#speaking of which her sister's coffin empty? | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

throughtrialbyfire · 9 months

Text

TESFest Day 4 - Sanctuary

the humble keeper spends one last moment in his old sanctuary word count - 882

Eight years could putrefy and wither before your eyes, here in the dark.

Eight long, stolen years. Cicero breathed them in and out. He'd found purpose in this place. A Sanctuary and its last survivor, a chapel and its sole priest, a corpse-god and her last apostle.

Did anyone on the outside think of the Night Mother, did no one call on her, did she hear no prayer? Surely, that couldn't be right. Her influence, far and wide, spread long before his birth and would continue to spread long after he joined her and the Dread Father in the Void. He grasped the wooden handle of a broom and swept at the floors, idle chores, dull things that kept him from his work, the ever-present seating beside the remains of his Mother. His amber eyes gazed at the stones and counted the cracks in their surfaces. He muttered to himself in the silence, droning and intoning and quietly atoning for the lack of attention he'd paid today to his Mother, his only confidant, the space behind his eyes straining in the dark. He'd need to light more candles soon.

No, he reminded himself, this was the last time.

He inhaled. The sweet scent of cedar spread through his lungs. He tasted it on his tongue. One of the oils he used to tend his Mother, her funeral shroud clinging to the mummified remains. Oh, but that, that body was a vessel still-living, if only she would speak! She could and would but hadn't, she could and would but didn't, she spoke only to the Listener, and Cicero, ever-dutiful Cicero, he had done everything to be her Listener!

But the fact remained, he wasn't.

He squeezed his eyes shut, then returned to the task at hand, humming. Joking to himself, tiny words that felt smaller still. This was the last time he'd sweep these floors, pack up his belongings, set out. He had made the proper arrangements, wrote the letters to Astrid in Skyrim - so official, so polite - and prepared the coffin for transport. A wooden crate, unceremoniously, swaddled the coffin of stone. He'd spent days hammering the wood himself, fixing it into place, inspecting every corner and angle and cooing softly to his Mother over the details, what this entailed, the future ahead and laid bare for possibility.

"Mother," he called into the chamber, her shrine packed and ready, "Cicero's nearly done here, then we're off!" As cheerful as his voice reverberated through the halls, the echoes back just reminded him of the permeating silence. That silence, in his head, what he'd said so long ago, how did it go? The words, lost to memory, relegated to records unknown, to a Void of his own.

The silence could make a man feel empty.

No reply, as always, which only made the sensation worse. But no, he reminded himself, lonely Cicero was the Keeper, ever-honored to be given this position. There was nothing he wouldn't do for his Matron, even if it involved acceptance of bitter truths.

He inhaled. Chest rose. A reminder that there was blood in his body, air in his lungs, soul wrapping his bones.

And as long as that were the fact, he was the Keeper, and he served his Matron.

Tidying the Sanctuary was a useless thing. Cheydinhal was the last in Cyrodiil, there were no more brothers or sisters to call to in this province. Yet, he did so. It felt… Wrong, to leave it in disrepair, to leave the air unperformed by the holy oils and incense, the scents that he breathed deep, a place to keep the world at bay. Knocking on the door long-gone.

He couldn't explain the harrowing cold in his head, the hammering in his chest, as he gazed to the door. The last one alive, and to leave, to leave this place, to abandon its face, it made him shiver. Palpitation in the sternum, like the first kill. He knew that what lay beyond this door was uncertainty. But his Mother needed a Listener, the world needed a Listener, and if loyal Cicero did not find one, then what son of hers was he?

Gingerly, he began the process of moving her coffin. The wooden crate creaked, and he cooed softly, "oh, I hate to leave home, too, but soon we sail the sea, sweet Mother and me!" He ran a gloved palm over the crate's surface. He managed to shift the box to the door, awkwardly pushing and shushing the sliding and gliding along the fresh-swept floors, his belongings ready, his life behind him and his life ahead.

The transferring to a wagon took much longer than anticipated, but he managed to get the coffin situated neatly, ready to take her to the lands beyond this Sanctuary. He knew this would be the last time he was here, and so he turned around. One last look.

Empty. Quiet. Just as always.

He pushed a palm to the door, the scent of sweet, blooming flowers pressuring him forward. Slowly, he moved the wagon, wheels gliding along the floor, then the grass, then off onto the roads. This was it, the beginning and the end, and he would face it for his Matron.

#tesfest23 #cicero skyrim #the dark brotherhood #the night mother #skyrim fanfic #skyrim fic #tes v #tesblr #my writing #cicero my deranged little man <3 i love him

35 notes · View notes

middleearthpixie · 2 years

Text

Family

Armitage Summer Splash #22 ~ Rolling along thanks to @lathalea and @fizzyxcustard!

Trope: Break up

Quote: “We have all the time in the world”

RA Character: Thorin Oakenshield

Relationship: Thorin x Fem!Reader

Warnings: A little angst, a little fluff

Rating: G

Word Count: 3,096

Khuzdul Translations:

Mimûn/Mimûna ~ little one (m/f)

’Adad ~ father

Mesmel ~ jewel of jewels

Maralmizi/maralmizu ~ I love you (f/m)

’Amad ~ mother

Dashat ~ son

Irak-‘amad ~ aunt

Raklûn ~ precious one

Amrâlimê ~ my love

***

Wind howled through the valley all around you, but you paid no heed to it. Leaves scuttled across the hard-packed earth upon which you stood, but you heard nothing. Dappled sunlight wove through the trees just coming to life after the long, brutal winter.

You were numb as you stared at the fresh scar in the earth. All around you was rebirth, but right before you was death. You tried to ignore the sounds of dirt hitting the simple coffin in which your father lay as the dwarves who’d acted as his pallbearers now filled in his grave.

“Come, mimûna,” Thorin murmured, draping his cloak about your shoulders, “before you catch your death.”

“No. I wish to stay right here,” you told him without looking at him. You couldn't tear your eyes from the grave as it was filled. If you left, it would be real. Your house would be empty, the only voice yours, the only sounds the ones you made. You would never again hear ’Adad call for you. Would never hear him rasp, “Raklûna,” whether in annoyance or in thanks or because he was feeling sentimental. You would never adjust to the fact that you were now, for all intents and purposes, an orphan. Your mother had walked out years ago, leaving ’Adad with a baby girl to raise alone and even if she showed up tomorrow, you would rather spit in her face than speak to her.

“Think of the little one,” he murmured, his voice barely audible for you had not yet shared your secret with everyone in Ered Luin. Only ’Adad knew you were with child. Not even Thorin’s sister knew and they were as close as brothers and sisters could be.

You looked up at him, his blue eyes were soft, flooded with concern, and you knew he worried, so you nodded and only then, let him lead you away from the small, shade-splashed cemetery at the end of Stone Street. ’Adad would forever sleep beneath an oak tree that would provide him with all of the shade and cool comfort he’d been denied in his life as a baker surrounded by fire and ovens.

Everyone came back to the house with you, but they couldn’t stay for long and when night fell, and you and Thorin were alone, you looked up at him again. “You should go. I’ll be fine.”

“I’d rather not leave you alone, mimûna,” he said, shaking his head. “You’ve been through a terrible day.”

“I need the time, Thorin. In fact, I’ve been thinking that perhaps we should postpone the wedding.”

“What?”

You nodded slowly. “I think we should. I need a bit of space, some time to adjust. And I—I think it would be best if we didn't see one another for a while.”

“Mimûna?”

Tears stung your eyes. You loved Thorin more than anyone or anything in the world, in some ways even more than you loved ’Adad, and it killed you to tell him to go away. But, you felt it was terribly disrespectful to plan a wedding when you were still so freshly mourning your loss. It felt disrespectful to ’Adad’s memory to plan a celebration he would now not get to see.

“It’s best. Please. Just leave me alone.”

Pain flashed through those cerulean eyes, but he nodded and stepped up to press a kiss into your head. “Take all the time you need, mesmel,” he murmured, “We have all the time in the world and I will wait.”

Tears stung your eyes, so you let them close as you nodded. He kissed your forehead then, and you heard his boots as he thudded across the great room toward the door. They paused and he said, “Maralmizi.”

Your throat tightened at his soft admission of love and you nodded once again, whispering, “Maralmizu, Thorin.”

Then he was gone and you were completely alone.

You sank to the floor in a heap of crumpled linen and black bombazine, and dissolved into tears.

***

“You should go and see her.”

Thorin shook his head without turning away from the window. He didn't need to look at Dís to know how she looked at him. She would be frowning, a deep groove forming between her thick dark eyebrows. Her eyes, the same shade of blue as his, would be narrow and her lips would be pursed, her forefinger tapping at them as she tried to think of some way to get her older brother to come see you.

“She does not wish to see me, Dís,” he said, shaking his head, his hands clasped behind his back. Day after day, he stood up at in the room at the top of the modest house he shared with her and his two young nephews. From there, he could see the cozy house in the valley, tucked amongst the trees and from time to time, he saw you when you emerged on rare occasions.

Two weeks had passed since the funeral. Two weeks of waiting and wondering and hoping all was well with you. He’d ride past your cottage whenever possible, down to the river in the hopes of seeing you. But you remained sequestered in behind the door, going through your father’s things, sorting out which memories to keep and which to put out with the rubbish. You went out only when absolutely necessary.

“She is hurting,” Dís replied softly, her hand coming to rest on his shoulder. “Remember how it was in the days after we lost ’Amad. We were all three of us lost. Remember in the days after Vili and Frerin were taken?”

“I do remember,” he replied slowly, his eyes closing as the familiar sense of loss swirled through him. “And I remember how I did not wish to be disturbed. I want the world to just leave me be.”

“Ah, but you had me. She has no one. Don’t be a fool. Go and check on her. Thorin. You love her, don’t you?”

Without taking his eyes from the cottage in the distance, he nodded slowly. “With everything I am.”

“Then go to her and let her know you are not abandoning her. She needs you now, even if she doesn’t realize it herself.”

Did you need him? He wasn’t at all certain, as you were one of the most independent women he’d ever met. But, even the strongest of shoulders needed rest, needed to be held and reassured at times.

And he missed you.

He missed the way you felt in his arms, the scent of your hair, your skin, the way your eyes sparkled when you were happy. He missed the little things, such as a stroll along the river, where you spoke of the future together and what you hoped for the child you carried, of the future children you planned to have together.

He rubbed his beard slowly, debating whether or not to tell Dís the secret you and he shared. Then, glancing over at her, he said, “She’s expecting a child, Dís.”

Dís’ eyes widened, them quickly returned to their normal size and shape. A hint of a smile played at her lips. “Your child, I assume?”

“My child.”

The door swung open then and a little dark-haired cannonball of a boy raced in. “‘Amad! Fíli hit me with a rock!”

On his heels came his brother, hollering, “He was supposed to catch it!”

Dís scooped up her youngest son. “Let me see, Kíli,” she said, brushing his hair away from his face. “Oh, it’s but a tiny bruise. And Fíli, do not throw rocks at your brother and I don’t care if he was supposed to catch it.”

Fíli sighed. “Yes, ’Amad.”

She set Kíli down and both boys took off like a shot, screaming all the way down the corridor. Thorin smiled. “I’ll wager Fíli is hit with a rock next.”

“Most likely. But, you will not worry about it. You are going to go and look in on a certain someone, aren’t you?”

Thorin sighed. “Yes. I suppose I am.”

“You’ll regret it if you don’t.”

He nodded. “I know. But if space is what she needs…”

“Thorin, space can and does quickly become isolation. You will never forgive yourself if you let this relationship end. Especially if there’s a child on the way. Your heir, Thorin.”

“I know. And I never said she and I were broken up, Dís. She’s asked me to leave her be for now.”

“Now is when she needs you the most.” Dís held up both hands. “And I know you know that, so go.”

You heard the familiar gait of hoofbeats and your heart sped up while your mouth went dry. You hadn’t seen Thorin since the morning of ’Adad’s funeral. He’d respected your wishes to be left alone, and you found yourself missing him so very much. Time had a way of slowing to a crawl now that you were alone and you hated the silence so much, you’d taken to talking to yourself. Every time a horse clopped by the cottage, you hurried to the window in the hopes that it was Thorin because you missed him so. You thought about going to him, but knew how you’d hurt him, and the thought of his slamming a door in your face was too horrifying to contemplate.

Day after day, you cleaned out ’Adad’s room, the cottage itself, anything to keep busy and to take your mind off the fact your stomach roiled from sunup to sundown. The baby, no doubt, although you hesitated to seek out Narnerra. If you and Thorin were over, you weren’t at all certain what would happen once the baby was born. Heir to the throne of Durin, your son would most likely be taken from you to be raised by Thorin and his sister. And that would break your heart into more fragments.

The white cotton curtains fluttered on the breeze and you moved to peer out the window as Thorin strode purposefully up the flagstone walk. Your heart leaped into your throat, your hands went clammy, and you thought for a moment you just might faint as he knocked at the door.

Wiping your palms on your simple cotton housedress, you crossed to the door and opened it, your heart skipping a beat at the sight of your handsome dwarf across the threshold.

“Thorin…”

“I know you’ve asked me to leave you be, mimûna, but I cannot ignore my concern for you. If you wish me to go away, know that I cannot do than any longer. I’m worried for you. For you and for our child, and I will do anything else you ask of me, but I will not leave you alone here another moment.”

You stared up at him, pressing your lips together as your heart hammered your ribs with such force, you were momentarily dizzy. In the first few days after the funeral, people showed up at your door with food and wine to make things easier, but now, they’d stopped coming around. When you went into the village, into the marketplace, people stared and whispered about you, but seemed almost afraid to come up to you, as if somehow they would be tainted or touched by death because of your loss.

He took your silence as an invitation to come into the cottage, stepping by you into the great room, and closed the door behind him. “I love you,” he said, his voice a low growl, “and I want to be here for you. Lean on me, mimûna, cry on my shoulder if you need to, but don’t push me away again.”

Your eyes stung at those words, at the rumbling reassurance that he was not going to leave you again. You drew in a deep breath and whispered, “I’ve missed you.”

“Why didn't you send for me?”

“I… I don’t know… you were angry when you left, hurt, I thought. I thought you might not want to hear from me.”

Two steps and he’d closed the space between you, gathering you in his arms to lift you easily to meet his eyes. “You little fool,” he growled, although his eyes were soft and tender, “I haven’t slept more than an hour a night with worrying about you. About you. About the baby. Come back to stay with Dís and me, mimûna. Say you’ll marry me again and let’s celebrate as your father would have wanted us to celebrate, for he was thrilled at the prospect of our wedding.”

“His son in law would be the future king, should Erebor be reclaimed,” you told him, fighting to keep from smiling and losing in short order, “he would have to be mad to not be thrilled.”

“He liked me.”

“Again, future king.”

He chuckled. “You are bullheaded at times, know you this?”

“You just left, remember.”

“I was but honoring your wishes.” He tightened his hold on you, moving to the sofa, where he carefully sank into it, cradling you against him. “And if you wish me to go, you need only say so again.”

You leaned back to catch his face in your hands, his beard soft and scratchy against your palms. “I’ve missed you terribly, Thorin.”

“And I you. I’ve found I don’t care to sleep alone any longer. I sleep much better when I’ve your head on my chest and your warm body against mine.”

A pleasant heat swirled through you at his confession. One that had you dipping your head as you murmured, “I find the same, actually.”

Thorin’s fingers kneaded your backside gently. “Does this mean you might still wish to marry me? I’ve not cancelled anything yet, you know.”

You lifted your head at that, staring at him. “You haven’t?”

He shook his head. “I was foolishly optimistic that you would come around. So, will you still marry me, amrâlimê?”

“Do you still wish to have me?”

“I’ve never wanted anything more.” His lips found yours, his kiss slow and teasing and wonderful. It had you curling your toes as your blood warmed and when your lips parted and his tongue touched yours, unexpected tears came to your eyes. You’d missed him so very much, were so convinced it was over between you. You missed him, you worried what would happen when you could no longer hide your condition, and now? Now you melted against him, breaking the kiss to bury your face in the warmth of his neck.

“Thorin… I thought it was over,” you managed to whisper, his hair muffling your words a tad.

“No, mesmel,” he whispered back, stroking your hair with one hand and your back with the other. “It isn’t. It takes far more than this to rid yourself of me. Haven’t you realized that by now?”

You pulled away to gaze up at him. “I do love you, you know.”

“And I love you, mimûna. Now, let me help you finish what needs be done here, then you are coming back home with me. Where you belong.”

***

“Mimûna?”

“Come in.” You smiled up at Thorin as he came into the room. You’d labored a day and a night, and into the next morning and now held your daughter in your arms, smiling up at him as he came closer. “Come and see your handiwork, dwarf.”

His smile stretched from ear to ear as he gingerly sank onto the edge of your bed and gazed at the blanketed bundle in your arms with all of the wonder and awe one could muster. “She looks like you.”

“No. Just as Frerin, she looks like her ’adad.”

“I see it with neither of them.”

The door opened once more and Narnerra said, “Go on, mimûn. ’Adad and ’Amad are right here and you can meet your sister.”

Frerin II Durin was his father in miniature, with long black curls and the beginnings of a black beard and mustache and he approached your bed cautiously. “’Amad? Is that the baby?”

“Come up and say welcome to your sister, raklûn,” you told him, patting the bed.

Thorin bent to lift your three year old son from the floor, balancing him on his knee, one arm firmly about Frerin’s waist. “So, what do you think?”

Frerin’s blue eyes went wider still. “She’s so small.”

“She is,” Thorin nodded, looking over Frerin’s head to wink at you, “but you were as well, dashat. But fear not, she will grow and soon will be driving you mad just as your irak-‘amad drove me mad when we were children.”

“Really? When?”

“Well, not for a few years, but it will go by fast. I promise you.” Thorin ruffled his hair, then leaned over and pressed a kiss into the top of your head. “It will go by so very fast, indeed. It seems it was only yesterday ’Amad and I were meeting you for the first time, raklûn.”

“Wait…” Frerin stared up at his father with such wide-eyed astonishment that you had to fight back a smile, “I was this small once?”

“You were smaller, Frerin,” you told him. “’Adad used to rock you to sleep on his forearm, your head in his hand, just as my ’Adad did for me.”

Frerin’s eyes went wider still, his, “You did?” ringing with astonishment

Thorin nodded. “Every night, yes. You’d fuss otherwise.”

“Oh…” He stared down at his sister and then looked over at you. “Will she fuss, too?”

“Probably, at first. But we will all adjust quickly. I hope.”

“We will be fine,” Thorin pressed another kiss into the top of your head. “You and I work well as a team, mimûna, and we have since you first knocked me into the dirt.”

“I should’ve done it much sooner,” you told him.

“Yes,” he nodded, squeezing you gently against his side. “You should have, indeed. Who knows how many more little ones we’d have running about with Fíli and Kíli.”

You sighed softly as you gazed first at your newborn daughter, then your son, and finally at the man sitting beside you. You came so close to not making it this far, but Thorin was nothing if not determined and he loved you enough to see you through the worst days of your life. There was no one else with whom you’d rather be as you celebrated the best days, either. From adversaries, to lovers, to a family, you were where you belonged and as you looked up at Thorin, his eyes softened.

He understood.

***

Like it? Love it? If so, please love it, leave a comment, reblog it, or do all three! 💜💜💜

Tag List: @tschrist1 @i-did-not-mean-to @lathalea @bitter-sweet-farmgirl @linasofia @fizzyxcustard @legolasbadass @kibleedibleedoo @xxbyimm @arrthurpendragon @exhausted-humxn-being @rachel1959 @laurfilijames @sketch-and-write-lover @sherala007 @enchantzz @knitastically @notlostgnome @myselfandfantasy @ggfamert @medusas-hairband @guardianofrivendell @jotink78

#armitage summer splash #the hobbit #thorin oakenshield #hobbit fanfic #thorin x oc #fan fiction #richard armitage #Thorin x Reader #Thorin x OC #Thorin x you

113 notes · View notes

toomanycartoonswithnotenoughlove · 2 years

Video

youtube

Aight, since I haven’t seen someone do it yet, and this thing’s invaded my brain, shot by shot trailer breakdown time! Soundtrack of a rhythm variation of the Dies Irae, interspersed with the lyric “How You Like Me Now” throughout.

