#yeah this was kind of supposed to end by paragraph nineteen

[tathrin]

6... on a falling tear and 38... because they're running out of time （＾ω＾）

Oh how lovely and tragic, very nice choices! Thank you very much for the ask. I'll split them up into two separate posts because I'm incapable of ever writing anything succinct though, sigh! Prompt taken from this; anyone can feel free to send other numbers in at any time, I don’t care how long it’s been. (Just maybe add some context to your ask if it’s been like a month or more since I posted this, because otherwise I won’t know what to do with the random number in my inbox lmao).

#38....because they’re running out of time. [mood music anyone?]

“Never thought I’d die as a diversion,” Gimli muttered, watching as Sauron’s army poured out of the Black Gates and surrounded the two small hills on which Aragorn had arrayed their forces.

Gimli could not count the teeming numbers of the enemy that stood before him—they were too many, too foul—but Legolas had the keen eyes of the elves, and he had told Gimli that their force of six thousand was outnumbered at least ten-to-one. They were not all orcs, either, which would have been bad enough; for surely each troll should be counted six or seven times at least.

The hills would help, Gimli thought numbly, at least a little; the incline would grant the defenders an advantage over the enemy that would have to scramble to climb up at them, and the slag pools of fetid Mordor that surrounded the low hillocks would be another impediment—but it would not be enough.

They had known it would not be enough even before they set out for the Black Gates, and they had all of them come anyway. Gimli did not regret his choice to follow his friends into doom, no; but that did not make the moment of the end any less bitter. And that moment was almost here, now; they were running out of time.

The enemy paused at the feet of the hills, hissing and cursing and some of them even spitting, and Gimli spun his axe to stretch his shoulders in anticipation of the battle to come.

He stood near the front, with Aragorn and Legolas and most of the mightiest of their fighters, where the attack would surely be the thickest. He eyed one lumbering troll that was pushing its way through the milling ranks of orcs, an ugly line of drool hanging off one side of its jaw where broken teeth distorted its already ugly grin into something macabre and ghoulish.

“Gimli,” Legolas said, standing so close beside him, his voice light with echoes of distant birdsong, and Gimli could feel himself smiling in instinctive response even as his heart twisted in sorrow at the thought of what was soon to come for them both. “Gimli,” Legolas said, “may I—I would ask a very great favor of you, my friend, if you would indulge me, please.”

“Of course,” Gimli said immediately. He turned to look up at the elf beside him, standing like a slender ray of sunlight in that bleak land, and tried to hide his breaking heart behind his smile. He could not imagine what sort of favor Legolas might ask at this late juncture—or if he could, then it was a favor that need not be spoken aloud, for Gimli had already vowed to himself that he would not allow the enemy to take this elf alive for torment when the battle ended and their defeat enfolded them.

“Anything, Legolas, you know that.”

Legolas gave a strange, half-choked laugh, and pressed his free hand to his face as though smother some strong feeling; with his other, of course, he held the mighty bow of the Galadhrim that the Lady had given him, and Gimli’s heart gave another pang at the thought of three golden strands tucked away safely behind white walls far away, waiting for a dwarf who would never return to reclaim them—but then Legolas moved, and Gimli’s eyes were drawn instead to tight golden braids that swayed before him as the slender Wood-elf suddenly swayed like a falling sapling and bent down close to Gimli’s face.

He caught Gimli’s bearded cheek with his hand and turned the dwarf’s face up to meet him, and then—oh, and then Legolas was kissing him and Gimli’s mind seemed to dissolve in a blaze of starlight. His whole world narrowed down to those smooth lips pressed so tight and hungry to his own; those long fingers twined so gently through his beard to cup his chin in their narrow palm; the brush of heavy golden braids against Gimli’s shoulders as Legolas bent low over him...

Belatedly, Gimli realized that he had reached up to press his hand to the elf’s face as well; he only noticed when the pad of his thumb brushed against the tip of one long pointed ear and Legolas’s breath hitched in both their mouths.

The drew apart, Legolas swaying back upright with a last lingering flutter of his fingers against Gimli’s beard before he pulled away. Gimli’s jaw worked soundlessly around words that would not come,his wide eyes fixed so fervently on the beautiful, beardless face before him that he almost forgot the stink of the orcs and the jeers of their ugly voices in his ears.

“Forgive me the liberty, I pray,” Legolas rasped. His mithril-bright eyes shimmered with unshed tears, in that moment looking suddenly so like the pool of the Mirrormere that Gimli almost felt as though he had been transported somehow back to the hills outside Khazad-dûm, and this desperate death at the doors of Mordor made into naught but a terrible dream.

But the creeping tendrils of fear that marked the approach of the Nazgûl was no dream; nor were the thundering steps of the trolls as they began to scale the hills, nor the shouts of the orcs as they struggled to follow. In moments, the enemy would be upon them. There was so much Gimli wanted, needed, to say; but they were running out of time.

“There is—there is nothing to forgive, Legolas,” he managed to croak.

“I am relieved to hear it,” Legolas replied. “For I could not bear to die without ever kissing you, Gimli.”

Gimli reached up for those golden braids and bright eyes again. “Legolas—!”

Legolas flashed him a brief, bright, heartbroken smile, and then turned away to face the enemy as the orcs rushed towards them. Gimli raised his axe more out of habit than intention and stepped up beside the elf. “Legolas...” he tried again, but his head was reeling and he could not find the words he wished to craft; they all slipped through his mental fingers, like he was trying to scoop cave-cold water with naught but his bare hands.

Then the first troll reached them, bellowing as it knocked three soldiers of Gondor off their feet to tumble down the hill towards the waiting blades of the orcs below. Gimli growled and gripped his axe, and then suddenly Legolas was scaling the troll, blasted fool of an elf that he was!

“Legolas!” Gimli shouted again, and raced to follow him into the fight.

The troll was too slow to catch the nimble elf, but its attempts to do so blunted its attention to the axe in Gimli’s hand as he hacked at its knees. The creature roared belatedly in anger, even as thick blood wept down its legs. It reached down to try and swat Gimli away, and Legolas scampered across its shoulders and drove his long knife in deep into the troll’s eye. Even that was not enough to kill the beast, but when two Rohirrim came up with long spears the troll was too woozy with pain and blood-loss to bat the weapons away from its throat.

It went down with a thud and a cry of rage rose from the orcs in response. Legolas skipped away from the body and landed on the ground again at Gimli’s side. Shaking with fear, anger, and adrenaline, Gimli caught him by the wrist and gave the elf a shake. “Don’t do that again!” he shouted. “You’re going to get yourself killed!”

Legolas laughed, fey and unfettered, his merriment as sharp and keen as his arrows. He slashed his knife through the throat of a climbing orc and twisted easily away from the resulting spray of black blood. “Gimli, we are all going to die here,” he said, wiping the blade clean on the skirt of his tunic before sheathing it and drawing his bow once more. “Put aside your fears, my dear; we have moved beyond that now. All that is left to us is to make our deaths worthy of those that came before us, and to sell our lives dearly enough that we might hope to buy enough time for others to save all those who may come after from this Shadow.”

His arrows flew true, burying themselves in throats and eyes and black-blooded hearts even as he looked back at the dwarf more often than he did at the oncoming orcs. In Legolas’s eyes, Gimli could see the glimmer of all the years together they would never have; could see the crumbling eternity of an immortal life cut short and the unscalable chasm that lay forever between the fates of elves and dwarves, sundering them from one another for all time even unto the breaking of the world.

This, he realized, was all the time they were ever going to have.

Tears stung his eyes, hot and bitter. It was not enough. It would never, ever be enough—and it did not matter, because there was no more to be had.

Gimli shook his head, swallowing down the urge to weep; he had to focus on the orcs. There were too many coming up the sides of the hill now, too fierce; it was all Gimli could do to swing his axe in time to block their blows and cut them down. It was all he could do to keep close to Legolas’s side, the elf now reduced to fighting with nothing but his long white knife. There were maybe half a handful of arrows in his quiver yet, but even elvish speed was insufficient to allow for proper archery at sight a tight distance in this tumult.

Oh, why had Gimli not seen to it that his elf was better armed before they rode off to this final battle? Legolas was deadly with that little knife, yes, but oh it seemed so short in his long fingers. Why had Gimli not sought the armories of Gondor, and borrowed some mightier blade for his friend? Why had he not sought the forges, and made him one to suit his lanky frame?

He was such a fool. What had he been wasting his time on instead, when he could have—should have—been seeing to Legolas’s safety?

When he could have been kissing him?

Gimli growled, and swung his axe harder, and watched one burly uruk go down gurgling and clutching at its guts. Gimli swung again, and its head toppled free and he could turn to the next enemy, the next threat. Beside him, Legolas whirled and slashed in a flurry of golden braids and a black-blooded blade. He lunged over Gimli’s head to slit the throat of an orc that was angling a spear towards Gimli’s ribs as Gimli kicked-out low and took the feet out from under another orc that had managed to get a grimy hand around one of those bright braids.

“Away from him!” Gimli bellowed, and the orc feel back squealing over the stump of its arm. Gimli stepped closer to the elf—his elf—and they ended up fighting back-to-back, or back-to-shoulders at least; their disparate heights should have made them terrible battle-partners, but it was so easy to fall into a rhythm with Legolas, a balancing of their skills and statures. Legolas spun high with his short knife and Gimli swung low with his broad axe, and the enemy gave way before them.

But more came, replacing those that fell. Always more came, and the fight went on. Gimli could feel his limbs tiring, his bones aching from the weight of his blade and the blows that had glanced off his mail. A dozen small cuts he could not remember taking bled sluggishly, adding a dull sheen of red to the viscous black liquid that splattered his armor and his skin.

More came, and the Nazgûl followed, and all around them men shrieked and cowered beneath that mindless fear. Gimli fought on, so numb with grief that he barely startled at the cry that the eagles had come. That felt unreal, like something out of some other story; one that had a better ending than theirs. Despair rolled thick across the Host of the West and even Gimli, stout-hearted dwarf that he was, faltered for a moment before it—

And then Legolas laughed.

There was nothing merry in that sound, and the only brightness was the sharp brightness of a pale blade flashing out of the shadows of tall black trees. It was a laugh full of teeth, and claws, and all the dark and dangerous things that lurk within a wood. It was the sort of laugh that would send wise folk fleeing for strong walls and sturdy doors; the sort of laugh that might send children shivering to hide under their beds and wait for dawn. It was the laugh of a wild thing, untamed and dangerous, and it rang out light and sharp-edged above the gutteral shouts and screams of the orcs and the roaring bellows of the trolls.

Legolas laughed, and Gimli smiled to hear it. He lifted his head high against the weight of Mordor’s bleak despair and raised his axe high once more. Legolas was right; there was no longer any cause for fear. They had faced the end already, and the end was here; there was no sense cowering before it. Better to stand tall, and die fighting proud and unbowed, defying the power of the Dark Lord to the last.

And then—and then, on the other side of fear, after all hope seemed so long lost it was little more than a memory, everything changed.

The Nazguûl fled; the army crumbled; the towers fell.

Sauron was destroyed. And they had lived.

They lived.

Gimli could hardly process it. He turned to Legolas, still at his side, the both of them weary and blood-stained and heartsick from the tangled mingling of hope and despair, and he opened his mouth to speak—but no words came out.

He saw all their tomorrows flow suddenly back into Legolas’s bright eyes and the elf swayed, as though the sudden lifting of the Shadow had left him unsteady on his light feet. Gimli caught his hand and held him steady.

“Legolas—” Gimli began.

“Tomorrow,” Legolas interrupted him with a smile. “Let us help the wounded now, Gimli; we will talk on other things tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow,” Gimli said, rolling the taste of the word around in his mouth; rolling the feel of it around in his mind. “Yes,” he said. “Tomorrow. To think that there will be such a thing!” He laughed from bewildered joy and squeezed his elf’s hand once, tightly, before letting go and turning back to the grim battlefield. “Tomorrow. We will talk on all things then.”

Legolas bent and pressed a light kiss to Gimli’s cheek. “Tomorrow,” he said again, the word heavy with promise, and then they walked off together into the carnage of hopes renewed and deaths well-fought.

“Tomorrow,” Gimli murmured once more to himself, and there on the bloodstained soil of the Black Land, he smiled.

#well that one uh...that one kind of got away from me didn't it? #yeah this was kind of supposed to end by paragraph nineteen #and then it...didn't #so have uhhh have the whole final battle of the war of the ring i guess??? #sorry not sorry??? idk #thank you so much for picking this one to send; writing it sure sent me! jeeze! #these two i swear #even knowing that they win in the end my brain still wouldn't let me end their story on anything but an upbeat note i guess #i will never ever be over them #battle of the morannon #gimleaf #gigolas #legolas #gimli #lotr #lotr fanfiction #my stuff #my writing #asks meme #send a kiss meme #this ship sails itself all the way to valinor

[hard-core-super-star]

It's funny that I have a few paragraphs talking to you, but when I want to write something I just barely get past the second line. I don't think I need to say that I don't mind and I even like these long answers since I was encouraging them from the beginning...😶

I'm thinking of a song- is this a song? If not, I think I'll look like an idiot too.

