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#mine life could be destroyed but my seeds have been planted and i will not be finished here
illuminatedquill · 6 months
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Sabine x Ezra/Anakin x Padme:
It's Like Poetry, It Rhymes
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I'm already falling I couldn't help it, didn't think of the risk I got a problem, problem when I look in your eyes You're mine and you know it I'd still do it even if we were cursed Won't you be my problem? It's okay with me if it hurts - BANKS, Under the Table
George Lucas has a phrase that I always come back to regarding his work: "It's like poetry, it rhymes."
He said this in reference to Luke's battle with Vader in the Emperor's Throne Room aboard the second Death Star. During the climax of the duel, Luke faces the same choice his father did so many years ago.
And Luke chooses differently. Instead of killing Vader, he tosses aside his weapon and chooses to stop fighting. He wins the battle without violence and claims the mantle of Jedi Knight, which helps Anakin return to himself fully and turn on the Emperor.
For this post, I'm using this phrase to another interesting similarity within Star Wars: the relationship between Sabine Wren and Ezra Bridger having echoes of the doomed romance of Anakin Skywalker and Padme Amidala.
There's no way that Filoni is not aware how he's setting these two up.
Sabine, clearly, has resemblances to Ahsoka's former master; it doesn't surprise me that Ahsoka immediately cut Sabine's training short after the Purge of Mandalore.
Sabine is messy, angry, reckless, impulsive, and obviously depressed after experiencing so much trauma in her life. Despite her efforts to keep up appearances that everything's fine with her, we can tell in the Ahoska premiere that she still keenly feels the loss of Ezra and her family.
Anakin was the same way. We know his story; I won't re-hash it here.
Because of Sabine's inability to reflect on her problems - much like Anakin - they tend to influence her decisions. She can't focus on what needs to be done, versus what she wants to be done.
Love versus duty. The age old conundrum.
She should have destroyed the map to Thrawn. She didn't. She could not face returning to a galaxy without Ezra Bridger in it.
Anakin prevented Jedi Master Mace Windu from finishing Palpatine because he wanted the knowledge to save Padme from death.
Anakin's decision, I also want to remind, led to Padme's death being realized. In doing what he did to prevent it, he ended up causing it to come true.
Sabine's decision to save Ezra . . . well, we've yet to see how Filoni plays this out. But I think there might be a similar outcome here; some sort of consequence for Ezra due to Sabine's actions.
The galaxy - both times - shifted on its axis and began to spiral towards darkness. The Empire rose. Thrawn returned.
The seeds of darkness have already been planted in Sabine. Her decision to hand over the map to Baylon was a failure of temptation. And once you go down the path of the dark side, it's incredibly hard to turn away. Yoda told this to Luke and he failed to heed his advice until it was almost too late.
Lucas, with Luke and Vader, had them face the same dilemma in their respective journeys to show how different their choices would be and how their characters, despite being so much alike, were ultimately different.
So Filoni, with Sabine and Ezra, is - at least in my point of view - doing the same. He's going to have these two reckon with what Sabine did only for them to choose differently than what happened with Anakin and Padme.
We never really saw Anakin and Padme reconcile after his fall. That's the tragedy of their relationship.
But with Sabine and Ezra, there's still hope. They can choose better and not end up cursed like their predecessors.
For one, Ahsoka is literally right there. I'm uncertain as to how much she knows about the reason for Anakin's downfall but if she does know (or Anakin's Force ghost reveals it to her) then she's perfectly armed with the knowledge to make sure Sabine doesn't follow the same path.
Sabine and Ezra also have much more of a personal history with each other. Their foundation is built on stronger material than Anakin and Padme's. There's a lot of trust and respect and love already built into it.
But, admittedly, Sabine's actions threaten to unmake that relationship. I've talked about it before in a previous post; that she could end up losing Ezra due to her selfishness.
And that's not even mentioning the reactions from Hera. Hera, thinking of her son, Jacen, and her desire to raise him in a galaxy not at war. Now it's being threatened by Thrawn's return.
All because of Sabine's need to save Ezra.
I really don't know how, but I'm excited to see Sabine and Ezra work it out. Because we've never seen a proper redemption arc in Star Wars. Anakin was redeemed, yes, but he died shortly afterwards.
Sabine has to put in the work to make up for what she did. She's already started on the path by staying behind with Ahsoka instead of going home with Ezra, but being open to the Force now means that there's only more trials and temptations ahead.
I can't overstate how worried we should be for Sabine. She messed up so badly before being able to tap into the Force. And now she has it.
I know she's on the path to set things right but that temptation will never go away. It will only be amplified, going forward, and I'm sure that there will be more opportunities for abuse considering the inevitable conflict between Thrawn and the New Republic.
And then there's Ezra, of course. Her desire to keep him safe.
Because he wouldn't sit on the sidelines, even if he wanted to. Sabine's actions, like it or not, have involved him in ways that he cannot understand. He'll be at the center of this fight.
I expect Sabine is going to experience some troubling visions soon. I'm thinking similar to what Luke faced in the cave on Dagobah, or even what Anakin saw during his encounter with the Mortis gods.
There's nowhere to hide anymore now that she's stuck on Peridea.
The Force, I'm sure, is going to have a lot to show Sabine about herself that's been hidden away. I hope she's ready.
Much as I want to see these two together and living happily, it can't happen until Sabine and Ezra work through these issues together.
Because if they can't, well . . . we've seen how that story ends.
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I've had a lot of thoughts,
Rambling around,
My head trying to,
Make sense of it,
I think I was angry,
But I wasn't sure,
Looking at soft clouds,
I began to wonder,
What'd you brought,
Versus what I gave,
And just like that,
It was a simple release,
Holding on,
Letting go,
Eyes misty,
It'll only hurt,
For a lifetime,
Envisioning,
If you had,
Been a better person,
Maybe it could,
Have been something,
It wasn't though,
So I slide my headphones on,
Sip my sweet coffee,
Walk to work,
Reflecting on now,
Not then,
I am my own person,
Not dependent on you,
I was once,
But now it's different,
And people say that,
But they never,
Really mean it,
But it is,
I forced myself,
To change and adapt,
Finding who I was,
In the process,
So what I'm saying,
Is that I love you,
I always will,
But I'm backing away,
Removing myself,
I don't want you,
In my life,
My head or heart,
Because you broke mine,
Without a thought,
I didn't deserve it,
I know I didn't,
But I can't reflect,
Not anymore,
When I've gained,
So much more,
Than I lost,
Vast and open,
Is the space,
Between us,
Wider than the ocean,
Neverending,
Like stars in space,
Twinkling from afar,
I shoot across,
A wishing Star,
Leaving you,
To crash and explode,
Like a meteor,
You always used to,
Want more,
Say more,
Do more,
Nothing could ever,
Be enough,
And I wanted so much,
To justify it,
All the hurt,
You tore me open,
Cut out my arteries,
Just to watch me bleed,
As you left,
Maybe I'm a mess,
I didn't do things,
The way you wanted,
I'm not perfect,
Not like you,
With your million friends,
Your places to go,
Being open to everything,
Destroyed you,
Didn't it,
You did too much,
And it bit you,
Right back,
I was there,
That was then,
But this is now,
I think I'm ready,
I've gone through,
Processing,
What I needed to,
In order to let go,
And yes it hurts,
It always does,
These kinds of things,
Take time,
To heal and grow,
I'm planting a seed,
It's already sprouting,
I'm here,
Dancing in the rain,
Feet caked,
With mud and grass,
Hair and clothes sticking,
It wasn't easy,
This journey,
But I'm here,
Sticking out,
My tongue,
To catch drops,
One lands on,
My nose,
And I can't help,
But laugh.
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blacknovelist · 3 years
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I refuse to die in any way that matters
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gingeraleluke · 2 years
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Hi am new and your event sounds really cool if you don’t mind I’ll prob do a lot of the options but it’s late where i am an im kinda tired so imma ask for just some rn hope you don’t mine if i shove em all into one ask if you want i can send in separate ones just say so
What creature am i: im an infj Capricorn am kind smart funny motherly responsible empathetic anxious emotional moody shy introvert protective
i love animals books fiction fantasy sci fi magic listening to music reading writing video games and anime
i dislike spiders toxic people negativity people suffering loosing people i care about failing and disappointing others am also a picky eater
Srry if that’s long (if you can give me a tom holland headcanon that’d be great too 👉🏾👈🏾 but mainly creature thing)
Sweet 16: Zodiac is Capricorn and crushes are tom holland peter parker and a my male friend (we’ll talk about that later) he’s a virgo in care that’s important 👉🏾👈🏾
MASH: Marvel
Srry if im overwhelming you
𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗮 𝑓𝑎𝑖𝑟𝑦!
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ఌ type: nature fairy
ఌ job: storytelling and tree clean up
ఌ powers: controlling and nourishing trees; using pixie dust to visualize stories you tell
ఌ home: you have a small little green cottage that you stay in.
ఌ human life: working at a coffee shop
♥︎ appearance: medium length, wavy hair, similar to your human exterior, and taller than most fairies are.
♥︎ you often wear flowers and leaves in your hair.
♥︎ you wear short trousers with matching sandals and often a corset over a long sleeve blouse. nature fairies are often instructed to wear earthy tones, you usually wear browns and greens.
♥︎ you wear a belt buckle with tools to help you mend the trees, attached to it and a sun visor to keep the sun out of your eyes when you are working.
♥︎ you have large, somewhat translucent, wings in the shape of a bird wing butterfly. they are deep blue with silver spines.
♡︎ you are super introverted and like to spend time in the trees, rather than be with other faires or be in the human world.
♡︎ riding on the squirrels and being absolutely terrified whenever you saw a spider.
♡︎ most nature fairies could handle and ride spiders, but you couldn’t even look at them.
♡︎ you always despised humans. tom was the first human you ever met that you didn’t find obnoxious.
♡︎ he had wandered into the wrong forest one day and you watched idly by as you began to throw acorns at him.
♡︎ you were always playing tricks on humans. something that some fairies didn’t agree with.
♡︎ you were always responsible about it. playing tricks not just for the fun of it but to scare them away so they wouldn’t destroy the trees that you worked so hardly on.
♡︎ but you knew that this one was different. you met when he was young, long before he became an actor.
♡︎ he was kind to the animals. jokingly saying that it must have been a squirrel who was throwing them at him.
♡︎ it turned out that his grandmother gave him seeds to plant a tree with and that that was why he was in the forest.
♡︎ he lived right next door.
♡︎ you didn’t want to scare him at first, so you started off by watching him. following him home and peeking in the windows. sure, it may have been somewhat creepy, but you were intrigued.
♡︎ you ended up changing into your human form and ‘running into him’ one day while he was tending his tree.
♡︎ he fell in love with you, and you him.
♡︎ keeping the fact that you were a fairy away from him was almost impossible. you had somehow made it two weeks of dating without him finding out.
♡︎ making excuses so that you could change back into a fairy and making it back in time for the children’s storytelling.
♡︎ the young fairies would always wonder where you were.
♡︎ one day, you were collecting acorns from the top of a tree, when tom entered the forest.
♡︎ being the sneaky fairy you were, you perched upon his back, watching over to make sure that he didn’t water the plants too much.
♡︎ you didn’t think he’d feel your presence, so when his hands caught you and scooped you up, you freaked out, scared he was going to hurt you.
♡︎ instead, he looked down at the palm of his hand and realized that it was a miniature creature, one that looked identical to his girlfriend.
♡︎ he believed you, loving you for who you were. sometimes he would watch you fly around and practice magic, constantly visiting you; either in the fairy garden or at the bakery you would work at.
♡︎ as his rise to fame came, you two were constantly being pushed apart. he would have to go film for a movie, leaving you there in the garden.
♡︎ he always made an effort to stop by the garden whenever he was in town, hoping to catch a glimpse of a certain fairy in the forest.
𝗦𝗪𝗘𝗘𝗧 𝗦𝗜𝗫𝗧𝗘𝗘𝗡:
𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑝𝑒𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝑝𝑎𝑟𝑘𝑒𝑟 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑚𝑜𝑠𝑡 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑝𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑏𝑙𝑒!
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aside from your zodiac signs being compatible, your personality types are too!
it’s rare that a person will be compatible with someone’s sign and personality type.
everything introverted about peter, is extroverted about you and vice versa.
this difference is what makes you two so similar.
you both have the ability to see the other persons side while maintaining your key ideas.
you are both classified as a ‘perfect relationship’ for being able to mirror and even out one another.
while peter is all about diving straight in, you are still dipping your toes in. you both keep each-other in check.
you anchor each other down and work well together.
you are really good at mirroring him and his actions, coming into terms of agreement whenever you deem it necessary.
you both have the same values but approach situations differently.
this is because you use your cognitive functions in the same order!
most to least compatible:
peter>your crush>tom
𝗠 • 𝗔 • 𝗦 • 𝗛 : 𝐴𝑉𝐸𝑁𝐺𝐸𝑅𝑆
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you are a part of the van dyne family, making wasp your older sister.
you both strayed away from your family and rented an apartment together.
your abilities are quite similar; you have the power to manipulate your size but also can travel through quantum tunnels.
you grew up obsessed with tony stark and had always wanted to be an avenger.
one day, you snuck out and went to the avengers tower.
you showed him and happy your powers and they were immediately drawn to you.
janet tracked you down and was given the opportunity to join you at the tower, which she accepted.
that’s how she met antman.
you became an avenger and moved into the avengers tower.
having a crush on peter but being too scared to do anything about it.
he saved you once in battle and tony saw the way you looked at him. now he bugs you about it all the time.
you and peter are basically tony’s kids.
grieving over tony brought you two even closer together
while janet went off with antman, you went off with thor and met korg who became one of your best friends.
playing video game with korg in stark tower.
you found nebula while tracking down thanos with thor.
you and nebula became close, often venting to each-other and protecting each-other in battle.
you hated space.
the snap didn’t effect you, however, your sister did blip.
you and antman had to work together to bring her back.
after saving her, you two became close again and are now fighting crime side by side.
COME JOIN THE SLUMBER PARTY!
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idesofrevolution · 3 years
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Okay: Bad Boy Musky Transformation it is. Enjoy!
I knew, of course, that Marco sold whatever the degenerates in the neighborhood needed. Weed, Acid, Ecstasy, Shrooms, Coke... take out the hard ones and you have his menu. He always seemed to afford the good things in life with his dark money. Two weeks ago he’d bought a Ducati; a week prior it was a 60 inch TV! God knows it wasn’t from dutiful employment, but I knew damn well just what it was that afforded him these luxuries: whatever could be inhaled, snorted, or smoked. And yet, here I was, working two jobs at McDonalds & Popeyes just trying to afford my garbage studio apartment. 
He’d only ever been kind to me, I’ll admit. He’d bring by a pizza he said he couldn’t finish, or his old speakers he’d upgraded. Nice guy, if a bit dim. Always out in the courtyard, laying by the pool with his shirt off. Always surrounded by other guys who’d slip him a hundred. It’s not fair! Four years of college and what did I have to show for it? Student loans and no job prospects. Yet there he was: no trade, no job, no future really; but living like a king. So it was one day where I’ll fully admit that my jealousy overwhelmed me. 
I was short that month, for the first time mind you. Short only by a hundred dollars for rent, but I had already gotten a notice on my door. Pay tomorrow or get lost. It was this desperation that made me remember every deal that thug made, every 8-ball, every eighth, every pill... Would he really notice a hundred missing from his pile? I knew for a fact that every Wednesday night, precisely at 10, Marco would leave for the hookah club and not return until 4 or 5 at the earliest. I knew he locked his door, a few locks actually, but I also knew that the moron left his window cracked nearly every night. It just so happened that on that particular evening, he did just that. 
