#The Oval Tavern

[insidecroydon]

The Errol Linton Band, Blues at The Oval, May 19

Continue reading The Errol Linton Band, Blues at The Oval, May 19

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#Addiscombe #Blues at The Oval #The Oval Tavern

[jobsbuster]

#Rishi Sunak #cricket investment #grassroots cricket #UK #physical activity #young people #schools #ACE Programme #Oval cricket ground #south London #Reuters #Vivek Mishra #British Prime Minister #Hampshire #Southampton #pupils #equipment #T20 World Cups #inclusivity #state school #James Anderson #Chance to Shine #Lord’s Taverners #ACE #Richard Thompson #England and Wales Cricket Board #ECB #Cricket World Cups #Olympics #UK government

[smallgodseries]

[image description: A chipper character wearing a red and deep blue plaid shirt and newsperson’s cap. They hold a bottle in their right hand and point at it with their left. The classic symbols for ‘Male’, ‘Female’, are entwined with a question mark — these symbols appear to be spinning differently on the bottle front than on its neck. Inside the thin golden bezel cameo oval that may (or may not) be shifting its orientation is an impressionist mix of magenta and blue. outside it, five colored horizontal stripes  — Pink, White, Magenta, Black, and Blue.Text reads, “201, RIVER ALGOOD, the small god of the Gender Fluid”]

• • • • •

“Okay, kid, so you found the bar.  Good on you.  That means you need to be here.  No, there’s no cover charge, and we don’t care how old you are—think of it as a public house or an inn as much as it’s a tavern.  Or hell, go with coffee shop.  That’s a modern way of saying ‘gathering place with drinks and plenty of chairs, where you can be yourself with other people who are also being themselves, and not need to worry about anybody seeing you.’  This idea that bars are only about the alcohol is a lot more recent.  But then again, so is clean water.

“Huh?  Yeah, I do talk about it like I was there, because kid, I always have been.  Go all the way back to the creation, to the first people we’d recognize as humans, standing there all hairy and muddy and naked, and there were always the ones who felt like they were one thing when people said they were something else, or who were something different today than they were yesterday, than they’d be tomorrow.  You’re nothing new.

“Honey, you don’t gotta look so scared.  You’re here.  That tells me you belong here, and that tells me you’re one of mine.  If you weren’t, you’d never have found the doors.  I’m not going to judge anything except that nail polish—it looks like you didn’t use a base coat, and it’s going to stain your cuticles.  But you’re young, you’ll learn how to do your nails without dyeing your skin at the same time.  Unless ‘necrosis’ is the look you’re going for.  In that case, you’ve got a lead on the competition.

“Anyway, you’re nothing new, and you’re something valid, and no one gets to tell you who or what or why you are except for you.  All those choices are yours to make, all those futures belong to you, and I’m just the lucky god who gets to guide you along the way.

“My pronouns?  Kid, I’ll take any pronouns you’ve got.  I keep ‘em in a bucket in the back.  Some of them can get kinda frisky sometimes, but they’re all good.  If you need new ones, you can fish ‘em out of the bucket.

“Oh, which ones am I currently using?  I find that ‘divine/divinity’ works pretty well for me.  If that’s too much of a mouthful, you can use my name—River—or ‘they/them’ is almost never entirely wrong.  But really, anything’s good by me.

“I am the god of the changing and the questioning, the malleable and the multiple, the ones who don’t conform, and the ones who won’t, or can’t.  I belong to all of them, all of you, and I will keep you as safe as I can.  It’s not easy.

“Nothing important ever is.

“So you found the bar.  That’s the first step.  Now here’s the question of the hour: what are your pronouns?  Speak, and we can know each other better.”

#Small Gods #smallgodseries #Seanan McGuire #Lee Moyer #icons and stories

[mehoymalloy]

Mayday, mayday! I'm going down, I'm obsessed, I'm doomed, send help.

The first bit of actual writing I've done for Fearne/Poska, with way more to come, I have no doubt.

-

Poska watches through a grimy window as the faun sits at the bar, nursing a drink all on her lonesome so late at night. It feels too lucky to be anything but a trap. Which is why Poska has been standing here between an empty, broken-down cart and some crates, slouched against the exterior of the tavern as she waits to see if anyone will join her quarry.

A few minutes pass… then five… then ten. And no one of note enters. The faun remains alone at the bar, occasionally chatting to the elf-orc bartender as she sips on her drink.

Poska waits until the glass is refilled before she finally enters the tavern. Rolling her shoulders, she opens the door just enough to slip inside without ringing the bell that hangs from a beam near the frame.

No matter how light her steps, the faun’s long ear twitches ever so slightly in her direction as she approaches; when Poska slides into the seat right beside the faun’s, that ear swivels to face her before Fearne herself does.

Poska intentionally does not look at her. She catches the bartender’s eye and smiles as she gestures towards Fearne’s drink, ordering the same for herself. She watches the elf-orc pour the drink and curls her shoulders slightly to lean casually against the bar, not at all bending beneath the weight of the faun’s gaze. She does not even react when Fearne turns to face her, frilly skirts and strange knees brushing against the supple leather covering Poska’s thigh.

Poska waits until her drink is set before her, and she takes a slow sip before she finally turns her head to look at the faun in return.

Fearne has her elbow resting against the bar, jaw lazily cupped in the palm of her hand. Long talons extending from a blackened hand carefully weave through her pale green hair, the sharpened tip of her pinky finger slowly tapping against her cheekbone.

Poska follows the line of that deadly-looking claw up to acidic green irises wrapped around prey pupils, oval and large and shining with the torchlight and maybe something even brighter.

Fearne looks not the least bit surprised to see her.

“Poska,” she says, and Poska grits her teeth at the way she says her name, like she’s holding the most delectable sweet on her tongue—savoring it.

“You cut your hair,” she says, and her eyes crinkle as she smiles. “Cute.”

Poska might just be the slightest bit surprised.

#fearne calloway #poska #exu prime #but technically set in #cr3 #critical role #fearne x poska #wip stuff

[quibbs126]

Oh here's another suggestion for a fankid! Eclair Cookie and Cream Unicorn Cookie

Finally got around to finishing her today, this is Rainbow Cookie

All right, quickfire character things about Rainbow. So she’s a tabletop RPG player, though she specifically likes being the DM. she also has a great love of historical accuracy in her campaigns, and she will ramble about it endlessly if you let her. She’s also a bit fixated on her figurines that she uses in her campaigns, and will clean them sometimes to an obsessive degree (that’s what the sash is for). Outside of that she’s pretty friendly and normal. She gets along well with kids and will tell them stories if they ask her to

That wasn’t really quickfire but you got the gist of her, yeah?

Anyways, onto design notes

So she’s based on rainbow cookies, not just rainbows. I thought it fit Cream Unicorn because rainbows, and with Eclair because it works with his colors

Rainbow cookies:

I’m gonna admit, while I like her design in a vacuum, she’s probably too plain compared to her parents, and it’s not really clear what she does from design alone. She looks more like she works in a tavern. Maybe I’ll give her a second outfit design later on, maybe it’s what she wears when she DMs

I had her hair designed a long time ago, and I really liked doing the colors, it’s just that I couldn’t think of an outfit for her

Also her outfit’s definitely inspired by that one Dragon City NPC. I did try and make her design at least somewhat different though

I tried to make her eyes more oval in the finished product to look more like Cream Unicorn, but I’m not entirely sure if it came through

I feel like I had more to say but I can’t remember what at the moment. But I do like her, and I hope you enjoy her as well

#this is the second design I’ve finished today #but I can’t show the other one yet because it’s part of a multi request that I haven’t finished #cookie run #cookie run kingdom #cookie run oc #cream unicorn cookie #eclair cookie #rainbow cookie #my ocs #my art #requests #answers

[aeterno-if]

18 January 2024

hi y'all

this isn't an official return, but i wanted to give an idea of where the story and i are at.

this hiatus has helped relieve a lot of the pressure i'd placed on myself. stepping away from tumblr and from the story has allowed me to get out of my head and let go of a lot of hangups regarding aeterno and the expectations i had for myself and what i assumed readers would have.

that said, there hasn't been a lot of writing going on, but it's been easier when i do. trying to find the right voice and tone has been difficult, but not letting myself compare this story to any others has been a great help in the long run, and i think it's got its footing now. i do believe the story will be darker than i previously anticipated, and the mc in particular has a new set of issues. there will absolutely be an updated warning list in the future.

but for now, meet pyewacket:

[Image Text: Your room at The Golden Spoke Tavern and Inn is small. The topmost room, it's swelteringly hot in the summer days, and also the cheapest. It boasts nothing but a single narrow bed, a single chest with lock and key, one wall-mounted oil lamp, and the well acquainted washbasin with its hazy oval mirror. As you clean away the blood, the form of a small animal catches your eye.

