#rumination and reverie
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At what point does a fake god become a true god? Can an egregore achieve deification? With UPG and what the manufactured identities of deities and spirits, at what point does the thought become the reality?
#echo sounds#ramblings of a blogger#I’m not really looking for answers I’m just thinking aloud#rumination and reverie
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ribs / bill farrah x reader
I’d like to preface this by saying I love Darby and Bill beyond words -- but I wanted to start off with a one-shot/drabble which my brain only saw through Bill x Reader. My unrealistic desire for Darby and Bill is to write about them spending the rest of their days solving crimes and living on the road.
Anyway, for the sake of clarity, this is Bill x Reader, off on a road trip -- short musings and some tenderness in a motel room -- mildly nsfw!! <33 if anyone enjoys this i’ll probably flesh this out into an actual fic
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Bill’s hand never wavers from its place atop your thigh - no matter the sharp turn he has to take, no matter the winding road he’s forced to slowly navigate. It rests upon your thigh, his fingers brushing beneath the hem of your skirt. Like all things with Bill, intimacy is an act of true tenderness; the circles he traces upon your skin send a flush down your neck, but they are foremost a simple, constant reminder of his affection.
“We’ll be there in about ten.” Bill’s voice gently breaks through the quiet reverie of your thoughts. He accompanies this announcement with a gentle squeeze of your thigh, the corners of his lips twitching at the sigh of contentment that you can’t contain.
Scoffing, you feign annoyance. “Shut up, Bill.” You shift in your seat, Bill’s hand dropping from your thigh. Rolling the window down a sliver, you let a small, tender stream blow across your skin. His hand returns, slowly inching across your thigh to make you laugh -- it resumes its natural place, and you fall back into quiet harmony.
He’s watching the road, and you’re watching him -- you’re counting his freckles again, thinking he’s gained three new ones. The radio offers the greatest source of sound in the car; Bill’s a focused driver, and the road makes you feel wonderfully melancholy. It isn’t sadness -- but your thoughts stir, faced with great expanses and endless roads. Bill’s presence is grounding, but it too, makes you reflective; you ponder your life before him, afraid to conceptualise one without him now. Bill told you once, late at night, curled into his side on a fractured hotel mattress, that he loves your moody tendencies . The parts of you that have deterred past lovers only endear you to him.
Your parents struggle to understand why you’ve become so wholly devoted to Bill - he is not the son in law they had dreamed of. His tattoos, dry ruminations on capitalism, his mullet; your parents can’t move past these things. You love them, still; it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks. Bill’s all you need. He’s a best friend, a companion, a lover, a partner in crime -- it took you a long time to realize that’s what the love of your life should be.
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The motel you two are staying in would surely rank amongst the dredges of the hospitality business - but you’ve hardly noticed the flickering hallway lights, or how the water only runs ice cold.
Bill’s lips are on yours, gently seeking you again and again; his kisses are soft, coaxing, pleading. Sitting on his lap, his chest is firmly pressed against yours -- his arms hold you to him tightly, as if an inch of space between you two would be a chief insult. His hands are beneath your sundress, canvassing the expanse of your back like its newfound territory; he treats your body like a wondrous delight every time you two make love. Your body is forced to alternate between the burning need you have for him, and the sweet heaven of this moment -- the endless kisses are the finest precursor to what is to come. When you’re laying across the bed, your limbs splayed as Bill works you with his mouth, this moment now will have played its part.
Reflexively you brush against him, needing friction to relieve the burning need your thoughts have unleashed. Bill senses this (he knows, he always knows), a hand moving to untie your dress - the fabric gathers at the top of your chest, because you’re too inraptured with kissing to brush it aside. Your hands are cupping his jaw, tracing lines across his fine symmetry - your fingers find the tattoos upon his shoulders, tracing the ink you could identify in your sleep.
Pulling away from him, you move forward to kiss his cheeks; you press your lips to the small tattoo lying there, pepper love bites against the soft skin beneath the curve of his jaw. Bill tenses beneath you, his grip upon you becoming desperate; his fingers press into your skin, as he drags you across his lap in a languid motion.
Emboldened, you cease your ministrations; placing your lips to his ear, so that your breath will flush his skin, you tease him. “I feel your heart racing.”
“Shut up.” You can feel his skin flushing, your cheek pressed against his. Shifting so that your hands can cup his face, you’re given a clear view of Bill’s warm cheeks -- he’s smiling at you, so wholly uninhibited and happy.
“Yeah?” Your voice is tender, caressing the back of his neck.
“Yes.” Bill is succinct, his affirmation quickly accompanied by his lips finding yours once more; what was once a slow, aimless pace, has been quickened. His hands move to cup your breasts, his fingers brushing against your nipples; you moan, an aching feeling building in your core.
It is always like this with Bill. It’ll never matter how many times you’ve had sex - it’ll never matter how many times he’s made you cum on a motel mattress. He’ll always worship you like it's the very first time.
#bill farrah#bill farrah x reader#harris dickinson#harris dickinson x reader#a murder at the end of the world
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Permanent
The witch who planned so hard to achieve immortality did not plan for the end of the world.
Her magic—the magic of permanence—proved itself more durable in the end than the clockwork of life itself.
Small consolation, she felt, bound forever to her own buried bones.
It was something of a surprise when her millenia of silent rumination about her own life were interrupted by a shifting of dirt and rubble.
Her eyes had long since rotted away, but senses beyond sight alerted her to the impossible touch of sunlight on her remains.
Her mind stirred. She shifted from her reverie to contemplation of the outside world again. With great effort, she cast awareness outward to bring her surroundings into focus and perceive the cause of this unexpected shift in circumstance.
She felt no life. But not nothing.
A small figure stood over the dead witch’s body, scrutinizing her in silence. A painted face that should have been bleached to nothing from years of sun stared at her bones. Limbs which should have seized up and rotted were covered in dirt from its labors.
She knew this doll.
A distant memory surfaced, summoned by that unforgettable face. Years of toil on this one culminating in failure. Early experiments in imbuing a form with permanence which disappointingly ruined a perfectly good doll. It was discarded with the other unsalvageable mistakes.
It should not have been moving at all. It should not have known where to find her. It should not have survived the ages with its body intact in a way her own was not.
It was unmistakably standing before her, having dug through the ruined remains of her tomb to find her.
“You are still here, aren’t you?” the doll asked at last. “None of the others are. You’re just a skeleton, but I can tell you're inside.”
It approached, limbs creaking slightly until it could touch her ribcage for confirmation with a dirt-covered hand.
The witch no longer possessed a voice with which to speak, but the doll answered for her anyway.
“Yes! Thank you for saving me! You’re the best doll I ever had, and I’m sorry I forgot that when I left you behind!”
“Oh, you’re very welcome, Miss. Let’s get you out of here.”
It should have been humiliating to be spoken for in such a way, but there was such wonderful novelty in hearing someone else speak at all after so long.
Her spirit was still too weak to reach out and make her own true words known, which did not faze the doll in the slightest.
“Be careful with my skeleton, Dolly. I’m very old and fragile!”
“Yes, Miss. I’m being super extra careful, see?”
