#its always mine voice or something voiceless | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

westmoor · 3 years

Text

the hart

(«- the fox. «- the hare)

(3.6k, shifter!jaskier, geraskier. some angst, some anxiety, some whump and violence - and healing.)

Destiny had favoured him, or so he’d thought.

Jaskier had been a different creature then. For the creature he is now, the world has little mercy.

Whatever courage youth had given him, darting down secret alleys on daring quests in the streets of Oxenfurt, skittering past the guards of his childhood estate to chase whatever whims the night presented, it’s all gone now.

Driven out by the dying light of day, vacant darkness with its tendrils crawling closer, growing longer, lean and frail. Grasping until they find him, take and remake him, warping his body to this shape he doesn’t recognize. And at last, plunging his world into one of twisting nightmares, undulating breaths hot and heaving through the grass, and the shadowed beasts stalking, searching, as the last remnants of his fortitude slips away under his feet.

Silence, he thinks, is the only mercy spared for creatures like him.

Beyond the concert of the dawn chorus, the lyric of a nightingale at dusk, the mourning of wolves calling their distant brethren as the season grows colder, there’s another world of sound. Imperceptible to all but those that live in frequent danger, that hold their breath and press their bellies to the ground in fields and meadows, straining their ears for a sign to flee.

Sudden fluttering of wagtails and startled sparrows. Squirrels hoarsely chattering above. Watchful rabbits drumming in the thicket, ordering their children underground.

He tries to wield it, to wrap himself in it. If he stays in this voiceless creature long enough, breathes quietly enough, perhaps the savagery that trails the luscious scent of prey in his tracks will go on by, and forget about him altogether.

Perhaps if he is good enough, hides deep enough - perhaps he can forget, too. Forget about foxes and hares and men with infections in their hearts, about whichever sickness has taken hold in him.

Or perhaps his luck runs out, like it so often does for those whose lives are favoured more by chance than destiny. Then, well, that is just a different sort of silence.

But for Jaskier, when chance fails him and he finds himself outwitted and caught in the jaws of that ultimate mercy, silence doesn’t come.

Instead, what finds him is a threadbare cloak, a smouldering campfire, a red mare, and the steady hands of a witcher.

They make it back to the little clearing he had run from, Jaskier’s cloth-wound body bundled in Geralt’s arm like something precious.

As shock begins to lose its grip on his mind, peeling back the layer of numbness he’s been afforded, the pain comes seeping back. With every step and jostle, something rattles in his chest. His joints move, but they move wrong.

He doesn’t know if bones this brittle are made to heal, or if this is just a body built for breaking. The icy wet that trickles through his coat is almost a distraction.

It hurts so much. It should hurt more.

He doesn’t even have a voice to whimper in.

It’s not until he’s lowered gently to the ground that he realises where they are, recognizes the low-hanging branches and the saddlebags piled haphazardly where he’d last seen Geralt standing. Recognizes too the wave that now, his panic bled out into the musty leaves somewhere on the forest floor behind them, feels more like shame. Thought battles instinct in his frayed mind and he knows he cannot run, but he cannot stay, and -

And had he been an excess burden in Geralt’s life before, then now, surely -

For eyes as wide as his, meant to discern between friend and foe at a league, any feature this close might as well be cruel. The details of his face are unclear as Geralt leans over him.

But he does know movement. Feels the fingertip that strokes the divot in his forehead. Geralt speaks, but the tone is clearer than the words, and it isn’t harsh. While passing over dirtied fur, easing down his ears, the other hand moves into the space between them and makes a sign.

Just like that, Jaskier’s world grows small again.

Slowly, the phantoms crouching at his vision’s edge recede, forced back beyond the shadows of the trees, kept at bay by scant firelight. Mighty trunks stand sentinel, barring their return.

Gone is the endless sky and the swift death that soars there. Gone too are the open fields and the dangers that prowl them, pointed snouts pressed to the ground, wetting their tongues at the scent of his injury.

He only knows what moves within this temporary refuge - tonight in the forest, tomorrow in the field - and the rounded silhouettes of those that could, but would not harm him.

There is no grand reckoning. No speech or lofty monologue, no words to twist or tones to ring false. Geralt doesn’t beg for forgiveness, makes no excuses, but he talks - low and smooth, for as long as Jaskier is awake to hear it.

The words will have faded from memory by dawn, but their essence remains - the solemn promise made that night, heard by none but the tall pines, a red mare, and himself. The one wrapped around him like a cloak, applied in layers of soothing honeyed balm over claw marks and wounds before it is spoken into existence: That no new hurt will find him here.

It’s a tedious process, but Geralt is right: his body does heal. Though the first week or so is spent under a dim fog brought by his witcher’s hand, it requires a restraint he never knew he had to hold out until his flesh starts to knit together.

Once his bones grow strong enough not to snap under the pressure as they twist in their fastenings, he finds the gap between one form and the other, and wills it open.

The transformation, though not always voluntary, had always come easy. This does not. It feels like fitting an old key, like forcing a lock that’s threatening to rust shut, throwing his weight against it in the hopes that the bar gives before the hinge.

He takes his first breath in the ribcage of a man like one saved from drowning. It burns and strains, and he is dizzy with the sudden height - but relief floods him like a tidal pool, and drowns out every other sensation.

When he looks up, Geralt is there, holding his clothes and lute, the things he’d left behind when they became too much to carry.

That becomes a pattern.

I am healed, he tells himself, and tells himself until he believes it, once his shoulder bends and deep breaths come painlessly. He believes it when he sings the songs of great grey beasts and their mountain brothers, terrible monsters and greater heroes, piecing together their stories bit by bit.

I will be healed, he decides, and tries to forget the songs about moorhens’ clucking and black little paws through the dew. Putting those pieces together not because they fit, but because they must, and tries to lose the ones left over.

But more often than not, Geralt is there and he picks them up, one by one, and hands them back in all the right order.

“You weren’t a hare when we met,” Geralt states one evening, in a moment of relative quiet - as quiet as their evenings are, one tuning his lute and the other sharpening the hunting knife he’d just tried to give Jaskier a lesson in wielding.

As if conjured by the mention of its name, Jaskier’s heart sets to beating. Although many unsaid things had become topics of conversation lately, neither had tried putting words to that. He suppresses the nervous shudder that crawls along his neck.

“I’m not a hare now either,” he says, and though it’s phrased in jest, it’s a reminder more than anything else: That he is not prey, and he will not run.

Geralt dismisses it with a grunt, and Jaskier knows that wasn’t what he had meant. There was a question in that statement, one of the dozens he himself had pondered over years, though he’s not sure which one exactly. Luckily, they all have the same answer.

“I don’t know,” he says, and the pressure at the back of his throat and how the words in his head refuse to conform into sentences tells him whatever comes next will be a ramble. While he’s never had trouble speaking frankly, honesty is harder. !I don’t know when or why or… how. Not how it started, even. I don’t remember a time when I wasn’t - or when I didn’t - whatever I am.”

He’s aware that he’s stopped playing. Looking at his hands still poised over the strings, he wills the stream to slow, and tries to find solid ground to stand on. Geralt, bless him, gives him time.

“I believe it changed, though,” he continues once the whirling pool in his stomach has settled, when he’s less at risk of going under. “When we were in Rinde - perhaps later? I felt as though I’d come apart. Like a music box shattered on the floor and put back together, looking just like it had before, but the melody not playing the same.”

“In Rinde,” Geralt repeats, frown deepening with something akin to guilt. “Do you think the djinn, or Yen…?”

Jaskier has thought about it. Still thinks about it, when it all comes seeping through a bedroom window, when the sweet beckoning of the wind outside becomes curses. When it raps at the glass and taunts him for hiding his face in borrowed blankets or warm skin of a stranger, laughing at his cowardice. He remembers going out of tune, dissonant thrumming at his core at the disturbance of foreign magic.

“Yes,” he says.

But he also remembers Geralt’s gaze falling on another, losing the weight of it and coming unmoored. A beautiful sorceress, soft arms wrapped around rough, hushed voices ringing in unison. Seasons shifting and roads turning under his feet as he followed that to which he had tethered his dreams and aspirations. He remembers the scent of smoke and hunt and howl, and laying claim to a home, to a heart that wasn’t offered.

“But I think it was me, too,” he finishes. “I think the djinn - or Yennefer - or something may have pulled my pegs loose, so to speak. But the shape I took, that was mine.”

He’s always found it curious - if sometimes unfortunate - how words not intended to be spoken aloud but come by their own volition often seem to manifest more strongly than those initially planned. How much harder they are to ignore.

Curious, too, how a thing once named becomes tangible and must, at least in concept, adhere to the rules and limitations of the real world. How it can be touched and held, put away and taken out, turned over until it stops hurting.

The nights grow long in the wilderness, and the passing of summer shortens the days. And while he is no longer driven to bolt from his skin in fits that feel like madness, the whispers of the dark still tinge the air he breathes with the sweetness of rock-rose and blackberry. There are nights when it becomes inevitable, when he knows before the sun has set that the carefully balanced scales of temptation and trepidation will tip, and he will spend the hours of darkness trapped within this animal that cannot sing.

But even then, there is respite.

An index finger easing the tension of his furred head, careful strokes to coax his ears from their rigid stance, from turning at any sound real or imagined. Palms coming settling over his temples, roughened fingertips on bare skin, providing solid walls against all that feels too vast to comprehend, and reducing his world to just what can be held between two hands.

If the drumming of rabbits is his signal of peril, the signal of peace becomes the rhythm of a slow and steady heart, beating faithfully in the chest just beneath his ear.

It’s there, in the secluded space between their bodies where he draws circles to match the caresses over the small of his back, that he finds the courage to unearth the fragments of what he once was, mismatched bones and unmoored thoughts and instincts all he has been unable to lose, and starts to mold them back together into something recognizable.

As the thing that has sprouted and grown lush from the ruins of what was between them matures and turns vibrant, so do the leaves.

Autumn brings abundance the likes of which he has barely known. Roadsides overflow with wildberries to rival the richest vineyards of Toussaint. Cider sweet as honey pours in every tavern in their way, pressed apples picked from branches hung so low to the ground they must've sighed with relief at the loss of their burden.

Yet no sun-warmed apple cider shines as golden, nor has any Toussaint wine rendered him as drunk as his lover’s eyes or lips on his. At his side, in his arms, Jaskier finds the hollow indentations of a former self still vacant, still waiting. And the corresponding edges, worn smooth like river rocks over time, fall into place with such ease he wonders how they ever came apart at all.

There, safe under Geralt’s gentle touch, the wild may call all it wants.

Another forest’s edge, another contract, another waning moon.

Jaskier stokes the fire, tending to the warding light, wondering idly whether flames ignited by a Witcher’s sign hold more power than those lit by mere mortals. He likes to think they do. If he leans into it, he can easily convince himself of Geralt’s grounding presence remaining long after his footsteps are lost in the undergrowth. Behind him, Roach grazes in a patch of clovers, her calm tempering even the most skittish of his natures.

It is still, stiller than it has been for a while. The slight gale that picked up at the setting sun has dwindled to a breeze. He thought about unpacking his lute near an hour ago, but wouldn’t risk disturbing the sanctity of the evening, its melody would feel too far out of place in the arrangement of grasshoppers and midnight warblers.

Even to his human senses, animals of bush and green play in concert - from the whip of a falcon’s wings to the complaints of adolescent woodgrouse reluctant to leave their natal clutch - unknowingly orchestrated, and all of them distant. None, no matter their place in nature's hierarchy, dare test their mettle against the ever-present sense of death and danger that shrouds the dwelling of a witcher.

They stir and fuss, some waking while others settle down to sleep, until they don��t.

Jaskier’s buried instincts know it before his waking mind does, the urgent shift in pace and tune, discordant notes of prey’s first warning.

He listens intently.

It must be large, or voracious, or both. Seldom does a simple beast inspire such disquiet, word of its advances sending ripples of caution to every ear that knows to harken.

Be quick, they say, or be quiet.

Though he can’t make out the movements of the thing itself, the tell-tale cries and rattles of other creatures point its path. A bird takes wing, then another, each one closer and all too close to their camp.

Roach stands frozen, nostrils flared. He thinks he can hear it now. Smell the stench of its breath if he tries, make out its shape in there amongst the trees, moving with far too much stealth for anything that size. Too large for a cat, too quiet for a bear.

It closes in, so near now that a crouch, a leap, might take it into their midst.

Jaskier holds his breath. There is nothing else to do. Not as a fox, or a hare, or a man. Nothing to do but wait.

Whether real or supplied by imagination, he hears it scuff at the ground, draw a deep lungful of scent down into its massive body. And then it moves - away, back into the woods.

For a moment, he welcomes the silence, rushing elation that fortune has yet to claim his debts. But realization doesn’t follow far behind.

No wild thing would come upon a witcher by accident. None could miss the scent of one, and none should come so close to it before changing their mind, unless...

The lone hunter, whatever its goals, has picked a fresher trail: Geralt’s.

It’s ill-advised. More so, it’s stupid. The knife feels foreign in his hand.

He’s not such a fool that he thinks he can fight it, or that the blade or his ability to wield it would make any difference at all. But he must do something, needs to try. If only he can warn Geralt, call out in time and let him know before the beast can pounce…

But it moves fast, and his eyes are slaves to the light, inadequate under the ceiling of leaves and branches. Soon, he hardly knows if he follows it at all.

Every fiber of his being wills against abandoning this last shred of defense, but he knows he has no choice, not if he is to make it.

The knife lands with a thump, the soft ground cushioning its fall. For the first time in a long time, by his own volition, Jaskier shuts his eyes and folds his frame in on itself, opening them to a world tall and vast and all too sharp.

Speed is on his side. This is a body made for running, and run it does. By whatever force his kind is blessed, by fate or chance or both, nothing stands in his way. Though moments wasted on doubt comes at a price, and though he covers ground thrice as fast, he can’t gain it all back.

His vision is wide. The white of Geralt’s head, back turned as he brings his weight down to end the last of the ghouls, lights it like a beacon.

And the ragged shape, hulking even where it’s coiled to spring, attention locked to Geralt’s undefended back with an intensity that swears violence. Canine eyes do not glow, but in that moment, in his world of ash and shadow, Jaskier swears the werewolf’s eyes shine red.

And a hare’s cry, no matter his haste, no matter how shrill, holds no power to them.

He sees everything at once.

Glints of teeth under snarling lips as it jumps. The flash of the witcher’s blade as it swings too high, going clear of the werewolf’s head.

Its jaws lock at his side, tearing through armour and sinew into muscle, grating against bone. Jaskier has never heard a sound like this. Not from man, or from beast. Not from Geralt. It's sheer anguish turned vocal.

Something in him breaks, then.

Like an old joint, once healed wrong and calcified, cracking open to swing freely. It hurts at first. The snap, burning white-hot and blinding. And then: Euphoria.

His body regresses to the confines of a man, and beyond. The change is too fast to feel, too fast to track.

A new form, new instincts bursting through before he knows how to tame them. Fear gives way to fury. By the time he knows he is moving, he has already moved.

It takes no thought at all to lower his head. To align his skull and spine. Leap from his spot.

The impact ought to hurt, but it doesn’t. There’s an audible crack as something breaks, but not from him. Neither is the inhuman yowl that follows, sound reverberating through the forest.

The smell of blood fills his lungs. He doesn’t balk at it.

His face runs warm, runs wet. Twisting to free himself of frantic limbs and mottled fur, he shakes his antlers to strike again. This time, he finds the wolf yielding, limping back just shy of his sharpened crown. When it flees, he thinks to follow, to make up for every night and every hour spent in terror, driven underground by lesser beasts than this.

But Geralt’s scream still echoes in him, the sound of it a weight he cannot bear, couldn’t move under had he tried.

In the moment it takes to hesitate, doubt rears its head. Face awash and prongs painted red with the blood of another living thing, he feels about as far from the self he has learned to accept as one can come. To anyone else, he must look monstrous.

But when he turns, Geralt isn’t looking at him with disgust. Not with scorn, either. Or pity, or any other thing Jaskier had thought he’d face if he spoke the truth of his nature all those years ago.

Geralt raises the arm at his uninjured side. Had Jaskier been smaller, and softer, he would’ve slipped under it, curled up in the hollow at his witcher’s throat and stayed there, felt his heart beat and his chest rise until morning came to see them hale.

Instead, Geralt steadies himself with a hand on his neck and draws close. Giving more of his balance Jaskier than perhaps he means to, but no more than Jaskier can hold, his breaths so deep they might as well be sobs.

There are words to be had. Answers to be found. Leagues to walk, and promises to keep.

Soon enough, winter winds will sweep down across the continent, summons ringing from empty halls in far northern mountains, and they will answer.

But for now, Jaskier is home.

For now, the witcher leans his forehead against that of his hart - or fox, or hare, or bard - knowing that neither will follow that path alone.

At the edge of the woods and throughout the field beyond, rabbits cease their drumming, and the first few songbirds wake to herald the dawn.

Sorry for showing up half-assed four months late?

Tag list: @llamasdumpsterfire @stinastar @elliestormfound @justjess94 @fontegagrilledcheese @dani-dandelino @honeysuckletook @underwaterattribute @ahhhhhhdonna @biitumen @cinary @saphiramalbec @lilbanili @sulkyshengshou @blooodymoon @dapandapod @kuripon @samstree

@tsukuyomi-selene and @herostag asked to be tagged for this one in particular, I think?

#post before i chicken out #the fox #the hare #the hart #geraskier #the witcher fanfic #shapeshifter!jaskier #geralt #jaskier

147 notes · View notes

gureishi · 3 years

Text

blue sky, falling star

Here is the first fic I wrote for the @mysme-rbb! It’s pretty different from anything I’ve written before, and I’m really excited to share it. I had such a wonderful time collaborating with AlyValery, who made this beautiful artwork. Check out her post here.

one

Zen falls in love with her first. For him, it is like leaping into cool, clear water.

There is something about her, from the first time he speaks to her (and she is just words on a screen then, voiceless and non-corporeal): something about her reels him in, makes his heart eel fizzy. It is only when she’s in his home, though—sitting so calmly on his couch, hands clasped neatly in her lap—that he realizes just how deep underwater he has fallen.

“Sorry,” he says to her—and for what? For his small, underground apartment, when she deserves a palace? For bringing her here, or for the danger he didn’t know she was in, or for the strange thickness he feels in the space between them?

She shakes her head, and a lock of hair falls into her eyes. She brushes it away with careful fingers and Zen feels that his heart is trying to fight its way out of his chest.

“You’re like my knight in shining armor right now,” she says—and in spite of it all, she speaks with a certainty that makes his head spin. For his whole life, he has been searching for the sort of sureness that seems to radiate off her. He feels dizzy as he sits beside her—leaving space between them, still (because she feels untouchable to him—because she is too wonderful for this world).

“That’s me,” he says, giving her his best attempt at his usual sparkling smile. He wonders if she can sense how nervous she makes him.

“It’s okay,” she says, patting the space beside her. “You can sit next to me, silly.” She knows: he sees it written in the resplendent smile on her face. Zen feels his cheeks flush. It’s never been like this before: he has worked so hard to learn how to smile, and change the timbre of his voice, and angle his head just right so the light bounces off his jaw. He is not used to being caught off guard. Ah, but he finds it impossible to pretend when she’s around: he is rubbed raw, like she has stripped him of his skin, leaving him utterly exposed.

“If you want me to, babe,” he says—but he knows that his voice is stiff and he can feel the way his body tingles as he shifts closer to her.

“Hey,” she says. She peeks up at him from underneath her lashes and there is a determined look in her eyes. A moment passes in which the world outside the window could burn to the ground and Zen wouldn’t see. She takes his hand.

