#this week on: sunny wants half sibling content

[oubliette-odette]

The Reluctance of Love, Pt. 5

Orc Male x Half-Elf Male, Fated Mates, Forbidden Love, Slow Burn Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 Word Count: 2,724 (average 16 min read) Content Warnings: mention of mating, nothing happens....yet ;) All orcish is from orcishdictionary.com, created by Matt Vancil. Not beta-read. Criticism is welcome, but be sure to distinguish criticism from hate.

I tried to pretend that the sweat dripping off of my body was because of physical exertion walking, but the pain in the pit of my stomach and the tightness of my muscles as I held back the incessant urges inside was a constant reminder that my symptoms were only getting worse.

I had hoped with distance, the urge to mate would diminish, but I found that walking away from Altan grew more difficult with each step. The thought kept passing that Altan was likely experiencing the same thing, and I felt even more sorry that my legs couldn’t walk me faster.

The travel to the outerlands was less than a week’s travel. I would sometimes be offered a ride to the next town, which would help me in getting there faster, but my body would seize as I sat on the back of the wagon, and my fists would be clenched and my jaw tight as I muscled through polite conversation. I’m sure they all found me mad or intimidating, but it was taking everything to keep myself in control. 

The only comfort I had was at night, sleeping under the stars and returning to that space in my dreams where Altan would wait for me. He never complained about the situation, but would instead ask me how I was faring and tell me stories.

I was able to make a living with my forge creating tools and instruments for the local folk to purchase and I took great pride that my work was not only sturdy, but it was also pleasant to look at, even though I never considered myself an artist. 

Altan, however, was an artist. The way he told stories, recited poetry and sang - it was all art. He carried so much grace and confident motion within him, even the way his fingers danced upon the air as he elaborated his story, I could never look away from those slender fingers and the control they had with each subtle brush and wave. His torso would sway, and I found myself frequently bound to staring at his waist and the slight curve there. He was as much a masterpiece of art. He was music, he was poetry, he was…magnificent. In the quiet of our own special dreamspace he would weave tales that his mother passed down to him - of the ancient days when his elven ancestors fought to defend their lands from a long dead evil. 

He soothed much of my worry for him with his honey-silver tongue, but it created a deeper, more permanent ache inside me that I recognized never left in our dream world. A want to be near him, a want to see him and be seen by him. I struggled to say words around him, but he always cleverly and patiently wheedled answers out of me. 

I learned that Altan had always dreamed of running away to be an artist and bring people joy.

He learned that I had always dreamed of traveling to new places, even across the sea if I ever got lucky. 

I learned that Altan was the oldest with two siblings, and his mother was a high-born elf who left her people to be with Altan’s father. He seemed to clam up when it came to his father.

He learned that I had four broodmothers, and one very larger-than-life father who led our orc clan through countless raids and sired more siblings than I could count but yet he somehow remembered all of our names.

Altan liked rainy days, sweet food especially when it had cinnamon, and he often got in trouble as a child for rescuing animals off the sides of the roads.

I liked sunny days, spicy food that burned my face off, and often dazed off thinking about things and could go days without talking to a soul.

Altan loved people, and I was scared of most people. We both enjoyed sleeping in late, and didn’t enjoy following rules when they could be avoided. And we both felt like disappointments to our family, despite how hard we both worked for an otherwise more positive reaction. 

We were both each other’s first friend.

I found each night as our conversation ended and our dreams pulled us back to the waking world, that I found great comfort in Altan’s presence and a remorse at having to say goodbye. He seemed to enjoy my company in return and I wondered if this is what it felt like to have a friend. A real friend. 

I pondered it as I gritted my teeth and trudged through the misery of my days. I cursed Gruumsh for my misery and I prayed to any other god who would listen to watch out for Altan.

When I reached the border of my family’s land, I sniffed the air and followed the trail of smoke that wafted in the air. Orc tribes travel through the seasons and live in a shared commune that reminded me of an elaborate camp. There was always food on the fire, furs to nestle in and a sibling or mate to keep you company. As a child I remembered having no privacy in my home. There was always one of my mothers, or a sibling around to watch my every move. It was anxiety-inducing and I recognized that my body was holding a pit of dread alongside my need to mate. 

I knew who I would need to see once I arrived, and I hoped that I could slip through without much notice.

But I would not be so lucky.

A horn blew as I stepped into outer circle of the commune. I saw orcs all around raise their heads from their work and turn to find me slowly approaching. It took some of them a few moments before they recognized me. I held my breath and waited for the loud and violent impact of my family.

“Drunrag!” They exclaimed, and some raced over to my side. My shoulders, arms, back, chest, and backside were all slapped - there was no such thing as hugging in my family - and loud obnoxious comments made about how slim I was. None of them seemed to notice that I swayed under their slaps as the pull of lordhovid pulled me back to wherever Altan was.

“Drunni!” I recognized my broodsister, Orga, as she clapped her hands on both my shoulders and knocked her forehead against mine. “We have missed you so much!” She grimaced as she pulled her hands back, damp with my sweat, “What’s wrong with you?”

“I need to see Nezda.” I managed. “Now.”

Nezda was one of our oldest she-orcs in our commune. All of her mates had since passed on and she alone was the one teaching the young ones our history. I remembered her as old when I was but a young pup, and I wondered how old she was then. 

Orga led me with the rest of my family following behind begging for questions from me. Orga and I had often fought as we grew, she always pushed me harder than any of my other siblings, but when I looked over at her then, I saw only a passive look on her face. I didn’t know what that meant.

“Nezda!” She called, her hands was on my bicep as she practically dragged me into the tent that Nezda stayed in. It looked exactly as I remembered it. Layers of furs on the ground, stools and cushions to sit against and a burning hearth that kept the room stifling with heat. I groaned at the amount of heat inside and outside of me. It was getting to be too much. 

“The quiet one has returned, I see.” Nezda’s voice rasped as she came from behind a curtain. Her violent green eyes locked onto mine. She had never liked me, told my father that I was too quiet, asked too many questions and didn’t think fast enough to be a warrior. She had been the first to call me broken when I was the last one of my brood to be unmated. I saw how she looked at me then, and I felt the same chilling shame that I did as a child and I averted my gaze from her.

Orga went about shooing the other siblings away from Nezda’s tent, eventually leaving only Orga and Nezda inside me. Two of the women I feared the most in all of my life, cornering me. 

“What is this, Drunrag?” Orga’s voice was expectant and harsh. “Where is she?”

“Who?” I asked.

“Your raebukan!” Orga yelled. “You think I don’t know what you’re feeling?”

I shook my head, “There is no mate, I need this to go away.” I looked to Nezda. “Help me. Please.”

“Lordhovid does not manifest without a mate, shakedul.”

I felt so small with Nezda referencing me as a child, nothing more than just a boy in her eyes. While most of my siblings were probably having their third or fourth child, maybe even starting clans of their own…I was nothing more than a child to them. I hated how I felt here.

“You dukitod.” Orga continued the trail of insults, forcing my eyes away from her judgemental stare. “Why would you resist this? You’re finally one of us.” 

I shook my head, “No. You must listen. There is no mate.”

Nezda narrowed her eyes at me. “You are speaking half truth, shakedul. Where is she?”

I looked at her, my face intent and pleading. Please. I begged in my head. Just listen. “Revered one, I will not lie to you. There is no woman for me to mate with.”

She narrowed her eyes further and a long, drawn out groan escaped her lips. She shook her head and walked towards me. Her long, bony fingers came up to my forehead and grasped each side of my temple. I closed my eyes and clenched.

I could hear her heavy breathing as she poured herself into my mind. She would see Altan, she would see he is not my mate. I was relieved to be seen as telling the truth. I dreaded my family knowing about Altan. He was mine to know, not theirs.

“Hmmmm” Nezda pulled back and her green eyes were on me like spotlights. “You do not lie. You do not speak truth. There is a mate. But a man.”

“What?” Orga exclaimed. She broke into an ugly fit of laughter and she slapped her hand on me. “You really are broken, brother.”

I ignored her and looked up to Nezda. “Will you help me?”

“You have not mated with him?” She asked.

I looked at her aghast, as if my crumbling composure wasn’t enough to show her. “No. I would not touch him.” 

She didn’t speak, but only continued to study me. I finally broke her silence. “Please tell me you know of a way to reverse lordhovid.”

“Sacrilege” Orga breathed. “To mate is an honor.”

I resisted shaking my head at her and screaming to her the nightmare it was to be forced to mate. I hated the idea of all of this happening without my permission. I did not feel honored looking at Altan’s perfect body and desiring it without even knowing him. 

“Hush.” Nezda hissed. “Leave, kristifam.”

Orga looked like she wanted to protest, but she quietly bowed her head before making her way out of the tent. I caught the whispered curses under her breath as she passed me. 

“You…feel nothing for your raebukan?” She asked.

It was an unfair question. All of this, I realized, was because I cared for Altan. I think I was suddenly feeling more for him than I was prepared for, and most of it was happening even when I was in our dreams where lordhovid didn’t affect me. I wanted to end lordhovid now because I wanted to feel something for him without my body hurting us, hurting him. 

Nezda didn’t wait for my answer, she sniffed. “Does he feel nothing for you?”

I didn’t really know that. I knew he wasn’t afraid of me. I knew he saw me as a friend. He certainly thought good of me. But I assumed there wasn’t much more than that. I could see that he would likely be that way with anyone if given the chance. I shook my head at her. 

She hummed, her eyes piercing. “Mating in our clan is considered an honor above death in battle, you understand?”

I nodded.

“Would you choose to be dishonored by your own blood?”

“I will not do something that would dishonor him.” I affirmed.

She nodded once and bowed her head. “You will feel worse before you feel better.” She said. “Are you prepared?”

I spoke gravely, “I am, yes. Tell me what to do.”

#oublietteodette #monster boyfriend #orc boyfriend #orc x half elf #dnd inspired #set in faerun #monster lover #monster romance #orc #orc romance #monster fucker #slow burn #romance #my fic #writing #gay romance #my fic writing #fantasy story #creative writing #bg3 #writeblr #mm romance

[soupandsimple]

Build Up To A Baby (with Sirius Black)

[ some key point moments of your baby having journey ]

* fluff! 🖤

- warnings?: pregnancy/words associated with pregnancies

** kind of long but quick paced (featuring Remus & teen Harry) I’m excited to see what you all think of this one!

This was requested: see ask here

……….

To make a long story short; you and Sirius used to date while attending Hogwarts. He was two years above you which was ultimately the cause of your break up when he graduated. It wasn’t a matter of lost feelings from either side but you both dreaded a long distance relationship so that was that.

Or course, soon after graduating and turning eighteen, Sirius joined the Order to fight in the first wizarding war alongside his friends. At the time, you were unaware of what he was up to since sadly, you had lost contact after the break up, so imagine the surprise you took when you found out Lily and James had been killed and Sirius Black was allegedly the murderer.

You didn’t believe it, not for a second and even made a vow to yourself that if you ever saw him again, regardless if he felt the same or not, you’d tell him one of your biggest regrets in life was not wanting to endure a long distance relationship with him.

As it turns out, it was one of his too.

Sirius was declared free upon the capture of Peter Pettigrew who had been living as a rat for 12 years. You read all about it in the papers and quickly did whatever you could to find Sirius. It wasn’t hard as he too was looking for you and showed up on your doorstep one sunny afternoon.

He told you how he never stopped thinking about you; not after the break up, not while in prison nor the few weeks he had been out of prison. You in turn told him it had been the same for you with him.

You hugged and kissed and laughed and cried.

After a few days of getting reacquainted, he wanted to introduce you to Harry- the 12 year old son of James and Lily, also known as his godson that was now rightfully in his care. You accepted and to Sirius’s delight, Harry instantly loved you and you him!

It wasn’t long before Sirius proposed and you were living in the gorgeous countryside with them both.

A happy life it was but soon, the thought of a baby came to your and your husband’s mind. Oh to make a child that had both a little piece of him and a little piece of you.

The subject was taken into serious consideration in bed one night which concluded in one of, if not the most important, aspect of it all-

“But what about Harry?” you questioned Sirius.

“What about Harry?” he asked, caressing your shoulder as you laid cuddled into his side.

“I’m sure he considers you a father figure and I, hopefully, a mother figure of some sort; how will he feel about us wanting a baby?”

Sirius sighs and kisses your forehead. “We’ll ask him. Tomorrow.”

That next day at breakfast, the question in plan was brought up.

“Harry, we’d like your thoughts on something” Sirius began.

“What?” Harry mindlessly asked while dowsing the French toast before him in syrup.

“Well, me and Y/N have been giving it a lot of thought…and uh..well we want to know how you’d feel if we had a baby?”

Harry dropped the half eaten piece of French toast from his fingers back to his plate and continued chewing the piece in his mouth with a subtle, contemplative look.

You anxiously looked at Sirius and he to you.

“I think that’d be great!” Harry then replied excitedly, face changing to full on joy.

“Really?” you asked, holding back contentment until you were absolutely sure he meant it.

“Yeah! I’ve always wondered what it’d be like to have a younger sibling and had accepted it would never happen but now, well now I have the chance to experience it…if…if you’d be comfortable letting me consider your baby a sibling anyway.”

You pouted at his request, “Oh Harry my love,” you said, coming around to where he sat, “I know I’ve only known you for some months now but I already consider you a part of me in the most motherly way. You don’t have to ask my permission to consider a future baby of mine and Sirius’s as a sibling; in fact, I’ll be honored if you do.”

Harry smiled and leaned into your side at a hug you initiated.

“This is honestly so great you guys” Harry said, looking over towards Sirius. “Now don’t go into detail, but any plans as to when?”

Sirius chuckled at what Harry insinuated by detail and then shook his head. “At the moment, no. We just wanted to know how you’d feel about it happening.”

You nodded in agreement. “It’ll be soon we hope but don’t worry, we’ll keep you updated if it happens while you’re away.”

Harry started his fourth year at Hogwarts in two weeks meaning he’d be gone until Christmas break- giving you and Sirius plenty of time to conceive.

“Sounds good” Harry replied, digging back into his breakfast, heart full of newfound excitement at the prospect of someone coming along that he could consider a sibling.

~ Fast Forward To December ~

By Harry’s Christmas break, you were two months pregnant. You had of course already told Harry beforehand in a letter but he was still just as excited to get the news a second time in person from you and Sirius.

There was still some excitement to be had though since Remus was spending the holidays with you all and had no knowledge of the pregnancy yet.

*ding dong*

The doorbell to your country house chimed and instantly you called for Sirius.

“Siri! Come it’s Remus, he’s here!”

“Coming love” he said unseen, approaching from somewhere further back.

Opening the door, you greeted Remus. “Remmy come in, come in” you happily urged, taking the suitcase from his hand.

Instantly, Sirius arrived up behind you and took the suitcase from your own grip. With pursed lips, you looked up at your husband and graciously smiled at his ever present attentiveness in all that you did.

“Moons,” Sirius said, unintentionally ignoring your gaze, “come on, get in already it’s freezing.”

“That it is,” Remus replied, closing the door behind him.

With the suitcase in one hand, Sirius was only able to side hug his friend unlike you, who was free for a full one.

“We’ve missed you! And we have so much to tell you! Well...one thing to tell you and another to ask you” you refrained, pulling back from his embrace and helping him pull off his winter coat.

Sirius chuckled at your excitement and turned to begin his walk to the guest room to set down Remus’s stuff. “Doll, let’s get him settled before we talk anything baby.”

“SIRIUS!” you yelled.

“Shit..” he mumbled.

“It was supposed to be a surprise” you whined, looking to Remus to see his reaction to Sirius’s word slip.

With a single eyebrow quirked up, Remus broke into a smirk. “Baby?”

“Remus, you’re here!” Harry interrupted, coming into the front room to greet the house guest.

“I am and your guardians here just let me in on some exciting family news.”

“What? You told him already?!” Harry immediately turned to question you and Sirius.

“We didn’t” you stated with a glare to Sirius.

Remus chucked, “Oh go easy on him Y/N, you know as well as I do that Black isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer.”

Harry snorted at the insult and you of course played right along with it.

“Hmm you’re right. But we like him that way” you said, going over to him to run your hand through his hair from the top with a kiss to his cheek.

Sirius looked at you with squinted eyes and a smile, then pecked your lips with a kiss. “I’m sorry” he whispered.

“You can go put that suitcase down in the room now you goof” you giggled.

“Be right back,” Sirius said to you all.

“Soooo yeah, baby” you said, returning your attention to Remus by extending your arms out in a gesture to present your current nonexistent baby bump to him.

“Congratulations” he softly spoke with a gentle smile, bringing you in for yet another hug. “And I assume this was no accident, correct?”

You shook your head, “No, it was planned.”

“How far along are you?”

“Two months.”

“Two months?” he hummed. “So you knew and you didn’t say a thing?” Remus teased, looking over at Harry.

Remus was still teaching DADA’s at Hogwarts and saw Harry for chats on the daily; how this news never came up was beyond him right now.

“Well it wasn’t easy but they wanted to tell you themselves” Harry grinned.

“Ahh well, no matter. Come here big brother” Remus fondly told Harry with a hug. “I’m so thrilled for all of you.”

Sirius came back around and embraced you into him by the shoulder. “And that’s not all…” he began. He then looked over at you as if asking permission to continue with the following.

You giggled at his caution, “Go ahead.”

Sirius kissed your temple, then looked to Remus.

“We want you to be the godparent.”

Remus smiled in a subtly shocked way and looked to Harry, then you, then Sirius.

You could tell he had been caught off guard with the question and well truly, no one could blame him for his lack of response. I mean after all, this was all happening at the entryway of the house right at his arrival.

“I- well..I don’t..yes of course I will. I’d be honored” he stuttered, trying his best to compose his nervous and excited energy.

Sirius and him instantly hugged with hearty pats on each other’s backs.

Harry and you happily looked at each other upon viewing the moment between the two friends;

“Yay!” you spoke, clapping your hands a little in joy and bringing Harry into your side.

The men separated and you continued on with words. “Okay, well we got dinner ready in the kitchen, Rem. So let’s get you settled and washed up so we can eat!”

~ Fast Forward To January ~

In days time, it was then just you and Sirius once Harry and Remus left back for Hogwarts.

Coming up at the three month mark, things began getting real. Moods, vomiting and lack of sexual drive were your main obstacles.

“Sirius! Why’d you do this to me!” you whined as you sat at the floor of the bathroom by the toilet.

He chuckled and brushed back your hair with his hand, “We both wanted this love, remember?”

“Ugh, I don’t want your thing anywhere near me anytime soon.”

“Shhh okay darling, okay, I get it” Sirius cooed, holding back laughter as he continued brushing your hair back. “It’ll go into hiding for a bit, yeah?” he crudely joked for his own amusement.

~ Fast Forward To Feb. & March ~

Month four and five things calmed down a bit. Well, Sirius would say anyways, as you didn’t ‘hate’ him anymore for getting you pregnant. Also, the vomiting was no more, in fact, you ate everything in sight now with no consequence at all! It was lovely; although the late night runs Sirius had to make for say, a hard shell taco, were not his favorite.

These months were also when you started showing.

“Baby! Come here!” you yelled one morning to your husband who was still getting some rest in bed.

“What..what is it?” he replied sleepily, hurriedly trudging himself to the bathroom where you stood in front of the mirror.

“Look baby, I’m starting to show!” you excitedly said rubbing your small, barely protruding belly.