It scooped up the skeleton with feather-touch gentleness and—careful not to hit her skull on any rubble—picked its way out of the hole back to the surface.
“You’re my only friend left, Miss, and I don’t want to accidentally hurt you like I did the others,” the doll continued. “I think all that napping made me real strong like you and now I gotta be extra gentle so I don’t hurt anyone any more.”
“You’re doing so good, Dolly.”
Come to think of it, the witch didn’t think she’d ever given such praise to her dolls before. Correct behavior was to be expected of them, after all. What strange side effects had her experiments on this one had on it?
What strength did it think it had?
The doll continued to converse with itself, speaking on the witch’s behalf in a way the witch never would have on her own. It propped her bones up against some surface rubble in a mockery of a sitting position and continued chatting away with barely contained delight.
It was nice, actually. Even when the doll put words in her mouth that she never would have spoken.
“You’re so good at stories, Dolly!”
“Thank you, Miss! I’ve been practicing!”
“You’re so pretty, Dolly!”
“Thank you, Miss! You made me this way!”
The happiness she felt from “her” words pleasing the doll was completely unfamiliar. She had been so much lonelier than she had let herself believe, and she found herself content to be in the company of such a chatterbox and pleased that the comfort it offered was mutual.
The world on the surface was so empty. The landscape was barren. Even the night sky had somehow died and become featureless.
But the witch’s heart was warmed by Dolly’s endless imagination and friendly conversation. She had come to think of the doll as a genuine friend too.
When Dolly held her bones and slept, the witch wished she could hold her back.
The first time Dolly whispered, “I love you, Miss,” the witch’s thoughts responded in unison with her doll’s narration, “I love you too, Dolly.”
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Hahhh Jatt
Ahm back wath mah ask gahms.
This time we have a spring based prompts theme. You get a spring prompt and a character and I'd like to know your head canon/immediate thoughts on the combination.
Character: Ezra
Prompt: comet
With love,
El
Lovely El! 🖤 Aah mah gaaah!
Oooh, so I love this prompt, thank you, and wrote a lil' something that came to mind.
I immeadiately thought of that scene in Prospect towards the end, where Ezra has told Cee to go and leave him, and there's a shot where we see him against the tree thinking he's going to die alone on the moon. So, I thought about what would be going through his mind...
Enjoy! 🖤
In the quiet rasps of the alien wilderness, Ezra is perched alone beneath the resplendent expanse of the nocturnal firmament, his waning gaze ensnared by the magnificent spectacle unfolding above.
A celestial panorama, a luminous comet traversing the heavens, its incandescent tail weaving an ephemeral arc of bright silver fire through the velvety expanse of the night.
For a fleeting moment, the pain is stopped in its tracks; Ezra is transported back to a bygone epoch, to a hazy memory ensconced in the annals of time, where he and you - his cherished paramour - had once stood in amorous communion beneath the same ethereal canopy, hearts aglow with the glittering fervour of shared aspirations and boundless dreams as you both spied a similar comet together.
And yet here he is now, slumped and open wet and fleshy on the Bahkroma moon, dying for wasted pillaging efforts for coveted root pearls in abundance, and coming up with more losses than he could have foretold when he’d set off with a ship, a crew and both arms.
Yet, as the comet traverses its trajectory, Ezra finds himself enveloped in a profound maelstrom of reminiscence, a poignant reverie evoking a longing that resonates deep within the recesses of his soul - a wistful reminiscence of the love he's relinquished for a relentless pursuit of greedy ambition.
"Trivial," he wheezes as he ponders.
He can hear your voice, calling out to him and he closes his eyes listening to the lilt of your lullaby to soothe him.
His breaths come in shallower now, metal encasing his tongue as he waits for the cold embrace of death to lead him into the depth of his torment further.
In that interlude, he experiences a visceral connection to the sublime sight of the cosmos, a poignant reminder of the ineffable beauty and magnificence that transcends the exigencies of mortal existence.
With a dolorous heart, Ezra reluctantly tears his gaze from the splendour and redirects his focus to the realisations of his solitary odyssey, his ruminations consumed by the spectre of the beloved he's forsaken.
Yet, amidst the vast expanse of the cosmic abyss, he harbours an immutable certitude - that notwithstanding the expanse of space and the relentless march of time, the ineffable bond he shares with you will forever endure, even in the next life. He knows you'll find him as a lone tear spills down his ragged cheek.
With closed eyes, Ezra is poised, prepared to depart from this Kevva forsaken moon, only to be abruptly startled by a sudden crunching sound. The distinct cadence of footsteps, agile and unforeseen, heralds the return of the blonde pixie, armed with a patch gun in hand, as she deftly secures him with her tether.
In the silent, bewildering exchange between them, no words are uttered, for within Ezra's soul resides naught but a profound sense of silent reverence. Despite the weight of his transgressions, he's overcome by a resounding awe, for in this moment, she refuses to abandon him to the merciless clutches of solitude.
Instead, she extends her hand, offering salvation in the form of a journey homeward, back to the embrace of you, his beloved.
🖤
#pedro pascal#ezra prospect#ezra prospect x reader#pedro pascal characters#jett's asks#love this scoundrel so much
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Here's some super quick watercolours of costal lines, because @reveries-of-my-mind lovely post about the shores/coast imagery on the TPWBYT album has been ruminating on my mind, and my hands were itching.
Ignore the extremely wrinkly paper. This sketchbook was NOT made for watercolours (but I just don't really care lmao).
#when i tell you i get inspired by your writing i do really mean it#I was supposed to be studying my (very annoying) orchestra piece but! alas#darya does art#artists on tumblr#watercolour#coastline
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Bitter Memories
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After a conversation with her mother leaves her on edge, Elissa retreats into her office to indulge in her vices. But she unintentionally stirs up a memory from long ago.
This is a short story for my Blades in the Dark character, an elf named Elissa Viero. The content warnings for this writing include alcohol, smoking, and underage smoking.
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The office was dark, lit only by the banker’s lamp on her desk. The curtain was drawn over the glass in the door. A clear sign she did not want to be disturbed. In the center of it all, Elissa sat hunched over her desk. She held a lit cigar in one hand as she nursed a glass of whiskey in the other. She stared into the glass, the ice clinking as she turned it in her hand.
We are not fools, Mother.
Elissa placed the end of the cigar to her lips and breathed it in. Slowly, slowly. The smoky, heady weight of it settled on her tongue. Filled her lungs. She held it there for a moment, savoring it, before blowing it out again.
“You damn fool.”
She really had been a fool, giving her mother ammo like that. And the way she’d looked at her… Elissa raised the glass to her lips, tossing back another mouthful of alcohol before breathing in another lungful of smoke. The two went well together, she found. The bitter taste of the whiskey somehow sweeter and smoother with the sharp earthiness of the cigar. But the tastes had also paired well with her ruminations, tugging at the corners of her mind. Stirring up something from deep within her memories.
She’d been a girl at the time, no more than nine or ten. A viashino man had come to the club that night. He was dressed to the nines in a suit and tie, and his scales were the color of bronze. He was a frequent patron of the club, Elissa knew. She had seen him many times before. And he was the sort who always had a crowd surrounding him. Who, just by the way he moved and spoke, always commanded a presence. So perhaps that is why she had been watching him, fascinated, as he pulled out and lit his cigar.
