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hb-pickle · 3 years

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Frozen 2: Dangerous Secrets Review Essay

Why Sensitivity Readers Are Always Necessary

Before I start, I would like to make it very clear that this review only critiques the aspects of colonialism and representation in Frozen 2: Dangerous Secrets. I will not be discussing the romance, side characters or anything else like that. Also, I would like to make it very clear that none of this review is meant to personally attack or berate the author @marimancusi . I firmly believe that none of the cultural insensitivities in her book were intentional, but were simply the result of a non-indigenous, white author writing about experiences she could not personally relate to. My only goals for writing this review is to show the author how her book unintentionally perpetuated many harmful and outdated ideas about racism and colonialism, and to convince her and Disney to contact and hire sensitivity readers before they create content about vulnerable racial/ethnic groups.

I would also like to state that I am an African American woman and not indigienous, so I have personal experiences with racism and colonialism towards black people, but not towards indigenous communities. So if any indigenous people see problems or inaccuracies with my review, I would be happy to listen and put your voice first.

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To summarize quickly (with full context), Frozen 2: Dangerous Secrets is about Iduna, a young indigenous Northuldra girl (oppressed racial/ethnic minority) who was suddenly and violently separated from her home and family when her people were betrayed and attacked by the Arendellians (colonizing class). As a result of the massacre battle between the two groups, Iduna is permanently separated from her home (caused by a magical and impenetrable mist) and forced to spend the rest of her days in the kingdom of Arendelle, where she lives in almost constant fear of being exposed as a Northuldran (for the townsfolk are violently bigoted against them). Naturally, this book contains many many depictions of racial hatred and bigotry along with exploring the mindset and fears of a young girl dealing with the brunt of colonialism. Unfortunately, it tends to fumble the seriousness of these situations (out of ignorance or out of a desire to keep the book lighthearted/to center the romance plotline), which results in an overall detrimental message to the audience. The missteps I specifically want to unpack are as follows.

- (1/5) Severs Iduna’s connection to her culture before the story even begins (making us feel less empathetic for the Northuldra’s plight)

I’m not 100% certain, but my understanding is that the purpose of making Iduna a double orphan was to make her more sympathetic and to give her a reason to save Agnarr’s life (to have compassion for a stranger, the same way her adoptive family did for her). In theory this is perfectly fine, quickly establishing that the audience should like Iduna is smart and so is rationalizing her most important, life changing decision. But in practice this only functions to distance Iduna from her culture and family and make the reader care less about the Northuldra. This is because it takes away Iduna’s chance to have a strong, palpable relationship with a specific Northuldra character, which would humanize their entire group (even if only in memory). The only Northuldra characters that Iduna mentions more than once is her mother and Yelena. Both of these characters are mentioned rarely, neither have a close relationship with Iduna (her mother dying 7 years before the events of the story), nor do either of them have any specific personality traits or lines of dialogue (Yelena has exactly one line and it is about knitting). The goal of a story about a child unjustly stolen from her home should be to explore why those acts of violence were so horrific. The very first step of exploring that is to humanize the victims. After all, why would a reader care about the injustices done to a group of people who barely exist? How are we, the readers, supposed to feel bad for Iduna and mourn her family like she does, if we barely know them?

We needed more of Iduna’s memories. We needed to learn about her friends, her family, her mother and Yelena. What were they really like? How did they love Iduna? What were their last words to her before she never saw them again? Didn’t Iduna care for them? Did she worry about their well being and miss their comforts? We need to hear about how she bonded with them, how they made her feel, how they made her laugh or cry. How they taught her to hunt, forage, and knit so that when we hear how the Arendellians speak of them, with such ignorance and contempt, we are as truly disgusted and offended as we should be.

- (2/5) Equates Iduna and Agnarr’s suffering, aggressively downplaying the brutality of colonialism (even to the point of prioritizing Agnarr’s needs)

First things first, I understand that Dangerous Secrets is a modern day romance novel for older children/teens so an equal power balance between Agnarr and Iduna is preferred (which I agree with). But, this balance extends past the romance and personalities and into attempting to portray Agnarr and Iduna’s suffering as equal. This is best exemplified in these lines of internal dialogue by Iduna:

I did not deserve to be locked away from everyone I loved. But Agnarr did not deserve to die alone on the forest floor because he’d had a fight with his father. Whatever happened that day to anger the spirits and cause all of this, it was not his fault. Nor was it mine. And while we might be on different sides of this fight, we had both lost so much. Our friends. Our family. Our place in the world. In an odd way we were more alike than different. (Page 67)

All of this is technically true, up until the very last line about them being “more alike than different”. Agnarr and Iduna’s lives are nothing alike. Iduna is a poor, indigenous girl who had everyone she ever knew or loved either killed or permanently taken away from her, stolen from her home and forced to spend the rest of her life living in a foreign kingdom rife with people who actively, consistently threaten her safety. While Agnarr, on the other hand, is a white male member of the royal family, heir to the throne, and extremely wealthy. The novel doesn’t shy away from this (at least on Agnarr’s part), and doesn’t hesitate to show us that Agnarr is royalty and will never experience what Iduna has to endure. But it behaves like Agnarr’s relatively petty, temporary, and incomparable ills are just as heartbreaking as Iduna’s and focuses significantly more time and energy building up empathy for him and his woes. This extends from small things like the book asserting that the few times Agnarr needed to stay in his castle, to avoid political assasination was comparable to Iduna’s family being trapped in the mist (against their will for 30+ years); to more concerning issues like claiming Agnarr’s separation from his parent’s is just as distressing as Iduna’s separation from her entire people. Now fleshing out Agnarr and his relation to parents is a good thing, since it can provide crucial character motivation and make him more of a well rounded character. But when Agnarr’s suffering is presented as more relevant and worthwhile discussing than Iduna’s it, by extension, implies that the frustrations of an affluent life and being separated from parents that did not value you in the first place (Runeard and Rita) is somehow more or just as pressing as facing the brunt of the most violent and terrifying forms of colonialism. Agnarr’s story may be tragic, but it is nowhere near as horrific as Iduna’s and the book should acknowledge and reflect that.

- (3/5) Has a rudimentary understanding of racism and how if affects the people who perpetuate it

Dangerous Secrets’ understanding of racism (and how to deal with it) is summed up very concisely in a conversation between Lord Peterssen and young Prince Agnarr. Agnarr asks his senior why the Arendellian towns people are so obsessed with blaming magic and the spirits (magic and spirits being an allegory for real world characteristics that are unique to one culture or people) for all their problems, and the following exchange insues:

“People will always need something to blame for their troubles”, he explained. “And magical spirits are an easy target-since they can’t exactly defend themselves… “So what do we do?” I asked. “We can’t very well fight against an imaginary force!” “No. But we can make the people feel safe. That’s our primary job.” (Page 132-133)

Though Lord Peterssen is supposed to be a flawed character, who puts undue pressure onto Iduna and Agnarr to uphold the status quo of Arendelle, this line is (intentional or not) how the book actually views racism and how it expects the characters (and reader by extension) to deal with/understand it. Bigotry is portrayed as something that is inevitable and something that should not be quelled or disproven, but accommodated for. Agnarr, as king next in line, should not worry about ending the unjust hatred in his kingdom, or killing the root of the problem (the rumors). Instead he should tell his people their suspicions are correct, and put actual resources and time into abetting their dangerous beliefs. Even later on, at the very end of the novel, Agnarr treats the prolific bigotry and magic hatred of his people as an unfortunate circumstance he has found himself in, and not something that he, as king, has the power or civic responsibility to change.

This could have been an excellent line of flawed logic, representing how privileged people tend to avoid/project the blame of racism, and prioritize order and peace over justice. Which would work especially well for Peterssen and Agnarr since they are both high class nobles with the power to actually make a difference, instead choosing to foist responsibility onto Iduna (in the case of Peterssen) who was only a child, relatively impoverished, and the one with the most to lose if she spoke out. Or, in the case of Agnarr, they do disagree with the fear mongering, but only for personal reasons (Agnarr because his father used it as an excuse for his lies); refusing still to actually work to improve his society. But the key detail is that this needs to be portrayed as wrong, which this book fails to do. Agnarr nor Peterssen are ever expected to disprove the townsfolk’s bigotry in any meaningful, long lasting sense, Peterssen is never confronted seriously for his cowardice and victim blaming, and Agnarr is never criticized for his anti-bigotry being based entirely on his own personal parental issues and not in the fact that he knows with 100% certainty that the Northuldra are innocent.

This flawed understanding of bigotry also applies to how the book depicts the Arendellian townsfolk, who are awarded no accountability whatsoever for their actions. The townspeople spend the entire book threatening to kill any Northuldra they find and Peterssen, Agnarr, and Iduna are constantly afraid that they would immediately destabilize the government if they found out their king was close to one. But somehow this does not translate into any contempt or distrust in our protagonist or the reader. In this novel, we meet only four openly bigoted individuals: the two orphan children playing “kill the Northuldra”, the purple/pink sheep guy (Askel), and the allergy woman (Mrs. Olsen). The orphans are dismissed wholesale because they are literal children who also lost both of their parents in the battle of the dam (so they were killed by Northuldra; somewhat justifying their anger). And the other two townsfolk are joke characters, whose claims are so unbelievable that they aren’t supposed to be seen as a serious threat. Not only that but Askel is rewarded for his bigotry when Iduna offers he sell his pink sheep’ wool (which he thought was an attack from the Northuldra) as beautiful pink shawls. These are the only specific characters that show any type of active bigotry in the entire kingdom besides Runeard, whomst is dead. Every other character is either an innocent and friendly bystander (the woman at the chocolate shop, the new orphans Iduna buys cookies for, the farmers Iduna sells windmills too, the people at Agnarr and Iduna’s wedding), has no opinion at all (Greda, Kai, Johan), or is portrayed as someone who is just innocently scared and doesn’t know any better (the rest of the townsfolk, especially those who fear the Northuldra are the sun mask attackers). Even the King of Vassar, the most violent and dangerous living character of the story, doesn’t even hold any prejudice against the Northuldra, and simply uses their imagery to scare Arendelle into accepting his military rule.

So according to this book, bigotry and racism come not from the individual, but from society and the system you live in, but also not really because the people in charge of that system (Peterssen, Agnarr, and eventually Iduna) are also virtually guiltless. This, of course, is not true at all. Racism is a moral failing which exists on all levels of society, from individuals who chose to be bigoted, to others who tolerate bigotry as long as it doesn’t inconveniance them. It's not just an inevitable fear of what you don’t understand, but an insidious choice to be ignorant, fearful, and unjust to the most vulnerable members of society. It is malicious and irrational, and the more you tolerate it, the more dangerous it becomes.

- (4/5) Presents Iduna’s assimilation to the dominant culture as a positive

As the romance plotline of Dangerous Secrets really starts to get underway, Iduna’s life seems perfect. Her romance with Agnarr blossoms, she has her own business, and is becoming accustomed to her new surroundings (in order to make the coming drama more exciting). This is her internal dialogue as she returns to town one day:

I couldn't imagine, at the time, living in a place like this. But now it felt like home. It would never replace the forest I grew up in… But it had been so long now, that life had begun to feel almost like a dream. A beautiful dream of an enchanted forest… There was a time I truly believed I would die if I could never enter the forest again. If the mist was never to part. But that time, I realized, was long gone. And I had so much more to live for now… And my dreams were less about returning to the past and more about striking out into the future- (Page 128-129)

Again, I understand that the point of Iduna being content with her life like this is to be the “calm before the storm” of the romance arc, but the fact that Iduna is almost forgetting her old life, and that it is presented as a good thing, is extremely distressing. At only 12 years old Iduna lost everything she ever had besides the literal clothes on her back; she would never forget that. Not only that, but the real world implication that a minority should cope with their societal trauma by spending the rest of their life working for said society that unapologetically wants to kill them (and get a boyfriend) is horribly off putting. It strikes a nerve with many people of color and indigenous readers because telling minorities to “get a job” or “get a life” (especially when said jobs ignore/are separate from their own cultures) is commonly used by privileged folk to blame them for their own dissatisfaction/unhappiness with the society they live in. The idea is that minorities should continue to suffer, but busy themselves, so they stop criticizing dominant culture and defending/uplifting their own. This is part of cultural erasure, and the book plays into it, by commending Iduna for “having more to live for” than cherishing/wanting to return to her original home, for prioritizing Arendelle over herself, and for forgetting her heritage/playing it off as nothing but a dream. Devaluing indigenous culture like this, especially through an indigenous character, is extremely disrespectful.

Not only that, but it’s completely antithetical to Iduna’s character, since she claims to be proud and unashamed of who she is, but happily assists the townsfolk who hate her, and rarely mentions her heritage besides when she’s caught in a lie or actively being persecuted. This is another failing brought on by the lack of understanding of how racism affects its victims. Being a minority plays into all the decisions you make and all the interactions you have; it’s not something that you can just turn off unless directly provoked. Iduna’s would be constantly fretting about who she talks to, and who she is with because if she gets too close to the wrong person, she could have put herself in serious danger.

Nowhere is this lack of realism more obvious than the scene directly after Iduna rejects Johan’s proposal. Iduna spends a long time thinking about whether marrying Johan or Agnarr would be better for her, and not even once does being a Northuldra play into her decision making. This should’ve been front and center because your husband can be your strongest ally or your greatest enemy. If Iduna was outed, what could she do to defend herself against or alongside her partner? If she was ever going to consider marrying for anything other than true love, her chances of survival should have been her first priority.

What I’m not saying is that there needs to be a complete overhaul of Iduna’s personality, or that she needs to be frightened and suspicious at all times. Iduna can project strength and caution. She can be kind to the townspeople, but reserved in order to keep a safe distance. She should cling to the few pieces of her culture she has left, despite what society tells her to do. Or, on the exact opposite side of the coin, Iduna’s personality could be kept relatively the same, but the book needs to acknowledge that this is a terrible thing. Iduna is being assimilated against her will to a society that doesn’t value her and that is a tragedy. In a futile attempt at survival, Iduna buries her culture away and lives her life as a perfect, contributing, model Arendellian citizen, but they terrorize her regardless.

- (5/5) Negatively depicts the indigenous Northuldra as murderous invaders

In Chapter 34 of Dangerous Secrets it is revealed, during a flashback, that Iduna lost her parents and her entire family group in an attack by a separate group of Northuldra invaders. This scene is completely unacceptable regardless whatever narrative/story purpose it was supposed to achieve for several reasons. Firstly, because this book is about colonialism, which we as a society already know the consequences of and how colonizers, in an attempt to rid themselves of blame, react to it. One of the very first things a colonizer/privileged class will do to make themselves feel less guilty for the atrocities they perpetuate is bring up acts of violence/wrongdoing on behalf of the oppressed. The sole purpose of this is always to make the victims look less sympathetic and less deserving of justice, equality, or attention because “they’re not so innocent, they did wrong things too, so maybe we shouldn't feel that bad for them/maybe they got what they deserved”. And of course this mindset is absolutely horrific and unforgivable when you’re talking about a group of white colonizers actively trying to destroy and indiscriminately slaughter a large group of indigenous people, including their children.

The second reason is because the author is a non-indigenous white person, and therefore benefits directly from the downplaying of indiginous pain. I’m sure this wasn’t intentionally malicious on her part, but that’s what she wrote; these are the consequences.

((Also the fact that one of the Northuldra groups are murderous invaders means that Iduna was actively lying the entire book about the Northuldra being peaceful.))

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In conclusion, any book that incorporates the culture and experiences of a group the author is not a part of, should absolutely hire a sensitivity reader to ensure accuracy and respect. As a Frozen superfan myself, I actually enjoyed this book a lot and I was delighted to see the lore, worldbuilding and romance. I loved Agnarr, Lord Peterssen, and Princess Runa and certain pieces of dialogue and imagery were beautiful. This novel just desperately needed someone to check it. All this book needed was a bit more of a critical gaze on some of the character decisions and motivations (I truly believe Agnarr and Peterssen would have been even more intriguing and likeable characters if they were actually called out, and given time to reflect on their hypocrisies) and it would’ve been much stronger and more palatable to diverse audiences. Some elements did need to be cut out completely, but a sensitivity reader would’ve easily been able to point this out and offer alternatives that preserved the spirit of the novel, without including any offensive and distasteful implications.

#dangerous secrets #Frozen 2: Dangerous secrets #agduna #iduna frozen #agnarr frozen #iduna #agnarr #frozen #frozen 2 #dangerous secrets review #frozen reviews #frozen review #frozen analysis #frozen 2 analysis #Frozen 2: Dangerous Secrets Review

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touchmycoat · 3 years

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I LOVE YOUR PORN AU!!!!! LIKE SO MUCH - and i'm just. if you don't mind me asking, how - the way you flesh out the characters, their motivations, and feelings in every scene in such an eloquent way, and just little things here and there, a habit or an activity that adds dimension to who they are, and - your prose is wonderful. you achieve this addictive, engrossing narrative space that readers just absolutely melt into, and i have to ask - how did you develop your writing style? 1/2

what books did you read that formatively shaped the way you write? or you know, what did you do to improve your writing? i'm so in awe of how you world-built and established the porn au - like lqg & hc being national taolu champions?? how do you come up with that stuff? i cannot comprehend the amount of research and effort that must've gone into porn au, and i'm just so deeply thankful that you decided to share that with us. i apologize if i'm coming on too strong, but wow. thank you 2/2

oh my god please don't apologize, when i saw your ask i rolled on the floor giggling hysterically for a solid 15 min, bless your heart

part of the answer to your question—i've taken like, 8 years' worth of creative writing classes/workshops! there was also a transnational literary component to my degree so whenever possible, i took literature classes fksjdfksd so whatever you see and like is definitely the result of a lot of work. My writing from not even 10 years ago but like, 5? horrid, ridiculous, wild, cringe. The Porn AU itself is the second draft of a MUCH more lackluster piece.

about my writing style. gosh, you really know how to make a writer blush. "I like your writing style" is literally an instant kill LMFAO okay okay, the useful answer: my primary criteria for choosing what to write is, don't be obvious, be interesting. Fiction tells us to show, not tell, right? Poetry is about concretizing the abstract. Screenwriting says cut all useless lines. A lot of writing rules and advice—never start with the weather, avoid detailed descriptions of the characters, don't use adverbs, etc.—are all really about this exact sentiment.

I once took a seminar on writing for horror movies. The golden rule of the horror genre is Never Show the Monster, because whatever the audience is imagining is always going to be scarier than what you actually show them. There are obviously exceptions to this (to all writing rules), but in my mind, it's all the same principle.

LONG answer under the cut

So you start with building a scene. I approach it like essay-writing—I state my thesis for the motivations/main propulsion of the plot. "In this scene, LQG and SY are motivated to save Cang Qiong's porn production, so they have sex on camera." Then you build the sub-motivations: "LQG is also doing this because he's pining after SY."

I learned this "thesis-writing" from theater, specifically from writing 10-min plays. Theater is all about characters being driven by their wants and needs, and the reason I say 10-min plays in particular is because longer forms of writing will give you more leeway, but in 10-min, you pretty much need your character motivations established from their very first line. That's why you need that very clear thesis for yourself—if you don't even know what the character wants from the get-go, then you can't establish who they are, what they want, and where they're going to go in a dynamic and interesting way.

So this thesis drives EVERYTHING that happens in your scene, just like an actual thesis for an essay, just like topic sentences for your paragraphs. Once I do this, I have the emotional direction & narrative scope of how much this scene will cover, I have a sense of where it begins and ends. "Begin with the dynamics of their sex. LQG starts showing signs of his feelings. Reveal LQG backstory for exactly what those feelings are and why he isn't telling SY. The rest of the scene implies that LQG's feelings may not be so unrequited, but also sets up the fundamental problem at the heart of the whole fic—SY's inability to comprehend his own feelings." This is kind of my new thesis now. They're having sex; LQG pines; SY doesn't know he himself is pining.

Now it's time to manifest. This is the "storytelling" part, and the hardest lmfao.

Personally, my approach is largely shaped by my very cool screenwriting teacher, who hammered into us: don't fucking waste lines. The Golden Rule of screenwriting is that every line should reveal something new. I found my old writing kind of repetitive, especially on the emotional front, so this is kind of my editing mantra now—is this line either propelling the story or revealing character? If it's revealing character, is it a revelation that has to happen right now, or is it slowing the momentum of the scene?

But these aren't rhetorical questions! "Momentum" doesn't just mean tumble forward as fast as you can, it also means taking the time to draw the bowstring back further, so your next move has even more propulsion. That's why you get the little "LQG has been in love with SY..." cut scene in the middle of the fucking (at least, that's my reasoning for putting it there). Every line has to bring a fresh revelation that "proves" your thesis further.

That brings me to the details. You said you like the details I inject into the world-building, and honestly that's so gratifying to hear, because that means I'm successfully manifesting my intentions, y'know? "Every line has to bring new info" kind of sounds like a tall order, but the most effective way I've seen it done in books and onstage/onscreen is with these hyper-specific details. If you're writing a scene in which someone feels dirty, never have them just say that—have them say they want to take a shower. Show them running out of bleach again as they scrub down the stall after they wash. Begin the scene like "Steve always washes his throat first now." Then pack the scene with even more revelatory details: "Soap in hand, he heard the pipes above his head groan for a half note on adagio, and readied himself for the blast of icy water that always followed." Shitty shower, probably not rich, is likely a classical musician.

By the same token, I want to build LQG's character. The "Liu Qingge has been in love with Shen Yuan" section is the first insight we get into his background and perspective, right, so: I need to establish LQG's emotional context for filming this scene -> I can characterize him as a nut for martial arts in the same stroke -> so this takes place at a gym, beating up sandbags is a classic way of showing manly emotional distress -> so give me more details on this gym -> Puqi Gym, XL the martial god is obviously the owner -> how do I have XL & LQG a relationship beyond gym owner & client? They spar together -> I want XL & HC's position in this AU to mirror their god/ghost king statuses in TGCF canon -> how can I concretize their fighting prowesses in real-world details? -> they're martial arts champions -> what's an actual competitive martial art form that involves weaponry? -> wushu -> wikipedia Wushu, find taolu weapons sparring

(I just realized that in my songxiao daycare AU, Hualian are Olympic gold medalists by the same narrative logic laksjdnflaksjdnflsd)

So, that's the flow of logic behind my world-building lmao. It's all in the details. Leverage is one of my all-time favorite TV shows and the way they build their stories is super inspiring. If their thesis is "the rich and powerful take what they want, we steal it back for you," they manifest it in the most specific and concrete narratives: mine workers who like the work but are fighting for workplace safety vs. the money-grubbing mine owner who will blow up their livelihoods if it means a bigger payday; the little girl from Iraq with refugee status forced to be an accomplice to antique smuggling vs. international smuggler with a fetish for British royalty.

Last pieces of writing advice I've gotten: pay attention to the real world. A writing exercise we did was just sit in a public spot and make concrete observations on our surroundings. There are stories in everything!!! I learned to observe things like weird holes in the concrete (earthquake? drilling accident? bullet mark?), odd patches of moss or bird shit (look overheard: it's an AC unit dripping water for the former and nesting swallows for the latter), ladies in flipflops walking alongside ladies in high heels (excited mother walking her antsy daughter to the bus for the daughter's first job interview—the daughter's shirt collar is unfashionable and she's taking the bus, so there's a good chance the shoes were passed down, maybe from an office lady aunt. Maybe she's even overdressed for the interview, so will her outfit be an unintended source of tension once she gets to the interview? Is it a group interview, to make the comparison more stark?).

Also, write what you know. You know why SY is a video editor in porn AU? Because I'm a video editor. One of my more popular MDZS fics is set in a plant shop 'cause I worked in a plant shop. SL was First AD in Bachelor!AU 'cause I was First AD on a set once. Concrete details like the editing software having a split-screen, always answering questions about how often to water plants, and being up until 3AM editing call-sheets are the ones that will fully immerse your readers.

And if you can't do the actual things, just watch someone who is, listen to them talk, pick up lingo, and fake it. I watched like a 15-min vox video on fencing for the fencing!AU and a 45-min music theory video on the hospital pianist!AU (also I started learning piano sklfjnlsdjlfkjsd). Of course, I just finished reading a wangxian fic that had me going, "holy fucking shit, the author is literally getting their masters in a music program" so my 45-min youtube video ain't shit, but if you just need a little bit of character establishment, then it's enough to do the trick.

