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byliever · 2 years

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Tbh, I kinda want you to answer all 20 questions 🤪 fellow writer always fascinate me

This has been sitting in my inbox for a while lmao

TJ, I love you, but there is no way in hell I'm answering every question. That's a LOT.

So, here's how I'll do this: I'll use an online random number generator to choose seven (cuz Byler) at random.

Let's begin.

What's a fic that took you to an emotional/dark/hard place? (#2)

I've had a couple. I've already talked about Snapshots in another ask. Desiderium was another. I wrote it and posted it on my dad's birthday, and so a lot of Mike's feelings and struggles with grieving Ted in that fic was self-projection (as are most of my fics lol). I even gave Ted the same birthday as him.

What fic are you emotionally attached to? (#3)

That's like asking a parent to choose their favorite child lmao. When you create something, you leave a piece of yourself behind in it. That's why there's so much you can tell about a person based on their creations.

Choosing one is physically painful lol

But if I had to choose one...

Orientation. It's the fic I wrote for Mike's birthday (which is also mine. How cool is that?!), so it's very Mike-focused. It's also marked by two significant (to me) "firsts."

It's the first time I included an appearance by Hopper, my favorite of the adult characters. I was so anxious to write him. What if I messed it up??!! But I seemed to have done an okay job, based on peoples' reactions.

It was also the first time I fully acknowledged to myself that if I wanted to continue telling the stories I wanted to tell, I had to alter canon. Up until Orientation, I had always had the thought in my mind that, in order for this to continue, I had to make a decision when it came to how I dealt with the ramifications of Season 3, namely the Byers moving and Hopper's "death".

So I just decided to say, "to hell with that." So, Hopper didn't "die" and the Byers didn't move. The Battle of Starcourt is still a pivotal event, trust me, without having the effect of essentially tearing the group asunder.

Orientation was the first time I dived into the directly post-Season 3 era, and I'm happy with it.

What fic of your own won't you read? (#5)

Ghosts. It's my second story and it's an absolute piece of shit. If I could delete one of my stories, it would be that one. I keep it up to remind myself of what happens when I try to work myself past burnout.

If you feel like suffering through an absolute literary abomination, give it a glance over.

What’s the best engagement/interaction/feedback you’ve received from someone who’s read your work? (#17)

I love and adore and want to frame every comment I ever get on a story. Every time someone goes out of their way to say that they liked a certain part or that reading a fic brightened up their day, I feel extremely happy.

I received an anonymous ask a while back from someone who told me that they were in a dark place and were feeling down that night, so they decided to read a couple of my stories, which made them feel a lot better.

That's the type of interactions I love. Writing my fics have gotten me through some really bad times, so if reading stuff I made helps someone through a struggle, that's the highest compliment.

Does anyone in your personal life know you write fics? if not, would you tell anyone? (#8)

Outside my family, nobody knows I write fics. By family, I mean my younger sister and my mother. Of the two of them, only my sister knows that it's specifically Byler fanfiction that I write, and neither of them have read any of my stories (and if I have anything to say about it, they never will lol).

What fic of your own do you read for comfort? (#4)

Rainbows and Revelations. That fic is pretty much pure fluff from start to finish, and it holds a very special place in my heart.

If you could write an ideal fic, what would it include? (#19)

See, this is an interesting question for me, but at the same time, I feel like it doesn't really apply to me.

All of the stories I've written are "ideal fics" for me.

That being said, there are two criteria that every fic I've written (and will write) must fit.

1.) It must have a happy ending. Call me a sissy, a sap, whatever. I don't care. I write married Byler. Part of that package is that you're acknowledging that, despite all the shit the characters have gone through or are going through at the moment, eventually, it ends. Eventually, there is peace. These characters do someday get to live out their lives undisturbed by supernatural bullshit. And so I always end on a happy note. I feel like lots of people (myself included) forget it too often, despite the fact that history (which is a collection of stories that remind us who we are) is always reminding us, but I want my stories to illustrate that basic truth: in the end, light/good always triumphs over darkness/evil. It may take a while to get there, but it will happen eventually.

2.) People need to learn something. If nobody is learning something and changing, there's no point to the fic at all. Whether that's Jonas and Maia learning how to word the ideal apology, or Max learning how to open up to and rely on people, somebody has to be learning and changing and growing. There has to be growth.

Whew! That was a lot of typing!

Thanks for the ask, TJ! You're the best!

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icharchivist · 1 year

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I know we said that Belial started out defying his purpose and Lucifer wanted to follow his and then later, they switched, but did he really? Belial wanted to see the world burn from the minute he was born (woke up and chose violence) and never really wavered on that front. His end goal stayed the same, he simply switched his reasoning (going from: Let's breed more evolution by causing chaos to: Cilius wants to tear the Sky Realm asunder and I want to eat popcorn and watch).

i forgot i did say that lmao, when i was still fresh from Lucifer's FE

I think ultimately the problem is that Belial's whole purpose is chaos. He is supposed to exist to cause disturbance so that the chaos he creates would lead to evolution. The more he fucks things up, the more he wants the world to burn, the more he actually fullfil his purpose.

To me the interesting switch is more about the time Belial seems like he started to resent his purpose, but doubled down on it the moment Lucifer rebelled from his own by killing Lucilius, in order not to rebel like Lucifer did.

Like i still think one of the key characterization moment of Belial is the monologue before his fake suicide where he spits out how much primals are always going to be slave to their purpose, that changing for anyone will only bring primals sorrow since they're immortals and people aren't going to stick around for them, and that no one ever thanked Lucifer for all he sacrificed for them. Which is why my reading is really that even if he wants to watch the world burn for Lucilius, it comes from a place of feeling like it's the only thing he can do is stick to his purpose and nothing else.

So at the start when he starts to fuck things up and he tries to encourage Lucifer to do the same... yeah ultimately, that was still keeping in track with his purpose. It's just that he was framing it himself as rebelling, in order to encourage Lucifer to be a little more like him. Perhaps we can read that, since they were newly born at this point, Belial is not conceiving yet that fucking shit up is his purpose nor why it's not the thing Lucifer feels the impulse of doing like he does.

Which makes me wonder if there is a level of resenting himself for having encouraged Lucifer to rebel seeing Lucifer did the ultimate act of rebellion to go against their creator, which was the one person Belial never wanted to rise up against. (and thus even more so why Belial convinced himself that primals can't really stray from their purposes, no matter how much he resented that.)

So i do stand corrected for what i said initially about it on how it looked like they swapped the loyalty/rebellion thing, because indeed it's not really the case.

And i can't even say one was resenting their position and not the other, because well. By the time of wmtsb, both Lucifer and Belial were resenting the position their purpose had left them into and the way it impacted their relationship with their loved one. It's just that Lucifer was willing to give up his purpose, despite being so opposed to the idea before, for Sandalphon, while for Lucilius, Belial had to be in a situation where he needed to double down on his purpose, no matter how he felt about it.

And i think it brings back to the apple conversation of the other day of Belial constantly toying with the idea of rebelling, but never actually taking the bite. And he was doing that even at the very start of his existence, tempting Lucifer to take the bite because Belial is an enabler of chaos, of wanting Lucifer to rebel, but Belial himself won't rebel. But since his purpose is chaos, well. It's a mess regardless

So that would be my updated (?) take about it? i guess?

#ichareply #ichafantalks gbf #ichablogging wmtsb #anonymous

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humphrey-returns · 2 years

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Dan isn’t a man built to house anger and grudges; the foundation cracks too often under the weight of his guilt, of his own inherent inability to let go of the need to please. Old wounds that come from being abandoned. Of being an outsider. Of scrambling and clawing and never getting anywhere you want to. Dan can spin a story out of any pain, he does it for himself as much as he does it for others.

He writes so many for Serena that he’s lost the ability to discern fact from fiction; she is a woman made up, born to a play any part that keeps him interested and every flip of the page begets another role. A party princess. A broken-hearted little girl. A mess. A lover in need. An Ex who haunts. A sister in not so many words, and for so long, it’s a muse. Something to chase. Something to write about. In his head, he reasons it out, explains every action. In his youth, he paints her as shing star.

-the truth comes too slow. Too late.

Serena is a hungry blank canvas of a woman. She takes up any mantle, mask or crown he gives with the grace of an actress taking her next big role. None of them will stick, none of them good enough to keep and he’s so blind he just keeps making more. Carving out space for her, telling tales and it’s not until...

Not until someone cruel and biting, crashes in. Whose love is less like summer and more like winter, more like a storm ready to tear everything asunder. Blair is not a girl who wraps herself up in excuses. Unlike him, she is built to house anger and grudges; her foundations are covered in fire and ash, the cracks over-grown with ambition. She is the pretty little thing in the house, daring only the foolish to cross the threshold and begged to be eaten.

(He can’t explain her, can’t figure her out. He could write about her for the rest of his life and never have enough words to explain Blair Waldorf)

Dan falls in love with Blair easily, like writing. It flows out of him, a monster of a thing, only sated by her wicked smile and soft touch.

It’s love, because it hurts, because he doesn’t need to chase her to get her; she takes him, owns him and she doesn’t even have to try. He hates it, how easy it is, but it’s love and there’s no fighting it. He tries, to be mean, to scratch, but love makes it impossible to make her bleed.

(Her love has no such reservations, her love sinks in like teeth and it says too much how much he loves that too.)

It’s good, so good, until it’s not. Until Serena gets jealous, because Dan isn’t writing parts for her any more, and no one gives her parts to play. She falls back into old ones, but they don’t fit. She corners Dan one day, begs for it, and he does his best to fight her off; but Dan isn’t built to keep anger. He see’s the cracks in Serena, he sees pain and so when she kisses him he merely tilts back. Wonders how the hell he will explain this to Blair -he will tell her, he will explain. In his head, he’s already writing the poetry; Serena is a girl made up of half-hearted stories made up by her lovers, her enemies and parents. Blair is one story, one he wants to read for the rest of his life. Over and over again until he finds himself nestled within.

He of course never gets the chance, life pulls him (them) apart and he’s left with nothing but the broken pieces of his heart, his writing and guilt. For awhile he makes the best of it, attempts to heal but then Serena waltzes back into view. Apologizes for the video leak, the pain that followed, claiming that it was a relapse. That she too, lost everything, that Blair will never forgive her, and because Dan’s foundations are weak, with no anger to keep them from cracking he allows her back in. He takes her in his arms and allows her to cry on his shoulder. Mutely accepting that it’s better than nothing, better than being alone. Serena is here and Blair is not, and maybe he still has the latter’s teeth marks on his heart but she chose Chuck.

“We don’t have to go back you know.” Serena whispers.

“I want to.” Dan replies, because he’s got nothing left to lose except his city and he figures there’s a low chance of Blair pushing for a campaign to conquer Brooklyn. “You need to go home too.”

-it’s harder with age, to be her only support. She drains and drags his attention, to the point of nausea. He is weak and tired, needs her to flip the page of herself soon if only it means he gets a day to himself.

“Home is where the heart is.” She muses, kissing his throat. Her words are meant to be soft and endearing, to tell him that as long as he is with her, that is home...but Dan is more resolute than ever. She’s right, and his home is in New York even if it’s not in Brooklyn.

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gatheringfiki · 2 years

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The following ficlet was written by @flow-it-show-it based on this photoset.

Fili/Kili, Teen. Circus!AU (Like a Damn Fool-verse)

You might also be able to read this story on AO3.

If you’ve enjoyed this story, please leave a comment either in replies or on AO3. :)

Going Home, Going Home

---

It begins with a letter delivered in a snowstorm.

How the fuck did he find me? Fee wonders aloud—needlessly, for he already knows. HE is Mr. Beaufort of Owen, Glann & Beaufort Attorneys-At-Law, and HE maintains a web of private eyes to keep tabs on Fee’s wide-flung whereabouts.

At present, those happen to be a motor lodge just outside of Falls City, Nebraska.

It’s a myth that circus folk favor warm environs for wintering over. After five months spent baking in treeless fields and parking lots, what lunatic (besides Ringling, Barnum or Bailey) would drop anchor in Florida? Pipe Creek, Indiana— positively. Argentine, Michigan— absolutely. York, South Carolina— yes, yes, a thousand times yes. And for the Greenleaf & Arkenstein Circus, only Nebraska in November will do.

Backed by a creek and a stand of cottonwood trees, Elroy’s Bide-A-While Motor Court has hosted the G&A every year since 1958, when Elroy Sr. cut the opening-day ribbon with a pair of hedge clippers. Fifteen log cabins, each sleeping two (or six, if you pay Elroy Jr. to look the other way) and equipped with all the perks: hotplate, electric kettle, woodstove in January, A/C in July, WiFi… whenever. Luxury matters little to circus folk. After a long season on the move, it’s enough simply to stop moving.

But that’s how they find you. Fee knows that. And even as he stares at the envelope – first the front, then the back – he’s being watched.

Kee’s the one who answered the door, you see. The man shivering in the snow outside wouldn’t let him sign for the letter—wouldn’t even let him see it, as a matter of fact, which made Kee even more sure that something was up. What do they call it in spy novels? Eyes only? Once this mysterious missive was in the proper hands, Fee opened it as far across the room as he could get … and before he’d even read its contents, he stuffed the envelope into the fire.

Kee loves all of the blind spots in his partner’s history: the unanswerable questions, unsolvable puzzles, hints of lives past and plot twists awaiting their big reveal. No matter how long or far they’ve traveled side by side, there are still so many things he doesn’t know.

Including Fee’s real name.

Fee himself almost didn’t recognize it. Names die from disuse, or so he’d hoped; it comes as a nasty shock to see this one alive and well on the face of an envelope. Thank god for wood-burning stoves; all he had to do is fling his name into the fire to kill it again—

So what is it? Kee asks.

Fee’s voice, normally so chipper, is somber now. Trouble, most likely, he mutters.

_____________

Dear F&$%#@$—

(It doesn’t really say that, but that’s how Fee mentally pronounces it; he knew his dead self best.)

I trust this letter finds you well… or at all. You continue to be a slippery character, and whether this reaches is you is entirely dependent upon the resourcefulness of my nimble couriers. I don’t pay people to mess around, as you remember.

The purpose of this letter is twofold. First, to request a face-to-face meeting, as you and I have Business with a capital B to discuss. I’m sure you know what I mean.

Second, I suggest we get some fun out of it. The Friends of the Viceroy Holiday Gala is nigh. Your parents will not be attending this year, as they have taken to holing up at the Mustique property for the winter. Therefore, it is safe for you to come out of hiding.

Enclosed please find two (2) boarding passes for a Kansas City-LaGuardia flight departing on the morning of December 23rd. (Yes, your spouse is invited; even the Board of Trustees lacks the heavenly authority to put asunder what the Great State of Illinois hath joined.) The Langham flat will be made ready to receive you. The Gala begins at 7:30pm. Tickets are, of course, Mum and Pop’s. What they don’t know won’t hurt them.

Should your employer need a firm excuse for your fleeing the hinterlands of Kansas for the wilds of Manhattan, tell him that it’s of vital importance that you go back East to knock back a few Shirley Temples with an old family friend.

Kindest regards,

J. N. Beaufort, Esq.

Attorney-at-Law

What intel Fee extracts from all this could be scribbled on the back of the envelope he has just burnt.

Baby. Kee lays down the paperback spy novel he’s been using as cover and fixes his lover with sympathetic, questioning eyes. Baby, come on. You’re killing me. Tell me what’s going on.

Fee sighs and considers the facts. Snow’s already filling the footprints of Beaufort’s courier, erasing their beeline from Elroy’s lodge to the cabin and back. So long as the storm doesn’t take down the power lines, the plug-in kettle on the counter will serve nicely for two cups of cocoa. The woodfire’s crackling; there’s two layers of quilt on the bed. And there’s Kee. Kee, sitting up against the headboard with his wool sock-clad feet crossed at the ankle, hair in a tangle and dark eyes pouring forth sunlight...

God, you’re cute, Fee hears himself say aloud.

Don’t change the subject, Kee counters. What’s the story?

It’s going to be an interesting, difficult, possibly even painful discussion. To paraphrase Beaufort, they might as well get some fun out of it.

Fee takes a deep breath, unzips his jeans, and with a classic fool’s flourish, lets them drop to his ankles.

Baby, he says, your old man is loaded.

_____________

Dear Beaufort,

Nice hearing from you. Not so nice hearing that I’m a wanted man. But yours is not to question why, etc. etc.

I’m glad to hear Senior and Seniora are well, but I confess, I’m even gladder to hear they’re in Mustique. I trust your mission is not to fling me off the roof of the Viceroy at their request. Just to be on the safe side, I want you to know that I refuse to go higher than the mezzanine.

I also want to make clear that I will turn my ass right back around and fly back to K.C. if our business has anything to do with Senior’s will. I don’t expect – and in fact, do not want – anything from my parents that requires me to do The Old Song And Dance. I have my own song and dance now, as Arkenstein will tell you. (No doubt you’ve already been in touch, you old menace.)

RE: the Shirley Temples. Your spies ARE good, aren’t they? Sober a year and a half now. The reason why? He’s who you sent the second boarding pass for. Instead of dispatching the driver, pick us up at the airport yourself, and I’ll spring for lunch at Bohemian Hall. We’ll have the bratwurst, you have the beer. You are definitely going to need it.

Cheers,

FEE (if I’ve told you once I’ve told you a million times— THAT IS MY NAME NOW. I beg you to wear it out.)

_____________

I’m nervous.

It’s okay. A first flight is always nerve-wracking. You need your hand held, you just ask.

Fee doesn’t mention that he might need his own hand held. It’s been a while since he’s taken a plane; even longer since he sat in first class, and truly another lifetime ago since he’s set foot on the island of Manhattan. He’s split between defiance and feeling like a class-A fraud.

Is it normal to also be ravenous? Kee’s asking. Do they give you food?

Yes. Eating is an excellent way to deal with anxiety. I ordered us meals ahead of time; they’ll be good, but not nearly as good as what we’ll get when we—

Aaah! The plane shudders, prompting Kee to seize his husband’s arm. What the fuck?

We’re going to start moving soon. Everyone’s on board now, so they’re going to get us lined up for takeoff. Seatbelt on, baby. Fee shows him how; the buckles are a big more complicated than those in a VW Bus. Then: Keep talking to me— what else are you nervous about?

This guy Beaufort. The city. The party. Everything. What did Big Man have to say?

Not a whole heck of a lot, Fee drawls, adjusting his own seatbelt. He knows I grew up back East, and I suppose he could tell it wasn’t heaven by the number of empty bottles in my truck. Didn’t take much effort to deduce that I’d only go back there if shit’s hit a fan. He lets his head loll to the side so that he can look at Kee. You’ve taken it pretty calmly.

Only because I hardly understand it. Kee warily surveys the other passengers in their deceptively-relaxed-yet-devilishly-expensive travel clothes. It’s clear he feels as much out-of-place as Fee, if not more. But I am curious, he resumes. It’s like a spy novel. You’re you, but you’re also someone else. Like, working undercover.

No, I’m OUT from under the covers. The place we’re headed to— THAT’S where I had to pretend to be someone I’m not.

You gonna have to do it again when we get there?

Not with you there to keep me honest—ah! Now we’re really moving. Fee’s hand, warm and work-roughened, comes down to rest atop Kee’s. Look, Beaufort’s a pussycat. The city’s a circus, just bigger and dirtier. The party’s going to be a joke, but you and I will laugh together. As for ‘everything’… He weaves their fingers together and leans in close. Everything is going to be fine, baby, he whispers. And even if it isn’t, it’ll hurt me more than it hurts you.

_____________

Fuck. FUCK. Luggage slides through numb fingers and lands with a thump! on the vestibule floor. Kee whirls to stare at Fee. This is yours?

Fee ducks into the parlor. No. It’s my family’s.

He speaks these words offhandedly, but the apartment in the Langham is nothing to shrug at. Four bedrooms, two and a half baths, parlor, living room, dining room, eat-in kitchen, view of Central Park. Three thousand square feet of mahogany, chintz, and – according to Fee – bad blood.

