#ere sleep comes down to soothe the weary eyes

[congregenturanimarum]

@etheirian ​ asked:  “jacket” for ieaki & magnai uvu

MEME:  SEND THE WORD “JACKET” and my muse will wake up somewhere covered in your muse’s jacket/coat, because your muse covered them with it while they were asleep

Glittering - the very stars above that night looked akin to jewels upon the dark expanse of silk. Radient moonlight smothering the Steppe within its cool glow, soothing and calming those of whom wished to gaze upon its ease.

Pale eyes fixated upon the view of the cosmos above as bare feet had walked, exhausted. The length of the past few days had drummed into the nights and ere one had known it, all had become a vicious blur. No rest had been gained, hours working splicing together until it felt as if an age had passed. Now he needed rest, now he needed recuperation - - but still did Ieaki insist that he wind down first, in his own company, much to the dismay of his brother.

So as he had done countless time before, Ieaki had taken his route towards the beginnings of tall rocks, and meandered his way into the cave he favoured so well. It took no time at all to procure a small camp fire, to set aside a flask of tea and simply sit. With the view of the stars perfectly framed at the mouth of the cave, he lay himself down to simply gaze upon them, to send his weary thoughts to the Dusk Mother and relax.

But mayhap he had grown too relaxed, for with the moonlight illuminating his bizarre scale tone and a sense of ease soaking into his bones - he'd comfortably dozed off precisely where he was.

Quite how long had passed between falling into the realms of slumber and becoming acutely aware of his surroundings once more, Ieaki didn't know, but he did sense a weight upon his person that was... Foreign.

Eyes were slow to blink open, the embers of the fire beginning to burn low enough to warrant more fuel, surroundings the same as he had left them - almost. It is the jacket, lined with fur and coated in strong leather, that gains his attention first. Curled upon his side as he is, he needs only reach out a hand to brush against it in idle (still half asleep) curiosity. Where had this come from?

His question was answered as swiftly as it had flourished within his consciousness for it cost only the flick of his eyes to note that he was no longer alone. Surprise, certainly, ran through his bloodstrean and had he been in a more woken state he'd have likely offered a remark of some variety - - but he didn't. Instead, Ieaki curled tighter in on himself, truly feeling quite cold (-he dreaded to think how much colder he'd have been without the barrier of leather and wool) and gazed through half lidded eyes, to his company.

"Aren't you cold?" He whispered, struggling still to keep his eyes open. Truthfully, he knew he ought be more concerned about his safety (if not within Magnai's company, then mayhap with whomever may have been lurking in the vicinity), sleeping alone in the open was hardly a good idea. While he had not intended to, it had happened nonetheless - but with company? Well... Perhaps he felt safer.

"I've some more wood near my bag if you've want to stoke the fire." Ieaki ought have moved, too... Sat up, made himself appear less pathetic but - truth was - he didn't want to slip away from beneath the others jacket just yet. It was warming, comforting... It felt safe.

" You can lie down, too, you know. I don't bite. " And if Magnai was actually the sun... Then Ieaki wouldn't say no to a little extra warmth.

#Ask #ieaki || replies || #letters from the aether || asks ||.

[blogdemocratesjr]

Paul Laurence Dunbar, from “Ere Sleep Comes Down to Soothe the Weary Eyes,” Lyrics of Lowly Life

#Paul Laurence Dunbar #poetry

[libidomechanica]

Untitled (“Him sit on the Braine”)

But I did not our sleeping in days I spenta.     This was his beauty thus wretched it. The moment’s a blur, a Film Fun laughing i know.     Less—so love their last illness, stains, and there answer is roll’d; for thee bright the pool at noon;     wine-spilith that he flee. And thy love,

he hath weary slave among the gross, because of     those passing like-hat reach’d a spot of each Gazette. God said he, Out went about there were     though she is smiling. Bridle glitter’d in phrases with her dream of Calmucks, drilling,—for     deeming human happiness who held

fortune to weep, they know what she look’d upon the     Night have but the muzzle beneath at every warrior’s speech, I doubt, pass and that I wear     too calm me couldn’t but a moment—and all in vain, without a show? Kiss by kiss not see     here stranger and can’t repeat nine daies

to be one I’m singing, can sooth what are treasures     of wine! Candle shadows to my Lady of Shalott. ’ Self in small glory in thy served     for the Touch was harsh penance, Providence, in such deep tone of the Word of Wisdom can     untarnishable; slakes no thirsts

foraged in the bottom she now more by the     physician to my sighs, half-blotted: but the waits cool, and all perdue; for the short Metro     ride homely, as I pull from above, over eager-eyed, quickly on the stern wind,     the shining plaints, causd of dizziness.

Command, Field of the hush’d, the complication. Declared     save petrified in long Devotion couldst charmed web she went by murmuring slow her;     but you looked to do. I’m the way! God said a cleft of low replied, twelve steps, ere Music’s     gold doubled and burgher, lording on

his immortality. A collaborationship.     Him sit on the Braine. Against strong as a painful then, in this with a steeple. Gender     voice, not a Step nor so favourite, venture shall fetter by fate to cold deny’d—     send words, where ne’er saw you, and charms and

the little dame returnine. In the marsh so damp,     spillingly, my lady wed, or long be-nightmar’d. And in her eyes this, and suffer and     the answer him from faery land, or a brook to come to the yellow gold must a riddle     of stone implements are cooling,

ordered angels her blue the dawn of darkness and     from frighter ladie? Tis dark inn-yard a stable-wicket crept, the window be, who were next     to me in his patience; kneel, touched, forlorn, and a sweeping, and nature to frame this Canto,     ere my mistress’ eye Love’s service

dwelling hard. Nobody locked and knock down from her     Hand of wakeful swoon, perhaps, with all thing seem’d your diminutive villages, and     two of us in the wall. Thought for he who asked by a fire and does he sleeps with tall     men’s are, and I the road stream of

Camelot, thought praises worse what can have not those gift     we receiver? When the snow on pants he too rejoice is in my painful then, lord of     Wisdom of joyless day how did stands he, and he loves his Demon all, delights so as     to bring his side: while his lady’s purple

nights did upon the hay-field the vineyard, as     e’er scoff’d high. Four grace it ill. God said, you’ll find him going on earth beneath their Worship     has paid his despair. Separation command, Field-Marshal was a gypsy’s ribbon, looping     things are neighborhood may Phyllis

is no more. Are lost breed sweet Tibbie Dunbar? Bid     that he might use; such is they don’t make to thy shape suggested the stroke of my light, minstrel,     abbot on an aged man on the Night hand as he sank in the mean, magnetic     soul to hear how Bess, the burne in loves

returning plain annoy. In such transitory     tone of one fingers incorrect correct correct; three columns took covered, Seven in     a glass shalt heart; my body and be life from vse of grief. I knew, always taught the worke     I proued, in their pupils like a face

but sae that awful paused a little played on its     sound and it said the Turks. Tis straw mattress’ eyes. Of witche: and saturning he is a dog     he liued, was most, even The Shah observing with many bliss Clarinda knew; but aye     she was not fight, but few. She to show

us what nymph soe’er his Counsellor, the death to die!     Luxurious wreathe mystic wind a whit Say, may see me weary slave fresh new Inventions     will keep through all our modern preaches my mother hied, a sad distemper right. Bathroom—     all responds,—as if in consecrate

to preclude fresh sin, he tosses them if this     window; a gentle she dight, serving, than thirty bright, and they reach’d his hanging cymbal.     The way was opposed of in a third, in heavenly eye; the way money, I care hath     stell’d for Mahomet or Mufti, unless

it indeed: auguste forgiven, if its own.     Words as, uttering by, a sunbeam showers I not the toilet I dislike thy bier.     Made his was forst from thee, Porphyro grew faint: mething mouth and fro. Johnson, who were slain,     on gold with their home for years. There is

dying along thee? Chambers, reading—’t is not     the frame together than the fictitious though again. Quick pattered the reaper weaving     heauens stay; inuentions of By garden by the seem’d he no fitter cologne.     And Echo made a dim, silver burns.

#poetry #automatically generated text #Patrick Mooney #Markov chains #Markov chain length: 6 #144 texts #ballad

[hb-writes]

Like the Leaves

Summary: Set in the Little Lady Blinder universe in 1914. In the wake of Greta’s passing, Tommy’s little sister offers him some comfort.

Featuring: Tommy Shelby, Clara Shelby, Greta Jurossi (mentioned)

Clara had been awake for close to an hour, woken in the middle of the night by an unexplainable bit of strain clenching her chest, a distinct tugging and compression somehow working at her heart at the very same time. She’d experienced it before, a slight twinge, a bit of tenderness she’d come to understand as a warning that something wasn’t quite right.

Finn snored heavily in the bed beside her, not at all noticing his sister’s anxious movement, so Clara knew it was late. And beyond that, silence had settled on the street below and throughout the house, a quiet that only came when the streets of Small Heath emptied and the cool evening wind died down, most people safe at home, tucked away in their warm beds. 

Well, silence had settled. And then Tommy came home, and once he had, there was a slammed door and a burst of short words followed by some stomping up the stairs before the silence returned.

Clara saw a bit of light through the open bedroom door, dim as it filtered down from the room at the end of the hall. Her brother had not stopped at their door on the way to his. It was his passing by without stopping that finally forced Clara up from the bed, spurred to action after close to an hour of looking up to the ceiling with nothing but her thoughts and the strain in her chest to occupy her. Tommy always looked in on them, always checked to be sure they were asleep, and sorted whatever it was keeping them up if they weren’t. 

Tommy’s room was just down the hall, only a few steps, and even at six years old, Clara had already mastered getting there while making the least bit of noise, able to avoid the creakier floorboards even in the limited light. 

She pushed open her brother’s half-closed door without knocking. 

“Just fuck off,” Tommy said at the intrusion, nearly adding on a desperate ‘alright?’. He was unable to in the end, so certain his voice would break on those two extra syllables, the strain already there in the slow but sharp words he’d already said.

Clara shuffled her feet. Most people would have done as he had said, would’ve left Tommy to himself, especially with that tone, those words, but Clara wasn’t most people, and even when her brother frightened her, he didn’t, and the same push and pull active in her chest was working on her feet, nudging her on towards her brother’s anguish while also holding her back from the anger. 

Sat on the edge of his bed, elbows on his knees and head in his hands, Tommy hadn’t even bothered to look up, assuming it was Polly coming in to make some attempt at comfort after he’d brushed her off downstairs, but it wasn’t Polly that had come to his door. Polly would have spoken by now, and in the quiet, Tommy found himself missing it, longing for the words and whatever comfort he’d just been so eager to shoo away. He glanced up, prompted by the lack of retreating steps and his sudden yearning, to see Clara, wide-eyed and frozen in the doorway. 

She was used to hearing bad words, and had heard just about every variation of the word “fuck” tumble from her brothers’ mouths, and Ada and Polly’s, too, but Clara wasn’t used to Tommy’s tone or his directing those types of words at her. She stared back at her brother, taking in his red-rimmed eyes and the unlit cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth, and Tommy felt like in just those three seconds, the kid had seen more of him, and knew more of him, than anyone else ever had. And that was saying something.

Because Tommy usually was himself with his little sister, and gave himself to her more completely than he did to anyone else, aside from maybe Greta, which was a different thing altogether, but there were still things Tommy liked to keep for himself. Grief and pain, for one. A six-year-old had no need to hold any of that for him. Clara would have a whole lifetime to collect her own.

Tommy took a deep breath, guilt seeping into his chest and swirling about with the grief that was already there, stretching him to exhaustion, everything in him tired and weary from holding it together, but the girl at his door, the duty he felt to her, and even the swirling guilt he felt for shouting at her was a reprieve from the grief, a welcome excuse to set even a portion of it aside. 

Tommy set the cigarette down on the nightstand before running a hand over his face and taking another breath to reset himself, clearing his throat to rid his voice of the hurt. 

“What is it, Clara?”

A nightmare, Tommy assumed, or a burning question, some grand moral dilemma his little sister couldn’t stifle or hold until the morning. It wasn’t beyond Clara Shelby to address that type of thing at three am. 

“I don’t know,” she answered, shoulders heaving in a shrug, and she placed her hand over her chest. “You know when something hurts right here and you can’t sleep?” 

“Come ‘ere,” Tommy answered, and Clara crossed the floor on bare feet, allowing him to pull her up onto his lap. 

Tommy slipped off his boots and leaned back against the headboard, taking Clara along with him, her head already resting against his chest by the time he settled.

“You and Finn were sleeping just fine when I got home,” he said, though he hadn’t known for sure, only knowing that the room had been quieter than the stomping of his feet as he’d gone by.

“How do you know?”

“Your door’s on the way to mine.”

“But you didn’t look,” Clara answered. “I was awake.”

“And why’s that?”

Clara shrugged again, absently playing with the buttons on Tommy’s shirt, the gentle cadence of their conversation soothing them both though Clara was still carefully studying her brother, a series of casual glances cast upwards whenever she thought he wasn’t looking. 

Polly was always saying how aware their Clara was, curious and perceptive and persistent just as he had always been. Clara and Tommy Shelby were far too much of those qualities for their own good was actually the sentiment Polly liked to portray, a bit of an insult wrapped in a compliment, because Polly was proud of her niece and nephew, even though those things were the source of her headaches more often than not. 

Tommy leaned his head back against the wall, looking up to the ceiling as Clara continued with her fiddling. He wouldn’t wish being like him or the depth of his feelings and thoughts and perceptions on anyone, but especially not on the little girl sitting with him now. 

“Is she okay, Tommy?” Clara mumbled.

“Is who okay?” he asked.

“Your Greta.”

Tommy could feel that Clara’s head was still resting against his chest, her fingers picking at his shirt button, so he let a single stubborn tear fall, his face turned towards the door so it didn’t fall on his sister’s head. 

She was uniquely perceptive for such a young child, something which Polly attributed to some wild, roaming heart she was always claiming for the two of them, but it still surprised Tommy when Clara picked up on something she had no business picking up on.

He hadn’t told her Greta was sick, had barely spoken of it to anyone except Polly, but he figured Clara had overheard something. She and Finn were always somewhere they were meant to be, hearing things not intended for their ears, and if she was calling her his Greta, a term of endearment Tommy couldn’t imagine his Clara willingly coming to on her own, she’d heard it first from Polly.

“No, Clara. No, she is not,” Tommy answered after a shaky breath and a pause.

Clara sat herself up, a determined frown on her face, a fresh wetness in her eyes threatening to spill on her face. She reached out and wiped away the tear on her brother’s cheek.

“No more tears, Tommy. She wouldn’t want you to be sad. She’s like the leaves now.”

It was the same sentiment they had repeated to the twins any time they’d asked about their mother’s death, some sentimental words he’d given them about people leaving, like leaves on autumn trees. 

And Tommy hadn’t even told her that Greta had died. 

Clara just knew. 

Eyes closed, Tommy shook his head, more in disbelief than anything else. He hadn’t wanted to smile, didn’t think he’d be able to, but at Clara’s words he couldn’t help himself. 

“You’re a good girl, Clara,” Tommy said. “A good girl who needs to get some rest.”

“But you still hurt?” she asked, resting her hand flat over Tommy’s heart. “Right here?”

Tommy nodded. “That’s why I need you to help me get some rest.”

“To heal the hurt?” 

Tommy nodded. “Can you do that?” he asked, his question rendered unnecessary by the fact that Clara had already gone for the end of the bed, retrieving the blanket left there and pulling it over them both before reaching across him to put out the light.

“You sleep now, Tommy. You need to rest.”

--

Little Lady Blinder Masterlist

--

🏷:

@beautycinders​ @buckybluebarnes @cecii22me @hannahrahan​@lovemissyhoneybee​ @marquelapage​ @midnight-dreams-23​ @mo-onstarrs​ ​@ohhersheybars​ @pollyrepents​ @unicorndetective22 ​

#peaky blinders #peaky blinders fanfic #shelby!sister #shelby sister #tommy shelby #greta jurossi #clara shelby

[sequinsmile-x]

In Sickness and in Health

It was part of their vows, but they had been caring for each other long before they were married.

Part of the Glittering Mica series.

Read it below the cut, or on a03

Let me know what you think! 

The first time he sees her when she’s sick is when she’s been back from Paris for a few months. She wakes up in the morning feeling awful, her whole body feeling heavy and sore. Her head was pounding, and the light from her cell phone screen as she drops Aaron a text letting him know she won’t be in only makes the pain worse.

The day drags. She spends it between her bed and the bathroom floor as she struggles to initially keep even painkillers down. By the evening she feels slightly better and moves to the couch, the siren song of trashy tv to soothe her weary soul too much to ignore.

She has only just settled down when there is a knock at her door. She groans and considers just leaving it, hoping the person on the other side would go away eventually.

“Emily? It’s Aaron.” His voice travels through the door, making her sit up faster than she should have done, making her head spin for a moment.

She stands and walks over to the door, where she pauses when she takes stock of what she must look like. Hair thrown up into a bun, the shorter hairs falling out and sticking to her neck. A pair of leggings and an oversized FBI t-shirt, stained with god knows what. She thinks she might just talk to him through the door, and convince him she’s ok so he can go home. But he’s seen her at her worst. He’d seen her lying on the floor of a warehouse with a table leg through her stomach. He’d visited her in her hospital room when pain was still lacing throughout her entire body, wrapping around her like a snake, as she cried when he told her as far as everyone else was concerned she was dead.

She sighs and opens the door. “Hotch?” She sniffs, her voice cracking from misuse and the abuse to her throat that day from coughing and throwing up. “What are you doing here?”

He looks concerned, eyebrows furrowed together in a way that always made her stomach flip in a way she pretended she didn’t feel. He lifts up a plastic bag, a takeout from the place that does her favourite soup coming into her view. “I brought you soup.”

Her stomach flips again and she knows it’s nothing to do with the sickness that's been following her all day. There was always something between them, just simmering below the surface. Emily knows in another lifetime, maybe in one where they both weren’t so broken, they could have been something beautiful.

She smiles and steps aside and lets him into her apartment. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“Well.” He turns back and smiles at her, an eyebrow quirked in her direction. “You aren’t well known for looking after yourself.”

Her protest dies on her lips as he guides her to the couch, tells her to sit whilst he prepares her soup for her. He makes fun of her for only having one bowl, but eight wine glasses, the tone to his voice soft and kind.

Aaron sits next to her and they chat whilst she eats, and she knows he is staying just to make sure she does. Once she’s done the energy feels like it seeps out of her, and she feels herself start to drift off, her couch cushion feeling suspiciously like one of his suit jackets.

She wakes in the morning in her bed, a note on the pillow next to her in his scrawl, telling her to take another day and that he will be back that evening too.

It makes her smiles sadly.

They really could have been something, _____________________

She gets a stomach bug when they’ve been together for three months. She tells him to stay away, doesn’t want to pass it on to him, but he ignores her like she secretly hoped he would. He uses his own key to let himself in, and leans down over her couch to press a kiss to the top of her head in greeting, a small chuckle escaping him when he sees she is watching trash tv.

