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marmolady · 3 years

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Homecoming: Part Three

Continued from PART ONE and PART TWO

Main Pairings: Estela x (f)MC, Graleister, Variego

Summary: Endless Ending. It's the final leg of Taylor and Estela's journey; taking them to Northbridge and old friends... but leaving others behind.

Word Count: 5905

Chronology: After ’The New Taylor’ and ’A Ride to Remember’, sort of midway through ’Inheritance’.

Tagging: @saivilo, @edgydepressedchoicesthot, @sceptilemasterr, @greengroove @mauvecatfic

Thanks for reading!

The echoey halls of the long-since abandoned Celestial rang with grunts and the deafening blows of metal against concrete, marble and glass. The figure of one Estela Montoya-- sledgehammer in hand-- emerged from the billowing clouds of dust, pausing her onslaught only to check in with her wife, who’d been exerting herself more than Estela was completely comfortable with.

Taylor stood up straight, panting, and wiped sweat from her brow. The slight tremble to her knees did not go unnoticed.

“Mi amor, I think you’re done.”

“Done?” Taylor heaved. “I’m no-- yeah, I’m done. I am officially….” She leaned against a wall, and let her baseball bat clatter to the fall. “I’m officially… all emotionally-released out.”

“I’m happy to hear that, cariña.” Estela put her free arm around Taylor, steadying her. “How about I pull up a chair for you so you can keep me company until I’m done?”

“I would like that a lot.”

Soon, Taylor was peacefully reclining on a deck chair brought from the poolside, and sipping a drink from a coconut, while Estela kept up her demolition crusade around her.

Taking down the old resort was a laborious process, one that had begun many months ago when the Catalysts first began stripping the hotel of anything that could be utilised in the small village that had become their sanctuary at the end of the world. Soon after Taylor, Estela, Jake, Grace and Aleister returned to the island, the resort had been gone over with a fine-toothed comb, with anything to be saved carefully removed for safe keeping. Now, what remained of the resort was ripe for a smashing, and once Iris had identified load-bearing structures to be careful of, the bare bones of the once grand Celestial was the site of a purge of a thousand pent-up emotions. There had never been any doubt to Taylor that such an opportunity for catharsis would do the world of good for Estela… but she hadn’t anticipated just how much she herself had needed to expel from her body in screaming blow after screaming blow. She could not begin to count how many times she’d closed her eyes and seen the people she loved murdered at the hands of Everett Rourke… to set fire to every last piece of trace of his awful smug face had the effect of leaving her feeling about ten tonnes lighter. It was everything she’d needed, and as she laid back and watched Estela smash through her own demons, she had to hope… this would be a corner turned for them both.

“Hey….”

Taylor turned her head, and grinned at the sight of Diego cautiously coming towards her.

“Hey!”

“There’s no, uh… debris flying around here is there?”

“Ha. I think you’re safe for now. Estela would have me in a hard-hat if there was any danger.”

Unable to argue with that logic, Diego sat down in the space Taylor made for him beside her.

“I’m just, you know… watching ‘Stel catharting.”

“Yeah, I can see that. Your eyes are bugging right out your head.”

Taylor shrugged and relaxed back in her chair, her gaze still following Estela as she flexed her muscles… which were on fine display beneath a thin tank top. “It’s a nice view; what of it?”

Diego chuckled. “Oh, nothing; nothing at all. Your face is just an absolute picture.”

Every now and then, Estela would glance over her shoulder, and-- sure enough-- Taylor would still be looking at her with the most ridiculous exaggerated heart eyes. God, how Estela loved that dork. Happy that Taylor was taking a well-earned rest, she could focus on her renewed onslaught; slamming into walls, structures… and any little thing that carried that cursed name.

A gargantuan crash had Estela rush to the vast kitchens. The air was thick with dust, already coating the once sparkling bench-tops.

“Grace?”

She needn’t have worried. The woman who emerged from the dust clouds carried a look of determined strength and fierce confidence.

Grace pulled down her earmuffs, her expression softening as she met eyes with Estela. “I didn’t scare you? I, um….” She chuckled bashfully. “I think I had something big and angry I had to get out my system… and it was a little bigger and angrier than I anticipated.”

Estela gave a small nod. “Fair. Things things can just… take over you.”

She knew from experience what that could do to a person. And she had an indelible mark upon her face to prove it.

“Well,” she said, “if you need to talk or anything… I’m maybe not the best at that kind of thing, but I’m here, okay?”

Grace smiled broadly, genuinely touched. “Thank you. And so you know, the offer extends the other way as well.”

It seemed pretty inevitable that old hurts are going to come up amidst all this releasing of pent-up emotion. Surrounded by support, it was a challenge that could be faced. Estela was certain that whatever poison bubbled to the surface, whatever old hurt took her by surprise, it would not be her burden to carry alone. She shook herself back into the zone, and in one fell swoop, took out the last support holding up the bar, which crumbled with a satisfying crack. It felt good. And so, she continued smashing out her demons… whilst remaining just close enough that she could run to Grace’s aid should she get in too deep.

Slowly but surely, Estela got back into her rhythm. Letting herself feel, and hurt… and then letting everything come pouring out.

With a guttural roar, she brought the hammer down hard. Again… and again. For everything Rourke had done…. For the hope for a safe future the bastard had dangled in front of Estela’s mother. For how callously he’d brutally ended that kind, intelligent, beautiful life, then turned around and talked of love. How even when his own demise was inevitable, the sadistic determination he’d had to make his last act the one of killing Taylor. For all those terrible nights Estela had been woken up by her poor wife screaming over deaths at his hands playing out before her, again and again. That demon had blighted every single person he touched. Lies… cruelty… and in his wake a bloody trail. Oh, but if he could see his precious Celestial now… that wicked smug satisfaction would be wiped clean off his disgusting face. Faster, harder, Estela threw herself behind every blow, letting out everything… the hatred gushing forth deep and profound, an all-encompassing whirl that her straining body could barely keep up with.

Her chest heaved. Her arms ached. As Estela watched the last rubble fall around her, a deep exhale took with her breath the emotional torment that had for so long existed in her like a sickness. She closed her eyes, and lay down the sledgehammer. She’d yelled her voice hoarse; her throat burned, and she had no screams left to yell. Slowly, panting heavily while tears and sweat still dripped from her face, she collected herself... taking in the sounds of water spraying from a burst pipe, and the aggressive grunts coming from the kitchen, where Grace was clearly still working through some stuff.

“Stupid… blasted… counter…!”

“Are you okay in there, Grace?”

There was a pause in the frustrated bellowing, then came the voice that seemed too absurdly gentle to have come from the very same person.

“I think I’ve discovered the limit to my own strength.”

Thinking she might as well lend a hand, Estela picked up her hammer and-- carefully maneuvering herself over the mess she’d wrought-- made her way back to the kitchen. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Furball snuffling around through the debris-- more than likely, he’d come in with Fenix, who’d been following Taylor around. Estela gave a low whistle.

“Are you going to be helpful? I’m sure Grace will appreciate it.”

“Mrrp!” Furball cocked his head, looking worriedly at the tear-tracks upon Estela’s face. “Prr?”

Well, that’s kinda sweet. Estela knelt down and gave the little blue fox a reassuring scritch behind the ears, then pulled up her singlet to wipe her face. “It’s all right. I’m all right. Sometimes feeling things is good for you, you know?” Then she stood up, again all action. “Come on, then.”

“You’re, uh, having a little trouble, then?” she asked as she rounded the door.

