#my own nightingales are about some perfect eagles | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

inthedayswhenlandswerefew · 4 years

Text

But You Can Never Leave [Chapter 5: Don’t Even Think About It]

Hi y’all! I’m so sorry I’ve been gone for so long...finals and job hunting got the best of me. I will be updating more frequently going forward. As always, thank you so much for reading!! 💜😘

Series summary: You are an overwhelmed and disenchanted nurse in Boston, Massachusetts. Queen is an eccentric British rock band you’ve never heard of. But once your fates intertwine in the summer of 1974, none of your lives will ever be the same...

This series is a work of fiction, and is (very) loosely inspired by real people and events. Absolutely no offense is meant to actual Queen or their families.

Song inspiration: Hotel California by The Eagles.

Chapter warnings: Language, very very very little sexual content.

Chapter list (and all my writing) available HERE

Taglist: @queen-turtle-boiii @loveandbeloved29 @killer-queen-xo @maggieroseevans @imnotvibingveryguccimrstark @im-an-adult-ish @queenlover05 @someforeigntragedy @imtheinvisiblequeen @joemazzmatazz @seven-seas-of-ham-on-rhye @namelesslosers @inthegardensofourminds @deacyblues @youngpastafanmug @sleepretreat @hardyshoe @bramblesforbreakfast @sevenseasofcats @tensecondvacation @bookandband @queen-crue

Please yell at me if I forget to tag you! :)

You’re in the crowd at The Rainbow, although you aren’t sure why; this has already happened.

Freddie is skulking across the fog-draped stage as he belts out the chorus of In The Lap Of The Gods...Revisited, all glistening tan skin and teased hair, a pillar of nimble black leather; John is only a silhouette in the mist. Brian looks like something that’s crawled out of a cocoon: leggy and insect-like, the sleeves of his flowing white blouse like a pair of wings. And Roger...Roger’s in the back, of course—“the hardworking one in the back,” he always says—with a glittery black kimono-like shrug hanging loosely off his bare shoulders. He’s drumming feverishly, sprays of Heineken flying off his floor tom, his forehead and blond hair dripping.

“Whoa, whoa, la la la, whoa...

I can see what you want me to be,

But I'm no fool,

It's in the lap of the gods...”

Somehow, as the fog clears, Roger’s eyes find you in the crowd. He grins in that effervescent, blameless way that he does. And now you know for sure that this is a dream; because there’s no chance Roger could see that far without his glasses.

There’s a banging noise coming from somewhere, but it’s muted, distant, splintered like an echo.

Dream Roger is fading away, dissolving as the lights shade to black on the stage. He disappears, and then Freddie does too, and then Brian, and finally John. The crowd you’re standing in is a sea of churning, indistinguishable faces.

The banging grows louder, closer. You can hear a new voice now.

You swim up from unconsciousness and punch into daylight. You’re laying on your back in bed in a small, rustic hotel room; it takes you a second to remember what the world looks like now. It’s not November at the Rainbow Theater. It’s December 11th, and you’re in Rome.

You sit up in bed and turn towards the door. Whoever is out there is knocking so forcefully that the distressed wood rattles on its hinges.

“Hey, Dorothea Dix, wake up!” Freddie is shouting through the door.

You rub your eyes as your feet touch the cool teak floor. The band flew into Rome late last night, and has one full day to burn before their concert on the 12th. You’d pitched the idea of visiting a few museums, the Colosseum, the Pantheon, the Roman Forum, St. Peter's Basilica, maybe even the Baths of Caracalla or the Temple of Venus and Roma; but it had been difficult to get anyone to commit at 2 a.m. when you were all exhausted and dragging luggage into the modest, quite geriatric hotel. Queen may finally have a Top 20 album in the U.S., but the streets aren’t paved with gold just yet.

“Darling, need I remind you that this was all your idea, you simply must wake up this instant—!”

You swing the door open. Freddie is standing in the hallway in a vivid yellow-and-black jacket and white jeans, tall boots, dark hair huge and curly, folded aviator sunglasses peeking out of his pocket.

“Get ready, bitch,” he says, grinning, then slips the sunglass over his dusky eyes. “All those gorgeous marble blokes with their cocks hanging out aren’t going to ogle themselves.”

~~~~~~~~~~

You start with the ruins, then end up at the National Roman Museum after lunch. Brian and Chrissie meander through the halls of cracked marble goddesses and heroes and piecemeal fractions of bodies, their hands intertwined; Chrissie took a few days off work to meet the band in Rome, and she’s glowing with the thrill of being reunited with Bri. Freddie is contemplating the displays, tapping his chin thoughtfully and chatting as John nods along and sketches in his notebook. There’s a photographer scurrying around snapping photos of the band for some magazine, to the vexation of the museum employees. They scowl from the corners of the rooms, their suits pristine and arms crossed, muttering to each other in Italian.

Roger leaps in front of a hulking statue of Perseus and mimics the pose. “What do you think?” he asks you, wielding an invisible spear. “Am I courageous? Divine? A mirror image?”

“You’ll have to work on the hair. And gain like a hundred pounds.”

He wrinkles his nose. “Pounds?!”

“Whoops. Kilos. A lot of kilos. But I think I like you as you are. Can I see your hands?”

Roger falls out of his pose, smiling. “Yes ma’am.” He presents his palms for inspection. The first weeks had been hell for him as his hands were worked into touring shape, repeatedly blistered and worn raw, iced and treated and bandaged by you each night only to be pummeled all over again the next day. Of course, Roger hadn’t described it that way; he shrugged at the blood and swollen knuckles, his eyes already alight with the promise of future shows. That’s just a casualty of fame, love, he’d told you. I’d take it all again and more. The last of his blisters have healed now into discolored callouses, rough whirlpools of memories from cities like Glasgow and Bristol and Helsinki and Munich. “I can get more pounds too, you know. I’ll be swimming in them. I’m gonna buy you a mansion when we get home.”

“Not so fast, blondie.” You graze your thumbs over his rugged palms and release him. Aside from your annoyingly incessant concern for Roger, your job hasn’t proved to be too taxing: there have been sprains, minor lacerations, severe hangovers, some alcohol poisoning, and one case of syphilis that you identified and sent the unfortunate man to a doctor for, all of which afflicted the roadies rather than the band.

“How’s Jo doing?” Chrissie calls over from where she and Brian are scrutinizing a sculpture of Apollo. She tosses Roger a smirk.

“Fine,” he replies briskly. “It was amicable. She understood. Nothing personal, just with the tour and everything we knew it wasn’t going to work out. Bad timing, that’s all.”

“Hm. That’s not exactly how she described it.”

Roger sighs, irritated. “Well, Chris, I really can’t control what she chooses to tell you, can I?”

“Shhhh. Play nice, love,” Brian coos, massaging Chrissie’s shoulders.

Roger pops a cigarette between his lips and moves to light it. A museum employee rushes over, waving his arms frantically. “Per favore, signore, no smoking near the exhibits—!”

“Oh, right, right. Sorry.” Roger tucks the cigarette away, then turns back to you. “Okay, no mansion then. What’s your fancy? Diamonds and gold? Tigers on leashes?”

“A harem of sensual Italian men?” Freddie suggests. Chrissie bursts out laughing.

“I hope not,” Roger says.

“You know what I really want?” you say, eyeing busts of Hadrian and Nero.

“What?” Chrissie asks.

“A camera. A really good one. To document all of this, our adventures. I mean, I know we have...” You wave towards the magazine photographer, who’s mostly snapping shots of Freddie and Roger. “But it would be nice to have my own photos. Carry them around in my wallet, force strangers to look at them, cover my refrigerator with them, all that sentimental stuff. So the minute you kids start making real money, I’d like a nice Canon. Or a Nikon. Or whatever the best camera is.”

“The Canon F-1 is quite good,” the photographer offers.

“Perfect! Clearly, I know nothing about cameras. And will need a hefty instruction manual. But I’m still excited.”

Roger winks. “I believe in you.”

As you all wander into the next room, Freddie spies a grand piano and sprints to it. He slides onto the bench and begins testing the keys. A distraught museum employee appears instantly.

“Signore, please, this is for the museum staff only, please signore!”

“Oh relax, darling, I won’t break it.” He begins experimenting with some light, jazzish melody.

“I love Rome,” you decide as you stroll past the Aphrodite of Menophantos. “Are you sure we can’t stay here forever?”

John frowns as he shades in whatever he’s drawing in his notebook. “It’s too bad we couldn’t make it to Florence.”

Freddie rolls his eyes from the piano. “Deaky, darling, this Dante’s Inferno obsession has got to go. It’s positively morbid.”

“He ends up in paradise,” John protests wryly.

Freddie snorts. “Yes, well, Florence is a three hour drive each way. Next time perhaps. Once we’ve all got private jets and Nurse Nightingale over there has her posh camera.”

“And we’ve acquired trophy wives to pose with us,” Brian jokes. Chrissie squeals and shoves him good-naturedly.

“We could go to the beach,” John proposes.

“A seaside rendezvous?” you say playfully.

Freddie hums and nods as his fingers fly over black and white keys.

“Signore...” the museum employee begs. The photographer circles Freddie and the piano, snapping picture after picture.

“The beach?!” Roger whines. “It’s too cold for that! We can’t swim, we can’t sunbathe practically naked, what’s the point? And we’re checking out that club tonight. The one by the hotel, what’s it called, Fred? El Fuocolio?”

“Il Fuoco,” Freddie corrects, amused.

“Ah. Forgive me for not keeping up with my Italian.”

“We don’t all listen to opera, you know,” you tease Freddie. He peers over at you thoughtfully, then continues playing. “I’ll go to the beach with you, John.”

He almost drops his notebook and pencil. “Will you?”

“Of course. I’ll have fewer opportunities in my life to see the Italian seaside than get tipsy and evade dodgy men at some bar, most likely. Although I will miss seeing your dancing.”

“Aww!” Now Roger is dejected, his huge blue eyes pleading. “You have to come with us.”

“Next time,” you promise him.

“This time.”

“Next time.”

“Fine.” He points at John. “Don’t let her get eaten by a shark or run off with some Italian playboy.”

John grins. “I’ll do my best.”

Two burly security guards arrive and begin shouting at Freddie in Italian. “Oh fine, fine!” he snaps as he stands and abandons the piano. The museum employee beams triumphantly.

“Fred, I think we’ve tormented them enough,” Brian says.

“Bri, can we go to the beach too?” Chrissie asks. “Please?”

“It’ll be chilly.”

“I have a jacket. And I can borrow yours if necessary.”

Brian chuckles. “Okay. We can go. Ostia’s the closest one, I suppose.”

“You’ll love it,” you tell him. “It’ll be like time travelling. You get to stand on the same shore that the ancient Romans did, bury your feet in the same sand, watch the same sunset. That should appeal to an astrophysicist such as yourself.”

“How poetic,” John muses.

Roger comes to you, shrugs off his black leather jacket, drapes it over your violet sweater.

“Roger, don’t—”

“I’ll miss you,” he interrupts, smiling, then presses his lips fleetingly to your forehead.