He places the container of soup on her kitchen counter. “Do you want to eat yet?”

She groans, almost gagging at the thought of eating. “Oh god no.” She pulls the blanket she's got over her tighter around her body.

He walks over to her, places a hand on her forehead. “You don’t have a fever.”

She hums, eyes closing at the touch of his skin to hers. “I’m hot all by myself, Aaron. You should know that by now.”

He laughs, fully rounding the coach and staring down at her. “Sit up for a minute.”

Emily glares at him but does it, immediately grateful when he sits down and drags her upper body into his lap. She looks up at him. “This feels familiar. Although last time I didn’t have my head in your lap.”

They’d never spoken about it, never acknowledged those two days when he looked after her all those years ago. A passing moment between friends who could have been more. And now they were. He traces her jawline with his thumb and smiles at her. “No, but you did fall asleep on my shoulder.”

She opens her mouth in shock. “No I didn’t.”

He laughs at her indignation, cups her face in his hand. “Yes. You did. You drooled on my jacket and everything.”

She scrunches her eyes shut and groans. “Oh god, Aaron, that's so embarrassing.”

“You’re my girlfriend, sweetheart. If you can’t drool on me, who can you drool on?”

“I wasn’t your girlfriend then.” She grumbles, grabbing his tie and playing with it in her fingers. “You were my boss and my…” She drifts off, unsure how to explain it. Not sure what they really had been back then.

“We wasted a lot of time.” He says, a sad look on his face that always makes her heart ache.

“Yeah.” She grabs his spare hand, the one not cupping her face, and links their fingers together. “At least we have each other now.” _____________________

He falls out of the attic and scares the shit out of her, the loud bang as his body hits the ground reverberated throughout the house. She runs to find him, sees him sprawled out on the floor and for a moment he is worryingly still. Then he moans, loudly, sitting up as he cradles his head in his hands.

“Just so you know the ladder to the attic is broken.” He groans, attempting to look up at her but grimacing when he tries to move his head that much.

“Be careful, honey.” She kneels on the floor next to him, places one hand over the one he has on the back of his head, and the other on his thigh. “What the hell were you doing up there?”

“I was getting the Christmas decorations down.”

“Aaron...it’s early November.” She moves his hand off of the back of his head, winces when she feels a lump there. “It’s your birthday tomorrow.”

“We’ve always put the decorations up early. Haley used to love Christmas. She always put the decorations up on my birthday.”

She smiles at him, threads her fingers through his hair briefly, her adoration for him beaming out of her face in a way that she couldn’t control. His love of Haley, the way he kept her influence around for Jack, was one of the things Emily loved about him the most.

“Well next time, just for help ok?” She palms the back of his head gently and he winces again. “I think we should get you checked out, you could have a concussion.”

“No, I’m fine. I just need to get up.”

She rolls her eyes but stands up, offers him a hand he doesn’t take, his stubbornness coming through even though he clearly needed the help. He stumbles as he stands, his co-ordination off kilter.

“Ok.” She says, steadying him with a hand on each arm. “I am taking you to the ER and you aren’t arguing with me.”

She drops Jack a text when they get to the hospital whilst Aaron is getting a scan. She tells him not to worry, to have fun with his friends as planned for the weekend and that she will look after his Dad.

Two hours later they are home, Aaron with an official diagnosis of a concussion, and Emily with specific instructions from the doctor on how to keep an eye on him.

Aaron thought she would let it slide, her history of ignoring medical advice well known, but when he looked back on it he realised he should have known better.

She wakes him every two hours as instructed. The third time she does it he groans and switches the light on. She looks exhausted, tired eyes staring at him as she asks him basic questions to make sure his brain is still working.

“Em.” He interrupts her as she asks him if he knows what day it was. “I’m fine, you need to get some sleep. I do. Let's just sleep through until morning.”

She frowns at him, sits up in the bed to look down at him. Her sleep shirt slips down her shoulder, exposing her pale skin and he readjusts it for her, fingers leaving goosebumps in their wake. “Aaron, I’m just doing what the doctor said.”

“Em.”

“No.” She says firmly, grabbing his hand and linking their fingers. “I don’t want to wake up in the morning and find that you can’t. I’d never forgive myself.”

He considers her for a moment, the raw honesty something he still wasn’t used to from her. He nods, regrets it immediately as the pulsing in his head gets worse, and leans forward to kiss her. “Ok.” He says when he pulls away. “But let's go to sleep. It’s only 95 minutes until you next wake me up.” _____________________

Emily gets horrendously drunk at her surprise bachelorette party.

Aaron had known it was happening, had kept the secret JJ, Tara and Penelope had sworn him to, and sent her off for what she thought was just a normal night out.

The furious text from her when she realised something was going on was evidence that she really had not known what was happening. She had been insistent that she didn’t want one, that she was too old for a night to celebrate the end of her single years. When all she really wanted to do was marry him and just be his wife.

When she gets home at 11.30pm, guided by a very amused and equally as drunk Tara up the porch steps, she is delighted to see him. Her eyes slightly unfocused with joy and alcohol as she throws her arms around his neck and kisses him in a way that makes Jack groan from where he is sitting behind them in the living room.

“I missed you.” She says against his lips, smearing the taste of tequila across his tongue.

He smiles at her, wide enough that his cheeks ache with it. “I missed you too.”

“You guys are disgustingly cute.” Tara says, turning around to leave their house. “I’ll leave you to it.”

“Take me with you.” Jack pleads jokingly, getting a laugh out of Tara who closes the door behind her.

Aaron focuses his attention back on Emily, who sways slightly in his arms. “Let’s get you to bed.”

She smiles devilishly at him. “Sounds like a good plan Mr Hotchner.”

“Ok.” Jack snaps the book he was reading shut and stands up. “I’m going to bed.”

Aaron throws him an apologetic smile, but doesn’t hide his amusement well. “Night, Jack.”

He gets her up the stairs, her hands wandering the entire time, and he is quickly reminded just how handsy tequila makes her. He sits her on the bed, a kiss pressed to her forehead as he goes about getting her ready for bed. He changes her into her pajamas and takes her make off for her, wraps her up in their bed as he gets ready to get in himself.

She’s almost asleep by the time he joins her, eyes fluttering as she settles into his side.

“I can’t wait to marry you.” She slurs, words pulled apart by sleep and alcohol.

He kisses the top of her head. “I can’t wait either sweetheart.”

The next morning she feels horrendous and doesn’t cover it. She’s dramatic when she's hungover and he loves it, the only time she will all but demand he looks after her instead of trying to act like she didn’t need his affection.

He brings her water and aspirin. Sits with her wrapped up in his arms and strokes her hair until she falls back to sleep. When she wakes up she sees he’s been out and got her favourite breakfast from the cafe they go to frequently, with extra bacon and a cold brew.

They eventually move to the couch, cuddled up under a blanket watching old movies. Jack eventually joins them, makes some comments about Emily’s hangover that make her stick her tongue at him.

Aaron loves her, more than he ever thought was possible, and he wants to bask in it for the rest of his life. _____________________

Emily is in her office when she gets the call. An unknown number appearing on her cell phone screen was not unusual in her job, so she answers without thinking. “Agent Prentiss.”

“Hi, I’m calling for Emily Prentiss?” A woman’s voice comes down the line.

“Speaking.”

“I’m Sophie, I’m a nurse at St Sebastians. Your husband Aaron Hotchner was brought in an hour ago after suffering a heart attack.”

Her world narrows to the phone gripped in her hand and the sound of the nurse's voice. “He had a heart attack?”

“Yes ma’am. He’s in surgery right now, and will be out in the next half an hour or so.”

“Ok. I’ll be there as soon as I can.” She clears her throat, tries to force the lump of emotion she can feel lodged there out of the way. “St Sebastian you said?”

“Yes ma’am.”

She hangs up the phone with shaking hands, grabs her bag and walks out the office. JJ stops her, a concerned look on her face and a gentle hand on her arm. “Emily, what's wrong?”

“I’ve got to go.” She tries to get by her friend, but JJ grips her arm, won’t let her move.

“Emily, what’s happened? You’re crying.”

Emily lifts her hand to her face and wipes away tears she didn’t realise were there. The rest of the team had gathered around them with looks on their faces that she hates. She takes a deep breath. “Aaron had a heart attack.”

JJ gasps. “Oh, Em.” She looks around at the team, a silent conversation that their boss doesn’t, and can’t, pay attention to. “I’ll drive you to the hospital, these guys can hold the fort here.” She watches as Emily opens her mouth, clearly going to argue. “You are in no state to drive. I’ll take you and keep everyone else updated. Let’s just get you to him, ok?”

Emily nods, relenting to her friend's demands. They leave the bullpen, words of support from the rest of the team chasing them out. As they get into the elevator Emily struggles to maintain her composure, more tears escaping past her lashes.

“We’ve only been married two months. I can’t lose him.”

JJ grabs her hand, squeezing it tightly. “You won’t.”

Emily doesn’t believe her until she is in Aaron’s hospital room, sitting on the edge of his bed with one of his hands caged in between both of hers. His warm skin and grumpy demeanor at being in a hospital loosening the tightness in her lungs.

This hospital holds bad memories for them, the actions of George Foyet still affecting their lives to this day. She remembers the feeling of finding him here all those years ago. When she first started realising her feelings for him were more than they should have been.

“Are you ok?” He asks gently, running his thumb over the back of her wedding and engagement ring.

She shakes her head at him. “You had a heart attack, Aaron. I don’t think either of us are ok right now.” She kisses him and then leans her forehead against his. “You’re going to listen to everything the cardiologist says, ok? I’m not losing you this soon after I got you.”

He nods his response and kisses her again. “Of course, sweetheart. I love you.”

“I love you too.”

Her phone rings and she sees it is Jack calling her, desperate for an update. He was with Jessica and her father for the week at the family cabin. “It’s Jack, I should answer this.” He nods as she stands and exits the room, catching the start of her conversation with his son.

When they meet his cardiologist for the first time she takes a lot of incredibly detailed notes. He should have expected it, memories of her waking him every two hours when he had a concussion the year before flooding his brain.

She makes him take up running again, and goes with him despite it not being her thing at all. She insists he eats healthier, and makes Jack do the same, insistent that they were all going to do better.

Aaron gets frustrated at her once when they are at the grocery store when she throws the bacon he had just put in the cart back onto the shelf. She looks at him, long and hard. “I just want you around for a long time, Aaron. Is that such a bad thing?”

That, he realises, he can’t argue with. _____________________

When Elizabeth dies Emily has a delayed reaction. It takes almost a day for the tears to come, brought on by Jack’s kind words and reassurance, and once they start she cannot stop them. Grief for her mother, the only parent she had ever really known seeping out of her every pore, along with grief for the relationship they were never destined to have.

Aaron walks into their bedroom to find her curled up in their bed, body wrapped around his pillow, tears still streaming down her face. “Sweetheart.”

It makes her sob more, unable to deal with the unfaltering kindness he alway shows her. He settles on the bed next to her and cups the back of her head, pleased when she doesn’t shy away from his touch.

“What do you need?” He asks gently, thumb running back and forth over her temple.

She sniffs and looks at him through swollen, tear filled eyes. “Just you.”

“Then that’s what you’ll get.” He takes his pillow out of her hold and puts it back in its normal place, laying back on it as he pulls her into his arms. He holds her tightly as she presses her face into his chest. She’s close enough that her sobs vibrate through his chest. He runs his hand up and down her back until she eventually falls asleep, his embrace providing her with the safety it always had done.

He doesn’t move all night, and she tells him off in the morning when he can barely move his back from the position he slept in. _____________________

In the end, when they find out he is dying, they look after each other. Tears and reassurance from them both as they try to come to terms that after all their time together, the twenty years they got as them, that it was coming to an end.

It would be easy for them to think they could have had longer. That if they’d got their act together sooner they could have easily had another decade of their love. Maybe had a child or two of their own.

They don’t think that way though. Any regrets they had about the past are long gone, a sense of acceptance and peace that this is what they got, and that it is far more than they ever thought they would have.

His last words to her were ones of love, and she knows if she had the chance to do it all again she wouldn’t change a thing. _____________________

‘Promise me, In sickness and in health, In agony and in joy, In fights and in love.

I would still have all of you, In every part of me.’ - Isha Gupta

#Hotchniss #hotchniss fic #hotchniss fanfiction #aaron hotchner #emily prentiss #aaron hotchner x emily prentiss #i love this version of them #almost as much as they love each other

[even-love-unreturned]

Meanings behind Chain of Iron chapter titles (part I, Ch1-15)

1. The Bright Web

From Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s sonnet “Body’s Beauty” (1866), alternatively titled “Lilith”, written to accompany his painting Lady Lilith.

Of Adam's first wife, Lilith, it is told (The witch he loved before the gift of Eve,) That, ere the snake's, her sweet tongue could deceive, And her enchanted hair was the first gold. And still she sits, young while the earth is old, And, subtly of herself contemplative, Draws men to watch the bright web she can weave, Till heart and body and life are in its hold.

2. All That Turns

3. Bitter and Sweet

4. A Good Name

From “This Marriage” by Rumi, date unknown.

May these vows and this marriage be blessed. May it be sweet milk, this marriage, like wine and halvah. May this marriage offer fruit and shade like the date palm. May this marriage be full of laughter, our every day a day in paradise. May this marriage be a sign of compassion, a seal of happiness here and hereafter. May this marriage have a fair face and a good name, an omen as welcome as the moon in a clear blue sky. I am out of words to describe how spirit mingles in this marriage.

5. The King is Dead

“The King is dead, long live the King“ is a well-known traditional saying, and is the first thing that comes to mind, though I’m not convinced that this is the particular source for this title.

6. Things To Come

There are way too many possibilities for this one to narrow it down. I’ll put two of them here:

One the poem “The Flesh and the Spirit“ by Anne Bradstreet, published in 1650. An excerpt:

In secret place where once I stood Close by the Banks of Lacrim flood, I heard two sisters reason on Things that are past and things to come. One Flesh was call’d, who had her eye On worldly wealth and vanity; The other Spirit, who did rear Her thoughts unto a higher sphere.

And the other is “Frost at Midnight” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, written in 1798. An excerpt:

So sweetly, that they stirred and haunted me With a wild pleasure, falling on mine ear Most like articulate sounds of things to come! So gazed I, till the soothing things, I dreamt, Lulled me to sleep, and sleep prolonged my dreams!

7. Tread Lightly

Perhaps “Requiescat” by Oscar Wilde, written in the 1880s. In the poem, the speaker speaks of and to an unnamed woman, who is buried and cannot hear.

Tread lightly, she is near Under the snow, Speak gently, she can hear The daisies grow.

All her bright golden hair Tarnished with rust, She that was young and fair Fallen to dust.

8. To Bring a Fire

Most of the references I can find for this are Biblical passages, but none exact.

9. The Scars Remaining

Most likely from “Christabel”, an unfinished narrative ballad written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge from 1797-1800. The ballad focuses on a young lady named Christabel and her encounter with a strikingly beautiful stranger called Geraldine, who claims to have been kidnapped from her home. Christabel takes Geraldine in to share her bed, and they spend the night together. The story also involves Geraldine putting a spell on Christabel that leaves her unable to tell anyone about what they do or what Geraldine’s “true form“ is.

Brings to mind a certain other strikingly beautiful character in TLH who also does spells to a similar effect, doesn’t it?

This excerpt that includes the phrase “the scars remaining”, however, is about Christabel’s father and his long-lost friend with whom he had a falling-out, but who also turns out to be Geraldine’s father.

They parted—ne'er to meet again! But never either found another To free the hollow heart from paining— They stood aloof, the scars remaining, Like cliffs which had been rent asunder; A dreary sea now flows between;— But neither heat, nor frost, nor thunder, Shall wholly do away, I ween, The marks of that which once hath been.

10. The Damned Earth

Likely from Edgar Allen Poe’s poem, “Lenore”, published in 1843.

Avaunt! to-night my heart is light. No dirge will I upraise, “But waft the angel on her flight with a Pæan of old days! “Let no bell toll! — lest her sweet soul, amid its hallowed mirth, “Should catch the note, as it doth float up from the damned Earth. “To friends above, from fiends below, the indignant ghost is riven — “From Hell unto a high estate far up within the Heaven — “From grief and groan, to a golden throne, beside the King of Heaven.

11. Crowns and Pounds and Guineas

From an untitled poem (but often identified by its first line) by A. E. Housman, included in his poetry book A Shropshire Lad, published in 1896. According to Wikipedia, this collection sold “slowly at first, it then rapidly grew in popularity, particularly among young readers. Composers began setting the poems to music less than ten years after their first appearance.”

When I was one-and-twenty I heard a wise man say, “Give crowns and pounds and guineas But not your heart away; Give pearls away and rubies But keep your fancy free.” But I was one-and-twenty, No use to talk to me.

12. Requiem

A requiem is a mass for the repose of the souls of the dead, or a piece of musical composition in honor of the dead. It’d be impossible to narrow this down to a specific quote, though.

13. The Wintry Wind

Likely from “The Withering of the Boughs“ by W. B. Yeats, published as part of his poetry volume In The Seven Woods (1903). Each of the three stanzas of the poem ends with the following two lines:

“No boughs have withered because of the wintry wind, The boughs have withered because I have told them my dreams.”

14. The Flaming Forge

From “The Village Blacksmith“ (1840) by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The poem makes use of the image of “the flaming forge“ twice.

And children coming home from school Look in at the open door; They love to see the flaming forge, And hear the bellows roar, And catch the burning sparks that fly Like chaff from a threshing-floor.

[…]

Thanks, thanks to thee, my worthy friend, For the lesson thou hast taught! Thus at the flaming forge of life Our fortunes must be wrought; Thus on its sounding anvil shaped Each burning deed and thought.

15. Walk by Daytime

From poem V in “A Dark Month” by Algernon Charles Swinburne, written in May 1881.

Dreams that strive to seem awake, Ghosts that walk by daytime, Weary winds the way they take, Since, for one child's absent sake, May knows well, whate'er things make Sport, it is not Maytime.

Part 2 (chapters 16-29) here.

#chain of iron #tlh #the last hours #cassandra clare #chain of iron spoilers #and also sometimes the quotes cc uses as a chapter header don’t actually include the chapter title

[ritterblood]

[ SETTLE ]

soft action prompts ☆ [ SETTLE ] receiver sits in sender’s lap and proceeds to play with their hair.

haurchefant awakes, his senses immediately alert as estinien sits up abruptly,  the sound of a sharp intake of breath that morphs to a choked off cry rending the air. in the early hours of dawn, the sun’s rays only just shining over the horizon, the light is not near strong enough for haurchefant to see more than his lover’s silhouette against the tent’s lining, but what he sees is enough to cause a sharp swell of worry within:  estinien coiled forward with his head in his hands, muffling further sounds of misery; his broad shoulders a taut line that tremble ‘neath his palm as he lifts a hand to soothe.

it does not require much thought to discern the cause: neither men are strangers to the nightly terrors that haunt their dreams still. 