“That’s amazing love” he said into your neck as he stood from behind embracing your form.

~ Fast Forward To April & May ~

Being a little over half of your pregnancy now, the gender of the baby was known; not by either you or Sirius though.

You both had decided to have the doctor send the result to Harry at Hogwarts so that he could be the first to know. Harry was then to mail you and Sirius a letter revealing the gender!

Upon getting Harry’s letter, you came to find you were having…a boy! Or a mini Sirius as you liked to think of it.

Boy or girl, you both would have been happy- but you could tell having a boy was particularly meaningful to Sirius for so many reasons, which of course you and him talked about thoroughly for about three days straight, every night in bed.

“…and I just worry, because I don’t want to be anything like my father or mother to my son.”

“And you won’t be honey” you said calmly, grazing a hand over the expanse of his chest as you laid cuddled.

“How can you be so sure?”

“I know you, Sirius Black. To make the same mistakes on your own children as your parents made with you is not in your nature. You’ve been so far gone from having any similarity to them for over half your life…trust me, you won’t be them.”

He sniffled and smiled at your confidence in him.

You wiped a rogue tear that ran down his cheek and kissed its exact spot. “I just know my baby boy is going to have the best father ever…”

~ Fast Forward To June ~

BIG; the baby boy inside you was BIG. Or he felt big anyways which was normal of course as you were only a month and a couple of days away from your due date.

It was here that a spontaneous baby moon occurred. You had already taken an extravagant, out of the country one during your second trimester but because you (finally) had settled on a nursery color there was no time to waste on getting it painted. Obviously, under no circumstances, did Sirius want you anywhere near the house with the paint fumes so he decided to take you into the city for a few days.

Sirius planned the whole thing without a hint of your help and it was just absolutely perfect. He chose a beautiful five star hotel where you were served and attended to, to no end.

The time was mostly spent just hanging out in the cozy room / private balcony and although that sounds boring, it was far from it as it was just what you needed these days that you tired out more easily.

“Can I stay here forever and never leave” you asked Sirius one day, after an employee exited the room upon bringing you a triple scoop strawberry sundae while you lounged out on the balcony.

Taking in the taste of the sweet, cold treat, you shut your eyes and let your head rest back on the cushioned lounge you sat in and waited for Sirius’s response to your ridiculous question.

“I’m hurt love. I wait on you hand and foot at home just as good, if not better than these guys here” he playfully replied, reaching over from his own lounge for the extra spoon to join you in indulging the treat.

“Mhm, but we don’t have a balcony at home” you said then.

“Well then I’ll build you a balcony.”

You opened your eyes and looked at your husband with an ‘are you kidding me’ face, which caused both of you to laugh. You’d like to describe Sirius as perfect but handy he was not.

“Okay okay fine, I’ll bring someone out to build us one. But you’ll get one, I promise.”

~ Fast Forward To July ~

Per Harry’s request, you and Sirius did not set up any of the nursery furniture until he returned from Hogwarts for the summer. It was cutting it close to the due date but you promised him it was something you’d do together.

Harry and Sirius sat on the comfy, round rug in the center of the nursery that next Saturday after his arrival where they began building the first of many furniture pieces.

Meanwhile, bigger than ever now, you sat in the rocking chair off to the side just watching your boys, trying to keep relaxed. Like we learned before, Sirius wasn’t the best with tools but with Harry around you were sure it’d be alright- he no doubt carried the Potter handiness genes.

*ding dong*

There chimed your doorbell and there was no doubt as to who it was.

“I’ll get it” Harry said, quick to get up on his feet and exit the room. You couldn’t wait to be able to do the same again soon.

From afar, you and Sirius both heard Remus’s voice. “Hi Harry. Begun on the furniture already?”

“In here Moods!” Sirius shouted himself after the question.

Footsteps later, Remus and Harry both walked in through the doorway of the room.

“Look what I got” Remus said in a singsong voice, directing his eye contact straight to you.

You gasped at the three famous (but rare!) baby books Remus displayed in his hand for you and with a bit of struggle, stood up from the chair.

“Gimme, gimme, gimme!” you excitedly exclaimed with grabby hands, waddling over to where he stood.

“Doll, babies can’t read,” Sirius joked as you began to skim the books. He was too busy fumbling with screws to look up and see the roll of your eyes.

“You don’t say?” Harry replied, faking amusement as he made his way back out the room for either a snack or bathroom break.

“Of course they can’t read Sirius. But we are going to read to this baby boy constantly so he can be just as smart as his godfather. They’re perfect. Thank you Rem,” you said graciously, kissing his cheek.

Sirius adoringly kept an eye on you as you strategically went to place the three little books upright on the window cell as if it was a bookshelf (this was only temporarily until the real bookshelf was built of course).

The care you poured in everything and everyone was something Sirius had always greatly admired in you.

“She’s going to be such a good mother” he quietly commented to Remus without taking his eyes off of you.

“The absolute best” Remus assured his friend. <3

TagList: @regulusblackswhorecrux

#sirius black x reader #sirius black #post azkaban sirius #sirius black fic #sirius black imagine #sirius black x you

[hazbincalifornia]

(I’m pretty sure the way I type is recognizable but I need to like pretend at anonymity bc I feel. Remarkably silly about this)

I wanted to like idk rant to someone in the HB fandom who isn’t balls deep in the “anti proship” sphere bc like, I’ve been struggling w guilt over enjoying a certain ship that everyone hates and considers problematic (I think Loona and Octavia is rlly cute!) and I’d like to make content for it but I also rlly fear being seen as like a pedophile. Do u ever worry abt that kind of thing? And is there anyway ur able to get over it if u do? I don’t like getting into anti/anti anti discourse bc I feel like it’s a very reductive way to view and interpret media but I still have a crazy amount of worry/guilt

First off, it is still ridiculous to me that this is even a problem in this fandom. This is an adult show about characters in Hell, and the main characters are, respectively, assassins and the eclectic cast of the Hotel which includes a cannibal serial killer. (I am eternally both amused and completely baffled that like half the awful puritanical takes I see are from Val icons. Buddy. Pal. The fucked up fiction is coming from inside the house.) I saw waaaaay more fucked up shit on Zim nsfw twitter than I see on Hellaverse twitter and that show was Y7. Up your game, guys.

Personally, I don't really see Loona and Via as siblings/sisters as much as I think a lot of others do, more just friends (and honestly I think canon moved much too quickly to give them such a heartfelt scene together, they hadn't even met officially before that point?) so it's really only the age thing and even then, the plot of HB has seemed to imply that a fair amount of time has passed since the series started, probably around a year- so Via would be 18 or older by the time anything actually started anyway, especially if they became friends first. Setting aside the 'justification' though... they're not real. They're cute together, I agree, and I think you should be perfectly fine enjoying them just in the lens of 'they're similar, I like how they'd interact, and I think they're cute together'!

I was pretty much forged in my opinions about this from Invader Zim stuff, where people insisted that liking two characters that I'd liked together since I was thirteen made you a pedophile. Obviously, I could tell that wasn't true, because it had never been the case in all those years up to people starting to be bitchy about it in 2019. (Before that, it was that it was bad because it was enemies to lovers and, more importantly, gay. Great hater throne to inherit, guys!)

Unfortunately... as stupid as it is, this fandom is way more puritanical than it should be, so it wouldn't be wrong to engage through anonymity to protect yourself. Find the people in the tag who are using 'proship/proship interact' or something along those lines (I've seen a few, although some tend to lean more on hard/dead dove content), post on ao3 into the anonymous collection which removes your name, make a tumblr sideblog that doesn't connect to your main, find fellow shippers and interact with them specifically. Do whatever you need to do to keep yourself safe from people who can't understand that thinking something is cute or interesting to explore in fiction is automatically bad just because they don't like it. The more stuff that's put out there about the ship, the more likely you are to find kindred spirits, that's honestly part of how I gathered my mpreg weirdos to me in both this fandom and the last.

I'm pretty sure that the callout I got for Sunny was why several mutuals who were a friend group unfollowed (and likely muted) me on twitter. Unfortunately, it left me worrying that the other shoe was going to drop any day for about a week because it got just enough notes to make me worry but not enough to get to anyone with any real reach to spread and get it 'over with'.

At this point, I've sort of reached a state of 'fuck it', because if it happens, it happens. I know that I'm fine, and the people I genuinely care about know that too. I know that what I'm making is entirely separate from my morals as a person, if not from how dumb the IZ stuff was than from the fact that I was an English major. Literature is full of stuff that authors don't make as a 1:1 with their real-life morals! And the one you're thinking about isn't 'bad' comparatively at all.

I think the fandom is starting to see that being a dick about fictional content is bad through the backlash to Poison and 'hey, maybe telling somebody that they need to detail their trauma to the public to make fiction is bad?', but it seems to mostly be centered on dub/noncon, so I wouldn't necessarily hold my breath.

At the end of the day though, remember this: You, as a person, are completely fine, no matter what others might think. Octavia and Loona would probably be seen as a totally normal ship like ten years ago (except for people who'd be dicks about them being gay) and there is no judgement to be made on your character in any reasonable way for thinking they're a good ship. You're not a pedophile for thinking a fictional owl and hellhound look cute together, any more than I was for smacking together two Nicktoon characters, and frankly the IZ argument held slightly more water than 'the almost-18-year-old and the 22-year-old' because Zim's age was so ambigious. Try explaining this 'people think the young adult animals holding hands are bad' to any adult who isn't sucked into fandom discourse and they'd probably be baffled that it's a problem.

I know that the guilty feelings aren't always rational and it took a bit of time for me to unwind how I felt about creating certain stuff too, but try to remember that above all else- exploring things in fiction has been a thing people have done for a very, very long time. What matters is your actions towards other real people, not what you do with fictional dolls.

If nothing else, if you want you can always send me a dm and chat that way, I'd be happy to talk.

#discourse #asks #anonymous

[sunfoxfic]

Concept: Half siblings Luka and Juleka

(This isn't because I'm salty that Astruc "retconned" Luka's age, I honestly do not care about that, I'm just starved for half sibling content)

Luka and Juleka are a year apart in age. Neither ever knew their dad, but for Luka, that hit a lot harder than it did for Juleka. She didn't need a father so long as she had her mom and brother.

Of course, this all culminates into Truth, where Luka is so upset about his father that he gets akumatized and demands the truth over it. And he finds out! And it's great! And Jagged starts to build a relationship with him!

And suddenly the thing that never hurt Juleka before begins to hurt. Not because she needs a father, but because Anarka is so angry and Luka has less time for her and suddenly it feels like she should want to know her father, even if she never wanted to before.

Luka notices. Of course he does; he notices everything, especially with his little sister. But what is he supposed to do for her? How is he supposed to help her?

The distance between them grows, and neither wants it but it's hard to prevent without Luka giving up his father, who he wanted to know for so long.

But Jagged notices. He notices how Juleka never sticks around when he's there; how Luka invites him to important events less often when she'll be around; how Luka never invites Juleka to go out with them even when he invites other friends.

And so, on Juleka's birthday, he makes sure to be at the boat for just a little and to give her something that might help even if he's not her father: his first bass guitar.

And slowly, carefully, quietly, Juleka no longer feels so left out, and slowly, carefully, quietly, Jagged Stone learns that being a father is about more than DNA.

#ml spoilers #crocoduel spoilers #juleka couffaine #luka couffaine #jagged stone #anarka couffaine #this week on: sunny wants half sibling content #(I love the dragon prince but i've rewatched it like a dozen times so far and i cannot do it again)

[amphxtrite]

pietro maximoff x fem! reader

warnings: being picked up, tooth-rotting fluff (literally)

summary: pietro goes on his first camping trip.

word count: 1.8k

a/n: thank you to @sweetandsunny for the writing prompts that helped me write this!! ly sunny <3

translations: printsessa- princess, krasivaya- beautiful, milashka- cutie, dorogoy- darling.

———————————————————————————

“Finally Friday.” You yawn to yourself as you collapse onto your bed, after a long week of helping out the team and training, it was time to kick back, relax and-

“Hello Printsessa!”

Oh right, you smirk to yourself, peaking one eye open to see your speedster boyfriend standing at your doorway, a giddy smile on his face.

“Hey Piet.” You murmur, allowing yourself a small smirk as his eyes bounce back and forth from the spot in bed beside you and your eyes, subtly asking for permission.

“Oh alright, come here.” You giggle, opening your arms and immediately feeling Pietro’s body next to your and his arms around your torso.

A content sigh leaves his lips.

“Dorogoy, you have no idea how long I’ve been waiting for this.” He murmurs, closing his eyes and snuggling himself closer to your chest.

You smile to yourself and press a peck to Pietro’s blonde hair as fatigue takes over your form.

Now it was time to-

“Okay! If the clothes are off, put them back on, if the lips are locked, unlock them because dad’s here!” A voice suddenly yells, catching both you and Pietro off guard.

You yelp, and sit up suddenly to see your father covering his eyes and standing by the door he just kicked open.

“Ugh, open your eyes dad, we aren’t doing anything.” You groan, falling back down.

“Yes Clint, we were only sleeping!” Pietro chimes, suddenly across the room from you.

“Well it doesn’t matter, get your bag kid, we're going camping!” Clint cheers, throwing his fists in the air.

“And speedy can come too, why not.” Clint shrugs, causing Pietro’s eyes to widen. “I-I don’t want to intrude-”

“Dad, it’s Friday, we’ve been working all week, can’t we go another time?” You plead, finally sitting up.

“Sorry kiddo, but it’s Barton weekend number one, and your siblings and you agreed you would get the first weekend.” The archer smirks, looking at his daughter.

You glance at your calendar and sure enough the yearly event posted on the date was ‘weekend with dad.’

The little voice in your head cheers sarcastically.

“Fine, I’ll get packed.” You murmur, standing and grabbing your overnight bag from the floor.

“That’s the spirit!” Clint whoops.

“I should probably-”

Clint’s smile drops.

“Not so fast blondie, get your bags packed, you’re going.” Your father says sternly, patting the Avenger on the back on his way out of the room.

“You better listen, last time I told him no he didn’t make me waffles for six months.” You shudder.

Pietro’s jaw drops, “not the waffles.”

A blue blue went out and back into your room as Pietro returns with a bag slung over his shoulder and wearing clothes a little more suited for the wilderness.

You laugh and shake your head.

“Mind helping me Pietro?” You suggest.

“Of course, milashka.” He grins, pecking you on the forehead as he begins helping you, at a normal pace.

“So tell me again where we’re going, dad.” You question, readjusting your bag straps again as you walk further into the dense forest in front of you.

“A new spot I found while hiking the other day, great place to see the stars…” Your father responds, almost nervously.

“Oh no, I know that voice.” You groan, rolling your eyes as Pietro looks at you confused.

“What is it?” Sokovian asks.

“We’re lost.” You respond plainly, popping the ‘t.’

“We are not lost.” Clint sighs, moving his fingers to the bridge of his nose.

“He brought us out here to die.” You shrug sarcastically.

“You brought us here to die?!” Pietro squeaks, misunderstanding the joke.

“Well, obviously.” Your dad jokes back, not knowing about Pietro’s state.

The platinum blonde man begins murmuring a silent prayer as you and your father continue to banter.

“Let future campers see us as a warning to halt before considering being active.” You sigh dramatically.

“Yes, and may they tell stories of us around the campfires and how great we were.” Clint continues.

Pietro’s brows were furrowed now, very confused by what was going on.

“I cannot tell if you two are being sarcastic or if we are really lost.” He mutters.

You look back over at your boyfriend and the look on his face was priceless, you begin bursting into a fit of laughter, your dad following shortly behind after he catches a glimpse of the mix of concern, fear and confusion slapped onto Pietro’s face

“O-Oh my gosh.” You laugh, placing your hand on Pietro’s arm. “You poor thing, you thought we were serious?” You coo, moving your hands up to Pietro’s cheeks as if he were the most innocent being alive. “Oh you’re adorable.”

“It’s a tradition for the kids, I gotta keep them on their toes.” Clint winks, patting Pietro on the back. “I almost had you this year.” The older Avenger sighs, placing his hand on your head and rustling your hair around.

“In your dreams old man, I saw it a mile away.” You smirk, rolling your eyes and joining your fingers with Pietro’s.

“Okay, okay. The site’s this way, come on.” Your father says, pointing in the direction you could hear rushing water from.

You nod and pull your boyfriend along beside you.

“You’ll get used to it Piet, my sibling’s and I were fooled every year until we started seeing the pattern.” You sigh, reminiscing in your memories of being scared to death as a kid.

“I can see why.” Pietro mutters, still slightly baffled at what had just happened.

Your lips pull even further up into a wide smile and you squeeze Pietro’s hand reassuringly.

“I’ll make sure dad doesn’t do that again, now hurry up, the sun’s setting and we haven’t even pitched our tent.” You laugh, pulling Pietro into a jog and catching up with your dad.

“That’ll do it.” Clint chuckles, stepping back and admiring his tent.

“Mines up too, dad!” You call, unzipping your tent and throwing your sleeping bag inside.

“How about you Pietro, how’s it-”

“Um, a little help?” A weak voice chimes from nearby.

You and your father turn around to see a mess of a tent behind you, beams sticking all over the place and a flustered Pietro standing in front of it, covering whatever he could.

“I-I’ve never been camping, I have only ever seen it on television.” He confesses, crossing his arms.

“Awe Pietro!” You coo, walking over to the pouting Sokovian and wrapping your arms around him.

“Here, hold this part up- Dad, you wanna get in on this?” You laugh.

“Wouldn’t miss it.” Clint chuckles, jogging over and holding up the other half of Pietro’s tent as you begin feeding the thin pole through the thin material, with all three of you, the tent went up quickly and as you stood back to admire your work Pietro giddily runs up and scoops you into his arms.

“You are amazing, krasivaya! absolutely amazing!” He beams, spinning you in circles.

“Hey Piet! I’m getting dizzy!” You giggle, holding onto his shoulders and silently praying he’d never put you down.

“Alright you two, stop it before I throw up.” Your father sighs, rolling his eyes and throwing a marshmallow, managing to nail it right on your forehead.

To your dismay, Pietro places you back on the ground and takes your hand as he walks over to the small fire Clint had gotten started.

You sit on one of the chairs set up and accept a small stick and a marshmallow from your dad.

You smirk and stab the fluffy white treat onto the end of your twig and place it above the fire.

Pietro follows your lead and loses focus as the flames seem to swallow his marshmallow whole.

You skillfully pull your marshmallow out as it turns a perfect golden brown, but Pietro isn’t so lucky.

He lifts his stick from the fire to find a small bonfire on the end, and his marshmallow begins to burn.

“Oh- Pietro blow it out!” You rush.

“Right.” He squeals, taking a deep breath and ridding of the fire, leaving him with a charred blob.

“Aw it’s okay Pietro, you can just-.”

The blonde doesn’t let you finish and instead places the whole marshmallow into his mouth.

“-throw it into the fire…”

Pietro’s face contorts from neutral, to disgust, to glee in seconds. His eyebrows raise in surprise and his feet tap happily.

“It’s delicious! a little bitter at first but the rest is perfect!” Pietro muses, quickly snagging the bag of soft treats from your dad’s lap and sticking a bunch onto the end of his stick.

You smile at Pietro’s childlike glee and place your own marshmallow into your mouth, savouring the sweet crust and melts inside in your mouth as your boyfriend ate his like a sweet, sticky kebab.

