#there’s essentially nothing we can do right now until we get casting figured out

[livvyofthelake]

i’m really not trying to be such a huge bitch about the girl in my group for my production class but like what do you mean you think we need to meet tomorrow to work on our production notebook. we haven’t casted anyone. the production notebook and all the planning stuff literally cannot happen in any way that matters until we have the bare minimum casting and location stuff figured out. which we don’t. what would we even be doing if we met tomorrow. talking about the concept of what we might want a shot to look like. featuring an actor we don’t have in a location we haven’t secured. can we be so for real right now. why is she so hellbent on ruining every monday morning i have. girl i don’t have much more patience to spend on you you’re killing me

#i appreciate that she wants to be thorough and all but she’s being ridiculous #there’s essentially nothing we can do right now until we get casting figured out #also she’s acting like we need to do every piece of the creative process together and it’s like. #ok girl i’m the director why don’t you let me storyboard the story i wrote huh. i’ll handle it come on #another reason i am simply not equipped to be in charge. i do not like to share credit #the other day we were talking to our professor about the script ‘we’ wrote and ‘we’ revised. #and the new title ‘we’ came up with that ‘we’ like better #that shut was literally all me tho is the thing. you two did not do any of that what do you mean WE????? #but i can’t say that. #anyway. time to text her back and say fuck no #well. obviously i won’t say that either. i’ll say some shit like yeah i just don’t think we need to meet because there’s not much we can do #etc etc maybe i’ll throw in an lol or something #fuckin hate this

[qqueenofhades]

so how do you think it would be best for American leftists to label ourselves, if not socialist? i've always seen socialism as one of the more palatable terms for leftism. i agree that meeting people where they are + responding thoughtfully and compassionately to their concerns is essential, but i also think we need to use the terms which accurately describe us, and *show* through our community building and efforts that dictators like Castro and Stalin do not represent us

Frankly -- and this is never going to actually happen, but I can dream -- I honestly wish the left would just abandon the word "socialism" altogether. It's never going to be palatable in the American context, there's never going to be a moment where you can just use it and have people immediately know what you mean and/or that you mean the "good" kind of socialism and not the "bad," and it's heretofore been one of the most effective cudgels for the right-wing noise machine to hit us with. Maybe when the older generations all die out, we might have a shot at rehabilitating it, but not until then, and definitely not with the way things are going right now. I'd say that the left can keep it to use among themselves if they have to, but since the one thing that leftists love to do is attack other leftists for being Insufficiently Pure, I'm not even sure it has any use in that regard. It's become an empty signifier and it has, so far as I can see, no real critical use (a bit like "feudalism" to a medieval historian, but never mind that).

Besides, what are we actually saying with the word "socialism," and in some way that we can't rephrase and say more effectively? I would define the progressive/left-wing Democratic agenda as focused on achieving economic and racial justice, protections for women, minorities, LGBTQ+ people, abortion rights, workers, etc., reforming or otherwise significantly changing the late-stage capitalist system, fighting climate change and promoting green initiatives, and other similar policies. How exactly does the word "socialism" signify any of that, and why is it necessary that we keep it? Especially when it's been proven that this does not help us win elections and drives away the Mushy Middle voters that we have to convince to vote for us long enough to actually keep a Democratic administration/Congress in power to make changes, rather than seesawing back to the GOP every few years and putting us even more miserably behind the 8-ball?

This doesn't mean we should BE Mushy Middlemen ourselves, or aspire for some milquetoast centrism that solves nothing and pleases no one, but rather we need to figure out how to make Middle America embrace our policies as they are and how to make them attractive in that context. I think Biden did this very well with his re-election video, where he cast the Democrats as the party of freedom. This is the most American word you can possibly think of, and Americans are predisposed to like anything associated with that word. Heretofore the GOP has had a total stranglehold on it, and defined it very narrowly as military triumphalism and personal freedom to be a dick to everyone you encounter and do whatever you want while trampling over the rights of others. But that's obviously a wildly hypocritical and distorted version of "freedom," in the most Orwellian sense imaginable, and the Democrats actually are the party of freedom: freedom to live your life how you choose, freedom to make choices about your own body, freedom to let your kids be who they want and learn the truth and not get murdered in school, freedom to not live in an authoritarian repressive fascist theocracy. For way too long, Democrats have just meekly ceded the "freedom" word to Republicans, who have shit all over it and made it meaningless the way they have with everything else, and that's a major error.

Likewise, "justice" is another word that the Republicans have appropriated to mean "locking up black people for anything we want and mindlessly worshiping cops," but which Democrats need to get into reclaiming. Everybody can see for themselves how wildly corrupt and unjust the GOP-packed federal judiciary and SCOTUS is (with scandal-a-day Clarence Thomas and the rest of the Federalist Society monsters). The Democrats have a golden opportunity to -- accurately -- cast themselves as the party of justice: economic, racial, climate, gender, etc etc. It's already been proven that "defund the police" is a bad message, so don't SAY that. But talk about an overall scheme of achieving justice, and Middle America likes that! They like to see themselves as generally fair and supporting people who "play by the rules." Yes, of course the law is by nature unjust, but we can still make that messaging work to our advantage to get them to support us.

Basically, I want to see leftists and Democrats alike use the language that the country is predisposed to like: words like justice, freedom, fairness, equality, etc. It's harder to smear somebody as a nasty anti-American socialist (not, of course, that the right wing won't try) if they're talking about those things, especially freedom, and especially in a left/liberal context as the GOP becomes ever more paranoid, fascist, and authoritarian. Besides, they know they're in the minority. Abortion bans aren't popular (they really, REALLY aren't popular). Book bans aren't popular. Attacks on women, LGBTQ+ rights, and trans kids aren't popular. Election denialism and attempted coups aren't popular. Endless and unrestricted assault weapons aren't popular. Yes, a fringe part of this country is awfully and irredeemably poisoned by theocratic fascist white supremacy, but they're still not the majority, and we don't need to act like they are, or write off everybody who's not a Terminally Online Leftist as impossible to ever reach or convince. That just provides a convenient excuse for not doing any work and just letting things get worse.

So like... the Democrats and the leftists alike need to lean into these words and stop letting Republicans monopolize them with their idiot and hypocritical definitions. They also need to reckon with the fact that for a not-insignificant portion of visible and vocal tankie-leftists, they DO want to emulate Castro and Stalin, or at the very least, not care at all about the historical baggage that comes with those names. They feel that any terrible dictator was secretly good if they were a) anti-American and b) describable as "leftist" in some vague and overarching sense of the word, and that's sure as hell not going to convince John and Jane Q. NiceIowaCouple to like them. It sure as hell doesn't convince ME to like them, and I'm already a leftist/liberal who has never voted for a Republican in my life. And because we are at such a dangerous moment where we've escaped fascism but it's still trying with all its might to come back, we really, really can't afford this. It's stupid and it's useless and it's just mean.

Anyway: I want people to stop f'n using the word "socialism," especially since most of them couldn't actually define what it means, what it has meant in the past, or why any benefits outweigh the clear and obvious costs. Start talking about justice, freedom, and fairness instead, show how those things can be improved with Democrats/progressives/liberals in charge instead of Republicans, and then act accordingly. I think that might work better.

#anonymous #ask #politics for ts

[dappydaffer]

WW Normal Album Analysis (pt. 3) 💜

WHOOP-DEE-DOO! HERE WE GO AGAIN!

More Will Wood analysis, part whatever?!!! (cos I still cannot get over my WW/WWATTW hyperfixation)

If you saw my last couple of posts, you know the drill, you know what I'm babbling about.

For those of you who haven't seen my last posts or have no clue what Im talking about/getting into, for the sake of not sounding repetitive and/or annoying; Please just go check out my previous posts. I apologize, but I don't want these posts to become monotonous with the disclaimers, so I just gently encourage you to take a look at the first 2 parts of my WW analysis if you want full context. (This post isnt reallh connected to my previously stated theories to the album's message as a whole, but if you're curious enough, go look for yourself. Respectfully, I do not want to type more than I have to.)

(You can find the posts here): - Part 1: https://www.tumblr.com/dappydaffer/733190401716027392/this-rant-im-about-to-go-on-will-probably-not?source=share - Part 2: https://www.tumblr.com/dappydaffer/733737259322474496/ww-normal-album-analysis-pt-2?source=share

(And also, just a heads up: these are just MY opinions and MY personal takes/theories on WW's music. If you have anything different to say, please be respectful about it, yadda yadda, don't be a d*ck, you get the point, etc, etc.)

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So with that out of the way, in this post, like my most previous one, I really wanna talk about one song specifically, what it means to me, and how the lyrics + choices of words make up the message, and that song is; I/Me/Myself

I'm sure like a lot of other people did, I initially thought the song was fully about being trans when I first listened. But after my first couple of listens and really looking into the lyrics, I figured that couldn't be right. So, I looked it up and surely enough, WW himself explained the broader scope of the song and what it really meant.

(Ik a lot of WW fans probably knew/know this already, but I'm still gonna bring it up anyway) Will said himself regarding the song;

"To boil it down, the song is about how I respond to my frustration with the limitations of the male gender role, the maladaptive ways I’ve coped with that frustration, and trying to figure out if this experience or any other regarding my gender can or should define me. It reaches the same conclusion that most of my work does – and that is that nothing is real and that if something is hurting us we have the power to cast it off." "This song is, as I’ve said, about my experiences with my gender identity. It’s none of your business, but I once identified as genderqueer, until I realized that my attraction to traditionally feminine things did not interfere with my identity as a man. I didn’t want to define non-binary with my good old-fashioned cross-dressing, because I don’t want to speak for anyone else. I came to realize that my refusal and/or failure to meet the behavioral standards of my gender role did not make me less of a man, and anyone (cis or trans) who tells me that wearing makeup now and again makes me less of a man can shove it. After struggling for some time, I realized that my genderqueer identity wasn’t necessary for me, that I was wearing it as a prop in order to serve a purpose. The song is about my experiences and any amount of satire or targeted poking fun it does is at people who are doing what I know I did at the time. Partially in the hopes of drawing people away from that toxicity like I wish something had for me at the time."

(WW's full breakdown here: https://genius.com/Will-wood-i-me-myself-lyrics)

The song is essentially a statement telling both cis and trans people that our actions and expressions dont define who we are and that you can act and do things a certain way without having to fit into a box or slap a label on yourself. You can still be one thing and do other things that dont align with it, and the song does a great job at expressing the frustrations of feeling like there's external pressure on both sides to behave in a specific way just because of how you define yourself (at least that's how I interpreted his explaination and I 100% agree with what he's saying.)

While the meaning might have been self-explainatory to most, I still wanna gush about the lyrics/choice of words that make up said meaning.

• "And now you've got me thinking, I wish I could be a girl, and that way - You'd wish I could be your girlfriend, boyfriend"

"You've got me thinking" "You".....the way he says, "you've got me thinking," and not, "I am thinking," only emphasizes that extremists or other people that overly care about their identity and/or label are pressuring him into feeling like he has to be x, y, z because of how he chooses to dress, behave, etc. as a cis man. The choice of language really astounds me and just goes to show that he really did wear his identity "as a prop" only to fulfill a purpose that focused more on other people's contentedness, rather than his own.

• "But if the shoe fits, then I won't try it on"

This lyric right possesses some of the best symbolism I have ever seen. This line from the song shows how he so quickly jumped to the conclusion that he must be genderqueer because of the pressure he might have felt seeing how other people's behavior fit that exact label. If other people have that label for themselves and behaved like me before coming out/realizing their identity, then surely I'm queer too? If the shoe fits everyone else with similar foot dimensions as me, why should I try it on? If it fits for other people, surely it must fit me. It says its my size on the box, so surely that means it will fit comfortably?

(I'm gonna rope in a lyric from the demo version of I/Me/Myself cos I think this part from this version of the song also plays into the message.)

• "I'll be your prosthetic meat/meet your anesthetic criteria"

Again (this may sound repetitive) like the aforementioned lyrics, WW stating he'll be (assuming this is what the "your" in this lyric is relating to) anyone's piece of "prosthetic meat" and (presumably) willing to do anything in order to "meet criteria," just further emphasizes that he cared far too much what people wanted for him, rather than what he actually wanted for himself, and also highlights the sheer desperation someone with this sort of mindset possesses. It doesn't matter how you get it or what lengths you go to, just as long as you recieve outside approval and have managed to people please.

• "No, I know that I'm wrong - But I love how you're on my side when I cross that line"

This lyric here showcases his knowledge that he knows this label or identity may not be right for him, but people are on his side anyway, no matter what, and in the perspective of somebody who thinks like this, that is more important than being happy with yourself and finding your own identity. Instead of trying to steer him in a healthy direction, these supposed "people" are just trying to push their beliefs or continue to force him to be something he isn't sure he's happy with, because they believe its right (which sadly happens more in the LGBTQ+ community than you'd expect.) Also, the crossing of the line mentioned can also be alluding to folks who transition because of community pressure, misguidance, or subconscious uncertainty clouded by agenda pushing, end up regretting it later. They cross that extreme line, and yet those same people still push their beliefs and ideas on the person, hence; "being on his side".

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There's so much more I want to talk about here and tie into the post, but I think my point stands. That's mostly what I feel like typing at the moment, and I am now very tired lol.

And please, do not attack or harrass me for being "transphobic". There are toxic people in every community and my intention in this post was to point out genuinely toxic people in the queer community and how it ties into the song's message. As someone who used to identify as FTM trans and got mixed in with the wrong groups myself, this song speaks deeply to my own experiences, and never would I ever encourage or preach hate towards certain kinds of queer people and contradict my whole point here; let people be themselves and don't ever force someone to be somebody they are not. Love and accept and stop fighting fire with fire.

Once again, I still think WW is a lyrical genius and his portrayal of messages is extremely well executed. I hope you all enjoyed more brainrot fueled ranting, haha! ❤️ This was very fun to type and talk about. Have a merry turkey day, y'all, and I'll try to keep posting more WW analysis. I love doing this and I hope you all do as well!

#will wood #will wood and the tapeworms #the brainrot is real #autistic rant #rant post #my hands are in agony once again 💀😭 #just a thought i had #just rambling #just my thoughts #just a theory #i/me/myself #the normal album

[dyrewrites]

It iiiis.... eve's weird question time, now with people with multiple wips and or published works, how would your mcs could manage if they swap places. For maximum fun, use randomizer to choose which mc goes to which wip.

Okay, so this one threw me for a loop and I tried to work it out but have come to the conclusion that my characters are tailor-made for their world. They would not work in other worlds.

This got long, as I tried to work things out. >.>

I don't have anything, outside of horror shorts, that take place on Earth but it's possible the Pale Blood characters would be fine in any of those, as Morne is close enough to the real world to make it work (though all the horror would be nullified because none of it would affect any of them).

They would not survive in Weald and Wen's setting though. The constant sunlight wouldn't be too different from their own world (tempered even, as it takes place entirely in a heavily forested area) but the thick, mildly electrified air would probably kill them. If the things living there didn't (honestly even the MCs of that book would see them as a threat...or dinner).

Weald and Wen characters can't survive outside the Shell of Mar. They just can't. So they'd be dead (which, for some of them, would be impressive as they're immortal in their world).

As for any horror short MCs, the same applies. Nothing human is going to last in Mar for long. They might be okay in Morne, if they're in Dolor but, unless they grew up breathing in thick black smog or the syrupy magic of the Wylds, they might not make it long.

Personality-wise though, I can go through those.

Pale Blood MCs in Weald and Wen;

I think most of the Pale Blood characters would have a nervous breakdown and fall apart if they switched places with any Weald and Wen characters.

Specifically Delmas, he is a sensitive cinnamon bun and what he's been through is akin to a scraped knee compared to anything any of the Weald and Wen MCs have lived through. He'd break and hard and it wouldn't be pretty. He might survive the setting though, for a little while, at least until a Naemit got him - I don't think he'd fall for the Fiori, but it's hard not to get caught in the Naemit's giant webs.

Den might be alright, he hasn't been through anything as bad but there's what amounts to a full week of darkness where he would be essentially invincible so he'd at least survive.

Odea...no. She might be able to swap places with Delgrij, as they had similar experiences, but it would be a thousand times worse than what she's been through and I'm not really sure how she'd respond. I know how he did, but Odea isn't the type to go that route and would probably try to fight something about it and that wouldn't go well.

Ron would be fine with everything they've been through, he may resonate with Mitra's issues even. As for the setting, he'd have nothing to eat. So he would go feral and become one of the horrors of the Weald.

Any in the horror shorts;

Odea would do well in any of the horror shorts, she's hard to scare and quick to fight. Also, a lot tougher than she looks. Den would as well, because...I mean, werewolf. He'll be fine. Delmas too, he'd be bigger and scarier than most of the things coming at him. Ron would as well.

Weald and Wen characters would become the horrors.

Weald and Wen in Pale Blood;

The entire main cast of Weald and Wen would have no trouble handling the things the Pale Blood cast have. In fact, they'd have figured out the issues in Pale Blood before the end of the first chapter and be on a warpath for the thing responsible, but it would be difficult to keep Mitra out of the Wylds long enough to be helpful.

Delgrij would fry the second he tried to leave the smog and take one step in the Wylds, sense the roots of the Goddesses and turn right back around.

Mitra would try to claim and/or eat all the shiny bits of Upper Dolor.

Faerai would try to make friends with all the wolves and likely be horrified to meet the Wolfmother.

We won't get into what Parnamyr would do in any other setting. He needs to stay in his own setting, in his own little place in that setting. Don't let him out. (though it might be fascinating to introduce him to the Goddesses of Morne, as I can't say who would seduce whom in that situation)

#asks #mc asks #I got to rambling and am not sure there's an answer in there

[robininthelabyrinth]

I'd like to see more of the Jiang Cheng has spider venom fic. Mostly because I want to see him bite someone else. How about a Jin?

Normal For the Spider - Extra: 5 People Jiang Cheng Bit, Some of Whom Deserved It

ao3

1 – Wei Wuxian

“So I’ve been exchanging letters with shijie on account of the whole theoretically banished business,” Wei Wuxian said as they strolled down the Qiongqi Path together, Wen Ning behind them making shy stuttering friends with the handful of Jiang sect disciples Jiang Cheng had brought along with him – he’d deliberately picked the friendliest and most social of the lot, the ones that acted like overgrown puppies and wanted to adopt everyone they met, and sure enough they’d mobbed Wen Ning like a bunch of crows intent on raising the poor little sparrow they found into a proper bird. It was no more than Wen Ning deserved, in Jiang Cheng’s opinion. Someone needed to socialize him, and clearly neither his sister nor Wei Wuxian were doing crap about it.

“That’s nice,” Jiang Cheng said. “If by nice you mean extremely suspicious. What about in particular?”

“Your family inheritance.”

“Is this about the summer house we have near that mountain lake? I told you, it’s been deserted for years and may possibly be haunted by something resistant to the usual liberation techniques, but if you really want to go there, you’re of course allowed…”

“That’s not the inheritance I meant and you know it.”

Jiang Cheng rolled his eyes. He did know it. “What questions do you have now?” he asked. “More medical stuff from Wen Qing?”

She’d recovered from the venom very well and immediately started wanting to know everything. Recovered a little too well, in Jiang Cheng’s opinion.

“No, this one’s for me,” Wei Wuxian said. “We’re going to Lanling City in order to let Jin Ling bite me as a way to establish familial ties and let him ‘absorb’ good aspects from my personality, right?”

Jiang Cheng nodded.

“So in some cases, biting is an act of affection?”

Jiang Cheng nodded, a little more warily.

“Then how come you’ve never bitten me?”

“It’s only affectionate when you’re a baby,” Jiang Cheng said. “Once you grow into your childhood venom, it starts being dangerous, even to family; you don’t do affection-bites after that point. And when you’re an adult…well, you saw Wen Qing!”

“Eh, she’s fine now,” Wei Wuxian said cheerfully. “I feel like I missed out! It’s not fair, Jiang Cheng. I deserve a bite! I’m practically your brother! We share essential bodily organs!”

“Wei Wuxian! Don’t talk about that!”

“Bite me and I’ll stop.”

“I’m not biting you just to make you stop being annoying –”

2 – Jin Zixun

“What are you doing here?!” Jiang Cheng demanded. “This is an ambush! Is the Jin sect considering waging an act of war against the Jiang sect?”

Jin Zixun scowled at him. “Not against the Jiang sect,” he said haughtily. “Against the Yiling Patriarch.”

“He’s my head disciple!”

That got a confused sort of frown. “But you banished him…?”

“Rumor,” Jiang Cheng said, with dignity, the way they’d always planned. “Baseless rumor, that’s all.”

Rumor he’d never denied, and had instead implicitly encouraged so that people would leave his Jiang sect alone for a little while as he gathered up strength and resources to tell them to fuck off.

“But…” Jin Zixun hesitated. “You just – attacked him?”

Jiang Cheng glared at Wei Wuxian, still lying prone on the ground with his head in Wen Ning’s lap to elevate it and his neck bandaged but still a little red – surely the paralytic had worn off by now?

Wei Wuxian noticed him staring and gave a jaunty little wave, grinning and very clearly regretting nothing, which meant that the paralytic had worn off and he was just lying there to be comfortable while watching the fun.

Typical.

“A friendly exchange,” he said, trying to maintain his dignity. “Also? Not the Jin sect’s business. What about you? What did you want with him?”

“I want him to remove the curse he cast on me,” Jin Zixun said, and he strode forward before Jiang Cheng could stop him and kicked Wei Wuxian in the side. “You hear me, you bastard?! I want the damn thing gone this instant or else –”

3 – Wen Ning

“So this is going to be a little awkward to explain,” Jin Zixuan said, rubbing his face. He looked tired, but that was possibly a side-effect of having Jin Zixun as a cousin. “Tell me, why are my cousin’s flunkies – er, I mean, my cousin’s friends convinced that it was Wen Ning that poisoned him?”

Jiang Cheng scowled.

“No offense meant,” Jin Zixuan added, nodding politely to Wen Ning. “It’s just, you know, you’re very much not a Yu, or even a Jiang.”

“No offense taken,” Wen Ning mumbled, though to Jiang Cheng’s eyes he looked a little pleased, even if his stiff wooden face still didn’t do emotions all that well. “It’s nice not to be automatically feared.”

“It’s because Wen Ning punched Jin Zixun in the face at the same moment that I bit him,” Jiang Cheng interjected, because someone needed to answer the actual question. “And then Jin Zixun fell over and someone started shouting about corpse poison – even though he’s obviously turned purple! Purple venom, purple spider, purple lightning…what part of this thematic color scheme is not obvious?!”

“Technically, the livor mortis spots generated by corpse poison are also purple,” Wei Wuxian said, completely unhelpfully. “According to Wen Qing, it’s the lack of oxygen in the blood pooling under the skin or something, which is the same thing your mom’s poison does.”

“Do you think you’re helping?” Jiang Cheng demanded.

“No, not at all. Did I sound like I was helping? I didn’t mean to.”

“I’m going to bite you again, you little…”

“My father isn’t going to want to let Wen Ning through the door if he’s considered a possible threat,” Jin Zixuan said, wisely deciding to carry on with the conversation despite their bickering. “You know he’s been saying all those things about how dangerous the Yiling Patriarch is – this’ll just feed into that.”

“I’m not going to Lanling City without Wen Ning!” Wei Wuxian exclaimed. “Wen Qing made me promise! It’s his first time visiting such a big place, too!”

“I’m pretty sure Wen Qing made you promise not to leave him behind because she was worried about your well-being, not Wen Ning’s ability to be a tourist,” Jiang Cheng said.

“Doesn’t matter! I’m not leaving him, and I’m definitely not going to not attend the party, so you have to fix this!”

“I don’t know how to fix this –”

Wen Ning coughed lightly. “Uh,” he said. “Jin-gongzi…would your father let me in if I wasn’t a threat? Say, if I was unconscious?”

A moment of silence.

“…does venom work even on fierce corpses?”

“Of course it does,” Jiang Cheng said irritably. “It wouldn’t be much of a defense mechanism for a cultivator if it didn’t.”

4 – Jin Guangshan

“I didn’t mean to!” Jiang Cheng said, his hands over his mouth. “I really didn’t mean to! It’s Wei Wuxian’s fault!”

“How is this my fault?!” Wei Wuxian asked. He looked amused, which was never a good sign, and even less so given the extreme crisis of the situation. “I wasn’t even in the room.”

“You encouraged me to keep biting people as a solution to everything!” Jiang Cheng hissed. “It got me in the mood. I wasn’t thinking!”

He looked down at the unconscious (and swiftly purpling) Jin Guangshan and grimaced. There was no convenient Wen Ning to put the blame on this time: it had been just the two of them, Jin Guangshan and Jiang Cheng, alone in a room together. Jin Guangshan had wanted to have words with him, sect leader to sect leader, which mostly meant that he wanted to throw his weight and seniority around to try to brow-beat Jiang Cheng into doing what he wanted, except that wasn’t going to work because Jiang Cheng was prepared, okay, he’d worked so long and so hard to try to build up the Jiang sect until it could resist Jin sect pressure.

And he’d probably just ruined everything.

“He has legitimate grounds to declare war against us now,” Jiang Cheng said miserably. “Or maybe to demand that we hand over that stupid Tiger Seal he keeps bugging you about as reparations, or in order to keep him from declaring war…”

“We can’t let him have it,” Wei Wuxian said at once. “It’s far too dangerous. I’d destroy it, first.”

“But then he’d still have a reason to strike against us…”

There was the soft sound of someone clearing their throat, and at first Jiang Cheng thought it was Wen Ning but when he looked up it was Jin Guangyao, instead. He looked the same as always, gentle and personable and smiling, which struck Jiang Cheng as being unaccountably weird for some reason that he couldn’t figure out until he remembered that the man’s father was currently lying on the ground being poisoned and maybe Jin Guangyao shouldn’t be smiling so much.

“If you don’t mind,” Jin Guangyao said, “I might have a suggestion that would get rid of that problem…”

5 – Wen Qing

“…and long story short, Jin Guangyao is going to run Lanling Jin until Jin Zixuan is done having kids, which may be never based on the soppy looks he and my shijie keep exchanging, and we all have the Jin sect’s blessing to move back into the Lotus Pier,” Wei Wuxian concluded. “All’s well that ends well, right, Jiang Cheng?”

Jiang Cheng crossed his arms and glared, admitting nothing.

“I’ll be happy to move anywhere that has decent food,” Wen Qing remarked. “This damn place won’t even grow radishes properly, and it’s Yiling; the radishes should be practically growing themselves.”

“I’ve arranged for some farmland for your people,” Jiang Cheng said, because practicalities he could do. “There’s still lots left over from before the war, lying fallow, and some of the places are medicinal herb fields – we need people with cultivation to tend to those, so I figured that might work for you. You’d have half regular farmland, to make sure you can grow whatever food you feel you need to be comfortable, and the other half, the herbs, can be sold to the Jiang sect at profit.”

“That sounds good,” Wen Qing said.

“Especially since they’re medicinal herb plants,” Wei Wuxian chimed in. “You could stock up on medicines you need!”

“A lot of medicines have to be obtained through trade, you utter nincompoop! I can’t make medicine just using what a single medicinal herb field will generate!”

Jiang Cheng nodded approvingly, thinking to himself that at least there was someone else in the world who understood exactly how aggravating it was to have to deal with Wei Wuxian’s unbridled and illogical optimism on a regular basis.

“And as for you,” Wen Qing said, turning to Jiang Cheng, who blinked owlishly at her. “Don’t think I missed the part of that story about how biting people is a sign of affection!”

“It’s – what?! No, you don’t – that’s when we’re children– it’s –”

Wei Wuxian started cackling.

#mdzs #jiang cheng #wei wuxian #wen ning #jin zixun #jin zixuan #jin guangyao #wen qing #my fic #my fics #normal for the spider

[datleggy]

Buddie prompt: aggressively pro-buddie Helena and Ramon Diaz, who are ecstatic when Eddie tells them he's dating, and then utterly befuddled when he introduces Ana. But they decide to bite their tongues about it (Buck, their future son in law, has talked to them about respecting Eddie's decisions, however dumb, after all), until Ana (unwittingly? Innocently? No matter) makes a comment about Buck, and then all bets are off.

Hope this inspires you!

Helena is so relieved that Eddie finally feels comfortable enough to come out to them, that she could cry. She feels awful that it took her so long to realize it. 

It had been on Eddie’s last visit to Texas, when he and his crew had been fighting wildfires, that Ramon--her dense as can be when it comes to matters of the heart husband of all people--had noticed that their son was in love. 

Helena still remembers saying goodbye to her son and his two teammates, remembers Ramon closing the door, waiting exactly all of five seconds before turning to her and saying, “I’m happy for him. He’s so stubborn, I didn’t know if he’d ever let himself get that close to someone again.” 

And Helena had been confused at first, and then even chuckled when Ramon had explained calmly that clearly their son was dating his coworker Buck, until she’d stopped to really give it a moment’s thought. It had hit her all at once, how obvious those two were, and she couldn’t help but wonder how long it had been since they’d started dating and why Eddie hadn’t said anything yet. 

She’s seen the photos on Instagram, Helena thinks, as their plane lands. Buck smiling next to her grandbaby after helping her son build him a skateboard he could safely ride in the park. Buck standing shoulder to shoulder with Eddie behind Tia and Christopher in that Christmas photo at the station. The selfie Eddie posted of him and Buck with the giant cast still on his leg the day of the ceremony for when he was no longer a probationary firefighter with the 118. 

Really, she should’ve figured it out months ago. 

When Eddie had called and told her he’d started dating again and that the next time they came to visit he’d make an introduction Helena had been thrilled! 

Ramon drives them from the airport to their son’s place in their rental and Helena rambles on about how she hopes Buck isn’t too nervous to see them again, now that the cat’s out of the bag. 

When they arrive Eddie greets them at the door with a big hug and ushers his parents inside and Helena is so ready to step into the living room and welcome Buck into the family with open arms, to show her son that there was nothing to be afraid of, that they love him and nothing in the world would change that--

Only to be met with....not Buck? 

“Oh,” Helena stops dead in her tracks and Ramon stands beside her looking about as confused as she feels. “Hello.” she smiles politely enough. 

The woman sitting next to Christopher on the couch stands up and she’s absolutely stunning, her curls bouncing on her shoulders when she stands up to exchange hello’s. “It’s so nice to meet you both. My name is Ana.” 

The rest of the afternoon goes by just fine, but Eddie can tell something is amiss the entire time, though he does a good job of hiding it from Ana, who’s her usual charming self through out lunch. 

She has to take a work call at some point and excuses herself to another room and that’s when Eddie turns to his parents and half-whispers. “Ok, I know those looks. What’s wrong?” 

Helena shakes her head, feigning ignorance. “I don’t know what you mean.” 

Eddie sighs, rolling his eyes. “Seriously, what is it? Ana is perfect. She’s incredibly smart, she’s funny, she’s got a great job, good head on her shoulders, and Christopher loves her--so again, I ask, what’s wrong?” 

Ramon follows his wife’s lead. “Mijo, really, it’s nothing. She’s great. We’re happy for you. I think we’re just a little tired from the flight, that’s all.” 

Eddie narrows his eyes slightly but decides there isn’t much sleuthing that can be done at the moment, so all he can do is take them at their word for now. “Fine, if you say so.” 

