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morganayenneferburnham · 3 years

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Have I Known You 20 Seconds or 20 Years? – Nikolai Lantsov Series

Chapter 1: Devils Roll the Dice, Angel Roll their Eyes

Chapter 2: You Did a Number on Me

Chapter 3: You Could Call Me Babe for the Weekend

Chapter 4: The Best of Times, The Worst of Crimes

A very short summary: Y/N has been working with the crows for a few years. Her life feels complete until she meets the insufferable Nikolai Lantsov. She finds herself forced to work with the King of Ravka on one of Kaz Brekker’s crazy schemes.

Word count: 2.5k

A/N: I finally finished chapter 4. It is a bit longer than the others. I should probably mention that I have never picked a lock or broken into a safe before so it might not be accurate. I tried my best, though!

Chapter 4: The Best of Times, The Worst of Crimes

“So, how often do you break into councilmen’s houses, exactly?” His curious voice resonating, barely louder than a whisper, in the dark empty corridor.

She was crouched down in front of the office door, kneeling on the thick burgundy carpet. Her nimble fingers, holding the picks she’d slipped from a hidden pocket of her dress, working quickly to get the door open.

She smiled, “Often, enough.” Does he disapprove? She wondered. Probably not. He’s breaking in as well, after all. The lock finally clicked. She let out a deep sigh of relief. Kaz may have trained her well, but she knew he was a better lock pick than she could ever hope to be. He was always so calm. Unfortunately, her nerves threatened to get the better of her every time she had to use this particular skill on a job. She was glad the first hurdle was behind her, but she knew cracking the safe would prove to be even more daunting.

“Let’s go,” she said, standing up and placing the picks back in her hidden pocket.

The door opened silently revealing an elegant office. Ornate woodwork decorated the lower half of the walls. Tasteful art pieces were scattered around the room. Kaz would love this, she thought, looking appreciatively at a DeKappel mounted on the wall behind the cluttered desk. If we have enough time, I’ll take a quick peek at these documents. There might be something interesting in there.

“According to Brekker the safe should be behind that bookcase” Nikolai gestured to a tall bookcase in the left corner of the room before swiftly making his way to it. “There should be a mechanism somewhere…” He was looking for it, moving his fingers around the back of the piece of furniture. A loud click resonated. The bookcase swung on its hinges, revealing the door to a steel safe. Nikolai turned back to her, wearing a wide grin. “This is fun! Maybe I should take a page out of your book.”

She raised a questioning brow, looking in his direction, making her way to the safe. “What do you mean?”

He let out a low chuckle. “I think I’ll start breaking into Zoya’s room, move stuff around. Maybe leave a note or two. It’d be a good way to annoy her.”

“Why would you risk your life like that? I mean I don’t know her well, but I have a feeling she’s scary when pissed off.” She thought of Zoya’s blazing blue eyes. She must be gorgeous too.

“You have no idea how absolutely terrifying she can be” he mused. “but a King needs entertainment.” His grin was utterly wicked. Y/N felt her heart skip over a beat.

She smiled back. The idea of Zoya trying to murder the king amused her to no end. “Well, it’s your funeral,” she replied, shrugging her shoulders. “Now be silent, I need to focus.” She took a seat on the floor facing the safe.

She reached for the combination dial, gently resting her fingers on it. She breathed in deeply. Contact points. This is the easy part. She slowly spun the dial listening for the telling sounds. Click. A bit more. Click.

There we go. Park the wheel. Okay. Now I need to figure out the number of wheels. Sankta Lizabeta, please, don’t let there be too many.

She started turning the dial slowly again. First turn. Click. Second turn. Click. Third turn. Click. Fourth turn. Nothing.

She let herself breathe again. Three wheels. Three numbers. Six possible combinations. She could do this.

She quickly turned the dial to the right, letting it complete multiple turns before stopping at zero. She rolled her shoulders. No time to waste, she thought, here I go. She spun the dial slowly to the left. Click. More. Click. She repeated the process over and over, starting from a new number each time. She knew lock manipulation was time consuming but Saints this was taking way too long.

She found herself wishing she’d brought paper with her. This would’ve been a lot easier if she could’ve graphed her findings as she went instead of having to memorize them. Wylan is brighter than I am. He should be in here, helping.

She finally narrowed it down to three numbers: 12, 13, and 89. Six possible combinations. She was already behind schedule. She had to try them quickly.

She tried the first combination holding her breath. It didn’t work. She could feel Nikolai’s gaze on her. She heard him fidgeting by the door.

Saints, it would’ve been so much easier if I could’ve just drilled through this damn door. We’re screwed if I can’t get it open in the next minute.

“Fuck, I wish Kaz had sent Jesper in.” She was starting to panic. Second combination? Not this one either. This was taking too long. She was too slow. She was going to fail Kaz. Even worse, she was going to fail Nikolai.

She tried the third combination to no avail.

“Why would a sharpshooter be useful right now?” He sounded mostly confused, somewhat curious, and maybe a bit anxious.

Her fingers worked quickly, turning the dial following the sequence of the fourth combination. She groaned. It hadn’t worked.

“Well, a Fabrikator would be a lot more efficient at cracking a safe,” she said simply. Only two combinations left to try. This has to work.

“Oh, thank the Saints!” she exclaimed leaving no chance for Nikolai to reply. The penultimate combination had worked. 13-12-89. This Saints forsaken sequence of numbers had finally opened the safe. She had been lucky the safe wasn’t one of the more recent models. This one had already been difficult enough to crack.

She grabbed the blueprints, quickly rolling them up. She pulled her skirts up her right thigh and slid the precious documents in the sheath safely tied there. Nikolai closed the safe’s door and locked it. They were already late. “Come on. We have to go.” She was moving towards the door as soon as her skirts had fallen back into place.

Nikolai followed suit, quietly closing the door behind them. He quickly moved aside, giving Y/N access to the lock once more. She was already holding her picks.

Her hands were shaking slightly making it difficult to lock the door. She could’ve sworn the small click of the lock was the most beautiful sound she’d ever heard. She had never been more relieved. She rose quickly. She was ready for this night to be over.

Footsteps rang out in the hallway. Someone was coming up the stairs. It would be hard to explain what they were doing in the deserted hallway. They couldn’t be discovered here. She looked around hurriedly but there didn’t seem to be a good hiding place anywhere close.

Nikolai turned back towards her, “Do you trust me?”

“I –” Nikolai hadn’t given her a chance to answer, his lips already pressing against hers in a passionate kiss. His fingers gripping her waist tightly. She felt her back hit the wall with enough force to knock the breath out of her lungs. Nikolai deepened the kiss, tilting her head slightly to the left. His lips brushing against hers, his tongue sweeping her bottom lip. Her lips parting slightly into the kiss. His hands were moving up her back, pulling her closer to him. It felt like his hands were everywhere. His pleasant, intoxicating smell filling her nose, dulling her brain. His body was now pressing her hard against the wall, the doorframe digging painfully into her back. Her fingers, now tangled in his chestnut locks, had somehow found their way to his hair. She felt is fingers caress the skin at the back of her neck. All rational thought was completely erased from her mind. It was too much. It wasn’t enough. A small moan escaped her throat. Her heart was racing or maybe it was Nikolai’s? She couldn’t be sure.

A small cough reached her ears.

His lips left hers, drawing a plaintive whimper from her, only to attach themselves to her neck. She was fully aware of the next moan that escaped her, loud and breathy.

Someone cleared their throat next to them. A guard was standing there, staring at them. He looked somewhat amused but mostly uncomfortable.

Oh, it dawned on her, Nikolai is giving us a cover. It felt like a cold bucket of water had been poured on her head. She tried pushing him away, but Nikolai didn’t release his grip on her waist. Her cheeks were still flushed. She had to find a way to get her wits back. She was Ainsley Ó Ceallaigh. Not Y/N Y/L/N. It hadn’t been Nikolai, King of Ravka, kissing her. It had been Eoin Ó Ceallaigh, her husband.

“My apologies. I certainly don’t mean to interrupt” the guard was sporting a crooked smirk “but this part of the mansion is closed to the guests.” He didn’t seem to suspect anything was amiss.

“No need to apologize for doing your job, my friend,” Nikolai told the guard, his tone warm. “This is all my fault. You see I just couldn’t resist my wife’s beauty.” He pulled her in to place another kiss on her lips. Nikolai was playing his role to perfection. “We’ll go back to the party. Wouldn’t want to inconvenience you any further.” Nikolai’s hold on her waist loosened, his palm sliding to the small of her back. He used it to push her gently towards the stairs.

“Have a good night” the suggestive tone of the guard’s voice sent a fresh wave of blood to Y/N’s cheeks.

They heard the door rattle as they started walking down the stairs. The guard was checking it was locked. He would be able to report to the councilman that no one had entered the office. By the time Van Verent would realize documents were missing, Ainsley and Eoin Ó Ceallaigh would be long gone.

-----

Nikolai kept his hand pressed to Y/N’s back. She hadn’t said a word since he’d kissed her.

He knew most Grisha in Ketterdam were indentures. He had even seen the pleasure house tattoo on her left arm. Kaz had told him she was now exclusively working for the dregs but her tattoo from the House of the Blue Iris was still visible. “She keeps it as a reminder” Kaz had said. A reminder of what, though?

He’d probably crossed a line by kissing her like that. Not even giving her a chance to consider his plan. Time had been short. They didn’t have any other options. He only hoped that he hadn’t caused too much harm.

Nikolai guided her through the crowd, smiling and nodding at various dignitaries until they reached the doors leading to the garden. They should be meeting Jesper and Wylan by the porcelain cabinet, but he needed to make sure Y/N was alright first. He could feel how tense she was, her muscles stiff under his palm.

The cold air seemed to bring her out of her daze. “What are you doing? We shouldn’t be here. We should –” he could hear the insecurity in her voice.

“I know exactly where we should be.” He rested a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Are you alright?” he couldn’t quite keep the concern out of his voice.

“I’ll be perfectly fine once we get back to the plan” she spat at him. He was surprised to see how quickly she had gone back to acting as if he was the bane of her existence. He had really thought they were making progress and had almost become friends. At least, that’s what he had hoped.

She needs time. “Fine, let’s find Jesper and Wylan.” His voice was cold, perfectly controlled. He offered her a hand. He didn’t want to push, but they still had to play their part. He felt her cool fingers close around his hand.

------

Wylan’s eyes were wide, probably in surprise. They were late and they weren’t supposed to be coming from the gardens. She only hoped her lips weren’t bruised from the kiss. She didn’t want Wylan to think they were late because they had been unprofessional. She knew he’d have to report it to Kaz. Wylan was by far the worse liar of the crew. He couldn’t keep anything from their boss.

If Kaz thought Y/N was compromised, that she couldn’t do her job… She knew he wouldn’t send her back to the Blue Iris. Or did she? Kaz was known to be ruthless after all. If she fucked up the job? If she wasn’t useful anymore? She’d been with the crows for a long time now. She thought of the crows as her family. But did Kaz really think of her that way too? She’d like to believe Kaz loved her the way the same way she did. She couldn’t be sure. She was spiraling. She had to get a grip. They still had to play the part.

Jesper raised a questioning eyebrow at her. She ignored it and plastered a smile on her face. “Hello,” she had to keep herself from grimacing. Her voice had been all wrong, way too high. She tried correcting it. “I don’t believe we’ve met.”

She saw the look of absolute confusion in Jesper’s eyes. Wylan looked more concerned than confused. This is bad. “Ketterdam has the most surprising weather, doesn’t it?” Wylan smiled. This was the phrase they had agreed upon to convene the success of their operation.

-----

The party had settled down about an hour later. The number of party guests dwindling steadily. Jesper and Wylan had taken their leave about 15 minutes before Y/N and Nikolai, keeping up the pretense of only having met that night.

They were now safely back at the Hendriks’ house, standing around the table in the dining room, examining the blueprints.

“Everything go according to plan?” Kaz inquired.

“Kinda” her voice was unsure. She knew it was better to tell Kaz now. She fiddled with the hem of the tablecloth.

“What do you mean ‘kinda’?” His face would’ve been unreadable to most, but Y/N could see the apprehension there.

She felt Nikolai tense up by her side. Her mind kept travelling back to the feeling of his lips on hers. She needed to focus. “It took me too long to open the safe. We were behind on the schedule and a guard came back to the hallway before we could leave.” She met Kaz’s eyes. “Don’t worry, the door was locked.”

“How did you explain what you were doing in a part of the house clearly closed to guests?” Zoya sounded curious.

Nikolai was the one to answer her, “What could a handsome man and his gorgeous wife possibly be doing in a deserted corridor in the middle of a party?” The sarcasm that laced his voice painting the picture clearly for everyone.

Y/N lowered her eyes, the blueprints suddenly very fascinating to her. She felt her cheeks flush once again.

“Quick thinking. The guard believed it?” Kaz didn’t sound mad. She risked a peek at him. He was looking directly at her. From the look he gave her she knew they weren’t done talking about this.

“No need to worry, Brekker.” Of course, Nikolai couldn’t leave it at that. He had to make it worse. “We made it believable.” He winked. “Also, Y/N is way too modest about her acting abilities.”

tagged: @power-of-words23

#nikolai lantsov #nikolai lantsov x reader #nikolai lantsov x you #nikolai lantsov fanfic #nikolai lantsov fic #nikolai lantsov imagine #kaz brekker #wylan van eck #jesper fahey #leigh bardugo #grishaverse #grisha #nikolai series #my fic #ari's fic #have i known you 20 seconds or 20 years

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remys-lucky-franc · 3 years

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Real - Queen of Thieves (Remy x MC)

A little ficlet from MC POV set somewhere early in Remy’s S1. Started out as part of a prompt that I was writing for @mcira (sorry lovely, but you’re kinda getting a 2-for-1 here whether you actually want it or not lol ❤️), but it went off on a tangent (Me? Tangent? Never!) and it no longer actually really worked within that - but I did quite like the sentiment of it so I made it into it’s own little mini-thing instead rather than just deleting it.

Words <900

[MORE] [[MORE]]

—-

I step out of the elevator and into the penthouse.

Nikolai raises an eyebrow at me as I brush straight past him, “How did it go tonight with Parker?”

I gesture blindly behind me in Remy’s direction without breaking my stride, “Talk to Remy, I need to shower.”

Remy shrugs at Nikolai who waves him off in my direction, following me into the bedroom, his hand catching my wrist as I try to shrug myself out of my dress, “Cherie? Wait?” I turn to look at him, silently questioning. His voice grows softer, “Are you ok?”

I feel my eyes burn and my voice starts to crack as I mouth, “Yes. That creep just makes me feel like I want to scrub the skin off my body, that’s all.”

Remy’s face is a lesson in genuine concern, and I’m just about keeping it together until he steps close to me and pulls me to his chest, one arm wrapping around my shoulders, the other hand stroking and smoothing down my hair.

‘Why am I getting upset about this??’

A big sob wracks through me as Remy holds me safe and steady in his warm arms. He murmurs that everything is ok, that I’m ok, to breathe. The rhythm of his heartbeat echoes through me and after a few moments I’ve composed myself. I look up at him and mumble an apology: I’m embarrassed.

He smiles at me, plants a kiss on my cheek and leads me to the bathroom. Urging me to sit on the edge of the tub as he bustles around me, drawing a bubble bath and lighting candles while I protest that I’m fine and he should stop fussing. He’s so kind-hearted. So lovely.

He stops and sits beside me as the steam rises, looping his fingers through mine, “It’s your first con, and it’s been intense, mon coeur. Do you want to stop? If you want to stop, we stop.”

I balk at the idea, “No, I don’t want to stop!” I mean I’d gladly never lay eyes on Parker Vos again - he’s the worst. But then the Poppy wouldn’t exactly need me. And there wouldn’t be any reason to fake our marriage any more - meaning there’d be no reason for you to kiss me again. And I don’t think I could stand that because I’m crazy about you, Remy... “It’s just been a long day.”

I see a faint flash of something like relief cross Remy’s face as he squeezes my fingers tightly, “D’accord.” He’s glad I don’t want to call it quits, but is he just pleased the con is still on? Or does he feel the same way I do? My stomach twists and turns as I study his face.

I’ve gotten myself into a real mess, haven’t I? I thought I could do this. I thought I could flirt, make Parker want me; I could kiss him if I had to and it wouldn’t matter. It’s not like I haven’t kissed plenty of people, it should be no big deal. But the deeper we get into this con, the more I realise that the only person I want to kiss is sitting here beside me. Every time Parker looks at me, I want Remy’s soft green eyes on me instead. I swallow hard. The more I act like Remy’s my husband, the more I get to know the real him and with every new thing I learn, every touch and every smile, the faster and harder I fall. I’m in real danger of getting hurt and I’ve no way of tapping the brakes.

I inhale deeply, eyes closed, attempting to centre myself, “Remy?” When I open my eyes again he’s looking at me expectantly. I worry at my lower lip for a moment before I continue, “How do you do it?”

He’s watching me with a puzzled expression, “Do what?”

I wince, “How do you keep it all separate? Kiss someone, sleep with them even? Without it feeling- I don’t know. ‘Real’. ” I hug my arms around myself and sigh. My head is all over the place.

If Remy knows I’m not just asking about Parker, he chooses to avoid it, simply shrugging, “I’ve been doing this for a long time cherie, I suppose it’s very easy for me to separate things. None of it’s real? It’s all just a part of the con - an acting job. Sometimes things become ‘intimate’, but sometimes it doesn’t feel right, and sometimes there’s no need.” He winks at me, “And sometimes it’s actually very enjoyable - for me, I mean. It’s always enjoyable for the mark.”

I shake my head, amused, and snort, “Obviously.”

He nudges me jovially with his shoulder, and then looks me in the eye, that mask he wears so often is gone completely as he takes my hand back into his. His voice is earnest, “I never do anything that I’m not comfortable with. And you shouldn’t either. Please remember that. Your happiness is too important.” I nod as he stands to turn off the taps, patting my hand kindly, “None of it’s real, cherie.”

The words I want to say die in my throat as he lets go of my hand and busies around me:

‘With you I’m not acting, Remy. All of it’s real.’

#Lovestruck #remy chevalier #queen of thieves #fanfic

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the-blackest-spider · 4 years

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send me a misconception you think people have about my character and I'll explain if it's true or not. | Accepting

@inanisvitae left a message: Misconception: that Nat is not exactly capable of loving, that she's mostly in for herself, that her past as a double agent of sorts makes her unreliable.

I am quite amused at how we asked each other similar questions for this. :) Also this is so damn long because I decide heeey let’s talk about canon and then briefly touch on headcanons other verse things!

Below the cut because yeah, looong post.

But this is, yeah such a very misconstrued thing about Natasha, because it is both true and not. Natasha has these lines that she has created throughout her life that she balances herself upon most of the time, but also crosses one way or another as she so desires or unfortunately needs to.

She very much loves and so very hard and deep. Even despite, depending upon the verse who created her and tried remove the capability from her to do so.

In her canon, the other twenty seven girls she started in the Red Room with, they were allowed to be friends, to get along and find comfort in one another and then one day they were taken for a training exercise in the harsh, unforgiving Russian wilderness with only enough provisions for one to survive. It was a traumatic experience, and while not much detail beyond that is given, I’d like to think that her “sisters” forced her hand, that the situation made them all realize that it was me or them and in order to survive, as us humans are predispositioned to do, Natasha (Natalia at this time) learned her first lesson that she could do what was necessary, even if it killed some part of her to do it.

It was probably that scenario that made her begin to develop that closed off, keep to herself defense mechanism that she has often displayed when it comes to how close she lets others get to her at first, even though all she wants is just a normal, every day, average connection with someone.

Another instance in her canon, from which this quote comes from. She was either fifteen or sixteen years old and fighting with worn soldiers in the countryside of Slovakia and there she met the first love of her life and probably, honestly given the circumstances the most tragic, Nikolai, who was not much older than she was. They married with ribbons for rings when she became pregnant and it’s figured that he was killed in action before she gave birth, to their daughter, stillborn because of the enhancements the Red Room gave her. She named her Rose and buried her in the Slovakian woods near the home of the midwife that helped her give birth and then ever since has visited the location throughout the years when possible (I headcanon she does it every Mother’s Day).

Then there’s her tryst with as she knew him at the time, The Winter Soldier or Soldier or Soldat, James Barnes. He was to train her to become even more of an asset to her Mother Country, but in each other they found refuge from their situations and taught one another how to love despite the world they were a part of. But then of course it all gets ruined as their affair is discovered and for punishment, the Soldier is frozen and stored away in a warehouse like some object. Natasha makes the mistake of trying to find him and does, the horror of seeing him in that cryo tank is a sight that would forever haunt her, and it was her fault he was put there.

Then her country decides to let her have a “normal life” of course under their wants, they allow her to marry a man, Alexei Shostakov, a famed pilot in the Russian army. But again, someone she cared about is taken from her at the whims of her creators, who decide that Alexei is to become Russia’s take on Captain America, Red Guardian, and thus a crash is staged that he perishes in, leaving Natasha as an actual widow for the second time in her life.

So, I reason because of all this and other moments in her history, that she is afraid to love people, to allow them to get close to her, because everyone she’s loved, something bad happens to them and clearly it has to do with their association with her. A Black Widow indeed.

