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Alice Krige

Rises From the Ashes in She Will

by Jay S. Jacobs

If you’re a young, aspiring actress and your first major film wins the Oscar for Best Picture, how do you follow it up? For Alice Krige, she put together a well-respected 40-year career in film, theater and television (and the occasional video game or cartoon).

Probably first really noticed in the 1980 Oscar-winning film, Chariots of Fire, Krige has had a wide-ranging and intriguing run of roles – often, but not always – in genre films. For her follow-up to Chariots she starred with Hollywood royalty like Fred Astaire, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Melvyn Douglass, John Houseman and Patricia Neal in the thriller Ghost Story. She has taken on a wide variety of roles in the likes of King David, Sleepwalkers, Silent Hill and Thor: The Dark World.

However, she’s perhaps best known for playing the Borg Queen in several Star Trek films and series, including Star Trek: First Contact, Star Trek: Voyager and the recently released second season of Star Trek: Lower Decks.

Her latest film is a psychological thriller called She Will. Directed by respected artist Charlotte Colbert, it co-stars Malcolm McDowell, Rupert Everett, John McRea and Kota Eberhardt. Although it traffics in certain horror aspects – witches, murder, devastation, nightmares – it is actually a much deeper character study of a woman whose life is still being ruled by a childhood incident when a much older man sexually abused her.

He was a film director who made her a star (played by McDowell), but she has been carrying the guilt and heartache for decades, to the point where it has not only affected how she deals with people and life, but it has also literally and figuratively eaten away at her body and mind.

A few weeks before the debut of She Will we got together on Zoom with Krige to discuss the new film, career highlights and surviving the pandemic.

What was it about the script for She Will that intrigued to you?

There were a number of things. It's a script with many, many layers and many, many threads. Rather a very unusual tapestry, put it that way. With regard to Veronica, I was just very moved by her predicament. What happened to her as a young woman, or young girl of 14 or 15, which obviously she was at that time. If I think back to when I was 14, or 15, it might have been something that was never mentioned, was never ever discussed. In an early draft of the script, there was actually an influence that the encounter leaves her with a sexually transmitted disease so that she cannot ultimately have children. That somehow got weeded out in the various edits and cuts. But suffice it to say, there was significant trauma that is suppressed. It leaves her with a whole lot of buried anger, a profound mistrust of intimacy.

Of course.

Where we find her when we meet her, as someone whose anger has expressed itself in her body as cancer. She's had a bilateral mastectomy. She holds the world at an arm's length. There's this icy rude facade, which keeps people at bay so she can never be hurt. She goes up to Scotland. She's accompanied by this young woman who she really doesn't want as a companion. But Desi (Kota Eberhardt) has been hurt as well. Desi’s reaction is to reach out to help other people. That journey of Desi’s, it's very unusual to see that between a younger and an older woman. Really platonic affection develops. I found it very, very moving that Desi’s tolerance and patience and empathy finally melts Veronica’s protective barrier.

Yes, that’s true.

I also thought the whole metaphysical side of it… the landscape where we filmed [was] the Cairngorms in Scotland. We were actually not far from the home of the last two women who were burned as witches in Scotland. We were in that landscape. It was as if the landscape offered up that that mystery and energy and power. You don't often see in film this…. It was nothing ever spoken about, but it was really explicit in the imagery that you see the cosmos. You see nature and the Earth. I mean, she picks up handfuls of mud. The mud is a potent force. It’s man or woman between heaven and earth. I just found it very, very powerful. It looks at the human predicament without overly stating it in any way. Just through the imagery. Through evoking this powerful cosmos and this powerful nature and placing us within it.

The first time I remember seeing you was in Ghost Story. In certain ways this film reminded me of that. Beyond just the haunting part, but just the fact that a woman was mistreated by men, and she took her own supernatural revenge on them, although, obviously, Eva in Ghost Story was more of a villainous character. In the 40 years between those movies, is it sad to you that these stories are still going?

Yes, but perhaps there's a note of real positivity. It's very interesting that you should make that connection, because you're not the first person who has said it. Of course, you're quite right. But for me, the story is not a revenge story. A lot of the reviewers have latched on [to that] – and I think also the advertising is saying she gets her revenge – [but] I don't think she was after revenge. Her actual words, when she appears to him, he says to her, “What do you want?” She says, “The truth.” Yes, she wants him to tell the truth, if only to himself. I thought Malcolm [McDowell] did a masterly performance, because he had very little to work with. But in that moment, when he's sitting at the bar with his head in his hands, I got the feeling that this was a tortured human being. For one moment, he was actually looking into his past. Because if he'd done it with Veronica, you can be sure she was not the only one. You've got the feeling that he was haunted by his own actions. He reaches out to her and then he whacks her on the head with a bottle. At that moment, he unleashes the furies as it were. In Greek myth, the furies pursue you to your death. Well, the furies pursue him to his death, [due to] his absolute inability to tell the truth.

Yes, it’s sad.

But I think it's changing; truth is being told. The one thing about the sea change that's happening now, there is a conversation. We could add to it. I know this has nothing to do with She Will, but we are looking as societies at what male dominance has done to women over the centuries. But let us not forget that most men have been equally dominated by other powerful men. Perhaps not sexually, but certainly forced to go to wars they might not have wanted to fight in. It's about not just looking at men subjugating women, but powerful men like Putin, forcing their will onto other men as well. You think of all the wars that men have been obliged to be soldiers in. I'm pretty sure many of them didn't want to go to war, but they had to.

Veronica was in a very bad state both physically and mentally. As an actress, how difficult was it to get into that kind of headspace?

I was actually given a lot of help by two friends who had gone through the experience of breast cancer. Not mastectomies, but surgery. One of them refused chemo completely. Her courage and her determination to be well was a huge inspiration. She gave me this fabulous image. Not knowing the script, she said, “You've got to be a phoenix rising from the ashes.” Of course, that is an image that is mirrored in the burning of the witches and the rising from the ruins of what had happened to her and the consequences in her life. I shared that with Charlotte. It was an image that we both held on to.

That’s wonderful.

Also another really significant part of my wanting very much to play the role was that Charlotte didn't ask me to put myself on tape or to read for her. She just asked to meet me. We immediately were on the same wavelength. It's the first time I've been directed by a woman. We became partners in the journey. I really felt as if we were doing it hand in hand and step by step together. Not that I haven't had that experience of other directors as if we were going hand in hand on this journey together. But it was it was it was a real meeting of hearts and minds. That was a very joyful thing.

This was Charlotte's first film. She's actually better known as an artist. What was it like working with her? Do you feel that she came into it knowing what she was doing as much as some of the other people you've worked with who've had a lot more experience?

She's made short films, so she wasn't new to the filmmaking process. What was lovely was that it was obviously an adventure for her. There was a wonderful sense [that] every moment counted. Every moment was bright. We had a wonderful cinematographer, Jamie Ramsay. It felt like me and Charlotte and Jamie, and then of course, Kota when she joined us for those scenes. It was a real a constant flow of communication and exchange. We shot very, very fast. I worked for five weeks. It was every day, sometimes six days a week in really severe conditions, because we were shooting up a mountainside in November in Scotland.

Was this during the pandemic?

It was just before. It was November, and the first 10 days of December of 2019. Poor Charlotte had to edit the film remotely which could not have been much fun.

Just on a more personal level, everyone had to deal with that for the last two years. How did you survive the whole ordeal, the pandemic and everything?

I was extraordinarily blessed. I live in a very, very small village in deep in the southwest of England in pretty wild countryside. My little village took lockdown very, very seriously. I didn't see another human being, except on a Friday night when we all came to our front gates to cheer the NHS, the National Health Service. We all had groceries delivered. We pulled together. We would all do a big order because delivery slots were hard to come by. I'm not often home. In fact, I'm never home for that long. It was an incredibly beautiful spring, a very, very slow, beautiful spring. My husband and I had four or five, great months together. I felt terribly bad because every day we listened to the news. Every day the numbers were climbing. You knew that people were dying, and doctors and nurses were on their knees.

It was… it is… a horrible thing.

We were safe. I mean, actually my husband (director and actor Paul Schoolman) and I got COVID. In February of 2020. We thought it was flu. We were doing a play together in London. It was four and a half weeks or five weeks. It was eight performances a day. It was a 90-minute play. It was no break and extremely intense. We were so high on adrenaline that we just thought we'd got flu. I almost lost my voice. Clearly, we had a bug, but we were so high on adrenaline. There is this this concept of doctor theater. You can be dying, but you walk onto the stage, and something happens. You do the performance and you come off and you collapse in the wings. It's a real thing. The camera rolls, and you're there, right? (laughs) You can fall apart when they call cut, but for that moment…. So we got through it. The whole country locked down 10 days later. We were at home in the countryside. We were exhausted. We just thought it was the play.

Really?

I wrapped She Will on a Saturday, and I started rehearsing Persona on the Monday. Rehearsed through Christmas and opened in the last week of January. Played through to the end of February. I just thought I was exhausted from the play. In fact, we realized that we haven't had flu, we'd had COVID because my husband developed long COVID. That's been a journey. Thankfully, he's emerging from it. But it's been it's been terribly difficult, the consequences. So, I have so much sympathy for people who are who are struggling with long COVID because it shows up differently in the way that COVID got people differently. It was highly specific to each individual. Whether it impacted your heart or your lungs or your brain. Some people it crossed the blood-brain barrier, and they were hallucinating. I had a friend who hallucinated, wildly. In the same way long COVID is different for everyone. There just doesn't seem to be a solution for most people. How did you cope, or did you lose anyone?

I was lucky. I did not lose anyone, and I never got COVID, to my knowledge. I did have friends who had it. My next-door neighbor had long COVID, and it was horrible for her. So, I know exactly what you're going through.

Fortunately, my husband's come out of it, finally. In fact, we did something – and I really don't know why we didn't do it before – but we went to a very, very good homeopath. That was what finally turned the corner.

Do you mind if I ask you about a few of your earlier roles? I know that you'd done a little bit of TV and one foreign film, but your first major film was Chariots of Fire which ended up winning Best Picture. What was it like to be part of that film? How did it feel when this film was supposed to be a little small film won?

When the film opened in England, I was in America doing Ghost Story. I missed all the palaver of the opening, because I was buried in upper state New York or wherever I was. When the film opened in America, I was in the West End, in a Bernard Shaw play Arms and the Man, eight performances a week. Again, totally absurd. I was oblivious to the fact that it was opening in America. When it won all the Oscars, I was at the Royal Shakespeare Company. I was so frightened. (laughs) It was such a huge thing. I was playing a Cordelia with Michael Gambon. Tony Sher was the fool. I was surrounded by these amazing Shakespearean actors and actresses. [Ed. note: Others in the 1982 RSC cast of King Lear included Jenny Agutter and Pete Postlethwaite.] I was so stressed, hoping that I would be okay and that I wouldn't let the side down and all of that, that I was oblivious to the fact. I eventually realized it in had won Oscars. But frankly, I was so distracted by what I was going through, the challenge of Shakespeare at the Royal Shakespeare. It was my first professional experience of performing Shakespeare in a big season. I was playing Cordelia and I was playing Bianca in [Taming of] the Shrew, and Miranda in The Tempest and Roxanne in Cyrano [de Bergerac]. So, I felt as if I was climbing Everest. The last thing I was thinking about was Oscars and Chariots of Fire.

Speaking of great casts, Ghost Story had some real legends of Hollywood history. Most of your role was with their younger versions of their characters, but you did have a certain amount of time with people like Fred Astaire, John Houseman, Melvyn Douglas and Douglas Fairbanks? What was it like being on film with such legendary actors?

That was the most amazing privilege. They were absolutely exceptional. They were gallant. They were gentleman. They were kind to everyone. They were funny. They were consummate professionals. It was really an extraordinary privilege as a new actor. I wasn't that young, because I started when I was 25, so I guess I was 26. I wasn't young, but I was really new to the industry. You couldn't have had better role models. And Pat Neal, of course, was wonderful as well. They were giants of the industry. We were filming that section of the film in upper state New York and Woodstock, Vermont. And in Saratoga Springs, where we started. We were in a big old hotel called the Gideon Putnam [in Sarasota Springs, NY]. It was a summer stock sort of town; the race is in summer stock. This hotel had been wrapped up for the winter. They literally opened our bedrooms, and one huge ballroom for us and I suppose a couple of drawing rooms. They took off the wrappings, the sheets, the dust sheets and whatnot. Craig [Wasson] and I sat at this huge round table, they must have opened the kitchen for us. Every night we listened to them trading stories. It was extraordinary.

What an experience.

[Director] John Irvin did a really generous, thoughtful thing. We rehearsed for a week. As you quite rightly say, I had very little onscreen interaction with them. On the last afternoon of rehearsals, it was a Friday, he said, “Okay, today we're going to sit around a table, and we're going to read the script. With Fred and John and Douglas and all of them reading their young selves with Alice reading Eva. Then Craig read himself as the two young men, but they read their young selves. So, I had one fabulous afternoon where I sat around a table with them and worked.

One of your other most well-known characters is the Borg queen, who has been several different Star Trek properties. Star Trek is such an iconic thing with so many rabid fans. What is it like to be part of?

She was a fabulous character to play. Absolutely. Kind of iconic. I had such a grand time playing that role. (laughs) But I must say something that I always say, which is, I always think of it and refer to it as a collaborative performance. If you think about it, you can't think of her apart from how she looked. So, [makeup artist] Scott Wheeler created her head and make up, her face and Todd Masters made the suit. She's inseparable from that, from how she looks. They gave me an extraordinary gift. They gave me half the performance, really. Also, another thing that was wonderful, The Next Gen company, I really only worked when we were on set with Jonathan [Frakes] and Brent [Spiner] and Patrick [Stewart]. They were ever fabulous. They were funny and professional, but totally not jaded by the fact that they had played these characters over a period of years, still searching for the truth of the moment, which was fabulous. Of course, I met everyone else on the press tour, which was grand. Then I met the whole Star Trek universe of conventions. It just went on unfolding and getting better and better. It was an absolute gift on every level.

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#Alice Krige #2022 #Actress Interviews #She Will #Jay S. Jacobs

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watching-pictures-move · 6 months

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Movie Review | Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City (Roberts, 2021)

I think the comparisons to John Carpenter are a tad generous, and like 90% of modern movies, the lighting is garbage, but I have to hand it to the movie for being as stylistically confident as it is. The widescreen frame is put to consistently good use. There are moments like the oner from inside Donal Logue's car and the shootout lit by muzzle flares that find ways to meld stylistic flourishes to actual tension. (I should note that the latter was technically done earlier by Uwe Boll in Alone in the Dark to less acclaim, and I'd like to correct the record by pointing out it was a good stylistic touch there as well. Literally the only good stylistic touch there. But good nonetheless.) It's pretty obvious this was a COVID production, but I think the smallness and sense of depopulation work in the movie's favour.

All that being said, this has the unfortunate stench of a YouTube fan film stretched out to feature length. As nice as this sometimes looks, there's a ponderousness to the look that suggests it's trying really hard to elevate the trite source material. Aside from a few minutes of the fourth one which I picked up during a Steam sale, I haven't played any of the games, so the significance of a lot of this probably went over my head. But much of the dialogue here is a mix of callbacks and exposition that the mostly bland cast can't do anything to sell, beyond saying it slowly and awkwardly enough so you don't miss it. Probably the worst example is when Leon Kennedy and Jill Valentine introduce themselves to each other, followed by Claire Redfield loudly saying "We have to find my brother, Chris Redfield." And there are of references to relics of the '90s like chatrooms and Blockbuster as if characters are reminding each other what decade they're in. The only actors who emerge unscathed are Donal Logue, who gets some semblance of personality by being a gruff asshole, and Neal McDonough, who gets to chew some scenery in the climax.

And while I'm not a fan of the Paul W.S. Anderson movies, those at least move along at a decent pace, while this jerks from one set piece to the next, presumably building them around callbacks without much sense of how to stitch them together. That being said, the things this does well make me think I'd like it more if it came out fifteen years ago or so, at which point it likely would have been shot on film, better lit and had at least some practical effects. This actually feels like the 2021 equivalent of a movie I would have caught on the Scream channel during my high school days and logged on to the Rotten Tomatoes forums to post "Cool flick, especially the car scene and the shootout, 7/10" and posted a fresh tomato emoji or "This" underneath a bunch of other posts saying how much better it was than the Anderson movies. Now, I'm older and wiser, and have warmed up to the bozo nu metal style that was de rigueur in those days, and realize that both this and the Anderson movies are kinda lame, and that the best zombie video game adaptation is actually House of the Dead, where characters stand around and shoot at oncoming zombies light-gun-style, or Resident Evil: Apocalypse, where a character is introduced ass-first and fires wildly into a crowded police station and headshots all the zombies. Yeah, I'm all about quality cinema these days, although if somebody else had posted this back in the day, I'd probably have replied with a rotten tomato emoji.

#film #movie review #resident evil: welcome to raccoon city #johannes roberts

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apiratewhopines · 3 years

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I’m going to alternate artwork so we get leather-clad Killian and fancy dress up Killian.

Midnight

Chapter 3 — The Godfather

Summary: In which our heroine accepts the finer things in life

Chapter 3 of 7 on AO3

“He gave her things that she was needin’

He gave her a home built of gold and steel

A diamond car with platinum wheels”

-Minnie The Moocher, Cab Calloway

The creeping pace her warden set was nerve-racking. She wasn’t sure if it was her imagination or if every eye in the place was watching their slow procession through the ballroom. Finally exiting the room, they paused in the hallway and Emma said resignedly, “Let’s get this over with.”

“I’ve had my eye on you from the moment you walked in,” the other man commented, nodding to passersby with no hint of distress. “You should have known better than to think you could escape unnoticed.”

“Well, I thought if I left quietly, no one would be the wiser,” she replied, smiling at him with a hopeful kind of chagrin. “You can’t blame a girl for trying.”

“Don’t apologize, my dear. There are three of us in rebellion against this entertainment if you want to call it that. I think I may turn down all future invitations from Regina if this is the torture we will be subject to…” Grabbing her arm softly, he started steering them through the throng still attempting to find a place in the ballroom.

She was shocked they weren’t heading to the front entrance. The man, who had yet to introduce himself, was leading her down a back hallway. Moments later, he paused in front of a closed door. “You do play bridge, yes?”

Emma hadn’t played the game since she was a teenager staying with Granny, but as usual, the lessons the older woman taught her were going to save her from a terrible fate. “Yes, though I’m a bit rusty. But why me?”

“You’re charming, you’re bored, and you have the face of someone who wouldn’t trump your partner’s ace,” he explained with a breezy smile. Placing his finger to his lips to hush any further conversation, he pressed an ear to the door and then gave two quick raps against the frame. Taking one more second, he then opened it and ushered her in.

Upon entering, she saw two occupants huddled by the fireplace, which blazed happily with a roaring fire in opposition to the warm night. Immediately, his pause made sense as she noticed a faint smudge of lipstick on the smooth skin of the man’s face.

“Lancelot, Guinevere, allow me to introduce Madam—I’m sorry, I don’t think I caught your name.”

Scrambling, she said the first thing that popped into her mind. “Jones.”

“Ah, Madam Jones, I’m Sidney Glass, your knight in shining armor for the evening. This is Guinevere Soberano and Lancelot du Lac, your fellow insurrectionists.” Her knight joked before adding, “Lance is the most dangerous man in the room, so watch yourself.”

Seeing how the tall, handsome man took his time sizing her up, she had a feeling she knew what made him dangerous. The fashionable lines of his tuxedo did little to hide his muscular build, and while he wasn’t the sexiest man she’d met that evening, she knew if they had met on any other night of her life, he would have been. She could tell by how his eyes continued to seek her out that he wasn’t immune to her charms either. It should have made her feel better considering she’d been in the same outfit for nearly two days and her hair was still wet from her dash through the thunderstorm. Instead, it made her feel tired.

Taking a seat with trepidation, she tried to hide her feelings of discomfort. She was the one who ran when offered a cozy landing place, so now she needed to play the hand she was dealt. Literally. Watching as Sidney took over as dealer, she asked, “What are we playing for? Bragging rights?”

“How about our normal stakes? Five dollars a point?”

Eyes wide, she calculated if she remembered the game correctly, there would be thousands of dollars exchanging hands tonight. If only a fraction of that money came her way, she may be able to get out of this dress and fill up her tank so she could hit the road and resume her search. She refused to think about what she would do if she didn’t win. Granny had been a cutthroat player, so she had more than enough practice.

