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breannasfluff · 8 months

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"What If Legend kissed Ravio after the bird bath?" _G I V E_

Ravio’s hands are on his wings. Legend holds his breath, then remembers to suck it in when his chest grows right. Ravio’s hands. Are on. His wings.

Of course, his flockmate has preened his wings before. He’s even helped wash and condition them! But that was before the vet gave him feathers.

The merchant taps a wing bone. “Turn around so I can get the inside coverts.”

Great. This means Ravio will have unfettered access to notice how red his face is. Still, Legend turns around and focuses on the wooden pillar of the pagoda. He is not looking at Ravio.

Gentle fingers sink into feathers and start sliding conditioner down the shafts with expert efficiency. Despite the water, the vet is puffing and can do little about it. Does Ravio really need to focus on each feather?

Assumingly, he does, because he frowns and leans forward to focus on his task. He also spreads his wings slightly, flashing the inner secondaries.

Legend swallows hard at the sight. The merchant has to know what he’s doing, right? No one is that clueless. Is he…flirting? Is this flirting? Does he—like Legend? Does Legend like him? Well, that’s sort of a moot point by now.

No, he can’t assume. Maybe the merchant doesn’t know what he’s doing.

Ravio spreads his wings wider with a little shake, showing off not only secondaries, but the innermost axillaries.

That’s it. The vet only has so much self-control and this is too far. He throws himself forward, ignoring the merchant’s half-squawk of surprise before his lips land against the other bowerbird.

Legend can’t help but soften into the kiss, molding himself against Ravio. The merchant’s hands left his wings to land on his chest, but don’t push him away. He leans into the motion slightly, an aborted whistle rumbling in his throat. Their wings bump; wet and still soapy.

Breathing is overrated, Legend is going to kiss this bird forever and—

“You owe me rupees.”

“We never agreed to a bet!”

“Sure, we did. It was implied.”

The vet jerks backwards and both birds whip around. Hyrule and Wild are blatently watching with no attempt at privacy. Legend…forgot there was an audience in the bird bath. The pink flush starts in his cheeks and travels down his chest and to the tips of his ears. Ravio is sinking deeper into his wings, trying to hide.

Wild’s grin is particularly feral. “If you’re going to pounce on him, do you want us to leave?”

Legend gently pushes Ravio away and focuses on his enemy. “I’m going to murder you!”

Wild’s screech is gratifying as he’s dunked beneath the water, but no amount of payback will save Legend from hearing this story again and again…and again.

#what if breverse #drabble I said #what happened #ravio x link #lu wing bois #lu legend #lu ravio #my writing #breannasfluff

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revasserium · 10 months

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I'm being a rebel and requesting Ikesen Masamune and barefoot 💜

send me one and a character u__u

hurricane (prompt: barefoot)

masamune; 1,813; fluff and... that's it; @violettduchess is quite possibly one of the only ppl who can get me to write for a fandom that i had no plans in joining BUT HERE I AM FOLKS. here the fuCK i am.

he has always been a hurricane.

there are moments in a person’s life big enough for a single choice to put them on a completely different path, and then — there are those moments, much smaller moments, adding up to that one, bigger, monumental, life-changing moment. this is one of the latter.

the moon is heaven bright, swinging low in a full-bellied sky, and insomnia had plagued you till you’d come into the inner gardens for refuge. at least here, it felt like you were stuck between the pages of a waking dream. so… sleep-adjacent, right? right.

you swing your feet off the edge of the pristinely mopped wooden walkways, your sketchbook propped in your lap, a charcoal pencil gliding over the smooth, moon-bleached pages. you let your hand take the drawing where it wants, and these days, there’s only one place that your hand (and, subsequently the rest of your mind and body) seems to want to go.

masamune.

he appears as fish-tail flicks of your wrist bring him to life on the pages, each sketch fluid and overlapping with the next, almost like the depiction of dance — the crinkle at the edge of his eye, the curve of his hand as he rests it on the hilt of one of his blades, the strong, graceful slope of his shoulders and back, the crescent moon curve of his lips as he smiles, ever light, ever teasing, in your direction.