But, at the same time, all these moments, as she says are the ones that taught her to love, and she keeps that part of her so very protected and safe because she values the ability to do so, she fought so hard and struggled to retain it after all. Most who would go through these kind of situations would probably be done with love and make sure to keep people away from them, to keep them safe and to a degree I think she does this, for a time, but she so badly craves love, that her walls fall down after a time and she instead does everything in her power to keep those she loves as safe as utterly possible rather than keep them at arms’ length or make them want to not love her.

Now all of that, was not really used in her MCU version, but still, obviously some stuff happened that makes her guarded and fiercely protect those she loves, that makes her so selfless to sacrifice herself for an entire universe.

The MCU shows how her balancing on those lines she has created, especially with her love for others can make her have to make choices that divides her or puts her in the middle of situations. Perfect example, Civil War. She wants to keep her Family together, she says as much to Steve after Peggy Carter’s funeral. But at the same time, she understands Steve’s stance. She respects it, because she cares about him, and even though she and Tony often butt heads, she cares about him too, which is why she berates him after the battle at the German airport to stop being selfish and thinking only of himself. She knows he’s better than that, she knows they’re all better than what they had just done Which is why at the last second, she made the choice to let Steve and Bucky escape, because for her, it was the right thing to do and she realizes in the mess of that whole conflict that none of it should’ve happened in the first place and she should’ve done whatever was necessary to stop it from going that far.

So yes, her actions in Civil War are a good example of her being in something for herself as far as love is concerned, but again it isn’t about her specifically, but her seeing the big picture of a situation, which draws me back to her comic canon and the fact, that when she has to, she makes tough calls and does, again as I said, what is necessary.

“If you could take Hitler out, would you do it? Sure. Yes. Easy. Most of us would. What about Oppenheimer? That’s when things get interesting. Could you follow orders to kill a man because the product of his genius would become a weapon of war? Could you pull that trigger? Yes. I can. I did. And that, as much as anything, is what makes me the Black Widow.”

As Fury tells Steve, in Winter Soldier, Natasha is comfortable with everything. She is willing to do the things that others cannot or should not do. She is willing to cross lines, do terrible things, horrors, to keep the weight of guilt off the shoulders of others and she could, even though it could possibly, literally kill her too, kill someone she loves because they’ve gone too far. Would it be a last resort? Absolutely. But, she could do it. Some would say that makes her heartless and cold, and they’re not wrong, but she is capable of many things, she is not one note or two note.

So Tony calling her a triple imposter, isn’t wrong. Because she is, she has to be, to be capable of what she is and to some, that does make her unreliable, untrustworthy and so on, because they don’t understand her, they don’t know her or everything she’s been through that has made her the person she is.

Natasha loves because of what she is capable of, because it soothes her soul (when she had one) and is the balm to all the terrible things she’s done that she would ultimately do again and does keep doing.

This all extends to the other two major verses I’ve created for her. In Star Wars, she tries to run from the man who uses her like an assassin attack dog, and treats her like his play thing, she finds escape a couple of times, but for one brief moment in her past she does with the man she loves, who trained her (my headcanoning of James Barnes/Winter Soldier for Star Wars) and is chased down by another operative and he is most likely killed as an example to her not to step out of line again. So she is of course so very reluctant to get close to anyone after that, but she does and she does everything in her power to keep them safe from her Master.

In her Final Fantasy VII verse, she doesn’t remember that she had a whole other life before she was a Turk, because Shinra ripped it from her and made her kill the man she was going to marry (which she also doesn’t remember properly), who was trying to desperately to give her the life he felt she deserved. But still she knows, she feels so strongly she is capable of loving and she’s loved before, otherwise why would she get these feelings? Why would she care about her fellow Turks and others she comes to know? Again, as with the Red Room, Shinra tried to make her into this weapon to be used, but they couldn’t rid her of her capacity to love. They can continue to try and control her with the mako injections and the lies, but they cannot change the core of who she is and will always be, a woman ruled by her heart.

The Red Room couldn’t do it, Palpatine couldn’t do it and no one else ever can either.

TL;DR: Despite all of the terrible things Natasha has been through or continues to go through in any of her verses or canon and the horrors she is capable of committing, she has a big heart, she loves both unselfishly and selfishly like anyone else. It is because of the things she has experienced that she loves, because it is the one thing that is important, and that gives her hope and makes her feel human even though she often doesn’t feel she is. But at the same time, do not let her ability to love make you forget what she is, she is a killer too and she will do what she has to do if it comes to it, if she has no other choice. And if you hurt someone she loves, there is no where you can hide or run that she cannot find you.

#widow responses #widowcanon #here have Cat going on for almost four pages about her muse #clearly I have strong feelings about this XD #as I suppose one should #now to go get breakfast since its been 30 mins after taking meds and get stuff done I gotta do

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welcometophu · 4 years

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Into the Split: Reinforcements 3

Twinned Book 3: Into the Split

Reinforcements 3

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Nikolai wakes up when he hears voices in the hall. Dax, he thinks, and Nate, with Dax laughing and Nate shushing him as they go. The voices recede and there are no more doors or steps after they’re gone. The bed is still warm, and Seth is asleep, so Nikolai rolls over and tugs Seth closer so he can drift in that space of almost sleep.

He’s not sure how much time passes before there’s a knock on the door, but the room is brighter, more sun spilling around the window shade.

“Drea says breakfast is in the big hall downstairs,” Mac calls out. “You can come down with us in a few, or you can come down later on your own.”

Seth rolls over, buries his face in the pillow.

Nikolai isn’t positive he remembers exactly how to get there from here, but that doesn’t matter. “We’ll be down later,” he says.

“Gotcha.” Mac’s steps recede, and there are more voices in the hall as she goes.

Seth rolls onto his back, reaches up to frame Nikolai’s face with his hands, drawing him down. “Much later,” Seth mutters.

It sounds like a great plan to Nikolai, and he wastes little time in putting it to action.

The delay in getting out of bed means that by the time they have towels wrapped around their waists and go looking for the shower down the hall, no one else is around to interrupt them. There is a long row of shower heads on one side of the room, and a selection of soaps and scrubbers to use. The huge bath is heated on the other side, the size of half a swimming pool, with a sign hanging that says “please cleanse before you bathe” hanging on the wall above it.

As tempting as it might be to shower together, it’s easier to shower separately and wash quickly. By the time they are finally done, dried, and dressed, Nikolai’s certain that at least an hour has passed since the rest of their group went downstairs.

They make their way carefully, taking direction from teens who wait at two of the intersections, pointing their fingers while still staring at their phones. Nikolai can’t imagine sitting around waiting for people to get lost is at all exciting. But as they pass by, he notices one of them peeking up as they go, and looking away quickly once caught.

Maybe it is interesting after all, getting to see all the newcomers, particularly if they aren’t used to seeing anything but Clan.

The room at the center of the house is full of people, even more than the night before. Either more came in overnight, or there were new arrivals early in the morning. The seated tables are mostly full, and there are more people at the buffets around the edge. Motion catches Nikolai’s eye, and he spots Corbin waving and pointing at a small cluster of tables where most of the people from PHU seem to be. When Nikolai nods, Corbin then gestures toward the laden tables against the wall.

Drea leans in to say something to Corbin and she lightly smacks the back of his head, but Corbin flies up as a crow, staying close to the ceiling before he drops down and abruptly in human form when he lands in front of Nikolai and Seth.

“I’ve been sent to make sure you eat,” he says.

Nikolai’s pretty sure that’s not exactly what Drea said, but he won’t correct him. “Thanks. Is there space for us?”

“Alaric and Chris said something about heading upstairs.” Corbin makes a face somewhere between a smirk and a wince. “Drea and I were thinking about heading out to the apple grove to see how the trees are doing. It’s been warm, so they’re probably getting close to blooming.”

“There’s an apple grove?”

Corbin nods at Seth. “We have about a dozen different varieties. Plus peaches, plums, and pears. We have strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, and black caps. There’s farmland for vegetables and other kinds of fruit, not to mention the livestock. We’re fully sustainable when it comes to food.”

“Maples, too, I assume.” Nikolai thinks he spotted some of them while they were walking the night before.

“Sugaring season just passed, and I was so glad not to be here for it thanks to school.” Corbin exaggeratedly wipes a hand across his forehead. “Sugaring is hard work, and I’m glad to leave it to everyone else for a few years.” As they reach the table, Corbin points to a silvered pot sitting over a warmer. “But if you want to taste it, that’s the good stuff. The jams and preserves are better, though.”

They load up their plates, moving slowly through the line. Nikolai spots Pawel ahead, talking to a man who reminds him of Thorne, and a woman who has strikingly striped red and black hair.

“…Finding them was a godsend,” the woman says. “They’ve taken in five kids already. And Pawel, I know you have Conor, and it might be harder to officially place anyone with you, but if you ever think you might be able to—”

The man puts a hand over hers as she reaches for Pawel. “Luce. Slow down and give him a chance to think. Don’t worry, Pawel, she understands that not every Talented adult out there is a great candidate to foster Talented kids who need homes. She just gets enthusiastic.”

“And you don’t, Rowan?”

“I don’t mind,” Pawel says, with a small, tired smile. “Lucy, I appreciate what you are trying to say, and what you need, but unfortunately I already find myself acting as a parent to young adults who are barely younger than myself. In fact, I have two living with me right now.” He gestures, and Nikolai hesitates until Pawel gestures again, motioning for them to approach.

“I’m just going to let you two field this on your own,” Corbin whispers. “Those are two of Rory’s parents, just in case Pawel forgets to mention.” He disappears in a flutter of wings and a breeze.

Right, they met the night before, when Rory brought them over. Nikolai barely remembers it.

The empty space is a small void between them and Pawel, until Nikolai and Seth step forward, plates in hand, to close the distance.

Lucy smiles, shifting to face them with her hand extended. “Hi. I’m Lucy Wilson, and this is Rowan Baker, one of my partners.”

Rowan grins, and he’s eerily like Thorne, aside from more smile lines around the eyes, and possibly a shade shorter. “It’s good to meet you. World travelers aren’t the usual kind of Talent we get to meet.”

“Just an Empath and a Dreamwalker,” Seth replies, nudging his glasses up his nose after he shakes hands. “The world walking wasn’t exactly up to us. And with any luck, we’ll be leaving soon enough, Pawel. We won’t be in your guest room forever.”

“We run a program to help rescue Talented children who have either already dropped into the foster system, or who are living endangered lives in their homes,” Lucy explains. “We’d love to have Pawel involved, even in the outreach to help Emergent children who have parents who may not be as familiar with what being Talented involves. There’s so often a sense of fear, and children try to hide—” She stops abruptly when Rowan reaches up to put a hand over her mouth.

“Lucy rescued our Daniel and I don’t think she’s stopped rescuing people since,” Rowan almost whispers, his mouth twisted into a fond smile. “She forgets that sometimes she needs to stop being an advocate and just be a Mage who happens to sniff out Talents in an alarmingly accurate way.”

Lucy wiggles out from under his hand. “I also fly. On a broom. Like a witch.” She grins then, the corners of her eyes crinkling. “Just because it’s fun.”

Her enthusiasm is infectious, although Nikolai gets the feeling that Pawel’s too exhausted to really respond. “We live in a community at home that is a haven for all Talents, because our world isn’t friendly to them at all,” Nikolai tells her. “Someone like you would love it. You should talk to Pawel about that; he was with us for a while. It’s actually built in the same place as this Clan community is here.”

“For all Talents?”

“A cooperative community for Emergent and Lineage Talents, from Clan to Mage and beyond,” Pawel agrees. His expression relaxes and he gestures for Lucy and Rowan to move. “Why don’t we sit down and I can tell you about it. I know your experience growing up in Burlington might be familiar, Rowan, I know there is another group in New Hampshire that has combined communities as well; they are part of the new alliance that Alaric has been forging. I think this might need to be more common on our world. It is absolutely vital to survival in Nikolai and Seth’s world.”

Nikolai breathes more easily as they drift towards one of the tables. He nudges Seth, and they move on, finishing filling their plates before they look to see if there’s space with their friends so they can sit and eat.

When Nikolai takes a step, there’s a woman in front of him. She looks vaguely familiar, and Nikolai suspects they met last night as well, during the glut of arrivals throughout the evening. Her gaze is narrowed, amber eyes focused intently on Nikolai first, then Seth as she shifts her gaze. She doesn’t have a tray or plate, her hands clasped behind her back as if she’s keeping herself from reaching out. When Nikolai meets her gaze, she carefully moves, reaching up to tuck wavy strands of her tawny hair behind one ear as her head cocks, neck protected when her chin lowers slightly.

“Dayton!” someone calls out.

“I’m not going to eat them,” she replies loudly, her gaze never wavering. “I just want to meet them.” Her voice lowers as she leans in, nostrils flaring. “So. You two are the catalysts. Do we blame you, or give you acclaim? Likely both. I think more good than bad will come of this; it’s what we wanted, after all. Cooperation.”

Nikolai has been hunted by humans and Shadows alike, and this sense of being prey is entirely different. He remembers her now—the girl that Stormy had leapt onto. She hadn’t seemed so predatory last night.

Seth pushes forward, putting himself between Nikolai and Dayton. “I don’t think we’re at fault for anything. Your side of things started the process that led to us being here. We’re just along for the ride.”

Nikolai consciously relaxes, wrapping one arm around Seth’s shoulders, and kissing the side of his head. “And we will help as much as we can. But I don’t think we’re any kind of catalyst, unless you want to blame the Dreams that Nikita and I shared. Even then, I think I’d blame your Emergence after everything we’ve heard about your world.”

“You didn’t have an Emergence?” Dayton’s expression softens just enough to unpin them; Seth relaxes in Nikolai’s arms, leaning back against him. “What happened in your world?”

“Shadows,” Seth says bluntly. “We were outed by Shadows destroying everything they could. And we’d really like to keep that from continuing to happen before our world falls into darkness, thanks.”

Dayton’s smile is swift and sharp. “And so would we. You’ll be good allies. Alaric’s community is becoming wide and varied, and that can only be good. We need diversity and Talents of all kinds. The world is changing.” She turns and stalks away, her movements long and lithe like an animal.

Definitely a predator. Definitely Clan.

Nikolai steps back slowly, still balancing his plate in his other hand. “Let’s eat.”

They grab the nearest table with people they know, just to get there without further interruption. Del kicks out a free chair for Nikolai, and Heather gets up to offer hers to Seth then shares with Nikita since there don’t seem to be many free chairs left. They squeeze in around the table as Del introduces Sam and Shawn.

Nikolai tries to eat quickly. He has a feeling this small peace won’t last long.

“How long before you have to go back into the Dreamscape?” Shawn asks.

Nikolai lowers his gaze, chewing on a piece of bacon. Not even five minutes.

Seth leans close, shoulder to shoulder. “Do you ever miss being on our own?” he murmurs.

Nikolai nods and offers him a strawberry. At least the company comes with plenty of good food.

“Me?” Del taps her chest, “or us?” Her gestures encompasses Nikolai and Nikita. “The answer’s different depending on which one you’re asking about.”

Sam raises both eyebrows as he looks at her; even Nikolai senses the silent judgment.

“You,” Shawn says curtly. “You’ve spent too much time there. It feels like it’s getting harder and hard for you to come back.”

Nikolai remembers Del in the meadow, or Del on the paths, looking like she’d easily skip into the Dreams and lose herself there. “We won’t let her go,” he says.

“Of course we won’t!” Nikita agrees quickly. “Del, you have anchors.”

“I have two of them.” She pats Shawn’s hand where it lies clenched on the table, but she doesn’t meet his eyes. “And soon; I need to go in before we start meeting officially this morning. Tonight again after that. I need to keep going back and see who’s responded to the call in that space as opposed to online. We’re not going to be able to talk to Dreamwalkers from other worlds on our own internet. And my abilities work differently enough that I can have that beacon and bring people to my meadow, so yes, I have to keep going back in.”

“You’ve been going in alone.” Normally Nikolai wouldn’t think this is a bad idea, but he’s seen Del, and he has a feeling that repeated trips into the Dreamscape aren’t helping her at all. “How have you been—”

“I’m fine,” Del brushes it off with a wave of her hand. Shawn inches closer to her, his hand across the back of her chair. Del leans in, elbows on the table and fingers intertwined, her chin on her hands. “You don’t have to worry about me, Nikolai. I’m not going to go skipping off into the distance.”

“I disbelieve,” Nikita counters. Her weak smile attempts to soften the worry that suffuses the rest of her expression. “Pretty sure we’ve seen you do that.”

“It’s a little easier with these two holding me back. We’re learning, even if they aren’t Empaths. We’ve got our own way of doing things. We could probably use some advice from someone with experience,” Del admits, her attention shifting to Seth. “I don’t know if you can extrapolate from the Empathic point of view, but anything you can suggest to help us out would be good.”

“I’d be interested in the Empath way of looking at things,” Heather says firmly. “I know that the next time you go in, it’s going to be potentially more difficult. Every time we’re getting closer to finding this solution, and every time it takes more power, and more ability to keep the Dreamscape out of reality. Especially as we interact more with other Dreamwalkers.”

“We’re fine,” Nikita says, gesturing between herself and Del. “Not even a flurry outside.”

Nikolai’s not sure if he should be relieved or insulted not to be included in the collection of Dreamwalkers.

“We should still pick Seth’s brain,” Heather says.

“That makes it sound like you’re planning on eating my mind,” Seth mumbles around his food.

“You don’t need me for this, do you?” Nikolai has something else he wants to look into. Curiosity has gotten the best of him, and he’s not entirely satisfied with his conversation with Valentine the night before. He can’t stop thinking about what the Shadows mean when they say bedrock, and if Valentine is as well, he thinks it might be important to fully understand how that works.

He pushes back from the table, pausing when Seth catches his hand, drags him back down for a kiss. “I’m not going far,” Nikolai assures him. “I just want to talk to Valentine. There really isn’t much I can add to conversations about how you anchor me in reality. I just know you do.”

Seth’s gaze drifts to where Valentine sits, somehow alone at a table. “And I always will,” he says, letting go of Nikolai’s hand. “I’ll stick around and be here when you’re done.”

Nikolai grabs a chair on his way to Valentine’s table. It looks as if all the others have been stolen away, which is probably how she manages to have her own quiet space. Her plate is empty, and she holds a mug of something steaming that rests on the table as she looks across the room.

Nikolai follows her gaze to spot Alaric still sitting at the table with Corbin and Drea. Miranda is perched on his lap. She speaks excitedly, and Alaric moves every time she gestures, almost hitting him in the nose. He pays close attention, nodding at her words, and she seems entirely enthralled by the conversation.

He slides his chair into place on the same table as Valentine, so he can look out over the room in the same direction. She’s got her back mostly to the wall with a good view of everything but one part of the buffet. In this corner everything smells like coffee from the drink table behind them, but the view is worth it. “Hey,” he says as he sits. “He really is good with kids. I saw it in Havenhill, too.”

Nikolai wonders if he imagines the way Valentine flinches when he says Havenhill.

“Miranda adores him.” Valentine’s arms are crossed, her toes pressed against the floor as she rocks back on the rear two legs of her chair. “I think Elijah hasn’t decided yet. He seems torn between looking up to him, since he’s older, and resenting the fact that his little sister seems to like him better. I… should have made more of an effort to meet him before now. He’s been out to Burlington twice. David told me that he’s a good kid.” She hesitates, laughs slightly. “Young man. You all are in that awkward age of being adults, but you still seem like kids.”

“I’ve been on my own for a few years, since I thought my entire family other than Seth died,” Nikolai points out. “We grew up quick.”

“I suppose you would,” Valentine says quietly. She licks her lips, tension rolling through her. “Before you got to Havenhill.” She gestures. “Alaric told me a little about it. Pawel told me more.”

Nikolai wants to ask the question again, but he doesn’t want to offend her. He glances at her, mirroring the way she leans back in the chair, his own chair creaking as he rocks back.

She glances at him, her smile wry. She pulls one hand free, lifts it up, fingers spread. She slowly curls her fingers into a fist, then tucks her hand back in to cross her arms again. “What?”

“Did you lie about knowing Alia?” he asks quietly. He doesn’t know who might be listening and if she lied, she probably doesn’t want to talk in public.

“I thought that might be what you wanted to know.” Her gaze rests on Alaric, a small half smile as Miranda finally catches him in the nose with one hand, and as she goes to apologize, manages to kick Elija. “They can’t really hear us. Sound is my natural ability. I’m good at being either really loud, or very inconspicuous. It’s handy as a parent.”

“I don’t know what Val’s innate ability was.” Nikolai watches Alaric and Miranda as well, wondering if it makes it easier for Valentine not to have to look him in the eye. “So, then.”

“I lied.” Valentine lets her chair fall with a soft thump. “We knew each other at PHU. There was a fairly large community of Talent even then. We knew it was safe. The few people who weren’t Talented didn’t make a fuss if they found out about us, and they didn’t seem afraid of us. It was one of those things that was an open secret, and not everyone was in on it. But we found each other, and Clan hated Mages. That’s just the way things were, so we never really got along, even though we were on the same floor of the same dorm for two years in a row.”

“How much did Pawel tell you about Havenhill?” Nikolai figures that he’d be more forthcoming than Alaric, who seemed to still be reeling over the woman who wasn’t exactly his mother.