In that fleeting moment of curiosity, a plan built up in my head. I watched him loudly slam his door, lock his several locks, and saunter out down the stairs. I waited about five minutes before creeping out of my apartment, careful to watch for other prying eyes. I had to be quick. I made a run for it, bolting to his open window on the balcony. It slid open quite easily, and I heaved myself over the ledge and into Marco’s dark apartment. I landed on the ratty old carpet and quickly shut the window. Looking around the apartment, it was a three bedroom for sure. In the same state of disrepair as mine, but furnished with some of the most expensive, gaudy things I’ve ever seen. Brand new leather couches, a coffee table made completely of glass, a massive stereo system next to his 60 inch TV... An absolute manchild lived here.
However, I wasn’t there for the TV or the oversized sectional. I had a sneaking suspicion that he, like many of us, kept his extra money somewhere in the bedroom. Ensuring that no noise would come from my steps, I snuck quietly down the hall, covered in paintings of scantily clad men toward the bedroom. Interesting, he swung that way, huh? Opening the door, a wafting stink hit me in the face. The room was covered in dirty laundry, used condoms, half rolled  blunts, and lines of coke on nearly every surface. This is what I was expecting, and I was surely right. Holding my nose shut, I crept toward his dresser, and began to ruffle through his belongings. Damp socks, damp underwear, damp lycra, everything in there was damp and reeking. I slammed each of the drawers shut, and opened the closet. There, on the tile floor behind rows of pristine sneakers were a pair of destroyed old Vans; and inside each were rolls of hundred dollar bills. Jackpot. I knelt down and grabbed one of the rolls, momentarily unclamping my nose to remove the rubber band. The smell was unbelievable. It took me aback, just how strong it was. I’m sure each of the pairs of Huaraches, AF1′s, and the like had strong scents of their own, but from this single pair of beat up old Vans was the most salty, sweet, almost cheesy footmusk that I’d ever encountered.
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For a mere second, I contemplated bringing one of the shoes to my face, letting the dirty, wet insole touch the tip of my nose. However, it was in that second that I should have just left well enough alone. The lightswitch flipped on, and looming over me was the hulking, shirtless Marco. In my right hand was his wad of cash, in the left was his grody sneaker. My face flushed, and my stomach dropped to my toes. He crossed his arms and smiled.
“If you wanted a loan you could have just asked...” Words were caught in the back of my throat. I wanted so terribly to make up some fantastic excuse as to my presence in his closet, but the frog in my throat had other ideas. The growing grin of Marco, paired with him beginning to kneel down to my level made my heart nearly stop beating. “And if you wanted a sniff I’d have given it to you.” He smirked and slowly pulled the shoe from my hand, taking a quick whiff of it’s stench. He turned quickly and laughed, waving the wafting scent away from his face before grabbing the back of my head and plunging it right into the shoe. “Okay, deep breath now.”
I tried to struggle, to fight back, but the man was nearly twice my size and pure muscle. There was no chance of me weaseling my way out of this. I had to just play along with this weird fetish that he seemed to have. I inhaled a quick breath, barely getting any stink. 
“No, no. I said deep breath.” I felt a strong hand shoot to my crotch, grabbing my junk within my jeans. The shock of this invasive gesture broke my concentration, and a gasp of breath escaped from my mouth. Into my nose, my mouth, my sinuses, my brain did the musk penetrate. I moaned loudly, the confusion of a powerful grope and a powerful scent submerged me into a strange state of consciousness. Or rather, a lack thereof. I was inhaling the footsmell like air, and I couldn’t get enough. My cock began to tent in my pants, and I felt my right hand drop the roll of cash I thought I so desperately needed. “Ahh, haha. That’s right, let it in. Let me in.” 
His voice seemed distorted, as if we were in a deep cavern, it echoed in my skull. He removed the shoe from my face, pulling me to my feet by my bulging groin. Guiding me toward his bed, I sat down on the smelly sheets, no longer in complete control of my faculties.
“Take your clothes off.” His words entered my ears like soft velvet, it felt wrong to disobey. In fact, I wanted to obey. For the first time, I wanted to listen to whatever this man told me to do. His bulging muscles, his plump lips, the way his crooked smile felt so dangerously mischievous, the way his smell took my breath away like a vacuum. For the first time, this man was everything I wanted. I ripped my clothes off and lay there on his bed wearing nothing but my bare, cold skin. Smiling, he took hold of my throbbing, upright cock in his rough hand. Ripples of goosebumps ran up and down my body as he slowly ran his calloused hand up and down my shaft. Each stroke allowed a groan or a moan to sneak out of my lips, before he leaned down atop me and planted a soft kiss onto my lips. He tasted like an ashtray and as his tongue slipped into my mouth, rolling atop my own, I could feel some of his taste transfer to me. I can’t explain it, as we kissed I could feel that taste of cigarettes and blunts seep into my tongue. I pulled his pants down, his thick, uncut cock tumbling out of his compression shorts onto my stomach. He smiled as he pulled away from the kiss. I stuck my finger under his foreskin, swiping it around, and brought it to my lips. It tasted like ripe, sweaty cock, and I began to crave it. “Oh yeah, babe you’re a keeper.”
He jumped up, and pulled me toward the edge of the bed. I got a perfect frontal view of his gorgeous cock and saggy balls, his virile and manly smell kept pouring into my nose and into the depths of my mind. He grabbed me by the back of my hair and pulled my eager mouth forward, engulfing his slick, smelly cock. I suckled, my loud slurping seeming making him even hornier. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him fiddling with something just out of view. As he thrust down my throat, I realized just what it was that he had. His used condom, I presume from whatever sexy fuck occurred the night prior, was in his hands. I closed my eyes as I felt its rubbery walls close tightly around the tip of my cock, slickly sliding down my shaft until his cold, creamy load touched my slit. With a loud snap, I looked down and saw his thick white cum completely enveloping my cockhead. I only got a quick glance before he’d pulled out of my mouth, replacing his succulent cock with my now favorite smelly shoe. I licked the sole, letting the thick toejam season my ashy tongue as the musk thrust into my nose once more. 
I knew what was coming, and I was prepared when I felt that slippery cock slip like butter into my tight hole. He’d grabbed my cock, covered in his seed, and jerked in tandem with his thrusts into my ass. Sensory overload. His smell, his seed, his cock, his taste, the very sight of him... It was all him. He was marking me. I was his property, and I was glad to oblige. Every single hard smack against my ass cheeks, every stinking waft into my brain, every breath of his smoky breath coming out of my mouth... It was too much! He fucked like a madman, stroking my cock into his slime until I felt a strange tingling in my cockhead. It was a slick, penetrating sensation of his seed... slurping into my slit! I was nearly screaming as I felt it sink deep down my shaft, into my engorging balls. It was stewing, brewing inside my growing sack! I heard him howl as he unloaded his fresher load into me. 
I felt his cock within me shooting spurt after spurt... going from ounces to gallons very quickly. His cum spread throughout my body like water into a balloon. I could feel the silky liquid beneath my skin, creeping, inflating every part of my body. It seeped up my throat, into my mouth, behind my very eyes into my brain. The pressure grew as I felt growth, I felt strength, I felt different. My body was gelatinous beneath my skin, before slowly firming into a much larger form. An improved form. I pulled Marco’s shoe from my face, and looked at my changing body. The cum kept flowing as I saw my muscled arms, my bulging abs, a grotesquely inflated ballsack... He leaned down and kissed me again, giving me another much needed taste of his addictive taste. My brain was melting, reforming, changing... Things were fuzzy and blurred before it was my turn to blow my load. In it, was who I used to be, my failures, my strife, my worries and obligations... Flowed like a jet out of my cock into his condom. Cum flowed out of the top of the condom, before Marco ripped it from me, letting the hot juices pool between us. 
“Lookin’ good, babe.” He smiled at me, and I looked at the man I loved with a smirk. Yeah, I sure fuckin’ do look good. We laid there all night long, fucking and kissing and sniffing and tasting... By the time the sun came up, I was in his clothes, I reeked of his sweaty manly musk, I was wearing my favorite pair of red Vans, and I was readying an 8-ball for pickup later that morning (after a few lines for me and the boyfriend). I kicked back and lit a cigarette, enjoying the laid back life I’d come to love with my man.
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It’s a love story. How touching. So let me know what you think. Give me some anons on your opinions! Also, toss a few quid into the tip jar and I’d be eternally grateful <3 <3
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definegodliness · 3 years
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See my light
In love, many have fallen for my darkness, and ever so few for my light. It has always pained me. And it's taken me a while to understand and differentiate between the two different types of loves. It was important to me to do such, as those who have fallen for my darkness, all, have succumbed to it. Whereas I have been hurt, by the rejection of my light. It is not ‘sexy’, I believe. At least, not to those who seek its counterpart.
With age, I have learned to read the warning signs, red flags shown by those falling for all that I am not. All that I have become, yet have no desire to be. Whereas when I was younger I tried to adhere to the image existing solely in the minds of others. Thinking the core of self was pliable, malleable, and merely there to serve as an augmenter of love, where it is its transceiver. Receptive to, and transmitting, only certain set frequencies. I have come to accept that my natural signals often seem conflicting and paradoxic to others. I assure you they are not. However the code is hard to crack, and perhaps impossible to crack for those who cannot do so naturally.
Maybe I should explain myself: I have always felt like a sheep in wolf's clothing, when I never did choose that coat. It's a strange thing to not feel at home in your own skin, and it's even stranger to realize some covet such a nightly coat with gleaming eyes and flickering fangs. Yes, I am intense. But not of the one-night-stand variant. Yes, I am dark. But not of the... fuck, what even is the appeal? I hate every aspect of this shroud, these whirling clouds; different layers of death. I just don't get it. More and more I get annoyed by my book's cover, and those who judge its contents by assessing it. 
I am not a wolf. 
I can say that now. Shout it from the rooftops in dejected anger. But when I was young, I thought nothing was worse than being unloved. So I tried being what was expected. Walking the path of established connection, afraid of losing it. I thought nothing was worse than being unwanted. So I stripped myself from every piece that didn't fit the ideal image, painted. Now I know it is far worse to be loved for all the wrong reasons. Now I know how much I maimed myself. 
It was I who did not love me. 
It was I who deemed myself unwanted.
The damage is undone. I am at peace with the fact that I only resonate with very little people, far less amorously. But I am, if anything, perfectly me. It is my footing, and my peace. I have learned the hard way that one cannot, and should not, try to force a true connection. 
Once, I thought it was horrible to never be understood. 
Now I but pity those who can. 
However, nothing aches me more than the fate of those who mixed up love and mere intriguement. I recall those girls who dug too deep. Pried, and pried. In hindsight, simply unsatisfied by all that I longed to let shine. Sweet words they whispered, playing with my hands and chest hair in the silence of night, caressing my face; saying their love was unconditional, and that I denied them the chance of true love's entirety, and as such, its eternity, till finally, I let them in. 
Oh, love. True love. Eternal love. 
My weak spot. 
To have only the slightest chance at something like that is what kept me making the plunge, when I knew I should not make it. Alas, people can say the words akin to love and not experience it in all the vehemence wherein I have come to know it. They utilize it as a tool, a cruel makeshift key to open any doors they want. So, some have faked a mutual resonation, for some reason.
Those girls... all they learned is that true darkness is a vile and wicked thing. It empowers none, it debilitates them. It is a taint that spreads to nestle at the deepest root of self, as a tick, or a leech, ever gnawing, never latching off. And I, the damned, sent them home with the winged creatures of ever-despair swirling in their guts. Mine is the guilt, and so the penance. I could but stand by helpless, watching them grasp at straws, one more extreme than the other, to rid themselves of the evil seed I had planted in them. I have seen their hapless struggle. I had caused it. It left me grief stricken. Remember, these were girls I loved. Or, at least, genuinely tried to love. If only I had known. And as I do now, I can only say: nevermore.
It is not a paradox. I am light. Yet I possess a great darkness. It is not stronger than love. Yet it destroys all who think they love it. It is not to be loved. Do not cradle it in your arms. Do not nurture it. Accept that it exists, yet that no energy put in it will make good of it.
Love me for my light.
If ever I will learn to love again. If ever I would be so blessed to in one lifetime encounter another soul connection... 
See my light. I beg of you. 
It is all I seek to let grow. My mind is a graveyard, yet I am not into headstone writing and I do not need any more corpses. For all my detrimental being, I am repulsed by rot, decay, and gore. What makes you think all this blood in my mouth makes me the kind to thirst for blood? I thrive on cynicism and die by hope, and all I long is you to grant me the death, heroic. 
Yes! More death. More corpses. 
It is not paradoxical. 
The latter gives life otherwise unlived first. Pray tell, you get this, for then you know I shine every time you have me reborn.
Make it so that I can grow flowers. 
See my light. 
To those who have seen it. To those who have nurtured it. Whether friends or lovers. All I can say, I do love you so. For seeing the sheep underneath the wolf’s coat. For praising the strength of a ram’s horns. For reading the book, despite its cover. And, most of all, I do love you so for making me see that I am light. That this can be, exactly, what makes someone like me desirable. 
I know, and welcome, the chance that I might never again find a home in another, for by your touches I own my own skin. 
For that I am ever grateful.
--- 25-6-2021, M.A. Tempels ©
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sweetalnazar · 3 years
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After an eternity, I updated!
CHAPTER 2: A HOUSE, A SHOP AND A HOME
Summary: After the defeat of the Devil, Aisha and Salim catch up on all they’ve missed, including the fate of the home once shared with Asra
4.3k words. Family Fluff/Feels, Emotional Hurt/Comfort. Tw for discussions of trauma and abandonment
Lowkey Mine/Asra/Muriel.
Other Notes:
- Mine uses she/they, but only ‘they’ in this setting. Asra alternates between ‘he’ and ‘they’
- 'Foreign' words are generally not italicized, to reflect the multilingual nature of the characters
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Chapter 1 || Read on AO3 || Tip Jar 🌟
Their home was no more.
In Aisha’s memory, on her street by the heart of Center City, was the little two-storey house squished between a bathhouse and an apothecary, the place she called home. 
The kebab stall down the street, the scent of smoked lamb drifting through the air as she passed it by on the way to the palace. The neighbour opposite her, who grew a rich garden on her balcony with her wife, and gave Aisha a flower each time they met. The sound of the neighbourhood children kicking balls in the streets and chasing each other in the evenings.
The creak of the door hinges that never agreed with Salim’s oils, no matter what formula he used. The colorful tapestries from their families, a parting gift, that decorated the walls, as well as the numerous paintings, from Salim’s hand, from Aisha’s, and of course, Asra’s. The music echoing through their house in the evenings, the strumming of her qanun and Asra’s little hand beating on the riq, Salim’s beautiful voice accompanying.
All of it, every single bit of the house that held all these memories, had been reduced to rubble and broken brick, just like the rest of their neighbourhood.
There was a year of powerful lightning storms in Vesuvia that had led to fire, and the crowded buildings smooshed together, unprepared for such a hazard, was like kindling in a fireplace. Flames engulfed everything in their path, and when they couldn’t, the burning buildings and structures collapsed on their neighbours, leading to almost their entire neighbourhood being destroyed. 
According to Asra, he and Muriel––one of his partners––had run away to the east docks during the blaze, closer to water where it was safer. When they returned, there was barely anything left of the neighbourhood, much less the house.
Salim gulped his tea down, to the point he started coughing. Aisha thumped him, once, before switching to alternating between patting and rubbing his back.
“T-that’s something, Asra,” he said, the shock still clear on his face.
“Haha, yeah…” Asra stared awkwardly at his own teacup.
“Revani anyone?” Mine interrupted, holding a plate of brown squares, topped with crushed walnuts and pistachios. “I got a really good recipe from Selasi, so me, Asra and Muriel tried making some.” 
Grateful for the interruption, all three at the table took a piece each.
It had been a month or so since the defeat of the Devil, the triumphant return of Asra and Mine, and at long last, Aisha and Salim were catching up on what they had missed since their disappearance almost two decades ago. 