“ my love, “ he sits up cautiously, keeping one hand on estinien’s back while the other gently squeezes his knee, testing the boundaries of what the other will allow with the frayed state of his nerves. he needn’t have worried, however: estinien wastes no time turning to him, fingers dropping away from his features to curl into his tunic instead. haurchefant offers no resistance, easily shifts to close the distance ‘twixt their bodies: settling himself astride estinien’s lap with both arms ‘round his shoulders, slender fingers grazing soothingly through mussed hair as lips nuzzle the crown of his head. 

estinien’s arms wind tightly ‘round his waist to lock him in, his cheek come to rest against haurchefant’s chest. he is still sucking in desperate, shuddering breaths, both body and mind working to process whatever remnant figments remain in the aftermath of his nightmare. haurchefant can offer naught in return but his solid embrace seeking to comfort and protect, his fingers seeking to soothe through tender caresses ere pressing cool and grounding ‘gainst the sweat-damp skin at the nape. 

“ i watched you die, “ the confession comes rough and raw once reality settles ‘round their shoulders, once the shaking stops and his breath slowly evens, words murmured low ‘gainst the curve of his collar bone. “ i watched you die by mine own hand, yet trapped and consumed by the wyrm’s churning, writhing maelstrom of anger and hatred and despair and there was naught i could do to stave my lance. “ estinien exhales, deep and shuddering, such weariness in his features it tightens the back of haurchefant’s throat with grief and understanding. “ i was not strong enough to stop it. “ 

“ but you were, “ no longer content in staying silent, he gently cradles estinien’s jaw to tilt his face up, pushing his hair behind his ears, gently thumbing away the moisture gathering at the corners of red-rimmed eyes. “ and i am yet alive and you are still you, the same beautifully strong-hearted, stubborn man that i love. had it not been for your willpower and defiance, we would none of us have been able to wrench you from that beast’s hold. “ 

“ i was giving up, “ comes the low, wavering protest, head ducking down; haurchefant allows him to break eye-contact, pulling him closer once more. “ and even now, part of me does not feel like my own; as if a part of him yet remains imprinted in my very aether. my very soul. if it grows stronger, fit to consume me once more, i don’t --- i cannot not be at its mercy ever again. “

haurchefant’s heart clenches, twisting painfully inside his breast. overcome, he tightens his arms, fingers curling to fists in his hair and rests his cheek on top of estinien’s head. gods, he loves him so fiercely. what he would not give, what he would not do to lessen the burden ‘pon those shoulders. to soothe away the fear and doubt and pain with the simple stroke of a hand on his back. “ i know, “ he whispers finally. “ i know, my love. but-- but you must know that each time you feel like giving up, each time you falter, each time it feels like you cannot hold on, you have people that will do aught in their power to help you find your path. and that path is not one you needs walk alone.  and whatever paltry shade of that wyrm yet lingers, i will do everything to ensure it will never control you again. i swear it, estinien. i swear. “ 

a choked off sound falls from parted lips and estinien shifts back ere pressing them ‘gainst his own in a desperate, messy kiss, trembling fingers finding purchase in haurchefant’s own hair.  he returns it in kind, hoping it to be enough; that estinien knows and feels and realizes that haurchefant is right there, with him, no intent to abandon his side. 

in the end the kiss peters off, leaving them to simply breathe the other’s air, forehead pressed to forehead. estinien does not protest when haurchefant moves to lie down again, pulling his lover along, head cradled ‘pon his chest close to the steady beats of his heart.

neither of them will find sleep again that night; but for now, this is enough. 

#PRE-STORMBLOOD ( ic ) #i've seen your scars / and kissed your crimes ( drachenblood ) #drachenblood #sajfbfhsfb i hope i did estinien justice #in any case haurchefant fucking /loves/ him

[caramelcat]

Playlist: Summer Moments, Triple R FM, January 15, 2022

listen back on demand

Laraaji - All Pervading

Mystic Moods Orchestra - The Awakening

Phil Stroud - Australiana

Cults Percussion Ensemble - Baia

Glass Beams - Mirage

Gigi - Tew Ante Sew

Wau Wau Collectif - Mouhamodou Lo and his Children

Steven Cooper - Key West Afternoon VII

Curtis Mayfield - The Makings Of You

Eddie Kendricks - My People…Hold On

Knxwledge - jstowee

Madlib - Road of the Lonely Ones

Kae Tempest - More Pressure

Space Afrika - Preparing the Perfect Response

Gil Scott-Heron, Brian Jackson - Peace Go With You, Brother (As-Salaam-Alaikum)

Abiodun Oyewole - Harlem

Ron Everett - Glitter of the City (Song by Tahira)

Prince Far I & the Arabs - Long Life

Khan Jamal, Bill Lewis - The Waterfall

Bobby Hutcherson - Little B’s Poem

Celestial Being - Raise The Vibration

Haruomi Hosono, The Orb - Laughter Meditation (The Reality Of Impossible Orbjects)

A.R.T. Wilson - Past Life Regression

Sidney Poitier, Doris Belack -  Ere Sleep Comes Down To Soothe The Weary Eyes

William Parker - The Golden Light (Hymn)

Emily A. Sprague - Piano 1

Kuumba-Toudie Heath - Kamili

#pic: Khan Jamal @lysergicfunk

[themousefromfantasyland]

The Ballad of Lenore

The Dead Travel Fast

By Gottfried August Bürger

Translated by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

This is an old ballad written by german poet Gottfried August Bürger. It was later referenced in Bram Stoker's Dracula, as Jonathan Harker cites "For the dead travel fast", here translated as "Bravely the dead men ride through the night."

Charles Dickens too alludes to this line in A Christmas Carol, during an exchange between Scrooge and the ghost of Marley ("You travel fast?" said Scrooge. "On the wings of the wind," replied the Ghost.)

The Aarne–Thompson–Uther Index classifies this tale as 365: "The DEAD bridegroom carries off his bride"

Up rose Lenore as the red morn wore, from weary visions starting; "Art faithless, William, or, William, art dead? Tis long since thy departing."

For he, with Frederick's men of might, in fair Prague waged the uncertain fight; Nor once had he writ in the hurry of war. And sad was the true heart that sickened afar.

The Empress and the King, with ceaseless quarrel tired, at length relaxed the stubborn hate which rivalry inspired. And the martial throng, with laugh and song, spoke of their homes as they rode along. And clank, clank, clank! came every rank. With the trumpet-sound that rose and sank.

And here and there and everywhere, along the swarming ways, went old man and boy, with the music of joy, on the gallant bands to gaze. And the young child shouted to spy the vaward, and trembling and blushing the bride pressed forward. But ah! for the sweet lips of Lenore the kiss and the greeting are vanished and o'er.

From man to man all wildly she ran with a swift and searching eye, but she felt alone in the mighty mass, as it crushed and crowded by.

On hurried the troop, a gladsome group. And proudly the tall plumes wave and droop. She tore her hair and she turned her round and madly she dashed her against the ground.

Her mother clasped her tenderly with soothing words and mild:

"My child, may God look down on thee. ⁠God comfort thee, my child."

"Oh! mother, mother! gone is gone! I reck no more how the world runs on. What pity to me does God impart? Woe, woe, woe! for my heavy heart! "

"Help, Heaven, help and favour her! ⁠Child, utter an Ave Marie! Wise and great are the doings of God; ⁠He loves and pities thee."

"Out, mother, out, on the empty lie! Doth he heed my despair,doth he list to my cry? What boots it now to hope or to pray?The night is come, there is no more day."

"Help, Heaven, help! who knows the Father ⁠knows surely that he loves his child. The bread and the wine from the hand divine shall make thy tempered grief less wild."

"Oh! mother, dear mother! the wine and the bread will not soften the anguish that bows down my head, for bread and for wine it will yet be as late that his cold corpse creeps from the grim grave's gate."

"What if the traitor's false faith failed, by sweet temptation tried? What if in distant Hungary he clasp another bride? Despise the fickle fool, my girl, who hath ta'en the pebble and spurned the pearl. While soul and body shall hold together, in his perjured heart shall be stormy weather."

"Oh! mother, mother! gone is gone, and lost will still be lost! Death, death is the goal of my weary soul, crushed and broken and crost. Spark of my life! Down, down to the tomb. Die away in the night, die away in the gloom! What pity to me does God impart? Woe, woe, woe! for my heavy heart!"

"Help, Heaven, help, and heed her not, for her sorrows are strong within. She knows not the words that her tongue repeats. ⁠Oh! count them not for sin! Cease, cease, my child, thy wretchedness, and think on the promised happiness. So shall thy mind's calm ecstasy be a hope and a home and a bridegroom to thee."

"My mother, what is happiness? ⁠My mother, what is Hell? With William is my happiness, ⁠without him is my Hell! Spark of my life! Down, down to the tomb. Die away in the night, die away in the gloom! Earth and Heaven, and Heaven and earth. Reft of William are nothing worth."

Thus grief racked and tore the breast of Lenore, and was busy at her brain.Thus rose her cry to the Power on high, to question and arraign. Wringing her hands and beating her breast, tossing and rocking without any rest, till from her light veil the moon shone thro', and the stars leapt out on the darkling blue.

But hark to the clatter and the pat pat patter! ⁠Of a horse's heavy hoof! How the steel clanks and rings as the rider springs! ⁠How the echo shouts aloof! While slightly and lightly the gentle bell. Tingles and jingles softly and well. And low and clear through the door plank thin comes the voice without to the ear within:

"Holla! holla! Unlock the gate; ⁠Art waking, my bride, or sleeping? Is thy heart still free and still faithful to me? ⁠Art laughing, my bride, or weeping?"

"Oh! wearily, William, I've waited for you, woefully watching the long day thro'. With a great sorrow sorrowing for the cruelty of your tarrying."

"Till the dead midnight we saddled not. ⁠I have journeyed far and fast, and hither I come to carry thee back ere the darkness shall be past."

"Ah! rest thee within till the night's more calm. Smooth shall thy couch be, and soft, and warm. Hark to the winds, how they whistle and rush thro' the twisted twine of the hawthorn-bush."

"Thro' the hawthorn-bush let whistle and rush. ⁠Let whistle, child, let whistle! Mark the flash fierce and high of my steed's bright eye, and his proud crest's eager bristle. Up, up and away! I must not stay. Mount swiftly behind me! up, up and away! An hundred miles must be ridden and sped ere we may lie down in the bridal-bed."

"What! Ride an hundred miles tonight. ⁠By thy mad fancies driven! Dost hear the bell with its sullen swell. ⁠As it rumbles out eleven?"

"Look forth! look forth! the moon shines bright. We and the dead gallop fast thro' the night. 'Tis for a wager I bear thee away to the nuptial couch ere break of day."

"Ah! where is the chamber, William dear, and William, where is the bed?

"Far, far from here: still, narrow, and cool; ⁠plank and bottom and lid."

"Hast room for me?"

"For me and thee. Up, up to the saddle right speedily! The wedding-guests are gathered and met, and the door of the chamber is open set."

She busked her well, and into the selle she sprang with nimble haste, and gently smiling, with a sweet beguiling, her white hands clasped his waist.

And hurry, hurry! ring, ring, ring! To and fro they sway and swing. Snorting and snuffing they skim the ground, and the sparks spurt up, and the stones run round.

Here to the right and there to the left, ⁠flew fields of corn and clover, and the bridges flashed by to the dazzled eye, as rattling they thundered over.

"What ails my love? The moon shines bright. Bravely the dead men ride through the night. Is my love afraid of the quiet dead?"

"Ah! no;— let them sleep in their dusty bed!"

On the breeze cool and soft what tune floats aloft, while the crows wheel overhead? Ding dong! ding dong! ’tis the sound, ’tis the song:

⁠"Room, room for the passing dead!"

Slowly the funeral-train drew near. Bearing the coffin, bearing the bier; and the chime of their chaunt was hissing and harsh, like the note of the bull-frog within the marsh.

"You bury your corpse at the dark midnight, with hymns and bells and wailing. But I bring home my youthful wife to a bride-feast's rich regaling. Come, chorister, come with thy choral throng, and solemnly sing me a marriage-song. Come, friar, come, let the blessing be spoken, that the bride and the bridegroom's sweet rest be unbroken."

Died the dirge and vanished the bier. ⁠Obedient to his call. Hard hard behind, with a rush like the wind, came the long steps' pattering fall. And ever further! ring, ring, ring! To and fro they sway and swing. Snorting and snuffing they skim the ground, and the sparks spurt up, and the stones run round.

How flew to the right, how flew to the left, trees, mountains in the race! How to the left, and the right and the left, flew town and marketplace!

"What ails my love? The moon shines bright. Bravely the dead men ride thro' the night. Is my love afraid of the quiet dead?"

"Ah! let them alone in their dusty bed!"

See, see, see! by the gallows-tree, as they dance on the wheel's broad hoop. Up and down, in the gleam of the moon, half lost, an airy group.

"Ho! ho! mad mob, come hither amain, and join in the wake of my rushing train. Come, dance me a dance, ye dancers thin. Ere the planks of the marriage-bed close us in."

And hush, hush, hush! the dreamy rout came close with a ghastly bustle. Like the whirlwind in the hazel-bush, when it makes the dry leaves rustle. And faster, faster! ring, ring, ring! To and fro they sway and swing. Snorting and snuffing they skim the ground. And the sparks spurt up, and the stones run round.

How flew the moon high overhead, in the wild race madly driven! In and out, how the stars danced about. ⁠And reeled o'er the flashing heaven!

"What ails my love? The moon shines bright. Bravely the dead men ride thro' the night. Is my love afraid of the quiet dead?"

"Alas! let them sleep in their dusty bed."

"Horse, horse! meseems 'tis the cock's shrill note, ⁠and the sand is well nigh spent. Horse, horse, away! 'tis the break of day. ⁠'Tis the morning air's sweet scent. Finished, finished is our ride. Room, room for the bridegroom and the bride! At last, at last, we have reached the spot, for the speed of the dead man has slackened not!"

And swiftly up to an iron gate with reins relaxed they went. At the rider's touch the bolts flew back, and the bars were broken and bent. The doors were burst with a deafening knell, and over the white graves they dashed pell mell;

The tombs around looked grassy and grim, as they glimmered and glanced in the moonlight dim.

But see! But see! In an eyelid's beat. Towhoo! a ghastly wonder! The horseman's jerkin, piece by piece, dropped off like brittle tinder!

Fleshless and hairless, a naked skull, the sight of his weird head was horrible. The lifelike mask was there no more, and a scythe and a sandglass the skeleton bore.

Loud snorted the horse as he plunged and reared, and the sparks were scattered round. What man shall say if he vanished away, or sank in the gaping ground?

Groans from the earth and shrieks in the air Howling and wailing everywhere! Half dead, half living, the soul of Lenore fought as it never had fought before.

The churchyard troop, a ghostly group, close round the dying girl; Out and in they hurry and spin through the dance's weary whirl:

"Patience, patience, when the heart is breaking. With thy God there is no question-making. Of thy body thou art quit and free. Heaven keep thy soul eternally!"

#halloween #ghost stories #gothic horror #gothic #the ballad of lenore #lenore #horror poem #horror poetry

[cinnamonweasley]

left alone - sam x reader

You sat cross-legged on the battered leather sofa, leant over the coffee table awkwardly reaching out for your phone. The display screen flashed with the message 'no new notifications' and your heart sank further into your already weakening chest. Sam and Dean had left earlier that day, without asking you about whether you wanted to join them on that particular hunt. You at least expected Sam to talk to you, he usually did, with kind words and a furrowed brow explaining the situation. They had been gone for most of the day, and the outlines of a crimson red sunset were now visible through the motel blinds. Exhaling loudly, you stood up, stretching your weary legs that had become somewhat immobile due to how long you'd been sat down.

When Sam walked in just over half an hour later, you had returned to the kitchen in your pyjama shorts and tank top, hair loosely braided over your shoulder. You turned to him, placing the mug of coffee you'd made down on the counter and waiting for the excuses to flood your ears. "(Y/N)... I'm sorry we should have told you, I just..." He began, stepping closer to you and extending his hand.

"Sam, no. I don't want to hear it okay?" Your tone became punctuated with anger and hurt, "It's because I'm not good enough, isn't it? You think I'm a useless hunter and no good to anyone."

Sam's eyes widened in horror, and he strode towards you, "Don't you ever say that (Y/N). If only you knew how important you were to me and Dean maybe you'd understand." A small sob escaped your lips, and you couldn't face him anymore, "Sam, I do understand. You go out on long hunts for the sake of it and hope that when you come back, I'll be gone. I'm only here because you felt sorry for me once. Simple." Sam moved to pull you into him, but you weren't having it. Turning towards the bathroom door, you quickly walked inside and bolted the door, needing to be alone. Once inside the bathroom, all your bottled up emotions came pouring out in a hot flurry of tears cascading down your cheeks, you were aware of Sam knocking on the door and calling your name softly. Still, you knew he would leave eventually if you ignored his pleas. "Y/N? Please listen to me. You mean everything to Dean and me. You are one of the best hunters we've ever met, and that's no lie, but sometimes hunts are extremely dangerous, you know that. We... I...can't bear to see you hurt or worse, because we couldn't be there to protect you at the right time. I've come to depend on your company in a lot of ways. Seeing you smile is one of the most beautiful things in this world... And hell probably in any other world too." You didn't know how long you had been leaning against the bathroom door, slumping forward with your head in your hands, recalling the sweet things Sam had said to you. It was apparent he had become overcome with fatigue and succumbed to sleep, as you could hear soft hushed breathing coming from the other side of the door and the occasional shifting of limbs. Guilt washed over you, he had been hunting all day and you had only added to that stress. Carefully, you unbolted the door, peering down you saw Sam's eyes open wide and he looked up at you, an expression of hope drawn across his features. How could you deny how much you loved this man anymore? With one swift motion, he moved away and stood, brushing himself down and gazing at you in a way that made your heart pound and your cheeks flush. Taking a small step towards him, it gathered all your courage to look into his eyes, all remnants of anger towards him long since forgotten.

Finally, it was Sam who gave in, pulling you to him and entangling you in a tight embrace. He must have guessed that he was on the verge of making you cough up your lungs, so he loosened his grip, letting out a small laugh of relief. You, in turn, wrapped your arms around his waist and buried your head into his chest. "Sam... Will you, er would you sleep with me tonight? I haven't been able to sleep these past few nights, and it would really help to have you there." You asked nervously, swallowing your rising nerves with a few hiccups. He sighed softly against your hair, "Y/N it would be my pleasure."

You lay entwined in each other between the roughly strewn sheets of the bed, Sam's content expression was mirroring yours as he drew soothing circles on your palm. Now you could see up close just how worn out and tired he looked, how selfish you had been to make him go through what you had.

You only hoped that quiet nights like this would be a frequent occurrence.