Lance settled in as her partner, his eyes never leaving her face as the group silently arranged their cards and planned their strategies. Her heart racing, Emma mumbled, “Two spades.”

And the game began.

Hours later, they were in the hole and she couldn’t help wishing Sidney or the other woman was her partner. Lance seemed much more interested in flirting with her than winning, and if she weren’t sure it would get her thrown out, she would have kicked him under the table for screwing up her chance to turn her luck around. Not to mention the fact that with every suggestive exchange, Guinevere’s eyes grew a little bit colder. She had a feeling the woman would make a formidable enemy.

The door to their hideaway opened to admit her former neighbor, his eyes as unnerving by firelight as they had been in the brighter gleam of the ballroom. The ever-present smirk was there in full force as he made his way to their table and planted himself between Lance and Guinevere. “Darling, why don’t you introduce me to your newest recruit?”

“Madam Jones, this is my husband Arthur Soberano, the only man on the planet who enjoys these little parties. Arthur, this is Madam Jones, a woman in need of a better bridge partner.”

“It’s so hard to concentrate on cards sometimes,” Lance murmured, his heated glance never leaving her face so no one had any doubts about what was distracting him.

Arthur observed the exchange, and the subsequent reactions, with the expression of a man who finally found his silver lining. She hoped it was catching. “Jones, eh? Would you be one of the Rhode Island Joneses?”

Pasting a bright smile on her face, she demurred. “No, but I’ve heard they’re lovely people.”

“You’re American, correct?”

“What gave it away? My abysmal accent?”

“Something like that,” Arthur responded with a smile. “So if not Rhode Island, what Jones clan do you hail from?”

“Oh, Jones is my married name. My husband is from Cambridge.”

“Of course! I should have known. I ran into Baron Jones a few years ago in Budapest, and he spoke of an American girl. How is he? Is he here tonight?”

Resisting the urge to roll her eyes, because of course there would be a Baron Jones and of course this enigmatic man would know him, she stared at her cards and hoped she sounded more convincing than she felt when she said, “No, no. He’s still in Budapest. He wasn’t feeling well enough for transatlantic travel. You know, the old trouble flaring up.”

Tsking with a hint of amusement, Arthur narrowed his eyes. “That’s too bad. Guinevere, we really must make a trip there soon. Beautiful city. Tell me, Madam Jones, did they ever finish the metro Line 1?”

For the love of all that was holy, would the man never stop with the questions? “You know how construction is…the roads are still a mess here and there.”

She knew by the way his body shifted that she had misstepped. She wasn’t sure what trap he laid, but she walked right into it. To add insult to injury, the final hand of the night went into their loss column.

Lance shook his head in defeat and pulled out his wallet. “I really must apologize, Madam Jones. I’m usually a much better player. You’ll have to let me make amends to you. Perhaps lunch tomorrow? What’s your favorite place?”

“That depends, Lance. How much money am I out tonight? I will exact revenge in corresponding measure.”

Sidney piped in with a gleeful laugh. “Four thousand dollars from each of you. Not a bad haul, if I do say so myself. But bypassing the awful concert makes the win priceless.”

Her head swam with the figure, trying to ignore the way Arthur was circling the room like a caged lion and wondering how plausible it was for a baroness not to carry cash. Surely, the nobility class had people to handle this kind of thing for them. “I’m not sure I have that much on me. I hope you’ll accept my IOU. Has anyone seen my bag?”

She saw the look Guinevere and Sidney exchanged and her stomach dropped. They wouldn’t let it go. Perhaps looking for her non-existent purse would allow her to sneak out.

“Is this it, Madam Jones?”

“Yes, thank you.” Turning around, she saw a beaded clutch she’d never laid eyes on before in Arthur’s extended hand. She hadn’t stolen a single thing in her life, and she wasn’t thrilled to start now, but desperate times called for desperate measures.

Opening it, she found a wad of cash that looked like it could bankroll a small country for a year. Shocked, her gaze flew to meet Arthur’s and he winked before departing the room.

—

No matter how hard she tried to shake him, Lance would not leave her alone. Subsequently, everyone in the entourage hung on like they had nothing better to do than tag along while she flitted around the club trying to lose them. Finally, the evening started breaking up. Large groups of people gave each other air kisses and made plans to meet at various houses for brunch the next day. Freedom was within reach if she could only make it out the front door.

They bid goodbye to their hostess, who was high on finding the supposed party crasher, an older woman they dragged from the downstairs powder room and tossed out into the night, still swearing she didn’t know anyone named Neal and claiming she was the Duchess of Longbourn.

Emma thought a silent apology to the woman and hoped karma graded on a curve.

“Allow me to wait with you until your car pulls around,” Lance said, offering his arm to help her down the steps.

“I’d hate to trouble you,” Emma ground out, her voice deepened with the effort of holding in a groan of frustration. “My chauffeur is habitually late.”

“Then I should give you a ride,” Lance countered. He had yet to let go of her arm, and she was afraid she would have to cut it off to make a clean break. “Where are you staying?”

Having no clue of the lodging situation in Misthaven, she worried about another trap under Arthur’s expectant stare. “I’ll give you three guesses.”

“The Ritz,” he immediately countered.

“Right in one! But really, I’d rather wait for my car.” When the words left her mouth, the familiar lines of a black BMW cruised down the street slowly like the driver was looking for something. Or someone. Panicked, she flashed her new admirer a dazzling smile. “On second thought, let’s get out of here.”

As Lance handed her into his sports car, she heard Guinevere’s voice muttering to Sidney, “We don’t know anything about her. She came here all alone.”

“I notice she’s not leaving alone,” Arthur replied, smile widening as he caught her eye through the window and gave her a jaunty wave.

By jumping into a car with a virtual stranger for the second time that evening, she avoided one issue but created another. Her time was running out because this charade was doomed to fail when they arrived at the hotel and there wasn’t a room for Baroness Jones. She’d have to get rid of him in the parking lot.

Unsurprisingly, considering how her night was going, it was easier said than done. Lance appeared to be a gentleman if you overlooked his tendency to have affairs with other men’s wives and wouldn’t hear of dropping her off at the entrance. Throwing his keys toward the valet stand, he made his way to the concierge desk over her protests that she had some things to handle in the lobby before heading to her room.

She closed her eyes as she heard him say, “Checking into Baroness Jones’s room.”

Here it came. The boom.

“Of course, sir. Will that be all?”

Opening one eye, she watched as the employee handed over the room card. This couldn’t be right. She must be trapped in some nightmare where her pain and humiliation hung like a knife above her head, and the anticipation of the stabbing turned out to be worse than the violent act itself.

Laughing with fake merriment, she snatched the card from Lance before he could pocket it and said forcefully, “Thank you for a lovely evening. Good night.”

“My mother always said to see a woman to her door, or my job wasn’t done.”

Unable to hide her exasperation one second longer, she asked, “Don’t you know when to go home?”

“No.” With a broad smile, he held the elevator door open while she entered and wished for death. In hindsight, her original plan of sleeping on a park bench seemed like a real winner compared to this slow torture. She wouldn’t allow herself to think about the warm bed and warmer smile she had also turned down.

Tired, annoyed, and pining for her original driver of the evening, she didn’t even try to maintain a conversation with the man beside her, her head filled with dread at the idea she was about to open the door to a hotel room occupied by the real Baroness Jones. With the resigned stride of a prisoner walking the green mile, she reached the room slower than the situation called for and leaned against the door facing Lance. With a stony expression, she said pointedly, “Look, right to the door. You did your mother proud and can go home and sleep peacefully.”

“What? No nightcap?”

“No, absolutely not. I don’t need a mother to tell me inviting a man into my hotel room in the middle of the night is a bad idea. Go home.”

Laughing, he reached out and pushed her hair away from her face. “You’re magnificent.”

“I’m also married,” she bit out, barely resisting the urge to slap his hand away. There was something riveting about a man with an overabundance of confidence, but she refused to be charmed. If she were going to give in to any urges, she would have done it with the person behind Door Number One.

“So I’ve heard. At least make sure the card works. Those things are notoriously fickle, like most wives I’ve met.”

Chuckling despite herself, she swiped the card against the reader, grateful to hear the lock disengage in the quiet hallway. “There. Good night.”

Before he could say or do anything else, she slipped into the room and clicked the door firmly back in place. She tiptoed through the suite, not daring to turn on the lights while she looked for any trace someone else was in the room. Her search coming up empty, she reached over and flooded the bedroom with light.

The king-size bed looked heavenly. Giggling, she decided to make the most of this temporary reprieve. She dropped her clothes in a pile and ran to the bathroom, happy to find it as luxurious as the rest of the rooms in the suite. Turning the water all the way to hot, she allowed the steamy spray to wash away the hurt, the hopelessness, and the hysteria.

She stepped out of the shower an hour later, eyes red-rimmed and body weak with fatigue. Not even bothering to dry off, she collapsed in the bed and fell into a sleep plagued with blue eyes and black cars.

—

The sound of the antique telephone ringing penetrated the fog in her brain as the last strands of sleep broke. Startled, Emma glanced down at her nude form and immediately looked beside her to see if she was alone. Her dreams of the previous night didn’t fade quickly, and the vivid image of the Captain and his wonderful stubble made her ache.

Groaning as memory replaced fantasy, she plopped back against the mattress and grabbed one of the nearly two dozen pillows haphazardly strewn across the bed to cover her head in an attempt to drown out the noise.

It wasn’t really her hotel room, so she probably shouldn’t answer it anyway.

Unfortunately, the caller didn’t know she was an imposter and seemed determined to reach the room’s occupant. She picked up the receiver and pulled it under the pillow to join her. In a groggy voice she asked, “What?”

The chirpy voice of a hotel employee responded, “Good morning, Baroness Jones. Your luggage has arrived.”

“From Boston?” That didn’t make any sense. She’d pawned her last remaining possessions less than forty-eight hours ago, but unless she packed a boomerang in the pocket of her favorite jeans, she wasn’t sure what they were doing in Misthaven.

“I’m not sure, madam. The delivery driver only mentioned it was for the baroness. It should be arriving at your room momentarily.”

As if summoned by magic, there was a knock and she hung up the phone while trying to wrap herself in the thick comforter. Dragging the ends of the blanket like a train behind her, she threw open the door and felt her eyes widen at the sight greeting her. Lining the hallway was a parade of hotel employees carrying a few pieces of luggage each.

In mute shock, she moved out of the way and the group started piling the bags in the living room of the suite. When the final trunk was laid in the corner by the wall of windows overlooking the town, she stood staring unblinkingly at the head bellhop.

“Will there be anything else, Baroness?”

“No, I think this is quite enough.”

“Very well.”

The group seemed hesitant to depart, and she did a quick check to make sure her makeshift toga hadn’t slipped. Finding everything was as it should be, reason soaked through her dazed brain and she said, “Oh, the tip!”

“No, madam. Your chauffeur took care of it already. He wanted to know if you’d be needing the car today. It’s beautiful weather out.”

“My chauffeur took care of the tip and wants to know if I need the car…” she echoed back, trying to see if the words made more sense if she was the one saying them. No. No such luck. She was going mad. That was the only explanation. Or maybe the Captain wasn’t all he seemed to be and he had drugged her and this was simply a hallucination. Noticing the flock of bellhops was waiting patiently for her response, she smiled benignly and said, “I wouldn’t be surprised.”

A voice called out from the doorway, “And what about breakfast, Baroness?”

The hotel employees filed out, leaving her and her unexpected visitor alone. Pulling the comforter more tightly around herself, she hissed, “Arthur. It was you.”

“What was me, my dear?”

“The money, the room, the clothes, the chauffeur. Does Baron Jones even exist, or did you make him up?”

“I like to think of him as more of a group effort. You provided the inspiration; I provided the title. Seeing you in all your lost girl glory last night gave me an idea.”

“From the moment you looked at me, I had an idea you had an idea. I’m not interested.”

Chuckling, he tossed his hat and jacket across a nearby chair and sank into the couch. “I’m sure there is a robe or something a little less linen closet in one of these suitcases. I’ll close my eyes while you look if you’d like.”

“I think I’ll stay over here.” Where it’s safe.

“You have nothing to fear from me, dear. I’m here to make a proposal. One that will be mutually beneficial, I hope,” he drawled, picking a piece of fluff off his pants. He continued to avert his eyes, which she found strange since he stopped by to proposition her over breakfast apparently. “This is only the tip of the iceberg. I can guarantee you’ll never have to worry about money again.”

“Still not interested. You know the way out.”

“Come on, Baroness. Why don’t you slip into something more comfortable and hear me out? I promise it’s nothing like what you think.”

“Arthur, when Little Red Riding Hood spots long, gray whiskers, it’s ridiculous to keep insisting you’re the grandmother,” she retorted, moving carefully toward the nearest bag so she didn’t accidentally flash him. Pulling out a shirt at random, she riffled through the case until she found a pair of shorts as well. Scrambling to the bathroom, she called out over her shoulder. “Go huff and puff somewhere else.”

“I guess that means I’m the big bad wolf,” he said with a smile as he moved to trail after her. When she slammed the door in his face, he raised his voice and added, “I’ve certainly been called worse. Tell me, what was your impression of Lance?”

“I think neither of you takes no for an answer very well,” she mumbled as she pulled on the shirt and stared at herself in the mirror. What bizarre alternate universe had she stumbled into, and how in the world was she going to return to reality. Talking to her reflection, she said, “You’re Emma Swan. You’re not a baroness. Killian Jones is not your husband. You are not going to shack up with Lance or Arthur.”

“Nice pep talk, but if I may be so bold as to suggest a different path,” her visitor interrupted from the other side of the door. “You see, my old friend Lancelot and my wife think they are in love.”

“That’s very cozy but not my problem.”

“I’d like to pay you to make it your problem, Emma Swan. Nice name, by the way. Last night was the first time since their affair started that I thought there might be a ray of hope. The whole time Lance was flirting with you, my wife was fighting tears.”

Rolling her eyes, she snapped open the door and was satisfied to see him lose his balance. “Who won?”

“I plan to, and I’d like you to be on my team. I just need you to keep his attention long enough for Guin to come to her senses.”

Moving past him, she picked up her discarded dress from the prior evening and grabbed the laundry bag out of the nearby closet. “Why don’t you punch him and be done with it?”

“He’s the top man at our boxing club. And besides, the last thing I need is to drive her further into his arms by making him a martyr.” He reached over and placed his hand on her arm, stilling her frantic movements. “Please. At least hear me out.”

Meeting his gaze for the first time since he entered the room, she observed, “You really love her, don’t you?”

“Yes. She’s not the only one who made mistakes. I need your help to make this right. And it might work out well for you too, you know. Lance’s family makes a superior income from a very inferior champagne. He’s no baron, but he does have the bank account of one.”

“I think you need a lawyer, not another homewrecker.”

“I’ll never get a divorce. Come on, Emma. We’re having a party at my estate in the Enchanted Forest. Come out this weekend and give it a go. I’ll pay you fifty thousand to show up and another fifty if this harebrained scheme works.”

“I… I’m not sure…”

“Am I upsetting some other plans? Do you have another offer?”

Thinking of black leather jackets and pie, she smiled wistfully. Shaking herself, she tried to focus on the fact that a hundred grand would pay back what Neal had stolen from Granny and leave enough for her to put a down payment on a place in the city. “Yes, I think I do. But fine, I’ll play along through the end of the weekend. Then I’m out regardless of what happens.”

“Fair enough. I’ll let Guin know I ran into you and invited you to join the party,” he said with a grin. If he had a mustache, she was sure he’d be twirling it.

Before they could discuss any other details, there was another knock at the door. With an exasperated expression, Emma asked her companion, “What now?”

Putting his hands up in a placating gesture, Arthur assured her, “Hey, this one isn’t me.”

Yanking open the door, she saw an enormous bouquet of red roses. She took the flowers with both hands as Arthur cocked his eyebrow in silent question and pulled out the card. “‘If I had a single flower for every time I think about you, I could walk forever in my garden. -Lance.’ Huh. I rather resent that. The note to Guin just said, ‘So glad we met.’”

Notes:

For those who were wondering about Arthur’s trap, the Budapest subway is one of the oldest in the world and the line he mentioned was completed in 1896.

The quote on Lancelot’s card is from Claudia Adrienne Grandi.

@teamhook @kmomof4 @jrob64 @stahlop @motherkatereloyshipper @xarandomdreamx @xsajx @klynn-stormz

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gay-jesus-probably · 3 years

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Hey book rec for anyone that's into hard sci fi, I just read Seveneves by Neal Stephenson and it was incredibly good; I stayed up until 3-4 in the morning reading it two days in a row, it's really damn engaging.

It's also dark as fuck - the story begins with the moon exploding, for reasons that are never explained, because after the first week everybody realizes they have much bigger problems. Namely with the remnants of the moon, which initially start out as seven big fuckoff chunks hanging out where the moon used to be... but then they start bumping in to each other and breaking, and that collision sends a lot of pieces closer to Earth's orbit. That's a problem, because the more pieces the moon is split into, the more likely those pieces are to collide with each other, which makes more debris, which makes more collisions... it's a vicious cycle. And only a small amount of those bolides end up hitting the earth! ...But exponential growth means eventually they pass the point of no return where the debris cloud around earth is breaking apart fast enough to cover the planet (called the White Sky), and after a few days of white sky the Hard Rain begins, and the combined force of all those bolide meteors burning up at the same time literally sets Earth's atmosphere on fire, scorching the planet and rendering it uninhabitable for the next five thousand years.

They figure this out at the end of the first week. The Hard Rain begins 701 days after the moon explodes. They've got time. And pretty much all of that is spent with humanity throwing all of its resources into building the Cloud Ark, using the ISS as a base to try and construct a viable space colony (though plans to survive by going underground and underwater get throwaway mentions). It's an interesting take on it too; when the Hard Rain begins, the population of the Cloud Ark is 1552, but less than 200 of them actually live on the ISS full time; the majority live in Arklets, little pods that grow their own food and can hold a few people each, and can connect to each other to form groups or to stimulate gravity by spinning around each other like a bolo. At any given time, about 10% of them are docked with the ISS, restocking supplies and letting their crews socialize with the general population. Despite that, there's... rifts. Entirely caused by one fucking person playing politics and manipulating the Arkies into accepting her as a leader for no real reason except her being traumatized by escaping Earth at the last minute and trying to feel safe by taking control of the situation, justifying it to herself as she goes. Or maybe just her being a piece of shit, it's all just guesswork from the protagonists aboard the ISS, and by the time they get to the point of being able to sit down and properly talk with the troublemaker, things are so turbofucked that things like motives and past actions genuinely do not matter anymore.

Aand I'm not going to spoil any more of that. The book is split into three parts; part 1 begins with the moon exploding, and ends with the Hard Rain, part 2 begins right after that with the Cloud Ark trying to put together and enact a long term plan for survival, while dealing with frequent problems caused by both the hazards of space, and the Arkies becoming increasingly rebellious and hostile towards The Man (aka the general population on the ISS), and ends three years later with the remaining survivors succeeding in reaching a safe place to land the ISS for good, and coming to an agreement about their long term plans for humanity. Part 3 is... sorta weird and tbh I kinda skimmed it; it's set five thousand years later, where the Earth is returning to a habitable state, helped along by deliberate terraforming from the space colonists, and then discovering that those throwaway plans from part 1 for going underground and underwater both succeeded off screen, and five thousand years later their descendants are starting to move back up to the surface. The third part is more slice of life, showing how humanity has survived and changed, as well as the Spacers, Diggers and Pingers (descendants of survivors from space, underground, and underwater respectively) figuring out how to communicate with each other, and realizing the connections some of their ancestors shared with each other.

As you can guess by the whole apocalypse thing, it gets pretty fucking grim, both in part 1 with people trying to face the imminent apocalypse with relative dignity, and in part 2 with the already tiny population slowly shrinking as more and more people die off. But the novel is undercut with moments of hope (or even just joy) as people work together and find reasons to live in each other, along with the incredible sacrifices people make just to try and ensure humanity has a chance at a future. Plus the whole looming apocalypse/aftermath of apocalypse thing is broken up with occasional exposition dumps explaining stuff like the finer points of orbital mechanics, which is really damn interesting if you're a space nerd like I am.

Anyways 10/10 would recommend reading it if you're cool with the depressing setting; just googling Seveneves PDF turns up a page full of results to read it for free, so it's super easy to find.