Jesus, Beaufort, this place is practically a museum to the not-so-good old days. Fee emerges from the parlor with a look halfway between hilarity and repulsion. Same curtains, same throw pillows… same stale air. I would have thought someone would redecorate… open a window… change the candy in the dishes…

The only thing that’s been changed is the locks. Beaufort reverently eases the apartment door shut and wings the keys to Fee like an old-time ballplayer. Your cousin Philip asked to stay here last year after his latest deal fell through. He asked for a month to “get his bearings”, then sort of… stretched it. You’d think six months would be enough for a person’s bearings to be GOT. Your father certainly believed so.

Well, when Pop puts his foot down… Fee trails off.

Kee simply can’t keep his eyeballs in their sockets. His only frame of reference for the word “apartment” is the cabbage-scented one bedroom/one bath he and his mother shared in Chicago. But this…

It’s bigger than the place I grew up in, he whispers to Fee.

I hate to tell you, Fee whispers back, but this is only the foyer.

There are four bedrooms for you to choose from. Beaufort's whispering, too, just for the fun of joining the game. May I suggest the second-largest? The master bedroom has not yet recovered from Cousin Philip.

After a quick tour (which renders Kee speechless all over again) and a fridge raid for beverages (non-alcoholic on Fee’s behalf), the three end up in the library. Beaufort sinks into the depths of a leather easy chair and mock-solemnly pulls at his cufflinks, first left, then right. Well now, he says.

Well now, replies Fee, sitting forward on the adjacent couch. Let’s get down to it.

Beaufort’s bristling grey eyebrows draw together. I’m retiring. Not until next spring, mind you, but there is no time like the present to start divesting myself of responsibilities— one of them being you.

Ah.

And your money.

AH. Fee rolls his eyes. Money. Hasn’t crossed my mind in years.

It shows.

Come on, old man. I do occasionally polish my shoes.

With spit and shirt sleeve, no doubt.

Kee’s not fooled by this adversarial rat-a-tat, for Fee has explained that he and Beaufort are old pals. Watching them spar is actually kind of fun. He laces his hands behind his head and settles in for the show.

Here’s the lay of the land, Beaufort intoned. As we know, both your parents and grandparents established trusts for you in infancy. Your grandparents’ trust was earmarked for your college education. They wanted you to choose your own course of study, free of influence; hence, they created a fund that your parents could not touch. It passed to you when you turned twenty-one, and you used it to earn a diploma whose leather presentation case you now use to pick the seeds and stems out of your marijuana. Am I wrong?

Fee and Kee are careful not to look at one another.

In my day, we used a Pink Floyd album cover for that purpose, Beaufort informs the air. But ‘you do you’, as the kids say. Now: your parents. They didn’t trust your judgment half as much as your grandparents did – and perhaps rightly – so they stipulated that the money not be disbursed to you until you turned thirty. Initially, they wanted to dole it out as an annuity, but I convinced them that by then you’d be married to some nice Barnard girl with some idea of how a mutual fund works. Now, what was her name? Naomi or Noemie or—

Noelle! God, I’d almost forgot. Pink with embarrassment, Fee haphazardly rakes his fingers through his hair. Good old Noelley…I wonder how she made out in life.

You’ll most likely see her tonight. She’ll tell you all about the three-page admission essay it took to get her youngest into nursery school. Beaufort smirks. That is, if she talks to you at all. How many people can say their boyfriend dumped them to run off and join the circus?

I was suffocating, Beau. You know this. I would have choked to death if I didn’t get out. I’ve never looked back. Fee glances at Kee, who nods gravely.

Your mother and father hoped you would, at first. I did make an honest effort to bring about a reconciliation. Your response took the form of two very pointed and precise words. Do you recall them?

Yes. Get stuffed, replies Fee. Not you, of course. Your clients.

Believe me, the feeling was mutual. But despite how much they’d have liked to wring your neck, the trust was irrevocable. You turned thirty bang on time, and the lump sum became yours even if you weren’t here to put hands on it. Beaufort smiles gently at Fee. It’s still yours, even after all this time. And now I’m begging you to take it off my hands.

PLEASE tell me you’re going to write the total on a slip of paper and push it across the table at me.

If you want.

A scramble for pen and paper ensues. They can’t find notepaper, so they settle for the back of an envelope; the only ballpoint pen in the desk has long run out of ink, but there’s half a child’s crayon, improbably labeled “Jazzbery Jam”. Kee stays out of the way; the two players in this drama seem to have everything well enough under control. There’s a gleefulness to their exchange now that belies the dead-serious subject at its center. They can ignore it right up until the envelope slides across the smooth marble coffee table to be taken up and turned over.

And then – as the kids say – shit gets real.

We’ll worry about the paperwork tomorrow. Don’t even think about skipping town. Beaufort melts back into his chair and smiles at Kee. Ever managed a checkbook, kid?

_____________

The Viceroy Holiday Fundraising Gala – held at the historic Broadway theatre which bears its name – is very much a black-tie affair, as any society gathering is duty-bound to be. Everyone who is anyone within a relatively small and limited tribe puts in an impressive and extremely expensive appearance.

Fee carries a mental snapshot of the Gala from years past. Smug old silverhairs and their Ivy League sons in bespoke tuxedos; patrician wives in Valentino, their younger clones in Zac Posen and Grandmummy’s pearls. All of them hobnobbing with flutes of champagne in hand, staring down their rivals and surveilling the hired help for signs of weakness...

It’s thanks to this indelible mental image that when Kee asks, Do we have to dress up? Fee sharply replies, Let’s not and say we did

Are you sure we won’t get in trouble?

No. But Beaufort will post our bail, if it comes to that. God knows we’ve got enough to pay him back.

So it is that Dr. Phileas “Fee” Lonesome, Ph.D., Professor of Harlequinade and Pantomime Arts, and his husband Céilí “Kee” Archer, acclaimed flamenco bailaor of the Greenleaf & Arkenstein Circus, walk into the Viceroy Theatre wearing off-the-rack Nordstrom suits and find themselves instantly accosted by a tall, willowy woman carrying a silver iPad Pro.

You’re late, she hisses, stabbing the tablet screen furiously with her stylus.

Fee chuckles. Fifteen minutes is considered fashionable, isn’t it?

Your pay for the evening will be docked accordingly. Did no one tell you to use the backstage entrance? You cannot simply waltz in through the front— Her voice dies as Fee extracts the tickets from his inside breast pocket.

If it helps, he smiles, we could go out and come in again through the back door.

The woman takes the tickets, peers at them, blanches. You’re—

Don’t say it. Don’t say it. I don’t use that name anymore.

But your parents—

Aren’t here. Their representative has authorized us to attend in their place. Fee squints up at her. A sudden impulse to be an asshole overtakes him. Wait, I know you. I do! Libby, isn’t it? You played lacrosse at Peddie with my cousin Chloe and, ah… roomed with Noelle at Barnard, right?

Libby’s gaze could kick-start a new Ice Age.

Look, we’re not staying long, and we’re not looking to mingle, Fee presses on. Is the nosebleed section open? We’ll sit for a little while and then bounce. I promise we won’t spitball anyone below.

I’m not so sure you won’t. Libby presses her tablet against her bosom with folded arms and jerks her head toward a side staircase.

_____________

In the darkness of the rear mezzanine, Fee and Kee sit in the center back row against the wall and watch an antfarm of florists, musicians, clipboard-jockeys and black-clad stagehands rushing to put the final touches on before the Gala-goers troop in to preview their seats. Following dinner, there’s to be a star-studded concert, a screening of a brief documentary on the history of the Viceroy and its illustrious Friends, and ceremony with awards and citations scattered like Mardi Gras favors.

But all of this is last on Kee’s worried mind. With the exception of his sparring match with Libby, Fee’s been silent ever since they left the apartment. His hand, usually so quick to squeeze when Kee takes it, remains limp, and he only half turns his head when Kee asks, What do you want to do?

Go home. Fee looks up at the gold-leafed ceiling. Back to the Bide-A-While. Wait out winter, as we usually do, then get back on the road in spring.

Quite frankly, Kee’s relieved to hear it. Not having ever had money or three thousand square feet of anything except state fairground, there’s nothing for him to imagine or miss. Still, he has to ask: What about the money?

Sock it in a bank account and let it mold. I don’t know. Now Fee’s hand finally come to life in Kee’s; he turns it palm up so that he can tickle the underside of his partner’s wrist. Unless you can think of any better use for it.

A long pause ensues, broken finally by a whisper: The circus.

What, now?

The circus. Kee’s eyes glisten in the stage-glow, even from this height. You ran away from home to join the circus. The circus is home now. Run it.

RUN it?

Well… maybe not exactly. Greenleaf and Arkenstein are the kings— they have all the know-how, all the history. But you love the fucking G&A just as much as they do. Kee nudges Fee’s foot with his own. And the G&A could use some new… some new… He trails off and waits, eyebrows cocked.

Canvas, says Fee. The tents are starting to look like shit.

Yes…?

Equipment. We’re held together with paperclips.

Yes.

Wheels. Fee’s picking up speed. Proper transport. RVs for life on the road.

Yes… Kee is less crazy about this; he likes the VW. It’s his baby. Their baby.

Talent. Fee kicks the seat in front of him. Goddammit, I suppose we’d better talk to Greenleaf about Junior. He’s a dumbass in most respects, but his work’s really come along…

Smiling in the dark, Kee makes himself comfortable and lets his man take the wheel.

Down in the orchestra pit, a lone French horn player is doing a run up and down the scale; the sound’s akin to celestial trumpets spreading across heaven—if heaven was a mural painted on plaster. Fee would tell you differently, as would Kee, as would Greenleaf and Arkenstein, as would every single rope-wrangler and trapeze-hanger in the G&A. Heaven is canvas and flags, and the pure blue sky that hangs over them. Heaven is the blare of carnival barkers and the tweedling of the grand calliope. Heaven is hope.

And if one were to put a price on hope, that figure would be written on the back of an old envelope with a crayon called Jazzberry Jam.

#Gathering 12 Days 2021 #Fili/Kili #FiKi #Durincest #the Hobbit

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rosethornewrites · 3 years

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Fic: a grain of millet drifting, ch. 3/3

Relationship: Niè Huáisāng & Wèi Yīng | Wèi Wúxiàn

Characters: Wei Ying | Wei Wuxian, Original Characters, Nie Huaisang

Additional Tags: Assassination Attempt(s), Introspection, Regret, Travel, Post-Canon, POV Third Person, POV Wei WuXian

Summary: Wei Wuxian reaches the Unclean Realm and talks to Nie Huaisang.

Notes: See end

Chapters: 1 | 2

AO3 link

———

Wei Wuxian wasn’t accustomed to having nothing to say, but as they entered the Unclean Realm he found himself searching for words. He’d always been able to fill silence, even with nonsense, but Nie Huaisang had perfected the facade of nonsense over the years, and he felt a little as though he was approaching a stranger.

His old friend was fanning himself as he descended the battlement and approached them, the same fan he’d first carried during the Cloud Recesses lectures in that sweet summer before their world descended into hell. If he tried, he could almost pretend this was a visit from that august period—but only almost.

“Aiya, Nie-xiong, I only caught your disciple when he took out the fifth assassin, he said,” Wei Wuxian finally settled on. “Someone seems to be spending quite a bit of money trying to kill me again—I’m almost flattered.”

Nie Huaisang’s eyes seemed to narrow slightly over his fan, but when he snapped it closed he was smiling, the narrowing actually crinkling.

“Wei-xiong, it was so nice of you to send Jiang-zongzhu a letter. He came to ask about it personally, and I think he was happy you thought of him.”

Wei Wuxian kept his face in a careless smile, though that cut at him a bit—he hadn’t seen Jiang Cheng since the Guanyin Temple debacle, and doubted his once-brother wanted anything to do with him, particularly after having learned about his deception regarding the golden core. He’d only sent the letter on the off-chance that it would impact Yunmeng or Lanling, as it was the least he could do after destroying the Jiangs.

“Jin Ling will have enough problems leading that awful sect without surprise assassins,” he said with a shrug, “so of course Jiang-zongzhu would be concerned.”

The look Nie Huaisang gave him was almost pitying, but he said nothing in response, only ordering a couple of disciples to take Little Apple to the stables.

“She prefers apples, but likes other fruit just fine, it seems,” he told them, letting them take the reins and lead her away.

He didn’t bother with the saddlebags, knowing they’d wind up in whatever room had been set aside for him.

Nie Hengxiang wasn’t quite able to stifle a snort of laughter when the donkey deliberately stepped on Wei Wuxian when she moved past him. Nie Huaisang’s lips twitched before he managed to get his fan up.

Wei Wuxian almost made a crack about how the women in his life treated him, but none of them were still in his life, and shijie had never…

“There’s good food and wine,” Nie Huaisang said, somehow closer than he had been before. “Really, Wei-xiong, you don’t look like you eat nearly enough!”

He knew he’d lost some time, Nie Hengxiang in the distance following Little Apple, having apparently excused himself at some point during his fugue.

It shook him, but it was easier to follow his old friend without comment, focusing on the changes in the Unclean Realm since his last visit over a decade before. It looked bustling, and there were more gardens and color, artwork and tapestries brightening the stonework.

Anything to avoid thinking of his many mistakes and the people who had paid the price for them.

Nie Huaisang kept up a running commentary about different pieces of art and their artists, about the tapestry industry he had worked to get started in Qinghe, trading for specially dyed silk thread from various places.

The food was good and the wine was better. They were deep in their cups, still talking of frivolous matters, when Nie Huaisang sighed.

“Wei-xiong, what on earth are you doing, wandering around?”

The question seemed to come from nowhere, and signaled a shift to more serious conversation that Wei Wuxian wasn’t certain he was ready for. So he pasted on a grin.

“What’s so wrong with wandering, Nie-xiong? My parents were rogue cultivators, so why shouldn’t I be one as well?”

The look Nie Huaisang gave him was unimpressed at best, and certainly implied he didn’t buy Wei Wuxian’s smile.

“You didn’t stay in Gusu. I thought you’d stay with Lan-er-gongzi.”

“He’s Chief Cultivator. Associating with the Yiling Patriarch would only make his job harder. He’s already got enough of a mess to clean up—he doesn’t need my messes on top of it.”

And, anyway, if he’d stayed he thought Lan Qiren would actually qi deviate, and he didn’t need that on his conscience.

“And, anyway, where else would I go?” he asked, tiring of the game where they talked in circles.

“Yunmeng. Here.”

Wei Wuxian took a big pull of wine, mostly in response to the first suggestion, which he’d rather not address.

“I threatened you, so I figured you’d prefer I stay away.”

“It’s not like I didn’t deserve the warning, Wei-xiong,” Nie Huaisang said with a sigh. “I put far too many people in danger, and got others killed.”

He sounded almost sad.

“Mo Xuanyu?” he couldn’t keep himself from asking.

He was grateful for the second chance at life, such as it was, but the cost grated at him.

“Mo Xuanyu had seen dage’s head in the treasure room, but… He didn’t want to live, even if I brought him to the Unclean Realm.”

Nie Huaisang twirled the wine jug in his hand, his expression morose.

“I’d gotten to know him when he was in Lanling. I visited often enough to harass Jin Guangyao, after all. He was a gentle soul, and loved the arts. But his mother’s suicide broke what was left of him when that viper was finished with him.”

Wei Wuxian didn’t know what to say, but he could tell his old friend knows the true cost of that spell—that Mo Xuanyu was gone from all realms, his soul destroyed. Nie Huaisang, he could see, was well aware of that.

“There was nothing I could do for him except offer the chance of vengeance.”

In the end, that was essentially all Nie Huaisang had gotten out of the whole ordeal—vengeance, justice, whatever they wanted to call it. He wondered if he would have preferred to bring his brother back instead of Wei Wuxian, but knew better than to ask. It would have been impossible, with Nie Mingjue’s soul trapped asunder in the scattered parts of his body.

Wei Wuxian suspected his own soul had been shattered at his death, but it hadn’t been tied to his body. That, after all, had been destroyed, leaving the pieces of his soul to scatter to the earth. But the spell could fuse the pieces back together in the sacrificed body, so long as they hadn’t faded to nothing.

Truly, he had to be grateful to Mo Xuanyu.

“No, I regret Qin Su’s death,” Nie Huaisang said. “Though her reputation would have been in tatters had she lived.”

There was no knowing if she had taken her own life with that understanding, or if she had been another victim of Jin Guangyao, controlled somehow by her husband and helpless but to watch herself plunge a knife into her own breast. Either way, whether a suicide or murder, it had arguably been caused by the letter Bicao had written at Nie Huaisang’s behest.

“And I regret putting the juniors in danger,” he added. “Though I really didn’t mean Jin Ling to be at the temple. I didn’t plan for that.”

But he had endangered them by luring them to Yi City, and Xue Yang would have killed them without remorse, and enjoyed it.

“I wish you hadn’t involved them, too,” Wei Wuxian said. “It was dumb luck they survived until Lan Zhan and I got there.”

“They have skills,” Nie Huaisang protested weakly. “Not like the two of you at their age, but sufficient to survive, at least.”

He had a point there, at least about the Lan juniors and maybe Jin Ling and Ouyang Zizhen, who seemed to have his head on straight. The rest had at least known to follow orders from a senior.

“I don’t regret bringing you back, though,” Nie Huaisang said after the silence stretched a bit. “I missed you, Wei-xiong. You never treated me like I was useless, even when I was, and we had fun. I didn’t have any friends once you were gone.”

Wei Wuxian’s first inclination was to protest that Jiang Cheng was his friend… but he knew full well that shijie’s death had broken his once-brother. That had probably put a damper on any friendships he’d had.

And Nie Huaisang had been alone after his brother’s murder, after the discovery that it had been a murder.

“I’m sorry you were alone,” he said, though it’s not his fault—he was dead at the time.

Nie Huaisang offers a smile that looks exhausted, probably the first true one Wei Wuxian has seen from him.

“You know, he taught me the song—the one he used to poison dage—so I could play it on a piccolo.”

A chill raced through Wei Wuxian as he realized what that meant, just how deeply Chifeng-zun’s death had impacted him—like how he’d been made into an instrument of his shijie’s demise.

“He made you complicit,” he whispered.

Nie Huaisang’s smile turned bitter.

“If he’d just killed dage, he’d just be dead. But between the killing, the desecration, and that… I had to destroy him, Wei-xiong.”

Jin Guangyao had set up Jin Zixuan’s death, had caused the situation in which shijie had died… Wei Wuxian could understand Nie Huaisang’s desire for revenge. But revenge cycled over and over and just led to more death—had led to his own.

“I know,” he said.

But it didn’t bring back the dead—even he couldn’t really do that. Though people thought that was what he’d done with Wen Ning, it wasn’t quite correct. His body had been actively dying when he’d reanimated him with resentful energy, which had essentially put him in a sort of stasis. He was in between life and death.

“But dage’s still gone,” Nie Huaisang said, as though reading his mind or seeing a tell on his face. “As are all of the other victims.”

Wei Wuxian set his bottle of wine aside, no longer having the taste for it. All he could focus on was the bitterness of it, and he took no pleasure from it now.

“More bodies pile up, more blood is spilled. All we taste is gall,” he murmured, thinking of a poem he once read, one that romanticized war.

Much was written on the idea of just wars, often the defensive or punitive kind. But most people felt their wars were somehow just, and the opposing side or sides unjust. And regardless of the writings, he’d seen himself how non-combatants were massacred despite the philosophies of both Mengzi and Xunzi stating the execution of even one blameless person was inhumane and unrighteous. So much of the end of the Sunshot Campaign had been filled with acts of injustice, a disregard of jus in bello.

He found himself suddenly tired, feeling the weight of everything—his hubris, the people who died because of him, who continued to die because of him in service of someone who wanted him dead, his own death.

“Is it so wrong to just want peace?”

He’d thought, having died once, that perhaps his sins—those he was guilty of and those he was falsely credited with—had died with him. If so, they had been resurrected with him, because even if some of the air had been cleared, he was expected to die again.