And this is it: this is the moment. Oh god, he thinks. I’m done for.

She’s smiling up at him, tilting her head to the side to draw his attention to their intertwined fingers—as though he needed a reminder.

“Is this okay?” she asks him. He realizes he’s staring at her—is afraid, for a moment, that he looks like a fool, that she’ll toss her head and laugh that heart-stirring laugh and take her hand back. She doesn’t, of course.

He squeezes her hand. Finds he can breathe underwater.

Zen always knows what to say. But here, on his too-small couch, in his too-small apartment, he doesn’t have the words—doesn’t know how to tell her that his heart, and his head, and his whole life belong to her; ah, but the sparkle in her eyes tells him that she already knows.

“Yeah,” he says. “Of course it is.”

┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈

two

Yoosung can’t sleep. It’s something about the way the stars are shining outside his window: too close, like he could stick out his hand and pull them from the sky. He’s never wanted to believe the adage that lost loved ones look down on us from the stars—it’s too sad, he thinks, to leave behind your friends on earth and exist forever in the night sky, all alone. He doesn’t want to end up stationed in the sky for living people to gaze at as they philosophize about life; he wants to be right here, where it’s warm and he’s real and he can hold the people he loves in his arms.

The people he loves.

Normally, he’d give up on sleep—throw a blanket over his shoulders and open his game, where there would be friends waiting for him: strangers who know him just well enough to ask how he’s doing but not well enough to really listen to the answer. He used to think this sort of relationship was safe—natural—ideal.

But he doesn’t think that way anymore.

He calls her, instead.

She answers right away, and she can’t have been sleeping, because her voice sounds too clear.

“You’re still awake?” he laughs, and she giggles. He wishes she were beside him, head on his shoulder as he looks out through the smudged glass window.

“So are you,” she says.

Yoosung tells her about the stars. He tells her that the stars he sees are really in the past—that they’re long gone—that the past and present live together in the sky. A voice in the back of his mind tells him that he’s being dramatic again—that he’s wasting her time, her precious sleep, with these thoughts.

But she doesn’t think so.

“I’m looking out my window now too,” she tells him. “I wonder if the stars will carry my message to you.”

Yoosung finds that he’s smiling. He tucks his knees up to his chest, wiggles closer to the window—puts a palm on the glass, thinks again that perhaps he could catch a star in his hand if he just reached far enough.

“What’s your message for me?” he asks. His heart races.

“I’m going to tell the stars,” she says. She whispers something, and he hears her exhale, like she’s blowing on a dandelion—scattering her words into the night sky.

“Not fair!” he says. “I wanted to hear the message, too!”

“You will,” she tells him. “Just wait.”

So he waits, hand on the glass, listening to the sound of her breathing through the phone. He counts her breaths: one, two, three… He wonders how it would feel to fall asleep to this beautiful sound; he hopes, with all his heart, that one day he will find out.

One of the stars seems to glimmer brighter, catching his eye. It’s getting bigger, he thinks—moving closer to him. And perhaps it’s his imagination (too active, he’s been told) or just a projection made by his desperate heart, but he feels a warmth wash over him—like stepping outside and lifting his face to the sky on a bright summer day.

“Did you get it?” she whispers. His heart feels shimmery, like she’s taken it in both her hands and sworn to keep it safe.

“Yes,” he whispers back. “I feel it.”

┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈

three

Jaehee is never afraid—but today, she is terrified.

The key digs into her palm and she clutches it—too tight—in her sweaty, shaky hand. She can’t remember the last time she felt this way—like her stomach is tied in a knot. As a child, perhaps, squeezing her pencil, waiting for a test to start—never as an adult; never like this.

Oh, and she is every bit as beautiful as Jaehee had imagined. When she was just a voice over the phone, Jaehee felt so much safer to say what she felt (even if what she said was such a tiny bit of what she really meant). But now she has a body, and a face, and these perfect, confident eyes, and Jaehee is certain she is going to lose her nerve.

Do it, she tells herself. Do it now.

“Will you be my partner?” she asks—and her voice sounds so much quieter than it did in her imagination. And in spite of everything that’s been said, Jaehee half-expects her to shake her head, declining the offer with a perfect, polite smile. Why would she uproot her whole life, after all, for a woman she’s known for just a few days?

Jaehee hardly dares even think beyond this: about the question she’s really asking; about the answer she really wants.

“Yes,” she says. Ah, and she says it with such conviction: like she’s simply been waiting to be asked. Jaehee feels like a thousand tiny little fires have ignited inside her chest. She holds out the key with a trembling hand. This is it, she thinks: the moment to tell the truth. And by my partner, of course, I mean…

She opens her mouth but the words are stuck in her throat. She hates herself for it: she is strong, she thinks. She can go to work with clear eyes after a sleepless night; she can defend herself with her bare hands. But this—the you are my everything, the I want you, the please be mine—it is impossible.

The key is gone—she has slipped it from Jaehee’s hand with remarkable deftness—and she is moving closer, closer, and Jaehee is frozen in place as soft arms encircle her. She smells like the first buds of spring.

“I mean—” Jaehee tries to say, feeling that the world has turned sideways.

“I know,” she whispers. And there is an intimacy in her tone of voice that Jaehee has never heard before: the ballroom around them dissolves, and they could be in bed together, or on a plane carrying them thousands of miles away, or in a void consisting of nothing but their voices and breaths and bodies and hearts. “I know what you mean.”

“Do you?”

She doesn’t say anything, but she shifts in Jaehee’s arms, and Jaehee realizes what she’s going to do right before she does it. She tilts her head and—and—with almost unbearable tenderness, brushes her lips against the corner of Jaehee’s jaw.

The sideways world rights itself. The air hums. The stars fall from the heavens.

“Friends don’t kiss each other like that,” she whispers, and her breath on Jaehee’s ear sends sparks shooting down her spine. “Right?”

Jaehee gathers her breath, the fragmented shards of her courage.

“No,” she murmurs. “They don’t.”

┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈

four

It is a cool April day, and the trees seem to sing a song of impending summer.

She gets home late that night. Her mother, who is seated beside her in the car, is telling her a story she can’t quite follow—some friend of the family got some score on some test, and apparently this means that her mother is now disappointed in her. She sighs heavily; her phone buzzes in her pocket, and she leaves it alone, reluctant to get in more trouble than she seems to be in already.

The car pulls into the driveway.

“You need to make sure you get some sleep tonight, okay?” her mother says—and her voice sounds far away, like it’s coming from underwater.

“I still have a lot of studying to do,” she says, feeling stubborn. And it’s true that she has studying to do, but it is true, too, that it is almost midnight—the right time to start over again tonight, if she wants to.

And she does: oh, to slip back into that world where she is beloved and everyone’s salvation is at her fingertips.

Her mother looks back, halfway to the door; she’s still sitting in the passenger seat, shoulders hunched, one hand unconsciously cupping the phone inside her pocket.

“Are you coming inside?” her mother asks. She opens the passenger side door; the night air is biting on her bare arms.

“Yeah,” she tells her. “Yeah, just a minute.”

And her mother is walking ahead; tugging open the front door (too forcefully), keys jangling in her hand (too loud). She pauses in the garden; tilts her face up to see the sky.

Her muscles feel stiff and sore from nights of poring over books, eyes aching as she tries to make out the letters that swim around on the page. She feels like she’s been running a marathon barefoot, gasping as she struggles to keep up.

In another universe, though, she is already at the finish line. In another universe, she has the power to mend broken hearts, soothe fears, save lives.

Are you out there? she asks the empty night sky.

A star falls.

Oh: and it feels like an answer. She pulls her phone out of her pocket: midnight exactly. Phone in one hand, she lays her other hand over her heart.

She makes a wish.

┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈

five

It is when the car door shuts behind her that Jumin realizes he is no longer afraid.

For ages, he has been on the very edge of the abyss of solitude. It would have been so easy, he thinks, to bury himself in that gaping emptiness where no one could reach him—to fall deeper and deeper until he was untouchable.

But she wrapped a rope around his waist and said if you’re going, I’m going too. He knows that she felt it: the peril of standing on the edge; the understanding that one wrong move would have catapulted them both over the cliff—hidden them away together where no one could find them. She knew; she could have run away at any time.

She didn’t.

And now he is alone in the garage, and the car that’s carrying her away from him is fading into the distance, and—for perhaps the very first time in his life—he has no doubt that she will come back.

He’s always believed that leaving means never returning—that once someone is gone, they are gone forever. But she has driven away, and he finds that he doesn’t feel scared.

He calls her, of course—almost without thinking, fingers pressing the buttons before he’s realizing what he’s doing. She laughs as she answers.

“Did you miss me already?” she asks. Her voice is weightless; he realizes that it’s been days since he’s heard her voice without actually standing beside her. She feels so much less tangible now that she is just a voice over a phone again—and still, he does not feel afraid.

“I did,” he tells her. “I miss you so much.”

Honesty: so bright it almost burns him.

He tells her that he wants to grow into a more mature man for her, and she listens—and it is this, perhaps, that he loves the most. She doesn’t offer him platitudes, as the people around him have done his whole life: she doesn’t say oh, but you’re fine the way you are; she doesn’t dismiss him or diminish him or paint him a false picture of the way his world should be.

She listens.

She tells him that she’s glad to have met him and he knows that she means it.

Her voice, Jumin thinks, is like crisp autumn air; he wonders if he’s ever been truly honest with anyone before.

“There’s something I want to say to you right now,” he says. He finds that he needs to know how the words will taste in his mouth—needs to know if he’s capable of saying them at all.

“What is it?” she asks, and he smiles because he can tell she already knows.

He’s not standing on a cliff anymore, staring down into the abyss. Before he realized what she was doing, she led him away—guided him to this new place, where he is warm and his feet are on solid ground.

“I love you,” he tells her. It tastes like sweet chocolate on his tongue; it is the truest thing he’s ever said.

┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈

six

It is far too late to turn back by the time Saeyoung looks at her sleeping face and realizes the magnitude of what he has done.

He is driving on an empty road that seems to stretch ahead infinitely. It is the space between him and his other half—and the distance separating them is measurable for the first time in so many years. She has fallen asleep in the passenger seat, his jacket spread over her lap, her face perfectly serene. Her lips form a tiny, placid smile—as though she’s content to be walking into fire with him. As though she doesn’t have any doubts.

I am a monster, he thinks (not for the first time). What sort of despicable person lets a someone like her get entangled in their nightmare? She shines so bright that his heart aches.

She wakes (of course she does), and he drags his eyes from her face back to the road, pretending not to see. He wonders if there is still time to deposit her somewhere safe, to leave his heart in her care as he goes on alone.

If anything were to happen to her, that would be the end of him. He’s sure of it.

“Morning, sleepyhead,” he says, keeping his voice light. But she knows better, of course—sees through him the way she always has. She frowns and leans over to brush his arm with her fingers; his whole body shivers at her touch and he is ashamed, knowing she can tell.

“What’s wrong?” she asks him. He gives her his most convincing smile, but he knows it’s lopsided on his face. What has happened to him? She has shattered all his defenses; she has plunged headfirst into the dark pit of his fears.

“Nothing,” he says; and she makes that clicking noise with her tongue that always disarms him, almost like she’s saying shhhh, now tell the truth. “I shouldn’t have brought you,” he says (hating the way his voice sounds, like he might just burst into tears).

She sighs.

“Do I have to tell you again all the reasons why you’re wrong?” Her sternness makes him smile—he can’t help it. He glances at her and her eyes are hard, glittering like the afternoon sun on the windshield.

“Please do,” he says. His voice sounds hoarse. She shifts, sitting cross-legged, tucking her arms into the sleeves of his jacket. She’s so cute like this he’s afraid his heart will burst.

“I’m going to help you,” she tells him firmly. “You may be the smartest person in the whole world, but you’re no good at staying calm.”

She’s right, of course—he never has been.

“You’ll do your best work with me beside you,” she says. “You get us in and I’ll keep us safe. If you want to save him, you need me there, too.”

Saeyoung’s hands—normally so steady, because he’s trained them to be that way—shake as he grips the steering wheel.

“I’ve never really cared about staying safe,” he tells her. She huffs, frustrated, refusing to let him wallow. And then she reaches for him, brushing his hair off his forehead; though her fingers are cool, he feels that she’s set his whole body on fire.

“Too bad,” she says. “I care about keeping you safe, Seven.”

Oh, and that name feels hateful to him when she says it: he can hardly stand the thought of her believing, even for a moment, any of the hundreds of thousands of lies he’s told. He wants her to see him for who he really is.

“Thank you,” he murmurs; she smiles, a hand on his knee, and he feels that she is the brightest star in all the galaxies.

It’s time, he thinks.

When they make it out alive (and in that moment, he decides that they will)—whether it is today, or tomorrow, or the next day—he is going to tell her his real name. Because Seven is a conglomerate of pretense and brightly-colored lies; because Saeyoung is a version of himself that he’s hardly dared to dream about: a person who’s loving, and honest, and good.

He can become that person, he thinks, for her. He wants to.

┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈

seven

It is May. She counts on her fingers the number of exams she has left, feeling the shivering promise of time passing on her very skin. She can see to the end of the long, dark tunnel now: the delightful hollowness of summer afternoons, the wonder of falling asleep at night without a thousand anxieties dancing around on her pillow. She sees, too, the plane she will board in the fall—the one that will carry her far away from here.

She sits at her desk, notecards stacked perilously high around her. Her phone buzzes; she checks it. Her head pounds.

“You aren’t playing that game, are you?”

Her mother’s voice from the doorway is harsh and she jumps, upsetting a pile of papers covered in nearly incomprehensible scrawl. She feels tears pricking the corners of her eyes.

“What does it look like I’m doing?” she snaps, throwing her phone onto her unmade bed.

“Just checking,” her mother says stiffly. She buries her head in her arms.

I wish they could see me now, she thinks wildly. Her room is a mess; there are dark circles under her eyes; she hasn’t brushed her hair. This house is a pressure cooker: the looming stacks of notes, and her mother’s stern voice, and the calendar of exams taped above her desk. She can’t see straight anymore.

It is a sense of control, she thinks, that she needs. Here, she has none at all: every moment of her day is monitored, every ounce of her energy expended to prepare for these tests that feel meaningless—that will earn her numbers on a page and a ticket out of her hometown.

But in the other universe, she is strong, and she is confident. Perhaps most important of all: she is cherished.

And they are cherished, she thinks; she wishes she could tell them as much.

Do you know? she thinks at them—hard as she can, heart racing, knowing it is foolish (wanting to believe, anyway). Do you know how much you mean to me?

┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈

eight

When Jihyun wakes in the small, sterile room, the moon has risen, and the first thing he thinks of is her face.

In his mind’s eye, he pictures her as he saw her last: slipping from the room with a determined smile, waving as if to reassure him that he’d see her soon. Groggily, he tries to think: this was hours ago, of course, and it must be evening now. His body feels heavy; he tries to open his eyes, and finds that he can’t.

He lifts a hand to his face, feeling like he’s moving through thick liquid. Ah: there is a bandage over his eyes. He can feel it now: stiff and scratchy against his closed eyelids.

From somewhere in the room (which he can no longer picture clearly), he hears a quiet voice.

“V? Are you awake?

It’s her—and he is somewhat surprised by the way his heart races. He didn’t expect her to wait with him this whole time—he didn’t realize that she was nearby.

“I’m awake,” he says—and his voice sounds strange to him, like it’s coming from someone else. He hears a rustling—someone is moving closer to the bed. Oh, and he catches a whiff of her scent; he’s never been able to quite place it, but it is absolutely intoxicating: like a garden he walked through once, long ago—or perhaps a flower that only grows in another world.

“I’m going to call the nurse,” she says. She is so close that he can feel her breath on his face. He reaches out—catches her hand.

“Wait just a moment?” he asks. He wonders if she can hear his heart.

How strange, he thinks. He is barely awake, and yet his heart is racing as though he’s just run a hundred miles.

“They said it went really well,” she says. He doesn’t miss the anxiety in her voice; he wonders how many hours she’s been here, watching him sleep.

“You didn’t have to wait with me,” he says.

“Of course I did.”

Jihyun realizes that he is still holding her hand. His head feels so foggy from the medicine that made him sleep, but his body is waking up now, and he’s painfully conscious of how small her hand is in his—tiny and almost unbearably tender. He wishes he could kiss every one of her sweet fingertips; he wishes he could see her face.

“Thank you,” he says. He means thank you for staying here with me—here in this room that smells strongly of disinfectant—but he means so much more than that, too. She sighs in the way he’s often heard her sigh: like she wants to grab him by the shoulders and shake him. He wouldn’t mind if she did.

“How do you feel?” she asks instead. She’s being careful, tiptoeing around him; he’s not sure how to tell her that she doesn’t need to.

“A little tired,” he admits. “But otherwise I feel well.” He hesitates. “Better than usual, actually.”

She laughs quietly; he feels he might do anything—anything in the world—just to hear that laugh again.

“You’re so strong,” she tells him, squeezing his hand. She is the one who is strong, he thinks.

There’s a noise in the distance: a gentle knock on the door. The doctor is coming back, he supposes; suddenly, he feels not at all strong. He holds her hand tighter—finds that he doesn’t want her to go.

“Will you wait for me?” he asks, despising the way his voice sounds. He does not sound like a man who is worthy of her attention—he knows he is not a man who deserves to be waited for.

But she holds his hand to her cheek, and her skin is so warm. Jihyun wonders if she understands what he is really asking: not stay with me now but wait until I become someone who can love you the way you deserve.

“Of course I’ll wait for you,” she says. She speaks slowly: each word seems to hold enormous weight.

She knows, he thinks, exactly what he means.

┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈

nine

Hand-in-hand, they look up at the sky.

Saeran sees the endless expanse of freedom extending in all directions around him, and feels that she is the very center of it all.

“Are you nervous?” she asks. He laughs; just moments before, he had felt that way—when he was typing (fingers aching as they fell into their habitual pattern of worrying over the keys—eyes burning and throat itching as he tried to breathe the cabin’s stale air). But now that he is outside—and she is standing beside him—he feels that he has the power to do anything: to run till his feet give out; to see his brother again; to build a life for himself.

“Not anymore,” he says. She moves closer, her arm brushing against his, and he turns to press his lips to her hairline. She squirms at his side, making a delightful sort of purring sound; Saeran feels that he could hold onto her from now until forever and it wouldn’t be enough.

He breathes in the mountain air: it smells like pine and grass and wind. He’s never felt like this before—like he is as strong as the earth itself.

“I’m happy,” she tells him. He feels her eyes on him and turns; oh, and she’s more beautiful than the sky, he thinks, brighter and more expansive than any fantasy his fevered mind could have dreamed up.

“What are you happy about?” he asks. She takes his other hand; he wonders if she knows that he wants to scoop up the whole world in his arms and lay it at her feet.

“I’m happy you’re here with me,” she tells him. “I’m happy that you’re free. I’m happy that you’re smiling the way you are right now.”

He is smiling, he realizes; he feels almost as if he could levitate off the ground. As if he could become the wind. As if he could cross into another universe to hold onto her heart.

“I love you,” he tells her, because it’s all he can think about. She catapults herself into his arms and he laughs, holding her close.

“I love you so much,” she says. “I just want…”

He knows. He brushes through her hair with his fingers, thrilled by the way she sighs as she snuggles closer. This is it, he thinks: the feeling of freefall that he has been seeking (and running from) all his life. The rhythm of her breathing against his chest ties him to the earth; he feels an absolute certainty in the sublime power of the universe.

Over her head, he looks at the sky. The clouds whisper to him: she’s here, they seem to say. She is. She is.

Her body feels so solid in his arms, so real; and her love for him shimmers in the air all around him.

“Thank you,” Saeran whispers into her soft, sweet skin, “for being under the same sky.”

┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈

ten

Summer comes.

She finishes her tests—bids goodbye to her friends and family—is startled by how much she cries.

She boards the plane with her ticket crushed in her sweaty hand. She sits by the window, palm against the glass, staring hard into the clouds.

In the distance, she can see the city she’s leaving behind: the buildings blur into the mist, and she is crying again. For years, she’s waited to run away from this place—now, it feels so strange to be leaving it behind. She pictures her room in her old house: the books stacked in neat piles now, the clothes laundered and folded into her suitcase, the bed made. She wishes she could pull out her phone and open the door to the other world—the one that’s offered her greater clarity than anything she’s ever felt in her own.

But she can’t, of course—not here. And at the end of this long plane ride will be another airport—and a car ride—and then the university she worked so hard to get into: the promise of a future that’s shimmering and full.

She holds her phone—powered off—in both hands. Here in the sky, she feels she could be in any world at all: her past, or her future, or their world, which still shines in her heart (perhaps brightest of all).

I’m okay, she thinks—and she knows that she is. She has confidence in the future she’s building for herself—in the person she’s becoming—in her own little corner of the universe.

She hopes that they know this. Their world feels both far away and wonderfully, impossibly close: inside her and all around her. She hopes that they are okay, too; that they are eating; that they are taking care.

Oh, she thinks—realizes, in a moment of sky blue clarity. I’m not going back.

She is moving on—as she always knew she would. And they knew too, of course. They must have.

But…

I love you, she thinks—thinks it hard, phone in her hands, face pressed against the window, eyes reflecting the faces she thinks she sees in the clouds. I love you all.

From her universe to theirs—connected only by lines of code and fervent feelings and a wish made on a falling star—she hopes (wishes, prays) that her message reaches them.

The clouds shift: love, love, love, they seem to say. The plane carries her higher. The sky stretches around her in all directions: infinite. Expanding.

They feel her.

She knows it.

★・・・・・・★・・・・・・★・・・・・・★

Let me know if you’d like to be added to my taglist!

@currentlyprocrastinating @thesirenwashere @ultrasupernini @cro0kedme @otomefoxystar @dawn-skies06 @nad-zeta @hunterelys @pamakali @strwbryflvr @bootiful-face @mammonprotectionsquad @firelordtsuki @rebeckathefloof @stehkotori @what-imfabulous-acceptit @saphyhowl @ryuu-no-aneki @pinkdiamondsrose @wayward-bumblebee @otomaticallyobsessed @delfffi-lc

#mystic messenger #mysmerbb #mysme-rbb #zen #yoosung kim #jaehee kang #jumin han #saeyoung choi #jihyun kim #saeran choi #alyvalery

110 notes · View notes

the-voltage-diaries · 3 years

Text

Το Βόρειο Αστέρι μου - Lucifer x Diavolo

AO3 Link

Το Βόρειο Αστέρι μου: Greek for ‘My Polar Star’

Word Count: 1859

A/N: I don’t know what this is. All I know is that @simpingw0lfi3 refused to do it, so I did. Of course, please don’t expect this to be perfect because... it really isn’t.

Vote of thanks: @akaiiro-yume for checking and correcting all the grammatical fuck ups I did, making sure I didn’t stop writing this halfway and going through any mental breakdown I might have had instead for me. And, of course, @some-ikemen-snob for making sure this SCREAMED Lucifer energy this way and that. only for now, but ily both.

Devildom 14th February, 20XX Saturday, 7:57 PM

Dear Diary,

I suppose I've never written a journal entry such as this in the past, for I haven't found either the desire or the will to task myself with writing my thoughts down in a manner wherein I speak to an inanimate object. That said, I have been told writing is, in a manner of speaking, therapeutic, and I believe I could do with some of that right now. It would be false to assume I don’t still harbour any inhibitions towards using my time in this manner, especially when I'd much rather be by Diavolo’s side. The very same Diavolo who, as a matter of fact, happens to be the subject of this writing session today. Strangely enough, and if I recall correctly, he was also the one who introduced - which is putting it rather mildly - me to the “art” of journal entries. I admit, I haven’t given this activity the kind of gravity which was probably expected out of me, but then again, today is a little different from the rest. I'm not entirely certain as to where to begin, but I do believe I have been told in situations like these, one should do whatever... feels right.

Diavolo is... well, where do I even begin? He is the future of Devildom, as a few might call it - myself included. While he does appear to be quite the cheerful and at times careless lord, it’d be a lie to deny that he is just as wise and compassionate underneath that wave of buoyancy radiating off of him. Honest to a fault, but with his moral compass always pointing towards the best interest of those around him. I’ll admit, sometimes it proves to be rather difficult to believe that he indeed is a demon. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to compare him to the Polaris considering he does quite radiate the charisma from himself, shining admirably amidst a dark sea of onlookers. While in name he rules over all the demons in the land of Devildom, the right set of eyes won’t take too long to deduce the eloquence with which his fingers reach out to the soul of every single resident of the land, holding them together better than gravity ever bound humans to the earth.

Saying that is all there is to him would be a lie whiter than the wet snow, making its way to the tips of my fingers and sliding off gently onto this page. That, of course, doesn’t mean describing how I feel towards him is no herculean task. There are some cases when a language - no matter the plethora of vocabulary it offers - just isn’t sufficient enough, and this certainly is one of those cases. For the time being, let’s just owe my lack of articulacy to the bond of mutual respect and trust Diavolo and I share, built over centuries upon centuries, braving the ravages of time, and even perhaps the less than pleasing antics my brothers tend to pull. But while the impression the ruler of all demons and I tend to emit may seem to be distanced by a careful degree of professionalism, I don’t believe anybody knows that that might not be the case. Even Diavolo himself. Doesn’t come as a surprise, really, for they simply can’t know.

Why do I believe that to not be the case, then? Well, I would wonder why I felt so strongly about it had I not known the reason myself. The very same reason which is now a secret so surreptitious that I can’t help but consider burning this piece of paper once I finish writing to ensure it is never revealed to another set of eyes. Such dastardly is the nature of this emotion, tricking one into its delusive warmth, encompassing them with the belief that nothing truly is impossible, that what they feel might just be true and meaningful enough to be returned by the other they feel for, only to cackle with glee and turn away when the reality doesn’t match the fantasy it was believed to turn out to be. The very same emotion which in layman’s terms is apparently called... love.

I’m not entirely certain I understand the extent of its exquisite existence myself, to be truthful. All I know is no matter how intensely I try to shut the door on its escaping fumes, it turns futile the second I lay my eyes on the man in question. While the rest of the known universe sees an omnipotent leader binding everyone together, making them sing the same tune in harmony, I see what I can only consider an anchor, grounding me, making it so that I can’t ever fall into the abyss of the darkness that breathes inside of me and float away. He is the quintessence of the best of what the world has to offer, with his golden eyes sparkling like stardust, weaving their ever-lasting magic into the hearts of whoever they come across - be it human, or demon, or angel - wrapping them in their never-ending warmth, letting them sink into the depths of benevolence they promise. His hair are the cerise of a raging inferno, sheltering beneath their canopy a quick, sensible, erudite mind. His smile is but a warm culmination of everything optimistic and positive, like a flame inviting moths to it, reaching out to give their innermost yearnings a hand to grab on to and never let go. Simply divine. And this is where the paths diverge, I suppose.

They see a to-be Demon King, I see Diavolo.

But alas, love is a fickle mistress. Getting too lost in the charm of her alluring arms will only result in a doom of them wrapping around your neck, enticing, until you realise their hold is tightening. Not to hold on, but to suffocate. I might have gotten so lost in that fiery gaze that I didn’t notice it start to crawl along my skin, leaving a charred, burnt path in its wake. The very anchor which I believed to be the one to ground me and hold me close etched itself deeper into the oceanic floor of delirium, drowning me. The threads of his stardust wrapped themselves around me and clutched hard enough to strangle. Before I knew it, the symphony of something meaningful became the cacophony of a nightmare.

This red thread strung through itself earlier today the series of events I’d rather forget. I’ve known how I feel towards Diavolo for a while now, and I had been searching for an opportunity to come clean and let him know about it for the last few days. Not to say I hadn’t gotten said opportunities at all, but one could owe it to me being too prideful to admit I was finally opening up to the idea of accepting feelings and... emotions. Around that time was when Solomon let slip a few details about the significance of Valentine’s day in the human world as an annual occurrence to celebrate romantic love, friendship, and admiration, and with enough persistence, Asmodeus managed to convince Diavolo to declare the day as an official holiday. Just a few hours ago I walked along the empty hallways to Diavolo’s office, knowing him, Barbatos and I to be the only ones in the building, still choosing work over any form of inactivity. By then, I had talked myself into finally telling the most powerful of all demons about the feelings I harboured towards him. I am a little embarrassed to admit that I was indeed a tad hopeful, wishing for the feelings to be returned. Once I reached the door to his private office, my hand settled above the smooth hardwood to give it a knock. And that’s when I noticed that the door was already slightly ajar. I heard a voice inside, other than Diavolo’s, and I took the liberty to glance inside, only for my hopes to come crashing down when the realisation struck me: I shouldn’t have done that.

Inside his office, Diavolo sat in his seat with his mouth pressed against another, a hand trailing across the small face with dark green locks framing it with elegance while the other held on to the person’s waist, pulling him closer. My eyes widened when the smaller man of the two let out a muffled whimper, perched on Diavolo’s lap. Barbatos. I felt my heart squeeze out a pained croak at the sight, and even though every single nerve in my body begged me to move away and forget I ever saw anything, my legs didn’t move. They stayed glued to their spot on the floor even as I felt it crumble beneath my feet, just the way my eyes stayed on Diavolo. My lip trembled with a longing I never thought I’d experience when Barbatos intertwined his fingers with Diavolo’s, smiling into the kiss they shared, like the perfect harmony which was always meant to be. It was when Diavolo broke the kiss, eyes meeting the other’s and whispers of love and confessions floating across the room until they settled on my ears, that I finally felt the mask crack. The facade I had worked on for centuries to lay the foundation of crumbled as my fists clenched, letting myself have a moment of weakness when a lone tear of frustration, delay, anger, and self loathing dripped down my cheek. I looked up at the ceiling, a voiceless laugh tumbling across my lips at the cognisance that the Polaris I was reaching out for, shining proud in the middle of a dark, cloudless sky, was beyond my reach, and... never supposed to be mine. How far I could stretch, how willing were my fingers to make one last attempt to touch it’s light and bask in it - all of that didn’t matter anymore.

I exhaled a shaky breath, blinking once as I tucked away whatever it is I was going to tell Diavolo in some corner of my mind, crushing the key with a hard snap of my fingers. My eyes found Barbatos again, glazing over with a heartfelt wish for him to find his happiness, at least. It was with one last aching smile towards Diavolo and a euphoric laugh spilling from Barbatos’ lips that I turned on my heel, shaking my head at the fate I was handed. Needless to say, I hold no malice towards either of them - they’re both precious to me, as much as I dislike admitting it.

I believe I have shared more than what was required, and I shall burn this piece of paper lest anyone finds it. One might call it wishful thinking on my part, but I do pray that watching the last signs of anything I harbour towards the one who wasn’t meant to be mine from the start burn as the embers of the fire consume it whole makes me put a lid on my feelings once and for all, for they were never supposed matter. They weren’t supposed to exist to begin with.

After all, only a prince deserves a fairy-tale with a happy ending, and I am no prince.

Lucifer.

#Obey Me #obey me shall we date #obey me lucifer #obey me diavolo #obey me barbatos #diavolo x lucifer #diavolo x barbatos #dialuci #obey me swd #obey me... fic?#letter?#diary?#idk what this is #a measly attempt at angst #obey me angst #dialuci angst #FIRST OM FIC JFC

62 notes · View notes

madllamamomma · 4 years

Text

Short story~ Fluff & feels, lots of feels. Muriel x Female Mc (OC). (mostly about Muriel) The Nightmare~

I’m gonna say, this has some pretty heavy themes in here (mostly about trauma). It may not suitable for everyone.

Also I know I am not the best writer (just a disclaimer).

The Nightmare~

I have many nightmares. But this is the worst one.

It always starts the same way. It always ends the same way.

It never changes.

The rolling waves of the ocean are all I can hear at first. I look down, Asra’s limp body in my arms. I gently put him down to the soft sand. We are at the beach near the wharf where we used to sleep when we were kids. Dark miasma starts to cloud the sky, cloaking the sun’s rays. I peer all around me, the darkness swallows everything, the city, the ocean, all of it is dark and gray. They are no stars, no moon, no light. It feels colder. The air is stale.

Asra slowly opens his eyes, he reaches out of me, he weakly calls my name out. I cast my arm back to him. His fingers nearly touched mine, until….he yells. He's being dragged suddenly by something in the dark-- I don’t know what it is-- I never do. He screams in agony, “Help me!” Something with claws emerges from the darkness, their blood red eyes, and their razor sharp teeth smile evilly at me. I swear it has horns, and a strange animal like muzzle, but It's so hard to make out from the shadows.... It grabs Asra by the scruff of the neck, he keeps wriggling trying to get himself free. His screams are muffled as the creature’s hand covers it. It looks up at me, their smile widens and they disappear into the blackness, I try to run-- I try to catch them, but I can’t. They are always just out of my grasp. I run until I can no longer see them, I can no longer hear him. Dropping down to my hands and knees, overcome with despair. My eyes water, I want to cry, but nothing comes out of them. I try to scream his name, but something is stuck in my throat. I heave and clench my throat, but nothing comes out. A heavy rattling sound starts to creep behind me. Hundreds of chains slither all around, like large metal snakes and surround me. I get up and try to run away. But they strike and bind my entire body, I can’t move. I’m…I'm so scared. My body can’t stop shaking. A figure slithers out of the darkness, but this time, I know this one... it’s human. Lucio...

He stands over me, smiling wickedly at me, his eyes beaming down at me. He’s silent. He holds the end of the chains in his hands and he pulls me into a dark. Launching me into a pit filled with skulls, reeking of decay.

I spin around trying to look for a way out of this pit. But…..I...I am in the arena of the colosseum, I stand alone. The arena...it looks different. It is stained with patches of blackish tar. There are no spectators, just thousands of white eyes glaring, judging, gawking down upon me. My hair is long, a bloody axe is in my hands, I try to drop it, but the chains are wrapped around my wrist binding me to it. I can’t let it go.

I can’t see Lucio’s face, only his silhouette sitting in his private box in the stands. His eyes glow in the darkness, the white around is iris change, starting to glow deep red, eerily just like the creatures that stole Asra. He is still holding the chains like puppet strings. He cackles making an almost inhuman sound from his lungs. He….. he has Asra’s scarf. It’s draped across his chest like a goddamn trophy— But where is he? He’s nowhere to be seen…

Lucio pulls his artificial golden hand up so I can see. It relieves more chains, he violently jerks them up, opening all the doors in the arena. Prisoners. Gladiators. Hundreds of them. They keep coming from all directions, charging at me, they--they want to kill me. I can not see their faces, I never do, just their teeth snarling at me and their weapons in hand. They start to scream and yell, charging at me one by one, with murderous intent. I…. I can't die. I don’t want to die here. I need to find Asra. I can’t die alone, I can’t leave him like this. They start to jab and tear at my flesh. I try to cry out. Something is still stopping me— something is in my throat. I lift my axe. I start to swing and cut them down. One by one. They scream in pain as I hack off their limbs, their heads, whatever I can aim at---I just want them to stop. I don’t want to hurt them… but I don’t want my friend to die. They bite me, kick me, stab me-- but they all eventually stop moving. Breathless, blood painted across the area’s floor and walls, mixing in with the black sludgy tar. The air is cold, the arena is dead silent. The eyes in the stands…. They’re all gone. Even Luico has vanished. No trace of him.... or Asra.

My chains around my hands and neck are now slacked, I sever them as soon as I get the chance. I throw the blood covered axe down to the ground. I look down to my hands, they are drenched in thick blood. I can’t even wipe it off. Lifeless bodies litter the ground. I still can’t see their faces, I don’t want to see their faces. I don’t want to remember them. But then….I see one. A man. He’s cradling a body in his arms. Where did he come from? The head of the corpse, it’s nearly split in two from my axe, blood cover’s their upper body. The man’s eyes. Full of sorrow and anguish, tears streaming down his face. He’s shaking. He suddenly notices me. His gaze shoots up at me, sobbing, muttering repeatedly, “...You killed my boy...”

The body he’s holding. His face…. I...I can see it... he’s nearly completely disfigured, his eyes completely lifeless, but he was just a kid. No older than eighteen. He was just a teenager, he had a full life to live. And….. I… I just destroyed it. He holds the body closer to him. The man’s brow narrows hatefully, he starts to rock back and forwarth, still cradling his child. His eyes filled with pure malice screaming, “YOU FUCKER! YOU FUCKING KILL ME HIM! HE WAS JUST A BOY!!!!..H—he was just a boy!” The man’s cups the kid’s face, pressing what’s left of their forehead to his temple.

I drop to my knees, my body is trembling. I want to tell him, “I’m sorry! I’m so so sorry! I—I didn’t want to! I never wanted to do this!”...I open my mouth…..I still can’t speak. Only a deep, wet, sickly cough comes out. The black sludge that stains the area. It oozes from my mouth, I try to spit it out, it tastes so putridly, so vile. The man drops the body, crawls towards me on all fours like some kind of demon lizard... He starts to claw at my skin, pulling at my severed chains around my neck, screaming, “You fucking monster! Scourge, you killed my son!!” Tears roll down my face, but only the black liquid slowly drips from them. It burns. The man’s voice starts to distort inhumanly. “Goddamn you! I curse you, Scourge! You will destroy everything you touch! YOU WILL NEVER KNOW LOVE!!” I try to push him away, he still has hold of chains around my throat. I… I just wanted to see my friend again… I…. I didn’t want to be alone….I never wanted to hurt anyone. I never wanted to kill anyone!

His face starts to melt, his tissue deteriorates into red and black slime, but his bones are still ripping into my skin. “My son! My son! Give me back my son!” Just leave me alone… Get away from me! GET AWAY! I push him away forcing him off of me. He finally stops… His skull and part of his spine now in my hand. I shudder, throwing it down to the ground, it slowly boils into black goo, matching the black around the arena. The black tears on my face, they won’t stop— I want to cry out, I want to yell, but the black liquid still ejects from my mouth, choking me.

I don’t want to be here anymore. I never want to come here again….I stand up slowly. I start to leave, the gates of the arena are wide open, my long hair, it falls out, leaving it short at my shoulders. I take a step out of the colosseum. A familiar voice calls my name. Asra!!! He’s ok— his eyes are tired and swollen. He looks so hurt.... He stands outside of the gates and reaches out for my hand. He’s…. holding something in the other….. is that a skull? Why does he have a skull?

“Murder...” Something icy cold grabs my ankles from behind me. “Killer! SCOURGE OF THE SOUTH!” Piercing screeches emerge from behind me. “YOU KNOW NOT OF LOVE! You know not of mercy!” The gate slam shut, throwing me back—Hundreds of hands and mouths formed from the blood and the black on the ground, the bodies of the fallen all disintegrated into the liquid, coming back to life in this blob of hate, death and decay. Hundreds of voices start to shrek, and screech from the bodiless mouths. They pull me down to the ground, I try to claw myself away— but there’s too many, the blood on my hands… It's too slippery. They repeat the same thing, over and over, all at different times, it's so loud. They pull me into a cold pool of red and black liquid, submerging me still screaming, “MURDER!.... KILLER!..... SCOURGE!!”

I—I can’t….breathe…. I can’t see anything but red and black.

I’m drowning, I feel so alone.

