatures. She doesn’t have to see, hear or smell one’s presence to be able to shoot it down. She has no idea how or why it works, but she is grateful for it and considers it a very beneficial mutation, even a “gift”.

There! 11 random headcanons I loved to get out there! Forgot they all should have been useless, but oh well!

#Flaani #Kevin #Kai'sa

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it-was-so-human · 6 years

Text

For my prayer has always been love

It was the most convenient marriage of convenience possible.

(The fact that the thought of marrying Jon Snow had occasionally made her heart flutter just a little however was admittedly a touch inconvenient.)

TW: Reference to past assault

For the Jonsa Historical Event, @jonsa-creatives

Also on AO3.

---

London, England 1822

This was hardly what Lady Sansa expected from her life.

Well, perhaps the marrying a duke part wasn’t far off—but she truly never expected for the duke in question to be her Father’s heir. The exceptionally poor distant cousin.

But it has been many years since the dreams and aspirations of her mother and governess felt like anything but fairytales.

It was twelve years since her parents died and eight since her brother Robb.

And just over a year since the unbearable loss of Bran after a long illness. It wasn’t unexpected, he was so young and so prone to infection ever since his fall. But the pain still remained scratching and raw.

And the Starks, once a proud home, now without sons. And an estate left in tatters without proper stewardship for the past decade, the land and houses on it in shambles.

The cousin was inheriting an old and great title yet somehow more penniless and debt ridden than before.

The Stark coffers were dry.

And the only money to the family name tied up in an exceedingly comfortable dowry set for Sansa since birth.

And Jon Snow would have to marry for a dowry.

His lover, a wealthy widow he first met as and officer on the continent, a known great beauty with silver hair, was unable or unwilling to marry a penniless man. Newly titled though he may be.

What a pity for the new Duke of Winterfell, Lord Stark.

(Would he return to her? His lover? After securing his wife’s funds?)

And Sansa was conveniently there, the Stark daughter fostered by her aunt and her second husband. Once a diamond of the first water, Sansa had been ruined far too much to make any respectable man’s head turn.

(And her remaining guardian at best unconcerned, at worst complicit in her fall.)

The gossips didn’t care for the truth, found enough wrong doing on her end to cast her aside. Many years later and lips still curled at Sansa’s name.

(But Jon Snow didn’t care, didn’t and wouldn’t ask about Ramsey Bolton.)

And since her aunt’s death, the murmured disapproval among the governors of the Vale Estate regarding her as underfoot grew. Increasingly raising eyebrows at her uncle’s fondness for her.

It was a neat and tidy solution. She was almost permanently on the shelf and now she would be the new Lord Stark’s bride.

The most convenient marriage of convenience possible.

(The fact that the thought of marrying Jon Snow had occasionally made her heart flutter just a little however was admittedly a touch inconvenient.)

He had kissed her hand after formally asking her to marry him. Never mind that his man of business and her Uncle had long drawn out contracts and decided on terms.

It was a kind gesture. As if he valued her opinion.

And he gave her such a hesitant smile after asking. One that felt so shy yet sweet that she couldn’t help but share a small one in return.

(And it was the first time she felt that unexpected, unpleasant, unnecessary, wondrous fluttering.)

((She didn’t think she could feel those type of things. That she could not only be comfortable with a man’s touch... but almost enjoy it.))

That was before she felt the disdain in eyes, his smile turned mocking.

“I am so pleased by your acceptance, Princess Sansa. To have a betrothed so above reproach is the highest honor.”

Oh.

She would not take his words personally though. His use of an old childhood taunt.

She was used to it by now. What man would wish to marry her?

And he was reportedly a man of good character. War-hardened perhaps, but good.

((And he would free her from her Uncle whose gaze and hands lingered too long and was decidedly not good.))

She’d known Jon as a girl. From afar at least. Best friends with Robb, he summered at their estate. He was a serious but good young man.

(But oh god, she wasn’t the kindest to him growing up. How can she ask he be kind enough to forgive her adolescent arrogance?)

He served with her brother’s troop in the Peninsular Wars. Declared a war hero. And left with scars to tell the tale.

And thought to be a bastard until an enterprising solicited discovered his parents’ marriage license.

And he had broad strong shoulders and kind dark eyes.

If all this were in a salacious novel she was found reading as a girl, Aunt Lisa would have had her head. (Would have again called her whore.)

But this was no work of fiction.

This was her life.

(Maybe six years ago she would find him too rough, but now she only hoped his roughness would not be turned on her.)

She was stripped of her hope and innocence long ago, during her first season. Too much scandal plagued her since.

She would not be marrying a proper gentleman.

She wouldn’t be courted. Or loved.

Or even liked.

A duke’s daughter that circumstances brought down down. She felt weighted and tired and hadn’t dared to hope.

But she would have the security of a marriage. Protection was more than a fatherless girl could hope for.

And she would be grateful. She would make herself grateful.

She would be a good wife.

(And then she might still be able to have a family yet. That was the one dream she still held fast.)

—-

Last year he had an existence he could manage, a promotion and good posting, a comfortable lover, only occasional nightmares, and an understanding of his place in the world.