Anyways, tl;dr. Find the details, find the tension. Never tell outright what the tension is supposed to be, manifest it instead. Make the manifestation as interesting as possible, and if it's meant to be funny, make it funnier.

Sorry this turned into a fucking lecture lskjnflskdjnflskd but last thing, someone asked me before if I had formative authors, and this was the list I wrote at the time:

Angels in America (play) by Tony Kushner

The God of Small Things (novel) by Arundhati Roy

The Penelopiad (novel) by Margaret Atwood

“Litany in Which Certain Things are Crossed Out” (poem) by Richard Siken

Night Sky with Exit Wounds (poetry) by Ocean Vuong

Giovanni’s Room (novel) by James Baldwin (and then Go Tell it on the Mountain and then his essays)

Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger

And, ooh, now that I have this list I think I can even roughly sort it as such: Kushner, Atwood, Siken, and Salinger I really latched onto for their dialogue and very present narrator voice—same is true for Go Tell it on the Mountain. Roy, Vuong, and Giovanni’s Room, I think, are texts more representative of the kind of saturated figurative language I like, and emulate. Of course they all do imagery and voice and overall structure amazingly, but that’s the rough dividing line I’d draw.

But yeah James Baldwin is my fucking hero.

#long post #about me #writing #jesus sorry i spent way too long on this laksjdnflaskjdnflaskjndflas #but anyways i'm super grateful you gave me the chance to introspect and articulate all this #i'm exceedingly grateful too to all the writing mentors i've gotten to have #personal #these are the principles and rules i've learned and #i still definitely screw the pooch #on them #so you know this is just what's on my mind #this is how i school myself

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carewyncromwell · 3 years

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Is that a Cinderella AU part I see? Yes, yes, it is! And one hopefully not as dark and devoid of hope as the last part...

Charlie’s castle carpenter tunic is based on this design; Bill’s castle guard uniform, referenced in a previous part, is based on this real uniform from 16th century France, though with a Royaumanian-worthy blue/red color scheme. My headcanon is that Charlie (who’s described as stocky in the books) is 5′5″, only two inches taller than his “unofficial twin,” Carewyn, while Bill is a friggin’ giant the tallest of the Cursebreaking squad at 6′1″ (one inch taller than Ben Copper at full height and the same height as his actor, Domhnall Gleeson!). The entire Cromwell family is on the smaller side, with Charles as the tallest at 5′10″. Oh, and yes, the Cromwells are all a piece of work, but Charles is indisputably the worst apple in the bushel. 😒

Previous part is here -- whole tag is here -- Katriona “KC” Cassiopeia belongs to @kc-needs-coffee -- and I hope you enjoy!

x~x~x~x

Carewyn was discovered outside by her aunts Pearl and Claire and uncle Blaise and brought inside. When they interrogated her about why she had returned to the estate in the middle of the night, however, Carewyn was unable to answer them. She was unable to speak at all -- nor was she able to eat, drink, or sleep. Instead she simply settled down in a huddled ball on her old cot by the fireplace and stayed there, her arms around her knees and her eyes devoid of all light or awareness.

Whatever had happened, Charles seemed to have determined Carewyn would be of no use to him in the palace, the way she was -- and so, at dawn, he sent a messenger to the King and Queen, telling them that she’d taken ill and would have to remain at home in the interim.

Carewyn’s cousins at first took some vindictive pleasure out of bullying her, now that she was back under their roof. Arsen and Kain actually picked Carewyn up off the ground and pushed her around like some human-sized doll while Elmer sang a mean little song he’d written about her --

“Cindy-Cindy-Cinderwyn, the finest of her class --

The duchess of the dust and soot, her kingdom’s made of ash!

She went to court; oh, did they chortle, snicker, and guffaw --

So Cindy-Cindy-Cinderwyn ran home, crying, ‘Mama!’”

Before long, though, her lack of a reaction seemed to make it not so fun of a game. Within two days, Tristan, the youngest of Carewyn’s cousins, actually threw a tantrum because Carewyn completely ignored him splashing his paints all over her.

“What’s wrong with you!?” the boy screamed, beside himself. “Why won’t you get mad at me?! Why won’t you run away and cry?! Why are you so -- so -- WEIRD?!”

Blaise was most perturbed when his son actually burst full-on into tears. Clenching his jaw furiously, he brought an arm around Tristan and swept him back inside and away from the vacant-eyed Carewyn. Then he went straight to the dining hall to speak to Charles.

“Father, something must be done about Winnie,” he hissed. “This is not normal.”

Pearl leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms, her eyes narrowing. “Her behavior is shameful. To think the Cromwell blood runs through the veins of that girl...”

“It’s pathetic, that’s what it is,” said Claire in sycophantic agreement.

“Winnie may be a pathetic thing, but she is our thing,” Blaise shot back fiercely, “and she’s practically dead as she is.”

He turned to Charles.

“We’ve already lost Lane and sent Jacob off,” he said in a quiet, cold voice. “Are we to simply let Winnie waste away?”

Charles had his hands folded in front of him on the table. At Blaise’s words, his own almond-shaped blue eyes -- identical to his children’s and nearly all of his grandchildren’s -- narrowed.

“I must admit, it is a shame that Carewyn has stopped being useful,” he said lowly. “Iris may still be a set of eyes for us inside the palace, but she’s hardly clever enough to do much of anything on her own that’s useful.”

Claire actually looked hurt. “Father...Iris just sent us a letter this morning. Was it not useful to you?”

Charles’s eyes were very cold upon his daughter. “Hardly. She spent a good chunk of it complaining that Carewyn did something to the Prince, before leaving the palace...clearly trying to make excuses for her own failure to hold Prince Henri’s attention.”

Claire’s eyes welled up with shame and she hung her head.

“It wouldn’t be the first time that Iris has blamed Winnie for stealing one of her suitors’ attention,” said Pearl seriously, “but we have yet to get any explanation about why she’s returned to us against your instructions. And Claire and I did hear a horse galloping away, that night. Could it have been Prince Henri?”

Blaise scoffed. “Doubtful. You think a Prince would ever favor a plain girl with no dowry or status?”

“You warned Winnie yourself that the Prince could want her as a conquest,” Pearl said darkly. “Heartbreak would more than explain her current state...”

The idea made Blaise flush with rage.

“Whoever rode that horse, it was not the Prince,” said Charles very smoothly. He rose to his feet, picking up his dragon-headed cane and strolling over to the window to look out. “From what my informants have told me...Prince Henri was at the Royaumanian army camp that entire night.”

His children all straightened up, taken aback.

“At the war front?” said Pearl, shocked.

“Yes,” said Charles. “It quite upset their Majesties. Even more so when he returned to the palace in the morning dressed like a commoner and declared to them and the entire royal court that he intended to open up peace talks with the soon-to-be King of Florence.”

“Soon-to-be King?” said Blaise, his eyes narrowing to slits. “Then the old one kicked the bucket?”

“Yes...and it turns out the replacement Crown Prince is something of a populist. From what I’ve heard, his very first decision as future monarch was to ask every Florentine nobleman to -- should they wish to remain at court -- donate a portion of their wealth to him, so that he could then use it to buy a feast and custom-tailored clothing for his soldiers.”

Charles was clearly offended by the idea. Blaise was too.

“Uppity brat,” he sneered. “I guess that’s what’s you get, when you choose a bastard peasant as your future king...”

Pearl, however, looked a bit more cynical. “Seems rather unwise, to antagonize those who come closest to you in status...”

“On the contrary,” said Charles. “It’s most shrewd. As Blaise said, the boy was the King’s illegitimate son. That would offend the standards of just about anyone of good breeding...thus it would be foolish to try to court them for approval. A rat can communicate best with other rats -- and sadly, a swarm of rats is just what you get, when they gather: a band of filthy, hungry, disgusting creatures who will eat away at what we hold dear.”

His blue eyes flashed.

“And now our Prince fancies becoming allies with such vermin.”

Claire looked uncertainly at Pearl and Blaise. Both of them looked perturbed.

“If the War ends, there’ll be less money in the future for us,” Blaise growled. “Our investments in armaments built this estate...”

“My investments, Blaise,” Charles said in a very cool voice. “Do not forget that even the ones done in your and my son-in-laws’ names were still orchestrated by me.”

He pushed his palm down into the top of his cane, his long fingers trailing over the metallic snout of the dragon-head handle.

“It’s far worse than that, however. The Royaumanian royal family’s financial troubles was what has lent me their ear from the beginning. Gave me access to their decision-making -- gave me some leverage in coaxing them to join our two families. Should the King and Queen become friends and allies with Florence’s new royal brat, they may get the idea to redistribute their courtiers’ wealth as he has, to alleviate the nation’s debts...meaning we not only won’t be bringing in as much money as before, but that we’ll also have to submit to parting with what we already have, just to indulge in petty charity.”

Charles’s eyes narrowed upon his reflection in the ice-trimmed window.

“Our family’s chance at ascending into royalty...at the absolute, irreversible power owed us...is slipping away.”

Claire got up and tried to comfort her father by taking hold of his shoulder. “But Father...surely there’s still some hope? If Iris -- ”

But Charles warded Claire off with the back of his hand, sweeping across the room.

“If your daughter thinks that a mere maidservant was able to captivate the Prince more than her, then perhaps it’s the maidservant who I should enlist in getting our family what we deserve.”

He shot a look over his shoulder at Pearl. “Fetch Carewyn and bring her to me.”

Pearl dragged Carewyn up to the dining hall by her arm. The ginger-haired Cromwell hadn’t changed clothes or washed since she’d returned home, so her face was covered in cinders and her forest green and white dress was still splashed with the paints Tristan had thrown on her.

At the start, Charles feigned concern, saying he hated seeing his granddaughter looking so ill and unhappy, but his words barely penetrated Carewyn’s mind. They were just more lies -- just like everything else out of his mouth. She should know...being a liar herself. So she didn’t say a word in response. She made no response at all. And soon enough, Charles did come around to what he really wanted.

“His Highness is set to make a fatal error...but you have his ear. We need you to return to your duties in the palace and ensure that he does not trust the Prince called Cosimo.”

Carewyn’s lightless, empty eyes ran over her grandfather’s face for a long moment...but she did not answer.

“This is a noble duty, child,” said Charles. Although he put on a smile, it did not touch his eyes. “This is your chance to protect both your family and your country. The Florentines have been our enemies since before your mother was born...and now they seek to feign honor long enough to lure our Prince into their jaws...”

He brought a hand down onto Carewyn’s shoulder.

“Jacob would be proud, knowing you were helping him in his fight against them.”

Carewyn stared at Charles. Her almond-shaped blue eyes were as dark and turbulent as two miniature hurricanes. And yet, she did not speak.

Charles tilted his head, raising his eyebrows and considering her expression with that cold, detached smile. “Come now, my dear...will you not speak to your grandfather? I do so hate to see you like this.”

Carewyn’s gaze drifted away as Charles’s eyes bore into her -- and yet the silence dragged on with neither breaking it.

Pearl, Claire, and Blaise, for their parts, were becoming all the more unsettled by Carewyn’s lack of a response. Blaise actually strode forward and shouted at her.

“You will speak when spoken to, you ungrateful little -- !”

He made as if to strike Carewyn, but Pearl grabbed his forearm and held it back, flashing him a warning look before turning her righteous anger onto Carewyn.

“Your grandfather requires your services, Winnie,” Pearl said very sharply. “Don’t you have something to say to him?”

Even with this, however, Carewyn didn’t say anything. Then, with as much energy and emotion as a ghost, she stepped back and out of Charles’s grip and turned to go.

Something flickered in Charles’s expression.

“I did not give you permission to leave,” he said very softly.

But Carewyn didn’t answer or turn around. Claire had to block the doorframe to keep her from leaving the room.

“Your grandfather said you’re not allowed to go,” Claire said, her voice trying to be sharp but instead sounding rather unsettled.

Carewyn stared at Claire with those hollow, empty eyes in silence as Charles approached her from behind.

“You will do your duty to this family, child,” he said. It was striking how much scarier his voice sounded, when it was quieter -- Charles Cromwell was the sort of man who didn’t need to shout in order to be intimidating. “After all...that is the pact we made when I took you and your brother in, is it not?”

He took hold of Carewyn’s shoulder, whispering in her ear.

“Do not forget that everything you have is because of my charity. I have no desire to punish you...but I shall withdraw my kindnesses, if I must.”

Carewyn was very still. Then she once again broke out of Charles’s grip and tried to move past Claire.

Before she could get far, however, Charles snatched her up by the hair. With a strangled cry of pain, Carewyn was thrown to the ground with astonishing force, Charles’s fist clenched fast around her hair.

“Your head is not the only thing in my hands, Carewyn,” he reminded her very coldly. “I hope you remember that.”

He wrenched her up onto her feet by her hair, and Carewyn had to clench her teeth to keep herself from crying out again.

“I have been very patient with your theatrics...but I grow weary of coddling you. Should I send some message to Jacob, so that you behave? Perhaps if your head is not one you will defend, perhaps his is...”

“Liar.”

The word escaped Carewyn’s mouth as a wispy, hollow rasp, and yet it was enough to make everyone in the room stiffen. Somewhere out in the hall, one might’ve caught a quickly stifled intake of breath.

Carewyn’s eyes, although so dark, seemed to have gained an odd gleam in the back of them, like flaming cinders in a dying fire, as she stared up at Charles.

“You’re a liar,” she said again, her broken voice as rough as sandpaper in her throat as it rose in volume. “I know your life isn’t bound to Jacob’s. Any spell you could’ve had cast on him would have broken at midnight, the very night you sent him away -- the very night you ripped him away from me and sent him off to War against his will!”

Her blue eyes flared with hatred.

“That’s why you’ve never once gotten word from him -- because there’s no word you could receive from him at all! Admit it!”

There was a horrible silence. Pearl, Blaise, and Claire all looked from Carewyn to Charles and back.

Charles bore down upon his granddaughter, his face as cold as some ivory mask with hard, diamond-like eyes.

“So that’s what this is about,” he said softly. “Assigning blame. Very well, Carewyn...let us discuss this. You came to me as a child, sobbing and distraught beyond words...begging me to save your brother’s life when he was already on death’s door. You had nothing to offer me at that time, nor did your brother -- and yet I, out of the goodness of my heart, agreed to take you in. All I asked was that you show proper gratitude...a term you accepted at the time, and yet now have seen fit to break.”

He yanked Carewyn up by her hair and threw her into the table with a WHAM. Carewyn cried out in pain, before crumpling to the floor in a heap.

“I spent a good deal of my own money and discarded my own honor to try to find someone to save your brother’s life, if only to bring the light back to your eyes. Jacob was brought back to health and you were reunited with him, just as you’d hoped. And yet now you seek to demonize my wish that you show gratitude? That I collect on the debt owed me?”

He brought the heel of his shoe down on Carewyn’s shoulder with force, slamming her face down against the floor.

“And worse,” he whispered, “you wish to demonize the fact that, all these years, I was too grief-stricken to tell you of your brother’s passing?”

Blaise, Claire, and Pearl all stiffened. Only Claire, however, looked shocked.

“Jacob is...dead?” she whispered shakily.

“I knew such a revelation would be crippling to a fragile, weak heart such as yours,” said Charles, his diamond-like eyes very hard upon the back of Carewyn’s head. “I knew that the knowledge that your brother died the morning after his departure, and that his body had to be burned with every other prisoner in those barracks instead of receiving a proper burial...would break your heart.”

Carewyn had started to shake. Her face had lost all of its color, and the flicker of rebellion she’d shown mere moments ago had gone out.

“You’ve never been a stupid girl, Carewyn. You really should have figured it out years ago...and yet, like a child who believes in Yuletide gift-givers, you latched onto your brother’s memory even when all logic said you shouldn’t. I’m certain everyone else in this family saw through my pretense -- knew that it was merely something to placate you, soothe your temperamental emotions. They always have made it difficult for you to see things clearly.”

Charles's eyes narrowed.

“You were the one who disregarded your duty to the man who put a roof over your head, clothed you and fed you. Perhaps the truth wouldn’t be so crippling if you had simply done as I wished...rather than chase after a ghost.”

Tears streamed down Carewyn’s face. Although her eyes were so hollow and she shook so badly, however, the grief inside of her was not just numbing. It had grown to such an extent that it for a moment made her lose her head completely. In a violent move, she wrenched herself off the ground with a mad scream and threw a fist right at Charles’s face. Unfortunately Carewyn had never been particularly strong -- and so Charles was able to seize her wrist, twisting it away from him and holding her back with little difficulty.

“Blaise,” said Charles icily. “Fetch the whip.”

Blaise looked stricken. “Father -- ”

“The child requires discipline,” he said without looking at his son. “I will not have her thinking that following her brother’s example is acceptable behavior.”

Blaise closed his eyes and bowed his head. Then, with a grim look on his face, he swept from the dining hall.

When he entered the hallway, he found all of Carewyn’s cousins (excluding Iris, who of course was still back at the palace) huddled up against the wall. They’d clearly been listening to every word...and for once, none of them looked the least bit amused. Their faces were all very pale.

Blaise considered them all for a moment in silence. Then he brought an arm around his son and led him away.

“Come, Tristan. You will return to your room and stay there until I come fetch you.”

Everyone at the Cromwell estate tried to block out the screams of pain that echoed out of the dining hall. After just under an hour, Charles finally stopped, whether out of physical tiredness or just having finally spent his temper, and bid Pearl and Claire to carry Carewyn up to the tower room at the back of the estate. Charles didn’t want her to leave that room again until she was prepared to behave appropriately.

Carewyn had expected Pearl and Claire to simply throw her on the floor and leave her there. Instead, however, Pearl sent Claire to go fetch some towels and cold water, and she hoisted Carewyn up onto the worn feather cot on the far end. Her aunts then removed her torn dress so that they could clean the open gashes Charles’s whip had delivered to her back.

As far back as Carewyn could remember, her aunts had never liked her. Her mother Lane had even told stories about her siblings and how Charles had pressured his children to compete against each other their whole lives. When Carewyn had moved in, Pearl had refused to look her in the face for over a month...and thanks to her daughters’ dislike for Carewyn, Claire had always treated her niece just as coldly. And yet, now...for some reason, they sat with her.

“...Why are you doing this?”

Carewyn couldn’t see either Pearl or Claire’s faces while she was lying on her stomach, but she heard the mattress give a light squeak, as if Claire had shifted slightly to look at Pearl.

“Don’t you think you’ve questioned your elders more than enough already?” said Pearl in a very hard voice.

She brought a cold cloth up to the largest gash on Carewyn’s shoulder, dabbing at it lightly.

“You may be a stupid, arrogant, pathetic girl, Winnie,” she said quietly, “...but I know the pain of losing one’s sibling.”

Carewyn felt some pity in her heart despite herself.

“Thank you,” she murmured.

Pearl scoffed. “Thank me by doing as your grandfather says.”

Carewyn closed her eyes. Then she turned her head away from her aunts and didn’t reply.

Taking her silence as a refusal, Pearl withdrew quickly and hoisted herself up off the worn mattress.

“Come, Claire.”

Claire hesitantly inched herself up off the mattress too, fetching the bucket of water from the floor as she went. Carewyn could see her glance back at her, when she reached the doorframe.

“Your grandfather bid you stay in here until you behave,” said Claire, and her voice sounded almost reproachful. “Please don’t make him punish you further.”

But Carewyn did not make any move or sound. And so Claire closed the door behind her, and Pearl locked it with a loud CLACK behind them.

Once Pearl and Claire descended the stairs of the tower, however, they caught the sound of raised voices from outside the open manor door. One of the voices they recognized as Blaise’s -- the other, they couldn’t have known, belonged to Charlie Weasley.

When Carewyn’s friends learned that she would not be returning to the palace, they all reacted with concern. They knew how crippling the revelation of Jacob’s death had been, but the knowledge that she was back with her family, rather than at the palace where they could help her heal, well...that only made the whole affair worse. Clearly, as KC pointed out, the King and Queen probably wouldn’t have been that lenient toward a servant who was unable to work and had no reason to suspect anything malevolent in Charles wanting to “take care” of his granddaughter. After all, Andre himself had also presumed Carewyn was well-treated by her family, before he’d been forced to conclude otherwise.

“I’ll tell them the truth -- ” Andre had said forcefully, but Badeea only shook her head sadly.

“It won’t help, your Highness,” she murmured.

KC nodded grimly. “Carewyn is Lord Cromwell’s ward, Andre. Her only possible legal guardian and benefactor. That means she belongs to him, whether we like it or not. No matter how badly she’s treated, or what she’s told you about him, he’ll still have that power over her. And as long as he’s a Lord with more financial capitol than our entire family does combined...the King and Queen won’t want to discipline him.”

Bill and Charlie, however, just couldn’t accept this. So after their scheduled duties, they visited the Cromwell estate themselves, requesting to see Carewyn. When Blaise tried to turn them away, the exchange got more heated.

“I’ve already told you that Winnie will not see you,” Blaise said, his blue eyes flashing at the two brothers.

“We’d like to hear that from her, please,” said Bill, but his politeness had a noticeable edge to it.

“She is in no condition to entertain anyone, least of all a pair of peasant boys who presume to trespass on our land and make demands. Now get out.”

“We’re not leaving until we see Carey!” Charlie said fiercely.

“You will leave now, or I shall see to it that you are thrown out,” snarled Blaise.

“Go ahead and try it!” said Charlie, getting right up in the blond man’s face.

“What’s all this now?”

Charles Cromwell had emerged from the open door of the manor. Dashing out after him were Pearl and Claire.

Blaise’s eyes flared. “A couple of troublemakers who’ve come looking for Winnie. ‘Westley,’ they call themselves -- ”

“Weasley,” corrected Bill. His eyes were narrowed as he faced Charles. “Bill and Charlie Weasley. We worked in the palace with Carewyn -- we heard she was sick and came to see her.”

Charles glanced at Pearl and Claire out the side of his eye, before his eyes swiveled back over to the two Weasleys.

“...I’m afraid my dear Carewyn is resting upstairs.”

“May we see her, please?” Bill said. Once again, his words were polite, but his voice was very firm and pointed.

“No,” said Charles. “You may not.”

His eyes narrowed upon Bill’s freckled face. One could wonder what he saw in Bill that day -- whether it was the protective “big brother” affect that reminded him of his deceased grandson Jacob, the sincere devotion Bill felt for his granddaughter Carewyn, or simply the pure distrust and dislike toward him -- but whatever it was, it served to make the Lord’s face that bit more mask-like as he considered the ginger-haired castle guard.

“‘Bill Weasley,’ you said your name was? Well, Mr. Weasley...you can be rest assured that Carewyn is being quite well taken care of, here with her family, where she belongs.”

Charlie’s eyes flashed. “Somehow I doubt that.”

Charles raised his eyebrows very coolly.

“We know all about what you did to Carey, Cromwell,” said Charlie. “We know full well how you ‘take care’ of your family...unless you think Jacob would actually speak on your behalf, if he were still alive?”

Charles, amazingly, didn’t react at all to this, but it only served to make his mask-like face that much more unsettling.

“No one feels Jacob’s loss more than I. And I should thank you not to question that, boy.”

His eyes flickered from him to Bill.

“I don’t know what Carewyn has told you...but I’m afraid I must apologize for it, all the same. The child has always had a difficult relationship with the truth...she’s often spun tales to...try to make herself seem more appealing, to the people around her.”

“Takes a liar to know one, I guess,” spat Charlie.

Pearl’s eyes flared. “You have some nerve to speak to a nobleman thusly -- ”

“Pearl,” Charles soothed her, but his voice was hardly warm or comforting. Instead his eyes bore into Charlie with a darker glint. “You do yourself and your brother no favors in insulting me. I could have been kind and offered to send word, when Carewyn was well enough to see you...but I can see clearly that the both of you would be a toxic influence on my granddaughter, should I allow you to associate with her.”

“Toxic?” repeated Charlie, his voice rising. “You son of a -- !”

“Noble bloodline, unlike you,” Charles Cromwell said in a very low, foreboding voice. “One with enough money and influence to force you to comply with my wishes, if I must.”

Charlie wasn’t intimidated. “You do that, and we’ll tell the whole world about what you did. Reckon you won’t have quite so much respect from everyone, once they learn you used magic to trick Carey into staying under your thumb -- ”

“A dangerous accusation for anyone to make,” said Charles, his foreboding voice deepening further. “More still for a boy relying solely on the flawed testimony of a maidservant...and belonging to a family so impoverished by its size that they’d have no means to rebuild, in the event of some unforeseen tragedy...”