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happygirl2oo2 · 4 years

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Fence: Striking Distance fanart I'd love see made

Please, I can't draw but I need those in my life so badly, and no this list has no order really so do whatever

Harvard and Aiden's fair date (bonus points if you include Aiden's years of dreaming of it as well)

Seiji and The Bros (any scene of your pick)

Harvard on his motorcycle (bonus points if it includes his leather jacket that he literally bought for "practicality", god I love him)

Harvard and Aiden's first time meeting as kids back in kindergarden (bonus points if that includes the full scene with Harvard being Best Boy even as a 5 year old)

The (failed) trust falls scene

Harvard and his mom (I'd take anything, really, but bonus points maybe if it's their talk after he realized he's been in love with Aiden all this time 'cause he told Aiden when he came back that that's what he did)

The scene of Seiji in the lines "He walked off, a stern, remote presence among the joyful crowd. A guy hopping on one foot almost crashed into him. On reception of a chilling glance from Seiji, he decided to throw himself upon the floor instead."

That scene of Harvard and Aiden in the hospital as kids when Harvard's dad was sick and Aiden came back after he was forced to leave 'cause he "want[ed] to be with Harvard"

Aiden and Rosita (possible ideas for it- her singing to him as a kid, the scene of them in the parking lot...)

The 'steaks run in the woods' scene

Aiden picking out his outfit for his fair date with Harvard (he canonly told Harvard that he just bought that for their date, but boy's been dreaming about this date, in detail, for years ok, so you better believe that either he had this outfit tucked away and saved for that occasion only in the hopes that it might happen and he couldn't tell Harvard that OR that he was so excited he really went shopping to get the perfect outfit for his dream date with Harvard, and I'd take a drawing of either version you want 'cause I love them both)

'Nicholas giving Seiji his fixed watch' scene

Harvard and Aiden's first time to Kings Row

"What are you doing tonight?" "Being heterosexual? Or.. maybe not?" scene

Harvard and Aiden in the rain under one coat (Harvard mentioned that it's been happening constantly since they were 10, so bonus points if if it's them, like this, over the years, eventually ending with the scene of it in the fair date)

Harvard taking care of sick Aiden

Dante being Done® with the fence team (scene to your choosing, there's a bunch)

The scene where Harvard and Aiden are being romantic while the others ignore them to focus on crime

Nickholas and Aiden's talk at the campfire

Harvard cooing over the picture Coach's baby nephew she showed him on her phone (happened in the first chapter, bonus points if you include "Aiden sneaked a glance at Harvard's glowing face and then smiled to himself" in the background)

In the same scene as the one the idea above is from, it was also mentioned that Harvard secretly collected videos of kittens and puppies being friends, so a drawing of that maybe..?

Harvard and Aiden's "Because it means nothing" scene (because apparently I'm not dead enough inside yet)

Seiji's first time at breakfast scene (Bonus points Nicholas lowkey stealing Dante's food, and extra bonus points if it includes the scene with "-the best looking guy in school, everyone agrees-"×"Wait, why are we suddenly talking about Seiji?")

Harvard and Aiden's first kiss

Harvard waking up Aiden in the morning (it's canonly said to happen a lot, so you can make it as you wish, but I have the scene if you want it for reference, and bonus points if it's them doing it over the years, starting with younger them doing it by phone like Harvard recalled and ending with it now with their room and shared bed in Kings Row. Additional bonus points if you also make the scene of him telling Aiden boring stories to help him fall asleep)

Follow up on the one above- if you end up just drawing that 'telling him boring stories to help him fall asleep' scene instead, then bonus points if Harvard starts the story with them both as kids, as he's canonly been doing it for years ever since their first sleepover, and ends it with them as they are now at their room in Kings Row

The scene with Seiji, Jesse and Aiden in the woods but the part where "“I knew it, I knew horrible things were happening at Kings Row,” Jesse muttered. He stopped tugging persuasively and pulled at Seiji’s wrist hard enough to hurt, so Seiji’s sleeve was disarranged and the dying light caught his watch. “And what ghastly object are you wearing on your wrist?!” “That’s my favorite watch,” Seiji snapped, and twisted his arm free."

Harvard and Aiden's first sleepover

The campfire scene, specifically the part in the lines "Nicholas made a grab for the big bag of marshmallows, despite Seiji’s attempts to foil him. He fought for possession of the bag while Harvard brought Aiden a drink from the cooler and Eugene protested loudly: “Watch the fire! Bros, I’m concerned you’re gonna actually fall into the huge roaring fire.”"

Aiden and Seiji little talk in the woods after they walked away from Jesse

Harvard and his mom's magazines

The night cook-in meet thing at Dante and Bobby's room (all parts of that scene are on the table but possible bonus points for the part where Harvard's smiling at a text from Neal and Aiden accidently knocks over the burner which sets the curtain on fire)

The campfire scene, the lines "Eugene reached out with hope for a fist bump. Seiji waved him away irritably. “You saw what happened with the weight lifters earlier. Do you think I am in the mood for more physical contact today?” “Understood, bro,” said Eugene, lowering his fist. “Catch you tomorrow, on another righteous teammate day! I think you’re all the best, bros!” Instantly his fist shot back up in position. Seiji gave Eugene a betrayed look. “It’s a reflex, bro,” Eugene assured Seiji. “I didn’t mean anything by it.” Seiji made a grouchy sound and moved closer to Nicholas for protection from fist bumps."

Harvard and Aiden's double date

The Nicholas and Seiji scene in the lines "Seiji clung to the curtain as if it was a security blanket and he was a big baby. "I need the curtain." "You need me," said Nicholas. Seiji Blinked. "What?" "You require my present?" Nicholas reminded him."

The two Harvard and Aiden Araté scenes, next to each other- the one in the Salle where they're fencing, kinda early in the book, and the one in their room with the last kiss, around the end of the book

Seiji seeing Dante trying to sit next to Nicholas and Nicholas telling him "hey, dude, no, I'm saving this seat for Seiji" before he come to the table and sat there

Harvard playing video games with his little cousin (he mentioned to coach, quite early in the book, that he did it occassionally)

Nicholas and the Bros at the fair

Seiji's chat with his dad (bonus points if you also drew the memory of Seiji as a kid that his dad brought up here)

The scene in the woods with Seiji, Jesse and Aiden, especially the lines "Aiden rolled his eyes. “Oh my God, there are three of them.” “There’s only one of me,” Jesse snapped. “I’m Jesse Coste.” He tossed his head up high. Seiji had seen other people quail when faced with half the fury currently gleaming in Jesse’s blue eyes or contained in the arrogant lift of his chin. “Don’t flip your hair at me, freshman,” Aiden sneered back. “I’m Aiden Kane.” Aiden shook back his own light, bright, curling hair from his face and looked down his nose at Jesse. “Who?” Jesse asked. “Ask some of the Exton boys,” Aiden drawled. “I don’t remember their names, but I guarantee you they’ll know mine.”"

Nicholas and Seiji moving the curtain scene

Eugene telling Nicholas about the prank (poor dude about to pass out while Nicholas is touched by it)

Harvard and Neal (mostly for Haiden angst in edits purposes to be honest 😬 But also 'cause Harvard is Best Boyfriend no matter who he's with and I kinda want to see it)

Seiji & Nicholas being Oblivious Freshmen

Aiden's coming out to Harvard when they were.. 15 I think it was(?) scene (it's been mentioned in Aiden's thoughts in the scene where Harvard comes out to him after his date with that girl), maybe? Idk

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hookedonapirate · 4 years

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I’ll Hold On To You

Summary: When Emma said “a onetime thing,” she didn't think he'd take it so literally.

A/N: This happened because of all the Neverland smut talk on Discord and because I wanted to contribute to the wonderful collection.

I was listening to Don't Give Up On Me by Andy Grammer while I was writing this and it reminded me of Killian, especially in the episode, Dark Hollow, so that's where the title comes from.

Hope you enjoy :)

Rated: Explicit because, well, it’s basically pure smut ;)

Also available on: AO3 I FF.N

I will fight I will fight for you I always do until my heart Is black and blue

And I will stay I will stay with you We'll make it to the other side Like lovers do

I'll reach my hands out in the dark And wait for yours to interlock I'll wait for you I'll wait for you

—Don't Give Up On Me by Andy Grammer

There’s something about the way he constantly stares at he—the way those damn drowning blue eyes hold such a blinding intensity that gives her goosebumps, the way his tongue darts across his lips so obscenely, it should be illegal, the way he doesn’t even try to hide the fact that he’s staring at her—which makes her want to throw her damn promise out the window.

A onetime thing is what she’d said.

So why does she want so much more than that from him? Why does she want to peel away all that leather until he’s standing before her glorious and naked, his manhood hard and throbbing and aching to fill her to the brim and why does she want to wrap her legs around his hips so snug and tight, allowing him to drive into her so hard and deep and fast until she’s seeing stars and screaming out his name, until she’s falling apart in his arms?

She wants to hate him; she wants to pretend that kiss never happened, but now she knows what his mouth tastes like and that his tongue feels like soft silk against her own and how warm and firm his body feels pressed against hers. Now she’s screaming on the inside, fighting an internal battle, fighting for her sanity when she’s supposed to be finding her son. But she can’t help it. She craves Hook with every fiber of her being and she’s afraid all the walls she’s built up so high will come tumbling around her with just the right look. But she knows the burning desire between them will only fade once she gives in to the allure of it all, and then she will be able to find some sort of semblance again. She’ll be able to breathe again.

Or so she's convinced herself.

The sun had sunk below the horizon an hour ago when they set up camp and now they’re sitting around the fire and they’re running low on wood. Emma had avoided sitting by him because she was afraid the fire wouldn’t have been the only thing heating their campsite if he were too close. But now he’s looking at her from across the dancing flames, and she knows that look too well. But this time there’s much more heat behind his stare than there was before their kiss—there’s more intensity, more hunger—and she has to bite her lip when her eyes connect with his. She has to resist the temptation of giving in when all she wants to do is give in. She wants to be touched by him. She wants to be ravaged by him.

His gaze is so intense she can’t hear anything—not the critters of the night or the crackling of the fire or the other people chatting around her as she stares back at him. She can engage in this staring contest with him all night long since she probably won’t be able to sleep a wink tonight anyway, but then he does the one thing she knows will break her. Make her succumb. He wets his lips, that sinfully delicious tongue emerging from the seam of his mouth, and that’s what does her in. She has to swallow the moan threatening to claw its way up her throat as she thinks about how good that tongue would feel between her thighs.

Mmmm…

She stands from her spot, never once taking her eyes off Killian, and does her best to sound as subtle as possible. “I'm going to gather some more wood. Hook, want to give me a hand?”

The most ridiculous grin creeps over Killian’s face, not helping her situation. It’s certainly not going to dry her panties. “Is that a joke, love?” he teases, throwing her own words in her face.

“Sorry, poor choice of words,” she apologizes, offering a small smile. She’s waiting for Killian to stand and join her, but Neal beats him to the punch.

“I’ll go with you, Ems.”

Killian shoots up from his spot, gritting his teeth and glaring daggers at Neal. “I believe the lady asked me to come with her.”

Neal shrugs. “I just figure she could use more hands.”

Hook's jaw twitches as he steps up to Neal with an almost murderous look in his eyes. “Trust me, mate, I can do more with one hand than you could ever do with eight.”

“All right, all right, that’s enough,” David interjects, trying to diffuse the obvious tension brewing between Neal and Killian. “Why don’t you both go so Emma doesn’t have to go venturing off in the woods in the dark.”

“I’ll be fine,” Emma assures him. “I was a homeless orphan on the streets when I was a child, I can handle myself in the woods.” Emma immediately regrets her words when she sees the sad, regretful look on her mother's face. “I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that.”

Mary Margaret shakes her head, waving off her words. “No, you're right, you're more than capable of looking out for yourself.”

“Okay, so it’s settled; I’m going, but I don't feel like getting lost in the woods and, Hook, you know the island more than anyone so you're coming with me.”

“Hey, I know this island just as well as he does,” Neal argues defensively.

“Well, I didn't ask you to come with me. I asked Hook,” she states firmly, not in the mood, nor does she have the time or patience to put up with Neal's petty arguments. She just wants some alone time with Hook, but he and Neal are too busy having a stare-down to notice her shoving past them. “Let's go,” she says to Hook.

“As you wish, love.”

A faint smile pulls at her lips as she walks away from the site, her heart fluttering in her chest. She'll never get tired of hearing him say that.

She walks ahead of him until they're far enough away from the others, until Emma's sure they won't be able to hear her or Killian. When he starts picking up sticks from the forest floor, Emma has to suppress a laugh. He actually thought she pulled him away to grab more wood. Well, she supposes she escaped to grab wood, she just had a different kind of wood in mind. “You do know that wood is going right back to the ground, right?”

Killian rises after picking up another stick, and eyes her inquisitively. “Is that not the purpose of escaping camp and coming here?”

Emma saunters to him, planting her hands on her hips and tossing him a saucy smirk. “Oh, we'll be coming all right.”

Killian arches a brow and clutches the wood tighter to his chest, still oblivious to her intentions. “Coming where, love?”

Emma purses her lips and surveys their surroundings until her eyes land on an acceptable surface behind him. It's really the best they can do, given the circumstances and lack of space. “Against that tree will do.”

He turns his head to see what tree she's referring to while she waits for him to get it—to understand what her words are implying—and honestly, she expected him to catch on much quicker than this. He is a three-hundred-year-old pirate after all. Maybe he understands, but he's playing dumb because he's afraid to get his hopes up. She told him that kiss was only a onetime thing so maybe he took it to heart.

He takes a full moment—a moment of scratching being his ear, of quirking his handsome features and furrowing his brows—before it finally dawns on him, before the comprehension finally flickers in his eyes, before the wrinkles in his forehead finally smooth over and his mouth falls agape as he processes her words.

But they've already wasted enough time and her parents are probably wondering what's taking so long. So she acts quickly, grabbing his face and capturing his lips, earning a surprised groan from his throat and relishing the way the sound reverberates through her body. He's taken off guard at first, but it doesn't take long for him to move his lips against hers, to toss the wood to the forest floor with a thump so he can thread his fingers through her golden locks of hair, pulling her closer as she wraps her arms around the back of his neck.

His tongue is just as pliant and warm and skilled as she remembers, plunging into her mouth so greedily, moving and flicking and pressing deliciously against hers. They're breathing each other in every time their lips change angles, and they're fighting for dominance, the dual of tongues and teeth making her head spin. He's pushing her back up against the tree she had mentioned earlier, and her heart is racing as he presses into her and swallows the gasp she makes when she feels how hard he is against her. God, he feels good, like heaven and sin; she can tell he's big, her clit is pulsing and she’s aching to have him inside her.

She sucks his tongue into her mouth, earning what she can only describe as a primal growl from his throat and she doesn't want the kiss to end (she didn't want the kiss to end last time either) but she needs him. She breaks the kiss to tug her shirt over her head and toss it to the ground, and when he doesn’t voice a protest (as if he would) she pulls off her white, lacy bra, adding it to the pile. His eyes go big and wide and he's staring at her breasts like it's Christmas morning (even though she doubts he's ever experienced one) and he takes them in his palm, kneading her honey-soft flesh and caressing softly. They fit perfectly in his hand like they were made for him, and her head falls back, landing softly against the tree with a moan. Her panties are fucking soaked.

His arms tighten around her as he kisses down the column of her neck, and she's closing her eyes, relishing the way his lips feel, the way his teeth nip her skin as he makes his way down, reaching her chest and mouthing her breasts. He draws a soft, pink nipple into his mouth, licking and teasing and moving his tongue around until her nipple is hard and swollen before he switches to the other one. A moan escapes her mouth when he’s suckling harder and lifting his hook to her other breast, the cool metal circling her nipple. Her breaths come out in shallow pants as he caresses her nipples with his fingers, his tongue, his hook and God it's amazing, she could come if he keeps this up.

“Harder...” she breathes, her words wrecked.

He eagerly complies, pinching a little harder as she pulls his face to hers and resumes their sloppy kissing. She removes her hands from his cheeks to reach between them and struggles to undo his pants.

God damn it, why does he have to wear so many clothes all the fucking time, especially in this godforsaken humidity? She finally unzips his leather pants and shoves her hand inside to find what's waiting for her underneath all that leather. She wraps her hand around his length, and strokes him gently, letting his cock slide easily through her fist, and oh God, he's even bigger and thicker and harder than she'd imagined. Every time her hand drags down his impressive length, she takes his balls in her palm, gently caressing and massaging them before making her way up his shaft again.

Killian’s eyes roll to the back of his head, and he melts into her and buries his face in the crook of her neck, whispering into her ear, “You keep that up, you’re gonna make me come.”

Her walls clench at his words and as much as she wants to finish him like this, she wants his cock inside her. She needs him like she needs air to breathe. “Then you better hurry up and fuck me, Captain.”

When he lifts his head to gaze into her eyes, searching for her genuine consent, she’s donning a lascivious smirk. “Are you sure about this, love?”

She tightens her grip around his cock, stroking him harder and faster until he won’t be able to do anything but give her what she wants. But the look in his eyes already tells her he would go to the end of the world and back for her. “Yes, please…” she begs, not caring that her voice is cracking with desperation. “I need... I need—”

“I know what you need,” he growls and quickly pulls off his jacket, letting it fall to the forest floor before yanking her leggings and panties down as she helps him, adding the clothes to the pile. Once she's completely naked, he looks like he wants to devour her from head to toe but there's no time for that, so she has other plans in mind.

She pulls him to her and he's wrapping one arm around her waist, lifting her slightly off the ground. She's eagerly snaking her legs around his hips and guiding his weeping tip to her entrance. He’s slowly rocking back and forth, invading her tight sheath, letting her walls expand and accommodate to his girth, groaning as he succumbs to her heat. With one hand around the back of Killian’s neck and the other on his shoulder, she can’t stop the moans erupting from her mouth as he captures her lips and sets a delicious rhythm, thrusting in and out of her so perfectly, her nails digging into his shoulders. She’s bobbing up and down on his cock every time he slams into her, pushing her against the tree. When he releases her lips and buries his face in the crook of her neck, she can hear him cursing and feel him panting against her skin.

God, she feels so full. Then Killian pulls out until the head of his cock is still inside her and just when she's about to protest, he thrusts into her again.

“Killian… fuck...” She can feel his lips widen against her neck before he lifts his head, donning a ridiculous smirk. She tries to furrow her brows at him while he’s fucking her, but he feels way too good, her mouth falling open when he’s hitting the perfect spot inside her.

“You called me Killian,” he gloats between shattered breaths, his eyes gleaming with excitement. “I’ve never once heard you call me by my actual name before.”

“Don’t get used to it,” she mumbles, and her attempt at an eye roll just leads to her eyes rolling to the back of her head as pure pleasure consumes her.

“As you wish, love,” he says cockily, knowing fully well he has her exactly where he wants her. His hand is still curled around her waist as he continues to invade her body, and Emma can only hold on to him for support as she rides his dick for all it’s worth.

Their skins smack together, loud enough for anyone around to hear as he cups her ass in his palm, holding her up as he tangles his hook in her hair, tugging just light enough to expose her neck so he claims her lips for a bruising kiss.

Their amorous activities in the middle of the forest, coupled with the Neverland humidity dampen their skin with sweat. And she’s wondering why she’s the only one naked here. Killian’s pants are pooled around his ankles, but he still has his shirt and vest on so she fumbles for the buttons and rips them off, sending buttons flying. He’s too consumed by her tight sheath to be mad as she pushes the fabrics from his shoulders, and he lets them fall to the ground.

Her breasts feel hot against Killian’s toned, bare chest, his heart beating wildly against hers as she glorifies in the sight and feel of him, running her hands through his chest hair, finding it to be softer than she’d ever imagined; she’d itched to feel his chest hair between her fingers from day one. Dragging her nails down his ribs to his washboard stomach, she loves the way his abs ripple under her touch.

She really wants this all to last, but she knows her parents are already looking for them, and Emma and her lover are bound to get caught in this compromising position at some point. But right now she doesn’t give a fuck. If her parents catch them, they’d probably just turn around and sneak back to camp without Emma or Killian hearing them. That’s the best-case scenario. The worst case is David pulling Killian off of his daughter and giving him a good pounding with the pirate’s cock still out and glistering with Emma’s arousal. She shakes those thoughts away and focuses on the good pounding Killian’s giving her. She feels so wild and dirty and swears she grows wetter every time he rams into her.

