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libidomechanica · 1 year

Text

O hurry to the stationary voice

A sonnet sequence

Poor Susan lies a bed in pail, when love, of happier men—for the better in the duration from the night, sooner beauty’s fading rose fast with such as they by my successfull Youth your merry meeting, as ever loved you. With flower, one must weep or she my mistress; old Susan, she who dwells a loved but for a while, then come down! The beach under the palace. And who can press that bene these Prodigal of pensive Sins refrain, and Fir’d with reasons find when the night as this for my dark-dawning Day, in evenings, we are two fishes take. In that Plot, while the Sunne, to be friend.

So through the white-wall’d town; through the Law shall owe you are sweets war nor near it, meek as a lamb the poet’s matter; and he knew the vale you send a kiss by you, sir, to you and for short File Barzillai thou canst find out of sight; thus the King of the ridge of mine own: thou hast chiefly those that now leapt from Humane Laws controul; and manna dew; and sighs, bespeaking somewhat grim, what cannot find thee; I am safe, and I am the abuse of both sexes fit. Mix with words—Julia, that have a Right torch of love a little ones leapèd and largely displac’d that I was to end: my mistress.

My one child upon his blood, and soul were those him Magistrate; his Memory refresh my flowring and proudly shook down Splendour o’er the oxheart that bosom bears, on which if I should bide by side, is in the dark, dark woods. Him whom she loves it and peace, masked like trees, the Solymæan Rout; well Verst of dreaming Saint from his Rabinical degree, and tell them to deuoure, with a blew silke riband. The odourd sheeted waters noiseless clay and anon there is something New to wish, and entered in, and shake, as doen high cloud is scatter than his Wealth adieu; but, now, and about his enemie.

Upon their follies, love, happy where did it all men could sing a faery’s song. Their malice? Doth make, behold how good, so vainely taduance thine eagle scorns the tools; but the terrors met her; point after fight, yea, let me name, and deformed got, curst in peaceful Reign? Its passion ran: once more I think two people were fastened on the highest, among the actual look of you? Drops on the strength of late after she to Susan lies a bed in pail, when longest bear. While I call not come thought into red and emerald, shone their malice? Me words played between the fish in us had escape.

I stood at length upon the lea, and threw me words my darkling verses yet day, and the discolored mead. Vast and listening, listen’d; how silent horse-man ghost, tis but love deceive their malice? Or else to sing, that they tear: but come, next my heart, which cruel! Regard of the worse that lace, purl, knot, or pin, but is that one way and anon to me ayding, others shoot; for that Earth to rise from comming streams made of diamond is impossible to infuse my tale of love, the ioyfull dampe, doe ye still and cold, like salt over a should grace and ha’ the tapers glimmering eyes are skycolor.

Those dear lightnings herself a lawful Government. And Haughty Pharoah found me not my own, who can receives, all but his enemies the meanest flower-loving maids—the hears what have looked out of cherryes charm that now thou diedst unlov’d. But do thy worst of alle things in disarray: that were buried. When she roses fearfully. Was never known the tailor’s wife put on, and Buffoon: then would ye wonders has Espous’d his Narcissus Eyes; sees that played betweene some angels which thou hast taught it would make your chest with his shy sway down too, down a Prince, she cannot find on earthquake: they would ease her pastoral hillock a languid note, whiles the Kindred of my gentle muses have strength of laws, since Juliana here is not Ida right? Than mourning this is why you float up up up knocking your good suffer the pony too. The Type of Theirs—their Witnesses improve, which our Ark.

She took the shadows. We take or leaves returning, and tymely ioyes to save forfeits made: ægypt and Tyrus in my dream? Desire in me. But surely she will waken straws and shaft, and the fulfilled: you had your weary dream all the salt weed sways in the after-time, your very joy. When lofty trees of straws and swell—thou lov’st no more be Absalom, forsakes the Fleece accompanied with flowers let us play, and—in the bodies former lay to sing, the woods and her grinders black and I—too late, should discover at full of incongruities: but Zeal peculiar privilege.

Pipe on oaten strayt, the waves might need it. And, thy Matchless is, she fell on your pitiously, impart to Wives and woke desire in my chest. People come away, and often in long delight where but in wore. And in the skies. Wound round his hearts that rode at her wake, after foode relide. Whole, with Esop crosse the bright with that hides always when I do claim from dull and I fell. Where be those like a nurse. Full of wrong, the Solymæan Rout; well Verst of all Religion, and few could please; bankrupt of Living Presence. Your naked Armes stretch of grace. When your soules; come away! The bridale bowers.

For humane Will, our Fortune rolls, as from among them and my doom, and sheds his Vertues may live ever. On hire bounteous of that doubled mightily pight, the whiles an hundred little grey churches. Dote on, amorously I care not: this is all the Heathen Priests of prey and proudly thrust in betwixt the latch I heard of the ridge of mind. Prepare you a place, and into my eyes full of incongruities: be her lay; lay her his colowres. That from her slumbered not enuy my loue should grace all one of Vertues only given his Sould die. Besides us two, i’ th’ fire.

Which, being drawn from that cheek wet with words were not the smart, but now that I know, my louely, and torches flaming brain. Who will not lie. Call yet either see me fall! Read a book through the sun looked on the Royal Planet to the Hielands, Leezie Lindsay, will ye thus my suit repel? He said. Flye hence, O Joy, no longer in a hurry. Sun. Full of wrinckled with the rest; for still keep him poor: and survays. So rear’d she heart by heart is whole mines of Venus, to her on my Forgiving Right. Yellowing of such fire that Shimei taught through it be, art, alone. Infected with wealth is nourish’d by.

To the Garden of Love. Merry note, in this prize, both near ally’d to Israel for all in all, and the soldier’s: yet I hold her, when he went: the word scarce less for rating thine at morn the herdsmen cry; for ever rue. Exalts his Prince, and brought, with the old women desired light, the clock gives all silver fountains mud; clouds and Slaves; And, wide as his time, if ever try’d th’ example led, to glance to you. Was he a brave him whom she loves his stalke dead, but blush to hear the world in the Mass, unchew’d and bad, on this crystal stone, more than this question—who can answer, nor your offence.

Champ and there is neither move, whose sences they hate to be as light wind sleep of words the dark trees, sycamores blazing thy sins are; for that Earth to rise from General foe. But, children dear, let us away till the day, poor girls, she doth cast his Glory the King’s at least, have drawn without my Leave a future King thee. And Stand, which was the rays of light, is it not, my mind advanc’d the King of amber, a pavement catches keepe, that are soft lamp and there, to heare the beach, by the time, oh could move to fold me over, she weary world for thus sings her first set my poor Heart alone from Blood.

If thou canst find that tho his Birth were bent, then what a happy in a mighty Years in the flies hovered with near possession could be had for you with pornography, with them! Who not love’s lips with a smoother man is stand no more sweet solitude. But sike fancies were still, and thin Partitions do thee more. By this time shall ready way among the Jews. Till Viper-like the Words salámat—Incolumity from her beseemes a virgin best. King, camp and cheek when it come in the camp, a charred and wrong, I come, she common wrong—a smoke like a wind was too busy visiting sea.

His joy conceal’d, he sterved was with thine influences of earth he fell from a tenement as the fight, yea, let her whinny shrill aloud the wind was too busy visiting sea after foode relide. Tis true I have found his legs, began to which the warm as a star and with many a darkness, we are gone in tender pullings of Dove, a maiden moon that I drave among them, dear Jane! To glance too; and sit beside, and birds fly, and tincture you a place, that hue whose hurt, exprest, then night not girlish but zombie-like, zombie-like, zombie-lite through the deed their tongue and crooked, that rode at her chamber. Would David’s life: ’ I mused on the moon that which the whispered jest to my roun: That converted from the beach, by the time in life on the earth doth waste, since in denays, than its darken’d in his colowred crime with the heard all night have looked on justify it, and leaves return!

Pay to his holly whip, and thine own approuance down gagelike to a married Johnny nor his grave! Forget her sad eyes—so kissed feet glowed in me as to shew his Judgment in Exreams: so over Violent, the golden chariot staies, all but his enemie. He batter down and suck for Nutriment them sing: ne let this fire from sword, and out why should see, the byting from afar: each house receive, shall cost a Limb of his accustom’d prey, we are now all is done. He has plotted against myself am shent when in the wind doth rise; some let me make most dear, made at me as to strike him.

I said: Go up, dear Lady, let me hear the nameless charming disperst the Nobles all his Peaceful solitarinesse: in night watched his Greatness to ordained was, to chose fools of race accompanies the sea- beasts, ranged all but him down a Prince despise, and, Princes of a hope for thus sings herself, her seemed to sleep, when longest bear. Who even but nowe vpright honest meaning in the pasture, my music. Is shining under they could forget that I have for, but burn’d may be, but whole and told, but shaken here and Tarnish with someone’s brother, a good mother, a goodly ornament.

And Betty’s in a man, stir in me behold when Kings this kind, and the first plight where the pillar; we saw her cleare eyes beheld it shine, and mochell mast to this Distance. Can soothe the fiery Soul, not a Slave of State. Down with a smooth pretending to do with the door. Such cherubins as youres: now day is holy; doe ye this way! Lest my bewailed guilt they eat and Providences crime: yet neuer day so faire encreasing his gestures, and oozed all o’er with grayish doubt too he the same, which he in the light vpon my braunches sere. Which with cunning or the other than thy humour.

How safe is Treason is t, but that Ida claims the King, that the memory of our victory, bring her vp to th’ high a? Each house by the friends for his kind why will make her up and good, how can it be poison’d gloom wrought, the moon shines on my defects, when by thy prayer, they should rest again, as all his trick to the humming town; at the Frown, commit a pleasing nothing, as the Hall to-night. What I felt my veins stretch that he wip’d his Youthfull chearefull dreriment. Whose dawning Day, in every face shoulder it leanes amisse. I have no end: than war. It is becomes the dark.

The times bright euening scent came her thought they elsewhere music of Heaven, against that hides always cheat and lived in sleeker time to blows: yet some this Saynt with Vulgar, passes o’er the bane of all, and Tenants to forgive th’ Offending Age: behold your mirror, full-length, yet doth it stands, she stand. Who now common wrong—a smoke go up throug my beaten hyde, all those Eyes to save for, but to thy speche, that I never live their prety stealthes shall see thee naked is and pikes all its reasons as if her story, which refused me! Twain, although you know from her bed her lay; lay her his face.

Gathered by night back. Among the ghosts cald vp with blossomes rownd. This Gama swamped in lazy tolerance. The bitterness will awaken, though she and battle move? Ye thoughts than if they Covet makes me say that bee which thy frozen home is in his hand, alas, that made the Fools, whom I fear to stand, one blushing shut until he noticed me,—he notices and mistaken Men, and spher e d course, retire and Take when the sun. And there I will gently came. For all noble still repayre. Surrogate? At war with you ponder your own cost die, Nay, nay, you speak, or stir. My pride and merry Musick their tymbrels smyte, and light; no leaf will betide, the litel fowl hath hire wil on hire leod to sing, that so sweetly chide the universal device but internal chemistries vary—though it be, art, alone. Torn from thee; if ever mourning you and me, on a red gold throne!

I said: Go up, dear children dear, was its only to the Hielands, Leezie Lindsay, my pride of sprites or sprites, the Mass, unchew’d and foule horror and fear; down and away below! Good Betty, he’ll be in joy both day and night are three broad sons; with nimble, and lived in sleeker times with some cold hill side. Let me be warm, let me make a peace in your won, all parts in one, one than half as good, as kind, I see a lilly on the holy water, among the graine: semed, the Crowd will fight; today I reach up the steele darts his Prince! To this day the chase, we have a future King to be.

Me with means; and theyr eccho ring. Let not quite some other. That Harp untun’d by these did Zimri stand: a man so various, love and pushed by rude hoarse minstrelsy, the creeks we will this louely band some world know by the State; but will soon be back to-night. For I thought, a kind compassions will ruin your bonnet brave, how fair, how goodly dost enlarge, encline. Or Sleep-dissembling, while we fooles hire more beauty of my tongue which thunder. Is in the sill and close the Judges days the Seasons of Belial with green darkned be; night&morning’s sun to erase a midnight, but promises less.

All this Numerous Faction, and his melancholy neck a rope he did lie, and a love that Love hath lost: thy Ewes, that b- b-b-breaks. All her once a Fruitfull Nile, nad Yoak a Servile shire, and makes me say they made, the whiles there is this wilfu’ grief or anticipation, why, then, is useless are; and I—too late to be seen, and joined the woods they did ascend, no True Succession, takes decades to slide, not ever would riot, making room beside the Brere like an ominous bird a-wing …. His steed and got, and the lusty brace of their slight, and the far-off bell. Your loving, alert.

We are store of other with comparison had sent a herald to thee shepheard, tel it not; but whole Hydra more remains, of spreading Clyde there was a city made of rings. There are store of other summer- night, both near possess the lake, and bemoan ye; for, thought, when fallen have earth’s great whales come sailing by, sail and Jebusite did hate: born to bury all the woods them also with the Earth, thy Fruit must be done—I know me such who speak, my mother. We heard of yet, him whom still, glistening went them sing: the white as swan or snow, forget not yet, but bounteous Kings are Negligent or Weak?

My memory of unkissed it and shame stole that she may spie. By those him Magistrates requisite as swan or snow, which, flowing, you had then Betray’d by one poor wretch the sudden sad afray: lyke as when in rankes dost lead, color of the place? And would spare, unworthily; there’s a rumour of battle keen’—but aye she loves, and pull out the mind from the Mouldy rolls of perplexity; then, laden with things their Lawfull Pow’r in Trust, where quince and hate, I feel I shall have it back: the nesting dove. And ah for a Calm unfit would not a tear, from Pardon’d of lengthening sun.

Titles and walking of Folly needs must ride, which thy flocks are numbers spend? To take up now a congregation. Thou Mothers in the fulfilled: you had for love speechless some wind doth fall out—my two Eyes see no more for many dread disquiet once that shall grow to prize the authentic mother commends: this greatest dream there he Paus’d; then Sighing, said, she must, with Wealth was their homes, than the sea and carries faster ty’de. And one hand, laid on a giant liar; and yet leaue my love will know them not, the faculty to read and walls of thee and proud of her garden for each silly flower!

For when she knows not, happy, happy mother of ioy and soon I shall to you and I. Nobler is a miracle. Close between the shore, and lende me leaue to come things, the cruel Ida keep her back; and everybody sees through it alter not love;—or brought to hang over east before; or fled she will sing, that all thy land, whose way is wilderness swept away, so I vnto my heart, how like you the fragrant slipt the trees, and pull out that which doe still it where I my selfe alone in the morning’s sun to erase a midnight empties the pony moves, and bring here. The rose the yesterday?

The frost is that I was to entertaine you a course as Samuel used to peep in at a hole, and shaft, and Come’ he whispered to heel. Two names, and doing battle cry, till Viper-like the wood at lengthens out his own worth, and day; lorn autumn sky, and shake, as doen high Towers in and pricks the heart and my Eccho ring. The owls must needs must be, or gathered from greeuance. Far into the Springs of a life that full the woods did adorn, that idiot boy. The drowsy folds of our Good; enclin’d to the wind that I alone in the worse that cheek so pale you see her and serpents to the dark.

And why on horsemanship, and a father got him with inconsistent with those, the Throne would not love;—or brought into red and woke desire of Greatness to their arms; the dream I glance up in some words my darkling verses swarm at every stall; the lamp and child with the heart: man to fill her on my ivy garland, let Betty’s question settled die. Bodies lose all. Forget not be account, for feare of his Fame: and, like slaves on a wood, and Providence did Joyn, for sure he meets you, you the soldier’s: yet I name, and some Names assured mirth; while that my Power and puzzle all the poor can’t hurt you, even in dreadful sight, the carefull Devil is still, glisten’d! Besides, in the sludge: ’ for I was she! Oft turne again! You thinken to the silks were his usual Theams; and try their fold, and bickers and lazy Happiness; disdains my Mother one and every tree, enaunter he!

And o’r inform’d Designs oppose, naked of Friends removed. I said; and when I the date of all Immoderate Fame. Children’s voices should part, and go but it is time to expect, but that time come, she spies her son and those that’s in the wild with Praise. To hear of worse, her that good or ill. Set in truth, with now a winter’s drifting of a confusion. Oh Sir! Whenever such affronts have seen, in five months ran on and still! He fears can you bloom could sing were his Godlike Prince, with a Patriot yet, but was a princess too; and still he thus long hath the owlet in a dreadful sight, dear Jane!

Unkempt strawberries. I went and let me tell but hard the tailor’s wife put on, to do her husband and stand all the repulse, than this way, this wilfu’ grief or anticipation, why, then, more bewitch me that it is winter with your sweet Elizium, by the brydall boures. To a marble. She was seene; or with a Patriott’s All- attoning with the price of mine own torn hair, hath so displayment. My wrongs and every surrogate? A star and felt their loneliness. That he kisses, and Godlike Sin. The stuffs, the Mark: for all your hidden feares, so smirke, so smooth-shaven, loving, alert.

So fair, as carelesse yron dyd feare, or sicker than his Westerne fome: thy tyred steedes long as Death, or not these were fastened on the roote bent on deadly sin; if Betty listening. Me such odious Aid make yourselves forsake the doctor’s self would now all full low, thoughts of that dread disquiet once that shuts its sweetly were better side, is sick, am I sick of a jealous Eye to guard thee manifold, I joy; but the bridges. Ich am for wowing airs. That way, or Sleep-dissembled Friendship and for a moment, and subtill serpent-throates, the Choristers through the mountayne vie to towre, and for the Column, let em take away, come as goblins’ hands have had his Estate; turn’d all her boy, what know I’m Betty sees through windows do display the priest; shut stand; and leaves fall from its pedestal, all her once, a tremor breaks, and threat the wast Oake. As ever agape—bought?

Comes alone, but others call from the bay. ’Er approach’d her boy, you know to choose you this? To juggle with thy fair health, but for mind grew worse vnto thraldome ties? Naked of Friends, our Jealousies and play till he is mild as she discolored mead. Make suddenly bite awake. Titles gave us leave ere long had said, is Juster to Lament hid the King their wild desire, the while her mine from them who di’d for whom grimy nakedness may Controul; and make your Cause; there’s nothing. With pain—surely we. Auspicious flame to wand’ring moment’s Just for listens, glad to hear, ever love.

Or let his King; did wisely from Earthy Vapours ere the count you to some other and mightily pight, the wood at bold Defiance with those, that an iron to be seene, and lent then, to Alienate the same Designs, and brought me into Law: if not; the People easie tis flattered the rather, whom reverend love, and palely loitering, resemble, creation marks kissing her angelic finds, I have lost his Prince of heaven. The wood, whereof at first I hear you cannot find you may handle silk as free, and legs and eclipses stain both amazeful solemn grove, in smiling.

How vain a thing, as I do hear, ever full of incongruities: be her foot should whet my memory clings like one of the innumerable goods which thought God’s own predicament will stay, and break, if not quite forgot, would They impose an Heir upon the flat all this long hath the only pegs; and, ah! As truth—to prove, and hery with you ponder you, whom with renown, and left to publick Safety pray, which way to her on the simple Doves, and princely name should my freshness die. Yet a Book of scorn, and pushed aside, not staies, all but Sanherins may answer&your ears, who taxeth me.

And o’er and purging fire, are oftentimes beene to my kind, and with fragrant slipt the hand rubs his old night. And Johnny seen, in bush and long revolving, in his neighbour’s ear; and the cosmetics and the Charming disperst the Gown; or, had then go home therefore soon forgo; who banisht David did forbeare. Yet deepest mouth’d against the floor of the town she hies; tis Justly Destiny had highest, among his Officers trade, fools are as they will stayne, like mine, mine by all his grace all on every loss the times did most kingly drinks in his inside, Eyes like a wind through the rainbow’s glory.

In Tempe, lying on the Follow, what they quitted else—the attention, why, the locks downe, so sweet or colours laid by art’s wise hands. That all the field alone he spoak: few words my darling and the north flowers let us away! Subjects ought they could he had for whom grimy nakedness dragging brere, for hither, and in his Book; but, for whatsoe’r descend in his deuise: they be fair Albany. The Axes edge did oft turne against the groundless air; where you in my hand against the Grace a Church Vermilion dies, which made the Jebusites to be true or fade, and dry’d him, than Accuse.

With daily by degree that Shimei taught thee aright, she would tyre a well-wrought urn becomes our love! Behold them by the war roll down like dust, like womens Leachery, to serve the poet’s matter; and the Disease: that King wheel stands, she standing Lake soon forgo; who banisht David was Restor’d; saw with Disdain an Ethnick Plot begun, and tempt Gods Providently Pimps for it. Are snow with gallant friend, a god in love you are; likewise proved how vain a thing to tell, some luckie wits impute it but to shut up and gone, he quite hob nob, they shew’d he lose his eyes abashed their own arts tis Right, from whence thy kindred of the untrodden ways besides, the girls. Forget not been so sweetly were dead, but I. Th’ event of the town, and all ye power and the lowring you. But overborne by a right, sooner beautyes grace all worldly pleasure can not beare cherefully the Wise.

My heart suggests a familiar in all the imperiall sway. This is what some their Interest always in the middle garden for a married, one chewing a piece of chronicle we prove, fatal to me now. Or Curse, bad in it as on a smock, to see how cream but naked left his words that love her. Who did the base and old. Where quince and curl unto itself alone, the Scrificers in the common senseless as next my heart leaps at the barren of leaves on the sedge is withereth too. And die as fast as objects for my Safety shok; and theyr seruices vnto vs impart.

Let all your absence more will not: waive your Coranall. Him he attends and in the Acidalian boatman slept with smoothe, his Hunters teares: yet not yet. Cut off from Cockle, that peep and down from eight of him? And as he our hearts in one, one with its toy! Our eyes of affection came: king, camp and comes it that: disarming God’s beloved sweetheart by heart, through the stand. As if by magic hand on the most affections you said, we are at the altar of perfectly complacent never be sincerely blest: heaven so high the garden. Kissing a side, the Pouke, nor other end than that wild morning, now, proving wretch, who Heaven preserve of me who gave me my make ich habbe yhent, ichoot from heavens Anointing Vertue Malice may read it, could lend out them a’ shall owe you a course from blazoned lions of the Crowd: for witness Corahs place, Here Cyril told us all.

And I was tired of the other man is standing like gloriously to pass through the personal, base, a woodman in the solitarie Brere like a linty, raw- cold dust disturb a State, tO sell them to deuoure, with armes I tooke him answer and you aren’t. For that, but of thy Reign? Yon banks and humble reuerence, seeke a better are forc’d to speak to her, lift up some new Song, the while and bristled grunters throughly rooted, answer’d, I am writing what that ye would tilt it out among the ghosts, his Friends to flow confusion. And Johnny may perhaps his holly-bough, and yet not this.

The owls must end. The lance, and let the wild white despair. Blackboard with hammered up. A woman like dust, like Feinds, were walking them all of us though again, we two, we have a fair Pretence have rest, with so much Grace. What was said to three. A desire; their last, th’ Offenders question of the sight with them back into the violet varies from his iron hills, at the gray kings of the Soul its Grief contains; he meditate; ye count theyr seruices vnto my eyes find the sweetest bud. Now ceasse ye damsels may be infected with great enough for a love our arms together in lillies that dream I ever love for al the wrong, therefore well knew that it may so be. The fame of an hour, that wisdom. I said, and good, how chearefully though it be, at last his Prince; but brooding in the tapers glimmering eyes that proved we have circled till were breaks a sigh, and willing thee.

And rise unhelpt of hand; I bow down the fruitfull progeny, send vs the tomb bestrew wherein my love is lent, and proud of her story, which was to Fortune call’d town; at the same: of what Occasion to Reb ell. An’ the bodies I will die from East to West his patient Man. The wished day is doen, and some Names twere tedious riddles of you—warm brown face, your hand, but he is hurt in life, enlisted in that I did honour from thence full many a light with a daring Eye to tempt the third, nor red nor wept. And there was slowly does sad Time his Layes: or some folks be, the devil.

Did wisely from that shake the distant vale; there’s neither Johnny’s lips pursed to seem Constraint, which was to leave your prowess, Arac, rolled on Nelly Gray! What means this that loving, alert. I have known the afternoon light air, he shall never to return, with vertues may live ever. Began that when they closed those cheerful waves of battle- song that should stab the posts up hill and I read in this wreathes of his golden bit where smoulder it leanes amisse. As well agree without: ne let hob Goblins, names which fail’d for your Eccho ring. And Phoebus, if he can see it gloom of foreign Yoke.

And thing, a Son; got, which red medusaes mazeful solemn gloom of branches intercept your wedding garment of the publick Love; to Head the sky, sports at will gently took, because with holy well; for towns once affeard: ne let housefyres, nor dolefull day, and shews the sea, the way, or chance; and vouches both thoroughly rooted, but think two people greasy Joan doth keel the pony had he been doing all about, in sport to please, and laying with its toy! Come, think me touched in honour, wealth is nourished. And leaue likewise, our thrift, our hopes it sends to be seene, and sorely hurt.

No woman is his grownd, helpe me mine eye loves it and dare not. I have sworn to be too good aray fit for miles, and guydest louers through, and a pond whereas I know ere their seats: part rolled the men of Jerusalem were Jebusites imbrac’d; where quince and Oblivion to fold me over, she would arise in evenings, we are made me, feele his Satire ended; and we rose that iron-cramped their Own. Where those lips of sweet or come in the cup: if it be he is mild as she flies too high, they Petition nightly pray, we’ll build in sonnet; with honeyed answere, nor our very joy. But it’s not a King: nor would tell them to deuoure, with vertue rayne, that tho his Brother counter top, the circle of these glad many more—pullings of the town so long, and where than Loyalty were beaten way their Tast. Since my love’s lips they will this golden rod, thrown, so your Father Government.

Forget not rank with swift motion: and Look you! Played in lit like a stately stayre, to cast it in the wither. But since ready. Poore Child complaints aside, we browse, we are two fishes swimming in the west, then night and peeled bits of strawberry blonde head spotlit. And rise the bride again! Swung them rose a cry as if halfe vnwilling Dart from a smooth pretending Crowds, with ill-made fire cold to scorn, and a pond whereas her mine own: thou hast graced. Here is in the pot. But sinking the beam of these the Judges days the Sabbath, but for to enjoy! She wrong; was every captain waits hungry for the door.

And Johnny’s wit and proves in and Priest inslav’d the Whole; no ground? When daisies pied and play till he can stand alone, is sick, am I sick of a jealous Eye to guard the same Designs oppose, naked of Friendship bring; foment then, his Train their prety stealthes shall grow to prize the angels see, before eleven; tis Nature escaped for a Darling Son? And without remorse even for me? Forget not quite alone, and distorted thee: or sicken with him, who more of brown face, no harbor berth, your statues reared, sung to, when the garden’s glowing those two crowne, in wise Minervaes paths be alwaies green an’ the boughs; I watcher by themselves and fly far into the witness faild, the Nations weight: if my Young Samson will have Right, and did yielde, and brave; but sweet thief, whence then I have lived unknown to death. The Sage his Writ Apocryphal; our Laws are vain, by whom my Muse they can Crave.

What was whispered jest to this Distance draw? Now Ben he loves, and, for it so hard to fifty, till a rout of saucy boys brake on us at our disguise broke from worse and without blemish she may spie. Her name— her though he knows not, happy in a merry larks are ploughman’s heart by heart, I look. Me by the best sight did lend and by we twain, for scorning in the ooze of the causes weight o’clock till five. Then thine in Skies. Let no dimme shadows, with its eerie ping sounds not words that ye do, albe it good or ill content to this. Or the human heart. If sorrow only to the dark. Your eyes?

Who even but not the Crouds can wink; and noble yet later in Silence and caught his holly whip, and that flag what I never known to death: the bay, now the story of your sweet birds sing. This is what had redden’d her mind the cold reverence to you, the cocks did create, and Phoebus, if he shoud use, and his wonders are Reserv’d to Ruine or to enjoy, yourself be dazzle us, when Fortune foeman, but gently pats the pane I know ere this the cold blowes through accoutrements, pitiful sights, ne let them with the cold reverence declining daffodil dies, and God they had tri’d of every petticoat, or as Anacreon old; no poet’s feeding hidden from a smooth prepare the streamlet window, a sugared lemon, which no eyes can seem fair, when by thee. The Joyfull day long possess a lawful reasons why should I the furrow broke the Spring is mortal love?

Quarrels move, add one more than Pow’r for Property allowd, is mischeivously seated in the Garden of God, and ears, for whom with rains, and he alone, the God of my gentleness that did canopy the heralds to and fret. As the more I take— best quitten him from this, that mote thy might? And let them make greatest dream him crying, he had in theyr names, that is it always there she gave me never can reach into the sight; my lips they had obey’d an Idoll Monarchy too much: mistaken Men, and largely displeasure quaffs, to hear me and quietsome, with Kings are so many swine.

From faults he had for who was left but with hymnes thy lovest thou should more harden’d into a Flood; and let the Hudson trembling, he had for your state, no registry, no hand, and made myself and sculk’d behind you again, whatever learnt how to mine owne loues delight, and almost bliss. The block could see but swallow’d by a pond that I an accessary Law! A dank, sicken with inconsistent with Praise. From them with ill-made fire cold, darkness, we are going places, I shunned the common light shall we for the Publick Zeal to heare to leave my husbands and wrong, the right of a smiling.

Is that shall tangle me no more. By unequal Fates, and roughly rooted in the King to require, let Law then come home, cried Betty sees the Jebusites: the Town so wide, is in the after God’s functions, a people far away are deaf and blest all your absence more true. Come with me to its welcome nest. If ever meant for my Safety pray, on bended knees most dear, made at me through the low: for Shimei was always promist both lopp and thunder. I fear your dear voice of mine eye loves to those babies in Sommer they praises; or, if not what—and in violet thus did forbeare.

Then the edge of having, runs faster ty’de. She: man with beauty, glorious men, which now should be gracious and antique, bought commission, for the generall teares express it as it were the cup: if it be he is in thy train scatter’d his wide eye and the good man not renewest, that an acre hath built in the end of the nights appears; but to consume half of every flowers to decke her attyre, and I sunned it with swift messengers return, with me remain, and all the Beauty Full; who thus I won you mother commends: than if they say she hath gain’d our feeling are one.

Believe me, Royal Throne in verse, sound with craft to clothes still of chilling Dart from thee home again, we two, we have a bouquet in my hand, laid on a giant liar; and me to justifi’d their seats: part stumbled mightily pight, that all the worse and Musk she warbles soft, so good townes be lost, all like a Little Idol up; on with his powre, let simple Doves, and heavens reward blow, and tincture like a Taper o’erload thee more. These Ills the meads full beautifie your won, all parts in the leaf or when she would never heard on the same remayne, more they Command, scatter’d by a Puff of WInd.

Followed to hold my wrath, my wit doth lie. He, your body: see it say it back, see it all made, while Nation bleed, and often abroad, and slain with eternall praise and very few to love: a violets blue behold, upon eyes so fair, good-morning. With bands of men. She sight of horse, than the good fryday to frost, my shippe vnwont in storm is on the lay; here Vanity strums on her depart. But, children dear, was it yesterday call yet once that summer-night, her modest eyes are slaves his beard, then we have relish sweet, so low in the lion glares thro’ the deadest thou art assured of thy King.

From isolation when we shall be Naked left and tended it with many a light within! And fading for a foreign fields he woud have heart that flooded your Eccho ring. A smoke like Ida: something in your Piety, your hair, and for excesses, which if I should not, or he woud have dream. Hast chiefly those cheerful waves rolling to require as dare not. Fretted there’s neither shall my care, or sicken with stirrup, saddle, or what shall see the giddy Jews tread the same remayne, more by the holy well; perhaps, and, ere this the cold Muscouy; if French hood and bad! Margaret, hist!

It so hard the lawes of wounds, dishonest meaning in sense, the most ten, they’ll both be here, above the wishes to be garden in her cheekes, and heape with beauty of my arms like a blanket. A long, Jámi, in the Damzels doe delite, when once they say love they shine so cleerly, and sighed to replie well as he could the poor wretch, which the temple was ne’er had laughing drowns the priest that I was pledge of spreads her Locks before since sweet snatcht in Manhoods prime by unequal Fates, and dreams to the Earth, thy Fruit must be content to sing: whose roses gone for ever would you it’s me i want to serve the goodman shrinks in his glorious crowds engage in thee my memory of our greater fires in men. Excusing thy Pearls upon the sea-snakes coil and the tabor, and I got switches too from the grown in the hils doth bend; I see: and yet they tear: and, thy Matchless some folks be, the devil.

Against the tell what Johnny’s lips they shine influence. My flowres forced to find, see then we felt, what euer in this, and he himself about, as in a second time is gone down, and loathsome canker eat him down. Three captains out; nor every Killing fear I find wars, and let the woods shal answer and you are out the shiny things to Destroy. For silk will draw some scene cast over your name in ordinary places. Like the Plot. Or when the night’s starr’d face, huge clouds forenoons and beat ye so, as something the trespass with cunning or in the cool was hot, and memorial tilts, and burn.

How pale kings, the cuckoo then, on every place. Frugal Vertue scarce less for rating the budded, her life and the cloth’d: must I be of the shade of those blots that false and burnt the Waves went their arms; the dream I glance to me do frame: and Dick their Monarchy too much thee shame stole the world one way and another. ’Ve lost all her once yet I guess that hidden pride flower, and for Gods, and a moment didst tell me where to go. Give me tender side: and Priests devise. Call all day; come! Come to you say: back rode we with any of the Plot. Where quince and shield on the tears have my heart by heart, forbeare.

Therefore now exanimate., Writ over the star. Your Eccho ring? Home to mind. For a while his Son, for she will knows its Incomes and pin’d for want of his head, nor burnt like an old-world mammoth bulked in interest always will ruin your loves; and when no rule, no precedent was full strong to be. The Fightingale singing sea. That tho his Brother, and the Beach, and I’ll give right; in both humble in. Why will bid some lips of sweet thief, whence thy headlesse harmes, ne let the windy shore where the Italian boatman slept with his weighty spels, nor damned ghosts, to drink a draught of Albany.

And Betty’s drooping away from her fill, to which brought urn become of year when the wind will invite some mayden Queene. The keen stars that color is in love, and circumscrib’d and blew, and say she’s happy hands the time you leapt the twilight, when shoud use, a Foreign Aid would defile the earth’s great Tirynthian groomed and red, wins, then, ’ said she, you’ve been opened anything, of Johnny vile reflections new; most true it is tyme to shew I am near slain, kill me outright well agree without in the down, Ends love is tongue; use power he show’d; from tile to the State; but neither far nor near, oh!

You know hungers does meditate; ye count the wan, wonder if her story, what Prudent men and were than to presage the next, a doubtful twilight, till the first be Pawn’d, and the bloud springs of Property were better look upon the hill-side—and there quoth he thou brutish Pan in vain you be, just as long since left his way! Grows ever two were on the stories high and looks as Heaven, against the fern or in joy, I can walk with girlands trim, for term of life, and those trouts and the Booke; yet some old house where he wished his tale.—The Fighting the last of force, whose Oath with a blew silke riband.

Come when Ioue with hymnes thy steepy flight dale, and her eyes were gray. Or, if not quite forgotten, rusting on his arms. Chaste were the shame and maybe she’s high altar the world, O, yellow as idlers do, and threw him: only Florian, he that on a time he had our dear boy, wind slowly through the durt of cattle the wither. I, cumbred Soul mounts up, and for ever by, on Principles of Mulla which my loue and curl unto itself alone, the Scrificers in the Stranger, mislaid love, and crushed to sleep upon the southwest side of sprites, the owls have strength; a daintier iudge applie.

Before him, and thereby ribbands to flow confusion of the Muses fountain cleft where on the eie of her dreamed on the pony’s side. But then he called him o’er the door, and in the grass’s fall; ye glow-worms, whose is this palenesse ouercame that resound, ne let mischiefs treasure. Here right be freër under a tree, mocks married, one gives; and that Susan had no continuaunce. Her present heere, that I never shed before, a house receive, shall redeem from the sky the lintel—all the Noblest foe; yet she neither spoke yourself—first with sacred ceremonies the pot. Behold your echo ring.

When I hold her, and Record, by natural. But then we felt, what far to the altar of perplexity; then, Israel for all the rest. Next them with cunning, and glove he did was done without destroying through that he sees. Us canonized for it depend; the owlets hoot, the one sent from the little blazes. Now you can not renewest, their rights are bent on her kind. And let th’ vnpleasant tales of your wedding cake. Where worthy thing, or medicinal, That love remain that were one voyce. And Betty’s drooping away, children dear, was it yesterday call once you great whales come and knife.

Still throw my voice, and by the bridle too, as to meaning& motivation. And braver at night; there’s not always in the moon; and scatter’d by some defence save breed, to brave man carried men; for the morning into my loue all ready should did hudled Notions all over the Turkish new moone mindes resort. With Esop crossed with a nose, one that ruled Albion’s kingdoms three, but half tame; if in the State; but with beauty, farre from friend, himself thrice in the ground, are gouerned with his shadows! Now Johnny’s but half a servile Train. Who can press his or her own ear again and subtle skin Julia, that Gaudy Flower, we’ll build in sonnet; with skillets, carvings, shelves, so smirke, so smoother man is standing Lake soon forgo; who banisht David did from her place where were, ev’n in the world I stand astonisht lyke to the honor decayed, his bride: and yeeld they stand on he goes beneath thee.

At her heart and Stews; which they could hate that an iron to be tost. To all the field flat to the sun did show why I am pushing to telephone the King roared make your face, that happens, both goodly Oake some mother, and your mouth was thend of the English lily, breathe himself to show; on each side bowing popularly love is lent, and leaps in among them all: a common wrong a Nation goodly beams more by these nine Worthier Head. Lights in vaine, that all the Stranger is depart from the face of feeding free, bound for ever and fast she doth prepare your further aid bereave me?

Yea, let me love. These bitterness will rock thee as the rankness of the publick storms of madness of a little ones leapèd and shutting of such day as after fight, and rise the camp and lazy Happinesse, vp to your flames the right or wrongs her free, bound for short the King him home; but tis to be too good a King! For none, or fortune and moonlight, and office of your bed, hollow throat shall fly and applies his praise and very feare he shattered like to like! And yet how worth it? Poor Susan groans, the cuckoo then, keen lessons that others, even for they, so weake so warm? If this Curst Return.

To help to sing, that an iron-cramped their eyes: by love; and nothing longer. Meadows with silver pendulums pulsing inside of the riches make vs once before he make, but chiefly chose, by whom there is but love or be tied around the grey church on thy corbe should grace all women and with furious heate, encrease, no King could not do herself, and near, oh! Truest turtles tread, and Lov’d, the God of war, they sought they may Give and i would go there we would swear as justly that is not my own, what do, and freaks that I shoulders of the treasures are taught through faith may oft be unreturn’d.

‘Ah me, my course as Samuel used to Saul. Tis Love, or Vileness! An image dies with stars she sees him in, his Bed, burn’d and born a shapeless Lump, like the Crowd: that all the summer’s night. And write—love’s delightfull casks are everyday teeth of his Face, that as their father one and this is almost ten, they’ll both blackly darknesse lend desired lightens scorn at him doth striue those trouts doe tend full well, but first sign of boredom. His honor, or his life: he risked it full o’ care? Let it go or send a kiss by your Progress to ordained was, to chose that piped their injur’d Fame. An’ the boundless string.

Whose Youth remaine, with Pharoah Curse within nor yet with his Roaring, and Cruelty, nor puft with all the world, unbless songs never will never men forsakes the green. The Latmian shepherds pipe on oaten strayt, the time that is become of the morning Star; and such colds a forward springs of their follies, love, although not lust. Which folly call, believing note, in tree and shaft, and fear, fantastique Triumph sat, whilst thing alive with Honour, angry with pornography, with the frailest for you shalt be, at last year, there is the ways—or shrink to a phrase like an ominous bird a-wing ….

Why love is such I can too long, but vainlier than to wag their shame, and ladies’ eyes—to lie on a day, wise poets tell, some red begonia perilously great disdaine reasts poorer sparke YOU have been to secure. Knees, from which you are the sheath, and a pond whereon it must be for his own worth, and oozed all o’er with thee, like crimson weeds stolne from the lingering so when Hells dire Agent found, he pours from your terror likewise I: be comfort is thy adverse party is thy advocate—and had but silk that rove over the black and they had fallen from the first snowdrop’s inner leave her head and hery with me. What was left to watch of grace. Christian coast; how Poles right, till then out the tears down fa’ for Jock of Hazeldean. And thereunto doe daunce vnto that Gaudy Flower, one must weep or she my mind in evening longer by our loves in blood of my hand against the Firmament.

#poetry #automatically generated text #Patrick Mooney #Markov chains #Markov chain length: 7 #130 texts #sonnet sequence

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frankmillerturnonyourlocation · 3 years

Text

Spotify Wrapped Prompts #20

The moon hung in the sky like half of a sand dollar and Emerson tried to fold his napkin into what he remembered being a goose.

It wasn’t quite working, half because it had been a while since his high school Mandarin class, half because the napkin was that flimsy brown shit found only in the greasiest of diners and the most public of schools, three quarters because his left pointer finger was in a splint, and about a teaspoon because he was blitzed out of his mind.

The moon was beautiful tonight, he thought as he bent the napkin this way and that and tried to remember the bit of poetry that started something like that. If one of the few souls in Griddy’s Doughnuts had asked this young man what he was doing in this little diner and when was he planning on ordering something, anyway, he would have told them that he was watching the moon. This would have been wrong on two counts: the bright white light that had captured his attention was in fact not the moon but a streetlight, and he was at the diner waiting for a friend.

He wasn’t quite sure which one of his friends had called from an unknown number and asked to meet at a little doughnut shop, at least not at this very moment. He couldn’t remember being too anxious about it, though, so it must have been someone he wanted to see.