They’re in the middle of watching Nemo when Buck's name comes up.

"When the tsunami happened Buck and I sang 'just keep swimming' like Dory." Christopher grins up at his dad and Eddie ruffles the curls on his head playfully. It helps Christopher to be able to openly talk about what he went through that day, the good and the bad.

"You never told me Buck was there that day." Ana comments off handedly.

Eddie nods, "Huh, I thought I mentioned it? Buck took him to the pier that morning."

"It was scary but Buck saved me." Christopher tells his grandma, who reaches across the couch to squeeze his arm. Helena had been horrified to hear what had happened at the time; it still gives her anxiety just thinking about it.

"That's right." She says softly.

"I thought some woman you didn't know carried him to one of the tents, and that's how you two were reunited, no?" Ana asks.

"Yeah, but before that, during the initial impact Buck was with Christopher, he managed to get him up to this firetruck in the middle of everything. It was after he dove back into the water to save someone that a second wave came and swept Christopher right off and they got separated from there." Eddie recalls solemnly.

There had been blood running down the dirty wet bandage on his arm, he'd been soaked to the bone, exhausted and barely standing upright. It wasn't until Christopher had been found that Buck had allowed himself to collapse.

"Oh..." Ana frowns.

Ramon puts a hand over his heart and sighs. "It's a miracle, really."

Ana doesn't mean to say it outloud, but the words comes tumbling out of her mouth without warning. "And you're still friends with him?"

Eddie blinks. "What?"

"I'm sorry, really, it's just--I don't understand." Ana rubs her shoulder self consciously, fully aware of the fact that everyone is looking at her. "Look, Edmundo, you nearly bit my head off when Christopher got a skinned knee under my watch but you're still best friends with the man who lost your son for God only knows how long? It doesn't make any sense to me."

Ana knows how overprotective Eddie is of his son, and in fact, that's one of the reasons she likes him so much; she admires that about him and this? It doesn't track with the man she knows.

Helena wants to open her mouth and she say something in defense of Buck--he's a good man, after all. But she knows better than to get between a couple in an argument, especially given how bias she is towards her future son in law...

Instead, she clears her throat and looks at Christopher, "Honey, how about you help me and Grandpa unpack? I bought a lot of fun things from Texas for you."

Christopher doesn't want to go. His Dad looks upset. Ana looks upset. He wants to stay and help. If Ana met Buck she would understand, Christopher's sure of it. But his grandparents are already leading him down the hall and to the guest room.

Christopher hangs out with his grandparents for a few minutes before fibbing and telling them he needs to use the bathroom. They both offer to help him but he insists that he can do it himself, promising to call out if he needs them.

He sneaks the home phone into the bathroom with him and dials a number he knows by heart at this point. He waits a couple of rings before the call connects.

"Hey, what's up?" Buck's voice comes through the other end. He sounds distracted.

"Bucky? Can you come get me?" He whispers into the phone.

He hears a small commotion and then a stifled 'ow!' and then: "Chris? Are you ok? You're home, right? What's wrong? Where's Eddie?"

"I'm home. I'm ok. But--" there's a knock on the door and it startles Christopher into accidentally hanging up the phone before he can explain the situation in it's entirety.

"It was a tsunami." Eddie sighs, "It wouldn't be fair to hold something like that over his head. And look, you weren't there. You didn't see the look on his face, you don't know how many hours he spent crying out Christopher's name at the top of his lungs, injured and looking nonstop through the rubble for him--"

"Yeah, which he wouldn't have had to do if he hadn't lost him in the first place. It sounds like he was too busy playing hero for strangers to watch your son." Ana folds her arms across her chest. "I don't want to fight. Especially not with your parents here. Honestly, I'm just confused? We don't have to talk about this right now. I can go. I just want to apologize to your parents and Christopher first, before I leave, for," she sighs, embarrassed, "well, for causing a scene. This is not the way I'd pictured meeting your parents."

"You know, if you just met Buck I really think you would--"

A cacophony of knocks at the door make the both of them jump. Ana looks at Eddie. "Were you expecting anyone else?"

"Christopher!? Christopher I'm here, open up!"

Eddie gapes. "...Buck?"

"Did you...call him over?" Ana didn't even see him reach for his phone.

"What? No, of course not." Eddie starts towards the door--the knocking has gotten so boisterous he's pretty sure Buck's about to break down his door--but Ana beats him to it.

At this point Eddie's parents and Christopher are in the hallway wondering what all that racket is.

Ana lets the door swing open, and if she's being entirely honest she's not sure what she's planning on saying to the man who's essentially at the center of her first real argument with her boyfriend, but whatever it was, it goes up in smoke when she takes in the sight of him.

Buck is taller than she'd pictured but that's not what's got her speechless.

He's standing at the doorway, chest heaving, clearly having rushed out of his house, where he was very obviously in the middle of shaving, if the shaving cream still smeared on a third of his face is any indication. He's in sweatpants and a white undershirt that's got little drops of blood on the front from where he must have cut himself while shaving. There's a bright red cut running down the underside of his chin.

"Um." Ana can't do much except stare, wide eyed.

Buck blinks at her, "Uh...Ana?" He suddenly realizes all the people in the house behind her are looking at him in a kind of stupor.

She nods slowly. "Buck?"

Buck nods sheepishly, "Uh... So, I am clearly interrupting something here."

"You came!" Christopher moves past all of the adults in the corridor and throws himself at Buck's legs.

Buck lifts the kid up easily enough, crutches and all, "Yeah, about that," he gently pinches his cheek, eliciting a giggle out of Christopher, "What was that phone call all about? You nearly gave me a heart attack, bud."

Eddie groans. "Christopher, did you call Buck to come all the way over here in the middle of the day?" He walks over and uses the cuff of his shirt sleeve to wipe away the rest of the shaving cream on the side of Buck's face. The look on his face is fond as he does so. "What did this little menace say to get you over here in such a rush?"

Christopher pouts. "I just told him to come get me. I thought if Miss Ana met my Bucky she'd know how come you're still best friends." He grips at Buck's t shirt tightly. "You can't stop being friends, Dad. I love Buck. He's my friend too."

Buck frowns. "Umm..."

Eddie gives him an apologetic look. "Sorry, it's not--it's complicated. I promise to explain everything later. Right now isn't really a great time--"

Ana interrupts hesitantly. "Actually, now is probably good. I need to get home soon, it's getting pretty late, so I should get going." She turns to Helena and Ramon. "It was very nice to meet you both." She scoohches past Buck and Christopher and practically sprints to where she parked her car, aware of the fact that Eddie is calling out her name and only half a step behind her.

It's not until they're several blocks down the street that she swivels around and he nearly topples into her in his haste. "Ana, please, I don't want you to leave like this. I really didn't call him over." He reaches into his back pocket and shows her his phone. "See?"

Ana takes the phone and presses her lips together thinly. "He called you like twenty times on his way over."

Eddie frowns. His phone must have been on silent. It's no wonder Buck rushed over like he did. "He was just worried about Christopher--"

Ana sighs resignedly. "No, I know. It's obvious, how much your best friend cares about your son. I can see why he's still in your life. And I think I can also see why that means you don't really have any room for me in it..."

Eddie shakes his head. "What? Why would you say that?"

Ana looks him in the eye, intent as can be on reading him. Eddie had smiled so warmly, creating such an unintentionally intimate moment when all he'd done was swipe at the other mans face with his sleeve...

"You don't even know, do you?"

"Know what?"

"I think this is something you and Buck need to sort out yourselves. Goodbye Edmundo."

Eddie closes the door behind him as he steps inside, a little heartbroken and a lot confused.

There's noise coming from the kitchen and so Eddie follows it to the source. Ramon is telling Buck about how to sear the perfect steak by the stove while Helena and Christopher set the table.

"Is everything alright?" Helena asks, when she notices him by the entryway.

Eddie nods, lying when he says. "Yeah, all good Mom."

She gives him a knowing look but keeps her mouth shut. "Honey, take Buck here to your room, let him borrow one of your shirts. And maybe a razor?"

Buck chuckles shyly. "It's fine, really. I should probably get going too--"

Ramon shushes him. "Nonsense. Go, go, get changed and get your butt back into this kitchen. Scoot."

Eddie takes Buck by the shoulders and drags him to his room, where he finds a worn gray Henley for him. "Here."

Buck thanks him before stripping out of his white undershirt and throwing on the clean shirt.

Eddie plops himself down on his bed with a sigh. "Hey, I'm sorry about all this mess. And on your one day off, too."

Buck sits down beside him, bumping their shoulders together. "I don't really know what's going on but, are you doing ok?"

"I don't know," Eddie makes a face. "I think I got broken up with today."

Buck cringes. "Shit, I'm sorry, what happened?"

That's a good question. Eddie ponders that a moment. Ana had said it herself: she understood perfectly why Eddie didn't blame Buck for what happened during the tsunami and she had seen first hand how much Buck cares for Christopher for herself today.

So, why?

"She said that there wasn't any room for her in my life?" Eddie scratches the back of his head. "Maybe I'm just not cut out for this dating stuff anymore."

"Aw, c'mon man," Buck pats him on the back. "You fall off the bike you gotta get right back on." He turns his body all the way around so that he's facing Eddie fully. "Dude, you're a catch. You're a handsome, badass firefighter, you've got the best kid, and hey--you got me." Buck grins toothily.

Eddie rolls his eyes, though he can't help but smile. "So what I'm hearing here is that I'm stuck with you?"

"Oh yeah, for sure." Buck laughs.

Eddie leans back on his arms and looks up at his best friend, pensive. "Promise?"

Buck extends his pinky and wiggles it in front of Eddie, who smiles as he wraps his pinky around Buck's. "Promise."

.

#long post is long #I'm gonna fix it and put a read more when my laptop stops fucking up 😩😩😩 sorry #911 fox #buddie

[thetriggeredhappy]

@sniperscout-ship-week I GOT THERE EVENTUALLY

Day 2: Spot

(no warnings)

-

“No, seriously, you’re gonna love it!” Scout insisted, adjusting his bag on his back before starting to haul himself up the rocks before them. “Climb’s only, like, twenty more minutes.”

“Didn’t you say that ten minutes ago?” Sniper asked, staring doubtfully at the rocks Scout seemed to so effortlessly scale and wondering where he should even start.

In his defense, Scout wasn’t rushing him along, and had volunteered to carry the bag since he was a little more in practice climbing things. He was clearly used to moving up these cliffs much faster than this, and besides a lot of bouncing on his heels while he waited, he didn’t make any smart remarks.

The first five minutes, Sniper had been fine. Walking uphill, climbing a few boulders, all simple stuff. He had to climb plenty of ladders in his day job, this wasn’t much different in terms of exertion. It was the ten minutes after that, and the ten after that, where he started having a problem. It wasn’t a strength thing, it was an endurance thing, and that’s where Sniper was rapidly learning his weak point was.

He’d really thought he was pretty in-shape overall. Apparently not.

“Look, we can take a second if you want,” Scout said carefully, helping pull Sniper up to the next ledge. “It’s, uh, kind of a lot of climbing and walking and stuff.”

For a second, Sniper considered brushing him off and saying it was fine, but then it took him a moment longer than he expected to find his footing again and he decided to just shelve his pride for the moment. Clearly Scout could already tell how rough this was. “Yeah, I’ll… yeah. I’ll just—“ He took a seat, pushing his hat back to rake a hand through his hair, trying to get it out of his face. God, it was hot out.

“Yeah, yeah, no problem.” Scout took a seat too, shrugging the bag off his shoulder and starting to dig through it. “Uh, here, if—if you want.” A water bottle nudged against his knuckles, and he accepted it, taking a swig. “These cliffs get pretty, uh… pretty toasty. Only start really cooling down, like, an hour before the sun goes down. Shouldn’t get any worse than this.”

“Couldn’t have waited another hour or so, then?” Sniper asked, glancing over at him.

Scout shrugged. “I mean, I dunno, then we’d, like, have to climb in the dark, and I’ve already had to hit the Medbay way too many times this month from busting my ankles out here.”

“That often?” Sniper asked, blinking in surprise.

“Heh. Yeah, I’m a pretty huge klutz sometimes. And, y’know, just doing laps around the base gets boring, so I started heading out into the… everywhere else. Out here.”

Sniper nodded, not understanding in the slightest.

“Uh, anyways. You, uh… I dunno, I just figured, didn’t you say something about how you like hiking and stuff?” Scout asked, now looking doubtful.

“Hunting, more than hiking. Just occasionally,” Sniper corrected.

“Similar thing,” Scout said, and Sniper shrugged after a moment, because Scout wasn’t wrong, persay. “Anyways, I, yeah. I dunno. I, I just, I figured you probably wouldn’t bite if I tried to suggest we go, like… I dunno. I’m just usually pretty much the irresponsible type and you’re… not, so, most stuff I like to do I think you’d probably hate, so I figured…”

“I have no idea what you’re on about,” Sniper deadpanned.

“I, I dunno! Bar hops and fast food and causing trouble and shit just don’t seem like your speed so I wanted to like… suggest something you’d actually like. Like hiking. Since jogging out here and stuff is kinda like hiking.”

Sniper thought about pointing out how Scout had just essentially tried to connect jogging to hiking to hunting, a thing which Sniper hadn’t even actually done in a good two years or so, but decided against it, if nothing else because Scout already seemed to be feeling pretty stupid from the dejected expression he failed to hide, face tilted away and down towards where he was scuffing his heel through the dirt. He tried to think of something else to say. “You don’t, er… need to worry so much. About whether I’ll… like, things,” he managed, stumbling on his words. “I like going out and all that, just… I’m just quiet, mate. Doesn’t mean I don’t have fun.”

He wasn’t sure whether that made sense until Scout nodded a few seconds later, brightening a little. “Yeah. Yeah, okay.” A pause. “We’re, uh, we’re almost there, you wanna keep—?”

“Sure,” Sniper sighed, hefting himself back to his feet. Scout practically bounced to his own, and Sniper wondered at the miracles that regular exercise could accomplish. “Might as well.”

Oddly enough, now that he was pacing himself, it really wasn’t so bad. Scout was right about it cooling down, at least, and with the sun going down they were out of direct sunlight, which helped as well. Scout seemed to be in better spirits, too, increasingly excited as they apparently got nearer to wherever Scout was taking them.

“We’re like, super close, seriously,” Scout urged, all but dragging Sniper by the wrist, smiling in that wide way of his.

“Alright, alright, take her easy,” Sniper tried, going for grumpy but just landing somewhere in bemused. It was nice, sometimes, seeing that genuine enthusiasm for life that Scout tended to have.

Then he rounded a corner, and squinted for a moment at the shift in light, then his eyes widened.

Stretching out before them, the entirety of the Badlands. The cliffs were cast in crimson, shades of red and pink, violet in the shadows and almost shimmering as the sun set clear out at the horizon. Scatterings of things just too small to decipher hung in shadow in the distance, shadows magnified and spiking towards them, a few lonely clouds just to one side giving a sense of scale to everything that almost gave Sniper vertigo.

“C’mon,” Scout insisted, now actually pulling him along, urging him up just one more small climb that led to a ledge, flat, on top of which were a few things. Camping chairs, for one, dusty and rusted in some places but otherwise intact. A rock that was clearly moved over there at a height that could almost make a table.

“Wow,” Sniper said, mostly because he was surprised.

“Yeah! Nice little spot, huh?” Scout asked, adjusting some things. “Usually I’m out here around sunrise, and sometimes I just like to chill out here. Like, on weekends and stuff if I don’t sleep in. Don’t gotta put up with Soldier and his trumpet thing, or any of the guys stomping around. It’s all peaceful and stuff.”

Sniper nodded, taking a seat in one of the chairs. Scout took the other one, starting to pull stuff out of his bag. Granola bars, mostly, and water. Sniper settled in to look at the view some more, slightly amazed with how different things looked from this high up. Higher than any of his nests, for sure.

“It’s really nice, though, kinda havin’ a space like this. Because Doc has the Medbay, y’know? And Hardhat’s got that workshop and Heavy has his little place with the—the heater, thing, where he makes his bullets? Melts metal? That thing, and Demo’s got his place he makes bombs and, like, pretty much everyone has like a place they get to just hang out in, but I’ve really got nothin’ like that, so, this place kinda rules. If it wasn’t kind of a hassle to get up here I’d probably be up here, like, all the time. You gotta make sure you don’t tell anyone about this place, by the way. Like, they’re not gonna wanna walk this far probably, but still. Unless I like, go missing or something. Then I probably fell off a cliff. Oh, one time on a weekend I went all the way up here and was just hanging out, like, reading my comics and stuff, and I straight up fell asleep up here and I woke up with the worst sunburn in my life—“

Sniper drank water and nodded along as Scout started in on his rambling, eyes drawn to the view more than his wide gestures. And if he, too, ended up falling asleep up here, needing to be shaken awake by Scout an hour or so later, that was his own business.

And even as he filed away the spot to try and see it later, if Scout wanted, he suggested that maybe next time they go get fast food somewhere, because god did his legs hurt the next day.

#tf2 #team fortress 2 #sniperscout #speeding bullet #shut up me #my fanfiction #scout tf2 brings boys places to hit on them dont @ me #scout tf2 says i know a place but we need to hike an hour to get there

[sylverstorms]

Miranda x Mia---- Eternal

A Ko-Fi commission I wrote for the wonderful @saltwatereulogies. Thank you so very much for the support and I hope you enjoy the fic!

Drip. Splatter.

The first sound you’re aware of is that of the occasional waterdrop crashing onto the same humid, uneven floor you’re lying on.

The second is the sound of her voice.

“Rise and shine.” she says, somewhere off to the side. You are still too disoriented to pinpoint exactly where.

You’re not dizzy enough, though, to not immediately realize you’re trapped. The way the light behind your captor shines makes it all the more obvious, casting large shadows in the shape of your prison bars across your small, moldy cell.

“Y-you…” you struggle to talk. Your throat is too dry and your temples pound like a war drum. It feels like you’ve collided with a truck. And yet her voice commanding you to sleep is the last thing you remember.

“I haven’t formally introduced myself. Though I’m sure your friend has told you about me.”

You blink to make your vision focus yet it’s hopeless. She is but a dark blur to you –am I hallucinating or are those wings?

“My name is Miranda.”

Suddenly, that name snaps everything into focus so sharply you could get whiplash. You’re on your knees the next second, just about ready to leap at her. She’s the one. The one Chris warned you about. She may look like an angel but she is a devil.

“I don’t care who the hell you are! What do you want from me?!” you demand.

“Your cooperation in my experiments, for starters.” she says it calmly, but she is no fool to believe you’ll just agree to that, you can see it in her crystal-blue eyes.

“Ha! As if!” you retort.

“Well. That answer will change when I have Rose.” The name of your daughter makes every nerve ending in your body kick at once.

“What. Like Ethan will just hand her over to the likes of you?”

“Actually.”

A slow smirk crosses her full lips. Then their shape changes to match yours. All of her does, until you are left looking at a perfect mirror of yourself. Only, there’s no way you look quite that good inside of this shitty cell.

“He’ll hand her over to you.”

When she laughs, it is your own voice haunting your ears.

-

-

She has your daughter. She has your everything in her hands. So, she has your cooperation, as well.

Miranda doesn’t really talk when she comes to collect blood samples for whatever experiments she needs them. Your initial cries and questions were muted the second she told you the more helpful and less annoying you are, the more inclined she’ll feel to bring Rose to you for a while.

In the end, you do let yourself be her docile little lab rat.

Until you literally can’t take the silence anymore.

“Was it really… that easy?” ‘To enter my home and take my daughter’ you want to add but you can’t even get the words past your throat.

She seems to understand, though. “Effortless.” she isn’t being cocky as she says it. In fact, she seems almost surprised herself. At least, from the angle you get of her face, while she’s studying a strange rock-like substance under a microscope.

“How the hell did Ethan not figure out you aren’t me?!” That moron. He just gave your daughter to her. That clueless moron!

For a split second, you see her lip twitch in what could, perhaps, be a withheld smile. “I was there for a day, so. Seems like your husband doesn’t know you quite that well.”

Is it really fair to blame him for not knowing you, though? With the secrets you’ve kept from him? The distance? The trauma from the shared nightmare you experienced coming back to you every time you even looked at him?

God, Rose really is the only thing that kept you together, isn’t she…

It’s easy to hate the accursedly beautiful bitch outside your cell. It’s easy to blame Ethan for not even suspecting something was amiss with you for a whole damn day.

It is not so easy to blame yourself as much as you do them.

-

-

Miranda replies when you ask her things, so you ask her about herself. To your surprise, she does not shroud her motives from you.

She has lost her daughter, she tells you, and the only way to get her back is through yours. For the first time since you met her, you see emotion clearly expressed in her eyes and voice. You recognize how she longs to be with her child again.

You can understand the never-ending grief of a mother losing her offspring. You know if anything happened to Rose you would rather fling yourself off a cliff than live a life without her.

And apparently, that is what she tried to do, too. She tried to die –and discovered life instead. That is what she calls it, anyway. All you can hear as she explains is that she found –and founded— the Mold. The same one that ruined your husband and you.

One more reason to hate the psycho witch.

And yet.

When you try to reach for the rage you previously held for her, you find that it’s gone. You’re bitter, you’re exhausted, you want to cry and above everything you want to see Rose again. But you don’t loathe her as you should.

“What do you mean… the only way to get Eva back is through Rose?” you dare ask after several minutes of silence.

She turns to look at you, eyes as piercing as they are blue. “Technically, the trade is simple.” Maybe you’re losing it from the stress and lack of sleep, but you think she almost hesitates for a second. “…a life for a life.”

As soon as she speaks and the meaning of her words registers in your mind, you’re gripping at the rusty iron bars with all your might, rattling them, shouting profanities at her. You are back to hating her all over again. It’s much simpler this way.

Until… she walks over and grabs your hand over the metal. Her touch is oddly warm for such a glacial heart. You cannot tell what she does to you, but it feels like an aura flowing through your system that silences you. Calms you. You do not want to be calm.

“I wasn’t finished.” she speaks. “That is where the experiments with you come in. By running tests on your blood and Rose’s and using my DNA as a medium, during the ritual I can trick the Megamycete into giving me what I want through a form of mitosis. Essentially, cell duplication that will not override the existing vessel.”

To be honest… you lost her midway through the very first sentence. You were quite good with biology back in the day but right now, in the state you’re in, science is going right over your head.

“...Is there an English version of that.” you ask.

Her mouth curves into that almost-smile again. It would be quite gorgeous, actually, if she hadn’t kidnapped you, infiltrated your home as you and abducted your daughter.

“If the tests succeed, you get your daughter back, I get mine from cloned DNA and Mold cells.” There’s a hint of pride in her voice as she says it.

And now, assuming she’s telling the truth, you want those tests to succeed more than you want to get out of here. Her hand leaves yours and the weird calm she blasted into you dissipates with it.

“Wait. So…” Realization strikes you like a thunderclap. “So these tests are for me?”

“You’re welcome.”

“I didn’t say thank you, you crazy b—blonde.” You rattle the iron bars again, a tad weaker than before. She does smirk over the microscope, this time. “How likely are the tests to succeed?” you ask impatiently.

“Quite.” she replies, flat once again.

“…And if they don’t?” you hate how your voice shakes there, at the end.

She looks at you, dead in the eyes, as she answers: “I am getting my daughter back either way, Mia.”

You can’t believe it. You cannot believe you’re thinking this, but you hope the crazy bitch knows what she’s doing.

-

-

Miranda is… despicable, but she is a woman of her word.

She brings you Rose for hours at a time and in exchange you help her outside of your cell. You thought your daughter would be in a worse condition, considering who keeps her, yet she’s healthy as ever, well-fed and clean. The worst part is, she laughs every time Miranda comes close and she even reaches out for her.

“No, my darling, don’t do that.” you tell her, tucking her tighter in your arms, before the woman behind you notices what’s happening.

Except it’s too late. “Ah, I see.” Miranda speaks, coming up to you from behind. She’s tall enough to lean over your shoulder and wave at Rose, who moves both hands towards her. “A lady of taste.” the woman praises and the lightness to her voice almost makes her sound like someone else. Someone normal.

“Stop it.” You turn your child away from her. “She’s just confused because you’re lit up like a Christmas tree.” You motion with your chin at her getup.

Miranda chuckles. “What. She senses our bond. Rose feels safe with me.”

Safe with the monster who wants to sacrifice her to get her own child back. You cannot swallow that thought down. “But she’s not, is she?!” you snap.

“She is.” Miranda reverts to her cool facade, glancing down at your daughter. “I will never let anything hurt her. And when she gives me Eva back, I will make sure she grows up bathed in luxury.”

It’s the Mold, you’re sure of it.

It’s the Mold’s fault that you believe her.

-

-

You were supposed to see Rose today. Instead, Miranda comes into the cave alone, looking irritated. You start to worry. Nothing phases her without a good reason. What if—

“Where’s my daughter?!” you demand, eyes wide.

“We have a problem.” she tells you. Your blood goes cold in your veins. “A problem named Ethan Winters.”

“Ethan?” you gasp.

“He is trying to get Rose back and according to reports from the Lords under me, he cannot be killed. His hand got cut off and he just reattached it. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?” she’s certain that you know. You can see it in her steely eyes.

“I— why would I—”

“Before you think to lie to me, hear something else. I bear good news, as well.” Miranda says. “I have succeeded in my experiments. During the ritual, I can guarantee Rose will remain unharmed and unchanged.” the edge of her lip curls up as she delivers the news. You almost cry from the sheer relief.

You almost leap forward and hug her, yet you remember who she is and that she caused this mess in the first place.

“But my conditions have changed.” her voice is a sword that cuts off your happiness just like that. You knew it was too good to be true. “For me to save Rose, you will tell me how to permanently get rid of Ethan Winters.”

…What?

She wants you to… trade your daughter for your husband? How the hell can I do that?!

“He has ruined too much for me to let him walk away happily now.” Her jaw is tight enough to sprout new lines on her flawless face. She wants him dead and she always gets what she wants. “He has killed colleagues of mine. Spat in the face of a damn-near god. I will have his head.”

The corners of your eyes sting with welling tears. Your body is far more honest than you in making a decision. Nobody is too important to sacrifice when it comes to your daughter. Not yourself. Not Ethan. And Miranda knows this better than anybody else. You loathe how she knows.

“Give him to me, Mia. And in a few days this whole thing will be over.” she continues in a significantly softer tone, getting closer to you. Her wings shift, the very edge of black feathers brushing your arms.

“You want me to aid in killing the father of my child?!” you sob, grabbing at her clothes. You’d expect her to shove you away, but she doesn’t move. She doesn’t even blink.

“You have been so cooperative and so brave.” she soothes, gold-taloned fingers coming underneath your chin. “Make one last sacrifice for me. Help me murder Ethan so Rose can live. Help me and I vow to be her eternal guardian angel. Hers and yours.”

She could just force the answer out of you. She’s touching you and you know she has that power. But she doesn’t do it and it’s far worse this way. She wants it to be your choice.

You look away from Miranda’s icy eyes and her promises of everything.

And you tell her.

-

-

You do not ask about Ethan. All that’s in your mind is the ceremony.

For the entire morning, you cannot breathe. You trace notes in her lab and pace around until you literally feel like you’ll explode—

And then Miranda comes in. She is radiant, smiling from ear to ear, glowing with pure joy. She looks every part the goddess she pretends to be. The golden circle usually adorning her back is gone, her long blonde hair is left free to flow like fine strands of silk past her square shoulders.

“It is done!” she tells you, a hand extended for you to take. “Come. I’ll take you to Rose and you will be the first to meet Eva.”

Her hand is warm when it closes around yours. Black wings shroud you both. There is a gravitational pull around you that’s so intense you shut your eyes and grab onto her biceps for dear life.

“You can look, now.” she speaks once the world is stable again. Your gut is churning, yet every bit of exhaustion and discomfort vanish the second you see Rose. She is safe within the first of the two golden cribs in front of you, bathed by the soft sunlight that disperses across the luxurious, dark-tiled chamber you’re in.

You run towards her, lifting your daughter in your arms and kissing her forehead over and over. She laughs at you, blue eyes crinkled. My love. My everything, you think. Everything was worth it for this moment. And you would do it all again, to ensure her safety.

Miranda’s steps, regal and authoritative, come to a stop near the other crib. You lean closer, take a look… to see another little angel there, sleeping peacefully. She resembles Rose, yet she resembles Miranda, too.

“Oh my God.” you breathe. “You really did it.”

“I did it and you and Rose made it possible, Mia.” she says. Your child extends a tiny hand towards her. She removes one of her claws and lets her finger be taken in your baby’s grip. “You don’t have to leave. She loves me already.” A proud smile curves her lips.

You hate how it looks like a sunrise.

You hate it even more that you understand why Rose is so charmed.

“Her mom can grow to love me, too.” Crystal eyes look into your own. “There is no place safer than by my side. Stay and we will raise them together. You won’t have to fear disease or death with me. You and Rose will have every little thing you could ever want. Forever.”

You don’t want your child to be co-patented by this selfish megalomaniac, who is the killer of her father. But. Then you stop to consider what you have been through until now. Nightmare after nightmare; this vicious cycle does not look like it will be broken. One thing or another will haunt you and hunt you wherever you go. You don’t want that life for Rose.

You won’t accept that life for Rose.

“…we will stay. But you can forget that part about me growing any fonder of you than I am now.”

Miranda nods, but something in her expression is so damn cocky you want to smack her. “Oh, what’s that, Rose? You can tell your mother is lying, too? My genius girl.”

Your jaw drops. She is my genius girl!

Miranda then touches your chin and tilts it up. You don’t want to be any closer to the gorgeous fucking witch, but when she stops there, hovering just over your mouth for a skipped heartbeat, looking down at you with those crystalline eyes of hers, you’re paralyzed.

Her lips slide over your own for just one slick, hot second. When she pulls back, she caresses Rose’s cheek and winks at you.

“I hate you.” you say, yet it holds no real bite. God, you’re exhausted.

“That’s alright. We have all the time in the world to change that.”

#resident evil village #resident evil 8 #mother miranda #mia winters #mother miranda x mia #fanfiction #rosemary winters #rose winters #ethan winters #comission #writing #Where Miranda wins and takes everything and more #hail winged hottie goddess

[mel-the-fangirl]

Toss A Coin to Your Witcher

Henry Cavill x Reader

Words: 2,362

I am so so so nervous to post this because this is my first time writing a Henry fic and I know that the Henry Cavill fandom is such a tightknit family, I hope you guys have room for one more hopeless Henry stan. I know this isn’t even half as good as the other Henry fics out there but I had this idea stuck in my head for a very long time.

Please like and reblog or leave me some replies if I should do a second part! Thank you!

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The makeup brush swept precisely along your cheekbone, covering it in a subtle shimmer. Production staff milled around behind you, testing sound, testing lights. Being an actor, these things were nothing new. 

"Now remember, say it with me," 

"Don't say or do anything stupid." you recited with your long time agent and friend, Marge.

You thanked the makeup artist and made your way to the set. 

"When have I ever said or done anything stupid though?" you asked

Marge looked at you appraisingly before replying, 

"There's always a time for everything. Now go on." 

The vibe on set dialled to a hundred when you stepped on. It was really flattering how they cheered as you plonked your butt down on the wooden chair, a red tarp was set up behind you and the studio lights surrounded the area.