~~~~~~~~~~

The four of you take a crowded, decidedly unglamorous bus to Ostia and walk the beaches under the fading afternoon sun. It is chilly by the crashing water, and the wind whips across your cheeks forcefully enough to sting; but none of that stops you. Brian and John collect seashells, and Brian retreads all the details of the tour—all the things he wishes he could do over, all the things he wants to change going forward—as John listens, smoking and nodding when appropriate. You and Chrissie kneel in the cool sand and shape castles with your hands, giggle about how messy and lopsided they are, scribble notes in the soft sifting remnants of stone and quartz: Chrissie loves Bri, Buy Sheer Heart Attack today, Queen was here. And you’re thinking about Roger more than you should be, and Chrissie knows it; but she’s not going to say anything about that now.

When the boys come back, Bri sits in the sand next to Chrissie and begins to decorate her castle with the shells he found: scallops and clams and tulip shells and oysters and tiny lightning whelks. She claps and hugs him, leaps into his lap, pulls him in for a kiss.

“This is terribly unfair,” you say, staring morosely at your now even less impressive sandcastle.

John appears beside you and offers a massive pink conch filled with very small, pristine, glossy shells. You gasp and clasp a palm over your heart.

“Really?!”

“Yeah,” he says, puzzled. “Who do you think I picked them for?”

“You’re the best. The absolute best. A treasure. I owe you my life. Wait...” You pick up a thin shard of driftwood and write into the side of your sandcastle: John Deacon, and then a heart encircling it. “You are officially lord of the sandcastle.”

“A prestigious position, surely,” he says, smiling, then passes you the conch. “Go on.”

As you place the shells, he finds a dried bit of seaweed and impales it on the piece of driftwood, then plants the makeshift flag on the tallest tower of the castle.

Brian glances over and shakes his head, his mess of curls shivering. “Chris, love, I fear we’ve been outdone.” Then he nods to the words you and Chrissie carved with your fingertips. “Leaving letters in the sand?”

“Promotional material,” you quip; but you can tell the wheels in Brian’s magnificent mind are whirling.

As the sun sets over the Mediterranean Sea, golden speckles of light floating disembodied on the waves, the four of you get gelato and browse through bookstores and wander down cobblestone streets. And on the bus ride back to the hotel, Brian points out constellations as you hold the conch shell in your lap and doze against John’s shoulder.

~~~~~~~~~~

Brian and Chrissie depart to get dinner when you arrive back at the hotel, taking the rare opportunity for a date night. You try to think of a more romantic destination than Rome. Paris? New York? Venice? Probably none of those. You push the images that flood your thoughts away: candlelit meals with violins serenading in the background, the warm cascading glow of streetlights, tossing coins into fountains older than either London or Boston, gazing over the table and into the ensnaring oceanic eyes of the person who won’t be there. Roger.

“Do you think Roger and Fred are back yet?” you ask John in the lobby. He’s still got his notebook in his jacket pocket, but he won’t let you see it.

“I doubt it, but let’s find out.”

You ride the elevator to the band’s floor, still clutching the conch shell, as John fields ideas for dinner.

“Roger’s going to want pizza and beer, but we might be able to get Freddie to go for something more swanky. Actually, he’ll probably order dessert first. There’s a restaurant down the street that I heard has phenomenal tiramisu and lasagna.”

“Oh god. I would kill for a good lasagna.”

“No need for all that,” John says. “We don’t have enough cash for your bail.”

“If they serve lasagna in prison, you can leave me here.”

“But then who would patch up our debaucherous roadies?!”

You laugh as the elevator lurches to a halt and the doors open. “Just call me up in prison and I can talk you through it—”

You step out and turn down the hallway; then all the air vanishes from your lungs. Roger’s fumbling with his key as he tries to get into his room...and pressed between him and the door is a raven-haired, modelesque woman in a short red dress. His eyes are closed, her tongue darting between his lips, his free hand skating up her bare thigh and beneath her dress. And suddenly you’re being dragged back into the elevator, John’s arms locked around your waist. He hits the button for the lobby then reaches for you uncertainly.

“Are you okay—?”

“Yeah, I’m fine, I’m totally fine, I’m...” But for some reason, your throat is burning and your eyes are blurring with tears. You try to blink them away and they drop down your cheeks like rain.

“You’re not,” he realizes softly.

“Goddammit,” you choke out, sobbing.

“Hey, don’t do that,” John pleads. “Please don’t do that, please don’t cry—”

“Oh god, I’m so sorry, this is so stupid...” You fan your face and try to wrangle your breathing. The way he was touching her...I can’t forget the way he was touching her. “I am so stupid.”

“You’re not,” John flares. And when he opens his arms you rush into them, burying your face in his jacket as he pulls you closer, drowning you in his warmth. “You’re not stupid,” he says, quietly but severely. “You’re wicked smart and wonderful and perfect, so you’re not allowed to say anything to the contrary. Alright?”

“Okay,” you whisper. And it occurs to you—as your breathing slows, as your tears subside—how incomparably comfortable this feels, homey even.

John clears his throat. “Hey, not to break this up or anything, but you’re sort of stabbing me with the conch shell.”

Incredibly, you laugh as you back away, swiping at your eyes. “Sorry.”

The elevator doors open, and John leads you out into the lobby. “Here’s what’s going to happen,” he says. “We’re going to go to that restaurant on the corner and I’m going to order a lasagna—”

“John, I don’t think I can eat anything.”

“Doesn’t matter. Did I say you were going to be forced to eat it at gunpoint? No I did not. I’m going to order a lasagna, and if you want some awesome, and if you don’t we’ll just sit and talk. And you can nibble table bread or drink so much wine you forget today ever happened, whatever you want. You make the rules. But we’re going, and I’m ordering lasagna.”

“Okay,” you reply, sniffling, smiling up at him gratefully.

The restaurant is teeming with tourists, and you end up seated at a tiny table near the back with very dim lighting and a roaring fireplace. It’s deliciously hot, burning away your misery; or, at least, making it feel as if it might belong to someone else, as if maybe you heard about it from a friend or in a song, maybe even dreamed it. You take Roger’s leather jacket off and hang it on the back of your chair. When the waiter arrives, John orders for you.

“One lasagna, the biggest one you have, and extra table bread, and uh...” He skims the menu. “Two red wines and a Coke. And a sparkling water. So the lady has a selection.”

“Si, signore. Grazie.”

When the waiter leaves, John lifts off his jacket too, then unbuttons his shirt to his navel. The sweltering glow of the firelight dances across his pale skin in a way that is mysteriously distracting. “Well, it definitely doesn’t feel like December in here.”

“I’m sorry, maybe they could move us—”

“No, that’s alright, I know you like it. And one should be sweating in Southern Italy, don’t you think?” He tears off a hunk of bread when it arrives and plates it for you. The conch shell lays on the table by the salt and pepper shakers, to the visible confusion of the waiter.

“Thank you. For everything, John. Really.”

He gazes at you with those blue-grey eyes that can look like either clouds or steel depending on the occasion. Tonight they are misty, like the froth over waves, impossibly soft. “It doesn’t mean anything,” he says gently. “I don’t know if that helps at all, but I think it should. It doesn’t mean anything to someone like Roger, what you saw tonight.”

You sigh. “I guess it doesn’t. And I’m sorry, I know it’s ridiculous, I know that, and I’m just so frustrated and...and...I get it, I get that I have no right to care about anything Roger does, which is why I feel like such an idiot for reacting this way, but I just...I just...I’m just so...so fucking torn up about it and I’m sick of being surrounded by it all the time and I’m...I’m so...I’m...look, I’m sorry, can you button your shirt or something? That’s very distracting.”

“Oh, it’s distracting, is it?” John asks, grinning.

“Don’t you dare—”

He undoes several more buttons. “How about now, are you sufficiently distracted?”

“John, no!” you wail, laughing.

“I wouldn’t want to do anything to distract you from your tortured inner monologue...” He removes his shirt entirely and tosses it to the floor. “How are you now?”

“Very distracted,” you wheeze.

“Excellent.” He smiles, resting his face in his hands, the firelight flickering over his bare chest and shoulders, reflections of flames in his eyes. “See, you don’t look so sad now.”

“No, I guess I don’t.” You bite into your hunk of bread. But still, the way he was touching her...

John sips red wine and smirks teasingly. “You know...if you ever get tired of the celibate lifestyle...I’m always game.”

You laugh, shaking your head, and open the Coke bottle. “That’s very much appreciated. But I don’t just want sex.”

“I know,” he replies, solemnly now. “You want him.”

“That’s pretty pathetic, isn’t it?”

“I don’t think you’re pathetic at all.” That seems like it must be a lie, but John sounds genuine.

“You’re my best friend, you know,” you tell him. “I don’t know what I would do without you.”

“Certainly not get treated to authentic Italian lasagna.”

You chuckle. “I’m sure that’s the least of your talents. Veronica is a very lucky woman.”

John nods, staring down at the table now, pushing crumbs around with the back of his hand. “If you say so.”

And, in the end, you managed to eat your half of the lasagna after all.

~~~~~~~~~~

When you get back to your hotel room, it’s very late in Italy...which means it’s only early evening in Boston. You pick up the phone and resolve to use the last of your miniscule weekly allowance for a long distance call.

Your mom answers on the third ring. “Hello?”

“Guess where I am right now.”

“Hopefully on a date with that nice Roger boy.”

“Oh my god, Mom.”

She titters pleasantly. “Tell me, dear. Germany? No, no. Spain.”

“Rome.”

“Oh!” she sighs, steeped in nostalgia. “Daddy and I went there on our honeymoon! Ages ago, of course. But it was wonderful, otherworldly. Like getting lost in a fairytale. How do you like it?”

“I love it,” you murmur. “Mom, can I ask you something?”

“Always, dear.”

You twirl the phone cord around your fingers anxiously. “How did you know that Dad was the one?”

“Hm.” She pauses; and you can envision the way she takes a step back and glances up at the ceiling whenever she’s thinking something over. Oh, maybe I do still miss parts of Boston. “Well...you know Daddy wasn’t single when we met. And neither was I.”

“Yeah, I think I remember that part of the story.”

“I’m not sure if I can explain it, dear. Truly. I...” She drifts off, pondering it. Finally, she says: “I’d had plenty of other boyfriends. I’d been interested in other people. And people are all so different, they all have something unique to offer to your life, whether good or evil. But when I met your father...I just felt like I couldn’t live without him. Suddenly nothing else seemed possible if he wasn’t in the picture. Like if he wasn’t there I’d spend the rest of my life missing him. Does that answer your question?”

“It does, yeah.” You close your eyes and feel the dark Mediterranean night air breeze in through the open window. The conch shell has found a temporary home on top of the antique dresser. “I love you, Mom.”