Grace, taken by surprise, jumped about a foot in the air.

“Oh!” She laughed. “You just about gave me a heart attack!”

“Sorry. I’ve been told I have a bad habit of sneaking up on people.”

“I wouldn’t say it’s a bad habit. I’ve had much worse surprises, I can tell you.” Grace tapped a sturdy steel counter with the hammer she’d been using to smash up the kitchen. “You caught me trying and failing to take out my feelings on this hapless counter. But it looks like even my feelings about my mother aren’t cutting the mustard-- and I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t calculated the most efficient angle of attack.”

Estela couldn’t help but snort a laugh. “You do always think things through. Here,” she said, offering her heavy sledgehammer. “Between you, this baby, and Furball, I think you should be able to smash out a few more feelings.”

Grace took a moment to study her sister-in-law’s face, and it didn’t take long to ascertain that Estela wasn’t just doing fine… she looked really… very well. Lighter maybe. She grinned. This little foray into demolition had been exactly what the doctor ordered.

“I’ll certainly try.”

It was getting dark by the time Estela and Grace-- and Furball-- retreated back to the entrance foyer, ready to leave behind The Celestial for good. Aleister was having a nasty cut on his forehead seen to by Taylor, who had with her the miracle ointment made from the healing leaves.

This, Estela supposed, was what happened when you weren’t quite careful enough about where you directed a lifetime’s worth of anger. And exactly why she’d kept a close eye on Grace… some people just don’t have the competence to throw around a heavy bludgeon.

“Oh, Al, sweetheart!”

Estela forced herself not to roll her eyes, no matter how excessive the fuss. A bit of care and affection had done wonders for Aleister’s disposition, and she was not about to challenge it… especially when she was pretty sure she acted a damn fool herself when the love-goggles were on.

“I, uh,” he muttered, his cheeks pinkening with unmissable delight as Grace took him in her arms, “seem to have clocked myself about the head in an attempt at putting a poker through one of my father’s portraits. The mind boggles… how many images he needed of his own smug face in here….”

“I’m guessing Jake’s still off making sure we got them all?” The absence of the final member of the group had struck Estela-- the lack of snarky remarks and stupid nicknames was glaring. With his intended surrender to authorities looming, and along with it the inevitable facing up to Mike’s family, Jake would be feeling… a lot. If he needed space, his friends would give it, no questions asked.

Diego’s eyes were puffy, and Taylor’s soft with clear concern for her friend. But, of course, how could Diego be even remotely all right? That Estela was seeing him at all was something of a surprise; time with the one he loved was running out fast.

Perhaps he’d seen the question in her eyes, for he said; “I wanted to take one last look at the place before it’s all torn down.” He gave a weak laugh. “Take a moment to remember the poor fish from my beautiful old aquarium room… which became a lot less cool once they’d all gone belly-up. It now looks like Finding Nemo: The Horror Cut, and the smell is… pretty bad.”

“I could have told you that choosing a room with live decorations isn’t the best idea in an abandoned hotel.”

Aleister chuckled, giving his sister an appreciative glance. She might have been something of a brute, but he’d long since conceded that she did in fact hold a few of the family brain cells.

“Trust me,” Diego said, “I’m keeping it in mind for next time.”

It was a long and quiet trek back to Elyys’tel and Catalyst Village; each member of the group was lost in their own thoughts. Varyyn had only just made the journey himself-- he’d given his husband space to say goodbye to a piece of his life that he could never understand, but had returned for him. They strode side by side at the back of the pack… always touching. It was those little touches… the ones they both knew were always offered in a heartbeat, that would perhaps be missed most.

“Hey,” Taylor said gently, slowing so she could walk beside her best friend. “If you want to, you’re welcome to crash at our place tonight. I’m sure we can snag a mattress from someone else’s house so you’ve got plenty of snuggle space.”

“I don’t wanna disturb you, you know? You’d be just upstairs… and there will be crying. Besides, just camping out under the stars together… it might be nice.”

When they reached the village, Diego and Varyyn peeled off from the rest of the group, quietly settling on a secluded stretch of the cove where, for a time, it could be as though there were not a soul in the world but for the two of them.

“I feel like I’m wasting the time we have,” Diego mumbled guiltily. “You’re right here with me, and I can’t even make the most of it because it’s like I’m drowning in… in feeling sad.”

“We are together, my beloved,” Varyyn said gently. “That is, ‘the most’ of any time. The most there ever can be. You always give me the truth of you, and now, that is very, very sad.” He trailed off. “…As am I.”

Diego exhaled deeply, pressing himself against Varyyn’s larger frame and feeling safe. There was no shame in his emotions; he was understood, and cherished in all his raw edges. Varyyn had never asked for anything more of him. It was the reason he had to courage to follow his passion and give himself a chance to grow into what he knew was his truest self… but the road to get there would be testing.

“I will see you every day-- I have become very proficient at the ‘phone’. And we can talk many, many hours. Being elyyshar has some benefits. If I am with you, the council can wait.”

“Even if Seraxa has steam coming out her ears?”

Chuckling in spite of his deep sadness, for he had to do whatever he could to give his beloved what strength he could offer, Varyyn nodded. “Even if.” He squeezed Diego closer, and let his eyes flutter shut, focusing on the very feel of him there in his arms… the way it was meant to be. The way it would be again, for their spirits were irrevocably entwined. “And it will not be long before we are together again. You have heard Taylor talking; she is not going to rest until she finds a way for me to visit you, and in the meantime….”

“I’m just a call away.” Diego wiped away his tears, then brought his hand to Varyyn’s face and guided him into a slow and tender kiss. Just a call away. Just a call away….

Further up the beach, Jake had taken himself for a walk along the sand-- cold beer in hand, and looking up at a wide open night sky for the last time for… well, he didn’t really want to get up on how long.

“Do you want company?”

How long Estela had been lurking behind him, Jake didn’t have the foggiest idea… nor did he know how she managed to sneak up silently on such soft shifting sand. He shrugged.

“Be my guest. Might be a nice distraction from my own thoughts. It ain’t as if I won’t have plenty of time alone with those in the near future….”

“It’s a pity Aleister’s already gone to bed. There’s nothing quite like getting up his nose to keep you out of your own head.”

Jake smirked. Old Malfoy had his weird ways of expressing friendship. Guy would call you an imbecile on one hand and throw tens of thousands at bulking up your legal defense on the other. Something told him that the fights they’d get in over the stupidest goddamn things was just another one of Aleister’s wonky emotionally-repressed attempts at building bonds. And for what it was worth, it actually worked-- with Jake anyway. Any excuse to give Daddy Issues a well-aimed friendly jab.

Estela, on the other hand, didn’t dance around the point with petty jibes and pedantic exchanges. Straight to the point, as she knew Jake had come to expect.

“Look. You are going to clear your names. And Mike is gonna be remembered for the hero he was. We’ll make it happen, all right?” She held his gaze, fierce with resolve, and saw that same fire reflected back at her. “I swear to you… if I have to make it happen my goddamn self. When we’re done, people will be wishing Lundgren had a grave so they could dance on it.”

Jake clapped Estela on the shoulder. “Aw, Katniss. I know we always said Princess was queen of the pep talk, but between you and me, she ain’t got nothing on you.”

“Then make it worth my breath.” She pulled him into a tight hug. “I’m not fucking losing you, you hear?”

“Crystal, Ripley. Crystal damn clear.”

Her face buried in his unkempt hair, Estela fought back the tears that stung her eyes. “Good.”

