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myalchod · 6 months

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Howdy (づ ᴗ _ᴗ)づ♡

It’s me, hi, I’m your hex buddy, it’s me! *giggles*

Loved your thoughts on Farah and Saul, align with my own perfectly!

Good news: today my questions are not cruel.

What are your favorite colors? What do you prefer: silrah as teens, few years after Aster Dell or post show’s events? Do you have favorite winter’s shenanigans?

(Hope your Friday is great💙)

Hello, my darling! 😘 My Friday was overall fairly pleasant -- I hope yours was too, and that your weekend is going well! I am, once again, excited by these new questions; I can see why people say the inbox shenanigans are some of the best bits of HEX. 🥰 So let's see about answering these ...

My favourite colours tend to be cooler and darker tones; I am The Worst (tm) at picking favourite anythings, as you may have noticed, but I like the colours you see in peacock feather eyes -- teals, blue, green (and gold does go wonderfully with them) -- but also deep wine-red.

And the rest of this is getting long so I'm gonna drop a cut lol.

Timeframe is a tough one, because each one has their own attractions! I love the promise and the possibility of Silrah as teens, with so much ahead of them and before their ideals were shattered; I love them after Aster Dell, trying to pick up the pieces and figuring out how to move on, salvaging the fragments of idealism to try to make a better world for the children whose futures they now hold and struggling with all that they dare not speak of, the ghosts and the guilt and the emotional morass; I love them after the show, whether that's Saul with only his memories or Farah returning and them having a chance to be more in a way I feel they never could before or any one of another hundred permutations. There are so, so many options, and there's a part of me that desperately wants to tug on every thread and chase every possible universe and see what could happen. (I realise this is almost certainly unhelpful, my dearest HEXer, and for that I am deeply sorry.)

As to the last: I adore winter as a season. I know there are a lot of people who don't like the cold and the dark, but honestly, the cold in particular is something I love. I turn into a puddle once it gets warm, and my ideal storage conditions top out at about 15C, so the weather cooling off means I'm in my element. I love getting to wear warmer clothes, snuggling into blankets or putting on the fireplace if it's particularly chilly, nursing a cup of something warm (I'm a tea drinker first and foremost, but a mug of cocoa is nice too). I lived most of my life somewhere without snow, and there's a part of me that turns into a small child when I get it nowadays -- especially if it's the soft fluffy kind where you can catch snowflakes on your palms and look at the shapes. I love the way the world looks blanketed in white, all of the rough edges softened, and the way things sparkle when the light hits them on a frosty morning. I love walking outside in winter, the crispness of air almost freezing and seeing your breath make clouds and the crunch of fresh snow being tamped down under your boots. (I realise there are absolutely places where it's much more bitterly cold, or the weight of snow and ice can damage everything and become oppressive, and that if I lived there it might change my tune, but right now I consider myself lucky enough to be able to enjoy it without worry.) Winter isn't my holiday season, primarily, and so I don't have the association so many do, but the holiday I do celebrate then involves candles, and one thing I've always loved in association with the darkening of the year is how illumination -- whatever the form -- plays a part in the winter season, and the imagery of lights in the darkness. It's a small thing, but it also has stuck with me my entire life and as a thread through many things and states of mind, and I think that's one of those things I'll always associate with winter, beyond just the cold itself.

Anyway! That's a wall of text for sure, and so I'm pretty sure I owe you a cookie in recompense for reading it all! 🍪 I'm excited to see whatever you do with all of this information, though I can safely say right now that I have no idea -- but I'm sure it'll be wonderful. 💙

#asked and answered #ftwsholidayexchange

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themousefromfantasyland · 3 years

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The Yule Man (3/7)

As told by ME

This was meant to be a short story, but it became too big, so I separated it in seven parts. I want to turn my blog in a space where I can share my writting every once and a while.

This is the first time I post one of my stories on a public space. This is the first time anyone besides my sister will be able to read, so I'm pretty exciting and anxious. I want honest criticism. I hope you all enjoy it.

In the next year, Chris opened his bag earlier, near the old bridge. News came that the Yule Man had already arrived in Arnsberg. Mia stepped into her carriage and ordered the coachman to lead her to him.

She found him sitting in a wooden bench next to the clocktower. He hadn't changed a thing. The same dirty clothes. The same enormous fur coat. The same shaggy red beard. The same tender boyish face.