A cat, belonging to another of the tavern's patrons, has made your bed its roost. You are unsure how exactly it gets into your room, but the feline is there when you wake in the afternoons and return in the wee hours of morning. Although you reserve suspicion for the animal, it has brought you some comfort, as if an anchor to the world of the living.

When it sees you looking, the cat rolls on its back with its feet tucked to its chest and fang poking from a disarming smile. Sunlight streams from the window above, rusting its black fur.]

xx

#progress update

[drinkthemlock]

NIGHT AT THE TAVERN

V - CLAUDIUS HERMANN

This chapter beat my ass, not gonna lie. It contains a poem, which are extremely hard to translate (especially since it’s an álvares poem…), so forgive me for any inaccuracies in that department. This chapter contains some pretty repulsive stuff, especially regarding sexual assault and abduction (seriously), and I’d go as far as saying it’s the most disturbing one (followed closely by Solfieri’s). Stay safe, and enjoy!

Text by Álvares de Azevedo, translation my own.

V

Claudius Hermann

… Ecstasy!

My pulse as yours doth temperately keep time

And makes a healthful music. It is not madness that I have utter’d.

SHAKESPEARE - “Hamlet”

“And you, Hermann! Your turn has come. One by one we invoked a corpse from the cemetery of time. One by one we lifted its shroud to sample you a drop of blood. Speak, for your turn has come.”

“Claudius dreams of a sonnet in the manner of Petrarch, some halo of purity like that of the pure spirits from Der Messias,” Johann said between a smoke and a laugh, lifting his head off the table.

“Very well! You want a story? I could tell, like you, insanities of nights of debauchery, but why? It was intended as mockery when Faust went to remind Mephistopheles of the hours of damnation he spent with him. You know them… these clouds of the past; you’ve read plenty at the faded book of my libertine existence. If you do not remember it, the first woman of the streets you find could remind you. In this dark river called life that flows towards the past while we walk towards the future, I also gave up faith and threw myself, having shed my most perfumed clothing, to wear the tunic of Saturnalia! The past is what is gone, it’s the flower that has withered, the sun that has set, the corpse that has rotted. To cry for it? What madness! Better sleep with your dark memories! Come to life, wake only the forget-me-nots in bloom in that swamp! Floats, in that not-being, the scent of a pure memory!”

“Bravo! Bravissimo Claudius, you are completely drunk! In truth you are a romantic!”

“Silence, Bertram! It is true that this is not a legend to be told after yours, one of those things to be told with your elbows on the red cloth and your lips splashed with wine and satiated with kisses… But why bother?”

“You all that love the game, you that once saw a wave of golf flow in that abyss, eddy in the bottom, like a sea of hopes that crashes on the high tide of fate, you know well what haze confuses us then… it is the best insanity that riles us in those games of thousands of men, or of fortune. --Aspirations, life itself at the speed of a race, where all this complex of miseries and desires, crimes and virtues called existence is thrown onto a couple of horses![1]

I bet, as a man that wasn’t wounded by growing poor: luxury also satiates; and that is a horrible satiety! To it nothing is enough… not the dances from the Orient, nor the Roman Lupercalias, not even the burning of an entire city will quench its thirst for blood, this vitality of poison that Byron speaks of [2]. My gamble at the turf was my whole fortune. I was rich, very rich then: in London no one boasted more expensive depravities, no nawab splurged in one evening as many sums as I. The sweat of three generations, I spilled it on the beds of whores, and on the floor of my orgies…

In the moment the races were about to start, when everyone felt feverish with impatience, a murmur ran through the crowds, a smile… and then a woman shot by on horseback. Had you seen her, like me, on a black horse, with velvet clothes, with her lively face, the ardent look between her eyelashes, reflecting a queen in all those grandiose gestures! Had you seen her, beautiful with her perfect and harmonious beauty, beautiful with her pure and silky coloring, with her black hair and the white skin of her face, the oval of her rosy cheeks, the nacre fire of her thin lips, the perfection of her chest standing out in her riding habit… Had you seen her like this, honestly, gentlemen, you wouldn’t have laughed as you are laughing now!”

“Romanticism! You must be very drunk, Claudius, for on your dry lips of Lovelace and your detachment of Don Juan [3], poetry has come and given a kiss!”

“Laugh, yes! You wretches! That do not understand what perhaps flows like fire from Lovelace’s lips, how love heaves under the dripping wet clothes of Don Juan– the libertine! Madmen, that have never imagined Lovelace without his mask, maybe crying for Clarissa Harlowe [4]— poor angel! Whose white wings she was going to shed, cursing this fatality that makes love an infamy and a crime! A thousand times you are madmen! That never imagined the Spaniard waking up in the lupanar [5], running his hand through his forehead and burning with remorse and longing as he remembers so many beautiful visions from the past!”

“Bravo! Bravo!”

“Poetry! Poetry!” mumbled Bertram.

“Poetry! Why pronounce to the chaste virgin its sacred name, like a mystery, in the filth of the tavern? Why remind her of the star of love in the light of the orgy’s lamps? Poetry! Do you know what poetry is?”

“Half hundred sonorous words that a handful of pallid men understand, a ladder of sounds and harmonies that to those mad souls seem like ideas and unleash illusions like the moon to shadows… that is, in what one calls poets. Now, in the ideal, in the woman, resentment from the last romance, the delirium and passion of the last novel’s heroine and the vague and uncertain present of a mystical pleasure, for which a virgin recoils in lust, without knowing why…”

“Silence, Bertram! Your brain has been fried by wine, like lava from a volcano burns the brush and flowers of a meadow. Silence! You are like those plants that bloom and dive into the dead sea: a limestone crystallization covers them, they wither and die. Poetry, I’ll tell you as well on my turn, is the flight of the morning birds in the warm embrace of dawn’s red clouds, it is the deer that rolls in the dew of the lush mountain, that forgets tomorrow’s death, yesterday’s agony, in its bed of flowers!”

“That’s enough, Claudius, because that which you say no one understands: they are words, words and more words; like Hamlet said; and all that is empty and lifeless like a dried skull, deceitful like the earth’s infectious vapors that the twilight sun flushes with a thousand colors called clouds and that jeering and cloudy fairy called poetry!”

“The story! The story! Claudius, can’t you see this discussion is making us yawn with boredom?”

“Very well, I shall tell the rest of the story. At the end of that day I would’ve doubled my fortune.

The next day I saw her: it was in the theater. I don’t know which play was it, I don’t know what I saw, or heard; I only knew that there was a woman, as beautiful as every most pure thing the sculptor creates. This woman was the duchess Eleonora… The next day I saw her at a ball… Then… It took long: six months! Can you imagine? Six months of agony and breathtaking desire, six months of love with the thirst of a beast! Six months! How long were they!

One day, I’d had enough. All this time had been spent in contemplation, in seeing her, loving her, dreaming of her; I wrung my hands thinking it would not go further from that, that it was too much to wait in vain and that if she would not come, like Gulanre at the feet of the Corsair [6], one must go speak to her.