Soon...I will be dragged down, all the way to the bottom. The red eyed creature is waiting, smiling, watching, enjoying me as I struggle to survive. It wants to plunge their claws into my chest, and rip my heart out.

I am powerless, I am voiceless. I am useless....I can only watch.

Eventually, I’ll stop fighting it…. I deserve this. I should be dead…. Asra… he’ll be better off without me… no one needs you… you should be invisible. You shouldn’t exist.

This is always how it ends….

A small bright golden light flickers from the surface.

Wait…this always ends the same way... what… What is that? A powerful rush of warm wind blows the blood and the black liquid away from my body, the voices shrek terribly as it retreats. I can breath once again. I….I’m free? What is that thing? I want to look at it… but...It…it’s so bright… I have to partly cover my eyes to see it. It’s saying something, but I can’t hear it. The smell of chamomile, apple blossoms, and cinnamon washes over me. It flaps its magnificent wings, as it hovers over me… A bird?...flames cover its body. Their eyes, they stare at me warmly, they flicker of an ombre of fire red and chestnut brown. Is… Is that a phoenix? I’ve never actually seen one before. It’s… It’s so beautiful…So enchanting.

The red and the black muck, it recoils, screaming blood curdling shrieks as it rushes towards me again. I…I don’t have time to run… I turn towards the tsunami of red and black and brace myself for the impact, covering my face with my arms. The phoenix's wings wrap all around me, the sludge cries out in pain it hits the flames of the bird’s wings, the sludge hisses. Light surrounds the phoenix and I, the darkness and black hastily retreating. The sludge evaporates into a golden mist. The embers. They consume my body, but they do not scorch my flesh. They don’t hurt. They’re warm, they feel so loving. So kind. It mutters words again as it’s head rests gently on my shoulder, the wings still wrapped around my chest. “....I’m here...” it whispers.

My fingers clench it’s warm wings…They’re so soft..I….I don’t want to let go. “...Pl...Please...don’t forget me...” My voice… I can speak! I…. I can be heard!

“...I will never forget you...” Its wings hold me tighter, comforting me. It feels good. I feel… safe... protected. I feel like I am whole…Tears drip down my face, but this time they’re clear. It doesn’t hurt.

The pain...the pain in my chest, it isn’t gone, but it’s better that it was alone. “..Muriel…. Muriel…you need to wake up...” My body feels like it’s being shaken..I…I know that voice…. It's a beautiful voice. “—Muriel, my love!.....Please wake up—!”

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

It’s the middle of the night. Muriel is having another nightmare. You try to shake him, and shake him, but it’s not working. Inanna whimpers and crawls into the bed next to him light head butting his legs, trying to her best to assist. You manage to scoop his head into your chest and lap, your arms tightly around his chest. You wipe the sweat from his brow. You’ve witnessed him having nightmares before, but not quite like this, this one is like he’s in a deep trance.

You usually can’t understand when he speaks in his sleep. But this time he looks like he’s in physical pain, “...Pl...Please…don’t forget me…” You hold back the tears in your eyes, the words just break your heart. Your greatest fear is forgetting him. The words hit you so hard.

You squeeze him tighter, bringing him closer to you. Your forehead pressing to his temple, still rocking him back and forth trying to wake him. “I will never forget you…Muriel…. Muriel! You need to wake up!! This is just a bad dream!!” His hands cup your forearm. You can see his eyes darting side to side underneath his eyelids. “—Muriel, my love!.....Please wake up!”

His inhales sharply, his eyes suddenly fly open, a tear runs down his face…. He shudders, stiffening himself, looking around the room widely, completely disoriented. “Shhh….It’s ok, my love...” You comfort him, still cradling him in your arms, so relieved that he’s finally awake.

“—Rh….Rhemi?” He’s still shaken, he’s squeezes you tighter, still confused. Inanna comes and rests her head on his chest, looking anxiously up at him.

“I’m here, Muriel….” You run your fingers through his now sweaty hair kissing his temple.

He turns his face upwards, towards yours. “What...what’s—?

“You were having a nightmare…You—you weren’t waking up.” Inanna licks his hand.

He starts to relax. All three of you just lay there on the bed for awhile, listening to his breathing start to slow down.

“I’m... I’m alright, Rhemi..” He leans forward and you loosen your grasp, letting him move away. He sits himself to the end of the bed. He wipes the tears from his eyes hastily, sighing deeply, rubbing his face. You follow him, sitting behind him, your arm lightly draped around his chest, your head resting on his shoulder. He holds your hand that’s draped over him. You know he doesn't want to look at you, he looks so ashamed. “I’m...I’m sorry if I scared you…”

“Don’t worry about me,” you quickly wipe a tear forming in your eye before he could see. “...Are you alright?...I know you don’t like to talk about them…But you can if you want to.”

“I...I know….” He squeezes your hand. You lace your other arm around his chest, hugging him. You just want to be there for him. Kissing his shoulder lightly.

You both sit in silence for a while as he strokes Inanna’s head. It’s been almost a year since the masquerade. You’ve spent most of your nights together, and now that you were engaged, you never sleep alone. But he still won’t always talk about his dreams. You don’t ever push him to, you want to allow him to come to you about these things. When he’s ready.

“...I’ve—I’ve had this one before…” He suddenly breaks the silence.

You lift your head off his shoulder, and rest your mouth on top of his scapula, listening to him intently. He rarely talks about dreams, let alone nightmares. But this one seemed so different.

“...I’ve had it countless times….It’s the same one I had back when we were traveling to the south…”

He has taken such a long time to open up to you. But you're shocked at his willingness to speak about any of this. You want to ask him so many questions, but you restrain yourself, you want to tread lightly. Trying to only ask basic things.“.... what’s it about?”

“It’s… it’s about a lot of things…I— I don’t even know where to start.” He sighs deeply, soundly a little overwhelmed. He pushes his hair out of his face with his free hand thinking about what he wants to say. “...it’s always the same—But this time… I was different. I don’t know why…”

“...How so?” You rub his back in circles, comforting him.

He breathes deeply. “I...I’m not sure...It’s…it’s just really hard to explain…I’m...I’m sorry, Rhemi..” He looks a bit frustrated, he stops. But you know he still wants to talk.

“.... it’s ok…” You kiss his shoulder and back of his neck. “...Don't force yourself…” Dreams can be very hard to explain for anyone. For Muriel explain normal things is difficult. So this is ten times worse. But you don’t ever mind waiting. You’ve waited this long, you’ll wait forever if you have to.

“—When...When I was in the colosseum...I told you how I was an executioner... I had to kill a lot of prisoners...” He chokes up a bit and sniffles trying to restrain the tears.

You rub his back in circles, comforting him. “It’s alright... just take your time…”

He clears his throat looking towards the dying embers of the fire, voice still shaky. “I...I had to execute a kid.”

Your heart breaks. He starts to shake his head, resentment and slight anger in his voice. “I…. I don’t even know what he did…But… he was just a teenager…after… after I…” He stops for a moment, shaking his head more. He can’t even get the words out. His shoulders clench. “...His—his father… He jumped into the arena… he just clenched the boy in his arms...crying… wailing...” You can feel Muriel’s tears drip onto your hand, you hold him tighter. “...I’m sorry…Rhemi..” He hastily tries to wipe them away.

“Shhh…no, don’t be… it’s ok…it’s ok to cry, Muriel.” This… this is so hard… No wonder he doesn’t want to ever speak about his time as a gladiator. This is awful.

“...He…. he was just a goddamn kid...” He hiccups, clenching onto your arm. His tears just keep falling. Inanna’s head in his lap affectionately nuzzles his knee, comforting him.

“...Your dream… it’s about them isn’t it?”

He nods his head slowly, “...I try....I try not to remember anyone face... But they’re faces...they haunt me…the man’s—he’s cries..his voice echo in my head...” You can’t hold your tears back anymore, it was dreadful what he had to do back then. “...it was...the worst day of my life…” You turn his trunk around, and he curls into your arms, sobbing, you hold him so tightly. You can’t think of anything to say. Nothing you can say will ever make that better. All you can do is be there for him ....Let him talk when he’s ready..

These memories are terrible. He had to do terrible things, but he never wanted to be a part of them. It will never change the way you feel about Muriel. He was never the monster—Lucio was. And he’s gone now.

He finally gets control of himself and he sits up again. You sit at the edge of the bed with him. He wipes the tears away, still apologizing. “...I’ve… I’ve never talked about it before.” You cup his face and his eyes met yours. Despite himself he grins a little, brushing his fingers against your cheek, you lean into his touch. He looks so relieved, like a weight on his heart was lightened.

“I love you, Muriel. I want you to talk to me when you need to.” You snuggle up to his chest. His hand holds the small of your back. “I’m glad you did, I think you needed to.”

He looks down towards the floor. “...But...this is a lot though.”

“It’s heavy, very heavy. Too much for even you to bear it...But we’ll get through this. Together.” He breathes deeply, and you listen to his heart beating, it's starting to sound normal again. He rests his head on yours. Inanna settles down not he floor next to him still curled up to his legs.

Muriel stiffens slight, like he wants to say something. “I...I think you were there…this time.” You pull away from his chest, meeting his gaze. “The—the dream I mean…”

“...I… I was?” You tilt your head thoughtfully. “...is that how it was different?”

He’s cheeks start to flush back to his iconic pink. “S-sorry—forget it. I shouldn’t have said anything… It’s weird.”

You shoot him a look, “It's not weird.” You want to know. He knows that you do.

He grumbles, scratching his chin. “... I—I think I’m done talking about my dreams for tonight...” Your face scrunches up a little, he frowns. “...Sorry, Rhemi.”

You laugh a little and kiss him quickly on the lips. “Perhaps another night then.” You decide to take pity and drop it, for now at least.

He smiles back, “...perhaps.” You get off the bed, pulling your long sleeping shirt down, trying to keep yourself a little warmer. Then you place a log on the fire, conjuring a little magic on your fingers. You blow on it softly until the fire roars again, illuminating the hut. “How about some tea?”

Muriel smiles warmly at you, tea always calms him down. You have a good blend of chamomile that helps him get to sleep. He nods and you start to make tea for the both of you. Inanna stays curled up next to Muriel, he scratches behind her ears as he waits.

You hand him his cup, he looks at it then to you again. He takes it and places it carefully on the stool next to him, still holding your hand, tugging you closer to him. His eyes are warm. “Rhemi…. I—I love you.” You smile. He doesn’t seem like the type, but he is so incredibly affectioned behind closed doors. You cup his face gazing at him lovingly, he leans into your touch, closing his eyes. “Thank you…”

“For what?” You run your fingers through his bangs pushing it out of his handsome face.

He looks down to Inanna, appearing a little sheepish. “...You know….For—for Always being there…. Being understanding… being…. patient.”

You kiss his forehead. “I love you too, Muriel...I’ll always be here. I’ll always wait for you.” He leans into you and kisses your lips.

You sit down next to him on the bed and drink your tea. Holding his hand. Once you both finish, you place the empty cups on the table. They can wait until morning, with a flick of your wrist you choke the fire. Muriel and you curl together on the bed, Inanna at your feet.

You wait until you see that Muriel has fall asleep before you let yourself get completely comfortable. Even though you dropped it, you still want to know what you were doing in his dream, hoping you were a positive part. Guess... that can wait for later...You kiss his temple and whisper, “...I will still never forget you, Muriel... Never..”

The end….

I do realize that this was a little silly of me to say “short story”, but for me, this is a short story *shrugs*.

Also I know this is a bit different from my usual smut. But I Hope you guys enjoyed my trash anyways! =)

#muriel #the arcane game #the arcana #arcana #the arcana muriel #muriel arcana #the hermit #dreams #fluff #muriel fanfic #the arcana fluff #muriel x oc #muriel x mc #muriel x apprentice #sad #the mountain man #muriel the hermit #muriel the mountain man

53 notes · View notes

definegodliness · 4 years

Text

Age of reenchantment

About a hundred years ago the term disenchantment was first-time coined, a theory predicting the corrosion and end of superstition, mystification, and religion by virtue of scientific enlightenment. However, on the scale of time, knowledge has always come at curves and dips, and travels onward upward in wavelike motions. After all: the more you learn, the less you know. It's like painting on an ever-expanding canvas, and the paint used to initially outline the bigger picture just won't stick on a couple of crucial areas where we, mankind as a whole, would like to see some detail. Then, the more we use the same paint to continue painting, the more gaps will appear on the canvas.

The more gaps scientists let appear on the canvas, the more dire the need becomes for more lenient out-of-the-box thinkers; philosophers and dreamers, who just slather all kinds of materials on the painting to see if something sticks. These are the new-age magicians, alchemists, and oracles. They slather whatever at their leisure. Yet, in that lies their strength. After all, some of the greatest epiphanies have been sparked upon the middle ground between free and empirical thinking. When both worlds collide we see the universe unfiltered. Then, the ever-expanding canvas in our metaphorical museum makes more sense, and we can all dab around with that brand new paint. What a joyous prospect this is.

However, until this happens once more, I do believe it's safe to say our latest age of disenchantment must come to an end. It is time for an age of brand-new reenchantments! Let's see where that takes us.

I'll lead the way.

We're leaving the ever-expanding museum which contains the ever-expanding canvas which depicts the ever-expanding painting behind us, and find ourselves on the Matterhorn. The Matterhorn? Yes, the Matterhorn, the Swiss Alps' most famous mountain. We're here because I'm doing field research regarding the Holy Triangle, or whatchamacallit. You know, that prism shaped thingy encompassing The One. Colloquially and affectionately called the Toblerone. See, I've found a hidden map on one of the Toblerone’s classic yellow packages, and, I kid you not, it clearly depicts the peak of Mount Matterhorn.

Before we continue, I might have to illustrate my relationship with the Toblerone, which I will do by sharing the tanka I wrote, overcome, and first-time swirling in the overwhelming euphoria of its chocolate gooeyness:

Come the day I die It won't matter if I'll go Surrounded by love Or abandoned and alone I will go out with a smile For I've tasted Toblerone

As you can read, it was a devotional experience. And seeing as we now live in an age of brand-new reenchantments, I decided to do my part and lay my life in the hands of the Toblerone. Embarking on a quest for higher truth, which I was convinced I would find there, at the summit of the Matterhorn.

I came well prepared, having tediously studied the sacred text 'Insanus Est Qui Legit', wherein an author whose name has sadly been lost to time, meticulously describes the preconditions needed for a spiritual revelation. Such, so it appeared to me, is a thing of complete sacrifice and surrender to the suspected higher power, in my case the Toblerone.

So, before my ascension of the Matterhorn, I made sure my body was cleansed of all impure fuel-sources. Fasting, and surviving on my brand new chewy chocolatey savior alone for the greater part of two months.

Lastly, I roughly estimated the energy input needed to reach the Matterhorn's peak, and divided it by the sacred number 9, which is the exact amount of Holy Triangles one can find in the yellow prism shaped box. On set intervals, I would eat one piece of the 9, until I would reach the summit. There, on that snowy peak so far above the world; with milk chocolate, honey, and almond nougat running through my veins, I would undoubtedly receive my revelation. Makes sense, doesn't it? Like I said, I came well prepared.

And as I came so well prepared, the journey went smoothly. So smoothly I even decided to shed my earthen clothes and do the last bit of my ascension butt-naked. I was confident. Warmed by an unearthly glow, welling inside me. And my heart filled with a childlike sense of joy when I looked up and saw the Matterhorn's proud peak mere meters away. The final stretch. The final piece. I grabbed the yellow prism shaped box and solemnly shook it above my left hand's open palm.

Nothing.

I shook it again, this time harder, yet, again, nothing. Panic struck. And I pressed the bottom end of the box hard, clearly feeling the last piece of Toblerone inside. But it would not give way. It was stuck entirely. I shouted for help, but none could hear me. I was alone on the top of the world. My energy reserves almost entirely depleted. The unearthly glow I had felt made way for a vicious attack of the cold. A thousand daggers stabbed my skin. My breath halted. My blood froze. And I knew I would soon die, there, naked, at the top of the Matterhorn. I faltered. The shivering stopped. And upon my consciousness plucked the sweet temptation of the deathly sleep. My eyelids felt heavy.

In this, what was my death struggle, I experienced one last peculiar rush of hot blood coursing through my veins. And though experts would say it was a sugar rush, I will claim it was the lightning bolt of divine intervention that struck me. In any case, my faith in the Toblerone then doubled.

Moaning and groaning I used my stiff and numb fingers to frantically shake its yellow prism shaped box. The last Toblerone. The unearthly glow. My only hope. Then, in my darkest hour, right before I gave in to total despair, the world spiraled into a blur, and echoing through the mountain chain, resonating through my brain, I heard the soothing singing voice of Sir Paul McCartney:

When I find myself in times of trouble Miley Cyrus comes to me Speaking words of wisdom

"Let it be."

Another voice. Not echoing, but soft and crystal clear. I mustered all my strength to raise my upper body, and turned my head toward its angelical sound. Peeping through my eyelashes, I saw the brightest of lights. A flashing and sparkling orb of shimmering white and shining silver hoveringly approached me. And from within the blinding orb stepped a female figure, wearing naught but a cloak of the most vivid royal blue.

Gracefully, she placed one bare foot in front of the other toward me. Never sinking in the snow. Ever closer. Then, the light dimmed and I could make out her face. Her smile was comforting. And I stretched both my arms out to her in helpless surrender. She approached. The Virgin Miley.

Was I saved?

Was she a mere apparition?

No, I felt so as she straddled me, placing herself on my hip bones, right above my pelvis. So sharing her body's warmth.

Then, she gently took my freezing hands in hers, and forthwith all the pain, sorrow, and fear left my body. I turned mellow and limp. Letting the box of Toblerone slide out of my once clutching fingers.

Again, that comforting smile. The Virgin Miley seemed pleased, caressing my forehead. I felt safe. At peace, yet simultaneously overwhelmed by the sensation of an ever growing glowing originating from within my chest. Words fall short and I can only describe my emotional experience at that time as the birthing of the deepest rooted love. It was grand. It was unconditional. And I felt it so deeply I found myself wondering: is this what the ecclesiastics called agape love?

However, though grand it was, the sentiment swiftly fleeted when The Virgin Miley took my yellow prism-shaped box, and placed it beside me in the snow. Then, all I could think of was that last piece of Toblerone, still stuck at the bottom of its prism shaped package. It was at the very moment of my thinking that I heard that soft and soothing voice resound again:

"Let it be."

"No. Miley. I will not let it be.”

I snapped at her. Clutching the box again and frantically trying to shake it empty.

The Virgin Miley shook her head, looking at me with an expression that exposed both a slight disgruntlement, yet far more devastatingly, her deep disappointment. A pang of shame washed over me, flustering my cheeks, and in a stammering mutter I begged her forgiveness. Once more, she shook her head, but in doing so her face turned kind again. Then, in a slow gesticulation, she placed her index finger on my lips.

"Shhh... it's all right. You do not understand. Yet you are only human. You gaze at the world through a magnifying lens, and all that evades the marginal boundaries of its focus eludes you."

She repositioned herself upon me, grabbing my face with both her hands and bringing hers within whispering distance.

"There is much I could teach you, if you'd let me."

I nodded. In awe. Rendered voiceless. The Virgin Miley grinned self-assuredly, apparently satisfied by my permission, and I felt the warmth of her svelte hand flowing down my throat, and further down, until she placed it on my chest, directly above my heart. And as she as such repositioned herself again, I all of the sudden felt a vehemently pulsating incandescence traveling throughout the whole of my body. My every atom, titillating. Pulsating. Bursting. By her virtue, I felt swaddled in what I can only suppose was the universe's purest energy.