Charlie’s eyes widened dangerously. He looked like he wanted to punch Carewyn’s grandfather right in the face, but Bill took hold of his brother’s shoulders from behind, in a gesture that seemed to be both holding him back and expressing support.

Charles’s eyes -- the same color and shape as Carewyn’s, but infinitely crueler -- flashed up at Bill.

“I can tell that you -- like me -- are the sort of man who wishes to protect his family, Bill Weasley,” Charles said coldly. “If you wish to do so...then you will ensure that neither you nor your family comes near mine again. Do I make myself clear?”

Bill and Charles glared at each other for a very long moment, silently burning brown on icy, diamond-like blue.

“Crystal,” Bill murmured at last.

Charlie looked up at Bill, horrified. “Bill -- ”

“Come on, Charlie,” Bill cut him off quietly. “Let’s go.”

Bill steered Charlie away and off of the Cromwell estate. Once they’d cleared the gate, Charlie whirled on his brother.

“Bill, you can’t be okay with this! If old Lord Cromwell won’t let us see Carey, then something’s gotta be wrong! We can’t just -- ”

“I know,” said Bill.

Glancing over his shoulder, he walked with Charlie a few more feet to make sure they were out of earshot. Then he said quietly,

“Charlie...make up an excuse for the King and Queen about why their carriage is going to need more time to fix than you thought. We’re going to need it.”

#hphm #hogwarts mystery #cinderella au #orion amari #carewyn cromwell #bill weasley #charlie weasley #charles cromwell #blaise cromwell #pearl cromwell #claire cromwell #my art #my writing #...okay originally this was going to be two parts BUT #I figured you guys needed a bit more hope after how bad of a part the last one was #so I decided not to cut this in half #going back to work tomorrow~!!#so next part might take a little longer but I'll try to finish it soon #please keep liking/reblogging/commenting if you're enjoying! xoxo

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sheadre · 3 years

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Aurora Borealis (Jiang Cheng x Reader) Part 6

Summary: Zhu Ran'En (Reader) the imperial princess, was sent into exile for a crime she did not commit. Meeting Jiang Wanyin, the Yunmeng Jiang sect’s leader was not just a chance meeting. Their fates were written in the stars however, her relations to the royal family will never let her live in peace. How will she manage to save the kingdom while trying to keep Jiang Wanyin away from the snakes of the royal family?

Word count: 2538

Previous chapter - Series Masterlist

Jiang Wanyin stood in front of the closed doors of the infirmary. His back tense, posture rigid as he stood there with his arms crossed in front of his chest. He stood like a statue ever since the healers brought the princess inside. The dark shadows over his handsome face reminded Wei Wuxian of the thunder storms over the sea. The Yiling Patriarch was worried for Zhu Ran’En as well but knew that he needed to stay composed.

No one explained to him how the princess ended up in the middle of the battlefield but decided to wait with his questions. As Wei Wuxian remembered of the plans, the princess should’ve stayed behind to not draw attention to herself. Hanguang-Jun slid his hand onto his lower back without others noticing it, making Wei Ying turn to his lover with a reassuring small smile.

“It will be alright, Lan Zhan” he said more for his own reassurance. His lover only nodded quietly. Both of them grew fond of the princess as she brought a new dynamic into their lives. He enjoyed her company compared to the strict rules in Gusu. She was mischievous and playful, always ready for some light teasing when Jiang Cheng was around.

“How will anything be alright, Wei Wuxian?! Nothing will be alright!” Jiang Cheng growled angrily. “She shouldn’t have been a part of the plan, she should’ve stayed inside-“

“But she didn’t” came the voice of Xiao Pei from behind them. Wei Wuxian remembered how Zhu Ran’En described the general and called him Xiao Pei but his real name was Pei Xiu. Wei Ying heard people talk about the general because of his grand achievements on the battlefield. The man was quite handsome, tall and regal especially wearing the fine clothes of a high official. His eyes looked at Jiang Cheng like he wanted to run his sword through the sect leader’s chest. “For the time being I decided to not ask who is to blame for her injuries, but once she recovered, I will find the one who hurt the imperial princess.”

“General Pei” Wei Wuxian quickly greeted the man politely bowing to him. His smile was far from genuine but held no malice. Yet. He couldn’t help but feel that something was off about the general. “The healers said that the Princess will soon gain consciousness.”

“I would say that it is nice to meet you, Mo gongzi, but I would have to lie then” Xiao Pei replied coldly and walked past him without giving him a second glance. With his reputation, Wei Wuxian wasn’t surprised that another person treated him this coldly. Most people thought it was disgusting and unbefitting to have a lover from the same gender. Though, he was surprised the general knew his name – or rather the true owner’s name of the body he was in – without him introducing himself.

“General Pei, you cannot just go in there” Jiang Cheng spoke up when the man tried to barge into the room where Ran’En was being treated. Wanyin was clearly shaken up and worried, Xiao Pei only added oil to the fire with walking around Yunmeng like he owned the place. Wei Wuxian wasn’t really surprised, the man was royalty with him being the emperor’s brother’s grandson. No one used the title prince when they were talking about him though, Wei Ying having no idea why.

“You may be the sect leader of the Yunmeng Jiang sect but you have no authority over me, Jiang Wanyin” the man hissed out before turning back to the door and walking in closing the door in their faces. Jiang Cheng seemed to be about to burst into the room and drag the general’s ass out, however, Wei Wuxian decided to interject before the general would behead his brother for insolence.

“A-Cheng! Come, come! You cannot do much here right now, let’s wait for the princess to wake up!” Wei Ying grabbed his brother’s arm and pulled him over to another corridor. Wanyin pulled his arm out of his hold when they were far enough and hit the wall angrily. Disciples and servants ducked back to other corridors and rooms when they saw how irked their chief was.

“This is all my fault” Jiang Cheng gritted out as he leaned forward. Wei Wuxian knew how his brother was blaming himself over her highness’ injury but it made his heart not only sink with pity but fill with hope for his brother. Jiang Cheng deserved to be happy and he knew that the princess was the perfect match for his brother.

“That arrow was not fired by you, Jiang Cheng” Wei Ying protested.

“Could’ve been as well fired by me! She insisted on helping us making me let her run into the middle of the battlefield just because she knows some tricks! I sent her into danger! I shouldn’t have let her-“

“She knew what she was doing” Hanguang-Jun spoke up suddenly. “Ran’En was ready to take that risk.”

Wei Ying looked at his lover a little surprised by how casually Lan Zhan was talking about the princess, using only her first name. He noted to himself to question the mighty Hanguang-Jun about that later.

“By the way, when were you two planning on telling us about the change of plans?” Wei Ying crossed his arms in front of his chest. Jiang Cheng sighed tiredly averting his gaze from both. For a few minutes, the Yiling Patriarch thought his brother would stay silent when he finally spoke up telling them about all of it. His eyes widened in shock at what the princess agreed to. He read notes about the dark dragon back in Gusu’s library. It was a legend or supposed to be. The legends say that if the dark dragon emerges, the world is in great danger. Then suddenly, a servant approached the three of them with her head bowed and back hunched slightly.

“Sect leader, the princess is awake and asked for the three of you” she bowed to them but by the time she raised back up, they were nowhere to be seen.

Your PoV.

You woke up slowly, head fuzzy and chest hurting but you knew you were no longer in danger. The smell of medicine and clean sheets indicated that you were in the infirmary. You blinked a few times to clear your vision and gasped as you accidentally moved your torso making the wound hurt. You’ve only been hurt like this once when there was an assassination going wrong and you were in the way of the assassin.

“Ran’En!” a familiar male voice called you worry lacing his words as he spoke right next to you. “I was so worried, Ran’En…”

“Wanyin… where is Wanyin?” you asked weakly. You had to know what happened, you had to know if you were successful. The hand holding yours squeezed your fingers tightly at your request.

“It is me, Pei Xiu” your old friend spoke softly though his tone was restrained like he was holding back his emotions whatever they were. You turned your head to him as carefully as possible and smiled at him weakly.

“Xiao Pei” you greeted him. “I was worried that Lili wouldn’t reach you in time.”

“I came as fast as I could” Pei Xiu replied but you could easily tell that something was off about his expression after your mention of Lili. “I have much to tell you about the palace-“

“Where is she? Did she come back with you?!” you asked forcing yourself to sit up as you demanded an answer from the general. Your heart was beating in your chest loudly as your worry grew with every minute. Pei Xiu lowered his gaze from your (e/c) eyes making your heart clench in pain.

“She was caught by the Second Prince’ personal guard, Cao BaiXian after she reached me. Before he could get to torture her, she… she committed suicide.”

Silence fell on the two of you as you struggled to keep breathing. Tears ran down your cheeks as you sat there feeling useless. You promised to protect her, you promised to give her a good life, safety. It felt like an endless line of people you grew close to will inevitably fall to their death because of you. You were the reason she’s dead and the world can only blame you for her death.

You didn’t even register Xiao Pei’s strong arms circling your form, pulling you tightly against his chest. His familiar scent made your heart ache even more. You missed the simple days back when you were a child, when you still had your mother, when you had the time of your life hiding from the maids and servants who tried to chase you down and make you return to the classes you hated. Xiao Pei was the only one who treated you like a friend back then.

“Tell me what happened in the imperial palace since I left? Is it bad? Can we do anything?” you asked after a long silence. Your own voice sounded to you lifeless and dull, just like how you were feeling.

“Many things happened though I managed to keep Crown Prince safe but our days are shortening in number” he started with his eyebrows furrowed. After your friend told you everything there was to tell, you nodded silently.

“Xiao Pei… I need some rest” you spoke softly and patted his hand over yours. “I will see you once the healers let me out of here. Until then, please rest well and take care of Wanyin.”

“Wanyin? You never mentioned in your letters that you got on first name basis with the sect leader…” Xiao Pei’s tone was strange but you just chuckled weakly and shook your head.

“I like to tease him with acting like we’re familiar, it is amusing to see his dumbfounded face” you replied suspicious of your friend’s behavior. You noticed his intentions back in the palace but due to the two of you being blood related even if not closely, you still felt off about it. Not repulsed or disgusted but it didn’t feel right. You never encouraged his feelings and never called him out on it. “I will be fine, don’t you worry!”

You smiled at him trying to tell him that your conversation was over. Xiao Pei sighed and nodded leaving you alone. A minute later, a servant girl entered the room with new bandages and warm water to wash your wound and redress it. Once she finished, you grabbed her wrist drawing her attention to yourself.

“Could you please ask the sect leader to visit me? It is important” you smiled at her gently and let her go when she nodded. Her form slipped out between the doors and disappeared from your sight. You closed your eyes trying to relax some even though the feeling of dread. Something was off about your old friend, something made the hair on the back of your neck stand.

Were you strong enough to withstand the fight? Were you enough to stop the demise of the kingdom? No… none of that. You had to stand strong, you had to fight and never give up. You were trusted with this power for a reason. You got this power because of the Heavens finding you capable of solving the problem.

“Ran’En!” his voice interrupted your thoughts. His familiar voice sounded worried as the sect leader burst through the doors. You turned to Wanyin as much as you could and smiled at him gently.

“I’m here, Wanyin” you said quietly reaching out for his hand. Jiang Wanyin knelt down next to your bed, looking at you like you were a miracle. You wanted to be reckless, you wanted to be the little girl who died the night your mother was killed, the one who just wanted to live happily and find love. You wanted to grab his cheeks and pull him into a kiss, a promise of love and trust. Instead, you squeezed his hand reassuringly. “I’m here.”

“I was so worried about you, your highness” Jiang Wanyin said bowing his head. Your eyebrows furrowed and quickly reaching under his chin, you lifted his face so you could look him in the eyes.

“None of it was your fault, Wanyin” you said firmly.

“You wouldn’t be injured if I wouldn’t have let you-“

“Stop being like that! You’ve done nothing wrong! I wanted to help and did just that! I am quite proud of the fact that half of the enemy’s army was eradicated by just me!” you huffed as you clicked your tongue.

“Ah, so your highness is fine enough to boast about her achievements already!” Wei Wuxian quipped playfully making you chuckle mirthfully.

“Wouldn’t you do the same, Wei gongzi?” you teased back with a grin but then sighed heavily as a frown appeared on your features. “Though I called for you because of another reason. The first part of the plan is over now that the rebellious generals are captured. We have to execute the next part.”

“Are you ready to be a national hero, A-Cheng?” the Yiling Patriarch asked his brother but all of you knew that even though his words were playful, his tone was not. You could tell he was worried for the sect leader just like you. You were throwing Jiang Wanyin to the wolves with this plan but you needed to get back to the palace.

“Have you started spreading the rumors? We need to gain Wanyin a lot of fame by the time Xiao Pei would get back to the Imperial Palace. We need the emperor to hear about the brave and heroic Jiang Wanyin” you turned to Wei Wuxian who nodded but haven’t failed to notice how red the sect leader’s ears were becoming.

“When will your maid arrive back?” the Yiling Patriarch asked curious however, at the sight of your pained expression that oozed regret, he closed his mouth and looked to Lan Wangji who up until now stood silently further behind.

“She was killed after she gave my letter to Xiao Pei” you replied with your hands clenched into fists. “However… I have no idea why but have a strange feeling about it.”

The men stayed silent making you uneasy. Were they suspicious about your old friend? Could they feel the same strange feeling about him? You sighed tiredly which immediately drew their attention, alerting them about your state and so they quickly left you alone to rest. Before Jiang Cheng could stand up, you grabbed his hand making him look back at you.

“Never let your guard down, Wanyin” you said. “Once we arrive to the Imperial Palace, you will have to manage on your own for most of the time.”

“Mnn…” the sect leader nodded and left the room. You had to wait patiently for your time for now. Even if you were suspicious about Xiao Pei’s words and actions, you had to not act rashly. Every word, every action, every expression, you had to control from now on until the second prince and your cousin couldn’t do anything else but die or flee.

To be continued…

#romance #fluff #mo dao zu shi #the untamed #jiang wanyin #jiang cheng #jiang cheng x reader #wei wuxian #lan wangji #wangxian

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ginger-grimm · 3 years

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INTRODUCING: BETH LAMBERT

Real Name: Lilibeth Jennifer Lambert

Aliases/Nicknames: Beth, Bunny, B, North Side Royalty

Birthdate: August 2nd, 1997

Species: Human

Relatives: Freya Lambert (Mother, deceased), Atticus Lambert (Father), Booker Lambert (Older Brother), Lois Lambert (Younger Sister), Sheri Lambert (Grandmother)

Affiliation: South Side Serpents, River Vixens

Marital Status: In a relationship with Sweet Pea

Occupation: Student

Sexuality: Bisexual

Character Description/Background: Unlike her older brother, Beth was born on the North Side of Riverdale when her parents had just started to make money with their business. By the time she was fifteen they were millionaires and she was part of the second richest family in town besides the Blossoms. Beth was often second in everything. Cheryl Blossom's second-in-command, second smartest girl in class, second child in the family. Everything in her life is toppled over when she wakes up in the woods one morning in the summer between eight grade and Freshman year of High School with no recollection of what had happened the night before. She brushes the incident off. Beth knew something had happened. She told her brother Booker about it. Then Cheryl. The latter twisted the truth to turn her boyfriend Reggie Mantle against her and make sure no one will ever take her spot as Queen Bee of the school. Her friends humiliate her. To make matters worse, her family loses their fortune and they have to move to the South Side. Then her mother is killed, sending the remaining Lambert's into a tailspin. Beth had been a bitch for most of her early teen years, especially to Jughead Jones. Who would have thought he'd turn into one of her only friends the Summer between Freshman and Sophomore year? Beth also befriends Kippi Goode and remains on good terms with Kevin Keller. Beth starts dating Sweet Pea that same summer. She starts to realize that she may be crushing on Betty Cooper and deals with the fall-out of these new feelings. While most her peers at Riverdale High try to figure out what happened to Jason Blossom, Beth starts looking into her mothers murder. Sweet Pea and her split for a while and in that time her and Misty Ortiz get together. She is sent to live with the Sisters of Quiet Mercy and there she meets Jupiter Carlson. The two manage to flee and then Beth has to attend South Side High. She becomes a Serpent to gain a second family. Beth was a mean girl on par with Cheryl, but turns that around after a horrendous Freshman year. She is resolute, feisty, and doesn't hold back if you annoy her. But she can also be extremely empathetic, funny, and loving. Beth is plagued by a rocky past but embraces change. She also loves animals and has a pug named Cookie. She becomes a River Vixen again just to spite Cheryl.

TAGGING: @hughstheforcelou @firsthorror @eddysocs @raith-way @foxesandmagic @reggiemantleholdmyhand-tle

#ocappreciation #riverdale #riverdale oc #riverdale original chracter #oc: beth lambert

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snidgetwidgeon · 4 years

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Insurrection Recollections Series: Royal Etiquette & Funding

Zelda sighed and began distracting herself with the clouds rolling by through the large windows of the Reception Hall. About a quarter of the size of the Great Hall, it was filled with amenities for entertaining delegates, courtiers, and their guests. At ten in the morning on Mondays, however- when nothing social was ever scheduled- Governess Beatrice utilized the space to teach young ladies from the upper and middle classes in Castle Town, as well as the noble families across Hyrule, about etiquette. She was currently standing at the head of the table, which was draped decoratively in neutral linens, and decked out with just about every dish, glass and piece of silverware one could imagine; including those that featured on the tables of all the races in Hyrule. Eye-catching pops of color were provided by the matching table runner and napkins, all in complementary shades of red, but to Zelda, it seemed frilly and way over the top.

Governess Beatrice must have known, or planned herself what the display was going to look like today, because she matched it perfectly. She wore a deep crimson gown over a cream chemise with long sleeves trailing from her elbow. In her hand, she held a fan which Zelda could swear was permanently attached to her body if it weren’t for the fact that it always changed to align with her elaborate ensembles. She was also partial to big hair and small hats.

As she droned on, Zelda went further into her daydream and thought she could see the Royal Crest in the clouds. Perhaps it was a sign from Hylia. Maybe if she prayed now, the power would come to her. What if she didn’t even need her robe, heirloom jewelry, or to be penitent before Hylia’s statue? Maybe she just needed to be open to celestial signs in the clouds. She clasped her hands under the table and moved her lips silently in prayer, eyes locked on the crest that had already begun to morph out of shape.

“Princess Zelda? Princess, may I have your attention please?” After no answer, Beatrice smacked her fan on the edge of the table. “Princess Zelda! Pray tell, what is so important that you are ignoring my class?”

Zelda snapped out of her focus and looked sadly at her instructor, “I thought I had received a sign from the Goddess.” She looked down at her hands, “But she has not answered my prayer.”

Beatrice was taken aback, reprimands dying on her tongue. “I see.” She did feel somewhat sympathetic, though still frustrated. When Zelda had first joined her classes, she been instructed to allow the Princess to seek the divine if she felt naturally inclined. After recalling the directive, Beatrice opened the fan with the flick of her wrist and offered graciously, “Perhaps your Highness would like to retire to the chapel to continue communing with Hylia?”

Zelda closed her eyes and nodded wistfully.

“Very well then, you may be excused.” Beatrice clipped.

Zelda stood and elegantly held her hands in front of her the way she knew Governess Beatrice liked. When she stepped away from the table, an attendant skillfully blending into the wall nearby, approached to push her vacated chair back in. They immediately returned to their position of observation.

Before she made her way out, she made a request. “Governess Beatrice, could Lady Agitha please accompany me?”

The two were inseparable, Beatrice noted, and the lesson was nearly done so she couldn’t see too much harm in it. “Lady Agitha, you may join the Princess. I expect you both to be diligent and learn from your peers what you’ve missed. Perhaps you can invite some of them to tea before Thursday.”

Agitha had leapt from her chair and practically scurried over to Zelda. She hadn’t yet grasped the finer points of subversion.

Beatrice clapped her hands, “Ah, ah! Girls... decorum.”

Zelda gave Agitha a look to ‘cut-it-out’ and took her friend’s arm in her own. They departed, Zelda’s steady steps guiding Agitha’s giddy ones.

~~~

It had been a few months of constant tedium and Zelda found that she could not always sealshit her way out of it. Twice a week, they learned how to speak, walk, stand, sit, breath, and exist as a lady. If it had to be done, there was a proper way to do everything, even blow your nose. But no one ever dared break wind. As far as Governess Beatrice was concerned, ladies did not poot.

Zelda’s eleventh birthday was approaching and Beatrice was using the event as a reason for the girls to begin perfecting their curtsies. First, they began by learning basic form. Once the general sweep of the leg, the dip of the head, and suspension of the arm was well practiced, she started to demonstrate the different levels one observed for varying degrees of rank. Zelda had been exposed to this all her life but Governess Beatrice was exceptionally exacting and expected nothing less than perfect preciseness. She thought of attempting escape again but she’d already done it twice this month. Anything more would surely attract suspicion.

Just as she started to feel a brain melt coming on after the fiftieth-odd curtsy, the Governess called an end to their lesson for that day. She entreated them to practice before later in the week when they would continue, and her excitement was practically terrifying when she announced they’d be presented with a varied wardrobe to study with. The morning was sure to be overflowing with petticoats, laces and frills.

Zelda wondered if she could play sick, or hide in the library. She much preferred it there, and recently she had managed to make a friend with an acquaintance of the Head Librarian Laslin. Her name was Impa and she had come to Castle Town recently with her older sister from Kakariko Village up in the Necluda mountains. They were here to research Ancient Sheikah Technology and were apparently already well informed on the subject. Zelda didn’t know much beyond the fact that the Astral Observatory was Sheikah. She adored that part of the castle and held dear a few faint, but very warm memories of her mother teaching her about the constellations.

“I’ll say it one more time ladies. You’d do well to practice on your own because we will be staying on this until you have all transformed into elegant herons.” She finished in the sing song voice that she thought made her seem nice, but really just grated on everyone’s nerves.

Zelda’s legs were so sore the following week after the extra curtsy lessons that it reminded her of the time she had tried ballet. The stiffness of her thighs made everything difficult, even using the lavatory; especially in her court dress. She smoothed the skirts and made sure everything was back in place before returning to the high tea being held in the courtyards. She was hoping she could get away with doing nothing more than sit and look pleasant for the rest of the afternoon, but just as she made herself comfortable under the pavilion, Governess Beatrice announced that they would be taking a stroll through the gardens.

Zelda sighed and rolled her eyes, which her friend Agitha had seen and giggled. She came to join Zelda as the sore Princess got up again and took her arm. “It’s better if you keep walking around you know,” she imparted as if she was full of infinite wisdom.

“How do you know that?” Zelda asked skeptically.

“Because my older brother told me. He goes on lots of adventures.” She paused as they both received parasols upon entry to the gardens, and ignored Beatrice’s spiel extolling the virtues of parasols. “He gets to do all the fun things with father while I have to stay here ‘because it’s tradition’,” she quoted her mother in a mocking voice.

“I thought brothers were no-good troublemakers.” Zelda stated with an air of query.

“Mine’s ok... most of the time.” Agitha laughed at her own joke while Zelda smiled, then continued, “When we’re both at home he helps me to find the best bugs.”

Zelda halted in shock and pulled Agitha to the side of the path so the other girls could pass. She whispered excitedly, “You like hunting for bugs!?”

Agitha dropped her parasol over their heads to whisper back, “I have a collection! I haven’t been able to add to it for a while though. Too much lady stuff to do,” she spat out with a scrunched face.

“I know the best rocks to look under, follow me!”

They were suddenly a flurry of giggles disappearing around the corner of a hedged bush. The other girls rolled their eyes and the teacher’s pet of the bunch took it upon herself to go and inform the Governess that there had been a break of rank in there very serious garden stroll.

Zelda dropped her parasol to the ground carelessly when they arrived in her old hunting grounds. There was a garden bed separated from the gravel path by a curved line of medium sized stones. She dropped to her knees and began turning them over one by one, inspecting the microcosm under each. Agitha joined her on the ground after folding and leaning her parasol against a bush with slightly more decorum, but once she was into the bugs, all sense of propriety was forgotten. They dirtied their dresses in the upturned soil and Agitha stood back up to hold out a layer of her skirts to make a receptacle. She directed Zelda which bugs to throw in and they devolved into fits of giggles as they rediscovered one of their beloved childhood activities. When they were found, Governess Beatrice was beside herself at their display of unladylike behavior.

All the other girls had followed to see what the commotion was about and were entertained beyond measure that the Princess of Hyrule was in trouble. They stood in their pristine, high tea finery, with slightly agape mouths hidden by dainty gloved fingers.

“Lady Agitha! Princess Zelda!” Beatrice’s head kept jerking back and forth between the two of them as if she couldn’t decide whom to admonish first. She decided on the royalty. “Princess Zelda, stand up at once! You have completely dirtied yourself!”

Zelda stood and brushed some of the dirt off the fabric over her knees. She started to tip the rocks back to rights with her foot while Beatrice turned her frustration to Agitha.

“And- Lady Agitha!” she admonished while straightening her back.

Agitha clutched her skirt closed around her waist and started to feel distraught that she would lose her new friends.

“What in Hyrule are you doing? It is very improper to be showing your petticoats in public. Put them to rights this instant,” she demanded. When Agitha hesitated, she became cross. She snapped her fan and came closer in an effort to appear more intimidating. “I said fix your dress, girl. You look like a harlot!”

Zelda glared daggers at the woman and vowed to get her back somehow, but Agitha took care of it herself.

Fear gave way to anger and she decided to unleash her new army upon Beatrice in frustration for not being allowed to be who she was any more. She hated growing up. With a dramatic cry of, “Have them, then!” she flung her dress open and the bugs were hurled in her direction.

The woman proceeded to scream, throwing up her parasol and flapping her fan all over to get the critters away. As she carried on, all the young ladies started laughing... and Agitha curtsied.