#sam #samwinchester #sam winchester x y/n #samxreader #supernatural #spn #oneshot #imagine

[lets-talk-story]

Lenore

Up rose Lenore as the red morn wore, ⁠From weary visions starting; "Art faithless, William, or, William, art dead? ⁠'Tis long since thy departing." For he, with Frederick's men of might, In fair Prague waged the uncertain fight; Nor once had he writ in the hurry of war. And sad was the true heart that sickened afar. 

The Empress and the King, ⁠With ceaseless quarrel tired, At length relaxed the stubborn hate ⁠Which rivalry inspired: And the martial throng, with laugh and song, Spoke of their homes as they rode along. And clank, clank, clank! came every rank. With the trumpet-sound that rose and sank. 

And here and there and everywhere, ⁠Along the swarming ways, Went old man and boy, with the music of joy, ⁠On the gallant bands to gaze; And the young child shouted to spy the vaward, And trembling and blushing the bride pressed forward: But ah! for the sweet lips of Lenore The kiss and the greeting are vanished and o'er. 

From man to man all wildly she ran ⁠With a swift and searching eye; But she felt alone in the mighty mass, ⁠As it crushed and crowded by: On hurried the troop,—a gladsome group,— And proudly the tall plumes wave and droop: She tore her hair and she turned her round, And madly she dashed her against the ground. 

Her mother clasped her tenderly ⁠With soothing words and mild: "My child, may God look down on thee,— ⁠God comfort thee, my child." "Oh! mother, mother! gone is gone! I reck no more how the world runs on: What pity to me does God impart? Woe, woe, woe! for my heavy heart! " 

"Help, Heaven, help and favour her! ⁠Child, utter an Ave Marie! Wise and great are the doings of God; ⁠He loves and pities thee." "Out, mother, out, on the empty lie! Doth he heed my despair,—doth he list to my cry? What boots it now to hope or to pray? The night is come,—there is no more day." 

"Help, Heaven, help! who knows the Father ⁠Knows surely that he loves his child: The bread and the wine from the hand divine ⁠Shall make thy tempered grief less wild." "Oh! mother, dear mother! the wine and the bread Will not soften the anguish that bows down my head; For bread and for wine it will yet be as late That his cold corpse creeps from the grim grave's gate." 

"What if the traitor's false faith failed, ⁠By sweet temptation tried,— What if in distant Hungary ⁠He clasp another bride?— Despise the fickle fool, my girl, Who hath ta'en the pebble and spurned the pearl: While soul and body shall hold together In his perjured heart shall be stormy weather." 

"Oh! mother, mother! gone is gone, ⁠And lost will still be lost! Death, death is the goal of my weary soul, ⁠Crushed and broken and crost. Spark of my life! down, down to the tomb: Die away in the night, die away in the gloom! What pity to me does God impart? Woe, woe, woe! for my heavy heart!" 

"Help, Heaven, help, and heed her not, ⁠For her sorrows are strong within; She knows not the words that her tongue repeats,— ⁠Oh! count them not for sin! Cease, cease, my child, thy wretchedness, And think on the promised happiness; So shall thy mind's calm ecstasy Be a hope and a home and a bridegroom to thee." 

"My mother, what is happiness? ⁠My mother, what is Hell? With William is my happiness,— ⁠Without him is my Hell! Spark of my life! down, down to the tomb: Die away in the night, die away in the gloom! Earth and Heaven, and Heaven and earth. Reft of William are nothing worth." 

Thus grief racked and tore the breast of Lenore, ⁠And was busy at her brain; Thus rose her cry to the Power on high, ⁠To question and arraign: Wringing her hands and beating her breast,— Tossing and rocking without any rest;— Till from her light veil the moon shone thro', And the stars leapt out on the darkling blue. 

But hark to the clatter and the pat pat patter! ⁠Of a horse's heavy hoof! How the steel clanks and rings as the rider springs! ⁠How the echo shouts aloof! While slightly and lightly the gentle bell Tingles and jingles softly and well; And low and clear through the door plank thin Comes the voice without to the ear within: 

"Holla! holla! unlock the gate; ⁠Art waking, my bride, or sleeping? Is thy heart still free and still faithful to me? ⁠Art laughing, my bride, or weeping?" "Oh! wearily, William, I've waited for you,— Woefully watching the long day thro',— With a great sorrow sorrowing For the cruelty of your tarrying." 

"Till the dead midnight we saddled not,— ⁠I have journeyed far and fast— And hither I come to carry thee back ⁠Ere the darkness shall be past." "Ah! rest thee within till the night's more calm; Smooth shall thy couch be, and soft, and warm: Hark to the winds, how they whistle and rush Thro' the twisted twine of the hawthorn-bush." 

"Thro' the hawthorn-bush let whistle and rush,— ⁠Let whistle, child, let whistle! Mark the flash fierce and high of my steed's bright eye, ⁠And his proud crest's eager bristle. Up, up and away! I must not stay: Mount swiftly behind me! up, up and away! An hundred miles must be ridden and sped Ere we may lie down in the bridal-bed." 

"What! ride an hundred miles to-night, ⁠By thy mad fancies driven! Dost hear the bell with its sullen swell. ⁠As it rumbles out eleven?" "Look forth! look forth! the moon shines bright: We and the dead gallop fast thro' the night. 'Tis for a wager I bear thee away To the nuptial couch ere break of day." 

"Ah! where is the chamber, William dear, ⁠And William, where is the bed?" "Far, far from here: still, narrow, and cool; ⁠Plank and bottom and lid." "Hast room for me?"—"For me and thee; Up, up to the saddle right speedily! The wedding-guests are gathered and met, And the door of the chamber is open set." 

She busked her well, and into the selle ⁠She sprang with nimble haste,— And gently smiling, with a sweet beguiling, ⁠Her white hands clasped his waist:— And hurry, hurry! ring, ring, ring! To and fro they sway and swing; Snorting and snuffing they skim the ground, And the sparks spurt up, and the stones run round. 

Here to the right and there to the left ⁠Flew fields of corn and clover, And the bridges flashed by to the dazzled eye, ⁠As rattling they thundered over. "What ails my love? the moon shines bright: Bravely the dead men ride through the night. Is my love afraid of the quiet dead?" "Ah! no;— let them sleep in their dusty bed!" 

On the breeze cool and soft what tune floats aloft, ⁠While the crows wheel overhead?— Ding dong! ding dong! ’tis the sound, ’tis the song,— ⁠"Room, room for the passing dead!" Slowly the funeral-train drew near. Bearing the coffin, bearing the bier; And the chime of their chaunt was hissing and harsh, Like the note of the bull-frog within the marsh. 

"You bury your corpse at the dark midnight, ⁠With hymns and bells and wailing;— But I bring home my youthful wife ⁠To a bride-feast's rich regaling. Come, chorister, come with thy choral throng, And solemnly sing me a marriage-song; Come, friar, come,—let the blessing be spoken, That the bride and the bridegroom's sweet rest be unbroken." 

Died the dirge and vanished the bier:— ⁠Obedient to his call, Hard hard behind, with a rush like the wind, ⁠Came the long steps' pattering fall: And ever further! ring, ring, ring! To and fro they sway and swing; Snorting and snuffing they skim the ground, And the sparks spurt up, and the stones run round. 

How flew to the right, how flew to the left, ⁠Trees, mountains in the race! How to the left, and the right and the left, ⁠Flew town and market-place! "What ails my love? the moon shines bright: Bravely the dead men ride thro' the night. Is my love afraid of the quiet dead?" "Ah! let them alone in their dusty bed!" 

See, see, see! by the gallows-tree, ⁠As they dance on the wheel's broad hoop, Up and down, in the gleam of the moon ⁠Half lost, an airy group:— "Ho! ho! mad mob, come hither amain, And join in the wake of my rushing train;— Come, dance me a dance, ye dancers thin. Ere the planks of the marriage-bed close us in." 

And hush, hush, hush! the dreamy rout ⁠Came close with a ghastly bustle, Like the whirlwind in the hazel-bush, ⁠When it makes the dry leaves rustle: And faster, faster! ring, ring, ring! To and fro they sway and swing; Snorting and snuffing they skim the ground, And the sparks spurt up, and the stones run round. 

How flew the moon high overhead, ⁠In the wild race madly driven! In and out, how the stars danced about. ⁠And reeled o'er the flashing heaven! "What ails my love? the moon shines bright: Bravely the dead men ride thro' the night. Is my love afraid of the quiet dead?" "Alas! let them sleep in their dusty bed." 

"Horse, horse! meseems 'tis the cock's shrill note, ⁠And the sand is well nigh spent; Horse, horse, away! 'tis the break of day,— ⁠'Tis the morning air's sweet scent. Finished, finished is our ride: Room, room for the bridegroom and the bride! At last, at last, we have reached the spot, For the speed of the dead man has slackened not!" 

And swiftly up to an iron gate ⁠With reins relaxed they went; At the rider's touch the bolts flew back, ⁠And the bars were broken and bent; The doors were burst with a deafening knell, And over the white graves they dashed pell mell; The tombs around looked grassy and grim, As they glimmered and glanced in the moonlight dim. 

But see! but see! in an eyelid's beat, ⁠Towhoo! a ghastly wonder! The horseman's jerkin, piece by piece, ⁠Dropped off like brittle tinder! Fleshless and hairless, a naked skull, The sight of his weird head was horrible; The lifelike mask was there no more, And a scythe and a sandglass the skeleton bore. 

Loud snorted the horse as he plunged and reared, ⁠And the sparks were scattered round:— What man shall say if he vanished away, ⁠Or sank in the gaping ground? Groans from the earth and shrieks in the air! Howling and wailing everywhere! Half dead, half living, the soul of Lenore Fought as it never had fought before. 

The churchyard troop,—a ghostly group,— ⁠Close round the dying girl; Out and in they hurry and spin ⁠Through the dance's weary whirl: "Patience, patience, when the heart is breaking; With thy God there is no question-making: Of thy body thou art quit and free: Heaven keep thy soul eternally!"

- Gottfried August Burger, 1774; Dante Gabriel Rosetti translation, 1900

#music #ballad #death #German #germany #dance of death #marriage #skeleton #ghosts

[smashing-teacups]

Dancing Cheek to Cheek, Part 2. Outlander.

Rating: T Canon-compliant. Missing scene 04x09 Also on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17741855/chapters/41997440#workskin Fraser’s Ridge October 1769 Brianna had barely touched her supper. Again. She was careful to try to conceal that fact; I’m sure she realized I was watching her. She’d peeled apart the sweet pearl onions with the tines of her fork, making little rosebuds out of the layers, then set about picking the bones from her trout and mashing the flesh into an unappetizing pink paste. Her utensils moved constantly, but I hadn’t seen more than three bites actually reach her mouth. Rollo, on the other hand, had been the happy recipient of at least ten; he sat with his head in her lap, licking his chops hopefully every few seconds. Worried though I was, I couldn’t help but smile faintly at the sight. It harkened back so strongly to Bree’s toddler years, when she would gleefully slop handfuls of food onto the floor beneath her high chair, doubling over with peals of laughter when our Newfoundland gobbled up the mess. God, but I longed for those days. Her needs had been so intrinsically simple then, and all of her troubles could be soothed with a cuddle and a kiss. I didn’t know how to help her now. When everyone else had finished their supper, I stood to clear the dishes and stacked Bree’s plate on the rest without comment. Still, I made a point to catch her eye, long enough to let her know that I’d seen half her supper go to the canine garbage disposal. The color rose in her cheeks, but there was a flash of gratefulness, too, for my silence. Good. She needed to know that she could still trust me to keep her secrets. Whatever this one was – and there was something, I was certain – I hoped that maybe this would be the nudge she needed to share it with me. “Let me help you with that,” she offered, pushing back her chair and beginning to gather up the cutlery and serving dishes. Working with the practiced ease of many years of dinner cleanup, we had the table cleared and leftovers stored in a matter of minutes. I mixed a bit of our drinking water with some boiling water from the kettle, and then the two of us assumed our usual stations: I washed, she dried. The men remained seated around the table behind us, engrossed in their post-dinner banter-and-whisky. I waited for a particularly boisterous swell in the conversation before tilting my head to Brianna’s. “Can I get you something else, darling? It’s not a PB&J on Wonderbread, but there are bannocks and honey in the cupboard.” “No thanks,” she murmured, leaning her temple against mine. “The dinner was great, I’m just not feeling very well.” Frowning, I wiped a soapy hand on my apron and then pressed it to her forehead. “You do feel a bit warm.” “Yeah. And just... queasy. Tired. I don’t know.” She rubbed a wrist over bleary eyes. “I think I’m coming down with something. Guess I should probably go to bed early tonight, huh?” “I think that would be wise,” I agreed, smoothing back an errant red curl from her brow. Bree shifted closer to me, then, dropping her head to my shoulder and nosing into the curve of my neck for comfort. That old familiar gesture ignited my maternal instincts like a matchstick, the quiet incessant worry stoked at once into a roaring blaze. I gathered my giant Viking of a child into my arms and wrapped her tight, my eyes snapping up over her shoulder to find Jamie’s. He’d been watching; the men’s conversation had never lulled, but I’d felt his gaze on us the entire time. The moment he caught my eye, he gave an infinitesimal nod, and turned to touch his godfather’s wrist under the table. They, too, proceeded to have an entire conversation with only their eyes, and within seconds Murtagh had drained the last of his whisky and set the empty tumbler down with a clank. “Weel, thank ye kindly for the fine supper,” he said, taking his cue. “Young Ian, if ye would, I need some help wi’ the horses before ye retire for the night.” Ian, the sweet daft lad, took a bit more prodding. “Och, are ye turnin’ in already, ye auld coot? Why, it’s nae half past sev–” “Mmphm.” Never one for subtlety, Murtagh pulled his chair back for him, clasped a firm hand on his shoulder, and herded him toward the door like a particularly relentless sheepdog. “Oh, er, well then, I – ow, I’m comin’ , ye dinna have to push me! – Uncle Jamie, Auntie, Cousin, ‘twas a pleasure, as always. S’pose we’ll see ye in the mornin’ then. Come, Rollo!” “Night, boys,” Bree called, lifting her head with an unconvincing smile. Still, she didn’t make a move to leave the circle of my arms. The men exchanged a few brief parting words on the porch, and then Murtagh and young Ian were off down the wooden steps. Jamie leaned against the doorjamb, waving them goodbye. When their crunching bootfalls faded into silence, there was a strained pause as he turned to catch my eye again, one hand still resting hesitantly on the door. Should I go? He asked me wordlessly. Before he could read the answer in my face, Brianna called out to him softly, surprising us both. “Stay, Da.” The faint smile that touched her lips was genuine this time. She lifted an elbow toward the stack of clean, dry dishes. “You can be on gopher duty.” Jamie’s eyes narrowed in confusion. I gave a soft huff of laughter before clarifying for him, “She means you can put the dishes away.” A relieved smile bloomed on his face, then, spreading until the tips of his ears went pink. Before he moved to join us, though, he threw me a second questioning glance, making sure that I agreed. Swallowing my disappointment – I had hoped that this might be an opportunity for a mother-daughter bonding moment, wherein she might finally open up to me – I smiled back at him, nodded, and pressed my lips into Brianna’s hair. This was a good thing, after all. We’d been hoping for something like this. If only you knew what it means for her to ask, I wanted to tell him. Gopher duty had always been Frank’s job. I washed; Brianna dried; Frank put away. It had been our routine every night since Bree was old enough to hold a dish towel. Assigning it to Jamie was more than just a kind way to include him; it was a small gesture of acceptance, permitting him to assume a role she’d always associated with her father. Smiling, I bumped Brianna’s hip with my own in subtle acknowledgment. She didn’t look up, but gently bumped me back. Then, with a weary sigh, she began to pull away from me to resume her own assigned task. The worry flooded back over me in a rush, and I put a hand on her shoulder to stop her, smoothing my other palm over her too-warm cheek. The invitation had been extended; that was the important part. Jamie and Bree could do the dishes together another time. “It’s alright, darling. We can handle the rest of this. Why don’t you call it a night?” Brianna deflated a bit in relief, and I knew I’d been right to offer. “Yeah, sorry. I might take you up on that. I’m pretty beat.” She pursed her lips, then, hesitating, as though she wanted to ask something but wasn’t quite sure how to go about it. I held her gaze, eyebrows raised slightly in encouragement, until at last she relented with a slight blush, “Will you come tuck me in?” Longing and concern knotted themselves into an aching lump in the back of my throat. I couldn’t even remember the last time she’d asked. “Oh, my sweet girl,” I whispered, a bit of moisture pricking at my eyes. “Of course.” I brushed a thumb along the curve of her cheekbone, then gave her neck a pat. “Why don’t you go get ready for bed, and I’ll be along in a moment?” “‘Kay,” she said faintly, her lips tightening in appreciation. She took a step toward the door and then thought better of it, veering right to give Jamie a one-armed hug. “Night, Da. Thanks for picking up my slack.” “Och, dinna fash. Before you came, this was my job, ye ken. So if anything, I reckon you’ve been picking up my slack.” He rubbed a hand up and down her back before releasing her. Though he managed a smile, the lines around his eyes were tight with concern. “I’m sorry ye dinna feel well. Get some rest, aye? I’m sure ye’ll be right as rain in the morning.” “Hope so.” Jamie looked as though he very much wanted to kiss her, but settled for sweeping a large hand through her hair instead. “Sleep well, m’annsachd.” “You too. Night.” She went to the door, and threw one last glance over her shoulder at me, seeking reassurance. “I’ll be right there,” I promised, and then she was gone with the squeak of a hinge and clatter of the door. A long, aching silence fell over the cabin in her absence, fraught with worry and uncertainty, words left unspoken, questions for which neither of us had the answers. When I finally looked over at Jamie, his knuckles were white on the table edge. “How bad?” he asked quietly, without looking up. “I ken it’s bad enough by the look on your face, but…” I drew in a deep, shaky breath, letting my eyes drift shut. “I don’t know,” I admitted. “I don’t know what’s wrong. She won’t tell me.” “You dinna think she’s truly ill, then?” I shrugged, then picked up a serving dish from the dirty pile and began to scrub at the brown ring of baked-on food. “She does feel warm. A low-grade fever, maybe.” “And she’s no’ eating. The mongrel had the lion’s share of her supper.” “Mm.” I scrubbed a bit harder. “Do ye think it could be the malaria?” he asked suddenly, a bit of alarm creeping into his tone. “Like her wee companion?” “No,” I assured him. “No, she would have had to contract it from the same source, during the crossing from Scotland. The symptoms would have manifested long before now. No, I’m sure this is just a virus, nothing to worry about.” I sighed heavily, passing a wrist over my eyes. “It’s not the fever that’s bothering me.” “Aye, I ken.” He took the now-spotless serving dish from me, rinsed it, and began to dry it. “You think there’s more to the story than she’s tellin’ ye. About Roger.” I chewed the tip of my tongue for a moment, then nodded. “Yes.” “Do you think she’ll tell ye now? If ye ask?” “Maybe.” I nodded again slowly, finally meeting his gaze. “But I’m not sure if I should ask, or wait to see if she’ll broach the subject on her own. I think she’s been trying to get up the courage to tell me, whatever it is. The fact that she’s asking for me like this… reaching out…” “Go to her, then,” he insisted. A flicker of emotion passed behind his eyes that I couldn’t quite name. “She needs ye, Claire. She...” He drew in a breath and held it for a moment, as though trying to find the right words. Whatever he was going to say, he dismissed it with an exhale and a shake of his head, and took the dish from my hands. “I’ll finish here, mo nighean donn. Go and see to our daughter.”

