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the7thcrow · 3 years

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indulgence | part one

pairing: felix x (fem) vampire!reader series

summary: an indulgence grows to become dangerous, as the society of hampden college takes note of y/n’s new blood bag.

series masterlist.

word count: 4.9k

genre: forbidden love, angst (sorta), fluff, suggestive.

warnings: blood, suggestive content (kissing and a shirt comes off, nothing too crazy lmao), hook-ups (but nothing is explicitly described), strong language, and vampires ofc.

rating: 16+

a/n: hi everyone! this is my first fic, so i’m sorry if it’s a little messy. this is part one of what will be a series. i’d love to hear some feedback, so don’t be afraid to shoot me an ask or message! i hope you enjoy!

...

You are late. The pattering of rain echos from atop your umbrella, the puddles of pooling water soaking your loafers as you hurry along the busy street. However, you pay no mind as the liquid seeps into your shoes, mud embedding itself along your pant leg. On a normal day, you’d scowl. You’d curse the shitty weather, and grumble as you marched home to change into a dry pair of shoes. Only today is different. Today it doesn’t matter, not when you have far greater troubles warranting your concern.

The Council isn’t pleased. They’d be even more upset, if that were even possible, if you arrived tardy. You can imagine their old, petulant faces, looking down on you with disgust. Perhaps even pity, seeing you as nothing more than a childish young girl, who’d been foolish enough to break her vow. You frown to yourself, that’s all they would ever see you as. It didn’t matter how the years passed by, to them you were, and would always be simply that. A child. Always younger, always naive. Most of all, always beneath them.

The headquarters becomes visible in the distance, clouded in the slight haze of fog. It appears to be like any other building on the Hampden Campus. Old and rustic, elegant in the way it was shaped and carved, a relic of history reflected in a modern day era. Only this building holds a far different tale than those surrounding it.

Far more bloody. Far more gruesome. A home to monsters.

Monsters like yourself.

You knock on the door. Twice, slowly. Then a pause, before three times quickly. A code, letting anyone inside know that you are, in fact, a member of The Society.

The door opens with a creak, a young boy with electric blue hair peeking out through the crack. After recognizing your face, he smiles, ushering you in quickly as the door slams shut behind you.

“Y/N! It’s good to see you. It’s been a while, huh?” The boy says, casually leaning against the door. It has been a while, you never came to this god awful building unless it was absolutely necessary.

“I guess it has been. But it’s nice to see you too, Jeongin,” you speak warmly in return. You’ve known Jeongin for a couple years now, since he first arrived at The Society doorstep. Alone and confused. A freshling, having just been turned. While perhaps not physically, he’s certainly grown since then, in both confidence and courage.

Suddenly, the smile drops from his face, his expression becoming sullen. “I hear you’ve gotten yourself into some trouble,” he states. When you don’t respond, he continues. “It’s not true, is it? I know you wouldn’t-”

“Listen, Jeongin,” you cut him off quickly. You aren’t in the mood to be lectured, especially not by someone whose opinion you actually care about. “I’m already running late. I’ll catch up with you after, okay?”

“Wait, Y/N!” He calls after you, but you’ve already disappeared down the hall, heading towards the council room. You quickly cast a glance at your watch. Shit, five minutes late. They wouldn’t forget that.

With only a quick breath to gather yourself, you burst in through the large wooden doors. The silence in the council room is deafening, as all heads turn to face you. In all your life, you’ve never seen so many dissatisfied faces.

“Ms. L/N,” the head councilman calls. He has an old face, embedded with wrinkles and a scalp of thinning white hair. Unlucky. He could have been beautiful, or at the very least, young. However, he must’ve been turned late. A pity, to stare at such a reflection for eternity.

You stifle a laugh. The frown he always appeared to be wearing probably wasn’t helping.

“Take a seat,” he states, motioning to the chair seated in the center of the room. How dramatic you think, to put you in the middle of so many staring eyes. While the council was only composed of three individuals, the room seems to be full of other lower ranked members of The Society.

As you take your seat, your gaze wanders the room, landing on a familiar head of shaggy brown hair. His eyes bore into your own, his expression serious. Perhaps even angry, the longer he stares at you.

You want to say something. Mostly, to ask him what the fuck he’s doing here. This isn’t any of Chan’s business, yet for whatever reason he has the audacity to stare at you as if it is. As if you will grant him answers. As if he deserves answers.

“Ms. L/N,” the chairman interrupts your thoughts. “Do you know why you’re seated here today?”

Why are you seated here today? Well, that answer is complicated. How could you have possibly gotten yourself into such a mess? How could you have been so foolish? You knew the rules. You knew what was permitted and what was not. Yet, you chose to ignore these conditions.

Why? What could possibly have made you toss everything you’d promised to the side?

Well, that story starts with a head of bright blonde hair, and a set of curious eyes.

~~~~

The library of Hampden College had become something of a second home to you. Late nights spent bent over a book, transcribing various philosophies and literature into latin. Sometimes greek, however you didn’t have quite the same knack for it. That’s where you found yourself tonight, your beaten down copy of The Iliad staring back at you from its place on the table.

Your classics degree was coming along just fine. You didn’t mind the endless books to read and poems to analyze. Nor the papers you often found yourself crafting from this very spot in the corner of the library. It was always quiet, always solitary at this time. Even the night owl students having gathered their books, departing the library for a brief rest before their early classes the following morning.

Tonight however, was different. You heard the door creak open, glancing up as a boy appeared in the doorway. He had long blonde hair, fluffing at the nape of his neck. Sporting a sharp blazer and a pair of oxfords, you couldn’t deny he was well dressed. Perhaps that’s why he grabbed your attention immediately, you were attracted to effort. To someone who was put together, who cared.

The boy took a seat just a few tables away from your own, gently setting his books down and disappearing into the maze of shelves to your left. You attempted to go back to your work, but couldn’t seem to find your focus. Who was this boy? You’d never seen him before in all your time at Hampden. Also, why would he possibly be at the library so late? You recognized the faces of those who while rare, might possibly be here at this time of night. He wasn’t one of them.

You would remember if he was.

You strained your neck trying to find his figure, having lost him almost immediately.

“A fan of Homer?” A voice rang out from beside your ear. You jumped in shock, greeted by a sweet smile and wide eyes. The boy chuckled. “I’m sorry, didn’t mean to scare you.”

You smiled sweetly, trying to calm your beating heart. “No worries. And well, you translate the entirety of Book Eight overnight into Greek, and tell me if you could still consider yourself a ‘fan of Homer.’”

The boy laughed before beginning to pull a chair out beside you. “May I?” He asked.

Looking back, you should have said no. You had a lot more work to do, and near no time to do it. Not to mention of course, rejecting him initially could have saved you from this whole mess. Instead you nodded, a grin forming at the corners of your lips as he sat down.

“What’s your name?” He asked. His voice was sweet, sultry. Alarming in just how deep it was, not quite fitting his bright and youthful exterior.

“Y/N, classics department. Yourself?”

“Felix,” he answered. There it was, the first time you heard the name that would cause your undoing. “I’m majoring in history. Listen,” he began, leaning in slightly closer as if he were going to tell you a secret, his voice lowering further. “I must say, I’m in here all the time, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen you before.”

You hummed, leaning in closer to him as well. His eyes glinted. “Well that’s simple, I’m assuming you don’t frequent the library at-” you glanced at your watch- “2:32 in the morning.”

Felix’s eyebrows furrowed with something like concern. “You’re here every night at this time? Why?”

“Hey,” you began, not wanting to lose the playful nature to the conversation. You’d heard enough concerned voices to last a lifetime already. “Aren’t you here this late yourself? You’re in no place to judge.”

He laughed, and you knew you could get used to that sound. “Fair enough, I’ll leave it be.”

“Why are you here this late, anyway?” You asked.

“Oh, so you get to know my secrets, but I can’t know yours?”

“Of course.”

He rolled his eyes playfully, resting his head on the desk, cradled by his crossed arms. “If you must know, I couldn’t sleep. Figured I’d read some of your classics, thought they might help me doze off.”

You shoved his arm, to which he feigned a groan of pain, clutching his shoulder. “Excuse you,” you laughed. “I have a lot of Homer to struggle through, and no time for your cheap shots. You can go ahead and leave now.”

You were surprised when he got to his feet, worried for a moment he’d taken you seriously and was actually about to make his exit. Instead, he disappeared into the philosophy section, emerging with a copy of The Odyssey. Felix flopped down back in his chair beside you, extending his feet on top of the table and leaning backwards.

“Well, then I guess I’ll suffer along with you,” he said. Without another word, he flipped towards the first page.

Felix was a good person to study with. Well, technically you weren’t studying with him, but nonetheless it was nice to have him in the room. He didn’t bother you, didn’t speak, just let you do your work. Sometimes you’d look up and meet his gaze, his eyes imploring you. Curious. Mischievous.

Dangerous.

“Alright,” you yawned after an hour or so had passed by, stretching your arms high in the air. “I’m done.”

He smiled, slowly closing his book and setting it down on the table. “Yeah? Finally going to go home and sleep?”

“Sleep? What’s that?” You said, playfully scoffing. “Nah, it’s already past 3:30, it’ll be 4 by the time I get back to my apartment. Not worth it at this point.”

“Hmm,” Felix hummed, a flicker of mischief in his growing smile. “What ever will you do to pass the time?”

“I don’t know,” you returned, excitement building in your chest. “But I suppose I’ll leave you now. You still have about 3 quarters of The Odyssey to get through, and I don’t want to tear you away from-”

You shouldn’t have been surprised when his lips crashed into yours, but you were. You let out a small “mff” against the sudden impact. It took your brain a second to catch up to speed on what was happening. Here you were, with this incredibly beautiful boy of whom you literally just met, kissing in the middle of the library.

Your second thought was about how you’d never done this before. Not kissing someone, hell you’d done a lot more than just that. But never a stranger, and certainly never a human, for that matter. You had to be careful with who you got close to, you never knew who could be dangerous, who could be a hunter. Besides, The Society had rules, and this alone was undoubtedly breaking a few of them.

So what the hell were you doing?

You should stop this, you thought. But the more you settled into a rhythm, the more your worries trailed from your mind. Felix was a good kisser. A really good kisser. His lips were soft, warm, his breath sharp with the taste of mint. When the dork had a chance to pop a tic tac you didn’t know, but it made you smile against him.

You ran your fingers through his hair, leaning into him. He groaned in response, moving his hands down your figure, settling in on your waist. Carefully he began to fiddle with the buttons at the bottom of your blouse, and with that it all suddenly became real.

“We can’t do this,” you breathed, finally breaking away from him.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I went too far, I-” he began to apologize, frantically removing his hands from your body and shifting backwards into his chair.

“No,” you replied, a smile tugging at the corner of your lips at his sweetness. You grabbed the collar of his shirt, gently tugging him closer to you. “We can’t do this here.”

The Society had rules, plenty. Human’s, in any sort of relationship, were out of the question. Public displays of affection with even your own kind, especially of the more vulgar sort, were off limits as well. The idea was to not bring attention to yourselves, to not cause a scene. And if you were going to break one of these rules so terribly, you figured you could at least pay the respect to do so privately.

“Okay,” he mumbled, placing his forehead against your own. “Where should we go?”

“My place? It’s a little far from here, but I don’t have any roommates. So..”

Felix smiled, planting a soft, lingering kiss at the nape of your neck. “Lead the way.”

~~~~

The walk over to your apartment wasn’t awkward per say, it was simply...charged. Felix had his arm looped around your own, making your way silently down the dark, lantern lit path through campus. You could feel your heart beating rapidly in your chest, a desire thrumming down inside you, resurfacing. It had been a long time since you’d last been with someone. That last person being Chan, your ex as of eight months ago.

Things had been good with Chan. Great even, in the beginning at least. He was intense, thoughtful. He loved you deeply. Most of all, Chan understood. Like you, he was a member of The Society. He was under every restriction you were, and felt all the same frustrations.

Of course, not all good things can last. Eventually your relationship began to sour. Your arguments became full on brawls. Your differences and quirks became unbearable. You couldn’t be in the same room without being at one another's throats. You were the one who finally decided to end things.

Chan was the only man you’d ever loved, and since him you’d never entertained the thought of being with another. Until now, that is. You glanced towards Felix, who was staring ahead down the street, his eyes dark. You could feel his own desire radiating off of him, visible in the way he slowly swallowed, his adam’s apple bobbing. Besides, Felix could give you something more. Something Chan could never.

No. You stopped yourself. That wouldn’t be happening tonight. It would only make things more complicated, more dangerous. Still, you could feel it deep inside you, pounding for control. That familiar, incessant hunger. The more you tried to ignore it, the more it was there. Becoming stronger as your ears focused in on Felix’s heart beat, the sound of blood pumping through his veins.

You were pulled from your thoughts as the sight of your apartment complex appeared in front of you. Quietly you entered, making your way up the stairs and towards your own door. Releasing your arm from Felix’s, you fumbled for your keys in your purse. Giving him a small smile, you twisted your key in the lock, and allowed him inside.