Now he was just so tired, and there was nowhere he could go where he could just exist and rest. Anywhere he went, people would find reason to take offense to his existence, to make rest impossible.

Wei Wuxian hated that sometimes even now, despite Mo Xuanyu’s sacrifice to resurrect him, he wished he was still dead. He didn’t remember anything of the years that had passed, only a sort of peace that had perhaps come from nonexistence.

Times like these he felt like his skin was too tight.

“Wei-xiong?”

Nie Huaisang was looking at him with concern, which was almost funny. Before his death, Wei Wuxian would have said he wouldn’t understand what he was concerned about. Now… even he had scars.

“Too much wine,” he demurred. “I should… I guess I should sleep it off. I’ll be out of your hair tomorrow.”

That got a frown.

“Wei-xiong, I’m still looking into the assassins. Please at least stay until it’s handled?”

Right. They hadn’t addressed it. Wei Wuxian had assumed Nie Huaisang had already handled it, which he supposed said something about how high his expectations of his old friend had become, now that he knew his role in Jin Guangyao’s downfall.

“It’s pretty peaceful here, and we have a lovely library, and good food and wine, and you can rest and get a nice bath,” Nie Huaisang rambled, his tone at the end implying he thought Wei Wuxian needed one.

His old friend’s words, about not regretting bringing him back, came back to him, and Wei Wuxian was belatedly gratified that more than one person was glad he was alive again. He’d left the other one in Gusu. Well, maybe there were more than two—A-Yuan and Wen Ning counted.

“All right, all right,” he said, waving his hands to get him to stop. “I’ll stay, at least until the assassin thing is dealt with.”

Nie Huaisang’s smile was so full of relief and hope, it was almost heartbreaking to think he’d spent so much time alone with his revenge.

“I wish you’d told me, though,” he said, schooling his voice into petulance, hoping to lighten the mood a bit.

“If I’d told you about the assassins you might have thought I was threatening you,” Nie Huaisang said, pouting.

That was fair. After all, he’d threatened Nie Huaisang at the Cloud Recesses, and was used to getting threatened himself. It wasn’t what he was thinking about, though.

“Well, maybe. But I meant when Lan Zhan caught you at the man-eating tomb. Couldn’t you have just told us everything then?”

“If I told you and Lan-er-gongzi, he might have told erge,” his old friend pointed out. “And if he tipped off Jin Guangyao, all bets were off about whether any of us would have survived.”

Wei Wuxian remembered the way Lan Xichen had been taken captive, the garrote against his own neck and then Jin Ling’s, the death of Qin Su and the fact that Jin Guangyao had killed his son, father, brother, and cousin, Nie Mingjue, and likely hundreds of other people to rise to power.

Here all Wei Wuxian had wanted to do with his own power, the power everyone was convinced he’d use for ill, was farm potatoes (not radishes) in a mass graveyard and protect the people he’d rescued. He’d acquired power out of necessity, to win the war, not because he wanted to babysit the cultivation world—that sounded fucking exhausting and he felt bad Lan Zhan was now stuck in the role.

“True,” Wei Wuxian mused. “We caught him relatively by surprise and he still managed to kidnap the juniors and organize another siege of the Burial Mounds.”

Plus the situation at the Guanyin temple in Yunping had been very touch-and-go. There had been so many ways it could have gone badly, and nearly did. He was still amazed no one had died—aside from Su She and Jin Guangyao and their peons, but he didn’t care about them.

Nie Huaisang finished his wine and set the empty jar aside.

“In the inn, when I told you about the issue with the sabers…” he started, then sighed.

Wei Wuxian knew what he was asking.

“As the foremost expert on demonic cultivation and resentful energy, you’re hoping I’ll see if I can solve your qi deviation issue while I’m in the Unclean Realm,” he said, not without mirth.

“I know you like puzzles, Wei-xiong. And you get bored easily.”

Nie Huaisang wrinkled his nose at him with a knowing smile, and Wei Wuxian remembered, back in Cloud Recesses, pushing his friend off-balance and into the freezing cold stream out of boredom. He couldn’t help but laugh.

“I’ll do less damage with something to occupy me, as you well know. I suppose I can take a look.”

“Excellent!” Nie Huaisang said, fiddling with his fan in a practiced way, but not bringing it to his face. “Now, we’ll discuss your compensation tomorrow, after you’ve gotten a nice bath and some rest. Your quarters are fully furnished, and I took the liberty of stocking it with some better quality and less threadbare robes…”

As Wei Wuxian feigned righteous indignation, he realized the prospect of staying here made him feel more centered, like he had found a place he actually could rest in this new world, somewhere where he wouldn’t be a burden, where he could maybe do some good.

He thought maybe Nie Huaisang had recognized that in him, but maybe also in himself—that they could help each other in what amounted to a time of transition for them both.

Wei Wuxian could rest here for a while, taking in a refreshing breeze, before he continued wandering this terrestrial world.

---------

The poem Wei Wuxian is thinking of is Wei Wang’s “Song of Mt. Yanzhi,” which is more a celebration of war, but it’s a remembered line that hits him here.

Regarding the issue of just war (and aggressive vs. defensive vs. punitive war), there’s a lot written on it in multiple cultures’ philosophies. Famously, Mengzi/Mencius resigned his post in the Qi dynasty when the Qi army killed non-combatants and plundered wealth. There are some really fascinating papers on this issue. Jus in bello is a really fascinating concept involving the responsibilities an invading army has to the inhabitants of the area they are invading. Yes, I read scholarly research articles when writing this chapter, because that’s how I roll.

The last line is a reference to Su Shi’s “First Ode on the Red Cliffs,” same as the title.

Nope, we don’t know who sent the assassins, but Nie Huaisang is working on it, so you know it’ll be resolved (hopefully in less than a decade this time). This fic is about their reconciliation, with that being an unresolved thread. Wei Wuxian’s feelings about Lan Wangji are also unresolved, as is the status of his relationship with Jiang Cheng. If I get inspiration, I might make this a series and handle those in the future. We’ll see!

#the untamed #mo dao zu shi #chen qing ling #cql #mdzs #wei wuxian #wei ying #nie huaisang #untamed fanfiction #untamed fanfic #untamed fic #cql fanfic #cql fanfiction #cql fic #mdzs fanfic #mdzs fanfiction #mdzs fic #my fanfiction

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greyias · 3 years

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Companion Interview Meme

Tagged by: @a-muirehen — thank you for the tag!

Pick three companions who know your OC/muse well. Answer the questions from at least one of their companions points of view. Replace anywhere it says ‘Grey’ with your OC’s name. Name the three companions who will be answering here: 1. Theron Shan 2. Lana Beniko 3. Kira Carsen Are they ready to be candid with their responses? Don’t worry, this is totally private. Grey will never read it.

(Slight spoiler warning in one answer for Echoes of Oblivion)

1. First Impressions. What was the first impression you had of Grey?

Theron: Look, it’s complicated. Like on one hand, she just had to be hiding something, because she was just so—so—no one is that nice! Or naive. It had to be an act somehow. I was convinced of it, there had to be something wrong with her, some deep, dark dirty secret she was hiding. Because if she wasn’t then that means she was a genuinely good person who actually cared deeply about random strangers and that was just weird. And kind of wonderful. And in retrospect when I look back maybe I just... needed a few reasons to keep people at arms distance. I once told her that I loved her from the moment I saw her. Striding into the situation room like she owned the place and... yeah. That was also true. As I said, it’s complicated. And I’m kind of an idiot.

Lana: I was quite impressed by what I had assumed at the time was a great deal of pragmatism. She was a Jedi, and yet didn’t seem bothered at all by the fact that I was a Sith. In fact, sometimes I think maybe she was... fascinated by it? There was a moment or two where I wondered if... well, I suppose it doesn’t matter now. She has always been a force to be reckoned with. It’s easy to follow someone like that... even if they are a Jedi (and a very impractical one at that. I really should have seen that coming in retrospect.)

Kira: She didn’t know how to take a joke. I mean, I’ve gotten better over the years, but at the start I’d had a tendency to make jokes first, assess the situation later. I’d made some comment about taking no prisoners, and you would have thought I’d just kicked a puppy instead of making a joke. Kind of felt like I had from the look on her face. Luckily, I think we both made better second impressions when we started working together on Coruscant.

2. Grey walks into a bar. No, it’s not a joke - what does she order? If you give her a credit for the jukebox, what kind of music would she put on?

Theron: Something fruity and filled with rum if you don’t stop her. Don’t let her drink the rum. And then because she has no loyalty whatsoever she’ll put on Tai-Vor Swivt on the jukebox and just share my special playlist with the whole cantina. Um. I mean. Her playlist. I don’t like Tai-Vor. I only listen to Heavy Isotope. And things like that.

Lana: The answer depends on the time of day, her mood, and several other factors. I have it all documented in this rubric here. You’ll need to give me more specifics on your inquiry if you want an accurate answer.

Kira: I mean, usually she just orders caf, which almost always gets a dramatic eyeroll from the bartender. So I usually have to order so we don’t get the stinkeye the entire time. And usually she lets me pick the music too -- I kind of suspect she didn’t really know many of the artists. Not exactly dialed into pop culture, that one.

3. How does Grey spend a day off from work?

Theron: Hmm, if I have my way it’s a nice slow morning and any message sent to her e-mail receives a cordial out-of-office message (Lana gets two for each message she sends.) Maybe later we can take a walk in the woods, go pet those stinky Exoboars running wild and ruining the Odessen countryside, maybe we get a little lost along the way. Spend the evening winding down with one of her swashbuckling holoflix. If I don’t have my way someone winds up asking her a work question and then she doesn’t get a day off. Yes. I know the irony of this coming from me.

Lana: If she is onsite at Odessen nowadays she seems to spend it in a mix between time in her quarters, leaving the base to take a walk in the woods, trying to duck surveillance to meditate in her “secret” spot.

Kira: Back on the Defender, it was just a lot of meditating, practicing her katas, sparring. Honestly, even on her days off she usually just kept trying to make sure we were prepared for the next mission. Although if I invited her to do something normal she’d go along with it. So I may have made sure some of our off days coincided so she would actually take something resembling a break. The weirdo. She seems to have relaxed a little from that here on Odessen. I think that’s nice.

4. What silly superstitions or funny traditions does she observe?

Theron: She meditates each morning, and still observes the Jedi morning fast. Except she totally cheats on her fast and will drink a cup of caf if its hand delivered to her. She’ll warm her hands on the mug as she takes in a big whiff, and this little smile spreads across her face. It causes the freckles on her nose to wrinkle. And maybe I’m the one who hand delivers the caf because its hard to think of a better way to start the day.

Lana: We do not speak of the fruitcake, or any of her other attempted holiday traditions. If we do not encourage her, then maybe she’ll stop. Please, we must all band together, for the good of my digestive tract.

Kira: Whenever we would finish up a mission on a planet, she liked to take off her socks and boots and meditate with her feet sticking into the ground. She even wanted to do it on Quesh but Doc was loud enough on that instance to be able to talk her out of it. She tried to hide it but she looked really disappointed, so I tried to cheer her up by joining her on this weird mud hop at our next port of call. Not sure if I really felt any different but it seemed to make her happy.

5. What does Grey wear to bed? And just how do you know that?

Theron: Traditional night wear is a thin tank top and sleep pants. Let’s just say sometimes there’s less traditional night wear, or sometimes less than that -- but that’s between husband and wife.

Lana: On mission she typically wears something quick to change into her armor. On base she seems to have a standard set of pajama bottoms and sleeveless sleep shirt. How do I know this? Let’s just say I have to keep the Commander on schedule, even when certain people who should know better try and distract her from our very busy day running things.

Kira: She usually was changed and ready for the day before I ever saw her, but sometimes there’d be a late night where she couldn’t sleep, and I’d find her in the Defender’s mess. Pretty simple and spare sleepwear, sleep pants and tank top. Fashion’s not exactly her priority, you know?

6. Your favorite memory of Grey?

Theron: Why do you make me pick? Damn... that’s hard. There’s almost too many to choose, but... I guess it would be just after we got back from Nathema, and I was trying to apologize for everything and... somehow that turned into a proposal. And despite me being a stumbling awkward mess she still said yes and... look. I probably should have picked a different one, I’m not really good at the talking about feelings thing.

Lana: That moment when the broadcast across the galaxy happened after she had tamed the Eternal Fleet, she stood poised and powerful, finally setting the galaxy aright after Zakuul had torn it asunder. It was a moment more than five years in the making and I couldn’t have been prouder.

Kira: That moment when we stood, side-by-side, with everyone else in the Force and turned that creep Tenebrae, and every other of his counterparts into absolute crumbling dust. It almost made up for the fact that I wasn’t there the first two times she sent him packing.

7. A time you very nearly almost kissed Grey?

Theron: I mean, if we’re being technical, I had... thought about it for one moment on Manaan. Just a brief second, as we were saying our farewells before I went into hiding. Our eyes had met while we were shaking hands goodbye and it would have been so easy to just pull her in close and--I didn’t. Of course I didn’t. Not then at least. Now though? I don’t miss a chance.

Lana: I was angry at myself, my weakness, and taking it out on the clutter around the Gravestone. I had been surrounded out in the swamp, and only Koth’s timely intervention had saved me. She had come seeking me out to make sure that I was all right, to check on my injury. And in the low light, she just looked so concerned and guilty, and I’m fairly certain she was leaning in. I would have, you know, if Koth hadn’t been throwing around things and making a racket.

Kira: It was right after my Knighting, and I had snuck a bottle of champagne on board to celebrate. I suspect she hadn’t ever actually tasted alcohol before, judging by her reaction to the first sip. But we kept drinking, and giggling, kind of like we weren’t stuffy Jedi at all. And there was this moment where she asked me about Nar Shaddaa. Not pushy or anything, just... curious about my experiences. She never talks about it, but I don’t think she really knew much of life outside of the Order so she was always cautiously curious. And there was this moment where I was telling her about my first kiss and we kind of leaned in and--nothing happened. At the time I didn’t want to risk making things weird. I... like where we’re at. I’m fine with it.

8. Vacation time! Where do you take Grey for some R&R?

Theron: You know, I just love the sound of that word. Vay-cay-shun. Despite popular opinion I actually do take them, maybe a few more now than when I was single. We have a secret little hideaway that no one else knows about that I like to take her to when things get a little rough or we just need a break from the everything the galaxy is deciding to throw her our way.

Lana: You know, a vacation does sound nice, but someone has to keep things running here, especially when a certain nameless spy whisks our Commander away to fake locales. Seriously, I need a proper itinerary. What if I need to contact them? It’s just rude. Oh right, the question. I suppose I wouldn’t mind visiting some place quiet and out of the way, although I honestly have yet to find a place in galaxy that qualifies because if I take Grey for some reason she always finds someone in trouble that she insists on rescuing.

Kira: I’m not sure if it qualifies as a vacation per se, but I’ve been able to sneak her and one of our other Jedi buddies around base off to Nar Shaddaa for a Girl’s Night. Those are fun, even if we kept getting hit on at the bars. Although that can be entertaining in itself, especially that one time some guy pretended to be a Jedi, and then got this very detailed lecture on how bad an idea that was from Grey. I don’t think I’ve seen a man wilt so fast in my life. I would pay to see that again.

9. Grey’s sense of humor -is it dry, immature, sarcastic, self-deprecating, physical, witty, dark, or…?

Theron: I think it depends on the situation and her mood. It can be very subtle, and sometimes I can’t tell if she’s being serious when she says something ridiculous, or if she’s messing with me. Which... I suppose is fair, because sometimes I do the same to her.

Lana: She loves a good pun, which I find delightful. It’s doubly delightful just to see Theron roll his eyes and groan like he’s being tortured.

Kira: I think a lot of people don’t really get her humor, and honestly it took me a while to realize when she was joking. She likes to let others take the lead when it comes to cracking jokes, but when she does make a zinger, it takes a few seconds for it to land. They’re a lot more sly and subtle than you’d think. My favorite is when she starts to get really frustrated with someone and makes really dry, pointed comments that usually sail right over their heads. She has so many people fooled with that sweet serene Jedi act, they don’t even realize the epic burn until long after the conversation has ended.

Tagging: @confettininjabean, @thewriterandmuse. @shanfamilydrama, @storyknitter, @lumielles, @captainderyn, and @brietopia

#companion interview meme #tag game #tag thing #meme thing #thank you for the tag!#this was fun!#oc: greyias highwind #i had to stop them from commenting on each others' answers #(and pretend they couldn't hear each other)#because it just kept descending into snark and bickering #and was making each question a loooooong scroll lmao #theron was very indignant and practically vibrating at many of lana's answers

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curator-on-ao3 · 3 years

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First Lines Meme

I saw @parcequelle do this and thought it looked super cool! Rules: List the first lines of your last 20 stories (if you have less than 20, just list them all!). See if there are any patterns. Choose your favorite opening line.

My tiny chest burned. The Autobiography of Kirsten Clancy - Star Trek Picard, T, and that’s the first line not including the foreword by Jean-Luc Picard

“Cadet Musiker, reverse your vector…. Cadet Musiker, come about…. Raffi, what the hell are you doing? Answer your comm.” I Ran Toward Your Pain, Unknowing, Yet Find You By My Side, Still Loving - Raffi/Seven, Star Trek Picard, T

He exits the warden’s office, grey pants legs smooth, ankle monitor gone. Fly Me to the Moon - Janeway/Paris, Star Trek Voyager, E

The new uniforms don’t bother him, grey shoulders instead of red, crimson turtleneck, starch in the sleeves. Little Galaxies in Her Eyes - Janeway/Chakotay, Star Trek Voyager, G

Navigational Control is tiny, tucked into deck twelve, section B7, between Environmental Control and the Secondary Command Processors. Console Me (Four Times Paris and Janeway Almost Had Sex and One Time They Did) - Janeway/Paris, Star Trek Voyager, E

“You’ll like it, trust me.” Mark steps with Kathryn through the crowds, street lamps high overhead casting yellow angles in the foggy night. “I know your taste.” Feet on the Ground - Janeway/Chakotay, Star Trek Voyager, G

The four senior staff members whispered in a mess hall deserted except for Neelix tidying in the kitchen and themselves on sofas near the door. Hot for Teacher - Chakotay & Neelix, Janeway/Chakotay, Chakotay/Torres, Chakotay/Paris, Chakotay/Kim, Star Trek Voyager, G

You’re not contrary. Anthropology - Chakotay/Torres, Star Trek Voyager, T

You think she’s annoying. Love Me Like the Ocean - Jurati/Rios, Star Trek Picard, T

The first time he touches your hand, you know he plays an instrument. A Waning Note Lifts A Love Song - Paris/Kim, Star Trek Voyager, T

“I won’t make that mistake again.” The Story Always Ends the Same Way - Janeway/Chakotay, Star Trek Voyager, T

The door slides open and she says, “Does B’Elanna know you’re here?” In the Doorway - Janeway/Paris, Star Trek Voyager, T

The holodeck doors hiss open. Under an Endless Sky - Janeway/Paris, Star Trek Voyager, M

It makes sense. It does. Really. Across the Universe - multiple pairings but that one is Kira Nerys/Seska, most Star Treks, T

Cris has been to the shipyard five times. Siren Song - Paris & Rios, Star Trek Voyager and Star Trek Picard, G

“Captain.” The operations officer looked up from readings that shouldn’t be possible. “A ship is approaching, and I — I think it’s at warp.” Asunder - Janeway/Paris, Star Trek Voyager, T

The mattress under her back is softer than standard in starship sickbays. Not This Time - multiple Kathryn Janeway pairings, Star Trek Voyager, T

The old man leaned heavily on a cane. Through round glasses, his wide eyes studied the base-level solar panels, then arced upward, shaded by a flat hand, to take in the gleaming spire. Meeting of the Minds - Shannon O’Donnel Janeway & Benny Russell, Kathryn Janeway & Benjamin Sisko, G

Captain Vandermeer always said a crew could bond over the thrill of discovery or a crew could bond over shared adversity. Long Nights on La Sirena - Raffi/Seven, Star Trek Picard, M

“It was Admiral Patterson.” Table Talk - Janeway/Paris, Star Trek Voyager, G

Patterns and a favorite aren't occurring to me, but this was fun!