The sky turns dark and you teach Pietro to make the perfect marshmallow, tell him scary stories and make shadow puppets with the fire’s light just like your dad would do with you when you were young. Clint had grown tired of your couple's antics quickly and retired to his tent earlier, leaving you and Pietro alone.

“Piet, you’ve still got bits of marshmallow on your face.” You laugh, wiping the remnants of sticky sugar out of his goatee and off his nose. Pietro looks down at you lovingly and notices a tiny bit of marshmallow on your bottom lip, without hesitation, his fingers move to your chin and he tilts your head up to let your eyes meet.

Leaning down, your lips meet in a sweet kiss. The taste of marshmallow and charcoal bring smiles to both of your faces as Pietro deepens the kiss. The fire crackles quietly beside you as Pietro’s hands move to your back to pull you closer. Your fingers find their way into his soft hair, tugging ever so gently.

You both part for breath, resting your foreheads together as you catch your breaths.

“You had some marshmallow on your lip, dorogoy.” Pietro smiles sheepishly.

“You don’t say?” You giggle, pressing kisses onto the edges of Pietro’s mouth.

There’s a moment of silence as the two of you bask in each other’s warmth, Pietro’s hands sliding up and down your arms and your fingers tangling themselves in his wavy locks.

“Thank you Printsessa, this has been one of the best nights of my life.” Pietro sighs with a grin.

“One of them?” You joke, leaning into your boyfriend’s chest.

“Oh tsvesti, do you think I’ll ever forget the night we first met? Or our first kiss?” Pietro fires back playfully, wrapping his arms around your tightly and pressing a kiss to your forehead.

“Okay, you got me Pie.” You sigh, cuddling closer into him.

“I know, zefir.” Pietro smirks.

“Wait, what does that one mean?” You ask, smiling at the new nickname.

“It means marshmallow, Printsessa. I think it’s very fitting for you.” He smiles, evidently very proud of himself.

You laugh lightly and nod.

“It’s perfect.”

#pietro maximoff x you #pietro maximoff imagine #pietro maximoff x reader #pietro maximoff #pietro maximoff x y/n #pietro maximoff fluff #pietro maximoff fanfiction

[rubysunnday]

spinster

Request by Anon - Could I request Anthony Bridgerton with ‘ok, you have literally adopted that child’ please?

A/N: Based off the books and the show and my general imagination so, the timeline is probably all wrong 

Y/N took her duties as an aunt very seriously. Whilst her desire to have children was almost non-existent, she didn’t mind looking after her nieces or nephews to give her siblings a break. 

She’d become close to her numerous nieces and nephews - especially as she quickly became outnumbered by them all - but there was one, in particular, who happened to have a soft spot in Y/N’s heart.

Anthony and Kate’s eldest son, Edmund. 

Since her siblings couldn’t very well have favourite children (Y/N knew they did, however), Y/N had decided to keep who her favourite ‘nibling’ (a word she’d very cleverly come up with and was rather pleased about) to herself. 

He was a lovely boy who didn’t mind spending hours upon hours sitting in the library reading with his aunt or joining her and his mother on walks around Hyde Park. 

Y/N had been staying at Bridgerton house for the past week and had spent almost every single day with her brother’s children. She’d listened to their countless stories, been the peace maker for their arguments and had chased them around the garden she and Anthony had once played in.

Anthony had been watching his sister with a fond expression. She’d seen how close she was to his children - especially his eldest son - and it threw him back to when Y/N had been a child and he’d chased her around the gardens. 

“I am exhausted,” Y/N panted as she all but collapsed into a chair next to Anthony. 

He’d moved his work out into the garden for the morning - not wanting to be stuck in his office whilst it was so sunny. 

“You were like that once,” Anthony replied, looking up from his work to give her a smile.

“Auntie Y/N,” Edmund said, approaching her with a smile. “Are you going to play with us again?”

“Ooo, I think I will,” Y/N said, leaning forward to pick him up and set him on her lap. “Besides, who will help Charlotte protect herself from her brother’s if I’m not around.”

“No!” Edmund squealed, giggling furiously as Y/N tickled him. “No, you have to be on my team!”

“Do I now?” Y/N asked. Edmund nodded and she sighed. “Alright, but give me ten minutes to talk to your father about why I should steal you for myself.”

Edmund laughed and jumped off her lap, running down the path and after his siblings.

Anthony stared at his sister. “Ok, you have literally adopted that child.”

“He’s your child!”  “And you have clearly adopted him!” Anthony exclaimed. 

Y/N chuckled. “Yeah... well, we all know my opinion on having my own children. Besides, looks like I’m going to become a spinster.”

“Don’t say that,” Anthony said softly. He set his pen down and reached across the table for his sisters hand.”You'll find someone.”

Y/N gave him an unconvinced smile. “When one has the love matches of her mother and siblings to live up to, you too would be uncertain. No matter who the man is, they are never good enough for me. I’m beginning to run out of options if I’m entirely honest.”

“As long as you don’t do an Eloise, we should be fine,” Anthony muttered.

Y/N burst out laughing. “Don’t worry, brother, I have no intention of running off in the middle of the night to meet a man I’ve never seen before.” Y/N’s smile fell and she sighed. “All I want is someone to love me as I am.”

“You know, I never thought I’d marry myself,” Anthony admitted. “I just assumed Benedict and Colin would marry and have the heirs.”

“And then Colina dragged Kate to your side.”

“And then Colin dragged - he didn’t drag her,” Anthony said, looking offended.

Y/N gave her brother a withering stare. “I was there, he trampled half a dozen people to get to you that night. Including me.”

“Alright, fine, but she wasn’t dragged,” Anthony conceded.

“No, she was,” Y/N said, nodding.  “Kate detested everything about you. In fact, I’m pretty sure she refused to let her sister marry you because she hated you that much.” Y/N smiled sweetly at Anthony.

“I’m sorry, how did we switch from ‘I’m going to become a spinster’, to ‘my wife hates me’?” Anthony asked, genuinely perplexed. 

“I switched the topic so that I’d stop feeling sorry for myself,” Y/N replied shrugging. She crossed one leg over the other and clasped her hands onto her stomach. “I’m very good at that tactic.”

Anthony rolled his eyes and turned back to his work. But after a minute he said, “do you truly believe that?”

“Believe what?”

“That you’ll never marry.”

Y/N sighed. “I hope I’ll marry some day. But it probably won’t be within the normal and proper timing of society. I shall become a spinster and than I shall marry. Besides, my becoming a spinster means I get to sit with Lady Danbury at the balls and judge everyone.”

“Together, the two of you make a terrifying force,” Anthony muttered. 

“That was the plan, brother mine,” Y/N said, winking at him. She fell serious again and let out another sigh. “One day, I hope to marry. But, until then, I’m content to keep stealing your children.”

#bridgerton #anthony bridgerton #bridgerton imagine #bridgerton x reader #bridgerton sister #bridgerton sibling #bridgerton sis #bridgerton!sis #platonic imagine #sister!reader

[deanlesbian]

here’s a little fic i wrote for @mindblindbard which is the best interactive fiction wip i’ve ever read!! i love the characters so much. this is set when my button (ellery) is 19, so unfortuantely i can’t include any sweet, sweet kenna content, but i had a lot of fun diving into ellery’s trauma lol. (this is like 1500 words oops)

Ellery wakes early on the day of the anniversary. She snaps out of sleep quickly, abruptly, her heart pounding out of her chest, her breath caught fast in her lungs. The dream is gone already, but she can imagine. Her limbs locked, her chest tight, the loud sobs of her mother echoing through the high-ceilinged kitchen.

She pushes herself upright, waiting to see if Nick noticed. If he could feel her spike of emotion from his bedroom.

But there’s no intrusion, no soft whisper in her mind. He’s asleep. Good.

When Nick wakes before her on this day in October, he always makes a big deal out of it. Huge breakfast waiting for her in the kitchen, coffee from her favorite place, telepathic fingers prodding at her psyche. He thinks she doesn’t notice. That worries her. How often is she actually picking up on it? How many times does he sift through her thoughts, self-justified because he’s worried about her, that she doesn’t notice?

Ellery climbs out of bed, her bamboo sheets left in a tangle. Her bare feet protest against the cold hardwood, but she relishes the little pricks of pain. She crosses to the window and pulls back the curtain. There are tiny patches of frost coating the neighbor’s grass.

Fall has been late to Chicago, this year. Nick’s birthday two weeks ago was warm and sunny—they’d actually acquired a boat and puttered around Lake Michigan, the Wiseman siblings and Gray and Sally. Nick had done his best to mask his disappointment at not being able to have his parents join for his birthday. He’d driven up and spent the night in Milwaukee, leaving Sally and Ellery free to get wine drunk and have a dance party in the brownstone’s kitchen.

Ellery is glad that it’s cold this morning. She prefers running in the cold. She pulls on leggings and a sports bra and runs through a quick sun salutation to get her muscles flowing, to practice control, tension and release, shake out all the paralytic fear of nightmare and memory. Three years ago today, Ellery Wiseman lost her parents.

She pulls on her running shoes and a light long-sleeve and ties her recently cut blonde hair back into a tiny ponytail. She chugs half a bottle of water, puts in her earbuds, starts her metal playlist, straps her phone to her arm, and then she’s out the door.

The air is sharp and bites at her exposed skin as she thuds down the front steps and onto the street. Ellery always feels pulled back into herself when she runs. Her muscles moving fast, responsive, following her every command. Her thoughts clean and clear, music channeling her thoughts, endorphins pushing aside everything but a sense of focus. Any Ments she passes quickly falling behind, away.

Ellery heads east, to the lake. She dodges walkers on the sidewalk and Ments who swivel their heads to watch her speed by, crosses streets abruptly. The music screams in her ears and her breath huffs in and out of her and sweat pricks at her collarbones and her feet slam into the pavement and she feels good.

Nick and Sally tease Ellery for her obsession with running. Nick runs reluctantly, to stay in shape, but as a last resort, preferring gym time and basketball with Gray. Sally despises running. The Aeon prep runs they go on together are a litany of complaints.

But running is everything for Ellery. It’s the only time she feels her anger draining out of her, left behind in ribbons along the lakefront path, blown away by the icy winds off Lake Michigan, beaded up and dripping off her forehead.

She pushes herself harder than usual, faster, taking her regular route south along the lake too fast, using up her stamina too quickly. Her breath drives in and out of her too fast, painful.

No, she thinks as her muscles burn and her body begs for relief. I can’t stop yet, I’m not ready—

The memory pushes itself, jagged and unwelcome, into her mind. Hope’s arms on her arm, fingernails digging in, shouting—

Ellery’s ankle turns, and she falls.

It’s a terrific fall. Her palms skid along the pavement, her knee drags with her momentum, tearing a hole in her leggings.

I need to get up, she thinks dazedly, but she can’t. She can’t because her mom is in her head and her thoughts are all swirled together with someone else’s, and her body is no longer her own.

Her breath is going like she’s still running, but there’s no one on this stretch of path right now and she’s out of Nick’s resting brainrange so she lets it happen. She picks herself up off the sidewalk, wincing at the sting in her scraped palms. She crosses the path and treads down to the soft sand of the 31st street beach. The wind slams against her, unceasing and angry. She unstraps her phone from her arm and puts on her favorite The National song on repeat. She wraps her arms around herself and finally, finally lets herself cry.

It’s so much easier to be angry. To decline phone calls and delete voicemails, to skip lunches with her dad and call him “John” to his face, to leave the room when Nick tries to say something like “it’s been three years, do you think….” Easier to beat her knuckles bloody on a punching bag and refuse to talk to Sally about it. Easier to think, if they didn’t want me then, they don’t get me now.

But today, Ellery just kind of wants her mom.

Yesterday at the mall with Sally they were sniffing perfumes and Ellery had burst into tears when Sally spritzed herself with Chanel no. 5. She hadn’t even remembered that Hope had worn Chanel no. 5 until the scent wafted over and she was taken back. Nights when Hope had actually been able to handle being around Ellery, when her mind was clear. The best nights were frequently right after Hope got back from a trip, refreshed after a week or so without Ellery’s thoughts pricking in the back of her subconscious.

Hope would shoo the boys out for dinner or a basketball game or something and she and Ellery would cook pasta in the cavernous marble kitchen of Ellery’s childhood home and then they would eat and watch a romantic comedy and Hope would paint Ellery’s nails (doing a much better job than Sally ever could) and they’d talk about everything and it would be good.

And then a few days later Ellery would notice her mom was back to flinching whenever she walked into a room and the distance would expand again.

Ellery cries, loud and gulping, tears streaking down her cheeks. She cries for her broken family, and for Nick who gave up everything for her, and for Sally who she knows misses Hope and John but would never say so, and for her parents who she’s hurting more and more everyday she goes without talking to them, even if they deserve it. Even though they abandoned her when she needed them most.

Most days, this grief lives deep inside her, smothered with righteous anger and cold indifference. So deep that Nick can’t even sense it amongst everything else broadcasting from her head.

Loud, she calls herself, and thank god for that.

After a little while Ellery manages to slow her breathing. The cold air in and out, calm, measured. She feels a little bit cleaner inside. She feels okay enough that when she goes back home Nick will sense a low level of melancholy, but that’s to be expected, on this day, so he won’t feel the need to pry. Now she can think about other things.

Her phone rings. She knows it’s Nick so she doesn’t bother checking her phone before tapping her headphones to accept.

"Hey Button,” he says. “Where are you? I’m making breakfast.”

This is a ridiculous question because a) if Nick tried he could use his telemetry to see her and b) he could check her location on his phone.

“I’m at 31st,” she says. “Went on a run.”

“Well, get your butt back here,” he says. “I’m doing an omelet bar and Gray and Salome are going to be here in fifteen.”

The tension in Ellery’s chest loosens a little more. This is why Nick doesn’t know about the grief that hides so far down. Because most of the time, she’s content with the family she has. Her overbearing, well-intentioned brother. Her best friend who takes her as she is and loves her for it anyway. An obnoxiously nice Brit who is fun to treat with her best annoying little sister routine.

Most days, that’s more than enough.

“I’ll head back right now,” Ellery says.

“Swing by Bluebird on your way and get coffee for everyone,” he says. “I checked, none of the Ments on staff are working today, so you’re good.”

“Sure,” she says. “Love you, Tick.”

“See you soon, Button.”

#i love to write stuff with kenna but the ksuspicion variable is freaking me out lmao #mind blind #nick wiseman #button wiseman

[animalgirl225]

Queen Susan the Gentle Comes Home

Because C.S. Lewis did our queen of the radiant Southern Sun dirty

No copyright infringement intended. 

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           Many years had passed since Susan had received the news on that tragic day. She had grieved for a time, but life had necessitated she move on. She had a comfortable home, a stable career, a loving partner whom she hoped to join lives with someday soon, and an overall good life, all things considered. One weekend afternoon, she moved about her small but cozy home, tidying and doing other such busy work. She lifted a small, intricate carving of a lion from a stand in the front hall, dusting underneath. She and Lucy had always shared an appreciation for lions. Such strong, graceful creatures. Why, Lucy’s favorite character from her silly imaginary land had been a lion. As she placed the lion back down, one of her cats, Truffle, walked into the room to join her brother, Hunter, in their favorite sunny window seat. She smiled as they cuddled, thinking of their slightly peculiar names. She had never been very fond of mushrooms, and while most cats enjoyed a good hunt, these two were rather lazy. Still, their names seemed right. She remembered the two words being used together a long time ago, but in what way she couldn’t recall.

Susan placed her feather duster down and looked around for her broom before remembering it had broken last week when Hunter had knocked it off the first landing. She’d have to go search her cramped attic for another. She climbed the stairs, the door creaking above her head as she pushed it open. Good gracious it was warm up here! Good thing she didn’t have long to find the broom; there it was; in a back corner by some large boxes. As she retrieved the broom and went to turn back to the stairs, however, she realized what the boxes were. The largest was labeled “Peter” the second labeled “Edmund,” and the third, and smallest box, labeled “Lucy.” Susan sighed sadly. She really must bring herself to organize her siblings’ old belongings and donate what she didn’t need, or want to remember. Slowly, she pulled Lucy’s box towards her, took a deep breath, and opened it, sneezing at the cloud of dust it raised. A small notebook sat on top of the rest of the box’s inhabitants. Two words were scratched upon the cover in a child’s handwriting- “Lucy’s Diary.”

Tears pricked at her eyes as Susan gently opened the battered notebook and began to read. The first entries were everyday thoughts, her anticipation for boarding school and her excitement to join Susan in her studies. Sniffling, Susan turned the page and froze. The date was the day they had left for boarding school, the day Peter had gotten in a scrum while waiting for the train. The entry, however, talked of none of that. The entry looked to be extensive, and detailed the siblings’ most recent ‘trip’ to that childish land, the one they had all called Narnia. She also noticed faded old sketches along the margins of odd creatures, half human and half animal. What had they called them? Fauns and centaurs? Such foolish words. Susan glanced at other notations and names. Trumpkin. Tumnus. Reepicheep. Oreius. Corin. Jadis. Maugrim. Mr. and Mrs. Beaver. Susan laughed to herself. Lucy had been so imaginative with the other names, but Mr. and Mrs. Beaver? She must have run out of ideas. Having already put all that silliness behind her, Susan began to close the book, but something stopped her. What, she couldn’t say. Perhaps it was the sudden memory of standing in front of a crowd in a gorgeous marble building, a delicate, golden-flowered crown being laid upon her head, and a name, Queen Susan the Gentle. And there was that young man she thought she once knew. What was his name? Caspian? What an odd name. Certainly not from around her part of England.

Susan put the book aside and looked at the rest of the contents in the box. More drawings of flowered people coming out of trees, of small bearded men, a mouse with a sword. Susan made a strange noise, one of half impatience and half amusement. They’d all had such intricate imaginations, but Lucy was the dreamiest. She had tried to insist that this world was real, long beyond Susan’s patience for the childish game. While she had loved her little sister very much, it had eventually formed somewhat of a rift between the two, as well as her brothers, who continued to entertain Lucy’s imaginations. Continuing to browse through the drawings, she flipped over the last picture and stared at the sketch. A magnificent lion looked back at her, his eyes large and gentle. There was that lion Lucy had dreamt so much about. The picture was labeled simply. What a strange name for a lion, Aslan. As the thought crossed her mind, the softest sigh of a fresh breeze wafted a single dark hair out of her face. Susan looked around in concern; she’d have to find and board that draft before it became a leak. As she turned back to the picture and stared into those eyes, a small seed of doubt came upon her. It was just an ordinary lion, right? But where had Lucy ever seen such a lion? Certainly not at the London Zoo. Those lions had all been young the last time Lucy had visited with Susan, whereas this lion was grown and regal. And why did it look so oddly familiar? Susan shook her head and placed the drawings aside, reaching back into the box.

The bottom of the small box held some pictures. Most were of the siblings, and Susan gazed at them with a heavy heart. She wished she had been able to mend their relations before the accident, that she hadn’t let such a silly game split the family. She flipped through the pictures, and came to a stop at the last one. Within its borders sat the image of a beautiful, intricately carved wardrobe. What on odd picture to be in this box. Even stranger, Susan thought the wardrobe looked familiar. A strange sense of longing filled her heart as she stared at the image. She felt as though this wardrobe were oddly connected to some long-forgotten, wonderful memory.