His whole mood lighted up pretty quick as soon as he caught her in his sight. She waved to him, and not containing himself with excitement, he waved back to her.

They stopped the carriage near him, and she opened the door to him.

He grinned with all the mischievousness of a boy:

"You changed."

She nudged his shoulder.

"It passed only a year. How can I have changed?" She played with his beard.

"Everyone always changes." He spoke.

During the course to the Hayek Mansion, everything felt different. The coachman looked tired and in a bad state of mind. Even Mia herself seamed exhausted, yet they tried their best to stay the same. The way to Hayek home had changed too. Less trees, more buildings, the town expanded itself again.

"How is your father?"

The coachman looked behind his shoulder.

She grew quiet. Chris would not dare to ask more questions; he knew that feeling all too well.

At the Hayek Mansion things continued to change. The Yule Log had been launched in the fireplace far later than it should. The decorations this year looked poorer and simpler, as if something had sucked all joy and life out of them. The living room was a shell of what it once was. No Yule Goats this year. Silver bells now accompanied the typical decks of holly hanged by the walls. He saw statues of the Silver God near the Yule Tree in the living room.

"I didn't know you were religious." Chris said surprised.

Mrs. Hayek stormed in the room.

Mia expressed defeat.

"Oh, you brought him again." She said with more resentment in her voice than usual. "Without telling me anything."

Mia closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

"Mother, please..."

"Oh, shut up." She snarled. "I believe we already ran out of things to say to each other."

There was only one table this year, set more by a sense of duty than by any real intent. Less charm, less sweets, less delights. The feeling in the house was way different. The Yule Festival now felt more like an accessory, a decoration, than anything real.

The Solstice Eve ball felt different too, less guests, less presents, and less joy. A sense of uneasy filled the air, with the townspeople unsure if they were welcome there. St. Nicholas was now exactly as how the holiday cards portrayed him.

The gigantic Yule Tree has disappeared this year. Along with many Yule things, it had been brought along with Mr. Hayek when he went to his final destination.

Mia stood in a corner, trying to stay out of sight, what Chris thought as a shame. She dressed even more beautiful than in the last year. She wore a sleeveless ivy-green gown with a bright red sash around her waist.

He went to talk with her, still carrying a plate full of cookies and other sweets, all those he could find.

"Are you alright? Can I do something to help?" He asked with a deep fear of invading someone else's business. He tested the ground to know if it was safe to step on it.

She saw how he carried the plate.

"Thanks."

She picked one. He released a quick nervous laughter.

"Oh, they were not for you... "

She gave him a judgmental stare.

"I mean, you can get them if you..."

She laughed.

"I missed you, silly." She hugged him and rested her face on his shoulder.

"What happened here?" He asked.

"My relationship with my mother is worse than ever." She placed a huge emphasis on the word "ever".

Mrs. Hayek approached them with as kindness as it was possible from her.

"Mia, I wanted to talk with you." She began saying by putting her best "mother voice". "Remember Mr. Evans. Well, he has a son your age. He has been having troubles finding a bride for his son. I agreed to talk about marriage proposals tomorrow. The old man is unsure with you as a good bride for his soon, so I want you to go there..."

Mia had enough. That was the final stroke that broke the camel's back.

"Mother, I'm sorry, but no!"

"What?"

Mrs. Hayek had trouble digesting that word. "No" wasn't a term she was familiarized with.

"I thought the problem was you not getting any suitors."

Mia tried her best to be diplomatic on that moment.

"Mother, I'm very thankful for what you're doing, but I'm not want to be married. Not like that."

"So, what do you want Mia." She raised her voice.

Everyone stopped and stared at them. Chris saw the sparks starting to fly between the two.

"The money of your father will not last forever. I'm trying my best to hold this family together, but you're refusing to help."

Mia kept her best poker face.

"His partners are almost taking over the company. We are almost losing our income." She continued.

Mia exhaled.

"Mother, I know, and I don't want to bring you any more trouble, but please..."

"You have been useless." She yelled.

Mia raised her voice.

"You can say that to my face."

"I can't?" She smiled with disdain. "At your age I was already married, because that's why women of our class do, we help our family." She paused to breathe. "I didn't like your father at first, he was very older than me, but this is real life." She lowered her tone. "We don't have much time."

