#the gratitude i have for everyone moves mountains

[luthienne]

there's just something about the fact that sometimes we are genuinely given too much to bear and we think i cannot do this anymore i cannot bear this for even another minute for even another second and then we do. until either the circumstances change or we change how we react to them. and then we have to find the courage to do it again and again and again. and everyone you've ever met has had to experience this in some form because that's just living.

and the knowing that we can never go back to how it was before feels too heavy sometimes. like i can't swallow that sometimes. we drove to my dad's last fall because i couldn't bear my life. we went to go spend the day with him and then just didn't leave because i couldn't bear the thought of coming home and living my life; i couldn't bear the thought of facing the grief that slept there and kept me from sleeping, i couldn't bear the thought of starving in my kitchen and sobbing in my shower and watching my ceiling spin above me from where i wept on my couch.

over the next few weeks we accumulated belongings in my brother's childhood bedroom. mine has since been turned into the room where boxes of stuff live. so i cried myself to sleep in his bed. i sobbed in our childhood shower. i forced myself to eat in my dad's kitchen. i forced myself to practice in his living room. i wept on his couch. i stayed up all night staring at the dark sky through his windows.

i sat in the dark and wished i could go back countless times and i grieved for myself and i grieved for my mom and i grieved for the life i thought i was going to have that was gone now. and i started a gratitude journal like my therapist told me to because sometimes in very difficult moments i couldn't remember anything that made my life worth living anymore. i found no joy in anything. and i felt like time was running out on me and i was powerless in every way.

and it felt so unfair, like no matter what i did i just couldn't catch a break. like it didn't matter what i did.

my therapist asked me if i could remember the first time i ever had that terrible thought: what if this lasts forever, what if this feeling lasts forever. i was seventeen. trapped in my own body in someone else's bedroom, staring up at someone else’s ceiling painted blue with white clouds. wishing i could go back to before, when my body did the things i told it to do and didn't exist as a traitorous, useless creature separate from me and my wants. i'm still wishing that.

i know she wants me to challenge this terrible thought with the hard-won knowledge that that moment didn't last forever, and so this one won't either. and i try. i develop a routine and i try to follow it, to give myself a sense of normalcy and purpose: wake up, meditate, make a smoothie, journal, practice, go to work. my dad tells me the names of trees on our walks and points out his favorite leaves on the sidewalk. we wrap my mom in scarves and take her to the foothills. my beloved sits with me and holds my hands when i fall apart, and in the dark i sit with my body and remind myself that nothing lasts forever.

i am eating again, and sleeping. i am singing again. i am noticing how beautiful it is when the light catches on wings of birds in the sky and remembering how much i love the smell of the desert in the rain. i am reading, and watching old comfort shows that bring me comfort again.

i finally moved back home. and the grief is still there and i still can't bear the unbearable sadness sometimes. but also sometimes right before dusk the sun turns the mountains pale pink and the sky is soft slate above them and the light that comes through the windows feels impossibly warm and close like a physical presence. like i can almost touch it back. and then the air turns impossibly blue. like i am living inside of dusk and breathing dusk, inhaling blue and exhaling blue.

#k.txt

[yyawnjun]

LOVE GUIDE (SAY YES) chap12

yunjin and chaewon were waiting for you to speak, as you sat outside the bathroom door in complete silence. you could even hear your breathing and your heart beating so fast?

on that night, you finally admitted to yourself, and to your best friends that kwon soonyoung was more than just a project partner…

indeed, during the time you spent with him, you noticed that your heart might have skipped a few beats (let's not forget that he fainted after receiving your gifts) and that every time you told him something, he made an extreme effort not to stare mesmerized at your moving lips.

also you could always feel your real happiness when you texted each other at night, and when you couldn't stop laughing together.

your conversations were at ease, and in that short time, you discovered numerous similarities between you two - you understood that he had no idea what "baroque" was; you were similar in many ways, not all.

again, it was during that night that you admitted to your friends that you had let him pretend to be an expert in that art movement just so that you could observe him trying to pronounce the correct name, and show his "deep knowledge" in the days to follow.

you also planned to show your gratitude to him in an indirect way. you were ready to suggest that he also use the concept of animals, keeping in a sketch the tiger's striatum as the main theme (when you had first met, the third thing after his name and a failed pick-up line had been that he loved tigers).

his ability to make you smile and blush had touched your heart, which you had worked so hard to keep safe for fear of the awful consequences. you were afraid that opening yourself to love would end up in a lonely frigid cold; nevertheless, he was able to make you feel a comfortable warmth that seemed endless.

"is this "falling in love"? am I now ready and willing to change myself to be loved? to let the old me die to be reborn and achieve the completeness given by love? should I then take this step, trusting the only way to fully live is to love?"

you had spoken those words all in one breath. so fast that your friends were still looking confused in the first few minutes, they were still trying to understand exactly what you had said.

"All right! I'm thankful you said it out loud girl… you seem to be questioning your existence. However, I can tell you based on my little experience that yes, this is this love," yunjin said.

"that's where you overthink must come from." chaewon added.

they both appeared calm, and such a reassuring smile - you could sense the unconditional love in their gaze.

"anyway…it is not that serious, right?" you uttered, a little afraid of ruining the moment.

you three started laughing and nodding, and rather, the tension in the room dissipated. your anxiety at openly declaring that you liked Hoshi faded, and instead, it was finally starting to give you that satisfying rush of nervousness. the faint thrill you get in the early stages of a crush, when your hopes are as high as the mountains and the sun, a metaphor for love, gets to embrace you close.

"I like him. I like Hoshi."

you instantly chuckled as the girls drew near to you, and hugged you while wearing mock-surprised expressions; many of your worries from the previous few weeks also suddenly disappeared.

it was already late at night, and you were too tired to even consider the possible consequences of a relationship between you and your crush. before the final project, you would have spent many days together, so there was plenty of time for everything to work out, right?

chap11 // chap13 ; m.list

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summary: It is clear to everyone that Kwon Soon-young has a huge crush on the model student Yn. But can Hoshi, a passionate and funny stylist make her fall in love in just a month? What if he followed a weird LOVE GUIDE, that he found in the school bathroom?

。　　　　✧　　　　⁺　 　 　。

a.n. HII after a rlly long break i am back!! hope y'all missed a bit this funny smau, and i hope you will like this chapter. we are slowly reaching the end, but i promise there's still a funny plot twist who's waiting for our protagonists,, (text + 0.6k wc)

taglist(33/50): @alsktudy @kissesfrmwonwoo @marsstarxhwa @haohyo @wonwooz1 @wonwoos-wineparty @mhlsymlysn @nishloves @punkhazardlaw @manooffline @kflixnet @minhui896 @azkahanif @woozixo

@chimmy-bts @luvhuihui @wonraiwoo @keeboismine @teenyfinds @ninetiesbitches @astro-doll-the-star @bangantokchy @meowwyoong @dahbee8 @ivehypnosis @chweverni @miriamxsworld @cottoncheol @caratboy

@gigiiiiislife @isabellah29 @forrhoshi

send an ask or comment under THIS post to be part of it !!

#love guide (say yes) #k labels #seventeen #seventeen x reader #hoshi #hoshi smau #hoshi fluff #hoshi svt #hoshi seventeen #hoshi x reader #hoshi scenario #seventeen hoshi #seventeen smau #svt #svt smau #kwon soonyoung smau #kwon soonyoung fluff #kwon soonyoung x reader #kwon soonyoung #kwon hoshi #svt funny #svt fic #svt scenarios #svt hoshi #hoshi x yn

[90-ghost]

here is a poem by polish poet Zbigniew Herbert

Report From The Besieged City

Too old to carry arms and fight like the others - they graciously gave me the inferior role of chronicler I record - I don't know for whom - the history of the siege I am supposed to be exact but I don't know when the invasion began two hundred years ago in December in September perhaps yesterday at dawn  everyone here suffers from a loss of the sense of time all we have left is the place the attachment to the place we still rule over the ruins of temples spectres of gardens and houses if we lose the ruins nothing will be left I write as I can in the rhythm of interminable weeks monday: empty storehouses a rat became the unit of currency tuesday: the mayor murdered by unknown assailants wednesday: negotiations for a cease-fire the enemy has imprisoned our messengers  we don't know where they are held that is the place of torture  thursday: after a stormy meeting a majority of voices rejected  the motion of the spice merchants for unconditional surrender  friday: the beginning of the plague saturday: our invincible defender N.N. committed suicide sunday: no more water we drove back an attack at the eastern gate called the Gate of the Alliance all of this is monotonous I know it can't move anyone I avoid any commentary I keep a tight hold on my emotions I write about the facts  only they it seems are appreciated in foreign markets  yet with a certain pride I would like to inform the world that thanks to the war we have raised a new species of children our children don’t like fairy tales they play at killing awake and asleep they dream of soup of bread and bones just like dogs and cats in the evening I like to wander near the outposts of the city along the frontier of our uncertain freedom. I look at the swarms of soldiers below their lights I listen to the noise of drums barbarian shrieks truly it is inconceivable the City is still defending itself the siege has lasted a long time the enemies must take turns nothing unites them except the desire for our extermination Goths the Tartars Swedes troops of the Emperor regiments of the Transfiguration  who can count them  the colours of their banners change like the forest on the horizon from delicate bird's yellow in spring through green through red to winter's black and so in the evening released from facts I can think  about distant ancient matters for example our friends beyond the sea I know they sincerely sympathize they send us flour lard sacks of comfort and good advice they don’t even know their fathers betrayed us our former allies at the time of the second Apocalypse their sons are blameless they deserve our gratitude therefore we are grateful they have not experienced a siege as long as eternity those struck by misfortune are always alone the defenders of the Dalai Lama the Kurds the Afghan mountaineers  now as I write these words the advocates of conciliation have won the upper hand over the party of inflexibles a normal hesitation of moods fate still hangs in the balance cemeteries grow larger the number of defenders is smaller yet the defence continues it will continue to the end and if the City falls but a single man escapes he will carry the City within himself on the roads of exile he will be the City we look in the face of hunger the face of fire face of death worst of all - the face of betrayal and only our dreams have not been humiliated

❤️❤️

[a-queer-seminarian]

In the latest episode of Blessed Are the Binary Breakers, I share a sermon on Isaiah 56:3-8. This bit of scripture proclaims God's message of not only tolerance but radical welcome for the ultimate Others of the biblical world: eunuchs.

