#it's ridiculous to spend all those miles LOOKING for good villagers and there's not nearly enough there to justify the cost

[stars-a-n-d-scars]

10 Days of Summer - Chapter 1

Hi so no one was really seeing this over on ao3 and I worked really hard on it, so I decided to give it a shot over here. The next 9 chapters will be coming soon, so follow me or the tag to see them!

- Mia x

*

It was the hottest summer Buckinghamshire had ever seen. The rolling fields were dusted with the final remnants of spring, as the less-resilient plants wilted and those suited to the sweltering conditions flourished. The sun sat high in the sky for so long that one began to wonder if the night would ever come. Of course, it always did, but was rarely accompanied by any sort of liberation from the fervor.

The only relief to be gleaned from the unnerving sensation of being cooked in your own skin could be found in the cool waters of a large, clear lake that sat beside a homely manor, nestled in the hills of the county. Hidden beneath the outstretched branches of various trees, the lake had been subject to many a morning swim or late-night gathering over the years. It was here, in fact, that the four marauders could be found, on the hottest day of August, 1975.

With Euphemia and Fleamont gone to France for the summer, the boys had taken the opportunity to spend their last 2 weeks at the Potter estate. Of course, James’ parents had been reluctant to let the boys stay there without a set of rules, and so they created a long list of guidelines, all of which the marauders had plans to break before their return to Hogwarts on the 1st of September. It had already been four blissful days of this, and they still had 10 to go when we join the group.

Sprawled in their various positions around the lake, James Potter, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew were all basking the shade of the trees, simply taking in this pocket of bliss they had found in a world that was becoming increasingly more war-like with each passing second. The sun was shining overhead and they were with each other. And in that moment, that was all they needed.

The silence was broken with a loud splash, followed by an indignant “OI!” Remus clambered out of the water and up the bank, his eyes fixed on is assailant, vengeance in his expression.

“You fucking moron! I was reading! You could have thrown any one of them into the lake! Merlin knows a good dip would’ve done Peter some good, but no! You had to choose me!” His outburst was cut short when he got close enough to take in Sirius’ expression. His face, far from showing any signs of regret, instead bore his signature Sirius Black smirk. One corner of his mouth was upturned, his nose scrunched in a way that suggested both innocence and the opposite. It was an expression that, on anyone else, would have looked out-of-place and frankly stupid, but that befitted Sirius’ features perfectly. Remus had often marveled at how it drew out his devilishly handsome side.

Having lost his train of thought completely, his wand limp in his hand, Remus decided the best thing to do was to go and find a nice warm patch of sun in which to dry off. Sirius, however, had other plans. Remus had barely taken two steps toward his towel before he was grabbed around the waist and thrown, for the second time that day, headfirst into the water.

Sinking was an enjoyable feeling. Down there, in the water, nothing could hurt you. It was all up to you. Sound became nothing but a detached concept, and time joined it in its alienation. You could sink forever, simply being engulfed by the soft waves of the water, and emerge not a second later. Remus did just that. As his head broke the surface, spluttering, he lashed out wildly and managed to grab hold of an ankle. Pulling hard, the owner of said ankle tumbled into the lake next to him, and Remus soon found himself floating, face to face, with Sirius, once again bearing that ridiculous grin.

As both of the boys tried to catch their breath, time stopped. And it was just them. Remus and Sirius, Sirius and Remus. Floating in that never-ending pool of possibilities. Breaths became heavy as an invisible force seemed to draw them closer, closer.

Their noses were nearly touching now Remus could see every detail of Sirius’ eyes from here. He could almost pinpoint the exact place where blue leaked into grey, which leaked into black. It was strange, really, how anyone’s eyes could be so captivating. Almost a point of curiosity. Eyes had a purpose. They captured light, which was then translated into information, which was then processed by the brain to take in the person’s surroundings. So why did all logic defy Sirius’ eyes to be so beautiful? They had no reason to be. It wasn’t to make it easier to see. It wasn’t to draw in a mate (because merlin, he needed no help with that), so why? Their breath mingled in the moist summer air, their lips inches apart. It was taking every ounce of restraint that Remus had in his not to close the gap and snog his best mate senseless, but then again, that was the norm when you were secretly in love with your best friend.

The tensions was shattered by the snap of a book closing.

“Alright, boys, I’m bored”, James announced, stowing Quidditch Through the Ages in the small bag he had brought down from the house. The boys sprung apart, all nervous coughing and straightening of hair. Remus hurriedly turned his back on his – what, crush? It was more than that. But he knew one thing for certain; now was not the time to figure it out. This was what he told himself as he climbed up the bank and rolled out onto the grass.

In an attempt to restore himself to his former state of nonchalance, Remus rolled his eyes sarcastically (quite successfully, given the situation he was actually thinking about).

“You’re reading that book again? You’ve barely taken your hands off of it all summer!”, he said, pulling Sirius up the bank after him (and definitely not thinking about the sensation of his friend’s warm, wet hand in his).

Sirius grinned. “Aw, lay off him Rem. This is the first year Lily had gotten him a birthday present. Honestly, I would be concerned if he read it any less than a thousand times.”

This comment was met with a playful shove from James, but the lovesick boy couldn’t hide his grin at the recollection of Lily’s favor. James shook the memory from his mind (with difficulty, it seemed).

“I’m bored. Let’s go to town, grab a milkshake or something.”

Sirius, always keen for an outing to the muggle town that was located less than a kilometer from the Potters’ house, agreed almost immediately. Peter followed suit at the mention of food, and began rummaging in his pocket for the stash of muggle money his parents had granted him for the holiday. Remus was somewhat more reluctant.

“I don’t know guys. It’ll be dark soon, and I don’t really want to go walking around a strange village in the middle of the night.”

“It’s not a strange village, Rem! Jamie grew up here!” (The use of the less-than-favorable nickname earned Sirius yet another shove). “Plus… there’s an antiques store. And last time I was there the owner said they’d be getting a new stock of books in this summer.”

“You know me too well”, Remus caved, and packed up his stuff. They went and dropped off their things at the main house, got changed into some town-going clothes and headed for the road that led down into the charming muggle settlement of Padbury.

**

It really was a lovely little town. Old cottages with thatched roofs skirted the border, with carefully-trimmed gardens of heather and honeysuckle. A beautiful old church sat in the town center, with a clock tower and a bell that frankly, shouldn’t still be operational, given it’s age. But, as many things in the town of Padbury, it seemed to be denied the effects of the passage of time, and instead chimed beautiful notes out over the countryside every hour.

The main road took the boys right into the middle of the town, where a collection of stores seemed to be waiting for them. The town square had everything, ranging from mechanics to diners, from supermarkets to florists. And, nestled in between a non-descript restaurant and a lavender-adorned wall, was a beautiful little antique store. Remus made a beeline for it, but was stopped in his tracks by James’ hand on his wrist.

“Come on Remus. Let’s go check out that comic-book store first! I love muggle comics, they’re so corny…”

Remus sighed, knowing that very few people could ever change his friend’s mind, and began to follow him across the street. But fortunately, Sirius was one of the people capable of performing that miraculous feat, and, in that moment, happened to be on Remus’ side.

“C’mon James. Remy doesn’t want to spend hours with you oggling at randos in spandex and getting inspiration for your next move at Evans. You take Pete over to the comic-book store, and Remus and I will go to the antiques shop.” Sirius shot a smile Remus’ way, which managed to both make his heart beat a million miles a second and stop it altogether.

James scoffed. “What do you want with an antique shop?”

“I have to get something for Reggie’s birthday, and he loves old dusty books and things. Plus, I have no desire to spend any amount of time dicussing whether or not Lily would think it was funny if you dressed up as Superman for halloween.”

Without giving James a chance to retort, Sirius dragged Remus back across the street and into the antique store before he even had a chance to register what was going on.

The second they entered the store, the rest of the world fell away. Somehow, the noise of the bustling street outside was silenced, and the only sound that could be heard was the ticking of an ancient grandfather clock that stood in the corner. Remus revolved on the spot, taking in every inch of the sequestered nook that they had just stumbled upon. Ornate carvings of all sorts sat in the windows, varying from animals to sprawling, intricate landscapes. Tapestries and paintings hung on the walls, each a moment of time, perfectly captured and eternalised on canvas. Furniture, bits and pieces and other oddments that had washed up in this place over the years were scattered haphazardly around the room, making for a display of authenticity that, although was now mostly gone from the world, seemed to have survived in this tiny corner of the English countryside. And the books. Oh, the books. They lined ever wall, and were stacked 10 high on shelves. Strewn and slid into every nook and cranny where they would fit. Not in any way categorized, but instead exactly where they were always meant to be. Delicate printings of Jules Verne, Ernest Hemmingway and even Shakespeare were mixed in with books as common as The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Remus closed his eyes and breathed. He breathed in the smell of dust and time. He breathed in the taste of the years these books had seen, the years he might catch a glimpse of between their pages. Be breathed because here, he could.

A soft hand rested on his shoulder and an even softer voice pulled him, somewhat reluctantly, from his reverie.

“Rem?”

Remus opened his eyes. It was Sirius. God, it was always Sirius.

“I’m going to look over here for something for Reggie”, he gestured to the carvings in the windows. “You take your time, okay? We have all day. Hell, we have all summer.”

Remus could do no more than nod as the comfortable weight on his shoulder lifted and he found himself alone again.

**

An hour and a half later, the boys exited the store with more books than anyone could possibly read, and two small, hollow carved flowers that Sirius had plans to enchant so that he could send his brother messages by placing a note inside his, and having it be transported to Regulus’.

They met up with James and Peter in the diner, and ordered four caramel milkshakes. When they came, Sirius whipped out his flask and added a little ‘extra flavour’, as he liked to call it. When the boys had finished their concoctions, they started to head home. However, it was quickly discovered that with the combined weight of Remus’ books, Sirius’ wooden flowers and James’ numerous gifts that he had gotten for Lily (“Maybe we should have gone with him, you know, for impulse control…”), it was going to be all but impossible to walk back to the manor. And so was hatched what was simultaneously the best and worst idea any of the marauders ever had. To rent a motorbike.

All they had to do was walk down to the mechanic down the street and rent one of the bikes they had going. They would only need it for a day, and would bring it back tomorrow. And so, the combined riches of James and Sirius making cost something of a trivial topic, the plan was enacted. The books were placed in a basket on the front, which was lowered so that Sirius could see. James’ takings from the trip were strapped (with slightly excessive security methods) to the back, and the flowers were placed in the side bags. After a few failed attempts at getting the bike started and close calls for the wooden ornaments, Sirius managed to be riding along next to the other boys at a steady pace. It took them no more than 20 minutes to get back home, at which point it occurred to them all that they were wizards, and could have easily bewitched all of the objects to float along beside them as they walked.

The boys ended the night collapsed around the living room fire. James charmed it so that it kept them cool, rather than warm, and Sirius entertained himself by making multi-coloured rainbows blossom from his wand. In the firelight, he looked over at Remus and smiled. Not a smirk, not a grin, a smile. And that smile what all it took for Remus to realise that he was totally and completely done-for. He was in love.

As Sirius went back to blowing bubbles, Remus began to drift off to sleep. The last coherent thought that entered his mind that night was this:

Merlin, it’s going to be a long 10 days.

*

I hope you liked it!!!

#10DaysOfSummer #wolfstar #marauders #maraudersera #siriusblack #remuslupin #jamespotter #hp #jily #peterpettigrew #lilyevans

[blarrghe]

Twelve Nights

Modern au fic where BusinessMan McMoneybanks Dorian Pavus meets LocalArtist Outdoorsyguy Taren Lavellan whilst on a trip to a Fancy Ski Resort In The Mountains with his Terrible Family, and learns the True Meaning of The Holidays (it's love). Now with added subplots and a plan! This fic is my holiday obsession, it's going to be tropey and fluffy and sweet, and not terribly long. Set in some kind of vaguely Thedasian modern au, with Dalish elves and dwarves and the like, but no actual magic, only *~holiday magic~* Rated M for not-very-explicit sex. Excerpt under the cut. Read it on AO3!