“Aww, I love you too, honey. And you’ll make the right decision, whatever that is.”

You look out into the constellations that Brian introduced to you earlier, Aries and Fornax and Perseus. “I hope so.”

#queen #queen fic #roger taylor fic #but you can never leave fic #but you can never leave series #but you can never leave #queen fanfic #john deacon fic #roger taylor x reader #john deacon x reader

101 notes · View notes

eeveevie · 5 years

Text

after the storm

The Guild is still reeling from Mercer's betrayal. There's work to be done, and questions to be answered and all Brynjolf wants to do is kiss Fiona again.

Takes place after Betrayal and Forgiveness, and is totally a self-gratifying comfort fluff fest I wrote just for kicks.

Brynjolf x F!Dragonborn

3862 words | Ao3

Brynjolf watched as Delvin paced in front of the Guildmaster’s desk, brows furrowed in deep thought as he explained the situation.

“Riftweald Manor is still crawling with goons,” he spoke, turning on his heel. “How much coin did Mercer have to pay those brutes to keep the place on lockdown while he hides away?”

Brynjolf shrugged. “He was hardly there to begin with. That oaf Vald still roams the gardens, eh?”

“Pfft, that bastard is loyal to whoever is paying the most,” Delvin spat. He finally stopped pacing long enough to peer at Brynjolf from across the desk. “We could try bribing him. There’s just got to be somethin’ in that house that Mercer left behind.”

“With what coin do you suppose we bribe him with?” Brynjolf asked, crossing his arms. He was sympathetic to Delvin’s anger, but they were getting nowhere. As much as he despised the idea, they would most likely need to resort to bloodshed. Brynjolf shuddered to think he’d stoop to Mercer’s level.

He rubbed at his jaw, wondering about other possibilities. “There’s the balcony ramp,” he considered. “It would take a well-placed shot to bring it down.”

“Well, well,” Delvin’s tone perked up. “Lucky for us we know a beaut’ that’s handy with a bow.”

Brynjolf frowned, knowing it was out of question. Fiona was not ready for a mission right now—especially this. She had barely just returned to the Guild with the news of Mercer’s betrayal—with the news of her survival. It hadn’t even been a full day, and Brynjolf still hadn’t had the chance to speak with her about the details of what occurred. What she needed was time, and he was giving it to her.

As if Delvin could read Brynjolf’s mind, he sighed, posture wilting as he leaned against the Guildmaster’s desk. “Poor girl,” he lamented. His eyes flicked up, remembering. “Didn’t mean ta’ interrupt the two of you earlier.”

Brynjolf attempted to feign ignorance, but his friend saw right through the façade. Still, Brynjolf perked his brow up, pursing his lips in a tight line as he dared Delvin to tease him about his relationship with Fiona. However undefined that relationship might have been. A part of him—perhaps more than rational given current circumstances—was annoyed that Delvin had managed to interrupt the moment of solace he had found with Fiona since her return. Or maybe it was a good thing the Breton had disturbed them before Brynjolf got carried away by his baser desires, or worse, his emotions. But—by the Gods—he wanted to kiss Fiona again, and it was Delvin’s bloody fault that he hadn’t had the chance to do so yet.

“Didn’t realize you were so sweet on each other,” his friend spoke in a calmer, less playful tone. “Figured it was all a game for you, like always.”

Brynjolf relaxed, despite the fact he was betraying the carefully perfected persona he had crafted after all his time in the Guild. Delvin didn’t seem to mind, or care, or had seen through it long ago. “Is it really that difficult to believe that it’s not a game with Fiona?” he asked. “That I’ve changed? That I might actually lo—”

The words stalled on his tongue, prompting Delvin’s eyes to widen in alarm. He grinned like a madman, and stood up straight. “Oh I definitely shouldn’t have interrupted you two.”

“No,” Brynjolf agreed, moving to place his hands on his hips. “You really shouldn’t have.”

Delvin waved his hand as if to dismiss the entire disagreement. “I can help play Lady Mara later,” he joked. “Right now there are more pressing issues.”

Regardless of Brynjolf’s irritation, Delvin was right. But he was also right about his earlier point. He needed to talk to Fiona about breaking into Riftweald Manor. It wouldn’t be an easy ask—but since when had anything in Brynjolf’s life been so simple?

He kneaded at the tension he felt at his shoulders. “Where’s the lass now?”

“So it’s my plan after all, eh?” Delivn chortled, before shrugging as he peered over his shoulder. “Last I saw her, she was in the Flaggon.”

It was all Brynjolf needed to hear to start moving across the Cistern, ignoring the little smirk Delvin flashed as he walked away. “Try to keep your hands to yourself this time!”

Being that it was already well past midnight, the Flaggon was devoid of its usual Guild members, most likely out scraping together what coin they could thanks to Mercer’s treachery. Brynjolf spotted who he was searching for at the bar, Fiona perched on a barstool at the corner nearest to the fire where Vekel was absentmindedly stirring a pot of stew. Her back was to him, so it was difficult to discern her current mood. Judging by the idle conversation she was keeping with Vekel, he felt comfortable enough to approach.

“There you are,” he called, pressing one hand to her back as he sat on the stool next to her. He faltered when she flinched away from his touch, startled by his sudden appearance. “Sorry lass, didn’t mean to sneak up on you.”

Fiona relaxed when she glanced at him, managing the tiniest of smiles. Her hood was pulled down, most of her blonde hair pulled over one shoulder—clearly in an attempt to hide the still healing scar that Mercer had inflicted. Brynjolf had seen a glimpse of it earlier when they had been alone in the back of the Cistern. A part of him hoped she trusted him enough to let him see it again. He hoped she knew it wasn’t necessary to cover it like a mark of shame, but for now, he understood.

Vekel served them both tankards of ale alongside a bowl of stew, smiling as he offered Fiona a plate of fresh bread. Brynjolf watched as she eagerly took the food, steam rising from the bread as she tore it apart with her fingers. She allowed it to soak up some of the soup before quickly bringing it to her mouth. The sight made Brynjolf grin, but also wonder just how long she had gone without a proper meal.

Fiona seemed to notice he was watching, and slowed her movements. “How was your chat with Delvin?”

“Hmm,” Brynjolf contemplated answering her question as he took a bite of his own food. “Another dead end, it seems.”

“You can tell me the truth,” she said flatly. “You were with him for a while. Must’ve been more than just that.”

Brynjolf softly laughed, nodding as Fiona saw through his badly formed lie. “Aye, we…have a plan to find Mercer.”

Fiona only nodded, waiting for Brynjolf to continue. He hesitated, thinking back to their earlier conversation, or rather, lack thereof. He wanted to be patient with her and tread carefully. Despite the heartfelt reunion, the ache of how tumultuous their fight before her disappearance was still lingered. There were so many unanswered questions, and it was taking everything in him not to blurt them out at her in interrogation. As if she could tell he was lost in his thoughts, Fiona paused in her eating, idly pushing her spoon around the edge of the bowl.

“I should tell you what happened at Snowveil Sanctum,” she said. “I owe you some answers.”

“You owe me nothing,” he tried to counter, but she shook her head. He looked up, eyeing Vekel in a way that had the Flaggon barkeep taking the hint to hide himself away and give the two some privacy. Brynjolf nodded then, allowing her to continue on her own time.

“The ruins were just like any other Nord tomb I’ve been to in my travels outside the Guild,” she started in a low voice. “Mercer glided through that place—he knew every trap, every trick that awaited us.”

“I knew something was wrong the moment we approached the puzzle door and Mercer was unable to unlock it without a dragon claw.” Fiona paused when she noted Brynjolf’s brows knit in confusion. “You need to do more grave robbing,” she tried to joke with a grim smile. “It’s a puzzle door, impossible to open otherwise. But Mercer unlocked it like it was a rusty padlock on a shed.”

“How?” Brynjolf asked.

Fiona shook her head. “I don’t know.”

“Two eagles and a snake,” she mumbled—Brynjolf wasn’t sure of the meaning. “Beyond the door was only darkness. Mercer practically pushed me to go first, where Karliah ambushed us, well, shot me with a paralyzing arrow.”

“She shot you?” his alarm calmed as Fiona reached over to rest one hand over his.

“She saved my life,” she reminded him. “It was a neutralizer of some sort, to keep me alive after Mercer…slit my throat.”

Fiona instinctively reached for her neck, but Brynjolf grabbed at her hand, tightening her fingers in his own. Again, the rage bubbled within—Mercer had returned to the Cistern with lies of Fiona’s death, and used it against Brynjolf as a cruel form of punishment. In a way, he still felt guilty for ever letting her leave with the former Guildmaster.

“Whatever he told you I said in the end—”

“Aye Fiona,” he cut her off, squeezing her hand and scooting closer. “I know. I’m not that big a fool to believe a spiteful lie when I hear one.”

“We know Mercer is a murderer,” she continued. “Gallus’ journal also spoke of Nightingales. It’s likely why he killed Gallus in the first place.”

“Nightingales?” Brynjolf was more confused than before. “That’s just a tale we tell the footpads to keep them in line.”

Fiona solemnly shook her head. “By the way Karliah speaks of them, I’m not so certain. She also told me she was behind Goldenglow and Honningbrew. An effort to make Mercer look bad in front of Maven.”

“To what end?” he wondered. “Clever, though.”

A dull quiet followed and eventually, Fiona pulled her hand away to take a drink from her ale. She stared at him as he copied her movements, the two sitting in an unsettling silence until their drinks were finished, meals hardly touched. “So this plan of yours,” she mused. “To find him.”

Brynjolf finally relented. It was time. “We need to break into Mercer’s home and search for anything that could tell us where he’s gone.”

“We?” she questioned.

“Like I’d have you do it alone,” he replied. “It’s the Riftweald Manor near the temple. Delvin has ensured he’s not there, but the place is crawling with thugs. For once, I’m not inclined to care about killing anyone that stands in our way.”

Fiona firmly nodded. “Let’s take care of it then.”

And then she let out a long, drawn out yawn. Brynjolf chuckled as her cheeks flushed in embarrassment, one hand flying to her mouth to cover the trail end of the telling sign of her exhaustion.

“Perhaps after you’ve had some sleep,” he suggested. “I’m surprised you stayed here so late, what with that fancy estate of yours.”

Fiona pulled a face at his tease—he now knew precisely how she had managed to fund the purchase of Honeyside in Riften, and it wasn’t through thieving and debauchery—no, it was through heroism and being the Gods-blessed Dragonborn. Another topic he still had many questions to ask her on, but that was for another evening.

“I’m going to stay in the Cistern tonight.”

“Oh?”

“Knowing that Mercer is still alive, somewhere out there…it doesn’t matter how fortified the locks on the homestead’s doors are, or how many daggers I keep beneath my pillowcase,” she breathed out a defeated sigh. “I’d feel safer here in the Guild with everyone.”

