#my grandfather’s an even fresher thing but even that i’ve been told is past the point of being ‘sensible’ to be upset over and it’s like.

[greelin]

i do often feel like i need to get over the fact that my grandmother is dead because it happened like 17 years ago and i Have been told i did not “know her long enough for it to matter this much.”. but also she was my mother more than my birth mover ever was or will be and the fact that i am “supposed” to just “”get over”” it is rather evil of a concept. to be honest. like i think i am allowed to hurt forever and that she still meant the world to me and shaped a lot of my sense of self when it comes to the positive things. so. 🤷‍♂️

#i think i have the right to carry that. like not let it consume me but also Never have it leave. i can do that. #my grandfather’s an even fresher thing but even that i’ve been told is past the point of being ‘sensible’ to be upset over and it’s like. #idk how to tell you this but he was the only father i ever really had. Lol

[sosthemortalcoil]

KoFi Request: Family Holiday

Another one for the amazing @lychee-days​! Family Holiday Trip! F!Gabriel (Rielle) and Daniel ready to leave for a holiday to Venice~ ft. Uncle Israfel, who is joining, and Lucifer, who uh...decided to tag along

Total wordcount is 2,271. Hope you enjoy! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It would have been far easier to simply slip between planes to get to Venice. Instead you’re stuck in this seemingly endless line, bouncing up and down on your toes. Daniel looks a tad pale, mumbling to himself. Heights had never bothered him, but apparently his first time on an airplane is causing anxiety.

It’s your first time too, and Israfel’s, but telling Daniel that hadn’t helped. All he had said in response is that flying when you can fly under your own power is entirely different from flying when you have no ability to fly.

Finally, the line moves, and you watch as Daniel takes stuff out of your bags. Israfel doesn’t have anything apart from his boarding pass and a fake id you had to beg Sabriel for. She had pointed out that he was perfectly capable of meeting you in Venice, but you had continued to plead until she caved. Not that you were nervous, but having Israfel around always made new experiences feel less frightening.

You bounce through the metal frame, following Daniel and collecting your bags. He had insisted on packing after watching you try the first time. In your defense, packing isn’t a skill angels are taught, and there are a great many rules to follow about what you can and cannot bring.

Your smile dims as you reach the gate and realize that you have yet more waiting to do. It would be so easy to slip planes, you think, narrowing your eyes. Sure, you aren’t supposed to while in your mortal shell, but sitting around and waiting is boring.

Someone calls your name, and you look around in confusion. “Rielle Santos, please report to the flight attendant at the gate.” You twist your hands in front of your chest, wondering what you had done now as you slink up to the attendant. She beams a smile and holds out three tickets.

“Ms. Santos, here are your upgraded tickets.” You blink. Upgraded? You hadn’t—

“We get to fly first-class?” Daniel’s wide-eyed enthusiasm as he pops up over the back of the seat to look at you make you decide that it’s not worth questioning this turn of good-fortune. Maybe Sabriel pulled some strings.

                            ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Not too much later, despite how much Daniel complained about the flight being long—even after a decade on earth, most human periods of time feel like little more than blinks of the eye—the plane touches down. It’s not nearly as smooth as your own landings, but you imagine how excited Da Vinci would be to hear that you had flown in a machine at all. He would have loved it, you know.

From the airport, you make your way onto a train that takes you directly into Venice. As you get closer you tune out more of Daniel and Israfel’s banter, lost in old memories. Venice couldn’t have possibly changed that much over the centuries. It should be easy to take Daniel to Leonardo’s old workshop, maybe even the villa where you two had attended a party courtesy of Mona Lisa, though that hadn’t been the name she’d used at the time.

The train station is busy, but with Israfel’s lanky frame leading the way, neither you nor Daniel have problems with the crowd, and with Stephanie’s traveling charms, you’re not worried about pick-pockets or the like.

The three of you emerge into the sunshine, a series of stairs down leading to a canal full of water-taxis and boats. It’s similar in some ways to what you remember—crowds of people crossing canals, boats moving their cargo through the city—and different. But now there’s the noise of electric motors, and the air smells fresher than your remember.

“We’ll go to the hotel and then I’m thinking walk around, tomorrow we’ll go out to Murano and Burano and Torcel—”

You stop mid-sentence, distracted by a spectacle you probably should have noticed first. Dead center of the crowd, perched on a ridiculous amount of luggage, is Lucifer, dressed in a frilled burgundy shirt and black slacks, legs crossed at the ankles, arms thrown wide in welcome, silver hair coiffed in a style that would have been more at home a few centuries ago.