The viashino man peered at her out of the corner of his eye. He breathed in the smoke. Exhaled. “You ever try one of these, girlie?”
Elissa shook her head.
He turned to her fully now, a toothy grin on his face. “Well then. Why don’t you come over and give it a taste?”
Elissa didn’t hesitate. She moved closer to him, reaching for the proffered cigar. She grasped it in her hand, lifted it towards her lips. But now… she did hesitate. She looked to the man, uncertainty apparent in her eyes. “What’s it like?”
His grin only widened. “Go ahead and see for yourself.”
Elissa took a deep breath, gathering up her courage. She put the cigar to her lips and inhaled.
The heavy weight of it hit her all at once. It was like acid on her tongue, a fire in her throat and lungs. She doubled over, coughing and choking and wheezing at the sensation. She thought she was going to be sick.
The man let out a booming laugh.
Elissa was still gasping for breath when she heard a woman’s sultry voice carrying over the noise of the club. “My, my, Mr. Skarra. I hope you aren’t menacing my daughter.”
The man’s demeanor changed in an instant. He bowed, showing her the utmost respect. “Of course not, Lady Eleanora.” He straightened. “But.” Elissa looked up just in time to see him give her a broad, brutish smile. “She’ll have to toughen up if she wants to make it in a city like this.”
Now Eleanora turned her attention to Elissa. Her expression was cool. Unreadable. “Mhm. I suppose she shall.”
A knock at the door pulled her from her reverie. “Yes?” she called out, already recognizing the knock and knowing who it would be.
The door opened. Lucy stood in the doorway, flanked by Bishop and Ozzie. “Elissa, dear, we’re ready.”
“Alright.” Elissa stood, taking one last taste of the cigar before she exhaled and snuffed it out. In a single swift motion, she grabbed her coat and headed for the door.
“Let’s go.”
#writing#my writing#original writing#short story#original story#ocs#original character#original characters#cw alcohol#cw smoking#tw alcohol#tw smoking#Blades in the Dark#bitd#The Gutters of New Capenna#Elissa Viero#Eleanora Viero#tales of a Bard
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for the drabble ask meme: 22 or 37 with Steban and Ulixes? :3
22. “I’ve seen the way you look at me when you think I don’t notice.”
It is a night like any other - if anything, this night is more mellow than their usual meetings. Finals week has just come and gone and left the both of them too drained for heated debate or fervent analysis. They'd talked about this week's reading a little, messed around with the matchboxes in a way that was more playful than anything, and quickly abandoned the endeavor in favor of more or less... just hanging out. And Ulixes likes talking theory with Steban, and he knows it's important, but he also finds himself wishing they'd... just hang out more often. It's simple, it's nice. It's good to remember sometimes that they're not just comrades but also friends.
Steban is smoking a cigarette and telling a meandering anecdote about a class that Uli is not in, and Uli is absorbing maybe every other sentence of it, nodding and humming in the appropriate places. He cannot help this. Steban enraptures him endlessly, not his words this time, but the shape of him, his profile softened by the warm, low light of the reading lamp. The way smoke spills past his slightly parted lips, the flash of teeth that occasionally glints in the light as he speaks. His skin looks warm, his throat inviting where the collar of his shirt falls open, poised for ready, starving teeth to sink into. Surely Steban means nothing by it when he leaves the first few buttons of his shirt open like that, surely he's not trying to be alluring, to presume he is would be reading too much into it. Surely he's just too lost in thought or too sleepy in the mornings to do those buttons up correctly.
Great, now he's thinking about Steban in the mornings, hazy and soft with sleep, coming awake gradually and indolently, yawning, stretching. Maybe he sleeps in the nude. Maybe sometimes he wakes up aroused and takes himself in hand, when he's got the time. Maybe he does it in the shower...
Ulixes can't pretend these thoughts are new, or that thinking them even shocks him anymore. Those grooves in his mind are well-worn, paths smooth from frequent treading. It's already a habit to let himself get lost like this in ruminance upon his comrade's body, to perhaps even dream up scenarios in which he reaches out a daring hand and touches--
"Uli, are you okay?"
"Hmm?" Ulixes jolts out of his reverie. Apparently Steban has finished speaking and is now looking straight at him.
"You're kind of... staring at me," Steban says. "Is something wrong?"
Uh-oh. Oh no. Ulixes has been told his stare can be... disconcerting, with his glasses. The last thing he wants is to weird Steban out. "No," he says, hoping to salvage the situation, "Just... thinking."
"Ah," Steban says and nods and looks away, and for a moment it seems like he'll leave it at that, but then he continues, "No, actually, I think it's time we talked about this."
"What?"
"It's only, I've observed this before, and something is up, isn't it? I've seen the way you look at me when you think I don't notice... it's been a frequent occurrence, lately, and, there's really only one conclusion to be drawn from it..."
Oh, god, here it comes. He has been found out. Ulixes feels his insides quake with fright, but he can't deny that some part of him is absurdly excited. Had wanted this to happen, even. Now the dice have fallen, his secret is uncovered, his love and devotion laid bare to the world, and now Steban will pass judgement, deem him worthy of his attentions or cast him away. Either way: after this, there will be no more guessing and fretting. Ulixes will know where he stands.
"...You secretly hate me, right?" Steban says.
What.
"What," Ulixes repeats.
Steban wrings his hands. He looks extremely concerned. "I mean... you look at me like that because I've done something wrong, don't you? Do you find me lacking, in terms of ideology? Have I done something to offend you? Is my theory unsound? Whatever it is, be honest with me about it, and I'll correct the behavior." He's almost crying now, Ulixes observes with a terrible start. "I know I'm difficult, but..."
Uli has to interrupt now. "You, difficult?"
"I know I'm not easy to get along with..."
"You are the easiest person in the world to get along with," Ulixes says, because that is his truth.
"I know I'm petty. I drive people away. Maurice... Felix and Zuzanna..."
"They just weren't the right fit for this group, that's not your fault..."
"But I don't want to... I can't drive you away like that," Steban continues. "For you, I'll critique and work on myself. You're my only... my best friend. I don't know what I'd do without you."
His appeal concluded, Steban looks down and fidgets forlornly with the stub of his cigarette. This is a disaster, Ulixes thinks. He expected that Steban would figure him out sooner or later and that all he had to do was wait. He never fathomed that Steban would get it this wrong.
(But, having made a study of Steban's personality, perhaps he should have taken the possibility into account. He knows how Steban can get sometimes, when his gloomier moods do his thinking for him. Ulixes mentally slaps himself for not being more aware. If he doesn't take care of his comrade's emotional needs, then what's he even doing??)
The issue is so grave and demands so loudly to be corrected that suddenly, putting a hand on Steban's and saying "Actually, I've been secretly in love with you" is easy.