She sighed. Yet even in that slightest escaping of air from her lips, the Matterhorn trembled. Her eyes locked with mine and all else around me started to fade to a whirring blur. Those eyes. For a moment they were all that existed. Blue fire. The highest truths flared from them and I could not look away as her thoughts invaded my brain. Her voice resounded without her moving her lips. So near, yet at the same time so very distant, as if her message had traveled throughout the all-time to finally fulfill the purpose of meeting my ears. Here, on top of the Matterhorn, Miley Cyrus came to me, speaking words of wisdom:

"You wanted to usher in an age of brand new reenchantment, but unlike the philosophers and dreamers you identify with; you, in your vain quest for glory, have failed to remain an out-of-the-box thinker.”

She paused for a second, making sure I comprehended the error of my ways, then continued:

“Now, let me show you all there is to know when you drop your lens of truth and just... see."

With that last word, The Virgin Miley used her entire weight to roughly bolt down upon me, clutching my shoulders and tightly pressing her limbs and body against mine, wrapping us both in her velvety royal blue cloak at the same time.

"We are one entity now."

And so, I felt the very building blocks of my corporeality dissipate and my consciousness expand to exist far from the bounds of earthen and fleshly temporality. From the very core of our connected being swelled that very same flashing and sparkling orb of shimmering white and shining silver I had seen upon her initial arrival. Soon, I was wholly consumed by light. Blinded, but only for a short while. And when I regained my vision The Virgin Miley and I shot through space in a pulsingly radiating conjoined astral projection. Going against the known flow of time and space in what seemed to be an infinite rising in expansion.

I watched the birth of our time, the Big Bang in the omnipresent void. Yet as we rose and rose in ascension and expansion, the dark of nothingness swiftly turned to a nightly sky illumined with spattering fireworks, some so grand they reduced our own Big Bang to the 'piff' of a cheap childproof firecracker. And I know we could have gone on and on, ever further, but in hindsight I recognize the only matter of importance in this joint endeavor was the annulling of my every conception of measurable space. Of time's linear flow. Of perceivable and cognizant colored existence. My mind was blasted completely open. This, once more, pleased The Virgin Miley.

"Let me show you all there is to learn, experience, and behold when you take the universe's back door."

Again, a jolt. Like a sudden thud. As if someone had suddenly slammed on the brakes of a speeding car. It indicated the reversal of our astral travel, we were now heading in the exact opposite direction. Collapsing into ourselves. Shrinking. Infinitely shrinking. Past the size of atoms and subatomic particles, of protons and neutrons and quarks, even smaller. The slightest speck of stardust could burn with the power of a million suns, and all around us life was abundant. Life, that would always be invisible to our human senses and limited tools of perception. The Virgin Miley had dipped me into her pool of infinite wisdom. And I wept tears of joy, of bliss, and intellectual euphoria.

She picked up the pace. One last trick to blow my mind from here into ever-after. The black hole. Where the relatively vast and infinitely small coexisted, simultaneously being much larger and far smaller than the other, both affected, and unaffected by time, which flow had turned chaotic. All that existed, existed always, and at the same time it might as well have never existed.

All flashed me by in the electrification of infinite knowledge, not sparking within my brain, but washing over the whole of me in ever accelerating undulating waves of electromagnetic heat. It was pure ecstasy. Sheer elation. And as I finally ejaculated inside The Virgin Miley's butt-hole, I let out a violent roar. Losing consciousness immediately after. All was dark, yet in the dreamlike state I found myself in, I heard her giggle. Crystal tinkles. Then, I heard her voice rapidly fade in one last message. Softly echoing.

"Think outside of the box, Mark."

My eyes burst open. I was back on the Matterhorn, lying naked in the snow, the prism shaped box held firmly to my chest. Blast. I had been so preoccupied with the conventional ways of obtaining my prize, solely utilizing the predestined path to its acquisition as designed and described by the manufacturer on the package, that I had turned completely oblivious to the easy solution. 'Think outside of the box, Mark.' I thought. 'See things from the other side.'

With that I turned the prism shaped box around, and opened its bottom side. The last piece of Toblerone let go of its lodged position, and promptly fell into my opened hand. I looked at it for a moment. That Holy Triangle. All the madness it had brought into being. I chuckled. Then, turning solemn, I placed it in the snow before my feet. Mere meters under the Matterhorn’s peak. One lonely piece. The last of the Toblerone. I no longer had need for it.

Lucky for me the Swiss Mountain Rescue operation then came to save me. Otherwise I wouldn’t have lived to tell this story.

--- 4-1-2020, M.A. Tempels ©

58 notes · View notes

sayonaramidnight · 4 years

Text

The deed was done.

The sword dropped out of Helvi’s tired hand, as she watched them fall – the pitiful old man, consumed by ambition, and his knights, faithful to the end. Her enemies. Her everyday work. Just more primals to be eradicated.

She did not believe it would change anything, either for the better, or for the worse. Not for her, anyway; the sense of emptiness in her chest was not gone. But for Ishgard – she still had to think about Ishgard. There were people awaiting her return. And there was the armour-clad pair who had come with her, waiting right here, right behind her; and yet she found herself lacking the strength – or the will – to look around and face them.

“Frankly, I had hoped that mine would be the hand to end it,” the tone of Estinien’s voice defied the words he said; there was no resentment there, although one who did not know him well enough might fail to notice. “But knowing you, there was little chance of that.”

“You’ve already got your vengeance, you greedy man, so let the girl have hers,” Arianna could not help teasing him a little, but then turned her gaze at the Warrior of Light with the utmost concern.

Helvi was hardly listening to them; as she carefully placed Nidhogg’s Eye on the ground. She was hesitant to hand it back to Estinien, having not forgotten of her sister’s grim tale, but he clearly did not share her fears.

“All that remains is to take care of this burden,” he picked up the red orb, still glowing ominously, and glanced at Thordan’s sword lying in the distance, the other Eye still housed in its hilt. “You’re Haldrath’s chosen, Arianna, so it is you who should take its twin.”

“Peace. The dragons want peace now, remember?” the Duskwight rolled her eye at him; she had her own opinion about who had been chosen and why, but was too tired to go through it over again. “I don’t need that blasted thing and neither do you, so you better think of a way to get rid of them.”

“We should take them far beyond the reach of man and dragon both,” he decided and then continued in a low voice: “Then my toils shall finally be at an end.”

Arianna watched him produce his lance and approach the sword, muttering something that sounded like ‘not need it’, but might as well be ‘not needed’. She would join him right away, were it not for Helvi’s hand on her shoulder, not in the slightest as gentle as usual.

“They had no Echo for protection, unlike Ysayle,” the Warrior of Light looked around the battlefield. Her voice carried no emotion as she continued: “That means… They were all tempered, weren’t they?”

The sudden shivers down Arianna’s spine had little to do with the primals.

“I wouldn’t know,” she said cautiously. “Among us, you’re the expert, so you’re probably right about that.”

Helvi’s eyes narrowed, watching her fallen enemies slowly dissolve into aether. She squatted by the abomination that used to be the knight with a sword seemingly larger than himself – not unlike her own sword. “In that case… what we actually did,” she whispered, “was an act of… mercy?”

Then, as the knight’s dead body disappeared, she began to laugh.

The small, stifled chuckle she let out first grew more bitter and derisive. She fell to her knees and kept laughing – louder and sharper, until it was not laughter anymore, but a cry of anger and rancour.

And pain, so much pain.

After a while which felt like eternity her throat grew sore and a sudden silence surrounded her like walls. Walls she would not mind to stay within for another eternity, until–

Until–

“ESTINIEN!”

Arianna’s scream broke the silence and turned the Warrior of Light back from the path to nothingness. She leapt up without thinking – it would take a lot to make her sister raise her voice like that. Like something bad was going on, something more urgent than giving in to pain or exhaustion. There would be time for grieving later – not now, not when the Azure Dragoon was squirming in anguish, mouth open in a voiceless yell, Nidhogg’s Eye in each hand. Their crimson glow increased and surrounded him like a mist of blood.

“Are you out of your mind?! Put them down!” Arianna demanded, overtaken by fear – of him? Of what would happen next? Her grip on the trident shaft tightened, as her voice was drowned out by the sound let out of his throat. The sound of a hurricane, a raging storm.

Helvi reached for her sword–

There was no time – no time for doing what was right. One moment there was a man standing there; another moment – a dragon. The dragon.

Both women faced him in silence, ready for another battle. They had defeated him once, so they could do it again – or so they believed, forgetting how tired they were. But Nidhogg did not seem eager to fight; perhaps Estinien was still somewhere there, or perhaps he was just wary…

No! Helvi sensed another presence right behind her, the ancient being bound to her ever since their first encounter in Mor Dhona.

Nidhogg stared at them – or through them, at his sire – for a while and then he rose up, flapping his leathery wings, about to take off.

“Don’t you fucking dare,” Arianna’s voice through clenched teeth broke the silence once again.

And then, having glanced at her sister for the last time, she jumped.

Nidhogg writhed with fury in attempt on throwing her off, but she held on tight to the horns on his head, back to her focused and collected self, challenging his fury.

“Rinoire, don’t!” what was supposed to be a shout, came out as a strangled squeal. But the Duskwight still heard it and looked down with a smirk, followed by a barely noticeable nod.

“You promised,” Helvi whispered, watching the dragon and his unwelcome rider fly away. “You promised you would stay alive – and you better keep that promise.”

In the end, though, she could only hope.

“...What hath thy fury made of thee…?” Midgardsormr spoke in a low, monotonous voice that always sounded strangely soothing to her.

“Couldn’t help it,” she turned to him and sighed. He was addressing his enraged son, she did realize that, but his words resonated in her mind, as she looked back at her own actions and emotions that lead her here. Not only to Azys Lla, but also to a place in her own heart she had not been aware of before.

No more running blind, she thought, clenching her fists. Snap out of it, Seawalker. You can walk the road towards oblivion later.

#in which the heroine gets emotional and the sidekick takes action #no I'm not over heavensward how did you know #FFXIV #final fantasy xiv #thanalan tinies #chaos in the form of fanfiction

27 notes · View notes

aurora-daily · 5 years

Text

Unraveling the Mystique Behind AURORA

Interview by Casey Eridio for Status Magazine (October 28th, 2019).

Before we spoke with AURORA, we weren’t entirely sure if she’s real. She appears to be this blithesome girl with overgrown braids and war paint around her eyes, which signifies tears and smile wrinkles—an ironic juxtaposition of two seemingly polar emotions. Her music entails a mystical fairy feel; it is as if she came out of a forest and learned to create electronic music. And up to this point, we’re still convinced that’s the case.

Growing up in a small island in Bergen, Norway, Aurora Aksnes was never meant to think like the common folk. When asked about her most vivid childhood memory, the 23-year-old recalls a rainy day in school when her classroom was noisy and she missed her ride home. After the chaos of the day, she plopped down on the couch, still drenched with her raincoat on, and stayed still as today’s dinner was wafting through the air and Leonard Cohen’s “Suzanne” plays in the background. “I just sat in the living room for a little while. I just really relaxed and I realized how much music can give—it was a break from life.”

youtube

Now, Aurora believes that music is the closest thing she could get to spirituality, and through this, she manifests a sort of mysticism that is truly fascinating. She believes that apple cores contain wishes and dreams about being a stone at the bottom of the ocean. Her music never gives any sign of the modern era; she sees desire as an animalistic instinct in “Animal”, her inner turmoils as diseases in “Infections of a Different Kind”, and the underdogs as a part of her “Queendom”. Matched with the vivid storytelling and natural elements in an otherwise synthetic production, things are never as they seem in the realms of her brain.

“I just sat in the living room for a little while. I just really relaxed and I realized how much music can give—it was a break from life.”

For someone dreaming with her eyes open, she never appears to be out of touch with reality either. With the folktronica and art-pop fusion she introduced to us in 2012, she had explored almost every crevice of human emotion. “At the beginning of my career, my main goal was to write music so people could cry; music to be a friend for people out there who were struggling with emotions,” she explains. And after the release of her records Infections of a Different Kind – Step 1 and A Different Kind of Human – Step 2, Aurora seems to be going deeper, unfurling the secrets of what it means to be human.

While she puts emotions under a microscope, she also zooms out to see the big picture. “I realized that [music] can be much more,” she expresses. With her emotional intelligence and realization that she could become the voice for the voiceless, Aurora evolved into a more politically-charged artist, singing about toxic masculinity in “River” and the climate crisis in “The Seed”. This sense of clarity and compassion for people and the world obviously stems from growing up surrounded by nature. “You realize that you’re big compared to the bugs, that you’re so small compared to the trees and the mountains,” she observes. With this perspective, she has carried with her a clear understanding and a deep-rooted appreciation of life in all of its different forms.

Of course, not everyone can live on a peaceful island in Norway and become a philosopher basking in nature, but this is what the artist hopes to impart with the world through her music. In the haze of the nine-to-five life, there’s simply no time to stop and think. But the moment you put your headphones on and listen to the musings and ponderings of Aurora, she brings you back to her couch in Bergen, letting the raindrops soak in and taking a break from the bustles of life through music.

As she cooks up two new albums while on tour, Aurora makes time for us to discuss last night’s dream, skydiving, and the role music and nature plays in her life.

First up, tell us about your musical journey. Do you remember the first song you’ve ever written?

When I was a child, I loved to watch people more than I actually wanted to be with people. I like to see what people around me were going through. I was around nine when I wrote my first song in English, and it was about someone being bullied. It was quite a sad song—that’s all I can remember. After I wrote my first song, I just fell in love with it. It made me feel so good that I could create something that was only mine and that helped to use emotion and turn it into something beautiful. I could never stop after I started

“Everything I do becomes better because I can give more to the world when I am good to myself.”

How did you evolve into the AURORA we know now?

Well, it happened really organically. A lot has changed, of course, in my life. My world is a lot bigger now than it used to be. I have all these friends and fans all over the world and they have really taught me how small the world is but also how big it can be. The biggest change that I have discovered is what music can really do. Music can change people all over the world and help them understand emotions better. It’s a very beautiful thing.

Tell us about your creative process in your music.

It’s very different from time to time. Sometimes I have to run to the closest recorder and record my ideas. If I’m on tour, I have to bring my book and write down some ideas. I also like sitting quietly and watching the world go by. I write everything down in my notebook. I write everything that I see around me. I just can’t stop singing, I can’t stop writing. The world is very inspiring.

When I’m home, I have my piano, but obviously the piano is too big to be with me on my back [laughs]. But when I’m home, I usually just sit and play for hours and just improvise, and when something beautiful comes, I just stick with that. It’s very organic and natural and relaxed, the way I write. I just do it when I feel like it. And when I can’t write anything I just do something else like a painting. I try to keep things very natural and to have no pressure.

Speaking of that, you also do visual art and you painted the cover art of your single “Forgotten Love”, is that something you do often? Does art ever affect your music and writing?

It does! It has happened more and more throughout my career. The visual side of music, I have learned that people’s eyes seem to be more developed than people’s ears. I love painting when I write music at the same time, and I love painting the visuals to my song.

You’ve created your own language in the songs “Forgotten Love” and “A Different Kind of Human”, can you tell us the process of creating these? What is the inspiration behind it?

I care a lot about people [laughs]. I think it’s hard for people to talk about their emotions when they don’t know how to express when something is wrong or why or even understand why we are sad. Sometimes it’s hard to understand why we’re not feeling well about things. I wanted to make simple words to explain complicated emotions. So I just wanted to make a language for people to explain their emotions. It also sounds really nice and poetic.

You’ve mentioned that some of your ideas come up when you dream. What is the best dream you could recall?

I love all the dreams I’ve had. I love it when dreams make me do impossible things, like when I go on an adventure or flying—that’s my favorite dream. I did dream, the other day, that I was a stone at the bottom of the sea and I was just watching everything above me. It felt like the dream lasted for a thousand years. As a stone, I was just watching the world go by, for hundreds and thousands of years. When I woke up, I got inspired and realized how much life comes and goes. It’s really fascinating. I love being inspired by dreams. In Infections of a Different Kind, there’s a song that I wrote, almost in a dream, I just woke up in the middle of the night and let it play in my head.

“I just can’t stop singing, I can’t stop writing. The world is very inspiring.”

How did you know that you were a stone?

I just kind of feel it, and everything around me went so quickly when I was a stone. Time went much quicker for me and everything around it because a stone has such a long life. I think I really dreamed that I was a stone because all the life around me moved so fast—I don’t know I just had a feeling that I was a stone. It was really magical, and it was a good dream.

You lived on a small island in Bergen, Norway. How do you think growing up around nature shaped the way you think?

It shaped a lot. I really needed nature my whole childhood. I’ve grown up and thought of how important nature is and how beautiful it is. Everything you need to live is in nature so you learn to respect nature. I’ve often walked around in the forest when I was a child—I was more outside than inside my whole childhood, and I just think that being surrounded by big trees and the big animals and you will get a perspective over things if you realize that you’re big compared to the bugs, that you’re so small compared to the trees and the mountains. There are just so many beautiful things there, and it’s very humbling. I really love nature and I don’t think I would be the same without it.

You’ve shared with NME a guide on being peaceful and happy. How did you come up with these? What was the journey leading up to this realization?

I think the main reason why people find themselves a bit unhappy or stressed every day is that we forget to be kind to ourselves and others. There’s just this pressure to accomplish so much every day. Sometimes a successful day is just surviving it. We don’t need more sometimes. We don’t always have to have a successful day. As long as you survive it, that’s enough.

The world would have more happy people if we are all ready to help the people around us; It would benefit all of us when all people are more happy. It can be hard. When I can’t do things I want to do, I tell myself “it’s okay.” It’s okay to not be successful all the time, as long as you’re good to yourself. And when I’m good to myself, I can be better for the people around me and I can see my fans and hear their stories. Everything I do becomes better because I can give more to the world when I am good to myself. So all my life I’ve been happier when I’m not busy and I’m good to myself.

You pride yourself in being extremely free. What is one thing you’ve always wanted to try?

I’ve always wanted to jump with a parachute. I really want to know what it’s like to fly. I would love to be a bird—that would be the biggest dream. I would love to jump with a parachute just to experience flying for a few minutes. There are a lot of things I would love to try. I’m very hungry for life, and I’m very hungry to try most things that the world has to offer me. I would like to dance more and paint more. I would like to make a theater piece with music. I would like to make the best live show for people. I would like to focus more on the environment. I don’t know; there are a lot of things I want to try and I want to do. It’s very exciting.

Are you a big fan of musical theater?

Yes, I am! I would like to make a live show with a whole story. I would like to make a live show that is more than just a concert. It’s a big dream of mine to connect the two.

Do you have any plans on coming to the Philippines or anywhere in Asia?

Not this year, but I hope that next year I can be in more countries in Asia. I would love to go to wherever my fans are and this year, I’m going to Hong Kong, China, Tokyo, Seoul, and Singapore. I’m going to a few places but I would love to visit more places in Asia. It’s my biggest wish actually to be more in Asia and to meet my fans from all different countries. It’s a very big dream of mine. I could almost promise that next year, I will come to visit.

Written by Casey Eridio Art by Elbert Uba Photos by Morgan Hill Murphy Courtesy of Universal Music

#aurora #aurora aksnes #interviews #step 2

47 notes · View notes

livayl · 5 years

Text

Veiled In Nocturnal Shadows Part 2

I had a request to continue this. I hope you`ll like it. :) And please only re blog it to other kink/ fetish blogs, thank you. :) Warning for: A little cussing.

It starts right after Part 1 had ended but I´ll include the last sentence anyways.