Pulling away, Jake discretely wiped his own eyes, disguising the movement by running a hand over his stubble. He looked out over the world that had become his home and felt peace.

“You know what? I’m really gonna miss this place.”

Estela followed his gaze across the island, the towers of The Celestial just visible in the distance, and Atropo gently puffing smoke out into the night air.

“Yes. I think I’ll always come back. Maybe we could come here together for like… reunions. All of us,” she made a point of specifying, letting any doubt of her faith in their ability to bring Jake home be put paid to. “We should never forget what happened here.” Nor what we all meant to one another. Her eyes wandered back to her own home in the village, where she knew Taylor was waiting, already going through her bedtime routine. Estela’s heart thrummed with affection. How could they ever stay away?

“I guess, Katniss... I’ll be seeing ya at the reunion.”

Again, she found herself choked up. Enough of this. It was time for bed… before she was a complete mess.

“You bet your ass I will,” she growled.

___________________________

God, it’s cold; Taylor’s first thought as she stepped into the gate from the massive aeroplane. Straight from the tropical climes that had been her normal, even the Massachusetts summer hit her as distinctly chilly. The very novelty of the crisp night air and the lack of her usual permanent layer of humidity-induced sweat was wonderfully exhilarating. This really was something new.

The flight, coming off the five hour journey to Costa Rica and a three hour stop-over, had been utterly draining for most of the group; Taylor was for once grateful for her recently-acquired ability to fall asleep at the drop of the hat. She’d spent most of the duration snuggled up with her head on Estela’s shoulder-- Estela never slept on planes-- and her legs tucked beside Diego’s while he distracted himself from his thoughts with the in-flight entertainment. Aside from the discomfort of sitting in a confined space for hours on end, the emotional onslaught took its toll. Jake had stayed with the group as far as Costa Rica, then left the others to take their flight to Northbridge. Public interest in ‘The Hartfeld Ten’ had waned somewhat, but if they turned up back in the country with a wanted man, an unnecessary hoo-ha seemed inevitable. At any rate, Jake had been adamant that he hit American soil as close to his home as he could swing it, which had put him on a plane to Dallas that left an hour after the Northbridge flight. There had, of course, been tears, but when Jake waved them onto their last leg home, he hadn’t been saying goodbye as someone dreading what lay ahead, so much as a man ready and determined to finally put everything right. For Mike, and for himself.

Through customs and baggage claim, Taylor took in everything; it was utterly bizarre that she’d never set foot in this country before, but so many of her friends’ life experiences-- the memories that had informed her very creation-- had created an impossible feeling of familiarity. It was as if she were seeing simple things for both the first time and the hundredth, simultaneously. She stayed close to Diego, who had been quiet from the moment the plane took off in La Huerta.

“That’s everything, right?” she checked in with him as she hauled a duffle bag off the carousel, only to have it promptly commandeered by Estela. That’s still too much for me to be lugging around? Point taken.

“Well, unless you’re intending to leave Madam and Fenix behind the Animal Arrivals desk in their pet-packs indefinitely….”

“I’ll have you know, wise-guy, that I haven’t forgotten them. Just… putting off having to deal with the foul mood we can expect from Madam Mierdita.”

Estela turned back to her wife with a smirk. “Her I’ll let you carry.”

“Gee, thanks.” Taylor caught Diego’s little snort of laughter at her expense. Okay, a laugh out of Diego is definitely worth incurring the wrath of the little monster.

Finally, they stepped out the Arrivals doors, trolleys loaded up with heavy luggage and two very curious furry travelers.

“Do you think they’re here ye--” Grace had been wondering out loud before-- “Sean! Michelle!”

Even in a bustling crowd, Sean was easy to spot, head and shoulders over most of the people surrounding him. An effusive Michelle darted into the walkway, sweeping both Taylor and Estela into an embrace, and guiding her small band of weary friends out the way of the rush.

“You wouldn’t believe how good it is to see you all!” She held Taylor at arms length, giving a quick appraisal and then going back in for a hug, satisfied. “You look amazing. Death’s door is all in the past.”

“Oh my god,” Taylor choked out, “it’s not even been a minute and my face is already aching from smiling so much!”

“I’ve been trying to convince Michelle not to worry about you too much,” Sean said as he came out of a hug with Grace to give Taylor’s shoulder a squeeze, “if there’s anyone who can pull a miracle comeback, it’s our Taylor.”

Perhaps it was guilt, but Taylor felt a violent swing of emotion. This wasn’t a victory yet. “We’ve just got to keep that lucky streak going a little while longer… bring us all home.”

A cloud of sadness passed over Sean’s eyes, but his warm smile remained. “No one’s throwing the towel in. Not by a long shot. But my Momma always taught me to savour the wins along the way… and seeing what it was you came back from, this is a big one.”

Taylor exhaled heavily. You’ve got to let it go… just for now. Letting yourself by happy is going to make you stronger when it matters. But it sure was hard. She could see that guilt reflected in Estela’s eyes… which she caught and was met with a tender smile that told her it would all, somehow, be okay.

“Right!” Michelle said. “We were thinking, Diego, Taylor, Estela in the big car with me-- there’s room for the pet carriers in the back. I am dying to show you the house! Aleister and Grace, if you want to go with Sean, he could either take you straight to your place or you can swing by and say ‘hi’ to the masses.”

Grace beamed. “Oh, we will most definitely be swinging round to say ‘hi’!”

“Please tell me Raj hasn’t thrown us some raucous, moronic homecoming party…,” Aleister muttered under his breath.

“You were joking when you said there might be something party-like waiting for us, yeah?” Taylor queried from the back seat of Michelle’s car as they turned onto the freeway.

“The ‘might be’ was only because I wanted to break it to Aleister gently. You’re going home to a party. Period.”

“They do know that we’ve been travelling non-stop for more hours than I care to count, right?”

“Oh, don’t even get me started!” Michelle huffed. “Before you completely panic, I’ve already laid down the law that whenever you’re done, it is done.”

Taylor chuckled nervously, exchanging a glance with an equally trepidatious Diego through the mirror. “I’m going to give Al all of five minutes before he high-tails it out of there.”

Michelle sighed. “The Raj party train is fairly unstoppable. But,” she added with a little twinkle in her eye, “no one is brave or stupid enough to stir up a sleep-deprived Estela, so I’ve been assured it will all be low-key.”

“You’re welcome,” said Estela.

The car pulled up a short while later in front of a big timber-clad house. A really big timber-clad house. Two storeys and --from what Taylor could see-- a window looking out of a loft space as well.

“Wow…,” she breathed.

“Damn,” said Diego, who’d been quiet for most of the journey. “You weren’t kidding when you said you splashed out….”

Michelle shrugged, but her delight in her friends’ reactions couldn’t be hidden. “You do remember that there’s going to be eight of us living there? Including one Craig Hsiao. We were getting a house with space, or we wouldn’t be doing this at all. Again, all credit to Estela for funding this. I’m still not convinced you’re not a little crazy, but there’s no way I’m complaining. This place is gorgeous.”

As she unloaded Madam in her pet-pack, Estela kept glancing up at the house, a curious expression on her face.

“Hey…,” Taylor said, giving her wife’s fingers a squeeze. “Are you okay, love?”

“Yeah, it’s just… weird. I don’t feel comfortable with thanks, I guess. We needed somewhere to stay, I’ve got money now… it’s not like it’s some noble deed or anything.”

Michelle gave a dry laugh. “I saved your life, you gave me money to buy a big-ass house… don’t worry, we’re even.”