How did Isaiah 56's author come to understand divine affirmation for this denigrated group, when Deuteronomy 23's author had offered only rejection? And why does this scripture resonate deeply with many transgender persons of faith today?

Listen wherever you get podcasts, or click here for a direct link + episode transcript.

And look under the readmore for my direct translation of Isaiah 56 from the Hebrew, along with image descriptions and resource links.

ID for the above two images:

On a trans flag background, text titled "Isaiah 56:3-8 reworked for a trans context" reads:

Do not cause the child who’s grown up in your church to believe, “I don’t belong here anymore.” And do not let the trans person who has tried again and againto find welcome lament, “See, no one cares about me.” For thus says LIVING GODto these beloved children made in Their own divine, boundless image: I give to you, in my own home and within my own heart, a place of honor, better than any church that fails you. Your chosen name is cherished, and I’ll make sure you’re not forsaken or forgotten.

The passage continues on the next image, reading:

For everyone who comes to me for solace, everyone who seeks my liberation, everyone who joins me in making justice roll like water will be brought to my holy mountain. Joy will be theirs, and a welcome that far surpasses tolerance — their wisdom, their gifts, their leadership will be accepted with gratitude; for my kin-dom is for all peoples — the outcasts most of all. If you don’t see them among you, it is you who must move — come, seek them and find me, the God who gathers more, and still more people to my table, till all have their honored place. / end ID

ID: Text on a sunset sky background is titled "Isaiah 56:3-8, My translation from the Hebrew" and reads:

Do not let the foreigner who grafts themself to LIVING GOD say, “LIVING GOD will sever, will utterly exclude me from His people.” And do not let the eunuch say, “See, I am a dried-out tree.” For thus says LIVING GOD to the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, and choose what delights me, and hold fast to my covenant: I will give to them, in my house and within my walls, a monument and a name better than sons and daughters. A name everlasting will I give to them, that shall not be cut off.

The translation continues on the next image, reading:

And the foreigners who graft themselves to LIVING GOD, ministering to Them and loving the name of LIVING GOD, becoming Her servants – every one who keeps Sabbath undefiled, and holds fast to my covenant —

[These] I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer. Their offerings and their sacrifices will be welcome on my altar, for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.

A declaration of the Lord, LIVING GOD, who is gathering the outcasts of Israel: “I will gather still more to them, beyond those already gathered.”

Further reading:

Check out my translation notes here!

I also write about biblical eunuchs in the "Better than Sons or Daughters" section of this webpage — with more quotes and links from Austen Hartke, Peterson Toscano, and others.

#isaiah 56 #transgender christians #faithfullylgbt #queer theology #trans theology #podcast #blessed are the binary breakers #my sermons

[hungrywriter]

Wings of the North

Neteyam x reader

Up above the clouds, the Sky Na’vi lives at the top of the mountains. However, it was divided into two clans; Nordluft and Sor luft. The Nordluft na’vi had wings that shine under the sun, lighting the world with beautiful colours. They were graceful but powerful. The Sor luft na’vi, however, had darker, sharper wings which makes them known for their fast speed and agility to fly against the wind. Due to their differences, the two clans had been at war since the First songs were created. The war stopped when Vinterdyret, a beast that comes out every few years, hunts the sky na’vi. Putting aside their differences, the two clans slayed the beast together. After Vinterdyret is killed, the two clans formed an alliance so that they could live in peace. It has been 30 years since they formed that alliance, but now it is coming to an end...

→

It's been 3 years since the war between the Na’vi and the sky people at the ocean of the Metkayina Tribe. But now, the Sully Family has to move, in order to keep themselves and the ocean clan safe, and to stay undetected by Quaritch. Lo’ak didn’t want to go, as he wanted to stay with Tsireya, but Tonowari had allowed his children to travel with the Sully family, with the condition that they must return to visit Metkayina.

“The sky na’vi lives above the mountains. Go to the north clan and they will take you in. The chief and I have been friends for a long time. My children know the way.” Tonowari says as he helped Jake load up the Ikran with bags of their necessities. Jake nodded and shook the chief’s hand as a way to express their gratitude. The Sully family, Tsireya and Au’nung bid the Metkayina clan goodbye and flew off. Jake was relieved that his family is safe and alive (yes, that includes Neteyam). Little did he know, he was dragging his family into yet another snare. 

→

“Everyone, we are here!” Tsireya announced, as she shook Lo’ak awake. The Sully Family turned their heads to see where the female was pointing, but all they saw was the bottom part of a huge floating island. 

“Where are they?” Lo’ak asked, looking around. Ao’nung pointed towards the clouds that covered the top part of the island. They passed through the clouds under Tsireya's guidance. The family was greeted with an interesting sight. The north side was more vibrant, while the south was chillier. A couple of na'vi from the Nordluft clan greeted the group on the north side. The sky na'vi had a creature attached to their braids that helped them fly, which shocked them. Tsireya and Ao’nung greeted them, and they returned the gesture. They then lead the group towards their home.

When they reached, they were quickly surrounded by the curious eyes of the clan. Several of them even touched the outsiders, but most simply backed away. A man came out from the crowd. He was taller and had a stern look on his face. Battle scars were all over his body and his wings were bigger than the rest of the clan. It would take an idiot to miss the fact that this was the clan chief. The rest of the crowd immediately dropped to one knee and bowed their heads to pay respects to the chief. The Sully family slowly followed the clan

“I am Chief Kvasir. You must be Jake Sully. Chief Tonowari has told me that you would be coming here. How do I know your kind won’t cause trouble in my land?” The chief spoke with authority. Jake stood up and threaded around carefully before speaking. “We don’t want any trouble. I am seeking refuge for my family. We are asking uturu,” 

The chief walked around them, looking at them up and down before deciding on a decision. “Very well, my children will teach you the ways of the sky so that you can live in peace with us. Come out, my children”  

On cue, two females, a teen and a much younger child, took their places beside their father. Their wings were flapping excitedly when they saw Tsireya and Ao’nung. “My eldest child, head of the scouts, is on patrol duty. Maybe you will get to see them in action during your stay here.” 

And just like that, Chief Kvasir dismissed the clan and they went back to what they were doing. The chief’s daughters greeted Tsireya and Ao’nung first, hugging as if they hadn’t seen each other for a long time. The Sully family then followed them to their new home.

 As Neteyam was helping to carry the bags, he couldn’t help but notice that someone was watching him. He looked up to see girls his age whispering and giggling as they covered themselves with their wings. He smiled awkwardly and it made the girls giggled louder and fly away. Neteyam glared at his siblings, who were laughing and teasing him behind his back. As they flew to their new home, he thought about those girls. Sure, they were pretty but he was looking for someone who can match his level. Neytiri has been pestering him about finding a mate for him, so he wondered if he could find one here. 

#neteyam #neteyam x you #neteyam x y/n #neteyam x reader #avatar #avatar:the way of water

[splendentmoon]

Hey there 🤗

If you still haven’t figured out how to get Xiaotian and his siblings to meet their parents in hidden princes au I have an idea that’s inspired from one of your ficlets “Mountain”.

Picture this:

After the siblings leave the bull clan Xiaotian has them set up a territory on a mountain near a human village (the area that would eventually become Megapolis), not wanting to return to FFM for fear of celestial solders still attacking the island.

The siblings occasionally do business in the village as well as ward off attacking demons and bandits, but otherwise keep to themselves (unbeknownst to them the villagers in gratitude refer to the village as the siblings territory).

Somewhere down the line the pilgrims appear in the village, where all except for Tripitaka pick up on the strange and powerful presence.

(This would be early in the journey when Wukong is on shaky terms with everyone except Ao Lie who he considers his sworn little brother (who was going to be unjustly executed for the accidental destruction of his family palace, before being spared and placed on the journey by Guanyin, so the two of them can relate to each other better than with the rest of the group))

They ask around and find out about the siblings and their history with the village, with Tripitaka falsely assuming that the villagers are only speaking fondly of the siblings out of fear of punishment and/or death.

He tells his disciples that they will go up the mountain and handle the situation, or more accurately (not that the monk would ever admit it) have Wukong kill the demons in order to free the village.

The pilgrims are astonished when they’re meet with nothing but hospitality, Wukong is especially stunned when he sees Bai He and her six ears believing her to be the stone egg that he and his spouses created (unaware that all of them are).

Once the siblings find out that the monkey in front of them is their father they immediately embrace him and explain their story and Wukong likewise tells them how he wound up as part of the pilgrimage.

(I can picture the silent horror Tripitaka experiences once he realizes he’s been “disciplining” an innocent man)

The siblings then decide to join the group to help move the journey along and in hopes of finding clues about the whereabouts of their other two parents.

Tripitaka reluctantly agrees and before he can even think to place circlets on the four of them, Wukong offers to take on any punishment they would receive, since they are his children they are his responsibility (a decision that upsets the children, especially the very protective Xiaotian, but they’re unable to argue with their very stubborn and equally protective father).