~~~

Four Years Later

Agitha kept moving restlessly from the parlor table to the tall balcony windows, peering out at the long and empty road leading up to the Windvane Manor.

After hearing her sigh for the umpteenth time, her older brother Theudric drawled, “At this rate, you’ll dull the marble. Why don’t you busy yourself and go check on the refreshments?” He was draped on the chaise lounge reading and when she came back over to scowl at him, he smirked.

“And miss her arrival? Absolutely not!” Her hip bounced a little and she admitted, “Though I do need to powder my nose.”

Just as her dress swished around the corner and out of the room, Theudric yelled, “Agitha! She’s here!”

“Finally!” She came peeling back round, almost slipping on the polished floors, and raced to the window only to find the same empty cobblestones. She heard her brother snickering behind his book and stomped over with a withering glare. “You remember the last time?” she threatened. “What ended up in your bed?”

His eyes went wide and he fell silent, burying his face in the book again, but his shoulders were still bouncing slightly.

It was still another three quarters of an hour before their guest arrived. Zelda appeared bright and cheerful, too excited to be tired from her journey, and refused offers of an afternoon’s repose. The opportunities to spend time with her friend were dwindling far too much so she wanted to take advantage of all the limited time they’d have. If she could give up sleep she would.

Agitha held her for an age in a warm embrace and then brought her to the parlor where they could all have luncheon. The moment they entered, Theudric snapped his book shut and stood ramrod straight, a slight color entering his cheeks.

“Zelda, you remember my brother, Theudric?”

Zelda smiled as he approached and gave a curt bow. “Princess Zelda, it is my pleasure to receive you to the manor. Lord and Lady Windvane send their apologies since they are away on business.”

“Thank you, and please give them my regards when they return,” she performed a small curtsy.

“Right,” Agitha announced. “Are we done with the pleasantries? Let’s eat! I’m famished.”

They gathered around the table and Theudric jumped to Zelda’s side to pull out her chair. “If you’ll allow me one more pleasantry.”

“Oh, thank you.”

Agitha stood near her own chair watching the lingering interaction and then cleared her throat.

Theudric shook his head a little in exasperation, “Oh, of course. Let me get that for you Aggi.”

They caught up while they ate and shared their latest interests. Agitha declared that she had a lovely surprise for Zelda in the lower storerooms of the house and Zelda spoke about her obsession with ancient Sheikah technology after the Divine Beasts had been discovered. A new friend, Dr. Purah, had lead the excavation for the last one in Eldin about two years prior and her younger sister Impa had begun advising the King on the subject. Zelda had since signed on to help where she could.

As she continued regaling her company with anecdotes about her translation work, Theudric sat riveted; he was so impressed with her academic achievements. A lot of people held the incorrect assumption that the Princess frittered away her time in court. She did make appearances in court- he had seen her himself on a few occasions when he went to the castle with his father on business- but she hardly wasted her time there. In fact, it seemed to him that she stayed the bare minimum that was acceptable. He vowed from then on that he would defend her honor and brilliance to anyone who stated anything to the contrary.

When he joined in the conversation and spoke of what their parents were up to lately, Agitha put on her most irksome, bored face. “Theu, that’s not interesting in the slightest- Zelda, have you had enough?” she interrupted herself to change the subject. “I can’t wait any longer to show you my new collection.”

Zelda laughed and regarded Theudric with a look of apology. “Forgive me Master Theudric, I appear to be summoned to the bowels of the house. Will you be joining us?” she asked as she stood.

He rose with her out of respect and opened his mouth but Agitha cut in, “He will not. He told me earlier that the day was so lovely he might go riding, and it’s about time I got you all to myself.”

Theudric put on mock dramatics, “I’m afraid I can’t join your Highness as I have a previous engagement with my horse. Missing an appointment with her would be a most egregious offense.” He bowed deeply. “Please forgive my absence.”

Agitha rolled her eyes and Zelda smiled bemusedly. She heard pandering like this all the time but it was much more palatable when delivered in jest rather than earnestly. It could become very tiring when people tried too hard and spoke only to her rank instead of to her person. It was why these less frequent opportunities to visit her friend away from the castle had become all the more important. She could relax and be herself out here, especially with Agitha. The only other respite she had was Gerudo Town and a trip there was even harder to wrangle as her responsibilities grew with each passing year.

“That’s quite understandable,” Zelda related. “My Rune also gets temperamental if I don’t visit him regularly.” She dipped her head and took one more little triangle egg sandwich from the table as Agitha dragged her off. “Enjoy your ride!”

Agitha led Zelda downstairs to one of the cooler, stone-lined basement store rooms. Behind the heavy wooden door that Agitha held open for her, Zelda’s breath was taken away by all of the glass terrariums lit by a plethora of lanterns. Each one had a manicured ecosystem and held from one, to many different species of bugs. Zelda bounced from one to the next as Agitha stood back, pleased with her reaction.

“This is wonderful Agitha! How did you manage to curate this?”

“Mother finally caved and said I could pursue my entomology hobby as long as it ‘doesn’t interfere with my other obligations’,” she quoted, exaggerating her mother’s shrill voice.

“I’m so happy for you. Oh! What’s this one? It doesn’t have a sign yet.”

Agitha approached to get a closer look. “Ah, that’s one of the rainy beauties, a Thunderwing Butterfly. Mother had a cow when I went to collect it because I was running around the meadow in a downpour.” She sighed, “Honestly, I’m so glad when she goes away because then I can just do my thing without her fretting over me.”

In a soft voice that sounded wistfully sad, Zelda offered a different perspective. “I’m sure that whatever she does, she does it out of love.”

Agitha was about to argue but when she noticed Zelda’s face after turning her attention away from the butterfly, she understood what she’d done. “Yeah... I’m sure you’re right.”

~~~

The next morning, Theudric found himself in front of the mirror trying to make himself look extra spiffy. He’d already asked his valet to put out one of his smartest ensembles. It included a red vest with gold buttons, brown trousers and calf-high boots. He was about to second guess if it was too fancy when he got distracted by his hair and proceeded to fiddle with it for a good twenty minutes. There were only so many things he could do with a short brown mop so finally, he just slicked it back and finished with a spritz of cologne.

He came downstairs, ready to entertain but he couldn’t see the girls anywhere. Their breakfast was half eaten and in his curiosity to find out where they could have gone, he gulped a bit of apple juice and grabbed a boiled egg to eat on his way out.

He wasn’t expecting to run right into them after turning the corner of the garden hedge, so he covered his mouth unceremoniously as he chewed quickly, the pasty egg yolk clinging to his teeth and tongue.

Zelda looked up and smiled radiantly under her sun hat. "Good morning Master Theudric." She was bent over the rim of a new large terrarium on a table, carefully placing a bit of hollow log inside to add to the habitat.

“Yes,” he finished swallowing his breakfast, “it is indeed a very beautiful morning. What are you ladies up to?”

Agitha gave him a withering stare. “What does it look like, genius?”

“Give me a break, I haven’t even been able to have my coffee,” he defended himself. “Had to come looking for you instead, didn’t I.”

“And just in time too. This one’s almost finished,” she said as she placed seedlings in pre-prepared holes in the soil at the bottom. “You can help us carry it downstairs.”

“Oh! Ah, I just remembered,” he started with a pained look on his face. “I have this thing.” He started to retreat and Agitha produced a flat and unamused expression that made him chuckle. “I’m just kidding Aggi. Are we carrying it or is it heavy enough that I need to get Genly?

“Mmmm, yes. I think Genly would be a good idea. I saw him in the stables earlier when I went to get some manure.”

“Wow, you aren’t messing around,” he said with a mix of curiosity and disgust.

“Only the best for my babies,” she answered.

His brow raised skeptically. “Riiiight... I’ll just go fetch Genly, then,” he stated while letting his gaze linger on Zelda as she brushed her hands together to remove the soil.

He had just turned away when she looked up to speak, the thought of allowing some self indulgence crossing her mind. “Master Theudric, do you mind if I join you? I’d love to meet the mare that stole you away from us yesterday.” Of course all three of them had known it was a pretense, but she enjoyed keeping up the ruse.

Theudric curtly bowed at the waist and gestured toward the stables. “Absolutely, your Highness. Posy would be enchanted.”

“She’s enchanted by hydromelons and if you visit her without them she’ll be a right little piece of twatittude,” Agitha warned. “I’m going to water this in. Don’t take too long.”

While Zelda bribed her way into Posy’s affections, Theudric searched the stables for Genly and found him organizing in the tack room. He was a kindly, middle aged man who’d worked for the Windvane family since he was about fifteen. His family ran the Highland Stable down south but rather than taking on the business and starting a family as he would have been expected to do when he got older, he decided to make his own way and live quietly alone in a little house on the grounds.

“Ah, Master Theudric,” Genly greeted him with a smile under his bushy mustache, tipping his hat. “Going for a ride this fine morning?”

“Morning Genly. Not at the moment.” He was about to continue with his request when an idea occurred to him. “Though maybe a bit later. I’m afraid I’m just after assistance with some heavy lifting. Aggi needs a new tank taken downstairs to her lair.”

“Righto,” Genly said as he laid some rope on the table to return to later. “Always happy to help; point the way.”

Zelda opted to continue making Posy’s acquaintance. She was entertained by the fact that the temperamental mare was pacified by hydromelons. They weren’t the usual fare at the castle stables and she thought perhaps she should acquire some for Rune to try. Maybe it would help them to bond better.

Theudric wasn’t long in returning and Genly, who was in tow to head back to what he’d initially been doing, took one look at them and steered clear out the other end of the stables to do something else. He tipped his hat as he passed by, “Your Highness.”

She smiled and nodded, then regarded Theudric with a hand on Posy’s muzzle. “Well, shall we get back? Agitha will certainly be getting restless by now.”

He leaned against the gate of Posy’s enclosure and smoothed his hair back with one hand before saying, “Actually, I’m wondering if you’d be willing to humor me for awhile. I’d love to hear more about the ancient Sheikah research you’re into.” His face was all keen interest.

“I’d be wary of that if I were you,” she warned. “Once you get me going on the subject, I’ll forget the time and talk you to exhaustion, I’m sure!”

His lips turned up into a dashing smile. “Try me.”

She seemed reticent but still in good humor, so he pursued a different tactic. “How about a deal then?”

She forgot her manners and snorted derisively, accidentally startling Posy. “Of what sort- oh, sorry Posy, I’ll leave you to the rest of your melon,” she said as she put the remaining pieces in her feed trough.

“A hobby for a hobby. You tell me all about yours while I escort you to mine. That way, there will be mutually assured boredom.”

She enjoyed his company. He seemed to not judge her natural proclivities and she appreciated that. “I really can’t fault your logic, Master Theudric.”

“Please, call me Theu,” he requested earnestly.

Agitha had just arrived on the scene to find out what had been keeping them and rolled her eyes so hard her whole body teetered to one side. “Uuugh, you’re not taking her to the Collie, are you?”

“Why not? If we take the horses, it will be a fun, midday outing. We can take a lunch.”

“What’s going on at the Coliseum?” Zelda asked, unable to hide her curiosity.

Theudric began to speak but Agitha cut him off again, “Only his pet project which daddy is sooo proud of.”

Before Agitha could continue teasing, Zelda said earnestly, “It’s a wonderful thing to have a father’s approval. I think I’d like to see the hobby that garnered such a thing. Maybe I can get some tips so father can see the value in my hobby as well.”

Theudric’s ears perked up and he asked, “Are you short of funding?”

“Honestly, I can’t complain. The research has been well funded, but it has grown to the point where we need a second location. There is an energy source that must be tapped if we want to progress as quickly as possible.”

“Sounds very interesting.”

“You say that, but there’s a catch. It’s almost as far east as you can get, near the Village of Hateno.”

“Ahh, the boonies. Father calls it bum ffff- never mind,” he caught himself from almost being incredibly uncouth in front of the Princess of Hyrule and straightened his posture. He just found her so easy to be around. Quite a different flavor from other young ladies he’d socialized with.

She suppressed a chuckle and caught Agitha’s bored expression from where she was sitting on a bale of hay, twirling pieces in her hand and waiting. “Agitha, are you going to join us? I think a ride with lunch sounds lovely.”

“It’s ok. You two go on ahead.” She stood up and stretched. “I’m going to finish the habitat for the second tank. I’ll send something from the kitchen while the horses get tacked up.”

Theudric looked incredulous. “Thanks Aggi.”

She left the stables and just as he was about to continue his conversation with Zelda, she poked her head around the corner. “Don’t take all day, you hear?!”

Zelda waved cheerfully and had a look at the other horses in their stalls. “So Theu, who shall I get ready to ride today?”

“Oh! Um...” he quickly turned away from her so he could hide the warmth he felt on his cheeks, no doubt manifesting as a full on blush at hearing his nickname as he’d requested. He led her to a brown and white spotted mare about three stalls down. “We’ll have to take Daisy because she’s the only one that Posy likes hanging around with.”

“Daisy and Posy, hm? All we need is another flower and we’ll be on our way to a bouquet,” Zelda joked.

And she made silly jokes. He was a goner.

Theudric led Daisy out to introduce them and laughed nervously. “Actually, you’re not far off. All the horses have been bred at my Uncle Talon’s farm on the other side of the field and he’s a... a quirky one. Names all his horses after flowers.” He leaned over to look past Zelda outside, “I’ll just find Genly to tack up.”

As he brushed past, she touched his arm, “It’s ok, I like doing it myself. Besides, that way Daisy can get to know me better before we go. Isn’t that right, beautiful girl?” she cooed, gently stroking Daisy’s face.

Theudric felt rude for letting his surprise show but she was paying more attention to Daisy anyhow. “Alright then, let’s get ready.”

He collected saddles and reins from the tack room and they got to work. She asked him about his project but he only touched on it briefly, wanting to share the full story during their outing when he could show as well as tell. He did let on that it was his innovation to combine the annual Kingdom Games with a harvest market. It would be a whirlwind fortnight of competition and bartering, boosting trade in the region for smaller, local farmers, and trades people. It was also ideally situated to receive the quality gem crafts and fabrics coming out of Gerudo Desert.

Zelda sat astride her mount first and was glad she brought her hat as she rode out into the clear summer day. Genly came past with another tip of his hat and handed her a packed lunch. “This came from the big house. I hope you enjoy your ride, your Highness. I’ll take care of the girls when you get back.”

“Thank you, Genly,” she beamed.

He shrugged shyly over the Princess of Hyrule remembering his name and passed Theudric’s lunch to him as he emerged next from the stables astride Posy. The two horses nibbled at each other and snorted, but otherwise got on.

“Well, then. Shall we?” Theudric asked.

Zelda clicked her heels and set off at a cantor. “We shall!”

~~~

The moment Zelda pulled away and the last of her small retinue were out of earshot, Agitha turned on her brother with a look of disdain. "I hardly get to see Zelda anymore. I'd appreciate you not stealing her from me next time she visits."

He finished waving and rolled his eyes at her as he turned to go back in the house.

When he didn't say anything, she kept on. "Theu! Seriously, you used to pay us no mind whatsoever. Why are you butting in?"

He kept walking through the vaulted foyer and answered nonchalantly, "I like her."

She froze in a silent gasp but recovered from the shock quickly, catching up to him in a flurry of clicking steps that reverberated off the polished floor. "Well- then-," she struggled to retain the argument after such a bombshell. "Then go see her on your own time and-"

He whirled on her, having become slightly annoyed at her petulance, "Honestly, I don't know why you're so upset. If she likes me back, you two could end up being sisters, and then you can spend as much time with her as you like."

A loud and deep gasp filled the room this time, as if she'd inhaled all the available air in the house, "YOU'RE RIGHT!"

She then left him with a bemused expression as she made a mad dash to her writing desk upstairs. She'd begin matchmaking right away, starting with a letter to Zelda. Subtle hints, not too overt. She'd have to gauge if he was even on her radar. Probably not, all she talked about was ancient Sheikah tech...

She giggled as she wrote, imagining the day when they could be sisters.

#breath of the wild #fanfiction #writing #Royal Etiquette & Funding #Insurrection Recollections Series #snidgetwidgeon scribbles

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noir0neko · 4 years

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Crime and Creation | m

Rating: Mature

Word Count: 15.5k

Summary: The Crow Club. One of the University of Ketterdam’s secret societies aimed at recruiting the finest students who want a taste of more than just lectures. Meet Kaz, the founder and president, whose self-made millions come from his dealings on Wall Street. Nina, a girl who is aching for more than the fortune and husband her family has laid out for her. Inej, whose observant nature and ability to be invisible makes her the perfect spy. Jesper, a childhood friend of Kaz’s who can’t resist getting into a little trouble joined by his boyfriend, Wylan, son of the University dean. And Cataleya, an Upper West side journalism major who has a special way with words. When Kaz finds out the Crow Club’s dealings have been infiltrated by an unknown rival, his crew enlists the help of outsiders to ruin reputations, throw lavish parties, and do what the New York City Crows do best: heist. Until something goes very wrong.

Characters: Cataleya (OC), Kaz Brekker, Inej Ghafa, Jesper Fahey, Wylan Van Eck, Nina Zenik, Alina Starkov, Zoya Nazyalensky, Nikolai Lantsov, Aleksander Morosova and honorable Leoni mention.

Warnings: Death. Highly detailed emotion and inner thoughts that have memories of parental abuse and self harm, nothing very detailed. Mentions of murder, drugs, and illegal activity. General debauchery and scheming. Some romance, mostly implied, light kissing, fondling, and the use of expletives.

A/N: You do not need to have read any of the books in this world to understand this fic! I spent so much time and poured my heart and soul into this story and the development of my original character and building these characters into a new, modern world. Please read it and give me your thoughts! This piece was written for the @grishaversebigbang. Also, check out the art work made for my fic by these amazing artists: @corpsecro, @nantosuelta-art, @discountscoobygang, @lady-ekatherina-de-mika and @mikanviola! It is such an honor to be a part of something like this and I had so much fun! I encourage anyone and everyone to read the Six of Crows/Shadow and Bone series by Leigh Bardugo! It’ll be on Netflix soon!

I used to love cats.

Until one showed up dead on my window sill.

I’m still not sure how it got there. Perhaps it climbed the fire escape and lept from the metal railing onto the ledge. But once the animal had the orange pollen and poisonous petals of the lilies sticking out of my window in its mouth, it was only a matter of time before it died. I had the good sense to keep my crying quiet, at eleven years old, so that my father would not stumble in to yell or push the cat hundreds of feet to the street below. I did not know he was already gone. That I was alone.

I hid the orange tabby in my backpack and went to bury her in the backyard garden the next chance I got.

But when I used my small children’s shovel to dig into the earth, soft from the recent rain, it wasn’t what I went to bury that changed my life. But what was already buried there. And right then, with my cheeks stained with tears and hands shaking with anger, I swore to never stop hunting. To never stop chasing the people who ruined me.

That was one promise I kept.

I haven’t kept many others.

Sitting in the foyer with the rest of the Crows, wind coming in from the autumn afternoon and the scent of freshly made waffles mixing with dusty books, I don’t know if I can keep this one either. Kaz looks at me pointedly, waiting for me to answer. I glance at all of them, Nina, Inej, Jesper, and Wylan. It is rare that anyone outright refuses Kaz on anything, especially not with his position or to risk the weight of his disapproval. Nina once told Kaz to go to Hell and she paid for it with two weeks of silence and banishment from the Crow Library until she relented to do her assignment.

Jesper clears his throat, trying to relieve the awkward vibe getting thicker with each passing moment of silence. I can’t help but allow a small smile to reach my lips, grateful for him trying to save me from the tension that I could slice with a knife. Swallowing and meeting Kaz’s dark eyes, I sigh.

“Fine,” I relent. “I’m in.”

The strain dissolves from the space and the other Crows break into smiles and start to chatter. Relaxing back in my chair, I watch Inej spring up and take her place next to Kaz, her lithe frame complimenting his perfectly. Kaz moves around his large oak desk, gaze fixated on something in the distance. Definitely scheming face. Best to wait it out until he speaks first.

The Crow Library is lit with the afternoon sunlight, warming the leather of our chairs and illuminating the dust gathering along the rows of books. Shelves line the walls beneath the window, behind Kaz’s study area, and underneath the stairwell, which leads to an upstairs reading room and parlor area. Nobody has bothered to read any of the books, weathered and dusted with age, but they lend the room an air of sophistication and a homey comforting smell. Kaz’s desk is littered with papers, the dark wood barely visible beneath the jumble of stock investment deals, new heists, and class assignments waiting to be done. On the front face of the desk, a large crow is carved into the surface, black and red paint covering the indentations in the wood.

Inej puts a tender hand on Kaz’s forearm, her lips moving quickly and silently, as if whispering to him. Inej has her hair down today, an unusual occurrence from her braided coil, and the dark strands spill like silky oil over her shoulders and her waist. She must have come from the studio, sweat still gleaming on her brow and black leotard disappearing beneath dark navy leggings. Her lithe frame seems to be floating, always so modest and reserved, yet her brown eyes are intuitive and unrelenting as she studies Kaz. She has been with him since the founding of the Crow Club, never missing a beat between helping him, chastising him, watching out for him, and caring for herself all the same. It’s no wonder she’s been able to double major in both Global History and Ballet, two completely different worlds, but complimenting each other perfectly for Inej.

And Kaz. What an interesting man he’s proven to be.

Business major. Self made millionaire. First student to be admitted into the University of Ketterdam - UOK for short, without a full high school education. A man full of mysteries.

Jesper moves to perch himself on the arm of Wylan’s chair and adjusts his Queen shirt, the old black leather groaning under his weight. Jesper says something quietly to his boyfriend before running a hand through Wylan’s curly red hair and kissing his pale pert nose. Jesper has his hair buzzed short to his scalp, dark arms lean with muscle and legs long, his jeans riding up at the ankles to reveal bright yellow socks and black high tops. Wylan releases a wide smile, looking up at Jesper with untamed admiration. Wylan has on a pair of pressed dark wash jeans, his collared shirt maroon red with small white dots, accentuating his bright hair and pale skin.

It just reminds me of blood.

They are quite a pair. Wylan, being the son of the University dean and Jesper, one of the most intelligent and talented students in the Economics department. He is studying Game Theory, an extremely intense and complicated subject full of strategy, confidence, and risk: coincidentally Jesper’s three favorite words.

Wylan, much to his father’s chagrin, is an Art History student with a hidden passion for chemistry and physics. I often find him gazing at the long since forgotten portraits on the walls of the Crow Library upstairs, reminiscing of a different time, of discovery and excitement. Of different people with different secrets. Wylan usually seems lost in thought, often internally reflecting rather than being outwardly vocal like the rest of the Crows. He is another mystery, especially because of the tenuous relationship he has with his father.

Jesper’s brown skin glimmers in the sun, inclining his eyebrows in mischief before taking a toffee from the bowl next to him and flinging it across Wylan’s chair to Nina.

Her tongue flicks out as it hits her arm, thick lips smirking before unwrapping the plastic wrapper and popping the candy in her mouth. Nina is one of the only Crows who was forced into attending the University of Ketterdam. Her parents, with her father being an extremely rich and powerful Russian politician and her mother, an aristocratic woman supposedly descending from ancient Russian royalty, had been raising Nina to marry a high ranking Scandinavian commander since she was eleven. The marriage was supposed to secure better relations between the two nations, as well as provide Nina with a life of security, wealth, and status for her and her children. All her parents want for her.