Valentine huffs. “He started with the fact that Havenhill is led by a married pair—Mage and Clan—myself and Alia. And I guess I could see how that could happen. It’s not like she isn’t gorgeous. Strong. Driven. Loyal. She’s the kind of woman who wants what’s best for her people. So am I, which is why I’m here. It’s not just because Miranda wanted to see Alaric again.”

For a moment, Nikolai thinks she means that she’s here for Alia. But no, she means she’s here for the war, such as it is, against the Shadows. “You’re here because you’re ready to join forces with the Clan.”

Valentine nods. “I’m here because we need to move past old prejudices. And they were never held in much regard in our community, but it was hard to look past someone who hated me so much when we were younger. There we were, in the same place, and when I extended an olive branch, she rejected it.”

“So you rejected her,” Nikolai says, and Valentine nods silently.

He can imagine how one thing could make a difference. One tiny change of a overture accepted. A friendship instead of enmity.

“So we’ll try again,” Valentine says quietly. “I’m sure she remembers me as well. We haven’t talked about it, and I’m sure we won’t. Agreeing to ignore it and move forward for the best of our communities. I’ve already made plans to work with the group from New Hampshire.” She gestures at another table, where a pregnant woman speaks excitedly with a group that includes Dayton. “They’ve already had tragedy strike down two Clan communities and one Mage community, and they’re rebuilding together. They could use the support.”

“The Shadows refer to Alia as bedrock,” Nikolai says slowly. He feels Valentine’s attention shift to him, so he finally looks at her full on, giving her the weight of his regard. “She’s in all worlds. Or most worlds. She’s exactly who she is, with minor differences, like marrying someone entirely different, or having a different family. Unlike people like me and Nikita, who are similar people across the worlds, but not the same.”

“You want to know if I’m bedrock as well?” Valentine scrubs a hand across her face. “I wouldn’t know.”

“You fit the description. Val has a son—Ethan. He’s a little older than your Elijah. She’s also the foster mother for her niece Marybelle,” Nikolai says. “She’s close to Alia, of course. And I have to think that having anchors on both sides of the Split is a good thing. That whatever ritual we’re going to be doing—or rather, that you’re going to be doing while we Dreamwalkers are in the Dreamscape—would benefit by having bedrock in place on both sides. So it’s something you might want to think about when you’re planning rituals with Pawel. I’m sure he’s thought of it already; the similarities are too strong not to. But he might just plan around it without actually mentioning it. And if you’re involved, you should know. In case it impacts how you handle the ritual. He’s Emergent, and he’s a good person, but he’s also exhausted and running ragged and sometimes I wonder if he’s already out of every bit of energy and just really good at faking being okay.”

Valentine’s chair scrapes as she pushes it back. When Nikolai starts to stand, she holds out a hand. “You’re fine,” she says. “I just think I need to go extend an olive branch. If you’re right, we need to build a foundation on this side. This won’t work if the bedrock is cracked.”

She heads out of the room, and Nikolai watches her go. He hopes that Alia doesn’t reject her overture outright this time. It was Alia and Alaric who called this Gather, after all. They opened their community too all Talents, and in Nikolai’s eyes, that’s the beginning of what created Havenhill. It’s the closest thing to home he’s found so far, and he hopes that nudging it closer still is a good thing.

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allstarsstorymode867 · 5 years

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All-Stars -Story Mode- CHAPTER 15 Pt. 4

Part 3 Part 5

It’s been a rough typing and editing here and there on the fanfiction story, with patience and perseverance, I can finally post part 4 here.

I want you guys to give credit to @sampoststuff and @nan14bread for the artwork for Pt. 4 so give them love and follow them. Anyways, enjoy the part.

[Meanwhile with Primis Richtofen…]

“HELLO?!” P!Richtofen screamed as he ran around the area while looking around for his teammates, he is in an unknown place, a void of sunlight and the only surface is a water-like ground as it’s colored is in a crimson shade of red.

“Dempsey?! Takeo?! Nikolai!?” He called out as he looked around, water splashing around him and as much as he doesn’t want to admit it, he’s scared…. He’s afraid.

“But… B-but…” he babbled before hearing a female voice laughed, he knew that voice doesn’t belong to Samantha or anyone else but he knew this was not good.

“Enjoying yourself, Doctor?~ Are you feeling it now?~” the voice taunted while P!Richtofen looked around frequently, taking a couple steps back while doing so. The voice taunted him again saying “Those blood vials you’ve and your allies got, the qoute-unqoute “insurance policy” that you called it now, is it? You knew that “Doctor” Monty was going to bring it up and too bad for him, I am too powerful and smarter nerd than he is. I am on no one’s side but mine!~”

“J-Just…. Vho are you?!” he jabbed as he looked around the area, he’s helpless, weaponless and hopeless to stand against whoever’s behind all of this. Behind all of the chaos that has been going on.

“Who am I? Who am I??” the voice cried, sounded offended when he asked her, “Why “Minster” Richtofen! You sound feel honored to meet someone as broken and hopeless as you!” as Richtofen was obvious to the danger that is coming from behind him from within the water.

“I am beyond pain and ruin, above all else, I am Broken but I swear for the unspoken: I may be broken as a porcelain doll but I am still here!" she declared as Richtofen turned to see a little too late and saw tentacles made out of strange types of fabric had suddenly attacked. Richtofen tried to squirm his way out of them but they are much stronger than he thought.

He let out a scream as he is pulled downward into the raging water and babbles are popping out of his mouth, he tried struggling to get out when he felt something hit his head very hard, knocking him out cold.

Tentacles then dissolves into nothing as he floated downward towards the dark unknown below, his clothes began to change as well. The straps that are secured tightly around his torso had broken off and floated upwards with his blood vials.

[Drawn a while ago by Meaghan “Iceifr” Halter]

His clothes had changed color, his pants had turned from blue to red, his vest into teal green, his dress shirt into gray navy blue, he had even a long trench coat with two new straps and he even wore gloves. One more addition had appeared around his neck and a greek symbol, Delta is then linked on the chain string, forming a necklace as it glowed purple.

A song is playing softly in the background, it had sing:

Drowning in silence gasping and violent Crying and cold I know you never knew me I'm thinking all the way down In darker, deeper, freezing water

As he floated down backwards, making it look like he is falling from the sky head first into the abyss when a hand had reached out, a human hand, not a zombie, not Hallow. Just a normal human hand reaching from below him and then dragged him deeper into the water to which it’s started to turn from red to blue slowly as the song reaches to it’s fated end as everything is turning to white.

It's colder even now...

He then woke up, just like that, he found himself looking at the nighttime sky from where he’s at, it’s beautiful with all the stars and the moon out but that feeling that was there had short lived when he felt a sharp pain from his left arm.

He hissed in pain and then sat up to look at it and saw that his hand and arm are covered in cuts and thorns are still stuck in it. He reached for one thorn and then pulled it out and then recoiled back in pain.

“G-Guys?” Miss Pauling groaned as she rolled over, Diego is starting to wake up and then realized that he is on top of Scarlett, shocked by this revelation, he froze in place when Scarlett begins to wake up as well and noticed that she is under him.

Silence has filled around them for a moment as they looked at each other, “Well… This is a familiar situation.” he finally said as he looked at her, earning a sigh from her in return.

“What, you falling asleep on top of me?” she scolded as she gently pushes him off of her, Diego landed onto his back with a groan of pain as others around him began to wake up from their slumber.

“Oh… Mah head…” Engineer mumbled as he rubbed his head in aching pain, he looked around and noticed Pyro is about an itch far from him, “Pyro…” he muttered as he is surprised to see them lying on the ground before stumbling onto his feet and then ran to their side as he slid onto his knee-protecting caps he had strapped on.

“Pyro!” Engineer maintained from yelling, shaking them gently as he looked at them and noticed a crack on one of their eye lenses of their gas mask. “Aw hell, what happened when we’re out?” he demanded as he looked at them.

A muffed groan came out from them, Engineer looked at Pyro with relief and said “Thank god, you’re alright, Pyro.” just when Medic had awoken with a splitting headache.

Pyro looks at the Engineer and must’ve noticed they had a crack on the len of their mask, they must've panicked when they saw it when they saw Engineer so they had called out “Medic!”

“H-Huh…?” Medic said confused, looking over as he picked up his Medigun while Primis Nikolai and Shaw begins to wake up as well. He stumbled over to the two and kneels down to Pyro and asked “Are you hurt?” when he noticed a crack in the len, he rolled his eyes and then activated the Medigun right away without a word for a little bit for the len to be repaired.

P!Richtofen turned his head to the field and called out “Medic!” as he happened to use a cloth he had for the wounds on his arm to briefly stopped the bleeding, Medic looked over to the Primis Doctor after he finished fixing Pyro’s len. He ran over to him and then healed him with a medical beam with a usual pace and annoyed expression that Richtofen had acknowledged. “Does this happened often, Doctor?” he asked, the fellow German looked at the doctor with a confused look, “Hm? Oh… I had often gotten used to zhis routine, if you had discovered this type of healing medicine und zhen solution becomes a daily routine in zhe Gravel Wars.” he answered with honestly as he leaned a hand for the doctor, Edward then grabbed and then was pulled up onto his feet with Medic’s help. “It must’ve been a problem type zhan solution.” he said as he dusted himself off as Medic chuckled.

“It may be annoying problem but do not vorry mein friend, you’ll get used to it.” Medic humored with a smile, the way he talked reminds Richtofen of his friend and companion, Dr. Ludwig Maxis and looked up to him as a father figure when his parents passed away unexpectedly.

Nikolai is the one who noticed that they are no longer in the Caves but somewhere else they had never been.

“Where are we?” Nikolai groaned as he looked over to see Ultimis Dempsey and Takeo there as well, “Seems like an unfamiliar place,” Shaw stated as he surveyed the area and as well hearing sounds of a town going through some type of riot, “An unfamiliar place that is surrounding a park. How strange.”

“What the…” U!Dempsey muttered as he looked around with his Takeo who are astonished to see a place surrounding the natural park. “Guys… I think we’re in a mall.” Miss Pauling answered as the members of Primis, Chaos and Ultimis looked at her with even more confusion about the mall.

“The what?” Takeo questioned as he and Dempsey are suspecting about this place, “She said you are in a mall, what are you; deaf?” another new voice had suddenly chirped up with seriousness tone sharpen it.

They turned to look who had said that and see a very pale skin man wearing three layers of clothes: on his upper body, a button-up white shirt with a protruding collar kept partially buttoned, a plain gray hoodie, and a black leather jacket with a red interior, two horizontal white lines on each sleeve, and a red tribal design on the back. On his lower body, he wears plain blue jeans and black shoes.

He is standing with his back against a tree, his arms crossed together as he looked at them with his eyes are light blue and had constantly have a sickly gray tinting around them while he was wearing a hood over his head.

“Are you people lost or something?” the man said in an ominous tone, Takeo gently placed his hand on the handle of his katana sword as he felt a grim araroa coming off of him, Shaw swiftly held his arm out to stop him before he could draw it out.

The man seemed to have noticed this and said “I guess this outbreak had you guys on edge too, did it?” as he tilted his head to aside before walking towards them.

“Outbreak?” Nikolai said in shock, “What kind of outbreak is it?” he questioned as he took a couple of steps back away from this man approaching him. “Well, it’s a zombie-related outbreak and from what I can tell that this town is infested with them by now.” he answered as he stopped in his tracks.

Everyone looked at each other in shock and overwhelmed while the man watched, Pyro did turn their head back at him to look at, they are wasn't so sure if they all should trust him after since they had just meet him tonight and also… He was almost not human-like at all.

“How bad was it?” Dempsey ordered, feeling his marine side kicking in as he looked at the man, he had an almost expressionless look and he answered “I think it’s best that you should see it for yourselves but be careful, there are people that are still ass-shaken with all the hell happened.”

“Gotcha.” Dempsey nodded and looked over to everyone, waves his hand for them to follow him and then looks at the man before saying “I’m Dempsey, thanks for the help.” “The name’s Alex Mercer by the way, and you’re welcome.” the now-named man said before turning around and then walking away with Dempsey protesting “Hey, where ya going?”

Alex only turned around and looked at him, “Going for a place to hide like other survivors here and if we ever meet up again, I will be generous to help you guys out.” he cautioned as he turned and then continued walking away.

Ultimis Dempsey shook his head as he turned to everyone and said, “Alright, let’s go see the damages.” then walking ahead of the group and others did so.

[45 minutes later]

They all got there and they saw townspeople screaming, crying and panicking as they held their loved ones close, their confused and don’t know what to do, one hispanic man in a black dress shirt had got up with a bat, the woman, presumingly his girlfriend or wife had got up and asked “H-Hey! Where are you going?!”

“Stay alive! I’m getting help!” he answered as he headed for the direction of the zombie’s groans, “With those f*&^ing things out there, are you insane?!” she yelled as she stood there after she stopped following him.

“Yeah!”

“But it’s not safe!” Black african man with a yellow dress shirt with a tie and brown pants and leather shoes yelled, putting his hand on his shoulder to stop him, making him look at him in anger and disbelief.

“Brad!” another female voice called out, a white caucasian woman wearing grey formal clothing, under shirt, necklace, skirt and black shoes is kneeling down to one of the townies and that he was injured, making Brad let go of the bat-helding man to go over to her.

They are seeing them trying to treat the person as Brad said “How bad is it, Jesse?” as he looked at him and seeing a bite mark on his left wrist. Jesse can only answer “Pretty bad, Brad.”

Miss Pauling wasn’t sure what to make out of this chaos that is undergoing as she looked over to other group of survivors. One woman with a cellphone that she had never seen before and it looked brand new as she is trying to get out a call but couldn’t as she said “I… I can’t get a signal… Why- Why can’t I get a signal?”

Man who was traumatized then begins to babble things such as this “I-I was holding onto her and t-they had her, she was there for a minute then suddenly she went down with those things without a sound a-and I don’t know what to do, I-I just ran!” while he moved around constantly.

Richtofen was busy as he looked at the survivors until he looked at a young woman, the only one that doesn’t look modern as everyone else.

Her skin is sickly pale with disheveled shoulder-length dull brown hair, which looked like it was growing back after it had been once cut off against her will. Her cheeks are gaunt and she looks even more borderline anorexic and exhausted. Her eyes have darkened skin around them, giving the impression that she is tired or has been crying. He noticed that the cuts were her suicide cuts on her once-bloody wrists appear to have been healed.

She looked like was suffering from poverty and couldn't afford basic clothing, someone must have given her clothes. For what she wears, she wears a filthy black-and-white dress with a striped, long-sleeved top and black skirt, complete with black stockings, ankle-high boots, and a dirty white apron.

Young woman was underweight and fragile figure; she is borderline anorexic with a dangerously small waist, implying malnourishment. She has dark hair, a long oval-shaped face and large eyes with a shade of emerald-green. She is of average height for a woman, possibly slightly under average.

She was looking at the situation they are in before noticing Richtofen was looking at her as she looked back, looking at him with a look that can only say “We need to get out of here.” with her hand close to her face.

Richtofen was heading to her but another african man had cut in front of him, one thing the Doctor had noticed that his man is in his mid-50s, around 6 feet tall (1.83 m), mark on his neck is his thickly scar on his neck and he appeared to be wearing a normal civilian’s clothing; he is wearing a dress shirt with a black coat, black jeans and casual black shoes.

“Hey!” he said, “You can go around flirting around women later but can’t you see the situation we are in?!” as he points at the see-through doors with zombies that are… Confusing.

They looked like they were eaten, their eyes are glowing red as they are scratching their arms and necks like they had an itch. Their injuries are usual as their zombies are, with open wounds and guts spilled out but one thing that stands out the most is that they are not trying to get in or banging their hands on the glass.

Engineer and Richtofen looked at where the man had pointed in awe, “Dang it.” Engineer said, “I know, it’s already gotten worse for everything here in a small town called “Willamette” and I can tell…” the man growled, like he was mad at someone he knows.

“I can tell he did this! Jigsaw did this! This is another of his twisted games!” he yelled as he holds his head with his hands, everyone around looked at him confused. “Who is Jigsaw?” Richtofen’s thought said through his skull.

“This Jigsaw fellow behind this zombie outbreak, son?” Engineer said as he continued to look at doors with the dead being on the other side of it, avoiding the gazes of other people who were surprised to hear it.

“Those things have a name?” one man asked, another man who gave him a glare and then answered “Told ‘cha! Like in the George A. Romero’s zombie movies about them!”

“True.” Brad said, “But we already know killing them in the head is possible.” he continued, Nikolai nodded and said “True, comrade.”

“But still, it’s sure to block this one of all entrances here to keep them all out for sure until help arrives.” an old man added, “If we all do that; then we sure as dog on a stool we will be safe.”

He was standing beside Dempsey when he nudged him a little as he reassured others, “But hey! Best parts that we had already known about these “zombies” is that when we ran away, they’re too slow and dumb.”

“Good to know.” Miss Pauling said as she raised an eyebrow to this, the friendly old man clapped his hands together and then said, “Alright, time to seacure the mall. As long as all of you know what is going on, check every nook and cranny here for any stuff heavy enough for you can find then meet us back here. Now get!” as he clapped his hands like a referee, “Move ‘er out! Go!” before ushering them away.

Unsure with what’s happened, other that they are receiving stares from the people around them, most of them are looking at them with suspicions, some of them are looking at them like their prayers had been answered.

“Like one zombie situation after another.” Richtofen had thought to himself, looking around him and to the survivors around them. He noticed that this man he had stopped him earlier is now walking with them.

“Um… Do ve help you?” he asked, trying not to sound too weirded out by this behavior. “Going with you, not to know what is going on but to find Jigsaw.” he said like it explains everything behind his reason.

“Alright then…?” he said, “Zhen you tell us vhy you vant to help.” Richtofen soon asked the man beside him. “It’s my own reason but I want to help to make sure everyone is safe. Police had the idea that goes with the Serve and Protect mottos when I had once go by as an officer.” “Wait, you’re a cop?” Miss Pauling asked, looking at him with scared and surprised with the fear of one police officer to find out about the Gravel Wars in her world. “I am a detective,” he answered, looking at her as he walked ahead. “I’m David Tapp, I work as a detective and I am working on the case of the killer named''Jigsaw ``. You?”

“Miss Pauling,” she introduced to herself, “And these people is my team are with me.” she continued as she jesters everyone to him. “Hello” Nikolai greeted the detective but David only turned away from him to look at Richtofen with suspicion to winch Nikolai is quite familiar with.

He had his suspicions with his Richtofen, Primis version of the original for all he had done and had always doubts about plans of saving their future but this man is somewhat different, reasons behind it was something that person is truly obsessed with something or someone.

*Something like this fills you with… *Worry for David Tapp’s obsession and his sanity.

“Yet, earlier you had said that this “Jigsaw” had done this, is it true?” Nikolai questioned, making Tapp look right at him with a glare and then answered “I didn’t but if I’d find evidence that he did this then I couldn’t wait until I get my hands on him and then make him pay for all of this.”

Others began getting to work with the job of barricading as they listened to David’s story.

[Drawn by SamPostsStuff on Tumblr]

“Oookay?” Scarlett said as she listened to the conversion, David could only say to her, “You had no idea what he is capable off, he would make- no, force you to play his sick game like a puzzle or a riddle until you will “appreite” life and be “reformed” but I know that he is killing druggies and innocent people.”

Scarlett is a bit intrigued by his determination and she noticed that he had an obsession with this Jigsaw so she had decided to keep an eye on him to make sure he doesn’t become something possibly dangerous if it had gotten to the point of insanity after not catching the killer he had explained, but they had another objective to get it done first; Barricade the mall.

“Winch one entrance should we start off first?” Scarlett asked over her shoulder, looking for a map of the mall as U!Takeo had said while looking at one map he had found “Entrance Plaza?” making others turned and looked at him who is still looking at the map confused.

[From Dead Rising Fandom Wiki, the map from the First Dead Rising Video Game]

They looked at the map and they are both amazed and confused to see the map, except for Engineer, Pyro, Medic, Spy and Miss Pauling who knew what this map had meant and she noticed a promment that had the same map on it. With all the names of each store and everything that is useful to their advantage.

Miss Pauling looked at it for a moment as she knew this could be useful later and she did think about that Alex Mercer who had meet them earlier and would try to join them to face against whatever threat is to them, she then hurryingly stuffed it in her pouch for later.

*You had gotten the map of Willamette Shopping Mall! *It could be useful for future use. *That or just kill time in a mall like this.

Miss Pauling looked at the text below her and made a mental note to acknowledge it in the future, looking over to the entrance as well with her teammates before saying “Alright, Entrance Plaza it is. Best to work.” to everyone around her.

“Then let’s get started barricading.” U!Dempsey said as he walked over to a pile of thin-ish wood planks and picked them up. P!Richtofen and Scarlett looked at each other and then going over to the wooden beam and then them working together, picked it up with their hands, Scarlett’s being gloved and Richtofen’s bare handed, he didn’t complain since they are in the middle of another zombie outbreak but he had hoped this couldn’t be worse than the one back in Northern France.

Spy stood there, presiding as he took another drag of smoke and then said “Best to do what she said, gentlemen.” as he looked over to the Engineer and Med who nodded as the Texen picked up a few scattered wooden boards and a hammer.