(I can see the four of them constantly scolding Tripitaka, not only for his naivety but also his ignorance towards their father’s monkey instincts, having to explain to him what they are and why they’re necessary for his mental and physical health, “you’re telling me in all the years you’ve been together only Ao Lie has attempted to help groom him, don’t you know a dirty monkey is an unloved and rejected monkey” “What do you mean we can’t share matts, macaques can’t sleep unless it’s in a cuddle pile, don’t tell me father’s been forced to sleep by himself this whole journey”, not to mention the twins would be having the time of their lives constantly pranking Bajie for always manipulating Tripitaka to unjustly punish their father)

The siblings try their best to make celestial assistance as unnecessary as possible, to avoid being discovered and hunted down, but eventually the Jade Emperor catches wind of them and tries to send assassins to discreetly kill them (unfortunately for him he sent Nezha as a scout to oversee it, who had already meet and fallen for Bai He) (wild guess what happens to the assassins).

Later once they encounter LBD they find and free Macaque from Daiyu, with Wukong being allowed to execute her and her thrall as even Tripitaka comes to understand that she is too cruel and dangerous to be left alive.

(With Tripitaka now having six celestial primates to oversee, karma at its finest)

And eventually (with help from Nezha, thanks to Bai He) they learn of what happened to Nüwa at the hands of her father, and with the pilgrims and other allies the monkey clan storms the celestial realm to rescue their celestial consort.

Feel free to alter whatever details you like to fit your plan for the story.

Sounds good! But...

Xiaotian and the rest didn't know Wukong and Macaque.

They only had Nuwa, and that Bai doesn't remember her and Savage and Rumble didn't meet her either.

Second, Xiaotian started a personal journey to become a Demon Lord like his uncles, leaving his brothers with them until everything is ready.

So I don't think Wukong and Xiaotian will meet soon.

In fact, neither Xiaotian nor his brothers don't care about their father.

It's not that it's cruel, it's just that, since Xiaotian never met him and was very young since he last heard from him, he barely remembers that he had a father.

He only remembers his mother and his promise.

[jessicanjpa]

a good day

(An excerpt from this chapter of 2003, set just a few weeks after the Cullens arrive. Edward and Esme are doing paperwork at the dining room table when Carlisle gets home from work. Bonus: this is the first time Bella is mentioned in Tale of Years!)

"Carlisle's home," I told Esme, turning my head to the familiar sound of my father's thoughts. A moment later, we heard the powerful rumble of the Mercedes turning off the main road.

You won't believe the day I've had!

Carlisle burst in the kitchen door a moment later, grinning from ear to ear. He swooped down to receive Esme's welcome-home kiss and poured another mountain of mail onto the table out of a bulky package. There was so much mail—especially in the beginning of a new move—that we couldn't risk raising the postal workers' interest by receiving each piece separately. One of Jenks's "services" was routing a good chunk of that mail to us via packages like this one.

"You're in a good mood," I teased, catching the tallest pile of papers—Alice's investment reports—just as Carlisle's new addition sent it tumbling off the edge. Those "Go Paperless" campaigns were starting to look better and better. We could singlehandedly save a whole forest at the rate we were going.

"Indeed I am," he said. He kissed Esme again for good measure. "Days like this... they make everything doubly worthwhile."

"Tell us," Esme said with a knowing smile. She pushed out the chair beside her with her foot, paperwork forgotten. He sat down and took her hand.

"A young man was brought in after a motorcycle accident," he began. "It didn't look good; his blood pressure was already threatening to bottom out. Extensive road rash, compound ulnar and femoral fractures... and a suspected open-book pelvic fracture. The paramedics had a binder on him already. Dr. Snow called for a helicopter as soon as he was brought in. Forks is only a Level IV trauma center. Everyone said it was too late—and it would have been, if I had let them waste any more time.

"I took over immediately. I nearly got fired on the spot, and I may still face a lawsuit for breaking protocol if he doesn't make it in the end. But I'm confident he will. I suspected a rupture of the iliolumbar vessels. I opened right up and started with the gauze packing, and we didn't even have the right kind of arterial balloon but I managed to get them all distracted so I could get the sutures done at my speed—oh, I'm sorry, Edward..."

My throat flared at the bloody imagery as Carlisle chattered on at superspeed, but his good mood was infectious. He lived for scenarios like this: when he was able to save a patient when no one else could, either because of his acute senses, his vast experience, or his ability to operate at vampire speed when he could get everyone else to look away for a moment. Or all three, in this case. Carlisle looked so happy on days like this. So young.

"We still had him lifted to Harborview in the end," Carlisle said in conclusion, "but he was already stabilized. Dr. Snow is still upset about how I had taken over. I actually shoved him out of my way! But even he can't deny that I had saved a life he had already pronounced lost. Once we were cleaned up, he took me out to the lobby himself and told the patient's friend—none other than our local chief of police—about my being a miracle worker."

"Only three weeks this time," Esme said, gazing at him with adoring eyes. "Only three weeks and you're already the Miracle Worker."

Carlisle smiled bashfully at her praise, then went on to describe how Chief Swan had nearly broken down right there in the ER lobby, gushing his gratitude for Carlisle's heroic rescue. Apparently one of the nurses had already let it slip that his buddy wasn't going to make it. It sounded like he had personal experience with motorcycle fatalities, making him doubly in awe of today's outcome and of the Miracle Worker.

Carlisle tended to accumulate nicknames wherever he worked: any number of variations on the themes of Doogie Howser and Miracle Worker. His fellow physicians either loved or hated him, but in the end, they always came to respect his good instincts. Having made some minor forays into the medical field myself, I was most in awe of Carlisle's ability to take decisive action during blood-soaked emergencies. He took risks most emergency physicians wouldn't dream of, and they nearly always turned out for the best. And I couldn't imagine being able to open up a pelvic cavity full of two liters of gushing blood and get right to work.

"Chief Swan sounds like a good man," Esme said fondly.

"I think so, too," Carlisle agreed. He was picturing a nondescript middle-aged man with brown hair and a mustache. The man's chocolate-brown eyes teared up as he acknowledged Carlisle's help. "We talked for a bit. He lives alone, though his daughter occasionally comes to visit in the summertime. He's an avid fisherman—he even asked me if I would like to join him out in his boat someday."

"That'd be a good trick," I said, rolling my eyes. Fishing and vampires didn't mix. Hours of sunshine with no escape, fish getting frightened away, sharp hooks in human fingers, close observation... Carlisle smiled sadly, going on to say how he had politely declined but thanked Chief Swan for the invitation.

It was a shame. Like Alice, Carlisle would have loved to have a human friend. Someone he could be fully honest with, or at least someone he could bond with over the things he would be able to talk about. But experience had taught us to keep our human peers at arms' length. It was better that way... for all of us. And fate seemed determined to remind us of that fact. The very next day gave us a scare like we hadn't had in years.

#Tale of Years teasers #Carlisle #Vampires at work #Charlie #Bella #Fanfiction #2003 stuff #In other words Carlisle and Charlie will absolutely go fishing someday

[plasticcharmbracelet]

Crow

For @wriightworth for the 2023 AJ:AA Secret Santa!

I have no clue what this is. I hope you can derive some enjoyment from it anyhow?

The sky is the brownish grey of cheap paper, and the dry stalks inside the fence and the dry grasses outside it abrade one another quietly in the weak, warm, suspirant breeze that has breathed unceasingly on him for the long afternoon of three months.

Apollo doesn’t really care whether the birds are scared or not. It’s been one long day / a week / three withering summer months, and the sky hasn’t changed, and he can’t close his eyes.

He can’t move. He can’t make a sound. He has not always been a scarecrow, but he is. He is one now.

Apollo has almost never spoken about growing up in another country, wedged in the mountains east of Nepal and Bhutan, and he has spoken even less about growing up in two different countries, because his childish, snowblind memories of the faraway supported him during his foundling years in Los Angeles the way a bangle bracelet and a broken promise never did.

His foster father in the Himalayas had had little enough choice to bring Apollo and his own son along on those expeditions. Children were obviously at risk in the faraway, but at least at more easily disregarded risk than if left to themselves in a bungalow in the snow for an overnight hike that might take three years on the other end. But Apollo’s gratitude for the trips had extended beyond the simply practical, because -

Because a fugitive in the reported world could wield wonders away. A person could feed promises to the wind and to the steep planes of sunlight and have them kept, in words written on the clapper of a chime hung in the air or drawn in powdered pigment on the snow. 

Because a runaway could have promises kept, and beauty with them. And when he was homesick, it was the faraway he was homesick for.

He had spent years scrabbling at the walls of the world. Very literally, as a child, and then via research and rumors in the internet’s dirty puddles as a teenager, in libraries as a student, and at last, as an adult, by reading between the lines of every job listing tangentially related to Law. His foster father had told him the truth about this, as much as he hated to admit it. Gates to the faraway have irregular locations and subtle locks, and lucky discoveries are children’s stories; everyone who has learned one has found someone to show it to them. 

Two years and seven months out of law school, a job making transcripts overnight, before he had finally seen the advertisement whose in-between-the-lines he had read correctly and whose demands he had been able to meet. A little old-fashioned, the skills required, the wording.

Kristoph Gavin, Esq. A little old-fashioned, the man’s clothes. (Though handsome, striking even, the man who wore them.) A little strange, the quiet pools of tension in the conversation.

And at last, after a probation with the mail and the filing cabinets and the little tests in every detail, he had followed his new boss up a narrow flight of stairs in the strange office building - a fading blue piece of 1980s Los Angeles frivolity with circular windows and half-stories and a wraparound balcony - and into a parlor left over from an earlier time than that, one full of dark wooden furniture and glass-fronted cabinets and a grandfather clock whose silver pendulum only wriggled once in its case, and whose windows looked out not on a wide intersection full of Mercedes-Benzes and box trucks but on this Kansas that would never know Technicolor. 