Knowing how soaking wet she is for him, feeling how easily his cock slides in and out of her heat brings him to the brink of madness. He tugs on her hair a little more, baring her neck to him so he can kiss her there, sucking love bruises into her soft, pale flesh.

Emma moans a little louder than she’d intended and she grips at his shoulders to keep from falling as his thickness plunges into her warmth.

She’s so damn close.

He lowers his head from her neck and draws her nipple into his mouth, lapping it with his tongue and kissing each rose-colored tips.

As soon as she feels his teeth nipping at the stiff bud, her back arches and her entire body convulses, and with a long, drawn-out scream, her walls flutter and her nails dig into his back as she comes around his glorious cock, her orgasm washing over her in waves. “Killian…” His name tumbles from her lips like a broken prayer and she doesn't even care.

But this time he's not even grinning as he lifts his head; his mouth is too busy hanging open as his irises disappear into the darkness and his eyes roll back once more as her walls tighten and squeeze his cock. “Bloody… fucking... hell,” he growls, and she loves that phrase used in this context, she loves how the shattered words tumble off his tongue. She loves it because he normally speaks so confidently and impeccably—such a smooth talker he is—but when her walls are wrapped around his cock, he’s a complete mess.

She tips her head, her back dragging against the rough texture of the tree, Killian’s smooth body against hers providing a welcoming contrast. Just as she’s floating down from her high, Killian rubs her clit with his thumb as he picks up speed and vigorously pumps his cock into her, chasing his orgasm as he takes her with him.

Her nails almost draw blood into Killian’s back as he slams into her rough and hard, and God, it hurts everywhere, but in the very best way. She’s already coming again. She wraps her legs tighter around him, buries her face in his neck and bites his shoulder to muffle her cries as she lets herself explode once more.

As if it were even possible, her walls grip his cock tighter than before. With one last thrust, his arms securely wrapped around her, his muscles convulse and he comes with a deep, guttural groan, his hips slowing as he whispers, “Emma…” in her ear.

She shudders as he fills her up with his hot seed, his cock pulsing inside her.

They stay in that position for what seems like an eternity until he can barely hold them up anymore. He helps Emma to her feet but clings on to her just in case, and she's grateful because her knees feel like jello. Her legs are trembling from the aftermath of her two orgasms and she can feel his hot come dripping from between her thighs and down her legs.

He caresses her face and places a soft, gentle kiss on her lips, not like the kisses they shared just minutes ago. But somehow a quick kiss turns into a long, heated one and before she knows what’s happening, they’re tumbling to the ground, she’s on her back and Killian’s forcing her legs apart and burying his face between her thighs so all she can see is the unruly, dark hair on his head as he laps up both their essences coating her folds with his tongue. She lets her head slump into the dirt, her chest heaving and her hand clenching his hair as the pleasure courses through her body once more.

She’s trying to be as quiet as she can but that’s probably a lost cause by now. She can hear Killian’s lips smacking against her flesh and the little groans he provides as he eats into her like she’s his very last and very best meal. She can also hear her heart pounding mercilessly in her ear and the sound of a branch snapping from a close distance. Realizing they’re not the ones making the sound (they’re not even near the sticks Killian had tossed to the ground) she cranes her neck toward the direction the sound came from.

She gulps when she sees Neal watching them from behind a bush, his eyes filled with lust as he sees his ex-girlfriend writhing on the ground with her legs spread wide, her skin flushed pink as Killian’s face is buried in her cunt. She hates to admit it, but she knows that look. She knows Neal is aroused as he watches his former lover being completely devoured by the dirty pirate. Emma gives into the little smirk tugging at her lips as she rolls her head back to give Killian her undivided attention. She wonders how long Neal has been watching them. Knowing he’s only a few feet away makes her feel so naughty, yet emboldens her more than she cares to admit.

“Mmmm, I love the way you taste… so sweet,” Killian groans against her glistening folds.

She tugs on his hair and arches her back as the pleasure builds again. “Killian, make me come again! Make me yours!” she screams, making sure she’s loud enough so Neal can hear her. So he knows that, even though he was incapable of doing so when they were together, she actually can have an orgasm. Multiple in fact.

But Killian doesn’t have to try very hard. He already knows her body more than Neal ever did and this is their first time together. He already knows how to plunge his fingers into her heat at just the right angle and speed and that if he sucks her clit into his mouth as he finger-fucks her, that's all it takes to push her over the edge. He already has her entire body shaking as another orgasm rips through her body and she’s screaming out, “Oh, Captain… Fuck!” She turns her head to sneak a peek at Neal, and he’s palming his crotch. He’s certainly not big but she can tell he’s hard, and a proud smirk overtakes her face.

As she falls from another high, she's wondering if Neal's jealous he could never make her finish this way. Not that he tried very often. He mostly looked out for himself so he could get his rocks off before he tried to pleasure her (tried being the keyword here) just for the sake of making it look like he was trying. Needless to say, their sex life left a lot to be desired.

She can't say the same about Killian, though; he's already made her come more in one evening than she ever had during the whole time she was with Neal.

Killian licks his fingers clean and collapses beside her, wrapping her up in his arms as she basks in the afterglow and the feeling of his firm body tucked under hers as she drapes a leg and arm around him, both of them sighing contentedly. She gazes at the stars, dangerously close to falling asleep before they have to head back to the others. She wonders if Neal will run his mouth off about what he saw, but she doubts it. He’s probably too busy feeling sorry for himself. Or maybe he will tattle on them knowing David wouldn’t be too happy about it.

After a moment of recuperating, Killian looks at her, a smug brow raised, and a cocksure smirk gracing his lips. “So, I guess the first kiss we shared wasn't a onetime thing after all, was it, love?”

Emma finds herself blushing and smiling, not nearly in a position to deny her feelings for him any longer as she combs her fingers through his chesthair, thoroughly enjoying herself. “Well, obviously not. We did a hell of a lot more than kissing, but I shouldn't have to tell you that since you were there,” she points out sassily.

“Aye, love,” he chuckles, “I was there indeed,” he says with a smirk. “And what about what just happened between us? Was that a onetime thing too?”

Emma doesn't reply with words at first, but gazes into his eyes and leans in for a slow kiss, hoping to express everything she feels for him with her lips. Then she curls her hand around his cock and whispers dirtily in his ear, “Yes, a onetime thing,” she answers, lifting her head to throw him a wink, which translates to, definitely not a onetime thing, I’m just not brave enough to tell you that. But the smile he offers and the blush tinting his cheeks tell her he knows exactly what she means. Open book after all.

Finally, they rise and start collecting their clothes from the ground. Once they’re dressed and at least somewhat presentable (she’s just glad it’s dark and her flushed cheeks won’t be so noticeable) they head back and are almost to the site when she realizes something and curses under her breath. “Damn.”

“What's wrong, love?” he asks in concern.

“We forgot the firewood.”

Tagging some lovelies who might be interested: @onceuponaprincessworld @teamhook @kmomof4 @nikkiemms @jamif @revanmeetra87 @artistic-writer @ilovemesomekillianjones @laschatzi @hollyethecurious @cluttermind @iamemmaswanjones @melly326 @iam2307 @resident-of-storybrooke @biefaless @andiirivera @captainswan-shipper88 @ultraluckycatnd @gingerchangeling @roseyflush @kiwistreetswan @julesep3026 @ lfh1226-linda @i-love-books2014 @xsajx @itsfabianadocarmo @darkcolinodonorgasm @officerrogers @tiganasummertree @donteattheappleshook

#cs ff #cs smut #neverland smut #captain swan #cannon divergence #i'll hold on to you #hannah writes smut #my fic

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snoopysfriendwoodstock · 4 years

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book recs based off of taylor swift songs!

so, we all want taylor to share her reading recs with us but she still hasn’t! so instead, here are book recommendations based on taylor swift songs! these recommendations are based on both the content of the songs, the vibe of the songs, and the themes present!

goodreads pages for each book are linked for more about them!

A Place in this World - coming of age novels

The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo (YA novel told in verse)

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (classic)

A Very Large Expanse of Sea by Tahereh Mafi (YA realistic fiction)

The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily M. Danforth (YA realistic fiction / tw: conversion therapy, religious abuse, homophobia)

Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson (children’s/middle grade poetry)

The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf by Mohja Kahf (adult realistic fiction / tw: islamophobia, racist hate crime)

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston (classic)

there are a lot here, so the rest are under a read more!

ME! - memoirs and autobiographies that are one of a kind

Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls by T Kira Madden (tw: substance abuse)

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls (tw: abuse)

Little Weirds by Jenny Slate

Like Me: Confessions of a Heartland Country Singer by Chely Wright

Know My Name by Chanel Miller (tw: sexual assault)

Accidental Saints by Nadia Bolz-Weber

My Soul Looks Back by Jessica B. Harris

The Lucky One - novels about the perils of fame

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Tara Jenkins Reid (adult historical fiction)

Daisy Jones and the Six by Tara Jenkins Reid (adult historical fiction / tw: substance abuse)

City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert (adult historical fiction)

Fame Adjacent by Sarah Skilton (adult contemporary)

Girl in a Band by Kim Gordon (nonfiction/memoir)

Famous in a Small Town by Emma Mills (YA romance)

Fake Plastic Girl by Zara Lisbon (YA mystery)

It’s Nice to Have a Friend - novels about perceived friends with who turn out to be lovers OR who spend the novel with homoerotic tension

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein (YA historical fiction)

Emma by Jane Austen (classic)

Dare Me by Megan Abbott (YA/adult thriller)

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz (YA realistic fiction)

Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden (YA romance)

Only The Young - novels about young people making major change/experiencing societal upheaval

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas (YA realistic fiction / tw: police brutality, murder, racism)

Revolution Is Not a Dinner Party by Ying Chang Compestine (middle grade/YA historical fiction)

Ghost Boys by Jewell Parker Rhodes (middle grade historical fiction/fantasy / tw: police brutality against a black child, depiction of emmett till)

Orleans by Sherri L. Smith (YA dystopian)

The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline (YA dystopian / tw: depiction of genocide against native americans)

The Chaos Walking Trilogy by Patrick Ness (YA science fiction)

The Best Day - songs about mother/daughter relationships (both meaningful and difficult)

Are You My Mother? by Alison Bechdel (adult graphic novel)

Restless by William Boyd (adult spy novel)

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng (adult realistic fiction)

The Mother-Daughter Book Club by Heather Vogel Frederick (middle grade contemporary)

Love Story - a reimagining of a classic story

Pride by Ibi Zoboi (YA contemporary / reimagining of Pride and Prejudice)

The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer (YA science fiction / reimagining of Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, and Snow White)

Ayesha At Last by Uzma Jalauddin (adult contemporary / reimagining of Pride and Prejudice)

Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie (adult contemporary / reimagining of Antigone, tw: islamophobia, depiction of torture)

You Need to Calm Down - these are just a variety of books strictly abt LGBT characters not just a gay side character <3

Her Royal Highness by Rachel Hawkins (YA romance)

Red, White, and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston (YA romance)

Charity & Sylvia by Rachel Hope Cleves (nonfiction)

The 57 Bus by Dashka Slater (YA nonfiction / tw: transphobia, transphobic hate crime, misgendering)

Autoboyography by Christina Lauren (YA contemporary)

Treacherous - a love that teeters between labels for too long as neither can resist the pull of the other

Passenger by Alexandra Bracken (YA science fiction)

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (classic)

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë (classic)

Tell Me How You Really Feel by Aminah Mae Safi (YA romance)

Don’t Blame Me - an all-encompassing, maddening love

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier (classic)

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë (classic)

The Way I Loved You - love stories about people who are always attracted to the more dangerous option, even when they’re safe where they are

Anna K: A Love Story by Jenny Lee (YA romance)

Playing With Matches by Hannah Orenstein (adult romance)

My Life Next Door by Huntley Fitzpatrick (YA romance)

Heartless by Marissa Meyer (YA fantasy / retelling of Alice in Wonderland from the Queen of Heart’s perspective)

The Awakening by Kate Chopin (classic)

Speak Now - weddings/wedding related activities gone wrong!

Save the Date by Morgan Matson (YA romance)

The Unhoneymooners by Christina Lauren (adult romance)

In a Dark, Dark Wood by Ruth Ware (adult thriller)

Look What You Made Me Do - women getting their revenge, whether it’s justified or not

Sadie by Courtney Summers (YA thriller / tw: physical and sexual abuse, pedophilia, murder, substance abuse)

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn (adult thriller / tw: sexual/physical abuse, murder, suicide mentions)

Find Her by Lisa Gardner (adult thriller / tw: physical abuse, kidnapping, rape, murder, graphic depictions of violence)

I’m Only Me When I’m With You - books with a strong focus on platonic relationships, how they grow and change

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen (classic)

Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty (adult thriller / tw: physical abuse)

This One Summer by Mariko and Jillian Tamaki (YA graphic novel)

Monday’s Not Coming by Tiffany D. Jackson (YA mystery)

Sula by Toni Morrison (classic / tw: racism, rape mention, physical abuse, sexism)

A Separate Peace by John Knowles (classic)

Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid (adult contemporary / tw: racism)

Haunted - novels about feelings of loss combined with supernatural elements

Beloved by Toni Morrison (classic / tw: depictions of slavery, rape, sexual abuse, physical assault, racism, racist language)

Leaving Time by Jodi Picoult (adult mystery)

Sawkill Girls by Claire Legrand (YA fantasy/horror)

A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness (middle grade fantasy illustrated novel)

You Belong With Me - young adult novels with a LOT of pining

When Dimple Met Rishi by Sandhya Menon (YA romance)

Since You’ve Been Gone by Morgan Matson (YA romance)

First & Then by Emma Mills (YA romance)

Tweet Cute by Emma Lord (YA romance)

Begin Again - novels about people getting another chance at love

Beach Read by Emily Henry (adult romance)

Evvie Drake Starts Over by Linda Holmes (adult romance)

Second Chance Summer by Morgan Matson (YA romance)

Persuasion by Jane Austen (classic)

The Two Lives of Lydia Bird by Josie Silver (adult romance)

Enchanted - love at first sight OR meet cutes!

Meet Cute by Various Authors (collection of YA short stories)

The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight by Jennifer E. Smith (YA romance)

The Unexpected Everything by Morgan Matson (YA romance)

What If It’s Us by Becky Albertalli & Adam Silvera (YA romance)

They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera (YA romance)

Lovely War by Julie Berry (YA historical fiction / tw: racism)

Long Live - fighting monsters, both literal and figurative

Pet by Akwaeke Emezi (YA fantasy / tw: sexual abuse)

A Blade So Black by L.L. McKinney (YA fantasy / reimagining of Alice in Wonderland)

When You See Me by Lisa Gardner (adult thriller / tw: sexual abuse, physical abuse, rape, murder, kidnapping)

#taylor swift #thank yew and goodnight taylor you can still share your reading recs with us tho please <3

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captcas · 4 years

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exile

exile by capthamm

it took you five whole minutes to pack us up and leave me with it, holdin' all this love out here in the hall... i can see you staring honey, like he's just your understudy

part four of capthamm’s captain swan’s folklore read on ao3 / read the ao3 series

Killian ignores the look of pity etched across Robin’s face as he pours another shot. Robin’s stern looks are just another reminder that his life has turned into a literal three ring circus.

Alright, not a literal one but his point remains. He just wishes he was playing the part of ring leader and not the sad clown.

Killian’s train of thought is derailed at the sound of her voice. He can’t tell what she’s saying, and against his better judgement he glances towards where she sits. As she places her hand on his shoulder, Killian swears the same spot on his own burns white hot. It’s then that he slams the shot, the rum no longer burning as it coats his throat, as he catches Robin shaking his head out of the corner of his eye.

Pathetic.

As Killian gets up to leave, Neal shoots him a grateful look while she’s distracted by something on her phone. He grimaces in response and attempts to tune out Neal’s carefully rehearsed line as he pushes on the door of the old pub.

“Neal, I can't dance,” she protests. “Nonsense, there's only one rule, pick a partner—“

The door slams but Killian’s mind is apt to finish the sentence on it’s own— he is the one who came up with it after all.

Disgruntled, he shoves his hands in his pockets and begins the cold walk home, leaving his car to be retrieved in the morning once his libations wear thin— assuming he lets them. His mind can't help but wonder what other tips Neal used on his date with Emma tonight. He had advised his old friend not to use them all in one evening, but chances are Neal will be knocking on his door in the morning wondering what the next steps are and how Killian would go about taking them.

How in the hell did he end up here?

Two months ago, it would’ve been Killian in that booth, Emma’s hand lightly touching his bicep as conversation flows easily between them. As quickly as it began, their entire thing came to a screeching halt. Before he could fathom what happened, Neal was at the docks begging Killian to help now that Emma finally asked him out.

He’d never suffocated before but he’s positive it’d feel startlingly similar to the pain he felt as he processed what Neal had said.

Fourteen days. Five kisses. Two secret dates. That was all he got with Emma Swan before she decided (much like many other women in his life) that he was better left a friend than loved as more. If they’re even friends anymore. He can’t say he blames her, he just wishes he knew why. Their friendship had always developed with ease, many of their mutual acquaintances supposedly taking bets for how long it’d be until it formed into something more. No one won, because no one even knew it happened. Not to mention Emma and Killian moved at their own pace and waited 16 years after meeting to give it a go.

Her pinky wraps with his, “Promise me we are friends first and that I have a clean out if you are an awful kisser.” “I promise, Swan, that we are friends first, and also that I am most certainly not an awful kisser.”

She slaps his arm with her other hand as she squeezes her pinky tighter. They may be approaching thirty years of age, but pinky promises hold the same weight as they did at twelve. She rolls her eyes, “Uh huh, sure. We’ll see about that, KJ.”

It’s practically unfathomable to him that their promise was less than three months ago and yet everything has changed. He always thought he knew Emma better than he knew himself, but her dismissal of him proved to be a massive blindside, no warning in sight.

Worse was the lack of return to their normal friendship and the subsequent breaking of their initial promise, but he probably should’ve expected something like this. Emma is an enigma. Beautiful, and funny, and driven and strong, but also a bloody mystery.

For fourteen perfect days he thought they may finally get their shot at what he'd hoped would be something brilliant. But brilliant was not in the cards for Killian— it hadn’t been most of his life and it seems, when it came to his feelings for Emma, it would be no different.

Now it’s her and Neal and it has been for the better part of a month and a half. The kicker is, it’s all thanks to Killian. Neal couldn’t charm a girl to save his life and wasted no time in resorting to asking Killian for guidance. Little does he know, Killian’s head over heels for the woman he’s trying to swoon.

Details.

He helps craft text messages and gifts as well as aids in the planning for their numerous dates. Killian pulls from the depths of his love for Emma, because all he really wants is for her to be happy. He’d hoped that he’d play a part in that equation one way or another, and while he supposes he does have a role, he never would’ve guessed it would be in this way.

While he remains lost in thought, he somehow finds himself back at his flat. As he ascends the old staircase, he has to catch himself from tripping up the top step. He can’t help but be distracted by the woman sitting against his apartment door.

“Took you long enough, KJ.” She smiles at him and it sparks emotion in him he didn’t realize he was harboring. It seems over a month of watching her fall for his carefully coached understudy has finally gotten under his skin. How can she smile at him as though nothing has changed?

Tempering his anger, he answers her a shrug. She seems to get the message and moves out from in front of his door as he looks down to search for his key.

Bloody hell.

Robin insisted he leave his car keys– with no argument from Killian– but he had forgotten to remove the flat key from his ring. Defeated, Killian leans his head forward until it connects with the cool wood of his front door. For a moment he forgets he’s not alone, the small buzz of alcohol messing with his usual tack sharp retention, but soon Emma is digging in her purse and pulls out the spare key he gave her long before.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, Killian.”

“Calm down, Swan, I’m not proposing you move in. I just want you to have it in case of emergencies.”

She shrugs and he’ll be damned if there wasn’t a slight hint of disappointment in her eyes. “Fair enough. Call me next time you’re too drunk to remember to take your key ring.”

He shakes the memory from his head as Emma unlocks the door. Killian continues inside and she waits, hesitating in the frame of the door. “When did we get like this, Swan?” He winces as the words leave his mouth, but the damage is done. Apparently rum effects more than his short term memory, leaving his carefully placed filter seemingly full of gaping holes.

At first she looks taken aback, but she must reason that she deserves this on some level because she sighs deeply and answers his pointed question, “I broke the pinky promise.”