“ah… is that what i look like?”

his voice makes you jump, and even now after all this time, it sets your heart racing in your chest as you whirl around to find his nose inches from yours, that self-same smile hinged across his damnably gorgeous lips.

“w-wh — why aren’t you sleeping?” is your stumbling, cobbled together response to being jump-scared in the middle of his castle pagoda, but it’s the best you could come up with. he only leans back, chuckling, his arms tucked into the long thin sleeves of his kosode as he casts his eye up towards the full moon, his expression for once devoid if mischief or calculation. it’s strange, seeing him like this, so still and so quiet, and something about it makes you go still too, wondering if this is what its like to be caught in the eye of the storm, where the quiet is only ever momentary and destruction dances just beyond where your mind can reach.

“i could ask the same of you, kitten. so tell me… why aren’t you sleeping?” he grins as he joins you, propping one arm on a bent knee, watching as you gather yourself, palms pressing to the pages of your sketchbook.

“i… i couldn’t sleep.” you look down at your own knees, and it strikes you then that your feet are still bare. you can’t help glancing at masamune, and sure enough, his feet are bare too. no wonder i hadn’t heard him coming.

but something about this sets you off, the sight of his bare feet next to yours, and even though it shouldn’t be so tantalizing a thing — the flicker of bare flesh, the hint of skin unseen— you feel like one of those ancient victorian maidens, blushing at the sight of bare ankles.

you can’t help it; you start to laugh.

and masamune, sitting beside you, finds himself transfixed, held still by the sound of your laughter, pouring from you like rainwater from a stream. so clear and beautiful it sets his body arrack with shivers.

“what?” he asks, quirking an eyebrow, “is there something on my face?”

at this, you pause, stifling your giggles with a hand pressed to your lips, and you look at him. your eyes meet, and not for the first time, you feel yourself falling into them — into him. even like this, his one blue eye is something of a miracle, a thing of celestial majesty. it wasn’t until you’d met him that you’d realized what blue eyes look like up close — up close, they are the shattered light of a millions stars, fractured and reformed and singing through a universe of endless dark to end up here, shining out from him and landing on you, and god — he’s looking at you like all those million, billion years of starlight had traveled the expanse of every galaxy just to look at you.

just to see you like he does now.

“no… there isn’t,” you say, whisper, more like, reaching out a hand to trace your thumb over the lid of his closed eye. he doesn’t push you away. instead, he leans in closer.

“then, what’s so funny, kitten?”

you simply shake your head, trying to swallow down your belly-full of laughter, your mind showing you a strobe-quick flash-forward of you trying to explain the concept of foot kinks and websites that cater to such 500 years in the future before deciding — no. alas, tonight is not the night you try to educate one date masamune on the intricacies of body part kinks. though no doubt he’d take it in stride. no — that thought too, you tamp down before you’ve the mind to follow it down into a deep, dark rabbit hole from whence you might never recover or be recovered.

“tell me, please…” he grins, a grin that is simultaneously plea and pleasure, and in it, you can hear the knife-sharp promise of desire, “i’d like to know if something other than me has the power to make you laugh so much.”

“it’s just —” you bite your lips, fighting for the words, “we’re both barefoot.”

he blinks. and you can tell that whatever he was expecting the answer to be, this is clearly not it.

you track the flitter of emotions as they dance in quicksilver steps across the planes of his face — surprise, confusion, amusement, all painted porcelain perfect on the dark of his brows, the faint twitch of his lips. finally, he settles on a sorted of muted bemusement as he cocks his head at you.

“and… do people of your time tend to sleep with socks on?”

“no, it’s just…” you blush again, unable to help yourself.

“just what?” his voice is light, and he is still.

you swallow, hard,

“just… it’s weird — i mean — it’s not like i haven’t seen anyone else barefoot before just… this was — you’re just — and i —” you trip over your words in a hurry and end up tumbling through into incoherence so fast all you can do to styme the flood is to clamp your mouth shut and pray.

oh god please… tell me this is a bad dream.

but when you open your eyes, masamune is still there, watching you with that singular eye of his, expression inscrutable. and still, he doesn’t move.

“so…” and finally, finally, the stillness breaks — he cracks it open like an eggshell, stretching himself out as he leans back, propping himself up on his elbows, lengthening till he’s splayed out over the gleaming wooden boards of the walkway, his face bathed in ghostly moonlight.