In true Nina fashion, this is unacceptable.

Her family said the marriage could wait if she wanted to go to school and get a degree, which may better serve her husband and their families prestige in the future. Seeing no other viable option, especially because she did not want to marry a “white haired barbarian” as she called her husband-to-be, she enrolled in a prestigious university as far away from Russia as she could get. Despite her parents beliefs that she is a culinary student - “because a good wife knows how to cook”, according to her parents, Nina has been studying Performing Arts and Theatre. A perfect major to fit her personality and her beauty, with her tall, curvy frame and piercing green eyes. Today, she is wearing an olive bodysuit, the neck low cutting and her legs hugged by a pair of black flare jeans. Casual and entrancing. Her style seems to change depending on her mood, from modest foreigner to vivacious party girl to preppy student. New each day.

“We will need others,” Kaz mumbles to Inej, furrowing his dark eyebrows in thought.

I have only been with the Crows for a few months, but I already know how unusual that is. Kaz rarely asks for help, especially from those outside of the Crow Club. But whatever he has planned seems to be a lot more serious than the other jobs, more personal than merely ousting insider trading, or infiltrating various museums and mansions, or spying on the Upper East and West Side elite to gain intel and use it to our advantage.

Each of us has a unique purpose to Kaz. His investments. And while it has been easier to see where the others’ talents fit in, I am still baffled by my own. I adjust the sleeves of my lavender shirt, the ruffled material smooth on my shoulders.

I had known the Crow Club existed before I set foot on campus. As a journalism major, secrets have always intrigued me. Not just the secrets. The challenge of uncovering them, of working from the inside to reveal some of the deepest and darkest parts of humanity. I had always heard whispers of the club amongst the Upper West side elite, whispers about Kaz Brekker and his Crows. Always watching. Always ready to catch you red-handed. But I didn’t even need to go out of my way to find the Crow Club.

Kaz found me first. Called me an asset. He and Inej invited me to join starting the summer before my second term. I have surprised myself by warming up to the rest of the Crows so quickly, even the ones who aren’t active members and are just extra recruits for Kaz to call if he needs them. We all mean something here, we all have a purpose, more than what the world is trying to force upon us.

A family. Especially since most of ours are broken or nonexistent.

After a few minutes of waiting, Kaz snaps to attention and we follow suit, like trained soldiers, eager for him to share whatever small slice of his plan that he decides to. His crisp suit is pure black, a small crow brooch pinned to his lapel. The shaved hair on the side of his head is beginning to grow out, the top slicked back with a deep, oaky smelling gel. He always looks like he is dressed for a business meeting, even when it’s just us. Inej always muses that there is an irony to it, but how, I don’t know. I suppose everything is business to Kaz.

“Okay,” he begins, voice gruff and deep. “This is what we’ll do.”

----

Nina and I weave our way through the busy streets, blessing the cool wind as it kisses our faces in the dying summer heat. Her hair is down, the sun illuminating the many shades of brown running through the waves and her dress is high on her thighs, the red cotton fabric hugging the curves of her waist. Being in America has done wonders for Nina, brightened her complexion, improved her spirit, and turned her from a wafer-thin girl to a full-bodied, thick thighed woman. Everywhere she goes, people stare. She is otherworldly, like a saint on Earth.

“Where did Kaz send us this time?” Nina complains, sucking the dripping strawberry ice cream from her fingers before chucking the cone into a nearby trash.

“He didn’t,” I grin, dodging a guy with suspicious looking flyers on the sidewalk. “He gave us his card and very vague instructions to find a wardrobe for the event.”

Nina’s eyes sparkle, cleaning off the rest of her fingers before she entwines her elbow in mine. New York City seems to breathe with our every step, the wind moving, the heat unfurling, and the trees swaying. Taxis and cars whiz by on the avenue, the honking of horns and the laughter of tourists crossing into Central Park filling the air. Everything about New York is alive, even the concrete holds stories it’s waiting to tell.

“Then let’s go down Fifth,” Nina begins, mischief in her tone. “I know a few places.”

“I bet you do,” I flash her a smile, crossing the street so we walk parallel to the park.

We trek down the street, stopping into a macaron shop in the Plaza Hotel to get a bright blue bag full of sweets for us to eat on our journey. Nina and I are bouncing on our heels, excited to have a day to ourselves, away from the Crow Club and the University and being responsible for buying dresses for not only ourselves, but for Inej, Alina, and Zoya, as well.

Kaz had three extra students brought in for this assignment, all a part of the secret network of Crows that don’t sit in regular meetings. First is Alina, who has an international reputation for rebuilding schools and orphanages across the world since she was thirteen, and who has been a Crow since her first step onto campus. She transferred here as a graduate student from some extremely prestigious school in California to complete her PhD and teaching credentials. Every time I have seen Alina, she has been so kind and so helpful, always eager to teach, serve, and build in any way she can. It’s beyond me why she wants to be a part of these operations. Maybe every good girl has a naughty streak.

Zoya, on the other hand, seems like the opposite of Alina. A close friend, confidant, and suspected girlfriend, of another one of Kaz’s network of Crows, Zoya is an overly intelligent, intimidating, and obscenely beautiful law student. Her hair is always smooth, a jet black slate against her back and her eyes are always piercing, judging and observing in their ice blue. Her skin always looks perfectly tanned, a deep brown that makes the pink of her lips more enticing. Her grades are pristine, her ability to argue is unparalleled, and if there were ever a force to be reckoned with, it is her. It’s a lot more obvious to understand why she agreed to join the Crows, for the prestige, the knowledge, the power. But truly puzzling, is her relationship with Nikolai.

Nikolai, or Nik, as I like to call him, is one of the best - and funniest, Crows. Clever, self-deprecating, friendly, handsome, the list goes on. His blonde hair is a shaggy mop of artsy goodness, his skin is creamy, his style completely unmatched and his wealth bottomless. Nik and Kaz are always butting heads; most of the time it’s the only comedic relief the Crow Club has when they’re together. Nik met Zoya during undergrad, in a political science course, where apparently their discussions were lively enough to earn them A’s and lengthy enough to last entire class sessions. Nik has one of those family names that are revered in every elite social circle, making him an obvious addition for Kaz’s team and from what I have gleaned from Nik, he decided to join the Crows to give him something interesting to do besides follow in his father’s footsteps. I wish I wanted to be a Crow out of boredom.

“God,” Nina groans, shoving her phone back into her five thousand dollar purse. “If I get one more message from my parents asking if I’ve heard from that white-haired, rule-following, stick-up-his-ass, Scandinavian inbred, I am going to drown my phone in the Hudson River.”

“Wow,” I clap for her, avoiding the incredulous gapes of tourists at her language. “So many adjectives and I don’t even think you’ve ever said his name.”

A man opens up the glass doors to Bergdorf Goodman’s, where cool air and white marble greet us. Immediately, we drift to the dress racks, combing through all of the latest trends.

“Matthias,” she almost growls. “His letters are so proper, telling me that he has heard of my exemplary womanly skills from my parents. That he would delight to see my drawings and sewing and hear me play the piano. It’s ridiculous. I don’t do any of those things by choice.”

I stifle a laugh. “He seems very… traditional.”

“Seems?” She throws her hands up, shoving a silk dress back onto the rack with too much force. “He is the definition of the word! And worst of all, he’s attractive! He has snow white hair and is built like one of those huge wrestler guys that people watch on TV.”

“Why is that a problem?”

“Because his complete lack of competence makes him a barbarian! A man who thinks the perfect wife is silent and docile. He’s going to have another thing coming when I show up.”

“He comes from old money in an old country,” I begin, wondering whether I need to tread lightly. “Don’t you think he’s just taught to think that way?”

She sighs, holding up a stunning evergreen gown against her figure. “I know he is. That’s what’s even worse. I know that everyone where he is from has been taught those values. So even if he came to love me, to understand me, no one on the outside would. His station, his reputation, his fortune, all of it is dependent on how I perform. How I reflect him.”

“That doesn’t seem fair,” I muse, holding out another red silk dress for her.

“Money isn’t fair.”

I blink, surprised at her words. Money is just an object. It has no preference, no deference, no opinions. But I guess the idea of money is more important and tangible than the paper itself. Money has value and expectations beyond the faces staring back at you from the press. It expects manners, it breeds tradition and hierarchy and perfect wives who aren’t allowed to make any. I wonder if Nina will end up bending to those wills, to the one’s she has been raised to. America is such a different place, but I guess money everywhere is the same. It controls you.

“This.”

I turn around, face breaking out into a huge smile at the dress Nina is holding. It is a deep purple, with sheer shoulder sleeves and a deep plunging neckline covered in diamond flowers. The waist is cinched, belted by more glittering gems, before it falls and flows in layers of purple silk and satin to the floor, flowers and vines curling around the skirt. Nina’s hair and eyes and skin would look angelic in the dress. I nod fervently, unable to cap my smile as she waves over an employee to open the dressing room.

While in the dressing rooms, Nina and I talk through the divider.

“Where was Wylan off to earlier?” I ask, taking off my clothes and folding them neatly on the small leather bench. “He never really seems to be around these days.”

“Yeah,” Nina says, with a grunt. “He’s been trying to rekindle his relationship with his father, studying a lot. You know, the usual dysfunctional family stuff.”

I laugh. “My family wasn’t dysfunctional in that way.”

“I would say you were lucky,” Nina begins and I can hear her zipper up as mine does. “But I know you weren’t.”

At the same time, we step out of the dressing room, identical smiles breaking open our faces before we clasp our hands together and squeal with happiness. The dresses look perfect, we look perfect, everything looks perfect.

And now we just have to find dresses for Alina and Zoya.

With these price tags, Kaz is going to regret lending us his credit card.

----

“Something Kaz Brekker doesn’t know how to do,” I tease a few days later,“drive.”

He shoots me a healthy side glare, uncurling his fingers from around the steering wheel. The sun is shining through the left side of the car, illuminating his high cheeks and arched brow bones with dazzling light. If Kaz weren’t so… him, I’m confident he would have made an amazing Calvin Klein model. Especially because his lips are always relaxed in a bit of a natural pout and his resting stance is so relaxed, yet also confident. He is striking.

And he doesn’t belong to me. Nor do I think he ever will.

Despite their claims and attempts to put distance between their relationship, it has become common knowledge in the Crow Club that Kaz and Inej are a package deal. And it doesn’t take a trained Journalism major to read between those lines. It is blindingly obvious in the subtle ways she touches him, the way his gaze softens when he looks at her. She is the ice to his fire, and when needed, he is the same for her. A complimentary pair in every way, even if it seems unlikely on the surface.

“Okay,” I begin, gesturing to the automatic gears between us. I explain what each of the letters stand for, instructing him to move the clutch into reverse and slowly ease up on the brake. With a bit of a jerk, Kaz obeys, turning the wheel to back us out of the spot in the empty parking lot. It had taken a bit of a road trip to find this place outside of the city. I had driven Kaz and myself into New Jersey, where the early morning dawn had just begun to crest, giving our driving lessons an advantage. Kaz had immediately, and somewhat reluctantly, urged me to teach him, claiming we would need it for this assignment. Inej had pushed him along with the conversation, rolling her eyes at how his own pride blocked up his request.

“Now go back into drive,” I say, lurching forward when he does and pushes his foot down too forcefully on the gas pedal. He turns in circles around the empty lot, taking care to avoid the lamp posts. On every straight away, Kaz seems to hit the gas with a little more force, graceful turns giving way to concussion-inducing races. It seems he has the turning part down, but the lurching and jerking of the car would get him pulled over quickly.

And although Kaz will no doubt be having a new fake I.D. made by one of our extra Crows, the risk of involving a police officer is not one any of us want to take.

“Slow down there, Nascar.” I laugh.

He eases up, taking his time to get used to the ebb and flow of the vehicle. Where he got the car is beyond me, but I am also beyond questioning Kaz’s ability to secure random and often, complicated, objects for our heists. He has become my biggest puzzle, my biggest mystery to solve. And if it hasn’t been one hell of an adventure trying to figure him out. Observing him and listening and learning his subtle tells when he is angry or pleased or scheming. Lately, though, it feels as if the obsession for uncovering his truths have blossomed into something else, something that makes my heart race a little faster and my palms sweat. Something I haven’t been able to control. And how I hate not being in control.

“Turn out onto the street,” I instruct, forcing myself to speak and get out of my own head.

He obliges, the car absorbing the bumps in the curb as Kaz makes a graceful right turn. His black gloves glide smoothly along the steering wheel, the sleeve of his shirt riding up to expose a sliver of his pale wrist. My mind begins to wander again, to whether or not Inej has touched them, if she has held his wrists down as she gracefully slid on top of him. I wonder if she has kissed him, if he whispers her secrets to her like some sort of sexy spy pillow talk.

“Cataleya,” Kaz is saying, the four syllables of my name like chimes from his mouth.

“Sorry,” I shake my head, swallowing and casting him a glance. “What?”

“Where are we going?” He repeats, monotone and bored.

His driving has already gotten smoother, his feet steady on the brake and gas as I tell him to pull onto the dirt on the side of the two-lane road and turn around. There are still no cars out here at this hour, an Amtrak just beginning its morning route on a station in the distance. I can see the outline of the city beyond the valley, half blocked by trees and tall grass. The skyscrapers are haloed by the rising sun, like a safe haven calling me back home.

“Who taught you to drive?” Kaz says, his raspy voice surprisingly light.

“A friend I had growing up,” I reply, surprised.

“That’s a nice friend,” he comments, voice taking on an edge I don’t understand.

I snort. “Yeah, well, I didn’t have any family to do it.”

His hands tighten on the steering wheel ever so slightly and if I weren’t observant I probably would have missed it. The way he tenses up. The way his jaw clenches and the car begins to move a bit faster as his foot locks onto the gas. “Me either.”

“I found my mother dead.” The words are out of my mouth before I realize it. Kaz’s gaze shifts a bit, but he keeps his focus on the road as I continue. “I went to bury a dead cat in my mother’s old garden. We never touched it, my father never tended to it, or let me, after he said she left us. But when I went out to the garden and began to dig, I lost track of time, I dug far deeper than I intended. My father wasn’t home, I wanted to be there, in that garden, and away from him if he came home, for as long as possible. I didn’t realize how far I had dug until,” I swallow, inhaling and turning to Kaz. “Until a hand began to form beneath the dirt, and then an arm, and I saw the wedding ring, the bruises, the blue of her dress…”

Kaz’s lips part, the only admission of emotion he gives.

“The coroner said she had been dead for four months. Four months,” my voice broke, splintered on the fragments of my memories. “That she had been beaten and buried there. They couldn’t… couldn’t prove it was my father. He had money, lots of it. And he paid a lot of people to keep quiet.”

“Is that why you love journalism?” Kaz asks, slowing the car to ready his turn back into the empty lot. “Exposing them? Making them pay with more than their blood money and with plain blood?”

I inhale, lips curling back in more of a snarl than a smile. “Everyone I knew. Everyone I knew who was involved. I have made them pay. In some form.” I throw Kaz a true smile, a devilish gleam in my eyes. “Although I suppose you already know that. It’s why Inej noticed me in the first place.”

“One of the many reasons,” Kaz replies, words back to being clipped, tight.

With a smooth arc of the steering wheel, Kaz turns the car into the same spot as before, hitting a little too hard on the brake before coming to a stop. My hair moves in front of my face at the jolt, a blessed curtain separating me from him. I can feel him thinking, churning over my words, assessing me.

Kaz hardly seems fazed as I peek at him around my hair. His dark eyes are far away, his gloved hands slack on the wheel. I still myself, hearing the purr of the car engine, hearing Kaz’s breathing, shallow and uneven, as he goes into the place he so rarely dives. His eyes are almost glazed, like he’s been drinking, completely lost in his own thoughts. I know some of his story already. From Nina. From Jesper. From my research.

“Your brother,” I murmur, soft and low.

His hands tighten on the wheel until they are bone white, staring straight ahead at the tree lined landscape. “Jordie,” he pushes through his teeth. “His name was Jordie.”

My spine straightens. Kaz has never said anything about his brother, and has never allowed any of the Crows besides Inej into his life in this way. And I wonder how far he has even let her in. I swallow, questioning if I should press or let it be. I am just about to get out and switch places with him to take us back into the city, when he opens his mouth and to my bewilderment, continues to speak.

“My parents were mixed up in some bad stuff before we came here. We lived in the countryside, with a bit of land and no one around us for miles. My brother was older than me, only by four years, but enough to know how to keep me from looking where I shouldn’t. From keeping me happy and sheltered.” A muscle flickers in Kaz’s jaw, his pale skin going ashier with each word, “I didn’t know what was happening when they came. The thugs my parents had been hopping between towns, cities, and states to avoid for over a decade. Jordie took me, the remaining cash from the safe, that my father had stolen, and fled to New York City. He hoped we would be invisible among so many people.”

I don’t know I am holding my breath until I release it, low and shaky. Kaz is silent again, staring off, flexing and unflexing his fingers against the steering wheel, like a silent reminder that he is here.

“Are they alive?” I ask, voice so silent it’s almost nothing.

“I don’t know,” Kaz admits. “But we never heard from them. I’ve never heard. So I can only assume not. And I don’t think I would want to see them if they were.”

“And Jordie…?” I venture, terrified to hear more, but also terrified he’ll clam up. I am desperate for more. Desperate to know him.

“We weren’t safe here. They found us. Or, found Jordie. While I was gone.” Every single syllable from his lips are forced and painful, laced with self loathing and regret. Survivor's guilt. “I was supposed to be there, but Jordie had sent me away. On an errand down in Brooklyn. He knew we were trapped, and wanted me to live, if he couldn’t. If Jordie could convince them he was alone and I had been shipped somewhere else... ” He breathes in and out, slowly and deeply, focusing on some point in the distance. “They ruled it as a suicide. He had cut his own throat, only his DNA on the knife, only his blood… I don’t know if he did it before they came. Or if they staged it. The not knowing. The guessing. That’s what makes it worse.”

“So you look for control in other places.” I say. “In the market. In investment. In the Crows. I do the same thing.”

“The Crows stand for the same thing you do, Cataleya.” Kaz says, looking at me with an intense stare. “Exposure. We want things to be different. We want people to pay, truly pay, for what they have done. Instead of buying silence. Buying lies. We want the truth. Only the truth.”

His words pierce me, his black hair stark against his forehead, shaved sides longer than he normally keeps them. His eyebrows are set in a hard determined line, lips closed, and jaw locked in determination. I know he made those people pay, the ones who took his brother from him. I can see it on his face.

“How did you survive?” I begin, “without him?”

Kaz licked his lips and let out a low chuckle. “Our money was gone. But we knew some people. Kids we met on the street. They made me a fake to get into bars with; I was barely sixteen by that time, but I looked older. Rougher. I had a skill for counting cards and made a small fortune quickly by playing in run down joints and eventually, working my way into larger, more expensive establishments. It was hard, I lived and breathed revenge, for Jordie. I wanted to have him back. To have something that was mine. I built up a small fortune, studied the market, and began investing. By the time I applied to the University of Ketterdam it didn’t matter that I only had my GED and no family, my self-made fortune was enough.”

“But why here?” I ask, furrowing my brows in confusion. “Why school at all?”

Kaz continues to look at me, eyes blazing. “Because we had a dream. Jordie and I. We had a dream that we would never forget what happened. That we had to run. And that when we were older, more settled, we would build something here. In New York City, something that would last. Something with a legacy. Like Crows, Jordie had said, symbolizing death but themselves being alive. We were dealt bad luck and would bestow it on others who deserve it.”

“Thus, The Crow Club,” I finish his sentence, gaze roaming his face. “A secret society at one of the world’s best universities that would have a legacy. Have prestige. Have a family.”

“Something that is mine,” Kaz’s lips part, wet from his tongue.

“Yes, yours.” I echo.

We are both silent for a few moments. Weighing our words. Our truths. Even the trees outside seem to stop in the wind, leaves quiet and branches unwavering. Kaz has opened up in a way I have never seen before. Never expected. He has been through so much. So much like me. Dealt with death. Loss. Life. We aren’t so different. None of the Crows are.

“What about the others?”

“Those aren’t my stories to tell,” Kaz responds, voice returning to its detached state.

I nod, once, accepting. I know a few of them already. Nina. Wylan. The new recruits. But Inej and Jesper are mysteries. Complete and whole geniuses shrouded in questions. I don’t like questions. Especially ones I can’t answer.

“How did you survive? With him?” Kaz’s voice rings again, reflecting my earlier question. His words are too big for the small car, inhaling deeply through my nose as a small smile graces my lips. His long fingers move the shift into reverse to back out of the spot to drive us back to the city himself. The true test of his skill on the Manhattan streets.

“That friend. The one who taught me how to drive,” I reply, a bit of wistful nostalgia filling my tone. “He helped me. Took care of me. Looked after me.”

“Past tense?” He inquires, feet smooth as he presses on the gas pedal.

“We are still friends,” I say. “I think. Things are just… different.”

“Different. That’s an understatement.” He replies, voice drenched with irony. “Everything is different, isn’t it, depending on how you look at it.”

I nod and laugh, giving him a compliment on how swiftly he picked up driving before we settle into a comfortable silence. Crows. Allies. Friends. If we can call ourselves that.

I hope we can.

----

Today, I am supposed to meet the enemy.

Kaz told me yesterday he set up a rendezvous at one of the campus coffee spots and that there would be someone waiting for me there. Someone he wouldn’t name. Someone that I am supposed to gather information from. Someone who thinks we are on a date.

I had almost hit him when he pulled up his phone to show me the fake dating profile that was made for me. Pictures of me smiling, laughing, most of them pictures I didn’t even remember taking, all glowed brightly at me, accentuated by a bio that said I liked my men tall, dark, and tortured.

How cliche.

“Nina made it,” Kaz had shrugged then returned his phone back to his pocket.

“And you would be surprised by how many matches you made,” Inej’s voice was laced with humor, lilting into the room without a trace.

“She’ll walk you over,” Kaz said, gesturing around the room to her unknown location. “Like any dutiful girl would for her best friend about to go on a date from an app. Then, you’ll just need to proceed as normal. Ask him about his life, his job, his degree, his connection to UOK. All the basics. The main concern is reading him out for a vibe, his family has had a lot of influence in some shady shit and he’s from another society here.”

So that’s what this was about? Some sour deals that probably put Kaz out of some easy money and a rival society that was challenging Kaz’s position in the control of campus secrets and his standing legacy? I don’t feel like that is the whole story, but that’s all that Kaz was willing to give me at the time.

And he hadn’t said anything this afternoon when I had gone into the Crow Library to meet Inej. He acted like nothing ever happened, like he hadn’t revealed some of his darkest secrets to me. Like we hadn’t shared a moment of… something. He barely looked at me from his desk, hair rumpled and face flushed from stress, in my tight long sleeve dress and tights, combat boots laced up around my ankles in case this random guy got the wrong idea.

The air outside had turned to autumn, giving us an unusually cold and windy day. I was puttering around and trying to think of something to say to Kaz, when Inej came down the staircase with silent feet, dressed in a pair of black leggings and a cream knit sweater. Her hair had been mused in the back and her face also looked a bit red. I had almost laughed, looking between her flushed state and Kaz’s slightly red cheeks, before giving Inej a knowing quirk of my eyebrows.

And now, outside of the library and alone, walking across the cobblestoned campus paths with autumn leaves falling around us, I turn to her. “Do I even want to know?”

“It’s college,” she replies, so quiet it’s almost to herself. “Things happen.”

“Things don’t just happen with Kaz Brekker.”

She looks at me, face breaking out into a blinding smile that splits her beautifully baked face. “They do when he’s in a rather… compromising position.”

“Inej!” I release the laugh I’ve been holding, the now pulled back coil of her hair showing off the reddened tips of her ears. Since I have known of Inej, she has always been rather modest. Sure of herself in a quiet way. The kind of confidence that doesn’t need reassurance or shields. Inej herself is a shield, a force of silent secrets she keeps hidden beneath the unsuspecting lithe of her dancer’s frame.

We take a right turn down one of the main campus paths, small walkways opening up into a large courtyard. Students mill about, sitting on statues, kissing underneath the garden archways, reading books on their way into classes. The University of Ketterdam has always been such an eclectic place, not only because of its location in New York City, but because of its campus. Lush, green, beautiful. An ode to history and architecture and modernity all the same. The programs here are some of the best in the world and while tuition isn’t cheap, the value of a Ketterdam degree is worth it.

