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robininthelabyrinth · 3 years

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Spilled Pearls

- Chapter 13 - ao3 -

The wedding of a sect leader with the stature of Wen Ruohan was, as Lao Nie had predicted, an experience unlike any Lan Qiren had ever had before.

It was also, as Wen Ruohan had predicted, loud and full of crowds, things that Lan Qiren didn’t especially like. Luckily, despite being the groom’s ‘brother’, Wen Ruohan wasn’t requiring Lan Qiren to actually participate in any way, and he was just able to watch from a distance.

He tried not to think of Wen Ruohan’s casual admission that he had, in fact, devised the marriage just to deal with the issues with Lan Qiren’s reputation – and Lao Nie’s concern thereof, no doubt – and reassured himself that the bride was undoubtedly well prepared for her new life and would soon find her footing as the mistress of the Wen sect, where she would more than likely be happy in time.

That was how such things went, wasn’t it? Even with his sect’s notorious tendency towards love-madness, the people like his father, who married for love, were the exception and not the rule…

(He also tried not to think about the fact that Wen Ruohan accepted all the toasts for his wedding using a drinking bowl in Gusu style, painted with a border of vermilion birds, or the fact that, despite Lan Qiren having gifted a set, it was the only one of its kind on the table, leaving Wen Ruohan's new bride to drink from a much fancier gold-gilded bowl – but that was more because he didn’t understand what it meant, and wasn’t sure he wanted to.)

“Did you even get a chance to see him?” his brother asked when they returned, looking coldly disapproving.

“I did,” Lan Qiren said, thinking to himself less of the dinner that they’d shared with Lao Nie and more of the brief moment when the Lan sect delegation been about to leave, a servant appearing and whisking him off briefly back to the family quarters where Wen Ruohan, looking as composed as ever, pressed a too-familiar hand to his head and told him that he was sure he’d be seeing him again soon. “He didn’t say much.”

Nothing his brother would care about, anyway.

His brother nodded, looking unsurprised, and dismissed him, remarking unnecessarily, “You missed the first few days of classes,” as if Lan Qiren wasn’t aware of when each season of classes started for the disciples better than him. After all, Lan Qiren hoped to become a teacher one day, when he tired of traveling, and to do for future generations of the Lan sect what his teachers had done for him, and he took it as seriously as he did anything else.

The seasonal classes were his favorite, largely because such classes were open not only to the Lan sect disciples but to certain guest disciples – typically the children of rogue cultivators that the Lan sect wanted to encourage to join the sect, which meant that they had to pass through the same rigorous standards applicable to the usual sect disciples. Lan Qiren had always thought it was a shame that their classes were so limited in scope, although he acknowledged there wasn’t much to be done about it; after all, how many sects would be willing to send their children to be taught by outsiders?

A puzzle for another day.

For now, Lan Qiren made his way to the classroom, taking advantage of the lunch break to settle his things in his familiar seat at the side of the room. He hoped that coming in during the middle of the day would reduce the number of whispers that seemed to invariably greet him these days – luckily much more inclined to see him as a source of information rather than a victim or, worse, a perpetrator – but he didn’t have much faith in it.

“Hey, you’re in my seat.”

Lan Qiren looked up: it was a female disciple. Her face was unfamiliar to him, which suggested she was a rogue cultivator – while men and women lived separately in the Cloud Recesses, they came together for meals and other such events, and despite his introversion, Lan Qiren knew most if not all of his peer group by now.

“Sanren,” he said politely, rising and saluting. “Forgive me, but this has always been my seat.”

She frowned at him. “You didn’t claim it at the start of classes.”

“I missed the start of classes due to an unavoidable conflict.”

“I’ve been using it all week,” she said, and looked at him expectantly, as if anticipating an answer.

Lan Qiren wasn’t sure what he was supposed to say here. “I’ve been using it all my life. What’s your point?”

“So you’re not going to give it up for me?”

Lan Qiren stared at her. “Obviously not.”

She grinned toothily at him. “All the boys give up their seats for me. I understand that it’s a matter of etiquette.”

“Whoever told you that was lying,” he said flatly.

“Oh, I like you,” she said, and crossed her arms – an aggressive posture, although her tone, like Wen Ruohan’s, seemed more amused than anything else. How strange to see a sudden resemblance, when they very clearly had nothing else in common. “How would you know? Maybe it’s in the rules.”

Well, that was a mistake.

“Really,” Lan Qiren said, and smiled. “Why don’t we examine that supposition?”

She blinked at him, suddenly wary, but it was too late: if there was one thing Lan Qiren knew, it was his sect’s rules. Learning how to beat people over the head with them on purpose was a more recent development, and he was still working on fine-tuning that – most people started begging for mercy while he still felt irritated, but when they continued listening with apparent interest, as the rogue cultivator girl did, he swiftly forgot that he was trying to make a point and shifted over to actual enthusiasm for the subject.

“Cangse Sanren!”

Lan Qiren’s listener started and very nearly fell over – she’d put her chin on her hands at some point during the discussion of the origin of the rules regarding interactions between men and women, and hadn’t accounted for that when twisting to see who was calling her.

It was a mixed group of sect disciples, with some of Lan Qiren’s cousins and disciples of other surnames that he recognized, plus a few more that were likely rogue cultivators’ children as well.

“Oh,” she said. “You. What is it?”

“I see you got caught up in one of Lan-er-gongzi’s boring rule lectures,” one of the disciples said – one of Lan Ganhui’s friends, with Lan Ganhui himself nearby, grimacing at him in an attempt to make him stop. Lan Ganhui had gotten a lot more likely to leave Lan Qiren alone ever since Lan Yueheng had decided to befriend him, even intervening to make his friends leave off, but this time the other disciple ignored him, his eyes too focused on those ahead of him to pay him any mind; he was smiling intently at the rogue cultivator girl in a way that was clearly attempting to seem charming. “Don’t feel like you have to listen to him just because he’s main branch, you know! No one else does.”

“You shouldn’t say that,” one of the others muttered, glancing warily at Lan Qiren. It wasn’t apparent whether he was concerned about Lan Qiren’s rank, personality, or family connection.

For his part, Lan Qiren just felt tired. He would like to think that they were all part of the same sect, learning the same things, but he knew that wasn’t how the world worked. There were good people and bad in every sect, and the undercurrents that came with any community were inescapable.

“You’re joking, right?” the girl – who had the title of Cangse Sanren, apparently – said unexpectedly. “His explanation is three times more interesting than the stupid learning by rote we’ve been doing so far.”

“Learning by repetition has a long history of being the most effective way of learning something,” Lan Qiren objected. “Even the most unrepentant scoundrel would learn the rules by heart if he had to copy them down for a month, and then when that was done and the foundation built, you could get started on explaining the why of them.”

“But repetition’s not as interesting,” Cangse Sanren said. “I really liked that story about Lan Yi.”

Lan Qiren looked at her suspiciously. He’d never outgrown his tendency to speak in a dull monotone – one of his peers had once compared it to the thudding of grinding stones in a mill – and it was the rare person who actually appreciated the rules the way he did. His teachers, of course, and some of the other more studious disciples did, but even with them he’d be hard pressed to say they actually liked his rambling.

She held up her hands. “Really! I feel like I understand why she put the rule in place now, whereas before it felt like I was just learning the rule for the sake of learning the rule.”

“That’s because you need to learn the rules before you learn the background,” he said. “The rules are a house built without nails, each piece in its place doing its part to maintain the whole - one rule backs another, while being supported in turn. Only once you know what the rules are can you move to understanding the reasons behind them.”

And from understanding to accepting, allowing our ancestors’ wisdom to act as a guiding light that clears the fog from your path, he wanted to say, because he loved the rules, truly and sincerely.

People made fun of him sometimes, thinking him boring or stuffy or overly strict, with no flexibility and too little empathy, saying he was obsessed with the rules for no beneficial purpose, but to him the rules were a gift from the past to the future. The Wall of Discipline represented the accumulated life experience of dozens if not hundreds of Lan sect disciples before him, turned through debate and contemplation into advice they thought would be able to help guide those that came after them to living a good, clean, happy life. As their descendant, how could he fail to honor that which those people, who had loved him without knowing him, had strained themselves to give him?

In just the same way, it was his duty to love the future generations that had yet to be born, to act as the bridge to that unknown future, entrusted by his ancestors to carry to them the rules that would be both his inheritance and his legacy. Those nameless faces dressed in Lan white, unborn children with his brother’s face or even his own, of his cousins and fellow disciples alike, all those souls that had yet to enter this world but who he loved so much already – if he could spare them a single iota of pain through his own experience, how could he not do so, and gladly? How could he not do everything he could to give them everything he had received from the rules, that sense of pride of their history, the strength and wisdom that could be passed down no other way? How could that be a burden?

Lan Qiren had never really had the chance to explain any of that to anyone, his tongue too stiff and clumsy to convey what sometimes he felt could only be expressed in song or poetry, and he did not have such a chance now: as usual, the other disciples were already laughing, dismissing him as a teacher’s pet, overly rule-bound, obsessed with homework and test-taking, a boring old fart whose soul was prematurely aged.

“What’s wrong with being old?” Cangse Sanren asked, her voice flatter than it was before, and the boys in front of her suddenly scrambled to start apologizing so fast that Lan Qiren was left wondering what exactly he’d missed.

“Class is starting soon,” he said instead of asking, though he promised himself he’d ask around later. Surely someone would know. “Everyone should take your seat – no, Cangse Sanren, as I’ve said, that one is mine.”

She grinned unrepentantly at him and stepped back over where he’d kicked his foot out to block her. “You win, this time,” she said, and took the seat next to him with absolutely no remorse for whoever might have been sitting there before. “Watch yourself, stick-in-the-mud.”

Lan Qiren glared, though somehow Cangse Sanren’s teasing didn’t feel as annoying as the other disciples’ usually did. Even if she did make several more attempts on his seat over the course of the day, causing him to have to fend her off or think ahead to evade her latest attempt.

He initially thought that she might try to come to class early the next day to try to claim it before he did, but instead she dragged herself in only moments before class was due to start, face haggard as if waking up at the very tail end of mao hour was the equivalent to rising at yin, although she was back to her regular form soon enough, bright and clever enough to make any teacher fond of her.

This became something of a pattern, in fact – sluggish wakening, intellectual jousting during class and an unspoken competition over the seat that had formerly been reserved for him outside of it. In the afternoons she usually went off with the more martially minded disciples, while he spent his time in the library or musical halls, though at some point she started dropping off random foodstuffs by his door in the early evening as if she thought he was too thin.

“Maybe she has a crush on you!” Lan Yueheng said enthusiastically; bizarrely enough, he seemed to like romance as much as his explosions or his math.

“I think it’s a little closer to treating me like a stray cat that she found and took a shine to,” Lan Qiren said, shaking his head. All the boys in the sect would have paid in gold and jewels for Cangse Sanren to give them a second look, and she didn’t care one whit for the best of them; there was no need for her to go courting when she could get three serious offers of marriage just by winking. “Give them here, I’ll redistribute them to the younger children.”

“You can’t do that!” Lan Yueheng looked offended. “It’s her sincere offering! From the heart!”

“It’s food she purchased in town,” Lan Qiren said doubtfully. “It’s not as if she baked them herself. Anyway, I can’t eat this many sweets without getting a stomachache. What else am I supposed to do with it? Let it rot?”

“Qiren-xiong, you’re the most unromantic person I’ve ever met.”

“I’m going to assume that’s a bad thing,” Lan Qiren said, not taking offense. “Do you want some? Last offer before they’re gone.”

“…well, I mean, if you’re going to give them away anyway…”

He told Cangse Sanren what he was doing the next day, as a matter of politeness in the event that she wanted to stop once she knew what he was doing, and she just laughed – she always laughed at just about everything, he’d found. She didn’t stop delivering food, either, which he might have expected, though she did shift over into items that were easier to distribute.

Their entire mode of interacting was simultaneously very annoying and also not, and Lan Qiren didn’t have the slightest idea about what to do with it.

And then he got his first letter from Wen Ruohan.

#mdzs #lan qiren #cangse sanren #my fic #my fics #spilled pearls #sect leader lan

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kalaluchi · 3 years

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chapter 04: Best Friends

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When Marinette was a kid, she’d once heard someone say that having a boyfriend is just like having a best friend, but with added perks.

And while she couldn’t relate with the statement (at the moment), she could see that, in a similar sense, there was a fine line between things you do with someone because they’re your best friend and you’re just that close; and things you do with someone because you like them and want to get closer… and them showing the same interest in doing those things miiight mean they could like you, too.

Marinette was beginning to think she’d been using this fine line as a jump rope these past few weeks.

In theory, she should have no problem doing best-friend-stuff.

Chatting till early in the morning? Daily routine for her and Alya, especially when the latter got her hands on the latest scoop.

Video calls while doing homework? Marinette forgot what it was like to work without the face of her best friend, her face mirroring Marinette’s own tiredness.

Movie nights with the full package: face masks, popcorn, and 5 different types of candy? Every Saturday, starting at 9pm sharp.

But for some reason, when it came to doing those things with Adrien Agreste, she would just… freeze up and start overthinking every little thing. She has no idea why.

(Absolutely a lie. She knows exactly why.)

She was not one to deny her obvious crush on the blond-haired boy. Most times, her day is made by just one smile sent her way. But other times, when she’s actually able to hold a conversation with him (over chat, of course; she could never not stutter if it were face-to-face), it feels… normal. The talks are casual, like they’ve known each other forever. The butterflies in her stomach are quieter than usual, and she can say, with absolute certainty, that the famous model feels nothing special for the simple baker’s daughter, because Marinette Dupain-Cheng and Adrien Agreste are destined to be the best of friends and nothing more. (Sadly, in her opinion.)

And then. He goes and surprises her with a, “Hey, are you free Friday night? I was wondering if you wanted to go to the movie theater with me. They’re playing reruns of episodes from that show we were talking about the other week.”

Marinette collapsed on her bed with a groan. She checked the clock on her wall: 6:19pm. She’s supposed to meet Adrien in front of the bakery in a little over half an hour, but she still has no idea what to wear. Curse that beautiful, gorgeous boy. He never told her what the occasion was. Should she wear something casual, like a nice sweater and jeans? Something more dressy, like a cute skirt and flats? She gasps to herself. He doesn’t expect her to be fancy and show up in a cocktail dress and heels, right? He’s a model after all, that might be what he’s used too… what if it’s something even fancier than that-- how can she pull together an outfit like that at the drop of a hat--

You’re spiraling, she chided herself. She was tempted to call her best friend, but she knew what the brunette would say.

“Obviously, dress to impress! The knee-length dress you bought for my birthday party, I can lend you pearl earrings and a necklace, a little bit of lip gloss, and a purse to match. Pair it with flats so you don't look too eager.”

Marinette laughed quietly, imagining Alya giving that whole spiel.

Maybe she could just text Adrien to ask what he’s wearing.

The thought of him replying, “Just a shirt and jeans. This is just a chill movie-with-a-friend date after all. Why, did you think it meant anything more?” was enough to make her chicken out (even though he’d never actually say that), so she decided to just wear a shirt, skirt, sneakers, and the cardigan he made for her.

If he asks, I can just say I always dress like this going out with my friends!

This was going to be a disaster.

“Oh. Wow. You look.” Adrien cleared his throat. “You look very nice, Marinette.”

At 7:05pm, she found him standing outside their bakery, as discussed. She waved shyly as she pulled the door shut, trying to ignore the not-so-subtle spying her parents were trying to from behind the bakery’s counter.

“You look quite nice yourself,” she managed to say. Even though her brain wanted to scream how beautiful he looked in his black polo and jeans. (At least she’d been right to dress half-dressy half-casual.)

“Shall we?” he said jokingly, holding out his arm expectantly. She laughed nervously, and looped her arm through his after a pause..

Best friends definitely link arms as they walk to the theater...right?

“Hm, it’s a little chilly, isn’t it?” she said as they made their way down the street. In truth, though, her cheeks were burning from the close contact.

“Yeah, good thing you wore a cardigan. Should we get popcorn?”

“For sure. Butter at the bottom, in the middle, and on top is the way to go.”

“No way! Cheese is totally better. Whoever thought of putting it on popcorn was brie-lliant.”

Marinette groaned. “That was even cornier than popcorn,” she complained.

“Well, I’m no Swiss master,” Adrien quipped, “sorry if my jokes are full of holes. Is it enough to make you feel bleu?”

There it is again, Marinette thought, as the friendly banter continued until they were in their seats. While she found his puns unusually endearing, the butterflies were quiet and her heart wasn't racing like she’d thought it would be.

Annoyingly, they came right back as she sat back, studying his profile while the show’s theme song played in the background.

Miraculous, the luckiest!

Her heart gave a little squeeze as he mouthed the words, bouncing in his seat excitedly, all his attention on the big screen.