One night all were asleep in the duke’s palace. The duchess, tired from the ball, fell asleep on a divan. The alabaster lamp trembly shone its golden light on her pale face. She looked like a fairy asleep in the moonlight.

The portière fluttered: a man stood there, distracted. His head was so hot and feverish and he rested it in the doorframe.

The weakness was cowardly; and more, this man had bought a key and at one point under the betrayal of a servant, this man had sworn he’d have that woman tonight. Gone is the poison, he’d drink the nectar of that flower, the scarlet liquor of that glass. As to these losses of honor and adultery, do not laugh at them - not that he laughed at it. He loved and he wanted her: his want was like the blade of a dagger — to harm or to crack.

On the table there was a cup and a vial of wine, he filled it: it was Spanish wine… he came close to her, with her velvet clothes untied, her hair half loose still woven with gemstones and flowers, her breast half naked, where diamonds glittered like dewdrops, he lifted her in his arms, kissed her. Under the heat of that kiss, half-naked, she woke; among her vague dreams an illusion perhaps peered through; she murmured ‘love!’ and with heavy lidded eyes she let her head fall and fell asleep again.

The man drew from his breast an emerald vial. He lifted it to her half-open lips and poured a few drops that she absorbed without feeling them. He laid her down and waited. From then on her sleep was most profound… The liquid was a narcotic which was a mix of a few drops of those exciting liquors that inspire fever on the face and voluptuousness in the heart.

The man was on his knees, his chest trembled, and he was pale like a man after a long sensuous night. Everything seemed to falter around him…

She was naked: neither velvet, nor sheer veil covered her. The man rose and moved the curtains.

The lamp shone brighter and then went out…

That man was Claudius Hermann.

-

When I rose, I shrouded myself in my cape and walked off into the street. I wanted to retire to my home, but I was as dizzy as a drunkard. I was staggering and the floor seemed slippery, like when one feels faint. Though an idea chased me. After that woman there had been nothing for me. Someone who has drunk from the wine of the ripe grapes of paradise should never again get drunk with earthly nectar…

When the nectar has run dry, what is left if not suicide?

A week went on like this: every night I drank from the sleeping woman’s lips a century of pleasure. One month, in which entrudo balls [7] deliriously went by, more feverish yet, she fell asleep hot, with her face on fire…

One night — it was after a ball — I waited for her in her bedroom, hidden behind her bed. I had poured the last drops from the vial in the cup of water beside her bed when she walked in with the duke.

He was a beautiful man! Before leaving her he placed his hands on her brow and kissed her. Giddy with that kiss, the angel rested her head on his shoulder and circled him with her bare arms, glittering with bejeweled bracelets. The duke was thirsty, took the duchess’ cup, drank a few drops; she took the cup away from him, and drank the rest. I watched them this way: that husband, still so young, that woman — ah! And so beautiful! With immaculate skin — and squeezed the dagger…

‘Will you come today, Maffio?’

‘Yes, my soul.’

A kiss was whispered, and drowned the two souls. And I smiled in the shadows, for I knew he ought not to come.

-

He left, and she began to undress. I watched her shiny clothes, the flowers and the jewels, slip off one by one, saw the dark shiny braids come undone and then appear under the white veil of her transparent robe, like the statues of half-undressed nymphs, with their curves contoured by their tunics drenched in bath water.

What I saw… It was what I’d much dreamed of, what you all, poor madmen, idealized as the visions of love over a whore’s body! It was her snowy breasts, with blue veins, trembling with desire, her head lost among the shower of dark hair, her lips heaving, her entire body palpitating: it was the wantonness of imperfection, when beauty’s body is filled with even more beauty, and, like a rose blooming wet with dew, the more it expands, the more its beauty blossoms.

The narcotic was very powerful: a feverish suffering parted her lips; exerted and languid, lying on the bed, with colorless eyelids, arms limp and devoid of strength, I seemed to be kissing a shadow.

I lifted her from the bed; I carried her in her transparent clothes, her satin form, her loose hair still humid with perfume, her breasts still warm…

I ran with her through the deserted corridors, passed through the patio, the last door was closed: I opened it. There was a coach in the street: the horses neighed with impatience. I entered the coach with her. We took off.

It took long. An hour later the sun was rising.

Soon we were outside the town.

Dawn was coming alongside its vapors, its rose bushes sprayed with dew, its velvety clouds and its waters peppered with gold and warmth. Nature blushed under the sun’s first kiss, like a pale damsel under her groom’s first kiss: not like the voluptuous night’s stolen lover as paganism painted her, more like a virgin awoken from childish slumber, kneeled before God, praying and whispering her balsamic prayers to the bluing sky, the glittering earth, the waters turning gold. This dawn fell onto the earth like God’s breath; and among that light and that fresh air, the duchess slept, pale like the slumber of those mystical creatures in illuminated manuscripts from the Middle Ages, beautiful like Titian’s sleeping Venus [8], and voluptuous like one of Veronese’s fallen women [9].

I kissed her: I was feeling the life that was evaporating from her lips. She was startled, half-opened her eyes, but the weight of sleep still burdened her, and so her colorless eyelids closed…

The carriage continued fast.

-

The sun had reached its apex in the sky — it was noon; the heat was stifling: through the head, the face, drops of sweat rolled down the duchess’ chest like the pearls of a broken necklace…

We stopped by a boarding house; I threw a veil over her face, took her in my arms and carried her to a room.

She must look so beautiful like this! The servants stopped by in the corridors: it was for awe at such beauty, even more so than just indiscreet curiosity.

The owner of the house came to me.

‘Sir, your wife or your sister, whoever she is, she will certainly need a maid to serve her…’

‘Leave me, she sleeps.’

That was my only answer.

I laid her on the bed, drew the curtains, closed the windows so that the light did not disturb her sleep. There was no one there who could see us, we were alone, the man and his angel; and the earthly creature knelt by the bed of the heavenly one.

I do not know how much time went on like this, I’m not sure if I slept, but I know that I dreamt of much love and much hope, I’m not sure if I watched over her, but I always saw her there, I contemplated her every gracious sleeping movement, I shuddered at every breath that made her breast tremble, and everything seemed like a dream to me, one of those dreams in which the soul abandons itself like a swan becoming sleepy to the sound of the water… I do not know how much time went on like this: I only know that my stillness broke, the duchess was sitting up in the bed, with her bare arms she brushed off the waves of loose hair that covered her face and chest.

‘Is this a dream?’ she mumbled, ‘Where am I? Who is this man leaning on my bed?’

The man did not answer.

She left the bed; her first impulse was modesty: she tried to cover her breasts, palpitating with fear, with her little hands. She felt nearly naked, exposed to the view of a stranger, and she trembled like the poets say Diana trembled when she saw herself exposed, in her bath, naked to the eyes of Actaeon [10].

‘Sir, tell me, for mercy, if this is all not an illusion… if this was not an insult! I don’t even want to think about it. Maffio won’t be long, won’t he? My Maffio…! This is all a comedy… but what room is this? I fell asleep in my palace… How did I wake in a strange chamber? Tell me, is this not all a joke of Maffio’s? He wants to laugh at me… But, see, I tremble, I am afraid.’

The man would not respond: he had his eyes fixed on that divine form. She’d be a statue of passion in her pallor, her fixed gaze, her wanting lips, if the heaving of her chest did not denounce she was alive.

She knelt; I don’t even know what she was saying. I do not know what words evaporated from those lips: they were perfumes, because the roses of heaven have only perfumes; they were harmonies, because the harps of heaven have only harmonies; and the lips of a beautiful woman are a divine rose, and her heart is a heavenly harp. I heard her, but did not understand her, I felt only that those words were very sweet, that that voice held an irresistible talisman to my soul, because only in my boyish, illusionary dreams of love, I had come across a voice like that.

The moans of two virgins embracing each other in heaven, made golden by the light of God’s face, pale by the most pure kisses, by the trembling of the most palpitating embraces, would not be as gentle as that voice!

The girl cried, sobbed; at last she rose.