“Is it bad that I kind of do want to know though?” I begin, not even sure what I’m saying.

“No,” Inej says, voice thoughtful and not defensive in any way. This is why I love Inej. So honest and unafraid. “I think everyone wants to know about Kaz. Everyone wants to be the hero that solves the mystery or the lover that turns a prince from darkness.” She pauses, looking around at the students, seeming lost in thought. Her dark eyebrows crease together, as if in thought or sadness. “Some people just can’t be saved.”

I can tell she’s referring to Kaz. But I’m not sure if I agree. I think everyone can be saved. I think darkness lives in everyone and all a person needs is a bit of light to show them through. People weren’t born into darkness, or evil, they were made that way. Through that, they could be unmade. And Inej has enough light and strength in one of her hands to see any person through the blackest of tunnels. I think of what Kaz had said to me, in the car, about his story, about his desire for revenge. For retribution. Maybe I want to believe we can be saved from the darkness because I want to be saved. Because like calls to like. And there is a deep chasm within Kaz that sings to me.

Inej moves her head to look at me, a full and unabashed gaze that somehow makes me uncomfortable. Like she can see straight to my soul. Like she can see every lie I have told or every promise I have broken or every secret I have kept. Like she can see my desires and my shame and my longing for things I can’t have.

“But we love them anyway, don’t we?” She finishes, giving me a contemplative look.

I think of the people I love, the people I did love, when there were still people in my life that were capable of receiving such a thing; people who were dark and painful and I still loved them anyway. Love can be such a blinding thing. Blinding and binding.

“Yeah,” I echo, her reflective tone rubbing off onto my voice. “We do.”

The both of us descend into silence as we continue to walk across the quad. I begin to feel my stomach turn, my palms sweat. No matter how many times I have done this, not dates, but encounter new people, this feeling returns. Every time I have to meet someone new, report on something, present something for a class, I would feel anxiety grip my insides and twist. When I was younger, that anxiety was terrifying, it made me cower, it made me scared. But as I got older, I began to use it and cling to it. I began to form it into an entity that gave me courage instead of taking it, something that would ground me to myself and propel me into my fears.

Inej begins, “Kaz texted and said he’s outside. Reading. Good luck.” Then she’s gone.

Steadying my breath, the smell of coffee hits my nostrils as I round the library steps to the small path beside it. The coffee shop is nestled into the side of the huge, brick building, almost like a tumor sprouting from the side. Inej has completely disappeared, only leaving the familiar scent of herbs in her wake. She is supposed to be going up the library steps to find a good vantage point from one of the many windows facing the coffee shop on the building’s side. Students move around through the cafe windows, in and out of the doors, little bell ringing to signal both arrival and departure.

But I am not paying attention to any of them.

Because there is a boy. A man. Sitting at one of the tables outside, his long legs stretched underneath the opposite chair, wearing a pair of leather sneakers. His long fingers are thumbing through a novel, covers worn and pages yellow with age. He can feel someone there, looking, sitting up and turning in that little metal chair to see who. To see me.

It’s Alek.

I blanch, mouth going dry and jaw slackening. I know him. I more than know him. I-

“Cataleya,” his voice is pure night, laced and dripping with stars. He doesn’t seem surprised to see me, not even phased. Not that I have ever seen him look surprised. I flash back to that day in the garden, to his hands on my face, wiping my tears, to his arms around me, murmuring condolences, to the face that I could see through my blurred tears. Dark hair, pale skin, beautifully big gray eyes. I had barely known him, barely seen him despite our houses being right next door, despite our windows being on opposite sides of the alley and me being able to spy on him when his curtains were parted at night.

“Aleksander?” I stand a little straighter, gathering my shock and shoving it deep down.

He smiles, standing up from the chair on the patio of the coffee shop. He is so tall, taller than I remember. His dark jeans are fitted against his legs and the black long sleeve button down he is wearing shows off a large portion of his impeccable chest. I don’t remember when the last time I saw him was, but I definitely don’t recall feeling the pulsing and intense heat that flashes through my body when I look at him. I suddenly feel naked. And stupid.

Is Kaz trying to kill me?

Swallowing thickly, I scan the windows on the side of the library for Inej, wondering if she has already found a perch to play spy. The sun reflects off of each glass surface in the afternoon light, making it impossible to see through any of them. Blowing a breath through my lips, I attempt to quell the storm brewing and churning in my stomach.

“What a wonderful surprise this is,” Alek starts.

I catch the edge in his voice, the way the tone lilts at the end. A tell of how much this encounter is not a surprise. For him anyway. But I smile, I nod and I watch as he fluidly closes the distance between us and takes me in his arms.

I hate how I exhale.

How my whole body relaxes.

I hate how good it feels.

Like coming home.

He smells like winter and barren tree branches, like snow and absence of light. Like a dark night wrapping me in its embrace and taking away the pain that days bring. Peaceful and mysterious all the same. Just as I remember it. Just as I remember him.

“Since when did you start wearing all black?” I joke as he pulls away, gesturing to his outfit. “Are you some kind of darkling now?”

He gives me a blinding grin, chuckling under his breath.

“Something like that.”

He gestures us back over to the table and I sit across from him, back rigid and legs crossed. I feel like a mannequin, still and stoic, despite the intense pounding of my heart and rush of blood through my veins.

“How have you been?” He asks, leaning back in his chair with an amused look on his face. “I must say I was very surprised when your profile popped up Tinder.”

I clench my jaw, working my teeth against each other. “Yeah, so was I.”

Tilting his head to the side, Alek studies me, eyes unabashedly roaming from my face to my chest to my waist, to my legs visible on the side of the table. I swallow, trying to clear the unfamiliar lump in my throat before I speak.

“But I’m good. Great, even. But I didn’t even know you are here. That you went here in the first place.”

“It’s a temporary thing,” Alek responds.

“Temporary?” I push.

“I’m just getting a business credential for the semester,” he says, airy and dismissive.

I narrow my eyes at him, hoping he can feel the suspicion and annoyance radiating from my look. He drums his fingers on the table, weighing my stare with a measured, even gaze that infuriates me further. I always hated when he did this when we were kids. Always challenging me. Always trying to get me to back down. Luckily, our time apart has sharpened my detective skills and my comfort with confrontation.

Alek sighs, blinking slowly. “Fine. I’m here because of you.”

My jaw slackens.

Because of me?

“I missed you,” he whispers, in a rare display of vulnerability and affection, before reaching across the table to take my hand.

Fire lashes up my wrist and arm, chills spreading in its wake. His touch is electrifying me, his skin like a hot branding iron pushing into me with delicious pain. Alek’s jaw is set, the hard lines on his chin lined with stubble. I want to take his face in my hands and kiss him. I want to feel him against me and get lost in the impossibly deep gray ocean of his eyes.

“Where were you then?” I venture, pushing down the pressing anxiety.

“I had a lot to deal with after my dad died,” he responds, voice detached and noncommittal. “I’m really sorry I let our relationship fall away, but I didn’t want to drag you down into my grief. You’ve always had enough on your plate.”

“You helped me through grief.” My tone steadies. “I wanted to help you.”

He huffs, “I didn’t want your help.”

The words are like a slap in the face, pulling my hand from his with a start. His dad’s death had been very abrupt and unexpected, launching Alek into a world of unknown wealth and property and an accumulation of other assets he wasn’t even aware his father had. His death was ruled under suspicious circumstances, but no leads were ever found for a murderer or any other sort of foul play. And with Alek’s mother long gone to cancer, he found himself newly eighteen and alone in the world. Except he wasn’t alone. He always had me.

Alek releases a breath, eyes softening as he leans back in his chair, aware of the mistake in his harsh words. He pushes a hand through his hair, the dark waves parting for his hand like a saint in the sea.

“I don’t mean it like that. I wanted you to be there, Cataleya. But some things you have to do on your own, you know? I had so much to figure out and sort through and… it was overwhelming.”

I nod, chewing on the inside of my cheek. Alek was never the kind of guy to ask for help, especially not from people he is close to. He always did things alone, always felt weak for not building his own empire, his own legacy, his own destiny, without anyone else. But two years, I haven’t heard from him in two years and now here he is. In front of me. Asking for some sort of forgiveness. Is there anything to forgive? The pit in my stomach says yes. But my throbbing heart and other throbbing parts of me say no.

“I missed you, too.”

A small smile blossoms across his face, the sight beautiful and stupefying.

“I can’t help but notice you walked here with Inej Ghafa,” he starts and my alert senses begin to tingle. “Isn’t she a part of Kaz Brekker’s Crow Club?”

“How do you know about that?” I ask before I can help myself.

“Anyone who is anyone knows about Kaz,” he responds, almost spitting his name.

“Okay…” I begin, unease settling into my stomach like a stone. “But why do you?”

“He has something I need.”

The stone becomes a boulder.

“Are you-” I stop, then start again. “You’re the one that this is for.”

“If by “this”, you mean whatever scheme he is planning to trap me in, then yes.”

“But why? How do you even know him? Don’t you know who he is and what he does? What are you thinking going against Kaz?” I ask urgently, struggling to keep my voice low.

He pins me to the chair with a dead look. “He has debts he needs to pay.”

“You’re going vague again?” I shake my head, irritated with his bipolar intensity then flippancy. “You need to back down. Or you’re going to end up hurt.”

A smirk tugs at his full lips, “Your lack of faith in me is really inspiring, Cataleya.”

“It’s not that,” I retort, exasperated, crossing my arms. “Kaz is really powerful. With more networks and connections than you know. If you don’t stop whatever crusade you have on him, you’re the one that’s going to end up indebted.”

He laughs this time, a full and deep laugh that surprises me. “Has he really dug his talons that deep in you? That you’ve forgotten how wide my own connections spread? How cunning I can be?”

“We haven’t spoken in two years,” I respond, pettily. “I don’t know you at all anymore.”

He leans forward, eyes incredibly dark and face serious. “You know that’s not true.”

I hold his stare, raising my eyebrows, feeling satisfied that I made my point. Alek reaches across the table and places his palm up on it in invitation. I can see the veins of his inner wrist, with dark ink snaking across the blue and disappearing under his shirt sleeve. He didn’t have any tattoos when I last talked to him. My fingers itch to push back the fabric and see them. His secrets. Like Kaz’s, they are so plain on his skin yet hidden through metaphors and signs.

Licking my lips, I push out a breath and put my hand atop his, feeling his eyes follow mine to where the ink is displayed. Without saying anything, he pushes the sleeve of his shirt up his forearm, stopping at the inner crook of his elbow.

Inhaling and holding, I blink at the constellation on the inside of his forearm. A night sky, swirling with black and dead space, with creatures in between zombies and ghosts with huge demon wings flying through it. There is a ship at the base of his wrist, a small stern gliding through dark sand, a tiny speck compared to the massive size of the creatures flying above it. It is dark and torturing and incredibly impassioned. I let the pads of my fingers drift softly up Alek’s arm, watching goosebumps form on his skin.

“What are they?” I ask.

“They’re called volcra,” Alek says. “Beings that live in darkness and are afraid of light. They feed on those who come into their path, who are unable to see or defend themselves in the black sea of sand.”

“It’s so… intense.” I search for the right word to describe it, coming up short.

“I want to remind myself to not be afraid of light. Of happiness. That the things that I may think make me weak, really make me strong. I need to find more light, to find my light. I have been full of darkness for a long time, Cataelya. I’ve lived in a thousand moments of it.”

I tilt my head, fingers pressed into the inside of his elbow and looking up at him through my lashes. His eyes are trained to the spot where our skin is meeting, his lips parted and eyebrows furrowed a bit in the middle. I resist the urge to flatten it with my thumb, letting the wind and the sound of other students fill the silence between us.

“You were the only light in my life for a long time,” I say to him, tracing the volcra’s deformed bodies with my index finger. “I had nothing. I had no one. You pulled me from that nothingness. From the darkness. And held me in your arms. Brought me up to somewhere better. Where I can hope. Where I can not only see light, but make my own. That is invaluable to me.”

He catches my hand and brings it to his lips, pressing a kiss to my palm. “Can you help me, then? Can you bring me back my light, too?”

My breathing stalls. I know what he’s asking from me. I know it’s more than just offering a flashlight through the tunnel. I know it’s more complicated than I can currently imagine. Alek stands up, coming around the table to kneel in front of my chair. Some students stare, wondering if they’re about to witness a proposal. I ignore them, keeping my eyes trained on Alek’s imploring gaze. I know in this moment, I will give him the world, the moon, and all of its stars. I will give him all of my sun and then some, I will summon everything I have to fill the darkest parts of him.

He takes my face in his hands, palms impossibly soft on my cheeks. Subtly, slowly, I nod, watching his face break a part into a smile. Without pausing, Alek leans forward and kisses me. His lips are smooth and plush, completely stunning me into inaction as he runs his fingers along the sides of my throat. I sigh into his mouth, body realizing what is happening just as he is pulling away. Parting my lips, I stupidly sit in my chair as he gets up in one flowing movement.

Alek looks down at me with a smile. “I hope to see you soon then, Cataleya.”

Just like that, he scoops up his book and walks away. Gone as quickly as he appeared.

----

The room is completely aglow with light, chandeliers hanging from the ceiling and candles lit around the room. Everything has a soft, burnt hue, like the room is on fire from below and the blaze is lighting the space. It must be the size of the University of Ketterdam quad, with hundreds of people talking, dancing, eating, and drinking. I recognize some students and faculty, but most are a blur of unfamiliar gowns and tuxedos.

“They know how to throw a party,” Nik says appreciatively.

“If they didn’t, no one would take them seriously.” Zoya retorts, leaving Nik’s side without so much as a glance to drift into the crowd. The smell of honey and sweet drinks spreads through the room, long tables lining either wall stacked with a massive spread.

“That’s where I’ll be,” whispers Nina.

I smile at her, gathering my dress in my hands and descending the few flat stairs to the main rooms. The floor is a beautiful tile, mosaics and colors that I can’t decipher flowing from the entry way beneath the mass of bodies. There is something magical about it all, something historic, like stepping into a time machine. The walls are lined with thick tapestries, with small halls leading into different areas of grandeur. I shouldn’t be surprised that wealth like this still exists, but every time I see it, I am.

Scanning the space, I see Alek from across the ballroom, near one of the food tables, his gaze drifting across my body before a smile forms on his lips. He is wearing an all black suit, lapels crisp and smooth, with a single blood rose pinned above his heart. It mimics the read of my dress, the stain of my lips, the seduction in his eyes. He cocks his head slightly, dark hair falling over one of his beautifully arched eyebrows.

I hold his stare, letting the bubbling pit of fire burn deeply in my stomach. The pit that forms when he looks at me, seated low and hot. The pit that would cackle and seethe if he would touch me, if his pale hands would settle on my hips and his lips would touch the shell of my ear, whispering sweet nothings and dirty everythings into my ear. Snaking my tongue between my lips, I watch as Aleksander tracks the motion, his posture straightening ever so slightly.

And then Kaz is there. In my line of vision.

The fire sputters out, replaced by something else. Something that grips my lungs and forces my heart to beat faster. His suit is a deep navy, bringing out the smooth pearl of his skin and accenting the night of his hair. He looks like a shooting star, dark and light at the same time. I wonder who picked it out for him, or if he selected it himself. I can’t imagine Kaz in a tailor’s shop, trying on suits and drinking bourbon with the upper elites with him.

But then again, maybe I can. He is a business man after all. And great at faking it.

Kaz catches my stare, tipping his head up in greeting before disappearing into the crowd. Nina and Nik dissolve from my side as well, going to observe and mingle before the drama begins. Alina is the only one left next to me, her golden dress sparkling in the chandelier light. She turns to me and sets her hand on my arm gingerly, sun earrings dangling from her ears.

“Be careful,” she whispers. “He’s not who you think he is.”

I open my mouth, about to ask her what she means before her hand is gone, and so is she. I watch her move into a group of people, hugging a man in a dark gray tuxedo from behind before giving him a kiss. Must be Mal. I don’t feel right, especially after what Alina said to me. I feel like something is amiss, but I don’t know what.

I spot Kaz again, whispering something to Inej along the back wall. Her dark eyes drift to me, cementing the feeling in place.

Alone, I cross the space to Alek. I had seen him twice since our fateful coffee date and both times had been very formal and full of business. Full of me trying to help him get his light back. Through some sort of grand scheme, it seems. One that required me to also recruit Nik, Alina, and Zoya to help Alek while seeming like they are helping Kaz. Sort of like a double agent, except I don’t know which side I want to be standing on at the end.

“How are you?” Alek asks, tone casual to an untrained ear, but clipped enough for me to hear the true question behind his words.

“Something’s wrong,” I respond under my breath before I loudly declare my happiness.

He lets his gaze linger on my face for a moment, schooling his features into neutrality.

“Can you handle it?”

“I’m not sure,” I admit, dropping my fake smile. “I might need help.”

Vague enough, but he clearly gets the message, rolling his shoulders before giving me a dazzling grin. Alek reaches a long arm to stop the waiter passing by, grabbing two flutes of sparkling gold champagne and extending one to me. As if this is only our second time meeting. As if we both happened here by incident and he is looking to get lucky.

“I could never refuse such a beautiful woman.”

I return his smile, throwing back the entire drink for some liquid courage. It tastes sweet and fizzy against my tongue, a faint acidity coating the roof of my mouth. Alek takes a long and thoughtful sip of his own champagne, much more graceful than me and folds my arm into the crook of his elbow. He begins to lead me from the ballroom, towards the Crow’s meeting spot. I look behind my shoulder, searching for their familiar faces. But all I see is Nina, already watching, her eyes focused intently on the joining of my arm with Alek’s while she pretends to listen to Nik, whose lips are moving with passionate fervor. Her mouth parts ever so slightly as she catches my eye.

“Careful,” Alek mutters, forcing me to turn my head back in front of me.

Dread and fear coil in my gut. I have never seen Nina look that way. I have never seen her look at me and not see me. I still don’t spot any of the other Crows at their reported positions around the room, where they were supposed to stay until I could get Alek alone and before I could lead Kaz to Alek and they could duel it out and I could decide who to side with then.

I swallow, mind racing, trying to calm myself by believing that there’s a reason for their absence.

Alek seems to sense my trepidation, holding my arm a bit tighter as we meander from the crowded room into a near empty hallway.

“Something’s wrong,” I repeat, trying to unravel everything quickly. Too quickly.

Kaz, pushing everyone into this heist with such force. The others, more quiet than usual, less pressing for Kaz to give them details. Kaz, letting me teach him to drive, letting himself be vulnerable for me. Inej, barely talking to me a week into our plan. Nina, completely open and honest and warm until she saw me with Alek. Jesper, less happy than usual, less enthusiastic, more solemn and quiet, often excusing himself when I came into the room. And Wylan, always seeming to be off rekindling his relationship with his father.

I didn’t need to help them with appearances at all.

When fear arrives, something is about to happen.

“It’s a trap,” I breathe, clenching my jaw and letting my stomach pit out inside of me.

“I know,” Alek replies, cool and distant.

My blood turns to ice. “What do you mean, “I know”?”

He doesn’t respond, turning right down the hallway that leads to a back patio exit, and not to the left, to that private seating area where the Crows were supposed to be waiting. Alek increases his pace ever so slightly, giving me a glazed and lusted look when people come out of the rooms to pass us by, too high or drunk or exhausted to care.

I try to stamp down the panic in my bones. How could I be so stupid? How could I get so caught up playing both sides that I didn’t see what was right in front of me? This is not the part where things are supposed to go wrong. I am supposed to get to choose. I am supposed to see them interact, gauge my feelings, myself, my words, and decide which side I want to be on. If I want to be a Raven or a Crow. If I want to be crime or creation. Of course, Alek is one step ahead. And so is Kaz.

“We need to be more casual, less uptight,” Alek states as he pushes through the glass doors leading into the large mansion courtyard at the end of the corridor. “If any of them are watching, they’ll hurry things along if they sense we’re onto them.”

“I think they already know,” I swallow, the night air turning cold and bitter. We hover on the cramped patio for a moment, not descending the small set of stone stairs into the gardens beyond. I can hear voices from inside, music drifting about, people laughing and heavy breathing from behind bushes. I wish I could have gone to this party with no other intentions than for fun.

Maybe in a different life.

“Doesn’t hurt to try,” Alek shrugs.

And then I am up against the thin black railing behind me, Alek’s hands settling into the curve of my hips. I can feel his warmth through the satin of my dress, bleeding fire into my skin, my heart, my core. He licks his lips and pushes me tighter against him. Our bodies are flush in all of the right places; hard and soft in all of the right places.

“Kiss me, Cataleya,” he baits me, voice low and raspy.

He doesn’t have to say it twice.

I surge forward, his lips plush and velvet against mine. He smells like winter, like snow and frosty tree branches and endless starry nights. I grew up with this smell, revelled in it, fell in love with it. His dark hair brushes against my forehead, the strands so soft and gentle in a way I had never known Alek to be. He is always pushing, moving, plotting.

He reminds me of Kaz in that way.

Kaz.

Alek’s tongue slips along mine, sparks flying and thundering in my ears. Haven’t I wanted him like this for so long? Haven’t I imagined what this would feel like since our first kiss, being barely a peck? Haven’t I dreamed that he would want me? That he would have me in the way I desired?

So why is this falling so flat now?

Kaz.

The voice reverberates through me, like a Crow picking from a dead body, peeling flesh from bone until I am stripped bare. My head begins to pound, a dull ache in the base of my skull. Alek runs his fingers up my bare arms, drawing goosebumps in his wake until I am shivering beneath him.

“Cataleya,” he murmurs, deep and throaty.

The old feeling returns, the burning desire, the expectant eyes. The little girl waiting for her master to approve. The little girl waiting for someone bigger, someone better, to grab her hand and drag her from the dirt. I feel ridiculous for not being able to squash it down, to tamper it. I don’t know if that feeling would ever die. The feeling of dependence. Of unworthiness.

Alek seems as if he’s about to say something, but his head whips to the side. I follow the movement, the stone of dread in my stomach sinking deeper when I realize the courtyard has gone quiet around us. Not a single sound from behind the bushes, not a giggle or a whisper or a moan. Too quiet. The sound of death.

The headache threatens to split my brain a part, eyes blurring as I watch Alek attempt to stumble down the stairs. He gets one step in before a figure blocks his path. My breathing becomes laborious, squinting through black spots clouding my vision before I can see who it is.

Wylan.

His suit is a forest green, dark velvet tailored for his tall lanky frame. The color perfectly offsets the ruddiness of his hair and his shoes are a deep brown leather, squeaky clean and new. Leave it to Kaz to outfit all of the Crows with his endless bank account.

“I’m sorry,” Wylan says, face truly betraying some measure of regret.

The pieces click together, like a lock sliding into place.

He hasn’t been working with his father all these weeks. He has been working on something else entirely. Something that would take lots of time, lots of care, and lots of studying. When Nina said those things I thought she was talking about how he was mending the relationship with his father. She was not. And not just that, but his studies most likely required more than himself for success. Probably Leoni, the incredibly kind and intelligent biochemical engineering major who Kaz sometimes recruited for special missions that required more stealth, less blood.

Wylan was studying poison.

And we had ingested it from the champagne.

----

My head is throbbing when I come to, the sound of a car engine roaring in my ears. I don’t know how I got here. All I remember is Alek, his hands on me, his warmth leaving me to spin me into the arms of someone else. The shaved hair, the deep brown eyes, the palor of his skin, the stability of his grip around my waist. Then Alek again, his lips on mine, my back against the wall.

I force myself to swallow, trying to see anything through the blindfold at my eyes. I am still in my dress, the silk smooth on my skin, and I can feel the car coming to a stop as I struggle to find the strength to say something.

My bones feel like liquid, muscles weak and shaking. But Alek had been the only one who offered me a drink, he had been the only one I trusted enough to gulp heartily. Wylan. I remember Wylan. Standing at the ledge of the stairs in the courtyard. Me and Alek.

Poisoned.

The car’s back door opens and I feel a rush of the cold night air as two gloved hands drag me by my feet from the vehicle and out onto the street. Dread coils in my stomach and my skin pricks with goosebumps, the cobble stones ripping at my exposed ankles and arms. After being dragged a few hundred feet, hissing at the burn of scapes and tearing on my skin from the uneven street, I am forced onto my knees. I don’t feel right. Nothing feels right. Where is Kaz?