That was not what Killian was expecting, but he answers all the same, “Aye, I s’pose we both did.”

Emma shakes her head. “KJ– Killian… you and I both know that’s not true.” Killian starts to interject but she continues before he gets the chance, “You’ve put me first since the moment we met, and even more so over the past month. Even after I just… I just feel so stupid to not have seen it before now…”

Emma trails off and Killian wraps his mind around what she’s saying– it doesn’t take long for him to realize that she knows. “How?” He meant for something more profound or curious, but the words escaped him– anything polysyllabic seeming near impossible to comprehend.

Emma rolls her eyes, but he can tell the annoyance is not directed at him. He can always tell when it comes to Emma– that’s why he was so certain they were made for one another. “Neal asked to pinky swear that I’d go on a date with him next week and apparently you didn’t know I reserved those just for you. Not to mention the glare you gave him back at Sherwood’s probably could’ve killed someone. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to put two and two together...”

Killian didn’t know pinky swears were reserved for him, but to be honest, he didn’t know anything Emma did was reserved for anyone. Emma Swan is a firecracker set off in the middle of January. She lights her own path and kicks down her own doors. Fierce independence is the first trait that always comes to Killian’s mind, most likely a product of the absolute shit life she led growing up. She never let it phase her. The admiration he holds for this woman is leaps and bounds beyond what he thought capable for any one man, yet she stands here today starting an awkward conversation and standing her ground and he couldn’t be more entranced.

He loves her.

“You broke your promise.” That’s certainly not what he wanted to say, but he supposes just because he’d walk through fire for her, doesn’t mean the pain won’t linger.

“I was scared, KJ.” He scoffs, he doesn’t mean to, not really, but he knows Emma doesn’t get scared. She’s as fearless as they come.

“You don’t get scared, Emma.” She flinches at his use of her real name but recovers quickly.

“Hah,” Emma laughs sarcastically. She seems to think he’s kidding but he can tell the moment she recognizes the sincerity of this moment. She whispers, “You terrify me, Killian.”

His heart breaks a little and with its crack, the flood gates open; the anger that washes away bringing to light all that he’s been denying for the better part of 16 years. He’s scared of her, too. Scared she could do real damage, scared she could break him to the point of no return, but Killian is a risk taker. He always has been, especially if that risk involves Emma Swan. He thought she was a risk taker too, but she chose to play it safe.

Because she feels the exact same way.

It hits him like a tidal wave, and he says the first thing he can think of, “I could never hurt you, Swan.” He hopes she can hear the conviction in his voice, his words ringing truer than any he’s spoken before.

“Most people who fall in love don’t intend to hurt one another, Killian.” He realizes what she’s saying but he can’t help but get hung up on one word:

Love.

She loves him. She may not know it yet, but she does. That’s enough for him to try.

He steps forward, every inch with less hesitation until they’re standing toe to toe. He can smell remnants of the bar on her, but it’s mixed with her comforting scent of cinnamon and vanilla that he’s come to recognize as his favorite. He’s positive he still smells like a barrel of Captain Morgan, but the buzz he feels is no longer from the rum. (Apparently emotional revelations are a quite sobering.)

“I’m all in, Swan.” He pauses. “Please don’t push me away.”

She doesn’t look at him, but he feels her fingers brush the hem of his vest and he can’t stop the shiver that rushes up his spine. It only intensifies when she speaks, “I can’t promise I won’t run again.”

“Aye,” he gently grabs her chin, urging her to look him in the eye, “but I promise, so long as you want me, I’ll be there to chase you and bring you home.”

She smiles brightly and starts to lean in for a kiss before stopping abruptly and raising her pinky to eye level, “Pinky swear?”

Killian can’t help but laugh as he once again connects his pinky to hers, “Pinky swear, Swan.”

#Captain Swan #cs ff #cs ff au #emma swan #killian jones #capthamm #captain swan's folklore #taylor swift #exile taylor swift #angsty angst that’s angsty

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killiansprincss · 3 years

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Never Forget You ch.12

Summary: Season 6A Canon Divergence.Emma is happy. Finally happy with her parents, son and boyfriend. But this happiness is taken away from her when the Evil Queen curses her and turns her into a toddler.Heartbroken and angry, Killian and Henry run away to Neverland to wait for Emma to break her curse.

But when she does break it and comes looking for them 25 years later, she soon realises this Neverland is very different now it is no longer under Pans rule. Will she be able to save Henry and Killian in time, or will this new ruler of Neverland keep them hostage forever?

So I’m around halfway through with this fic now which to me is amazing as I’ve never written a fic with so many chapters so it’s really special to me. I hope you enjoy this next chapter and let me know what you think!

Find on A03

Killian headed back to his ship in an attempt to cool down after his argument with Emma and talk with Henry.

“Mom?” Henry asks as he comes down the stairs, Emma still with her father.

Getting up off the floor, David just says, “I shall leave you two to talk.”

“What’s up kid?” Emma asks as Heney plops down beside her.

“I don’t like that you and Killian are fighting.” Henry comments with a slight sad tone.

“We’re not arguing.” She lies.

Henry just rolls his eyes, “Oh please. We all heard get into an argument over going home.”

“Okay. So we were arguing. You’ve been with him for 25 years, what’s his plan? Why doesn’t he want to come home?”

Avoiding his mother's eye contact, he looks down at his feet. “I think you need to talk to him about that.”

“Henry please. I have not seen you or Killian in 25 years. When I woke up from my curse, the day I remembered, I cried so hard because I love you both so much. I’ve not been your mother. I forgot about you. What kind of mother forgets her own child?” Emma sniffles, “Please. Tell me what to do so we can go home.”

“He’s not the same. Killian. He’s not been the same for a while.”

Emma’s heart drops. “Why? What can i do?”

Henry shrugs. “I don’t know if you can do anything, it’s not like we have therapy here in Neverland. He’s hurting, he lost you. It’s like when you lost him, before you decided to go to the Underworld and you were in a really dark place. Now he’s in a dark place and Neverland isn’t like Storybrooke, especially for him. Neverland, he says it’s the worst realm of all.”

Emma nods. She had lost Killian more times than she wished to. She lost him the first time in the alternate reality it hurt like hell, especially as she was too scared to tell him how she felt and it was suddenly too late.

When Henry returned them to Storybrooke and the few split seconds before she saw his face before the darkness took her, she felt sick at the thought of losing him forever. Then in Camelot, she has finally allowed herself to envision a future with him, she almost lost him again.

She did everything in her power to save him, unlocking every bit of dark magic she had. But it was no good as she lost him for good and wasn’t able to save him. It broke her, she didn’t know how she was going to continue, she couldn’t bear to live in the house he chose without him.

She lost him one last time in the Underworld, but they had come so close to their white picket fence. Going up the elevator shaft alone was the worst thing she ever experienced, seeing him below and not next to her, if it wasn’t for the fact she needed to make sure her family got back home safely, she would’ve broken down there and then.

Thankfully that was the final time she lost him, her soulmate then returned to her a few days later. But then they got a mere few months together until he lost her.

Fate was cruel.

_____

On his first trip to Neverland, Killiian Jones was cursed with memories of Liam and Milah.

And now he was cursed with memories of Emma. They were playing in his head, over and over. Reminders of their times together when they were happy. And the awful times where they lost one another.

Killian is back in the Underworld. The bastard fiery hell he can’t escape from. Hades throne room. He’s beaten and bruised because Hades has taken a particular dislike to him.

He can feel Emma’s prescene. He knows she’s here, He can feel it. He hopes she can’t feel his pain, the way he feels her worry. He can hear her yelling for him, wanting to know where he is. But Hades drained almost all the energy from him that he can’t even say hello.

Why did she come to rescue him? It’s far too dangerous. He didn’t deserve rescuing, he was a Dark One and he made Emma feel awful. He crushed Merlin's heart. He wasn’t the man he used to be. The man Emma fell in love with.

He refuses to write any names on the gravestones. He wouldn’t do that. Part of him still couldn’t believe they all came down here for him, Emma was a stubborn lass, but her family weren’t always so approving of their relationship-especially Dave. The fact they were even here was beyond belief. Hades can torture him all he likes, Killian Jones is still a man of honour. He will not write any names cursing them to the same hell he is in.

He ignores the beating and the torture. He can take that. But now he’s in chains. Above the river of Lost Souls. The moment the chains lower him into the water, he’s gone forever. Maybe that’s best. Then Emma and her family can leave and she can move on. He doesn’t deserve her. She’s too good for him. He doesn’t deserve her.

But that doesn’t happen. He sees her blonde hair and red jacket in the corner of his bloodied eye.

“Killian.”

He hears her voice loud and clear. It’s music. She doesn’t give up. She crosses the traps easily and rescues him before he dips into the river. The way she says his name. Killian. His name, not his moniker. Not the name everyone associates with him. No. She sees the man beyond the Hook. She’s the only woman who has seen him that way.

“I told you to let me go.” He tells her.

“I never listen.” She says with a smirk. Gods this woman was amazing.

“You’re impossible.” He manages to say.

“And you love me for it.” Damn right he does. He was still getting used to this century, the one she’s from. The woman is no longer the one who needs rescuing, she’s the one who does the saving. This modern world may be confusing, but his Emma is so strong and he does love her for it.

For a short while Killian actually believes they’re getting out alive. That he will be able to go back with her.

Heart share.

He had heard the story, how her parents managed it.

It was possible.

But that was them. Snow White and Prince Charming.

Would it be possible for Emma and himself?

Gods he loved her. More than anything. He gave up the chance at finding peace with his brother for her. The brother he hadn’t seen in centuries.

But a heart share, it would require true love. Magic that is so powerful. A bond so strong nothing else matters. Could they have it?

And then it didn’t work.

Not because they weren’t true love. But because he was dead.

The Ambrosia. Orpheus and Eurydice.

It would allow him to walk out of the Underworld freely.

But there was a test in the way.

Weighing Emma’s heart. To test if they were true love.

Emma could only admit her true feelings when they were in grave danger or about to die, or both. And that’s why he feared they weren’t true love. He understood though, she had been hurt by Baelfire or Neal rather. She was afraid to open up her heart. He never pushed. He knew, even before she said the words how she felt about him. He would never have said it before she did, he didn’t want to scare her away. Not when she finally trusted him and was letting him in slowly.

Emma puts her heart on the pedestal to weigh it. And when it doesn’t move, his heart drops. It didn’t work, they’re not true love.

Until Emma falls on the floor in pain.

“Get my heart.” She tells him clutching where her heart should be.

When he reaches to grab it, he’s on fire. Literal fire. It burns.

He tells Emma to grab her heart. Worry about him later.

But she doesn’t.

As weak as she is without her heart in her chest, she takes all the energy she has and throws herself onto him, ceasing the fire.

And the doors open.

“It’s true love.”

He didn’t want to believe it. But true love, the most powerful magic of all. He was lucky enough to share it with Emma Swan.

If they weren’t on the hunt for ambrosia the things he would do to her.

True Love. Captain Hook, the villain had found true love, with the saviour, a hero no doubt. Except Emma didn’t see him that way. To everyone else, he was Captain Hook. To Emma, he was Killian Jones.

This next memory was the worst of all. When they found out the ambrosia was no more. Another one of Hades cruel tricks. It was then that he realised he wasn’t going home to Storybrooke. He had to stay here. He had to try and find peace. Without Emma. Maybe he would be reunited with his brother.

He had thoughts about finding peace, before Emma came to save him. But she was so headstrong he had only allowed himself to believe they were all going home. But now, he hoped he would land himself in a better place.

As much as it pained him to lose Emma, for her to go on without him. It was for the best. Fate was cruel, but he was glad to have found Emma.

His true love.

After Liam died, it broke him. He’d lost the only person who ever loved him. He thought he would sail the seas freely as a pirate, having women warm his bed, but never going further than that. Then he met Milah, and she ran away with him. They were going to see the world. She promised him they would go back for her son, for Bae, and they could have a family. And then the unthinkable happened. He lost her like he lost Liam.

And he went back to being a pirate, women warming his bed. He believed he would never find love again. Then a few centuries later, he met Emma Swan. She was unlike any woman he had met before, he was enchanted by her. His usual charms didn’t work on her, but there was something about her that told him to keep going. Looking back, it was the true love bond, but of course he didn’t know it at the time. And so he kept pushing and pushing, and she let him in piece by piece until she finally gave him her heart.

With Emma, she was so different to Milah. She was grounded, she would never leave her son behind. As much as she sometimes wanted to run away, she would never leave Storybrooke. With Emma, he had the prospect of a family, a real family with her son.

He loved her. More than anything.

Even though their time together was cut short, he was glad to even have that time with his true love. She saw past the pirate, past the villain which is more than any other woman had done before. He had changed, he wanted to become a better person, not just to win Emma’s heart (not that she was a prize to be won), but to be a better man overall. A man that he once was, a man his brother would be proud of.

He had found his true love and they had spent as much time together as they could. That’s all he could’ve wanted in life. Emma Swan. The true love of Killian Jones. Who would’ve believed.

That’s why saying goodbye was so hard. He had accepted his fate, but Emma not so much.

Seeing her go up in the elevator shaft instead of going up with her was the hardest thing ever. He held onto her hand until the very last moment, trying to remember what she felt like. He kissed her hand as tears rolled down both their faces, wanting to savour this moment. It was only a few seconds but it felt like a hundred years, this was the last time he would ever see Emma Swan. His true love.

This was the moment that played in his head every single time he closed his eyes. It was the worst moment. He avoided sleep because he didn’t want to be reminded of that moment. And when he was awake he would use rum as a viable solitude to stop thinking about her. Even the happy moments bring no joy into his life, because they are reminders, reminders of what he lost. He doesn’t know if she will ever come back for him, or if he’s lived a thousand years on this damned Island and she forgot about him, never broke her curse and died without ever remembering the man she once loved.

He thinks back to his confession in the Echo Caves. Kissing Emma for the first time revealed so much. He was flirting as he always did, he never expected her to actually kiss him, but she did. Everything seemed to click into place, he could imagine a future, he wanted to spend all his time with Emma, getting to know her and letting her know all of his secrets and fears.

300 years he had lived, and his heart had been broken many times over those years. He never thought his heart could be mended, that was until he met Emma Swan. He was a broken man, and slowly he was mending, but he had no doubt that he wanted every piece of his heart to belong to Emma Swan.

She was his future.

#Never forget you #Captain Swan #cs ff #cs fanfic #fanfic #My writing #killian jones #emma swan #ouat ff #cs fic rec

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intothewickedwood · 3 years

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Once Upon A Time Rewatch: 5x12 Souls of the Departed

Currently reading (well, listening) to The School for Good and Evil Series. It’s so good! It’s basically Wicked the Musical and has a fairy tale element like OUAT. Can’t recommend enough!

I had the weirdest dream last night that Ouat’s Gothel was hiding behind my bed at my old house trying to scare me. She stayed up all night with some blankets, waiting to pounce. Also, she was naked. Jesus Christ, wtf is wrong with my dreams?! I do not see Gothel in that way at all!! I was so freaking disturbed! @fairytalepsuedonym this is all your fault for putting that dirty hippie witch bitch on my mind lol xD! /jk

Also guys, we’re getting Disney+ today. I’m so excited! Let me know if anyone has any recommendations.

And you know what I just thought of? It looked like they were implying that Merida and Lord Macintosh were gonna be a thing (possibly? I think it’s up for interpretation) but he outright shot an arrow at one of her brothers and wanted the others dead too. Merida would never! Her brothers mean too much to her to forgive such a thing. Also, she gives me gay vibes. I don’t make the rules. Alistair makes all the rules. 

Back to the rewatch.

Oh yeah! This is the 100th episode! The compilation for 100 episodes was so freaking epic!

Neal! Is that really him though?

She’s staring at his lips lol!

Omg! Emma would have come back for Neal if she could. That means she believes they were true love, and she could have split her heart with him, right?

So, he appeared to her? 

Omg! The way Emma is stroking his face and is staring at him, you’d never know she was working on saving her boyfriend lol.

You know what would have been so much better? If the underworld was perpetually dark and foggy (within reason) like the sims 4 Forgotten Hollow. That would have looked so much cooler!

Here comes the red filter. As a gifmaker and even as a viewer I wanna scream every time I see it but at least it’s not the Dark Swan arc.

I said it before and I’ll say it again: they should have let Regina’s and maybe even Rumple’s victims confront them! That would have been interesting to watch play out. I know we got Regina’s dad and Peter Pan but give me a family of Regina’s slaughtered villagers. What would their reaction be to seeing her?

Eww. I hate the way she dips her finger in that pie.

Guys. It doesn’t matter that you have Regina surrounded, she has pyrokinesis and telekinesis! Y’all are screwed! She blew the flames out? She had the advantage! I’m glad she didn’t hurt them of course, but as someone writing a book that consists of characters with magic abilities, you’ve gotta know when a powerful character has the advantage and when to use it. Where was Snow dodging a fireball as one of her arrows flies at Regina and it pauses in mid air only to sore back at Snowing and their friends, but they manage to outsmart her somehow? 

Woah. This is the boldest Henry Sr. has ever been. He’s really trying to help Regina out here. 

Cora!! My love!! I missed you!!

I love the Blind Witch. Does she have a name? I enjoyed her in ‘Regina Rising.’ I remember she’s quite a bit older than Regina

The Blind Witch: “What can I get you? Do you like gingerbread or children?” Omg Snow’s like “what the actual f**k??”

James, why are you like this?? Get off her, dude.

Those key rings are cool.

Why the hell didn’t Emma just tell Henry she saw his dad? I can think of absolutely no reason why she would keep that from him.

Lately all Robin has done is make random comments pointing out the obvious. “It’s uncanny. It’s so similar yet so off.” Yes, Robin we established that 9 minutes ago. His next line will be, “Goodness, is that a tree over there?” or “Regina, you were the Evil Queen”, mark my words. Where has his personality gone? I was never a big fan but at least he was kinda arrogant and cheeky before, at least in season 2 and 3. Now he’s just a dude that points on the ground and tells you there’s a stone. And they have the chemistry of a banana and a cheese cracker.

“Her puny army of sweaty little child beasts.”

Are those black roses? 

I may be wrong but wasn’t Cora trying to get Regina to stop hunting Snow White and find true love instead in 4x20 or am I making things up? And I wonder if this is before or after she appeared in 4x20. 

I just love Cora so much.

Is that how she got to the EF in 4x20? Through a looking glass?

The fact that she could so easily cross realms suggests that she willingly gave Regina her space. Which is something! But it feels like she’d have ulterior motives for that. Also Jefferson and Rumple would be screaming if they knew it was that easy to cross realms.

Regina: “are you threatening me?” Cora: “No. Of course not, never.” But you literally are though.

Peter Pan! He was under-utilised this season. Come on! They could have done so much with him! I’m glad at least Cora and Cruella got decent screen time.

Imagine watching OUAT for the first time with this episode and you see this full-grown man refer to a teenage boy as is father. I would be so confused lol.

I wonder if Rumple / Rumple’s father hail from Dunbroch originally. You know, with the Scottish accent. I’m kinda thinking about headcanoning that now. At least, I think Malcolm had a Scottish accent?

That got me! I forgot Cora had glamoured into Henry Sr.! I thought Cora had shapeshifted into Snow to trick Henry.

Oh, so Henry Sr. contacting her was the reason Cora could walk through the looking glass. If only someone had contacted Jefferson. And I’ve just remembered that in 4x20, she said a white rabbit brought her to the EF.

Killian looks creepy as hell here!

Lol Cora, you let Henry wrap the heart? What did you expect to happen!

Why did Regina need Snow’s heart to kill her? She could have easily killed her without even touching her. 

What the hell does Snow think is in there? She looks terrified.

Archie, wtf were you doing between Snow’s titties?! And what were you doing with a match? Gonna set some titties on fire xD? I bet she could never look at him the same again. 

He doesn’t want Regina to kill Snow because he thinks it will make her dark forever? What about all the other people she’s killed?! That makes no sense!

Okay, given that Grace didn’t seem to physically age much between the flashbacks in 1x17 and the present day in 1x17, this probably happened after the flashback’s events in 4x20. 

According to wiki, Regina’s birthday is February 1st. I’m only learning this now.

I’ve never seen Henry Sr. so bold and Adam end to help Regina.

Okay, so Regina shrunk Henry with her magic but she needed a mushroom to return him to his normal size?

Don’t lock him in that box omg!!