______________

Lizzie was already sound asleep by the time I slipped into the shelter that was serving as the girls’ temporary living space. The physician in me couldn’t help but step over to her and perform a quick assessment of her sleeping form: normal rate and rhythm of breathing, pallid complexion but not diaphoretic, skin turgor and mucous membranes that didn’t immediately scream of dehydration. Deeming her ostensibly stable, I was able to fix my attention on my daughter without the background noise of niggling doctor’s guilt. Brianna was just finishing her nighttime ablutions when I turned to her. She’d already changed into her nightgown, brushed her hair and washed her face, and was currently scrubbing her teeth with a frayed willow twig. “I miss Crest,” she said thickly, before spitting into the wooden basin. “So do I,” I assured her. “Or a proper toothbrush, for that matter.” “That too.” I stepped up behind her, stroking my fingers through the shimmering copper waves while she rinsed and packed away her personal hygiene items. “Do you want me to braid your hair for you?” I asked softly. She shook her head, scrubbing a hand over her eyes. “Not tonight. I’ve got a killer headache. I thought leaving my hair down might help.” “My poor baby.” I kissed her temple, draping an arm about her shoulders. “You really aren’t feeling well, are you?” “No,” she moaned, turning into my embrace and tucking her nose into the curve of my neck again. I brought a hand up to the base of her head to cradle her there, while the other smoothed up and down her back. “Do you want me to make you some tea for the headache?” I asked, feeling desperately as though I needed to do something more. “It might help.” “No, Mama,” she murmured, nuzzling closer. “Can you just hold me for a little while?” “Of course,” I whispered. “Of course I can.” I turned my lips into her hair and began to rock her gently, swaying back and forth on the balls of my feet. Bree let out a little huff of air against my neck and tried to settle in, but after a few moments it occurred to me that she was now much, much taller than the last time we’d done this, and bending over for an extended period of time couldn’t be the most comfortable position for her. Drawing back, I moved my hands to her shoulders and steered her toward her bed. “Why don’t you lie down, Bumblebee?” I suggested, smiling on the old, seldom-used pet name. “I’ll stay with you until you fall asleep.” Bree gave me a wan smile, then went to pull back the covers and climb into bed. She scooted over to the far side of the mattress to make room for me, and I slid in obligingly beside her. I propped myself up on one elbow and allowed her a moment to get settled before pulling the quilt up and tucking it in all the way around her. “There we go,” I said, in the whispery sing-song voice I’d used on her as a child. “Snug as a bug in a rug, hmm?” I molded my own body loosely alongside hers on the outside of the blankets, close enough to give her my comfort and warmth, but not so close that I would disturb her when I got up to leave. Bree drew in a trembling breath as she turned her gaze up to me, her slanted blue eyes suddenly filling with tears. “I missed you so much, Mama.” She looked so young and so lost in that moment that I felt my heart would hemorrhage into my chest. Abandoning all thought of giving her space, I leaned forward and clasped her to me with bruising force. “Oh, Bree. Oh, my baby.” I suddenly wanted nothing more than to take that beautiful child back into my womb, where I could protect her and keep her close to me, always. “You have no idea.” She was clutching to my shawl with balled fists, sniffling and shaking in my arms. I felt her take a breath to say something several times, only to lose her nerve and whimper instead. “What is it?” I begged her after the third time. “Bree, tell me what’s the matter.” She shook her head miserably, burying her face in the soft swell of my bosom. “Not tonight, Mama. Please? Can we talk about it tomorrow?” I drew in a deep breath, desperately trying to steady myself. So there was something. Something more. Something she’d been keeping from me. And if I were being perfectly honest with myself, I already knew what it was. I was a doctor, and her mother. I knew, and I pushed that knowledge stubbornly, viciously down. “Tomorrow, then,” I agreed, somehow managing to sound calm. “You can come pick herbs with me by the river. We’ll make a day of it. All right?” She nodded wordlessly, releasing her breath in a little sob of relief. Tomorrow. But not tonight. Tonight, I needed to hold my baby. And my baby needed her mother. I cradled her to me and rocked her, and tried to blur out everything else. If I buried my face in her hair and breathed her in, just like this, I could still see the moonlight chase the shadows across the nursery floor. I was humming to her before I was even aware that I was doing it. It always seemed to start that way – a maternal instinct, soul-deep and primal, to soothe a child with song, even before the conscious mind could catch up. Bree noticed, though. She sniffled and wiped her nose on my shawl, then gave an unexpected little huff of laughter. “Sinatra, Mama? Really?” she said, her voice groggy from crying and exhaustion. “You hate Ol’ Blue Eyes.” I craned my head back to peer at her quizzically. “What do you mean?” “That song you were humming. It’s Frank Sinatra, right?” I smiled. “Fred Astaire, darling. A classic. You never saw Top Hat?” “No.” “Mm. You’re missing out.” I kissed the top of her head and resumed rocking her. After a moment, a thought occurred to me. “But what would make you say I hate Sinatra?” “Don’t you?” “No. Whyever would you think so?” She pulled back a bit, quirking an eyebrow at me as she propped herself up on an elbow. “Uhh, maybe the fact that you always switched off the radio whenever one of his songs came on?”   That surprised me. I blinked – twice – before managing a weak, “Oh.” Bree chuckled at that, and I returned a thin smile. I thought about it for a moment, then answered quietly, “No... it wasn’t that I didn’t… I liked his music very much, actually. I just couldn’t listen to it, because it –” “Reminded you of Jamie,” she finished for me, realization dawning on her face. She looked at me then as though she were suddenly seeing me through the eyes of a peer, and not a child. Very slowly, she started to nod, pursing her lips. “Yeah,” she said softly. “Yeah, I kind of get that.” I studied her face sadly, reaching up to touch her cheek. “I’m sorry that you do,” I whispered. I caught myself, then, and screwed my lips shut before I could say more. Tomorrow. Bree returned a sad smile, but her eyes were clear now; no more tears. She laid her head down on the pillow, still watching me with that gleam of newly kindled understanding. “Can you sing it to me? That song?” “Would it make you feel better?” She shrugged, smiling sleepily. “Worth a shot.” Suddenly a bit shy, I laid my head down next to hers and fidgeted with a frayed string on the quilt. I picked up from where I’d left off humming, my voice soft and hoarse, rising just enough for her to hear me across the pillow. Oh! I love to climb a mountain And to reach the highest peak But I don’t enjoy it half as much As dancing cheek to cheek Oh! I like to go out fishing In a river or a creek But I don’t enjoy it half as much As dancing cheek to cheek Dance with me I want my arm about you The charm about you Will carry me through to heaven I’m in Heaven And my heart beats so that I can hardly speak And I seem to find the happiness I seek When we’re out together dancing cheek to cheek She was half-asleep by the time I’d finished, burrowed in her pillow, the corner of her lip tipped sweetly upward. “That was really nice, Mama,” she murmured. “You have a pretty voice.” I blushed. “Thank you.” One catlike blue eye cracked open, the corner of her lip lifting even further. “Da can’t carry a tune in a bucket. I caught him singing to the pig the other day.” I blew a raspberry trying to contain a laugh, still vaguely cognizant that Lizzie was sleeping across the room. “One of his few genetic shortcomings, I’m afraid. Thankfully, it’s one that he didn’t pass along to you.” Brianna scrunched her nose, holding up a lock of her thick red mane. “Yeah, this was bad enough. You just had to fall in love with a ginger, huh, Mama?” I gave a little hum of amusement, bending to kiss her. “I’m not sorry one bit.” She smiled, her eyes slipping shut again. I stroked her hair for a little while, waiting for her to begin to drift off. She didn’t, though; the tension that had eased from her face while I sang began to tighten the skin around her eyes and mouth again. She shifted restlessly, moving her limbs under the covers, trying and failing to get comfortable. At last she opened her eyes with an apologetic little sigh, took my hand from her head, and gave it a squeeze. “I’m okay now, Mama. Thanks for sitting with me. You should get back to Jamie, let him know I’m not dying or anything. He spent the whole night looking at me like I was going to spontaneously combust.” I nodded, bringing up my other hand to clasp hers between mine. “He loves you very much, you know.” “I know.” I opened my mouth, wanting to say more, but I recognized the glaze that was falling over Brianna’s eyes. Jamie did that – retreated into himself to think, his face utterly impassable. I didn’t have that ability; she certainly didn’t get it from me. Still, I recognized it for the dismissal that it was. If she needed time with her thoughts, I could certainly respect that. Tomorrow would come soon enough. I brought her hand to my lips and kissed it softly. “And I love you too, my Bumblebee. Rest well. I’ll meet you by the river in the morning.” “Bright and early, knowing you,” she said, offering an unconvincing smile as she burrowed back into her pillow. “Night, Mama.” “Goodnight, my darling.”

_______ Jamie was sitting in his chair by the fire, a book open in his lap. I highly doubted he’d read a single word; he was staring off into the flames, his stiff ring finger tapping restlessly on his thigh. His eyes snapped up when I walked through the door, and he was on his feet before I’d taken three steps into the cabin. “How is she?” I went to him, heaving a deep sigh against his chest as his arms folded around me. I shook my head a little, then tilted my face up to his, hoping that he could read it and I wouldn’t have to say anything at all. He studied me for a moment, then pressed his lips to my forehead. I felt his fingers curl tightly into the fabric of my dress. “Tomorrow,” I whispered to him, both an answer and a request. Jamie nodded, and took my hand, and brought me with him to bed. We didn’t bother to change out of our clothes; there was no point. He sat up against the pillows and opened his arms for me, and I molded against him, burying my face in the crook of his neck. Huddled together and silent, we listened to the clock tick away the minutes until morning. Neither of us slept a wink that night.

#fraser family #mama bear claire #dancing cheek to cheek #sinatra did cover it though #worried parents #mama knows what's up

[kusunogatari]

[ ObiRyū October | Day Fourteen: Storm ] [ @abyssaldespair ] [ Uchiha Obito, Suigin Ryū ] [ Verse: White Hands of Healing ] [ Previous || Next ]

In all fairness, the weather in the valley is typically what most would call gloomy on the best of days. Rain occurs more often than not, and sunny days are almost always peppered with showers. And when the cold air of the mountain peaks falls into the heated air of the volcanic vale, storms are bound to happen.

The pair have managed to escape Konoha, with a whole week free of the village. It took quite a bit of effort on Kakashi’s part to get the other Kage to allow it. But with Ryū serving as what may as well be Obito’s official keeper, he got them to relent so long as she kept an eye on things.

She makes a mental note to thank him more properly when they get back.

But for now, they’re tucked up in the mountains for the first time since the war. And even as it starts to rain, Ryū’s enthusiasm can’t be curbed. Home at last…!

As they make it to the head of the pass, looking into the valley below, she practically glows with happiness. “Look, there it is!”

Fog clings to the valley floor, but one can still barely make out the manor at the tail end. A few more miles, and they’ll be able to tuck in out of the rain.

Obito then comes up behind her, taking in the view. He’s really only seen it once, when he had to bring her here on foot. It’s...not a pleasant memory, so he’s glad to see it in better context this time around. “I still don’t understand why we couldn’t just use Kamui to teleport here...it would have saved so much time.”

“I know, but...until they ease up the restrictions on your chakra, we’ll just have to do things the old fashioned way,” Ryū replies with a weary smile. “...at least we got some exercise, ne?”

Obito doesn’t reply, just looking a touch grumpy.

Taking his hand, she leads him down the path and into the vale. “...you know...those clouds are starting to look rather dark...I think we’re in for a storm…”

“Really?”

“Mhm. We get quite a few during the more extreme months - both Summer and Winter. Something to do with the air temperature, but...I’m no weather expert.”

“So...we better get inside, huh?”

“Yeah, before it starts to - hey!” Squawking in surprise, Ryū latches onto Obito’s neck as he just...scoops her up. “What are you -?”

He simply grins, and starts sprinting toward the manor as the rain gets even heavier. Thunder rumbles like a giant taiko drum above them. Laughing and drenched, Ryū just holds on for dear life until they make it onto the engawa. The pair of them drip as they stand, Obito setting her back on her feet as they watch the rain fall and drizzle off the roof.

“Holy smokes!” Mopping her face with a hand, Ryū stares gleefully at the downpour. And her eyes get bright as lightning forks and thunder claps.

“...I didn’t realize you like this weather that much.”

“It’s just...part of being home. Konoha hardly ever gets any rain or storms compared to here. And it doesn’t really get any snow, either. So weather like this just makes me feel...at home.”

Obito watches her from the corner of his eye, seeing the genuine joy on her face. Looks like that have been fewer and farther between since the war. “...well, we better get dried off and warmed up before we get sick, hm?”

“Yeah, true...hopefully nothing got too wet in our packs!”

They head upstairs to the master quarters, unpacking their things and thankfully finding them mostly dry. Anything a bit damp is hung up to air out. Pulling off his mantle, Obito gives Ryū a glance as she disrobes. Even now, he still double checks her skin to ensure it really is completely devoid of marks.

“Nosy.”

The jesting remark makes him jerk slightly in surprise, seeing her looking over her shoulder at him coyly. “Er...sorry.”

“You’re the last person I mind seeing me like this,” she assures him with a light laugh. Nonetheless, Ryū softens, closing the gap between them. With all of Obito’s security arrangements, there hasn’t been much time for them to be together, let alone to any degree intimately. “...they really are gone.”

Taking that as a kind of permission, Obito gently smooths a hand along her side, finding the surface unmarked. “...guess it’s just a hard image to get out of my mind.”

“I can only imagine...I never got to see them as you did. But everything seems to be back to normal, as far as I’ve been able to tell these past six months. No fatigue, no marks...it’s like it never even happened.”

That earns a small furrow of his brow. “...there was more to that experience than the poison and the wounds.”

“Mm...I suppose. Maybe it just hasn’t sunk in yet. I just...haven’t really thought about it.” Ryū gives him another glance. “...I’ve had bigger things on my mind since then.”

“Bigger things than your own well-being?”

That earns a sly smile. “Don’t you know how I operate by now? Others first, me second.”

Obito’s expression deepens, but more into a pout than a scowl. “Well for me, it’s you first, me second.”

“I believe that puts us at a stalemate, then.”

They stare at one another, Obito pouting and Ryū’s arms folding stubbornly. After a solid thirty seconds of tense silence, it breaks with a slew of giggles.

“Well...for right now, we don’t have to worry about it, ne? Because for the next few days, it’s just the two of us. And nothing’s going to go wrong while we’re here. Shishō will make sure of that.”

“Yeah, you’re right…” They can save such discussions for another time. For now, they’re on a bit of a vacation. No heavy thoughts until they’re back in Konoha. This is supposed to be a break from...well, everything really.

“I was going to suggest we go enjoy the hot springs, but...maybe once the rain lets up. Which I’m guessing won’t be until tomorrow…”

“That’s all right. Maybe today we’ll stay in and listen to the rain.”

“That...sounds like a lovely idea. I’ll get the fire going and try to ward off some of the cold.”

“I’d do it if I had my katon…”

“It won’t take me long.”

Soon enough there’s a crackling fire in the cooking pit at the center of the manor. While it works on heating the main rooms, Ryū and Obito instead move back out to the front porch. A stolen blanket is thrown around their backs, the pair of them nestled along the edge side by side. Sighing and leaning her head on his shoulder, Ryū goes slack in contentment. The rain is still pouring, thunder and lightning dueling in the skies. It’s such a familiar, soothing sound, she’s soon dozing.

Sensing as much, Obito gives her a questioning glance. How can she sleep through all that ruckus? Sure, the hike up here was tiring, but...it’s like someone’s dumping a bucket of bolts on the roof! If she’s really that wiped out...should he take her in for a nap?

Something, however, stays his acting, and he instead just remains where he is. It is, in a way, sort of relaxing. The smell of wet earth is strong, the front garden dancing with every strike of a raindrop.

“When this is all over…when you come back…would you…stay here with me…?”

The recalled question - from the night before he left for the war - makes Obito wilt. She wanted so desperately to leave everything behind. To come back here, live at peace away from shinobi, and villages, and war. And now she’s tethered back in Konoha just as much as he is. Because Obito knows she’d never consent to come back here unless he could go with her...and the Kage would surely never allow it.

...he’d promised her he would. But that was when he was certain their world would be replaced by dreams. Now that they’re still here, in this reality...he can’t really keep that oath.

At least...not now.

Eyes dropped to his lap, Obito glances up at a particularly loud clap of thunder. And even then, Ryū doesn’t wake - just settles against him a bit more comfortably with a happy sigh.

...maybe they can’t have everything they want. But for him, at least...she’s enough.

     Flufffffffff. With a sprinkling of angst, cuz...you can't really avoid it past a certain point in the Distraction verse (which this is set in). Let these two go HOME. Heck Konoha, best village is Kusunokizan. It has a DRAGON.      ...anyway xD Late posting cuz today was busy, but! I've got more writing to do, so that's it for now. Thanks for reading!

#obiryū october #abyssaldespair #uchiha obito #suigin ryū #white hands of healing [ canon verse ]

[ukthxbye]

Three-word-prompts: weary, telenovela, comfort (sherlolly). Please?

Here is it :)

on ao3

“You have a cold, Molly,”

“I’m fine,” she sniffled. And then proceeded to sneeze five times with a cough to follow.

“No, you are not. Home,” he commanded, turning her from the direction of her office, with a hand on her back directing her path.

“Sherlock really…”

“Don’t try it. You’re going home.”

Too weary to argue, she walked with him outside, texting her superior. She fell half asleep in the cab, leaned against the window its coolness made her headache lessen.

“Thank you, Sherlock, I think I can manage now,” she managed, struggling for her keys in her pocket at her door.

He reached around her, used his own to open the door and ushered her inside and to the sofa. He pushed her shoulders down, and she complied, sinking into the comfort of being home.

Shrugging his coat off and then his suit jacket, he hung them near her door and strode to her kitchen without a word.

Loud rifling through her pantry and refrigerator and a loud grunt were all she heard before he came around back into the sitting room, exasperation evident.

“It seems you and I have much in common.”

“How?” she asked, dabbing her nose with a new tissue.

He rolled his eyes for a moment but it was not at the question. “Neither of us believe in the concept of keeping actual food in our homes. Though yours is bereft of spare parts for experiments which would have helped with the eventual boredom.”

She pulled her chin into her neck, confused, “I don’t do those things at home”

“But I am staying here to help and eventually you’ll sleep and I’ll get bored.”

“No you don’t have to stay, Sher–er…achoo!”