Just then, the front door swung open and Quinn bounded out, the broadest of smiles across her face. “You guys! Welcome home!”

“Quinn!” Taylor put Fenix’s crate on the ground and leaped into a waiting hug… and by the time she lifted her head, she was completely surrounded.

“You made it, brah!”

“Dude-- du-u-uude!”

Suddenly, the hugs were coming from all directions.

Okay, I’m definitely home.

The three new arrivals were quickly roped into a brief house tour, starting with the main lounge, which to everyone’s relief, was not in fact set up for a rager. A few streamers and a ‘welcome home’ banner was the extent of visible party. As Raj explained, the main housewarming shindig would be happening once everyone was actually awake enough to enjoy it. Maybe in a day or two.

“And this,” Quinn announced, after having left a wide-eyed and stuttering Diego to explore his new digs, complete with a enormous screen from which to call Varyyn and digital copies of what appeared to be every major movie and television release from the eighteen months he was away on La Huerta, “is yours.”

She opened a door to a staircase up to the loft-space.

“We really hope you like it.”

Again, Estela’s expression twisted to one of poorly hidden discomfort. Taylor gently took her hand and led the way, understanding. That strange mixture of what she was adjusting to… feeling part of a close group of friends who wanted to look after her and that awareness, now pretty hard to ignore, that she now had money to her name… it was all rather a lot, especially after a long day’s travel.

Quinn, either by reading her friend like a book or by plain instinct, gave the couple some space. “You just take all the time you need. If you want, I can bring Madam up here so you can settle her in? We’ll all be downstairs with hot cocoa waiting whenever you’re ready.”

Taylor turned and gave a slow nod. The emotions rolling through her were overwhelming-- to be once again surrounded by almost the entirety of her family was more wonderful than she could say, and yet, it made the ache of Jake’s fate hanging in the balance all the more obvious. She was excited, and drained, and so fucking grateful for the love she was receiving in spades. That was how she was going to get through. That was how they were all going to get through.

“Thanks, Quinn-- you’re the best. I think Madam will be really happy to get out of that box.”

They reached the top of the stairs and switched on the light.

“Wow,” Estela said softly, her cheeks flushing a little. “This is really nice.”

After what had been put together for Diego, neither of them had known what to expect, but Estela and Taylor’s huge room was wonderfully simple and homey. A big comfy armchair in the corner, a wooden bookcase to match the bed, and a lovely soft rug underfoot… all the essentials for their private bolthole. Two arched windows tilted up to a beautiful view of a starry night. They had their own ensuite bathroom, which both regarded as a definite plus with six other people sharing the house-- including one Michelle Nguyen who did have a reputation for taking her time in front of the mirror. What struck Taylor most, though, were the small thoughtful touches scattered around the whole place. The many, many photographs that had been hung on the walls… a brand new knitting basket for all of her bits and bobs… fancy lotions that had come from The Elysian… the beautiful painting Quinn had gifted them upon their first anniversary… and perhaps Taylor’s favourite, a little plush dragon that had been propped up on the pillows.

Estela flopped backwards onto the luxurious mattress and exhaled, long and deep. Letting the feeling sink in… the feeling of being welcomed home with open arms. Known, and accepted, and loved. Without opening her eyes, she extended an arm, which Taylor wriggled under to be brought into a soft embrace. They were one more step closer to ‘happily ever after’. On their way to peace and healing.

Taylor saw it there already. Her sweet warrior, at ease with the world… and making her thrum with devotion.

They’d made it this far… so very far. Time for the next chapter.

#endless summer #playchoices #estela montoya #estela x mc #diego soto #jake mckenzie #grace hall #varyyn #variego

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heart-of-tempered-steel · 4 years

Text

𝙞𝙩 𝙩𝙖𝙠𝙚𝙨 𝙖 𝙡𝙤𝙩 𝙩𝙤 𝙠𝙣𝙤𝙬 𝙨𝙤𝙢𝙚𝙤𝙣𝙚 // {fred weasley x ofc} preview

As soon as his gaze slid down from her slender shoulders to her neatly folded hands, he saw it.

Her hands, he mused, were small and delicate looking and usually when they were at rest when she sits, are folded neatly one atop of the other. Like bird wings.

Now, her hands were anything but resting. They were slightly fluttering.

As if something ruffled their feathers.

Summary: Fred starts to see through the cracks on the mask she wears and realizes that it wasn’t just a mask... but a full suit of armor as well.

Pairing: Fred Weasley x Seri Waldren (OFC)

**Additional Note**: Face claim for Seri is Lee Ji Eun as Jang Man Wol

Warnings: Almost none except for a bit of slightly one-sided angst with a hint of enemies to friends to lovers as well as an ofc (but PLEASE give this a chance before scrolling past!!! I really worked so hard to get everything in place here! 🥺)

His eyes are a deep hazel like his twin.

However, Seri thinks to herself, staring at his side profile as he faced the fireplace, the flames casting a warm glow over his features, that in this light at least, they held a hint of mahogany in them. With the way that the light was catching in his eyes, she can see that it brought out the dark red undertone in them. She gives him a once over—steady gaze tracing his features from his hair to his eyes.

Orange.

Red.

Brown.

Like the fallen leaves that drift with the autumn breeze.

And before she thinks better of it, she is pulled into a memory.

Like the forest floor at that time when the sun was setting and its dying rays peeked through the canopy to shade everything a warm copper and bronze—the earthy smell of dirt with a hint of petrichor from last week’s rainfall; laughter echoing through flying swirls of leaves, recently scattered from a pile.

Mug of hot cider, freshly made, warming you up inside and out. Its warmth spreading from your fingertips to your head as its heady aroma of apple and cinnamon wafts up to your nose and fills you.

Pairs of strong yet gentle arms holding you—comforting you. A melody, sweet and tender as the arms you’re held by, drifts into your ears and lulls you with its lullaby.

Soft wool tickling your cheek as you nestle yourself further into the warm embrace, letting the song carry you over into a peaceful slumber. Here, you are content.

You are safe.

You are not alone.

You are loved.

And just like that, she is consumed. The sudden onslaught of the memory hurtling towards her like a tornado of broken glass, pieces of what was once a precious and tender reminiscence, now in shatters. Jagged, sharp edges were simultaneously slashing, ripping, and embedding themselves into her heart; threatening to shred through every soft layer of tissue to raw and bloody scraps.

She nearly recoils from the emotions that was all at once churning and burning her from within, fighting to keep the tempest within her contained. If she does not get a hold of herself…

She. Will. Fall. Apart.

Seri instantly turns away from Fred and lets her hair fall to the side of her face like a black curtain between them as she attempts to silently reign in her tumultuous emotions.

Her companion hears a barely suppressed, sharp intake of breath and turns his attention to her. He finds her face turned away, seemingly focusing on a spot just off to the side of the fireplace. Or at least he assumes she was staring at a spot. Her long black hair effectively blocking off his view of her face.

Her figure was stock still except for the slow and methodical breaths he can see her quietly forcing herself to take. She still held the same posture on the carpet as when he came by the fireplace to sit next to her. Back straight, legs tidily folded underneath to accommodate for the sleeping gown she was wearing underneath her silk robe, and hands resting on top of her lap.

That was where Fred found the slight difference in the way she was holding herself. As soon as his gaze slid down from her slender shoulders to her neatly folded hands, he saw it.

Her hands, he mused, were small and delicate looking and usually when they were at rest when she sits, are folded neatly one atop of the other. Like bird wings.