Diego ad been watching them from the stairs been watching when he noticed Pyro had started up the stairs and he didn’t mind it since this is another time he had during the heist that went wrong and started an outbreak on the Titanic, the ship that had sunk into the ocean’s cold embrace of water. But he had remembered that everyone that had turned into zombies had returned to normal after they finished the trial and seeing the gateway that Shaw had identified Delphi, Greece and… He hardly remembered what happened next. He knew that he needs to try harder on remembering how they all got there.

“I wonder who that victorian girl is, she seemed familiar…” Richtofen thought as he and Scarlett made their way to the entrance, he looked at it once again and made note of it mentally if they break the glass of the door and grabbed him, he will not hesitate to fight back when needed.

They then placed it when Engineer walked over as well and with Shaw’s help, they hold the board up on one of the doors and then hammered the nails in with each hit. Diego and Medic had picked up a bench and moved it at the doors.

People of the small town of Willamette simply watched before deciding to not to stand around being victims and then be survivors like they were in a movie set or something. Then much like clockwork; they helped them barricade the entrance after their group had spent seven minutes to warm up the barricading for the townsfolk.

Feeling a bit tired, Richtofen decided to rest easy as he pressed against a pillar and then slid down as Medic and Scarlett looked over their shoulders to see this. They go over to him to see if he is alright but he relented “Don’t vorry, I’ll be alright, I’m just tired.” as they kneel down to his level.

“Are you sure?” Scarlett asked, Richtofen nodded as he looked at her. “I am sure, I zhink vith me staying up for so long fighting zhese zhings had me sleep deprived.” he continued as he rubbed his eye out of tiredness, Medic places his hand on his shoulder after he told him this and said softly “I understand, it had been tiring on our mission und being brought here. Rest easily mein friend.” with a smile, what he said softly is to make sure no one around them wasn’t able to year.

Richtofen wasn’t sure about but he nodded, he wasn’t used to sleeping like this with his bear as he watched them go off, possibly going back to barricading the entrance as he thought it that way. He felt too tired, he wanted to fight it, fight it ro stay awake before he knew that he’s losing as his eyes fluttered closed for a moment and then…

He snapped his eyes back open as he muttered “Nein! Nien… I can’t sleep now! Zhe entrance must be…” but then he looked around his surrounds as he finished “Closed off…?”

There were people here before, his teammates, the survivors, zombies… Everyone. But now, it was completely deserted, empty, like they had been erased from existence as Richtofen got back on his feet and then looked around. “Hello? Scarlett? Miss Pauling? David?” he called out as he walked around the area, the barricade is still up to winch it was a relief to him.

“Vhere is everyone?” he questioned to himself, “Edward… Please, keep yourself together, zhey must’ve gone someplace else, getting more zhings for zhe barricade.” he reassured himself as he noticed something in his eyesight.

A white rabbit with a top hat and a pocket watch, it’s eyes seemed familiar, one eye is green yet the other eye was white, it clicked in his mind that it is blind in one eye. He found himself in a staring contest with the white rabbit as it- as he looked back at him.

Then finally, he said with Stanton Shaw’s voice; “Come quickly, Eddie, we must go to her. We must not be late.” before he taps on his watch to the puzzled Doctor before turning around and then runs off as the gate opens up for him.

Richtofen then found himself running off to go after the white rabbit as he called out “Wait! Stant- I mean Rabbit! Wait!” as he ran as fast as his legs can carry him, hoping to gain some speed on him. He was surprised that the White Rabbit had been around Shaw’s height and he can run and then hopped every now and then as they run across the mall.

“Wait! Rabbit! Wait for me! Vhat do you mean by “Her”?” he yelled out after him as the White Rabbit slid on the floor and then went into another section of the mall: Paradise Plaza.

“Wait!” he called out again as he enters the plaza but he was shocked to see that the White Rabbit had disappeared, he looked around the plaza as he looked around for him but he can’t see him. “Vhere did he go…? Und vhy does he sound like Shaw?” he thought as he continued to look around. He then heard a crack and then felt a jolt from before.

He looked at his feet and his eyes widen when he saw that the floor he is standing on is breaking, another cranked and he was about to run off the breaking floor but it was too late for him to do that as the floor gave way and he fell through it with a yell.

A voice he heard was a man’s voice, it sang:

I invite you to a world where there is no such thing as time.

He listened to that voice closely as he felt some comfort from it strangely as he fell down the hole, the Rabbit Hole he had fallen into.

And every creature lends themselves to change your state of mind. And the girl that chase the rabbit, drank the wine and took the pill. Has locked herself in limbo to see how it truly feels.

Wonderland, that answer to that riddle is Wonderland but Richtofen is confused yet continued to listen as he felt a cool wind wrapping around him.

To stand outside your virtue, no one can never hurt you. Or so they say…

Her name is Alice.

She crawls through the window, shaped in shadows.

Alice Alice

And even though she’s dreaming, she knows.

Richtofen was lost in the song before everything around him had gone black, he can’t see through the pitch black darkness and he couldn’t feel anything but a cool wind around him and his body.

He then see a clearing from below him as he found himself floating down gently, a cyan blue glow had revealed that he is wearing different clothing, he looked at his gloved hands and then at the trench coat as he landed on his feet softly on the sand.

[Reference sheet of P!Richtofen’s Wonderland costume “Dead Wonderer” by Meaghan “Icefir” Halter”]

“How unusual…” he spoke softly, dumbfounded, he then noticed on his side it was a holder and it meant to be a knife. “It seemed to be empty.” he said as he looked around and slowly realized…

He is under water, literally, there’s seaweed, coloral, fish and crabs anywhere and everywhere. At first, he panicked, he began swimming but then realized that he wasn’t drowning as he thought as he slowed down the pace while he breathed in water and air bubbles coming out.

“How… How is zhis possible?” He asked as he looked at his hands in disbelief, “How can I breath underwater vhen I don’t have gills as fishes do?” he questioned, he looked down at his feet as he placed his hands on his head as he breathed more in hopes of calming down his heart rate but something shiny hits his eye. He blinked and then looked at object that is reflecting the light.

There, in the rock was a knife, a Vorpal Knife wedged into it and his reflection had his attention. He wasn’t sure why but he was mesmerized by it and walked towards it with a calming pace, he walked towards the rock and then gently grabs the knife by the handle and then… Pulled it out of its place.

He examined the knife and each detail of it, his fingers had touched the blade and felt it’s smooth touch. “Vhat is zhis knife? It had a different metal from vhat I remembered.” he asked internally to himself.

“It is the Vorpal blade you had in your hands.” a voice echoed out, he turned around with the verbal knife in his right hand, ready to fight as he looked around for the voice. “Is there someone there?” he caugtion, as he kept his eyes open for anyone who will appear.

“Or something?” a voice cooed out, it sounded close in his ear and that made him jump at the voice and slashed in thin air. He looked around for the voice with his feet having a mind of their own as he walked around and then questioned “Who are you?”

“Who am I?” it answered, sounded offended, “You should know me, Edward Richtofen. You know my tricks and my stripes in stories. Ticks and fruits are often ripes for each taking.” it continued, he was surprised that the voice knew his name but left out the “Doctor” from it. “I must be losing it but…” He muttered to himself before letting out another question.

“Vhere are you?”

“Follow the grin I wore, so you will be krin to know who I am as you are sore.” the voice said softly as Richtofen clearly felt the voice is actually grinning when it spoke out a hint, hint within a riddle.

He then looked around with caution as he held tightly on the knife in his hands as he walked around in a swordsman's pace. His eyes scanned the area for anyone or anything but didn’t see who the voice belongs to but then thought about the riddle for a moment and then it clicked in his head; Find the grin.

He then continued to look around for anyone who had a grin and then noticed a wall of the cave he’s in, he realized that it had a very defying detail on it; a grin and it’s eyes opened up. Richtofen gasped at the sight in disbelief.

Then the rest of hit’s body appeared, his body in detail that is very familiar to him yet at the same time; it was unfamiliar at the same time.

It was the Cheshire Cat but vaguely resembles a Sphinx cat, with its very thin coat of fur and thin body shape. The Cheshire Cat has taken an emaciated, almost skeletal appearance; his bones can be seen through his fur-less, gray skin. His decaying starved appearance is suggestive of a cat carcass that has been rotting for years.

He has a large head and paws, a disturbingly human-like smile which is sometimes seen spattered with blood, a long neck, sharp claws, big pointed ears, and a long tail with a tuft of fur on the end. He wears a gold hoop earring in his right ear, and his skin is covered with black markings similar to tribal tattoos. His smile looks maniacal, and he appears to have under-grown yellow incisors that are covered in blood. His eyes are also green, and glow with a bright, illuminating light.

“Congrations, Edward, you had found me.” he said as he walked over to him as he looked at the cat with confusion and disbelief. “It can’t be… You can’t be real…” He uttered as Cheshire Cat stops with a constant smile. “I can be, I can not be but here, it’s either winch.” he said in a rhyme and cryptic tongue, “As much you prefer me to be but I prefer my own choices, much to an ice on a cake much as your mind would rake.” he continued as he hopped onto a broken old beam that was once a part of an old world ship.

Richtofen seemed annoyed at this but watching the cat walking as he said “If you are real, then do such things so I can confirm that I am losing mein mind.”

Cheshire Cat seemed to like the idea and then said “Persistent one, are you Richtofen?” as he stopped near a rusted flag pole before finishing “Since you had offered, I do insist.” and then walking but didn’t come out on the other side of the flagpole. He had disappeared once again, Richtofen was surprised to see this and walked over to the flagpole to see if he had used a flag to disappeared but he realized quickly that the pole is missing the flag.

Richtofen didn’t realized that Cheshire had reappeared again but this time, from behind him as he looked at him.

[Drawn traditionally by Meaghan “Icefir” Halter]

“Is this proof that you are needed, Edward?” he spoke up, making Richtofen turned around in shock, he then shook his head and then walked back to the rock where he had picked up the Verbal Knife and then placing it back in place.

“Zhis is enough, vhen I placed zhis back you will just disappear.” Richtofen said as he did this but Cheshire is still in fact there, in the full view of Edward’s, he floated upwards in the air/water and padding around him as he said “When you do that, and who are you be?”

Richtofen sneered a glare at the cat and said in a confrontal yet calm voice he can muster, “I am not insane, I am a doctor und I vill leave zhis nonsense including you behind und forget zhat zhis had happened!” as he began to walk away but Cheshire Cat stops him “Alright, be on your way then. I can not stop you but she would be disappointed that you’re not coming.” he relented that made Richtofen stopped in his tracks.

“Vho is she?” Richtofen asked under his breath, sensing the Cat is walking over to him and gone in front of him with the same grin he wore. “Alice, her name is Alice Liddel, I believe to an ace that you know her.” he answered, as he disappears and then reappears next to the Vorpal blade as he said this next.

“As for the Vorpal blade in hand,” as the knife has widge itself free from its place, then floated over to him as Richtofen turned around to see the Cheshire Cat but to see a floating knife coming towards him. He yelled out in surprise but watched at the knife had lends itself a handle for him to grab.

“It’s your and Alice’s only weapon in Londerland, a mix of London and Wonderland been put together as one. It is your only weapon to ensure your sanity, if you manage to get to her with it then you will be brought back to your realm that is reality to you. Shall you take this deal or not?” he spoke again with his paw gestures for him to take the Vorpal blade.

Richtofen was thinking about it for a moment as he spoke on his mind, “If I refuse, I will go… Gone insane as my original self but if I do….” He then cursed under his breath as he had made his choice and then grabbed the Vorpal Blade.

*You have gotten the Vorpal Blade! *The knife made from the metal that had slayed the Jabberwocky in one of Alice’s stories. *Best to hold onto it for now.

“I am now more insane than myself.” Richtofen sighed in defeat, “Now,” Cheshire Cat began with the same grin but it felt like it was satificanified, “we must go to meet her now, when and how then again I will lead the way.” he said then he hopped off and walked off, before P!Richtofen could walk off after him, he noticed something at his point of view, a small purple 4 pointed star, just flickering softly of it’s own light as it had rested on top of a treasure chest.

He wasn’t sure why but he was once again curious and then walked over to it, he was hesitant to let his hand touch it as thoughts about the star; was it a 115 star? Was the Apothicans doing this? Was Dr. Monty doing this?

His hand had neared the star when the Delta pendent glowed purple once again, he looked at it with looks of bewilderment, he lightly touched with his other hand and then turned to the star again. Then a text appeared before him, it said:

[Dead Wonderland (P!Richtofen’s Mental World)]

*First we are taken from our respective universe and now this?

*If I want to know more, I must persevere.

[Drawn by Nan14Bread on Tumblr]

[ED. RICHTOFEN LV 45 11:52]

[Dead Wonderland - Mental Realm]

>Save Return

Richtofen holds his hand as he looked at the text as the necklace continued to glow, he then looked at the word “Save” that is glowing yellow, he once again reaches his hand out to the text and then accidentally pressed it.

[ED. RICHTOFEN LV 45 11:54]

[Dead Wonderland - Mental Realm]

[File saved]

[HP restored]

“Incredible…” Richtofen muttered in amazement as he saw a swirl of purple magic surrounded him and felt the same warm feeling deep down, he felt new and resurrected for a strange reason. He was thinking about it for barely a minute when Cheshire Cat reappeared once more and called out “Are you coming, Edward?”

He snapped his head up again before running over to the cat to catch up, he looked back at the star one last time before turning his attention to the pendent he’s wearing, he recognized the greek symbol due to the shape of it like this “Δ” and was confused on why he is wearing.

“I hope for your sake zhat Alice is here, isn’t she?” Richtofen said as he placed the knife in its sheath while he walked along the sandy road with Cheshire Cat walking beside him. “Eye of the storm is often to stream of voices along the path to your Otherland.”

“Otherland?” he asked, looking at him with curiosity as he tried to avoid the fish heading their way. “Mental states of mind, Edward, her ability to travel into their worlds freely whenever she pleases. With yours is quite…. Starting to say the least or the rather of it is quite lasting nightmares.” the Cat had explained as Richtofen listened to him while he looked around.

“Do you think that I had-” he was beginning to say but Cheshire had used his paw to halt him, looking alerted and said “Best to get out your weapon, we had unexpected company.” before disappearing.

Richtofen looked around as he got the knife out and readied himself for anything that can fight back, then he saw the same creatures, the Hallows but they all looked…. Different than before.

(Two types: Alpha Hallow and Omega Hallow, created by Broken yet drawn by Meaghan “Icefir” Halter)

It was as tall as a velociraptor as it nearly looked like one but with dog bones mixed, fur had covered it’s neck as it gone from its head all the way back to the tip of its tall, more cracks are all over its body, antennas are longer and almost instinct like.

He readies himself for the fight against this different type of Hallow.

8 notes · View notes

simonxriley · 5 years

Note

The whole fluff alphabet for LizxPrice, or one or the other if both is too much! (OC content is good content!)

*Rubs hands together* I love me some Liz and Price, and fully agree with you on that. OC content is good content. Thank you! This is also going to be long so it’ll be under the cut.

Fluff Alphabet!

A ctivities - What do they like to do with their s/o? How do they spend their free time with them?

They like to spend the day at the horse races Price used to frequent a lot before the war when they have time off. It’s a nice relaxing day, just the three of them off base spending much needed quality time together. They also like to take their son to parks, museums, zoos, etc, just so he doesn’t have a life growing up that’s strictly on base, and truthfully Price loves to see the huge smile on his sons face when he’s having fun or seeing something new and exciting for the first time.

B eauty - What do they admire about their s/o? What do they think is beautiful about them?

This might seem weird to some people but Liz really admires Price’s bluntness. He’s not blunt in an offensive way, she likes the clarity of knowing exactly how he feels about something. She also admires his selfless nature, how he’ll always put her and their son before him…and work. Liz finds his blue eyes beautiful, it reminds her of the ocean and brings her back to her childhood where she spent most of her time.

Price admires her love. He knows how stubborn and hard to handle he is, which is probably why he was never really in a romantic relationship, that and work. Then Liz comes along and not only can handle him, but also love him. He also admires her lightheartedness, even after all they’ve been through she’s still can crack a joke/pun and tease him every now and then. Price finds her smile completely breath taking and he loves how her eyes crinkle at the sides every time she smiles.

C omfort - How would they help their s/o when they feel down/have a panic attack etc.?

Price will make her a cup a tea and be an open ear so she can rant and ramble about what’s bothering her. Other times he’ll buy her flowers and some of her favorite candies and let her cry on his shoulder. If Liz is suffering from a panic attack, he’ll just hold her close and let her cry it out until she’s ready to talk.

Liz will make his favorite meal if he’s feeling down and be a listening ear so he can rant and ramble about his day to her. She’ll also have their son draw him a picture knowing it’ll put him in a better mood. Price doesn’t suffer from panic attacks, but he does have a severe case of survivors guilt and nightmares. And when the guilt gets the better of him or a nightmare happens he won’t wake Liz up, he’ll quietly get out of bed and leave the house to go to the shooting range on base. For the most part she has to call him and yell at him to come home, he obliges. Then they spend the night either having a couple of drinks (if it’s really bad) and talking or cuddling in bed and talking.

D reams - How do they picture their future with their s/o?

Price never pictured his life to be so great, let alone be in a committed relationship and have a child. He’s actually very happy with how his life is now and wouldn’t change it for the world. I’m still trying to figure out if him and Liz would get married or not.

Liz is very happy with how their life is too and really wouldn’t change anything. Except she wouldn’t mind having another child in the future, but knows Price would be against it. With how their lives were during the war, getting betrayed, being fugitives and losing everyone they care about, their lives are a lot better than either expected.

E qual - Are they the dominant one in the relationship, or rather passive?

Price is a little bit more dominate because it’s in his nature but he knows Liz is his equal and they do make decisions together.

F ight - Would they be easy to forgive their s/o? How are they fighting?

Absolutely. They don’t actually fight that often, when they do it’s usually because of their stubbornness (mostly Price’s). He only gets really stubborn around the anniversary of Soap’s death. Every year it’s the same outcome, Liz will suggest they go visit his grave and he doesn’t want to. It then turns out into a big argument because she’ll always tell him he can’t run from the past forever and he should make peace with it. Price always apologizes a few hours later with some flowers.

And very rarely they’ll argue about something containing their son. Like if he should go to daycare or not.

G ratitude - How grateful are they in general? Are they aware of what their s/o is doing for them?

Price and Liz are extremely grateful for each other. After everything they’ve been through, to find love and have a family is amazing in their eyes. And they are very aware of what they do for one another. Price isn’t that good with words, but he’s grateful for everything Liz has done. To make their home feel like a home instead of four walls and a roof because he knows he’ll be spending more time on base than at home and of course their son. Everyday he comes home to a loving family and for the most part a home cooked meal, unless it’s his turn to cook.

Liz is grateful for everything he does for her and their son. Even though they have enough money saved up between them to be fine for a few years, she’s grateful that he was the one who still wanted to work and was okay working while she stayed home to raise their son. The one thing she loves the most is that Price will always put them first and make time to spend with them. Liz will always knows that they’ll be taken care of and loved.

H onesty - Do they have secrets they hide from their s/o? Or do they share everything?

Liz is very open with him and won’t keep things to herself. She thinks communication is the key for a good relationship and trust. Price is pretty much the same, but there are things he hasn’t told her and she’s well aware of it too. He won’t push him though and wait until he’s ready to tell her.

I nspiration - Did their s/o change them somehow, or the other way around? Like trying out new things or helped them overcome personal problems?

Yes, they have. Liz would have never gone to a horse race, she didn’t find it fun just sitting watching horses go around in a circle and betting on them. But after going with Price and how much fun she actually had, she enjoys going every year and gets excited the closer the day comes. He also made Liz finally come to terms that it’s okay to stop being in contact with her emotionally abusive and neglectful father.

Price would have never settled down if it wasn’t for Liz and his weak ass pull out game. After their son was born all he wanted to do was stay home and be with them, watch him grow and help Liz as much as possible. Which was the reason he retired from the field because he didn’t want to miss anything and became a training officer for the SAS.

J ealousy - Do they get jealous easily? How do they deal with it?

Liz doesn’t, Price does. It’s due to the fact that he’s much older than her and he’s secretly afraid some younger person will come along and woo her. He usually becomes quite hostile over her and isn’t afraid to throw hands and tell them to sod off. Liz finds it cute, because she knows no one will ever come close, and she’s very happy being with him.

K iss - Are they a good kisser? What was the first kiss like?

They both are good kissers. Their first kiss was a few hours after they rescued the Russian president and Liz confessed she was afraid of losing him. He didn’t say anything he just walked up to her, cupped her face in his hands and kissed her.

L ove Confession - How would they confess to their s/o?

It’s a few hours after their son is born. They’re both completely in love and enamored with him, then she finally turns to him and says “John I love you!”. It was quite the shock to him, he wasn’t expecting to hear her say that. His face softens after that and he says it back and thanks her, for everything.

M arriage - Do they want to get married? How do they propose? What would the marriage be like?

I’m still going back and forth with this one. I know Liz would want to get married at some point, I’m not sure if Price would. If they did get married they would elope instead of having an actual wedding.

N icknames - What do they call their s/o?

Liz calls Price - John, babe, and sweetie. He hates the sweetie one and scoffs every time she calls him that.

Price calls Liz - Love, darling, sweetheart and Lizzy. And sometimes Elizabeth if he wants to get her riled up (only in the bedroom) because she doesn’t like her name that much.

O n Cloud Nine - What are they like when they are in love? Is it obvious for others? How do they express their feelings?