#fic meme

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kelyon · 3 years

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Golden Rings 8: A Mayor

The Storybrooke Sequel to Golden Cuffs

Rumple has a chat with Regina

Read on AO3

After that disaster of a meal, the walk to City Hall gave Rumpelstiltskin time to cool his head. It was one thing to lose control in front of Mrs. Gold, the poor woman would just blame herself for any change in his behavior. But now he was strolling into enemy territory. Going eye-to-eye with the Evil Queen. He knew better than to blink.

In the old world, there was no question that he was more powerful than Regina. She had learned her magic from him. Even then, the girl had a long list of grievances against a world that had, admittedly, treated her poorly. Rumpelstiltskin had trained her in the ways of dark magic, and that gave her the means to forge her anger into a weapon. Over the years, the queen had refined her rage, hammering her many resentments again and again until her pain was a folded blade, sharp enough to cut the world asunder.

The most important lesson the Dark One had ever taught his protégé was that true power was the ability to cause pain. If hurting people didn’t make her happy, clearly the solution was to hurt more people. As Regina’s abilities had grown, so did her list of enemies and potential victims. Her wrath had expanded from targeting one little girl, to a small rebellion, to the whole realm.

Storybrooke was Regina’s ultimate victory, even over him. It was not enough for her to simply end the lives of her enemies. She had to torture those who had wronged her, prolong their suffering. For twenty-eight years, she had trapped them all in a world without time. A world where every day seemed exactly the same as the day before--except, somehow, worse.

She had separated all of them from the people they had loved. She had forced them all to be the worst versions of themselves. She had destroyed their happiness in the hope that she would finally have some for herself.

Had it worked?

Rumpelstiltskin had reached Main Street, the unofficial border between the old part of town and the new. Regina lived in New Town, along with the rest of the Storybrooke elite. The castles of this world were made of drywall and stucco, and Mayor Mills lived in the grandest of them all. Did that satisfy her? Was it enough for her to be richer and more powerful than anyone else in town? Did she still feel like a Queen?

City Hall was in New Town as well, only a few blocks away from 108 Mifflin Street. That wasn’t the official residence for every mayor, but it was convenient that the only person who ever ran for the office lived within walking distance.

Main Street was deserted at this late hour. Even Granny’s had only a few stragglers inside, lonely people lingering over cups of coffee before heading back to empty houses. The loudest noise on the street was the opening of the door from the offices of Dr. Archibald Hopper.

A little boy ran out onto the sidewalk, jabbering excitedly to a blonde young woman.

“I’m telling you, the first step is to figure out who people are. Once we know, then we can help them remember on their own. Then they can find their happy endings!”

“Okay, kid. Sure. We’re gonna suss out people’s secret identities from fairytale land. How?”

“Don’t worry. It’s all in the book!”

The animated conspirators walked off. Neither one noticed the figure limping in the shadows behind them.

Well, Rumpelstiltskin thought. That was interesting.

Gold recognized the boy as Henry Mills. Ten years ago--though to a cursed mind it couldn’t possibly have been ten years, my how time flies--Regina Mills had come to Gold and asked him to arrange for an adoption. She had demanded a newborn with no family, preferably from far away. She had wanted a closed adoption, with a birth mother who would never interfere with the life she had planned for the baby.

It had been a tall order, but Gold had contacted a juvenile detention facility in Phoenix, Arizona. By some happy chance, one of their charges--herself an orphan who had spent her life in the foster care system and inevitably fell to a life of petty theft--had found herself pregnant. Gold had never gotten the name of Henry’s birth mother, but Rumpelstiltskin knew it well.

Emma Swan.

So that was why the Savior had come to town.

And, apparently, the boy Henry had some idea of the true nature of the people around him. Was it because of this book he had mentioned? Or was reality obvious to anyone who wasn’t blinded by the curse? Either way, the boy was trying to get Emma to help him make people remember who they were.

How very interesting.

The rest of the walk was easy. Rumpelstiltskin walked with a light step to City Hall. The lights were on in the Mayor’s office, but there was some activity in the garden around the back.

Rumpelstiltskin found the Queen on her knees, picking apples up off the ground. The sedate little garden had become a place of horticultural carnage. An entire branch of Regina’s prized apple tree was on the ground, with a fresh wound on the trunk. The grass was littered with sawdust and leaves and fallen fruit.

“What a mess.” Rumpelstiltskin announced his presence, walking into the enclosed space.

Regina finished what she was doing before she stood up. “Not for long.”

There was a smile on her face, and a sharp gleam in her eyes. Rumpelstiltskin could read his pupil like a book. Despite the chaos around her, she was celebrating a victory. So far, she was happy. How fragile was that mood?

“This will all be cleaned up in the morning,” Regina said. “And the menace responsible is probably halfway back to Boston by now.”

“You don’t mean Emma Swan, do you?” Rumpelstiltskin circled the tree as he spoke. “I just saw her walking down the main street with your boy. Two of them looked thick as thieves.”

It was always a pleasure to see Regina’s smile vanish, and her satisfaction sour into spite. But now there was an extra thrill in watching her ire. She hadn’t changed at all. Twenty-eight years of getting everything she wanted, and Regina was just as insecure and petty as she had ever been.

Marvelous.

“I told that woman to get out of my town.”

“Apparently, she didn’t follow your orders.” Reaching up into the tree, Rumpelstiltskin grabbed a low-hanging fruit and twisted the stem until it broke off in his hand. “That makes her rather a special person around here, don’t you think?”

Regina ground her back teeth, an ugly habit she’d had for years. “I spent all day trying to get rid of her.”

“And you didn’t come to me?” Rumpelstiltskin tossed the apple in the air and caught it in one hand. A whole day? No wonder the Queen was frustrated! Normally her will was worked much more quickly than that. Of course, she normally had help. “I thought you knew where to go when you needed something done.”

She turned her back on him to examine her tree. “I don’t make deals with you anymore.”

“And what a shame that is for us both,” Rumpelstiltskin lied. “After all, we have such a grand history of working together for our mutual benefit.”

“Your ‘benefits’ aren’t always what they seem, Mr. Gold.” Regina smirked, like she was pointing out some undiscovered fact. “Even when you got Henry for me, now I find out that there’s this woman.”

He held the apple in the palm of his hand. “Children are known to have mothers--”

“I’m his mother!” She cut him off sharply, and he knew that look. If this was a world with magic, the Evil Queen would be throwing fireballs right now. Her anger was always so close to the surface. She had never learned how to hold back, how to sneak and plot and keep your enemies close.

“Be that as it may.” He kept his voice friendly, the same tone Gold would use. “Next time you need something, I hope you’ll remember to call on me.”

She smirked again, that regal expression of amusement and disdain. It was one of her better masks. “Nice to see you so accommodating, Mr. Gold. I’m glad that woman hasn’t ruined everything in Storybrooke.”

He shook his head, all businesslike courtesy. “No matter what strangers may do, everyone needs a friend in low places.”

“And you are certainly the lowest,” Regina chuckled. The smallest show of deference was enough to restore her good humor. The slightest reminder of the power she thought she had. “By the way, how is Mrs. Gold?”

“Quite well, thanks for asking.” He looked her in the eye and lied to her face. His masks were better than hers and always would be. “She’s a little, ah, tied up, at the moment. But I’ll give her your regards once she’s free.”

“Please do. I always like seeing the two of you around town.”

Rumpelstiltskin polished the apple on the sleeve of his suit jacket. This type was called a Red Delicious, though Mayor Mills would tell people it was a Honeycrisp. She could tell people anything and they wouldn’t question her.

He began to saunter out of the garden. He had seen everything he needed to see.

“I wouldn’t worry about Emma Swan.” He left Regina with a reassurance that would only remind her of her real problem. “How could she possibly be a threat to you?”

He didn’t let Regina respond. He had asked her a question that would haunt her waking hours. Whatever happiness she had accumulated with her curse had popped like a balloon the moment the Savior had entered Storybrooke.

All he had to do was watch the show.

On his way out of the garden, he took one bite out of the apple. Red through it was, the fruit was far from delicious. It was bland and bitter, just like her. Rumpelstiltskin tossed the apple over his shoulder and left the Queen to the destruction that had once been her sanctuary.

****

Heading back to the house, Rumpelstiltskin’s mind went to another dark sorceress: Maleficent, the self-styled Mistress of All Evil. She had certainly been the mistress of Regina. Once Regina’s husband was dead and Snow White had fled for her life, Regina had taken Maleficent as her lover publicly. No one in the kingdom had dared speak a word against it. For a time, the two of them were inseparable, their mutual adoration a force that would move mountains. And they liked nothing more than to exercise their power on anyone who was weaker than they were.

They had done it to Belle. Rumpelstiltskin’s heart burned at the memory. Long before he married her, he had let them take her. When Belle had trusted him completely, he had been too much of a coward to defend her. Because he couldn’t have let the queens of darkness know that he had feelings for the pretty girl whose body he had bought and paid for. He couldn’t have exerted any force to protect her from them. He couldn’t have even said that she belonged to him and he didn’t want to share. That would have been a sign of weakness, tantamount to admitting that he loved her.

And he couldn’t have allowed them to know the truth. His reputation, his pride, could not endure it. At the time, he couldn’t even admit it to himself.

Belle had come back to him naked and bleeding, with a testimony of the worst kinds of torture. Every wound on her body screamed out his guilt. Every word of what she told him as an indictment of his failure. For weeks after she had suffered nightmares and attacks of fear--things he only learned about later, because he hadn’t wanted to hear it, and Belle hadn’t wanted to tell him. The selfless girl had stifled her own trauma for the sake of his ego.

On Rumpelstiltskin’s mountain of regrets, refusing to protect Belle from Regina and Maleficent was a towering peak.

Of course, Belle wasn’t the only one. Reports and rumors kept circulating about that kingdom, of the horrors inflicted on anyone who stood up to the Queen, or got in her way or even attracted her attention. Fair maidens with dark hair began to stay out in the sunshine to tan their skin and lighten their tresses. They wanted to bear no resemblance to the truest target of Regina’s rage, the girl who always evaded her grasp.

Eventually it had become too much, even for Maleficent. She had left, returning to her own castle. When Rumpelstiltskin had paid a visit to her, the witch had seemed more disappointed than heartbroken.

“It just got boring, Rumple. The same things to the same people, over and over! And Regina was never satisfied, not with me or anyone else. Evil is evil, but a person’s got to feel appreciated for the work she puts in!”

Maleficent would have taken Regina back, he knew. If there was even the slightest hint that things could change, that Regina was capable of growing up. Maleficent would have offered Regina a twisted version of happiness, if only Regina had really wanted to take it.

Sometimes, late at night while Belle was sleeping safely beside him, Rumpelstiltskin liked to imagine the reconciliation between the two queens. It was an inevitable moment. One way or another, destiny would bring them back together, at least one more time.

Regina would come to Maleficent. Perhaps she would say she was sorry, that she wanted a new start. Perhaps she wouldn’t have to say anything. Maleficent’s eyes would glow with her green fire. And her smile would be of genuine joy. She would lower her defenses and welcome her lover with open arms.

Welcome Regina into her heart.

That image had comforted him through many nights when his mind was tormented by how the queens had tortured Belle. They would pay for all they had done to her. Even now, the thought filled him with vengeful contentment.

****

When he got back to the pink house in Old Town, Rumpelstiltskin found the place dark and quiet. The lights in the entryway were shut off, the candles in the dining room extinguished. The cold, fluorescent light in the kitchen was the only illumination on the first floor.

Plates and cookware were stacked on the counter by the sink. They were rinsed off, but not scrubbed. Gold didn’t trust his wife to wash his precious antiques.

“Right,” Rumpelstiltskin said.

In preparation to wash the dishes, he took off his suit coat and draped it over a kitchen chair. Then he removed the cuff links at his wrists and carefully folded up his sleeves. There were black rubber gloves inside the cupboard door underneath the sink. A green canvas apron hung from a hook by the stove. Gold was very fond of protection, of layers and separation. At last, there was something about him that Rumpelstiltskin could understand.

He took off Gold’s moonstone ring and put it in his trouser pockets with the cuff links. Now the only thing on his hands was his wedding ring, the golden band that had once been a shackle around Belle’s wrist.

Before he put on the rubber gloves, Rumpelstiltskin brought his knuckles up to his lips and kissed his ring. He had never removed it in the old world. It was as much a part of him as his own hand. He wouldn’t take it off here, either. The ring was proof that he was Belle’s husband.

Belle’s husband, and Bae’s father. That was enough. When the world was right, that would be all he would need to be.

Once the dishes were cleaned, dried, and put away, Rumpelstiltskin gathered his things and went upstairs. Mrs. Gold had said something about taking a bath. She was surely done by now. If he was lucky, she would already be asleep and he wouldn’t have to talk to her again.

It was the end of Rumpelstiltskin’s first full day in Storybrooke. He was already tired, already heartsick, already waiting for the Savior to do her job and free them all.

The red lamp was burning in the parlor of the bedroom suite, just as it had been the night before. Mrs. Gold had turned it on to welcome her husband. The bedroom was dark, save for a beam of light that shone from the half-open bathroom door.

“Is that you, Mr. Gold?” Belle’s voice came from the bathroom, as well as the faint sound of sloshing water. The whole bedroom smelled like some kind of artificial perfume--the expensive bath oils that Mrs. Gold liked to buy.

“Do a lot of visitors come into this bedroom?” Rumpelstiltskin stayed on the other side of the door and began to undress.

Mrs. Gold chuckled, the way Belle did when she was relaxed and comfortable. “I never know when you might send someone over to surprise me.”

He winced at that, at the casual way she suggested the possibility. Gold had never allowed another man or woman to touch his wife, but it always seemed to be on the horizon. That was the next barrier to cross, the next thrill for Gold to seek. He had prepared Mrs. Gold to expect it. At any moment, he might invite some stranger into their home--into their bed, into her body--and her task would be to be a welcoming hostess.

Regina had made it that way. Everything about this marriage was her design, a reflection of what she had seen of him and Belle. It was possible that the torment was supposed to come from how much Gold and his wife both wanted to sleep with more people, but couldn’t find anyone in Storybrooke willing to indulge them.

“I’m almost done shaving,” Mrs. Gold called from the bathroom. “Then I think I could use some lotion. It’s getting colder now. I gotta keep soft and moisturized.”

She was inviting him to rub her down, to put his hands all over her silky skin and cover her body with a slick, sweet-smelling substance. They had done this so many times, in this world as well as the old one. He had made her soft and smooth and warm. He had found her wet and willing and open. His wife wanted him. She was offering herself to him. She loved him and he loved her and joining their bodies together was the most natural thing in any world…

“Fuck,” Rumpelstiltskin whispered as he pulled his pajama pants up over his hardening cock. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Then, more loudly, he said to Mrs. Gold, “Actually, I think I’m going to go to sleep. You take as much time as you need.”

For a moment, the silence from the other room threatened to swallow the whole of reality.

“Oh,” she said at last. “O-okay, Mr. Gold. What--whatever you say.”

It hurt to hear the disappointment in her voice. But this was what he had to do. He couldn’t indulge in Mrs. Gold’s appetites--or his own. She wasn’t Belle. Doing anything more than sleeping next to her would be an unconscionable violation of Belle’s trust.

And besides, that woman had no say over what she thought she wanted. Between the cursed personality Regina had devised and the cruel training Gold had inflicted, nothing inside of Mrs. Gold was real. She wasn’t a person, any more than Gold had been.

Rumpelstiltskin sighed, and got into bed. Maybe he could fall asleep before Mrs. Gold joined him. Or he could feign slumber until she went away to do something else. Would tomorrow be another day like this? And the day after that? Was he going to have to make excuses to this woman until the curse was broken? Coward that he was, he would run and hide from someone who thought she loved him.

He was still awake when Mrs. Gold came out of the bathroom. To her credit, she didn’t try to attract his attention. He had told her that nothing would happen tonight and she respected his decision--far more than Gold had ever respected any of hers. But she still strode across the bedroom to get to the armoire in the parlor. Gold had never made room in his closet for her clothes.

The light from the bathroom illuminated her body. Her hair was wrapped up in the microfiber towel she had bought specifically for that purpose. Aside from that, she was completely naked.

He should have looked away. He should have turned his face to the wall and closed his eyes until she put on a nightgown. But he hadn’t seen Belle in twenty-eight years. His wife, his beauty, his light in the darkness.

For a moment, he filled his eyes with her. Hiding in the darkness, he didn’t conceal his interest. He saw it all. Belle’s neck, her shoulders, her slim arms and round breasts. She was so pale and smooth, a statue carved from alabaster. The gentle slope of her belly and the soft curves of her waist and hips. Her long, lovely legs. And between her legs…

Rumpelstiltskin blinked.

Bile rose in his throat.

He clenched his jaw, and rolled over in bed. He couldn’t look at her for another second.

Between her legs, Mrs. Gold was bare and hairless. Like a child. Gone were the wiry curls that used to hide Belle’s treasures. He used to enjoy running his fingers through them, to tease his wife before he began to play with her properly.

It was a style in this world, for a woman to shave or wax her pubic hair. Men thought any hair on a woman’s body was unfeminine or even unhygienic. Apparently Gold was one of those fools.

But even worse for Rumpelstiltskin was the memory of when Belle came back from her time with the queens. She had been bare then as well. It had taken weeks for her hair to grow back. She said that Maleficent and Regina had shaved her with broken glass. That they had pulled out any stubble by the roots.

Belle had not described the pain, but he could imagine it.

He didn’t know if Mrs. Gold had put on a nightgown before she got into bed. She didn’t touch him or try to speak to him. She probably thought he was angry with her. And while Rumpelstiltskin did seethe with fury, Mrs. Gold had very little to do with it.

Regina. The name pounded through his mind, until the very instant he succumbed to sleep. Regina will pay for all of this.

****

He is in a cell, in the deepest dungeons of Snow White’s castle. The cell is enchanted, so his magic is useless. It is a dripping cave, carved from solid rock. There are no other prisoners nearby. The guards are stationed at the other end of a long corridor. The only time he ever sees a living soul is when people come to him for help.

He is exactly where he wants to be.

“I tried your curse,” the Evil Queen rants from the other side of the pointed bars. “It didn’t work!”

“Considering we’re all still here, I should think that’s rather obvious, dearie!”

The Queen snarls at him. Her dark jewels glint in the torchlight. “You know why it didn’t work.”

“Well, I can make an educated guess...”

“Then tell me!”

Leaning back against the rough stone wall, he chuckles at the Queen’s demands.

“There’s a price to that, dearie.”

She sneers. “Name it.”

“When--” He stops. He makes a show of changing the word. “If you can cast this curse, you will be creating a whole new world. Everything will be as you want it to be, Your Majesty.”

“I know that!” she snaps. “That’s the whole point! This world is stacked against me. This curse is the only chance I have to get my revenge!”

“Yes.” He grins at the Queen, and runs his tongue over his teeth. “You will control everything. All of our fates will be in your regal hands.”

“So what do you want?”

“Oh nothing much,” he waves his hand. “Only what I already have.”

“It’s a world without magic.”

“But not a world without power, yes? Not a world without wealth, or a world without comfort? Not a world without any pleasures at all?”

“Tell me what you want, imp.”

“It truly is a simple request,” he lies. “What is mine, stays mine. Everything I had before I came to this…” He gestures to indicate his captivity. “So the power, the wealth--”

“The woman?” The Queen smirks. “Is that what this is? You want to make sure you keep your little plaything!” Now she laughs. “Are you sure you still want her? She is a little worse for wear.”

“You made sure of that, Your Majesty.” His voice is low, but she doesn’t hear the threat.

“I could make you a lothario instead. Give you a new girl every night? That would be a punishment for quite a lot of people.”

He moves so fast she cannot see him until he climbs the bars and grabs her by the throat, pulling her toward him. He growls at the Queen. He almost roars: “I. Want. My. Wife!”