Now, her hands were anything but resting.

They were slightly fluttering.

As if something ruffled their feathers.

One hand still lay on top of the other but the other hand beneath was tightly curled into a fist. Its tightened grip causing her hands to faintly tremble. He had an inkling that if the other hand on top was removed, he would see the white knuckles she was making as she dug her manicured nails into the palm of her hand.

It lasted for only a moment and it was gone as soon as he saw it. As if she could feel his gaze on her, she took in a last deep breath and slowly unfurled her hand back to how it was. But it only took that one passing moment for Fred to know... that something was wrong.

“You alright, princess?”, he let out in a soft voice, his tone laced with concern.

She felt it.

Yes, she could tell he was worried over her. And not just because she was a born empath. No. She didn’t need to rely on that part of her to know that. His voice was—so gentle and soothing. Yet, it held such an intriguing blend of both boldness and apprehension to it that it didn’t want to make her pin the person who was asking under a glare of disdain. Usually, with the kind of rumors and reputation that garnered around her, there were mostly only two types of people in her life who would ask about her well-being with feigned compassion: reporters and suitors from highborn pure-blood families like hers.

One wanted to use her to stamp their name on the cover page of every magazine and newspaper.

The other wanted her hand in marriage for her wealth and, out of their archaic and medieval beliefs, to secure the continuation of their family’s pure-blood lineage.

But both were attracted to her by their uninhibited ambition.

Both wanted a piece of her to claim for themselves.

The empath part of her can sense an oily power-hungry leech like that from a mile away, eyes closed.

Although now, the empath in her was sensing something entirely different from the red head beside her.

There was concern, yes. But there was also sincerity… genuine sincerity for her and—

Oh.

There it was. Buried beneath a bundle of his nervousness and the abrupt need to reach out to her...

Kindness.

It was kindness…

And no. It wasn’t the pitiful kind of kindness that would be offered to her with condolences every time her parents’ deaths were brought up in every one of her mandatory but rare social outings. This kindness that she was sensing from him was pure and so unrestrained that it took her aback. Maybe even perturbed her a bit.

She was sensing this from the young man. The very same young man, who, along with his twin, would set off pranks to soak up the chaos they ensued. Resulting disruptive inconvenience and bodily harm to others be damned. Unapologetic and destructive, the two laid waste with their antics on and off the school grounds. Fred Weasley, one of the loud, cocky, and rambunctious devil duo pranksters of Hogwarts…

Was sitting next to her worrying about her well-being.

And Morrigan knows, with the kind of tempestuous and vitriolic relationship that they started off with—almost a week after she transferred from Ilvermorny, she’d never thought that he’d show her, let alone be capable to have this side of him. Perhaps, it was a good thing that she was already sitting down because reconciling these two sides of him was leaving her a tad disoriented.

Despite that… she lets herself welcome the feeling. She lowers her defenses a bit, letting its tendrils wrap around her senses in a warm cocoon. His earnest need to ease her out of whatever unsettled her—so honest and guileless, centers her while it melts away and soothes any residual pain that the painful memory left in her heart.

So different.

A/N: *tenatively pokes her head into the fandom* hey there! 👋 I hoped you enjoyed this “little” preview of my upcoming fred weasley drabble! I’m a newly minted fan so I wasn’t sure how my fic would fare among you older and OG fans so I decided to just post a snippet of it and see how many of you would be interested in my little project. tbh I wasn’t that into the harry potter fandom for most of my life. I did ofc watched the films when I was younger and ended up with a Daniel Radcliffe crush tht lasted up until I became a Hiddlestoner.

But other than tht I didn’t really consider myself as a potterhead.... until one rerun marathon film series drew me back into its clutches and not only got me to start reading the books but also gave me a newfound appreciation and love for the Weasley twins (especially Fred 😉). the twins deserved a better ending than tht btw. heck. almost half of the characters were done dirty by the end of the series 👀

Anyway, I didn’t expect to fall so hard for the twins considering the massive crush my 9 year old self had w/ harry potter lol. those sneaky twins really have a way of worming themselves into your heart without you ever noticing it! Now, it’s been almost two months since watching the movies and I’m still overwhelmed with all the feels about those two 😩. so this fic/drabble was sort of a cathartic release of all my pent up emotions for them. tbh this just started off with me just wanting to describe the aesthetics Fred was giving me but well... all my feelings spilled out. oops 😬

the title is based on a great song that I stumbled on YouTube called “It Takes A Lot to Know a Man” by Damien Rice and I think it fits the dilemma of Fred and Seri finding out that there’s more than what the eye can see with each other. but that’s enough of my rambling for now 😅. If u made it all the way here, congratulations! And thank you for checking out my fic! I really do appreciate the time you spend reading this as well as any feedback you can give 🙏 (the more detailed the better!) Please reblog/like if you enjoyed this as well! I really appreciate it if you could share this with some of ur friends/mutuals it really makes all the sleepless nights working on this worth it!

Also let me know if there are any grammar errors too (bc I’m def sure there are some floating up there) I’m more of a fanfic reader than a writer so this was a BEAST to get out for me!

P.S. I’m also planning to have a self-insert/reader imagine version of this and any future drabbles of this series in the future since I know how some people feel about ocs 👀

Taglist: @firewhisky-kisses @yourssuccubus (who expressed great support in helping me write this! Thanks, u two ❤️ I hope it was worth the wait!

#fred weasley x seri waldren #fred weasley #fred weasley x oc #fred weasley x reader #harry potter oc #seri waldren #fred weasley imagine #james phelps #lee jieun #lee ji eun #harry potter #hp fic: italtks #hp fic: it takes a lot to know someone

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constellationsandneptune · 3 years

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Ever since the release from the IPCC in the UN, I’ve felt an unmistakeable feeling of dread and terror that won’t ever leave. It lingers in my heart, in my chest, hollows out all the ore and love and life that I’ve been gifted, and has left me feeling hopeless and bleak.

I’m not naive enough to think that this feeling will ever lift.

The place I’m in is undoubtedly dark, and bad, and there’s nothing more I can do about it instead hold it in and stare at ceilings while staying awake at unreasonable times. The motivation I once had as a child, gone, and any attempts at attending online schooling has been cast away for a chance at pointless indulgence when I realise that all of it will be for naught. I’ve entertained the thought of death far too many times, to the point where I’ve wondered if many things that I think will eventually turn into actions which form no return. I’ve reasoned with myself, chastised and scolded myself for being afraid of a demise that we’ve brought upon ourselves, yet I can’t help the tears and the onslaught of feelings which bear a heavy burden on my shoulders.

I don’t know what it is I hoped to achieve by making this account, but I’ll see where it goes. Perhaps it’ll serve as a grave towards my loved ones after I’m long gone, or perhaps it’ll die alone and forgotten — like many things on the internet. Perhaps I’ll use it as a memory — a journal with no physical trace of existence— insignificant. I hope it’ll help me, because there’s no much going for me, now, and this is my last, desperate struggle to reach out for even a slimmer of hope, but I’m not too certain on the future.

I cannot express into words what it feels like to be this way. The crushing fear of Earth ending, of civilisation and humanity dying out as though we never mattered. I cannot explain why I am too tired to cry, even though it would be cathartic and relieving when I am too tired to think about anything else. I don’t think I’ll bother explaining the thoughts which plague my mind hourly, reminding me that death is but six steps away — and a lifetime of suffering is everything compared to my last, final moments struggling against a noose. Even as I’m writing this, my expression is blank while my heart aches, yet there’s nothing I can do.