#answer'd#i had to introduce a little silly twist; i couldn't just have steban say ''i've seen you making simp eyes at me 😏''#he would not be that smooth#did i just deliberately reference ''you are my only friend i am undone without you''? oh yeah bet#hey HEY just got home from date night so finally time for the first drabble!!#writings by me
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[ guide ] sender helps receiver through a difficult video game // not a video game but he is teaching him how to fly the ship ✋ ( gep ofc 💖 )
for decades belobog, mantled in an oppressive hibernal white, had been the crux of his life. gepard’s restricted view of the world was tapered by the rapacious hands of outward influences, only recently had it burgeoned into a surge of lurid color. the people one encounters can alter the trajectory of their course, even if it had been charted by predecessors and their delusive notions of virtue. from all that distance away jarilo vi was a minute pinprick of white and blue against the vast stygian stretches of the galaxy. it was surreal to stand before the large, glass panes and observe his life as a transient instant in time, on a planet segregated from the unfathomable immensity that was the rest of the universe.
walking in tandem with the knight of beauty, listening avidly to woven tales of grandeur and the regions he had graced with his presence, made gepard realize just how much he had yearned for an opportunity such as this. he had spent such a tremendous amount of his life dedicated to his family’s fealty to the supreme guardian and the inherited responsibilities that it entailed that he had neglected the reveries of his childhood, when he had extensively read and ruminated upon a life of such freedom.
“ I cannot believe how utterly unprepared I was for this undertaking.” argenti’s laugh is a dulcet thing, not barbed with intent to humiliate, but a salve for old, jutting wounds. there was such an extensive list of buttons and leavers and each was allocated with a different capability - it was astounding to believe one could remember all of them, lest they had dedicated their life to it’s undertaking. sitting in the pilot’s seat was kindred to a throne, authority over the ship’s course. the weight of that responsibility was a disconcerting one, even as argenti hovered over his shoulder, informing him rather courteously which handle would rouse the engine sputtering to life and which would chart their course to another world, foreign in ways that ached keenly with interest, stifled curiosity.
“ and you are certain you wish to place such trust in me.” the answer was patent but he found himself asking in spite of it, casting his prudent, river - blue eyes to the coruscating stars outside, gently enticing him with their intermittent fluttering. it is only when the other’s hand, lithe and commanding, rests atop his and guides the lever forward that he finds himself capable of mustering courage, the valour he had coveted his whole life, perhaps, to do something so unlike the expected - to finally indulge those what ifs that he had for so long ignored.
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You know what? Fuck it, the audio I'm editing is still buffering. So, heres Issal's reaction to the soul lobotomy.
Sister
Sister
Sister
Some sister she is, the word is like a curse on her tongue
Do you know she taught Khal'ian the meaning of the concept? Gith do not have family structures. They do not have parents nor siblings, fellow hatchlings at most call each other cousins.
Issal will admit her choice to teach Khal was a selfish one. They had just met and with wounds so fresh from fleeing her original home. She wanted someone to feel the loneliness that she had, even if she had to teach them of their loneliness to do so.
But Khal, sweet Khal
He ruminated on her lessons then, after a few days, strolled up to her and declared
"You're my sister and I, Your brother!"
With a nervous, sharp toothed grin and the confidence you wouldn't have suspected of someone with twitching ears. It left her gobsmacked for a while. She had fully begun to believe that the plane of Limbo was finally causing cracks in her mind.
It wasn't until Khal'ian asked if he interpreted her lessons wrong with those puppy eyes of his. That she snapped out of her reverie.
" What makes you think we're siblings? "
" You treat me like a person, and you feel safe enough around me to change your bandages. Family care and respect one another, yes?"
The confession would have been enough for any jaulk to be flayed in Menzoberranzan. She would have to correct him for his own sake-.
"Oh, and I took this from the ghustil. It should help your eye see more clearly! I'm apologize I couldn’t get a better one. They don't like me much here."
Before she could speak, a golden monocle got placed delicately into her hand.
A gift?
Issal was a woman of science, not emotions, but this piece of equipment caused a surge of affection she'd once believe Lolth would kill her for.
It caused Issal to make her decision. With her free hand, she crept uptowards Khal'ian ear and gave it a swift pinch. Savoring the little yelp she got.
" Thank you, little Toad "
She would have a brother from now on.
Unfortunately, like all her siblings before him, Khal'ian would suffer a fate she'd deem worse than death.
In her eyes, to lose one's mind is an unthinkable cruelty, and one she saw time and time again as she grew up. Countless sisters that were broken and molded into the form of driders.
It wasn't the sloughing of skin or the immediate shattering of the hips to make room for new legs that scared her of Lolth's punishment. It was the loss of one's sense of self and intelligence that haunted her.
Terrified her so much that in a moment of pure vulnerability, she begged Khal'ian that if that scenario came to pass. That he'd put her down, and with a shakey voice, he'd agreed.
The pain of looking into a siblings eyes and seeing nothing of their prior self, no matter how strong, beautiful, or smart they were, is a neight indescribable agony.
She could barely handle it then, and she couldn't handle it now.
She had his head between her hands, cradling his cheeks and tilting his head down to look at her.
He had his fluffy hair, scaled cheeks, but his eyes were wrong. By the nine hells, his eyes were so empty and unfocused.
She had barely registered what was being relayed to her.
A soul lobotomy...
Oh, she could almost laugh. After so many years of losing sisters to the spider queen's trials, she would have never suspected her first brother she claimed to be taken down by some decrepit monk.
Hehe, how odd it seems that she is laughing.
Laughing
Crying
Sobbing
Soul shattering, wailing, her fingers digging into Khal'ian cheeks; he wasn’t flinching,he hated having his scales pulled. Why wasn't he flinching!
This is Cruel
She had to kill him, she couldn't protect him but she knew she could kill him and give him peace. She was able to lower her hands down to his throat but couldn't squeeze. The damned tears were getting in the way, and her vision was too blurry. When did her monocle fall off?
Oh, people were pulling her away. Was it Sol? Tav? maybe one of the druids? With her luck, it might be the bloody Baenre.
Oh, Brother, I love you
I'm so sorry
"Little toad" MY HEART
wow this was so beautiful and touching. Their relationship as siblings seemed so sweet and playful omfg I can't. The way he adorably called her sister and how she pinched his ear AAAAA.
The way she is forcing herself to attempt to kill him because she sees it as an act of mercy, knowing she has lost her brother.
Especially with someone who always puts science over emotions, who claims they are pragmatic and efficient. The only solution she has to this unsolvable problem is to destroy it. She can't accept the fact this person is still her brother after losing so much of himself, so she rather blames herself and carry the burden of killing him.
If it was Tav pulling her away. It could be interesting depending on who Tav romanced, was it Khal'ian? Then, this would make this just more painful. Both feel so much love for him, and both want the best for him. I don't even think Tav would be angry at Issal, they'll definitely understand her emotions better than anyone.
If it's Minthara, then it would be like a trip to the past. Back when drow matrons would chastise her for going to look for her sister's remains in the driders. Even if Minthara abhors Lolth now, there is definitely something to be said about her ways that are typical of any drow matron. She'd tell Issal to stand up and pull herself together because it's the softest thing she can force out.
Oh and if it's Sol. They'd be furious at Issal for thinking she has the right to end his life just because they considered themselves family. They'd see it as throwing away Khal'ian's legacy and how to live weak is better than a pathetic death where he can't even defend himself.
