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anika-ann · 4 years

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Hands Too Cold, but Heart of Gold - Pt.1

The Recruitment

Pairing: Steve Rogers x reader, Matt Murdock x reader (no SR x MM x r)

Word count: 2120

Summary: Avenger!reader AU, love triangle. Every hero has an origin story. Yours not soall that great. One more reason not to mention it during the first face to face meeting with DD. ...right.

Warnings: mention of death, mentions of violence, swearing, fluff, mild angst…?

Story Mastelist

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“No, no way. I’m not doing it,” you exclaimed resolutely, spinning on your heels.

Heavy, yet somewhat gentle hand fell on your shoulder, turning you back. You bit your lip and looked up at your boss and the closest friend in one person.

His eyebrow was raised in challenge. “Are disobeying your orders?”

You could hear his light teasing just like the serious note in his tone. And of course, Captain America’s authoritative voice was unmistakable. You just gaped.

“It’s a waste of time, St— Captain,” you bit back wryly and he made a disapproving face.

“Don’t pull that out, you know I-“

“Yes, Captain?”

His expression turned annoyed at the interruption and your snarky tone.

You knew you were being cranky, but trying to convince Daredevil, freaking Daredevil, the patron not-exactly-saint of Hell’s Kitchen, was not on your I’d-love-to-do-this list. More like the opposite. That guy was very obviously a lone wolf who loved playing on his own playground and you were not judgemental of that – he was dedicated to his home and that was fine. His way of saying no to joining the Avengers might be a bit rude, but given how many people – well, people – had been trying to convince him to step up to the plate and think on a larger scale than ten blocks, you couldn’t really blame him.

Steve’s hands caressed your shoulders and you bit your lip harder. His baby blue eyes were staring at the bottom of your soul, making you shiver. He had beautiful eyes, serious most of the time, getting incredibly charming when a spark of mischief appeared in them; and make no mistake, Captain America had a lot of mischief in himself despite the righteousness radiating from him to miles.

You blinked, trying to escape his gaze; it was annoying how it always sent your heart racing.

“Just give it a try. No one will be angry with you if you fail. I won’t either. But I believe in you,” he pronounced softly, making you swallow embarrassingly loudly when his thumbs caressed your shoulders.

Jeez, you were such a sucker for his ‘I believe in you’.

Of course, you had a good reason. His speech had been the one that inspired you to join the team. To stop pitying yourself and woman up – yes, that was exactly the term he had used, because his love for strong women was infinite –, to use your accidently gained powers to do some good. He had been the one to find you almost five months ago in the completely frozen lab – your work, not that you had intended it –, shaking, but not from cold. You had been scared to death – you had killed people. You had killed the people who had been trying to help you-- and he had come to you, slowly, putting his shield away despite your warnings and offered you a literal helping hand, promising he hadn’t been there to harm you and he had believed you wouldn’t have hurt him. That he had believed in you.

You fought tears at the memory – you always had. You had hurt him in the end – just a little frostbite really, nothing his super-soldier’s body couldn’t handle – and yet, you had felt almost as sorry as for taking the other people’s lives. But Steve Rogers hadn’t been mad at you. He had stuck around, helped you to get a hold of your powers and the two of you had become colleagues slash friends. Very close friends, actually. Also, you had a bit of a crush on him, but who hadn’t.

“Goddammit, Steve,” you whined silently and his face lit up as he realized he had won. Not from his boss position, no; he had won the way he always had, as a friend of yours.

“I knew I could count on you, Frosty,” he whispered, enclosing you in a short gentle hug.

You rolled your eyes. “You know, Rogers, for someone who napped for about seventy years in ice, you really are pushing your luck.”

Secretly, you loved the nickname he gave you. People called you Frostbite, but Steve never had, aware what kind of a painful reminder of what you had done to him and everyone else the first time using your uncontrollable powers it was. No, he called you Frosty or Snowflake, because he was a sweetheart. Tony, on the other hand, was a dick, calling you Elsa. The others called you either your first name, or your last name. And then there was Thor, calling you the Lady of Ice. You loved your team. It was a delight to work with them. A very exhausting delight.

“Nah, you like me too much.”

You scoffed. He was perfectly on point of course. “I still don’t understand why it’s not you coming, Captain Righteousness. I’m sure you would have handled him better, oh Star Spangled Man with a Plan.”

He let go of you, ruffling your hair to show how much he was still cranky about Clint showing you the videos, both old and rather recent ones. To be fair, you deserved that; but you couldn’t help but tease him about it; some of them were cute, while the others were just hilarious.

“Careful, you still have a problem for saying a bad word.” You rolled your eyes. You had said ‘goddammit.’ Wuss. “And I do have a plan.”

You expectantly raised your eyebrows, curious. He winked.

“I have you.”

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‘This is ridiculous. I’m tracking a man in a Devil suit in, myself in an icily blue catsuit, Captain America’s voice in my ear. What is my life?’

“Still copy?”

“Yep.”

“He’s around the Piers 42/44, heading North.”

“Rogers that,” you mumbled, not fighting the smirk that always found its way to your lips when talking to Steve via comms, saying ‘Rogers that’ instead of just ‘Roger’. It was just too funny and you needed funny in your life. Even if you could basically hear him rolling his eyes at that. Rude.

You created an ice slide, rising and falling to help you to move faster. Tony had designed special shoes for you to move easily on it, while not giving yourself a shiner – it had taken quite a lot of tries and lots of black-eyes plus one broken radius, but hell if it hadn’t been worth it. Ha, hell.

Never mind. You had a task to complete.

You saw him now, the Devil. He slowed down visibly, which surprised you. He had actually managed to disappear on Tony in the sewers once. He had walked away in the middle of Cap’s recruitment speech, ignorant. Sure, he hadn’t shaken Natasha off, but hadn’t agreed either. Thor and Clint hadn’t tried yet. You wondered what Devil’s strategy was this time.

He stopped completely then and you landed few steps from him, a bit wary. You had done your reading on the Devil; he was fast, efficient and didn’t hesitate to break a bone or two. Or six. To be fair, you read about why he did it, on what occasions, and you truly weren’t judgemental.

“Wasn’t expecting any black ice tonight. It’s only September,” he commented nonchalantly, his voice deep. Not necessarily hostile though – you took that as a win.

Perhaps Steve knew what he was doing, sending you – you weren’t as notoriously famous as the others who had actually been present during The Battle of New York were, so maybe the Devil found it refreshing or something.

You wordlessly let your icy toboggan-bridge disappear. “Daredevil.”

“Why are you here? Have your teammates not gotten the message yet? Did you draw the shortest straw today?”

“Something like that.”

“The answer is still no.”

“Why?” you asked, already guessing the answer.

Because he belonged in the Hell’s Kitchen. Because he was a vigilante, not a hero, not an Avenger.

“I don’t really feel like fighting aliens. And someone needs to take down drug rings and smaller things that escape your notice,” he replied wryly and you sighed.

“You think we don’t see that?”

“Press harder.”

“Sounds like you don’t, given what your friend is saying,” he noted and you closed your eyes in defeat.

Steve’s voice was quiet, for you only, but it wasn’t news the Devil had extraordinary hearing. You couldn’t quite blame him for not liking you coming alone and not alone at all. You reached to your ear, turning your communicator off.

Daredevil tilted his head, seemingly confused.

“You think they don’t see that?” you corrected yourself, letting out the doubts you had despite the warm (ha) welcome the Avengers gave you. “You’re needed here. What you do matters, which is why they are letting you.”

“Why are you saying ‘them’?”

“Do I look like an Avenger to you?”

“You sure call yourself that.”

“Well, I don’t feel like one. But I let them talk me down. I’m a destroyer, yet, they convinced me I can help. And maybe I found a calling. Maybe I found a way to possibly redeem myself,” you whispered, being sure the Devil would hear you. He heard everything.

“I am answering a calling. By doing what I do,” he replied, aiming for firm, but failing. Could he tell the emotion behind your voice, the way you opened unexpectedly (to your own surprise too)? Could he hear the regret? Did he imagine what had caused it? Did it move him?

“And I understand that. Actually, kudos for aiming for achievable goal of managing ten blocks of Manhattan and not letting your ego get in the way too much. I mean, these guys are trying to save the world, talk about unrealistic goals,” you noted, lightening up the mood a little.

You imagined the man behind the mask frowned. “I’m sorry, I’m confused now. Are you still trying to get me to join, or…?”

You chuckled. “Doesn’t look like it, huh? I guess that’s fair.”

The corner of his lips quirked in an approximation of a smile. Your heart skipped a beat. You bet neither of your Avenging friends managed to do that. Not that this was a competition or a manipulation – you were being completely honest. Painfully so.

“I… I’m gonna be honest with you. Steve wants you on this one. And frankly, I have no idea why-“ you paused, realizing how it sounded. “I mean— I know why, we can always use some help saving the world and stuff, but... yeah. So just once for now, let’s team up. No strings attached.”

“That was quite a direct strike. Didn’t see that coming,” he chuckled and you blinked, your eyelashes brushing your eye-mask.

Did he just chuckle? Did he laugh at you? Not that he didn’t have the right, but it was still a bit incredible. His face returned to the mask of seriousness. For some reason, it seemed softer now. “It was… Steve, wasn’t it? You say they convinced you, but you mean Steve Rogers.”

You escaped his gaze – or you thought so. Escaped the way the glassy eye-covers of his helmet burned through you. Whatever.

“Yes,” you whispered. He didn’t comment on that. But you would swear he relaxed.

“How did you get your powers?”

You froze almost literally at the direct question. Well, he sure wasn’t beating around the bush. What was it to him? Was it a test? Did he want to know you before saying no? Was he considering a yes? Did he trust you?

You licked your lips, fighting a shiver.

“Untested treatment. I had a rare liver disease and they tested a treatment with some chitauri crap on me. I always had troubles with thermoregulation. The meds messed it up on a completely different level.”

“I’m sorry.” And he genuinely sounded as if he was, his voice dropping.

“I didn’t ask for this. I hurt people. I’m paying my debt, because I think it’s the only thing I can do apart from creating icicles and toboggans for kids and do some cold-drying of fruit for missions,” you said seriously and his shoulders slightly shook with laughter. You found yourself smiling too. Dammit, how did you switch from misery to joking so fast in one sentence?

“No strings attached?” he asked slowly and your mouth literally fell open. Did he just-

“Did you just-?”

“Yeah. How bad it can be? Plus, your friend is approaching with the jet, I guess he didn’t like you turning your comms off.”

“Oh I’m gonna be on detention for like a week, okay. Or until they need another cold-drying, Tony’s addicted to his dried blueberries.”

The Devil chuckled once more before a cute smile settled on his lips. He took several steps closer to you. “I’m sure they’re delicious.”

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Part 2

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Tags: @murdermornings @mermaidxatxheart

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Heya, people :) I decided to share one of my older fics with the tumblr, I hope a few of you will like it O:-) Whenever you want to be (un)tagged in anything of mine, shoot me an ask or a message or something like that.

Thank you for reading :-*

#marvel #mcu #fanfiction #steve rogers x reader #matt murdock x reader #steve rogers imagine #matt murdock imagine #captain america x reader #daredevil x reader #avengers #avengers fanfiction #avenger reader #hands too cold but heart of gold #anika ann

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macuilsung · 3 years

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"I want the K!" for Dorothea c:

via Send me 'I want the K' and I'll generate a number (closed!):

Result: 7: Romantic kiss!

He couldn’t believe he went and finally said it. Despite the heart-to-heart with Byleth and the few rounds of liquid courage he indulged in before the professor cut him off, he still couldn’t believe he went and told them all the very next day. The Abyssian thought for certain that he would have chickened out of his decision come morning, but no, he followed through, much to his own surprise.

Whether it was the best call in the long run, he could not yet know, but after what happened with Monica and Jeralt? Blurring the lines between “Forwin Tyrell” and “Wyndell von Gerth” felt like the right thing to do in the present, and now there were no more secrets between himself and the others. For better or worse... now the Black Eagles and Ashen Wolves knew everything. His name, background, and Crest. Not one stone was left unturned where it could be helped.

With all of that madness out of the way, the bard simply opted to retire for today. Give his brain some much-needed rest after answering question after question. Ruminate on some of the reactions he received, bracing on how his relationships might change now that all the Eagles know he’s a fellow blue-blood. Nurse his sore cheek with some vulnerary after a robust slap from an upset Constance, which wasn’t unexpected, given their families’ shared history.

Have some needed peace and quiet to himself after sundown.

It was just him and his lute behind the greenhouse, the moon high above in a clear sky reflecting on the fishing pond, and the crickets singing their tune in the grass.

“...what the hell am I even doing?” Forwin groaned in self-admonishment, his hand stilling from strumming so that he may reach up and pinch the bridge of his nose hard. Did he only just wind up ruining everything for himself, and alienate everyone he’s befriended in Garreg Mach in the process? Much weighed on his mind yet.

For one... it concerned him that Dorothea didn’t say anything to him, standing there today in the classroom like a number of thoughts were crashing in on her all at once. No, that’s not quite it—it actually frightened him deep down, to the point he can’t commit to playing his instrument so that he can even relax at all. After all, she was many things to him now: his first real crush ever since he saw her perform onstage in Enbarr as the Mystical Songstress; a close friend among a house full of elites; someone with whom he could hold day-long conversations about their shared craft, let alone sing and play with; a woman he’s come to pine for all over again the closer they became with time.

Yet he kept mum while she tried to find a decent man to care for her in the future, as much as it pained him to see her continue her romantic pursuits. Besides, he knew it too well: what lifetime comforts can an Abyssian provide from an underground hovel for someone like her? Someone whom he felt is entitled to the world at her feet and the stars above, if he could will it?

No, it was far worse than that. He was an Abyssian whose real identity made for the very sort of person she despised most: a noble. Not that she begrudged her own housemates, save an unfortunate Ferdinand von Aegir, but she once confided in the bard some of her hatred towards the uppermost class and Forwin completely agreed with her at that, even validated it! Hell, who knows better the cruelties of nobility than a noble?

An honest one at least, but honest was the last thing he’s been with her all year round.

With enough regret to make his own chest feel heavier with sorrow than it healthily should, he set his lute aside so he could simply lean forward from his cobblestone seat, stare into the water, and be miserable. Hah, a miserable bard! Such a tale would be worth a good comedy production on its own.

“I’m... so sorry, Dorothea,” he murmured mournfully to none but his moonlit reflection in the pond, and hers. “There... There’s still so much I want to tell you I didn’t want to say in front of the others. Stories I want you to hear first, so you could understand why I’m...”

The pang in his chest only grew deeper, to the point he fell silent as he watched their images ripple in the water from the wind’s late night chill.

“...and not... just those. I also want you to know how painfully my heart burned for you all this time too, but... hey, not that I think I deserve your friendship at this point, anyway.” ‘It’s probably for the best.’ Those last words, he would keep to himself behind a sad smile and a long, tired sigh, as his eyes kept staring into those of her persisting like...ness... in... the water...?

...wait just a Sothis-damned second-

“DOROTHEA-?!”

With renewed vigour, the wide-eyed musician finally snapped to attention, scrambling up on his feet and turning to face the genuine article in question. Had he shouted any louder, he would’ve risked waking up the students in the dorms! What was with that look on the woman’s face right now? It’s almost like the one from this morning—wait, how long has she been there? She didn’t really hear all that just now, did she?!

...

OH GODDESS SHE HEARD IT ALL!!!

Mouth hung agape in belated realization, leaving an embarrassed Forwin to unravel at the seams! At this moment, there was nothing he wanted more than to be buried six feet under with growing panic. Tears weren’t welling up in his eyes now of all times, were they?! Saints above, this was mortifying-!!! How could this get any worse?!

“L...look, I, I know you have every possible reason to be upset with me, because I lied to you about everything, but please, j...just know that I-I never wanted to hurt y-”

“—MHFF?!”

So caught up he was in his own head that he failed to see her coming, as the former starlet practically threw herself onto the Ashen Wolf and pushed her lips against his own so that he may finally shut up. Suddenly, Forwin found himself acutely aware of sensations he never expected to have the privilege of feeling: the intoxicating beat of her breath against his skin with warmth; the full weight of her body onto his engraving itself into his mind; her fingers gripping tightly onto the aged white fabric of his facsimile Academy uniform...

All of it and more overwhelmed enough to melt into the kiss and almost forget the basic human instinct of breathing. Still, it took little time for him to gather his wits anew, and so did one arm wrap itself taut around Dorothea’s waistline while his other brought his cool palm up to her cheek.

Relief within him blossomed into sheer bliss and his worries waned as though they’ve already passed innumerable eons ago. Why, his heart felt so full to bursting that he could sing whole ballads of their first kiss alone, for never in his wildest dreams could he ever imagine she would...

#bladeoffraldarius #{ bladeoffraldarius—dorothea }#{ worlds apart sing in chorus ♥ bladeoffraldarius—dorothea ♥ }#{ eagle’s scherzo mocks my fate 🎶 verse 🎶 }#{ playing this one by ear 🎶 replies 🎶 }#{ cut for length }#{ ooc: *LOUDLY APOLOGIZES FOR GOING FULL FRIGGIN' HAM ON THIS* }

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dragonstoravens · 3 years

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Babylon Vol. 1: Unflattering, Apologies

[ID: a blue patterned banner with text reading “BABYLON.” End ID.]

(Oh boy here comes some PLOT! Sorry not sorry in advance from me and @charlottedotexe-- this one’s a bit rough. No specific warnings, but this is where that “Trinity’s still lawful evil, remember?” bit comes in)

Taglist (ask to be added or removed!): @charlottedotexe @glitterandstarshine @rainbowcoloreddays @the-starlight-chills @erased-in-stone

General: @elywritesbydarkness @residentofthedisc @humour-and-hyperfocus @skyfirewrites @viawrites-andacts

14. Unflattering

Azure really, truly, understood why some people were cruel. Sometimes a situation called for it. Sometimes it was necessary for a greater good.

But this time in particular, she did not understand.

“Jericho!” came the greeting, the same one everyone here seemed to use for Trinity. “Great thinking on that deal with the alien colony a couple of months ago. I heard the margins from that conflict were positively astronomical.”

“Oh, yes. That.” Trinity turned away from Azure to face the man who’d addressed him, leaving his face in a shadowed profile from where Azzy sat. His voice took on that casual calm it always did when he talked business, but this time something about the tone sent a shiver down her spine. “It wasn’t exactly a difficult decision. I believe they would have paid anything considering the reports I’d received on the state of their military, and it was simple to speak to marketing about making use of that desperation.” One corner of his lip twitched up. It wasn’t a smile. “I assume your firm saw some profits from the situation as well, Darcy? I don’t deserve all the credit, of course, but the Jerichos appreciate your recognition. As always.” The man clasped his hand with a professional nod and smile, a look of respect on his face. Trinity still wore that not-quite-smile, cold and calculating and… pleased. It looked alien to Azure. She hated it.

Trinity heard a sudden whirling click as Azure’s communicator ejected itself from her neck, slamming a wall between her mind and his. She looked away and scratched at the base of her neck, then shoved her hand in her pocket. Most likely, that was her putting it away. She’d taken it out completely. Her jaw was clenched, the strong line even more stubborn than usual, and she refused to meet his eyes as she reached forward and grabbed a glass of water from a nearby tray. Her shoulders sparked dangerously, and she brushed them off.

“I’ll be right back dear.” It did not sound like he was very dear. Her smile was nearly threatening as she pulled from his side as though he’d leave a residue if she did it too slowly. “I’ve got something to do quickly.”

Trinity’s eyebrows pulled together. “...Of course.” She took off, barely waiting for him to finish his response. That was strange. He knew she didn’t like business talk, but she liked being alone at these events even less. And she didn’t seem anxious or upset, so she likely wasn’t running off to hide like he sometimes did. Whatever it was she was mad about, he was sure she’d come back and tell him what was going on soon enough. And he did still have business to attend to.