“i’m not the first man you’ve seen barefoot, hm? that is a problem.”

your mouth drops open and for a moment, you gape at him wordless and fish-like, and he laughs as he turns to look at you.

“tell me his name — i’ll have his head in the morning,” he says, in a voice so casually serious that for a moment you think he might actually mean it.

“masamune!”

and then, he’s laughing too, a big, bright, uproarious thing that shakes his entire body like the foundations of the earth. it is deep and rich and lovely, warm and sweet as sun-kissed honey. you let yourself be swept up in his laughter, dropping into silent giggles, and then something louder, letting your shoulder bump into his, your bodies finally touching and then —

there’s a flurry of clothing, a shifting of weights. you find yourself pulled into him, tipping towards him like inevitability.

your sketchbook lays forgotten on the walkway next to you as masamune holds you close against his chest.

“ah… i really don’t like that…”

an entourage of tingles frissons through your body at his words.

“don’t like what?”

“the fact that you’ve seen someone else barefoot before. it bugs me.”

you peer up at him, lifting your head ever so slightly from his chest. he’s looking at you, and the sunrise-blue of his eyes are shadowed with something darker now, something decidedly less innocent than just the thought of bare feet.

“then… what will you do about it?” you ask, feeling the heat of his body, the solidness of him, the rightness of you between his arms.

“hm… are you teasing me, kitten?” his voice is gravel and earthquake and you’re emboldened by the sound, by the way his pupil dilates, the black hole at the center of every galaxy — gravity made solid, made real.

“yes,” you breathe, leaning up like a dare and he meets you gloriously, his lips hard and pressing and soft and pulling. there’s a fire unspooling at the base of your spine, stoked by the heat and truth of him, so close, too close — you break apart gasping. he grins, lynx-like and wolfish as he grazes his teeth along the column of your throat.

“good,” he says, sighing into your flesh as you arch up into him, your fingers curling into his hair as he flips the pair of you over. he pulls you beneath him and he is storm and thunder, he is rain and wonder — he is water to your desert skies, the sunlit days to all your moonless nights.

and as he makes to rend you into pleasure, into nothing more than ache and belonging, he pulls back with a bone-deep growl, a sliver of hesitation, of self-preservation.

“are… are you sure you want this?” that you want me? the echo is not lost on you.

and it’s not the first time he’s asked you the question, and you have a feeling that it wouldn’t be the last. but you reply as you had, once upon a time, in a distant, sun-drenched afternoon, when you’d been telling him about one of your favorite poems from your time.

you smile, tug him down for a kiss.

“yes,” you say, like you’d done on that long-ago afternoon, “i want you — i want this, masamune. because… I love you.”

“i will love you when you are a still day… i will love you when you are a hurricane.”

#ikemen sengoku #ikesen #ikemen series #date masamune #ikemen sengoku x reader #ikesen masamune #date masamune x reader #ikemen sengoku imagines #ikemen sengoku headcanons #ikesen imagines #ikesen headcanons #floofy floof floof #OKAY but the feeling of tagging a REAL HISTORICAL FIGURE LFMAO #vi i blame u for all the bullshit im about to rain on this damn fandom LOL i havent played these games in YEARS i tell u #is this IC? IDK WHO KNO WHO CARE lol #i hope u liked it u_u #ALL CREDIT WHRE CREDIT IS DUE that last line comes from clementine von radics #i love her poetry pls go read it; this one comes from her collection called 'mouthful of forevers' its SO GOOD GO READ IT #doNT tease me with humans as metaphors for natural disasters man i will fucking GOBBLE that shit up #i love it almost as much as i love sky/star/sun/moon/ocean/general astronomy anaologies

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theknightswhosay · 3 months

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Extract from Aziraphale's Journals: Travels in Medieval Philippines

時永樂辛未九月十二日也

[Archivist’s note: In this period, Aziraphale used the Chinese dating system. In the Western Calendar: 12th September 1420.]

Tarung Village, Bagobo, Sulu Empire

[Archivist’s note: the Sulu Empire was located in Mindanao, the third largest Island in the Philippine Archipelago. The Bagobo tribe still exist today, however, their language and culture are listed as ‘critically endangered’.]