That it is not just Issal's fault or burden to carry, all of them here are responsible for handing Khal'ian to the monks and all of them must bear the shame and guilt. Not take the easy way out and bury his remains, you cannot erease what happened. We commited to this, we must see it to the end. Face it because it because this is his reality and this is who he is now. Or was Issal's love so conditional that she cannot bear the thought of loving her brother at his weakest and worst?
"How much I'd love to see the look on his face right now if he was to witness how low you've sunk. " Sol sneered, "you want to throw away his legacy so you can fail him a second time in a row?"
Probably Sol would end up getting shot in the leg or something, but hey, at least Issal isn't wallowing in her sadness anymore, which was the original purpose. They can handle a bullet or two, as long as Khal'ian stays alive, no matter what state he is in.
Also, Sol would probably tend to Khal'ian's scales from time to time since his empty vessle wouldn't bother to do it anymore. Gently clean them whenever they clean their own, try not to let the empty stare get to them.
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It really is amazing how the older I get the less consistently I express myself online. Whether that’s because I’m just old or that I keep myself so private these days that I no longer know how to share pieces with the world? Only the ancestors & spirits & gods can tell
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midge having a nightmare ab lenny oding/arrested/something and has a panic attack so abe calls lenny (or something if thats too much, im sorry)😭😭
Pairing: Lenny Bruce & Midge Maisel
Rated T
Warnings: Mentions of Drug Use, Panic Attack
"'lo?" He grumbles into the phone, swiping at his face.
"Lenny, good, you're up."
"Well I wasn't," he grouses, picking up his watch from the nightstand. "Abe, it's three o'clock. I told you, start writing down your late night ruminations."
"It's Miriam." Lenny bolts upright at that, immediately moving to grab his discarded pants.
"Is she okay? What happened? Is she hurt?"
"She's not hurt, but she's been running around the kitchen for the last hour, muttering 'he's fine' over and over again. She's cooking fish. Fish, Lenny! At three in the morning! I can't get her to talk to me, and Rose took a Seconal, so we won't be hearing from her until June - "
Lenny goes to grab his shirt, and the phone cord brings the base clattering to the ground. "Fuck!" Lenny shouts. "Abe, I'll be there as soon as I can."
---
Somehow he gets lucky and a cab picks him up within a couple minutes of getting to the sidewalk, putting him in front of his girlfriend's building twenty minutes later.
He dashes into the apartment and straight to the kitchen, where Midge stands in front of the oven, watching whatever it is she's cooking at this ungodly hour. She's wearing her nightgown, her hair is in curlers, and she's visibly shaking.
"Midge?" He breathes from the doorway, and it seems to startle her out of her reverie. When she faces him, he can see she's been crying, and he rushes to her, wrapping his arms around her waist and holding her tightly as she clutches him, sobbing into his shoulder. "It's okay," he whispers, rubbing her back soothingly.
She nods into his neck, but when he goes to release her, she squeezes tighter, so he keeps holding her there. "You're okay," she whispers shakily.
"I'm right here, sweetheart," he promises. "I'm okay." He dips his head to kiss her shoulder.
She finally loosens her grip on him, pulling away and cupping his face in her hands as she looks at him. "I'm so sorry," she whispers through her sniffles.
"What happened, Midge?" He asks quietly.
"I...I had a nightmare," she admits. "And it just felt so real. Like everything we've done in the last few months was the dream, and the dream was the reality, and when I woke up, I couldn't figure out what was real, and what was..."
"Sounds like a hell of a dream," he replies quietly. "Do you wanna tell me about it?"
She shakes her head vigorously, fighting back more tears, and he nods. "Okay, you don't have to," he promises. "Why don't you go back to bed, and I'll clean all this up and meet you in there?"
The head shaking continues. "No," she murmurs. "I don't - I need - "
He nods in understanding. "Well let's at least turn off the oven, then, yeah?"
Midge turns from him but takes his hand, reaching for the oven dial with the other. He's never seen her so visibly shaken before, and it honestly worries him.
A short while later, they lie in bed together, his arms wrapped around her from behind, her fingers laced with his.
"The bag," she whispers into the darkness.
"I threw it out, Midge," he gently reminds her. "I've been clean for three months. I have no intention of going back."
"It just...felt so real. We didn't talk after Carnegie Hall, and you went to California and met someone else, and then you..." She can't even get the words out as she squeezes his hand tighter.
He presses a soft kiss to her hair. "I didn't, Midge. We talked after Carnegie Hall. I got help. I didn't meet someone else - there could never be anyone else. I didn't...leave you." She nods and pulls his arm tighter around herself.
"It felt so real," she repeats.
"I know, sweetheart. But we're okay. We're better than okay."
They both manage to drift off a while later, Lenny's arms wrapped tightly around her.
In the morning, they find that Zelda is already cleaning the kitchen and muttering something in Polish.
Lenny has to go to a meeting with his lawyers, and while he's reluctant to leave her after last night, she insists he should go. He kisses her again before heading down the hallway toward the front door.
"Lenny!" Abe calls from the living room. "Come in here for a minute, will you?"
He looks at his watch and sighs. He has a few minutes. He can have a quick chat with Abe before heading out. He steps into the living room to find Midge's father standing by the couch. "Morning, Abe."
"Thank you for coming last night."
"It was no trouble. You know I'd do anything for Midge."
"I do," he nods. "And that's why I'm giving you my blessing."
Lenny's eyebrows fly to his hairline, and he briefly wonders if this is what a stroke feels like. "Abe, I - "
"Of course, I know you've only been dating for a few months," the older man explains, waving his arms in that very Abe Weissman way. "But I also know you love my daughter. So I am giving you my blessing for whenever the time comes."
"Uh...thanks?" Lenny replies.
"I, of course, reserve the right to rescind said blessing at any time," Abe adds, waving his finger and looking at his daughter's boyfriend pointedly. "But I would rather spend my time with you discussing Guevara and Kennedy and what the hell Bull Connor is doing calling himself a Democrat, so I am getting this conversation out of the way now, and we never have to have this discussion again."
Lenny nods in agreement. "I would love nothing more."
#midgelenny#midge x lenny#midgexlenny#tmmm fanfic#marvelous mrs. maisel fanfic#writing prompt#otp: more important than god#jackal fics#answers#this got loooooong#angst#hurt#comfort#sweet#family
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[ Water ]
He pulls the glass away from his lips with a gasp, still panting as he wipes excess water off his chin with the back of his free hand. Time passes differently when he's dancing; at least half an hour has gone by since he first joined in the revelry.
One hip leans against the refreshment table for support. Laslow hums along to the waltz currently playing. It's fascinating, watching others dance. He believes how they move can betray a lot about a person--confidence, coordination, and overall comfort in their own skin.
Naga knows it took him years to learn that last lesson.
Dishes clink nearby, breaking him from his thoughts. "Oh, pardon me!" He exclaims, standing tall. "Am I in the way?"