The air was crisp, and perfectly still. The thunk of Dorian’s car door slamming shut sounded out soft, almost muffled by the quietness of the snow-covered street. There were no other cars parked in the tiny lot in the centre of it, which divided two rows of quaint little shops on either side. The street rejoined itself around the empty parking lot and wound away in either direction. The side streets that branched in awkward zigzagging patterns off of it, sparsely lined with picturesque little cottages with wide yards of snow between them, weren’t even plowed. The main road ran up and down; up, winding slowly through a forest of trees and disappearing into the mountainside, and down, towards a glowing town square lit up at its centre by a tall, festively decorated pine tree. 

Dorian watched his breath form a cloud of mist in front of him, and pressed the little button on his keychain. His car’s lights flashed, and the horn beeped once, obnoxiously loud against the silent scene. For a moment, he glanced up the road, and then lifted his head higher, arching his head way back to take in the peaks of the mountains overshadowing the quiet town. The sky was fading into sunset, and pink light glowed through the trees and sparkled off the snow in the distant mountaintops. The mountains loomed quietly, shining in orange and peach with dark evergreen trees blanketing around their roots, and among them little golden lights from mountainside cabins were glowing softly through the snow. It was beautiful and serene, like a scene directly out of a holiday card, and Dorian hated every single thing about it. 

He sighed, breath forming a long whispering mist from his mouth and disappearing into the air, and rubbed his hands together. He scanned the shops on the street before him, windows all dark, signs all turned round to ‘closed’, and then with another, more irritated little sigh, looked at his watch. 

Half past four, said the large gold analogue contraption on his wrist. He sighed again, and strode forward across the street, his shoes slipping awkwardly against the packed down snow. He stepped up onto the sidewalk and frowned at the crunch of coarse salt under his foot. Then he glanced up and down the line of shops one more time, his eye landing on the only lit window on the whole street, and with one last heavy sigh, walked carefully towards it. 

The buildings looked old; stone foundations with thick wood or brick walls, mostly two stories tall with little apartments slotted in above, and topped with high-pointed dutch roofs complete with smoking chimneys. He passed a dark-windowed chocolatier with displays of intricate candy ornaments and gold foil wrapped chocolates in the window, and a bakery with windows decorated with paper snowflakes and quintessentially charming gingerbread houses. All closed as of four in the afternoon. 

"Ridiculous." He muttered aloud to the empty street. 

The open shop, when he came to it, had a large sculpture of a wooden bear in the window, and a tower of suede moccasins on display. Lavellan's Crafts, said a sign on the door. Looking in through the window he could see more display stands; postcards and keychains and little animal figurines. 

Fantastic, thought Dorian bitterly, a chintzy souvenir shop. Just what he needed. 

He pushed the heavy wooden door open, and it grunted on its hinges as his feet stomped over the welcome mat. And it was a Welcome! mat, woven out of some coarse fabric and dotted with thematic pine cones and holly leaves, the happy greeting stencilled on in uncomplicated calligraphy. 

The warmth and the smell of the place washed over him immediately. The walls were left unpainted, beautiful old wood varnished and shining in the warm incandescent light from an intricate wooden chandelier that hung overhead. A nearby shelf littered with artisanal scented candles and boxes of "genuine" incense sticks wafted out a mix of bold scents; patchouli, sage, maple, pine. He moved away from it, scanning the other shelves and displays. 

Beaded decorations and windchimes hung in one window, and further into the shop, past the little rotating displays of animal figurine keychains and greeting cards, larger items stood out with hefty price tags. Large canvases displayed boldly painted landscapes of the local scenery in all seasons, and portraits of rustic looking elves engaging in various traditional activities. His eyes lingered on the paintings a little too long, caught up in the crisp lines and bright colours. The people all had joy on their faces; rosy cheeks and bright eyes, dancing in colourful dresses that very nearly looked to be moving. As he stood struck by their expressiveness, he almost forgot to remain unimpressed. 

He picked up a bar of handmade soap scattered with gritty bits of lavender, sniffed it, and put it back down. Then he wandered over to a display of wooden tree ornaments, and spun it absently, watching the little wolves and caribou and bears sway about. 

"Looking for something specific?" Said a soft voice out of a dark nook behind the counter at the back of the shop. 

Dorian turned to look with a start, and before he could think better of it, he complained.

"Got anything that says 'happy holidays, thank you so much for dragging me out to the frozen middle of nowhere to spend the holidays working out of some stuffy old cabin that doesn't even get cell service. Not that it matters, since the entire dull little village shuts down at four in the afternoon and in all probability there won't be anywhere for miles to find decent company or a decent brandy’ ?" He asked. Then with a twinge of self-aware guilt for his attitude, he amended the rant with a vaguely apologetic "no offence". 

Behind the counter, the soft voice was laughing. Then an elf came into view, leaning his elbows over the counter and looking at Dorian with sparkling green eyes. He kept laughing, chuckling mildly under his breath and shaking his head so that golden light danced off the messy curls of his dark red hair. His face was tattooed, like the elves in the paintings, and they glowed against his warm-toned skin. Dorian had never seen work like it in real life, and once again found his eye lingering a little too long.

"Sorry, I don't think so." The elf said finally, a sideways smirk resting on his full lips, "but the shop down the street sells chocolate truffles filled with brandy that are quite nice. They don't open again until ten tomorrow, of course. Can I interest you in a postcard of our dull little village, instead?" 

Dorian's cheeks burned, and not half because of the chiding tone of the shopkeeper's rebuttal. Mainly, he was busy getting hot at just how striking those eyes were; how they glittered across the room at him with perfectly patient bemusement. 

He sighed. "Apologies. Long drive." He muttered, quickly grabbing an ornament carved like two fish swimming after each other's tails, and a wintery postcard decorated with a photograph of the tree in the town square. He walked himself up to the counter and set the items down, hastily digging into his pocket for his wallet and avoiding the elf's still-penetrating gaze. 

"If it's for someone you don't like, you should go with the wolf." Remarked the elf, still leaning his elbows on the counter and making no moves to ring him up, or stop smirking. "Around these parts, we tell stories about a Dread Wolf who tricks tourists into getting lost in the mountains." His smirk broadened. 

"Then why put it on an ornament?" 

The elf shrugged. "They're good stories." His soft voice lilted with an accent Dorian couldn't place, musical and sweet, but there was still a good deal of cheek to his tone. "Actually, the wolf represents strength and loyalty. The Dread Wolf is just a local legend." Then he winked at him, and slid the postcard across the counter to the register. 

"Strength and loyalty." Dorian shook his head, "and fish?" 

"Balance." 

Balance. As in work-life? Ironic, given the intended recipient. "I'll stick with the fish." 

"That everything?" 

Dorian nodded. 

"Hold on, I think I have something in the back that might interest you." The elf disappeared into his dark little nook and through a storeroom door, the teasing smirk never once leaving his face. When he came out again he was holding a single gold foil wrapped chocolate, and he nudged it across the counter with a friendly nod. "Happy holidays." He said, and the smile on his face shifted into one that was somewhat less amused, and more sincere. 

Dorian took the chocolate tentatively, and finished paying for the ornament and card. It totaled more than he would have expected for some faux-Dalish tourist fare, and he took a second to properly look over the ornament before tucking it into his pocket. No factory logo, just the initials TL burned into the wood. So maybe it wasn't quite a chintzy souvenir shop. 

"This all local?" He asked, suddenly feeling a new wave of guilt over his earlier disparaging comments. 

The very obviously Dalish elf in front of him raised an eyebrow and nodded. "There's a collective." 

He plucked two business cards and a pamphlet out of the brochure stand in front of his cash register, and slid them across the counter. The business cards had gallery names on them, and the pamphlet advertised the services of a local community centre, including an ongoing holiday craft fair. Dorian glanced over the rest of the brochures in the stand. There were a few other business cards for local shops, and pamphlets for companies offering various adventure packages; mountain climbing, horseshoe tours, trail rides. 

The elf's gaze followed him with a faint degree of amused judgment, and the expression fell on his striking features in a way that made Dorian's throat dry. He cleared his throat, picked out a general ‘Village Businesses’ brochure from the stand and smoothed out his expression. It was entirely unfair, this striking elf looking at him like that. He could fix this. 

"Well, now I've made a fool of myself, can I more humbly ask for a recommendation?" He passed the brochure over the counter with a gracefully apologetic smile. 

The elf unfolded the page on the counter top. Then grabbed a pencil from somewhere out of that mess of hair, and flashed him a quick, toothy grin before bending over it and beginning to circle and scribble away. 

"This might help keep you from getting bored, even without cell service. When do you leave?"  

Dorian's heart jumped at the retort, and the elf glanced up at him with another quick flash of taunting teeth.

“In about two weeks.” He answered roughly, throat dry again. 

The elf passed back the brochure, and tucked the pencil back into a braid behind his ear with a slight frown. “Not really enough time, but hopefully you can manage to enjoy some of it.” He said, leaning back and smirking again. Dorian went back to feeling flushed. “But we close in five minutes.” Of course you do, he thought. "If you want, I could show you where to get a good beer, if not good brandy.” Oh. Read the rest on AO3!

#pavellan #da fanfic #my fic #my writing #dorian pavus #taren lavellan #my ocs #the hallmark movie I deserve #holiday fic #fluff #gay holiday romps #subplots for socialists #dai #dai fanfic #modern au

[moviegroovies]

it is the nature of movie groovies dot tumblr dot com that every so often i go off on an unreadable rant about a disney movie again. so anyway. 

beauty and the beast:

maurice disappears. 

the horse is found dead. everyone assumes belle is a helpless orphan--she refuses to acknowledge it. 

she begs the men of her village to come out searching with her. père robert and gaston do (there’s a scuffle when gaston assumes she’ll stay home while they do the searching for her, because, you know, but belle refuses and père robert sides with her, and in the end it’s not worth the effort when gaston is only doing this to impress her anyway), but they don’t find anything. 

after three days, père robert has to get back to his church duties.

after a week, gaston gives belle an ultimatum: either she marries him, and he’ll continue to go through the motions of this ridiculous search, or don’t, and he’ll have her institutionalized for her insane grief. she says to go ahead--he’ll never be able to marry her if she’s in the madhouse. he leaves in disgust.

alone, belle breaks down, hopeless.

weeks pass. belle gets by, eating not a whole lot more than gruel. she scrimps & saves & offers to do needlework for the townspeople. not many of them commission her out of anything but pity; too much time reading, not enough practicing, she’s not quite a talented hand. 

gaston stops by again, telling her to stop this foolishness. everything will work out if she just marries him. 

g-d help her, but she considers it. then she hates herself. 

she lashes out and accuses him of killing maurice just to back her into this corner--he nearly hits her for it. doesn’t. leaves.

she goes to père robert for council, and he suggests she join a convent. it makes sense, it’s a logical solution to nearly every problem she’s facing right now... but belle can’t. she wants adventure and that is--the opposite. 

besides, she’s read that one already.

he understands. gives her a nominal sum out of his own pockets. she goes home and sobs, feeling more lost and depowered and enraged at the world than she’s ever felt. she tears all the pages out of her favorite book in anger. she hits rock bottom.

and then.

after belle has time to cry herself out, she finally snaps out of it, and coming back to reality in a pile of torn pages feels like looking down and noticing blood on her hands. she has a “what have i DONE?” moment, and rushes to find some kind of tools to put the book back together when she finds... her father’s half-finished machines.

of course! 

she could fix them up and sell them, like he meant to. she spends the next few weeks feeling confident and brave again, head held high while she eats gruel and finishes her father’s work. she doesn’t quite know how to build more yet, but this number would set them up for a year, and she’s still got the chickens.

(egg prices being abnormally lucrative in this village, you know.)

not to mention, it’s cheaper to feed just belle than belle and her father combined. a sympathetic villager even allows her to use their horse to pull her carriage, and everything seems like it’s going so well...