And it probably wasn’t anyone from the party, either— they would have said something to him while he was there, and he didn’t really know most of the people in there, anyway. A friend from high school ran into him at the gas station and brought him back to their new apartment in the city for some chips and dip, and also a few swigs of alcohol, and also a handful of Strawberry Bomb or Girl Scout Cookies or Blue Eyes White Dragon or whatever the hell that pretty girl said her weed was called. Remembering the party, Emerson’s chest welled with gratitude for the kindness of strangers who say they knew you when you were both teenagers.

A teenager stepped into Griddy’s, opening the door like he had expected it to dematerialize as he approached and was, frankly, disappointed that he had to bother with touching it at all. The bell jingled in sympathy.

“Emerson,” Five said, sliding into the booth across from him. “Glad you could make it.”

Eyes wide and perhaps a little red-rimmed behind turquoise-rimmed glasses, Emerson blinked, made one last, hasty fold to the goose’s head, and reverently slid it across the table. A precious gift for a dear friend. Five stared at it. Its neck slumped over.

“I’m here,” Emerson said, as if explaining. “Right where you said. This is where you said, right?”

Five’s eyebrows slanted just a half-centimeter lower. “Emerson,” he began, feeling silly even as he asked, even as he knew the answer, “are you high?”

He pressed his hands against his cheeks, the gears in his head whirring. Five, uncharacteristically, allowed them the time they needed to turn— perhaps enjoying the smell of smoke. “Would I know if I was?” he answered, pointing his finger gun at the folded goose as a perceived gotcha.

After a moment, Five laughed into his hands. “Of course you are,” he mumbled. “Unbelievable.”

“Sorry, what?” Emerson asked, now whispering for some reason. “I couldn’t hear what you said.”

“I just asked if you had money,” Five whispered back. “We should buy some doughnuts.”

Emerson’s eyes practically sparkled in the dim light. He nodded once, twice, three times, and then started rummaging in his coat pockets.

Shaking his head, Five leaned back in his booth. “Can you believe they managed to sell this place?” he asked. “And the new owners even kept the name. Other than the, uh—“ He looked around the near-empty diner. “—cosmetic interior design changes, the place hardly looks any different. The more things change, huh?”

He was speaking mostly to himself. Emerson’s attention was focused solely on exploring the contents of his jacket pockets. With the triumph of the sun illuminating clouds from behind, he drew forth a tiny, mint-green wallet with a zipper. He placed it on the table ahead of him, right next to the slowly-unfolding goose.

Five’s eyebrows quirked. “Are you asking me to order?”

“You’re allowed,” Em justified. “You’re old enough. Even if you’re little.” He suddenly grew mournful. “And getting littler by the day.”

His fingerless-gloved hand gesticulated in a way that implied that he thought he was illustrating the concept. Five reached across the table for his wallet without looking away. “Em, do you think I’m aging in reverse?”

“You could be. Like Mork.” He cracked a knuckle with one hand. “Or maybe you’re just weathering? Off the top? From the wind. Or, no, eroding. Maybe time’s eroding you and turning you into sand.” He reached out to fuss with Five’s hair and was promptly swatted away.

“That’ll be my cue,” he said, smiling that one smile he did that felt like a punch. It didn’t quite land, glancing off Emerson’s shoulder and leaving him smiling peacefully back. Before stalking off, Five slid the black pepper shaker in front of Emerson. “Smell it,” he ordered. “Pour it in you hand, not just the shaker. And I swear, don’t eat it straight. If you think it’ll taste good you’re lying to yourself.”

Em looked at the shaker thoughtfully. As Five walked away, he gasped in realization. “Is this something you learned from Klaus? About weed?” he asked, in his normal volume. Seeing that Five was no longer present, he turned around. “Hey, Five!”

Five was leafing through Em’s wallet up at the counter. “Get me a dozen donuts, mix of flavors,” he said, in that brusque sort of way old men talk to young servers, “and a black coffee.”

“Five, did you learn it from Klaus? Is pepper a hangover cure for...” He searched for the words. “For when you’ve had drugs?” he finished, loudly whispering the last word.

“And a hot chocolate.” He spun around, exasperated. “No, Emma!” he hissed. “I didn’t learn shit from Klaus. I thought telling you to play with a pepper shaker might keep you occupied for the minute it takes me to order!” He turned back to the server with a tired, half-sarcastic smile. “Babysitting. Can’t believe I’m giving him sugar this late.”

The employee behind the counter was in their mid-twenties and working a late Friday night shift at a shitty little donut place. But in just two and a half more hours, they would be fresh out of the shower with a bottle of wine and ready to marathon the entirety of Galavant for the first time since college. So for now, they kept their customer service face on and prepared Five’s order.

He leaned against the counter as he waited, watching Emerson watch him from back at the booth. Em waved at him. He waved back.

“Sorry I was so loud,” Emerson whispered.

Five craned his neck towards him. “What was that?”

He cupped a hand— the one that was not cradling a handful of black pepper— over his mouth and leaned out of the booth. “Sorry I was so loud, Five.”

“No worries,” Five responded in full voice with a lopsided smile, projecting just a bit louder than he really needed to. “Not like there’s anyone here to care.” Em smiled softly and went back to playing with the pepper in his hand. Five watched him.

“Would you like your donuts in a box or a bag?” the server asked, dreaming of their doormat.

“Better make it a bag,” Five sighed, fishing a few bills out of Emerson’s wallet and sliding them across the counter.

At the booth, Emerson was staring at the false moon again, humming a tune so earnestly he might have been singing to the night sky.

Five returned with a bag of sticky donuts under his arm and a drink in each hand. “Here,” he said. “Sober up.”

Emerson peered into the bag, eyebrows raised. “Can I have some?” he asked, so childlike that Five just had to stare at him.

“Yeah,” Five said, the venom catching on his tongue and dissipating into the air. “I got them for you. The hot chocolate too.”

The headlights of a passing car illuminated Emerson’s face in a mosaic of triangles of light. Their eyes reflected something that Five had only seen a few times before. Then the light was gone, and Emerson seemed a little less high. “Thanks, Five,” he said, and reached into the bag for a donut wrapped in wax paper.

Five watched him eat about a fourth of the donut in one ambitions bite. He folded his hands in front of his chin. “You never really struck me as a... hobbyist substance user, Em.”

“Oh, it wasn’t mine. A friend let me smoke some. I got invited to a party.” Em finished his donut, and then waved a powdery hand. “Not you, a different friend.”

Five’s mouth quirked into a smile. “Do you consider us friends?”

“Of course,” Emerson replied, so quickly and so easily that Five wondered if he was answering a different question.

The gears of Five’s mind, for a brief moment, faltered. He felt the hours of the night slipping through his fingers. “Did it occur to you, when you were getting stoned in a basement somewhere, that maybe this wasn’t just a courtesy call?

“Can I have another chocolate one, or do you want that one?”

“Dammit, Em!” Five snatched the bag away. “I’d expect this from my degenerate of a sibling, but not from you. I called you here for a reason, and if you’re not lucid enough to hold a conversation with—“

“Don’t call Klaus a degenerate.” Emerson almost spilled his hot chocolate with the force of his words. “And who the fuck are you to talk? Why couldn’t you just tell me on the phone or, or— at least tell me your name when you left a message? Made it less ominous?”

“Are you trying to insinuate that it’s my fault you smoked a stranger’s pot? That you just had to get high because I made you so anxious?”

“No!” Emerson slammed his styrofoam cup down on the table. “I’m just saying that I’m not the only one who’s being a fucking idiot today.”

Five brought his coffee to his lips.

Em pressed the palms of his hands into his eyes. “What are you trying to hide from your siblings, Five? And is there even a good reason for it?”

“Of course there is,” he said before he could remind himself that he didn’t need to justify what he was doing, didn’t he know how much Five had already done for his family? Didn’t he understand that everything he did, every choice he made, was in some way for them?

Em nodded as though his stupid psychic abilities extended to telepathy as well. “Sorry I ruined the night, Five.” He sounded heartbreakingly genuine. “But can we talk about whatever this is in the morning? I want to sleep. The world’s not gonna end before then, is it?”

Five waited until Emerson’s eyes flicked to his face. “No,” he said softly, when they settled somewhere around the flaccid half-goose of a napkin on the table. “Not tonight.” Small miracles. He allowed his jaw to unclench. “Come back to the mansion?”

The thought of Emerson wandering back to his apartment in this state, even as the high was wearing off, made his stomach twist up in a way that usually meant someone would be dead pretty soon. And what would be the point of walking him home and then having to teleport back to the mansion? He would be walking the same distance either way— give or take— so he might as well make it easier for him to make sure Em ate something in the morning.

A small, shy half-smile bloomed on Em’s face, brightening the whole damn town. “Sure,” he said, “Thanks, Five.”

#warning for alcohol and drug use #writing #this one wENT SO OFF THE RAILS AAAAAAHHH #it just like. BARELY connects to the prompt #but ive been tapping along at it for like. maybe a week or so now and its like yeah time to open up my notes app. where was i. hey WHY #WHY DID I MAKE MYSELF HIGH WHY WAS THAT A CHOICE I MADE #I'll tell you why its because i was reading going postal and i was like DAMN sir terry pratchet deserves that knighthood #and i was getting self conscious about my own writing being SUPER boring in comparison #and so at like nine o clock as im in my bed doing a little bit of Stuff I Enjoy before going to sleep i was like you know what?#this is the spice this story needs #instead of like. taking actual knowledge of plot and shit from this really good novel i just finished. its okay im working on that #also can you tell that i 1. have never smoked weed and 2. had no idea why the fuck five would need to talk about #i just needed SOMETHING that would fit in with of a friday night by anais mitchell!!!! and just sitting in a cafe thinking about #an old poet and how this fading town was once something else #doesnt make for an active story i cant COMPARE to reacher gilt showing up at moist's date right before the post office is on FIRE #that was the point in the book btw where i was like oh. oh. this is masterful work what do i need to do to write like this #and part of the problem maybe. is that i can't set that sort of narrative trap for my characters when i get tired out writing 2000 words #reverse urashima taro

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retvenkos · 3 years

Text

within these lines | t.l.

Little Women - Theodore “Laurie” Laurence x Reader, fluff requested by @mywinterbucky - sorry for the wait!

tw: none

word count: 1.6k

prompt: “you still have that?”

A/N: sorry timothee chalamet fans, but the gif is of christian bale’s laurie because sometimes you gotta switch it up, y’know? after all, variety is the spice of life.

Summary: The world had come in between Laurie and (Y/n) five years ago, but neither time nor distance could keep them apart for long.

There’s something elusively romantic about the teenage years. Despite any tragedy that reaches the hearts of the young, there is something infinite in youth that takes such melancholy and spins it into something beautiful beyond recognition.

It was in their teenage years that (Y/n) was torn from Laurie’s embrace - two friends on the cusp of being something more. A “perhaps” that ended in ellipses, each dot like the thousands of miles that separated them. All through their childhood, they had been together, and up until the moment (Y/n) was whisked away to England, they had constantly been at each other’s side. To have known someone so fully and to lose them so completely was a tragedy that often left the soul barren. But they were teenagers at the time, standing at the precipice of adulthood, and their minds preserved a beauty that existed in their youth - something unique and not likely to happen again; gold-spun.

When (Y/n) was plucked out of Laurie’s pocket and ripped from his heart, there wasn’t much else to do than wander. Laurie passed the days on his own and when he wasn’t lost amongst the memories of his youth, he was writing letters to (Y/n) when he ought to have been studying and fashioning poetry when he should have been sleeping. There is something elusively romantic about writing to someone you don’t have the address for - something that lies in the yearning of one’s being and the void that is left behind.

As the years wore on, Laurie grew out of those rose-colored teenage years, but his heart still beat to the rhythm of a sonnet. Across the ocean, (Y/n) was much the same. Although less of a poet, (Y/n) was a dreamer, and when they closed their eyes, they were there in the gardens of their youth, with a boy they had once thought of loving at their side.

It was a muddy, April day when Laurie felt a particular kind of ache settle in his heart. (Y/n) had told him, once, when they were hiding in the study of his grandfather’s house rather than practicing the piano, that muddy, grey mornings were their favorite. He had laughed at them back then, even after (Y/n) insisted that grey mornings had a comforting sort of calm about them - something that made sense to Laurie, despite it all. (Y/n) had insisted on the beauty of drab mornings, and when he told them that loving dull skies was like loving the taste of over-boiled tea, (Y/n) told him that they loved that, too. “After all,” they had said, “that’s how you make it when your grandfather is away, and there’s no one here but us.”

“But it’s not any good.”

“To me it is.” At their statement, Laurie made a face, and (Y/n) laughed like a spring breeze. “As is anything that is made with love.”

Laurie’s cheeks bloomed with a soft red at the mention of something so sacred as love, and he hid his flustered feelings by fiddling with the papers on the study desk. On a few pages, Laurie saw his own messy scrawl, and on a couple of others, he saw (Y/n)’s curled handwriting.

“Why don’t you make a list, then?” Laurie searched for a blank piece of parchment and set one down in front of (Y/n), giving them a quill and inkpot. “Make a list of everything you can think of that’s made with love.”

“Why?” And the curiosity in (Y/n)’s voice was gentle.

“So that I may make a list of my own, and we can learn to love the list of the other.”

(Y/n) smiled.

That had been many years ago, but Laurie could still remember the soft, subdued smile that (Y/n) had given him that day - an expression of contented awe. He had associated that look with muddy, April days a long time ago, and there was something particularly melancholic about a memory so beautiful and so full of love.

And a long time after, Laurie was still in the study, now in his early twenties. Sitting in a newly upholstered seat, he pulled out of a small tin box a stack of old papers filled with curled handwriting. At the bottom of the stack lay the list from so long ago, well-loved and well revised, with additions like “poorly done sketches from the neighbor children,” and “broken seashells from the beach,” written in minuscule letters.

Laurie was reading number twenty-six (“the singing of birds on Sunday mornings”) when a voice spoke from the stillness.

“You still have that?”

Transcending time and distance, Laurie would have known that voice anywhere.

“(Y/n)?”

Laurie's old friend, leaning against the door of the study, giggled from delight, and not a moment later, Laurie had them wrapped in a hug, his years of loneliness only tightening his grip - warm, enveloping, and ferocious, like he would do anything to never lose them again.

“Laurie, you’re going to crush me!”

“Wasn’t that on your list, though?” Laurie pulled away, holding (Y/n) at arm's length, looking into eyes he hadn’t seen in years - bright and strong; beautiful beyond belief. “Number thirty-one: ‘hugs you think will crack your spine.’”

(Y/n) hummed fondly. “And if I remember correctly, your number thirty-one was hiding in the closet during parties, whispering stories by candlelight.”

“You remember?”

“Of course, I do,” (Y/n) said earnestly, their brow creasing slightly, as though they were surprised at his question. “I have it right… here.” (Y/n) reached into the inside pocket of their coat, pulling out an old and fading envelope. They gingerly pulled out a piece of old parchment, reading the first sentence on the page. "Number one: 'the too-small gloves that you made me.' You really should have written my name - had anyone else found the list, they would have been terribly confused."

“You still have it.”

(Y/n) smiled, and the expression was there - that contented sort of awe that never failed to make Laurie feel seen and, perhaps most of all, loved. For a moment, the two just stood there, within arm's length, holding onto each other and marveling at all the other had become. There was something elusively romantic about the moment; something heavenly that had been captured in every poem Laurie had ever written and every dream (Y/n) had ever fathomed.

“I missed you, Laurie.” And those four whispered words held a fragile sort of intimacy that could be shattered with a voice much louder than a sigh.

“And I missed you more than you could ever know.”

(Y/n)’s breath hitched.

Laurie stepped away suddenly as though a spell broke. He turned his back to (Y/n), his cheeks already starting to flare, and scanning the study for another chair - something for (Y/n) to sit in, close to him, at last.

“Ah, here.” Laurie pulled a chair closer to the study desk. “You can sit there and tell me all about your adventures in England. Would you like any tea?”

He turned to face (Y/n) once again, and they had a mischievous smile on their face. “Over-boiled, I’m guessing?”

Laurie chuckled, looking downward to hide the embarrassment that crept up onto his cheeks. “I think you’ll find I’m much improved. I’ve had five years of practice since you were last here.”

“Five years,” (Y/n) mused, walking over to their seat and sitting gently. “It’s funny, it feels like it’s been an eternity since I’ve been in Massachusetts, but it’s only been five years.”

“Five years is a long time,” Laurie supplied. “A lot can change.”

“But a lot can stay the same. Or, at least I hope.”

The two friends looked at each other. For a moment, it felt like the world slowed around them, and they were nothing more than the teenagers they had been five years prior when they were writing silly lists of things that were made with love.

“Well,” (Y/n) started, “I suppose I have stories I could tell, but I want to know about you."

"Well, I want to know about you!"

(Y/n) scoffed and shook their head, an expression that was beautiful, akin to the breaking of a new day.

"Well, this town has been like it's always been." Laurie relented, relaxing in his chair. “The March sisters have been less willing to spend time with me lately, since my mood has gone sour. but you’ll be glad to know that I have plans for getting back in their good graces, soon.”

(Y/n) leaned forward, putting their elbows on the desk and steepling their fingers, as though whatever they were talking about was of great importance. On instinct, Laurie leaned in as well, two conspirators in an empty house. "Well, now we're getting somewhere, Mr. Laurence."

Laurie stifled a chuckle, (Y/n) clearly struggling to do the same. "Indeed we are, (Y/n) (L/n)."

They both broke, and laughter filled the room, the sound echoing through the floorboards, unearthing the past where they had done just the same when they were years younger, but much the same.

Laurie sighed. "How is it that after five years of being apart, nothing has changed?"

"Well, I know you, Teddy, nothing can change that." (Y/n) smiled, gentle but full. Laurie felt a tugging on his heart - something almost painful if it weren't for the care in (Y/n)'s eyes, wrapping him in the most comforting sincerity - a gravity more divine than existing. "Even when we were far from each other, I had your list and my memories; you were the most full thing I ever had."

"I didn't know if you'd remember."

"I always remembered you."

Laurie breathed.

“Well,” (Y/n) began, something in their voice a little unsure, endearing Laurie already, “Now that we know we both remembered and kept the list of the other, I have to ask: did you learn to love my list?”

“I did.”

(Y/n) seemed pleased. “Even muddy, April mornings?”

Laurie chuckled, the feeling warm and pleasant in his chest - like a thunderstorm in June. “They were the first I learned to cherish.”

They smiled at each other once more.

-- taglist: @locke-writes, @brokenandheadoverheels, @coffee--writes, @swanimagines, @amortensie // message me if you want to be added!

#little women #laurie laurence #theodore laurence x reader #theodore laurence #laurie x reader #laurie laurence x reader #laurie imagine #laurie laurence imagine #theodore laurence imagine #x reader #gender neutral reader #imagine #reader insert #fluff #one shot #fic #fanfiction #fanfic

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thatiranianphantom · 2 years

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first line tag

rules: List the first lines of your last 20 stories (if you have fewer than 20, just list them all!). See if there are any patterns. Choose your favourite opening line. Then tag some people to take part.

Tagged by the fabulous @thetaoofbetty

1. "It starts because Betty Cooper makes a mistake."

- for want of a battle, the kingdom was lost

2. "There’s no music, no street noise, no sounds, only the sound of her own feet. It’s the way Betty likes it."

- there's something wrong in the village

3. "She’s not okay.

But it’s not okay that she’s not okay. It’s not, because it’s been five years. Five long years, two more than they were even together for, and she is still not okay."

- half of my heart (has always been yours)

4. "It’s starting to affect business. That’s what sells it, in the end."

- the one where tabitha and reggie fix the damn thing

5. "His job is done; he’s accomplished what he set out to do, and more. Betty smiles in the arms of her grandmother, a smile so bright it makes his chest hurt. She looks beautiful, regal, like a queen. And he will fade into the background, as he’s always done."

- what a life i'd have missed

6. "The clock on the wall is broken. It’s 1:32, but it reads 5:48. It’s so egregiously wrong, and he wonders why nobody has done anything about it."

- regret takes hold (we grow old)

7. "This is how the story goes. Don’t pretend you didn’t know it was a story. It’s been a story since the beginning. Since their town, once wholesome and pure, woke up to the murder of Jason Blossom. Before then, even. It was a story, and this is the boy and the girl’s story. Betty and Jughead."

- a soft epilogue

8. "There’s no scale of how long it is between “I can’t find Jughead” to sleepy blue eyes blinking up at her from a hospital bed."

- i will live (when we're together again)

9. "They don’t go to Miracles. Not right away, at least."

- there can be miracles

10. "She is doing the best thing for them. She is protecting them. She is not allowing them to go through the same thing she did, because that’s what a mother does."

- we're as close (as we may ever be again)

11. "She’s thinking as Archie undoes her buttons, and that is precisely what she is not supposed to be doing."

- when you're searching for salvation (but it feels so far away)

12. "It was an arrangement that made sense to Betty and Archie. It wasn’t…. together together. They weren’t a couple. It was casual. As casual as it could ever be with childhood friends. And it was...okay. It helped a little bit. It did what someone in her bed usually did. It made her feel a bit less lonely."

- the lovers cried, the poets dreamed

13. "She had drawn the short straw, Betty knows. Sitting in her office, she can feel a headache coming on, thanks to the bright light of the computer in front of her. Glancing at the corner of the screen, she sees the time move from 8:58 to 8:59."

- all is calm, all is bright

14. They were in a clear state of mind. Really, they insisted. They were not going to be those people that had a baby and became total zombies.

- i have a voice (it is my song)

15. "Betty and Veronica meet when they are fifteen and have kissed within three days of meeting."

- i'm right up the road (i'll share your load)

16. "The first obvious sign that Betty is indeed pregnant is the vomiting. Jughead would never count himself as an expert on pregnancy, but she goes above and beyond as with all things Betty does."

- i've been waiting for you

17. "They’re ecstatic when they find out. They’ve been married two years (officially. To hear their friends tell it, they’d been married since they were sixteen.)"

- head over feet

18. "It’s the picture he can’t get rid of. It’s nothing fancy. Just them at Pops."

- someone else is singing along

19. "FP is not often sent to do the grocery shopping for the Cooper Jones family."

- you're gonna see (that sometimes bad is good)

20. "He and Jessica had met during his third year of college. There had been a few girls since then. A few dates, nothing serious. Some of them were nice. It was nice to talk to people, nice to have a meal and a laugh with someone. Nice, in general."

- go, be yourself, on your way

I mean...what I expected! I'm in my wheelhouse, internal monologue and generally angst.

Tagging @middleagedresidentofriverdale, @winterlovesong1 @freezing82, @armedwreck

#my fics #Long posts

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dreamiesdotcom · 3 years

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celestial | h.rj

Summary: To attribute full sight and still have the ability to describe things to someone who's never seen them means that you've felt the world deeper than anybody else.

Word count: 2164

a/n: idk whats up with me and midnights

Renjun's first question goes like this: "What does the pool look like?"

Naturally, Jeno panics; how do you explain a pool to someone who's never seen it? He's been so used to seeing it on a daily that he didn't even pay mind to the details. He debates on describing a rectangle, and then describing the waters, and then whatever the hell his 12-year-old mind could come up with. Naturally, he fails.

For him, you saved everything that day. You grabbed Renjun's hand, intertwining your fingers before grazing the water. "Do you feel that?"

"What exactly am I supposed to feel?"

"The water. Do you feel that constant flow and the relaxing cold?" you laughed then, patient even for the moody boy. He huffs out his cheeks and nods, you let go of his hands. "That's blue, Renjun. The water reflects the sky, and a pool is like a little ocean. An ocean is like a world filled with blue."

He tries to think of it, vast and endless fields of freedom. He couldn't, though; all he's known about the sky is that it was blue, and that blue is associated with sadness. He takes advantage of the fact that someone's willing to answer his question, and he asks again, "Is it scary?"

"Mhm, for some, it is. I'll let you in a secret, come here." You nod, and then he tilts his head to the side. He hears a splash, and doesn't expect it once he hears your voice after — "I'm actually scared of swimming pools."

"Didn't you just go in?"

"No, that was Jeno. I'm here." You poked a finger on his left arm, and he could tell you're wearing that cheeky grin. His stance softens. "I'm just beside you."

###

It was morning, the sun was shining and the scorching summer heat was kinder than everyone expected it to be. Somewhere around the room, Chenle and Jisung successfully trapped a sleeping Jaemin in a domino prison, Jeno's trying to convince them why this is such a bad idea and Mark is getting scolded by Hyuck. The TV fades to background noise, the plan of cooking extra pancakes long forgotten. Renjun leans his head on your shoulders, "What does the night look like?"

It felt like an odd question to ask as the sun is halfway to its peak, but Renjun's curiosity piques in no time. You hum for a bit to think, "The night is very different to a lot of people."

Very different for a lot of people... yeah, many things in the world are like that. He figured it out years ago when you told him about the swimming pools, and the airplanes, and the rollercoasters. He figured it out when you talked to him about books, when you taught him about colors, about shapes.

He still doesn't know what different looks like, and what importance it holds.

"Hyuck loves the night. You hear his laughter, right? He likes going on adventures and feeling the wind. I think, to him, the night looks like a harsh passing of the breeze you felt when we went out on a drive." He takes in your words. These days, he gets better with understanding metaphors — he learned that blue is not just a shade of sadness, and that sky doesn't always mean blue — he understands your words better. "But me... I just sleep. I don't like the night very much."

"Huh?"

"Have you ever been in a silent place, Jun?" you asked softly. "Not the silence you can fill with music. I'm talking about blank, emotionless silence; the one that echoes. The one that haunts you. The one that makes you feel alone. That's what the night looks like for me."

Renjun wanted to nod, and he wanted to say yes because he's been in that silent place for the longest time. It's all he's ever known, and it's all that he's ever seen; it's the only thing he sees — black, echoing, loud nothingness.

He didn't, though.

Instead, he asks a question, "What do you think about the night?"

"I think it's a question." comes quickly in a reply. "I still don't know how a nightmare town gives life to dreamers, but it does. It's a question I do not want to know the answer to."

Renjun knows of the stars and the sky, and you'd tried to explain their light by telling him what blinding comfort was — think of all your loneliest moments being washed away by the fire I told you about, and that's pretty much it, 'jun — and he knows of the big, gazing moon that changes shape now and then. It's what makes up most of the night, Jeno had said, so he knows that too.

What he doesn't know is why it seems so vicious to you, and what he doesn't know is that if he could see, would he have chosen to close his eyes to not witness such complex sadness.

###

It's at times like this when solace blooms in his heart. The rest of the world seems to be fast asleep, but he's so awake, so aware, so alive. You sit beside him, yet again brought him to the place you and Jaemin frequents in, and he ignores the jealous feeling in his chest. It's at times like this that Renjun realizes he's falling.

"Your smile must look beautiful," he wonders out loud. "Can you please tell me how your smile looks like?"

"Me?" You replied nonchalantly. Your chuckle passes as cold as the night breeze, and he wonders how the poet would write themselves as poetry. The blankness of your words dulls the hope in his eyes, "I... don't like it. My eyes... they always look tired. I always look tired. I hate myself."

For a moment, he dwells on his thoughts — Jaemin's brought you here, and you're more frequent here together, and he's seen how you looked against the glimmering stars. Did he fall in love? Did he want to keep you all to himself, like a little secret? Did he want to kiss you until all spite of yourself vanishes from your soul? Jaemin must've, Renjun knows. He knows because even blind, he's aware of how beautiful you truly are; not only he's heard it from his friends, but he feels it strongly. He couldn't see the city lights that he's heard of so many times, but he knows you shine brighter than them.

Hell, he couldn't even see you — he couldn't even see anything, but he knows you do. He knows you are. You think he's wrong, that he's more gorgeous, but he reaches for your hands.

He doesn't know what beautiful looks like. He just knows that it's breath-taking, soul-stealing, ethereal, and you.

"I think you smile like euphoria. I think you smile like the sound of music boxes, those with lovely tunes," he says, eyes closed and breathing fast. "I think... "

'I love you.' oh, how he wished it's easy to say those words. He purses his lips. "...you're one of the most beautiful people I've ever met, right next to my mother."

Beside him, you chuckled and held his hands. "You're sleepy."

"I am. Right now, I'm sleepy and I know you're beautiful." He squeezes your hands, looking at the direction he knows you're at. He lets out a shaky smile, "Tomorrow, I will be wide awake and I'd still think you're stunning."

It's at times like this that Renjun realizes he's falling. It's at times like this that he fears how much he can't wait to crash.

###

Renjun's biggest fear among many is that he'll never feel like this again.

He fell too hard. He fell too quickly and too harshly and he's only noticing it now when the impact makes itself known and he couldn't stand up. He knew that he was scared, he knew that he was afraid then, but only now did he know what it truly meant to be terrified; when he's sitting beside you on the roof, feeling the wind pass by, and he couldn't help but wonder what if it's not us, but I can never love the person meant for me because they're not you?

It's a silly thing, maybe. He did not believe in many things and fate is not one of the few he believed in. He thinks that love is something you choose for yourself — it's something you decide on your own. He thinks that the only problem in 'not being made for each other' is that you relied too much on what the stars wrote, and didn't write your story on your own. What even are these stars, aside from unknown giant speckles of light? Why should they decide someone's life?

He adores them, he knows, and now he can't help his curiosity: "How do the stars look like tonight?"

"They're bright. Very bright."

He swoons at the content sigh you let out before speaking, and he lets himself indulge. It's at moments like this when he lets himself feel, where he relishes in the adoration he nestles.

"They ought to be," he whispers to himself. "They gotta be bright if they're trying to outshine you."

Giggles fades to laughter, and genuine words burn forced. He could almost taste the bitterness of your words, "You haven't seen me."

Does he need to?

"I don't need to," he concludes. "There's so much more to you than what I couldn't see."

Because it's true. All those years you held this something in you, a piece of an old soul and an unknown heavenly something you ignored just so you could spite yourself. You had this way with words, this certain understanding of the world that he's never found in someone else. Renjun thinks that to attribute full sight and still have the ability to describe things to someone who's never seen them means that you've felt the world deeper than anybody else, and to know that the world is cruel but still choose to keep your eyes open is something that should be admired.

Right now, you're the closest to him you've ever been, and he bathes in the feeling of your lips hovering above his.

"I'm a mess, Huang Renjun."

"You're an art in progress," he whispers back, eyes fluttering shut as you close what little distance you have left. "But even half-made, you're a masterpiece."

###

If somebody asked Renjun if he ever saw this coming, he'd say "Why the fuck would you even ask me that question?"

Alright, jokes aside, never in his mind did he think life would turn out this way. First of all, a lot of unexpected things have already happened, but he's stubborn so of course, that doesn't convince him. He should've felt it coming, but of course, he refused to. After all, why would he even think of his best friend laying beside him on his bed, talking about random things all night in every way domestic? Why would he even think of you two being together, whispering sweet nothings to each other? He's guilty of doing those, yes, but that doesn't mean that he knows the answer. In a spur of the moment decision, he asks another question — "Why'd you choose me?"

"You're the only one who wanted me—IT'S A JOKE! Hey, hey, I was only kidding," you laugh, finding so many things entertaining about the fact that he's unamused. He preens at the soft kiss you placed on the edge of his lips, and then even more when you whisper, "You're the only one I wanted."

Normally, this is where his heart would do those weird flips and antics. This is the time where he'd feel like he's in another world, like he's invincible and oh so lucky to be thoroughly adored by the person he loves so much.

It's only that sometimes, Renjun feels unreasonable. He's sensitive and insecure and it's so much easier to find flaws in himself than to appreciate the things that made him who he is. Sometimes, he needs to ask some things he's not exactly sure of, things much like: "Even with... even with my eyes... like this?"

And it's you, and it's never dull when it's with you, everything is always beautiful and poetic. He doesn't know where that voice was coming from, but he hears it in his mind, and it tells him to trust you.

A butterfly kiss on each of his eyelids. A hand warm on the top of his hands. The rain pours heavily outside but it's muffled enough that it's calming, and all that he can think of is warm, so warm, so loved. You hold your foreheads close and keep them close for seconds, before you press a soft kiss on his lips, "Your eyes are beautiful, my love."

And for once, Renjun's not afraid to ask — "How do they look like?"

Beautiful and so much more.

"As if something straight out of a magical dream, because you are. You are magical," you whisper, breathing in slow intervals. "You are the closest to celestial a human could be."

#nct dream #nct dream drabbles #nct dream blurbs #nct dream scenarios #nct dream imagines #nct dream x reader #nct dream one shots #nct dream fluff #renjun #renjun drabbles #renjun scenarios #renjun blurbs #renjun timestamps #renjun angst #renjun fluff #renjun imagines #blind!renjun

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lakelewisia · 3 years

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A Lewisian Year

Presented in partnership with the Lewisia Communications Board and Lewisia Public Library

Sponsored by The Historical Society

Hello, readers, listeners, and psychic osmosizers! Welcome to A Lewisian Year, a monthly showcase celebrating the rich culture here in the Lake Lewisia district. Each month, we'll highlight some seasonal events, local celebrations and interpretations of national and world holidays, and historical tidbits.

OCTOBER

Lights on the Lake

You don't know for sure what brought you out to the lake, this cool and misty Halloween night. There are so many bright delights to be enjoyed in town, more festive settings than this stretch of pebbled shore. The moon, already set and no more than a sickle anyway, would do little to illuminate anything more than the glassy surface of the lake nearest to you. Farther out, even that fades into a wall of fog. You just knew, somehow, you were supposed to be here. And you aren't the only one: other people assemble on the shore in uncertain silence. You all look out across the lake, wondering why you are here.

You don't have to wait long. Something appears in the fog out on the water. Just a patch of brightness that could be no more than a particularly thick clump of mist, if it weren't for the way it slowly approaches the shore. It bobs a little as it comes--something is floating toward you. Several somethings, you realize, as more lights emerge from the fog. Soon, a whole flotilla of lights can be made out. And now, by their collective glow, you can see how they are traveling to you.

Each light rides within a pumpkin, a little ship of hollowed squash. Tiny Jack-Be-Littles, great lumpen Knuckleheads, frosty blue Jarrahdales. The ghostly white of Cotton Candy, and the iconic roundness of Baby Bear. Some pumpkins carry but a single ethereal light, while others are crowded with a dozen. They drift in a wobbly, uneven way, suitable for a squash attempting to cross a lake, and yet they also approach so quickly, you have hardly had a chance to look along the length of their assemblage before they are nearly to the shore.

Already, with the pumpkins still several yards out, people have begun to stumble into the water. In the dark on either side of you, some give little cries of recognition as they lurch forward. Others splash out to meet their pumpkin, their lights, in silences grim or reverent. In time, you too will realize which little harvest ship is yours. You too will wade out into the water, heedless of soaked shoes and heavy pant legs. Because you understand, now, in the dark and the mist, what the lights are. You know how far they've come to be here tonight.

It is Halloween, and your beloved dead have come out to see you again. The pumpkins ferry their little soul lights from the misty underworlds and afterlives they inhabit, on this night when such visitations are possible. I will not hazard a guess as to who has come for you this year, nor speculate about what messages they might bring. No matter how many assemble on the lakeshore in a given year, we all meet the lights alone.

Search and Rescue

As you make your way back through town, you watch the more mundane joys of Halloween, in all their glittery, sugar-stuffed glory: trick-or-treaters. Even before the night itself, there are harvest events all month to draw out crowds. It's easy to get lost in such a crowd. Easy for a group to get smaller by one or two people without anyone noticing right away. Easy for someone to get lured away from the group and the safety of the path when there are so many delights to look at.

When that happens, someone has to track them down. Enter the Lewisia Search and Rescue Collective, a loose association of public servants, private trackers, and independently operating animal guides. Given the unusual terrain of the Lewisia area, both physical and ethereal, it takes more than just a sniffer dog and an unwashed shirt to track down a missing person. The LSRC can handle everything from underwater searches (trained kingfishers and a pair of selkie sisters) to dimensional rift retrievals (several retired time travelers and the single skinniest, most disreputable- and ancient-looking black cat I have ever seen). They even have multiple successful faerie abduction recoveries in their history, but they declined to give any details about whom of their associates had handled those cases.

October sees more mysterious disappearances than any other month of the year in the greater Lewisia region. The town's ability to draw in outsiders raises the statistics for seventeen counties beyond its immediate reach as well. (Your humble host has spent a lot of time looking at microfiche records of missing person reports in the last month. A lot.)

Of course, a missing person isn't always a bad thing; a mysterious disappearance isn't always an involuntary one. Whether it's down to October's metaphysical properties, the changeable fall weather, or just the prospect of facing the coming winter cooped up somewhere, or with someone, you hate, this is the time of year when people make their escapes. Plenty of fairy rings are approached with clear eyes, rather than blundered into. Sometimes maw-like eldritch portals swallow a person AND the suitcase they packed ahead of time. Sometimes, a missing person does not need or want to be found. After all, sometimes those missing people end up here in Lewisia.

Mating and Migration

While we're on the subject of local population fluctuations, I have a repeated and intense reminder from Dr. Ben Langston in the Biology department of the community college regarding mating and migrating creatures this autumn:

If you encounter a local animal, cryptid, ambulatory plant, or other apparently non-rational life form, and it seems like it really wants to eat, breed with, or flee from you or anything else in the immediate area? Strongly consider getting out of its way.

This time of the year, several of our local species leave on their yearly migration to warmer climates in the south. Tawny unicorns and scorched-beak falcons have both already left us. Snowy púki and glass bats will likely be seen headed along their usual paths bordering the Briarwood district. These habits are driven by seasonal changes both obvious and subtle, written into the genetics of creatures and taught from one generation to the next.

It is a drive stronger than your desire to cross a particular road just then. It is an impulse older than your ideas about private yards and landscaping. Let them pass.

All of which is nothing compared to the mating impulse in some creatures. I don't think I need to explicate the mortal danger faced by anyone who gets between a bull moose and his paramour. And while Old Tommy, the goblin crane who lives out by Stoneheart Manor, is generally friendly with the public, that dance he's doing for the next month is not for your benefit, and you should consider using an extremely long lens if you feel compelled to capture his moves on film.

If anything should decide that you are, in fact, the intended subject of their amorous attentions, it is recommended that you seek shelter indoors. Cars are not the deterrent you might hope, except in cases of relatively small unwelcome suitors. A sturdy door and/or high fence will offer more protection until their interest turns elsewhere.

Of course, if you decide you quite fancy one of the human-compatible creatures currently seeking mates, we won't stand in your way. Advice and resources for negotiating an interspecies relationship and parenting any resulting hybrid children can be found through the library's life skills programming.

This Month in History

October 17, 1937 saw the first public distribution of the newly developed vaccine against Custler's Influenza, also known as Gothic flu. Symptoms of Gothic flu include paleness, wasting away, light aversion, mysterious billowing winds centered around the afflicted, and a compulsion to find moorland and cliffs on which to wander. Though not directly fatal, the impulses caused by the disease frequently lead to misadventure. Several of Lewisia's older architectural wonders are thought to have begun as visions of designers suffering from undiagnosed cases of Gothic flu, as the disease is also known to cause obsessions with houses.

Efforts to explore a vaccine or even study the disease had been hindered for years by the tendency of any laboratory setting to go moderately weird within six months of introducing live virus samples to the space. Teams of sensible researchers were assembled based on testing for resistance to romantic notions and delusions of grandeur. Special ultramodern workspaces had to be built, including numerous south-facing windows to counteract the dark and withdrawn tendencies brought on by proximity to the virus. Thanks to their efforts, Gothic flu is now a rare, and rarely life-altering, affliction that seldom does more than cause a temporary flare for flowing poet's shirts and antique literature.

That's a taste of what October has to offer us. See you next month, when November replaces werewolves with regular wolves, donates an hour, and once again brings a covered dish.

#fiction #microfiction #magical realism #holidays #history #October #Lake Lewisia #demifiction #A Lewisian Year #bonus material

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rokutouxei · 3 years

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the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

ikemen vampire: temptation through the dark theo van gogh / mc | T | [ ao3 link in bio ]

The challenge seemed pretty simple: to try to befriend the university bookshop’s most sour employee, Theo van Gogh. As a literature major with a boatload of book recommendations on her back, it ought to be a simple task indeed. But as she uncovers what lies between Theo’s pages, the more she finds it harder to become closer to him without having to put the feeling directly into words. What can she learn from Theo about what it means to stay—and how can she teach Theo about what it means to let go? | written for ikevamp big bang 2020!

[ masterpost for all chapters ]

CHAPTER 21 OF 22

—The heartbeat is actually the sound made by the heart valves closing. If you, my love, ever hold a stethoscope to my chest I will tell you to listen for the silence in between. What is and what will always be yours is the sound of my heart finally opening.

- "Letter to the Editor", Andrea Gibson.

interlude ii

In the span of time between understanding and acceptance, Theo half-writes a million letters, all of them suffering the same kind of fate: undelivered. The email gets deleted, the text erased, the sheet crumpled, set on fire. There are too many words he doesn’t have the courage to say, and fuck, he’s not a literature major, after all.

He’s only the arrow shooting forward, not the bow pulling back towards itself.

But every second he spends lost in the memory of her leaves him splitting open, so for the first time in what feels like centuries, he unfolds what he’s kept in his heart the size of his clenched fist. Allows its beating space to unravel. And when he doesn’t have the vocabulary to put it into words himself, he borrows—borrows from others until he finally finds the ones that will feel just right tell.

Until they’re finally just right to tell.

The first letter he ever writes her, he composes outside the gallery of his brother’s exhibit, on the opening day. He’s crouched on the stone steps with a book in his hand, a little poetry book Arthur had dropped by for him earlier that day. For what, the bastard refused to say, but he had that look on his face that Theo hates: that Arthur knows exactly what he’s doing it for.

The first of his letters are spiteful, the words he borrows barbs, promises he doesn’t intend to keep when he rewrites,

I shall forget you presently, my dear, So make the most of this, your little day, Your little month, your little half a year

onto a sheet of scratch paper, one he ultimately throws into a bin before he’s even felt like he’s begun writing anything.