As if in answer, the blindfold is yanked down my face from behind, my eyes blurring and struggling to adjust to the dark light of my surroundings. I am in an alley, wedged between two buildings built of collapsing brick. I can hear the faint whiz of cars, but in front of me is only a few hundred paces of the alleyway and then trees. I am not being brought here to talk. It’s too secluded. Too quiet. And the smell, bark and sap and something else… I clench my jaw.

A shadow fills my periphery and I struggle to stay up on my knees as a figure takes shape in front of me. The navy suit, clean white shirt, the black leather gloves, the hard lines of his jaw and set of his eyes. I know why I am here. I know what this is. His stare is furious, rage and ice and merciless vengeful eyes boring into mine.

He made the choice for me.

“Kaz,” I rasp, voice cracking and broken.

He snarls at his name from my mouth, shoving me up into the nearest building. I stumble in my heels, his movements fast and forceful enough to drive my back into the wall with no problem. The rough edges of the brick dig into my back, clawing at my skin. This is nowhere near the last experience I had against a wall, with Alek. Caressing me, kissing me, igniting me. I try to stay calm. I try to think. But all I can see is Kaz’s face in front of me, burning with hatred and disdain as he rams me harder into the unforgiving bricks.

I try to hold in my scream as a knife plunges into my side from one of the roofs above, deep and intense pain bursting through me. I don’t know who threw it, I don’t know how many of them are up there and how many stayed behind. I don’t know how long they’ve been in on it, I don’t know if Kaz has been aware the entire time. But I do know that now he knows, they all do. And that I won’t be leaving here alive.

I can’t move enough to take the knife from my side, the hilt small, but the blade curved and lodged deep above the bone of my hip. Blood seeps through my dress, the red becoming impossibly darker, and the drip drip of the liquid pings against the stone street as it runs down my legs. It’s the only sound between us besides my ragged breathing, pained and desperate.

“This was all a test of loyalty,” he says evenly. “You failed.”

And I would die for it.

Kaz’s hands close around my throat, gaze steely and intent. I try not to panic, my jaw locking and lungs constricting with the pressure of his grip. The warmth of the blood continues spreading and soaking through my side, red and sticky and filling my nostrils with the scent of copper. I can already barely breathe, trying and failing to make it through the pain. It makes sense how loose Kaz’s lips had been with me, all the questions he had asked to try and taunt me, to reveal my relationship to Alek, how he let me teach him; he thought I would be a dead woman soon. And dead women don’t spill secrets. Or give lessons beyond the grave.

“We knew it was you all along,” Kaz says in my face, tone even as he chokes me. “Funny. You didn’t even know he was here until we flushed him out for you. Until we set up that date and watched you become the person we suspected you were. Until you crawled back to him and pretended he was the only light in the pit of darkness that’s been your life.” Kaz’s gloved fingers are hot against my pulse and his hair is falling down his forehead, sides freshly shaved. I can see every prick of stubble along his chin, see the muscles feathering in his jaw. I’ve never been this close to him before. Not even in the car. A day that felt so long ago. Like a lifetime.

“Don’t you know why we scouted you in the first place? We knew he would try to ruin us from the inside out and use you to do it, it was only a matter of time. But that game can be played by both sides.” His voice is low, a snarl that roars in my ears, my side throbbing. “Nikolai, Alina, Zoya… you thought that you were bringing in new recruits to then turn against us. We had them first. They were always Crows, not one of Aleksander Morosova’s ravens. They have even more of a reason to want revenge on him than I do. And I’ll bet they’re being even less pleasant with him than I am with you right now.”

A pit burns inside of me, low and feral, deepening with each of his words.

“But even before that, I wanted you.”

And I know, at the tenor of his voice, it’s not the kind of want that I would ever seek. At how his voice drops, so no one else can possibly hear, that I will not like what he is going to say.

“I wanted you the moment I saw you and your father’s face in the news. When I heard what he did to your mother even though no one would believe he could have done it. I knew he did.” He is seething, spitting on me as he goes on. “I knew that he was capable of ordering violence. Of committing it and buying people’s silence. I could see it in his eyes, I could see it in the way he held you against him. Possessive and consuming.”

I have gone completely still, the very blood in my veins seeming to stop, the pulsing at my side ebbing into a dull ache. His words are in a bubble, trapped between our lips. Each syllable pops and rebuilds it, over and over. Trapping me, over and over.

“I didn’t leave the day they came to kill Jordie.” He continues, “I thought something was wrong, for him to force me out the way he did. I hid on the roof of our building and climbed down the stairs of the fire escape a few hours later. Then I saw him. Your father. Positioning my brother’s body on our couch, I saw him take the bloodied knife and place it on the floor, beneath Jordie’s fingers. I watched as he cleaned off any fingerprints, stole away any evidence. He had no blood on him and by the two men that stumbled onto the street and disappeared down an alley, I knew he hadn’t done the actual act...

“But what’s worse? Following an order for murder or sanctioning it?”

I feel tears slipping down my cheeks, dropping like flies on Kaz’s gloves.

“I followed him. Learned everything I could. I learned that he had been involved with an underground drug operation for decades. That my parents had been in debt with them due to some bad decisions in my dad’s twenties. And that your father had been sent to collect or kill. To send a message to the other debtors. Little did your father know that the victims had two children, that they escaped. And that they would be coming for him.”

The air around me turns infinitely colder, everything still and quiet except Kaz’s voice.

“I watched you too.” He continues, fingers losing their grip a bit on my throat. “I watched to see who you would be. If we would indeed become enemies, as our parents were. I observed you grow with Morosova, how he controlled you, how he led you away all those years, how he kept you quiet and kept you in the dark so you would never find out the truth and be killed, like your mother was.”

His words stab me deeper than the knife, my heart in ribbons. Hearing him confirm my darkest fears unleashes the worst parts of me, the parts I tried so hard to keep hidden. Terrified. Insecure. Silent. Obedient. The little girl with an abusive father and dead mother. I hadn’t been her in so long, but Kaz is stripping me down. Shredding me.

Kaz’s voice drops lower, as if he’s telling me a horrible secret. “He knew about it, Cataleya. Aleksander,” he purrs the name like a curse, “he knew everything. His father was one of the men your father ordered to kill Jordie. Who was a part of the team dispatched to eradicate those who didn’t pay, eradicate my parents. Your parents were working together, how fitting that you and Aleksander would, as well. Fate is funny that way.”

The world shatters around me, broken and splintering into a million pieces. Alek knew. He sat there and listened to me while I cried about my mother, how I had desperately wanted his help to look into what happened. He had warned me to want anything was to give myself up. That the only way for me to find peace was to move forward and never look back. That if I continued to want for closure, I would never find it.

“The problem with wanting is that it makes us weak.” He had said, over and over.

How ironically true that had become.

Kaz isn’t done. He continues to pick at me, the Crow in him unable to stop, his dark eyes burning with hate. “Where your own father failed, Aleksander’s father succeeded. He remembered seeing pictures in my house, of me and of Jordie. He remembered that there were two boys. And when I killed him by placing a bomb under his car to be rigged as an oil problem, his son stepped into the role to finish what his father started. To silence me too. But he didn’t and for me, for Jordie, I swore I would destroy them, brick by brick.”

My breathing is coming out in short rasps, eyes blurred with tears of anger and embarrassment and white hot pain. I have been played. So horribly. By everyone in my life. Lied to. By every single person I had known. Even Alek. Alek, who had been the one person I thought would save me. Would be the one in the end to stand by me, to see me, to understand me. But he didn’t. He never did. He used me. Just like my father did. To be a sweet, obedient girl.

In the few months I had known Kaz, he has seen more of me than Alek ever did.

All we ever wanted, me and Alek and Kaz, was to feel safe and be loved. But we never trusted anyone enough to be either. So we fought and resisted and pushed. Into darkness.

A whistle sounds from above, quick and melodic. Inej. Signaling Kaz that he needs to hurry. That enough is enough. But I can see it in his eyes. The hardness. The black pits of revenge and hatred and loathing he feels when he looks at me. It would never be enough. This retribution that he savored for years will never last as long as he wishes it to. I want to wither away into nothing under his stare. Not enough. Not his. Never his. Never a Crow.

“I know you love him,” he whispers so none of the others lurking can hear. “I know he’s the one who saved you. But he used you, Cataleya. He controlled you. You could’ve been so much better, so much bigger. It’s a shame the apple never falls far from the tree.”

I wish it had been you to save me instead. I think, shoving the words down my constricted throat. Maybe if it were Kaz, all those years ago, then things wouldn’t have gotten so messed up. Then maybe I would have been more like Inej, graceful, strong, full of more purpose than what Alek gave me. Maybe I could have meant something. To someone. To the Crows.

But Kaz didn’t find me. Alek did. Alek led me from the garden and held my hand. Alek stroked my hair and told me it would be okay. That I would be okay. Alek raised me to be unforgiving, to scheme and stab people in the back to fill the empty hole in my life. Control. Kaz had said. How he controlled me. How he deceived me. With love. Love. Fake. Love. Fake love. I want to cry or scream at all of them, shaking with rage. I have been a pawn this whole time.

“We are all controlled by something.” I push out, my voice weak.

I try to swallow and fail at the reapplied pressure of Kaz’s palms, drool and spit bubbling from my lips. The alley wall is hard against my back, the night sky black and endless above me. The smog cover is so thick I can’t see the stars, despite the bright spots beginning to dance in my vision. I feel something prick at my spine with the pressure of my position like a silent reminder, mind sharpening and resolve strengthening. Love or no love. I have to finish what I started. I have to complete my assignment. Even if it isn’t one from Kaz.

Even if it is from a liar.

Lies are all I have known.

All I have to hold on to.

I can’t be saved. From darkness. My own or from others. I have waded too deep, gone too far. I may not be a true Raven, but I am definitely not a Crow. No matter how much I wish I could be. No matter how much I came to appreciate them, to care for them, to trust them.

Trust is the most dangerous weapon of all.

Slipping my hands behind my back as if I am trying to scramble against the wall, I reach for the cool metal of the blade attached along the zipper of my dress, letting out a choking cry to cover the unsheathing of my knife. The movement burns my side, ripping open my wound further to pour more blood. It runs over Kaz’s dress shoes, stains my legs. I am losing it too quickly, too much of it ebbing from me at once. Kaz’s hands press harder to my throat, forcing me, willing me, begging me to die now that his speech is over. I know he doesn’t enjoy this. I know he doesn’t relish in murder. Neither do I.

But love is love.

Control is control.

And business is business.

Kaz would agree on that.

“If I’m going down, Kaz,” I begin, voice barely a whisper. “You’re coming with me.”

Without wasting another second, I shove the tip of my knife deep between Kaz’s ribs, watching his face contort in pain and dark eyebrows shoot up in surprise, then furrow in agony. Almost immediately, I hear a scream tear from somewhere on the roofs above and feel a pang of sorrow course through me. Inej just watched me stab the love of her life. Inej, the strong, graceful warrior who had been through more than all of us. She had screamed. Wailed.

I hear her words echo around my brain. The autumn leaves. Her cream sweater. The weight of her stare. “Some people just can’t be saved. But we love them anyway.”

My sight falters.

Kaz’s grip on my neck loosens, then completely disappears as he stumbles back and I fall towards the concrete without him holding me in place. An arrow pierces my shoulder from above, Jesper no doubt. With that incredible skill for landing true. The impact pushes me forward into Kaz’s already falling body, his white tux shirt now stained with blood.

The world spins, my head making hard contact with the street.

“This action will have no echo.” The rough words leak from Kaz’s lips, voice faint and faraway. If I could cry now I would, remembering the meaning of those words that Inej had told me just days ago. We would repeat nothing now. No more harm. To ourselves or others. This is our repentance. Our forgiveness.

Kaz is close to me, for I can feel the warmth of his body and the slick of his blood as it mixes with mine and stains the concrete.

If someone told me nine years ago, when I buried that cat and found my mother buried instead, that this is where I would end up, I wonder how differently my life would have been. I wonder if I would have chosen a different path. One full of forgiveness and happiness. The one of creation instead of crime. Instead of revenge and retribution. The weight of those decisions hang over me like a cloak, protecting and exposing me at the same time. Using the last bits of my strength, I turn my head to the side to look at him.

Kaz is on his back beside me, so close that I can reach out and touch him. Touch his hand that is limp with resignation, his side that is red with blood, his lips that are white with death. He is the most beautiful man I have ever seen. Even as a small line of blood trickles from the corner of his lips and pings onto the stones. I let my eyes close, pretending the stars behind my eyelids belong to the sky and not to the Grim Reaper. Pretending the stars are his eyes.

We’ve all had hard lives. We’ve all taken on assignments that were too big for us. We’ve all done things we regretted and we all leaned on each other too much for our own good while leaning on no one at all. We all let the ghosts of our pasts haunt us into our future. Especially Kaz. And that’s the problem with trusting ghosts, in the end you become one.

You become transparent, empty, without an echo.

“No mourners.” I manage to mumble into the night.

“No funerals.” A disembodied voice murmurs back, but I’m not sure who it belongs to.

And then there is nothing but darkness.

---

~Admin Eggplant

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livingmybestfakelife · 4 years

Text

The Favorite -2 of ?-

Parings: Tommy Shelby x Black Reader

“Your guest has arrived Mr. Shelby” the waiter says as he places his drink order on the table

“Thank you”

He nods and walks away, seconds later he greets you and Abel upon entering and he bows his head to you

“Your royal highness, Mr. Shelby is waiting for you, right this way”

“Thank you”

He leads both of you to Tommy’s table then asks you for any drink orders, Abel doesn’t want anything but you order a glass of lemonade, once again he bows his head and leaves you all be.

“I wish everyone wouldn’t bow and curtsy to me so much, it’s something I’ve never gotten use to”

“Yes but, you are royalty, they might think that they’ll be seen as disrespectful if they don’t”

“Maybe...still...what about you Mr. Shelby? You seem to be of importance as well, way before your election”

“Ahh, so you know about me?”

“You, and your whole family, it’s Abel’s job to make sure to know whose going be in close contact with the family”

He looks over at Abel standing behind you, he’s glancing over the room every now and then, finally to Tommy when he notices him staring.

“He’s also co head of security and my bodyguard”

“I see, he’s three people in one, I’m impressed, that must be exhausting for him?”

“Not really”

Abel responds in a thick Nigerian accent

“So, Mr. Shelby, may I ask the reason for this meeting?”

“Just to get acquainted better, we didn’t have much time yesterday, the Earl and Countess took up most of your time, and you are to meet with the King and Queen this evening”

“Yes, for dinner, and I’ll be busy the rest of this week as well, visiting hospitals and orphanages, my family just opened one last month, I’m to go and observe everything”

“I’m guessing it’s the one that took in all those African refugee children?”

“Yes, and some local negro children, ones that have been mistreated by some nuns...I heard that one mixed race little girl was forced to wash with a different soap”

“I know, I heard she’s doing well now though, she got adopted by an affluent black family from New York”

“The Morris’s, yes they’re a good family, father is a physician and the mother is a school teacher, been struggling to have any children of their own, but little Caroline was all they needed”

“I’m happy to hear that, you know I have children myself”

“I’m aware, and also married, to a very beautiful woman might I add”

“Thank you”

He looked disappointed in the fact that you knew about Lizzie, he knew that he shouldn’t be surprised since he was informed of the background check being done on him but he was.

“What about you your highness, is there anyone special in your life?”

“You don’t have to call me that all of the time, YN will do, and not at the moment, but I do get a lot of offers”

“Why haven’t you accepted, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“I have no interest in courtships at the moment, and my father especially is very picky about who he sees fit for me, I’m also focused on other matters”

“Such as?”

“Do you always give women you hardly know the third degree?”

He chuckles at your bluntness, you weren’t at all what he was expecting, women of your class were trained to accept just about anything that they didn’t agree with just to keep the peace and keep up a certain image, you clearly didn’t care about such rules, your mother raised you not to be a weak woman, she would give you a good smack for being anyone’s doormat and your grandmother would roll in her grave at you shying away like a scared little child.

“Mr. Shelby I ask you not to compare me to past women whom I do not know, your issues with them have nothing to do with me, I’m not saying that you have to trust me completely but projecting those insecurities onto me won’t get you anywhere”

The waiter from earlier comes back to give you your lemonade, you thank him while digging into your purse to give him a hefty tip, he smiles widely and thank you while bowing his head once again.

Tommy doesn’t have any rebuttal to what you just said, he felt like he just received a free therapy session, he thought long and hard about your response, him actually taking your advice is something only time would tell.

“You’re very generous”

“These people make very little, it’s the least I can do...I hope you’ve done the same”

“Of course”

“Excellent”

About a half hour later you’re ready to head out to get ready for dinner later on, but not before he asks if you’re free for at least an hour this week.

“And why is that?”

“I thought I could show you around Birmingham, my home city, maybe show you some of the horses I own...and if possible, without your guard”

“Unless she’s going to the restroom or undressing, where ever she goes I go”

“He’s correct, and besides, us being alone together wouldn’t be something I would feel comfortable with, after all you are a married man remember, that wouldn’t be a good look now would it?”

Once again he’s silent followed by a clearing of his throat, you are harder to crack than he thought, it was bothering him how much his charm wasn’t phasing you in the slightest

“Well then, have a good evening your highness, it was nice catching up with you”

“Likewise Mr. Shelby”

While you’re walking away you don’t catch Abel smirk in amusement at you turning him down, he almost wanted to laugh but had to stick to being a professional, he would save it for later though.

————————

“Are you honestly surprised that he did, you know how most of them European men are, they love exotic women, they somehow think that our pussies hold some type of magic power, it’s creepy”

You giggle with your cousin Iman on the other end of the phone, she was older than you by five years and was your best friend, you both would go to each other about any and everything, even during serious moments like dinners or government meetings you’d catch one another’s eyes that told everything you couldn’t say out loud, you always admired her extroverted nature and found yourself being coached by her to be more open, it would surely help you in the future if you found yourself living long enough to being queen, she would honestly be a better choice.

“The man is married for heavens sake and an MP, you would think that would make a man of his status be more careful at preventing a scandal”

“Only in a perfect world my dear”

“Yes, you’re correct”

All of a sudden you heard what sounded like a door opening on the other end of the line and Iman’s muffled voice

“I have to go, the in laws have just arrived and I have to go entertain them, goodbye little rabbit”

“Goodbye Iman”

You hang up with a sigh and stretch in the chair, standing up you make your way over to the closet to pick out what you would be wearing in a couple of hours, and that’s when you finally notice, something that everyone you knew thought was destroyed and gone forever, sitting right there on the little table beside the wardrobe.

“The Favorite”

Tags: @maryams-things

#peaky blinders #peaky blinders imagine #tommy shelby #tommy shelby imagine #black reader

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mhdiaries · 4 years

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Wave 2 Spectra Vondergeist Diary

The 18th of September

I finally get my own column in the school paper. I already have THE blog that’s on every gossip ghouls must read list but anybody can get a blog these days. Being in print gives me instant credibility however, not that I didn’t have it before... so obvious. Anyway the column is an anonymous advice/MH insider feature called Oh My Oracle. Why anonymous? Well if I used my real name I would never get anything done in class because monster would constantly be asking my advice and if I’m pursuing a bigger story I might need some monster to cover the column and I wouldn’t want my name associated with any bad advice that might be given in my absence. My suggestion box is already full of questions from monsters who need a little help negotiating teen monster life. It’s also overrun with spam. Apparently some monster thought it would be funny to sign me up for information on time share crypts and no I do not want to vacation in a “lovely little mausoleum overlooking the Great Dismal Swamp” DELETE! My first real question was this one:

Dear OMO

I’ve been seeing this really cute troll for a while now but he only wants to hang out under his bridge. How can I convince him that there are other places we could go that would be just as much fun?

Signed,

A Ghoulfriend Gruff

Dear Ghoulfriend Gruff

I’m glad to know that he’s cute cause you’re going to be spending a lot of time underneath that bridge. It’s like my grandmother used to say, “Don’t date trolls.” Hope this helps.

All the best,

OMO

The 26th of September

Sometimes I think the only creature in the world who really understands me at all is Rhuen. She’s so clever at finding the secret places that other monsters don’t notice or have forgotten; especially at Monster High. She can be a bit mischievous at times and doesn’t always come when I call, but I absolutely reject the notion that every trail of chaos leads to Rhuen.

The 7th of October

I was just floating along today minding my own business, like I normally do, when I happened to see Deuce and Lady Twangs-a-lot... I mean Operetta... furtively slip into the empty band room. As a reporter I was intrigued, as a student I need to get to class that happened to be on the other side of band room and as a ghost, a door is not required to enter a room. As I passed through the wall into the room I heard sir hiss reading love poetry. The part I happened to hear sounded sincere... sincerely terrible. Not wanting to be late I didn’t stay for the whole conversation, just long enough to realize I had the scoop of the year! DEUCE DUMPS CLEO FOR OPERETTA!!! Naturally I went straight to Cleo to get her take on the story since that’s what a responsible reporter should do in situation of this gravity. I asked her if she felt such a betrayal was a long time in coming after what she had done to Clawd and if she would be willing to sit down and give me an exclusive interview regarding the situation. I had trouble understanding her response since she reverted to Ancient Egyptian, which I am a bit shaky in, but I think I caught the word “kiss” followed by “cobra”, “adder”, or some other type of poisonous snake, followed by what might have been “depart” “hammer”, and or “sand”. I was immediately persecuted for my investigation efforts and was set upon by that ruffian Clawd. I don’t know what his problem was since it’s obvious he and Cleo are getting back together. Fortunately, the whole school rallied to my side and our Headmistress called into question the leadership skills of our “BMOC”.

I am going to address this incident in tomorrow’s column.

The 8th of October

Oh My Oracle!

News item!

The big bad wolf was out huffing and puffing yesterday. What prompted this full moon freak out? It would be improper to speculate but could it be possible that ll that tall, dark and intermittently furry is still smarting over being dumped by his little wrapped riding hood? It’s a known fact he’s been chasing his tail for some time over that mark on his alpha status. Maybe. He. Just. Snapped. Monster High may never know but “you know who” will, as always, keep digging for the story even if it’s supposed to be dead and buried.

The 12th of October

Our esteemed Headmistress wants every student to write an essay on their monster heritage... right. She obviously doesn’t want to know the real stories behind the students at Monster High or she would have just asked me since I have the real scoop on all of them. I offered to compile all my notes for publishing but she told me that each monster should have a chance to tell their own story. Whatever. I’ve already read through most of the essays that have been turned in - they were on her desk in plain sight so it was obvious, to me at least, that she had left them there for me to find. They run the gamut from boring to deadly boring. I suppose that I shall have to do mine now or it’s unlikely that any monster will want to read what is sure to be a wretchedly long haunt down monster memory lane. I come from royalty of course, my father was next in line for the throne of a large and powerful kingdom but my jealous uncle plotted against him and we had to go into exile. Sadly my father and mother were forced to take jobs far below their station in life to support us. It’s all quite tragic of course and I’m still debating if I should add in the part about my long lost love who still haunts our ancestral castle awaiting my return; or my family’s daring escape across enemy territory in the dead of night during the storm of the century.

The 20th of October

I never understood why so many monsters held Ghoulia in such high esteem I mean she’s a zombie for groaning out loud. Hello? Can you say lowest rung on the monster ladder? What is it about her? Does she have some kind of special power? Has she cast some spell over everyone? I needed to know. So today I followed her because as an investigative journalist it’s part of my job to find the real truth. You’d think it would be easy seeing as how she’s so slow but several times she managed to give me the slip. Other than studying and hanging out with Cleo and the Fear Squad posers I couldn’t find anything remotely remarkable about her. I thought about just giving up until she wandered down a back passage in the library to a room that I thought only I knew about. It’s where they keep the really old reference books and stuff. I was sure she was just hiding out so she could read that stupid Dead Fast comic book she’s always carrying around but she wasn’t. She was looking through old newspapers. I don’t know how she knew I was there since I was hiding in the shadows but she pulled out the chair next to her, looked straight at me and patted the seat for me to sit down. I was so startled that I just floated over and sat down. The headline of the paper in front of her read “The Real Vondergeists” It was my family’s story... I had forgotten... Oh my soul. I must have broken down because the next thing I knew Ghoulia was patting me on the back and I was soaking on her shoulder with ectoplasmic tears. I couldn’t stop for a while and when I did Ghoulia just looked me in they eye and said in zombie, “Your secret is safe with me.” I guess now I understand.