She receded to a table further back, painting herself a wallflower in a portrait of roses. With her lord as the frame, she knew better than to ruminate in silence, but there were times that called for such instances of solace. If she was to be the picture of charm, of sense— so too, was she to be the picture of self-preservation. It was beautiful to be in a room full of smiles, of tears, of maladies and melodies. There is little to betray for Nanna, with the light housed in her chest still bright for the occasional hello, the ephemeral goodbye. Nanna settled in her skin, counting the number of pearls in the room, until the ballroom called out to her once more.
...And if it didn't? What then? Should she be happy that she had spun her circles in yards of lace for as long as she did?
Setting her wine cup down, she was the first to notice the young man standing aside her, with nary a word between themselves. And the first to notice a strong red ring marring the tablecloth, where her cup tipped forward and back, saving itself from spilling right over. Gasping, she was rocked awake from her own reverie. "...Ah, no! It's quite alright."
His back is straight and so is hers. And she thinks him a comfortable fellow, a confident one—if the straight curve of his spine betrayed anything but practice. And practice. And more practice. There was a slow spill of piano playing in the background, and she laughed quietly, hand raised covertly over her lips. A corsage of yellow and red roses blossomed from her wrist. "...Really. If anything, you were a call to return to the ballroom floor."
Raising a finger to her lips to motion a hush, she winked in amusement. "Now, don't tell anyone. But don't you think you and I have been watching the world dance for far too long now?"
"Nothing like finding a rhythm and living in it. Right?"
#{ hey sam (grips your shoulders meme) consider how many similarities these two have#{ when you're shy and introverted as hell but life calls for a smile#toaball2023#laslow
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For Dorian & Ixchel (and Solas can be there too if you like) on this spooky dadwc friday night!
The despot of our days and lord of dust
Needs but, scarce heeding, wait to drop
Grim casual comment on rebellion's end;
"Yes, yes . . Wilful and petulant but now
As dead and quiet as the others are."
And this each body and ghost of you hath heard
That in your graves do therefore lie so still.
To The Dead in the Graveyard Underneath My Window, Adelaide Crapsey
I love getting your poetry prompts for @dadrunkwriting!! I look up new poets and sit and chew on the verses for so long...and then lose track of things and they spiral into what I hope is good but I DONT KNOW MAN.
Have Dorian, Ixchel, and Felassan ruminating on hope and mortality.
Words: 1571
Rating: G
Pairing: Dorian, Ixchel, Felassan
-:-:-
Wherever the refuge lay, it was summer, too. The dusty ruin baked all day in the unrelenting sun, surrounded all around by the blue of the lake and the blue of the sky. Halla still roamed the grassy island upon which the ruin had been built, though Ixchel wondered how they found enough sustenance in the now-gold grass. She vaguely remembered that there had been flowers here during the Exalted Council, but it seemed they had all been swallowed up by the dry, dead foliage.
Dorian's coat rasped across the hot stone as he stepped off the bridge and tilted his head back to take in the cathedral. She had seen Minrathous, and she knew how much of its architecture had been lifted—perhaps literally, in some cases—from that of Elvhenan, and she wondered if Dorian saw that truth now, too.
She did not ask, however; her memory was already echoing with the conversations they had had, in another life, as they traversed the Temple of Mythal. She knew of his conviction to redeem the morally bankrupt foundation of his homeland, knew how it had been both disturbing and comforting to learn that the grandeur of Elvhenan had not been wiped out solely at the hands of his people. He had learned some of that history already, though he had not seen the Temple of Mythal in this life, nor seen evidence of ancient elven survivors.
Yet.
Ixchel did not ask Dorian his thoughts, because her voice had gotten stuck somewhere in her ribs as she watched him drink in the faded banners of the rebellion that swayed almost imperceptibly around them. He remained in that spot for a while, twisting his head to take in all the details, all without speaking.
Dorian's cane clacking on the stone as he set off again at last broke Ixchel from her own reverie, and she followed him into the cathedral, and her new shadow followed a few feet behind her. She was careful not to look back at him for the moment. Instead she focused on Dorian's heavy steps and how the sun beat down on her own dark hair, and she tried not to think of how this place somehow still summoned the smell of gaatlok and charred Qunari flesh to the back of her throat.
The cathedral interior was just as she remembered, yet she was still surprised by the chill as she passed into its shadows. Greens and golds shimmered in the gloom above them; the sun never seemed to trespass inside here, as though even the memory of those rebels who slept in the rows of bunks and prayed in the seats and bled across the tiled floors was condemned to fade away in the cold. Dorian wandered among them, never drawing close enough to disturb the dust on the sheets and careful not to step too heavily on the loose shards of mosaics that had fallen from the roof.
He paused again to drink in the mosaics of the Evanuris stained black with mold and seemingly selectively exposed to the elements compared to the rest of this place. And then—then he reached the painted vestibule.
He chuckled and shook his head. Then, Dorian looked back at Ixchel as he pointed his cane at the iconography of the orb, with its fingerprint-like whorls, painted plainly on either side of the door ahead. "Now where have I seen that before?" he asked, one fine eyebrow quirked at her. "Alright, mula. What do you know, and how long have you known it?"
-:-:-
The sun had set by the time Ixchel finished answering all of Dorian's questions. They had taken seats out on the little balcony behind the statue of the wolf, watching while they spoke the sun set over the mountains in the distance.
Ixchel had hardly dared to look away, afraid of what she might find on Dorian's face despite his patient and mostly curious tone as she lay the truth at his feet. But now, as silence stretched between them, she dared a glance in his direction.
He was watching the sky too, as the bloody reds of the sunset faded once more into the deep indigo blues of night. His eyes reflected the scene, though they shivered with tears like stars.
"Dor?" she asked softly, reaching for his hand. "Are you alright?"
"I already know what you'll say," he sighed. He took her hand and passed it around his shoulders, then wrapped one arm around her waist and hauled her even closer.
She appreciated his warmth against her side, but she sensed something in him that felt heavy and cold. She squeezed him as tight as she could in return, and he sighed again. She snorted quietly and closed her eyes, ready to wait patiently for him to continue—though she knew he was waiting for her to ask.
At last, he broke. "Fine, fine," he said with an assumed dourness that made her snicker. "Save the copper for my thoughts—I'll offer them, free of charge."
"What a deal," she muttered, and he dug his fingers into the soft part of her waist where he knew he could make her shriek with tickled laughter.
But then he abruptly stopped, and tilted his head back to look up at the roof above them. "Inventions and accomplishments the Imperium can hardly dream of, let alone emulate…" He sighed. "And yet the ancient elves were plagued by the same bloody corruption, and greed, that I sadly must admit is nearly synonymous with 'Tevinter' these days. They could shape the world down to its very fabric with a pretty thought, but they couldn't stop that. Fen'Harel and his rebellion could lock away gods, create the Veil, but the cruelty and the cowardice of this world remained." His throat worked painfully around his words as he tried and failed to hide the tremble in them. "No wonder it's futility that haunts you, Ixchel."
She drew a sharp breath at that, but he did not let her pull away.
"Andraste, Fen'Harel—how many over the ages have tried to change the structures that govern this world and failed? And what have I got that a god doesn't?" Dorian asked, disbelievingly.
"Nothing," said a voice behind them.