This one is kinda hard to answer because neither knew they loved each other until after the war, when they were expecting their son together. At that point they were moving into their house and getting the nursery ready. However Liz will express it by being overly affectionate, lots of hugging, kissing and cuddling. Price expresses it by being there for her and making sure she doesn’t overly stress herself and will get her flowers.

P DA - Are they upfront about their relationship? Do they brag with their s/o in front of others? Or are they rather shy to kiss etc. when others are watching?

They’re up front with their relationship, especially considering they have a child. They don’t brag about the relationship though. And Liz is definitely not shy to kiss him in front of people and honestly Price doesn’t give a crap.

Q uirk - Some random ability they have that’s beneficial in a relationship.

I honestly don’t know. :( haven’t thought that far ahead.

R omance - How romantic are they? What would they do to make their s/o happy? Cliché or rather creative?

Price tries to be romantic, going so far as to ask Nikolai and Mac for help. He tries to be creative with things, it never works out though. So he goes the cliche route because at least he knows he won’t fuck up with that. They do have date night once a week, where they go out to a fancy restaurant and spend some much needed alone time. Liz doesn’t want fancy gifts and the likes, she’s just happy he’s making some kind of effort.

S upport - Are they helping their s/o achieve their goals? Do they believe in them?

They don’t have any goals after the war ended besides being good parents’, so I’m gonna talk about before the little one came along or when he was pea size inside his mama. Liz was very supportive of Price’s goal to kill Makarov and knew he would be able to do it. She never once thought it couldn’t be done, in her mind they would find him, and kill him. Truthfully she just wanted that rage inside of him to die down after he finally killed Makarov. She hated seeing him like that.

T hrill - Do they need to try out new things to spice out your relationship? Or do they prefer a certain routine?

Sometimes they do, but for the most part they keep to a routine.

U nderstanding - How good do they know their partner? Are they empathetic?

They know each other really well now, and are both empathetic. More so now with Price, he used to never really show it.

V alue - How important is the relationship to them? What is it’s worth in comparison to other things in their life?

The relationship is very important to both of them. It’s the only thing that really matters to them, minus their son of course. They’ll do anything to make sure it last and they raise their son in a happy and loving home. They’ll go as far as counseling to make sure things stay good between them.

W ild Card - A random Fluff Headcanon.

Liz’s older brother Logan (the only one of her family she’s still in contact with) found a place that made child size boonie hats and he made child size replicas of Price’s hat for their son for an early birthday present. The little one was beyond happy that he grabbed and put on the first one he saw and said “Now I can be like daddy!”. It was such a little kid thing to say, but it tugged at Price’s heart, then he picked him up in his arms, fixing the hat upon his head. He doesn’t know what he did to deserve a love of a child or Liz for that matter, that’s the one area he doesn’t want to be bad at, being a father.

X OXO - Are they very affectionate? Do they love to kiss and cuddle?

Liz is very affectionate and definitely loves to kiss and cuddle. Price is somewhere in the middle, he’s affectionate and loves to cuddle more. One of his favorite things is coming home from work cuddling on the couch with Liz and watching their son play with his toys. Sometimes their son with come and snuggle up on Price’s lap and talk about all the things that happened while he was at work.

Y earning - How will they cope when they’re missing their partner?

Price will focus on work as best he can, sometimes he’ll get more strict and become somewhat of an asshole too. Depending on how much he’s missing her or if he’s missing something important, like her birthday.

Liz will focus on their son and spending time with him. If it’s really bad and she has to see him, she’ll make him some lunch and go over to base and visit with him for a while. He loves the surprise every time, especially when his son runs over to him yelling “daddy, daddy, daddy” and jumps into his arms.

Z eal - Are they willing to go to great lengths for the relationship? If so, what kind of?

Yes they would. They both want the same thing, they both want to be a couple and be good parents’ and they’ll do anything to make sure they stay together. If they need to see a counselor, they will. And tbh Price would straight up murder anyone who threatens his family.

#soapwikis #oc liz walker #john price #call of duty #liz x price

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dregstrash · 5 years

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I know you must have a lot of requests by now and idek if you’re still doing this but I’m A Fool To Want You by Billie Holiday for Zoyalai? Thank you!

I love love love these sort of these requests. And I love classic Jazz so thank you for requesting this!

This also fits in really well with another request that @kestrel-of-herran asked in my inbox entitled “jealous !!! nikolai !!! gets !!! drunk !!! and !!! tells !!! zoya !!! how !!! he !!! feels !!!”

To want a love that can’t be true

There are many wants that wind through a person. Binding them in tight strings weaving a tapestry that could be worn like a coat until the wearer suffocates or hung up as a constant reminder that fate is the weaver, and you the supplier of the thread.

In Nikolai’s youth, his wants were small things. A brother’s love. A friend’s companionship. His parents’ approval.

Those things tangled in his adolescence, some being ripped out of his life and others being replaced with black string and gray resolve. He kept his wants close to his heart, never gathering enough strength to look at what the threads had created. Had they become a knot of tangled desires that were fated to never become his? Had they transformed themselves entirely so that he may never know whether his want for a crown began with a young boy seeking recognition or with the fraying seams of his crumbling home?

Maybe he was afraid of those answers. It seemed too big of a risk to hold it up only for them to catch fire. So he decided to weave a rope that would disguise all these delicate wants together, and fasten them around a singular desire: safety for his people.

It took all within him to keep the rope from fraying and scattering this way and that. He held onto that rope like a sailor would in the midst of the storm. Hoping that if he held on long enough then he could survive the torrential rain and still be standing with a smile on his face. But what he didn’t notice was a bright thread of steel escaping its pattern and reaching across the space of his heart and attaching itself to a woman who held a set of scissors.

Nikolai tugged at this thin thread of desire, trying to rein it in and cutting it himself, but all it took was eyes meeting across the room or an understanding that didn’t need words, and he would see the string appear–brighter and stronger than before– and wind itself around and around Zoya’s fingers.

He almost wished that she would end his misery and cut it herself. He wished for the materialization of another person or an expressed disinterest, but neither happened. She was by his side constantly, telling him when he was being foolish or wise, advising where she could. All the while that tendril of thread wove itself into the way light seemed to make her glow or caress the sharp lines of her face. It was a string that spelled his own doom, and he had no choice but to ignore it.

Of course, until he found himself alone in the throne room with a bottle of brandy the only thing keeping him company.

He leaned his head back against his throne, hearing Ehri’s last words ring around in his ears.

[You’re arrogance and insolence will not save your country, boy king.

This engagement will fall apart. Then you will contest with what my country has]

It was wrong of him to provoke her like he did, but he had promised himself that anything was better than her tiring silence. He was wrong.

The Shu princess ended their meal early in a storm and a huff, and Nikolai was too tired to maintain his charming charade to enjoy anyone else’s company.

“Your Majesty?” A familiar voice called from an unseen door, but he didn’t have to see her to know who it was.

“Ah, General.” He called, tipping his bottle back in a very long drink. The liquor bit against his mouth and left a trail of acid fire down his throat. He liked to imagine that it sharpened his senses, but when Zoya materialized in front of him, he felt the bottle slip from his grip and crash noisily to the floor.

“You’re drunk.” His vision didn’t need to be fully there for her disapproval to be obvious.

“A very astute observation, Nazyalensky.” He slurred, trying (and failing) to pick the broke bottle back up. The reason why it was so vital for him to have it was less clear.

“Why are you drunk?” Zoya reached over and swept the broken ice shards away with a gust of wind. The remaining alcohol leaking down the throne steps.

He tried to straighten up, but suddenly, Nikolai’s body did not feel like his own. It was too heavy and sluggish. His mind made the floor tilt and swirl even if he wasn’t standing. Maybe he should stand, he could at least preserve that much of his dignity.

“Whoa–” Zoya caught him by the shoulders, her fingers encircling his arms like bands of steel.

“Do you know what it’s like, Zo?” The nickname slipped his tongue unnaturally, but he found he quite liked it. Why didn’t he call her that more often?

She didn’t answer him, she tried to get him back on his throne, but some small part of Nikolai recognized that if he sat back down Zoya would let go. And he wasn’t ready for her to be a million paces away again. He resisted and leaned further into her space.

“Do you know what it’s like being engaged to someone you don’t love?” He tried again.

Zoya pulled away slightly, and he wanted to take his thumb and massage away the creases that appeared in between her eyebrows.

“Yes, I do.”

Nikolai laughed. “Then you must know why I am so very drunk, my dear. It’s a rather awful situation.”

With more force, Zoya pushed Nikolai back towards the throne, and Nikolai had no choice but to be forced down. His feet falling from under him, and his back meeting the harsh seat with a thud. But before she could draw away from him, he gripped her arms from where they were. His whole world faded except for Zoya, who looked surprised, but didn’t pull away.

“It wasn’t the same, Nikolai.” She said, her voice lowered. Zoya was close enough, Nikolai could smell the faint trace of trees on her skin. “I was being sold off as a convenience. You’re being married off for the good of the people.”

Nikolai’s drunken vision was making it hard to keep his eyes open, but he could still see that persistent want that had latched itself so firmly in Zoya float in front of him. He followed to where it had buried itself in her clear blue eyes. He saw that desire pull him closer to her, it encouraged him to ignore propriety and just be wound together with a love that seemed so impossible. Zoya hadn’t moved from her place in front of him, but it did little to disguise the tension that ran through her.

“Whoever thinks to think you as a convenience is a fool” He whispered, “And whatever good I think I’m doing, is no good at all if I don’t get to share a life with you.”

He heard her take a sharp intake of breath, and genuine fear enter her eyes at the small admission, and Nikolai thought that this would be a brilliant time to kiss her.

But before he could even move another muscle and before Zoya could even pull away, Nikolai’s vision started to darken significantly and the last thing he remembered before he passed out was Zoya’s eyes and her hand on his face.

#zoyalai #zoya nazyalensky #nikolai lantsov #nikolai x zoya #king of scars #kos

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xxstyleart · 5 years

Photo

Chapter 18; Siege and Storm

Heyyooooo, so I’ve adapted a few parts in a particular scene of chapter 18 with Mal, Alina and the Darkling! I’ve been trying to read fanfics and it’s inspired to write my own so here ya go!! *Disclaimer: I’ve adapted the existing scene with a few things I envisioned. Most of the content is original to Leigh. I’ve simply added a few different elements into the scene and developed it the way I thought would create a deeper scene. Also, my content will be written in between double asterisks. Anything outside of that was written by Leigh. & the ‘[...]’ indicate there are additional lines from the book I’ve not included in my post but that I’ve skipped in order to make this post more fluid and concise with my adaptations. Hope that made sense. Enjoy!!!!

(Art credit: nanfe1789)

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He nodded, scuffed the toe of his boot along the floor. “I miss you,” he said quietly. Soft words but they sent a painful, welcome tremor through me. Had part of me doubted it? He’d been gone so often.

I touched his hand. “I miss you too.” [...] He let out a long breath. “Saints, I hate this place.” I blinked, startled by the vehemence in his voice. “You do?” “I hate the parties. I hate the people. I hate everything about it.” “I thought... you seemed... not happy exactly, but--” “I don’t belong here, Alina. Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed.” That I didn’t believe. Mal fits in everywhere. “Nikolai says everyone adores you.”

“They’re amused by me,” Mal said. “That’s not the same thing.” He turned my hand over, tracing the scar that ran the length of my palm. “Do you know I actually miss being on the run? Even that filthy little boarding house in Cofton and working in the warehouse. At least then I felt like I was doing something, not just wasting time and gathering gossip.”

I shifted uncomfortably, feeling suddenly defensive. “You take every chance you get to be away. You don’t have to accept every invitation.”

He stared at me. “I stay away to protect you, Alina.” “From what?” I asked incredulously. He stood up, pacing restlessly across the room. “What do you think people asked me on the royal hunt? The first thing? They wanted to know about me and you.” He turned on me, and when he spoke his voice was cruel, mocking “Is it true that you’re tumbling the Sun Summoner? [...] I stay away to put distance between us, to stop the rumors. I probably shouldn’t even be in here now.”

I circled my knees with my arms, drawing them more tightly to my chest. My cheeks were burning. “Why didn’t you say something?” **Quiet anger rumbled in my chest. How could he not know what was in my heart? How did he not understand that I could not give a care as to what anyone else had to say? I needed him and that’s all that mattered, not what others were speculating about my--sex life.**

“What could I say? And when? I barely see you anymore.” “I thought you wanted to go.” “I wanted you to ask me to stay.”

My throat felt tight. I opened my mouth, ready to tell him that he wasn’t being fair, that I couldn’t have known. But was that the truth? Maybe I had really believe Mal was happier away from the Little Palace. Or maybe I’d just told myself that because it was easier with him gone, because it meant one less person watching and wanting something from me. **Another burden I wouldn’t have to bear. Another disappointment I would avoid. So then, why was there such an aching in my chest as he stood there, staring at me expectantly? What more did he want? Was I not enough? Was I too much?**

He raised his hands as if to plead his case, then dropped them helplessly. “I feel you slipping away from me, and I don’t know how to stop it.”

**His eyes bore into mine with a deep sadness I hadn’t let myself look at for too long these past few weeks. It stung. Maybe because he was right. Maybe because I feared all of this would become too much for him and he’d decide to finally leave for good. Maybe because it was easier to let go first rather than to be left behind like crumbs on a table... Or maybe because it reminded me of the sadness that was growing in my own heart every time he left, because despite his previous declaration in wanting to protect me, I’d felt him slipping away and I hadn’t known what to do about it.** Tears pricked my eyes. “We’ll find a way,” I said. “We’ll make more time--”

“It’s not just that. Ever since you put on that second amplifier, you’ve been different.” My hand strayed to the fetter. “When you split the dome, the way you talk about the firebird... I heard you speaking to Zoya the other day. She was scared, Alina. And you liked it.”

“Maybe I did,” I said, my anger rising. It felt so much better than the guilt or shame. **Times have changed. I’ve changed. I'm not the weak little orphan from Keramzin anymore. I may not be strong, but I am more now. Different. I had to be because of this power, because of all the people depending on it. Why couldn’t he see that?** “So what? You have no idea what she’s like, what this place has been like for me. The fear, the responsibility--”

“I know that. I know and I can see the toll it’s taking. But you chose this. You have a purpose. I don’t even know what I’m doing here anymore.” [...]

**The rage boiled inside, heat rose to my cheeks and ears. “Coward,” I spat as viciously as I could. Surprise swims in his eyes as he registers my verbal attack. Despite the outburst, a door inside me slams shuts. “I chose nothing.” I say coldly. He stiffens at my change of tone. “I did not choose to be born with this power. I did not choose to wage this war. I did not choose to go after the stag,” I twisted the knife.

A mix of hurt, desperation and fear contorts his face. I know he remembers. It was his idea to go after the stag--to get it before the Darkling could so I could be used against the Darkling in time, just as everyone here was planning on doing. He shakes his head in denial.** [...] “You came here for Ravka. For the firebird. To lead the Second Army.” He tapped the sun over his heart. “I came here for you. You’re my flag. You’re my nation. But that doesn’t seem to matter anymore. Do you realize this is the first time we’ve really been alone in weeks?” **Brief shock overcame me.**

The knowledge of that settled over us. The room seemed unnaturally quiet. Mal took a single tentative step toward me. Then he closed the space between us in two long strides. One hand slid around my waist, the other cupped my face. Gently, he tilted my mouth up to his. “Come back to me,” he said softly. **The tenderness in his voice pulled at my heart and thaws it. The door that slammed shut creaked open just a bit. This. This was what I yearned for--what I’ve been missing. Him. His love, his affection. No pride and no barriers to stand in our way. My body relaxed in response.** He drew me to him, but as his lips met mine, something flickered in the corner of my eye.

The Darkling was standing behind Mal. I stiffened. Mal pulled back. “What?” he said. “Nothing. I just...” I trailed off **as fear choked me. I didn’t know what to say.** The Darkling was still there. “Tell him you see me when he takes you in his arms,” **he taunts. His voice was too raw. Too real. It shattered me.** I squeezed my eyes shut. Mal dropped his hands and stepped away from me, his fingers curling into fists. “I guess that’s all I needed to know.” **Panic rose in my chest.** “Mal--” “You should have stopped me. All that time I was standing there, going on like a fool. If you didn’t want me, you should have just said so.” “Don’t feel too bad, tracker,” said the Darkling. **Each word sounded like shattering glass and it was hard for me to not cringe anymore than I already had.** “All men can be made fools.” “That’s not it--” I protested. “Is it Nikolai?” “What? No!” “Another otazt’sya, Alina?” the Darkling mocked. Mal shook his head in disgust. “I let him push me away. The meetings, the council sessions, the dinners. I let him edge me out. Just waiting, hoping that you’d miss me enough to tell them all to go to hell.” I swallowed, trying to block out the vision of the Darkling’s cold smile. **He knows. He knows I won’t say anything more. I’ll let Mal believe this lie rather than tell him what I truly see. He knows I’m too afraid to face that truth.**

[...] “Mal--” **Faltering before I truly begin. He’s slipping. I need to say something. Anything. But what? What can I say to make him stay? Pain strikes me as I realized there wasn’t a better option than nothing.** [...] “I don’t want to hear about [...] Ravka or the amplifiers or any of it.” He slashed his hand through the air. “I’m done.” He turned on his heel and strode toward the door.

“Wait!” I rushed after him and reached for his arm. **Desperation clung to me. I wanted to feel the warmth of his skin on mine. I hoped for it to drive away this coldness I felt inside.**

He turned around so fast, I almost careened into him. “Don’t, Alina.”

**My heart broke. He was already pushing me away. I can see that the distance was much more than the few inches between us.** “You don’t understand--” I said, **faltering again. How could I put it into words he wouldn’t judge me for? How could I think of him so often after all that he’s done? Why do I keep seeing the Darkling? Mal would be disgusted of me.**

“You flinched. Tell me you didn’t.” “It wasn’t because of you!” **I just wished he’d believe me.** Mal laughed harshly. “I know you haven’t had much experience. But I’ve kissed enough girls to know what that means. Don’t worry. It won’t happen again.” The words hit me like a slap. He slammed the door behind him.

I stood there, staring at the closed doors. I reached out and touched the bone handle. **I know you haven’t had much experience. But I’ve kissed enough girls to know what that means. His words ring in my head, cutting through me like a double-edged knife.** You can fix this, I told myself. You can make this right. But I just stood there, frozen. [..] I bite down hard on my lip to silence the sob that shook my chest. That’s good, I thought as the tears spilled over. That way the servants won’t hear. An ache had started between my ribs, a hard, bright shard of pain that lodged beneath my sternum, pressing tight against my heart.

**I turned and leaned against the door, gasping for breath while trying not to let the sobs erupt. I see him fully now, standing exactly where he was behind Mal, just before the bed. The moonlight shone against his tall silhouette and illuminated his broad shoulders, his strong arms. I can see his perfect face, a smile no longer on his lips. He had the mercy to not look smug. Instead, his face was stony and cold but there was something dark swirling in his eyes that I couldn’t make out. I pinned him in place with a look, offering nothing but anger, hatred, and resentment.

I brought my hands to my face, my fingers curling and slightly tugging at my roots. Angrily, I spoke, my voice becoming louder with each question. “Why do I keep seeing you? Why are you here? Why must you torture me like this?” I’m nearly begging him for answers. My hands slashed the air between us, frustrated. “Must you make me drive him away?” I can read his face clearly now. The problem with wanting is that it makes you weak.

He thaws and looks at me disgustingly lovingly. His eyes were soft as he wrapped his hands around one of mine then laid it over his heart. The other caressed my cheek. Gently, he answers,“Yes, I do because you must realize that in this world, there is only you and I. There is no one else like us: powerful. Your power is growing every day. As much as you love him, he could never love you without fearing you first. And as much as you want him to be there for you--to understand you, he simply can’t. He is otazt’sya. None of them will ever know you the way I do. None will understand the hunger for more power or the delight we feel when we use it. There is no one who will not fear you or judge you. Only I can understand you. Only I will not fear or judge you for what you are. You are Alina Starkov, my equal. We were made opposites, but are halves to the other. We were meant to be together.”

I try to yank my hand back from his chest, but I am frozen. I try again, but to no avail. His words shake me to my core. Knowingly, he says nothing and silently urges me on. How? How was he able to read me so well? How did he know so much about how I felt? Of all people, how could he know what I was going through when he wasn’t even here with me? Or real? Shame and resentment filled me. We wage a silent battle, looking into each other’s eyes, acutely aware of the other. We stayed like that for a long time, so long, my body relaxed and grew used to his presence.

I finally break the silence.“...Why won’t you just let me be?” My voice broke. He was only a figment of my mind playing tricks on me. He wasn’t real... so why did he look so real? Why did this feel so real? He was an itch that I couldn’t soothe. I keep scratching to try and ease the itching but it only makes things worse and now I’m bleeding.

“If I did that, you’d be alone.” His words felt like a bucket of cold water washing over me. Loneliness? Wasn’t that his fear? You don’t understand, my words to Mal echoed again. I’d meant he didn’t understand that I’d actually flinched from him because of the Darkling, not because I didn’t want him but had I meant something else too? Was what the Darkling was saying true? With this new found power of mine, was loneliness my fear now as well? My blood turned cold at that truth. Yes, it was... ‘Sankt Alina’, they’d whispered during prayers. They’d praised the Sun Summoner without cease but I saw the look in their eyes. Admiration was there on the surface but it was fear that had driven them--fear of me... of my power. I saw the way servants never stood too closely, the way they flinched at my every move. I saw the way peers did their best to dance around me with their words. People claimed to worship the Saint but I saw their pity. No one wants this kind of responsibility or this raw hunger for power in any life.