It only took a few minutes for a slight bit of concern to start creeping in. His experience with Azure so far was one of nearly fatal honesty and very little patience, although she was getting better at putting up with these long, boring events. Usually, because she was talking to him about it through the comm, which was still blocked off. If something was wrong all she had to do was mention it and he’d leave, but instead she was off on her own, without even giving him a legitimate reason why. It only took a few minutes more for concern to become something a little easier for him to deal with-- or at least more familiar. Annoyance. It was not a good feeling. He was making at least a cursory attempt to shut it down when he saw Azure approaching from across the room.

Even before she arrived at his side once more, he could see that whatever the problem was, it had yet to be solved. The set of her jaw wasn’t any softer, and the comm still wasn’t in, and her tone was cool whenever she spoke, but at least whatever that tight, threatening undertone was had diminished. She leaned against his arm, body stiff and movements bordering on mechanical. Where she’d normally be hanging from his arm, a lounge-singer’s grace with that distinctly Azure slouch, she was instead standing almost primly beside him. It bordered on prudish. Someone else approached her, a woman hell bent on asking where she’d gotten her shoes from, and her friendly demeanor returned.

“Oh, they’re MiZara originals, only ones of their kind. I can take your card, he’s always willin’ to hear out a custom request.”

The two chatted amiably for a moment, a card was exchanged, and Azure returned to her sour expression not moments after her conversation partner vanished into the crowd. “Sorry about disappearin’, I had a couple issues with my cybernetics to work out.” A bold faced lie, her cybernetics never had issues she needed to fix immediately like that. They were well crafted and carefully maintained, and they both knew it. The annoyance was back, despite his best efforts.

“I see. Do you need to leave? To… fix them further?” Without really meaning to, he matched her stiffness, the cool calm he so often used when speaking to strangers turned back on her in a way it hadn’t been since their first meeting. He would give her an opening, he decided. If she didn’t take it, then clearly she didn’t plan to give him an honest answer about any of this, and he would leave it alone. The idea made his skin crawl, an unpleasant boiling in his blood. God, he hoped she would take it-- though he wasn’t sure even that would satisfy his frustration now. He tapped a foot, watching her for a response.

Azure looked around, looking for any more of his business partners trying to ask him questions or congratulating him on further profiteering of a disgusting caliber. “If you’re done for the evenin’, I think that’d be best. I’m not sure dancin’ is really in the cards for me this time around.” Her shoulders relaxed just a touch. Relief, maybe.

“I see. In that case, we’ll leave.” He turned on a heel, heading for the exit with the kind of stride that made people get out of his way without a single thought. With the icy silence between the two of them, the air seemed almost colder in their wake as they passed unimpeded through the ballroom and out into the night. Trinity had the car door open for her as almost an automatic response, but he didn’t wait for her to get in, walking around to the other side and opening his own door to enter the car at nearly the same time she did. As soon as both doors were closed, he fixed her with those horribly cold green eyes. In the calmest voice he could manage, he said, “Would you like to tell me what that was really about?”

Her eyes widened, shock in their depths, and then that shock gave way to a churning anger. An arc of electricity jumped from her left shoulder to her right hand, and she looked about two seconds away from baring her teeth like a wolf about to strike. “Oh, I’m so sorry I didn’t light into you in a ballroom full of people. Please, remind me to clock you the way I’d like to the next time you think it’s a dandy idea to exploit the sufferin’ of an entire colony.” The snarl to her voice was foreign, unfamiliar. “Really, I’d be so pleased to cause that much embarrassment on the spot.”

His eyebrows shot up. It was a valid reason to wait, but that wasn’t exactly first in his mind right now. Despite all the time he’d spent cultivating a perfect, untouchable exterior, it was all he could do to hold onto it now. Anger pushed itself into place over hurt as her words struck home, and over it all he struggled to keep calm. Perfect calm, the mirror-still surface of a pond, freezing into a bitter cold fractal shield. It had always protected him before. “Azure, I have a job and I do it,” he snapped, the words unfeeling to the point of sounding nearly derisive. Worse-- uncaring. “I never expected you to like it, but I thought from our first meeting onwards that you understood it. If I misled you into thinking I’m some kind of saint, my fucking apologies. You know I’m climbing a ladder, and this kind of work is a rung.”

“Oh don’t fuckin’ start in on that train of thought, I read about that fuckin’ deal on my little walk to clear my head and save you the embarrassment of becomin’ a barbecue.” She glared at him, scoffing. “That was a colony tryin’ to fight for its right to survive, and you would have done very well for yourself even at half that cost. I’ve seen the schematics for those warheads, asshole, I helped you price them.” Sparks continued to shoot off of her and she moved away as far away from him as she could. She was mad, but she didn’t want him to catch fire quite yet. “I’m disappointed in you. That deal wasn’t goin’ to do anythin’ extra for you on your way up your ladder. It was cruel, and unnecessary, and I know you know it because you’re not a fuckin’ idiot. You disgust me right now.” She looked upset now, sad in a way he hadn’t seen before. Her shoulders slumped, her jaw relaxed, and her brows knit together. “All those people need that funding for things beyond just a war. They need it for food and to recover from the hell they’re goin’ through. You’ve sentenced a nation to possibly decades of poverty just because you could.”

Trinity drew in a sharp breath, and there was a moment of something too fiercely charged to be rightly called ‘silence,’ as the dangerously climbing hum of electricity buzzed louder and Trinity’s shoulders drew back with the minute slowness of an assassin silently cocking a gun. Any moment now, Azure’s control would slip and explode. Any moment now, Trinity’s enraged, haughty, emptiness would freeze him to the core and shatter. Any moment…

But just as it seemed the space between them would tear in two if it stretched a second longer, Trinity’s mask slipped, abruptly, and fell away. His face beneath was blank-- a completely different blankness than the uncaring calm he’d worn almost all night. This was naked, raw, an exposed nerve. This looked more like he’d gone catatonic, or perhaps been smacked in the back of the head by a brick. In the moonlight, his face was deathly pale.

Of course he’d thought of that. He’d known it from the beginning. And he’d been taught to ignore it, to believe people he didn’t know were barely people at all. No-- he had taught himself to ignore it. He’d always said that no matter who he worked for or with, he would remain himself, Trinity, not just a Jericho or a pawn of Fate. But when it came down to it, he’d let that learned cruelty override his own sense of purpose. He thought, for the first time since he’d made that deal, of who he was climbing this ladder for. She would be disgusted, too. And she hadn’t even crossed his mind when the opportunity had been handed to him on a silver platter. Silence stretched once more, but this time there was a give to it. Into that silence, Azure spoke once more.

“I don’t want to watch you lose your whole soul, Hotshot. Or at least what’s left of it, after these bloodsuckers have their fill and you finally reach whatever the top of that ladder is.” She looked out the window. Her hands were still sparking, the little lights landing in her lap and petering out. “Your line of work is tough, ethically speakin’, and you have ambition in spades, and those aren’t necessarily bad things on their own given the circumstances. But I know for a fact that the guy who made that deal is not the one I made good enough friends with to be his date at big fancy events regularly enough to know the difference between wine glasses now. That guy is actually worth the time. I’m not sayin’ you have to be perfect, no one is. But fuckin’ think next time, Trinity. It’s out of character for you not to.” The sparking finally died down. She could see the blank look on his face. It seemed like maybe she’d gotten through to him. Or maybe he wasn’t the person she thought he was. Only time would tell. “Nod if you’re not catatonic with shock.”

Only Azure, Trinity thought numbly. Only she could rip him and his entire business model to pieces with just a few words-- that somehow still managed to pay him compliments he knew he didn’t deserve from her-- after spending half the night furious at him, and in the next breath somehow make a joke out of it all. The least he could do was respond to the joke. He did so, with a wooden nod of his head.

There were parts of what he’d said that he still stood by. For one thing, he still wasn’t sure how she’d gotten the impression that this was out of character for him in any way. But she was at least correct in saying he hadn’t thought this through. If he had, maybe he would have realized that this could only hurt the very few things he truly cared about. But his heart, as it so often did, had slipped his mind. It occurred to him, as he sorted through the choices leading him here, that he had another very difficult conversation to plan after this one. There was someone else who deserved to know that he’d slipped, even if there was no way he was sharing the details. He sighed, shifting for the first time in what seemed like eons to run a hand through his hair.

“I can’t truly apologize. It’s long past too late to make up for my choices.” His expression didn’t change, though somehow Azure got the feeling that ‘long past too late’ referred to something much further back than one business deal.

What it did refer to was a total mystery, but Azure told herself she’d deal with that one later. Between the weird sense of self and the panic attacks, who knew what other bullshit he had going on. She had other, more present issues to deal with. Like getting that look off his face and teaching him a damn lesson about making up for mistakes.

She smacked him in the chest, just hard enough to sting.

“Dumbass, just fuckin’ do it right next time. You’re right, you already fucked up. You’re not exempt from self improvement just because you fucked up. Now say sorry.”

He turned back to look at her and blinked a few times, surprised. “...Sorry?”

“We’ll work on it. Good enough for now.” She looked almost fond under all that disappointment. “Maybe you ain’t a lost cause.”

Somehow that fondness hurt worse than any amount of anger or disappointment that had led up to it. He was suddenly very aware that there was no way he could convince her to leave, or convince her to think of him any way other than however she damn well pleased. That was simply who Azure was. Which meant that someday, he was going to watch himself hurt her again, and that was just going to be something he had to accept. He took the realization in stride. There was no reason to dwell on it any longer than that, it was just the way things were. But he had at least decided that however that hurt was to come about, it wouldn’t be like this. He would do what he had to do to climb the ladder, but this kind of exploitative deal would not happen again.

The car came to a stop at the drop point, and Trinity glanced back over at Azzy. “We’re here. You should let the ship know you’re back early.”

“Of course.” She tapped a few words into a communicator. “Won’t be long, they hung around this time.” Her eyes met his, and she patted his shoulder. “Sorry for hittin’ ya. My “siblin’ to a sad sack” instincts kicked in before I could stop ‘em.” She thought for a moment before adding, “And next time I’m pissed, I’ll try to maybe keep it under wraps a little better before I run off to chill out. I just didn’t want to cause a scene, it wouldn’t be good for you.”

He shook his head. The list of things he knew about Azure’s brother just kept getting more confusing. Vigilante, fashion designer, sharpshooter… and sad sack, apparently. “You don’t need to apologize. You did the best anyone could ask of you in that situation. It shouldn’t have been something you had to do at all.”

“Yeah, but if I’m gonna go around demandin’ apologies, I may as well own up to anythin’ I might have done.” She brushed a couple of sparks off her skirt and opened the car door. “Have a good night, Hotshot.”

“You too.” It was most certainly not enough, he’d said so little to her throughout this and had barely even apologized. Part of the reason for that was that apologizing to Azure again felt pointless and stale. He had no way to apologize to the buyers, that ship had sailed. So his apology would have to be held in his future actions. Far easier said than done.

He turned back to his own ship, and set the coordinates for his home planet of Eden. At least he could do something about the other apology he’d roped himself into.

15. Apologies

The sun had fully set and stars were clear in the sky by the time Trinity arrived home in Eden. He kicked his shoes off at the door, losing his coat and tie just as quickly, and headed up the stairs of his dark and silent house. The room at the end of the hall was mostly dark as well, but a tiny sliver of light peeked out from under the door. He sighed, put a hand to his temple, and knocked.

The light went out immediately. Trinity rolled his eyes, fondly exasperated despite the situation. “I already saw the light. You can’t pretend you’re asleep. Can I come in?”

There was a pause, and the rustling of blankets. The light clicked back on.

“...Okay.”

Trinity opened the door and stepped inside. His thirteen year old sister sat up in bed with her arms crossed, a tablet on her lap clumsily hidden under the corner of her duvet. “I know I’m supposed to be asleep, but--”

“It’s ok, Adriel.” He sighed and sat down on the edge of her bed. “I know it’s late, but can I talk to you about something?”

Adriel’s defensive expression was immediately replaced with one of concern. “Are you okay?”

Trinity bit his lip to hold back a grimace. Dammit, he hadn’t wanted to worry her. Though there was probably no way he could have approached this that wouldn’t have. “I’m fine,” he told her calmly. “But I need you to listen. Understand?”

She nodded. He continued.

“You know I try not to bring up business too much, it’s not your company and unless you want it, it never has to be. But you also know why I decided to take it over.” he paused as words seemed to fail him, and looked up at Adriel.

Adriel saw her brother waiting, needing something from her to continue, and nodded solemnly. She might have been young when the power structure of the Jericho family had taken a dramatic shift into the hands of her older brother, but even at the age of eight she had known that he would never have taken over the Jericho business by choice. All that power and responsibility, forced upon him, no matter how much he pretended it was voluntary. Sometimes she couldn’t help but feel just a bit guilty. She knew how smart he was, he could be doing anything he wanted by now. Without the business pulling him down. Without her to provide for. But any time she so much as hinted at that line of thought, he shut it down. If Trin was anything he was stubborn, and he had told her more than once, point-blank, that he refused to let her blame herself for being young, for needing things. She wished he would follow his own advice.

Trinity was still watching her, something tumultuous in his eyes she didn’t understand, but before she could try to offer some sort of consolation he began again. “I made a bad deal. I knew when I made it that I didn’t need it to advance, or to keep the two of us taken care of, but I chose not to think about any of that. Luckily, someone I know wouldn’t let me get away with it so easily.” He half-smiled, a small, self-deprecating expression that anyone looking in would have been shocked to see on the face of Trinity Jericho. “I said I’d do what I had to so you and I can be taken care of, but I didn’t have to do this. I’m sorry.”

Adriel frowned. She knew he wouldn’t tell her any more than that, no matter how much she asked, but it was rare enough he brought up work at all. It must have been bad, or this mystery ‘someone he knew’ had really let him have it, for him to mention it to her in the first place. Let alone apologize. Sure, he apologized to her all the time, but that was for stupid things, like forgetting he’d said she could go out, or eating the last brownie. And any other time he’d gotten this weird guilty look on his face, he’d outright refused to talk to her about it or denied that anything was wrong at all. So why was he talking to her about it this time?

“What did that person say to you?” She couldn’t quite keep a bit of anger from mingling with the confusion in her voice, and Trinity held out his hands, pacifying.

“Nothing that wasn’t true. Like I said, I made a bad choice. It just took a person who wasn’t looking at it from a business perspective to make me take notice.”

“And you’re not going to do it again.”

“To the very best of my ability, no.”

Adriel shook her head, with a scoff. She would never understand why her brother worried so much. “Ok, then why are you apologizing to me? I wouldn’t have known, would I?”

Trinity blinked at her. “And that makes it better somehow?”

He wanted to say that everything he did had a chance of reflecting on her. He wanted to say that he��d come close to completely forgetting about the only good reason he had for still running this company, let alone working with the people he did. He wanted to say that even if he’d already damned himself, he still wanted his little sister to think well of him, and that he didn’t want to have to lie to keep it that way. But saying any of that would only make her worry. Luckily, she didn’t give him the chance.

“No. It would still be bad. But you’re my brother, and I’m not going to hate you because you did one thing without thinking about every possible tiny consequence first. And I wasn’t even upset about anything before you came in. Aren’t apologies supposed to be for people that you hurt?”

Trinity rolled his eyes to the ceiling, letting out a frustrated huff of breath. Now she was getting somewhere. “Let’s assume for the moment that I can’t apologize to those directly involved. And just because your connection was indirect doesn’t mean I don’t owe you an apology. So, as I said, I’m sorry. I’m going to keep trying to do what’s best for you.”

“I really don’t think you have to try that hard,” Adriel said mildly. “But I forgive you... if that means I can go to bed now?” She smiled, hoping he would smile back. She hated when Trinity was sad, almost as much as he seemed to hate it when she was. This conversation hadn’t made much sense from the start, but she at least hoped she’d said enough that he wouldn’t feel so guilty. She understood guilt.

“Sure, Addy.” He didn’t smile, not quite, but he did lean over to kiss her lightly on the top of the head. “Goodnight.”

That would have to be enough for now. She settled back onto her pillow, tucking away her tablet for real this time. “Goodnight.”

As he left the room, Trinity pulled up a note on his eyescreen and drafted a quick message. He’d wait a day or so, then send it. Adriel was right in that she hadn’t been upset, but someone else had been.

“Azure,

“I didn’t say this properly before. I apologize. I will do better.”

#chapter update #writeblr #writers on tumblr #spilled ink #wip: babylon #babylon

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roraruu · 4 years

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wip: step into the darkness

Marianne is seven when her parents begin to act strange around. She remembers it all so clearly, as if a sculptor had etched it into her mind with a pick and hammer.

It is just a few days before the Red Wolf Moon’s death, and three days before her birthday. Their little cottage in the woods of a distant part of Leicester begin to grow colder, as if the winds from Faerghus are blowing directly in upon their home.

Her mother, whom her father says is her mirror image, hurries about the small, cold cottage. Not in her usual way that looks hurried, but in reality is quite calm and measured. From her spot in the living room, by the warm fire, she watches as her mother traces the kitchen quickly, her apron wading in the cold air.

She opens her mouth to speak, but she knows much better than to open it. Something inside her—a voice, an instinct perhaps—tells her not to. Her lips shut as she sits on the rug and stares into the fire. The book of fairytales and legends at her feet, which her father had promised to read her when he got back, stares up at her, begging to be read.

He promised that the trip would only be a few days, not much longer than two. He promised that he would come back with game. He promised, with his darkened eyes and deep voice, that he’d carve her a wooden figure of Seiros with his own two hands for her birthday.

She remembers the curl in his lip when he said the goddess’s name. Like it was burning him alive: sear-rows. A child remembers disgust clearly.

It’s been five days. Her father isn’t back, and her mother is beginning to let her worry show.

Marianne has seen this happen before. Back when she was only four. Her father went missing for three days, out into the woods, and when he came back, it was on the arm of a green-haired knight of Seiros. He had slept in bed for days, couldn’t look at anyone or anything; and he was sick.

And when Marianne had the courage to ask her mother what was wrong with her father, she had only said her father had taken ill.

That was always the excuse: Papa is ill. Father is sickly today. It is best not to bother Papa; he is ill.

Always a reason to leave him be. Some days she felt like she was being spectated upon. She would catch that look in his eyes sometimes: like he didn’t recognize Marianne or her mother; or like he was sorry for them.

The cottage feels cold, though it is snug and the fire is burning hot. Her Mother eventually calls her into the kitchen for dinner—Gautier stew. One of the neighbours brought some cheese and fowl. They always do when Papa disappears.

Mother says it’s just what good neighbours do, but Marianne can’t help but feel that they do it out of pity.

***

Another day passes without father. The cock crows for the dawn and Marianne wakes. Snow blankets outside, for their little cottage is incredibly close to Faerghus.

She’s been sleeping in the same bed as her mother since her father left. It happens often. Having another body in the bed brings her Mother a little sense of comfort, a little safety. And while Marianne is young, she knows the look of woe and sadness well, for her mother wears it often.

Her mother is only 28, but she looks as though she’s past middle age sometimes. Usually when her father is missing she looks like that; but when Marianne’s father is about, she looks so young, like a young girl, who is much too young to have a child of seven years.

Her father however, always looks gruff and tired, like an old billy goat. His dark hair spills out over his face, and a beard that grows in around his chin. Dark eyes too, not quite beady like a goat’s, but more like the ocean that they can see from the top of the church hill. The sea always looks black in the winter.

Her mother wakes before her, gently stirs her once, twice, for there is not a cruel bone in that woman’s body. Some around here say that she is a true daughter of Seiros, kind and just. Others say that she is like an angel from another land.

Marianne doesn’t know which to believe.