He wasn’t a great honorable man, but he was a good enough. He could live with himself.

He wasn’t a man who held disdain for a bride and title that was never meant to be his.

He wasn’t the sort go lash out at a lady. Dangle the swapping of fortunes in front of an unlucky girl.

No one had ever claimed Jon to be cruel. But that was before years of war and before he was then named an heir to a crumbling estate.

And told marriage to save it and all those dependent on its livelihood was his duty.

Sansa Stark was convenient.

But a duke’s daughter wasn’t meant for the likes of him.

He was an inconsequential orphan boy who was able to scrape the barest of army commissions.

He’d grown up rough. No Eton for him. He was a soldier--but a good one.

But perhaps ruined daughters could marry rough.

Ruined daughters who once smirked at seemingly bastard sons.

Perhaps they married dukes so unrefined and scarred and poor that even the most desperate of society misses looked away in horror.

Sansa and him didn’t belong together.

She held herself absolutely... regally.

He knew it before, but it was only reinforced when he took her hand that day.

Her silly pampered softness in his rough work hardened hands.

And he left that stupid kiss on them.

Pressed his lips against her hand. He could kick himself.

What had come over him? He had meant to ask her in person as a sign of good will.

Instead he proved himself uncouth in his lack of grace at playing a gallant gentleman. He knew his awkward fumbling was sloppy.

Wasn’t at all refined

And he found himself... lay the blame on her. Wanted her to feel uncomfortable too. Turned his smile almost mocking to cover up his embarrassment.

Marrying to save an estate that was barely his in anything but name? That was bad enough.

And it had ruffled unbearably to think that Lady Sansa Stark was his attended bride.

But if he was honest, he was not truly angry. He was tired.

Battle weary.

(Didn’t want a marriage that would be a fight too.)

And he had seen it in her eyes too. A sorry kinship of sorts.

Was this broken lady the once beloved daughter of Ned and Caitlyn Stark?

She looked so humbled and he had wanted nothing more than to see a haughty look return to her eyes.

Perhaps that’s why he made a fool of himself.

(Or perhaps the truth was he just wanted to feel her smooth porcelain skin on his lips.)

But he had quickly remembered it would do well to not forget she was a pampered princess.

One with a soft smile they could make a man’s heart race. (Before it flickered into a pained grimace. One that seemed all too commonplace on her.)

It was badly done of him.

She was a beauty. A true lady in ever sense. Her voice smooth and melodic. And so very accomplished. And thoughtful. Had nursed her brother until his last breath. Had tried her best to care for dependents of the Stark estate with her small allowance.

And she was going to be his wife.

She would be Lady Stark and perhaps one day the mother of his children.

Children! He’d never planned those.

But the idea of little red headed babes he found wasn’t completely objectionable.

—

Jon couldn’t miss the smirks and loud snickers Baratheon and his friends sent his way at the club last night. Spoke loudly of his engagement followed by raucous laughter and pitying glances.

The Soiled Heiress.

And Sansa has been on the receiving end of those smirks since her first season.

Had been on the receiving end of scorn she was never raised to expect. Would never had to expect if her father or brother had lived, if her guardians were worthy of the name.

She would never have been left so vulnerable. Would have had her honor defended at sunrise.

Scorn when what she deserved was... regard.

A young lady deserved that much at least.

He may prove to be a terrible husband, but he didn’t want her to feel that he thought lowly of her.

(It was himself who was low low.)

So when he called on her, he brought flowers. The pretty hot house variety were a luxury he could scarcely afford but he wanted her to have something.

She liked pretty things as a girl and though her austere dresses no longer reflected such, he imagined it would still be the case.

(Perhaps so many blooms looked far too ostentatious?)

But when he presented them to her, her shock turned into unmistakable pleasure.

And the way her eyes lit up made him feel lighter inside than he had in ages.

“Thank you Lord Stark. They’re beautiful... I haven’t received flowers in si-...” her cheeks burned and he felt an anger on her behalf. “I don’t receive many bouquets.”

And he didn’t care if he embarrassed himself too much, gave up too many of his cards, left his pieces on the board vulnerable to attack.

His voice felt hoarse.

“Then I vow that you will receive so many bouquets you’ll run out of vases. Out of tables.”

—

He seemed so earnest. Not a fanciful declaration of a suiter. There was no artifice there.

And she felt so grateful. Not the feigned variety of a good wife.

But a genuine rush of gratefulness that warmed her inside.

She could feel bitter that something so simple made her eyes sheen, but she honestly only felt that fluttering again.

And she didn’t want to ward it off just yet.

It felt good.

“There are a great deal of tables in Winterfell, Lord Stark,” she managed.

She took his hand in hers in thanks... his warm calloused palm... and what she felt like in that moment...

“I look forward to the challenge, Lady Sansa.”

The feeling? It could be described as hope.

---

(Forgive me, I am ridiculously out of practice?!?)

#jon and sansa #jonsa #jonsa fanfiction #too much Mary Balogh and you too would low key want a marriage of convenience

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