We open on an exterior shot of what looks to be a school, including a ginormous cross in a stainless steel window as someone (if we’re following book concept, probably Sister Hettie) speaks: Kat, time to face your demons.

Smash cut to presumably inside the school. Sister Hettie(?) with pupilless green eyes speaks to Kat(Most likely) also with pupilless green eyes. Hettie’s eyes act as a projector to the wall behind her, first looking at the ground, with Kat’s body motion following the initial look to ground to wall. The projection, assumably of Kat’s demon’s starts. Shot in slightly similar style to Candyman (2021)’s end credits, evocative of paper puppetry.

Young Kat is in the back of what is presumed to be a car, with parents(?) in front. Young Kat holds an apple on a stick, and tries to bite into it. Though the bite’s successful, a double headed worm (W&W?) causes young Kat to scream, making older Kat yell and reach out to her counterpart without breaking the handhold with Hettie(?) she’s kept up to now. The scream causes parents(?) to turn, possibly directly leading to the next shot, of parents in caskets, which close as a siren’s noise plays.

Text break displaying Selick and his accolades as director of Nightmare Before Christmas and Coraline. New scene of panning in within projection to “Mother Goose’s Group Home” a shoe, evocative of nursery rhymes of old, with children (9) despondent, inside and children (3) similarly saddened outside, as Mother Goose(?) gestures toward camera in the finger swipe meant to be encouraging, while the $ signs in her eyes and the score prove otherwise. Mother Goose reaches out for young Kat, older Kat recoils as, camera follows the two’s sweep into the house, and the door slamming behind. This sends older Kat back a step, as camera pans while laughter and a large chinned bowler hatted sinister figure take over now empty wall projection.

Cut from scene to new, cloud supported, nebulous floor, with Kat in pajamas(?) standing within. She apprehensively asks “Who are you? And what are you doing in my dream?” while taking a battle stance against a constantly moving, as yet unforming foe. The foe forms, two heads and two hands, telling Kat (and the viewer) that “We are Wendell and Wild.” Might just be lag, but maybe only one head speaks while they bump into each other as the other is introduced. She looks up at this, and asks “Who?” Scene change to a horse(?) drawn horse bursting from a mosuleum, as possible nightmares jump off as it flies through the air, eventually making the descent onto the ground, showing two drivers, as the

Scene changes, a sweat faced Kat apparently jumping up in bed from a dream.

Scene breaks to green eyed duo from hearse at top of stairwell, trying to push an orange topped, humanoid shaped thing down, with the thing gesturing wildly while close to falling as

Scene breaks to two nuns, sitting at a table, playing an accordion, both nuns old and wrinkled.

Scene breaks to Wendell(?) applying a cream or lotion to skeletons lying in three coffins in a graveyard. From other promotional material, it appears this cream brings things to life, of a sort.

Scene breaks to a nebulous purple hallway, similar to (I’m sorry Mr. Selick I didn’t want to but there’s no closer apt comparison) the hallway behind Coraline’s locked door, filled with more paper puppets crying out and saddened while falling.

Scene cut to Kat looking at something. Camera cuts to see what she sees.

Akin to an aquarium, with a winch attached, neon green fish wait hungrily. The paper puppets from the hallway fall in and are immediately eaten, with a first single bite seen taken out of the middle.

Scene cut to the outside of a green backlit carnival, on a limited amount of ground. The camera focuses on two roller coaster cars semi filled with paper puppets crashing as they pass from opposite directions, as familiar text (Yet again, Coraline, sorry Mr. Selick, but it is the same tagline) washes over the screen - Be Careful

Scene cut to Wendell and Wild shoving a casket out of it’s gravesite as the not horse (it has an antler) watches. Offering a close up of both the not horse and the two, previously unseen this closely in their grave robbing forms.

Text cut - What You

Scene cut to new character turning on a flamethrower, making sure the flame works

Scene cut to different new character putting full force behind a crowbar smash meant for another new character’s head

Text cut - Wish For

Scene cut to Kat, wearing a polar fleese jacket over the previous clothing, stunned, knocking two nuns, one at each side, to the ground with the duffle bag and boom box in her two hands.

Scene cut to Wendell and Wild, green eyed, being directed by a priest, possibly to violence, from the indication of weapons and body movement, with the hearse as a backdrop.

Scene cut to a library, with four, humanoid but not human, characters pushing down the doors without protest. These four, dressed as explorers, have similar shape to humans, but the cracked jawline of nutcrackers.

Scene cut to an near empty hallway in a school, lined with locker. Hettie(?) with hands raised, falls into and through the floor, with yellow cloud cover within the floor indicating further movement from her as she moves through the hallway below.

Scene cut to camera facing back of Kat, wearing the jean jacket and many belted skirt of most promotional material thus far, walking down a school hallway, boombox raised to ear, as camera pans back and spins, with her as the focal point, still behind her

Scene cut to outside of school, as the camera speeds backwards towards a graveyard, possibly the one seen before. A voice calls “I’m coming for you.” Horns of a sort break through the ground in tempo with the music.

Fade to black. Kat speaks. “Everyone’s got demons. My demons have names” as the spoken of names, the title of the film, Wendell and Wild, appears text. Quick credits play.

Yes, I am extremely excited for this. Yes, I will be hyping this movie up for the next two months while only expecting what we’ve seen thus far from it.

#wendell and wild #long post #trailer breakdown

23 notes · View notes

bridgertonbabe · 2 years

Note

What was Sophie’s pregnancy wobble? Im very curious and to see how Colin helped her through it!

*Trigger warning: this post contains mentions of an eating disorder.*

So for context, the night Francesca informed everyone that she and Michael were a couple, Sophie and Benedict had been planning to announce that they were having a baby. Following Francesca and Michael's news, Phillip announcing his and Eloise's engagement, and Colin's subsequent rage, Sophie and Benedict took one look at each other and silently decided that now was not the time to be revealing her pregnancy.

When Colin had then been released from his incapacitation he had popped off on a rant aimed at the three couples made up of his siblings and best friends. Eloise didn't help matters by arguing that Colin was only mad because he was jealous, that he was the one who had never been in a serious relationship, and that he was merely taking his frustrations out on all of them due to his own inadequacies and insecurities. Colin was only left more belligerent when not one of his friends came to his defence, all of them appearing to have sided with Eloise. He had raged back, leading to Michael, Phillip, and Francesca to join in with the quarrel. Sophie was the one to try to settle things down and have Colin's back, feeling bad that he was being ganged up on. She tried to raise his spirits by assuring him that he too would find love, to which Colin retorted by spitefully suggesting that perhaps like Benedict he'd fall in love with some pathetic girl who had been pining after him for years. His harsh words had not only hurt Sophie but also Penelope, who had overheard him and felt that this declaration was the final nail in the coffin of Colin ever liking her back. Sophie didn't say another word but looked away from her best friend to hide her upset, slipping her hand into her husband's before Benedict, with a parting glare at his brother, disapparated them home.

Colin wasn't on speaking terms with any of his friends or the siblings they were in relationships with for a few weeks following this incident. He had been visiting Aubrey Hollow when he overheard Violet and Daphne excitedly discussing plans for a baby shower but upon enquiring about who was having a baby, his mother and sister fell silent. Violet was then the one to break it to him that Sophie was having a baby, leaving him stunned. Apparently everyone else knew, having been informed at a family dinner Sophie and Benedict had thrown - one he had never been invited to.

He sulked for several days, despite the rational voice in his head acknowledging that his childish behaviour, what he had thrown in Sophie's face the last time he saw her, and not to mention the general dissonant support he had given the couple had done nothing to warrant him deserving to be included in their happy news. Nevertheless, the petulant brat in him wanted to lash out and confront Sophie and Benedict for being left out.

Colin apparated to My Cottage, wanting answers and a chance to vent his agitation, but the home was empty - or so he thought. He had been about to turn and leave when he heard noises from the bathroom. The door had been left ajar and when he peeked in he found Sophie hunched over the toilet, spilling her guts out in between broken sobs.

All at once his resentment disappeared and he rushed to her side, trying his best to soothe her as he rubbed her back and pulled her hair away from her face. When her stomach had finished ridding itself of all its contents, Sophie continued to cry.

"I hate it." she choked. "I hate this so much. I can't keep anything down. It hurts, Col. It really hurts. I hate feeling the stomach acid burning in my throat."

"I know, Soph."

"And I feel awful every time I eat..." she confessed. "It feels like seventh year all over again and I'm back to being that sad loser... hiding out in the girls' bathroom and making myself sick with Moaning fucking Myrtle for company... I feel disgusting. I feel so so disgusting." she wailed.

Colin's heart broke for her as suddenly he was transported nearly ten years earlier, back when Sophie had first broken down and told them about her eating problems. She had suffered so terribly and to know she was reliving that ordeal made him feel awful. What was even worse was that Sophie had never previously mentioned making herself sick back then. She had talked openly with them as she received counselling and he thought she had shared everything with them, but apparently not. All they had known was that she had been starving herself and avoiding mealtimes so she wouldn't be tempted to eat.

"I... I only did it a few times." Sophie's voice wobbled, as if she had read his mind. "Just in that week when we came back from Christmas. I... I just wanted to feel beautiful but every time after I threw up I had never felt uglier. And I hate that I feel like that again. I can't bear this." she shook her head dispiritedly.

"Soph." Colin uttered helplessly, having no idea what to say to make her feel better, to pull her out of this psychological rut.

"I just want this to be over. I don’t want to feel like this any longer." she sobbed wretchedly. "This sickness is killing me... but I don’t want my negative thoughts to affect the baby... I can’t miscarry... not again..."

It felt like someone had stabbed Colin right in the stomach, not only hearing his best friend’s utter despair but learning that she had already suffered the loss of a pregnancy. While he felt an initial pang for not having known anything about Sophie previously being with child, he was far more overwhelmed with guilt. There was the selfish guilt that he had pushed Sophie and Benedict so far with his lack of support for their relationship that they didn’t feel comfortable sharing personal information with him, but overwhelmingly the guilt he felt was due to Sophie’s suffering and being unable to do anything, not even waving his wand could cure her or give her any peace of mind.

The only thing he could think to do was pull Sophie against his chest and let her cry into him, holding her close and continuing to stroke her back soothingly. Eventually she exhausted herself out from all her sorrow and Colin helped her to her feet and walked her to the bedroom. As he carefully got her into her bed, he observed her small exposed bump and he felt his heart swelling with warmth at the thought of the tiny baby Sophie was carrying.

"I’m sorry." Sophie’s voice trembled as he tucked her in. "You must think I’m so pathetic,"

"No." Colin instantly cut her off. "Absolutely not, Soph. You’re far from pathetic. You’re the strongest person I know. Never, ever think that about yourself. What I said to you the last time I saw you was completely out of line. I’m the one who’s pathetic, not you. Never you, Soph. I unfairly lashed out at you when you were the only person who tried to comfort me, and for that I’m so sorry. I’ve been the world’s lousiest friend and you deserve far better than that."

"You were just upset." she said quietly, still trying to be kind and assuring to him when he didn’t deserve it.

"But I had no right to act like such a dick. You all deserved better. Michael, Phillip, Eloise, Fran, and Ben. I’ve always been the one causing an issue all because... all because Eloise was right. I’m jealous of what you all have. I feel like I’m being left behind - but still I have no right to take it out on all of you."

"You know we all love you, Colin." Sophie grasped his hand in hers. "We all just want you to be happy."

"I know that... and I should be. For having the friends and family that I have who love me unconditionally, even when I don’t deserve it... and I really am happy for you all. You all deserve it. Especially you, Soph. You’re going to be the best mum. That little bump has no idea how lucky they are to have a mum like you."

"Thank you." she gave him a small watery smile and he pecked her cheek.

He then got up to let her rest but her hand grasped a hold of his.

"Do you have to go?" she croaked. "Can you stay? I... I don’t want to be alone."

Colin didn’t hesitate to lie down next to her and let her cuddle into his side - it was so rare for Sophie to ever ask of anything and there was no way in hell he’d ever turn his back on her in her loneliest hour. He continued to stroke her back until he heard her breathing evening out and felt the soft air against his chest to know she had fallen asleep. Even though he could have slipped out, he stayed, not wanting her to wake up alone. He had nearly drifted off himself when he heard a crack from downstairs.

Moments later Benedict creaked open the door and looked in. Colin held up his hand in greeting before gently drawing out of Sophie’s hold and creeping out of the room.

"Where’ve you been?" he asked Benedict, not in an accusatory tone, but of genuine curiosity.

"I had a meeting with a gallery." Benedict answered, his eyes remaining on Sophie tucked up in bed. "I had already put it off but she insisted I go. It’s a good opportunity."

"How’d it go?"

"They’re... they’re giving me an exhibition."

"Merlin’s Beard, Ben! That’s fantastic!" Colin enthused in a quiet voice as they remained hovering in the bedroom doorway.

"Thanks." Benedict smiled modestly. "How’s she been?" he then asked, his brow furrowed with concern.

"I found her in the bathroom. She was really upset,"

"I know." Benedict sighed sadly. "It kills me to see her like this. When I was out I actually tracked down this little store," he began to explain and held up the paper bag he was holding, "they specialise in enchanting food that can’t be regurgitated. It comes highly recommended for people suffering from sickness in the early stages of their pregnancy so I’m just praying to the heavens above that it’ll do the trick."

Colin found himself with a lump in his throat as he listened to his brother and watched how Benedict’s gaze remained unwavering on his poorly wife with all the love in the world.

"Thank you."

Benedict finally tore his gaze away from Sophie and to his brother, his brow raised quizzically in response to what Colin had just uttered.

"For what?"

"For loving her the way you do. For making her happy. For being the best husband in the world." Colin replied. "Sophie deserves the world and I wanted nothing but the very best for her... and I’ve been the biggest idiot to not realise and fully accept that there’s no one else better for her than you. All you’ve ever done is love her, Ben, and I’m sorry for the way I’ve acted towards not just you but to Sophie and your relationship."

Memories flashed through Colin’s head right from the moment Sophie had come into their lives and for the first time, as if a fog of distortion had been lifted to allow him to see properly, he could now look back and pinpoint so many little moments between Benedict and Sophie that he had missed.

Right from the off it had been Benedict who had brought their mother’s attention to the shy and nervous little girl who was all alone in the middle of Kings Cross station. It had been Benedict who had always asked after Sophie in passing conversation, who had brought her back sweets from Hogsmeade, who had spent the entirety of the first Quidditch match Sophie had ever watched explaining everything and pointing things out to her. It was Benedict who had immediately jumped to help Colin go and rescue Sophie in the summer before second year, he was the one who had convinced Anthony to drive the car, and he was the one who had subconciously magicked Sophie’s abusive stepmother away with a sudden gust of wind when she had gone to hit her. Benedict was the one who put more thought into her birthday and Christmas presents, Benedict was the one who told Colin off when Sophie was too polite to ask him to stop distracting her when she was trying to study, Benedict was the one who had taken a Bludger for Sophie during the first Quidditch match she had ever played which had consequently allowed her to catch the snitch and win the match. Colin also suddenly remembered how mopey his brother had been following the Yule ball, how much moodier and out of sorts he was, how he had seen Benedict’s eyes shining with even greater sadness only when he looked at Sophie. Benedict had been the one to notice Sophie wasn’t eating normally over the Christmas break, had been the one to hold Sophie for the longest out of the family before they departed on their interrailing adventure, had been the one who couldn’t take his eyes off of her during Michael’s birthday in Greece. In the week leading up to Daphne’s wedding it had been Benedict who had helped Sophie make the dinners, who had picked her to be on his team for the family game of Quidditch, who had seemed peeved everytime Colin joined them on the sofa or for a walk or down in the kitchen for a snack in the middle of the night. And then of course once they had gotten together Benedict’s smile had never been wider, his mood permanently on cloud nine, his joy unbridled and unparalleled when he announced they were engaged and again for the entirety of their wedding.

How Colin had managed to be so blind for the first eleven years, not once picking up on the innate love that radiated out of his brother for Sophie was staggering to him (and that’s not to mention the willful ignorance he had stubbornly stuck with for the last four years as he chose to believe that Benedict’s love wasn’t genuine). The signs had always been there, had always been available for him to use some critical thinking and connect the pieces by himself, and yet he had missed them all completely. Benedict’s love for Sophie came so naturally, was so pure, and it had always been so clear to see, just as the sun in the sky was, and for the life of him Colin would never figure out how he had failed so spectacularly to notice it.

"I’ve acted like a massive brat for the last four years when I had no good reason to be. You’re the most thoughtful, soulful, and compassionate person I know, Ben. You treat Sophie the way that she deserves to be treated, and you’re going to be the best father, without a doubt."

At the same time they both lurched forward into a brotherly hug, patting each other on the back as Benedict let out a sigh of relief.

"Thank you." Benedict replied.

"What for? For not being a dick?" Colin jested as he pulled back.

"Well... yeah. " Benedict couldn’t help but agree and the pair shared a quiet chuckle.

As a further extension of his olive branch, Colin then offered to cook dinner for them using what Benedict had bought while his brother had a cuddle with his wife. When Colin went to fetch the couple later he found them curled up together in bed, talking happily as Benedict’s hand rested on her small bump.

The brothers had explained that hopefully she would be able to keep her food down though the pair could tell how apprehensive Sophie was still as she gazed down at her meal almost with fear. They let her take her time knowing how she was struggling to even enjoy eating any food as of late since she had grown accustomed to bringing it all back up, but little by little, bite after bite, Sophie managed to finish her plate. After dinner they chatted and caught up, trying to keep Sophie’s mind off of what was or wasn’t going on in her stomach as they waited to see if the charmed food had worked.

It wasn’t until midnight that Colin even noticed what the time was as conversation between the three of them had breezed by, and it was only then that Sophie’s face lit up as she registered the fact that she hadn’t been sick - the food had worked and this time when Sophie cried it was with joy and relief. She had pulled the brothers into a group hug but Colin had slipped away and let Benedict be the sole receiver of the embrace seeing as the food had all been his idea. Sophie still ensured she gave Colin a hug, thanking him for cooking the meal for her as well as being there for her and staying when she asked him. Before he left Benedict also hugged him and quietly thanked his brother for taking care of Sophie.

"It’s the very least I could do." Colin insisted. "Especially after being an absolute dick to you guys."

"Col, you might be a bit of a dick; but you’re our dick." Benedict had grinned. "And I’m just grateful that during those eleven years when I was too stupid to act upon my feelings and tell Sophie I loved her, she always had you to shower her with love and attention. You’re her best friend, Colin; you’re a good person, and you’re going to be a great uncle, without a doubt. So long as you don’t turn try turning him or her into a weasel, that is."

"Ugh, you’re never going to let that one go, are you?"