I saw her run to the window, she was about to open it… I ran and grabbed her by the hands…

‘Very well,’ she said, ‘I’ll scream… if this is not a desert, if someone walks by… They may help me… Help m…’

I shut her mouth with my hands…

‘Silence, madam!’

She fought to free herself from my hands; at last she became tired. I let go of her out of pity.

‘For mercy then make this doubt of mine clear: what is the reason for all I see? Everything that I think, that I guess, is too horrible!’

‘Listen then,’ I told her, ‘There was a woman… An angel. There was a man who loved her, like the waters love the moon that makes them look silvery, like the eagles in the mountains love the sun that faces them, that fills them with light and love. I don’t even know who he was; he rose above a life of fever one day, forgot it; and forgot the past before a woman’s transparent eyes, the stains of his story, in a dawn of pleasures, where for him it was drawn the shadow of this angel… Listen: do not curse him! This man had much dishonor in the past, he had damned his youth, prostituted, like a golden butterfly, his generation, throwing it in the mud; cold, without beliefs, without hopes, he had smothered one by one his illusions, like the infanticide does to her children… Perhaps God had cursed him! Or he himself had cursed him… Forgotten he was a man and had in his heart harmonies as saintly as the poet’s… He had forgotten them and they slept in mystery like the chords of an abandoned guitar. He’d forgotten that nature was beautiful, and very beautiful at that, that the night flowers’ bed was fragrant, that the moon was the lamp of lovers, the breezes of the valley, the perfumes of the poet in his betrothal to the angels and that dawn held fresh breezes… and with its virginal clouds, its leaves wet with dew, its cloudy waters, it had charms that only the pure souls understand! He rejected all that, forgot it all… Only to be reminded with lasciviousness and mocking during his sweaty hours of depravity… He was so depraved!’

‘But all that does not tell me who you are… nor why am I here…’

‘Listen: the libertine did love the angel then, turned his back to the past, freed himself of it like an impure shroud. Retempered himself in the fire of sentiment, steadied himself in the vision of that virginity, because she was as beautiful as a virgin, and reflected that virginal light of her spirit in the divine soul’s glow that illuminated her form, that came not from the earth, but from heaven. Time still hadn’t ailed the libertine’s heart with an incurable leprosy, nor had engraved his brow with an inextinguishable mark — impurity! He left behind the life he used to live, ignored his colleagues, his purchased lovers, his feverish insomnias, wanted to erase all the taste of existence, like a man who has lost everything on the gambling table would like to forget reality. And the man was able to forget it all. But he was still not happy. He spent nights around her palace, sometimes he saw her, beautiful and pale, beneath the moonlight, or distinguished her form in the shadow that passed behind the curtains of her illuminated bedroom’s open window. During the balls he followed that palpitating body with looks of envy. In the theater, between the heaving of the waves of harmony, when ecstasy floated in that balsamic and illuminated room, he saw nothing but her— and only her! And the hours spent in his bed… not his hours of sleep, because he barely slept, because at times they were long hours of impatience and insomnia, at times short hours of ardent dreams! The poor madman had an idea one day: it was grim, yes, but it was what providence demanded. What he did I do not know, nor ever will. And later, drunk enough to dream of you, mad enough to imagine having you in his fiery dreams, was profane enough to dare steal from the temple a ciborium of most pure gold. This man… have mercy on him, for he will love you on his knees… oh angel, Eleonora…’

‘My God! My God! Why such calumny, so much filth about me? Oh Madonna! Why do you curse my life so, why have you let a mark this dark fall upon my head?’

The tears, the sobs muffled her voice.

‘Forgive me, madam, here you have me at your feet! Have pity on me, for I suffered a lot, loved you a lot, l love you a lot! Mercy! For I will be your slave, I will kiss your feet, I will kneel at your doorstep, will listen to your breaths, your prayers, your dreams… and that will suffice… I will be your slave and your dog, I will lie at your feet when you are awake, I will guard you with my dagger when the night falls, and, if one day, if just one day you could love me… then… then…’

‘Oh, leave me be! Leave me be!’

‘Eleonora! Eleonora! To lose nights upon nights on a single hope! To nurture it in your breast like a flower that wilts with cold, to nurture it, revive it every day, to see it be defoliated before my face! To drown myself in love and receive only mockery and ridicule back! Tell the painter to tear his Madonna, the sculptor to break his statue of a woman into pieces.

Insane, poor madwoman that you are! Do you believe that a man should bring life to a thought inside his head, to live out of this rot, to soak himself in the vitality of pain, to later have it torn from his breast? Do you believe he would allow his heart to be stepped on, to have his… he, poet and lover! The flowers from the crown of illusions, one by one, throughout the night of disgrace, against his mad mother’s love smother in his breast the creature of his blood, his life’s child, the hope of his hopes?’

‘Oh, and do you not have pity on me also? Do you not know it? This is a disgrace! I am a poor woman. On my knees I beg you to forgive me if I’ve offended you… I beg of you, leave me be! Why would your dreams, your love matter to me?’

That pain hurt me profoundly: those tears burned me. But my will made itself firm and ferrous like destiny.

‘Why do my dreams matter, why do my love matters? Yes, you are right! Why would it matter for the water in the desert and the gazelle in the sand that the Arab is thirsty or the lion is hungry? But thirst and hunger are fatal. Love is like that; do you understand it now?’

‘Kill me then! Have you not a dagger! A single stab, for the love of God! I swear, I will thank you…’

‘To die! And you think of dying! Senseless woman! Slide from the warm bed of love to the cold slab of the dead! You do not know what you’re saying. Do you know what this word is: — to die? It is the doubt that haunts existence, it is the doubt, the premonition that makes the brow of the suicidal man cold, flows though their hair like wintery winds and turns us pale like Hamlet! To die! It is the end of all dreams, of all palpitations in the heart, of all hopes! It is to be breast to breast with our old lovers and not feel them! Madwoman! The betrothal of the vermin is a frightful one, a very dark sheet that of the burial shroud! Do not speak of this; why think of the gravedigger alongside the bed of life? Put your hand on your heart… it beats… and beats strongly, like a fetus in its mother’s womb. There is still much life in there, much love to be loved, much lust for living! Oh! If only you wanted to love me!’

She hid her head in her hands and sobbed.

‘It is impossible, I cannot love you!’

I told her:

‘Eleonora, listen to me, I’ll leave you alone, but I will guard you from that door. Make up your mind, let it be a firm decision indeed, but a thought out one. Remember that after today you will not be able to return to the world: duke Maffio would be the first to run from you, he would sense the vice of adultery on your face, he would think he was feeling the wetness of a stranger’s kiss on your mouth. He would hate you! See: further is the hatred and mockery, the ridicule of other women, the vengeful jeers from those that loved you and you did not love back. When you walk in, they will say: there is she! She repents! The husband… poor he! He has forgiven her… Mothers will hide their daughters from you, honest wives will be ashamed to touch you… And here, Eleonora, here you will have my breast and my love, a life just for you, a man that will think of you only and always dream of you, a man whose world will be only you, your laughter, your gaze, your love, that will forget yesterday and tomorrow to make, like a God, you his Eternity. Think, Eleonora! If you wanted, we’d leave today; a life of adventure awaits us. I am very rich, enough to adorn you like a queen. We’ll run to Europe, we will see France with its luxury, Spain, whose climate invites love, where the afternoons are fragrant with the orangeries in bloom, where the fields turn to velvet filled with a thousand multicolored flowers, we will go to Italy, to your homeland and, in its blue sky, its clear nights, its most tender twilights we will live anew under the meridional sun! If you wanted it… Otherwise it would be too horrible… I do not know what would happen: but whoever entered this room would find their feet covered in blood.’

I left; two hours later I came back.

‘Have you thought it over, Eleonora?’

She did not respond. She was lying with her face between her hands. To the sound of my voice, she had risen. There was a piece of paper, wet with her tears, on the bed. I stretched out a hand to take it, she handed it to me. They were some verses of mine. I looked at the table, my valise, that I had taken from the coach, was open, the papers were a mess. These were those verses.”