The Queen jerks from his clutches, stumbles backwards to get away from him. Quickly, she allows haughtiness to mask her fear.

“Fine,” she says stiffly. “She will be your wife in the new world, though that will not save you from the curse. Neither of you will remember a second of this place.”

“That’s not as cruel a fate as you might think, dearie.”

“Nevertheless.” She acts like that’s the end of an argument she has won. “Now: how do I cast this curse?”

“You need a heart, dearie.”

“Yes, I know that!” she snaps. “The heart of the thing you love most. I killed my own father and it didn’t work!”

“Poor Prince Henry.” He shakes his head. “He died as he lived: being betrayed by women who never loved him enough.”

“I did love him!” The Queen seems on the verge of tears. “Daddy was the only person who stood by me through everything!”

“Oh!” He widens his eyes and purses his lip in a mockery of her sorrow. “While it is true that the love between father and child can destroy worlds, that doesn’t seem to be enough. The curse doesn’t demand the thing you love much. You must give up the thing you love most.”

“Snow White killed the only other thing I ever loved.”

“Oh, then you’re in trouble, aren’t you, dearie?” He giggles. “You don’t understand what you’re trying to do!”

“I’m trying to get revenge!”

“You’re trying to make yourself happy!” He grabs the bars of his cage. “You said it yourself, there’s nothing for you in this world. You think you have no choice but to destroy everything here and start over. Do that, and you’ll lose things, dearie. What you love most is just the first step.”

“But I have nothing to love!”

“And nothing loves you? No one loves you, Your Majesty? No one in this world wants to make you happy? No one would embrace you, if only they thought you might embrace them back?”

She begins to speak, then stops. Her royal countenance freezes. He can see the thought blossom in her mind.

“There it is!” he cackles. “You know what you love, dearie. Now… Go kill her!”

#golden rings #rumbelle fic #rumbelle #ouat #regina mills

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dhwty-writes · 3 years

Text

Goodbyes

We’re almost done! Part 6 of @heyabooboo‘s gift for @thewitchersecretsanta.

I'M SORRY! I know it was mean to end the last chapter like that, but I couldn't resist. I won't keep you waiting any longer, here's the second to last chapter:

Summary: Jaskier has lost the Game of Fools. Before he says goodbye forever, he asks for one last favour.

Moodboard by the amazing @petrificustotaluss

Warnings: references to depression

Read on AO3

'It truly is the softest silk,' he thought as the white robes settled on his body. 'The chains are a bit heavy, though I suppose shackles are meant to be.' Maybe he could bargain to be relieved of those later. He had a lot of time, now.

He blinked his eyes open to see he had traded places with Geralt. He was kneeling at the deity's feet while the witcher stood before him; bloodied and bruised, his hair a matted mess, clad in black leather. "Jaskier," he whispered, disbelievingly.

Slowly, a smile spread on his face. "There," he said softly. "That's better."

"What- no! What is happening?" Furious, he turned to the deity, all the docile tranquillity that now settled in Jaskier's mind gone, replaced with outrage, disbelief, fear. "We made a deal," his voice was quivering uncharacteristically. "You said you'd leave them be as long as I'd stay. You said you wouldn't lay a finger on him!"

There was something strange about Geralt's statement, something that Jaskier's clouded mind couldn't quite grasp. "It's alright," he promised just as the deity answered: "We did. Until he offered a better one. I might be a god, but he chose this fate and there is nought that I can do. Just as little as you. There is no entity stronger than the own free will of a man. He will stay until the day that he completes the task."

Jaskier blinked slowly. That might be the most the deity had said to him since his arrival. "Task?" he echoed weakly. When had talking become so hard? "What task?"

"Funny that you should ask." They carded their fingers through his hair and he couldn't help but lean into the touch. It still burned, though not as much as when he had touched them before. "I already told you," they soothed. "Follow the rules, that's all you have to do."

"Free will or not," Geralt growled, "I am not about to accept this. It is my own free will to say that I am staying. Let him go."

"I can't," they answered simply, "and I shan't. Your soul belongs to me no more, that's what he is paying for. It was won, fair and square. You can go, he'll be fine within my care."

"No!" he insisted and stepped forward, one hand already going for the sword.

They held up their hand in warning. "Go ahead and draw your sword," they said, almost sounding amused, "and you'll end up where you were before. With no-one to save you anymore. Your freedom was won, so go on: leave."

Helpless, Jaskier watched as the witcher growled and narrowed his eyes and the deity raised their hand, lighting curling around it. He had to do something. "Wait!" he blurted and leapt to his feet before he even knew what he was doing. Both of them turned to him. "I— I should be granted a favour, I believe."

Geralt's brows knit together in confusion, but the deity only chuckled. "And why is that?"

"For putting up a fight."

They crossed their arms defiantly, but at least the lightning stopped. "Alright. Ask your favour, then."

"I won't see him again," it wasn't a question. "This is no realm that welcomes him. I— May I say my farewell? There's... one last truth I need to tell."

Suddenly, their expression softened. "Be my guest."

Carefully, and with shaking knees Jaskier inched towards Geralt. He was half expecting the deity to withdraw their permission halfway there, but then he was standing next to his witcher and being pulled into a tight embrace. He almost forgot to breathe and was gasping for air once Geralt released him again. Though that might also be attributed to the sobs shaking his body.

"I'm sorry," he whispered quietly enough that he hoped that the deity couldn't hear them. Those were very slim hopes, however.

"Don't be," Geralt lied, "it's not your fault."

Jaskier's heart clenched. 'Only that it is.' It was him who had been foolish enough to enter into this world. Who had been foolish enough to challenge a god. Foolish enough to think he could win. 'It was always going to end like this.'

"Jaskier," he said insistently, "Jaskier, look at me." Slowly, he raised his gaze to comply. "I won't leave you here to your demise. I will come back for you and I will get you out of here. You know that right, you—"

"No," he shook his head adamantly. "No, Geralt, please don't—"

But the witcher didn't hear him, and if he did, the selective deafness stroke again: "I won't let them take you away from me, do you understand that? You just need to be a bit patient, alright? Wait for me."

"I won't," he replied with a steadier voice than he would have thought possible.

"Jaskier—"

"Shh, Geralt." He put a finger over his witcher's lips to shut him up. "We don't have much time. Just once in your life I need you to listen to me. Can you do that?"

"Just—"

"Can you do that?" he asked again, more insistently this time. Geralt nodded slowly and Jaskier wet his lips with his tongue nervously. "When I came here, I was fully aware that this outcome was an option," he began explaining quietly. “Not my preferred one, of course, but an option nevertheless. I wouldn't have entered this world if I hadn't been willing to bear the consequences."

He breathed in and out shakily. "I am more than willing to stay if it means that you walk free. If you— If you want to help me, there's one thing you can do."

"Anything," Geralt said. It sounded so desperate that for one moment Jaskier could imagine that he knew the extent of such a promise. So desperate that for one moment he almost regretted what he had done.

'Focus,' he told himself. He was doing this for Geralt, after all. "I need you to wake up. I need you to go back to your sorceress and your child surprise, your brothers and your friends, all the people you love. And then—" He gulped. "And then I need you to forget about me. Do not come back. Do not bargain for my release. Do not go looking for a cure, for there is none. I will return when my time is done, and maybe if the fates are kind, you and I will meet again."

"But—"

"No buts, Geralt. If you have any respect for me and our friendship, do as I say. Don't you dare waste what I just gave you. Don't you dare trade your soul for mine again, don't you dare waste your life with grief. Did I make myself clear?"

"Yes."

"Good." Jaskier nodded, his whole body trembling. "Good. One more thing. There's something I... have for you. A parting gift, if you will. One last song, if you will have it."

"I... I will. Always."

Jaskier nodded and pulled him down to his knees with him. He'd rather do that in a position where he might not be in danger of collapsing spontaneously. His lute appeared in his hands, his fingers settling on the strings as if it was as natural as breathing. He plucked the first notes, breathed in and— hesitated.

"Fuck," he cursed quietly. 'I can't do it, I can't—' It was the one song he had written that never was supposed to be heard. The one song he had only dared to compose when he was overcome with heartache and grief, incapable of keeping all those feelings inside without combusting. The one song that was nowhere to be found, not a single line written on so much as a scrap. And now he was supposed to sing it to the last person who was ever supposed to hear it?

"Jaskier," Geralt said sheepishly, almost ashamed, "I lied."

That was enough to snap him out of his spiralling thoughts. "What?!" What on earth was that damned moron talking about now? Jaskier was having an existential crisis, thank you very much, and—

"I lied," he said again. "So many times. Your singing is no annoyance, no fillingless pie. I love it and I do not yet know how I shall lead a life without it. Without you. Please. Don't be afraid of me."

Somehow, that was all it took. "Never," he promised. He could only hope that Geralt knew the truth of that statement. From the first moment he had seen him in that shitty tavern in Posada, Jaskier could never imagine to be afraid of him, witcher or not. And how could he be? How could he fear a man as fiercely loyal and stubbornly kind as Geralt?

'I'm not afraid of you,' he wanted to tell him, but Geralt, as a witcher, as the Butcher of Blaviken, was feared by so many people. He couldn't allow him to believe for even a moment that Jaskier even thought about doing so himself. And so, there was nothing to be done but sing:

"I found you when you were so lonely

And I was on my own as well.

In spite of your nature, you took me in your heart,

Now I’ve got this story to tell.

I could hear the song of our heartbeats.

Within but an hour I knew

That I will love you ‘til the end of all time.

Each day I fall for you anew.

For you I’ll always wait

Although chance might tear our Paths asunder.

Against the whims of fate,

I will wait while you wander.

A monster is roaming the forest,

I laugh as I hear a wolf howl.

No devil of hell is bloodcurdling or fright’ning,

They all fear the White Wolf’s growl.

A demon they call you; I don’t care

‘bout that or if you love me.

My heart’s yours to keep, for better or worse

Your side is where I choose to be.

My friend, I’ll always wait

Although chance might tear our Paths asunder.

Against the whims of fate,

I will wait while you wander.

Your first laugh was brighter than sunshine.

When you laughed I did nearly faint.

But our life is not made of innocent pleasure,

Not this peaceful picture I paint.

I’m cursed, for I fell for a wand’rer.

Your Path is so ruthless and long.

I’m twice cursed for my fate is that of a dreamer

I blink, and I turn, and you’re gone.

My dear, I’ll always wait

Although chance might tear our Paths asunder.

Against the whims of fate,

I will wait while you wander.

Now I wander through the dark wasteland

At the hour of loneliness

No moon, star, or sun to cast but a mere beam

As I long for your soft caress.

A wealth of truths I failed to confess

In all of the poems you’ll miss.

The Path’s taking you far and farther afield

While I’m dreaming of your sweet kiss.

My heart, I’ll always wait

Although chance might tear our Paths asunder.

Against the whims of fate,

I will wait while you wander.

I sob as I curl up on my cot.

Without you my camp is too bare.

My terror’s my pillow, despair is my blanket;

I’m wishing that you were still there.

I fear this time you won’t come back here

You’ve fallen into the abyss.

I wonder if I should have bid you farewell

With that accursed ill-fated kiss.

My love, I’ll always wait

Although chance might tear our Paths asunder.

Against the whims of fate,

I will wait while you wander.

Dear heart, I’ll always wait.

I swear I’ll always stay."

Jaskier gasped quietly as the song ended. His head spun and his breath came raggedly as if he had forgotten to breathe throughout his performance. Maybe he had. Still, he wiped at the tears on his cheeks, put on a brave smile and asked: "Well? How about a review? Three words or less."

"Hmm." Geralt was frowning deeply, his expression so clouded with a whirlwind of emotions that not even Jaskier had the slightest idea what was going on in his head. Then, finally, he said: "It's not true."

"What is not true?" he meant to ask. But before such words could leave his mouth, he was silenced by Geralt's lips. Taken aback by the sudden motion, he tensed up. 'Salty,' was his first thought, 'and wet.' Was Geralt crying, too? He could scarcely believe it. Geralt had told him witchers couldn't cry. But he'd also told him they couldn't blush, the liar.

A hand slipped into his hair, carding softly through it, while Geralt snaked an arm around his waist and— 'Oh,' he realised belatedly, 'Geralt is kissing me.' It took him a moment to process that shock before he remembered that kisses were supposed to be a two-man-act and that he should probably start kissing Geralt back.

'Great gods,' he thought, 'I can kiss Geralt back!' With a desperate whine he let his lute drop to the ground, for once uncaring for the consequences—this was a paranormal netherworld that existed beyond what any mortal could grasp with its mind, after all, he doubted the lute would mind—and looped his arms around Geralt's neck to pull him in tight. Because after years of endlessly seemingly unrequited pining he was finally allowed to.

And now all he got was one farewell kiss.

After what felt like an eternity, they pulled apart. "It's not true," Geralt said again. "You make it sound like I don't love you as well, and that's not true. I love you, Jaskier. It scares me, but I do, more than you can imagine."

"Oh. I love you, too." He kissed him again. If only he had known that earlier. That would have changed everything. Only that it wouldn't have. Geralt still would have entered into the ruin. Jaskier still would have followed him to the netherworld. He still would have lost. They still would have been doomed to spend their lives apart.

"Your time is up," the deity commanded with a booming voice.

"I'm sorry," Jaskier said again. "Farewell, my love," he whispered and kissed him one last time. "Don't wait for me."

Thunder roared.

He blinked.

He found himself looking eye to eye at the deity, who stared down at their chest in disbelief. "Thank you," they whispered as if they couldn't quite understand what was going on either. Lightning cracked like a whip. They groaned and sank to one knee. Jaskier surged forward to keep them from falling, but he wasn't fast enough.

Thunder roared. Wind surged up, mingling with the darkness receding from their body.

He blinked.

The shackles disappeared around his wrists and fell to the ground. "What—"

"Jaskier!" Geralt yelled, trapped on the other side of an impenetrable wall of storm clouds and lightning. "What's happening?"

"It hurts," they whimpered curling in on themself. "Please, it hurts so bad."

"What does?" Jaskier asked. "Tell me, how can I help you?"

An agonised scream escaped their lips. "My heart," they sobbed. Thunder roared again. A deep crack appeared on the grey, stony surface of their chest. "It's breaking again." The stone splintered further. The light filtering through the rifts was almost blinding. Not angry lightning, but soft, soothing sunlight.

"No," he said softly. "You're starting to feel again."

"I'm hurting!" they disagreed, their voice almost drowned out by the thunder of another crack appearing. "Don't you see? How can that be better than feeling nothing at all?"

"It will get better," Jaskier promised because there was nothing else, he could think of to say. "It hurts, but it will get better." And then, because apparently, he had lost his sanity somewhere in the netherworld, he surged forward and pulled them into a tight hug.

Thunder roared and the first wave of pain punched the air from his lungs. "Great gods," he wheezed. The trials had been barely a pinch in comparison. Still, he refused to let go.

"What are you doing?" they sobbed, uselessly shoving at his shoulders. "I'm hurting you." As if that would get him to let go. He was as stupid as a turd and as stubborn as a mule with no sense of self-preservation, after all. And he knew exactly how they felt. The emptiness. The numbness. The nothing. And the heartbreak, the agony when the stone encasing your heart finally crumbled away.

"I know," he said, pigheadedly holding them even tighter. "But alone you're hurting even more." He squeezed them and heard the stone crack again. "It will be over soon. It will be better."

Thunder roared. Lightning flared. They both cried and sobbed in unison.

He blinked.

The storm died and the wall of darkness around them dropped. Above the sun had reached its zenith, the sickly orange washed away.

He blinked.

He was lying on the ground, his sweat-soaked hair plastered against his forehead and breathing heavily. When he stretched out his hand, he could feel the deity's next to his. "You did it," he whispered and grasped their fingers. Their touch was pleasant and warm, like a ray of sunshine after a cold spring day.

"No," they answered. "You did." They fought themself to their feet.

Jaskier's breath hitched. They were even more beautiful than before. Their body was still engulfed in swirling mist and snow, their skin still the same tan colour. But instead of darkness shrouding them, they were glowing now. Not with violently flashing lightning, but a soft reddish glow. 'Like the sky eternally stuck in sunset.' Their long hair floated behind them as if they were surrounded by water instead of air. And in their chest where the grey expanse of stone had been, was now a swirling sphere of golden light. They tilted their head to the side, their eyes sparkling kindly.

"Jaskier!" his attention was diverted by Geralt looming over him with a worried look on his face. "Are you alright? Talk to me, Jaskier, what happened."

"I'm fine," he croaked and let him pull him to his feet, leaning heavily on him, "I think."

"You are free to go," the deity answered in his stead, "if you wish so."

Geralt's grasp on his waist tightened at that. "I am?" Jaskier asked, confused. "But I lost."

"No, you paid the cost," they insisted and bowed their head. "With your song you freed me from my throne. A song to melt a heart of stone."

"I did? I didn't know."

"And maybe it's better so. Go now, both of you. Wake up, but be careful as you do. You are safe within this world, but on the journey back you're on your own. You'll have to find your way alone. Do not get lost."

Jaskier pried Geralt's arm away, to manage a deep bow. "Thank you," he said, earnestly grateful, "for your advice. And for keeping your word."

They smiled. "I might be a dreamer, coward, and a fool, but I am not a liar, too. Enjoy your freedom."

"We will," he promised and turned to Geralt. "Come on, love. It's time. Let's go home."

Geralt frowned darkly. "How do we do that?"

Jaskier chuckled. "Of course, you wouldn't understand," he mumbled with fond adoration. Geralt opened his mouth to say something, but Jaskier was faster: "It's easy," he promised. "As easy as breathing." He put his hand over Geralt's eyes. "Close your eyes," he instructed him. "Take a deep breath. Just like you taught me." He waited until his witcher's breathing evened out. "Good. And now, love, imagine waking up."

Geralt heaved another breath. Jaskier kissed him on the lips. "I'll be with you in just a moment," he promised.

He blinked.

“Jaskier,” the deity said softly. Geralt was gone and Jaskier found himself alone in an empty garden with a deity. He turned around to them.

“He’s gone,” he whispered, relieved.

“He is. You showed him how.”

He gnawed on his lip, nervously. "Could Geralt have left at any time? Is this a prison of his design?"

They hummed thoughtfully, contemplating that question. "It is and it's not. He owed me, after all. But after paying his price, yes, he could have left." They sighed. "But," the deity continued, "he couldn't have."

"He could have never imagined," Jaskier whispered.

"No," the Deity said softly, then scrunched up their nose. "Are you certain it's him you want? You can do so much better than that."

"No," Jaskier answered with a dreamy smile. "I can't imagine that."

"Such words from you. I wouldn't have thought it possible." They smiled. "I have a question for you, too, flower, one answer that finally is due. Say it, friend, do not be shy, so this chapter finally can end. Tell me, who am I?"

He thought for a short while before answering: "I thought you were the patron of dreams, but here nothing is quite like it seems. Who you are, you want to know? You are who you create yourself to be. Just like I. Fate's around our necks like a noose, but what matters in the end is what we choose. I am not who I have been, nor am I who still will come. Reality will bow to your whim, and to mine, until I am gone. We are who we create, deity or not, we share the same fate."

"So, you do understand," they said, a satisfied smile spreading on their face. "From the moment I laid eyes on you, I knew you were divine as well."

"I am," Jaskier agreed, understanding. "You are not alone."

"Neither are you. There is a witcher waiting for you."

He smiled. "And I will go to him in just a moment," he promised, "but… What about you? What will happen when I’m gone?”

"You go back to your life," they answered with a sad smile, "I go back to mine. It will be fine."

"It won't." He frowned. "You will be lonely again."

"If that's Fate's will, so be it then."

He huffed. "I did not just bear the brunt of your pain only for it to happen all over again. What will you do when I'm not around anymore? What will you do when you turn to stone again?"

They laughed weakly and shook their head. "Your concern is cute, but uncalled for. Not even a god lives long enough to turn to stone twice in their life."

"Not even a god?" he frowned. "Can it happen to mortals, too?"