The two of them had asked Asra to see their old home, the very first house they had moved in as young newly-weds ready to start their new life.
Instead, he had brought them to the magic shop.
He had gestured for them to sit in a corner of the shop, where a couch and armchairs surrounded a rickety table opposite the counter. While Salim and Aisha took the couch, he had taken an armchair, the one closer to his mother’s side.
With Mine perching on the armrest by his side, and Muriel––quiet as always––sitting by the counter, Asra began regaling the tale of the house’s fate; from the landlord kicking him out, to new tenants, to its demise.
While the palace had remained constant, almost assuring in how little it had changed, much of the city had transformed. 
The Coliseum cast shadows across Goldgrave, obstructing the view of the arts district and its colorful antics. Red Street, once the pride of the Heart District and the Count, had been abandoned. Meanwhile, the bustling Shopping District had turned sullen and gloomy, the overflowing waterways mirroring its new name of the Flooded District. 
Then there was the little island far off-shore that loomed on the edge of the city, a reminder of darker times. Even the land itself had not stayed the same, the ebony, almost black sands of Ash Beach now bleached gray by the remains of the deceased.
Everywhere she looked, there was nothing but change. 
Old stores and restaurants Aisha and Salim had frequented were long gone, the shops now on their fourth or fifth newest venture.There was almost no trace of the Vesuvia Aisha had come to love, the city she had stepped into for her first big project away from home; when she and Salim had been young, newly married and determined to prove their skill away from their families. 
Or at least away from Aisha’s family, the renowned Alnazar name. 
“Basbousa,” Salim spoke, breaking her train of thought. 
She stared down at the cake in hand. Below the brown crust was a familiar buttery yellow. 
“I thought I recognized the smell!” Salim went on, holding his piece up enthusiastically. 
“It’s a little burnt, sorry,” Mine apologized. “We weren’t sure how hot the oven needed to be, since well, none of us usually bake.”
As Salim and Mine continued making small talk, Aisha took a bite, and her eyes widened. 
“Orange blossom syrup,” she said, surprised.
“Just like you made it,” Asra said. He gestured to the cup of orange blossom syrup to the side. “Pour half the syrup while it’s hot––”
“And leave the rest for serving,” she finished. Her chest tightened, a little, and she smiled down at the small square cake.
“I––I didn’t actually remember the name,” Asra confessed. “People in Vesuvia call it ‘revani’, but I always called it the orange blossom cake. Or the cake with semolina butter.”
Aisha laughed. “I remember! You were always trying to eat the entire butter slab while we were baking.”
“What do you mean ‘trying’? They were halfway through their second slab when we caught them that one time,” Salim pointed out.
“Asra!” Mine exclaimed, staring at them with wide eyes. “You didn’t .”
“It tasted nice when I was little,” Asra shrugged. “I liked how the texture felt when I gnashed the butter between my teeth.”
From the counter, there was a snort, and Aisha could have sworn Muriel mumbled, “...typical” under his breath.
Meanwhile, Mine rose to their feet, taking a couple of cakes on their plate, and went over to the counter, squeezing Asra’s hand before they left.
Salim took a few more pieces, munching happily, and Aisha did the same, placing another square on her plate.
“Back to our original topic,” Aisha said, “what happened to the house after that?”
“Oh.” Asra stopped, putting down his plate and taking a quick gulp of tea. “Well, it was kind of abandoned for a long time. Until Melaka––that’s Mine’s aunt––came along.”
“Then…”
Asra nodded. “That’s right. She built the shop right over where the house was.” He leaned back in his chair, and pulled the shimmery curtains behind him away to reveal the view from the large open window.
At the back of the shop, hidden by the tall storefront and the surrounding walls, was a courtyard. Garments flapped gently in the breeze from the clotheslines in the center, the clothing all different sizes. To one side, there was a collection of beakers and jars, as well as larger rectangular containers. They were all filled with dirt, plants of various sizes and types sprouting from them.
“Is that––” Salim squinted, “––another building back there?”
“That’s the kitchen,” Mine said. 
“Our main kitchen,” Asra clarified. “It’s where we put the ice box and the big stove and everything. There’s a sitting room too, to eat together.”
Aisha blinked, playing over Asra’s last sentence in her mind.
Had that been an invitation?
“Oh, that’s where Lucia and Hayrünnisa used to live,” Salim said. “Nisa would always give you seeds when she saw you, Asra.” 
“Seeds?” Aisha said. “Didn’t she usually give them those little flower crowns and rings?”
Asra’s eyes darted down, looking sheepish.
“Oops, sorry, Asra. It was supposed to be a secret.”
“What was?” Mine said, leaning over the counter, their elbows almost at the edge. Muriel pulled them back, but they stayed standing, bouncing on the balls of their feet.
“I think we’ve heard enough about my childhood,” Asra said, red dusting his cheeks.
“No, we haven’t!” Mine said. “Right, Muriel?”
Muriel nodded. If Aisha hadn’t known any better, she would have said his smile was almost teasing.
“It’s not as embarrassing as you think it was, Asra,” Salim said. “It was very sweet in fact.”
Asra pursed his lips, looking conflicted.
Aisha reached out, slowly taking his hand in hers and squeezing it. Asra snapped his head to look at her, startled.
“Habibi, we don’t have to talk about it if you truly don’t want to,” she told him gently. “But I must admit...I would very much love to hear this little secret of yours.” 
Asra chuckled, squeezing her hand back before she released him. “OK, mom. I guess...it has been long enough.” 
“Tell us!” Mine said, bouncing faster now, the pink-tipped dark curls resting on their shoulders bouncing higher.
“..calm down,” Muriel muttered, almost fondly, as he placed a hand on their rotund hip and attempted to get them to sit.
“Now for the story,” Asra clapped his hands, his face still a little red as he began. “I saw er, Nisa––”
“Aunty Nisa,” Salim corrected.
“Yeah, Aunty Nisa was always giving you flowers, mom, and I, I wanted to do that too. A whole bouquet of flowers that I grew on my own.”
“You wanted to make a big balcony garden just like hers.” Salim shook his head. “It took a while to talk you down too.”
“It’s true,” Asra laughed. “Dad convinced me to start small. He would let me borrow the beakers and jars from your lab. We’d get some dirt and I’d put them on the ledge under my window where you couldn’t see.”
“So that’s where all our equipment went!” Aisha said, smiling at her husband. She placed an arm around his shoulder, pressing herself closer. “And here I was, half-convinced you were melting them down for some explosive new experiment.”
“Aisha, I would never.”
She gave him a knowing look.
“...without telling you first, that is.”
“That is true. I do dislike not being privy to the workings of your beautiful mind, ya qalbi.”
“Of course, ya a’youni. How could I ever do anything without my eyes to guide me so?”
For a while, there was silence, as Aisha and Salim gazed lovingly at each other, lost in the other’s eyes.
Up until Muriel cleared his throat, mumbling, “...Getting mushy must run in the family.”
“Shh, Muriel,” Mine whispered loudly, elbowing him. “It’s romantic . Let them be!”
“Anyway,” Asra said, “So that’s my little secret, mom. I hope you, er, liked it?”
“I loved it, habibi. Thank you, it was very sweet.”
“We should try that again.” Mine bounded up to the chair, settling on the armrest again. “Growing a flower garden. We could get a few more beakers––oh, a proper plant bed maybe? Portia has a great garden, we could ask her for tips and stuff!”
“That doesn’t sound like a bad idea. Um, I mean, if you’d like, mom and dad.”
Aisha blinked, confused for a moment, until the meaning clicked. “You want us to garden...together?”
“Only if you want to,” Asra quickly clarified. “It’s fine if you don’t, it really is.”
“Not at all, Asra,” Salim said. “I think that’s a lovely idea.”
Aisha nodded firmly.
Asra smiled, then faltered, looking down. Before either Salim or Aisha could ask him what was the matter, he had pulled Mine close, whispering into their ear.
They bobbed their head, before their attention turned to Aisha and Salim. “We were also wondering if the two of you wouldn’t mind joining us for dinner sometime. Yknow, once in a while, we could sit down around the table and um, just enjoy a family meal.”
“A little get-together sort of thing,” Asra added. “Nothing special.”
“Oh, but habibi, that is something special,” Aisha said. “We, we haven’t really had anything like that in a long time.”
“Y-you don’t have to––”
“We want to,” Aisha and Salim said simultaneously.
“Asra,” Aisha began, “We have missed so much, too much, of your life. Every moment we can share with you, even in the littlest ways, they are precious.”
“We can’t make up all that lost time,” Salim said. “But we are going to try and make the most of our present. We can only spend so long lamenting our losses. We want to move forward...with you, Asra, if possible.”
Asra’s eyes glistened in the soft sunlight filtering through the curtain, and Mine put an arm around him, a reassurance.
“There’s no rush, of course,” Aisha said. “We can go at your pace, as you like.”
“N-no, it’s not, it’s not that.”
He cleared his throat, wiping at the corner of his eye with his thumb. Mine undid one of the clothknots from their fingers and offered it, which Asra accepted and dabbed at his eyes.
“Muri, come over here,” Asra waved. “I want you to be closer for this.”
“...fine.” 
Muriel shuffled over, chair in hand, before placing it down next to Asra and taking a seat. There was another empty armchair, across from Asra, but it seemed both his partners wanted to stay close to him right now.
Asra took a deep breath, his thumb running over Mine’s knuckles, before he started speaking.
“Mom, dad, I, I spent a long time alone. It was...it wasn’t easy. I had Muri, but we barely got by, especially when we were younger.”
Aisha swallowed, one hand gripping the edges of her hijab as she braced her heart. Neither she nor Salim were not technically at fault, but nonetheless, how could she not feel pain or guilt or grief over what her child, her precious little one, had been forced to go through in the absence of his parents? 
How could she not feel responsible for the pain Asra had gone through?
“We had good times, Muri and I, but––but there were a lot of days that hurt. There were a lot of days that were painful and scary.” Another inhale, Mine squeezing his hand. “...But what hurt most of all was wondering if, if you had left me alone on purpose.”
“Asra,” Salim breathed, the shock in his tone mirroring Aisha’s own. “We would never.”
“I know. I know that now. But when I was little and afraid, I had no idea. You just suddenly never came home, and sometimes––sometimes I wondered if it was me. That I had done something wrong, or if there was something wrong with me that made you want to leave.”
Salim opened his mouth to speak, but Aisha raised a hand, wordlessly gesturing for him to wait. Asra still had more to say.
“For the longest time, I believed no one would stay for me.” Tears rolled down his cheeks, dropping into his lap like little pearls, and his lips quivered as he said, “Because you two didn’t stay.”
Asra closed his eyes, exhaling, while more tears dripped down. Muriel passed a handkerchief to Mine, who promptly wiped at Asra’s cheeks.
“T-thanks, Mine, Muri,” he mumbled.
After wiping away most of his tears, Asra raised his head, meeting Aisha and Salim’s gazes. 
“Mom, dad, it’s not your fault, but it took me a long time to let people in again. To actually let people love all of me, instead of keeping a part of myself out of their reach so I wouldn’t get hurt. I––I’m actually still afraid, of letting people in. What if they get tired of me? What if they don’t want me anymore? What then?”
Asra had every right to be angry, to be upset, but to Aisha’s astonishment, a smile spread across his face, his expression growing brighter with each word.
“But I don’t want to be held back by my fears anymore. Even if I am afraid, I––I still want to try. Mom, dad, I want to try at us being a family again. I know it won’t be easy, and I know there will be a lot of times where things don’t go the way we planned. Despite that...would you still want to try with me?”
“Of course,” Aisha and Salim answered immediately.
“Asra...you’ve been through so much,” Salim said. “I am so, so sorry for what we put you through. I know the situation was out of our control, but not a day goes by that we don’t regret leaving you alone. You were so young, we should have been there to protect you, to help you.”
“But we weren’t,” Aisha said, unballing her fist and letting her hijab fall back into place. “Habibi, your scars run deep, and neither our apologies or efforts are enough to heal each and every past hurt. You can be angry or bitter towards us, we both understand. Regardless, we will always love you.”
Salim nodded. “No matter what. We might disagree with each other, or argue until our voices go hoarse, or even hate each other for a time, but no matter what happens, our love will never change.”
“To put it simply,” Aisha said, “nothing would make us happier than to try together with you, Asra, to be a family again.”
Asra’s hands flew to his face and he doubled over in the chair, white curls touching his knees. 
“Asra?!” Mine and Muriel exclaimed, Muriel jumping to his feet to come closer.
Then, Asra lifted his head, and Aisha understood his reaction.
His cheeks were completely damp, tears flowing freely, along with snot running from his nose. His body quivered with soft sobs he was barely holding in, both his partners hugging him on either side. 
He had been such a messy crier as a child, and some things didn’t change. 
“I––I’m sorry, I’m just...I’m f––feeling a lot of things right now,” he managed to choke out, attempting a wobbly smile.  
“There, there,” Mine said, rubbing his back, while Muriel poured water into his teacup. 
Once he had calmed down, though his eyes were still watery, he continued.
“Thanks, mom, dad. Thank you….for everything. I, I never thought I would hear you say that and I just…”
Mine patted his shoulder. “There, there, sayang. We get it. Go at your own pace.”
He rested his head on their chest. “Thank you, dearheart. And you, Muri, love.”
Muriel grunted. He had gone back to sit down, but his chair had been moved closer, in case Asra needed quick comforting once more.
Aisha smiled. “Seems to me like you’ve certainly found many who love you dearly.”
“And I’m lucky for each and every one.”
“As we’re lucky to have you, Asra,” Salim said. “Thank you, habibi, for being the sweetest, kindest and loveliest child there ever was.”
He laughed weakly. “Dad, stop.”
“It is true though,” Aisha said. “Take my word for it, I’m never wrong.”
Asra chuckled and shook his head, affection clear in the gesture. “Mom, dad...I love you. So much.”
Aisha blinked, her vision becoming watery now. She leaned over, grasping Asra’s hand. 
Together, she and Salim said, “We love you too.”
The hours seemed to fly by as the conversation carried on, the edges of the blue sky starting to bleed orange soon enough. When Aisha pointed it out, Asra stammered out an invitation to stay for dinner tonight, and Mine jumped to their feet in excitement, suggesting all of them could even cook together.
Naturally, Aisha and Salim happily accepted.
When Asra asked what they would like to eat, Aisha took one look at her husband, and in unison, they answered, “Lamb fatteh!” 
In Zadithi tradition, fatteh was a celebratory dish of rice and toasted pita bread, piles of mutton crowning the top and accompanied by savory sauces. Around many parts of the country, it was the Mahrajan dish, for the Mahrajan Qurban, or the Mahrajan Saum. 
Aisha had many a happy memory of breaking her fast to a plate piled high with falafel and fatteh and roasted eggplant, family and friends and loved ones all around her, and she could not help but wish her child could also have such wonderful memories too, even if it was a little late.
By sunset, the shop’s kitchen was a mess of splatters and ingredients strewn about, rice sticking to Aisha's hijab while the dark curls of Salim's fringe had stains of tomato paste. Yet at the same time, there was laughter and chatter resounding throughout the whole building, never quiet for a single moment.
And despite the mess, the fatteh turned out beautifully, looking gorgeous as Salim and Muriel brought it out on its large dish, almost dominating the entire coffee table.
Asra closed his eyes, inhaling deeply. Quietly, he said, “I haven’t smelled this in years. It’s just as wonderful as I remember.” He opened his eyes, turning to his parents. “I could never find the recipe to make it just like yours.”
“It’s the eggplant,” Salim said, brushing the last of the rice off her hijab. “Your mother loves them.”
Aisha laughed. “It’s the best part. My abi would make it like that.”
“My...grandfather?"