"Ready when you are Y/N!" the producer aka the ring leader of this whole operation flashed you a thumbs up

You nodded, feeling the nervousness bubble up your throat. 

Surprise, surprise. You still got nervous in front of the camera. It wasn't hard to handle though, you took a couple of deep breaths and you were good to go. 

"Hey guys, gals, and non-binary pals! I'm Y/N Y/L/N. I'm here with Buzzfeed and we're gonna be playing Twenty Questions." you winked at the camera with your arms wrapped around the little jar that had your questions in it

 "Let's get started, shall we?" 

Eager to begin, you stuck your hand into the jar without a second thought. 

"I freaking love Buzzfeed, really. Especially Tasty, I mean, I don't cook. But," you shrugged, wiggling your fingers, hearing the tiny bits of folded paper move around in the jar. "I love watching people cook. Then I love eating."

Scattered chuckles broke out through the crew. 

After a few minutes of rustling around, you figured you’d just come clean, "Okay. Small problem." 

You lifted your hand, the jar coming along with it. The pieces of folded paper crowding around your encased wrist as you waved your arm. 

Another round of shocked giggles started up as a couple of assistants rushed to you and tried to yank the jar off. 

"This is too good," the producer chortled, "Mind if we keep this in?"

"Fine by me!" you watched intently as Marge rolled up your sleeve so one assistant could pour oil all over it. Eagle eyed, she watched as a drop of oil landed on the bottom hem of your sweater.

"Great job, Y/N. This sweater was a gift from that designer you met last week, he said he made it just for you." she scolded, taking charge by grabbing the jar with two hands

"It was an accident, Marge. It's not like I planned on getting my hand stuck in a jar today!"

With a tug and a pop, your hand was free and slick with olive oil. Marge landed on her butt on the floor.

"Marge!" you howled with laughter, helping her up

She straightened her blouse, all business but her cheeks were stained red with embarrassment. 

"Can someone help Y/N wash the oil off her hands? Let's get this show on the road, people!" she barked marching orders at the staff, clapping her hands as she went. She wasn't in charge here but no one dared to question her. 

You chuckled, knowing that this was a cute little anecdote you’d be sharing with anyone who was willing to listen.

A few minutes later, you were back in your chair, having a laugh with everyone. The jar incident already stripped away the majority of your anxiety so you were ready to go.

"Okay! First question!" you squinted at the strip of paper, "What is the most expensive thing you’ve stolen from any set you’ve been on?" 

“Well!” you widened your eyes at the camera, “Bold of you all to assume that I’ve ever stolen anything!”

Marge scoffed rather audibly, making everyone raise their eyebrows at you.

“Okay, fine!” you held up your hand. The stunning ring you had on sparkled underneath the lights, nearly blinding anyone who looked.

“I did a period movie a while back and they had these drop dead gorgeous, and I mean gorgeous pieces of jewelry. I wore this piece,” you gazed down at the ring fondly, “for the whole of the film and I just pinched it after we wrapped, I couldn’t part with it, okay? I’m like a fricking magpie, I love shiny things.”

The crew burst into fits of laughter, making you laugh along with them.

“To clarify! This is the replica the props department had made, a very expensive replica. I can see you freaking out, Marge. And no, you don’t have to call the insurance company.”

You were a big hit, to say the least. You had them in stitches every time you opened your mouth but all good things had to come to an end, right?

It didn’t matter how carefully you dipped your hand into the question jar, this next one was going to make things very messy for you. 

"What do you like to do in your free time?" you read out loud, tapping a finger against your chin

"There hasn't been much free time lately,” you chuckled, “Let’s see… I play video games, yeah. I am so obsessed with the Witcher, it's borderline unhealthy. I’ve read all the books and played the games so many times." 

"What do you think of Henry Cavill as Geralt?" the producer asked you

Henry Cavill.

Just hearing that man's name was enough to make the blood rush to your cheeks. You brushed an imaginary hair out of your face. From behind the camera, Marge raised a knowing brow.

"Well," you cleared your throat and sat up straighter

"To be honest, at first I was really skeptical about his casting. I mean, he is way too good looking. Like way. Way. Too good looking. But…"

"But?"

Your mind drifted to the first time you saw a picture of Henry Cavill in full costume. The white hair, the golden cat eyes, the intense gaze and all that leather? It definitely made you feel… Certain things.

You cleared your throat, propping yourself on the table with your arms. To be honest, your head was still in a Henry Cavill haze so you had zero control of what came out of your mouth next.

"I'd definitely toss all my coins to that Witcher. Toss a few other things as well."

Everyone in the room ooh'ed and whistled, delighted by your saucy reply. The ruckus snapped you out of it and your hand immediately flew to your mouth.

“Please tell me I didn’t just say that out loud.”

“You did.” Marge mouthed at you, trying but failing to contain her laughter

"So you enjoyed his performance as Geralt?" the producer pressed on, hoping to get more audience-raking answers

How many times were you going to blush during this interview?

"Oh, well, about that, I haven't really gotten around to actually watching it.” you admitted sheepishly, “But I've seen photos and some clips. Very impressed by what I've seen so far."

"You will watch it though, right?" 

"Oh, absolutely. No way I’d miss out on that! Henry Cavill is an incredibly wonderful, talented actor. I think he’s also a fan of the franchise so I have no doubt that he played Geralt to perfection as with all his other roles." you nodded solemnly, putting a hand to your heart

Everyone in the room with you caught on that you were gushing over the actor, the sly looks they all exchanged with one another were a dead giveaway. Too bad you didn’t notice before you could try and play it cool.

“Alright! I think it’s time for the next question!” you declared, swiftly plucking another question out of the jar

By the time it was all over, you had convinced yourself that your little crush-related blunder wasn’t even a big deal, it would probably just be a little footnote in that video. No biggie.

But, Jesus Christ were you wrong.

The video took a couple of weeks to edit and in that time, you were busier than ever. A movie you had just done was getting a lot of attention, your performance in particular had critics singing your praises. At that point, you were definitely getting noticed a lot more when you stepped out for coffee.

So, the timing was just perfect.

The second the video went live, your phone was going off non stop. Twitter mentions, Instagram tags, and articles. A few notable entries being:

“WATCH: RISING STAR Y/N Y/L/N GUSHES ABOUT HENRY CAVILL IN CHARMING BUZZFEED VIDEO”

“@geraskier-rights: Y/N Y/L/N REALLY SAID SHE’D TOSS ALL HER COINS TO HENRY CAVILL’S GERALT AND WE ALL KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS”

“@geralt-of-vengerberg: Y/N The Fond™ is showing👀👀👀”

Marge sat on your sofa with your phone in hand, absolutely thrilled while reading tweets out loud. You scheduled a panic session with her over lunch once everything blew up.

“Oh my God.” you groaned, massaging your temples. “Marge, what do I do?”

“About what?” she didn’t even bother to look up at you

You plopped yourself down next to her, laying your head in her lap, “All that. It’s everywhere.”

“And? There’s nothing wrong with it, they all think you’re charming and funny. A true Relatable Queen.”

Was it your sanity slipping through your fingers? Or the overpowering embarrassment? You had no idea but whatever it was, it had you laughing until your stomach hurt.

Marge tugged at your hair, “Get it together, bitch. Jeez.”

“What are you so worried about anyway?” she asked, placing your phone on your stomach

You swiped through your emails absentmindedly, “I’m not worried about anything, it’s just that what if…”

You left the words hanging in the air, you might as well have been dangling from a cliff from how much colour drained from your face.

“What if what?” 

Marge shoveled some pasta into her mouth before noticing that you essentially turned into a statue right next to her.

“Y/N!” she shook your arm with a grip you were sure would leave some bruises. “What’s the matter?”

Wordlessly, you passed your phone to her, the comment from a certain verified account displayed prominently on Buzzfeed’s Instagram post of a little snippet from your video, the “I’d toss all my coins to that Witcher” part, naturally.

“@henrycavill: Dear Y/N, how many coins are we talking about here? Let’s talk about my reward.”

It was all Marge could do to not throw your phone across the room. Her eyes went wide, following your every move as you paced back and forth, a thumbnail in your mouth.

“That did not just happen, I did not just see that right now. I didn’t.” you babbled, your heart beating thunderously in your chest

There it went. Your very own ticking time bomb finally went off. Number of casualties? Just one. You.

“Okay. Just calm down, Y/N.” Marge caught you mid-pace, squeezing your arms

“Maybe it was a fan account. Tell me it was a fan account, Marge. Henry Cavill did not just hear me imply what I implied.” you grasped at her hand with your clammy one

“Well if he has a fan account that’s verified and has fourteen point five million followers?”

“Oh god.” you groaned, sinking to the floor and hugging your knees

“Oh, Christ.”

Marge hauled you to your feet and thrust your phone in your hand. She looked you hard in the eye, “Stop your whining and answer him. You’re Y/N fucking Y/L/N, one of the hottest people on the planet, start acting like it.”

You stared at her, eyes wide. Your chest rose and fell rapidly. Marge’s words started to make sense in your mind and adrenaline started surging through your veins. You nodded fervently, psyching yourself up.

“Fuck yeah.” you breathed, clicking ‘Reply’

“@yourinstagram: @henrycavill I know you take orens, crowns, and florens but maybe we should discuss further?”

Before you could even stop yourself (did you even want to?), your fingers already landed on the blue paper plane.

“I did it.” you exhaled, staring as the likes and overly enthusiastic replies started pouring in

“Fuck yeah, you did. Now, come on. Leave your phone. We’re getting drunk.”

More weeks passed and you actually ended up forgetting about that little reply you left Henry Cavill. You were busier than ever. Guestings, endorsement deals, and awards shows left and right. So, when you finally had a couple of days free, you decided you would set up camp on your sofa and finally watch Henry Cavill as Geralt of Rivia.

You even threw on your Superman pyjamas, “What the hell.” you shrugged

If you were going down this road, you might as well do it right. Maybe you would even watch the Man from U.N.C.L.E after or would it be Night Hunter? The decision would have to wait.

You watched, absolutely riveted as the White Wolf battled against the kikimora, his silver sword hacked at the creature with unmatched expertise. You were only a few minutes in but you already knew you’d be stuck on that sofa for hours.

When the kikimora had Geralt pinned underwater with his trusty sword just beyond arm’s reach, you found yourself on the edge of your seat, one of your cushions in a chokehold.

“Come on, come on, come on.” you muttered as Geralt reached for his sword

You wouldn’t find out if he got it or not. A knock on your door literally made you fall off the sofa.

“Fuck!” you exclaimed, your hip was already smarting from the impact

Whoever that asshole was, you swore you were going to give him a piece of your mind. You stomped to your front door just as that idiot started knocking again.

You huffed and threw the door open then your mind immediately went blank.

“I am so sorry. Are you alright? I think I heard you fall?”

Oh yeah. You were definitely falling.

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You can find the second part here!

#henry cavill #geralt of rivia #the witcher #the man from uncle #night hunter #henry cavill x reader #henry cavill fic #henry cavill imagine #fanfiction #henry william dalgliesh cavill #cavillry

[miserablesme]

The Les Miserables Changelog Part 3: 1987 Broadway Production

Hello, everyone! This is the latest edition in my attempt to chronicle all of the musical and lyrical changes which the show Les Miserables has undergone over the years. This time, we're going through all the changes between the musical as it existed on the West End around 1985-1986 and the revised libretto for the 1987 Broadway production.

In some ways, this is a much easier changelog to compile than the last two simply because it is much easier to find audio evidence of the show from this era than from its pre-1987 self. We have a full soundboard of the original Broadway cast as well as a very good quality bootleg of the very first Broadway preview, as well as several audios from the next few years which use exactly the same script. We also have an officially released Symphonic Soundtrack which almost (but not quite) follows this version of the libretto exactly. So no more relying on unclear bootlegs and speculation to figure out what was changed when!

Having said that, the changes in this production were MASSIVE. It's almost certainly the most extensive edit the show's libretto has received to this day. As such, this will be a very long edition of this blog. So make sure you have a bit of time on your hands before reading it! With all that cleared up, let's begin.

The first change literally can be heard as soon as the musical begins. The pre-Broadway show opens up with the same recurring motif also heard, for instance, at the openings of "At the End of the Day" and "One Day More". This music then transitioned to the instrumentals to the opening "Work Song". The post-Broadway libretto cuts right to the chase, with the opening instrumentals to the "Work Song" starting right up without any preamble.

One interesting little non-scripted change occurs later in the "Work Song", but only in American productions. For whatever reason, every American Javert from the original Broadway cast until the first Broadway revival sang "And I am Javert" instead of "And I'm Javert", for reasons that honestly baffle me. Again, the libretto retained the original contraption as far as I'm aware, and the West End production as well as later UK and Australian tours still used it as well.

The next change happens while Valjean is on parole. After Valjean pleads against the farmer underpaying him, this was the farmer's original response:

Do you believe

A yellow ticket of leave

Allows a criminal like you to earn full screw?

Since Broadway, his response is instead as follows:

You broke the law

It's there for people to see

Why should you get the same as honest men like me?

I much prefer this revised version. Though the information is essentially the same, it feels more dramatic, as well as feeling less awkward now that it is in the form of separate sentences as opposed to a single sentence spoken in three lines with pauses in between. Moreover, the phrase "honest men like me" as used here provides interesting foreshadowing for its more well-known usage in "Master of the House". One could spend quite some time analysing the implications of this recurring description, but this blog is long enough as it is so now isn't the time!

In the same number, originally the innkeeper's wife had the following remark:

My rooms are full

And I've no supper to spare

I'd like to help you really, all I want is to be fair

Since Broadway, her line has been slightly modified:

My rooms are full

And I've no supper to spare

I'd like to help a stranger, all we want is to be fair

I suppose "I'd like to help a stranger" sounds less slang-y than "help you really". Presumably this is why it was changed. I find the change of subject from singular to plural far more interesting. My hypothesis is that the writers wanted to make it clear than this is a communal grudge, not a personal one. Everyone around sees it as perfectly fair to deny shelter to a former convict, not just this one individual. I definitely prefer the revised line, but evidently the producers of the West End production didn't; that production held on to the original lyrics for more than a decade after they were originally revised! More on that in a later edition of this blog...

A more minor change can be heard during "At the End of the Day". Originally, Valjean asks the factor workers "What is this shouting all about?" The Broadway script changes this to "What is this fighting all about?" Much less trivial implications now. I'm curious as to whether or not a staging change may have accompanied this. Usually the two workers get into quite a bit of physical scuffle by this point, far beyond the realm of shouting. Did the original pre-Broadway production use more subdued choreography?

"The Runaway Cart" has some noticeable differences. After Valjean asks the townspeople for help, the original response was sung by the entire ensemble, and went as follows:

(SOLO)

Don't go near him, Monsieur Mayor

There's nothing at all you can do

(ENSEMBLE)

The old man is a goner for sure

Leave him alone

The Broadway libretto revised this into a sequence sung by one individual at a time with the following lyrics:

Don't go near him, Monsieur Mayor

The load is as heavy as hell

The old man is a goner for sure

It will kill you as well

A female ensemble member sung "The old man is a goner for sure" while a male member sung the rest. I sort of like it better as an ensemble piece (something that would be largely brought back in later years, as I'll soon discuss) although I think it's cool that it rhymes now. Having said that, I'm fairly confident that no one in the real world has ever actually used the phrase "Heavy as hell"!

An official change in the libretto occurred in "Who Am I?" but listeners to the original Broadway cast would not have heard it. While the pre-Broadway show had Valjean refer to "This innocent who bears my face", the revised libretto instead refers to "This innocent who wears my face". Perhaps a means of avoiding repetition, given that the word "bear" is used again later in the number? Regardless, Colm Wilkinson didn't actually bother to adapt to this change! He still sings "This innocent who bears my face" in the Broadway production (as well as the tenth anniversary concert; not until his 1998 stint in Toronto did he ever start singing the revised lyrics). Since every future Valjean (except Ivan Rutherford for some reason) sings "wears", I still see it as appropriate to mention here.

At the end of the song, Valjean's "You know where to find me!", used on and off in the Barbican previews before becoming a settled part of the production by the final pre-Broadway libretto, is once again removed for the Broadway show. However, the West End production would keep it for a few years - more on that later...

Just listening to the original Broadway cast, one might think Javert's "Dare you talk to me of crime?" becomes "Dare you speak to me of crime?" However, this seems to be a Terrence Mann-exclusive change. Every Javert after him reverts to the original lyrics (as did Terrence himself when he returned to the musical fifteen years later). I'm still making note of the change here for the sake of clarification.

An instrumental change occurs between "Castle on a Cloud" and "Master of the House". Mme. Thenardier's "You heard me ask for something and I never ask twice" was original followed by three bars of notes, then by six more bars of notes that are identical to each other. After the Broadway production, however, those six bars of notes grow increasingly more dramatic as they go on.

A very slight change happens during the preamble to "Master of the House". Originally one of the guests proclaims "Hell, what a wine" while the revised libretto instead has him claim "God, what a wine". Definitely more natural in my opinion, though not a huge difference by any means.

A few subtle differences exist in the "Waltz of Treachery" number. First off, Thenardier originally asks "Have we done for your child what is best?" The Broadway libretto changes "your child" to "her child". I personally like the original lyric better, as it goes back to the idea established earlier that Valjean is metaphorically bargaining through the spirit of Fantine. It's definitely not a difference that makes or breaks the number, though.

Towards the end of the song comes another change that cannot actually be heard by listening to the original Broadway cast. In the pre-Broadway show, Valjean used the line "Let us seek out a friendlier sky", while the revised libretto has him say "Let us seek out some friendlier sky". However, Colm Wilkinson once again doesn't bother to adapt to the change, and unlike the "Who Am I?" change he wouldn't learn it over time either. He continues to sing "a friendlier sky" throughout his on-and-off performances as Valjean, right up to and including his 2002 run in Shanghai!

After the bulk of the number comes a more significant change. Prior to the Broadway production, as was discussed in the last entry, the "Waltz of Treachery" was followed by about forty-five seconds of vamping and then this exchange in the tune of "Castle on a Cloud":

(LITTLE COSETTE)

We're going home right now, monsieur

What is your name

(VALJEAN)

Now my dear

I've names enough, I've got names to spare

But where I go, you always will be there

Nor will you be afraid again

There is a sun that's shining yet

(LITTLE COSETTE)

I'm going to call you my Papa

(VALJEAN)

I'm going to call you my Cosette

The Broadway libretto replaced it with just under twenty seconds of vamping, followed by a sequence in the tune of the "Waltz of Treachery":

(VALJEAN)

Come Cosette

Come my dear

From now on I will always be here

Where I go

You will be

(LITTLE COSETTE)

Will there be children

And castles to see?

(VALJEAN)

Yes, Cosette

Yes it's true

There's a castle just waiting for you

This is followed by another fifteen or so seconds of vamping, and then the humming duet between Cosette and Valjean carries on as before.

Arguably the biggest change in the entire edited libretto happens now. Whereas the number was originally directly followed by "Stars", things have been moved around so that it instead transitions directly into "Look Down". "Look Down" itself receives a lot of adjustments. First off, the number began in the pre-Broadway musical with a bar of music that was then repeated. The Broadway version only plays the bar of music once, and the sung part happens immediately afterwards.

Gavroche's verse receives some lyrical updates. Originally it used the following lines:

This is my school, my high society

From St. Denis to St Michel

We live on crumbs of humble piety

Tough on the teeth, but what the hell?

If you're poor, if you're free

Follow me, follow me!

The Broadway production rewrote that sequence a little:

This is my school, my high society

Here in the slums of St Michel

We live on crumbs of humble piety

Tough on the teeth, but what the hell?

Think you're poor? Think you're free?

Follow me, follow me!

Better lines in my humble opinion; "slums" conveys the poverty of Gavroche's community much more effectively than the original line, and phrasing the "poor" and "free" lines as questions is more dramatic than their original statement form.

The old beggar woman's original "You give 'em all the pox" becomes the less grammatically accurate "Give 'em all the pox" for Broadway, though I have no idea if the original "You" was part of the libretto or simply an improvisation. Since seemingly all actresses used that line for the first few years of the West End production, it strikes me as warranting a mention.

Right after this comes another change. In the pre-Broadway show, the argument between the beggar woman and the prostitute was followed by an exchange by a few individual beggars. All of the following lines were said by one person at a time, the first three being said by female beggars and the last one by a male beggar:

When's it gonna end?

When're we gonna live?

Something's gotta happen, dearie

Something's gotta give

The Broadway libretto changes this to an ensemble piece performed by all the beggars simultaneously:

When's it gonna end?

When're we gonna live?

Something's gotta happen now or

Something's gotta give

I really like the switch to a group effort, as it really emphasizes that the beggars are a community sharing the burden of poverty. It really feels like an epidemic to an extent that it doesn't when it's just a small conversation. Evidently the producers of the West End show didn't agree with me though, as they held onto the original sequence for more than a decade after the official change, and by that point it had already been largely reverted worldwide! More on that in a later blog...

Originally, the exposition about General Lamarque was given by a few random students (supposedly not specified in the libretto, but in practice portrayed as Combeferre and Feuilly). Some ensemble dialogue between beggars was put in between. Feuilly sings over the end of the ensemble's lines - but many have speculated that this was not intended by the writers, as the background music sounds super out of sync with his singing! Here's how the scene went:

(COMBEFERRE)

As for the leaders of the land

As for the swells who run this show

Only one man and that's Lamarque

Speaks for the people here below

(BEGGARS)

Something for a meal

Something for a doss

Something in the name of Him who died upon the cross

On the cross, come across

On the cross, come across, come across

(FEUILLY)

Lamarque is ill and fading fast

Won't last the week out, so they say

With all the anger in the land

How long before the judgement day?

Before we cut the fat ones down to size?

Before the barricades arise?

Fortunately, the writers of the Broadway libretto had the sense to change the purveyors of the message into people actually relevant to the show's plot, namely Marius and Enjolras. Moreover, the beggars' dialog was rewritten into a sequence that feels far less clunky to me. The background music was fixed to account for the solo singing (now done by Marius) overlapping the beggars' lines, so it is now perfectly in sync. Here's the edited exchange:

(ENJOLRAS)

Where are the leaders of the land?

Where are the swells who run this show?

(MARIUS)

Only one man and that's Lamarque

Speaks for the people here below

(BEGGARS)

See our children fed

Help us in our shame

Something for a crust of bread in Holy Jesus' name

(SOLO BEGGAR)

In the Lord's holy name

(BEGGARS)

In His name, in His name, in His name

(MARIUS)

Lamarque is ill and fading fast

Won't last the week out, so they say

(ENJOLRAS)

With all the anger in the land

How long before the judgement day?

Before we cut the fat ones down to size?

Before the barricades arise?

Much better in my opinion! It should be noted that David Bryant instead sings "these people here below", but as far as I can tell every future Marius (or later Enjolras - more on that later) sings "the people, which is the actually phrasing in the libretto.

One final change in Look Down: Gavroche now says that all of Thenardier's family is "on the make", as opposed to the original "on the take". A rather pointless change in my book, though it certainly doesn't hurt anything.

"The Robbery" is another heavily edited number. Thenardier's line after acknowledging Brujon, Babet, and Claquesous was originally as follows:

You Montparnasse, watch for the p'lice

With Eponine, take care

You've got all the hash, I've got all the cash

The Broadway show rewrote those lines into their still-current form:

You Montparnasse, watch for the law

With Eponine, take care

You turn on the tears, no mistakes my dears!

This changed lyric more naturally transitions the scene into the gang's actual plan, though the original is an interesting continuation of Gavroche's recollection of Thenardier once running a hash house.

Mme. Thenardier's response is also altered from the original lyrics:

Here come a student from our street

One of 'Ponine's peculiar gents

Our Eponine would kiss his feet

She never showed a bit of sense

Into the current ones:

These bloody students on our street

Here they come slumming once again

Our Eponine would kiss their feet

She never showed a scrap of brain

It's interesting how the edit shifts the focus from Marius in particular to the students in general. It seems that Mme. Thenardier is less aware of the specifics of her daughter's personal life now, something that makes sense for her character.

After Mme. Thenardier's "You'll be in the clear", there was originally just eighteen seconds of a musical motif (the same one which opens "At the End of the Day" and "One Day More") followed by Thenardier's speech. Since Broadway, it's instead been followed by a few more lines of dialogue:

(MARIUS)

Who is that man

(EPONINE)

Leave me alone!

(MARIUS)

Why is here?

Hey Eponine!

Only now does the musical motif play. But instead of staying silent upon seeing Cosette, Marius now sings "I didn't see you there, forgive me..." Interestingly, in this video of a 1987 performance of the original West End production, Marius just stops without bumping into Cosette as he usually does. This makes me wonder whether or not the bumping was added into the Broadway version, and the lyric was added to accomodate for the blocking change. Of course, this is all speculation; I have no way to know for sure.

Thenardier's con job is also quite a bit different post-Broadway. Originally it used the following lyrics:

How you do? Spare a sou

God will see all the good that you do

Look monsieur, lost a leg

Hero of Waterloo now has to beg

Wait a bit, know that face...

The Broadway libretto edited it into its current form:

Please monsieur, come this way

Here's a child that ain't eaten today

Save a life, spare a sou

God rewards all the good that you do

Wait a bit, know that face...

It's interesting how Thenardier's facade shifts in focus from his own supposed hardship to that of an alleged child. I suppose the latter would be a good bit more effective in convincing passersby to donate!

During "Javert's Intervention", Thenardier now says "It was me that told you so, as opposed to the original "Wot told you so"; however, this seems to be a regional choice to account for a lack of Cockney accent, not an official libretto change. British productions retain the original "Wot".

“The Robbery” ends quite differently. Its pre-Broadway form had Gavroche’s remarks directly follow Javert’s “Clear this garbage off the street!” However, now Javert’s line is instead followed by some instrumentals to a slower version of the same tune as, for instance, “Honest work/Just reward/That’s the way to please the lord” and “He will bend/He will break/This time there is no mistake”.

After these instrumentals come the “Stars” number, now in a much more natural location given that Javert now has a logical reason to be thinking about Valjean!

The number itself is mostly the same, up until the final segment. After Javert’s “Those who falter and those who fall must pay the price”, he originally had the following lyrics:

Scarce to be counted

Changing the chaos

To order and light

You are the sentinels

Silent and sure

Keeping watch in the night

Keeping watch in the night

The post-Broadway show replaced this with a much more climactic remark:

Lord let me find him

That I may see him

Safe behind bars

I will never rest ‘til then

This I swear

This is swear by the stars

WOW, what an improvement! Now the stars are tied much better to Valjean himself, and Javert’s motivation is much clearer!

Now that “Stars” is over, we finally get Gavroche's remarks. The lyrics are the same; however, instead of the tempo progressively getting faster as it goes along, it now gets progressively slower. Interestingly the audio of the first preview has Gavroche saying "mother dear" instead of "auntie dear", but it's back to the original line by the second known original Broadway cast audio. Both audio feature Braden Danner; whether the "mother dear" was a choice on his part or a director's, a flub, or a libretto change that was later reverted is unknown.

"Eponine's Errand" has some significant changes. First off, the original libretto gave Marius and Eponine this exchange:

(MARIUS)

Did you see that lovely girl

(EPONINE)

A lovely two-a-penny thing

The Broadway libretto edited it a little:

(MARIUS)

Eponine, who was that girl?

(EPONINE)

Some bourgeois two-a-penny thing

Marius' request has also been changed from its original lyrics:

Eponine, do this for me

But careful how you go

Your father mustn't know

He'll strike another blow

'Ponine, I'm lost until she's found

Into some far clearer and more direct instructions:

Eponine, do this for me

Discover where she lives

But careful how you go

Don't let your father know

'Ponine, I'm lost until she's found

And yes, the line was "your father" right from day one. Michael Ball flubs it as "her father" on the complete symphonic recording, leading many to assume that was the original lyric which was changed later. But I'm not aware of a single live performance to use that lyric (which doesn't make a lot of sense anyway).

Another side note: Some Marius actors have very slightly changed the third line to "Be careful how you go" or "But careful as you go", though neither lyric is the standard.

Post-Broadway, as the instrumentals to "Red and Black" play, a student (I'm not sure which one) now shouts Enjolras' name before the singing begins.

During "Red and Black", Michael Maguire changes the original "It is easy to sit here and swat 'em like flies" to "Oh, it's easy to sit here and swat 'em like flies". However, this is an individual choice of the actor, not an official libretto change. Every future Enjolras I'm aware of (except Ramin Karimloo for some reason) uses the original line.

An actual libretto change occurs soon afterwards. After Marius' entrance, Grantaire originally asks, "Marius, what's wrong with you today?" The post-Broadway show changes this to "Marius, you're late. What's wrong today?" This makes it much clearer why Grantaire might suspect something is wrong.

Soon afterwards, Grantaire's original line "We talk of battles to be won, and here he comes like Don Juan" is slightly tweaked to "You talk of battles to be won". This is a little more appropriate, since Grantaire isn't actually doing a lot of talking!

After "Red and Black", Gavroche's part is very slightly changed. First off, American performances for a few years would have Gavroche whistle right before everyone quiets down, though I have no idea if this was in the libretto or not.

Secondly, Gavroche's original remark, "It's General Lamarque! He's dead!" is shortened to just "General Lamarque is dead!"

In another contender for the biggest change in the entire edit, the entire "I Saw Him Once" number is totally removed. I have mixed feelings about this. It does give Cosette, a frustratingly underwritten character, some additional content. However, stylistically it's not all that much like any other number in the musical, and it doesn't really add enough information to the show to warrant a whole song. So I say with regret that it was probably for the best to delete the number.

To compensate for the lost number, "In My Life" is lengthened to include the establishing character moments that "I Saw Him Once" originally did. Originally it opened as follows:

(COSETTE)

Dearest papa, can I tell him of this?

How can I tell him the things that I feel?

How could he understand?

(VALJEAN)

Dear Cosette, you're such a lonely child...

The post-Broadway opener is instead as follows:

(COSETTE)

How strange, this feeling that my life's begun at last

This change, can people really fall in love so fast?

What's the matter with you Cosette?

Have you been to much on your own?

So many things unclear

So many things unknown

In my life

There are so many questions and answers

That somehow seem wrong

In my life

There are times when I catch in the silence

The sigh of a faraway song

And it sings of a world that I long to see

Out of reach, just a whisper away, waiting for me

Does he know I'm alive? Do I know if he's real?

Does he see what I see? Does he feel what I feel?

In my life

I'm no longer alone

Now the love in my life is so near

Find me now, find me here

(VALJEAN)

Dear Cosette, you're such a lonely child...

After Valjean gives Cosette his cryptic defense of his secrecy, Cosette had a remark that is sadly incredibly hard to understand in the quality of the recordings we have. It apparently went something like this:

There are voices I hear

That come into my mind

Full of noise, full of fear

When the noise was unkind

In my life

I'm no longer afraid

And I yearn for the truth that you know

Of the years, years ago

Her post-Broadway response is much shorter:

In my life

I'm no longer a child

And I yearn for the truth that you know

Of the years, years ago

Shorter, but just as effective in my book. Plus, the use of the word "child" nicely ties into Valjean's initial remark that Cosette is "such a lonely child", as well as Cosette's frustration that he still sees her as "a child who is lost in the woods".