...and then she gets one mile out of town on her way to paris to sell her wares and is accosted by a bandit. 

he robs her blind and threatens her maidenhood and says something that implies he tried to rob her father before. he even takes the horse. 

belle is seized by the bit about her father--obsessed with the idea that this wasn’t for nothing. he leaves her in the dirt and she stumbles home, getting there after night has already fallen. no one sees her go in. 

she curls up on herself and sits there frozen until nearly dawn, staring at a wall and trying to make her brain work again through the night’s trauma. finally, when the sun has hardly started to rise, she gets a new idea--she has to go back to the woods. 

but she has to be smart. 

going out in the world alone, unprotected and in only her normal dress, had been naive. for all her dreaming, she really hadn’t known anything about how the world works at all. but she knows more now. if she wants to survive, she has to get her wares back (not to mention her neighbor’s horse). and besides, if those robbers knew something about her father....

belle waits the whole day, hiding out of sight in her own home. for once, she’s too excited to read, so she paces, thinking over and rethinking over her plan. finally, night falls. she waits a couple more hours until she’s certain that everyone is asleep, and then, belle puts on her father’s clothes and takes a knife from their kitchen and sets out again. 

she goes down the same way she had headed before, deliberately making too much noise on the path. sure enough, it’s only a matter of time before the robber from before stops her.

he demands all her money, but belle is quicker.  

before the man has a chance to even comprehend what has happened, belle has her knife to his throat. she demands he lead her back to her things--or else. 

this particular robber being, as most robbers are, somewhat of a coward (a tough character only when facing an unarmed woman alone at night), he gives in, leading her back to his daytime hideout. when they get there, belle is initially distraught; all of her machines were deemed worthless and destroyed for their parts. there are, however, other virtues in finding this place: the horse is alive, for one thing (if a little miffed off), and there’s so... much... gold. 

more than belle could have hoped for had she had even the best of luck selling her wares.

she ties up her would-be assailant and takes his weapon, trading out her kitchen knife for a gilded dagger. 

some questioning reveals that he had attempted to rob her father before, but years ago--some trip that maurice had long since returned safe from and never thought to mention to belle for fear of worrying her. 

ha. 

with that, belle takes the gold and the horse and leaves the robber, the trinkets, and the broken bits of her father’s machinery behind, all with the warning of what belle will do if she finds him in those woods, harassing harmless old men and defenseless young women again. 

he never comes back.

belle returns to the village on the third day, more triumphant than she’s ever felt. 

evening is just starting to fall when she reaches the borders of villeneuve, and it’s a fairly simple matter to hustle home, cleaning all traces of her journey and hardships from her skin and hiding the remaining traces of what she’s done--the majority of the gold, her father’s clothes, and her hard-won new weapon. 

from there, feeling almost as if the past few days--no, months--have been nothing but a bad dream, belle goes out into the village once more, proud and gracious as she returns the horse (groomed and fed) to an owner who would never know how close they came to losing it.

starving and just the faintest bit petty, belle then sits herself down on a stool in gaston’s tavern and orders a hearty bowl of stew and some ale, to celebrate her good fortune at the market.

he glowers as he serves her, but says nothing. she smiles at him, and tips more than is strictly wise, all things considered, just to rub in his face that she did not fall victim to his whims.

and thus begins belle’s career as a highwayman.

#at least it wasn't frozen two this time right #beauty and the beast #belle #gaston #text post #disney #if you're wondering this timeline is more faithful to the 2017 movie but i'm taking inspiration from the original cartoon as well #which will become more obvious as i continue this #because of course #i'm going to continue this #just figured i might as well break it up before it becomes completely out of control

[onestowatch]

Del Water Gap on Smash Mouth, Quarantine and “Ode to a Conversation Stuck in Your Throat” [Premiere + Q&A]

Photo: Angela Ricciardi

Some music is just so vivid that when you hear it, you see it. In the same vein, some songs are so personal that when you listen, it’s like peering into someone's innermost thoughts. Each one of Del Water Gap’s songs possess that power. The artist’s newest single, “Ode to a Conversation Stuck in Your Throat,” effectively peels back the curtain on a wandering mind’s thoughts.  

“Ode To a Conversation Stuck in Your Throat” explores feelings of apprehension and angst at the possibility of a lover finding love somewhere else. Frontman S. Holden Jaffe’s soft-hearted vocals flounce over folksy guitars with rock-leaning layerings. The song’s undercurrent is akin to Del Water Gap’s previous classic singer-songwriter style displayed on his Don’t Get Dark EP. But Del Water Gap’s 2020 sound is becoming more and more accented by contemporary touches and heightened tempos. 

We caught up with the man behind the project to find out more about “Ode to a Conversation Stuck in Your Throat,” his obsession with Smash Mouth, and how his quarantine is going. 

Ones To Watch: So you’re from rural Connecticut, but moved to Brooklyn during your young adult years. How have or haven’t your surroundings aided in creating your sound?

Del Water Gap: At the time I moved to the city, there was still a really vibrant indie scene happening. CMJ was in full swing, and I was out every weekend seeing bands like The Virgins, Public Access TV, The Drums… The Arctic Monkeys, The Antlers, Diet Cig. Bands and bands. Running into Fabrizio Moretti by the NYU library. I was spending a lot of time at St. Dymphna’s and borrowing electric guitars from my friend Dylan. I loved the music I was ingesting and the scene that came with it.

Did you choose music or did music choose you?

Music chose me - but I was an ardent enabler. I remember standing on my living room table and playing harmonica along with the radio as a kid. Everything in C major sounded decent...? I figured out what one-four-five felt like years before I knew the words for it, just staying quiet and listening. My relationship with music has been a bit of an abusive one in recent years, but I know I’m here for life. I’ve fantasized about quitting and doing something simpler hundreds of times, but i know that's not going to happen any time soon. 

What was it that made you decide to grow Del Water Gap from a personal project into a full blown touring band?

I put out an EP in 2012 under the name Del Water Gap because all of my heroes at the time were solo artists using monikers; Bon Iver, Tallest Man on Earth, St. Vincent… and so on. I moved to NYC without any aspirations of being a performer, but the record started performing a bit on local blogs and my best friend at the time basically forced me to play a show. She said “these are songs to fall in love to.” I refused and refused until she offered to play the show with me, and I finally gave in and booked a slot at Sullivan Hall in the village. I think we nearly sold it out.  

Who would you say your music is for?

People who have run out of podcasts. 

You’ve released “My Body,” featuring Claud, and now “Ode to a Conversation Stuck in Your Throat,” both of which admittedly sound a little different from your previous work. The newer singles still have a folksy charm but seem more electronic-leaning or even more pop-leaning. What’s leading this explorative venture?

As I was finishing college I started producing some indie pop artists with my friend Mike Adubato. It was really just a way to help make ends meet, but I spent a year looking over Mike’s shoulder as he built out arrangements. I really got a holistic education in pop production that way. As artists, I think that our work is defined both by our strengths and our limitations, and as my limitations broke open, my work changed. I would simply sit down to make a song and reach for different colors. I also started consuming more indie pop records, and I eventually made the realization that I could take influences from those records without sacrificing any part of myself as a writer or protagonist. 

We love how tender “Ode to a Conversation Stuck in Your Throat” not only sounds, but actually feels. There’s a ton of intimacy there. It feels like we’re reading a diary entry. Can you give us some more insight into the song’s origin?

The song came out of a slow night in the studio with my good friend Gabe Goodman. We had been in a secret boy band that broke up in 2017, and it was our first time really writing together since things ended. I programmed some drums, and Gabe put most of the music together - we were just getting into a flow when a friend invited us to dinner with one of our musical heroes. We looked at each other and said “Should we go? Do we stop now?” “No, no, no we stay,” we decided. So we kept writing and had a spiked seltzer or two. 

I came back to the studio the next day and moved a few things around and wrote most of the words. I was seeing someone at the time who I really liked, and we had both been walking up to the line of asking the other to be with each other and no one else. Finally, we were sitting together one day and it got all quiet and she goes, “I’ve had this stuck in my throat all day…” And that was the start of our togetherness and the inspiration for the song. 

We were creeping on your Twitter. What’s going on with you, bowl cuts, and Smash Mouth? 

I thought you’d never ask - a few months ago, I was having a coffee playdate with my friend Charlie Burg and he was sketching me from the across the table. He’s really a very good artist, so I was feeling a little competitive and decided I would try my hand at sketching as well. So I grabbed a pen and a napkin from the table and drew this ridiculous line drawing of a horse with a bowl cut and a human face. It looks like something a six year old would draw in art class. It also has this disturbing and surrealist quality to it. We were laughing and laughing at my ridiculous creation and I turned to Charlie and said, “Do you think I could sell this online?” So I threw the napkin on my web store and it sold in five minutes and the whole event was so delightful to me that I made “commemorative” t-shirts and a Horse With Bowl Cut fan club account on Instagram. So a lot of bowl cut content makes its way to me these days. 

Not much to say about Smash Mouth other than the 2001 Smash Mouth self-titled LP is one of the greatest records ever made, and I will gladly teach a college level course on it if any university will lend me a classroom space. 

I read that you draw inspiration from what you eat, But when it comes to flavor, how would you describe your musical palette?

I would describe a musical cheese plate; sweet and savory. Trou Du Cru, a truffle Moelleux des Alpes, a hard Beaufort. Some honey and jam on the side, olives and cornichon. With a generous pile of those really expensive fig crackers they have at Whole Foods. 

What’s been one of the defining moments of your artistic career so far?

My dad FaceTimed me the other day from quarantine wearing a Del Water Gap mock turtleneck and listening to my song “Theory of Emotion.” That was pure power. 

What’s next for you?

I’m putting out the best work of my life so far - a few songs now and a few over the summer and into the fall. I’m touring with girl in red. I’m surviving this pandemic and everything that has come with it. I am trying to be a better friend and take better care of my brain and my body. 

We of course hope you’re staying safe during this time. But how are you keeping quarantine interesting? Or are you?

I am very lucky to be safe and comfortable - I’ve run away to a friend’s house by the ocean, so I have some fresh air and light, and I get to say hi to a seal once in a while. I’ve been journaling and cooking and trying to run twenty miles a week. I’ve been coloring a lot and watching Nashville. The excess of free time has not led to an excess of creation, but I’m trying to be gentle on myself. I think the collective anxiety has taken a toll on all of us. We’ll be writing about this for years to come, but we may have to wait a few years before we start. I shot a music video for “Ode” from quarantine, and have been finishing up my record remotely with Mike and Gabe. One of my best friend’s dad is a practicing buddhist, so he’s been sending me some really powerful literature each day, helping me move towards a more organized spiritual practice. All we can do right now is sit in this and keep in touch with the ones we love, so that’s my work. 

Lastly, who are your Ones to Watch?

I love Rosie Tucker’s record Never Not Never Not Never Not. Miss Grit played one of my favorite shows of the year opening for Daisy the Great at Rough Trade in August. Briston Maroney is making really powerful records. and Claud of course! One of my friends has a new project called Honeywhip, which I have been literally playing on repeat.

#Del Water Gap #interview #ode to a conversation stuck in your throat #indie #singer songwriter #folk

[raendown]

Pairing: MadaraTobirama Chapter: 13/18 Word count: 2424 Summary: When Tobirama is exiled from the Senju clan without warning, without even the chance to plead his case, it feels like his life is over. What does he have to live for now without his older brother to believe in him? Captured by the Uchiha in his moment of weakness, Tobirama slowly learns to live again with the last people on earth he would have ever expected to care for - or to fall in love with.

Follow the link or read it under the cut!

KO-FI and commission info in the blog header!

Chapter 13

Negotiating the terms of an alliance and designing the blueprints for a brand new village probably would have gone a lot faster if Tobirama had been willing to go to the gatherings himself. The famous trio of intertwined clans, the Nara, Yamanaka, and Akimichi, had all agreed to throw their lots in with this venture even before the first roads were paved. Being able to say that the meetings were crowded enough already with so many people there to protect their own interests was quite a convenient excuse for Tobirama to avoid them.