The moment you closed your apartment door, all bets were off. Felix tossed his books onto your kitchen table, clashing into you with a speed that almost made you lose your own breath. You felt your back press against the wall behind you, Felix’s lips devouring your own. Desperate and wanting.

He quickly revisited the buttons of your blouse, this time starting at the top and beginning to make his way down. All the meanwhile his lips traced your neck, gently brushing against your skin. With every new kiss fueling your own desire, you slowly began to rock your hips into his own. This was escalating. Fast. As he finished with the last button, he allowed your blouse to drop from your shoulders, smiling to himself as he took you in.

“Your turn,” you breathed, tugging at the collar of his shirt as a signal to take it off. He did so, absent-mindedly tossing it aside into your living room. He took your chin in his hand, forcing you to look up at him, staring deeply into your eyes. Then he proceeded to say the very last thing you ever expected him to:

“Look at your eyes… You haven’t fed in weeks, have you?”

You slapped his hand away and shoved him off of you, rushing to the otherside of the room, putting the coffee table between yourselves. “How-How do you?” You stammered, physically unable to form a complete sentence. How could he possibly know what you were? How did he even know you existed?

Felix’s eyes widened, clearly shocked by your reaction. “No, no. Don’t worry!” He said frantically, outstretching his hand to you. “Listen, I’m not going to hurt you or anything. I didn’t mean to scare you, I’m sorry! I’m sorry.”

You stared at him, disbelievingly. “Yeah? And how do I know that?” You let this man into your home, your safe space. How could you have been so stupid?

“Look, I grew up around Vampires okay? My neighbors, back in my childhood home, they were like you. I know the signs. I know how your eyes blow out when you’re hungry, the way they glaze over when you haven’t fed in a while. That’s it. I didn’t even realize until I got a good look at you, back when you were translating. It’s no big deal, really.”

You scoffed. No big deal? Felix didn’t seem to realize just how big of a deal it actually was. Humans weren’t supposed to know what you were, certainly not at Hampden. The Society had made well sure of that. God, if The Council saw you now...

“Y/N, I’m sorry. I should have told you back at the library. I honestly didn’t think it would freak you out this much. That’s on me,” he said, inching slightly closer to you. Despite yourself, you didn’t move away. “I’m serious though, it’s been a while since you last fed. Hasn’t it?”

A while was an understatement. The Society had been going through a shortage of blood bags, after having severed their connections with one of the nearby hospitals. Meaning if you wanted to drink, it would have to be from one of their Certified Donors. Which was another, fancier and far more innocent way of saying prisoners. These were humans who had given their lives to The Society, some willingly and others not so much.

You didn’t like going to their quarters. Located in the basement of the main district, it was always quiet down there. Always solemn. You’d never been to a place lacking so much hope. You’d only gone once, and drinking from that man still haunts you to this day. The way he didn’t move or speak, or even wince when your fangs broke his skin. The way his eyes were hollow and empty. How when you were done he simply laid down in his bed and turned away from you, without another word.

The Certified Donors were what made you begin to hate The Society in the first place. Since then, your resentment only seemed to grow.

You sighed, walking past him and flopping onto your couch. “Yeah, it’s been a while,” you confessed.

Felix carefully approached you. Instead of seating himself next to you, he got down on his knees, resting a hand on your thigh. “It’s okay, you can use me. I don’t mind.”

You were ready to tell him no, the word lingering on the tip of your tongue. However, you couldn’t bring yourself to deny him. Perhaps it was your hunger, the fact that a few more weeks in this drought, you might actually become ill.

Or maybe, just maybe, it was the fact that you wanted to disobey the society. That this little act of rebellion, this utterly wrong indulgence, was what made your desire grow unbearable, unchained. You hated The Council, you hated the Certified Donor system, and you hated the way they had such a firm grip and control on your life.

A beautiful boy was seated in front of you, begging you to drink from him. How could you possibly say no? Better yet, why would you say no? To deprive yourself of something so great, for something you despised so deeply seemed ridiculous. That was the moment your judgment lapsed, that you crossed the point of no return. If you drank from Felix, there would be no going back. If the council found out, there would be consequences. Big ones.

But who doesn’t love a little risk?

You sunk down to meet him on the floor, staring at his bare chest. You could hear his heart pumping, its pace quickening the closer you got to him.

“Are you sure about this?” You asked.

“Yes,” he whispered. You shifted your position. Not quite seating yourself in his lap, but hovering above, your knees on either side of him.

“This might hurt a little bit,” you warned. You extended your fangs, approaching his neck, carefully. You didn’t realize until then how nervous you were. It had been a long time since you’d fed from a human. You’d drank from Chan of course, but he was also a vampire, and your blood didn’t have quite the same effect. There was pleasure in it, usually accompanied in moments of ecstasy, but it didn’t replenish you. It didn’t heighten your senses, nor fill you with energy. Most of all, it didn’t satisfy your hunger, your thirst. Not at all.

Felix’s blood would.

You kept this in mind as you finally plunged your fangs into his neck. Felix let out a gasp, tensing beneath you, his hand clutching onto your arm for support. The taste of his blood grazed your tongue, metallic and warm. Delicious.

Fuck, did blood ever taste this good before? You didn’t think so.

The sweet taste consumed you. Intoxicating. Raw. Cascading over your mind in a blanket of pleasure, reveling in the way its effects seeped over your body. You could feel your mind growing sharper, your senses becoming more alert. It was a relief, after weeks of blurry weakness, of being too close to humanity in your thirst. You felt yourself again, the monster you are. The monster you are glad to be.

Here you were powerful. Invincible. And all you wanted was more. More. More.

More of this power, this sensation, this strength. This is what feeding should be. What feeding can give you. Not from a blood bag, nor a helpless prisoner, but from someone you want. Someone you desire. Someone who desires you in return.

It was as you felt Felix’s grip on your arm loosen that you finally broke away, breathing hard as you caught your breath. Felix’s eyes shifted to yours lazily, dazed. Perhaps even delirious. For a moment you feared that you’d taken too much. He blinked slowly, his eyes regaining focus.

Then he smiled. “Shit Y/N…” he began, his voice appearing more of a croak. “That felt really fucking good.”

You grinned, leaning into him and pressing a series of kisses up along his jaw. Felix shivered, allowing his hands to slowly slide up your figure. Wanting.