They say their morning prayers to the Goddess from the side of the straw bed. Holiness, religion, was born right into Marianne. Her Mother was a sister of Seiros, who served at the monastery in the heart of Fódlan. She doesn’t talk much about those days, she doesn’t talk much about herself. But what she does not speak of herself, she makes it up with talk of the Goddess and her saints and Seiros. Before bed, her mother tells her stories of Saint Macuil, Saint Indech, Saint Cichol and his daughter Cethleann, and of course, Saint Seiros. She speaks of them with such passion, such brightness, that her eyes sparkle as she talks.

Sometimes, if the mood is correct, and if her Mother is willing, she will sing to Marianne. She has the sweetness of all the honey in the land and the tone of the finest songbirds in her voice. She could have been a songstress, easily, yet she is a sister of the faith, a humble cleric. And Marianne isn’t sure why, but she is sure that her Mother has the finest voice in all of Fódlan. But she understands why her Mother is called Silque; for her voice is as smooth and as rich as the fabric.

Prayers pass in silence, both praying for the return of Silque’s lover and Marianne’s father.

They dress and Marianne sits still as her mother combs her hair and braids it into a crown about her head. While she works, she hums. Somedays, they’re happy songs. Other days they are mourning songs. Today it is just a melody from a lullaby that she sang to Marianne when she was just a babe.

(She always sings that when her father is missing. It is a comfort to the both of them.)

They share breakfast; day-old bread and cheese, tea for Silque, milk for Marianne. Marianne eats everything while Silque only prods her food. Marianne does not say anything, knowing that any reproach would upset her mother further. Instead, Silque stares out the window, her eyes searching the snowy hillside for the familiar look of her lover and her child’s father.

Before the sun has even risen, they are out the door and walking up the hillside to the church at the top. There, Marianne’s mother works while the little girl watches or sits out back.

As they walk up the hill, they can see the queue of sick that that lines outside the church; Silque’s patients for the day. She breathes a sigh as she enters the church. Marianne sits in the pews, listening to the hacking coughs and sneezes of the sick.

This has been her life for the last few years. When father is around, she will stay with him and sit while he works. He is a carpenter; building many houses in the area, cribs, bassinets, bed frames, tables and chairs, dressers, armoires and desks; most everything is crafted by his rough hands. And when the bandits get bad, he is a military leader.

Marianne remembers seeing the glinting gold of a helmet and armour, the lush reds and blues of a cape long since worn; the silks of a bishop’s gown and the markings of Seiros upon them. She does not know now, but in ten years’ time, she will come to understand that her parents were not just a carpenter and a cleric, but a bishop and a bow knight in former lives, ones long since forgotten.

The orphans of the church don’t speak to her much. She keeps to herself, reading her old book of fairytales or praying like her Mother would. Sometimes she helps with washing clothes and sewing, other days she does not. One of the children asks what she wants for her birthday—her Mother has said she is going to be eight in two days’s time. She lies and says that she wants a new book from town.

In truth, she only wants her father to come home, and her mother to smile without forcing it.

At lunch, Marianne’s mother allows her to go outside and play. “But,” her soft voice rings out with a sense of sternness. “Do not go past the courtyard. I need to be able to see you.”

“Yes Mother.” She promises. She shrugs on her cloak and steps out the back of the church. She paces the little courtyard a few times, watching as birds and squirrels come to visit her.

She sits down in the snow, her blue dress circling about her. As her father taught her, with his old horse, she stays as still as a statue. Her eyelashes don’t even flutter after she’s shut them. To the observer, she looks as though she is a young princess, with an air of regality and serenity that only the bluest of blood can attain.

The sounds of the nearby forest grow louder. She can hear cardinals cry out, some robins who are looking for food. The rattle of an annoyed chipmunk, the crunch of snow.

She stays like that for a while. Then, slowly, she opens her eyes. In the snow before her is a little bird with a soft coat. She doesn’t dare move, but instead flutters her lashes in a hello.

It greets her back. Why are you still here?

My mother is working in the church.

You need to move little miss.

Why so? Marianne asks, slowly moving her eyes up and around the courtyard.

Something is coming. Can you not feel it?

The air has grown colder. It becomes a little harder to breathe. She turns her head and the bird does not move. I can. She tells it.

Is it a wolf?

No, it’s far more sinister. The woods are clear.

The trees rustle. Then as she turns her body, the bird flies away, calling for her to take cover.

From the dark of the woods, Marianne sees a monster stare back at her. Slowly, it moves closer, it’s nose heaving out breaths as she stays stock still.

In her mind she tries to speak to the monster, her hands curling around her winter cloak. She stares at the beast, taking in it’s dark scales and sharp fangs, it’s claws that could cut her to bits.

Quietly, as if the world has gone silent, she hears it speak.

Fear the beast inside of you Marianne.

Her eyes widen in horror and she stops breathing, fainting in the snow. When she wakes, the beast is gone and she is left shaking. She catches her breath, looking wildly around her for the monster who warned her. Then she begins to worry; what is the beast inside? Of her? Is there a monster underneath her skin.

She steadies her wobbly legs and then returns inside the church. Marianne does not tell her mother of the monster in the courtyard. She remains silent, instead watching as her mother takes patient after patient, never once growing angry or tired.

Someone gives them a bit of fish for dinner, as thanks to Silque for her healing. She promises to make two fish stew with it when they get home.

***

There’s a crash outside the cottage. Silque sits up. Then the door opens. Marianne feels her mother move in the bed. She hears the ancient words on her tongue as she begins to recite spells. Marianne pulls the blankets closer to her, up against her willowy frame as she watches her mother etch out of the room and into the main atrium of the house.

Her mother’s shoulders sag, as if relief has finally weighed down upon her shoulders. Her hands drop to her sides as the sounds of boots against wooden floors grows louder.

“I’m home, Silque.”

Marianne knows that voice. She stumbles out of bed, watching as her father stands stock still. Her mother holds him tight, sobbing prayers to the goddess that he has finally returned home.

And when Marianne catches his eyes, she sees the monster from the forest.

***

Marianne is tucked back into her parents’ bed. She knows that she will not sleep in her own bed tonight; nor will her parents use theirs. They will stay up talking like they always do when he comes home after a long time away.

She lays in their bed and hears the bits of their conversation over and over again.

“Was it your...”

“Yeah. I’m sorry.”

“You cannot control it, why should you be?”

“It’s her birthday soon, you two must have been worried.”

“We were not losing sleep... Or that much.”

“Has she... been acting strange?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean Silque.” She can hear his voice loud and clear. Her father has never been a quiet man. “Is she showin’ the signs?”

“Of... Of Maurice?”

“Yeah. Suppose I mean him.”

Marianne sits up in bed, she swings her legs over the side and lets her feet meet the ground. Through the crack of the door, she can see her parents sitting at the hearth. Her mother reaches for his face.

“She carries my blood after all.”

“Do not treat it as a curse. She will not die—“

“You can’t know for sure, Silque.”

“I know Seiros’s gospel like the backs of my hands. She never said that Maurice was damned.

“Only that he is the Beast and hated by everyone.”

Marianne takes a step back. The floorboards creak loudly. She sees her father’s head turn to the door, staring at her through the crack. In his eyes, she sees the beast that stared at her in the woods. Her heart stops and she back barrels into the bed, climbing inside and pulling the quilt to her neck.

She clasps her hands together, and falls asleep praying to Seiros.

***

Silque clings to her lover tightly, as if he will disappear before her very eyes. She would rather die than let that happen again.

She does not see the look of terror in Marianne’s eyes. Instead, she looks up at her lover, who has been gone for upwards of a week. She breathes a prayer to the goddess before he sidesteps past her and kneels before their daughter.

“Have you been good for Ma, kid?” He asks.

Silque cannot think of anything aside from the fact that he is home. Before she knows it, Marianne is tucked back into bed and they sit before the burning hearth. She prepares him a meal and readies hot water to clean him. His face is marked bloody with brushes from the bush and dirt and soot.

It pains her to not know where he has been.

“Was it your...” She cannot finish the word. He doesn’t speak the name of it at all. The Crest of Maurice, the Crest of the Beast.

He nods. “Yeah. Sorry.”

“You cannot control it, why should you be?”

“It’s her birthday soon, you two must have been worried.” He says. He can’t bring himself to look at her.

“We were not losing sleep...” Silque lies, the sin weighing on her stomach. She turns to the little bowl of hot water. “Or that much.”

“Has she been actin’ strange?”

Silque stares at him. “What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean, Silque.” His eyes meet hers. Suddenly, it’s very clear that there is a beast beneath the surface of his skin. “Is she showin’ the signs?”

“Of... Of Maurice?”

“Yeah. That bastard. She carries my blood after all.”

Silque reaches for his face, her dropping the cloth into the bowl. She holds the frame of his face in her cracked hands. “Do not treat it as a curse. She will not die—“

His gaze sears hers. “You can’t know for sure, Silque.”

“I know Seiros’s gospel like the backs of my hands. She never said that Maurice was damned.” Silque pleads.

“Only that he is the Beast and hated by everyone.”

The creak of floorboards turns his head. Silque ignores it. Their little cottage is old, and the sound of settling is well-known to her. She has heard it so many time when she laid awake in bed, waiting for him to return home.

“He is not hated by me.” Silque assures her lover.

He blinks slowly as she swallows. “Who housed you this time? Was it a do gooder or the woods?” She tries to make a lighthearted joke. “It looks like you made a home in a rosebush, darling.”

“Lukas housed me again, sweetness.”

Her eyes lift to his. There are dark circles below his eyes, bags from a lack of sleep. She turns to get the cloth and dips it into the water and rings it out once, twice before brushing it against his dirty cheek.

“I should ensure to thank him with some kind prayers and fruit preserves.”

“Certain he’d like that.” He says holding his gaze.

“Did he...” The words will not leave her tongue at first. She steels herself, then forces it out like the smiles she’s been forcing since he disappeared. “Did he see you as a beast?”

He scoffs a little bit before dipping his head in a nod. He sighs. “He found me while he was on a hunting trip in his county. Called me out of it with your song.”

Any frustration and anger washes away from Silque with those last three words. She blushes a little, turning her cheek as she dips the cloth into the water. “I am glad it still brings you peace.”

“It’s because it reminds me of you.”

She burns as red as the fire and turns back to him to wash away the dirt and cuts. She could use her white magic on him, but a little selfish part of her likes to use first aid. There’s a tenderness in it. A softness that makes her heart warm and makes her blush; it dulls the ache and sadness that has follow her since he left.

“I should hope so. It is what brought us together after all.”

He shuts his eyes for a second and nods, as if revelling in the memory. She won’t lie to anyone, most of all herself: she thinks of it often. Of when she was only a sister in the monastery, where she stood in the Cathedral light and sang a song of her own composition, her own lyrics and her own heart.

When she heard him call out from the shadows, and when she took her first step into the darkness.

“Lukas’s lands are far north. Near the coast. How did you make it so far?” She finds herself asking as she cleans his face.

The silence between them speaks volumes. He must have blacked out and forgotten until Lukas brought him to with her song. The sweetness in her heart begins to bitter, eating at her core as she looks down to his hands and stares at the cuts and bruises upon them.

“The Beast took over.” He says at last. “Couldn’t stop it.”

“I see.”

“Somedays I think it would be better if I just got the Crest removed. Paid someone in the Empire to take it out of my blood or whatever they do.” He mumbles. “If they can put them in, they should be able to remove them, yeah? It shouldn’t be that—”

“I could not bear to lose you my love.”

He meets her gaze. Her eyes begin to water with tears. She realizes that it has been almost an hour since they began talking, an hour since they sent Marianne to bed with both her parents, an hour since he came home.

“Still. You shouldn’t have to put up with this bullshit.”

“I am not putting up with anything. Your Crest is apart of you, and I would not have you remove it, even if there was no threat at all.” She leans a little closer to him. He reaches out slowly to touch her cheek. She melts into his palm. “You are my only love, Python.”

He lifts his gaze to her. Slowly, Silque draws closer to steal a kiss, pulling herself into his lap. Python’s head meets the crook of her shoulder. His heat begins to warm her cold body.

“You certain she ain’t showin’ anything? No fits, no starts? No anger? Wanderin’?” His voice reverberates throughout her body, shaking to her core.

“Nothing, Python. I swear she isn’t.” She whispers in a solemn promise. “She is the survivour of the curse. She is exempt, saved from it, by Sothis’s grace.”

And for a moment, Python believes his lover’s fallacies, her blind devotion, her bittersweet promises.

#ru writes #fanfiction #3h #marianne #silque #python #marianne forbidden ship kid au #thats the best i got yo im sorry #no editing either sorry #sov

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tanadrin · 4 years

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The Last Sin

(Attention conservation notice: 6,500 words of fantasy)

As Masek approached the ruins of the City of Glass, a storm came out of the west. It rushed across the parched alluvial plain, whipping up a miles-long wall of dust as it went; lightning flashed from within and, at last, when it seemed like it threatened to swallow him whole, the cloud surged upward like an immense tower and formed itself into the shape of a man as high as mountains. The immense messenger spoke with a voice like thunder that died in the far-off hills, and Masek could not help but be afraid.

"You cannot do this," the messenger said.

Masek answered quietly, almost under his breath. She could hear him, and this was only her messenger. "I can, and I must." Despite his fear, he kept walking toward the glittering, broken towers in the distance.

“She commands you not to do this,” the messenger said again.

“She can command all she likes.” He was tired. He had been picking his way along the broken road since dawn. His voice was ragged and sounded weak even to his own ears. How pathetic must it be to hers? “I will not stop.”

“Masek!” And now there was anger in the messenger’s voice, an anger that threatened to flatten forests and level the hills. “You have sinned and sinned again against the soul of the world itself; does your iniquity know no bounds? Does your contempt for your god know no limits? Does your hatred for righteousness have no end?”

Masek shook his head as he walked. None of the other Believers had ever understood him; maybe no mortal alive. Her messenger would not understand this either.

“I do not hate righteousness, or love sinfulness, or despise her, messenger,” he said. “I have told you again and again. I am doing what I have to do.”

The towering figure stood silent for a moment, then the thunder returned, mournful and distant. “She begs you not to.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“She could level the city as you approach it. Leave you only the wilderness in which to lay your head. Send wolves against you in the night. Consume your body with fire from within.”

“She could. Will she?”

“You will not desist?”

“She hasn’t stopped me yet.”

“You will not succeed. It cannot be permitted. Even if she waits until the very end.”

“I thought she could do anything?”

“Do not presume to challenge or command her.”

I have done far worse in her sight, Masek thought but did not say. The messenger seemed to take that for answer; at once the form dissolved, and the immense wall was overthrown, a blast of wind covering everything around him in a thick, swirling dust, followed closely by a cold wind. Masek pulled his scarf close about his nose and mouth so that he could still breathe. The ruins in the distance were hidden now, but he could still feel the stones of the old road beneath his feet. He kept walking.

That night, as the storm whipped at the stones of the city around him, he took a scrap of paper from his bag and the stub of a pencil, and tried to work out how much further he had left to go. He reckoned the days since he left Velannu, making little marks he could barely discern in the firelight. Was it a year ago? A little more. The road ahead could not be much longer now. The place he sought, the last city, the city laid waste more than a thousand years ago for the same sin he was about to commit, was only a little further on.

Despite the storm, he slept well, and deeply. He woke only once, turning to his other side, and thought that for a moment he felt a presence standing over him. Not a wolf or a woodwose, nothing dangerous. But something immense, and loving, and full of grief. But it vanished when he opened his eyes.

When Masek awoke not long after dawn, the sky was clear. He ate a little dry bread while he watched birds dart to and fro among the empty streets of the city, and then he set out north again.

He did not expect her to come to him again. He had not expected a messenger after he crossed the mountains; surely that was the sign, the long and dangerous climb, the treacherous and starving descent, that he was determined. That nothing would stand in his way. Surely it was before that, even. The sages who kept the law would have said, you have been warned seven times, and seven times you have answered the warning with determination to continue on your path. Six times God will grant you an open door, a way to return to righteousness. After the seventh, your sins will bind you to your grave.

The seventh warning had long come and gone. It must have been the old man in the city of the Leopard-Folk; the one who had seen him on the street, who had suddenly straightened up and rushed over to him. “You, sir,” he said in a thick accent, suddenly speaking, not the quick and lilting tongue of the city, but Masek’s, the slow, plodding language of the fishing village where he had been born. “She wants me to tell you, not to do this. Not to do the thing you are determined to do. It is evil. It will cause only suffering. And yours will be the greatest. Remember the law!”

“Pardon, grandfather--” Masek answered in his own tongue by reflex. “I didn’t know there were any believers in this land.” But then the man’s expression softened. He said something in the language of the Leopard-Folk. The miracle had left him. Masek shook his hand off his sleeve and kept walking.

But she had not stopped at six. The warnings had kept coming after that. There was the fortune-teller by the docks. And the gull that had spoken to him in his mother’s voice. Oh, yes, and Jasham, the great fish of legend, who he had always thought was only a bedtime story, had risen out of the sea and spoken to him the verses of the Law on sin and judgement. His father had told him as a little boy that the fish lived in the depths and spent the long centuries of its life doing nothing but studying the words of the Prophets, and the commandments of God, and so was the wisest creature in all Creation; and Masek supposed it was true, for Jasham had spoken well.

All had come to Masek at the holy hours, the hours for omens and signs; all had spoken to him in his native tongue, or the tongue of the Believers, and of the Law. But he had not desisted. He would not ever desist, not so long as he had the power in him to move. And surely she knew that, for as endless as her mercy was the immensity of her wisdom. So the sages said.

And yet, now, as he walked these last miles alone, she came again. And this time she did not send a messenger. Masek didn’t know what he should have expected; a being of fire and awe? A frightful face, intended to make him tremble with fear, to wonder if he was about to be destroyed? A ghost from his past--his son, his mother, a throng of all the saints and long-dead sages, each to reproach him and sharpen the shame he felt?

No. She simply spoke to him out of the stony earth, her voice carried by the dusty air.

“Masek,” she called out; and he knew who it was.

“Hello,” Masek said. He supposed he should have bowed, or collapsed to his knees. If he were a younger man, he would have cried with joy to hear God’s voice with his own ears; even just a few years ago, he would have been able to muster anger, to reply with the roaring current of grief that had driven him across the face of the world. But now he found that he had the strength for neither.

“Masek, what are you doing?” God asked.

“You know what I’m doing,” he said. “You know everything.”

“Please. Don’t.”

“The sages would be surprised to hear you beg. The sages would be surprised to hear you at all. Isn’t it written, she does not speak as you or I? Her voice is not ours to demand to hear?”

“Don’t be childish, Masek. You cannot play games with me.”

“It is only that I didn’t expect you to come yourself. Certainly not like this. Didn’t you appear to the First Prophet as a storm? Or was it the third? And the ninth saw you only in dreams, as a blinding light over the sea.”

“Am I not of the stones and dust, as much as I am of the sky or sea?”

“That would be a question for the sages, I suppose.”

“Don’t pretend like you haven’t studied the law.”

“I am no sage. After all, it is also written that to study the law is to study the ways of righteousness. Thus the sages practice the ways of righteousness, for understanding the nature of the world begets harmony with your will. Or so they say. I haven’t found that to be the case.”

“You believe in the law, Masek. You have always believed in me. I know many sinners, those who have lost their faith, those who never had it, those who have never heard of me, or the law, or the sages at all. But not you. Your heart has been full of love for the world since you were a little boy. Why are you doing this?”

“I believe in you, yes,” Masek said. “In a way. And yes, I’ve studied the law. And for a long time, I thought that the law was righteousness, and the world was the law, and you must be, therefore, the source of all that was good. I don’t think that’s the case anymore. And it’s to my unhappiness that it took me so long to see it. After all, you made the world!” And Masek could feel his old anger starting to come back, though he tried to restrain it. The anger was not useful. Anger was a bad reason to do this. It was something he had tried for a long time to leave behind. “And more than that. Not just the trees and the rivers and humans and animals. Not just spirits and the stars and the great beasts below the sea. You made time. And justice. And mercy. And eternity. And love. All things come from you, all things return to you. Isn’t that what the sages say?”