And his new boss had smiled at him across a desk and a cup of milk with barely a splash enough of coffee to deserve the name before taking his left arm in a blacksmith’s grip, pulling his bracelet off his wrist, and hauling him out of the room over his shoulder as if he were a sack of dry leaves. He was.

The breeze rattles the brown stems, the sun never moves, there’s a pole along his shoulders and one at his back, and he’s forgetting the lines of Auden’s Roman Wall Blues.

In the mountains north and east of Ojai, there is a tiny community started by long-ago immigrants from the same Himalayas, and their spot in the faraway had been a vague goal. Somewhere the rules might be similar enough to what he remembers, where he could conceivably reacclimate or acclimate at all.  But he had anticipated something entirely else for faraway Los Angeles - tomols pulling up onto golden beaches, turquoise Hockney poolwater, willow/tule domes alongside silver screen diners where a girl could be discovered on that lucky afternoon. Colors that would suit Kristoph Gavin, blond and blue and white.

Here there are crows sometimes, circling and yelling above the prarie brown beyond the fence, but they don’t approach. Neither does the man who hired him, fooled him, brought him here, robbed him and planted him in this grim faraway grass.

Over the heather / I don’t know why / I shall do nothing but look at the sky.

A crow lands on him.

Perhaps the wind has become infinitesimally stronger or the haze infinitesimally darker, but it may just be that this crow LOOKS storm-tossed, tumbling out of the air exhausted with feathers in all directions. The oily sheen on it is purplish and its beak hangs open as it heaves to breathe. 

Apollo can do nothing for it. Not a movement, not a sound - but his paralysis, in the smallest of comforts, prevents him from doing anything that will agitate it further. If Kristoph wants him to frighten birds, then his own small comfort will be in letting this one rest, if it decides to. 

He waits. The crow moves up to his shoulder, under the brim of the stranger’s hat that Kristoph had dropped on top of his head, hunches itself into a ball, and sleeps.

Time brushes past, warm and weak and irregular as the breeze.

When the crow at last rouses itself, sorts its feathers halfway, and hops and glides down to the ground, Apollo realizes that he will miss it when it goes. But it doesn’t. It stalks and pecks in a circle around the base of the pole, finding a few bits of dry seed, and something like a worm - likelier a centipede, since his peripheral vision suggests that it has hair-fine legs along it. After it seems satisfied - though how can it be? - it smoothes its feathers a little more and flies back to his shoulder, to rest again.

The pattern repeats another three times. It provides a sense of a day and night cycle, however feeble.

It is his crow now.

Kristoph never makes an appearance from the still, sullen house behind him, or at least not one that he can perceive. There is never the sound of the door, or of footsteps, or clinking pans or anything of the kind. He worries for the bird even more than for himself, should Kristoph spot it, but it seems to understand circumspection and doesn’t fly closer to the structure than an acre-wide circle will bring it, both ends of which Apollo can see.

His crow has never cawed at him, either, or at anything else. It is a surprise when at last it says: “ba.” It’s not a crowy noise; it sounds more like a pet raven in a video clip, making something still a few lengths from music. 

His crow bounces sideways down his arm and back. “Ba-ba ba-ba ba ba?” He wishes, partially, that he could respond, but is selfishly glad that it has stayed close and unafraid of him. “Ba ba ba-ba ba ba.” Something Annie Lennox about it.

Day/night/what passes for them. 

The circles his crow flies become tighter, keeping it closer to him. When it comes back, it wedges itself between the hat and Apollo’s straw shoulder in the remnants of his own shirt. Its feathered-over heartbeat feels fast, but its heartbeat always does.

At the end of one particular circle, then, the bird skims past him and keeps going, in the direction of the blank, disapproving house. It can’t be more than a few minutes that he feels its absence, and minutes are a concept he has lost most of his use for, but he doesn’t like it. It makes him nervous.

His crow has lost its mind when it comes back. It doesn’t caw or scream or ba-ba, but it lands hard on the end of the shoulder pole, where his wrist might be, and flaps hard enough that the beats sound like flags in the wind or a person falling down a flight of stairs. It grips and rustles in its panic, then takes off and repeats its actions at the end of his other arm, hitting the pole and buffeting the air again.

What are you doing?, he thinks. The agitated bird stretches its wings up like blades and strains at the pole. Again. Stop. He worries how long it can continue before it -

His vision becomes a dizzy brown swoop as the pole that holds him upright spins at his crow’s last assault and tips sideways, leaving him at a thirty-degree angle and facing the house the other way. The bird is drinking air on his left wrist, shaking, gathering itself. 

A small brass bell that he had not had time to notice hangs on a string by the door, straight toward the ground, entirely unmoved by the breeze. The rest of the yard fidgets in it, brown leaves insinuating against their neighbors, dry sticks dragging themselves an inch in the dust, cloth in bundles on the ground by the fences almost shrugging, then wrinkling down empty.

The nearest bundle has a pair of glasses. Another is topped by a hooded sweatshirt, bleached grey on top and its original grey showing when the wind lifts it. 

As that understanding hits him, his crow caws for the first time and continues, loud, scraping the air and echoing off the dirty clouds. Other birds, the ones that have never dared to come close to the fenced plot of land, scream back and start to gather. One approaches him, lands nervously three feet away, then ignites its courage and joins his crow further along his arm. They all begin to gather along his arms, all facing the house, staring, yelling. Challenging.

The little brass bell on the porch starts to swing in the air, emits a sour little chime. Two more. Then louder. 

Kristoph, taller than Apollo remembers him, opens the door, one hand raised. 

The crows dive at him, surge at him, in a zigzagging clawed cacophony. One tangles itself in his hair, others snap and stab at his eyes, draw blood from his palms and the bony peaks of his knuckles, though a few of these he knocks out of the air with savage swipes of his arms. Apollo’s and some of the others evade him completely, though, and vanish into the shadows of the house. Kristoph shifts his attention from the birds attacking him and pelts after the interlopers. After Apollo’s crow.

The door hangs open and a few battered crows lie in the doorway or just inside it. Apollo can do nothing but stare and listen as the crashes diminish, the shouts and the wild calls diminish, until the scraping leaves are once again the only sounds half-submerged in the silence. 

It could be an hour/a day/five skipped heartbeats before there is movement from the house. Two crows, each carrying something shining in its beak, hopping out into the brighter dimness and soaring away over the roof for the horizon. Neither has a purple sheen to its feathers. Nor do the next half a dozen that come. 

Minutes and eras.

A scraping sound, not dead stalk on dead stem but something wooden and something that isn’t. 

Apollo’s crow hobbles from the door, dragging a broken claw, a cluster of flight feathers, and Apollo’s bronze bracelet. Its scuffling steps are painful to watch, have to be so much more so to execute, but it hauls the bangle to the foot of the scarecrow pole and waits, chest fluttering. Then it catches its breath and hops flapping at him, falls back to the ground with a sound more like a shaken piece of paper than a caw. 

It tries again, can’t lift the bracelet with one leg. Tries and fails with its beak. Puts its head through and manages a flailing glide to one ruined knee of Apollo’s suit trousers, claws its way up to his shoulder, sidesteps, so tired, along the length of his left arm, and deliberately maneuvers the bracelet onto the end of the beam.

Apollo collapses face-first into the dead leaves and comes up with dirt on his human face. His arms are shaking from their own weakness, not from the sickly breeze. He blinks for the first time in weeks, months, yellow crud in the corners of his eyes. When he sits up all the way, he sees his crow hunched in the plants, staring at him. 

He picks it up and it lets him, and he carries it wobbling on weak legs into what may no longer be Kristoph’s house. He can come back for the wounded birds, but first -

At the foot of the stairs that lead back down to Los Angeles is a scarecrow in a blue suit, its head bent to one side and a tear in its fabric neck from which straw has started to slide to the floor. He steps back, carefully.

The room he had sat in is thrown apart, jewelry and pocketknives and keys and things spilling out of drawers angled downwards from their caves, across the desk, everywhere on the floor.  Black feathers here and there. 

“Is something yours?”

“Ba ba.” His crow nods its head several times, but shakes it again when he starts to paw through the shiny mess. 

“No?”

The bird in the crook of his arm becomes agitated again when he moves for the doorway, unfolds out a wing to one side and then grumbles in pain.

Apollo turns to look and catches sight of his reflection in the case of the grandfather clock. The strange pendulum isn’t a solid rod, is it, but a chain with a jagged silver pendant as a bob. The case is locked when he tries it.

He places the bird as gently as he can on the cushion of a velveteen sofa in the corner of the parkor, despite its bas of concern, then all but charges down the stairs and wrenches the pale blue coat off of Kristoph’s scarecrow, leaves the thing limp against the baseboard and wraps the coat around his left hand and arm as he stomps back up on ever more steady legs. 

He closes his eyes in front of the clock and swings his swaddled fist through the glass of the case. It is a satisfying thing to do.

He pulls the pendant and its chain carefully from the hook in the mechanism, and carries it back to his crow, which is watching him with an intensity that is certainly hope, but apprehension too.

“This?”

A long pause. “Ba.”

He sits on the floor and his crow edges forward and lands gracelessly on his knee. 

“You’re on my lap.”

“Ba ba ba? ba -“

“Fine -“

His hands shake only a little as he holds up the chain and lets it settle around the sleek black neck.

An instant later he has another young man collapsing ragged against him, beautiful in black and purple with bruises purpling his fingers, a man who could be the mirror of Kristoph and who, beyond all clarity, is not in any way like him at all. 

There are so many things they will need to do, soon. But for now, Apollo’s crow embraces him and buries his face against the crook of his neck, and Apollo tilts his head toward him, and holds him close, and loves him, loves him back.