#asks #harry potter au #tw eating issues #benophie #colin bridgerton #sophie beckett #bridgerton drabble

14 notes · View notes

cantkeepupwiththejoneses · 21 days

Text

She Died Sunday

Sunday my baby sister died. Sunday, she went with her husband and stood beside him, lied and died. No sooner she spoke the words her life left her and what i touched after that day was a cold corpse walking without a soul or heart. She died. She said she told us everything. She defended a lie. She stood next to chaos and chose to be alienated with her person. Therefore she died. She chose to lose herself and fall to the whims of the rich and life of smoke and mirrors. She died. She decided to not speak and not be honest. She chose the death of a lie. And forever will lie in the grave. Instagram pictures with nice clothes. A big house with a grand floor. Next comes a new baby in a toxic fake happy family. She will be born to a dead mother. She will be born to an empty home. Maybe its a he. Because another she will only cause more hatred in the coffin she lays. Life without working. A life without peace. She died. Or maybe I died. Maybe I am the one in the grave. All I see is darkness. All I see is hatred and fuming rage for a life that I have put into. That has fell in corruption. I choke of the putrid smell of the air that should be breath coating the words "I love you". I am reaching and scratching at the edges of the wood panels to get light. Because I can't die like this. I want to live and I want to breath. I want to dance how I feel should be right. I should be able to stretch and laugh out loud for the sky to accept my joy. I want to walk to the beat of the music I have finally created for myself. I want to share my life with those I love and those I cherish. But I have been forced into this dark and damp box. Cold, lifeless, dark. A coffin. She killed me. She didn't die. She killed me. Her words didn't kill her they killed me. They snuffed me out. The flame has been doused. The will to keep on has be ripped from my hands and thrown to an unknown place with no tracker. The feelings won't die down and they hatred is starting to boil over into everything else that I hold dear. I have to get out of this box. There has to be a way. Someone direct me so that I can live. There is no way I will die in this hole with no way out. I have grown out of this once. I found the sun. I had help. i appreciate it. Do I need to scream? Do I need to exhaust all of the avenues? Where are the avenues? Which street is it? Is there a map? No here is no map. There is only endless space and time. When someone dies all you can do is wait for the pain to ease up so you can breathe. Maybe its time to let the relationship die. And wait for time to ease the pain so I can get out of the box. But as I wait. I won't set still either. I will slowly carve my way back out of the box and out of the ground. A coffin isn't for those with a will to live. Only for those that want to live in a box

#storytime #pain #grief #relationships #sister #death

0 notes

corpsentry · 3 years

Text

ao3 mirror

fandom: age of calamity, botw rating: g starring: prince sidon and mipha note: spoilers for both games

"You know, Daruk’s my idol,” Yunobo says. He pumps his fists in the air like a kid at a fun fair in line for the big pirate ship ride. “They say he was the coolest Goron there ever was. Plus he had a beard. I think beards are awesome.”

“Great,” Sidon says. He stops peeling the mandarin in his hands for long enough to look up blankly at him. "Mipha was my sister."

the age of calamity, side b.

The thing about time travel is, even if someone stands in front of you and tells you point-blank that there’s a way to bring your dead sister back to life, you’re probably not going to believe them.

“I don’t believe you,” says Sidon.

“Okay,” Teba says patiently, fluffing his feathers with an absent glide of his wing. “Try harder.”

Sidon stares at him. He tries harder, though he’s not sure what that entails and so doesn’t end up really doing anything. “I don’t get you.”

“Which part don’t you get?”

“I get to see Mipha again?”

Teba’s eyebrow twitches. “Let me put this as simply as I can, Prince,” he says, a little too loudly. The soldier stationed at the bottom of the staircase turns to look at them. “We’re going to go back to the point a hundred years ago at which the four champions were killed in their divine beasts. We’re going to save them. We’re going to make sure they defeat Ganon before he can send Hyrule into ruin. And then we’re going to leave.”

By now, they’ve caught everyone’s attention. It’s been a long time since a hundred years ago, but here in Zora’s Domain it still feels like the events of last Tuesday, to be recounted over salt tea and fish skewers, to be mourned over an empty coffin. Everyone’s staring at the big white bird with the angry eyebrows, a little curious, a little apprehensive. For what he’s worth, Teba is indifferent. This much will not faze him.

Sidon twiddles his thumbs behind his back, where Teba cannot see them and the guards at the bottom of the staircase can point and laugh all they want. To be honest, he heard nothing. His heart stopped when he heard ‘killed in their divine beasts’, at which point a watery monster punched its way into his skull and crushed his brain. The monster is nothing concrete, nothing crystal-clear, just what little Link has told him, bits and pieces of a history he was prevented from taking part in. It’s been several months since the kid dragged his beaten-up body halfway across Hyrule and kicked Ganon’s ass, though they’re still feeling the after-effects of that particular calamity today. Mipha’s statue still looms over their heads, a reminder of what it means to die alone and far away from home.

“So,” Sidon starts, hearing his voice echoing in his ears like metal slicing through air. “What you’re saying is, I get to see Mipha again.”

Teba looks like he wants to grab one of the guards’ spears and stab Sidon in the face, but for what he’s worth, he reigns it in. “Yes.”

“Okay.” He grins. “I’m in.”

He tried to fight a lynel when he was fifteen. The domain had been overrun with monsters who had arrived for the pre-party to Ganon’s return, including an outstanding number of wizzrobes, several moblins, and a tall, intimidating figure which spat electricity from its pink-tongued mouth and whose name he couldn’t recall. While his father, the king, and his sister, the princess, breezed through the area like a lightning strike, reclaiming keeps and stabbing moblins with silver teeth so their generals could forge a path ahead, Sidon reveled in the wonder of being left unsupervised at four a.m. in the morning. And then heard the familiar, haunting roar of a lynel. And then decided to go and say hi.

It was a mistake, of course. The lynel was so tall he couldn’t make out the gear on its back. Its face was all squished up, like a birthday cake that had been stepped on, and its horns were too big for its thick, blocky nose. This was funny for all of five seconds. Then the lynel extracted a bow from that unknowable space behind it and aimed the sharp end of an arrow at his face, and it became a problem.

“H-h-h-hi,” said Sidon, holding up his Kid Spear, which was strictly for Kid Use Only, and had the offensive capabilities of a stick.

“RHOOARHGHHGHH,” said the lynel.

He jabbed the Kid Spear at the lynel’s leg. The lynel spat at him, though probably unintentionally, as it seemed preoccupied with the arrow it was trying to send into his face. It was stuck. The big scary lynel’s bow was stuck.

Emboldened by the stupid scary lynel’s broken bow, Sidon decided to try again. “Please go away, Mr. Lynel,” he said in his best and most charming Kid Prince voice, twirling his Kid Spear like a sweet jellyfish skewer.

“RHOAHOARHAGHOGHHHH,” said the lynel, who sounded significantly angrier than before.

“I understand,” Sidon said politely, and then closed his eyes and sent a prayer to the goddess Hylia (the way he had been taught to since he was old enough to speak, the way every child in Hyrule knew that there was a place for them to go to after they left this world behind). He braced for impact, which he hoped would be of the violent sort, earth-shattering and brisk enough to break his bones and leave nothing breathing in its wake. He was fifteen, not five. This was Ganon’s era. Every living creature in Hyrule knew this, the way their ancestors woke up and knew which direction the sun would rise from. Not if, but when. When the Calamity strikes. When your people die. When the knight emerges from the woods with the sacred sword in his hand, and saves you all.

But none came. When he opened his eyes, and he did so reluctantly, adrenalin coursing through his veins like thunder, the world was pitch black. In place of the cool blue moon was his sister, her ceremonial gear glittering darkly, the Lightscale Trident glowing like a star in her right hand.

“Holy shit,” whispered Sidon the kid. Mipha stabbed the lynel in the face.

She hugged him when it was all over and they had put the moblins and the wizzrobes and the electric moblin (so that’s what it was! Terrifying) back to sleep. Their father was upset, but he was frequently upset at Sidon and so it didn’t bother him as much as it could have. Sidon was not Mipha. It was all right if he got things wrong, as long as his sister never did. Coincidentally, the Hylian princess had been in the area at the time of the attack, accompanied by a knight with blue eyes and a Sheikah warrior who looked like she would throw a knife at a fish for sport. It was a good thing Mipha had been at home, and not visiting one of the other tribes or hunting for crabs near Lurelin. It was a good thing she had intervened when she had, lest the pre-party become the real thing.

“Thank you,” said the Hylian princess, trying her best to smooth her brow and failing. She looked anxious, though she had only come to pass on her father’s word, though the word that she had brought was victory.

Mipha smiled at her with a face full of sun. “It is my pleasure.”

He wishes the egg could talk. If the egg could talk then Teba would have less reason to talk, and if Teba talked less then Sidon would have less of a raging headache, which which would make him less of an asshole, which would make their discussions go much more smoothly than the janky, sputtering mess they’ve been all week.

“As I was saying,” says Teba, continuing whatever train of thought he picked up on their way up to Goron City and then dumped unceremoniously by the side of the road. As he does this, Death Mountain spits a chunk of lava out of its steaming gaping top, which lands a few inches shy of his breastplate. He hops backwards without missing a beat and begins fanning himself with one wing.

Riju stops fiddling with the diamond circlet in her hands for long enough to give him a look of inquiry. “As you were saying?”

“I can’t wait to see Daruk.” Yunobo scratches his arm. It makes a sound like two large boulders grinding together. Riju drops the circlet.

“You’re only going to see him for a short while,” Teba comments over the sound of the egg blowing its top at Riju and Sidon plugging his ears with his fingers. “No point getting all worked up about it.”

“You’re just as worked up yourself,” Riju counters. Patricia barks. Teba flinches.

This is true. There are two things Teba won’t shut up about. In ascending order of importance, they are 1) when they should depart for the alternate timeline in which they will prevent their respective ancestors from getting their spirits trapped in giant mechanical monsters for a hundred years, and 2) how incredible Revali is. Because Revali was the most powerful Rito warrior that ever walked the land (or flew over it, or blasted bomb arrows at it, whatever). Revali singlehandedly invented an entire style of aerial combat which involves launching yourself into the air with an updraft that defies the laws of the universe and then setting your surroundings on fire. Revali killed god.

Teba looks like he wants to go back to his wife and kid in Rito village. Good for him. Not all of them have bodies to put in coffins. “I just want to meet him once,” he says quietly.

Yunobo laughs, and it sounds like two extra large boulders grinding together. “Me too, brother.” He picks up the diamond circlet from the floor and puts it on his head like some kind of weird hat. “I’m going to tell Daruk how great he is. And then I’m going to go home.”

One time when they were much, much younger, before he woke up one morning and Mipha was three times his height, one of the guards brought back some durians. The durians were misshapen and spiky and smelled intimidating, though Sidon wouldn’t go as far as to say that the smell was unpleasant. The guard had obtained them from a merchant in the Faron region. He hadn’t meant to purchase them, but they were the last of her stock and she said she could only head home once she had sold everything. He empathized her.

At first they tried to open the durians with their hands, but this only produced several pricked fingers and left ominous and eerily substantial bloodstains everywhere, so someone brought out a spear, almost drove it through the table, and someone else brought out a carving knife. Halfway through the spectacle of watching one of the guards, who was thirty-seven and enjoyed collecting glowing stones as a hobby, attempt to de-spike an entire durian, the crowd parted abrutpyl.

“What are you all doing?” Mipha put her hand absently on Sidon’s head. He had been watching the ongoing debacle out of some kind of morbid curiosity, standing on tip-toes so he could peek over the top of the table, though now he had apparently been relegated to armrest.

“Trying to open this durian, your highness.”

Mipha laughed. His sister’s laugh was a delicate, heartrending affair, like trying to pull weeds from the bottom of a lake without breaking them at the stem. The weather at home was always more or less divine, but whenever Mipha laughed, Sidon swore it blasted a hole right through the clouds. If there were no clouds, then the hole appeared in the fabric of the sky instead. Mipha, at her brightest, was a walking catastrophe of sun.

Still chuckling a little, like she’d been made privy to a secret that none of them knew about, Mipha stepped up to the cutting board. “You have to do it like this,” she said cheerfully, digging her fingers into a seam in the durian’s shell like she’d been dealing with danger all her life.

Cue gasping. Cue the horrors of childbirth.

The durian was sweet. It was also a little goopy, but Sidon was no stranger to things which stuck to your fingers and refused to let go (he was one of those objects when it came to his sister, who he could rarely be found more than an arm’s length away from on any given day), so he felt for the little spiky fruit, and decided that he would make an effort to bring some back home when he went traveling himself in the future. While he examined the inside of the durian’s shell, which had been hollowed of fruit and had the texture of rough sandpaper, the guards crowded around Mipha and demanded that she share her secret to not getting stabbed to death by the fierce and terrifying durian. But either she didn’t know how to explain it to them, or they weren’t very good at listening, because she remained the only one capable of cracking open a durian with her bare hands for many, many years, up until she died while fighting a watery manifestation of Ganon inside the divine beast she had been told by the king of Hyrule to pilot to victory’s end. Then it was someone else’s turn to take over.

Painkillers for fish are a tricky affair. To begin with, charmingly little research has been conducted into the biology of the fish-person because the Zoras simply aren’t interested in how their bodies work, and while others have offered to do so in their place, among them several enthusiastic Sheikah researchers and one Hylian with a thing for huge glowing orbs, his people have never cared enough to give their consent. It’s a unique kind of apathy, one which stems from a place of privilege, or denial. They are, as a general statement of fact, very good at both.

“This will help.” Yunobo hands him a rock roast. Where did Yunobo get a rock roast from? Sidon frowns. They’re in the middle of the desert.

“Thanks,” Sidon says. Smiles. Kind of, like, holds the roast up to his mouth and gives it a sniff. It doesn’t smell half as good as durian. He puts it down.

It takes him several days to make sense of the convoluted sequence of events that Teba presented to him that day on the front door of the world he had rebuilt from scratch, surrounded by mystique and glamor and promising, in a breath of cold air, to bring his dead sister back to life. This makes it sound like he’s finished making sense of it all and will thus never be confused ever again, but if he’s to be entirely honest, he still doesn’t get it. He wants to. He’s scared to. He won’t look Teba in the eye.

“We should get going soon, don’t you think?” says Riju, who is twelve and somehow more put-together than all four of them combined. She pulls another book from the shelf and leaves it on the pile on the desk.

Yunobo shrugs loudly. “Doesn’t make a difference when we leave, does it? We could leave for Hyrule in twenty years, and we’d still end up at the same place.”

“But I want to save them,” Riju says earnestly. The pile behind her has been growing all afternoon, and will soon overtake her in height if she is not stopped. Mission preparation looks like archaeological excavation when you’re traveling backwards in time, and not forwards to some yet unknown destination. Ancient Sheikah records. Research journals. The writings of people who were obsessed with the events of a hundred years ago despite having no personal investment to speak of, and whose words carry with them a hint of reverence, even as they choreograph the funeral song of the old king. This is all that’s left of those ruins, aside from Link, who they’ve all quietly decided to keep uninformed of the current proceedings. Hyrule itself has been kept in the dark. No need for them to know about the maybes and the what-ifs and the could-have-beens. No need for more people to go crazy.

Sidon shuts the book in his hands with a thud. “But why?”

Riju’s eyes go wide. Drama queen. “Why what?”

Sidon opens his mouth, closes it, and opens it again. There’s a heat rash on the back of his neck which he can’t quite reach on his own. The elders had warned him about the desert, but the charm he received from Link has proven to be effective in all areas except for maintaining good skincare. He blinks dumbly at Riju, who has begun to flicker like the glassy surface of a pond. His eyes hurt.

“I mean, why do you.” His eyes hurt. His throat hurts. There’s something large and horrible stuck in his chest, and he can’t get it out. “Why do you want to save them?” There’s a durian in his rib cage. It must have lodged itself there when Teba glared at him like he was an idiot as he came face to face with the cruel reality of the universe, and it dawned on him like a dead body falling out of the sky that he would get to see Mipha one last time, and then he would have to come back. To a Hyrule without her. To the stupid stuck-up world that had to try again and again and again, coughing up blood and dragging itself through the dirt on bruised knees, before it could defeat the monster. “It’s not like they’ll come back to life,” he says, each word a silver knife in his mouth. “They’ll stay dead here. They’re already dead.”

Silence.

Riju has let everything go, including the diamond circlet, the topaz earrings, and three volumes sheathed in gold. Yunobo’s mouth is open so wide, you could stick your head inside and take a look around if you leaned in close enough. For the first time since he met him, Teba is at a loss for words. His chest rises and falls erratically, his hand on the bookshelf quivering, his eyebrows doing a little dance on his forehead. He’s sweating. Of course he is. They’re in the desert.

Riju, Hylia bless her soul, is the first to speak.

“It’s the spirit of things,” she says softly. She looks sadder than any twelve-year-old should ever have to look. But then and again, Sidon was barely old enough to hold a spear with both hands when his sister died and everything went to shit. Then and again, everything goes away eventually.

Sidon stares at her helplessly for a moment, gulping the humid air of the library like a fish out of water, then gives up and walks out of the room. He spends the rest of the afternoon blowing bubbles in the pool beside Kara Kara Bazaar while the other three continue their work, and then buys a durian from one of the vendors and hacks it open with his spear. You can’t crack open a durian with your bare hands, unless you’re Mipha, in which case you can do anything. It’s a good thing, then, that she’s gone.

When they were children and they got into trouble, his father would always scold Mipha far more harshly than Sidon. Mipha was the older sibling, after all. She should know better. This dynamic remained firmly established between them even as Mipha grew into her role as princess, future ruler, and eventually, champion. Of course, the reprimandings grew less stern, but Sidon had a penchant for winding up in places he wasn’t supposed to be in and Mipha had a penchant for being with him whenever this happened. He secretly resolved to pay her back when he got older and was finally able to stand up to his father, and therefore explain that most of the things they got into trouble for were his idea. He would be the one to weep at his father’s feet while his sister looked on with a horrified expression, and in that moment she would understand how much he loved her.

Then she died. You can’t tell the story of Mipha without this part. Mipha was a humble, kind girl, and then she died. Mipha could crack open a durian with her bare hands, and then she died. Mipha was the pride of their people, and then she died, and she died, and she died.

You can’t change the past with the wave of a hand. You’re not a bird. You’re not a fortune-teller. You’re a fish-person with an empty coffin for a sister, and in a few weeks’ time, you’re going to save her specter.

“...What if I brought her back with me?”

“Huh?”

“Hahajustkidding. No way I’d do that. Not a chance.”

“Um. Do you need painkillers?”

“Thanks, but they don’t work on me. I’m over a hundred years old, you see. Us Zoras, we’re different.”

The day before departure. They’re back at Zora’s domain. It’s raining. Teba is running through a checklist of items to bring with them which is so long, he has to hold it above his head to prevent it from touching the floor. Riju is feeding Patricia mandarin peels.

“You know, Sidon.”

Sidon looks up from his mandarin. “Mm?”

Yunobo grins at him. “Daruk’s my idol,” he says proudly. He pumps his fists in the air like a kid at a fun fair in line for the big pirate ship ride. “They say he was the coolest Goron there ever was. Plus he had a beard. I think beards are awesome.”

“Great,” says Sidon, as enthusiastically as he can, because he genuinely wants to be happy for Yunobo who is finally going to meet his idol and has clearly dreamed about this moment for some time. He wants to be happy for all of them. He fucking wants to. This is a rescue mission, not the imprisonment Princess Zelda walked into in Hyrule castle, not the hundred-year nap Link took on the Great Plateau. This is a happy ending, even if it’s not theirs.

Daruk the idol. Urbosa the warrior. Revali the bird. Sidon pictures them in his head, the way Link described them to him once, his voice carrying across the water like beams of light.

“Mipha was—”

He stops peeling the mandarin in his hands, his nails still embedded in the soft skin of it, the white-tinged flesh peeking out like a wound. Outside, the rain keeps falling. A river of tears from the sky.

Yunobo tilts his head to the side. “Mipha was?”

Mipha was the pride of their people. Mipha was the first person he wanted to live forever. Mipha was the only one he knew who could crack open a durian with her bare hands, like she was peeling open the heart of a monster, only to reveal that it had been something soft and scared all along. Mipha was a flesh-and-blood person. Mipha was the light of their world. Mipha is an empty coffin with a name inscribed on the lid, a house with the lights off, a memory drenched in ocean.

Yunobo prods his shoulder, though he barely feels a thing. “Mipha was?” he repeats kindly, herding him along to the end of the line, to the boat at the edge of the water.

Sidon puts the mandarin away. He stares long and hard at Yunobo, and hopes that his eyes will convey the wound his body no longer knows how to carry.

“Mipha was my sister.”

Let’s say you’ve been entrusted with the future of your kingdom. There’s a bad guy coming, and everyone’s scared to death, so you learn how to pilot this big robotic elephant which shoots turrets of water like a machine gun, and you get really good at it, and when the bad guy arrives on your new friend’s birthday suddenly you can’t do it anymore. You’re trapped inside the giant elephant. You’re bleeding out all over the floor. Your chest hurts like something awful, and your vision is beginning to blur. Sensing your despair, the monster closes in on you, wielding that big blue trident like fury. It holds the sky up over your head, and as it does so you close your eyes. You send a prayer to the goddess Hylia (the way you have been taught to since you were old enough to hold your little brother in your arms, the way every child in Hyrule knows that there is a place for them to go to after they leave this world behind). You brace for impact, which you hope will be the gentle sort, a slap to the wrist that’s conclusive enough to break your bones and leave nothing breathing in its wake. You’re twenty, not five. This is the end of all things as you know it. Every living creature in Hyrule knows this, the way their ancestors woke up one day and knew that this world would come to ruin. Not if, but when. When the Calamity strikes. When everyone you’ve ever loved dies. When you walk into the mouth of the elephant, and the elephant changes its mind, and decides to keep you in its belly forever.