“It is. You disagree?”

“No, I don’t. That’s the heart of the matter, I suppose. You made what is good; you defined, at least, what is evil. The sages disagree about whether you created evil. But you gave us the ability to choose between them, and let us create it where it did not exist before.”

“Was that a mistake?”

Masek ignored the question.

“Tell me. Before the tower fell, and the spirits forgot your name, and sin entered the world, was there suffering? The sages say no.”

“The sages are right.”

“And what causes suffering? The sages say sin. They say the poor old woman whose sons died in war, whose hands are crippled with pain, who’s blind as a block, they say even her suffering is caused by sin. Her own sin, or someone else’s.”

“The sages are right.”

“And the sages say that with the same hand that you reward us, O Sovereign of Unending Mercy, you punish us. My father told me, he said it was like this: your messengers watched us all, and for every sin they made a mark in the ledgers of your halls, and we would be punished accordingly, in this life or a life to come. But the sages disagree: the sages say you do not intervene so crudely. You do not warp and twist the world at will, but you have built it on a rational foundation, on the irresistible logic of the law. And the law says that sins against the soul of the world create suffering, and that suffering echoes out from that sin, lodges itself in the furthest parts of the world, and only the ceaseless labor of the righteous believer is sufficient to mend the world against the endless sea of suffering.”

“Masek, you know the sages are right.”

Masek nodded. “Yes. That’s why.” And now his anger, the frustration and the sorrow and the grief and everything else, now that he was finally talking to her face to face, it felt like it was about to boil over. Part of him wanted to stop and shout, to wave his arms in the air and yell and scream and say every ugly and profane thing he could to her. As if that would surprise her somehow. As if you could argue against God, against the soul of the world herself.

Instead, he spoke as calmly as he could, but his voice cracked, and he found himself speaking through tears. “You made the world wrong. That’s a sin, right, to say that? Even to think it?”

“Yes, Masek, it is.”

“Well, you did. They whipped me in Laai for saying it. I still have the scars on my back. If I had been back home, back in Velannu, they would have thrown me out. Never spoken to me again. It’s a terrible sin. Not the worst one, but a terrible one. Nine days of repentance, the most in the law.”

“Yes, Masek. It’s a terrible sin.”

“And sin causes suffering. So every time I think that, what? I cause a man blindness? I kill a child? A river floods?”

“It’s not like that, Masek. You think I’m that cruel? That I want to bully you into obedience by rigging the world so that your sins cause suffering, so that I can point to them and say, look at the wicked thing you have done? That’s no different than doing it myself.”

“Then how is it?”

“Sin is suffering, Masek. To sin is to go against the law, the world, me. To sin is to struggle against how the world simply is, and you can’t help but create chaos when you do that. In your life or someone else’s.”

“It’s still wrong, though. You should have made the world different. Better.”

“Masek, you’re human. You’re one little soul in something that is so much vaster and more complex than you can possibly imagine. The sages call me the soul of the world, but I’m so much more than that. That’s why they also call me the Inexpressible, the Transcendent, the One Above and Below.”

“Is this where you turn into a storm, and demand to know how I think I have the right to question you? Isn’t that what you did with the First Prophet?”

“Would it help?”

“No.”

“Then I’m not going to do that. You’re not like she was, Masek. I’m trying to talk to you in a way you will understand.”

“All right then.”

“But you, like her, live in ignorance. You do not see creation as I do. You can’t know if a world that is different would really be better. Or maybe it would be better for you, personally, for Masek of Velannu, but worse for everyone else. And there isn’t a chain of words I can give you in a human language that could express the immensity of creation to you.”

“Because you made me small and stupid?”

“Because I made you. And I made things larger and wiser, and smaller and lesser. But I made you, by making the world, and I did so with purpose. And even if I was inclined to change the world, to break apart the space you occupy and re-form it, to change you so you could understand that immensity, it would amount to nothing more than killing you and creating something that resembled you not at all, that simply happened to be named Masek and could understand. I don’t want to kill you, Masek. Believe it or not, I don’t want you to suffer.”

“Yes. And the sages said, because we’re little and we can’t understand, that’s why you gave us the law. The parts we could understand, anyway.”

“The law is the law, Masek.”

“I don’t care. You did it wrong.”

“Masek…”

“No!” And now Masek did stop his endless trudging forward. He did turn, and he faced the space where the voice seemed to be coming from. “I get it, all right? I get it! I’ve been reading the sages since I was a little boy. I became a priest like my father wanted, because he loved you so much he wanted to give you the thing he treasured most in the world. And I learned the tongues of the east, and the tongues of the travelers, and the tongues of the younger sages, all of them, so I could read every syllable, every word! And I’ve traveled north and south and east and west, and read every other book of philosophy and religion and ancient wisdom that I could, and I still think you’re wrong! And I don’t care if every wise man and woman, if every priest and every king, from the day of Creation until the day you decide to hurl it all into the Abyss lines up one after another to say, Masek, you are the most blessed fool that ever drew breath, Masek you are wrong and your head is full of lies. You are wrong. They are wrong. It is all wrong.

“Because I have to live in this world! The beggars I saw in Laai and Moketh and Virim, they have to live here too! The lepers and the blind children, and even the people everyone else despises, the murderers in Kustokam who have to watch their friends get hanged one by one before their day comes too, even the dogs in the street who go hungry, all of us have to live in the world you made for us! And I won’t accept a voice out of the dust telling me not to question it, that questioning it is a terrible sin, if that voice could have done better. The sages say you are all-wise, all-powerful, all-good, but I say the first sin, the worst sin, is yours. Because you made a world in which we have to suffer, and where the comfort for that suffering is forever out of reach!”

Masek caught himself, finally, sobbing and out of breath. She did not answer, but he felt her presence still near him. He was ashamed, for a moment, to realize that tears were rolling down his face, that he had worked himself up into a sweat, that his ragged sobs had filled his nose with snot. How foolish to be ashamed like that in front of her, who could comprehend every part of him with utter clarity. Or perhaps shame was the only fitting thing he could feel. He took a few deep breaths, then kept walking.

“You’re not the first person to be angry with me like this, Masek,” she said.

“And I doubt I’ll be the last.”

“I love you, Masek. I love everything in Creation. I don’t want you to suffer.”

“But you’ve made a world where suffering is inevitable.”

“Not inevitable. And not endless.”

“Ah, yes, the great labor. The work of righteousness. The duty to rectify the world. The price of free will.”

“Yes.”

“I don’t buy it. There’s only so much we can do, and it will never be enough.”

“It could be. It’s your choice.”

“I have a better idea.”

“I won’t let you, Masek.”

“So stop me. Right now. Strike me dead. Make my legs fall off. Make me go blind.”

“You think I want to hurt you, Masek?”

“You could stop me.”

“Your suffering gives me no pleasure, Masek. Your anger and your grief give me no joy.”

“But you will stop me, sooner or later? You will intervene, you will change the world, if I force you to, to keep me from doing this?”

“Yes, Masek. I don’t want to. But I will. And you’ll suffer terribly as a result.”

“You’ll make me suffer.”

“No. It will be... the natural and automatic consequence of the thing you do. Like dropping a cup of wine and watching it shatter. But I won’t prevent it. Because I won’t break the world open and change it to please one man.”

“Or to end the suffering of them all.”

“There comes a point in your life where you have to have faith.”

“So give me faith.”

“I can’t do that without changing who you are. You must make that choice for yourself.”

“So you don’t want me to suffer. But you won’t stop me from causing myself terrible and unending pain.”

“No, Masek. Because you’re not the only one I love.”

“Forgive me if I don’t see the difference.”

“That I can forgive, Masek. But I cannot forgive everything.”

“You mean you won’t.”

“Yes. I mean I won’t. I’m sorry.”

“Me too.”

After that, the presence he felt faded and was gone. She was still here, he supposed. She was everywhere. Or beyond everywhere. The sages were unclear about that. But the voice was gone. He thought about calling out to her, asking her to come back. She was at least someone to talk to. But it wouldn’t do him any good in the long run, really.

Now at last his goal was in view. The city whose name was forgotten. It was built on a high hill, surrounded by open ground, and once it had been mighty indeed. So the legends went, anyway. But the people who lived there had been like him. Believers who didn’t understand. Believers who got tired of upholding a law that seemed to do nothing to hold back the endless seas of suffering in the world.

There were four kinds of sin in the law. Sin against your fellow human beings: robbery and murder and the like. Then there were sins against God: blasphemy and heresy. Masek knew a lot about those. Then there were sins against the world. They weren’t exactly blasphemy. Nor were they harm as such. But the law was clear; they caused suffering in the world in the same way as the other sins. To conceive a child during the nine Exalted Days was one. Naming the stars, another. Icons of the Secret Faces were a third. Many such sins, to unbelievers the strangest and heaviest parts of the law. To Masek, they had been the first sign something was wrong. As a young man he had asked his teacher, why did God make these things sins? What harm do they cause? And he had received a slap for an answer. Because in Velannu, as in Laai, they were afraid that even to question that such things might be a sin.

And perhaps it was so. Because wondering why God would make it a sin to reckon the shapes of the heavens turned out to be no more or less a puzzle than why God would make sin in the first place. And that was what had led Masek down the long road to something worse than unbelief.

So, too, the sages said, had this city once questioned the nature of sin, and once found itself condemned as a result. They did not elaborate on what the sin of that city had been; it was considered too terrible, too ugly, too against the law and nature and God herself to bear description. They said only that it had been a sin against the world, the last and worst of them all. And in the centuries since, the sages who came after debated the nature of that worst sin, had decried the lapses and failures of their own eras to be that most awful transgression. Failure to respect one’s elders, to protect one’s children, to care for the poor, to do obeisance to kings. It was only in distant lands, in obscure legends in long-forgotten libraries, that Masek had found the answer.

His pace quickened as he strode along the road that led up the hill. He had wondered, months ago when he was crossing the desert, if at the end his resolve would falter. It had never faltered before. He had been warned against his crimes countless times in the past. He had been driven out of cities in the middle of the night, tortured and threatened with death, been spat on and cursed by people who called him a friend until they learned his name. Then, his resolve had never wavered, not even for a moment. He had wondered if that would ever change. Now, as the moment approached, he found to his mild surprise that it did not.

He passed under the empty gate, and looked back. The great plain, through which the muddy river ran, was stretched out all around him. He wondered if the thin line on the horizon was the mountains beyond, or if it was just a trick of the haze. Though the air was hot and dusty, it was a fine day. The sun shone brightly, and Masek tried to imagine what it would have been like to stand at these gates when this had been a living place, when carts and voices and footfalls and animals had filled it with noise. Then he turned and passed through.

The tall, narrow ruins of this city sheltered the streets from the sun; the air was cooler here, and errant trees that stretched out through holes in walls and ceilings made Masek feel like was walking in a strange sort of forest. The place he sought was in the middle of the city, beneath a holy place long ago profaned. He found it just as the sun was beginning to approach the horizon. He did not pause at the door this time, or stop to look behind him.

His pace quickened. Now he was passing down stairs, first ornate stone staircases, then little more than rough ledges hewn into the rock. He sought the place at the bottom, the place the superstitious held was most hidden from the sight of God. Ah, but the sages wrote, nothing is hidden from the sight of God. He knew this to be true.

The first precept of the law was that God had ordered the world for the good of all living things. To be a good person was to keep in mind the good of those around you. And the ordered world, the world of Creation, was not just the world Masek saw with his own two eyes. For weren’t there spirits, the creatures of strange stuff that humans could only see sometimes, when the light was right, or they chose to make themselves known? And there were the places that were, well, part of the world, but not the world that Masek knew. The places hidden in shadows, and the places beyond the stars, and the places of the dead.

The well-ordered world had a place for everything. But the living were confined to the places of the living; the spirits to the places of the spirits; the dead to the places of the dead. And there was no power that could bring these places together where they did not already intersect, for God had decreed them separate. To bridge them, even to try, well, that was a mighty sin indeed. But that was not the sin Masek sought to commit.

The world was old, old, old. The oldest cities of the oldest lore Masek knew were twenty millennia old. Mankind was older still. The spirits? The bones of the world itself? Who could possibly say. Only God, and he had not thought to ask her. But there were things which had passed into and out of the knowledge of the world, things which only God herself knew for sure, which, Masek discovered, were possibly things he could learn for himself.

Yes, these were things to mortal was supposed to know, and even just knowing them was an awful sin. But that was a sin Masek had already committed, and it was not the worst of all.

No, this was the worst sin, worse--so the sages would say--than murder, worse than torture, worse than the worst thing you could think to do to the innocent child of your foe. It was to save a life that had already been lost, to pull it back from the middle world, the world of the dead to the world of the living.

There had been a child. When Masek was still a novice, a child was brought to the rectory late one night. The priests were told the boy was an orphan, that he had been taken in by friends of his family who could no longer care for him. They asked no questions, because God demanded mercy of them, and mercy for the helpless above all other kinds. He was perhaps a year old, and because as a novice his duties were less, Masek found that the care of his boy fell mostly to him.

He didn’t mind. Indeed, he soon found caring for the boy to be his happiest task. The child had a strange cast about his features, as though he was from a far-off country, but he could not have loved him more if he had been his own son. For Masek found within himself a capacity love he had not known existed, that grew up out of the deepest part of his heart and overwhelmed him. He named him Omek, after his father, but when the other priests were gone, he called the child Isra, the cherished, the unlooked-for gift from God.

Omek came with him on his rounds about the countryside; and he came with him when he was sent to Jira, on the other side of the peninsula, to care for the souls there. And those were the days that were the happiest of Masek’s life, for though they were both foreigners, and looked it, the people of Jira welcomed them with open arms, eager to hear the message of the believers. Omek grew quickly, and when he was twelve even began to talk of joining the priesthood, to follow in the footsteps of his beloved father.

It was not long after that he fell ill. Tremors came to his hands; and then a dark wound that started on his throat and began to spread over his body. When Omek ceased to smile, Masek’s worry turned to terror. He called for every doctor in every village from Jira to the other side of Velannu, but none could help Omek. The last, though, the one from far to the west, who had traveled six days to see them, she said he had seen the disease before. There was a country where Omek’s people, those with the same bright eyes and tall stature were common. This was a disease that was known only among them. There was no cure; Omek would die.

Masek did his best to care for Omek, and prayed ceaselessly by his bedside for another four nights, until, one morning, a shivering agony overtook his son. Masek watched helplessly as Omek called out to God in his suffering; by the time the villagers came to see what was wrong, he was dead.

It was not Omek’s death that had caused Masek to turn away from God. How foolish, the sages say, is the believer who loses faith in their grief! No, in the time after Omek’s death, Masek only prayed harder. He mourned whatever secret sin of his, or Omek’s, or some other soul might have hastened the boy’s death. He went to bed each night, feeling as though the whole world stood over a great dark pit of grief, and that it was only by the intervention of God herself that he did not fall down into it, never to climb out again.

Masek’s faith died a long, slow death many years later, only when the harshest pain of his son’s death had long passed from him. But he mourned Omek still, and as doubt grew within him, his thoughts returned to the boy, to the strange and awful sickness which afflicted one little country of people, out of all the world.

And what of death? For the sages said, the dead are gone only for a time. One day, be it near or far, when the world is rectified and all our tears have been wiped away by the hand of God herself, the dead shall be returned. So Masek had always hoped. And what of the dead? Where do they reside? Believers didn’t ask such questions, but believers were not the only ones who mourned their dead. And the sages of other lands had many opinions. Some said, among the stars. Some said, below the earth. Some said, in the mind of God. Some said, in the middle world, beyond this one.

So one day Masek had made a decision. Omek had died, and it was not just, and Masek would undo it. He would take the name he had learned, one of the forbidden names, one of the names of God’s most exalted messengers, or perhaps God herself, and he would go to a place where one realm was close to another. And he would try to pull someone back through it. And this was the last sin, the worst sin, the sin for which this city had been condemned for just attempting it, so long ago. He was going, with his little, his human, his imperfect understanding of the world, to try to change it, using a name that could command nature that was not his. To undo something that had already been done, and that was not his to change.

Masek could think of so much worse. So much uglier, so much bloodier, so many more hideous things he could have done with his own two hands. He had contemplated such deeds. He had lied and cheated and stolen, and he had attacked a man for his purse, and blasphemed hideously against God, because he imagined that this was what displeased her. That this was his rebuke. But he had always woken up in the middle of the night later, days or weeks later, covered in sweat and remembering the terrible things he had done. Inevitably, he had repented, begged her for forgiveness, forgiveness which the sages assured him was his.

He was not an innocent man; he never would be again. But he had always been forgiven in the end, for that was what she desired. And she could forgive anything. Almost.

When he reached the great stone doorway, beyond which, in darkness, lay the final place he sought, her voice returned to him suddenly, out of the shadows.

“You need not even ask, Masek, and I will grant it.”

“I don’t need your forgiveness,” Masek said. “I don’t want to be forgiven for the sins that haven’t hurt anyone.”

“All sins hurt someone, Masek.”

“Maybe not. Maybe if you let me do this, this can be the first step to making a world without suffering. To open doors that have never been opened before.”

“It doesn’t work like that. It can never work like that.”

“I can’t give up.”

“Masek, please. A thousand thousand times I will ask, I will beg, I will plead; and you need only answer once in your heart, and I will take you far from here. I will forgive everything you have done until this day. It is already forgiven. Your brothers and sisters will greet you with gladness, and Velannu will know peace as long as you live.”

“Will Omek be there?”

“Omek is gone.”

“They say the dead reside with you. That, if the legends are true, on the other side of this door is a place that touches the middle world, the place where all the dead are, waiting for the rectification of all things. Is Omek there?”

“Omek is there.”

“Is he alive?”

“You watched him die.”

“Yes. But his spirit. His soul. The thing that made him him, and not another boy or a stone or a tree. Omek himself.”

“He is safe,” the voice said. “And as he is now, no harm can ever come to him. No suffering can weigh him down. And one day, however distant, when all the evils of the world are amended, he will wake up, and ask for you.”

“But is he alive? Can he dance, or sing, or shout for joy? Or is he only sleeping, dreaming of our home in the Street of Candles, of the warm bread I would sometimes bake for him in the mornings, of the hills on the horizon he swore to me he would one day climb? Or if he sleeps too deeply even to dream, does he know of anything at all? Does he know that I love him? Are the songs I sung to him in his sleep there with him, waiting to be remembered? Are any of these things true?”

“They are not.”

“So it is as the sages say--for now he is only dust in this world and silence in the next, waiting for your permission to live again?”

“Yes. That is how the world is, Masek. That is what death means.”

“Then he is dead. And that is wrong.”

“It is not within your power to change. Go back to Velannu, Masek. Go back to the land of your father and mother, and I will fill all the rest of your days with joy and with peace. I will forgive every sin above the earth and below the sky, if you will only go back.”

“Will the living cease to die, will the dead rise from their graves, will all the sickness and suffering of the world be washed away?”

“No, Masek.”

“Then nothing will have changed.”

“You cannot bring back all the dead.”

“I have the power to bring back him.”

“You cannot even do that.”

“I must try. For this is how you made me--I could do nothing else.”

“Then I will do what I must.”

“And so will I.”

Masek bowed his head; then he went through the door into the darkness, with the word of power on his lips, waiting for whatever would come next.

#tanadrin's fiction

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jenanigans1207 · 6 years

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Comfort |Klance|

Summary: The hollowness in his chest aches along with his lungs. It feels like each breath is bringing him closer to ripping, finally, at the seams. He doesn’t think he can take any more--doesn’t think he can handle hearing Lance say any more nice things about him. “I left you, don’t you realize that?”

“I do.”