Ixchel and Dorian turned in each other's arms to look up at Felassan, who had come to lean against the doorway. He, too, did not make eye contact with them. Instead, he looked inside the cathedral at the paintings on the wall, his arms crossed and his expression utterly inscrutable.
"Have you not been listening, Magister?" he scoffed. "That god is not the one who led the rebellion. No god sustained them through the centuries."
"Yes, yes, 'sustained,'" Dorian said with a frown. "And where are they now? Like every other rebellion before and hence, they're all as dead and quiet as the others are, and time and cruelty continued on. Isn't that why Solas wanted to open that cursed orb of his?"
Felassan turned his marked face to them at last, his eyes creasing with humor. "The rebellion lives," he said. "It was not Fen'Harel who sustained them, just as it's not the Maker who fueled Andraste's rebellion or brought Shartan to her side or however you believe the story, and it's not the Brave Guide leading anyone now."
"Hey," Ixchel muttered.
"Be wary, da'len," Felassan teased. "Belief makes you more."
Dorian's eyebrows shot up at that, and he turned more fully to face Felassan. "Is this supposed to be a sermon about how hope and a smile should be enough?" he asked acerbically. "If we're not fighting for a better future, if it is all but certain that the toil will accomplish nothing—"
"Then I invite you to jump from the tip of Andruil's bow," Felassan interrupted, and he flung an arm out in the direction of the monument to the Huntress up in the heights of the mountains above the valley. "But if not you, then who, Dorian Pavus? Or do you want someone to look at you, too, and your abandoned dreams, and see their defeat in your resignation?"
Felassan fixed his violet gaze on Ixchel as the twilight fell across his face. "We did not have a concept of time before the Veil. Many have cursed it for all it stole from us, and the unique suffering it has brought. We look at you shemlen and see the walking dead."
Felassan blinked rapidly, though Ixchel could not see in the gloom if it was tears that plagued him. He pressed on in a steady voice, however: "But I don't. You accomplish more in small lifetimes than we did with eternity. You rise up and make progress and dare to keep dreaming, while these people you call 'great' forgot that they could make dreams reality if they fought hard enough, or they grew weary of fighting. So don't allow yourself to grow weary. Especially not because of failures that were not yours."
With that, Felassan turned and disappeared, swallowed by the darkness that filled the cathedral.
For a few moments, all he left in his wake was a silence like an undisturbed grave.
Dorian swallowed hard beside Ixchel. He had been rubbing her shoulder as Felassan spoke so passionately, and now he gave her as squeeze.
"So…let me guess," he said under his breath. "Solas isn't the only ancient elf in our midst?"
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SOME OF MY FAVOURITE PEOPLE
spell words unusually,
such as favourite, colour, rumour,
phantasy, eidolon, hypnagogia,
vertiginous, simurgh, or amphigory
were born in a tiny amber fleck
which on closer inspection turns out
to enclose a system of ninety-nine
nested rotating dodecahedrons,
each enclosing the door-warden to
another nest of ninety-nine,
their deep satin pile of delusion
eventually exiting in infundibular fashion
on the other side of morning
having once or a thousand times
discovered unto us their fascinating faces,
generously permit these life-giving countenances
to be revisited in a lifetime of waking reveries
are those with the inscrutable power
to dispel deepest midnight,
no one knows how,
and though neither we nor they
may ever realize it
exhibit admirable patience with
displays of verbal superficiality,
in the face of a jaded inability
to manufacture personal ruminations.
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Chapter 2: Matthew Cuthbert is Surprised (part 3)
“I guess you’re feeling pretty tired and hungry,” Matthew ventured to say at last, accounting for her long visitation of dumbness with the only reason he could think of. “But we haven’t very far to go now—only another mile.”
She came out of her reverie with a deep sigh and looked at him with the dreamy gaze of a soul that had been wondering afar, star-led.
“Oh, Mr. Cuthbert,” she whispered, “that place we came through—that white place—what was it?”
“Well now, you must mean the Avenue,” said Matthew after a few moments’ profound reflection. “It is a kind of pretty place.”
“Pretty? Oh, pretty doesn’t seem the right word to use. Nor beautiful, either. They don’t go far enough. Oh, it was wonderful—wonderful. It’s the first thing I ever saw that couldn’t be improved upon by imagination. It just satisfies me here”—she put one hand on her breast—“it made a queer funny ache and yet it was a pleasant ache. Did you ever have an ache like that, Mr. Cuthbert?”
“Well now, I just can’t recollect that I ever had.”
“I have it lots of time—whenever I see anything royally beautiful. But they shouldn’t call that lovely place the Avenue. There is no meaning in a name like that. They should call it—let me see—the White Way of Delight. Isn’t that a nice imaginative name? When I don’t like the name of a place or a person I always imagine a new one and always think of them so. There was a girl at the asylum whose name was Hepzibah Jenkins, but I always imagined her as Rosalia DeVere. Other people may call that place the Avenue, but I shall always call it the White Way of Delight. Have we really only another mile to go before we get home? I’m glad and I’m sorry. I’m sorry because this drive has been so pleasant and I’m always sorry when pleasant things end. Something still pleasanter may come after, but you can never be sure. And it’s so often the case that it isn’t pleasanter. That has been my experience anyhow. But I’m glad to think of getting home. You see, I’ve never had a real home since I can remember. It gives me that pleasant ache again just to think of coming to a really truly home. Oh, isn’t that pretty!”
They had driven over the crest of a hill. Below them was a pond, looking almost like a river so long and winding was it. A bridge spanned it midway and from there to its lower end, where an amber-hued belt of sand-hills shut it in from the dark blue gulf beyond, the water was a glory of many shifting hues—the most spiritual shadings of crocus and rose and ethereal green, with other elusive tintings for which no name has ever been found. Above the bridge the pond ran up into fringing groves of fir and maple and lay all darkly translucent in their wavering shadows. Here and there a wild plum leaned out from the bank like a white-clad girl tip-toeing to her own reflection. From the marsh at the head of the pond came the clear, mournfully-sweet chorus of the frogs. There was a little gray house peering around a white apple orchard on a slope beyond and, although it was not yet quite dark, a light was shining from one of its windows.
“That’s Barry’s pond,” said Matthew.
“Oh, I don’t like that name, either. I shall call it—let me see—the Lake of Shining Waters. Yes, that is the right name for it. I know because of the thrill. When I hit on a name that suits exactly it gives me a thrill. Do things ever give you a thrill?”
Matthew ruminated.
“Well now, yes. It always kind of gives me a thrill to see them ugly white grubs that spade up in the cucumber beds. I hate the look of them.”
“Oh, I don’t think that can be exactly the same kind of a thrill. Do you think it can? There doesn’t seem to be much connection between grubs and lakes of shining waters, does there? But why do other people call it Barry’s pond?”
“I reckon because Mr. Barry lives up there in that house. Orchard Slope’s the name of his place. If it wasn’t for that big bush behind it you could see Green Gables from here. But we have to go over the bridge and round by the road, so it’s near half a mile further.”
“Has Mr. Barry any little girls? Well, not so very little either—about my size.”
“He’s got one about eleven. Her name is Diana.”
“Oh!” with a long indrawing of breath. “What a perfectly lovely name!”