None arrives. You open your eyes slowly, hesitantly, fear a living memory in your bones, but you are not faced with the stinging end of a trident. In its place is a boy almost three times your height, his eyes glittering darkly, the spear in his right hand shining like a star.

He is not your brother. But, Hylia bless you all, he is.

So what can you say, when the evil has been defeated and you are standing on the balcony of the castle, smiling up at him through tears while this big overgrown baby stares at you like you’re the answer to the universe, except:

We’ll definitely meet again, won’t we?

He flinches, but you don’t ask, and he doesn’t say why. He pulls you into an earth-shattering, bone-crushing hug. It’s a beautiful day to be alive, the sun shining like sin, Hyrule’s beaten but stubbornly breathing carcass laughing up at you from the fields below. He takes your hands in his. He’s shivering. He’s shaking from head to toe.

Of course, he says in the kindest, saddest voice you’ve ever heard, though he has only come to pass on someone else’s words, though the word he has brought is salvation. From now on, I’ll always be by your side.

: : : : :

You smile at him with a face full of stars.

117 notes · View notes

queenofthefullmoon · 4 years

Text

An exhaustive list of Dark Souls 3 bosses I would or would not date

Iudex/Champion Gundyr

We’re starting off this list with a strong yes. Our boy Gundyr has had a hard, difficult life, and he deserves some good company. He’s tall, strong, and I trust him to protect us as we set a lovely camp site outside of the fire link shrine.

Vordt of the Boreal Valley

Vordt is big and he is feral which are truly the only two qualities I look for in a man. Together we’d be unstoppable. I mean, think about how easy it would be to go around with him: just climb on his back and let the rodeo begin, baby. This argument alone should be enough to convince you that Vordt is a suitable boyfriend, but here’s another one: if you get too hot in the summer, worry fucking not for your gigantic man can hold his equally gigantic hammer over you and cover you with snow like an italian man covering his pasta with parmesan.

Cursed Rotted Greatwood

Now while I’m certain it would be a perfect partner for some people, the Cursed Rotted Greatwood isn’t for me. For one, I am not fan of curses, or rot, or weird sticky balls, or strange orange acid, or pale white and slightly viscous hands bursting through a living tree. Secondly, I feel like the crowd of Hollows who group up around the tree would be a big impediment to our intimacy, and I’m not ready to be the mother of 20 Hollows.

Crystal Sage

No offense but you’d be an idiot for not wanting to date the Crystal Sage. All wrapped up in one package, you get a super competent sorcerer bf, who wears the coolest hat in the galaxy and an equally cool cape, and who overall looks like the upgraded version of a plague doctor. In addition to that he also has a pretty rapier so you can both engage in some sparring (which we all know is the most romantic couple activity).

Deacons of the Deep

Probably one of the worst options on the list, they’re all crusty, rotting men moaning around a biggass coffin. There are many technical questions. If I dated a deacon, would I have to date all of them? Can we go out on dates or are they obligated to stay next to the coffin at all times? Can I even date them at all?? Not that I would, because I have standards. The only pro to entering this relationship(s?) would be that I’d probably get one of their robes for free, but the cons are so numerous that I’d rather buy it myself.

Abyss Watchers

Let’s be real and honest even if it hurts. Would I date an Abyss Watcher? Yes. Maybe I’d even date two. However, would an Abyss Watcher date me? No, because they’re all in love with Artorias, and I can’t blame them for that.

Old Demon King

At first I considered dating the Old Demon King like a Russian Instagram model dates an old, rich American man: with a great deal of fake love but above all great patience in order to be the only person on the will. But then I thought about it more, and what does the Old Demon King have to offer, really? A big firework show that will leave him exhausted like the old creature he is, and maybe some pyromancies. Truly, it is not worth it, especially since I’d have to take residence where he lives, in a big old room filled with the corpses of his kin.

High Lord Wolnir

I’ve got nothing against Wolnir personally, but I have no interest in skeletons, nor in his army of skeleton children. As stated above I’m not ready to be a mother. I feel like if we got in an argument and he sighed, he would poison me with his awful breath and I would die a horrible death. Also, living on the brink of the Abyss doesn’t appeal to me that much. However I would like Wolnir to be a good friend I can talk jewelry with because let’s be honest, the man (skeleton?) is blinged the fuck out even in death and I respect that.

Yhorm the Giant

Yes, I would date Yhorm. He was nothing but a sweet, misunderstood giant who always tried to get people to trust him and he convinced me. I would put my life in his big hands. Think of the possibilities. Just like with Vordt he could carry you everywhere but in a less reckless way if you prefer proper manners. You’d never have to worry about not seeing anything at a concert. Also, may I add that waiting for you to show up while sitting on his biggass throne is an absolute power move? Yhorm is a Lord of Cinder, but above all, a Lord of this heart.

Pontiff Sulyvahn

Would I date him because of his appealing aesthetic? Yes. Would I date him for anything else? No. Sulyvahn is absolutely terrifying, completely unhinged in the most frightening way, which is that he doesn’t look bat shit crazy. I could be thinking that everything is going well in our relationship then suddenly he’d lock me in a dungeon then would feed me to his weird friend because I put a fork in the knife drawer. He could pretend to propose and give me a weird fucked up ring with his eye in it and the next thing I know I’d be running in a field on all fours. I don’t trust like that.

Aldritch, Devourer of Gods

I’m so sad about Aldritch because literally everything about him is completely unappealing, unacceptable, unnatural, unholy, abhorrent, but he has the delicate and beautiful face of Gwyndolin. While our lovely Gwyndolin looks gorgeous as ever it doesn’t make up for the fact that Aldritch devoured people and probably wouldn’t find love to be a good reason to not eat his partner. The only reason I can find to have a friendship (not even a romantic relationship) with him is if you really like experimenting with cooking and you really, really need someone to taste your inventions.

Dancer of the Boreal Valley

I feel attraction, which means that just like any other being who feels attraction, I would date the Dancer. She is beautiful, graceful, a bit feral, and would not hesitate to put a flaming knife to my throat, which is the description of my dream woman. Imagine walking the streets with her, trying to hold her hand while it dangles 3 feet above you and she insists on holding her sword, actually, so she might slay anyone who tries to approach you, which she communicates through icy breaths and murmurs. The date of a lifetime.

Oceiros, the Consumed King

Another awful choice on this list, Oceiros is RABID and also, as far as we know, still a married man. You really want to date a man that hasn’t even gone through his divorce but already looks like this? Me neither. I’m already not big on dragon fucking but the fact that he’s all viscous and has weird growths all over him is not helping. Also, he has children, and we know how I feel about that — although, given how he treats them, he probably won’t have kids very soon (too far?).

Ancient Wyvern

So I’ve stated that I’m not very big on dragon fucking. With that said, do I think the wyvern is sexy and beautiful? Absolutely so. You’re probably like « Blue you’re sending mixed signals, are you gonna date the lizard or not? » and to that I say, date? Perhaps not. I would however like to form a lifelong bond with this wonderful force of nature and fight by its side, live a long and fulfilling life travelling along with it, only to die at the same time atop the tallest mountain in the world, where our skeletons will be discovers hundreds of years in the future by brave explorers, who will confirm that the legendary songs that were written about us were in fact not just a myth.

Nameless King

You’ve just read what I said about the wyvern. I feel like the Nameless King really understands me and would respect me for that. We could bond over our love of dragons and other flying scaly beasts and perhaps share some chaste kisses while soaring the sky on our companions. It’s nice to date someone who loves pets as much as you. I feel like he would be a fun guy to hang around in general, maybe he’d let you braid his hair or try on his crown. He can arrange personalized fireworks shows for you with his lightning powers. I don’t think you’d ever be bored around him.

Dragonslayer Armor

Dating an empty suit of armor has never bothered me (see: ds2 Ruin Sentinels), however I have beef with the dragonslayer armor. Is it a beautiful armor? Perhaps a bit worn off, but the reply remains affirmative. However, it is controlled by Pilgrim Butterflies, which basically means I’m dating one to multiple of these things in the shape of an armor, and I’ve gotta confess that I’m not down for that.

Lorian Older Prince and Lothric Younger Prince

Here comes the delicate moment where we have to make a choice without offending anyone. I personally, speaking for myself, in my own opinion, would rather date Lorian. Reason: he is big, strong, and a bit rabid, which I’ve made very clear is my type. I don’t dislike Lothric, but I feel like we’d be better off as best friends who have a really snarky group chat where we shit talk the entire kingdom. That’s pretty good because if I even just slightly disliked Lothric I’m pretty sure Lorian would sense it and would not hesitate to murder me on sight.

Champion’s Gravetender and Champion Greatwolf

Well the full name is just a formality here, I’m not completely insane so I don’t want to date this rabid wolf. I feel like the Champion’s Gravetender is just a normal dude who’s a bit in over his head and it’s not his fault but he just seems a bit boring compared to all my other options. Instead of a date I think he’d be more of an awkward flirt I had when I was bored and then I came to my senses but didn’t know how to disengage, but in the end it worked out because he was more interested in his work anyway.

Sister Friede and Father Ariandel

Again a choice has to be made and I will have to be predictable and say I’d date Elfriede. Just like Dancer she’s what the woman of my dreams is made of. She’s graceful and could easily take my life and I think it’s awfully sexy of her to be like that. I think I’d be accepted into the family pretty easily, which is important since Father Ariandel cares about Friede so much. I’d go visit him sometimes, play chess with him, bring him his flail, normal interactions with your girlfriend’s dad.

Soul of Cinder

I’m gonna be a tiny bit freaky here and say I’d date the Soul of Cinder. Dating it is just like opening a Kinder Surprise egg, you never know what you’re gonna get (sorry Americans for excluding you here). That makes life exciting and doesn’t let routine stall your relationship. Every day you can wake up with the question « What weapon will my darling walk around with today? The flaming sword, or the sorcery staff? » and be surprised by the answer. Truly ideal, but I understand it’s not for the faint of heart.

Demon Prince

I’m gonna go with a maaaaaaybeeeee? leaning towards no. I mean yes, the Demon Prince is a weird fleshy flaming demon, and that may be a bit gross, but I’ve gotta admit I admire his style, the drama of it all. The care he puts into his entrance, the attitude in his moves. If we don’t date I’d at least want to be friends so he can teach me his ways.

Darkeater Midir

I have very intense and contradictory feelings towards Midir. In one hand, holy shit, absolutely epic dragon, the spirit of companionship is growing in me. On the other hand, this beast is RABID and pretending I could tame him is foolish, and pretentious. I guess in the end the answer remains that I don’t date dragons, I just want to adopt them as my extremely exotic pets.

Halflight, Spear of the Church

Yeah I’d date Halflight, I know it’s the easy answer but look at him. I mean shit he’s walking around like a little thotty with his shirt open and you mean to tell me I’m not supposed to wanna date him because he looks pretty much like a regular dude? My boy Halflight WANTS me to date him or else he would not show up with his tiddies out to a sword fight, which as an activity already has enough erotic implications on its own.

Slave Knight Gael

I’m gonna say it unashamedly and I’ll say it again: I would date Gael. He’s been nothing but helpful and when he tries to attack you it’s to help his little lady that he’s adopted as his niece. We love a chaotic parental figure. Maybe he’s a tad bit old and dirty but there’s nothing a good bath can’t fix and I’m sure he’d appreciate having someone taking care of him for once. Again, he’s got that slightly unhinged quality to him that makes him delightful. When I walk around with my partner I want us to instill both fear and fascination in people which we would be able to accomplish perfectly well.

Dark Souls 1: Remastered date list // Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin date list

709 notes · View notes

byorder-fanfic · 4 years

Text

Heaven Hears

Summary: After coming home from war, John has a second share of pain when Martha dies. Hopefully, his little sister can try and help.

Word count: 1759

Warnings: Death, grief, Christianity (is that a warning? I dunno I’ll keep it)

Authors Note: I’m sorry. This one is a little bit sadder than my others, but I SWEAR it has some fluffy bits in it! This is set in early 1919, so before the events of Season 1. Thank you so much for your continued support, I appreciate and LOVE you all for it xx

War was Hell, but the aftermath wasn't much better. For John, he wasn't sure if he'd rather crying in the trenches with his wife's letters pressed closed to his chest (to keep them safe from bullets and water) or now. With a soft sigh, he brushed his shaking finger over the creased paper. The ink hadn't worn away, still looking as fresh as the day they were written and, despite the wrinkles that embedded in it, the letters still survived, longer than the woman who wrote them. Martha. Each time he remembered her name, a new wave of grief and wanting hit him. Even in the bitter winters without thick clothes, huddled up in mud and men, his arms had never felt so cold. Pain seared through his throat but no tears rose. He had been crying solidly for a few weeks now. It seemed as if he's run out. His house was too quiet. Ada had taken the kids out for the day, giving him that longer-than-usual-"I'm sorry for your loss" kind of hug he was getting far too often before she took Jack and Katie's hands, letting his eldest Louise hold onto little George. Katie looked just like Martha, and Jack kept on asking when mummy was going to come home. And John was breaking. Coming home was supposed to be a celebration, and it really was for a while. He had his kids in his arms, wife by his side, and nothing was gonna stop him. Suddenly, a rapid series of knocks on his door forced John out of his thoughts. Stumbling a little, he made it to the porch, swinging open the door to reveal Polly. Her severe expression was immediately replaced with concern. John didn't look good: his hair was a mess, face so pale she could swore his freckles had darkened a few shades, his clothes wrinkled and stinking of whiskey. "Have you seen Y/N?" Polly asked, looking down at her nephew's raggedy appearance with a furrowed brow. "Nah," he said, suddenly feeling a jolt of worry displace his misery. "Why? Is she missing?" Y/N was only ten years old, and more protected by her brothers than the King of England. If she managed to slip away, the whole of Birmingham would be called to the streets soon. That is, if Polly didn't find her first. "She said she was going to see you." Polly's pursed lips reminded John of a simpler time, when she'd scold them for playing too rough with Michael (just a baby then!), and lecture them all when they got into fights. Or, more recently, when the two Shelby twins made mischief in Small Heath. In an instant, John grabbed his coat from the hook and pulled it over, somewhat hiding his dishevelled clothes, and obscuring his unkempt hair with his Peaky cap. "Let's go looking then," he said simply as he shut the door behind him. Polly held her hands up, forcing him to pause on his rampage. "I can find her by myself, you need rest." He hadn't heard that since he got the flu at fourteen. The same age he met Martha, the bitterness soon settled back in. "I need to find Y/N," John tried to stop himself from sounded stroppy, looking at Polly with conviction. "And I need a distraction." With a sharp huff, Polly grabbed onto the crook of his elbow as the two ventured down the grimy streets of Small Heath, listening for the girl's squeal of laughter and quick footsteps, looking in every corner for a hint of the troublemaker John called sister. They looked in all the usual places: the Cut and the stables were empty, neither Uncle Charlie or Curly had seen her, the Garrison hadn't had a Shelby in it all day according to Harry (much to both of their surprise), and she wasn't hiding away at a friend's house. Accepting defeat, the two decided to trudge back to Watery Lane to tell Tommy and Arthur that they couldn't find Y/N and thus force every Peaky Blinder awake or otherwise to join a search party for her. Until, Polly stopped in front of the Church, forcing John to stop in his tracks too. "What the Hell, Pol," he began before turning to follow his aunt's gaze. In the steps in front of the Church sat a familiar figure. Thirteen year old Isaiah Jesus was hunched up, a cigarette loose in his hands and smoke surrounding him. Both the Shelbys walked up with kind smiles, always happy to see the preacher's boy. As soon as Isaiah heard the familiar march of Polly's heels, he stumbled to stand up, dropping the cigarette and stamping it out. He brought his sleeve (that was getting shorter on his long arms every time they saw him) up to rub his nose, a motion that irritated both of their parental instincts. With a small sigh, he waved at them. "Hello Mrs Grey," he said politely, although a little hoarse. Getting closer, they could both see his eyes were slightly pink, his dark skin shining with recent tears. It seemed as if he didn't just come away from his father's view to smoke. "Are you alright, Si?" John asked softly. Isaiah pressed his lips together, preventing the tears in his eyes from spilling in front of them as he gave a hesitant nod. "Yeah, um, Y/N is in there," he swallowed thickly, pointing behind him. He refused to meet their eyes. "She's talking to my...my mum, and uh Martha too." John froze at the name. He hadn't heard it spoken in so long, except for the incessant chanting in his head. But Isaiah wasn't afraid to say her name, he knew all too well about grief. They remembered how much smaller he was then, his black sleeves and trousers needed to be rolled up as he walked alongside his mother and baby sister's coffin. In an instant, John walked into the Church. The sound of the door made Jeremiah, sat in the back pew, turn around. With a warm smile, he brought a finger to his lips, then pointed ahead of the three of them. In front of the altar, Y/N was sat on the floor - despite the multitudes of empty chairs surrounding her - as you looked up, illuminated by the light. Although the Birmingham sky was perpetually grey, the stained glass window shone in gold and pinks. "God, I think it must be nice for Mrs Jesus to have Martha," your voice rung through the stone building, as you chattered on, as conversationally as you would speak to Finn. "I mean, little Delilah must be..." you paused, and John knew you were doing that scrunched up face you and Arthur had when you were trying to do sums. "Five? I think. Well, Polly said we were all a right menace at that age, so Martha'll be there to help her." John looked from Jeremiah's joyous expression to Polly's uneasy one, not sure which side he related to more. "Martha really was the best mother." You said it a little bit sadder. "The kids all miss her, and John's..." He took a step forward, craning to hear what you had to say for him. "He's in so much pain, and I don't know what to do. God, please give me some of it for him. He's already got so much going on in his brain, and Polly said that I've got an empty head, so I wouldn't mind carrying some of it for him. I know Tommy or Arthur would do the same, but their heads are still messed up from the War, and I guess John's is too. He just has more important stuff to think about." For what felt like the first time in a while, John smiled. He walked down the aisle and placed a gentle tap on your bent head. Startled, you looked up. Seeing John, you gave him a big grin as he came to come sit down next to you, cross-legged as if he was back in school and Mrs Changretta was reprimanding him again. He supposed that's what the presence of God felt like to him- a disappointed authoritarian. He held onto his sister's hand, as you looked back up to the intricate window. "Martha, I'm gonna hug John for you now." You moved over to wrap you arms around him, only reaching up to his shoulder as you nuzzled your head against his coat. He knew it was itchy for you, so he pulled you into his lap like he'd do when you were so much younger. Smiling wide, you rested against him like you were still that toddler. "Hey Y/N-" he didn't get to finish his sentence, as you gave him an annoyed arch of your eyebrows as you brought a finger up to shush him. Sitting up, she looked back up to the window. "Sorry God, I'm going to speak to John now. I'm sorry I got mad at Finn this week, and mum I swear I didn't mean to push him in the Cut, please help me make everyone smile again, and..." you gave a look of pure concentration as she held onto your hands tighter. "That's it! Amen." You snuggled back down into John's arms, looking at him expectantly. "You can talk now," you told him sweetly. Despite himself, John laughed loudly, giving you a toothy grin. "Oh, can I?" He sounded teasing, and it made Polly beam at Jeremiah as they saw, for the first time in weeks, his happiness that once radiated from him. "Well, Y/N, I just wanted to say it's sweet what you said the big man about me, but you don't have to take on my pain for me." "I don't have to," you repeated sternly. "I choose to." "Even so," John smiled again, the feeling somehow foreign on his face. "The pain I feel is just a reminder of how much I love her." He couldn't say her name, it choked in his mouth, but you understood, nodding your head dutifully. "And it will get easier to handle with time." He looked up to the window, the eyes of a Biblical hero he couldn't name, that seemed to listen to each word. "And, Martha, when that happens, the kids' and I, we'll smile every time we think of you cause of how much we love you, right?" "Amen," Y/N said softly.