Shokhrakka wordlessly patted his companions flank and closed his eyes once more. Enjoying the newly descending silence as well as his friends company which finally managed to gently appease his vigilant senses towards a much needed sleep. A faint notion of threat crawled the foggy edges of slumber, lurking just beyond reach with eyes glowing crimson like smoldering coals. Blazing beacons around them approaching with deadly silence echoing newly deceased woods. Dreams formerly caressed by fond memories now had turned to a dizzying whirlwind of a dreading calamity. A shiver ran down Shokhrakkas spine, rising fine hairs in alarm and waking dormant muscles. His body raised to a crouch in one fluent motion, eyes wide awake, ready to face any approaching danger.

Through the wickerwork of their magically grown nest he faintly detected moving schemes crawling closer in the darkness. The figures moved in odd swaying motions, their flaming eyes more than 3 meters above ground. Voiceless themselves they seemed to have swallowed all other natural sound around them as well, marching forward in deadly silence. As if all other nocturnal creatures had stilled or fled upon their arrival and left him only with Lillandlians irregularly rattling breath. The creatures bodies seemed flowing and in constant change, resembling distorted shadows of trees painted on a field in moonlight in one moment and melting to fantastic beasts in another. As hard to grasp as icy water running trough ones hands. Strangely, while the Orc could not detect any specific smell, the scent of woods and nature became more pungent with every breath while glowing amber glances traced their way closer and closer. Shokhrakkas hand silently grabbed his great-axes handle, it´s weight and well worn leather a trusted comfort. All his muscles seemed buzzing, already singing the song of war. The tip of his armored boots dug deep into the soft moss as he got ready to lunge. The creatures had formed a still narrowing semi-circle around their little hideout, towering above it while swaying in a breeze only sensed by beings akin to them. By now, the air felt heavy with tension and was deeply saturated with the sickly sweet stench of decay. Thickly coating his nose and lungs with every breath it had become more and more impossible to breath. A frantic gasp, followed by gagging coughs from behind had him on his feet within a heartbeat. Without turning he sensed his companions desperate attempts to get his body upright between choking on what seemed to be worse than just rotting trees. "Don´t-" Lillandlian tried breathlessly, hooves still uselessly scraping against the soil, but could not finish as the deeply entwined vines above them were ripped open. Showering them with dried leaves a big, claw like wooden structure had breached the natural ceiling. Crawling branches reaching to grab Lillandlians body. Shokhrakka jumped forward and swung his ax, ready to cut the damned thing in a half before it could reach its destination. "DON´T ATTACK!" Lillandlian screamed hoarsely. His eyes flickered with magic as lively thick, much too flexible limbs seized the Orcs weapon arm and forced his body back down. "Are you out of your FUCKING mind?!" Shokhrakka yelled back as he helplessly watched the dead woods wrap around Lillandlians shaking, white belly. They tightened and raised the Centaurs body only to.... Leave him standing on his four hooves. Trembling, still out of breath and more moonlight pale than ever, but unharmed. "Why are you worried about it?" Asked a voice so deafening and yet incredibly heard to grasp. So low it resounded deep in Shokhrakkas guts and yet unearthly high it made his ears ring at the same time. "The Orc.... Is my friend." Lillandlian answered between coughs. His bestial chest felt restricted by the wood that still tightly embraced him. "We did not come here to do you harm. We are fugitives and haunted as well." "People always harm. The question is just how much. They rob our fruit, kill our residents and destroy us with no other reason than greed. They take with no limits and are poisoning with their existence alone." The echoing voice answered in a slow, lurking tone. "People may do all that but we did not. We respected and valued your rules." "Yet take a look at yourself, child of the forest. We heard your suffering. We felt your heated pain. We came to find you only to witness you wither in its presence." "Oh you fucked up tree things have no damned-" Shokhrakka started to growl. "Shhh! I am not withering. I am ill and it is not my friends fault." "Ill?" "Yes..." As to prove his point, the slim Centaur was forced to cough until nearly gagging again. "...I must have caught an illness some time ago and had no chance to rest. But the Orc, Shokhrakka, protects and helps me." Lillandlian sniffed, a thick and pathetic sound that again ignited a dreaded itch. "You could have said something sooner though." Apparently, the Orc had adapted to the strange situation fast. "It just got woh--hah-IDZSCHHIIIEW!" Lillandlian belatedly tried to fend off the sudden, almost burning tingling sensation. "Ugh ndot that agaidn... I got worse because I slept on my full bo-ho-dy-hdt-KZZSSSCH! hhh HA-IIZSCHH-HIEH!" "You´re no fucking horse." "Still it is snfff bad if one has an respiratory infection. Especially with a body fused like mine." "I thought you were just sniffly!" "So..." the reverberating voice interrupted, seemingly unfazed by the previous sudden and copiously wetting outbursts and odd conversation it was witnessing. "Your state of being is not the result of that Shokhrakka thing?" "That Shokhrakka thing .... Can´t tell how much it wants you to eat the ax now..." The muttered insult got lost in the creatures unified pealing hum as they... Thought... Contemplated.... Deeply. Completely unaware of Lillandlian squirming in the still steeled grip that made it impossible to successfully tend to his openly running nose. "Shokhraah-PTSCHHHIEH! Could you pleheease hhh HADZZSSCH~IIEW!" "It is not going to blow the nose for you, buddy. Go and ask your new friends." "Why are you so - AH-PTSCHHIUH! hhh- HA-IDZSCHH-IEH! Mean to me?" Lillandlian complained, sniffling urgently in a fruitless attempt to still the steady flow that now trickled down his upper lip. He almost cried out in relieve as he felt the corpse like branch-wood loose his grasp and retreat back. "There is a clearing not far from here. All you need to do is follow the silver current. As it curves through, look at a fallen friend. There grows a plant that my brethren believe will help with this so called illness or yours." Came the vibrating, delayed answer that was accompanied by an almost louder, deliciously relieving nose blow. "But do not stay here longer than necessary or start harming any other lives. These are times where one has to insist on boundaries all the more." "What is a silver stream curving around your friend?" Shokhrakka asked quietly as the creatures slowly, soundlessly retreated. "We are supposed to ssnnf follow a stream to a clearing...." Lillandlian explained, still half submerged into the soft folds of his handkerchief. "And where it turns is a cut down tree with healing plants growing near it. I am supposed to use them and we shall leave as soon as I am able to." "And what kind of plants where those?" Shokhrakka muttered towards the tall, fading silhouettes. "No plants but guardian spirits -pdTSCHHH-hieh! hdtIZZSSSCH-uh!- of this forest." The Centaur answered, swaying slightly with exhaustion. "Will they come play boogeyman again if you´ll try and rest till tomorrow? Don´t think you´ll make it far tonight." "I think that snnnf will be acceptable...."

#my fic #my oc #centaur #orc #Lillandlian #Shokhrakka #snzfic #sneeze #male

12 notes · View notes

sick-raven · 4 years

Text

Ghosts of the Present - Chapter 8

Chapter 1 + warnings

AO3

Previous chapter

Chapter 8

Two months ago, Miranda Bradbury survived sure death and got the ghosts that tormented her locked up again. John Constantine told her she should be safe now, nobody can take her charm away. It was one of the happiest moments of her life despite almost dying.

Seven weeks ago, her nightmares started. The dream reminded her that she can never truly win. Night after night she fell to the snow with crack in her ears. She didn’t really win against ghosts, she just took their power. Locked them in jail. But she was an example of the fact that no jail is unbreakable.

Six weeks ago, she called Constantine. “You said there are other possibilities to get rid of the echo, remember?”

“Your charm isn’t working?”

“It is. I want more.”

“Listen, love, it’s not necessary. Enjoy life.”

“I can get anything you ask for. Help me.”

Five weeks ago, Constantine realized he needs her help. He could steal the artefact himself, but he promised to never go near this cult again and he didn’t want to lose his bollocks. So, Miranda helped and forced him to think about her problem by balancing the artefact over the sea.

One month ago, she got a list and instructions, and the possible results of ritual scared the hell out of her. “Survival chance is about thirty percent,” Constantine told her. She couldn’t tell Jonathan that, he would try to stop her and freak out. Throwing herself into unnecessary danger was her own decision and she didn’t need to discuss this with anyone. “Still want to do that, love?”

“Yes.”

For last month she looked for artefacts and magic tools. She learned very fast they are dangerous. Set of needles tried to acupuncture her to wall. Blessed powder kept teleporting any time she touched it and it brought her to more and more dangerous locations. Not to mention the archive. It was a miracle she survived all the encounters. It tired her greatly and being kept up by nightmares didn’t help.

“Last chance,” Constantine said last Saturday as she sat naked in the protection circle. “Do you understand the dangers? They will be yours, but once you die, you don’t go to heaven, you don’t burn in hell, you are stick for eternity as their property. Just an echo. It’s not worth it, Bradbury, they will cut your life anytime you give an order…”

“Stop talking and do it,” she stopped him.

Jonathan Crane didn’t know any of this. When he saw Miranda kneel in front of her master, panic rose in him. The blood spurting from her hand reminded him it’s his fault. She wasn’t supposed to be here; the League wasn’t supposed to know!

Then she took her shirt off and Jonathan stopped in his steps. He had no words. Miranda’s whole body was covered in tattoos of circles and runes. Witch gathering would gladly take her in their sisterhood. Jonathan’s brain couldn’t understand what he is seeing, the marks looked wobbly, as if they were moving on her skin.

Miranda tore her charm down. “No!” shouted Jonathan and then…

Then.

Jonathan Crane got scared.

The death scream came out of Miranda’s lips. Loud, high and terrifying. Her body surrounded by shadows, intensified this scream. They rose around her like lotus petals and broke into dozens of tendrils that whipped around. Black shadows were swallowing the light, they grew longer and blossomed into more parts.

And the voices from shadows screamed with Miranda.

“Khulan! Khulan!” Different voices, men and women, with hatred and intensity. “Die, die, die!”

“Master, take us back,” said Miranda in eerie voice. She stood up, bleeding and white, contrasting with darkness rising from her body, and made a step towards Khulan hands ready as in for a hug. “Here we are, lost children came back to your embrace.”

Sword fell on the ground. Khulan gasped loudly, stumbling backwards, away from the shadows. “No! I order you to get back!”

The shadows didn’t listen. Their screams echoed, filled the chamber.

“Kill her!” Khulan ordered. The soldiers ran straight at Miranda, weapons ready.

Bloodbath.

Sharp as a knife, the tendrils cut around, killing everyone trying to get near. Incredible speed made it look like they died in an instant. Heads, limbs, blood. Piercing screams of the victims were always cut short as tendrils found whoever survived and stabbed them in the face. One after other, precise cuts, precise stabs.

Jonathan heard Jervis yelp. “Friend, let’s run!” But Jonathan couldn’t move, so Jervis abandoned the ship without him.

Khulan stumbled back as Miranda was coming closer covered in blood of the fallen. Even the soldiers soon realized their fight is useless and started to run away. Shadows grabbed at them, kept catching them and crushing, choking, throwing against walls, all that while screaming in pain and anger.

“No!” Khulan fell over dead body. “No!”

Miranda knelt in front of her. In last desperate attempt Khulan hit her, but Miranda didn’t move a muscle. She was a statue, focused on one thing only. She took master’s face to her palms. Master gasped in fear.

“We love you, master, you gave us everything.”

Miranda opened her mouth.

“Nough…” Khulan’s scream was silenced. Shadows came out of Miranda’s mouth and went deep into master’s throat. She gurgled, hands unable to move. Slowly suffocated with panicked look in her eyes.

It took forever.

It took seconds.

Khulan collapsed on the floor, her face turned in fear. It will never change again. She will never train another assassin. She will never destroy more lives and crush souls. The evil witch is dead. In the valley of bodies and vengeance, Banshee rose, laughing like a madwoman. Nobody has seen her. Everyone ran.

Except for Jonathan.

With manic look in her eyes she took a step towards him like a tiger considering its options before it chokes its prey. Jonathan couldn’t move, his limbs froze, his mind blank. Shadows danced around Banshee like branches in the wind and they silenced their screams into a hum. One more step.

“Traitor!” she screamed. The echoes reminded him several times of his guild. One more step. “You die!”

Shadows snapped at him. Like whips they bended back and stroke.

None touched. They hit the ground around him. Dust rose, blood spurted everywhere. Ghosts began to scream again.

“I hate you!” yelled ghosts. “I hate you!”

She walked to him, screaming. So close he felt her breath on his face and saw tears running paths on her bloodied cheeks.

“You bastard!” She slapped him. The pain woke him up. His brain started working again. She hit him again. Third time he caught her hand.

“Let!” she demanded hysterically.

“You damn cow!” he hissed clutching her wrist hard. “You dare to call me a traitor?”

She gasped, two shadows grabbed him by shoulders and pulled him away. Now they stood two steps away from each other walking around like wild animals.

“You sold me! You knew what they will do, and you sold me, because you are an insecure piece of shit!” she shouted.

“Have you gone insane? I can kill you myself, I don’t need Ra’s al Ghul!”

“You told them!”

“Tetch told them! I can think when I am angry, unlike you with your stupid hysterics!”

“Oh, can you?” she hissed.

“You would know if you weren’t busy fucking Constantine!”

“Does this look like fucking to you?” she raised her arms and tendrils rolled around it like snakes. “I am the master now! Not thanks to your paranoia!”

“You could have told me!”

“Fuck-all I could!”

They stopped in their steps, shaking in anger. Miranda went white as wall, blood still dripping of her hand.

“You were the one who said we should talk,” Jonathan said trying to sound calm and failing miserably.

“You are the one always jumping to conclusions.”

Jonathan rubbed his eyes. “You are right,” he stepped back. “Yeah, you are. Fuck it.”

Miranda nodded crying. “So are you.”

One of the tendrils pulled in the charm. Miranda took it. Shadows disappeared right away. Their master just collapsed on the ground, sat down shaking and crying. “I trusted you,” she bubbled.

Jonathan sighed and walked behind her. He sat down, their back leaning on each other.

“You didn’t,” he disagreed. Miranda sobbed loudly. “If you did, you wouldn’t be afraid of telling me.”

“No.”

“And you couldn’t do that, because I didn’t trust you.”

“You would fight me and tell me I am stupid. Because you fear losing me one way or the other. You always, always, always have to be right and we would just argue over it!”

Silence fell between them.

“It’s my fault,” Jonathan said.

“No, it’s mine.”

“Let’s split it 70-30.”

Miranda bubbled again in short laugh. “You didn’t tell them?”

“No. Jervis did. They just pried details out of me and it hurt. You didn’t fuck Constantine?”

“I got tattoos.”

Another short silence.

“What do we do?” Miranda asked.

“I don’t know,” replied Jonathan.

She trembled, he clenched his fists hard. There was an obvious answer in the air.

“We never really got to know each other,” he said.

“We did.”

“No, Miranda. Joking about your problems is not sharing. Playing them down like I do is neither. It’s avoiding hard things. That’s all we did, what do we really know about each other except basics you write in your CV? We keep to ourselves.”

“And we carry everything alone and we make shit decisions.”

“Yes.”

“We went too fast and got comfortable too quickly.”

“It was a sand castle, no foundation.”

“And one small wave crushed us like tsunami.”

Jonathan laughed at that idea. “You know, I think the witches were right. We really are useless.”

“They are dead, they have no word.”

“I’m sorry I caused this, Miranda.”

“We caused this. I’m sorry too.”

Jonathan stood up. He wanted to say something else, but no proper words came to him. However, he couldn’t leave voiceless, that’s what messed them up in the first place. He rubbed his eyes to shun the tears away.

“It was nice knowing you.”

“Yeah,” agreed Miranda. “It was.”

Next chapter

#batman #fanfiction #jonathan crane #jervis tetch #writeblr #ghosts of the present #sick raven writing

4 notes · View notes

relationshipsandpolitics · 5 years

Text

We all Matter

I thought about starting a blog a lot. But I was always put off by the implications of putting my thoughts out there into the universe. Because it does say something about you when you start a blog. It’s signaling to the world that I have important thoughts. The world needs to know what I’m thinking!

But as I’ve started reading others’ blogs or Tumblrs, I quickly realized its not about that, at least not entirely. I’ve learned about different perspectives on life from reading personal blogs. My political beliefs have been shaped or challenged because of insightful writing from people who just wanted to share their views. Also, it’s perfectly ok to create a blog just because you want some attention.

We live in a society that values having an impact beyond your small little world. And so often we feel voiceless in a world of incessant chatter. We want to matter, and we want people to acknowledge we matter. More importantly, I like to think we want to matter in a way that improves the lives of others. I truly believe most people who have a Tumblr or a blog or even an active twitter account want to impact the world positively through the content they post.

But again, we do also want our voices heard. That includes me. I’d like to think that my opinions mean something, that they are informed, relevant and helpful. Maybe they aren’t. But I decided I wanted to take that chance and start sharing them. I’m a bit tired of certain opinions that get attention. A bit tired that political hacks deliberately mislead and spin what’s going on in the world to fit their own interests. A bit tired that huffingtonpost.com are more likely to have a headline about a tweet from Leonardo DiCaprio about climate change than an article from an actual climate scientist. A bit tired that if you want good advice on sex or relationships, you either need to get it from either an ultra-conservative who has sex by poking his dick out through his pants, or a polyamorist who throws orgies that also double as anarchist/ wine and cheese parties.

It’s not that my voice matters more than these people; it’s that it matters at all. All our voices matter, and yet so few are given the platform they deserve. This is about that as much as it is an admitted vanity project. The question shouldn’t be “why do you think you should have a blog?” The question should be “why shouldn’t you?”

I’m going to say from the outset I will get a lot wrong. I will have a political take that ultimately proves incredibly incorrect or misses some basic historical fact that changes the entire argument. I’ll give relationship advice that doesn’t pan out. I’ll share my views on sex that many hypothetical readers will lambast me for. I’m a white, straight, married male in his thirties making relatively good money. I’m very much not an authority on most things and will come with internal biases typical of my demographic. Basically, I’m going to fuck up a lot. But through my writings and thoughts, I hopefully will get better. Just like I hope my writing improves others’ lives, so too will I hope it improves mine.

In the end, who knows what this blog winds up being? It could be an epic disaster. Or it could work out. But if I had any overarching message or theme, it would be this: ‘I’m not an authority any more than the reader. My opinions are just that; my opinions.’ Whether this blog attracts 10 followers, or 10,000 followers, is completely immaterial. We all have a voice we should share, and our voices matter equally. Never forget that.

3 notes · View notes

buttsonthebeach · 6 years

Note

Solas is always serious, very quiet and composed when in the middle of other people, even the other member of the Inquisition. I'd really like to read a fanfic about Lavellan feeling particularly bold and taking advantage of a public situation to tease Solas until he loses his composure. That would be precious!

Ahhh ANON. I have been so in love with this prompt ever since you sent it. I am so sorry it took me so long to fill it!!

Immediately follows “Frilly Cakes,” another early game, pre-relationship piece about Ellana and Solas.

@dadrunkwriting

My Ko-Fi || My Commissions

Pairing: Solavellan, pre-relationship

Rating: Teen for swearing

*****

The first time Solas laughed when he awoke in the Veiled world he’d made - really truly laughed from joy, and not from nervous hysteria - was in front of a large assembly of human clerics in Val Royeaux. Certainly not the wisest place for an elven apostate to lose his composure, as he’d learned in the year he’d been awake. Somehow these women in their long white robes with their high, dual-peaked hats claimed dominion over the will of a voiceless god, and the power to punish people like him. Elven mages. The true arbiters of this world.

I have failed so deeply, he first thought, looking at them. Revered Mothers, they were called, though none of them were married, and almost certainly none of them were mothers. Claims of divinity were laughable to him even in a world where the People could raise whole mountains. He wasn’t sure he had a word for how ridiculous the women before him were.

What he did not expect was that Ellana Lavellan, so-called Herald of Andraste, would share his feelings.