“Alone...” I whispered. “Is that what we are?” As soon as I let the words out, I felt it: alone. It kicked me in the gut and nearly choked the air from my lungs. Tears well in my eyes again and spilled over without cease. My body gives way to the weight in my heart and I sink to the floor. The harsh reality that no one would ever understand drowns me. The fear courses through like an unforgiving tsunami. Breathing became difficult. No one could ever understand me. No one except the Darkling.**

I didn’t hear the Darkling move; I only knew when he was beside me. His long fingers brushed the hair back from my neck and rested on the collar. When he kissed my cheek, his lips were cold, **and I welcomed it, begrudgingly. We were alone, together.**

#grisha #grisha trilogy #the grisha trilogy #grishaverse #the darkling #thedarkling #alina #alina starkov #alinastarkov #mal #siegeandstorm #siege and storm #nanfe1789 #pangieeyang #grishafanfic #fanfic #siegeandstormfanfic #grisha fanfic #grisha trilogy fanfic

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royal-babey · 6 years

Text

Lily

I wrote angst and it hurts like hell and oh god I cried whilst writing it.

Featuring my OC’s Nico and Dima Mahariel, and their father Revas Mahariel.

TW’s for blood, death, slavery, and just a shitton of angst.

In the forests of Antiva, walked three Dalish Elves.

Keeper of Clan Mahariel, Revas Mahariel, accompanied his young twin sons into the wild woodlands to show them the foundations of survival. This was something the family did often, at least twice a week if possible, and it was valuable time together for them. Revas’s Keeper duties often kept him busy, and sometimes unable to spend time with his sons at all.

He had a son walking on either side of him, both clutching his significantly larger hands tightly. Dmitri Mahariel chatted away happily to his Father, rambling on about anything that caught his interest or something exciting that had happened to him earlier that week. His younger brother, Nikolai Mahariel, was quite happy to walk in silence, allowing his brother to do the talking for the both of them.

Revas couldn’t be happier. Of course if his ex-wife could be here, that would make things even better. Revas regularly mourned the fact that the twins would not grow up without a motherly influence in their lives, but they seemed to be doing just fine.

‘’-and then and then!!! Nini made a scary face and said ‘You pee the bed Daerian.’ Daerian went running crying back to his Mamae and I got my stick sword back!!!’’

Revas was snapped out of his thoughts as Dima’s excitable voice raised in pitch as he told his Father his story, and there was a very indignant ‘Dima!’ from Nico as Revas let out a chuckle in amusement. He then looked down to his left to see a very sheepish Nico kicking a small rock across the grassy forest floor.

‘’Is that true, da’fen?’’

Nico just shrugged as a response, then muttered ‘’He was being mean…’’

Revas couldn’t argue with that.

Every now and then, the elder Elf would stop beside a bush, either with oddly coloured berries or flowers, and attempt to tell the twins the properties of them. It was important they knew these things in case of emergencies. They were useful after all.

The twins genuinely did try their best to pay attention, but it was a struggle. And by the time they were an hour and a bit into their fathers lessons, they had all but given up on trying to listen.

Revas could see this, and figured he should give the twins something to enjoy instead. He sat them down on the abnormally gigantic roots of an ancient oak tree, that spiralled and gnarled in on itself both above and below the ground, and shielded them from the hot sun with its tall branches and large leaves. After he had gotten their attention, he held up a clenched fist, and smiled.

‘’Watch this, boys.’’

The boys watched in wonder as their Father’s fist glowed green, and gasped quietly when he opened it to reveal two stark white flowers where there had been nothing before. The twins recognised them to be lilies, and Dima bounced on the spot excitedly where as Nico was still staring, though he did have a small smile on his lips.

Revas reached forward, braiding the lilies into the boys long black hair one by one. They reached up to gently feel them at the same time, before lunging forward to hug their Father.

‘’That was so cool, Baban!!!’’

‘’Thank you, Baban…’’

Revas just grinned and hugged his boys back, laughing quietly to himself at their reactions. He loved making them smile.

And with a lily, he hoped to pass on their mother’s love. For that was her name, after all…

They were a happy family despite everything. A close knit and loving family.

Though like Revas had described to the twins once before, when a beloved Clan Halla passed away, the Creators often liked to pick the most beautiful things from this earth that they belovedly created.

Revas could not help the twitching of his pointed ears as he picked up on an abnormal sound coming from the east. They were outside of Clan hunting territory, so no one should be here…

That’s when he heard it. The sound of men laughing uproariously. They were no voices the Keeper recognised, and he froze to the spot, arms tensing around his children.

Humans. Human hunters had come to these woods.

Revas knew how much danger they were in instantly, and leapt to his feet. He easily picked up the twins, one in each arm, and took off running deeper into the forest. He knew these woods well, expertly avoiding upturned routes or particularly sharp rocks, taking almost completely hidden turns, getting past the more dangerous wildlife without getting so much as a second glance.

Nico and Dima were terrified, but knew to be quiet when their Father seemed to sense danger. They had not heard the humans, therefore having no idea what was wrong.

The Shemlen had heard Revas taking off though, footfalls much too heavy in his panic to get his children to safety to attempt stealth. They assumed he was a deer, having been spooked by their loudness. Revas could hear the beating of the horses hooves getting closer, and realised even if he were to make it back to the Clan in time, he would surely doom them.

So he did the only thing he could think of.

Sliding to a stop in front of a particularly large bush, he kneeled down, and placed his children behind it. He signaled for them to be quiet, and they agreed without question, nodding their heads to show they understood.

Revas knew that what he was about to do...May not turn out how he hoped.

So he hugged them both tightly, and whilst pulling away, slipped his necklace off over his head. It was made of shedded Halla antler, with intricate Elven symbols and words carved into it. He handed it to Dima, his lips trembling despite his trying to keep everything under control. He gripped Dima’s shoulders tightly, tight enough to make him wince involuntarily, and spoke in a panicked but hushed tone to his son, who had, as well as his brother, barely seen their tenth summer.

‘’I need you to promise me, Dima...Promise that no matter what, you will protect your brother. You will protect the clan. You will grow strong, and always protect those you love. Do you understand? Be strong.’’

Dima didn’t hesitate in answering, whispering a very determined ‘’Of course I promise Baban.’’ But also; ‘’What’s wrong though? You’re coming back, right?’’

Revas let out a shuddered breath, and gave his sons the best smile he could muster.

‘’Ar lath ma, ma len. I love you both so much...Be strong.’’

Before they could even question, Revas was taking off running into the clearing not far from them. Where the twins could see what was going on...Revas forced himself to stand his ground despite his fear as the humans approached, pulling his staff from his back and gripping it tightly as they pulled their horses to a stop and dismounted.

One human, with pale skin and a bald head, paired with a horribly patchy beard, was the first to approach Revas. Behind him were two more humans, dressed head to toe in armour. Revas couldn’t see their faces, though he could feel their stares.

He forced himself to greet the men in perfect trade with a smile, as wary as it may look, and a short bow.

‘’Greetings, outsiders.’’

He didn’t even get a greeting back, instead, the man in front of him just snarled, looking him up and down.

‘’Lookie here, boys. A knife ear, right here. Looks like we may not need to look for their damned camp so hard after all.’’

Revas tensed, knowing instantly who these men must be. Slavers, probably for the black market in the main city of Antiva. He reached back with his free hand to scratch nervously at his ear lobe, needing something to do as he answer, even if he wasn’t exactly asked a question.

‘’I-I beg your pardon? You can’t-’’

Revas was cut off by a sharp sword pointing directly at his neck, causing him to go stock still, too afraid to even breathe.

The man growled, pressing the blade against Revas’s neck. Enough to draw blood, for the moment, and make the Elf hiss slightly in pain.

‘’Shut your mouth, knife ear. Now listen closely. We know it isn’t just you here. We saw a stuffed toy on the ground. And you were quite happy to run just a moment ago...Who are you protecting? Your knife eared kid? Kids? Oh, the Crows would pay a pretty sum for some young Elves to train up.’’

Revas felt sick to his stomach. He wasn’t about to negotiate with some slavers, just so they could go hunt some other people.

So that left him one choice.

Carefully, he took a step back, and twirled his staff in hand.

‘’I’m not telling you anything, Shemlen!’’

He inhaled, ready to shout a spell, one powerful enough to knock them down and give him

time to run with the boys-

When instead it turned into a breathless gasp of pain, and he looked down to see a sword running right through his gut.

From behind the bush, there was a whimper, the leaves rustling as Nico attempts to get up to run to his Father. He’s stopped by Dima however, who yanks him down by the back of his shirt, and straddles him to keep him from trying again. Nico tries to yell for Revas, but Dima covers his younger brothers mouth and despite the tears forming in his own eyes as Nico writhes and struggles, whispers harshly for him to quit it.

Nico doesn’t see what Dima sees. Doesn’t see as the men kick Revas down onto his back. Doesn’t witness them sneering and taunting Revas as he bleeds out, amethyst eyes formerly shining with life beginning to go dull as he stares up at the sky. His lips barely moving as he words a silent prayer to Falon’din to guide his soul to the Beyond, the Creator who’s Vallaslin he has proudly worn since seventeen years of age.

He doesn’t see as Revas’s throat is slit easily by a spear tossed to the man who had also stabbed him, then thrust through the Keepers exposed chest.

Eventually, the humans get sick of mutilating the now dead Elf’s form. The murderer declaring Revas must have left the twins at the great oak tree and had instead tried to lure them away and distract them.

They mount their horses, and ride off. As soon as their horses beating hooves can no longer be heard, Dima and Nico get up, running over to their father’s unmoving form. He couldn’t be dead. Surely he was just badly injured, would still be breathing.

But there’s blood. Too much blood for any mortal man to surely survive. His dark skin is now an ashen colour, and his eyes are glazed over and lifeless. His expression is slack, and his chest…

It certainly isn’t moving.

Dima stands staring, completely frozen. He can’t tear his eyes off of their Fathers, their Babans, corpse. Nico however, collapses to his knees.

And he screams. A scream so heart wrenching it scares off any animals in the immediate vicinity. A scream filled with such unimaginable grief and fear and anger that it doesn’t sound human at all.

Dima can only drop down beside him, tears rolling silently down his cheeks as he reaches for Revas’s hand. Earlier it was warm, warm as Dima clung to it, warm as he pulled his Father behind him and swung and laughed and...Warm as Dima thought about how much he trusted that warmth to always be there...But now it was cold, and Dima could feel the remnants of Revas’s body heat slowly fading away.

‘’Papa…’’

He could barely mutter it. Beside him, Nico had begun to sob, clothing beginning to turn red with their Father’s blood soaking into it. He rested his head on Revas’s chest, hair mostly obscuring his face from his elder twins view.

And from his hair fell the lily Revas had left in it just twenty minutes ago. It landed in the puddle of blood just beside Revas’s body, and Dima could have sworn he heard his Father whispering the word- No. The name, Lily, in the small breeze that blew past them all.

Dima could only pull Nico to him, trying to find some comfort in his brothers still warm body despite the chilling aura that had settled in the area.

They only had each other now, meaning Dima was determined more than ever before now to keep his promise to their Father.

He would protect Nico with his life.

#dragon age #dragon age origins #pre-blight #angst #tw blood #tw death #tw slavery #I’m not crying you’re cring #writing #my writing #ocs #my ocs #Revas Mahariel #Nico Mahariel #Dima Mahariel #Antiva #Clan Mahariel

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davidastbury · 4 years

Text

2920 c

Shorts ... #27

He hadn’t been kind to his mother; he hadn’t treated he as he should have done. He never allowed her to get close - rejected her kindnesses - discarded her gifts - didn’t thank her - never showed any gratitude. When they talked he never said the things he should have said, but often said a lot of things he should not have said.

All this was long ago and one way or another he has found ways to be at peace with it. Of course he never asked for her to be his slave - he never wanted her eagerness to do everything for him. And so, here he is today, feeling that same wordless irritation as his second wife over sweetens his tea.

A lost skill .... written by Janet Bailey

There has been a lot of posts about the mills in Bury. When I was hairdressing in the early '60's we used to have lots of women from the cotton mills come for their hair done. You wouldn't dare say anything about them when they were under the hair dryer because they could lip read anything you said. They used to talk to each other while they were under the hairdyers by what they called 'me mawing' just moving there lips. 😃

(Mee-mawing was a form of speech with exaggerated movements to allow lip reading employed by workers in weaving sheds in Lancashire in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The noise in a weaving shed rendered hearing impossible so workers communicated by mee-mawing which was a cross between mime and lip reading. To have a private conversation when there were other weavers present, the speaker would cup their hand over their mouth to obscure vision. This was very necessary as a mee-mawer would be able to communicate over distances of tens of yards. It was said that each mill had its own dialect.

"Stop mee-mawing at me!" means "Stop pulling faces at me or talking behind my back”).

On the Train

She has a disfigurement but I am not going to say anything about it. She’s about twelve or so and life must be difficult. Let’s hope that the doctors will do something - perhaps they have to wait until she reaches a certain age - perhaps they will do something soon.

I can see how she wears her hair in a thick curtain and how she raises one of her shoulders.

Oh God, I hope things are okay at school. I hope she has a loving home - I hope someone is telling her, repeatedly, that she is beautiful.

Night Out

A group of friends - glad to see each other - glad to get drunk together. The men ruddy and randy; the women collapsing with laughter - their voices strident and confident; expressive and exhilaratingly filthy.

So much to be afraid of! So many uncertainties - but none tonight - simply the joy of being a forty-year-old child.

Winter Nights 1965

Cheap rented room in Whalley Range. She’d tried to fix up curtains - tried to make it nice. No TV and burglars had stolen her radio. It was a large room; a leftover from a different world; you could see it in the high ceilings, the double dado rails, the missing interior shutters; the grandeur of the chalk coloured fireplace with its florid carved scrolls, now reduced to housing a sad little electric fire.

These were nights of twilight and shadows; when it seemed as cold inside as out. When the yellow streetlights leaked through the draughty windows and the twigs of the giant chestnut tree scraped across the glass.

And they huddled together. They couldn’t have been happier. Nights of cider and cigarettes - of sour metallic kisses - nights when he couldn’t get enough of her - nights when he was insatiable for her quick mind, her breath, her hair, her voice, her face, warmth, smell.

And the world could not offer anything better to him - he never forgot those nights in the cheap rented room in Whalley Range.

Madame

During our last stay in this hotel we got to know one of the long-term residents. It was at the time of her eightieth birthday and the staff made a big fuss for her. I was fascinated by her raucous smoker’s voice and how she called everyone ‘dhaaa-ling’ - and the way she somehow combined being warm and friendly with downright aggressiveness.

I wrote a little piece about her which I posted on here at the time - just a simple incident - hopefully giving a truthful picture...

In the restaurant: Madame looks up sharply.

Madame: ‘Who has taken away my water?’

Waiter: ‘I took it, I thought you had finished.’

Madame: ‘Well, I haven’t!’

Waiter: ‘I will get you some more.’

Madame: ‘That’s no use. I had dissolved my pills in that glass!’

Waiter: ‘I am sorry.’

Madame: ‘It will be your fault if I get pregnant.’

So we were delighted to see her again - and to learn that she hasn’t slowed down.

We sat at the next table and Pat was able to overhear this little gem.

Madame: ‘Waiter!’

Waiter: ‘Yes Madame?’

Madame: (poking dish with a fork) ‘Is this really butter?’

Waiter: ‘Yes it is, Madame.’

Madame: ‘I do not believe you. I don’t think this is butter at all - it’s more like candle-wax: if I dig into it I will probably find a wick!’

The school bag.

The hotel allocates a space where departing guests can leave items for which they have no further use. Four or five shelves brimming with things like deluxe swimming goggles, piles of books and magazines, inflatable alligators, straw hats, sun creams, flip flops etc. Anyone can take what they want.

I saw a girls school bag; lots of pockets, pink shoulder straps - a bit knocked about - ‘well used’ is the phrase. The interior was scuffed and marked by felt-tip pens, which the owner had not capped - and traces of stickers, unsuccessfully scratched away by her thumbnail. I held it upside down to shake out the sand and the flap swung open revealing a drawing on the underside - a childish image of a kitten in a bow tie, surrounded by bunches of marijuana leaves. I had to smile.

And then, under the picture of the unfeasibly cute kitten, she had neatly stencilled her name ... Lucie Wider.

I put it back on the shelf.

‘O Master of the Universe,

Bless the life of Lucie Wider!’

We knew each other for a few short weeks - right up to the time she left out little town forever. London was the magnet and I understood her reasons for going - I didn’t question any of it - I let the day come round and carried her bags and cases to the station - and I watched the bus take her away.

That was a long time ago. I heard nothing from her in the first few weeks and months - and then the months became years - in fact, nearly sixty years. And now others will have filled her life and they will see her as she is - but for me it is entirely different - I hold a gleaming fragment - fixed forever at that moment; how she had panicked over a last-minute confusion with her ticket - how she was cheerful and tried not to look at me - how she was heartbreakingly soulful - how she tried to smile and how hard she tried not to cry.

Ian and Lorna...1966

‘Come round anytime’ - said Ian - so I did. It was a midweek afternoon and I cannot remember why I was free, but I was. The door wasn’t fastened and I pushed it back and went in. Silence. No sign of Ian - no sign of anyone. And then I saw the shoes - his and hers; Ian’s and Lorna’s.

I stood staring at them and thinking that in a medieval painting it would have meant that the two saints had gone to heaven. I then realised that they were upstairs in the bedroom, so in a way, they had gone to heaven.

A window was open and the curtains were flapping. There was a school nearby, and it must have been playtime; voices shrieking and screaming with happiness.

I left - pulling the door shut behind me.

The Room ... 1964

She kept the rent-book on a table near the door, so that the landlord didn’t have a need to come into the room. It was a large room with three south-facing windows and the green carpet had three bands of faded colour, bleached by the summer sunshine. The furniture obviously hadn’t been planned; a few items bought with economy in mind - a sofa with cat scratches, a cheap drop-leaf table, a wardrobe with a door that kept swinging open, a strong, ugly bed. The only expensive item was her Spanish guitar, propped in the corner furthest from the door, next to a pile of sheet music.

She was very tidy; he wasn’t - but she didn’t mind. When alone she put all his ‘stuff’ away and did what she could to make the room attractive; but it was always unpleasant - except for the nights when they were together - the nights when, in the gloom, she glowed like a silver goddess and their damp foreheads touched and he saw both her eyes melt together and become a single eye, like a beautiful cyclops and she and the room slid into a perfection where everything was sour, salty, brackish.

Roman Baths

My dislike of the ancient Romans - and pretty much everything about them - has caused my aversion to ‘health spas’. I am sure that the Roman enthusiasm for personal hygiene and public bathing played a significant part in their decadence - and as such I avoid the modern equivalent of these facilities.

I have no wish to linger in agitated tepid water nor to loiter, like Nero, in steam rooms, with a towel over one shoulder. Nor to be oiled and mauled by persons of either sex. I am repulsed by the fussing and pampering and the weird relaxed regression into childishness. And despite great admiration for Jim Bacchus, I would not enjoy sprawling bare bellied, with a bunch of grapes on my head, a goblet of wine in my hand, surrounded by the nude frolickings of nymphs and Cupids.

Natasha and her brother Nikolai in their droshky, returning home, late at night.

‘You know,’ she suddenly said, ‘I know I’ll never again be as happy and peaceful as I am now.’

‘That’s nonsense, silliness, rubbish,’ said Nikolai, and thought: ‘How lovely my Natasha is! I have no other friend like her and never will. Why is she getting married? We could keep driving around together!’

‘How lovely my Nikolai is!’ thought Natasha.

‘Ah! there’s still light in the drawing room,’ she said, pointing to the windows of the house, shining beautifully in the wet, velvet darkness of the night.

( Tolstoy: War And Peace ... vol.2 pt.7 )

The Couple

I had a feeling that things would not go well for them. Everything looked fine; they were young and radiated happiness and optimism - he, doing well at his firm; she, post-grad in Russian Lit and offered a permanent position - you couldn’t find a nicer couple. But I had this feeling and it coloured the way I viewed them.

Impossible to put into words, of course. It wasn’t anything that I could explain - utterly intangible - to the point that I suspected myself of projecting some inner malice - some grudging resentment - perhaps some unconscious jealousy.

Only later, when hearing from friends, did a faint perception begin to dawn. There had been too much of ‘something’ about them. I didn’t know what that something was - I still don’t know what it was ... but that ‘too much’, which had illuminated their happiness and optimism, became the ‘too much’ which broke them.

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ikagrp · 6 years

Text

Welcome Lucy! You’ve been accepted as your first choice of Nina Dobrev as Valya Binev.

Please send in your account within the next 24 hours. Also, please follow these tags: ikag starter, Ikag social, ikaghh, ikag important, ikag task, ikagfollow, ikagunfollow and ikag event

[ OOC INFORMATION ]

NAME / PRONOUNS | AGE | TIMEZONE

Hi! I’m Lucy, I’m 23 and I am in the GMT timezone, but my online/sleep timezone could honestly be anywhere. I like She/Her pronouns but I don’t mind They/Them, whatever works best for people.