“Welcome to Venice!” he proclaims.

People are congregating around him, taking pictures with their phones. It doesn’t help that all his luggage looks like it came from the same time-period as his hairstyle, heavy wooden trunks covered in delicate carving and paintings, leather straps helping hold them closed. It looks like he’s moving here with the mountain of baggage he’s enthroned on.

“You didn’t say Lucifer was coming along,” Israfel states mildly, arching an eyebrow at you.

“I didn’t know he was,” you reply. Lucifer hops to his feet, claps his hands, and a few burly porters step forward and collect his luggage. One of them approaches you and relieves Daniel and you of your luggage as well, all while you stare at your father.

“Close your mouth dear. Venice hasn’t changed that much and you’ll catch flies standing about gaping like that,” he tells you, drawing you in and kissing each of your cheeks. He repeats the process with Daniel and then Israfel.

“You could have told me!” you exclaim, coming to your senses and throwing your arms around him in a hug.

“It wouldn’t have been much of a surprise if I did,” he points out, sweeping around in a gesture that says he is accustomed to having capes that flair dramatically behind him while doing so. You can practically picture it now.

“Come on, I thought we’d start with a gondola ride.”

“What about our luggage?”

“It’s being taken care of.” Good enough for you. You step into the wooden gondola after Lucifer, turning and offering your hand to Daniel. Daniel stares down at it.

“You’ve been on boats before,” you coax.

“I know. I don’t want to tip it though,” he says, cautiously extending a foot. When he makes contact with the bottom of the boat he grabs your hand and uses it to hop into the boat, causing it to rock slightly.

“See? Not bad at all,” you tell him with a fond smile, mussing his dark curls. You turn to offer help to Israfel, but he’s already in the gondola and folding his long frame onto a wooden bench seat.

“You cheat, Uncle Israfel,” Daniel grumbles, his legs shaking as he attempts to follow suit. It’s more of a controlled collapse, but he makes it onto the seat and not over the side of the boat which you count as a victory. You’d ended up in a canal once; it isn’t an experience you want to repeat even if the water seems cleaner now.

“Hardly. I’ve had lots of practice. Now your grandfather? He cheats,” Israfel points out. You join them sitting down, not looking at your father.

“I use my God-given gifts,” Lucifer proclaims. “I fail to see how that qualifies as cheating.”

Daniel rolls his eyes. “So what are we doing, Grandpa?” he asks, his head turning to and fro, trying to take in everything there is to see, from the flowerpots handing in the windows over the canals to the shops and relics of days past. If he wasn’t as worried about the boat rocking, you’re certain he’d be rushing from side-to-side to get a better look at your surroundings.

“It’s not… cheating,” you say diplomatically. “But you do show-off a lot. Like the first-class tickets and whatever else you have planned.”

“I am an old man. It gives me great happiness to take my daughter and grandchild on vacation and spoil them rotten. And, of course, Israfel. Though I admit I’m surprised there’s no Michael.”

“You know how he is about human stuff,” you say with a small shrug, trying not to look guilty. You had offered, but were relieved when he declined. He’s been better since you started letting him sleep over, but better isn’t good, and this trip is about family, preferably without family squabbles.

“I do,” Lucifer agrees. “And to start with tonight, we can walk around Piazzo San Marco and admire the Basilica’s statues from outside. We can go in tomorrow if you like, or take a private water taxi out to the islands. Those are a must see. Burano is known for lace, and while I don’t use it much in my wardrobe any more, the process of making lace is incredible, as are the different designs. Not to mention the houses there are beautiful, painted a wide variety of vivid colors. It’s quite famous. Now, Murano is home to glass blowing, and the different studios have their own unique sands that they’ve been using for centuries. Now Torcello, that’s…”

You continue to listen with one ear as try to locate where you are. The Rialto bridge makes one landmark, crowded with tourists and vendors hawking their wares. “It’s a pity there’s not a carnival happening. I used to love attending those,” Lucifer continues in the background.

Daniel taps your knee. “What are you thinking about?” he asks softly.

“That it’s been a long time since I’ve walked these streets. Leonardo used to like to get up early, get to the market as people were setting up. He loved to sketch the different people. One time he even bought a bird in a cage to study. He was always doing that; studying. He always had hundreds of questions racing through his mind, and he would hop from one thing to another, trying to answer them all.”

“Are we going to visit where he lived?” he asks, leaning forward in his eagerness.

“If it’s still standing, and not submerged. I—oh, well, this brings back memories.” The gondola pulls into a gated entrance, a palatial estate that you had been to a few times back in the days. There had been guards, then, and banners of the noble family living there, not insignias of the hotel. Lucifer hops dramatically out of the boat, Israfel somehow already on the dock.