She nodded, her gaze becoming wistful. “It’s been such a while since we’ve seen my family. Your family, Asra. We are planning to reconnect soon...if you would want to.”
Asra bit his lip.
“You don’t have to, habibi,” Salim quickly said. “They are your family regardless, but you don’t have to force yourself into anything.”
“I’ll think about it….but maybe, I would like to meet them. Someday.”
Beside Asra, Mine bumped his shoulder, done with tying Muriel's hair back into a ponytail. “Baby steps, love. Take your time,” they said.
On Asra's other side, Muriel nodded in agreement. With his bangs out of his face, Aisha could see the softness beneath his gruff exterior, the love reflected in the green of his irises as he gazed at his partners. Truly, her child was surrounded by such wonderful people.
“Mine’s right,” Aisha spoke. “You can take your time, Asra. Whether it’s finding your roots in Zadithi, or connecting with us here in Vesuvia, your family isn’t going anywhere.”
Asra’s smile was soft and small, but radiant. “Thanks, mom.”
“Speaking of, can we start digging in yet?” Mine piped up. “I’m starving, and this fatteh smells wayyy too good for just staring at it.”
The rest of the table guffawed, even Muriel chuckling under his breath.
“Dig in, everyone!” Salim said
After reciting a tasmiya, they all began their meal, scooping up piles of rice and bread and lamb and eggplant, drizzling their dishes with ladles of tomato sauce and garlic sauce. 
As Aisha was halfway through her plate, Muriel told Asra, “You never did finish the story about the house.”
Asra put down his fork, surprise clear on his face. “Huh? What did I leave out?”
“Why it took so long for this place to be built.”
Asra’s cheeks flushed at this, in a way Aisha was starting to recognize.
“Asra Alnazar,” she said, “what did you do this time?”
“ Nothing ,” he said, though his expression was sheepish. “Things just...took a while. No one wanted this palace until Melaka came along. Once she did, she bought this lot and the one behind, and well, she rebuilt.”
“Despite Asra’s best efforts,” Mine whispered to Muriel, grinning.
“What do you mean?” Aisha asked, ears sharp as ever, before turning to Asra. “Habibi, what do they mean?
The blush grew deeper, his cheeks aflame, and he looked away. 
“Go on, Asra,” Muriel said, a little quiet, but a small, teasing smile tugging on his usually downturned mouth. “Tell them all about the hauntings.”
“The what ?” Salim exclaimed.
Asra covered the lower half of his face with his hands, his cheeks aflame now. 
Mine cackled. “Go on, Asra. I’m sure your parents will love this.”
With a sigh, he relented. “So, dad, mom, after the landlord kicked me out, I may have been, well, scaring all the new tenants away.”
“With an actual ghost?” Salim said.
“N–no, that was just me, doing some magic. Playing some pranks.”
“Scaring every single resident half to death,” Mine said.
“And sending them scurrying out in the middle of the night,” Muriel added.
“Yes, that.” Asra cleared his throat, continuing in a quieter voice, “And I may have also...committed property damage after Melaka first moved in.”
“ What?! ” Aisha said, her voice going shrill, trying to keep the grin from spreading across her face. “Asra!”
“Don’t forget breaking and entering,” Muriel chimed in.
“Trespassing too~” Mine sang. “I’m surprised auntie didn’t curse you into a toad or something.”
Asra glanced from one partner to the other. “Tonight is just about dredging up my entire embarrassing history, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Mine and Muriel replied.
“And we’re enjoying every bit of it,” Mine said, Muriel bobbing his head as well.
“So what happened next?” Aisha interjected. “Were you caught by Miss Melaka?”
“Yep,” Muriel said.
“I was,” Asra admitted. “And then…”
The night passed with stories of past memories, both the ones Aisha and Salim knew, and those they didn’t. And while a part of Aisha’s heart still panged at how much she had missed, she couldn’t help the joy and delight blossoming in her chest.
Perhaps they could not take back the past.
But to be allowed to be a part of Asra’s present, to be able to learn about the sort of person her child used to be and the person he was now, it was a gift beyond measure. 
And to know that they were still a family, that he still had a place in his life for them after all these years?
It was beyond her wildest dreams.
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 Notes Disclaimer: I'm not Middle Eastern or Arab, and much of this is pulled from the internet as well as some of my own basic knowledge as a Malaysian Muslim. Please feel free to correct anything.
Qanun: A type of stringed instrument found across the Middle East, Asia, Africa and southeastern Europe. Riq: A type of tambourine and a traditional instrument in Arab music. It's the national musical instrument of Pakistan Revani/Basbousa: A type of sweet cake popular in the Middle East, and has many names Fatteh: A type of dish that is served differently depending on region. In Egypt, it is a type of feast meal
Abi (ابي): Arabic, from abu (أب)/father, meaning 'my father' Habibi (حبيبي): Arabic, from huub (حب)/love, meaning 'my love' Ya Qalbi (قلبي): Arabic, from qalb (قلب)/heart, meaning 'my heart' Ya A'youni (عيونى): Arabic, from a'in (عين)/eye, meaning 'my eyes', an affectionate petname. *Ya is a word often placed before names/nouns, ie 'Ya Aisha' or 'Ya Habibi'. The closest translation I understand is akin to saying "O Aisha", but not quite accurate
Mahrajan (مهرجان) : Arabic, meaning festival. Eid, the biggest celebrations of the Muslim world, can also translate to festival and in this story, Mahrajan is essentially fantasy!Eid. Mahrajan Qurban refers to Eid ul Adha, while Mahrajan Saum refers to Eid ul Fitri Tasmiya (تَسْمِيَّة): Arabic, a fantasy equivalent to the Basmala. In Muslim tradition, it is common to utter a Basmala before carrying out a task such as before eating
Clothknots: Mine has ADHD and to help with their forgetfulness, they often tie clothknots around their fingers to serve as reminders Sayang: Malay, meaning 'love'. Here, it's used as a petname
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projectwkm · 4 years
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Okay, so... I’ve been seeing you posting a lot of stuff about Actor Mark being just misunderstood and actually nice- but, I’m not convinced. (Which is surprising considering I’m usually the one who likes the “villain,,,”) If I may ask, what’s this theory based off of?
This post has been a long time coming, so sorry! I totally didn’t realise I had asks on this blog,, I’m a fool.
So this is less of a theory of mine and more of an expansion on character and what we know! Do I think for a second Actor is going to be redeemed? No, and I hope he’s not, because I love him so much as a villain. Do I think he is redeemable? Absolutely. Everyone is.
Let’s get into why I think that!
1. ‘A Heartbroken Idiot’
This is the nickname our Mark (in this post I’ll call Actor Mark ‘Actor’, and real Mark ‘Mark, just to avoid confusion) gives Actor. In the WKM Explanation Stream, he calls him ‘a heartbroken idiot’ in reference to his plan on poker night. And if we think about what we canonly know to be true, then there is good reason for this:
The Actor, the Colonel and the Mayor were all childhood friends. The Colonel practically grew up in the Manor with the Actor.
The Actor married Celine. Do we know for certain that they loved each other? No. But we can gather that at some point they were happy, for reasons I’ll go into later.
The Colonel slept with Celine behind the Actor’s back while they were married, and also borrowed copious amounts of money from the Actor to do so (?). The last part could be slightly biased or inaccurate considering Abe was on the Actor’s side for the most part, but I don’t see why he has reason to lie.
The Actor found this out, the Colonel and Celine left, and the Actor spiralled. So far he tried to kill him self. He did kill himself — over and over until his desire to die turned into a desire to understand the Manor he lived in and its oddities.
There are a lot of gaps there, in all honesty. A lot of questions unanswered. Did the Actor and Celine really love each other? Did Celine really love the Colonel? Why was the Colonel so willing to go behind the Actor (his close friend, remember)’s back and have an affair with his wife? Why was Celine so willing to leave her husband if she married him in the first place?
But those questions aren’t important right now, because I’m sticking as close to canon as I possibly can. What matters is that the Actor was betrayed by one of his best friends and that his wife left him in an awful way. They hurt him so badly that he tried to kill himself. Now, this isn’t me ignoring the Entity’s part in all this — we’ll get to that later.
But the purpose of Mark calling Actor a ‘heartbroken idiot’ is that it shows his only motive initially was heartbreak. His actions, initially, weren’t the actions of a man who wanted to destroy his friends and loved ones. In fact, by looking at his attempts to die, especially the first ones, we can see that the only person he wanted to destroy initially was himself. He’d been hurt, badly, by people he called “his close and trusted friends (WKM)”. And he wanted an out. He turned aggressive and revenge-twisted was when his very basic autonomy over his own life was denied to him by the Manor not letting him die.
“After Celine and the Colonel left, Mark was left in this super spiral downwards. He was just completely out of it, didn’t know what to do, and he may have at one point tried to kill himself. But it didn’t work.” (Mark, WKM Explanation Stream)
So before the Manor Entity intervened, was he a bad person? No. Most definitely not. How do we know this, apart from what I’ve said above? This brings us on to point 2:
Celine and Damien
The braincells of the WKM gang, truly. Do you really think they’d stay friends with Actor if he was a bad person? Scratch that, do you think Celine would have married him if he was a bad person? Ruling him as an awful evil person from the start completely undermines the intelligence of the other characters who had been ‘fast friends for years’ with Actor.
That’s not to say he’s flawless. He has an abundance of flaws that the Entity brings out in him (see point three), but even before the Entity, his flaws were probably very visible, especially to his friends and wife. Actor was no doubt an egotistical ass, don’t get me wrong, he was no saint, but he also wasn’t evil. If he was, Celine, who could sense the energy of the Manor as soon as she walked in, would have surely refused to marry him.
It’s hinted that they didn’t have the best relationship by Mark in the DAMIEN Explanation Stream, that much is true. Their reasons for marrying could have been anything — from a passionate spur of the moment decision they didn’t properly think about, to a marriage potentially motivated by finance or power — and we don’t know if they were ever truly happy. We don’t know if Celine loved Actor, but it is implied she at least felt something for him, judging by the look of distress on her face in Chapter Three of WKM when it is revealed Actor is dead.
We also don’t know if Actor loved Celine. I’m inclined to say he did, considering his original plan was to steal the Colonel’s body and get back together with Celine, but there’s a fine line between love and obsession. (In my personal opinion, their relationship started off well before the Manor Entity began to shape them, but my personal opinion doesn’t come into it right now.)
But do you really think if he’d been evil or abusive (as I’ve seen some call him) that Celine or Damien would even be upset about his death, nonetheless have stuck by his side for so long? I doubt it. Mark says nowhere that Actor was a bad person to start off with, and goes into detail of what the Manor Entity actually did to him in the Explanation Streams of DAMIEN and WKM, so read below for more notes on that!!
The Manor Entity
Aha.... my least favourite character of all time...
Words cannot describe how much I despise this thing (whatever it is, Mark described it as more of a concept than anything else). Even as I write this, I feel a boiling rage inside me. Nonetheless! I will keep as fair and as unbiased of a take as I can while I analyse Actor’s relationship with the Manor Entity.
So let’s start with its affects BEFORE the Colonel and Celine left. These characters were fucked the moment they lived in that house. The Colonel and the Actor have been affected worst by it due to living in the house as kids; as Mark says, they grew up together in the Manor. So they’ve probably had the worst effects from it. Let’s see what Mark says about the Entity in the Manor!—
“The thing [about the Manor] that causes people to change, and the thing that curses people, it’s this…. Not a thing, but it’s this idea that whispers in your ear, and the worst thing it could possibly do is that it makes you think that the ends justify the means, in whatever situation…. It’s this thing gently over time just whispering.”
An idea. A whisper in your ear, exacerbating worse qualities and constantly suggesting. Something you don’t even know about until it’s too late. It’s not so hard of a leap to make that it could have made the Chef so aggressive (he’s been there the second longest, other than George the Groundskeeper), could have made the Colonel more hot tempered and liable to cause trouble between a husband and wife, could have very easily twisted the Actor to be a worse person.
We’ve already made it clear that the Actor is not without his flaws. On the contrary, he might be the most flawed from the group. Cocky and stubborn and prideful, passionate and a performer, it’s not so hard to see the Entity delighting at being able to plant seeds in his head. Just little suggestions: “maybe you’re better than them” “maybe they’re holding you back” “maybe they’re conspiring against you”. Just little, back-of-your-head thoughts that, over time, would change him into someone worse, something else.
Something that could have potentially driven him away from Celine and driven Celine into the arms of the Colonel.
Am I saying this is definitely what happened? No. As I say, a lot of canon from Before The Poker Night is missing, and left to speculation. But from what we know about the Entity, and what we know about what it does, it’s increasingly likely it’s been manipulating things from behind the scenes for a while even before the Actor takes his own life.
Cut to Celine and the Colonel leaving. Damien is gone too (God knows where, perhaps the Actor just shuts him out too), leaving the Actor alone in the Entity’s puppet strings. Another Mark quote!
Imagine [the Actor]: his wife left him, his friend betrayed him, the [Entity] whispers “that’s not fair, no, that’s not fair”.... “No, you’re right, that’s not fair.....” “Why should they be happy?....” “No, no, of course, no, they shouldn’t be happy.....” “Maybe they don’t deserve to be happy, maybe you should do something about them not being happy, maybe you should set something up to make sure they’ll never be happy again.”
The Entity is a powerful thing. Its powers are subtle, so subtle that the Actor probably didn’t even notice he was being changed in the first place. As Mark said “the more you stay in that House, the more it drives you toward things it wants you to do… and the worst part is it convinces you that you thought of it in the first place.”
The Entity could have been the one to suggest that he keeps killing himself. It could have very well been the one to lead him to his death in the first place. And the worst thing is that the Actor wouldn’t have a clue they weren’t his thoughts. He is a puppet without realising it, an actor for the Entity to direct in whichever way it wants.
It’s a gradual, awful process. And Actor? As the ‘heartbroken idiot’, the man Mark describes as being a ‘pawn’, that had a lot of time alone in the Manor depressed and bitter over being hurt? He didn’t stand a chance against it.
By the time we meet Actor in WKM, it is very unlikely much of the original man remains at all. While he acts cheery and cocky as usual in the beginning, the bitter puppet we see in the Void after we die and the mania-driven ‘hero’ from DAMIEN is most likely all that remains of the original. Mark from the WKM Explanation Stream explained that “every time [Actor] died, he got sent to this [Void], and was able to get a deeper understanding of it”. Doing so pushed him further and further into the embrace of the Entity, until he was nothing more than a pawn. A puppet.
Actors have little to no control over the scene they play out. It’s the director’s job to push them in the direction they want. And the relationship between the Actor and the Entity seems to function as such: even if the Actor himself doesn’t realise that yet.
And finally, my last point:
No characters are good.
Mark gave a very good quote in the DAMIEN Explanation Stream that I rely on when writing Actor, Dark and Wilford — “no one’s truly, fully, 100% evil”. In the same way, no one is truly, fully, 100% good all the time. It’s impossible. And incredibly relevant when it comes to our three Main Boys, who are all so flawed and broken that it’s not even funny.
We’ll start with Wilford first. It’s easy to forget (for me, at least) all the things he’s done wrong because he’s such a goddamn sweetheart. But- and I won’t go into too much detail- here are some of his ‘crimes’: poaching, murder (several times, as the Colonel and as Warfstache), an affair with his best friend’s wife, with multiple other offences written somewhere in the detective’s study / office (I can’t be bothered finding them dhdjdjnej). Arguably, he also has reason for people to point to him being guilty: he broke his best friend’s heart to the point he tried to kill himself. Which.... is not good.
This is not me hating on William or Wilford as a character. Au contraire, I love them both. But it’s very rare that I see anyone admit Will’s fault in this, or Celine’s (without laying it all on them, naturally, but that’s another story). Will/Wilford is a complicated character who now seems to be far more good than bad (or simply just mad) and has atoned for the past, but more often than not, people overlook his crimes and mistakes and flaws.