Truly, I have never felt this hopeless. Still not of age, I lack the power and proper skill set to ever do anything which may lessen or prolong our existence. I do not have fifty trillion dollars, and I do not have a kindness strong enough to empathise with those who may be able to help yet contribute nothing. I am reminded time and time again that my anger and despair is all for naught, and at the end of the day, whether I’m crying or laughing the sun still goes on and the moon still rises.

But it’s not about me. At the end of the day, despair is selfish and arrogant; arrogant in the way that despair makes people feel they are even capable of being or wanting to be alone, and selfish in the way that despair makes you lose all prospect of others. Despair is a disease, and it’s grip on mankind will be the death of us all.

It won’t ever be just about me, even if my voice may join the chorus of millions of others crying out in hopes for a more promising future, even if my thoughts are not mine and share the influence of those beyond my years. Humans are one and the same, and in some way we’ve all contributed to our eventual demise - no matter the size of our contribution. And at the end of day, once it all ends, none of it will matter.

The universe will continue to age until all there’ll be left is the final spark of a black hole before it all blinks into nothingness. And life will be but a distant memory billions of years past, and no life will ever occur again. And we will have never mattered. Our music, our cultures, our languages, our grief, our happiness, our shared pain and love will have disappeared and become snuffed out because we are as small as dust in the galaxy. The animals we live with and our loved ones will no longer exist — serving only as atoms which float around aimlessly in the emptiness forever doused in black. What happens now may seem huge for us, but it will forever only be the natural order of things taking its course.

Everything I write sounds pretentious, but perhaps that’s just what feeling hopeless feels like. It’s a gnawing frost freezing your bones, and it’s a disease which poisons your mind and body until all you’re left with is a husk wishing for the very thing most people fear. Hopelessness destroys you, because once you find yourself in it, it never, ever leaves.

And I wish it would. I wish to be happy again. I wish that thoughts of death stop plaguing my blasted mind.

2:47am. I’m tired. I think I will sleep.

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dustedmagazine · 5 years

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Dust Volume Five, Number Six

Photo of Anna Tivel by Matt Kennely

This edition of Dust considers twee pop and 1990s influenced electronica, Malawian street music and stenchcore and a wonderfully understated, gorgeous record by folksinger Anna Tivel (pictured above), among other musical finds. This time, writers included Andrew Forell, Jennifer Kelly, Bill Meyer, Isaac Olson, Peter Taber and Jonathan Shaw. Enjoy!

Barrie — Happy to Be Here (Winspear)

Brooklyn based multinational twee poppers Barrie’s debut album Happy to Be collects a charming array of sweet, feather-light classic AM radio-influenced songs performed by leader Barrie Lindsay (voice/guitar), Spurge Carter (keyboards), Dominic Apa (drums), Noah Prebish (guitar/synths) and Sabine Holler (bass). Lindsay’s songs subtly and acutely describe life as a newcomer to New York. The production and musicianship on Happy to Be Here is never less than expert, full of detail and space that allows each instrument room to breathe. As a singer Lindsay is polite to the point of being demure, and the band follows her lead. Pretty harmonies, delicate guitars and keys, tasteful drumming, unobtrusive but effective bass. You’ll hear echoes of Laurel Canyon, 1980s white soul and The Style Council at their most languid. Perhaps if Barrie weren’t quite so Happy to Be Here the debut would have more impact but if one is considering punting down the East River to a picnic this would be an ideal soundtrack.

Andrew Forell

Big Bend — Radish (Self-Release)

Radish by Big Bend

Nathan Phillips works in one of music’s uncanny valleys, a place where experimental electronics and ambient drone converges with semi-narrative pop. These eight songs enlist avant garde collaborators—Susan Alcorn on guitar, Laraji on zither, Shahzad Ismaily on percussion and moog and Phillips’ bad-ass opera-singing mother Pam on vocals — to create music that is warm, human and accessible. Phillips himself sings plaintively on a number of tracks, inserting vulnerability and uncertainty into a glitchy, glossy texture of electronics; he might remind you of Dntel. Elsewhere tracks veer off into untethered, unpredictable zones; “03 12’-15’,” the track with Alcorn pits trebly abstract guitar against the warmth of synth and piano. “Swing Low” centers its dreaming agitation around Pam Phillips’ spectral soprano, which is inviting but also remote. Electronics buzz and twitter around her like mechanical insects and birds. The Laraji track “Four,” lays in the pinging, tremulous tones of electrified zither over fat resonance of acoustic bass. It’s full of magic, or at least sleight of hand, and you expect something wonderful to emerge from its eerie cascades of dream-sequence zither notes. Shahzad Ismaily works his customary wonders, coaxing strange atmospheres out of the most skeletal of notes and rhythms. With these songs, you feel like you’re waking up in a strange country, not exactly unwelcoming, but not what you were expecting either.

Jennifer Kelly

Com Truise — Persuasion System (Ghostly International)

LA musician Seth Haley, AKA Com Truise, releases nine short tracks of woozy 1980s influenced electronica on Persuasion System. Listening to foregrounded hi-hat driven beats, fretless bass sounds, giant swathes of anthemic synth, you’re almost waiting for Curt Smith and Roland Orzabal to start ruling the world again. Haley is unafraid to reach for the big emotional release. That he doesn’t always hit it is due more to familiarity with those triggers than any lack of compositional skill on his part. When it goes a little darker on the drum & bass driven “Laconism”, the mock doom epic “Privilege Escalation” and the ambient restraint of “Gaussian” Persuasion System shows Com Truise’s aptitude in using stadium synth pop tropes to translate big sounds into big statements.

Andrew Forell

Shana Cleveland—Night of the Worm Moon (Hardly Art)

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The La Luz leader turns introspective on this eerie solo album, sketching glowing just-off soundscapes with a squeaky acoustic guitar and voice. Like many of the songs, the single “Face of the Sun” subdues a spaghetti western swagger into just a hint of wide western horizons; there are bits of cello and bowed bass in the interstices of “Night of the Worm Moon,” shading the folk-acoustic-surf tones towards baroque. Cleveland sings in the common space between bewitching beauty and sing-song madness, Ophelia-esque and surrounded with flowers. She takes command, however, with her guitar, which defines and directs and originates this fetching dream state. Gorgeous, floating, spectral and surprisingly empowered.

Jennifer Kelly

FACS — Lifelike (Trouble in Mind)

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FACS constitutes the latest iteration of the ongoing partnership of singer/guitarist Brian Case and drummer Noah Leger, who each discharged those same duties in Disappears. Expressed mathematically, 2/3 FACS = ½ Disappears, but FACS ≠ Disappears. While the old band’s music moved in a quick and linear fashion around Case’ bleak bark, this new ensemble, which is rounded out by bassist Alianna Kalaba, prefers modular construction and choppy flow. Kalaba’s distorted tone, which recalls Graham Lewis’ playing in mid-1980s Wire (especially live), is a looming presence, stomping through Leger’s sequences of chopped-off rhythm patterns like Godzilla playing a kid’s game with the real estate: “I think I’ll stomp every third house on this block. Next block, I’ll kick every tree to the left. Do I step on the lines, or jump on the cracks?” Case’s guitar blows in and out of the grooves’ vast empty spaces like a flock of metal-coated swallows, absorbing the fading light one moment and then banking up to reflect tiny flashes of the distant red sun the next. His singing has also changed, inching incrementally from the monochrome of yore towards a world-weary, side of the mouth croon. Why, you wonder, does this Chicago band sound so bleak? Hey, it snowed twice in April; what more do you need to know?