Damn, he’s so cute. The thought flew through her head before she could stop it, and that was when she knew for sure.

The power of love, always so strong!

What started out as a little crush had leveled up into something waaay more, though it was too early -- far too early -- to call it love.

After the reruns, they decided to grab ice cream and sit at one of the park benches before heading back.

“What did you think of that last episode?” Adrien asked, licking the mint gelato on a cone.

Marinette looked down at her own strawberry-flavored one. “I think… the main characters were too dumb. I mean, they just… fit so well, you know? Why prolong getting together?” She grinned at him and pointed the cone in his direction. “The ending made up for it though. They were so berry cute in that last scene.”

Adrien was unable to respond for a second, shocked that Marinette had made a pun.

(She thought she could see a blush starting to form, too, but she told herself it was just the lighting of the park.)

He recovered in a heartbeat, though. “You’re right. They were definitely mint to be.”

“Okay, that was probably the corniest one this entire night,” she giggled, playfully rolling her eyes. (It was actually cute and surprisingly funny, though, and she had to bite her lip to suppress a smile.)

Adrien held a hand to his heart. “I’m offended! That wasn’t very cool of you.”

Marinette frowned, though she knew he was joking. She opened her mouth to protest but the sound of his laugh stopped her. Her retort died in her throat as her heart did a little skip.

There was a pause as she felt the blush spread across her cheeks. It was long enough for Adrien to turn to her, an eyebrow raised, silently wondering about the sudden silence.

For half a second, Marinette considered saying something crazy.

‘You’re cute’? ‘I love how your eyes sparkle when you laugh’?

“Sorry for dissing your pun,” she muttered lamely instead, turning away.

He chuckled lightly and stood. “Let’s head back,” he suggested, smiling.

She simply nodded, thinking of a million things she wants to say.

They made their way back to the bakery silently, breathing in the night air, gazing up at the stars. Once back at her door, Marinette faced Adrien and stuck her hand out for a friendly shake. “Thank you for tonight,” she said, back to her awkward self somewhat.

He smiled, remembering how their second meeting went something like this. He took her hand, but instead of shaking it, he chose to press a kiss to the back of it. “Thank you for tonight,” he echoed. “I had a lot of fun.” He waved, and walked to his car.

He turned back for a final wave, and then entered the back. The car pulled away, leaving Marinette all alone in front of the bakery, still reeling from the kiss.

Marinette wanted to scream. The fine line she’d been jump roping with was now blurred together completely, and she wasn’t sure the butterflies in her stomach would ever go away.

And surprisingly, she found that she was completely okay with that.

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#adrinette april 2021 #adrinette #miraculous ladybug #idk what im doing sorry #ml #mlb #mlbcn #adrien agreste #marinette dupain cheng #adrienette #mlb fics #adrinetteapril2021

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chanluster · 4 years

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ann summers | {c} ; mild {f}

oneshot | 2.56K words

“ your best friend was weirdly terrified of lingerie, and you found it irritating yet adorable.”

c o n t e n t s >> a very flustered seungmin, constant clownery, mild fluff, mentions of sex toys but no usage, sexual innuendo, a lot of swearing, y’all basically make seungmin hella uncomfortable lmaoaoo

a / n >> inspired loosely by real events when my friends and i got kicked out of a sex shop for fucking around :’) ann summers is a lingerie and sex shop, in case y’all didn’t know!

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YOU FOUND YOURSELF SIGHING OUT MORE THAN YOU PHYSICALLY THOUGHT POSSIBLE.

“Seungmin,” You explained for the last time, ”They’re not going to come alive and bite you.”

The boy stood in front of you shot you an expression which actually doubted your statement. He hugged himself tighter, white hoodie bunching up at the waist, either to warm himself from the bitter London cold or shield himself from another threat.

Monsters displayed in the windows of Ann Summers.

These creatures that your best friend shied from hung delicately either on racks, or were boasted upon the slim mannequin bodices, intricate lacing and beadings accentuating the dark colours. Posters of models adorning the god-forbidden entity, posing seductively as they showed off the latest collection.

You rolled your eyes, and this time it hurt as they reached the insides of your mind.

“You actual pussy,” you jeered. “Every woman wears a bra you know. Or at least some point in her life.”

You raised your own chest a little higher, pointing towards the goods. “Even I’m wearing one right now.”

Seungmin’s face was a classic painting of disgust. “You didn’t have to tell me that,” he whined, almost hiding within the folds of his hoodie. “Look, I’ll wait here, you go and do your shopping.”

“But that’ll be boring if I do it alone!” You looked up at the sky, grey clouds engulfing the sun for hours. “And it’ll rain any moment now, I can’t let you stay outside.”

“I’d rather stay outside than step foot in that…” he glanced at the lingerie shop for a millisecond before hurriedly settling his eyes upon you. “That place.”

“You say it like it’s some twisted underworld.” You waved a hand towards the shop. “To women it is a chance of feeling sexy.

“And I wanna feel sexy, Seungmin.”

He raised an incredulous eyebrow at you. “Who for? The men on your lockscreen you cry over?”

Chuckling, he dodged your hand, nearly whacking him. “Watch it, dickhead,” you warned. “And it doesn’t have to be for a man. I want to feel hot for myself.”

“But ___, you’re already pretty,” he pleaded rather than declared, the tone making you suspicious. “You don’t need that lacey shit.”

“Are you saying that just so I don’t go inside the store? Because I will anyway, whether I’m going to buy something or not.”

A few moments passed after the words left your mouth, and you watched his brows furrow irritably.

“Nevermind, you’re mad fucking ugly.”

“Hey!”

This time, your hand managed to hit home, earning a yelp from Seungmin, who rubbed his arm in pain.

“Now stop bitching and come inside,” you ordered, ready to take him by his sweater paws, but he stayed rooted to the cobblestone street.

“I’m not going in,” he muttered.

Perhaps hitting his head would get him to comply.

Before you could carry out your sentence, thunder reigned upon the ears of the shoppers and other citizens out, including you two who jumped from the rather loud sound.

You felt a drop of water hit your head. Then, saw another fall upon Seungmin’s face.

One drop. Two drops. Four drops.

Until drops became showers, and you started towards the Ann Summers building, dragging the hesitant boy along and rushed under the cover of the entrance.

You shot a glare as you slowed down, ignored by the boy watching the showers of rain grow angrier. “I told you this would happen.”

He turned, eyes now desperate. “Please don’t make me go in there, ___.”

“Look, this isn’t normal. You gotta learn to be comfortable with seeing bras and pants and sex toys—”

“Wait what? Sex toys?!” He backed away out of cover, and came running back when he felt the icy rain. “No way am I going in there now. You’re on your own.”

“Seungmin!” You exclaimed, and with his surprise, you took the golden opportunity to grab his sweater-cuffed hands, and with the other hand pushed the doors open as you pulled him inside with you.

You looked up at your surroundings, a whimper sounding from behind you.

It was an explosion of dark pink in the background, complimentary with black railings and racks as thousands of different pieces of lingerie hung, stacked and modelled before you, a full colour blast and wild designing. Lacing you had never seen before accentuating body suits, stockings promising brilliant bedroom results and everything naughty you could ever think of presented on a silver plate to the customer.

The store knew you sought pleasure, and made sure to offer it in an infinite ways and possibilities.

It made Kim Seungmin nearly scream.

“I’m going right now—!” he turned on his heel, but you successfully grabbed onto the hood, yanking him back to your side.

“No time for your whining, buddy.” You stared at the sexual haven, excited to uncover what it offered. “Let’s buy some motherfucking bras!”

“Oh dear God,” he could only murmur.

Batting your hand off the hood, he crossed his arms as he miserably followed you around, not leaving his eyesight from the carpeted floor. You, on the other hand, relished in the polished lingerie store, assessing each new piece in each hot collection, feeling like a proper woman. Of course you had some nice underthings for yourself, but there are always times where you wished you possessed something fancier, something with a little black lace and pants which were tied up at the sides. It seemed awfully silly saying all those little wishes to your best friend, but it was what you truly felt.

You just wanted to feel...nice.

“Seungmin, you do know no one is going to judge you for looking around with me.” You studied a certain two piece, a little too big for your breasts. “I think I’d judge you more for constantly looking down. It’s like you’ve already done something vile.”

“Don’t say that,” he grumbled. “I just don’t want anyone thinking I’m a weirdo.”

“No one’s going to think that,” you assured him. “Just don’t sniff the bras or shit like that. That would definitely get you kicked out.”

“I wasn’t even thinking of that, sick bitch.” He slid a little closer to you, wary of the other shoppers walking, assessing by. “Whatever, I’ll just wait for you.”

You let your lips curve into a malicious smirk. “But Seungmin, I wanted your opinion on a few things.”

The boy’s devastation nearly made you cackle. “No fucking way are you going to show me what you want.”

You gave into your wishes, laughing shamelessly at the blush rising in his cheeks. “Nah, I’m not that sadistic. Actually, I already know what I need, but I’m gonna take a while, so…” your knowing smile remained. “You can search around for yourself if you like.”

Those little cheeks blushed harder. “Shut up.”

Whistling, you only shrugged, walking past the lingerie in a slow stroll. “Whatever you say, buddy! And remember.” You glanced back, eyes dancing. “There is nothing to be scared of in here.”

You continued your search for your specific sized bras, collecting a few and hanging them upon your arm as you browsed, Seungmin close behind, ready to bolt out of the shop at any moment. Every so often a scandalous underwear would be shown off upon the shelves, and you’d pick out a piece, waving it in front of the boy and watch him scurry away from it as if it were a poisonous creature.

It made your insides sing at the thought of his reaction when he saw the contents further down the shop. You were sure he would pass out.

“Okay, Minnie,” You started, walking towards the far end of the room. “I’ve picked out a few things and am just going back there.”

“Hold up!” He sprang into a little jog, hastily avoiding the lingerie and stopping right next to you. “Don’t you dare leave me.”

“You were the one dying to stay away,” you reminded him, already catching sight of Seungmin’s final doom. “Now come here, I need to find myself one more thing.”

Taking his sweater paw, you lead him out of the lingerie section, a pink wall separating the contents behind the other side. A doorway was present, and you entered through it, the biggest, dirtiest grin adorning upon your lips.

You read out the sign, already feeling Seungmin go statue-still.

“Sex toys!” You declared.

And heard your best friend’s response.

“JESUS ON A FUCKING MARATHON—”

You let out a gasp. Never before had you seen him this frightened, and you’ve been through a hundred theme parks with him. You’ve seen how this idiot had screamed his voice dead at rollercoasters.

“Seungmin—” you started, but with a jolt you noticed he had wrenched his hood over his head, pulling at the strings so all you could see were his eyes, angry as the thunder crashing outside in the sky.

“What are you doing here—!” he mumbled into the opening of his hoodie, but you shut him up with your hand, shushing him.

“Look, we’re technically not allowed to be in here, so shut up.” You turned around once more to the sex toys, proudly being shown upon the shelves. The dildos were the main attraction, catching your eye with the vibrant colours, different sizes and special editions being listed on their tags.

Your best friend looked frantically around, making sure there were no employees around to catch you both. “I hate you so much,” he guttered, which only made you smile.

You dashed to the shelves, observing one brilliantly pink dildo, veins and all carved into the plastic. “Oh my God, Minnie, look!”

The disgust on Seungmin’s face made you pick up the object, assessing the little details engraved upon it. “It says it’s eight inches.” Your eyes widened. “Eight inches!”

“You better put that back, then,” the boy drawled, still not loosening the strings of his hoodie. “That shit’ll kill you.”

“You’re just mad you don’t pack that much.” You obliged, putting the dildo back. “Didn’t know cocktail sausages were designed based on your dick.”

“My dick is not small,” he argued. When he saw your knowing smirk, though, he visibly shrunk.

“Oh yeah?” You walked on, cackling. “Keep talking shit, Minnie, but I can’t see any bulge.”

“Oh my God-” he immediately yanked his hoodie lower, as red as a tomato. “Stop!”

“Don’t worry, bud,” you sang out, going deeper into the aisles. You’ll find a lovely girl who will look past your 3-incher.”

Seungmin only had his eyes on you, blushing even more. “fuck you, ____.”

His thoughtful comment was ignored, skipping past various sizes of anal beads, magic wands and other innovative little creations, surprised to find so much range. You knew you would probably never use these objects, but the idea of people trying to spice up their sex lives with all this was insane in your head.

It was too bad you and Seungmin were pain-stakingly virgin.

You were about to call exit when your eyes stopped on a certain invention, and your mouth dropped.

“What is that?”

You quickly picked it up, assessing its indigo, snake-like bodice, veins engraved all over with two heads on either sides. Laughing, you raised it to get your best friend’s attention.

“Look at this!”

Seungmin came over, took one glance at what you held, and turned a straight 180 degrees.

“Wait, wait!” You grabbed onto his hood once more, pausing his escape.

“I am not going to admire a double-ended dildo-”

“But look at how innovative this is!” You turn him around, gripping the sex toy like its a snake ready to strike.

Even the boy’s eyes were ready to dagger you. “____, I swear on Jesus and his disciples, I’m going to get your head checked.”

“How cute would it be if we used it together?” you teased, trying to hand him the tip, but he dodged your hand.

“I’m going! Ciao! Adios! Au revoir!” he crowed, finished with your tom-foolery, and leaving the sex toy’s section.

“No, Seungmin, wait!” You called after him, double-ended dildo still in hand, and trying to catch up to his rapid retreat.

You were about to fall into step beside him when a woman stopped you both.

When the two of you saw the Ann Summers tag on her blouse, and a rather interrogative expression, you both exchanged glances, yours a little more sheepish than his.

“What were you kids doing in the back section?” she asked, hands on her hips.

You could feel the nerves radiating off Seungmin’s body, so you opened your mouth, saying the first words that touched your tongue.

“My friend and I were, uh, at the back...trying things out.”

Suddenly, a laugh escaped your best friend.

The employee looked at the lingerie on your one arm, and the double-ended dildo in your other hand. Then she raised a groomed brow at you.

Your cheeks flushed aggressively, and with further surprise heard Seungmin’s chuckling grow louder.

“Children are strictly prohibited in the sex-toys section,” she scolded, regarding the shopping in your arms. “You can still buy the bras, but the other thing…”

“I’ll put it back right now!” you declared, eyes wide as your best friend’s laughter boomed across the shop. You hurried back in the erotica section, dumping the dildo among its brethren and returning to your surrender spot.

The attendant then took your remaining items and scanned them in, ushering you to the till. You paid the woman what was due, and took the black shoppings, exiting the shop hastily with a near-hysterical Seungmin at your heels.

The London rain had softened to a light drizzle when you burst out of Ann Summers, getting irritated with the continuous howling, and at last you whirled around, ready to shut him up when you stopped.

Your best friend’s hood was pulled over, and he bent forward, soft locks bobbing as he laughed out his soul, eyes disappearing within his grin. The sound of the rain harmonised with his melodious voice, and you watched, mouth parted in awe.

You had seen Seungmin laugh a million and two times. It was always after you faced the consequences of your frequent fuck-ups - just like this one. However, looking at him now, finally calming his roaring, toothy grin still on display, there was something quite fantastical in his mirth that made your heartbeat run fast - faster than you when returning that damned double-ended dildo.

“I hate you!” your best friend declared to London, smiling at you.

You could only return that pure happiness. “I hate you too,” you replied, heart still beating rapidly.

He finally strolled up to you, eyeing the black shopping bag. “You deserve that scolding.”

“I know,” you agreed, turning towards the street, another notorious shop in sight. “Let’s do it again.”

Seungmin shot you an incredulous look. “You already know I’m never stepping foot in Ann Summers again.”

“I don’t mean Ann Summers, Minnie,” you said, staring at the other shop. The next destination of trouble.

The boy followed your line of sight, and his joy nearly vanished. His eyes darted to you, disbelief in his expression.

“No, you’re fucking not.”

But you only stuck your tongue out at him and ran towards the building, you now being the one laughing.

Seungmin only rolled his eyes, a small smile escaping his lips when he looked at you and followed your footsteps, right into the Victoria Secret building.

#stray kids imagines #skz imagines #stray kids #kim seungmin #stray kids fluff #kim seungmin imagines #seungmin imagines #seungmin fluff #kpop imagines #kpop fluff #stray kids crack

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yetanotherdrarrylist · 4 years

Note

Hi! this isn’t really drarry related but.... i’d really like to write fanfics, and i really like your fanfics and i like the way you write and everything... you’ve been one of my favorite writers for a long time... i was wondering do you have any advices for someone new to this? like what app do you use? how do you get your amazing ideas? how did you start writing? i think i’m bad at writing bc i don’t have a big vocab so...

Hello anon! Awww, thank you!

First of all, don’t worry about your vocab. Writing stories with a limited, easy to understand vocabulary is great! And if you want, say, Draco, to have fancier words, use a thesaurus to replace some words!