That familiar pang of guilt settled in Brynjolf’s gut once more—Fiona’s fear was not something she deserved. This trauma would take time to heal, regardless of what happened to Mercer, and Brynjolf wanted to be there for her every step of the way. Fate had changed their dynamic, pushing it forward and down a path faster than Brynjolf could’ve ever imagined, but he was determined to keep up.

Brynjolf had an idea. Fiona didn’t have to hide away in the Ratway, and he could help prove it to her. Delvin’s warning to keep his hands to himself flashed in the back of his mind, but he shook it away, listening to his heart for once.

“Come on lass,” he encouraged, urging her to stand up. Fiona peered at him with knitted brows, unmoving. “Let’s get you to Honeyside.”

“I just got done explaining—”

“You don’t have to be alone,” he clarified sincerely. When she still seemed unconvinced by the suggestion, he flashed a grin. “Not when I’m there to protect you.”

Fiona rolled her eyes at his tease, playfully pushing at his shoulder even as she stood up. “Last time you said that, I was poisoned by assassins. Or was it when we were attacked by bears? Or when you stepped on that fire mine—”

“Isn’t your bunk in the Cistern next to Delvin?” Brynjolf pondered aloud. “Between the snoring, and the daydreaming of Vex…”

“You’re insufferable,” Fiona huffed, but her smile was encouraging. Brynjolf wrapped his arm around her shoulder as the two walked back through the Cistern.

“Aye, but you love me anyways.”

Outside, a small trickle of rain had started to fall, a light mist blanketing the entire city. It was eerie and peaceful all the same—a reason why this was such prime hours for thieves to get their work done. The stonemason coffin slid back into place as they exited the Cistern, the two pausing to don their hoods before Fiona led them across the courtyard and market towards her home. Brynjolf studied the shadows, wondering if they could really believe the news that no trace of Mercer had been found in Riften. By the time they reached the eastside entrance, his senses had settled, but he could tell Fiona was on high alert.

She glanced over her shoulder before flashing her key, quickly undoing the lock before ushering the two of them inside. This wasn’t the first time Brynjolf had stepped foot in the homestead, but something about this visit felt different. Honeyside was a modest home, seemingly unfit for somebody that was called Dragonborn, but it was perfect for Fiona. A small kitchen nook and fireplace in the front entrance, and around the corner, a writing desk, numerous chests and her large bed, covered in furs. There was a cellar as well, where Fiona kept her alchemy supplies and surplus ingredients.

Fiona idled near the fireplace, stoking the logs to encourage the flames to grow and warm and light the dark room. She pushed back her hood and glanced at him, and he noted the hint of anxiousness there—it wouldn’t do. If there was one thing he didn’t want, was for their friendship—relationship to chance for the worse. No awkward looks or hesitation with words. It had always been so easy before, and that’s the way he wanted it to remain.

“Come here now, Fiona,” he beckoned, opening his arms to her, inviting her into an embrace. She turned to meet him, wrapping her arm tight around his torso, the other hooked over his shoulder. Her head rested against the curve of his neck, nose nuzzling there as she breathed out. He tucked her closer to his chest, one hand cradling the back of her head. He craned his head down to press a kiss to her temple. “I’m here for you.”

“I know,” she responded, softly.

Brynjolf smiled, gently peeling her away just enough so he could see her face. There was the faintest familiar glow that he had missed while she was away, a look that he never wanted to be without. “I care about you.”

“I know,” she repeated with a nod, and the tiniest hint of flirtatious smile. “I missed you, Bryn—we make a good team.”

“That we do lass,” he agreed with a smirk. Divines knew he never wanted to be apart from her again, if he had anything to say about it. He refrained from letting his heart take too much control of the moment—no need to pour out so much emotion in one evening, not when she had only just returned. Instead, his eyes flicked down to her lips, and he remembered how rudely they had been interrupted before.

“Can I kiss you?” His own question surprised him as he moved his hand to hold the side of her face.

Fiona raised a brow and tilted her chin up slightly. “Suddenly you’re asking?”

“I can be gentlemanly when I need to be,” he countered.

“It doesn’t suit you,” she teased. “I rather prefer the lecherous Brynjolf, always flirting and taking what he—”

Fine, Brynjolf thought as he interrupted her words, covering her mouth with his own. She smiled against his lips, arms around him tightening as she kissed him in return. It was sweet, far gentler than their emotion filled reunion earlier that evening. Not that this kiss held any less emotion, but Brynjolf felt far lighter—happier.

“So you’ll stay?” Fiona asked as she pulled away, pressing one last soft kiss to the corner of his mouth. She was beaming, but holding it back. “To protect me, of course?”

“Right,” Brynjolf laughed, reluctantly peeling his arms away from her. He peered around the house before eyeing the ladder. “I’ll start my patrol in the cellar.”

“Stay down there long enough for me to change,” she instructed, rolling her eyes when she noted his eyebrows perk up. “No peeking.”

Brynjolf lowered himself down the ladder into the darkness, listening to the floorboards above creak and fabric shuffle as Fiona changed. His mind wavered, and he stood there in a momentary haze as he imagined her undressing, then cursed at his lewd thoughts. But knowing her naked form was just a ladder’s crawl away was tempting. He gulped—he really had told Delvin the truth, he was (somewhat) a changed man—the fact he hadn’t rushed back up to ravage her already.

Instead, he took the nearby lantern and combed over the storage bins, kicking at sacks and hunching down at areas where a thief or assassin would hide. Quickly though, it was obvious the cellar was devoid of any harm. Well, except for Fiona’s poisonous mushrooms and janis root extract.

“Careful of the lavender,” Fiona’s voice called from upstairs. Brynjolf skirted around the baskets of flora, pinching the bridge of his nose so the offending flowers wouldn’t upset his allergies, as he inspected every last corner of the basement once more on his way back to the ladder.

Fiona was sitting on the edge of the bed as he stepped back onto the first floor, changed into a simple white cotton dress meant for sleeping in. She was now carefully removing the braids from her hair, piling the metal pins and little ties that kept them together in a neat pile on the nearby table. Brynjolf slowly circled around the room, inspecting the eastern and western door’s locks, all the while glancing over to catch Fiona inspecting his movements.

He flashed a grin as he finally sat in the chair before her writing desk, inspecting the wide away of notes, maps and books she had gathered in her travels. Just how had her true nature gone unnoticed by him? He wanted to know more…eventually.

“It’ll be just like having first watch,” he joked, crossing his arms as he leaned back to get comfortable. “Well, except this time for the whole night.”

“You aren’t staying there,” she commented, shifting her body under the blankets and furs.

“Is that so?”

Fiona only beckoned him with a nod of her head as she settled against her pillows, bright eyes watching him carefully through the dim lighting of the room. Slowly, Brynjolf stood and approached the bed, hovering over her for a long moment as he contemplated her offer. She’d never invited him before—despite the fact he’d found himself asleep and awoken beside her in the same space on a few occasions before. At any other time he would’ve made a vulgar comment about sharing her bed, but this wasn’t the time. This was entirely new, and exciting, and made his brain, heart, and loins ache all at once.

Finally, he sat on the edge of the bed, glancing over his shoulder to look at her as he removed his boots. She watched him the entire time as he moved, shifting to remove his belt and daggers to the nightstand where they would be safe, but still within reach—just in case. He stood again, undoing the metal buckles of his Guild armor before sliding it off his shoulders and draping it across the wooden dresser at the foot of the bed. He’d leave his leathers on, no way she had a change of pants for him at this point, but smirked when she eyed his chest and the loose linen shirt. He brought it up over his head, chuckling when he noted the soft flush on her cheeks—it wasn’t like she hadn’t seen him shirtless before.

“Like what you see, lass?”

“Perhaps,” she answered, with a coy smile.

She scooted across the bed to create a void large enough for him to lay in, eyeing him as he pulled back the covers to do just that. Brynjolf stretched out next to her on his back, suddenly very aware of how little sleep he had gotten over the last few weeks while she had been presumed dead. His body instantly relaxed, welcoming the softness of the blankets and furs and her. Fiona’s hand reached out to him, and he turned his head to find her hesitantly seeking out to touch him.

Brynjolf swiftly moved his arm to wrap around her, inviting her to snuggle close to his side. Fiona did just that, one arm hooking around his chest, her legs sliding against his as her feet playfully tickled against his.

“This is…nice,” Fiona mumbled as she nuzzled her head against the curve of his shoulder.

Brynjolf softly chuckled, running one of his hands down her arm as he settled into the comfort that was her bed and embrace. “I told you my chest made a decent pillow.”

“If only I had believed you before,” she sighed, her breath a delightful tingle across his skin. “Thank you for believing us—me. For staying with me tonight.”

“I’ll stay with you every night if you need me to,” he quickly assured.

Fiona’s quiet laughter warmed his chest. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? An excuse to stay in my bed, hmm?”

“With you, lass!” he reiterated, squeezing her into his side as she squealed playfully. They relaxed then, finally letting the warmth of the fire lull them to sleep. She yawned, turning her head ever so slightly to press a fleeting kiss against his shoulder blade. “Goodnight Brynjolf.”

“Goodnight Fiona,” he replied. He turned his head down to watch as her eyes fluttered closed, and eventually, her breathing even out as she fell asleep. “Love.”

#elder scrolls: skyrim #skyrim #brynjolf #brynjolf x f!dragonborn #dragonborn fiona #otp: I shall taunt you a second time #delvin mallory #fanfic #do you like my page break art here lol #fluff and flirtations #anyways here's sunday's big post

47 notes · View notes

basileuus · 5 years

Text

The night was too peaceful to sustain the unrest that felt as if it should have split the Earth in two and crumbled apart. A cool breeze soothes the ground that still burns from the day, and rustles through whispering leaves and skims across the stream, drawing mist up from babbling roughness of rocks beneath the silky water surface. The moon is just over half - full, and the unadulterated beams of ethereal light it sends down bathes the world in silver, giving the blackness as nearly green hue. Brutus breathes deeply. The inhale calms him, but his exhale trembles from his lungs.

Whether the Earth is intact or in shambles, Brutus’s world has been ground to dust, never to be restored. Flavius is dead. Labeo is dead. Stayllius is dead. Cassius is dead. Rome is dead. Cleitus weeps, his face in his hands. The rest of the men sit grim - faced. There will be no sleep tonight.

Brutus knows what he must do; this war is over, and he supposes he has an obligation to fulfill. Whatever lies in store for this monstrous edition of Rome, Brutus was not made to inhabit it, he was not created to live for it. His purpose in life was to protect the Republic, and whether the failure has been his own fault or simply Fate, he doesn’t know, and doesn’t care. What is done is done, and can never be erased.

“Dardanus,” he says to his shieldbearer, standing from the cool ground. Dardanus looks to him with brown eyes so glassy, they sparkle in the moonlight. Brutus walks past him to a juniper bush a few metres from where their small encampment resides. The soldier’s lips twitch with unresolve, eager to hear what plan Brutus has, some way to escape this miserable situation. “I have a favour to ask of you.”