“Yeah?” You whispered, your lips brushing against his ear. “Then how about we continue where we left off?”

~~~~

The next morning you woke to the sound of your alarm buzzing, sunlight peeking through the opening of your drapes. You heard a low groan next to your ear, quickly becoming aware of the hand wrapped around your waist.

So last night really happened. The reality of your situation dawned on you. You’d both drank from and fucked a human. There was no going back now, you’d completely disobeyed The Society.

Worst of all? You didn’t care. At least, not near as much as you should have.

You shifted to face Felix, seeing his eyes still closed, eyebrows furrowed. “Hey,” you whispered, planting a soft kiss on the tip of his nose. “We have to get up. I have class.”

He groaned again in protest, shaking his head and burying his face into the crook of your neck. Between last night's events and the ringing of your alarm, you both only got about two hours of sleep, and that was being generous. This was no problem for you, as while sleep was a luxury, it was not a necessity. The same didn’t go for Felix.

“Come on,” you laughed, worming out of his grasp. “You’ll be fine, I’ll go make us some coffee.”

You rolled out of bed, throwing on Felix’s discarded shirt and heading towards your kitchen. Flicking on the radio, you felt oddly blissful as you grounded the coffee beans into a filter. It had been a long time since there’d been another person in your apartment. It made the space seem less… haunted. No longer lingering with the essence of Chan’s ghost. It felt fresh. New.

Felix emerged from your bedroom, rubbing his eyes sleepily, sporting only his khaki’s from the past day. His gaze met yours and he smiled. “So, I take it my shirt is yours now?”

“Mhm,” you hummed, leaning forward over your kitchen counter. Felix bent down, causing you to become nose-level with one another. The close proximity made your heart race.

“Mean,” he murmured, leaning forward to kiss you softly. There was no unchained desire, no promise of more. It was simple, warm. A morning of peace after a night of wildness.

You could get used to this, you thought.

The thought sunk in your chest like a stone. This wouldn’t be as simple as you wanted to be, as you needed it to be. There would be sacrifices to make, and cautions you’d have to adhere to. You had to get the truth out in the open. Better to rip the bandaid off now rather than later.

“Felix, you can’t tell anyone about this.” You said. The smile faded from Felix’s face, and for a moment he looked so… hurt. He stepped back.

“About the feeding? Y/N, I wouldn’t tell anyone what you are, don’t worry about-”

“No, not just the feeding. About us. About any of it.”

Felix opened his mouth to say something, but then quickly closed it. His gaze hardened. “Ah. Got it,” he stated sharply, grabbing his blazer and motioning to the door. “I’ll just head out then.”

“Wait, Felix! No, it’s not like that,” you said, rushing around the kitchen island and reaching for his arm. He turned around to face you, his expression wounded. “Listen, I don’t know how it was with your old neighbors, but here at Hampden things are different. There’s certain rules we have to follow, and what you and I did? Well, that broke about a hundred of them.”

Felix was silent for a moment, then sighed. “Okay… But what do you mean rules? Who’s enforcing them? Hampden?”

“No, it’s bigger than that. There’s a group of us here, a society. There are rules we abide by, and they’re meant to keep us safe. Keep us united,” you explained.

“Like a cult?” Felix asked, and you had to refrain from rolling your eyes.

“Well, if that helps you, then whatever. Yeah, sure. A cult.”

“Where do you-”

“I’m sorry,” you cut him off. “But that’s all I can really tell you, at least for now. Honestly, the less you know, the better. Just for safety’s sake.”

“Oh. Alright,” Felix said, his lips pursed. He wasn’t pleased, that much was obvious.

“I know this sucks, I’m sorry. But if we want to keep doing this-”

“Wait,” Felix interrupted, his eyebrows knitted together in confusion. “You want to keep doing this? I thought you’d get in trouble?”

You smiled, and were pleased to see the corners of his mouth curve up in return. “I’ve already risked getting myself in trouble.” You trailed your finger along the bare of his chest, feeling the warmth radiating from his skin. He was so alive, so real. And it only made you want him more. Perhaps, that’s why he wanted you as well. You were unpredictable, wild. A challenge.

A match made in hell.

“I dug myself a grave, Lix.” You looked up at him, entranced by the curiosity swimming in his eyes. “Might as well lie in it.”

next chapter

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heliads · 4 years

Text

Troubled Waters Chapter 1: A Warning

Strange happenings are starting to plague Beacon Hills. Scott McCall and his pack have always been able to defend their hometown no matter how dangerous the threat, but they may need the help of mysterious newcomer Y/N L/N.

series masterlist / next

The sound of voices drifts over to Scott from across the room. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see his friends sitting on the dock of Lydia’s lake house. Stiles is arguing some point with all the passion of a trained debater, with Malia answering back in a challenging but amused tone. Lydia is doing her best not to laugh, and Kira has just turned away from the two speakers to gesture to Scott to come back to the gathering.

Scott smiles at the sight of them. It’s rare that he and his friends have a moment like this, pure and lacking in any sort of danger. As time passed, Scott has grown to realize that golden moments like these need to be treasured, because they come around rarely thanks to the troubles constantly plaguing Beacon Hills.

He puts down his glass on the kitchen counter and strolls leisurely back to his friends, plopping down next to them and letting his feet dangle over the edge of the dock. Night has fallen, bringing with it some long-awaited cool air and a light breeze. The moon is hung just beyond the clouds, large enough to light up the sky and send little reflections dancing across the waves, but small enough that it will not draw on Scott and Malia’s abilities as only the full moon can.

Scott lets out a contented sigh, wanting to remember every last detail of this night. It’s the weekend before school starts up again, and they won’t be able to get away from everything like this for a while. Kira leans over to Scott, smiling gently. “Thinking about school?” Scott nods. “I’m just waiting for another disaster to strike. It feels like that’s all we get these days.”

Stiles rolls his eyes jokingly. “Come on, Scott. Let’s enjoy this weekend. You can worry about potential threats once we get back, but if I have to think about anything with glowing eyes and fangs I’m going to lose my mind.” Lydia raises an eyebrow. “What about spirits of death?” Stiles waves a hand dismissively. “Only if you don’t predict anything.” Everyone laughs at that, and Scott lets himself relax. This is his favorite part of his pack- the friendship, the camaraderie. It’s all so worth it.

The group dissolves into chatter once more, bringing up potential schedules and rumors of which teachers are the best, and which ones seem even more menacing than the Argents. Everyone is having a good time, until Malia frowns and sits up.

“Does anyone else see that?” Scott glances at her. “See what?” Malia points over his shoulder at the waters of the lake. “Is it just me, or does it look like the water is doing something weird?” Confused, Scott peers at the lake, and he realizes what Malia means. The water is moving, not just in the usual tides, but starting to roil, forming eddies and whirlpools despite a total absence of wind or anything else in the water.

Scott starts to stand up. “That is weird.” The water is moving faster now, and clouds of spray start to buffet the friends. “I think we should go.” Stiles shouts to be heard above the crash of the waves, and Scott nods in agreement. He watches as the waves surge and whirl with all the energy of a hurricane. Just as they all start to back away, though, the waves clash together with one last surge of water and then everything falls silent.

Lydia looks from the water to the house. “Is it over now? I didn’t see any motorboats, what just happened?” Scott slowly shakes his head. “I’m not sure.” He creeps to the edge of the dock once more, daring to look down over into the now calm waters below. His hand darts to his phone, turning on the flashlight and shining it around. He can’t see anything in the water, nothing that would have caused whatever it was that he just saw. Also, Scott’s been to the lake house often enough to know that storms like that don’t just come up out of nowhere. Despite the wildness of the water, the sky is clear as if nothing had happened.

Scott peers at the lake again, searching for something, anything, to explain the freak tempest of the waters. He pans the beam of his flashlight back and forth, across every inch of the lake. Then, he sees something bobbing along in the waves.

“There! What’s that?” Kira is standing beside him now, and she sees the same thing in the water. “It looks like it’s coming closer to us.” It’s true- Scott kneels on the wooden slats of the dock and reaches out his hand, trying to reach it. Just a few more seconds, and he has it, grabbing the debris from the waters and holding it up to the light.

It’s a box, made from dark wood and held together with a simple metal clasp. Scott looks questioningly at his friends, who nod at him to open it. Scott jams his phone in his pocket, then flips the clasp open and lifts the lid of the box. Inside is a piece of paper, folded neatly into a small square. Stiles reaches into the box and pulls it out, unfolding it. Malia looks at him, intrigued. “What does it say?” Stiles just shakes his head, confused.

“I don’t know. It looks like it’s in some other language.” He holds up the mysterious note and sure enough, inked into the paper in thick black letters is a strange, twisting script. Scott can’t make out a word of it. “Does anyone recognize what language that is?” He looks to Lydia, expecting an answer, but she looks just as unsure as anyone else. “No idea. I can handle Classic or Archaic Latin, but I don’t know what this is.” Scott looks back at the paper, and then at the plain box it came in. “What does all of this mean?”

They don’t find an answer to his question. Even after their time at the lake house has ended, and Scott and his friends drive back to their respective homes in Beacon Hills, Scott still finds himself thinking of the mysterious message. It had to do something with the sudden disturbance in the water, of that he was certain. Why else would it have arrived so quickly after the waters calmed down? Scott spent hours poring over the box, trying to see if there were any carvings, designs, hidden compartments, anything that would help him decode the message. Yet, after every try, he can still turn up nothing. Same with the paper- how can you translate a language if you have no idea what it is?

Even more confusing is when Scott receives a call from Mason mere hours after the incident at the lake house. The second he had picked up, Scott could tell that Mason was in obvious distress. “What’s wrong?” Scott had asked, but Mason had just continued on in the same agitated tone. “Did anything weird happen to you tonight? Like, a few hours ago?”

Scott was instantly on guard. “Yeah, the lake at Lydia’s house was behaving very strangely. It seemed like we were in the middle of a hurricane without anything else happening.” Mason had seemed unsurprised by that. “See, I have these charts up on my computer all the time. They measure the amount of energy present in Beacon Hills. They were useful with some of the other dangers, so I keep them up all the time. The thing is, I checked them just now and they were way up a few hours ago.”

Intrigued, Scott had asked him for more information, and Mason had readily supplied it. “Around nine p.m., the energy levels went from average to way higher than they’ve been in a long time. It seems like there was some event that generated a ton of energy, something that happened around the same time as your lake incident. I’d bet they’re connected.”

After Mason had ended the call, Scott sat in his room, thinking. What did it all mean? The energy readings- they had to be connected to the lake, just like Mason said. Whenever there was a lot of energy in Beacon Hills, danger usually followed. What would come now, and would Scott and his friends be able to stop it?

The start of school forces Scott to focus on something other than the events of that night at Lydia’s lake house. His classes seem challenging but at least interesting, and he has captainship of the lacrosse team to raise his spirits. When Scott finds his friends at lunch and sits down at the table next to them, though, he can’t help but sense an aura of unease hanging around them.

“We’re all still thinking about what happened at the lake house, right?” Scott asks, and Stiles sighs. “Yeah, we are. I mean, what could any of that mean? Lakes don’t just do that. There has to be something bigger that caused it.” Lydia agrees. “I’ve been to the lake house a lot. I’ve never seen it do that.” Scott nods, and pulls the box out of his bag, opening it to pull out the paper. His friends all look at it once more, trying in vain to decipher the message. “I just wish I knew what it said. Don’t sell the lake house? Spend more time away from the water? I’d settle for just knowing what language it is.”

“Ancient Greek.”

Scott turns quickly to see a girl standing at their table. He looks up at her, surprised. “Ancient Greek?” The girl nods, pointing at the paper. “Yeah, you can tell because of the letters. That’s a delta, that’s a theta, it’s definitely Ancient Greek.”

The girl looks back at their stunned faces, realizing that they’re all silent. “I’m sorry to listen in- I was just passing by and I saw the paper. I didn’t mean to eavesdrop.” She turns to go, but Scott stands up hurriedly. “Don’t worry about it. Actually, can you tell us more about what it says? Can you read Ancient Greek?”

The girl nods slowly. “I think I can, but it might take a while.” Lydia stands up too. “Come sit down. You’ve officially joined the friend group. What’s your name, by the way?” The girl smiles happily, taking a seat next to Lydia. “My name is Y/N. Y/N L/N.” Scott nods at the girl. “It’s nice to meet you, Y/N.”

Y/N pulls the piece of paper over to her, squinting at it. “This is actually a pretty simple message. It’s just a few words.” She looks at the inked swirls again, her lips moving silently as she translates the message. Once she finishes, she puts the paper back down, but still looks confused. Kira leans forward excitedly. “What does it say?” Y/N looks at her, then back down at the paper.

“It’s some kind of warning. It says ‘Beware the naiads.’”

#teen wolf #scott mccall #scott mccall imagine #scott mccall x reader #scott mccall imagines #teen wolf imagine #teen wolf x reader #teen wolf imagines #scott mccall series #teen wolf series

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iwachans-beefyarms · 4 years

Note

i know this is kinda really detailed and specific idea for a scenario so i hope that this is okay! it turns out tsuki is only really good at english because he kept his english penpal from primary school and they talk everyday and ft and she surprises him by turning up before the shiratorizawa match!! just some fluffy platonic feels please maybe she goes out with the team for dinner afterwards too? 💕💕💖

Omg, I really love this scenario! I’ve had my fair share of penpals so I was really excited to write this (: I remember having an Italian penpal 2 years ago and interacting with her inspired me to learn Italian on my own because she would often give me amazing Italian book recommendations hehe (I might have gone a bit overboard when writing about Tsukki training for the match lmao)

BTW for those interested, the quote from the beginning is from Donna Tartt’s ‘The Secret History’! It’s one of my favourite books of all time and it’s what made me start learning Latin, highly recommend it to all of you! Also, I love writing about platonic friendships soooo much so if any of you would like to request similar things in the future, please do!

Note*** Reader will be speaking to the team in Japanese, which will be indicated by bolded words

Okay, I’ll stop talking now, enjoy!

“I had said goodbye to her once before, but it took everything I had to say goodbye to her then, again, for the last time, like poor Orpheus turning for a last backwards glance at the ghost of his only love and in the same heartbeat losing her forever: hinc iliac lacrimae, hence those tears.”

Tsukishima sighed and put the book down. Pushing his glasses back up the bridge of his nose, he leaned back and closed his eyes. It was a bittersweet feeling he often experienced when nearing the end of a compelling novel. This particular one, especially, had had him completely enamored. He almost felt wistful when he realised he was almost done with it.

He opened the book back up and carefully highlighted the phrase “Orpheus turning for a last backward glance”, making a mental note to look up the reference. It sounded like a literary allusion to a Greek myth of some sort, but he had to check to be sure. He glanced at his phone and opened his e-mail to type a quick message to you.

“I am almost done with this book… Honestly, what a ride! I can’t even bring myself to finish it because of how attached I am. I learnt so many new phrases and literary allusions too! I’m seriously considering reading all the pieces of work the author had referenced throughout the novel haha. But, it’s gonna have to wait until after my volleyball season ends because we have finals coming up soon… Anyway, talk to you later! BTW, how did you enjoy the poetry collection I sent you?”

He signed off as he usually did, packed his things up and left for after-school volleyball practice. He couldn’t help but feel that today was a particularly lovely day. When Yamaguchi approached him and draped his arm around his shoulder, he welcomed his friend’s affectionate gesture with a genuine smile of his own.

“Wow, that’s a big smile! Did something good happen?” Yamaguchi questioned curiously. He glanced down at Tsukkishima’s hands and noticed the book he was holding.

“Ah! Y/n’s book huh? Is it any good?” He asked, excitedly grabbing it from his friend and flipping through the pages. His eager expression morphed into one of complete confusion as he squinted his eyes at the flurry of words before him. “How do you even read this? It’s so hard…” He blurted out.

“Tsk, you just don’t have enough practice, dumbass,” Tsukkishima retorted jokingly. It was true, though, what he said. His regular emails to and from you since his primary school days had greatly improved his English linguistic skills. Even more so, it had made him more knowledgeable in the art of writing and analysis. Everytime he got a comment on his essays about his exceptional way with words, he would silently thank your influence in his head. It was quite ironic that Tsukishima, someone who found it immensely difficult to forge meaningful relationships with those around him, would have shared such a close friendship with a girl living on the other side of the world, but such was life.

As the highly anticipated match against Shiratorizawa loomed closer, Tsukishima’s mind drifted from you and the book he had yet to finish. His heart, soul and entire being was devoted to his team. While he greatly appreciated the daily messages of encouragement you graced him with every morning, he simply did not have the time to respond properly. For now, all that mattered was volleyball.

He trained everyday, much like his teammates. Where once he would have scoffed at the level of fervor he demonstrated in his journey towards becoming the best player he could be, he now relished in the passion that flooded him everytime he held the ball between his hands, or when he jumped in tandem with his teammates to form a block. He would be prepared for Shiratorizawa, for Ushijima Wakatoshi, and for whatever force that dared to reckon with him.