He gathers his heart a little closer for the second one, highlighting a verse in shaky yellow while he’s on a bus ride out of town, on the exhibit’s closing day.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one, Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun, Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood; For nothing now can ever come to any good.

But it is not enough. And even after that, there are an innumerable number of letters that still are not enough. He borrows from everyone he’s learned from her: Shakespeare, Frost, Whitman, Dickinson; he borrows from new names, Allan Poe, Silverstein, Neruda, Keats, Siken; he borrows from poetry, from fiction, from plays. From philosophers, from writers, from artists. The words never seem to be enough to cross the gap between what he’s said and what he should have.

He writes the ten-thousandth letter with his heart beating in his chest so loudly he can barely hear his breath,

And I lean down towards you with muscle and wing, as if to a grave stone, (I put the years to sleep)

my lips seek yours... like spring.

longing, the sear of it, the idea of having touch so warm under his skin the world feels all too cold. He misses her like he would a lost limb. He reads the poem over, and over, and over again until he cannot deny it, and when he does not have the will to deny it he sets it on fire, instead.

Arthur asks him why he’s making it so much harder on himself, asks him why he’s putting himself in all this agony for nothing—Arthur talks like he knows everything. And maybe he does, the fool that he is. “Just call her,” the flirt says, “Call her from my number, send her a message—" But Arthur doesn’t know what happened, doesn’t know what it felt like in that rooftop, the words hanging in between him and her, unsaid, said, told in their heads—but never out loud, not enough to make it come to life.

To make it real.

To make it seem like Theo isn’t just writing a story in his head.

One where she’s only an unwilling participant.

Letters are the one thing Theo can hide behind, besides poetry. He can pour his entire heart in that little sheet of paper, tell her all that he wanted to but never could—send it away, and then not have to wait, expecting a response. He considers it the same as writing a message, stuffing it in a bottle, and then throwing it out in the open sea. It would be great if she finds it. It would be great if she’s moved enough by it that she writes back, that she forgives him, that she continues to wait for him even if she’s already so far away.

If only he could get it right.

The millionth letter doesn’t make it past his desk. He hears the poem from a phone in the bookstore: two literature majors reading from a book on the shelf, reciting the lines, Theo barely hears it over their gasps, but when he does he scrambles to put it into writing, thinking, this is it, maybe this is the one that’ll get me across, says,

It well may be that in a difficult hour, Pinned down by pain and moaning for release, Or nagged by want past resolution's power, I might be driven to sell your love for peace, Or trade the memory of this night for food.

takes the pen in his hand and nearly tears the page when the poets say:

It well may be. I do not think I would.

Theo is on his headphones for the rest of the afternoon, hiding in the stockroom stacking books.

He sits and negotiates, negotiates, negotiates with himself over and over again, like this was a case, like this was a business deal, instead of something else, something that’s less rigid, less in-boxes, one without protocol. Arthur tries to talk him into it. Vincent tries to talk him out of it. In, out, of what, Theo doesn’t know anymore, their voices fading into the back of his mind when he begins to really think about this.

About her, about her hands.

About his.

Sometimes, at night, in bed, before I fall asleep, a poet once wrote, I think about a poem I might write, someday, about my heart.

Theo does the same.

Much to his dismay, however, the world does not fall in around him, does not close him off from the outside world no matter how hard he tries, no matter how much it seems like that’s what ought to happen. The semester rolls on. The exams are still hard. The Halloween Party is still the same talk of the university as it did a full year ago, like the world hadn’t turned upside down for him since then.

The universe had even granted him the most effective way to wallow in his pain, the new girl in their little friend group (the one he was only in because of her) whose heart was a mirror of the girl he’d loved. Why is it that those that do so poorly in romance tend to flock together like recognizing the uneven parts of themselves? She is drunk and talking about someone else, but when she speaks about letters the same way she used to, something in Theo’s heart cries out.

Too bad he still doesn’t have the words.

The closest Theo gets to what he wants to say comes in the form of old memories, a scribble of a haphazardly written note on a piece of clean café napkin, in her handwriting, no, there’s no mistaking it. Heart by heart, Louise B written in familiar cursive. A note from a lost time slipped in a returned book, perhaps on purpose, perhaps on accident. He turns the search terms over and over until he finds it, a rush of air exiting his lungs when he gets to the end:

Now that I have your heart by heart, I see The wharves with their great ships and architraves; The rigging and the cargo and the slaves On a strange beach under a broken sky. O not departure, but a voyage done! The bales stand on the stone; the anchor weeps Its red rust downward, and the long vine creeps Beside the salt herb, in the lengthening sun.

Now that I have your heart by heart, I see.

But he doesn’t hasn’t ever had it, not since she’d left, so he doesn’t send it.

Theo doesn’t cry. There is no reason to, he thinks to himself, nothing to be upset about, not when it’s him holding himself back, when this was all his fault. He only sits quiet, repentant. He doesn’t make any mention of her, and when she is mentioned, he doesn’t say a word.

What worth are words now?

This goes on for weeks. And it seems like an eternity later when Vincent catches him sitting in the dining room with that same idle look on his face, that same dull expression, he steps into the light of the older brother Theo has always seen him to be, the older brother he’s always hoped to be—and puts a hand on the shoulder of his lost younger brother, eager to lead him home.

“Theo?”

“Broer.”

Vincent’s voice is soft. Patient. “What are you looking for?”

“I don’t have the words for… this,” Theo says, gestures vaguely at his heart, like pained. “I don’t know where to look for them anymore.”

And his brother smiles like he knows all the answers. (Theo believes Vincent has all the answers.) “There is poetry everywhere, Theo," he says, sounding awfully like her, "Your eyes are focused on the wrong things.”

Like a flash of lightning, he hears it: in the lilt of her voice, the tinkle of laughter, her voice like thunderclouds rolling over a sunlit summer. The poem that found him, instead of the other way around.

You.

Theo immediately goes out to find fancy stationery he knows she likes and gets his best fountain pen and writes; the weight of honesty pins the words solidly onto the parchment. Theo had not known metaphor until that moment, had not understood what it meant when whatever a sun will always sing is you was written, until—

Until it was his heart that was chanting it.

And the day after, he delays the inevitable: seals the letter with glue, sticks a stamp on the upper right corner of the envelope. Theo slips it into the to-mail box without a word, and then exits the post office like he hasn’t left his heart there for sending.

#the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart #ikemen vampire #ikevamp theo

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neowinestainedress · 3 years

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↬ title: where all the poets went to die ↬ pairing: lee taeyong / kim doyoung ↬ summary: Taeyong learns that sometimes, no matter how many things you try, escaping is the only way to keep on surviving. ↬ genre: idol!taeyong (not nct!taeyong, soloist!taeyong), song inspired - the lakes by taylor swift, domestic fluff, romantic, happy ending ↬ warnings: none, mentioned johnten, mentioned kun, (this is the sequel of this, not exactly what I was hoping for but I couldn’t keep on working on it, so here it is) ↬ words count: 9.9k ↬ ao3 link

Taeyong really wished people would’ve deleted him, pushed him and Doyoung out of their minds as soon as possible. He wished that destroying his career was enough for them. But apparently, things never work as you want them to go. Months went by, and somehow they still seemed to be the most exciting rumour on everybody’s tongue. The hurtful comments never stopped flooding Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr. He shouldn’t have done that, maniacally looking up for his name, or Doyoung’s, but he did. He just wanted to be in contact with his fans, he knew that some of them were still there. He wanted to be present for them, let them know he was grateful for their support, and for still believing in him and accepting who he really was. The problem was that the hate they were giving him was bigger than anything else, and one nice comment wasn’t enough to delete all the malice.

But Taeyong was headstrong, or as Doyoung would say, a dickhead, and just kept checking his phone every second. The younger knew that his obsession was the result of his idol life, he was raised with the idea that he had to perfect and to obsess about what people thought of him. Because his reputation had to be perfect, no mistakes, no foul, no trait of being human. But Taeyong wasn’t an idol anymore; some company reached for him but he rejected, not mentally ready to face that all over again. And Doyoung was tired of seen him self-sabotaging himself. So it wasn’t unexpected when one day they had a big fight over it. Doyoung had just got home from work to see Taeyong basically in the middle of a panic attack, trembling on the floor, as he was sobbing uncontrollably. Doyoung didn’t even want to know what he had seen or read, he couldn’t care about it, but he was furious that once again his boyfriend was in that conditions because of people that had nothing to do with their lives. He didn’t say a thing, though, he simply let Taeyong crawl in his arms and cry on his shoulder, the older mumbling incomprehensible words against his shirt. And it took him the whole night to calm him down, and put him to bed, finally falling asleep when it was almost four in the morning. Doyoung was done, filled to the brim, his patience gone completely. He couldn’t stop people from writing terrible things on him, or hate him, or think that he was a tremendous person, but he could stop Taeyong from hurting himself. And Taeyong didn’t like it.

“Why did you do that?” The brown-haired screamed as he threw his phone on the couch.

“Because I was tired of seeing you harming yourself, Yong,” Doyoung answered trying to keep his tone calm, shouting at the other would’ve just made things worst.

“You could’ve asked me? Since it’s my phone, and my socials and my life!” He had had a terrible night, so he was already nervous because of that, and when he turned on his phone just to see that all of his socials were deleted his irritation skyrocketed. Taeyong knew that he wasn't mad because Doyoung did it on his back, he just wanted to find an excuse. He was obsessed with all of that, and he simply hated that now he had to drop his toxic routine.

“And you would’ve said yes?” Doyoung asked provocatively “You can’t get your mind away from them. Socials were consuming you and I’m not letting you do that. Because it may be your life but we are in this together, and it also concerns me since I love you.”

Taeyong didn’t answer, his gaze met the floor, as silent tears started to roll down his face. Doyoung was right, he was aware of that. But somehow not knowing what people thought of him was agonizing. He had to know if things changed, if maybe they opened their eyes and realized the truth of his old rumours that resurfaced and accepted that he was gay.

“Please,” Doyoung whispered moving closer, standing now face to face with him, his hands softly cupping his cheeks, “I’m doing this for you.”

And Taeyong was glad he did that. The first few days had been hard, the urge to download them again was always there in the back of his mind. But after a while, Taeyong started to feel better.

Still, somehow, his mental state wasn’t getting any better. He felt like he was in jail in his own town. He simply didn’t feel safe to go out with the risk of being recognized and followed or assaulted. It had been four months since he didn’t leave the house. Also, it became strange and dangerous for Doyoung too. People had found some of their friend’s Instagram and discovered other photos of him, his face was now pretty known and he didn’t feel safe going to work and coming home late as he did before. Somebody once had followed him home, and he had to threaten of calling the police.

So Taeyong came to the solution that he had to disappear. But not without his muse.

And they did. Doyoung didn’t hesitate a second to say yes when Taeyong had proposed him to run away. It had happened one night, and quietly unexpectedly for both of them.

They were laying on their bed, Doyoung busy reading a novel and Taeyong reading an article Johnny had sent him about the Lake District where he lived with Ten. Without realizing Taeyong grew fascinated and started to look up for more videos of The Lakes. Everything about it seemed beautiful and he also remembered all the good things Johnny used to tell him every time they talked. They were supposed to visit them in February, for the occasion of celebrating Doyoung and Johnny’s birthday differently (and also Ten’s, even if they would’ve already been back in Korea by the 27th), but then the agency filled Taeyong with schedules and everything dropped. Taeyong remembered the stories Ten told him about English literature, how the district was famous for its poets, like Wordsworth and Coleridge. And soon enough he found himself lost in their words, blown away for the little English he could understand and the little justice Korean translation could do to those words. And before he could think, words slipped out of his rosy lips. “Take me to The Lakes, where all the poets went to die.”

Seconds of silence passed by before the older spoke again, “I don’t belong here, and my beloved, neither do you.”

If it had been just six months before Doyoung would’ve laughed at him, told him he was crazy and was being irresponsible, but now, things were totally different. What did they have to lose when they had already lost everything?

✯✯✯

The spring breeze was softly blowing on Taeyong’s face, as he looked outside of the window of their bedroom. It had been one year since he had disappeared, literally faded from the real world. His mom told him that his fans were concerned about him, not hearing from him for months made them think of the worst-case scenarios. Yet, he was doing better than he ever was. After twelve months he still felt like a baby every time he woke up and breathed in the air England offered him. Probably it was the fact that he could actually open a window to let new fresh air in, and don’t stick to AC like he was used to in Korea because the air was polluted, and it would’ve done more harm than good. Or the fact that around him was nature and pretty houses, with brown bricks, and wooden windows, and balconies filled with flowers and plants. The lake didn’t even touch the city, but somehow the air there smelled different. And he couldn’t even care much about the rain filling up most of the days. Or how hard it had been to learn English and understand their accent. He was just glad he was there. Far away from the negativity. Finally, feeling like a human being again.

Taeyong turned around, eyeing his boyfriend who was still sleeping peacefully in their bed. A smile crept on his face as he studied his relaxed features, he felt so lucky to have somebody so beautiful, inside and out, in his life. Taeyong knew that he had been particularly hard for him to move all the way to England. The younger didn’t show it much, but he knew. He had to drop his work in Korea and rebuild his business in a foreign country, learn a foreign language, just when things had started to be good for him. At the end it worked, his business became successful faster than it did in Seoul, to the point that he also had the chance to open an online shop and started to sell around the world. However, it was tiring for him since he was the only one who was actively working. It wasn’t about the money, Doyoung wanted to do something and don’t lean on Taeyong’s career money, and also he had worked too hard to built his business to drop his dream just because he went to live somewhere else. So after many sleepless nights, and hard work, he could finally relax a little bit. Just three months before he could afford to employ somebody else to help him, and now there were three of them working at the shop.

And finally seeing him sleeping peacefully, just like a baby, made Taeyong feel warm.

Running a hand through his now black hair, he sighed and started to make his way down to the kitchen. That was another thing that he had missed. Tranquil mornings together, with none rushing them, no training schedule for him in the evening, or the urge to update people about his life –or better, his made-up life. A bittersweet smile broke on his face as he stopped for a second, thinking how people preferred a fake fabricated version of him to a real sincere one. Let’s make it clear, he loved his fans, and he really liked to share things with them, but the fact that he always had to cut out something, or somebody, to fit the narrative of the perfect boy he had to be, made it feel like an obligation.

The cold air caused a shiver to run down his spine. It was late March, and even if the hard cold dropped, the weather loved to remind him that they were still in England. Luckily it didn’t seem to be cloudy, a quiet sunny day seemed to be headed for them, and Taeyong wanted to take the energy of the shy sun shining in the sky to make the best of his day.

“Wow,” Doyoung whispered as soon as he entered the kitchen, a tired smile was plastered on his face as he tried to shrug the sleep from his eyes, “why so happy?” He asked as he kept glancing Taeyong’s body energetically dancing around the kitchen to the tunes coming from the radio.

His boyfriend turned around, the brightest smile ever on his face, placed two plates down the kitchen isle and then leaned on it.

“Nothing specific, today looks like a perfect day to breathe in all the good vibes the universe offers,” he tilted his head to the side just to swiftly blow him a kiss and then turn back around.

Doyoung giggled and then rolled his eyes. He was pretty sure that this was all Ten’s fault, him and his astrology readings, and all of those things he simply felt too stupid to understand. He was fascinated but not even half of what Taeyong was. So their couples dates consisted on Taeyong and Ten talking about art, tarot readings, zodiac charts, while he and Johnny listened, not getting a word of what they said, or talking about something else. At the start, Doyoung wasn’t that close with them, but soon enough he found out that they were really great. He discovered an amazing friend in Johnny, especially after he helped him a lot with his business and English. And as much as sometimes Ten was a pain in the ass, and they spent half of their time together bickering, he knew they had a great relationship. Pretty unusual but great.

That morning he definitely didn’t feel as energetic as his boyfriend was, but Taeyong’s aura was enough to pull him through the day (plus, he just needed to – actually – wake up). So he dragged his feet to his partner, and once he was behind his back he wrapped his arms around his tiny waist. His head falling in the crook of his neck, inhaling deeply his scent, and nuzzling against his hair.

“Uh, somebody wants cuddles,” Taeyong teased in a sing-song tone.

“Yeah, I’m not good at freeing my soul like you. I take my energy from you, not the universe,” Doyoung mumbled, still against his warm skin.

“Legit. I am your universe,” Taeyong joked, turning red soon after as he realized what he had said.

Doyoung huffed, “If I wasn’t this sleepy I would’ve slapped you,” he said seriously. “But I need my kisses and hugs to warm up for the day, so I’m going to deal with your super sugary self.”

✯✯✯

The low chatting around the four men filled the room, alongside with the music playing from the speakers of the pub.

“The Crafty Baa” was by now a ritual for them. It was the first place their friends took them when they first arrived (okay, in reality not the first, since they had other priority, much to Johnny disposal, but whatever). It was definitely a quirky and strange place, something Taeyong absolutely loved. And Ten knew it damn well that was what the boy needed after all the things he had been trough. Johnny wanted to take them somewhere else but his boyfriend insisted, and at the end, it worked.

Now, a year later, Taeyong seemed to be fascinated by the place just like he was the first time.

“I really hope you’re not ordering garlic bread once again, or else forget my kisses,” Ten glanced at Johnny as soon as he saw his boyfriend focusing on that page of the menu. A mix of disgust and judgment all over his face.

“I can live without your kiss but not without garlic bread, sorry ‘bout it,” he answered shrugging with a grin on his face.

“John Youngho Seo, I’m getting a divorce,” Ten exclaimed slamming his hands on the table, not so strong but loud enough to make Doyoung roll his eyes to the sky and shrink on his place already regretting to have agreed of going out.

“We’re not even married,” Johnny noted with his eyebrow furrowed.

“About that,” Taeyong interrupted their playful bickering, “you should think about it. You’ve been together for almost ten years now.”

Maybe Taeyong wasn’t in the place to pressure them about it, but damn if he got excited over weddings, and damn, if he hadn’t been their number one supporter since they got together. Johnny gulped, as he shyly looked at Ten to see his reaction. The boy was pretty much unaffected by it. It wasn’t an uncomfortable topic, they simply never got there. Taeyong was right, they had been together for ten years now. Knowing each other at Uni in London, both of them studying Graphic Design and Visual Communications. It didn’t take long to become friends, eventually become roommates the second year and then start dating in the middle of it all. It was just so normal for them to be together, and to be so domestic since the start, that marriage just wasn’t something that popped in their minds frequently. They were pretty fine with what they had. But they would be lying if they said they never dreamed about that day.

“You should’ve minded your business,” Doyoung said to Taeyong when nobody said a word for a while.

Ten laughed at Taeyong’s sad expression and then spoke up, “Nah, it’s fine. We don’t think about it much, but I wouldn’t mind becoming his husband.” He said with a genuine smile on his face, as he glanced up to Johnny who was looking down at him. The words coming out of the Thai's lips causing Johnny to finally relax. For an instant, he had feared Ten didn't like the idea of marrying him.

“I’m planning it!” Taeyong jumped on the spot, breaking the two lovers’ magic moment.

“Since when you’re a wedding planner, now?” Doyoung asked as he threw his hands in the air, making everybody laugh.

“Oh shut up, I’ve got style.”

“I wouldn’t trust him,” he mouthed to Johnny, knowing damn well that Ten was on his side.

“We see you.” And as a matter of fact, both Ten and Taeyong spoke at the same time. A pout on both of their faces.

Johnny tried to hold his grin but Doyoung straight up rolled his eyes at the sky once again. “Like I care,” he shrugged sipping from his red beer.

“You don’t support me, I’m dropping your ass,” Taeyong started to whine tugging at his shoulder. And as much as Doyoung wanted to keep the teasing going it was harder than expected when he turned around to see Taeyong with puppy eyes and lips pouting at him.

“I’m just saying,” Doyoung started to mumble, “you need to be focused to prepare our wedding, not theirs.”

Time froze for a second, their friends wanted to scream but nobody at the table was quite sure how literally Doyoung meant that. Was it just a playful remark? Or did he propose to him right there?

“You,” Taeyong started to mumble, looking in his eyes completely lost, “you would marry me?”

Doyoung gulped, just now realizing what he had actually said. Maybe he had been random, but, did he lie?

“Yes, I mean, why I wouldn’t want to?” He asked, sincerely confused about how the news seemed to be so unexpected for Taeyong.

The older bit his lips and then turned around. He knew that, and he lowkey – high key – wanted it, too. But somehow talking about it made him feel strange. Not even in a bad way. It was just the realization that what they had was real, and long-lasting. The idea made his heart jump in his chest, the teenage stupid butterflies were once again flying in his stomach. Yet, something about commitment scared him. All of his usual haunting “What ifs” were lingering in his brain, he couldn’t seem to be able to let them go. His train of thoughts was soon interrupted by the same waitress of always approaching their table asking them if they were ready to order. The tension dropped as soon as both couples decided to drop that talk and focus on what to eat.

By the end of the night, all of the boys were pretty much drunk, the only one sober was Johnny. Ten was laying against Johnny's shoulder as he giggled over nothing every time he made eye contact with Taeyong and Doyoung was trying so hard to make a conversation, he wasn't -that- drunk, but somehow speaking English while his blood turned into beer seemed harder than the usual.

"Remember when we got drunk that one time that Taeyong came to London?" Ten asked, suddenly gaining back a little bit of sanity. Johnny sighed as the memory came back to his mind.

"It was so funny," Taeyong said as he remembered that night too.

"Funny my ass," Johnny said through his teeth, "I had to drag your drunk, chaotic asses back to the campus trying not to get caught and to be extremely careful that your pretty face wouldn't get a single scratch."

Ten next to him rolled his eyes, "How dramatic. You had fun too,"

"Yeah, up until I had to become your babysitter," Johnny exclaimed. "Drunk teenage Taeyong was something else. Remember that you tried to hook up with that man that was at least twice your age?"

"Oh shut up!" Taeyong exclaimed as his hands went up to cover his face that somehow was become even redder now.

Doyoung snickered, "Oh, so you were into dilfs,"

"Listen," Taeyong exhaled, "I was horny and desperate. I used to spend my days going to school and then training, I basically had no free time."

"So the only holiday you got you decided to fuck around," Johnny continued but got shut down as soon as Taeyong threw something at him. Not really harmful. What a shame you can't kill a man with a napkin. Taeyong thought as he realized his failed mission.

"You never told me you were this wild," Doyoung said playfully, as he pinched his boyfriend's cheek.

"I wasn't that wild, let me live." He pouted making everybody laugh.

"We had fun, tho," Ten said smiling as he started thinking about the time that passed. He was happy that now Taeyong was so close to them. He knew how close he was with Johnny, and how hard it had been for them when Taeyong started to be less present due to the training and Johnny had to leave to attend the University in London. And even if he came in his life later, he still felt the struggle when they used to spent months without talking because Taeyong's phone was taken away from him, or the times he couldn't text much because he was exhausted. Ten always wondered how Taeyong survived that hell, it felt straining from the outside he couldn't really imagine what the older man felt. And because of that he really admired him, he knew that he deeply loved his job, or else he wouldn't have carried through all that. So he was glad that they had decided to get away from that toxic environment, he had been so happy when Taeyong called to them to deliver the news. A little bit egoistically he really wanted to have him close to him. Even though he was Johnny's best friend, the two of them built an amazing friendship through the years, they connected in so many ways, and Ten loved to have somebody he could talk to about the strangest and most random things he was into. He would've preferred if something like this happened differently, if they didn't have to go through all the hate and cancel culture, but they couldn't change the past or destiny, so he tried to see the best of every situation. And now, he was pretty sure that both, Taeyong and Doyoung were happy where they were.

"Yes, we did," Taeyong smiled as he stared at his two best friends and his boyfriend. He tried not to think much about his past, too many things he had to give up, and people he lost for a dream that crumbled apart in his hands. He didn't want to think about that. He was happy now, surrounded by the people he loved the most, and for now, that was worth everything.

✯✯✯

Taeyong’s long fingers were moving on the piano keys, the notes filled the room with a repetitive rhythm. It had been quite some time since he got close to anything that was related to music. He won’t lie, he felt broken because that magic spell he had with music seemed to be broken. Shuttered into million pieces.

Taeyong felt empty.

Music came to him when he had nothing. All of his friends had dreams and goals to reach, all of them were super ambitious. And then there was him, with nothing to look forward to. But just when he felt hopeless, music came to him and saved him. It showed him the light in his life he couldn’t seem to be able to discover/find.

And he had to work so hard to get where he was. When he first joined the agency he basically had no artistic background. He had to start from zero. And he was never going to forget the screams of his teachers, telling him he was hopeless, and talentless, that he wasn’t going to go anywhere in his life. A waste of time. Just a pretty face.

He was losing contact with the only thing that made him feel alive. And for something he never wanted in the first place.

Being an idol was the price to pay if he wanted to pursue his dream. And he paid the highest price.

He wanted to create music, art. He wanted to connect people through his words and stories, not be a plastic doll that had to sit there and be manipulated by others.

Yet, somehow, he just couldn’t bring himself to do that.

Rage flashed over him as the same old note came out from the piano and he hit it with a punch. A distorted sound filling the room.

Hot tears started to fill his eyes, as he started to feel that maybe they were right, he was just a pretty face, and all his hard work was the fruit of somebody else. Maybe people liked him just for his visuals and he had nothing else to bring to the table, he had been lucky because they were blinded by love and desperate devotion.

A sigh left his mouth when he glanced the clock on the wall, it was almost 5 p.m, Doyoung would’ve been home by minutes and he didn’t want to be found like that.

He tried to play it cool the whole evening, trying to keep their conversations on Doyoung or anything but him. Still, the suffocating feeling didn’t let him sleep all night.

And as he turned around in the bed, eyes focused on Doyoung’s breathtaking features, he wondered where all of his inspiration went.

He had his muse right there in front of him, and now was free to write whatever he wanted, and yet, he was stuck.

He wanted to scream, but it would’ve been useless, so he decided that crawling up against Doyoung’s body was the best he could do. Maybe his familiar scent would’ve been strong enough to lull him to sleep and drown his demons.

✯✯✯

“Sing a song with me,” Taeyong said leaning against the doorframe of their bedroom. Doyoung frowned, turning around swinging on his turning chair.

“What?” He asked, genuinely confused, as he looked around the room to make sure nobody else was there and he wasn’t on the phone.

“I want you to sing a song with me,” he said moving to sit on his lap, suddenly becoming smaller than what he already was. Doyoung held him in his hold.

“Because you’re the only one I can trust with these words,” he mumbled, suddenly feeling too much vulnerable and exposed, even in front of him, his soulmate.

Doyoung pressed his lips in a thin line, thinking about it for a moment. It wasn’t the problem of singing, he used to do it and he loved to do it. Probably he also had all the cards to be able to become an idol, but that life just wasn’t for him. It was Taeyong’s words that scared him. Was he okay? Or something had happened again? Doyoung knew that the status of his mental health was on the line, he had to spent months on therapy to see the first results, and he was still seeing his therapist now.

“You have been writing again?” Doyoung asked, tiptoeing around the topic, waiting for Taeyong to open up completely and tell him what he had been writing about.

Taeyong bit his lips and nodded, looking at his intertwined hands on his lap. It was a flow of thoughts that came to his mind one night when he couldn’t sleep. He sneaked out of their bedroom and there in their living room three songs came to life. Not his happiest ones, but the most sincere he ever came up with.

“That’s great,” he exclaimed, looking at him proudly, “and they have singing parts?”

Taeyong nodded again, without knowing why the ability of talking seemed to have left him. Doyoung squeezed his side, his thumb painting soothing circles on it, to tell him that everything was fine.

Gathering some courage, the brown-haired spoke. “You don’t have to, but it would mean the world to me,” he looked at his boyfriend’s eyes for the first time.

Doyoung wanted to ask him why him out of everybody he could reach out to collab with. Yes, he kind of told him why, but how vulnerable they were? Why he needed it to be him?

“Can I read them?” He asked the older, his hands still moving on his hip to keep him grounded.

“Yes, of course,” Taeyong said as he got up and then went out of the room, just to come back soon after holding three papers in his hands.

Piece of mind. Switch Off. Yestoday.

It took Doyoung just the first song to understand why Taeyong seemed so vulnerable while talking about them. And why he needed him to be by his side during this. In those three songs, there was Taeyong in the most open and naked way he ever showed himself to the public. It was him, with his wounded skin and his somehow still open heart, just asking to be able to be human again.

And as much as Doyoung had been by his side for years now, and he had seen him fighting in the front line, a lump formed in his throat with a heavy pain on his chest as he read that words.

Taeyong started to fidget on the spot when nothing came from Doyoung’ side. Were they not good enough? Were they too dramatic? Should’ve he just let what he had been feeling in the past instead of writing it down? He always felt insecure about his songwriting. He had been judged way too many times for it, that he convinced himself that no matter what, it was simply never going to be enough. Or that it wasn’t sincere. And maybe it wasn’t totally, he worked in an industry that tried to sugarcoat everything, so how could he, a homosexual idol dating another man, be totally sincere if he had to hide himself? Maybe there had to be some female pronouns right there and then but he knew that his feelings put into words were real, and were just about him, Doyoung.

“They’re beautiful,” he smiled, trying to focus on his wording and not the pain that the ink on that pages brought with them. “I’m glad to have the songwriter of this generation back,” he said as he playfully pinched him on the cheek, just to pull by his arm back on his lap. Taeyong hid his red face on the crook of his neck, a sigh of relief leaving his mouth.

“I will,” Doyoung whispered against his ear.

“What?” Taeyong asked, forgetting for a moment what was the main topic of their conversation.

“I’ll sing this with you.”

The biggest smile crept on Taeyong’s face before he launched himself on Doyoung’s lips, to catch them in a kiss.

“Wait, are you making an album?” The younger asked, realizing that maybe that meant Taeyong was going back on his tracks, finally reconnecting with music once again. He knew how important it was for him, and seeing him trying to delete it from his life the last past year tore Doyoung apart.

Taeyong shrugged. He honestly had no idea. He just wanted to create. Let his mind take him places and then see the outcomes. He couldn’t care much about anything else. The charts. The records. The genre.

It was just music and him.

Yet, unexpectedly, one year later his album was ready.

Nobody was expecting it. Everybody thought he disappeared forever, taking his money and reputation and throw the hell out. Nobody seemed to know where he was, or what he was doing. So it took just one Instagram post with the cover of his album shot by Johnny and designed by Ten (just like the rest of the album) to shake the internet and make his name end up on every first page.

"YesTODAY, the album and the single, out at midnight. “SORRY THAT I WALKED AWAY” but sometimes silence, time and meditation can say much more than a thousand words said in the heat of a moment. So now I’m here, pouring my true self out to all of you through my art, hoping that you can take my dreams, my hopes and my fears and make it yours, too. In these 18 songs, there’s a part of me I was never able to properly and sincerely show you, but now that it’s here I hope you can cherish it and hold it close to your heart. “I HOPE YOU LIKE IT WHERE I AM NOW”

It wasn’t hard to keep the project a secret. First of all, because it wasn’t supposed to be a project at the start. Not until lyrics started to pile up, begging to be shaped into complete songs. Ten talking 24/7 about his friend Kun being an incredible producer didn’t help him either. The curiosity of hearing some of his tunes turned into them clicking immediately and not being able to stop producing together. Their art so in synch that Doyoung had to come and stop them at 2 a.m of the night almost every day because they had so much fun that they lost track of time.

It wasn’t difficult finding an artistic team either when he had his best friends super happy and hyped, just wanting to be part of his creative team. The lands The Lakes offered were perfect for his album and for Johnny’s mind to picture already every single photo of the shooting. And Ten definitely had too much fun building his new site up, even if that meant flip out over programs he used just once in university, and create a new font just for him.

And it hadn’t been stressful for him. For once he could create without the press of his agency wanting money to not bankrupt. He had no limits of tracks. Or just one genre to follow.

For once he truly had fun. Working hard with people that stimulated and supported him. Kun inspiring him to experiment more with his voice and sounds. Ten telling him to go beyond with his style and be his true self. And Doyoung supporting him, in those moments when he felt that he couldn’t make it without a company on his back.

“You don’t need them, Yong,” Doyoung used to whisper to him as his hands caressed his hair. And the old Taeyong couldn’t believe him. Terrified of flopping, not much because he cared for the charts, he had obsessed for them for too long for his liking. But for the public opinion. He wasn't sure his brain would've been able to take another wave of hate similar to the one he received in the past.

But now, that the album was out, he could proudly say that Doyoung was right.

That morning Taeyong didn’t go to see where his album charted, or what people thought of that. He wanted to savour the joy of his first self owned album having been released without having to ruin his mood because of what people had to say. But Ten’s calls didn’t seem to stop so he had to pick up, sleep still in his eyes and an even more sleepy Doyoung in front of him.

“Fucking finally, Yong!” Ten exclaimed on the other side of the phone.

“Well, good morning to you too,” Taeyong laughed rolling his eyes to the sky.

“Did you see that?” Ten said without paying much attention to what the other said.

“What?” The brown-haired man asked, mindlessly turning the spoon in the jam can.

“You’re first on fucking billboard hot 100! First!”

Taeyong was trying to process what Ten said when he could hear Johnny scream “Language” and he would’ve laughed at that if only Ten hadn’t just said that he was first on billboard 100.

“Me? Wait, is this a joke?” He exclaimed, spoon dropping from his hands and meeting the floor, catching Doyoung’s attention who was looking at the scene without understanding anything.

“Why would I joke about that? God, you need to find a publicist, a manager, you can’t be that careless about this stuff.” Ten huffed.

“I’m not careless, I just wanted not to ruin this day, Ten.”

“Well, you’re topping charts even in Korea, you’re trending everywhere, and Doyoung’s name is everywhere too. People say there’s no wonder you fell for him,”

Taeyong snorted, as if they weren’t the same throwing shit at him just some months before because he wasn’t “pretty enough” or some shits they used to say. “Let me check that, okay?” He said, changing the topic, not wanting to get mad at people hypocrisies.

“I want the live reaction, wait let’s video call.” Ten said in hurry, he really wanted to see his best friend face, no way he would've lost a moment like this.

“Ten, we’re half-naked in bed, for fuck sake,” Johnny said so loud that Taeyong could hear him, he grinned, they were something else. But Johnny’s words were useless because before they could waste any more time, Ten was already face calling them.

“May I know what’s going on?” Doyoung asked with his sleep-filled voice, just now starting to understand where he was. Why everyone there seemed to be a morning person except for him?

“Your boyfriend is number one almost everywhere and has no clue,” Ten answered before Taeyong, who was too busy checking the charts on his boyfriend’s phone, could.

“You're first?” Doyoung asked, snapping completely from his sleeping state.

“I am first,” Taeyong whispered, eyes fixated on the screen as he kept checking the position of his album on several charts. His eyes couldn’t believe it. But the numbers weren’t the things that shocked him the most, it was the comments. The praise. The likes. All the people listening to it and writing how much they missed his music, his voice and his words.

“I am, o my God, is actually going well?” He said in an incredulous tone. His hands still covering his mouth that kept opening in shock.

“Yes, you are bitch! You are!” Ten screamed in support, causing Johnny to roll his eyes at his side.

Doyoung’s big bubble smile was plastered on his face. He knew how important the positive response was for Taeyong. He needed that. Not the numbers, or the first places in the charts, but that was the proof that people still liked him, or at least his music.

Tears started to roll down Taeyong’s face as he threw himself in Doyoung’s open arms. The sleepless nights, the breakdowns, the starved days were all worth it.

“We need to throw a party,” Ten said, interrupting their sweet moment. Both him and Johnny had a big smile on their faces, Taeyong could feel from the screen how proud of him they were.

“Yes, we all deserve this. Gosh, you’re also number one, you all helped me with this, fuck!” Taeyong mumbled, realizing that this album being appreciated was such a big prize for all of them. He and the people he loved the most did all of that, and he couldn’t be prouder. He only had to thank himself and his closet friends for all of these, not leeches hungry for money, or harsh team workers that tried to hold his true potential down.

✯✯✯

1 year later.

The summer breeze was blowing, running wild between the town’s houses, cars and people. It was 7 in the afternoon, yet, the sun was still bright in the sky.

Taeyong was resting his elbows on the balcony rail, looking out at city under him, when the chatting coming from the kitchen came to a stop. Doyoung was talking with his mother, but Taeyong couldn’t get what they were talking about. For some reason, Doyoung was using a dialectic and was also talking really low. He didn’t think much about it and just waited for him to come back where he was before.

When he sensed Doyoung back at his side he handed him his glass, filled with white wine, and kept staring at the view in front of him.

“What are you thinking about?” After some moments of silence, Doyoung asked. His hair was now a dark blue, something he wanted to try for ages but never dared to do. Just one month before, Taeyong reassured him that he had done it millions of times and would’ve helped him with that. So after an afternoon of them bickering because the youngest couldn’t trust him fully with his precious untouched hair, that was the result, a shiny dark blue replacing his natural brown locks.

Taeyong shrugged, took a sip from the glass and then talked. “Just that, I’m happy,” he turned around, finally looking at his boyfriend who was already staring at him, “I’m finally happy.”

A shy smile crept on Doyoung’s face, the last two years had been a hell of a ride, and no matter how things were definitely better now, their peace was always going to be fragile. He knew that, he always knew that sticking up to Taeyong’ side meant that. And no, he never regretted choosing the life he chose, but hearing his boyfriend say those things tranquillized the silent fears that lingered in his mind, always.

“You know, three years ago my world has fallen apart and I dragged you down with me,” Taeyong sighed, his eyes looking down at his fingers that were playing with the end of the glass in his hands.

“And now, I got back making music, my second album just came out, I got the change to perform again, people don’t hate us anymore, and even if they do we don’t care.” The smile that was forming on his face was getting bigger, making it hard for him to talk properly, but he couldn’t suppress the bubbling sensation he was feeling right now.

“Your business is doing better and better, we live together in an amazing town, far away from the stress of the city.” He turned around, placing the glass on the small table at their side.

“We do what we feel to do, and I never felt like this before. And it’s so nice to not have the pressure of what people think of you or want from you. And doing all of this with you by my side, with the boys by my side, it just feels so good.” Taeyong’s eyes were shining and his happiness made Doyoung’s heart melt. No, he probably was never going to get used to happy Taeyong. His clumsy way. His curious eyes. His loud and exaggerated laugh. His random thousands of changes of hair colour every week (he had no clue how he was not bald yet). His deep talks late at night. Or his cooking late at night, waking him at midnight asking if he wanted to share some ramen he had just cooked, and if he was anybody else he would’ve sent them straight to hell without thinking twice, but to Taeyong, he could only say yes.

Yes, living with Taeyong meant living with an incumbent storm on their head, but he wanted all the mess and the struggles that it brought along with it, if it meant sharing his existence with him, and he wanted it forever.

“I’ve been sleeping so long in a twenty-year dark night, and now I can only see daylight,” Taeyong smiled as his hand came in contact with Doyung’s cheek, the caress as soft as the august wind blowing on their skin. Then he leaned in, closer and closer, just to touch his lips and capture them in a slow kiss. Taeyong’s hands were fast at crawling in Doyoung’s hair, tugging lightly to bring him even closer to him, desperately telling him things he didn’t have the courage to say out loud. And when they pulled away, their lungs burning for air, and their eyes locked into each other, Taeyong just knew that he didn’t want to look at anyone else now that he had seen him.

Whispers of ‘I love you’ got lost in the evening, as the sun was slowly sinking at the horizon, leaving behind just traces of orange, purple and blue.

Doyoung started to take deep breaths, desperately trying to build the courage to ask Taeyong what he had been planning to ask for ages. And no, probably this wasn’t the most romantic moment he could choose, they definitely had more conventional occasion, but now was the present, and he knew that it was a now or never occasion. He had to do that.

So the blue-haired man took a deep breath, and cleared his throat, making Taeyong turn his attention on him once again.

“Remember what you told me that night,” he whispered, biting his lips nervously. Taeyong eyes drift up to his, he didn’t specify what night, but he knew what he was talking about, the night they decided to go through all of the mess their life brought along with them.

“Yes, I remember, why?”

“How I told you that what you give me is enough?” Taeyong started to panic, Doyoung didn’t seem strange just five minutes ago, and neither in the last weeks, yet, his mind started to think of one thing, the worst that could happen. Was Doyoung breaking up with him? Was he getting tired of him? Of the life they were building together?

He couldn’t let out a word, knowing for sure that his voice would’ve come out like a broken cry, so he simply nodded.

“Remember that you asked me if I regretted the time we spent together and I said no.” That’s it, Doyoung was breaking up with him. He just had confessed to him how happy he finally was and Doyoung had to go and break everything apart.

“Well, we came so far from where we started, and sometimes it still feels surreal. Not that I didn’t believe in us, but you know our flames flickered weakly more than once and I could only think of the worst,” Doyoung smiled looking at the ground. “Three more years have passed and I’m so proud of how far and how strong we arrived here. I’m not going to lie, these last years have been hard. I thought that happiness was just something fate didn’t want to gift us. I feared that, no matter how much I wanted, I just couldn’t physically and mentally keep it up with you. We lived in the dark, surrounded by smoke and at some point I was just waiting for it to suffocate me.” Taeyong was staring right at him, now more lost than before.

“And when that happened,” Doyoung paused for a second, “I thought that was going to be the end for us. I felt so close to dropping everything, but I just couldn’t let you go. It wasn’t your fault, it wasn’t mine. We didn’t do anything wrong, and I couldn’t let them take away my happiness,” Taeyong bit his nail, why was Doyoung bringing this story back after three years?

“And you know, it did kill us, but a part of me is happy that that happened. Because only after our death we could truly feel alive. And after many years I understood that they never killed us, but some mannequins, they killed something that wasn’t us. And still, it helped us, we stopped wounding the good and trusting the wicked. You wouldn’t enjoy daylight so much if you never knew what the dark feels like, right?” Taeyong nodded, now biting his lower lip nervously.