YOUR ACTIVITY:

My activity varies, I have a home like that requires a lot of focus, as well as an indie rp account and recently I got into online gaming too. I will be online for a good few hours pretty much everyday though unless some unforeseen event happens.

ROLEPLAYING EXPERIENCE:

Wow, this made me think hard. Probably between 8 to 9 years? I was roughly about 14/15 when I started. I started on Tumblr, then I moved (briefly) to facebook before settling on Tumblr with the occasional Discord paragraphing.

IC INFORMATION

WHO ARE YOU BRINGING TO THE SHOW?

FACECLAIM: Nina Dobrev

NAME: Valya Binev

AGE: Twenty Nine

BIRTHDAY: January 9th 1989

OCCUPATION: Artist, mainly, but does the occasional creative writing.

HOMETOWN: Sofia, Bulgaria

PETS: Boris the California Kingsnake

BIOGRAPHY: Valya has known great pain in her life, pain that has stuck with her since she was two years old, and pain that has never lessened or wavered, but only grown. The young woman has done her best to direct that pain, putting it into everything she’s done, from her motivation at school to jobs she got as a teenager, and even now as she works, her pain is channeled into everything. She just wants it to stop, even just for a little bit.

To know Valya’s pain, is to go back to the very start, when she was two years old. For a short time, it was just her, her older brother Nikolay and her parents, but it hadn’t been too long before her first birthday that her parents had announced their third pregnancy, and Valya was overjoyed to finally be a big sister as well as a little sister, and for all she cared, she could have been given a stone as a little sibling and she’d have treasured it to the moon and back, and that’s exactly what she did when her parents brought home Angel, a beautiful baby boy. Valya doted on the baby, she was ever so careful, she could sit by his crib quietly and watch him, she loved he brother so dearly, even Nikolay was so adoring of the child, but the one time that Valya decided not to sit by his crib, was the day that Angel took his last breath. The young girl didn’t understand death, she didn’t understand why Angel was no longer around, why she couldn’t see him anymore, and it devastated the young girl, almost to the point of blaming herself that she wasn’t there when he left. That had been the first great pain she felt, and has carried with her.

The second loss was her father. He had been overprotective of Valya from the second she was born, she was the first daughter to be born into his family, and knowing that it was unheard of, he had treasured the young girl, treated her as if she were made of porcelain, but he loved her, and he made her his little princess. She was just ten years old when she lost her father, and they’d gone on holiday to England, where her mother was from, to visit her mother’s parents when her father had been a victim a hate crime. He had been attacked one night on his way back from the store, but was left till to the early hours of the next morning when someone finally called for help, by then though, it was too late. It was then that her mother decided that going back to Bulgaria would be too difficult, after everything, and moved in with her parents in England. Valya took the pain greater than her brother, she was lost without her father, and though she loved her mother dearly, she could never really connect with her as much as she once had now that her father was gone.

Valya grew distant in her teens years, she was living in a country she hadn’t grown up with, she knew nobody except her family, and she was the only one of them that hadn’t made any friends since starting school there. It wasn’t that she was a disruptive student either, she wasn’t a bully or caused trouble, not purposely anyway, but she was picked on often, and because she knew how to stand her ground, that’s what often put her in trouble, but she just couldn’t fit in, not with the weight of her pain sitting on her shoulders. She decided that the only way to get involved was to distance her emotions and channel them into painting and drawing, even writing, and though it didn’t shift her pain she could at least focus on anything other than the hurt. As long as people liked what she wrote or what she painted, then she figured that was as close to sharing emotions as she’d ever get.

At college however, Valya met a girl, Eveleen, and together they bonded through their love of writing. They shared classes for a while, but became quick friends, and whatever had started out as the best kind of friendship Valya had ever had, became a relationship she was just as happy to have too. For the first time ever, she first actually happy, an emotion she’d rarely had chance to feel, and though the weight of her pain dragged her down a little, she was sure that whatever they had was worth fighting for. After a couple of years though, came an engagement, a true sign that Eveleen was someone special, that Valya could hold close and have to herself, but it was then that she realised the truth. The people she had loved the hardest in her life, had been taken from her, ripped from life itself, almost to spite her, and now she was bringing Eveleen into that circle, and that’s when her panic and pain set in. She was in too deep with the wonderful woman, they were in love, and breaking it off naturally wouldn’t work, that she was sure of, and instead, she let herself sabotage the relationship in a way that was sure to push the other away. She had broken the other’s heart, and shortly after, their relationship and engagement were over with, leaving Valya alone once more, picking up the pieces of her mess, struggling with another devastating loss.

Her last great loss came when she was in her mid-twenties, when her brother, now a father himself, died in a road accident. But this time, Valya couldn’t just give up and sink into her work, she couldn’t lock herself away as she struggled with another weight on her shoulders, no, this time it was much harder than that. Valya found herself with a five year old little girl who was dealing with her own loss, a loss much greater than any five year old should deal with, because on top of losing her father, her mother gave up on her, handing her rights to Valya and disappearing off the face of the planet. As much as Valya was alone in her grief now that her mother and her weren’t talking all that often, she wasn’t the only one grieving, instead she had to grow up, she had to be there for her niece, to nurse the girls pain, because her dark life was no life for a little girl who had once seen the world in such multicolour.

It’s been a few years since her niece came to live with her, and since her brother had passed, and though her pain still tears at her, Valya has grown in ways she never thought she would, having to take care and raise a child was never in her life plans, but with Iva growing up, Valya has had to be the strong one for once, and trying to lead another to greatness has shown her that being alone has only made her time harder, that maybe letting someone in, sharing her feelings, won’t result in such a loss anymore.

RELATIONSHIPS:

Eveleen McCarthy - Ex Fiancee

FOR RETURNING CHARACTERS ONLY:

N/A

ANYTHING ELSE:

Valya is godmother and official guardian to her niece, Iva, after her older brother died and the girls mother gave up her rights to Valya. Iva is 8 years old (November 30th 2009) and lives full time with Valya.

Valya is Eveleen’s ‘Ex-Fiancee’ connection.

#wanted connection #submission #ikagaccepted

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steamboatshipwrecks · 6 years

Text

P A N T H E O N

It was the only house that had retained its Christmas lights in the early February fog. They stood out like bright eyes in the darkness, watching us approach from its regal standing on a hill. I could not tell if it was an unnaturally large house or just that the houses on our side of the bay were unnaturally small. I had never been to this part of Maryland; artificially rural and too grassy where I felt like forests should be, instead replaced by the homes of the wealthy and isolated.

This was the second time I had been in Sarah’s car, the first being when I arrived at her house all of two years before this occurrence. It had always felt like part of the scenery, sitting in her driveway and letting mud crust up its tires, but now it was if some omnipotent being had clipped it out of an untouched photo and had haphazardly pasted it into a picture of an entirely different genre. There was no gradual introduction to our new scenery, only that sometime in the past two hours the flat grass of the eastern shore had rollercoastered into diving hills soon after we crossed the bay bridge.

Being a little less than a decade old, I was ignorant of most things at the time, like algebra and the proper way to eat a mango, but I could tell that we were not driving safely when we pulled into the driveway of this glowing home on the luscious outskirts of the Washington DC metropolitan sprawl. We were with darkened headlights and fogged windows whose only transparency were my finger drawings. The house was nothing but a yellow blur to our eyes. It was only when we stepped into the night that I noticed the woman in the painted doorway. She stood like she was restraining herself from crossing her arms and suddenly I felt ashamed of my hair.

This was not a funeral. There were no black dresses or open caskets or smeared mascara, as I had been promised. Instead, we stepped into the creamy golden light of a home scented with evergreen and warm chocolate. The spacious white foyer had the potential to be empty and impersonal, but it was set up as what a movie thought a home should entail - American kitsch that was almost ironically tasteful, a piano, and a framed photo of a family of three. I had probably seen it on paper or screen, once before.

The woman gave a strained smile that showcased her premature aging. “It’s good to see you, Sarah,” she said. “And this, this is your daughter, I see. I suppose that makes me your aunt. I suppose that makes me your Aunt Mary.”

(I was not Sarah’s daughter, but I seemed to be only one who was aware of that fact.)

“Mary, she - ” Sarah lapsed into an interruptive silence as she often did when she wanted to reserve herself some space in a conversation. This was how she often talked to me.

My ‘aunt’ let Sarah’s awkwardness fester for a few moments before nodding, “That’s okay, that’s okay. I don’t know where Kola is, exactly - I think he’s in his room - you know, he’s being terribly rude.” She turned into a chestnut bannister and not-quite shouted something in a liquid tongue I could not comprehend. A boy’s voice responded in a similar manner.

Mary smiled at us. “I’m sorry about Kola - it’s a hard time for him, you know? I think he was close to his father.”

“Oh,” Sarah noted. “Yes. I’m so sorry about your loss.”

“Ah, well, that’s quite alright. I see you have some bags, why don’t I help you take it up to the guest room - ”

“No!” The brown head of a teenage boy appeared at the top of the stairs. He was casually outfitted in plaid pajama bottoms and the t-shirt of some band I did not recognize. “They can stay in my room. It’s cleaner. I think they should stay in my room.”

“Kola - ”

“No, I think they should stay in my room. I will sleep in the guest room, I promise I’m not trying to be creepy. I just don’t think they should stay in the guest room.”

Mary turned to us, the foyer chandelier accenting the subtle lines along her lips. “Nikolai - I’m sorry, Sarah - there’s absolutely nothing wrong with the guest room. We cleaned it yesterday. We put new sheets on the bed and vacuumed the carpet.”

The boy stood his ground from above. “Mom, Я не хочу, чтобы новая девушка - ”

“Nikolai, don’t do this. Don’t do this, not now.”

We ended up in a neat, if sterile, room that felt more like an department store display than a living space.

“We even took out the trundle,” Mary noted, patting the two twin beds that took up the center of the room. The slightly more weighted one struggled through a forced creak as Sarah placed her chunky duffel bag on the mattress. I set down my light backpack on the other without a sound.

“I forgot how nice the view was,” Sarah said, holding the curtain open a sliver to glimpse to the falling snow outside.

“Yes,” Mary agreed. “I’ve always liked how cosy the house is.” She shrugged and gave a small smile. “I suppose it’s not very practical, but I admit I’ve always been a romantic like that.”

“Don’t hold yourself to that standard,” Sarah responded, her eyes still focused on the silver world suspended between the drapes. “Aesthetics can be practical if you want them to - who says we disguise ourselves by choice rather than for survival?”

We were here for the funeral of Dmitri. I had not even gone to my own mother’s funeral years ago and now I was expected to attend one of a man I had never met. I was expected to politely show up in dark clothing - “Not even a dress,” Sarah said. “Just, I don’t know, something. You don’t even have to cry.” This was what Sarah wanted me to do.

I was looking forward to the rain. It would always rain during funerals, in the amusingly sad movies Sarah liked to watch on her snowy television. But it wasn’t even raining in this strange place - it was too cold and God’s tears had frozen up and were falling to earth as powdered sugar instead of bitter wine. I pitied the thought of a rainless funeral more than I pitied poor Dmitri.

We ordered pizza for dinner, or as to say, my dear cousin Kola ordered pizza and took the box into the guest room, where I was reading a book on my temporary bed.

He ate his pineapple pizza without offering. “You have to learn to speak up for yourself,” he explained from the floor. “Or else you’re never gonna get what you need, much less what you want.” Leaning back on his hands, he tapped the box. “Mom doesn’t like pineapple - well, neither do I, but the point is that she won’t eat it and that’s why I got it. I have no clue if Aunt Sarah likes pineapple pizza, but I don’t even know where she is and neither do you, but we don’t care about her; she does that, she disappeared. She disappeared for two years and came back with a little orphan girl, but we don’t care about that either.”

He pouted, a fitting expression on a teenage boy who looked like a part-time punk rocker. “And you won’t ask for any, Charlie Chaplin. I can’t believe you would be so kind as give your share to me, but unfortunately your share is half the pie. Or do you just not like me? That’s understandable. But I don’t understand why you would starve yourself just to spite me.” He shrugged, before standing. “What can I say, I don’t understand little girls. See ya, Charlie.” Kola then removed himself and the remaining food from the guest bedroom and I returned to my book (an anthology of short stories about farm animals) in committed tranquility.

But sometime during the night I found myself lying on the trundle bed in an uncomfortable state of hunger. If I had a talent - and to this day I do not consider myself a particularly talented person in any field - it was my perseverance to preserve silence. This meant two things for my situation: that I did not want my stomach to make strange noises and that I could slip out of the guest room without waking Sarah.

The kitchen was downstairs. The most troublesome obstacle I encountered was not a door or a light, but the creaky wooden stairs that descended from the top level to the foyer. That endeavour alone took a bit longer than I feel it should have. I would estimate in all, it took approximately twenty-eight minutes to scale seventeen steps. There was a routine to it: breathe in, step, feel the panic set in, breathe out, and, optionally, stand on a single step and stare into the bleak darkness of the foyer until I had worked up the courage to take another step.

From the foyer, I could see the edging light of the kitchen - a lamp let on or a Christmas candle still burning in the night. Its warmth and glow did not reach me at the bottom of the stairs, but the idea of its presence did. I followed the delicious thought of leftover pizza into the kitchen.

The light was no accident - there was someone in the room. I could hear the scrape of some furniture on the hardwood floor, the soft thud of footsteps, and unburdened breathing. There was someone in the kitchen. I smelled pizza and burning wax. There was someone in the kitchen. At once, my single instinct was to retreat back up the staircase into the guest room.

My senses fell to static and all that I had witnessed evaporated into blurring colors until monotony consumed them.

There was nothing but a lamp in the kitchen. Confronted with the source of the light, the room was darker than I had anticipated. It did not seem to fill all the spaces and the cracks in the cabinets. A pale marble table stood out like a full moon in the sky, where a cardboard pizza box laid, sprawing and vulnerable. And empty.

That was the moment I realized my mission was truly doomed. There was no more pizza and I did not dare snoop where I did not belong. I had been awake for approximately an hour.

A whimsical sound divided my thoughts. It was almost a melody, but every time it sounded vaguely pleasing, the sound would dip into absurdity. It struggled along this line for some time, treading through the definitions of noise and music, never settling for one or the other. It sounded immature and unrestrained - improvised in a dream.

The house was large, but not so large enough that I could escape the phantom music as I stepped carefully from the kitchen, my sock-clad feet gliding silently along the wooden floorboards. I so desperately wanted something in my hand, a drinking glass or electronic device, something to smash into the ground and obscure the sounds interrupting the quiet. I itched to grab the pictures from the walls or find a radio and max out the volume of the most obnoxious pop song making midwinter rounds.

I circled back around to the foyer in nearly mute action. I had never been afraid of the dark until this moment in this house, where there was some ghost’s musical laughter ringing in my ears. The winter night was suddenly intangible - empty and cold and rolling with dead haunts. I swiped for the bannister and nearly feared my hand would pass right through it.

I shot across the glassy foyer floor in my socks and did not stop until a grand piano emerged from the darkness and interrupted my path.

Kola froze his haphazard playing and jumped from the piano bench when I crashed into the legs of the instrument. “The hell, man?”

Embarrassed, I struggled to regain my standing and nearly winced when I put pressure on my right foot. Kola watched me with impassive confusion while I maneuvered myself to the bottom step of the stairs and peeled off my sock to assess the damage; my feet were, as expected, decently but not terribly battered, but some of the skin around my toes had peeled back in red strips. I tried to staunch the petty bleeding with my removed sock.

Kola turned back to the piano and banged on the keys. A great cacophony filled the foyer. “I don’t know how to play the piano,” he explained. “I can play the Seven Nation Army riff, but that’s it. On the guitar. I can’t play the piano. I just think it sounds cool when you press random keys.” He hit a tinkling note on the higher end.

“My dad could play it, but that’s not him, you know? It’s ‘cause he’s Russian. All Russians can play piano. You should’ve heard his Mussorgsky, his Stravinsky. Me, I prefer Nirvana. You look like a Mozart kinda gal.” Kola paused his inarticulate tapping. “Or maybe Chopin. Charlie Chopin-Chaplin.”

He played a childish tune - five notes in total, one after another, more of a warm-up than a melody. But warmth of the instrument by far made up for the inexperience of the musician and the notes soared through the air like shooting stars. They were extinguished in the night as Kola’s hand trailed off the keyboard. He sighed. “I couldn’t sleep, you know? Not with the funeral tomorrow. Or - ” He glanced off into nothingness. “Maybe today, I guess. I don’t know how late it is.” His wandering eyes caught hold of the family photo on top of the piano and somehow his fiery concentration distinguished the picture more than yesterday’s daylight ever had.

It was Kola, Mary, and, assumedly, Dmitri. It appeared to not be taken too long ago - the crows’ feet lining Mary’s face were nearly identical to the ones that I had recently seen. Kola’s hair was a little longer, a little shaggier, as if he were imitating some mainstream pop-rocker. He was a bit shorter, too, just below his mother, but his eyes retained the same apathy for the photographer that he seemed to hold for me.

Dmitri was an old, gray man at least a decade Mary’s senior. He had a good-natured smile, smaller but more genuine than whatever stilted expression reigned on his wife’s face. He had the kind of disposition anyone would have liked on principle alone, but would have forgotten after a day or two.

Kola noted my interest in the photograph. “That’s Dad,” he commented. “Don’t feel too sad, he was old, as you can see. It was au naturale. Don’t feel sad. You didn’t even know him. You don’t have the right.”

I startled as Kola banged on the piano once more. “Why are you up? Are you hungry? Thirsty? Need to use the bathroom?”

I stared at him.

He rolled his eyes. “You seriously are totally mute? Can’t say a fucking thing? Can’t cry in pain, laugh in joy, or scream for help?”

I stared at him.

Kola banged on the piano again - this time a perfect chord - and watched as I gave a small shudder. If it gave him any amusement, it didn’t show, as he only sighed and admitted, “It’s not your fault, I know.”

The next morning, Sarah hurried me into a black dress.

“I trust you’ll find something to eat?” she said from the guest bathroom where she applied a pale pink lipstick. The line of her hand was unsteady and she frowned before wiping off her work and painting her lips for a second time. “I’ll meet you in the kitchen - go easy on your Aunt Mary and Kola, this is a hard day for them. I love you.” She put down her lipstick with a shaky hand and scrutinized her handiwork again. Her cosmetic achievement looked cakey and awkwardly unnatural, which was unsurprising, as I had never seen Sarah with make-up of any sorts before that morning.

In the kitchen, someone had tossed the pizza box, or at least, there was no evidence of its existence in the house. The marble tabletop was clear of clutter. It was also empty, and I would have thought the house vacant but for me and Sarah except for the sound of a vacuum cleaner.

I found Mary cleaning somewhere in the sitting room. She was dressed surprisingly casual for the day’s events - only sweatpants and a faded t-shirt for some sports team I didn’t recognize. On the elegant fireplace mantle where sentimental items might lay were dirty dusting rags and sanitizing wipes. Mary stopped her cleaning at my entrance.

“Oh! I didn’t know you were up - I’m so used to Kola sleeping in, well, I forgot that anyone under the age of eighteen was capable of getting up before twelve. Have you eaten? No? Why don’t you - oh, why don’t you sit down here? Here?”

Mary gestured to the couch before shuffling over the television set and turning it on to whatever cable show happened to be present - something about people who fly. She disappeared into the kitchen and returned with a box of wheat cereal.

And for a while, I contented myself with cereal and daytime television, satisfied in that I had at least managed to accomplish Sarah’s request of finding something to eat. Mary repositioned herself into another room and continued her vacuuming. I could not hear the dialogue between the characters on the screen, but I was happy to watch their colorful costumes fill the static box and imagine my own plot about murderous children.

Sarah discovered me during a particularly riveting scene in which what I presumed was the protagonist monologuing about how terrible children are. She was wearing a black dress and considerably less make-up than what I had witnessed earlier in the morning. She looked at me, at my wheat cereal, at the television, and at me again. Then she left the room.

Mary’s vacuuming ceased and I almost caught the dialogue of my show before I heard Sarah ask, “I thought the funeral was today?”

Mary let out something that sounded like laughter. “There’s no funeral today. There’s not going to be a funeral.”

“There has to be a funeral, Mary.”

“Don’t be morbid; there’s no reason to have one.”

“Then I don’t know why I came.”

“I don’t know why you did, either. You seemed perfectly happy with your new life, I don’t know why you’d want to depress yourself with us.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t call for a while. I’m sorry she’s such a surprise, you know I didn’t mean it like that - ”

“I would’ve appreciated a warning.”

“A warning - ! My daughter’s existence is not intended to insult you. It’s not her fault - ”

Sarah’s voice was stunted by a sudden increase in the volume of the television (and I could finally hear what the characters were discussing - aliens). Kola stood in the doorway of the sitting room, wrapped in a plaid blanket with the remote in his hand. He yawned as the scripted dialogue drowned out the dispute occurring in the room over. He sat down next to me and shoved his hand into the cereal box I was holding.

“Supergirl?” he asked through a mouthful of dry cereal, and shook his head. “You could’ve chosen better. Daredevil is where it’s at. Well, at least it’s not Arrow.”

He groaned as some vague shouting penetrated our sound bubble of manufactured television drama and turned the volume up until it was at a deafening height.