251 notes · View notes

bunnys-beetlejuice-blog · 3 years

Text

gently rings a little bell in your ear My fic updated with two new chapters when you weren't paying attention! but now i am tilting your chin up with the point of my sword, forcing you to look. its very villainous and cool. this is part three of an increasingly convoluted story, part one can be found all the way over here but if you just want the high school romance stuff and don't care about found family, that's fine, i guess, but like, what's your deal

The weekend is a welcome relief from everything at school. He’s tired of feeling like shit, so Saturday, annoyingly bright and early, he startles Lydia awake by flopping on her bed. It causes her to bounce, and she groans, pulling the dark purple blanket further over her head. “Beetlejuice…” “I was thinkin’, today we should spend th’ whole day outdoors, in th’ park or somethin’,” he grins, and she lifts the blanket just barely, to glare at him. “You only want to play outside because all your stuff was taken away,” comes her accusation, and she’s not exactly wrong, but he just wiggles a hand under her blanket and gives her nose a poke. “Let’s go get lost, somewhere. Come on, Lyds, please?” She tries to hit him with a pillow but her grip is tired from sleep, and all she manages to do is shove the thing at him.

Twenty minutes later, she’s dressed and ready, bouncing on the balls of her feet, as he mulls over which button up to wear, the highlighter yellow with purple bugs, or the dark green with orange bones. They’re two equally ugly shirts that kind of give him a headache to look at, and both are favorites. “I can’t believe you woke me up at eight so I could stand around watching you go through your wardrobe.” “This is important.” He settles on the bugs, finally, and pulls it on before turning to Lydia, but she’s gone. He blinks, and sticks his head out his door, in time to headbutt her as she comes back in. Both siblings reel back and hold their heads. “Beetlejuice…” she groans. “Lyd-eee-uhhh,” he mimics her. She huffs and throws what she’d gone to her room to retrieve at him. He catches it, then stares. It’s his hoodie, his ruined one from that disastrous Halloween. He can still see that faded dark copper stain in some places, but it's better than it was. Also, the holes slashed in the arms have been very sloppily stitched with a thick, black embroidery thread. He looks back at his sister. “You seemed like you were having a hard week,” Lydia says, shuffling her feet. “I never sewed anything before, I’m sorry it looks kind of messy, and I tried really hard to get the bloodstains out...” He slips his familiar stripes back on and feels much more at ease. “It’s cool,” he tells her. “I like messy.” He holds open his arms and she falls into them, pressing her face against his stomach. It's a nice moment, and for once, he doesn’t feel inclined to ruin it, just pats his little sister’s head. “Love you.” “Love you too.”

``````````````````````````````````````````````````````` Charles, ever an early riser, is surprised to see his children in the kitchen this bright eyed and bushy tailed on a Saturday. He’s pouring two coffees, one for himself and one for Emily, who is sitting at the table, head propped up on her hand, and still functionally asleep, when Betelgeuse and Lydia come bounding in to raid the fridge. “And what are you two getting up to today?” he asks, and the siblings pause to look at him. “Goin’ to th’ park.” “You think so?” Betelgeuse’s shoulder slump. “Seriously? You take all my stuff away an’ now I can’t even go out?” “You’re still in trouble. Why should you be allowed to go out and have fun?” “Cause that wasn’t specified!” Betelgeuse tries, and then turns to Emily. “Ma, tell him!” Emily mutters in her sleep, and Charles wordlessly sets the coffee down in front of her. The smell hits her nose, and robotically, she lifts the drink to her lips, eyes never opening. “Let BJ go do stuff,” she manages, maybe not as eloquent as she normally speaks, her voice gruff from sleep. Betelgeuse grins up at Charles. His father sips his own coffee, and then pats his son’s head. “Home before dark. No fire, no demon nonsense, no taking drugs from strangers.” “Home at midnight, commit arson, summon Satan, enjoy stranger candy. I gotcha.” Both his children receive a kiss on the head before stuffing Lydia’s little black coffin bag with snacks, and heading out.

``````````````````````````````````````````````````````

It’s a big city, and there’s not a loss of things to do, especially with his powers, and there’s no adult supervision today. They find a café and enjoy a big breakfast, then he turns them invisible and they sneak away before the check comes, only reappearing a block later, Lydia grinning wildly. “Food tastes better stolen!” she says, and he pats her head. “There’s my little criminal.” They sneak into a movie, next, some horror thing Lydia had wanted to see that even Emily, the fun parent, had said she was too little for. It’s absolutely a gore fest, but not especially good, and they throw popcorn at the screen and cheer whenever the killer scores another victim.

“I think you’d die early in a slasher,” she says after, scattering their uneaten popcorn on the pavement in front of the theatre. She gets the attention of a whole flock of pigeons, which land and begin pecking at the kernels. “What’s your logic, there?” “You die on screen early and then the twist is you faked your death and were the killer.” “Ohh, classic. I love it.” “I’m a total final girl,” Lydia turns the half empty bucket upside down, much to the joy of the starving sky rats. “And then at the end, it’s like, I knew you were the killer the whole time, and I was just acting. Cause we’re in it together. You know, partners in crime.” He picks her up, slings her over his shoulder. “Always.”

He takes them to Central Park, next, holding her hand behind the theatre and apparating, accidentally, up a tree. She gasps and clings to him, and he digs his claws into the bark of the tree to steady them. “No worries, no worries. I just gotta..” They appear on the ground below, and Lydia looks dizzy. “Feels weird when you do that,” she tells him. “Like riding a rollercoaster, except your limbs are all asleep. But.. Kinda not that, at the same time.” It feels normal to him, but he regularly eats tin cans, so what does he know about normal to begin with?

Lydia takes her camera from her coffin bag, and readies it. It’s a little instamatic she got for her birthday, a few months ago, and she’s going through film like crazy, taking some pretty shitty pictures. He’s not that blunt to her face, though. It’s not like he was a rockstar on the ukulele when he first started, and she’s got a lot of enthusiasm for taking photos. He’s not going to be the one to squash that for her.

Also, he’ll bite off the hand of whoever tries.

“You think this can take pictures underwater?” she asks, aiming her camera at a random woman jogging by. The jogger makes a face, which seems to be what Lydia expects, because she snaps the picture as the woman continues on her way, and the little photo pops out the bottom. Lydia gives it an aggressive shake.

“I’m gonna guess no. Besides, it’s too cold for you to take a swim.” “So let’s go somewhere warmer. I’m thinking Hawaii.” “Good idea, genius, an’ how do you think we’re getting there?” “You can teleport us.”

He actually has to stop and think about that. “I don’t think I could do it in one straight shot,” he says at last. Lydia has moved to a different kind of voyeurism, because she’s on her stomach on the grass, following the movement of a trail of ants with her lens. “I’d probably have to do little distances, an’ get tired and need a nap in th’ middle.”

“Maybe through a mirror? Like Sam?” She adjusts the optic, an entirely useless motion, because this camera doesn’t have any kind of zoom feature. But she’s seen people do it in nature documentaries. “Never done mirror travel before.” He mulls that over. “I’ll practice when I get home, an’ see if I can even pull you through.” “You’re not allowed to go to Hawaii without me,” she gets what she considers her perfect shot, and then stands, brushing off her dark red dress. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

They go bone hunting next, Lydia’s camera still at the ready, his keen nose leading the way. It’s easy to find owl pellets, and she breaks one open with her bare hands, as he teases her.

“Ew ew ew, Lydia gross, you’re touching it!” he pitches up his gruff voice to sound like a tweenage girl, and she rolls her eyes. “No skull in this one,” she frowns, wiping her hands on his hoodie.

“Maybe there’s a bodiless mouse head around here, livin’ it’s best life.” She looks doubtful.

Another, different smell hits his sensitive nose, just then. It’s death, new and fresh. His pupils dilate, and he follows it, her trailing after him, assuming he’s on the scent of more animal bones. What they find instead is an old man propped against a tree. He’s still warm, but the color is draining from his face, and rapidly. He doesn’t look hurt, he’s not bleeding. It’s like he sat down for a rest and died.

Lydia doesn’t get it, not right away. Death is a funny punchline in an overly gorey movie. She’s never seen the real thing, before. “Should we wake him up? It’s cold to be sleeping here.” He lifts the man’s arm, and it flops bonelessly back down. Her eyes go wide. “I doubt he’s gettin’ back up, kiddo.” She lifts her camera and takes a picture.

“Hello?” He hears a voice, and turns. The old man is standing next to himself. He looks back at Lydia, but she’s staring in fascination at the corpse, so he leaves her to it. “Hey,” he nods to the man, who looks relieved. “Can you call my grandson? My phone battery died,” he says, not seeming to understand the position he’s in. Betelgeuse tilts his head to the side. “You’re dead,” he says, a bit unkindly, and Lydia, who has been kneeling by the body, poking it, looks up at him. “I am?” “Wh- No, not you, Lyds, th’ stiff.” He gestures to the ghost, who has seemed to notice “himself” laying there. Lydia looks at her brother, confused. “There’s no one there.” “Sure there is. You just can’t see ghosts.”

“That’s me,” the old man says, not that anyone’s listening to him. “Should we tell someone about this?” Lydia asks him, and Betelgeuse shrugs. “Why? Someone will find th’ body eventually. You know. When it starts smellin’ like shit.” “I don’t want to leave him out here.” “Please, don’t leave me out here!” “I wouldn’t want to be left out here.” “Lucky for you, you’re never gonna die. You even try it an’ I’ll shove your soul back down your throat, if I have to.”

He smells the netherworld, and grabs Lydia, pulling her back, in time for another ghost to appear. A guide. The guide doesn’t even take a moment to look around, just instantly busies herself with getting the newly dead situated, and Betelgeuse picks Lydia up and carries her away. “That’s so sad,” she says, taking one last picture of the body from atop his shoulder. “I guess.”

They find the next official looking person they see, someone cleaning up trash, who doesn’t believe them, clearly, until he sees one of the photos Lydia took. The deathly pallor of the old man convinces him to go looking. Thirty minutes later, that part of the park is crawling with breathers, and the two of them are stuck on a bench, being talked to by cops. It’s a whole, boring process, and it’s drawing a big crowd. “Told ya, we shoulda minded our business,” Betelgeuse nudges his sister. Lydia is looking overwhelmed. Neither sibling ever gets this much attention. There’s even a news crew, though he can’t imagine what for. It’s just one old dead guy, and it’s not even a murder. Someone with a microphone tries to approach them, and he turns their mic into a black and white striped snake, forcing them to fling it away from themselves in a panic, and then he grabs Lydia.

They blink from existence and appear a ways away, and Lydia’s clutching his hand harder than she needs to. “Hey, come on.” His grating voice is soft, for her, as he kneels to her level, and she throws her arms around his neck. “How are you so calm? Doesn’t it make you sad?” she asks, softly, and he gives her an extra squeeze. “Happens to all breathers, Lyds. But it’s not somethin’ I gotta worry about, ever. So… no, not really.”

“Will you be sad when I die?”

He scoops her up, holding his little sister in his arms, and stands, her still clinging around his neck. “When you die at a hundred and twenty,” he tells her, carrying her along the path. “Wherever in the netherworld you end up, I’ll go too. Won’t even have time to be sad, me an’ you’ll be too busy causin’ trouble, even then.” She seems satisfied with that answer, and he doesn’t mind carrying her, so they enjoy the autumn leaves like that, her in his arms, as he follows the winding pathways of the park.