“i'm just too gay to obsess over a man the way I obsess over kate” HELP, THIS IS SO FUNNY??? LMFAO. I can literally add this at any time to anything in my life and that's exactly what I'll be doing!! It's research that could save the world from possible alien invasions, don't worry. I mean your mom was right (I guess? here where I live the game is not recommended for -18 so-), although the game is cool, it's not something people should have contact so young. as they are nowadays.

so you're going to send me to the lion's den and make me survive like this?? I'm not ready for it. I swear I try not to ask too many questions but my fingers just slip!! Jhdskwkka oh okay, if you mentioned Joker her attitudes might remind you a little of him....?

since this doesn't ruin my experience, you can tell me about this cliffhanger, right? 👀 okay, wait, so the cliffhanger was just something that would probably be a plot for the first eps or that would open to season 8, is that? wow this is disrespectful to them, did they already have season 8 written or something?

wait wait I remember someone called Zari, if I'm not wrong she had a situationship with someone on the team... isn't she the one with the animal powers? 🤔 you're selling batwoman in a very good way i- I'm very tempted. We need a petition for them to stop making the characters dirty, not even barry escaped! I was going to ask if you like Cisco since you didn't mention him, but I feel like the answer coming would be you're too gay to be obsessed with men, but this time with caitlin instead of kate 😶

now I don't know if it's a moment that you're not thinking about it, or you're not thinking about it kwhjwkwskk

– 🌟

i felt that in my soul. talking to you is so much easier than writing my fics, i can't tell if i should be happy or worried about that. you didn't have to say it but i very much appreciate the reminder.

😮 technically yes. okay, i’ll bite the bullet and risk looking like an idiot just in case. i think we might be on the same page though ‘cause i think there's only one thing this references and it’s…the song nineteen by tegan and sara. it's such a subtle and dumb thing but i have a major connection to the song and the number so at some point i just started saying 119% for no reason and then it…sort of stuck lmao.

akdkdsakaskd thank you, it was both a joke and the honest truth lmao hmmm, i guess that makes sense, carry on. yeah, i agree, i just find it funny that mortal kombat was a no but she had no issue with injustice which is basically just the DC version of mortal kombat 👀 your last comment has potential for a whole other conversation but i’ll just say that i agree and that it baffles me that there are 7 year olds out there who have better IPhone’s than me like why???

kind of but i promise it’s worth it!!! just know that if you do end up liking alice, it'll get painful quick 😶 it’s okay! it’s just that i can go on for hours and i don't want to ruin anything for you. i wouldn't say she reminds me that much of the Joker but the comparison is an easy one to make cause…Batman -> Batwoman, you know? she's a lot more complicated. in a good way of course.

i guess i can tell you but i’ll do it as vaguely as possible. basically, they struggle all of season 7 because they're stuck in the past [i can't remember the exact year rn, my bad] and once they finally fix the Waverider and are able to go home…they essentially get arrested by some sort of Time Police. it's frustrating ‘cause we see them struggle ALL season and once things are solved, this happens and then BOOM, the show’s canceled. so yeah, it was just supposed to be the start-point for Season 8 so no real harm done, it just sucks. i assume there was already a plan for Season 8 so if they would have known there wasn't going to be one, they could have wrapped off Season 7 in another way and given a real ending to the Legends. somehow, though, i feel like this ending fits them lmao.

close, zari’s the one with the wind totem, amaya’s the one with the spirit totem aka the animal powers. [and they also should have been girlfriends but that's another rant] djskakswjsjks lmao, you know me so well. i honestly do love cisco, even though they also messed up his character toward the end. him and caitlin ARE team flash, screw everyone else.

…yes? 🧐

#rubix replies #🌟

[pebblysand]

of tyres that blow (extended author’s note of chapter v. of castles)

- - TO READ THE CHAPTER ITSELF, CLICK HERE. - -

Oh, what a month it has been. Well, a month and two days - I’m a bit late updating. I’ve had two good things happen, writing wise. 1) I got my first original short story published (!!!!) (you can read it here) and 2) I put out a little one-shot about Fleur Delacour that I’m super happy about and gave me an idea about a new series (more on that later this week, I hope. I might need help with prompts!). Regardless, this latest Irish lockdown is fucking endless and I sometimes wonder if this fic isn’t just an outlet for my feelings of lockdown-induced loneliness, apathy, but also a constant argument that I have with myself thinking: for the love of god, just pull yourself up, will you? You’re a Gryffindor, goddamn it. I certainly wish my fucked up sleeping patterns on no one, although I may or may have Mary-Sued that onto Harry, lol. (Spoiler alert: he’s scheduled to get some real sleep in next chapter. All bets are off regarding whether I will.)

This chapter was surprisingly easy to write (I basically vomited out chapters iv, v, and vi over the span of a week in December) but incredibly difficult to edit. For days, I just couldn’t concentrate, wrote and re-wrote and felt like everything was shite. Then, I realised it’d become this 19,000-words long monster so I had to cut a lot of shit out. We ended up with 15,898 words which I suppose is better? 

I do wonder: do people mind long chapters? Like, I know as fanfic reader, I personally prefer longer formats and rarely gravitate towards works that are less than 3,000 words. I love just getting buried into a story, into plots rather than single scenes. This being said, every time I write something that I deem too long (i.e. above 10k) I have these excruciating struggles where I wonder: should I cut it in half? should I leave it as is? I decided to split the last one. Then, I decided not to split this one because (you may notice this or not, I’m not sure) it’s kind of built a certain way, geared towards basically getting to the last two paragraphs. Like, when you get there, it’s a bit of an ah-ha moment, but I couldn’t get to that ah-ha moment without all the build up before it. It’s the accumulation of all of these little details that feel like they don’t matter. And as Harry says in the end, they don’t, in the grand scheme of things, but also they do. Like, everyday life doesn’t matter until you lose it. Then, it does, if that makes sense.

In terms of next update... I’ve decided to get my law licence transferred to France and the EU (it’s a long story), which means that I need to bloody, fucking study. The exams are at the end of March so my current plan is: hardcore study until the end of february. Mix study/writing in early march and hopefully get chapter vi out mid-March, then hardcore study until the end of March. Please, if you see me posting then, tell me off in the comments cause god, I really need to pass. Now, I will go have my traditional i-ve-put-a-chapter-out shot of limoncello and let you read the below :).

...spoilers for castles, chap v. under the cut -

I’ve done a lot of thinking about what this chapter is meant to be about. Obviously (I hope), every chapter has a point, in this story. Chapter 1 is about time (the way it passes and blurs when your mind’s a complete mess), chapter 2 is about hope, chapter 3 is about inevitability and the consequences of trauma, chapter 4 is about becoming an adult and growing into your own skin, etc. I think this one is about fear. How you feel it, and how you overcome it. Like, Harry takes a decision to stand up, fight, do the interview, regardless of the fact that he is scared (for his life, for that of the people he loves), and finds buried inside him a lot of the courage that he (felt) he lost, after the war. He learns to control his fear of the world by figuring out how apprehend it, through the training Giulia gives him, through learning how to kill, too. 

But, it’s also about fear in society. How the attack on Robards sets everyone on edge and how they keep going regardless. I initially wrote this chapter with the idea that it was going to be about speaking out and being brave, but obviously, fear and fighting against it is a huge part of that, too. 

Then, there’s Mia. Obviously, this fic is Harry/Ginny endgame but I do like the idea of Harry (and possibly Ginny as well) dating at least one other person, before officially tying the knot. Like, yes, Ginny is obviously coming back next chapter. She’ll probably own the second half of next chapter, if I’m honest, considering they’re obviously going to the burrow for christmas. I love Ginny, I’ve missed her and honestly, I can’t wait to bring her back. This being said, to be fair, I’ve kind of realised that this fic may actually be the first I ever write that isn’t strictly “shippy.” Like, yes, their relationship is a huge part of it (it’s a huge part of his life) and it will and was always going to be a huge part of this story but I think this fic is larger than that. It’s a result of my years-long obsession over: but what happens next? Over what “all was well” really means, in a general sense. How do they get to “nineteen years later” and beyond. But yeah, I’ve missed Ginny and I’m glad she’s on her way back to us now. 

Now, obviously. Giulia. I’m sorry. This was always going to happen. Well, almost always. I remember when I first wrote her in, she was a bit of a filler character. At the time, the thing with Mia was supposed to happen in last chapter and I actually had (have) much more backstory around her, than around Giulia. She and Harry were going to have proper conversations (will they ever, who knows?), really get to know each other. But then, Giulia came first narratively and shone through the page. I started writing her and she had this personality and life of her own and I couldn’t bring myself to curtail her. 

Now, we all know how it is: fanfics can only tolerate so many OCs. So, I had to choose between putting Mia at the forefront, or Giulia. I chose Jules. 

Then, in chapter 4, I wrote this: 

Her first lesson is to teach him how to drive the patrol car. ‘I don’t know why we use them,’ she explains, honest, and Harry vaguely wonders if he should be taking notes. ‘Reckon the Ministry saw them being used by Muggles, had to prove they could do better. They like making noise, the Ministry, don’t they? Lots of sirens and shite.’

Politely, Harry hides a chuckle behind a cough. He clearly doesn’t know yet that he doesn’t need to, that Giulia’s sarcastic sense of humour is one of the things that he’ll come to appreciate the most in this world, over the next few months. That the sound of her voice is one he’ll try to never, ever forget. That in the speech that he’ll give when he makes Head Auror, over a decade later, he’ll think of her and say: ‘Okay, let’s try to not just be sirens and shite, all right?’

This kind of tumbled out without me really thinking about it until I really looked at it and thought: fuck, why is he talking about her past tense, like that. Like “the sound of her voice is one he’ll try to never, ever forget.” Why would he forget it, though? And so, just like that, came her death sentence. For that, I apologise. It killed me too, and I cried when I wrote it in (especially when I wrote next chapter, actually, first time I ever made myself cry writing, if I’m honest) but it just needed to happen. It’s how Ginny and he get back together (I mean, obviously - is that even a spoil) because he’s grieving but she’s grown stronger and steady and she’s able to be there in a way that she wasn’t last summer. It did occur to me that god, all his mentors/father figures come to die, don’t they? But honestly, I kind of thing that his real mentor will be Robards, at the end of the day. She was just the one who allowed him to get back on his feet. 

One last note: I’ve been meaning to put this into the fic for ages but have never found the right moment to write it in. In the meantime, I’ll just say it here, because I don’t know if this has frustrated some of yous - I know it might have driven me mad. There is a logic to the Muggle/Wizard swearing/exclamations in the fic. Obviously, this is an adult fic so they swear normally, like eighteen-year-olds would in this (I decided that very early on), but also there’s “God”-s and “Merlin”-s and things like that. 

Now, I think that throughout this fic, although Harry hasn’t mentioned it yet (cause it never fucking fits anywhere) Hermione’s been having a sort of Muggle reckoning. She - in conscience - decides to start swearing/exclaiming “like a Muggle” after the war. If you notice, she only ever says “god”, never “Merlin.” Harry uses both interchangeably although he tends to use Merlin more when he thinks about wizard stuff, but God when he thinks about Muggle stuff (like when he’s with Mia). Ron only swears in “wizard” but I think he might start using Muggle expletives as well in the later chapters because of Hermione rubbing off on him. 

The fact that I even think about all that stuff is pathetic and I need to get a life. But that’s for another post, altogether. 

Anyway, thanks for reading. I hope you liked it :). 

#hp fanfic #hinny #Harry Potter fic #i have not proofread this rambling mess so read at your own risk #writing #blah #new chapter is up

[fandom-meanderer]

Oh my goodness I'm gushing over the male!reader X Linhardt scenario you wrote! It's so cute! But what if Mr. Coolest of Garreg Mach showed Sylvain the ways of being cool? 👀

It seems the Mr. Coolest of Garreg Mach saga continues!

Companion piece to [this]

~

“Alright, Sylvain. I’m not going to go easy on you,” you warn. Sylvain just nods his head.

“I’m ready, (Name).”

“Okay, lesson one is the hardest, Sylvain, are you absolutely sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure!”

“Can you get on with it? (Name) says I can’t sleep until you complete all three lessons,” Linhardt yawns.

“Come on! Hit me already, (Name)!”