Daniel and you exchange a glance. “I fully believe in your capability to get up there without falling in the water,” you tell him with a solemn nod.

“And I believe that I can do better than you, mom,” he says and with a jaunty salute, scrambles up to the dock, sending the gondola rocking before the gondolier steadies it. You follow with more trepidation, but you don’t have any mishaps.

“Check-in and meet back here in twenty minutes?” Lucifer suggests, sweeping through the doors, anticipating their movement. He is a king, making his dramatic entry into his palace.

“Well, this is going to be entertaining,” Israfel comments at your shoulder. You wish he would make noise when he moves. Humans are fragile beings and you’re certain that every time he startles you it shortens the lifespan of your shell.

“It won’t be that bad.”

“True. It’s not like we’re taking the king of Hell into the Vatican or something,” he says, flashing a smile as you wait your turn at the counter.

“Would that be bad for me?”

Daniel’s voice is soft at your side.

Both you and Israfel startle, having thought he was still off peeking at the rich dressings of the lobby from the marble floors to the gold gilded ceiling, with murals and tapestries and statues aplenty between. Ostentatious seemed an inadequate description for the kind of casual display of art and wealth visible here.

“No, honey, oh no,” you rush to assure him. “You’re not evil, Daniel. And consecrated ground really only affects demons and not very well at the higher power levels to be honest. Not unless god or an angel has reinforced the blessings, and while yes, the Vatican is one of the strongest holy sites, it’s not going to affect you.”

“It’s a bit gauche anyways,” Israfel demurs. “And a tragedy to see the statues. I remember when they had color and now they’re bleached white like bones.”

“That’s a bit dark,” Daniel comments, side-eyeing Israfel.

“Such is life,” Israfel responds with a shrug. He stops at his room. “I’d get running shoes on. We are going out with Lucifer.”

“Good point,” you murmur, opening the door to Daniel and yours room. Your father can put small children to shame with his chaotic energy.

Daniel gasps when he sees the large canopy bed, racing ahead and throwing himself onto it with a giggle of pure joy.

“Your bed is in the other room!” You tell him. He gets to his feet, bouncing on them. “Come on, mom. You know you want to jump too!”           

Your resolve lasts a second before you join Daniel, the two of you bouncing around the bed until you collapse, breathless.

Daniel grimaces, and pulls out a scroll from behind him. He tosses it at you. “I guess they’re really into the whole over the top fancy schmancy stuff,” he says.

You cant your head. There’s something about the wax seal that seems familiar to you, but it’s not until you open it and find a familiar scrawl that you feel all the hairs on your body stand up.

Welcome back, Gabriel.

Sincerely,

A friend.  

“Wow!” Daniel takes it from you. “This is legit calligraphy! And it’s—backwards? Wasn’t that da Vinci’s thing?”

“Yes, it was. Backwards and forwards, both hands; he was special. This, however, would be Lisa’s. And yes, I mean the model for Mona Lisa. She says welcome back to Venice.”

“She wasn’t, er, isn’t human?”

“Not in the least.”

You know the look in his eyes, and you laugh. “Let’s go meet your grandfather, and I’ll tell you all about it. Some of the old haunts are probably still kicking around, though we’ll skip any of the water folk.”

Eyes sparkling, Daniel trails after you to the lobby while you start talking about your time as a muse. Israfel chimes in, and when you meet up with Lucifer, he’s quick to add his own tangential anecdotes.  

#Kofi Request #Extra #Thanks for the Coffee! #Hope you enjoy #floof #Lucifer #Israfel #Daniel #Gabriel #f!Gabriel #Rielle #Rielle(Gabriel) #Rielle Santos #family bonding

[myaekingheart]

Night of December 7th:

I had a couple weird dreams, the first of which involved swimming at a California beach after school. There was a big dock that people were jumping off of into clear blue waters and a lot of old brick buildings around, I think. I have a hazy memory of one of them being this restaurant downtown that’s housed inside an old firehouse. I think there was something with some relationship issue, as well, between me and another girl but I can’t quite remember. I just remember something about being ignored or shoved aside by someone else.

The second dream involved my dog under the porch. I don’t remember the specifics, though, because I didn’t jot them down and this was a few days ago.