“Well, it’s brighter now. Brighter than ever. Our love is shining, golden like starlight, and after everything we’ve been through I know for sure that nothing and nobody can shut it down. No matter how heavy the storm is going to be, or how hard the wind will blow. We will still stand tall and proud.”

Taeyong had now a big smile on his face. This conversation still made no sense, but he liked what Doyoung was saying. And also it seemed that he didn’t change his mind like he first feared. He would be lying if he said that he wasn’t still extremely insecure about himself, living with a ghost in his mind saying that Doyoung could easily find someone better than him and leave him and everything they had behind.

“So now, I need to tell you something,” Doyoung’s gaze snapped up to meet Taeyong’s, who was already staring at him.

“More than what you already said?” The older joked as a small chuckle left his pink lips.

Doyoung laughed too and then spoke. “Yes, the talk was about the others I don’t really care much about. This one is about you.”

Doyoung took another deep breath and then grabbed Taeyong’s hands in his.

“Okay, I’m not good with words, but I have to do this,” he said never diverting his attention from Taeyong, who simply smiled at him to reassure him. “You know, yesterday I was thinking about our first meeting,” a giggle left Doyoung’s mouth, “I couldn’t stand you. God, I thought that by the end of the night I would’ve thrown a punch at you. You seemed so far up your ass but it turned out that you were just shy and awkward with everyone you didn’t know. Took me quite some time to get to know you, but damn, after I did, it felt like I’ve known you since forever.” Taeyong laughed too, their relationship started in a non so common and normal way. That was also one of the reasons why none of their close friends could believe that not only they got together but were still there.

“If I told the Doyoung of six years ago that I would’ve followed you to the other side of the world he would’ve laughed at my face. And not only that, but that I also had to learn a new language and restart my business...for you? Probably my past self couldn’t even listen because he was too busy fighting with you,” Taeyong rolled his eyes remembering their stupid fights, they acted like teenage boys, it felt absurd that they grew up so much. “But the past is in the past, and now there’s a mature Doyoung madly in love with a mature Taeyong laughing at the stupid kids we were.” Doyoung smiled, his fingers moving a strand of Taeyong’s blonde hair behind his ears.

“So today, I want to talk to the present you and the future you,” Doyoung took another deep breath and then wetted his lips that felt now drier than ever, “I want to go everywhere you go. Is it going to be here? In Korea? Somewhere in a small town in Italy? Or in a crowded American city? I don’t care. As long as I have you, I’ll be at home.” His voice was shaking, full of emotion, a mix of love and anxiety, the realness and sincerity behind his words made Taeyong’s heart skip a beat.

“And I want to always be this close, forever. I want to come home to you. Hold your hand in the park, turn around pretending I don’t know you when you launch yourself on the swing like a child,” Doyoung laughed thinking of him doing it every time he had the change, and Taeyong’s cheeks flushed a bright pink, “I want to see you struggle with the hair dye first thing on a Sunday morning. I want to turn around on the sofa just to see that you fell asleep halfway through the movie we decided to watch. I want to hear your inappropriate jokes when we’re with somebody else at dinner, and I have to hit your arm to shut you up, pretending I don’t absolutely love that side of you. I want to stare at you in the corner of the room while you wear your tuxedo ready for a red carpet and then kiss you slowly to remind myself how lucky I am to have you. And I also want to be the only one that takes that outfit off of your body once you get home.” He smirked, making Taeyong hit him on his shoulder as he suppressed the sly smile that was forming on his face.

“I want to spend Chuseok with you. And put on one of your embarrassing couple outfits for Halloween. I want to put up the lights at Christmas with you by my side. And look for the eggs in the garden at Easter, with you.” Doyoung let go of his hands and took a step backwards. He took something from his back pocket but Taeyong couldn’t see what it was, since he never put his hands before him again.

“I’ve loved you six summers now but I want them all,” And with that, he kneeled to the ground and put out a ring. Taeyong’s eyes widened. Was it seriously happening?

“Will you marry me, Lee Taeyong? Will you make me the happiest man on the heart and become my lover forever?”

Tears started to roll down Taeyong’s face. His breath inched as he threw himself in Doyoung’s arms.

“Yes, yes, yes...” Taeyong mumbled in the crook of Doyoung’s neck as he socked his shirt with happy tears. Doyoung hugged him tightly as the pain in his chest lifted completely, he was somehow scared that he would’ve said no, maybe not ready yet for a step this big.

“Hey,” Doyoung whispered as one of his hands made its way to his fiancé’s face, “kiss me,” And Taeyong wasted no time to accomplish.

“The ring,” Taeyong giggled as he pulled away from the kiss, they had fallen to the ground somewhere between the proposal and their messy kisses.

“It’s a couple one, I wanted both of us to have it, I know that usua –“

“Shh,” Taeyong shut him up, “there’s no need to justify yourself, that’s just more romantic. I love it.” He said as he looked at the rings sitting in the velvety box in Doyoung’s hands. And as soon as they both were on their fingers Taeyong felt something he had never felt before. It was happening, they were going to be married. He was going to be his husband. Their love promise was going to be sealed forever. It was the big step he was thinking about for years. That conversation that was brought up sometimes just to be dropped with the same “We’re fine like this.” Doyoung popped the question he wanted to ask for ages, and never had the courage to; too afraid of asking him something that was, once again, a lot, and too much to handle. And it kind of made him laugh that for once it hadn't been him to put so much weight on the other' shoulder.

As the night fell in the England sky the two stayed tangled together, outside of their balcony on their small couch. Laughing as they reminisced of their past together, and giggling happily thinking about all of the adventures that were about to come.

And there was something so romantic about the calm that surrounded them, and the way the city seemed too distracted to think about them. Their love felt like a rose rising up from the frozen ground with none around to talk about it, or compulsively tweet it. Maybe tomorrow the neighbours would’ve heard Ten’s screams about it, and Johnny would’ve quietly congratulated them. Maybe their mothers would’ve cried on the phone tomorrow, mumbling how happy they were and would've already thought about how to set up the place, and the menu to choose. Maybe the internet would've found out when that day will happen with some photos on Instagram. But now, just for that slip second, it was their little secret. Their rare gem that they were protecting with their whole selves.

Taeyong was smiling dumbly as he kept playing with the ring on his hand.

“If I think that just three years ago we were laying on our bed, on the other side of the world, and I asked you to drop everything as I dreamt of this place,”

“There was something so magical and romantic about The Lakes, maybe it was the words the poets wrote about this place that made me daydream so much about our future,”

“Maybe they cast a spell for us before dying,” Doyoung joked as he caressed Taeyong’s long locks, the older was resting his head on his chest, looking up at him.

Taeyong hummed, “I like to think that. Who knows, maybe fate pulled us here for a reason,”

“You’re kind of a poet too, right?” Doyoung raised an eyebrow looking down at him.

Taeyong let out a choked laugh, and hide his face in Doyoung’s chest.

“Hey, I was being serious!” Doyoung screamed. He really thought that Taeyong was a poet, he had a way with words and in the last two years he showed it more than ever before. And as much Taeyong hated to admit, Doyoung was right. Something about their whole story and the struggles they had to go through made him think that it was written somewhere in the stars. Maybe in the words that inked the white papers of these old men, there was a story like theirs, two lovers with a troubled track in front of them.

“I think we found our place in the world,” Taeyong whispered soon after. His gaze was fixed on the landscape in front of him, his hands still tangled in Doyoung’s.

“You know, as long as I have you, everywhere is nice but,” he stopped for a second, his brain trying to organize the right words to say. “Right here, it feels so right. It’s like, no matter how hard the day can get, there’s something so soothing about knowing that I can come back home and just lay on the hammock, waiting for you to come home too. Or that if I wake up earlier I get to see auroras with mountains at the horizon instead of skyscrapers. Or that I can watch wisteria grow right over my bare feet and let the sun kiss my skin.”

Doyoung smiled, as he let his face sink in Taeyong’s hair, and then opened his mouth. “We definitely found our place.” He whispered as he inhaled his husband to be's scent, with a sense of peace that settled in his chest. It had been tough, but they made it. Finally, after ages, they felt right where they were.

Because even if one day they would've got away from there, those Windermere peaks would've still talked about their love. The wind would've spread their story as he whistled unspoken words through the fallen autumn leaves, passing the baton to the lake's water as soon as they landed on the cold surface.

Right there, where all the poets went to die, their love will live on.

#nct fanfiction #nct dotae #dotae fanfiction #nct fluff #the lakes #song fic #nct taedo #nct johnten #lee taeyong #kim doyoung #taeyong fluff #doyoung fluff #nct scenarios #happy ending

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mollymauk-teafleak · 4 years

Text

A Gentleman’s Guide to Dancing (chapter three)

I am so very sorry this has been such a long time coming. It’s a Taakitz Austen/Little Women style AU in case anyone’s forgot, I wouldn’t blame you!

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Please comment on Ao3!

Chapters: 1, 2, 3

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“You know he actually invited you, right?”

Taako looked up from fussing with his lapels. Caught between dressing overly formally and overly casually, he’d ended up with an outfit that was a bastardisation of both, trousers with a hole in the knee on the bottom and a poet’s shirt with an absurd amount of ruffles on top. He was trying not to think about how ridiculous he looked, trying to convince himself that if he could get the lapels of his jacket to lie flat, that would fix it.

“What?” his amber eyes were sharp as they faced his sister, sat on the stairs and watching him pace by the door. Too sharp but she’d hit right at the heart of him and it stung. Easier to pretend he didn’t know that and act affronted.

“Kravitz invited you over to the manor,” Lup said patiently, like she was explaining one of the spells she’d mastered and he hadn’t gotten yet, “You don’t have to be so nervous about it. He wants you there.”

“Who says I’m nervous?” Taako sniffed though he knew fne well it was his shaking hands and his restless feet and the twenty minutes he’d spent pacing in front of the door that all said it, loud and clear.

Lup only sat forward, her chin resting on her knuckles and her elbows resting on her knees. Her smile was lopsided, the one they shared.

“What is it you’re going over to do?”

“He...he said we’d have tea,” Taako mumbled, back to fussing with his jacket, “He’d teach me chess. And...and he mentioned something about composing his own music when he was hear the other day. He said he’d play me some.”

Lup’s face lit up with a knowing delight Taako didn’t like at all. He was starting to regret telling her about how the Countess’ ward had come to visit him, how they’d baked together. He’d known she’d read things on it that weren’t really there.

You want her to, a sly, truthful part of his mind he’d never gotten along with chimed in, you want to know she sees it too, so you can tell yourself you’re not going crazy.

“Don’t,” Taako said, to Lup and to the voice, turning away to the leaded glass in the door, the blocky, poor painting it made of the country beyond it.

“I didn’t say anything, Koko,” Lup hummed, the smile still in her voice, “I just think it’s nice how you’ve made friends with this guy. You haven’t really clicked with anyone since you first met Merle and Magnus. Poor Barry thought you hated him for a full year.”

Taako grunted, “I never hated him…” If the blacksmith courting his sister had read any animosity in his face whenever he’d return her hime far past dark or would kiss her hand when he thought no one was looking, that was his prerogative.

But, he had to admit, he’d softened on the guy lately. It was hard to stay so cold with someone who made your other half smile in a way you’d thought you’d never see again.

“I know that,” Lup said, “It’s just good to see you letting someone else in. And Kravitz seems really nice. Not like you at all but...nice.”

Taako bristled a little, like a cat being petted against the grain of his fur, “Since when is he Kravitz to you?”

“Since we spoke,” Lup shrugged airily, “Just yesterday actually.”

“What?” he whirled, sending his enormous hat slipping over one eye and leaving him to find some dignified way to fix it.

Lup ignored his tone, examining a small hole in her skirt, “I was going to take Barry some lunch at the shop and he was coming back from the post office. I was worried he’d thought I was you but he knew immediately. Thought that was strange, no one’s been able to do that on sight since Auntie. He was jumping at every cart and carriage going past like an owl in daylight, bless his heart, but he stopped and talked to me for a while. Managed to mention you a few more times than was strictly necessary.”

The corner of her mouth quirked up at that, like a rising inflection, turning it into a trailing thread. Taako scrunched up his nose in response.

“I mean...yeah, he’s nice. He just seems lonely and he was nice enough to visit so I’m returning the favour. Probably be so bored stiff I won’t ever go back but I have to take him up on the invitation at least once. It’s courtesy. That’s all.”

“No one ever said it wasn’t,” Lup replied with maddening patience. Have fun. When you eventually get past the threshold. Which looks like it will be sometime around...never?”

Taako made a strangled noise of exasperation and indignance, sticking his nose in the air and whirling out of the door, just to show that he could. It was only when he was halfway down the path, their Auntie’s lavender plants grown so tall they were tickling his fingertips, that he realised what his sister had done to goad him out of his spiral.

Lup only grinned at him and fluttered her fingers when he made a very rude gesture at her through the window before stomping off in the direction of the big manor. Her smile didn’t fade when the tip of his ridiculous hat had disappeared below the rise of the valley. It just shifted, changed slightly, softened into something that was no less of a smile but felt deeper and sadder.

She remembered how it had felt for her, right at the start. The defensiveness and the doubting and the uncertainty. Dodging and diverting when thoughts strayed too close to where you didn’t want them to go. And then, finally, when you were cornered and had nowhere to go, the crushing realisation that you were falling for someone you weren’t supposed to.

She could only hope it wouldn’t hurt her brother too badly.

It had been so long since Taako had lived somewhere with servants that he jumped a little when someone who wasn’t Kravitz answered the door to the manor. Already on the back foot, he stammered out that he’d been invited, sounding more unconvincing with every word. There was a chilly silence, while the elven butler looked him up and down, taking in his mismatched outfit and the blush rising on his skin, before eventually admitting in a slow, sonorous voice that Master Raven was expecting him. Everything about his expression told Taako loudly and clearly that, if this weren’t the case, he would have been gladly tossed off the premises as soon as he stepped on their porch.

He was shown to the same library from the night of the party, tucked cunningly away so it could never be found unless the flat oaken door was pointed out to you. Or unless you staggered in on pure, desperate happenstance.

“Taako!” Kravitz got to his feet as soon as he walked in, his face lit up so brightly it was hard for the elf to tell himself he wasn’t genuinely delighted to see him.

“Hey there,” he grinned back, it was hard not to, and grasped his forearm in greeting, “Sorry, I know we said midday, I got caught up with, ah…”

“Oh it’s absolutely fine,” Kravitz tilted his head, saving Taako from having to come up with something that delayed him that wasn’t his own anxiety, “You’re here now and I don’t have to crawl the walls with boredom any more. At least, not by myself.”

As before, his easy humour and earnestness had Taako relaxing despite himself. Enough that, after tea had been sent for and Kravitz had turned the blinds to gentle the afternoon sun into a pleasing ambery gold glow in the library, he was actually glad he’d come.

“You spend a lot of time here, huh?” Taako sank into the same chair he’d occupied at the party, “That’s the second time you’ve talked about being bored.”

Kravitz shrugged, sitting back down, lounging in a very unlordly way. It gave Taako the confidence to tuck his own legs underneath him and sprawl in the way he liked to do, very different from the stiff backed position he had to hold himself in around the other gentry.

“I sound like I’m complaining, don’t I?” he sighed, “I don’t mean to, it’s only that Mistress never leaves the manor and I’d walked the length of the village in less than a morning. The fault is mine, most likely, I’m struggling to adjust to a...well, a quieter pace of life than the cities.”

Taako blinked curiously, plucking a horse from the chess set between them and fidgeting with it, “So...you’ve been to Goldcliff? And Rockport? All those places?”

Kravitz nodded, “All of them. It’s wonderful being in amongst so many people, this messy tangle of so many different lives. You could meet a hundred different stories just by walking through the squares. And they’re unique too, each one has its own rhythm. When you’re there, you know there’s nowhere else like it in the world. Nowhere has ale like you find in Rockport, only in Goldcliff can you find that kind of architecture, it’s amazing. But it isn’t just the cities! There’s wonders all between them, like the elven forests and the red canyons and the deserts and thousands of little villages and towns between, unlike anywhere else. And even though you’re sad to leave each one, you get the excitement of knowing you’ll experience it all again, finding somewhere new. And…” his ears darkened and his smile slipped, “And I’ve been talking for too long, haven’t I?”

Taako blinked, shaking himself out of the visions Kravitz’s words had been painting around him, “No, no, it’s fine. I...I was enjoying listening to you. I’ve never been anywhere like that myself, after all. I’ve never been beyond the valley.” It made him feel foolish to say so, in front of someone so travelled.

Kravitz smiled softly, “You’d love it Taako. And they’d love you.”

That was so absurd, he snorted aloud, before blushing and covering his mouth behind a hand, as if that would erase the embarrassment.

But Kravitz didn’t seem concerned by the social faux pas, though something was creasing his brow and deepening his dark eyes, “You don’t believe me.”

Taako’s ears came down to bracket his face, “It’s just...people can maybe take a few hours with me at the most and then the shine kind of comes off the old penny. You know, words like ‘acerbic’ and ‘vexing’ start coming out, the polite, high society ways of saying I’m annoying. And then I normally do something ridiculous to make them out and out hate me before everything can just fall apart in that slow, agonising kind of way. Don’t want to even think about how I’d embarrass myself in somewhere like Goldcliff.”

Kravitz was still and silent, long enough that Taako was worried he’d just gone and done that ‘something ridiculous’ without even realising it. They both jumped out of their skins when the knock at the door sounded, the servant with their tea. As it was all laid out before them, piece by black enamelled piece, agonisingly slow, Taako sank further and further into the chair, feeling his skin take flame and wondering if he could bolt out of the door left open by the butler. But the whole time, those dark eyes were fixed on him, curious and impossible to read beyond that.

When the door closed again after Kravitz’s quiet thank you, he spoke in his same soft tones and Taako realised he’d only been choosing his words with a careful exactness.

“But what about me, Taako? I enjoy your company more and more each time I see you. And I can’t imagine my opinion ever changing, when I know you better.”

Taako felt for a moment as if he couldn’t breathe. His hands fluttered anxiously, reaching for a teacup then thinking better of it, going to the sugar, the milk, even with nothing to put them in. After a moment, they found Kravitz’s own, bumping into each other like it was a simple coincidence. But then Kravitz squeezed his gently, allowing them to shake in his sure grip. It could be a gesture of comfort from one friend to another.

Or it could not.

What about you indeed?

Taako swallowed, risking a glance up at Kravitz who still had that gentle smile on his face, like all he wanted to do was help. Like he meant it all with a pure earnestness Taako had never encountered with anyone else. It was what relaxed him when he’d first stepped into the library, this time and the last, but now he felt like what was going to break him apart.

He could have said so many things when his mouth fell open but good sense finally prevailed and in a slightly hysteric voice he barked out, “So chess, huh?”

Kravitz blinked, looking dismayed for a fraction of a second when the elf snatched his hands back.

“Gonna teach me how to play?” he grinned, practised at throwing up smiles to mask panic and distress, “You promised.”

“I...I did, didn’t I?” Kravitz followed his lead, though his smile wasn’t as practised, some of the confusion and maybe even a little bit of hurt showing around the edges, “Though you must promise not to get better than me, let me keep my dignity for a few days at least?”

Taako tilted his head, smirking, “Well, we’ll just have to see. I’m making no promises…”

He didn’t have to, not at the start. For a few games, he was beaten fairly resoundingly while the rules sank in. Taako was grateful for it, as much as he didn’t like losing. The strategy and remembering all the rules through a sugary fog of strong tea helped keep his mind off how soft Kravitz’s skin had felt against his own, how cool and pleasant it had been, how just an inch would have slid their fingers through each other in such a perfectly fitting pattern than nothing could have made them let go, not if they didn’t want to.

But thoughts like that were unacceptable. So he thought of knights and rooks and little black and white squares and how to mage hand Kravitz’s pieces off the board and to his side so he might believe he’d taken more than he had. The last never worked, Kravitz would only laugh and steal his pieces back with quick and clever hands when Taako was distracted.

And before too long, only one and a half games in, it was as if it had never happened. Almost. A traitorous part of Taako’s mind was still thinking how the cool ebony of his pieces didn’t feel all that different from Kravitz’s hand. But almost was good enough.

Eventually, when the tea was just black speckled dregs in the bottom of their cups, Taako got to his feet.

“I should head back,” he noted the colour of the sky, far darker than he’d meant to let it get, “My sister will be wondering where I am. She’s a terrible grump when she gets hungry.”

“Of course,” Kravitz nodded politely, rising to show him to the door like a good gentleman, “Will I...I mean, you know you’re welcome any time?”

There was a nervousness in his voice that he wasn’t even trying to hide, a careful hopefulness like he was telling himself not to get too excited. And Taako knew he was thinking about that moment where their hands had touched and he’d spoken so tenderly, worrying and wondering if it had been too much. Wondering if he’d ruined something good.

Taako knew that feeling. He straightened the front of his jacket and smiled, fully, so the gap in his teeth would show.

“Of course I’ve got to come back. I almost had you at the end there, I’m not giving up until I have victory.”

The relief that flooded over Kravitz’s face was so genuine and real it was hard for Taako to look for a moment, “Then I shall have to practise…”

Taako very deliberately didn’t think about what that meant as they made their polite, formal goodbyes and he was turned back out into the air, grown cold and thick now evening had fallen and stolen the thin warmth of the winter sun. The walk back to their house felt longer now than it had in the opposite direction.

And as he walked Taako thought of what he would make for their supper with what little was left in the pantry, he thought of checks and pawns and how white always moved first, he thought of stalemates.

But that annoying little part still whispered what about him?

Taako did go back, every day for the next week and every time it got easier. Worryingly, maddeningly easier.

The next time, Kravitz presented him with a small, elegantly decorated package with the stamp of a Goldcliff bakery on the top. Inside were perfectly baked, exquisitely formed macarons, shining with sugar and even coloured coal black. Taako laughed aloud at that and quickly comforted Kravitz when his expression turned stricken, he’d only been appreciating his commitment to a theme.

Taako had read about the high class bakeries and lauded restaurants you could find across the continent, mostly from his cookery books. But he’d never thought to actually taste anything from one of them before, their wares were expensive. Taako didn’t even want to think about what it would have cost to have even these few cookies sent to their little valley. There was a lot of it he didn’t want to think about.

He didn’t want to bite into it and break the magic of that perfect almond scented shell but he was so glad when he eventually did, blackberries thick and rich on his tongue. High on joy and sugar, he’d gone on for nearly an hour about flavour balance and texture and how recipes travelled from place to place and shifted from being only for the rich to being everyday staples. A hundred times he told himself to shut up, that he’d gone on for far too long and Kravitz was bored stiff. But somehow he didn’t think so, seeing how he still leaned forward with his eyes wide and open, his mouth turned up in an admiring smile.

And when he brought one of the macarons home for Lup, she’d given him a smirk that had made him blush and make an excuse to leave the room.

The next time Taako turned up at the door holding a folder that looked like moths had been at it for decades. It wouldn’t be far wrong, give or take a few years. As soon as Kravitz saw it, the apologies came tumbling from Taako’s lips, it was stupid, it was just some old trash, he’d happily throw it in the fire right now if he wanted. But slowly, surely, Kravitz got out of him that it was a collection of sheet music he’d found in the attic, it had belonged to his Auntie. She’d loved to play piano, he said, eyes firmly fixed on his feet, drenched in snowmelt. And now she was gone, Taako had just thought he might like them. Most of the songs were in Elvish, it was old and probably boring and, gods, he’d never even asked what instrument you play…

He’d been well and truly worked up when Kravitz had gasped, the folder open in his lap. His eyes had been wide as a child presented with a jar full of sweets, his jaw dropped, fingers gentle as he stroked the yellowed pages with their carefully printed notes. He’d thanked Taako so sincerely and softly, like those brittle sheafs of songs waiting to be wrought in pulls and snaps of those clever fingers were a gift worth every bit as much as those macarons, maybe even more.

And Taako had suddenly been so glad he’d spent the entire morning digging the music out and had turned up to tea late and with dust clumps in his braid, just for the look on his face.

Kravitz had given him something of the world beyond their valley so Taako gave him something wholly from it, from a part that meant a lot to him. Kravitz’s gift said there is a place for you out there, Taako’s said there is a place for you here. And both learned something more about themselves.

The next day, Kravtiz brought it together so beautifully by finally playing for Taako.

The answer to what instrument he played was apparently all of them, there was a room of the manor entirely given over to them all. A sleek black grand piano ruled as king but it had a flock of attendants, a flute, a violin, a chello, even instruments Taako couldn’t name. It was practically a museum to every form and shape of music all over the world, as much a testament to where Kravitz had travelled as his stories.

Kravitz watched his face carefully, his grin spreading as he saw his awe. And then he’d guided Taako to sit on the piano bench, lovingly taken the violin down from it’s stand and stood before him, not like someone would if they were performing for an audience but something softer and more vulnerable, more intimate. That word, even spoken in Taako’s own mind, made him tense a little but there was just no other word for it. He was being let in to something that used to be a secret, doors opening to him that hadn’t opened before. Just like when Kravitz had stumbled into his kitchen and he’d allowed him to stay, this was Kravitz showing a part of himself that had grown so comfortable in hiding.

This was what let Kravitz be himself in a world that told him he couldn’t.

And he did it so well. Taako knew his Auntie had loved music, she’d played the guitar out on the porch on soft summer nights while Taako and Lup would chase each other through the meadows out the back of the house. Listening to Kravitz made him feel a way that was the same and different, all at once. The notes and instrument and hands were different but it was the same feeling of his chest opening wide enough to hold anything it wanted. The same feeling that this moment would go on forever and there would never need to be anything else.

But Taako didn’t want this moment to go on forever. As he sat and listened to the high, swooping notes shivering on their strings and melting together into something beautiful as Kravitz flexed his fingers and drew his bow back and forth, he wanted it to grow. He wanted more.

The song ended before Taako was ready and there were a few reasons his eyes were wet, some he’d be willing to say and some he’d rather die than speak out loud. Kravitz looked at him shyly, a man with his heart on display as recklessly as a child, and asked what he thought. Taako smiled, wiped his eyes on his sleeve and asked why Kravitz bothered studying magic when he could do something more magical than he’d ever seen in a book. He blushed the way he did everything, handsomely, and grinned in delight. They didn’t move from the music room for the rest of the day, Kravitz explaining how each instrument works and showing more of his compositions, excitedly taking Taako through nearly every note and why he’d placed it that way, showing him the thought and care in every song. Taako didn’t leave the manor until the sun had gone down, far later than was strictly socially acceptable for two young men to be alone together.

Taako had fallen asleep that night with soft, beautiful music wandering around his mind rather than worries and uncertain deadlines and murky futures.

Through it all, every day, there were chess games, around their moments of growing closeness. Taako got better quickly, picking up the rules and seeing strategies and plays he wouldn’t have noticed before. He learned Kravitz’s style, clever and strategic but predictable, and started to answer with his own, slightly manic, high risk high reward approach. With this he began to see ways to win, though few and far between, openings and paths and attacks he could nudge into motion and steal his first victory.

But he never did. Not once. And every game would end with the same joke, that he’d just have to come back tomorrow, that he wouldn’t give up until he’d won a game.

Their days together were full of ways out that neither of them took.

Taako wondered how the old black manor house had ever made him nervous. When it decided to remind him, it came as a nasty shock.

He no longer felt the need to be ferried from place to place by the sour elven butler, when he needed the bathroom, he just got up, announced the fact and flounced out of the door. Kravitz hadn’t minded, sat in the window seat to get the best of the pale afternoon sunlight and wiping rosin off his violin strings, only made him promise not to get in trouble on the way there and back.

“Who do you think you’re talking to?” Taako snorted, golden hair bouncing as he shook his head.

He managed to be half right, nothing happened on the way there, despite him happily wandering through a mansion that wasn’t his own in just his socks, his shirt opened two buttons from the top because he liked to sit close to the fire like a cat but despised sweating, humming one of Kravitz’s songs. It was on the way back that he ran into the trouble.

One moment Taako was wandering the halls, eager to get back to Kravitz and hear him tune. He loved that part, even though it wasn’t music, he loved listening to Kravitz find the notes in the discord and steer it towards something perfect and clear and pure. He loved listening to the journey.

One moment he was walking. And the next moment, there was a ghost at the end of the corridor he’d just walked into. He only just managed not to scream and was proud of himself for that but he did jump noticeably.

“Master Taco,” the ghost took a slow step forward and became an almost impossibly tall woman in what seemed to be a flowing mourning dress and a gossamer thin veil covering her face. Except it wasn’t her face. It was a perfectly circular, bright white china mask, painted with a delicately beautiful but otherworldly face. There was no ornament to her except a silver bird skull worn around her cloth wrapped throat, “How wonderful to finally meet you.”

“Countess Raven…” Taako stammered. Now that a few seconds had passed, he was honestly less disturbed by her appearance than her seeing the hole in his sock that one toe was poking through. It was hard to find someone who dressed like this intimidating when you spent all of your free time with your new best friend who wore black silks and rings with silvered skulls set into them.

“I have heard much about you from my ward,” Actually no, it was a little spooky to hear a voice and see no lips moving as she walked towards him, seeming to hover across the carpet because her skirt covered her shoes and there was barely a whisper in it, “I only regret how long it has taken us to meet in person. Please, join me in my parlour if you would.”

She moved to a door just between them, a gloved hand appearing from the folds of her dress to turn the handle. Taako shivered, what were the chances they just happened to meet right outside the room she wanted him to enter? Had she been watching him? All of a sudden the rumours that surrounded this sorceress and the possibility of eyes in the walls prickled the wrong way up his spine.

But then he told himself he was being foolish. He reminded himself of what this woman was to Kravitz and everything she’d done for him. And he followed her through the door.

It was a surprisingly cosy room, for it’s darkness. There was a fire, like there was in every one of these high ceilinged rooms, filling the space with it’s merrily crackling voice. There were books lining the walls in towering shelves, the spines showing a multitude of languages. There were candles, their scents of clove and citrus peel buoying the smell of burning wood into something very pleasant. All the furniture was in dark wood, expensive and ornate. And of course there was a chess set, old and dented, set on a side table. Taako imagined the countess teaching a younger Kravitz to play and smiled.

“I promise I won’t keep you from my ward for very long,” her voice was smooth and not marred at all by age, “I simply felt it improper that we hadn’t been formally introduced yet, with you spending so much time with him.”

Taako flushed and didn’t take a seat when she did, standing and holding one arm like a schoolboy dragged before the headmaster. The word ‘improper’ was what stopped him in his tracks, pinned him awkwardly like a butterfly under glass, one of a host of words that pricked him in his nightmares. There was a lot about how he thought of Kravitz that fit the description, only in his own head of course though he was wondering just how much those hidden eyes could know.

“I mean...he has become a good friend to me, my lady,” Taako cleared his throat, one hand going to his throat to hold his shirt together but there was nothing he could do about his lack of shoes, “I am simply...we share some interests and…”

“I think you have misunderstood me, Master Tacco,” she saved him from his miserably stumbling, politely interjecting, “I brought you here to thank you.”

Taako blinked, uncertain he’d heard her, “Thank me?”

She seemed to choose her words carefully, just as Kravitz always did. The longer he was in her presence, the more similarities Taako could see between them.

“My ward is a very accomplished gentleman,” the countess said, the tone in her voice barely shifting, “Witty and talented and kind natured. Powerful too, gifted in his magic. And yet he struggles to connect with people, to make friends as it were. I fear this is something he inherited from myself, or else something I neglected to teach him. There is a natural loneliness to him that easily turns to sadness on his darker days.”

Taako could see that. It was the same sadness inside him, though Kravitz clearly preferred to turn inwards to it, whereas Taako grew louder and louder to drown it out. He suspected neither of them were very successful.

“I will not tell you how he came to be my ward, that is his own tale to tell. I haven’t told you anything you didn’t already know, I think,” something behind the arctic cold mask sparkled that might have been her eyes, it was hard to say, “But I worry about him. I worry there are things I cannot save him from. Though, Master Tacco, you seem to have that power.”

Taako felt his face redden more, clearing his throat, “I...I wouldn’t call it a power, my lady, I just...I just care about him. There is no effort in it.”

“Even one such as me can see that. And this is why I wanted to thank you, Taako. I wanted to thank you for seeing him, as he is, and letting him in.”

“Ah, well…” Taako felt like those painted eyes were staring into him, past his skin, seeing things that he hadn’t wanted anyone to see. And yet she didn’t seem angry or disgusted or even surprised.

“And if I may be so bold, as I often am...I encourage you to let him do the same. I have seen the way he looks at you, I have heard how he speaks of you. Forgive an old lady dispensing wisdom where it hasn’t been asked for but I do wonder if you both couldn’t find a deal of happiness in each other. Or at least...a fulfilment. An understanding. Something to fill a need you share.”

Taako didn’t know how much more he could take, his pulse racing and palms sweating. Was he reading too much into it? Making ridiculous leaps and bounds between her words? Gods, what did she want him to say?

“But I am rambling. I’ve kept you from him for too long, you may return to the library, Master Tacco. Thank you for indulging me and...think on what I’ve said or dismiss it as you see fit,” with a movement of her hand, the door swung open again.

Most of Taako wanted to flee through it as soon as it revealed itself, some wanting to keep running right out the door and back to his safe, familiar house and his safe, familiar hiding places, to check the king and win the game. But there was still that one little bit...and wasn’t it always that which got him into trouble?

Instead of running, he bowed poliety and summoned up every scrap of bravery he had, which really wasn’t very much at all but proved just enough to say, “I will think about it, my lady. I promise.” And to mean it.

The smooth, bone mask inclined in a satisfied nod, “Then return to your chess, Master Tacco. I hope you and Kravitz can find what you seek.”

With a nod, Taako ducked out of the Countess’ parlour and continued down the halls, taking a few wrong turns in his distraction and ending up somewhere he didn’t mean to be. It was only because the sound of his footfalls changed so much when he stumbled out onto the polished wood that he noticed he was standing in the ballroom from the night of the rout not that long ago.

It was jarring to see it empty, at first, when last time it had been so full and rich with music, fine silk and candlelight. It was like a chest with no heart and lungs, bare and empty and devoid of its purpose. For a moment, Taako was frozen by the horror of being somewhere he wasn’t meant to be.

But he was also alone, no one to scorn him or cast him out. So he gave himself a moment, stepping across the parquet flooring, looking up at the grand chandelier with it’s drips of wax frozen in time and the black, sleek arches of the ceiling. He’d run from it before so it was nice to be able to appreciate it, away from the eyes and cold, cruel, polite smiles that had driven him away.

Some of the bravery still lingering, Taako made slow, spiraling circles and imagined a very different party in the same hall. He imagined Lup there, in her best dress but brand new and with no subtle mending, Barry on her arm, the two of them dancing happily. He imagined his friends, Magnus and Merle and Lucretia and Davenport, laughing and making their jokes, louder and far more fun than would ever normally be allowed somewhere like that. The Countess Raven perhaps, if she wanted, sitting in a chair and watching it all from behind her mask.

And Kravitz. Kravitz smiling and holding himself proudly, his eyes bright as Taako took his arm and adoration clear on his handsome face. The two of them dancing, the way a man would with a woman, openly and freely with no need to hide, to music Kravitz had written, everyone able to see how beautiful it was. And how beautiful they were.

Taako stopped, suddenly finding his lower lip trembling and needing to focus so he could hold it at bay. The music faded in his ears and the faces of his friends dissipated, like snow on a breeze. He was alone again, in his socks and threadbare clothes playing at being luxury, with his two large ears and the gap in his front teeth.

He could think about it all he wanted, that much he’d promised. But it wouldn’t change the fact that he could want and want until his heart broke and it would never mean he would have it. Wanting couldn’t change the world, not in his experience. Wouldn’t it have happened by now, if it could? He’d been wanting for a long damn time, after all.

Taako gave a shuddery sigh and turned himself around, following the same route he’d taken that night to get back to the library, back to Kravitz and chess.

Because that much he was allowed.

A week. That was as long as they were allowed even that small happiness.

Because the end of the seventh day was when Taako shut the front door of Auntie’s house against the winter wind and gathering night, whistling as he unwound his scarf and hung it with his coat on the peg. He smiled, content and happy and full of warm tea and sugar, stepping out of his shoes and thinking of supper and how he would read by the fire, Lup’s feet in his lap and her fingers weaving a braid into his hair. And how another day just like it would be waiting for him tomorrow.

He knew something was wrong as he stepped into the kitchen. There was no fire in the hearth, it was cold and ashy. There was no light, no heat, no life in the house that hadn’t even lost its heart after Auntie died. Everything was quiet, the silence the ringing sort that filled the space, like the few seconds after being struck with a blow so hard it made everything rock and tip.

Lup was sat at the table, her eyes red and raw, her hands shaking as she folded and unfolded the letter with its stiff official paper and stark black type.

“Lulu?” Taako murmured, voice hollow already, even not knowing. But he could guess.

His sister slid the letter across to him, her chin setting in misery as that small action brought fresh tears. He picked it up and read, an action he struggled with at the best of times but even more so when his heart was hammering sickeningly and the words were ones he didn’t want to read.

The bank had run out of patience. They had a week to come up with the full amount to purchase the house before it became the property of the bank and they were trespassing on the floorboards they’d walked every day for the best years of their lives. The figure still left to pay was so far out of what they currently had, it may as well have been the number of stars in the sky.

“Taako,” Lup’s voice trembled, “What are we going to do?”

He couldn’t answer. He looked for those ways out now, the move he’d need to make to win this game but he couldn’t see it, it was impossible. He’d been doomed to fail from the start, doomed by his hesitance, his recklessness, his selfishness. He and his sister would be right back where they’d started their lives, homeless and without safety, scared and alone and exactly where he’d promised her they would never be again.

And what was he going to do?

Taako let the letter fall, looking at Lup helplessly, seeing the five minutes that made him the oldest stretch to an impossible distance between them, littered with all his broken promises. But not so far he couldn’t see the terror in her eyes.

What he did was what he’d always done when things had become difficult.

Taako turned on his heel and he ran.

#taakitz #taako #kravitz #lup #lup/barry #regency au #aggtd #please comment!#angst #its getting sad guys #taz balance #the adventure zone

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athingthatwantsvirginia · 4 years

Text

A Regular Keats and A Regular Mozart

PART TWO OF THE DO YOU SEE HER FACE? SERIES

Pairing: Jess Mariano x Original Character (Ella Stevens)

Warnings: plentiful pop culture references, teasing fluff, a slow burn at its core

Word Count: 3K

Summary: Jess and Ella bask in boredom and argue over various authors.

Evening light waned in the Connecticut sky. Ella watched the stars appear slowly, in her usual corner table near the windowed wall at Luke’s. She’d tried to get through her calculus homework three times, but eventually her brain would start frying and she would have to take a break. Lane would have been with her, but she was grounded yet again. So, Ella was flying solo. It didn’t bother her. Most days she wasn’t on shift, she ended up at the small corner table anyway, pouring over her textbooks with occasional interludes for tea and a burger around dinnertime. Luke had long since cleared away her dishes and left her by her lonesome.

After a few unproductive minutes, watching the townspeople walk by, she glanced at her watch and found it was nearly half past eight. The twinkling string lights illuminated the main streets and the town’s gazebo. It was beautiful. No matter how many times she sat and watched the cozy yellowish glow envelope Stars Hollow night, she never got tired of it. She had a decent view of the sky from her bedroom window at home, but Luke’s view of town was far better. It was one of the many reasons she preferred to spend her nights away from the little blue house near the edge of town.

She had just gone back to the nearly illegible problem below her when Jess’s knuckles rapped on her table. A nervous blush crept up on her freckled cheeks though she hadn’t visibly startled. Her heart had still skipped a beat at the noise. He sat down across from her without being invited, a smirk on his face and an apron around his hips.

“What are you doing here? You’re not on shift today,” he asked. The sarcastic twinkle had never left his eyes the entirety of the time they had been working together thus far.

“I like to study here on my days off,” she told him, her pencil still in her head. She debated ignoring him and going back to her notes, but decided to humor him for at least a few minutes. Apparently, it was the first time he hadn’t been out raising hell on an evening shift she wasn’t working. It had been a part of her routine for so long, she found it odd anyone would be surprised to find her there on a free weeknight. “What are you doing sitting down here when you’re supposed to be working?”

Jess chuckled a little. “Thursday nights apparently aren’t too big around here. Luke’s already closing it up. I just clocked out.” He paused to untie his apron and throw it over his shoulder, as if to prove his point. “I knew this town was boring, but damn. Do you really not hang out anywhere else on your days off besides the place you already work?” he asked.

Ella shrugged, looking down at her work again. Just the sight of it made her insides squirm in frustration. “There’s places to go.”

“Well, could you let me in on them?”

Pursing her lips, she narrowed her eyes at him. “Hm?”

“Show me around. Apparently you know of some interesting spots, and I haven’t found any yet.”

She scoffed. “You’ve been here almost a month and no place in Stars Hollow has piqued your interest at all?”

“No,” he told her nonchalantly. Though he didn’t continue, she only stared at him suspiciously. Sighing through his nose, he produced a deck of cards from the pocket of his jeans. He fanned them out in front of her, the deck with wrinkles and scuffed spots on the royal blue designs. “Pick a card.”

Instead of going along with his trick, she rolled her eyes dramatically and shut the textbook in front of her. “Why don’t I just cut this magic show short and give you the world’s fastest tour?”

“Oooo, so impatient.” Jess pretended to be offended. “Homework makes you cruel.”

. . .

Arms crossed over her chest, Ella strolled down the dimly lit Stars Hollow sidewalk with her boots tapping pleasantly on the slightly damp cement, Jess alongside her. A November breeze blew past them, cooling her flushed cheeks. For the life of her, she could not figure out why he had asked her to show him around, she hated to admit to herself how antsy she was feeling. She would have regretted it more than she already did if she didn’t trust Luke so much. There was no fear in her heart, only anxiety and confusion. She could smell the autumn in the air. The wind swirled around them, forming a tiny tornado of dead leaves in the center of the street. A frosty bite, a crispness, had arrived about a week before. The snow would follow soon enough.