#monster high #monster high diary #spectra vondergeist #wave 2

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raeynbowboi · 5 years

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Dating Disney: The Sword in the Stone

As per a request, I’ll be examining Disney’s 1963 film The Sword in the Stone, based on T.H. White’s tetralogy The Once And Future King. In particular, the first book titled The Sword in the Stone, written in 1938. In the novel, Merlyn ages backwards through time and teaches Wart by transforming him into various animals to prepare him for this future as king.

The Mytho-History of Arthurian England

(image courtesy of Legends Summarized: King Arthur)

So, to keep the history lesson as short and non-boring as possible, let me try to give you the diet bullet points version of early English history. So, England used to be called Albion, and Rome ruled it for a time, even building Hadrian’s Wall to keep the Picts in Scotland out of their territory. Eventually, the Romans pulled out of Albion, and England was ruled by quasi-Roman Britons. Then, with the Fall of Rome on September 4th, 476 AD the Medieval period officially began (yep, the Middle Ages is a Virgo) and England was later sacked and partially conquered by the Angles and Saxons sailing in from the Jutlands in Germania. The Britons were predominantly Celtic, while the Angles and Saxons were Germanic. The Angles and Saxons eventually overtook England, resulting in Anglo-Saxon (aka Old English) to become the official language of England. Don’t worry though, they got what was coming to them in 1066 when William the Conqueror came from Normandy, France, and kicked the Anglo-Saxons out of power and French-speaking rulers had power over England for the rest of the Medieval period. This is also why French names for things are the fancier or more classy words for something. Simple words came from Anglo-Saxon while “fancy” words used by the ruling class come from French. Which is why it’s more “fancy” to call yourself intelligent instead of smart.

So, how does this all pertain to Arthurian Myth? Well, the roots of Arthurian Legend supposedly come from Welsh folklore. One need only look at some key players’ names, such as Guinevere’s original name Gwenhwyfar. Arthur is also frequently referred to as King of the Britons, which is important to remember that the Britons did not refer to the land, but rather to the Celtic peoples living in England before the Anglo-Saxon incursion. So, as a mythos, Arthur has his roots in Welsh-speaking Celtic origins as a Pseudo-mythic king. This is actually not uncommon in Celtic culture, as Ireland has a long and proud history of High Kings of Ireland that very likely never existed, claiming to be ruled from 1514 BCE - 841 AD by legendary mythic kings of Ireland, with the first actual historical High King of Ireland not appearing until 846 AD with Máel Sechnaill I. Arthur’s wife, Guinevere, is supposedly descended from an important Roman family, and thus her marriage to Arthur could also be interpreted as the bond between the Britons and their status as quasi-Roman citizens.

The idea of Arthur as an actual living breathing person first appears in the Annales Cambriae, which states that in the year 72 (c. 516 AD) Arthur won the battle of Baddon, and in the year 93 (c. 537 AD) Arthur and Mordred fell in the Battle of Camlann and there was death in Britain and Ireland. The Annales Cambriae were written around the middle of the 900s AD, so they’re already about 400 years late to the party for being trustworthy eyewitnesses to any shenanigans involving Artie. Arthur’s mythos began to be fleshed out more by Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae in the early 1100s, which lays a lot of the groundwork for Arthurian myth, introducing Guinevere, Merlin, and Caliburn, that would later be Frenchified into Excalibur. This is, however, not a book of Arthurian Legend so much as a largely fictitious account of all of the kings of England from Brutus, who settled England, up to Cadwaladr who ruled until 682 AD. This source is a large part of why people suspect Arthur might have been a real person, as he was essentially included in a textbook of England’s kings. There were later stories and updates to the tradition, but the last version came from Thomas Malory’s addition to the Arthurian Mythos in Le Morte d’Arthur at the end of the Medieval Period in 1485. Which also means that yes, Arthurian Legend actually spans the entire breadth of the Medieval Period. From the Fall of Rome in 476 to the end of the War of the Roses in 1485. Le Morte d’Arthur is the most famous version of Arthurian legend, and served as the major inspiration for T.H. White’s Once and Future King. The key feature we’re focused on is that like Le Morte d’Arthur, Arthur was taken from Uther and Igerna and raised by Sir Ector in the country-side until such a time that he pulled the Sword in the Stone, and was deemed the one true King of England.

So, if Arthur was based on a real person, he was probably a quasi-Roman Briton living in the 6th century, and fighting against the Scandinavian invaders. However, there’s also a reason for Arthur to not have existed. The Anglo-Normans who ruled England from 1066 onward had a very low opinion of England. It was rainy, dreary, and full of sheep. It’s speculated that Arthur was hoisted up as a real life legend of British history to effectively give England a more interesting and glorious history and make itself look and/or feel more important, and possibly even to promote nationalist pride. Whether he was a real man turned into a legend, or completely made up, he still is important to English history even to this day. However, as the Arthurian myth grew up, Arthur became more and more distant from his Celtic roots, and it’s not hard to say that the Arthur in the Disney Film is probably an Anglo-Norman, rather than a Celtic Briton. The technology and fashions are simply far too advanced for the 6th century.

Merlin

During his squirrel lesson, Merlin teaches Wart about the principles of gravity, referencing Newton’s Law of Universal Gravitation, first published in 1687. Upon meeting Wart, he also displays a Da Vinci flying contraption, and a wooden toy train engine. One might assume this is an anachronism, as Merlin also states while lecturing to Wart about his future “in these dark, uncertain medieval times”, and very firmly setting the film between 476 - 1485 AD. However, in the source material, Merlin ages backwards through time. And in other accounts of the Arthurian mythos, Merlin is gifted with a perfect knowledge of the past and future, making him essentially omniscient. The movie takes this a step further, as he not only sees into the future, but can travel through time as well. So, it’s perfectly valid for him to spout off knowledge and lessons that mankind would not discover for centuries afterward. We also see in Merlin’s possession a great number of books. This is important because in the medieval period, books were incredibly valuable, as they had to be written and copied by hand, and were so valuable that libraries chained them to the wall to keep them from being stolen. However, the sheer volume of his collection suggests that the printing press may have been invented, and thus, the film taking place after 1439. However, Merlin’s ability to travel through time makes his ownership of books hard to discern, as he could have easily brought those books back from later time periods.

Fashion

We see Sir Ector wearing faulds under his cuirass. Faulds are strips of plate armor tied at the hip to protect the hip from harm, looking something akin to skirting. Faulds first appeared in 1370. Sir Kay is wearing a Great Helm, noted for its very bucket-like shape, worn from the late 12 to 14th centuries.

However, during the fish lesson, Merlin takes cover inside of what appears to be an Armet helmet, developed in the 15th century. Which means that either Merlin found a helmet from the future, or Kay is training in a century old helmet. Which is why you can’t just throw medieval stuff willy-nilly onto the screen. the Medieval Period covers 1,009 years.

Toward the end of the film, we see Sir Ector wearing a Bycocket, a unisex hunting hat preferred by the nobility of the 13th and 14th centuries.

Culture

We can see in Arthur’s throne room the Fleur-de-Lis, a symbol of French royalty. The symbol emerged as a symbol of French royalty in the late 13th century. In England, the Fleur-de-lis was used in the royal standard for the Plantagennet family, which ruled England from the Norman Invasion of William the Conqueror in 1066 until Henry Tudor won the War of the Roses in 1485. The Fleur-de-lis was used in the Plantagenet standard beginning in the 13th century. Merlin also specifies teaching Wart English, Latin, and French. As the Plantagenet family were Anglo-Normans, they all spoke French, and all of the nobility also spoke French. Having Wart learn French would allow him to converse with his royal court, English with his subjects, and Latin with his faith. These three languages would be the most vital tools of an English king in this period to rule justly and to hear the voices of all of his subjects. Too bad the Plantagenets were notorious for not speaking a lick of English. Most of the nobility didn’t. The Peasants and the Aristocracy didn’t even speak the same language, making the gap between the classes wider. However, during the 13th century, the French language finally began to take a backseat to English among the royal court, and the Hundred Years War between England and France (1337-1453) bolstered nationalist pride for the English language among the ruling elite. By the end of the 15th century, English had finally become the mother tongue of the English nobility. So, young Wart living in the 13th or 14th century would certainly have a reason to learn English as an English King.

Conclusion

For the most part, like other Medieval-based movies from older Disney, they didn’t do enough research to really pin-point a clear time period. The movie sort of wants to be in this nebulous timeless part of England’s mytho-history, so I’m really left with guessing a time period based on the general clothing, look, and feel of the setting, which feels like it could be set at the same time or even slightly earlier than Sleeping Beauty. The most things seem to line up with a late 13th, early 14th century setting. So, I’ll conclude that we’re slightly ahead of the Italian Renaissance, as Arthur Plantagenet takes up the English Throne. In fact, this also aligns with the real life history of England. In 1377, Edward III died after his eldest son, causing a succession crisis that sparked the War of the Roses. Likewise, the Sword in the Stone was used in the film to prevent a war for succession after the King of England died without a known heir. The parallels line up nicely enough that since Disney tends to run on its own logic that the succession of King Arthur would likely be their alternate history solution to the War of the Roses. More still, after Edward III died, 12-year-old Boy King Richard II was chosen to succeed Edward III, and his uncles who had been passed over for the crown opposed his rule. Likewise, Wart is 12 in the film, becomes king, and Arthur did canonically have to fight dissenters who opposed his claim to the crown. So, Wart is, according to this movie, a very nice stand-in for Richard II of England. Both Arthur and Richard II were also eventually foisted from his throne by power-hungry relatives. In Arthur’s case, his nephew or illegitimate son Mordred tries to usurp his throne and both kill each other in the process. In Richard’s case, he was deposed by his cousin Henry IV in 1399. They even ruled for about the same amount of time, as Arthur became king canonically in 512 at the age of 15, and died in 537 at the age of 40. Arthur ruled for 25 years, and Richard ruled for 22. So that’s an admittedly uncanny series of parallels. So, Wart is the Disney Alternate History version of Richard II the Boy King of England. (reign 1377-1399) And to think, the same king helped inspire the sadistic boy king Joffrey Baratheon in Game of Thrones.

Setting: England Kingdom: The Kingdom of England (927 - 1707 AD) House: House Pendragon/House Plantagenet (1066-1485) Era: the War of the Roses Period: The Late Middle Ages (1250 - 1500 AD) Year: 1377 AD Historic Counterpart: Richard II of England (1377-1399) Language: Middle English (1150-1500 AD) Anglo-Norman French (1066-1500 AD) Medieval Latin (927 - 15th century)

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anikkis-fantasirealities · 3 years

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“The Banquet Rooms of the Grandeur Campus”

③ Human Interest Story ┊ ʸᵒᵘ ʷʰᵒ ʸᵉᵃʳⁿˢ ᵗᵒ ᵍᵘᶦᵈᵉ ᵗʰᵉ ʸᵒᵘᵗʰ···ᵗᵒ ᵍᵉⁿᵗˡʸ ᵍᵉⁿᵉʳᵃᵗᵉ ʸᵒᵘⁿᵍ ᵍᵉⁿᵘᶦˢᵉˢ ᵃⁿᵈ ᵍʳᵃⁿᵗ ᵍᵉⁿᵉʳᵃᵗᶦᵒⁿˢ ʷᶦᵗʰ ᵍᵒᵒᵈʷᶦˡˡ·

꒰⁺˚₊·₍₍loading...₎₎ ✎...۪۫❁ཻུ۪۪ -ˏˋ 📨 ˊˎ-

༘✶ ㊉㈦〘 ⅯⅯ 〙⋆｡˚𓆟 ༉ ║ Posted : ０６/１５/２１° ｡༄ ‧₊˚ ๑ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ •ଓ.° ｡❍ ㈩㊇

- - ——— ꒰ An article by Nicole “Nikki” Elaine S. Chua ꒱

ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ₊·͟͟͟͟͟͟͞͞͞͞͞͞➳❥ ࿐ྂ—͙❬₊° ᶦ ᵃᵐ ᵃ ᵇˡᵒᵍᵍᵉʳ ᵃᶠᵗᵉʳ ᵃˡˡ·“= ‹⸙͎

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┊ ┊ ┊ ┊ ┊ ┊

┊ ┊ ┊ ┊ ˚✩ ⋆｡˚ ✩

┊ ┊ ┊ ✫

┊ ┊ ︎✧

┊ ┊ ✯

┊ . ˚ ˚✩

On a scorching afternoon where the shouting of children, chasing each other after classes have concluded, and the chattering adults have started to lock up the messy rooms, there was not one place that was quiet. I, on the other hand, had a quest to fulfill under a time limit! The red ballpen flung onto my chair desk when white sheets of paper were clenced by my thin palms. I ran outside past our broken doorstep to our class, over the pastures, and on top of stone-edged floors. Time is ticking... 4, 3, 2, and those squeaky black dull shoes made it! In opening the slim door to the right side of the room, they were like glorifying gates that screeched wide open—awaiting for my arrival. Well, it wasn’t that dramatic, but I was perspired out of sprinting under the gleaming sun. My short legs wobbling for a tiny second. The beads dripping on my worried face were shaken when I entered the room at around the size of a studio-type residence.

It was normal for me to be an errand girl who assists her class and obey her teachers with respect, no matter what school my identification card is designated to. I grew up with that kind of personality: helpful, caring, kind, diligent, and patient. Hence, these exhausted shoes have travelled to many places across gymnasiums, libraries, storage rooms, and laboratories. Though, sometimes, my mind still can’t get used to such a huge room, like that of the faculty rooms. I still become staggered over the hectic aura of the space, where long tables sat in rows, and people in pink & blue uniforms kindling the noise from the outside within. I would look around to see piles of examination papers, rolls of cartolina squeezed into a box, and scattered gadgets for teaching being charged to full energy. This is an article featuring the 𝙝𝙖𝙧𝙙𝙬𝙤𝙧𝙠𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙩𝙚𝙖𝙘𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙨 𝙤𝙛 𝙉𝙚𝙬 𝙀𝙧𝙖 𝙐𝙣𝙞𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙨𝙞𝙩𝙮: 𝙄𝙣𝙩𝙚𝙜𝙧𝙖𝙩𝙚𝙙 𝙎𝙘𝙝𝙤𝙤𝙡.

Throughout the years I’ve walked on those narrow corridors, and climbed up stairs to different floors of the vintage buildings, I also meet ways with many generations. One generation was younger than me—that of clumsy children innocently playing in the fields endlessly. The other was of my age, those who exist with me, as they attempt to finish their studies without tilting their heads to nudges of distraction. Then, there was this generation who were much similar to us—like students in a classroom laughing and sharing stories with each other. They had the knowledge of the world in their hands. In their arms, they carry heavier packages to unbox. Though, unlike the previous generations I meet who simply stepped up and down the stairs, the prudent grown-up smiled back to me, walking slowly pass my agitated shoulder.

┏━━━━━━━━━━━━༻❁༺━━━━━━━━━━━━┓

ㅤㅤ ❝ That room that I remember the most, ㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ was under construction before the pandemic began. ❞

┗━━━━━━━━━━━━༻❁༺━━━━━━━━━━━━┛

I had the desire to help them lift their troubles by standing by their side, but they refuse because it is the role they signed up for, and my position had no power to be elevated to their level. Though, through these words, I know I would be able to do something to display their everyday lives behind teaching the New Era youth, giving the best advice, and serving the school with unconditional love. I was given the chance to be closer to the people who inspired me to present the compassionate self with the direction, ambition, and deduction to offer my best contribution to the world I belong to.

At the back of those generalized comforting grins and caring embraces, come their different fairytales that make the generation a community of teachers—young or old, millennial or Gen X, whatever gender and status they may have. They were a social generation, with hundred of stories to unfold and share to the youth. That was one thing I admired about them the most.

Well, I have encountered many teachers in my life since entering school, but the memory that always stick to my mind is my experiences with the teachers of New Era University: Integrated School. For some, they would cover their face when they recognize their teachers riding on a public vehicle rushing to its detination. Others simply ignore their respected educators when they spot them being at school even if the sun has already tucked in for the day.

However, I was one of those students who waves and greets them with my two-front teeth sticking out in happiness—trekking my way to school, riding shiny metallic jeepneys, and walking through scrapped walls that used to be fully painted. The inspiration flows out when I’m with them—a witness of their trials and ever-changing biographies in their very own home, the school, itself. Yes, the school becomes their shelter, figuratively, because that is how passionate they are in the path they’ve chosen to wander upon.

Then, there’s this vague image that I always remember—a banquet room where teachers eat together side-by-side during lunch breaks. The clanging of plates and utensils compliments the happy vibe of the room. The meals packed in transparent plastic bags from the canteen look fancy because of the optimistic mood all throughout the proximity in between me and the busy adults. Oh, and how could I not forget to mention the signature pancakes by New Era University: Integrated School that some teachers indulge in the most?

The giggles never end when I hear their jokes from afar, while I am walking through their room to return the checked papers I’ve finished to my Filipino teacher in Grade 10. Everyone was like workers in a castle of royalty—busy and preoccupied with their own duties, yet working towards one united purpose, that together creates a vibrant mix of emotions in the great hall. The harmonized melody it produces once the sweat and tears has finally been paid off, truly, the lunch breaks are what makes the banquet more lively. It’s a feast to behold!

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ㅤㅤ❝ Whenever I catch my name, I return it, ㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤwith my good-natured, ‘Hi po, Sir and Ma’am!’ ❞

┗━━━━━━━━━━━━༻❁༺━━━━━━━━━━━━┛

On one side were the lockers, where old and new student’s projects filled the barren storage with interesting information. There are multiple brown wooden tables overlapped with colorful designs where groups of teachers sit together. The masters of Science sat at the bench to the wall at the right, while the experts in English stay behind a counter adjacent to the door on the right. People who speak of Filipino, Math, Computer, and MAPEH had benches next to each other in the middle of the bustling hall that was their faculty room. They are not divided, literally, for their workplaces are not distanced from one another. Each part of the table has a customized area per teacher, whose pictures of blood-related family and schedules are inserted under transparent cover—giving them motivation to carry on their sworn responsibility. However, just like BFFs who stick together, some teachers transfer to other tables to enjoy the rest of the day with their close co-faculty members.

They would talk about their personal lives, their interests, and at times, the students & problems they encounter in classes. Some gave glee, but of course, there were also those that gave headaches. That’s why whenever I am presented with a new subject teacher per grade level, I can understand if the they know me well from the narrations of the teachers who’ve handled me. They are aware of my struggles, efforts, and kindness as a pupil of New Era. They are familiarized with this face, the expression, and its body language.

Though, I am still proud that they recognize my batchmates dedication, too. Each teacher imparted values to all their children equally. There was no favoritism, and everyone gets a chance to participate. When we make mistakes, we are still accepted and loved. All this, even though they are humans who are aroused by intense feelings? No matter how impressive, or lowly we are, it is that chance to be better that we are most thankful about in this palace of high education.

All the pictures you’ve seen so far contain significant beings in my life as a student-soon-to-be-adult. That’s the magic of being someone not so known in society or history, but will remain a treasured person in your life—a special connection only you and that person understands, and not everyone else does. Even though I tend to stutter and zip my mouth when I am often in the loud banquet when I do not want to disturb the delightful get-alongs by our educators, eventually I am noticed and asked, “What are you doing here, Nicole Chua?” It’s the admiration that regardless if I was hidden or completely revealing of myself, they help me to speak out and be more confident with the adults. That is something that I also want to influence my classmates with, because these teachers outside lessons and activities are not so intimidating & looming at all!

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ㅤㅤ ㅤ❝ I can recall the cooked dishes and the grades for judging, and I cherish them knowing you cannot taste them again. ❞

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They are friendly, approachable, and absolutely considerate of the many kids they manage from Mondays to Fridays. Off campus is a different story that I can’t personally share for the privacy of their lives, though I would say it’s rough. It’s rough to come back home—to take care of your very own children while finishing school records, bringing along the stress from work into their real dwelling. They are not just mothers and fathers of the campus that caters hundreds of beautiful princes and princesses. They are also parents worried of their own children’s future.

The sicknesses, the loans, the quarrels, and the trickling hourglass—all this is what they must face in the cold, dry evenings. They are vulnerable to all these things that makes them a part of reality, and not just some fantasy with no flaws. It didn’t matter if they were in the coordinator’s office, the cookery laboratory, the office in the second floor, or that special place on the fourth floor. I was there to hear their encounters with their rude children, or the sweet marriage they had. If I clean harder, dart quicker, and volunteer even more, I can appreciate them who were not supernatural beings veiled in fiction. They sacrifice for that hope, that they will teach the next generations how to educate those after them, and those before them. 𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝙥𝙖𝙨𝙨 𝙤𝙣 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘭𝘪𝘷𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘳 𝘮𝘦𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝙩𝙧𝙖𝙣𝙨𝙢𝙞𝙩𝙩𝙚𝙙 𝙢𝙚𝙢𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙤𝙨 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘣𝘦 𝙖𝙥𝙥𝙡𝙞𝙚𝙙 𝙩𝙤 𝙡𝙞𝙛𝙚 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘦𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘯𝘪𝘵𝘺.

One time, I was holding onto the dream of being a part of the school’s newspaper—it was my “𝗛𝗨𝗗𝗬𝗔𝗧” to fulfill the vision, reflected by that tender link I had with that story. The tension was still on me when I came to the opening. I had no clue why I felt that way, even if I’ve entered too many banquet halls at that point. Though, I was determined to open that door and introduce myself with the passion I had. She was someone I did not know so much back then, but now, I’m writing this article because of her instruction. Her proficient Filipino words, and the lectures she offered to us. There was the excitement, the uplifting compliments, and the will to keep on writing. This may be the last time that we will be coupled for education, but I’m hoping to see our names as staff on the front page. Am I too much, or was that a mysterious ending?

Teachers in general only want the best for their learners, for influencing their lives is the greatest fulfillment. They can be strict or relatable, but together, they spend the rest of the day in the banquet room, merrily toasting for a job well done. In this monumental learning institution, many important people shall rise and do their part in society, away from the fairytales and fictional playtime. Perhaps, next time, if you can also observe your own school’s faculty room, you can hear their stories—the sounds of a feast, and assist them in preparing for the afternoon festivities.

I hope you were able to see the beautiful reality of the teachers of New Era University: Integrated School with my own eyes. Do greet them hello, or help them in your tiny acts the next time you see them, and it will definitely brighten their day. Thank you for reading their ordinary tales! Come back again in another blog where my fantasies become realities! A Nikki reminder: let’s help one another to rise up to success, instead of degrading one another to failure!

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ㅤㅤㅤㅤ ❝ It’s the ultimate desire, and yet I felt so anxious, ㅤㅤ ㅤbut now we’re so close, yet so far between screens. ❞

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· * ✫ * ⊹ * ˚ . . 　　· ⋆ * . * . . · . · . * · . · · + . ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤㅤㅤ· ** ˚ . . + 　　· ⋆ * . * . . · . · . *

ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ. . + 　· ⋆ * . * . . · . · .˚ ⊹ · * ✧ ⋆ · * . · . · · .. . .

ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤㅤ· + ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ· * ✫ * ⊹ * ˚

ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ · ** ˚ . . + ㅤㅤ　· ⋆ * . * . . · . · .˚ ⊹ · * ✧

ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ⋆ · * . · ㅤㅤ . · · .. . . · + .

ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤ. · + . *

ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤㅤㅤ ⋆ * . * . .

ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤㅤㅤ ㅤ . · ·

ㅤㅤ﹙dedication. ﹚ ୨˚୧ ˚ ༘♡.↳ ₊˚‧

This blog is dedicated to “I am a Teacher,” for her patience, remarks, rainbow scarfs, adorable dogs, and wonderful words given to me. You are My Most Precious Treasure in this writing journey, from blandness to vividness.

ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ﹋﹋﹌﹌﹌「 🧁 」﹌﹌﹌﹋﹋

ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤㅤ ㅤㅤㅤ ┊彡 Credits

➥ Cover Edit

➫ Ma’am JB

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➥ First Blog Divider

➫ Sir Leo

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➥ Second Blog Divider

➫ Ma'am Eva

ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ

➥ Third Blog Divider

➫ Sir Prince

➥ Fourth Blog Divider

➫ Sir Prince

➥ Fifth Blog Divider

➫ Teacher Med

➥ Source of Information

➫ The author’s encounters

➫ Briefly shared stories by her teachers

ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤㅤ﹋﹋﹌﹌﹌「 end. 」﹌﹌﹌﹋﹋

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