“Name it,” he doesn’t hesitate, even in the wake of Stayllius’s unfortunate death.

“My wife knows not to expect me. We said our goodbyes months ago, but I want you to give her a message from me.” Dardanus looks ill. “Tell her that when I was young and without experience of affairs, I was led, I know not how, to make a grandiose remark in philosophy. I blamed Cato for killing himself, thinking it was impious and unmanly to evade the divine will, and not accept fearlessly whatever happens, but run away from it. But now in my present fortunes, I feel differently; and if god does not decide the present contest in Rome’s favour, I do not ask to put further hopes or preparations to the test, but will die, and have died, praising my fortune. On the Ides of March, I gave up my life to my country, and have lived since then a second life for her sake, with liberty and honour. I die tonight with love in my heart for my Porcia and the time we shared.”

The shieldbearer looks as if he wants to say something, but Brutus steps away before he can, he returns to the others and speaks openly to Volumnius. “My contubernal,” he says in Greek. “I know you haven’t forgotten our times at school together, tearing down dictatorships since we were only boys. One of my fondest memories is not of our acts of brotherhood or the things we learned of ourselves in conversation, but of the considerable amount of classwork I did for you; you owe me a favour as well.”

Volumnius’s eyes go from Brutus to Dardanus, who looks stricken, to Brutus again, with worry seeping into his irises. Brutus slowly, non threateningly, unsheathes his sword and turns the pommel for Volumnius to take. “Publius, I need you to hold it for me.” The man just about jumps back as if the blade carries plague. The rest of the men are upon their feet.

“I - I can’t,” refuses Volumnius. Brutus despairs, but he extends the pommel to each man in offering. They all shake their heads. Brutus tries to not take it personally, and yet he feels as if they are not granting him his right to end his own life, as if they want him to suffer, to die alone. They mean no offense, he knows this. “Brutus, come, we mustn’t stay here,” says Volumnius, his voice forcibly even, trying to talk sense to Brutus. It’s a shame, for he feels as if he is the only one there with a mind to make such decisions.

“By all means, we must flee - not with our feet, though, but with our hands.” Brutus takes each one by the hand, shaking it firmly, trying to grasp onto some sort of comfort. He pulls some of them into a hug, which is rare from the curt Stoic. He wonders if they can feel his heart thunder from beneath his cuirass. “My greatest joy has been to know that all of my friends are true,” he beams. “We did everything we could for Rome, but what has happened to her and to us and whatever is to come was never in our hands, really. And though we face defeat, we are all more blessed than our conquerors, not only yesterday and the day before, but even now, as we will all leave this world with our virtue and goodness echoing behind us. Those who may be superior to us in arms and money could never acquire what we have, since posterity would never believe that unjust and wicked men, who have destroyed the just and good, should ever live.” Brutus looks intently upon each of their faces and sighs. “I have one last order for you. Come with me Strato; the rest of you must flee for your lives.” They stare openly at him. Surely, Brutus wonders, they all knew that this was how it was supposed to end. He knew from the moment he was approached about the plot to assassinate Caesar. If the Republic was to persevere, it would have already. But these men of goodness and wisdom must die along with the old if an Empire is to mutate from these gorey ashes. Brutus had always expected that he would come to this. “Well?” He snaps. “Do as I say!” That triggers them and the men quickly move into action, collecting what little they have left.

Except for Strato, who trudges towards Brutus. They, too, studied together, and their friendship had turned intimate when they were younger, but as the years went on, it fizzled out. He still looks boyish in some ways, with ears that stick out and a mischievous smirk that always seems to crawl on his face. He wears no smile now. Silently, they fall into step and Brutus strolls aimlessly away from their makeshift encampment.

The small copse along the river opens up to a larger field of wild grass, pockmarked with flowers that remain vibrant, even in the dark. An eagle soars silently, feathers cutting through the thin shroud of night. As they walk through the field, Brutus unties his cuirass and litters it in the tall grass. He does the same with his armbands and helmet, which had been resting below his arm. Without armour, he’s suddenly very conscious of his corporeality, feeling each beat of his heart and the cool air against his skin, and the sweet scent of rotting autumn. He tells himself that he shouldn’t be afraid, but he can’t help but be filled with dread at what is about to come. Whatever Rome is becoming, he doesn’t wish to live in it, nor can he carry on with the crushing weight of his necessary transgression against a man he had loved for so many years. As a Roman, he has no shame for what he was forced to do, but as a friend, he despairs.

“Here is as good as any,” Brutus says, coming to rest at a random place in the field. He feels sick. A nightingale chirps in a tree nearby. Strato nods, and shifts as he is about to sink to the ground, pointing Brutus’s sword up. “Wait, Strato,” he takes him by the arm. “Where….what is my mark?”

“Oh,” he mumbles. Strato gropes at Brutus’s chest for a moment, his open palm pressed against the warm expanse of his chest, and feels his racing heart. He draws a line with his finger down just below his left nipple and presses it gently. “I think right there would be alright.”

“Very well. And should I be so unlucky--”

“Yes,” Strato cuts him off before he can finish. “I will.” They’re quiet for a bit. Brutus relishes in the peaceful facade nature puts on for him. The world rages, but this slice of perfection remains virgin. Brutus almost hates to spill his own blood among the soft petals of wild poppies and ladybugs that march across fat, waxy leaves. “Whenever you’re ready, Marcus,” says Strato, his voice barely above a whisper.

Brutus smiles genuinely. “I’m sorry to keep you waiting.”

“That’s not what I meant.” Brutus sinks to the ground, kneeling. He feels the spot below his breast, and it still tingles where Strato touched him. “Do you have anything to say?”

Brutus doesn’t need to think. “Everything I do, I do for Rome.” He takes a breath and jerks himself forward, plunging the sword through his heart without uttering a whimper or groan. The world is silent. The nightingale’s song suspends, the breeze rustling the grass grows still. The eagle is no more. All the Earth seems to hold its breath for one painful moment, as Brutus spasms on his blade. Strato trembles as he supports him, blood weeping onto his hands and upon the grass. He lingers for only a moment, and sighs his life away. Rome is dead, and the nightingale sings again.

#oh im sad #vi. i would make peace with all ( drabbles )#suicide tw

3 notes · View notes

mst3kproject · 6 years

Photo

415: The Beatniks

While I am, it must be admitted, as old as dirt, I am not quite old enough to have any firsthand experience with Beatnikery. I am nevertheless under the impression that it involves black turtlenecks, round sunglasses, unkempt facial hair, and bad poetry. None of these make any sort of appearance in The Beatniks.

Eddie Crane is the leader of a small gang of very stupid criminals. I assume they chose him for the position because he’s the only guy they know who actually started seventh grade. They’re celebrating their latest robbery when forces beyond Eddie’s control, in the form of a talent agent who looks weirdly like Sir Ian McKellan and a TV station manager who looks worryingly like Arch Hall Sr., conspire to propel him to stardom whether he likes it or not! Eddie doesn’t want to be That Guy who let fame go to his head and forgot about his friends, so the gang tags along, looking for places to vandalize and people to murder until Eddie just can’t keep the charade up any longer.

I wonder if names like Bud Eagle and Eddie Crane are meant to suggest that these guys can sing like birds. If so, it would have behooved them to choose birds that are actually known for singing. Then again, I guess Bud Nightingale and Eddie Sparrow wouldn’t have sounded nearly as tough.

The Beatniks is actually a fairly engaging and watchable movie. It moves along at a good pace, never allowing the viewer to get bored, but it’s full of contrived situations and awful dialogue spoken by barely-competent actors, so it’s perfect for MST3K. It’s also got a fair amount going on below the surface for me to analyze, and the songs are… uh…

Well, they’re not good. They’re not very memorable (except the first one, which sticks in the mind not because of the tune but because of the refrain my sideburns don’t need no sympathy. What the fuck?), they sound more like Glenn Miller than anything that would have been popular by 1960, and the lyrics are maudlin and predictable, but they’re nowhere near as awful as anything sung by Arch Hall Jr. Tony Travis has a decent set of pipes and I can see him being the Clay Aiken or Josh Groban of his day, enormously popular with little old ladies and middle-aged gay men.

That’s not what we're shown in the movie, though. If the writers had tried to make Eddie’s meteoric rise to stardom as ridiculous and implausible as possible, they couldn’t have done much better than this (‘meteoric’ is a particularly apt description of Eddie, who shines very bright for ten seconds and then hits the ground real hard). His success is so sudden and so total, from small-time crook to household name in no more than a few days, that it feels like at any moment we’re going to see a bunch of people stand up and shout, “April Fool!”

I don’t know how these things worked in the fifties, of course, but I seriously doubt talent agents just wandered the wastes signing random people they got into car accidents with. Most actors and singers have to put in years of work before anybody notices them – Harrison Ford was George Lucas’ carpenter and Demi Moore was a girl of the week in Master Ninja! With Eddie, everything is just handed to him, and it’s really rather detrimental to his character. We don’t see him as somebody who deserves success, because he wasn’t depicted as having any ambitions or any desire to reach beyond what he is. He’s just some jerk who had a stroke of good luck.

This is topped off by the movie’s I Accuse My Parents-like unwillingness to really depict Eddie was a criminal. The gang’s store robbery at the beginning seems to be something they’ve done so often that the owners are expecting them – the man asks, “don’t you guys ever rob anyone else” and seems more resigned than terrified. Eddie issues some mild threats but the actual stealing is done by his friends, and as soon as stardom knocks on Eddie’s door, he abandons violence entirely. It’s his buddies who trash the hotel room and shoot the barkeep, while Eddie begs them not to, as if putting on a suit and tie has suddenly transformed him into a grownup.

Like many 50s and 60’s Rebellious Teens movies, The Beatniks is intended as a warning. It’s a little more subtle about it than things like Reefer Madness, but not too much. The message here is that someday, even the angriest of teen rebels will grow up, and when they do, they may find that leaving their pasts behind is not as easy as they thought. It turns out to be particularly difficult for Eddie, whose bad decisions are embodied in his reckless and violent friends and follow him in a very literal sense indeed. He wants to leave that past behind for a new career and a more adult relationship, but they catch up with him every time.

I guess this is why Eddie’s rise has to be so sudden – so that he can’t have any opportunity to ditch these people from his past. That sort of makes sense, but it’s still lazy writing and leaves Eddie with almost no character whatsoever. Throughout the film he appears mostly as somebody being manhandled by destiny, both his rise and his fall so entirely out of his own control that he’s still basically a victim even when good things are happening to him.

The single most confusing thing in the movie is Eddie’s romance with Agent Magneto’s blonde secretary, Helen. It’s easy to see why he likes her: Helen may not be what is usually considered beautiful (the Brains compared her to “Donald Sutherland in drag”) but she’s clearly intelligent and sophisticated, well-dressed and good-mannered. What you find yourself wondering is what she sees in him. He’s not witty or charming and the movie suggests he’s quite a bit younger than she is.