“What the hell is the point of their hats?” she murmured at his side.

Her brow was furrowed, creasing the lines of June’s vallaslin where they crossed her smooth red-brown skin. He knew just how smooth it was. Just the day before, when they were tracking down the mysterious Red Jenny - a bare-faced, irreverent, skinny elf named Sera, who’d already decided she disliked him - they’d shared two cakes in a quiet courtyard, and he’d brushed the frosting from her cheek. She’d stared at him all the while. Wide gray eyes and red lips and warm skin. He could feel it all over again, standing beside her in the Chantry.

He kept forgetting that she was not real. He kept feeling his heart lift at the sound of her voice, when there was no point to that feeling.

“Solas?”

He’d been staring. Ellana was staring back, completely ignoring Cassandra, who stood before them, addressing the Revered Mothers, trying to convince them to change their stance on acknowledging and aiding the Inquisition. He imagined that the formidable Seeker would have liked Ellana to take a larger role in this, but she’d dug her heels in when they met that morning, insisting it wasn’t a good idea for her to attempt anything diplomatic. She was almost stubbornly blunt. Determined to be convinced of her own ineptitude. He wondered if that was another failure to heap on his shoulders. He had created a world where a woman as observant and intelligent as Ellana could doubt her own worth.

“I think he’s half in the Fade already,” Varric muttered at Solas’s side, snapping him at last out of his reverie. The dwarf was just as unhappy as the two of them were about this development. He said standing in a chantry trying to convince a cleric to take a side reminded him too much of Kirkwall. Some other disaster in this disaster of a world.

“Do you think Cassandra would notice if we waved our hands in front of his face?”

“Mine? No. Your glowy green hand? Yes.”

Ellana clenched her left hand, even though it was gloved, and you could not see the gash of energy that had marred her. Solas remembered the first time he saw her in that dank cell in Haven. How lifeless she seemed, how wan and pale her brown complexion had gotten, how he assumed the magic would ravage her before long. It would get her one day. He hoped she died painlessly. He hoped they all died painlessly.

Cassandra raised her voice ever so slightly, her tone tightening. Solas wasn’t sure if she was annoyed at the clerics, or at them.

“Now I’m beginning to think he’s ignoring us on purpose,” Ellana said. “No one has answered my question about the hats. Who the hell would want to look like that? It’s ridiculous. There’s nothing revered about them.”

“You’re telling me.”

Solas snorted. He kept his eyes forward now, not wanting to draw Cassandra’s ire, and also trying not to fall into their banter. He couldn’t afford distractions. He couldn’t afford red hair, gray eyes, brown skin. He couldn’t afford friendship.

“Who even came up with that design? Does it represent something? At least all the Dalish designs represent something.”

Solas snorted again, louder this time, then caught himself. He’d drawn Ellana’s ire now. Her eyes were narrow. Cassandra’s voice got louder again. The clerics rustled in their robes.

“Maybe it’s supposed to represent something about Andraste. Did she wear her hair like that? That seems like something a self-important shem would do.”

Solas could not help but chuckle at that. He blamed it on Varric’s chuckle. That got Cassandra to actually glance over her shoulder, a threat of violence in her eyes. That made Varric chuckle harder.

“Herald, you’ve gotta stop. Solas may actually laugh for once in his life.”

Solas almost wanted to tell the dwarf then - he had laughed. He had laughed himself sore alongside spirits of Joy, created magical pranks and illusions that delighted him for days with their cleverness. He’d had friends and lovers and laughter and all of it was gone and it was all his fault.

“Oh, I know what it is. You’re always swearing by Andraste’s butt cheeks, Varric. Maybe her ass was shaped like that. They are celebrating its pointiness with their hats.”

At that, Solas lost his composure entirely.

He had laughed since he woke up a year before, out of the sheer absurdity of his situation, and maybe there was a degree of that in this laughter. Or maybe it was entirely a different kind of absurdity. The absurdity of the three of them, muttering jokes like bored children - of Cassandra, shooting them glares that would make any irritated mother proud - of the way his laugh echoed through the cold stone of the chantry - of their so-called Herald of Andraste, pleased with her own irreverence, smiling like she didn’t have the weight of the world on her shoulders.

Well. And the thought of an ass that pointy, or of hats honoring said ass, was hilarious.

They made a swift exit when his laughter would not slow, and soon the three of them were back in the Val Royeaux sunshine, and Solas was wheezing, tears prickling at the corners of his eyes. Ellana and Varric were laughing now, too. Varric’s had a baritone boom, and Ellana’s was higher than he might have expected. She had a low voice for a woman, but there was something girlish in her laughter. His pulse sped up at the sound.

“We really should just march over to those gallows we saw and stand by our nooses,” Varric said. “The Seeker is going to kill us.”

“It was worth it,” Ellana said.

At first he thought she meant it was worth it to get out of the chantry, the politics, the nonsense of it all. But she kept stealing glances at him as they waited for Cassandra, and soon her smile was soft and sweet, and if he wasn’t mistaken, only for him.

For an afternoon. For one afternoon, friendship and flirtation and laughter were something he could afford. For one afternoon, this world could be real.

#beach writes #dragon age fanfic #da drunk writing circle #solavellan #solavellan fanfic #listen cassandra has probably had it with the three of them #they are in so much trouble

120 notes · View notes

thetunewillcome · 5 years

Text

[Fic] Empty and Desolate, The Air

Relationship: Aziraphale/Crowley

Rating: Mature (graphic descriptions of violence)

Important Tags: Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, South Downs, Language and Communication, T.S. Eliot-Inspired

Word Count: 3871

Summary: Ever a guardian, Aziraphale kept watch. Sliver-shafts of moonlight sliced ribbons across Crowley’s face. The emptiness of it unnerved the angel. Even in slumber, his expressive face had always told stories. Syllables shifted in the corners of his mouth; sentences found themselves punctuated with the movement of an eyebrow. Now, only still silence, even in sleep. Heavenly forces decide the best way to get their once-dutiful soldier back is to slaughter his only real reason for rebellion. Their attempt leaves Crowley wounded and voiceless. Aziraphale tries his best to heal him and accept the soundlessness of this new verse of their song.

[Read on AO3] or below (hidden under the cut b/c violence)

"Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden,

Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not

Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither

Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,

Looking into the heart of light, the silence.

Oed' und leer das Meer."

- T.S. Eliot, The Wasteland

All was silent save for the language of the garden: birdsong and the buzzing of bees.

The blessed blade slid through skin and sinew, stilling as it settled inside his ribcage. Searing pain burned in red-hot flashes across his chest. Breath caught; lung collapsed. Gritting his teeth against the gnawing heat of the metal, he squeezed his eyes shut, bowing his head in a silent refusal to give them the pleasure of hearing his torment, seeing his fear. A disobedient, agonized grunt escaped his lips as the angel dragged the blade out, inch by inch, deliberately slow. Warmth blossomed across his stomach. Through slitted eyes, he watched his silver blood stain his shirt, drip from Sandalphon’s retreating hand.

Think of something, his mind pulsed. Think of something. Say something. Do something. Or else. Weakly, he lifted his knees an inch from the soil, the start of an attempt to stand. The metal shackles binding his hands behind his back scalded his wrists. A hand grabbed a fistful of his auburn hair, jerking his head up and back. Golden eyes met lilac ones.

“Come, now,” Gabriel chuckled from where he stood behind him. “You’re doubly trapped. You’re not going anywhere.” A pause as Sandalphon shifted closer and Gabriel said to him, “we need to get a move on, before we’re interrupted.”

Oh, you’ve got time, Crowley thought. Aziraphale wouldn’t be back from the shops for hours. Jaw clenched tightly, he glanced sideways at the empty patch of ground he had intended to fill with lavender that afternoon. Infuriatingly fitting that his story would end here, in the garden he had so carefully tended for nearly forty years, behind the home they had come to cherish. More so, even, than Eden, this place was their beginning; now, with one blind step across an invisible line, it would be his destruction and their end.

Gabriel spoke again to Crowley, voice full of arrogance and loathing. “You fooled us back then, I’ll give you that, but look at you now. I knew if we gave you time, let you play human in this stupid town for long enough, you’d let your guard down. We’ve had that circle sitting out here for, oh, months now – concealed from demonic sight, of course – and you walked right into it. So you will die, and Aziraphale will eventually forget why he turned away from us. He will return where he belongs and he will fight for us again, in the new war to come. In time, he won’t even remember you.” Gabriel smiled, inverted in Crowley’s field of vision.

“Never,” Crowley choked out. “He would never go back to –“ Something hot and wet pressed against his neck: the blade. Instinctively, he jerked sideways and felt the edge cut a small track in his taught skin.

Gabriel’s grip on his hair tightened. “Enough. Time to die.” His eyes fell shut, inner voice pleading with him to take action while the throbbing pain in his gut pulled his focus and slowed his thoughts. Nothing came to mind but Aziraphale: the horror that would mar his lovely face when he discovered Crowley’s body, the crumble and collapse into grief, his blue-green eyes dulled under pooled tears. Every speck of power Crowley possessed trembled uselessly just underneath his skin, detained by the shackles and the circle around him. There was nothing he could do.

A tremor hummed through the air as the blade bit into his neck. A breathy cry, foreign to his ears but coming from somewhere in him, penetrated his cotton-muffled consciousness. Nails drew droplets of blood from the palms of his clenched fists. Light was streaming in from somewhere to his right. Metal cut deeper and his voice sputtered to silence. All was blinding pain and light and quicksilver sticky warmth cascading down his chest, and then, a lightening. His hair, released. The blade, lifted.

Eyes flew open and took in the garden cast in brilliant white, a photo negative. A hallucination, perhaps, as braincells starved and withered? Or the light humans said they saw before death claimed them? Air moved around him. A flash: a lightning strike? Head heavy, he folded forward, ink spreading across the edges of his vision. One final fall, into darkness yet again.

Soft hands caught him: one cradling the back of his head, the other amplifying pain with firm pressure on his neck. A burst of short-lived strength. The circle had been broken. The restraints tumbled from his wrists. He was laid gently down in the cool embrace of fern and columbine. White curls. Bright, panicked eyes. Aziraphale, he tried to say, run. They want you back. What are you doing wasting time on me, you perfect idiot? Aziraphale, he tried to say, I love you. I’m sorry. But instead of words, a sickly, wet sound.

“Shh, don’t – Don’t try to speak.” Sweat and tears mixed on the angel’s face, and flecks of gold dotted his skin. Fingers stroked his cheek. His face was wet, too. “I know it hurts and I – I am so sorry, dear, but I have to staunch the bleeding.” More pressure. Waves of agony behind his eyes.

“They’re gone now. You’re safe. You – oh,” and Aziraphale’s tender voice broke as his eyes swept over Crowley’s chest. A hand found the gash in his stomach and pain bloomed there, too. “I know it was holy metal, but – we have to try." The angel's voice was an unsteady song, breathy and full of vibrato. "Crowley, listen, with anything you have left, you need to try, okay?” With a reassuring nod, Aziraphale closed his eyes.

Hazily, he lingered in the homecoming of Aziraphale's face before him, a sense of misplaced calm settling over his body. It wouldn’t work – Angelic blades permanently injure occult entities deep beneath their corporations’ flesh. – but he would try, for him. Crowley reached down into his core, desperately shoving pain aside, and found reserves of frantic energy. Power surged through his veins. Cells divided, mercurial blood replenishing. It wasn’t a solution, but it would buy him time, and it was the best he could do.

Aziraphale’s warm energy flowed over his neck and ribcage. The sharp stinging calmed slightly to a pulsing ache. Weak and exhausted, Crowley watched Aziraphale concentrate, beautifully in his element, until the angel’s eyes reopened and fear took back its hold on his visage. Shakily, the hand on his neck lifted. Crowley read surprise and slight relief in the angel’s eyes.

“An improvement, certainly,” he said, trying to sound calm, though his breath came shallow and quick. “Bandages, now. Ready?” A snap sounded in the distance; gauze wrapped tightly around his wounds, covering rows of stitches that had strung themselves through jagged skin. “Much better. You’ll be alright.” You’ve always been a terrible liar, he thought. Superficial patching was all their energy could do. “Let’s get you inside.”

Tenderly, Aziraphale gathered him in his arms and lifted him. Fresh pain burst forth as his body shifted. He fought to keep heavy eyelids open and caught still images of the scene: evening primroses inching open for the night; hyacinths, named for the one whose blood first created them, dripping with silver; the smudged, broken edge of a devil’s trap in the dirt; a tree trunk sprayed with golden spatter.

At the last image, his eyes opened wide, mind sharpened with worry. He ran a heavy hand over Aziraphale’s chest, earning him a concerned look. An attempt to say Yours? required breath that wouldn’t come, and so he gestured vaguely at the tree and looked up into the angel’s pale face.

“Oh, darling,” and the hold on his body tightened, “it’s not mine. Don’t worry.” Eyes fell closed. “Here, we’re almost there.” The creaky hinges of their front door. The click of the lock behind them. The ten footfalls to their bedroom. The soft give of their duvet. Aziraphale’s presence began to draw back and Crowley shot out his hand, grabbing a wrist that froze at his touch. “I’m not going anywhere, but I can’t let you–“ His voice tightened and he swallowed thickly. “I’ll clean you up, change of clothes, okay?”

A snap, but nothing happened. Aziraphale swayed on his feet, blinking. “Shit,” he whispered, then recovered his soothing tone. “Have to do it the human way, then. But…” Brows furrowed, he glanced at the bedroom door, then back down at Crowley. “Well, in a moment, when you’re settled.”

His vision darkened, then returned as he felt the familiar pressure of the angel’s body on the mattress next to him. Aziraphale moved cautiously, studying Crowley’s face as he settled down and slid fingers through rust-red hair. Lips pressed a kiss to his sweat-slick forehead.

Sleep tempted him with escape, but as his eyes closed again, he heard a panicked “You – Crowley?” and forced them back open. “You need to stay awake. It’s vitally important.” Tears tumbled down Aziraphale’s face, and Crowley tried desperately to obey, but there were shadows curling in around the edges of his eyes. More than anything, he wanted to speak, but their energy had only been enough to stop some of the bleeding, not repair deeper damage. Thank you, he would have said. Stay. I’ll return. Against his will, he slipped into sleep.

---

A sweet smell drifted into the cottage's studio on dreamy, heavy afternoon air. Perched on a stool, Crowley glared at a canvas smeared with azure hues. The paint was not behaving properly, and the whole piece was one more bad brushstroke away from spontaneous combustion when the sound of the door opening made him pause, paintbrush raised. Aziraphale entered, and the sight of him spread a grin across Crowley’s face: he was dotted from head to toe in flour.

“That’s off to a beautiful start,” the angel said, words slowing as he took notice of Crowley’s expression. “I like… What?” A glance downward. “Oh.” A sheepish smile. “I thought I’d try my hand at brioche. The book made it look simple enough, but, well, I ran into some difficulty with the mixer, and then after it all, you’re expected to have the patience to wait for the dough to rise for hours before baking it…”

Grabbing hold of his hand, Crowley tugged Aziraphale closer to him and wiped flour from his cheek with a thumb. “Couldn’t wait, could you?” he asked slyly, and guilt crossed the angel’s face. “Well, it smells delicious.” Leaning on the edge of the stool, he spread his legs wider and pulled Aziraphale forward by the hips until the space between them disappeared. “Still, I thought patience was a virtue,” he murmured as he tilted his chin up and kissed Aziraphale’s lips.

“It is.” Another kiss. “But there’s no harm in speeding things along, either, sometimes.”

There was an absurd beauty in the realization that the angel before him could drown nations, burn sinful cities to the ground, plant dreams into the minds of men that would alter the course of human history, and yet, here he was, settled in South Downs with a demon, miracling dough to rise. Crowley looked up at him as if he were the sun itself, wondering if Aziraphale had any idea of the limitlessness of his power.

As he had done countless times since the move, since the peaceful seclusion of the cottage had made it first safe to voice his ancient adoration, Crowley opened his mouth to say I love you, angel, but only heard a sickening sputter. In horrified confusion, he pulled shaking hands away from Aziraphale’s hips and touched the ruin of his throat. Where there had been blue paint on his fingertips, now, there was argent blood. When he looked up from his hands, Aziraphale had disappeared and the stool was collapsing under him and he was falling, voiceless, back into the darkness of sleep.

---

The feeling of falling jolted him awake. Gold eyes flew open and a second passed and then the pain rushed back to him all at once in a train-wreck of sensation. Teeth ground. Muscles seized. Hands dug into the duvet. Then Aziraphale’s hands were on him, warm and healing. Dark circles had formed under bloodshot blue eyes, and his skin looked frighteningly pale in the half-light of the room.

Angelic energy smoothed the edges of the pain, but it still rang through him, the equivalent of covering one’s ears against a shrill alarm. The hands withdrew and he watched Aziraphale wipe his face with a shirtsleeve. He had no idea how long he had been asleep.

“You… you’re…” Aziraphale, voice hushed and relieved, reached for words that unraveled on his tongue. "I..."

Testing his body, Crowley managed a small breath in, all that his collapsed lung would allow, but the air died silently in his throat. He raised his hand and mimed writing in mid-air.

“Oh! Um, yes, hang on,” and Aziraphale grabbed a book and pen from the nightstand. “Here,” he said as he held the pen out to Crowley, opened to a random page. “Write in the margins.”

In jagged script, Crowley scrawled two words and tipped the book so Aziraphale could read them. “Love you”

A stifled sob. “I know. And I love you. You know that. You're my world, my everything.” Aziraphale’s thumb traced his jawline and Crowley leaned ever so slightly into the touch.

"They’re after you. Go”

Shock and offense at the suggestion. “No. I won’t leave you, and you’re in no condition to be moved. Don’t be absurd.” A deep breath. “They’re not a threat anymore. Not for the time being, anyway.”

Crowley raised an inquisitive eyebrow.

For the first time in two days, Aziraphale looked away from Crowley, gaze hardening. “I’m not exactly sure what happened. It was all a blur. My only concern was you. Whatever I did to them, well, they deserved it, and I doubt they’ll be able to return. At least, not soon. But if they do, I’ll be right here” he said quietly, voice warming as he returned his focus to Crowley’s face, “and they won’t come near you again.”

"Should be dead” To clarify, he added an “I” to the left of the phrase.

Aziraphale winced and exhaled slowly. “And yet, you’re not. You’re here. Perhaps I interrupted them before… Or… I don’t know…” His voice grew high and tight. “I’m not going to question it. You can’t… because I couldn’t…”

The emotions battling on Aziraphale’s face became too much for his foggy mind to handle. Crowley looked away and noticed his stained, torn clothes. With a look of disgust, he gestured at them and the angel’s face twisted in guilt. “Sorry. Any ounce of energy that returns to me, I’ve routed right into healing you. So I can’t miracle you clean, and I didn’t want to hurt you, doing it by hand.” Not to mention he’d have to leave the room to get supplies, and he couldn’t pry himself away from Crowley’s side.

Crowley’s expression told him he was being ridiculous. “Fine, if you feel up for it, I will.” A small, weak nod. “Okay, I’ll…” Aziraphale stared at him as if worried he would disappear. “I will be right back.”

Drifting in and out of consciousness, Crowley heard Aziraphale reenter the room, felt the gentle tug of fabric being removed from under him. Like that magician’s trick, he mused, with the tablecloth and plates. Except he was already shattered into sharp pieces. Not much more damage could be done.

Wet cloth slid over skin, back and forth on silver stains. Humans have been bathing bodies just like this in parlors and in morgues since their departure from the Garden. Crowley had seen them do it, feeling like a voyeur in the face of their human grief every time. He had heard them speak to the dead: apologies, confessions, questions hovering permanently in the air without answer. Only silence from the dead, and now, from him. What power lived in language, to prove I am here. I can ask and answer. Listen. Under the reverent attention of his angel, he was lulled to sleep once more.