The local people have a story about a terrible demon. A buso. They call him Mamili. He is the Great Serpent.

Right now, coconut ink fresh on my quill, the light from the apitong oil candle casting flickering shadows over my hands, that very demon is asleep in my bed.

Today, I was humbled.

I stood before a tree that was almost a thousand years old. Wider than the mighty three-tiered pagoda of 杭州市 [Hangzhou] and taller than the dark spires of the Notre Dame, her presence dwarfed me into insignificance. It is rare for me to feel the ghost of mortality.

This great, cathedralic plant soared on hundreds of pillars, the thick stems braided together into celtic knots like broken spiderwebs, threads of time twining together over the centuries. High above, handfuls of delicate oval leaves fanned outwards, pitifully meagre compared to the great mass of bark below.

One was reminded of a liquid. Rivulets of tree had fallen from the sky, dripping downwards and solidifying as stalactites do.

Dozens of beings made their home within. Creepers, young and old alike, raced each other in their clamber upwards along twisting stems that provided perfect purchase. Here and there, peppery flowers flourished in a startling fuchsia. With eyes more focused than any mortal, I could see the lines of biting ants that had made their home close to the ground, and in another quarter, ink-black antlered beetles chirruped from within their nests.

“The Grandmother balete tree,” said the spiritual elder who stood beside me. They are known as Buhawi after the God of the Four Winds.

Whilst I was preoccupied with awe, they put down their burden. The wooden stopper did little to mask the vinegar tang of coconut liquor seeping out from the baked clay amphora. I mimicked them. In my wicker basket, I had carried the offerings.

We stood, side by side, and let the natural world cradle us. I closed my eyes. There were a million tiny sounds, but it could never be overwhelming for it all formed part of the same song. Every murmur, cry, or rustle belonged there within the shadow of that majestic, old being.

In that beautiful moment, so did I.

“Thank you,” I said. “I see why the Datu was so insistent that I accompany you here.”

They responded with a knowing smile which cracked the worn lines of their weathered face. They never smiled with their teeth, perhaps to hide the red betel-nut stains.

“Come,” they said, “help me with the offerings, and I will tell you about Grandmother balete. I will tell you her story.”

And so, as we prepared the areca nuts, the lime, and the betel leaf, Buhawi told me the tale of the Great buso who is called Mamilli.

[Read the rest of this 4k short extract on AO3]

#gomm 2024 #good omens minisode #good omens #go #mygofic #myfic #philippines #pinoy #historical fiction #historical snippet #ineffable husbands #aziraphale #crowley #good omens fanfictoin #good omens fanfic

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jojaydoodles · 7 months

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*dragon approaching*

a random scene from my original story, just to try out the background style, color palette and to practice hands - my nemesis

the buildings in the background are just a quick doodle, because i ran out of patience, but they are meant to be a mix between earlier Han wooden fortifications and later Eastern Wei pagodas, as the story is set in 6th century.

-- buy me a coffee or visit my redbubble

#manga #anime #mangaart #original artwork #manga artist #wuxia #art #artist #octoberchallenge #art challenge #dragon #chinese dragon #storm #illustration #illustration artists #digital art #digitalartist #character design #character art

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frostedlemonwriter · 2 months

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Heads Up, Seven Up

So I saw @blind-the-winds had an open tag and I am going to piggyback on it!

Nestled amidst the jinja and the Kumano dojo, atop the towering hill, the spacious tahōtō on its vigil in the sky. It was a single level pagoda, crowned by a steepled roof, gracefully expanded outward and reached higher than one would expect. Bathed in the soft glow of the early evening sun, a resplendent cap adorned its pinnacle, cast a mesmerizing radiance. The air whispered with a sense of history, as if the tahōtō had witnessed the passage of time for over two centuries. Exquisite wooden sculptures, crafted with intricate care over the five years it took to build, adorned its surface, depicted dragons, kami, and yokai in meticulous detail. Kyu had spent plenty of time cleaning and polishing these over the years.

Tagging ever so gently @cljordan-imperium @thestorywitch @winterandwords @simonnebethel @indecentpause and an open tag!