Bill Meyer

Forest Management — Passageways (Whited Sepulchre)

Passageways by Forest Management

Electronic musician John Daniel may call himself Forest Management, but don’t be fooled; there’s nothing pastoral about this music. The passageways he had in mind when he composed the music on this LP are remembered from a childhood home in a suburb of Cleveland, and he made the stuff in an apartment in Chicago. Daniel nicely straddles the digital/analog divide by playing a laptop computer but recording some of the music to reel-to-reel tape deck. This enables him to achieve a blurry patina of nostalgia-inducing atmosphere that’ll sit right with Boards of Canada fans. But where BOC used beats and samples to highlight their emotional messages and keep things moving, Daniel’s willing to let the music throb and drift. While Forest Management is a fully mobile project that is quite capable of occupying stages around town, this stuff is best appreciated under controlled conditions at home, where you can cultivate a mindset and manage the setting without facing any risks that one might face while zoning out in public.

Bill Meyer

Madalitso Band — Wasalala (Bongo Joe)

Wasalala by Madalitso Band

The two musicians of The Madalitso Band, who made their name on the sidewalks of Lilongwe (Malawi), play four-string guitar, cow-skin kick drum and homemade, one-string bass. If that sounds like a gimmick, albeit one born of necessity: it is, but all good street bands need one. Like all good street bands, the Madalitso Band’s necessarily formulaic music is inviting and undemanding enough to draw in spare-change-laden passersby all day, if need be. And, like most street musicians and small-time festival favorites, Madalitso Band’s crowd pleasing tricks don’t directly translate into gripping LPs. Wasalala, at 40 minutes, is about double the recommended daily dose (when was the last time you watched even a great busker for more than 15 minutes?), but, play it while you, say, put the dishes away, and this wholly charming, frequently gorgeous record is guaranteed to move the body and brighten the mood of any sentient person within earshot. Its pleasures are as real, necessary, utilitarian, and unvaried as a fan on a hot day.

Isaac Olson

Minotaur Shock — MINO (Bytes)

MINO by Minotaur Shock

On MINO, Bristol-based David Edwards turns away from his characteristic blend of orchestral acoustic and synthetic instrumentation to hone his synthesis craft. Edwards’ obvious composition chops have been a double-edged sword on past releases. Approaching his works as songs rather than tracks has lent them undeniable musicality; but since that approach is unidiomatic for beat-smithing, it sometimes has felt like the work of someone whose primary business was in sync for film dipping their toes into electronic music and bringing the resources of an entire soundstage orchestra with them. MINO’s focus on a single instrument results in a more inventive sound, defrays the risk of sounding excessively filmic, and retains Minotaur Shock’s strengths of earworm tunefulness and emotional sweep. The textures and polyrhythms bear a surface similarity to LA beat scene notables, while the album’s overall sunniness recalls Machinedrum, who underwent a similar turn to synthesis in recent years. A very different direction for Minotaur Shock and some of Edwards’ best work.

Peter Taber

MotherFather — S-T (Self-Released)

MotherFather by MotherFather

MotherFather, a four-piece band from St. Louis, makes broody, duel-guitar-driven post-rock that builds in a slow inexorable way like rough weather or a tidal surge. They build up layers of deep, shadowy sound, churning up the noise gradually so that when abrasive bass saws up through the bottom of “Burning” late in the album, its cinematic metal upheaval is as surprising as cathartic. Two of MotherFather’s members—guitarist Nelson Jones and bassist Brian Scheffer—run a studio in their spare time, and they surround these chugging, chiming onslaughts with clarity. However, the sound is gloomier and less buoyant than epic instrumentalists like Explosions in the Sky, more like the torpid reveries of vocal-less Mogwai or even post-rock-into-metal outfits like Pelican or Red Sparrowes. Guitars drive the train here—that’s Jones and Eli Hindman—but drummer Tim Hardy puts in a strenuous, battering days work on drums and you can’t move the tectonic plates like MotherFather does without muscular, fundamental bass.

Jennifer Kelly

Neolithic—S/T (Self-released)

Neolithic by Neolithic

Do genre labels really matter anymore? At various sites around the web, Neolithic’s music has been described as death metal, grindcore, hardcore and, in one especially bewildering formulation, “pitch-black death/crust.” This reviewer’s ears hear a pretty straightforward species of stenchcore all over this record, but that begs the question: What does “stenchcore” mean to you? In any case, the good news is that this is a terrific record. Nasty, brutish and way too short. The Baltimore band has only been making records for a little over a year, but the music exudes confidence and, whatever we want to call it, a song like “Myopia” demands attention. Its riffs are precise, its bottom end is deep, its textures and affect are simultaneously razor-sharp and dripping with miasmatic, fluid yuck. Sort of like a zombie’s mouth. One gets the feeling that’s something like what the band intends. Enjoy!

Jonathan Shaw

Ivo Perelman / Jason Stein — Spiritual Prayers (Leo Records)

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Brazilian tenor saxophonist is never one to settle for half measures. If he has a good idea, he’s liable to make a series of records out of it. Google the words Ivo Perelman Matthew Shipp if you need an illustration. But some ideas are self-limiting, such as the one that generated this record. Perelman decided that he was going to record duos with free improvising bass clarinet specialists. There just aren’t that many of those around, so the total so far stands at two CDs; one with Rudi Mahall, the other with Jason Stein. Stein has deep roots in the New York area that Perelman has called home for years, but the two men had never met before they unpacked horns and improvised this album in a Brooklyn studio. You wouldn’t know it from listening, though; they two men throw themselves into the endeavor with the sort of fearlessness that only deep acquaintance or utter self-possession. The first quality only existed on a metaphysical plane — each man reminded the other of a beloved and long-lost ancestor. The latter, both have in spades, and for the best of reasons. Both are masters of their horns, both are close listeners and responsive partners, and the hitherto empty field of tenor saxophone / bass clarinet duets turns out to be rich earth. The horns can sound quite like each other, or hit pitches as distant as opposite ocean shores, and the musicians traverse such spaces in a split-second.

Bill Meyer

Sick Gazelle — Odum (War Crime Recordings)

Odum by Sick Gazelle

Releasing improvised music involves risk. Musicians often sacrifice quality control for spontaneity, and some seem unable or unwilling to abandon, edit or control their experiments. However, when it works, the rewards are many. Former Crucifucks and Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelley joins Chicago saxophonist Bruce Lamont (Yakuza and Bloodiest) and ambient guitarist/bassist Eric Block (aka Veloce) to produce a debut album Odum under the moniker Sick Gazelle. The first three tracks combine slow-core jazz and illbient atmospherics with Lamont’s saxophone ,a powerful yearning voice sympathetically supported by Shelley’s percussion and Block’s layers of guitar and bass. The longer pieces “Atlantic” and “Pacific” work best, as Sick Gazelle builds grand spacious structures with an innate sense of dynamics and a muscular foundation. On the short final track “Laguna” the band lets go as Lamont foregoes the sax for a chant-like invocation over a driving rhythm that sounds closer to Sonic Youth than jazz. Odum is dense swamp of sound, easy to get lost in, harboring beauty and danger in equal measure. Leave the compass and venture in.