Lesson One

“You have to go three hours without flirting with anyone.”

“...”

“...”

“...”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Time starts...” You gesture towards Linhardt. He clicks a pocket watch.

“Now,” he finishes. You loop your arm in Linhardt’s and you two walk off together.

“Wait, you can’t just leave me here!” Sylvain panics.

“You’ll be fine! And don’t think we’re not watching, we have spies everywhere,” you say, entering the dining hall. “Good luck Sylvain!”

He’s really doing this. Wow, he’s really working on becoming as cool as Mr. Coolest in Garreg Mach. Okay, he can do this. No flirting. Easy.

“Hey, Sylvain!” A rather cute student waved to him.

“H-” He felt a sudden chill. Someone was watching him. He looked around the courtyard, who was it? Who was the spy? Who was reporting to you as he was freaking out? Okay, just two hours, fifty-eight minutes, and twenty-three seconds left.

He’ll survive.

It was Caspar, by the way.

Lesson Two

You and Linhardt find Sylvain collapsed in front of the altar in the Cathedral.

“So he can nap and I can’t?”

“He’s not napping, he’s praying,” you snicker. You nudge him with your shoe gently. “Hey, Sylvain, you made it. Three hours are up, buddy.”

“I did?” His voice sounded hoarse.

“Yeah, come on, it’s time for lesson two.” Sylvain jumped up with a new found vigor and looked at you intensely.

“I’m ready.”

“You sure? Looks like lesson one really took its toll on you,” you worry.

“I’m fine. I can handle it.”

“He’s really persistent,” Linhardt frowns. “Don’t be too hard on him.”

“Don’t worry, I’m going way easy on him,” you whisper. “Okay, Sylvain. Lesson two. We’re in the chapel already, so this makes things so much easier.”

“What do you mean...?”

“Well, just outside this area happens to be the largest population of the Monastery’s resident cats, right? Well, I need you to bring twenty of them to me.”

“How does this make me cooler?”

“Well, I mean,” you whistle and twenty cats flooded to you. “It works for me.” In another whistle the cats scattered.

“What the hell...”

“See you in a bit, Sylvain,” you wave him off, finally giving in to Linhardt’s pulling.

“Wait, shouldn’t you be here so I know where you are?”

“Looks like you’re just going to have to find me,” you shrug. Sylvain frantically called for you even as you exited the grand doors.

“You know, you could’ve just told him that we’re going to wait outside.”

“Nah, he’s smart, he’ll figure that out.”

~

“Hello, Mr. Cat,” Sylvain slowly walks up to a tabby cat, prepared to grab him. The cat looks over its shoulder lazily. Intrigued by what the hell this kid wanted with it. He moved closer to Sylvain. “That’s it, just come closer, little buddy.” Once he was in an arms reach, Sylvain grabbed him.

“ONE DOWN NINETEEN TO GO!” He ran around collecting cats, not even caring about the amount of scratches and scars he was receiving. 

“That’s no way to make friends with the cats...” Ashe frowns. “I really hope (Name) knows what he’s doing.” He worriedly watches Sylvain pick up another cat and sighs. He really only agreed to do this because he was worried about what Sylvain would do. Now, his friend just looks... sad. He’s never this persistent when he’s trying to charm the other school girls. 

Finally, Sylvain had twenty cats under his arms when he made a mad dash to find you and get away from this hell. What he didn’t notice, however, is that he ran right past you and across the bridge.

“Should we... should we tell him?” Linhardt asks.

“No. He’ll be back.”

“That’s cruel...”

“He’s the one who wanted to be cool, right?”

Final Lesson

Sylvain stumble up the steps of the Cathedral and found you sitting on the ground next to Linhardt. Your boyfriend was snoozing away peacefully with his head on your shoulder and you were writing down notes on a piece of parchment. Sylvain dumped the cats in front of you, each of the mewling angrily.

“Here... Here are your damn cats...” He huffs. You whistle and the cats sit next to you.

“You turned up better than I was expecting, Sylvain,” you laugh. You watched the sun begin to set behind him while you nudge Linhardt softly and he opens his eyes lazily and sits up. “One last lesson, Sylvain. It’s not too late to opt out, you know.”

“Are you kidding me? I’m covered in claw marks. It looks like I’m having an affair. I have nothing left to lose.”

“Alright, then, follow me.” The three of you walk for a short moment before ending up at the arena of the final battle, so to say.

“The Library?” Sylvain cocks his head.

“During your first lesson, Lin and I came up here and marked the insides of certain books with a star sticker, luckily, we just placed them in the front covers.

“That was my idea, if I didn’t say anything you would’ve had to dig through all of the books,” Linhardt adds in.

“Yup. So now your job is to find all of those books, read the star marked passages, and write me a paper telling me what they each had in common to one another. And since this is your final lesson, we decided to make it the hardest.”

“How so?”

“We’re not going to tell you how many books are marked, or how many passages are marked.”

“Goddess please forgive me...”

“You can still opt out, Sylvain.”

“No! I won’t!”

“Okay, all I can say now is good luck then. And don’t worry about what Professor Byleth will think, Lin and I already got that covered.”

“Good night, Sylvain,” Linhardt says. He walks with you out of the library and you shut the doors softly.

“There is a reason behind all of this... right, (Name)?” Linhardt asks,

“Yup. I know I said this is the final lesson, but I’ll quiz him tomorrow on what he thinks the purpose of these lessons were.”

“So you aren’t just making him suffer?”

“Of course not, Sylvain is a good friend of mine, after all.”

“If you say so, (Name).”

~

“Okay... okay I can do this.” Sylvain looks around the library. Then, another knock at the door. It creaks open slowly and Felix walks in.

“What is it that you got yourself into, Sylvain?” He asks.

“I asked (Name) to show me how he became so cool, so he set up these three lessons for me. This is the last one,” Sylvain says, opening his first book.

“So that’s why you’ve been running around like a chicken with its head cut off.”

“Yeah... I don’t suppose you can help me, can you?”

“Even if I could I wouldn’t.”

“Right... Of course,” Sylvain opens his second book. Still no dice. He sighed. It was going to be one hell of a night.

Conclusion

You and Linhardt walked into the Library the next morning and found Sylvain just finishing up the paper. He had forty two books next to him, the correct number of books that you and Linhardt had marked the day before. Sylvain pushed the ten page essay toward you.

“It’s done.”

“Alright,” you take the essay and read through the first couple of paragraphs. “Tell me, Sylvain, what did you learn from these lessons?”

“What did I... what now?”

“What did you learn?” Sylvain looks at you and cocks his head. “Sylvain, I’m not going to make you do these things for no reason. So tell me, what did you get out of it?” Sylvain pondered for a moment, then it hit him.

“The first lesson, you told me not to do the one thing I always do, flirting. At first, all I could think of is ‘what does this have to do with becoming cool?’ But now that I reflect on it, it was as if you were training me to hold back.”

“Mmhmm.”

“For lesson two, I didn’t notice it until I was making my way back to the cathedral, but the cats really started liking me once I put them down and let them just follow. All I had to do was be nice to them, then I didn’t have to force them to come.”

“You’re on the right track, Sylvain.”

“And for this final lesson, it really reminded me of you. Because you have this weird uncanny ability of being able to put things that have no relevance together to make something better. Hence the completely different books and the one paper I had to make on them.”

“Wow, you actually got it,” Linhardt was surprised, to say the least. You hand the paper to him and smile at Sylvain.

“Well, there you have it, Sylvain. Now you know how I became the apparent ‘Coolest in Garreg Mach’.”

“That’s... that’s it?”

“Yup. I didn’t pull any strings to become cool, I just decided to be myself.”

“Huh...” Sylvain sighed. “Sorry, man, but that’s a lot of work I did for a kind of underwhelming answer.”

“I’m not disagreeing, Sylvain, but that’s really the truth. When you walk around the halls today, why don’t you pay more attention to how people interact with you? Like I said, I didn’t make you do these for no reason.”

“O-Okay...”

“I’ll see you later, bud!” You and Linhardt walk off again, leaving Sylvain behind. He walks over to the table and nudges Felix awake.

“Well... did you get your answer?” He asks groggily.

“Yeah... I think I did.”

“Can I go now?”

“Yup.”

“Finally,” Felix pushes himself up. “Just for the record, Sylvain, I really didn’t think you had to do all that yesterday. You’re... you’re already cool as is.”

“What was that? What did you say?” Sylvain stopped in his tracks and looked over to the half asleep Felix.

“Don’t make me say it again, Sylvain!” He grumbles. He picks up the pace and walks ahead of Sylvain. “Now come on, the Professor is going to be mad that we’re late.”

“Okay, okay!” Sylvain couldn’t stop the huge smile forming on his face.

Despite the all nighter he pulled, Sylvain felt like he was ready to take on the world right now. He felt great, energized, and so cool right now. Huh, maybe he could even compete with you for the title someday? Nah.

#Fire Emblem #Fire Emblem Three Houses #feth #fe3h #fe3h linhardt #linhardt von hevring #linhardt x reader #sylvain jose gautier #fe3h sylvain #blue lions #black eagles #fe3h x reader

[sapphohatestransphobes]

#AceWeek

Day six: Disables Aces

Hiya, I’m Skyler. I’m a sex-repulsed asexual nonbinary lesbian.

I have General Anxiety Disorder Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, dyslexia, and have also had periods of depression. I don’t have hearing problems, but I very much like closed captioning. Also my ovaries and uterus do not work right. 

(this is way too long, basically my brain is silly and a little bit of a mess)

I feel the need to mention up front (and geez, this is a long paragraph) I feel kind of weird saying I’m disabled. Cause I’m fairly privileged and my disability is mental and invisible. I don’t think the label it’s a bad thing, and no one’s ever told me I’m not “disabled enough” to use the word, although I’m sure there are people who think this. I think the conflict I feel comes from this: Where (and when) I grew up, people with disabilities were people who were visibly disabled, even if that meant mentally, sadly. They were people in wheelchairs or people with severe autism (the only kid I knew with autism when I was in primary school was violent and uncommunicative, except for when he was being violent he would yell, just not really understandably). The kids who had ADHD, for example, and took medication for it were seen as… well, they were “popular,” but they had an undesirable problem that other parents were glad their kids didn’t have. So, even though later in life I learned about invisible physical disabilities and that mental illnesses like ADHD are not just considered a disability but not a bad thing to be, I still had this negative connection to the word disabled. I sort of have gotten over it, like when I apply for jobs and they ask “are you disabled?” I’m afraid if I answer yes, they’ll see that as “bad,” but I technically would be lying if I said no. I might not have any problems with my job initially, but I might here or there. I also know because it’s invisible and mental and doesn’t affect me the way it does to someone with visible disabilities, and it doesn’t affect me to the point where I can’t work or live on my own. Yeah, me versus my obsession is not a fun battle, and it’s constant, but in the end I’m still pretty privileged.  So I just feel kind of weird.

Story then:

I started to become conscious of my anxiety problems when I was nineteen, almost specifically that birthdate. I’m an introvert, and I started to notice when I spent to much time doing things that didn’t allow me to recharge, I would end up on a path that was leading towards a panic attack. I’ve gotten pretty good about not panicking, but I still have to be careful. When something is thrown at me that disrupts my schedule for the day - like, “hey, we’re literally firing your coworker. I know you’re supposed to leave at 7 but can you stay until 11?” (actual thing that happened, it was weird) - that just makes me panic, pretty instantly. If I know I’m going to be somewhere for eight hours, I pace myself for that, and adding on more time means I’ve been mis-pacing myself, and I’m basically a eight-hours-a-recharge battery who someone’s trying to get twelve hours out of.

I didn’t really understand what OCD was for a long time. They way I’ve always perceived OCD - which is, I think, how most people perceive it - is people with OCD are scared of germs and must have things neat. In reality, it’s unwanted, uncontrollable, sometimes dark thoughts called Obsessions, that cause anxiety that is lessened by Compulsions, actions that are believed to help the situation, but tend to set the obsessions into concrete more. Once I understood this, OCD and my own brain made more sense. I know what my compulsions are, I’ve kind of always known without knowing they were OCD compulsions. I don’t know or understand my obsessions are much, but I feel better knowing I’m not crazy for having certain thoughts, and for doing certain things even though I know they’re irrational.

When I was near the end of college, I talked to a doctor about my anxiety, she told me I most likely have GAD, and I started on medication. A few months ago - which was almost three and a half years later - I started to feel weird and I didn’t know why. Turns out, just like with abusive drugs, your body can build up a tolerance to medication, and my feeling weird was probably coming from that. This was around the time I learned about what OCD actual was, and I happened to learn that OCD and GAD used to be one disorder, then they were divided into two; so it’s possible to feel like you have part of one and part of the other. I talked to my doctor about this, he agreed that how I feel could be on par with OCD, but that’s as far as I’ve gotten for a diagnosis. We switched my medication to something that is like what I was taking and help with this too; as well as possibly help with something non-brain related I was having.