---

Ever a guardian, Aziraphale kept watch. Sliver-shafts of moonlight sliced ribbons across Crowley’s face. The emptiness in it unnerved the angel. Even in slumber, his expressive face had always told stories. Syllables shifted in the corners of his mouth; sentences found themselves punctuated with the movement of an eyebrow. Now, only still silence.

Crowley’s presence had always felt thunderously loud to him. Even in the early days, he would shatter Aziraphale’s peace with surprise greetings, bursting forth from a crowd or calling his name across a room. Always a retort, always a bark of laughter or a groan of discontent. Somehow, even when he listened, he listened with his whole body; Aziraphale could read volumes in the shifts of his feet and the tilt of his chin. Sharing a home allowed him to hear new sounds he hadn’t been privy to before. After a night of drinking, Crowley snored. When concentrating in quiet spaces, he hummed to himself. He shouted at sappy films and cursed at cooking mistakes and Aziraphale, who had always lived in lonesome quiet, had come to cherish every word.

Exhaustion ignited into rage. They had no right to his voice, his life. What did they even know of him? Ancient questions? Disobedient objections? He was so much more: faltering bravado, endearing temper, sibilant begging, whispered affection, unwavering love. His. He was his. And Aziraphale would do whatever needed to be done to keep him here.

Shifting into his true form that day had taken so much from him, and he had regretted it instantly upon realizing just how deeply they had injured Crowley. Angelic energy took time to rebuild once depleted, and as it sparked and replenished in his core, he drained it into Crowley’s body, emptying himself again and again. He hadn’t left the room for days, at least. Dust had settled around them on the four-poster bed.

His mind wandered, recalling memories and verses to pass the time, but when it ventured near that afternoon in the garden, he stopped it. He refused to consider what he had done to Gabriel, what it meant for him. If Crowley’s life could only be purchased with Gabriel’s, if he had incurred a debt only repayable with his own Fall, he accepted those terms without hesitation.

Every instinct in him called for prayer, but his belief in a God who listens had withered half a century ago. Still, he spoke. It was a prayer, yes, but not to Her. It started with an invocation, the one name in which he held unwavering faith. “Crowley,” he breathed, lingering on the holy sound of his name. “You’ve always been so strong. Your will becomes reality here on Earth. I’ve seen it happen. Give it a try. For me. Forgive me for not being enough to heal you on my own. Forgive me for needing you so selfishly. You can save yourself, I know it. You have the power, somewhere. This can’t be it. We’re meant to have forever.” And ever. Amen.

---

“Look like hell”

“Just the sight of you awake is lovely, my dear.”

“Not me. You”

A shaky laugh. “Haven’t exactly had the energy to keep up appearances, now. So sorry.” He had lost track of how much time he had spent lying quietly next to Crowley, watching, healing, hoping.

Crowley, propped upright now against the headboard and pillows, gave a fond smile and wrote “Standards?”

“Oh, stop,” Aziraphale chuckled as he unbuttoned Crowley’s pajama shirt.

Crowley’s physical pain was still present, but it had dulled significantly, and somehow, inconceivably, the invisible cancer of the blessed metal’s damage had ceased to spread. It should have consumed him, and yet, it hadn’t. They each had their separate theories – Aziraphale’s strength, Crowley’s willpower, the humanizing effects of isolation from above and below, the otherness of their own side – but neither would ever voice them. Neither dared to question it. And he was still far from out of the woods: he couldn’t even draw the breath required to ask for a compass.

“Focus, now.” Aziraphale placed both hands on the bandage below Crowley’s left rib and closed his eyes. Crowley did his part, meeting Aziraphale’s energy with the little of his own he had cultivated.

When they were both spent, Aziraphale leaned back, their shoulders touching. Slowly, Crowley laced their fingers together. His eyes were closed. A scar ringed round his wrist, a souvenir of captivity. The silence of the room pressed heavily on Aziraphale’s eardrums. He wished for anything to shatter it: a word, a laugh, a breath, even, just the whisper of an inhale. Nothing came.

He tried to be thankful for the silence. After all, the air could be filled with angelic fury, with the sharp hissing of fiery weapons. It could crackle with burning feathers. It could carry a death rattle to his ears, bringing with it his ending, too. The way things were headed, they still could communicate; it could have been much, much worse. Aziraphale sat, warm palm pressed against Crowley’s cold one, and attempted to accept the soundlessness of this new verse of their song.

---

Eventually, Crowley urged him away from his post.

“Eat something”

“Shower”

“I’m fine”

"Get some fresh air”

“Please eat”

An irritated eye-roll when the angel insisted he wouldn’t miracle up food for himself. “Pears are ripe on the trees. Go”

Finally, he listened, disappearing for an hour here and there but always returning, a homing pigeon carrying stories and healing hands back again to Crowley’s quiet sanctuary. One day, as he reluctantly walked down the hall, bedroom at his back, something stopped him.

Aziraphale had heard the first word ever born on a human tongue. When Adam opened his mouth and began to name the creatures of the Garden and the Heavens, a strange and lovely music formed, so different from the celestial language of angels it defied comparison. As Adam christened his wife, baptized his body – bone, flesh, rib – the young angel cherished each vibration. How precious, the melodies of the human voice. Out of that language, variations branched forth, harmonies. Eventually, Babel brought discord, baffling and beautiful. The early ages had rippled with vocal ringing, and as Aziraphale loved the humans, so he loved their languages.

But, oh, no word ever mattered more than this. Its sandpaper sound was a shipwreck, dredged out of the deep, tempest-tossed nearly past recognition, but within its hull lay golden promise. It was a name, just like the first. Its syllables rose and broke over him, shattering months of silence and leaving him shaking in its wake. “Aziraphale,” he heard. A clipped song, a single note of adoration. Spinning, he took in the impossible sight of Crowley leaning against the doorframe. Carefully, carefully, with stunned and speechless gratitude, the angel wrapped him up in trembling arms.

Notes: It's not every day that you write something, go reading some of your favorite poems looking for inspiration for a title, and find lines that almost exactly describe what you've already written. (If I've been possessed by Mr. Eliot, I have absolutely no objections.)

The title comes from “Oed’ und leer das Meer” which means “empty and desolate the sea." Eliot borrowed the line from Tristan und Isolde.

Aziraphale’s prayer is very loosely based on the Lord’s Prayer.

4 notes · View notes

ghost-chance · 5 years

Text

A musing upon super-powers

In this world of fantasy and fiction, of lighthearted musings and playful dreams, there are questions which have become so commonly asked as to become cliche. What is your spirit animal? Which character do you most resemble? What element are you closest to? Most of these questions are easily answered, if not accurately then at least quickly. Even more common, though, is a question far more complex than it appears: If you could have a superpower, what would you choose? This question once perplexed me to no end. There are, after all, seemingly limitless options to choose from - flight, super-strength, telekinesis, and invulnerability for those who prefer to keep it simple, and electrical manipulation, aerokinesis, mind-control, and shapeshifting for those comfortable stepping outside the box. Until recently, I was always stumped by this question because no special powers truly spoke to my heart...until I found one.

I care not for super-strength - excessive strength has the potential to hurt people and damage objects, and keeping it reigned in takes far more effort than it’s worth. I have no yearning for mind-reading, either - that ability comes with a lack of privacy and chances are, you may be unable to turn it off no matter what foul mess you may land yourself in. Empathy, too, fails to bring me joy - how would I know which feelings were mine? - as does telekinesis - considering my lack of physical coordination, anything I tried to manipulate would be at risk for breakage. What I value most isn’t featured in the usual regurgitated lists...I value KNOWLEDGE. No one person can know everything, and even if we could, what a horrible life it must be - if you know everything, how can you ever learn anything else? I can think of few things more disappointing. Knowledge, however, can take many forms, including that of the spoken and written word.

Words would be my super-power - the ability to hear, read, write, and speak every language living or dead with fluency.

I long for foreign voices to share with me their secrets, and to give my own in return in their tongue. I yearn to pore over ancient manuscripts and find their mysteries offered up to me one beautifully bewildering symbol at a time. I’d love to learn the history of the world’s peoples in their own tongues, not for monetary profit but spiritual enrichment. To pass my fingertips over engraved panels and decipher the pattern - to follow gestures with ease and give voice to the voiceless - to finally prove, one word at a time, that we are all human underneath our skin.

No ability comes without its price and its limits. The price I’d pay would be learning the truth, and that’s no trifle - sometimes, the truth can be horrific, and no matter how you wished to know something, you can never unlearn it. Limits, I imagine, would be like those experienced by all polyglots - countless phrases, when translated, only make sense in their original language, and even more words have no translation. Some words sound similar between languages and mean different things, and others, when translated, are pronounced like words with completely different meanings. On top of that, accents, accents, accents - people can speak the exact same language and sound nothing alike, all because of a few minor changes in pronunciation! There would always be room for error, and, especially with dead languages, there would be much I’d never truly understand. Even if you speak the language, you cannot truly understand it like a native without understanding all the nuances of the culture. I feel I would soon become lost in some confusions - the difference between redneck and leatherneck, why this language has no articles and this one has even more than my own, and if cerise can be both a color and a fruit, how to avoid confusing one for the other. Worst of all, in knowing the languages of civilizations long-past, I could share their secrets with the world...and, knowing such wonders are gone, I would be filled with regret for their loss.

I don’t want to teach the world to sing - not in my language or in any other. I want to learn the tongues of the multitude and, to the best of my ability, sing with them.

#Language #Superpowers #linguistics #languages #spilled words #I'm a nerd for language

18 notes · View notes

obsidianarchives · 5 years

Text

Ashley Romans

Ashley Romans started her formal acting training at Pace University School of Performing Arts. She moved to Los Angeles immediately after graduating in 2015. Los Angeles theater credits include: Celebration's Charm (Beta), Rotterdam (StageRaw and LADCC award recipients). Film/Television credits include: "I'm Dying Up Here" and "Shameless" (Showtime), "Are You Sleeping?" (Apple TV), "Hermione Granger and the Quarter Life Crisis" (Sunshine Moxie), "NOS4A2" (AMC new series).

Black Girls Create: What do you create?

I’m an actor. I create by acting. Collaborating with writers, directors, designers, and visionaries in whichever medium possible to hopefully create an honest reflection of a being’s life experience.

BGC: How do I create?

I suppose my entire creative process begins with healthy self trickery. Not quite deception but more healthy, playful, self manipulation. Naturally as creators we have a way of resisting and fearing whatever it is we most want to bring about into the world. Similar to a mother’s fear of giving birth or raising a child, we think “what if the world doesn’t receive my creation well? What if people are mean? What if it’s not healthy or ready?” I often find myself trying to bribe or trick my way out of this fear. I trick myself into going into my next audition as confidently as I can, or preparing for that day on set when I really don’t want to, or finding some connection with a character trait I find reprehensible.

I also think it is very important to stay relaxed and loose so one can reach a playful and spiritual place of creativity. So I try and keep myself healthy; mentally, spiritually, and physically by reading, eating healthy, journaling, praying, meditating, and exercising.

BGC: How did you get into acting?

I would say my professional pursuit officially began when I went to study theater at Pace University in New York City for my undergraduate degree, but for as long as I can remember I always had an interest in acting. I loved watching ‘90s action/drama movies with my father and “I Love Lucy” reruns with my mother as a child at all hours of the day. I became even more interested in theater and performance through high school choir, joining community summer camps, and doing the spring high school musical.

Even as an adolescent I felt it was best to keep my professional aspirations to myself in fear of naysayers. In retrospect, I understand now that high school is a time a lot of young people are dealing with self doubt and insecurity. Considering that I was far from the funniest, smartest, or most talented individual in the theater department, I, unconsciously, kept my performing ambitions quiet even from the people closest to me because I didn’t want to risk someone rubbing their self doubt on me. I worked up the courage to audition for a couple of acting schools but I told no one except my acting teacher Douglas Hooper and a few very close mates.

I still abide by this privacy philosophy even now and it hasn’t steered me wrong to this day. I still feel that speaking one’s dreams and aspirations among chaotic or unsupportive energy environment would most likely dissipate or poison their own source.

Eventually after graduating from Pace University through a couple months of tumbling I landed representation for acting with a management company and I moved out to Los Angeles. I’ve been able to land some great acting opportunities and gain a supportive team of people and I could not be more grateful.

BGC: What has been your favorite role so far?

I have so many favorites. The roles that stand out to me as my favorite are the ones that have most challenged me and allowed me to explore a different aspect of life, and explore and connect to the full range of the human experience. I’ve received some of my most valuable acting lessons in various roles in the theater. I played Inez, a red dressed-vixen-leading lady with a passionate, deep-seeded hatred for her ex-husband in Stephen Adly Guirgis’ Our Lady of 121st. Two years ago I played Beta, a young teenage gang affiliated boy in Chicago with a secret in Phillip Dawkins’s play Charm at Celebration Theater. This coming March I will be part of the Kirk Douglas’s production Rotterdam by Jon Brittain. Set in the Netherlands, I will play Fiona/Adrian, one half of a modern London couple who decides to make a huge change in their life. My experience acting in these productions specifically has been positively nurturing. Throughout our rehearsal process, I learned what it means to be not just a more nuanced and skilled actor but also a more supportive and capable teammate in the creative process.

In terms of film/television world, my work as Hermione Granger in Sunshine Moxie’s Hermione Granger and the Quarter Life Crisis remains my greatest acting lesson in the film/television/on-camera discipline. Eliyannah Yisrael, Megan Grogan, Alice Pierce, other writers and producers leveled up my game up. I’ve never before been number one on the call sheet and I’m not sure if I ever will again, but having that responsibility was so enlightening. It was also an invaluable learning experience getting to work with those amazing creators and seeing those women just get shit done. It was truly an honor being chosen to play such an important and monumental literary character in this version. I remember reading the Harry Potter series as a little girl in London and thinking how much I wanted to be part of and live in that magical world. Playing Hermione in the HGQLC series was by far the best artistic adventure I’ve ever had. Exploring moments, scenes and how far we can bring characters all felt like adventures. Even our trip to Dublin, Ireland this past year felt like one big adventure. I’ll be forever grateful for that experience.

BGC: Why do you create?

I enjoy acting because I love being seen and getting to disappear. It’s a paradox but it’s my truth. I enjoy exploring the range of human experience. I love that I get to feel connected to people in the safe incubator that is pretend. I love that I get to feel and say all the things I’m afraid to feel and say in my real life. I still never get bored of going to the theater, movie or stage, sitting in a dark room with other people and watching performers simply tell us a story. I hope to serve God and the people around me through my creativity and acting. I always hope to truthfully represent a human experience no matter how high or low the stakes it might seem to us at first. Losing your phone and frantically trying to find it can be as exciting and dramatic a story as losing one’s job or finding out your spouse is unfaithful. It’s all in the storytelling and truthfulness of the moment and I love as an actor I get to explore that.

BGC: Who do you hope to reach through your work?

Honestly, the most important people I aim to ultimately reach and impress are my nieces and nephews. Yes the public, my agents, and producers are all important but I feel as though they are a means to an end. Right now my oldest niece is 10 years old and she loves the Hermione series and is always pretty excited to see me act on TV. At the moment she still thinks I’m pretty cool and I hope to keep it that way.

If this was a decade ago and you asked 16-year-old Ashley the same question I probably would have said something like “I want to be a voice for the voiceless and the underrepresented… blah blah blah.” Truthfully, I don’t think I ever really knew what that meant. I mean, I knew what it meant on a superficial-runner-up-in-Beauty-Pageant kind of level but now that answer doesn’t resonate with me as the gutter truth. Whenever I’m working on scripts, deciding on content to create or post etc, I ask myself “Is this something I would be proud to let my niece see? Is this the kind of work that can help make the world even the tiniest bit better for her?” Eventually, she’s going to grow up and have a voice in this world and I hope that her seeing me embrace mine will give her the courage to embrace hers. My nieces and nephews and all the children like them are who I hope to reach.

I really love seeing how the world is changing now. Representation in the media was so limited even 10 years ago but now it’s getting more and more beautiful by the day. With so many platforms, works such as Pose, Glow, Fresh Off the Boat, Chewing Gum, Masters of None, Eighth Grade, and more, so many beings who have been underrepresented for years are getting a chance to reach their audiences and tell their stories. And we all get to identify and see ourselves in each other. I don’t have to reach out and save the world because it kind of starts with myself and our own backyard.

BGC: Who or what inspires you to keep creating?

Oh geez, that’s a loaded question. My peers are my first and foremost inspiration and motivation. Again Eliyannah Yisrael, Megan Grogan, Alice Pearce, Jessica Jenks. It’s remarkable to watch those ladies do what they do. I love being in acting class and witnessing breakthroughs or being in a really great rehearsal with a cast mate. That’s always promising when you get to be part of the creation of something honest and true. Even if it is just a great moment in a scene. Actors who inspire me are endless. Octavia Spencer is a fantastic actress and creator who I adore. I had the blessing of working with her once and she’s an even better human. Lovely doesn’t do her justice. I love watching Regina King. There’s a great example of an honest to God creator and storyteller. She’s accomplished so much in acting, directing, writing, and producing. That’s also how I feel about Shonda Rhimes, Boots Riley, Jim Carrey, Maggie Gyllenhaal. There are many more. I’m sure as soon as you publish this interview I’m going to think of more.

BGC: Why is it important as a Black person to create?

As Black people, we have such a specific and loaded way we walk through the world. The Hermione Series has such a beautiful tag line. It says “HGQLC - Write Your Own Ending.” I’ve always loved that because it gives power to the subject. As Black people it is our responsibility to take control of our story the best way we can. We must feed our communities the best and most honest images of ourselves to ourselves because images and representation matters. In the area of cinema, for years non-Black people have told their version of the Black experience and it has left us misrepresented.

BGC: How do you balance creating with the rest of your life?

It’s always a struggle to keep a balanced life. I have a tendency to obsess and quickly lose perspective but when I want to regain balance I plan my day to make sure I get everything I need in. Luckily for me in my particular art form, acting is about living so I know I can’t be a good actor if I’m not allowing myself to experience life and fun.

BGC: Have you been able to build a support system around yourself? What does that look like?

I feel so grateful for my support system. I have amazing representation, an amazing day job with super awesome and motivating coworkers who are actively pursuing their life goals. I also have super supportive family and friends who tell me they’re proud of me just for being myself. My sister is also a great support system, someone I can speak and think out loud with no fear of judgment. I could not be any luckier.

BGC: Any advice for young creators/ones just starting?

It takes 10,000 hours to be a professional at anything. So just put in the hours, however that may look. Either do it, read about it, watch a YouTube video on it, whatever you have to do to learn about your craft and get better.

BGC: Any future projects?

I’m going to be doing a remounting of the stage production Rotterdam at the historic Kirk Douglas Theater in Culver City. It’s a short run, performances run from March 28 - April 7th, but it’s such a blessing to revisit this work with such a remarkable group of people. It’s a super funny and insightful play about gender and love.

In the television world I just finished wrapping a new AMC series starring Zachary Quinto and Ashleigh Cummings called NOS4A2. I don’t know the exact date it is to be released but it’s happening soon. The series is based of the hit novel by Joe Hill and it centers around a teenager (Cummings) who uses supernatural abilities to track down the seemingly immortal Charlie Manx (Quinto), who steals children and deposits them in “Christmasland.” I play a Detective Tabitha Hutter trying to suss out the truth. This series has supernatural fantasy, horror, action/adventure, procedural, and family drama. Everything you want to see.

#actress #Harry Potter #theater #actor #New York City #London #Los Angeles #Black Woman Creator #create

1 note · View note