Madara refrained from calling him out on the lie, though it was clear he had spotted it. It was Izuna that ribbed him about his choice to stay behind – very gently, though, so he knew it was only a way to help the situation feel normal. Tobirama appreciated both of their efforts and he showed his gratitude by pouring over every scrap of cramped notes they brought home to him, writing out suggestions for changes or additions and pointing out the occasional flaw in someone’s logic. The shadows had always been his favorite place to work from anyway. Credit was nice but in situations like this it was more important that things be done right than for everyone to know who came up with what idea.

Whether or not anyone from the Senju clan recognized his influence was unknown but Madara and Izuna both mentioned that his name had not come up more than once, not after one of the Akimichi got halfway through his name only to be cut off by a wild look from Hashirama, dangerous eyes and a lips pressed so tightly together they turned white. Even Madara admitted he had no idea how to interpret that look and no one had dared to mention him again after that. Tobirama tucked that information away, unsure of what it meant but certain that it was important.

Then finally, after almost five long months of arguing, compromising, and general idiocy, construction of the village began. With Madara and Izuna – and nearly half of the clan, actually – away at the construction site, Tobirama and Hikaku were left behind to defend the compound on the off chance someone was stupid enough to think of this as an opportunity. Hikaku stood in as de facto clan head while Madara was absent since he was the one who wore the crest and bore their name but it was Tobirama to whom the people came when they had a problem. Luckily Hikaku didn’t seem to mind, joking that it was less work for him.

Most of the ones who had gone to help with the construction came home a couple days a week, rotating on a schedule so there were never too many absent from the worksite at a time. Quite often when it was Madara and Izuna’s turn to come home they fell asleep the moment their bottoms hit some sort of comfortable surface and their bodies finally accepted that they were allowed to rest. For the rest of the time, however, Tobirama spent most of his days alone in the house they had all shared until recent events separated them.

And he was lonely. It was ridiculous to consider how close they had grown in just the one year they had been together and yet he couldn’t help himself, meeting them at the gate each time they returned and reveling in the affection when one or both of them fell asleep on top of him. It was a treat to run his fingers through their hair and whisper all the little things they had been missing while they were away. He said absolutely nothing when Madara followed him groggily to bed once or twice, only smiled to himself when the man curled up on top of his chest.

Despite now having the opportunity to spend copious amounts of time with the person he had once called his best friend Madara hadn’t changed the way he treated Tobirama in the slightest. Things between them were just as they had always been, they greeted each other after each separation with the same warmth, and Tobirama didn’t even notice until the tension unraveled that he had been silently holding his breath to be set aside in favor of the original duo. Keeping the place he had earned in Madara’s heart was more of a relief than he could say. Whether Madara and Hashirama struck up their friendship again was honestly not important to him but to be pushed away to make room for another would have been devastating.

When everything was prepared and at last it came time for each of the clans to officially move in to the compounds built specifically for them, Tobirama found himself hesitating finally, all packed up but not ready to go. Izuna found him sitting on the empty frame of his bed, sheets and mattress both sealed away for easy transport. The second their eyes met his friend flopped down beside him and fell over sideways across his lap like a massive rag doll.

“I hear cuddling a stuffed animal is good for when you’re having a pout,” he said. “But all my stuffed animals are packed away so I suppose you’ll have to live with just me.”

“You don’t have any stuffed animals.” Tobirama looked away and tried to look offended.

“Well that just means you’re extra stuck with me then, doesn’t it?”

“Ridiculous.” A light shove didn’t shift the man and Tobirama wasn’t much inclined to try any harder at the moment. Instead he crossed his arms and leaned his weight on them, balanced over Izuna’s hip.

He could have just admitted to what was wrong, that he wasn’t sure he wanted to risk even the slightest chance of being seen by Hashirama quite yet, but it wasn’t in his nature to share unless prodded to. Playing along with the teasing was more bearable than opening up his own vulnerabilities even if he had done so for his two closest people several times before. It still never got any easier.

Which was stupid. They had already seen him at his very lowest. What could possibly be more embarrassing than knowing they had watched him literally giving up on life?

It was still easier to return Izuna’s teasing – and more fun, of course, so Tobirama did just that. After living together for so long he knew exactly what to say to press the other man’s buttons in all the best and most terrible ways.

“So what you’re saying is that you want to cuddle on the couch as soon as we get there? We could do that. I’m sure all the ladies would just be falling over themselves to get a piece of you if they see how much of a cuddle-bear you are.” Pressing down, he deliberately put more of his weight on Izuna’s hip. “Especially if they see you aren’t afraid to cuddle with another man. No wrong impressions to be gained from that, surely.”

“Alright! Alright! Get off!” Tobirama let him wriggle helplessly for a minute before letting him go. When he was back on his own feet Izuna made a show of straightening his clothes until he was entirely presentable. “I just thought you would like to know that Madara promised to try and lure the Senju clan head away while the rest of us are moving in so you can slip by without drawing attention. If you want.” Because of course he would. Of course Madara would understand without Tobirama having to shame himself by spilling his guts. Izuna winked conspiratorially and Tobirama paused before answering, an old idea reoccurring to him when he least expected it. When it would be most useful.

“I may have a better idea,” he said. “You already know which house we will be living in, correct?”

“Yeah, I helped build it. Why?”

“Can you bring something in there for me?”

Izuna gave him a strange look but Tobirama only grinned. He’d almost forgotten about this; felt a little guilty thinking about it now, actually. That jutsu had first been conceived as a way to fight the man standing in front of him, had been intended as his ultimate end, and Tobirama could hardly believe how grateful he was that such a thing had never come to pass. It was incredible to think of all the things he wouldn’t have in his life now if those plans had come to fruition.

Staying behind while the rest of the Uchiha emigrated away from their ancestral lands was hard. He had to force himself not to check the position of the sun every five minutes, distracting himself with a dip in the pond – sans clothing, just because he could. It didn’t negate how utterly alone he was in the large empty compound but it did entertain him while he waited.

As soon as dark fell and he was absolutely certain Izuna would be inside the new house with the special kunai he had agreed to carry, Tobirama was ready with his clothes back on and his hands together in a seal he had only successfully activated once before. It felt like the world collapsing in on him for an infinite second, like his body being torn apart and reassembled all in the same instant. It was, in a word, incredibly uncomfortable. Luckily he was prepared for the sensation and consciously blocked the resulting wave of nausea.

Madara and Izuna gave matching shrieks of surprise when he appeared between them without any sort of warning. He probably could have informed them of what he intended to do, explained how he planned to get in to the village without being noticed by a single member of the Senju clan, but he was glad that he hadn’t. This way was much more amusing and he got the extra treat of seeing the impressed looks they both tried to hide from him.

The first thing he took note of was that he could feel Hashirama’s chakra burning as brightly as ever less than two miles away, sorely missed yet entirely unwelcome. Fragments of him sparkled all throughout the village, remnants of his chakra left behind in all the wood he had grown to help their village spring up from nothing. To distract himself from the conflicting desire to rush out and find the man he asked Madara and Izuna to show him around. It was an opportunity they snapped up eagerly even without knowing about the internal conflict he’d just run in to. Both of them had a hand in designing and building this home and they were both quite proud of it, ready and waiting for the opportunity to finally show it off to him.  

His bedroom, he noted, was much bigger than before and set right next to Madara’s while Izuna had made sure his own was all the way at the other end of the house instead. The kitchen was more spacious and there were two bathrooms, thank kami. In the backyard he was not surprised to find where another little pond had been dug out then shored up and lay waiting for him to fill it with water.

What he was more surprised to find was the lab, hidden away in the sizable back shed and presented with a dual flourish and knowing grins. Tobirama stood in the entrance with what was probably a very stupid look on his face as he stared unabashedly around at all the shiny new equipment.

“You built me…a laboratory?”

“Look, we know you said you wanted to fund it yourself. But we thought you deserved to be just as happy here as anyone else and that this might help you settle in or whatever.” Madara gestured vaguely to the contents of the room. “We didn’t say this stuff was for us, just for the clan as a whole. And we didn’t order it all at once. I’m not even sure anyone realized we ordered a whole lab full of glass and tubes and crap – or if they did I’m sure they wouldn’t guess who it was really for. Don’t know if we got everything though. I don’t even know what most of this stuff does.” He scratched awkwardly at one cheek while Tobirama stumbled in to the room with wide eyes, trying to see everything at once.

It was perfect. It was better than the set-up he had built for himself in his first home with more advanced equipment and better quality tools. He could hardly believe anyone had gotten him something this amazing as a gift. Already his mind was racing ahead of him and planning out all the incredible work he could do with this equipment but first he turned back to the ones who made it all possible.

Izuna, he noticed, had slipped away sometime while he was distracted with his shiny new gifts. He was grateful for the privacy as he took double fistfuls of Madara’s robe and for once his heart ran ahead of his brain in an effort to express his gratitude.

They were both equally surprised by the kiss. As soon as Tobirama realized what he was doing he froze and the two of them stood there staring in to each other’s eyes with their lips mashed together uncomfortably.  They sprang apart at the same time, clearing their throats and looking absolutely anywhere but at each other. Madara was the first to brave the silence with his voice cracking under the strain.

“You like it. Good to know. I should – right? Yeah. Lots of things to unpack.”

“Right. Yes. I have – mhm. Unpacking is – yes. We all have that.”

Nodding very seriously, they turned and stepped towards the door at the same time, pausing before running each to each other and then spending several minutes in an awkward back-and-forth dance trying to figure out who would leave first. Eventually Madara stomped his foot and bulled forward to storm back to the main house. Tobirama watched him go, resisting the urge to press fingertips to his lips like a deflowered maiden in some terrible romance novel.

All other possible ramifications of the unexpected kiss aside, at least he wasn’t concentrating on any of his other problems anymore. Hashirama’s signature continued to flutter from place to place while Tobirama closed the door of the lab behind himself and slowly followed in Madara’s wake with only one thought on his mind.

Izuna was never going to let him live this down.

#rae writes #madatobi #(finally) #tobirama #izuna #madara #fanfiction

[mycaminodesantiago]

Part 3

Night 10 - Nájera:

I awoke with the sun rise and my body was experiencing an ever-increasing array of pains that made it nearly impossible for me to stand or walk like a regular person when I first emerged from my bed in the morning. Strapping myself into my backpack felt different. After spending an entire day without it, I realized it was a part of me now. I didn’t feel whole yesterday without it.

Luke and I set out for the day on a barren trail through a farm-like landscape and miles of open fields. We sang “Drops of Jupiter” and any other songs we could think of that we both knew the lyrics to out loud while we nibbled on mangoes. When Joseph eventually caught up to us, he wore his usual fisherman’s hat and khaki pants that could be unzipped and converted into shorts. I could not mentally understand why I was suddenly so attracted to this man despite how ridiculous he always seemed to look. 

“I caught up to you guys,” Joseph said, proud of himself.

“Congrats, old man,” Luke and I teased.

“I just sat down back there and took a nut break,” he responded, gesturing to a shady stoop behind us and a half-eaten bag of trail nuts he’d clearly been munching on.

“I’d like to take a nut break with you,” I said under my breath but loud enough for them both to hear. I knew that they both appreciated my ability to turn any statement into some kind of sexual innuendo.

“You guys are so annoying,” Luke rolled his eyes and laughed with us.

Joseph knew that he was the mature, responsible adult alongside us, though it really wasn’t hard to be considered the adult when we were walking with Luke, who, now for the second time, had forgotten to close a box of cereal in his backpack and was forced to empty out the entire thing on the floor of our hostel in Nájera. 

For such a small town, the hostel we checked into was huge. They managed to fit ninety beds into a room that ordinarily would only hold half of that. Bunk beds were pushed together in pairs so that each top and bottom bunk were conjoined with the one next to it, meaning that you would have no space in between you and whoever slept next to you. Hostel owners usually gave you a card with your bed number assignment on it as soon as you checked in each day, but today as I dropped my things on the floor, Luke grabbed my card out of my hand before I’d even had a chance to look at it and swiftly replaced it with his, without saying a word. I didn’t understand why he did this until I saw Joseph climbing up the ladder next to the numbered bed that Luke had just given me.