The same with Dark, though honestly to a lesser extent. As far as we know, there is very little that Dark has done. We don’t know if he’s killed anyone (other than perhaps Actor in HEIST), we don’t know what his true crimes are because his role is still heavily influenced by the Actor’s bias. But Dark still has his faults and flaws. He’s obsessive and clearly incredibly angry and bitter over what happened, trapped somewhat in the past the same way that Wilford is in the present and Actor in the future. Once again, this isn’t me hating Dark (he’s one of my favourite characters dfhjvffhh), but simply pointing out the negative sides to him, rather than ignoring them. It’s to point out that people — and characters — aren’t 100% good or 100% evil (honestly, they’d be less interesting that way). That includes fan favourites.
Actor is probably the worst out of them. He’s delusional, painfully narcissistic, arrogant and a self-righteous asshole. Nobody is denying that. But underneath that, Mark also describes him as a ‘broken thing’: he’s not the man he used to be. Can he be easily seen as evil now, after everything he’s done? Yes. He’s murdered and he’s betrayed, but let’s not forget he too was murdered and betrayed. This doesn’t excuse what he’s done, but rather offers us insight into his thinking — an eye for an eye. In his eyes, the poker night (at the time) was justified. William and Celine and Damien all betrayed and hurt him, so he was going to hurt them.
Things didn’t go according to plan for him, though. I very much doubt murder was in his original plans, but alas, the Entity twisted his plans unrecognisably. (Whether or not he now regrets the poker night and his actions is up for speculation, and for another post sghcdgb.)
If it is Actor in HEIST and DATE (which I’m very inclined to say it is), it’s clear to me he’s changed: even slightly. Sacrificing himself over and over for Y/N, wooing them with dates and flashy heists, planning everything perfectly for them and giving them the choice on their adventures: now, this could just be me, but that sounds rather far from an evil man. Instead, it sounds to me like Actor knows he’s done bad things, but instead of trying to confront them, he simply runs away from them; he escapes from the reality he’s created by delving into fictional fantasies of adventure where he can finally be the hero.
And that’s not action of a man who is entirely evil. That’s action of a desperate man. A coward, perhaps, but not wholly bad or awful. “A pawn in all this”, as Mark describes him, unable to come to terms with the atrocity of the poker night and what he’s done to his old friends.
To Conclude My Answer!
Actor Mark is my favourite character of all time and has turned into a special interest of mine, but I hope he’s not redeemed. That being said, he is not an ‘evil’ character, and could certainly be redeemed if he ever fully escaped the Entity’s control and owned up to stone for the past (though being redeemed would almost certainly break him — another post for another time).
Everyone’s interpretations of Actorare valid, but I also think it’s important when writing him as close to canon as possible to remember some of Mark’s comments on him, and also to remember his past and how he’s been manipulated by the Entity into something different entirely. While doing so doesn’t excuse his behaviour or awful actions, it offers insight and a way to understand why he’s done certain things!
Ultimately, it’s up to Mark himself to canonise or develop the story and character arcs, which he has done so much already. I cannot WAIT to see where Actor and everybody’s stories end up going, and big preesh to him for making such a heartbreaking wonderful story!!!
If anyone would like to hear me rant more about Actor or the story of WKM and it’s sequels, leave a question or ask and I’ll certainly do it!!
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katerix · 3 years
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Hey @pinyapple​! I’m your Secret Cupid! Here I am jumping from the horse into the last wagon of the event train:D I hope that the story is interesting, and you’ll enjoy it! @rdr-secret-cupid​ 
Pairing: John Marston\f!Reader Warnings: fluff\angst&comfort\a hint of smut - 3in1: a little bit of this and that Words: 3434 (picture is not mine \ credits to the author)
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“Morning, my dear girl,” said your father when you approached a big wooden table in the middle of the kitchen. “Good morning, dad,” you smiled, sleepily rubbing your eye.
It was a Saturday morning and today you woke up exceptionally late, about 1pm.
You were living on a small farm with your father. It was located a few miles away from the nearest town and it would’ve taken a half an hour to ride there.
You loved to take an old Travis the horse from the stable and ran away where the sun was waking up early. You liked to dream about travelling, adventures and far lands in the shadow of a big tree not very far from your house.
“I’ve been in town this morning,” said your father. “Did you? You never told me that you were going to. How was the ride? Everything was fine?” “Yes, sure. I saw Mrs. Anderson. She sent her regards.” “Oh, I appreciate that, thank you,” you smiled at him.
Mrs. Anderson was a nice woman who had a small flower shop and always gave you some flowers when you attended the town.
“I will drop in during the next visit,” you said while making yourself tea and sliced some more bread. “That’s what I’d like to hear!”, he replied.
Mr. (y\second name) was conservative when it came to the questions of manners. You were always expected to be a polite girl from a good family and you definitely were. But the young blood always desires venture. May it be caused by the stars location or chaotic decision of capricious gods, but something led you to the meeting with a man called John Marston on that fateful evening.
You opened the newspaper which was on the corner of the table and looked through some articles before you turned to your father.
“Dad? I wanted to go for a walk tonight. I heard that this evening will be special and the starfall must be observable from our part of the world!” “What do you say!” “Yes! I heard it from Mr. Douglas a week ago.” “You want to go out alone at night? You are a grown up lady and it’s not my privilege to tell you what to do, but don’t you think it’s a dangerous idea? There’re criminal elements in this area, you know that." “Oh don’t worry papa, I won’t be alone. I arranged to get together with our former sheriff’s elder son. He likes astronomy, do you remember that?” “Sure I do,” - he kept silent for some moment then said, - “Well. I think I can agree on that.”
Sheriff’s elder son was a man in his early forties and was married to a town girl and had already earned himself time to do astronomy, so there was nothing to worry about. Of course, getting such an alibi was a bold action, because if your father decides to ask about observing the stars, just from the point of good manners, the truth will be brought to the light. Your actual plan was to meet with John today. You also wanted to discuss a family dinner. The truth was that none of them knew about it - that’s why you were feeling a little nervous about the upcoming meeting. You wanted to introduce John to your father, but he always wanted you to unite for life with a noble young man from a prospective family, occupied in, let’s say, sales. Somehow you and John could hide your relationship for more than a year. His lifestyle, his bonds with the gang were making you question the possibility of your fine peaceful life together one day. And the fact that Mr. Marston never protested against these dreams of yours, was inspiring a warm feeling in your heart. 
“So when do you want to leave?” “Around half past nine, it must be almost dark.” “You sure you don’t want me to escort you there?” “No-no, there’s no need for such sacrifice,” you giggled. Your dad gave you a delicate smile and sipped from his cup.
*** There was nowhere to rush now, when the father approved your little prairie voyage, so the rest of the day you spent in the garden behind the house. The territory of the ranch was quite big but the main part of your property rendered suitable land for agriculture. A small piece of it was gifted to you in order to plant flowers there. A lot of seeds were bought from Mrs. Anderson's, and sometimes you even brought her some of your own for sale. Roses of any kind and size, some tiger lilies and peonies- that all made your flower garden look great.
The closer to the time, the more excited you were. You dressed in a shirt and trousers with boots, with a thin fur jacket - for the night ride it was the best option - and took a creamy pink rose to put it in your hair once you are beyond the fence. You went down to find your father and say him goodbye.
“Dad, you here? I’m leaving!”
You looked into the living room, expecting to see him there with a book or at the table, writing another business letter, but it was empty. Then she heard a noise from the second floor and saw your father on the staircase.
“Already going?” “Yes, it’s high time. I’ll do my best to come back before dawn!” “What are you doing to your old man, young lady!” he laughed, making his way down the stairs to give his daughter an embrace. “Don’t worry, I will be fine, I promise. Please, you should think about your heart, papa,” you smiled widely, hugging him in an answer. “Be careful, my dear.” “I will,” you waved with your hand.
*** You almost approached the meeting point, when you felt your horse getting worrisome and saw the skies turning dark quickly. Rains in this area were starting as fast as they finished and you could only wonder “why now?”. Deep dark heavens didn’t condescend to the answer, so you just rubbed your legs in disappointment and continued riding to find a hideout before the first raindrops. You purposely avoided the Thieves Landing, so there were not many placed to hide from the rain on her way. During your and John's last meeting some days ago you decided to meet in the woods in West Elizabeth where there was a perfect spot upon the cliffs to watch the grand river from a distance, where not a single soul could disturb them.
Suddenly she heard a horse neighing then she saw a rider coming from behind the hill. At first you were dismayed as you didn’t have any weapon, but a moment later you recognized a familiar figure.
“Hey, sweetheart, isn’t it dangerous for such a pretty lady to ride alone at night?” then a low laughter followed.
When John’s horse got closer, you couldn’t help but resent:
“You scared the hell out of me! I thought it was a gangster who tracked me down.” “Well, actually I am a gangster, you see!”
As he hoped, your frustration was softened by his silly joke. It always gave him a warm feeling, because his sense of humor left a lot to be desired, but you always found it funny.
His horse drew level with yours, and he leaned down to kiss you, grinning when he saw how modestly you hid your smile.
“Oh no, y\n, do not hide this beautiful smile from me!”
You raised your head and looked at the man. His hand reached out to you and gently touched your chin, leaving a deep kiss on your lips.
“How was the road? Got without troubles?” asked John, picturing the way from the ranch to this point in his head. “As long as troubles don’t follow me - it’s fine by me. Why?” “It’s nothing really. On the way here I saw some gentlemen, heading west.”
John looked up in the sky and his eyebrows got together as he noticed how lightly you were dressed and how the sudden gust made your hair fly. “I know an old abandoned household not far from here. If we move right now, we can reach it before the storm.”
“I feel that something worries you.” “No-no, that’s totally fine,” he replied, taking a last look in the direction you came from.
After a while you finally reached the mansion that John was talking about. In real life it turned out to be bigger and more of a manor than “an old abandoned house”. Suddenly the skies split up in two by bright lightning, then a remote thunder hit your ears. You shuddered. What got into you? You were never afraid of thunder or darkness but this time something was scratching your heart with little iron claws.
You didn't notice that John had already dismounted, came over to you and put his hand on your leg, gently running it up and down.
“We going? Or you prefer to stay under the rain?” “Ah? Yeah,” with these words you tried to get down from the horse, only to end up in his arms, as he readily caught you up. You felt your heart beat faster against his chest, so you even wondered if he felt it or not, when you saw a dorky smile on his face.
“You’re so beautiful,” he whispered. That, obviously, was not the most non-banal compliment, but he couldn’t help but admire your features and the flower in your hair, which so perfectly accentuated the color of your eyes. John didn’t let you stand on the ground and carried you all the way to the mansion.
When you entered the building, you stood on the floor and looked around. Tall walls were covered in old, almost destroyed by dampness, dull red wallpapers. You walked around the room and stopped next to the beautiful, probably, handmade sofa. John walked up to you and cuddled you from behind. His hand traced along your stomach and slid to your leg. You felt his warm breath on your neck. You turned around and kissed his jawline, moved up to the lips. He answered with a deep, passionate kiss. Then, with a sharp movement, he lifted you up and put you down, pinning down onto the couch.
*** “John?” “Yeah?” his voice sounded low and lazy. “I need to tell you something.” “I’m all ears, sweetheart.” “Do… Do you love me?” you felt how your cheeks were becoming hot. You also realized how silly this may sound, but you couldn’t take your words back.
John looked down at you lying on top of him and thoughtfully twirled a lock of your hair around his finger.
“Of course, princess. Why’d you ask?”
You were not sure how to reply so you didn’t rush to look in his eyes.
“You remember my father? Mr. y\sn.” “I’ve seen him in the town once. But never after that. Is that about him? Did anything happen?” “No, everything is fine. I just wanted to ask if… Would you come for a family dinner tomorrow? I’d introduce you to my father…»
He kept silent for a while. So you started to feel nervous and asked yourself why you even initiated that conversation. But then he answered:
“I’m not in my best shape to show up in higher society, you know..”
Again you looked up at him. Then smiled and gently touched his cheek, fingertips slowly stroking his fresh scars.
“I absolutely love your current shape, John.”
You felt him pressing you against his chest closer, rubbing a little invisible patterns on your bare back.
“It would be a great pleasure to come, but… You sure your father would enjoy my company? Because I’m not sure at all.”
Now it was your turn to make a pause.
He chuckled:
“Let it be.” “So will you come tomorrow?” “I’ll be there. I promise.”
The second you heard that, you felt like a huge rock got down from your shoulders, finally letting you breath.
You spent some more hours together in each other's embrace.
*** You were sitting on the doorsteps when you heard a noise from behind the barn. You didn’t expect John to come so soon and also why he didn't choose an open road to the ranch. After a long talk your father agreed to have dinner all together, so there was no need to sneak. The next moment you saw two riders, coming around the corner, your eyes got wider. Suddenly you heard the sound of a cocked gun to your left and shuddered.
“Hello, ma’am. Mind if I come in?”
You looked at the source of the sound and saw a middle aged man with shirt red hair and a whisker. You never saw him before, but you had no doubt that he was some gang leader. His hazel eyes were looking cold at you and it seemed obvious that an argument was not an option - a weapon pointed at you was a thing to be scared of.
“Move,” he ordered.
Two riders who were supposed to divert attention got closer, and you recognised two customers from the shop a week ago. Their leader with a rifle repeated in low tone:
“Go.”
You followed the order without saying a word. Men entered the house after you.
“Tie her up. I don’t like her sight, and I don’t want any surprise.”
Three more men entered the house and God knows how many of them left outside. One of the newcomers took off a rope and tied your hands up - you felt a slight pain caused by rough material.
“Good. And now, Mr.(y\sn),” he turned to your dad, “let’s talk.” The ginger man made an inviting gesture. You looked at your father and saw fear in his eyes, but he was acting totally cool and calm. Two men, standing next to the door, were holding rifles at the ready. Your dad nodded and went to the kitchen, followed by the ginger man.
You stayed alone in the living room, other gangsters were standing outside. You didn’t hear the conversation and had no idea about the reason for this attack, so you focused on the rope. An attempt to get rid of it has proven unfruitful, so you looked around to find any tool.
When you were about to stand up and search the desk drawers, a loud shot rang out behind the window. You saw three gangsters running out from the kitchen, swearing and shouting curses. You carefully approached the window and looked out. A splash of bright red blood covered the window glass and you staggered back, breathing heavy and fast. You heard a familiar voice from the distance:
“Don’t hide, cowards! Are you afraid of just one man?” taunting his enemies was so much like John.
You already started to worry - what if he would have changed his mind and would never showed up? You were happy that he appeared, and did it right in time. The sounds of battle continued unabated, and you thought that now was the best chance to get to the kitchen. The moment you were already next to the door your sight faced a dark shadow suddenly appeared in the doorway. You looked up and with a horror recognised the ginger man. You wanted to step away, but he grabbed you faster than you could blink.
“Let me go!” you tried to escape this tight grip but he was stronger.
You saw your father making an attempt to hit the bastard, but he didn’t seem to even notice that. He turned around and knocked Mr.(y\sn) down on the floor with his revolver.
“You son of a bitch! You will regret this!” you shouted at him. That was not a wise thing to do, but seeing him hurting your relative made you mad in a second.
“Language, lady,” the gangster chuckled, making an effort to hold you still, as you were kicking furiously, “Relax. I won’t hurt you,” his left, spare of a gun palm touched your cheek.
You were breathing heavily. “Where are you, John» you thought. Another one shot rang out louder , and you heard a voice screaming curses. For seconds you couldn’t hear anything from the outside. All outlaws were probably dead or wounded. But three gangsters were still inside the house - one behind the door corner, two others were next to the windows.