Which brings us to, MY BODY. I’m fine basically. Like, my back doesn’t work but that’s because I sit to work and that’s bad for the body. But my ovaries don’t work and that sucks. My uterus doesn’t work either. I read once about how the average person uses X number of tampons in their whole cycle, which is Y days; and I was like “I can use X number of tampons in a day, for ten days, whatttt.” So that organ doesn’t work. Whatever, back to my ovaries: I took some medication for a while that shut them down (which was supposed to happen) and when they woke back up, they didn’t work. Turns out they shrunk while they were “sleeping” and now I’ve basically started menopause. I’m 25 and I have “the night sweats”: stupid hot flashes that happen when I’m sleeping, even if it’s two degrees outside and I have the window open. I am twenty five years old and I wake up every night in the middle of the night, just sweaty as hell - some nights to the point that I towel off - like I’m post-middle age woman, you know, going through menopause. I’m so tired, I am tried of not being able to sleep, and I’m tired of being tired. I got an IUD to help with that and also cause my periods are A MESS™… helped a lot with my periods (until last week when - I kid you not - I passed my IDU. Like I bleed it out during my period, which happens to like, less than a percent of people. And I did not notice and that’s freaky. So now I have to get a new one) but anyway, it didn’t help with the Night Sweats™, which my ob/gyn was afraid might not happen, so I got prescribed estrogen patches (which I can’t start until I get my new IUD or the hormones won’t get along and it’ll make things worse. Or something). Whatever. 

If you read this whole thing, damn thanks. I will make you some cool art or something if you want. 

#aceweek #ace week #ocd #anxiety #asexual #gad #mental disability #mental disorder #mental illness #reproductive health #mine #my face #captain derp

[goforwardgreenwriter-blog]

The Worm Reads: Empire of Storms, Ch 28 - 29

I honestly don’t know how it can get worse from here.

So they start the real official meeting that Rowan called in Rolfe’s office, and Aelin wastes no time making me want to rip my eyes out.

[Rowan’s] face—oh, gods, [Aelin]’d missed that harsh, unyielding face

Back to Ratlin (that’s what I’m calling it from now on) splooging I see. Great. Can’t wait for multiple paragraphs of Aelin busting a nut at the thought of Rowan’s peen while SJM insists these books have a plot.

Aelin decided she didn’t particularly give a shit who was watching and rose up on her toes to brush her mouth against [Rowan’s].

UHHH WHAT THE FUCK AELIN. THIS IS AN IMPORTANT MEETINGS THAT’LL DETERMINE IF ROLFE JOINS YOUR WAR EFFORT OR NOT YOU CAN’T JUST - oh forget it, I’ll just sound like a broken record.

[Aelin] just prayed she’d be able to warn Aedion before he ran into his father - who was now sitting two seats down from her, gawking at her as if she had ten heads. Gods, even the expression was like Aedion’s. How hadn’t she noticed that this spring in Wendlyn?

My monkey brain is having feels because I’m sucker for the “child is spitting image of their parent” trope..... bad monkey brain.

“And who would verify the word of a nineteen-year-old princess?” [Aelin] jerked her chin at the wax-sealed tube. “Murtaugh Allsbrook would. He wrote you a nice, long letter about it.” Rolfe picked up the tube, studied it, and chucked it in a neat arc—right into his rubbish bin. The thud echoed through the office.

LMAOOOOOO YOU GO ROLFE!!! SLAY THAT BITCH!!!! I mean considering all the shit Aelin put him through I don’t blame him not wanting to align with her.

Rolfe let out a low laugh. “The talk of young idealists and dreamers.” “The world,” Aelin said, “will be saved and remade by the dreamers, Rolfe.”

See, this is the kind of shit I would be getting excited about if this was a good series. Sounds like something straight of Les Mis. SJM can come up with some good quotes, but if I don’t care about the horrible characters and there’s no plot, why should I give a shit?

Aelin purred, “Do you want gold, Rolfe? Do you want a title? Do you want glory or women or land? Or is it just the bloodlust that drives you?”

Oh my god, SJM is a furry!

Looks like you bid on the wrong horse [Rowan],” Rolfe crooned. He flicked his eyes to Dorian. “What news did you receive?” But that wrong horse [Rowan] cut in smoothly, “There was none. But you’ll be glad to know your spies at the Ocean Rose are certainly doing their job. And that His Majesty is quite an accomplished actor.”

Jesus Christ this writing

Dorian said coldly, “For a petty grudge, you’d refuse to consider allying with us?” Aelin snorted. “I’d hardly call wrecking his shit-poor city and ships a ‘petty grudge.’”

T-this... this can’t be. I am reading Empire of Storms by SJM, right? Aelin? Having self awareness? In my SJM book? Well, it’s more likely... to never appear again.

Rolfe tells Aelin to go fuck herself and that scene ends, permanently establishing Rolfe as one of the few Well Written Characters. I want him, Darrow, Manon, and Gav to leave this shitty series and go forth to a better one.

Aelin hit the narrow hallway, a wall of muscle at her back and by her side, and faced another dilemma: Aedion.

I smell Aedion daddy issues angst over the horizon. Also, are the ‘walls of muscle’ supposed to be Rowan and... the other Fae??? God SJM stop jerking off to your own characters for 5 minutes please.

Aelin made it all of three steps down the hall when Gavriel said behind her, “Where is he?” Slowly, she looked back. The warrior’s tan face was tight, his eyes full of sorrow and steel.

Damn, I just feel really bad for Gav. Keep in mind I don’t remember why he left Aedion (if it was revealed previously) but I’m hoping SJM actually uses him and makes him a good father, this series is severely lacking in good parental figures.

But Aelin sucked on a tooth

“You don’t get to decide when and where and how you meet him,” Aelin said. “He’s my gods-damned son. I think I do.”

Nooo SJM I’m begging you I like Gav please don’t make him a toxic fuckboi pleeeeeease

Aelin just tells Gav not to order her around and that scene ends...? Okay. I hope SJM is implying Gav calmed down and respected his son’s boundaries. I just want one character to stay good and pure and to be a good father is that too much to ask.

Later Aelin goes to have a chat with Dorian.

“It seems you and I are currently without crowns, thanks to a few bullshit pieces of paper.” Dorian didn’t return her smile. The stairs groaned beneath them as they headed for the second floor. They were almost to the room Dorian had indicated when he said, “Maybe that’s a good thing.”

I mean, Dorian, you seem like a good king who would fight to defend his people. You deserve to be king. But Aelin? Yeah if she was queen her kingdom would be already burnt to the ground, so you’re half right.

They have another meeting where Rowan/Dorian share more information about the witches.

“Manon Blackbeak,” Aedion mused, “would be a valuable ally, if we can get her to turn.”

NO NONO NO NO KEEP MANON’S BEAUTIFUL SELF AWAY FROM AELIN’S CRUSTY ASS I’M BEGGING

It was never-ending, [Aelin] supposed while they dined that night on peppered crab and spiced rice.

Reading this as a Cape Bretoner was a mistake. Now I’m hungry for some good seafood..... mmmm, battered fish and chips.....

And [Aelin] was to be given nothing more than obscure commands by long-dead royals to find a way to stop it, nothing more than gods-damned months to rally a force against him.

Gods-damned is a stupid word and SJM should feel bad for abusing it. Aelin decides to make sure Rolfe’s hand maps work and the chapter ends. Next!

Too many animals loitering about the streets at this hour would attract the wrong sort of attention. But Aedion still wished that the shifter was wearing fur or feathers compared to … this.

Greaaat are we gonna get Aedion slut shaming Lysandra? Just what I wanted....

He glanced at the delicate gold chain dangling around Lysandra’s pale throat, tracing its length down the front of her bodice, to where the Amulet of Orynth was now hidden beneath. “Admiring the view?” Aedion snapped his eyes up from the generous swells of her breasts. “Sorry.”

The only reason Lysandra is wearing the Amulet is so Aedion can drool over her boobies. I’m right and you all know it.

“Rowan claimed Rolfe would find the amulet interesting enough to go after it.” “Rowan and Aelin have a tendency to say one thing and mean something else entirely.” Aedion heaved a breath through his nose.

Aedion actually criticizing Aelin?? What the fuck is going on??

Lysandra gets pissy when Aedion points out she’s tired. Not even to condescend towards her, he’s actually concerned, so calm down, Lysandra. We get an ““““explanation”“““ for Lysandra’s shifting powers.

Each shift took something out of Lysandra. The bigger the change, the bigger the animal, the steeper the cost. Aedion had witnessed her morph from butterfly to bumblebee to hummingbird to bat within the span of a few minutes. But going from human to ghost leopard to bear or elk or horse, she’d once demonstrated, took longer between shifts, the magic having to draw up the strength to become that size, to fill the body with all its inherent power.

Better than nothing, but... how does shifting into bigger animals exhaust her but shifting into smaller animals doesn't? Each time the mass of her body is changing, so shouldn’t shifting in general exhaust her? Btw, read Animorphs, it’s a great gritty series that deals with shifting powers way better.

Aedion, however, stiffened slightly as those steps grew closer, and he found himself staring at the son of his great enemy. King, now.

This is confusing as fuck. Stop referring to Dorian as king and use his name so we can understand who Aedion is staring at, thank you.

[Aedion] reined in his scowl as he said to the king, “So, you and Whitethorn didn’t kill each other.” Dorian’s brows scrunched. “He saved my life, nearly got himself burned out to do it. Why should I be anything but grateful?”

Great, now we have to add Rowan splooging that isn’t from Aelin to the list.

He did not resent what she had been, what she portrayed now, only the monsters who had seen the beauty the child would grow into and taken her into that brothel. Aelin had told him what Arobynn had done to the man she’d loved. It was a miracle the shifter could smile at all.

What the fuuuuck why is Aedion portrayed as ~noble and amazing~ for not judging Lysandra based on her past? It’s common human decency to not judge people for things out of their control!! Does SJM not understand how humans operate?

Aedion tells Dorian to fuck off and he leaves, and Lysandra gets understandably irritated by Aedion being a dick.

“He stabbed Aelin. If you knew him as I have, you wouldn’t be so willing to fawn over—”

1. Dorian was, to my memory, being controlled by a demon thing when he stabbed Aelin. He was not in his right mind, and did not have control over himself. Stop holding that over his head, you prick.

2. Aedion you were an asshole too! You tripped Dorian and sent him falling into a thorn bush when you two were walking in HOF. You fucking judgemental asshole, I cannot believe I ever liked you.

Aedion’s like “b-but he was an arrogant kid” and Lysandra, being voice of reason, is like “Um, we all were as kids Aedion, including Aelin” and we litERALLY GET THIS

“I don’t care if he was as arrogant and vain as Aelin, I don’t care if he was enslaved to a demon that took his mind. I look at him and see my family butchered, see those tracks to the river, and hear Quinn tell me that Aelin was drowned and dead.” His breathing was uneven, and his throat burned, but he ignored it.

JESUS TAP DANCING CHRIST. Okay, I’m not saying Aedion isn’t wrong to be weary of Dorian after what happened to his family at the hands of Dorian’s father but this is literally Aedion going “It’s only okay to be a dick if it’s Aelin! Everyone else is a bad ruler and should bow down to her uwu”

FUCKING HELL. I’m willing to bet if it had been Aelin mind controlled, Aedion would be jumping through hoops to justify her actions and convince everyone she couldn’t help herself. Assdion has no character outside of being a dick and kissing up Aelin’s ass. I fucking hat this character almost as much as I hate Aelin.

Aedion braced his palm against the wall again and leaned in to glower in [Lysandra’s] face. She did not yield an inch. “There is an order and rank in our court, lady, and last I checked, you were not number three. You don’t give me commands.”

(...) And the last I checked…” She poked his chest, right between his pectorals, and he could have sworn the tip of a claw pierced the skin beneath his clothes. “You weren’t pathetic enough to enforce rank to hide from being in the wrong.“

*Mortal Kombat voice* FINISH HIM

His blood sparked and thrummed. Aedion found himself taking in the sensuous curves of her mouth, now pressed thin with anger.

W.....

YOU TWO ARE ARGUING AND ASSDION SUDDENLY HAS A BONER OVER HER MOUTH. HOW THE FUCK IS THIS HEALTHY IN ANY SHAPE OR FORM. This is nearly as bad as the “kissing a spouse during an argument instead of solving the problem” trope.

By the way, Aedion is demoted to Assdion. Aelin to Alien, and Rowan to Rowboat. I hate these characters so much.