They don’t tell Charles and Emily, when they finally do get home, the sun just barely still peaking over the horizon. It doesn’t seem like a good idea, and Lydia doesn’t especially want to talk about it anymore. She pins her new photos up on the twine strung between the tall bedposts in her room. There’s a couple nice ones, and she lets him eat the ones she decides she hates. “Does it count as part of being grounded if you watch my tv?” she asks, and he grins. “Let’s find out.” She pops in Coraline, which he has to assume she’s got fucking memorized at this point, but they also talk through most of it. By the time the tasty looking bug furniture is on screen, her eyelids are drooping. “I dunno why they make her eatin’ bugs so evil. I wanna try beetles from Zanzibar,” he complains, and she just snorts in response “I’ll get you some fancy beetles, for your birthday.” “Kay. Sounds good.” She falls asleep on him a minute later, and he waives a hand, snuffing the lights, but lets the movie finish playing as he settles next to her, and sleeps.

``````````````````````````````````````````````````````` That next week is boring, but normal. Adam’s in the library every day, despite his earlier insistence that he had better things to do. Betelgeuse honestly just wheels the cart along and lets Adam shelf the books, now, which the nerd seems to unironically enjoy. He’s all smiles as he gets to put things away neatly. It’s embarrassing how endearing and cute Betelgeuse finds that. It’s Tuesday, Barbara isn’t there that day, at least, not right at that moment, so Adam is babbling about her. “Barbara and I aren’t really performers,” he’s telling Betelgeuse, returning a stack of history books to their proper places on the shelves. “But we thought it would be fun to try theatre together, and then we really enjoyed it, so we’ve been in the last two productions. She can really sing, she does this high note, and it’s-” “Angelic, I bet.” Both boys give a stupid, love sick sigh. Adam pauses, and nods, and then studies the other teen. “So.. You.. You like her?” “Yeah,” he says easily. “But that doesn’t mean anythin’.” “What do you mean?” “I mean,” he clarifies, flopping across the cart, stomach first, and laying on it, staring down at Adam, who is crouching to reshelf some more books. “That despite me being a hot piece of ass, I’m probably not her type. I imagine she goes more for…” he studies Adam, trying to think of a nice word for boring, plain and vanilla. “More stable guys,” he lands on. “Like you. I bet she even likes how cute your butt looks in your khakis. I know I do.” Adam flushes. “You think so?” “It’s a good butt.” He nods, and Adam goes redder. “I meant, you think Barbara.. Might like me?” “Well, don’t push your luck, or nothin’, but you probably got a better chance with her.”

“You’re not entirely unlikable,” Adam offers. Betelgeuse lets out a guffaw that’s too loud, because someone in the next aisle over shushes him. “You already forget what I told you Friday?” he rests his head on his hand, tone condescending. “I know no one wants me around.”

“You’re setting yourself up for failure, with that attitude.”

“You think so, huh? Think I just need to hold hands round th’ campfire and sing kumbaya with all you breathers? I don’t think anyone would even take my hand. Probably couldn't get away from me fast enough.” There’s a pause. He doesn’t realize what he’s said until Adam is repeating it. “Breathers?”

He doesn’t get a chance to reply, because he feels a push on the cart, and turns to see Barbara, hands on the handle. “You’ve completely given up even trying, haven’t you?” she says, and he thinks she means about the books, and smiles. “No point. Adam’ll just do it for me.” “I mean with talking to people. With making friends.” His smile falls quickly into a scowl, and he runs a hand through his wild mess of green hair. “Lay off me, Babs. I’m bein’ friendly right now, aren’t I?”

“Sure, it’s plenty friendly, letting Adam do your work. But you don’t try, and then you get your feelings hurt when no one does it for you.” That’s not laying off, and it’s irritating him. “You can’t imagine anyone being nice to you, so you’re rude and push everyone away the first chance you get, in case what? In case you make a friend? Kevin probably needs you, right now,” she presses, physically too, making the cart he’s still lying across lurch forward. “I told you what happened to his dad, and you just said he wasn’t even your friend, when everyone knows you spent the last few months holding hands and making googoo eyes at him, and only talking to each other.”

“S’none of your business,” he tugs at his hair, pulling a tuft down to watch the color. Still green. He’s okay, but he keeps it there, in front of his eyes, focusing on it and not having to look at Barbara. “I’m making it my business. What are you so afraid of? What’s with the barrier? I saw you with your sister, you’re normal and nice, to her. So it’s other people you’re afraid of?” “M’not,” he growls out, standing up off the cart. “Afraid of anythin’.”

“You are,” she says, letting go of the cart and stomping to stand in front of him. She’s got him cornered, his back pressed to the bookshelf behind him. He keeps his eyes on that green tuft, biting his bottom lip. “You’re afraid of rejection, so you don’t talk, or you’re a jerk to people. You’re so afraid of other people, you make yourself sit alone every day, even when there’s an empty seat next to someone else.”

“No one wants me around!”

God, that hurts. He can see purple forming in the tip of his hair.

“You think I haven’t tried?” he rasps at her, letting his hair go, and finally looking directly at her. “You think I like sittin’ alone, bein’ the weird kid in every class, not havin’ anyone to talk to? It sucks!” he hears himself being shushed again, and he expends a burst of power in that direction, knocking books off the shelves to hit the person who can’t mind their own business. The sudden noise makes both Adam and Barbara jump. “You ever noticed that anytime I’ve tried, people can’t get th’ hell away from me fast enough? I’m tired of bein’ alone, but every time I try, somethin’ goes to shit, or I'm ignored! So maybe it is easier to just be a jerk an’ not worry about gettin’ hurt, than to keep tryin’ and ache all th’ time.”

It’s the most honest he’s ever been, out loud. Barbara clenches her fists, but doesn’t say anything. He sees Adam push his glasses back up the bridge of his nose.

Lunch isn’t even close to over, and he’s just made more work for himself by knocking those books off the shelf, but he doesn’t care. He grabs his backpack from the cart and pushes past the two of them, and he storms out, forcing the library door to slam, even though it’s a soft close door. It feels more final, that way.

He spends the rest of lunch invisible, to avoid any more trouble with adults, and slumps into his customary seat in the back of every class, for the rest of the day. No one talks to him. He doesn’t try to talk to anyone. It’s a system, it works. Stupid Barbara. What does she even know? Like she can somehow understand anything he’s going through. She’s pretty, and cool, and has a ton of friends, he thinks, absolutely bitter. She doesn’t get it.

He trudges to the drama room after school, and pushes open the door with his shoulder. The seats are in a circle, again, and he chooses a random one, pointedly, away from Adam and Barbara, between two other people. He sits there, silent, and after a moment, the two kids both move seats. How miserably predictable. Come on, he wills himself. No purple, no red. Just stay green. You can go home and freak the fuck out, but just stay green, he begs his hair.

He wipes his nose hard with his hoodie sleeve, and focuses on that, on the texture of the fabric and the way he rubs hard enough for it to hurt. Pain is as close to relief as he can get. Then the chairs next to him are scooted closer, and he blinks, and realizes that Adam and Barbara have settled on either side of him. He doesn’t.. Get it. He can’t understand, but then both of them reach a hand out, and take one of his, and give it a squeeze. It’s grounding. He takes a breath he doesn’t need, and then a couple more, shaky and painful, and he gives their hands a squeeze back, like he’s making sure they’re real. They are.

When the club starts, he tries, very sincerely, to focus on what’s being said, and not the bright hot feeling blooming like a flower in his chest. Read the rest here!!

#beetlejuice the musical #beetlejuice au #beetlejuice fanfiction #adam maitland #barbara maitland #emily deetz #lydia deetz #beetlejuice broadway

13 notes · View notes

lady-of-glass-and-bone · 3 years

Text

Songs & Characters Pedro Pascal

Lungs / Florence + The Machine

This is part 2 of whatever this is that I’m doing. Part 1 is here if you want to check it out. But basically I’m listening to whole albums and putting what Pedro character it reminds me of, with specific lyrics. Enjoy? Request some artist, albums, and characters if you want.

Lyrics and their characters below the cut!

Dog Days Are Over / Marcus Pike, Javier Peña, Pero Tovar

Marcus Pike / And I never wanted anything from you Except everything you had And what was left after that too, oh.

Happiness hit her like a bullet in the back Struck from a great height By someone who should know better than that

Javier Peña / Happiness, hit her like a train on a track Coming towards her, stuck still no turning back She hid around corners and she hid under beds She killed it with kisses and from it she fled With every bubble she sank with a drink And washed it away down the kitchen sink

Pero Tovar / Run fast for your mother and fast for your father Run for your children for your sisters and brothers Leave all your love and your loving behind you Can't carry it with you if you want to survive

The dog days are over The dog days are done Can you hear the horses 'Cause here they come

Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up) / Ezra and Din Djarin

Ezra / The looking glass, so shiny and new How quickly the glamour fades I start spinning, slipping out of time Was that the wrong pill to take? (Raise it up)

You made a deal, and now it seems you have to offer up But will it ever be enough? (Raise it up, raise it up) It's not enough (Raise it up, raise it up)

Here I am, a rabbit hearted girl Frozen in the headlights It seems I've made the final sacrifice

Din Djarin / This is a gift, it comes with a price Who is the lamb and who is the knife? Midas is king and he holds me so tight And turns me to gold in the sunlight

I look around, but I can't find you (raise it up) If only I could see your face (raise it up) Instead of rushing towards the skyline (raise it up) I wish that I could just be brave

I must become a lion hearted girl Ready for a fight Before I make the final sacrifice

I’m Not Calling You A Liar / Dave York and Max Phillips

Dave York / There's a ghost in my lungs and it sighs in my sleep Wraps itself around my tongue as it softly speaks Then it walks, then it walks with my legs To fall, to fall, to fall at your feet

There but for the grace of God go I And when you kiss me, I am happy enough to die

Max Phillips / I'm not calling you a liar Just don't lie to me I'm not calling you a thief Just don't steal from me I'm not calling you a ghost Just stop haunting me And I love you so much I'm gonna let you kill me

Kiss With A Fist / Dave York and Din Djarin

Dave York / My black eye casts no shadow Your red eye sees nothing Your slap don't stick Your kicks don't hit So we remain the same Love sticks Sweat drips Break the lock if it don't fit

A kick to the teeth is good for some A kiss with a fist is better then none

Din Djarin / I broke your jaw once before I spilled your blood upon the floor You broke my leg in return So sit back and watch the bed burn Love sticks Sweat drips Break the lock if it don't fit

You hit me once I hit you back You gave a kick I gave a slap You smashed a plate over my head Then I set fire to our bed

Howl / Javier Peña and Max Phillips

Javier Peña / Be careful of the curse that falls on young lovers Starts so soft and sweet and turns them to hunters

The fabric of your flesh, pure as a wedding dress Until I wrap myself inside your arms, I cannot rest The saints can't help me now, the ropes have been unbound I hunt for you with bloodied feet across the hallowed ground And howl

Max Phillips / If you could only see the beast you've made of me I held it in but now it seems you've set it running free Screaming in the dark, I howl when we're apart Drag my teeth across your chest to taste your beating heart

My fingers claw your skin, try to tear my way in You are the moon that breaks the night for which I have to howl My fingers claw your skin, try to tear my way in You are the moon that breaks the night for which I have to

Howl, howl Howl, howl

Girl With One Eye / Dave York

Dave York / I took a knife and cut out her eye I took it home and watched it wither and die Well, she's lucky that I didn't slip her a smile That's why she sleeps with one eye open But that's the price she'll pay

I said, hey, girl with one eye Get your filthy fingers out of my pie I said, hey, girl with one eye I'll cut your little heart out 'cause you made me cry

I slipped my hand under her skirt I said don't worry, it's not gonna hurt Oh, my reputation's kinda clouded with dirt That's why you sleep with one eye open But that's the price you pay

Drumming Song / Oberyn Martell and Jack ‘Whiskey’ Daniels

Oberyn Martell / As I move my feet Towards your body I can hear this beat It fills my head up And gets louder and louder

It fills my head up And gets louder and louder

I go into the river And I dive straight in I pray that the water Will drown out the din

But as the water fills my mouth It couldn't wash the echoes out But as the water fills my mouth It couldn't wash the echoes out

It swallows the sound and swallows me whole Until there's nothing left inside my soul I'm empty as that beating drum But the sound has just begun

Whiskey / Louder than sirens Louder than bells Sweeter than heaven And hotter than hell

I ran to the tower When the church bells chime I hope that they Would clear my mind

They left a ringing In my ear That drum's still beating Loud and clear

There's a drumming noise inside my head it starts when you're around I swear that you could hear it it makes such an almighty sound

There's a drumming noise inside my head that throws me to the ground I swear that you should hear it it makes such an almighty sound

Between Two Lungs / Marcus Moreno, Frankie Morales, Din Djarin

Marcus Moreno / Between two lungs it was released The breath that carried me The sigh that blew me forward

'Cause it was trapped Trapped between two lungs It was trapped between two lungs It was trapped between two lungs

And my running feet could fly Each breath screaming "We are all too young to die"

Frankie Morales / Between two lungs it was released The breath that passed from you to me That flew between us as we slept That slipped from your mouth into mine It crept between two lungs It was released The breath that passed from you to me That flew between us as we slept That slipped from your mouth into mine It crept

Din Djarin / Now all the days of begging The days of theft No more gasping for a breath The air has filled me head-to-toe And I can see the ground far below I have this breath And I hold it tight And I keep it in my chest With all my might I pray to God this breath will last As it pushes past my lips As I gasp

Cosmic Love / Ezra, Javier Peña, Dave York

Ezra / And a falling star fell from your heart And landed in my eyes I screamed aloud, as it tore through them And now it's left me blind

Javier Peña / The stars, the moon, they have all been blown out You left me in the dark No dawn, no day, I'm always in this twilight In the shadow of your heart

And in the dark, I can hear your heartbeat I tried to find the sound But then it stopped, and I was in the darkness So darkness I became

Dave York / I took the stars from my eyes, and then I made a map And knew that somehow I could find my way back Then I heard your heart beating, you were in the darkness too So I stayed in the darkness with you

My Boy Builds Coffins / Frankie Morales and Javier Peña

Frankie Morales / My boy builds coffins with hammers and nails He doesn't build ships, he has no use for sails He doesn't make tables, dressers or chairs He can't carve a whistle 'cause he just doesn't care

My boy builds coffins for the rich and the poor Kings and queens, they've all knocked on his door Beggars and liars, gypsies and thieves They all come to him 'cause he's so eager to please

Javier Peña / My boy builds coffins, he makes them all day But it's not just for work and it isn't for play He's made one for himself, one for me too One of these days he'll make one for you For you, for you, for you

My boy builds coffins for better or worse Some say it's a blessing, some say it's a curse He fits them together in sunshine or rain Each one is unique, no two are the same

My boy builds coffins and I think it's a shame That, when each one's been made, he can't see it again He crafts every one with love and with care Then it's thrown in the ground, it just isn't fair

Blinding / Pero Tovar, Frankie Morales, Marcus Pike

Pero Tovar / And I could hear the thunder and see the lightning crack And all around the world was waking, I never could go back 'Cause all the walls of dreaming, they were torn wide open And finally it seemed that the spell was broken

And all my bones began to shake, my eyes flew open And all my bones began to shake, my eyes flew open

Frankie Morales / Seems that I have been held in some dreaming state A tourist in the waking world, never quite awake No kiss, no gentle word could wake me from this slumber Until I realize that it was you who held me under

Felt it in my fist, in my feet, in the hollows of my eyelids Shaking through my skull, through my spine And down through my ribs

Marcus Pike / No more dreaming of the dead as if death itself was undone No more calling like a crow for a boy, for a body in the garden No more dreaming like a girl so in love, so in love No more dreaming like a girl so in love, so in love No more dreaming like a girl, so in love with the wrong world

Snow White is stitching up your circuit boards Synapse slipping through the hidden doors Snow White's stitching up the circuit board

Hurricane Drunk / Maxwell Lord, Javier Peña, Jack ‘Whiskey’ Daniels

Maxwell Lord / I'm going out, I'm going to drink myself to death And in the crowd, I see you with someone else I brace myself, because I know it's going to hurt But I like to think at least things can't get any worse

I hope that you see me, because I'm staring at you But when you look over, you look right through Then you lean and kiss her on the head And I never felt so alive, and so dead

Javier Peña / No walls, can keep me protected No sleep, nothing in between me and the rain And you can't save me now I'm in the grip of a hurricane I'm going to blow myself away

I'm going out, I'm going to drink myself to death And in the crowd, I see you with someone else I brace myself, because I know it's going to hurt But I like to think at least things can't get any worse

Whiskey / No home, I don't want shelter No calm, nothing to keep me from the storm And you can't hold me down Because I belong to the hurricane It's going to blow us all away

You’ve Got The Love / Jack ‘Whiskey’ Daniels, Ezra, Marcus Moreno

Ezra / Sometimes I feel like throwing my hands up in the air I know I can count on you Sometimes I feel like saying "Lord I just don't care" But you've got the love I need to see me through

Whiskey / Time after time I think "Oh, Lord, what's the use?" Time after time I think it's just no good 'Cause sooner or later in life, the things you love you lose But you've got the love I need to see me through

You've got the love You've got the love

Marcus Moreno / Sometimes it seems that the going is just too rough And things go wrong no matter what I do Now and then it seems that life is just too much But you've got the love I need to see me through

11 notes · View notes

prairiedust · 4 years

Text

The Further Folklore of Supernatural

Here’s a little more folklore meta in light of how season 15 has been playing out if anyone is game. I genuinely thought that Moriah would be the end of the folklore stuff and tossed out “Folk the Author” as an “epilogue,” so this is probably less of an addendum than it is a waymarker as I try to continue to parse these themes into the last seven episodes.

Welp. *waves hands at everything* THIS is not how anyone expected 2020 to go. Things got a little bit big and I stopped thinking about Spn in light of needing that energy elsewhere. But I also don’t want this crapfest to ruin how I fan my favorite show, so here I go again. I will attempt a TL;DR, too!

If you’ve read my old “folklore” analysis here about how I think fairy tales and all their baggage fit into Supernatural season 14, you know that I believe Castiel has stepped into a Sleeping Beauty type story, and that coincidentally a few themes and symbolism from Snow White kept popping up around Dean. (I hold Sam to be a Protagonist in the modern “literary fiction” sense of the word, but emotionally, thematically, and narratively he’s always been a little inaccessible to me. I finally understood him when the death-of-the-author plot surfaced, and I’ll get to Sam eventually here. And Jack, there’s a little Jack in here, too.)

If you would rather have the TL;DR than read several thousands of words about how folklore and myth *might* be abstractly connected to an American genre show, all I can say is that I tried. The textual support is all in the folklore posts. This is as succinct a summary as I could fabricate. At least I’m not gonna talk about Sam and bricolage and freeplay! This is an almost completely theory-free post! If you don’t want to read or don’t need a refresher and just want to know how this has been working in 15, you can scroll down to “END OF TL;DR”.

So, to catch up, I’m not talking about the folklore and mythology that this show has always relied on for plot and MOTWs. I wasn’t drilling down into urban legends like Hook Man or world folk monsters like shtrigas or pishtacos. By “folklore” I mean the study of storytelling tropes and tale types that have been with us for ages. One of the many subtexts of the end of the series. I’ve been tracking this because I think it’s fun to see how fairy tale imagery and mythology might layer preconscious suggestions into the text of the show. I personally think it was loud enough to be seen easily, but more than likely viewers felt unsettled, felt cheered, or felt like they knew what was coming? I’m curious to know. Anyway.

When we found out that Kelly Kline was going to name her baby “Jack” waaaaay back in season 12, things started chiming. Jack and the Beanstalk. Jack the Giant Killer. Jack Tales. Jack is a powerful Western character, sort of a cross between a noble hero and a trickster, featuring in stories that often blur lines and boundaries. He is both the poor man’s youngest son and the equal to King Arthur’s heir. Jack is both everyman and extraordinary. Jack is so cool, I wish I had more time to parse that but his qualities are not subtle in the text/subtext, anyway.

But back to my half-crack reading of seasons 14 and 15.

Once upon a time in Supernatural, there were two fairy tales being told. Both fairy tales are found all over the world and in many forms, but they all can be grouped together because they all contain shared elements of the same basic plot or shared themes, and these two in particular are sister stories. So when I mention “Sleeping Beauty,” I’m talking about lots of different versions of the folk tale, and the same for “Snow White,” which can be found in one form or another in storytelling traditions all over the place. It is both helpful and irritating that these are both Disney movies, too.

Jack makes an allusion to Sleeping Beauty in 14x03 The Scar while talking to Castiel-- it’s the kind of subtextual flash that in and of itself means little and proves nothing, but then beginning with The Scar we got three stories in a row that dealt with “sleepers” of some sort-- Lora in 14x03 doomed to die because of a witch’s spell, Stuart in 14x04 Mint Condition in a coma because of a ghost attack, and Sasha’s father in 14x05 Nightmare Logic under the spell of a clever djinn. It’s powerful subtext, like a soft light that bathes these episodes in the color of fairy tale and makes Jack’s Dramatic Swoon at the end of Optimism all the more Dramatic-- subtext amplifying the plot. Jack goes to Heaven, but is eventually cornered by the Shadow, who wants him in the Empty where he will sleep forever-- the Shadow being an entity who has claimed the husks of dead angels since their inception and thus implies a “curse” laid on Jack from the moment he came into being-- but Castiel, who is ever a thief in oh so many ways, makes a bargain with the Shadow and essentially takes over the consequences of Jack’s Sleeping Beauty story (hence my rarely used but hilarious tag “Castiel Thief of Endings.”)

Now that we know from 14x20 Moriah that the Shadow and Billie the Reaper are, if not allies, at least working together when Jack is awakened in the Empty, does that mean that Castiel’s deal is still on the table, or has that fate been thwarted? *pounds table* Was Jack’s death and Chuck’s rise as a “greater threat” in 14x20 enough to shift Castiel’s ending? It’s the kind of subtextual question that lends tension to the narrative and it’s what I am here for.

Well, speaking of thwarted expectations, Dean’s arc was being shadowed by a Snow White tale type. We all know Snow White but why don’t I sum it up anyway, since Disney messed up the folktale ending lol. Snow White is cast out of her home by her jealous stepmother (and echoes of the stepmother’s magic mirror show up in 15x02 Gods and Monsters) who sends her huntsman to kill her; the dude can’t do it and turns the girl loose in the forest instead. Snow White joins a band of outsiders who live in the forest-- in the Disney movie and the Grimms’ tale they are dwarfs, in some versions she happens upon a band of robbers-- and they love her very much and we presume she’s safe for the rest of her life; Michael mysteriously turns Dean loose to join Sam’s gathering of hunters, however we know, like Stepmom, Michael is still out there. The stepmother finds out that Snow White is actually alive and contrives to kill her herself. Eventually succeeding, Snow White appears to die and is usually laid to rest in a crystal casket/glass coffin. Her stepmother’s machinations have _stolen her agency_ (further paralleling Dean’s possession by AU!Michael.) A Handsome Prince stumbles upon Snow White, is besmitten with her, and he asks her protectors if he can have her, as one does. Leaving the Disney adaptation aside, Snow White awakens when whatever item that has caused her death-like state is dislodged (piece of apple in her throat) or removed (magic corset) or withdrawn (poisoned hairpin) by her protectors. Snow White is a story about the community of the dwarves of band of robbers or adopted family caring deeply for her, and when Dean starts making his own crystal casket, the ma’lak box, in which he will ride out eternity in tormented symbiosis with Apocalypse Michael, he has to rely on his family to help him see the plan through. However, here’s where Jack-- who is as much a chaos engine as his surrogate father Castiel if not more so-- steps in and ruins the ending. Jack smites Michael. Dean Winchester is saved. Again. To put the final nail in the coffin, so to speak, Jack later destroys the ma’lek box entirely.