#ask game

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lierrelearns · 11 months

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国宝興福寺五重塔室町時代　高さ五◯、一m

天平二年(七三◯)に光明皇后が創建。現在の塔は応永三十三年(一四二六)に再建。初層の須弥壇に薬師三尊像(東) 釈迦三尊像(南) 阿弥陀三尊像(西) 弥勒三尊像(北) を安置(いずれも室町時代作)。

文化財を大切にしましょう。木柵の中には入らないでください。

The Five Storied Pagoda (National Treasures) This pagoda was constructed by the Empress Komyo in 730. The current building is a restoration completed in 1426, and is the second highest pagoda in Japan, rising 50.1 meters. Inside the structure on the first level, enshrined around the central pillar are a Yakushi triad (to the east), a Shaka triad (to the south), an Amida triad (to the west), and a Miroku triad (to the north).

Vocab 室町時代（むろまちじだい） Muromachi period (1336-1573) 天平（てんぴょう） Tenpyo era (8.5.729-4.14.749) 光明皇后（こうみょうこうごう） Empress Komyo 創建（そうけん） establishment, foundation 応永（おうえい） Oei era (7.5.1394-4.27-1428) 須弥壇（しゅみだん） dais for a Buddhist image 薬師（やくし） Bhaisajagyuru, Yakushi, the Healing Buddha 三尊（さんぞん） a Buddhist triad; a Buddha attended by two boddhisatvas 尊像（そんぞう） statue of a noble character 釈迦（しゃか） Shakyamuni, Gautama Buddha 阿弥陀（あみだ） Amitabha, Amida 弥勒（みろく） Maitreya (boddhisatva), Miroku 安置（あんち） enshrinement, installation (of an image) いずれも all, every 木柵（もくさく） wooden fence

#日本語 #japanese language #japanese vocabulary #japanese langblr #日本 #japan #奈良 #Nara #仏教 #日本歴史 #Buddhism #Japanese history

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teafuelledwriting · 3 months

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An Uncommon Witness

[Inspired in a big way by a larger project idea that's crawled out of the quagmire. Barely edited and written in one sitting. Enjoy. TW for blood and inferred gore.]

Detective Harper arrived on scene damp and annoyed. Three days of heavy rain had flooded enough streets to clog up traffic, making travel a miserable affair. Even now it rained, the air heavy, humid, and stifling in the early morning, heavy clouds hanging low overhead as they threatened to drown half of Southbank.

At least he didn’t have to stand around in it, like the poor bastards guarding the scene's perimeter from absent crowds.

Ducking under the white and blue police tape, Harper nodded in greeting to Constable Myles, huddled in her raincoat, moisture trickling down her dark tan cheek.

“Another one?” Harper asks, loud to be heard through the rain, and Myles nodded, lips twisting.

“Same M.O., same symbols,” She said and they walk off path, sodden grass sucking at their boots. “Tourists found the victim on the walkways by the 88’ Pagoda, preserved. Whoever did it hung up a bunch of tarps to keep it clear from the rain.”

“They want us to see, you think?”

“Haven’t been shy so far,” Myles shrugged a shoulder, the walkie crackling with chatter, barely audible over the din. “Maybe they wanted the rain off while they worked. Either way it’s the same. One victim, killed on scene in a ritualistic manner. Area around the body painted in blood, presumably coming from this and previous victims if the patterns consistent.”

“We know who it is?” Harper asked as they climbed broad stairs leading to the pseudo tropical-rainforest and wooden walkways meticulously maintained by the grounds crew. A popular spot in the sprawling parklands, it was a little respite from the sun and heat, nestled between the oversized ferris wheel and a whitewashed block of overpriced restaurants. If the rain hadn’t kept the tourists and locals inside, the horror on display would be plastered all over social media.

“Yeah. Mark Cooper, forty-five years old, an IT specialist, works across the river in the CBD.” Myles flipped over a water splotched page in her notepad. “Like the other scenes, his clothing and possessions were left folded neatly to the side, wallet included, three hundred in cash plus credit cards intact.” They head up a concrete ramp and step under the cover of trees, the scent of rich soil cutting through the smell of rain and metal. Their boots thunk on the wooden walkway that twists and winds between ferns, trees and over a flooded artificial stream.