Lysandra backed away a step, too casual to be anything but a calculated move. But Aedion tried—for her sake, he tried to stop thinking about her mouth—

WHAT THE FUCK DOES SJM THINK ALL MEN ARE HORNDOGS WHO WANNA FUCK 24/7?? This is an incredibly upsetting and inaccurate stereotype! It’s not goddamn hard to not think with your dick for five seconds jfc

Too soon—she wouldn’t want a man’s touch for a long time. Maybe forever. And he’d be damned if he pushed her into it before she wanted to.

Are you sure about that? Because a minute ago you were nearly cumming at the thought of her mouth.

Subject changes and Assdion asks if his father wanted to see him.

“[Gav] nearly bit Aelin’s head off when she refused to tell him where and who you are.” Ice filled [Aedion’s] veins. If his father had been rude to her—“But I got the sense,” Lysandra quickly clarified as he tensed, “that he is the sort of male who would respect your wishes if you chose not to see him.

*sniffles* Gav deserves to be a good father.

“What would you do?” “I can’t answer that question. My own father…” She shook her head. He knew about that—the shifter-father who had either abandoned her mother or not even known she was pregnant. And then the mother who had thrown Lysandra into the street when she discovered her heritage. “Aedion, what do you want to do? Not for us, not for Terrasen, but for you.”

I would be having feels and starting to ship them had we not had a whole scene dedicated to Assdion being a dick and nearly kissing Lysandra without her consent sooooo

[Aedion] bowed his head a bit, glancing sidelong at the quiet street again. “My whole life has been … not about what I want. I don’t know how to choose those things.”

A little late there to make me feel sympathetic towards Assdion, SJM. You CANNOT have Assdion act as an Aelin worshiping prick and then turn around and expect me to feel bad for him.

Assdion asks Lysandra to come with him to meet his father the next day and then splooges about how much he apparently cares about Lysandra.  I don’t care.

From the shadows of his hood, he monitored the alley ahead, the shadows and shafts of moonlight, bracing himself. They’d picked the dead-end alley for a reason. The girl realized her mistake a step too late. “Oh.”

The girl is Rolfe’s barmaid. She immediately leaves and they suspect she’s Rolfe’s spy. Finally, I am free from this god awful chapter.

#the worm talks #the worm reads: eos #anti sjm #anti tog #anti eos

[boreothegoldfinch]

chapter 10 paragraph v

Almost three hours later I was still sitting in a red vinyl booth in the Polack bar, flashing Christmas lights, annoying mix of punk rock and Christmas polka music honking away on the jukebox, fed up from waiting and wondering if he was going to show or not, if maybe I should just go home. I didn’t even have his information—it had all happened so fast. In the past I’d Googled Boris for the hell of it—never a whisper—but then I’d never envisioned Boris as having any kind of a life that might be traceable online. He might have been anywhere, doing anything: mopping a hospital floor, carrying a gun in some foreign jungle, picking up cigarette butts off the street. It was getting toward the end of Happy Hour, a few students and artist types trickling in among the pot-bellied old Polish guys and grizzled, fifty-ish punks. I’d just finished my third vodka; they poured them big, it was foolish to order another one; I knew I should get something to eat but I wasn’t hungry and my mood was turning bleaker and darker by the moment. To think that he’d blown me off after so many years was incredibly depressing. If I had to be philosophical, at least I’d been diverted from my dope mission: hadn’t OD’d, wasn’t vomiting in some garbage can, hadn’t been ripped off or run in for trying to buy from an undercover cop— “Potter.” There he was, sliding in across from me, slinging the hair from his face in a gesture that brought the past ringing back. “I was just about to leave.” “Sorry.” Same dirty, charming smile. “Had something to do. Didn’t Myriam explain?” “No she didn’t.” “Well. Is not like I work in accounting office. Look,” he said, leaning forward, palms on the table, “don’t be mad! Was not expecting to run into you! I came as quick as I could! Ran, practically!” He reached across with cupped hand and slapped me gently on the cheek. “My God! Such a long time it is! Glad to see you! You’re not glad to see me too?” He’d grown up to be good-looking. Even at his gawkiest and most pinched he’d always had a likable shrewdness about him, lively eyes and a quick intelligence, but he’d lost that half-starved rawness and everything else had come together the right way. His skin was weather-beaten but his clothes fell well, his features were sharp and nervy, cavalry hero by way of concert pianist; and his tiny gray snaggleteeth—I saw—had been replaced by a standard-issue row of all-American whites. He saw me looking, flicked a showy incisor with his thumbnail. “New snaps.” “I noticed.” “Dentist in Sweden did it,” said Boris, signalling for a waiter. “Cost a fucking fortune. My wife kept after me—Borya, your mouth, disgraceful! I said no way am I doing this, but was the best money I ever spent.” “When’d you get married?” “Eh?” “You could have brought her if you wanted.” He looked startled. “What, you mean Myriam? No, no—” reaching into the pocket of his suit jacket, punching around on his telephone, “Myriam’s not my wife! This—” he handed me the phone—“this is my wife. What are you drinking?” he said, before turning to address the waiter in Polish. The photo on the iPhone was of a snow-topped chalet and, out in front, a beautiful blonde on skis. At her side, also on skis, were a pair of bundled-up little blond kids of indeterminate sex. It didn’t look so much like a snapshot as an ad for some healthful Swiss product like yogurt or Bircher muesli.

I looked up at him stunned. He glanced away, with a Russianate gesture of old: yeah, well, it is what it is. “Your wife? Seriously?” “Yah,” he said, with a lifted eyebrow. “My kids, too. Twins.” “Fuck.” “Yes,” he said regretfully. “Born when I was very young—too young. It wasn’t a good time—she wanted to keep them—‘Borya, how could you’— what could I say? To be truthful I don’t know them so well. Actually the little one—he is not in the picture—the little one I have not met at all. I think he is only, what? Six weeks old?” “What?” Again I looked at the picture, struggling to reconcile this wholesome Nordic family with Boris. “Are you divorced?” “No no no—” the vodka had arrived, icy carafe and two tiny glasses, he was pouring a shot for each of us—“Astrid and the children are mostly in Stockholm. Sometimes she comes to Aspen to the winter, to ski—she was ski champion, qualified for the Olympics when she was nineteen—” “Oh yeah?” I said, doing my best not to sound incredulous at this. The kids, as was fairly evident upon closer viewing, looked far too blond and bonny to be even vaguely related to Boris. “Yes yes,” said Boris, very earnestly, with a vigorous nod of the head. “She always has to be where there is skiing and—you know me, I hate the fucking snow, ha! Her father very very right-wing—a Nazi basically. I think —no wonder Astrid has depression problems with father like him! What a hateful old shit! But they are very unhappy and miserable people, all of them, these Swedes. One minute laughing and drinking and the next—darkness, not a word. Dziękuję,” he said to the waiter, who had reappeared with a tray of small plates: black bread, potato salad, two kinds of herring, cucumbers in sour cream, stuffed cabbage, and some pickled eggs. “I didn’t know they served food here.” “They don’t,” said Boris, buttering a slice of black bread and sprinkling it with salt. “But am starving. Asked them to bring something from next door.” He clinked his shot glass with mine. “Sto lat!” he said—his old toast. “Sto lat.” The vodka was aromatic and flavored with some bitter herb I couldn’t identify. “So,” I said, helping myself to some food. “Myriam?” “Eh?” I held out open palms in our childhood gesture: please explain. “Ah, Myriam! She works for me! Right-hand man, suppose you’d say. Although, I’ll tell you, she’s better than any man you’ll find. What a woman, my God. Not many like her, I’ll tell you. Worth her weight in gold. Here here,” he said, refilling my glass and sliding it back to me. “Za vstrechu!” lifting his own to me. “To our meeting!” “Isn’t it my turn to toast?” “Yes, it is—” clinking my glass—“but I am hungry and you are waiting too long.” “To our meeting, then.” “To our meeting! And to fortune! For bringing us together again!” As soon as we’d drunk, Boris fell immediately on the food. “And what exactly is it that you do?” I asked him. “This, that.” He still ate with the innocent, gobbling hunger of a child. “Many things. Getting by, you know?” “And where do you live? Stockholm?” I said, when he didn’t answer. He waved an expansive hand. “All over.” “Like—?” “Oh, you know. Europe, Asia, North and South America…” “That covers a lot of territory.” “Well,” he said, mouth full of herring, wiping a glob of sour cream off his chin, “am also small business owner, if you understand me rightly.” “Sorry?” He washed down the herring with a big slug of beer. “You know how it is. My official business so called is housecleaning agency. Workers from Poland, mostly. Nice pun in title of business, too. ‘Polish Cleaning Service.’ Get it?” He bit into a pickled egg. “What’s our motto, can you guess? ‘We clean you out,’ ha!”

I chose to let that one lie. “So you’ve been in the States this whole time?” “Oh no!” He had poured us each a new shot of vodka, was lifting his glass to me. “Travel a lot. I am here maybe six, eight weeks of the year. And the rest of the time—” “Russia?” I said, downing my shot, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. “Not so much. Northern Europe. Sweden, Belgium. Germany sometimes.” “I thought you went back.” “Eh?” “Because—well. I never heard from you.” “Ah.” Boris rubbed his nose sheepishly. “It was a messed up time. Remember your house—that last night?” “Of course.” “Well. I’d never seen so much drugs in my life. Like half an ounce of coka and didn’t sell one stitch of it, not even one quarter gram. Gave a lot away, sure—was very popular at school, ha! Everyone loved me! But most of it— right up my nose. Then—the baggies we found—tablets of all assortments— remember? Those little greens? Some very serious cancer-patient-end-of-life pills—your dad must have been crazy addicted if he was taking that stuff.” “Yeah, I wound up with some of those too.” “Well then, you know! They don’t even make those good green oxys any more! Now they have the junkie-defeat so you can’t shoot them or snort! But your dad? Like—to go from drinking to that? Better a drunk in the street, any old day. First one I did—passed out before I hit my second line, if Kotku hadn’t been there—” he drew a finger across his throat—“pfft.” “Yep,” I said, remembering my own stupid bliss, keeling face-down on my desk upstairs at Hobie’s. “Anyway—” Boris downed his vodka in a gulp and poured us both another—“Xandra was selling it. Not that. That was your dad’s. For his own personal. But the other, she was dealing from where she worked. That couple Stewart and Lisa? Those like super straight real-estate looking people? They were bankrolling her.” I put down my fork. “How do you know that?” “Because she told me! And I guess they got ugly when she came up short, too. Like Mr. Lawyer Face and Miss Daisy Tote Bag all nice and kind at your house… petting her on the head… ‘what can we do’… ‘Poor Xandra…’ ‘we’re so sorry for you’… then their drugs are gone—phew. Different story! I felt really bad when she told me, for what we’d done! Big trouble for her! But, by then—” flicking his nose—“was all up here. Kaput.” “Wait—Xandra told you this?” “Yes. After you left. When I was living over there with her.” “You need to back up a little bit.” Boris sighed. “Well, okay. Is long story. But we have not seen each other in long while, right?” “You lived with Xandra?” “You know—in and out. Four-five months maybe. Before she moved back to Reno. I lost touch with her after that. My dad had gone back to Australia, see, and also Kotku and I were on the rocks—”

“That must have been really weird.” “Well—sort of,” he said restlessly. “See—” leaning back, signalling to the waiter again—“I was in pretty bad shape. I’d been up for days. You know how it is when you crash hard off cocaine—terrible. I was alone and really frightened. You know that sickness in your soul—fast breaths, lots of fear, like Death will reach a hand out and take you? Thin—dirty—scared shivering. Like a little half-dead cat! And Christmas too—everyone away! Called a bunch of people, no one picking up—went by this guy Lee’s where I stayed in the pool house sometime but he was gone, door locked. Walking and walking—staggering almost. Cold and frightened! Nobody home! So I went by to Xandra’s. Kotku was not talking to me by then.” “Man, you had some kind of serious balls. I wouldn’t have gone back there for a million dollars.” “I know, it took some onions, but was so lonely and ill. Mouth all gittering. Like—where you want to lie still and to look at a clock and count your heartbeats? except no place to lie still? and you don’t have a clock? Almost in tears! Didn’t know what to do! Didn’t even know was she still there. But lights were on—only lights on the street—came around by the glass door and there she was, in her same Dolphins shirt, in the kitchen making margaritas.” “What’d she do?” “Ha! Wouldn’t let me in, at first! Stood in the door and yelled a long while —cursed me, called me every name! But then I started crying. And when I asked could I stay with her?”—he shrugged—“she said yes.” “What?” I said, reaching for the shot he’d poured me. “You mean like stay stay—?” “I was scared! She let me sleep in her room! With TV turned to Christmas movies!” “Hmn.” I could see he wanted me to press for details, only from his gleeful expression I was not so sure I believed him about the sleeping-in-herroom business, either. “Well, glad that worked out for you, I guess. She say anything about me?” “Well, yes a little.” He chortled. “A lot actually! Because, I mean, don’t be mad, but I blamed some things on you.” “Glad I could help.” “Yes, of course!” He clinked my glass jubilantly. “Many thanks! You’d do the same, I wouldn’t mind. Honest, though, poor Xandra, I think she was glad to see me. To see anyone. I mean—” throwing his shot back—“it was crazy… those bad friends… she was all alone out there. Drinking a lot, afraid to go to work. Something could have happened to her, easy—no neighbors, really creepy. Because Bobo Silver—well, Bobo was actually not so bad guy. ‘The Mensch’? They don’t call him that for nothing! Xandra was scared to death of him but he didn’t go after her for your dad’s debt, not serious anyway. Not at all. And your dad was in for a lot. Probably he realized she was broke—your dad had fucked her over good and proper, too. Might as well be decent about it. Can’t get blood out of a turnip. But those other people, those friends of hers so called, were mean like bankers. You know? ‘You owe me,’ really hard, fucking connected, scary. Worse than him! Not so big sum even, but she was still way short and they were being nasty, all—” (mocking head tilt, aggressive finger point) “ ‘fuck you, we’re not going to wait, you better figure something out,’ like that. Anyway—good I went back when I did because then I was able to help.” “Help how?” “By giving her back the moneys I took.”