"Worry not, my flower dear," they replied. "You're not in danger here. Humans might grow still, but they die before they petrify. As will I, once the loneliness returns."

“In that case, friend, I have one last offer to present. A priest you want, you say?" He bowed with a flourish. "It would be my highest honour to take on that duty for you. I might not pray or know how to raise a temple But I can make people believe in you. I can make people imagine."

"That you can," they agreed. "The honour would be mine, priest." They held up their hand. "Before you go. Might you show me what you've created?"

"Of course. Come and look your fill."

He blinked.

There was a wooden door hovering in the air over the wintery garden. He turned the doorknob and stepped aside to let the deity peer through, but not before sneaking a glance as well.

The lake was still there, and it was still winter, too. But instead of the playing children there was a cottage on the shore, with a bench overlooking the scenery. On it sat an elderly couple, leaning against each other and smiling.

They smiled. "It's beautiful."

"Thank you. If you want it, it belongs to you. Talking flowers, birds, and all."

They giggled. It sounded strange out of their mouth, strange and familiar at once. "I should have known I'd find that in your world. I look forward to visiting."

"And I look forward to returning," Jaskier answered. "Invite us again once our days on earth are done. We will come."

"Once the day of both your deaths arrives, I will. But ‘till then I’ll stand guard, so that none without the other parts. So now: farewell."

He was hesitant almost when he said: "I shall be taking my leave."

"You shall. Good riddance, priest."

Jaskier stood and turned. "It was an honour meeting you," he said and bowed deeply. "Farewell, Nehaleni."

The deity looked almost surprised for a moment, but Jaskier was already imagining.

He blinked.

#my writing #For You I'll Always Wait #FYIAW #geraskier #geralt of rivia #jaskier #julian alfred pankratz #geraskier fanfiction #the witcher fanfiction #geraltxjaskier #geralt/jaskier #the witcher secret santa

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thewhirlwind · 4 years

Text

STRANGE OMENS — CHARACTER SUMMARIES

CHARACTERS WRITTEN / CREATED BY FORSYTHE ( @thewhirlwind ):

ANTONIO REYES— Antonio Reyes is the sheriff in Frostford’s local sheriff’s department. He’s Vothine’s half-human son, bearing four arms and a nuanced senses. He was born in 837 BC, his mother was a slave who escaped Ancient Greece with her former lover’s help, and raised him in Spain. He starts off investigating the strange cult activity that starts going on in the surrounding region. Canonically dating Ivory Wells, or at least will be.

AINSLEY LACHLAN— the son of a Russian mobster and twin brother to Renard, Ainsley Lachlan is one of the local Catholic priests, and arguably the only openly gay one in the area. He firmly believes these things aren’t mutually exclusive, but eventually he’s lead astray by Vothine, who manipulates him into thinking that releasing Epsolise will create a paradise for mankind, and the truth is, all he’s ever wanted was to help people, to make up for his father’s crimes.

RENARD LACHLAN— Ainsley’s slightly younger, twin brother, Renard is Frostford’s local neurosurgeon, sometimes moonlighting as a trauma surgeon when his schedule is open. He took an interest in neurology due to his own, rather severe dyslexia, which slowed him down in school, until Ainsley was old enough to read to him and help him learn how to read despite his disorder. Like his brother, he wants to help people, but he has no hang ups about his father’s crimes. Later, when his brother unleashes Epsolise, he becomes host to the Elder God, and it messes him up severely. His best friends are Alana Reid and Ruo Silva, and canonically he’s dating Everett Novak.

THEODORE HUDSON— Theo is the owner of Hudson Technology, better known as HudTech, a global leader in all kinds of technology and founded when Theo graduates MIT, some years back. (I haven’t decided on a year yet rip.) Best friend to Everett Novak, Theo often hires him as a freelancer to work on the coding side of his various project; together the two can accomplish nearly anything. In 2015, he was fooling around with a project trying to create a kind of artificial intelligence by combining eldritch magic with technology. In doing so, he inadvertently summoned Vothine, who killed him—brutally. Violently—and then melded with his body. This did revive Theo, albeit much, much weaker, but he was able to fight back when Vothine went after his best friend and interfere with his attacks. Eventually, Everett does manage to free him from the god’s hold, but he’s left with a great many mental and physical scars.

ALANA REID— Alana is part of Renard’s surgical team. Along with Ruo Silva, the three of them went to college together in NYC, NY, and she moved out to Frostford after Ruo told them there were job openings at the local hospital. (So did Renard.) when Ruo died, Alana may have personally beaten the shit out of her murderer and abuser. After she ressurects, Alana canonically dates Ruo. The two of them are also Renard’s best friends.

THE LOTUS TWINS—They’re also known as the twin gods of discordance. Initially born in the depths of a dying star as the singular god of balance, Asikolise, they were ripped asunder by the black hole formed in its death. With balance rent in two, they became two gods that slowly tipped the scales of the universe back and forth from one far end back to the other, over extended periods of time.

EPSOLISE— One of the two lotus twins, known for forming the garden, an Eden for eldritch horrors to feed on the living things that roamed the earth. Man, beast, whatever. When Ipsilise is bound, Epsolise walks free.

AURI’ELL OV’AGOTHA/AURI’ELL ILLI’ED— Auri’ell is thought of as two gods with incredibly similar names, the kings of the sea and of magic, it the truth is—he’s one singular entity with two titles and two domains. He was born Alain MacNamara of the coast of Ireland in 1389, to a sailor who would eventually take him to sea with him. At first, his study of eldritch magic was a passing interest with which to study marine life; but as his mind deteriorated due to the magic, he became obsessed, focusing on what was on the other side of it. Eventually, he broke through it, becoming he god of the sea and the god of magic, being the one who advanced eldritch magic the most over his life. Unstuck in time, he went back to he very beginning—and eventually, he introduces magic to the world, when mankind is old enough to understand it.

VOTHINE— the god of chaos, he’s in love with the lotus gods; all three iterations of them. From the dawn of time he’s been tipping the scales back and forth between Epsolise, and Ipsilise, hoping that one day, someone would find a way to stop them—by fusing them together into the one entity they were truly meant to be. His methods, however, are rough, due to be whole... chaos thing. People who deal with him frequently end up hurt, traumatized for life. A fine example being Theodore Hudson. Vothine is not so unlike Auri’ell, in that he was created from a man, but his wasn’t a choice. He was a slave in early Ancient Greece, experimented on by his owner until he became something more. With his new found powers, he likely slaughtered this who owned him and the one he loved, before helping her escape back to her home country, Spain. But she grew scared of him, as he grew less and less human with each passing day, until finally they—amicably—agreed to go their separate ways. He still loves her, but he understood he had a different purpose now. He, like Auri’ell, was also unstuck in time. But instead of going back to he beginning, he was drawn back to the point in which the lotus gods were created, feeling the way their power balanced out, appearing mere moments before they were torn apart.

CHARACTERS WRITTEN / CREATED BY FOA ( @ephemeraltheory & @exemplaryambiance ):

EVERETT NOVAK—Initially a gifted software engineer as well as a magic user, Everett had sworn off of using magic after he’d accidentally caused permanent nerve damage to his father’s hands when he was fourteen. His father was a woodworker and had his own business so he had to take over most of the weight of the business until he left for college. After his best friend Theo gets taken by Vothine, Everett is permanently injured by Vothine, leaving him with nerve damage in his lower back and leg. He refurbishes a library in Frostford with the goal to learn every ounce of magic that he possibly could in order to save his friend. Everett becomes a master warlock by the time the story begins and later, he canonically ends up dating Renard Lachlan.

RUO SILVA—Ruo was fourteen when she met her abuser ( emotional abuse and much later, physical abuse ), Mallory. Ever since then, Mallory has coerced Ruo into a romantic relationship and over time, she gradually isolated her from any possible friends she could have made as well as from her own parents. She convinced Ruo that their relationship would be in danger if she spoke about it to anyone. Ruo is able to escape the home she ends up sharing with her abuser to go to college to be a nurse. Here, she meets and befriends Alana and Renard, who provide a taste of what it actually feels like to be cared about, what it feels like to not always be afraid that people you love will hurt you. What it feels like to have actual friends. One night when Ruo reluctantly returns home to bathe and retrieve things she’d needed, she and Mallory get into an argument about Ruo’s consistent absence and Mallory eventually forcibly holds Ruo beneath the bath water, drowning her. Having been wearing an ancient family heirloom, a garnet necklace, after 2-3 months, Ruo is reincarnated as an Enenra, which is essentially a fire elemental / smoke demon / spirit. Her best friend is Renard Lachlan and canonically, she and Alana begin dating after she’s reincarnated.

IVORY WELLS—Ivory is the crime scene technician for Frostford’s local police department. As a child, Ivory lost a close friend Iris to a serial killer when she was about twelve. For about six years, they weren’t able to find the person responsible nor were they able to figure out what had happened to her. Around the time Ivory turned eighteen however, they’d re-opened the case due to another child’s death that had the same M.O. They used the most current technology to go over the collected evidence once more and were able to finally find the convicted murderer, which brought not only herself and Iris’s family closure and justice, but also closure and justice for the families who had lost a child to the same fate. This is what drove Ivory to become a crime scene technician, to offer that same closure to others. She has worked with Antonio Reyes for 5 years and canonically, they start dating sometime in book 1.

IPSILISE—One of the two lotus twins, she is benevolent towards humanity but has an obsessive need for control, to the point of detriment. One of her common names is CROATOAN, but she’s responsible for other missing cities; Atlantis. Sodom & Gomorrah. A handful of others we have yet to uncover. When Epsolise is bound, Ipsilise walks free.

#ephemeraltheory #exemplaryambiance #this is all of our muses and basically a summary of who's who #also just bc they have a canon ship doesn't mean i won't ship with them if you're into that #as several of mine have other ships on here already #( Strange Omens information. )

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ask-de-writer · 4 years

Text

SEA DRAGON’S GIFT : Part 38 of 83 : World of Sea

Return to the Master Story Index

Return to World of Sea

SEA DRAGON’S GIFT

Part 38 of 83

De Writer (Glen Ten-Eyck)

140406 words

written 2007

Reproduction in any form, physical, electronic or digital is prohibited without the express consent of the author.

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Users of Tumblr.com are specifically granted the following rights. They may reblog the story provided that all author and copyright information remains intact. They may use the characters or original characters in my settings for fan fiction, fan art works, cosplay, or fan musical compositions.

All sorts of fan art, cosplay, music or fiction is actively encouraged.

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New to the story? Read from the beginning. PART 1 is here

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“Lady, your watch is over.”

“Oi know t’at, Forst Officer Karas. We ‘ave special orders from t’e Ca’tain. Send a runner t’ assemble t’e wotch.” She seized the wrist of the watch-drummer as he was about to beat ‘Assembly.’

“We are still under silence. Go, bring t’em all. Quietly. Nae so muckle as a shout. Lookoots t’.” One look at the cold gray eyes lit by the shielded watch lamp convinced him. He went swiftly and silently. Only a bit more creaking from the rigging told of sailors going up to get the high lookouts and bring them down. Men and women were assembling before the quarter-deck.

Shortly, the entire watch was assembled. They had got the idea that silence was needed and waited for her to speak.

“We are changing t’e protocol o’ orders. T’e drums’re t’ be silenced. Nae shouting. Orders’ll be delivered by runner. We are doubling t’e lookoots. Ane’ll run messages. Utter silence’s essential. Does ever’ane understand t’is?”

A nervous sailor, nameless in the crowd said, “Clear, Ma’am, but for one thing. Why?”

“We ‘ad a mutiny.” The shocked looks that this simple statement caused made her clarify, “Direct orders were willfully disobeyed. An innocent person, nae o’ t’e Grandalor wa’ murdered in circumstances t’at implicate most o’ t’e ship. Soon t’ere’ll be a ‘unt up, ‘ence t’e silence. Anyt’in’ more’ll ‘ave t’ come from t’e Ca’tain ‘imsel’. Oi understand t’at ‘e’ll address t’e ‘ole crew tomorrow morning.

“Lookoots: rig bosun’s chairs from t’e ‘ighest points o’ masthead t’at can be reached. We need all t’e warning t’at we can get.

“Each mast crew an’ t’e jibs, choose runners t’ stay ‘ere an’ return t’ yer stations. Be ready for a major course change. Go!”

The course change was done with only the sound of rigging creaking and protesting as the sails were set for the new course. The Grandalor heeled over on her new tack and the rhythm of the waves driven asunder by her bows changed. Tanlin pointed out a constellation to the helmswoman.

“Make due for t’at group o’ stars. We Arrakans call t’at constellation ‘t’e Fangs.’ W’at do ye folk call ‘t?”

The woman did not pause from hauling on the steering tackle to set the course exactly as she answered, “Near enough the same. That’s the Dragon’s Jaws.”

“T’ank ye. Let t’e next wotch know t’at Oi’ll be up t’ tell t’em o’ any change or even t’at t’ere’s nae change.”

“Very good, Ma’am.” The helmswoman finished trimming their course and added, “Permission to speak frankly?”

Tanlin scanned the tidy decks and rig of the big square-rigger to be sure of their privacy before answering. “Speak, an’ t’at wit’oot fear. Ye are Dragon safe in m’ ‘ands.”

“Strange expression that. Arrakan?”

Tanlin checked their course and, satisfied responded, “Aye. W’at ye say ends ‘ere. Oi’ll neither reveal ‘t wit’oot yer permission nae ‘old ‘t against ye.”

The helmswoman made a minute adjustment as the wind changed a tiny bit. “I saw you look about the ship before answering. What did you see?”

Mystified, Tanlin answered, “W’at should Oi see? A neat an’ well run ship. I’ t’ere a point t’ t’is?”

“It will be clear in a moment. The Grandalor has always been a ship of last resort. The refuge of those in need of a last chance. Few of us came eagerly. Many of us, myself included, owe our very lives to this ship. We were not a happy crew and she has not been a happy ship. That changed some Wohans back.

“You’ve never seen the Grandalor as anything but shipshape. Do you know when it became a neat, well run ship? It began when your cousin was chosen as Barad’s cabin-girl. She was one of those who dove to survey the wreck of the Princamorn. She was made Captain’s cabin-girl only a few weeks after your ship was wrecked. Nobody expected her to live for very long after that, or ever to see her again. Barad’s cabin-girls used to disappear.

“While you lay in that coma, Kurti had an effect on the Captain that nobody else ever had. It was a good effect for all of us, in small ways. We started to be more ship-shape because she got the Captain to pay more favorable attention to our work.

“She was allowed freedom of the ship, and to go armed. No cabin-girl and few of the crew ever before had such freedoms! Only she, Barad and Doctor Corin knew that she was dying.

“Kurti got a treatment resistant case of lung parasites when she dove on the Princamorn.” The helmswoman shuddered at the memory. “That’s an awful way to go. Barad himself carried her to sickbay the morning of her final attack. We’re pretty sure that he loved her even though they could never have married. We really thought he’d go mad from grief.

“I was right here at the tiller tackle when the Orca Whale came and sang for her. It was so weird. It sang and jumped for over two hours. I guess that Dark Iren sent it to give you to us when he took her.

“You know how the Captain watched over your recovery. What you don’t seem to know is that you continued the good that Kurti started. That’s what is important to us all. We in the crew are glad for you both.

“You and Kurti looked so much alike that you were mistaken for her when you were brought aboard,” Darkistry paused and admired the rising of swift little Dorac, setting the sea to glittering orange flame with it’s early light. “Nobody that knows you for ten minutes can mistake you for her. It’s been discussed, gossiped about and dropped.

“I did say that things were better in small ways. Happiness doesn’t come from a big thing. It’s the pile of little things. We’re happy now and proud of our ship.

“The whole Night, all three watches, voted to tell you this. We’d reserved the main square at the Gathering so that we could all do this for you both. In public for all to see.”

She dropped to one knee, held out her hands, palm up. Tanlin, guessing what was coming, held out hers, palm down and clasped the woman’s hands. The helmswoman said steadily, in spite of obvious emotion, “I, Darkistry Colm Grinna, now of the Grandalor alone, pledge myself to the Captain, Barad, the Lady Tanlin, and the Grandalor, my Ship. Behind me in this oath stand the whole of all three Night-Watches. We shall bear no other name but Grandalor.”

“Oi hope ye forgive m’,” said Tanlin, near choking on the lump of joy in her throat, “but Oi must say t’at Oi donnae belong in such an oath. ‘T should be t’ t’e Ca’tain alone.”

Darkistry said thoughtfully, “We considered that. You can’t navigate without both sea and sky. It’s the two of you who make this ship work. It must be both or naught. We have not forgotten that even at his worst, Barad stood by us and gave us a ship and a chance. With your coming we got pride as well. We will not let the two of you down in your need. We will stand by you to Iren’s Halls.”

Tanlin took a deep breath and said, “T’en Oi must take yer oath as tis dune in t’e Arrakan fleet, ‘oose custom Oi know,” and she took Darkistry’s hands into a different grip, so that neither had a hand above the other. “For m’ Ca’tain, Barad Maks Grandalor an’ m’sel’, Tanlin Miken Princamorn, Oi take yer oath. Yer life’ll be as safe in our ‘ands as t’e Dragons allow. Ye are now adopted t’ t’is ship, nae only signed on as crew, but given an’ freely taking ‘ts name.

“T’ese ‘ands are equal, Oi nae ‘igher, nae ye lower. Toget’er, we are ane ship. Stand wit’ m’.”

Darkistry looked into Tanlin’s face and saw tears of joy limned by the pale light of Dorac now clear of the horizon. She stood.

“Oi must tell t’e Ca’tain, an’ Log t’is event. Oi’m glad t’ know ye, Darkistry Colm Grandalor.”

“Will you go find Mister Karas first? Just say, ‘It is done.’ He will know what you mean.”

“Oi’ll do ’t. ‘E’s up by t’e mizzen mast,” said Tanlin, going forward. She found First Officer Karas in conversation with his second officer, Mikalat. She touched his shoulder and said, “Tis dune.”

He began to kneel but she stopped him with a gentle hand.

“Give yer oath t’ t’e Ca’tain ‘imsel’, tomorrow. T’ere’ll be a general assembly o’ t’e crew t’ explain w’at’s ‘appened. ‘E’ll be glad o’ t’e support.”

Back in their cabin, Barad noticed that Tanlin was not coming to bed. She was busily preparing papers and striking names from the watch-book and Log.

“What are you doing, Tanlin? It is far too late to be faking papers. Falsehood cannot get us out of this mess.”

“Ye ’ave been t’e master o’ t’at art,” she smiled at him. “‘Owever, t’ere’s nae false ‘ere. Only trut’. T’will gladden ye t’ know t’at all t’ree o’ t’e night-wotches ‘ave just been adopted an’ sworn t’ ye and m’. T’ese parchments are t’ confirm t’e fact.”

Barad’s brow furrowed. “All of them? That’s nearly a third of the crew. How did it happen and how did you get into their oath?”

“Luve,” she said gravely, “t’ey were goin’ t’ do ‘t in public at t’e Gat’ering. Wen t’at became impossible, t’ey deputed t’e ‘elmswumon, Darkistry, t’ swear for t’em all. Oi protested bein’ in t’e oath but t’ey wad ‘ave ‘t nae ot’er way. Said ‘t wa’ t’e twa o’ us ‘ad made t’em a ‘appy ship.”

“Perhaps I have undervalued their happiness. I have never had anything like this happen before …” he trailed away in thought.

“‘Appiness’s a ‘ard t’ing t’ calculate,” she responded calmly turning back to her documents.

TO BE CONTINUED

<==PREVIOUS NEXT==>

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#SEA DRAGON’S GIFT #Part 38 of 83 #World of Sea #Written by De Writer

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vannahfanfics · 4 years

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Ooooo there's a part of me that really wants to challenge you and ask for Drake and Nami (can be shippy or general) for the prompt "Snow."

Voila, my dearest! Your challenge was pretty fun to write, and so I hope you have just as much fun reading it! :3

Frenemies

“Oh shit.”