“Enjoy,” he said with a grimace as he walked down to the bed that I’d originally been assigned. Joseph and I had sexual chemistry that was almost palpable whenever we were together. I sometimes wondered if it made Luke uncomfortable, but it never seemed to bother him—he usually just found amusement in us acting like children with school-crushes on each other. I tried to make it clear to him that he was never going to be left out with us—we’d even dubbed ourselves “The Trinity” because none of us really felt complete without the other around. The ironic part about everything is that in a lot of ways, Luke was being more mature than Joseph and I were about our situation. It was clear to all three of us what was going on, but Luke was the only one who was actually making any tactical moves to make things happen for us. 

After we all showered and demolished the worst pizza that the three of us had ever eaten, I climbed up the ladder next to Joseph’s bed and collapsed beside him. As I rolled over to face away from him, I felt his body slowly inch closer to me. It’d felt like an entire lifetime that I’d waited to feel his skin pressed against mine. He ran his hand gently down the crease of my spine, down the length of my thigh and back up again, knowing exactly what he was doing to me. It felt like he had taken me to a different space and time where the only thing that mattered were his hands on my body. Only the reality was that there were eighty-eight other people sharing the same room as us, so laying beside each other was as far as it was going to go. Yet still, my mind was going to dangerous places as I felt his legs wrap around mine. I closed my eyes and let the euphoria of his touch fill my entire body before falling asleep to the rhythm of his breath.

* History: Nájera, with a population of 8,500, was the capital of the Kingdom of Navarre in the 11th and 12th centuries. The Monasterio Santa María de la Real is the burial place of many of the illustrious kings, queens and knights of Navarre. The Pantheon church was built in this city following the legend that the son of Sancho the Great, Don García, followed his hunting falcon into a cave and came upon a statue of the Virgin Mary.

Night 11 - Santo Domingo:

Luke shook me awake the next morning the way he usually did after I’d successfully ignored my alarm clock, while Joseph stayed asleep beside me. The sky was still dark and the air was cooler than most other days had been. The quiet early-morning hours on the Camino were unlike anything I’d ever experienced in my life. For hours, we wouldn’t see a trace of another human being, just the faint flickering of headlights in the distance from those who had started their days before us. The stillness and beauty of nature was all that surrounded us, the grassy fields and the chirping bird’s faint melodies and the dazzling pinks and yellows of the sun rising over the mountains ahead of us. It was hard to not feel good here. Even when I would walk alone, I never really felt sad. Maybe it was because my mind was so focused on getting through each day, or maybe because I was forced to focus on my physical suffering so intensely that some of my emotional suffering had somehow faded away. Everyday it felt so good to be here, but I couldn’t stop myself from thinking about how this wasn’t real life. It was like summer camp, temporary and easy, but as nice as this was, somebody I would have to go back to the real world.

While Luke and I sat on a stoop resting our bodies, I spotted Joseph trekking towards us, his walking sticks swinging and pounding into the ground the way that they always did while he walked. Most people along the way carried very few outfits with them, five or six different pieces at most, and rotated them each day. Joseph, however, always wore the same thing: greenish, khaki cargo shorts that sometimes were converted into pants, and a long-sleeved blue dry-fit shirt. He had two pairs of each of them, but still looked exactly the same every single day. But as he approached us now, he was still wearing the black t-shirt and shorts that he only ever wore to bed. When Luke and I greeted him with confusion, he explained that when he had washed and left his clothes out to dry overnight, someone had stolen them all before he’d woken up.

“They even took my underwear,” Joseph laughed halfheartedly. Since I’d started walking, I’d never felt unsafe or worried about theft, not even once. There was an unspoken understanding between the pilgrims walking alongside us that we would all have each other’s backs. Besides that, all of our clothes were permanently stained with what we called “the pilgrim smell,” an odor of sweat and dirt that was so powerful it never seemed to fully go away no matter how long we washed our clothes. And even if our clothes had been relatively clean—which they weren’t—absolutely nothing that anyone wore was even remotely good-looking. The way you looked just wasn’t a concern when you were walking in the blistering heat for eight hours a day, everyday.

“I don’t think it was a pilgrim. I think someone from the village we were staying in probably took them,” Joseph theorized, which would make a lot more sense. “But I’m not going to let this ruin my day, or the rest of my trek,” he went on, shrugging off the entire situation in his typical, nonchalant and cool manner. “That would be giving whoever did this too much power over me.” I admired the way he was able to handle any situation thrown at him with such ease, maturity and level-headedness. I could tell that he was resilient and only chose to fight the battles in his life that were really worth fighting.

The three of us continued on for hours until we reached our next destination, our bodies slumping down on our beds as soon as we arrived so that we could take small siestas before exploring the city of Santo Domingo. As we passed a little restaurant off the beaten path, we were approached by an English-speaking, quirky, middle-aged couple who greeted us from behind the bar. The villages we walked through each day were so small that it was rare for anyone working in restaurants along the trail to not be natives. But the two of them were welcoming and friendly and singing along to a John Mayer song that was playing inside, so I was sold. Luke, Joseph and I were the only ones there, which wasn’t surprising considering that most nights everyone was so exhausted that they would only have enough strength to stop at whatever restaurant was closest to their hostel. 

The couple sat next to us and chatted about who they were and how they had gotten here. The man was originally from Denmark, the woman a chef from Hungary, and they explained to us that the two of them had met and fallen in love exactly one year ago in this very town.

“I was walking from Denmark to Portugal. She was walking the Camino Frances,” he reminisced. “Somewhere along the way, I found myself. And even better, I found the love of my life. After we arrived in Santiago together, hand-in-hand, we both realized just how much this pilgrimage had given us. We decided that it was our destiny to settle down along the Camino with each other.” Their restaurant was appropriately named Wanderlust.

“The Camino is magic,” the woman chimed in.

I listened to their story intently, but it was so hard for me to take any of it seriously. I didn’t want to be a cynic, but I didn’t really believe in stories like this, ones that describe that kind of fairytale love that seems too good to be true and quite frankly doesn’t actually seem to exist in real life. But here it was, sitting right in front of me, real and in the flesh. The two of them gazed into each other’s eyes lovingly and tenderly and with all of the comfort in the world. Though I didn’t necessarily believe that what they had could possibly be real, I still wanted it. I craved it. But instead, I’d spent the last three years keeping everyone in my life at arm’s length, desperate for someone to love me but unwilling to be vulnerable enough to allow anyone to hurt me.

I grew up in a household where my mother and father took turns leaving each other for brief months at a time, only to reunite and then leave each other again for the same reasons they always had. When I was old enough to understand what was going on, I realized that they were stuck in some perpetual cycle of fighting and forgiving that was probably never going to end. It was maddening to watch. The two of them were like that teenage girl who keeps going back to the boy who cheats on her over and over again because each time he does it he swears he’ll change and she always naively believes him—except my parents were both in their sixties and were extraordinarily intelligent people. If I ever questioned why my mother wouldn’t leave my father permanently, she would always say the same thing: the two of them had something which she described as a “good partnership.” In a lot of ways, their relationship exemplified everything I never, ever wanted to have. I never wanted to be stuck with someone I wasn’t truly, deeply, madly in love with. I would rather be alone.

But as I listened to these two souls tell their beautiful love story to us, how they’d met each other in such a serendipitous way and had so purely fallen in love, how they’d moved to this tiny village far away from everything they’d ever known because nothing in the world mattered except that they were together, no matter how much my parents and my own relationships had destroyed my perception of love, I felt myself wanting to believe in it again.  

Joseph pulled out a pack of cigarettes and lit one up.

“I thought you weren’t smoking anymore,” I said sarcastically, raising an eyebrow at him.

“Of course I’m smoking,” he rolled his eyes. “You should know me by now.”

And I did know him. Every night that he sat with us he’d swear that he was going to stop smoking. But it was his vice, and Joseph’s biggest downfall in life was that he lacked any form of self-control. We both knew he wasn’t going to stop. Though it didn’t matter to me.

* History: Santo Domingo has a history closely linked with the Camino. Saint Dominic dedicated his life to improving the route for pilgrims in the 11th century, building roads. Domingo García built a pilgrim hospital, now the Parador and a church that evolved into the Cathedral.

Night 12 - Villambistia:

Luke and I awoke before the sun once again, letting the light slowly fill the sky as we limped into the day the way we did each morning until our joints warmed up. Each yellow arrow we passed now served as a landmark to us, a sign with a meaning that was indecipherable to anyone but pilgrims on the trail. I truly hadn’t ever understood how vast a mile could be, until each mile was ticked off at walking speed. In my life before this, normal modes of transportation allowed for miles to be things that simply blazed dully past me. But foot speed was an astoundingly different way of moving through the world. Each mile was now a long, breathtaking, intimate, and sometimes unbearable struggle. As the sun moved across the sky and sunk below the mountains, I realized I hadn’t seen Joseph all day. I knew he had been having foot troubles—more than the normal amount of foot troubles we were all permanently doomed to have—and assumed that he might have stayed behind in a smaller village to give them a rest. Karen had also fallen far behind the rest of us and I feared that I might have already seen her for the last time without realizing it in the moment. After spending every waking hour of every day with the same people for nearly two weeks, it felt completely out of place not having them around.

“You need a Joseph detox, anyways,” Luke teased as the two of us checked into our hostel, swiping the last two beds they had left. He was probably right, but it still felt strange knowing that I was going to wake up without knowing where Joseph was.

Night 13 - RioPico:

After a long day of walking beneath an enormous canopy of trees, Luke and I decided to stop in a beautiful, newly-renovated hostel just outside the next big town our guidebook had told us to stop at. We were two of only four people staying here, as most pilgrims decided to keep walking the last few miles into Burgos. But after the places we’d stayed at for the last two weeks, this spot looked like it was built for Kings and Queens. We couldn’t resist it. It was also the first time I’d had access to computers or internet since leaving Madrid. I swore to myself that I wouldn’t use my phone while I was here out of principle, but I decided that it was a loophole to use a computer to email and update my family back home. Luke, however, used the opportunity to download Netflix episodes of Glee and a brand new Taylor Swift song for us to listen to. The mere sight of a cell phone felt like such a foreign thing to me after denying myself access to it for  all this time. Everything about phones exhausted me. Too often did I find myself doing that automatic tap loop, going through the same five apps over and over again on autopilot hoping to find something exciting but realizing after several hours that my fingers weren’t even connected to my mind anymore. I didn’t miss it.

Earlier in the day, I’d trailed behind Luke on my own for a bit in hopes of having Joseph catch up to us. But when I finally did hear the sound of his trekking poles, I could tell by the way he limped towards me that he was hurting more than I’d previously thought. I told him that I would be carrying on to the next village, but his feet were telling him that he would need to stay behind. I felt my stomach drop as I realized what I had to do. I wanted so badly to stay behind with him, to take care of him, to so desperately tell him that my days weren’t going to be the same without him. But I promised myself that I wouldn’t make this experience about anyone but myself.

“I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to lose you for a bit,” I looked at him with sincerity and I knew that he knew me well enough to know that I didn’t want to leave him, but that I had to. And I knew that he would have forced himself to do the same thing. 

“I know. I want you to know that I really like you,” he told me. “I’m just still trying to be careful with intimacy for a little while. I’m kind of screwed up at the moment after all that went down in Bali.” I nodded without needing to say anything. “But you know that I would love to see more of you, so don’t walk too fast. And maybe I will loosen up and not be such a bore eventually,” he laughed.

“You could never be a bore, Joseph,” I looked up at him shyly and half-smiling. “I understand. We both have healing and self-reflecting to do and unfortunately that’s hard to do if you have someone around in an intimate way.” I always meant every word that I said to him. I knew that trying to cultivate any kind of intimate relationship with him wouldn’t be smart. But I also knew that I still wanted to do it.