“You’d kept it?” “Well, no,” he said reasonably. “Had spent it. But—had something else going, see. Because right after the coke ran out? I had taken the money to Jimmy at the gun shop and bought more. See, I was buying it for me and Amber—just the two of us. Very very beautiful girl, very innocent and special. Very young too, like only fourteen! But just that one night at MGM Grand, we had got so close, just sitting on the bathroom floor all night up at KT’s dad’s suite and talking. Didn’t even kiss! Talk talk talk! I all but wept from it. Really opened up our hearts to each other. And—” hand to his breastbone—“I felt so sad when the day came, like why did it have to be over? Because we could have sat there talking forever to each other! and been so perfect and happy! That’s how close we got to each other, see, in just that one night. Anyway—this is why I went to Jimmy. He had really shitty coke— not half so good as Stewart and Lisa’s. But everyone knew, see—everyone had heard about that weekend at MGM Grand, me with all that blow. So people came to me. Like—dozen people my first day back at school. Throwing their moneys at me. ‘Will you get me some… will you get me some… will you get some for my bro… I have ADD, I need it for my homework.…’ Pretty soon was selling to senior football players and half the basketball team. Lots of girls too… friends of Amber and KT’s… Jordan’s friends too… college students at UNLV! Lost money on the first few batches I sold—didn’t know what to ask, sold fat for low price, wanted everyone to like me, yah yah yah. But once I figured it out—I was rich! Jimmy gave me huge discount, he was making lots of green off it too. I was doing him big favor, see, selling drugs to kids too scared to buy them—scared of people like Jimmy who sold them. KT… Jordan… those girls had a lot of money! Always happy to front me. Coke is not like E—I sold that too, but it was up and down, whole bunch then none for days, for coka I had a lot of regulars and they called two and three times a week. I mean, just KT—” “Wow.” Even after so many years, her name struck a chord. “Yes! To KT!” We raised our glasses and drank. “What a beauty!” Boris slammed his glass down. “I used to get dizzy around her. Just to breathe her same air.”

“Did you sleep with her?” “No… God, I tried… but she gave me a hand job in her little brother’s bedroom one night when she was wasted and in a very nice mood.” “Man, I sure left at the wrong time.” “You sure did. I came in my pants before she even got the zip down. And KT’s allowance—” reaching for my empty shot glass. “Two thousand a month! That is what she got for clothes only! Only KT already has so many clothes it is like, why does she need to buy more? Anyway by Christmas for me it was like in the movies where they have the ching-ching and the dollar signs. Phone never stopped ringing. Everybody’s best friend! Girls I never saw before, kissing me, giving me gold jewelry off their own necks! I was doing all the drugs I could do, drugs every day, every night, lines as long as my hand, and still money everywhere. I was like the Scarface of our school! One guy gave me a motorcycle—another guy, a used car. I would go to pick my clothes from off the floor—hundreds of dollars falling out from the pockets—no idea where it came from.” “This is a lot of information, really fast.” “Well, tell me about it! This is my usual learning process. They say experience is good teacher, and normally is true, but I am lucky this experience did not kill me. Now and then… when I have some beers sometimes… I’ll maybe hit a line or two? But mostly I do not like it any more. Burned myself out good. If you had met me maybe five years ago? I was all like—” sucking in his cheeks—“so. But—” the waiter had reappeared with more herring and beer—“enough about all that. You—” he looked me up and down—“what? Doing very nicely for yourself, I’d say?” “All right, I guess.” “Ha!” He leaned back with his arm along the back of the booth. “Funny old world, right? Antiques trade? The old poofter? He got you in to it?” “That’s right.” “Big racket, I heard.” “That’s right.” He eyed me up and down. “You happy?” he said. “Not very.” “Listen, then! I have great idea! Come work for me!” I burst out laughing. “No, not kidding! No no,” he said, shushing me imperiously as I tried to talk over him, pouring me a new shot, sliding the glass across the table to me, “what is he giving you? Serious. I will give you two times.” “No, I like my job—” over-pronouncing the words, was I as wrecked as I sounded?—“I like what I do.” “Yes?” He lifted his glass to me. “Then why aren’t you happy?” “I don’t want to talk about it.” “And why not?” I waved my hand dismissively. “Because—” I’d lost track quite how many shots I’d had. “Just because.” “If not job then—which is it?” He had thrown back his own shot, tossing his head grandly, and started in on the new plate of herring. “Money problems? Girl?” “Neither.” “Girl then,” he said triumphantly. “I knew it.” “Listen—” I drained the rest of my vodka, slapped the table—what a genius I was, I couldn’t stop smiling, I’d had the best idea in years!—“enough of this. Come on—let’s go! I’ve got a big big surprise for you.” “Go?” said Boris, visibly bristling. “Go where?” “Come with me. You’ll see.” “I want to stay here.” “Boris—” He sat back. “Let it go, Potter,” he said, putting his hands up. “Just relax.” “Boris!” I looked at the bar crowd, as if expecting mass outrage, and then back at him. “I’m sick of sitting here! I’ve been here for hours.” “But—” He was annoyed. “I cleared this whole night for you! I had stuff to do! You’re leaving?” “Yes! And you’re coming with me. Because—” I threw my arms out —“you have to see the surprise!” “Surprise?” He threw down his balled-up napkin. “What surprise?” “You’ll find out.” What was the matter with him? Had he forgotten how to have fun? “Now come on, let’s get out of here.” “Why? Now?” “Just because!” The bar room was a dark roar; I’d never felt so sure of myself in my life, so pleased at my own cleverness. “Come on. Drink up!” “Do we really have to do this?” “You’ll be glad. Promise. Come on!” I said, reaching over and shaking his shoulder amicably as I thought. “I mean, no shit, this is a surprise you can’t believe how good.”

He leaned back with folded arms and regarded me suspiciously. “I think you are angry with me.” “Boris, what the fuck.” I was so drunk I stumbled, standing up, and had to catch myself on the table. “Don’t argue. Let’s just go.” “I think it is a mistake to go somewhere with you.” “Oh?” I looked at him with one half closed eye. “You coming, or not?” Boris looked at me coolly. Then he pinched the bridge of his nose and said: “You won’t tell me where we’re going.” “No.” “You won’t mind if my driver takes us then?” “Your driver?” “Sure. He is waiting like two-three blocks away.” “Fuck.” I looked away and laughed. “You have a driver?” “You don’t mind if we go with him, then?” “Why would I?” I said, after a brief pause. Drunk as I was, his manner had brought me up short: he was looking at me with a peculiar, calculating, uninflected quality I had never seen before. Boris tossed back the rest of his vodka and then stood up. “Very well,” he said, twirling an unlit cigarette loosely in his fingertips. “Let’s get this nonsense over with, then.”

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[spider-moon-princess]

Time Travel CH 18

Omg, 18! I’m having too much fun writing this! 

Part Seventeen

Masterlist

----++----

Shinpachi, Heisuke and Sanosuke had gone back to the gym to work out some more.

 “Yosh! Let’s work on some crunches now!”

 Sanosuke set his weights down, grabbing a towel from the bench. “Shinpachi! Haven’t we done enough today?” Heisuke flopped on the floor. “I’m with Sano-san! I can’t do this anymore!”

“Pshh, you two have such little stamina. Let’s take five and run on the treadmills then!” He sat down next to Heisuke, grabbing his green water bottle to take a swig of water.

 The little click-click of heels had Sanosuke snapping to attention. There was a reason that Shinpachi was so eager on dragging out his gym time, and this only made it clearer. He pretended not to see her as she approached the trio. He wiped his brow with his towel.

 Finally, the click-click of heels stopped right behind Shinpachi. He stiffened a bit, hesitant to turn around.

 “Shin!” Hands on her hips, a pout on her pink glossed lips, and her were eyebrows furrowed in displeasure.

 Shinpachi immediately stood up to face her. “A-ah, Etsu!” His heart skipped a beat, looking at her. She was wearing a flared red dress that hugged her curves that reached above her knees. “Wh-what brings you here?”

 “You know exactly what, Nagakura Shinpachi!” She crossed her arms. “You went to the club again, didn’t you?”

 “Just for a bit…just for a drink with Sano!” He knew he was better off telling the truth. Yeah, he liked going to the clubs, but it was mostly for the bar and ambiance. He had no interest in other women, only her. “Na, Sano?”

 Sanosuke gave her a sheepish smile. “I was watching this idiot the whole time, once he was drunk off his ass, he was listing things that he loved about you. I had to listen to him during the car ride home.” He chuckled.

 Etsu’s expression softened. She knew Sano-san never lied to her. Though she trusted Shinpachi, she couldn’t help but be doubtful once in a while. He was an attractive man, women and men looked his way when they walked out in public holding hands. She trusted he wouldn’t cheat on her, but she certainly didn’t trust the majority of girls at a club or bar. “Really, Shin?”

 “Maa, I don’t remember much, but I guess I can repeat it for you…” His cheeks were dusted with pink.

 “Ooooh, Shi~in!” She lunged forward, tackling him in a hug. “Tell me over dinner!”

 Shinpachi chuckled, giving her cheek a peck. “Okay, okay, let me get changed and I’ll meet you in my office.”

 Giggling, she nodded happily and tip-toed to kiss his cheek. Even with her three-inch heels, she still couldn’t reach his cheeks.

 “Geez…” Heisuke watched her leave for his office. “You two fight and make up over nothing.”

 “We do not fight, we have small disagreements from time to time. Besides, Etsu’s such a catch.” Shinpachi grinned like a fool in love, which was what he was. “She knows how to cook, she’s kind, beautiful, she’s got curves, she’s a D, and thick thighs for me to rest my head on-”

“Oi, oi, Shinpachi, save it for dinner.” Sanosuke shook his head, clapping him on the back as they went to hit the showers.

 --

Chizuru and Hijikata-sensei had agreed that he would bring Okita-san as soon as the discharge papers went through. She decided to go home after changing to set things up for him.

 Souji was alone in the room. He closed his eyes and tried to take a nap, but little flashes of what he wanted to call memories came to him.

 Chizuru cooking, their first kiss, studying with Chizuru, Hajime-kun, and Heisuke-kun, little bits of things here and there he didn't understand.

 Just what the hell was going on? These thoughts, memories, weren't his, but they were in his head.

 "Oi, Souji." Hijikata-san opened the door.

 Souji chuckled, "The Hijikata-san I know also never knocks." He stood up and stretched until his back popped a bit.

 "Let's get going, the papers went through." He grabbed the file folder and opened a bit to check its contents. A birth certificate, an ID, even a high school diploma...He really did not want to know how Sannan-san got a hold of these documents.

 Souji followed him out to the parking lot, grimacing slightly when he heard a loud roar. "Hijikata-san, what are all these machines?" He looked around them. The machines were similar shapes, but different colors. They all were in neat rows, though some here and there were placed crookedly.

 “Cars. They’re like our modern horses.” Toshizō opened the passenger door of his black sports car. “Come on, Souji, I don’t have all day.” He glanced at his iPhone 4, smiling lightly as he got a reminder from Satomi to come home for dinner. He didn’t forget, but she knew to send him little reminders in case he did lose track of time. He shut the door after Souji and quickly responded that he’d be home after dropping Souji off at Chizuru’s.