That was quite the surprise ending… for one of the stories.

Was the end of season 14 the end of the Sleeping Beauty theme, also?

END OF TL;DR

I quit writing about “folklore” for a while, but that doesn’t mean it stopped being a theme. It just stopped being fun to write about as the story got more and more dark, and when it transmuted into two parallel themes of “folklore” or storytelling by the people versus Death of the Author--or storytelling by a lauded authority-- and there was so much angst about the boundaries of Chuck’s powers, I just wanted to sit back and enjoy that. I did distill my thoughts about Sam’s new arc in the DotA plot, which I thought would subsume the folktale themes but hey, we still have folktales around, too. I mean, we have Sam and we have Dean, and we have two “literary” subtexts, or maybe rather two subjects about the nature of story, something that I thought was a little bit of a surprise.

Storytelling was a Feature of 15x07 Last Call, both in the sense that Lee and Dean swap new stories and tell old tales of their adventures together as they catch up, but also in the sense that we got additional “text”-- hints of a backstory where John and Dean hunted with Lee in that swampy long-ago “Stanford era,” and again we get storytelling when _Lee recounts how he ended up keeping a marid in his basement_. There is also an allusion to the Thousand and One Arabian Nights in that episode that I yelled about in a meta that I never put on the interwebs, but the “marid” is in a specific tale in many editions of that collection, and thus calls in not only a different folktale tradition but the concept of a framed/nested narrative, which I believe will be important to understanding the last episodes of the series, but that’s an aside. In 15x08 Our Father Who Aren’t In Heaven, Castiel _tells Michael the story_ of how everyone ended up where they are now to convince him to help. And Michael and Adam’s allyship, if not friendship, was probably the best subversion of any “storytelling” expectation we’ve ever had on this show. Belphagor set us up for “room full of crazy” or something, but, no. We got symbiosis.

That almost sums up how I’ve been viewing the last “era” of spn. This wasn’t in the master post, but I shouted a lot about underworlds before 15x09 Purgatory 2: Return to Purgatory, and then stopped shouting because I had to ferment for a while. Also, as has been mentioned, the world turned to crap. But talking to other meta writers during the ramp up to the resumption of the season helped me realize just why this reading of myth to folktales to literature feels so right.

Underworlds and Otherworlds…. Everybody has crossed into an “underworld” or three in Supernatural, it’s really nbd. It was actually surface-level plot in season 13. By the time 15x09 rolled around, our heroes are just, like, strolling in and out of “sealed off” Hell after doing a level one spell and chilling with Billie in the Empty and even that Purgatory trip didn’t have the same feeling of danger that, say, crossing into the AU did. But also, we’re at the point where subtext is leading us to a _satisfactory_ ending. Where before we had serial text, like a cumulative tale type-- “The House that Jack Built”-- which just kept adding more and more plot, we’re hurtling o’er the apex of Freytag’s pyramid now and things are getting loud.

But they’re also getting very shifty.

I wrote a little bit about Sam Winchester successfully reviving Eileen in 15x06 Golden Time and the “Orpheus and Eurydice” symbolism of him keeping his back to her. (I’m not linking it because it’s so, so rough.) But because Sam is not an underworld hero, not completely-- I see him as a modern Protagonist coming to terms in a psychoanalytical model with things like mortality, fallibility, and mastery-- maybe bildungsroman, even -- he was able to subvert the tragic ending of the tale of Orpheus and Eurydice because it is not “his” story. But if I were pressed to find a mythic or folk tale type to measure Sam against, I could. I would probably sideye “the sorcerer’s apprentice” trope (ATU 325-The Magician and his Pupil :D ) which began as a poem that entered European folklore on different fronts. (and weirdly, that story was also Disnified in Fantasia. That’s probably more my own limitation as a gen x american lol than anything coming from the writer’s room.)

Dean got his moment in Purgatory where he was able to finally come to grips with his anger and heal the rift between himself and Castiel because Purgatory is a different kind of underworld. Dean is a successful threshold-crosser, having crossed that boundary out of Purgatory before, but in 15x09, his prayer to Castiel is all a subtextual evocation of doing the emotional and mental work of therapy, which Sam, as a modern protagonist, is usually caught up in. The mythic hero also deals with mortality, failibilty, and mastery, but in different terms. I hope I’m doing an okay job peeling apart these nuances that I’m seeing.

Since Castiel accompanied Dean to Purgatory, and in the past made his own wildly successful incursion into and out of Hell with Dean’s soul, and was the one in The Trap who actually retrieved the Leviathan blossom, Castiel counts as an underworld hero, too, but you can pull the lever and send the tumblers spinning again and make him a fairy tale character in that he has made this Bargain with the Empty which is both in the “modern” tradition of subverting a fairy tale, and the tale type “deal with the devil.” Or he could be seen as a modern protagonist in that he’s lowkey grappling with questions of selfhood and identification. “I am an angel of the lord.” “I am no one.” “It’s Steve, now.” “You are nothing.” “I am an angel.”

We even got an episode that playfully explored the concept of “hero” by subverting our expectations (Sam and Dean were rescued by, of all people, an upgraded Garth.) It was called The Hero’s Journey, after the Joseph Campbell book about mythic heroes.... !!! Like, what??? !!!! I didn’t even have anything to say about that episode, it just rocked. The “meta” was just all out there in plot, like the olives and boiled eggs in a 1950’s gelatin recipe.

Some of this slipperiness in the subtext points right at the study of folklore and the (admittedly Eurocentric at first) efforts to transform a “soft science” into something approaching scientific rigor. The Aarne-Thompson-Uther folktale index is today a codifying or cataloguing tool, with which anthropologists and literature scholars can line up stories based on the motifs found within them-- it is useful for cataloguing tales, making comparative studies, and for trying to trace these stories back through human history to find the One First Story of that type, for instance the ur-story that led to Snow White. When did people first start telling that tale, where, how did it spread, and why are we still telling it today? The danger in using the ATU index is that by stripping a story down to it’s bones, we lose the story, if that makes sense. The beauty of using the ATU index is that you find many, many more interconnected stories. It’s sort of a paradox. Some scholars criticize the ATU, claiming that one could take a random selection of these motifs and shuffle them to create a story and, you sort of could? That’s the beauty of the system.

So that brings us to Jack. I feel like Jack, as in Jack of all Trades, is anything that the narrative needs him to be. As far as I can find, “Jack” is not a “tale type.” He shows up alongside any number of them-- sometimes as a trickster, sometimes as a hero, almost always as a kind of slippery character. In the first folklore post, I invested many words in exploring Dabb’s obsession with threes-- AU Michael asks three beings what they desire, asks his human victim to guess his name three times, then we follow three sleeper stories, and so on. The original TFW was three people. But Jack makes four.

What is Jack’s story going to be?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

And speaking for a sec about the origins of myth and folklore-- what about ALL OF THE OTHER PEOPLE in the world? Are they lowkey churning the matrix of reality on their own and generating their own content, like Becky and her AO3 stories and mackettes?

*¯\_(ツ)_/¯ intensifies*

It all just feels so good at this point, even the peril that I feel surrounding Castiel.

I *think* this will be the last of the longform metas before the end of the series. I mean, I can only hope so. I’ll drop some stuff about individual episodes that might be applicable as I rewatch, and I might clean up my post about Last Call and drop it on here, but I just wanted to kind of hold this up as a mile marker before the Final Seven air.

#the folklore of supernatural #idk even what to tag this

55 notes · View notes

freshstartbaby · 3 years

Text

Chapter 3

PREVIOUS PART

Lux - Easy

“Save appearances and you save everything.”

« I quitted the job ». Those words were resonating in Florian's head. He tried to think about anything else, like the man he just killed and make sure he didn't forget any clue. But he couldn't. He was thinking about this sentence and what it really means.

He kept washing his hands, trying to remove the blood from it. Whose blood was it ? The man who snitched on him. Yea, Florian said he will take care of it, so he took care of it.

It was supposed to be a quick and clean job and it started that way. A single head bullet. But Florian lost his cold blood when had to make the body disappear.

He thought about Rebecca's last sentence and things became messy. His moves became less precise and more animalistic. So now he was in his bathroom, trying to get rid of some blood.

Once he was done, he took a shower and got back to his bedroom with his towel around his waist. First he sitted and then he let his upper body crash on the bed. His eyes started to close slowly when he heard some heels steps on the floor.

« Flo is that you ? » a voice said in the hallway

Florian opened his eyes when the door moved and revealed his wife.

« Hey » she said softly « I didn't know you were home »

She laid down on her husband's side and left a peck on his lips before putting her head on his bare chest. Florian put a hand on her back and grabbed it slightly.

« Your mum called, her, your father and your brothers will be there in few weeks» she said quietly

« That's a good news» Florian said, eyes still closed

« You left early this morning » Elizabeth said caressing his arm with her fingertips

« Yea, I got few things to do » he said shutting back his eyes

Things to do. Business to handle. Elizabeth was used to those kinds of answers. She was aware of illegal stuff his husband and her own family was in. So she was satisfied with this kind of answer. The less she knew, the better it was. But deep down, she knew something else was bothering her husband.

Suddenly, she blamed herself for thinking that way. She had this feeling for some years now but come on, it had been less than three days that he was just out of jail. He must have a lot on his mind. Maybe he needed time to re adapt.

Her fingers kept traveling on his skin. Seeing him that way gave her naughty thoughts. Indeed they had some business to catch up on their own. Even if she could have conjugal visits, it wasn't the same. Now that he was out, they could go back on trying having a baby.

Maybe it would work this time.

But Elizabeth also thought about how many times pregnancy tests were failed.

She sat up straight in a second. She seated up and started going towards the bathroom

« I got you a new phone, he is in the living room » she said to Florian before closing the bathroom door and locking it.

His eyes opened quickly when he earned the lock. He knew what she was doing when the door was locked. He knew it for years now.

In fact, once the door is locked, she will go to the cabinet. Grab the gold little box. Drop white power on the flat surface in two or three lines. Sniff it. Put some on her upper gum. Put back the little box where it was. Flush the toilet. Wash her hand and exit the bathroom.

And it was exactly what happened.

Florian got up feeling powerless about the situation. He got dressed and went to the living room. Once he grabbed the new phone Florian crashed on the couch. He needed to send a text to Rebecca.

While the phone was turning on, Elizabeth was back in the living room. Without his eyes leaving the screen Florian told her

« Now that I am back, maybe you could get back on at least trying to consume less »

—-

On her side Rebecca was visiting her family with Youri. It's been few months since she hasn't. And with everything that's going on she felt the need of being surrounded by hers.

Her mother, her father and her siblings were there. Rebecca would rather her father not to be here but she could tolerate his presence. To be honest the bold personalities of her mother and her relatives would make him disappear in the conversation.

Rebecca has a little sister of 24, Brianna, and a little brother of 22 David. Even if they didn't see each other often they were very close.

Brianna was one of the very few person Rebecca used to confess. She was a very good listener and gave very good advice for her age. She wanted to become an artist, indeed she was very talented with photography and had a very unique style in painting.

David was affecting more discipline. He was ending his last year of college and wanted to integrate the army. Which was bothering a lot his mother and his father.

For his mother it was because she knew she wouldn't handle it if her only son was coming back home in a coffin.

For his father it was different. It was because he always had despise black people who were stupid enough to wanted to fight for a country who didn't want them. He used to be an activist himself and had very little thought about a lot of things.

Not that all of them were wrong. But it has the power to upset Rebecca. Actually she had two triggering subject with her father: the art of being a good black person and interracial relationship.

Rebecca always found it funny that her father had so much passion when he was talking about being a black person with dignity, when she knew very well he wasn't a good person at all.

When grew in her 20's she understood that being an adult was a tough thing and that nobody was perfect. But she also remembered well all the day and night when her father was beating her mother almost to death. She remembered the bruised face of her mother, the moment when she couldn't even talk because of the pain. And with all of that in mind the big speech of being a good black person was just empty.

During the dinner when he was speaking, Rebecca couldn't help but look at him with lousiness. If he could only shut up. His presence was bothering her so much.

Her biggest regret in life was that she couldn't convince her mother to leave him. He didn't deserve one percent of that lady.

« The things is that black women think that white men can make them integrate the society more easily, give them a statut, that's why they neglected black men » Robert said

The conversation was not running about this subject at all and an awkward silence took over the place. Rebecca looked at her mother, warning her with a look that she wasn't letting this type of shit go away.

« Robert, could you, please, do not make those types of statement in front of Youri » Rebecca said in a calm voice

« Why ? Because his father is white ? That's not my problem he needs to know the truth »

« Ok let change the subject » Brianna said while taking a sip of water

« No no please Robert, what truth are you talking about exactly ? » Rebecca said

Robert looked at Youri then back at Rebecca

« Look we have a very clear exemple here, you have a baby with a white man. But the least that I know is that he is not really around since a good time. And nobody wants to talk about it. If a black man would have acted like that the whole world would have blamed him. Moreover look at you, showing of about your son talking German like it will make him more white than he is, or making you more white that you already sound»

« Robert ! » Maya finally said looking at him like crazy

He had gone well too far.

Rebecca looked at Youri making sure that he didn't understand everything. He looked a little bit lost about the situation and looked at her wondering what was going on.

« First of all, this is the last time I allow you to talk about my son. I hope that it is clear enough because if you even try to pronounce his name I would beat you ass with my own hand. My relationship with Florian is very messy. But you know what ? Men are trash, I have learnt that a long time ago. It is just that some of them won't be by your side and others will try to kill you with their own hands. Like you used to do it so well. I have picked my poison. » Rebecca said

« Ok stop, let's end this con-« Maya said trying to calm the situation now that everyone has said what what's on their mind

« And for god sake stop thinking black women need men to be someone, we clearly need no one to shine-«

Rebecca was cut by the buzz of her phone

Henry Cavill:

Hi Rebecca, I hope you and Youri are alright. Just letting you know that I'll be in NYC in two weeks. I hope we can spend some time together. Call me when you got time

Take care

Hen

She blew heavily at the end of the text. It wasn't exactly the good moment. She deleted the message and put her phone back on the table.

Everyone was looking at her.

« You know what, never mind, just forget everything that I have said »

Her phone buzzed another time. She rolled her eyes hoping that it was Henry again.

Unknown:

Becky, this is my new number.

Kiss Youri for me.

See you soon

This time Rebecca doesn't look upset. She blinked slowly and saved the number before putting back the phone on the table. The text wasn't signed, but she knew from who it was obviously.

« Should we start the dessert ? » she said looking at her mother with a small smile.

Everyone seems to relax, happy that at least one of them would end the conversation.

Rebecca is a resentful woman and never has a good relationship with her father. But since she had troubles with Florian, it seems like his father liked to use it against her. And against Youri. It was driving her crazy.

It really killed her that he could come to Youri. Sometimes she asked herself what would have happened if she wasn't weak that night.

—-

Few years ago

It was near 2:00 AM. Rebecca was sitting on the carpet of her living room. Working on some project she has been thinking about lately. She rather put her time in some ideas than being in her empty bed.

She felt lonely. She often felt that way lately. But tonight the feeling was coming at her strong. Headaches, goosebumps, freezing, tears ready to drop for any stupid reason.

She inhaled the smoke of her cigarette when her door rang. Her eyebrows frowned at this sound. She put down her cigarette and got up before walking through the front door.

Her heart dropped when she looked in the door's hole. What the hell was he doing here. A cold sweat took over Rebecca's body in one second.

« Becky, it's me, open the door » Florian said close to the door

Rebecca's breath wasn't stuck in her throat. She hasn't talked or even seen him for months now. And it was better that way. They weren't together anymore. Their friendship had died with their relationship. And now he was a married man. There was no reason for them to catch up.

« What do you want ? You're not supposed to be here. » Rebecca said, the door still closed

« We need to talk Becky »

« Stop calling me that way, you should go home »

« Please, let us have this conversation. We can't keep avoiding it. »

« I don't have anything to say. Really, you should go home »

« Really Beck ? You don't have anything to say »

« I don't. » she tried to say putting her hand in front of her mouth so he can't eared her crying

But it was a lie. One of the biggest she had said this year. She felt over sensitive tonight. And it's the night he found to show up, finally.

She had a lot to say and she was weak.

« Well I have and I miss you. » Florian said behind the door

Her cries became harder after this sentence. Pain was taking over her. She missed him too. So much. If he only knew.

Rebecca quickly wiped her tears and tried to fix her face when she finally opened the door.

Now face to face, she could see him perfectly in his all black nike jumpsuits and his open camo puffy jacket. Hood on his head, she almost had forgotten how much she likes his face.

Now face to face, he could finally face reality and see how badly he hurted the woman he was in love with.

He was so ashamed. He had done this. He was the reason why tears were all over her pretty face.

Their body crashed. While Rebecca buried her face in his torso, back to crying, Florian hugged her back tightly and caressed her head.

« I am so sorry baby. I am so sorry »

You left me. I trusted you. You broke me.

It's what Rebecca wished she could say. But the noises she made while she was crying stopped her. She started breathing hard.

« Hey I'm right there baby. Look at me, look, I'm here. I'm not going anywhere. I'm yours. » Florian said, lifting her chin with one of his hands so she could look at him in his eyes.

I'm yours. In contrast to Rebecca, it was the biggest truth he told. Since he left her few months ago, there was not a single day when he was sure that it was a mistake. A huge one.

He looked at her puffy eyes, still releasing tears. How could he have done this to her. Few seconds dropped before their lips met.

Naked in Rebecca's bed, catching their breath, lovers stayed silent. Realizing the mistake and the consequences of their act. They were both lost in mixed feeling.

For Rebecca, it was the disgust and a kind of release. Disgust because she never thought one second in her life that she could have sex with a married man in purpose. She wasn't like that. At least that is what she thought. She promised herself it was the first and the last time something that serious arrived. But it was too late. It already was the one of too many times.

Release because of what he told her. He was hers. He told her he was hers. What they had wasn't insignificant at the end. She felt a little bit better knowing that she hasn't wrongly judged what they had for years.

For Florian it was different. He felt soothe and trapped. Soothe because he had Rebecca back. He knew it wasn't going to be an easy task. But he had her back. Since the day they stopped talking, everything was just wrong. He needed her by his side. Trapped because now he had to put a mask in front of the most important people of his life: family and love.

That night, Florian came to Rebecca to have a discussion and try to get her forgiveness. But what they have done that night was just about to bury them a little bit more.

—-

« You know, you're daddy ain't wrong » Maya said softly sitting down

« Please Moma can we not do this. « Rebecca said

« I know your daddy isn't blameless. Actually he has made a lot of mistakes, and I'm in the best position to tell you that. »

Rebecca put down the glass she was wiping and looked at her mother, waiting for the next part of her speech.

« But you need to find a solution baby. You can not wait for Florian to commit to you until forever. You have a son together, and we haven't seen him for years. What does that mean for you ? Are you even still with him ? »

« It's complicated Moma »

« He used to be there at every single thanksgiving since you two met, he knows us, he has a baby with you, the least he can do is show up sometimes. »

Rebecca took another glass, trying to keep it together. She knew all of that. She knew it damn well. And she was kind of ashamed of the situation

« Look, you need to fix this situation or tell us the truth. If y'all not together anymore you can tell me baby. It doesn't matter for us. What matters is you being happy and getting full support of us. What's matter is Youri understanding that relationship are not meant to be this way »

Rebecca stayed silent, hardly swallowing. She knew this part of her life was a big mess, and she didn't need her family to put pressure on her for that.

« Look baby, you're a beautiful woman. I'm sure you could easily find someone else. What I mean by that is don't stay trapped in this hole. Fix it or move on. »

Maya was ready to leave the kitchen when she stopped. She looked back at her daughter before saying.

« I want to see him the next time you come, or don't come back at all. »

——

Wassssup yall

Let me know what you think

Elizabeth addiction ?

Rebecca and her father ?

Henry fucking Cavill ?

Xoxo

NEXT PART

liquorlaughslove xsweetdellzx killa-kyootie

#florian munteanu x black reader #florian munteanu #florian big nasty munteanu #thicc daddy flo #florian munteanu headcanons #Big Nasty #apparences

33 notes · View notes

mchalowitz · 4 years

Text

the woman is the king, part three

summary: a throughline of the matriarchal scullys; be they ethereal, sharp-witted, and ill-omened.

i’m very excited to finally share this! definitely the most difficult part to write so far and i hope everyone enjoys it!

part 1: melissa / part 2: dana

part 3: emily

read on ao3

@today-in-fic

———

Two years on, sometimes Scully believes she will be able to survive without her other. A forgotten voice travels from immortal nirvana to her brother’s residential line. She wonders if what she tells herself is true.

1994; the lost year that exists between them. On an evening in March, returning from a field assignment with Mulder, Melissa leaves a message on her answering machine that Scully can still easily recite.

Things are too hard right now, Dana. I’m safe, I’m with friends in California. I’ll call soon. I love you.

Dana would never have been the golden child. No one surpasses a squid, especially not a fed with some shifty assignment. A shifty fed fares better than a filthy sinner. Charlie wears excommunication with unsweetened pride. And Melissa, the silly new ager, well, she could take no more.

No one thrives at the center of a Scully family scandal. Scully tries to create a rational narrative. It is 1994. Melissa is pregnant; she doesn’t want the baby. She knows plenty of people on the west coast. It was believable.

Her beloved sister, Dana, is abducted, and in the four weeks she is missing, Melissa gives birth, and the baby is adopted. Dana resurfaces in a hospital; left practically for dead. Her sister returns to stand vigil at her bedside.

It becomes a question of mindset. Maggie believes Melissa would have told her; Dana disagrees. Subversion of expectations was the ultimate sin for a Scully child as it was a denouncement of the parenting of William and Margaret. She can attest to her mother’s softening on certain expectations since the death of her father. She still disagrees.

No time for sulking, only pushing through. Working the case through Christmas clearly infuriates Bill. He keeps it to hushed whispers and snide remarks out of Tara’s earshot. Scully often wonders how privy Tara is to anything going on in the Scully family.

Her infertility stings when she looks at her sister-in-law. With her cancer now in remission, the other medicals horrors Scully faced start coming back to the surface. It is another slap; the thought that her sister gave away such a sweet little girl while she will never carry a child.

Scully is a mother. She struggles to quantify what Emily is.