The next number, "A Heart Full of Love", also has a LOT of rewritten lyrics. First of all, after Marius' "I do not even know your name", these are his original lyrics:

Dear mademoiselle

I am lost in your spell

The Broadway production changed the lyrics into:

Dear mademoiselle

Won't you say? Will you tell?

I suppose this fits a little better with his remark about not knowing Cosette's name.

After Marius and Cosette finally learn each other's names (an important step in a relationship if you ask me!) this was their original way of showing their affection:

(MARIUS)

Cosette, your name is like a song

(COSETTE)

My song is you

(MARIUS)

Is it true?

(COSETTE)

Yes, it's true

The Broadway production rewrote it into the following:

(MARIUS)

Cosette, I don't know what to say

(COSETTE)

Then make no sound

(MARIUS)

I am lost

(COSETTE)

I am found

In my opinion, the rewrite captures the slight awkwardness of young love much better, as well as making a lot more sense!

Immediately afterwards, this is the original exchange:

(MARIUS and COSETTE)

A heart full of love

A heart full of you

(MARIUS)

The words are foolish but they're true

Cosette, Cosette

What were we dreaming when we met?

(COSETTE)

I can sing

(MARIUS)

Dear Cosette

(COSETTE)

A heart full of love...

The Broadway libretto redoes the scene as the following:

(MARIUS)

A heart full of love

(COSETTE)

A night bright as day

(MARIUS)

And you must never go away

Cosette, Cosette

(COSETTE)

This is a chain we'll never break

(MARIUS)

Do I dream?

(COSETTE)

I'm awake

(MARIUS)

A heart full of love...

Almost a totally different scene! The post-Broadway variant is better structured, but I do like the original too.

As the trio of Marius, Cosette, and Eponine exchanges inner monologues, Marius originally has the line "I saw her waiting and I knew". The Broadway libretto changed this to "A single look and then I knew". I kind of prefer the original, as it implies a little more than something as trivial as a cursory glance.

In the closing lyrical overlap of the song, Cosette originally sings "Waiting for you", but post-Broadway she sings "I knew it too". Then, she originally sings "At your call" but post-Broadway she sings "Every day".

During the opening to "The Attack on Rue Plumet", Montparnasse refers to Valjean as "the one that got away the other day" as opposed to his original "the bloke wot got away the other day". However, this is another regional change made for the sake of making sense outside of a cockney accent. The official libretto still had the original lyrics.

A tiny change occurs during Thenardier and Eponine's fight. Claquesous originally thinks it's a palaver and an absolute treat "to watch a cat and its father" picking a bone in the street. The Broadway libretto changed this to "see a cat and a father". Why exactly the writers felt the need to make such a miniscule edit is mystifying to me, but it certainly doesn't hurt anything.

Another change occurs later in the number, after Eponine's scream. Originally this was Thenardier's reaction:

Make for the sewers, don't wait around

Leave her to me, go underground

You wait my girl, you'll rue this night

I'll make you scream, you'll scream alright!

These lines were mixed up a bit for the Broadway libretto:

You wait my girl, you'll rue this night

I'll make you scream, you'll scream alright!

Leave her to me, don't wait around

Make for the sewers, go underground

The post-Broadway variation arguably is a bit less climactic due to it not ending on a threat. However, the original climax isn't all that appropriate since Eponine and Thenardier never actually interact at any later point in the musical. I like that the post-Broadway version ends on something that's actually relevant to the remainder of the show (namely, that Thenardier will be in the sewers). Evidently the West End producers didn't agree with me; this is another line in which the original was kept there for more than a decade (at which point a rewrite closer to the original was already being used worldwide)!

In "One Day More", Javert's "One day more to revolution" is slightly changed to "One more day to revolution". However, the number is otherwise unchanged.

And that's it for Act One! The opening barricade scene to act two has a small change. Grantaire's pre-Broadway "Some will bark, some will bite" was changed to "Dogs will bark, fleas will bite". Makes a lot more sense in my opinion!

The opening to "On My Own" is changed as well. Originally it was performed as follows:

And now I'm all alone again

Nowhere to go, no one to turn to

I did not want your money sir

I came out here 'cause I was told to

The Broadway version rewrote it into the following:

And now I'm alone again

Nowhere to turn, no one to go to

Without a home, without a friend

Without a face to say hello to

A huge improvement in my book. It actually rhymes now, and is far less likely to be misconstrued as ungrateful.

After receiving a massive overhaul not that long before, "Little People" was slightly tweaked for the Broadway show. The pre-Broadway version had this ending:

So never kick a dog

Because he’s just a pup

You’d better run for cover when the pup grows up!

Another line (taken from the original longer version of "Little People" as well as all versions of its reprise) was added for the post-Broadway show:

So never kick a dog

Because he’s just a pup

We'll fight like twenty armies and we won't give up

So you’d better run for cover when the pup grows up!

Grantaire's line afterwards is literally reversed in meaning from the original "Better far to die a schoolboy than a policeman and a spy!" into "What's the difference? Die a schoolboy, die a policeman, die a spy!" This post-Broadway lyric fits better into Grantaire's cynical personality.

A very subtle edit is made in "Little Fall of Rain" (to the point that I only just realized its existence by reading an old internet forum!) Pre-Broadway, Marius asks Eponine "Did you see my beloved?" The tense is changed from past to present perfect for the Broadway libretto, so that he now sings "Have you seen my beloved?"

"Drink with Me" receives quite a bit of editing. The opening few lines are originally all sung by Grantaire:

Drink with me to days gone by

Sing with me the songs we knew

Here's to pretty girls who went to our heads

Here's to witty girls who went to our beds

Here's to them and here's to you

Now, those lyrics are split between various students:

(FEUILLY)

Drink with me to days gone by

Sing with me the songs we knew

(PROUVAIRE)

Here's to pretty girls who went to our heads

(JOLY)

Here's to witty girls who went to our beds

(ALL STUDENTS)

Here's to them and here's to you

A far more touching scene now that it entails an entire group of friends reminiscing about their lives, as opposed to the thoughts of one heavily drunk individual.

Originally this was followed by a segment by the male ensemble:

Drink with me to days gone by

To the life that used to be

At the shrine of friendship never say die

Let the wine of friendship never run dry

Then, this was followed by the same lyrics, but sung by the male and female ensembles overlapping. The Broadway libretto removes that and replaces it with an all-new segment with Grantaire. It's much more cynical and philosophical than his original lines:

Drink with me to days gone by

Can it be you fear to die?

Will the world remember you when you fall?

Could it be your death means nothing at all?

Is you life just one more lie?

The lyrics from the pre-Broadway show, in their male-and-female overlapping form, are played afterwards.

The next change occurs during the Second Attack. Pre-Broadway, this was how the opening lyrics went:

(ENJOLRAS)

How do we stand, Feuilly make your report

(FEUILLY)

We've guns enough but bullets running short

(MARIUS)

Let me go into the street

There are bodies all around

Ammunition to be had

Lots of bullets to be found

Some very small edits were made for Broadway:

(ENJOLRAS)

How do we stand, Feuilly make your report

(FEUILLY)

We've guns enough but ammunition short

(MARIUS)

I will go into the street

There are bodies all around

Ammunition to be had

Lots of bullets to be found

The following exchange also is a bit edited. Here's how it went pre-Broadway:

(ENJOLRAS)

I can't let you go, it's too much of a chance

(MARIUS)

And the same can be said for any man here

(VALJEAN)

Let me go in his place, he's no more than a boy

I am old and alone and have nothing to fear

Post-Broadway, it instead goes as follows:

(ENJOLRAS)

I can't let you go, it's too much of a chance

(MARIUS)

And the same is true for any man here

(VALJEAN)

Let me go, he's no more than a boy

I am old, I have nothing to fear

Finally, Gavroche's final lines are as follows pre-Broadway:

So never kick a dog

Because he’s just a pup

You’d better run for cover when the pup grows up

And we’ll fight like twenty armies and we won’t give…

A small edit is made for the Broadway production, so that the latter two lines are reversed:

So never kick a dog

Because he’s just a pup

We’ll fight like twenty armies and we won’t give up

So you’d better run for cover when the pup grows...

I'd say this is an improvement, since Gavroche's death is all the more impactful when his literal last unfinished words are about growing up.

Not long afterwards comes the Final Battle. Leading up to Enjolras' climactic moment, the original lines went as follows:

(ENJOLRAS)

Come on my friends, though we stand here alone

Let us go to our deaths with our face to our foes

(COMBEFERRE)

Let 'em pay for each death with a death of their own

(COURFEYRAC)

If they get me, by God, they will pay through the nose

(ENJOLRAS)

Let others rise to take our place

Until the earth is free

The sequence was edited for Broadway, giving a bit more breathing space:

(ENJOLRAS)

Let us die facing our foes

Make them bleed while they can

(COMBEFERRE)

Make them pay through the nose

(COURFEYRAC)

Make them pay for every man

(ENJOLRAS)

Let others rise to take our place

Until the earth is free

"Dog Eats Dog" is a very heavily-edited number. First off, the vamping at the beginning originally lasts about 30 seconds. By Broadway, it has been reduced to about nineteen seconds.

After Thenardier's "As a service to the town" line, he originally sung the following lines:

It's a world where the dogs eat the dogs

And the worst is as good as the best

It's a stinking great sewer that's crawling with rats

And one rat is as good as the rest

I raise my eyes to see the heavens

And only the moon looks down

That entire sequence was cut for Broadway.

Soon afterwards, Thenardier originally proclaims "Here's a little toy". The Broadway edit changes it to "Here's another toy", perhaps to make it seem less repetitive after his "pretty little thing" line.

The exact same lines from after "As a service to the town" are repeated in the pre-Broadway number after Thenardier's "When the gutters run with blood" line, with one more line added afterwards:

It's a world where the dogs eat the dogs

And the worst is as good as the best

It's a stinking great sewer that's crawling with rats

And one rat is as good as the rest

I raise my eyes to see the heavens

And only the moon looks down

The harvest moon shines down

Unlike the first instance of those lines, they aren't completely excised for Broadway. They are, however, significantly rewritten:

It's a world where the dogs eat the dogs

And they kill for the bones in the street

And God in His heavens, He don't interfere

'Cause He's dead as the stiffs at my feet

I raise my eyes to see the heavens

And only the moon looks down

The harvest moon shines down

I really like how the edited version focuses more on godlessness than on how gross the sewer is. Not that a lack of a god is inherently sinister; I am quite agnostic myself and I think the unbreakable connection between religion and morality alleged by some is ridiculous. But it is blatantly obvious that Thenardier sees no reason to be moral provided no one will punish him.

As a side note, the 1985 London official soundtrack oddly uses this variant, yet the 1986 bootleg audio I have uses the original. Perhaps the original was experimented with, reverted, and later put in again? Who knows...

After the number, Thenardier now shouts Valjean's name.

The encounter in the sewers between Valjean and Javert originally ended as follows, with Javert's first two lines here in a tune not heard anywhere else in the musical to my recollection:

(VALJEAN)

Come, time is running short

(JAVERT)

Go take him, I'll be waiting at the door

I've never met a man like you before

A man such as you

The sequence was extended for the Broadway libretto, to the tune of "Look Down" and the "Work Song":

(VALJEAN)

Come, time is running short

Look down, Javert

He's standing in his grave

(VALJEAN - simultaneously with the next two lines)

Give way, Javert

There is a life to save

(JAVERT - simultaneously with the previous two lines)

Take him, Valjean

Before I change my mind

(JAVERT)

I will be waiting, 24601

A slight change can be heard in "Every Day". Originally Marius sings that he and Cosette will "remember that night and the song that we sang". The Broadway libretto edited this into the decidedly less medium-aware "remember that night and the vow that we made".

"Valjean's Confession" has been reworked to the point that it can scarcely even be considered the same song. After Valjean's "There's something now that must be done", this was how the song went:

(VALJEAN)

Monsieur, I cannot stay a night beneath your roof

I am a convict, sir, my body bears the proof

My name is Jean Valjean

I never told Cosette, I bear this guilt alone

And this I swear to you, her innocence is real

Her love is true

Our love, our life, are now her own

And I must face the years alone

(MARIUS)

I do not understand what's the sense of it all?

Is the world upside down?

Will the universe fall?

If it's true what you say, and Cosette doesn't know

Why confess it to me?

Why confess it at all?

What forces you to speak after all?

(VALJEAN)

You and Cosette must be free of reproach

It is not your affair

There is a darkness that's over my life

It's the cross I must bear

It's for Cosette this must be faced

If I am found, she is disgraced

(MARIUS)

What can I do that would turn you from this...

After the Broadway rewrite, Valjean's "There's something now that must be done" is followed by this:

(VALJEAN)

You've spoken from the heart, and I must do the same

There is a story, sir, of slavery and shame

That you alone must know

I never told Cosette, she had enough of tears

She's never known the truth, the story you must hear

Of years ago

There lived a man whose name was Jean Valjean

He stole some bread to save his sister's son

For nineteen winters served his time

In sweat he washed away his crime

Years ago

He broke parole and lived a life apart

How could he tell Cosette and break her heart?

It's for Cosette this must be faced

If he is caught she is disgraced

The time is come to journey on

And from this day he must be gone

Who am I?

Who am I?

(MARIUS)

You're Jean Valjean

What can I do that will turn you from this...

The few lines afterwards are the same, but as you can see not much else in the song is! Even the tune diverges a lot between the two variants. I'm very conflicted about which one I prefer. I gravitate towards the final one, though it's nice that the original actually tried to address to confusing notion that Valjean wants to tell his son-in-law of his past yet not his own daughter.

"Beggars at the Feast" originally ended with a solo for Thenardier:

(THENARDIER and MME. THENARDIER)

We know where the wind is blowing

Money is the stuff we smell

(THENARDIER)

And when I'm rich as Croesus

Jesus, won't I see you all in Hell!

The Broadway libretto switched this to a group line:

(THENARDIER and MME. THENARDIER)

We know where the wind is blowing

Money is the stuff we smell

And when we're rich as Croesus

Jesus, won't we see you all in Hell!

I much prefer the revised version, as the two Thenardiers clearly are in this act together. It seems more appropriate to let them both have the last laugh.

A small change occurs in the Epilogue. Pre-Broadway, Fantine sings "You raised my child with love". However, post-Broadway, she instead sings "You raised my child in love".

Another change occurs later in the epilogue. In the pre-Broadway show, Cosette tells Valjean that "It's too soon to ever say goodbye". The post-Broadway libretto instead has her sing "It's too soon, too soon to say goodbye". Repetitive as it may be, I prefer it over the original because the original awkwardly combines language clearly denoting the moment with language implying eternality.

Phew, we're finally at the end! Rest assured this is almost certainly the longest changelog you'll ever be forced to endure. I'm fairly sure it's complete, but this particular rewrite was so extensive it's not impossible that I missed something. Please feel free to let me know if that is the case.

As a side note, both for this project and my own enjoyment, I want as complete a collection of Les Miserables audios as possible. I already have most of what’s commonly circulated, but if you have any audios or videos you know are rare, or some audios that you haven't traded in a few years, I’d love it if you DMed me!

Until the turntable puts me at the forefront again, good-bye…

#les miserables #les mis #changelog #les mis changelog #marius #valjean #cosette #javert #eponine #enjolras #thenardier #1985 #1987 #broadway #part 3 #long post #the les miserables changelog

[mintymiknow]

Trust Fall - ch. 1 | Lee Minho

summary | character profiles | masterlist

Pairing: Lee Minho/Lee Know x Reader

Summary: When you walk away from something that essentially ruined you, you don’t expect to have anything to do with it anymore. But it would seem like the universe had other plans for you, and you find yourself with no choice but to face the nightmare again. 

Genre: Secret agent/spy au, romance, angst, action

Word count: Approx. 5.6k

Warnings for this chapter: Mentions of blood, implied human experimentation in labs, descriptions of said experimentations, descriptions of medical operations, implied trauma 

A/N: My new series is here! I don’t think it’s going to be as good or as hit has Scintilla, but I’m writing this ‘cause I want to, and I am excited! Please note that I’m not fully knowledgeable in the area of secret agent stuff and medical/science fields, but I hope you still enjoy reading this series. I can’t wait for everything to take place! Hehe as usual, I’d appreciate feedback, and if you have any comments, questions, etc., feel free to send in an ask!

“Yeah, so don’t forget to eat your meals and take your medicine when the nurses tell you to,” you laugh, looking at a patient with a playfully stern expression, “especially if you want to get better sooner.”

The elder patient laughs, leaning back on the hospital bed, “Yes, Doc, you got it. I promise to.”

“Good.” you grin, nodding your head approvingly, “I believe Dr. Kang will be checking up on you in the next few hours. Rest well, Mr. Lim.”

The elder nods with an airy chuckle before turning his attention back to the drama currently playing on TV. You bow politely before grabbing your clipboard and quietly exiting the patient’s room. While walking down the hospital hallway of this particular wing, you hear a familiar voice call out to you.

“Hey, y/n!”

You turn around with an amused grin, shaking your head, “Dr. Kang, aren’t we prohibited from shouting in the hospital?”

The male doctor makes an “oops” face before chuckling softly, hands in his medical coat’s pocket, “Right, sorry about that, Dr. Song.”

“So, how can I help you? I have another appointment in a bit.” you smile.

Dr. Kang - or Hyunbin as you call him - grins likewise, waving his hand in a carefree manner, “Nothing, just wanted to say hi since I bumped into you after like...weeks of both of us being busy. Go along now...wouldn’t want your patient getting angry over your late arrival.”

“You’re clingy.” you joke before laughing, “I’ll get going then. See you around, Hyunbin.”

The male playfully scoffs before waving his hand dismissively just as a nurse calls for his attention over some medical records. “See ya, y/n.” he hums, turning on his heel to walk away.

You smile before going about your way as well, hearing your heels click on the glossy floors as you walk to another department of the hospital to meet with a consulting patient.

And after that, you are called in for an emergency operation, so you end up running in said heels, pretty much aware that you’d probably end up with sore feet afterwards.

Hours pass by until you complete a very stressful yet successful operation. Your crisp, white shirt was replaced by the hospital’s mint green scrubs, stained with blood and bodily fluids. Your heels left somewhere in the locker room as your white clogs are essentially red now. Your neck feels like it’s about to break from leaning and craning it to focus on the operation, eyes strained like they would seal shut any second now.

But you knew that.

You knew that it was part of the job. Was it bothersome? Maybe, but that was just one slight inconvenience in the process of saving lives. That was why you became a professional in the medical and science field in the first place - to save lives. No, you definitely could not save every single person you came across. But you would definitely do your utmost best.

Especially when there were certain...blood stains you needed to wash off from your hands.

The more people you saved in Gongjak Medical Hospital, the more the blood on your hands washed off, little by little. Hopefully.

Unconsciously, you stare down at your gloved hands, eyes taking in the way the blood either dries or swirls into a distorted pattern. You see blood everyday - you’re a doctor, of course you would. And it was nothing new or something to be disgusted about because you were used to it. But right now, you felt like throwing up, the metallic scent and gruesome color clinging to your own hands too much to bear. This has never happened before, so you aren’t sure why it was happening today. You feel like the empty operation room spins around, ready to make you collapse until a nurse’s voice catches your attention.

“Dr. Song, the patient has been moved to a room and Dr. Choi is overseeing right now. We’ll have this room cleaned, so you may take it easy. Thank you for today’s operation.”

“I see, thank you too.” you nod, faking a calm smile despite the shaking of your hands, “I’ll get going then.”

And so you spend the next few hours rotating around consultation appointments and check-ups on patients. By the time it’s past 12 midnight, you prepare to head back to your home.

You drive in silence, eyes exhausted as they keep focused on the driveway that leads to a house that is not too large but not that small either. That’s one thing you were thankful for; your parents chose to live in a house surrounded by trees in a more private area of the city with only so much residents and houses. Some say it was for the rich - and maybe it was true - but it was definitely more peaceful and safe. Peace and quiet was what you needed after tedious days.

And safe was what you needed when you felt like something or someone haunts you every single day.

You drag yourself across the living room, dumping your bag on the couch as you make your way to the kitchen. An eerie and somewhat unsettling aura mixes in the air, but you choose to ignore it in favor of drinking a glass of cold water. You place the glass down on the counter before leaning on the table’s surface, head craning down as you get lost in your dark thoughts once again. It was always lonely at home without your parents, and you weren’t going to lie; admittedly, there were times you felt afraid to even step foot into any inch in this lonesome household.

But again, a different air filled the place right now, and it somehow sent shivers down your spine. Maybe you needed a bath, so you slowly make your way to your bedroom. However, as you reach the second floor, you notice that the door to your study room was left slightly open - you always made it a point to leave it shut.

Swallowing the lump in your throat, you tiptoe and stop in front of the door, grabbing the knob and slowly pulling it closed. However, just before it can click, a deep voice breaks the silence.

“Dr. Song y/n.”

You freeze, your blood running cold as a voice is heard in the dark study room.

“Dr. Song, we aren’t here to harm you. Come inside.”

We?

Your body moves on its own, pushing the door back to reveal your study, illuminated by nothing but the moonlight seeping in through the curtains. Once the door is fully opened, you vaguely register three figures standing by your desk. Most people would scream or scramble to call the cops. You? Nope. You didn’t know why either. Maybe these strangers were the cause of you feeling like someone was always watching you.

With crossed arms, you nod your head towards the stranger’s direction, “What is it? How do you know me? Who are you?”

One of the figures switches your lamp on, revealing his face - sharp eyes and a sharp jaw but an overall youthful and young disposition. He then speaks up, “We need you to come with us.”

“Clearly, strangers telling me to go with them is the most normal thing to happen.” you say, eyebrows furrowed.

Another figure notes your displeasure as he tilts his head to the side. Long, beautiful hair and plump lips - a beautiful man who could be mistaken as a model. “We know, but we’ve been ordered to come and talk to you about it.” he says calmly, his confident smile quite difficult to decipher.

You stand, arms still crossed and face still stern as the three figures observe you. The third figure takes one step forward. He’s more buff and definitely looks scarier, dark eyes cast in shadows with the cap he wears. “I’ll cut to the chase, Dr. Song. We’re agents from SKZ, and I don’t think I need to explain what SKZ is. Am I right?”

As soon as those words leave the male’s lips, you visibly tense, jaw clenched and eyes sharpened. You glare at the three agents, gritting your teeth, “Tell Jung Hyunseo to leave me out of whatever affairs SKZ has.”

The sharp-eyed male shakes his head, “I’m afraid Jung Hyunseo himself wants you to come with us, Dr. Song. He particularly said it was to be you no matter what.”

“What does SKZ want now?” you hiss, “I left for a reason, and I’m not going back. I think I made that quite clear to your authorities.”

The buff agent sighs, “I don’t know what bad blood you have with SKZ, and I can’t tell you exactly why we need you back right now, but everything will be explained if you just come with us.”

“Cut the crap.” you scoff with a belittling smile, “I’m not going anywhere. Case closed.”

“It’s a matter of life and death, Dr. Song.” the buff male says firmly, “It’s for a cause that could save many.”

“Hmm.” you snarkily laugh, “Now, I’ve heard that one before. Sorry, agents. I’m not going. Give Jung Hyunseo my regards.”

The agent who switched on the lights tries to step forward, opening his mouth to speak, but the buff one holds him back. With one look, the sharp-eyed agent nods his head in understanding, stepping back. The buff agent turns to the long haired one with the same look in his eyes.

The long haired male then walks towards you, leaning down to whisper in your ear, “Best you come with us now, Dr. Song. Mr. Jung won’t take no for an answer on this matter, and I’m afraid he’ll send that agent for you.”

You gently push him back with your hand on his chest, “He can try. Now, leave.”

The buff agent sighs and gestures for the two to follow him. As they walk past you, the buff agent whispers into your ear, “Try not to be too feisty when the next agent comes. He doesn’t play that nicely.”

“Neither do I,” you start, levelling his sharp gaze, “especially if he pushes it.”

The male smirks in the most subtle way so it’s barely noticeable, “I see.”

With that, the agents leave. You don’t even know how they got in, so you don’t know how they’d leave. Either way, you couldn’t bring yourself to care, not when the adrenaline fades away and your hands are now shaking.

Seconds later, you briskly walk to your bathroom, locking the door as you ready your bathtub in a frenzied hurry. You lower yourself into the water, allowing the warm liquid to envelope your body in an attempt to relax. Dead silence fills the room with the faint sloshing of water with your minimal movements.

SKZ.

You squeeze your eyes shut as if the name of that organization would be erased from your mind forever. But it does the opposite, taking you back to a time you never wanted to remember.

The sounds of agonizing screams and groans filled your ears as if you were witnessing a horror movie come to life. The smell of rotten corpses and smoke filled your nose, clouding your senses like pollution dirtying the world. You can only stare as a person slammed his hand onto the glass wall, desperately wailing and screaming for you to help him.

The pure horror that filled your veins caused you to freeze in place, bile building up within. The person’s skin started to melt and rot away, revealing things you’d see in your medical classes back then - except this was in a much more gruesome and violent context.

As the person let out one last cry, his eyes rolled back with foam frothing in his mouth. You hated how you’re only able to look away just as it finished. Every inch of your skin was covered in goosebumps, hands shaking and heart pounding. The sounds of other scientists and doctors discussing things were mere whispers despite being next to you.

“That wasn’t supposed to happen.”

“Write that observation down so we can do something about it.”

“This effect is quite interesting and may prove to be useful.”

You cleared your throat and faced the group of scientists with angry eyes. “You need to stop these experiments now!” you yelled, “You are taking too many lives!”

One scientist rolled his eyes, “Dr. Song, have you forgotten your place? Why you’re here?”

You slammed your hand on the table, “I’m here because I’ve been forced to! I didn’t want this!”

With that, you turn on your heel, keen on talking to the authorities about what you’ve witnessed for the past week. However, as soon as your hand is hovering above the lab’s door access, one scientist grabbed your wrist and twisted harshly, throwing you to the marbled floor. You grimaced at the pain in your ankle and leg, glaring at the scientist as a result.

The scientist threatened to hit you before smirking and laughing, “If you so much as say a word about this to anyone outside this lab, you and your family are joining the test subjects. Got it?”

“And don’t bother being sneaky.” another scientist laughed, “We’ll find out one way or another. Now get up and run some tests on the vials over there. No results within the day, we test on another subject. Quickly now.”

You swallowed the anger bubbling inside you, forcing yourself to get up to grab the said vials. As the group of scientists continue to murmur amongst themselves, you went to the other side of the lab to run whatever tests on the greenish-blue liquid inside the vials. You realized that your hands were still a bit shaky, tears threatening to spill out of your eyes.

You became a doctor to save lives, not take them.

So when it all became too much - when all you could hear at night was the screams and cries of suffering, you knew you had to do something. It was all still a bit of a blur - or perhaps you just did not want to recall the details - but you somehow remember the day you decided to speak up.

The day gunshots were fired in the lab, explosions here and there. Fighting and more unnecessary death. Some scientists captured and some escaped. You sitting on the lab floor with an empty expression, blood dripping down your face and black smoky soot smudging your skin. An agent you didn’t know or have never seen holding you in his arms, whispering that it was going to be ok as Jung Hyunseo angrily ordered the others to search for the escaped “traitors”.

Days later, you resigned. Jung Hyunseo felt sorry and allowed you to do so, helping you go back to a more “normal life” outside SKZ. He spoke to Gongjak Medical Hospital’s director, using his authority and status as a government agency’s head to give his recommendation for you to work there. Seoul’s top hospital instantly welcomed you as a doctor there, and you prayed it stayed that way.

No matter what, you were never going to so much as glance at SKZ headquarters or even speak about the secret organization.

Your phone, sitting on a small stool next to the bathtub, rang with a text notification, successfully snapping you out of your trip down memory lane. You glance at it, vaguely reading the text from Hyunbin saying “I forgot to text you earlier but...Mr. Lim ate all his food for dinner. Did you scold him again? Hahaha”.

You ignore the text, hugging your legs to your chest as you rest your head on your knees. The water in the tub is no longer warm, and you aren’t sure if it’s water from your hair or tears that are trickling down, but you let your sobs echo across the bathroom either way. Maybe you’d forget everything if you did.

You knew the answer to that.

Meanwhile, back in SKZ’s headquarters, the three agents return and head to one of the lounge areas, plopping onto the couch with heavy sighs. A dimpled agent looks up from his book and smiles sympathetically, “How bad was it?”

“Chan,” the buff agent starts, “it wasn’t bad...she’s just...difficult. I would have used force if it were up to me, but Mr. Jung didn’t want that.”

“What Changbin said. And she’s a bit hostile. Like Minho on his bad days?” the long haired agent whines.

“Hwang Hyunjin.” Minho glares, shaking his head before returning to the book in his hands.

The sharp-eyed agent shrugs, “Either way, she was really adamant on not coming with us. It’s either she’s scared, suspicious or hates SKZ so much...and I wouldn’t know why. Maybe it’s all of the above.”

A freckled agent - Felix - laughs and speaks, “Jeongin, why didn’t you use your charms?”

“Charms? I’m not the seducer, Hyunjin is.” Jeongin states.

“I don’t think Dr. Song is the type to get seduced…” Hyunjin thinks to himself, trailing off.

Another agent with dark brown hair - Seungmin - hums as he leans back on another couch, “Does Mr. Jung know?”

“Yeah, we told him.” Changbin explains, “He...he’s going to send Minho next.”

Minho grimaces, the irritation on his face evident, “Shouldn’t Chan go first or something? Maybe someone nice and sweet and calm would work.”

Chan slings an arm around the other male, laughing, “Or maybe some force needs to be used.”

Minho looks at him with an eyebrow raised, and Chan sighs with a smile, “Ok, not violent force but...someone strong and stubborn.”

“Bang Chan, are you calling me stubborn?” Minho fake gasps.

“You kinda are.” Seungmin points out with a laugh.

The agent with a sharp nose and sparkly eyes groans and leans his head back on the couch, “I am not a babysitter, I’m a field agent. I don’t have the time to deal with a whiney woman who doesn’t want to be here in the first place.”

An agent with round cheeks shrugs, “Mr. Jung seems to know Dr. Song very well and has her in high regard. We must really need her here.”

Jeongin agrees, nodding his head, “Jisung has a point. And we need her soon.”

“Maybe she’ll come if she finally sees Minho’s face. He is handsome and sexy. Who would say no to him?”

“Damn it, Hyunjin - ”

“Anyway,” Changbin interrupts, “I warned Dr. Song to just...comply; not to push Minho’s buttons because we know what he’s capable of and all.”

“I’m not going to kill her.” Minho sighs, rubbing his temples.

Changbin laughs, “No, no. I mean...your whole ‘cut the crap’ attitude. We know you’re most probably going to get irritated with her and might end up fighting or something.”

Minho hums as if he was agreeing, pouting his bottom lip in thought. Chan chuckles, shaking his head, “Maybe you should try being a gentleman with her.”

Minho shakes his head as well. “That isn’t going to work with her, if Changbin, Hyunjin and Jeongin’s encounter is anything to go by.” the agent states, “Might just irritate her more. Look at Seungmin. He’s cranky a lot. Maybe doctors are like that.”

“Minho…” Seungmin sighs, but Jisung and Felix only laugh.

“Well, Minho doesn’t take mission or task failures too well, so I’m sure Dr. Song will be here in no time!” Chan pipes in, earning a chorus of agreements from the other agents.