Nami could not think of anything more eloquent or lady-like to exclaim in her situation, not that there was anyone around to critique. She shuddered and pitifully rubbed her bare, paling arms as the snow whirled around her in frantic flurries and shuffled her feet constantly as the cold moisture soaked into the absorbent fabric of her boots, all while staring wide-eyed at the dismantled mess that was the Weatheria hot air balloon she may or may not have taken for an unauthorized joy ride. She had only wanted to jaunt around in the sky for the bit, had that been too much to ask? The crash wasn’t even a result of her inability to pilot the massive thing; par for the Grand Line course, a giant bird had taken affront to its territory being invaded and attacked it with a razor-sharp beak, tearing the fabric asunder and sending Nami plummeting down. She had only just managed to land on the shore of a nearby island, but unfortunately it bore a winter climate.

Nami had not been dressed for the occasion in the slightest, having only prepared for the warm and sunshiney sea; as such, she was wearing far less than the required clothing, a tank top and some shorts. “I’m so screwed,” she whined pitifully and hung her head. The snow crunched under her feet as she trudged back to the destroyed hot air balloon; she could buy a few hours of time by basking in the lingering warmth of the trapped gases under the fabric, at least. She grabbed the wicker basket and turned it about such that it faced opposite the direction of the wind, then snuggled herself inside. The gas was slowly leaking out from under the billowing fabric, which provided a small dome of heat for the marooned navigator. Still, she knew that it wouldn’t last very long; she just had to hope and pray that someone would come for her. From the air, even though she was spiraling out of control, she had not spied any sort of settlement on the relatively small island. It looked completely abandoned, and therefore marching through a blizzard scantily clad as she was would constitute no less than a death wish. Nami rubbed her numbing fingers before placing them in the bubble of dissipating heat, hoping to stave of frostbite for as long as she could.

The cold crept in slowly, like a lioness stalking her like the meek prey Nami was, all while the snow continued to rain down endlessly. A healthy bit of it had piled up on the edge of the wicker basket; due to the lingering heat, the bottom portion was gradually melting into icy water, seeping through the woven wood strips to drip down onto her already chilled frame. It splashed against the numb skin of her shoulder with steady, repetitive splashes, and Nami imagined it as the ticking of a clock; first, a steady progression towards her rescue, but as time continued to pass, the nagging thought began to form in her mind- that it was a countdown to her freezing to death. She was not sure how much time had passed at all when the first shiver gripped her body; fifteen minutes? Fifteen hours? It was so hard to tell with only the dripping to tell time, as the dense gray clouds above hid the sun.

She was shuddering hard now, shaking the wicker basket with every wracking tremor. The snow sloughed off the edge of the basket to begin piling up beside her, progressively building a thick wall between herself and her continuously dwindling heat source. Every time that Nami swept her arm over the rising snow mound, the snowflakes countered by sinking into her flesh with sharp little teeth, spreading even more numbness across her already cold, unfeeling body. She would then desperately hug her arm to her chest, praying her body heat would revitalize it just a little bit.

By the time the breath was fogging in little puffy clouds before her face, her eyes were beginning to droop. Sleepiness was never a good sign but Nami could not muster the will to fight it. Her arms and legs were beginning to feel like ice itself, blocky and rigid and so, so cold. The ends of her fingers were white as the piling snow outside, as all the heat had begun to drain from her extremities to protect her core from the spreading chill plague. Her head lolled to the side, bumping against the wicker basket as she struggled against embracing the allure of restful sleep. Only for a few minutes… I’ll just rest until help gets here… she thought in the wintery haze. She was very aware of her heartbeat pounding in her ears, but it was strange, because it sounds like boots crunching against hard snow. Hope flared in her chest at the realization, and she managed to turn her stiffened neck to look out the basket’s open end. Was someone here to save her? The fabric of the hot air balloon had flattened out, only occasionally rippling with the tug of insistent winds; Nami was out of time. She opened her mouth to call out to whoever could be there, but the words were frozen in her throat. There was no mistaking it now; they were footsteps, they had to be-! Somehow, she managed a feeble whimper just barely audible above the whistling snowy winds. Please-! I’m right here!

Nami felt like she was going to cry as a navy-blue gloved hand curled over the edge of the basket. The snow was pushed around into heaps as the person effortlessly whirled the basket about to peer inside. Nami’s heart instantly plummeted and she felt incredibly nauseous, her hopes dashed in a matter of seconds. Her savior- if she could even call him that considering what could happen next- was none other than notorious Navy officer-turned-ruthless pirate X Drake. With another meek whimper, she pressed herself into the corner of the wicker basket looking the entire picture of a sopping kitten, dampened by the leaking ice water; to think that Cat Thief Nami had been reduced to such a state. It was pathetic, but Nami really didn’t have much in the way of an arsenal to combat it. Terrifying scenarios began to bounce through her half-frozen mind.

What if he kidnaps me and turns me in for the reward? What if he manages to track down someone else from the crew and tries to ransom me off? What would he do to me in the meantime? What if he has no intention of pawning me off at all and keeps me around as some form of morbid entertainment? What if he just kills me off right now? Her eyes had dilated greatly from terror and her breath was coming in shallow, high-pitched bursts now. With the remainder of her strength, she reached for her Climatact strapped to her leg.

“St-stay away!” she warned him. Despite her sorry state, she still managed to pour plenty of venom into her shaky voice. X Drake just stared at her levelly, his blank expression never shifting. Nami had no idea what was running through his mind at all.

“There’s no reason for you to be afraid. I have no intention of harming you.”

“Fat chance of that! You’re a pirate, a traitorous ex-Navy pirate at that!” she spat. That seemed to get at least a slight rise out of him, as his ginger eyebrows arched down over his dark eyes, just barely shadowed by the curved brim of his hat. “Why should I trust you?”

“You’ll freeze to death otherwise. Believe me or not, you don’t have much choice but to trust me here.” His reasoning was maddeningly sound. Nami didn’t have a choice. She didn’t have the time to wait around from someone from Weatheria any longer; she could very realistically die within the hour. Biting down on her lip in frustration, she frantically wracked her mind for any other alternative before uttering a very simple, curt “Fine.”

Drake stepped away from the basket as she shifted on her hands and knees to crawl out; it was more effort than she would’ve ever imagined. Her limbs had grown as stiff as oak wood from spending the entire time curled up in a single position, which was exacerbated by the freezing cold. Her palms burned like they were afire as she plunged her hands into the deep snow, and she wasted no time in pushing herself to her feet. She almost fell right back down, however, as her knees knocked together wildly from how hard her body was shaking. She hated that she presented such a meek, weak figure to the tall, menacing pirate, and to combat that image some she made sure her face was twisted into a very distrustful scowl.

“What a fierce woman you are,” he laughed heartily, not intimidated in the slightest. Her shrugged out of his fur-lined coat and held it out to her. Nami’s pride dictated that she accepted no pity and that she march on through the blizzard clad as she was, but holy hell, she could feel his intense body heat radiating from the garment, whispering sweet nothings of warmth and comfort. Nami threw her pride out the window and pretty much dove into the coat, sliding her arms through the long, wide sleeves and nearly melted into a puddle on the spot. Is was gargantuan on her, falling down to the middle of her calves and requiring her to roll up the sleeves several times, but that just seemed to make it all the more a bundle of life-giving heat. She found herself immediately relaxing despite the presence of the man beside her. Feels so good… she thought, her mind now muddled by the lovely warmth. She only looked at X Drake when he began to chuckle good-naturedly at her, and it was then that she noticed that he was dressed in a great many layers. It was freezing, no doubt, but not that excessive.

Right… His Devil Fruit power is reptile-based. Is his weakness the cold? She wondered. It would make sense. Considering that, the fact that he had trekked across the island to investigate the balloon crash and offer her the very nice coat chipped away slightly at her mistrust of him. Rumors weren’t everything; maybe, just maybe, Nami had been lucky to land before a pirate captain who carried some form of chivalry.

“I am curious. Where did you come from?” he inquired as he kicked the destroyed fabric of the balloon with a small frown. “I had heard rumor that the Straw Hats had been scattered after the events at Marineford. Considering you are alone and piloting this thing, I surmise that is true.” Should she tell him? Weatheria was very close; he might even offer to bring her there. Then again, would she put the weather wizards of Weatheria in danger by revealing her location? If he ever desired to exploit the fact that Nami was separated from the monstrous members of her crew, he could jaunt over and kidnap her like it was a Sunday walk. His eyes flickered to her, intense but not menacing. “I see you are still mistrustful of me. Very well then, I won’t pry.”

“You can rest assured in the fact that someone will come for me eventually, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“’Rest assured’? I think not. I hid out on this island to avoid the Marines; it isn’t much of a secret hideaway if someone knows that I’m here,” he pointed out with a voice that had finally taken some edge. She swallowed nervously; it was beginning to seem that she was right in not trusting him. He made no move, however, only watched her guardedly, and she knew her next move would determine her fate. Nami decided to bet that some honesty might get her out of this unscathed.

“I came from Weatheria. The weather wizards don’t have much interest in the squabbles between pirates and the Marines. If you don’t bother them, they won’t bother you.” The corner of his mouth twitched in what have may have been an attempt at a smile, and then he straightened up to his full intimidating height, towering over her as he tried to gauge the truth of her statement. Nami felt highly uncomfortable under his interrogative stare but did her best not to quail.

“Very well.” As he whirled on his heel to begin tromping away, she was a little unnerved on how easily he accepted her statement. She really couldn’t get a read on the guy, and she really prided herself on her ability to measure people up.

It was then that Nami noticed that the cold was beginning to seep back into her skin, despite the very padded coat. Right! My clothes are soaking wet. He raised an eyebrow at her as she drew har arms into the body of the coat and began to fidget around. “What are you-“ he didn’t finish his sentence as he saw Nami’s shorts drop into the snow, and his face immediately blazed a rich shade of crimson. “Why are you getting naked?!” he cried and whirled around with a hand over his eyes, though Nami was more than concealed by the coat.

“My clothes are wet. The coat won’t do any good if I’m still wearing them,” she answered while nonchalantly pulling her shirt through the neck of the jacket. It dropped against her shorts with a wet plop, and Drake let out a strangled gasp. A smirk appeared on Nami’s lips. So, the big, bad X Drake is shy around women? Good to know, she thought. She decided to keep her underwear on, because she didn’t trust him nearly enough to go completely commando with him around yet. She bent down to pick up the sopping wet clothes, then looked up to find him tromping several feet ahead of her.

“Come on, unless you want to die out here,” he called to her without even looking over his shoulder. He was probably mortified by his raging blush. Resigning herself to the fate that would at least prolong her survival, Nami hurried after him. It was a struggle for several reasons: her small stride was dwarfed by his, covering at least a foot and a half per step, and the snow had piled up to her knees. She had to hold up the hem of the coat as she literally waded through the thick white powder, while Drake was just moseying along with the stuff barely coming up to his calf. Nami very quickly fell behind, huffing and puffing; she was fairly certain that she had developed a fever to combat hypothermia as well, for her skin was flushing an angry red color and sweat was pooling on her forehead and making her tangerine hair stick uncomfortably to her scalp. After a point, Drake glanced back to see her several yards behind attempting to push her way through a snow drift. “Do you want help?”

“No!” she barked back at him, face twisted in a determined frown. She had already presented herself to be a damsel in distress enough today, and like hell she was going to let him carry her the rest of the way. With a jerk, she forced her leg through the wall of snow and stepped down, only to find that it concealed a very large hole. With a shrill shriek, her entire body sank down to her shoulders, with her arms splayed out over the top of the snowbank and her head tilted back to keep from getting a mouthful of the stuff. Immediately her skin bristled at the intense cold, and she very shrilly squeaked, “Yes, help me, please.” X Drake was chortling to himself as he strode effortlessly through the snowdrift to pluck her up by the back of her hood, lifting her like a kitten by its scruff. She dangled in the air for a second as he allowed her to brush as much of the wet snow from her body as possible.

Thankfully he decided not to carry her bridal-style or another degrading manner, but piggyback-style. His shoulders were so broad that Nami’s arms could barely meet around his neck, and it was an effort to hook her legs around his hips. She really didn’t complain, though, as the sheer amount of furnace-like heat rolling off his body chased away the rest of the cold and left her warm and content. It was even better that he was blushing bright pink from head-to-tow since he was very aware that she had naught but underwear on beneath his coat; Nami found that so amusing. Still, it was a little embarrassing clinging to him like some kind of little spider monkey. “Why are you doing all this?” she asked, unable to contain her curiosity. She could count on one hand the number of pirate captains who would take it upon themselves to rescue her asking nothing in return, much less let her parade around mostly naked under their coat without giving her more grief.

“I may have defected from the Navy, but that doesn’t mean I have become completely ruthless. A man has his own personal code of values, and chivalry towards women is in mine,” he answered with a small shrug, but given his size, he very nearly pushed her off and she had to wrap her arms tight around his neck to keep that from happening. “I would have to be a total monster to leave a young woman to freeze to death in the snow.”

“I know of several members of the Worst Generation who would do just that, or ‘rescue’ me only to hold me hostage or ransom me to the Marines,” she grumbled. His shoulders shook with a rumbling laugh.

“They don’t call us ‘the Worst Generation’ for nothing, indeed. I suppose you should count yourself lucky, Nami.” As she thought; he knew exactly who she was. Still, she was beginning to feel at ease with the ginger-haired pirate’s companionship; he seemed to have no ulterior motives and had not attempted to molest her in any way as of yet. She was still on her guard just in case it was all a front, but at the very least, he was easy to talk to. “Tell me, why is it the Straw Hats have decided to go their separate ways?”

“We’re training to take on the New World,” she answered. It wasn’t like he could use that information specifically for much of anything, so why lie? The Paramount War had been broadcasted on Saboady Archipelago for all to see; everyone knew that Luffy only escaped by the skin of his teeth, and was severely injured. The only reason that rumors weren’t flying that he had died was because he had declared war on the World Government only a few days later.

“And the World Government,” he mused as she thought about the incident. “Straw Hat sure is a bold one. He has a very loyal crew, for them to be willing to join in his crusade against them. The World Government isn’t a bunch of pushovers.”

“I believe in him one hundred percent! He’s going to be King of the Pirates, after all!” she insisted and was completely unabashed to do so. X Drake laughed heartily again, seemingly finding her confidence very entertaining rather than insulting. “Why’re you laughing? You’re shooting for the title too, aren’t you?”

“I have my goals and ambitions, yes,” he mused while looking back at her with glittering eyes, “but I would be a fool not to admit that the boy has potential. The fact that you speak so confidently of him is a testament to his charisma and uncanny ability to draw people to his cause.” Nami found herself smiling broadly, because he was right. Even his enemies found themselves admiring of him; he was just that special. The smile drooped like her lead hot air balloon as he added, “However, don’t think that I will be singing his praises if we meet in the new world. I won’t simply allow him to become Pirate King because I think he’s neat.”

“Bring it on. He’ll kick your ass,” she said bluntly. Another round of booming laughter. She had heard tales of his brutality and menace, but Nami was beginning to think that when he wasn’t a rampaging dinosaur, he was a pretty laid-back guy. It was almost a shame that the next time they did meet they would be enemies, because she almost liked him.

“We’ll see about that,” he responded in a contented hum. He suddenly stopped walking and looked up, frowning; Nami followed suit and could not silence an overjoyed cry as she saw the unmistakable form of a hot air balloon drifting through the billowing gray clouds. “It seems that the weather wizards have come to retrieve you after all,” he remarked wryly. No doubt, Nami’s shock of orange hair was visible against the harsh backdrop of white, as the hot air balloon immediately began to descend towards them. With a huff, Nami hopped down from X Drake’s back, landing in the snow. It wasn’t that deep there, and her boots were able to keep most of the cold out, as they had dried some while she was being hauled on his back. “Until next time, then,” he remarked with a tip of his hat and turned to walk away, cloak flapping in the winter wind.

“Wait! Thank you for everything.”

“Do you think it wise to thank your enemy? He may hold it against you someday,” he remarked cryptically, but looked back at her with a wry smile.

“Then let’s be frenemies!” He gave her an absolutely dumfounded look, to which Nami responded with a beaming grin. “Y’know, we’re enemies when it’s necessary, but the rest of the time, we’re friends!” He blinked at her, every stage of grief passing through his expression, before he let out a snort of laughter.

“Straw Hat certainly keeps amusing company,” he remarked. Nami giggled and stuck out her tongue a little as she smiled charmingly. The hot air balloon had since descended well into range, and a rope ladder dropped down to dangle right above the snow beside her.

“So, again, thank you. Oh! I should give you your coat back!” Nami cried and began wriggling out of the garment, causing Drake to blush furiously and whirl around.

“No! Keep it!” Nami laughed, because of course she had no intention stripping down to her negligee in front of the ex-Marine. She hopped up onto the rope ladder, and the weather wizard in the basket far above her head began pulling it little by little back into the hot air balloon. Nami tossed a wink and a smile over her shoulder at the still-blushing pirate captain.

“See ya in the New World! I hope it’s under good circumstances!” she called down to him before climbing up the rungs of woven rope. It certainly wasn’t an encounter she had been expecting to have in the limbo that was this two year-training period, but hey, Nami wasn’t entirely ungrateful. The more enemies she could charm for Luffy’s sake, the better! Besides, conversing with X Drake wasn’t really that bad. If things were different, she could almost imagine the Straw Hats idolizing him.

Alas, they already had their idol in the form of a dorky, airheaded, optimistic but reliable straw hat-wearing boy destined for greatness. Sorry, X Drake, but frenemies it’s gotta be!

Enjoy this oneshot? Feel free to perusemy Tableof Contents!

Tag List: @searchfortheonepiece

#one piece #nami #cat thief nami #x drake #diez drake #general fluff #fluff #friendship #fanfiction #fanfic #one piece fanfiction #one piece fanfic #oneshot #oneshot collection

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yes-these-obsessions-are-healthy · 4 years

Text

WIP WEDNESDAY

Yet another one where I try desperately to make friends and tag people that don’t like me to read my work. @solas-disapproves @pikapeppa @scharoux @itsalexistrvlyn

Context: Solas ruminating on his relationship with my Lavellan. I just really love writing internal monologues instead of having my characters actually, you know, interact. (/o_o)/

I should also point out that my Lavellan is 24, despite Solas repeatedly referring to her as a child. When you’re 40+, everyone under 25 is a child. “Kids these days”, etc. Plus remember he considers the Dalish to be “children” across the board like an asshole.

Bracketed parts are what I’m personally debating whether to keep, or else contain text that needs to be replaced with a more appropriate equivalent.

------

She kisses with innocence and an earnest desire to please. He quietly damns himself all the while, but his mind cannot help but dredge up the whisper of a memory from long ago, of similarly wide-eyed and precocious young slave girls gifted to him like furniture. In his youth he acted as much of the part of the rakish black sheep that the Evanuris required of him. [The question that still remained unanswered after all this time, however, was whether he became the character in this particularly decadent play, or if such power afforded him to simply allow such tendencies to flourish unrestrained.]

Whatever the case, it had not been an uncommon occurrence for him to offer the comforts of his bed to two, three, four women on any given night. Servants, slaves, merchants' daughters (and wives).. all eager to please, all determined to curry his favor or catch his eye in the hopes that they would receive a blessing, and what ever that implied. They tried to ply him with distractions--music, art, dance; lewd and debauched scenarios to be acted out for his amusement; as the nights wore on and the wine flowed like a river in his veins, he called for them to submit to more embarrassing requests or risk being permanently ousted from his ever-revolving circle of beautiful nymphs.

Even at his most drunk and at the highest peak of ecstasy, he never lost sight of their motives. To them, he was a meal ticket, a refuge from the painful drudgery of everyday living, a shield from yet another night of painful servitude to his more [visceral] colleagues.

He did not begrudge them: Arlathan swallowed up innocence as readily as a debutante would her first cup of red grape wine. Even the youngest and most inexperienced of his partners still possessed an idea of what to expect from him, either from rumors spread among those beyond his abode or through personal demonstration with a captivated audience.