“And I’ve been awful since I came back.” The words nearly fade out as he speaks but he knows Lance understands what he’s going for.

“I know.”

“You should hate me.”

“Maybe,” Lance says, pressing his face more firmly into Keith’s shoulder, “But I don’t. And I won’t, no matter how much you tell me to.”

It was an ambush. And ambush he should have seen. He should have known. It was his job as the leader to know these things and yet he had been caught off guard. He had put his entire team, earth, the entire quiznaking universe in danger with his oversight. It was inexcusable, at best.

He had asked his mom probably thirty times by now if she was absolutely certain everyone on the team had made it out alive. She assured him every time that they were all still around. Beaten and banged up, but alive at the very least. It didn’t do much to help him sleep at night--he barely slept as it was--but it was at least one less thing for him to worry about into the early hours of the morning.

Keith’s body was significantly worse for wear and every movement hurt. He relished in the pain, though, thinking it was what he deserved. He deserved to be falling apart after he had let his team down like that.

The door to his room slid open and he looked up to see Lance standing there, a bandage wrapped snugly around his head and crutch under one arm. Keith’s heart constricted and bitterness seemed to creep up his throat.

“Hey,” Lance said, hobbling into Keith’s room. His movements were slow and clumsy with the crutch, but it didn’t seem to dampen his spirits. The look of relief that had flooded his face when the door had opened and he had seen Keith was enough to make Keith want to throw himself into a ditch. He didn’t deserve that look.

“What are you doing up? You should be resting.”

“I came to see you,” Lance said, “to make sure you were alright.”

“Well you should go back to your room.” Keith turned his attention away, going so far as to turn his torso so his back was to Lance. He had been rude to Lance since he’d returned and he knew it. He had to fix it eventually, but now was not the time. Now he needed Lance to hate him. Lance should definitely hate him for everything that had happened.

To his surprise, he heard a chair scraping across the floor of his room and then uncoordinated oof as Lance sat down. “No.”

“Lance,” Keith’s voice was a warning.

“I’m not leaving, no matter how much you yell.”

“Then I won’t yell,” Keith said, crossing his arms over his chest. “I just won’t say anything at all.”

Lance laughed, “Wow,” he said, adjusting his position. The material of the hospital chair made it possible for Keith to hear every movement he made. “That’s really mature. Our great leader giving me the silent treatment.”

Our great leader.

The words cut straight to Keith’s heart, making him glower. He doesn’t deserve to be called that. He never should’ve taken over for Shiro. It was necessary when Shiro was missing but, once he was back, that should’ve been it. Keith left the team and somehow, still, they had accepted him as their leader. He didn’t deserve it. He didn’t deserve anything positive in his life.

The room grew silent, save for the steady beeping of the machine next to him. He refused to turn and look at Lance. And Lance, for his part, didn’t seem eager to add anything to the silence. So they sat, quietly. And Keith let his mind wander back to that final battle.

Back to when Lance’s coms were down.

When he wasn’t responding.

When Keith thought, briefly, that he had lost Lance.

If Lance had died then, it would’ve been his fault. He would’ve died because Red didn’t get to him in time. And the only reason that was even possible was because of the ambush. Keith clenches his fists, pressing them firmly into his torso. He clenches his jaw, trying his hardest to not say anything. To not kick Lance out.

Lance shifted in the chair again. “Keith,” He said finally. His voice was soft and concerned. Keith wanted to pull the covers over his head in response. “I know that face.”

“I’m not making a face,” He retorted like a petulant child. He hated himself for it. But where did Lance get off being concerned for him? He had been nothing short of awful to Lance and he knew it.

“You can’t possibly blame yourself for this,” Lance continued, unbothered by Keith’s obviously closed-off mood. “You couldn’t have known.”

“I should have known!” Keith yelled, throwing his arms out to the side and rounding on Lance. “I’m sure there was a way and I should have found it. You almost died, Lance. Everyone almost died! Because of me!”

“Not because of you.” Lance’s contradiction was sharp but not unkind. He met Keith’s gaze head on.

“I am the leader! It is my job to get everyone out safely and I barely even managed that!”

“Will you stop acting like the lone-wolf?” Lance’s gaze was fierce. Keith started, his arms dropping to his sides, surprised. “You are the leader, yes. Of a team, which, if you haven’t figured out, is a group of people who work together.”

Keith opens his mouth to retort to that, but can’t find his voice. He snaps his mouth shut again, turning his head to look out the window on the wall opposite Lance. There was a flurry of emotions brewing inside of him, few of which were good. He tried to swallow the anger down, lest he snap at Lance again. He knew Lance didn’t deserve his anger but it was hard not to direct it at him when he was arguing like this.

“Get out.”

“No.” Lance crossed his own arms.

“Lance, just go. I want to be alone.”

“No.”

The anger was steadily rising, filling Keith’s mouth with a bitter tang. “What do you want me to say, Lance? That you’re right? I’m not at fault? Do you want to absolve me of the guilt I have for leaving you guys too? For being a dick to you since I came back? Do you want to paint me as some innocent saint who can do no wrong? Because that’s not me, Lance.”

Lance looked surprised, but not upset at Keith’s sudden outburst. “No? Then what is?”

“I’ve done nothing but mess up! I’m hot-headed--”

“Clearly,” Lance muttered under his breath.

“I abandoned you, Lance. There’s no other way to put it! I didn’t want to make a decision so I ran. I got everyone sucked into a trap because I was too angry to listen to anyone. And today I let us fall prey to an ambush.”

“That--”

But Keith wasn’t done. His chest was heaving and each breath burned his lungs, but it felt good to let the words out. He knew there was nothing he could do to get the guilt to go away, but it felt like something he might actually be able to live with now. “I thought you died for a moment there, Lance. You weren’t responding, and Red wasn’t down here. I--” Keith’s voice cracks, but he presses on, determined, “I thought you died and it was my fault.”

A stunned silence followed his words. Keith could feel the tears in his eyes and didn’t have the energy to fight them off. He curled his arms around himself, then, grabbing each elbow with a hand and bent forward, collapsing in on himself. The full weight of everything seemed to hit him all at once and suddenly those burning breaths disappeared. He gasped for air, resting his forehead against one of his knees.

“Go,” He begged Lance one more time.

A moment passed before he heard Lance clumsily standing from his chair. Keith closed his eyes, waiting to hear those footsteps cross the room and eventually fade away. Instead, he felt the bed sink down next to him with the weight of another person and a moment later there’s a hand on his back, rubbing small circles.

“I didn’t die, Keith.” Lance’s voice is quiet next to him. “I’m fine. Everyone is fine. You can’t blame yourself for something that almost happened.”

The tears slip down his cheeks and Keith tries to speak around the lump in his throat, swallowing hard. “And what about next time? What if next time I do something stupid and reckless you do die?”

He feels Lance’s forehead on the back of his shoulder and suddenly Lance’s words are so much closer. “Have a little faith in me, would you? It’ll take a lot more than one of your stupid ideas to kill me.”

Keith makes a strangled sound, almost a begrudging laugh, at that. The weight of Lance leaning against him feels good. It makes him feel secure, like being wrapped in a blanket. Lance is warm and firm and holding him together when Keith literally feels like he’s splintering apart. He had been trying to ignore these feelings for months, now, but he couldn’t do it any longer. Not after everything that had happened today.

“I’m not meant to be a leader.”

“The Black Lion-”

“Believe it or not,” Keith’s voice is bitter and hollow and it reflects the way he’s feeling inside. “I think the Black Lion can make a mistake. It’s just a machine, after all.”

He expects Lance to scold him for saying something like that, but he doesn’t. Instead, his hand stops rubbing circles on his back but it settles on the bed next to Keith’s hip and he finds himself in a half hug. “Then take it from me. There is no better leader for us. Not even Shiro.”

“How can you say that?”

“You have taken the time to get to know us. You see our strengths. You know how to make us work together. We--I wouldn’t be here without you. I trust your judgement unconditionally, Keith.”

The hollowness in his chest aches along with his lungs. It feels like each breath is bringing him closer to ripping, finally, at the seams. He doesn’t think he can take any more--doesn’t think he can handle hearing Lance say any more nice things about him. “I left you, don’t you realize that?”

“I do.”

“And I’ve been awful since I came back.” The words nearly fade out as he speaks but he knows Lance understands what he’s going for.

“I know.”

“You should hate me.”

“Maybe,” Lance says, pressing his face more firmly into Keith’s shoulder, “But I don’t. And I won’t, no matter how much you tell me to.”

Keith takes a deep breath and opens his eyes, straightening slightly. He doesn’t move enough to dislodge Lance from his position because, the truth is, he relishes in the closeness. He appreciates Lance being here for him despite everything. And the comfort Lance is providing just with his touch is more than Keith could have ever hoped for.

Lance readjusts as Keith moves, bringing himself even closer. He lifts his head and settles it with his chin on Keith’s shoulder, wrapping his arms fully around Keith’s torso and clasping them in the front. His face is right next to Keith’s hear and he takes the chance to hum a soothing tune quietly to the two of them. Keith closes his eyes and lets his head fall slightly to the side, resting against Lance’s.

A few moment’s pass and Lance’s tune comes to an end, but his grip on Keith doesn’t lessen. They sit like that until their breathing synchronizes.

Finally, Lance speaks again. “I know how stressful this has been. It’s been stressful on everyone, but you most of all. I mean, you lost Shiro, then you got him back. Then you found your mom and Kosmo. It’s like you haven’t had a break.”

As Lance mentions everyone, faces flash in his mind. Allura and Coran first, then Pidge and Hunk, Shiro, his mom, Kosmo… Everyone who was relying on him. The fear seizes his gut again, but not as strong this time.

“But you have done everything you can. You have saved us all a million times. You’ve saved me a million and one times. I owe my life to you.” The knot is back in Keith’s throat. “You’ve helped me grow, Keith. You’ve believed in me when nobody else did, defended me when you didn’t need to. I don’t know why you can’t see how amazing you are.”

“I don’t deserve those kind words,” He chokes out.

Lance squeezes tighter. “You deserve so much more. I wish I knew how to express your value to you. I’ll keep working on it but for now, just take my word on it, okay?”

“Okay,” He mumbles.

Lance squeezes him one more time and goes to straighten up but Keith catches at his wrists, stopping him from untangling them. There’s a small huff of a laugh in his ear, but Lance obliges and nestles back in.

“Lance?”

“Yeah?”

“Why didn’t you leave? You know, when I asked you to.”

He feels Lance turn and slowly lift his head, his nose drawing a light path on Keith’s neck. Keith shivers. “Would you have left me?”

“I did leave you,” Keith replies bitterly.

“No,” Lance pulls away and leans forward so he can meet Keith’s eyes over his shoulder. Keith obliges, holding their eye contact, despite his nerves as to what Lance is about to say. “You left because you had to. Do you know how much good you did when working with the Blades? I don’t begrudge you for leaving, Keith. You didn’t do it out of malice.”

“I did it out of fear.” Keith admits, finally. He had never said it out loud. He had never admitted to anyone that he was afraid, even though he was. He was sure they knew but what confidence could you have in a leader who was openly afraid all the time?

Lance’s chin grazed his shoulder as he nodded. “I know you were afraid. I’m afraid all the time. The difference is that you still make a decision and act on it. Me? When I’m afraid? If I didn’t have you there pushing me, believing in me, I wouldn’t do anything.”

Keith moves then, adjusting himself so that he is facing Lance, one leg dangling off the edge of the bed. His heart is hammering in his throat. Lance is looking back at him with such a soft expression that he feels like he may just disappear. There’s no expectation in Lance’s gaze, no hatred, nothing but genuine affection. He wants to say more, but he doesn’t think he can. Not now, at least.

Now, he just needs to relish in Lance’s comfort. He has said enough for now. These issues--these fears--were not going to go away with just one conversation. But the sharp edge of them seemed duller, less painful. He felt like he could breathe a little easier for the first time in awhile.

Taking a deep breath, he laid down on his side, pulling Lance down in the bed next to him. Lance moved slowly, accommodating for his injuries, but he laid down with no hesitation. He adjusted until he was comfortably on his back next to Keith who was flush against his arm.

“Please don’t leave,” Keith said, pressing his own forehead into Lance’s shoulder. “I can’t do this alone.”

“I’ve been trying to tell you,” Lance moves his other arm across his body and laces it into Keith’s hair, stroking slowly, “you don’t have to.”

#Klance #klance fanfic #klance fanfiction #keith #lance #kick #kick fanfiction #kick fanfic #vld #voltron #angst #my writing #comfort

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valkyrie-echo · 6 years

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Project Echo, Part 2: Chapter 13 (Tough Decisions)

Part 2 Summary: A new enemy surfaces with a team of the Avengers’ greatest foes, hand-picked for their destruction. Meanwhile, Inessa’s pre-Hydra past begins to surface, casting doubt on where her loyalties truly lie.

Chapter 13: Tough Decisions

"Enough sleep, time for our run," Natasha knocked on Inessa's door and waited for the sound of the child getting up. Nothing. "Inessa? Sleeping in?" she opened the door to an empty room.

Natasha checked the bottom drawer of her dresser- the shoes were there, so she wasn't waiting downstairs already. Had she gone for a walk? Lost track of the time? "Bucky," she waited for her comm to connect to his.

"What do you need?"

"Can you check Tony's gear in the barn? Nessa isn't in her room."

"Have you searched the house?" Bucky was already headed for the stairs.

Natasha left the room and went to the main floor of the farmhouse, "I'm looking now, but she's always in her room."

Bucky wove his way around the worktable and over to Tony's main computer. On it was a constant feed of Inessa's implant. The readings were all blank. "JARVIS, what's the range on this?"

"The prototype transmitter works over a range of one hundred miles sir."

"Did you get that, Nat?"

"Yeah, so she's in the Valley," Natasha sounded weary, "maybe."

Bucky frowned, "You don't think she'd run away."

"No, of course not," Natasha couldn't say what she was worried about- Inessa showed no signs that she remembered anything the morning of her episode. What if she did though? What if she'd been looking for Berny to help Natasha and gotten herself captured? What if she was lost somewhere, trapped?

Natasha was back upstairs in a second, pounding on Tony's door. Steve opened it, dressed and ready to go for his run. Sam's door across the hall opened at the commotion. Natasha could hear the other Avengers stirring, "I need to talk to Tony."

"Tony needs to sleep," Tony snapped. Natasha pushed past Steve and walked around the dressers- which for some unknown reason had been moved to the center of the room between Tony and Steve's beds. "No crossing the line!" Tony snapped, "You stay on his side of the room!"

"I need to know if you can extend the range of Nessa's implant. She isn't here and I'm worried."

Stark rolled away from her and faced the wall, "She's just playing with her shadow, give her a break. I can't track anything in the Valley."

"I just want to make sure that's where she is. Going off with Bucky might have given her a taste for adventure and it's not safe for her out there." Natasha snapped. She felt a hand on her shoulder- Clint had come out of their room.

"She's fine, Nat," Clint was as confused as the rest of them, "Nessa will turn up any minute. You'll see. Just be patient. Yesterday was a big day for her."

A phone rang downstairs. "I'll grab that," Steve ducked out. It wasn't like Natasha to get overly excited about anything, what was her issue with Inessa taking a morning off from running? He picked up the phone on the fifth ring, "Holless Ranch, Grant speaking."

"Steve, Agent Simmons speaking," she sounded cheerful, as always, but there was apprehension there too.

"Agent Simmons, good morning. What can I help you with?"

"I was wondering- are you by any chance missing Inessa?"

Steve sighed and put his hand over the mouthpiece, "Natasha! Come down here!" he uncovered it again, "Did you find her?"

"One of our Agents picked her up around an hour ago in Gambell on Saint Lawrence Island."

"Where is that?" Steve waved Natasha over and covered the mouthpiece once again, "SHIELD has her," he whispered.

"Between Russia and Alaska. It's nearly three in the morning there now. Agent May has gone to retrieve them. There was a Hydra base under Gambell, not the largest we've seen, but nothing to laugh at. Based on what our Agent saw, Inessa used her wolves to wipe the base out."

"What?" Steve was incredulous, "That can't be right. Your Agent has to be wrong."

Simmons took a deep breath, "I trust her word. The only survivors reported were a handful of people from their research department- all of them test subjects or prisoners.

"Oh my god," Steve rubbed the bridge of his nose where a headache was already beginning. "Can you redirect Agent May and Nessa to us?"

"The order was already given," Simmons assured him, "I just wanted to give you forewarning."

"Well, thank you, we owe you one."

"Take care."

"Yeah, you too." he hung up.

Natasha waited impatiently, "Well? Why does SHIELD have Inessa? And why is May bringing her back- why doesn't she just come home?"

"I didn't ask," Steve glanced up as the others came downstairs. He tapped his comm to open a channel to Bucky, "SHIELD has Nessa," he explained to all of them at once. "Based on what Simmons told me, it sounds like Inessa went on a field trip to Alaska. She- Nat, you're not going to like this- she let the dogs loose and took out everyone on a Hydra base- save SHIELD's agent there and some human experiments."

"No," Clint was shocked, "no way."

"Why would she do that?" Sam asked, incredulous, "I mean, I get why, but why?"

"We'll ask her as soon as she gets here," Steve was still processing the shock, "How many bases has she done this to? Since when is she a killer?"

"It has to be Tony's machine," Natasha glanced at him, "it's affecting her in some weird way."

Banner held up his hands, "Now let's not jump to conclusions, alright? Is it so hard to believe, after what she's been through, that she'd want to stop Hydra? We need to be fair about this-"

"Oh, yeah, that's fair," Bucky came in through the kitchen, slamming the door behind him. "I'm Hydra's monkey and prisoner for 70 years and I can't even get away with threatening to kill a drunk piece of shit, but Inessa might have just killed dozens and she gets 'we need to be fair'?"

"Well, you didn't have to live with Zola," Natasha snapped.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"Come on, you know what she meant. You got to come out of it and live with friends. She comes out of it and we're asking her to sleep a couple hundred yards from the guy who traumatized her."

Bucky was incredulous, "That isn't an excuse for murder."

"It's hardly murder if it's Hydra," Tony pointed out, "When you're dealing with them, it's justice."

"Cause you're so qualified to be any kind of judge or jury," Sam snapped.

The lights flickered and suddenly the room filled with static. Steve felt the hairs on his arms standing up, unbidden. The Avengers continued to argue until, without warning, there was a loud clap of electricity and everyone received a large (and exceedingly painful) shock.

"What. The. Fuck?" Banner was taking very deep breaths, but his skin had a decidedly green tint- he would Hulk-out soon if he couldn't get it under control, then he'd see if these idiots wanted to insult him- no. He tried to let go of the thought. If he listened to Hulk's voice, he'd change for sure.

Thor stood in the doorway with his hammer still spinning. He was prepared to deliver a second shock, if need be. Bucky's metal arm still crackled with static, but it was dissipating in small snaps of lightning. "Was your anger in earnest, friends, or caused by the creature Inessa beheld?" he honestly couldn't tell. He'd been woken by Steve's report over the communications device. By the time he got to the farmhouse they were already fighting. Without knowing the origins of the argument, he couldn't know if it was natural or not.

"Maybe both," Banner felt the Hulk's grasp easing. He won this time.

"Bucky, I'm sorry," Natasha half meant it, "I shouldn't have said that."

He nodded, still angry.

"Let's just get the report from Agent May and whoever found Inessa. Maybe there's a reasonable explanation. If not, we'll have to figure out a suitable response. Until then maybe we should steer clear of one another? In case it was whatever creature Inessa saw before causing that- or feeding it."

No one was satisfied, but all walked away to wait for May and her cargo. Tony headed straight for his lab and began to work.

"Everyone to the living room, we've got incoming," Tony announced as soon as JARVIS reported SHIELD's helicopter within weapons range. He barely made it to the farmhouse himself before May was flying away again and a young Agent was knocking on the door. Natasha opened it to see her and Inessa standing side-by-side. Inessa looked stressed, scared shitless, and guilty.