She gazed at the image a while longer before shaking her head, repacking the box, gently placing the small diary on top, and closing the box back up. As she closed the box’s flaps to push it back into the corner, she thought she heard a gentle whisper, a deep, rich voice that simply said “Susan…” It must be the heat of the attic, she thought. It really was a warm day. She began to climb down the ladder of the attic, but gazed one more time towards that back corner. Did something just growl? How odd. Hopefully there weren’t any unwelcome guests in the walls. She’d have to keep a close watch on the area.

That night, Susan had the most vivid dreams she’d had in years. She dreamt of magnificent creatures, griffins and minotaurs, and talking mice and horses. She dreamt of epic battles, an evil white witch, and a duel between Peter and another man dressed as a king. She dreamt of a magnificent water god rising from a river, a bearded man presenting her with a horn and bow and arrows, and of the glorious image of a powerful, gentle lion. And her siblings. Peter, Edmund, and Lucy, all of them together at a castle, celebrating a victorious battle. The last thing she remembered before she awoke was the strongest, loudest roar she had ever heard.  

           Susan awoke with tears streaming down her face. Everything had returned. Their rule over Narnia for 15 years, their return to England and the professor, their journey back to Narnia that one fateful day, and their battle to win Narnia back from the Telmarines. How could she have forgotten? She had lived a whole other life, a wonderful life, in a beautiful country hidden in a wardrobe. Susan cried harder than she had since the accident. How could she have left that world behind? Narnia had been everything to her. Why hadn’t she been there with her family on that fateful day? She arose from her bed early to begin her day; she was not going to get any more sleep this morning. Suddenly she was struck by the urge to visit the cemetery where her family was buried, a place she had not visited for some time now. She had to tell her family what she had remembered, and she owed them all an apology. Lucy especially. After dressing hastily, she was about to leave when she remembered Lucy’s diary upstairs. She must bring it with her. After retrieving the book, she ran towards the front hall, startling Truffle and Hunter as she passed. Clutching the book to her chest, she flung open the door and ran down the steps. “Lucy! Ed! Peter! I remember! I remember it all!” she cried, not caring in the slightest what the neighbors thought of her state. She felt she could run all the way to the cemetery, and in her rush, she forgot to heed her surroundings. As she entered the roadway, a car horn rang out, louder and louder until it became a roar. And then, quite suddenly, everything was quiet.

           The bustle of the London morning was gone. Susan opened her eyes. She couldn’t describe what she saw; the light was strangely hazy, and were those trees? She couldn’t tell. She looked down and saw herself standing on a carpet of soft grass, small wildflowers growing among the green blades. How on earth had she gotten to the cemetery so fast? She had barely left her house, last she remembered. But as she looked around, she didn’t see any headstones. In fact, she couldn’t see much of anything in this dim light. Something rustled behind her. She turned quickly and saw a massive shape in the haze. “Hello?” she asked tentatively.

           “Susan.” a voice said. She remembered that voice. The very voice that had given her that name, Queen Susan the Gentle, and had told her all those years ago that her time in Narnia had come to an end. “Aslan?” She whispered in stunned disbelief. “My child, why have you forsaken me?” the great lion asked, still shrouded in mist. “Aslan, I, I just…” She started, but she couldn’t finish. She had no excuse. “I’m so sorry,” she said softly, and fell to the ground in tears. “I lost myself. I lost Narnia. I lost my family. I lost…you.” She sobbed into her hands. “I’ve lost everything. Please, forgive me!”

           Something soft touched her knee, and she looked up to find the magnificent lion before her, his long tail resting on her leg. She sprang forward like she did all those years ago with Lucy at the Stone Table, burying her face into his glorious mane. “Oh Aslan, I’m so sorry.” she whispered. “Dear One, I never forgot you. You did as I asked, growing and living in your world. I was saddened to watch as you forgot me, however. That, I did not ask of you.” He said with his rich, gentle voice. “I know. I’m sorry, Aslan. I was wrong; I forgot who I was. Can you ever forgive me?” Susan replied, pulling away and looking the lion in the eyes. “Child, I could never not. It is as I said before: once a queen of Narnia, always a queen of Narnia. Welcome to my country, Queen Susan. Welcome home.”

           At his words, the haze cleared, and Susan found herself in what looked like Narnia, but everything was so much more beautiful and…perfect. She gazed around in wonder at the magnificent waterfalls, the towering snow-capped mountains, and the wildflowers growing in beautiful clusters. And then, there they were. She saw figures walking toward her and ran to meet them with tears in her eyes, the great lion following at a distance. Lucy, Edmund, Peter, her parents, Caspian, Mr. Tumnus, Trumpkin, and the Beavers all gathered around her with joy, welcoming her as a Friend of Narnia once more.

#narnia #susan pevensie #queen susan the gentle #aslan #lucy pevensie #edmund pevensie #peter pevensie #the chronicles of narnia #trumpkin #mr. tumnus

[samuelsongs]

⌠ JEON JUNGKOOK, 22, CISMALE, HE/HIM ⌡ welcome back to gallagher academy, SAMUEL SONG! according to their records, they’re a THIRD year, specializing in WEAPONS TRAINING/PROTECTION & ENFORCEMENT; and they DID NOT go to a spy prep high school. when i see them walking around in the halls, i usually see a flash of (a hand running through messy hair, an eager wave and toothy grin, various small and friendly tattoos). when it’s the (libra)’s birthday on 10/19/1998, they always request their GUACAMOLE BURGER AND PARMESAN FRIES from the school’s chefs. looks like they’re well on their way to graduation.

                                                   𝙼𝚈 𝚃𝙸𝙼𝙴

ACCESS: GRANTED FILE NAME: SONG, S.; UNKNOWN LEGACY

Samuel Song grew up for the first half of his life in sunny California-- Silver Lake, LA, to be exact. He would soon discover that he liked to go by Sam, though he’d respect and treasure his Korean name, Hansol, when the time came. He was a bright kid, full of life and joy and eager to do just about anything. He was always the first one to raise his hand in school or volunteer himself to make new friends. His parents loved the fact that their son was so lively and sweet, and that was in part due to their nurturing and loving nature as parents too.

They both worked in tech, very skilled and adept in their field with great jobs that allowed them to take great care of their home and child. As great as they were at their jobs, they never let it get in the way of being good parents, of making sure that their home life was as open and compassionate and understanding as they believed it should be.

He was three years old when his family welcomed a baby girl, and Sam has probably never had a greater happiness than being a big brother to Ingrid. He took care of her from the get-go, looking after her as a toddler, and always watching over her as they aged. While their parents had the money to hire babysitters, which they did, Sam still liked to always be taking care of Ingrid throughout his life, making sure she had everything she needed to be happy, or at least tried his best to.

Sam was the kind of kid that excelled in most things. He tried out for practically every sport there was, his parents supporting him throughout all the different seasons, and joined as many clubs that caught his eye as he could, something his sharp intellect helped with. His school career would see him as a star of the basketball team, student council treasurer, and president of the debate club all in the same semester, every year looking just as crazy as the last. He couldn’t help it, he just loved to be around others, a part of a team, making his mark. All this work would even help him graduate high school a year early.

At ten years old, his parents got an offer from another tech company, an offer they couldn't refuse, and the family relocated to Great Falls, Virginia across the country. The Song family moved in next door to the owners of the tech conglomerate that hired them, Reign Technology, and Ingrid and Sam met their new childhood friend, Régine Ren-- Rei for short. Despite the kids’ different personalities, they all grew up to care for each other, becoming close friends for pretty much the rest of their lives.

Sam adapted very easily to his new life in Virginia, jumping into his new school with just as much vigor as he always had, making himself out to be the ‘fun new kid’ until he was just as much a part of that community as anyone else. 

The only thing was, as much as he enjoyed every activity, as good as he was at them, there was never anything that he truly loved, that he thought could carry him for the rest of his life. What he loved was being a part of something, but nothing in particular ever really called to him. He’d watch in the coming years as Ingrid would find her passion, and he’d be her number one fan, but he’d always look at her and wonder how it must feel to find your dream.

He went off to college, picking something that sounded exciting on paper, but still didn’t light a fire in him like he wanted it to. But he wanted to be able to think that he chose the right thing, and so he continued to follow it through, because, naturally, he was good at it anyway. Sam was home for the summer after his sophomore year of college when Ingrid confided in him that she’d found something huge.

After the younger Song sibling went on a visit to their parents’ workplace, Ingrid had found something scary, something that convinced her their parents were some sort of villains working for evil masterminds-- or at least tech that seemed to imply that to a creative and impressionable mind. Sam believed her immediately, his own young imagination running wild and the siblings spent the next few weeks trying to prove that their parents weren’t who they said they were.

When they thought they finally had enough evidence, they confronted them, but were met with something entirely different-- and thankfully a little more tame. Their parents confessed that they were actually retired spies, and their jobs at Reign Tech were due to that. Suddenly everything made more sense, even though it hardly made sense that their normal, PTA-member parents could have had any past as cool and exciting as espionage. There was one more catch, however.

Not only were their parents ex-spies, they were actually connected to one of the biggest names in the history of espionage-- and assassination, actually. Sam and Ingrid’s father was a Blackthorne descendant, though for the safety of his young children, had asked his family to hide that side of them from the Song kids. Sam knew the name Blackthorne, but only as the last name of the cousin he loved so much, the fun uncles, and the serious grandpa from his dad’s side. And now he was realizing that all along they were actually one of the most prominent families in the spy community.

What’s more was, well, the Blackthornes had their own school. While it took some genuine debating and convincing of his parents, it was mostly a no-brainer to Sam. This is what he was meant to do, this was why he had never found a true purpose in life. He was destined to be a spy. His father warned him that Blackthorne would be unlike any other school he’d ever been to or heard of, that it would be the hardest thing he’d have to endure, and that his ancestry might hurt him more than it would help. But Sam was determined, hopeful that he had the guts to handle it.

So, in 2018, he enrolled as a first year at Blackthorne, and just as he had expected, it was nothing like he was expecting. Luckily, he did have third year and cousin Emmett Blackthorne at his side, who took the brunt of the family name and all its hurdles as well as provided him with a kind face to stick by when he didn’t know what he was doing. Sam was content to stay in Emmett’s shadow, the heir apparent, who he looked up to just as much. He spent his year at Blackthorne wrestling with how absolutely unbearable training was, the looks of showing up as some unknown Blackthorne, and a shocking revelation: he was not good at this.

Sam had always excelled at everything he’d tried his hand at, annoyingly so, and it only frustrated him further that the one time he was sure he’d found what he wanted to do with his life, he couldn’t master it on the first try, and had to work twice as hard as everyone else to stay afloat. So much for the Blackthorne blood, he thought, and it came to a head when he heard whispers of what his namesake’s school asked of boys in order to graduate. By the end of the year, he was sure he couldn’t survive and he was not going back.

And that was when news hit that the school’s doors would be closing forever and its sister school Gallagher Academy, would be opening its doors to all genders. The next step was clear to Sam, who didn’t want to give up espionage. Because as grueling as Blackthorne was, and as hard as it was to wrap his head around the fact that he wasn’t naturally gifted at it, he couldn’t imagine ever doing anything else. So, he transferred to Gallagher in 2019, and fell in love with the school immediately.

Ever since, he’s been steadily climbing up his own personal mountain, training hard and trying his best to master what he should have a direct familial line to. Aside from how seriously he takes his schoolwork, he’s still bright and goofy as ever, and Sam knows if he ever loses that side of him, that’s when he won't be able to pursue this any longer. But for now, he’s vibing and thriving!

TLDR - THE FACTS

Sam is a goofy and bright personality, always friendly and always looking to have fun

grew up in Cali with Ingrid to two loving parents in the tech industry

they moved to Virginia when their parents got hired by Reign Tech

he’s a naturally gifted kid who was almost instantly good at everything he tried, though he could never find a passion that motivated him and had no idea what to do with his future

Ingrid says she think their parents are evil masterminds and he instantly believes her, until their parents confess they’re actually just retired spies!

also, surprise, they’re Blackthorne descendants, and their father convinced the Blackthorne side to keep the spy business a secret from his kids

Sam decides this is what he’s meant to do with his life and enrolls in Blackthorne, only to find out this is the one thing he’s not naturally good at

hates his first year at Blackthorne, because the place is a nightmare, being a Blackthorne is not all it’s cracked up to be, and he finds out about the m*rder secret lol

but despite it all, despite espionage being the one thing he can’t immediately excel at, it’s the first thing in his life that he truly feels driven towards and wants to pursue

so when Blackthorne (thankfully) closes, he’s super happy to transfer to Gallagher, and has been loving it there ever since!

he takes his schoolwork and training super seriously, because he’s trying to get better and better every day, but aside from that, he’s laid-back, kind, and vibrant!

CONNECTIONS

Ingrid Song: his baby sister, he’ll do literally anything to see her happy; he’s super supportive of her dreams and passions, and is just a touch worried about her being at Gallagher after the previous year; they have a great and healthy relationship!

Regine Ren: childhood best friend ever since he moved in next door to her; developed a crush on her in their teenage years and they started dating for a good while before they realized they couldn’t work in the long run; still on good terms and he considers her a close friend

i’m down for almost anything pls <3

@gallagherintro

#this bio isn't even that good why did it take me so long sjdnvkjndf #gallagher:intro #abt #anyway goofy loving boy :)

[ladyideal]

Sunny Georgia

Pairing: Leonard McCoy x Reader

Word Count: 1523+ (It’s short I’m sorry)

Warnings: Language, whole lot of fluff

Summary: Shore leave back home.  You find happiness and content, with the hope of something more one day.

A/n: Whew, first pic went off with a blast. It looks like I’ll be making a masterlist soon, if I’m not too careful. 

Shore leave.

Glorious shore leave. 

It had been two years in space, and now Starfleet Command, finally, finally approved of a two weeks break back home, a rarity. . The crew cheered as the ship docked back onto Spacedock, and many packed their bags, sent out their well wishes, and hurried to take the next shuttle back down to the station. 

Unfortunately for Spock and you though, there were still the matter of briefing the Admiralty on your latest adventures out in the unknown. So, Leonard hefted both his and your duffle bags, filled with equal parts of PADDs and clothes, and followed after Spock and Nyota to a recently docked shuttle heading back down to dirtside.

“Two weeks of sunshine, concrete, and grass. What do you say?” You glanced over at your boyfriend, doing your absolute best to distract him from the ride. “Could go ride the waves, visit your mom and Joanna, maybe even see if we can squeeze in time for a carnival here?”

You looked over a brochure, detailing the rides and food of a carnival not far from HQ. Grinning inwardly, you knew you were going to have a blast, especially now that you were back home. 

“Sweetheart,” He groaned, squeezing his eyes shut. “How about we just stick with just two places?”

“Come on, Len!” You placed a hand on his shoulder, comforting him through the shuttle ride. “We might as well have a date at the carnival, that’s something we haven’t done before.”

As the train pulled into the station, Leonard released a relieved sigh. “Thank god,” he muttered as the rest quickly became lost under his breath.

“Hopefully this goes fast. I’ll see you at noon,” You embraced him quickly, enjoying the warmth and love that he reciprocated. With a quick grin, you followed after Spock towards the headquarters.

It was not fast, much to your dismay.

“My god, Spock, that took ages,” You complained, crossing your arms as you descended down the stairs with him. “I swear they just wanted to know every damn minute of what we did. It’s supposed to be shore leave, not spend the entire day at headquarters leave.”

‘Certainly Captain, logically speaking, Admiral Smythe would want to know the details of our mission. However, it is illogical to assume that-.”

“If Smythe had his way, we wouldn’t be out of there till near evening,” You frowned at the thought of that. Having adventures was the upside of being Captain, but was also the source reports as high as mountain. There was also the same glaring report that was still on your PADD, thrown away carelessly to the side of your luggage. Oh no, you didn’t even want to picture it, much less think of more work you have to finish soon.

“Admiral Smythe is correct in his findings, but-,” Spock added on.

“Nyota! Leonard!” You interrupted him, waving back when the two mentioned waved at you from the entrance of the academy. 

“We survived the briefing though, and that’s what matters the most. God knows it would’ve been much much longer if Admiral Owens didn’t cut in, and helped move the conversation along,” You returned back to the conversation at hand. “Talking about him-.”

“We should get going soon. Ma is expecting us for dinner tonight,” Leonard wrapped an arm around your shoulders.

“As should we, our plane departs in an hour to visit my parents,” Nyota added on, smiling softly up at Spock. 

“Already?” You squinted at the chrom. How long did the briefing take?

“Yes, darlin’,” Your boyfriend rolled his eyes, as though he couldn’t believe that you didn’t notice that the sun was well past the midpoint of the sky.

“Oh,” You mumbled, and grinned back at Nyota and Spock. “Take some pictures for us? I would love to see what it’s like over there.”

“Of course,” Nyota hugged you, and you responded back.

“See y'all soon.”

And that’s exactly how you spent your first week and a half at Georgia. Elenor was a godsend, making the most delectable soul food you could ever imagine on a day by day basis. Honestly, you were beginning to grow worried that you were becoming fat with the more you eat, but you didn’t care. Joanna, or Jojo that Leonard affectionately called her, was an absolute delight to have around. And secretly, you would love to have her as your step daughter.

 Every day was planned differently. A day at the library, a day at the lake - that Leonard was not too happy about -, and a day meant to spoil her and your dear boyfriend all together. As a teenager, she fully understood what was going on around her, and embraced it. But for the most part, you stood in the background, letting the father daughter duo catch up with one another. 

While you weren’t with Joanna, you spent hours swapping stories with Leonard’s sister, Donna. With having no other siblings, it was refreshing to have someone that could understand what you were going through as Leonard’s girlfriend in a small rural town. As the day darkened into the evening sky, you leaned against the stairs.

“It’s good to be back here. I’ve missed this place,” You sigh in content, watching the stars above twinkle in the unpolluted night sky.

“How long do ya still have out there?” Donna curiously asked.

“Another three years, I’m afraid,” You closed your eyes, wanting to feel the cool wind breathe across your sun tanned skin. “And I owe practically my life to the little brother of yours after all we’ve gone through. Everything up there can change in just a blink of an eye. It’s not easy, I’ll tell you that. Any moment I could lose him or myself or both of us.”

His sister hummed quietly. “He knows right?”

You opened an eye to peek over at her. “We have, but we’re taking it one day at a time; see what the universe has in store for us,” but you understood her underlying implication. “I don’t wanna push him. As long as he’s happy, I’m happy too.”

She continued observing you, sensing that you have more to say. 

“I just want the best for him after that chaotic break up with Jocelyn. Donna, I’m satisfied with where I am in life now. I get to captain my ship, have a loving boyfriend. There is nothing in this galaxy that I could want anymore, except for happiness.” 

“Donna! Y/N! Time for dinner!” Elenor exclaimed from the kitchen, moving to go climb the staircase to wake her son and granddaughter. 

“Knowing my brother,” Donna mulled over her words slowly. “I would say, he would want the same for you. All I see from him is affection and love, nothing less. I think, deep down he knows you are different from Jocelyn, that you and him aren’t the same as when him and her were together back then. He sees a future with you in it. It’s a surprise, but it’s not unwelcomed. Without him being pushed out into space, he would never have had the opportunity to meet you. Lenoard sees it simply, happiness. And after such a long time, he has found it with you.”

She held your gaze, a serious look on her face. 

“You think so?” You asked quietly. 

“I know so,” Leonard’s sister stood up, extending a hand out to help you up also. “C’me on, let’s go before ma yells again.”