Andrew Forell

Stander—The Slow Bark (Self-Released)

The Slow Bark by Stander

Pensive guitar lines surge up into tsunamis. Liquid, lyrical melodies disintegrate under a firehose spew of distorted sound. Stander shifts dynamics like it’s wielding a weapon, and maybe it is. These long-form instrumental meditations build from pastoral, serene interludes into raging towers of feedback (and vice versa), though you can often glimpse the original plaintive theme shrouded in noise and fury. Stander is a Chicago-based heavy post-rock instrumental trio built around guitarist Mike Boyd (who, full disclosure, we know from his job as Thrill Jockey’s publicist), Derek Shlepr on bass and Stephen Waller on drums. On The Slow Bark, the band’s first full-length album, Stander masters the slow rolling crescendo in cuts like “Cicada Tree,” where a moody, pondering, unsettled guitar melody unspools so gently that the kick of drums, the onslaught blare of amplification, comes like a defibrillator, which maybe, at that point, you need. “Cold Fingers,” too, alternates the loud and the soft, the rage and the quiescence; it calms enough that you can hear how the interplay works, how Shlepr’s bass underlines and reinforces the melodic line, how a riff gets penciled in once, then returned to for an obliterating refrain. There are no vocals—just a subliminal growl near the end of “Cold Fingers” and some eerie altered voice effects tucked into “Cutting Ants, Conquering Ants”— but this is in no way just an extended instrumental jam. Stander’s tracks are carefully constructed, thoughtfully plotted, even if they all end up blown to bits.

Jennifer Kelly

Anna Tivel—The Question (Fluff and Gravy)

The Question by Anna Tivel

Over four albums, Anna Tivel has quietly been building a reputation as a formidable folk songwriter, a storyteller whose hushed voice weaves simple words into complex narratives about people on the outskirts of society. The Question is tensely, transparently lovely. Tivel’s voice runs toward the calm and matter of fact and never goes much over a conversational murmur. Her melodies, likewise, are precise and pretty. However, the lives she limns in her songs are unruly—a man transitioning to womanhood, a migrant testing a fence line, a homeless child trying to make it through the night—and the thickets of dense, conflicting instrumental sounds seem to echo these complications and strife. She makes wonderful use of strings—viscous throbs of cello, twitchy pizzicatos of violin—to underline but not sweeten her arrangements, and the guitars, too, have a clarity and sharpness that reinforces the acuity of her verses. “Fenceline”’s insistent piano and keening, tremulous strings underline the tension of the southern border crossing; the instrumental interlude zings with anticipation and fear. “Homeless Child” is more overtly folky, but still unblinking and unsentimental as it tells the story of an abandoned child with her own child coming. The refrain couldn’t be sadder or more beautiful, when Tivel sings, “And Jesus Christ, it don’t take much to go from just enough to nothing in the end, and oh my god, homeless child, the world will leave you hanging by a thread.”

Jennifer Kelly

Various Artists — Hearts and Livers: Global Recordings from 78rpm Discs, ca. 1928-53 (Canary Records)

Hearts & Livers: Global Recordings from 78rpm Discs, ca. 1928-53 by Canary Records

Ian Nagoski, the proprietor, curator, researcher, and dogs body of Canary Records, has assembled some marvelous collections of music from records that most 78rpm collectors would leave in the bin. But is that what the people want? Even the characters who populate the farthest corners of record nerd-dom are prone to the influences of groupthink and fashion, and they want you to come up with something just like your last hit, only different. One of the crosses on Nagoski’s shoulder is that while passion compels him to investigate shellac sides of woman whistlers and birdcall imitators, people remember him for his genre-spanning marvel, Black Mirror. Hearts and Livers is Nagoski giving people what they think they want and subtly chiding them as he does so. Both album emblem (there’s no cover — this thing is download-only, and thus not really a thing at all) and title can be read as gentle mockery of the enterprise. But once you get past them, Nagoski’s unerring knacks for selection, sequencing and sound restoration deliver the goods. Exiled rembetika singer Rosa Eskenazi’s quivering lament resonates with Horace Britt’s melodramatic cello recital; a sinuous Korean melody and a beseeching Turkish air impart a common stern spirit. Since he hasn’t written any notes to explain the compilation, it’s all just music, each track equally foreign and mysterious.

Bill Meyer

Various Artists — New American Standards Volume 2 (Sound American)

New American Songbooks Vol.2 by Kris Davis, Matt Mitchell, Aruán Ortiz, Matthew Shipp

To some, the Great American Songbook (which isn’t really a book, but a body of popular songs that captured the hearts of both general audiences and jazz musicians in the pre-rock and roll era) represents the acme of American musical creativity. But while some great and flexible material came out of that era, do we really want to concede that the middle of the 20th century was the best we could do? Careful, such thinking paves the way to donning an unflattering red ball cap. Sound American Publishing initiated the New American Standards series to investigate notions of Americanism and standards. Volume 2 taps four pianists not known for their frequent dips into the Songbook to propose material that speaks for communities didn’t quite make it into the original metaphorical volumes. Matthew Shipp proffers brooding extemporizations upon Protestant hymns composed by individuals you’ve probably never heard of. Matt Mitchell invests two tunes sourced from Bandcamp-era singer songwriters with solemn romanticism. Kris Davis’ prepared piano recasts Carla Bley’s “Identity Picks” as a quasi-gamelan reverie that invites the listener to consider which quirks of identify might lock you out, then and now, and what you might do with (or to) a piece of ubiquitous cultural equipment in order to make your voice heard. And Aruán Ortiz offers a luminous exposition of a piece by cultural critic and polymath Ed Bland. All four musicians played the same piano, which serves to make clearer the individual differences of the four players.

Bill Meyer

Various Artists — Tombstone Trance Vol. 1 (StabUdown)

Tombstone Trance Vol. 1 by Piezo

Fuzzy technoise is the game being played here with varying degrees of earnestness, as suggested by the goofball album art. Listeners may come for marquee names like Kerridge and Powell, though they’re easily outshone by some nicely varied lesser-known acts. Koehler’s “Below Andromeda” is rhythmically inventive but straight-ahead techno. “Mourning Etiquette” from Grey People isn’t far from the crunchy atmospherics of Modern Love artists. Entries from Bad Tracking and The Rancor Index take things to a considerably grittier, Wolf Eyes-esque level. Vanity Productions’ “No Peep Show Here” could be melodic drone from Yellow Swans, while Organic Dial’s “Absolute Other” is an unexpectedly delicate slice of dub-inflected ambient. Piezo offers a dramatic highlight in “Sponge Effect,” which morphs from a melodic arpeggio into an odd-time paroxysmic blob and back again. Hopefully a taste of more great things to come from all concerned.

Peter Taber

Woe —A Violent Dread (Vendetta)

A Violent Dread EP by Woe

This two-song EP is a welcome reminder of how good Woe can be (insert snarky pun here). The Brooklyn-by-way-of-Philly quartet seems to have found a stable line-up, with Lev Weinstein providing drums and Matt Mewton’s second guitar rounding out the band, as they did on 2017’s Hope Attrition. Weinstein’s drumming is less acrobatic than the whacko stuff he pulls off for Krallice — but Woe’s sound is more firmly anchored in black metal’s traditions. Woe’s cover of Dawn’s “The Knell and the World,” recorded by the Swedish band back in 1998, celebrates the continuity of that tradition. That doesn’t mean Woe’s music is derivative or pedestrian. The nine minutes of “A Violent Dread” flash past with a sustained intensity that makes the song feel half that long. Chris Grigg’s singing, playing and songwriting are sleek and tough, feral and rigorous. It’s peak USBM.

Jonathan Shaw

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