"Nadi, give me a few minutes with them, alright? No running off with Peanut Butter, got it?" Inessa nodded, resigned. She shared a quick hug with the Agent and walked past the Avengers nearest the stairs. "May I come in?"

"Of course, please do," Clint came forward and Natasha stepped aside, stunned. She spoke to Inessa with such informality, and what was more unbelievable, Inessa responded quickly, and readily.

"I'm Junior Agent Mallory Ivanou, by the way," she waved nervously to the other Avengers. Everyone shook hands and introduced themselves, getting the pleasantries out of the way as quickly as possible.

"Do you know Inessa? She just- she seems oddly normal around you, if you'll pardon the word choice," Sam asked what most of them were wondering.

Agent Ivanou nodded, "I know Nadya. We grew up together in Chicago- best friends pretty much since birth."

"Why haven't you come forward sooner?" Tony demanded, "SHIELD knows we've been looking for any of Inessa's associates. And why would she kidnap the JIF?" Steve looked at him, confused, "'No running off with peanut butter'," Tony quoted back.

"It's what I call the shadow-wolf, Peanut Butter. She never bothered to give it a proper name and it sticks to her like peanut butter. And for your first question- I've been working undercover for SHIELD pretty much since the Hydra uprising, I don't get news alerts unless Hydra gets them too. I didn't even know why I was in New York until the day of the attack. I'd have blown my cover pretty damn fast if they made me fight."

"Tony, everyone, let's settle a bit," Steve hushed the room, "Agent Ivanou, we are immensely interested in anything you know about Inessa's past, and we'll probably drive you insane with a hundred questions later, but the issue highest on the agenda is what she did to that Hydra base. Can you fill us in? I don't know how she is with you, but the kid was so traumatized by Hydra, we can't even get her to make eye contact, let alone speak to us. It's just hard to believe the Inessa we know is capable of taking on an entire base alone. She can barely be around more than three people most days."

"I was wondering what was with the sign language. As to what happened with Hydra- it's not the first time she's done this."

"That's what we were afraid of," Banner sighed.

"When we were kids Nadya would have these nightmares about scientists and labs and experiments, scared the crap out of her half the time. Eventually we figured out what was happening was a kind of sleepwalking- Peanut Butter-" Tony snickered, "-well what do you call it?"

Bucky shrugged, "Nadya."

"When we tried calling Inessa by her given name, she insisted we give that name to the wolf."

Ivanou frowned, "Is it too weird for you if I call them by the other names?"

"It makes it funnier," Tony prompted.

Natasha silenced him with a look, "Please, call them whatever you want."

"Alright. Anyways- P.B. is the alpha of an entire pack. She gives Nadya some semblance of control, but those things are too close to feral for my liking. If Nadya didn't focus on keeping her abilities in check, a shadow would open somewhere and one of these creatures would get loose until she closed it again. Nadya's nightmares were taking her to a place where the door was weak or where the wolves were coming out. When she realized they weren't dreams, she freaked. She started watching for it. I didn't know she had it in her, but she'd literally kill to try and protect the victim. She told me she had managed to save five people- and evidently put herself on SHIELD's radar in the process."

"After I got to SHIELD's academy I found a file from a few months before Nadya vanished- reports of monsters attacking from the shadows. Some were accidents, some were intentional. My guess is Hydra ran with it, somehow found her, and brought her in. All I know about what's happened since then is they had the Winter Soldier- an assassin with a freaky robot arm they used up until the Triskellion disaster- try to turn her into an Asset- if I'm right in guessing she's what Hydra calls 'Project Echo'." Mallory looked to the Avengers for verification.

There were several uneasy glances, "You're right. Also, in the interest of honesty-" Bucky had introduced himself by name, but he was wearing a hoodie and kept his left hand in the pocket. Now he held it up and pulled the sleeve back.

"Nadya hasn't killed you yet, so I won't, but we'll have words later."

"Understood."

"Anyways- from what I know, two Hydra bases were raided by an unknown enemy one month ago, they lost four guards and two experiments. After that another three were completely wiped out- but no bodies were found, and no blood. Security cameras turned up nothing as well. Based on what I saw in Alaska a few hours ago, I'd have to say Nadya is back on-mission, and she's using her abilities to hide the bodies. Before we left on the helicopter she handed over two people she was keeping tucked away because they were too dangerous to be around others for now, and indicated she has sent six others back to their families. At least, if I'm understanding her correctly- I can only get one-word answers out of her most of the time, and I don't know sign language."

"She must have great trust in you," Thor nodded, "she spoke once, to James Barnes, but beyond that we have heard nothing."

"I'm not surprised," Agent Ivanou side-eyed Bucky, "I can only guess what all he did to get her to talk."

"It was after that," he looked down, "in New York."

Steve glanced at the others, "Agent Ivanou-"

"Mallory, please."

"-Mallory. Would you mind giving us some time to discuss this amongst ourselves? Keep Inessa occupied? Maybe take her for a walk around the farm or something. We'll let you know when you can return."

"Sure," Mallory glanced at a coat closet nearby- the door was slightly ajar, "Come on, Nadi."

Bucky jumped- no one had felt the shiver that usually accompanied her appearance, at least not that they noticed. Inessa stepped out of the darkness and walked quickly out of the house with Mallory, ashamed. They knew the truth now. They knew she was a bad person- a killer and a liar. She thought she could kill to keep her secret- to keep hunting through the shadows for people to save. Before, she would only take the person back, she'd exaggerated to Mallory- the wolves killed, she couldn't stomach it. After? After it was more than just a mission- it was a desperate scramble to save people before Hydra took them beyond saving. Now it was all for naught- they'd kill her or imprison her for sure.

It took record time for the Avengers to agree on what should be done- only half an hour. A remote Suit informed Mallory and Inessa that it was safe to return to the farmhouse. Inessa opened a door in the first suitable shadow and they stepped out into the hallway of the farmhouse. Her insides rolled. She was terrified. Most of the group was looking away. Clint was pale, but he looked determined. They wouldn't meet her eyes- and for once she wished they would. Steve alone watched her, and his gaze scared her even more. Mallory stood back, waiting to hear what the Avengers had decided. If she disagreed, she was taking Nadya and leaving.

"Inessa, Natasha offered you a permanent place here. Do you still want it?"

Yes.

"Even if it means you can't keep attacking Hydra?"

She inhaled sharply and looked back to Mallory, alarmed. "I know more Hydra bases than you. SHIELD is putting together a joint strike force to start flushing them out. Nadi, I know what this means to you, especially now, but- I hate to say this- you have to let the grown-ups fight this war."

"Same. Age." Everyone was shocked by Inessa's harsh whisper. She spoke through clenched teeth and put great effort into the words. Her voice was rough, unused.

Mallory just shook her head, "Not anymore. As far as I'm concerned, you're only 16. After what you've been through? You could be 14 still. Nadi, we're trained for this. We're better equipped to handle both Hydra and the people they are hurting. We can't let a kid risk her life against these bastards. Even if you can rip them apart without so much as a stubbed toe."

Steve drew her attention back, "Until you are 18, you don't get to fight. You can be an Avenger one day, but for the next 2 years we focus on getting you better, and on training. Then you attack when we all agree to attack. Do you still want to join?"

Inessa looked from Steve to Mallory, lost. "SHIELD has ways to block your powers now, and we are willing to share them with Hydra to keep you out of harm's way," Mallory lied. Inessa looked at the Avengers one-by-one. She knelt by Clint and began to sign for him to translate.

I can save people. They can't hurt me- I can save people!

"That's not what we're discussing," Steve shook his head, "You're a kid. Just because a kid can fight a war, doesn't mean we make them soldiers. If you walk out now, SHIELD gives Hydra the ability to lock you out for good. If you agree to training and professional help getting through all of this, then you can resume the fight as an adult. Which one do you chose?"

She gaped at the group and tried to read their expressions. Natasha, Clint, Thor, and Banner were all united with Steve. Bucky and Sam looked less certain, and Tony was just on-edge about the whole thing. That frequency- the one Hydra used to use- she knew it had something to do with why she had been locked out of the Valley- she couldn't risk them using it to keep her away for good. The only way for her to get her revenge was to give it up- for now.

Fine. Inessa turned her back on the Avengers and pushed past Mallory on her way to the stairs. She didn't want to look at them.

"Inessa- there's one more thing," Steve's voice was soft. Inessa stopped with a foot on the steps. "We want to trust you- really we do. But the same rule applies to you as Bucky- you have to earn that trust again. Until then... Until then, you're grounded. Tony, go ahead."

She didn't have time to wonder what he meant by 'grounded' before Tony activated the device. It felt like someone had punched her in the side of the head. Inessa cried out and fell onto the steps. She grabbed her aching head, struggled to breathe. Her muscles were locked tight and straining. Tony dialed it down carefully and walked over to her. "The implant- as a feature I added a low-range speaker. It was supposed to act like a comm, since you don't have one of your own. I'm sorry, I calculated the frequency too high. You'll feel a little out of it at first, but I promise that will fade as we fine-tune the signal."

"You're grounded to this plane," Clint came over and put a hand on Inessa's back. She was panting, kneeling on two steps and holding herself up by the stair rail. "Until we're sure you'll keep up your end of the deal, you won't be able to go into the Valley. No more doors. No more windows."

The enemy-

"For your own sake, we'll risk it," more than anything, that had been what made the Avengers hesitate in their plan. If they were in someone's cross-hairs, did they really want to take out the one person who could see their enemy? She was still a kid. It always came back to that- no matter how grave their need.

Inessa strained to open a door to the Valley- but it was like she was hitting a glass wall. She reached back and tried to pull out the implant, desperate. A series of shocks emanated from it. The Avengers stood back and watched sadly as the implant defended itself and effectively tazed the attacker. Inessa gave up before the shocks reached too high of a voltage- it would knock her out if it needed to to make sure she kept it in.

Betrayed, confused, angry, Inessa scrambled to her feet and threw herself at Clint, knocking him over. She ran out of the farmhouse at full speed towards the heart of the cornfield- from there she would turn sharply, change her course. She couldn't leave the farm- not with Tony's suits on patrol, but she could hide until she found a way to remove the implant.

The Avengers watched her flee in silence, ashamed. They didn't doubt their decision, but every one of them regretted it. "She'll come around, Nadi's always been very level-headed. She'll understand, once the shock wears off." Mallory promised.

"Mind if we have that talk now?" Bucky asked, "Being yelled at might make me feel better."

Chapter 14: What Comes Next

#avengers #marvel #my writing

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mythicaldemigoddess-of-deltarune · 5 years

Photo

*credit for cups & casinos goes to brightgoat

credit for cuphead goes to Studio MDHR*

I want to make sure to give credit, even on tumblr.

anyway Genista is a Cuphead OC I made because of some stuff that has to do with what someone said that made me feel bad about myself

NO it wasn’t anyone who is on here or anyone from the other places I go to....when I tried to ask someone about if what I had been worried about being well not true and if those who said it were just being jerks.....though of course if a “Saint” says it, it has to be true....but finding out what that person who is like had the title Saint made me feel bad about myself, and even question if what they said is true or not......I mean there was this other person those I wouldn’t call a saint

they kept using the word like “may god have mercy on you”

I think I am remembering that correctly, but still the way they said it upset me because I knew that person was judging me because of my belief that there being a Goddess too, of course I still believe in God

but I also started to believe there is a Goddess as well

and I said this before I don’t like force converting as I believe it is wrong.

if that person had used maybe like “bless” instead of “mercy”

maybe things would of worked out, but they were kind of being too much and well I did do this one drawing that I did that I had to do some time after either the first or second time they made me feel bad

maybe I will edit it and put down my tumblr name and post it here too.

anyway the Gentleman with the Sugar for a head is another OC I made

his name is Duke Sugar, he’s suppose to be a flirt and uses charm

if I am able to I will try to do a new drawing of Duke Sugar and post it on here when I can....and you know I think at first I was just going to draw Duke Sugar and Genista but then I got the idea to draw a Cups and Casinos version of Gensita and Cuphead becoming love struck as soon as he sees her, I still need to try to work on the ship drawing I been meaning to do of Cuphead and Chips Bettigan.

anyway Duke Sugar is suppose to be around 6′7″ so like tall

which is still taller than me by like a lot.

he’s suppose to be like a sweet talker too

but you know even if he is charming, you can’t let your guard down or be fooled....any gal or guy or anyone for that matter would have enough smarts then fall for that dangerous charm

the bad boy charm might seem appealing and charm ya because it is like taking on a wild side that excites you and take you to places you never thought you would go to but there are some things you should be aware of and that is the wolf behind those “sweet eyes”

so it’s best to only look and not go too close

anyway like I said in the first drawing I did of him that I had posted in the other place where these drawings are at.

Duke Sugar is what I like to described

he is the honey that catches the flies better than vinegar

so yeah even though his head is a cube of sugar instead of honey

you can pretty much guess the meaning the way I described him

I have even been writing in a journal to describe my feelings about that

Saint Bernard and no it’s not the adorable saint bernards dogs

the “Saint Bernard” is a human and well what I had learned what he said about my family kind of made me get a type of complex if you want to call it, I tried to talk to someone about it to see if it was true or not.

I guess I will have a Amethyst (from Steven Universe) moment you know, I mean you know you didn’t ask to be born and you don’t want to be told that your bad just because someone says so, and it was like Saint Bernard was doing just that!

but yeah I tried to talk to someone about it at first I didn’t explain at first that it was because of some family stuff and well I guess I should of explain it that was the reason first, I hope they didn’t take anything the wrong way I have been worrying if I did something wrong or if they might of thought I had a hand in that whole art thief thing but I didn’t do anything I mean sure I was worried after seeing that news about it but I thought by telling others (though I removed it) I thought I was helping but then I find that they had removed it as the link was no longer there

I tried to get that word out after seeing that post and some time later I did start to believe that maybe they weren’t the one who posted it in the first place but still posting up about a art thief is serious and I took that seriously, I just hope something like that doesn’t happen again.....but I had nothing to do with that, but I really did thought there was a art thief and that is why I wanted to try to warn some people....

I don’t like it when I’m misinterpreted at times if it goes too far it will hurt me emotionally and by far worse, past my breaking point.....I know it took me some time to get better from the negative energy that was inside me for so long up until December 2017, I had a few months of depression in 2015 and I think what happen around 2016 caused some damage for me that wasn’t okay....I mean sure I might of seemed okay at first but still I had to put up with a lot.....I had decided I would not be put through that mess again, and I sure as heck taking no lip from someone who doesn’t consider that if you hurt someone who had got over depression a year ago (that only lasted a few months)

your just going to put them into a far worse corner that will last far longer than it should and they have to just act like everything is fine and hunky-dory but that isn’t fully true, even if there are a few things that make you a little happy you aren’t truly fully happy and you don’t feel all that great.

the few months of depression I had before, seem like so far away to me I guess and what I was feeling up to December 2017 was far worse.

I believe I was trying to fool myself and the cause of my pain

I had to please them just so they wouldn’t make good on the threat they gave me, but guess what? after getting better I did the best thing for myself, and I wont be hearing from them on here for reasons and I’m not going to say who they are.

and so help me if this has to do with that “Bathroom Thing”

I will say this AGAIN on here too

I Only Mean Those Who Might Hurt The Reputation of those who really do feel that they don’t feel like they were born in the correct body and don’t match the true them on the inside.

there are people in the world that could fake feeling that way

and it will hurt those who truly do feel that way and still get discriminated for it, and it doesn’t matter if it is a male or female

anyone could fake being like those who really do feel like they are a man trapped in a woman’s body or woman trapped in a man’s body

and that would hurt the ones who really do feel like they are trapped in the wrong body and don’t match how they are on the inside.

and if people would of stop misinterpreting my words back a few years ago and ACTUALLY tried to understand it, then maybe I wouldn’t of felt so bad and the added thing that caused things to go far to break me past my breaking point.

those who actually care about what I say and don’t misinterpret it to something that might hurt me past my breaking point

(small misinterpretation are understandable and can be worked out, which I’m okay with)

are the ones that I can count on, I gave a chance and I gave in to demands that weren’t even fair for my side and after I finally got fully better I had learned that what happen to me was wrong and how everything was “solved” was wrong and if this did have to do with that “Bathroom Thing” and they thought I was talking about those who really do feel that way, well I got news for them that I WASN’T Talking about them, I was talking about people who MIGHT impersonate them

that FYI might give them more discrimination, excuse me if I see from a different view and seeing how SOME humans will do things that might hurt those who are already going through discrimination

I still don’t feel ready to check my notes at the other place I go to, but if they have send me a note I don’t want to answer it.

I really don’t want to talk to them after the mess they put me through

but still I do thank those who have listen to my feelings about the whole notes thing and understand why I decided to put it on hiatus.

but yeah I really don’t ever want to talk to that person again

and I rather not name them on here and even though I have them blocked on here now, someone could inform them if I say the name they go by on tumblr so yeah.....that is a big fat no, I’m not gonna do that.

as if I’m going to say who they are and let them say that I should of just drop it and the other stuff, I’m not taking any of the bull I had to grin and bear with and pretend that everything was okay for their sake again

but if they truly want to make things right, then I will hear them

but it will be some time before I will hear them

cause what they did to me was not okay,

and to be honest, lately I had started to really hate them for it

I had been crying and feeling so bad during those times before I got better.....and at a point I became half numb like on the inside.

wondering what could of caused it, like you know what it could of been that I did that caused them to block me at the other place I go to out of the blue like that and no matter the reason, if they had tried to understand my feelings even if it has do to with drawing how I feel or writing how I feel, they should at least try to understand it.

if I ever give them another chance I might, but not currently

I hate the toxic feeling they left behind and I hate the fact I had to act like everything was okay just to make things right with them and just to make them happy just so they wouldn’t hate me.

so yeah even though we “made up” it wasn’t so much as it seem to be

because I had to give in to just drop the whole asking the reasons behind why they had blocked me and you know why I decided to block them on here? it’s because how they treated me and refused to tell me what was the cause in the first place if I was told then we could of cleared up things and I wouldn’t of ended up that way that lasted far longer than the feeling I had that lasted a few months in 2015.

I don’t want anyone to misinterpret me that badly again or just assume they know what it is that I’m talking about or about my family.

the family thing of course has to do with Saint Bernard

even though I do not carry that name I am still a descendant all of the same but people like him, can’t just assume all the generation will be the same and be like automatically evil, I know that it’s stupid and wrong to even blame those who are either a distant relative or descendant of Washington because of the things he did that hurt part of my heritage, well I got a few other mix heritages too but yeah it wouldn’t be right to hold it against his actions to those who are his family in the present, they had nothing to do with what he or his great-grandfather did.

just because those two did something really bad even if some people think they were great men but really they weren’t.......doesn’t mean those in a future generation will be the same and might even acknowledge the wrongs John and George Washington had done,

I don’t want to be told a destiny that is said to be waiting for me and my family either from the distant past or current or the future family, because of what that Saint Bernard says, because it was what he had apparently said that got me worried and trying to figure it out if it is true or not, they don’t know me....

cause I do try to pray for others safety

and I try not to let my negative feelings control me

and I make sure to take time to myself and I keep wearing my amethyst and only take it off if I need to, like when there is thunder or lightning or if I need to go to sleep.

anyway I need to log off in a few, then I need to login to the other place that I go to and take care of some editing that I need to do

anyway I hope you all like those three drawings and sorry if I had talked to much about the stuff that had been bothering me, and I know talking about how much a person I can’t name....had hurt me had put me in a bad mood...and well I’m listening to the song This is Who I am

it’s by Vanessa Amorosi, I find that finding comfort songs helps

and anyway, I’m going to check a few things on here first before I log out.

see ya later and stay safe everybody.