That was what he told himself before the match, repeating it in his heart like a mantra, with the hopes that the belief would materialise in the court. And, that was exactly what his teammates and he did. They won. They actually won. Tsukishima never viewed himself as a sadistic person, but dear God, the look of defeat in the faces of his opponents sent him to a high he had never experienced before. It wasn’t that he was glad they lost; they were decently nice people. It was that they had won; a game that, by all expectations, should have been lost. He was euphoric. In that moment, amidst the chaos surrounding him and the cheers resounding through the stadium, he felt an immense wave of love rush over him. Love for his sport, his opponents, and most importantly, his team; his family outside of his family.

After the match, as the team made their way out of the locker rooms, he let himself bask in the triumph of their victory as his friends cheered boisterously. Suddenly, he caught the eyes of a very familiar face approaching him with a slight jog. His eyes widened. Impossible.

“Tsukki!” You wrapped your arms around his neck. He didn’t hesitate to engulf you in a hug of equal intensity. It was either the excitement of winning, or the shock from seeing you in front of him that made him so easily reciprocate your affection, but at that moment he didn’t care.

“What are you doing here?” He asked, incredulously, ignoring the gawking stares of his team. “My parents wanted to go to Japan for the holidays, and of course I had to come see you at your big match! You were amazing! I mean, Amazing, with a capital A!” you rambled off excitedly. Tsukishima almost let you continue your enthusiastic rant but he was interrupted by Daichi’s hesitant tap to his back. He cleared his throat and announced, “Everyone, this is Y/n, my good friend from Y/c.”

“Hello everyone! It is so wonderful to meet all of you! Tsukki has said so much about you that I feel like I know all of you already,” you addressed them, bowing slightly. Your nervous blush made Tsukki smile softly to himself. Immediately, you were attacked with questions.

“How does Tsukishima know such a pretty girl?”

“Where are you from? Are you here on holiday? How do you know Japanese?”

“Do you play volleyball?”

You did your absolute best to answer all their questions, and in the process, gave the team a brief summary of your friendship with Tsukishima. Yamaguchi, in particular, was wonderfully excited to make your acquaintance. Eventually, the boys and their managers invited you to have dinner with them. You graciously took their offer and left the stadium with them.

The evening was filled with laughter and jubilation. Everybody was still riding the high from their win, and spent dinner reminiscing moments during the match, and of course, talking about Tsukishima and his pretty friend. Stories about his childhood self, his emo-phase and, for a brief tw months, k-pop phase, were shared by Yamaguchi and yourself. Usually, Tsukishima would have been incredibly annoyed at being the object of a joke, but tonight, he settled for a half-hearted shove to Yamaguchi’s shoulder and a teasing comment. “At least I pulled it off… Not like your cosplay phase, remember?” Cue another round of hearty laughter.

As he watched you and his team bond, he sat back and gently rubbed his chest. His heart felt so full at the moment, and although he knew it wouldn’t last, he cherished the feeling and took a mental picture of the scene in front of him. He leaned towards your ear and whispered, “Thank you so much for coming, it meant a lot.” You squeeze his arm gently and replied, “That’s what friends are for, Tsukki!”

#haikyuu #haikyuu x reader #platonic #tsukki #tsukishima kei #tsukishima x reader #tsukishima kei x reader #scenarios #fluff

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mila-dans · 4 years

Text

Spells Out Trouble: Long Train Runnin’

This is chapter eight of “Spells Out Trouble.” Masterlist Here!

Chapter Seven: Beautiful Sunday

Pairing: Dean x Reader

Word count: 5550

Summary: You have been with the Winchesters for several years now going through all the literal trials and tribulations with them. What happens when Dean gets hit by a love spell and becomes head-over-heels for you? Will your pushed down emotions finally rise or will you get in over your head? Find out what happens when your best friend’s hard exterior becomes mush whenever you end up in his eyeline.

Just so you know: This is my first Fanfic so sorry if there are aspects missing. “Spells Out Trouble” is a series with about ten chapters. If you have any suggestions or tips, I’d love to hear from you. Thank you and I hope you enjoy it! (Also, not my gif!)

You take a deep breath and start to get up and walk towards the door. You feel Dean tug on your hand and pull you back. You turn back to look at him as he hangs on to your hand.

“Please,” he says. “Please don’t go again. Stay. Please.”

Without any objection, you walk back towards the bed with your hand in Dean’s. You lay on top of the covers facing Dean. He turns off the light and you just stare at each other. Hand in hand. Your eyes slowly close as you drift off into sleep.

---------------------

You start to turn and wriggle around a bit as you begin to wake up. You feel arms around you as you are pressed up against a chest. It was Dean. You recall the night before and how you had your hand in his. But now, you were much closer now. He let his arms loose a little bit as you started to stretch. It was about ten in the morning. You were surprised it wasn’t even later. Your dream last night felt so real and so nice. You wished you didn’t have to get up and start the day. You dreaded what was to come. If Dean wasn’t just gonna up and kick you out after he gets cured, he at least would most likely not ever talk to you again. You knew the real Dean would hate anyone messing with his mind. And you have been messing with his mind from making him go insane when all this started, to sleeping with him. Or your version of sleeping with him that is.

“Good morning, beautiful,” Dean said as you opened your eyes and met his gaze.

“Hi,” you responded, almost struggling to say. You started to think of how today was the day that you were going to lose Dean. Forever. Your eyes began to water the more you thought about it. Just enough to where a tear or two started to slip down your face.

“Hey,” Dean said as he whipped your tears with his thumb. “It’s okay,” he said with such sincerity that you started to suffer even more. He pulled you closer to him, wrapping his arms around you, holding you tight.

You don’t care anymore. You can’t bear to care whether or not Dean would want you to have him hold you. The real Dean that is. This Dean whose arms you were in, he wasn’t Dean. Wasn’t even close. You would fight back a bit on being so close to him but you couldn’t. You didn’t. A part of you just wanted to stay like this forever. It felt safe and it felt amazing. You two just laid there for a movement. Your tears would fall down every now and again, only to be met with a reassurance that everything was okay from Dean.

“It’s time,” Dean said as he lifted your head to look at him.

“Dean…”

“Shh.” He looked in your eyes and at your lips. Your heart started to race. He analyzed every inch of your face. He moved in close to you. He placed his lips on your head and you let out a sigh. He gave you a kiss on your temple and pulled you tight. He released his grip and sat up. “We’ve got to um, fix me,” he chuckles. “Yeah. We gotta fix me.” He smiles trying to hold back his emotions.

He had gotten better at controlling himself. You were sure that it took everything in Dean to not just kiss you. He was more careful now. You actually think that he may want the cure partly due to his struggle with being next to you. He seemed to be sure that he loved you and will still love you even without the cure. Funny. You knew the truth. You knew that you would always long for him and he would never long for you. It’s sad but you know it’s the truth.

------------------

You walked into the war room where Sam was sitting.

“Hey,” he said.

You sigh and give him a “Howdy” in return.

“Are you alright?” Sam asks, noticing your saddened and depressed expressions.

“Yeah,” you take a seat, “peachy.” You give him a smile that you are unable to uphold.

“So, did you ever figure out the cure?” He tries to lighten or better the mood with a smile but fails to do so for you.

“Yep.” You place a piece of paper on the table. “I’ve got it.”

“Great!” Sam takes the paper and tries to read.

“Yeah, it’s in Greek so good luck with that,” you say as Sam rolls his eyes. “Don’t worry, I can read it because I’m brilliant.”

He smiles and asks, “So what do we need?”

“Basic stuff. We do need to make a call to get one ingredient though.”

“To who?”

“A demon,” you say blatantly.

“A what?!” Sam asks.

“The spell requires blood from a demon, fresh blood.” You look at Sam, clarifying that the blood that you have in stock, won’t suffice.

“Great.” Sam huffs. “What else?”

“We also need angel blood. So, Castiel too.”

“And that’s it?” Sam asks, checking to see if you are going to need a human heart or anything else bizarre.

“Nope. Just blood, Latin, herbs, spice and everything nice.” You give Sam a smile as he gives you a glare.

“You know who we gotta call right?” Sam asks as he looks at you agitated.

“Of course!” You answer sarcastically. “What other demon do we have on speed dial who mutually wants to kill us?”

-------------------

“Hello, boys.”

The voice of one pathetic Scottish demon still sounds shivers down your spine. You turn around to face the bottom dweller. “Crowley! Long time.” You smile.

“Pardon me, boys, and girl. Yes. Too long you might say.”

“Ah, well, things to do, people to see. You know the drill.”

“And I assume putting me inside your silly little devils trap at your clubhouse isn’t for a friendly check in?”

“No,” Sam answers sternly.

“Moose! How’s the… oh wait… all of your misadventures with women are fatal. Aren’t they?” Crowley gives Sam his signature smile.

“Shut it,” you say, wishing that this day would already be over.

“Right to it then?”

“We need your blood,” Sam orders.

“Interesting. And what might my blood be used for?”

“It’s none of your business,” you answer.

“Wow. You don’t trust me? After everything we’ve been through together?”

“No,” Sam replies. “Not even a little bit.”

“Well as much as I’d love to help what I can only assume to be Dean due to him missing this little meeting of ours, I can’t.”

“Sure you can.” Sam holds up his demon blade.

“No. I can’t.” Crowley smiles. “Since our previous time together, I cooked up a little spell in order to keep what’s mine, mine.”

“Meaning?” You ask.

“Meaning, my blood stays in me. So looks like you’re out of luck.” You and Sam sigh.

“Great,” Sam says. “So we just need to go find another demon?”

“I guess,” you reply. “I’m sure there is bound to be one somewhere. One that isn’t under Crowley’s protection.” You think about how the demons have been off the radar for some time now due to the king of hell’s new arrangements.

“Such a shame. That is… unless…” Crowley taunts.

“Unless what?” You ask.

“See, there are some demons that aren’t great fans of me, nor I them. Let’s just say I know where they are and I’ve got my eyes set on some hunters that could take care of it no problem.”

“If you want them dead then why don’t you just kill them yourself?” Sam asks.

“Like I said, they aren’t fans of me. They have certain precautions set against me that I am unable to infiltrate. Or any other demon under my reign.” Crowley looks at you and Sam as you think about his offer. Find some demons, kill some demons.

“What’s the catch?”

“No catch. This will be beneficial for the both of us. Win, win. But,” Crowley pauses to smile, “I do want to see him first.”

“See who?” You ask.

“Who do you think, mouse? Squirrel. I want to see what's wrong with him. Tell me, is he still alive?” Crowley laughs a little. Sam rolls his eyes and reluctantly leaves to go get Dean. “So, what’s wrong with him?”

“He’s under a spell,” you answer grimly.

“Oh? What type? A murderous spree one?”

“No. It’s a love spell,” you say regretful.

“Really?! Who is he in love with?” Crowley laughs.

“Me,” you mumble causing Crowley to laugh even more.

“Mouse and squirrel. Brilliant!”

“Oh shut up. You’re just jealous that it’s not you two,” you retort.

“I’m just pleased to see that you’re so desperate that you thought it best to call me. The situation must be dire.” Crowley smirks.

Sam walks in with Dean.

“There,” Sam says as he signals to Dean. “Here he is. Now tell us where the demons are.”

“Not so fast, moose,” Crowley responds. “I want to take this in. Dean Winchester, smitten with love.”

“Go to hell,” Dean replies.

“I’d love to. So, Dean, does it make you mad that the gang are trying to cure the spell?” Crowley moves around in the devils trap.

“No,” Dean says without hesitation.

“Really? Does it make you mad that Y/N doesn’t want you?”

“No,” Dean says with a little hesitation.

“Ah,” Crowley moves around more. You’re too focused on Dean to notice how close Crowley is to you. “Does it make you mad if I were to--” Crowley grips your arm, pulling you into the devils trap with him. He puts an angel blade up to your neck so that the boys wouldn’t attempt to come closer. “Do this?” He continues as he starts to cut into your neck. You wince at the pain but do your best to remain steady.

“Stop it, Crowley!” Dean commands.

“How about, if I do this?” Crowley takes his hand and brushes your hair from your head and kisses your neck. You stand still, disgusted but not worried. You know that he won’t kill you. He’s only trying to toy with Dean which he appears to be doing successfully.

“Stop it,” Dean says as tears start to form in his eyes. Crowley continues to kiss your neck. “Stop it.” Dean’s voice breaks. “Please,” he says with a scared tone, “quit it.”

“Interesting.” Crowley pulls away from you. “I like that you like her, Dean. It’s quite funny to see you scared and afraid for this pathetic little human.” Crowley makes another cut in your arm just for fun. Dean stares at Crowley with a murderous look. Sam holds him back just in case Crowley gets to him. “Why don’t you let me out of the devils trap, love. Then I’ll tell you where they are.”

“Yeah,” you struggle to say. He keeps the knife to you as you break the devils trap.

“Good. Now that wasn’t so hard, was it?” Crowley laughs. He then takes out a pen and writes an address on your arm, making sure to press extra hard.

“That’s it?” Sam asks.

“That’s it. Goodbye boys,” Crowley looks at you, “and girl.”

He disappears.

Dean races over to you and looks at all the cuts. “Are you okay?” He asks.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just need a band aid or two.” You smile, trying to ease him.

“Good.” Dean gives you a quick hug then turns you over to Sam who writes down the address.

“Okay,” Sam says. “I’ve got it and if you’re good then I say we knock this out before the sun goes down.” You and Dean both give a nod.

----------------------

“This is a trap right?” You ask the brothers.

You were parked in the car outside an empty warehouse where the supposed demons are. It was just you, Sam, and Dean. Cas was still on his way back from the playground but would hopefully get back in time to do the cure. This was a trap.

“Yeah,” Sam replies. “It’s a definite trap.”

“I mean, if Crowley wanted these goons dead and couldn't’ kill them?” Dean says. “Then there must be some sort of deadly defense.”

“Great,” you add. “Best way to start the day by most likely getting ambushed.”

“You ready?” Sam asks.

“Ready as I’ll ever be. Piece of cake, right?”

It was not a piece of cake.

---------------------

You and Sam took the southeast entrance as Dean went to the southwest one. It was a big warehouse to be housing just a couple of demons. You were hoping and praying that it was just a couple. But you knew that you were wrong.

“What do you see?” You whispered to Sam who was peering through a window.

“Nothing. It’s empty,” he responds looking confused.

“How is there nothing?”

“I don’t know. I just don’t see anything.”

“Why does this feel more and more like a trap?” You thought aloud. “You go inside and I’ll go check out the upstairs room,” you order.

“Okay. Be careful.”

Sam walked into the main room of the warehouse as you walked upstairs into an old control room.

“What the hell?” You asked yourself as you opened the door.

It was a room filled with dead bodies. Demons most likely. The smell of sulfur wreaked. The bodies were lying in a pile but there was something else. There was a weird looking machine. It was connected to some sort of altar. The machine looked supernatural. It seemed to be a new addition to the warehouse. The altar that it was connected to was gold and covered in blood. It had sigils and markings all over it.

“Guess I know what the defense against Crowley was,” you say to yourself.

You looked to see that the room was completely empty before you examined the machine. No one was in the room. Just you and what looked like a miniature doomsday device. It started to hum so you walked closer to it. You kept your finger on the trigger of your gun as you moved closer and closer to the altar and machinery. A quick flash of white light went off around the room.

Boom

“Y/N!” Sam yelled out. He bolted out of the room to race over to you.

“Not so fast fella,” a demon said as he stopped Sam in his tracks.

“Get out of my way!” Sam pulled the trigger just as another demon came up to hit the gun out of his hand. Sam reached for his angel blade just as he was met by another demon. Three against one.

“Looks like big Winchester here is out of his defenses,” one demon said with a sneer.

“Not quite,” Sam said as he started to punch and hit the three devils as they ganged up on him.

Punch. Kick. Hit. Duck. Punch. Slit. Kick. Hit.

Sam kept his own for about two minutes until they decided that enough was enough and began to use their own human blades.

“Dean!” Sam continued to call out. The demons had him pinned down and kept slicing and dicing into his skin.

“Oh, no!” The demons taunted. “Big bro is dealing with our own brothers. And let's just say they aren’t as fun as we are!” They chuckled as Sam continued to call for backup.

“Sammy!” Dean screamed out as he had four problems of his own.

Dean was fighting hand to hand with the demons. They didn’t have any weapons and it helped that the bodies that they were possessing weren't the strongest. Without any weapons, the boys were fighting a never ending battle. They had been fighting for minutes. Getting beat for minutes.

Damn Crowley.

He knew there were a plethora of demons and lied about it. He didn’t lie about the whole win win situation though. Either we get killed or they do. Works out in his favor both ways.

“Dean!” Sam continued to call out. He kept screaming and struggling to break free. He needed some backup. And no offense to Dean but, he was getting his ass whooped.

“Sam! I need some backup!” Dean kept trying to dodge and punch but to no avail.

“I can’t!”

“Where’s Y/N?!”

An idea came into Sam’s mind. A crazy idea.

“They have her, Dean! They’re about to kill her! She needs you to save her, Dean!”

That old murderous look entered Dean’s eyes. This time, he wasn’t going to try to kill Sam.

No one gets in between him and Y/N.

“No!” Dean screamed at the top of his lungs. He gained a source of brute strength as he hit the skulls and snapped the necks of the demons. He killed one after another. He stabbed them with the demon blade and made his way over to Sam.

“Hey big guy!” Said a demon whose life ended with those being his last words. Dean threw his through a wall and made his way to the two that had Sam pinned down. He sliced through the back of one and cut the throat of another.

“Where is she?!” Dean shouted, sending shivers down Sam’s almost broken spine.

“Up--Upstairs,” Sam said as he picked himself off the floor.