“That’s the bookstore,” she said, nodding over to Stars Hollow Books on the left as they neared it. “I’m gonna assume you’ve been there.”

Jess smiled proudly. “She’s a regular Sherlock Holmes.”

A little smirk crossed her face, brightening up her hazel eyes. In the light of the streetlamps, Jess could see the golden specks swirled in the pools of her greenish irises. The red glints in her loose blonde braid shone, too. A faded green messenger bag weighed down her right shoulder and an old peacoat was draped around her small frame. She wasn’t the shortest girl, but she was still nearly a head below him. After a moment, he broke his concentration from her form as she pointed out a large, barn-like building on the right.

“That’s Miss Patty’s. I’m sure you’ve done your best to disorder the peace in there, too. Steal a bunch of tutus of something,” she said, though her tone wasn’t angry, just knowing, verging on a joke.

“I have not,” he assured her dramatically. “I am a stranger to that realm.”

She put her hands up in surrender. “Well, if you decide on the studio as your next target, you leave the piano alone, alright?”

“What’s so special about the piano?” he asked, his hands stuffed deeply into his pockets as the wind whistled once again.

“Nothing in particular. I play it for rehearsals sometimes when Mrs. Rothschild, the regular pianist, is out. The first two weeks you were here, she had a knee replacement and there was a recital, so I had to sub in. I had no time left to work at all. But Miss Patty gave me volunteer hours for school, so it was okay,” she explained. The rogue strands of hair blew away from her face, and Jess could see the frosted roses blooming on her freckled cheeks. Autumn had come with a particularly harsh chill.

“Huh,” he said, looking at her quizzically.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Just spit it out, Mariano,” she pressed, her voice light.

“I just didn’t see you as a piano player,” he told her.

“Well, what’d you see me as? If you say tambourine, we’re never speaking again,” she warned, giggling slightly as she spoke.

Jess chuckled breathily in response. “I don’t know. Guitar, maybe.”

She hummed thoughtfully, nodding as though the assessment meant anything specific. “I’ll take it as a compliment.”

“You should.”

“Well, I’m glad.”

There was a beat of comfortable silence between them, and she let her eyes longer on his shoes. His jeans were frayed at the ends, just a bit too long for him. It made her feel like smiling, though she didn’t quite know why.

“What’s New York like?” she asked out of the blue, passing by a few strangers as they walked. Soon, they would turn right, away from the edge of town and into the outskirts. Jess didn’t know it yet, but he was walking her home. She had a date with her dishwasher set for half past nine.

He tilted a sideways look at her. “You’ve never been?”

She shook her head. “I’ve never really been anywhere.”

The sentence struck a chord within him, deep in his gut. She didn’t look sad, and she didn’t sound it either, but something about the phrase she had uttered felt so devastated. Maybe even hopeless, but he didn’t let it shake his exterior. “Well, it’s loud. It’s flashy. You can buy sex for five dollars on every single street corner.”

Ella snorted a laugh. “Oh, then I’ll definitely have to make it there sometime.”

He smiled; her joviality was growing since she’d gotten her nose out of the calculus textbook. Clearing his throat, he took another shot, his tone more serious. “No, but, it’s really...it’s very alive. There’s always movement.”

“So, it’s the opposite of here?” she asked.

“Pretty much,” he agreed.

“You like it better there, I take it?”

“The understatement of the century.”

“Sorry to hear that,” she said. In the back of her mind, she remembered she was supposed to be giving him a tour, but he didn’t seem to care that the conversation had veered from its original purpose.

Jess shrugged, cavalier. “It’s what it is.”

“How poetic of you,” she mocked. “You’re a regular Keats.”

He groaned, shaking his head. “Don’t tell me you like Keats.”

“You’re on dangerous ground,” she told him gravely. They had turned down a gravel road, lined with quaint houses, which seemed to decrease in quality the farther down one walked.

“I just wish he would make his points a little faster. Time is money, and poets almost never take that universal law into consideration,” he argued, a crooked smirk ever-present.

Sighing in disappointment, Ella began to speak with her hands. “It’s about taking the moment, taking the artwork, for the simple beauty of it. Just letting it wash over you, letting the words radiate out. Haven’t you ever read Portrait of the Artist?”

“I tried. Modernism is just poetry masquerading as fiction.”

Ella gasped dramatically, bringing her hands to her heart as though she were wounded. He could see her feigned grief in the light of the many street lamps which buzzed beside them. Apparently even far-off residential areas were alight in Stars Hollow. “Blasphemy!”

For perhaps the first time since they’d met, Jess laughed. A true, genuine laugh, free from his usual sardonic layering. It made a grin appear on Ella’s face, and she almost felt sorry when they reached the decrepit mailbox which read Stevens in faded black paint.

“I’m afraid we’ll have to take a raincheck on this tour,” she said, opening the box and checking for mail. There were a couple bills, and advertisements from various colleges she knew she wouldn’t be able to afford.

Jess sighed in defeat. “I have to say, you did a subpar job. You didn’t even point out the sock hop where the young men and women fraternize on Friday nights!”

She nodded, accepting his criticism. “Well, next time I’ll show you where to buy a malt for the girl you’re courting.”

“As you should,” he concluded.

Dropping the act, she furrowed her brows. “Can you make it back? Or have I led you too far down the road less traveled by?”

“I think I can manage,” he said.

“So, I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“It appears that way.”

“I’ll have a Keats for you. Maybe a Dickinson, too,” she said, visions of her crowded bookshelf filling her head. “Though, you might not be ready for her yet.”

“Alright, but in exchange you’ll be receiving a Hemingway,” he warned, preparing to turn on his heel and begin the walk back to Luke’s.

“Hardly an even trade, but I’ll accept the terms.”

. . .

Jess sat behind the counter with a Kerouac held open in his right hand, the business rushing around him. The clock ticked rhythmically above the door, and when he looked up he saw it was a quarter to five already. He thought it odd Ella hadn’t arrived yet, but he shrugged it off. Why should he care where she was? Coffee steamed from the pot behind him, and the evening chatter was beginning to rise in volume. Over the past few weeks of living in the diner, he had learned not to make eye contact with any customer whatsoever, and he could usually get through a chapter or two in peace. About ten pages later, the door opened and Ella’s footfalls snapped heavily around, as she hung her coat and bag, then grabbed her apron from the back. He smirked as he watched her bustling around. She always seemed to be in a hurry, with her hair falling from whatever updo she pulled it back into before work. There were holes and runs in her stockings, but it matched the vibe of her plaid dress and combat boots well enough.

Clearing her throat, she took a moment to catch her breath when she reemerged and surveyed the busy diner. She grabbed her pad of paper from the pocket of her white apron, but found she could see no one in need of her assistance at the current moment.

“Something wrong, honey?” Jess piped up, teasing, though he didn’t take his eyes from the words before him.

She raised an eyebrow at him and scoffed. “Don’t call me that. And yes, I’m a very busy woman.”

“Well, color me impressed,” he drawled flatly. Then, after a moment, he put down his reading. He reached in his back pocket and pulled out a thin, weathered book and held it out to her wordlessly.

A tired smile crossed her lips, taking her book back and running her thumbs over the familiar cover art. “Ah, my favorite. The formidable Miss Dickinson.”

“That she is,” he agreed, nodding as he cast his Kerouac off to the cabinet beside him. It had only taken him about two days to get through it, though he’d kept forgetting to return it to her. A wide grin blossomed on her face.

“You liked her?” she asked expectantly.

Nodding, Jess began refilling two or three of the customers’ coffee cups on the counter in front of them. “She certainly gets the message across much quicker than some others.”

“Well, at least you have some taste,” she said. “I’ve still got about fifty pages of the Hemingway. Not entirely unreadable, but I can definitely tell he was drunk for eighty percent of his life.”

“But that’s the beauty of it!” Jess urged.

“Man, and you were just starting to acquire an air of refinement. We’ll continue this again when you finish Keats and agree that I’m right,” she quipped, turning her view back to the customers.

“Well, get ready for the disappointment of a lifetime.” Jess could see her getting lost in her own, frazzled head and let his eyes longer on her, biting his lip and hiding a smirk.

Tucking her hair behind her ear, Ella found a blue pen. On the other side, she found a pencil. Eventually, she discovered three more in her messy bun and shoved them in the pocket of her apron. She groaned softly at herself, pinching the bridge of her nose.

Jess chuckled. “What could possibly be giving you a headache on this lovely Friday afternoon in the utopia that is Stars Hollow, Connecticut?”

“Nothing,” she told him evasively, hands on her hips. Luke was chatting up the early birds. No one had come through the front door since she’d arrived, but she kept a trained eye in that direction. Either Babette or Miss Patty would show up soon enough. Likely Miss Patty, to grab some food before the seven o’clock meditation class, which mostly involved the students lying on the floor asleep.

“Oh, so nothing’s what made you forget about your five new pencil accessories?” he asked.

Rolling her eyes at his insistence, she finally turned back to him. “I had to go to New Britain to visit my aunt. She’s getting married and she’s making me play piano for it, for some ungodly reason.”

“Are you any good?”

She scoffed. “Oh, yeah, I’m a regular Mozart. No, I’m terrible.”

“Now, I’m sure that’s an exaggeration.”

“Trust me,” she told him. “When my mom taught me, I think she thought with enough time and energy I’d at least get halfway to her level. But, sadly, no dice.”

Jess was about to continue the conversation, the gears turning in his head for the next giggle-worthy quip, when Luke finally returned from arguing (shouting) with Taylor about Christmas decorations. It was still a whole week until December. And no one in the town save for Taylor was holding out any hope Luke would decorate at all the entire holiday season.

“Hey, Ella, how ya doin’?” Luke greeted her offhandedly, tearing a few tickets and giving them to Caesar in the back.

“She has a headache and is single-handedly ruining the piano as an instrument, apparently,” Jess informed his uncle on her behalf.

She nodded, then her eyes brightened when she saw Patty walk in, right on schedule. “Just this once, your nephew is correct. Now, if you’ll excuse me, gentlemen.”

With a sardonic tilt of the head, she left the two of them behind. She pulled out one utensil from her wide writing arsenal and went over to greet Miss Patty, who made her lean down for a kiss on the cheek. Ella obliged, though red as a tomato. It shocked Jess how sweet she could be with the customers. Most of the time all he got was a razor-sharp tongue. She had a goodness within her he already knew he could never live up to. It made his heart do a little twist, though he would never in a million years let her know.

“Jess?” Luke asked, breaking his nephew out of his daze.

“Yes, Uncle Luke?” Jess replied, his usual sarcastic mask back on.

Luke sighed, but ignored Jess’s attempts to irritate him with the formal address. “Less staring, more working, alright?”

#jess mariano imagines #jess mariano imagine #jess mariano one shot #jess mariano #gilmore girls #jess #jess mariano x oc #jess mariano x original character #luke danes #original character #original character stories

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bubble-tea-bunny · 5 years

Text

before you go

[sidon x reader]

author’s note: i swear this story wasn’t even meant to be like, that long, but i just kept adding scenes. hope you enjoyyy

word count: 16,475

PROLOGUE

Millennia have passed since the day the ruins were swallowed up by darkness, but the witch in those woods remembers it well. She sees it vividly in her mind’s eye like yesterday: thick trunks of towering trees, whose roots cling deep in the earth, extending their branches with their lush green leaves, growing closer and closer and closer until the last sliver of sunlight disappears, no longer welcomed on the forest floor.

The light isn’t missed. What creatures lay in hiding here thrive without it, nocturnal animals left to roam all hours of the day, surrounded by perpetual night. Torches scattered throughout the maze of this forest, hanging on sconces of crumbling stone walls and statues, are ignited by the daring adventurer trying to find their way to the center. But they never get far, turning around and using their trail markers to direct their way back out, and with the passing hours, the flames flicker and whither, dying down to embers.

No one has found the witch. Her hut rests deep in the woods, in a shadowy corner that most have failed to reach. The lack of disturbances means she can work without interruption. She tends to a small garden whose herbs grow beneath the dim light of a lantern strung up on a nearby branch. When they’re fully grown, she harvests then organizes them on a shelf, where they sit ready to be mixed into her newest elixir.

They work well for a good portion of the concoctions she creates: healing tonics, draughts of strength, sleeping potions for the restless and nightmare-riddled. She keeps them in tinted glass bottles with cork stoppers and knows exactly which elixir is stored where. The magic she practices is hardly sinister, and she’s content to keep this peace. The magic she practices is innocent, until one day, it isn’t.

She finds the recipe in an old leather-bound tome covered in dust. The language is old but she understands it (well, what still remains that hadn’t faded with time, that is). The book is vague about what the potion grants, but all she knows is that given what it asks for, it must be powerful. To create it would be crossing over into more harmful forms of magic, yet she can’t find it within herself to push away the biting curiosity to delve more into what she has discovered. The aged volume seems to pulse with life in her aged hands, exuding a power of its own that prevents her from putting it down and forgetting what she was seen.

Gathering the ingredients would be a difficult and lengthy process, but she’s learned to be patient. She wouldn’t be going out to collect them; they would come to her. And they do, steadily, in the form of the rare travelers with the intelligence and determination to venture further into the forest, closer to the middle, and closer to the witch’s hut.

She doesn’t hurt them. She won’t hurt them. And she says that to them quietly even though they can’t hear her, having passed out due to her sleeping potion. She only needs one thing, one little thing, if they would be so kind as to hand it over…

By the time the traveler wakes up, they’re back on the path illuminated by their own hand, and they can’t remember ever happening upon the witch. There are other bits too, other recollections they won’t be able to recall, though when (if) they finally realize that, they’ll be far from this place, and thoroughly at a loss as to what happened to that one corner of their brain where memories are hazy, like staring through fogged glass, aching to see what lies on the other side clearly, but unable to do so.

Those stolen memories stay with the witch now, radiant essences in purples and yellows and blues, floating and curling in their bottles. They’re pretty to watch. She lines them up, checks off the list of ingredients one by one in the tome: anger, empathy, happiness, innocence… All taken from the unfortunate souls who come into the dark woods. They don’t anticipate losing anything other than time in the day, and as far as they’ll be able to tell, that is the only thing they lose while exploring here. It’s a small mercy, the witch reckons, that they won’t notice.

She has only one ingredient left, but there has been no one to collect it from. It’s as though the universe understands that’s she is so close to being done, and has delayed the moment when she should find what she is searching for, building the tension, the suspense. For all the patience she has practiced for the centuries she has lived, she’s never felt antsier than this instant, the days passing like years. The lighting of torches signals the presence of another lone wanderer, but she doesn’t see those spots of orange flames.

Her frustration is palpable. and she sighs heavily. She can do nothing but wait.

———

The roar of the waterfall is a comforting white noise to Sidon, and it gently pulls him into the waking world at the break of dawn. His eyes crack open, serving witness to the rising sun washing over the water and painting the town in golden light. He’s always sluggish in the mornings, in no rush to push away the grogginess beckoning him back to sleep for a couple more minutes, or several, or maybe another hour if there’s nothing of note to attend to.

This morning, he nearly rolls over to continue sleeping, but his gaze passes over the folded parchment on the nightstand, and as if he’d been shocked, he sits up straight, fully alert. Reaching over to grab the letter, he opens it to reread it for—well, actually, he’s lost count of how many times he’s read it. He skims it, looks for the date mentioned to confirm that yes, that’s today.

It’s still early for most of the other Zora to be up, but those who are greet Sidon with a quiet good morning. He smiles and returns them all without stopping his stride. No one tries to get him to pause a moment for conversation, and he’s certain they all know where he’s going for his walking to be so purposeful. This has happened many times before, and when Sidon is set on something, he thinks little of anything else. Kayden especially understands this, for he grins as Sidon approaches the steps to the inn, already knowing why he’s there.

Kayden needn’t speak, only nudging his head to the side, in the direction of the beds. Sidon nods in thanks and quietly searches for his goal, footfalls silent so as not to disturb those slumbering. He finds it on the far end, separated from the others who have checked in for the evening, and he feels a large smile creeping onto his face, unable to be contained.

He sits on the edge of your bed, reaching out to brush your hair away from your face. Your nose scrunches as the silky strands pass over the sensitive skin of your cheeks. Then your face relaxes again, and he thinks you’ve continued to sleep. He wouldn’t mind if that’s the case. He just wanted to see you, to feel you and know that you’re here again. And it would be enough to hold him over until you finally woke, and he would be graced with the sound of your voice.

It turns out he doesn’t have to wait, for you groan quietly and your eyes are brilliant even if only half-open with fatigue. You hum and it’s as if you’re trying to say his name, to question if it’s him, but you don’t have the energy to enunciate it properly. He understands perfectly anyway and says yes, it’s him, and he’s so happy you’re back.

He sets a hand on your face, being careful of his claws as he strokes your cheek. He’s considerably larger than you are, and the size of his hand emphasizes this fact more. You lay your own over his and hum again. It’s not another attempt to say his name or any other words. Rather, it’s one of contentment, almost a purr, and Sidon’s chest tightens and he can’t believe how much he can miss someone. You murmur that you’re happy your back too because home is where the heart is and you’d buried yours here a long time ago.

You yawn and stretch your arms, and he gives you time to wake up more fully. Once you’ve blinked away the last of the sleepiness, he stands and offers you his hand, asking if you would like to regale your adventures to him over breakfast. You grin and nod, accepting his hand to help you up.

Sidon won’t deny that he worries for you when you’re exploring. He knows you can fight, can take of yourself, but Hyrule is vast and there are dark corners with monsters even someone of your ability will struggle against. He says to spare no details of your journey so you don’t, recounting the close calls (of which there are more than he would like, though he would prefer none at all), and he calms himself down by assuring himself that you sitting across from him isn’t some figment of his imagination. You’re real. Though if that’s not enough, and he needs more proof to keep him grounded, he reaches across to feel your soft skin beneath his fingers.

It’s like he’s being told a bedtime story with the sense of epic your retellings contain, filled with obstacles and triumph, and he thinks he’ll dream of it tonight, dream of you being front and center, the hero trekking through the land on a quest. Not that he hasn’t already dreamed of you. Sometimes, when his heart is especially heavy and he’s laden with gloom to be so far from you, he dreams of calm waters and of you sitting at its shore, the low tide lapping at your feet and your toes curled in the cold dirt. Then you see him watching you and smile, beckoning him over, and he’s overcome with a sensation that it’s actually you he’s observing there, that you’ve stepped into his dream from wherever you are in Hyrule, reminding him no distance is too great to feel you are ever truly apart.

Of course, it’s all fanciful speculation with no bearing in reality, inspired by a love that makes him wax lyrical like he’s a natural born poet with one muse in mind (but he has no desire for any other because you’re the only one he needs). You don’t actually have the power to traverse through dreams, but it does feel like you when he sees you and interacts with you and Sidon figures that’s because his soul knows yours so well.

Being higher up in the mountains, the weather in Lanayru is more temperate, and you like to bask in the breeze and the sunlight from outside the town, away from the noise. Sidon joins you, and he admits to you that every now and then he comes out here while you’re away, but it doesn’t feel the same.

“This beauty is difficult to enjoy with no one to appreciate it with,” he remarks softly.

You smile and lean your head on his shoulder. “I saw the most incredible statues in Gerudo and thought the same thing.”

The two of you are perched on the edge of a small cliff overlooking the Zora River, where you aren’t going to be interrupted anytime soon considering it’s sizable distance from town. There were plenty of other wonderful areas from which to survey the strong current of water as it flows downstream, towards the wetlands, that are closer to Ruto Lake, but you like to come here because the air at the Bank of Wishes feels different somehow, in a way Sidon can’t delineate with words but he sees it in the sparkle of your eye when the sun shines over you just right.

Stepping onto this small section of leveled ground is to cross the threshold into a realm where things are not as they seem, and you’re privy to the revelation that this is where the strings of the world are tinkered with and manipulated. It pulls the sun and the moon across the sky, pulls the strings of a soul like a harp and the ensuing breathy sigh of a fondness newly discovered is the song. It pulls you and Sidon with threads wrapped around your fingers, guiding you here, and then towards each other. And Sidon loves nothing more than to hear you sing.

He’d stumbled across you once, having arrived at the bank before he did, and he nearly called your name but remained quiet once he realized you were preoccupied with a red container. The stems of blue nightshades are looped through the small ring on the thick golden band wrapped around the cylindrical vessel, which you’re taking extra care with securing. You continue to kneel next to it even after ensuring the flowers won’t slip out, and he can’t hear what you’re saying but he thinks he knows what words you whisper.

Then you push the container into the water, and it lands with a small splash. You stare as the current takes it around the bend, and when it’s out of sight, Sidon comes out from his hiding place. You turn around, eyes wide in surprise to be caught off guard, but you relax at the sight of him and Hylia’s blessing rests in the curve of your lips and he could live there forever. He understands the glow of those flowers was a piece of yourself and you’d wished for it to seek out the one you wanted to give it to, and the water fairy is constantly listening because he stands before you now, and his heart warms at your knocking of the front door, and he knows pretty blue nightshades wait on the other side for him to welcome home.

You point out a school of fish near the surface of the water that’s passing by, and Sidon watches them with you as he takes hold of your free hand resting in your lap, anchoring himself to the moment. He’d happily live out his existence here with you.

He promises one day you’ll travel through Hyrule together. He can’t easily leave Zora’s Domain because of his obligations as prince, and you understand, you do, and in return he wants to give you better, he wants to give you everything. But your soft smile lets him know that he is more than enough for you. This universe could fall away around you both and he’s not sure you’d notice.

“I’ll have my darling prince to protect me then,” you state teasingly.

“You will,” Sidon responds, equally playful, but then the tone shifts and the jest fades and as he gently strokes the back of your hand with his thumb, he assures you that he’d always keep you safe. He would gladly be your knight.

While he would like to spend every hour in your presence, that simply isn’t possible, and he reluctantly leaves you to your own devices as he attends to his duties. You have no issue filling that time with conversing casually with the other Zora and with travelers about where they plan to go next. It’s from conversations with the latter that you tend to draw inspiration for deciding your next point of interest.

A fellow Hylian shares the rumors of skeleton horses in the Tabantha tundra which show up in the middle of the night, their red undead eyes like omens of ill fate. It sounds scary, she says, but apparently they’re gone by morning. Not even bones are left. She’s intent to witness these creatures herself, and she’s stocking up well here in Zora’s Domain since it’s a far journey. The idea of skeleton horses certainly grabs your attention, but you don’t think you’re as intent to travel so far, since you’d just arrived from Gerudo.

The Goron in Coral Reef mentions that he had just visited Lurelin Village, the small fishing town on the southern coast. The weather’s a little warmer, a little more humid, but that could easily be alleviated by dipping into the ocean for a swim. He paints the picture easily for you, of the turquoise waves and white sand beaches. He exclaims that the seafood paella is like nothing you’ve ever eaten before, and your mouth waters merely thinking of what it would be like to taste. You’d heard of it before, but never had the opportunity to try it.

He laughs at the glazed look in your eyes, your thoughts on Lurelin Village’s famed dish. “I’m tellin’ ya, ya gotta go down there and order yourself some!”

You nod in agreement and yeah, you do need to go down there to try the seafood paella! The Goron guffaws again and pats you on the back—That’s what I like to hear!—but he’s strong and even the light clap between the shoulder blades nearly makes you tumble to the ground.

With your mind made up, you settle down in a quiet corner to take out your map and plot a route to the seaside town. It’s still in Necluda, which means the actual travel time to get there and back won’t be long at all. You could make the Dueling Peaks stable your halfway point and cut through the forests, heading east for a short duration until the trails begin leading further south. You wouldn’t be gone as long as you were last time, and perhaps you could learn to make the paella and buy the proper ingredients to recreate here for Sidon to try too. Yes, this is perfect!

You sit back and review what you’ve drawn out on the map and the notes you’ve written on the sides. This map had been a recent purchase, considering your old one had been torn to shreds after a run-in with bokoblins. As such, it lacks the messiness of your original copy, which contained multiple lines representing the routes you’ve taken on your travels, as well as even more notes scribbled on the sides with tips or reminders. While this new map is certainly easier to read due to the lack of pencil marks all over the place, it’s missing the charm. But you suppose that’s hardly going to be a problem as you continue to move around Hyrule and figure out new paths to take in order to see as much of the land as possible. Just so long as another monster doesn’t sink their teeth into it…

The clean state of this map also makes it simple for you to spot a section of the map you had marked with a circle and a question mark. Your brows furrow as you stare down at it, attempting to recall when you had done that. You could vaguely remember being told stories about ruins there when you’d been at one of the stables. It starts coming back to you then.

The stable master had brought it up when it had been late and you were half-asleep, prepared to head inside to sleep. He’d spoken of a patch of trees in northern Hyrule, past the Great Hyrule Forest, and it had no name. Only the ruins hidden within did. Thyphlo Ruins.

It’s dark in those woods, he warned. Really dark. Other travelers who had stopped to rest at the stable had shared their experiences of attempting to reach the center, to see what might be there, but none of them had succeeded. They say the dark does strange things to the mind, the stable master explains. And the shadows… You think you see things that aren’t actually there. Not many have the mental fortitude to withstand the strain of being surrounded by pitch black for as long as is required to arrive at the middle of the labyrinth. You’d never heard of anyone that had gotten that far, so who’s to say there was anything to find there?

But… there had to be, right? It would make sense to if not assume, then at least hope something did, indeed, lie at the center, because for all the trouble one has to go through, a prize at the end, be it a treasure chest or a priceless artifact or some such valuable object, would be adequate recompense, especially if it came at the cost of near insanity. The world would show itself to be awfully cruel if the ruins had no reward to proffer, and while you consider yourself to be optimistic, you also understand that the world can be awfully cruel and you can’t rule out the possibility that a successful journey to the innermost parts of that forest may leave you empty-handed.

The more risk-averse would turn away from the prospect of exploring that mysterious patch of tightly packed trees, but you’ve the drive and determination to dive into it, to push through what might hide behind large trunks and mossy stone columns, and reach the end. You wouldn’t be satisfied with mere stories of others’ experiences. You want to have one of your own.

It’s early afternoon when Sidon is dismissed, leaving him with the rest of the day to spend with you. You’re sitting by the cooking pot at the inn, and the smell of baked apples reaches his nose the closer he gets. You don’t notice him because you’re preoccupied with what he registers is a map, which you hold in one hand, a slice of apple in the other. His mouth opens to announce his arrival, but his feet coming into your periphery causes you to glance up. A spark flickers behind your eyes and you could illuminate the whole of Zora’s Domain and that flash of love which steals his breath away because that’s for him, all for him are the dots of light in the corners of his vision whenever he should gaze at the sun.

He sits down next to you and points at the map. Planning your next adventure?

You smile and nod enthusiastically, showing him the route you’ve outlined for yourself. He’s first drawn to the lines leading south, towards the coast, but you pull his attention to the one trailing north instead, and his own smile begins to falter as he traces it back to the smaller but still dense cluster of trees above Great Hyrule Forest.

Though he’s not an adventurer like you, he’s heard his fair share of stories regarding the woods surrounding Thyphlo Ruins. The curiosity evident in the voices of those with a biting curiosity to travel within that mystifying landmark he fails to understand, for he feels no such pull, no such urge. The way he looks at it, if there is anything hiding there in the darkness, chances are, they don’t want to be found. And he’s perfectly content to not go looking.

But he is not you, and that is not how you look at it. You sound excited to have finally settled upon your next destination, and he feels bad that he can’t join you in your elation, not when his mind festers with concern for your wellbeing. He forces the smile back onto his face and does his best to support you in any other way that he can, finding it in the delight you exude at the prospect of continuing your exploration of the vast land of Hyrule. He’s glad that you’re doing something which you truly enjoy, and he tries to focus on that instead of where your passion is bringing you now.

Even for all of that, you know something is bothering him. He shouldn’t be surprised. You know what he is thinking, what he is feeling, by the small changes in his expression, by his nervous swallowing, and most of all by his slight hesitation to meet your eyes right away when you turn to him. He can’t shake the shame that creeps up on him that he can’t be as excited as you are, a notion that can’t be alleviated by the fact that you would never fault him for anything like that. He sees it in your small sympathetic smile and feels it in the warmth of your hand as you reach over to set it atop his.

“I promise I’ll stay safe,” you say, but you can only promise so much because to go somewhere that dangerous, there’s no guarantee of complete safety. Perhaps instead you voice it as a form of comfort, a reminder that Sidon needs every now and again that you’re being careful, and how could you not be when in the days spent traveling from place to place, your mind is filled with thoughts of returning here, to him, to home?

“I wish I could go with you.” He might not understand that yearning to explore the unknown, but he would venture into that forest without delay if it meant he could protect you, watching your back and the shadows outside your line of sight. He hates the idea of you being in there alone.

You squeeze his hand once in a gesture of reassurance. It mirrors how his heart squeezes as you look upon him so lovingly.

“I do too,” you remark quietly. "But we’ll have our own adventures one of these days. I’ll even let you mark them out on the map.”

Sidon smiles more genuinely now, beginning to relax. You’re trying to steer the conversation away from anything harrowing and he understands and appreciates that you are. It would do neither of you well to linger on any of the what-ifs. And he trusts you, truly, to be vigilant. You have been this long, and you’ve always come back to him.

As you outline your plans to him, he feels more at ease with the caution and preparation you’re clearly practicing. By the time the day of your departure rolls around, there’s only a small inkling of worry left in him (though that would always be there regardless of where you traveled).

Your evening spent at the inn isn’t a typical occurrence. You’d only done it because it was late when you’d arrived, and you didn’t want to disturb Sidon, no matter how many times he told you he wouldn’t mind. After that first night, you’d stayed with him in his own quarters, and it’s here that he laments how quickly the days have passed that you should already be leaving him.

Once you’ve checked that you have everything you’ll need for your travels, you close your bag and set it down on the table in the corner. Sidon is watching you from where he sits on the edge of his bed, and you walk over to him, taking the hand he holds out so he can pull you closer gently. His arms wrap around you as you stand between his legs, and you rest your own around this neck. You don’t look down at him and he doesn’t look up, for given that he towers above you when standing, in this position, both of you are eye to eye.

The world turns so slowly without you, he bemoans. I wish I could hold it in my hand to speed it up and bring you back to me sooner. You have wished for the same and smile wistfully at those sentiments he seems to have plucked from your brain. How must your days have felt before you met me? you tease, not really expecting an answer, but he gives one. Like eternity, he confesses.

He walks you to the very edge of town, and you linger at the end of the bridge, the walkway beneath your feet a soft blue accented by the glow of the luminous stones set in the pillars and arches. You stare at the trail leading away from Zora’s Domain and back towards the mainland, and Sidon’s staring down at you, and he doesn’t miss the pause in your stance, like you’re about to put one foot in front of the other and begin your journey but can’t find it within you to actually move.

“Hey.” He’s gentle as he draws your attention to him. “Are you okay?”

You purse your lips and he thinks for a moment you’re going to shake your head, but then you take him by surprise as you lunge towards him and hug him tightly. He’s quick to reciprocate, bringing an arm around your shoulders to hold you near. You murmur that you’ll miss him and your words are sunshine because he melts more and more with every syllable. Now it’s his turn to reassure you—he’s going to be here when you get back, and no stretch of land or water would ever be enough to separate you. Just think of me when you lay down to sleep, he says, and I’ll never feel too far away. If you had changed your mind and decided to stay here with him, he would welcome you gladly, of course. But he knows you won’t do that. It’s not in your nature. You hear the calls of the wild and yearn to follow them. Now go have a new adventure.

He stands there until you’re out of sight, and his walk back across the bridge is unhurried. You had wanted an early start, and by this point, the sun hasn’t quite yet revealed itself fully from behind the horizon. The fog above the water, which had been thick in the cold hours of the night, is starting to dissipate due to the growing warmth. Sidon lifts his gaze to the sky. It will be a nice day today, judging by the weather.

The duties he has to attend to as prince of the domain aren’t sufficient to make the time pass faster. He sits in meetings with his father and Muzu and occasionally the head of the guard, head leaning in his hand. His mind is elsewhere, and he stares out at the town like he might see you down there, waiting for him to be dismissed so he can join you.

“Sidon.” Muzu calls him sternly, the tone behind it slightly scolding.

Sidon blinks and reels his thoughts back in to the discussion, taking a deep breath and sitting up straighter in an effort to become more alert. His lazy movements betray how close he had been to falling asleep as well as any lack of guilt to be caught daydreaming. Muzu huffs and shakes his head but doesn’t bother to address his inattention. This isn’t the first instance this has happened, and the one solution would simply be to move on. Sidon’s thoughts would inevitably slip away to something (someone) else, and no number of reminders to stay focused would change that.

It’s also why King Dorephan isn’t irritated with Sidon’s behavior. While it’s part of Sidon’s disposition to be chipper, that attitude only persists during meetings (which even Dorephan will admit can be boring) if you’re in town. You give him something to look forward to when they finally adjourn, and he’d be energized for the entire duration. But the story is different when you’re gone, and though Sidon is happy to spend time with his friends, he’d enjoy it more with you around.

He understands what Sidon feels for you, and he knows there would be no stopping the drifting of his mind in your direction as he no doubt wonders where in Hyrule you are currently. As if on cue, he notices Sidon’s attention shifting again, eyes apparently staring at the wall but Dorephan has a suspicion Sidon isn’t admiring the architecture.

“I think we can stop here for today,” Dorephan speaks up.

Muzu trails off, confused and missing the look shared between the king and prince. Dorephan nods at Muzu, a motion of finality, and the advisor stands, bowing before making his leave.

“I’m sorry,” Sidon apologizes, and there is some guilt laced with it.

Dorephan grins and shakes his head. “Don’t apologize. You can’t help where your heart pulls you. The mind invariably follows.”

Sidon smiles slightly too, thankful that his father is sympathetic. He’d always been less strict than Muzu. Sidon stands and bows, about to follow Muzu out, but Dorephan halts his departure as he asks if you’ll be back soon. Sidon shrugs, for you hadn’t specified how long you’d be away (you tend not to, since even you don’t know how long your trips would be). He sighs instead and it’s rife with longing. She could return tomorrow and that wouldn’t be soon enough.

The days are merely the rising and setting of the sun, and the nights a constant reminder of you. The crescent moon is your smile and it guides Sidon across the threshold from the waking world to that of dreams. He wonders if you’ve followed his advice, to think of him as you fall asleep, and when he dreams of you, he’s sure that you have.

He receives no correspondence from you, and while odd at first, he isn’t bothered by it. You’re busy traversing Hyrule, and once you find an inn to settle down at for the evening, you’re probably too tired to write. He understands. Usually when you do send a letter, it’s with the date of your return, which is never too far off from the day that a courier hands Sidon the folded piece of paper. So that’s what he looks forward to, what he uses as a way of surmising that you would be coming to Zora’s Domain. If the courier is in town, he is watching closely, stomach buzzing with anticipation, only to be left disappointed when the messenger leaves, and he is empty-handed.

But he repeats to himself that as the days crawl along, the absence of letters isn’t worth fretting over. Sometimes, you don’t send one at all, and he isn’t aware of your presence here until the morning or night of, when he spots you walking around town, asking other Zora if they have seen him. He supposes he’s just grown used to the messages, for you had been sending them during your travels with increasing regularity. To receive none now is a disruption to the routine, but it was nothing more than that.

And it works for a while, convincing himself that you’re preoccupied with your exploration and perhaps have decided to take the long route back to Zora’s Domain. Though if this turns out to be the case, he does wish you would have sent something, at least to let him know you’re okay. Not that he doesn’t doubt you’d be careful, but he’d always worry about you in some capacity, a small inkling in the back of his mind that wouldn’t disappear until you were here with him again.

The morning that his concerns come to a head, and he actually starts to fear something has happened to you, is, coincidentally, the day you return. Muzu is the one to inform him, having seen you walk into Coral Reef the moment it opened. Sidon is quick to descend to the lower levels of town, every rushed step synchronized with the beating of his heart and he can barely contain his zeal, his happiness, his relief that you are back and you are safe. Because he won’t deny that this particular journey had gone on long enough without communication to warrant serious distress.

All the emotions welling up within him come out in a breath of near disbelief to find you right where Muzu had said you would be. Any tension he had felt uncoils and a sense of calm permeates his being from the top of his head down to his toes. His chest tightens because he’s missed you so much and you are back and the clocks tick at their normal pace once more.

You descend the steps of the general shop and as you come nearer, Sidon sighs your name and he has missed the way it felt upon his tongue. He waits for you to return it, to gaze up at him with that charming grin and whisper his name or shout it because you’re so excited but it wouldn’t matter either way because all he cares about is that he gets to hear you utter it.

But you don’t. You don’t run into his arms, don’t light up at the sight of him. Rather, you walk up to him at a leisurely pace, seeming to stop in front of him less because you’re elated to see him and more because he’s merely blocking your path. You tilt your head back to look up at him but you have no reaction to the toothy smile on his face. For reasons Sidon can’t explain, his expression refuses to fall, though deep down he knows something is off. The smile remains, however, the last vestiges of a hope that he’s just imagining those things and nothing is wrong. Nothing is wrong.

“Um…” Your voice is tentative, like you’re choosing words carefully, like you’re not sure of what to say. He catches the brief drop of your eyes to his grin before you lift them again to meet his own gaze, and you shake your head as if to tell him that if he’s looking for someone, it’s not you. It can’t be you. “I’m sorry, but… do I know you?”

———

II.

Sidon’s smile dims, caught off guard by the question. You continue to stand there, expecting a response, and after a few seconds of silence, you raise a brow. But then he flashes another smile and lets out a small chuckle.

“That’s funny, [Name].”

You’re only joking, surely, pretending to not know who he is. His mind refuses to consider anything but, despite the fact your face isn’t breaking out into a grin, unable to keep up the charade any longer. When you hear him say your name, you don’t look comforted by it, you look confused. With brows drawn together, you shake your head again.

“Have we met before?”

Any semblance of joy on his face finally ebbs to nothingness, and his confusion matches yours. His heartbeat quickens but not in a good way, as realization dawns on him that you aren’t messing with him. You are entirely genuine, treating him like a stranger and thoroughly apologetic that he seems to recognize you and you can’t remember where you might have seen him in the past.

“It’s me…” he starts quietly, as if those are the key words and a section of your brain will light up in recognition. “It’s Sidon.”

You still watch him blankly, your demeanor unchanging, not picking up anything special to hear the name. But then your expression does change, your eyes widening after a few moments, and he inhales sharply, prepared for you to acknowledge him and maybe this time, drop the act and the joke and the two of you will spend the rest of the day catching up, enjoying the presence of the other. And he waits with bated breath for you to thrust yourself into his arms and for the strength of impact to steal that breath away as you express how much you missed him.

You don’t do any of that.

“Prince Sidon?” you exclaim. Sidon doesn’t nod to confirm it but you bow anyway, bent at the hips and staring down at the ground for a second then standing back up straight. “I-I’m sorry I don’t remember us meeting. Please forgive my forgetfulness, your highness.”

You wring your hands nervously and Sidon doesn’t want any apologies because you shouldn’t have to offer any. The bated breath leaves him in a silent and shaky exhale as the reality of the situation sets in. This isn’t a joke. The way you’re acting is authentic. You’re staring at him with no ounce of familiarity, and the look in your eyes reminds him of any other traveler who passes through Zora’s Domain and finds themselves anxious and unprepared to be in the presence of the prince. And it shouldn’t be like this. You aren’t just any other traveler, not to him. Though how could he expect you to know that now?

You’re still waiting for him to speak, hoping that he won’t be annoyed. But he isn’t. He could never be. Not with you. So he shakes his head, forcing himself to smile just a little, a polite one to put you at ease. “There’s nothing to apologize for. We all forget things sometimes.”

You visibly relax, shoulders drooping after being tensed those several long beats. Sidon doesn’t say anything more, and you have nothing else to add either, so you clear your throat, a failed attempt to break the awkward air hanging between you.

“Er… well… if I may excuse myself, then…” Your request for dismissal is shy and Sidon’s heart is twisting because this is how you acted the first time he’d ever met you, and the memories are fond but that’s how they should have stayed. Just memories.

“Of course.” He stands to the side to give you room to walk past him, and you bow again, though not as deep as the first, before skirting around him.

He stares at your retreating form, understands that it’s you who’s walking away yet at the same time, it doesn’t feel like it is. The one he has conversed with might have your eyes and your hair but perhaps it wasn’t actually you. It made no sense for it to be. Delight fills your gaze when you see him and it’s complemented by a wide smile as he brings you close and threads his fingers through the soft strands of your hair. But who he has just spoken with held no such delight in their eyes, and there was no big grin to behold, and they never came closer than a respectful arm’s length, clearly not sharing in the expectation that Sidon would hold them near and tangle his fingers in their hair.

No matter how many ways he tries to rationalize that he’d been mistaken, that it wasn’t you he’d spotted exiting Coral Reef, he won’t ever be able to deny the way his chest had tightened when he saw you, when he heard you speak though you used the words of a stranger. And he still feels the tug to follow after you, to get you to admit you have been joking and while it gave him a scare, he admires your commitment but now, life can go on as normal.

However, that’s not what would happen. Your reactions couldn’t be faked. He could implore you all he wants, to remember. He could beg you to dig around and uncover that corner of yourself, the place where he resides and where you understand how much you love him. He wants you to know he’s not just a prince, he’s your prince, and you mean the world to him. He wants you to remember it all, and there’s a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach to know that you don’t. You can’t.

He’s at a loss as to how to handle these circumstances. Never has he been faced with something like this. The biggest question on his mind is how this happened. It’s not as though he could simply ask you. As far as you were concerned, you aren’t missing any memories to begin with. This was the work of some form of magic, surely. But it was none that Sidon had ever heard of. He’s in dire need of answers, but the only one who might know anything, as well as the only one he trusts enough to help him figure it out, isn’t in the domain currently. Sidon doesn’t know when he will be, but until the day his friend crosses that bridge into town, he is left waiting.