 “Modern horses?” Souji mused, looking around the car. He had the urge to press buttons that lit up when Hijikata-san brought the modern horse to life. What had he called it, a car?

 “Souji! Don’t touch anything! It can be dangerous if you press the wrong thing while I’m driving.” He had spotted that devious glint in his eyes. Sighing, he started driving out of the parking lot, the car picking up speed once he was out on the road.

 Souji grasped the seat for support as Hijikata-san started to go faster. He didn’t like this car thing, though it was more convenient than a horse or walking. He had to admit that when Hijikata-san made the turns rather harshly, it made him a biiiiit scared for his life. He chuckled nervously. “Are these cars meant to go this fast?”

 Toshizō smirked, pressing down on the accelerator, passing other cars by. He wasn’t a reckless driver, but he certainly was a speed demon. “Oh sure, this one is built to go rather fast. She’s meant to drive fast.” He could see Souji was scared shitless by his driving, and he was relishing every moment of it. He smoothly parked the car near Chizuru’s apartment. “Well, here we are. Didn’t take long at all.” He probably broke over twenty traffic laws, but it was so worth it, especially when Souji crawled out of the car on all fours.

 Oh, sweet solid ground. Souji took a few moments before he stood up. He’d gotten a little nauseous with the car moving at such high velocity.

He never, ever wanted to get in the same car as Hijikata-san again.

 --

 Toshizō led him to Chizuru’s apartment. “I can’t stay, but you’re going to tell him, right?”

 Chizuru nodded, looking over at Souji; he was busy staring at pictures she had up on the wall. “Yes, Hijikata-sensei.”

 “Good. Here’s his medicine, the file from Sannan-san, and the journals. Good luck, Yukimura.”

 Chizuru bowed and set the box inside, next to the coffee table.

 His jade green eyes stared at a few pictures on the wall. There was one of him, Heisuke-kun and Hajime-kun. They were wearing some type of uniform, Heisuke had his arms around the both of them, grinning, and even Hajime was sporting a slight smile. His future self was smiling so happily, it made him a little jealous.

 There was another picture that caught his eye of his future self, Hijikata-san, and Shinpachi-san. The three of them wore lab coats, making funny poses in front of a crowd of children.

 Chizuru came behind him, staring at the same picture, a smile spread instantly. “That’s one of my favorite. Kondō-san was out sick, but he was supposed to read to the children in the hospital, so he asked Hijikata-sensei, Nagakura-san, and Souji-kun to read it in his place instead.” She laughed at the memory. They had ended up doing a rather unorthodox version of Momotaro, thanks to Souji.* Hijikata-sensei and Nagakura-san chased him around the halls for deviating from the story by bringing in a gorilla instead of a monkey that Nagakura-san had to provide the voice for and the rest of the characters, and making Hijikata-sensei the demon. She’d been in the back, laughing with the rest of the children. They’d loved it so much.

 “Hmm, sounds interesting.” Souji stepped cautiously towards the living room as he looked around. This is where he would be living now. With Chizuru.

 “Ah, Okita-san…” Chizuru went to sit on the couch, taking out a packet from the box that Hijikata-sensei had given her. “…You probably have questions about the Shinsengumi, don’t you?”

Souji took the seat next to her, crossing his arms. “Many.”

 “...This packet of information should clear a few things up.”

 Souji took it from her, quickly scanning the first page. He skipped ahead to find out about Kondō-san.

 He nearly tore the damn paper in half. His jade green eyes furiously looked over at Chizuru. “Ne, Chizuru-chan, this is a lie, isn’t it?” His voice shook slightly. “Kondō-san would never surrender!”

 Chizuru remained silent as Souji reread the end of the paragraph that described Kondō-san’s death.

 “The fucking bastards didn’t even let him commit seppuku?! They beheaded him like some animal?! Where the hell was Hijikata-san?!” Souji threw the packet down, bowing his head. “Tell me that’s a lie, Chizuru-chan…tell me that he at least got to commit seppuku like the warrior he is…”

 They sat there for a few moments, Souji waiting for Chizuru to tell him the truth.

 “...He deserved that honor…He was…He…” His voice broke, unable to say anymore. He hated showing this side to anyone. He was Okita Souji, Captain of the First Division of the Shinsengumi. He didn’t shed tears. 

 Chizuru gently pulled him into her arms, burying her face into his hair, feeling his tears on her arm. There was nothing she could say to him that could ease the pain of losing a loved one in such a horrible manner. If her Souji had the same relationship with Kondō-san that Okita-san had with the Kondō-san in his time, he thought the world of him. She couldn’t do anything to ease the pain in his heart, so she just held him, hoping that her presence could be of even of even the slightest bit of comfort to him.

Part Nineteen

----++-----

*This is actually from one of the Hakuouki SSL drama CDs, I seriously recommend listening to it LMAO, although idk if it has any translations out. 

On another note, I’ll slowllyyyy be adding in the OCs and interactions! I started with mine, since I know her the best LOL, but they’ll get their time to shine, I promise! 

 AND FEELS, I KEPT SEEING SOUJI BREAK DOWN IN CHIZURU’S ARMS AND I JUST- ToT ToT 

#time travel souji au #hakuouki #hakuoki #okita souji #fanfic

[pumpkinpetals]

Beauty Is Found Within

Chapter Eight

Beauty & the Beast Malec AU

Summary:  Alec asks Magnus for something but the Warlock ends up having to reveal his reasons for working with Robert and Maryse.

Quote:  “Tentatively, Alec allowed himself to look at the Warlock again and he found himself admiring...”

Warnings: There is a homophobic slur in the 10th paragraph.

Read on AO3 here.

Enjoy my little croissants!

An hour later, Alec was starting to fidget. He had always prided himself on that fact that he was a patient man but, because of his parents, Alec had no idea how long he would have to wait.

Magnus sashayed back into the room. The Warlock had been working on some kind of…thing in the corner of the living room but Alec didn’t have the nerve to get up and look. After he had been caught snooping in Magnus’ room, the Shadowhunter wanted to wait until he had explicit permission to do something before he did it.

Several magazines were fanned out over the coffee table. They were all brightly coloured and there were at least five pairs of shoes staring up at him.

Hesitantly, Alec leant forwards and opened the one closest to him. He was met with an article about ‘embracing your true self’. Alec’s eyes scanned the page briefly and he found that it was encouraging the reader to change their hairstyle or eyebrows or fashion choices. However, that didn’t stop the Nephilim from glancing up to where Magnus was bent over an ancient looking desk.

Alec found his eyes moving to the floor automatically when he realised he wasn’t at the Institute anymore. Tentatively, Alec allowed himself to look at the Warlock again and he found himself admiring the soft yet strong line of Magnus’ shoulders and the way his arms filled his purple shirt.

 Alec had always been aware of his attraction towards men. When he and Jace first met, he found something appealing about the way the other boy stood, the way his jaw seemed to harden as they got older. Of course, he didn’t feel that way about Jace anymore. Something about Jace’s constant pursuit of girls in their hormone-raged years had made him unappealing. Alec truly believed he wasn’t been obvious when he stared at the occasional boy he thought was pretty or interesting. His parents still found out that he was gay when Izzy, unbeknownst to their homophobia, commented on it over dinner.

Robert and Maryse sent him to an extreme training camp in Idris for eight months. It was supposed to exhaust him so much that he would forgot he liked boys.

Needless to say, it didn’t work.

Izzy sent him a fire message every day, apologizing for outing him. When Izzy turned fifteen and started ‘fraternizing’ with the Downworlder’s, their parents summoned Alec home and kept him under lock and key.

In his first week back at the Institute, Alec had smiled at Raj and Raj had broken his nose and called him a faggot. Because of this, Alec had learnt to keep his eyes in one of three places: the floor, the ceiling or the wall.

 “Hey, pretty boy.” Magnus’ voice bought Alec back to the present and he looked up from the floor to the Warlock.

“What?” Alec said. He didn’t mean to sound so harsh but Magnus brushed it off.

“I’ve got to let this sit for a while. Do you want to do something?”

Something deep within Alec desperately wanted to say yes but the words tumbled past his lips before he could stop them.

“You’re the High Warlock of Brooklyn. I’m sure you’ve got better things to do than babysit me.”

This made Magnus frown.

“It’s hardly babysitting. You’re what, nineteen?”

“Twenty.”

Magnus smiled.

“See, a fully grown adult.” Something flashed behind Magnus eyes but he spoke past it. “Now, we can watch a movie, we can have a pillow fight, we can play strip poker, we can dance, I can give you a make-over, you can…well, what do you like to do?” Magnus sat down on the other side of the sofa and stared at Alec. The Shadowhunter squirmed under Magnus’ appraisal.

“I don’t know,” he said quietly and tried to look at something without being weird, “I like to read. I’m good at fighting. There’s not exactly a lot of room for extracurricular activities at the Institute.”

Magnus put his elbow against the back of the sofa and rested his head in his hand.

“Well, is there anything you’ve wanted to try that we can perhaps make possible inside of my apartment?”

Alec’s eyes went to Magnus’ lips for half a second before resting on the Warlock’s eyes.

“I wanna see Izzy. I know I can’t leave but can you just show me her or something? When our parents find out that I swapped places with her they’re gonna be insanely mad and I can’t do anything until I know that she’s alright.”

Magnus’ lips pressed together but he nodded and stood up. He disappeared into a cupboard in the hallway and returned with an ornate, silver mirror about the size of Alec’s head.

Magnus handed the mirror to Alec and the Shadowhunter was surprised by its weight.

“What is this?” Alec asked and Magnus sat beside him, less than five inches between them.

“It was enchanted by a friend of mine called Ragnor.” Magnus said and Alec felt a sudden burst of bravery.

“You have friends?”

Magnus scoffed and reached out towards the mirror, placing his hand softly over Alec’s, and bringing it closer them both. He let his hand drop back to the sofa and it sat in the space between Alec and Magnus’ legs. Alec’s heart stuttered.

“Look into it and say what you want to see. If I’m not touching the mirror, I can’t see whatever it might display.” Nodding, Alec tilted the mirror so that he could see his face and then said,

“Isabelle Lightwood.”

The reflective surface of the mirror turned to black and then, slowly, the image of Izzy faded into view.

 She was pacing around her room, her hands curled around her whip so tightly that her knuckles were turning white. Her make-up was smudged and she had discarded her heels carelessly by her door.

 Relief filled Alec and he slumped back, letting his eyes close and the mirror rest on his lap.

“I take it she’s alright?�� Magnus asked and Alec let a wide smile fill his face.

“Yeah. She’s in her room. She’s angry and upset but she’s alright.”

Alec felt Magnus’ hand on his again and the Shadowhunter’s eyes shot open. However, Magnus merely pulled the mirror from Alec grasp and held it with both hands. He murmured something low and then green mist seemed to seep out from between his fingers. After several long seconds, the magic melted away into Magnus’ skin and the Warlock opened his eyes. He turned to look at Alec and the Nephilim saw that they were his cat-like ones.

“Your eyes.” Alec said before he could stop himself. Magnus turned away quickly. Alec’s hand shot out and rested heavily on Magnus’ forearm. “No, I just meant, why do you change them?” Magnus looked back to Alec and for the first time, Alec saw hesitation on the other mans’ face.

“Not everyone is as accepting as you, Alexander.” Alec almost choked on his own tongue.

“Ho-why…why did you call me that?” Magnus blinked slowly.

“I looked into your parents after they came to me with their demands. I have to say, I didn’t expect you to be so different from them.”

Alec felt his knee begin to tap nervously and quickly adjusted his leg so that it was outstretched and couldn’t move.

“Well, you’re different to how I expected too.”

Magnus tilted his head.

“What did you expect?”

“I thought that if you were working with my parents to imprison Izzy, you must be…I dunno, dark and creepy I guess.”

“Alec, I didn’t…your mother and father gave me no choice. You have to bel-”

“Why did you do it?” Alec cut Magnus off, asking the question he had been thinking about ever since the Warlock saved him.

Magnus placed the mirror on the coffee table and stood up, Alec’s hand falling to his side. He paced around the room until he was standing in front of the balcony doors and finally stopped, placing his hands on his hips and turning with a morbid expression on his face.

“My friend, Caterina, is a Warlock like myself. She’s very adept at healing and has a much more nurturing disposition than most. A few decades ago, she bought a large estate and had made it into a safe home for young Warlocks.” Magnus ran a hand through his hair, messing it up, and sighed heavily.

“I know first-hand what it’s like to be unwanted and so I always offer her a helping hand if need be. When your parents came with their demands, I said no straight away.”

“What made you change your mind?” Alec asked, praying to the Angel that his parents didn’t do what he now suspected.