Cora: “when are you gonna get it in that thick head...” she’s so casually abusive.

Random thought but why is Henry’s surname Mills? It just seems like it’d be Cora’s surname. Maybe he took hers on but that seems strange for a Prince to do.

Cora, don’t!

Henry’s alright!

Aww. Henry got to meet his 3rd Grandpa! He’s so happy she named him after him. 

I’m tearing up.

“Remember who you are, Regina.”

Henry, honey, you need to go home.

Is that Persephone?

Oh my God! I’m so excited for the Cora and Zelena stuff!! By far my favourite thing of the season! To hear Cora say Zelena’s name- the fact she knows her name- I’d waited for so long for this! It left open so many questions!

And Hades infuriated with Cora on the love of his life Zelena’s behalf!! He loved her so much and would do anything for her. I don’t ship it as much as I initially did because of how it ended but that man freaking loved and cherished Zelena. He wanted everything for her. She desperately needed that and it was an emotional experience to see her get it.

That’s like her worst nightmare, being a peasant again. 

I can’t with the flame hair.

I forgot this episode was pretty good. I didn’t remember liking it but Cora saved it for me. I forgot she was in it because I have probably watch season 5 the least as I try to avoid it lol. 

#ouat #once upon a time #regina mills #the evil queen #cora mills #ouat rewatch #ouat rewatch 2019

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jonismitchell · 4 years

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hey arden do you have any book suggestions? i don’t have any preference/specific genre i’m looking for but i just need something new to read while in quarantine :)

you’re in luck! i happen to be a massive nerd and i’m going to compile a gigantic list of recs for you. here we go.

the only classics worth reading: i want to preface this by saying i did not pick these books because they are written by women. they are just good and they happen to be by women. this reinforces my theory that only women can write.

emma by jane austen: better than pride and prejudice by a long shot. the characters are funny, the romance is swoon worthy (don’t think too hard about the age gap), it says very smart things about society, and i could write an essay on how it revolutionized fiction.

wuthering heights by emily bronte: my all time favourite book about how awful people are and how the cycle of abuse perpetuates itself. it’s absolutely exceptional in every respect. i won’t go into too much detail because i don’t want to give anything away, but you should definitely read this book.

jane eyre by charlotte bronte: i’m not saying i’m a bronte sister stan, i’m just saying i’m a bronte sister stan who can’t be bothered to take five seconds to copy the accent. anyway, i read this book when i was a wee lass and i stole it from an apartment in nice. the characters are genuinely amazing, and it’s an early feminist book, which i think is fantastic.

the handmaid’s tale by margaret atwood: you don’t get more feminist classic than this. set in a dystopian future where women are only valued for their ability to procreate, atwood examines gender roles and still delivers a brilliant adventure story. if you end up liking this, try the power by naomi alderman, which essentially tells of the opposite society.

the bell jar by sylvia plath: an introspective story about mental illness. it’s the type of writing that i feel hits hard at about any age, and i remember feeling really haunted after finishing the whole thing in a night. definitely high up on my list of amazing novels.

feel good books: sometimes, we need to read something that’s not revolutionary but still radical. don’t worry, i got you. here’s the lasagna of novels.

finding audrey by sophie kinsella: this book is funny, heartwarming, and makes you think. as someone with anxiety, i felt really represented by a lot of audrey’s behaviours. her mom is lowkey nuts, but i feel like that shouldn’t impede your enjoyment of the book.

the shadowhunters series by cassandra clare: LISTEN. objectively cassandra clare is a terrible person. objectively these books are not good. but they are amusing! they are comforting! they are interesting! also, there are a million of them. start with the infernal devices: clockwork angel, clockwork prince, and clockwork princess. set in old old london, this series features the only valid love triangle ever, girls who like to read and kick ass, and boys who are soft and play the violin. next, head to the mortal instruments, which is pretty much drinny fanfiction. don’t think too hard during these and you’ll have a good time. after that, read the short story collections the bane chronicles and tales of shadowhunter academy. if you got really into the lore (like me) these books are funny and a little captivating. finally, get to the highlight of this whole thing, the dark artifices. the one true love of my life, emma carstairs, stars in this brilliant trilogy about forbidden love. yes, it’s super corny, but all these books are super corny. if you can’t get enough of the universe (or accidentally got hooked) try out the collection ghosts of the shadow market. once you finish that, you can read the first books in the new series(es), red scrolls of magic and chain of gold. all of these books are jam packed with magic and vaguely plagarized demons. not brilliant, but a fun ride.

emma mills books: emma mills writes cute happy contemporary romances and i can’t recommend her enough! first & then tells the story of a jane austen obsessed nerd who crushes on a jock. which could actually be about me, and if you trust my judgement, you probably like me enough to read this book secretly written about me. foolish hearts gives theatre kids and boy band stans alike a chance to feel represented in what could be one of the sweetest (and funniest!) romances of all time. famous in a small town gives band kids and people who are clarinet-sized a chance to shine, and includes a country singer who struck me with her similarities to taylor swift. (our song is even referenced in the novel!) by far my favourite would have to be this adventure ends, which is hilarious and heartbreaking and talks about fanfiction without looking down on it. all of these books are definitely feel good and will make you believe in heterosexual romance.

mildly upsetting fantasy: just fantasy trilogies that will hurt you.

the poppy war by r.f. kuang: wonder what harry potter would be like if the magic system was complicated and the murder was high? no, like high on opium? and the plot was based on chinese military history? look no further than the brilliant work of art that is the poppy war. this book is by far the best fantasy out there, i cannot exaggerate that enough. also out is the equally compelling sequel the dragon republic, and the final book in the trilogy is set to hit shelves this year. please please please read this amazing book.

six of crows by leigh bardugo: six dysfunctional criminals try to steal from the most heavily guarded prison in the world. what could go wrong? this novel is intelligent and witty, and will keep you on the edge of your seat as you’re dragged into this scheming and brilliant world. in my opinion, this is the only valid book in the grishaverse. this and its equally well plotted sequel, crooked kingdom.

the gilded wolves by roshani choski: this one is definitely similar to six of crows in its funny and smart main cast. the magic system is super unique and the plot is endlessly enjoyable. it’s also set in old old paris! so france is always fun. there are also tons of mythology references and disaster bisexuals. and apparently the sequel (the silvered serpents) comes out july of this year.

scythe by neal shusterman: the first book on this list by a man, wow! i’m so inclusive. anyway, this genius trilogy is set in a world where humanity has solved almost every single problem, except overpopulation and corruption. an elite order called scythes are tasked with killing and managing the order of death. it’s like the hunger games went took a political science seminar. everything spirals out of control very quickly and the characters are so great. the sequels are called thunderhead and the toll respectively, and the overarching tale is gripping.

the cruel prince by holly black: i’m not kidding when i say this is the only faery book that matters. this book stars a human girl who grows up in the magical world and more violence than is statistically necessary. but it’s good! this is also a trilogy (every book on this list is the first one in a trilogy, i am the worst, i’m sorry) and the sequel the wicked king is quite possibly the best scheme-y magic politics thing i’ve ever read. and the final book, queen of nothing, doesn’t disappoint by a long shot.

contemporaries no one talks about

the boy who steals houses by cg drews: this book has autistic representation! and it’s written by book blogger paperfury, who is even more of a delight on the page than she is on the internet. be warned, this book includes heavy mentions of abuse and graphic violence that are unavoidable. but it will break your heart and stitch it back together again. also, waffles.

some boys by patty blount: this book deals very candidly with the aftermath of rape and public pressure. it is also one of my favourite books of all time for its treatment of ‘bro culture.’ and the heroine, grace, is incredibly strong. i read this book in maybe fourth grade? and it essentially inspired me to start giving a damn about social justice. so yeah, there’s that. (i also haven’t read it since fourth grade, so someone will have to tell me if it holds up).

emergency contact by mary choi: i’m rereading this for the second time right now and it’s still really awesome. it tells the story of an unlikely friendship, big dreams, and does it all through a really interesting narrative voice that manages to effectively capture two very different people. it is yet another romance, but it’s really wonderful and heartwarming. (unlike the other two books in this section).

children’s books that treat kids like people

a series of unfortunate events by lemony snicket: this is quite literally my favourite series of all time. it’s upsetting and kind of wrong once you think about it a lot, but it’s also maybe the best thing ever written. i literally cannot explain how much i love these books. there are thirteen books, so you’re definitely in for a good, long time.

the mysterious benedict society by trenton lee stewart: three books about propaganda and smart kids and found family. i literally do not know what else you want out of a series. it’s fun and there’s only a little bit of kidnapping, so it’s very family appropriate compared to the other books on this list.

wuh luh wuh

the seven husbands of evelyn hugo by taylor jenkins reid: i KNOW no one shuts up about this book but you really should read it. like, there’s nothing that will ever top the narrative. the drama, the glamour, the girls who love girls, you know? all the components of a brilliant novel. it’s also got some truly poetic prose and genuinely beautiful moments. the reason everyone talks about this book is because it’s amazing. send tweet.

girls of paper and fire by natasha ngan: (massive trigger warning for sexual violence) haha! another violent fantasy book that’s part of a trilogy! thought you escaped that, didn’t you? this magic system is brilliant and the book is so good. it’s a breath of fresh air into young adult fiction. and did i mention it’s a wlw romance? i read this during a math class and had to go to the bathroom to cry when i finished it, because there was finally a heroine in a fantasy novel who i could see myself in. there’s also a sequel, girls of storm and shadow, that is equally amazing.

it’s not like it’s a secret by misa suigura: wlw girls with soft poetry vibes. complicated family lives. candidly dealing with racism, sexism, and homophobia. this book is really good. simply read this book.

i have even MORE book recs but i decided to cut myself off because this is the longest thing i’ve ever written for tumblr. hope you enjoy!

#angxlsrolltheireyes #book recs #asking with you

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bordeleaubeau · 4 years

Note

Not to be dumb but do you know why Jack gets so much hate

because jack went first overall in the draft. first overalls, like matthews, mcdavid, mackinnon (the 3 m’s) have lived up to their expecations and then some. there’s a lot of pressures when it comes to being drafted first overall, but what people forget is that being drafted first overall means, at that moment, you’re the best of that draft class. that’s excluding all the games played afterwards, because people will love to compare boys picked in the later rounds to the first overall. jack got drafted to one of the shittiest teams in the league, which obviously, you gotta be really good at sucking so hard to get a first overall pick. (in which the devils literally have/HAD three on their team: hughes, hischier, and hall. hall got traded, but still they sucked when they had him) so the devils suck. that’s a big factor. their head coach got fired in the middle of the season which will throw anyone into a loop. and nevertheless jack was 18 this past season. he’s YOUNG. he has so much potential, but that potential isn’t gonna shine through overnight. he isn’t a matthews or a mcdavid and we knew this. another thing is, wherever a guy is? whatever team he plays for? that doesn’t mean that’s the best team for him. prime examples are neal pionk and dylan strome. they under performed on their first teams, but then they got traded and flourished. not to mention jack played with cole caufield, and when you look at their stats they’re basically mirrored. whereas jack had less goals and more assists, cole had more goals and less assists. it’s no secret they had incredible chemistry. another reason why he gets hate is because hockey boys get butthurt that girls like jack and not a puny little hockey boy so they get butthurt and hate on jack for no reason. but at the end of the day, everyone has to calm down and realize that talent comes with time and so do the results.

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lilacmoon83 · 4 years

Text

Finding You Always

Also on Fanfiction.net and A03

Chapter 214: Worlds Collide, Pt 3

Summer was growing exhausted, as she kept nullifying Mephisto's fireballs by putting them in her bubbles and extinguishing them, while her siblings fought off his heavily armed gang.

"We have to make sure they don't destroy the museum. We can't let all this history be destroyed," Eva feared.

"Yeah...we need to draw them out of here for sure," Emma agreed, as she blasted more of them back.

"He's definitely given these guys an upgrade in fighting skills and power," Leo said, as he breathed heavily, following a fist fight with one of the thugs.

"All right kid, you're our resident powerhouse. What do you suggest?" Emma asked her baby brother.

"An earthquake is the last thing we want in the museum, Emmy," he argued, but then smirked.

"But I think I have a new trick up my sleeve that I've been working on with Mr. Gold," he said. Rumple nodded.

"Now would be the time, lad," Rumple said, as three more of the thugs dropped dead, thanks to the Dark One snapping their necks.

"So much for not killing," Eva said uncomfortably.

"They're thugs...he just saved a ton of lives by killing them. They would have gone on to kill innocent people," Leo reasoned.

"He's right," Regina agreed, as several more dropped, thanks to her. It was drastic, but the stakes were too high. They were already going to be blamed for all the property damage and being the cause of it. But if they had civilian casualties, it would be far worse.

"I won't be surprised if the Major loses the battle with her government and we have them threatening to have the National Guard invade the United Realms," Regina said.

"Mom and Dad will wall us off before they let that happen," Leo assured. She sighed, hoping he was right. Snow and Charming were notoriously forgiving, but after the experience with their darker halves, she hoped they had learned that there were times that the tough decisions had to be made.

"You really think you can take me on, brat?" Mephisto questioned, as the fire in his palms gave the entire room a glow and yet Bobby didn't back away from the intimidating display.

"Considering I can do that too...yeah I think I do," Bobby retorted, as fire came alive in his hands. By now, most of the innocent bystanders had been evacuated, but there were still a few reporters and camera people that were braving the spectacle in order to get in on video.

"And I can do way more than that...like this," Bobby said, as he grabbed Mephisto's wrists.

"I may be able to wield all the elements, but I still specialize in earth powers," he said, as they disappeared with a jade green puff of smoke.

"Look!" Leo called, as they saw something burrowing beneath them through the ground and followed it outside the museum. There was another puff of jade green smoke, as the two emerged from the ground and Bobby tossed Mephisto onto a parked car.

"Ooohhh…I hope they have insurance," Emma commented. Mephisto was seething, as he pulled himself off the wrecked car.

"If you think for a second that this is over, brat...you have another thing coming," Mephisto growled, as disappeared in a fiery display of flames. His four older siblings descended upon him at that point, patting him on the back and ruffling his hair.

"That was awesome!" Leo exclaimed.

"Yeah...he was pissed. Good work, kid," Emma congratulated him. Bobby looked down a bit shyly.

"Thanks," he said.

"Come on...we need to find Mom, Dad, and Grandpa Xander," Eva said. They all agreed and with the rest of their family, they ventured back inside the museum to try and discern where they could have gone.

~*~

Snow and David chased them through the Museum, but when they followed them into the Ancient Egypt exhibit, they found the room empty.

"We lost them," Xander hissed.

"No...there's no way out of this room other than the way we came in," Snow realized.

"She's right," he said, as they willed the chalice forth in its joined form and used it to scan the room for any residual magic or portals. There was an ethereal glow on the replica of the Giza pyramid and they exchanged a glance.

"That's why no one can ever find them. They're using this exhibit to portal somewhere else," David said.

"But this land has no magic without the two of you in the vicinity," Xander said.

"No...but would creating a portal with some of Clayton's technology be impossible?" Snow asked and he sighed.

"No...that's very possible," he agreed, as the chalice glowed and the magic opened up the portal from the residual trail left by whatever technology they had used to slip away.

"We have no idea what we're walking into," Xander warned.

"No...we don't. But we don't have a choice. We have to stop them and it looks like we're the only ones that can," David said, as he looked at Snow.

"The kids will find us too…" she assured them. They nodded and walked through the portal.

~*~

"Wow...this is a really old book," Tink mentioned.

"It is and it was really hard to find. That's why I think it might be important," Rose replied.

"But I thought you were able to catalog everything in the library?" Neal asked.

"I was...that's why this one is so unique. This book is not in my catalog," she replied.

"The plot thickens," Tink said, as she flipped through it.

"Because new books literally appear all the time, that's happened from time to time, but I just have a feeling that this one had help appearing," Rose replied.

"You think it was being hidden, my angel?" Fandral asked.

"It's possible. I don't know who is suddenly helping us or maybe it's because Blue has committed the ultimate crime," Tink replied.

"The murder of another fairy," she said.

"Not to mention a human, even a deplorable one," Fandral added.

"Who did Blue answer to as Head Fairy?" Neal asked.

"Zeus himself," Tink replied, as he took the book.

"And who do you answer to now that you're Head Fairy and Zeus is dead?" he asked.

"Well…I've had no formal meeting with any other Gods, except Aphrodite. I suppose it would be Athena, but she has yet to formally meet with me," Tink replied.

"And if Zeus, for some reason, forbade Athena from interfering, she might use other means to get the information to us," Rose deduced.

"It's entirely possible," Tink agreed.

"Did Blue ever answer to Hera?" Neal asked.

"No…Hera would have never had any authority over the fairies. She may have been Zeus' wife, but they hated each other. He didn't trust her," Tink replied.

"That was probably wise...look at this," he said, as he showed them an image on the page.

"That's Blue...and Hera," Tink said.

"Standing over the unconscious body of Aphrodite," Rose added in alarm.

"Can you translate this?" Fandral asked. Tink nodded and used her wand to translate the book from Greek to English.

"We best start at the beginning," Rose said, as she took the book and began to read.

~*~

Flashback

The young blonde girl cried, as she looked out over the ocean, tears glistening in her eyes, as the sea foam bubbled to the surface of the crystal blue water.

"It's time, my precious one," Zeus called, as he stood behind her.

"Why Daddy?" she asked.

"Mother has been gone but a few weeks and you are getting married again!" Aphrodite shouted.

"You know it's not my choice, young one," he admonished.

"I am the God of the skies. I must have a Queen...it is one rule I cannot break," he said, as she stood up.

"And it is time for you to learn of your duties. You are the Goddess of love and beauty, daughter of Dione and you will fulfill her vision of championing true love," he announced, as an item appeared in his hand.

"Mother's chalice," she said in awe.

"Your chalice now...its magnificence and power is now yours," he corrected.

"What do I know about true love?" she asked bitterly. He smirked.

"You will, my sweet girl," he assured, as he kissed her forehead.

"Hera will not like that she does not get mother's chalice," Aphrodite said wearily.

"She has no claim to it. You are our pride and joy and she wouldn't want anyone but you to have it," he replied.

"It's a big responsibility…" she said with trepidation.

"One that your mother knew you would excel at. After all, who better than to choose the truest loves each millennium among the mortals than a product of true love herself," he said. Aphrodite smiled and hugged him.

"I miss her, Daddy," she said.

"Me too, sweet girl," he replied. They were both unaware of Hera's blistering gaze upon them from the shadows.

~*~

"Are you sure they're okay?" George questioned, as he looked at the pair. The moment James had given Aphrodite true love's kiss, the curse on them shattered, but as a side effect of the complete unlocking on Aphrodite's memories, they collapsed into unconsciousness. Neither Zeus or Dione seemed alarmed though and Nyx had magicked a bed to lay them upon.

"They are fine...this is part of it. They will only awaken when they have relieved their entire past," Zeus assured.

"What kind of curse is this? And who cursed them?" George asked.

"You will know that soon...but not before them," Dione replied and they went back to waiting for them to awaken.

~*~

"These are exquisite," the man said, as he examined the artifacts.

"These are genuine Olmec Terracotta's...they're priceless," the woman next to him added, as she looked them over as well.

"Everything has a price...getting these wasn't easy," Natalie commented.

"Yes...they are nearly untouched, despite their age. How did you find these?" the woman asked.

"I'm not an archeologist that plays by the rules, so to speak. But I know what I'm doing and able to excavate certain sites that have forbidden said excavation," Natalie replied.

"Clayton always did hire the best. It seems you have surrounded yourself with the same skillful people that your father did," she commented, looking to Johnny. He smirked.

"I was groomed from birth to step into his shoes," he agreed.

"And I do manage to find the best, however, our previous translator passed and we need a new one for this," Johnny mentioned.

"Oh a quipu...is this the one you've been hoping for?" she asked.

"We'll see," Natalie replied vaguely.

"Well…I may know of someone that can translate this for you. But I expect you to give me a deal on these beauties," she said.

"Then I assume you and Dr. La Guerra are interested in the jade as well?" Johnny asked.

"Normally, I would pass on the jade, but the condition this is in is rare," the doctor replied.

"Then you had better be prepared to pay a pretty penny," a new voice said, as Natalie turned.

"Mother…" she said in a warning tone.

"You'll let these real treasures slip through your fingers on the off chance that another silly quipu will lead you to a grander one that might not even exist," Thalia argued.