Claudius produced a yellowed and crumpled paper from his pocket, and threw it on the table. Johann read it:

“Do not hate me, woman, if in the past

A dark stain discolored my life,

– It’s that I’ve burned my lips in the ardent vice

And disbelieved everything with my head held high.

Don Juan’s mask burned my face

In the libertine’s cold pallor:

That gaze made me jaded… and those cold lips

Dare to curse my destiny.

Yes! Long nights in the fervor of gambling

I splurged, feverish and sickly

And entrusted my future to the God of fate

And love I profaned in forgetting!

I wilted the poet’s flowers in mockery,

In the irony of glory and of amours:

To the vapors of wine, insane at night

Leaned over from gambling into fervors!

I profaned the flower of youth

Among the murky waters of the past…

In the brain, fever, on the face, pallor,

I believed only in the calm grave!

And the Angel’s immaculate wings,

On the breaths of the sold woman I defiled,

Still darkens my lips the purple brand

Of the whore’s kisses.

And the myrrh of the verses no longer exhales

In the dishallowed cup, dark and tainted:

A sea of filth drained in the river of my soul,

Ripped the white flowers off the margins,

Dream of glories! only runs through me too quickly,

Like an open flower, in fear, in tomb-filled floor

— languished and without fragrance…

My love… the heart silences it:

I keep it deep inside the shadows of the shrine

Where the weeds did not fill the voidness.

My love… it was a white clothed vision

From the orgy to the door, cold and sobbing.

Holy lamp raised in depraved bed,

Tavern’s templar vase at the table,

Pale morning star [11] reflecting

On the mire of crime.

Like the old cities’ leper

I know you ran with horror from [my] kisses,

I know, in the crazy living of those mad years

Faith I deflowered in dark insanity…

– Vestal, I prostituted the virgin forms,

I myself threw into the sea the leaves from the crown,

Exchanged the pink tunic of childhood

For the shroud of orgies.

Oh! Do not love me at all! Very well! One day

The Lord may say to poor Lazarus:

You there, lift yourself from the Lupanar of death,

Come alive at the freshness of purer living!

And I will live again: the moth

Shakes its wings, jerks them, shines,

Shedding the dark skin, the filthy goo

Of the faded caterpillar.

Then, woman, I will rise from the filth

Where Satan bedded me [12]

Where still warm he perfumed his proxy,

Satin nudity of snowy forms.

And the blonde whore, in her white breasts

Laid my livid head, in the sleeplessness

I came down with the fever of voluptuousness unto thirst

Under those purchased kisses.

And so I will wake under the most pure sun,

Fair smelling breezes of hope!

I’ll wash myself of faith in the golden waters

Of Magdalene in tears! and from the angel

That perhaps God may give me, curved and mute,

Steal a kiss, in the vapors of love,

To die in his lips!”

“She became quiet: she was crying and moaning.

I came close to her, kneeled as if before God.

‘Eleonora, yes or no?’

She turned her face to the other side, tried to speak… she interrupted herself at every sillable.

‘Wait, let me pray a little, Madonna might forgive me.’

I waited always. She kneeled.

‘Now…’ she said, getting up and stretching her hand.

‘Well?’

‘I’ll go with you.’

And fainted.”

-

Here stopped the story of Claudius Hermann.

He lowered his head onto the table, and spoke no more.

“Are you sleeping, Claudius? By God! You’re either drunk or dead!”

It was Archibald addressing him: he shook him with all his might.

Claudius lifted his head a little, he was sickly, his eyes were hollowed under a dark shadow.

“Leave me be, cursed ones! Leave me be by hell or heaven! Can’t you see I’m sleepy… sleepy and very sleepy?”

“What about the story, the story?” boomed Solfieri.

“What about the duchess Eleonora?” asked Archibald.

“The duchess… It feels to me as if I’ve heard this name once… To hell with it, why does it matter to me?”

Then he wanted to proceed, but an invincible force held him back.

“The duchess… it’s true! But how did I forget all that I do not remember? Take this weight off my head… I bet they filled my skull with molten lead!” and he hit his sickly head like a doctor hits the chest of the agonizing man to find an echo of life.

“So?”

“Ah! Ah! Ah!” laughed someone that had kept himself askew to the conversation.

“Arnold! Shut up!”

“You shut up first, Solfieri! I will tell the end of the story.”

It was Arnold-the-blond, that woke..

“Listen you all,” he said: “one day, Claudius entered his home. He found the bed soaked in blood: and on a dark corner of the alcove a madman embracing a corpse. The corpse was Eleonora’s, the madmen’s ye could not even recognize given how much the agony had disfigured him! It was a rigid, tousled head, with greenish flesh, sunken eyes and spleen where the lumen of insanity timidly scintillated, like the luminous emanation of the marsh between the shadows…”

But he had recognized him… “It was duke Maffio.”

Claudius guffawed. — It was as grim as insanity, as cold as the sword of the angel of darkness. He fell to the ground, livid and sweaty like agony, rigid like death…

He was as drunk as Noah the Patriarch, the vine’s first ever lover, unknown virgin until then and today whore of all mouths… drunk as Noah, the first ever drunkard that history speaks of! He slept sound and heavily like Saint Peter the Apostle at the Mount of Olives… The case being that both of them had dined that night…

Arnold spread his cloak on the ground and laid on top of it.

A few moments later his baritone’s snores mixed with the great concerto of the sleepers’ snores.

-

[1] Claudius is talking about gambling and horse racing.

[2] Reference to Byron’s Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto III.

[3] Richard Lovelace is a character from Samuel Richardson’s novel Clarissa and Don Juan is a fictional character appearing in many works, notably Byron’s homonymous poem; both are famed libertines.

[4] Main character from the novel mentioned earlier.

[5] famous brothel in Pompeii.

[6] reference to Byron’s The Corsair.

[7] The word “entrudo” refers to an earlier version of the modern Brazilian Carnaval.

[8] Could be a reference to either of these paintings.

[9] In the original Portuguese “amásia” means a woman living with a man she is not married to. Translated to fallen woman for clarity.

[10] Reference to the myth of Diana and Actaeon, in which he, a hunter, sees the goddess naked, bathing in a stream. To punish him she turns him into a deer, making him be torn apart and devoured by his own hunting dogs.

[11] In the original “Estrela d’alva, meaning the planet Venus (morning star).

[12] In the original, “se pernoitou comigo” literally means “spent the night with me”, but I chose to highlight the double entendre.

#romanticism #álvares de azevedo #poetry #noite na taverna #noite na taverna translation #praying everything is alright w this text 😭

[iamthemess]

Tear drops and pen scribbles

Genshin impact

No shipping, no warning, dragon Neuvilette, chpt 1

Freminet & Neuvilette

-

Hydro dragon, Hydro dragon please don't cry

There is a legend in Fontaine Every time it begins to rain It is no fault of cloud or skies But the wails of the Hydro dragon as it cries

"Hydro dragon, Hydro dragon, please don't cry."

The sky was dark and gloomy as it had been since that morning. The rain bolted down onto the ground in such a way that it mirrored a waterfall which caused shops to close early that morning and everyone stayed home. The only people left out in the rain were those running back home to find shelter from the cold and the drunks stupid enough to stay at the tavern instead of going home.

The lone exception to these rules was the Iudex of Fontaine, the chief justice, Neuvillette who, in a downpour such as this, would rather sit outside the Opera epicles by the fountain in silence and thought.

Hydro dragon, Hydro dragon

He preferred to watch the rain even if he ended up soaking wet. He never thought to hesitate when faced with whirling winds and torrential downpours because it was the only time he truly felt alone and at peace. Even if that peace held no comfort and only tears of sorrow.

A pitiful thought, that peace could hold no comfort.

Please don’t cry.

He sat beneath the sanctuary of the fountain. Not many people thought to spend their time beneath the water so if someone did happen to wander past they wouldn’t think twice about looking too closely at the fountain.