#cupsandcasinos #noncanon #cuphead oc

0 notes

uterusclub · 5 years

Text

I think it goes without saying that Sharon and I were well-aware of the infamous town of Alton, IL for quite some time due to our extended ghost-hunting research. The only detail daunting us from execution was the 5 hour drive down state. It wasn’t until Ghost Adventures recently released a few episodes investigating the spooked town that our fire was fueled! The itinerary was, shortly thereafter, drawn up (thanks to Sharon) with inclusions of Saint Louis, Missouri as well.

Our journey jump-started at a departure of 7:30 a.m. With freshly burned CDs in tow for music accompaniment, we headed out the door with much excitement. First stop – Grafton, Illinois to check in early to our hotel, Ruebel Hotel where we had prebooked an allegedly haunted room #11. Driving into the small town, we noted but dismissed several ‘road closed’ signs as they had no effect on our commute to the hotel. Upon speaking with Moe at the front desk, we were informed that our check-in was actually scheduled for the night before and that our reservation was for 2 nights? Whoops! This conversation had taken place a few weeks earlier as I recall trying to verify this detail with Sharon who assured me we were only staying for 1 (she later redacted and apologized for miss-remembering). In any case, we checked out our room very briefing concluding it didn’t ‘feel’ haunted before heading back out to soothe our aching bellies. Next stop? Grafton Harbor for food and drinks!

On the way to the car Sharon scoffed at her GPS. “This wants us to go all the way around which is 18 minutes, but it’s a 7 minute walk!” We prepared to depart but happened to look back at a ‘road closed’ sign which now made sense. It was then that we noticed the backdrop to our hotel – high waters submerging the streets below it. “Guess that’s why it’s telling me to go this other way” Sharon concluded. Leaving with minimal annoyance, we made our way to a flooded roadway of unpredictable depth. Sharon reluctantly backed the car up to return back the way we came, only to notice several cars behind us. “Wait, wait, wait, let’s see what they’re going to do” she said. So we sat and waited as one ballsy car at a time drove through the wading tides to the other side. We watched in awe and terror. And while tempting, decided in the end, it wasn’t worth it. The panic, that is. So no food.

Venturing forward with a slight chip on our shoulders, we skipped to our next scheduled stop: Piasa Bird. As Sharon drove along the shoreline we continued our perfect view of the high waters. We also noted several barriers stating ‘road closed – local traffic only’ which Sharon concluded didn’t apply to us for some reason. Bi-passing without a thought, we continued our journey hoping upon hope that there was indeed an end in sight as there was really no way of turning back on this one-way road. As we anti-climatically reached the Piasa Bird and climbed out of the car, our enthusiasm dwindled as we both half-heartedly took turns reading the backstory to it. I can’t even recall it now (and this occurred yesterday) so clearly, it was too much detail for my a.d.d. brain or just uninteresting. You decide. A couple photos later, we jumped back into the car and headed to the downtown area of Alton, Illinois!

Next stop? My Just Desserts! The thing is, we hadn’t even had what I refer to as ‘normal’ food yet so by the time we got to this little town and found the joint, I didn’t care much for pie or baked goods. I’ll also blame my questionable stomach but we ended up splitting a spinach, bacon, and chicken salad with an amazing poppyseed vinaigrette that Sharon ended up purchasing. Having fed the hunger demons, our demeanors quickly simmered. The majority of our ‘activities’ for the town were based around the local shopping area. We visiting the Mineral Springs Antique Mall where we saw some gorgeous ceiling-lined umbrellas and had far too much fun in the Historic Museum of Torture Devices! Several random shops later, Sharon had a Doodle Bear ($1.50) and I, an awesome corduroy hippie dress (definitely not $1.50). Shopper high complete, we now made our way to Elijah P. Lovejoy Monument or what I’ll refer to as, ‘pretty cemetery’ for all intent and purposes.

Cemeteries. You’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all and if you’re Sharon, they’re all ‘pretty’ so there’s really not much to say about the stop. Literally. We can move along now. To St. Louis, specifically.

Now my only recollection of St. Louis, Missouri was occasionally visiting childhood friends of my family ‘back in the day.’ That and it being hot as balls during the summertime. Outside of that, nada. First and most regrettable stop – Gateway Arch. So I guess it’s a thing now that you can ‘ride’ inside an elevator to the top? Sounded cool. SOUNDED. Foreshadow much? Anyway, after a confusing debacle over the ‘parking’ situation ie. being in a ghetto ally and asking a random ‘officer’ looking dude for assistance, we parked in a nearby garage and walked over to the grassy grove encompassing the Arch. I wont knock the splendor of the shining sight and absorbing all the un-obnoxious people enjoying themselves around us, however, I WILL take a few jabs at our attempts at finding the goddamn entrance to the illusive ‘ride.’ There was no ‘pot of gold’ at the end of either rainbow for these unlucky leprechauns. It wasn’t until we actually FOLLOWED the random arrows painted on the ground that we discovered an underground mound. Victoriously entering the ticket line, I glanced at the pricing monitor: ‘Trams sold out for the day.’ Mother****! ALL that effort. Though I will add that we mysteriously ended up departing our parking garage without paying which I can only assume was karma’s apology to us.

So now what? BOOZE. Much much deserved BOOZE. A quick ride took us to Brick River Cider where we were greeted immediately and provided with an oratory comparison of all draft ciders. Sharon and I settled on different, favorable choices which resulted in a growler and 6-pack for the homefront. With inebriation healing past wounds, we moved ahead to the City Museum of St. Louis. Sharon had briefed me on this but I couldn’t recall much – save for it looking interesting.

Upon arriving to the City Museum of St. Louis and parking across the street, you could see a whole, structural display on the very top of the building which we hoped would be open for the season (it wasn’t). You could also see and hear the shrills of lots and lots of children playing outside on the interactive displays. Normally this would put me off but the booze had muted the sounds and annoyance for the moment. I suppose I should take this time to mention Sharon’s wardrobe change from a dress into a different dress with pants for what she claimed was ‘comfort’ purposes. Entering this playground from hell, I can only describe it as a poor man’s attempt at a children’s Meow Wolf inside the locker room of a YMCA. Between the chaotic amount of children, the dingy apparatuses and the confusing layout (which was suppose to be a ‘schtick’ of exploration’), sobriety became king. I’d like to also point out that the main form of ‘travel’ was through slides and tunnels – the likes of which were most inconvenient for probably the only individual at this place wearing a dress! Still, I attempted to ‘play nice’ and took a turn on a ‘slide’ which I’m fairly sure, resulted in me flashing one very happy man (he owes me at lease $5 for that). Fixated on annoyance, we didn’t last long and decided our only salvation now was food.

We chose to eat at Square One Brewery & Distillery solely based on my pre-researched discovered of them having a goat-cheese artichoke dip appetizer which was the best part of the entire meal. My salmon with potatoes and broccoli was beyond basic (shame on you) and Sharon’s ‘barbecue’ pork sandwich tasted of funky, spiced ketchup (I still can’t believe she ate as much of it as she did after trying it myself). The only saving grace to this most egregious meal was our next stop down the street – Bailey’s Chocolate Bar. Surely, no wrong can come of chocolate!

This cute little bar was situated atop an escalating stairway into a dim, intimate dining area. The menu consisted of ice cream booze drinks, booze drinks, or desserts. Both deciding upon ice creamed, booze martinis, we partook in some mini, complimentary chocolate chip cookies which were divine! Drinks were strong AND delicious. I’ve actually never heard Sharon confess something to be ‘dangerous’ so many times.

Feeling much better after chocolate intoxication, the only thing left now was to continue boozing for the remainder of the evening! We headed over to W Karaoke Lounge which I had previously researched and observed a super cool looking ‘performance’ floor that lit up beneath the performers. We stayed just long enough for me to get one rendition of ‘Just a Girl’ in and finished up one drink before moving along to the next booze endeavor.

Thaxton Speakeasy. Another place I had previously researched which looked super cool inside. We arrived a few minutes after the place ‘opened’ and were met by an older gentleman outside the door advising us that the place was closed for a private party. Goddamnit! Foiled again! Guess we didn’t need that drink. Onto the next!

Our last stop for the night was at The Monocle & The Emerald Room where we had purchased tickets to a see a Burlesque show a few ladies I knew were in. We sat, drank and bided our time for an hour and a half – despite the show time scheduled for 10pm. Once 10:30pm hit and the performances began, we knew we wouldn’t last long. Sharon’s mentality drastically switch from ‘if your friends are in the second half, we have to stay’ to ‘yeah, I’m sorry, no, if they’re not on the first half, too bad, I’m tired.’ We were glad to stand in line next to a super buzzed, hilariously friendly gentleman who had absolutely no filter. The theater gods granted us the delight of seeing my wonderful friends during the first half of the show after which we immediately took our exit for the long journey (hour) back to our hotel in Grafton, Illinois.

Suffice it to say, we were absolutely exhausted by the time we got back to the hotel. Ironically, I had a difficult time falling asleep after falsely identifying paranormal activity of my toiletries. My heart was literally in my throat for quite some time. I could hear Sharon had no problem getting to sleep. At some point, tossing and turning throughout the night, I caught some portion of sleep and roused at the usual, ungodly hour of 7am Tired still but forcing the will to journey for more immediate comfort at home, we showered, packed and departed in optimal time. Discovering no roadside coffee availability nearby, save gas station coffee, we waiting patiently (2 hours) for the reward of Dunkin Donuts. I took the reigns for the rest of the drive home and played road tag with a Kia whom I’m not sure when I divulged from. I can only hope that some day – definitely not today – definitely not tomorrow but in the very, very distant future, we may meet again in St. Louis.

Meet Me In St. Louis Or Rather, Don’t I think it goes without saying that Sharon and I were well-aware of the infamous town of Alton, IL for quite some time due to our extended ghost-hunting research.

0 notes

derangedangel · 7 years

Text

Best Friends & Boyfriends

Summary: You’re dating Isaac but have to keep it hidden because your best friend Stiles would disapprove

Isaac Lahey x Reader

Word count: 3,082

Author’s note: First imagine. The fact that I can even put “author’s note” is weird to me. I draw art, I don’t write it. Any who, constructive criticism would be appreciated. This seems like the perfect time for one of my favorite quotes: “Keep in mind that I’m an artist and I’m sensitive about my s#!t.” Please be gentle with me on this.

Great day to post since it’s Teen Wolf Tuesday and Valentine’s Day

It was Wednesday evening and you were sitting with your boyfriend Isaac on the porch swing in your backyard. A light breeze came through and blew your hair in the wind. The sky was turning pink while the sun began setting. Your legs were curled under you while you were leaning against Isaac. He had his arm wrapped around you while he kept the porch swing swaying back and forth with his long legs.

You turned to the handsome werewolf next to you grinning. “What?” Isaac said as he smirked back at you.

“Wanna hear a joke?”

“Not really, but I know you’re going to tell it to me anyway”

“Yup.” You smiled back at him excitedly. Your jokes were lame and corny, but that’s what you loved about them. “What do you call the security guards outside Samsung stores?”

“I don’t know, what?”

“Guardians of the Galaxy!” You said laughing at your own joke. Isaac just looked at you with a small smile.

“You know like the movie… Guardians of the Galaxy. Get it?” You looked at your boyfriend waiting for an answer.

“I get it, but I’ve never seen that movie before.”

“You don’t have to watch the movie to laugh at the joke. Stiles loved that one.”

Isaac rolled his eyes at the mention of your best friend. You’ve known Stiles since birth. Your mothers were in the same Lamaze class and became instant friends. You’ve been through everything together: your first steps (naturally you walked first and had to drag Stiles along), first day of preschool, and learning to ride your bikes. When Stiles met Scott they had clicked right away. Naturally being Stiles’ best friend, you had clicked with Scott too, but Stiles was still your favorite. How could he not be? You both loved Batman. He laughed at your corny jokes. And you both had a high level of sarcasm. The only problem was, he couldn’t stand your boyfriend. Stiles was cordial with Isaac most of the time. Of course it was mainly because Scott was there and he didn’t want his best friend and his beta arguing nonstop. But if you had a nickel for every time Stiles called Isaac scarves or said something rude towards him, you could buy all the clothes in Forever21. This is why you weren’t ready to tell the pack that you two were in a relationship. You wanted everyone to know, but you didn’t want to hear Stiles list off all the reasons you shouldn’t be dating “the-one-who-wears-too-many-scarves.” It was only a month but you were tired of hiding your relationship. You just had to find a way to get two of the most important guys in your life to get along first.

You closed your eyes and sighed. “Baby, can you not do that when I mention Stiles. He is my best friend you know?”

“It was a reflex, babygirl.”

“Yeah well, can you stop? I need you two to start getting along.”

“I’m trying but it’s a little difficult to be friendly towards someone who always has something negative to say to you.”

“Don’t act like you’re a saint, Lahey. You do it right back to him. But can you try a little harder to be nice. For me… For us?” You used your best puppy dog eyes you knew he wouldn’t be able to resist.

Isaac looked back at you with those beautiful baby blue eyes that you adored so much. He leaned his head back and sighed. “Alright alright, I’ll try.” He looked back down at you, “Only because you’re so cute I can’t say no.”

You grinned up at the attractive boy in front of you. “Thank you. And you’re pretty darn cute yourself,” you said as you pecked him on the lips.

He scrunched his face at you. “Cute, no,” he said shaking his head. “Sexy, yes,” he grinned, nodding his head up and down.

You rolled your eyes at him giggling. “You are the sexiest guy this side of the Mississippi.”

“Only this side of the Mississippi,” Isaac questioned smirking at you.

“Well, I haven’t traveled that far east yet so I can’t say for sure.”

You and Isaac were smiling at each other when he moved a piece of hair away from your face. “You’re gorgeous, you know that?”

You blushed back at him and glanced down. He lifted your chin so you would look at him as he leaned in. Your lips connected in a sweet and gentle kiss. Your stomach was doing flips and Isaac smiled into the kiss listening to your rapid heartbeat.

The moment was ruined when your phone started blaring the Star Wars opening song. Isaac groaned already knowing who to thank for ruining your kiss. You took your phone out of your pocket looking at the bright light with Stiles face taking over the once blank screen. You looked at the werewolf in front of you while you hit answer.

“Hello Stiles.”

“Y/N, old buddy, old pal, best friend in the whole wide world.”

“What do you need?”

“Now why would you think I need something from you? Can’t I just call my best friend to ask how her day went?”

“Not when you answer the phone like that.”

Stiles scoffed into the phone. “I am insulted that you think that low of me Y/N.”

“What. Do. You. Want. Stiles.”

“Well… I might have waited until the last minute to do my English paper and since you’re the smartest person in class I thought you might be able to help out your old friend.”

You rubbed your eyes then looked over to your boyfriend. It didn’t take his enhanced hearing to hear Stiles side of the conversation. Since your relationship was hidden, you and Isaac didn’t get much time to yourselves. So you really didn’t want to end up spending the night with Stiles instead of him. Isaac looked at you nodding his head already knowing what you were thinking.

You responded to Stiles, “Be here in 15 minutes.”

Stiles shouted into the phone, “Yes! Thank you so much Y/N! I owe you!”

“Yes, you do. Bye Stiles,” you said hanging up the phone. You looked over to Isaac with sad eyes. “I’m sorry, baby. I want to spend some more time with you-“

“But Stiles needs your help,” Isaac said as he cut you off. “I know. It’s okay. He is your best friend after all.”

You two got up from the porch swing headed for the front door holding hands. Once you got to the door, you turned to face Isaac grabbing his other hand. “I’ll see you tomorrow at school.”

“Not if I see you first,” Isaac said, leaning his tall frame down to kiss you on the lips.

You whined a little as he pulled away letting go of his hands. You leaned against the doorframe as you watched him walk off into the night. A few minutes later Roscoe pulled into your driveway. Stiles hopped out and slammed the door. You walked out onto your front steps as Stiles walked up.

“You’re saving my ass Y/N.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time. You owe me Stilinski.”

“-it was about incest! Can you believe that?”

You and Stiles walked to your usual table, lunches in tow as he was finishing telling you some story.

“Well Luke and Leia did kiss. That’s pretty nasty regardless if they didn’t know they were brother and sister at the time. That’s almost like us kissing.”

“Hey!”

“No offense Stiles, but you’re like a brother to me. We might as well have been in the womb together.”

Your best friend thought about it for a moment and replied, “I guess you’re right.”

“When am I not,” you smirked back.

Stiles was sitting next to you stuffing his face with potato chips, when Isaac came to the table and set across from you.

“Lahey,” you smiled at the brown haired boy.

“Y/L/N,” Isaac smirked back. He looked at Stiles who was still trying to swallow the mouth full of potato chips and raised his eyebrow. You starred at Isaac and quickly looked over to Stiles and back to Isaac to try to get him to speak. Isaac got the message and spoke. “Hey Stiles.”

Stiles looked up from his food at Isaac, with crumbs covering his face. “Hey…?” Isaac usually didn’t make the effort to speak to Stiles, so he thought it was pretty weird.

“Uhh…so how did your English paper turn out?”

You froze in place wide eyed as Stiles looked at Isaac. “How did you know about that?”

“Oh, um, Y/N told me about it.”

“When? We stayed up late working on my paper. I drove her to school this morning. And we have all our first classes together. Not once did I see her talk to you,” Stiles asked suspiciously.

You were worried Stiles would figure out you and Isaac were dating. Most people wouldn’t think twice about what Isaac said. But Stiles had always be a little too curious and smart for his own good.

“I ran into him when I went to the bathroom before first period,” you said a little too quickly. “He said I looked tired and I told him you kept me up late working on your paper.”

“Oh,” Stiles replied squinting his eyes from you to your boyfriend. Stiles noticed you had been acting a little different lately. Happier than usual. Thank God Scott, Lydia, and Allison showed up.

“Hey guys,” you shouted enthusiastically. Thankful the rest of your friends came to hopefully change the conversation.

School was over for the day but you had the pleasure of getting to watch the lacrosse team practice since you had to wait for Stiles to drive you home. You didn’t mind it much. It gave you an excuse to stare at Isaac without anyone noticing. You could just say you were really into the game.

You were walking towards the lacrosse field when a pair of strong arms grabbed you and yanked you around the corner.

You squealed at the sudden action, being pulled into a muscular chest. Looking up you realized it was just your boyfriend trying to get some alone time.

“Hey, babygirl,” he said with that smile that made you weak in the knees.

“Hey yourself,” you replied as you wrapped your arms around his waist. “Shouldn’t you be at practice?”

“Yeah, but I think they can do without me for a few minutes while I make out with my girlfriend.”

“I love the way that sounds coming off your lips. Girlfriend.” You sighed looking into his gorgeous eyes. “But Coach will have a cow if you’re late. We’re playing Devenford Prep Friday and I’m pretty sure I overheard Coach say he placed a bet on the game.”

“Coach will be fine. But I won’t be until that pretty little face of yours is kissing mines.”

Grinning at Isaac you leaned in to kiss him. It was slow at first, but it was getting more heated by the second. You guessed it was because you two were interrupted last night but you weren’t complaining. If there was one thing Isaac Lahey knew how to do, it was kiss. You wrapped your arms around his neck as Isaac pulled you closer. There was no better feeling than Isaac’s lips on yours. You would have happily stayed that way if you hadn’t heard Coach’s yelling getting closer and closer.

You quickly pulled away from Isaac and started walking back towards the field. You let Isaac walk ahead of you to try to not make it look so suspicious.

“There you are Lahey,” you heard Coach screeching. “Get your ass out on the field!”

As you were walking towards the bleachers, you saw Coach stop Isaac near the edge of the field. “You better not be late to the game tomorrow Lahey! Or I’m gonna have to give your spot to Greenburg.”

Coach saw the excited look on Greenburg’s face from the middle of the field. “Don’t get any ideas Greenburg! I’d give the spot to my grandmother before I gave it to you.”

Greenburg looked down in disappointment and kept practicing throwing the ball into the net.