The third was probably the most vivid. I was in a high school making my way to one of the many auditoriums, ending up in one that slightly resembled my elementary school cafeteria except the cafeteria tables were in a stadium seating format. I was there for the premiere of some (presumably student) film I had starred in. I only remember glimpses of scenes, like one in which I catch my on-screen boyfriend (played by a distorted William Moseley) kissing some other girl (I think she was blonde) behind a locker door or something. Like I shoved the locker shut and found them making out, and Will called me some weird and sickeningly sweet pet name with the word “cute“ in it. Come to think of it, I think that’s the only scene from the movie I remember. Other than that, while I was at the premiere, there was a teacher who came up to me gushing about how proud she was of me, I guess I was close with her in the dream or whatever, and she handed me a small white gift box filled with presents as congratulations for my accomplishment. I don’t remember what all was in there, probably just knick-knack shit, but the one thing I do recall was a pair of dangly earrings that might have had snowflakes on them. I don’t know, the specifics are hazy.

Night of December 8th:

The first dream was a chilling nightmare about college. I seem to be having those a lot frequently. This one saw my boyfriend and I sharing a dorm room together. I might’ve overslept for classes, I don’t quite remember, I just know I was suddenly wandering around campus definitely late for class because I was lost if nothing else. I had no idea where anything was or what time anything was, or what classes I was even taking, as if my schedule was just a blank page in my head. Probably the most real threat of all my dreams, honestly. I start school in less than a month now and I don’t feel prepared at all.

The second dream took place during an art class. I was in a warehouse full of industrial shelving like the kinds my high school art teacher had us keep our projects stored on, and my high school art teacher was even there. I scrounged up my portfolio from middle school (even though I don’t even think I had a portfolio in middle school but, you know, in dreams we get a lot of things we don’t actually have in real life). In true characteristic fashion, I’m pretty positive my high school art teacher was also yelling at all of us. That’s one thing that doesn’t change between dreams and reality. Unfortunately.

The third dream no doubt had to do with the fact that pretty much everyone I know is getting engaged. For the record, I’m not bitter about this. Just overwhelmed, I guess. The volume in which I’ve seen people MY AGE getting married and having babies already is dizzying, to say the least. But anyways, I had a dream my boyfriend proposed to me. This isn’t the first time I’ve dreamed this; I’ve seen it a few times before mainly in the past few months when the volume of everyone else getting engaged fluctuated to an all-time high. Again, I don’t really remember the specifics other than that he proposed to me with this really weird ring that looked like a colorful stained glass window hanging of the sun. Almost like it was attached the ring and laid across the entire back of my hand. I remember being flattered by no doubt perplexed because I mean, let’s face, what the hell kind of ring even is that? I don’t think they even make rings like that in real life and if they do, how would someone even wear it? With that in mind, later on in the dream the ring changed to more closely resemble Rapunzel’s wedding ring in Tangled Ever After, except in silver rather than gold and instead of sun emblems it was just regular circles. That’s the kind of ring I would gladly accept, honestly. It was beautiful and I wouldn’t mind, when I do eventually get married, having a wedding band like that. I don’t know, it was just perfect in my opinion.

I had one other dream this night, which was honestly probably more of a vision than anything else but still noteworthy nonetheless. I dreamed that Tex, our cat, escaped and was running around outside, which is really weird and uncharacteristic because Tex hates the outdoors. 

Night of December 9th:

I don’t know if it’s just because I had these dreams last night and they’re fresher in my memory that I remember them so clearly or what but I had two very vivid and rather surreal dreams that I remember in great detail.

The first saw me in a house that was apparently supposed to be my boyfriend’s old place, though it looked nothing like the real apartment he lived in. This was literally a house with dark wood paneling on all of the walls, an angled ceiling, and windows everywhere looking out over a secluded woodland setting. There was minimal artificial lighting, but it was clear it had to have been a rather cloudy/rainy day because of the way the natural light filled the house. In front of a glass front door was a wall in which there was a single row of booth seats and some high tables like at a restaurant. I remember sitting at one of these tables when a girl who was supposed to represent my boyfriend’s best friend‘s girlfriend (though she looked nothing like the girl in real life except for maybe having the same hair color) came walking by. She seemed perplexed and almost terrified to find me there, as if I didn’t belong there and she considered me an intruder she was about to call the cops on. She asked me who the fuck I was, and when I told her I was her boyfriend’s best friend’s girlfriend, she stopped a minute as if she didn’t even recognize my boyfriend’s name. I forget where the conversation went after this but I remember soon being in another room of the house, this one more like an alcove lounge with regular ceilings and one regular sized window compared to the previous room’s large ones. There were comfy couches/chairs and a small end table on which there was a display of adult coloring books and boxes upon boxes of 48ct colored pencils. I remember a thought going off in my brain about “Of course these would be here, they always have coloring books and colored pencils in the house” or something to that effect, even though that statement is not true for real life.