“They knew about Caterina’s house and, even though it’s not dangerous, they said that they would burn it to the ground if I refused. Your father said that they would pretend Caterina was training the children to fight against the Shadowhunter’s and overthrow the Clave. I couldn’t let them do that, Alec. You might not understand but I had to protect them. I didn’t count on you being the heroic big brother. I thought Isabelle would be an impossible, bratty teenager and it would all be worth it.” Magnus shook his head and, to Alec’s surprise, kicked the wall beside the balcony doors.

“I do understand.” Alec said. “Thank you for telling me. I…I thought that you had done it for money or out of hate or something.” The Shadowhunter paused for a second before rushing on. “And even though it was my parents who threatened your people, it makes staying here easier. Because it’s like I’m doing it for the Warlock’s or something, if that makes sense?” Magnus nodded and was about to speak when the mirror on the table caught his eye.

“Oh, I changed the spell on that, by the way. If your sister is in mortal danger, it’ll start glowing. I’ll portal you to her in an instant.”

“Thank you.” Alec said, wondering how many more times the Warlock would do something for him. Magnus sat down on the sofa again.

“Now that all that mess is out of the way, what do you want to do?”

Thank you for reading! <3

#malec #beauty and the beast #batb #magnus bane/alec lightwood #Magnus Bane x Alec Lightwood #modern au #fic #ao3 #alec lightwood #magnus bane #shadowhunters #pumpkinpetals

[goforwardgreenwriter-blog]

The Worm Reads: Empire of Storms, Ch 3 - 4

Last time we learned that SJM has an unhealthy fascination with describing the breasts of her female characters. I wonder what else this book will throw at us.....

Manon Blackbeak stood at attention by one end of the long, dark bridge into Morath and watched her grandmother’s coven descend from the gray clouds.

MANON MY QUEEN!!! I’ve seen so many antis praise Manon and I totally agree, she’s a refreshing and just plain bad ass character in a cast of stale personality lacking cardboard cut outs.

[Manon’s] grandmother had come to Morath. Or what was left of it, when one-third was nothing more than rubble.

Oh yeah, that happened. Uhh evil stuff and villain plotting was happening at Morath until a minor character from T0G blew it up or something? Can’t remember but it probably won’t be that important after this chapter because SJM has smut to get to, ain’t no room for plot on this boat!

So Manon takes her grandmother to see the duke and we get this fragment.

At the Matron’s accusation—and the line her Thirteen were drawing. Had drawn for some time now.

I don’t know why SJM does this constantly. I suppose to put emphasize on what is being said, but when you do that every other paragraph, it loses its effect. Just have the first sentence there and boom, there you go.

Manon assessed the exits, the windows, the weapons she would use when they fought their way out. Instinct had her stepping in front of her grandmother; training had her palming two knives before the golden-eyed man could blink.

Hell yeahhhhh Manon is so awesome. See. this is what Aelin should have been! Bad ass, but not strutting around flaunting it 24/7.

The duke has changed forms and reveals his true name, Erawan, and Vernon is there too. So is Maeve the main villain or these two guys?

And with the fiery queen now gone, Dorian Havilliard and his city were defenseless. It mattered little to [Manon]. It was war.

Riiight, because nobody can possibly get anything done without the amazing Aelin there to defend them... I’m not saying a bunch of magic-less humans could stand a chance against the witches, but do you have to make it all about how powerful Aelin is?

Perrington—Erawan—shrugged his broad shoulders.

Even the villains aren’t safe from SJM’s obsession with broad shoulders.

“Damage the city enough to instill fear, show our power. But that wall … Bring it down.” [Manon] only said, “Why?” [Vernon’s] golden eyes simmered like hot coals. “Because destroying a symbol can break the spirits of men as much as bloodshed.”

Not gonna lie, that’s pretty bad ass in a twisted, villain way. Not only does he want to destroy the city and no doubt kill countless people, but he’s gonna destroy a symbol of their city to break their spirits? That’s a good threat for a villain to make.

Manon leaves the meeting and tells her witches to suit up for battle.

She found the mute blacksmith by his usual forge, sweat streaming down his soot-stained brow. But his eyes were solid, calm, as he pulled back the canvas tarp on his worktable to reveal her armor. Polished, ready.

(...)

It fitted easily, its interior cool against her hot skin. Even with the shadows that hid most of her face, she could see the blacksmith with perfect clarity as his chin dipped in approval. She had no idea why she bothered, but Manon found herself saying, “Thank you.”

The sweet, sweet taste of character development that sadly, if you haven’t read the books might not make sense out of context.

Onto chapter 4!

Aedion and Rowan did not let Darrow’s messenger go ahead to warn the lords of their arrival. If this was some maneuver to get them on uneven footing, despite all that Murtaugh and Ren had done for them this spring, then they’d gain the advantage whatever way they could.

You just said yourself that Murtaugh and Ren owe you a debt and want to be your allies. You can trust them, I’m pretty sure they aren’t planning anything against you.

Aelin and her court go to a tavern, and I gotta admit, I’m pretty hyped. I know tavern scenes are a cliche in fantasy but honestly, I love them! I love the atmosphere, the blend of comedy and drama, whispering secrets over the table and noticing suspicious figures across the room. Or maybe I just played too much D&D.

Inside the inn, there were no rooms to be found for rent, and the taproom itself was crammed full of travelers, hunters, and whoever else was escaping, the downpour. Some even sat against the walls—and Aelin supposed that it was how she and her friends might very well spend their evening once this meeting concluded. A few heads twisted their way as they entered, but dripping hoods and cloaks concealed their faces and weapons, and those heads quickly returned to their drinks or cards or drunken songs.

See, this is imagery I love! 

Lysandra had finally shifted back into her human form—and true to her oath months ago, her once-full breasts were now smaller.

Aaand SJM ruined it. Though I guess the focus of breasts has a point here...? I don’t know why Lysandra vowed to have smaller breasts next time she transformed back to human form but whatever.

Fleetfoot brushed against her calf, tail wagging, and Aelin smiled down at the hound, who shook herself again, flinging droplets of water. Lysandra snorted. Bringing a wet dog into a covert meeting—very queenly.

At least SJM is honest about Aelin not giving a fuck about appearing like a proper queen.

Aelin squared her shoulders as Aedion stepped into the room, already speaking to those inside: “Just like you bastards to make us trudge through the rain because you don’t want to get wet. Ren, looking put-out, as usual. Murtaugh, always a pleasure. Darrow—your hair looks as bad as mine.”

Jesus does it run in the family? Aedion this kind of banter is not proper in a meeting that’ll determine the future of your kingdom and your lives!

Aelin didn’t know how she hadn’t recognized Murtaugh that night she’d gone to the warehouse to end so many of them. Especially when he’d been the one who halted her slaughtering. The other old man, though … while wrinkled, his face was strong—hard. Without amusement or joy or warmth. A man used to getting his way, to being obeyed without question. His body was thin and wiry, but his spine was still straight. Not a warrior of the sword, but of the mind.

Ohhh please don’t tell me Darrow is gonna be a villain please please please

“Lord Darrow,” she said, inclining her head. She couldn’t help the crooked grin. “You look toasty.” Darrow’s plain face remained unmoved. Unimpressed. Well, then.

Yeah it’s almost like this is an important political meeting and there’s no place for shitty one liners in them....hm...

Humility—gratitude. She should try; she could try, damn it. Darrow had sacrificed for her kingdom; he had men and money to offer in the upcoming battle with Erawan. She had called this meeting; she had asked these lords to meet them. Who cared if it was in another location? They were all here. It was enough.

Aelin becoming self aware once again of her frankly shitty attitude. Will she keep it up and try to improve though?

Aelin began counting to ten at the tone. But it was Aedion who said as he claimed a seat, “Careful, Darrow.” Darrow interlaced his gnarled but manicured fingers and set them on the table. “Or what? Shall you burn me to ash, Princess? Melt my bones?”

DARROW CALLING AELIN OUT ON HER SHIT TEMPER! I love Darrow he is my new favorite.

“And what bloodline,” Darrow asked, his mouth tightening at the brand across Lysandra’s tattoo, the mark visible no matter what form she took, “does Lady Lysandra hail from?” “We didn’t arrange this meeting to discuss bloodlines and heritage,” Aelin countered evenly.

I get that you don’t want Darrow being an asshole over Lysandra’s past, but..... you kinda did arrange this meeting for that reason, though? Aelin’s heritage is going to be examined in this meeting so....

Aelin cocked her head, choosing each word, forcing herself to think it through for once. “Is there a skill set that you would prefer I possess?” Darrow smiled. It didn’t reach his eyes. “Some control would do Your Highness well.”

Darrow, it’s illegal to roast someone this badly.

Darrow reveals that in order for a ruler to claim the throne of Terrasen, they must be approved by the ruling families of each territory, meaning that Aelin can’t just strut in and demand the throne. Big fuckin’ shock, Aelin, this is how shit is done!

Darrow didn’t so much as flinch. “You can hardly expect us to allow a nineteen-year-old assassin to parade into our kingdom and start yapping orders, regardless of her bloodline.”

DARROW IS THE BEST CHARACTER IN T0G 2K18 FIGHT ME ON THIS YOU WON’T WIN

Admittedly, Darrow does refer to Lysandra as a whore, which isn’t cool, but damn other than that he is spot on! Maybe SJM won’t force him to be a villain and let him be an obstacle and challenge that forces Aelin to stop her shitty temperamental ways!

But Rowan leaned back in his chair with a faint smile—and it was a horrifying, terrible thing. “I have known many princesses with kingdoms to inherit, Lord Darrow, and I can tell you that absolutely none of them were ever stupid enough to allow a male to manipulate them that way, least of all my queen. But if I were going to scheme my way onto a throne, I’d pick a far more peaceful and prosperous kingdom.” He shrugged. “But I do not think my brother and sister in this room would allow me to live for very long if they suspected I meant their queen ill—or their kingdom.”

Trying not to let myself have feels over him calling Aedion and Lysandra his brother/sister..... I love the “misfits become family” trope, what can I say.

But Darrow went on before Aelin could speak or incinerate the room. “Perhaps, Aedion, if you hope to still gain an official position in Terrasen, you could see if your kin in Wendlyn have reconsidered the betrothal proposition of so many years ago. See if they’ll recognize you as family. What a difference it might have made, if you and our beloved Princess Aelin had been betrothed—if Wendlyn had not rejected the offer to formally unite our kingdoms, likely at Maeve’s behest.” A smile in Rowan’s direction.

SJM, are you... are you suggesting incest? Look, I know shit like this happened in real medieval times, but this is a fantasy series, you don’t have to keep gross shit like that if you’re not gonna go all the way and properly explain and address it.

Darrow says one mean comment about Aedion and Aelin neARLY STABS HIM WITH A DAGGER I’M NOT EVEN JOKING.

Aelin lunged. Not with flame, but steel. The dagger shuddering between Darrow’s fingers flickered with the light of the crackling hearth.

Real professional behavior there, Aelin! Is this how you plain to rule your kingdom, just threaten and kill anyone you disagree with?

“I see you inherited your father’s temper,” Darrow sneered. “Is this how you plan to rule? When you don’t like someone, you’ll threaten them?”

Same hat Darrow! Same hat!

Darrow lifted his brows. “All the work I have done, all that I have sacrificed these past ten years, has been in Orlon’s name, to honor him and to save his kingdom—my kingdom. I do not plan to let a spoiled, arrogant child destroy that with her temper tantrums. Did you enjoy the riches of Rifthold these years, Princess? Was it very easy to forget us in the North when you were buying clothes and serving the monster who butchered your family and friends?”

I know I’m sounding like a broken record here but holy shit, THANK YOU DARROW. Darrow is such an amazing character and a breath of fresh air from everyone kissing Aelin’s ass.

Beneath the table, Rowan’s hand shot out to grip [Aelin’s] own, his fingers coated in ice that soothed the fire starting to flicker at her nails. Not in warning or reprimand—just to tell her that he, too, was struggling with the effort to keep from using the pewter food platter to smash in Darrow’s face.

Wow you two are gonna be great rulers. They’re both temperamental and violent as hell and will probably bring their kingdom to its knees because someone stared at them wrong.

“Should you return to Orynth and seize your throne without our invitation, it will be considered an act of war and treason.” Darrow pulled a piece of paper from his jacket—lots of fancy writing and four different signatures on the bottom. “As of this moment, until it is otherwise decided, you shall remain a princess by blood— but not queen.”

HELL YEAH DARROW!!! Aelin hasn’t proved herself worthy of being queen yet, least of all with threatening someone she’s supposed to be making an ally with. Maybe SJM has turned a new leaf and this entire book will be about Aelin having to actually sit down, shut up, and learn to be humble and how to be a good ruler. One can dream...

#anti sjm #the worm reads: eos #the worm talks #anti eos #anti tog