(or, look at your favourite fanfics and write down a list of your favourite fancy words)

Advice for people new to fanfic:

Just...write! And post! Don’t worry about plot. Try to write a single/simple scene, so that you can finish. If you look at my earliest stories, they were very short, because I was literally “testing” things out.

If you do want an easy plot, my favourite thing is “5+1″ since you can just write it as six scenes.

That said, remember to check grammar and spelling! And make sure the HTML/formatting of your fic on AO3 is good. I think learning a bit of HTML goes a long way and I wished everyone writing fanfic on AO3 would learn it 👀 [but I may be biased due to my academic background]

Writing [style]:

Given that you must have read a fair number of fanfics already, go back and have a look at how your favourite ones are written. You might not be able to get how it was written (or like me, end up just reading it for enjoyment for the 10000-th time), but hopefully it would still inspire you!

Also, to be honest, my style of writing changes based on the kind of stories I’ve been reading and really likely lately. For example, when I was writing The Standard You Walk Past, I had Lomonaaeren’s writing style at the back of my mind, which I striped down (reducing description, snappier dialogue etc) to suit my laziness.

These days, I like to write more crack/humour, leading to more ridiculous statements being made by characters and even shorter descriptions. My increased reading in long fantasy novels (Embers by Vathara, and xianxia/wuxia novels) has slowly increased my length of description again.

If you like my style of writing, I say do your best to copy! You can look at the (easier) things like:

how do I use dialogue tags

how do the characters talk

the amount of description

the length of my sentences

the size of my paragraphs

how I transition between scenes

[these are the things that I’m personally aware of]

When it comes to ending a fic, I’m personally a fan of looking back at the start of the fic and doing a “modified” scene at the end. i.e., now that Harry and Draco’s lives have changed, what differences now exist in their lives? You can see this most clearly in Lost Among And Falling.

Ideas:

I get inspired by stories in two ways:

Stories that are so good, or do a trope that I really love, and I want to replicate that

Stories that are...not so good, or do something I don’t like, and so I want to reverse the trope

For example, in The Standard You Walk Past, the fact that Draco and Harry don’t speak and ignore each other for a while despite living in the same dorm room is a mini trope reversal. (Not that this was spite, but having something different is cool too.)

The Cake Is Ace is a huge trope subversion of “being stuck in the closet together/party games”, where Draco and Harry don’t do any kissing.

On the other hand, I adored smart Draco in shanastoryteller’s survival is a talent, and that partially led to Draco Malfoy Hacks The Ministry (along with the hacker/auror prompt due to quicksilvermaid)

In actual fact, a fair number of my fics are fest fics (Draco Tops Harry is my fave!), so the ideas are literally not mine. The main Drarry Discord also has an entire channel dedicated to free-for-all fic ideas!

How I started writing:

I started writing back in primary school 😂😂😂 I think writing at that time is good, because you kind of just...don’t care about “conventions” and write whatever you like.

And then I started writing fanfic because I was reading fanfic 😂😂😂

(And I’m writing more original fic because I’m reading more original fic)

(And I used to draw more because I used to read a lot of manga. There’s a pattern 😂)

Because I was reading fanfic, I often have thoughts of, but what if this happened instead [of what this fanfic author had written]. And sometimes there are niche ideas or tropes that I want to see more of, and I’m not perfectly happy with what is out there so...gotta write it myself!

(Also, participating in fandom is nice)

So I say just make an account on AO3--and even post anonymously if you’re really testing out--and post away~ You can slowly learn how the posting-side of AO3 feels like this way. And of course, get some practice writing.

Software:

When I first started out, I was using LibreOffice Writer and Focus Writer. I also wrote some stories or sections by hand (e.g. Hold My Hand was written entirely by hand, and Life Is The Flower had sections of it written by hand).

Nowadays, I use Google Docs, so I can sync it across my two (!) laptops and my phone. And I use the AO3 posting script to paste things onto AO3.

Getting help:

If you are uncertain about your writing ability, you can find someone to read over your work before posting. If you’re on the drarry discord, or really many other writing or fandom discords, then it’s fairly easily find someone to beta your work!

And there are so many general writing resources out there.

Anyway, I’ve basically told you all my secrets. I hope this helps!

#writing #asks #writing advice #fandom

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rosesanthology · 4 years

Text

And Yet... | Akaashi Keiji x F!Reader [musician!AU]

Violinist!Akaashi x Pianist!Reader (yes i saw that one Viria fanart)

Ive been feeling extremely bad these days but im managing to write some things for my emotional support hq boys (Akaashi and Kenma) so here u go even tho its probably a lil shitty 👁3👁 its all about them la la land type of vibes

Warning : i didn't proofread this, also it's VERY self indulgent

Songs : • city of stars from La La Land (but Dodie and Jon Cozart's cover)

• any of the songs in the fic but especially Bach's violin sonata in presto IT SLAPS

[Tags] : @raevaioli

- You've always admired the way human life entertwines itself with art. The vicissitudes of a fleating existence finding a way to express themselves in external stimulations, the way someone could pour as much of their soul, as much as themselves in just one moment, one performance, one artwork.

- it is the main reason why you decided to become a pianist. The second one being that you could hardly put as much effort on anything else

- your mother would argue that it is but a mere childhood dream to do something as uncertain, sure.

- and yet, the first time your performed in front of an actual audience, even if it was just at your high school's theatre auditorium, still felt like the best

- you had registered in the student showcase program without your mother knowing, wearing not the dark blue dress you dreamed of but a hoodie, some jeans and sneakers

- in the moment it seemed fine even if you did look way underdressed than the other kids who registered for piano too

- but it all seemed to tie together with your whole personna as you sat on the stool making sure to put your tiny moomin plushie on top of the grand piano

- he helped a lot

- at that time you played Tanjirou no Uta because well....there's only so much you can expect from a high schooler who lacks confidence in their skills

- regardless of the song your fingers danced onto the heavy keys, the sound swirling with your own emotions as you tried to concentrate on the one thing you wanted the most,

- "Somebody, look at me."

- because there is such a big difference between only being seen by people and actually being looked, observed, analysed

- at the time you wanted someone to look at you and wonder if what they were feeling listening to your piece was flooding their brain the same way it flooded yours

- if the lingering sound of pressed keys made their heart and time stop in the same way it did yours so well whenever you played

- it mattered. In that moment, only that mattered, but sooner or later it had to end

- until then, the only person who was able to exactly tell the things you wanted to convey was your childhood best friend Akaashi Keiji

- he was of wealthier upbringing, his parents always so uptight and pressuring him into their perfect mold in which he seemed to fit so oddly well

- and yet, he always found time to be there for you and help you in your struggles, he was far more musically inclined than you because of his background but his eyes never lost their gentle glint as you would mess up the keys to a piece

- he'd always take his time to let you know how much he liked hearing you play even if you insisted that you weren't as good as him, his smile never wavered as he rested his chin on his palms and closed his eyes, listening to your fifth poor attempt at playing Clara Schumann's sonata in G minor

- that was your typical sunday afternoon in his living room, playing the day away intoxicated in the calmness of his scent of flowers and warm cotton

- when you finished, people didn't seem to mind the choice of the song nor the stuffed toy that added to your whole appearance, if anything you only heard encouragements, advices and heartfelt returns

- among them was Akaashi of course, ever so gentle but marking in his praise, making you feel like maybe you were worth standing on that stage

- it wasn't much compared to what the middle school kids who played Mozart got but, it gave you enough of a push to have the strength to call yourself a pianist today

- nothing really changed in your little world, you still had your moomin plush sitting on the piano everytime you performed and the same simple attitude, now you just knew your classics and could play something else than anime music even if you did manage to fit a little song once in a while

- what changed tho is that you and Akaashi had grown appart after he had left

- his parents had suddenly decided to register him in some fancy music college in Paris

- away from you

- at the time, you knew that no amount of tears and words could possibly matter in the final decision

- but it's not like you could ever control yourself when he held you in his arms like he did when he broke the news to you

- you were never that gracious at goodbyes

- but if it meant that he could get the life he deserved than you were willing to make that sacrifice, even if he wouldn't have the time to talk to you as much as before

- in the meantime you would continue to grow as a person and as an artist if not for you then for him

- and that's what you've been doing for the past four years

- and it is exactly what brought you to accept the offer to perform at another musician showcase tonight

- it was fancier than a high school show that's for sure. It was held in one of these candle lit restaurants, but not the impersonal ones where the tables are five meters away from each other

- it was one of these places where everybody seemed to know each other and relish in the warmth of sharing the same pleasant time while listening to live concerts

- after your own performance you sat back down with the other musicians, talking a bit with the pretty cellist Kiyoko Shimizu, who finished her own before yours

- when the lights dimmed and the next musician stepped on the stage your heart almost stopped

- there stood your dearly missed friend in flesh and bones, violin and bow in hand, or at least you thought so

- he started playing and you watched from the side, amazed, your heart achung with the resonance of the instrument as he gently swayed to such a hard piece as Bach's sonata No. 1 in presto

- the ground and the rest of the room seemed to dismantle around you as all you could think about was the man playing music off of your very heart strings, the man who you've known for a long time and who had been such a huge inspiration and motivation in your existence

- the man who always was so sensible and observant despite coming off as stoic to most people, the same one who was always gentle and motivating all the whilst excelling in what he did himself

- this was Akaashi Keiji.

- and right now he was playing such a fast piece with an unspoken surprising sadness to it as if he'd disappear into ashes the second he stopped, the second he relaxed

- but it eventually had to come to an end, the sound of the strings tearing you appart to reveal the most vulnerable parts of yourself to him like it always did on sunday afternoon practice

- the realization came crashing into you as he bowed to the audience and locked eyes with you, sending you a small smile before disappearing backstage

- naturally, you went after him your breath hitching and your whole being coming to a halt three meters away from him

- you had been way farther away from each other and yet, these three meters felt the worst

- he turned to you, and as casually as if he never left opened his arms for you to run into and that's just what you did

- his own heart was pounding as he caressed your hair, whispering phrases like "it's okay" or "im here now" as you sobbed into his chest

- he still smelled of wild flowers and cotton.

- "let's go catch up outside Y/N?" He said just for you to hear

- he brought you two outside on a bench overlooking the city and its lights but you couldn't help but keep your eyes on him by fear that he'd disappear again

- "w-why are you here ?" you stammered without thinking

- "why you don't want me here ?"

- "Yes- Well no- i mean yes i want you here and-"

- his laugh resonated even more than his violin if that was possible and you didn't have to wait long to feel your face heat up

- "first thing you do is laugh at me...." you said, playing with his fingers on your lap, a thing you did back then whenever he was nervous and started fiddling with his hands, even tho you were the nervous one now

- he sighed, the previous sadness from his playing as if blown away by that tiny impatient breath of air

- "i came back on my own. I missed you Y/N", he smiled again,

- "i missed you too...but what happened to your studies ? You always said you lived for music ?" you incquired, squeezing his hand maybe a little too hard in aprehention

- "i did...i did but i realized many things abroad"

- "like what ?"

- "im a little disappointed Y/N you used to be so good at guessing what i wanted to convey with my music" he said raising an eyebrow at you and laughing once more when seeing the confused look on your face

- "i may have said i lived for music yes and yet...i always knew that i live for you."

#tbh its no secret that i love him i mean #its pretty easy to tell🤡#oh to be able to smooch Akaashi #anyway i wrote this listening to DAGames' Break My Mind #how very anticlimatic #haikyuu x reader #akaashi haikyuu #haikyuu!!#akaashi imagine #akaashi keiji x reader #akaashi hcs #akaashi keiji #akaashi x reader #fukurodani #hq!! fic #hq akaashi #hq au

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victorianlibrarian · 6 years

Text

Tomorrow is the last brunch of 2017 for the Glasgow Chapter of Geek Girl Brunch! Our theme is Christmas Films, and tonight I’ve been putting the final touch to brunch activities. So how can I not write today’s Christmas Feast blogpost about the food in Christmas films? I’ve already written one post on the four food groups in Elf, so today I thought I would look at something grittier, if you can imagine that adjective been applied to a Christmas film, but still funny. Hello, Trading Places (1983)! If you haven’t seen it, it’s very funny, rather clever, but also difficult to watch in places. To avoid potential spoilers, here’s the film poster to provide a buffer.

Source: Vintage Movie Posters

The film takes a good look at racism, and some scenes are genuinely horrifying. Having watched the film again a few days ago – it’s on the Sky Christmas film channel a lot at the moment – the rich white men in their members’ only club, refusing to help the homeless Billy Ray Valentine as one of their own falsely accuses him of theft, as police surround him and point their guns at him, could easily happen now, and could easily become a murder, in Trump’s America. Such scenes make Dan Akroyd’s blackface disguise on the train a really strange choice, at best. While disguises chosen by the other characters are inexplicable, and Jamie Lee Curtis’s ridiculous Austrian/Swedish ‘milkmaid gone backpacking’ outfit almost as infuriating, the blackface is the worst, and is completely unjustified by the plot. There’s no excuse (or for the aforementioned milkmaid, to be clear). I recommend reading Hadley Freeman’s discussion of Trading Places as her guilty pleasure.

Having just written that paragraph, I feel incredibly superficial in returning to my original theme. Is the more serious issue trivialised by my continuing to write about delicious food? The latter was all I initially intended to discuss today. I will try to get back to that thread, and hope that it is not too jarring.

I’ve created a Trading Places feast using recipes from the BBC’s excellent collection. If you are stuck with an odd assortment of food, and don’t quite know what to make with them, use the Ingredients A to Z to see what comes up.

Coleman will bring hors d’oeuvres and mimosas (made from champagne and orange juice, popular drinks for different reasons in the story), as you settle down in front of a roaring fire. Then, given that the stock market value of different foods and drinks is also an important part of the plot, the meal proper will start with ‘Christmas Pâté with Pistachios’, which contains pork belly and liver (not that of cattle or hog, unfortunately, merely that of the humble chicken, but we must endure).

Christmas pâté with pistachios. Source: Four Magazine

Christmas pâté with pistachios

Preparation time: less than 30 mins Cooking time: 1 to 2 hours Serves 8

A rich make-ahead pâté that’s perfect party food or makes a great starter – delicious with pickled onions, toast and salad. By Michel Roux Jr, from Christmas Kitchen with James Martin Equipment: You will need a 1.5 litres/2½ pints terrine mould.

Ingredients

3 corn fed chicken breasts, skin removed 100g/3½oz chicken livers 180g/6oz pork belly, minced 1 tsp salt 2 tsp freshly ground black pepper 1 unwaxed lemon, zest only 2 shallots, finely sliced 2 sprigs lemon thyme, leaves picked 50g/1¾oz pistachios, blanched 20 thin slices streaky bacon

Method

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4. Cut each chicken breast into three big slices and set aside.

Mix the chicken livers into the minced pork and season with the salt and pepper. Add the lemon zest, shallots, thyme leaves and pistachios.

Line a terrine mould or loaf tin with the bacon, leaving enough overhanging to cover the top when filled. Press in the mince and chicken pieces and cover completely with the bacon.

Place the mould in a roasting tin filled with enough water to reach half way up the side of the mould.

Bake in the preheated oven for 1 hour 15 minutes.

Allow to cool for 24 hours in the fridge then slice. Serve with pickled onions or gherkins, toast and salad leaves.

The main course in a Trading Places feast has to be created around a whole salmon.

Source: A Dash of Cinema

If you wish to steal yours from your former employer’s staff Christmas party, then eat it on the bus, more power to you, but I’m looking to create a fancier dish as befits a proper feast. Roasting the whole salmon seemed like a wonderful idea.

Whole roast salmon. Source: BBC Good Food.

Preparation time: less than 30 mins Cooking time: 30 mins to 1 hour Serves 12

A classic dish good at buffets and for large number of guests. Can be prepared in advance.

Ingredients

1 whole salmon, 3-4kg/6.5-10lb in weight, gutted and cleaned 4 sprigs fresh parsley ½ lemon, sliced 2 bay leaves 150ml/5fl oz dry white wine 2 tbsp vegetable oil

Method

Heat the oven to 190C/375F/Gas 5.

Take 2 large sheets of foil and place on top of each other in a roasting tin. Spread the oil on the foil and place the salmon on top.

Put the parsley, lemon slices and bay leaves into the body cavity. Fold the edges of the foil together but just before sealing, pour in the wine.

Bake the fish for 50-60 minutes.

Serve hot or cold. If you want to serve it cold, allow the fish to cool in the parcel and then gently peel off the skin and garnish with thinly sliced cucumber and watercress.

I would choose to serve it with charred asparagus tips and baked potatoes with wonderfully crispy skins. Doesn’t that sound fantastic?

In the film, Coleman prepares crêpes Suzette at the dinner table as Winthorp and Penelope are eating their main course. I couldn’t resist using James Martin’s recipe which involves a “sticky orange sauce and a creamy citrus syllabub”, once again because of frozen orange juice’s starring role.