“Look, I’m not going to pretend that I don’t want more with you when I obviously do. We’re just in such a weird situation being here and it’s hard to know what the right thing is,” he said, always seeming to know exactly what I was thinking. “I’ve used sex my whole life as a way to escape. It’s just a messy area of my life to navigate right now. There is just something in me that’s hesitating with us. And what really scares me is that I wouldn’t feel good afterwards. The worst thing would be losing you as a friend here.”

“I understand,” I repeated back to him. “We have things we need to deal with on our own. I don’t want to ruin that for the both of us.”

“We still have time left,” he winked. “But being impulsive about this would probably be the worst thing. That’s what my intuition tells me. Sex should never feel shameful. Let’s spend some time on our own and then decide. If we make the decision to go ahead after that, then there’s no regrets.”

I nodded in agreement as we hugged each other, unsure when I’d see him again. It didn’t seem real that I’d actually said goodbye to him until the sun began disappearing from the sky that night. After Luke had gone to bed, I made my way along a long line of white lawn chairs in our hostel’s courtyard until I found one that was set off by itself. I sat alone overlooking the mountain peaks I’d been hiking over and under for two weeks. It felt like I had been here forever, like the remnants of my past life were just a distant memory to me now. But it also seemed like my journey was just beginning, like only now was I digging into whatever it was that I had actually come here to do. I knew that in some way, something had altered within me. For the first time since leaving home, I felt like I might cry. I’d spent the last year of my life in a numb, self-deprecating whirlwind, never truly feeling happy or sad or angry or any emotion at all. But here, right now, sitting alone in the middle of nowhere staring off into the unknown, I could feel again. I felt some kind of unadulterated feeling come over me that can only be described as overwhelmed. I took a deep breath to push away my tears, but suddenly, something inside of me released. I started crying tears of cathartic sorrow and restorative joy. I wasn’t happy or sad or angry, I was all of them. I felt everything. I felt full and empty at the same time. I thought about Joseph and Luke and Karen and everyone else I’d met on the trail, I thought about Chris and Jesse and my mother and my father and my friends back home and everything they’d all done to shape my life into what it was right now. It all had brought me here. 

Maybe there really was something beautiful about the fleeting temporality of life.

Night 14 - Burgos:

The next morning, I tried to convey to Luke what I could of the conversation I’d had with Joseph the day before, but he stopped me in my tracks. 

“Karen called me last night,” he said with more enthusiasm than I found appropriate. “She’s taking the bus to Burgos tonight to meet us and say goodbye.” He explained that she’d fallen so far behind us that she knew she would no longer be able to keep up with us anymore, but was desperate to hug us all one last time. The public bus only ran to a handful of the larger cities along the route, and Burgos was one of them. She’d told Luke that if we were willing to meet her, she would spend the night with us in Burgos and then take the bus back to where she was now to continue on walking without us.

“Okay,” I said hesitantly. I knew that I couldn’t pass up on the opportunity to see Karen one last time. She was too important to me. 

Karen had just gotten out of a messy divorce from her husband whom she swore was out of her league, though none of us believed that to be true. I knew that any person who was lucky enough to ever cross paths with Karen was better for having known her. She was always smiling and laughing, lighthearted and loud, but never in an obnoxious way. Her energy and her positivity was contagious and she had a way of making everything so simple. My body could hurt, my mind could hurt, my heart could hurt, but when she’d look at me or hold me or tell me that things would be okay, I believed her, and they always were. I’d missed her dearly in the few days that I hadn’t seen her.

Luke and I walked for an hour into Burgos, spoiled ourselves by checking into a cheap hotel room with real, actual beds and sheets, and waited for Karen to arrive at the bus stop at the entrance of the town. As the three of us were reunited, she told us that Joseph had decided to stay in Burgos with us too and wouldn't be far behind her, though I had already assumed that was the case. I wondered if he’d decided to stay for the same reason I did—mostly for Karen, but also partly because he knew that our time together wasn’t meant to be over yet.

His face lit up as he approached us, flashing his classic smug smile.

“Just couldn’t stay away, huh?,” he laughed and embraced all of us. “I had a feeling you might still be here.” As we all held onto each other, I got a strange feeling that they’d all showed up in my life just in time. In just two weeks, they had become the people who helped me keep going when I had no motivation or when I felt like I couldn’t take another step. They supported me on the hard days and they let me walk alone when they knew I needed it. On the mornings when I woke up and found myself trapped under the weight of every bad thing that has ever happened to me in my life, they made it okay. These three had become my family here, like everything would be alright as long as I had them next to me.

“I splurged on a fancy hotel room tonight,” Karen told us. “Haley can stay with me if she wants, and you boys can stay in the other room.”

“Or Haley and Joseph can stay together,” Luke chimed in craftily.

“Oh?,” Karen looked up surprised as if she had been clueless about Joseph and I, which seemed impossible, but we soon realized that she hadn’t even known Luke was gay until he begged us to join him at a gay bar later that evening, so maybe she just wasn’t the best at picking up on things.

Karen and I showered off and got ready for the evening together, catching up on the days we’d spent apart.

“So, you and Joseph?,” Karen asked while raising an eyebrow.

We both laughed as I tried to put into words exactly what was happening between us, but as I said the words out loud and watched Karen’s cringing face become increasingly more unenthused, I realized just how stupid all of it sounded.

“What the hell are you waiting for? You’re here for one month with him and then you’re flying back across the world. You like each other, you’re attracted to each other, why are you thinking so much?,” she spoke adamantly. “Just do it already.”

Though she hadn’t put it as eloquently as I’d imagined, she was right. Suddenly, everything made sense, the way things always did when she spoke to me. I was a classic over-thinker. I’d always controlled my impulses so much so that I’d missed out on things that probably could have been great. I’d wasted so much of my life being cautious and not saying what I really felt and waiting for the “right moment,” which wasn’t something that really existed. The right moment is always now. And I knew that with Joseph, risk was better than regret.

As we knocked on Luke’s door, I hoped that he’d given Joseph the same pep-talk that Karen had given me. The four of us walked to the main square and treated ourselves to bottomless sangrias, and the rest of the night was a blur of loud music and moving bodies and feelings of pieces falling into place.

My head was buzzing from the wine and the uncontrollable desire that I knew I had for Joseph. I watched him move and I couldn’t think straight. I watched the way he would throw his head back laughing like a little kid at the dinner table, the way he’d dance like an old man with no rhythm to songs he’d never heard before. I watched the way he reached for my hand as we walked down the brick pavement, so casually it felt like he’d done it a hundred times before. I watched the way his eyes would lock with mine across the loud bar the wonderful way that his lips would brush against my ear as he spoke things to me I couldn’t make out over the music. 

Joseph was complicated and he was irrational and he was insightful and he was beautiful, and with the way that we’d been looking at each other, there was no way that we weren’t going there. And why wouldn’t we? We’d spent two weeks showing off our scarlet letters and our secrets and our traumas, and yet I still adored everything that he was, everything that he said and everything that he stood for. I knew that we’d had a conversation only twenty- four hours ago about how we would wait, but all night long I’d still let my mind imagine all of the things that we might do.

And then we did them.

“Let’s just not think about it,” Joseph whispered softly into my ear, his soft blue eyes turning wild. His lips pressed against my neck before they slowly found their way to my lips, and we smiled at each other in that daffy way that two people who just kissed each other for the first time do. My hands ran through his curly hair and down his strong arms before gripping the back of his neck, the shape of him like something brand new to me. I watched his face while he ran his fingers down my side and pressed himself tenderly and tenaciously against my body.

Joseph gave me a feeling I hadn’t known existed before, like I was living in black and white and he’d painted me golden, like I’d just stepped into daylight for the first time, like somehow the world was now in perfect alignment. Not because of the sex—though the sex was great—but because I’d finally let go. I’d let go of my fears and my ghosts and I’d let my mind empty of all the possible complications and consequences and things that could go wrong. I’d unveiled all of myself to someone, not just physically, but emotionally. I had been vulnerable and I’d been raw and real with him and I’d just given my body to someone who knew every part of me and who’d shown me every part of him. I’d been intimate with men before, but having someone truly understand every corner of my mind, someone who wanted to listen to all of the things that I’d always been too afraid to say out loud for fear of sounding crazy—it was a different kind of intimacy altogether. He touched me and everything in my body told me to trust it.

Night 15 - Tardajos:

The morning was filled with playful teasing and elated laughter, grips on my thigh under the breakfast table, long, drawn out embraces with Karen and going back to her for second and third hugs because I couldn’t stand the idea of saying goodbye. Joseph had decided to stay another night in Burgos, unable to bounce back as quickly as Luke and I could after a long night of drinking. He’d pulled me in and kissed me gently on the cheek and looked into my eyes as if it would be the last time, and I was half-afraid that it would be. I didn’t know how quickly he would catch up to us or if he ever would, but it didn’t matter. I knew that even if we’d never met again, I was forever changed by who he was and what he meant to me.

The two of them watched me skip out of the city, still riding the high of the night before and blushing all the way to Tardajos, a small village where Luke and I stopped for the night. My breakfast had tasted like magic and I’d danced along to the chirping of birds and I’d smiled at every stranger who passed by and that evening, I swore the night sky had touched my soul. I was in love with being alive again. I had an afterglow reminiscent of having just spent the night with the people I’d grown to love most in this world. There was just something so strangely familiar in the ways that the four of us connected with each other, like in some impossible way we had all known each other before this lifetime.

[handsingsweapon]

auld lang syne;

another preview for @yoichasinggoldzine and the companion piece for this post; yuuri got christmas, victor gets new years’ eve.

The date is December 31st, and there’s no holiday on earth that Victor Nikiforov hates like New Years’ Eve. He’s the best footballer on earth; what good are resolutions? Maybe I’ll bring home a gold medal, he’d quipped, offhand, in another one of those ‘stand around in a suit’ set of interviews for Russian GQ, and then he’d winked at the camera and flashed his trademark smile. 

Then the editor picked out one of the serious ones instead; Victor thinks he looks like a lost Peter Pan, wandering through the Latin Quarter. Nonsense, the editor wrote. You look distinguished. Victor thinks that’s codespeak for older, which is as good a reminder as any that this year’s games will be his last and that he’s got maybe one more cup under his feet, and then at some point there’s going to be a new generation of players who rise up and replace him, people like Plisetsky, chomping at the bit for their chance to replace him in the history books.

He knows how it goes. 

He was once the disrupter himself.

Christophe took one look at the spread when it came out and whistled chéri, we need to get you laid. Victor distinctly recalls a few things: one, he remembers telling Christophe to go fuck himself (‘I let Mathieu do that, darling, you know how good he is at it’); two, he knows nothing good ever comes out of Christophe’s New Years’ Eve plans. He’s woken up before in Christophe’s flat, back in the days when he and Mathieu still had an open arrangement, hungover and compromised, dancing the strange dance of the trois in the ménage à trois, extricating himself from Christophe’s ridiculous, thousand thread-count sheets. 

Christophe plays alongside him, quite literally, for St. Germain, and against him for the Swiss side, and they’re both professionals. It’s never been up for discussion. Neither, for that matter, have been any of Victor’s other dalliances, all of them necessarily brief. He jokes that it’s because he’s married to the game.

It isn’t because he’s married to the game.

His body’s an exotic vacation other people take from time to time, a place they tend to visit to say I fucked Victor Nikiforov once, or a luxury resort they’re trying to get a piece of: with the kinds of bonuses Victor gets for his performance in the league, plenty of people have looked his way and seen a paycheck in the place where a heart’s supposed to be.

Maybe he’s over-cautious.

Or maybe he’s world-weary.

Kissing anyone this New Years’, Victor?

“No,” he says, and he leaves early, lets himself into a high-end, Parisian flat well before midnight. Makkachin is the perfect excuse; everyone in the world knows that Victor Nikiforov could afford fifty different dog-walkers without blinking an eye but at the end of the day he’s still the one who needs to be home because Makkachin is waiting. 