I can’t remember if the second dream was directly related to the first or not, like if all the events of this next vision happened after the previous ones or if they were totally separate, but no matter. Whether they were or not is probably not even important, even though a part of me is telling me that they are. Either way, I was walking through the neighborhood (what looked like one of my childhood best friend’s neighborhoods, or that of my parents, or a combination of both?) with my deceased grandfather. This was probably the most comforting scene I’ve dreamed all week. I truly feel like his spirit was visiting me in my sleep, because he made no effort to hide the fact that he was dead or going to be. We walked and talked as if we hadn’t seen each other in ages, which is true because we haven’t (this February will mark four years since he’s passed, and I feel like I haven’t dreamed about him in a while). At one point we must have been talking about my mother and how overbearing she can be sometimes, because I mentioned to him how I moved three hundred miles away from her a few months ago and how it felt great being so far away from her, I guess telling him how I liked that independence. Now that I think about it, I’m pretty sure I heard him laugh at this statement in an echo-y sort of manner the way a spirit or visage would sound laughing. His laugh is probably one of the things I miss the most-- it was unique and contagious. It was especially hearty at this time of year, too, when he’d watch his favorite movie, Home Alone. He fucking loved the antics of Kevin McAllister beating up those two thugs, he just thought it was the funniest fucking thing. But anyways, as we kept on walking, we then ran into this strange creature in the middle of the sidewalk. It had to be some kind of reptile: it had a white slimy body speckled with gray spots almost like an albino frog, and armored joints, and gray feathered ears I think. The most distinct thing I remember about him was his mouth. It was some sort of beak exactly like the mouth of Cell in Dragon Ball Z (whose arc my boyfriend and I are in the midst of right now). My grandpop stopped to take a look at him and decided to lean down and pet him despite my hesitance at touching an unidentified creature (because I mean, let’s face it, the thing could be poisonous. We don’t know). His response was “Well, I’m gonna die anyways so I might as well.” He gently petted the thing’s side, like it’s bulging frog stomach, and the creature apparently did not like that at all and bit us both on the lower leg. The bite was almost immediately infected. I don’t know what became of my grandpop after this-- I didn’t see him again for the rest of the dream-- but I know I went home to hop in the bathtub and try to wash the bite out. As if that would help get any venom or whatever out of it. This whole scene was kind of hazy, as well, but then again the setting itself was hazy. The bathroom was bathed in this dingy blue light and everything was kind of muted in color tone. I suddenly remember standing at the sink looking at myself in the mirror (I want to say I feel like I had a yellow shower cap on for a second? I don’t know why I keep remembering a yellow shower cap here). There was also something about removing the staples from a stack of papers, bending them so they’d look like a little needle, and cutting my arm up with them. I remember doing everything but the cutting-- I almost did but thought better of myself and tossed the staples and the papers they once held together in the trash. I continued standing at the mirror, however, my attention then occupied by something else. I watched my reflecton as the infection caused me to slowly sprout scales starting at my waist and working it’s way downward. I was suddenly joined by Brenda Song stepping out of the bath and wrapping a towel around herself, the two of us speaking in hushed tones about what the fuck was going on with me? What the fuck was that reptile thing that bit me, and why was it somehow apparently turning me into a mermaid? And also how the fuck we were going to sneak back to my room without anyone in the house knowing Brenda was with me (because I guess she wasn’t supposed to be there? Who the fuck knows?). The more I think about it, the more I realize the house I was in here might’ve actually been the same one I was in earlier when I encountered the version of my boyfriend’s best friend’s girlfriend, even though this time I remember fearing running into my parents. Either way, somehow Brenda Song and I made it back to what I guess was supposed to be my room, even though it reminded me more of the way I envisioned Dara’s attic bedroom when I read Lauren Oliver’s Vanishing Girls. The last scene of this is also hazy, but the setting was still hazy anyways with that same dull blue lighting except this time it was dimmed significantly. I remember sitting on the bed atop a mess of blankets, notably the large white fluffy comforter I used to keep on my own bed, and there was something about these weird polaroids strewn across the mattress depicting naked people, specifically girls, some of which I recognized as girls I was friends with as a kid. They were very tumblr-y pictures, honestly, but nonetheless really strange and unnerving. They were also almost...exorcist-like? I remember arched backs and heads tilted back at ungodly angles and everything appearing very casually satanic. I don’t know, it was bizarre. The whole thing was so bizarre.

#weird dreams #ramblings