Minho makes a small nod before sighing. He prays you actually listen and come with him without much trouble.

The next day, you drive yourself to the hospital for another day of work. Things go on normally, and you put on a smile when meeting with your patients. You even laugh and crack jokes with other patients while you visit them in their rooms. You give the little children hugs whenever their parents ask them to thank you for your time; a nice contrast to what happened last night.

But once it’s your lunch break, you sit at one of the hospital’s cafeteria tables, blankly staring into space as you eat your lunch. You don’t even notice the person sitting in front of you until he laughs and says, “You don’t look so good, y/n.”

You snap your eyes up and nearly choke on your food. Swallowing and clearing your throat, you softly chuckle and say, “What makes you say that?”

Hyunbin smiles, leaning forward with a playfully serious expression, “Your face just looks way more exhausted today. And I don’t know...I just feel like something’s bothering you. Didn’t sleep well last night?”

“As expected from one of Gongjak’s best doctors.” you tease, looking at your food with a melancholic expression, “But we’re always going to be exhausted. Part of being a doctor, right?”

The male doctor nods, “I know, but...you are ok, aren’t you?”

You nod, offering a slightly wider smile, “Perfectly.”

The male grins in satisfaction with your answer, leaning back on his chair to talk about his “cute little patients” running around and laughing when they get lollipops after their check-ups. You listen to him share stories, but somewhere along the line, your mind drifts off. To where, you aren’t sure, but it’s definitely not as cute and happy as Hyunbin’s stories.

When the day ends, you’re more than relieved to come home without mysterious agents appearing anywhere in your house. Maybe they’d leave you alone now.

And the next day also goes by smoothly as you work in the hospital. Sure, you had two operations to handle - and one of them nearly went south, but thankfully it didn’t - but nonetheless, it was a smooth and average day for you, and it was as if you forgot all about what happened with the agents the other night.

You wave to Hyunbin before leaving the hospital, laughing as he jokes with a “don’t fall asleep while driving!”. And thankfully, you don’t do that, making it back home quickly and safely.

The stillness that welcomes you once you enter the house is a bit eerie, but it doesn’t seem to bother you that much; after all, it was a bit chilly-weathered recently. You take a nice, quick warm bath before deciding you wanted a midnight snack since you didn’t get to eat dinner courtesy of the two back-to-back emergency operations you had to perform. After slipping into your nightgown and a fluffy robe to keep you warm, you go down to the kitchen.

While preparing a cup of coffee and preparing a quick sandwich, you hear faint rustling somewhere in the house. You don’t own any pets, and your neighbors hardly visited, so the first thought that enters your mind is that the agents are back. It isn’t dread or fear that fills your veins - it’s anger and frustration. You scoff angrily, glancing at the coffee maker and sandwich on the plate before making quick steps towards your study room. Harshly pushing the door open and switching on the lights, you scan the room.

But no one is there.

You look behind your desk and shelves, but still no sign of people. Maybe Hyunbin was right and you were just more tired than usual; maybe your mind was playing tricks. Sighing, you shut the door and resume your business in the kitchen, needing that cup of coffee much more now.

Once the coffee is done brewing, you take the mug and plate in your hands, making your way to your bedroom. Coming home at midnight or past midnight was always accompanied by a cold silence that resulted from all your other neighbors being asleep. But that was probably better than a bustling city filled with horns and drunk people shouting after a night in the club.

You sit on your bed, letting yourself release a deep breath as soon as your body comes into contact with the soft sheets. You munch into your sandwich, absentmindedly letting your gaze drift to the window. The sky is a beautiful shade of blue-violet mixed with inky black, silvery-white stars twinkling here and there. You find yourself smiling at the view; when was the last time you actually stopped to admire something? To actually feel safe and calm? To feel like you were finally free?

You take a sip of coffee and muse on about everything that has happened since you left SKZ; it’s been two years, and you were more than satisfied with working on Gongjak Medical Hospital. Surely, the things that happened in SKZ made you less trusting, but you had one or two friends - including Hyunbin - that you deeply trusted.

But despite that, the trauma still lingered. And you knew more than anyone that you truly would never be free.

You put your coffee cup down on the bedside table, getting up to bring the sandwich plate to the kitchen. However, as soon as your eyes are set on the door, you see a figure leaning against it, arms crossed as he stares - or glares - at you. You sigh, tugging on your robe tighter, “Did Jung Hyunseo send you?”

The figure doesn’t make any sign of expression unlike the previous agents; instead, he remains stone-faced as he pushes himself off the door. “Agent Seo said you’d be difficult. Can we not do that tonight? Things like these aren’t exactly in my job description.” he sighs.

“Then maybe Agent Seo made it clear that I don’t want to comply.” you say sharply.

The male’s eyes narrow in the slightest, and you don’t miss the darkness in them. He has a different aura compared to the other three. With the dim light of your lamp, you can see that he had sharp features - handsome, if you would, but definitely had a sharper and more daunting presence. Cold and steely.

“Yes, he did.” the male starts, putting on a bored act as he adjusts the buttons on his dress shirt’s sleeves, “But I’m here to make sure you don’t say ‘no’ again.”

“SKZ can’t force me against my will, even if they are some organization or agency.” you point out, irritation rising once more, “I have my rights.”

The agent huffs, crossing his arms again, “Listen, Dr. Song. I don’t want to be here, yet here I am. Mr. Jung personally requested your presence. You seem like a smart person, judging by how he holds you with such high regard, so can you at least hear him out?”

You roll your eyes, picking the plate from your bedside table. You slip your slippers on and ignore the agent, opting to head for the door yourself. You reach past him to hold onto the door knob, twisting it and pulling the door open as best as you can. Unlike Changbin, this agent refused to budge or leave. In fact, he grabs your wrist quite strongly and slams the door shut; the loud bang startles you in the slightest, causing your eyes to widen despite your urge not to. No, you refuse to show any sign of uneasiness.

The agent grabs the plate from you while still holding onto your wrist tightly. “Please do not test me, Dr. Song. My colleagues wanted to make sure I don’t hurt you, and I personally don’t do such things, so please, don’t push it.”

“Would you hurt me?” you challenge, levelling the male’s glare with sharp eyes, “Because I’m not as weak as you think.”

A lie. A complete and utter lie. Yes, you were strong-willed, but emotionally, mentally and physically strong? No. You were smart, but you were anything but strong. You believed you were weak. You refuse to face the past and move on from it. That’s what makes you weak, you thought.

“Wow.” the agent smirks, “Dr. Song, I don’t want to hurt you if I don’t need to. You aren’t a target; you’re the mission.”

With the last sentence, he grips your wrist just a bit tighter. Infuriated, you grit your teeth and harshly yank your arm away from him, quickly turning on your heel to run and grab your phone from the bed. Who were you going to call? Hyunbin? The hospital director? The police? You didn’t know, but you surely wanted this agent out of your sight.

You grabbed your phone to dial whoever’s number, but just as your finger is about to press the contacts app, the agent is in front of you, taking the phone in his hand and tossing it to the carpeted floor with a dull thud. You stare at him in mixed anger and disbelief, opening your mouth to shout some insult. However, a yelp is what comes out of your mouth instead because the agent tangles one of his legs with yours, tugging at your ankle to trip you.

With the momentum, you fall to your bed behind, back landing on the mattress with the agent above you, one hand still gripping your wrist. You have no fighting experience, and clearly engaging in a fight with someone who was trained seemed like the worst possible choice of action. Yet you did.

Without hesitation, you swing your free arm in a sorry attempt to slap the agent, but he easily catches your wrist with his other hand, now pinning your own hands above your head. You look up at the agent with a gaze burning with anger. “What fucked up crap has SKZ gotten themselves into this time?” you hiss, on the verge of raising your voice, “Why do they need me?”

Despite your outburst, the agent remains emotionless, disposition composed and collected much to your dismay. “You’ll find out if you come with me, Dr. Song.” he responds calmly, raising an eyebrow, “I don’t want to knock you out to do that.”

You try to wriggle your hands out of his grip and kick with your legs, but the agent holds your wrists tighter and pins your hips down with his own. His facial expression is still quite blank, but the furrow in his eyebrows tells you he is mildly - or maybe very - exasperated already. “Knock me out? Enlighten me how.” you spit out.

“You’re the doctor, Dr. Song. I’m sure you’re knowledgeable on gases that could do that. Or…” the agent remains expressionless, but there’s a haughty color in his eyes as he brings a hand to your cheek, gently caressing with his knuckles, “...I could hit you, which is what I do to our targets, but as I’ve said, I personally don’t want to do that.”

You can only stare at the male, eyebrows knit together in an upset manner as all the fight and anger in your body dissolves, tensed muscles weakening as the unfavorable position you’re in finally registers in your mind. When the agent blinks, you vaguely take note of his long eyelashes, a delicate contrast to his sharp and strong features.

“What will it be, Dr. Song?” he whispers, breath mingling with yours.

You shut your eyes, deflating as you sigh, “Fine. But if I hear what Jung Hyunseo has to say and I don’t like it, I have the right to refuse to assist SKZ.”

“Hmm, I’m afraid not.” the agent finally lets go of your wrists and clambers off of you, fixing and tucking in his dress shirt into his slacks, “If you refuse or run away, Mr. Jung will persistently send agent after agent for you until you fully return or help SKZ.”

“And once I help? Once I’m finished? Will SKZ finally and genuinely let me go and live?”

“Yes, Dr. Song.”

“Shit, fine. This is the last, I swear.”

You could have kept saying “no” in all honesty, but the prospect of an agent coming into your house - or worse, directly kidnapping or abducting you by force - was not something you wanted to think about; that would just make your life more miserable.

The agent lets you get dressed in your bathroom for privacy, but he waits in your room to make sure you don’t sneak out or run from him. Afterwards, he tells you to quickly follow him, which you do because you don’t really have a choice. Once in the black car with tinted windows, you sink into the passenger’s seat, a very big frown on your face as you look outside at the city lights. The agent himself is quiet as well, focused on driving rather quickly.

The buzzing silence in the car is then interrupted when his phone rings; he accepts the call with the speakers on so you could technically hear the voice of the person speaking: Jung Hyunseo, no doubt.

“Agent Lee, what’s the update?”

The male agent doesn’t take his eyes off the road as he answers, “She’s with me, sir.”

“I knew I could count on you.” Hyunseo chuckles lightly, “Thank you, Minho. See you back in HQ.”

When the call ends, and Minho stops the car as the traffic light turns red, he cranes his neck to face you, expression still annoyingly vague and basically emotionless. “Please do behave once we’re in HQ.” he says, “You may hate SKZ, but we all expect you to adhere to the rules, alright, doctor?”

You don’t even have the desire to respond, rolling your eyes as Minho breaks eye contact to focus on the road as the traffic light turns green.

Two years away from SKZ, and here you were, being dragged back into the place you desperately wanted to get away from.

Lee Minho.

You’d remember that agent’s name. Whether you went willingly or not, you had a feeling Lee Minho, on Jung Hyunseo’s command, would find one way or another to bring you back, and that was what affected you the most.

It was going to be his fault you were back.

#stayhavennet #lee know #lee know scenario #lee know imagine #minho #stray kids minho #minho scenario #minho imagine #stray kids minho imagine #stray kids minho scenario #stray kids #skz #imagine #scenario #lee know x reader #minho x reader #secret agent au #spy au #spy #secret agent #au #series: trust fall #s: trust fall

[janghoefett]

Good Vibrations (Din Djarin x Reader)

Rating: Explicit (18+) Pairing: F/M Word count: 1.8k

Summary: You have a good old sexy time with the Mandalorian after breaking in your new lingerie. That's it, that's the plot.

Warnings: Big Meat Mando, rough sex, vaginal sex, fingering, fluff, ok you bleed a bit. All that love shit.

Originally posted on AO3 (and recently reworked)

“Stay in the ship. Turn on all lockdown and safety protocols.” That’s all Din would say before going on the hunt for his next bounty when he felt there was danger.

Under any other circumstances, you would be disappointed that he would expect you to stay home and twiddle your thumbs like his loyal housewife. But you saw the cast of characters he would often deal with, and considering you had little to no experience with combat, it made no sense for you to leave the ship and be a distraction. Din would not be able to focus if he felt you were in danger. Hell, you didn’t want to be in danger either. So you obliged.

You worried about him while he was out there. The first time he was away you would sit and sulk, but that gave you too much time to think. The next time you cleaned the entire ship from top to bottom. Eventually, you started having your fun.

On one of your more recent pit stops, you had picked out the most beautiful, sheer black nightgown that was short enough to cover only the bare essentials. You hadn’t worn it yet, and tonight was going to be its big debut. Din was a sucker for seeing you all done up and you wanted him to burst when he saw you.

With nothing better to do, you take your time getting ready. You bathe for while, do your hair, rub a little lotion all over. You even spritz a little of that perfume in all the places you knew he liked, too. And finally, you slip into your new lingerie.

Wow. You admire your own appearance in the tarnished mirror, adjusting everything until it was just right. Din was going to absolutely lose it.

Tonight you wanted something really special with Din. He was your first time, your first and only love, and you had been feeling an incredible amount of trust budding inside of you. In bed, he was only gentle and caring contrary to his Mandalorian persona. While you still couldn't see his face, that didn't matter; the only place you wanted to be was in his arms, in his bed.

You hear Din coming in just as you finish, so you run to his bed, fluffing your hair and spreading out. “Cyar’ika?” he calls in Mando’a. You don’t answer. Instead, you lie out on display for him practically quivering with anticipation. Din calls once more with a hint of concern, his footsteps drawing nearer, until finally he stops at the doorway. His armored body inhales, stiffening as he takes you in.

“Hi,” you smile. Your cheeks flush with excitement as a giddy grin overtakes your face.

His helmet tilts to the side, examining the scene in front of him before approaching you slowly. “What’s this?” rasps the Mandalorian. Your heart stops for a moment in fear that you had done something wrong or that he was disappointed. “You know you can’t play games like this and expect me to go easy on you,” he finally taunts, dragging you towards him gently by the ankles to the edge of the bed and using his hips to keep your knees apart.

You laugh softly, pleased with your success. “I wasn’t hoping for easy this time.”

The Mandalorian begins peeling his gloves off and leans over you to stroke your cheek, smirking at the way your body responds to him. “Are you saying you want me to fuck you?” he asks, his voice low and raspy. You nod with wide eyes. “If I do anything you don’t like, you tell me right away. Understood?”

With your confirmation, Din reaches a hand down to massage what is exposed between your legs. You throw your head back in pleasure against the bed and intuitively spread your legs farther while his free hand rests on your knee, keeping you locked down. His fingertips brush along your slit, before working in two thick fingers.

Your hips move against Din's large working fingers, your mouth agape. The Mandalorian knows what he is doing and you know you can come on his hand if you’re not careful. His thumb remains on your clit, massaging gently, while his index and middle fingers curl upwards into your wall over and over. Stars, this man knew how to make you shake. Your legs start to quiver and your knees buckle inwards in an attempt to ease off on the pressure.

“Don’t you dare close those legs,” he snaps, using his hands to keep them apart. You whimper, clutching his free hand with yours, and continue to ride the sensation.

“Din…” you whine. “I’m… I’m getting close.”

“Come on my hand,” he growls. “Come on.” Your body obeys almost instantly, clenching around his fingers and riding a surprisingly hard orgasm. His fingers continue to fuck you through your high and withdraw only when your body goes limp. “Good girl,” he praises, giving your pussy one last soothing massage.

As you catch your breath, Din’s reaches down to release his throbbing cock from his pants in all its impossibly thick, veiny glory. Damn, it was always hard to take him but you loved it. You bite your lip in anticipation, keeping your legs spread.

You had a thing for Din in his full armor; he was an intimidating figure and the sight of him stroking his cock between your legs made you whimper. Your lover's strong arms link under your legs, and with a push, he sinks into you slowly. Though you were already more than lubricated, your body still presents resistance and you close your eyes in an attempt to relax your muscles. "Din..." you squeak, reaching for his hands on your legs.

“That’s it… relax, cyar'ika,” he whispers. "You're so tight for me."

Keeping you on the edge of the bed, Din begins deep and thorough thrusts. He’s slow, ensuring your comfort, before establishing a quicker rhythm. A wave of satisfaction washes over you at the feeling of having him within you at last. You lie beneath him taking every thrust, whining your unintelligible encouragement and pleas.

The position is different, in a welcome way, though it leaves something to be desired. Your hands reach up to him, clawing at his stomach when suddenly he leans over, running a hand up your nightgown. “I need to feel you, cyar’ika,” he pants. You knew what he meant; he needed to lose his armor.

Reaching within a pocket, he pulls out a long strip of cloth and fastens it behind your head with your permission. You were no stranger to the blindfold. It was the only solution for Din to take off his helmet, and you actually grew accustomed to it. Blinded, you listen for the subsequent clangs of his beskar as it drops to the floor. Din crawls onto the bed and guides you into his lap, using his broad shoulders as support to straddle him, while he lifts your nightgown over your head.

You lower yourself onto his length once more, gasping at the new sensations this position brings. Din brings his lips to yours in a desperate kiss, grabbing a fistful of your hair, cherishing a perfect moment of being truly together. “Fuck me, Din,” you purr against him, biting his lower lip softly. His hands grasp the plump flesh of your bottom as you begin to move up and down on him yourself. His thrusts meet yours and he lays back, letting you take control.

Your hips meet in frantic thrusts as you ride him. You come down on his thick length hard and fast, over and over again, almost in a trance as the pleasure mixes with the pain. He was just so big and you coudn't get enough. Din’s hands dig into the soft flesh at your hips as he thrusts upwards to meet your rhythm. It hurt, you knew it did, but it was also so intensely satisfying to focus on yourself and on using your body to pleasure his. Your moans and cries fill the air in unison, desperately building towards a finish, when suddenly a new pain becomes unbearable.

“Din, stop!” you gasp.

“Are you okay?” he pants with worry. His cock throbs inside of you, almost unbearable not to move. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

“Something just… it was too much, I don’t know,” you wince.

“Ok. Just relax now,” he soothes, pulling out with care. “You’re... you're bleeding, cyar'ika.”

“I am?!” Din sits up and places his helmet back on before removing your blindfold for you to see. It’s not much, but you hadn’t bled since your first time with him. Din takes your face in his hands to make you look back up at him.

“Baby, it’s okay. You’re not used to this,” he reminds you, brushing a lock of hair out of your face. “That was really rough, and I don't like hurting you. We can slow down.”

You nod, allowing him to refasten the blindfold, and lay beside him on your back. Din removes his helmet and moves over you, planting an earnest kiss on your lips. "Ready to try again, sweet girl?" he asks.

With your permission, Din enters you with utmost caution. "Shh..." he coos, planting sweet kisses on your cheek. “Is this better?”.

“Yeah… this is.” Your arms wrap around him, pulling him close. His new thrusts are tentative, experimental. “Oh, Din,” you sigh.

“I love you,” he breathes between kisses. You smile at the intimacy of the moment and moan softly at the gentle movements of his hips. “Was I too rough?” he asks.

“No, no it felt good,” you respond, stroking his hair. “This feels good too… I miss you when you’re away.”

As if to make his absence up to you, he locks his lips onto yours as his gentle motions continue. Your moans and grunts become louder and more frequent as your orgasms grew nearer. “Come inside of me,” you breathe, grasping Din's face. His thrusts become more erratic, spurring you onto your finish. “Din!” you cry. He follows soon after while your legs shake, spurting hot ropes of his seed deep inside of you.

“You look beautiful tonight,” he whispers, breathing heavily. “That thing looks good on you."

"I hoped you’d like it,” you smile.

Din pulls out slowly and falls to your side, bringing you into his chest.

“Thank you for stopping when I asked,” you whisper. “I’m sorry."

"That is not something you thank me for. I never want to hurt you, cyar’ika.”

You stroke the stubble on his cheek, almost overwhelmed by the emotions he made you feel. “I love you, Din.”

The Mandalorian plants a lingering kiss on your forehead. “I love you more, cyar'ika. ”

#din djarin #din djarin x reader #female reader #fan fiction #the mandalorian #the mandalorian fanfiction #smut #fluff

[dennou-translations]

Violet Evergarden Ever After: Chapter 2

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The Night and the Auto-Memories Doll

   Everything went around.

From past to present and from present to future. The dead bodies that decayed within the soil would dissolve into the earth, and from the earth, too, would new living creatures be born. Within a few hours’ time, curtains made of stars and nightly shades would be covered over by curtains in the colors of dawn.

People went around as well.

Children would be born, muster out their voices, start walking and, once they became aware of their own selves, their stories would begin. A cycle of discovering passion, coming to know love, stopping to be children and, upon sympathizing with other families, birthing offspring just as their parents had done. A cycle of learning about the world, spreading information, teaching their knowledge to younglings without sparing any of it away and generating more such younglings. A cycle in which someone’s story was someone else’s encouragement, and those who were encouraged would conceive stories of their own.

Everything went around.

There was one cycle here. It was the story of a meager cycle that likely could happen anywhere in the world.

A man picked up a wild beast from a small island to which he had drifted. It was a beautiful beast, but it had been stocked with skills long before coming to his hands. Skills for slaughtering people with ease and seeking submission.

Their first meeting was terrible. His underling had attempted to lay his hands on the beast’s beauty. As if it were a given, the beast had killed his many subordinates, leaving only one person. That was him. Granting him both disaster and salvation at the same time, the beast had sought subservience in regards to the man.

The man fled around the island where all but himself had been murdered, but gave in and accepted the beast. The beast was useful, but also an existence that he could not handle. Be it morning, noon or night, his head was troubled with the beast, his heart unable to calm down.

Essentially, he was a man who did not want to be shackled by anything. After all, he had a past of being forced into submission by his household and parents. He had escaped from his responsibilities and his home, jumping off into the sea. The man, who had been born in a family that bore the name of a flower, had run away and gained freedom.

He yearned for it – for a freedom that no one could steal from him – more than anything. Even if he had to cast away his little brother for it. Therefore, the man had done the same in the beast’s case. The one who mattered most to him was himself. He wanted to break free from that horror. Most likely, he had cut off from himself a child in need of salvation.

Everything went around.

——O God, I want to                                .

Everything.

   A voice that sounded like bells echoed.

“Captain,” it whispered, as if to tickle the man’s ears. “Captain Dietfried Bougainvillea.”

It was evening. A time when people were returning to their homes.

“What would you like to do?”

An orange light shone from the window inlaid with stained glass. With the sunset reflected on the elaborately designed interior decoration, the place itself looked like a single work of art.

“Could it be that, because of the impact earlier, your hearing has...”

It was supposed to be. The place where the person who called out so insistently and the person who intentionally ignored her were in was an art gallery that just recently had its interior and exterior finished.

“As if.”

“I am relieved. Then, I would like to ask if you have a plan.”

In a place they were not supposed to be at, the two who were not supposed to be together were kneeling on the floor in resignation.

“Captain.”

“.............................”

“The civilians are in a predicament.”

“................................”

“Captain Dietfried Bougainvillea.”

“............”

“What would you like to do?”

“..................”

“I would like to ask if you have a plan, by any chance.”

“.....................”

“The civilians are in a predicament.”

“........................”

“If I may offer my opinion, firstly, I could act as a decoy—”

“Be quiet, monster. Don’t keep repeating the same thing over and over. Don’t breathe either. I’m thinking right now.”

Dietfried Bougainvillea, a naval captain of Leidenschaftlich, eldest son of the Bougainvillea – a household of patriotic national heroes – and the man who had picked up Violet Evergarden in the past and brought her to this country, was covering his eyes with his hands due to having too much on his plate. The little bit of silence and darkness had brought him relief, but someone’s sobbing, the voice of a man reproaching it and the sound of a person being brutally kicked and tumbling down dragged him back to reality.

He had a severe headache. Whether it was caused by his anxiety or his injury, he had no idea. He put a hand on the back of his head and examined it, but only a bit of blood had come out.

In order to somehow spit such awful mood out of his body, he took deep breaths. He felt that he had become a little better, but the unpleasant sensation returned once he opened his eyes and cast his gaze at the woman next to him. A spoon of discomfort, rejection and fear each was thrown into Dietfried’s emotional vessels, set on fire and boiled up. However, the most prominent feeling was something else.

The woman who had been talking to him so insistently until a moment ago was now quiet just and not letting out a single breath as he had told her. Violet Evergarden.

Dietfried looked fixatedly at his former servant. The woman, whose appearance had transfigured considerably in comparison to when they had first met, bore a radiantly shining cold beauty, which was even more conspicuous under such tense circumstances. She was almost like an ice sculpture, Dietfried thought.

——Even though you used to stink like a wild beast...

She now smelled of nothing but flowers.

——...you turned out just as I’d imagined.

“You’re a siren.”

Silence.

“My little brother destroyed a train station just to keep you alive; you’re a siren through and through. I’m not into you, but my mental stability is wrecked right now, and I’m sensing the harmfulness and influence that your existence brings about in that. You’re unmatched when it comes to breaking things and causing problems.”

Dietfried had once told his brother that the beast could become a siren. He had meant to say so including all sorts of matters. This young woman named Violet was a creature that God had created by mistake and had not been born under a good star. When one was by her side, there were many of them.

“Damn troublemaker.”

Many problems. Even though she had not wished for it, she had been born this way. Under a star that attracted disasters.

——It goes round. All of it.

He ran and ran from her, yet they would end up meeting, thus Dietfried had started to think that it might be some sort of divine revelation at this point. Telling him to face the girl that he had thrown away.

Violet was still, hand on her brooch. He someway guessed that it was given to her by his younger brother. He felt like clicking his tongue. This girl might become the worst-ever wife whose hand his most beloved little brother was going to take.

——We can leave that for later; gotta overthrow this situation first.

Determined to fight this reality, Dietfried then turned his gaze towards the sight that spread out before his eyes. Women, men, elderly people – everyone was crouching on the floor with guns pointed at them regardless of anything. Obviously, the same applied to Dietfried and Violet.

Unexpected situations – situations in which they could not make a false move even if they were on their own, let alone in the presence of so many civilians – were responsible for this. On top of it, Dietfried was also saddled with someone that he had to protect despite not wanting to. Of course he would feel like clicking his tongue at it.

Perhaps they were thought to be lovers, as no one said anything even while they stayed close to each other.

“Hey, did you really stop breathing?”

She did not seem to be in agony, but her figure as she diligently obeyed made Dietfried feel uneasy.

“I was joking; breathe.”

Violet’s blue eyes blinked with a snap.

“Yes.”

And then, she finally let out a breath. Dietfried hated himself for being remotely relieved that she had safely started breathing again, was what he thought.

“Hey, you.”

“Yes.”

“From now on, follow my orders. Don’t act on your own accord.”

“All right.”

“I’m gonna save the civilians. It’s my duty. There’s no helping it, so I’m counting you in that math too... No idea what my little brother would do if he found out I’d let you die. Even if it weren’t on purpose, if anything that could kill you happened under these circumstances, I really have no way of knowing what he’d do. He’d probably hate me.”

“No, Captain, he—”

“Have some self-awareness, Monster. My foolish younger brother blew up a train station to let you live. This fact did turn into a subject of teasing towards Gil for no matter how much time passes from now, but if you think about it on normal terms, it’s out of the ordinary. That’s the way you’ve changed him. Damn witch...”

She was the tool that he had found and that used to exist for his sake. A woman who used to be a dog with no name. An orphan whom he had picked up from a solitary island, brought back with him, attempted to get the most out of yet was unable to, and then threw away.

Asset. Girl soldier. Automatic assassination doll. Witch.

——Even if I don’t want to, for now, I gotta protect this thing and take it home.

“I’ll save you, so you save me too, Witch.”

Fate went around, adding a chance meeting as the best seasoning for a finishing touch. After all, at this very moment, Violet Evergarden and Dietfried Bougainvillea were being attacked by robbers and had weapons thrust at them.

“That’s awfully unpleasant for me, but I’ll take action by considering your life to be the top priority. Not for you. For my little brother.”

Understanding that she had received permission to talk once she had received permission to breathe, Violet gave her own opinion, “No.” She did it directly, without any restraint. “No, that is my job, Captain. Major... Lord Gilbert loves you.”

Dietfried’s eyes blinked. Those green orbs were staring fixatedly at Violet since earlier, enough to seem like they would suck her in. They were green jewels in a different shade from his younger brother’s. Those green gems, enveloped in shock, reflected Violet’s serious gaze.

“I shall guard you, no matter what happens,” Violet declared with resolution, like a knight. “I will obey your orders to the best of my abilities, but if I judge it to be dangerous, I shall take action with your safeguarding as the maximum priority.”

“Hey.”

“I will definitely protect you and bring you to Major safely. Please do not leave my side, Captain.”

“That’s my line,” Dietfried said while nonetheless wanting to kill Violet.

   For the exchange between the two to reach this stage, things had first begun when morning visited Leidenschaftlich. This might be going back much too far in time for a clarification, but it all had indeed started since daybreak.

The morning weather was overflowing with sunlight on that day – typical of Leidenschaftlich in early summer. Early rising ladies formed queues in the bakeries that opened at dawn and little birds flew about the shops’ surroundings to receive breadcrumbs. There was a café three stores away from one of the popular bakeries, famous for serving floral teas, its signboard girl preparing to open it. If one went further ahead, there was a bank, and round said bank, there was a main street lined with large-scale shops.

An art gallery arranged to open the next day had been erected on the main street. Its name was Artemisia. It bore the name of its owner, who was an artist.

The gallery Artemisia displayed the works of its proprietor, of course, but it also had works of artists from within and abroad Leidenschaftlich. There were rows of works from unknown young artists that the owner had taken interest in as well, devoted as she was to the cultivation of new talents.

The Artemisia Gallery, which was to become a place where novel forms of Leidenschaftlich’s art would be born, was scheduled to hold a pre-opening party today, attended only by the people concerned. The gallery’s staff had started cleaning its interior and the sidewalk in front of it from morning.

Around noon, a restaurant employee hired for the sake of that day had visited, bringing in wine, snacks and table sets. As for the dishes, there were two types: the ones that had already been prepared and the ones that would be made by borrowing the kitchen of the owner’s residence, which had been built on the gallery’s top floor. Since eating was not the main focus, the preparations were merely enough for the upcoming guests not to feel hungry.

As evening came, the inside of Artemisia began to speed up with haste. If there were anyone in command of such a scenery, they would likely be asserting with a baton: “hurry”, “faster”, “elegantly”.

An envelope closed with a wax seal bearing the establishment’s crest. Customers arrived one after another with the invitation taken from inside of it at hand. For a pre-opening party with a limited number of invitees, there was a large amount of people. The elect few of Artemisia’s employees were in a flurry of activity.

“Bring me a coat” here, “not enough drinks” there, a plate breaking somewhere. “Where’s the owner?”, “Got caught by the guests”. “There’s no one to give us instructions”, “Oh, well” – just like this, things descended into chaos behind the scenes.

Normally, their job was to calmly recommend artistic goods. Therefore, they were unable to hide their bewilderment at handling so many visitors at first. Nevertheless, if one looked at the guests being entertained, how were they? Appreciating the artworks, looking like they were having a blast. Upon seeing this, the employees were able to understand deep down. That “what, so things are the same as usual”. By the time that the customers were completely familiar with the gallery’s interior, the employees were able to show smiles with a little bit of ease.