No, no one was innocent, he had long since been taught, but its absence did not necessarily translate to knowledge. And what he instructed those girls was not wisdom as he once proudly thought, but a functioning form of shrewd cynicism. One did not deserve praise for recognizing the follies of a system they continued to benefit from, and hadn't he benefited from their desperate need for acumen? Indeed, it had always been a secret thrill of his to watch the glimmer of recognition sparkle in someone's eyes, the bittersweet understanding that, ultimately, [knowledge] held as many rewards as it did caveats.

[But as he stared down at the fidgeting ingenue beneath him, he found his heart stir alongside his loins. A crude, blasphemous combination was what he originally thought. [[I have no idea what to do here. This sentence throws off the tone of sincere love but what the fuck do I write]]] An unfortunate side effect of being interred in the Fade for countless centuries. To taste precociousness and sincerity on a person’s skin after all this time..

He was surrounded by shades who unknowingly haunted a false world. Its destruction was imminent, he had resolved that to be its ultimate fate, had accepted that his commitment to the lonely path must continue. He would live, in the loosest sense of the word, among these dead souls, but only for a short time. That was what he had told himself, and in his haste, he had extended the time in which he must dwell in this unbearable purgatory and somehow chained himself to a barely-whelped shadow of his People who now wielded a fragment of his power with as much finesse as a young mage with a training wand.

Still, he would endure. Cordiality where it was required and expected, fleeting pleasure in the spirits he could still approach and the sweet desserts that thankfully never vanished from the imagination, temperance in all else. Another trial, another penance to be paid.

But a self-inventory summarily revealed] that his heart now thrummed with a quiet music not unlike the layered echoes resounding from a strummed harp. Sentiments built like a scale. He closed his eyes and listened, and to his surprise he discovered it whispered the name of the Inquisitor, and in the next breath urged him to recall the moments in their involuntary alliance that shook him from hypnotic stoicism.

Pity, pity for this Dalish girl, this innocent who was to have their life drastically torn asunder by yet another one of his mistakes.

Compassion, compassion for an unprepared child to be enlisted in a cause filled with those just as resolute in condemning her as they were in deeming her a necessity. Like a helpless babe tossed to wolves, she did not so much as whimper for fear of reprisal by forces she could barely comprehend.

Uncertainty, uncertainty at how such a skittish, stuttering, nervous da'len would be able to survive the trials set before her. She lacked understanding in the finer points of what moved the hearts of men. Her shyness intensified when in the company of human nobility to the point that her thoughts were rendered unintelligible. She commanded no presence, projected no confidence, [rested no worried hearts ]. When she spoke it was with a habit of editing her own thoughts in a messy and redundant manner.

Fondness, fondness for the way she listened to him like a child engrossed in a yarn regaled by an elder. The questions she asked, the desire to know and understand the foreign, intangible world he had come to call home long before her grandfather's grandfather's grandfather had been born.

Paternity, paternity because she struggled so very hard with her tremendous self-doubt, her [flagging] sense of belonging, her poor intuition in everything but the art of the bow. The others teased her as colleagues were wont to do but they did not see, as he and Cole saw with such painful clarity, that their words were as damaging as a sharpened knife against the bark of a new tree. That her face was in a near-permanent flush not because of the heat or sun damage but [perpetual embarrassment] at the thought that *she was truly a fool made to be mocked and [unloved]*.

But he kisses back. He kisses back and silently wills that these good intentions--Truly, they were good. Truly, he loved her in every sense of the word. Truly, he now cannot imagine a life having never known her--would leave similar indelible fingerprints on her heart as she has done to him.

When they part, his eyes rove over the glassy sheen of gray eyes holding back nervously-happy tears; the disgusting, artfully-inked crow of Dirthamen marring her full flushed cheeks and child-like upturned nose and soft sweep of her constantly furrowed brow, he is struck by the desire to cherish her for all time. Hold her and kiss her and pour all of his devotion into her ears until she was reduced to a quivering mess. It would be better for her, so his fantasy narrated, because she is too pure for this world as it is, too good.

She was, the rational side of him agreed, but ignorance was not the proper path toward true happiness. Balance, balance and understanding and righteous action were.

#tallin lavellan #solas #solavellan #fanfiction #my fanfiction #wip #wip wednesday #DA:I

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simplyshelbs16xoxo · 5 years

Text

‘Repeating History’ Chapter 5: A Dangerous Game

FFN | Ao3 | Buy Me a Coffee?

1894

The chilling voice had the hair on the back of Molly’s neck standing on end. Sherlock held an arm out in front of her to keep her away from the door. “Stay here,” he ordered quietly.

“Bring her along,” Moriarty’s voice drifted out.

“No.” Sherlock’s baritone voice boomed.

“If you want answers, I suggest you not dawdle,” Moriarty spoke in a sing-song voice. “Bring her with you; do not mollycoddle.” He snickered at his own joke.

Molly, taking matters into her own hands, stepped in front of Sherlock. “I’ll go. He wants to see me, and we need answers. I do not see any reason why we should not give him what he wants. The man is locked up.”

“He is not a man,” Sherlock corrected her, continuing to stare down Moriarty through the small barred window. “He is a spider at the center of a criminal web.” Upon giving the guard a nod of approval, he unlocked the cell, allowing Sherlock and Molly to enter. James Moriarty was bound by a straightjacket, sitting in the far right corner of the cell. His hair was long and shaggy, and the stench in the air was that of sweat and God knows what else.

“Ahhhh,” Moriarty began. “If what you seek is an identity, then you must heed my warning. Inside of your home, this man will creep, and one will be gone by morning.”

“What does he mean?” Molly looked to Sherlock for an answer he did not have.

“Stop fooling around,” Sherlock snapped. “Who is the murderer? Has Jack-the-Ripper come back?”

Moriarty grinned like the Cheshire cat. “Good ol’ Jack goes by many names; upon hearing the truth you will not be the same.”

“For God’s sakes,” Sherlock grumbled, but Moriarty ignored his outburst.

“He buries his bones in the catacombs, on his way to his well-deserved fame. Think of your family, for it will be clear, the murderer is, in fact, a Holmes.” Moriarty was delighted, smug satisfaction on his face.

Taking a hold of Molly’s arm, Sherlock turned them toward the cell door to leave. “I have had enough.”

It was then that Moriarty began shouting at them. “Margaret Hooper had morbid humour ; too bad she never wed. She fell apart with a broken heart, and all they found was her head.”

Molly’s face paled, feeling sick to her stomach. She prayed that James Moriarty wasn’t a clairvoyant, but feared there may be truth to his mad ramblings. The last thing they heard was another riddle, this time about the detective.

“Sherlock Holmes upon his throne likes to slay the dragons. He loved to roam amongst funny gravestones, before he fell off the wagon.”

“Holmes!” Watson greeted the detective when he answered his door. “How is the case going?”

Sherlock only groaned in response.

“Not well, then,” Mary Watson remarked as she waddled into the sitting room. She couldn’t help but notice the uncomfortable girl who had sat down beside Sherlock. “Doctor Hooper?” she smiled.

“Yes, hello, Mrs. Watson!” Molly smiled in return. “Are you feeling quite well?”

“I’ll feel even better after I give birth,” she laughed. Turning to Sherlock, she asked, “When were you going to tell us you were courting this lovely girl?”

“What? No,” Sherlock laughed. “Miss Hooper is merely a client who happens to be assisting me on this case.” Molly looked as if the ground fell from beneath her. This reaction did not escape Mary’s notice who now gave the young doctor a once over.

“Really,” Mary replied dryly. “Then perhaps you should have kept your lips to yourself.” She felt smug seeing Sherlock’s brows furrow. He then took one look at Molly, noticing the mark he had left upon her porcelain skin just above her collarbone. Molly’s face flushed, the heat getting to her. She was getting up to leave when Mary offered her hand. “Come along, poppet, we shall find you a coat to cover that up with for now.”

All was silent in the sitting room until Mary returned sans Molly. She was glaring at Sherlock. “What do you think you’re doing? You are hurting a nice girl, Mister Holmes. Do not treat her as some common harlot. From what John tells me, you fancy the girl, so why are you suddenly so callous?”

“It was a moment of weakness and it shall never happen again,” Sherlock replied. “I haven’t the slightest idea what came over me.”

“Well,” Mary huffed, “the next time you feel the urge to canoodle with some poor unsuspecting girl, be sure to think with the right head.”

Sherlock blanched at her words. He felt guilty for the mess he had now caused. Sure, he had been smitten with Molly, but nothing was more important than the work…at least that’s what he continued to tell himself.

The detective stood when Molly appeared in the sitting room after having chosen a lovely plum coloured coat with a high collar. “Thank you, Mrs. Watson,” she blushed. “I promise I will return your coat as soon as possible.”

“Not to worry, dear, you may keep it. The colour contrasts beautifully with your dark hair,” Mary told her kindly. “You may call me Mary. Shall I call you Margaret?”

“Molly is preferable,” she answered.

“We should get going,” Sherlock interjected. “It is quite late already.”

“Yes, of course, we probably should,” Molly agreed. “Thank you again, Mary.”

“It was nothing, Molly,” she replied. “Please come by for tea sometime.” As Sherlock and Molly made their way down the foyer, Mary Watson couldn’t help but notice his hand hovering over the small of her back. It had been automatic, as if it were a habit. The longer he denied his heart’s desire, the more he would come to regret having done so.

2016

221B was a madhouse for the next two mornings. Molly had been staying there, burning the midnight oil with Sherlock on this case. His wall was covered with the crime scene photos and newspaper clippings that claimed we had a modern day Jack the Ripper on our hands. Mrs. Hudson had been in and out making sure they were properly feeding themselves. To Molly’s surprise, Sherlock had eaten twice although it was unusual for him during a case.

“I just don’t understand,” she finally voiced aloud, curled up into a ball in Sherlock’s chair. “Serial killers like these are usually dying to show off. Where are the taunting notes or the complex clues they leave about that make them feel so clever?”

Sherlock felt guilt wash over him. He hadn’t shown Molly the note that had been left at the crime scene. “There was something,” he began, “at the last crime scene with the two girls.” He shifted his eyes, hesitating to look at her reaction. Molly was now sitting straight up, and looking as if she couldn’t figure out why he hadn’t told her. “It was a riddle.”

“Can I see it?” she asked impatiently.

Sherlock sighed. “I don’t have it, but I can tell you what it said.” He sat upon the sofa before speaking the words aloud. “I am the Hunter, but you’re not the prey. Your heart will be torn asunder. Think of your family; it will pave the way. Does the devil live within me? You wonder.” He gauged her reactions as he recited it word for word. Molly remained curious throughout most of it, but seemed she had come to a conclusion when he read the last half.

“Think of your family; it will pave the way,” Molly repeated. “Does the devil live within me?” An answer seemed to hit her full force. “I was born with the Devil in me.”

Sherlock stood, taking the few steps to close the distance between them. “Molly? What is it?”

“Think of famous serial killers, Sherlock,” she told him. “What happened in America after The Ripper disappeared?”

Realisation dawned on him. “H.H. Holmes,” he answered. “Our killer is obsessed with H.H. Holmes, but he didn’t murder like this; The Ripper did.”

“Maybe they were one in the same,” Molly suggested. “It did seem strange that the murders stopped here when H.H. Holmes began a spree in America. And by changing up how he murdered people, nobody would think the two were actually the same person.”

Sherlock ran a hand through his curls. “There is one problem, though,” he told her. “We share a last name, but the man was born as Herman Webster Mudgett.”

“Holmes was his mother’s maiden name,” Molly informed him. “I’m not saying you are related to him, but this copycat killer seems to think so. If you do have ties to him, then this killer might be related too.”

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Sherlock plopped down on the sofa. “Can’t I have one break from murderous family?” he pleaded to no one in particular. “Just one. Break.” Molly’s heart broke for him, knowing that this was the last thing he needed whilst he was still trying to process what had happened at Sherrinford. She moved out of Sherlock’s chair, and sat beside him, her arms wrapped around his torso, and her head resting over his chest.

She lifted her head to look at him, his face taut with the stress he was feeling. “Let’s step away from the case for now,” she suggested. “I know that’s not what you do, but I think you should. We’ll find something fun to do.”

Like clockwork, John strolled into the flat with Rosie who could now walk as long as you held her hand. She was wobbly when she tried it by herself, but refused to be carried any longer. Rosie was definitely her mother’s daughter, independent and determined as she was. “Sorry to interrupt, but I have to go into the surgery today, and hoped—“

“Yes!” Molly jumped up, appearing to frighten John just a little bit. “Of course, we can watch Rosie, right Sherlock?”

“Yes, of course we can.” He was rubbing his hands over his face, willing the stress to go away.

“Well…alright then,” John remarked. “Thank you. Here are her things.” He handed off the bag to Molly.

Rosie was now crawling toward her godfather calling out for “Unca Wock.” Sherlock flashed her soft smile, and picked her up to sit on his lap when she reached her arms up, the tension leaving him if only for a bit.

“Is he alright?” John asked Molly quietly, having remembered how tense Sherlock seemed when he first arrived.

“It’s been…difficult,” Molly told him. “There may be another murderous family relation on the loose right now.”

John’s jaw dropped. “You’re kidding?”

Molly shook her head. “There’s a real chance that we’re dealing with a Holmes.”

“Jesus,” John sighed. “Well, I hope this gives you two some reprieve from it, then. I have to go, but I’ll be back around six-ish.”

“Alright,” Molly nodded. When John took his leave, she turned around to find Rosie throwing her arms around Sherlock who was holding the little girl close. It brought tears to her eyes knowing how much Sherlock loved their goddaughter. Rosie had him wrapped around her little finger. “What do you say we do a little shopping?”

Sherlock cocked his head to the side ever so slightly, confusion plain on his face. “What for?”

“Well, it’s nearly mid-October, and Rosie doesn’t have a costume yet,” Molly explained.

Looking at the golden-haired baby girl in his arms, Sherlock asked her, “Ready for an adventure, Watson?” Rosie clapped her hands excitably in response. “The game is on, then!”

Though they had her stroller with them, Rosie was adamant about walking, so Sherlock and Molly held her hands, sometimes swinging her between them gently just to get a few giggles. There were quite a few costumes to choose from, but nothing caught Rosie’s eye until they turned the corner. “Bee!!” she shouted. “Aunt Mowwy, bee!!” It was a black and yellow striped bumblebee dress with tulle netting as the skirt. It came with an antenna headband and wings that were worn over the shoulders. “You bee, Aunt Mowwy!”

“What do you mean, sweetheart?” Molly smiled curiously, looking up at Sherlock who now looked as if he had been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “Sherlock?”

“I,” he paused, “may have referred to you as my…honey bee once or…twice .”

“Hun bee!” Rosie shouted, pointing at the costume.

“Well, it seems we have a winner,” Molly laughed. “I’ll go on and pay for this, so you two don’t go wanderin’ too far.”

After Molly had purchased the bumblebee costume, she searched for Sherlock and Rosie. She hadn’t a clue where they got off to. It wasn’t as if it was difficult to spot those onyx curls in crowd with the height he had. She eventually spotted them at another register, having just purchased something.

“What’s in the bag?” she asked when he made his way over towards her. Rosie reached up to Molly who then scooped her up in her arms.

“Our costumes,” he replied matter-of-factly.

“Since when do you dress up for Halloween? And what are these costumes?” Molly asked, trying to peer inside the bag.

“Ah, well, you see, that’s for me to know and you to find out,” he teased. “I’ll show you when we return. Are we ready?”

“Think so,” Molly replied.

“How sweet,” said a kind, feeble voice belonging to an elderly woman. “You don’t see family outings happen very often anymore. How old is your little girl.”

Molly stifled a laugh. “Oh, she’s no—“

“Nearly a year old now,” Sherlock replied, interrupting Molly.

“She is darling,” the old woman cooed. “Lucky parents, you are.”

Molly was speechless, allowing Sherlock to do all the talking, though she smiled in response.

“We sure are,” Sherlock agreed just before the woman went off further into the store. He then looked at Molly, his eyes a brilliant shade of icy blue. “We’re very lucky godparents.”

One week later, Molly had gone so far down the research rabbit hole, it was nearly two-thirty in the morning when she stumbled across a name that brought the riddle to the forefront of her mind. It appeared that one of H.H. Holmes’s children, Lucy Theodate Holmes, had once been to a man by the name of James Douglas Hunter. “I am the hunter,” Molly repeated aloud. “Hunter was capitalized.”

She read on to find out that marriage only lasted four years due to the fact that Hunter was not ready to settle down after all. No children were mentioned, but Molly was sure a child coming into the picture is exactly why the divorce happened. Lucy most likely brought the child to an orphanage. There was no trace of their offspring anywhere, but Molly knew there had to be one if this psychopath claimed to be related to Sherlock and was a Hunter.

She pulled her eyes away from the computer, removing her reading glasses to rub her eyes. Exhausted as she was, it was imperative that she try to get to the bottom of this case. Now, she knew what Sherlock felt like. Molly eyed her costume draped over the back of the sofa. It was a tattered bluish-white wedding dress in the style of Emily's from one of Molly's favourite movies, Corpse Bride. Sherlock was to be dressed as Victor, which wasn't much different than dressing in his own clothes.

Her mobile rang just then, Sherlock’s photo popping up on screen. “Hello?” Molly answered.

“I think you ought to come ‘round, Molly,” he told her.

Sitting in his chair by the lit fire, Sherlock Holmes held his phone in his right hand and an old photo dated back in 1894 in his left where his and Molly’s faces stared back at him.

1894

Watson was wrong. He did not fancy Miss Hooper, and that fact did not change just because he snogged her senselessly. It did not mean anything. He repeated the mantra in his head, unaware that it he was having a difficult time convincing himself of it. Romantic entanglements were beneath him, and he mentally berated himself for allowing her to get around his perfectly built walls. She made them crumble, but he would not allow her to do so any longer. Though he was angry with her and himself, Sherlock was taken aback when she appeared downstairs, bag in hand.

“Where do you think you’re going?” he snapped.

“I’m leaving,” she answered, “I thought it was fairly obvious.”

“You will not be leaving, Miss Hooper, it is too dangerous for you to be on your own,” Sherlock stated.

Molly tossed her bag on the sofa and stormed her way over to where he was standing by the fireplace, the light of the flame flickering against the damask wallpaper. “Make up your mind then! I refuse to be treated like this, Mister Holmes. You run hot and cold, and the one thing your miniscule brain cannot seem to do is make a clear decision about your personal relationships. I am either a hindrance or a help to you.” Her face was burning with anger. “Oh wait, that’s right, I am only a help to you when you cannot keep your urges in check. I am nothing more than a play thing to you, and I forbid you to kiss me ever again! You do not feel anything for me, and it was a dirty rotten game to play, making me believe you actually had a heart!”

The color drained from Sherlock’s face as she shouted at him, rightfully so. Never before had anyone ever called him out on his shortcomings…at least not in such an aggressive manner. Before he had time to open his mouth in response, the press stormed into the sitting room of 221B. As Molly turned to see their entrance, a photo was taken of the two of them, neither looking particularly happy. Questions were being shouted at them left and right pertaining to the gruesome murders.

“Who is this, Mister ‘Olmes?” one reporter asked, motioning towards Molly.

“That’s Doctor Margaret Hooper,” another one answered.

“Are you courting her?”

“Is she helping with the case?”

One deep breath, and Sherlock took on the crowd, answering their questions as best as he could. When he finally managed to push the last one out of the room, he closed the door behind him swiftly, locking it up for good measure. His eyes flickered over to where Molly had stayed seated in his chair by the fire.

“If you want to leave, I will not stop you,” he spoke softly. “I am sorry, Miss Hooper.”

“Thank you,” she replied scornfully. Molly stood and retrieved her bag from the sofa. Sherlock stepped aside from the door upon opening it for her.

“Molly,” he said, his voice nearly a whisper. “I won’t keep you from this case. If you would still like to help, that is.”

“I do not think it is a good idea,” she told him. “Goodbye, Mister Holmes.”

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18 notes · View notes