#wriightworth #ajaa secret santa 2023 #klapollo

[viatstar]

“You don’t have to please everyone.”

𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒 𝐈 𝐊𝐄𝐄𝐏 𝐓𝐄𝐋𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐌𝐘𝐒𝐄𝐋𝐅 | still accepting

The Harbinger's words don't fall on deaf ears, but Aether makes no move to turn his gaze towards his current companion — instead amber hues stay fixated on the happy couple walking away after a successful commission was complete. Today had been one of those days were he felt like accepting smaller tasks from the Guild that often fell through the cracks in terms of importance. Sure, he could be spending his time escorting cargo transports or clearing out monster camps, but even the smallest of requests can be fulfilling. Like fetching various flowers from the countryside for a stressed-out couple's anniversary!

However. . . a nagging voice always lingered in his ears — 'No one is ever grateful, you know? You're just a tool for everyone to use!' Some clients showed copious amounts of gratitude, and others barely even thanked him. This couple displayed some mixed results: the wife had admired the bouquet with a lovingly gaze, but her husband was quick to claim credit for the work he didn't do, lied to say that Aether was only a bodyguard during their expedition into the mountains of Liyue.

So the work wasn't entirely thankless, and yet. . .

"Oh, you don't have to worry about me! It's fine, I like feeling useful."

The ever-present smile that graces his lips never faltered, but as the outlander finally turns his head to face Childe, his eyes close to mask any weariness that may hide in his eyes.

#— ☆ ASK ANSWERED #tosxah #— ☆ IN CHARACTER #— ☆ CANON COMPLIANT

[captainkurosolaire]

Judas Ceasar is my favourite of your crew.

It's endearing to hear that! Too difficult to explain with words alone, that anyone, ever taken an interest to stuff been working on throughout the years. But my gratitude is boundless. I cherish you forever. My devotion to create only heightens and exceeds itself the more, I delve into learning about the characters and flushing them out. As I go often putting them into settings and right now it's just an on-rail, roller-coaster.

For years now I've thought out and had so much vivid ideas of the world building and just how detailed, I wanted to go. At-first making Captain's crew was too daunting. But man, I've so much love and fondness in this community for the infinite inspiration of others who commit unbelievably into their works. I've got too many idol's in peers to name-off. My Roleplay partners, and those who brought per-established, all my RP partner's former or wherever, account for everything and Captain always been a character that was designed off other's reactions, he was molded to this point where finally he was worth enough to make his own story. And all the Tales people, everyone whose ever been apart of his life, none of that ever goes away. It's all going to be referenced, impacted, or mattered.

Totally makes you feel at home when you find an environment that's filled with your kindred-souls.

If my vitality could just be as equal to my passion, I would do much more. Praise and give so much too, I tried for so-long to overcome my limitations but that became unhealthy, so now from on and ever, I just have to be me. Whatever amount, I am. I'll throw something together and it'll be with all my heart or energy at that day or moment.

I've lot of stories in me, I can see the front-covers, images of them inside my head, I can explain the entire story now in one-word and eventually will come into fold. I've got ideas to make cultures, civilizations, just a lot of Isle's, relics, all sorts of stuff and make every Crewmate and NPC have some sort of evolution, character progression. All leading into a bigger cause.

Think anyone would say hardest part is to stay on the path to continuously write or dedication to your craft, you've sculpted the draft but not lined up and finished all the whistles.

Struggles exist for certain, not feeling your best. But when you really start loving, your own pieces, genuinely, even if goes unseen, the fact you can look-back at the aftermath someday and say; I put my energy in the world and that was, me moves mountains. For me, anymore I feel complete and infinite and I've got an internal sense of peace. Just creating and getting closer to a new story. Bringing it to life, alongside the many muses, I've got fills me with joy.

I'm excited almost to be at point in the story of just doing an abundance of revelations. Like having stories lined up in a stack of domino's and finally you get to push one to make all the other's fall into place and eventually it creates your true picture.

Treasure you though anon, sorry for putting so much into this post. Haven't had the energy to work on a side project or update things. Typically wake up do a story and I'm tapped. Trying to get my feet back to consistency.

Hopefully someday probably soon, I'll take a break throughout year and can work on making a Roster page, overhauling my blog and cleaning it, do proper tags. Make thing's way more user orientated for anyone interested, but also me. Since I like to reference a ton of stories in each new thing sometimes.

Thanks for the power.

#asks answered #much heart to you

[1nksta1neddesk]

A Court of Readers and Ruins

Chapter 22: Round the Corner

I had been swarmed by the court faeries the moment I had stopped screaming and writhing on the floor. Tamlin had held me and brought me to my feet to embrace me, whispering reassurances that this was the only way to save me. I sobbed when he said that, readjusting to long ethereal limbs that had no strain of my mortal muscles. My empty eyes and despondent nods to the fae that gave their gratitude with bent heads and praying hands had eventually keyed him in to guide me to a room far in the catacombs of the mountain.   

I was put into a bedroom while the High lords convened for their meetings, taking the rare moment where they were all gathered in neutral territory to discuss old and new treaties. I had been alone for hours, watching notes from the other fae slip under my door as they each knocked and whispered a mix of prayers and thanks. I couldn’t move from my place on the bed, laying hollow on the plush comforter and staring at the wall. My throat was raw and my face was wet from the occasional rasping sob that would work its way up through me.

My new pointed ears picked up each wisp of cloth down the hall as faeries moved between rooms, many going to find a place to stay for the night. Each brush of air chaffed along my skin, some remaining wounds having stitched themselves up with new fae healing. I was lost on a sea of heady thoughts, ankles heavy with lead weights that dragged me deeper and deeper down till the candle light of the chambers was gone from my sight and I was staring at my cell walls. I felt so cold, frozen so deep to the bone my skin did not even dare turn to goose-bumps. The taste of lingering iron was on my tongue, a comingling of mine and a dead woman’s blood.

The door creaked open and I flinched away from the sound, pushing the side of my head deeper into the cushion of a pillow. I smelled chestnuts and lemon verbena as the air shifted around me and a warm weight settled next to my feet, dipping the bed slightly. I did not have to shift my head to know Lucien was there, rubbing his palms into his eyes. Still I sat up, the movement sending new senses racing up my skin like the hot sluggish movements one would make when they were sick as a child. 

Lucien’s mask was gone, a tan line of the offending piece of metal left in its place. Everyone was pale from months under here so it wasn’t as noticeable as it would have been in the spring sun, but there is a different wane to skin that has not seen light in 50 years and that of a few months.

“How are you doing?” He says it with exhaustion soaking every word, no doubt having to deal with the court proceedings having taken its toll on him and any other emissary. 

“Tired.” Is all I say, all I can say without dragging him down into the waters of my mind with me. I was exhausted, so utterly tired I had drifted to the madness that kept one awake. He hummed an agreement to me in answer and we stayed like that for a long while. Though my mind wouldn’t quiet, the best I could do was to let my body rest, unmoving as we both sat.

“Do you want to talk about…it?” The words are staggered, uncertain, like a hand being offered to a feral dog to sniff. I shake my head, there was so much I could scream if I wanted but I didn’t want to. I wanted to remain quiet and still and fade into the dark. This was the exact opposite of the confounding panic when I had died before. Because I had died before all this, had come to that rationalization in the hours I laid here. There were moments across the years I had considered there was no return, but having died again there was no denying the same falling sensation that had accompanied death, the same inky dark that beconed to ones aching and tired soul. Twice I had been promised that easy drift and twice I had been denied, twice I found I could not blame anyone but myself for hoping.

He sighed, “Okay, sleep. Tamlin is still in some meetings but said he would be down here before we leave, he needs to talk to you about things. We should be here for only a little bit longer, but with all the high lords it takes so long to maneuver around each other's schemes-” He broke his ranting with another sigh before he patted my leg, what should have been a soothing gesture feeling like rubbing salt in a raw scrape. “Just sleep well, Feyre, we owe you more than can ever be repaid.” 

I flinched away from the name, my whole body twitching in repulsion. The movement blended with his rising from the bed though as I watched him go to the door. He paused with his hand on the brass door knob, like he wanted to say something more but thought better of it as he opened the door and left. The clicking of the latch falling back into its latch sounded thunderous and I cursed everything.

_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_

I did find sleep eventually, short bursts that I threw myself from as the smell of iron and hot metal would fill my nose. During a waking moment between two nightmare clips, where I was soaking in a tub of water in the attached bathing chamber to subside the shaking sweats that had overtaken me, a tug at my center. I ignored it the first time, trying to keep down nausea as I slipped down to my nose in the tub. Still the tugging did not stop and I was forced to follow it.

I sloshed from the water, wiping down with a towel before I put on a simple robe, tying it tight as I stumbled through the halls. I felt like a newly born fawn stumbling through a forest of cold stone walls. I followed the tug, incessant like a dog pulling on its lead. My vision was so bleary with half sleep I did not register the sun for half a moment as I made my way up a narrow, winding staircase. 

I saw him in the negative space of soft, late morning light as I found my way to the balcony he stood at. He leaned against the stone banister as I squinted at him, resisting the watering of my eyes to stare at him with new eyes. I was no doubt scowling, marring a newly given immortal beauty that was not mine to cherish, and he huffed at me as he turned. He let out a silky low laugh like he had not been the one tof summon me from my rest.

“I forgot that it’s been a while for you.” He said as he beckoned me over with a hand before he turned back to face the open air. My eyes had adjusted just barely and I was able to look at the scene in front of us.