For a moment, as the new year turns unobserved and unremarked upon, he wonders whether or not this is the year he ought to come to terms with it, all of it: with his isolation miles ahead of his nearest competition in the professional leagues, with how tired he is of the rich playboy circuit so many of the other footballers make, spending their off-seasons in tropical islands snorkeling off of yachts. He remembers a time when the whole world didn’t know his name; thinks back on his first kiss, stolen under some ancient, beaten-up bleachers back in St. Petersburg.

It’d be nice to go someplace quiet and simple.

Nice to have someone to go off the map with.

He forgets about all of it until the opening ceremonies, something like seven months later. Trust Christophe to arrange for a rager with what feels like most of the international footballers who’re due to play the group rounds in Tokyo; these things just seem to come together with his presence, as if summoned by an angelic bat of hazel eyes and the world’s most idle, mischievous smile. 

One of the Japanese athletes is very, very drunk, although Victor’s got enough self-awareness to concede that he’s a little bit charmed by it: by the not-so-subtle streak of red over the midfielder’s nose and cheekbones, by the softness of his eyes or the adorable, rumbled state of his hair. “Hey. Hey.” He remembers the man’s name is Yuuri, which is a little funny, for some reason, now that Victor’s got a few beers in him. Plisetsky has already tried and failed to stake his claim on the name; Victor’s not quite sure what the means of defeat were, but he knows Yuri’s sulking it off back at the dormitories. This Yuuri is trying to get his attention, which he’s had for some time now, largely because Victor can’t quite figure out why he never seems to leave Victor’s line of sight, and what it is about him that makes Victor think of candlelight, and the smell of clean laundry, and the sensation of going home. “Did you ever get what you wanted?”

“What?”

“Back in December,” slurs Yuuri Katsuki, whose smile is just subtly crooked enough that Victor’s caught by a momentary urge to try to kiss it straight. “You did a photoshoot,” he says. He taps Victor on the chest, and leans in. Victor’s done a lot of different photoshoots, too many to place, really. “You looked …”

Victor braces himself. He knows what comes next: compliments, usually, and the nature of them almost always tells him exactly what people want. Depending on his mood he slots himself in or out of those roles, but he hasn’t been in the mood for a very long time and he’s certainly not in the mood now.

“You looked wistful,” says Yuuri finally. “You looked like you wanted something.” And then he smiles, and it’s artless, devastating, earnest. “Did you ever get it?”

Back in the village, hours later, Yuuri Katsuki passes out drunk before he can remember anything they say to each other.

Victor Nikiforov, on the other hand, remembers every minute with perfect, startling clarity.

It will be nearly another year before he tells Yuuri about it, before he can smile with his whole heart, and fill in the little blanks of Yuuri’s Tokyo games experience, color it in. You wanted to know if I ever got what I wanted, he’ll say, then, when they’re sitting together on a beach in Yuuri’s hometown, a place where nobody recognizes Victor and everyone recognizes Yuuri. 

The answer is yes.

I got everything I ever wanted.

#victuuri #inswinger #yoichasinggoldzine

[lynda-in-muenchen]

Hallo zusammen!

I’m getting settled after Patrick’s and my bike tour (from Münich to Venice), so I thought I’d post a few photos from our trip.

Here we are getting started on our journey with an airy bridge over the Isar River in Münich. There was a heat wave when we started, and EVERYONE in the city was down at the river trying to stay cool, some by (ahem) eschewing any sort of bathing costume.... Those little blobs on the gridwire are locks; the Pont Neuf tradition seems to have spread from Paris.

The Münich-to-Venice bike route is mostly reclaimed train railbeds, and so you spend a lot of time riding either gently uphill or downhill through forests. 

That forest picture is a bit misleading, though; it was NOT cool. It was probably 88F with about 75% humidity as all of Europe was in a heat wave. We stopped as often as we could for shade, cold radlers (beer/lemonade mixes) and eisschokolade, pictured here with its very happy consumer.

So, you can imagine how happy we were to arrive at our first night’s destination: Tegernsee, a beautiful town and lake about 40 miles south of Münich. We jumped in the lake about 5 minutes after pulling up on our bike. This was the view from our room at the Seehotel Luitpold, a nice lakeside establishment with good food (especially the in-season pfefferlingen mushrooms and saibling [lake trout]) and friendly staff. No air conditioning--very few hotels in the mountains have it--but we were up on the top floor and caught a nice breeze off the lake. Also highly recommended: the Tegernseer Bräustüberl, which had the best pretzels we’ve had and good Augustiner beer.

I don’t pretend to have a deep understanding of Bayerischer culture, but it’s clear they’re extraordinarily proud of their heritage, as evidenced by this guy, who is rocking lederhosen on an average Thursday, keeps his centuries-old landhaus immaculate down to its overflowing windowboxes, and maintains not only a giant Bayerischer maypole out front, but also this antique wayfarer’s drinking fountain with St. Christopher on top (patron saint of travelers). Everyone we met in Bayern was really friendly.

I wish we had gotten a picture of the Bayerischer in his full beard and feathered cap who was diligently emptying into his little cart the trash in the bins along the trail along the Weißach river. The trail is lovingly maintained by locals and features frequent benches and picnic tables like these, which are designed (we think) to be usable in the winter by Nordic skiiers as well as by bikers and hikers in the summers.

Border control between Germany and Austria on the bike route.... I can attest it’s a lot more intense on the train coming back through. Even though they’re very polite, Austrian police are still intimidating with their dour expressions and dark uniforms with the double-headed Austrian eagle screaming from the shoulder.

I spent a lot of time in hedges on the trailside trying to find ripe raspberries and blackberries. These were some of the better ones, just outside Achenkirch.

Tirol (the Alps between Germany and Italy, roughly) comes across to the outsider as devoutly Catholic. Everywhere along our route--which followed train routes, which in turn followed ancient trading routes for salt and other commodities--there were beautifully maintained shrines to saints, apostles, and the Holy Family. A few were as large as this one at Achenkirch, but most were much smaller, some the size of mailboxes, and no two were exactly alike.

Achensee is a stunning lake. We took advantage of a nice tailwind here and watched kitesurfers plying their craft out on the water.

Our second night was in Stans in Austria, at the foot of the famous Wolfsklamm (Wolf’s gorge). Catwalks thread past a series of waterfalls, pale and milky with glacial runoff, to the ethereal Georgenberg monastery high on a cliff above the gorge.

It was still REALLY hot. So, after a ridiculously steep climb out of Innsbruck to the town of Vills, I was pretty excited to see another Tirolean water fountain.

Though I initially questioned our sanity in riding Brenner Pass from Innsbruck instead of taking the train for that leg, it ended up being one of my favorite days of the tour because as we contoured (ever upward) along the Alpine foothills of the Ellbögen, we got to see a real slice of Tirolean life--shops with goatskins and horns spilling out the front door, farmhouses perched on impossible slopes, young people bolting out of cars reverberating with techno to buy cigarettes at corner stores, silver-haired ladies in crown braids hanging laundry, and farmers raking grass for bailing. You would not believe how steep this slope was that this farmer drove his bailer down (that’s his wife in the background raking the grass into neat rows for the bailer). We wondered why they were working so frantically to get the hay baled...and hey, wasn’t it getting a bit darker overhead?....

This photo is from a day later, basically the next time we could get the camera out again as a series of epic thunderstorms washed away the heatwave across the Alps. We weren’t ever in danger, but boy were we wet.... We wouldn’t appreciate the full impact of the storms until a few days later. In the meantime, we crossed from Austria into Italy, whizzed by a goatherd sheltering from the rain in an old train platform with his goats, warmed up very gratefully in the sauna at the fabulous Steindl Boutique Hotel in Sterzing/Vipiteno, had a great dinner at Vincenz, saw folks dressed in traditional trachten for the Firefighter festivals in several villages, ate our first pizza of the trip (but by no means our last) in Franzensfeste/Fortezza, and caught this picture of Ehrenburg Castle coming out of the stormclouds.

We spent two nights in Bruneck/Brunico, a Southern Tyrolean town that is the jumping-off point for a lot of adventure sports. It’s also the location of two sites of the Messner Mountain Museum, Ripa in Castle Bruneck, which has the theme of People, and Corones (above), which has the theme of Walls. We rode the tram to the top of the Cronplatz to visit Corones and were blown away by our first views of the Dolomites. We loved Bruneck and would definitely come back for mountain biking, climbing, and eating/drinking at Rienzbräu and Gänseliesl. Südtirol is in Italy but is nearly 70% German-speaking; that gives you a hint that things have been...tense in times past. From what I could pick up, the Italians think the Tiroleans are get more resources than they deserve to help preserve their culture, and the Tiroleans are resentful of Italian incursion into their ancestral “heimat.” But both groups seem to agree that pizza is awesome.

It was a bit of a detour from our route to Cortina d’Ampezzo, but I had to see this Venetian Sawmill in Oberolang designed by Leonardo da Vinci. There were once 60 of these water-powered sawmills in the Olang valley, and this one was still running in the 1950s. It’s recently been restored using the original joinery and techniques.

Wow, fabulous, right? We were getting ready to head down that valley from Toblach, conquer our last pass and coast down to Cortina, when....

Washout! Several, actually, the result of landslides from the torrential rains a few days before. A chic engineer in yellow chiffon and pearls shouted over the bullodozers pushing cow-sized rocks off the road behind her to suggest we try the “little path” on the other side of Toblach lake. And so Patrick was able to realize his dream of mountain-biking on a tandem. Fortunately, it only lasted for a few miles before we were able to rejoin our regularly scheduled path and reward ourselves with blueberries and cream at the top of the pass at Cimabanche. I should mention here that a tandem bicycle is a great personality test. We ran into (not literally) many people who had never seen one before. First, their jaws would hang open, and then one of two things would happen: (a) their whole face would light up like a kid’s, or (b) they would look apprehensive, as if they weren’t entirely sure a tandem bicycle didn’t pose some kind of existential threat. You can tell a lot about how people see the world from a spontaneous response like that.

This is Cortina d’Ampezzo, the Aspen (or Vail, if you prefer) of the Italian Alps. It’s something else. I did not know, for instance, that they made lederhosen in Daisy-Duke-length, nor that sleek young mothers would sport them without a whiff of irony while pushing strollers past the windows of Céline and Louis Vuitton boutique. But I learn something new every day. It was impossible to be grouchy about any of it; everyone was so beautiful and so happy. I would dare you not to smile at the children that ran in semi-feral packs around the piazza every evening while their parents sipped aperol spritzes. Next time, though, we’d skip the circus for some smaller villages down the path like San Vito or Valles di Cadore.

I want to live in this house. Can you see the dog begging for breakfast on the front stoop? I mean, come on, now.

I would also live here, in Asolo. Backing up a bit: We coasted down from Cortina to Conegliano and had an unforgettable dinner at A Casa de Giorgio, thanks to a recommendation from our concierge at the outstanding (I’m not kidding) Best Western Canon d’Oro. Conegliano is the epicenter of the prosecco-making region, and they’re dedicated: you know that when a bottle of prosecco shows up next to the coffee and juice in your breakfast buffet. This is where we learned about our favorite Bike Touring Energy Supplement (aside from a pretzel and a radler): prosecco and potato chips. They just bring the chips to you if you order a prosecco. Best thing ever. At Osteria Ultima Spiaggia in Nervesa della Battaglia, we got two glasses of great prosecco, a bowl of potato chips, and four little bruschette for 5€; the cheapest heaven imaginable on a muggy morning. But on to Asolo: It sits on the last of a little sawtoothed series of hills called the Colli Asolani. It has not one but two castles, one of them belonging to the Cyprian queen Caterina Cornaro, (who is giving a LOT of side-eye in her portrait by Titian on this Wikipedia page, but you’ll see when you read the page that she had ample reasons). Robert Browning bought a villa in Asolo on the Via Canova the year Elizabeth Barrett Browning died. It’s been turned into a hotel, so you, too, can console yourself gazing out from the garden at the Villa degli Armeni with its neoclassical frame of Italian cypress and its undulating foothills dotted with grazing sheep.