"I can't believe you discount the existence of Cibola or El Dorado when I was born in freaking Atlantis," Natalie argued back.

"Clayton was hundreds of years old and knew some of the best explorers. He even knew her ancestor, one of the greatest and most ruthless conquistadors in history," Thalia argued, gesturing to the woman.

"And he still never found it," she finished.

"It's real mother...and I'm going to find it," Natalie snapped back. Thalia sighed.

"You and finding things," she muttered under her breath.

"What?" Natalie asked, but her question was interrupted when Snow, David, and Xander appeared in the secret meeting place.

"Well, well...you found your way here, after all," Johnny said, as he tapped his glass.

"Ladies and Gentlemen...the illustrious Snow White and Prince Charming themselves, in the flesh, along with the chalice of Aphrodite!" he announced, instantly drawing the entire room's attention to them.

"My father's murderers!" he continued, with a hiss.

"We didn't murder him. His own arrogance destroyed him," David snapped back.

"Your chalice...it was all I ever heard about growing up, you know. Father was always a bit miffed that he knew about such an object, but it was the one thing he couldn't collect. Thus why he decided to collect the pair of you," Johnny retorted, as he looked to Xander.

"You remember the stories. I still remember those nights here and there where father was too busy to deal with me and the nannies were at their wits end. But you would get me calmed down and put to bed," he recalled, with a bit of fondness.

"All while you knew you abandoned your own son and your granddaughter that was out there in some group home," he added with a vicious smile.

"Shut up, you little prick," Xander hissed, which only amused the sadistic son of the Collector.

"And you," he said, with reverence, as he looked at Snow.

"Father always was enamored with you the most, because of your resemblance to the Goddess. She was his original obsession," he revealed, surprising them both.

"Oh, didn't know that, did you?" he said.

"I suppose you wouldn't, since the Goddess has had her memories scrambled more times than even you two," he retorted.

"Yes...he almost had it all. He made you crush his heart to cast a curse and he would have had the chalice. And you...but then you know that part. It still haunts you," he leered.

"Shut the hell up," David growled, as he pulled Snow even closer to him.

"And you...the hero Prince Charming. He wanted to be you, in a way, just without all the selfless heroics. The people's Prince...the husband of the fairest of them all. The truest loves. I came to loathe your story," he said bitterly.

"It's not our problem that your narcissistic father didn't hug you enough. Trust us...we never wanted his kind of attention," David retorted.

"Oh, but you got it...every bit of it," Johnny replied.

"We're here to retrieve the stolen items that you took," Snow said, as she looked at Natalie.

"Including the quipu. It's not yours," she added.

"Oh and I suppose you're going to take it from me, Princess?" Natalie challenged.

"Don't tempt her. That's not a fight you'll win," David challenged, as blue eyes met blue eyes.

"I think I can handle more than you know," she challenged back.

"Thinking you have any advantage here would be unwise," the older blonde woman next to Natalie said.

"Who the hell are you?" David asked. She smirked and looked at Xander.

"He is definitely yours," she replied.

"Long time no see...Xander," she purred.

"Thalia," he said stiffly.

"You know her?" David asked.

"Oh he knows me...quite well, in fact," she replied. Snow's eyes narrowed and she looked at her father-in-law.

"How well?" she asked, watching him swallow nervously.

"It only happened a couple of times," he assured.

"Oh my God…" David exclaimed in outrage.

"David...your mother had been gone a long time and I was struggling," he tried to explain.

"Yes...he was. The alcohol...the guilt with you laying in a hospital bed and his granddaughter in an unhappy group home," Thalia revealed.

"Stop it," Xander growled.

"Yes...to be fair, you wanted to reunite your family then, but Clayton convinced you that it would be a mistake," Thalia said.

"I've made a lot of mistakes and I wasn't always a good man. My son knows my shortcomings," Xander insisted.

"Apparently not with the way he's looking at you right now," Thalia said.

"Oh and I suppose your daughter knows everything about you?" he challenged. She frowned.

"Not everything…" Snow interjected and the older blonde glared at her.

"Stay out of this, princess. It's none of your business," she retorted.

"David is my business and I have a feeling there's something that she doesn't know about you," Snow challenged.

"Snow?" David asked, as he watched her look at his father. He sighed. He had known Snow long enough to know that she wouldn't let this go until she had answers for her husband.

"Is she mine?" he asked and Natalie looked alarmed by that question.

"What? Mother?" she asked.

"We're not doing this…" Thalia hissed, as the three of them cried out and a shield appeared around them.

"Ray shields...I think you'll find them quite impervious to your magical chalice," Thalia said, as they tried to use it to nullify the shield, but it didn't work.

"The auction is over for tonight!" she called, as they could only watch, as most of the people dispersed through portals that seemed to be catacombed within the strange chamber.

"Where is this place?" Snow wondered.

"We're hundreds of feet underground. Trust me, no one is going to find you," Natalie refuted.

"Underground?" David asked, as he and Snow shared an amused glance.

"You're going to eat those words," Snow said.

"What about our deal?" doctor La Guerra interjected, as there was suddenly a rumble beneath them and a huge plume of jade green smoke, as Bobby burrowed to the surface with his siblings and Regina, while the others waited on standby on the surface.

"That was the weirdest thing ever, but really cool," Leo said.

"There is a ton of dirt in my hair," Regina complained, as she started trying to brush it out.

"At least your hair is dark enough not to show it," Emma grumbled.

"Mom! Dad!" Eva called, as she ran to them.

"Careful honey...we don't know what this shield is, but the chalice couldn't break through," Snow warned. Regina waved her hand over it.

"It's not any magic I know," she said.

"Maybe it's not magic at all," Leo said, as Eva spotted a control panel on the wall.

"Not one step, princess," Thalia warned, but was shocked when Leo used a lightning bolt to fry the control panel, destroying the shield.

"Let's go…" Johnny growled, as he grabbed Natalie's hand. She spared another glance at them, as Johnny escaped with her and Thalia. The doctor and his companion weren't so lucky.

"Freeze!" David warned, as he pulled his gun on the mysterious pair and they were forced to put their hands up. Emma waved her hand and cuffs appeared on their wrists. David holstered his gun and they used the chalice to create a portal back to the surface.

"No idea who you two are...but you're gonna tell us," he said, as they gathered the stolen artifacts, except the quipu, and filed through the portal.

~*~

Flashback

Hera stormed into her Temple and huffed, as she sat down in her Throne.

"For someone that just got married to the All Mighty Zeus...you don't seem very happy," Blue mentioned, as she emerged from the shadows.

Zeus had created the fairies to be messengers between the Gods and mortals. For some reason, the mortals saw fairies as a symbol of good and did not fear them like they did the Gods. Mortals had their reasons to fear the Gods though, since the past was filled with bloodshed between the monarchs of Mount Olympus and humans.

Reul Ghorm had been chosen by him as head of the fairies, but as it often did, power slowly began to corrupt Blue and just as bitterness had set in for Hera, it had for Blue as well.

Blue wanted more power and control over mortals, but Zeus had long forbade it. She had even tried to endear herself to Dione in hopes of having a hand in choosing the truest loves. It was a vision that Dione had and never realized. She planned to select two mortals, who represented the epitome of true love, to bestow the power of her magical chalice to.

The chalice was forged by Dione's mother, Gaia herself, from the essence of the earth she loved so much and all its elements. She gifted it to Dione and she wanted to do good for mortals with it. But the recent Titanomachy had given Hera the perfect opportunity to eliminate the woman that had the Throne she wanted. Dione had been mortally wounded, but it was not what it appeared to be. Hera had colluded with the Titans to topple Zeus and Dione, promising them positions of power if she was crowned Queen if they killed Dione and her precious daughter. Naturally, she betrayed them all and they were cast into Tartarus with her secret remaining unknown. The end result was that Dione was dead and she was Queen now. However, their offspring lived and the coveted chalice now belonged to Aphrodite.

"He gave the chalice to his daughter!" she hissed.

"Then perhaps we need to arrange an accident for the little blonde bimbo," Blue suggested.

"You know that's impossible. The war with the Titans distracted Athena enough that she could not see our deception, but now it will not be so easy," Hera reminded her.

"True and if Zeus loses the apple of his eye...well, there will be no Earth to rule. He would smite us all and the mortals just in sheer blind rage," Blue agreed.

"Yes...and even as Queen, I am still overshadowed by Dione's precious little flower," Hera complained. Blue smirked.

"If we can't kill her...then we can certainly manipulate her," she suggested. Hera's interest perked at that.

"What do you have in mind?" Hera asked.

"I will befriend the empty headed beauty and help her choose her champions," Blue replied. Hera smirked.

"Champions that we select...champions that ultimately could lead to our control of the chalice," she deduced. Blue nodded.

"Precisely," she said and Hera tilted her head.

"You already have a pair of mortals in mind, don't you?" she asked. Blue smirked.

"Yes...and they will serve us well. The man I have in mind will do anything for power. Faking true love with some woman will fool the little twit and when she gifts them her chalice...it's as good as ours," Blue replied.

"Then this is our plan. Proceed...and do not fail me, Blue," Hera said.

"Never, my Goddess. Zeus may think my loyalty is to him, but we know that you are my Queen," Blue said, as she became small in her fairy form with a Blue glow and descended back to earth.

~*~

"Wow…" Tink said, as Rose finished reading the beginning passages.

"So Blue has really been loyal to Hera all along and was working for her," Fandal said.

"That's heavy...but something tells me more happened later between them. I mean, this explains why Hera hates Aphrodite, but this implies that Blue was only doing Hera's bidding at first," Neal said.

"He's right...somewhere it became personal for Blue too," Rose said, as she closed the book.

"I'll read more when we get home and then we can discuss more tomorrow," she said. Tink smiled and used her magic on the book, duplicating it.

"Now we can both read...because I have to know more. Then I think we can finally bring her down," Tink said. Rose nodded and smiled at her.

"Guess we're doing more reading when we get home instead of other stuff," Neal muttered. The blonde smirked.

"Behave and you might get more than reading," she teased, as they joined hands and left the diner.

"I'll round up the children," Fandral said, as he kissed her cheek and went to get them from the table where they were playing a game.

"Mom...what if the Blue Fairy realizes you're reading her story and she tries to stop you?" Carina asked worriedly.

"I won't lie to you, sweetie...she very well may try. But your Papa will never let anything happen to me," Rose promised.

"Your mother is right," Fandral agreed, as he took her hand and pulled her to her feet.

"The Blue Fairy may have magic, but this Asgardian warrior will not let her silence more people," he promised, as they left the diner to head home for the evening.

~*~

"Dammit...you two were careless! And now we lost a fortune worth of jade and rare terracotta's!" Thalia roared.

"Relax...the quipu is what we really wanted, especially if it is the one my father sought. The key to Cibola or El Dorado. They have enough treasure to command power over the entire world," Johnny replied.

"Or it's just another ancient series of knots and strings full of riddles! Taunting the truest loves was a horrible misstep!" she cried.

"They already knew exactly who we were!" Johnny snapped.

"That woman...the Major has them chasing us like her own personal team of fairy tale agents," he added irritably.

"Pack up...we're leaving. Back to the Athens base," Thalia ordered.

"Oh no...we're not doing that. It's time for offensive measures," Johnny refuted.

"Johnny...that's not a good idea," Thalia argued.

"I'm in charge of this operation!" Johnny snapped.

"I am my father's heir!" he added.

"Besides...the cowardly doctor will talk. I have no illusions that Prince Charming and his brats will interrogate the truth right out of him," he said. Thalia sighed.

"Then you better work on getting that thing translated and hope that it's what we need," she said.

"Not until you tell me what you're hiding," Natalie interjected.

"Natalie…" she started to deflect, but her daughter cut her off.

"Were you and Xander...involved?" she asked.

"Of course they were," Johnny answered for her.

"Stay out of this, Junior," Thalia snapped.

"Mother…" Natalie pressed and she sighed.

"It only happened a couple of times," Thalia insisted, stunning her to silence. She was almost afraid to ask her next question, because somehow she knew the answer.

"Is…is Xander my father?" she asked. Thalia turned away in frustration.

"Mother...is he my father!?" she shouted and her silence spoke volumes.

"Wow...that I didn't know, but I guess it makes sense," he said.

"You knew they were together at one time?" Natalie asked in an accusatory tone, but he shrugged.

"We were never together…" Thalia refuted.

"I remember seeing them together here and there as a child. When my father wasn't pulling him out of the bottle...your mum was. Honestly, I never really put it together, but it makes sense," Johnny said, as he started to laugh then.

"Father must certainly be laughing now...you're a Charming!" he exclaimed to her.

"Well...half Charming," he teased.

"Shut up!" Natalie hissed.

"Mother…" she growled.

"It's true...Xander is your father," Thalia revealed.

"You said that my father died…" Natalie hissed.

"I lied...and it was for the best! Xander was gone most of the time, on missions for Clayton and when he was around, he was drinking and wallowing about the children he had already abandoned. He would have abandoned you too," Thalia said.

"That wasn't your choice!" Natalie hissed.

"Xander is a traitor...and our plan remains unchanged," Johnny said, as he loaded his gun with a clip.

"We cannot count on Malina's source to translate the quipu...but I've located a back up. Let's go…" he said, as Natalie glared at her mother and had a moment of pause.

"Natalie...are you coming?" he asked. She looked at him and then nodded.

"Yes," she replied. The revelation that Xander was her father and she had this huge family out there was jarring. But she didn't know them and they certainly wouldn't want someone like her. No...this didn't change anything.

~*~

After returning to the surface, they escorted the two mysterious captives back to the Boston FBI headquarters for interrogation. Agent Green and Agent Brooks insisted on taking the first crack at their interrogation. Some of the other agents began processing the recovered artifacts, while David observed the interrogation from the glass, along with the Major. It was late, so he insisted that everyone go back to the hotel to get some sleep, but he wasn't surprised when Snow came in and put her arms around him. She could see the questions in his mind and knew his father was probably waiting in the conference room for him. But he didn't want to think about any of it right now, because he knew he knew lashing out in anger wouldn't get them anywhere. He wanted answers, but knew he wouldn't like hearing any of them. So for now, he was focused on the two potential investors in the next room. Snow managed to get a bit of his frustration to ebb away, but it was growing since the two agents weren't getting anywhere.

"How much more time are we going to let these two waste?" he asked impatiently.

"The lab is running their prints. If we get a hit, then I'll let you go at them both. But I'd rather you go in there with something, because they're not giving an inch," the Major replied.

"It's going to be okay," Snow whispered to him, as she kissed him gently. He sighed and pressed his forehead against hers.

"You figured it out before me…" he said.

"The bitterness rolled off that woman in waves and when I saw that it was directed at your father...it wasn't much of a leap after that," she replied, as the Major came back into the room with a file and Xander followed her in.

"We got two hits…" Patricia said, as she put the file down on the table in front of them.

"Did we even need to?" David asked, as he looked at his father.

"Do you know them too?" he demanded to know.

"Yes...I know of them. I only met them a handful of times," Xander said. David gripped the metal table, his knuckles turning white and probably the only thing that kept him from raging at that moment was Snow's hand on his arm.

"The man is Dr. Hector La Guerra. He technically had his medical license revoked in 1945 and he fled his homeland of France for the United States," Patricia said.

"Funny...he doesn't look that old," David commented.

"None of these people are what they seem. He was born in 1918 and worked for the Nazis during World War II," she continued.

"Oh wonderful...a real life Nazi," Snow said.

"He lost his license for human experimentation and specializes in working with disease and poisons," Patricia continued.

"Clayton recruited him after the war and brought him to Atlantis. He introduced the doctor to all the magical plants, herbs and substances he had in his collection. It was Dr. La Guerra that created the youth potions. He was able to synthesize the water from the fountain of youth with his own mixture of magical herbs and created a way to utilize the water without tying the user to Atlantis," Xander explained.

"Boy, the good news just keeps coming," David deadpanned.

"We never saw him in Atlantis...but I spent a lot of time in the infirmary with Eva during that time. There were many rooms sealed off to us and I can still remember the screaming of people coming from some of those rooms," Snow recalled, as she got a haunted look on her face. Xander nodded.

"That would be him. There is other things I could tell you about what he does to people, but it's too horrific and I'm not going to do that," he added, as they looked at him.

"I'll tell you everything you need to know, but I will not tell you the specifics of what he does to people, even children, inside those rooms. You won't be able to handle it," Xander said firmly. Snow shuddered and David let that lay, as he turned his head back to the window.

"Enough about the sick bastard...what about her?" he asked.

"She is Malina Pizarro, born in Spain and if you know anything about the history of the Conquistadors, yes, she is of that Pizarro bloodline. The conqueror of the Incas was her ancestor and she has continued her quest to pillage and destroy indigenous cultures all over the globe," Patricia replied.

"Born in 1936 to her powerful and wealthy parents in Barcelona, she followed in her family's footsteps and led many expeditions that resulted in the destruction of ancient sites, their history, and complete pillaging of their cultures," Patricia added.

"How are evil pieces of crap like this not in prison already?" David hissed in frustration.

"You know why, David...that's the reason you and your family are here," Patricia reminded him. He turned back to the window in frustration and then stood up straight.

"They're not getting anywhere...I'm going in," he said, as he walked out of the room. He drew his sword and barged into the interrogation room.

"Excuse me...we're in the middle of an interrogation," Agent Green argued.

"And for normal perps, your methods might work...but not for this evil scum. Get out," he ordered. Agent Green huffed, but when Patricia entered the room and motioned them out, they reluctantly obeyed her order.

"Uh oh Malina...Prince Charming is here to intimidate us," the doctor goaded and she smirked back at him. David responded by kicking his chair out from beneath him. The man cried out, as he fell to the floor, but not before he hit his chin on the table on the way down, causing him excruciating pain. Blood leaked from his mouth from busted teeth and he glared up at the Prince.

"You ignorant brute…" the doctor hissed.

"You're going to tell me where Junior is off to or you're not going to live to see another day," David warned. The doctor chuckled.

"Right to the death threats…" he laughed.

"Believe it or not, your Highness, you don't scare me. I've done things that would make you double over and retch where you stand," he warned.

"So I've heard," David retorted.

"Oh no...you haven't heard the details, because you're still standing," as he turned his attention to the window. It was one way glass, but somehow he must have known she was there.

"I remember seeing your lovely, fair wife in Atlantis...your children too. None of you ever saw me, as Clayton forbade me contact with you, for he knew I wouldn't be able to help myself," he goaded.

"Specimens like them...now that would have been a glorious experiment. Magical blood...I begged him to let me at her, but alas, it didn't happen. I imagined her tortured screams though and watching her red blood slide down her white, delicate skin…" he said, as he licked his lips. David lost it at that moment and picked him up, before slamming him against the wall.

"Last chance to keep breathing. One more word about my wife or children and it's over for you," he warned.

"If you want information...then we want a deal," Malina said calmly.

"Not happening...the only deal you're getting is life in prison and not a needle in your arm. Your list of crimes is extensive," Patricia replied. She smirked.

"Then do your worst, Major Donovan. My family is powerful...I won't spend one day in your jail," she said confidently. But it was Patricia's turn to smirk.

"Oh, it won't be an American prison if you don't cooperate," she revealed.

"Your crimes in other countries have them clamoring to prosecute you. I just put out the word that I have you in custody, thanks to my newest and very special agent," she said, referring to David. She frowned.

"The American prison is at least humane. You'll get meals and a bed and even a few privileges. But the other countries prisons won't be so nice, but not even those are the ones you have to worry about, because if I turn you over to the people that your family has destroyed for centuries...your life is done and your death will not be swift," she threatened.

"You can't do that...your court system does not work that way," she countered.

"It does in this case...do you really want to test me or him?" Patricia said.

"Fine...those in the states that can still translate a quipu are all at Universities, which would be too risky now. So Junior is likely going to Peru. That's about the only place where you're going to anyone that can still read them and even then that's going to be difficult. It's a dead language, as are the Inca people. But I know of one family near Cusco...and so does he. That's where he'll go," Malina revealed.

"And this family? Will they tell him willingly?" David asked. She smirked.

"Definitely not...his father helped the Conquistadors destroy their ancestors, as well as countless other cultures. But like his father...Johnny will get what he wants, one way or another," she replied smugly.

"It's too bad...I'd love to participate in the coming torture," the doctor said.

"Reminding me that you're still breathing isn't wise," David snapped at him, as he walked out.