Dean rushed up the stairs to see the shattered glass and smoke surrounding the blast site.

“Y/N?!” Dean called out as he made his way through the pile of dead demons. “Y/N?!” He called out again. He made his way to the altar and found you.

You laid lifeless. Bleeding out. Shards of glass in your skin and your hair. You were motionless in a puddle of your own blood.

“No,” Dean said under his breath as he raced down to pick you up. “No, no, no, no.” He knelt down and pulled you off the ground. “No.” He moved the hair from your face. He was getting painted with your blood as he examined your wounds. “No,” he said again as his voice cracked.

“Dean?!” Sam called out as he managed to make it upstairs. “Dean!”

“No,” Dean said again as he pulled you close to him as tears streamed down his face.

“Dean!” Sam said with a smile as he found his brother. He looked at him confused as to what he had in his hands. When the sight set in that it was you, wounded, and lifeless you, his smile faded into a look of despair. “Is she…”

Dean started to sob as he gripped you tighter and tighter. Tight enough to make you start to gasp.

“Y/N?!” Dean said as he loosened his grip. Sam rushed down to the two of you as he checked your pulse.

“She’s still breathing!”

“Y/N?!” Dean started to shake you.

You tried to open your eyes but they refused to widen. You started to choke on your blood as it overflowed your mouth.

“Tilt her down!” Sam ordered so you could cough up the blood.

You struggled to breathe. Everything hurt. Your head, your body, your throat, your eyes. It was awful.

“Y/N?! Hey, hey, hey, stay with us!” Sam ordered as he saw you going in and out of it.

“Y/N, stay with me,” Dean said with teary eyes and broken words. He continued to brush your hair back and away from the dried and sticky blood. “Stay with me.”

“Dean, we’ve got to get her out of here. To a hospital.” Sam looked at Dean as he remained frozen in shack and fear. “Dean!”

“Yeah, yeah.” Dean nodded. “Listen, Y/N, I’m gonna pick you up and it’s gonna hurt. It’s gonna hurt a lot but it’s gonna be okay.” Dean reached down as he picked you up slowly and gently.

You whined and cried. You were unable to do anything more. It hurt. Everything hurt.

“It’s okay,” you heard Dean say with his trembling voice. He managed to completely lift you off the ground. “Sam, pull the car around,” Dean ordered. Sam nodded and rushed back down the stairs where you were soon having to follow.

You opened your eyes again to see bloodied and wet eyed Dean. You tried to speak but couldn’t. You couldn’t even cry. Everything hurt.

“Shh,” Dean said, trying to console you. “I just need you to stay with me. This is gonna hurt a lot but you gotta stay with me, Y/N.”

You tried to nod your head but were unable.

Dean slowly carried you through and out the door. You could feel as he took the first step down the stairs. It hurt like hell. He tried to be gentle when stepping down but it didn’t help that he had just gone head to head with a bunch of demons.

“It’s okay,” he said to you as he stepped down each step. It was awful. It hurt.

-------------------

“I got her,” Sam said as Dean passed your body to him as Dean got in the backseat of the impala.

“He…” You tried to say something. Anything. You were in too much pain.

“It’s okay, Y/N. I’ve got you,” Sam said as he held you in his arms. “It’s okay.”

“Come on,” Dean said as he reached for you as Sam put you in the backseat beside his brother.

You grunted out more in pain.

“Shh, shh, shh. I’m right here,” Dean said as he straightened you out in the seat. “I’m right here.”

Your eyes began to flutter again. The pain was too much. You started to pass out.

“Hey, hey! Stay with me!” Dean shouted. You could see Dean’s face. It was the last thing you saw as your eyes closed and your body went into sleep.

-----------------

You were drowsy. Still in pain. It hurt less. You hurt less. It felt funny. You opened your eyes to see the big bright lights.

“Woah,” you mumbled out. You looked to find yourself wrapped up in all sorts of things.

“Hey!” You heard someone call. “Sam!”

“Wha--Where am I?” You asked.

Two men came to your side. You could barely see. The room smelt like jello.

“Y/N?” The cute one asked.

“What? Who are you?” You responded.

“Y/N, it’s me, Dean.”

“Hi, Dean. I’m uh… uh… I’m hungry.” You tilted your head over to see a giant. “Woah!” You shouted. You’ve never seen a giant before.

“Y/N?” The giant asked.

Your eyes went wide. The giant was speaking to you. You stared at the giant and the cute guy.

“Am I at a Chippendales?” You questioned.

“No,” the cute one replied. “Y/N, you’re in a hospital. Remember? The warehouse? The demons?”

“Oh,” you said. “That explains the giant.” You nodded.

“What?” The giant asked with a confused look on its face.

“Don’t you know that your dad’s a demon?” You mentioned.

“Y/N, what are you talking about?” The giant spoke again.

“In the big book, the one with the whore, it says that giants are the spawns of demons and women.”

“What?!” Giant looked at you oddly.

“Your mom is a slut. Your dad is a demon.” You smile, proud that you know things.

“Hey,” the cute one spoke, “I think the drugs are messing with you. It’s me and Sam.”

“No you’re not! You said your name was Dave!”

“No, my name is Dean. His name is Sam,” he points to goliath. “And your name is Y/N.”

“So this isn’t Chippendales? Which one of you is Mike?”

“Listen,” the giant grabbed your normal sized human hand, “Y/N, you are on medication and it's making you loopy. Okay? You aren’t at a Chippendales. You got hurt, Y/N. You’re at a hospital. Cas is heading here so he can fix you. You just got to hang on for a little while longer.”

You looked at the giant and the cute one for a moment. You smiled and they smiled. “I wasn’t listening. Sorry.”

“Sam,” the cute one called, “go get the doctor.”

Goliath went out to find David. The cute guy pulled up a chair to your bed and sat really close to you. He looked sad. His face was wet and it looked like he used non washable red paint on it. He took your hand and held it in his.

“Are you Mike?” You asked.

He smiled and laughed a little. “Yeah, I’m uh, I’m Mike.”

“I knew it.”

“Yes, you did.”

“I have to tell you something,” you whisper.

“What?” He leans in closer to you.

“I don’t have any ones.” You sigh.

“It’s okay,” he says with a smile. He’s crying. He looks really sad.

“Why are you sad, Dave?”

“I’m sad because someone who I love very much is in a lot of pain. And I’m in a lot of pain. More pain than I should be because I love that person very much. I’m very sad because I almost lost that person today.”

“Oh,” you nod.

“Yeah.” The cute man wipes his eyes.

“Welp, I’m glad you found them cause from the looks of it, you wouldn’t last very long without them.”

Cute man looks at you like he’s thinking.

Then the giant comes in with a tin man.

Tin man makes giant and cute man leave.

Then giant and cute man makes the tin man leave.

An odd man comes into the room.

“Y/N?” The odd man asks.

“Who are you?” You ask him.

“Cas, is she… okay?” Cute boy asks.

“If you mean is she suffering from actual memory problems, then no. This is a side effect from the drugs,” the odd man answers.

“It was him!” You point to goliath. “He drugged me! He’s a demon and slut spawn!”

“What?” Odd man asks. “No, Sam is not a demon and he was not the one to drug you.”

“How do you know?!”

“I know because I’m an angel.”

“What? What?! Mike!” You call out. Mike comes over. “Dave, did you know about this?”

“Yeah,” the cute guy answers.

“This Chippendales has some weird fetishes.”

“Sure,” goliath says with a chuckle. “Cas, can you fix her?”

“Mostly,” the odd man responds. “It was a magical type bomb so it works differently. I can heal the majority. It will have to be in segments though. And she won’t have remembered the past five hours at least.”

“Good,” the cute boy says. “Just make it happen.”

The odd angel comes over and puts his fingers on your head.

“I’m getting touched by an angel!” You shout. “Best day ev--”

Dun

------------------

You move a bit then jolt up and open your eyes.

“What the hell?!” You shout. You look around and are in the infirmary.

“Y/N?!” Dean says as he rushes over with Sam. “Are you alright?”

“I think?! What the hell happened?! I was in the car five seconds ago!”

“Right,” Sam said. “Well um,” he clears his throat, “we all went into the warehouse and it was a trap.”

“We haven’t gone to the warehouse yet?”

“Yes, we have,” Dean replies. “It was a trap and there was a bomb and you got hurt. Cas healed you though.”

“What?”

“It’s okay, I mean, you're all good now.” Sam said. “Right?”

“Yeah, I think. Is that why I can’t remember anything or know what the hell you’re talking about?”

“Yes. But good news,” Sam looked at you and Dean, “Cas got a demon and we’ve got the rest of the ingredients for the cure.”

“Great!” You say, lying to yourself and them. “That’s great.”

“Yeah,” Dean says.

“I’m gonna go get it ready if you guys are good?” Sam asks. You and Dean both nod as Sam leaves.

“How long was I out?” You ask.

“A day or two.”

“What?! Geez. A freaking bomb?”

“Yep.”

“Well that’s a new one.”

“Definitely,” Dean says. He pauses for a moment to look at you. “Are you alright, Y/N?”

“To be honest,” you take a breath. “I feel funny. Not really in pain but I feel like I got hit by a bomb, actually.” You laugh a little.

You look at Dean. It looks different, again. He went back to his stubble look. He doesn’t look as pale as he was. He still has dark circles. He looks tired and depressed-like. He just looks so sad and in pain.

“Are you okay, Dean?” You ask.

He takes a deep breath and looks at you with sorrowful eyes. “I’m just--I just need the cure.”

“What do you mean?” You ask, afraid that even with the spell, Dean, the real Dean was already beginning to not love you anymore.

“I can’t.” Dean starts to have tears fall down his face. “I love you, so much, and if I lost you, I wouldn’t last long. This curse, it’s, it’s amazing but seeing you like this… seeing you on the brink of death… I can’t control myself. I just have to get that uncontrollability fixed. I have to get it fixed so that I can just love you and that’s it. I just want to keep loving you and once I get cured, I’ll only love you.”

You smile at Dean and take his hand. A single unnoticed tear slips down your face.

“I know,” you lie through your teeth. “I know.”

------------------

“Alright,” Sam says as he mixes the ingredients together. “Now this,” he says as he takes the demon blood and pours it in the pot with the other ingredients.

You are at Dean’s bedside in the infirmary. He is gripping on to your hand ever so tightly. You, Sam, and Cas are choosing to ignore the tears that are streaming down Dean’s face or the fact that he is shaking. You try to smile and console him but truthfully, you need someone to console you.

He was never gonna talk to you again. He was gonna kick you out of the bunker. He’d never talk to you again. You might work with Cas and Sam for a while. That is until they decide to leave you too. There’s no way that Dean would just be alright with everything that's happened. It may not be your fault but this was all your problem. Dean opened up to you. He trusted you, loved you. As soon as he gets the cure he’ll either give you the silent treatment or just tell you to head for the door.

You were dreading the worse.

“Ready?” Sam asks.

“Yeah,” Dean nods.

“Y/N, are you ready?”

“Wh--Yeah,” you clear your throat, “yeah.”

Sam starts to mumble some Latin as Cas cuts his hand and bleeds it over the pot. You look to Dean as he looks at you, terrified, scared. Without thinking, you lean over to him and give him a kiss on his forehead. He nods his head at you as to offer himself and you some type of reassurance.

“It’s all gonna be okay,” you mouth out as Sam stops his speech.

Dean closes his eyes and goes into an unconscious state. His chest rises up and down as he grunts in pain. He moves around in the bed as his hand still grips to yours. I

t stops.

This was it. Time to lose Dean forever.

Dean gasps as he opens his eyes and looks in shock.

“What th--” He turns to you and Sam and Cas. He takes his hand away from yours.

Maybe he just let go of your hand by accident.

“Dean?” Cas asks. “Are you alright?”

“I uh,” Dean shakes his head. “I think?” His voice sounds normal. He looks like normal Dean. Tense, but still normal. “What um,” he looks at you almost disgusted like, “what happened?”

“Well,” Sam starts to speak up, “Do you remember the curse? You got hit with a love curse.”

“Right.” Dean sits up in the bed and continues to look at you oddly and then looks towards Sam. “Who was I in love with?”

Sam laughs a little thinking that Dean was just worried about who he was making moves on. “Y/N. You were under a spell to love her.”

“Y/N?” Dean says. “Yuck.”

You laugh it off. He didn’t mean it.

“I mean, Y/N? Really?” Dean asks, Sam nods. “God, that must’ve been a strong spell to make me love some worthless piece of trash like you.”

It shattered.

“What?” You mumble through a nervous smile.

“‘What?’ You mean you don’t agree with you being a piece of trash? I’m sorry, I meant a hag. Oh no, sorry, I meant a whore. A slut. A stupid skank who is useless and pathetic.”

“Dean?” Sam asks. “What are you doing?”

“Sam, I’m just trying to tell this stupid insignificant bottom dwelling disease what she is.” Dean looks at you with more disgust. You stare frozen.

It wasn’t that bad. You didn’t think of this reaction but it’s probably temporary.

You stand up as Dean stands up after you.

“You hear that?” Dean says as he starts to back you up in the corner. “Do you understand what I’m saying or are you to dumb? Cause if you do then let me continue. You are a bitch. A witch. You are the worst person on earth and to be in love with you is to be in love with Satan himself.”

“Dean,” Sam says as he pushes Dean away from you, “knock it off.” Sam looks at Dean confused. You all were. But not Dean. He kept the shots coming.

“No Sam! She deserves to know how god awful she is!” Dean pushes Sam back which gets Cas interested.

“Dean?!” Cas yells.

“You are worthless! You are nothing! You are some bastard that doesn’t even deserve to live!” Dean moves over to pick up a gun. He aims it at you. “Let me give you mercy.”

“No!” Sam shouts as Dean fires the trigger. Cas got in front of you before it could hit you. Sam took the gun out of Deans hands and started to fight with him.

“Fine! I don’t need some gun to end this maggot’s life!” Dean yells. Now Sam and Cas were both holding Dean back.

You ran out from the infirmary, trying to get away. You could still hear him.

“You should be dead! It should’ve been you! You killed your parents!”

You raced up the stairs. You weren’t quick enough.

“It was your fault they died! You killed them! It was all your fault you piece of sh-”

Slam

—————————————————————————————————————————

Hope you enjoyed it!

Tag list is open!

@crazybutconfidentaf @doctorlilo @pillowjj @busy-bee-angel-misska @vicmc624 @sl33pybo1

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solange-lol · 5 years

Text

got to get you into my life

AUctober Day 13 - High School AU (check out @solangeloweek for prompts)

Words: 2,836

Read on Ao3

Will Solace walked into the coffee shop on the corner of a road he’s never been down. It’s a little place called The Silver Kettle. He wasn’t surprised to see it was already full of students with laptops and textbooks, cradling cups of coffee like it’s their lifeline.

He was hoping that, since he had never heard of it, much less been there, that it might be emptier than the various Starbucks and libraries in and near his town. Unfortunately for him, not even going to study in the next town over can help him escape the hell that is midterms.

Will’s tests were scheduled twice a day, leading up to Christmas break, and had taken the courageous decision to not start studying yet. It was currently a Thursday, and his first two tests, Chemistry and Latin, were scheduled for that coming Monday. Which meant that Will was running out of time.

He spotted one open chair at what appeared to be an empty table, towards the back of the shop. He quickly pays for a large hot chocolate and a blueberry muffin (+1 point for the rainbow flag that was hanging on the wall behind the counter) and makes his way over there before the seat gets taken.

Will realizes, though, as he approaches the table, that he was wrong. Nearly blending in with the dark wood from the wall was a kid dressed in all black with dark hair. The boy had earbuds in, and like most of the other students, had a pile of notebooks, textbooks, and an accordion folder that was overflowing with study guides and miscellaneous paper. The other chairs must have been taken and added to other tables for study groups because only the kid’s chair, and the chair that Will was planning to take remained at the table.

Will knew that, realistically, the boy wouldn’t care if he sat down and worked too, or at the very least would understand. Still, his heart pounded as he set down his cup on the table.

The boy glanced up for a moment, pulling an earbud out as Will opened his mouth to speak.

“Hey, uh, sorry. There’s only one seat left and I really need to study. Can I…?” he gestured towards the empty chair.

The boy just nodded, already putting his earbud back in. Will breathed a sigh of relief. Shrugging his heavy backpack and placing it down with a thud. He opened it, getting out his chemistry textbook, trying to put off his Latin work as long as possible.

After an hour or so, though, Will felt like he was drowning in element names and conversion equations. He still didn’t want to attempt his Latin work yet, so he procrastinated by fooling around on his phone for a while.

Eventually, as his phone battery dropped lower, as did his study time for the day before he had to get home, he decided to bite the bullet and pulled out his Latin notebook.

Latin was his first period class, meaning if he wasn’t half-asleep, he was probably joking around with Lou Ellen in the back of their class. (Giving into her requests was probably his biggest weakness; he probably should have just stuck with taking French).

“Is that Latin?” The boy across from Will spoke, startling him and snapping him out of his trance down at the paper. For the first time, Will got a good look at his face.

He had olive-toned skin with a slender jaw and chocolate eyes that shone like broken glass. His hair, so dark it was nearly black, was wavy with curls that hung in front of his eyes and around his ears.

He was gorgeous.

And he was also waiting for Will to answer his question.

“Huh? Oh, yeah, it is,” Will replied, shaking his head. “I’m completely useless at it though.”

“I could help you out if you want?” the boy offered. “Is it for a midterm?”

“Yeah, on Monday,” Will managed. It felt like his heart had leapt into his throat. “Do you take Latin too?”

The boy flushed slightly. “Oh, um, no, not exactly. Not anymore, at least,” he said shyly, shrugging as he spoke. “My dad made me learn it when I was younger.”

Will wanted to accept his invitation. He wanted nothing more than to spend the next few hours sitting next to this kid, working up the courage to ask for his number. Unfortunately, one glance at his phone confirmed that he really needed to get going soon.

“Can I take you up on that offer another day?” Will asked with a slight wince. “I really need to get home soon, but we could meet here tomorrow, same time if you can? I’ll buy you a coffee of a muffin or whatever you want-” Will rambled on, but was interrupted by the boy laughing.

“Tomorrow is fine, um-” he said with another smile, then paused as Will realized he had never introduced himself.

“Will. Will Solace,” he said quickly

Nico smiled again, practically glowing in the soft afternoon sunlight that seeped through the window. “Nico di Angelo,” he said, sticking out a hand. Will stopped packing up his bag so he could shake it.

“See you tomorrow, Solace,” Nico said as they both stepped out of the building. He waved as he began to walk in the opposite direction of Will’s car.

Will just stood and waved back, catching one last glance of that smile before he turned around.