“C’mon, be a good girl,” said the gang leader and pulled you after him. Together you returned into the living room and the man stood behind a small purpur sofa, facing the doorway - the revolver at the ready. You couldn’t see your father was sitting beneath the wall, holding his hand on the forehead, a thin blood line was going down the temple.
The sound of shooting was getting closer, you heard how two or three bullets hit the wall. If earlier the gang leader was a picture of self-confidence, now this confidence of his started fading away. You kept quiet just continuing to fidget slightly.
The minutes seemed endless but the voice ripped you out of your thoughts:
“Hey mister, let the girl go. You don’t want problems, believe me!” “What about you taking your cowboy ass out of here, now?” “I’ll let you live if you free her.” “Put your weapon on the floor so I can see it and step inside. Or I'm gonna shoot this pretty face.”
John hesitated but then followed the order and put the rifle on the floor, slowly pushing it inside.
“I’m coming in. Don’t shoot.”
You felt how the ginger man swallowed loudly. He was nervous. You saw John entering. His right hand was close to body, another one slightly aside, demonstrating that he was disarmed. The gangster revolver was following the cowboy as he was approaching. He said something else, but you already stopped listening. You didn't have time to think that it could be dangerous but suddenly you kicked him hard on the leg with the heel.
Then everything happened too fast. You didn’t notice how John took out a gun with his right hand and shot right between the gangster’s eyes. 
“John!”
He rushed toward you, held your tied hands and hurried to untie them with his hands shaking.
“Shh-shh, you are safe, y\n, you are safe now, everything is fine,” he whispered.
Once you were free, he pressed you against him tightly, burying his face in your hair. You crossed your hands behind his back.
“You came!” “How could I not come?” he looked down at you, cupping your cheeks, and kissed you gently. 
You hardly kept a smile back. You two remained this way for a couple of minutes until your breath became calm and quiet. You were too overwhelmed with emotions that you didn’t even see a bloody wound on his shoulder.
“Oh no, your arm! You are hurt!”
“It’s just a scratch, baby,” he smiled at you, clumsily hiding a pleasure of you being so lovely and cute, and worrying that much about him. “Let’s help your dad,” said John and kissed your hand.
He stepped aside holding your hand in his and headed to the corridor. Your father was already back on foot and, when he turned to you, you saw an expression of relief on his face.
“Oh, you are safe, my dear girl, thank God!” you ran towards the oldman and hugged him.
John was standing a couple of steps aside with his head slightly bent down and a faint smile on his lips, leaning on one leg, left hand on his side. Only now you noticed that he was dressed not casually, but as festive as possible.
Mr.(y\sn) looked at John and you saw respect in his eyes. He approached the cowboy and held out his hand in order to shake in gratitude.
“To my knowledge, our hero must be John Marston,” he gave a fast glance in your direction, “you saved our lives, young man. I can never thank you enough for that.”
John shaked your father’s hand with a friendly smirk.
“Don’t worry, Mr.(y\sn). That was my duty to protect unarmed people from this bunch of bastards.”
“Well, don’t you mind going to the kitchen? Everything was prepared an eternity ago. Do you like whiskey, Mr. Marston?”
You came a little closer to them to be a part of a talk too.
“Sure, sir.”
Your father went away, and John softly touched your waist to let you go first.
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michaelbogild · 3 years
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Quotes by Lord Byron
Adversity is the first path to truth.
All farewells should be sudden, when forever.
All who would win joy, must share it; happiness was born a twin.
Always laugh when you can, it is cheap medicine.
And dreams in their development have breath, And tears, and tortures, and the touch of joy; They leave a weight upon our waking thoughts, They take a weight from off our waking toils, They do divide our being.
And gave no outward signs of inward strife
And mind and dust- and passions and pure thoughts
And when we think we lead, we are most led
As long as I retain my feeling and my passion for Nature, I can partly soften or subdue my other passions and resist or endure those of others.
Be thou the rainbow in the storms of life. The evening beam that smiles the clouds away, and tints tomorrow with prophetic ray.
Being of no party, I shall offend all parties
Between two worlds life hovers like a star, twixt night and morn, upon the horizon's verge.
But what is Hope? Nothing but the paint on the face of Existence; the least touch of truth rubs it off, and then we see what a hollow-cheeked harlot we have got hold of.
But what is Hope? Nothing but the paint on the face of Existence; the least touch of truth rubs it off, and then we see what a hollow-cheeked harlot we have got hold of.
But who, alas! can love, and then be wise?
But words are things, and a small drop of ink, Falling, like dew, upon a thought produces That which makes thousands, perhaps millions think
Come, lay thy head upon my breast and I'll kiss thee unto rest.
Dark-heaving; boundless, endless, and sublime, The image of Eternity, -- the throne Of the Invisible! even from out thy slime The monsters of the deep are made; each zone Obeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone
Death, so called, is a thing which makes men weep, And yet a third of life is passed in sleep.
Eat, drink and love...the rest is not worth a nickel
Eternity forbids thee to forget.
Even innocence itself has many a wile, And will not dare to trust itself with truth, And love is taught hypocrisy from youth
For Earth is but a tombstone
For the sword outwears its sheath, And the soul wears out the breast, And the heart must pause to breathe, And love itself have rest.
For there was soft remembrance, and sweet trust In one fond breast, to which his own would melt, And in its tenderer hour on that his bosom dwelt.
For truth is always strange; stranger than fiction.
Friendship may, and often does, grow into love, but love never subsides into friendship.
Had they been wisely mingled; as it is
Hath all the energy which would have made
he knew how to make madness beautiful
I am ashes where once I was fire...
I am so changeable, being everything by turns and nothing long - such a strange melange of good and evil.
I can never get people to understand that poetry is the expression of excited passion.
I do not believe in any religion, I will have nothing to do with immortality. We are miserable enough in this life without speculating upon another.
I feel my immortality over sweep all pains, all tears, all time, all fears, – and peal, like the eternal thunders of the deep, into my ears, this truth, – thou livest forever!
I had a dream, which was not at all a dream.
I have a great mind to believe in Christianity for the mere pleasure of fancying I may be damned.
I know that two and two make four - and should be glad to prove it too if I could - though I must say if by any sort of process I could convert 2 and 2 into five it would give me much greater pleasure.
I linger yet with Nature, for the night Hath been to me a more familiar face Than that of man; and in her starry shade Of dim and solitary loveliness, I learned the language of another world.
I only go out to get me a fresh appetite for being alone.
I slept and dreamt that life was beauty; I woke and found that life was duty.
I suppose I had some meaning when I wrote it; I believe I understood it then.
In secret we met - In silence I grieve, That thy heart could forget, Thy spirit deceive. If I should meet thee After long years, How should I greet thee? - With silence and tears
In solitude, where we are least alone
In vain!—As fall the dews on quenchless sands, Blood only serves to wash Ambition's hands!
It is an awful chaos-light and darkness-
Life's enchanted cup sparkles near the brim
Love will find a way through paths where wolves fear to prey.
Mix'd, and contending without end or order
My pang shall find a voice.
Oh too convincing - dangerously dear - In woman's eye the unanswerable tear
On with the dance! Let joy be undefined!
One certainly has a soul; but how it came to allow itself to be enclosed in a body is more than I can imagine. I only know if once mine gets out, I’ll have a bit of a tussle before I let it get in again to that of any other
Opinions are made to be changed – or how is truth to be got at?
Prometheus-like from heaven she stole The fire that through those silken lashes In darkest glances seems to roll, From eyes that cannot hide their flashes: And as along her bosom steal In lengthened flow her raven tresses, You'd swear each clustering lock could feel, And curled to give her neck caresses.
Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean - roll! Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain; Man marks the earth with ruin - his control Stops with the shore
She walks in beauty, like the night Of cloudless climes and starry skies; And all that's best of dark and bright Meet in her aspect and her eyes
Sigh to the stars, as wolves howl to the moon...
Sleep hath its own world, A boundary between the things misnamed Death and existence: Sleep hath its own world, And a wide realm of wild reality, And dreams in their development have breath, And tears and tortures, and the touch of joy.
So, we'll go no more a-roving So late into the night, Though the heart still be as loving, And the moon still be as bright.
Sorrow is knowledge, those that know the most must mourn the deepest, the tree of knowledge is not the tree of life.
Start not—nor deem my spirit fled: In me behold the only skull From which, unlike a living head, Whatever flows is never dull.
The best of prophets of the future is the past.
The bright sun was extinguish'd, and the stars Did wander darkling in the eternal space.
The dew of compassion is a tear
The drying up a single tear has more of honest fame than shedding seas of gore.
The great art of life is sensation, to feel that we exist, even in pain
The great object of life is sensation—to feel that we exist, even though in pain. It is this ‘craving void’ which drives us to gaming—to battle—to travel—to intemperate but keenly felt pursuits of every description, whose principal attraction is the agitation inseparable from their accomplishment..
The heart will break, but broken live on.
The morn is up again, the dewy morn, With breath all incense, and with cheek all bloom, Laughing the clouds away with playful scorn, And living as if earth contained no tomb,— And glowing into day.
The power of thought is the magic of the mind.
The thorns which I have reap'd are of the tree I planted; they have torn me, and I bleed. I should have known what fruit would spring from such a seed.
There are four questions of value in life... What is sacred? Of what is the spirit made? What is worth living for, and what is worth dying for? The answer to each is same. Only love
There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely shore, There is society, where none intrudes, By the deep sea, and music in its roar: I love not man the less, but Nature more
There is music in all things, if men had ears.
There is no instinct like that of the heart
There is the moral of all human tales: ’Tis but the same rehearsal of the past, First Freedom, and then Glory - when that fails, Wealth, vice, corruption - barbarism at last. And History, with all her volumes vast, Hath but one page
There's music in the sighing of a reed; There's music in the gushing of a rill; There's music in all things, if men had ears; The earth is but the music of the spheres.
Think you, if Laura had been Petrarch's wife, he would have written sonnets all his life?
This should have been a noble creature: he
Those who will not reason, are bigots, those who cannot, are fools, and those who dare not, are slaves.
Though the night was made for loving, And the day returns too soon, Yet we'll go no more a-roving By the light of the moon.
Tis sweet to know there is an eye will mark our coming, and look brighter when we come
To have joy, one must share it.
To him the magic of their mysteries; To him the book of Night was opened wide, And voices from the deep abyss revealed A marvel and a secret.
Truth is a gem that is found at a great depth; whilst on the surface of the world all things are weighed by the false scale of custom.
We of the craft are all crazy. Some are affected by gaiety, others by melancholy, but all are more or less touched.
Who knows whether, when a comet shall approach this globe to destroy it, as it often has been and will be destroyed, men will not tear rocks from their foundations by means of steam, and hurl mountains, as the giants are said to have done, against the flaming mass? - and then we shall have traditions of Titans again, and of wars with Heaven...
Why I came here, I know not; where I shall go it is useless to inquire - in the midst of myriads of the living and the dead worlds, stars, systems, infinity, why should I be anxious about an atom?
With just enough of learning to misquote.
Yet he was jealous, though he did not show it, For jealousy dislikes the world to know it
You don't love a woman because she is beautiful, but she is beautiful because you love her. Never underestimate the power of love. The way to love anything is to realize it may be lost. The heart has its reasons that reason does not know at all. Music is love in search of a word. There is pleasure in the pathless woods; there is a rapture on the lonely shore; There is society, where none intrudes, by the deep sea, and music in its roar.
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baelpenrose · 3 years
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Arcadian Inquisition 72: Planting Seeds
Violet working in Faith Circle and rabble-rousing. Thank you to @canyouhearthelight for beta-reading. Intrigue gettin' good.
Violet
Dear Violet
It would seem our favorite paintswatch and newsreel is having some relationship difficulties, ones I was able to use to turn to our advantage to get them and my Journeyer on speaking terms - and possibly point them to an interesting scoop. Hopefully it’ll help their relationship get better, you know how I root for those two. Seriously, why couldn’t you have been here, you know how much I hate dealing with human emotions.
Do exactly what you think you should when you finish reading this.
Ash
I read the letter. I read it again. Then I carefully wiped all trace of it from where it was on the server on the archival terminal. Then I started howling with laughter at the thought of Ash having to help River and Tyler with relationship issues. Especially since it sounded like he’d had to come at it from Tyler’s end. The pained tone I could feel him use in the letter - even with the fact that he’d had to write it in code, playing up his reputation and acting as dispassionate as ever, made it even funnier.
Still. I hadn’t been idle the last few months myself. I’d been talking amongst the other Faith Circle. Preaching here and there. It wasn’t likely that other Inquisitors would be reading this, but I wasn’t taking any chances.
I was speaking to dozens of other druids - many of whom had been unhappy with the direction of the Inquisition Belladonna’s ascension to Archdruid of the Inquisition. A cornerstone of the Faith Conclaves was the right to openly assemble and dispute the different sects, and their places in Sectaria, Unsubstantia, and Heretica. The Inquisition was supposed to be the executive and military wing of the Faith and ones meant to execute any who abused the sacred trust we were given as guides of communities - and I had no issue with that. That was the proper place of the Inquisition in regards to my Circle - a watchdog force for a violation of the sacred trust we were given, NOT enforcers of anyone’s idea of orthodoxy to smother alternative sects.
Yet, under Belladonna, and for that matter, for several generations, they were increasingly too comfortable sending representatives to Conclaves. It was technically their right to do so to avoid getting information secondhand, but the fact that the most militant Inquisitors were consistently chosen as representatives and those with the harshest of reputations for heavy-handed action against heretical priests or shamans had hardly gone unnoticed - or without resentment.
Further, more and more refugees were coming to us - from the wars in the Plains Federation and the New England Empire. Most Arcadians saw the warfare as almost a joke - the two other superpowers on the continent ripping into each other over mountains in the borderlands in Appalachia, or over fishing in the Great lakes. But the peoples in those regions weren’t eager to put up with it - risked a great deal to come to Arcadia - often abandoning the faiths of their families or history, much of their lives and livelihoods to come to Arcadia or the Bayou Confederacy to get away from the blue-clad riflemen of the New England Empire or the horse-mounted raiders of the Plains Federation. Many of these people wanted to know they could be safe from the harsh judgements of Inquisitorial interference - and that their children could be welcomed in the halls of power without prejudicial treatment for their foreign birth. It was easy enough to paint myself as sympathetic to them - especially since I actually was. Given Ash’s past as a Druid who despite his arrogant dogmatism was aggressively interventionist in defense of sectarian rights, and stories of Pike were growing - especially since I’d long since figured out where some of the stories of Ash as a grim-faced murderer came from. And my own reputation as a frivolous Druid walking the crumbling edges of heresy was beginning to wear on me as well. It was long since time to pay some of those back.
Belladonna’s golden boy deserved a bad reputation of his own.
“He’s willing to lie and slander people to get what he wants. He’s abusive to his apprentices. He’s fought fellow inquisitors. He’s Belladonna’s attack dog. Watch out for him.”
Add it in together, and the assimilationist, anti-nativist view was definitely growing, both in my circle and outside it. The issue was that the longer that I kept about this, the more likely it was that someone was going to trace the rumors back to me - and I wasn’t sure who it was likely to be. Pike, possibly, though he wouldn’t act without Belladonna’s say-so in the matter or at the very least, wouldn’t kill me over it without Belladonna’s say-so and she wasn’t going to risk the intranicene fallout of having a Faith Mentor killed over a political dispute like that - not that openly, not that traceable.
I was meeting with an Inquisitor next. Of all of them, it was actually Willow Roanoake - Ash’s mother. She was in Crests at the moment. If anyone in the Inquisition was likely to have Ash’s back, it was going to be her. I finished up the work I was doing, preaching a bit, and went to the tea shop where I was supposed to meet with Willow.
There was noise - that was good. She’d picked the spot well, which meant she had some idea what we were going to be talking about. “So, Violet. I wanted to talk to you.”
I nodded. “Right, I heard you were on a mission. What was it?”