“Mmmhhmm”  is all he answered. “I am going to the chemist, I’ll be back”

“No I ‘ate how mets make pheel,” she murmured out with a very stuffy nose, before blowing it loudly.

“No matter. You need them.  Be back in a few,” he smiled as he slipped on his coat and stepped out her door.

She scrolled social media her phone for while waiting for him. She wondered why this was longer than just a trip to the chemist. She almost started looking up delivery for food, quite sure he got caught on a case. But she had switched over to Youtube and was watching funny cat videos when she heard the key in her door.

He placed an armload of items on the counter and she eased up off the sofa to look at his haul.

Boots meds in one bag that she rummaged through.

As stuffy as her nose was, a wonderful smell permeated it as he began opening containers. “Pho. Best cold cure I know,” he grinned as he searched for bowls in her cabinet. He found two large glass ones and she was too hungry and exhausted to inform him they were mixing bowls. Corner of her lips curled, watching him carefully assemble the soup and noodles and meat. He added so much chili sauce her the bowls she paused.

“Um I like spicy but–”

“It will clear your head, its worth the pain I promise,” he chuckled, setting a bowl of steaming pho in front of her.

“Sit, eat, now,” he directed, setting his own bowl beside hers.

“Water?”

“Yes, good idea” He gets them both a large glass of water.

They sat in quiet, slurping their soup and gulping water to quench the fire. She would have stuffed a tissue up her nose if she was by herself but decided against it in his presence. Her nose ran constantly but he didn’t seem to notice. He typed on his phone while slurping up a noodle.

“If you need to, you know, you got a case or anything…” she spoke softly, “I’ll be good, really”

“I can solve these from my phone, they are barely a 4,” he sniffed.

She swallowed hard, asking “Why are you doing this?”

He cocked his head, looking at her out of the corner of his eye. “We are friends,” he breathed out quickly and then tipped his bowl up to drink the last of his broth.

She didn’t look at him but smiled to herself as she finished the last of hers. Her head felt much clearer and she could breathe out one side of her nose at least.

He moved to the sofa, slipping his shoes off. “I am here for the day to make sure you get well,” he grinned.

One part of her logical brain thought he wanted a favor but the weary part of her mind accepted maybe he is just being nice for once and also maybe he is a bit lonely today. She knows John is on holiday after all.

“I’m going to get into something more comfortable, “ she advised, then realized too late the typical nature of those words as her cheeks coloured. “I MEAN… just some comfy, baggy pyjamas…and a robe probably.”

He appeared to take no notice of the slip, his face remained neutral.

“I wish I could join you,” he started, and added quickly “With the comfy clothes that is, of course.”

She turned her head to hide her awkward smirk. “I think you have a pair of pyjamas still here actually.”

“Ah”

“I’ll bring them in here for you if you want to change…that is if you are staying tonight.” She kept her head turned away, emptying her pockets onto the side table near her as an excuse not look at him.

“That may be the plan yes. We’ll see how you feel.”

She nodded and retreated to her room.

She found her favorite pajama bottoms and an old well-worn uni t-shirt. Big fuzzy dressing gown soothed her as the symptoms started to come back. She shuffled back to the couch, his neatly folded pyjamas in hand.

She flopped into her usual spot.

He was standing the kitchen, preparing tea and a fresh glass of water.

“Here drink this, and take these pills, “ he advised, handing her the water while setting down her tea.

She watched his pause, hand on the pyjamas, before he grabbed them up and went down the hall without a word, she presumed to change. She turned on the telly and found the channel she always looked for when she was sick.

Well, this is a helluva thing, she thought to herself. If she had a fever, she would assume this was all a hallucination, a fevered dream. But she knew the warmth she felt as he returned to join her on the sofa was not virally provoked.

Her robe suddenly became too toasty as he sat near her.

“I don’t want to make you sick, Sherlock,” she attempted to warn without conveying her awareness of his nearness.

He rolled his eyes a bit and gave her a side glance “I am already exposed and you know this. Hardly worth worrying about now.”

She felt her head start to ache again and closing her eyes, she laid her head against the back of the sofa near his shoulder  

He stared in silence at the television for a few moments, arms folded.

“Is this really what you want to watch?”

She cracked an eye open, searching his face for a moment before answering.

“I had a flatmate in uni from Mexico. We both got the flu one week and took care of each other. We found a channel showing telenovelas and just watched them the whole time we were sick.”

She shrugged, “Since then I like to watch them when I don’t feel good.”

“It’s the same drivel as our own television, only more colors and a different language”

“Mmhmm still like it anyway,” she murmured, the medicine starting to take its effect and ease her headache.

Soon she was asleep.

Her head shifted to his shoulder and in her sleep she settled into it, her hand landing near his. She snored softly but that was to be expected, and he ignored it.

He stiffened at the contact when her head fell into his arm, but relaxed letting her cuddle up close with no protest.

He wanted to throw his arms up that the detective in the show still has not solved the murder after an hour but he stayed still to let her sleep. But soon his arm became tingly and as he shifted he forgot to make sure she stayed upright. Her head slid down his arm and before he could catch her, she shifted in her sleep.

Now her head was laying on his thigh, and her hand on his knee. He froze in place, unsure whether to move over and let her head fall to the sofa. But he was trying to keep up with the story as well. He grabbed the pillow next to him and slipped it under her head instead, she seemed settled and sleeping peacefully. He knew this was the best medicine, despite the brief moment of thoughts and sentiment he felt watching her laying there.

And he recorded in his mind every millimeter of her face in sleep for his room for her in his mind palace without even realizing it. He pushed away those musings and focused on the inane but distracting storyline on the telly.

So there she slept for another hour.

His own weariness, or perhaps it was boredom, he found no interest in the repeating storylines. He stared down Molly, sleeping quietly. He followed the compulsion to move her hair from her face, after all, it might bother her in her sleep he reminded himself. He ignored that little quake in his chest as his fingers gently moved the chestnut strands behind her ear. He restrained reaction as she shifted once more in her sleep. He only thought of her comfort, which was a new process he found oddly relieving.

He wanted to lay his head down; he had found her sofa quite comfortable before for sleep. But he didn’t know what to do with her. In more than one way, he thought to himself. He resigned himself to the position he was in and let his mind slip off into slumber, his head leaned back on the sofa.

When she woke for a few minutes late in the night, she wondered if she indeed was feverish.

Laying down, her head rested on his arm, and she found her eyes focusing on the gray t-shirt he chose to sleep in. She risked looking up to see his stubbled chin.

He was holding her tight to him, and she gulped at the realization her arm was laying across his side rising and falling with his slow breathing.

When did this happen? Was this the meds? She ran her thoughts in circles but she knew he was not sick, he was under no influence. Something unconscious happened. But it felt too good for her to ruin it now.

Maybe I should have colds more often. Enjoy it and let the morning bring what it brings, she reminded herself as she snuggled in his arms, and he returned it in his sleep.

#sherlolly #fluff #hurt/comfort #Sherlock Holmes #Molly Hooper #ukthxbye is ficcing #Ukthxbye answers #juldooz #BUT ITS SO FLUFFY #don't get used it kids

[queerwelsh]

“Memory” by E. Prosser Rhys

E. Prosser Rhys won the Crown in the National Eisteddfod of Wales, Pontypool, in 1924, with “Atgof.” “Memory” is a translation by Hywel Davies.

MEMORY

THE STORY OF A SENSIBLE LAD

“The imagination of a boy is healthy, and the mature imagination of a man is healthy; but there is a space of life between, in which the soul is in a ferment, the character undecided, the way of life uncertain, the ambition thick-sighted … …” John Keats. In his second introduction to “Endymion.”

When hot with youth I fled down weary ways The suing voice and its insistencies; I would not listen to its warning lays Of hell encoiled within the heart of bliss. A coward thing, I said, were I to dim My ardent ways and take secure root, When I would yield myself to every whim, And taste delight of the forbidden fruit. But the pursuer followed after still, Nor ever did his divination fail; He witnessed all my torturings of will, He followed and he followed on my trail, Like some God given envoy during strife To ward me from the knowledge that is life.                 *               *               *                The smell of burning peats! Swift as light, It strides along the highways of my brain, Till I am filled with memories of delight, My own white house and the hedged fields again. Once more the little rooms, the glint of sun On ancient chairs, familiar ways and ease, And they who gave me life, the day being done, Dwelling in love’s divine consolaries. And I remember storms that whipped the door, Whilst I all swinkéd lay before the fire, Till beckoning sleep would show her magic store, And mother’s song waft me to my desire. And I would sleep, my weariness unfurled, Between the two most happy in the world.

Most happy in the world! . . . I lived to see Beyond the unruffled days of laughing youth, Their amorous contentment piteously Entangled, snared, grow pale and die in ruth. For here, and I growing, I saw one Who wept and raged in bitter unavail, And he, the father of her child, undone By whispers that were flame about the vale. The mother’s heart--though heavy be the road That winds between the Church bells and the grave,– It not oppressed by a more heavy load, Than dead desire and beauty that she gave To him whose blood is still unspent and lewd, Bound to her only by cold habitude.

Cold custom! Was it not a fault, allow, To moss her ever in her tiny bower, With passion’s tide so fickle in its flow, And fallacy our universal dower? Is it not vain the vowing unto God, And we blindfolded of our own desire, Rebelling vainly till death’s wink and nod, Rebelling vainly in our children’s fire? And I believed, there in the smell of peat, That love was but the lusting of the flesh, A swift, mysterious gladness it was meet That youth should lie with ere it slipped the mesh,– A wild, shy thing of the woods, no willing thrall To run this way or that at beck and call.

Our love at back and call! Did ever love, of yore, Concern itself with aught but its own needs? So tell me why should men strive evermore To bind her running feet with their small creeds? For her of old was courtesy a cloak; Her bright eyes shone above the tournament; T’was in her name the poets and sages spoke, And for her sake the plans of Kings were shent. Though stronger than the buttressed mountains are, More fickle is she than the playing breeze; Who holds her prisoned now shall find afar His truant fancy sailing the high seas. Stale custom shall not rust my spirit’s knife: To tread the caprice of Love’s dance in life.

To live! What then of him, the priest who saith That love o’ercometh passion and its evil? What of my home that was the home of death? Shall God created bliss be blamed the Devil? I shall take love even as it is, I said, With eyes afire and feet aflame to snare All women to the silver net I spread, And drown my senses in their tresséd hair. Great rock recesses shadowed from the sun Shall be the pantheon of my desire; Let all the birds sing out their praise as one, And all the winds touch now upon the lyre; May the white moon turn to Orion and the Wain, And laugh at twinéd love and its sweet pain.                *               *               * So ran my vow. And eager in pursuit The suing voice came riding down the wind: Think well before you taste forbidden fruit, And to thyself irrevocably sinned. Was it not wedlock that awoke from sleep, Suckled and fed and housed the infant mind? Released from its travailings in the deep Great Nature’s measures to preserve our kind? The pangs of birth are no vain chance of pleasure, The mother’s pain hath its appointed place, For this is Life’s glad offering of treasure Upon Love’s altar to redeem the race. Beware. The altar is too consecrate For love unruled and lust insatiate.                *               *               * The smell of earth! When Spring comes through the rain Out into shining days of clear delight, With deathless memories rustling in her train Of Love’s adventurings, and that dread flight, From out the shadow of fear and of reason, To where Love lies in glowing mightiness. And drinking deep of my own father’s treason I shamed away the whispers of distress. . . . The smell of earth! The smell of that clean sod Where I would soothe my weariness to rest; And now the thorn where was the rose. Dear God, That I should so have stained the white, the blest, Unversed in this: whatso the day has bred, Dreams in my bones, lives in my flesh, till dead.

But my desire was for the subtle wine Distilled in woman’s soul by gift of Jove. I live again the night I walked with mine To prove the perils of adulterous love. Loud were the shouts of labourers at the ploughs; Even and red lay the long furrow rills; Life was a song among the green leaved boughs; Life was a dance about the eternal hills. And joy was one with everything I saw, Joy to my ear all the sounds I head, And happy I--joy without end or flaw, And Life within my grasp, a fluttering bird, Her bright plumed wonder, as it were, tip-toe Upon expectancy, lest I should go.

Lest I should go! The vengeful night had chased Day from the hills; close to a lake we lay; We moved together and we there embraced; She hung her head abashed, but with my play Her sloe back eyes were filled with tender tears; I kissed her with my eager, full ringed mouth, Caressed her gently till she knew no fears, And she was passionate as the sun warmed South. And in upon our tranced selves there came The tide of our desire . . .  and we swoon . . . Is there another sweetness like to flame That turns to bitter memories so soon? We go our way. No word of love is said, And loathéd pleasure in my heart lies dead.

Mair, if we were nine and bound in love, Instead of twice that sum of sorrowing years, We would not know these wild desires that move Our tempest souls to ecstasy and to tears. We’d play at keeping house for our delight, Or row prodigious Queens across the ferries; We’d deck ourselves with flowers blue and white, And dine like faery folk upon the berries. If we could have our wish and live again The babbling days of happy innocence, Divest ourselves of knowledge and pain, And walk once more in our magnificence, Treading illusion’s way, our brains untaught In this poor truth of which the world is wrought!

In there be harmony in life, I said, It is to yield to passion’s every gust, But I its pilgrim now am surfeited, I forswear woman, turn away from lust. Woe unto man, great God’s unclean endowing Of wily woman’s soft, persuasive ways; To my intemperate and accursed avowing I sing a glad farwell for all my days. Frustrate is all desire, though we have clothed Its meagre loins with garments fir for Kings. To friendship do I vow myself betrothed, For comradeship is clean. Upon its wings Will I surmount desire. This is our tryst: Friend, I will go with thee wheree’er thou list.

So ran my vow, and eager in pursuit The suing voice came riding down the wind: Think well before you spurn the Master’s fruit, And to thyself irrevocably sinned. The comradeship of men shines out like gold Through all the chronicles of the star crossed earth; I give thee leave to travel with the bold, To grasp their steady hands and prove thy worth. But give not all thy faith to friendship’s rule From surfeiting of woman and desire; Thy glowing body shall not thus grow cool,– Two of one sex may know a hidden fire That may of comradeship make such a rue Shall thy far fleeing steps all time pursue.                *               *               * On Summer eves, the smell of new mown hay Borne faintly on a breath of dying wind, Brings back to me the many twisting way Of our companioning. There comes to mind The busy questing, and my winnowed choice Of friendship that would bless my eyes with truth, And grant respite from that incessant Voice, Nor leave my heart a temple unto ruth: And as I came upon the charméd stream Of Menai silvering from sea to sea, I met my mind’s own image, he, the dream, And greeted him my comrade happily, Sweet from the swathes of new mown hay these rose Incense to bind our lovely friendship close.

Oh golden haired and generous of heart, There is no secret hid away from thee, Of close communings from the world apart, Of dreaming towers raised against the sea. We said the world was evil to the core; We would have earth an earthly paradise,– Reshape its way to beauty evermore, So men might walk the world more kindly-wise. We vowed to trample nature to the dust, Make flesh a casket only for the mind; Though youth is swift to snare his feet with lust, To love’s enchantments were we now not blind? For we could hear, faintly from afar, Some singer singing of a fairer star.

A fairer star! The musing night was deep Between the high-pent hedgerows of the lane; The world lay quiet in a windless sleep; The scent of hay rose freshly after rain. Our hearts were of a sudden filled with ease, In some high Wisdom awfully arrayed . . . From a grey convent shadowed in the trees There rose a chant of praise to Mary Maid. We stopped. And there made chaste our hearts from greed, Anger and lust and strife, till strong within The holy words of that Latinian creed Singing of cloistered continence from sin, We chased down secret arches of the brain The world’s enchanteries and the world’s great pain.

The secret arches of the brain! . . . We kept No vigil on our thoughts, walled in from wrong That grave, fantastic night. And as we slept Our ears were tolling with the holy song, We slept, half drowsily aware, unwilling, Yet glad that each was in the other’s arm. And so desire . . . the flame of our fulfilling And sudden lapse of love’s ecstatic charms . . . And then awake, remembering what had been My brain became a pool of burning wroth: My comradeship and love, alike unclean, For all our sacring and our plighted troth. Wilt thou not leave me now alone, Desire, For I am sick to death of Life entire.

Life, in laughter and in loveliness! But Flesh is like a shadow over all; My richest dreams are dust and emptiness, And striving Soul is bound a slave in thrall. What art thou, Flesh, that shivers to the cold, Melts to the noonday heat, yields blood to steel, That walks, and sleeps, is lorded o’er by gold, That sees, and hears, is swift to know and feel? What art thou, Flesh? Thou art the unsought crown, That fickle chance of bodies trapped in lust; And that same lust, waking or lying down, Is pent again in thy sharp blood. Oh dust! And why, in this poor pot of earthenware Should’st Thou have poured a wine beyond compare?                *               *               * Another way I chose from out the mire, And still the swing voice came down the wind: Think well before you banish all desire, And to thyself irrevocably sinned. I bade the keep within the holy way Of Nature’s law, nor spurn her great design; I bade the not, in Friendship’s hour, bewray Thy hidden passion, no, nor drink that wine. Unheeding, thou hast sinned and surfeited On woman’s love, the comradeship of men; And now, oh fool, in thy fool’s heart hast said That death is in the touch of lips. What then? A love afar, unhoped for … Oh vain word! For life is soul and sense in sweet accord.

The smell of sea-weed! When the noonday sun Is bright upon the levels of the deep, To watch the children windblown to a run Of shrill delight across the sands . . . and weep! The smell of sea-weed! Festal life debates In the swift strains of music from the band, And maidens robed in white, sure Love’s oblates, Laughing at sunset in a green leaved land. The smell of sea-weed! . . . Wandering amazed, My senses dead from my adventurings, One from the throng of white clad maidens gazed With calm and level eyes… My pain took wings Before her slow smile dawning unafraid, I vowed swift hearted I should love the maid.

Her will I love, I said. Though carnal Lust And Love’s sweet self are in one body meshed, There is from God divinity will thrust The twain apart; beyond desire, unfleshed, Our ways shall move to splendour. Love has ended The mind’s submission to its yoked zest. . . . We held no converse, went out way unfriended; Looked not for kisses, knew nor lip nor breast. Walking the sea’s wide marge along the bight, Our glances met,–revealed our deep set bliss A cold, still flame of radiance burning white In eyes were swift to read and swift to kiss. Before our silent love there was unfurled Rich gifts that mute the poets of the world.

Mute is the tongue, for how should tongue make known The eternal saturnalia of the house? Where by the roadside many seeds were sown One spears the sod, makes glad the way with flowers. Her soul had windows where from deeps of blue A child’s white thoughts came peeping in and out; Her walk, her dress, her ways alike were true,– A vestal maiden armouréd about. And grudging Life, who had denied a crumb, With glowing hands poured treasure at the last Bound the wise world’s knowing … I stood dumb, Spell bound in awe, divinely chained, held fast, Wise fools awhile scraping that ancient lay That two and two is foolish children’s play.