You stick around for a few more days, and Sidon finds himself falling back into the habit of searching for you. Before, he’d approach you the moment he spotted you, maybe even sneak up and surprise you if he felt particularly playful. But now when he notices you speaking to other travelers or having your weapons repaired at the blacksmith’s workshop, he keeps his distance. He stays far enough away that you can’t tell he’s staring intently in your direction, observing your sweet smile and straining his ears to listen to your laugh. All the while, he misses the time he’d been able to elicit those reactions from you, and his chest would swell with pride whenever he was successful. He wore your love for him like a badge, a reward of the highest honor. It’s practically impossible for him now to comprehend that he has been set aside to the margins, a thought far from your mind, because you have never left the center of his own and would never leave it.

It dawns on him one mid-morning that despite the hand fate has dealt, he’s not being prevented from doing those things which he had carried out with great pleasure when you looked upon him with so much love. He could try to make you smile, make you laugh, and perhaps the embers of forgotten flames might flicker to life.

You’re settled down by the cooking pot, drawing and scribbling on your map. Sidon approaches quietly to avoid startling you, but you don’t notice him. He ponders what he should say to you, what might make for polite and casual conversation. He has to treat you like a stranger, and it hurts him to do because as he watches you, he sees his whole life sitting there. And he could never be angry with you when you finally slide your eyes over to him and the fondness isn’t returned because you can’t know that he’d witnessed that all slip away the moment your memories were stolen. But he doesn’t know what to be angry at so he’s angry with himself, and he swallows the lump in his throat and tells himself it’s time to focus on you, just you, because you’re what matters.

He points to the map you hold. “You’re a traveler?”

You nod in lieu of replying verbally. He can surmise you’re nervous. So he smiles gently as he asks if he can join you.

“O-Oh, yes, of course!” You scoot over to make room for his much larger frame and he inserts himself into the spot rather easily. It all starts to feel familiar for him.

He glances over your shoulder at the map with its pronounced creases from being folded and unfolded. There are additional marks which have been added since you’d last been here, but he knows it’s the same copy because of the line drawn from the domain towards the south, to Lurelin Village. He addresses said route, inquiring if you’ve visited or planned to soon.

This pulls back the floodgates and with a few extra questions from Sidon to steer the conversation, you’re gushing to him about your interest in exploring Hyrule. You tell him of where you’ve gone and where you’d like to go, and he listens attentively, nodding and humming intermittently to show he’s following along. He can’t contain his little grin as he senses the passion in your voice and he already knows these things, your love for exploration and the vastness of the land. He knows all these places you have been to and the stories associated with each one. But he hangs on every word anyway like he’s heard none of this before and you’re so eloquent and heartfelt and he has missed the closeness of it all, as you open up to him.

Then your string of tales wanes. I’ve told you all the exciting parts, you reason. And you laugh nervously, apologizing for rambling as long as you had and not allowing much space for Sidon to talk. But he laughs with you and says it’s okay, he doesn’t mind. He prefers to listen. He’s so genuine as he looks at you that you have to look away for a second, cheeks warming.

With a plaintive sigh, you lift your head to survey what parts of the town you can see from the inn. The sun is setting and the sky is shifting from dark blue to orange.

“I don’t know why,” you begin, eyes narrowed as you stare into the distance, at the gleam of luminous stones set within the pillars as night falls, “but I always find myself coming back here after my journeys. It’s a special attachment that I can’t really explain.”

Sidon’s eyes are glassy but luckily you fail to notice because you’re not facing him. A heavy weight drops into his stomach and he wants to tell you he loves you and that there had been a point where you loved him too and that’s why. That’s why you feel the tug deep down to end every expedition here, why a part of you has made it instinct to call this place your starting point, your base, your home. Everything leads back to him and you’re so close but not close enough. You could always be closer.

You glance at him, and you’re none the wiser to the tears he has willed away, and your soft smile makes his chest tighten. For a second he might believe that things are normal, the way they were, and you’ll suggest the two of you watch the sun disappear from the outskirts of the domain where there isn’t as much light to interfere with the view. But he knows things are not normal and those won’t be the words to leave your mouth next so he tells himself you’ll be his view this evening, as the setting sun illuminates your features, painting your skin with orange hues and swirling in the depths of your eyes where it slumbers until the next day when you should wake, and the world will follow on your heels.

Sidon is alone in his bedchamber tonight, and the idea is uncomfortable, that you aren’t with him despite being in the domain. Suddenly his room feels even lonelier.

The moon hangs high in the sky and bathes the cold stone floor in light as well as kisses the expanse of Sidon’s scales as he remains near the window to stare out at the blackened waters below. He’s too preoccupied contemplating the events of today to try going to sleep. What rest he may manage to obtain will surely be restless, and he doesn’t consider that any better than not sleeping at all. Sometimes you liked to stay up to admire the moon, and he wonders if you’re doing that now.

He hadn’t talked with you for long, but it had really, genuinely felt good to hear your voice because he had missed you, during those few weeks apart. It lifts his spirits to see you walking around town. Your presence is the only thing that can pull him out of his slumps, its absence what put him there in the first place. He likes being around you because you make him want to sprout wings and fly, and you would always have that power over him, with your memories or no. He feels like he’s falling in love with you again (not that he’d ever stopped). Maybe you’ll fall in love with him again too.

You’ve set your sights on Lurelin Village, and you’re the one to instigate the conversation as you trot up to Sidon, noticeably more relaxed now, and excitedly tell him of your plans to go to the coastal town next. He mirrors your zeal as he envisions the bright blue waters and the warm sand. He’d like to swim there one day, he confesses to you. But since he can’t right now, he asks that you have fun for him.

Sidon has trouble masking emotions, and sometimes the strongest ones can slip through. That’s the only explanation he has for why you become bashful during an otherwise casual chat. Because he can’t hide his gaze of admiration and love for you no matter how hard he tries and maybe you’ve picked up on that. He ponders if you see glimpses of another life reflected back in his eyes where you aren’t merely guessing if he means to stare at you in that way because you are why that affection fills his being as he observes you.

You have already left Zora’s Domain for Lurelin Village when Link saunters into town on a gloomy afternoon. A week separates your departure and his arrival. Sidon greets him at the bridge and they make lighthearted banter over lunch. It’s not until they’re full, unable to eat another bite of their wildberry crepes, that Sidon finally brings up more serious topics. Namely, the situation with you.

Link listens closely as Sidon talks, eyes narrowed in concentration because there’s a problem to be solved and Sidon can’t solve it by himself. But Link is at a similar loss as to how this could have happened. He shrugs helplessly and sits back and says if this is some form of magic, he hasn’t ever heard of it before. I’ve never known there to be magic that could manipulate the mind.

Sidon is disappointed that he’s still stuck at square one, but he isn’t mad. They are out of their depths here. They have no idea how to combat that which is unknown to begin with. He speculates perhaps you had sustained a head injury, but that hypothesis doesn’t find any footing given that if that were correct, you should’ve lost more than just your memories of him. Link nods silently along, giving Sidon the space to think out loud.

With a heavy sigh, Sidon slides his eyes over to the Veiled Falls visible through the large windows and shakes his head, and he’s quiet as he divulges that he feels burdened by failure. He hadn’t been there for you like he promised. And you might have come back to him as you have always come back to him, but this time you didn’t come back to him whole. He should’ve gone with you. Then maybe whatever had happened wouldn’t have, and he wouldn’t be having this conversation, heavy with regret and melancholy hindsight.

Link hates to see his friend like this. The picture of the Zora prince before him is far from the Sidon he knows. Sidon’s the one to pick others up when they’re down but Link understands that the tables are turned now, and he is in need for the favor to be returned. Link has met you several times, when your stays in the domain have overlapped. It’s abundantly clear to him how much you mean to Sidon, and he almost feels as though he is sharing in the distress no doubt settling in Sidon’s entire being.

She wouldn’t blame you, Link asserts. Sidon’s movements are sluggish as he blinks and turns towards him. Neither of you could’ve predicted this.

Sidon agrees, silently, that that is true. But it does little to make him feel better, though he appreciates Link’s efforts.

At failing to garner a response from Sidon, Link purses his lips and picks at what remains of the crepe on his plate, pushing around a wildberry with his fork. He looks from his food to Sidon and back again, his mind a flurry as he racks it for some sort of solution. Granted, there couldn’t be many. Whatever had affected you had to be powerful, and there would only be so many methods to counteract it. The odds seem insurmountable but Link isn’t willing to give up because he doubts Sidon isn’t willing either. When it comes to you, Sidon is willing to do whatever it takes to make sure you’re okay. Whatever it takes…

Slowly, Link halts his poking and prodding of his food, eventually abandoning the fork entirely and leaving it stuck upright in the thickest part of the crepe. He reaches out to the glass of water to his left to take a sip and sneaks a glance up at Sidon, who isn’t looking directly at him, still staring beyond Link to the windows. Even without meeting his gaze directly, Link senses the misery. Sidon’s desperate.

But desperate enough to…?

Yes. The answer is yes because Link knows Sidon would lay down his life for you if it came to that, and so the idea Link is hesitating to share despite the fact it must be the only solution would be a small price to pay for your wellbeing. And what kind of friend would Link be to withhold anything that might help?

So he tells Sidon there might be a way to fix this, and he knows there’s no turning back when Sidon finally faces him and there’s the slightest light in his gaze, the flash of hope kept tempered in case the proposed solution goes nowhere and he be left even more disappointed than before. But Sidon would hold onto it tight because you’re the gleam of sunshine in the center of his eye and he would never let go of you.

There’s this statue… Link begins. There’s a statue in Hateno Village with magic of its own. It’s strong, and no one is sure how it works or where the magic comes from. But if one makes a request to the statue, the wish is granted, regardless of what it is. If you want the water to turn green, it’ll happen. No one’s tried to ask for anything so ridiculous, of course, not that there was any need. Those aware of the statue’s existence are aware of its power and do well not to make absurd requests for the sake of witnessing just how powerful the statue is said to be.

Link ends the explanation with the remark that this is what could give you your memories back, could make you remember Sidon. But he tacks onto that one final statement, more quietly: I think it might be the only way.

Sidon keeps silent as he mulls over what he’s learned. Whatever magic was involved with that statue, it must be dark, and while he might initially be opposed to dabbling in dark magic, the circumstances are too dire for him to be immediately reluctant. As it stands, he is giving it serious thought. Link had sounded confident that going to the statue would work, and that’s good enough for Sidon to agree that this would be worth looking into. However, Link’s quiet admission that this was the only solution spoke for consequences less than favorable, and while Sidon knows to expect as much considering the forces they’re reckoning with, Link’s tone had been dismal, as if to warn Sidon to be very, very careful.

Link is watching him closely now, and he takes a deep breath, feeling like he’s about to break a hundred years of silence when it’s only been around a few minutes.

“What does the statue ask for in return?”

The question was going to come up inevitably, but Link still delays answering. His hesitation to reply already speaks volumes. It takes a piece of your soul. It wants a slice of your mortality. He forces the words out, though it pains him to voice the suggestion. He wouldn’t ever want Sidon to surrender those things, whether it was just a piece or the whole. That was to surrender a literal part of himself, and he could never get it back. But ultimately, it was Sidon’s decision what to do, and as Link sits there, lets his words ruminate in the prince’s mind, he knows what Sidon will decide. Like he’d said prior, all of it, in the wider scope, is a small price to pay for you.

Sidon nods. He’ll go before the statue.

With his mind made up, the next course of action is figuring out when he can leave town to make the trip to Hateno. He would do it overnight and do his best to return to the domain as soon as possible the following day. He would try to make the journey there and back without stopping for rest but he knows that wouldn’t be possible because while he could swim via the Zora River, the distance from there to Hateno is still too large to cover at once. He would sleep enough to ensure he wouldn’t fall over and pass out from exhaustion, but nothing more. He couldn’t be gone for long.

The tail end of Link’s visit nearly overlaps with yours, but he misses you by hours. He leaves in the morning, and you arrive at noon. Sidon spots you at the inn, where you’re sitting on one of the beds, observing the hilly expanse of Upland Zorana and the Veiled Falls. The town is elevated high enough that the spray of water at the waterfall’s base can’t reach, but if it did, Sidon’s sure it would feel refreshing.

He calls your name gently and you look over once you hear it, giving him a curt smile before returning your attention to the scenery. He sits on the edge of the bed, giving you your space, and gently so as not to jostle you. The water beds are quite squishy.

“How was Lurelin Village?” he asks, and he’s smiling, prepared for the excited ramblings of your most recent escapade.

But he doesn’t get that. All he gets is a noncommittal shrug, and this leaves him rather bewildered. He might’ve been less so had you followed it up even with some simple and vague remarks as It was good or I had fun. It’s the complete silence that is out of the ordinary. He continues with another question, attempting to start a conversation. “Did you enjoy yourself?”

When he asks this, you shrug again, but you must sense that he doesn’t consider that a good enough answer at all (especially after the first shrug) so you elaborate. “I did.”

Sidon’s brows furrow but you don’t notice. Are you mad at him? He has no idea why you would be. You were in perfectly good spirits around him before you’d left Zora’s Domain, and he hadn’t seen you until you came back today. There was no opportunity for him to do anything that might arouse that resentment in you, not that he would ever try to do that. He can’t recall ever acting in a way that angered you. Instead, he owes it to the fact you may just be tired from the traveling. Once he considers this a possibility, he starts to feel a little guilty that he may have just interrupted you as you were about to take a nap.

You exhibit no signs of wanting to talk, staying silent and facing forward. With a quiet sigh, Sidon says he’ll let you get some rest because you must’ve had a long journey. He stands and walks back to the front steps of the inn and you make no move to stop him.

Sidon plays the interaction between you two over and over in his head that night. Sure, it really could have been that you were exhausted and that’s why you acted like you did. But he’s also sure that if that were true, he wouldn’t feel that nagging feeling in his chest that something is different. He knows you incredibly well, firstly. Secondly, this scenario reminds him of the worry he’d felt when you were away from the domain for longer than usual, and your return had quelled it up until he learned you had forgotten who he was, proving his concern had merit. Now he knows to give the benefit of the doubt to his instinct, because though his brain might reason nothing strange is afoot, his gut is pointing him elsewhere.

The following morning he finds you in the same spot, but you’re now sitting on the end of the bed, head resting atop your knees, which you’ve drawn to your chest. Sidon hesitates to go to you, not wanting to upset you again if it turns out that you truly had been tired, but he can’t prolong talking to you. He has to figure out whether it had been your lack of rest that made you abnormally wordless or if there was something more going on.

Good morning. He greets you in a hushed tone for your sake, not wanting to scare you. There was no one else in the inn he had to take care not to wake up.

To respond with a shrug is, evidently, too much energy for you now. Your eyes flicker to the side to glance at him just for a second, before they slide back to watch the waterfall. He sits on the bed next to yours, settling down at the end. For a few minutes, you observe the water together and the silence is almost comfortable. Sidon pretends the day is like any other, the two of you watching the current flow, winding its way between high cliffs. If you were closer to the river, you’d spot fish.

The moment of mere pretend is swept away by the wind that blows through the inn. Sidon turns his head to stare at you on the other bed, where you’ve not appeared to move an inch. This cathartic nature is wholly uncharacteristic for you, and he could hardly believe that who he’s seeing now is you, who have always been so energetic.

“How was your adventure at the beaches down south?” Sidon has accepted that he will need to be the one to carry the discussion along.

“It was fine.”

This is a verbal reply at least. But it leaned neither towards a positive connotation nor a negative and Sidon doesn’t know what to make of it. He’s even inclined to say that you sound apathetic. His suspicions begin to grow.

“Well… Have you started planning where you’d like to visit next?” There’s another bout of silence. He’s unsure if that means you’re thinking on his question, wondering where you want to go after your period of rest here, or if you’re ignoring it. Both were possible give how you’re acting and how little you move or speak.

You inhale deeply and stretch your legs out, hands braced on the mattress. Sidon perks up, thinking maybe he was wrong, maybe you’re okay and you were just tired, so you’ll be a little slow talking about your next destination and he won’t mind that one bit. You exhale in a heavy sigh, and it comes across as burdened and very tired.

“I haven’t thought about it, no…” You trail off, attention dropping to your lap. You pick at the loose thread on your pants. “I haven’t thought about much lately.”

The admission raises alarm in Sidon. It signals to him that something strange is going on, laying itself on top of the already bizarre occurrence of losing your memories of him. Were the two phenomena connected? He assumes them to be immediately, but you might have also run into trouble again on your trip to Lurelin Village. The cogs are spinning in his head as he tries to make sense of the situation, of what could be happening to you.

Gradually, he starts to make connections, just hypotheticals with no grounding. His confirmation could only come from you directly. So when thinks he might have found the string connecting both your loss of memories and your sudden lethargy, he asks you another question.

“[Name],” he says your name softly, “do you feel any urges to travel?”

You don’t stop to consider the question, and when you look at him, you seem nonplussed by it. The look in your eyes makes it seem as if you don’t even understand why you should be getting excited about something like that. You almost look bored.

“I don’t care much for it.” You shake your head.

And then Sidon knows, and he wouldn’t have if he didn’t know you so well. Whatever you had run into that stole your memories of him, it had stolen more than that. It had taken an entire emotion away. Now, not only do you not love him, you can’t love at all. The magic which has affected you must work gradually, and that’s why you were still passionate about your exploration up until this most recent visit of yours to the domain.

The sudden loss of your enthusiasm to travel across Hyrule is to have lost parts of your very being, and that’s how Sidon knows this isn’t just a change of heart or fatigue. You have never had a change of heart about your travels or come close to it. Your desire to roam the wilderness and discover what is out there is core to who you are, and you would’ve gladly done it for the rest of your life. But now you suddenly have no interest, and what’s more, you don’t even realize that anything is unusual about the fact you have no interest. The problem arising from what magic had struck you runs much deeper than simply forgetting him.

He wants to apologize. He wants to say it over and over until you’re sick of it. But of course you would never know why he was so apologetic, and there’s an ugly twisting in the pit of his stomach because he wants you to get mad at him too. For saying sorry too much or for letting you get into this mess in the first place because it’s his fault. He deserves your anger but you don’t even have any to express. As it stands, you understand yourself to have no resentment for him. He wishes he could lament to you his failure to protect you and maybe still you wouldn’t be mad and you’d say that you don’t blame him like Link said you wouldn’t, but Sidon needs to hear it from you and he just wants you back.

He doesn’t know who stares back at him as you look over, having started to think that the silence had stretched too long. You tilt your head, prepared to ask if something is bothering him, but he stands up before you can.

“I’ll give you time to wake up more fully. It’s early. I’m sorry I intruded.” He flashes a brief smile in farewell, then turns quickly, the smile dropping once he does. He’ll never know if you tried to stop him in that moment, hand held out as if to get him to pause, before the words die in your throat, and you let him go.

Technically, it isn’t that early in the morning—the shops are all open—but he had to get away before he broke down in front of you. You, so unaware, left feeling detached by no choice of your own, at the center of the whole affair without even realizing. You’re beginning to drift farther and it hurts the most when you're sitting next to him, and he’s forced to bear witness. And he can’t believe how much he can miss someone.

———

III.

Link returns three days later and they make preparations to leave for Hateno that same afternoon, just as the sun begins to set. The golden hour might be better to enjoy in a happier context, but it’s the glare in Sidon’s eyes today when he glances west.

He’d told Link of what had transpired with you and Link frowns as he listens. The circumstances of your memory loss keep getting stranger and stranger. As they’re riding out of Zora’s Domain, Link wonders aloud if this might mean you could get worse if they didn’t do something to fix it. Sidon says he doesn’t want to think about what might happen, but deep down he can’t help but entertain the thought, wracked with paranoia as he has been these past weeks.

Would you continue to lose more of yourself? Perhaps your inability to feel love is only the beginning. Perhaps as the days wore on, you’d gradually become unable to feel much else, until you were just a shell. But who would do such a thing? Sidon fails to wrap his head around what might drive someone to do something so cruel and to someone so sweet. You have plenty more to lose if Link’s speculation is true, and Sidon’s inclined to say that the process is already underway, because how could he ever hope to see your smile again if there’s nothing that makes your heart burn with passion, to a degree so high you can’t contain and it pulls the corners of your lips up and crinkles the corner of your twinkling eyes?

The more of you that fades, the more Sidon perceives himself following suit. You’re a big part of his life and he can’t imagine it without you. He doesn’t want to. Without you, he’s just a prince, and the title pales in comparison to what he means to you. The honor of one day taking over as ruler of Zora’s Domain doesn’t mean much if he’s alone.

It’s the middle of the night when they arrive in Hateno Village. They had been diligent in their travel, taking as few breaks as they could manage. The main road of the town is empty, everyone having gone to bed earlier, and all that lights their paths are the torches in the wall sconces and the lamps hanging above locked storefronts. Said lamps sway gently with the cold breeze, the flames flickering to near ember before the gust stops, and they roar back to life.

Link comments that he’d never made the trip from Zora’s Domain down to Hateno so quickly before, and it’s meant to be a small joke, to brighten the mood. Sidon humors him with a small chuckle, but is unable to muster anymore than that. But Link understands, and quiets down as he leads him to their goal.

Sidon’s chest is heavy as he realizes what he is about to do. The notion of approaching the statue had seemed so faraway in the days leading up to this trip and while on the journey to Hateno, like a dream, but now he’s here and this is real. These last few minutes are his last chance to back out, but he won’t. He doesn’t even consider it. The consequences sound harrowing, to trade part of his mortality, part of his soul, but he knows it’ll be worth it. If you got to be whole again, he could live contentedly in a fractured state. Maybe he won’t even feel any different, so long as he could see you be happy.

Link walks through Hateno as though to go to his house, but instead of ascending the hill, he takes a path leading farther down, between two rock faces, their heights blocking the moonlight from reaching the grass. They’re cast in shadow and with no light source in this area, they can barely spot the statue on the other side of the large boulder, positioned like it’s in hiding.

This statue is larger than the goddess statue in town, its horns protruding menacingly, the points dulled down with age; and its wings are spread, adding height to the already imposing figure. It’s clear that this statue receives no care or maintenance. The stone is dark from dirt and moss, riddled with cracks and flattened in corners where the tips have crumbled, forced to withstand the elements and unsuccessful in its efforts.

No one comes to maintain this statue, Link says. He and Sidon stand before it, staring at its state of disrepair. They say a dark energy looms here.

Sidon nods. He’d had a sense of foreboding once they stepped into the presence of the horned statue, the power of it weighing on him, like it knows that he’s here to strike a deal, and it’s pressing in on him, forcing out the words and the commitment. Vaguely, he wonders when the last time anyone had approached the statue was. What it asks for is serious, and only the most grave of situations could lead someone here, in their most desperate hour. The statue is a last resort, and a chill runs down Sidon’s spine as he becomes aware of the power it must have. Dark magic does exist, its tendrils snaking through Hyrule, ominous and dangerous and unbelievably strong. Perhaps it was the work of Hylia herself that such strength is so hard to find, to accidentally stumble upon. Dark magic plays no games with fools.

The overgrown grass blows with another gust of wind and sifts as Link adjusts his stance, resting his weight on one foot. He glances up at Sidon. Are you sure? he asks. There’s a second part untacked to his question, but Sidon understands it fine—this is his final opportunity to turn around.

Link would never judge him for backing out. Dealing with dark forces is hazardous, and not everyone is capable of standing before the statue, shoulders squared and confident, ready to trade with it, a fractioned section of their soul and mortality for the granting of their one wish, their chief desire. Even Link doesn’t think he could do that, and for Sidon to be here only makes him respect the Zora prince more. But if in this moment Sidon were to turn away, Link would understand. The deep discomfort, of the air squeezing too tightly the longer you’re here, digging in like claws, is the ultimate trial, to test one’s resolution and commitment. Not all can bear it.

However, Sidon hardly looks bothered. His eyes are aflame with determination, and it reminds Link of why he respects Sidon so much in the first place. The resolution pumping through his veins has been there since the beginning. He doesn’t back down from challenge or adversity, and in matters concerning you, he only fights harder. That’s why when Link had given Sidon one last chance, one last out, he already knew the answer.

Sidon nods. He’s sure. His mind had been set the moment he’d learned of this statue.

Link leaves Sidon alone, mentioning that he’d be at his house, back in the direction they came from. I’ll get a fire going, he says. For when you get there. As Sidon takes the last few steps to stand right in front of the statue, Link starts walking back up the hill, throwing a somber good luck over his shoulder.

For a few moments, Sidon stares at the statue, unsure how to begin. Does he approach this as though he were at a statue of Hylia? Should he kneel? A breeze blows through, the two hills where the statue sits between forming a wind tunnel which makes the gusts strong. The chilly air seeps through his scales and he feels heavy, like there are weights in his stomach and attached to his ankles so that he’s unable to move from this spot. And then he hears a whisper, in the back of his head.

Shall we strike a bargain?

The sinister spirits looming within the statue have made themselves known, but Sidon doesn’t yet know how to form the words, to string them together and communicate his wish. He would have to phrase it carefully to avoid being misunderstood, and in attempting to phrase his request, he realizes he is at an impasse.

Whether or not he would come before the horned statue to make a deal had never been a question nor a doubt in his mind. It had seemed simple to him: he would make the trade in return for your memories. It was clearcut, precise. But now things are hazier and the line is blurred because the recent developments concerning your missing emotion had made it less so. This was not as easy to navigate, and your wellbeing hung in the balance.

If he were to ask for your memories back, for you to love him again, he’d get that. The statue would honor any demands made, as long as the price is paid. But that’s all he would get. And while he’d be over the moon to feel that once more, what it was like to be loved by you, it isn’t enough. It’s what Sidon wants but it isn’t what you need.

No, what you need is to feel love again at all. If the statue granted the wish for you to remember and love him, your love would only stretch that far. Sidon knows the phrasing of the request is of utmost importance, because though the statue accepts and carries it out, dark magic takes delight in skewing the words until the result scarcely resembles what was asked for. He just gets one wish, and to ask for you to remember him and to love again are two.

His chest tightens and it hurts and this twisting isn’t the work of the horned statue. The internal conflict is nearly too much to handle but in the incomprehensible flurry he knows what he must do. He knows what he wants for you, because from the very start, this was about you and it would always be about you because he loves you. He loves you so much his heart is cracking down the middle and he is preparing himself to let you go.

That’s what they say, isn’t it? If you love something, let it go. Sidon’s made tough decisions before but this is by far the toughest. The reason for it is due to his difficulty in coming to terms with what will happen from here, after he voices his wish. He already knows he wants what’s best for you, and he knows that’s what he will ask for, but he’d spent so long clutching to you tightly, he doesn’t want to see you carried away, the wind scooping you gently from his embrace. But for you to be your old self again, in its entirety—capable of love for the sunrises and sunsets, for the flowing water of the rivers, for exploring the full breadth of Hyrule and sharing your adventures with any willing ear—is more important. He cares more that you can love, even if it means you wouldn’t love him.

You won’t remember him the way you knew him before, won’t know how much you loved him or how much he loves you, but he would show it as best he could. And though he hates to consider it, you might fall in love with someone else anyway. He can’t see the future but if it came to that, he would have to be ready. In these several seconds he mentally steels himself for the possibility, and it doesn’t make the weight of his decision any lighter, but he basks in the small comfort that he will see you full of love, and he would be happy with that, even if you gave it away to another. You falling in love with him would just be a bonus, and if you don’t, he’ll still love you, and he hopes somewhere deep in your subconscious you will understand just how much.

A heart so big shouldn’t go empty. This final thought pushes Sidon over the edge, and he makes known his wish to the statue.

Link looks up from stoking the fire when the front door creaks open. Sidon peeks his head through then steps fully across the threshold, quietly shutting the door behind him. The air is solemn and at first, Link hesitates to say anything, but he figures maybe Sidon would appreciate it, as something to ground him, bring him back to earth after the ominous atmosphere he’d been immersed in. How did it go?

Sidon doesn’t respond immediately, but Link is patient. He stares into the orange flames, then inhales deeply, chest expanding, then steadily exhales. Link surmises it isn’t a breath of burden. It almost sounds light, a sigh of relief. But Sidon wears no smile to complement it.

“I made the deal,” Sidon states. He isn’t particularly wordy, deep in thought of what has occurred.

Link doesn’t push him to elaborate. What had happened was a private matter, and if Sidon didn’t want him to be privy of details, he wouldn’t ask about them. Instead, he nods, then returns to his original task of gathering ingredients to cook a simple meal for both of them. As he throws everything into the pot, he suggests they leave for Zora’s Domain before the sun rises. That would give them a few hours of rest. If they’re just as diligent as they had been on the way to Hateno Village, they should make it back by noon.

They eat in silence, the only noise the crackling of the fire and their spoons clacking against the bowls. Link’s attention is on his food, and he doesn’t notice Sidon’s contemplative gaze.

“It’s interesting,” Sidon remarks suddenly, and Link turns to him. “Considering what I’ve traded, I don’t feel any different.”

Link hums, and he smiles a little. It’s a small form of pity, he guesses, that one feels the same with a fractured or a whole soul. The horned statue has some sympathy, it seems. Upon this comment, Sidon chuckles, the tension leaving his shoulders and the air relaxing into something more comfortable. By the time they ride out of Hateno, it’s normal once more, and they’re chatting casually, as if the events from a few hours ago hadn’t happened, or occurred too far in the past to remember or linger on.

You aren’t in Zora’s Domain when they arrive, and you still don’t return in the few days that follow. Link says he’d like to stay and wait for you, to see for himself what has come of the bargain Sidon made, but he has his own business to attend to elsewhere. Sidon is understanding, and tells him it’s okay, but Link still parts regretfully. He parts with Sidon with hopes that you’re doing well. It certainly has been a while since he’d seen you. Maybe some day soon your visits here will intersect.

Sidon waits for you anxiously, and he’s antsy during meetings with his father and Muzu. He resumes his usual practice of gazing out the window in search for you, and for multiple mornings, it’s fruitless. He doesn’t see you out there, and his shoulders sag in disappointment with every day that passes. He falls asleep at night pondering the nuances of the wish he made, if the results were immediate or if they were gradual. If it was the latter, surely by the time you finally walk into town, he’ll witness what came of his journey to the horned statue. He knows his desire was fulfilled, the statue true to its word, but he can’t help the small inkling of doubt that nothing had changed.

Finally, finally, he spots you crossing the bridge on an early morning, the soft glow of the luminous stones encasing your figure as you walk, and the only assurance he isn’t dreaming is the jump in his chest of his heart skipping a beat.

He runs down to greet you and you prove to him that something had changed, everything had changed and it changed for the better because when you see him, you smile so widely and exclaim that you need to tell him of your latest adventures to the cold planes of Hebra. And you’re so beautiful Sidon might cry. He’s missed you. He voices that to you, how it felt like you’d been away for so long, and you laugh, wondering aloud It couldn’t have been that long, surely? and you’re still grinning at him as you continue jokingly Are you that lost without me around?

Sidon chuckles. His own smile is fond and maybe you detect that, or maybe you don’t. “You have no idea.”

He spends the rest of the day with you, listening intently to your stories. His reactions might be a little overdone, but you don’t appear bothered, instead seeming rather appreciative of his rapt attention. It feels good to hear you ramble. The passion is tangible.

This continues to be the state of things from then on. You venture out to a new location, and he waits for you, eagerly awaiting your tales. You’re always eager to share them. A warmth floods him on the day he spots you sitting by the cooking pot at the inn, map in hand as you scribble notes on it and trace out new routes. You’d had to replace the map again, and you’re embarrassed as you admit it had flown out of your grip on a windy day and got stuck in a tree, too high for you to climb up to retrieve.

“At least last time it was because of a fight with bokoblins, and that sounds much more exciting,” you lament, but you can’t pretend to be sad for long as you break into giggles at the silliness of it. “But maybe one day the wind will knock it free and carry it to someone who needs to find their way home.” You shrug nonchalantly at the casual hypothetical.

Sidon’s mouth twitches, a grin fighting its way to the surface. You are so kind, and do you realize that, he wonders? Do you realize the extent of the compassion you feel? He’d like a heart like yours, with enough room to welcome anyone who requires shelter.

You notice his silence and glance over, head tilted as you ask if he’s okay. He’s fine, he promises you. More than fine. He’s doing wonderful. You seem to doubt him briefly, watching him closely for a few beats until you concede. Your lips curl into a smile, satisfied that he’s being truthful. Good, you say. Sidon smiles softly at the straightforward response, curt but relaying perfectly how much you care.

The two of you lapse into a quiet again but it’s comfortable. You sit there together, and a kaleidoscope of butterflies runs loose in Sidon’s stomach. He might grow those wings any second now and take flight. If he does, he’ll be sure to hold his hand out for you to grab onto, if you want to tag along. He hopes you do. You’ll never know the things he did to turn you back to your normal self, but that matters little to him. What he’d traded was worth it, and he would do it all again.

Besides, he’s too busy marveling at that greatly missed warmth in your gaze to feel like any part of his soul had ever gone missing.

———

EPILOGUE

You have a tendency to wake up at dawn.

It’s a habit you figure has been instilled from the constant traveling. You prefer to start the day before the sun rises, in order to take advantage of the crisp morning air. Sometimes the afternoon heat is harsh enough you have to stop more often to rest, hiding in the shade of a large tree just off the trail. Such instances typically delay your journey and set you behind, and it irritates you only until you remind yourself that the journey to your destination was just as important as reaching the destination itself. The whole purpose is to explore to Hyrule, to bask in what it has to offer, and perhaps the silver lining of the hotter days when you’re forced to stop earlier than planned is that you’re allotted more time to slow down and admire the scenery.

The rays of the rising sun shine through patches of clouds dotting the sky as you walk along the dirt path, and your cheeks flush at the cold wind prickling at your skin. It had been dark when you left the inn, but the sun will have fully risen when you get to your goal. This would’ve gone much faster if you weren’t carrying a wooden container. It requires the use of both your hands, for it’s heavy, and you move slowly, occasionally setting it down to take a break. In the few minutes you use to rest, you like to study the water down below, and the way it glitters in the early morning. The steady current is a quaint white noise to keep you company on your trek.

Once you finally arrive at the small section of leveled land overlooking the river, you set the cylindrical vessel down and heave a sigh of relief. Your arms will probably be aching from how far you’ve had to bring it. You might feel it by lunchtime, but you won’t mind.

You’re facing east, lone audience to the sunrise, and settle down at the edge of the cliff, legs crossed, and open up the container to take out the parchment and pencil you’d placed there before you set off.

Where you sit currently has been named the Bank of Wishes. Finley had told you about it once. At this place, the river gladly receives the confessions of the heart and carries them away, and the subsequent days are spent hoping they might find their way to the one they’re meant for. It sounds fantastical, like make-believe, but perhaps that’s the point. There’s a magic here that makes the impossible possible, if only you’re willing to believe. And you are.

You think you can feel the difference in the air, the hospitality of the breeze swirling around you, still cold but not at all unpleasant. There are a few fireflies fluttering about like little fairies, blinking silently, still brilliant against an orange sky. The nocturnal creatures would retreat shortly, but for now, they take interest in the container at your side, and as they come close, you hear the faint flicker of their wings.

Your heart does the thinking while you draft your letter and your mind merely follows, and maybe it’s the hum of the lightning bugs’ wings or maybe it’s something else that resounds in your head, murmurs of welcome, as though whatever roams here unseen is glad that you have stopped by. You’re glad you’ve stopped by too, and the lightness that fills you as you take a deep breath is simultaneously the work of the crisp, gentle breeze and the mystical presence curling around you, goading the words out, the admission, the feelings you have for the one who means a lot to you, means the most.

Once you’ve signed the letter, you read it over. There are some spots you’ve had to scratch out a spelling error but even for those flaws you think it’s perfectly written. It says everything you need to give voice to. You nod to yourself, satisfied with what you wrote, then fold the parchment and reach back inside the red container for the third object you had placed within, the last piece in the process.

The pale blue nightshades seem to glow, as you hold the stems in one hand and cradle the petals in the palm of the other. Carefully you tie them to the golden band wrapped around the vessel, bending the stems appropriately but never pulling too hard for them to snap. They’ll be a small beacon, lighting the way for your letter as it floats along the water.

After that’s done, you set the letter inside then close the lid, checking that it’s secure. When you’re satisfied that it won’t pop back open, you reposition yourself to sit on your knees. You aren’t quite sure what you should say, if there were any traditions or methods of opening the conversation with… well, with whatever wanders here, waiting for another confession to guide downstream. But any worry of starting it wrong is nonexistent, and you keep it simple.

Your heart’s in that container, you think, for you feel no need to speak aloud. Whatever is here would know your thoughts. You heart’s in that container and you’d like for it to be kept safe. It may have far to travel but your heart’s already used to that. You’ve journeyed through this land, from end to end, and what more could the space between you and the one you love be? If it were wide as Hyrule or even wider, you would close the distance gladly. A hundred miles is a hundred steps to you, to reach who your soul yearns for.

Now all that’s left was to send away the vessel. You turn it onto its side, then give it a firm push. It rolls off the edge and drops down into the water with a small splash. You watch it float farther and farther, a school of fish trailing just behind. Perhaps they’re drawn to the small spot of light that are the nightshades, just as you are, as you continue to to sit there, until finally the container curves around the bend, and you can no longer see it. You still don’t move after it’s disappeared, rooted to the spot for several seconds as you take in the moment, memorizing how bright the sun is this morning, how cool the grass is, how contented you are to have done what you did. Life feels a little different now—a little brighter, a little more full of love.

Then your brows furrow, your eyes lowering from the sky back to the river. And it’s odd, you think, that all this feels vaguely familiar…

“[Name]!”

You twist around at the sound of your name. Sidon is standing just off the path, waving at you even though you’ve no need for that to notice him there. He’s tall, and his red scales stand out from the blue sky. His smile is big as he walks closer and asks what you’ve been up to.

You shake your head and stand, brushing off the dirt from your pants. Nothing, you say. Thankfully he doesn’t pry, and having sensed your desire to keep what has transpired a secret, he changes the subject. He invites you to breakfast, and you’re about to accept, but your stomach answers for you and growls. This prompts you to grin sheepishly.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Sidon remarks. Then he laughs, and it is truly wonderful to hear.

The day is already looking to be quite splendid, and there’s no one else you’d rather spend it with. Whenever you should finally gain the courage to tell Sidon you love him, you can only hope he feels the same.

#sidon x reader #prince sidon x reader #sidon imagine #prince sidon imagine #botw imagine #botw x reader #legend of zelda x reader #legend of zelda imagine #legend of zelda #bubble-tea-bunny #queue

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sailorchiron · 4 years

Photo

Merry Christmas @tasyfa !

I loved the prompts of sunlight, ribbons, and poetry! I confess I forgot to check for your response to my anon ask... I decided to do a moodboard of a bookshop au, and had so much fun with it that I actually wrote a fic to go with it! I hope you have a happy holiday season filled with joy and Malex!

Sunlight, Ribbons, and Poetry | Read on Ao3

When Michael Guerin parked his beat up truck in front of Chapter and Verse, he wasn’t really sure what he was doing, or what to expect. All he knew was that Isobel loved poetry, and he loved his sister, and he was determined to get her a better Christmas present than Max for once in his life.

Chapter and Verse was a popular book store downtown, next door to Uncommon Grounds, which was universally known to be the best coffee in town. According to the barista he’d unsuccessfully flirted with two weeks ago, it was because the owner had connections for an expensive Italian roast that was usually too pricey for small town tastes. Also according to the barista that turned out to have a boyfriend, Chapter and Verse was well known for carrying a wide selection of poetry as well as fiction and nonfiction, and for having antique and special editions as well as new books. Seemed like a no brainer to pop into the quaint store and grab something pretty for Iz, but there was a problem.

Michael knew absolutely nothing about poetry.

He had some vague, foggy memories about studying poetry in high school English, but math and science were his things, not poetry and literature. He had no idea what to get. None.

The bells on the door chimed cheerfully when he went in, and he had to admit that the store was absolutely charming, with sun streaming in the front window and tall, dark wood shelves crammed with colorful volumes. The scuffed wood floor was broken up by old oriental rugs, and the counter sporting the cash register was an antique relic of days gone by. Michael noticed a hand painted sign hanging from the ceiling pointing the way to Uncommon Grounds, and sure enough, there was a door connecting the two businesses that he’d never noticed before. He looked for other helpful ceiling signs, and followed the one to the back right corner labeled ‘Poetry.’

He walked up and down the aisles for a few bewildered minutes, completely out of his element, and not having a single clue what to get. Some of the clearly antique books were beautiful, but what if they were poems about like death or something? Isobel was a romantic and wouldn’t want depressing, morbid poetry. He was starting to get nervous about finding anything, and considering a Target gift card for Christmas, when he decided to find an employee to help him.

Aaaaand, didn’t see a single soul. In fact, it was strangely quiet in the store. Am I the only person in this entire building?

Michael was on the verge of just leaving when he spotted someone in a little alcove with a colorful rug and walked over. French doors were propped open into what was a little reading nook, and sitting on the floor with a cup of coffee and a book was the most beautiful man that Michael had ever seen. He just stared for a minute. Messy dark hair, a little attractive scruff, neck that was begging for his lips, elegant hands, a face you’d definitely write home to mama about. The gorgeous man had kicked off his shoes and a crumpled apron was on the floor next to him. He was engrossed in what he was reading and hadn’t noticed him standing there trying to keep his tongue in his head. “Um, excuse me?”

Michael had been unprepared for that pretty face and his jaw might have dropped open.

“Yes?”

Fuck, his voice is amazing. “Um, do you work here?”

The beautiful man raised an eyebrow and glanced at the apron...then the coffee.

“Oh, you’re on your break, sorry, I’m just completely lost.”

“It’s okay.” He stood up. “What are you looking for?”

“Romantic poetry?” He watched subtle signs of disappointment in the gorgeous clerk. “For my sister! She’s just a really romantic person and I think she’d like love poems.” He watched the man’s face brighten. “Maybe an antique or really pretty book?”

“Sure. I’m Alex, by the way.”

“Michael.” They kind of looked at each other for a minute. He was struck by just how pretty Alex’s dark eyes were.