Among the guests invited to Artemisia, a foreign body completely unrelated to this world was mixed in.

It was a woman. A beautiful one at that. From an appreciative viewpoint, there would be nothing to complain about if she were one of the artworks. She was clad in a ribbon-tie one-piece dress, snow-white as a flower in full bloom on a summer day. Her long, softly curved golden hair extended to her waist. Perhaps she had come straight from work, as she held a heavy-looking trolley bag on one hand. “Click, click,” knocked her cocoa-brown boots against the marble flooring each time she took a step.

She walked while observing every artwork one by one. Idyllic landscape paintings, abstract paintings that looked like silver ink spilled on pure-white paper, oil paintings in which the people seemed as if they would move at any moment. Glassworks and ceramics that one would be very afraid even to look at from nearby. At first, the exhibition was of works from artists renowned within the country, but the small hall of its latter half integrated displays from artists who were still nameless. The woman stopped in front of one such work.

A painting of whimsical fantasy. Was it a winter sea? It depicted various things falling and sinking into dark and cold water. A pocket watch, a feather, a bed, a knife, a white flower and a chair. All were worn-out and had damaged parts. At first glance, one would not know what it was expressing. Only the boy painted in the center seemed to pierce through the viewer.

He was still a teenager and his appearance could also be considered that of a girl. After staring at him for a while, the feeling that he was supposed to be saved would surface. Because the boy had a facial expression that almost looked like he was making eye contact with the viewer as he fell. But this could not come true. He was sinking in the picture. No one on this side could do anything. One would not know what to do with themselves after looking at it – it was that kind of picture.

“Excuse me; I was the one who painted this. Is there anything wrong with this painti...”

Suddenly, a voice called to the woman from behind. A rock thrown into the quiet atmosphere. A low tone that cut through the dimness of the room.

People were mostly heading towards the famous artists, so the woman had been all by herself on that spot until just now. The man who had showed up a bit late was coincidentally the creator of that fantastical painting, and found himself talking to the woman who had stopped in front of his art. That was an extremely natural encounter for a pair. If their positions, circumstances and everything else were different, something might have been born between them. It did not have to be romantic love, just something – something else that “the two of them originally had”.

“Captain Dietfried Bougainvillea.”

The moment the woman turned around, the space resounded with a loud squeak. It actually had not resounded, but at the very least, Dietfried heard the thump of his own heartbeat, which gave his whole body goosebumps. He was enveloped in a strange sensation, as if the blood inside him were flowing backwards. One of the things he had once evaded in his life was standing there.

“What’re you doing, Monster?”

Violet Evergarden.

Before the emerald eyes that Dietfried possessed, of a hue different from his younger brother’s, there was a young female Auto-Memories Doll. The reason why he had not recognized her from the back was likely that her golden hair was slovenly loose.

He had not had a chance to see her after she had become a grown-up ever since the incident during the Flying Letters. Only people who had great amount of interaction with each other would be able to tell such a thing just by looking at someone’s back.

“I was looking at the paintings, Captain.”

Violet was expressionless. However, her hand alone promptly searched for her emerald brooch and squeezed it.

“You, paintings? Can you understand them?”

First, a scornful laugh, and then a head start with a verbal attack. She needed to put up a defense line. After all, this girl was formerly a weapon. An automatic assassination doll.

“I cannot. It is just that... my eyes and legs stopped.”

She was the one and only woman that Dietfried feared. If he had run into anyone else, his emotions would not be so disrupted.

Dietfried was scared. This girl was terrifying.

“I caused you trouble last time.”

He knew the things she had done. He knew whom she had killed. And he also recalled how he used to treat her, telling himself that it was all right.

“By asking about Major.”

Because she was a monster.

——O God, I want to                                .

These words wandered about in his head. They were words that he had prayed in his childhood to the one that he would meet at some point – probably in his dying moments. Thinking back on it now, it had been a foolish, immature and helpless wish, but he was serious about it at the time.

Looking at this girl made him remember his embarrassing past self.

“I shall see myself out. Captain, please take your time.”

“Hey.”

Violet had decided to retreat from the place, putting it to action. She concluded that this would be a peaceful solution for both sides and that it would secure each other’s survival.

“Hey, wait.”

However, Dietfried still had something that he wanted to say.

At the call of restraint, Violet’s feet halted mid-step. She then gazed at Dietfried. “Why?” her eyes were asking.

Choosing to leave must have been her own way of showing respect. Considering the current and the previous relationship between two of them, it was a sound judgement. Hence, she stared at him presumptuous and mutely.

Even now, it pierced Dietfried. That quiet “why” perforated him.

Despite being the one who had told her to wait, Dietfried lost sight of his next words. He had tons of complaints. Rather, complaints were the only thing that ever came out of his mouth. Most likely, he had never presented any warm words or attitude to her. No, he had at least patted her head when they parted. But what about it? That was all he had done. Which perhaps was the reason why.

——What did you think of that painting?

Just a question like this was exceptionally challenging for him. If it were anyone else, he would surely be able to ask as easily as breathing. He could also boast that he was the one who had painted it. However, only with this woman was it so difficult.

A long silence drifted between the two. A truly long, long silence.

The mood was almost like two beasts had come across each other in the wilderness and were estimating which would attack first. Both were underdeveloped and, not matching their insides, only their appearances were actually full-fledged. Seen from the sidelines, they were a beautiful adult man and woman looking at each other, but the air flowing between them was that of a battlefield.

Dietfried was starting to sweat. As for Violet, even her breathing was becoming shallower.

Violet seemed to be thinking about something. She opened and closed her mouth, repeating it several times. What should she do in that situation? What was best? She was probably unable to decide. This was something that not just Violet but also Dietfried was thinking about, yet the degree of seriousness in behavior was surprisingly higher on Violet’s side.

She would normally not be like this.

He was the person that even Violet Evergarden, who had written so many letters, was at loss as to how to act around. That was the man called Dietfried.

Perhaps her thinking had eventually arrived to a conclusion, Violet left her baggage on the floor and put her hands behind her back. “Feel free to.”

At first, Dietfried had no idea what she was doing. Violet looked like she was offering her body.

“Ha...?”

Without hesitation, almost as if she were a tool.

“I am still. Feel free to.”

“Feel free to feast on my life,” she seemed to say. Her current self overlapped with the beast of the past.

“To do what, is what I’m asking...” Dietfried’s mouth felt sticky, giving him a hard time mustering words out. His head had been occupied mostly with how to mend the blunder that he had exposed to her, so he could not respond to Violet’s surprise attack immediately.

“Do you not remember? I used to do this whenever I had to receive reprimand or punishment.”

He could not. All of the information that had been fluttering about in Dietfried’s head until now disappeared. It vanished.

“You, what the...”

The owner of the blue eyes that stared at Dietfried as if to shoot through him always did unexpected things, tossing him about.

“I did not know how to speak back then, so in order to show that I had no intention to attack you, Captain, I would do this.”

Those eyes.

“No matter what I say, surely... there is no atonement for me. With time, I have come to understand the things I... did. And how much terror I made you go through. Nevertheless, I am grateful for the kindliness of placing me under Lord Gilbert. I wish to pay you back somehow. If you say that it is unnecessary, at the very least, do as you please.”

For whatever reason, when those eyes asked him “why”...

“Be it with fists or with reproach, as much as you want.”

...his chest ached as if it had been stabbed.

“Feel free to.”

If that place were not a quiet art gallery, Dietfried would have yelled furiously at her, without caring about shame or his reputation. He managed to ball his fists hard enough for it to hurt and swallow down his angry voice due to his high level of self-respect.

“I hate that about you...”

This girl always made him aware that she would never act as he expected.

“...to death.”

At the words spoken by Dietfried’s quivering tone, Violet took a step back. Her stance of offering herself did not change, but her instincts were on-guard, wondering if she was not going to be killed by this man. Seeing that, Dietfried sneered at her figure.

“You’re the one who could choke the life out of me anytime,” he seemed to say.

Dietfried suddenly felt the heat that had gone up his head cooling down. Violet had taken a step back. That became the trigger for him to regain his composure. Because he was able to reconfirm that she was but a child in the end. This innocent aspect and action that were much like what a child would show to an adult exerted a great influence on the other party. Dietfried loathed that.

For he, who despised interventions from anyone, had so much aversion to it that it make him want to vomit.

Those who were accustomed to oppression from others would very easily choose to hurt people. She was inwardly frightened of that tendency. Yet albeit frightened, she prioritized others over herself. That creature was like a mass of contradictions.

——Disgusting. Stop. Die. Don’t look at me.

He did not want to get involved with her. But he had a mountain of things to say. However, when it came to whether or not he could properly do it, even if he managed to squeeze them out, they would turn into nothing but abusive language.

There was a large lake between the two of them and all they could do was gaze at the opposite shore, unable to tell how deep it was. Their first meeting was to blame for that. It was the cause of everything.

His underlings had attacked her and she had killed all of them. She then chased and chased after him, making him into her master. Despite there being a hierarchy, Violet was the one who had a grip over his life.

One would understand, after spending time with the girl, that this was a necessity for her. She was always like that, ever since the island only the two of them knew. Whenever anything happened, she would prioritize Dietfried. After all, even as he handed her over to Gilbert, she had not resisted.

If anything could be changed, that was the moment.

The two who never mingled with each other met again countless times in a parallel line. On such occasions, they would become unable to make a move due to shouldering the truth of rejection and of the things they had done, thus running away.

——Gilbert.

What did the person who brought the two together, whom they loved most, thought of that?

“You... I...”

——If I could change for Gilbert...

“Captain...?”

——If I could change, right here and now, for your sake...

Would it be easier for him to breathe?

Just as Dietfried was about to make a bitter decision...

“GYAAAAAAAAAH—AAAAAAH—AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”

...an incident occurred.

   It was clearly not a hasty crime. The scream of Artemisia, the owner, echoed, and by the time that Dietfried and Violet had bolted from the quiet hall where there was just the two of them, robbers were already thrusting their weapons mostly at vulnerable women and children, having them on their knees. The course of action was far too swift.

Wide-eyed, Violet swung back her trolley bag and was about to throw it at them, yet Dietfried stopped her.

“Are you stupid?! Those aren’t all adults that can run...!”

Among the hostages, there was also a little girl held under someone’s arms, looking like she did not understand the situation.

“I will save them as fast as possible and take control of the rest.”

“They’ve got guns; what’re you gonna do if they hit someone else with a warning shot?! There’s the other artworks too... This ain’t a stage for a tactless bastard like you to brawl! Just stay put for now!”

“But, Captain—”

“Stay put!”

While the two were trying to push past each other, the robbers took notice of them.

In the main hall, perhaps in order to bind people up through fear, the men were being beaten without exception, being put on their knees over the floor. Seeing that, the women naturally sat down, trembling, and began to cry.

While screams were resounding like music, one of the robbers headed towards the duo. “So there were still weeds growing here?” was the look in his eyes as he swung his firearm emotionlessly.

Dietfried would have managed to avoid it. He had done it several times until now. He could do it as easily as floating on water. If he could catch the man’s gun with one hand and pulled it just like that, he was able to picture the opponent falling over as a reaction. Once he stole the gun, he could shoot each member of the robber gang one by one in the head. And then, there would be a gunfight. He would have done that if he were alone. Yes, if he were alone.

——Why now of all times?

There was nothing more humiliating than a punch that one had to resign oneself into receiving. But he had things he had to protect above his own dignity. Thus, he accepted the attack without dodging. If he were to start a scuffle amidst the current situation, he did not think that all of the people who had become hostages would remain unharmed. He would aim for a chance. That was what he should do. He made such decision not only for his own welfare but also for that of other people.

However, the automatic assassination doll made a completely different one. When her eyes glinted like that, she quite literally moved on automatic. She came forward to take his place. In that instant, the face of Dietfried’s younger brother was the only thing crossing his mind.

——Gil.

It was almost as if he had readied himself to do it. That was how quickly his arm reached out. He forcefully embraced Violet and turned his back towards the robber. A violent hit struck him from head to back. He could hear Violet’s breath quietly catching while holding her in his arms.

And such was how they had arrived to the present.

   Dietfried did not think that his decision to suppress Violet was a mistake. He was aware that she was the woman who had fought by herself against terrorists inside an exploding train, but it would be a problem if she did something of the sort in the Artemisia Gallery.

Right now, he felt like a pet owner containing the rampage of his mad dog.

As for the mad dog herself, she had grown quiet ever since Dietfried had been hit, as if her functions were gone. Dietfried had pushed away the hands that had attempted to give him first aid. Any false moves and the robbers might beat him again.

She, who always took upon herself to protect, wound up being protected. On top of that, she had let the other be injured. This must have caused her to fall into despondency, enough to result in service outage. However, with time, she had rebooted and was rousing herself up once more to get through this situation.

“I understand that I should refrain from the use of force in an art gallery. But should we not place human lives above the artworks?”

——Whose fault do you think it is that I got hit on the back of my head?

Because she was saying the most obvious thing with the most serious face, Dietfried grabbed the collar where her brooch resided, taking the brooch along, without thinking. The thread that fastened the ribbon-tie dress’s button let out a screech. It was not the kind of deed that a gentleman would do to a lady. But Dietfried did not loosen the strength that he put into his grip.

“You... Do you still need disciplining from me?” he said, voice filled with rage, close enough for their faces to touch. “Think of this as a place that can hardly compare to any other... This thing’s pretty important for you, isn’t it?”

After blinking with a snap, she opened her mouth once, then closed it.

Once Dietfried’s hand let go of her, she grasped the brooch as if to protect it. She was more concerned about the brooch than the crumpled bust of her dress. She stroked it over and over, making sure that it had not been damaged.

Finally, she whispered in a dazed state, “I understand.”

“As if an idiot could,” Dietfried said with a snort, yet the other was a poker-faced Auto-Memories Doll. No matter how much he hurt her, it would have no effect. That was what Dietfried had thought.

“I understood completely. I will avoid combat here as much as possible.” Alas, her voice sounded a little faint.

Dietfried stared at Violet from the corners of his eyes. The brooch was indeed important to her. She was holding it down with both hands. She did not want anyone to touch it – that was what she was indicating. The two of them were speaking in an awfully low tone, but her timbre just now was as thin as the cry of a mosquito.

Dietfried said with a somewhat softer voice, “Good that you get it. I’m indebted to the owner of this gallery. I’m gonna choose the best I can for her sake too.”

“All right.”

“Human lives are the priority, of course. But we’re not gonna fight in a stupid way.”

Like a child, Violet nodded repeatedly.

“You’ve only ever been doing body guarding, murders and military action, and that’s why you don’t understand. In the sea... In fleet battles, we fight to protect. Our way of thinking is different from those who fight to conquer.”

“To protect...”

“If you can’t put brakes on them at sea, the enemies go to land. The reason why Leidenschaftlich is called a military nation ain’t just the army’s achievement. I’ve... never taught you how to fight at sea, huh... For now, forget the method of destroying and taking control of everything. Learn from my ways.”

“Understood.”

Dietfried was inwardly surprised at the obedient reply. Rather, even more than this, he was surprised that he and the “beast” were able to have mutual comprehension.

When she was in his hands, this beautiful Auto-Memories Doll was a “wild beast” that did not know how to speak, as well as a tool. An incontrollable beast, to boot.

“Still, if that is how it is, please do not forget that your wellbeing is my top priority all the more. I shall fight to protect you, Captain. Please do not think of protecting me for Lord Gilbert’s sake. If necessity arises, I will not might if you use me as a shield. I can be replaced, but there is no substitute for you.”

If, at that time...

“This is also linked to protecting Lord Gilbert.”

...in that place...

“Bye, Monster. This guy’s your next master.”

...he had educated and guided her instead of letting her go, would she have grown up the same way?

“Shut up.”

Would she have thought like that?

“Shut up, Monster.”

He had never even thought about it.

Another side of him immediately answered “no” to the self-questioning. Surely, a Violet Evergarden raised by Dietfried Bougainvillea would not have turned out like this. He might have at least taught her how to talk. They would have trouble communicating otherwise. He would have probably given her clothes and personal belongings for daily life. Bringing her along when walking around would look bad for him.

However, when it came to whether or not he would have bestowed this girl with something that would be enveloped in her hands with utmost zeal...

——I see; so it’s the same color as Gilbert’s eyes. That brooch.

...he would undeniably have not.

——Come to think of it, she was always following me around from behind ‘cause she hated being alone.

If there was anything he could have done for her, it was to at least fill up a coffin with flowers and leave it available for her. He did not intend for anything to happen, but he might have done that much. After all, if Violet had stayed beside Dietfried Bougainvillea, she would have surely died before him, for his sake.

“We’re gonna do an act.”

——Aah, Gilbert.

“An act?”

——I’m always late to realize how great you are.

“That’s right. You’re the one who suggested it, so I’m gonna make you into a decoy.”

——You’ve made that filthy beast into this.

“Understood.”

——You were able to change her like this.

“First, take this... It’s late for that, but... you got any questions about a joint struggle with me?”

As Dietfried asked, Violet responded with her neck tilted, “Why...? I do not.”

For whatever reason, his former weapon would show scraps of emotion only at times like these. Just innocently, unaware that it was merciless of her.

“Please use me correctly, Captain.” She smiled.

   Why had robbers attacked the Artemisia Gallery?

There was a certain amount of history that led to such violence unfolding amidst everyday life. Firstly, it would be preferable to start with the time when a turning point happened in the life of the robbery’s main offender, but that would be rewinding too far. On to a brief explanation.

This case was a crime committed by a habitual criminal.

There were various reasons for people to rob, yet the advantage was but one. Earning compensation within a short period. Good citizens would be paid for their work, but thieves did not share this mentality. People received rewards through serving others. In order to gather a large sum, a long time and effort were necessary. Thieves abdicated from this. To achieve success, no matter in what land, a person had to be equipped with skills as a rule of thumb.

If one could stop after doing it once, why did they do it countless times? There were people here and there who thought this about criminals. It was because, if they had succeeded once, they could do it again. They were instantly able to attain things that they would have to spend a long time out of their lives to earn. This was the arrival of an opportunity to do that.

Once one got used to it, identifying opportunities was surprisingly easy.

Supposing that there was someone who excelled at predicting people’s thoughts. The other person’s personality would be determined by the movements of their eyes, the way they breathed, their voice tone, the relationships of power in their background, their social position and other such things, so one would be able to deduce what kind of conduct should be taken in order to derive the “correct answer”. It seemed like magic at first glance, but it was no more than the result of someone continuously keeping watch on another person for many years.

Since this was a strategy against individual matches, the robbers needed a slightly better ability to grasp the environment. As they were walking around the city, they incidentally found out that a new gallery was going to open. The opening date was also announced. It appeared that there would be an event only for those concerned on the day before.

No matter the establishment, dealing flawlessly with the inauguration of a new shop was difficult. Even if there were people in it who already had experience working in a gallery, but the use of their abilities to have control over such a situation and proceed with it smoothly was different. Employees would be in quite a panic on the day. If it was a members-only celebration day, there was no mistaking that the original state of the security that should be guarding the gallery would be insufficient.

And so, the robbers had thought, “Aah, if you poke this place, it’ll surely crumble down.”

They did not have any grudges in particular. They had simply judged that they could do it, thus undergoing the assault. The truth was merely that the Artemisia Gallery had been unlucky.

How many hardships the owner had gone through until she was able to open the gallery, had she lived her life bowing her head to other people? How many artists were looking forward to seeing their work exhibited in the gallery? The feelings of such people could be trampled miserably at times.

Not that many people paid any mind to weeds when walking. That was all. Except, this time, the Artemisia Gallery had been lucky about just one thing.

“No good... Hum, excuse me...! She suddenly...!”

A naval captain who loved art...

“Ugh...”

...and the woman who used to be called Leidenschaftlich’s War Maiden were amongst the hostages.

The man who had caused a commotion and pleaded to one of the robbers in a panic raised both of his hands as a display of no resistance. He was a long-haired a man. His slightly curvy dark hair went past his shoulders. Right next to him was a woman holding her stomach and trembling.

“What?”

A few armed men gathered around them.

“It seems her stomach hurts.”

“Just a stomach ache? Leave it alone.”

“You’re telling us to let her go to the bathroom? We still gotta watch these people. Besides, she’s a woman. If someone takes her to the toilet... Well, how much stuff did we get?”

“We’ve piled most of the paintings in the carrier, but there’s still the ornaments. It’s still gonna take a while.”

The robbers had a choice. The option to either silently let her suffer or kindly take her to the restroom. Beating only the men was likely one of their policies. They did not hesitate to make use of violence when needed, but when it was not, it was best to have as least animosity as possible in order to get through with things unobtrusively and quickly take the treasure. It seemed gentlemanly but was a self-righteous thinking.

“What do we do? The Head is...”

“The Head got in the car first. As if we can ask him stuff like this every single time it happens.”

“Head” probably referred to the member worthy of being their chief.

As the quiet exchanges continued in front of the agonizing woman, she finally lay down on the floor while still holding onto her stomach. The man who had appealed about her bad condition shook her shoulders, telling her to “hang in there”.

As if she had received a signal, the woman raised her face slowly. Her gemstone-like blue eyes were visible through the gaps between her disheveled golden hair. She was covering her mouth, perhaps trying not to vomit. Even so, it was easy to tell that the woman’s looks were remarkably good.

“It’s gonna take a while, huh. Besides, we’re gonna need the women later.”

Her eyes locked with one of robber’s as though sucking him in. One would not understand the destructive power that having this woman look up at them from their feet with her eyes wet had, unless they witnessed it themselves.

“Then, I guess it’s okay.”

From the vulgar smile of the man who had said so, one could presume what his intentions were. As the woman was covering her mouth, the robber instructed her to stand up, pointing his gun at her, and then took her to the restroom.

After that, the woman and the robber did not return for a while. Since there were no other people who mustered out the courage to say that they wanted to use the toilet, the period of their absence passed as if it were natural. In the meantime, the gallery’s exhibits were being carried one after another to cars with roof racks parked outside the establishment. The robbers were dressed as employees who worked with the transportation of goods, so even those walking down the street did not think there was anything strange about that work scene.

Once they had finished relocating most of the merchandises, one of the cars left the gallery. The other one that remained parked was meant for the getaway of those who were keeping watch. With the artworks that had been collected for the sake of this day snatched away down to the last one, the gallery was bare. The owner, Artemisia, had all the while been suppressing her cries and shedding tears.

Apparently, those thieves were quite the habitual criminals. They had threatened everyone with armed force upon entering the establishment, robbing people of any resistance, but after that, as long as everyone stayed still, they would do nothing but coldly keep control of the hostages, not even raising their voices. If people did as told, they would not lose their lives. That hope made the hostages obedient. Even though they were robbers, this seamless way of dealing with people was like that of artisans. They did not think of humans as humans.

“Excuse me; I just... want to lend her a handkerchief. That’s all. The sleeves of her clothes are already soaked with tears. Can’t you allow just this much?”

Hearing a voice from the back, Artemisia turned around. It came from one of the artists that she had invited over for today, whom she had known for quite some time. She was shaken by a sense of guilt that she had done something terrible to him as well.

Their first meeting had started at a certain recreational facility, when she peeked from behind while he was painting a landscape. She did not know his occupation, but they kept in touch and she had him show her his art. It seemed he had always been drawing as a hobby. He told her that even most of the people who were close to him did not know he painted, and that he had truly only been doing it for himself.

The busy man had weaved his way through spare time and the work he brought had swayed Artemisia’s senses. At first, he had hesitated at her request to put it on display, but then smiled like a boy and gave her his ready consent, looking happy.

——Aah, God. Please give it back. Please give that fun time back to everyone.

Artemisia was upset and vexed at the fact that the artworks were being stolen, but more than anything, it felt like the regret towards everyone who had been looking forward to this day would split her chest open.

“Hey, he told you to use this.”

He had lent a handkerchief to Artemisia through one of the robbers. Artemisia wiped her tears and managed to lock eyes with him somehow. She then mouthed a “thank you” to him without letting out her voice.

The man smiled. But it was not the smile that Artemisia knew. He was different when he talked about art. She had shivers before she could think. His eyes were not smiling.

“                              .”

The man said something to Artemisia. As he had only moved his lips, Artemisia could not tell whether she had been able to read what he tried to convey. She could not, but most likely, he had said:

“It’ll be over soon.”

Eventually, the robbers started to create an atmosphere of evacuation at last.

“Let’s take one person with us until we leave the harbor. Can be a woman or kid. Which do we choose?”

“Woman it is.”

“That guy was playing around with the woman we were planning to use for that, wasn’t he? What happened to him?”

Assuming that they would finally be freed, the hostages started fidgeting. They had faced a disaster and the artworks that they had dedicated their lives to making had been stolen. This joyful day had been repainted into despair. But they were alive. That was the one and only bright side of today. They would not be able to maintain their rationality unless they comforted themselves with that. At any rate, they wanted to hurry and be liberated.

Amongst them, there was a man who merely observed the robbers’ movements in silence all the while. It was the man who had been caring for a woman that had a stomachache, looking worried. Once the woman had been taken to the restroom, he became expressionless, as if he had lost interest in everything. Occasionally, there were moments when he even yawned in secret, as if he had grown sleepy.

“Go call him. We could use that woman as hostage. She’s young, so she can come back walking if we throw her away on the street.”

Hearing these words, the man let out his voice and laughed. By the looks of it, he had not intended to laugh, but wound up doing so. He put a hand to his mouth, but then shrugged and let the robbers see it. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to make fun of you. But trying to rape that thing, huh? No matter how many lives you have, it wouldn’t be enough.”

“Hey, what’s with you...? Got a complaint or something...?”

The man kept laughing, as though to say that the robbers’ threatening figures were even more comical. With her eyes, the owner, Artemisia, begged the man provoking the robbers to restrain himself, for she could not afford to lose not only the artworks that she had collected but also a guest that she had invited, yet the man closed one eye at that and replied, “Artemisia, it’s okay.”

No one in this place knew his social status. Or his history.

In the past, Dietfried Bougainvillea used to wield a weapon that could become the world’s best. It was now away from his grasp, but it was not as if their master-servant connection had been completely severed. The beast had a high level of loyalty, so although they had met by chance after a long time, her heart recognized it. That he was the one she had been following in the past – someone worth being served by her. Therefore, the beast would attend him to exhaustion.

Only a limited number of people could handle the beast. The feeling that she had returned to his hands for now was somewhat strange.

“She runs quick.”

“Ha?”

“That’s why it’s the end for you guys. My bad.”

“Hey, shut this dude up.”

As Dietfried had suddenly started talking, the robbers naturally had a doubtful reaction.

“She’s as fast as a deer. And this is the city’s main street, so there are hotels nearby.”

“So, what’re you saying?”

“I left my bodyguards behind to come here today. They’re probably drinking at their room’s bar. There’re also guys among them who know that thing from the time when she was still by my side. I left my hair tie with her, so she should be able to convince them with that. I could predict that you’d take the things you stole to the port. It’s pretty difficult to get away from pursuers on land when you make such a mess in the center of this city. It’s harder to be tracked using the sea route than the land route, right? But the sea route doesn’t work against me. It looks like one vehicle left a while ago, but it’s over by the point they reach the port. You’ll probably go outside now, but if you’re thinking about taking someone along as a hostage, you’d better drop it. Many of my subordinates are hot-blooded. If you rouse them up like that, they’ll probably get too excited. If that happens, you’re the ones who’ll be getting the short end of the stick. No matter how many dead bodies fall down, we can deal with it all we want in the aftermath. We’ll need to get the stories straight, but today’s hostages will surely choose to cooperate with me. Having people trample on the proof of a life that you’ve lived with all your might is painful for anyone.”

The eloquent man did not run out of breath even when speaking nonstop in such a situation. However, this majestic aspect of him was reflected in others’ eyes as dreadful and similar to madness.

The robbers abruptly realized that all the hostages were looking far behind them. They felt that there was something behind them. It was like a ghost, hiding even its flame of life, simply waiting for the orders of its lord.

Outside the windows of the gallery, they could hear the sounds of someone fighting from around the area where the car was parked. Simultaneously, they could hear a faint breathing just behind them.

The respiration of a woman who was out of breath from running loomed over their ears.

“Do it, Violet.” Dietfried raised his thumb and made a swift throat-cutting gesture.

While watching his doll render the robbers unconscious with a strength as overwhelming as a monster eating people, Dietfried reminisced to the past.

——Everything goes around.

He recalled the time when the two of them were stuck in that isolated island.

The beast had been scared when the rescue fleet arrived. So had Dietfried. He would not be able to bear it if more of his comrades were murdered. Hence, he had taken the beast’s hand and guided her to the outside world. In his perception, it was the same as taking the reins.

There were no reins anymore now. No need for him to pull her by the hand when walking, either. There was nothing between them.

Not love, passion, attachment, desire, anything.

“Captain.”

There was nothing, but one thing was for certain.

“Captain Bougainvillea.”

If he called for her, this Auto-Memories Doll would most likely go to the ends of the world to save him. That was her nature.

“I have just returned. Are you unharmed?”

At that moment, the beast was well aware that he had called her name for the very first time. Her eyes were crinkling.

“Yeah.”

Just this much compensation was enough to make the beast smile.

   After a little while passed, Leidenschaftlich was embraced by the gentleness of the night.

Summer constellations were decorating the jet-black sky. Just as sunny as it was during daytime, the night sky was twinkling so brightly this evening that it could be called a banquet of stars. The day was about to end in Leidenschaftlich. Today was filled with chaos ever since morning.

While being observed by gathered-up onlookers, the arrest drama that had unfolded in front of the Artemisia Gallery was already coming to a conclusion, its many procedures and processing passed over to the military police. Seeing the stolen artworks safely re-delivered to Artemisia, Dietfried took a breather. His gaze then fleetingly drifted to the side. A dirtied ceramic doll was standing there. A woman beautiful enough to look like such, who shone amidst the night, was standing there. He had to say something to her. As one would expect, he should do that at least now. But he could not think of anything.

——“You did well”. “That wasn’t too bad”. “Good work”. “I commend you”... Which one?

Inside his head, words were being conceived and then disappearing. Just like the dreams that the sleeping children all around Leidenschaftlich were surely seeing right now. They were born and then vanished.

At last, he attempted to open his mouth, “Aren’t you cold?”

“It is summer, after all.”

And ended up talking to her like a man who was unused to inviting women out.

Violet Evergarden, who had been fighting reasonably and in order to protect, was still by Dietfried’s side. It was fitting to say that she had been today’s most meritorious person. The one who had come up with the idea of the arrest operation was Dietfried, but the one who had done all the work for it was Violet.

First, she had put up the woman-with-a-stomachache act and gone with one of the robbers to the restroom. She had then quietly strangled the neck of the man who had reached a hand to her shoulder with her mechanical prosthetic arms, making him pass out.

She had broken out and escaped through the restroom’s window. Rather than going to the military police, she had gone to the hotel that Dietfried instructed her to and notified the naval soldiers, who were enjoying cigarettes and drinks in a room on the top floor, of the circumstances. One of the soldiers, who happened to know her, had been frightened at first, but upon seeing that she had been entrusted with Dietfried’s ribbon, his facial expression changed and he contacted the military police, then informed the port’s security to reinforce their inspections.