After yet another wonderful dinner, and being shooed away from washing dishes again for the third night in a row, you found yourself leaning on Leonard’s shoulder on the porch steps, observing the clear night sky above again.

“I’m glad we came back home for leave,” you sipped on your iced tea at ease.

“I am too, sweetheart, we both needed this,” The doctor agreed, hugging you ever more tightly to him.

“Y’know Len, I’ve been thinking,” You thought out loud, keeping your eyes up at the stars. “Hopefully next time, we can get a place of our own. Renovate it and stuff to make it ours. Maybe a ranch or something, and get away from Starfleet when we can. One day we can have little pebbles of our own, Joanna be the big sister to them all, and be one big happy family.”

There was silence for a long moment.

“Um, Leonard?” You prompted, suddenly worried that you’d said too much too early in the current stage of your relationship with him. You turned to face him, finding that he was staring back at you the entire time, eyes glittering with love and affection.

“Do you mean that?” He managed out.

“Of course, I do, Len,” You smiled warmly at him.

Gently, his lips touched yours, sealing the deal. As long as you were with him by his side, everything and anything would be possible. Yes, he could definitely see you in his foreseeable future. His other hand stuck into his pocket, where it met a particular hard object. A small velvety hard box in particular, something he’d been sleeping on for the last couple of days. For a moment, he affectionately observed you from the side. Yes, it will be soon.

Tags: @cuddlememerrick @mapachefaerie @floreatetona (if you want to be tagged in future fics, please let me know.)

#here we go again #leonard mccoy #leonard bones mccoy #bones mccoy #leonard mccoy x reader #bones x reader #star trek aos #deb writes

[stareiiez]

Mephistophelian Summer

Chapter 1.

𝕎𝕠𝕣𝕕 ℂ𝕠𝕦𝕟𝕥: 𝟚.𝟡𝕜

𝔸/ℕ: Hello, Hello! <3 Tonight at 1:11 am I bring you the first chapter of my horror au! There’s no horror going on right now, it’s just setting up the basis for the reason why and where the horror of this fic takes place. 

Warnings: Cursing and Foul words, that’s about it! 

𝑀𝑒𝑝𝘩𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑜𝑝𝘩𝑒𝑙𝑖𝑎𝑛: adj: showing the cunning or ingenuity or                                       wickedness typical of a devil; also see:                                                                  devilish; diabolic; diabolical; mephistophelean; evil.

The ticking of the bell that hit 11:30 am, it seemed the clock's noise rang in Tucker's mind louder than the students' chatter and laughter that rang in his classroom. His head was propped up on both of the palms of his hands as his dark brown eyes narrowed in on the white clock's face. It seemed like the large and small hand of the clock seemed to move slower than normal, just because it was prolonging the students of Vallahala High. Summer would begin right when the clock would strike noon, and the early release would grant sweet sweet freedom for the next three months of blissful vacation. Tucker couldn't help but grin at the plan that was forming in his head-on just how he would spend his summertime. Unlike most of his peers would get summer jobs to save up money, Tucker would be wasting his time with his group of friends doing everything and going anywhere he wanted without a care in his world.

A  smooth grin spread over his lips as his eyes got a little hazy from his daydreams. It wasn't until his summer daydreams were ruined by the vibrating phone in his jeans back pocket. The bright cellphone screen lit up with multiple messages from the group chat him and his friends had created a few years back. In this chat, conversations ranged from absolute chaotic mindnumbing interactions to the dissecting every little thing about their lives and beyond their home planet. Usually, Grif would insinuate these conversations when he would smoke two or three joints and spam the group chat with his otherworldly conversations.

His phone screen lit up from already ten or more messages from the said group chat. Without care, Tucker settled back into his seat and unlocked his phone. The teacher didn't care, it was the last day of school and they too might be counting down the minutes for summer vacation. Until next week when they would go back to teaching some poor sorry sap of students that didn't manage to pass both fall and spring semester with the best grades in the world. Thank god his future goal major wasn't education.

Fellow Delinquiants, and Dick and Carolina.

11:37 am Dickhead 1: So what's this about some big summer plans?

11:37 am David: Summer plans? I was applying for that summer job you know-

11:39 am Stoner McGee: Work? During freedom? You make me tired.

11: 39 am David: Well... Carolina is getting a summer job with me too-

11:40 am Tucker: BOOOOO you both suck ass

11: 40 am Tucker: Listen assholes, there's no work this summer; because we are going camping.

11:41 am Redhead: We are doing what?

11:43 am Tucker: Relax, I'll let you all in on my plan when we get out of this hellhole.

11:46 am Dick: The outdoors seems fun!

11:48 am Sis: Camping? Are you on crack Tucker?

11:49 am Donut: If we're camping I vote on bringing food!

Well, at least some people were on board with the idea. Before he could read any more group text messages Tucker slipped his phone back into his pocket and sighed contently. This summer was going to be the best thing to happen to him in a while. Ever since he concluded that he was for sure graduating next year, and a few of his friends had already planned their future that didn't seem to involve him, it was starting to sound shitty. Call him a pussy, or bully him but he had abandonment issues. He hated being alone or being left behind, that's why most of his time was at least spent with at least his group of friends or at least one of his friends. He needed to feel secure and safe, and by god did they make him feel like he had a second family. This summer was the last summer he could spend normally without the stress of college looming over his shoulder, or friends coming and going. He wanted to have fun and take charge of the rest of his youth before it was forever locked away in the state of some four-year hell of education so he can get a job.

Once the clock finally hit 12, Tucker had sprung up from his seat like something struck him. His backpack was slung over his right shoulder and he all but ran out of the classroom along with the other excited students. Papers were flung in the air, and screams and chatter filled the air. Notebooks were flung, textbooks were thrown in the trash and homework filled binders were torn apart. The papers scattered and fluttered through the air in a victorious motion. Tucker jogged through the halls, his body weaving through bodies and moving fluidly with the masses of people who were making their escape through the school's front doors.

The large wooden doors were flung open and the ruckus filled the open air, classmates ran all over. Some made their ways to their cars, some stuck around to say goodbye to their friends, or others sprinted into the aligned school buses that awaited to take them home for the last time in the school year. The bright sunny, noon air shined upon Tucker as he inhaled his first noseful of fresh air. 'Ah freedom, so that's what it smells like.'

A content sigh slipped past his lips while he leaned back against the school statue of its mascot. One large puma that has it's back arched and teeth bare. They just changed to the Pumas after some big back and forth argument in the school district of Blood Gulch High should accept and appreciate their mascot if it was a warthog. The school cringed as well as the student body when they first found out that their school teams were about to be known as the Blood Gulch Warthogs. They wanted to be feared and at least have some kind of ring to it, so the school board decided on naming Blood Gulch, The Blood Gulch Pumas. It was pretty stupid to argue over some type of animal that resembles their school if it was up to Tucker. This highschool reminded him of chihuahuas. All talk and not enough bite.

"Hey man." A male voice spoke up before Tucker could bask in his summer freedom for a little longer. The male tilted his head to greet the new presence, and couldn't help but grin.

David 'Washington.' stood before him. All dark brown hair, with the blonde dye that was accenting the tips of his spiky hair. The blonde dyed tips were part of a half tipsy dare at the beginning of the junior year and Carolina had managed to do a decent job in dying his hair correctly. Wash, at first nearly died at the sight of his new hair. Then slowly for a week he slowly accepted the blonde accenting the dark brown of his natural hair color. Even his parents thought it looked nice and even joked that he should go full blonde, something that Wash had somewhat considered but never went through with it yet. He casually slipped the second strap of his backpack over his left shoulder, and his large palms grasped the two straps contently.

"Where's the rest of the guys?" Tucker asked once he reciprocated his greeting to one of his best friends.

"Carolina is dragging Church here since I'm sure Allison is trying to shove her tongue down his throat by now. Grif is going to drive his little sister home and then meet up with us with Simmons, Donut, and Frank."

"Why exclude Sis? She's always the life of the party." Tucker frowned.

A small scoff as a shy grin slipped over David's lips, "Please? Her? She's that and a whole ass hurricane."

"Exactly why she's invited with us to these summer plans of mine." Tucker grinned, a little more cooly than needed.

"Right, what kind of plans are we-"

"Hey! I said I'm going goddamnit!" Another voice cut in, this one pitched up higher in distress as a few grunts left his lips.

Both males tore their attention away from each other to watch a fiery redheaded girl grab a dark-haired male by the back of his shirt towards the two. The dark-haired male's arms were flailing about as he fought to keep up with the long-legged strides that the redheaded female took to meet the two boys.

"I can walk on my own, you know?! You're embarrassing me." The male hissed as the female finally unhanded him, her long pale arms crossed over her chest as her nose lifted slightly in the air with a huff.

"Really? Seems like you couldn't walk straight after you seemed to be having your soul sucked out of you by the blonde bitch." The girl growled back, anger set in her bright green eyes.

"Told you," Wash whispered to Tucker, making the other snort with amusement. It was cut short when the green-eyed gaze was sliced over to the two instead, silencing any ore commentary about her little brother.

"Just because you're only 30 minutes older than me, does not mean you can just drag me anywhere." The dark-haired male huffed more, he stood up straight and fixed the black-framed glasses on his nose. His duller green eyes were narrowed in a glare at his sibling.

"Church always glad to see you," Tucker commented, his eyes swept over the pasty-skinned male. A shit-eating smile took over his features as he caught the smear of dark red covering his entire mouth and one place on his neck. 'My man.' Tucker thought slimly.

"Hey, Leonard you got a little.." Wash spoke up, his finger pointing to his mouth. A small blush adorned his freckle splattered cheekbones and nose, his eyes quickly averting when realization dawned on the other's face.

The smear of the lipstick only colored the redhead's face in a little more irritation than necessary. The tension hung over the four heads, and with Carolina nearly on verge of bringing all hell loose to her little brother and his girlfriend. Wash cleared his throat and shot Tucker a look, one that had Tucker shoving his hand in his back pocket and fishing his car keys out

“Let's get some lunch fuckers." He said, returning Wash's look, and lead the three to his car.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Slim's Pickens, a dinner that has better food than its cursed name, had the best food in probably the whole town. The radio station lulled in the background of the diner. Chatter, silverware clinking against plates was comforting in a way, this one diner had the aura of 'Welcome Home.' and that was one of the reasons why it was the group's favorite spot to hang out at. Tucker had his feet propped up on the chair next to him as he scrolled on his phone, his eyes scouring through a few text messages he sent to Grif. He had been pestering and frankly pissing off his friend, to get the rest of his friend group to the diner. He was too impatient to lay down his big summer plan. With a groan, Tucker shut his phone screen off and tossed his head back over the chair's back.

"What is it with you today? You're so jumpy and you practically shoved us into your car." Wash commented, his gaze was on Tucker for a while now. He was watching the impatience grow more and more on Tucker's features, and it only made him snort in amusement.

"You nearly hit seven cars on your way here, and nearly ran through two red lights," Carolina added, her head was propped up on her hand and a single eyebrow rose in judgment.

"You will know when the other idiots are here." Tucker huffed, his eyes roamed over to Carolina. The once pissed off look on her face from her little brother was far gone, thanks to her practically forcing him to clean off the marks and lipstick stains Tex had left on his face.

"Well if you're going to play the waiting game, I am going to order something to eat." Carolina hummed, before picking up the menu and leaned over the table to David. Their chatter over what sounded better to eat, or certain prices.

20 minutes later, a clean Church, and plates of fries and other items of food that was placed before the four; Grif, Sister, Simmons, Donut, and Frank Dufrense had joined them. Finally.

"Alright, asshole tell me why you nearly made me get in a car crash from all your stupid texts," Grif said as he plopped down in the chair in front of Tucker. He didn't hesitate to steal a curly fry from Wash's plate and shove it in his mouth. His dark eyebrow rose as he chewed.

Tucker frowned before answering. "I already figured out what we are going to do this summer."

"If you're bringing up that camping trip-"

"Yes I am bringing it up, come on! It'll be so fucking great. Us, a private lake, privacy, alcohol. All the works!"

"Woo! Par-tay! Let's get it!" Sis cheered, her hands flinging up in the air as an excited grin split across her lips. Her eyes sparkled at the thought of getting shit-faced and puking her guts out in the crystal clear lake; then go skinny dipping in the waters at the dead of night.

"Oh no, the hell you aren't! No parties! You're three years younger and so underage." Grif bit out, his gaze fixed on his sibling that was sitting at the far end of the table right in front of Carolina. His voice ruining the enthusiastic expression on Sister's face.

"You're not my mom! Don't tell me what to do!"

"I'll kick your ass like our mom, I'll break my lazy rule of not doing shit just for you."

"Where exactly are we going to go do this if we agree?" Simmons pipped up from beside Grif.

"A place I always camped at with my Dad during the summer. It's called Tahoe Wood but I call it paradise."

"Tahoe Wood? You mean as in that endless fucking woods that most people get lost in Tahoe Wood?" Church commented, his voice sounding not too pleased in the slightest.

"You have me as a guide, come on I know that place like the back of my hand." Tucker scoffed.

"I am just brimming with confidence that nothing shitty will happen to us."

"Hey! Fuck you man!"

"Tucker, how long are we going to stay there?" Frank "Doc" cut in before Tucker or Church could further curse each other out in the diner.

It's happened at least once or twice, and each time the two were escorted outside by the waiters and left outside to cool off. They were allowed back inside once they at least said sorry to each other. They were treated like little kids for being in high school, but it came from a place of fondness. The employees all came to know the friend group well since they used the diner to hang out and eat almost once or twice every week.

"One week tops, think of it as a 'fuck you school' getaway." Tucker shrugged, his eyes watched as Grif stole a few more fries from Wash's plate. How the dyed blonde male didn't scold the other from stealing his food away more than once was a shock. "When are you and Carolina getting those summer jobs?" Tucker asked Wash.

"Sometime in the second week of June." Wash glanced at Carolina for confirmation.

"Since it is the last week of May, let's do this shit! Come on! Start the summer with a fucking bang!" Tucker pleaded, the palms of his hands smacking the table in the emphasis of his words. Plates clanged and silverware rattled from the vibrations, the noise drew several eyes of customers that were contently eating to glance over at the group.

"If we agree to this stupid trip will you shut up?" Church hissed, his eyes darting to the customers in the diner then back to Tucker. His pale green eyes were sharp and slightly cold as a wave of annoyance washed over his features.

Only when Church was pissed, annoyed, or just slightly miffed he looked like Carolina. He was the spitting image of their father, just like Carolina was a spitting image of their mother. Except Carolina had dyed her naturally blonde hair a fire engine red when she turned 16 and kept it red from since then on.

"Yes," Tucker said, rather smugly.

"Then yes! Now shut up."

"Hey! You don't speak for the rest of us. Camping sounds boring, and tiring work." Grif complained.

"Grif, shut up! I'm not going to hear Tucker complain for another hour about this trip. You go, or my sister is kicking your ass to Tahoe Wood and back!" Church hissed under his breath.

Well at least Tucker was satisfied, he would simply grin to himself as Grif bickered with Church. The two were bent over Carolina and Simmons that were sitting next to them. Donut and "Doc" were frankly content on conversating and adding in friendly banter to the swelling argument between the two males. It didn't help that both Grif and Church would yell at Donut or Doc to 'shut up and butt the fuck out' before going back to their argument.

This is going to be the best vacation ever.

#rvb #red vs blue #red vs blue fanfiction #red vs blue fanfic #rvb church #rvb carolina #rvb washington #rvb tucker #rvb simmons #rvb grif #rvb donut #rvb doc #lavernius tucker #leonard church #david washington #carolina church #richard simmons #franklin delano donut #frank dufrense #kaikaina grif #rvb sister #mephistophelian summer series

[7deadlycinderellas]

The Maiden of the Sea, 4/5

Ao3 link

When the girls are four and a half years old, Sansa manages to find the time to take a ship from White Harbour for a visit. 

Ely, the girls’ nurse, looks confused. 

“If your sister’s Queen in the North, why do you live all the way down here? Should I do my hair fancy or something?”

Arya shakes her head. Ely’s sixteen year old with crinkly red hair and a face full of freckles. She doesn’t generally go for fancy, which is good when your job is keeping track of a pair of very active children.

“If she makes a single comment about your hair, I’ll pull hers.”

Not that she really plans on being childish to Sansa. She has missed her terribly. Her letters have been a bit cryptic, and part of Arya is anxious to see her sister’s reaction to her current life. 

“Just try and make sure the girls are clean, and please try and stop them from pinching each other too much.”

Ely nods, and Arya leaves, knowing the twins are in capable hands. Ely has six siblings and can wrangle even the fastest toddler. 

She then goes to retrieve Gendry from their solar. He’s at the table with his head in his hands. 

Arya reaches out and tugs him by them. 

“Come on, it’s time. They announced the arrival at the gate five minutes ago.”

“Do I have to?”

“Yes.”

Ely meets them in the courtyard, dragging a child by each hand. Lyra and Lysa are both in neat dresses, their hair tied in ribbons. Lysa fidgets, while Lyra quietly drops Ely’s hand to cling to her father’s. 

The ride from Weeping Town isn’t very long, and by the time the riders enter, Sansa is still immaculate upon her mount. 

She looks diminished, without her northern furs, but no less regal than Arya remembers. Her gown is a deep gray damask, the bodice with an overlay of black lace, making her complexion look even paler. 

Gendry had reluctantly put on his best leathers and a doublet of dark blue. It lets him maintain some dignity, even if he must look his station.

Arya had asked the seamstress in Weeping Town who had made her wedding clothes to make her a few similar ones out of linen or wool. They’re easier to care for, but beautifully embroidered, and excellent for when Arya wants to impress someone, or needs to make an impression.

Lysa’s still fidgeting, so Arya grabs her and hoists her up into her arms as the Queen in the North dismounts her horse and is welcomed 

With a squirming child in her arms, Arya manages a curtsy even worse than the ones from her childhood.

“Your grace,” she greets her, with a heavy note of sarcasm in her voice. 

A smile bursts onto Sansa’s face, and Arya finds herself filling up with glee.

Lyra looks up from where she holds her father’s hand and asks, in her quiet, even voice. 

“Are you really a queen?”

Lysa pauses her squirming to add,

“If you’re a queen, where’s your crown?”

That makes Sansa smile. “I am indeed, I am queen of all of the North. And I left my crown at home, I thought it might fall off when I was on the boat.”

Lysa looks disappointed, but stays quiet, so Arya gestures over her shoulder. 

“Come on, it’s dinner time anyway.”

Dinner is fancier than Arya would have liked, but Merope insisted that she wouldn’t have a queen going back home speaking modestly of her cooking. 

Sansa watches quietly as Lysa and Lyra get up and look expectantly at their mother.

“Go ahead, but stay in the yard,” Arya tells them, and they vacate the Round Hall. 

She hears Sansa quietly ask Gendry, “How do you tell them apart?”

Gendry nods at the bits of twine they wear tied as bracelets around their wrists. 

“Lyra wears hers on her right arm, Lysa on her left. You can remember because Lyra has an ‘r’ in it.”

“And after knowing them a little while, you don’t really need it,” Arya adds. 

After the meal is done, Sansa asks her to see her to the Godswood.  

They pass Lysa and Lyra playing at swords with wooden sticks. Tris sits off to one side, and Arya suddenly hears him say,  

“Why do I have to be the princess?”

“Cause you have the prettiest hair.”