Emily, a living and breathing child, with the face of a Scully, is a violation of her body that someone stole from her, and yet must be fiercely protected. Perhaps Emily is the missing piece.

Scully hurriedly fills out the application for temporary custody. It consists of the normal, straightforward questions found on any application, until her hand is hovering over that box. Single or married.

The only thing happening in sunny San Diego is a completely mundane family Christmas, as far as Mulder is aware. Her words froze during her singular phone call. It seems like reaching out now is more of a bombardment than a simple debrief.

Scully is not in a position to presuppose the enigmatic thoughts of Fox Mulder. Yes, it was by his own volition to marry her and she can even believe that Mulder does love her. It is a mutual respect and a fond devotion. It is not spousal love; not a man that loves his wife.

If she checks the box, Mulder would have to be a father figure to Emily, and it is not her place to make that decision for him. Their marriage was playing house because she was destined to die and Emily does not deserve to be a flour-sack baby in their labyrinthian game.

Her pen swipes across the paper. Single.

Mulder starts with M. Mmm. Emily tells him so.

Emily leaves the crayons and paper to go to the bookshelf. Mulder is sitting in the chair by the window and she gives him the book. She points to the yellow bird on the cover.

“What’s his name?”

“I think that’s Big Bird,” Mulder tells her.

Her Daddy only reads her one book at a time, Mulder reads her three. She goes to the bookshelf for more when Dana comes up close to her. “Emily, Mulder and I have to leave now, but we’ll come back tomorrow.”

Emily looks at Mulder, holding the book, and he says, “I bet you can find a good spot to keep it safe.”

She nods and sets the book against the bed, fixing it when it slides down. Dana and Mulder leave. A lady makes her pick up her crayons before dinner.

“I’m tired,” she insists, holding the lady’s hand on the way to eat.

“First dinner, then bed, Emily.”

A duality develops in relation to another atrocity to her body. It is a swift punch to the throat; knocking the breath so deeply out of her lungs. It is also as mundane as adding milk to the shopping list; it is only another thing.

Her brother’s phone line carries mysteries from one location to another. Landline abandoned, traveling well above the speed limit, Mulder drives toward the children’s home.

“I could have handled it,” she asserts simply.

“I know.”

Mulder, with his complexity of a hero, and innate ability to act so hoggish. Scully wonders if he really believes that.

Her blanket at home is pink sparkles and has Barbie on the pillows. Emily doesn’t like her new blanket nearly as much. It’s just plain pink.

The lady from dinner tucks her in. “I met Mr. Potato Head,” Emily informs her.

Emily doesn’t like the other kids in the new place, especially the boy that calls, “That’s not true! Mr. Potato Head isn’t real.”

“Yes, he is!” she argues. She struggles to sit up with the blanket holding her back. “I met him and he looks like this!” She puffs out her cheeks, making the same face.

“That must have been very exciting, Emily,” the lady adds softly, tucking her in again.

The lights turn off. Emily closes her eyes. She feels cold.

In the work Mulder does with Scully, it is often based more on speculation than he would ever like to admit to anyone. It disgusts him to know that if Emily were any other file in his cabinet, it would bring him joy to map out theories and spar with his partner over them. With the empty coffin staring back at them, Mulder can easily assume a thought is something neither of them want to enter their minds ever again. No hypothesizing to be done here.

Following the funeral, the San Diego bureau fares slightly kinder than their city’s court system. Their California contact, while deeply apologetic for the tragedy that has occurred here, informs them the field office won’t be actively pursuing the case. Aside from following up on a few leads pertaining to the deaths of Roberta and Marshall Sim, it will likely be deemed a cold case.

“I’m very sorry, Agent Scully,” the agent says, padding his final blow. Emily’s case will not be investigated either. Both Mulder and Scully understand the algorithm that goes into the decision of pursuing an investigation. If the case fell into the FBI mainstream, Emily’s chronic health issues, use of experimental treatments, and her parents’ full cognizance to the risks wouldn’t stand a chance against the process.

And if there was anything to investigate, it has already been destroyed by powers far outside the reach of some dinky field office anyway. Whatever the reasoning may be, another Scully woman is still failed by the United States government.

Scully wants the first flight out of San Diego back to Washington and he is more than quick to oblige her. While she very clearly loves the new addition to her family, the sting is just as obvious.

Two hours down in the air, three more to go, and they have barely said a word to each other since take-off. Scully’s head is turned toward the window when he reaches for her hand. “Scully,” he speaks, very quietly.

“No,” she responds with a shake of her head, her voice tight.

Another long stretch of silence and Mulder thinks she maybe falls asleep, which would be a welcome cause for silence, because he isn’t convinced she’s slept more than an hour or two in days. He is about to request a blanket when her forehead presses into his shoulder and the contact reveals her body shaking with the exertion of holding everything inside yet again.

It’s his fierce need to protect her always that causes him to envelope her body with his. Her arms wind tightly around his neck. Her attempts to muffle her sobs in his jacket is only partially successful.

A flight attendant taps him on the shoulder and asks him, “Is everything alright?”

“Everything’s fine,” Mulder blatantly lies. “But maybe we could get a glass of water for my wife.”

It's a rare euphoria to speak those words; his wife. Dana Scully is his wife. A mostly unmentioned fact that gives him a childishly nervous feeling in his stomach. While it never retreated in his mind, it appears to be returning to the forefront of hers.

In the winding process of applying for custody, a second application exists. Scully’s final plea to unite her with her own flesh and blood. Another document that states definitively that they are married. Mulder underwent a grilling from the judge; a practical bullying on the semantics of their marriage.

One’s subconscious works powerfully, in his experience, and when he sat in this same position on Scully’s couch six months ago, the answer came to him so clearly. It wasn’t only for her benefit as a life experience that everyone should have the opportunity to have if they so choose; cancer only sped up the timeline of an inevitably. Mulder has never taken a mightier leap with her and she accepted. A singular score for Fox Mulder.

It’s treated as though it never even existed; his presence in that way completely reverted. He wishes he had more of a chance to prove himself worthy. He wishes he was a less of pussy to actually do it. He will, he’s going to. If she is ever willing to forgive him for all of his transgressions.

Mulder carried the knowledge of her ova and of what was likely (and now, very clearly) done with it with a heaviness that rivaled the many other weights he lugs around inside him. Scully’s hope for recovery was dwindling then and it was only another way to hurt her.

It felt criminal to hijack her happiness when she went into remission and her bliss honestly fed his soul. Now, he only piles onto her pain. And if he was any kind of man, if he was someone deserving of someday being a person she would maybe, eventually, love for real, he would have been a lot fucking better.

The flight attendant delivers a glass of water and a box of tissues on a plastic tray. He takes both and offers the glass to Scully. She scoots forward to the edge of her seat, her back straightened, and it reminds him of Bellefleur, and of that young agent in her red robe, and the fear of simple bug bites. It was the moment of cosmiticity bursting into existence between them.

Scully sips water, wiping her cheeks with the back of her hand. His eyes never leave her for the rest of the flight. He drives her home under the glow of streetlights.

“I can keep you company, if you want,” he offers after insisting he carry her suitcase inside for her. “Might even be able to catch a replay of the Rose Bowl if we’re lucky.”

“That won’t be necessary,” she replies. One hand holds the door and the other is braced on the frame; a universal sign to get lost told through her body language. “I’m going to take a few days. I already let Skinner know.”

“I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“Okay,” she agrees. “Goodnight, Mulder.”

“Goodnight, Scully.”

Once the door is shut, he hears the lock click into place. It pains him to walk away.

Mulder calls Scully in the morning as promised. He calls every morning after. It just rings and rings.

No one is expecting her back in the office until Monday, but by Thursday it becomes increasingly clear that a return to normalcy is what she requires. Scully can only stare at California girls immortalized by ages in threes on her mantel for so long.

She trades in her bathrobe for a beige skirt with matching jacket and she slugs down the last of a cup of coffee while she packs her briefcase. The landline rings in its cradle next to her hand. Her stockinged feet slide against the kitchen tile as she turns to answer.

“Hello?”

An unfamiliar female voice carries cheerily into her ear. “Hi there, this is Amanda over at Liberty Fertility Center. I’m looking for Fox Mulder?”

"This is...” Scully starts, and then she pauses, staring up at the ceiling before answering with a restrained sigh. “This is his wife.”

“I’m following up on a call we received from your husband earlier this week about a sample being stored at our facility and possible ova analysis. He left this as the call back number.”

Scully clicks her tongue against her teeth, nodding slowly. She barely focuses on the conversation and when it ends, she retrieves the phone book, slamming it down on the table in place of her briefcase. She dials the first promising number in the correct category.

Heat overtakes her melancholy. Scully is so, so tired of Mulder blanketing his wrongdoings under the guise of protecting her. It has always, ultimately, been her choice to walk alongside him; it was his choice to marry her. He still fills their partnership, their marriage, with secrets. He still withholds.

She can only imagine what is being done to her ova sitting in some facility. Mulder didn’t even have the decency to tell her any even remained.

Scully arrives at the office on Friday and Mulder is immersed in a sea of paperwork and photographs. It is only eight in the morning and he already has his jacket slung over the back of his chair, his sleeves rolled up over his forearms.

“Hey, I wasn’t expecting you until Monday,” he grins with surprised delight.

Mulder follows her with his eyes as she steps up to his desk. She leans down, kissing him soundly on the mouth, and she observes his dreamy stare when they part.

“I need my ova, Mulder,” she states. Scully pulls a business card out of her pocket; the law firm she called the morning before. “And I want a divorce.”

#x files #xf fic #dana scully #fox mulder #emily sim #msr #this is straight up probably the worst time of day to post lol

35 notes · View notes

quazartranslates · 3 years

Text

Welcome to the Nightmare Game - CH 57

**This is an edited machine translation. For more information, please [click here]**

[<<< Previous Chapter | Table of Contents | Next Chapter >>>]

-----

Chapter 57: Witchcraft Sacrifice (XXVI)

[One of us went and came back.]

The last bloody word that appeared on the wall stunned Qi Leren.

What had gone and come back? Did it mean that a dead witch had been resurrected again? No, one of them going and coming back... Did that mean coming back here? Maybe, three years ago, there was a surviving witch candidate in the witchcraft sacrifice mission. Three years later, she came here again and mingled among them.

Was she a player or an NPC? Why would she do that?

The creepy feeling slowly climbed to the soles of Qi Leren's feet from the darkness in all directions, and then slowly climbed up his body along the nerves, stirring his imagination, making the already strange situation more complicated and confusing.

If someone survived last time and came to this underground palace again, who would it be? He, Ning Zhou, Lu Youxin, and Isabel were the only people who are alive now. The Ellie-Aisha sisters were unknown. Which one was most likely?

No, it was impossible to make effective inferences. From another angle, if that person received this task again, she would be familiar with the task flow and terrain. If you were familiar with the terrain…

Between crackles, Qi Leren suddenly recalled the situation when he was in the swamp tower. At that time, Lu Youxin asked Ye Xia if she needed to copy a map of the underground palace for her. Ye Xia told the truth under Lu Youxin's skill: she refused.

At that time, he and Lu Youxin thought it was because Ye Xia didn't trust them, but now that he thought about it, could it be because she was very familiar with the terrain of the underground palace, so she didn't need this quarter map at all?

But Ye Xia was dead. He saw and touched her body with his own eyes, and Xie Wanwan who killed her had died…

Was the body fake? The idea flashed by, and Qi Leren himself felt funny. This was not a detective novel, to be capable of putting the body in a false pretence. He had seen the bodies of these two people with his own eyes.

Isabel let out a whimper, struggling as if she had been strangled, looking very pained. Qi Leren checked her condition, and suddenly there was a flash of light. Could it be Isabel who went and came back? She also said that she’s lost her memory. Maybe in this lost memory, she followed her sister to the underground palace. For some reason, she escaped and lost these memories. Then three years later, she came here again.

Could it be what he thinks?

Oh, and the altar.

"Now all the seven witches are dead. According to the clue given by the wall, shouldn’t the altar have appeared?" Qi Leren said to Ning Zhou in wonder, "But now it seems that the altar hasn’t appeared here. Could there be some conditions that need to be reached?"

Ning Zhou silently shook her head, saying she didn't know.

"She seems to be about to wake up." Qi Leren caught a glimpse of Isabel's eyelids trembling a few times and immediately squatted down beside her.

Isabel mumbled, as if shouting for her sister, and finally woke up from a coma. When she woke up, she just lay on the ground and looked at the dark ceiling as if she had lost her soul.

"Isabel?" Qi Leren called to her.

Isabel suddenly got up from the ground as if possessed, took Qi Leren's arm and screamed, "It's her! She's back! It can't be wrong, it must be her!"

"Calm down and speak slowly, who is it?" Qi Leren pressed her shoulder and asked carefully.

Isabel, who calmed down from her excitement, stared at him with empty eyes. Her eyes were out of focus. She pursed her lips and whispered, "...The woman with the knife."

"Ye Xia? Have you seen her? " Qi Leren asked again.

Isabel's body was shaking and her voice was shaking: "Yes, three years ago, she was in the same carriage with my sister..."

Isabel, who was still in chaos, intermittently told what she’d recalled. From her messy and disordered statement, the memory she lost three years ago was slowly presented to the two people.

Her sister was taken away after being selected as a witch candidate. Isabel secretly inquired about the place where her sister was locked up. When the day of sacrifice came, she quietly followed the carriage to the forest and saw the witch candidates who had been driven out of the carriage. One of the ones with her sister was Ye Xia.

They were driven into the jungle by domestic dogs, and Isabel was worried about her sister, so she ventured into the forbidden forest after everyone left. At that time it was getting dark, and in the deep twilight, she frantically searched for her sister, trying to take her out of the forest, but she was quickly lost there.

Then, she met a woman.

It was a woman so beautiful she could not be described in words. In the sunset, she stood quietly under a withered giant tree, with a bloodied corpse sprawled at her feet. She looked at her, and her eyes couldn't tell whether it was coldness or gentleness, but only by looking at her like this, she had forgotten everything, even forgetting that there was a corpse lying at her feet.

"You are not the chosen one, why did you come here?" The woman asked her, her voice graceful and elegant as a lark singing in the morning light.

"I came to see my sister," Isabel answered.

When she heard her answer, the woman showed an expression like a smile, and the slightly curled corners of her mouth turned her from a perfect sculpture into a living person. She said briskly, "It's not the time for you to come, come back three years later."

When she heard her words, Isabel seemed to be possessed, and she couldn't help agreeing. When her consciousness began to blur, she struggled to ask the last question: "Who are you?"

The woman still smiled calmly at her, but gave a shocking answer: "I am the one you will serve."

After that, she gently touched her finger on her lips and smiled mysteriously and charmingly: "Brave little girl, you have to keep this secret for me."

Memories came to an abrupt end here, and Isabel woke up in her own bed and lost that memory until she saw Xie Wanwan's bloody body in the underground palace and finally remembered the scene in the forest three years ago.

Qi Leren was shocked speechless. After a long time, he murmured: "Is the person you saw the Devil of Fraud?"

Isabel covered her face and said trembling, "I don't know... I don't know who she is."

Frowning slightly, Qi Leren looked at Ning Zhou and found her deep in thought.

"If the Devil of Fraud really came to the sacrifice three years ago, it would explain why the last witch died so tragically." Qi Leren recalled the bloody tips on the cliff and the witches he had met, and his mind had vaguely connected things together.

For some purpose, three years ago, the Devil of Fraud joined the mission disguised as an ordinary person. She was happy to see human strife, deception and despair. She played with the group of poor witches and provoked them to kill each other. He still remembered that Isabel's sister was locked in an iron coffin and was burned alive by pouring in molten iron. She said, "I didn't hurt her... She lied to you", and this "she" probably referred to the Devil of Fraud. And the witch who created the dreamworld. She twisted in the love that she wanted, and constantly destroyed other witches. I'm afraid it was just a game for the Devil of Fraud.

But what happened to Ye Xia? She also took part in the sacrifice for three years, and then she survived? On one hand, she may have been the final winner of the last sacrifice, or on the other, she may have just survived. However, she survived, and came back here again three years later, and then died in the hands of Xie Wanwan.

It was too strange, it didn't make sense at all. For a woman who had survived the task under the control of the Lord of Fraud, it didn’t make sense for her to have simply died here!

Qi Leren thought more and more, and looked forward with empty eyes. Ning Zhou stood there, quietly looking at the words on the wall, just a figure which easily attracted his attention.

Qi Leren suddenly remembered his situation of talking with Ye Xia in the dreamworld. At that time, Ye Xia had said to him…

-Whether you are truly loved or falsely loved, you are happy as long as you are loved. Sometimes love can't help but help itself. Even if you know it’s impossible, you won't give up easily.

Was that "Ye Xia" herself? Who was the impossible love she said she was dedicated to?

In the silence, a familiar voice came.

"Oh, I finally found you."

Qi Leren almost jumped up from the ground as this voice came from the door of the temple. A translucent virtual shadow stood there, like the wandering souls everywhere in the underground palace.

Lu Youxin's phantom stood there with her arms crossed and looked at them calmly. Her voice mechanically said, "Congratulations on winning the lucky prize. I am a kind-hearted person and this is the final time I’ll do a good deed of the day. I’ll tell you three crucial things, whether you can live and leave here depends on this. "

"Lu Youxin?" Qi Leren's voice was lost. No matter how you looked at it, the person in front of them was not like a living person, but a spirit.

Lu Youxin seemed to be unable to hear his voice, and her voice continued stiffly: "First, I am dead. Second, the woman who killed me seems to be Xie Wanwan. Third, she can transfer her soul. She took my body. To sum up, the murderer is Ye Xia."

-----

Editor’s Note: Double release today because it slipped my mind yesterday Σ(ﾟДﾟ)

A major plot element has finally come into play! Keep the Devil of Fraud in the back of your minds, folks! ;)

-----

[<<< Previous Chapter | Table of Contents | Next Chapter >>>]

#Welcome to the Nightmare Game #欢迎来到噩梦游戏 #danmei

30 notes · View notes

the-enamorando-deity · 4 years

Note

Me again 🥰

Sentences: #10 & #18

Situations: #10 & #18

Locations: #1

Words: #24 and #23

Please and thank you 🙊

welcome back!! first i wanna thank you for sending a request, second I wanna apologise for the following,, so uh good luck lol

sara lance x reader, warning for a little sad

prompts: ring, gravestone, graveyard, accidents happen, death, “what’s on your cheek”, “why are you still here”

(the “accidents happen” part is basically the plot which is me saying “oops this story was an accident and accidents happen please forgive me)

In Time

You never thought the Waverider would be cold. Gideon was always so on top of everything, a comfortable temperature for you all, but now it was just cold. No matter how many layers you wore, how many boiling coffees you drank, the air was starting to turn white as it left your mouth.

The crew, yourself included, passed each other like ghosts with a secret, silence being better than the chest-wracking sobs that had filled the corridors only days before. It wasn’t only yours, but that of everyone on board. A tremendous loss to you all, but devastating most of all for the partner left behind.

Piteous looks that couldn’t be helped, a sympathetic shoulder pat every so often. Whispers passed amongst the crew, knowing their own loss wasn’t any less significant, but knowing hers was. It was silent without orders and laughter, no one could bring themselves to speak, knowing their voice would crack, and the tears would return in a flood.

With a course set for what most of the crew called home, everyone returned to their bunks for one last moment on the ship, knowing the moment they stepped off, the things that had just happened would be set. No more takebacks or second chances, that was it, and the loss of a crew member in such a way would change everything.

Your hands trembled as you left your bunk for a new kind of mourning, kneeling to sit beside the captain’s chair and stare out into the ominous clouds of the timezone. Breathing steadily, swirling your fingers around the edge of a small silver ring. You should have known better by now than to wait, but you were never good with time.

Shivers ran down your spine as the ship landed, quickly wiping the tears brimming at your eyes. Everyone back home knew what had happened, they knew you would all be fragile. To lose such an important part of your lives for a final unforgiving time, in such a horrific way, it was going to cause scars that couldn’t be healed.

You’d lost her before, everyone had, a large multitude of times, but she was entirely erased before your eyes by a single swift move, a calculated decision. Not a single one of you thought he would do it, deciding to take her down before you could take him down too.

Eyes dry, you stared down at the dull green graveyard grass with no more tears left to cry. Your chest still hurt from how hard you were breathing, Nate hanging tight off your arm as his lips trembled. He wasn’t looking to hold you up any more than he needed it himself, likening the loss to that of a sister he finally found.

You were at the end of the chain, grinding your teeth as the preacher’s words hummed in the air. The service was over before long, you being the first to place a handful of dirt on the coffin of your beloved girlfriend.

You saw Nyssa clinging to her sister with fierce anger you could imagine matched your own, passing to express your condolences to her. She knew all about you, stopping your words to pay respects back to you. Losing Sara was something she too had been through, but you all knew this was the last time.

Every possibility had been explored over the last three days, and you couldn’t let any more time pass before allowing her family to grieve. Hands shaking, you stayed by the grave as everyone else moved onward. A cold hand slipped inside yours to steady the shaking, and a heart-wrenching sob left your throat as you turned to see Sara.

Yanking away from her and backing up as fast as you could, hands covering your mouth, you looked at the sad blonde distraught. The final tears rolled down your cheeks as she extended a finger to wipe them away, her cool flesh startling you.

‘What’s on your cheek?’ she asked, lips turning to a sly grin as she realised. ‘Y/N, are you crying? What’s going on?’

You couldn’t speak, heart beating so fast you were sure it was going to implode. Her eyes drifted to the gravestone, turning to you with a strange look. You stammered a sentence, watching her confusion grow even more.

‘Why are you still here?’

Voice croaky, Sara moved to take your hands and hold you. ‘I never left.’

‘No, I… I saw. I saw what happened, we all did. Sara, we just buried you!’ you cried, blood turning from ice to fire as she held you, just as tight as she did when she was with you. Dropping to your knees and throwing your arms around her waist, you sobbed into her body. ‘Tell me I’m not dreaming. Please, be here.’

She lifted your chin with the tip of her finger, eyes twinkling at you. It was everything you remembered about your Sara, the way she held your face when you knelt down, the way she made all the pain in your mind and body fade to a dull ache. She reached for the chain around your neck and tugged it loose from your clothing, showing the ring you had planned on proposing to her with.

‘You were always running late,’ she frowned sadly, and you saw the blue in her eyes shift shades. ‘I love you, okay? Don’t forget.’

Closing your eyes for only a moment, they opened back to find your arms empty. The ring on your necklace chain hovered in midair for just a moment before falling back to your chest, and she was gone.

taglist: @marvelfansince08love @mymarvelwomen @imnotasuperhero @natasha-danvers @veteranwerewolf95 @liziehaswritersblock @dynnealberto @xxxtwilightaxelxxx

send me a request?

#request complete #asks #not anon #i am SORRY OKAY #I DIDNT MEAN TO #RIP READERS #sara lance #white canary #sara x reader #sara lance x reader #legends of tomorrow #legends #fanfiction #writing #dc

33 notes · View notes