Clementine syllabub and crêpes Suzette. Source: BBC Recipes.

Ingredients

For the syllabub

250g/9oz mascarpone 1 heaped tbsp icing sugar 400ml/14fl oz double cream 2 clementines, 1 juiced, 1 sliced 200g/7oz ready-made orange or passion fruit curd 2 sprigs fresh mint

For the crêpes

125g/4½oz plain flour 1 free-range egg 300ml/10½fl oz milk 25g/1oz butter

For the sauce

75g/2¾oz caster sugar 50ml/2fl oz brandy 4 clementines 1 lemon, juice only 25g/1oz unsalted butter

Method

For the syllabub, whisk the mascarpone and icing sugar together in a large bowl until smooth. Gradually pour in the double cream, whisking continuously until the mixture is pale and thick.

Fold in the clementine juice and orange or passion fruit curd to create a ripple effect.

Spoon the syllabub mixture into a piping bag and pipe it into glass serving dishes. Top each with a slice of clementine and a sprig of mint. Chill in the fridge until ready to serve – the syllabubs will keep in the fridge for 3-4 days, covered.

For the crêpes, whisk the flour and egg together in a large bowl. Gradually add the milk to form a smooth batter with the consistency of double cream.

Heat a little of the butter in a frying pan over a medium heat. Add a ladleful of the crêpe batter to the pan and swirl to coat the bottom evenly. Fry for 1-2 minutes, then flip the pancake and cook for a further minute, or until golden-brown on both sides. Remove the crêpe from the pan and place on a sheet of greaseproof paper. Keep warm.

Repeat the process with the remaining butter and crêpe batter, stacking the crêpes between layers of greaseproof paper.

For the sauce, heat the sugar in a frying pan over a medium heat until the sugar melts and caramelises. Add the brandy and set alight with a match. Allow the flames to flare up and die down. (Caution: Keep the flames away from your eyes and face and make sure the extractor fan is not turned on). Stir in the juice from 2 of the clementines, the lemon juice, and the zest from 1 clementine, then segment the last 2 clementines and add them to the pan. Finally, stir in the butter until it has melted and the sauce has thickened.

To serve, fold the crêpes into quarters and arrange on serving plates. Spoon over the warm orange sauce. Serve the syllabub alongside.

Would you like a coffee and eggnog, back in front of the roaring fire, to finish your evening?

This post is brought to you by BBC2’s The Sweetmakers at Christmas, which was on in the background while I was writing. Even with only one eye on the TV, it was fascinating, and very timely for my Christmas Feast blogging series. Quick! To the iPlayer!

15 December 2017: Christmas film feasts Tomorrow is the last brunch of 2017 for the Glasgow Chapter of Geek Girl Brunch! Our theme is Christmas Films, and tonight I've been putting the final touch to brunch activities.

#BBC Recipes #Christmas Feasts #Trading Places

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athingofvikings · 7 years

Text

Chapter 4: The Scottish Play

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Chapter 4: The Scottish Play

The political landscape that Haddock and his tribe found themselves thrust into was one marked by extensive conflict and political fragmentation. The most significant power in Europa, beyond that of the Catholic Church, was the Holy Roman Empire, under Henry III, and it was undergoing a period of consolidation, and the Byzantine Roman Empire, which was likewise experiencing an era of decay in the aftermath of the death of the Emperor Basil the Younger in 1025 CE. Otherwise, there were few extensive centralized powers; even those rulers who could claim significant domains, such as the Kievan Rus', consisted of tribal or feudal confederations that were not politically unified beyond the person of their sovereign.

—Corpus Historiae Berkiae, 1396

A month later, Stormfly was well on the mend in the the dragon stables—and being antsy about not being able to fly with her wound. Of course, with the weather having been foul as normal, most of the dragons were staying inside where they could, but she'd been distinctly unhappy during the nicer days when all of the other dragons could go flying, and Astrid had spent a great deal of time in the stables with her as a result. Which, of course, also meant that Hiccup and Toothless were spending a great deal of time there as well, between the various construction projects that Hiccup was overseeing. And with one thing leading to another…

Stormfly had been through five saddle designs in the last month, each progressively fancier than the last. And she was absolutely delighted to try on any and all accessories that Astrid and Hiccup could think of, prancing about in front of all of the other Nadders and showing off what her rider and her rider's boyfriend were making for her.

Which mean that now Astrid and Hiccup were in the smithy, with Gobber working nearby… and acting as chaperon for the two of them.

Astrid was sitting off to the side, her fur cloak discarded and hanging on a peg, the warmth of the forge seeping into her bones. Hiccup was at the anvil, pounding away at a piece for Stormfly's new saddle. A piece of foolscap with Hiccup's tidy scrawl lay nearby, detailing out measurements that he had taken.

"Astrid, could you get me my notebook from the back, please?" he asked, as he shifted to smaller and smaller hammers. "I need to check my designs for this."

A smile on her face, she hopped off the bench as Hiccup returned the metal bracket to the forge to bring the metal back up to temperature. He waved, his brow dripping with sweat, and she returned a wider grin before slipping into the back. It was crowded back here, filled with Hiccup's designs and experiments, and seemed to be organized based on the "is there an open spot?" method. A basket of stone rings lay on the workbench, with pots of brushes and woodcarving tools next to it.

She let her fingers wander over the shelves. A variety of Hiccup's experiments at creating war machines done at the scale of toys occupied the top shelf, which he called "prototyping", while papers were stacked on the top. The shelf below had painting supplies and his notebooks, which she pulled off of the shelf, trying to figure out which of the several were the one that he was looking for.

"Hiccup, which one is it?" she called out to the main room.

"Uh, the short one, I think!"

She looked back at the books. One was taller, and the rest were roughly the same height.

"That didn't narrow it down much!"

"Uh," he said as the sound of hammering resumed, "Hang on a second." And there was a quick flurry of hammering and then a pause.

"Sorry Astrid," he said sheepishly. "I've got it. It was in my pocket."

She stuck her head out the door to the main room, eyebrow raised, as Gobber chortled.

"Really?"

"Yeah, sorry," he said, giving a sickly grin.

She rolled her eyes. "I swear, Hiccup, you would forget your own head if it wasn't attached."

"Not true!" he said back with a grin. "I haven't managed to get anywhere without this," pointing at his left foot.

She grimaced. "Uh…" and the levity of the moment died. "Sorry, I didn't mean…"

He frowned. "Oh, uh, sorry, Astrid. I wasn't offended. Don't worry." With a sheepish grin, he indicated the book on the anvil with his chin. "Could you…"

Her smile slowly returning, she walked back out into the main forge area as he used a little hammer to gently knock the small piece of metal into the proper shape of a bracket. She picked up the book and flipped through it until she found the page that Hiccup needed. Before turning it to show Hiccup, she took a moment to appreciate her boyfriend's genius brain.

All she had done was idly comment that she wished that she could carry her ax while riding Stormfly, and by the next day, he had designed a holster that would sit below the saddle and hold the ax head, with the ax shaft in easy reach of the saddle. It would keep Stormfly from being cut by the edge, while at the same time using the springy metal that Gobber used in his tong-hand to allow her to pull it free nearly instantly.

If, of course, it worked as well in real life as it did on paper.

She turned the book around to Hiccup, who squinted at his blueprints and made a minute adjustment with the small hammer before returning the bracket to the heat of the forge.

Toothless, who had been curled up nearby, clearly also appreciative of the heat of the forge, sat up, and walked over to the bellows, heaving the lever before Hiccup could move around to the wooden handles.

Astrid blinked. "He hasn't done that before."

"He does that every so often. I think he finds it cute. 'Look at people and their fire.' Also, he figured out that it gets it hotter, which he likes."

The thin metal heated quickly, and Hiccup removed it from the forge with the tongs once more, taking out a very small hammer from the rack to make his most minute adjustments while it glowed red hot. Toothless stood next to Astrid, both of them watching Hiccup work. Apparently satisfied with his final bits of work, he plunged it into the quenching bucket, where it hissed and sputtered for a moment.

An hour later, the pieces were assembled and mounted on the bracket. As Hiccup worked to attach it to the leather, using a few temporary ties of rawhide ("in case I have to take it off again"), Astrid hopped up on the sawhorse where they had put Stormfly's saddle. Hiccup had been all ready to just try his new invention on Stormfly directly, but Astrid had given him a level look and said that she wasn't going to put something sharp right next to her friend's wings without testing it first.

Hiccup stood back from the holster, and crossed his arms with a grin. "Give it a try."

Astrid carefully swung down the ax, trying to keep it aligned with the brackets that Hiccup had just laboriously designed. Two false starts later, and she swung the ax-head in perfectly, the ax settling into the new holster with a satisfying click, the three brackets holding the edges and handle of the ax, and she looked up at Hiccup, delighted.

"It works!" she said, grinning.

"Half-works," he said, stroking his chin as he looked at the brackets holding the ax head; a leather backing would keep the brackets from chafing against Stormfly's side, and the metal and wood of the brackets shielded the edges of the blades. "Try pulling it loose now."

Astrid leaned over and heaved on the handle, and looked at Hiccup, who frowned as the brackets held tightly—too tightly. "Great. I have to loosen—whoa!"

Her boyfriend jumped back as the brackets suddenly popped open, releasing the ax and sending it flying. Meanwhile, as she had been putting all of her weight onto the handle, she toppled over the side of the saddle. In the other half of the room, Gobber jumped and yelped as the ax went hurtling. The floor rose up in her vision, and she tried to tuck into a roll on reflex… only to smack into the wall with a yelp and a reverberating thud that shook the various weapons hanging in their brackets. Even over the ringing in her ears, she heard her very sharp ax thunk into something wooden a few feet away, even over the sound of Gobber's exclamations.

Hiccup appeared into her upside-down field of view within less than a handful of heartbeats. "Astrid, are you okay?" he asked, green eyes wide with concern. In the background, she heard the length of chain that Gobber had been working on for the training pit's net slither to the floor musically.

She looked up at him, a touch dazed, before she laughed. "It works!"

He extended his hand down to her and helped her to her feet, commenting, "Uh, let me loosen it a bit. We don't want you falling off Stormfly in the middle of a fight."

Standing, she grimaced, and rubbed at her head. Hiccup looked at her with concern. "You okay?"

"Yeah, I've done worse to myself practicing tumbles." She looked around. "I'll be okay in a minute. Let me get some ice from outside to put on it. Get my ax, would you?" It had sunk into one of the support pillars of the smithy nearby, and Gobber was giving the whole arrangement a dubious expression.

The sky was a brilliant blue over the white of the snow drifts, with just a few clouds visible off in the distance, although the wind was blustery. Packing up a wad of snow, she held it against her head, feeling the knot from her impact with the wall start to settle down.

As she walked back into the warm smithy, she saw that Hiccup had put her ax within easy reach of the harness; he was working the bracket with a tong and a prybar, trying to get it to loosen a touch. The metal squeaked under protest of this treatment, but he worked it back and forth a dozen times or so, until the metal resisted a bit less.

As she walked in closer, he looked up and said, "Just about done. Hop back on and we'll try again."

Gobber, having finished his length of chain, or at least his current links, walked over. "Alright you two, what is that you've got going here?" He looked over the setup with the sawhorse, saddle and ax with an air of studied disinterest, although she could tell that he was examining it closely.

"Oh, just a little addition to her saddle. Give it a try, Astrid," Hiccup said with a grin.

She hopped back into the saddle and, focusing carefully, she swung down the flat of the ax-head into the brackets, which clicked closed around it smoothly, and, with a grunt of effort, she pulled it free again. Swinging around the ax victoriously, she pumped it into the air with a cheer.

Gobber just grinned. "Very nice. Yeh might have wanted to loosen the metal first before giving it that first go, but, eh, no harm." He held up his hook for emphasis, and his eyes narrowed. "This time." He gave Hiccup a level glare. "You were working with sharp blades and springs, Hiccup, and didn't take proper precautions. I know I taught you better than that."

Hiccup flushed and looked chastened. "I… I… yeah, sorry, Gobber. You're right."

"I'm not the one needing apologizin' to. You're lucky that Astrid didn't fall onto one of the swords or crack her head open on one of the warhammers when she fell," Gobber said scoldingly. "She's the one that you just put into danger because you didn't think."

Astrid made a protesting sound, and Hiccup looked at her apologetically. "No, he's right. You… could have gotten hurt." He looked at the pack of snow in her hand. "More hurt."

She gave him a level look, and Gobber sighed. "Lecture over. Now, let me look at what you two have put together," he said, bending to examine the brackets. A few minutes or so of study, with him making "hmm" and "ahh" noises, and at one point taking Astrid's ax and slotting it home to examine the mechanism and taking it out again several times in a row, left him satisfied.

"Interestin' idea. Let her be a proper Viking on dragonback, ax and all. The springs should hold pretty well. But you'll want to try it out first with some of those silly acrobatics that I've seen you pull before trying them in battle. You'd probably feel very silly if you did one of those cartwheels in the sky only to have your ax fall off midway through and cut the dragon's wing or leg." He stood up with a grunt of effort. "Also, you'll need to replace the springs every so often as they wear out." He slapped the side of the saddle. "Other than that, looks like it should work. Finish those ties and take it out there."

As Hiccup went to remove the saddle from the sawhorse, Astrid saw a contemplative expression cross his face, and she gave him a look. "What was that?" she asked.

"Oh, just another idea."

Gobber looked at him with a degree of exasperation, while she sighed. "Of course yeh just had another one. This isn't going to be another idea like the dragon catapult, is it?"

"It worked!" Hiccup protested.

"Hiccup, yes, it could launch a dragon straight up and let them start flying, but it didn't work so well with people," she retorted.

He sighed as he hauled the saddle down from the sawhorse. Setting it on the table, he said, "I said I was sorry for accidentally launching you."

"Over the side of the cliff," she noted dryly. The Weyland-inspired contraption had lasted a week before it had shaken itself apart in that awe-inspiring racket, and she'd been its first human victim.

"Stormfly caught you before you hit the water!"

"And dropped me back on the platform like it was a game," Astrid said, shaking her head, remembering her screaming as she'd gone hurtling through the air without the benefit of a dragon—again. At least she'd been luckier than Ruffnut, who had gone flying from the thing's death throes. "I know that she likes to play fetch, but that was... not what I had expected," she finished lamely.

Gobber burst out laughing. "Aye, lass, you can't really blame the lad for that one. He did warn you not to step on it. And you should blame Tuffnut for sending you flying; he's the one that pulled the lever."

She gave the old smith a level look, which made him laugh harder.

"There you were, talking with your dragon, wondering why she was so excited, and walk out onto the board, then Hiccup gets this look on his face and warns you, and before you have a chance to get what he's saying," his hook traced out an arc in the air, "there you went!"

She sighed and put her head down in her hands, before starting to laugh herself. "And then I punched Tuffnut."

"Twice."

"He deserved it," she growled. Tuffnut had been watching and waiting for her to get onto the thing before pulling the lever that sent her flying. So she'd gone over and decked him, and then done it again when he'd staggered back to his feet. And she just regretted that Ruffnut had been the one that had been launched over the side when the contraption had destroyed itself.

"Aye, that he did. Of course, I still canna understand why you built it in the first place, Hiccup. Dragons can fly pretty well on their own," Gobber said, picking out an iron bar from the stack and putting it into the forge. "Sort of their nature."

"Yeah, well, I noticed that not all of the dragons can fly straight up from the ground, so I was experimenting with a takeoff system that wouldn't require more space or an overhang or something."

"And then it turned into a dragon toy," Astrid noted. The dragons had loved it, especially the Nadders. There had been a line.

"And then it turned into a dragon toy," Hiccup acknowledged. "How many times did Stormfly take a ride on it before it broke? Eight times? Nine?"

"I lost count. It was like jumping out of the swings when we were children."

"Huh…" Hiccup suddenly had another contemplative look. "Dragon swings… Ouch!"

"That's for coming up with too many ideas," Astrid said, smirking, having just pinched Hiccup's ear. She then hugged him and gave him a peck on the cheek. "And that's for everything else."

He grinned at her, and undid the rawhide ties. She watched, occasionally being called upon to hold the saddle steady in place, as Hiccup worked intently at replacing them with rivets at the anvil, the small metal slugs heated, pushed through the holes and then flattened.

Once they were done and cooled in the quenching bucket, she tugged at his arm, still holding Stormfly's newly enhanced saddle. "Come on, I want to try this before the sun goes down and it gets too cold to go outside!"

She swung open the door, into a world of swirling white, the blue sky from before having vanished since she'd last looked, and then shut it again.

"Then again, maybe tomorrow," she said, deadpan.

Hiccup chuckled. "Yeah." He bent down to Toothless, who had looked at the blustery snow with disgust, and started scratching behind his ears. "Dragons don't like flying in storms, do they, bud?"