“I wanna be the dragon.’

Arya snorts. Tris does have very pretty hair, thick and blonde and curly. And even though they’re not a month apart, both girls are taller than him already.

They’ve just passed into the Godswood when Sansa suddenly says, 

“Seeing them before, I could have sworn it was me and you.”

Arya smiles and laughs. 

“They do fight like cats and dogs. But that aside, they’re not really much like us at all.”

They’ve reached the pool, and Arya gestures for Sansa to sit down next to her. It’s sunny somehow, even this late in the day, and it’s like the rare quiet afternoons when they were young. 

She tells Sansa about how Lysa spoke first of the twins, and how after, it seemed like Lyra was mostly content with letting her sister do the talking. How Lysa announced to all of them a few weeks ago that she planned to run away and become a mummer. 

“And Lyra seems quiet, but that’s not always accurate. A few moons ago one of the guard’s sons called Tris a dirty bastard. Lyra lashed out and grabbed him by the arm and squeezed, and wouldn’t let him go until he said he was sorry. I saw the boy after, she left bruises on him.”

That was definitely one of the signs that Lyra was closer to following after her father rather than Arya, no matter what Gendry said.

Sansa’s looking at her funny,

“What?”

“You’re happy.”

Arya feels a noise escape her throat. Hearing it put so simply is strange, foreign. 

“I am, truly.”

Sansa looks away and tilts her face up towards the sun. 

“I wonder what Mother and Father would think. That after all these years...that I would be the sole ruler of Winterfell, running an independent North, and you would be happily married with children.”

“We each got what the other wanted.”

They both chuckle, because they know it’s only superficially true. 

“I didn’t know what to think...you left so suddenly before, and then three years later I get a letter that you’re marrying a man that I thought you barely knew.”

Arya smiles. Explaining everything in letters had been a daunting task. Explaining that she’d chosen to come back to Westeros. Explaining that she was marrying, that she was marrying the same man she’d taken to bed before the Long Night. Explaining that she had, in fact, known him for years. 

“Everyday’s different,” Arya muses, “But I adjust. I come and go, like the tides.”

She pauses before her next words, 

“What about you Sansa, are you happy?”

Sansa chuckles, 

“I wonder if anyone has ever asked a queen that question before...my home is safe, my people are safe. I know where everyone left in my family is, and that they are alive. That’s more than I could have hoped for for most of my girlhood. Of course...there’s still the question of the future.”

She takes a glance at Arya, and she feels it cut like it often did when the two were children.

“I suppose it isn’t the best time to bring up the question of succession.”

Arya sticks up her nose at the question. No it is not the right time. As much as it pleased her that thanks to one of Bran’s rulings, she no longer had to pay heed to anyone giving them condolences and asking when they were trying again for a boy.

“I don’t even remember which one came out first. I can’t answer questions about which one will inherit before they can even write their names.”

It’s also unspoken that neither her nor Gendry will be mentioning the word betrothal until they’re old enough to say if they want it for themselves.

“Why are you heading to King’s Landing so early? The next small council meeting isn’t until early next year?”

She has been wondering. Gendry and her have to make the journey too, but they had been planning to take this long go round of the Stormlands proper for a while, and Sansa showing up right before they’re set to leave seemed fortuitous. 

Sansa sighs, 

“I spend so much time wondering about Bran. About how he even ended up where he is...and I just wish I could be there for him more.”

Arya suddenly wonders if Bran has confided in Sansa half of what he has in her. She did have the dream where he was a porpoise after all, as bizarre as it had been. 

“I’m sure it will be good for him to see you again,” she assures Sansa. She then stands. 

“I best be getting off to bed.”

“I think I’ll stay out here for a while.”

Arya nods, 

“You can get to the guest rooms alright?”

Sansa nods in understanding, and Arya leaves the Godswood. 

She bumps into Ely on her way back to her chambers. 

“Both girls are in bed milady, if not asleep. Too excited.”

Arya nods, she’ll check in on them in a minute.

“Are you Ely? Excited?”

The younger girl nods. 

“I’ve never been more than a mile or two from Weeping Town before! It will be like going on an adventure.”

They really lucked out finding her, Arya, thinks, as she creeps quiet as a mouse to peek in on her daughters. 

It had surprised her and Gendry when they had offered to get them seperate beds, that they hadn’t wanted them. Arya remembers hating sharing a bed with Sansa when they were small, and had thought Lyra and Lysa would be the same.

But no matter how they were at each other’s throats throughout the day, at night they would curl up together in their little bed. Right now they were both on their bellies, Lyra’s arm slung over Lysa’s head and Lysa tucked into her side. 

Though Arya suspects they’re just pretending to be asleep, she shuts their door and leaves. 

Gendry’s already stretched out on the bed when she comes in and begins changing for bed. 

“Everyone ready to go in the morning?”

Arya nods, 

“Why exactly are we going towards Bronzegate first? Tarth is closer.”

Arya laughs at the petulance in his tone. 

“Because we like Tarth, it will make getting through all the other houses and keeps easier if we get to go there at the end.”

Gendry rolls back the covers to let her slip in. When she’s settled, he leans over and starts planting kisses on her chin. 

When his hands make for the ties at the top of her small clothes, she hates having to stop him. 

“Moon’s blood remember? Day or two left.”

Gendry actually pouts. 

“Never thought you of all people would be squeamish about that.”

“I’m not squeamish,” That’s putting it mildly, the first time she’d gotten her moon’s blood after the twins were born, she’d dragged him out of bed in the middle of the night, gone to the Godswood, gone on all fours and told him to make her howl at the moon.

“I just don’t want to make a mess someone else has to clean up. And Sansa’s still in the Godswood.”

When she notes his lip is still stuck out, so she lets her hands drift downward. 

“Want me to take care of you?”

Gendry pushes her hand away and starts working at his own laces. 

“S’okay, I can do it. I’ll pay you back on the road. All those bushes and caves and little groups of trees…”

“All there to district Lysa and Lyra from their unknowing quest to remain only children.”

Gendry laughs as he takes his cock in hand. Arya curls up under his other arm, nose pressed in his neck, inhaling the hint of smoke still on his skin. She likes watching him do this, especially when she can turn her head and try and see what he sees. She loves stroking his hair and sucking his ear lobe and running her fingers over the taut muscles in his chest and stomach as he works himself over. 

He comes in a spurt across his stomach and Arya retrieves a rag from the basin to wipe him off. 

“Try and focus on this,” she tells him, “Instead of the days and days of horse riding and listening to old lords talk about themselves that are ahead of us.”

The next morning, both parties pack up their horses and take off down the road. Sansa’s group splits off and takes the Kingsroad on it’s way to King’s Landing. She stops to hug Arya at the fork in the road, and the twins wave and yell out behind her until the party is well out of the line of sight.

The foal that Selwyn had sent for the twins as a baby is now a squat, gray mare named Thistle. She moved at a placid pace regardless of whether she was unburdened, carrying one twin, two, or both and Ely, though both the twins did their best to be good enough on her back to not need Ely plunking herself behind them to make them behave.

Arya giggles to herself whenever she sees Gendry bouncing uncomfortably in his saddle. All the years, he still rides like a green boy. 

The first night they’re eating supper after setting up camp, Lysa comes up to the two of them and asks, 

“Why do we have to go to all these places?”

Arya smiles, and puts her piece of bread down in her mug of broth. She pulls Lysa into her lap. Both girls are tall for their age, but slender, and Lysa’s head nearly hits her mother’s chin. 

“All of the houses in this land are sworn to me and your father. They serve us, and we have to keep them safe. It’s our responsibility, and someday, it will be yours or your sister’s. So you have to know the land, know it’s people.”

Gendry lets her talk, nodding along with her answer. 

Her answer seems to satisfy Lysa, so Arya lets her mind wander. She spies out of the corner of her eye Lyra sneak up and offer Gendry a flower she picked, and she feels her heart twinge. 

It doesn’t take long to reach Bronzegate, seat of House Buckler. 

The castle rises out of a crag, somehow seeming much more imposing than Storm’s End. Both of the girls are struck dumb by it. Gendry just takes a look, sighs, and says, 

“I’d forgotten how big a pain it was to get up there.”

Bronzegate, and by extension, Lord Ralph Buckler, are exactly what Arya has come to expect from highborns. Gracious, proper, and exacting in their manners. 

And so ungodly boring. 

Lysa and Lyra are both in awe of the grandness of the keep. Storm’s End, after years of neglect, has been left rather modest by comparison. The two of them, and Ely, get to be led around and told the history of the whole keep. 

Whereas the Lord and Lady of all of the Stormlands get to be bored out of their skulls, sitting in too-soft chairs around a too-big table while the near elderly Lord Buckler goes on and on about the going-ons of all of his extended family members who still remain in the area of Bronzegate, who’s gotten married, who’s been knighted. And he’s got a lot of them. 

It’s no wonder that by the second day of these discussions, Arya begins slipping one foot out of her boot during and starts running her toes up one of Gendry’s legs. 

(“You.” he says, punctuating his sentence with a hard kiss, “Are a goddamn horrible tease.”

He’s got her pressed up against a column in an dark, empty hallway after they’ve been left to their own devices. He’s already got one hand down her breeches, and she’s not exactly seeing the downside.

“Oh don’t pretend like you were listening in the first place,” Arya replies, as she wiggles and tries to help him get her breeches unlaced.)

And so the next time, her hand wanders straight for his lap instead. 

It’s halfway through the third day that Gendry finally snaps, and tells Lord Buckler to ride through the village and show him exactly how the tax cuts that had been put in over five years ago were working out. 

After a moment, Lord Buckler nods, and calls for someone to have his horse saddled. Gendry ends up quite pleased by what he sees, farmers who can keep their homes in good upkeep, and a village where everyone seems to have an occupation.

“See?” Arya tells him later that night, “Sometimes it’s better to just get straight to the point.”

She speaks with confidence, but Arya leaves Bronzegate feeling like the same wild, out of place child that she spent most of her childhood as. 

The area on this side of the Stormlands doesn’t have much, just a lot of villages with big swaths of empty land between them. Low hills and sharp peaks, without even very many trees. The journey through this is uninteresting. 

“I thought it would be more like after we escaped Harranhal. Like freedom” Gendry admits one night, in their tent. 

“It was just us and Hot Pie then though, we didn’t have all these people or responsibilities. “

Namely, the two young girls sleeping spread out right next to their parents. The two of them are having a grand time on the journey. Every day there are trees to climb, caves to dig into, a new animal they’ve never seen, and endless stories from nearly all of the men, as the guards from Storm’s End came from all over the Stormlands. 

Even if it also came with the discovery that quiet, good natured Lyra was as voracious a climber as her uncle Bran had been as a child. Great, now both of them had the abilities to give their parents heart attacks. 

They reach the foothills of the red mountains, and with them, they pass the ruins of Summerhall. 

Even Lysa grows quiet, seeing the ruins of the huge, burned castle, with the wild trying it’s best to grow over the corpse. Arya hears Ely’s whispering voice telling the girls the story of the Tragedy at Summerhall, and feels her chest ache, the darkness sneaking in with the memories of Harrenhal.  

Arya swears she can smell it burning, seeing the ruins. She can smell the fire and the ash and the clouds of smoke and heard the screaming-

“We should do something with it,” Gendry says gruffly, “It’s no good to anyone sitting there empty, and letting the stories of ghosts grow around it won’t do any good either.”

Arya nods. He’s right. Sitting empty, it could provide shelter to an army attempting to march on them, or on the Reach, or even King’s Landing. He’s right, but as they ride away, the darkness does not entirely recede. 

They make it to Blackhaven, seat of House Dondarrion. Arya feels her mind perk up. Their relationship had been complicated, but both her and Gendry still held some respect for the late Lightning Lord. 

In comparison to some of the keeps they’ve seen, it’s quite small and modest, though the bottomless moat does make one contemplate their own mortality, and any bandits from the mountains would have a very difficult time making it. 

And while the current holders of the seat are not like Beric at all, they do at least seem to share in Gendry and Arya’s grief. Of course, this happens in the midst of another long, dull discussion of court gossip, over another stupidly fancy table. 

Also unfortunately, the cousin who is currently the heir of Blackhaven, is seemingly also fond of having a certain sort of female company in his keep. 

Arya isn’t jealous when she sees the woman with the rich, red gown and the carefully curled hair lean rather obviously over Gendry’s chair and whisper in his ear. She knows he’s just embarrassed, even before she sees his face turn bright red, but seven hells if it doesn’t annoy her. 

Later that night, she flops onto the obnoxiously fancy bed in Blackhaven’s guest chambers, turns to Gendry while he’s still undressing and asks, 

“You sure you’re never going to get bored of me and start going off with painted whores?”

There’s a note of surprise on his face when he looks at her, and a bit of hurt that Arya feels come at her heart. She’s fishing for his words of affection, of commitement, and she knows it, but sometimes she needs to make him talk. 

He doesn’t say a thing before laying down beside her on the bed and pulling her over onto his chest. 

“Surprised you couldn’t hear her, how loud she was whispering bout ‘I’ll do that thing your wife would never’...”

Arya snorts despite herself. 

“Wouldn’t be specific either would she?”

He pushes a bit of her hair out of her face. 

“Wanted to draw me in with whatever I answered that with. Want to know something I learned the first time I trudged around this whole damn place?”

“That you hate highborn twats who have never lifted a sword against an enemy, yet have a thousand of them?”

He pauses. He’s used close to those exact words before. 

“Yes. But also, most highborn men I’ve met? They don’t like their wives. Not to say exactly, that they never found them attractive, or even loved them. They don’t like them.”

Arya frowns. She’s never quite heard it put that way. 

“Like, even if I suffered some horribly disfiguring accident that left me with no cock...or hands, or lips...you’d still want me around right?”

Arya frowns even harder, 

“How did you manage that one?”

Gendry rolls his eyes, 

“Just imagine it OK?”

She stops and thinks. She really can’t imagine not having him around. It makes every tiny part of her hurt. She even feels a tear threaten to drop. 

“Fine, I get it.”

Gendry rolls her over and kisses her neck and her shoulder, and lower. When he gets to her belly, he tells her,

“So quit worrying about me, whores, and their vaguely defined bedroom activities.”

“I’m sorry, it’s just, this whole trip ended up just making me feel insecure.”

Gendry snorts as his fingers begin to work at her smallclothes. 

“It’s not just you. Everyone we’ve met on this trip seems to want to do nothing more than talk about my father. About how great he was to hunt or feast with when they were younger, how great a warror he was. They never mention how shit a husband or a king he was.”

Arya is suddenly seized by the realization that what she’s just asked might have made it worse. She stills under him and reaches to pull him back up so she can look him in the face.

“You’re not your father. I’ve met him remember? He was old and fat, and while those can happen to the best of us, he also didn’t care about anyone anymore. Not his queen, or his oldest friend, or his subjects. That isn’t you. 

Anytime you need to be reminded of that, come find me and I’ll find a way.” 

Gendry lifts himself up on his elbows to look at her. 

“Shall we get revenge on them all by fucking loudly on their fancy bed?”

Arya pauses, in thought. She then moves to stand up. 

“I have a better idea. Lets sneak out and go fuck on their stupid fancy table instead.”

A slow smile erupts on Gendry’s face, and he stands and grabs her hand to pull her up.

“See what I mean? Seven hells, I like having you around so much.” 

Things get easier when they leave Blackhaven and head for the coast. Arya can tell where they are before they can even see it- she can smell the salt on the air, suddenly stronger. 

It brings her joy. She hadn’t realized how much the sea had become part of her, as much a part as the snow and forests of the north were.

And not just her. 

When the first bit of the ocean comes into view, Lysa and Lyra immediately drop their quarrel over who’s taller (Ely had even brought over a book to show them they were exactly the same height right now). Lyra climbs onto a rock to peer into the water and prepare to dive if the water is deep enough. Lysa simply bellows and rushes into the choppy waves at the coastline. 

They’ve both got Tully fish in their blood, Arya muses, that and they’ve lived by the water their entire lives. 

There are more stops to be had along the coast of the Sea of Dorne, but getting through them is easier on both Gendry and Arya. Ely takes Lysa and Lyra out to swim most days, in waters that far are calmer than Shipbreaker’s Bay is for most of the year. Arya joins them when she can, floating on her back and gazing up at the thick fog that lays over the sea. 

One night when they’re staying in an inn to talk with an emissary from Estermont (so they would not have to make the journey by boat, and Gendry tells her because the keep is in rather poor shape from storms), the sky is somehow perfectly clear. Before bed, Ely touches Arya’s arm and tells her, 

“You should come with us milady, there’s nothing in the world like nightswimming.”

The moon is huge and full, and Arya even manages to convince Gendry to strip to his undershirt and braies and wade in with them. 

Arya finds a large rock and lays down upon it, Gendry soon joining her as Ely teaches Lysa to float on her back while Lyra splashes around. 

“I miss being at sea. If, instead of letting you marry me when I came back I had just kidnapped you and thrown you on my boat, would you have come?”

Gendry stills. 

“So long as it wasn’t the kind of boat I would have to row.”

That’s a good answer. She waits before asking the next. 

“What if I’d asked you before I left Westeros? If i’d asked you to give up the noble life to join me at sea?”

Gendry rolls on his side.

“You didn’t though. I don’t think it’s worth it to get stuck on ifs. We’re here now.”

She smiles and kisses him slowly, once, twice. 

“Where do we still have to stop after this?”

“Rain House. That’s not too bad. The Wylde’s are all loud and fun. Then, hopefully finding an excuse to avoid Griffin’s Roost, then Tarth, then back home.”

She listens with one ear to Ely telling the twins about how the stars and moon that they see in the sky are the same the world over. The sea is too, Arya thinks. All the lakes and rivers that feed into the ocean, that all eventually join the same water. 

The sea here is the same as the sea at Storm’s End, and White Harbour and King’s Landing, and even all the way to Braavos. She’d sailed, learned that if you go off in one direction long enough, you’ll end up right back in the same spot. It’s a nice thought, that if Bran was in the Red Keep looking at the harbour, or Sansa staring off while she sailed from Winterfell, were looking at it now, then they were all looking at the same thing. 

It’s a nice thought, she thinks, for a near perfect night.

#game of thrones #A Song of Ice and Fire #fic #gendrya

[aj-artjunkyard]

I think this is going to be a bit of a one shot series. There might be some time skips and not every chapter is a continuation of the same storyline. I like this better as if I ever go off writing this, you won’t be left on a cliffhanger. Every chapter has a complete story, so it’s also longer, which is a bonus. 

There is a four year time skip. Apollo is now a fourth year.

My gold and black robes billowed behind me as I sprinted up another staircase and hung a left, barreling through some unfortunate first years as I made my way up to the hospital wing.

I’d began training with the Hogwarts matron in my first year, ever since I’d learned a particularly nifty healing spell that had popped a fellow student’s dislocated shoulder back into its rightful place. The Hogwarts matron had seen me and was impressed by my potential - and nearly four years later I was still being taught between classes. Today, they started at 1:55PM. It was now 2:15 (What? I had missed a staircase. Nothing to do with my poor awareness of schedules).

I readjusted my grip on my leather satchel and rushed past the little plump lady standing in the doorway of the hospital wing, smiling a greeting. She kept her ever-present stern facade intact as she shooed me inside. 