Stiles was running toward Coach while he was still speaking to Isaac. “Would you care to tell me why you were late to practice Lahey?”

“Uhh… I was just… I-I,” Isaac was going blank trying to come up with an excuse.

Coach examined Isaac a little further and squinted. “Is-Is that lipstick on you?”

Isaac quickly moved his hand up to his mouth to wipe off the lipstick, but it was too late. Stiles was standing next to them and saw the lipstick. There was only one person he knew who wore NYX Miami Nights. You had gone on and on about how much you loved the color and how there was no way you were going to spend twenty bucks on MAC lipstick when you could get the same for a cheaper price. That plus the fact that he saw you walk onto the field moments after Isaac had, put the idea in Stiles head. You two were dating.

You cursed yourself for putting on the lipstick that morning as Stiles glared up at you in the bleachers. You tried to smile back at him but you were pretty sure it was a terrible attempt.

Stiles looked back at Isaac who was trying to rub the lipstick off his lips. “Yeah, Isaac,” Stiles said angrily. “Where’s the lipstick from? Did you decide to try out a new look for when you join the cheerleading team?”

Isaac scowled at Stiles.

“Go sit down Stilinski,” Coach ordered. “And Lahey, I’m going to need 20 laps from you for being late to practice because of a girl.”

“Coach!” Isaac tried to plead.

“You want to make it 30?”

Isaac glanced up and you and you smiled trying to comfort him. Isaac looked away and began doing his laps.

You were so busy watching Isaac and Coach Finstock, you didn’t notice Stiles had come and sat next to you.

“I already know what you’re going to say,” you said continuing to stare out onto the lacrosse field watching Isaac do his laps.

“Oh and what’s that?”

“You’re going to say how disappointed you are in me that I’m dating scarves and how I can do much better than a werewolf with claustrophobia.”

Stiles just looked at you. “Actually I wasn’t.”

“So what were you going to say Stiles? How can you have a best friend with such bad taste in guys?”

“No, Y/N, I wasn’t,” he said as he looked at Isaac making his third lap around the field. “I was going to say how I must be a crappy best friend for you not to tell me your dating scar- I mean Isaac.”

You turned your head to look at the mole faced boy next to you. “Stiles, you are not a crappy best friend. A little dramatic at times, yes, but crappy no.”

Stiles turned to look back at you. “Well something must be wrong if you didn’t want to tell me you had a boyfriend. We tell each other everything.”

“We do tell each other everything. And you like to tell me how much Isaac annoys you and how stupid his plans are. I wanted you to know, believe me I did. But you aren’t exactly Isaac’s biggest fan. You’re important to me Stiles, and your opinion matters. I can’t have my best friend hating my boyfriend. I thought maybe if I got Isaac to be a little nicer to you, you’d be nicer to him, and everyone would get along. I could hang out with my boyfriend and my best friend, and get the best of both worlds.”

“Okay Hannah Montana, I see your point,” Stiles smiled at his own joke. “You wanted to tell me, but I probably wouldn’t have been very accepting.”

You glanced up at Stiles, “probably?”

“Okay, I defiantly wouldn’t have been accepting,” Stiles said agreeing with you.

“That’s what I thought.”

“Look, I’m sorry you felt like you couldn’t tell me you were dating Isaac. But I promise I will try to be a little nicer about the situation.”

“Really?” You beamed at your best friend.

“Really,” Stiles replied.

You tugged him in for a tight hug thanking him repeatedly. Pulling away with your hands still on his shoulders, you told him, “He’s not as bad as you think he is I promise.”

“We’ll see. As long as he doesn’t wear anymore scarves when it’s only 65-“

“Stiles!” You shouted.

“Hey,” he said as he lifted his hands in the air in defense. “I said I’d try to be nicer. I didn’t say it’d be easy for me.”

Shaking your head at your best friend you smiled to yourself. You were just happy Stiles said he would give Isaac a chance. This meant you could finally tell the rest of the pack. You two could cuddle doing pack movie nights. Hold hands in the halls. And most importantly, kiss that perfectly chiseled face of his in public. Looking off into the distance you got lost in your thoughts.

“Y/N…,” Stiles sing-songed.

You shook your head getting the thoughts of kissing Isaac out and replied, “Yes?”

“I’ll try to be friendly to your boyfriend, but could you not get that lovey-dovey look in your eyes. It’s weird.”

You playfully hit Stiles on the arm when Isaac came jogging over to you.

“Done already?” you asked.

“I’m a werewolf remember babe,” Isaac smiled at you.

“Right…,” you smiled back.

With his werewolf hearing Isaac heard your whole conversation, but he still wanted to make sure everything was okay. “So… are we good,” he asked as he looked between you and Stiles.

Smirking at Isaac you replied, “We’re more than good.”

He smiled slyly at you. “Good,” he said as he leaned in to kiss you but Stiles stopped him.

“Hey!” You two turned to face Stiles shouting as he flailed his arms about. “Can you guys at least wait until I’m not around for you to do that?” He began to stomp down the bleachers loudly as he walked away from you two.

Looking back at Isaac you grinned, “He’ll get used to it eventually.” You leaned in to kiss your boyfriend. Now that Stiles knew, you could finally tell the world Isaac Lahey was yours.

#Teen Wolf #teen wolf imagine #isaac lahey #isaac lahey x reader #stiles stilinski #isaac lahey imagine

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tw-fandom-imagines · 7 years

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Domestic Wolf

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Request- Could you do a one shot where peter has a really, nice, normal human girlfriend and she cooks dinner for him and Derek at Derek's apartment. And Derek is really surprised by his uncles actions. Sorry this is random :/ you don't have too but it's like 4 minutes till 5 am and I thought this would be so cute <3 thank you x

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As I walked around the kitchen and dining room, finishing putting the finishing touches on everything, I heard the elevator getting closer to the apartment and I smiled. I knew that it would be Peter and Derek. I’ve been living in the apartment for just over month now, but Peter and I have been together for well over a year. Derek is usually never home and when he is, he stays in his room so he has no idea what his uncle and I are like around the apartment, that is, not until tonight. Everyone thinks Peter is evil, I mean sure he has done some bad things, but he had reasons for doing those things, even if they were twisted.

“(Y/N)! We are home!” Peter yelled, breaking my thoughts, causing me to smile and walk towards the front door. When I turned the corner, I was face to face with Peter who had an arm out for me to walk into, which of course I did. He kissed my temple, his arm resting on my lower back.

“How are you my sweet?” He whispered causing my smile to grow wider and look up at him.

“I’m, fine, just fine.” I responded, causing him to nod and the both of us looked over at Derek. Believe it or not, I was more nervous about tonight than Peter did. Derek and Peter only have each other, and Cora, while I have Cora’s approval, I’m beyond desperate for Derek’s.

“Hi, dinner smells great.” Derek said with a small, almost fake looking smile. I felt Peter’s hand on my back, go up and down slightly, reassuring me that everything would go well tonight. I just took a deep breath and gave Derek a small smile.

“Thank you, it’s ready so we can eat whenever you like.” I said as Peter led us into the dining room, his hand never leaving my back. Once we reached the dining room, Peter led me over to my normal seat, pulled the chair out and pushed it back in as I sat down, earning a scoff from Derek.

“I didn’t know my uncle was such a gentleman.” He said sitting down, without even a second thought. Peter just shot him a look, and sat down across from me while Derek was next to him. I began serving the food, hoping that the comments and looks were just from hunger. As the night went on, it only got worse, Peter was being a complete saint, holding my hand, trying his best to keep me calm when I knew he wanted to yell at Derek for being rude. I didn’t think Derek meant to be rude, I just think he was taken back by how sweet and kind Peter was being. Derek wasn’t rude to me, not once but the comments he was making about Peter and I were more than enough to get Peter frustrated. Now it was my turn to keep him calm.

“I’m going to go get dessert, try not to kill each other.” I said getting up from the table and heading back into the kitchen to get the chocolate cream pie that I had made for tonight. As I was about to walk back into the dining room, I heard Derek and Peter talking, so I stopped, and listened for a second.

“What are you doing?” Derek asked his uncle with arms crossed, he didn’t seem all that happy nor convinced that Peter and I could love each other.

“What do you mean Derek? I’m having dinner with my girlfriend and my nephew. What are you doing?” He asked causing me to chuckle quietly at his straight forward answer. I knew that Peter was different when he was around me but was is so unbelievable that maybe Peter had some good in him? I could hear Derek sigh and then Peter get up from his seat.

“Listen, your comments have nothing but rude and disrespectful. I love her and she is kind and sweet and yes Derek, human. I know what I use to say about love, I know I use to think it was beneath me, but she changed the way I think about those things. I plan on loving her for the rest of my life or the rest of hers, I want to stay with her until my demons catch up with me or until she gets sick of me. This is different and you being like this, is just plain horrible. I know I may be asking a lot but can you accept her, can you just accept the fact that I’m different with her?” He asked, nearly making me drop the pie. I knew Peter and I were in it for the long haul but just hearing him say that made me weak at the knees. It was silent for a minute, you could hear a pin drop and I’m pretty sure that they could hear my heart racing.

“Yes. I like her, I have liked her since the first day I met her. I just never thought I would see you like this. It just took me by surprise that is all. I’m sorry.” Derek said causing me to smile softly and walk back into the dining room, pie in hand, and tears brimming my eyes.

“Who wants pie?” I asked, causing both men to nod. The rest of the night was great, we all cracked a few jokes and I know that I heard Derek laugh which is a miracle in its self. Around midnight Derek said he had to go, which was no surprise to Peter and I. We walked Derek to the door, closing it behind him and not speaking a world until we heard the elevator going back down.

“Thank you.” I whispered causing Peter to look at me and smiled. I knew that he had heard my heartbeat when I was in the kitchen. He knew what I was thanking him for, he knew that I knew that we were it for each other, that there was no going back at this point and I’m completely okay with that. So what if I’m human and he is a werewolf? We love each other and after tonight, I think that could be the key to everything.

#teen wolf #mine #gifs are not mine #teen wolf imagine #teen wolf imagines #peter hale #peter hale imagine #derek hale #derek hale imagine

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sorayahigashikata · 5 years

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Chapter 72: "See a JoJo about a horse."

#Paula reads SBR #Chapter 72 #poor Lucy tried so hard #Steel Ball Run spoilers #Part 7 spoilers

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library-of-a-fangirl · 6 years

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Saint Ella part 1

I walked home from the factory by myself. Listening to the roar of car engines, I was still getting use to them. Cars had just started to become popular last year in 1832. I also listened to the clicking and clacking of cart wheels on the brick roads, the shouting of merchants trying to sell food or coal. Around this time of year you could even hear them sell toys! Although London was always busy no matter the time of year. There was a thin layer of grime covering everything I looked at, but I didn’t care. I didn’t care that the air was thick and dry from the factories smoke or that some of the shopkeepers were yelling at me to leave because I was driving away the customers. I didn’t care one bit, not today. I was to excited to care. When I got home Pappa would take me to get a nice Christmas tree and Mamma would pick up a chicken for Christmas eve dinner! I practically skipped home, that is until Michael showed up. Michael was the neighborhood troublemaker. Actually there are a lot of troublemakers were I live. Michael’s more like the head troublemaker.

“Well look what we have here!” He sneered, “Hello Ella. Back from trying to achieve world peace?”

“Go away Michael!” I barked back.

“I thought a saint would be nicer than that! But you know what, I’ll go away, if you give me your money.”

“I don’t have any money!”

“Of course you do! You’re walking back from the factory right now and it’s Friday you’re probably carrying your weekly paycheck right now. You know, I really hate when people lie.”

“Like you don’t do it all the time.” I tried to walk past him but he grabbed my arm.

“Where are you going? I still haven’t gotten my money?”

“If you want money get a job.” I yanked my arm back.

“But stealing is much easier.” He grabbed my backpack and took of running.

“HEY!” But it was too late. Michael was already halfway down the street. Now I definitely wasn’t skipping. What was I going to do? Mamma and Pappa needed my paycheck. I continued to try and come up with a plan but before I could I was home.

“Hi sweetie.” Mamma came to the door to greet me, “How was the factory?” She seemed upset, but like she was trying to hide it.’

“It was good, Mary fell asleep at the loom again.” Mamma laughed a little. We both worked at silk factories. I’ve been working since I was 6. Now that I was 10 I was learning to work the heavier machinery. I always found it funny how Mary would fall asleep on duty.

“There you are!” Pappa came into the room with a smile.

“Pappa!” I ran and jumped into his arms.

“You’re getting big! I won’t be able to pick you up much longer.” We both laughed.

Then his demeanor grew grim and sad. He set me down. “Ella, your Mom and I need to talk with you.” I suddenly became really nervous. Pappa sat down next to me so he was the same height as me, “We won’t be able to buy a tree this year.”

“What?” This couldn’t be happening, no matter how bad things got we always had a tree. It might be really small but we always had one.

“I’m sorry sweetie” Mamma came over and hugged me.

Then I had a terrible thought, “Is this because I don’t have my paycheck?”

“What?” Both of them were very shocked. I was one of the hardest workers in the factory, I never broke a rule, i didn’t cause trouble anywhere. For me to not have my paycheck was a big surprise.I was starting to cry. It might be my fault that we didn’t get a tree. I had ruined Christmas.

“Michael robbed me on my way home.”

“No, that’s not why.” Pappa said smiling a little, but it faded quickly. “They had some they had a round of cuts at the mine, and I was one of them. I should be able to find work soon but right now we don’t have much money, and with your paycheck gone it’s even less.” He turned to Momma, “We might not be able to afford the chicken either.”

“But you can’t get rid of the chicken too!” I cried.

“I’m sorry sweetie but for now we have to watch our spending, next year we should be able to get the tree and the chicken again.” What about this year? We always had a chicken dinner on Christmas eve. First the tree and now this, it was too much.

“I’m gonna go for a walk.” I said with a dry voice. I needed to clear my head.

“Okay, just be back soon.” Pappa gave me another hug before I walked out the door. What was I going to do. It just didn’t feel like Christmas without a tree or the chicken. The noise helped me calm down. I listened to the footsteps of the people passing me and the yelling of shopkeepers. One merchant in particular caught my attention.

“10 pounds for a kilogram of coal! 10 pounds for a kilogram of coal!” he shouted. I’m not that good at math but i knew that was really expensive. Coal was worth a lot. Then it hit me. Santa gave out coal to naughty children. Now, I’m not to big into Santa, I stopped believing when I was 8, but if there was a chance that I could get my family some money. It was worth the shot.

As I walked home I formed my plan. It was a little difficult, I never did anything wrong. I wouldn't be able to start it until tomorrow. Let's hope that 1 day was enough notice to get on the naughty list. When I got home it was dark out, the sun was setting when I left so I wasn't gone for long. I didn't have work tomorrow because it was Christmas Eve. I would have all day to cause trouble. As soon as I laid down I feel asleep. Tomorrow was going to be interesting.

I woke up at about 8:00. It was nice to sleep in for once. I quickly got ready for the day brushing my tangled curly brown hair that went down to my chin. I looked in the mirror and smiled, my bright blue eyes gleamed with mischief, a look I didn't often have. I put on a simple green dress that was covered in stains and started to leave.

“Where are you going?” I turned to see Pappa standing behind me.

“I don't get the chance to explore much so I thought since you and Mamma don't need help. I could go.”

He smiled, “Okay, just be back by 11:00.”

“I will.” I hugged him and walked out the door. The first thing I needed to do was find Michael. I really hate him but if anyone could help me pull this off, it was him. The last time I checked him and his merry band of criminals were camped out in the Bad Wolf street alley. The street wasn't actually called Bad Wolf it but everyone called it that. I'm not sure when or why it started. I walked down the alley, it looked like someone been living there. I started to look around but there wasn't much. Before I could get a good look I was interrupted.

“Well look who it is.” I quickly turned around to see Michael standing in the middle of the alley with 4 other boys behind him. His blonde hair looked almost brown because of the dirt in it. He had a gleam in his brown light brown eyes that made me nervous. “The local saint going around spreading the good cheer on Christmas Eve.”

“I need your help.” I did my best to make myself look strong.

“With what? Hanging tinsel at the church?” Him and his goons laughed.

“Robbing the paint store.” They immediately stopped laughing. Michael looked like I had just told him flying cars had just been invented.

“You're joking, right?”

“Nope.”

“But you never do ANYTHING bad, ever. Why now?”

“I have my reasons.” I figured if I told him I was trying to get on the naughty list he would laugh at me and refuse to help.

“Alright.” He still seemed hesitant to help me, like he thought this was some big joke. “You said you wanted to rob the paint shop, you mean Mr. Beckford's shop, right?

“Yes.” Mr. Beckford was the meanest shop keeper in the area. He’s been known to hit his employees if they messed up. None of them would be working today so it would be easier to rob him. I felt more comfortable stealing from him because he sort of deserved it.

“Then let's go.” He turned around and started to walk. His goons were just as stunned as me.

“Like right now?”

“Yes, right now. You want to get this done don't you?” He started walking again and this time I followed him.

“Hey Michael! What should we do while you're gone.” On of the boy’s behind him spoke up. He couldn't have been more than 12.

“Clean up camp and head down to alley on Cinder Drive. I'll meet you guys down there when I'm done.” All the boys got to work taking down their. camp. I continued to follow Michael. Neither of us said anything until we had walked for about 4 blocks.

“So, are you gonna tell me why we're robbing the paint store?” Michael questioned.

“Not really.”

“Have you ever stolen anything before?”

“Nope. That's why I need your help.”

“Okay.” I could tell he was still suspicious of what was happening. “So what do you know about the shop?”

“Mr. Beckford is going to be the only one at the shop today, so it should be easier to not be seen. You already know the layout of the store.”

“What makes you say that?”

“You and your gang camped out around there about a month ago.”

“Have you been watching me?”

“No, but you’re not exactly discreet.”

“Good point.” We arrived at the paint store, it seemed mostly empty. Michael turned to me, “So what’s the plan Ella?”

“That’s what I have you here for.”

“You’re kidding right? You have no plan at all? Do you even know what you want to steal!?!”

“Not really, I was thinking 2 or 3 cans, I don’t really care what color.”

“Unbelievable, you make a much better saint than thief.”

“Will you just tell me what I have to do already!?” I was getting annoyed.

He let out a sigh “Fine. You go and talk to Mr. Beckford at the front desk and while he’s distracted I’ll grab a few cans of paint and leave before he notices.”

“I want to be the one to grab the cans.” I figured stealing paint would get me higher on the naughty list than helping someone steal paint.

“It doesn’t matter.” We walked into the shop, Michael went right up to the front desks and rang the bell while I hung out in the back of the shop trying not to be seen. Mr. Beckford came out of the back room and immediately started glaring at Michael.

“What do you want?” He practically spat the words at Michael.

“I was just hoping you could help me. My family just got a new house and we wanted to paint the walls.” I picked up a can of blue paint and glanced at the counter to see if Mr. Beckford had noticed, but he was too busy glaring at Michael. “I was wondering what color you recommended?”

“You’re an orphan, you don’t have a family.” I was getting really nervous, but I couldn’t stop now this was my only chance of helping my parents. I picked up a can of yellow paint. “What are you trying to do?”

“Just because I don’t have parents doesn’t mean I don’t have a family. Me, John, Leo, Seth, and David are like brothers.”

I grabbed a can of yellow paint. ‘Okay that’s good.’ I thought to myself and started for the exit.

“Hey!” I froze in place. “Where are you going with that paint!?”

“N-No where.” I didn’t know what to do. I had never gotten in trouble before, and I DEFINITELY had never been caught stealing before.

“Are you robbing me!?!” He was practically shouting now.

“N-No of c-course not I was just-” Before I could come up with an excuse Michael grabbed the closest shelf and yanked it to the floor.

“RUN!”

#short story #literature #london #christmas #industrial revolution #saint ella #part 1 #not historically accurate

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