Mia shouted back.

"What do you know about love?"

Not even Chris recognized her when she said that. She got careless. Mia spilled a kind of bitterness that she didn't know she had. Whatever that thing was, it came from way within her.

"A gold-digging shrew. Nothing is never good enough. Not even my father was good enough. You only married him because of his money. You yourself told how the fact he been black turned you off at first."

By the look of Mrs. Hayek’s expression, it was as if she had been hit in the face. A sure slap that hurt nothing more than her ego.

"I want you out." She went straight to kill.

Mrs. Hayek stopped looking into her daughter's face.

"Mother, please." Mia tried to fix the whole situation, to salvage their relationship. Mia implored for all reason she hoped still lasted in her.

Everyone continued watching.

"I will not send you away because it would be a sin against my god. You can spend Yule with us, but after that I want you out." Her mother growled

She walked away. Mia tried to reach her.

"Mother."

She immediately shot her down.

"You father already left half of his inheritance to you. This house is mine and from your siblings. It's ours."

"What is happening here" Sophia asked, followed close by her brothers.

"Nothing." Mrs. Hayek smiled as perfectly as a china doll.

Mia rushed back inside. Chris followed her.

In her anger she threw a the statue of the Silver God over the stairs and broke down in tears. She sat upon the staircase and kept crying. When Chris entered the room, she made sure to wipe her tears away. Too late.

"Father loved the Yule Festival. Mother not so much." She started. "He never liked the Church. He always told how the church appropriate the Winter Solstice festival to themselves. How they plastered their stupid god everywhere to make the holiday theirs."

She smiled, trying her hardest to lighten the mood. "Now that he's gone, mother did the same, and things are worse than ever." She hid her face in her hands.

Chris stepped up the stairs and sat by her side, remaining quiet.

"You don't know what to say!"

He nodded in shame. She gave him a half-smile.

"During this year I couldn't stop thinking about you. You never change, you never ages. I wish to be like you sometimes."

"You don't." He broke the silence.

The way he said that surprised her.

"You have an immortal lifetime."

He raised his voice.

"You have a lifetime." His lips trembled "I got only moments."

"You don't die." She was quick to point out.

"What's the point of not dying, if you never lived?" He shook his arms in frustration.

He lowered his head and his tone.

"During most of the year I cease to be, and just to think about it makes me terrified." His lips quivered. He struggled not to spill any tears. "For all the purposes I'm dead. There's no such thing as an afterlife for me. I just disappear. Boom. Nothing."

He failed. He got emotional.

"I wished I could exist. I wish I could form real relationships with people. People remember me the same way their remember a snowy day."

She closed her eyes.

"For how has it been like that."

"For as much as I can remember." He said in deep mournful tone. "I'm part of the landscape, not of the people who go through it."

"Father was the only one who understood me." She continued.

"My mother raised me to sit still and be pretty. My father raised me to be a tomboy. I'm scared. I'm a woman now, and I don't have talents or skills. I don't know what to do now, where to go. I just don't want to be like my mother. My mother comes from those types who married earlier and with much older men. I don't want to be like her."

She caught him gazing at her with care.

"You don't need to be"

She pulled his hands.

"You either."

She continued.

"Let's live the moment, here and now. As my mother said, we don't have much time."

"I really want that, but..."

"Why are you always so afraid?" She shook her head.

He stayed quiet for a couple of seconds.

"The North Wind, for as far as I remember has been one of few things that acknowledges me. He doesn't like that I'm too close to mortals. He can't punish me. He isn't my boss. But he cares, really cares. He fears for me."

Mia drew his hands to her lap.

"Promise me you won't be afraid anymore. You can be yourself. I will not punish you. I will not run away."

He smirked.

"But you have to promise me you will try to write. You told me you wanted to be a writer last year.

She raised up.

"Were you really listening?"

He got up near her.

"It's one of the few things I can do in this world." He continued. "I want to see if you are good on that. I don't change, but I think I can change you."

He realized how that sentence could be interpreted. "I mean, I don't want you to change, I mean..."

She took off his fur hood and kissed his cheek, and for a moment the whole world changed for him.

#christmas #holiday season #yuletide #my writting #writters on tumblr #my story #The Yule Man

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