~~~

“So what you’re telling me is you flirted with some guy, planned a date, and then forgot to ask for his number?” Lou Ellen asks in a louder voice than necessary as they walked to lunch.

“Lou, be quiet, ” he hissed as a few heads turned to glance at them. He was out to essentially the entire school, but that didn’t mean they needed to know the details of his failed love life.

It was true, Will had realized that once he had gotten home. Now with no way to communicate with Nico, (Will had already searched for his Instagram,) he just had to pray that Nico would show up today.

“Besides, we didn’t flirt. And it’s not a date,” Will added as they sat down. “He just happens to be incredibly cute and also incredibly skilled in Latin.”

“Mhm,” Lou Ellen raised an eyebrow, taking a bite of her granola bar as she stared him down.

Will glared at her, trying to push away the heat spreading in his cheeks as he stabbed his salad with his fork. “Shut up.”

“I didn’t say anything,” she held up her hands in surrender. “Just, next time you find love at a coffee shop, make sure you bring me along.”

~~~

“I wasn’t sure if you were going to show up,” Will said, sliding an iced coffee across the table per Nico’s request. “But I’m glad you did.”

The shop was a little emptier than it was the previous day, which was good after Nico came nearly ten minutes after they had originally planned to meet. Though, to be fair, there was never really a set time.

Nico smiled. “Well, I did need a new charity case.” At Will’s glare, he just grinned wider. “I’m kidding! It’s not like I use my Latin skills on a daily basis. Only to help hopeless blonde boys who have terrible taste in baked goods.”

Will looked up from his muffin. (They were good, okay?) to see Nico wrinkling his nose. “What do you have against blueberry muffins?”

Nico rolled his eyes, ignoring Will’s question. “Let’s just get started.”

Their shoulders brushed as Nico sat down next to him, and sparks spread up Will’s arm and through his body.

Why did he think this would be a good idea?

~~~

Two hours and one muffin later, Will’s head was spinning.

Nico was still scanning Will’s notes (“your handwriting is atrocious, Solace,”) seemingly unfazed. “How would you say-”

“Can we take a break?” Will asked, rubbing his eyes.

Nico gave him a look. “Didn’t you say your test is on Monday?”

“Yeah, but,” Will took a deep breath, stretching as he did so. “If I have to conjugate another verb I think I’m gonna lose it.”

Nico didn’t look entirely convinced; nevertheless, he closed Will’s notebook.

Will leaned back in his chair. “Wanna play twenty questions?”

Nico’s eyebrows furrowed, but an amused smile spread across his face. After a moment, he replied “Sure.”

“Alright. How many languages do you know?”

Nico laughed. “I don’t think this is how twenty questions works”

“Too bad. Answer the question,” Will smiled.

“Define know,” Nico asked.

“Know as in you can say at least two sentences in it.”

Nico looked up at the ceiling for a moment; he appeared to be counting on his fingers quietly. After a moment, he looked back at Will. “Six.”

Will look dumbfounded. “No way. What languages?”

“English, obviously, and then my mother was from Italy so I grew up learning Italian, my father made me learn Latin, I was required to take Spanish at school for eight years, I’m learning Greek now, and I’m in the ASL club at my school,” Nico listed off.

Will just sat there, wide-eyed. Of course, the beautiful kid he met at a random coffee shop was also extremely smart. Life wasn’t fair like that, and yet amazing at the same time.

“What about you?” Nico asked.

Will shrugged. “English. Some French, though I kind of forget a lot. Clearly not Latin. And I know a few ASL words, not enough to really know it.”

“Just enough to curse at friends without teachers or parents knowing what you’re saying?” Nico grinned, his head now leaning on his hand as he leaned closer to Will. It was intoxicating.

Will grinned, almost breathless. “Exactly.”

They continued to go back and forth as Will asked the next question. “Favorite subject?”

“English. You?”

“Chemistry. And stop copying my questions. Least favorite subject?”

“Creative, Solace. Math. What do you want to do with your life?”

“Medicine, probably. Or maybe some sort of teacher. You?”

“I thought we weren’t copying questions. And I have literally no idea. Any pets?”

“A dog. Can I have your number?”

They both stopped short at Will’s question. Nico’s face flushed as Will tried to figure out where the heck that confidence came from.

Will coughed. “In case I need a Latin tutor for finals, I mean.”

“Oh! Um, yeah, of course,” Nico nodded, and Will noticed some of his smile fades. Nevertheless, he held out his phone for Nico.