Not even the boy sitting in the rain by the edge of the water. The rain was pouring down in buckets but he sat in the cold and even held a sketch pad and a pencil in one hand like it was any ordinary day.

Neuvillette could hear him humming a small tune as his pencil scratched into the wet paper. The thin layers ripped apart on each stroke but the boy didn't seem to mind.

Neuvillette wasn't often one to spy on others or get into their personal affairs but he found himself with a hint of curiosity at what he was drawing.

Most people who drew or painted around the fountain were creating beautiful sites of the Opera Epiclese but this boy had his back turned to the theatre.

In an unthought out impulse Neuvillette got a little closer, sitting in the fountain he looked over the boys shoulder to his notepad.

An odd oval? A scribble? It didn't resemble much not that any drawing would look like much being drawn in the rain.

Even so the odd circle captivated the chief justice. Something so imperfect, something ruined looked so gorgeous. It was obvious there was something intentional about the oddity.

Then he explained "It's the puddle beneath my feet. The reflection is pretty… but I don't know how to draw it."

The boy spoke out loud as he continued to draw across the page. Neuvillette got closer and gasped with excitement "That is interesting."

The boy jumped from his seat, his pencil falling into the puddle and his notebook thrown into the air as he slipped on the wet concrete. He landed harshly on his back and winced in pain.

Of course Neuvillette quickly rushed over to see that he was okay. Thankfully he seemed fine apart from being extremely embarrassed and so scared his heart almost leaped from his chest. "Chief justice! Neuvillette. I'm so sorry."

"It was my mistake, I didn't want to startle you. Why are you out in the rain?"

"I'm just sketching, Monsieur Neuvillette. What are you doing in the rain?"

"I find the sound of the rain is calming. It brings me a sense of peace. Do you enjoy it too? The rain?"

"Yes!, um.. but no, not really."

"Well it can't be both."

"I enjoy the sound of the rain as well, and the feel of the water but I- I'm sorry it's childish…"

"I rather enjoy childish things and now you've made me curious. What is it about the rain you don't like?"

He fiddled with his gloves and started picking up the things he dropped on the floor as he spoke, trying not to feel intimidated by the Iudex.

"It's just an old tale that when it rains it means the Hydro dragon is crying. I don't take any pleasure in knowing that while it's pouring, but it's comforting to think the Hydro dragon cries for us mere mortals when we are put on trial."

He held his paper close to his chest as he looked up at the chief justice before him. "Monsieur!... are you crying?"

Neuvillette didn't expect him to notice tears in the rain but he must have outwardly looked particularly sad at that moment. "Yes, I wasn't expecting an answer like that. It made me happy. Do you know why the dragon cries for its people?"

"No Monsieur, do you?"

"Of course I do. Water retains memories, when a trial is held the Hydro dragon cries not only because it weeps for its people but so their memories, their hardships, their victories can be kept forever within the water."

The boy looked up at Neuvillette like he had met a God, his eyes shone as he looked completely captivated. "What a beautiful reason to cry."

Tears started to form in even the boys eyes as he looked on in adoration for the dragon.

"Even so…"

Hydro dragon, Hydro dragon.

"Please don't cry."

It was at that moment that the rain appeared to stop.

tear drops and pen scribbles - Chapter 1 - IamTheMess - 原神 | Genshin Impact (Video Game) [Archive of Our Own]

#fanfiction #ao3 fanfic #fanfiction writer #ao3 writer #writer #genshin impact #genshin impact fanfics #fanfic #genshin fanfic #freminet #neuvillette #heart warming #they are besties now #freminet fic

[avicarijazz]

Sunday October 15th, 1pm (lunchtime)

Andrea Vicari Band

Featuring Mark Lockheart - sax

The Oval Tavern

131 Oval Road, Croydon, CR0 6BR United Kingdom

[weatheredpileoftomes]

some kind of occupation

For FFXIVWrite Day 14, “clear”. Grishild, just about five years pre-A Realm Reborn, ~400 words.

A fisher’s life.

Sunlight glitters sharply off the water, shifting and rolling. Grishild, staring far out to sea, lets it dazzle her eyes.

“Well, well!” cries a voice from behind her.

She jumps and whirls, heart racing, hand going for a sword she’ll never carry again. It’s just a Lalafell in a funny hat, stuck full of feathers and strange ovals. He’s carrying a fishing pole.

Not a threat. Not, she reminds herself, her problem.

“A woebegone woman, wasting away at the pier on such a picturesquely perfect day as this? Granted, the fish find foes more easily when the sheltering skies are clear and cloudless, and the weather clement, but with the best bait some can still be brought to bite!”

He looks expectantly up at her. Grishild, desert-born, stares blankly back down. She’d chosen to go to Limsa with her severance pay because…she doesn’t know why. She’d liked the thought of sailing somewhere, of ending up in a place very different from Ul’dah. She’s asked for work at three taverns so far today and nothing yet, and she’s so bloody tired, and the deep pulse of the sea is soothing. She doesn’t know much of anything about fishing.

“A pile of pedestrian paperwork waits for me,” the Lalafell confides, “but I’ve cleverly contrived my escape, eager to engage with a fish or find myself a lonesome lass lingering with a light in her eyes—and instead what have we here? I called the skies cloudless, but clearly, your gloom could grow—”

The man could talk both legs off a chocobo. “I’m sorry if I’m in your way,” Grishild says.

“Never! Nonsense! Now, since you’re here, might you want to learn the ancient and amusing art of angling? A perfect pursuit, pleasing to the senses, the spirit, and eventually the stomach alike!”

“I…suppose?” It couldn’t hurt, and it would give her something to do. Fresh-caught fish no doubt taste better than any others, and…she likes the ocean. It’s been the best part of Limsa Lominsa so far. She wouldn’t mind having a reason to sit by it, something to do instead of just staring. She could catch a fish, and have accomplished that. “If you’re hoping I’ll be your lonesome lass, though, I…”

He’s shaking his head. “A congenial companion is a better catch.”

Well, he’s not wrong. “All right,” Grishild says. “Explain fishing to me.”

#[twelve(?) years later] grishild: hey have you considered. fishing. #ffxivwrite #ffxivwrite2023 #my fic #my fic: grishild #my fic: grishild: gen #my fic: pre canon #grishild wyght #wawalago momolago

[gray-morality]

#wolqotd - Does your character keep a sentimental item on their person?

How would they react to losing/misplacing it?

Is it replaceable? Or something one-of-a-kind?

There be two, actually. One of 'em be a recent addition. The first be a deck of oracle cards that ain't ever leavin' my side. I ain't even kiddin' 'bout that. Them cards be over a century old but they be kept safe in an enchanted wooden box that be impervious to damage. It also restores them cards should they be gettin' damaged when out of the box, like gettin' wet or a scratch or two or a bent corner. I ain't rippin' one in two to check if the box can mend that though! I'm pretty certain such a box and even them cards could be crafted in this day 'n age but they ain't gonna replace that specific deck. Was a gift from my piano tutor - and a friggin' good friend - back when Rabanastre still be standin'. Even now... I still go to his grave every few turns.

The second thing that ain't leavin' my side is a small, heavily engraved oval medallion. Two bunches of twinin' ivy sproutin' from an embossed rodent - that be Arak - curlin' 'round an oddly intertwined symbol - that actually be Eorzean letters. At the top, that symbol be called The Awen. This an important mark for my tribe. When a male pass the rite of passage, they be gettin' from their mentor a scarification of that mark. So obviously, I got mine too. 

This medallion be a gift from my love, to represent us and our little 'family'. I ended up placin' it in the same box as my cards to not lose it. I uh, lost them cards only once. Been at the wrong place, wrong time I guess. Ended up beaten and stripped of friggin' everythin', even my clothes, and thrown into a back alley. I was of a mind to just finally end my centuries of roamin', ya know, but then this little guy dragged the box all the way 'round the tavern and back to my sorry ass. This how I met Arak. He's my best buddy now and we be always together.