Of course, you’re not supposed to ask that because the women in this movie are not characters, they’re symbols. Blonde, glamorous Helen represents the glittering world of stardom that Eddie is being ushered into. Clingy, criminal Iris is Eddie’s past, with its obsession with money and good times. She still lives with her mother, making her also a representation of childhood, while independent Helen with her own apartment is an adult.

Is this misogynistic? Eh, maybe, but the rest of the gang are more symbols than characters, too. The one who stands out most is Mooney, the guy who actually kills the fat barkeep and stabs Agent Gandalf, and then insists he did it for Eddie, since these men would have gone to the cops if he hadn’t. The movie makes it clear that his two victims said no such things, and Eddie is pretty sure that Mooney is lying about it, but the audience may get the impression that Mooney believes it. He’s terrified of being caught and sent to jail and lashes out at anyone who might be a threat. Claiming he’s doing it for Eddie is just a way of telling himself that he’s not really being selfish and impulsive.

Some have seen this as homoerotic – that Mooney is in love with Eddie and tries to protect him for that reason, while he’s actually just lashing out at the things that threaten to take the object of his love away from him. I can definitely see that, but I think what the writers may have been going for is that Mooney represents selfishness. The movie is saying that the things juvenile delinquents do are out of selfishness – the group robs the store for money and booze, drive the other restaurant patrons out as they seek a good time, and kill the barkeep out of fear. The same fear selfishly keeps them from seeking medical help for Red. They spare no thought for their effect on society as a whole, but society is something we are all part of whether we like it or not, and so our selfish acts will eventually come back on us, as they do on Eddie.

The love stories in the movie fit in with this theme, too. Iris’ love for Eddie is about what he can provide her with – money and songs when he’s just a criminal, and furs and fame once he becomes a star. Helen’s love for him, and his for her, is unselfish: each wants the other’s happiness, even if there is a personal cost. Eddie tries to distance himself from Helen when he fears he’ll drag her down with him, she tries to encourage him to do what’s right even if it means she loses him. If we believe that Mooney loves Eddie, then this love is also selfish. He wants Eddie to himself, and destroys the things that threaten to separate them.

This is a really bad movie but like a number of other MST3K features, including Manos and The Magic Sword, it’s got a lot for me to get my analytical teeth into. It makes a great episode not only because the movie is so entertainingly terrible and the riffing so good, but because enough of its seventy-seven minutes made it into the theatre that you can pick out all this stuff and chew on it. It’s not a movie I would have watched without MST3K, but I’m kinda glad I did.

#mst3k #reviews #the beatniks #60s

46 notes · View notes

sky-scribbles · 6 years

Text

The Shape of the Soul - II

Continuation of my Dragon Age daemon AU, this time for the DA2 companions (barring Varric, because in this AU, dwarves don’t have daemons.) Inspired by this post, which is incredible and should be read. For those of you who’ve already seen this on DeviantArt, I’ve done some rewriting because I wrote this a while ago and I felt like it could do with some tweaking.

Origins/Awakening version here.

Carver Hawke

They know him, the people of Lothering. Brianna makes them know him.

She refuses to take a form that isn’t fearless. Lion, great bear, boar, wolf, bronto – whatever his older sibling’s daemon becomes, Brianna becomes something larger and stronger, and Carver’s chest swells with pride. She’ll bring him out from his family’s shadow. She’ll become a creature no one could look away from, prove that he’s more than just the little Hawke.

When she lets him down, when she settles into the form of a black and gold Anderfels shepherd dog, he feels like pounding the walls of the world and screaming. She feels his resentment, and flattens her ears and bares her teeth. And Carver knows there’s something wrong if you’re fighting with your daemon, that you should never be angry with your own soul, but he is, he’s angry, so angry.

It’s not just pride. It’s not just that he hoped for a daemon who’d make sure he could never be overlooked. His anger isn’t because he thinks Brianna got it wrong. It’s because he’s afraid she got it right. Dogs are servants’ daemons. Dogs belong to footmen and farmers and labourers, people who slink in the shadows of others, and whenever he looks at Brianna he feels despair well up inside him because that can’t be his life.

So he refuses to be a dog. He marches away to Ostagar.

And there, in the soldiers’ camp, the knot of doubt and anguish in his stomach unravels. Because Brianna romps and play-tussles with the other soldiers’ daemons, and his comrades-in-arms grin as Carver thumps her flanks and ruffles her ears, saying he should be proud of her, that having a dog-daemon is a good sign. Smart, they say, loyal, Fereldan to the bone. That night, he sleeps with an arm draped over his daemon and a smile draped over his face. The resentment he felt when she settled feels so distant it might as well have never been. He's not little Hawke here. He’s Hawke, and Brianna is his daemon.

Then Loghain retreats when the beacon is lit, and everything is gone.

Kirkwall. Brianna slinks at Carver’s heels, not because she’s a servant’s daemon, but because of Bethany. She bristles now when anyone but Carver goes near her, raises her hackles and snaps, and he doesn’t try to calm her. He’s little Hawke again now, and he’s snarling on the inside too.

Then one day, he’s wearing armour again, just like he was at Ostagar, and there are brothers-in-arms around him whose daemons play-fight with Brianna until her barks and snarls turn into yapping laughs. He walks tall, proud of the emblem on his breastplate, and prouder still of Brianna, because dogs mean loyalty and Carver plans to give all the loyalty he has. First to his new order. Then to his sibling, when the city goes up in flames and he understands at last why his daemon is a dog.

Dogs aren’t about serving. They’re about helping. Years later, on the way to Weisshaupt to find his disaster of a sibling, he passes one of the Anders shepherds, and stops to ask him about his dogs. And the shepherd looks at Brianna, smiles with understanding. The Anderfels shepherd, he says, needs a purpose, or it’ll snap and snarl at everything. They won’t take to many, but the ones who raise them and stick with them, they’ll die to protect. Except they won’t die, because they know how to fight, and by the Maker, but do they fight hard.

‘Well,’ Brianna says, as they walk away. ‘Looks like I got it right after all.’

Carver stops walking, drops to his knees, and throws his arms around her.

Bethany Hawke

Night comes after day, dwarves don't dream, and mages’ daemons are birds. These are facts of life, things that no one can fight or change. Bethany thinks often about the Circles, about how their halls and passages must be like aviaries of caged birds, and her throat tightens. And yet they might be beautiful. All the bright feathers. 'And all the singing,' Eliron whispers, and Bethany smiles.

He doesn’t like to become a bird too often, though. It feels like tempting fate. He spends most of his time as deer, and Bethany prays to the maker to let him settle as one. Just let him not be a bird. Then that jeering boy from the neighbouring farm gets into a fight with Carver, and somehow she hurls him away from her brother and halfway across the street without laying a hand on him. They run home, Father shouts for them to pack their bags, the family runs again. And Eliron panics. He flickers through every bird Bethany knows and plenty she doesn’t, trying on shape after shape, refusing to take any form that doesn’t have wings and feathers.

Be an eagle, Carver tells him, be a swan or an albatross, but Bethany knows that’s not what Eliron’s going to be. Eliron knows it too, because he never listens to Carver. He favours small things, things with round black eyes and plain feathers, things that can become invisible just by staying still. He moves around the house in cautious hops and short bursts of flight - a wren, a dunnock, a treecreeper - until he realises that what he loves most, what they both love most of all, is to hear him fill the house with song. From then on, it’s nightingales and blackbirds, robins and larks.

At last, Eliron settles as a song thrush.

He’s plain to look at, if you don’t look closely, if you just take in the brown feathers and don’t notice the beautiful cream and dark flecks on his chest. He’s small enough that he can just about hide in a pocket if he’s afraid, and he often does, because the Templars stare long and hard at anyone with a bird-daemon. She could look at them wrong, and that would be all the excuse they’d need to cut her down, just because her soul has wings. Like hawks on a songbird.

She looks at the Gallows sometimes, from across the water. She looks at it and thinks about how people keep thrushes as pets. They can live in a cage. They’ll sing their hearts out, with bars between them and the hawks and cats. Maybe it would be easier, to let them clip her wings, so she can sing.

But after the expedition – when everything’s said and done and there’s no going back, no matter how much she and her sibling might hate it – she realises something. She and Eliron – they have a secret, and it’s the reason Eliron became the kind of thrush he did, not the plainer-feathered yet more beautiful-voiced cousin. A nightingale will sing to make you weep, but you’ll never see it, where it shrinks deep into the woods. A thrush, though… a thrush is something else.

A thrush learns. A thrush steps out into the open. A thrush knows how to crack a snail’s shell with just a few quick, hard strikes against stone. Bethany knows how to strike like that, when she’s got something worth fighting for, knows how to step out into the light of day with lightning at the tips of her fingers. Put her in a cage, and she’ll survive, but she was always meant to be free, because a thrush is more than a brown-and-cream bird with a pretty song, a thrush is a wild bird and a thrush has skill and smarts and pluck.

That’s Bethany’s secret.

Oh, she’s afraid. But she’s also a thrush. Which means that at heart, she is bold.

Aveline Vallen

Her father, of course, wanted her daemon to be a lion. Strong, proud, loyal, and, most importantly, Orlesian. He was about as determined for her to have a lion as Aveline and Audric were determined for her not to have one.

‘Too grand,’ Aveline complains, after her father raises the idea for the fiftieth time.

Audric, in the shape of a mabari just to prove a point, nods. ‘Too stately.’

‘Walking around Ferelden with some great golden cat beside me? That’d mark me out as foreign even more than my name.’

‘And they’re lazy, the males. Sleeping in the sun all day, taking first bite of whatever the females catch.’

Both their jaws clench. That’s injustice, that is, and they want no part in that.

So it’s with some relief that Aveline realises one day that he’s stopped changing. He’s loping at her side in the form of a stocky reddish-coloured bullmastiff and isn’t showing any signs of abandoning that form any time soon. ‘Perfect,’ Aveline says, and Audric gives his tail the tiniest wag. A bullmastiff is as Fereldan as a lion would have been Orlesian. Very tough, very straightforward, and very, very Aveline.

Even without the lion, her father gets her into the king’s service. It’s all right, they tell each other. Audric’s a more natural daemon for a knight than you might expect. A dog-daemon means loyalty, and it means respect from any true Ferelden. The lips that curl at the sound of her name tend to go still again when they see Audric, because he’s about as Fereldan as a lion would have been Orlesian. And it’s only right for her soul to be Fereldan – she speaks with its accent, knows its ways, falls in love with one of its men.

But then suddenly all of that is behind them, and Wesley is dead, and she’s in Kirkwall with a family of ragged refugees.

The guard becomes Aveline’s new pack, because a dog’s nothing without one. She knows some of her comrades-in-arms wonder why she’s always wandering off with Hawke, and why she challenges the Captain’s orders when the cost could be her career. She knows why they wouldn’t expect it, because Audric’s quiet for a dog. The guards never thought the woman whose soul is this watchful, stoic creature would be the one to raise her hackles or show her teeth.