“So, um, should we get back to studying before they kick us out of here?” Nico asked, handing Will’s phone back.

~~~

Will had been back to The Silver Kettle a few times after his midterm was over. Each time he saw Nico, but the boy was so wrapped up in his schoolwork that he didn’t want to bother him. And, yeah, he could have texted him, but Will couldn’t ever work up the courage to do it. He wanted to see Nico in person again.

(And he had to do it soon before the store ran him broke. To be fair, their blueberry muffins were really good.)

“Why are you coming with me again?” Will sighed Lou Ellen as they walked across the street towards the shop.

“Because you'll wimp out if I don’t. And if you don’t do it now, then Nico is going to think you’re some sort of weirdo stalker.” Lou Ellen linked their arms. “And because I would love to find someone to tutor me. I do need some help in Chemistry.”

Will shoved her slightly. “I could help you with Chemistry.”

“Yeah, but it wouldn’t be half as fun as finding my true love in a random coffee shop.”

They unlinked their arms just in time to step into the shop together. Once again, Will immediately spotted Nico in the corner, once again at the same abandoned table. Hardly anyone was there this time, due to midterms being almost completely over, but the boy was still hunched over a notebook.

“Is that him?” Lou Ellen whispered. Will just nodded, shoving his hands into his coat pockets. “Well then what are you waiting for?” she asked, shoving him towards Nico. Will glanced back with fear in his eyes, but Lou just winked at him before getting on line.

Will took a deep breath, walking towards the table. Nico looked up once he got close, eyes sparkling as he pulled his earbuds out, much like when they first met. “To what do I owe the honor, Solace? I thought you were avoiding me.”

“No, um, not avoiding you,” Will said, laughing nervously. “Just busy. I got an 88 on my Latin midterm.”

“Hm. That probably could’ve been better if you actually paid attention while we were studying,” Nico said with an amused smile as he sipped his coffee.

“I don’t know about that. I was expecting a 70, so I really appreciate you helping me.”

“You’re welcome,” Nico smiled. “I guess this means you won’t need a tutor for your final?”

“Oh no, I definitely will. Plus, we never finished our game of twenty questions,” Will pointed out.

“You are right about that.”

“But, um,” Will took a deep breath. “I was thinking we could finish our game before that. Maybe somewhere besides this place? We could go out to lunch or something?”

Nico looked up, cheeks turning red all the way up to his ears. “Like a date?”

Will nodded. “Yeah, a date. Is that a yes”

“Yes. That would be good,” Nico smiled.

“Cool. I’ll text you. See you later, Nico.”

“Later, Will.”

Lou Ellen followed him on the way out, handing him a cup of hot chocolate on the way out. “Did you do it?”

“Yeah,” Will smiled. “Yeah, I did it.”

~~~

Six months later, Will found himself stepping into The Silver Kettle once again with a backpack full of study guides and textbooks. Though, this time, he knew he had someone waiting for him.

“Took you long enough,” Nico rolled his eyes as he slid iced tea and a muffin across the table to Will. Now with the June weather, it was too warm for Will to be ordering hot chocolate. However, blueberry muffins fit every season.

Nico still wrinkled his nose at them. It was only a few weeks into their relationship that he admitted he despised any sort of baked fruit, which Will stored away for later. Now he just smiled contently at his boyfriend.

“You do realize we still have to study, right?” Nico asked as he opened his laptop, glasses already perched on his nose. (It took a few months for him to get comfortable wearing them around Will, who thought he looked adorable.) “Your Latin final isn’t going to pass itself, and neither is my Chem exam.”

Will grinned wider. “Hold on,” he said, whipping out his phone to take a picture of the two of them. Nico pretended to scowl as he flipped off the camera.

Once Will checked the photo, he laughed. “Hey! Can’t you do one nice one?”

Nico shook his head. “Nope, sorry.”

“You’re mean,” Will frowned, but there was no real sadness behind it. “Don’t you know that we met exactly six months ago?”

Nico smiled. “Yeah, and your Latin hasn’t improved at all.”

“Hey! At least now I’m passing!”

“Thanks to my help,” Nico pointed out, and Will just leaned over to kiss him. If they were anywhere else, Nico wouldn’t have let him (he wasn’t the biggest fan of PDA, although they did hold hands all the time). By this point, though, they were regulars at The Silver Kettle that nobody who worked there paid attention, much less cared.

“Should we play twenty questions in honor of us meeting?” Nico asked.

“Technically we didn’t play twenty questions until sixth months ago tomorrow,” Will said, to which Nico rolled his eyes. “But if it means we can put off studying, then of course. You go first.”

“Okay, if you had to get a tattoo of something right now, what would you get?”

Will smiled. “Your face.”

“You would not.”

“You’re right, I wouldn't,” Will laughed. “But it is a very pretty face.”

“Well thank you-” Nico started to say, but Will interrupted.

“Okay, my turn. I love you.”

This time around, Nico didn’t hesitate to speak. “You didn’t answer my question. And that’s not a question either,” he as pink spread across his cheeks.

“But?”

“But, I love you too,” Nico said, surprising Will when he leaned over to kiss him. When they broke apart, Nico spoke again. “Now answer my question, or I’ll start quizzing you on Latin vocab.”

Will grinned. “A blueberry muffin.”

“Shut up. I take it back, I hate you.” Nico said, failing to hide a smile.

“No, you don’t” Will kissed his cheek.