Toothless shook his head in disgust, and Gobber laughed. "Aye, a year ago, a big blow like this was a sign that we would be safe for at least the night. The only dragons that will fly in a storm, much less a blizzard, are ones like the Skrill or Scauldron. A wet dragon head doesn't light, and a wet dragon wing is just an ice sheet waiting to happen."

Hiccup nodded. "I remember." He suddenly turned thoughtful. "Huh…"

Astrid and Gobber shared a look of mutual understanding. She leaned over and asked the older man, "Should we let him think, or stop it now?"

"Eh, let the dragon decide." Gobber turned to Toothless. "Eh, I think your buddy there is trying to think of a way to have you fly in a blizzard. What do you say to that?"

A moment later, Hiccup was flat on his back, pinned by Toothless, who was licking his face. Thoroughly.

"Oh, come on! I was just thinking!"

Astrid crouched, and tousled Hiccup's hair. "Hiccup? With you, it's never 'just' thinking."

He sighed and laughed. "Can I get up now?"

She laughed and Toothless moved off of him, but not before getting in one last slobbery lick. He pulled himself to his feet, making grossed-out noises as he wiped away at the slime, and then joined in the laughter with her and his mentor.

Flying could wait for later, she thought to herself as she grinned at him. This now… this was wonderful on its own.

###

Ruffnut, bundled up against the cold, flew next to her brother above the overcast clouds on the back of Barf and Belch, soaking in the sunlight.

Taking in a deep satisfied sigh, she looked out over the expanse of white clouds under the deep blue sky, which looked like the waves of an ocean. Down below, it was cold and dreary, and, while it was definitely frigid up here, the warmth of the sun helped. The Zippleback was just coasting along, rarely flapping his wings, as the twins rode on his back, enjoying the moment of getting out from the house.

Of course, they might have had a reason to hide up here… but she was sure that nobody would find them up here until after they had finished unburying the chieftain's hut.

Who knew that there was that much snow on the sides of Raven's Point? They'd done Hiccup and Stoick a favor by making sure that it wouldn't happen again, that was for sure. Yep. Totally a favor. No way that it was a prank that had gotten out of hand. Yep. That was her story.

As they drifted along, she looked out at the clear blueness, Manni's moon visible as a waning crescent of white on blue in the west, the horns pointing away from Sunna's chariot.

An image occurred to her as she looked at the ripples of the clouds, and she started to work on a kenning based on it to share with their uncle.

"Ymir's skull vaulted over the white sea… no, no, that doesn't work…" she mused to herself.

Tuffnut leaned over. "Whatcha working on?"

She gave him a sidelong look. "A new kenning for Uncle Chestnut, and I'm not sharing. Make up your own."

"Fine. I'll make one nine times better than yours!"

"You can't even count to nine!" she said testily, trying to keep the images in her head of the various layered metaphors that a proper kenning was made of.

"Sure I can! Just watch!"

"Then work on your kennings and let me think!" she said back crossly.

"Fine!"

It was nicely silent for a moment, quiet except for the air rushing over Barf and Belch's wings, and then Tuffnut started muttering to himself.

She groaned. "Shut up!"

"I was being quiet!"

"No you weren't!"

"Yes, I was!"

"Then you need to clean your ears out again the next time you bathe, because you weren't!"

They kept bickering for a few more passes until they settled down in sullen silence once more.

Ruffnut had just managed to put together a good solid kenning of the image of the sea of clouds beneath a featureless blue sky that implied the reversal of colors…

When Snotlout's voice came from nearby and knocked it out of her head.

"Hey there, beautiful. Come up here often?"

She scowled and huffed in utter frustration as she realized that she'd lost the kenning. Pulling out a knife, she looked around and threw the small blade at Snotlout from where he was flying nearby, looking at her.

"Whoa!" he shouted, as Hookfang darted out of the way of the knife, which quickly vanished into the clouds below. "What's wrong!? I'll go get your knife for you!" he said in a hurry and he and his dragon dove after it, vanishing beneath the blanket of clouds.

As he disappeared, she sighed and started piecing her shattered kenning back together.

A minute later, though, he was back, and proffering her knife back to her.

"I caught it! Told you I could. I'm just that amazing," he said boastfully. "So, interested in coming by and seeing my place? Maybe work out a little?"

She just sighed and looked at him. "Why aren't you pestering Astrid anymore?" The other question on her mind, what did I do to deserve this? was easy to answer. She was a girl near him.

"Oh, that's not important," he said with a winsome smile. "I mean, why do you care? I'm here for you."

Oh, I know. How can I make you go away for me? With a sigh, she just gave him an exasperated look. "Turned you down, didn't she, so you went for your second choice?"

His grin turned a bit sickly.

She sighed. "Give me back my knife."

His grin turning more hopeful, he eased Hookfang closer and held out her knife for her to take.

Grabbing it by the hilt with one hand, she looked him in the face as she used her other hand to unhook his belaying lines.

"Snotlout?"

"Yeah?" he said, grinning widely and leaning in.

She grabbed him by his collar and yanked him off of Hookfang's back.

As he plummeted down through the clouds, she shouted down after him, "I'm not interested either!"

Hookfang gave her a reproachful look and dove after his screaming rider.

Tuffnut just looked at her.

"What?"

He shrugged. "He was just trying to be nice."

She just gave her twin a flat glare. "No…" she said through her teeth, "he was trying to get into my trousers."

"Huh?"

She rolled her eyes and decided to use small words as she put her knife back in the belt sheath. "That wasn't being nice, that was 'Hey, want to sleep with me?'"

"And…?" Tuffnut asked, clearly confused.

She sagged and sighed. "Tuff, did he ever even talk to me before?"

"Uh… well… didn't he?"

She just looked at her brother with a level stare. "Only to tease me, in between hitting on Astrid or picking on Hiccup." She clasped her hands up by her face and affected a mocking smile. "But now that she's with Hiccup, he won't leave me alone." She shifted her tone to a nasally mocking exaggeration of Snotlout's voice, "'Hey beautiful, wanna come by my place and sing?' 'I found this cool thing, want to see it… alone?'" She huffed in irritation. "So if you think that I'm dumb enough to…" she looked at him. "Wait, nevermind."

"Huh?"

She snorted and turned away, looking back at the clouds.

After a moment, her brother said hesitantly, "Umm… sis?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you want me to tell him to leave you alone?"

She just turned and looked at her brother. "Oh, that'd be nice," she said sarcastically. "Because of course he won't listen to me."

Tuffnut's eyes just grew wider. "Uh, so you don't want me to talk to him?"

"Sure. Swell," she said.

Snotlout and Hookfang flew back into view.

"You just tried to kill me!" he shouted angrily at her.

"No… I had a knife. If I wanted to kill you, you'd be dead," she said levelly to him.

"Then what do you call that!?" he demanded.

"A warning." She glared at him. "Snotlout Spiteloutsson, I'm not your consolation prize for Astrid picking someone else, or your spare bedtoy." She narrowed her eyes. "Got it?"

He looked at her and then, wordlessly, flew away.

With a smile, she got back to working on her kennings.

###

Hiccup hammered the second-to-last nail into the wood and stepped back with a grin before passing the hammer over to Astrid's father.

With a look that was half-skeptical and half-curious, her dad hammered in the last nail with a few solid hits and stepped back as well, looking at what she and Hiccup had spent the last fortnight working on.

The waterwheel was a bit taller than Stoick, and it had taken Astrid weeks to talk her father into letting Hiccup borrow one of their smaller millstones for this experiment. But the spring thaw was nearly here, and they'd managed to convince him, as the village miller, to let Hiccup try building a small water-powered grain mill.

The idea had come from a book that Fishlegs had just bought from Trader Johann, about some engineering done down in the continent, and Hiccup had run with it, building a model that had convinced Astrid. And then she had pestered her father into trying it. It had been a hard sell; they'd had horizontal wheels before, but they weren't very effective, and her family had switched over to mules at some point a generation or two back, apparently citing that the mules could be bribed easier. So a vertical wheel had been a tricky sell on her part.

But now it was built, after a month and a half of hard work, near one of the streams that cascaded near the village; Hiccup had picked a nice little waterfall as the spot. The water was currently frozen over, but that had made construction easier, and carrying over the supplies and materials had been simple with the dragons. The millstones themselves had been the hardest part to bring over, just due to them being heavy stone, but the Gronckles had lifted them easily after she and Hiccup had figured out the best way to attach the carry-straps.

Her father turned and looked at Hiccup. "So now what, son?"

Her boyfriend just turned and whistled to the dragons standing nearby. The Night Fury and the various Nadders promptly turned to the frozen-over holding pond above the waterfall, one that they had put together the other week during a brief thaw, and breathed fire.

The rush of heat made her sigh in appreciation as the cold disappeared. A minute or two later, the water, steaming in the cold, started to flow over the small dam, down the spillway, and onto the waterwheel.

With a creaking noise, the wheel started to turn, slowly at first and then faster and faster.

Cheering, she and Hiccup ran inside the new building, and watched the wooden gears and shafts that they had so carefully shaped start to spin.

Her father came up behind them and put his hand on her shoulder.

"Alright. I'll admit it," he said, looking as the millstones ground together, barley flour pouring out between them, and not a single draft animal needed, "this was a grand idea." He shook his head, a smile on his face, and patted Hiccup on the shoulder with his other hand.

After a moment, watching the millstone spin, her father laughed again. "Looks like I have to go get more barley. That stone's spinning twice as fast as the mule could manage to turn it." He turned and looked at the pair of them. "Astrid, you know the rules for being around a millstone. Keep him from losing any bits."

"You mean any more bits," Hiccup said sarcastically.

"Uh…" her father glanced at his peg and reddened slightly. "Sorry. I just don't want to have to explain how you lost some fingers or something to Stoick."

Hiccup sighed and nodded. "Okay."

Astrid just slung her arm around her boyfriend and nodded at her father.

She watched her dad hop onto his Nadder, a sanguine and rather hyperactive pink fellow named Cloudfox, and fly back towards the village. Once they had flown out of sight, she turned, took a quick look around and saw that there were no witnesses in the area. Grinning, she grabbed Hiccup by the collar to pin him against the wall with a thump, and gave him a bruising kiss.

He gave a brief noise of surprise, and then melted into it, and they were both breathing heavily when they broke the kiss shortly thereafter.

"It's working," she said gleefully to him, their foreheads touching, the noise of creaking wood surrounding them.

"Was there any doubt?" he asked back, grinning.

She just gave him a skeptical look. "When you've had three, no, five creations in a row work without them falling apart or flying apart, you can ask that question again, okay?"

He shrugged, grinning widely at her. "Okay."

She gave him another kiss, and her own hands started to wander a bit. As they reached certain spots on him, Hiccup coughed and pulled away a bit.

"Not now," he said with a pained look.

"Why?" she said, giving him a sly grin.

"Because your dad won't be gone long, and having him walk in on you… touching me like that might have him change his mind on me losing bits!" he said plaintively.

She gave him a look and then nodded sourly. "Point." They'd had a few scant moments of actual privacy since Yule, but what times they had found had been so very enjoyable… if a bit fumbling and occasionally intensely awkward. And even then, they hadn't gone too far… yet. But they both knew that that was coming, sooner or later.

Assuming that they could find themselves enough privacy to do anything, of course. But Hiccup was right—her dad would be back soon, and him walking in to find her hands in certain places on Hiccup, or the other way around… probably wouldn't be good.

The millstone started to slow, as did the sound of the water from outside.

Hiccup poked his head out the door and shrugged. "Looks like the meltwater's all done," he said.

"Well, for an experiment, it went well, right?" she said. "And Thawfest is in a month or so. The water will start flowing once the ice melts." She grinned at him as the millstone came to a slow stop.

He nodded and grinned up at the gearing that they had put together and waved his arms around to indicate it all. And, as the reality of it really sunk in, he put aside his earlier bravado and started to cheer in earnest. "Astrid, look! Look! It works! It actually worked!"

She beamed at him. "It did!" She reached up and tousled her boyfriend's hair with a grin, and then reached further up and patted the main drive shaft like it was a well-behaved pet. Her father had always been complaining about how much it took to feed the mules that they used to turn the millstones that ground the flour for the village's bread. Now, thanks to Hiccup… well, those days would be a thing of the past.

Again.

She leaned up against him possessively. "So, what's next on your list of ideas?"

"Well, I had some ideas for this place, or the next one we build…" he said, grinning.

She rolled her eyes fondly and gave him a moderately light punch to the arm with a grin. "Of course you do. What sorts?"

"Well, for starters, I'm noticing that the drive shaft there is rubbing against the socket there…" he pointed where the big beam entered the room, "so I was thinking of carving some wooden balls from oak or something and making a collar for them to spin in…"

She tried to visualize that, and then nodded. "So it can spin without rubbing?"

"Yep!" He grinned and then said, "And I think the next waterwheel needs to be bigger, with bigger buckets or paddles… and if we do it on the side of a steep hill, there's nothing stopping us from having one wheel dump water into another wheel below it…"

Cocking her head in thought, she nodded in agreement after a moment. "I see. Yeah. Oh, dad would love that." A thought occurred to her. "Hey. Can't you have the drive shaft push, oh, I don't know, a hammer or a flail?"

Hiccup stroked his chin in thought for a moment. "Hmm… yeah… well, probably. Why?"

"Threshing grain," she said, making a whacking motion, as if knocking the grain-heads from the stalks. "Although it's a really great way to work on proper hammer form."

Understanding dawned in his eyes. "Oooh. I see. Hmm… yeah. I think I could do it." He cocked his head. "Heck, if I do that… I could make it also for the forge… a nice hammer… and maybe work the bellows…"

She grinned and gave him another kiss, which quickly deepened. She started nibbling on his lip a bit as his hands started rubbing her back.

Which, of course, was when her dad walked back in.

He gave an amused cough from behind the two of them, holding a pair of large burlap sacks of barley grain, one on each of his shoulders.

"Am I interrupting anything?" he asked with a smirk, dropping the heavy sacks to the ground with a thud.

Hiccup's hands flew to his sides and he stepped back from Astrid convulsively. "Nosir. Uh—"

"Hiccup, don't worry. I'm not going to feed you into the millstones for touching my daughter." He grinned at the pair of them. "So, let's melt some more water. I want to test this thing that you've built first. It worked for a short while and for a few handfuls of barley. Let's see how well it handles a few sackfuls, shall we?"

They nodded, and Astrid just gave her father a grateful look. He and her mother—after some initial lingering skepticism at the dragon tamer in those first few weeks, courtesy of a long family tradition of dragon-slaying—had eventually come around to accept Hiccup as her boyfriend. They even had their own dragons now, Nadders like hers.

Hiccup went outside to get the dragons to work, and called greetings to her mother, who had arrived with her father. As her father fiddled with adjusting the millstones, she heaved up the sack of barley onto a ledge and slit it open with her knife, noting that the blade's edge was getting dull. Well, she'd just have Hiccup put it to the stone when he had a chance. Another roar of dragonfire from outside, and the millstone started to turn once more after a few moments.

A few minutes later, it was spinning merrily, the big wooden gears taking the slow speed of the waterwheel and making the stones spin that much faster, due to their differing sizes. She just remembered her own reaction when Hiccup had shown her the model and how the different sized gears could be used to change the speed of the spin. And now the ideas were bouncing around in her head, and she was thinking of other ways that they could do things.

A rush of air announced the arrival of another dragon, and a moment later, Stoick walked into the mill, looking around carefully before stepping fully inside.

"How goes it, Hákon?" he asked her father, as he looked around with interest.

"Your boy and my girl do good work," he said with a grin, feeding in handfuls of grain into the hopper from the sack that Astrid had opened. He waved vaguely to indicate the room. "We're about to start seeing how well it works for long term, but so far I'm impressed. It's working much better and much faster than the old wheel that my father talked about." He motioned to the clean floor. "And not having to work around mule shit is a blessing in and of itself."

Stoick grinned. "Aye. And less spoilage from the smell, too, I'd wager."

"Ayep." Her father tossed another double-handful of barley grains into the hopper.. "Now, let's take a look…"

Her dad knelt down to where the flour was pouring out from between the two millstones and down onto the pan around the base of the bedstone, and picked up a double-handful of the flour. Holding it up to his face, he took a deep sniff, dumped half of it back into the pan, and then rubbed some between his fingers with his eyes closed, feeling for the texture. Then, smiling, he turned to Stoick. "Nice and fine. Minimal grit."

Stoick just quirked an eyebrow. "Aren't they your own stones?"

"Aye, but, as you said…" her dad tossed the handful back into the pan and rose to his feet, "less spoilage. The bakers will be happy." He pointed to a small pile of empty flour bags nearby. "Hand me one of those? I want to start bagging this."

The chief laughed, and tossed over an empty sack.