Harper spotted the tarps immediately, four of them arranged to direct rain away from the naked, ruined body posed with terrible care. One leg laid straight, the other bent, foot behind the knee of the first. The arms were stretched overhead, palms upwards and carved into a bloody mess. Cooper’s skin had been painted with dull blue bands around his limbs and torso, framing the symbols cut into his skin. His face they left alone, eyes open, covered with a strip of hand woven cloth, his expression eerily at peace.

Around him, the dark, damp wood was marked with candles burned to nubs, the white wax pooling through the gaps of the walkway, stars in a constellation of dark bloody lines encircling the murdered man.

Forensic techs went about their work like plastic garbed ghosts, snapping photos, taking samples, hunting for prints, fibres, a scrap of something to give them a foot up.

Harper paid them no mind as he studied the tableau. The same pose, the same set up. A lot of work went into whatever ritual was being performed, a lot of care which took time and effort, likely more than one participant, even if Cooper had been drugged out of his mind like the other three victims. Some of the symbols had been recognised, letters a combination of runes and various occult symbols, the body itself laid out like the Hanged Man from tarot.

Despite the humid warmth, a chill enveloped Harper and he shivered.

“And no one saw anything,” he muttered. “Four scenes like this in a public space, hours of work at least and no one saw a god-damned thing!”

Myles opens her mouth as the radio on her shoulder crackles, the voice garbled and hard to hear.

She sighs and clicks the handset. “They’ve been fritzing all day. Repeat that, over.” She says and the walkie crackles again. Harper picks out one word from the noise. Witness.

“Where?” He demanded.

Down the slope, towards the churning brown of the Brisbane river, a trio of constables shift, looking anywhere but the woman standing in the rain with a broad black umbrella. Tough boots, jeans, and a grey jacket, she stood still, patiently waiting as Harper paused by the officers.

“We have a witness you said?” He asked Buckler, the oldest, a tall, broad shouldered man with a fishers tan. He grimaced.

“We think we might,” He said with a pointed look at the youngest, his fresh out of the academy partner, Mae, a slight lean man of Asian descent. “Tell the detective what you told me.”

Mae’s Adam's apple bobbed as he licked his lips. “She turned up while we were securing the scene, didn’t ask us what was going on until we were done, just asked to speak to the detective when they arrived. She’s been waiting ever since.” Mae glanced at the woman, and cleared his throat. “Might just be a freak wanting a look.”

“Or maybe she saw something,” Harper said. “I’ll go have a chat, thanks Buckler.”

“No worries, Detective.” Buckler jerked his thumb and he and Mae head along the taped perimeter as Harper ducks under the tape again.

Outside the cordon, the air felt lighter, the sound of the rain sharper on the boardwalk.

“You asked to speak with a detective?” he called and the woman’s umbrella tilts, showing a pale face framed by short choppy brown hair, eyes bruised and shadowed from lack of sleep, but clear and piercing, examining him as he approached. Mid-thirties, Harper guessed, no make-up, pierced nose, and clean. Not a vagrant, and if she used, she was sober for the moment.

“I did. Thank you for coming to talk with me, detective…” She trailed off and Harper nodded, pulling out his notepad and a pen.

“Harper. You are?”

“Anna Franklyn. With a ‘Y’.” Her gaze flicked past him. “Another ritual murder.” It wasn’t a question.

Harper gave her a sharp look. “You know anything about this incident? Did you see anything?”

“I know what I’ve been told,” she said, voice blunt. “I didn’t see it, but I know who did. I’m here to help them talk to you.” Anna nodded her head towards the wooden Pagoda.

Harper’s brows rose. “Help? You’re a translator?”

Something flickered in her expression, a flash of amusement that came and went.

“Of sorts. I don’t know how long he can hold on for so, shall we?” She started walking and frowning, Harper followed her, lengthening his stride till he caught up.

“Just a few questions before we get there Miss Franklyn, what’s your relationship to the witness?”

“Known him for a few years, more of an acquaintance than anything else. When I heard the ritual took place here, I came to see if he saw anything.”