“Don’t you be late next time young man, or I’ll be having a word to your father about your punctuality!” She called after me, slamming the door behind her. I smiled at the empty threat. There was no way she would tell my father about my secret lessons, or else both our heads would be on a stick. Headmaster Zeus had some pretty questionable ideology when it came to assigning genders to their copybook jobs. Nursing was a woman’s world, not a man’s. 

I came to a halt at the trolly that overflowed with a mix of different overhanging herbs, anthropomorphised plants and some questionable-looking dried out slug-type creatures. Conical flasks hung suspended in the air, swishing their contents around in miniature whirlpools of colour. This, I’d been told, kept the contents oxygenated. The matron appeared beside me, her wrinkled features comparable to the severe expression of a weathered military general.

“Today is simple,” she barked. “Damage to the left arm due to a high fall. Broken humerus, dislocated shoulder, shattered clavicle. The patient is in bed A6. Collect what you need and do what you have to. No lollygagging!” She turned on her heel and marched to a patient who had managed to have the placement of their hands and feet switched. I stifled a grin. My younger brother, a third year Slytherin named Hermes, got a kick out of forging fake love-heart shaped chocolate boxes filled with enchanted candies and leaving them to be found by his unfortunate targets. His spells were never actually dangerous per se (however I would not put it past him. He is unnervingly clever), but they tended to land the non-willing participant in the hospital wing until the matron could figure out how to undo them, which was usually a few weeks. Hermes was a complete ferret of a person, and I always told him so, but he was undeniably good at his craft. I sniggered to myself. As soon as I worked out how to fix the enchantments, I’d have potential blackmail against my darling little brother. I planned to get him do give me something in exchange for me not immediately healing his targets and ruining his fun.

After choosing a few conical flasks and a vial of my experimental Skele-Gro (just in case) I jogged to bed A6 and slipped out my private notebook of healing spells from my satchel. As I flicked through the pages, I didn’t give the red-clad student a second look. It was just another reckless Gryffindor who had probably jumped from the astronomy tower for fun while testing out their friend’s levitating spell (that obviously hadn’t succeeded). I found the right page and set the notebook on the bedside table. Only then did I glance down at the the boy strewn on the bed. He was well-built and broad shouldered, even for a seventh year. His muddied, black hair was chopped in a military buzz cut, and his face and arms were littered with old and new scratches, some much deeper than the others. He wore the scarlet robes and leather armour of a Gryffindor Beater, though his uniform was torn and caked with mud and soaked through from the December rain. He looked like the definition of a stereotypical high school bully. His face held a permanent scowl. I gulped.

“Hey Ares,” I greeted weakly. His scowl deepened. I tried to ignore that. “Um, I just need to check your arm…” I edged around my older sibling like he was an angered boar, waiting to run me through with its horns. I all but hid behind my clipboard while I examined the twisted arm.

Let me be crystal clear with you, reader. I was not scared of my brother. He was violent and reckless, yes, but a coward. I knew that if he bothered me, I only needed to poke his shoulder and he’d be wailing for an hour. However, do you recall how I was trying to keep this little side gig a secret? For years I had been keeping track of the quidditch games and taking note when any of my siblings got injured in one, so I could avoid the hospital wing until they were healed. I was usually quite on top of the Hufflepuff games (as I was their seeker), and Artemis, who happened to be the seeker for the Gryffindor team, helped remind me when her matches were. If any of my dear half brothers or sisters found out that I was learning a ‘woman’s trade’, they’d either tell father (resulting in my death) or use what they’d found as blackmail, threatening to tell father if I did not do their dirty work (resulting in my drawn out, much more embarrassing death). Of course, there had been a few close calls and a few accidental slips of tongue. My best friend Meg (a first year Gryffindor that I had met back in September of this year, while she was stealing my bag) knew. So did my twin, Artemis, and my aforementioned brother, Hermes. I had sworn them all to secrecy, but I did not trust Tell-Tale Ares one little bit. I did not even know how I had forgotten today’s Gryffindor v Slytherin match, but it had crossed my mind that the corridors were emptier than usual. 

I copied down useless bulletpoints on the clipboard, such as ‘broken arm’ and ‘ouch’, while my mind wandered down the dark paths of my anxiety, each thought more desperate and panicky than the last. What will father do when he finds out? Will he give me a lifetime of detentions? Will he expel me? Would my uncles and aunts step in? Probably not. Would I have to leave the country to go to a different wizarding school? Would I have to give up learning magic entirely? Will I-

“Apollo!” The matron hollered across the room at me. “Stop your clowning around! Treat the patient!” I wondered if she even knew Ares’ relation to me. My dad had so many kids with so many women that we were admittedly hard to keep straight, and I certainly did not act like Ares did. I was far more - how do I put this - refined.

Ares snickered at the matron’s tone. 

“Stupid little Sunny can’t even do a girl’s job,” he taunted.

I took a deep breath and turned my attention back to the task at hand. 

“Okay,” I said, starting as I would with any other student. “I am going to use the Brackium Emendo charm to fix your humerus and clavicle. I assure you that I am well trained in this charm, otherwise I would not be allowed to practice it on students. I then have to-”

“Get on with it, Sunny.” Ares growled, his mood swinging faster than the Whomping Willow’s branches. Wanting to give him the best hospital experience ever and possibly convince him not to blab, I obliged in silence. My hopes of getting out scot free were demolished when I was straightening out the newly mended arm a few minutes later. “Dad’s gonna love this one, Sunny,” Ares grunted through the pain. His face was tense with restraint, his forehead glistening with sweat and rain from outdoors. “If you’re lucky, you’ll even make it onto the papers. ‘Loser Son Disappoints Dad Yet Again’. Yeah, that’ll be fun.” I tried my best to bite down on my tongue, let it wash over me. I tried not to get angry. I tried not to scream at Ares to shut his face, and I almost failed. Luckily, I was distracted.

BANG!

The hospital wing door flew open, and a young girl sprinted in, looking around wildly until her cat-eye glasses landed on me. I recognised her as the one and only, bag-stealing, meat-scoffing ragamuffin Meg McCaffrey. She, like Ares, was soaked to the skin, her lenses dotted with raindrops and steaming up from the indoor heat. She wore her red high tops over her uniform grey tights, an obvious infraction of the school dress code (the teachers had already given up, and she had only been here for just over three months, which I think sums her character up very well). Her black and red Gryffindor robes were wrapped around her torso in a useless attempt to keep in heat. We shared a look of dread. 

“You can go,” I said defeatedly to the healed Beater, all the angry wind gone from my sails. Ares stood, sneered at me and sauntered out, flicking Meg in the head as he passed her. She hissed, which I thought was an appropriate response. I kept staring at the empty hospital bed, my eyes fixated on the dent in the mattress where Ares had lay, slowly inflating itself. I heard the loud squelching of wet shoes approach me. Meg appeared at my side.

“I’m sorry,” She muttered. “I didn’t realise he was injured enough to go to the hospital wing. I was too far up the stands. By the time I noticed he was already on his way.” She lowered her head. “I didn’t warn you in time.”

I sighed. “It’s quite alright, Meg. You weren’t to know about the extent of my father’s strictness. Thanks for trying so hard though. It means a lot.”

“I know what it’s like.”

I turned to face her. Her glasses were still steamed up, and I couldn’t see her eyes. The expression she wore was blank and unreadable. I wanted to know more, but I didn’t want to push too much. I simply asked, “Your father?” 

“Step-father,” she replied plainly.

…

Meg scoffed down her eggs and bacon like there was no tomorrow. I sat between her and Artemis at the Hufflepuff table. This was an advantage to all of us. Artie and I got to eat where the rest of our family didn’t bother us and Meg got to inspire terror into the meek Hufflepuff first years with her champion eating skills. Win-Win. Also, it was good to have two bodyguards from a house that was known for being protective and rash after the proceedings of yesterday afternoon. The enchanted roof was dull and grey with clouds, a reflection of my tense and dreading mood. I was awaiting the call to go to my father’s office, where my sentence would be given. Needless to say, I was not excited.

Nothing happened at breakfast. No word at lunch. By the time dinner rolled around at 6pm, I was almost gaining a little ray of hope that Ares had forgotten, or maybe held back in order to threaten me with it later. Then all conversation died around me at the Hufflepuff table. A low, gruff voice sounded from behind me, making me jump a metre and drop my fork.

“Apollo.”

My stomach sank to my feet while my heart leapt to my mouth. I turned to meet the stone chiselled, bearded face of Headmaster Zeus. 

“Sir,” I squeaked.

“My office. After dinner. Do not be late.” He moved on to the teacher’s table at the back of the hall, leaving me pale and faint, unable to eat another bite of chicken pie without feeling like I was going to hurl, despite Artie and Meg’s attempts to reassure me.

Dinner ended so much quicker than it needed to. Students and teachers started filtering out as soon as 6:45. By 7, the hall was practically empty except for a couple of teachers and some Gryffindors, who were celebrating their quidditch win against Slytherin. I knew my time was running out. Father had stomped out a few minutes ago, glaring holes into me as he passed. Meg and Artie had stayed with me, but even now they seemed to be on edge about my punctuality. They wanted me to go and get things over with, while I just wanted the ground to swallow me. But eventually, even I could not make up another excuse. I stood and bade them farewell, then made my way towards my executioner on the seventh floor.

Reaching the headmaster’s tower had never been so exhausting. Every step reminded me of what and who I was waltzing toward. Questions burned through my head, demanding attention. I ignored them and instead focused on striding briskly through the hallways, trying my best not to get lost and be even later. I turned a corner and saw the gargoyle entrance to the office awaiting my arrival. The regal stone eagle had already leapt aside, the rotating staircase revealed. I stepped on and waited. The grinding of stone against stone grated my ears as the the stairs moved up the walls. It was an agonising wait. But of course, it ended.

I stepped into the silent office. It was small enough, but not cramped. Certainly smaller than father’s office at home. It was a round room, decorated with waist-high pedestals that held marble busts of past headmasters. The left wall had a large rectangular indent in the stone, which showed shelves that were stacked neatly with different objects, some I recognised as my father’s belongings (a bronze shield carved with the twisted face of Medusa and some bronze rods - his renowned enchanted lightning bolts), and some of which had obviously been confiscated - a stack of chocolate boxes that glowed a dim green (Hermes’ little experiments), a bunch of sharp iron weaponry, enchanted to drip blood and gore (Ares’ favourite toys) and a bottle of Dio’s Delectable Delight (an alcoholic drink made by my Gryffindor first year brother, Dionysus, that gave a bunch of Slytherins and Gryffindors sick with poisoning while they were having a drink-off between the houses. I remember because I had to treat them all). 

At the back of the room, behind an intricately carved wooden desk, sat my father. 

He was a six foot five giant of a man, muscular and powerful. His middle age eye creases and greying black hair did not distract from his obviously handsome features. His salt and pepper beard covered the bottom half of his face, and reached down to the base of his throat. His hair was long and slightly wavy, like mine, but less flamboyant and stylish. He wore a smart grey pinstriped suit, with dress shoes and a black tie. His bushy eyebrows were furrowed in anger over his striking blue eyes. He gestured to the small wooden seat opposite him.

“Sit,” he commanded. I sat. My palms were damp with sweat, so I rubbed them on my robes and folded my hands in my lap, fidgeting and changing their position constantly. My head was lowered and my golden hair swept down the side of my face, blocking my peripheral vision. I locked my sight onto a dark circle on the table before me. I could feel my fathers stormy eyes on my seemingly insignificant frame.

His voice thundered; “You know why you are here.”

I tucked my hair behind my ear nervously and chanced look up into the eyes of my father. They were a bright electric blue, and seemed to flash a warning, daring me to speak out of place. I looked down again.

“Yes, sir,” I muttered.

Zeus leaned over the table. It made a loud creak, and I wondered whether or not it would be able to support his weight.

“Do you know who told me?”

I nodded. “It was Ares. I healed him after the quidditch match yesterday.”

“Then you know that he is not innocent either.”

I looked up at him again, confused as to why I had not been zapped yet. He seemed to be…giving me a chance? No, that was impossible. And yet…

“Sir?” I asked, daring to ask for some clarification. Zeus narrowed his eyes and sat up straighter in his chair, increasing his height. His hands rested on the desk, his fingers laced like a top boss talking down to his lowly employee.

“I wanted to expel you,” he growled. “You embarrass my family tree time and time again. I need solid proof that you belong here. Unfortunately, I cannot put you to work as I would like. The ministry would never allow it. However, I have a different task in mind.”

I held my breath and waited for the verdict of my disproportionate offence. “Impress me.”

“W-what?” I spluttered, choking on the air I’d been holding in. Impress him? Him? My father? The most powerful wizard in my extensive family that could harness lightning? “How?” 

“I don’t care for specifics, boy” Zeus scoffed, waving off my question. “This is a magic school, is it not? Prove you have ability. Prove to me that you are not just some filthy squib, destined to become a nanny. Such beings do not deserve to be called my son. If you succeed, which I doubt, you may continue with your hobby. If not…” He left it to me to fill in the blanks, which was almost worse. I just knew my imagination was going to run wild with that unfinished sentence. “You have until the Christmas holidays begin. Do not disappoint me.” He leaned back in his chair. This meeting was Over.

…

“He didn’t expel you?” Artemis exclaimed, looking mildly impressed. “Not even a little zap?”

“No! It was…very unlike him.” 

“So you got off easy then,” Meg piped up through her breakfast, spraying me with bacon bits. “That’s good.”

“If you count vague instructions to show off to a guy that has the emotional range of a teaspoon as simple, then sure!” - I glared at Meg - “I got off easy.” Meg rolled her eyes and went back to licking the runny yolk off her sunny side up. I thought that to be selfish. I was the one in peril here! “The deadline is the holidays! We get off on the twenty-first of this month, and it’s already the third! Not to mention that I have the concert on the last day! How am I supposed to learn how to gain fathers respect in seventeen days?”

“Maybe you should start by thanking mother,” Artemis mused. “She is the one who got him to lighten up.”

I looked at my twin questioningly. “How did she know?”

Artie rolled her eyes and Meg snorted a laugh, spewing out half of the contents in her mouth onto the table. 

“Honestly Ollie, do you ever listen?”

“No,” Meg sniggered, answering for me.

“I wrote a letter to mother about the whole predicament right after I heard about it. I got her response at lunch yesterday. I gave you her letter to read so you would calm down.”

“What? No you didn’t!”

“Uh, yeah, she did,” Meg mocked in an ‘obviously’ tone. “Check your pocket, dummy.”

I reached into my robe pocket and drew out a few items; a keyring, a harmonica and a folded up piece of parchment. Meg snatched the parchment from my hand and unfolded it roughly, then slammed it on the table in front of me. The ink was fashioned in neat cursive.

“Read it,” Meg stated. I picked it up and scanned down the lines.

Dearest Apollo,

I sincerely hope you are feeling better than yesterday. Artemis wrote to me about what happened. I wanted to tell you not to fret, for I am on my way to purchase a howler as I speak - the quill is writing for me. Please do not worry, darling. Your sister and I will not let that man touch a hair on your head, and from what you have told me about your new friend, Meg, I suspect she will help you too.

The letter went on, more reassurances, more threats at Zeus, more pet names. Yes, this would have helped yesterday. If I had not been so numb to the world around me and taken the time to actually read it. The letter ended;

Love you, Sunshine! 

~Leto

“Oh,” I said dumbly, feeling my cheeks heat up with embarrassment. “I didn’t see that.”

“Yeah, no duh.” 

“Shut up Meg.”

I remembered my mother fixing this kind of problem for me before. When I first arrived at Hogwarts, I had been sorted into Hufflepuff - what my father called The Weak House. The Friendly House. The house that none of his children should be put in, especially because he was such a model Slytherin, the house known for storming through the door first, instead of the house known for holding the door open for others. My father had gotten yellow on his ledger, and wanted to wipe it out. My mother shouted him down, and I kept my place in Hogwarts.

A new voice spoke calmly behind me. 

“Begin with the library. Information is the starting point of all wisdom.” I spun around. Standing there was the tall, lean form of a seventh year Ravenclaw. Her dark brown hair was gathered into a tight bun on her head, and her arms clutched several dusty old rolls of parchment. Her grey eyes peered down her nose at us. The sapphire and obsidian robes she wore sat perfectly on her form, and her tucked in shirt and neat tie was exemplary of a Head Girl and Prefect - the badges of both gleamed on her lapel. Athena held herself with pride and confidence, knowing well that she was smarter, more privileged and generally better than the rest of us (read: Daddy’s Favourite). She knew rightly that whatever she did, she was untouchable. Thankfully, her freedom included helping me. “I can get you on the list for the restricted section. It is going to take some light-show to get on father’s good side. And,” - she smiled cockily - “some hard work and research.” Of course.

“So you aren’t really going to help me then?” Athena said nothing, but only smiled before turning on her heel and striding out of the hall to her first class. I rolled my eyes. Turning to my teammates, I announced; “I guess it’s just the three of us, then! No worries, I am positive that if we all work together-”

“-Actually Ollie,” Artie interrupted, totally stomping on my Inspiring Speech Hero Moment. “I have a load of stuff to do…with Orion. So…yeah,” she tucked a strand of loose hair behind her ear. I tried to ignore the blush forming on her cheeks. She gained confidence and stated; “I will not be around a lot this month. Sorry.” My beloved twin stood abruptly and rushed out of the hall. 

Naturally. The one time she gets a teeny crush, she abandons me to do my own dirty work. How rude. I was not fond of that tricky fifth year Slytherin boy, and let me tell you, I planned to get rid of him. But that was for later. Right now, I needed to stay on task. Though looking at my only remaining teammate, who was currently showing her chewed-up food to a grossed out Hufflepuff girl, I wondered if that was even worth doing.

…

“This is so boring!” Meg lay with her feet up a against a bookcase, tapping her toes together as she flung another priceless book into the Useless Pile.

“Meg, you aren’t even helping. You’re just looking at the pictures!”

“Even those are dull,” she whined. “It’s so late and the Gryffindor dorms are sooo far from here.”

“It’s only seven o’clock, Meg.”

“It’s dark!”

“It’s winter!”

“Shhhhhhh!” The librarian hushed for the umpteenth time that evening. I whispered our apologies and kept reading about turning people into birds of prey. However I did not think that giving my father another eagle would suffice. I too, chucked my book onto the Useless Pile. It was now the sixth of December, giving me exactly two weeks until the last day school before the holidays.

“Right,” Meg announced, “I’m going back to the greenhouses. Good luck, or whatever.” She grabbed her wand and stuck her hands in her pockets, then disappeared into the maze of the library, leaving me alone in favour of checking on her secret karpos friend Peaches in the herbology classroom.

I sighed. Admitting defeat for the night, I grabbed a thick book I had read many times before. The leather bound book was emblazoned with silver text in ancient greek, a language every member of my family was fluent in, and I was no different. The title read ‘θεός’. I flicked through the weathered pages. Every chapter was a different relation, introduced with a detailed portrait - It was a family tradition to get one done one your twenty-first birthday, when you are your in prime stage of life. I saw my father’s, my uncles’ and my aunts’ portraits, and stopped at the chapter entitled ‘Hecate’. Her mother was sisters with my own mother, making her my first cousin. She was extremely experienced in charms and transfiguration, one of the best witches in the business. I figured I needed some inspiration, so I sidled through the mess of ancient greek and scribbled diagrams. I found that her specialty was inventing new spells. Then I came across a very interesting quote from some guy named Hesiod who had wrote a different book:

“Zeus, Cronus’ son, honoured [Hecate] above all others: he gave her splendid gifts - to have a share of the earth and of the barren sea, and from the starry sky as well she has a share in honour.”