Stoick having cleared the doorway, Astrid slipped around him and made for the door; it was a touch cramped in there, with the chief in the way. As he and her dad chatted about the new mill, she went outside to find Hiccup talking with her mother near the holding pond.

"I still can't quite believe you built the whole place in less than two months," her mother was saying to him as Hiccup shoveled in more snow to be melted. "I know that the dragons helped, but I'm still surprised."

Hiccup just blushed and shrugged in a downplaying manner. "They did all of the work. I just pointed—"

Astrid threw a snowball at the back of his head from maybe ten feet away.

"What the—! Hey!" he shouted, turning around to look at her.

Grinning at him, she threw another one, square in his face. The light powder exploded as it hit his nose, and he coughed and shouted, "No fair!"

Ducking, he scooped up his own snowball and threw it blindly back in her direction, but it missed. Grinning, she tossed another one at him, and it hit his hair in a wonderful cloud of white.

Her mother ducked out of the way down the hillside, grinning, and gave her a cheer.

He rubbed the snow out of his eyes and glared at her before laughing. "What did I do to deserve that?"

She just grinned at him. "Nothing. It was just a perfect opportunity." Her grin widened. "I couldn't resist."

There was suddenly a smirk under those big green eyes, and he shrugged and went, "Well, I guess then I shouldn't feel bad about this."

"Wha—?" she started to say, and then Toothless, having snuck up behind her, dropped a giant pile of snow onto her head from where he'd been carrying it between his front paws. As she sputtered and cried out over the sudden cold, he dropped down around her and gave his little chortle-laugh.

Hiccup and her mother, the traitor, were laughing hard as she brushed the snow out of her face and hair. With an exaggerated humph, she gave the black dragon a deadpan glare, which he returned with a grin.

Just as she turned back to her boyfriend, another snowball came flying in and whacked her in the chest. Unfortunately, Hiccup's snow supply was a bit melted, and it was much damper snow, and shockingly cold from the water in it. She gasped from the chill as it spread across her chest, and then swore at Hiccup before throwing more snow at him.

"You ass! That was cold!" she said, half-laughing as the cold water made her skin pucker up all over, and threw another snowball at him.

He ducked away from the snowball, and then his peg slipped out from under him on the slickness of the snow. With a yelp of surprise and a splash, he fell into the melted waters of the holding pond.

Astrid gasped, her eyes wide in realization of how cold that water would be. Without hesitation, she darted up the last few feet of the little hill around the waterfall and went in after him. It wasn't terribly big, but it was still enough to drown in.

As the water hit her skin, she held back a screaming gasp from the sheer frigid chill of it, but Hiccup was worse off. He was scrambling for leverage on the water-smoothed rocks at the bottom of the pond, and it was just deep enough to keep him from pushing himself clear of the water with his arms.

Taking a deep breath, she ducked her head under the water and grabbed him by his collar and arm. She managed to drag his head up and free of the water just as her mother appeared over the lip of the pond; she had mud all down her front, on her arms and in her hair, probably from slipping on the hillside.

Astrid's own muscles were clenching in the face of the cold, and she tried to haul the two of them out of the water, only to find that she couldn't. Her fingers had lost all sensation, and her arms were just trying to wrap themselves around her. Feet on the bottom of the pond, she tried to pull herself out, so she could pull him out next, and her hands slipped on the wet wood. Then her mother grabbed her with both hands and pulled her free. Turning, even as her muscles screamed at her, she helped her mother drag her boyfriend free of the grasping waters of the little frozen pond.

Teeth chattering, she held him close and tried to speak, only for a spasmed shiver to hit her that nearly doubled her over.

"C-c-c-cold…" she gasped out. Hiccup just fell to his hands and knees and vomited up a stream of water before gasping for air. He was shivering so badly that it hurt her to watch him.

The dragons hustled over, and Toothless did something that she'd never seen him do before. With a look of focus on his face, he gave off little breaths of fire, which gave welcome warmth to her, but they faded too fast.

Another spasm hit, and her mother turned to the concerned dragons. "Get them to the bathhouse and into the warmth, quick!"

Toothless nodded and went to help Hiccup onto his back, but a massive shiver-spasm made him fall off. Toothless gave a growl of concerned alarm.

Stormfly, who had been watching the snowball fight with an amused look and had rushed over when Astrid had dived into the pond after Hiccup, pushed her way into the group.

"Take Stormfly," her mother said, concerned, and turned to the dragon. "Hiccup can't work the tailfin when he's like this," she said to Astrid's dragon. "You have to carry them both to someplace warm now."

"Toothless can, no—" Hiccup tried to protest to her mother, just as another wave of shivers wracked his body, his voice sounding raspy and watery.

"Hush, boy. Save your strength," her mother said, and looked at the dragon. "Take them!"

Stormfly nodded, and helped the two freezing teenagers onto her back. With a rush of wings, they took off, Toothless following behind them on the ground at top speed.

The chill of the wind on their wet clothing was like knives on their skin, and they huddled close together on her dragon's back for the brief flight to the village. It couldn't have been more than a count of thirty, but each moment seemed to stretch into an infinity of agonizing cold.

Then Stormfly banked and flew down, landing in front of the bathhouse. She hauled Hiccup, whose hair had frozen into an icy reddish mass, off of her dragon's back. Then, hunched over, the two of them staggered towards the bathhouse, their woolen garments crackling with a sheen of ice.

Stepping over the threshold, each of them leaning on the other, they staggered and collapsed onto the floor as alarmed adult voices sounded.

Astrid lifted her head to see the bathhouse attendants picking them both up off of the floor, exclaiming at the chill of their skin.

Fortunately, being Vikings, they knew quite well what to do about someone having taken an unintended dip into ice water.

Astrid felt herself trying to blush as the attendants, a married couple from the Thorston clan named Braun and Hilda, summarily stripped the two of them of their sodden and icy woolens and furs, but she was too cold. She got a few glances at Hiccup in the whirlwind of activity, and was deeply concerned. Her boy's skin should not be that pale, verging on outright blue.

"Is he going to be okay?" she managed to get out after several shiver-spasms, her chest shaking as she made little shallow breaths.

"Probably," said Braun, working on him. "What happened?"

Hiccup, his teeth chattering and voice gurgling a bit, said, "My fault—"

"No, it wasn't!" she protested. "I threw the snowball!"

"And I messed up and fell in—" he said, and gave a deep wracking cough, falling to the floor and vomiting up more water with great gasping heaves that made Astrid's gut twist in sympathy.

She winced and reflexively reached for him, only to be restrained by Hilda, who was still working on her.

"That's a clear enough picture, thanks," said Braun dryly, hauling her boyfriend to his feet and then unceremoniously wrapped him in a big linen towel.

Astrid herself was still shivering, as Hilda brusquely wrapped a towel around her with just as much decorum. Hiccup looked awful, and the watery noise of his hacking breath was scaring her.

"What now?" she asked.

"This way," Hilda said, and the two adults dragged them off to the back of the bathhouse and more or less tossed the pair onto a bench in the tub room.

"You two, sit there," Braun said.

"Stay out of the baths and the sauna," Hilda said.

"But, but… Why… why," she shivered, "why not just put… us in a warm bath?" she managed to shiver out. It was warm and moist in here, but the steaming tubs of bathwater just looked so inviting…

"Because Stoick, Gunvor and Hákon would be mighty upset with us if we managed to kill their children," she said dryly. "Putting someone from ice water to steaming water or a sauna is a good way to have their heart stop."

Astrid blinked as another shiver wracked her body. "Oh." She leaned up against Hiccup unconsciously, and he did the same, the two of them shivering even as they breathed the warm air.

A few of the bathers in the room gave them concerned looks and someone called out to the attendants, "What happened?"

Astrid shivered, her breath still coming rapidly, and managed to get out, "Hiccup fell into the holding pond for my parents' new mill…"

"And she pulled me out," Hiccup said, his voice still watery. That seemed to be enough to trigger another coughing fit, and he fell forward, the linen towel opening and draping across him, and then vomited up more water. The last of it came up just as Toothless bulled his way into the tub room.

The dragon just looked around the room, gave them all an inscrutable look, and laid down protectively on the floor around their bench. He looked at Hiccup with concern as his friend reclosed the linen towel around himself and sat back down on the bench next to Astrid.

Hilda just sighed. "Did you remember to close the doors?" she asked the dragon.

Toothless huffed.

"Well fine then. You can keep them alive and I'll go deal with those soaked woolens before they're ruined. Keep them out of the sauna and the tubs. No matter how much they complain that they're cold, you hear me?"

Toothless gave an affirmative gruff, and Hilda shrugged and walked out of the room.

Braun just looked at the two—three—of them. "She's not kidding. You two will stay out of the sauna and tubs, you hear me?"

They both nodded, and Astrid leaned up against Hiccup again, suddenly feeling very tired.

Her mind started to wander a bit as she just tried to feel the warmth of the room… even if they couldn't just jump into the steaming vat less than five feet in front of them… it looked so warm and inviting… Hiccup could join her…

She then stiffened, realizing that, under the linen towels, they were both completely naked. While he might not have gotten a look at her when Hilda had stripped her of the sodden clothes, as he'd been tossing up ice water from his lungs, she'd gotten an eyeful of him when Braun had done the same for him.

Suddenly grateful that she was too cold to blush, she tried very, very hard to put the memory aside.

Now was not the time for that… especially with the half a dozen other people in the room looking at them with concern and worry. Berk usually was pretty good about not losing people to cold exposure or winter drowning, but it still happened.

Hiccup's shivers were starting to taper off, and he looked up at her. Voice still a bit raspy, he said, "You okay?"

She just gave him an incredulous look. "You were under for twice as long and actually started drowning and breathed in cold water, and you're worried about me?"

He shrugged, which made the linen towel shift a bit. "Well, yeah. You're—" he paused, clearly trying to think of the right word. Astrid sympathized. Her head felt all mushy and tired too. "You're… I mean… you're cold too, right?"

She smiled and kissed his cheek. "Yeah." She put an arm around his shoulder and sighed. "And so are you."

Someone nearby muttered something.

She turned her head and gave the heavily-scarred, silver-haired fellow a look. "What?" She narrowed her eyes a bit, trying to bring him into focus, but she was still cold and tired… she knew his name, but couldn't recall it at the moment…

He shrugged and said with a smirk, "Been watchin' yeh two be all over each other all season. Bet yeh're enjoying the moment." His smirk turned lewd and he opened his mouth to say something more, but Hiccup jumped in first.

"Hey! Astrid kept me from drowning!"

"Yea, and now yeh two are all nice and cozy there…" He winked knowingly.

Astrid just found herself laughing slightly at the sheer absurdity of it. Her first glance of her boyfriend's naked body, and it was him getting ice-caked frozen clothes off of him. Hardly romantic. And now… well, amorous was hardly an accurate way of describing how she felt at the moment. More like bone-deep cold and tired.

She just looked at the older man and said, "Think what you like, but," she gave a deep shiver that seemed to start at her toes and go up her in a wave, "if you're going to start wagging your tongue over this…" she blinked and pushed the uncooperative words together, "go chew on some ice first, and maybe take your own ice bath and see how cozy you feel, okay?"

With another shivering shudder, she burrowed in closer to Hiccup's side, and the bather… Fritjof, right, that was his name, just shrugged and sank down deeper into the steaming tub without another word. She remembered him now. He was an outsider, a former sea raider who had joined the Jorgensons a few years back, looking for glory in fighting dragons.

Her mother came into the room, Stoick following closely behind.

"You two all right?" he asked, concerned. Nearby, there was a sudden muffled splashing as Fritjof hurriedly climbed out of his tub.

They both nodded.

Stoick just looked at his son. "Green Death's fire, winter ice water… and yeh fly on a dragon and go down in dragon tunnels." He sighed. "Yeh got four elemental ways of killin' yerself, son. Be more careful."

Hiccup shrugged. "Astrid and Toothless will protect me," he said, smiling at the two of them.

Astrid poked him in the ribs. "Yes, we will, but it's not fair to us to have to yank your ass out of harm's way."

Toothless chuffed in agreement.

Stoick gave her a grateful look. "Aye. Well. You two warm up. Your father is trying out his new mill, and I want to see it work. But I wanted to check in on you both first." He turned to Astrid's mother, as Fritjof was slinking off towards the door behind him… probably trying to get clear before she could tell the chief about his rudeness. "Gunvor, coming with or staying?"

"I'll be along shortly," she said, looking at the two of them. Hiccup tensed under her regard.

"Aye. See you then." The chief turned to his son. "Hiccup. First that catapult… then the spear chucker—"

"It worked!" Hiccup protested. Off to the side, the door closed behind Fritjof; Astrid considered saying something, but after a moment's thought, decided that robbing him of half of his bath to be a fair trade for his rudeness.

"Aye… unless it jammed," Stoick said mildly.

"I just think I need to work on the shape of the groove better," Hiccup said, only to have Stoick hold up a hand.

"That's enough, Hiccup. You can work on it again at some point later. My point is, you've been working on things all winter, and training the dragons. You've done well. But this is the third time this winter that something that you've built has almost badly hurt you or someone else—"

Astrid jumped in. "But this had nothing to do with the mill! It was my fault for picking a bad spot for starting a snowball fight! It's my fault, not Hiccup's!"

Stoick looked at her and sighed. "I suppose that there's merit to that. But I want yeh both to be more careful. Alright?"

They both nodded.

"Good. And… Astrid?"

She looked at the chief.

"Thank you." He looked at Hiccup with concern in his eyes. "Thank you for saving my son."

"I—"

"Your mother told me that you dove in without a care for your own safety. So thank you." He turned and gave her mother a wry grin. "Aye, and on that note, I think that your mother here might have some things to say to you…"

He turned and left, and Astrid braced herself.

Her mother just looked at her for a moment… looked at them, smiled, and reached down and tousled Astrid's hair. "You did good, kid," she said, smiling at her. "I'm very proud of you."

Astrid blinked. Her mother wasn't terribly overprotective, and always encouraged her to be strong and self-reliant and capable… but honest praise had to be earned. "I… uh…"

Giving her another smile, her mother shrugged. "You were brave, you were smart, you didn't panic, and you reacted well. I'm proud."

Astrid blinked again, looking down at her hands in embarrassment. It had all happened so fast… but then she looked up at her mother. "Mom… thanks."

"Well, you two warm up and rest," her mother said, and then she turned her gaze to Hiccup. "Oh, and Hiccup?"

"Mmmh?"

"How hard would it be for you to build more of those waterwheels?"

He blinked and waved his arms expressively… causing the towel to drop slightly, exposing his chest. Astrid very carefully averted her gaze as he started to talk with enthusiasm. "Not very hard. Actually, we were talking about improvements to make for the next one."

"Good. We'll talk. But we have another three millstones… and we might want you to make new homes for them," she said. "But that can be for later." She turned and left.

Astrid just leaned back on the bench with an explosive breath of relief.

Hiccup sighed. "I second the motion."

They both laughed and, fixing his towel, they leaned up against one another, eventually dropping off into a light nap in the warmth of the bathhouse.

Astrid felt… satisfied. Her mother was pleased, the mill was working, and Hiccup was all right.

Yeah, this was good. Things were going all right.

###

Sitting back in his throne, Donald Mac Bethad mac Findláích, listened to the itinerant bard as the winter winds howled outside the walls of his hold in Moray. It was his first winter since becoming King of the Scots, since his succession from his cousin Donnchad mac Crínáin, dead these six months, killed on the field of battle at Bothnagowan. His wife Gruoch, sat next to him, with his stepson Lulach, who was watching the bard with wide eyes as the man sang.

Mac Bethad was listening as well. His court fili had mentioned some of the general details of the saga when suggesting this evening, but Mac Bethad would have thought it a tall tale out of myth and legend, if not for two things.

First there was the fact that for the last four months, there had been an utter lack of reports of dragon attacks and raids coming from his northern vassals.

And second, there was the blackened and burned scale the size of a round shield that the bard had produced from a sack at the proper moment in the tale.

They all had gaped at it. Mac Bethad had seen dragons, and had once fought against the beasts when they had raided his procession, years before, but such beasts were usually the size of horses, on up to perhaps the size of a team of oxen. Prodigious, for certain, but functioning on the scale of man and his works. Their hides produced scales sized on the order of coins—and were even occasionally used as such in his realm.

For the beast to have reached a size that such prodigious scutes were not the largest found… Mac Bethad found his imagination wanting. He could understand the measures that the bard reported, of sixty cubits tall, two hundred cubits long, and wings of three hundred cubits. But his mind staggered at the thought of such a beast upon his shores.

But he need not fear, apparently, for this Hero, from a village so small that he could not recall its place on his maps, had killed the beast.

And had done so with another dragon. And that one was something that Mac Bethad knew of, for a Night Fury had been among those that had attacked his camp that long ago night. He could still hear that demonic whistle and the screams of dying men if he thought too much on it…

But the Hero had apparently managed to break one to the saddle and bridle, to do his bidding as he willed, having bested it in the skies above his villages and then done battle with it in the forest surrounding until it submitted and gave its loyalty to him.