It was beautiful, wicked and venomously beautiful from our spot on a barren rock face. Tall peaks of snow capped mountains glistened in the distance, and at this distance a soft haze blurred the edges of them, mixing shimmering white with the deep evergreen woods that rested at the roots of the distant mountains. And with him at the center of my vision, him, resting against twisting stone as heavy wings sat at his back. They were spread ever so slightly, rusting in an autumn kissed wind that rushed up the side of the rock. The talons at the apex of each caught the light. The membranes were cast in carmine and gold, so full of life and looking so warm where they rustled that I wanted to trace a finger along the lines of bone and sinew.

I kept my hands to myself, though, as I came to stand next to him, settling my own weight on the same stone banister. The wind rustled the hair at my shoulders, still damp from the bath, and I took a deep breath. The crispness of air promised delicate snow pacts and I was reminded how quickly this had all moved, how quickly I had been prepared for it to be over.

“Why aren’t you gone yet?” The words come out before I mean them too, before I can refine them into something not so abrasive. He looks at me sharply from the corner of his eye as I stare up at him.

“You are always so grateful anytime I try and do something kind. Can we not just have a goodbye like civilized folk?” He says as a gust of wind lifts his hair up from his face. His shadows go skittering along with them, much more prevalent than before and I consider that maybe he was taking the time to readjust to his powers, to having to burn off the excess to keep himself from madness.

“With our little custody agreement, this is hardly a good bye Rhys.” It's so easy to fall into banter, lean on it like a crutch and let it keep me from collapsing into another fit of sobs. The scent of sea salt and citrus soothes my nerves a tad and I resist leaning into Rhysand. “And I am sure that you would much rather be anywhere else than here.” 

That same breathy laugh, “I fear that is true, no matter what waits for me when I get back to my lands.” Some part of me pangs in achy pain, like a chime being rung with my bones. I don’t know what awaits me, especially not if I follow Tamlin back to Spring or find some other court to take me in, I have nowhere to fit now. Every court has an empty piece in their puzzle that needs to be filled after Amarantha, but I cannot see myself fitting into any of them.

For a moment I consider asking Rhys to take me back with him, but I can’t burden him with that when he should be getting back to his family, back to his normal. I am sure they would accommodate, but that is not what I want, I do not want to be a burden to be accommodated for. I wish I had trickled off into that darkness, where it was easy and my misshapen place in all of this was simple and inconsequential like a snowflake melting as it meets the ground.

“Thank you.” I say and I’ve thrown higher order thinking over the banister we lean upon, mind no longer willing to put in the effort to stop words. “For all of it, for making it bearable.” The air on the balcony had grown thick and I wish to flee from it, perhaps throw myself with my thinking over the banister to escape it. Anxiety finds the empty echo chamber in me and rattles around in there.

“It was the least I could do.” He says, “I know how I will be painted in the legends, the cruel high lord parading around a drugged mortal in the belly of a mountain. I just wanted to do something redeemable, something that my children can look upon and know that I was there and fought against her in the end, even if it was useless.” 

“It wasn’t useless,” the words don't sound as convincing as I wish they would, “You distracted her enough for me to stab her again, and gave me the time to answer her riddle.”

He doesn’t let us brew on it though, moving to the next topic to dodge the weight pressing down on both our shoulders. “How does it feel? Being High Fae?”

I grimace, running my thumb along the thin skin of my ring finger, “Weird.” It’s the closest word I can give him without sounding like a loon, “You ever woken up in the morning and touch the cold floor? It's like that but my whole body, all the time, forever.” He laughs and I don’t find my eternal discomfort all that funny. I sigh before I pull back from the balcony, running my hand down his arm in a goodbye before starting my way back down to my rooms. “Go home, Rhys, I’m sure you have people waiting for you.” 

I had just taken the first step down from the balcony when I felt that harsh tug on the bargain again. I turned back to the balcony, exhausted and irritated that he would not let me slip away quietly. But there was a beat of wind before I could turn fully and by the time I was facing the sky again he was gone. Skirting shadows scurry past my ankles, finding sanctuary in the cold stone as I make my way back down to my room.

When I get there I see the door ajar and I am just able to see the toe of a boot at the edge of my bed. I push the door open, careful of the creek of its hinges as I slide into my room, looking at my visitor. Tamlin is asleep on my bed, legs hanging off the end of it while his arms are sprawled out around him. His hair has a new cast of gold to it, silken like corn husk as it casts a halo around him. His face is relaxed and he looks younger even as immortality would keep him from aging at all, pale skin where the mask had rested before.

I let him rest as I went back into the bathroom to my bath that had grown even colder in the time I had been gone. I unplug it and watch the water swirl down the drain, my eyes hazing as I resist the tears blooming there. I wipe them away with the sleeve of my robe as I find some simple clothes. In a dresser drawer there is a rumpled collection of tweed and cotton fabrics and when I pulled them out a plume of dust bunnies fell with them.

When I do get dressed they hang loosely from me and with the new length to my limbs the pants rest above my ankles. When I pad back into my room Tamlin is still conked out on the bed, one arm having shifted to lay over his eyes. I sit lightly on the bed next to him and nudge his leg and he startles away, snorting away sleep as he straightens.

He groans as he raises himself, wiping a drying line of drool from the side of his face. I look at him blankly as I shift my weight against one of the posts of the bed.

“Oh Feyre,” Tamlin is clearing up from sleep. “I was going to talk to you about something, but it can wait till we are home and you are rested.” His eyes dragged over my form, crumpled in on itself as I slouched. I gave him a small nod, my eyelids becoming heavy as I blinked at him.

“I am so thankful for you Feyre, everyone is. Whatever I can do to repay what you gave, I will d0, just tell me.” He says it as he rises, leaving me in the bed. “We are leaving at noon, I have a few last things to do with the other High Lords but use this time to rest. I will have some food sent in for you, I know you must be famished.” He walks towards the door after I hum an affirmative. I am so damn tired that I am not sure I could have had a conversation at all. 

I wanted to sleep and forget for a little while, so I lay down and closed my eyes. The shadows sweep in quickly and I fall into the first restful hours of sleep I’ve had in months.

_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_

I stood abreast with Tamlin at the mouth of the cave that Alis had left me at. The rest of the courts had left early in the morning, collapsing the tunnels to their courts as they trickles out. That had left the Spring court to be the last ones to leave, letting me have precious hours of sleep that had let my bones settle into my skin. Still the only feeling I had in my chest was like a ringing glass, empty and reverberating. 

The moment this last tunnel was collapsed the holy mountain would be closed off for eternity, or untill the future generations took time to dig through the rotted rubble of their histories. I would never return to the depth of its belly again, and it felt like a loss. The mountain had bore its witness to each of my moments, it was the last of my mortality I was afraid to lose again. But it was not my decision, and far to many people agreed to the forgetting of the winding halls hewn from artistry that had been painted with blood for me to contest with.

Amarantha’s body had been burned in the time I was in my room, Jurian’s eye and finger bone having gone missing with the Attor. The missing pieces of the man seem to bother Tamlin more than I, but I can’t fault him for that. 

So now I stood with Tamlin as the very last of the court trickled from its mouth. Tamlin waved his hand and the rock fell behind us, dust kicking up from the cold gray stone. I blinked against the dust that plumed before Tamlin took my elbow in his and guided us through the dark.

Buttery yellow sunlight spilled from the edge of the small tunnel I had used as we approached it. I tightened my arm against his as we stepped into the open air and I saw Lucien resting on log to the side but I was enraptured by the cerulean sky that yawned above me. I feel small again and I want to crush down and fall into the world like a grain of sand in a vast desert.

Spring air brushed at my face and I took in a deep breath heavy with the scent of wild flowers and soft rain. I hadn’t expected to ever see this sky again and though I should feel joy it hits me with another twinge of longing for where I thought I should be. Things are wrong but I can’t very well say that, not as I start walking to the 3 saddled horses waiting for us. Tamlin separates from me and gets onto his horse while Lucien comes forward to me, helping me navigate lifting myself up with new limbs and strength. 

We start over the hills and I am left breathless as the endless sea of green I had never truly appreciated for its richness yields to the long legs of our steeds. Lucien falls back next to me and smiles at me with unbridled joy as his skin shines with the sun. Life has returned to burn in his golden eyes as sun washes over him and if I was more respectable I might tell him of his paternity. But I am shameful and feel no guilt as we ride on, him pulling in closer to where our knees nearly brush. 

The peace lets the hollowness in me grow less prominent, no ringing of wrong through my heart as we approach Rose Manor. The tall walls of brackets have returned with lush green leaves and the gate sits upon its hinges once again. Shrieking cherubic laugher comes from the garden walls as we pull in closer and I see the sentinels back knocking shoulder to shoulder as they move past the stables where horses neigh and I see a wobbly legged foal shake its mane next to its mother in the pasture. 

Life is back here again, more than I had ever seen in the months I had lived in its walls. Now it felt foreign and I was simply an observer. I see two heads of blond hair bob over a low garden wall and I can’t resist my smiling as I see Alis follow behind them. I would be able to beg for her forgiveness then, and maybe I could fill this void with days of play for the sake of the boys and the innocence I tainted in them.

We come to a stop before the marble steps of the manor and Lucien guides me down from the horse. Tamlin awaits both of us as we approach and I take both of their hands in mine, squeezing them slightly. I see Lucien wince slightly and loosen the grip quickly.

Tamlin squeezes back though as he speaks, “Welcome home”. Tears shine in his eyes as we all take a step forward.

#acotar #fanfic #reader #a court of readers and dreamers #acotar rewrite #inkywrites #reader insert #rhysand #lucien vanserra #lucien friendship #We lived yall

[sweetness-doesnt-touch-my-face]

I don't know what compelled me to do this. But back when tumblr seemed like it was ending in 2018. I screen-shotted literally every nice message or words I got on this website. It is basically a giant folder. I craved validation when I was younger for so many reasons. It's definitely not a healthy habit by any means.