You can’t give the same command again and again to a bullmastiff, though. Not unless you want it to stop listening and start looking for more. Aveline and Audric know that, and that’s why they question things, find the scent of corruption and follow the trail until they’ve flushed out the source.

That’s what marks them out. All dogs are loyal followers. But there are only a very few who can be leaders.

Anders

Anders wakes from his Harrowing with his mind aching and his heart pounding and his sheets cold and wet from sweat. He almost lashes out when something touches his shoulder, but it’s Karl, just Karl, thank the Maker, and without thinking twice about it - damn the consequences, just this once – pulls his lover to him and holds him close. And Karl smile against his shoulder, clings to him for a moment, then whispers, ‘I think you should take a look at Themis.’

So Anders does, his heart beating even faster. She’s been ridiculously late to settle - he likes to joke that it’s out of spite, that she refuses to take a shape while the Templars are trying to define what they are. But everyone knows that when a mage’s daemon settles late, it’ll often happen after the Harrowing. So he looks, and there she is, his Themis, his soul, perched on the end of his bed, bobbing her long tail up and down to show off its beautiful blue-green sheen.

He stares, then grins.

‘Maker,’ he says. ‘The senior enchanters are going to love this.’

He can’t count the number of times someone tuts or mutters ‘of course,’ when they see the shape she’s chosen, when they realise that the Circle’s resident troublemaker has a magpie for a daemon. Anders, though, has no complaints. All crows are clever, and Themis has his flair, his flash, his wit, his love of hoarding. Little trinkets, shiny things, useless things, any things that he can squirrel away beneath his bunk, just for the joy of having something in the world that belongs to him.

Then they take Karl away. So he starts testing his wings for the first time in years, desperate to break the cage, and he sees the darker side of a magpie-daemon. He doesn’t remember much about his home, no matter how stubbornly he clings to the images, but one flash of memory is of his father hurling a stone at a black-and-white bird. He can’t hear the voice in his mind, only remembers it saying that the bird would have got at the hens’ eggs, even the new-hatched chicks if it could. He remembers thinking that surely only a few magpies do that, and not very often. And it’s the same with mages who try to be free. They summon demons, people say. Only a few, Anders wants to scream. Not very often. And not me.

Magpies are hunted, hated. The whole world is against them.

It sank in long ago, the cruel irony of the rule that mages’ daemons are always birds. People love to cage birds, to watch them sit behind bars and sing, but a bird is a creature of the sky and that is where it belongs. You'll never hear a magpie sing for anyone. Anders certainly doesn't plan on doing so. So when Justice makes his offer, he says yes.

And after – after the world becomes as black and white as Themis's feathers – there’s an odd distance between them. He’s not the same man he was when Themis settled, and she doesn’t quite fit as she used to. He and Justice are one now, after all, and no spirit has a daemon. But Anders still loves her, of course he loves her, because he will always be a magpie at heart. You can tell it just to look at him – feathered shoulders and dark eyes that don’t miss a thing. He may hunt for escape routes and messages from the underground now, not for trinkets, but he’s still a scavenger.

He watches her sometimes, a lone magpie flashing around his clinic, and the old rhyme runs through his head. 'One for sorrow,' he says, and Themis shakes her head. 'You're me,' she says. 'You're a magpie too. It's two for joy.' She was always the bright-eyed part of him, the part that laughed and bobbed her tail. She's the part of him that hopes. So he allows himself to believe her. The thought that there might just be a chance at joy… it’s what keeps him fighting.

Fenris

‘Little wolf,’ Danarius called him, but Danarius was wrong.

A wolf is a creature of packs. A wolf is bright eyes and obedience. A wolf craves company and a wolf knows its place. Fenris is not a wolf. Fenris is power and pride, even if that pride is bruised and raw from its shackles, and anyone who looks at Tenebris can see it. He doesn’t know whether she settled before he got the brands or whether the lyrium changed her, somehow, just as it changed him. All he knows is that for as long as he can remember, she’s been like this, a sleek, beautiful, black-furred creature of the northern rainforests.

Danarius should have known they’d break free. No one could ever tame a panther.

He kept her on a chain, of course, and clasped a spiked collar around her neck. He made her clean his boots with her tongue, rested his feet on her back, stroked the glossy fur of her head whenever one of his rivals came to visit. Look, said that hand that buried itself in the black pelt. See what powerful beasts I have at my command.

His touch on her was like knives in Fenris’s gut. But he stood silent, still, head bowed. His master owned his body. His soul was held in his master’s hands.

Danarius would force them apart, make them sleep in separate rooms, forbid them to speak to each other, even touch. In his anger, he would beat them both, and Fenris would feel Tenebris’s pain jolt through his own body, and he’d think vaguely through a fog of anguish that it was wrong, seeing a creature of strength and grace cowed like this. The thought would flicker for a moment, and then be gone.

When they finally run, it’s the first time Fenris has ever felt close to his soul.

Living in Kirkwall is not only about learning to live with freedom. It’s about learning who he is. For the first time, Tenebris is not an oversized cat, she is a piece of the wild, and so is he. They spend long nights curled up beside the fire in the mansion, talking as they never have before. Fenris curses himself for never realising that he always had an ally in her, then stops and curses Danarius instead for forcing him to feel separate from her. Slowly, the barriers break down, and he’s willing to touch his own soul at last, to run his hands through her velvet fur, and she’s willing to lie alongside him at night with her pelt brushing his skin.

When the accursed mage starts up his ranting about freedom again, Fenris finds himself listening for once. Because the mage mentions Tranquility. About how no one deserves to have their daemon severed, their bond with their soul taken away.

Fenris glances down at Tenebris, at this creature who would always, eventually, slip or break any collar you placed around her neck, because she’s a panther, not a cat. He feels his heart swell, and for the first time in his life, he finds himself understanding what Anders means. 'No one will cage us,' Tenebris growls. 'No one will seperate us.' And she bares her teeth, teeth that can bite right through a man's skull, just as Fenris's hand can slam through a chest. He doesn't doubt that she is right.

Merrill

Merrill always did do things a little differently.

Many Dalish have jays as daemons, even those who aren’t mages, but they’re all the normal creamy-brown jays, creatures that can melt into the woods, go unseen if they want to. There’s no missing Belavahna. She’s so obviously foreign, her feathers vibrant, exotic, tropical, the blue of shallow waters in warm oceans. No Fereldan bird looks like she does.

The other Dalish frown and shake their heads at the sight. When your daemon stands out as much as her, it means you’re different in some way, and people are always ready to think that different means dangerous. But Belavahna – she’s not dangerous. Merrill knows she isn’t. A jay will give you a nice firm peck if you try to hurt it (and serve you right), but they aren't cruel. Jays are bright, inquisitive eyes, and cheerful voices that rarely still. Jays are curiosity and cleverness.

Jays like to keep things, too. They stash nuts and seeds away, keep them hidden, keep them safe. Merrill feels like she's doing the same, as she gathers the shards of the Eluvian, pieces it back together, and lugs it around with her everywhere she goes. ‘Like a magpie gathering things that glitter,’ the clan say, but Merrill bites her lip and carries on. Bela’s always been the bolder part of Merrill, though, the stronger part, so she looks their clanmates in the eye defiantly, and later, she presses her head against Merrill’s face, the brush of her feathers a soothing comfort.

‘You’re not keeping these things out of greed,’ she says. 'That’s not what jays do. Jays keep things because they’re too precious to be lost.'

They stand out even more in the Alienage than they did with the clan. A Dalish girl with a tattooed face and her vivid azure and cream bird-daemon will always attract stares and turn heads, nowhere more so than where everyone else’s daemons are so... faded. When Merrill looks at the other elves’ patchy-furred dogs and mice and squirrels, the only word that comes to mind is defeated.

She could never fit in with these people, when her soul is so very, very different to theirs. So she’s on her own, and that’s the hardest part, because jays really don’t like to be alone.

But there’s brightness in this life too. There’s Hawke. And there’s Varric and Isabela and the others, and card games in the Hawke estate and feeling like she’s not so alone after all. And there’s browsing the bookshelves in Hawke’s house, and stumbling on one about Free Marches birds. It’s the book that tells her that Bela’s a scrub jay. It’s the book that tell her a lot of things about her daemon and thus about herself.

She reads. She reads about how scrub jays pick the ticks and fleas from deer and cattle, helping them in ways so small they might not even notice. She reads about how they’re frowned on, called thieves. ‘Well, that’s a little unfair,’ Bela says. ‘They need to eat.’

Yes, they do. Just like Merrill needs to fix the Eluvian. You don’t stop doing something you need to do because other people have the wrong idea about it.

But the most important thing she learns is that scrub jays watch. They watch each other, and they remember. They don’t forget where they hide their stashes, not ever. They move their caches when another bird sees them hide it. They hold on to the past and they plan for the future, looking behind so they can find a way ahead, because behind those quick darting eyes and the cheerful chattering voices are minds that never, never forget.

And it’s a Keeper’s job – Merrill’s job – to remember. Even the dangerous things.

Isabela

Mages have birds. But they’re not the only ones. Isabela’s never shot lightning from her fingers her whole life, though she can think of plenty of circumstances in which it would be… interesting to be able to do so. She has a bird all the same, and it means something very different. It means freedom.

When Delmar settles, Isabela’s mother clenches her jaw and mutters something about even harder to get you married properly now. The birds-are-mages association isn’t too much of an obstacle, not in Rivain, but Delmar is… Delmar. He’s no sleek, beautiful creature, no elegant peacock to adorn a rich man’s house. He’s big and brown, webbed feet and a short beak ending in a little dagger-hook, and he doesn’t keep quiet when he’s got something to say. He fills the house with his sharp, laughing call, and of course, Luis hates him.

Zevran, however, finds him hilarious.

‘A skua for a daemon,’ he says, tossing her a knife. ‘That being the case, you should find skewering me fairly easy, no?’ And Isabela laughs for what feels like the first time since she set eyes on Luis, and as she matches Zevran’s blades with her blades and his puns with her puns, she finally feels like she deserves Delmar. Like her soul is winged for a reason.

When at last Isabela breaks free, she lets Delmar lead the way. They know where to go. The sea has always called them, because the skua is a migrant, a wanderer, travelling for thousands of miles over open water. Delmar’s webs and sail-like wings were made for voyages. So was Isabela. But not for her the tame merchant life, because the skua is marked out from the aimlessly squabbling gulls and the fragile terns and the stately albatrosses by one thing. It is not only a traveller, but a thief.