And, together, they had slain the beast, shortly after he himself had been on the battlefield against his cousin the king.

He wondered if this not-so-distant Hero was also working to consolidate his own power, much as Mac Bethad was doing. Reportedly, he was the son of the Viking chieftain of the tiny village, and he could only imagine that a man possessing such martial strength among those tribal peoples, and with a legitimate claim to the position, would have no difficulty claiming his father's throne. Mac Bethad himself had had to carve out his own power and authority with a sword, even though, by the law, his own line had the right to it.

After the bard and his fili finished with a flourish, reporting the dire injury to the Hero and (much to Mac Bethad's disappointment) his subsequent recovery, he rose and nodded towards the pair.

"We thank you, wise and learned gentlemen, for this news and entertainment here tonight. You have given us much to think about, and you," he turned to the bard, "will be justly compensated for your efforts in traveling in this season to bring us such news."

The bard glowed with satisfaction, and gave a deep bow to the king. "Thank you, my lord," he said, sticking the scale back into the sack.

As the room broke into excited murmuring and discussion over the story, Mac Bethad thought to himself. Something must be done, that was for certain. At the very least, he had to ascertain the intentions of this new power on his borders.

He himself had sworn submission to Cnut the Great these nine years ago, when Mac Bethad had just been the dux of Máel Coluim mac Cináeda, Forranach—or, as his lord had been styled to Cnut's Anglo lackeys, Malcolm the Second, son of Kenneth the Second, The Destroyer, King of Alba. And his lord had also sworn submission to the Viking Dane.

Now, with both Máel Coluim and Cnut having joined the Lord in Heaven, he eyed King Harthacnut with concern, after the man had taken the crown from his half-brother not even a year earlier. The two were still exchanging letters and verbally dancing around one another. Mac Bethad had sworn to the man's father, not to the man himself, but Harthacnut commanded not only England but the Danes, and his Thingmen had grown their fleet to sixty ships this past year, with some reports saying even more. Such a force could easily conquer much of Mac Bethad's kingdom, or at least press him hard. So, instead, he fenced with the other man, knowing that his only salvation was the threat of invasion by the boy, Magnus the Good of Norway, who had inherited many of Cnut's raiders from that kingdom. So long as he was a threat to Harthacnut, Mac Bethad could breath easier, for the Thingmen were needed to defend. Just because the two kings had met this past summer at the border between their nations and agreed to peace, didn't necessarily mean that they were going to follow through with that promise. Plus there was still the threat from the Swedes and Wends. Mac Bethad, on the other hand, just wanted to be left alone.

It was ironic, in a way. The Dragon Hero was apparently still but a boy, but if he commanded a Night Fury, then he was deadly dangerous. Magnus was still a child as well, but commanded thousands of berserkers and raiders. And here Mac Bethad was between them.

Magnus had resisted his overtures of peace and alliance, but perhaps, if Mac Bethad played his pieces well, the Dragon Hero of Berk could be brought into his fold. The dragonfire of a Night Fury would reduce any longboat to flotsam, whether that ship belonged to the Thingmen or Magnus's raiders, and Mac Bethad's men could hold the passes against the English coming from overland. The old Roman wall could be put to its old use once again, perhaps.

He considered, brooding, as his wife approached him.

"What troubles you, husband?" she asked.

Looking at her, he said, "The bard has brought news of either our salvation or our doom, milady, and I know not which. Magnus threatens from the sea, Harthacnut from the land, and now perhaps dragons from the air. And I have met the beast that the Hero rides in battle, and count myself fortunate to have survived. He would make for a potent ally, or an even more deadly enemy, and I know not how to court him to our side."

His wife leaned down to face him. "Then find out. Magnus is but a boy, but dreams of rebuilding Cnut's empire, for he has had a taste of rulership and power, and wants the full dish. But this hero? He is from a tiny tribal holding among the islands to the north. However great his deeds, he will think with his thews and his ax, not his brains, and know not the intricacies of what it means to be a lord. Woo him, dazzle him, find his weaknesses and vices, and bend them."

Mac Bethad looked at her and smiled. "And how, pray tell, would you propose that I do that, and in a way that will not be obvious to even a thew-bounded berserker? Send gold and jewels that we do not have, on pretty maidens perhaps, and simply assume that he will not just take them and come looking for more?"

"Simple. If they follow the old pagan ways, then in a few months' time, they will hold their celebration for the end of winter. If they follow the way of Christ, then they will mark our Lord's martyrdom at the same time. Send trusted men to witness, watch and report back, and perhaps offer a gift to the chieftain to sweeten his mood. Once we know more… then we can begin. Because, dear husband, the options for our survival are four; they become our vassals. We become theirs. We join in alliance of equals. Or they are destroyed. Magnus commands an army, and we cannot confront him directly. But this Hero? He had his friends astride dragons during the battle, but they were dismounted, according to the bard. His forces will be limited, and vulnerable. If we must, we could take them, raze their village, and secure our flank, and be no worse off than we are now."

He nodded.

"Agreed."

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Assault on Fort Sudval (Lord of War, Part IV)

“No fucking way!” Tanef was reading through Shirra's message. “They want us to storm a fort with just auxiliary forces? It is clear that they just want to wipe us out so that mercenaries don't take all the glory in the great battle that's going to take place. This is ridiculous and when we get out of that situation I will punch that Maximilliam in the nose!”

She rode besides Thurn in a slow trot. He listened to the small rant Tanef had upon reading the message.

She had woken up a few hours ago and was as energetic as ever. She assessed the situation fully – a war has been declared by Amelgalia towards Reval. It was caused by some provocations about use of river waters by local peasantry, but it was clear that Amelgalia simply wanted to enforce dominance on their northern rival. They were ready to go to war for the smallest provocation.

Now, they called all the levies and mercenaries and went to war. Tanef's band, The Endeavour, was also called and their small band of 100 men had mobilized. A skeleton crew of 10 men were left behind but the rest 87 with Shirra as their temporary captain went on and joined the grand host. They would be heading for fort Sudwal at the southern border of Reval. There they were ordered to storm it within 5 days of arrival. Thurn, Tanef and Loth now had to race there and take over command over their band before a bad decision was made in their absence. Hopefully the commanders there won't initiate an assault before their arrival.

They rode westwards now, backtracking where they came from in the wilderness. They rode quickly, as time was not to be wasted. They even skipped a night of sleep to get there faster. They were sleepless, tired and anxious to see what would happen. It would take 2 more days to get there.

They slept through the night to the second day. Tanef once more stayed awake for the night, even though the sleeplessness was taking a toll on her as well. She was laying on her back in the grass and looking up at the skies. It has been 3 years since she left her subterranean home and came to this world, but she still was amazed by the sky. It wasn't as big of a spectacle as before, but it still amazed her. She liked to look at the stars in the night and imagine flying in the sky among them. They can't be that far away, right? She would never allow anyone to take this spectacle away from her.

She didn't even miss her home. It was miserable living alone and almost impoverished, even though she lived in the wealthy elvish district. She was the only one remaining in her clan's house after the great schism and everyone leaving. She still wonders what happened, why did everyone leave and started killing each other? Was it really only because they defeated their rivals?

Before she knew it, she was asleep, lost in her thoughts.

She dreamed, but the dreams were... weird. They weren't like usual dreams, where her mind flew wild. It was... like a lecture. A flow of information pulsed through her visions in sleep. It felt like something important was told... about.. about different worlds and.. her...

She was woken awake by Thurn. The sun was rising over the horizon and everyone was waking.

“You fell asleep after all, huh?” Thurn said, laughingly.

Tanef sat up and shook her head. What was that dream about? She had no idea and it was lost now. Whatever it was, it seemed important and wass trying to tell her something.

She stood up and picked her things and they all went on their way northwards. That day, in the afternoon, they finally reached the borders of Reval. They saw the banners of the golden lion of Amelgalia on the red background flying high from the border outpost, similar but smaller than Tanef's fort. It just made her worry more about fort Sudwal, as her own fort was nothing but a small outpost in comparison to real fortifications.

It was more wooded than to the south, it seemed very likely to get ambushed . But, once they met up with the guards at the outpost and solved the problem with rogue mercenaries following the great host of Amelgalia,, it was explained that Reval still hadn;'t managed to mobilize their own forces. Even though it would make sense to just strike the heart of the enemy right now, Maximillian wasn't interested in a siege. He wanted a battle, a decisive battle where the might of Amelgalia would be proven and imposed on Reval.

They continued riding on their way. As the night set, they passed by the camp of the main Amelgalian host. The three decided to stay the night among these soldiers and possibly get in touch with general Maximillian himself.

They entered the camp and, after having a confrontation with the guards again about who they were, they figured out while talking to the other soldiers where they could possibly set their own tents to sleep in. After that was done being set up, they started mingling with everyone there.

The camp was bustling with activity, soldiers talking, drilling and sharpening their weapons. The sun was already setting but everyone was still preparing for the big confrontation they were being told about. They had all kinds of emotions about the upcoming – fear and excitement, horror and yearning for battle.

There were many fireplaces sprinkled all around the camp, if Tanef had to guess, she'd say there were around 5000 people in the camp. Some of the men were preparing meals for the evening already, and the smell of alcohol was slowly rising up. Tanef was not interested in any of this and wanted to see the general. She asked around some soldiers where she could find his tent and they showed directions.

They walked towards it and saw fancier tents cropping up, clearly influential knights who are also seeking glory just like this general. It seemed awfully silent, though, but lots of noise was coming up at the end of it. They saw a grander tent, something a general would have, and some men had exited it, laughing loudly and walking awkwardly... as if they were drunk.

Tanef had bad suspicions and braced herself. The closer she got, the stench of alcohol got stronger and her fears were growing higher and higher. She reached the tent, the entrance was covered by cloth you would need to pull away to enter. Inside she heard laughter, yelling, incoherent speech and even a bottle smashing against something. And the stench... it was awfully strong. She entered and she saw...

...chaos. Utter and complete chaos. Men were laying on the ground drunk beyond comprehension and pissed pants, people riding on each others backs to mimic jousting, everyone covered in filth and alcohol and just... chaos. Tanef saw no hope in the leadership of this army. All she could see was complete failure to actually defeat Reval. The hubris and incompetence this display of pathetic degeneracy showed her what she feared about Amelgalia the whole time – they are blinded by their own greed and pride. And throwing such a party in the middle of a campaign? Insanity!

Tanef backed off, got some deep breathes in and calmed herself down. She felt bile forming up at the back of her throat, the stench making her physically sick.

She entered back into the tent and said loudly: “Who here is General Maximillian?”

The people in the tent laughed and pointed to the right end of the tent, where a man with long blonde hair was laying on a chair, almost sliding off, and asleep, supposedly drunk. Tanef spat on the ground in disgust and left the tent.

Tanef was seriously done at that point. She couldn't stomach it at all. She stomped angrily away back to her companions, interacting with the soldiers. She found Thurn and Loth talking happily with them and sat besides her companions. For the remainder of the night they exchanged conversations with various people, talking about life back home, their loved ones and the war itself. Tanef knew how demoralizing it would be to reveal their leadership as incompetent to the soldiers so she kept silent. She kept her worries to herself.

And the night fell and they all three went to their tents and went to sleep, hoping to reach the siege camp the next day.

“Thurn... you were taught warfare and strategy as the kel of Amelgalia, right?” Tanef asked, riding northwards with her companions.

“Of course! We were expected to lead armies and issue orders, and properly assess the situations for the right kind of action.” Thurn responded. “Why do you ask? ”

Tanef was silent at first but then said: “It's just that... I think that the general might need some help with your advice. My impression with him was... lacking, if I had to say.”

“You think he is incapable of leading the army?” Thurn asked.

“Yeah, that's what I think. His... strategy... seemed horrific to me. It's all about one decisive battle. I think he might be underestimating his opponents.” Tanef answered.

“Well... I didn't meet this man so I can't say anything about it. What about his subordinates? How did they seem to you? They should be able to straighten up the general in case he makes a mistake.” Thurn said enthusiastically.

“I... think they might just be feeding his hubris.” Tanef said, remembering the charade she saw in the tent.

“Really? Now I am having worries as well.” he answered.

“Did you hear anything about Hornhrug?” Loth asked from behind.

“No... he might have found a different realm to serve under, or maybe he isn't a fighter at all!” Thurn told Loth. “But I do also wonder what he might be doing since he left us.”

They kept riding for most of the day, exchanging a few more topics along the way. They kept riding through similarly wooded areas as before and eventually reached a checkpoint, guarded by soldiers, but these seemed different from Amelgalian ones, yet they still bore the banner of Amelgalia on the side of the road.

“No one is allowed to pass here. There is a siege going on and we are not allowed to let any people pass through, lest they help our enemy.” the soldier said, wearing some well worn, but also well maintained armour. A mercenary, probably.

“Captain Tanef from The Endeavour. We are here to join the siege.” she said.

“Ah, the Endeavour! We were told that someone from that band would be coming here. Apologies, captain. We are letting you and your companions through.” the guard said.

“Thank you and thank you for your work making sure the siege is not disturbed.” Tanef answered and rode on her way. Thurn and Loth nodded their heads to the guard and followed Tanef.

Not soon after this small exchange, they arrived in the camp, surrounding the fort. At first glance, it was clearly bigger than Fort Havyn. At further glance, it was full of garrison, steel helmeted heads shining behind the portcullis. The camp was set around 700 yards away from the walls, well behind what a crossbow can shoot at. There were some siege engines set up, some ballistae, but Tanef thought that they would be useless against this fortification – the walls were too high and the garrison was way too protected by the granulation.

She found her own band in the camp – at the east side of the fort. Shirra was nearby and welcomed her 3 friends. She explained that the situation among the other mercenary commanders was dire – no one wanted to assault the fort, because they knew it would take grave casualties to do that. The fort had 300 men inside and protected a notable road junction through the woods, and with it in the way, the army can't progress any further. In a way, similar to Fort Havyn. But this one was square shaped, with two towers at opposite edges – south west and north east. The mercenaries had 500 men in total.

It was a difficult situation, Tanef thought. None of the commanders wanted to send their forces first into the battle, the first ones would be killed off immediately. A battering ram and ladders to scale the walls were prepared already, but no one wanted to be the ones to take charge.It was a very difficult position to be in right now.

A day passed, the deadline for the attack was about to come and they would all need to come up with a plan for the attack soon or be punished by their masters. Tanef walked around the camp, passed by the ballistae and thought to herself. “We need to get people in to cause chaos among their lines.” She had a silly idea “What if we had catapults shoot our people behind their lines..” She laughed by herself... but then had a realization – the ballistae can only shoot over the towers, they can't hit the men at all. But they can shoot over them.

She called up her band and told them the plan.

“This is madness! You can't be serious, Tanef” Shirra said.

“I am completely serious. I promise, this will work out!” she responded.

“I... I can't agree to this plan, sorry” Thurn said.

“Come on, this is going to work out. But we need to coordinate this with others!” Tanef said and left the meeting.

“Should we follow her plan?” Shirra asked the rest.

“I really don't want to. She has been kind of weird lately, maybe it's just a phase.” Thurn said.

“But what if she does follow through? What if we have to follow and she fails?” Shirra said, worried and paranoid.

“I am sure she won't fail, but the plan is madness. She is stronger than all of us combined, but it still will be difficult to pull off.” Thurn responded.

Tanef stormed back into the meeting; “Alright, so everyone is assuming their positions now and we are going NOW!”

Horns sounded around the camps as forces were assembled to launch an assault. The attack would take place on the south with the ram aiming for the gate, while the ladders would mass on the eastern corner, opposite of the tower on the west corner. A movable wall of wooden palisades were prepared for the archers and crossbowmen to clear the path for the men with ram and ladders to establish contact with the places they needed to be at.

Meanwhile, Tanef would borrow the otherwise useless ballistae and go to the western corner, where the tower was. The tower had no roof, but acted as a small castle within thea fort, where it would be difficult to get in. But Tanef had an idea to crack it immediately and cause a proper distraction for the rest of her forces, who would take control of the ram and ladders under the cover of their allied arrows and bolts.

The horns sounded and an assault was launched, the archers took place behind the palisades that were established already and exchanged shots with the enemy on the walls. They were moving step by step closer, people with ladders and the ram standing to be ready to move in. The ram was almost like a building on wheels – it had a roof for the men manning it and a ram in the centre, they were defended against the enemy from up, but given enough force, the roof would be penetrated if not covered by allied fire.

At the same time, Tanef was ordering the ballistae engineers to move closer, so the shot could be made. The ballistae were stronger than a crossbow and could shoot further, but the engineers were still scared. It took all Tanef could muster with her speech skills to finally convince them of moving closer, and maybe a bit of persuasion with the help of a blade. They established themselves 500 yards from the tower.