He said something - probably something profoundly snarky or something profoundly dull, but I could not apprehend it over the television. Kola spoke without words and eventually he realized it, too, because he leaned into me and said, with intent, “The worst part of these shows is when the villain explains their plan. It makes no sense for them to do it, but they do it anyway. It makes no sense because the hero’s just gonna stop them - gonna do something stupid and brave and speak up and stop them. You know, you could learn a bit from Supergirl, Charlie Chaplin. You could be brave like Supergirl and speak up and do something. But,” he paused and patted my head. “You’re not. You can’t. It’s not your fault, you can’t help who you are. It wouldn’t surprise me if you were deaf, too. It wouldn’t make a difference. Deaf and mute? If you can’t repeat what you hear, then you might as well not hear at all.

“No, you won’t ever be Supergirl. If we’re going with character tropes, then you’re more of a girl in a ghost story. But you’re not the girl who gets killed in the first five minutes - although you’re stupid enough to be her. No, Charlie Chaplin, you are the ghost. A gimmick. A gag. The creepy ghost girl with no backstory who only exists for the sake moving the plot along. You will never be anything outside of this story, but you were honestly never a part of this story to begin with. This story has existed long before you arrived and it will continue to exist after you leave.

“Look at you. I don’t know if you’re listening, but you sure as hell don’t understand anything, either way. So this is the part where I explain it to you, because unlike Supergirl, I know you will never tell anyone, not Mom, not Aunt Sarah.”

Kola looked me over as if he were judging me on a superficial basis. Maybe he was. “I’m going after her,” he said, before turning his head away quickly. “My little sister. She left us two years ago. Because she was the only one in this family who wasn’t a fucking sociopath.” He laughed and his voice cracked like the adolescent boy he was. “I can’t blame her. And then Aunt Sarah refused to speak to us. And then Dad died. And then you came along and it’s like she never even existed. And you’ll never see anything of her in this house - not as long as my dear mother lives. Lena was the brightest out of all of us, and now she’s been demoted to a ghost story that no one dares to speak of for fear of angering the dead. But she’s not dead. And I’m gonna find her.”

He grabbed a fistful of cereal, but didn’t bother to eat it, just let it crumble in his hand. Supergirl was flying around the screen again, her crimson cape flapping in front of what was obviously a green screen.

“Why is this so loud?” Sarah demanded, stalking into the sitting room. “Who turned this up so loud?” She shook her head and reached for the remote that Kola had stuffed between the seat cushions. He rolled his eyes.

Sarah let out a huff. Her cheeks were red and her hazel eyes were glistening. “It was nice visiting with you, Kola. Unfortunately I think we should be on our way home - unfortunately we cannot stay as long as we all would like.”

I looked up at Sarah and she smiled sadly at me. “I’ve gotten our bags. We should leave before twelve if we want to get home at a decent hour.”

With Kola’s new claim on the cereal and the television’s departure from my wonderful plotline about murderous children, I saw no reason why we could not act immediately. As I disappeared into the foyer, I heard Sarah speak to Kola, “Help your mother take down the Christmas decorations. It’s February, for heaven’s sake.”

My backpack was next to the piano, with my toothbrush and my hardly-used hairbrush and my pajamas. I was considering how long it would take to change out of the funeral attire before I noticed that my book was missing; still in the guest room, I presumed. It was no feat to quickly dash upstairs and retrieve my lost belonging, but when I held the doorknob in my hand, I found that it would not turn. I tried again and pushed against the door with the limited strength of my small body - it was solidly locked. The guest room was inaccessible, as was my book (which I had unfortunately never finished and also happened to be overdue at the local library).

Sarah was waiting for me at the front of the house, leaning against the grand piano with her duffel bag and my backpack. The piano gleaned like black ink, presumedly polished by Mary in the early morning. The photograph of the three-person family was nowhere to be seen.

We stepped into the midday light. The sun bared itself in the sky, a yellow circle scrawled on top of a bare blue background like simple landscape drawn by a child. The snow, though melting, gave one last hurrah in a brilliant spectacle of reflected white rays quilted with exposed grass.

Sarah wiped the remnants of last night’s slush off the windshield of her car. She was still wearing a mourning dress, as was I, but her face was typically plain.

“You got along well with your cousin?” she asked, once the engine had started in breathless gasps. “I just - would you ever consider a sibling? Of course, this is not a definite proposal, but if you’re lonely…”

Sarah trailed off as we drove away from Mary and Kola’s house. It did not look so big in the distance and one could not even see the decorative artificial lights in the daylight. They were just gaudy wire.

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danithebookaholic-blog · 7 years

Text

My Top Five Favorite Books of All Time

Over the last 30 years I have read a small mountain of books. Classic works such at Dante’s Devine Comedy and Cervantes’ Don Quixote. Literature works by Jane Austen and Nikolai Gogol. To the modern day works of Stephen King and Patrick Rothfuss, Kristen Hannah and Sylvia Day, Stephenie Meyer and Rick Riordan. There are so many writers and stories out there to be told and experienced, it’s hard to pick just five that I love. But after considerable thought, I think I have if narrowed down…ish. So, in no particular order, the following are my top five favorite books of all time…for now at least.

1) The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

I first read The Great Gatsby in my high school AP English class. Unlike most of the student in class, I actually read it and fell in love with it immediately. I love the roaring 20s in America. I often tell myself I was born too late. I should have been born in the late 1800s so I could have enjoyed the ever-changing world at the turn of the century. I envy my grandparents who could remember the first time they ever saw a car. They started their family just after the Great Depression, and got to experience the 1920s all on their own! The music, the dress, the speakeasies. This was my era, and I missed it by almost 70 years.

The Great Gatsby has so many lessons in it, and the first one is found on the very first page:

“Whenever you feel like criticizing any one," he told me, "just remember that all people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.”

I think that’s the biggest reason why I love this book so much. What can I say, I’m an old soul. I like books that have a deeper meaning than what’s on the surface. I like books with moral lessons, and that ask the hard questions. And you get this with The Great Gatsby.

The writing style can be a bit dry at times, but that was also the style and language during the time in which it was written. If you can get past that part, you’ll thoroughly enjoy the book. It’s about glitz and glamor, extravagant parties, old and new money, adultery and car chases, and learning a lesson in the end.

2) Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K Rowling

Of course, I loved the entire Harry Potter series, but I’m not going to cheat and say the entire series. I chose The Deathly Hallows because it amazes me how good of a job J. K. Rowling did with not only concluding the series, but how she began the series. Let me try to explain.

In the very first book, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Rowling introduces to you to the cloak of invisibility, one of the Deathly Hallows. Throughout the series Rowling continues to introduce you to the other Deathly Hallows. As you’re reading the series you don’t think twice about these object that she has made know to you. You just think, “Oh, that’s cool,” and move on. When the Deathly Hallows are introduces in The Deathly Hallows things start to click. You start to realize all the time and effort she put into planning this seven-book anthology. Years before, when she first thought of The Sorcerer’s Stone she already kind of knew the ending. She knew that she was going to have to bring these objects in throughout the series and make you understand how important they are, without giving the ending away, and she did an amazing job at it.

Another piece that she did this same thing with were the horcruxes. From the beginning, little do you know, the horcruxes are a part of your life and you don’t really begin learning about them until book six, Harry potter and the Half Blood Prince.

I understand that all authors must create this world of theirs before they can publish. They should come up with the history of each character and how each character’s life intertwines with the others throughout the story. There are authors out there who do this and do this well, but I firmly believe that Rowling is bar none the best. I don’t know how long she worked on this story in her head or on paper before finally going to a publisher with a rough draft, but I’m sure it took a long time. More that she probably gives credit for. The complexity of this series is on a whole other level, and yet it’s simple enough for it to be in the children’s section. The whole thing boggles my mind and inspires it all at the same time.

3) Wizard’s First Rule (Book 1 of The Sword of Truth) by Terry Goodkind

It has been many years since I read Wizard’s First Rule, 15 at least. I hold this book in such high regard though because it is the book that opened the fantasy world to me. Before The Sword of Truth series, I only read Nicholas Sparks, Harry Potter (which I know is a form of fantasy, but in my mind, not the same thing), and classics that you read in school. This is also probably the book that made my love of books flourish.

Wizard’s First Rule is a story of a mythical world that closely resembles our own. A world in which goodness and honesty are plagued by the forces of darkness and deception. It’s a tale of risk all for the sake of love, and a journey into the darkness of the human soul. Filled with magic, indigenous peoples, and far-off places, this is a great book to spark the love you’ll soon have for fantasy stories.

4) The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks

The Notebook holds a special place in my heart because it makes me think of my early relationship with Jack, and so, I’m probably a little bias on this one due to this reason. I first read it right before the movie was to come out in 2004. Jack had graduated high school in 2003 and almost immediately went into the Navy. While he had been out of boot camp for some time, he had stayed in Chicago on the Naval base there for further schooling. I, on the other hand, was getting ready to start my senior year of high school and was missing him terribly.

One day, while on the phone, I convinced Jack to let me read The Notebook to him. He must have really loved me, because he said yes. It took the entire day, and looking back at the memory, I’m surprised my parents never caught us—after all this was before everyone had cell phones, and I had called him from the landline.

I love this book of Nicholas Sparks not only for that memory, but because the story reminds me so much of Jack and me. A young, unusual couple meet through the most unlikely of circumstances, and fall in love. With everything in the world against them, they somehow (eventually) make it and get to spend their lives together. The part that really gets me is the part the Jack and I have yet to experience: those golden years, of being old and still in love. Anytime we see an older couple together, hand in hand, I always ask him, reassuring myself, “That’s going to be us one day, right?” His response is always the same, “One day.”

I’m incredibly nervous for that day. First, to think that I will have spent most of my life with one person is awesome and scary. Second, I’m afraid that I, like Allie, will develop Alzheimer’s and not remember that I love him. My grandmother was one of the youngest cases of Alzheimer’s in the state of West Virginia, and while it’s still unknown if it’s a hereditary trait, anytime I find myself forgetting something, or not being able to remember my words, I freak out a little on the inside. It’s a scary and sad disease to watch someone you love slowly forget who you are. And I never want my family to have to experience this. The Notebook encapsulates all of this for me.

5) The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

The Little Prince is a book I plan on reading to my children from a very early age and multiple times over. It’s a book that I wish I had read at a younger age, but wasn’t introduced to it until Jack found it in his parents’ basement shortly after his mother had passed away. When he found out I had never read it, he handed it to me and told me that I must read it, and I couldn’t agree with him more. If you haven’t read it—or seen the Netflix Original—then you need to do so.

The Little Prince is loved by children and adults alike because of its view of what is important in the world. It opens with a pilot that is stranded in the desert who finds himself face to face with a young boy. The boy asks the pilot to, “Please, draw me a sheep.” After a while the pilot realizes that when life’s events are too difficult to understand there is no choice but to succumb to their mysteries. So, he pulls out a piece of paper and begins to draw. And this is where the wise and enchanting fable takes flight and teaches the secret of what is really important in life.

The Little Prince, like Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie, is a book that every child needs to read to keep them young, and every adult needs to remind them to never grow up.

From one wine-loving bookaholic to another, I hope I’ve helped you find your next fix. —Dani

Start a conversation: What is your favorite book of all time, and why?

Have a book you’d like to suggest or one you’d like me to review? Please feel free to leave your comments down below.

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welcometophu · 5 years

Text

Into the Split: Arrival 6

Twinned Book 3: Into the Split

Arrival 6

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It doesn’t take much time to get everyone cleaned up and ready to move out. They end up taking blankets from the cabin, and Nikolai hopes that someday he can make it back to replace them. The morning’s warmth faded abruptly with the arrival of a chill breeze, and temperatures have already dropped back to typical for March. Without winter coats these newcomers won’t survive for long; it’s going to be a hard enough trip as it is.

As Nikolai finishes shoving the last of the food for travel into the bottom of his bag, there’s a touch to his back. He turns to find Mattie stepping away quickly. Her smile flickers, and is gone.

“You taste like him all the time,” she says quietly. “Which is not to say that I plan on sipping from your life, just that you taste like lemon, not dreams, and it isn’t what I expected.”

Nikolai blinks. He has no idea how to respond to that.

“I’m not going to travel with you,” Mattie says, pointing behind herself to the shadows lingering in the corner. “It’s too bright, and while I could, I have my own ways of getting around. If they notice I’m gone, tell them I’m not in trouble, and I’m not causing trouble. I promise I will be back.” She pauses, then offers, “I’ll bring food, if I can.”

“I can’t really tell you not to go.” Nikolai can’t order anyone around, no matter how much Seth tries to, for their safety. “But do you really want—”

“I’m not like your Shadows,” Mattie says firmly. “But I am like them. I’ll be fine. They won’t want to swallow me down; I’d give them indigestion. They want light, not more darkness.” When she smiles, her teeth are sharp and bright. “Besides. I make your skin crawl. You won’t miss me.”

Nikolai feels like he should negate that, but she slips away before he can. The darkness wraps around her, enfolding her, and when she turns sideways into it, the shadows swallow her and she disappears.

He’s still staring at the darkness, the bag held loosely in his hands, when Seth comes into the cabin. “Nik, are you ready to go?”

He looks up, nods. “Yeah. Just—” He grabs the box of crackers that Carolyn had found while they were pulling out blankets, and shoves it into his bag. He zips it up and throws it over his shoulders. “I’m ready.”

When they get back outside, everyone is waiting. Mac and Carolyn each have a blanket around their shoulders, and Nikita and Heather are sharing one. Pawel bounces on his toes, and Alaric is nowhere to be seen.

“Alaric’s gone ahead, so now that you’re—” Pawel cuts off. “Where’s Mattie?”

Nikolai doesn’t wait for the conversation, striking out down the same path they left by days before. He whistles once and points, assuming that Alaric will hear and see him. “She left,” he says as soon as Pawel catches up. “She’s neither causing trouble nor in it, so we should let her be.”

Pawel makes a noise that Nikolai interprets as not necessarily trusting what Mattie has said. Nikolai just shrugs because there was absolutely nothing he could do about it.

The trip is both easier and more difficult this time. Nikolai knows the path laid out by the map, but Alaric swoops down periodically throughout the day to offer an alternative. Each time they have to consult the map, consider what Seth and Nikolai know of this world versus what Alaric is remembering. Three times they follow Alaric’s advice, but at least twice Nikolai forces them to turn away and shift their path. He’s not sure if they’re making better time overall with all the pauses, but the path itself is less treacherous.

The others walk without complaint, despite the fact that Nikolai knows their feet must hurt, and their hands must be cold. Pawel jogs through the day, keeping moving, bouncing slightly forward. Mac teases him, and at one point they playfully fight along the path until Seth shushes them. Quiet is good; noise could bring unwanted attention.

As the afternoon sun draws closer to the horizon, Alaric drops out of the sky, reforming into himself from the eagle’s wings as his feet touch the ground. It was strange the first time he did it early that morning, but by now, Nikolai is used to it.

“There’s a road over there,” Alaric says, pointing away from the river. “It’ll be easier than sticking close to the riverbank, and it doesn’t smell like it’s traveled regularly.”

Nikolai brings out the map, and he and Seth look closely until they find their spot. The road Alaric mentions is a rural highway, far enough away from the cities and the main roads that it might be safe, if it really isn’t traveled. “You’ll need to keep watch and let us know if we have to get off the road,” he says. “If someone has a car, they’re human.” He trusts that Alaric can smell the fumes of people and vehicles, but at the same time, not often doesn’t mean never. There could always be something.

They pick their way through the trees, and as they reach the road Alaric takes flight once more. He’s visible now that they’re out of the trees, wheeling overhead. Pawel pauses to look at him, his hand shadowing his eyes.

“If it’s this clear, it’s going to be cold tonight,” Pawel mutters. “Are we close to someplace safe for the night?”

Seth’s lips press together tightly; he gives a small shake of his head. Nikita makes a displeased sound at the motion, and Carolyn huddles under her blanket.

“We’ve moved away from our original path,” Nikolai reminds them. “The road is going to be easier, yes, but it’s also further from the known safe location where Seth and I stayed last time we traveled this way. I don’t think that safe house would be much use anyway. It wasn’t much more than a lean-to that kept out the wind. I was hoping there’d be more structure when we found it, but I think it was probably something a hunter set up before the Split.” He pauses, then clarifies, “the deer kind of hunter, not the Talent kind of hunter.”

“We figured,” Mac says.

“The sun’s going down soon,” Seth says curtly. “I know you’re tired, but we need to keep going, and if we spot someplace off the road, someone may need to go scout it to figure out if it’s survivalists or abandoned, and if it’s abandoned if it’d be safe enough to stay there.”

“If it’s been abandoned, why wouldn’t it be safe?” Nikita asks.

“Traps. People who think if they can’t have the place they worked their whole life for, then some random Talent looking for shelter shouldn’t have it either.” Nikolai remembers the first time they found something like that. His mother tried to keep him from reading the vicious words that had been painted on the walls. His father had lost a hand. “We have to be cautious.”

Heather wraps an arm around Nikita, drawing her closer. “We will be.”

“Let’s move,” Seth says, so they do.

As the sun drops lower, the air begins to chill quickly, thanks to the lack of cloud cover. They pause at the end of a dirt road, an old, rusted mailbox hanging off the wood post at the end. Nikolai whistles sharply, and Alaric drops out of the sky, shifting shape again as he lands. He glances at the road. “Thinking of stopping?”

Carolyn is huddled in her blanket, shivering, and Heather and Nikita are staying so close together they have trouble walking. Mac shrugs out of her blanket and hands it to Pawel, fixing it around his shoulders. “I’ll go with you,” she says. “Running, not teleporting, I promise. But at least I’m another pair of hands, and a lethal pair if needed.”

“Watch out for the traps,” Seth warns.

Alaric grins, snarls under his breath. “I’ll sniff them out.” A hound replaces him, and he lopes off, Mac keeping pace easily at his side.

“What do we do now?” Heather asks.

“Move off the road and wait,” Seth says, because there isn’t really anything else they can do.

If they keep going along the rural highway, they’d have to come back if Alaric reports the place is safe. If they start down the dirt road, they’ll have to come back to this point if the place isn’t safe. It’s easiest to just stay put and hope that Mac and Alaric don’t take too long.

Pawel gives the blanket to the girls, who wrap themselves each in one, then stick close together. Pawel picks a flatter stretch alongside the road and starts moving through sets of footwork, punches, and kicks that Nikolai doesn’t recognize. It seems to be letting Pawel focus, and the faint flickers of electricity that had started to trail across his skin fade away as his cheeks turn rose from the effort of his movement.

Pawel stops mid-kick, lowers his foot and shades his eyes as he looks down the road. Nikolai feels it then, the faint rumble that implies something is coming.

“Get further off the road!” Seth shouts, and they scramble down the embankment, running for the trees. Nikolai’s feet are half numb and awkward from the cold; he stumbles but Seth catches him, dragging him to his feet.

When Nikita stumbles as well, Pawel grabs her, hoisting her up in a bridal carry. He’s skinny and strong, but she still slows him down to a walk.

“Put her down and let her move on her own,” Seth yells from the edge of the trees as Carolyn joins them there.

“I twisted my ankle!” Nikita calls back. Pawel tries setting her down, but she shakes her head, and he lifts her again just as cars come into view.

There’s nothing they can do; they’ve been spotted, and the vehicles slow abruptly, stopping at the end of the dirt road. Nikita slides from Pawel’s arms, leaning against him as she stands on one foot.

Something taps Nikolai’s shoulder, and he jerks sideways, turning to see Mattie emerging from the darkness fostered by the trees. “They’re friends,” she says.

All three vehicles are old, covered in rust, painted in ways that might blend in under the trees. There are numerous dents, although the engines rumble quietly once they are stopped; these are well kept.

The passenger door of the front van opens, and a woman climbs out. She is tall and tanned, her dark hair pulled back. She smiles sharply before dropping to her knees, a lion roaring moments later.

There’s an answering baying howl in the distance.

As she stands again to speak as a woman, she calls out, “I am Alia and I am here to take you to Havenhill. Get in, and we’ll be there not long after nightfall. We have beds, and food, and you will be safe.”

Havenhill. They’re from Havenhill.

Seth grips Nikolai’s hand, holding on tight. “This can’t be—”

“She’s Talented,” Nikolai says, and he knows that’s why she changed shape, to prove that she’s not human. It gives them every reason to trust her, even though parts of him are still screaming to be wary. So many questions, from how do they have cars to how they found them.

“Bedrock,” Mattie says firmly. “I told you that, but no one listens. Are you going to get in the van or not? I’ll take the shadows back and meet you there.”

She’s gone before Nikolai can blink.

Another low howl, long and mournful and coming closer, then Mac is there, appearing by the mailbox. She takes two steps back, shouting, “Alaric!”

Pawel lifts Nikita, starts walking toward the van. “Thank you,” he says to Alia, before calling back over his shoulder, “We can trust them. Let’s move.”

The hound skids to a stop, paws raking through the dirt before he transforms back to Alaric. “Mom?” he asks, voice breaking and raw.

Alia turns to look at him, frowning. “No,” she says. She turns away to pull the side door of the van open, while the back doors to the other two cars open as well. “Get in if you’re coming with us. We don’t want to linger.”

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#welcome to phu #welcometophu #into the split #phu twinned #twinned #its arrival

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