My eyes lit up. That’s exactly what I needed. Well, maybe father wouldn’t ‘honour me above all others’, but he might at least give me a pat on the back, and to get that from my father would be good enough for me. Inspiration struck as I slammed the book shut and began my hunt for any information that might be of help. 

By ten o’clock, I had been chased out of the library and back to the Hufflepuff dorms. I went to sleep cosy and content, knowing that all I needed to do now was invent a new spell.

Apparently, this is harder than it sounds. Drat. Even thinking of a new spell took me all Sunday, but at least there was no classes. Meg and I spent all day outside by the lake, sitting underneath a laurel tree while I poured over a seemingly endless stack of books, eliminating spell ideas as I saw them mentioned. I knew I wanted something flashy, something I could add into my concert - which was a great opportunity to show it off in front of the whole school. But alas, as I crossed off ‘self playing violin spell’ I began to loose the inspirational buzz I’d started the task with. Meg leaned over and swiped my list of possible spells from my lap.

“‘Poetry generator spell’? Really?”

“Gah! I don’t know!” I wailed, waving my arms desperately and throwing down my quill in defeat. “I can’t think of anything else! There is not a single spell out there that has not already been created!” 

I slumped back against the tree and sighed, watching Meg make a dandelion grow with ten times the regular speed. She had a real knack for herbology and garden magic, just like I did for divination. Divination class had never steered me wrong, especially because the professor is my grandmother, Phoebe, who says I’ve inherited her talent. I had stayed behind after class last Friday to ask Professor Phoebe about the future outcome of my little trial, and she’d told me to grab a crystal ball and see for myself. All I had gotten was the mist in the ball turning gold.

I glanced over to the lake where my uncle Poseidon was lobbing fish for the giant squid. He was wearing his usual attire; a loud Hawaiian shirt and tan kakis with loafers and his signature fishing cap, even in the cold winter weather. As his bucket emptied, he turned to stroll back into the castle when we locked eyes. Noticing my distress, he ambled on over to us, his hands in his pockets and his kind, sea-green eyes twinkling. 

“I heard you’re in a bit of hot water with my dear little brother again, Apollo.”

I blew out my cheeks in exasperation and slumped even further down the tree, making Poseidon chuckle. “I know the feeling.”

“He’s impossible!”

“What have you got so far?”

I handed him my list of possible spells, which he read through with careful consideration.

“I want to invent a new spell for dad. Like Hecate did. But every spell is already taken! There’s nothing to invent!”

Poseidon scratched his neatly trimmed beard thoughtfully.

“Well, when people want to sell a product, they usually want the product to solve problems.”

“So?”

“So what problems - besides the whole ‘Impress Zeus’ chore - do you have that can’t be solved with magic right now?”

I furrowed my eyebrows in concentration.

“I have a gig on the last day of class. I have this one song prepared that requires a whole congregation of different instruments, and I still can’t find anyone else with the mere skill set to play with me, so I had to enchant the whole orchestra to play itself. There’s no backup singers either, since all the muses are doing their own parts, and if they play every single song they’ll be exhausted.” I huffed. “Mnemosyne remembered her girls coming home to her in first year after the concert, and she banned them from doing it again. And she never goes back on a rule.”

“Enchanted backup dancers,” Meg snorted. Poseidon raised an eyebrow at my young friend, smirking at her humour. 

“Yes,” I mumbled, my mind running at full speed, giving me the ideas and inspiration I had spent a week looking for. “Yes, that could work.” I grabbed my quill and ripped out a new piece of parchment and began scribbling like a madman, muttering and blocking out everything in my peripheral vision. 

“Well!” I heard Poseidon say, his voice retreating and getting more distant. “Glad I could help.”

“Don’t Bother,” Was that Meg? I couldn’t tell, I wasn’t paying attention. “He’s gonna be in that trance for hours.”

…

It was 9pm on the eighteenth of December. Exactly seventy-two hours until the concert began. I stood in an empty classroom that was packed with grimy wooden crates that had probably been there for years. A few of the stacked crates acted as Meg’s high throne, where she proceeded to look down upon myself, who trying feebly to summon my incantation. I glanced yet again at my jotter, which was propped open on top of a crate to my left. On it was my scrawled notes on my new spell: the Golden Charmer. The incantation words were translated into ancient greek: Χρυσεαι Κηληδονες, or, Chryseae Celedones. Their purpose was to act as my backup group, to sing, dance and play whatever I asked of them. They amplified my own voice, but in any voice type (tenor, soprano, bass, you name it) or gender that I pleased. They were also supposed to have a golden form, but so far, I had only accomplished a yellow wisp protruding from the end of my wand.

“Be more magic,” Meg suggested unhelpfully before stuffing another fistful of popcorn in her gob. I rolled my eyes, turned back to the empty room, set my jaw and tried again. I pointed my wand at my voice box, uttered “Χρυσεαι Κηληδονες!” and flicked my wrist until the wand tip was pointed away from me. I then drew a steady line downwards with my wand, the golden mist following in its wake and sculpting itself until a beautiful apparition stood before us, casting out warm light and an aura of grace. Her detailed face held an impassive expression, like she could just as quickly bare her teeth in a growl as she could in a smile. Her sleeveless dress was draped across her shoulders and flowed majestically down to the floor. Her hair was folded in a loose bun on her head, the fibres drooping but far from messy or unkempt. She was perfect. I could feel my heart rate rise unnaturally with unbound excitement. I had done it! 

Meg, whose mouth was hanging open and spilling chewed kernels all over the place, quickly shut her trap and made an effort to look unimpressed. 

“Does it work?”

I glared at her, thinking about that bat-bogey hex Hermes had just taught me, and how many times I would get to use it on my young friend by the end of the school year.

“I just invented a charm, Miss McCaffrey. Can you be impressed for a little bit before ruining my fun?”

“Nope,” she stated, twisting to lie upside-down on her crate, her glasses falling up to her forehead. “Get her to sing.”

I sighed. Tapping my wand on a crate for the golden being’s attention (which was most likely unnecessary, but still, delightfully dramatic), I held my hands up like a conductor with my wand as his baton. The Celedon sang in tune to my gestures.

“Aaaaaaaaaah!”

I smirked at Meg, deciding I had every right to be cocky. The celedon’s voice was pristine. It carried brilliantly, and was as clear as day. 

“Are you just gonna conduct, then?” Meg asked. “Like, you’re not actually singing?”

“No, no, no. I’m singing and playing violin for this particular piece,” I said, loosing a bit of my confidence. Did the Celedons need me to conduct them? If so, id just created a whole new problem. “I’m sure if I just…” I turned once again to the Celedon and cleared my throat. “Ahem. Celedon, sing Greensleeves.” Thank the heavens, it seemed to understand. She burst into a rendition of the mournful tune. Meg’s eyes turned glassy with tears that threatened to fall, her soul plunged into the despair of loosing a loved one. I, on the other hand, felt the sound was empty. It was good, yes. But it could be better. I held a hand up for the spell’s sound to cease. It obeyed. 

Meg stared at me, wiping her eyes. “Why’d you stop?”

“One moment…” I performed the spell’s gesture thrice more (now knowing the correct way to cast the spell), and soon had a quartet of golden women before me, awaiting my command. “Let’s try that again, shall we?” This time, the song was flawless. The first Celedon took the lead, while the other three vocally danced around the first’s notes, emphasising the main tune. Even I had a tear in my eye by the end. I was glad I had soundproofed this classroom beforehand, or I might have reduced the transfiguration class down the hall into a sobbing wreck.

“Ah ha!” I exclaimed. “Fantastic!” My mind raced for something else I could give them to do. “Uhhh…here! Try this! Accio violin!” 

Whoosh - craSH. 

A violin smashed through a window, and flew into my open hand.

“Couldn’t you have just went and got your violin?” Asked Meg. “I thought the Hufflepuff dorms were like, a floor down from here.”

“Pizzaz, Meg.”

“You’re dumb.”

I handed a Celedon the violin and announced; “Celedon, play Swan Lake.” But instead of Tchaikovsky’s magical piece, a sound not unlike a spiteful cat dragging its claws down a chalkboard screeched from the instrument. Meg fell off her wooden throne in surprise, clutching her ears and screaming at the charm to stop. The Celedon, obviously not used to being hated on by twelve year olds (despite her limited existence time) paused her torturous tune and glared holes into the red-clad preteen. After the ringing in my ears subsided, stared into space wearily, knowing that I now needed to teach a spell to play expert level violin. And I had less than three days.

…

I tugged nervously on my blazer sleeve as Calliope finished up her last song. I had decided to wear my usual house uniform, but instead of the cloak, I had donned a sharp black blazer with a bright yellow lapel. I smiled at my half-sister as she jogged offstage and joined me behind the great hall’s doors.

“You’re up next, Ollie,” Calliope panted, her sweat dampening her brow and coming through the folds of her stylised Ravenclaw-blue t-shirt dress. Black skin-tight jeans clung to her legs and her socks had sunk below the rim of her pastel pink converse boots. She grappled blindly for her water bottle before dumping the contents on her face and chugging the rest of it. Her wavy caramel hair straightened and darkened under the weight of the water. Cal and I were the main participators in each year’s Christmas concert. And every other concert at the end of a school term. She had just finished her version of ‘Jingle Bell Rock’, and just before that, had sang a variation of ‘The 12 Days of Christmas’ with me and her other eight sisters. She had also sang the song before that, and after three songs with hardly a break, she was rightfully exhausted. No wonder her mother had banned her from playing every song (a rule that my mother had belatedly decided to enforce on me too). Once she caught her breath, Calliope straightened up and patted me on the shoulder. “I hope this last one goes well for your sake, Ollie.”

I blew out my cheeks. “Me too.”

“It’s not a Christmas song though, right?”

“No, It just packs a punch. I wanted something that could really wow someone, y’know?”

Calliope nodded solemnly. “Of course. No one can do that with ‘Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree’.” 

I knew she’d get it. Still, from behind the doors to the great hall where the tables had been cleared and a stage set up, I questioned every decision I had made leading up to this moment. Every face in the crowd was blurred together, but somehow I could easily see my father, reclining in his chair and glaring at the empty stage as if that would make the acts happen faster. I was terrified, and I do not get stage fright. I love being the centre of attention, especially when it’s for something I’m brilliant at. I did not doubt my own ability to put on a show. I only doubted my ability to read my father. 

But of course, that did not matter. I had to start anyways.

As I sauntered out and onto the stage, I felt the heat of the room smack me dead in the face. The chatter of the crowd lowered to a mumble. I turned from my spectators and waved my wand at the hoard of unmanned instruments packed at the back of the stage, which sprung to life and readied their first notes. I then turned to my side and muttered “Χρυσεαι Κηληδονες!”. Twice before turning to my other side and doing the same again. I now stood between four Golden Charmers, readily holding matching violins. I silently prayed they had picked up the song I had attempted to teach them. Anything could’ve gone wrong at that point, and I could do nothing about it. I heard gasps and mutters go up from the students, but did not dare look. They may have been laughing - or something worse. Instead I focused on grabbing my own violin - whistling a single low note to signify that I was starting - and played.

As soon as my bow hit the strings, I felt the adrenaline flood my being, filling every bone in my body. I was no longer apprehensive. This was the feeling I lived for, and I intended to let it take over. My fingers flew across the strings, and at just the right moment, the Celedons joined in with perfect synchronisation. Everything was going to plan. The operatic voices of the Celedons joined the choir, singing along with the notes. “Aaaaaaaahhhhhh!” 

The first verse arrived and the Celedones ceased their play, as planned. I continued with my violin, belting out the lyrics with all my heart and soul. The instruments gradually picked up, and I sang louder and louder, summoning all the melancholy I could muster. I could feel my musical magic making the audience break into tears. The exhilaration fuelled me. I could feel no exhaustion. 

As soon as the last note evaporated, I felt my energy drain, my shoulders and head suddenly becoming a lot heavier. I wanted to heave for breath, but I simply could not allow myself to do so while still onstage! So I shortened my breath to what I hoped was normal, and not a person who had just ran several marathons back to back. My brow and torso were sticky with sweat and I had the urge to rip off my blazer for some relief from the overwhelming heat. I could hardly hear the applause that had erupted until I actively forced myself to listen.  I was too busy scanning the audience to soak up the praise, but my eyes only landed on the unreadable, impassive expression of the headmaster.

…

I would have liked to be able to truthfully say that I spent most of the night celebrating the deadline of my trial and the end of the term with the muses, my twin, and all my good friends, partying to Pompeii by Bastille until the little hours of the morning, not bothering to concern myself with past mistakes or future hardships, drink too much butter beer and pass out on the Hogwarts Express the next morning. You know, the good life. But alas, that was not the case. For one, we were told to trot off to bed right after my final song, which was only a couple of minutes past ten o’clock, and warned that our heads of houses would be checking that we were all asleep by ten-thirty. If we were not, we would receive a detention for the first day back. 

However, I still attempted to force my way through the swamp of students making their way to the doors so I could talk to my father, and perhaps get some clarification on my fate. However, my plans were spoiled when I couldn’t get past a particularly moody cow.

“Bed, Goldilocks!” Hera commanded, her hatred for any children of Zeus that were not hers abundantly present in her poison tipped words. “That husband-stealing mother of yours may cause Zeus to lighten his punishments, but don’t think for a second that I will have any displeasure in seeing you in detention for the rest of your years at this school!”

I leaned past her and searched around, not really taking in her threats (this is a common and practised reaction to children of Zeus), and tried once again to slip past her.

“I just need to talk to father real quick, then I promise I will be out of your…” I glanced up at her. “rapidly greying hair. Won’t be a moment.” At that second, Hera grabbed my wrist and yanked me backwards, almost pulling my shoulder from its socket. She sneered down at me, bearing her teeth and pointing to the exit. I realised it was not worth my trouble. I huffed and, turning on my heel, strode back to the Hufflepuff common room.

If nothing else, being in the common room was always a nice experience. The whole place radiated a calm laziness, the ever-burning fire in the fireplace keeping the temperature cozy in winter months. The low ceilings were just above ground level, so the highest windows let in the sweet smell of cut grass towards the end of the school year. A few older students were lounging on the comfortable yellow sofa facing the mantelpiece and the dozen beanbags scattered throughout the room. These were the students who were staying over the winter break, and had few concerns over the timing of their retirement to bed. Some congratulated me on my performance. A couple gave a thumbs-up and nothing more - I returned these with an added smile, of course. I took a crumb of shortbread (which I had stuck out of the kitchen on the way to the dorms) out of my pocket and tossed it to Badger, the friendly mouse who lay reclined on one of the low tables in the centre of the room (I had found him in first year and the whole Hufflepuff house had unanimously adopted him as our secret mascot). Then I slipped through the rounded, honey-gold wooden door that lead to the boy’s dorms and threw myself onto my mattress.

Was I off the hook? Did I pass the test? Did father approve? Did he hate it? It looked like he hated it. Why is it always me who’s on the wrong side of father? Would it have been different if I was in Gryffindor? Is that why he hates me? Does he hate me? 

Fathers words rang in my head. “If you succeed, which I doubt, you may continue with your hobby. If not…” WHAT DID HE MEAN BY “IF NOT”? What did that IMPLY? Does it mean detention, expulsion or worse? Should I be terrified? 

…

Why was I still worrying? Everything was out of my hands. I had done my best.

…

…

…

BUT WHAT IF-

The anxieties didn’t cease all night. I do not know when I finally managed to drift off.

…

I hurriedly stuffed my trunk full of the belongings I would need for the two week break. Artie and I were staying with our mother on Delos for the duration of the holiday, and I did not intend to miss the train. When all my things were safely tucked away, I slammed the trunk shut and hauled it out of the dorms and through the earthen exit of the Hufflepuff common room, bidding my farewells to the few students who were staying. 

Due to my late night worries, I had woken up late and already missed breakfast, so I took the obvious solution to a Hufflepuff. I lay down my trunk at the end of the corridor and tickled the pear - the entrance painting to the kitchens.

I left ten minutes later, licking my fingers which were sticky from strawberry juice and greek yogurt. The house elves had been grudgingly generous, having just finished cleaning up for the winter. Smirking as they chased me out of the kitchen, I grabbed my trunk and began dragging it up the stairs and towards the castle grounds. Halfway there, I ran into a slight problem. Well, we kind of ran into each other.

The headmaster, my father, stood in all his muscular, bulking glory, blocking the way to freedom. He looked as authoritative as always, his grey-streaked beard and hair well-kept and neat, his navy suit and tie clean and imposing, his eyes a sharp shade of piercing blue. I backed off a few steps and tried for a chill smile, but I had a strong feeling that it looked more like a pained grimace. Father straightened his back, rolled back his shoulders and rumbled; 

“So. You made… a singing spell.”

I gulped down the bile that was fighting its way up my throat. I hated the way he oversimplified things. It made all my achievements look so much smaller in comparison to their real gargantuan importance. For instance, take that time I recorded a mashup of myself and the muses singing to hit tracks in howlers, and installed the howlers in between walls - our own in-built speaker system! Genius! Unfortunately, a few party-poopers (cough, Athena, cough) complained and had father tell me to ‘Take the paper planes back’, which, frankly, is an utterly ridiculous understatement of the hard work and effort put into that project. But the past is the past. In the present, Zeus was still waiting for an answer.

Oh reader, I so desperately tried to tell him of the wondrous things even a single Charmer could accomplish! They were not merely singing spells! They could entertain, play for those who were lonely, fill vacancies in choirs or orchestras in emergency last-minute cancellations! They could solve more problems for a showman than there are notes on sheet music! 

But Zeus would have none of it. He stopped me halfway through my righteous rant. Rude.

“Enough,” he commanded somewhat wearily, holding one hand up for silence and rubbing his temple with another. “It is too early for your passionate outbursts.” I may have pouted slightly at that. It’s not important. Zeus regained some of his intimidating authority and continued, “I have already decided the outcome.” I knew it. I was expelled, I was dead I was- “You were not at breakfast. I was on my way to your common room to inform you of your success before you depart.” 

My face paled. I dropped my heavy trunk with a loud thump. 

“My… success?”

Zeus grunted.

“Yes. It was… a good show. Many staff and students were moved to tears. That would be the sort of reaction I cannot ignore in my decision making. Spells are typically not simple to create from scratch. And to have seen someone pull such things off in a few short weeks was…” he paused, considering the right word to use. He begrudgingly settled on: “…impressive.”

Let me tell you, if I had still been holding onto my trunk, I would have dropped it all over again. I swallowed, struggling to process a compliment coming from the lips of the toughest, most powerful wizard in the family. My heart was buzzing, my head was light, my breathing was uneven (though I tried my best to hide it). My brain worked overtime to somehow comprehend these impossible words. Impressive. Dad…impressed. I was impressive. I had done something worth being impressed over. For him. He was impressed. Eventually I managed to croak a measly “Thank you.”

It could’ve been me hallucinating, but I could’ve sworn I saw the slightest smirk underneath the greying beard, and a minuscule spark of pride in those electric eyes. 

“Ten points to Hufflepuff.”

@psychologymademeunderstand @go-danielle

#Hogwarts au #toa #trials of apollo #trials of Apollo au #my au #apollo #meg mccaffrey #pjo #artemis #zeus #athena #hermes #Poseidon #writing #fanfiction #fanfic #story