I fell in love with the work of the modernist architect Carlo Scarpa on this trip. Patrick discovered that we were going to be close to his most famous work, the Tomba Brion, and so that’s why we detoured from the Münich-to-Venice path to visit Asolo and the tomb (where these pics were taken). We also bumped into several of his works in Venice, where he grew up. I highly recommend checking out this NYTimes piece on him.

We made it! After 10 days (8 riding days) we rolled into Venice on a sticky Saturday afternoon. We’d been amply warned to stay away from the city in August--that’s when it’s both hottest and most crowded with tourists. But we managed to have a great time, thanks mostly to staying out of the way in an Airbnb in Santa Croce (with air conditioning!) and avoiding the most touristy stuff. A highlight was a baccaro (stand-up appetizer-and-drinks bar) crawl in Castello including cichetti at Baccarando della Calle d’Ourso and gelato at Uso; another was amazing seafood and gypsy jazz at Il Paradiso Perduto in Cannaregio. I love Venice. It stubbornly frustrates any attempt to understand it as a whole, and since that’s exactly the problem I’m working on with climate-change images right now (which picture climate as a whole but disable local people and governments from taking effective action), I found this visit very intellectually stimulating--particularly just having seen Scarpa’s work, which similarly resists comprehension and encourages dwelling. It’s no accident he grew up in Venice.

The Biennale was in town, and we saw some amazing exhibitions by Tehching Hsieh and Stephen Chambers. We also saw the one above, The Wreck of the Unbelievable by Damien Hirst, and it was a split decision. It’s monumental, spanning two of François Pinault’s villas, and it took 10 years to make, so that’s a lot of hype right there. Patrick hated it, finding it pretentious and derivative. Since it’s satirical, I gave it a little more credit for launching a critique of class and consumerism in the art-collection world. But we both felt like this lady in the picture, who’s thinking, “How did they get a three-storey headless faux-bronze demon in here, and what am I supposed to get out of it?”

OK, last one. We finished our trip in Verona because of complicated train shenanigans. This is the Giardino Giusti, which was on every Grand Tour checklist from the 17th to the 19th centuries: English diarist John Evelyn loved the parterres, and Goethe had a favorite cypress. The monstrous face in the belvedere, on which we’re standing, used to belch fire and smoke “to the amazement and dismay of visitors.” It was scorching in Verona, so we didn’t spend too much time exploring, and we skipped all the Romeo & Juliet stuff, but we did picnic by the Roman arena, which was built in AD 30 and could seat all 40,000 citizens.

I promise I’ll post some actual pictures of Münich next time :)

[blarrghe]

Merry Christmas to Me they are going on a Date

The air was crisp, and perfectly still. The thunk of Dorian’s car door slamming shut sounded out soft, almost muffled by the quietness of the snow-covered street. There were no other cars parked in the tiny lot in the centre of it, which divided two rows of quaint little shops on either side. The street rejoined itself around the empty parking lot and wound away in either direction. The side streets that branched in awkward zigzagging patterns off of it, sparsely lined with picturesque little cottages with wide yards of snow between them, weren’t even plowed. The main road ran up and down; up, winding slowly through a forest of trees and disappearing into the mountainside, and down, towards a glowing town square lit up at its centre by a tall, festively decorated pine tree. 

Dorian watched his breath form a cloud of mist in front of him, and pressed the little button on his keychain. His car’s lights flashed, and the horn beeped once, obnoxiously loud against the silent scene. For a moment, he glanced up the road, and then lifted his head higher, arching his head way back to take in the peaks of the mountains overshadowing the quiet town. The sky was fading into sunset, and pink light glowed through the trees and sparkled off the snow in the distant mountaintops. The mountains loomed quietly, shining in orange and peach with dark evergreen trees blanketing around their roots, and among them little golden lights from mountainside cabins were glowing softly through the snow. It was beautiful and serene, like a scene directly out of a holiday card, and Dorian hated every single thing about it.

He sighed, breath forming a long whispering mist from his mouth and disappearing into the air, and rubbed his hands together. He scanned the shops on the street before him, windows all dark, signs all turned round to ‘closed’, and then with another, more irritated little sigh, looked at his watch. 

Half past four, said the large gold analogue contraption on his wrist. He sighed again, and strode forward across the street, his shoes slipping awkwardly against the packed down snow. He stepped up onto the sidewalk and frowned at the crunch of coarse salt under his foot. Then he glanced up and down the line of shops one more time, his eye landing on the only lit window on the whole street, and with one last heavy sigh, walked carefully towards it. 

The buildings looked old; stone foundations with thick wood or brick walls, mostly two stories tall with little apartments slotted in above, and topped with high-pointed dutch roofs complete with smoking chimneys. He passed a dark-windowed chocolatier with displays of intricate candy ornaments and gold foil wrapped chocolates in the window, and a bakery with windows decorated with paper snowflakes and quintessentially charming gingerbread houses. All closed as of four in the afternoon. 

"Ridiculous." He muttered aloud to the empty street. 

The open shop, when he came to it, had a large sculpture of a wooden bear in the window, and a tower of suede moccasins on display. Lavellan's Crafts, said a sign on the door. Looking in through the window he could see more display stands; postcards and keychains and little animal figurines. 

Fantastic, thought Dorian bitterly, a chintzy souvenir shop. Just what he needed. 

He pushed the heavy wooden door open, and it grunted on its hinges as his feet stomped over the welcome mat. And it was a Welcome! mat, woven out of coarse fabric and dotted with thematic pine cones and holly leaves, the happy greeting stencilled on in uncomplicated calligraphy. 

The warmth and the smell of the place washed over him immediately. The walls were left unpainted, beautiful old wood varnished and shining in the warm incandescent light from an intricate wooden chandelier that hung overhead. A nearby shelf littered with artisanal scented candles and boxes of "genuine" incense sticks wafted out a mix of bold scents; patchouli, sage, maple, pine. He moved away from it, scanning the other shelves and displays. 

Beaded decorations and wind chimes hung in one window, and further into the shop, past the little rotating displays of animal figurine keychains and greeting cards, larger items stood out with hefty price tags. He paused in front of a collection of large canvases displaying boldly painted landscapes of the local scenery in all seasons, and portraits of rustic looking elves engaging in various traditional activities. His eyes lingered on the paintings a little too long, caught up in the crisp lines and bright colours. The people all had joy on their faces; rosy cheeks and bright eyes, colourful dresses that very nearly looked to be moving. As he stood struck by their expressiveness, he almost forgot to remain unimpressed. 

He picked up a bar of handmade soap scattered with gritty bits of lavender, sniffed it, and put it back down. Then he wandered over to a display of wooden tree ornaments, and spun it absently, watching the little wolves and caribou and bears sway about. 

"Looking for something specific?" Said a soft voice out of a dark nook behind the counter at the back of the shop. 

Dorian turned to look with a start, and before he could think better of it, he complained.

"Got anything that says 'happy holidays, thank you so much for dragging me out to the frozen middle of nowhere to spend the holidays in some stuffy little cabin that doesn't even get cell service. Not that it matters, since the entire dull little village shuts down at four in the afternoon, and in all probability there won't be anywhere for miles to find decent company or even a decent brandy?’ " He asked. Then with a twinge of self-aware guilt for his attitude, he amended the rant with a vaguely apologetic "no offense". 

Behind the counter, the soft voice was laughing. Then an elf came into view, leaning his elbows over the counter and looking at Dorian with sparkling green eyes. He kept laughing, chuckling mildly under his breath and shaking his head so that golden light danced off the messy curls of his dark red hair. His face was tattooed, like the elves in the paintings, and they glowed against his warm toned skin. Dorian had never seen work like it in real life, and once again found his eye lingering a little too long.

"Sorry, I don't think so." The elf said finally, a sideways smirk resting on his full lips, "but the shop down the street sells chocolate truffles filled with brandy that are quite nice. They don't open again until ten tomorrow, of course. Can I interest you in a postcard of our dull little village, instead?" 

Dorian's cheeks burned, and not half because of the chiding tone of the shopkeeper's rebuttal. Mainly, he was busy getting hot at just how striking those eyes were; how they glittered across the room at him with perfectly patient bemusement. 

He sighed. "Apologies. Long drive." He muttered, quickly grabbing an ornament carved like two fish swimming after each other's tails, and a wintery postcard decorated with a photograph of the tree in the town square. He walked himself up to the counter and set the items down, hastily digging into his pocket for his wallet and avoiding the elf's still-penetrating gaze. 

"If it's for someone you don't like, you should go with the wolf." Remarked the elf, still leaning his elbows on the counter and making no moves to ring him up, or stop smirking. "Around these parts, we tell stories about a Dread Wolf who tricks tourists into getting lost in the mountains." His smirk broadened. 

"Then why put it on an ornament?" 

The elf shrugged. "They're good stories." His soft voice lilted with an accent Dorian couldn't place, musical and sweet, but there was still a good deal of cheek to his tone. "Actually, the wolf represents strength and loyalty. The Dread Wolf is just a local legend." Then he winked at him, and slid the postcard across the counter to the register. 

"Strength and loyalty." Dorian shook his head, "and fish?" 

"Balance." 

Balance. As in work-life? Ironic, given the intended recipient. "I'll stick with the fish." 

"That everything?" 

Dorian nodded. 

"Hold on, I think I have something in the back that might interest you." The elf disappeared into his dark little nook and through a storeroom door, the teasing smirk never once leaving his face. When he came out again he was holding a single gold foil wrapped chocolate, and he nudged it across the counter with a friendly nod. "Happy holidays." He said, and the smile on his face shifted into one that was somewhat less amused, and more sincere. 

Dorian took the chocolate tentatively, and finished paying for the ornament and card. It totalled more than he would have expected for some faux-Dalish tourist fare, and he took a second to properly look over the ornament before tucking it into his pocket. No factory logo, just the initials TL burned into the wood. So maybe it wasn't quite a chintzy souvenir shop. 

"This all local?" He asked, suddenly feeling a new wave of guilt over his earlier disparaging comments. 

The very obviously Dalish elf in front of him raised an eyebrow and nodded. "There's a collective." 

He plucked two business cards and a pamphlet out of the brochure stand in front of his cash register, and slid them across the counter. The business cards had gallery names on them, and the pamphlet advertised the services of a local community centre, including an ongoing holiday craft fair. Dorian glanced over the rest of the brochures in the stand. There were a few other business cards for local shops, and pamphlets for companies offering various adventure packages; mountain climbing, horseshoe tours, trail rides. 

The elf's gaze followed him with a faint degree of amused judgment, and the expression fell on his striking features in a way that made Dorian's throat dry. He cleared his throat, picked out a general ‘Village Businesses’ brochure from the stand and smoothed out his expression. It was entirely unfair, this striking elf looking at him like that. He could fix this. 

"Well, now I've made a fool of myself, might I more humbly ask for a recommendation?" He passed the brochure over the counter with a gracefully apologetic smile. 

The elf unfolded the page on the counter top. Then he grabbed a pencil from somewhere out of that mess of hair, and flashed him a quick, toothy grin before bending over it and beginning to circle and scribble away. 

"This might help keep you from getting bored, even without cell service. When do you leave?"  

Dorian's heart jumped at the retort, and the elf glanced up at him with another quick flash of taunting teeth.

“Two weeks.” He answered roughly, throat dry again. 

The elf passed back the brochure, and tucked the pencil back onto a braid behind his ear with a slight frown. “Not really enough time, but hopefully you can manage to enjoy some of it.” He said, leaning back and smirking again. Dorian went back to feeling flushed. “But we close in five minutes.” Of course you do. "If you want, I could show you where to get a good beer, if not good brandy.” Oh.

#I don't have a title for this fic yet #but pls know that its titled taren the holiday elf in my docs #modern au #christmas fic #my fic #my writing #pavellan #dragon age fanfic #dragon age inquisition fanfic #meet cute