“Had to oversee the liquidation of a few banned texts - recycling the paper, all that, recovered from heretic camps during the most recent anti-Nihilon campaigns. Honestly pretty far below my paygrade but I’m not the swordsman my son is, and I’m only good as an investigator, so. Not much at the moment. Hoping something worth investigating will turn up. So, you wanted to speak to me?”
I leaned in as the little band in the corner played. “So, here’s the thing. Belladonna’s control of the Inquisition has caused a lot of problems for my Circle for a long time. She’s turning the Inquisition into a way of enforcing orthodoxy - and she’s been isolating your son for toeing the line, like when he ran off to be a Guardsman during the Crusade like a lot of people did. He’s a friend of mine - and River is a good kid. She’s learning well. You and Sage taught him well. He’s brilliant - and he’s got a plan to reform the Inquisition. Make it better. More inclusive. Better at protecting people, keeping sectarian rights in tact without endangering the mission of the Inquisition in any way.”
I had read the founding texts. The Founders had been ideologically iconoclastic and had hopes that someday the Inquisition wouldn’t be necessary, but I had doubts about that - despite the many, many sectarian possibilities of Gaianism, there still needed to be a watchdog force to keep priests in line - to keep people from preaching insanity or cruelty in ways that would turn people on each other. I didn’t favor abolishing it - not for many years yet. But reforming it would be necessary, and I did believe in the overall mission of the Inquisition - a watchdog force for the Druidic Circles, to shield Gaianism and the other Circles. It was a harsh truth but an honest one that love and knowledge, justice, and trust were pillars, but that without strength and the cunning to wield it well, you wouldn’t be able to maintain it. The Inquisition’s justice was harsh - but it gave steel to the love and justice of the Faith, who in turn ensured the knowledge of the circle of Ecology would be listened to.
We needed the Inquisition to do the right thing. Then Willow said something that made me start.
“Violet. Why are you trying to get my son killed?”
I paused. “Come again?”
“He’s had his rivalry with Pike for years. I don’t expect to stop that - those two aren’t compatible. That’s one thing. But you’re going to set him up as a messianic foe for Belladonna and half of the Inquisition. The things you’re stirring in the Circle, whether or not YOU know it, are deep and dark, and he knows it perfectly well. Pike’s the champion of what he’s picking a fight with, and he’s well aware of it. There’s a reason I’ve heard he and River want to demystify everything as part of their plan - and if you think people won’t come for him as a result, you’re kidding yourself. I don’t know how well the Inquisition will hold up to what happens if he gets the light of everyone looking into it at once on us. He’s good - he’d beat Pike in a straight fight. But if you think Belladonna won’t have him killed somehow in retribution before she goes down, you’re kidding yourself.”
What was it Ash wasn’t telling me? What was it Willow wasn’t telling me? What more didn’t I know about the Inquisition’s secrets?
And why...why was she only talking about the effect it would have on the Inquisition, with the retribution Ash would face as an afterthought?
Willow stood to go, and I suddenly reached out, barely stopping myself in time. Old or not, you don’t grab the wrists of Inquisitors without warning if you want your hands to stay the same shape.
“You bitch.” I whispered. “You wanted to get him to turn away. He always said he was a lower priority to you than the Inquisition. You’re one of Belladonna’s loyalists, aren’t you? Wasn’t enough to neglect the bastard to the point of him being...like that, now, or that he ran off to join the guard when he was old enough to, no, now his mother is going to wind up betraying him to Belladonna. Is that it?”
Willow turned to look at me, eyes sad. “No. Not the way you think. I won’t hurt him. Not for her. Not for anyone. But what he’s planning is going to rip the Inquisition apart. Destroy my whole life’s work, and get him killed. As his friend, I’m asking you to help me save his life. And if you think you get to lecture me about his well being when you’ve basically just weaponized his death wish for a political agenda…”
I reeled as Willow walked away, and tried to deal with the fact that we were going to be betrayed from one of the few Inquisitorial allies I thought we’d definitely have. And then it hit me - Ash was always cold, and distant from her.
But she’d been the one to make him like this. He still wanted her approval.
How was he going to take betrayal from her? And how was he going to take it when she asked him to stop?
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faithsreward · 3 years
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The lullaby was thousands of years old, one that Tophel had sang to every one of her grandchildren. It fell from the immortal's lips easily, soft words in a language that had been lost to time.
Tonight was a difficult night, one that reminded her of all the little ones she had lost, and the worry she had felt the moment she had detected her last grandchild's Darkness return. But somehow it had turned out fine, and the child's energy was strong enough to be felt through the new blanket Phel had wrapped around the baby. Her little shadow, the last of her bloodline, born again from pure stubbornness.
With all eyes focuses on the child in her arms Phel didn't really notice that the girl's mother had awoken, nor that she had been detected. Perhaps it was for the best, she probably should have introduced herself far earlier, but putting it off more would not have been helpful
@an-endless-saga​ (x) Luda could feel the light sparking off her but something in her waited. An old bond of kinship gave her a moment pause.
She felt her shoulders sag, this was the elemental then.
"Will you take her then?"
Her voice came barely above a whisper and she smiled at Kara. "She likes you. I've tried to let his sisters or my brothers hold her to give myself a moment's rest. But she screams and it feels like my soul is dying.”
She ran a hand over the small bit of hair.
"She - Aleksander told me the risks. But I - children deserve to be born, to be given a chance. Besides, even if I'd terminated the pregnancy - wouldn't she have simply survived? Or would the madness you speak of come to one of my grandchildren?"
She turned away, she was a healer but she'd has needed to kill to save a life. She'd seen it in her village, girls coming to her after forcibly being blessed with children. It was a small mercy she could do - mothers who didn't want their children shouldn't be punished. It was a mercy to the children - they could be free to be born to someone who wished for them.
She was folding her blankets, her fingers itching to be doing something.
Any other being would have jumped at the sudden question, but Phel was not so easily surprised. Besides the light had caught her attention, just enough to give her warning.
"No, even I am not that cruel. You carried her for so long, you nursed her, you allowed her return, she is yours just as much as she is mine.” That didn’t mean she would be handing the baby back just yet, not when she could finally hold the child after so long.  
“Just…let me hold her…please.” She had been waiting for centuries, perhaps even millennia, it had been long enough for time to blur until it felt like it had been forever. The longest wait in history, so long that she no longer recognized who she had been before…and yet somehow the child did, even after everything.
“She knows me. It’s been eons, I can’t even recognize myself… and yet she knows me. ” Her curse, passed on to her child, and yet it felt like a miracle. Life from death, the remnants of a lineage that had been turned to dust, a grandchild just as forbidden as her first had been. But this time would be different, it had to be, she could not let the past repeat itself.
“A curse is a difficult thing to kill, as is the darkness that formed her.” Sitting in a nearby chair Phel could not tear her focus away from the infant, ancient eyes meeting ones that were both impossibly old and yet somehow brand new. “She would likely have survived even your death, she already had once. Her first mother had been struck down before anyone had even felt her kick, and yet still the curse remained.”
Though she did not look up Phel did extend a hand, resting it upon Luda’s. “The darkness came to her because of that very belief. She should have been lost, before you even knew that she was there…but from the beginning something within her chose to be cursed. It wished to live, the curse wished to be given form, and neither would allow death to stop them.”
The elemental knew that her words likely didn’t make sense, but this was old magics, the sort that spoke with the voice of the very universe itself. It was the beginning, and would be the end, and even Tophel didn’t think she could ever fully understand it. “Had she somehow been destroyed it would simply have waited, like a seed waits to be planted. Perhaps not your grandchildren, or even your great-grandchildren, but some day she would return. This is not a curse that is easily broken, it was scarred into the very fabric of the universe…and perhaps has been since it began.”
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Undercover - Chapter 14 (A LokixRaven AU)
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Loki won the battle of New York and now rules over Earth after eliminating Thor and Hawkeye. The remaining Avengers have gone into hiding, waiting for a chance to take back their planet. Raven (OC) is their key to doing so.
This fic is pretty much porn and with this AU Raven and Loki have no previous history.
Please leave comments, kudos and reblogs if you like it. It really helps me out as a writer, lemme know if you wanna be on the taglist as well :)
Warnings: Language, Fluff, Feelings
Chapter 14
Loki’s P.O.V
The traitor’s body was hung outside the palace gates as a warning, and I made my way to Raven’s quarters as promised. Knocking first to announce my presence, I entered her room. Raven sat on the edge of the bed, legs crossed, and one tempting pale leg exposed by the slit in her dress. I considered kneeling and kissing my way up that leg, but decided against it. She was still just a mortal; she didn’t deserve a God to kneel before her. Whilst I knew Collin’s accusation had been a lie, there was a slight part of me that now doubted Raven. Perhaps it was because I saw myself as unlovable. Perhaps she was too good to be true.
The rational part of my brain argued back. If that were true why would she have laid herself bare to me, she had no reason to tell me about her past and yet she had seen me as someone she could trust with such information. I wanted to do the same, tell her everything, but that small seed of doubt made me hold back. Most of my life before this involved me being second best and having information withheld from me. Why would she be any different? I was her king, and she was nothing but a slave. And she should be kneeling upon my arrival. “Kneel,” I ordered softly.
In one fluid motion, Raven sunk off the bed and on to her knees before me. She gazed up at me, looking about ready to do anything I asked of her, ready to prove her loyalty. Cupping her cheek, I bent down to kiss her softly. Maybe I was letting my doubts and self-loathing colour my vision. I should go, take some time to think this all over, to make sure I didn’t do something I might later regret. “Forgive me, my dear. I need some time to reflect upon today’s events.” I sighed. Turning away from her so I couldn’t see the disappointment on her face, I headed for the door.
“No.” Raven said firmly. Quickly she was on her feet, putting herself between me and the door. There was that defiant side again. If any other slave had done this or spoken to me in a such a way, I would have punished them. Yet here I was breaking my own rules yet again for her. “I am not letting that traitor come between us,” she continued. “Step aside, Raven. Please.” “Not until you look at me in the eye and tell me if you really believe his words.”
Raven approached me, cupping my cheek tenderly and making me meet her gaze. She looked hurt, and that only made me feel even worse. “You really think I came here with an ulterior motive? That I’m some kind of spy? Why would someone like Shield hire a murderer like me?” She asked. “I…” I trailed off, unsure what to say. “Loki, I have no reason to betray you.” “But you do. I took your world by force, enslaved it, ruined it. You and everyone else have reason to betray me.”
Her gaze turned sympathetic, “you did. But you haven’t ruined it.” “Look outside at your city, its destroyed.” “Let me prove to you that you haven’t destroyed my planet. Let me prove to you that there’s still beauty in the planet you rule over.” “You…you want us to go outside?” “It’s your planet, we can go anywhere you wish.” Whilst I had done my research on the planet, there were so many places to go that I didn’t know where to begin.
“Where would you want to go?” I asked. This made her pause, as if my question had taken her by surprise. Her gaze dropped as she thought about her answer. “Me? But this is about you,” Raven responded. “You said you wanted to show me there was still beauty here, tell me where. There must have been somewhere you’ve always wanted to go.” “Theres quite a few places I’ve always wanted to go, it’s just trying to decide which one.” “Then don’t decide which one. Decide what you want to see first.”
As she made her decision, I conjured the tesseract from the weapons vault. Raven eyed it suspiciously, looking at me for an explanation. “This is how we’ll get around. Hold it with me and think of the place you want to go most,” I explained. Cautiously Raven placed her hand on top of the glowing blue cube and closed her eyes. In a matter of seconds, the tesseract took us to her desired location. Before us was a vast lake, mountains in the distance and surrounding us were purple flowers that looked similar to lavender. Unfamiliar with the location, I turned to Raven who was looking around in pure wonder, a smile across her face that reached her eyes.
“It really works?” She asked. “You doubted me?” I couldn’t help but smirk. Raven raised her brows at me, “you doubted my loyalty not five minutes ago.” Touché. “So where exactly are we?” I asked. “Lake Tekapo. New Zealand. I’ve never been this far from home before.” She continued looking around as if she still couldn’t believe it. Suddenly she practically threw herself in my arms, thanking me profusely.
After a moment, I wrapped my arms around her, holding her close and feeling content. This was the first time I’d really held her outside of aftercare. All too quickly she pulled away, looking slightly concerned. “We didn’t pack any clothes. I didn’t bring my sketchbook,” She panicked. Smirking, I conjured the black leather-bound book for her, handing it over. Ravens worries seemed to ease, but she also seemed fascinated by my use of magic. “I’ve never really seen you use your magic before. What else can you do?” She asked. “We’re here for the beautiful sights of your planet, not for my sorcery. Besides, you could have shown me many beautiful sights back in your bedroom. But this isn’t bad,” I smirked.
“I’m holding you too that.” She retorted with her own smirk. “When I said beautiful places around your planet, I figured you’d suggest Paris or Rome.” “We can visit the Eiffel tower if that’s something you’d like to see. Paris is romantic, yes, but it’s also what everyone else would pick. Besides, I wanted to see natural beauty over man-made beauty.” “Or is it because there’s different kinds of flowers to draw here? What are these anyway?” I motioned to the purple plant. “Lupins. And I’ll have you know some of the places I want to go have no flowers to draw. Maybe I’ll have to find a new muse.”
Raven found a place amongst the Lupins to sit, looking out at the landscape. “You don’t think this is beautiful. Or at least peaceful?” She asked. Instead of focusing on the landscape, all I could focus on was her. Her hair could have easily made her blend in amongst the Lupins as they were mostly the same shade. And she looked at ease here. More than she did at the palace. Leaving the palace had me slightly anxious. It was the first time I’d ventured out like this and with another person. Clones were in place in case of an attack, and the Chitauri were always ready.
“It’s peaceful,” I agreed. Eventually I took a seat next to her, Raven already sketching away and adding to the cast collection of drawn flowers in her book. After half an hour, she turned to me. “Would you mind if I drew you?” She asked. “Me?” “You’re a good subject. A handsome one.” She started sketching, glancing between me and her book every few moments. The time it took her to sketch gave me time to consider our arrangement. I’d never treated a slave like this. Yes, I had gotten close to previous slaves but never been on a...date with them.
Especially never let one leave the palace whether I’m with them. Maybe this alternative approach would bring us closer. Maybe she could finally be the one. Perhaps when I opened up to her about my heritage, she wouldn’t be judgemental. Or maybe that was just wishful thinking.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Raven and I continued to travel around the globe visiting many places. The marble caves of Chile, the Arashiyama Bamboo Grove in Japan, and luckily it was blossom season. We also visited the beautiful Plitvice Lakes of Croatia, the otherworldly black sanded beach of Reynisjara, Iceland and the peaceful, secluded Faroe Islands. I had to admit, Earth seemed more and more beautiful with every place we visited. Raven decided there was one last place she wanted to visit, Tromso, Norway. The weather was colder, so I conjured Raven some much warmer clothes.
“And you wanted to come here because?” I asked. “You’ll see tonight. Hopefully.” We spent the day exploring the bay as it was quieter, meaning less attention being drawn to us. Besides, I could conceal us from the mortals if need be. I just wanted time with her. It felt like most past worries I could forget about. I could just enjoy these moments we shared. The past week and a half had been bliss. I felt ready to tell her everything, ready to pour my heart and soul out to her.
Evening fell and Raven had forced me to hike to the hillside, sitting down beside me. The black sky was dotted with stars, the moon high and full. “We’ve stargazed already this week,” I mentioned. “Just wait.” After another half an hour of nothing, a green and yellow aura appeared across the sky. Raven smiled widely, looking up at the sky in wonder. Oh, Earth was beautiful indeed. Seeing such an aura reminded me of Asgard, made me miss it. It would have been nice to take Raven there if things had been different.