Without waiting for them to get ready, she had immediately run back to the Artemisia Gallery and infiltrated it through the same route. A few of the robbers, who had the bad luck of spotting her, fell to the ground with one kick or punch to the abdomen, and so, she had finally returned. As Violet stood behind the remaining robbers while catching her breath, the hostages stared as if she were their safety, but Dietfried was sneering as he looked at her.

Just as ordered, she had saved Dietfried without damaging a single artwork.

“About what happened...”

“It will probably be best not to tell Lord Gilbert. He would worry.”

Upon seeing the last artwork be brought in, Violet took the trolley bag that lay by her feet. She likely intended to go home by herself.

After making her do so much, something similar to guilt was now sprouting within Dietfried. He wound up acknowledging that she, too, was important to someone. That was what he thought after the battle, when he saw Violet stroking her emerald brooch as if to confirm that it was there.

Even though she used to be a wild beast whom no one would mourn if she died.

——Aah, that’s an excuse. It’ll be nothing but an excuse. If so, then I don’t wanna say it.

Back then, when she was by Dietfried’s side, every single day was filled with madness on all accounts. They used to roam around battlefields, fighting from dawn to dusk, growing too accustomed to violence. The war then ended, peace had returned, and he realized that an era in which he could even make art was arriving. That those times were abnormal and the way he felt now was the default.

“I’ll take you home.”

“No need. Your escorts must be waiting, so please, feel free to take your leave, Captain.”

“It’s fine; just this time. I’ll take you home.”

“No need.”

“I’ll take you. Listen up, this is an order.”

“I cannot accept your command.”

“You little... You were taking action like I instructed you to just a while ago.”

“Because it was a state of emergency... Besides, Captain Dietfried, it would be reasonable if I were to take you home, but the opposite is illogical.”

“What’re you talking about? You’re a woman, aren’t you?”

“A woman”. Finding himself asserting this with his own mouth, Dietfried regretted it even more.

The corner of Violet’s lips had a cut and blood was coming out of it. Her ribbon-tie dress was drenched in sweat. Even those who did not sweat much would be like this after such a huge scuffle during summertime.

“I’m calling a carriage. It’s all right; just wait right there. I’ll see you off until you get inside the Evergarden house. And then it’s goodbye. We’ll never see each other again. No matter what you and Gil become, we’ll never see each other again.”

What he had done today to this woman, who had become fully able to accept someone’s love, was not something that a son of the Bougainvillea should ever do to a lady.

After they had hopped into the carriage, a moment of silence went on for a while.

——Is it okay for her to keep such an open secret even though those two are a couple?

Dietfried found himself accidentally concerned about his younger brother’s love life. After all, this situation might be a betrayal to his dearest brother. Gilbert had completely forgiven Dietfried. For pushing the headship succession onto him. For not having any consideration for their family. For forcing an indescribable wild beast onto him. He had forgiven everything.

Thinking back, the only time that he attempted to push Dietfried away, saying he would not forgive him, had been when Dietfried offered Violet to him. He had called it “human trafficking”. Told Dietfried not to be violent with a child.

Most likely, those two were each other’s only exception from the very beginning. There was probably no pardoning what Dietfried had done to Violet today. Gilbert would forgive most things. Save for matters related to the one and only thing that was most important to him. Being hated by a loved one. This could cast a shadow over anyone’s heart, regardless of how old they were.

“It is all right.” The voice that cut through the silence was thrown at him as if to soothe him down. The words sounded almost as if she had perceived Dietfried’s uneasiness. “If, by any chance... word ends up reaching him through someone else about this case, I will definitely defend you, Captain Dietfried.”

“‘Defend’, you say?”

“To tell the truth, I often get involved in large-scale incidents without Major knowing. But I return without fail. To Leidenschaftlich. I will return today as well. Therefore, we are all right.”

“What do you do out there?”

“We were separated for much too long. Therefore, we have many moments that the other does not know about in the first place. Perhaps even now, too. I have work to do and so does he. We have limited time to see each other. However, I will definitely always return to Major. He knows this as well. Even when we are apart, that person is the only one who occupies my mind. I am not sure if I convey it to him properly, but that is how it is.”

Her statements were something that would normally make him burst into laughter, but Dietfried was unable to do so.

——When did you become like that?

Dietfried hated Violet. Several factors had induced his emotions to it.

——Now you can correspond to someone’s love.

He saw himself overlap with her. Her subservience to adults and the way that she herself wanted it disgusted him. He despised the wild beast that did not yearn for freedom. Despised the fact that she had been trained by someone to be this way. Despised everything. To begin with, Dietfried did not have many things that he liked.

Even the number of people who could become kind had a limit.

The truth was that, even if he wanted to be kind, it was no longer possible. He had prayed to God for it countless times in the past. However, unable to achieve this, a man named Dietfried Bougainvillea existed.

——O God, I want to, he begged a certain Someone in his mind for the first in a long time. Perhaps since his childhood.

Still, this sort of being did not give any reply to calls. Even now, he had no idea if his plea had reached Him. It was certainly impossible. His and Violet’s stars were in a position that would not radically change.

Nevertheless, for some reason, he had the overwhelming desire to ask someone for forgiveness today.

——I wanna go back.

Not even he knew where to.

——Hurry and be over, this day, today and the time I have to spend with her.

He was not annoyed.

——O God, I want to...

But painfully miserable.

“Captain.”

The carriage ran amongst trees dyed in the darkness of the night. A cool voice echoed amidst them.

Violet was looking at the scenery outside. She was observing the moon, which chased after them, no matter how far, far apart they were.

The moon was something that would continue to exist forever. Unlike stories. Regardless of whether Dietfried concerned himself with it, everything about his story would come to a closing one day as well. Demise would arrive even to the things that he did not wish to ever be over. Even the feelings he had now would end.

“How was I today?”

“What?”

“Did my work earn your satisfaction today?”

Dietfried could not read the intentions behind Violet’s question at all. She was someone whose emotions he could not read in the first place, but it was even harder to understand the meaning of that sentence.

“What do you want to say?”

Silence.

“Hey, just say it straight. Don’t be dodgy with me.”

“All right,” the cool voice entered his ears once more. Such coldness resembled the night, but it never left his ears, easy as it was to catch.

Violet turned her neck and cast her gaze at him. Slowly, blue and green eyes blended with each other.

“I...”

Bathed in moonlight, she was simply, purely beautiful, enough to take Dietfried’s breath away.

“When I was with you, Lord Dietfried, my work was never satisfactory. Now that I became an adult, have I finally been able to repay my debt... with my work?”

“What d’you mean by ‘debt’?”

His voice was hoarse. He suddenly felt as if this icy woman had robbed his entire body of its heat. The inside of his mouth was extremely dry.

“I mean everything. It all started when you brought me from that island. I am the way I am now because you entrusted me to Ma... to Lord Gilbert.”

“If you’d stayed with me, probably nothing good would’ve happened.”

“How would I be if I had continued to serve you?”

These words became a bullet and pierced Dietfried’s heart. He felt as if his breathing would stop at the unexpected question. Things had been like that since the distant past. Dietfried would reconfirm time and time again that she was a woman who could have become a lethal weapon for him.

“So you also imagine a hypothesis... of ‘what if’,” her exquisitely cold voice rang within the darkness. Upon being asked, “You too?”, Violet nodded.

That was his line, Dietfried thought, but Violet then sent his gemstone eyes a dream-like gaze. His existence might be devoid of realism to her.

Violet began to whisper. If only she had disobeyed that order back then. If only she had rushed to him a step faster at that time.

“Back then, if”. “Back then, if”. “Back then, if”.

She could not bring myself not to think that, if only she had had this extra step, he would not have lost that emerald eye.

“Besides, I wonder... if I had managed to protect him back then...”

She had to let go of her most beloved lord’s hand and was entrusted to someone else as if she had been thrown away.

“...I would not have had to spend that time away from Major.”

Thinking back, she had always been abandoned and then picked up by somebody. She should have been used to it. That was the star she had been born under.

She was originally a foreign body to this world and was supposed to have been eliminated. Her destiny had also flowed in this way. The reason why Violet had rebelled against her sectioned path, despite having been tamely submitting herself to it, was that the other was special.

——I also threw her away.

He had thrown his home away. Thrown away his little brother, who cried in protest. And thrown away this beast.

“I also wonder what would have happened if you had not left me with Major.”

This woman.

“But all of these are akin to dreams, crossing my mind and fading away. After passing through countless ‘if’s, I...”

He had pushed this woman onto his brother and forsaken her. Looking at her made him sick. He was also scared of her. Most importantly, he would have stopped being himself. This terrified him.

“And now, I have become an Auto-Memories Doll and am spending a night with you.”

This woman possessed an element that transmuted people.

“Y’know, you’ll be alone one day. You’re the one who’s got the longer lifespan, aren’t you?”

Violet closed her eyes at those words. If she had pictured numerous “if”s, this would obviously come to mind as well.

“I do not know.”

“If that happens, what’re you gonna do?”

“I do not know. But are you not the same as me when it comes to this? You love him, right?”

“I’m... I’m the older one. I’ll be gone sooner.”

“No one knows about that. But... if, one day... I do become alone... if I am left living by myself... my order will still be valid. I will probably live on.”

If she ended up living by herself, this supposition was the cruelest of things to the beast. Just what did he want to do by making her say this now?

Thinking back, ever since they had first met, he had not known how to deal with her. Should he have protected her? Killed her? Protected? Killed? Or perhaps...

“That is why I write letters every day. Even if they do not reach him, I write letters to Major every single day.”

Silence.

“Captain, what will you do?”

“Me, huh? I... let’s see. Paint, I guess.”

“A painting or Major?”

“That’s right.”

“May I go see it?”

To Dietfried Bougainvillea, this wild beast was both a woman and a monster from the very beginning. She was now as far-off as a dream.

“You’re the only one of my relatives who knows I paint. Do whatever you want.”

   ——O God, I want to be a good person.

#violet evergarden #fyeahvioletevergarden #veedit #dietfried bougainvillea #kyoani #kyoto animation #akatsuki kana #takase akiko #my translation

[captainkurosolaire]

~ Mass Update ~

Mainly going into future plans and intents alongside ideas below cut.

Ton's of things I've in store this will prove difficult to vent it all out. But here we go... First off rehashing and appropriately learning to tag and organize things better on my blog. Each category will have their own corresponding content, I seek to bring or share. [Tales of Goldbrand] -- I intend this to carry a Compendium of all my writes soon that'll have everything neatly in-order including a glossary, so it'll have highlights of stories that even matter or the best stuff. I've written here for a very, long time, there's been many shifts. I want to make it more accessible. While coloring what matters for people who want to learn Captain or his Crew with less chapters. While also giving choice to find it all easily. This is essentially a step-above master-lists. I'll be doing that after the Saga I have going on, right now is done. [Captain] -- Will provide you strictly with Captain screenshots, gifs, photo-sets. This is still his blog despite the Crew thing's will sort of make this a scuffed Multi-Muse blog. I've few more things to edit and tag fix to get all his stuff though. [The Wild Crew] -- Afterwards this story is done Immortal Age Saga, It's something that I mainly wrote as a passion project within three days to get my warm-up process fixed. It's to allow me to get a feel for all his Crewmates and casts, in combat, in-general, to feel their presences. While also giving a bit of their backstories. At any point, I can go back and polish or tweak things in. They're NPC's but... not entirely. All will have their own 'Dreams' and their own 'Disapproval's' they have their own missions even. These things will factor eventually, they might set seeds, to betray or disagree with something, but that's all angst and more stories to be created, but overall, they'll probably always be Crew, eventually. -- I plan on making character-profile sheets of them and putting them in this Tab, it'll have their screenshots, their likes/dislikes. Some RP partners or people can also be shipped with them, but they'll all be monogamous and originally start off probably Pan. This allows them to figure out what they like on their own stories. I've always been someone who likes organic-flow. Although this one story contain all 16 characters or more, the rest will probably be shortened to a Squad of 4 and dispersed when on adventuring missions. Until I do a War Arc, that's my main goal to build too. [Roster] -- Will contain this Crew in just screen-sets dedicated to them, I'll probably randomly produce those. I've PC players among this Crew too. I may not be done either adding more, but this Crew is mainly built around Quality. Most pirate crew's mainly, have hundreds, thousands. Even Fleets. This Crew has personalities, monsters, people who are living life's that exist with piracy. He's an particular leader that had PC players the same way, he's had split-personality serial killers aboard, tribal chieftains, succubus, all sorts of various people once on a Crew. It's often an outcast style, pirates default are chaotic in nature, so this really isn't any different, it's a Fantasy version of it. There's humanization characters aboard too though, so this cast is really decked, everything and person is vital, they matter because they remind or covet something that others can draw upon. If ever played (Three Houses or Mass Effect / Dragon Age Origins) A lot of things like that are relatable too this structure and format. Which, Is something I want to be able to give when RPing. I want a genuine feel of this new world someone else's muse will be the main-character too. Depending on what's interacting everything they'll be scale appropriately to follow the genre they're in and environment even. [Aesthetics] -- Already explainable what you'll find here. [Asks] -- Same thing. [Prompts] -- Trivial things I was tagged too, I plan on compiling later. [Writing] -- Another alternatively to randomly go-down and it works right now. [Logs] -- Will have more individualistic master-lists and posts there, my poems from Sheik Sphere the Bard, etc.

Things of that nature, I'll probably add still. It's where a lot of my creative writing is summed. [Gems of Hydaelyn] -- My main #tag for other characters and artists, creationist. Lot of amazing people easily to find their zones or follow them optionally if you like. Ton's I intend to support and bolster, be a lot less unspoken. I'm never the type who's been strictly inclusive. But I'll do that when I've time to even explore the dash, I'm always still planning ahead with things and projects. [CKS] My original character-sheet it's outdated on something's but not too terrible. I'll give him polishing someday, I swear? [21+F-List] -- Just purely degenerate stuff of Captain. I'm a pirate blog. I will represent that with openness and furthermore. I'm never projecting you some false-image. I started off a smut-writer by stripping that, I no-longer represent the same aura and identity. But those are strictly his stuff and kinks, I'm effective in executing them but they're not all relatable to me OOC. This blog will always be 18+ containing crude or dark material sometimes, romantic things, this Captain is blunt, will literally put his cock on the table in conversations. Swearing and being censored would be too uncommon and displace most of him, but there's more about him then all this. [Other] -- I pay homage to a lot of characters, I originally am a Concept Designer. Which mean's I make characters and ideas like my addiction. Bad characters / villains or other little things I like to share in designs, I'll put there. Some villains might get little photo-sets, even if they died. Just cause I like their design, or maybe I'll give them an AU, where they won. When I've wrapped up things. [Collabs + Ships] -- Is a new project idea. This isn't going to be something limited too romantic only ships. It'll contain, platonic, romantic, friendships, rivals, frenemies, family, PC Crew, all ships. I am desperately working on improving my gif, screenshot, posing game so I can supply 'Screen Stories' this is not only a way to RP that's accessible with even people who are upon time-crunches from work, It gives visual-representation. To impactful stories shared with others and establish bonds. That are all-valid and impactful matter. Lot of people take a lot of their characters attributes into them and are them dialed up, I work with that and bit more, differently. I'm disconnected from my characters and they'll get hurt and injured and killed by me, that's my duty as their Author to give them conflicts and struggles. I'm their major antagonist, but that doesn't mean at-all, it's always SET that way. The characters I like to make have their own life, they live in this setting and are abide by it, they're often nothing, nobodies, and by the interacting with others, they slowly gradually building, more... Through emotional impacts, they alter, these are REAL people by all their beliefs. Each person they come in-contact with are legitimate and treated like that too. They've always impacted or given them insights to grow, or represent more. Otherwise it'd be criminally disrespectful if I allowed any emotional I felt OOC be the grudge to something IC. Captain in-particular is set on defying me. I cannot have that. ...But I can't stop him. He's met and encountered so many people and lived so many scenarios based on the actions of others, he's giving a chance right now to actually do things a lot further than impossible. The more people he meets and encounters, experiences, the more I lose. These stories are emotionally interactive where everything is a factor and adds to the dice, where the other people are the one who get to roll the dice for him, not me. That's something I want to color in. People range in emotions, they have their down's, ups, their own wholesome-grounding people, spending time with your favorite people, there's nothing more cherishing than that, being in your own comfort-zone or 'safe-space' these are all treasures that we live under, today. Contrary if what people assume of me, I'm not another 'blogger' that's came

before, who's wanting to force a harem, then constantly is bewildered when that falls to pieces cause of selfishness or a lack of communication, or the skeletons they have in their closets and beliefs they hid behind and swindled fooled everyone. I'm not looking to be popular or anything really, I just create stories and want to share in those, and I want to also boost others included, upward with me, especially those who make me. There's no ego in anything I do, this is purely love. I've never cared about being replicated or duplicated, I've had stalkers, I've gone through more then anyone would imagine, I've been used OOC and abused, just for my writing and cold-harshly told, i'd never amount to anything other then that or vice-versa. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Passion. That's all I got and am anymore. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Passion is the hardest thing to keep. It's something that can be stolen, quite effortlessly. Few words of discouragement, a bad negative representation, a lack of confidence, or small amount of time, there's many thing's that can put that flame out. Once you lose it. The difficulty to reattain is hundred-times harder than climbing any mountain for real. I've watched the greatest creators crumble from under the pressure, from beaten down by others. I watched many of them do it to themselves because they put a grand vision of needing validation of another and once lost, felt uncompelling to press onward. But passion also can be given BACK and drawn. It can be shown and encourage others, with a soft-triggering, that pushes them. That motivates, that constantly sticks to it. There are many that fuel me. If I ever quit, I let them down, I spit in the faces of people who're better than me in every-way. Or people who've came and given me their precious Time. That have given their character's or dedication to the abundant stories and community-driven things I've done. There's ONLY things you can do, create, give and provide. It cannot ever come to life without YOU. This is a fact. ...I swear, If you let your creativity soar, you'll be amazed by the heights you get. Constantly polish and learn and hone the best you, challenge yourself day after painstaking day, to draw better improvement on something, no matter how trivial or unfamiliar you are. You'll find a confidence only you can give yourself. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Future Plans --------------------------------------------------------------------- For me, I've got so much more stories to give and also explore, I might be taking up soon some other artists and more skilled people from community and hire them for some of my future writes, to up my game or cause something thing's can't be done in-game cause no background carries it. I also got a lot of-set up things and more angst stuff I want to practice, plus I'm adamantly on that grind to produce screen-sets with the intent's to some sort of improving daily. Additionally more people I'll be reaching out too soon for these collab's ideas and things. I look forward to shaking your hands, giving some hugs, show you my respect and admiration, then creating some enchanting stories and giving plots light. Feel free to reach out to me, I get scattered-brain but I'm working on getting better about it. Eventually will get to you though, my goals, if uninterested just say so when I poke, no bites, unless you kinky. Anyways, cheers hearties.

#ooc #update #future plans stuffz #ToG #Work on thinking of daily practice now

[travellingarmy]

║Kaeya║A Cold War

Gender-neutral.

Word count: 3k

---

You two had been at it for quite some time now. The war between you and the Cavalry Captain, Kaeya, didn't look like it was going to end any time soon. "Honestly, this has gone for far too long that it's silly at this point," Lisa sighs, watching the two of you from afar. "When are they going to make up?" Jean, who stood beside the librarian, nodded in agreement.

You and Kaeya had crossed paths in front of the fountain in the centre of the city one fateful morning. Snarling and angry at the sight of the male, you turned around with a huff and walked away. Although he was your captain, you two clearly showed a much stronger relationship than commander and knight; you two were friends until the fight two weeks ago.

Kaeya sighs at your retreating figure and walked over to the two, tall females who he had noticed was watching. "Good morning," he greets, a hand raised and a smile on his face. "Kaeya, when are you two going to talk?" Lisa asks, a concerned expression on her face.

He shrugs, pretending not to care of the matter. "Who knows?" he simply say. "Anyway, if that's all you're going to talk about, I'd rather get going with my missions." The Cavalry Captain walks away without letting either of the two say anything. Lisa sighs at the retreating captain. "Both of them really are like couple in quarrel," she states, resting her cheeks on her hands. "I find it very cute." Lisa keeps going on about how you two acted like a couple even though you two obviously weren't. Jean looks over at the witch with dismay and shook her head.

You and Kaeya really showed the citizens of Mondstadt of how you two were at war at each other. Kaeya had started to become a grouch and cold while you were fuming with a fit of anger and it showed in everything you do- from training and wiping out hilichurls to simply eating and easy chores.

"We should get (Y/N) to do something else right now, rather than let them wait for Kaeya's orders," Jean says, knowing that even if Kaeya got a mission for you, you won't even listen to him and go do your own thing. It was also bad for you to linger around the city and throw passionate anger into everything you do as citizens reports how an underling of the Cavalry Captain is scaring away people- be it customers or the people themselves.

You were heading off to the training area to train even more. Although you were kind of sore from training from morning till night yesterday, it didn't keep you from training today so that you can make the blue-haired male take back the words he said to you two weeks ago. "You're not capable in doing these alone!" The words rung repeatedly in your head and made you even more angrier, but mostly saddened.

As much as you appreciate Kaeya's concern of your safety, it can sometimes make you question your worth. What are you good for if you are basically told to sit back and do nothing? That's not why you became a knight in the first place; you wanted to seek thrill while protecting the citizens of Mondstadt and you won't improve if he tells you to slack off.

"(Y/N)," a voice calls from behind you, stopping you on your way to the training grounds. You turned around to see the Acting Grand Master with a couple sheets of paper. You guessed it was most likely missions for you. "Are these tasks?" you ask, no sign of hostility in your tone as you spoke with the blonde.

"Yes, we're short of hands right now and was hoping you could take a look at them," she said and hands you over the papers. It is true that since the Grand Master took most of the knights, there aren't a lot of knights left in the city. But, the tasks given to you can be given to any other knights at any time; Jean just wants to help you clear your mind. "Okay, I will. Thank you!" A flare of determination and excitement reflected your hyped tone.

Jean smiles before waving bye and getting to her own things. You look at the papers in hand, seeing that some would take longer than others, but can still be done all today. Not caring to read the full details, you headed to the locations written and wipe out any and all enemies.

In the end, you did clear them all and felt really proud of yourself that you managed to do all tasks alone. You kind of wanted to boast at Kaeya's face but you were too prideful let that happen.

You were making your way inside the city, now late at night, feeling even more sore than yesterday. Although it was hurting you, it felt rewarding since you haven't done this much moving around under Kaeya's orders.

When you got home, you went straight to your bedroom, rather than eating dinner and washing up. You felt the stinging soreness wash over your body when you were taking of your shirt. "Ack!" You immediately lower your arms as a reaction to the pain. "I should deal with this.." you mumbled. You decided to deal with it tomorrow since you don't have the energy to do so tonight.

The next day, you went to the training field, albeit still sore from two days worth of strained movements. The pain really made you question if you had done anything at all to contribute to the Knights of Favonius; you see the Acting Grand Master put her all into everything and the build up of stress and strain on her, Outrider Amber running around and helping anyone who she comes across and scouting areas around Mondstadt, and even the traveller from some place else is doing something much greater such as helping Dvalin, but what about you? You felt miserable.

You headed to the Knights of Favonius' headquarters to see if Jean could give you some missions for today. You knocked on the door lightly and entered when you hear a quick and muffled 'come in'. "Good morning. Sorry to bother you this early in the morning, Acting Grand Master," you started, closing the door behind you. "I was wondering if you could give me any more tasks?"

Jean looks up from her work and smiled. "Ah, (Y/N), good morning," she says. "I heard you came back late last night. Did I give you too much to work?" You shook your head immensely. "No, no, it's just the trips that made it long."

"I see. Well, I don't have any missions right now.. Why don't you see Kaeya and ask if he has any for you?" Jean says nonchalantly as she discreetly adds, pretending she doesn't know what is going on between you and him. Your head slightly drops at the mention of his name. You didn't want to go to him- not now, at least. "Ah, he probably doesn't have any either. It's fine, I'll do some training on my own," you said and left the headquarters.

When you said that you'll train on your own, you mean to go search for some dangers that will help you improve. You still are feeling sore all over but dismiss it. You did, however, applied some essential oil to help relieve your muscle pain and thought that that alone would help. You headed out of the city's wall and looked for some tough opponents.

Kaeya's eyes narrowed as he saw you leaving through the gates, a worrisome feeling in his guts, but he wasn't going to let that feeling in the pit of his stomach get to him. He felt that he was in the right and that you were too stubborn. Your stubbornness and prideful personality made him really irritated, but he felt sad that you two didn't get to chat like before.

He shrugs his shoulders and went to bother anyone who he sees- most likely Diluc, who was at Angel's Share at the moment.

Nightfall started to set in and you hadn't returned- no sightings of you ever walking around the streets since thos morning. Kaeya wasn't aware of this since he thought you were home like he had always expected of you. It wasn't until the next day when he was summoned to the headquarters by Jean that he knew of your absence since yesterday. "Hey, what did you call me for?" Kaeya says, his usual, playful smirk on his face. However, that fell when he saw Jean and Lisa's expression and feel the atmosphere of the room. "What is it now?" His stomach started to churn in an awful feeling and only one thing was on his mind- you.

"It's about (Y/N)," Jean starts off, making Kaeya starting to feel even worse. "A ruin guard has been found awoken near the Thousand Wind Temple by someone in the Adventurers Guild and no one has seen (Y/N) since yesterday morning. I have a feeling that they are the one who woken it up."

Upon hearing the news, he clenches his fists and his jaws tightened, a shadowed cast over his face as he narrowed his eyes. But, "What does this have to do with me?" he asks coldly. Lisa and Jean looks over at each other with a concerned expression. "Kaeya--" Lisa started off but was immediately caught of by the male.

"They said that they can handle anything so shouldn't you two put some faith in them as well?" he said, raising his voice in anger, recalling what you said to him two weeks ago. "Kaeya, I am aware of the fight you two had but this has honestly gone for far too long that it's silly," Jean says in a calm tone. "Isn't the reason why you don't allow them on dangerous missions is because you care about them?" This hit Kaeya and he hang his head low. It was true that he cares about you deeply and doesn't show the same feeling to anybody else but you.

He imagined scenarios of situations you could be in right now and it made that feeling inside him snap. He turns around and storms off, shutting the door with a boom.

Praying. He was praying to the Archons of your safety as he feels something went trailing down his face from his eyes. It was blurring his vision but he ignores them, running through the darken day.

When he reached to the location of the sightings, he found the ruin guard, awake and walking, but no signs of you. He quickly disposed of the ruin guard and searched the area for you or anything that was on you that dropped that might give him some hope.

A few metres away, there your body lie on the cold ground. "(Y/N)!" Kaeya runs over to your side and felt his heart dropped to the pit of his stomach. You were all bruised up along with scratches and blood that was either still running from open wounds or had already dried up. Your eyes were closed and he worried for the worse. Rushing to kneel beside you, heb helped you sit up against a rock, putting his hands under your chin to feel for a pulse. To his relief, he found it beating and pulled your body into his chest, one hand behind your head as the other wrapped around your shoulders. "(Y/N)," he whispers your name, his heart feeling lighter.

Your eyes slowly opens from the sudden warmth that engulfed you. "Nngh!" The moment your mind became conscious, the pain from the battle and the soreness from training before suddenly rushed all over your body. "Ack!"

Kaeya immediately pulls away from you, his face full of worry. "(Y/N), are you okay?" he asks. You look at Kaeya with surprise. "Why.. Are you here?" There was no anger in your tone as you were too exhausted. "I came looking for you, dummy. Now, let me take you back so ease up." You gave a quick nod and closed your eyes, falling into another sleep. Making sure you were asleep, he stood up with you in his arms and made his way back inside the city.

He went to see Barbara in the cathedral so that she could heal you. "My, they're badly injured! Hurry, bring them here," she exclaims with a hand over her mouth at the sight of your badly figure and gestures towards the infirmary. Kaeya listened and places you on one of the beds inside and let her do her thing.

She left as soon as she healed any and all visible, major wounds. Kaeya sits down on the wooden chair beside the bed and waits for you to wake up. You were asleep all throughout the day and only woken up the next morning.

You felt something at the side of you and you slowly turned your head but hissed at the sudden pain, closing your eyes in reaction. Although it lessened thanks to Barbara, the pain didn't fully go away.

Once it subsided, you open your eyes to see whatever was beside you. To your surprise, it was Kaeya. His arms were crossed on top of the bed and rested his head on top of it, sleeping with his lips slightly parted. Your heart warmed and remembered the little scene when he hugged your bruised body.

It looked like he slept late and didn't even bother to comb his hair- meaning to say, he didn't go home and return early in the morning. In that moment, you let your pride down as well as forgave him for what he said two weeks ago. You weakly reached your arms out and tucked a strand of his unkempt hair behind his ear.

You suddenly remembered the reason why you two fought in the first place- you went out to a dungeon, alone, on a mission that you secretly accepted without the help of the Cavalry Captain. It was a simple wiping out of a hilichurl camp but there was no knowledge of an abyss image nearby since it wasn't written on the report.

When Kaeya received word you left on a mission, he was upset and immediately left to find you. He found you soon enough, wiping out hilichurls. His eyes looked off to behind you and see a cryo abyss mage. "(Y/N)!" he warned. You turned to look at him and that's when the abyss image shot an ice crystal. It hit your left arm and you roared in pain. Kaeya quickly made due of the image and quickly rushed to check your wound.

"What were you thinking- going out on a mission alone!?" he angrily asked, gripping your upper arm. "Kaeya, you're hurting me!" you hissed.

"I told you time and time again that you should tell me when you're going out!" he said, raising his voice. "I was doing just--"

"Just fine!? You were hit by an abyss mage, goddamit!"

"It's just a scratch--" He cuts you off again, his tone now booming with anger. "Yeah, it's just a scratch, but what about the next time you go out alone? You could be heavily wounded or even worse!" He wasn't listening to a word you said and the grip on you looked like it wasn't loosening anytime soon.

"Kaeya, would you just listen to me!?" you shouted back in the same volume and tone as his. "I am more than capable as a knight to wipe a few hilichurls and an abyss mage!"

His anger didn't subside but he let's go of your arms, head down as a shadow casted over his face. "So, that's how this is going to be, huh? Alright, then I'll leave you be. See if I care." The words broke your heart. Kaeya turned around and left you there with your head down. That was the last time you guys talked to each other before the cold war.

He groans at the touch, making your heart flutter. Then, you see his visible eyelids open slowly, revealing his unique, blue eyes. He straightened up in his seat with a loud yawn before looking over at you. "(Y/N)..!" he says your name, his visible eye showing surprise.

"Good morning," you weakly greet, a gentle smile tugging your lips. A few short seconds passed before he quickly draws you into an intoxicating embrace. You returned the hug as you bury your smiling face into the crook of his neck. "You dummy. Why did you go out and pick a fight with a ruin guard?" he whispers, deepening the hug.

"I wanted you to know that you can depend on me.." you answer, tears starting to form. "I'm not a child that needs protecting; I'm a knight so please look at me as you would to any other knights." Kaeya pulls back and stare into your eyes. "I'm afraid I can't do that," he said, his eyes stern and serious. "What--"

"Because.. You're different," he cuts you off. You look at him with questioning eyes. "I can't bring myself to not care for you nor can I bring myself to treat you like any other subordinates of mine because I love you." The three words that you never thought you'd hear from the Cavalry Captain came out so easily- it's as if he wanted to say it for so long. "I can't bear to lose you, (Y/N). And just seeing you hurt hurts me more than you realize."