She prepared her swords, a curved scimitar with no significant qualities in her left, and a black, runed shortsword in her right. She had found this sword 3 years ago in an adventure with Thurn in a hellish world. This sword... is making her more enduring in the midst of a battle and she doesn't know why, but she thinks it might be because the sword is feeding the blood of her victims back to her.

She prepared herself and stood on top of a ballistae. She counted down from 3 for the engineers, who were aiming them way above the tower. She braced herself and...

...jumped and caught one of the bolts flying towards the towar. She spun while holding and soon reached the tower. It didn't fly above it, instead it punctured the wall and hung in there, stuck. The defenders looked down, because they saw what had happened and wondered if the madman who pulled down that stunt is still hanging there. But Tanef was quicker and swung herself above and chopped off 2 of the heads that were looking down and landed on top of the tower. She didn't wait for the shock to pass and went on a rampage to kill all the defenders on top of that tower, slashing and hacking everyone she saw.

Thurn was looking from below near where the assault took place. He saw how Tanef smashed against the tower and swung herself up. He even faintly heard through the chaos happening right there for him the screams of horror on top of the tower. “She must have done that, then” he taught to himself, “I guess it's part of our plan now.”

He ordered the ladders and ram to be brought onwards. The ram was slowly pushed towards the gate, while the men with ladders, numbering 15, got into their positions with a column of first wavers behind them. Thurn came in front, with his great sword, swung it above his head and pointed towards the walls. “Onwards!” he shouted and the men ran to the walls under the covering fire of their archers and crossbowmen, who already had suffered some casualties.

The ladder men ran and got into their positions quickly, holding their ladders against the wall while staying under them to keep them up. Unfortunately some of them were shot down but most still managed to get there. The soldiers followed soon afterwards, jumping on the ladders and climbing up with swords and axes in their hands. The defenders threw everything they had at them – arrows, bolts and stones. Many died, but many more reached the top fought their way on the battlements and pushed ahead, with Thurn being one of those leading the attack. The walls were slowly being breached, even though some ladders were pushed down. The battering ram was reaching the gate and threatening to ram it.

Meanwhile, more and more men were drawn away from the east and called to defend the west side, where a rampaging Tanef was plowing through the enemies. She was covered in blood by that point, and with an unrelenting ruthlessness against her foes. She moved down from the tower and entered the lower level, fighting down the stairs and reaching the bottom, where enemies from all sides were throwing themselves at her.

Tanef exited the tower building and moved on towards the wall, moving northwards, away from where the assault was taking place. She was running on the wall, slashing through every enemy in her way and deflecting arrows and bolts with just a swing of her arm, knocking them off with an ability she discovered she had 3 years ago.

It made her project a... thing with just her mind. It manifested physically and yet was invisible. She made it to project sharp objects to puncture enemies, or blunt forces to knock objects away, just like she was doing it right now. But if she used it too much, she raqn in the possibility of falling unconscious from overexerting herself.

In the southeastern edge, though, Thurn was leading a charge through the thick enemy lines on the walls. He was moving west along the wall, with the fire of the enemy archers subsiding as he was too close to not be able to avoid shooting their own men. He was hacking through with his blessed blade, which had been given to him upon his becoming of kel. It had become damaged, though, from the blood of the hellish creatures back in that realm. Nevertheless, it was still a fearsome weapon in his hand that could hardly be countered due to his almost inhuman strength.

The southern wall was soon cleared up from the enemy and joined the forces in the east to help storm the second tower. It was smaller than the other one, but it was where the commander of the fort was. Some men moved down to the courtyard and fought and pacified the men down there and opened the gate, pushed the battering ram aside (which was pretty useless after all) and got a flood of men inside.

The commander, seeing that the fort had fallen, was ready to take out the white flag and surrender, but before he could do that, a dripping and covered in red Tanef smashed open the door to the tower entrance on the west side and went on an onslaught inside, with men screaming in terror. Quickly, she reached the second level of the tower, the top, and slaughtered everyone there. She found the commander crouching down in a corner, hiding, but it was useless, as Tanef had seen him and crossed her sword around the neck and decapitated him in one easy stroke.

The mercenaries were celebrating their victory at the fort. They had taken way less casualties than they expected they would take. They were celebrating by drinking and dancing, and singing. The corpses were cleaned out and the prisoners assembled in a small prison camp. In total, they captured about 100 enemy soldiers, while around 200 were killed, including the commander.

Tanef was all talk in the celebrations. It was talked about how she launched herself on top of the tower, some even making up stories about how she winded up the ballistae with her own hands or that she stood on top of the bolt instead of grabbing onto it.

The Endeavour was hit quite badly, though. It lost 32 men and only 68 remained. It could have been more, though, if not for the stunt Tanef pulled off and got many soldiers drawn away from the ladder landings.

The legend Tanef was making herself was in the making now and many more stories of her heroism will come in the future.

0 notes

ropedropnet · 7 years

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News Nuggets from Around Disney World

Hey! Look! The site still works! This latest batch of (breakfast?) News Nuggets is a long time coming. I had grand desigins of posting it when I was down in Florida IN DECEMBER, but that slipped. Then, life got in the way, and an iOS beta broke my custom Workflows, and…well..its (still) February.

To try make this post (of over 8 weeks worth of Disney news) a little more timely, I’ve culled some of the original stories I was going to publish, as well modified some of commentary to reflect my experiences and other news I’ve heard about these items.

Of course, the biggest news item that hasn’t already been written about on the site is:

BB-8 To Greet Guests at Disney’s Hollywood Studios This Spring – The line for this when it opens is going to be insane. Hopefully, the lack of needing to change costumed people in and out will keep the lines from backing up.

With all that out of the way, on to the News Nuggets!!

Sneak A Peek Inside The New Disney PhotoPass Studio At Disney Springs – Cute. I wonder what virtual backgrounds they’ll have available.

Rumors of the Dr. Strange experience being cut from Hollywood Studios – Kenny the Pirate with a rumor of one of Disney’s first attempts of having a Marvel character in the park during regular hours come to an end.

runDisney Princess Half Marathon Weekend Inspired by Disney ‘Beauty and the Beast’ – Elyssa and I aren’t running the Princess this year (we’re doing Star Wars instead), so we’re not going to get one of those cool Beauty and the Beast medals.

Photo Editing Now Available in My Disney Experience App – The only thing surprising about this is that it took so long for these features to show up.

Sanaa Kuamsha Breakfast Now Available at Sanaa at Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge – This doesn’t look any different than what various sites reported a few weeks ago. I guess they’re ready to make the official public announcement now, though.

New Choza Tequila Coming to Epcot in 2017 at Walt Disney World Resort – Does “hand-crafted margaritas” mean they’ll be made when you order them or does “hand-crated” mean they’ll be made by hand and then put into huge jugs for days on end? (Of course, Elyssa will still want one when she walks by.)

2 month Rehab for Walt Disney World Railroad in early 2017. – The train is scheduled to be down from January 9 through March 2nd. That is a bummer during the day, but it makes that area kind of a ghost town for certain parades and evening shows.

Enchanted Tales with Belle removed from Morning Extra Magic Hours. – I don’t think it’s a particularly big loss. This would be a waste of that bonus time.

Disney After Hours Returns to Magic Kingdom Park for 7 Nights in Early 2017 – $119 for everyone is a pretty good, at $89 for AP holders, it’s a no brainer (assuming–of course–that they sell as a few tickets as they did for last year’s event.)

New Star Wars Guided Tour Starts at Disney’s Hollywood Studios January 2 – 7 hours? For $129? Based on that description? I guess I’m going to have wait until someone takes the actual tour, since this just doesn’t make a lot of sense. (Which I still haven’t seen)

runDisney Star Wars Half Marathon – The Dark Side Medals – Hopefully, Elyssa and I will be able to finish these races and get our Kylo Ren medal.

Bus Stop Pizza Kiosks Now Have Breakfast – I don’t use the term “game changer” lightly…(I kid, I kid. “Game changer” means nothing with respect to theme park news these days.)

Tree of Life Garden Returns to Animal Kingdom After Multi-Year Closure – Getting everything in Animal Kingdom in shape for when Avatarland opens (what is now) a couple of months.

Crossroads plaza faces demolition for Disney-area road project – Interesting story, but it’s a long, long way from happening. The state will have to get right of way access to the area first, and I can’t imagine Crossroads and its tenants will go quietly.

Gasparilla Island Grill reopens at the Floridian. – Good timing. You can’t have the major quick service at a resort down for the holidays. (Also, the food here was pretty good. I enjoyed it.)

Upcoming changes to Epcot entertainment acts – Kenny the Pirate runs down some of the upcoming (and now made) changes to Epcot entertainment. Disney seems to have decided to change these various acts a little more frequently over the past few years.

Churros return to the Animal Kingdom. – If you need some evidence that 2017 will be better than 2016.

Okay. That was a lot of nuggets. I need a break.Let’s watch one of the “behind the scenes” looks at Pandora:

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Okay, back to the News Nuggets:

[A New Way to Start Your Day at Magic Kingdom Park Begins January 9]( http://ift.tt/2ihXQND) – They’rved moved the Welcome Show to the Hub during the refurbishment of the Railroad. It’s an interesting “test” of how this might work. I plan on writing more about it later (I swear!), but I wanted to share the “news” now.

#DisneyKids: A Vacation Package Perfect for Your Kindermoon at Walt Disney World Resort – It’s an interesting way for Disney to say now (right as they’re about to start school) is the right time to bring your kids to Disney World. WDW News Today pointed out that these packages also include additional Fastpass+ selection for certain “kid friendly” attractions.

Entry bridge to Pandora – The World of Avatar now visible to guests – It’s probably just me, but it feels like they’re going to be able to open this place in time for the summer. (I’m also pretty sure I’m going to regret this post when it’s not open in September.) — I swear I wrote this in December, BEFORE the date was announced!

Photos of Culinary Treats at Epcot International Festival of the Arts at Walt Disney World Resort – These look a little fancier than some of the Food & Wine Items. Of course, it’s just the product photography, so who knows what the final product will end up being.

Joffrey’s Coffee Kiosk to be Added to the Magic Kingdom, Annual Pass Discounts Now Offered – I admit: I just assumed there already was a Joffrey’s at Magic Kingdom. (The discount is nice, though.)

Disney Testing New One-Day Quick Service Dining Plans at Theme Parks, “Disney-Dine-on-the-Go” to Speed Up Sales – I’m going to need more information on this, since–as it stands–I don’t get it. (Since then, I’ve gotten more information. If you are definitely going to eat multiple quick service meals at the Magic Kingdom, it might be possible to get a decent value out of this.)

Magic Kingdom In-Park Cabanas Being Offered at a Discounted Price – For everyone who said “I’d pay $500 for that, but $650 is just too much…” (Sadly, (?) these have now been been removed.)

WDW News Today Rumor that the Paint the Night Electrical Parade Still A Possibility for The Magic Kingdom – Have you seen the people sitting on the sidewalk on Main Street waiting for the nighttime parade? It’s a thing that people just expect to have. Whether it’s Paint the Night or some other parade, Disney really should do something.

Flame Tree Barbecue Retiring Signature Barbecue Sauce – I was never really fan, but I’m sure some people will be very upset about this.

Members to Experience Disney Vacation Club Moonlight Magic – If you own DVC, maybe pay attention to thse dates. Me? I love the multiple paragraphs of disclaimers at the end of the post.

Star Wars: Galatic Nights Special Event starts April 14 at The Studios – Nicely timing to coincide with Star Wars Celebration (which is taking place that weekend). Personally, it sounds like the Magic Kingdom After Hours event would have more value than this $129 event will, but I’ll hold off final judgment until we get some more details.

Express Fresh Pilot to Being Feb. 7 at Contemporary and Yacht Club. – Interesting. A new “quick and casual” option for in-room dining. My fear, of course, is it’s going to be like those sandwiches that you see in the case at an airport (more “express”, than really “fresh”.)

Drinks coming to Paddlefish – I wonder what the craft beer from North Carolina is. Of course, it’s kind of silly for me to go to Disney World and have beer that I can get just as easily at home.

Okay, time for another break. This time, let’s look at this tribute to the late, great Carrie Fisher from The Studios:

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Ms. Fisher will be missed, and (shockingly?) I was unable to come up with a way to segway back into the nuggets:

Braves Spring Training to Conclude at Walt Disney World – This is a bummer for me. I liked being able to see some spring training baseball when I was visiting Disney World. I guess I understand the Braves’ point that they are too far away from other spring training teams, but that doesn’t make it less of a bummer for me.

Housekeeping at Disney World to be Reorganized Due to Degrading Service Quality – On the surface, I think this is a good move. Improved quality of room cleaning, etc… doesn’t really have many negatives (though, honestly, I haven’t really ever faced any issues under the current system.)

Paddlefish Set to Open Feb. 4 at Disney Springs at Walt Disney World Resort – Obviously, this is now open. Reviews from 3 bloggers who attended together all seemed fairly positive, including: WDW News Today, Mouse Steps , and easyWDW .

Discover a Timeless Tale with a Sneak Peek from Disney’s ‘Beauty and the Beast’ Starting Feb. 10 at Disney Parks – After a couple of years, can probably figure out how this is going to: The next big Disney / Marvel movie that’s coming out gets a preview in One Man’s Dream.

Re-Imagined Planet Hollywood Observatory Opens at Disney Springs at Walt Disney World Resort – And we already have less-than-glowing reviews from WDW News Today and (even) the Disney Flood Blog.

One more break before we finish? What do you say? This time, let’s check out the latest Pandora ad:

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That place might be pretty cool in a few months. Now, though, let’s finish out our News Nuggets!

New look parking trams to feature monorail colors and quieter ride – Huh. I never really noticed the existing trams being particularly loud, but–if I think about it–I guess they are.

Starring Rolls Cafe at Hollywood Studios Closing Tomorrow – If “tomorrow” to you is February 4th, that is. Sadly, this is another example of something at the Studios closing, but there being nothing announced to replace it.

Book Your Spot on the New Ultimate Disney Classics VIP Tour at Magic Kingdom Park – $200 for a VIP tour that doesn’t include any of the “mountains” or the Mine Train doesn’t work for me. Maybe if your priorities RE attractions are a little different?

Leaked Image Reveals Ride Vehicle for AVATAR “Flying Banshee” Attraction at Disney’s Animal Kingdom – Interesting. I hadn’t even thought that each person (couple? small group?) would get their own Banshee to ride. If that’s really the case, it could be a really different experience from Soarin’.

Making way for The NBA Experience: DisneyQuest at Disney Springs to Close July 3 – So the NBA Experience is still going to be a thing, huh? At a minimum, maybe they’ll really shut down Disney Quest, finally.

Cosmic Ray’s to get a Second Expansion – UNRELATED(ish): I don’t know if Elyssa and I have ever been to Cosmic Ray’s together

Disney World Swan and Dolphin Resort engages guests with Chrome signage – Not really a news item, but I figured y’all be able to really impress your family with this key factoid.

Disney CEO Bob Iger confirms possibility of extending tenure past 2018 – Maybe our favorite tipster “Bob from Burbank” can call into to MMoM to give a couple of insights on this.

Doc McStuffins to Greet Fans at Disney’s Animal Kingdom Beginning This Month – Huh. This seems like a weird home for Doc.

Enchanted Rose Cake Inspired by ‘Beauty and the Beast’ – We had an Amorette’s Patisserie cake over Christmas and it was fantastic. (That reminds me, I should probably write about that.)

Theme Park Models Move Out of Walt Disney – One Man’s Dream for Beauty & The Beast and Other Movie Props – I guess I knew this was coming, but it’s still kind of a bummer.

Geyser Point Bar & Grill Opens at Disney’s Wilderness Lodge at Walt Disney World Resort – As a photographer, I know it’s possible to make things look better in picture than they actually are. That said, this place looks fantastic. (Initial Review from DFB is positive)

Disney makes it official: Charges $5 for each mailing or package received at a Disney Resort. – This just makes me sad. I hate little charges like this.

Rumored Gondola Transportation System Between Epcot and Disney’s Hollywood Studios to be Constructed – This rumor has been setting the Internet on fire for the past day or two. Personally, I’d love to seem Disney try something like that.

New Bird Shows Have Debuted at Disney’s Animal Kingdom – I’m still amazed that these birds can be trained to be out in the open like this.

More Guest Experiences and Dining Options Coming to Disney’s Coronado Springs and Caribbean Beach Resorts – It sounds like they are really going to make some upgrades to these moderate resorts (including converting Corando Springs into a more “business-y” resort.) The press release has a few more details..

New Menu Items at Jiko – Since Elyssa and I have never been here, we really don’t have any favorites that might get pulled of the menu. That said, I figure Elyssa will still try to get a filet on top of a bed of mac-and-cheese if we do go.

Whew! We’re finally done. Let’s celebrate!

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