But I just re-read them all for the first time in years.

And I'm literally crying.

This place used to be so full. In the darkest periods of my life, it seemed like I had a whole world of kind strangers behind me. The gratitude I have for those people is insurmountable. I'm so overwhelmingly touched. These echoing words from the past.

I think what makes me the most emotional about it. I can count on one hand the people who are still with me. They've mostly migrated to other sites. But god. All these people who are no longer in my life. Whether it be dissolved friendships. Followers simply moving on.

It's just a painful fact of life. Most people in this world aren't going to be permanent fixtures in your life. Some people are simply here just to teach us a life lesson or give us a beautifully unique experience. It's just incredibly heartfelt to see all these people who once supported me. These people moved mountains in my state of mind.

These people believed in me before I did myself.

I lost a good chunk of my audience around 2019. There was a notable decline when people got the idea that when I was finally mentally stable/sober enough, I no longer needed them. That wasn't necessarily true. Everyone in this world wants to be loved.

I just can't help but wonder where these people are now. I lost touch with them so unwillingly more often than not. It's just moving to read the words from people you once considered so vital/important to your being. I hope they know how deeply I appreciated them.

I wouldn't be who I am without their love.

To those who are still with me, you know who you are.

I love you beyond comprehension.

#this world can be beautiful #it just sucks to lose people #life is weird and wonderful #i was so blessed #random thoughts idk #personal

[slipperygaloshes]

Thank you to @jmflowers for infusing my day with some positivity. Here’s my attempt at your gratitude challenge.

10 things I’m grateful for and/or proud of myself for accomplishing since the start of 2023:

1. I recently spent a whole weekend with my family, celebrating my grandmother’s 93rd (!!!) birthday. Learned a lot about family members I never had a chance to meet and my grandmother was really happy all weekend and I was happy to be there with her. I was also v proud of myself for attending day 3 without my nuclear family, and for forcing myself to drive in the rain. I don’t love driving but the only way to get better at it is to do it, and I think the same is probably true of making conversation. So there’s a twofer of gratitude and pride.

2. I am grateful as hell to have the dog I didn’t want five years ago by my side. He makes life brighter. He had a difficult start before landing with us, but is such a good, smart boy and I’m very proud of him. I’m forcing myself to take him on a daily walk when I get home from work and he’s slowly becoming more adventurous/less anxious, and a better walker to boot. We’re getting further every day. And we’re also working very hard to not freak out when a dog or squirrel passes by the house.

3. I’m grateful to live where I do, even if I wish I lived separate from my family at nearly all times. There is an enriching city and many relaxing beaches in close proximity, and all different sorts of people to meet and know. I’m really lucky my ancestors stopped moving around where they did.

4. I’ve read about six books this year thanks to my new NYPL digital library card. This is not a very impressive stat, especially for a former English major, but I lost my drive for reading for a long time, so it’s meaningful to me.

5. Recently did a big clean out of the mountains of miscellaneous paperwork six people accumulate over the years. We didn’t need about 2/3 of it, so that was satisfying to see. I also got rid of a ton of Christmas crap and other random things we no longer have need for. I’m a fan of spring cleaning, I think! Debating tackling the catch-alls that are the laundry room and/or garage this weekend.

6. I am actively trying to make plans with people and be a more active participant in life lately. Not sure if this is a consequence of more sun in my life or what but I’m trying to keep the momentum going and hopefully by the time it gets dark again, I’m in a good habit. Usually, I just do things alone these days because all of my friends moved out together about an hour away and I just don’t want to coordinate schedules/budgets/etc. But had a good time the last weekend we went out, so I’m trying to be more inviting.

7. Speaking of that, I had fun exploring a new place recently, living almost completely in the moment (a rarity for me), and along the way discovered that I enjoy an aperol spritz. I think one of my friends had it in mind as like a birthday activity for me, but everyone was super respectful of my wish for a quiet/low key birthday, and the day was all the better for it. My boss and my family were also good about it, so I’m grateful for that.

8. I’ve been working to reframe some of my negative thoughts recently. I like to playfully call it “gaslighting myself into mental wellness”, but in all seriousness, I do think it has helped me to retool my brain so I’m thinking a little differently and having healthier reactions to things beyond my control. So there’s something to be proud of.

9. I’m grateful to love and be loved. I don’t know a better feeling in the world and I am really lucky to have some great people in my life. I’m grateful for this opportunity to reflect on that.

10. This is a pre-pride, really, but it’s going to be my biggest accomplishment of this year, and possibly of the next few years, and I want to shout it from the rooftops but I’m too shy for that, so I’m sharing it here. I will make my final payment on my private student loan in September and be private debt free in October. This has been years of working a survival job, living with my parents, and missing out on exciting opportunities in the making, but soon I will be able to live more freely and do more of what I want to do rather than what I have to do. I’ve decided I’m going to go to Mexico to celebrate.

#personal #gratitude challenge #this was a challenge but I was glad to have the opportunity to reflect

[airyucat]

Hello again, tumblr. It’s a fitting that that my first post back comes from a place of deep pain. I used tumblr a lot in grad school, some of the most painful years of adulthood. It’s not that I don’t trust my loved ones, but it’s that I still have intrusive thoughts that I let become thoughts. But this animation also comes from a place of deep gratitude. I wanted to add more outlines to the video, but if you’re in it, how dare you not give up on me >:c How dare you always support me, no matter what I’m going through. Absolutely rude (am I supposed to specify sarcasm here). If you’re in the video, I love you inexplainable amounts. And if you’re not, or you’re wondering if you are, I probably love you too. But I have a constant feeling of a valley bigger Valles Marineris cut through my being. Loved one prove to me they love me over and over again, and my stupid scientist brain collects stupid evidence and puts together a stupid hypothesis and runs simulation upon simulation on why this is wrong actually, why those people don’t care about me, why they’re lying to me actually. I have far away friends on other states and countries, so we try and plan online events, that get cancelled or where 2 people show up and can only stay for 15 minutes. If you truly cared about me, why don’t you call, or message, or reach out, of your own volition. Why do I have to wait until I’m cracking and deseperate and seek you out in pain for us to connect? I left an online group I loved - I let one person ruin it for me - and there went a big piece of my life. And people who said they still cared about me, why should a hi every now and then be enough? We used to move mountains with tremendous conversations, but now I just get a Merry Christmas in response to me saying it. I have friends here, in norcal, that live 2 hours away by driving, and 3 hours away by public transit. It’s exhausting, I often need to spend the night if it’s a late event, and I’m so far away that there are events I miss by not knowing about them. I’ve known them forever, but like, not as long as the full time I’ve known them. I met some before moving to Michigan for grad school, others when visited norcal but lived in michigan and then socal. So I was MIA physically from their lives from 2012-2018

Trauma led me to move back to norcal at the end of 2018. I got a job in SF, and my now spouse, Tai, and I moved to a cheap area still far from friends. It was supposed to be temporary, but I’m bad with money, and weddings can be expensive, and it’s hard to save up when a pandemic hits. But, in late 2018, everything felt broken, awful, horrible. Honestly that time and the year before felt like “what if our whole polycule that hadn’t even formed yet fucked up every thing every where all at once.”

So, 2019 was the year Tai and I took time to ourselves fix serious issues in our relationship, which meant we were distant from everyone, no matter the distance. We got cats at the start of the year though, two of the best decisions I’ve ever made. The end of 2019 was when we we finally reconnected back with our poly partners, and started reaching out to friends. And then, well, happy happy 2020 pandemic. Mid-2021 was spent reconnecting for me, but disconnecting for Tai, for similar reasons. “If you truly cared about me, why didn’t you reach out until you found out how bad things were.” I like to think we’re both decent at masking though. As a kid, before my dad starting ripping up all my art, he ripped up the ones where I drew sad faces. Because you’re not supposed to be sad, ever. Early 2022 I lost my one of my best friend’s dad. He felt like my dad. How sad was I allowed to be? I still don’t know, and next month it’ll have been a year since.

Did you know that a wedding at Disneyland and another wedding at a Hindu temple are really, really hard to plan? That’s what almost half of 2022 was. The weddings themselves, in May, on our anniversary, and the honeymoon, wow. Breath-taking. Especially for all the adlibbing we ended up doing (no rehearsal needed). 12 years since I met Tai. 11 years since I asked them out. 8 years since I proposed. Took us long enough.

My favorite pictures are the ones with or of loved ones, particularly our polycule and wedding party. I generally never get nostalgic, but I cry thinking about all the people that supported us. A lot of them are outlines in the video. My chest physically hurts knowing I will not be able to express how damn much I love them. People from all those three groups above? Didn’t matter how long the drive was, or the plane costs and delays, or the wallet-draining hotels, buying Indian and Disney-bounding clothes, spending a day in weather that was too hot for them... they did it. For Tai. For me. They did it. Side note - I’ll never forget that my (white) girlfriend taught me how to tie a sari. If you ever feel like an outsider to your cultural roots, remember me. And after the wedding... it was back. June, July, August, September, October, worse worse worse feelings of being excluded, people not wanting to be around me, doesn’t matter how false those feelings were. You can know something logically and not know it. Tai withdrawing from everyone. Accidental emotional neglect - if someone’s masking well enough, you don’t know. You can’t know. You can’t. And it matched my self narrative anyways: I’m disgusting and people don’t want me around. It solves everything; no one can kick you down if you’ve already done it. Emotions compounded by feeling unskilled in art, drained by my job’s commute and miniscule amounts of time off, Kaiser giving me scraps of therapy once every 8 weeks... My mental health pludged. October. Went to Europe with my girlfriend. Met some internet friends IRL. Covid finally got its claws into me, but my symptoms were just a sore throat, and I thought, maybe I was climbing up mentally. Maybe I got this! Halloween. My fave holiday. Sat around the apartment and did nothing. November. My birthday. It hit. It always hits hard. I can mitigate it with a party, and I did two weeks later, but having friends in their 20′s makes me wish I didn’t spend half of those years rotting away getting a PhD. I guess I can slap a Dr. in front of my last name now. 32 is the age one of my fave webcomic writers ended her long-running comic, and had plans but not really, and I think about her a lot, now that I’m that age. What am I going to do? I’ve got 10 months left to this age.