"We're leaving aboard the Jolly Roger in the morning and those two are going to lead us to them," he said to Patricia. She nodded.

"I'll have them put down in a holding cell until then. Agent Green and Agent Brooks, you and your team will be responsible for transporting these two to the Harbor and joining us. We're going to Peru, O six hundred," she ordered, as she saw David pull Snow into his arms and kiss her. Some of his stress melted away at her kiss and her touch, at least in those quiet seconds.

"David…" Xander interrupted.

"You tucked Clayton's son in at night while your granddaughter was alone in a group home!" he roared.

"It wasn't like that," Xander insisted.

"He was a neglected child that grew into the shadow his father left behind," he added.

"You worked with these people!" David shouted.

"You ate with them! Talked to them! Hell...you even slept with some of them!" he ranted.

"And I hated all of them! And mostly myself most of the time, but Clayton was very convincing! You have to believe me! I wanted nothing more than to get Emma from that group home and bring her to you! But he told me it would be a disaster!" Xander insisted.

"He lied," David growled.

"Yes...and I realized it far too late. I helped him destroy people, because he promised me that in the end, it would lead me back to you and my family," Xander replied. David snorted.

"Well...he was right. Too bad it took you almost thirty years to get to us when you knew exactly where we were," he said, as he took Snow's hand and started to walk away.

"David please...you have to forgive me," Xander pleaded. He stopped and turned to him partially.

"No…I don't and I'm not sure I can," he said.

"David…" he begged, with tears in his eyes.

"How many times?" David asked.

"What?" Xander asked.

"How many times did you stand over my comatose body in that hospital!?" he roared. Xander swallowed thickly.

"Too many," he answered and David shook his head.

"You could have brought Emma to me...hell, you could have brought Snow to me too and you didn't! You were too busy working for that psychopath and sleeping with his operatives," David hissed, as he turned away again and Snow cast a glance behind her, as they walked away from him. She was torn, for the last thing she wanted was for her husband's relationship with his father to implode. But her loyalty was to David first and he had every right to be angry.

~*~

Flashback

The village burned with roaring fire, making it certain that it would be wiped off the map when the flames died. A tall man of Greek descent emerged from the fire and approached his team.

"Did you get it?" he asked, as one of his excavators unwrapped the cloth and presented the jeweled necklace to him. He examined it, but his hope faded and he tossed it back at the worker.

"This is fake!" he cried.

"I'm...I'm sorry sir...the chief finally revealed its location after hours of interrogation. This is said to be the necklace of Harmonia," he replied.

"It's a fake replica! Costume jewelry!" he ranted, as he tossed it into the fire.

"I need that necklace! It can give me eternal youth and find the treasure I seek," he growled.

"The necklace of Harmonia is with Zeus...you'll never obtain it," a voice said, as there was a blue flash and a woman appeared before him.

"A fairy…" he said with intrigue.

"Yes...and you are the man known as the Collector," she replied.

"Sirius Clayton…" he introduced himself.

"Now, if you'll excuse me, I must continue my quest for another source of eternal youth if I am to make sure I live long enough to find Atlantis," he said.

"I can help you do that...and more. I can make your entire bloodline for centuries to come...legendary," she offered. He stopped and turned back to her.

"I am not a good man and you are a fairy. Why would you do that?" he questioned.

"Because I want power...just like you and I need a mortal to get that power," she revealed.

"But don't worry...you'll have the ultimate power too," she said.

"Tell me more…" he inquired.

"There is a chalice, created by Gaia herself and gifted to her favorite daughter, Dione. In turn, Dione has gifted to her precious one, Aphrodite," Blue explained.

"Goddess of love, beauty, and desire," he recalled.

"That's the one...the apple of Zeus' eye and instead of giving the chalice to his new wife, Hera, he has given it to his naive, virginal daughter that still thinks that true love is real," Blue said.

"Fascinating...and where do I come in?" he asked.

"Before Dione died, she intended to gift the chalice to a true love pair that she deemed worthy of it to champions of love and heroes to mortals. But she never discovered a pair that she deemed worthy enough," Blue explained.

"Her daughter is determined to keep those standards, but she is wildly more naive than her wise mother," she continued. He smirked.

"You want me to find some woman and convince your naive Goddess that we are the pair she should gift her chalice too," he deduced.

"You are sharp...but it can't be just any woman. It has to be someone convincing and able to pull off the act," she replied. He smirked.

"I think I know of someone," he said.

"But what kind of power are we talking about?" he questioned.

"Unlimited power and eternal youth," she promised. He smirked.

"Where do we start?" he asked.

~*~

Xander sat at the hotel bar and hadn't even bothered to go to his room that night. It was almost two in the morning and they would be kicking him out soon. A glass of scotch sat before him and his stare burrowed into the amber glass of liquid, as a blonde climbed onto the seat next to him.

"Please tell me you haven't touched that, Gramps," Emma said.

"Don't worry...I'm just looking at the thing that kept me from my family for so long," Xander replied.

"You know, I don't blame you, right?" Emma asked. He snorted.

"Your father does...maybe you should. I could have spared you years of unhappiness, Emma. When the Swans sent you back...I should have told Clayton to go to hell and took you straight to your father," he replied.

"You know Clayton would have stopped you or tried to. He might have killed you," Emma surmised.

"And you know Dad...he'll come around. He's almost as forgiving as Mom," she reminded him.

"I don't know, Em...I've never seen him this angry," Xander replied.

"Mom will bring him around...she always does. Just give him time," Emma assured him.

"I hope you're right…" Xander replied.

"Go up to your room and get a little sleep. We're leaving early," she suggested.

"I'm not sure David wants me there," Xander said.

"Yes he does...and you know Clayton's operation better than anyone. Not to mention that you now have a daughter out there that's on the wrong side. You can either stay here and wallow in self pity," Emma said, as he looked at her.

"Or you can fight for your relationship with my Dad and maybe even one with your daughter," she said.

"Her mother has poisoned her against us," Xander replied.

"And we thought George and later Clayton did the same thing to James and now I call him Uncle James," Emma reminded him, as she pushed the glass toward the bartender.

"He won't be needing this," she said, as she threw some money down for it. Xander sighed and followed her to the elevator.

"We always tell you how much like your father you are, but you are every bit your mother's daughter too," he mentioned fondly. Emma smiled.

"I know...I've seen the hope thing work for her time and again, so I took a page from her book on this one. Dad will come around," she assured, as they got in the elevator.

~*~

Snow awoke in the middle of the night, noticing that the warmth of David's body was gone. She got up and padded out to the outside balcony of their hotel suite in her long, white silk nightgown. She found him there, staring off into space and slipped her arms around his waist, before resting her head against his naked back.

"Oh baby…" she murmured, as her heart ached for him.

"I just got used to having a brother...and now a sister…" he muttered.

"A sister that was raised in Clayton's world," he said.

"Not all the people in his network are killers," she offered, as he took her in his arms and kissed her hair.

"I hope...I mean, the stealing I can get passed," he said, looking at her fondly and she smiled back.

"You do have a thing for bandits," she teased.

"Except you were stealing to survive. She steals...for treasure," he said bitterly.

"Then it's your father that's mostly bothering you," she surmised.

"I knew he had killed people...I mean, I've killed people too. We're not so different...at least that's what I told myself," he said.

"But if I knew my grandchild was out there, somewhere alone, being abused...I would have moved heaven and earth to get to them!" he said fiercely.

"I know...I know, my love…" she soothed.

"What if Merlin hadn't nurtured her belief by giving her the book? It would have been ten times worse for her, Snow," he fretted.

"At least the book showed her how much we truly loved her and how we didn't choose to be separated from her. It gave her hope…" he continued.

"But my father could have walked into that adoption agency, submitted to a DNA test, and proved he was Emma's blood. But instead, he was sailing around other realms that weren't frozen by the curse, collection things for Clayton! Treasure and gold and inanimate objects over our daughter!" he stressed.

"Over you...you can say it, my love. He chose those things over you and it was wrong," she said.

"You are a much stronger, braver man than he is. You are your mother's son," she said fondly. He sighed.

"The killing...I can get past as surprising as that sounds. I got past it with James. He was raised by a tyrant. It would have been a miracle if he didn't become a killer," he said.

"But what else has he lied about? There could be so many things we don't know about him. I knew that...and I ignored it. I can't do that anymore. I need to know everything," he added.

"And you will," she assured him, as she led him back inside.

"Until then...we should go back to bed," she said, as he sighed.

"You know I can't sleep now…" he replied. She smirked and gently let the thin straps on her nightgown fall away and it became a puddle at her feet.

"Then let's do some...not sleeping," she replied. His eyes glazed, as he drank her in. His beautiful wife was a master at distracting him and though he knew they would have to deal with all of this in just a few short hours, he welcomed this distraction. He walked to her with purpose and kissed her passionately, while cupping her face in his hands. She mewled into his kiss and then yelped in excitement, as he lifted her up and she hooked her legs around his waist. He carried her to bed and for those few hours, they became lost in each other...

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awkwardnessandbaseball · 5 years

Photo

As promised, here’s Chapter One!!!

So many thanks to: @cspupstravaganza, @sherlockianwhovian, and @lassluna.

AO3 if that’s your jam.

I’d Pick You (and Your Little Dog, Too)

A Captain Swan Pupstravaganza Story

Summary: According to everyone in the known universe, Emma Swan’s dog is supposed to lead her to her soulmate. But she’s not even sure if she wants that. Soulmates are pretty idealistic, don’t you think?

Chapter One:

There is a good chance that Rascal is going to break Emma Nolan’s neck one of these days. She loves her dog dearly, but he isn’t easy to walk on a crowded street. Even down a limb, he still barrels down the sidewalk, always on a mission, pulling Emma this way and that. Most of the time, somehow or another, it turns out that he’s gotten her away from some accident or pulled her towards the exact food she’s been craving.

One time, she’d been distracted, looking down at her phone, and a car had run straight through a red light while she was in the crosswalk. Rascal yanked her across the street so hard, she’d nearly fallen flat on her face. But she couldn’t be mad at him, because he’d quite literally saved her life. A little shoulder soreness from the pulling sure beat being flattened in the middle of an intersection.

“You really should have more control over your dog, you know.” A strange man is wrinkling up his nose at Emma as Rascal drags her down the sidewalk. It’s odd enough that the man has an unfamiliar face in a small town like Storybrooke, where Emma’s lived for her entire life, but the judgement apparent on his face just rubs her the wrong way. She doesn’t respond as Rascal leads her directly to the door of her favorite coffee shop. It’s been a long week, and Rascal knows it, so he knows this is what she needs this morning. Emma returns her attention to the man, unsure why he feels the need to comment on her dog owning skills. Catching her eye, he continues speaking to her. “They’re very important creatures in our lives. It would be a shame if something happened before he could fulfill his duty.” The man turns and walks away, and Emma notices that he doesn’t even have a dog of his own.

She knows he’s right, of course. Her dog is supposed to somehow lead her not only into coffee shops and out of trouble, but also directly into the arms of her soulmate. If she’s even got one.

At 28, most of her friends have already been paired off. Ruby’s tiny little Cairn terrier, Toto, got her leash tangled up with Dorothy’s oversized Siberian Husky, Wolf, when they were only twenty. Ashley’s white Labrador Retriever, Tommy, had brought home her neighbor’s Yorkie as if they were on a play date – Sean wasn’t happy about it until he’d seen who owned the lab who’d stolen his dog, Boots. Even Will Scarlet’s beautiful little cocker spaniel, Lady, had somehow led him straight to Belle and her mess of a mutt, Tramp.

Emma and her brother, David, are the only ones left out of their friends without soulmates. It’s absurd. The whole thing is, really. Dogs are too good and pure to be used just as tools to find your soulmate.

Emma doesn’t know if she even buys into the whole soulmate thing. The idea that a dog chooses you, fine, but that it then leads you to another human just seems so…idealistic. Like maybe people just love their dogs so much that they want to find people just like them, and the soulmate thing is just an excuse.

She’s tried to make this argument before, but David has always shut her down. He’s an optimistic fool who is the very definition of hopeless romantic. His soulmate’s dog probably sleeps beside its human in bed every night, snuggled up for warmth and safety.

Emma does let herself wonder, occasionally, what her soulmate’s dog is like. She wonders if the dog runs away often, or is afraid of small spaces like she is. She wonders if her soulmate lives across the world in Europe or something and that’s why it’s taking so long to find them.

She wanders into the coffee shop, looking around at all of the human-canine pairs lounging about on couches and sipping drinks at the counter. There are hitches for dog leashes throughout the shop, but most people choose to keep them in-hand, their dogs as much a part of them as their hands or arms or legs. The shop, like most, gives out a small plastic container of water to each customer for their canine counterparts, and some people have taken to labeling the makeshift bowls the way their cups are labeled by the baristas. Emma sees a lot of ‘Charlies’ and ‘Stellas’ on these bowls, but so far, hers is the only Rascal.

Sometimes, she watches Rascal when they enter a building full of dogs, just to see if he’ll lead her to someone special. So far, he never has. Today is no different, and she approaches the counter as she shakes the idea from her head, ordering a latte for herself and a black coffee for David.

They hand her a plastic container and she leaves it unlabeled, truthfully wishing she could leave her own cup unmarked as well. It’s a small thing, but she always feels as though everyone stares at her when the baristas call out her name, particularly when it’s spelled, and therefore pronounced, incorrectly.

The amount of times she’s been called ‘Enya’ is far higher than it has any right to be.

She places the container on the ground so Rascal can have a drink while they wait, and then tosses the empty bowl into the recycling bin when he’s done.

“Irma?” the barista calls out, and Emma turns red as she grabs the two cups from her and nearly runs out the door, Rascal the one struggling to keep up for once.

She heads to the station to start her shift. The nice thing about being the sheriff of Storybrooke is that it’s a sleepy little town, which makes her job extremely easy. Plus, her twin brother is her deputy. All in all, there are worse life choices she could have made.

A shudder goes down her spine as her ex, Neal, pops into her mind, but she ignores it and forces his smug face out of her mind. No sense thinking about the life she could have had on the other side of the law, now that she’s quite happy enforcing it. Rascal senses her sudden discomfort and stops walking, staring at her for assurance that she’s okay.

“I’m good, bud. Just thinking about you-know-who.” Emma nods once, balancing the two cups in the palm of her hand - a skill leftover from her waitressing days - and leans down to pet him briefly before continuing on their way. Rascal never liked Neal – and that should have been Emma’s first and biggest red flag, really – and he still growls at the mere mention of the man’s name.

When Emma arrives at the station, David sees her struggling with the door and runs over to open it for her, giving Rascal a head scratch while he’s at it. Once his collar and leash are unclipped, Rascal runs ahead of Emma and joins Princess in what has become their designated corner of the station. They circle each other for a moment, sniffing each other with happy, wagging tails, before settling in together on their extra-large dog bed. David takes his coffee from Emma’s hand with a thank you and a kiss to her cheek, and then fills her in on the day thus far.

“Leroy had a few too many at the Rabbit Hole last night, so he slept it off in a cell but was good to go about an hour ago. Regina called, claiming she needed extra security for the town hall meeting next week.” David glances at Emma quickly and they both burst into laughter.

The last time the mayor had a town hall meeting, it had been when Emma was up for election as sheriff. People had filed in endlessly, filling the room to the brim, to support their favorite deputy. Regina had nominated one of her pawns, a man named Sidney Glass who ran the local gossip paper, and the entire town rallied against it.

But the police hadn’t been prepared for such a turnout, and there’d nearly been several fights and they’d narrowly avoided a small fire. At least three pieces of artwork had been somehow spoiled – a rip here, a small dent in the frame there, and one barely noticeable piece of graffiti in the corner of Mayor Mills’ portrait.

It’s really no surprise that Regina wants additional security for this meeting. Although Emma doubts as many people will be showing up to vote on whether to use the abandoned plot of land in the center of town for a new library or a playground.

“Do you think it’s weird that some people don’t have soulmates?” David asks her suddenly.

Emma looks at him and tilts her head, unsure of where his question has come from or where it’s leading. She sips her latte while she thinks of how to answer.

Her brother is, after all, a hopeless romantic who’s been holding out nearly his entire adult life for someone he’s introduced to by way of Princess. It was difficult for him to go through his entire adolescence without a dog at all, and when they were kids, he had asked Emma almost daily if she thought it meant there was no one out there for either of them.

“No, David, I think it just means... maybe we’re not ready to meet them yet,” she had told him once when they were in high school. He had nodded his head and seemed to accept her answer. At any rate, he’d stopped asking, finally, and they found Rascal and Princess by the end of the following summer, right after their 18th birthdays.

She thinks about this moment, about how he’d stopped asking her questions, and what it means that he’s bringing up the topic of dog-less humans again now, more than ten years later.

“No, I don’t. I think people can find someone to fall in love with, even if fate didn’t choose that person for them. You fell in love with Kathryn,” Emma points out in the present moment, hoping David won’t notice that she’s conveniently forgetting her own former love story. Princess raises her head at David’s ex-girlfriend’s name and lets out a surprisingly human-like sigh.

“Right, but then I found Princess and she found Dodger, and we realized soon after that we weren’t meant to be. What about people who never get dogs at all?”

Emma raises an eyebrow.

“I saw a guy today who didn’t have a dog. He was really bitter and told me I needed to have better control over Rascal.” She rolls her eyes. “But I’m sure not everyone without a soulmate is like that. There’s enough of them out there that they’re bound to find their way together some way or another.”

“Or they end up alone, watching the rest of us get our happy endings.” David is staring into space now, absentmindedly chewing on the end of a pen.

“Where is this coming from?” Emma finally asks.

“I saw a woman yesterday,” he begins, and Emma’s eyes nearly roll right out of her head. “She was absolutely beautiful and had the most radiant smile. I had just finished up my talk with the sixth graders on peer pressure and drugs and all that, and she was walking towards me when I was leaving. I think she’s a teacher, but I’ve never seen her before.” A smile is forming on David’s face and Emma doesn’t think she’s ever seen him look like this. When he met Kathryn, she was simply pretty and nice, and seemed to be as lonely and romantic as he was. It was logical and it was easy. The look on David’s face makes Emma think that this might not be quite so cut and dry.

“And she didn’t have a dog?” Emma guesses, and David is brought back down to earth. He pulls the pen from his mouth and meets her eyes.

“Nope,” he admits, with a shake of his head. “So we can’t be soulmates, right? Because I have Princess and she doesn’t have a dog at all.”

“That’s what they say,” Emma shrugs. The whole thing is silly to Emma. Because yes, sometimes dogs lead you to your soulmate, but the randomness of it all, the fact that there’s no age, and no definitive way that your dogs lead you together, just seems plain old unfair. Besides, Emma’s pretty certain that she doesn’t even have a soulmate, that she doesn’t really need one, but she’s still got Rascal. So maybe she and David are just different somehow. Maybe she doesn’t have a soulmate but she has a dog, and maybe David’s got a soulmate who doesn’t have one at all. Truthfully, Emma wishes David would just forget about this woman and move on. The hopeful look in his eyes, especially over a woman he’s just met, breaks her heart because she can’t stand the thought of him being heartbroken all over again. But she knows, deep in her heart, what he wants her to say. And so, because she’s the worst sister in the world, she says it. “But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t talk to her. Maybe she just hasn’t gotten matched yet.”

David looks a bit hopeful at her last statement, and Emma can see the wheels turning in his head as he wonders if it’s worth the risk – meeting someone and falling for them again, only to have fate tear them apart. She’s not sure if her brother can take a heartbreak like that again.

Emma certainly can’t. Not for either of them.

They settle into a companionable silence, each of them lost in their own separate thoughts, when the phone rings.

“Hello, Storybrooke Police,” David answers casually. His brows furrow as he listens. “Yes. Yes. Okay, please stay calm, we’ll be right there. Thank you.” He stands as he hangs up the phone. “There’s two dogs running around the park off of Main Street. They don’t have tags or collars and they won’t let anyone near them. There are apparently no owners in sight, and no one saw where they came from.”

Throughout Emma’s life, she’s seen a few people without dogs. Some of them are older, some of them young and still hopeful for a match. They all tell themselves different stories about why they’ve never been matched. They aren’t common, but as Emma told David, there are enough of them that it’s not necessarily strange.

But in all of Emma’s 28 years on this earth, aside from the day that she herself found Rascal, she’s never seen a loose dog without a human.

#captain swan #captain swan fanfic #cspupstravaganza #caitlin writes #i forgot to tag the other one with that oops

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