#FFXIV #Fakhri Man'tik #wolqotd

[insidecroydon]

Blues at The Oval, every Sunday through April, Addiscombe

Continue reading Blues at The Oval, every Sunday through April, Addiscombe

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#Addiscombe #Blues at The Oval #The Oval Tavern

[andromedasummer]

i am planning on connecting my mountainhome (stuck in an oval of mountains with 4 surrounding settlements and a fuckoff huge forgotten beast) to the rest of the map by embarking on a tile inside the oval, building a guarded entrance to passage underground, retiring the fort, chosing the next tile linearly down, continuing the passageway, retiring and repeating for 6/7 squares until i can build a fortified entryway into the side of the mountain to finish off the tunnel, essentially creating an underground highway that also you can get off at in particular areas to go stop at an underground tavern or temple or w/e

[unknownmusing]

Baldur's Gate - Halsin x Astarion Fanfic: 'Always there to Travel the Same Path which One Walks' - Part 1 - 'The Journey Begins' (Act 1)(Spawn Astarion Route)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

PART 1 - The Journey Begins' (Spawn Astarion Route)

Location – River Chionthar, the Ravaged Beach - Destroyed Nautiloid -  approaching Early Morning

Astarion’s P.O.V :

"Astarion.....Look out.....!!!!?...."

An echo of a voice. 

Was someone calling out to me? 

My......body.....hurts.....head is....splitting apart....

Holding my head in both of my hands, a fleeting memory of sitting in the back of a tavern watching someone walking away from the table I’m sitting at with beside me another person looking torn in between wanting to go after them and staying with me coming to the forefront of my mind.

Who was that?

I don’t recognise them. I….there faces are too blurred to recognise.

Had I been hunting? What was I doing in that Tavern?

Concentrating on the fleeting memory makes a strange, painful wave pulsate through my head causing all of it to fracture into complete, metaphorical shards.

This makes it extremely difficult in grasping hold of these shards to make sense of the memory and piece it back together until I'm left there with nothing - just empty blackness. 

Lowering my hands down to rest on my lap, I survey my surroundings noticing around me there  is scattered about remains of one thoroughly destroyed Mindflyer's Nautiloid.  

Among the Nautiloid wreckage area I'm in dotted here and there are glowing fires flickering among the wreckage and lying right beside me, an oval-shaped pod - the interior no longer intact, the glass panel shattered by some type of impact it ascertained with the other remaining half lying a few feet away. 

A radiating pain makes itself known from my starting-to-heal injuries I’ve ascertained at some point.

Though, thankfully nothing majorly serious wound-wise for me to be too concerned about even if admit to myself pales in comparison in what Master Cazador had carved permanently onto my back with what he called his ‘needle’ during my first years of Spawn-hood.

Spawn-hood referring to when a Vampire Spawn had just been ‘born’ more like created I would say would go through before becoming fully-fledged Vampire Spawn who knew how to stalk, hunt, seduce and kill their Prey they hunted down.

In my case it was I would bring back any Prey that I stalked, hunted and seduced back to Master Cazador’s residence where he would change them into Vampire Spawn or just feast on them right there and then without any care about whether family or loved ones would miss them.

Realising suddenly, interrupting the memory of what I had done in the past, I need to get out of the sun before burn up to a fine, wispy crisp I haul myself up gritting my teeth when my still-healing injuries protest themselves at me for beginning to move.

Almost stumbling backwards and forwards with a dizziness of standing up too fast hitting me in the process.

Or could it be the new host within my head?

It's insistent burrowing wriggling evident but still feel like it's waiting for the right chance to take over - trying to weaken me one-step-at-a-time. 

Beginning to make my way through the wreckage are, I stop by bodies of victims Mindflyer's had captured from Baldur's Gate and the surrounding areas to see whether hidden on their person they have anything of value which wouldn't be missed and I could easily sell off to a traveling merchant or trade for something mundune if they had no coin. 

After finding a decent pair of boots, a fresh, white tunic and leather brown breeches in a buried wooden chest, I slip off what have been wearing - a threadbare white tunic and breeches needing patched-up in some places - to change into the clothing I've just found.

"Strange, how this clothing perfectly fits me." I mutter, stepping out from the tent which used to change in only to realise I'm standing full, bright sunlight with not even my flesh beginning to burn - no wisps of steam rising up, flakes peeling of my body and sensation of needing to get to the shadwos - just warmth.

Warmth, I have not felt in years I've been a Vampire Spawn and yet, here I'm standing within sunlight for the very first time and not burning up - probably because of the 'parasite' in my head, who squirms a wee bit in indigination at being called it, giving me the ability to survive in sunlight. 

Why though?

What's the purpose of all of this?

Inflict me.......damm....parasite...

More squirming from it in particular, chooses to interrupt my unanswered internal questions, indicating I'm being barred from even learning about why it been placed within my head and for what purpose.

"Are you sure you saw someone else, soldier." 

"I....it might have been....but with all the thick smog from the fires it's difficult to tell."

"Trust your instincts, wizard. You definately saw someone or something. Pray it not be one of those foul creatures, y'know.

"Please do not remind me. It's worse I'm…..”

The sound of voices speaking relatively close, makes me quickly pack up the set-up abandoned tent, plus other materials lying scattered about around it into a faded leather travel satchel before making my way over to another spot to give myself an advantage on ambushing whoever they are.  

After hiding my newfound travel satchel, I've taken from the destroyed camp, in a hollow of a tree, I compose myself - like an actor getting ready to go out onto stage - making sure a dagger is on hand just in case who's approaching where I'm now located turn out to hostile.

---------------------------------

 Location – River Chionthar, the Ravaged Beach - Destroyed Nautiloid -  Early Morning

Asdalen's P.O.V:

"Mama.....Mama?!! MAMA!!!?"

"Easy, child, they will be alright." 

"Wyll, this....we should get them back to the Grove."

"Are you sure, Dammon?"

"Positive."

Fluttering my eyes open at the sound of voices, at first see a blurred vision of someone leaning over before it finally clears revealing to Tiefling standing with Lesia beside him that scramble upwards to hug her little fae-body close to me – hearing her wailing into my chest – reassuring her I’m here for her and everything is going be alright.

“Umm, is this your mask?” the Tiefling asks, holding out the fine carved mask it forces me to quickly snatch it off them to slip it back on – whether they had seen what my face actually looked like, I prayed they hadn’t seen it – finding my heart-rate which had sped up return to a normal beat.

“Yes. Thank you.” I reply, getting up only for sudden, intense pulsating wave to hit me – something within my head begins to wriggle uncontrollably like it had sensed something – noticing the other person, who carries a blade on their person is gripping their head with one hand.

“Dammit, have you got a tadpole as well…haven’t you!!!?” they state, unsheathing their sword to point the sharp point at me finding myself wanting to hiss and bare my fangs at them – the other, unknown half of me threatening should slit their throat, rip out their spine and spread their entrails everywhere – but a sudden sound of fighting from somewhere close-by reaches us.

Getting up, I hand Lesia over to the Tiefling who takes her into the Grove leaving me and Dammon’s companion to head off to source of the fighting.

Whoever is fighting it sounded like they really needed more help from the number of magical explosions causing the air to tingle with the equivalent of electricity forming during a lightning storm.

-------------------------------

 Location – River Chionthar, the Ravaged Beach - Destroyed Nautiloid - Approaching Mid-Morning

Astarion’s P.O.V:

“Brother, please return us with us.”

“NEVER….I WILL NOT RETURN TO THAT CAGE!!!?”

“Please, Brother, let us help you….”

Hissing with my fangs bared at my ‘siblings’ trying to crowd themselves around me - even though there for them only some shadows due to it approaching mid-morning - so can capture me.

The fact they had discovered me so fast, just makes things even worse. I finally had a freedom, I hadn't experienced in a long time - the feel of sunlight on my skin, no shackles to chain me down to cold stone-floor and hear any of Godey's nagging voice to annoy me.