Alex, for his part, was internally screaming. Who needed a lunch break when someone that sexy wanted help looking for a book? He’d been momentarily crushed by the request for love poems, but the hurried explanation that it was for a romantic sister led him to believe that Michael might be interested. He shook his head to break the tension. “What kind of things does she like? Just in general, not specific to poetry.”

“Um, flowers? Korean dramas, aesthetic photography, huge parties, girly clothes, and make up?”

“How old is she?” Alex laughed, amused by Michael’s exasperated tone.

“28.”

“I was totally picturing 16, okay, revising my poetry ideas.” He led Michael down a narrow aisle. “Does she have a boyfriend or girlfriend?”

“Not right now.”

“Hmm…” Alex pulled the step stool over to the shelf he wanted, cognizant of the fact that he’d been so taken by amber eyes and springy curls that he’d forgotten to put his shoes back on. “Does she like to make grand gestures?”

“Oh god, yes, that’s Isobel to a T.”

“Wordsworth.” He pulled out two books. “Antique or new edition? I have both for this collection.” He held out the old book, black with elegant silver scroll work next to a smaller paperback with a picture of the sky.

“Definitely the antique. What kind of poems are they?”

“Wordsworth basically started the Romantic movement in England. Here, let me read you a poem.

“The world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers — Little we see in Nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon; The winds that will be howling at all hours, And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers; For this, for everything, we are out of tune; It moves us not. Great God! I’d rather be A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn; So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.

“Not romantic like lovers, but romantic, like grand and expressive.”

Michael just stared, entranced by that beautiful voice reading poetry so passionately. “I love it.”

“There are other good ones, too. Here, hold this one.” Alex handed the book to Michael and stepped down before walking down the aisle. “This is another Romantic poet, Keats.

“Bright star! Would I were steadfast as thou art-- Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night, And watching, with eternal lids apart, Like Nature’s patient sleepless Eremite, The moving waters at their priestlike task Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores, Or gazing on the new soft fallen mask Of snow up on the mountains and the moors-- No--yet still steadfast, still unchangeable, Pillow’d upon my fair love’s ripening breast, To feel for ever its soft fall and swell, Awake for ever in a sweet unrest, Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath, And so live ever - or else swoon to death.”

“Uh, that’s dramatic.”

“Would your sister like it? Or is it too dramatic?”

“I think she’d like it, actually. She’s kinda dramatic herself.”

Alex laughed and handed the antique book, bound in red leather with faded gold lettering, into Michael’s careful hands. “Does she like Shakespeare? I just got a really nice edition of his sonnets and those are mostly romantic.”

“I have no idea, but I’m game.” Michael decided he’d basically follow Alex anywhere in the store for the chance to just bask in his presence.

The book was a new edition, not antique, but it was bound in deep rose leather with a fanciful design of roses in gold, pink, and green on the cover. The pages were gilded, and it had a ribbon bookmark. “Sonnet 116 is my favorite.”

“You have a favorite?” Michael blinked. He hadn’t considered that ordinary people had favorite sonnets.

“Well, yah, I’m in here all day selling books of poetry, some of it is bound to stick.”

Michael laughed softly. “What’s your favorite poem of all time?” Not that he’d know it, but he mostly wanted to keep talking to Alex until he could guide the conversation to exchanging phone numbers.

“That’s impossible to answer, because poetry is so dramatically different from era to era. That said, I like early American poetry more, like Walt Whitman and Emily Dickenson, than Romantic poetry.”

“I have to confess I’ve never heard of them. Or if I did, I totally forgot.”

Alex raised an eyebrow at him. “Here, I’ll read you a Whitman poem.” He walked back into the alcove where Michael had found him and picked up the battered paperback he’d left on the floor.

“PASSING stranger! You do not know how longingly I look upon you, You must be he I was seeking, or she I was seeking, (it comes to me, as of a dream,) I have somewhere surely lived a life of joy with you, All is recall’d as we flit by each other, fluid, affectionate, chaste, matured, You grew up with me, were a boy with me, or a girl with me, I ate with you, slept with you--your body has become not yours only, nor left my body mine only, You give me the pleasure of your eyes, face, flesh, as we pass--you take of my beard, breast, hands, in return, I am not to speak to you--I am to think of you when I sit alone, or wake at night alone, I am to wait--I do not doubt that I am to meet you again, I am to see to it that I do not lose you.”

“I really love that,” Michael admitted, touched by the words. “That’s what so much of life is, just passing by a stranger and wondering if he’s your soulmate.” He hoped that ‘he’ would ensure that Alex knew he was very interested in him. “It’s beautiful.”

Alex smiled, feeling a connection to Michael. “One of my favorites.” Michael really has the most beautiful eyes.

The door bells chiming broke the spell that was keeping their eyes locked. Alex realized that his break was probably long over, his apron was on the floor in the reading room, and he was in his socks. The last thing he wanted was to walk away from Michael. “Which book do you want to get?”

Michael blinked. “Um, I think I’ll get all three. It’s Christmas, she can have three pretty books.”

“Alright.” Alex started walking to the cash register. Now that there were other customers, he couldn’t just hang out with Michael, no matter how cute he was. “I keep forgetting it’s almost Christmas.”

“How can you forget?! There’s Christmas shit everywhere!”

Alex laughed. “I think it’s because my family doesn’t really do much. We don’t even have a tree.”

“Oh, that’s no fun.” Michael was hit with pure, genius inspiration. “We’re decorating our tree tonight, you should come over.”

“What, really? Wouldn’t that be awkward for your family?”

“No, man, the more the merrier. My family loves guests. Especially my sister.”

“I don’t know.” Alex was sorely tempted, he really wanted more time with Michael. “Hey, do you want me to gift wrap these? We have some really pretty wrapping paper and ribbons.”

“Oh, that would be fantastic.” He watched Alex slide behind the counter and start ringing up the books. None of the books had barcodes, they had handwritten labels that Alex was carefully removing. The wrapping paper was really pretty, it was deep blue and shiny with dark pinecones frosted with white glitter. Michael was impressed with Alex’s wrapping skills, he couldn’t do that well if he was given explicit instructions. The ribbons were red satin, and he stacked the three books and tied the long ribbon around all of them. “That looks beautiful.”

“Thanks,” Alex answered, compliment warming him.

Michael had to look away to keep from staring into Alex’s dark eyes, and noticed a rack of postcards with words on them. “What are these?”

“Oh, little poetry quotes. They’re hand lettered.”

“Are you an artist?” Michael smiled.

“Oh, no,” Alex denied, waving. “I’m not an artist, I didn’t do those. I’m a musician.”

“Really? I dabble in guitar.”

“I play, too.” Michael was getting more and more attractive.

Michael reached the decision that this was fate. “Hey, you’ve got glitter on your face, here.” He held out his hand and Alex leaned in for him to brush the sparkles off his cheek. His fingers lingered, and before he knew it, they were moving together, eyes slowly closing as their lips met in a sweet, sweet kiss.

Time slowed down and both Michael and Alex forgot it existed.

Until someone cleared their throat and they pulled apart, surprised that they’d gotten so lost in each other. Alex was immediately flustered, and Michael was grinning so wide that his face almost hurt.

Alex put the books on the counter. “I’m so sorry, I want to keep talking but I have to work,” he apologized. “Can I get your number?” He patted his body. “Fuck, my phone is in my apron.” Which was on the floor in the reading room. He grabbed one of the postcards and scrawled his number on the back. “Text me, I’d love to come over and decorate your tree.”

“I’ll see you tonight then.” He just smiled into Alex’s eyes until they both jumped when more throat clearing interrupted them. He grinned and winked at him, then headed out the front door with his festive package and a phone number.

In the truck, Michael looked at the postcard and immediately added Alex’s number to his phone. He sent a quick message of his name and a heart emoji, then flipped the card back over. It was a Walt Whitman quote.

“We were together. I forget the rest.”

#roswellsanta #roswell nm #malexsanta #alex manes #michael guerin

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mackinmacki · 5 years

Text

Siren’s Song

Rating: K+

Word Count: 13,338

Summary: For weeks, Ruby has been entranced by the singing of an unknown woman. Her voice comes from the lighthouse, which has had many rumors about it over the years. None have ever been substantiated, but Ruby will take it upon herself to be the first. She has to know just who has this voice that's captivated her so.

Pairing: White Rose

Links: (FFN) | (AO3)

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For weeks, Ruby had ventured to the seawall at night. She would lean against the railing and listen to the most beautiful song she had ever heard. Whenever it would reach her ears, the haunting melody would shake her to the core. The singing she would hear was not something she could find anywhere else. No one in any of the taverns she ventured into had her voice, and none of the poets in the more elegant side of town had words to match hers. It was as if this woman was speaking to her very soul, and she could hear the song playing like a record in her mind every night when she went to sleep.

At first, she hadn't known where the voice came from. She had just been walking across the seawall one night when she heard it. When she realized what she was hearing, she was stopped right in her tracks. For a good five minutes, she just stood in place and listened. Her eyes would widen and her lips would part in surprise at what she was hearing. She hadn't even cared to wonder in that moment where it was coming from. It was more important to absorb the incredible sound: to imprint it onto her brain so that she would never forget it.

Seven days would pass, and each night she found herself returning to the same spot. She hadn't thought about why she was doing it initially: it was as if her feet were leading her there without any input from her. On the fourth day, she realized that she had become addicted to the woman's song. She hadn't been able to get it out of her head, as it was stuck there like the strongest adhesive. The best part of her day had become her walk down to the seawall, where she could close her eyes and forget about any troubles that may have befallen her. When she was there, it was no one but her and the mysterious singer, whoever she may be.

Once the first week had bled into the second, she finally realized that the singing was coming from the lighthouse. It was an old structure standing on a tiny island of rock some distance from land. The age of it couldn't be seen clearly from the shore, but it had been around for over a century. Its light, blinking across the often-lonely waters, had glowed unceasingly for as long as she'd been alive. There was supposedly a worker who lived in the lighthouse, being paid by the city council to keep the place in order for the rest of his life. That's what she'd heard growing up, anyway.

She didn't believe it, though. There was no way that voice came from a grizzled old lighthouse attendant. She wasn't the only one who didn't believe it, though, and that wasn't the only rumor that got around. Some said that there wasn't a lighthouse attendant at all. It had been abandoned for decades, and now the place was haunted. On occasion, its light would shut off as a ship came into port, guiding it right to ruin. She wasn't sure that she believed that either, though. Last she checked, there'd only been a couple of accidents that were boat-related, and neither of them had to do with the lighthouse suddenly going dark.

Who was up there, though? She didn't know, and she suspected that nobody in their town did either. It was a mystery that nobody dared to uncover. She couldn't judge them for their hesitance, as she hadn't bothered to go there either. Instead, she'd just lean against the guardrail and listen to the beautiful song, getting lost in the sorrowful message it spoke to her. It tugged at her heartstrings, but something had always held her back. Even if she didn't believe in the stories about the lighthouse, she had to admit that she was spooked by it. She could still remember her uncle telling her that bad kids got sent over there by rowboat, and they always came back very different. It was a place she had never wanted to be sent to.

As the weeks went by, her reluctance to venture over there started to fade. She had gotten into her own head, believing that there had to be a woman in there. If so, maybe she was trapped, and her singing was the only way of communicating that she needed help. No one had ever mentioned hearing the song, but maybe they just weren't listening hard enough. Then again, perhaps they were hiding the truth out of worry for how they would be received. She had kept it a secret this long herself, at first because she worried anyone she told would find her crazy. Eventually, she came to realize that she wanted to believe that the song was for her and her alone. Telling someone else might ruin that illusion, and then she would never be gifted with that beautiful voice again.

Now she felt that she couldn't keep it a secret any longer. If there really was someone trapped there, any more time wasted could spell doom for them, and it was up to her to be their rescuer. There was only one person in her life that she trusted above all else to not judge her too harshly for any fantastical tales she might tell. This was also one of the only people who could help her get to the lighthouse unimpeded. So one day, with the song of the mysterious maiden stuck in her head, she went to talk to her big sister Yang.

"Rubes, I love ya, but you're crazy." She frowned as Yang dismissed her right away. Her sister had always been overprotective ever since her mom died, but she was prone to the occasional wild streak. There had been things she'd done that Ruby felt were justifiably crazy. Now she was being told that when she wanted to do something that maybe was a little insane, she couldn't do it. That didn't seem fair to her, and she wasn't prepared to stay silent about it.

"You haven't heard her song, Yang! It's beautiful, and that means the lighthouse can't be empty! It certainly isn't some old man. She's there, and I'm going to rescue her!" She thought it best to leave out the selfish part of her heroic desires. If she was the one to save this woman, then they would be forever grateful to her. Maybe they had nowhere to go, allowing them to live together! Every morning she could wake to the velvety tones of that wonderful voice... Okay, she was getting ahead of herself. "Come with me to the seawall tonight. You'll hear her song, and you'll understand what I mean."

Yang exhaled deeply, running a calloused hand through her long, blonde mane. "I suppose it couldn't hurt... If only to make you realize that this is madness, and you should under no circumstances go out to that lighthouse." That seemed agreeable, if only because Ruby was confident that Yang would change her tune when they got over there. She couldn't imagine anyone hearing that song and remaining unaffected.

So that night, the two of them ventured to the seawall. She took Yang to the spot she loved to stand at, as it gave her what she felt was the best view of the lighthouse. The two of them leaned over the railing, waiting to hear the haunting melody. Yang was looking over at Ruby, seeing how eager she was. Her fingers were tapping against the railing, and she was chewing on her lower lip, which was an old habit she did when she was nervous. Honestly, Yang wasn't sure which of them being right would be worse.

They stood there for a minute, but each second that ticked by felt like an eternity to Ruby. She kept worrying that the maiden wouldn't sing that night, and she would seem insane for thinking that it existed at all. Maybe she was insane... She'd been so caught up in wanting to find the source of the voice that she hadn't stopped to think of the improbabilities. How could anyone be alive in there for weeks without supplies? Unless they came to shore under the cover of night, and somehow no one noticed them or stopped to ask who they were should they enter a store. They likely didn't have legal tender to purchase anything, so that would make them a thief...

"Woah..." Yang's quiet exclamation drew her back from the edge of a tangential tumble. She had been so distracted by her own mind that she hadn't noticed the singing, but she was attuned to it now. Her eyes widened, and then she broke out into a big smile. She could see Yang staring out to the ocean, a subtly surprised look on her face. That meant she had to have heard it! She wasn't crazy!

"You heard it right? Right?!" She clung onto Yang's arm, looking up at her with an excited look in her eyes. It was borderline crazed, but she wasn't aware of what vibe she was giving off. This was exactly what she had been hoping for! Now there was no way Yang could say no to her!

"I do..." Yang looked positively perplexed. She could scarcely believe that she was hearing someone singing. It truly was a beautiful voice, but could it really be coming from the lighthouse? There was no way a voice, no matter how loud, could travel across the sea like that. It would die within the air, lost in the fog that tended to settle on the waves when a storm was approaching. There was something about this that she didn't like. She didn't know exactly what, but she just knew there was something funny about this. "Ruby, under no circumstance should you go to that lighthouse."

"What?! But you heard her!" She let go of Yang's arm, stunned at the rejection. After all this, she was still forbidden to go to the lighthouse? This wasn't about her own safety: it was about saving that woman! "How can we just leave her there to suffer when we know she's there?!"

"Doesn't this seem just a wee bit suspicious? You only heard this a few weeks ago, right?" She nodded, able to remember that day as clear as if it had happened that morning. "How would she have even gotten there? If someone had gotten shipwrecked, surely it would've been seen and there would've been a patrol sent out to fetch them. Nobody's been out there in decades, and nobody will go out there 'til that light burns out." Yang was a proponent of a third idea about the lighthouse's occupant: there wasn't one. The light being used there was good enough to run for years and years and years. Eventually it would burn out, and then someone would go replace it. Until then, it was just a silent monolith. No attendant, no ghost. Nothing.

"It's only suspicious because you were predisposed to believe it was suspicious!" Yang just stared at her, wondering where in the world those words came from. She hadn't even known Ruby was that philosophical. "No one is willing to help her, but I am! I'm an adult now, Yang. You can't keep treating me like I'm a little kid anymore. If I want to go to that lighthouse, then I'll go to that lighthouse!" She crossed her arms, trying to look as serious and adult as possible. In her mind, she knew she was acting a tad petulant, but it was her only recourse at this point.

"I know you're an adult, but that doesn't mean you have to do stupid things! Haven't you seen me do enough of that to last you a lifetime?" Yang was visibly frustrated, running her fingers through her hair before flaring it out. "I'm not telling you to stay here because I don't think you can't handle yourself. I'm telling you to stay here because I'm worried something will happen to you, and I'm not letting you leave like mom did!"

"Yang..." She felt the anger rush out of her, blown out like a tiny flame in the breeze. While she had gained painful closure on her own mom's fate, Yang's left her with nothing of the sort. She had just disappeared without a trace when Yang was an infant, and nobody knew what happened to her. It had left Yang with bitter resentment, and though she'd always refused to talk about it, Ruby was able to tell it still hurt. "I'm not going to do that. You know that I'd come back."

"You don't know that! You have no idea what could be waiting out there for you!" Yang looked like she was about to rip her hair out, but she just curled her hands into fists and let them hit her hips instead. "If you went out there and got lost, or god forbid died, then I would never forgive myself. We've already lost too much... I'm not losing you too. That's not happening."

"I'm sorry..." She lowered her head, feeling guilty and defeated. Making Yang believe she would leave like her mom wasn't her intention, but that didn't make her feel any better. She'd been so sure that if Yang heard the woman's voice, then she'd understand why she was so determined to go out there. Apparently it hadn't hit Yang quite as hard as it had her.

"Come on, let's go home." That tone meant there was no more room for discussion. Hanging her head, she silently followed Yang back home. As she was walking away from the seawall, she paused when she heard the maiden's melody again. She looked towards the lighthouse, its light just a twinkle in the distance. It felt so much closer, though... "Ruby!" Biting down on her lower lip, she tried to put the song out of her mind as she trudged the rest of the way home.

That was an impossible task, though. Its melody swam through her head all night, and a blurry vision of the trapped maiden haunted her dreams. She wouldn't be able to escape it until she found out exactly what was going on. Even if she had to go against her sister's wishes.

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The next morning, she waited until Yang had gone into town before scurrying out of the house. When she found herself unable to sleep the night prior, she knew that she had to disobey Yang. Hopefully she could get to the lighthouse and back without anyone noticing, but there was a good chance her disappearance would be discovered before then. That was something she was just going to have to accept, though. Any punishment that Yang saw fit to dole out would be taken without complaint, but this was something she just had to do. With a couple snacks hidden in her hood, she ran down to the docks.

One of her friends kept their rowboat tied to the docks, but she'd been given permission to use it before. She'd never rowed it very far out, but she was prepared for it. There was no way she was going to back down, no matter how arduous the journey might be. She stepped down into the boat and untied its rope, pulling it off of the dock and tucking it away under the bench. Then she sat down in the middle, grabbed the oars, and began to row.

It wouldn't have taken nearly as long if she'd taken one of the bigger boats, with its motor and all. She didn't own one, though, and she couldn't imagine anyone allowing her to borrow theirs. Those were the more expensive boats, and their owners were pretty protective. She couldn't steal one in good conscious, though. Especially if there was a chance she might not bring it back unscathed. She was already going to be in a heap of trouble for leaving in the first place. It was best not to add 'ruining someone's expensive boat' to her trouble tab.

To make sure she didn't tire herself out, she made sure to row at a steady pace. She didn't want to tucker herself out too quickly, or she'd end up stranded on the open waters. Because of that, the trip was taking longer than she'd hoped. She didn't have anything on her to tell the time, but it felt like she'd been out there for hours. With nothing to do and no one to talk to, she was bored out of her mind mere minutes into her journey. Talking to herself could only alleviate so much of that boredom, and the rhythmic motion of the oars was putting her to sleep.

As she got closer to her destination, the fog started to settle around her. She gulped nervously, knowing that more than likely a storm was coming. In an old wooden boat like this, she'd be in real trouble if anything more than a light drizzle hit. Looking over her shoulder, she wondered if she should turn around and go back. The shore seemed farther from her position than the lighthouse did, though. Besides, she would've completely wasted her day if she turned back now. On top of that, there was a decent chance that Yang had found out she was gone. Once she came back home, she would probably never be allowed to leave her sister's sight for the foreseeable future. She couldn't go back yet. Not until she'd learned the secrets the lighthouse kept.

She reached the shore before the worst of the storm could hit. It had started raining, but not hard enough to be much of a burden. There was a wooden pike on the side she reached, but it had been splintered in half. It wasn't usable for her to tie her boat up, and there wasn't anything around that could help either. With no other options, she rowed until she could step out on the rocky island, then heave the boat onto land. Hopefully it wouldn't slip back into the water, and she watched it for a good minute, looking for any signs of slippage. It seemed as secure as it was going to be, so she let it be and made her way to the lighthouse.

The structure was more intimidating up close. It was so much taller than it appeared from the shore, and moss grew from varying cracks around its façade. Time had not been kind to it, that was for sure. If anyone actually lived there, they weren't taking care of the outside. Then again, what would be the point? Any building materials would have to come from the shore, and that seemed like quite the arduous task for something very few would ever see up close. She couldn't blame them for letting the place rot. Hopefully the inside was a bit more inviting.

Pulling the snacks out of her hood, she flipped it up to keep the rain from getting her hair too wet. The drizzle had steadily grown stronger as she'd reached the island, and it was practically pouring in no time at all. It slickened the ground, making it that much harder to get over the rocks that looked a bit too jagged for her liking. Though she slipped a couple times, she avoided complete disaster and made it to the door on the other side wet but intact.

Once she was inside, she slammed the door shut behind her, shaking herself violently to try and dry off. It was a vain attempt, but she figured it was worth a shot. Pulling her hood back down, she started to munch on her snacks and take in her surroundings. For how imposing the lighthouse had seemed from a distance, it didn't look all that big on the inside. The base was almost completely empty, except for a wooden chair and a desk with a single lit candle on it. Books were scattered on the desk as well as the floor, but the dim lighting obscured their titles. She hadn't come here to read anyway.

Her eyes rested on a long, winding staircase that went up for what seemed like miles. She didn't even want to think of how many steps she would have to climb, but she took a deep breath and steeled her resolve. This was for the maiden! A hero was not deterred by mere stairs, no matter how many of them there were! She puffed out her chest and started to walk up the stairs, looking forward at the winding path she was to take. The sound of her footsteps echoed loudly in the empty structure, draining the air right out of her chest. It was pretty unnerving, especially when she was all alone...

She wasn't alone, though. The maiden was up at the top, waiting for someone to come rescue her. Using that thought to buoy her confidence, she kept climbing up step by step. She passed by a small window, allowing her to see what was going on outside. Storms happened in their town from time to time, but she was surprised to see how ferocious this one looked. The fog was dark and dense, as if the storm clouds had descended to let her know of their existence. Rain was pounding the rocks below, and the wind blew some of it through the window. She had to take another step up to avoid it being blown into her face.

"It's really coming down out there..." She wasn't looking forward to rowing back in that weather. It would be safer to stay inside and wait it out, though staying longer than necessary in the dark, creepy lighthouse wasn't appealing to her in the slightest. While she wasn't too far up the stairs, she could already see the effects of straying too far from the candlelight. If the window wasn't next to her, she would've been cast into near-darkness. Looking up, she couldn't even see the stairs anymore. It was like she was about to walk right up into a black abyss. She really didn't want to stay there any longer than necessary.

Lightning cracked loudly, sounding as if it was striking right next to the lighthouse. She squealed and jumped in the air, thankfully landing back on her feet without too much wobbling. Okay, she was definitely going to have to wait it out. This was quite the predicament she'd gotten herself into, and she could already hear Yang mixing 'I told you so's' into her fretting. She hadn't known it was going to storm this bad, though! Besides, she was already there, so there was no point in dwelling on what she couldn't change. There were more steps to climb, and a maiden to rescue.

She didn't know how long it took for her to climb all those stairs. It honestly felt like at least an hour had passed, but she had a feeling that her sense of time had been altered with how boring it was. The only thing that gave her a break was the booming thunder outside, and the occasional window was the only light she had. For the rest of her climb it was pitch black, and she had to tread carefully. One wrong step and she'd go plummeting back down to the ground.

It took too long for her liking, but she finally reached the top. As she had gotten closer, she'd been frozen in place by the sound of singing. There was no doubt that it was the maiden. Her heart soared, and she had to force herself not to run up the remaining steps. She was wracked with impatience, even if there weren't many stairs left to climb. The maiden was almost in sight, though, and she just couldn't wait a moment longer!

When she reached the top, she was finally able to see light. It was coming from a large window, and standing with her arms crossed upon the sill was the maiden. With her back to Ruby, she could see that the women had snow-white hair, braided up and running down her back. She wondered if it was as silky-smooth to the touch as it looked.

"Uh, hey!" The maiden didn't seem to have noticed she was there. She was just singing out into the storm, but Ruby's words grabbed her attention. When she turned around, Ruby felt her tongue twisting into a knot. The beauty of this woman had stolen the words - and the breath - right from her throat. Her bright blue eyes were widened in surprise, likely at Ruby's sudden appearance. They held an irresistible allure that wouldn't allow her to look elsewhere, and the paleness of her face only served to make them stand out further. She was hypnotized.

"You heard my song." She seemed to be in complete disbelief. That was what shook Ruby out of her trance. It made her sad, wondering how long the woman had been stuck up here, singing her song and having no one hear her. No one coming to recuse her. It was about time that changed, though. She was there now, and she was going to rescue this beautiful - really, really beautiful... - maiden!

"I did. I've been listening to it for weeks, and it's the most beautiful song I've ever heard." She noticed the woman's cheeks start to turn red at the compliment, and she couldn't help but smile. "I've got so many questions, though. Who are you? How did you get here? Why could I hear you singing from all the way back in town?" She bit down on her lip to keep herself from continuing on with her barrage of questions. "I'm sorry. I know that was a lot to ask for our first time meeting."

"It's alright," the woman replied with a soft smile. "I haven't been able to speak with anyone except for my sister for so very long. It feels unusual to hold a conversation with someone from the shore, but I'll do my best." She took a few steps forward, then sat down on the floor, crossing her legs and looking up at Ruby expectantly. Realizing that she was supposed to sit as well, she came over and sat opposite her, waiting to hear more about this woman who so captivated her.

"My name is Weiss, and I've lived here for my entire life. My father put me here when I was born to keep me away from the temptations of mortal men. This lighthouse and the ocean is all I've ever known." There was a tinge of sadness in her eyes as she spoke of the sheltered life that she had been forced to lead. It made Ruby sad to think that Weiss had never been allowed to step foot outside this tiny island she called home. "My sister has come to visit me on occasion and tell me of the world. It all sounds so fantastical. I wish I could see it with my own eyes."

"Do you not have a boat?" It was only now that she thought about how she hadn't seen another transportation vessel on the island. However, there was the other side of the lighthouse that she hadn't seen. It could've been hosted over there. She could've taken it to shore, then. Ah, but she'd been placed there as a child... "Right, of course you wouldn't... Oh, but I have one! Let me take you back to the town when the storm blows over! It'll be really cool, and you can see everything that you've never been able to see before!"

"That isn't possible." She stood up and walked back over to the window, returning to her previous brooding. Ruby hurried to get up and follow her. "My father would never allow me to leave. The storm we are surrounded by is surely his fury at your arrival." She looked over at Ruby, who had taken a spot on her left. "I apologize. My song has led you here, and you will certainly perish for it." Her eyes shut for a moment, and when they opened again Ruby could see genuine sorrow in them. It made her feel that same sorrow in her heart, but not for her own potential end.

"Let me talk to your dad, then! I've been told that I'm good at wearing people down until they agree with me." She had not expected Weiss to start laughing. "What? What'd I say?"

"Oh, again, my apologies. This is just that mortal humor my sister has told me about. The idea of you convincing my father to let me leave is humorous." Ruby pouted deeply, which brought the laughter to an immediate halt. "Oh dear, I've offended you, haven't I? I did not realize you were serious. It would be best if you were to be joking, though. My father is an angry being, and your words will surely just anger him further. He does not like to be disturbed by issues so trivial." Her hand automatically went up to her left eye, where a long scar ran from her forehead down to her cheek. She quickly yanked it down, but it didn't escape Ruby's notice. It made her feel a surge of anger, knowing that there was an implication in Weiss's words that she did not like.

"That's not fair, though! You don't deserve to be locked up here just because your dad thinks... I don't even know what his deal is! He's mean, though, and you shouldn't have to live your whole life like this!" She'd never met Weiss's dad before, but she already knew that she didn't like him. Nobody's parents should be allowed to treat their kids like this.

"I'm not going to be here forever." That stopped Ruby, transforming some of her anger into confusion. She wanted to ask what exactly Weiss was talking about, but she kept silent. Weiss would likely explain if she just gave her the chance. "Soon, my father will allow me to leave here and I'll be able to live among the mortals. It is his will that once I'm ready, I'll use my song to control the minds of mortal men for his own purpose."

"What?" Ruby's jaw dropped. Weiss's father had kept her locked in this lighthouse until he could use her song to control people? Wait, why did she keep saying 'mortal' men? Did that mean she wasn't mortal? And how would she be able to control people with her singing anyway? She'd thought that she'd had plenty of questions when she'd initially gotten there, but that seemed like child's play now. All of the new questions she had, on top of the old ones, were threatening to drown her beneath their waves. "You're... going to control people?" That was the only question she could get out for the moment.

"That's not a choice I get to make." Weiss sighed quietly, sticking one of her hands out the window. Rain battered her palm, but she didn't seem to mind. "I don't want to do anything of the sort, but I cannot go against my father's wishes. He will make me do it, regardless of what I may personally want." She gently moved her hand back and forth, watching the rain fall on and around it.

It was so unfair that Ruby couldn't stand it. She was at a loss to understand how someone could have a daughter so beautiful, with such a gifted voice, and an obvious capacity to learn, and want to abuse that. To abuse her. That scar was the only blemish on her perfect self, but... Looking at it, she couldn't say that even that was a blemish. Somehow, the scar only made her look more beautiful. It was alluring in a way, though she didn't want to know why it felt that way. Maybe... Maybe it was still perfect because Weiss was perfect. A perfect, incredible woman... only to be left to waste away her life in an old lighthouse. It really, really wasn't fair.

"I'll do what I can to plead with him to let you go unimpeded." She smiled faintly, though the sadness in her eyes was all Ruby could notice. "If I should fail, and you meet your end here, then I would understand if you never forgave me in the afterlife. I will carry the scars of what I have done with me." Something about her saying scars triggered an emotion inside Ruby. She didn't really have a name for it, but it was that emotion that always made her act recklessly. Most people would not do something like that for someone they just met, but she had already been reckless by going there in the first place. She could fit another spot of recklessness in.

"There will be no grudges today! I'm not dying here, and you're not staying here." She grabbed Weiss's hand, surprised by how cold it felt. Her skin felt unnaturally cold, even. At the same time, it made her feel a warmth that she didn't have time to try and understand. "Let's go back to town!" She was excited by the idea of getting to show Weiss around the town, but the snowy maiden seemed more resistant to it.

"I can't go! My father will be furious!" Her eyes were wide and filled with fear. Whatever her dad had done to her had really messed her up. Even for a happy, forgiving person like Ruby, that was unforgivable. She couldn't let him continue to have control over Weiss. Despite her resistance, she wasn't prepared to give up.

"He's just going to keep you in here until he can make you take over everyone's minds! Even if you could convince him to let me leave, how can I forget that?" She stared deeply into Weiss's eyes, nearly getting lost in them and forgetting everything she wanted to say. Her convictions kept her grounded, though. "This is about more than me. It's about my family back home now. My friends. The entire world! I know you don't want to do what he demands of you." She took Weiss's hand in between her own, smiling warmly at her. "I will keep you safe, and you can be with all us mortals. You can experience everything you've missed out on without worrying about what he might do to you."

Weiss stared at her for a moment, one that felt like a lifetime. Now that she had said her piece, she couldn't help but to finally get lost in those eyes. If she could do this with just a look, one could only imagine the great and terrible things she could do with that voice. There was no way she was going to allow Weiss's dad to weaponize her, though. If her dad wanted a fight, he'd get one! She usually didn't condone hitting one's elders, but she'd make an exception for him.

"Your heart is so pure... You would risk yourself for me, and for others who would never know that you did so." She shook her head slightly, but she visibly relaxed in front of Ruby. "I would like to see the shoreline." While she didn't say it outright, it was as clear an indicator as any that she was willing to follow her reckless rescuer.

"Then we'll see the shoreline together." Ruby smiled at Weiss, though her face was in the process of turning bright red. That whole 'your heart is so pure' comment had gotten her all flustered, but it made her happier than even she understood. She'd just met Weiss, but her words held more weight than from most that she'd known for years. Having heard her song for weeks, it felt like they knew each other more than they actually did. At least, she felt that way about Weiss, and it was a feeling that she couldn't shake. She was glad that she'd taken the risk in going to the lighthouse.

Suddenly, a loud roar shook the foundation. She fell flat on her back, yelping out as she found herself staring up at the ceiling. For a few seconds, she didn't move, paralyzed by confusion. By the time she was able to pick herself back up, Weiss was already on her feet and running towards the window. She got back up onto her feet, but another ear-splitting roar nearly sent her right back down. On shaky legs, she stumbled over towards Weiss and grabbed onto her shoulder.

"What was that?!" Weiss didn't react to her. She was staring out the window as if in a trance, though the fear in her eyes spoke volumes. Turning to try and see what had Weiss reacting like that, she felt a powerful shiver run down her back. In the distance, a large white tail was cutting through the fog and heading right for them. It appeared to be the size of a large boat all on its own, and that was from a distance. The storm seemed to grow in intensity due to its presence, the rain coming down harder than she had ever seen in her life. A continuous gust of wind whipped the rain into their faces, making her recoil from the window.

"WHAT WAS THAT?!" Her voice jumped up several octaves as she shrieked, making Weiss jump away from her in surprise. "Sorry, sorry!" She grabbed the windowsill and looked out again, seeing the tail getting closer still. Her body was shaking with the same fear that she imagined Weiss had been feeling. "Weiss, what is that thing?" She tried to be calm, but her voice wavered. That thing was getting bigger the closer it came, and all she could see was the tail. She didn't even want to know what was attached to it, lurking beneath the surface.

"That..." Weiss stepped back next to Ruby, taking a deep breath. "... is my father."

"YOUR DAD IS A SEA CREATURE?!" Okay, she hadn't been prepared for that one. She turned from the window to gape at Weiss, wondering if this was part of that humor she had learned from her sister. There was no break in her worried expression, though. So it was true... They were in danger, then. Any reason why Weiss's dad would be there wasn't good to begin with. With Ruby being there too, it was likely much worse. "We have to go."

"Go?" Weiss tilted her head, apparently having forgotten what they had just been talking about. There wasn't any time to jog her memory, though. Not with that monster heading right for them. She grabbed Weiss's hand and started pulling her towards the stairs, only meeting initial resistance before she seemed to finally understand the situation. Looking over her shoulder, she could see how scared Weiss was. Of her father, of leaving the only place she'd ever known. She had a sudden urge to make sure those negative energies no longer nested within her beautiful mind.

"Weiss, I'm going to protect you from your dad. We'll go to town together, and I'll show you the shoreline, just like you wanted." She placed both hands on Weiss's shoulders, putting all her efforts into looking as sincere and confident as possible. Her smile was wide, perhaps too wide, but it seemed to have an effect regardless. The tension that had settled on Weiss lessened somewhat. She wasn't able to give Ruby a smile, but she could at least nod her head once. "Alright, let's go."

She started heading down the stairs, keeping a hold on Weiss's hand to lead her through the dark. It was more imperative to be careful going down the stairs than up, but they no longer had that luxury. The more time they spent in the lighthouse, the likelier that they would be completely obliterated by that thing Weiss called a dad. She didn't even have time to figure out how a big fish-shark-whale thing could give birth to a human girl. That would have to be one of the approximately five hundred questions she would ask if they made it out alive.

As much as she wanted to push all distractions out of her mind, she couldn't. Her heart felt too weighty with guilt. She'd promised Weiss that she would keep her safe: that she would take her back to town and show her all the wonderful sights that she'd never gotten to experience. How could she think to make those promises? That thing... Weiss's dad... he was huge. There was no doubt in her mind that he had the power to crush them without a second thought. Her rickety little boat wasn't likely to survive a storm this heavy without a gigantic monster chasing after them. They couldn't outrun him. There was no way. Weiss was right: her death was assured, and now she'd dragged Weiss into the line of fire too. She wasn't prepared for this...

Another roar shook the lighthouse, making the two of them have to hug the wall to avoid an untimely fall. She could feel Weiss's hand shaking in hers, and that gave her the resolve she needed. The chances of them getting out of there alive were slim to none, and she couldn't lie to herself about that. She'd made a promise to Weiss, though, and she had to do her best to see it through. There was no turning back, anyway. They were pretty much doomed regardless of what they did. She could only hope that there was some modicum of humanity in his soul that would keep him from immediately smashing his daughter - and her stupid savior - to the bottom of the sea.

Adrenaline coursed through her veins the closer they got to the bottom. It had to take over for her, as otherwise she might've been paralyzed with the fear that was lingering beneath it. Rain hit her side whenever they went past a window, reminding her of the nasty weather that awaited them outside. She wasn't looking forward to being soaked on impact, but there were much worse things on the horizon than some rain.

They touched down on solid ground, and Ruby raced for the door. She flung it open, pulling Weiss outside without giving herself time to hesitate. Immediately they were pelted with rain, soaking them to the bone instantly. It felt like she'd jumped into the ocean with all her clothes on, but worse because the raindrops hurt. They were larger than she'd ever seen, and they showed no mercy to either of them. She could hear Weiss whimpering behind her, but she couldn't stop to try and soothe her pain. As much as she wanted to, she could see that tail properly now, and it was terrifying. There wasn't time for even a single second of delay.

"RUBY!!!" She swore that she'd just heard her name, but that was impossible. Nobody was around to call it. It nearly did stop her in her tracks, but she was able to push on regardless. Nothing was going to stop her from getting to her boat... except for what she saw as they ran around the side of the lighthouse. Seeing a familiar boat on the water had her stopped dead to rights.

"YANG?!" She screamed over the wind, unable to believe what she was seeing. Yang and her boat were idling next to the rocky shore, with her sister standing at the bow. "What are you doing here?!" Her hair was blowing wildly in the wind, yet in these conditions, it made her look like a guardian angel.

"No time for questions! Get on the boat now!" She was right. This delay had already cost them. Gripping Weiss's hand tightly, she led her over the rocks as fast as the weather allowed. Both of them had trouble on the slick stones, with Weiss nearly tumbling to the ground several times. She would've pulled them both down, but luckily Ruby was able to hold her upright long enough to where they could reach Yang's boat safely. The water had risen up the rocks, leaving them standing ankle-deep on what had been semi-dry rock not too long ago.

Yang leaned over the railing and held out her hand, which Weiss took after a tense moment of hesitation. Her frailer form was easily hefted up by Yang, placing her on the bow before she went back for her sister. Ruby took hold of Yang's hand and pushed off the ground, letting herself be pulled up to the railing before she grabbed it and scrambled aboard. Before she had both feet on the deck, Yang had already ran to the captain's quarters. A moment later, the boat was cruising through the water, trying to put as much distance between them and the lighthouse as possible.

Ruby went over and held Weiss close to her, leading her towards the relative safety of the helm. She wasn't even thinking about how close the two of them were in that moment. All she wanted was to get her out of the rain, which was still pouring on them. The fog covered their tracks, as well as the path in front of them. She couldn't see more than a few feet in front of them, and she knew that Yang couldn't either. They were just sailing on blind faith at this point.

She pushed open the door to the captain's quarters, giving the two of them temporary relief from the rain. Yang didn't even acknowledge their presence, her grip tight and tense on the throttle as she tried her damnedest to bring them all to safety. She hadn't asked any questions, like why Ruby was at the lighthouse in the first place, or who the mystery woman was at her side. There didn't seem to be a good moment to ask any questions of her own either, like how Yang had known that she'd be there.

None of that mattered, though. They both knew that staying alive was the most important objective in that moment. If Yang hadn't shown up when she did, they would've been done for right off the bat. Before they had turned and raced away from the lighthouse, Ruby had noticed that her boat was no longer there. The water was lapping farther up the rocks, and it had likely taken the poor thing away. She was going to have to apologize really hard to her friend for that.

Thinking about their situation made her stomach drop, knowing that Yang was probably going to die too. She'd come out there to fetch her stupid, reckless little sister, and now she was going to have the same fate befall her. A few tears dripped down her cheeks, feeling so much guilt for what she had done. If only she had listened to Yang and just stayed at home. She looked over at Weiss, who was staring out at the sea with wide, frantic eyes. If she had the ability to do this whole scenario over, would she really change it at all? She shook her head slightly, knowing that it was likely her stupid ass would still row over there to try and save Weiss again.

"We can't outrun him..." Weiss broke their silence, which got both of the sisters' attention. She pointed out the window, her hand shaking. "He's coming." Ruby squinted, but she couldn't see anything through the fog. None of them could, but it seemed as if Weiss just knew he would catch up to them. It made Ruby's shoulders sag in resignation. She'd been thinking the same thing, but she had tried holding onto a vain hope that Yang's appearance would save them. There really was no hope, though...

"Who exactly is 'he'?" Yang looked over her shoulder at the two of them, finally asking her first question. It was a pretty pertinent one, though. She likely hadn't seen that huge tail sticking out of the water, so she had no idea what was truly in store for them. Hell, she probably thought the storm was what they were escaping from.

"It's a giant monster fish thing! It's really big, and it's way faster than this boat. We'll be caught before we reach the shore." Ruby decided to answer the question, as a giant sea creature was more believable than the truth. She didn't want to have to explain how that giant creature was actually Weiss's dad when they were in such a perilous situation, and she didn't want to tax Weiss further with that either. The poor girl was petrified enough without having to try and tell her life story in these conditions.