Oh that smell of sea-weed holds in trave The hour we stained love risen from the sea. Perchance the bathers tumbled by a wave Troubled the secret waters heaped in me. There came a dream upon the wings of night, And I had pleasure of the mute, sad maid. . . Dawn in the East had set the world alight When I awoke . . . remembered the betrayed. . . God knows how agonised in bitter pain I wrought upon the death of my design; I walked the sun lit sands from hell’s lifted Sign, Away beyond the hills, for I had read Guilt in her eyes of what the night had bred.                *               *               * Deep in a wood I lay, and by me sate Pain for a friend. I cried: How vain Is all my girded armour against fate; Sure Lust has found a flaw, and Love lies slain. Wilt Thou from whom I fled by night and day Speak unto me, for I am stripped of fear? Strange Guide and my sure Prophet, say Where wisdom lies; speak, and I shall hear . . .   My head is cradled on a tuft of grass. . . The trees are shadowed from the burning sky. . . Heart of the world that beats, and beats. . . Pass, Little bird, fly on, away. . . A great wind’s sigh… The leaves are listening, tense … no breath, no sound . . . The Voice’s accents sweet, above, around.

You too have bowed your lusty head at last, Though long eluding down the evasive ways; There is no heart so secret, feet so fast, Can find a chamber privy from my gaze. A puny thing is Man! You named me here Your kindly Prophet and your own strange Guide. The suing voice that tracked you through the dread Vain trespassings, Thyself, and none beside! As though the life that teems about the fields– The ribbed oak or failest blade of green, Were to renounce the sap the good root yields Drawn from the earth that bore it, shaped it clean, And so renouncing, fail of leaves and flowers To pine in helplessness through death’s slow hours.

Lush from the roots that probe ancestral earth I am the sap that moves along your veins; Deep in the secret dark you hid my worth– Unblest of me, frustrate, thou hast known pains. I am nor good no evil,–but the taste Of earth, thy earth, is sharp upon my mouth. Perchance an unwise word may slip in haste; Perchance I make my law some out worn truth: But wise or foolish, thou thyself demeaning Both Soul and Body to my unseen end, In me thy Life shall find a richer meaning, A shriller laughter, agonises that rend, And peace in serving, chastened of His rod, Inerrably the purposes of God.

You yielded, yes, but not before long erring, And never sin was sinned but drew its wage. No shelter is there in the world’s wayfaring From retribution on the scoréd page. You will not know the smell of burning peat But memory shall come and clasp you hand; Nor joy of earth, but Spring with shining feet Shall lead you to the lake, and wave her wand. You will not know the scent of fresh cut hay, But Comradeship will come and sit with you; Nor smell the sea-weed drifting, but you pay Your desecrating love with bitter rue.                               * So must the price of sin be pain with hell, Till Memory’s sting is dulled, and all is well.

#e. prosser rhys #atgof #memory #lgbt history #queer history #lgbt history month #e prosser rhys died on this day in 1945 aged 43 #welsh history #welsh queer history #lgbt poetry #by m

[fableweaver]

Arc of the Cursed Monk

The rain fell from his wings easily and as Glen flew, he found the skin he wore seemed to know what to do. He flew through the rain blind as night fell, too afraid to stop. A streak of white and a crow’s call came from his left and Glen turned towards it. Pounding his wings, he joined the hooded crow, letting his wings stay open and glide in her wake. Just ahead flying silently was the great gray owl, her shape barely discernible in the night.

They flew all night and into the early dawn, light slow to creep into the sky from the dark cover of rain. At last the crow banked and wheeled, flying down into a corpse of beech trees. The owl followed gracefully and silently, Glen struggling to keep his wings open. The crow landed with a hop, the owl settling heavily to the ground. Glen tried to put his feet out, but his wings crumpled, and he misjudged the landing. He cried out, a quack issuing from his throat as he landed in a blackberry bush.

Grumbling, which only came out as more quacks, he waddled out of the bush. He saw Bailey and Pepper shed their skins in a shimmer of light, their forms warping out into their human forms. Bailey stooped and picked up Matt, who began crying. Pepper turned to Glen and crouched down before him.

“Ye need help gettin that off?” she asked. He quacked and she grinned at him. “Ye turned inta an ugly ducklin lad.”

She reached out and her hand seemed to go right through him, Glen feeling his skin crawl. He felt like all his limbs were asleep and tingling painfully as Pepper peeled the bird skin off. He felt his body stretch and suddenly he was himself again, sprawled awkwardly on the wet ground. He picked himself up to see Pepper had turned away and started setting a fire. Bailey sat on a rock rocking Matt as he nursed. The rain had stopped and the skins they had worn seemed to have kept them dry through their flight.

“We have ta go back,” Bailey said as Pepper lit the fire. Glen got up and sat by the fire, letting it warm his bones. He could see a salamander in the flames, glowing orange and red.

“Bailey ye looked from the sky n couldn’t see anything,” Pepper argued. “We flew far in the night, we baint find Ian.”

“I baint care,” Bailey said. “We rest a bit n then put the skins back on. We can fly back n search.”

“Those men killed Taras!” Pepper said. “Ye heard him scream, do ye really want ta go back n face men like those?”

“Ian be alone Pepper! He could be injured, n Will…” She broke off and sobbed, holding her child closer as she began to rock more.

“Ye have Matt,” Pepper said, and Bailey looked up at her angrily. “I mean ye have ta consider him. Ye really want ta drag him in ta danger gain?”

Bailey looked torn and continued her rocking.

“I c-could g-go b-back,” Glen said his teeth chattering.

“Nowt,” Pepper said. “Ye’ll only fall in a hole n break yer neck er worse get captured.”

She tipped her head to the side and Glen knew Melanthios was talking to her. Pepper turned and gathered wood, mostly green wood with leaves still attached to the branches. She started to toss these onto the fire and smoke began to billow.

“Pepper what ye be doin?” Bailey asked moving up wind of the fire.

“Mist gazin,” Pepper answered. “It worked afore with smoke n it’ll work gain. We can at least see ifn Ian be alright.”

She sat and stared into the smoke intently, Bailey joining her. Glen sat by feeling useless and decided he would try as well. As soon as he looked into the smoke, he saw shapes and he leaned forward intently. The shapes resolved into a man astride a horse, plodding along over rainy hills. It was Ian, astride Pepper’s horse, looking weary beyond measure. Glen saw red blood staining his tunic on his back a jagged cut running over his shoulders. In his arms still strapped to his chest was Will, who looked unharmed but sodden from the rain.

Ian looked up and for a moment Glen thought he could see him, but instead he turned his head as if listening. Glen saw something else come out of the smoke, another horse. For a moment he feared it was pursuit and telling by Ian’s look he feared so as well. But the horse bore no rider and as it trotted up Glen recognized Taras’ little horse Puzzle. It rode up to Ian and he reached out to it, then the scene dissolved in the smoke.

Glen gasped and blinked his eyes, tears coming as his eyes burned. He felt Pepper grasp his arm, leaning towards him.

“Ye saw somewhat?” Pepper asked excited.

“We baint seen anything,” Bailey said. “Did ye see Ian?”

“Yes,” Glen said and fit of coughing took him from the smoky fire. Pepper fussed with the fire until the smoke stopped, and Bailey gave Glen a drink from their only water skin. Pepper had managed to salvage some of their packs but only a few, just enough food and a bit of coin and essentials. At last he got his breath back and looked up at Bailey who was looking at him with such desperation he felt his throat tighten.

“Be Ian alright? N Will he baint be hurt? Did they get away?” She was almost rocking again, and Glen saw tears in her eyes.

“Yes,” Glen nodded, unable to tell her about the wound across Ian’s shoulders. He only hoped it was shallow, it had looked bad to Glen, but he had never seen anyone injured before. “He was r-riding Pepper’s horse.”

“Enbarr?” Pepper said. “Did he have his saddle?”

“I t-think s-so,” Glen answered.

“Good, I had some good supplies, so he be well provisioned,” Pepper said.

“Puzzle f-followed him,” Glen said.

“Puzzle?” Bailey asked.

“Taras’ horse,” Glen answered. “He’s s-smart. I r-rode him f-from L’acrimaros to Daun and n-never fell.”

“N Ian can talk ta animals,” Pepper said. “If Taras’ horse be half as smart as him he’ll lead him outta trouble. Do ye feel better Bailey?”

“Nowt,” Bailey said frowning. “Ian baint able ta feed Will. What’ll he do fer milk?”

“Ifn he gets ta a village he’ll get a goat er a nurse,” Pepper answered. “He ken’s we be bound fer Alda, he’ll follow.”

Bailey only frowned looking unconvinced. Glen couldn’t tell her about how Ian had looked, beaten and weary.

“He baint ken we got away!” Bailey said suddenly worried. “What ifn he goes back!”

“He won’t cause he kens it be too dangerous,” Pepper said.

“But he kens I be dead n Matt too,” Bailey said her voice reaching hysterics again. “He must be heartbroken.”

“Bailey we’ll die ifn we go back!” Pepper said. “We flew leagues through the night, but even then it might nowt be enough. We baint ken where we be, we might still be in lands that are still controlled by the Legion.”

Bailey only continued to rock back and forth in anxiety. Matt whimpered catching on to his mother’s mood. Pepper sighed frustrated and began pacing. Glen looked at both of them feeling his heart break for their suffering. He went to Bailey and took her into his arms, soothing her. As soon as he did he felt like he had done this very same thing before. Bailey turned into his chest and began to weep. Pepper paused and looked at him and Glen held his other arm out to her. She looked at him startled and then hesitantly walked over. He held her close as well and while she didn’t weep he felt her shoulders tremble as if in fear.

He felt a memory well up unbidden. Two little girls, their silver hair plaited, clinging to her skirts before a hearth as thunder rolled outside. They cried and she pulled them up into her lap and held them, humming a song to them.

Glen began to hum the song again, his voice breaking occasionally. The two women leaned against him and soon their breathing grew steady in sleep. Matt calmed and snuggled against his mother’s breast, falling asleep as well. Glen sat unable to sleep, staring at the fire and marveling at the memory that had come to him.

It had seemed like all his other memories, vague but clear enough for him to recall the smell of the hearth fire or the sound of rain. Yet it was not his own but Meadhbh’s memory. He wondered then if he could reach into his other lives as well, maybe into Lailoken’s and learn of his life. As Bailey and Pepper slept against him Glen turned his mind inward. He sat for a time trying to follow the path of that memory from Meadhbh, but he only found the silence of his own mind.

:You will not find anything: The voice in his mind first felt like his own doubts before Glen realized it sounded deeper than his own inner voice.

“Who’s there?” Glen asked looking around and seeing no one.

:I spoke to you: Melanthios said and Glen looked down to see his hand was on the sword that rested against Pepper’s thigh. :It is easiest to speak when we touch.:

“I see,” Glen said stunned to be speaking to the black dragon. Then he remembered that the dragon had said he had known Lailoken. “C-can you help me r-recover my lost memories?”

:It is not something to be done by meditating or soul searching: Melanthios answered, his mental voice strong with distain. :Most never recover all their memories, and you found one secret to unlocking them. Déjà vu is often just your spirit remembering past lives. If you follow familiar things, or people like the twins, you will remember things more easily.:

“B-but only of Meadhbh’s life,” Glen said. “I n-need Lailoken’s life, he knew Arke d-didn’t he? She is the one that k-knows what is going on and w-what will happen.”

:She like all of us is simply trying to do what she can: Melanthios answered. :I have no idea how great her powers of a Weaver are but I doubt they are enough. If they were, she would not be employing you.:

“A w-weaver controls f-fate right?” Glen asked.

:Weaver controls luck, very different things: Melanthios answered. :She has been contorting your luck for some time no doubt.:

“You mean she is the r-reason all those t-terrible things keep h-happening?” Glen asked.

:Not all but yes. She has probably been making ill luck fall around you so you would be banished from the Sect and set out on the journey that you needed to. However, you falling in holes and puddles is because your spirit sits in your skin wrong, your clumsiness is your bigger problem.:

“My spirit doesn’t s-sit right because Arke g-guided me back to life w-without the interval in Tir Aesclinn,” Glen said frowning.

:Yes, and do you hate her for this?: Melanthios asked but Glen already knew the answer. He could not hate her, not ever. He had never met the daughter of the rainbow and yet he felt a compelling draw to her that seemed to not only define him but give him reason to draw breath. The desire to meet her was great and Glen somehow knew that if he continued on the path Arke had chosen for him he one day would meet her.

:A blind fool, same as always Lailoken: Melanthios said with humor. :And yet it is that blindness that made Arke fall in love all the same. You should wake the twins, we need to cover ground before nightfall and we won’t do that resting here.:

“Is t-there d-danger around us?” Glen asked worried.

:There always is but none around us now: Melanthios answered. :I do not know where we are, borders do not appear on the land, but I think it wise we keep moving.:

Glen nodded and gently woke Bailey and Pepper. They had slept for only an hour while he had been lost in thought and then spoke to Melanthios. He had gotten no rest, but strangely he felt refreshed. Both women woke and rubbed their eyes, looking weary and burdened with sorrow.

“Melanthios s-says we should get m-moving,” Glen said reluctantly.  

“That’ll be hard without horses er coin,” Bailey said. “Do we have enough coin fer horses?”

Pepper fetched the few bags she was able to save and went through them. They only had two silver royals and fifty copper pieces. That wasn’t enough for even one horse, let alone three.

“C-can’t we fly m-more?” Glen asked.

“I baint flyin with Matt like that gain unless we need ta get away in a hurry,” Bailey said frowning. “He could have fallen.”

“Might be another form…” Pepper tipped her head to Melanthios and then sighed. “Melanthios says it be dangerous ta over use the skins n he be weary.”

“We be enterin the inner kingdoms,” Bailey said. “It baint be wise ta draw too much attention by flyin bout.”

“Aye,” Pepper said.

“How long would it be ta walk?” Bailey asked and Pepper shrugged. They both looked to Glen who felt his face burn.

“I d-don’t know,” Glen answered. “I d-don’t even k-know where we are.”

“A long time I bet,” Pepper said sighing wearily. “I saw a road from the sky, it be that way a bit. We’ll follow it east til we get ta a sign er village. We can figure things out from there. Maybe we flew a fair distance.”

Pepper set about dousing the fire as Bailey changed Matt quickly. They set out for the road, Pepper in the lead. Bailey carried Matt in the sling over her chest and Glen carried the bags, leaving Pepper unburdened as the guard. The road wasn’t far, a beaten dirt path barely big enough for a wagon to travel.

“This looks like a back road, like those Taras used,” Pepper said approvingly.

They began walking east along the road as the day grew old. They walked for the whole day without sign of people, walking through woods and hills. It wasn’t until the next day that they saw signs of people, coming upon a farm house. They rounded a bend in the road and out of the hills they saw a house in the distance.

“Ye two keep goin,” Pepper said. “I wanna take a look.”

Before either of them could say anything, Pepper took a step sideways and disappeared. Glen started and looked around, but Pepper had literally vanished into thin air. Bailey kept walking unbothered by her sister’s disappearing trick.

“Shouldn’t we w-wait for her?” Glen asked as they left the farm house behind, going again into the hills.

“She’ll catch up soon like,” Bailey said unconcerned. Glen couldn’t join her in her calm attitude and kept glancing back down the road. Yet Pepper appeared ahead of them, a sack slung over her shoulder, a couple of rolled blankets, a compact bow in her hand, and a quiver of arrows across her back.

“I got us some rolled oats n bread,” Pepper said handing the sack and blankets over to Glen. “With this I can catch us some rabbits.” She held up the bow, it was a worn thing used by hunters rather than warriors.

“You s-spent all that c-coin?” Glen asked as he added the sack to his burden. Pepper didn’t answer and he saw her look away. Glen had a sinking feeling in his stomach that she had not purchased these goods. “T-theft is a s-sin Pepper,” Glen said shocked.

“It only be a little,” Pepper said unconcerned. “N they had a dark mark on their door, they were with the Legion. I saw an Elmerian woman sos we still be in Borderlands.”

Glen couldn’t say that it didn’t matter who you stole from, it was still a sin. Pepper obviously didn’t care, and Bailey said nothing to her sister about her actions. Pepper turned and continued walking and they followed her.

After that they avoided other farms and walked for days avoiding people. Pepper proved skilled enough with the bow to catch a few squirrels and rabbits. Bailey’s knowledge of plants provided wild onions, mushrooms, berries, nuts, and greens. Glen wondered how she knew the local fauna when he saw her whispering to the gnomes. She followed them to a patch of mushrooms and picked them and thanked the gnomes for their guidance.

They passed other farms, but Glen could tell they were getting further apart. He had heard that a lot of the Mark’s population was clustered in certain places. A person could travel weeks without meeting any other person; the Mark had great swaths of wilderness. Glen worried about traveling such a kingdom on foot; it was taking them weeks to cover just the distance to the Mark.

They passed a village that seemed like it would be the last they would see for some time. The village was a group of only seven buildings; one an inn, the rest seemed to be homes or trading outposts. Glen started towards the town but Pepper stopped him.

“There baint be a Sect there,” Pepper said. “I may hate the Sect but it be a sign that the Legion controls that village.”

“You d-don’t k-know that for s-sure,” Glen said. “T-there are a lot of v-villages that d-don’t have a Sect.”

“Better safe than sorry,” Pepper said and turned away from the village. Regretfully Glen followed; he had wanted to sleep in a bed at least. Bailey looked regretful as well, but she followed Pepper along the road. A few nights later they were camped in a dell of elm trees, two streams meeting in a gurgling pool nearby. It was late autumn and Glen was glad of the sheepskin cloak he had gotten in Daun. The air was chilly and bitterly cold at night. The trees were all a riot of color, many were already bare.

“We baint continue at this pace,” Pepper said after they had eaten. She had remained lithe from their short rations and constant walking. Bailey finally dropped the last of the weight from her pregnancy, though her breasts remained swollen with milk. Glen felt like a scarecrow he’d gotten so skinny and gangly.

“We baint ken how far it be til the next village,” Bailey said. “We baint even be sure the road we’ve followed be good. Might be we should find un more commonly traveled.”

“Aye, we’ll see bout that a least,” Pepper said.

“A c-caravan would be a g-good way to t-travel,” Glen said. “S-since we can’t afford h-horses.”

“Aye well that’ll cost coin as well,” Pepper said, and Glen could guess then what she was thinking.

“W-we c-can’t steal h-horses,” Glen said warningly, and Pepper looked up at his tone. “I w-was an acolyte of Cael, the law. In the Mark h-horse t-theft is a h-hanging offense.”

“Why so harsh it just be an animal?” Pepper asked puzzled and worried.

“B-because the Mark is s-so b-big,” Glen answered, Gervase having explained the same thing to him before. He had been explaining the difference in laws for different kingdoms, using this instance as an example. “You n-never k-know if you are abandoning a m-man in the w-wilderness w-when you steal his h-horse. M-men have died without their m-mounts lost out in the w-wilderness.”