A snarl draws me out of my memories, giving a muffled 'ommph' when the bolder of my 'siblings' chooses to lunge at me - risking burning himself in the process - knocking me over into the shaded area of the large destroyed Nautiloid where desperation sinking in to escape from them begin to claw, scratch and struggle like a cornered animal does when trying to get free from the Predator or Predators.

Crimson petals splatter across the sand, coating it in so much it's difficult to tell who it's coming from with my other 'siblings' coming over to help the one trying to subdue me. I would not let this happen to me, never would I go back to place where 'he' waited for me and would force me back into gilded cage to effectively trap me so never escaped again.

"GALE, OVER THERE!!!?"

A voice shouts, startling my 'siblings' who raise their heads to look at the source of the intrusion giving me ample opportunity to get away, scrambling upwards to the other side of the destroyed Nautiloid to back into the light, where stumble weakly to collapse against a cliff-face hearing fighting beginning to happen.

Battle-cry from the female Tiefling indicating she was of the Barbarian; a sizzling sulfuric smell of magic coming from the Wizard and finally, the third companion a female half-elf using her own arsenal to protect them.

My mind feels torn between choices of helping them or making a dash for it, escape to higher ground or just get out of the area.

Using the cliff-face for leverage I push myself up but must have stood up too fast because my vision sparkles in front of me - Idiot, Astarion, you should have stood up slowly and not rushed it!! - and sway dizzyingly to one side, falling straight into a warm, muscular chest with hands grabbing hold of my arms to stop me from falling. 

What they say forces me to look up straight into kind, gentle hazel brown ringed with gold eyes and face that oddly looks familiar - but from where I cannot remember - closely followed by wondering how do they know my name and why are tears running down my face at the sight of....this stranger. 

"Easy, dear heart. You have ascertain......I've got you....I've got you......Astarion!!?"

---------------------------------

#baldur gate 3 #astarion x halsin #emotional angst #slow-burn romance #canon divergence #Halsin saves Astarion #Astarion has trust issues #Falling in love #wip mode #Confessing about secrets #Part 1 - 'The Journey Begins' (Act 1) (Spawn Astarion Route) #Part 1 of 'Baldur's Gate: Halsin x Astarion Fic - 'Always there to Travel the Same Path which One Walks' - (3 of ?) #pictures sourced from various sources #additional tags to be added #fic snippet #Chapters will be either tagged Ascended Astarion Route or Spawn Astarion Route as fic progresses #Part 1 of 'Love like Leaves on a Tree in Dappled Sunlight' #Part 1 of 'One's Baldur's Gate Fic Collection'

[cd1984]

Croydon Good Beer Guide Pubs

Pub 14 - Green Dragon

This is a fairly modern pub with a decent range of handpumps. However there were no dark beers on so I settled for a pretty nice pint of Top Drop Ale while watching some of the Rugby (which would be a theme throughout the day)

Pub 15 - SpreadEagle

A large and very nice Fullers pub that I have visited before. I ordered a pint of ESB and enjoyed this in a very convival atmosphere. An absolutely great pub.

Pub 16 - The George

A Spoons pub right next to the tram stop. It was busy and had a wide range of beers on. I had the Wimbledon Copper Leaf Ale which was very pleasant.

Pub 17 - The Oval Tavern

I hadn’t been sure whether to go for four pubs today but the fact that this pub was featured in Peep Show meant that I decided to get over there. It’s a large one roomed pub with a pretty decent ale selection and it was certainly quite busy.

#pubs #croydon #gbg

[fabulivonline]

How To Buy The Perfect Dining Table Online: A Comprehensive Guide

A dining table is one of the most important pieces of furniture in your home. It may also be one of the most expensive pieces of furniture you purchase. You will be spending several hundred dollars on a dining table, and that price can rise exponentially if you are buying a new or used one. This guide will help you determine which section of the market is best for you, as well as provide some tips on how to buy the perfect dining table online.

Top Considerations When Buying a Dining Table Online

When it comes to buying a dining table online, there are a few important considerations you should make before making your final decision. The following are some of the most common factors that will help you decide on the best dining table for your needs:

Size and Shape: The size and shape of the dining table should be considered based on the size of the room and the number of people who will be using it. A larger table is ideal for a larger space and a smaller table is better for a smaller space. The shape of the table should also be considered, as it can affect the overall look of the room.

Material: The material of the dining table is an important consideration as it affects the durability and appearance of the table. Popular materials include wood, metal, and glass.

Style: The style of the dining table should match the overall design of the room. Popular styles include traditional, modern, and contemporary.

Reviews: Reading customer reviews is a great way to get an idea of the quality of the dining table and the customer service provided by the seller. This can help you make an informed decision when buying a dining table online.

Delivery and Assembly: Make sure to check the delivery and assembly options before making a purchase. Some sellers may provide free delivery and assembly, while others may charge extra for these services.

Return Policy: Check the return policy of the seller to ensure that you have the option to return the table if it does not meet your expectations or if there is any damage during delivery.

Price: Compare prices from different sellers to ensure that you are getting the best deal on a dining table that meets your needs and preferences.

Different Styles of Dining Tables

There are many different sizes, styles, and forms of dining tables. Before choosing what kind of table to buy, it's necessary to take into account your eating style as some are more formal than others.

To help you decide which dining table will best fit your needs and style, here are some of the main types you'll find:

Rectangular: This is the most common type of dining table and can seat anywhere from four to twelve people, depending on the size.

Round: Round tables are great for smaller spaces and can seat four to eight people. They also promote conversation and a sense of intimacy.

Square: Square tables are similar to round tables in that they are great for small spaces and can seat four to eight people.

Oval: Oval tables are similar to rectangular tables but have rounded edges, which can make them more comfortable for diners and can fit more people than round tables.

Drop-leaf: Drop-leaf tables have one or two sections that can be folded down to make the table smaller when not in use, making them great for small spaces.

Expandable: Expandable tables can be extended to seat more people, making them great for large families or entertaining guests.

Counter-height: Counter-height tables are taller than standard dining tables and can be used as a space-saving option for small kitchens or for those who prefer to stand while eating.

Bar-height: Bar-height tables are even taller than counter-height tables and are typically used for informal gatherings or for eating while standing.

Pub-height: Pub-height tables are shorter than bar-height tables and are typically used for casual dining in pubs or taverns.

Care and Maintenance Tips for Dining Tables

Dining tables are used for more than simply eating; they are also used for gatherings. Dining tables come in a variety of forms, sizes, and designs, but the most crucial factor to consider when purchasing one is whether it will completely meet your needs.

A good dining table should be durable and long-lasting and it should also be able to withstand the heat from candles, lights, or other items placed on them. The surface of the table should be smooth and easy to clean.

The following tips will help you decide whether you want to buy a new dining table or refurbish one that you already have:

Consider the size of your space and choose a table that fits comfortably.

Think about the number of people you typically entertain and choose a table that can comfortably seat that many.

Consider the material of the table. Hardwoods like oak and maple are durable, but require regular maintenance. Glass and metal tables are easy to clean, but can be less durable.

If you have young children or pets, choose a table with a sturdy and durable finish that can withstand spills and scratches.

Look for a table with a sturdy construction that can withstand daily use.

If you are buying a table with a natural wood finish, be aware that it will require regular oiling or waxing to keep the wood in good condition.

Consider the style of the table and choose one that matches your overall decor.

Lastly, make sure to measure the space where you plan to put the table to ensure that it will fit comfortably and leave enough room for people to move around it.

Wrapping up 

Buying the perfect dining table online can be a fun and easy process. You need to keep in mind that you are buying an item that will last for a long time, so you must take your time and do some research before making a purchase.

If you're trying to find a dining table online, then this article should have been helpful. It provides detailed information on how to buy the perfect dining table online, including what to look out for when shopping for one.

It also covers how much room you should expect in each room of your home before making any purchases so that you don't end up buying something that doesn't fit properly or isn't aesthetically pleasing.

#luxury dining tables