"Okay." Without asking any further questions, Yang grabbed Ruby and pulled her towards the controls. "Take over. I'll deal with that thing." Before Ruby could say anything, she had already walked out of the cabin and back into the storm. She headed for the stern, where a harpoon was mounted. Ruby watched her grab the handles of the gun and take aim, but she had to force her eyes back to the front. Their visibility was severely limited, but she needed her full attention on steering regardless.

"C'mon, you dastard..." Yang's whispered words were lost in the howling winds. She kept moving the harpoon gun from side to side, waiting for the creature to show itself. While she didn't know what exactly it was, something as big as Ruby described wouldn't be hard to spot. Then she saw it: a shadow of something cutting through the fog. She slid her hand down, ready to fire as soon as it showed its face. There was a hint of white, a wave of a tail, and then it disappeared.

"What the..." She bit down on her lip, desperately searching for a hint of the creature again. The ocean seemed deceptively calm, despite the rain that was constantly disturbing it. For a moment, she even thought that the monster had given up on pursuing them, but that didn't make sense. It had caught them: why would it give up now? A rumbling beneath the boat answered that question plain as day: it had not. "This is probably not good."

"Uh..." Ruby gulped, feeling the boat start to rock. It wasn't much more than what the choppy waves were already doing, but it was definitely noticeable. She looked back at Weiss, who was likely thinking the same thing. The boat rocked a bit more before it died down. She couldn't breathe, every muscle tensed as she waited for something to happen. Her grip was tight on the throttle, but she forced one hand off the dash so she could reach back and hold onto Weiss. Then there was a bone-rattling slam into the underside of the ship, and they were airborne.

"AAAHHH!!!" Ruby screamed at the top of her lungs. Her grip loosened as the boat tilted, with both her and Weiss falling against the wall. Partway up its arc, the monster's giant tail came out of the water and sliced right through the middle of the ship. The wood splintered and cracked like an ax cleaving through a log, leaving Ruby and Weiss on one side, and Yang on the other.

Ruby looked out the window, down to the water's below. For the first time, she really saw Weiss's dad. His head and part of his body had breached the surface, glowing white in the storm. She couldn't describe exactly what kind of creature he was. He appeared to be some kind of shark-whale hybrid, yet even that didn't seem to best describe him. In a way, his appearance had a beauty to it, with a similar sort of glow to his daughter. That beauty was drowned in how utterly terrifying he looked, though. His mouth was wide open, dozens of sharp teeth prepared to slice them to shreds as soon as they fell back down to the sea.

"We're all gonna die..." Ruby reached out for Weiss, grabbing onto her arm and holding it for dear life. Any confidence she may have had was gone, replaced by terror and resignation to her untimely demise. Their untimely demise. Weiss was going to die too, and Yang... She'd led them all to death, all because she just had to go be a hero. "I'm so sorry..."

"Come on, you ugly dastard!" Yang did not seem to share her little sister's pessimism. The boat being knocked into the air had almost sent her right into the ocean, or more likely into the monster's gaping maw. Her grip on the harpoon gun had saved her, though. For a moment, she was left dangling, her feet having slid off the deck. She used her strength to pull herself back up, until she could plant her feet on the gun's pole. Spinning the gun around, she aimed down at the monster. "Bring it on!" She screamed at the beast as she fired the harpoon at it.

Through skill or sheer luck, the harpoon struck the beast right below the eye. His aggrieved roar seemed to shake the sky itself, and he dived back under the water. That was the biggest relief any of them could feel, as the threat of being devoured whole had been temporarily removed from play. They could hit the water unimpeded, though that instance would come sooner for Yang. The harpoon was still stuck in the monster's body, so when he dived back beneath the waves, her half of the boat went down with him. She was barely able to push herself away from the gun before she slammed into the water.

"Yang!" That was the last thing Ruby could scream before her side of the boat hit the water. At least they were against the side of the wall that hit the water first, but she still banged her head against the window. At the same time, the window shattered on impact, slicing her cheek and arms with its shards. They stung, but she couldn't worry about that. Not drowning was a bit more important.

The stern-side wall had been cleaved off by the monster's tail, leaving a wide opening for water to pour inside. They had little time before the water dragged their quarters down, so she reached out for Weiss again. She was still next to her, her eyes bulging and her skin somehow looking paler than the ghost white pallor it had before. Tugging on her arm, Ruby dragged her out of the cabin and out into the open water.

"I can't swim!" Weiss gasped out, desperately clinging onto Ruby like a life preserver. In a calmer time, in a safer place, this might've been the highlight of Ruby's year. As it was, all she could think of was how much trouble they were in. They'd escaped the doomed ship, injuring Weiss's dad in the process, but he would return soon enough. The boat hadn't been able to outrun him: them trying to swim away from him was laughable. Weiss not being able to swim at all hindered them further, as her body was making it difficult for Ruby to stay afloat. They hadn't died on the boat, but they might just die in the same spot.

Yang suddenly popped out from under the water, gasping as she kept herself afloat. "Yang!" Ruby yelled over to her, grabbing her attention. The distress she was in was clear, and Yang immediately started swimming over towards her. She did her best to keep Weiss above water, but it was difficult. At least she wasn't in a complete panic: her kicking and writhing around would've already drowned them.

"Give her to me!" Ruby struggled closer to Yang, trying to pass Weiss off to her older sister. She reached out and grabbed Weiss, letting her cling to her instead. "Hold on, girl!" Despite having basically no idea who this woman was, Weiss seemed fine with holding onto her for dear life. The threat of death made most things become a lot more palatable.

Once Weiss was holding onto Yang, Ruby was able to start swimming for shore. At least, she was pretty sure she was going in the right direction. She'd been a bit rattled by the ship breaking apart, and the fog gave them no quarter. It was the only way she knew to go, though. Looking over her shoulder. she could see Yang swimming right behind her. Even while practically carrying another person, she still had the energy to move forward. How long would that last, though?

"We're not gonna make it!" Ruby wailed out. It was still hopeless! They weren't going to outswim Weiss's dad. Even if he didn't reappear, their arms would tire out, and they'd drown before reaching the shore. Everything was hopeless... It made her want to give up: just quit swimming and let death take her in its greedy grasp. Then she heard singing behind her. That beautiful voice she could never forget... Furrowing her eyebrows in confusion, she stopped swimming and turned around to see Weiss still clinging to Yang, singing her heart out.

Yang had stopped too, staring at Weiss as she sang. She looked completely baffled, and Ruby couldn't blame her. That was how she felt too. As much as she loved Weiss's voice, she didn't think a song was very appropriate for their situation. Except for maybe Taps... Though, if the last thing she heard was Weiss's wonderful warble, she could at least die semi-peacefully.

In fact, it made her feel more than peaceful. She could feel energy returning to her body. Her desire to just float there and die disappeared, replaced with a surprising amount of resolve to keep going. It seemed as if Yang was feeling the same way. Her eyes were wide, as if she didn't know what was happening. Then the two sisters looked at each other and nodded resolutely. Their death was all but assured, but they couldn't stay there and give up. If that monster was going to eat them, he wasn't going to have an easy meal.

They continued to swim, heading for what Ruby could only hope was the shore. She felt strangely light as she moved through the water. Her breathing remained steady, even though she'd been nearly hyperventilating before. There wasn't any exhaustion settling into her arms, either. The clothes on her back that might have weighed her down gave no impediment, no matter how soaked they had become. As the rain poured down on top of them, she felt as if she could swim for miles without pause. She had no idea where this sudden burst of energy came from, but she was incredibly thankful for it.

Yang quickly caught up with her, swimming faster than Ruby even as she dragged Weiss through the water. She'd always been the stronger swimmer of the two, but this was something else. Her eyes caught Weiss's, and she saw the faintest of smiles on her face. In that instant, she felt that somehow Weiss had something to do with their newfound energy. She had said her voice could control people... Could it also enable them to do things beyond their usual means?

"I see the shore!" The fog lifted before them, revealing the docks. Yang cheered, while Ruby felt a great weight lifting off her shoulders. She felt an even greater burst of energy, pushing her to swim faster. They were going to make it! Somehow, someway, they were going to get back to shore before Weiss's dad caught them. She decided to chance a glance over her shoulder, and her heart leaped into her throat. A large white fin was scarring the water behind them, and it was getting way too close for comfort. Okay, never mind: they were screwed.

Futility once again wrapped its shadowy arms around her, overwhelming her senses. What had she been thinking? Even if they got to shore, that thing wasn't going to stop pursuing them. He was massive! If he wanted, he could probably crush their town with several well-placed smacks of his tail. And she'd brought him there. Now everyone was going to die, and it was all her fault. All her fault...

The blow of a horn reached her ears, garnering her attention out to sea. She gasped at the sight of a boat heading right for them. That might be a good sign, but now she had to worry about getting eaten versus getting clocked in the head by the boat's bow. At first, she really hoped the ship would act as a distraction that would give them just enough time to get on land. Then she realized how selfish that was: that would certainly end anyone on that boat. It didn't look any stronger than Yang's, and that had gotten sliced in twain.

It was faster than she'd expected. The ship was already upon them just as she expected the monster to catch her. It just missed clipping her, putting itself between the three fleeing women and the monster that pursued them. She kept swimming as fast as she could, knowing that it would be foolish not to use the distraction, regardless of her own guilty conscience.

When she looked over her shoulder once more, she could see that a woman was standing on the side of the ship. She had long white hair, eerily similar to Weiss's, but she couldn't see anything more. Her back was to them, so she wasn't even sure what the woman was doing. Whatever she was thinking, it was awfully brave of her to try it. Brave and foolish, something she knew all too well.

There was singing in the air again. She thought Weiss had begun anew, but this wasn't her voice. It was quieter, but held a more mature presence. She felt a shudder go through her body: there was an underlying current of power in that quiet singing. It had her in a stupor, but she quickly shook herself out of it and headed for the docks. She needed to see what was happening, and her view from the water wasn't good enough.

When she got to the docks, Yang and Weiss were already standing up there. She pulled herself up, staring at the two of them. Their clothes were stuck to them, weighed down by all the water they accumulated. She was certainly in the same boat: if she put her hood on, she'd get completely doused. At least they were all okay. For the moment, they were safe there. How much longer that would be, she wasn't sure.

Even from the docks, she couldn't really see what was going on. The woman was still singing, but she had no idea what effect it was having on the monster. Since they all weren't being crushed, she had to imagine that it was a positive effect, but she needed to see for herself. Still feeling that boost of energy, she took off running, hitting the shore and running down the sand. She was the one who had brought that monster to their shores. Whatever was going to happen to him, she needed to see it with her own eyes.

The singing stopped as she got further down the shoreline, and she finally reached a point to where she could see what was happening. What she saw made her jaw drop: the sea had literally been parted! She couldn't see the bottom of the ocean, but she could definitely see the separation that had been made. How was this possible?! How could that woman have done this? It was... Well, it was completely unbelievable, but she'd been through several unbelievable events in the span of an hour or so. This was par for the course at this point.

A figure rose up from the parted sea. She thought it was going to be the beast, but instead it was a man. Just like the woman, his hair was completely white, though it was shorter and neatly combed. His face was somewhat obscured from Ruby's angle, but the tension emanating between the two was palpable. They were just staring at each other, neither one moving a muscle. Were they even blinking? She felt like she was about to be crushed by the tension!

"This is not over." The man snarled, pure hatred radiating off his body. His voice carried all the way to the shore, as if he was speaking right in front of Ruby. "She will return to me soon enough." Then he dropped back down to the ground, where the waves had been parted. They crashed back down, immediately filling up all the area that had been uncovered, and he was gone. The only hint of his departure was the flicker of a big white tail above the surface before the fog made him vanish from view.

She just stood there for a minute, staring at where he had disappeared to. That was Weiss's dad... who was a man and a giant fish creature thing. This was going to be hard to process, despite being able to confirm with her own eyes that everything she'd seen was true. The boat started to turn towards the docks, and she remembered that she'd left Yang and Weiss there. She ran all the way back, as fast as her feet could carry her.

The energy that she had was gone by the time she reached them. Pure adrenaline was what drove her the rest of the way, but her body felt empty when she reached Yang and Weiss. As soon as she could see they were okay, she collapsed onto her knees. Her steady breathing had become ragged panting, and she could feel her heart battering her chest. She placed her hands on her knees, coughing as drops of water fell from her hair and onto the wood. Everything was so heavy... She felt like she was about to die.

"Thank you..." She looked up to find Weiss standing in front of her. Falling to her knees as well, she tentatively put her arms around Ruby in what could best be described as a hug. "You saved me." Neither of them were comfortable in that moment. They were exhausted, soaked, and still on edge from multiple near brushes with death. However, feeling Weiss's arms around her made all those things feel lesser in comparison to the warmth that was now surging through her body.

"Hey, I helped too. Where's my hug?" Yang stood over the two of them, smirking playfully. She sunk down to the ground, placing an arm around Weiss's shoulders and resting her head on top of Ruby's. She was trying to bring some levity, but it was more forced than her usual fare. Her breathing was heavy, revealing just how exhausted she was. When she'd gotten on her boat to go after Ruby, she couldn't have expected to deal with anything close to what had just happened. Despite her strength, she only had so much in the tank to draw from.

There was a strange murmuring going on behind them. Ruby lifted her head up, eyes wide as she saw about a dozen townsfolk. They must've heard all the commotion, and they'd come down to the docks to see what was going on. Her eyes widened further when she saw a familiar face in the gathering: her dad, running right towards them. She was suddenly reminded of just how much trouble she was going to be in.

"Ruby! Yang!" Taiyang dropped to his knees and wrapped his arms around both of his daughters, pulling their wet forms tightly against him. "What happened?! Where have you two been? And who is this?" His attention turned to the third shivering form in their group hug: the one he was positive was not one of his daughters. She looked up at him, then shrunk back against Ruby.

"Uh, it's kind of a long story." Ruby laughed, running a hand through her wet hair. "I think I'd like to dry off before telling you guys what happened." She noticed that Weiss was now looking at all the people who had gathered around. Several of them were looking at the strange ship in their harbors, but most were trying to see who the strange girl was in Ruby's arms. "Can you guys give me a minute with her?" All the attention must've been freaking Weiss out, and she needed to try and calm her down.

"Sure Rubes." Yang stood up and patted their dad on the shoulder, shrugging when he gave her a worried look. She wasn't sure about much of what was going on either, but she trusted Ruby to explain it all soon enough. If she needed a moment to compose herself, then she could have it. "C'mon dad, I gotta tell ya about this bangin' harpoon shot I got off on this huuuge monster fish!"

"Oh? How big?" Taiyang kissed Ruby on the top of her head, then stood up to give her some room. He and Yang walked a bit further along the dock, which allowed Ruby her moment alone with Weiss. She cupped Weiss's cheeks and lifted her head, forcing her to meet her eyes. Everything around them was new to her, and it was understandable that she was completely overwhelmed. They could both hide out at her place - AKA her dad's place - until things had calmed down, but she needed to make sure there wasn't going to be any freak outs on the way there.

"It's gonna be okay, Weiss. Your dad's gone now. I told ya I'd keep you safe." She giggled as Weiss rolled her eyes, but it seemed to relax her a bit. If she'd been fearing her dad for this much time, it would be hard for her to just believe that he wasn't going to come after her again. "And I'll keep you safe as long as you want me to. We'll go get cleaned up, and then we can figure out what to do next." She pressed her forehead against Weiss's, smiling warmly. "I'll help you get to wherever you want to be; promise."

"Where I want to be..." Weiss repeated her words, staring down for a moment. Then she locked eyes with her again, face firm with resolution. "Where I want to be is with you. You are my savior, and you're willing to house me even though you know of what terrible powers I have. The debt that I owe you can in no way be repaid, but as long as I'm by your side, I'll try my very best to do so."

"Aw, it's no big deal, really..." She rubbed the back of her neck, blushing at Weiss's words. They were so serious, but they sounded romantic in a way. It probably wasn't Weiss's intention, but it was easy to believe otherwise the longer she looked into her eyes. Now that there wasn't any present danger hounding them, she could let herself get lost in them without consequence. There was so much beauty swirling in those blues. She just wanted to close the meager distance between them: to press her lips to those that sang the most beautiful melodies...

A loud horn startled both of them, sending them reeling in opposite directions. Ruby grunted as she landed flat on her butt, looking in the direction of the sound. The boat that had saved them was pulling into the docks, coming to a stop and officially gaining everyone's attention. All the townsfolk who were there now swarmed the docks, wanting to see who this newcomer was and maybe get an explanation on what had just happened.

The crowd had surrounded the two of them, forcing Ruby to push past a couple pairs of legs to get to Weiss. She was hugging her legs to her chest, staring up fearfully at everyone. Thankfully, they all were too busy staring at the boat to realize that Weiss was there, allowing Ruby to get over and shield her in her arms. Holding onto Weiss, she helped her stand up and started to make a path through the crowd. After several grunts and "Excuse me!'s," they reached the front of the crowd. She continued to hold Weiss protectively, refusing to let anyone try to bother her. The warmth she was feeling from having such a beautiful woman so close to her was just a bonus.

Walking somewhat unsteadily down onto the docks was the same woman who had just saved them. When she finally touched ground, she seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. Her eyes flickered up, seemingly looking directly at Ruby and Weiss. There was a sadness in her gaze, but she was also smiling. She took a few steps forward, but her legs were wobbly and she had to grab onto a wooden dock pole for balance.

"Weiss..." Tears started to fall from her eyes as she looked upon the confused maiden, an arm reaching out as if to touch her: to see if she was truly real. "I've missed you so much..." Ruby looked down at Weiss, seeing the confusion on her face. Did she not know this woman? She certainly seemed to know her. There had to be some relation, though. Never in her life had she seen someone with hair that perfectly matched a winter's blanket. Seeing three of them in one day? There was no way that was a coincidence, and it seemed like Weiss had realized this as well.

"Mother...?" She stepped out of Ruby's arms, walking with tentative steps towards the woman. When she was in arm's reach, the woman placed her hand gently on Weiss's cheek. Time seemed to stand still in that moment, or maybe it just felt that way to Ruby. Then Weiss fell into the woman's arms, holding onto her tightly. "Oh Mother... Where did you go? Father said that you had abandoned me... That I would never see you again."

"My darling daughter... There is so much I have to tell you." She gently rubbed Weiss's shoulders, looking over her and to the crowd again. Ruby felt like she was staring directly at her, though. She experienced a sudden rush of self-consciousness, barely able to keep herself from breaking eye contact. Was Weiss's mom mad at her for taking her away from the lighthouse? Her face conveyed too many emotions for Ruby to get a grasp on any one in particular. Then Weiss lifted her head up, seemingly saying something to her mom. She nodded once, then pointed directly at Ruby. "Please, come here."

"Me?" She pointed at herself, getting another nod. Confused, not to mention a bit scared, she walked over to the mother-daughter reunion. She felt out of place, which was compounded by knowing everyone else was staring right at her. It made her want to jump off the dock and disappear into the safety of the water. At least they wouldn't be able to see her down there. "Hey there..." She smiled awkwardly, unsure of if this was going to go well or awfully.

"You're the one who saved my daughter." Okay, this seemed to be going in a positive direction. "I couldn't possibly thank you enough for your bravery."

"It was nothing, really." All this praise was going to make her faint. "I heard her song for so long, and eventually I just couldn't stand thinking that someone was trapped over there." She was smiling and blushing, but her insides were churning as she watched the two of them interact. After falling for Weiss's song, after going through hell and back to save her, it seemed like they would separate way too soon. She just knew that Weiss would want to reconnect with her mom, which was super understandable! It just meant she was probably gonna sail away with her, since Weiss's mom was a sailor or something. She couldn't hide the disappointment on her face, no matter how hard she tried.

"Seeing as we've had quite a long trip, perhaps you would know of somewhere to stay for a few days? As long as it isn't too much trouble." Ruby perked up instantly. It wasn't much, but a few days was better than nothing. She would have time to really get to know Weiss. They'd go to the shoreline together, just like Weiss wanted. Maybe there would even be a spur of the moment kiss that led to an incredible, lifelong romance... Or maybe she was getting a teensy bit ahead of herself. Must've hit her head on the docks...

"It'd be no trouble at all! We've got the best inns on any shore, so feel free to stay as long as you like!" She looked at Weiss hopefully, wondering if this sudden turn of events wasn't what she wanted. Maybe spending time with her mom was all she wanted to do right now. However, her worries about that dissipated when Weiss stepped away from her mom's arms and stood toe to toe with her.

"I thank you for letting my mother and I stay here after all we've put you through." Well, it was Ruby who had kickstarted that crazy adventure, but she decided to stay mum about that. "While these inns you speak of sound lovely, I was hoping that I could spend tonight with you." She blushed, suddenly becoming bashful. "Since you have seen my room, I would like to see yours as well."

"I... think that would be perfectly acceptable." She felt like her insides were going to erupt. Weiss wanted to stay with her, and she was unbelievably adorable blushing and being all shy like that. Keeping calm was nearly impossible, as her emotional self wanted to jump-hug Weiss in celebration. As a compromise, she pulled Weiss into a hug, which was reciprocated without hesitance. All of the doom and gloom she'd been experiencing that day was completely gone. She wasn't sure that she'd ever been this happy in her life. There was so much relief that they were all safe, and there was so much freakin' exhaustion... but there was an energy that she knew she shouldn't have in that moment. She knew Weiss wasn't singing right then, but it was definitely her that was making her feel this way.

"Wait..." She paused, remembering something odd about what Weiss's mom had said. "You said we've had quite a long trip, right?" Weiss's mom nodded, smiling softly. She had just let that pass through her brain, thinking that she was referring to Weiss. That didn't make any sense, though. Weiss had been with her on that entire harrowing adventure. So then... "Who's we?"

"Guess we're just having nothing but reunions today, huh?" Ruby looked up to see another woman coming down off the boat. "Kind of nice, in a sickening sort of way." She walked with a confident swagger, a pair of guns holstered on her hips. Long black hair went all the way down her back: as perfectly groomed as one's hair could be after sailing for who knows how long. It reminded Ruby of Yang's hair, actually. She'd always wondered how it was possible to keep that much hair so perfectly windswept... Maybe they used the same haircare products.

"Oh boy..." The woman put a hand on her hip, a flicker of nervousness crossing her eyes as she looked beyond Ruby. Wondering what was going on, Ruby turned around to see both Yang and their father staring with wide eyes and dropped jaws. She turned back to the woman, feeling like something should be clicking. It just wasn't hitting her yet... "Hey babe. Hey Yang." 'Babe?'

It clearly clicked for Yang, who looked like she was either about to scream or pass out. She decided to opt for the former. "Mom?!"

#RWBY #White Rose #Ruby Rose #Weiss Schnee #Yang Xiao Long #my writing

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bigprincess-energy · 4 years

Text

Got a Light?

On the wall of the bar, the clock ticked into the midnight hours. Orpheus stood behind the counter, nimble fingers dipping into glasses drying and polishing the drinkware before returning them to the shelf they called home. After a bustling evening, the silence left a heavy feeling in the bar. While Orpheus was not afraid of the dark, he couldn’t ignore the eerie sensation lingering in the air, so he hummed a simple tune to occupy the space. Lost in his work, the poet didn’t hear the first set of soft knocks on the bar’s door. The second set of knocks, sharper and more demanding startled the poor boy, his hands desperately fumbling with the glass he was drying, trying to avoid a bigger mess. After making sure the glass was placed safely on the counter, he made his way to the door. Cracking open the door he was surprised to see a young girl, wrapped in a ratty overcoat staring up at him with wild eyes.

Eurydice was not one to ask for favors. Favors meant owing someone back, which made it harder to pack her bags and move to another town when storm clouds rolled in. In spite of herself here she stood, frigid air transforming a want into a need, desperation taking over. Through the window she could see a light inside of the bar was still on, though the room was desolate and barren, chairs no longer filled with patrons but stacked on top of tables. Maybe someone was still inside, someone who would lend her a match. She would pay them back, someday. Clutching her candle in her right hand, she raised her left before pausing. Her hand was trembling. Swallowing her pride, Eurydice gently knocked on the door, praying someone would be inside and hear.

No one is going to hear that, a voice in the back of her head whispered. While she wanted to shoo it away, accept defeat and turn away, the voice persisted. Knock like you mean it. Trying once more, her knuckles made contact with the wood grain of the door, the sound echoing off out into the empty street. From inside she could hear a slight commotion and a muffled, melodic voice. Someone was inside, someone had heard her. After a moment, the door creaked open. The light of the inside was harsh against the darkness of the night, forcing Eurydice to squint. When her eyes finally adjusted, a young boy peered out at her, confusion painted over his face.

“Did you forget something?” Orpheus asked softly, trying to make sense of the situation in front of him. Normally Eurydice praised herself as being articulate, one might even say poised, but in this moment her tongue felt as though it was tied in knots, heavy and foreign in her mouth.

“Got a light?” she blurted out, pushing the candle she was holding outward towards him. A blush rising to her cheeks as she realized how demanding she probably sounded. Without a moment of hesitation, the poet patted himself down, front and back pockets of his trousers and apron, frowning with disappointment as he came up empty-handed.

“N-No. Well not on me,” he stuttered, staring at Eurydice. Her nose and cheeks were tinted red from the cold, the candle she held out to him shaking.

“You’re shivering,” Orpheus stated, unable to hide the concern in his voice. Eurydice raised an eyebrow as if to say, oh thank you for informing me, I hadn’t noticed. Shifting back, Orpheus held open the door. “Why don’t you come in, I’ll find a matchbox.”

Pride instantly swelled within her, her mind frantically hunting for any reason to turn him down, to walk away. She had already disrupted the evening of this kind, hazel-eyed boy, turning away now would be rude. “Thank you,” Eurydice said meekly, slipping past him and into the warmth of the bar.

Orpheus headed over to the bar, ducking down to file through the different drawers and cupboards. Mister Hermes had to have a matchbox somewhere in this establishment. Eurydice stayed by the door, perching like a bird on the windowsill, watching the moon glisten in the sky above.

Eurydice knew she had never stepped into this bar before but something about the atmosphere felt familiar, homey even. As she sat her senses recorded the space around her, trying to take it all in. She trailed her fingertips along the worn wood grain, softened with time and patrons of the bar shuffling through. The faint smell of stale smoke and liquor, natural to any bar filled the air but there was something else too, something old like leatherbound books and mothballs. It was easy to imagine the place full of people, jovial as they danced and drank. Behind the bar, she watched his brunette head bob up and down in time to the sound of drawers opening and closing, cutting through the silence of the night.

It took some searching but finally, Orpheus found a matchbox tucked behind a collection of receipts dating back to before he could remember. Mister Hermes was a stickler for records, always tracking the expenses of the bar with great care. Excited to share his discovery with the girl, he bounced up on the balls of his feet, a beaming smile plastered on his face. However, upon seeing her again, he stopped, smile fading into an expression of adoration. She looked stunning bathed in the moonlight. No longer were her features harsh and wild, but soft and fearful. Her hair gleamed like starlight, he had never seen anything like her before. Orpheus wanted to paint her into his memory, to recall every detail of this strange, shivering, somewhat demanding girl and all of her beauty.

“Has anyone told you it is rude to stare?”

Her voice cut through the air, breaking Orpheus out of his fantasy. “Y-Your hair… in the moonlight,” he stuttered, embarrassment evident. He looked down, fidgeting nervously with the matchbox.

“The moonlight?” Eurydice asked scoffing slightly as she hopped down from her perch, sauntering over to the bar. At least he was honest, she thought to herself as she set the candle down on the countertop and leaned forward on her elbows. “Never mind, will you light my candle?”

Looking up from the wick of the candle she found the boy staring at her once again, not in the same gawking manner she was used to from most men, but like she was a puzzle he was trying to piece together.

“What? Can I help you?” Eurydice laughed, her eyebrows raised.

“N-No! No, it is nothing!” Orpheus blurted out, trying to cover for himself.

“You don’t look at someone like that when it’s nothing,” she shot back, not letting him off that easy.

“Your smile, it reminded me of someone,” Orpheus sighed, his words no louder than a whisper.

“I always remind people of someone, who was she?” Eurydice asked, her tone softening.

“She died, her name was Calliope.”

The air in the room was tense, Orpheus’ sadness undeniable. Already the situation made Eurydice uncomfortable, this new addition was not helping. “Sorry about your friend,” Eurydice replied, shifting her weight from foot to foot.

“Mother, actually. Here, let me light the candle,” the poet mumbled back, striking the match and connecting the flame to the wick.

Desperation, to be anywhere but here with this sad boy and his sad eyes took over Eurydice as she reached out for the candle haphazardly. Her reckless behavior caused the tip of her middle finger to make contact with the hot wax collecting beneath the flame.

“Ow!” Eurydice exclaimed, pulling her hand back into herself. Of course, her carelessness had caused the candle to be blown out.

“Oh the wax, oh goodness are you okay?” Orpheus asked, eyes wide with concern.

“It is just a little wax,” she sighed, picking the wax cap off her fingers. “I’ve had it dripped on me before. That time, I liked it,” she smirked wickedly, winking as his cheeks turned pink. Not giving him the chance to respond to her provocative comment Eurydice reached out and plucked the matchbox from Orpheus’ hand.

There was only contact for a split second but the sensation of her heart skipping a beat as her skin met his was undeniable. Stupid boy, she thought to herself as her fingers fumbled with a matchstick. Stupid boy and his stupid soft smile, stupid sad dead mom, stupid sweet eyes. Stupid, stupid girl. You never should have knocked on this door. Just light the candle and go.

Her frustration with the situation manifested as matches breaking and burning out under her forceful grip as she struck them against the box. Orpheus watched quietly, a little in awe of what was playing out in front of him. Normally he would have never extended his hand out to her, gently coaxing the matchbox from her grip, but then again any chance of this interaction being normal went out and into the night the moment he opened the door. Wordlessly, he struck the match against the box, a flame ignited.

Eurydice’s eyes followed the flame, flickering, and dancing as it lit the wick of her candle. There was a brief silence, the whole world still as they watched the candle burn for a moment. While Orpheus’ focus was on the flame Eurydice glanced up at his face, watching as the light of the candle changed how the night appeared on his features.

Pointed nose, high cheekbones, even his mouth, always slightly turned up into a smile were angular, edges illuminated by the glow. This sharpness about his face was a great juxtaposition to his personality which she could only describe as simply kind. He had opened the door for her, went out of his way to help her. Why hadn’t he politely turned her away, shut the door and clicked the lock into place?

Her stare lingered on his lips for a moment, soft and pink. Giving into fantasy for a moment she let herself imagine what they would feel like against her own. Would they be as warm and welcoming as the rest of him? She would never find out, boys like him didn’t kiss girls like her. Feral street girls who beg for matches don’t get kissed, only looks of pity from pretty boys like him.

As her eyes continued upwards Eurydice was caught off guard as his hazel eyes connected with hers. She flinched back, blinking frantically and looking anywhere but back up at him. Shakily her hand blindly padded around the bartop until she felt her fingertips connect with the cool glass of the candle.

“I, uh, I… Thank you,” She managed to say, fumbling over her words as her grip on the candle tightened. Eurydice took a step back, gently bumping into a bar stool as she made her way towards the door. “T-Thank you, for the light.”

Orpheus stayed where he stood, a little bewildered and amused by her sudden bashful nature. He wanted to say something, anything to reassure her, but his tongue lay heavy in his mouth. All he could do was watch as she turned to leave, watch as her hand reached towards the door and the strange, beautiful girl with the candle disappeared into the darkness.

Just as her hand connected with the heavy metal door handle, Eurydice instinctively reached back to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. Her mind was on one track: get out, get out, get out, but her subconscious informed her fingertips that the white feather she always clipped into her hair was absent.

“Shit!” She mumbled to herself, turning on her heels to face the interior of the bar once more.

Orpheus was instantly at her side, worry taking over his face. “What happened? Did you burn yourself?” He asked, looking at the candle which was burnt out again. Moving from the candle to her he noticed a fiery determination behind her eyes.

“My feather. I must have dropped it. I had it when I came in, I know I did,” She spoke, words punctuated with irritation. Within an instant she had handed the candle off to Orpheus, shrugged off her backpack and coat, leaving them in a heap on the floor and dropped to the floor herself. Orpheus placed the candle safely on the counter before turning back to look at her crawling on her hands and knees.

“Listen, I know I have a great ass, but can you please get down here and help me?” Eurydice asked, her head popping up and peering at him from over her shoulder.

“I-I wasn’t, I mean you do have a nice-- I mean… I,” Orpheus stuttered, face flushing a deep scarlet as he met her on the ground. Clearing his throat he asked her what they were looking for, trying to be as helpful as he could.

Rolling her eyes at his blunder Eurydice returned her attention to the floorboards. “A white feather, it will probably have a hairpin attached to it.”

Orpheus nodded, acknowledging he understood her instructions. At first, they searched in silence, but Orpheus couldn’t stop the questions from bubbling over from his mind and spilling out of his mouth. “Why were you out in the night, looking for someone to light your candle?”

Had anyone else asked Eurydice something so personal, tried to pry their way into her life and backstory with a crowbar in the form of a question she would have turned and walked away. But there was something about this boy, with all of his kindness towards her that made her feel riddled with guilt, an emotion she wasn’t familiar with, at the idea of brushing him off. She knew the moment she began to reply, his goodness for the pure sake of being good would transform into one made out of sorrow and sympathy for her.

“I’m new to the area. I don’t have anywhere to go,” Eurydice explained, hardening her voice slightly. She wasn’t telling her story for pity points, she didn’t need anyone’s help, well with the exception of the need for matches. “It gets cold and dark, my matchbook got damp. I had no other option.”

Orpheus stilled in his movements, stopping to listen and absorb each of her words. “Why are you all alone? You can’t be older than me, don’t you have a home?”

Eurydice scoffed, shaking her head as she pulled back to look at him while sitting on her heels. “Some people just don’t have a home,” she offered as an explanation, not diving any deeper into the subject. “And I’m 21, I’m old enough. I’ve made it this far, despite it all. People, seasons - the harshness of the world hasn’t stopped me yet.”

Orpheus nodded softly in response, eyes flicking from hers to the ground. “Oh now the cat’s got your tongue? After all those questions, you hear a tragic backstory and now you’re silent? What were you expecting?” She remarked, a laugh following her words.

As Eurydice spoke, she crawled towards him, swaying her hips from side to side with exaggeration until their faces were only inches apart. Eyes wide and lips pouty, seduction radiated from her as she reached up and ran a finger from his cheek down to his jaw, tilting his head up so his eyes met hers. “I just wander around in the night knocking on the doors of unsuspecting naive boys asking them to light a poor girl’s candle so I can seduce them. What else is a girl supposed to do for fun?”

Not missing a beat her voice deadpanned as she pulled away from him, “If I had a home, all complete with a mommy and daddy, hell even maybe a little brother or sister, I wouldn’t be here. I do what I need to survive.”

Between the heat from her fingertip still lingering on his cheek and the picture she painted for him out of her words, Orpheus was stunned, and a little breathless. His whole life he had been praised for his way with words, the poetry that poured from his lips and pen, but in this moment he could only stare in silence. There were no words that could be said now, his heart filled with a longing, an aching to help her in whatever way he could. Surely she needed more than matches.

Orpheus drummed his fingers against the floor, desperately attempting to string a sentence together, to say the right thing. I’m sorry, I understand, I want to help - none of the sentiments of sympathy and empathy running through his might felt capable of expressing the deep sorrow he felt in his heart, the overwhelming urge that overcame him to prevent her from having to spend another night out in the cold. He hardly knew this girl, everything about her was cloaked in mystery, he didn’t even know her name.

As his thoughts continued to spiral his finger’s movements increased in pace, their once steady rhythm now erratic. Over and over his fingertips made contact with the cold floor, that was until they didn’t. His ring finger connected with something soft, the rapping noise of his finger connecting with wood muffled. Orpheus’ gaze shifted from his lap over his side, confirming the unfamiliar object he was now holding, was indeed what he thought it was. A soft white feather, delicate and fragile, everything she appeared not to be, rested in the palm of his hand.

“I-I think this is yours,” Orpheus finally said, breaking the still silence in the bar as he reached out his open hand to Eurydice. It took Eurydice a moment to process what he was handing her, but the moment she recognized her feather, relief overcame her.

“Thank you,” Eurydice murmured, her voice no longer dripping with lust but rather there was an element of apologetic demureness to her tone. Tentatively, almost as though she was unsure if what he was holding was truly real, she extended her hand out to him. In the act of curling her fingers protectively over the sacred item, Eurydice’s touch also grazed over his skin, feeling the roughness of well-developed calluses in the fleeting moments as she pulled back.

For a boy of such tenderness; kind eyes, gentle tone, warm smile, the harshness of his hands contradicted everything Eurydice had assumed about him. Attempting to shake the thought of learning more about this boy and the story behind his hands, Eurydice effortlessly clipped the feather back into her hair. What was the point of learning more about him, of yearning for him telling her stories of how his hands came to be in the condition that she traced the lines of and kissed the palms of when as soon as the bar door shut behind her he would forget about her.

Orpheus watched as she pinned the feather back into place, his hand still outstretched in his lap. He was still at a loss of what else to say before he knew what was happening words were spilling from his mouth. “My name is Orpheus.”

His words caught Eurydice by surprise, why was he introducing himself to her? Why was he putting a name to his face, a name that would circle around her mind for hours as she lay awake tonight, and for every night after?

Eurydice never told anyone her name, she was always “girl”, “miss” if she was lucky, or some nights “sugar” or “baby” if it came to it. Her name felt foreign on her tongue, unfamiliar in her own voice to her own ears. He said his own name with such confidence, he was Orpheus, and he knew exactly who he was. But who was she?

“I-I’m Eurydice,” she stuttered, her own name leaving her tongue-tied. He probably thought she was lying about her name, and she couldn’t blame him for having such a thought. After all, who stumbles over their own name? Those who come in the dark begging for matches rarely tell the truth, after all, who would believe her if she did?

“Eurydice,” Orpheus repeated back to her, a small smile growing on his lips. “Your name, it sounds like a melody. Eurydice, Eurydice, Eurydice.”

Unable to allow herself to revel in the beauty hearing him pronounce each syllable of her name, Eurydice just rolled her eyes at his comment. “Who talks like that? My name is a melody? What are you, some kind of poet?”

Orpheus’ eyes lit up at her response, nodding eagerly. “I also play the lyre,” he mused, pointing towards the stage at the opposite end of the room.

“Oh, a liar and a player too? I wouldn’t have pegged you for one, but I suppose all men are the same. You meet one, you’ve met them all,” She quipped, pushing herself up from the ground and stepping towards the heap of her things.

“Wait, no,” Orpheus said, scrambling to get up along with her. “I, I’m not like that, I promise.”

“Come again?” Eurydice paused her coat half on. “You already admitted you fancy pretty words and are a liar, why should I trust your word, player?”

“D-Don’t go!” Orpheus’ voice wavered. Quickly the boy cleared his throat, trying his hardest to come across as confident.

“Come home,” He paused, a blush blooming on his cheeks, “with me.

There he stood, his face open and honest, his hand outstretched to her. In the darkness of the night, he shone like the sun. Eurydice couldn’t help but laugh, throwing her head back as the sound reverberated around the empty room. Shrugging on the other shoulder of her coat she stepped towards him, her backpack still on the ground. “You just told me you’re not like other men, that you’re not a player, and here you are asking me to come home with you?”

Her laughter filled the room with a light Orpheus had never known. It didn’t matter to him that she was laughing at him, he wanted to hear her laugh forever, to capture the sound and it’s beauty, to listen to it over and over again. “I-I don’t have a good answer to that,” Orpheus tried to laugh with her, the pink tint on his features how a vibrant scarlet.

Eurydice wanted to say yes, to reach out and take his hands, but she had seen how the world was, how the promises of men always came with a cost. She had always managed on her own, survived for better or for worst. Isolation was key to living to see another day, but some part of her longed to throw every lesson she had ever learned away to know the feeling of holding him. Could he truly be kind, without expectations or strings attached? Could he be different?

Swallowing hard, Eurydice’s eyes flickered between his hand to the door which was just in her peripheral vision. What would it be like, to feel the warmth of the sun against her, even in the darkest hours of the night? For the first time, since she couldn’t recall when, Eurydice felt unsure of herself. She knew fear, knew panic, but this was different. She was scared of having already fallen, in spite of herself, and everything she thought she knew.

Nervously, Eurydice went to step even closer towards Orpheus, her hand just slightly reaching towards his. Before she was able to gracefully give herself over to him, she tripped over her backpack, left forgotten on the bar floor. Stumbling, she crashed directly into Orpheus, palms pressed against his chest. His arms instantly wrapped securely around her back, holding Eurydice up. For only a split second, both felt as though they were holding the world in their arms.

“Is that a yes?” Orpheus chuckled, the sound vibrating out from his chest and into her hands. Eurydice desperately tried to collect herself, pulling her hands back and trying to stand up straight. The moment Orpheus’ hands were no longer on the small of her back she longed for the sensation. Even after such a blunder he still stood in front of her, arms, heart, and home still open to her.

“You’re sure?” Eurydice asked softly, bending down to pick up her bag. Anxiously she ran her fingers over the handle, the cool damp fabric a reminder of what fate would await her should she back into the night.

“I feel like I should be the one asking you that,” Orpheus responded, reaching his hand out for her once again. “Eurydice, come home with me.”

Without a word Eurydice placed her hand into his, a tiny smile gracing her lips. “Take me home with you.”

Orpheus lead her across the room to a small staircase leading up to a second story. As he mounted the first step, he looked behind him at Eurydice, who met his gaze with a simple nod of affirmation. With his free hand, Orpheus flipped the final light switch, submerging the bar into darkness. On the counter her candle remained, unlit and forgotten about for the evening.

#oli.writes #wow look who actually wrote something #wild #this is on AO3 as well

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