"I.." You looked down on your blanket. "I'm sorry that I made you worried.. I didn't know that's how you felt."

"No, I'm sorry. I should have really told you before you got into anymore danger," he said. You two smiled and pulled you back to a loving embrace. Then, "I love you too, Kaeya."

---

#kaeya x reader #kaeya #kaeya alberich #kaeya oneshots #genshin impact #genshin impact oneshots #genshin #genshin kaeya #genshin impact kaeya #genshin impact kaeya x reader #genshin kaeya x reader #genshin oneshot #oneshots #gender neutral #genshin x gender neutral reader

[love-and-monsters]

Harpy Model

M harpy X GN human, 6,762 words.

This story is based on this post that I was tagged in by the lovely and talented @p-gretz. Thanks for the inspiration!

You fumbled with the camera equipment in your hands. The tripod kept trying to escape under your elbow, but shifting to secure it would mean losing the lens cap, and grabbing for that jeopardized the magnifier you had balanced against your collarbone. If people stopped dumping things on you at every given opportunity, you probably would have been alright, but being the lowest member on the totem pole meant your status was barely better than a self-propelled table.

The tripod slipped another inch down and you automatically grabbed at it. The sudden movement unbalanced the camera in the center of the pile. With a clatter of plastic, it slipped free, tumbling toward the ground.

A feathered hand snagged the camera strap, jerking it to a halt seconds before it struck the ground. “Need some help?” a slightly accented male voice asked.

“Thanks, but I got it,” you said. A total lie. You could not have had it less if you’d tried.

“Nonsense. At least let me take something so you can get better situated.” Before you could protest again, he had removed several of the objects, tucking them into his feathered arms.

Without the constant danger of dropping something if you so much as twitched, you were able to shift the pile in your arms into a better position. “Thank you. I’m sorry, I-”

You froze. It felt embarrassingly out of character for you to look at someone and freeze, but his face made something in your chest do backflips.

He was elegantly made up, with touches lengthening his lashes and emphasizing his cheekbones. His hair was pale and curling in little waves around his ears. Delicate feathers sprouted around his neck, trailing down toward his arms. They were pale white, with touches of pink. His tail was easily the most striking part of him. Long, green feathers made a train behind him that brushed the floor and gave him the impression of a trailing cloak. He stood delicately on bird-like talons, poised like a dancer.

Fortunately, your freeze only lasted a couple of seconds, and you disguised it by pretending to drop and recover one of your many items. “Sorry. I’m trying to go to studio, um. A12, so I’ll just be heading over there-”

The man laughed. It was more gentle than mocking, but you felt your stomach shrivel in embarrassment regardless. “Really? Then you’re heading in the wrong direction. I’m headed in the same direction. I can walk you there.”

“I wouldn’t want to bother you,” you said.

“It’s not a bother. You seem like you could use the help.” You blushed furiously, but the man didn’t seem to notice. He shifted the camera he’d taken from you into a more comfortable position in his arm. “Are you new here? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you here before.”

“Yeah. I’m, um. The new intern, basically. You’ve been here for a while?”

“I work with a few different photography places as a model. But I’ve had a contract here for some time.” He flicked his tail casually. “If you need help, I can show you around a little bit when we’re done. This place can be a real maze until you get used to it.”

“Oh, I couldn’t impose on you like that. I mean, you’re probably really busy and I don’t want to take up any of your valuable time-”

The harpy laughed. “My time is hardly the most valuable time here. And, if we’re being really honest…” He leaned in close to your ear. His feathers tickled as he put a hand up to his mouth. “I don’t mind making some of the people around here wait. They’re all really stuck up.” He leaned back and dropped you a glittery wink before strolling on ahead. “Come with me! It’s this way.”

You hurried after him. He had a particularly flowing, graceful way of moving. It wasn’t hard to believe he was a model- even if you hadn’t met him in the studio, you would have guessed it. He moved like he was always on a catwalk.

The studio was particularly maze-like. There were multiple winding halls with several doors each. Only a few small signs gave any sign of where anything was, and casual racks of clothes strewn around the hallway blocked more than half of them. The harpy, however, strode through the halls with a practiced ease.

After several turns, you finally came across a door marked Studio A12. The harpy pushed the door open and paused to let you through before stepping in himself.

“Revali! You’re late!” An impatient-looking woman glared across the room at him. You froze automatically, but he just put down the equipment he’d been carrying on a nearby table and gave you a wink.

“I’m here now, aren’t I?” he said. You turned away from him as your supervisor approached you.

“You’re late too,” he said.

“Sorry. I kind of got lost.”

“I know it’s your first week here, so I’m not going to scold you for this, but being on time is important here. At least for the photographers.” He cast a disparaging look at Revali who was chatting cheerfully with the stern-looking woman. “Models get more leeway.”

“He doesn’t seem so bad,” you said. “I thought a lot of models here were kind of stuck up.”

“He’s not stuck up,” your supervisor agreed. “He’s got the opposite problem. He doesn’t take anything seriously. One of those types who float through life on nothing but their good looks.”

The photoshoot started right after he spoke and you were immediately swept up in the business of it all. Your job was essentially doing whatever anyone needed of you, and they needed a lot. You spent most of the time scrambling around, fixing lights, grabbing accessories, fetching camera equipment, and being a general gopher. The photoshoot lasted only an hour and a half, but you were exhausted by the time it was over.

You sagged by the door, waiting for your next task to be assigned. Revali was having some sort of conversation with his manager that seemed to be verging on an argument, at least on her end. Revali looked as casual as ever.

His manager said something stabbing a finger in his face. He didn’t even flinch. He just lifted one of his shoulders in a slight shrug and, with a flick of his tail, strolled away.

“Ready for the tour?” he asked as he walked over to you. He had a particular way of walking, like he was constantly on a catwalk. It really was more of a strut than a casual walk.

“I already said you don’t have to. And, um, I don’t want to get you in trouble.” You made a subtle head motion toward his managers, who was alternating between looking at her phone screen and glaring at him.

Revali tossed his head. “She’s not my mother. She doesn’t control me. I do what I like. And right now, I’d like to take you on a tour of the studio. Why don’t you come with me?”

You glanced back at his manager. Revali shifted in front of you, blocking her from your sight. “All right,” you said. “But it can’t take too long. I’ve still got other responsibilities to take care of.”

Revali nodded and gestured for you to follow him out the door. “Like I said, this whole place is kind of a maze. I swear, they designed every section to look as similar as possible. But, you can figure out where all the studios are because it’s broken into sections. The stairwells are always marked with the sections. Even numbers are always to the right when you get off the stairwells and odd numbers to the left. Here, I’ll show you how to get to a couple of the bigger studios-”

Revali was right- the entire place seemed to have been designed like a weird, spiraling maze. You ended up needing to take notes on everything he told you. When you finally came to a stop, you were almost dizzy from all the turns you’d needed to make.

“Where are we?” you asked, looking around. “I haven’t been in this part of the building before.” It was almost indistinguishable from the other parts of the building, with eh same florescent lights and powder blue walls, but there were larger signs next to every door and they were spaced closer together.

“Yes, you probably haven’t needed to come down here yet.” Revali opened one of the doors and stepped inside. It was a small room with a large mirror taking up most of one wall, a couch, a minifridge, and a few racks of fancy-looking clothes. “They’re the model rooms. Those of us who have long-term contracts here get our own little spaces when we’re not working.” He strode across the room and sprawled on his couch.

You stood in the doorway. One of the models taking an interest in you and then inviting you back to his personal room? It was hard to keep your imagination from going places. “Hey, uh. I don’t want to be rude, but if you invited me back here for some, uh, fun, I’m not really into casual flings, so-”

Revali shrugged. “Whether or not we have sex is entirely up to you. I’ve had a couple flings in here. Honestly, they didn’t do much for me.”

If he had been attempting to make you more comfortable, it had backfired. Great. Now you didn’t want to sit down anywhere. You remained in the doorway. “Why did you bring me here, then?”

Revali shrugged. “You seemed overwhelmed,” he said. “And it’s much quieter down here.” There was a series of thumps and cursing on the other side of the wall. Revali glared at it. “Mostly, anyway.”

You plucked up your courage and settled on the couch next to him. He grinned. “Also, it’s lunch time and I like eating with other people. I make way too much food all the time.”

Revali grabbed a few Tupperware containers out of his minifridge and lay them out on the table next to you. Most of them appeared to be some sort of meat covered in a thick sauce. Revali was looking at you eagerly, so you took the fork he was offering and took a bite.

“Oh!” you said. “It’s good!”

“Yeah?” Revali said. “I cook when I’m stressed, so I always have more food than I need.” You took a few more bites, enjoying the richness and spiciness of the sauce over the umami of the meat. Revali leaned back, watching you eat with a strange amount of intensity.

“Um. Are you going to have some?” you asked, gesturing to the food. Revali made a face.

“Can’t. I have my own lunch here.” He pulled out an uninspired-looking salad with a few strips of grilled chicken on top.

“You make food, but then you don’t eat it?” you asked. Revali shrugged.

“The life of a model. I do need to keep in shape,” he said. “But I’m always cooking, so you can come over any time you want. I’ll give you a free lunch.”

“You could try at least one bite,” you said. You lifted a piece of meat on your fork and held it out to him. Revali lifted a brow. “Come on. You made all this. I’ll feel bad if I’m the only one who gets to eat it.”

Revali’s brow lifted a little higher. “Well, if you’ll feel bad, I suppose I have no choice but to spare your feelings.” You had intended for him to take the fork from you, but instead, he leaned forward and picked the chunk of meat off the fork with his teeth. He sprawled back and chewed, eyes closing. “Mm. It is good.”

You glanced around the room. It was slightly messy, with clothes and makeup strewn all over the place. Nothing was dirty, but it was a little cluttered. “How did you get into modeling, anyway?”

Revali opened his eyes and pushed himself more upright. “It was a few years ago. Just started doing a few local things, then I got scouted by my current agency. It’s not the most fun, really, but it’s pretty good money. Better than flipping burgers at a fast food restaurant, at least.” He shrugged. “Never finished college, so my job prospects are pretty limited.” He eyed you. “What about you?”

“I finished college a month or so ago. Studied photography. I’m hoping that this internship will lead to an actual job in the future, because right now I’m kind of living off my savings.” You gave a weak chuckle. “I kind of wanted to do my own photography thing, but, you know. Better to have a stable job.”

“Don’t I know it. I’d love to do some more interesting projects, but these ones pay well, which is what my manager likes.” Revali checked his phone and grimaced. “I’m going to have to head to my next shoot in a few minutes. You can hang out here if you like. Just put stuff back when you’re done with it.”

“I should probably be getting back now anyway,” you said, standing up. “Thank you for the lunch, though. You’re a good cook.”

“Thank you. Come back any time. Like I said, I’ve always got food. Actually, let me walk you back to the photo area. Just to make sure you get there all right.” Revali held the door open for you as you stepped into the hall.

“I’m not that hopeless,” you said, starting to head down the hallway. Revali snickered and you stopped. “What?”

“You sure?” he said. “Because, uh, you are going the complete wrong direction.”

“Oh,” you said. “I. Um. That’s embarrassing.”

“You’ll get used to it. Eventually. Here, I’ll show you the way.” Revali linked his arm through yours. “This all right?”

“Sure,” you said. “Thank you. Again.”

“No problem at all! Now, we should probably hurry, so I don’t get yelled at twice in one day. My manager would blow a blood vessel.” Revali headed off at a rapid trot, forcing you to jog to keep up.

Meeting him for lunch became a regular practice after that. He usually had something new and interesting for you to try, and he seemed to enjoy your company. Every day, you would slip out of work and head down to his dressing room for at least half an hour. A few times, you lost track of the time and had to sprint to make it back to your next shoot.

“They’re really putting you through the ringer, huh?” Revali said as you collapsed on his couch. He was wearing the sparkliest blue jacket you’d ever seen. Whether it was actually for a shoot or not was up in the air- Revali was the sort of person who would wear it out and about.

“It’s all right. I wish I was allowed to do more than just menial labor, though. I knew I was going to get the tasks people didn’t like when I started, but I wish I had more learning experiences. I feel like I’ve barely held a camera for something other than handing it to someone.”

Revali stretched his arms over his head, wings twitching. It was always interesting to watch the way they moved. They were a combination of wings and arms, with feathers sprouting all along his arms and the wing tip and hands separating at the wrists. Whenever he wore long sleeves, he needed to cut slits for the feathers and tied the ends closed around his wrists. They were usually tied closed with some sort of bangle, so he nearly always jingled when he moved his arms. “That’s a bummer. Have you been able to take any photos at all recently?”

“Nah. I’ve been too busy. When I get home from work, all I want to do is collapse. And I’ve been having trouble getting inspiration. I’ve been trying to get out more and do some shoots in nature, because it’s a lot nicer than the manufactured settings we have here, but I’ve been having trouble finding a model.”

Revali sat up straighter. “Having trouble finding a model, hm? Well, isn’t is just so fortunate that I happen to have some skills in that particular department?”

“Are you sure? I can’t really pay you much. That’s part of the reason I’ve been having trouble getting some models. When your job isn’t paying you anything, you can’t afford to hire someone for an afternoon. And I’m just not connected enough to find someone willing to do it for free.”

“I think we can help each other out,” Revali said. “I do actually need some new photos for my portfolio, and I think it would be nice to have a more natural setting. Let me use the photos and I’ll do it for free.”

“You’d be willing to do that? And you’re not too busy? I know you’ve kind of been running ragged for the past few days,” you said.

“Oh, it’s no trouble at all. Like I said, it gives us both something we want.” He whipped a phone out of his pocket and started tapping on the screen. “Let’s see. I’m free Saturday afternoon, if that works for you?” You nodded. “Wonderful. Text me your address, I’ll stop by and you can take me wherever you want.”

Your phone timer dinged and you jumped to your feet. “Oh, shoot, I need to get going. Um, I guess I’ll see you then? And thank you!”

“Don’t worry about it, cutie. Just go.” He waved a hand at you. “I’d hate to see you get yelled at on my behalf.”

You scrambled out the door, waving goodbye to him once more before heading down the hall.

Waiting for Saturday became the highlight of your week. You deliberated over the best location, eventually picking a slightly secluded, riverside area. Revali had agreed to bring some of his own outfits, which he had allowed you to approve. They were simpler than the outfits he usually wore to work, with more natural colors, but he still looked good in them.

You spent a lot of time fussing with your cameras on the day of the shoot. It would be terribly embarrassing for Revali to show up and see you unprepared.

The knock on your door was startling. You carefully placed your camera on your table and hurried to answer it.

Revali was leaning against the doorway. “Hello, darling. Ready to go?”

He was wearing some fancy-looking gold and silver makeup and he’d done something to plump up his tail. It was long and fancy typically, but he’d added long lines of beads and fluff to his tail, making it look even more striking than usual.

“Wow,” you said. You were suddenly overly conscious about how messy your hair was and the fact that you’d just kind of thrown on the first clothes you’d laid your eyes on in the morning. Would it be weird if you made an excuse to go change? “Uh. Do you want to come in for a minute? I just, uh, need to finish something up.”

Revali stepped into your house. “Nice place,” he said, glancing around. You snorted.

“Please. I’m renting a house in the middle of nowhere that has, like, three rooms. Uh, make yourself comfortable. I just need to, um. Grab a jacket.”

“It’s nicely decorated, though. You have a good aesthetic sense.” Most of the stuff you had was from second-hand stores, but it did all sort of go together in a sort of farmhouse-chic way.

You hurried into your room and swapped your old sweatshirt out for a nicer shirt and one of your nicer jackets. The pants were staying, they were good enough. You hurried back out into the kitchen. Revali was examining a few of the photos that adorned your walls.

“You take these?” he asked. They were mostly nature shots, images of animals or flowers up close or landscape shots of rolling fields or mountains.

“Yeah. Most of them were for class. I just hung up the best ones,” you said.

“They’re nice. I like them. Do you like taking picture of nature better? Than of people, I mean.”

“Um. I mean. They’re both nice, just in different ways. There’s something really meditative about taking pictures of nature. It’s peaceful. Working with people can be harder, but it’s also kind of rewarding? Like, taking photos for a wedding is really nice. You get to capture a really great moment in someone’s life and then, when they look back at it, you help them remember the good moments. I like being able to do that for people.”

Revali looked at you. His eyes were bright, assessing. “Why do you work for the studio? It’s not any of those things you said, peaceful or rewarding. It’s mostly just stressful.”

“It makes money,” you said as you headed for the door. “Why do you work for the agency?”

There was a pause, long enough for you to get in the car. “Because it makes good money,” Revali finally said. “And it also means I get my face out there. I like being well known, you know.”

“I can’t imagine wanting that. I like being behind the scenes way more.”

Revali settled back in the seat and watched the fields roll by. “Where are we headed?”

“Um, there’s this nice little riverside area in a stand of trees. I thought it might make for some pretty photos.” You glanced at him uncertainly. “I hope that’s okay with you. I know you said you’d be okay with a nature shoot, but hope you’re not going to be too upset with a little dirt. I’ll try to keep you out of it, but-”

Revali burst into peals of laughter. You twisted your head to stare at him before realizing that you should probably keep your eyes on the road. “What? What’s so funny?”

“Oh, I shouldn’t laugh! It just struck me as very funny, but you had no way of knowing, of course.” Revali wiped a stray tear away. “Do you know where I grew up?”

“No,” you said. He hadn’t told you, had he? Revali seemed unoffended. He ran a hand through his hair, which somehow still looked artfully tousled. You were temporarily distracted by the way little tufts curled loosely around his ears. Hurriedly, you turned your gaze back to the road.

“I grew up on a farm,” he said. He fluttered his feathers. “I’m a cockerel harpy- I’ve got my fancy show feathers, but I’m not exactly a bird of paradise. It’s a family thing. I grew up working in the dirt and mud, and whenever I go home, I’m expected to do it again.”

“I never would have guessed,” you said honestly. He had the soft looks of someone who had never worked hard labor, but when you looked him over again, you could see how his smooth muscles might have come from farm work. “Your family didn’t mind, then, you going to be a model?”

“You think I have some sob story about running away from my strict farm father to pursue my dreams of being in the spotlight?” Revali smirked at you. “No. My father was disappointed, I think. He did want me to carry on the tradition. But I’ve got two younger sister who are much more invested in the farm life, so he didn’t have any fears about passing everything on and both my parents are the ‘follow your dreams’ sort, so they probably would have let me go anyway. I’m not sure they understand what I see in modeling, but they support me nonetheless.”

It was a short drive to the little grove. You parked out of the way and gathered your camera equipment while Revali looked around the area. “It’s pretty,” he said, inspecting a spray of yellow flowers. “You have a good eye.”

“Thanks.” You carefully placed the tripod. “Okay, first things first. I want to get some full-body portraits first, then we can move on to the up-close stuff.”

Revali was easy to work with, easier than you would have guessed from the number of arguments he got into with his manager. He posed gracefully, responded to your every critique thoughtfully and carefully, and even put up with your artistic considerations with far more patience than you would have expected. Even when you spent several minutes forcing him to hold a pose while you got the angle just right, he didn’t complain.

About two hours after you had started, you called a break. Revali shrugged his artfully-held jacket back on and lounged against a tree. “Can I see some of the photos?” he asked.

You considered for a moment, then handed the camera over with the same care you would with a baby. Probably more, really. “Just don’t break anything, all right?”

“Oh, ye of little faith,” Revali said. “I’ve only ever dropped two cameras. And one of them survived with only minimal damage!” You stared at him in wide-eyed horror. “I’m kidding! I’ll be very careful.”

He clicked through the camera’s photo roll. You sat nearby, leg jittering nervously. His expression was inscrutable.

“These are nice,” he said after a few moments. “I mean, they’re quite good. Better than a lot of the shoots I’ve been to recently. I like the shadow and light here.” He tapped at the photo on screen. You leaned over to see which one he was talking about. It was one of the close-ups, where Revali was staring up through the trees. The sunlight dappled leaf shadows across his face and picked up the flecks of gold in his dark eyes.

“It’s just a photo of your face,” you said, a little embarrassed by the praise. “I mean, it’s hard to make you look bad.”

“Oh, you’re being too modest. A poor picture can make anyone look bad and my lovely face can only do so much. You’re the one who set up the shot and was all clever with the lighting and whatnot.” Revali gave a little wave of his hand. “Honestly, it’s better than a few of my modeling pictures. And you’re much better at giving direction than most of the people at the studio. I swear, the number of times I just get told to look pouty at the camera is ridiculous. Or ridiculously esoteric shit. ‘Think about your best friend returning after a long time away’ my ass. Just tell me exactly what to do with my face and I’ll do it.” He stopped and gave you a slightly embarrassed look. “Not to make this about me, of course. But yes, you are quite good. It’s a shame you don’t get more projects.”

You shrugged. “I’d like to do more independent stuff. But I just don’t have any connections and I’ve been having a hard time getting gigs and, well, it’s just hard when you’re getting started.”

Revali tilted his head to one side. “Things will get better,” he said. You huffed out a sigh.

“I hope so. I’m gonna go crazy if I don’t get to do something interesting in my actual job soon.” You fiddled with a few of the camera settings again. “Ready?”

“Certainly.” The photoshoot commenced once more. Revali seemed to be putting his all into the shoot, which you appreciated. He probably could have slipped by with just posing halfheartedly, but he was really putting effort forward.

You spent longer on a photoshoot than you had expected. Revali was nice to work with, cracking little jokes at every opportunity and being patient with any technical mishaps. The sun had started to sink toward the horizon by the time you were done.

“Sorry that took so long,” you said. “I didn’t mean to take up your weekend.”

“I’m really fine.” Revali flicked his tail, combing his fingers through the long feathers. “You apologize a lot, don’t you?”

“I just don’t want to come across as rude,” you said. Revali laughed.

“That’s one thing you certainly don’t do,” he said. “I enjoyed myself.”

“Still,” you said as the pair of you headed back toward his car, “why don’t I buy you dinner? It’s the least I can do.”

Revali looked down at you. His dark eyes glittered with interest. “If you’re offering, then I’ll certainly take you up on it.”

It took some driving around, but you eventually settled on a small café fairly close to Revali’s townhouse. He selected some sort of salad and you picked out a sandwich. Revali was right, the place was quite good. “I’ve never been here before,” you said. “I guess I haven’t been eating out for lunch as much, though.”

“I’m pleased my cooking is so good to you,” Revali said. He picked at his salad, moving the leaves around more than he was eating them. A knot started to form in your stomach.

“Hey.” Revali looked up. Your tone must have been strange because his expression became serious. “Um. You don’t, um. Eat much.”

Revali lowered his fork. “Ah. I did notice you staring during meals, but I suppose I was trying to flatter myself, thinking it was entirely my good looks.”

You felt hot. “I’m sorry, I know it might be rude to bring it up. But I’m just a little worried. I don’t want you to hurt yourself.”

“Hm,” Revali muttered. He put down his fork and shifted in his seat. His feathers rustled and ruffled. “I did have some trouble with eating well when I was younger. It never developed into a full-blown disorder, but I have always had a bit of an issue with maintaining my looks. I suppose my current representation isn’t helping with this issue.”

“Your manager?” you guessed. Revali gave a tight-lipped smile.

“Yes. I gained a pound the other week and got a bit of a lecture for it. Apparently, thin men are in right now. Harpies are usually fine boned and slender and all that, but I suppose it’s not quite enough for her.” A swell of anxiety crested behind his words.

You fiddled with a toothpick. “Can you get new representation?”

“Unfortunately, I can’t. She is the only available representative for the company I have a contract with right now. And even if I could switch, I don’t have any guarantee that the next manager would be any better. Extreme dieting is not exactly uncommon in the modeling industry.” He sighed, picking up his fork and poking at the salad a few times before spearing a large bite and shoving it into his mouth. “The contract actually expires in a couple weeks,” he said, swallowing the bite. “She’s not happy about it. She really wants me to sign on again, but I haven’t done it yet.”

“What’ll you do if you don’t sign on again? Try to go somewhere else?”

“I don’t know. I’ve been modeling for a few years now. I’m not sure what else to do. But I’ll admit, I don’t love the culture. It’s not great for my mental health, in all honesty. I just don’t know what else to do.”

He looked so despondent that you couldn’t help but reach across the table and take his hand. He stared at your fingers for a moment before lifting his gaze to yours. “I’m sure whatever you chose will be the right thing,” you said. “I think, if your modeling career is bad for your mental health, then you can quit. You’re more than just a pretty face, you know? You know more about photoshoots than you think you do. You’ve got a good sense for lighting and you’ve even got a better idea of colors than I do. And you’ve got a really great fashion sense. I think there’s a lot you could do.”

Revali blinked at you for a moment, then his face broke into a breathtaking smile. A blush stole across your face, blazing in your cheeks. He looked unbearably beautiful. It wasn’t just the features of his face, though they were all very good. It was the clear and genuine delight that the smile conveyed. “I don’t think I’ve had someone compliment me so sweetly in a long time! At least, not on something other than my looks.”

“Not to mention, you’re a kick-ass cook,” you added. Revali laughed and took a sip of his water. You weren’t sure, because he had quite a bit of makeup on, but you though you could see a hint of pink tinging his cheeks.

“If I’m looking for a less stressful job than modeling, I don’t think being a chef is a good choice. And I’m not quite good enough to be in the industry. But it is nice to have my skills complimented.” He took another sip. “But thank you. Being a model can make it so your looks are the most important part of your life. It’s good to be reminded they’re not the most important thing about me.”

You shrugged. “Hey, I’m not much in the looks department, so I’m pretty good at looking past that.”

“Now, now, don’t be modest. You’re quite cute yourself,” Revali said, dropping a glittery wink. You felt yourself flushing again.

After dinner, you returned home and bid Revali a farewell. You spent the evening examining the photos you’d taken. Most of them were quite good. At the very least, they would make good photos for your portfolio. You considered them for a few moments, then pulled up the bare bones of your website and started uploading the photos.

The next day, you joined Revali for lunch again. He was wearing more than his usual makeup, but even so, you could see the slight puffiness around his eyes. “Tired?” you asked.

“Ughh. My manager and I got into a fight last night, after I got home. Things were said.” He massaged his forehead. “Tell me something good, darling, I need it.”

“Um,” you said. “I set up my website last night? Or I started setting it up, at least.”

Revali focused fully on you. “Your website?”

“Yeah. Um, I hope you don’t mind, I put some of the pictures we took up there. I want to see if I can start freelancing, at least in my free time.” Revali perked up. The tired look slid off his face.

“I don’t mind. I’m used to having my pictures all over the place. So, you’ve decided to start doing your own thing, now?” He leaned toward you.

“At least a little bit. The hardest part will be getting clients. Once I build up a little bit of a base, I can start getting people by word of mouth and stuff. But it’s difficult now.”

“I’d expect so,” Revali said, but he appeared to only be half paying attention. His gaze had become a little unfocused, like he was thinking about something else. “You know what, my next shoot’s in a few minutes. You can hang out here if you want. I’ll see you later.”

You met for lunch a few times in the next couple of weeks. Revali’s mood seemed to have improved. He was much more cheerful and, to your great relief, he seemed to be eating more.

It was almost exactly two weeks after you’d had your photoshoot when Revali sought you out at work. “I was going to come by for lunch,” you said. “Is something wrong?”

Revali seized your hands. “No. Things are great! I just told my manager to fuck off!” He proclaimed it loudly enough that several people in the vicinity turned toward him. You ignored them.

“That is great! I’m so glad for you,” you said.

“That’s not everything,” Revali said. “I have a surprise for you.” His tail twitched and flicked with excitement. “Follow me!”

Revali tugged you through the building, down to his dressing room. “Okay. Remember how you were talking about having trouble getting clientele?”

“Yeah,” you said cautiously.

“Well, I’ve been a model for a while. Which means I have some connections and some favors.” Revali opened the door and tugged you inside. “So, I thought I’d call some in!”

The room did not look different. You looked cautiously at Revali. “Uh. What am I supposed to be looking at?”

“This!” Revali snatched a stack of papers off a table and thrust them at you. You flipped through them. “It’s the information of people who want to have photoshoots! There’s a couple of weddings, one person wants a pet thing, a couple of people want you to take photos for cosplays- I told them all that you were really good and you’re easy to work with and a bunch of people were willing to give it a shot.”

“You got me gigs?” There was a note of incredulity in your voice. “Like, paying gigs?”

“Yes! I told you, I have some contacts and some favors. I pulled a few strings.” Revali fluttered his wings.

“Thank you,” you said. “I don’t know what to say.”

“All the information you need is there. You can contact them all for more information, but it should have the basics.” Revali sprawled across his couch. “I figured that if I was going out, I might as well use my connections for good.”

“Going out?” you said, perching on the couch next to him.

“Yeah.” Revali rubbed at the back of his neck. “I told my manager to fuck off, remember? There’s a solid chance I’ll get blackballed for it, and even if I don’t, I don’t think I want to do this modeling thing anymore. It hasn’t been great for my mental health. And I’d like to be seen as more than just a pretty face.”

“You have plans?” you asked.

“No. I’ve got some money saved up. I figure I can afford to coast for a little bit. And if it really gets bad, I’m sure my dad would be happy to have me back on the farm.” He laughed, but you caught the slight downturn of his mouth. You ran your finger along the edge of the paper stack.

“If you’re interested, these are a lot of jobs. I think I could use a little bit of help,” you said. Revali blinked at you. “I can’t pay much, but it’ll be a little bit of money and if I start getting really good, I can hire you on full time. You’ve already shown you’ve got an eye for this stuff.”

“Really?” Revali said. He stared at you disbelievingly. “You’re willing to do that for me?”

“It would help me as much as it would help you. I mean, you’ve already been a huge help and you’re not even working for me yet. I think we’d make a good team.”

Revali looked enormously delighted. “Oh, thank you! You’re incredible!” With no warning, he ducked forward, his hands came up to the sides of your face, and he pressed his mouth to yours.

Your brain short-circuited temporarily. There wasn’t a single coherent thought in your mind. Just a bunch of sensations. Mouth. On your mouth. Kissing. Revali was kissing you. Passionately. His hands were on your face. His feathers were tickling you. His breath was warm on your face.

He broke away from you before you could gain enough sense to kiss back. Revali grinned sheepishly. “Oh. That was sort of supposed to be the grand finale. We were supposed to go out for dinner first. I just got excited.”

You pulled your thoughts together. “You were going to ask me out?”

“I thought you deserved something for taking me out a while ago. And I’ve been thinking about asking you out for a while. But you looked so cute there and I was very grateful, and I just couldn’t help myself,” he said. “I hope you didn’t mind too much?”

“No,” you said. “I didn’t mind. At all.” Revali smiled. You were drawn to the curve of his mouth, the fullness of his upper lip. “But, maybe just to make sure, we should do it again?”

Revali’s smile got bigger. “You know, I was thinking that I’m not going to have this dressing room much longer. There are a lot of things we could do in here. Celebrate our moving on and all that.”

“Let’s start with kissing,” you said, “and we can see where it goes.”

Revali leaned closer to you. “Start with kissing. I can do that.”

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