“Well now, I dunno. There’s something dreadful heathenish about it, seems to me. I’d ruther Jane or Mary or some sensible name like that. But when Diana was born there was a schoolmaster boarding there and they gave him the naming of her and he called her Diana.”
“I wish there had been a schoolmaster like that around when I was born, then. Oh, here we are at the bridge. I’m going to shut my eyes tight. I’m always afraid going over bridges. I can’t help imagining that perhaps just as we get to the middle, they’ll crumple up like a jack-knife and nip us. So I shut my eyes. But I always have to open them for all when I think we’re getting near the middle. Because, you see, if the bridge did crumple up I’d want to see it crumple. What a jolly rumble it makes! I always like the rumble part of it. Isn’t it splendid there are so many things to like in this world? There we’re over. Now I’ll look back. Good night, dear Lake of Shining Waters. I always say good night to the things I love, just as I would to people. I think they like it. That water looks as if it was smiling at me.”
When they had driven up the further hill and around a corner Matthew said:
“We’re pretty near home now. That’s Green Gables over—”
“Oh, don’t tell me,” she interrupted breathlessly, catching at his partially raised arm and shutting her eyes that she might not see his gesture. “Let me guess. I’m sure I’ll guess right.”
She opened her eyes and looked about her. They were on the crest of a hill. The sun had set some time since, but the landscape was still clear in the mellow afterlight. To the west a dark church spire rose up against a marigold sky. Below was a little valley and beyond a long, gently-rising slope with snug farmsteads scattered along it. From one to another the child’s eyes darted, eager and wistful. At last they lingered on one away to the left, far back from the road, dimly white with blossoming trees in the twilight of the surrounding woods. Over it, in the stainless southwest sky, a great crystal-white star was shining like a lamp of guidance and promise.
“That’s it, isn’t it?” she said, pointing.
Matthew slapped the reins on the sorrel’s back delightedly.
“Well now, you’ve guessed it! But I reckon Mrs. Spencer described it so’s you could tell.”
“No, she didn’t—really she didn’t. All she said might just as well have been about most of those other places. I hadn’t any real idea what it looked like. But just as soon as I saw it I felt it was home. Oh, it seems as if I must be in a dream. Do you know, my arm must be black and blue from the elbow up, for I’ve pinched myself so many times today. Every little while a horrible sickening feeling would come over me and I’d be so afraid it was all a dream. Then I’d pinch myself to see if it was real—until suddenly I remembered that even supposing it was only a dream I’d better go on dreaming as long as I could; so I stopped pinching. But it is real and we’re nearly home.”
With a sigh of rapture she relapsed into silence. Matthew stirred uneasily. He felt glad that it would be Marilla and not he who would have to tell this waif of the world that the home she longed for was not to be hers after all. They drove over Lynde’s Hollow, where it was already quite dark, but not so dark that Mrs. Rachel could not see them from her window vantage, and up the hill and into the long lane of Green Gables. By the time they arrived at the house Matthew was shrinking from the approaching revelation with an energy he did not understand. It was not of Marilla or himself he was thinking or of the trouble this mistake was probably going to make for them, but of the child’s disappointment. When he thought of that rapt light being quenched in her eyes he had an uncomfortable feeling that he was going to assist at murdering something—much the same feeling that came over him when he had to kill a lamb or calf or any other innocent little creature.
The yard was quite dark as they turned into it and the poplar leaves were rustling silkily all round it.
“Listen to the trees talking in their sleep,” she whispered, as he lifted her to the ground. “What nice dreams they must have!”
Then, holding tightly to the carpet-bag which contained “all her worldly goods,” she followed him into the house.
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&& YOU FOUND ME AMONGST DREAMS AND NIGHTMARES.
a roundabout schedule that can be classified as busy and packed is, undoubtedly, a blessing in disguise. being occupied for most of the day keeps your mind active, and moulding yourself into a tight-knit timetable helps you from straying too far into the relentless cage that encompasses your thoughts. from what eden sees in the day-to-day life of his fellow university students, running around campus following their own agenda of their crafted plans, it’s how they cope. they keep themselves involved, bustling with different classes and events so that they don’t fall back into the confines of exaggerated loneliness. social circles, club activities, late night classes—all of that can distract the mind. eden would know. some days, he does the same too.
it’s an escape, but not quite the most effective. sometimes, an underlying urge compels him to stop in his tracks. the ghost of his silent rumination encircles its hand around his wrist, a cold touch that reminds him of the things he’d been trying to ignore, all the while subtly pulling him down, down, down—into an ocean of his own musings. a reverie he wouldn’t allow himself to touch, a can he refuses to open.
maybe the concept of overworking yourself to the point you’re unable to think of anything helps some people ( he can name one person off of the top of his head right now, but that’s the same name that has been lingering at the tip of his tongue for as long as he can remember, each stray line of his thoughts leading there even now ).
not for eden. he grows weary, he becomes vulnerable—and then, everything catches up to him all at once. take now, for example, as he’s sitting by the garden surrounded by a quiet that eats at him gradually, a reflection of the void within him. so eden fishes out his phone from his pockets, seeking the playlist he made all those years ago when his life was still okay ( that he still stubbornly adds onto ), stuffs his earbuds into his ears and lets the timbre of music accompany him. it works, for a little bit. he mouths the melody aloud himself, tapping his fingers against the solid ground, his own voice breaking the silence around him.
even in this state, his senses light up like fire. tired as he can be, he doesn’t miss the rustling behind him, the ambivalent approach that matches the sound of hesitating footsteps. eden kills the volume of his song to hear it all, though his voice doesn’t cease its incessant singing, hoping that’d be strong enough bait. one step, two steps, pause—three steps, four steps, five steps.
ah. so he’s stopping there. not too far, not too close. close enough to read, yet too far to reach. always so cautious. always a step away from turning the other way and leaving, if he chooses to.
a smile plays at eden’s lips regardless, a chuckle slipping past his defences. he doesn’t look behind, not yet. he pulls his feet closer, he cranes his back against the tree, he lets the silence sit in the air for a while longer. only when he’s sure that this much is alright, that this is safe, that they’re fine, does he say, “hey there.”
there’s that familiar flip in his stomach, the sharp pain against his ribcage, a tremble at the center of his chest. eden lets out a light laugh—it was easier to just laugh, back then. now, it’s his throat becoming too tight, a breath that escapes him with a small tremble, a laugh that he stitches together from their happy memories that no longer exist within their orbit, only in the hidden folders of eden’s camera.
“looking for me?” he questions, simply because it’s not out of the realm of possibility. they can avoid each other’s gaze, they can resign from each other’s line of sight, and they can even pretend neither is allowed within their shared plane of existence. but there are some things that never change, old habits that die hard.
“well, you found me.” you always do. eden crinkles out another laugh, patting the ground next to him. “you can come a little closer, you know. i won’t bite. not that it would scare you.” the teasing tone he takes is also born out of habits that he can’t seem to get rid of. this, too, must be the remnants of the consequences he has to deal with—the boundaries he established has become blurry, just like the fog clouding his brain right now. eden wants to blame it on the exhaustion creeping on him, so he does, another lie that he’ll only tell himself.
@kwcory
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