Harper’s frown grew as he jotted down a note. “How did you hear about it?”

“After the first two, people started paying attention,” Anna said as they turned off the walk to climb the wide shallow steps leading to the hand carved pagoda, a relic left over from Expo 88. It was a narrow, spindly thing a few levels high, no steps leading up, no purpose save for decoration. “No one does that much work, with that much detail unless it’s building to something.”

“And you know something of these kinds of…” Harper trailed off, hoping for a bite. The more people said the more they gave away.

Anna glanced at him. “I know a lot.” She paused on the top step, and dug a hand into her jacket. “Detective, whether you accept it or not, the ones doing this believe in it. And your only witness needs your belief.” From her pocket, Anna pulled out a small, squat jar, glass, the brassy top giving it away as a repurposed pot of Tiger Balm. She held it out to him, expectant.

Harper looked at the jar, then her, and then to the Pagoda, the doors usually locked for the night standing open. It was dark, a dim warm light glowing within. Another shiver crawled up Harper’s back.

“What kind of belief, Miss Franklyn?” He asked, looking past her. The closest constable was back the way they had come, and over the rain… Any trouble would be heard but he didn’t like distance.

“The hasty kind.,” Anna said, frowning herself. “Put this on your eyes and ears or you won’t get a damn thing. Waste time and you won’t get his account.”

Harper narrowed his eyes at her. “I’m gonna need more information before I smear an unknown substance all over myself.”

Anna’s eyes flicked upwards, reminding him strongly of the popular girls in high school, forever impatient with his clumsy attempts to chat them up.

“It’s oil, olive oil from Greece infused with rosemary and grave dirt. It washes off.” Anna said, opening the jar and with her fingers, dabbed a small amount around her eyes, over her lips and her ears. The jar was thrust towards him, Anna’s sharp gaze pinning him in place, not a hint of mischief or trickery on her face. “Consider, you have no fucking idea what’s going on and you want to know more. I want to help. If shit goes sideways you can arrest me. How's that?”

Harper blinked. She was dead serious.

Glancing again at the Pagoda, the familiar structure somehow more ominous in the dim morning and the rain, looming above them like a silent sentinel, Harper considered. No harm in going along for some information, right? Back up was close by and the woman was a fraction his height and weight. He had good chances if it came to violence. Still, something in his gut worried at him.

“All right.” Harper took the jar, and dabbed his finger into the oil. It didn’t smell all that bad, felt a little gritty as he applied it to his skin and it tingled, warm and steadying. “Where’s my witness?”

Anna cocked her head to the side and beckoned, leading Harper towards the Pagoda, folding down her umbrella as she stepped inside.

“Oh good, you’re still here,” she said to the empty space. There was a wooden bench to one side where a black bag sat slumped to one side. A small candle on a tin dish burned, the flame flickering once. “The detective, Harper-” She paused, glancing back. “Inside, detective.”

Harper scowled. “You know I can charge you with interference with an investigation, right?” He growled, stepping over the low wooden threshold. “There’s no one…” He trailed off, blinking against the dark. “Here?”

On the bench sat a man, wiry and thin, bony arms leaning on bonier knees, his neat shirt ruined by a single dark splotch dead center of his chest. He looked up from his hands, skeletal and long fingered, eyes milky, face gaunt. Solid and real but everything in Harper knew he wasn’t. He couldn’t be. He hadn’t been!

“Tadaaa,” his voice rumbled, felt as much as heard and Harper gaped. His stomach had gone cold, like he’d swallowed a ball of ice, and inside his layers of rain coat and button down and vest, his skin prickled like he stood in a static field.

“Wh-What the f-” Harper started and Anna gave him a hard look.

“Your witness. You have until the candle burns down. Fifteen minutes,” she said and looked at the man with an apologetic expression. “Cops.”

The man on the bench nodded as if he understood. “I saw. I saw it all. They called us to witness. Will you listen?” He asked.

Harper’s jaw clicked as he closed his mouth. “Everything?” He asked and the man on the bench nodded again.

“All.”

“Alright, uh… Sir…” Harper licked his lips and flips to a new page in his notepad. “I’m listening.”

The dead man spoke. Harper took his notes.

Finally, he had a lead.

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