We went to a convention that emotionally hit Tai bad, and now they really really really won’t reach out to our friends. And I started trying to see friends more and talk to them more and... burnt myself out a little I think, because if you feel excluded and think people don’t want you there and aren’t used to interactions without a spouse or partner, seeing friends more isn’t a magic cure. It’s helping I think... I hope. I had to also come to terms with the fact that I’m probably never going to move to Hawaii, or have kids, or buy a house of be a Cool Internet Artist™, and might never be able to retire. Everything felt like it was crumbling. And then I drew this ...last week? It feels like a million years ago, but the new year did just happen. Here I am now. I’m going to keep trying I guess. I don’t know why, really, but here I go. I’ll try and be on here more, and just, share more. Take things out of my head and plop them down, and hope that the void yells back every now and then. Love, Airyu (Agni)

#cw gore #cw vent #cw depression #animation #procreate #art #artists on tumblr #animators on tumblr #animator #indie animator #personal vent #vent

[kettlemouse]

Updated Warriors OC

Kittypet name: Missy (she never really considered that her actual name because never felt right to her but she answered to it anyway.)

Nickname given by Snow(kit): Amber

Warrior name: Amberclaw

Appearance: Norwegian Forest Cat with a light tabby fur pattern, extremely fluffy hair that sometimes requires some extra help from Snow(kit) to groom. Her eyes are a vibrant amber-ish colour.

Characteristics: She is quite adventurous. Despite having a slightly nervous demeanor, she is quite the fighter when others are in danger. Mom friend to everyone, no matter their age. Quite spiritual despite not knowing what/who she is communicating with. A bit of a scavenger. Quite an impressive and stealthy hunter despite large size.

A Bit Of Backstory: She barely remembers her mother, having been taken away as a kitten. She later was kept by the old worker that use to live in the abandoned house, inside the lake territories. Despite being called Missy since she was a kitten, she never really liked the name, instead, thinking it was a nickname of sorts. After the old worker was gone (presumably passed away from old age) she was left to wander the lake territories. She became aware of certain plants and items that can be utilized as medical equipment. Pine was one thing she used whenever she caught a bad cough, using the scent to help clear her lungs (the smell of pine almost has the same effect as Vicks for me).

Eventually, as she wandered closer to the mountains, she heard the cry of a kit and flapping of a bird. She was quick to climb to the sound and saw a white kit scrambling around in a hawk's nest, and without hesitation, she pounced on the bird, swiftly snapping it's neck. The kit was still panicking crying for his mother and absolutely quivering like a leaf in the wind.

"Hey, hey. Little one you are safe, you're safe. Shh shh shh." She instinctively curled up around the kit, licking at any scratches she found on his little body. The kitten didn't really respond to her words but certainly pushed up against her warm flank, mewing out in fear. She attempted to get his attention again, but words were lost on the snow white kit. That gave her an idea, tapping the nest below them in order to make vibrations. Without a second more, the kit peered up at her, relaxing under her warm gaze, all she did was nuzzle his head. This deaf kit needed a mother, and she would need to raise him. Thank goodness he seemed old enough to eat fresh kill. (Yeah, I was too heartbroken by Snowkit's sudden demise in The Prophecies Begin and wanted our little guy to live, learning how to deal with his disability.)

Interactions With The Clans: She was extremely cautious when she first smelled a large amount of new cats in the area, watching from afar as they settled in the lake territories. Thankfully, she wasn't too territorial, and it certainly helped that an unknown cat whispered to her in her dreams about this happening. The one group of cats that moved in close to her old abandoned home seemed to smell familiar, almost like how Snow's scent was when she first met him. She would only show herself to one of these clan cats when they were in great danger with a fox or badger, arriving (Snow sometimes accompanying her) before said creature could hit a finishing blow. Eventually, these occurrences where spread throughout all clans, talk of a "Warrior of Starclan" coming to save them before death can touch them.

It was only a matter of time before Amber and Snow shown themselves to Thunderclan as they were the closest, Snow and Firestar sharing an emotional reunion (Firestar might not of known Snowkit very well when he was taken and vice versa, but that didn't stop him from mourning his capture.)

They were brought to one gathering and were greeted with both suspicion and gratitude.

Herself and Snow were soon was asked to join Thunderclan, Snow becoming Snowflight and Amber becoming Amberclaw.

Amberclaw, huh? She liked the sound of that.

(I haven't thought much further than this)

#warrior cats oc #warriors oc #warriors #warriors cats #warrior cats #wc oc #wc #erin hunter warriors #oc

[resmarted]

i'm constantly searching out different pockets of samsara to find where i belong to no avail. nothing feels right enough, nowhere feels safe enough, inadvertently starving myself of the love i require to move all these mountains without a net to fall back into or a hope to cling onto. and you know me, you know i'm always doing the thing where i spoil people with love only to wind up the giving tree, lonely is such the martyr in me, i know. lately i am blistered and numb, food is tasteless and the little joys have become fewer and farther between. i yearn to ignore the horrors within so i learn every little detail about people i'll never see again and wonder about them in moments well past their casual departures. i find the intimate details in those closest to me even for moments, wonder aloud about their lives and count the freckles on their nose, and these have become my more delightful bits of time passing. i struggle with the notion of having no real use or place and then feeling despised any time i do make headway on potentially finding any little version of it. i don't want to feel alone so i put myself in situations with people where i only alienate and isolate deeper than had i never left my little hiding spot at all. i worry for people who in turn find me odd and unnerving, find reasons to excuse their treatment and the things they say that they think i can't hear. a real love thine enemies type conundrum. and look, i get it, okay? none of this is real and i am essentially being held hostage in a dark room, blindfolded into a state of constant projections and illusions. like fine, whatever, i've accepted it and can only play these silly little games at this point to distract from the pain of it all. constant hints of it being my fifth year in this realm since the reset and yet everyone seems to forget i have been here since the first dawn, i remember everything and i pierce through the veil a lot better than anyone thinks. and also it's like, who even cares at this point? i am starting to miss all the people who left me for dead. the bloody rabbit everyone is laughing at comes back to haunt them deep into the night but no one is laughing when furniture shakes and pictures fly off the walls as i'm demanding to play. nobody wants to play these games once i start winning, vicious children throwing their controllers in frustration at the monitors. i develop sixteen crushes in a week and have disconnected from all of them by noon. voids filled and then emptied again like water barrels in a flood storm, i am constantly reminded of how i cannot afford to be naive but so desperately want a companionship that only the huntsmen want to provide. and sometimes pride morphs into apathy through a rigorous programming of emotional starvation that eventually i'm just like, yeah that's fine, just make sure to love me before you destroy me. but then they don't even finish the job and i am left broken winged while someone feels too conflicted to face me. there's always someone that leaves me for dead but doesn't kill me, needs to explore what else is out there and when I manage to crawl out the grave, the anger boils and rage rushes through the winds because how dare I not only survive but move on? how dare i not sink deeper into the pit and wait ever so patiently with such gratitude for the dirt i am fed?

a couple of months ago i sobbed hysterically in my bathtub every night praying for a real friend and every day i look around and wonder, is it you? is this another trick? am i eternally placed in battlefields having to dodge the mines of deceit while other people get to leisurely laugh over beignets and reminisce about their wild night out with their trusted companions? people tell me to leave for my own good and i wonder if it's because they work for the enemy. i am constantly hiding in plain sight and have been my whole life, often veiled by a jealous man that wants to own me like a dog and barely feed me scraps even when i am being good, even when i so loyally and lovingly greet him at his feet and sing his praises better than anyone else. any sense of true love or friendship from anyone else and he is out to destroy it before it begins, wants to keep me in my little hole unseen and starving only for him. i wish to be untethered from all that attempts to deplete me of my light or siphon from me in any way, it's been so long now and i am so tired from being robbed. i want to look into a set of eyes that remind me how different the world can be if i just tilt my head a certain way and see it from a different axis point. i want to be one with the stars and to tell someone it's going to be okay even when we are both scared shitless, i know that when it comes from my voice it is more believable because even i start to become convinced. and i know that i can pull myself out of anything and survive the hardest hits, but i'm very tired from doing it alone for so long and it seems like there should have been some sort of reprieve by now. it is very exhausting never knowing who to trust and feeling like there is no one above corruption, that people will eye me suspiciously from vicious gossip and a looming sense that i can't possibly be the person i portray myself as, as if i could ever find the energy within me to put on an act after all this gut wrenching honesty i hand out so casually on a normal day. i want to live by the ocean, i want to be a child again, i want a path that isn't worn down by all the battered and broken people who did it before me. the energy needs to be cleared, the room feels too stuffy, my lens needs adjusting because all i can see is someone that everyone else wants to hunt down like ravenous beasts under a blood moon and i don't like the sound of butterfly nets clanking together when observing something so pretty and free. i know all too well what it means to be locked in a little cage by the watchful eyes of a possessive handler and i won't do it to someone else, even when the inkling starts to take over and i ache to hide away in these teeny tiny little pockets of samsara to kiss your face quietly while the stampede tramples everything in its path outside of us. and i feel stupid and sore and like the nightmare may never end, but then i look at you and for like, the smallest most miniscule moment, i can see the ocean and hear the waves and i swear to god i am a child again. i swear to god with you i am free.

#long reads