On days when the spray’s flung into her face by the wind and the ship’s skimming across the waves as if it’s as eager to meet the horizon as Isabela is, she loves nothing more than to watch Delmar taking to the sky, flying to the very edge of their bond. Sometimes there’ll be some hapless seabird, a gull or a gannet, that manages to grasp a fish in its bill only to have a huge brown bird with a bill like a knife descend like a thunderbolt, grasp its wing to make it stall and fall to the sea below, snatching the fish from it beak with vicious deftness. Isabela pities the other birds of the sea when there’s a skua in the air, just as she pities the poor merchant who sees the Siren’s Call descending, flags fluttering, the pirate captain standing grinning at the prow, her pirate daemon on her shoulder.

When the arrows start flying and the swords start swinging, Isabela knows her place – right in the thick of things, with blades at the ready. And Delmar circles above, dive-bombing the enemy, beating his wings in the face of the bandit (who misses the blow he aimed at Merrill) and pecking at the face of the Tal-Vashoth (who would have had Varric if Delmar hadn’t been there) and scratching and clawing and fighting, fighting, fighting.

Because here’s the thing: nothing takes on a skua. Nothing but an eagle or a killer whale will ever be bold enough. Go near its nest, threaten its fledglings, and it won’t stop fighting you until you’re fleeing or dead.

Hawke and the others are like a bunch of clueless fledglings much of the time, and Isabela and Delmar are in agreement that if anyone tries to harm them, they will gouge out their Maker-damned eyes.

#i spent so long researching this one it was ridiculous #feel free to ask if you want a particular choice of name or daemon explained!#dragon age #dragon age 2 #daemon au #carver hawke #bethany hawke #aveline vallen #anders #fenris #merrill #isabela #sky's writing #have i ever mentioned that i really love magpies? because they deserve more love.

61 notes · View notes

swan1974-blog · 7 years

Text

Swan and Sam dream

We Fade In Into Swan's Bedroom, We See Red And Black Bird Pattern Lava Lamp With Black Lava Floating In Red Water. Swan Sleeps Quietly. The Song Faust By Paul Williams Plays In The Background Paul Williams Sings In The Song,I Was Not Myself Last Night Couldn't Set Things Right With Apologies Or Flowers Out Of Place As A Cryin' Clown Who Could Only Frown And The Play Went On For Hours And As I Lived My Role I Swore I'd Sell My Soul For One Love Who Would Stand By Me And Give Me Back The Gift Of Laughter One Love Who Would Stand By Me And After Making Love We'd... Dream A Bit Of Style We'd Dream A Bunch Of Friends Dream Each Others Smile And Dream It Never Ends I Was Not Myself Last Night In The Morning Light I Could See The Change Was Showing Like A Child Who Was Always Poor Reaching Out For More I Could Feel The Hunger Growing And As I Lost Control I Swore I'd Sell My Soul For One Love Who Would Sing My Song And Fill This Emptiness Inside Me One Love Who Would Sing My Song And Lay Beside Me While We'd... Dream A Bit Of Style We'd Dream A Bunch Of Friends Dream Each Others Smile And Dream It Never Ends All My Dreams Are Lost And I Can't Sleep And Sleep Alone Could Ease My Mind All My Tears Have Dried And I Can't Weep Old Emotions May They Rest In Peace And Dream, Dream A Bunch Of Friends Rest In Peace, And Dream, Dream It Never Ends He Chose This Song Because He Would Literally Do Anything To Feel The Love He Had For Sam Again, Even If That Meant Selling His Soul. Swan Falls Asleep To It Again On Repeat Crying. (Dream Sequence) The Song Plays In The Dream The First Half, Then It Shifted To For The Life Of Me Lyrics By Paul Williams The Verses Saying When It's Almost Dawn And We're Talking With Our Eyes Loving With The Lights On To Watch Our Passion Rise Love Will Fill My Cup I Can Keep This Up For The Life Of Me (Intrumental Break) Once Upon A Time Should Be In The Future Storytellers Keep It In The Past Dreaming's What Improves Us Motivates And Moves Us You Won T Be My First Love But You Might Be My Last There Was A Intrumental Break He Felt Warmth In His Heart And Felt The Artist Knew Just How He Felt And Wrote The Song To Tell Him He Is Not Alone In His Suffering. Swan Says,I Felt So Much For Sam It Is Unfathomable! For The Life Of Me You'll Be My First Love And My Last.... Swan Smilies At Sam. Then The Song Lyrics Changed To Flying Dreams By Paul Williams The First Half The Verses Saying Dream By Night Wish By Day Love Begins This Way. Loving Starts When Open Hearts Touch, And Stay. Sleep For Now Dreaming's How Lover's Lives Are Planned. Future Songs And Flying Dreams, Hand, In Hand. Love It Seems Made Flying Dreams So Hearts, Could Soar. Heaven Sent These Wings Were Meant To Prove, Once More. That Love Is The Key... Love Is The Key. You And I Touch The Sky The Eagle And The Dove. Nightingales We Keep Our Sails Filled With Love. And Love It Seems Made Flying Dreams, To Bring You Home To Me... Then Finally Into This Strange New Feeling I'm Feeling Fine. The Verses Saying I'd Feeling Fine Filled With Emotion Stronger Than Wine They Give Me The Notion That This Strange New Feeling Is Something That You're Feeling Too Matter Of Fact I'm Forced To Admit It Caught In The Act, And Maybe We've Hit It Is This Strange New Feeling Something That You're Feeling Too? If This Is Love, It's A Rhapsody I'd Gonna Sing It Like A Song And If You're Singing It Back To Me Forget About Sophistication Keep It Simple That's My Style Love At Its Best A Pleasure To Make It A Chance And A Test I'm Willing To Take It If This Strange New Feeling Is Something That You're Feeling Too If This Is Love, It's A Rhapsody I'd Rather Sing It Like A Song And If You're Singing It Back To Me Forget About Sophistication Keep It Simple That's My Style Love At Its Best A Pleasure To Make It A Chance And A Test I'm Willing To Take It If This Strange New Feeling Is Something That You're Feeling Too He Felt He Loved Sam Infinite Times More Than She Would Ever Love Him. He Felt He Would Never Feel Love Again, Then Swan And Sam Were Waltzing Together To Lonley Hearts. Swan Says During The Song,Every Song I Choose Represents Some Form Of My Heart Break! Swan Chose Lonley Hearts The Song Because It Was Willy's And Quinn Song, The Real Reason Why He Did This Because The Lyrics Tell How Much He Loved Sam. Swan Wore His Black Outfit Willy Gave Him But Really He Was Wearing It Because Now He Felt Like Willy. Swan Says,Do You Know Why I'm Wearing Willy's Outfit It's Because I Was So Jealous Of Willy. I Wish I Had You Here So I Wouldn't Be! And It's The Way That Willy Loved His Daughter Quinn I Wanted Badly To Emulate That Kind Of Love For Us. Sam Says,Awe, Daddy! Swan Says, I Loved You Like Willy Loved Quinn. And Why I Did Think That Is It's Because That They Had The Perfect Father-Daughter Relationship. Then I Always Saw Them Together Happy,Loving Each Other. Then It Didn't Feel The Same For Me Until Now... I Am With You And I Feel Complete. Sam Broke Up In Sobs. Sam Says,Daddy, I Never Wanted To Leave You! Sam Gave A Broken Smilie To Swan Swan Sadly Smiles At Her And Closed His Eyes. Swan Says,I Know, Sweetie, It Is Not Your Fault. Sam Sadly Says,I Feel Bad About It. Swan Sadly Says,Please Don't Be. Sam Says,Why You Say That? Swan Says,I Know We Were Never Meant To Be Apart Forever. They Smilie At Each Other As Sam Slowly Laid Her Head On Swan's Shoulder. We Pan Over To See A Tree, Then Unknownly To Swan Willy And Quinn Are Secretly Watching Them In The Tree. Willy Says,Quinn,Swan Looks Really Happy. I Do Not Want To Break Them Apart But.. Quinn Says,Like My Daughter Quinnana He Deceived Her In Thinking He Was Good! I Know What You Were Thinking! Willy Says,Ready To Break Them Apart I Think Sam Is Getting Too Attached To Swan A Lot I Do Not Want Her To Be Hurt. Quinn Says,Daddy, No! They Argue About It. Willy Says,I Do Not Want Her To Be Hurt! Quinn Yelled,Sam Was The Only Thing He Truly Cared About, He Would Not Hurt Her, Trust Me! Daddy You Realize What Are You Doing Taking Away Swan's Only Happiness He Has In His Life!!!! Daddy, Please... Willy Shouted,Yes I Will And You Will Not Stop Me! Quinn Yelled,Fine. But You Might Regret It! They Get Out Of Hiding And Giving Serious Looks. Then Willy And Quinn Go To See Them, They Began To Break Them Apart. Swan And Sam Felt Horrified And Confused. Swan Yelled To Sam, I Am So Sorry! Sam Yelled,Daddy!!!! What Is Going On?!?! Swan Yelled,I Don't Know What Are You Two Monsters Capturing Us For?!? Willy Says,I Would Not Let You Hurt Her! Swan Yelled,Willy She Is My Treasure And All I Care About! I Would Never Do That! Let Go! Sam Yelled To Swan In Sobs, Daddy! Daddy Free Yourself! Quinn Says,Sam We Are 'Saving' You! Sam Ignored Quinn And Yelled For Swan,Daddy!!!! Swan Yelled In Sobs,Sam!!! They Both Felt Tremendous Heart Ache And Longing To Be Together Again. Then They Begin To Reach Out To Each Other As Willy And Quinn Break Them Apart Once More. Swan Says,For Pete's Sake Let Us Go!!!! Sam Says While In Sobs,Daddy, Help!!!! Swan Breaks Free Of Willy's Grasp Then Swan Hugged Sam Tightly He Felt Relieved Because He Hadn't Hugged Her In A Really Long Time. Then He No Longer Feels Her Touch And Her Body As He Saw Willy,Quinn,Samantha Who Was Crying Disappearing Before Him In His Own Very Eyes. In The Darkness With A Spotlight On Him, He Felt Utterly Lonely And Hopeless Again. Swan Yelled,You Will Not Get Away With Taking Sam From Me! Swan Now Sees Total Darkness Swan Felt A Little Disappointed Because He Didn't Want The Dream To Ever End. Swan Says To Himself,It Was Okay Until Quinn And Willy Showed Up. Swan Sadly Looked At The Picture Of Sam Beside His Bed And Felt Lonely. Swan Sadly Says,I Dreamt Of You My Darling We Were Dancing And Singing And Having A Good Time Until Evil People Came To Take You Away. Then Swan Fell Down On The Floor With A Blue Spotlight On His Room The Light Was Representative Of His Deep Sorrow. Then The Blue Lights Slowly Turns Into Red As Swan Closed His Eyes And Whispered,I Am So Angry At The Evil That Took My Daughter. He Had A Mix Of Emotions He Could Hardly Describe. We Slowly Fade To Black To See Sam Watching Swan In His Sleep And Petting His Hair Gently. Swan Smilies At This And He Finally Went To Sleep Peacefully Sam Faded Away As She Sees Swan Sleeping Peacefully.

#swan #dream #sam puckett

1 note · View note