But the bridge was broken, I could never return, and nobody could leave. Ravens fingers brushed against mine hesitantly, as if asking to be held. Lacing my fingers with hers, she took that as a sign to rest her head on my shoulder. This was the most affection I’d received in years. It brought a soft smile to my face. I didn’t want this trip of ours to end, but we had to return to the palace, eventually.
“I’m glad I got to share all this with you, Loki,” Raven spoke softly. Turning to look at her, I leaned in to kiss her. Raven melted into the kiss, wrapping her arms around me. Pushing me down, she straddled me with a soft smirk. “Someone could see, my dear,” I teased. “As if you’d let anybody see me like that.” “Your right.”
Taglist: @sweetfictionalworld​​​​​​​​, @therealityhelix​​​​​​​​, @darkprincessloki92​​​​​​​​, @skulliebythesea​​​​​​​​, @fizzyxcustard​​​​​​​​, @myownviperroom​​​​​​​​​, @jana-banana-fana​​​​​​, @lostinimaginaryplaces​   
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Audio
So I decided to tackle prokopetz’ mini-RPG Olaf Hits The Dragon With His Sword. Except that I couldn’t figure out what the format was, so I rolled for that too, and ended up with an epic saga war song, Also I rolled d6s for every response that Olaf and The Dragon made, because I honestly could not figure out what story I wanted to tell. And then, after I wrote it, I sang it. Here’s Olaf, In Wrath, Approaches.
Olaf, in Wrath, approaches.
Steps like thunder on the ground, shadows writhing all around. Ignited fires in the air, Olaf approaches.
He is wrath, he is might, he drags his sword down by his side, Ploughing a furlough in the ground, Olaf approaches.
Storms are quieter than his voice, shadows flee from his annoyance His words are stoked by fires inside,
Olaf, of Wrath, approaches.
"Dragon!" "I have words for thee!" "I have come to fight you," "Leave your lair to meet with me!" "I will destroy you," "You buried my town, you withered my crops!" "You froze my fields, you killed my dogs!" "Recite your words and die today!" "I say my wrath, my hate is greater!"
(+Blood)
DRAGON:
Finally, a figure of my past comes to meet me, But he's a fragile man now. Olaf, you are just relearning how to burn. Reborn in flames, for another first time.
But maybe you can be the one to finally understand me. I am Loss, I am lost, I must earn
Something again to light my fire, Some way I can't define I lost my flight to a knight of your land, Do you remember him? I'm lost inside...
O, my partner... how we flew... in skies above the sky, and "strong" men took him, they trapped him, and they used him for his faerie light.
My fire now is ice. Olaf, you are outmatched now. You got older and tired. And ice stays the same Forever.
(+Sorrow)
---
Olaf, Of Wrath, approaches.
"I come forth to fight you! And I shall not turn back! I have burned my bridges behind me! eft lands I loved a wreck!"
"Dragon! Do you remember..."
"Long ago I was a hero, I found a sword after a quest, I returned, I taught my legend, Then I settled in to rest."
"I reforged my sword long ago, Turned it into a plough; For the monsters I cut down, I planted seeds all around."
"For each ruin that I defiled, I put new chests in domiciles, For warriors old and heroes new, I put barriers up to you - so that no one could disturb you...
It was the least I could do for you, my old friend...
I'm sad to hear of his demise, but you shouldn't have touched me or mine, I've done my time, I've paid my dues, Why did you do what you do?"
"You burned them all, You burned it all. You burned it all. You burned it all..."
(+Sorrow)
---
DRAGON: Can I make it up to you, Olaf? There are trees inside my lair. I have grown beside them since I was young, since before even you had hair.
I could restore the land to what it came from, ice is water, just bound. Put down your sword, we could go forward, We don't have to do this go-round.
I have all the world's riches in my hoard. I took coins but I kept each loved thing safe. I've had my loss, I won't do more, Put down your sword, we could go forward. Olaf, I could give you everything back and more.
I've had my loss, I won't do more, Put down your sword, we could go forward. You could have my hoard, and be adored.
Olaf.
...Olaf. Wait. Olaf! Wait!
(+Envy)
---
Olaf, in wrath, approaches.
"Dragon! I have prepared to meet with thee! I brought with me all the ritual items!" "With my preparation I will give thee an eternal separation from his side!"
"Dragon! I come to lift thee not from this world but from your strength, what would be worse but not acting I could leave your fire as ice untamped. I could do what I could to help you, but you've shown how you repay my help - So talk, or I'll leave my sword pinned in your hide, you'll not be born again, he'll forever search for your light, but he'll never find   you."
"Maybe one day he'll find his way back to you, but by then you'll be lost in time, maybe you'll burn him maybe you'll freeze him and you'll know who he is just before he dies."
(+Blood)
---
DRAGON:
Olaf, do you think I am young? I was fledged before you were grown. You helped me, that's a certainty, but I've been around since before you were born.
I was a king before you were an infant, I've seen the world before humans were here. You threaten, but I am greater, Your sword, my ice, who will prevail?
(+Blood)
---
OLAF:
"Dragon! You have lived more long years, but most of them you spent asleep. While I have lived each minute doing *something*, I've lived more life each day than you've in centuries.
Before your flight to freeze my land, When did you last leave your lair? He was with you, I was with you, We found the world was fair.
My sword - you know what it does, I got your love to it reforge. Dragonforged plough-to-sword. It's the last thing, it's the last thing you'll have of him -
And all this world's spirits know me, I've travelled since we parted, far and long. With just one word, you know I'll be heard, And we'll be done, dragon. We'll be done."
(+Ambition) ---
DRAGON: Then you know that nothing of his will hurt me, He spoke it with his dying breath. He was an artist, he was a blacksmith, he knew that someone would use his work against me.
Oh, Olaf, you are foolish, Did you count on that to work? Come on, hit me, hit me with your sword, Has it spent too long as a plough?
You could give it to me and I would return you all the things that I have stolen. You're right, it's the last thing I have of him, Give it to me, Olaf.
You were my friend and his, and the spirits were raised my me and then, my love. You speak that word and you'll be undone. Be smarter, come on, Olaf.
You're advancing on me now, Olaf. Fires in your eyes. Hit me, Olaf. HIT ME, OLAF! Come on, let's see what that sword can do!
(+Iron) --- OLAF:
Blood x3: 17 Sorrow x2: 14 Ambition: 15 Envy: 12 Iron: 2
---
OLAF:
I put down my sword years ago So I wouldn't be tempted to fight, To roam the land and cut down people in monstrous skins. This world doesn't need a hero, It doesn't need a strong man, It needed peace, it needed hope, It needed rivers to flow and trees to grow.
But my sword is pinned down in his hide. my temptation is too strong to fight. I roam the land and cut down monsters in people's skin and the people cheer me for it. Revolutions like storms ravage, both false and real Until I'm dead I know the land will never heal - my crops are blood, my dogs are war my fields are death, my town hunger -
The shadows writhe at night with the dragon's eyes still watching me.
I know that the dragon's lover will be reborn. I'll hunt him down and I'll raise him. And one day I'll walk him to the base of where I left the dragon's skin.
Will the dragon kill him? I don't know, I'll leave it to his lover now, I'll raise his fairy love, the best I can...
But there's hate in my heart. There's hate in my heart, there's hate in my heart, there's hate in my heart --
DRAGON: "If you Think of wrath, you think of hate, time will pass at a faster rate, but is it worth it?"
"Is it worth it?"
"If you think of wrath, you think of hate, at the end of your path, just dig two graves -"
"Was it worth it?" "Is it worth it?"
"If you have power, you will use it, A final hour win or lose it,"
"Was it worth it? I watch him Is it worth it? with my eyes open Will it be worth it? Coming at me -
Olaf, in Wrath, approaches.
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20xbetterthanu · 3 years
Note
fanfic asks b, f, i, u :)
hi jeanne!! i’m sorry for spelling your name wrong i was sleep foggy ily
B: Any of your stories inspired by personal experience?
‘See Me’ is not based off my real life. But certain parts (i don’t really wanna say which parts bc that fic is very angsty and features a lot of dark parts) but I guess yes bc I have been in certain situations that I describe in the fic
f: F: Share a snippet from one of your favorite dialogue scenes you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.
“You will always be enough for me, Kurt,” Blaine said.
“Say it again,” Kurt said. He wiped his face with a hand. 
“You’re enough,” Blaine repeated, inching closer. 
They slowly moved closer to one another, until they were practically breathing the same air. Blaine took a shaky breath. “You have to respect and trust me if we do this again,” he whispered. Kurt nodded. “We’re doing this?” 
Kurt nodded again. “Yeah—we are.” He looked around. “This is the park, Blaine, anyone could see us.”
Blaine shook his head. “I don’t care. Kiss me,” he said.
There were no more words. 
And it didn’t really matter that they were in public, somewhere they’d both been hurt before. It didn’t matter that anyone could walk past and harass them, the fear was gone. 
It had tainted their relationship for so long, that four lettered word. It had left an ugly stain on their tapestry, torn them into pieces. Blaine had been devoured by it, and Kurt had, too. It had ripped them up, destroying the beauty they had. They needed to mend the pieces, glue themselves back together. 
That kiss, that kiss in that dreaded place. That place that Blaine had refused to go to for months, before he finally gave in. That place that had planted the seed that had destroyed them. They kissed there, unapologetically. 
The fear was gone.
this is from my story ‘Beautiful’ and I know its a lot all at once (and not all dialogue oops—I’m not good at choosing things) but this is one of the best scenes I feel as though I’ve written. When I wrote this I barely even blinked I was so into it and I guess thats why its always stuck with me.
_
i: I: Do you have a guilty pleasure in fic (reading or writing)?
fanfiction in itself is a guilty pleaser of mine. I love infidelity fics. sometimes i find myself falling down the bp! hole. Once I even read a fic where the author gender swapped Klaine and I enjoyed it more than i’d like to admit. 
u: U: Share three of your favorite fic writers and why you like them so much.
@heartsmadeofbooks was one of the first klaine authors I’ve ever read and she remains one of my favorite ones ever, she’s also a sweetheart. ily laura. 
@esperantoauthor is also one of my favorite authors bc not only is her content inspiring and entertaining its also very informative and she’s just amazing in general
@coffeeorderwrites is also amazing The Hating Game was fucking great and their drabbles are fucking premium content 
send me fic asks!!! 
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danniyahisraelposts · 3 years
Text
There's a song in me,
But I can't seem to get it out.
Because everytime I try and think of just a title,
I think of you and the way you used to bring it out of me.
Deep diving in my blissful sea.
Rock hard, rock steady fulfilling my every fantasy.
You told me I'd get addicted but I thought you were full of shit.
I didn't believe you when you told me if I gave you me a third time,
I'd be giving you eternal ownership.
Now here I am,
With a story to tell about surviving another narcissist.
What kind of shit is this?
I heard that life can be unfair but I guess I just wasn't prepared for the reality of the existence of counterfeits.
There's a song in me.
One where I lay out all the details of our rendezvous.
No one has heard my side yet which means no one has really even heard the truth.
King Beast is what they call you,
And a Beast you are.
You may think you're a "mighty King" but you're really just a bum ass "Scar".
Damn I hate you.
I'm sure that's evident by now.
But I can't let this shit go without getting it off my chest somehow.
Do you even truly know what you did to me?
Regardless of your concern did you ever really look into me?
Because if you did you would have learned that I'm fragile and that should have guaranteed...
That I was therefore never any real threat to you.
So you didn't have to do,
All that you did to make me fall in love with you,
Just to leave me too.
It's hard to admit to,
The fact that sometimes I miss you.
Though I don't think it's you I really miss,
It's more so that...
look in your eye whenever you'd cup my chin in your palm, pulling my face just close enough to yours to feel your breath grace my lips as you insist that I believe you when you told me how you think I'm absolutely beautiful.
And...
the warmth of your embrace when you'd hold me in your arms with such a sensual possessiveness and tell me that's where I'm supposed to be.
Oh and let's not forget the way you'd guard me with your natural tendency towards Chivalry...
Insisting that you believe you were fearfully designed to protect me, specifically...
Do you remember how you'd never allow my hands to carry a single bag whenever your presence abounded?
And how you'd beat me opening every door that was meant for me to explore and yet...
You seriously never cared how hard my heart was pounding.
I really miss the way you would walk up behind me, ever so discreetly, then whisper in my ear...
"Baby, you're so sexy the way you cooking that steak for me, I think you deserve me making you come for me..."
And the way your hands would glide across my skin...
begging me to let you in...
oh the sweet taste of sin...
in the end.
I remember the way you'd grip me around my waist...
quickly decreasing the space, between you and I.
And how that would lead to you ever so gently yet also firmly placing your soft lips on top of mine.
Next thing I know, we're both swiftly coming up out our clothes...
You're placing sweet kisses all on my toes...
Hands gripping my thighs, as you stare into my eyes, I know you feel my temperature rising.
You get a taste of me, and you ain't gotta tell me boy I know I'm sweet.
Then slide into me.
Slow, hard, and deep.
Intimacy turns to vehemently letting me know who's name is written inside my pretty in pink.
It's like you see through me.
Looking into your eyes, I see my soul staring back at me.
How do you know me? Please tell me how do you know just what I need?
Especially, if your intent was never to invest in me with longevity?
It's a low down dirty shame you see.
I'm the one left carrying these blissful yet now painful memories with me.
Forehead kisses made me feel so safe my knees would suddenly get weak.
Love songs written just for me had me thinking I'm the only woman you see.
But boy was I wrong.
Your baritone had me in my zone but it wouldn't be for long.
Little did I know, you were seeing me, you were seeing her, and even a third boo.
I guess that's why you thought you were the King, you did have your cake and you were eating it too.
There's a song in me.
One where I address the fact that you promised me we'd make love so intense it would produce a love child only after I graduated from college.
Leading me to believe that your desire to give me your name and do right by me was indirectly being acknowledged.
And what about the music we created?
Partners in artistry our masterpieces could pave way for the world to feel elated.
Instead I find out from you that you and I...
We never dated.
But only after I call you up to give you the news about...
That night we shared two weeks ago and what it produced...
The fruit of it is a baby, doesn't this make you so happy?
Mr. All I ever wanted to do was be a "daddy".
Happiness isn't the tone that I receive.
You started shouting saying how much you hated me.
Hate me?
For carrying your seed?
You mean the one you planted inside of me?
So now I'm your enemy after spending weeks telling me how special I am to you and calling me your light?
If you ask me it seems like...
Your true colors are showing and I'm seeing who you really are in this fight.
You were never truly a friend to me.
And how dare you tell me that you love me almost as an incentive for me potentially making you responsibility free...
This shit is crazy.
How just a few days ago you were blowing up my phone saying how much I worried you...
Only because I hadn't been picking up your calls lately.
You're so fucking shady.
Tell me how did I go from being your baby,
To being just some "joint" your man's impregnated...
Like you weren't playing daddy to the children I birthed...
Like you weren't praising me for all my single mother hard work.
Like you weren't telling me your dick is what I deserved.
This shit hurts.
Every day I try to play it off like I don't miss your voice.
When the reality is I breathe without you by my side because I don't have a choice...
You brought me alive.
And even though my spirit told me something was off I tried to let it slide so I could simply enjoy the high.
Luckily for me I already survived the worse heartbreaks of my life.
So you may think you've destroyed me but...
Well.... I'll just let you enjoy the hype.
This shit is wild.
And foul.
Now you slander me so loud then place yourself upon a cloud.
But I know you're really just an insecure little boy without your cheering crowd.
And now there's this man who's trying to love me for who I am inside,
But you came along and set the bar so high
for the new men in my life
My pedestal high standards make him feel like I...
Think he's unqualified.
Listen, the bottom line is this...
I need your love even if it wasn't real,
I need the way you used to make me feel
Because if I don't have it, I'm not really living at all.
I can't wait to hate you,
More than I seem to
And I hope life humbles you,
There's a song in me.
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