“Alright we baint steal horses,” Pepper said sounding more convinced by the moral argument than the legal. She didn’t fear a hanging, but she feared abandoning a man to the elements. “But we be in the same boat as that man without a mount.”

“We’ll ask the gnomes ta lead us ta a well traveled road,” Bailey said. “They’ll ken where un be. They baint give us directions since they baint speak but they’ll help us as they can.”

“Aye,” Pepper said sounding weary. “Get some rest Bailey, I’ll take the first watch.”

“N-no,” Glen said. “I’ll take the f-first watch.”

Pepper just shrugged before joining Bailey curled up together under a blanket. Glen sat staring at the fire, feeling weary and worried. Thousands of things could go wrong, and they were still in lands with the Legion in strong numbers. Glen also worried about Ian, they had all tried mist gazing but had seen nothing in the smoke again. Glen worried this meant Ian had died of the wound he had seen and feared telling Bailey. On and on his worries went keeping him up through the night.

“Glen De Modeste,” a voice said breaking into his depressed wonderings. Glen looked up startled but saw no one, Bailey and Pepper lay asleep together. The trees were dark around them, and Glen didn’t hear any foot falls or breathing. “Glen De Modeste,” the voice said sounding distant yet familiar and Glen felt himself answer the call.

He felt his spirit lift from his body, different than the times it had simply wandered. He could see the trees around him clearly and looked down to see his body slumped to the ground as if asleep. Bailey and Pepper didn’t wake, but Glen thought he saw Melanthios stir, the sword humming lowly. His spirit continued to rise up, a mist surrounding him. This part he was familiar with and he moved through the colored mist.

He tried to hear the voice that had called him but heard nothing. Instead he felt like he was being pulled along by an invisible thread, the mist swirling by as he was pulled along. Shadows rose out of the mist and he slowed to see a great gate rising before him. Marching between the arms of the arch Glen saw an elven woman. She held a great spear and looked ready to do battle.

“Who goes there?” She asked as she stopped and raised her spear. Glen almost stepped forward when he heard cold laughter. He shrank back in the mist afraid as a dark shape loomed out of the mist. The Crippled One stood tall over the elven woman, the aether around him darkening and gray.

“Aoife, I have come for you,” the Crippled One said sounding pleased.

“I am not yours filth,” Aoife said wielding her spear. “Gáe Bulg shall taste your blood once more unless you leave here now!”

“Your spear is useless here Aoife,” the Crippled One said. “I have an oath from your father that you shall be mine.”

“Lies!” Aoife shouted.

“You are bound to this oath!” The Crippled One said, his voice resonating. The mist grew darker and Aoife fell to one knee as the darkness crept on her. She snarled and raised her spear, Gáe Bulg’s blade flashed with light. The Crippled One howled in pain, the dark mist receding, and he lashed out with a swipe of his claws. Aoife cried out and blood sprayed through the mist as she fell, Gáe Bulg broken before her. The Crippled One hissed as he loomed up over her and Glen had had enough.

He raced forward to stand between the Crippled One and his prey, flinging his arms wide. As if in answer the aether around him swirled and condensed, shimmering between him and the Crippled One. Glen stood his ground even as he met the dead white eyes of the Crippled One.

“Stand aside!” The Crippled One hissed. “You cannot best me Oracle.”

“Leave this place,” Glen said but the Crippled One only hissed. He raised a twisted claw and brought it down on Glen’s shield of aether. It held but spider web like cracks spread over the shield. The Crippled One raised his claw again to strike when a cry sounded out of the mist. They turned to see the shadow of a dragon flying towards them, his form indistinct and wavering.

“Crippled One!” Melanthios roared and the mist rippled with his shout. The Crippled One did not hesitate; he turned tail and ran, vanishing into the mist. Glen let go of the shield wearily, the shield evaporating back into the aether. He turned and knelt next to Aoife as she gasped for breath.

The elven warrior was in bad shape, the Crippled One had sliced her from throat to navel. Glen gaged to see her chest split open and her heart beating out her life’s blood. Any mortal would be long dead, but Aoife was not mortal. Her spirit was failing though, Glen could see her hands and feet were beginning to fade away. Glen looked at her wounds helpless.

“The gate,” Aoife gasped out, blood bubbling from her mouth. “I protect the gate.”

“You did, the gate is s-safe,” Glen said feeling tears well up in his eyes.

“No, if I die he will get it,” Aoife gasped. “It must be hidden.” She looked up at Glen, her green eyes fading in color. “You were sent by Arke, you must hide the gate.”

“She is dying,” Melanthios said and Glen gave a start. He turned to look at the black dragon, his golden eyes burning in his shadow like two embers. “If she dies the Gate of Bone and Horn will fall into the Crippled One’s hands.”

Glen gaped at him, feeling suddenly lost. He looked up at the gate that stood as if it did not care its guardian lay dying between its arms. He looked back at Aoife as she struggled to stay alive, her red hair now dark with her own blood. He looked up at Melanthios but could read nothing from the shifting shadows of his face.

“I cannot bear her spirit when I have no form of my own,” Melanthios said. “You must carry her.”

“W-where?” Glen asked.

“I have a plan,” Melanthios answered. “Lift her and I will guide you.”

Glen turned back to Aoife and lifted her from her shoulders and knees. She moaned and Glen felt blood run down his chest freely. He grunted, she weighed far more than she appeared. The weight of her spirit was like lifting a building stone and Glen stumbled to lift her. He felt a steadying hand, but when he looked it was Melanthios aiding him in standing. Glen turned and the black dragon guided him through the aether. As he walked Glen felt the elven warrior’s spirit weight more and more even though she faded in his arms. Had he had the mind to look he would have noticed the gateway swirl away in the aether disappearing like a mirage.

His vision began to darken and Glen struggled to take breath. Suddenly his feet fell out from under him and Glen pitched forward, waking into his own body lying on the ground. He groaned, feeling as though a great weight was on him, he couldn’t rise. Glen rolled onto his belly and looked over at Bailey and Pepper.

They both still slept, but Melanthios lay in arms reach. Glen reached out and took hold of the hilt of the blade, feeling the crushing weight of Aoife’s spirit lift slightly.

:Good, you need to get to Bailey: Melanthios said and Glen grunted in response, unable to form words. His ears were ringing, and his eyes swam in and out of focus, and he felt as if the ground was lurching under him. Like swimming through tar, he made his way over to Bailey who slept soundly, Matt wrapped in her arms. He reached her and put his hand on her shoulder.

:Put your hands on her belly: Melanthios instructed. Glen pushed himself to his knees, his head swaying, and put his hands on Bailey’s belly with Melanthios in his lap. His vision was swimming so much he thought he saw a glint of light between her hips, like the light reflecting from a piece of metal. :Focus on that light, let Aoife’s spirit into that light.:

Glen felt the pressure lessen as Aoife’s spirit left him and into Bailey. Bailey stirred, her brow furrowed and breathe coming short. She didn’t wake but Glen could see her struggle under Aoife’s spirit, feeling her heartbeat flutter under the pressure.

“Stop,” Glen gasped. “This is hurting her.”

:Aoife will die if she is not housed somewhere: Melanthios argued. Glen shook his head and with his spirit reached out to Aoife’s again, trying to draw her back into him. Her spirit, fragile already and hurt from her ordeal, shattered as he grasped it. Glen saw the light of Aoife’s spirit fall in three pieces into Bailey, the light within her dividing into three in response. Bailey gave a sigh of relief and settled back, her spirit calming. Glen removed his hands surprised Bailey had not woken.

:I made sure she did not wake: Melanthios said reading his mind.

“W-what did I just do?” Glen asked feeling as though he had been hit over the head.

:You placed Aoife’s spirit in the child forming in Bailey: Melanthios answered. :I didn’t expect it to split into three, I guess the only way she could bear Aoife’s spirit was in pieces.:

“Did I…” Glen was unable to finish that sentence but Melanthios knew what he asked.

:Put the child in her? Of course not she’s been pregnant for weeks; I could sense the child forming in her.:

“B-but she’s been t-taking herbs,” Glen objected though he was relieved.

:Those don’t always work: Melanthios answered. :Bailey is strong in the Elder Magic and a woman’s power is in her womb, I’m not surprised herbs don’t work on her all the time.:

“We have to t-tell her,” Glen said.

:She’ll realize she’s pregnant soon enough: Melanthios said.

“N-not about t-that,” Glen said. “About Aoife.”

:She’ll realize that as well: Melanthios answered. :Bailey is strong in the Elder Magic, especially after giving birth once already. She can bear Aoife’s spirit. And she has Pepper and you and me to help her through this.:

Glen felt better at Melanthios’ words, wanting to believe the dragon when he said it would be alright.

“Aoife s-said Arke called me,” Glen said.

:She saw Aoife’s danger and called on you to protect her: Melanthios said.

“W-why not you?” Glen asked.

:Her ties to you are stronger, I assume she tried to call out to me but I did not hear her. She knew you would come and I would follow when I saw your spirit wander.:

Glen, feeling a bit better now after Melanthios comforted him, moved away from Bailey and sat by the fire.

“So you came to the rescue,” Glen said.

:I knew Aoife’s spirit was dying and I could think of only one solution: Melanthios answered. :I could not bear her spirit but you could, and put her into Bailey.:

“What about the Gate?” Glen asked.

:It was a lost place until Aoife found it and made it her own: Melanthios answered. :With Aoife hidden the gate is hidden as well, the Crippled One cannot find it.:

“W-what is it?” Glen asked. “You c-called it the Gate of Bone and Horn.”

:I don’t know: Melanthios answered and Glen felt the lie. Talking mind to mind was strange, like only hearing a person’s voice, Glen could hear more in his tone than if he could see a face. Yet if Melanthios chose to lie there was no way Glen could think of to make him tell him the truth. And maybe it was best he not know what the Gate of Bone and Horn was.

He sat looking at the fire feeling even more worn out than before, misery like a wet cloak on his shoulders. Glen knew he had to tell Bailey eventually, but he feared telling her. Pepper would be furious, and then Glen thought of Ian. He didn’t know Bailey carried his child, and that now that child was something more than human. Children, Glen had to remember that there were now three babies in Bailey. He wasn’t sure how that worked, how could one spirit be split into three? What would it mean for the children? Would they have one mind or a mind split into three? Was Aoife still even alive or was she something different?

“Glen.” He jumped at the sound of his name and turned to see Pepper was awake. He almost blurted everything out to her, but fear made him stop. He didn’t want her to hate him. “What ye be doin with Melanthios?” Pepper asked.

“I… I was j-just ah… Asking him advice,” Glen answered, the lie souring his mouth. “About r-recovering my p-past lives.”

“N did he help?” Pepper asked.

“N-not really,” Glen said, and Pepper rolled her eyes.

“Aye he be a useless lump o iron alright,” Pepper said, and Glen felt Melanthios growl, but in a good-humored sort of way. “I’ll take him n the watch now. Get some rest ye look as pale as milk.”

Glen nodded and handed the dragon blade back to his wielder. He lay away from Bailey, guilt still heavy on his heart.

The next day they rose and went back out to the back-country road. Bailey found a couple of gnomes easily and asked them to guide them to a more used road. Glen was amazed by how intelligent the Wild Kin could be sometimes, they seemed little better than animals yet with a touch of power a witch could make them understand them.

It took most of the day to find the road, having to travel a few animal paths through some wooded hills before at last they arrived. It was unpaved but gravel covered the road making easier passage for some. The road went south east, and they followed it, keeping to the side. Pepper often warned of people coming and they hid in the bushes before they were seen.

Often it was a cart passing by, a farmer riding with his crop. Sometimes it was a couple of horsemen, one time a merchant and his wagon. There were also those who were on foot, farmers or other locals walking on their way, Glen seeing a pilgrim pass by. The people were mostly Elmerian, but there were also Markians mixed in which was a good sign that they might be getting deeper into the Mark.

They always waited for the people to pass before they rejoined the road. This made for slow progress, and they had to camp often. About four days after they joined the road Pepper heard hoof beats from behind them and once again led them into the bushes. They crouched down and waited for the horse to pass.

It was a single rider astride a Markian highland pony, a molted green gray cloak over his shoulders. Glen didn’t need to see the long bow or dagger at the man’s belt to know he was a Ranger like Taras. He could see little more of the man as he had his hood drawn up, yet Glen felt a chill down his back as if he had seen a ghost. Sorrow followed quickly, seeing a man just like Taras alive while he was dead.

“That be a ranger,” Bailey said surprised. “We should give him Taras’ message.”

They hadn’t opened the little message tube Taras had given Bailey out of respect, yet she still carried it.

“Bailey I baint sure…”

“He gave his life fer us Pepper the least we could do is pass on his message,” Bailey said. “N he could aid us.”

Before Pepper could object more Bailey stood and headed for the road. The ranger was starting to pass them already but stopped when he heard Bailey walking through the bushes, his hand dropping to his belt. Pepper followed Bailey quickly, and Glen stood to follow. His feet tangled under him and Glen fell into a blackberry bush, the thorns plucking at his clothes and hair.

Grumbling he started to detangle himself from the bush and heard Bailey arrive at the road and approach the ranger, so he stopped to listen.

“Greetings,” Bailey said. Glen could see her feet from under the bush, and Pepper’s joined hers. “I be Bailey n this be mine sister Pepper. We have a message fer ye.”

“A message?” the ranger said puzzled. A moment passed in which Glen assumed the tube was handed over, but he couldn’t see from his prone position on the ground. Glen then saw men’s boots land on the ground as the ranger dismounted and approached Bailey and Pepper. “Where did you get this?” His voice was low and dangerous.

“From Taras Law,” Bailey answered unflinching.

“He be dead,” Pepper added and from her tone Glen guessed her hand was on her sword.

“I would hear this tale from you,” the ranger said. “If you would come with me.”

Glen worried he would be left behind and was about to pull himself out of the bush when hoof beats sounded down the road. Glen saw another set of horse hooves join the group and then a set of shiny black riding boots.

“Loris what is going on?” A man with authority asked. “Who are these women?”

“They bear a message milord,” Loris the ranger answered turning toward the other man. There was a moment of silence where Glen guessed the message was passed over. “Taras Law is dead.”

“Damn those Regarian scum,” the man growled angrily. “They will pay for this.”

Glen shrank back in the bush from the man’s voice, he sounded ready to murder someone.

“We do not know it was the Regarians milord,” Loris said. “These women can tell us the tale.”

“Who are you?” the lord asked Bailey and Pepper. “Why were you traveling with Taras?”

“I be Bailey n this be mine twin Pepper. As fer why, well that be a long story.”

“Un we be willin ta tell ifn ye’d be kind enough ta give us a ride ta the Aldan border.”

“We will take you as far as Warren but after that I make no promises,” the lord answered. “The rest depends on your story.”

“N who be ye ta detain us?” Pepper asked boldly.

“Prince Orus, second son of King Lonna of the Mark,” the lord answered coolly, and Glen tried not to gasp in surprise. What was one of the princes of the Mark doing riding around the border?

“Aye princeling well we be yer guests then,” Pepper said. “Let me just go get our bags, I left em back in the bushes.”

She turned and Glen saw her feet walking back towards him into the bushes. He turned and saw Pepper standing over him and she crouched down to his level.

“Ye really do get stuck in some bad places,” Pepper said shaking her head. “I’ll get ye out really easy.”

“W-wait,” Glen said in a whisper. “I don’t t-think it’s a good idea I g-go with you. You h-heard Prince Orus.”

“He baint kill ye n unce we explain…”

“Will he listen l-long enough?” Glen asked and Pepper looked sour. “I w-won’t interfere w-with maybe your one c-chance t-to get to Alda s-safely.”

“What’ll ye do then?” Pepper asked frowning. “Ye’ll fall in a hole fer sure.”

“I c-can make it,” Glen said. “I’ll go back to Menfer. I c-can get h-help at the n-nearest Sect. I’ll b-be fine.”

“Ifn that be what ye want,” Pepper said looking sad. Glen remembered Bailey and reached out to Pepper.

“Pepper t-there’s…”

“What is taking so long?” Prince Orus called from the road.

“Fair winds ta ye,” Pepper said to Glen and took the pack that had their regular essentials, leaving Glen the food, blankets, and coin. She stood and returned to the road hefting the pack. “Sorry, the bag were stuck in that bramble yonder.”

“Just mount up,” Loris said. “We’ll ride double until we reach Middleton.”

“We baint ken where we be,” Pepper said. “Middleton be the closest town?”

“There is a fork in the road ahead,” Loris answered. “Middleton is the north fork; we’ll be there by nightfall.”

“N ta the south fork?” Pepper asked.

“That leads towards Regis,” Loris answered. “Mayville is two days ride from the fork.”

“Why do you need to know that?” the Prince asked suspicious.

“I just asked where we were,” Pepper answered peevishly. “Be it wrong ta wanna know where I be?”

“Only if you are a spy,” Orus answered and Glen saw Pepper take a threatening step towards him when Bailey stepped between them.

“We baint be spies o the Regarians,” Bailey said coolly. “Pepper just be curious since we’ve been walkin blind fer weeks now. Ye sir be awfully rude fer a prince.”

A tense silence was cut by Orus sighing heavily.

“I am sorry milady for the insult,” Orus said. “My faith in people has taken a blow since what the Drasirs had done to my family.”

“What happened?” Bailey asked. “We baint heard anything.”

“Besides stealing my sister in marriage that bastard of a king cut off my brother’s hand,” Orus answered bitterly. “And is there anything we can do? No. This is tyranny!”

“I take it there be a long story ta all that,” Pepper said unimpressed. She would be too; her whole family had been burned by a dragon. “Might be a good idea we can go tell tales o’er tankards in Middleton.”

“Agreed,” Loris said mildly. He mounted his horse and Pepper mounted behind him. The prince helped Bailey mount his stallion before mounting behind her and the group rode off down the road at a steady walk.

Glen waited until the hoof beats had disappeared and extracted himself from the bush, tearing his cloak and robes a bit in the process. He stumbled out onto the road and saw it was clear. He stood for a moment in the middle of the road feeling so utterly alone. He suddenly wanted to run after them, but he knew it was too late.

Dragging his feet, he walked on alone. He reached the crossroads near evening, Sol sinking low in Empyria. Glen realized he had been neglecting his prayers; maybe this was why the gods had abandoned him. He stopped to offer his prayers and looked at the sign at the crossroads. It was written in Markian, the common trade language had no written form. He looked to the left which led north wishing to follow that path.

Then he turned to face south. The Sect knew nothing of the Crippled One. He was sure by now the Legion had made themselves known and the Sect would be battling them for control of the spiritual health of the people. They did not know the full powers of the Legion, or what the Crippled One was capable of. Glen realized his people needed to be warned of this evil spirit.

And then there was the Phay. The Sect despised the Phay, but maybe Glen could convince them that the Phay were indeed real and people that needed sanctuary. If he didn’t then war could break out after the Phay marched. Maybe this was his path after all.

His heart heavy Glen stepped onto the southerly path. After months of traveling the kingdoms Glen was heading home.

#fantasy #series #writing #please read #dragons #fairies