“No,” Nico said, pulling him into another kiss that tasted of blueberries. “No, I don’t.”

~~~

Thanks for reading! Solangelo tag list below! (Message me to be added/removed! Sorry if I missed you, I forget to update this list)

@internallyexplodingrainbows @aleclight-ofmylife-wood @unicornsgomooo @anxiouswinter @soulangelou @number-of-fucks-i-give-0 @underworldystuff @theeloquentsnake @solangelover@thefandomsaretakingover @internallyexplodingrainbows @hairasuntouchedaspartoftheamazon @motivatedcryptidtamer @emilyfairchild @wherethewildthingsare-nt @my-face-is-a-potato @hetapeep41 @blavk-dahlia

#solangelo #nico di angelo #will solace #heros of olympus #pjo #auctober #liz writes.com

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philmunsey · 4 years

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Our Sanctuary of Secrets

Shhhhhh. We all have secrets. For some of us, our secrets have us. Secrets are not just private tales we tell. Secrets have consequences, for good or the not so good. Listen to what Christ said about secrets in LUKE 12:2 “Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. Therefore whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in private rooms shall be proclaimed on the housetops!”

You might be thinking, I don’t want anyone to hear my secrets. And when we read that verse you might be under the impression that God is a tattletale. You would be mistaken. That’s not the point. What IS the point - is that secrets whispered in our SANCTUARY are not compartmentalized in a separate isolated place. There isn’t a wall between our private secrets and what gets publicly shouted on the rooftop! The connection is real. The secret to our success IS our secrets! Let’s not be intimidated, but rather inspired that the pure and positive thoughts we meditate and give attention to will indeed manifest. So what is a secret? When we say, Our “Sanctuary of Secrets,”what do we mean? Well, a secret is our premeditated thoughts and images, it’s our inner dialogue that we record and listen to over and over again. Secrets are like seeds. Every thought and image is a seed that grows when nurtured and nourished. Like a seed that remains private underground - as the roots go down, the fruit comes up - be it good or bad! Secrets have consequences. This is why I try to pause before I THINK. You read right. By the time I speak - my secrets have already taken root. I must pay attention to my innermost thoughts. To think about what I’m thinking about. These are my secrets! Nothing done in secret remains secret, but will be revealed.

Years ago my wife Jeannie and I were on a diet. Each day we would account to one another what we had eaten. Both of us were losing a little weight everyday. But I was preaching a three night series of services in Los Angeles. As I would drive home each night I had to pass an “In and Out burger” restaurant. The first night I passed with but a pause. A selah moment. The second night I slowed down just enough to perhaps but smell the fresh double-patty, double-cheese,”secret-sauce” cheeseburger from the famous number #1 combo, which includes fresh cut fries from a whole potato straight into the fryer...Hmmmm. I knew if I stopped and gave in to the temptation I would have to be accountable and pay the consequences. It was weighty decision. The third night I decided it wouldn’t hurt to get off the exit and watch others enjoy what I knew I shouldn’t. I would just ease on down the road observing. Well, as I slowly drove by, I must have blacked out! The next thing I knew I was in line and being asked, “how can I help you?” “Uh!” I changed my voice and responded, “I’ll take a number one combo with a Diet Coke” I so enjoyed it! Guilt could not spoil my delight. Or at least until I finished! Then it hit me. How would I account for this secret-sin? Could I hide the evidence and pretend it never happened? As I pulled into the garage late that night, I decided to hide my sin. I took the evidence and not only did I throw it away, I stuffed the evidence deep into the garbage container. I brushed my teeth and crawled into bed. If Jeannie did not see me eat that cheeseburger did it mean it didn’t happen? If it’s a secret it’s not real right? What was I thinking? I wasn’t! The next morning when my wife and I got on the scale, of course, she was down in her weight, and me, well, I was up! I mumbled something and rationalLIED my way through that awkward moment. Later that day Jeannie was paying the bills when she discovered she had inadvertently threw away the wrong portion of the bill. She proceeded to go into the garage and dig through the garbage container to find it. Not only did she find the bill, she found my “In and Out” bag of evidence! Busted! Here’s my point. Just because what we think upon is in SECRET does not mean it has no consequences. Remember what Christ said, Our private secrets ultimately get shouted publicly.

But there’s yet another reason to soul-search our secrets. Secrets are not just our thoughts. The word SECRET in Hebrew, Greek and Latin can mean; “a place; “a dwelling,” “closet,” a “chamber” or “sanctuary.” Or that which is “set apart.” Listen to how Christ describes it in Matthew 6:6 “...But when you pray, go into your ROOM and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in SECRET. And your Father who sees in SECRET will reward you..”

Secrets are not just WHAT we think and meditate upon, but our secrets are also WHERE we think and meditate. Secrets reside and abide in our inner-chamber. Our Sanctuary of Secrets is a place. Not only do I want to keep my secrets pure and positive, but I also want to keep my sanctuary pure and positive. My inner sanctuary not only is a host to my secrets, but it is where I host the presence of God. A profound yet confounding scripture is found in the continuation of Christ’s words in Matthew 6: 22,23. It states, “The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is GOOD, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is BAD, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!” This is speaking of our inner-eye. The eye of our heart, the conscience. If the light of our conscience is darkened then everything is darkened. Our inner eye determines how we receive and perceive everything and everybody. I love the story of the wise old man who was a gatekeeper of the city. Often he would be asked by visitors, “What kind of people live in this city?” He would answer with a question, “What kind of people are the people in the city you came from?” Some would say, “the people we’ve left behind are not good people. We are looking for better people to do life with.” “Oh” the wise man would answer, “Don’t come here. the people are the same!” Others would answer differently, “The people we left are wonderful! We hated to go, but we’re seeking better opportunities for our family” “Oh then,” he’d answer, “Come here, the people are the same!” You see, We don’t see people and circumstances the way they are, but the way we are. We don’t attract in life what we want, but we attract who we are! We are our secrets. This is why guarding our secrets is vital. I would dare say, managing Our Sanctuary of Secrets is the most important task we have in life. Especially our dark secrets. Just as we have our secret place where we have access to the Father, we can also unknowingly make a “secret place” for the enemy in our sanctuary. The scriptures teach that Satan has been “cast into utter darkness...” That means what is in darkness is within Satan’s territory of influence. Let’s Imagine a mean junkyard dog bound to a twenty foot chain. Though bound by that chain, if someone gets within twenty feet or even closer to that mean dog the dog will be able to attack. So it is with the devil. Though bound, and we know Christ has bound the devil, if by design or default we drift into darkness the enemy will be attracted and attack those areas we let abide in the dark.

My prayer is, Oh God, help me control my secrets. And especially help me not be trolled by dark secrets. From time to time it does me good to examine my sanctuary of secrets. Ezekiel warned in chapter 8, verse 12; Then he said to me, “Son of man, have you seen what the elders of the house of Israel are doing in the dark, each in his room of pictures - [chamber; shrine] of his own idol [carved image]? They say, ‘The Lord doesn’t see us. The Lord has left [abandoned; forsaken] the land.”

What was happening to these elders?They were outwardly carrying out their religious duties, but inwardly, in their sanctuary of secrets, in darkness they worshipped idols. That sounds strange and pagan like. So what is an idol? An idol is something or someone that we allow to have power over our lives. Anything or anyone that rules over our thoughts, will, or emotion can become an idol. We can make “carved images” out of our past hurts and memories. Places of pain, angst and anger, judgement, prejudice and other dark images that we hide, and in doing so we set them apart for sacred secret worship! Do I have idols hidden in my sanctuary? The only way to erase the dark secrets is to face them. When we confront our dark secrets we shed light. Light then eradicates the darkness. Don’t be afraid to face your darkness. You might be pleasantly surprised that God does not condemn you, He wants to bring light and love to your darkness. King David wrote. “If I descend to HELL, God YOU are there!”

Don’t be intimated by dark shadows. You can’t go so low that God is not there to help you. Your darkest secret seeds and deeds cannot eclipse God’s mercy and Grace! Even your doubts cannot intimidate God! When we doubt God. When in those dark moments we secretly deny our beliefs or second guess our experiences. When we fear God is not real. Don’t be afraid to go there. There, God is near. The scriptures teach, “...if we confess our sins...if we walk in the light, as He is the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.” (1 John 1;6,7)

As we confess our sins, and here’s what I believe it means; If I agree, if I say the same thing Christ says about my sins, specifically that I AM FORGIVEN, I AM THE RIGHTEOUSNESS of Christ, and that all my sins are forgiven; past, present and future, THEN in the light of that revelation I remain cleansed and in fellowship! God calls us to live in the light, and fellowship in His love. When God sees you, he sees everything good and wonderful about you. You can say confidently these words, “Jesus KNOWS me, this I LOVE.” The one who knows me best, loves me most!

I want to share something personal. It’s about a transformation that happened in my life with my wife. We are in our 42nd year of marriage. Someone once asked what’s it like being married to the same woman for 42 years? I responded, “I don’t know. I’ve been married to at least 7-8 different women. They all have the same name, Jeannie Munsey, and right now she’s the best version of herself! Our journey hasn’t always been easy. For instance, for years I harbored a self righteous anger in my sanctuary of secrets against her. Often Jeannie would talk to me about things I would say or do that bothered her. Usually a conversation would start like this, “Phil we need to talk!” “Oh boy, here we go!” I’d secretly mumble. Then she would proceed to share her heart and hurt. I would typically act like I was paying attention. Note; Silent and listen have the same exact letters, but mean something entirely different. Being silent means I shut my mouth and my heart. To listen means I open my heart before opening my mouth. I would often carry on an inner dialogue with myself in my sanctuary of secrets that would go something like this; “I NEVER confront you about what bothers me! You seem to always have a word or two about what I need to correct, but me, I never speak a word of complaint to you...” It was like I was writing these self-righteous checks of being the good guy and depositing them into our relationship account. I felt I was saving up equity to leverage against her at the opportune time. Then the day came when my secret got shouted out. Just as she was about to talk to me about something that needed to be addressed, I no longer was able to contain myself, I bursted out, “Have you ever paid attention to the fact that it’s always YOU commenting on your concerns about what I’m doing wrong? I rarely if EVER bring up my concerns and complaints!” (There. I told her!) But my check deposits were about to bounce big time! “Oh!” she said, “You don’t have to say anything, your actions and attitude speaks louder than your words!” Busted, again. Please know, your spouse will never deliberately say or do anything to hurt you. If you can’t believe that, their greatest gift to you is negated. Trust and respond truthfully.

“A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.” (Luke 6:45)

This scripture challenges me to examine my heart and what I’ve been storing up in my Sanctuary of Secrets!

One last illustration. Years ago, Joel Osteen was invited to be on a very popular prime time television talk show. Joel has always seen himself as a guest when he’s on “secular” television. He carries himself just like he’s an invited guest at someone’s home, even if it in millions of homes. His response to the questions are always humble and kind. But his kindness has not always been taken kindly. Some in the Christian community felt that on this particular night his answers were evasive. The attacks on him were unmerited and unmerciful. A month or so later he was asked to return. This time he took a little more time to articulate his response to a tough theological issue. He nailed it! Afterwards as we got in the car, he looked at me and said, “I think I did pretty good!” I said, “You most certainly did, it was powerful and anointed!” Later that night as I laid in bed, in my sanctuary of secrets, I began to reflect on Joel’s comment. I had never heard someone say something so positive and pure about themselves. Oh! In my 47 years of being in the ministry I had certainly heard bragging and arrogance, but what Joel said to me that night was neither. It came from a pure sincere place from his heart. It moved me and caused me to search my heart. I’ve always tried to be an encourager. It has come easy to give positive comments to others. But I would not, I could not compliment myself. To the contrary. I would cut myself down. I’d be so critical and demeaning to myself in my sanctuary of secrets. That night the Lord revealed to me that I was allowing the dark side, the light of my heart’s eye, to go dark. My sanctuary of secrets had formed a tainted and tilted skewed view of myself. I could not continue to attempt to have negative views about myself and yet still claim to have positive views about others. It was a lie. I was lying either to myself or to others. I thought I could use one set of lenses to view myself and another set of lenses to view others. James declares otherwise. “You can’t draw bitter and sweet water from the same well.” It was time to reconcile my secrets. To put light in my dark places and make peace with my secrets. I wanted to start believing the best in everything and in everyone - starting with me!

Today, let’s examine our secrets. I’ve taken the liberty to slightly adapt Philippians 4:8, “Finally, whatever SECRETS is true, whatever secrets is honorable, whatever secrets is just, whatever secrets is pure, whatever secrets is lovely, whatever secrets is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these SECRETS!”

I want to be pure in my heart. I want my sanctuary of secrets to be whole and holy. God, give me a pure and positive heart! May this be your prayer too!

Phil Munsey

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ladyhistorypod · 4 years

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Episode 3: Legendary Ladies

Sources:

Agnodice/Agnodike

Oxford Classical Dictionary

Brooklyn Museum

Classical Wisdom

Mistaking Histories

Artemisia

Ancient History Encyclopedia

PBS

The British Museum

Heroditus

Hua Mulan

Southeastern Louisiana University

Further Reading: Transformations of The Woman Warrior Hua Mulan: From Defender of The Family To Servant of The State & Hua Mulan: the Evolution and Dissemination of a Chinese Cultural Sign—From the Mulan Drama to the Mulan Film

Ambient flute sound

Click below for the transcript!

Lexi: This week on Lady History: is she real, or is she fantasy?

Alana: When we were planning this podcast and Lexi and I were like “what should we do for our podcast” I asked my family group chat hashtag Stoli Squad and my sister was like “you could do my idea for my old roommate we were gonna start a podcast where we got drunk and talked about world issues” so now I'm like… should we be drunk right now?

Lexi: No.

Alana: No. I– Right?

Lexi: We definitely shouldn't be drunk right now.

Alana: This isn't Drunk History, which broke my heart, that Drunk History’s canceled.

Haley: Alana, you can’t hold your liquor.

Alana: I think it's what I've been drinking, because I've been drinking those hard seltzers from Supreme Core– shout out Supreme Core, they're not sponsoring us but I don't need them to.

Lexi: No, that's just a pure recommendation. If you live–

Alana: That’s just a pure recommendation. If you live in the DC metro area…

Lexi: Yeah.

Alana: Supreme Core.

Lexi: Supreme Core is great.

Alana: I would like to pour one out for our fallen comrade, Drunk History.

(sound of liquid pouring)

Alana: I know, Haley, you don’t really like Drunk History, but…

Lexi: You know what? We will continue on their legacy by soberl-ly telling– sober-soberly (laughing).

(Alana laughing)

Haley: She’s sober

Lexi: We will continue on their legacy.

Alana: Patreon episodes where we’re drunk.

Lexi: We could do that, you know… Listen, like this episode, give us a good review. Once we have some good reviews, then we can start charging you money for bonus content, and then we can be drunk and continue on the legacy of Drunk History.

Alana: We are all 21 by the way.

Lexi: Oh, just to preface.

Alana: Like, I’m the youngest and I’m 22.

Lex: Just in case you thought this was a questionable thing (Haley laughing) we’re adults.

Haley: We may not act like it, but legally… for legal purposes.

Lexi: Also if you have ideas for funny Zoom background please DM them to (Alana laughing) at LadyHistoryPod on Instagram. So…

Alana: Don't DM LadyHistoryPod on Twitter because that one’s me.

Lexi: Yeah. The Instagram is me, the Twitter is Alana, just so you know who you're contacting in the DMs.

(Alana laughing)

Haley: If you want me, go to…

Lexi: You can go to any of them. Do whatever you want.

Alana: You can do whatever you want. But if you want–

Lexi: Alana is a Twitter being.

Alana: I am a Twitter being.

Lexi: I am an Instagram being, so that’s why.

Haley: And I’m none of the above. I really–

Alana: Don’t follow me on Twitter though. If you see me on Twitter, no you don’t.

Lexi: You don’t exist on Twitter.

Alana: I don’t exist on Twitter.

Lexi: Your “at” is at LadyHistoryPod

Alana: My “at” is at LadyHistoryPod, that’s true.

[INTRO MUSIC]

Alana: Hello and welcome to Lady History: the good, the bad, and the ugly ladies you missed in history class. I am virtually here with Lexi. Lexi, are you hydrated?

Lexi: No. I don't think I've been hydrated in maybe eighteen years.

Alana (laughing): Oh my god. Hydrate or die-drate.

Lexi: That's true. That’s what VSCO girls would say.

Alana: Yeah it's a basic, kind of– it's a basic bitch thing to say but it's true. Hydration is important.

Lexi: It's good for your mental health.

Alana: It is. Also, of course, I am here with Haley. Haley, do you have any allergies to medications?

Haley: Yeah I do, actually.

Alana: That's not funny but the way you said it was funny. And I'm Alana and I'm actively trying to remove the word guys from my lexicon.

Lexi: Interesting.

Alana: It's not working.

Lexi: Yeah.

Alana: I'm trying and I'm real bad at it. I slip up constantly.

Lexi: It's very, like, ingrained in the vernacular.

Alana: I am also trying to get ladies to catch on as a gender neutral term. Like, the way guys is, kind of, so I want it to be ladies.

Lexi: See, my gender neutral is bois with an i.

Alana: Of course.

Haley: Okay, see, I’ve… I switched to y'all because, that's, I just lived with two roommates from Texas and that's what it was, but growing up in New York it's you guys. So I'm stuck in this like parallel universe where I get hated on for saying you guys and I'm like this is twenty plus years in the making.

Lexi: We should embrace y'all. I feel like–

Alana: We should.

Lexi: Everyone should be able to say–

Haley: Yeah. I like y’all. That one’s tough for me, for some reason. Because I always called– like even my girl friends– being like you guys.

Alana: I call you you guys all the time.

Lexi: Yeah. I speak to large groups of people who use she/her pronouns and I say yous guys. Alana: Yous guys!

Haley: Yous guys…

Lexi: Alright, we rocking and rolling?

Alana: We’re rocking and rolling. I'm going first because I want to dedicate this episode to my group of internet friends who– to my sunshines, especially Em who showed me a Tumblr post describing this woman. And I think as mentioned in the last episode we take Tumblr history lessons with more salt than the Dead Sea. That's our first t-shirt. That’s our first t-shirt! I think we said that in the last one too. But that's our first t-shirt. Take Tumblr history lessons–

Lexi: Although– wait, is that IP?

Alana: Is Tumblr IP? We could change it to like internet history lessons. Take internet history lessons–

Lexi: Yeah. That's good, that's good.

Alana: So Em sent me this Tumblr post, thinking look how cool is this and I was like I don't really believe that so let's look it up. So we're talking about Agnodice or in Greek it would be Agnodike because that's how Greek is. So the story is set in the fourth century BCE ish. Women were not allowed to become doctors or gynecologists or midwives according to the story, but young Agnodike– which is, I'm going to call her Agnodike because that is the Greek name and she was Greek. She was born in Athens and she went to Alexandria for med school and then she returned to– or, for like ancient Greek med school– and then she returned to Athens. But she saw these women dying in childbirth and she wanted to help so she dressed up like a man to go to med school and practice. When she got back after med school, supposedly she heard a woman crying out in pain of labor. And this woman was initially distrustful of a male doctor, so she flashed this woman to show that she was also a woman. This is a recurring theme. And she ended up being so good, and like the best doctor around, that the male doctors were losing patients and losing clients because it was about money. And so they accused Agnodike of sleeping with her patients, and then the women would be just like pretending to be sick so that they could see this young hot doctor. These men take her to trial essentially and she disrobes for them as well to be like actually no or like probably not. Maybe, who knows. And then they're like that's actually even worse because now we're going to sentence you to death for practicing medicine as a woman. And the women stand up for her– these women that she saved their lives– they stand up for her and they say… supposedly, a rough translation of the Latin: quote “You are not husbands but enemies, for you are condemning the woman who brought us health.” And this moves these men of Athens, and they pass a new law that women can practice medicine. The person on Tumblr passed this off as real. It is probably a legend because the best source is literally called the ‘fabulae’. I am in a Zoom meeting with a bunch of classicists– not classists! Classicists. Who knows Latin?! Haley, I know you know Latin. What is ‘fabulae’ mean?

Haley: (laughing) I haven’t taken Latin in forever. Uhhhh…

(keyboard sounds)

Alana: I hear you typing. It means fables; it literally means fables.

Haley: I– my gut instinct is I like, listen to you and I tr– like zone out for a second, then you called on me and you're like ‘what is fabulae’ and I was going to be like ‘fabuloso’ (Alana laughing). I want to do a quick Google and get that out of my head. But I did know that was fables because that came up in like my beginner Latin textbook.

Alana: So it literally means fables. Also, cross dressing and then disrobing to reveal your true identity at the climax of a story is real common in Classical legends. Like this is a running theme through a bunch of other stories.

Haley: Yes ma’am. Yes it is.

Alana: Also, there were definitely female midwives in the Classical world, so there were no laws against it. But here is why or how it might be read as history. Men were distrustful of mid– like– midwifery, midwifery. I actually wrote a paper about ancient birth control and gynecology like two years ago for a class. So the men are distrustful of female midwives because they don't understand what they're doing they're like what what are these women doing with other women that we don't really understand… Are they doing birth control?? Are they doing abortions??? But also women are distrustful of men because like they don't get it either. So everyone's like being like I don't trust you… I don't trust you… skepticism. But there were female midwives so there's no– there's no evidence for a law that says women can't be midwives. There is a– a modern interpretation. By modern I do mean 17th century to 19th century which, relatively, like relative to the time period of this woman, is modern. We’re also archaeologists, so I will say that modern is as early as when common era years have four digits. Like that's modern to me.

Haley: Yeah I took like a medieval history class and we got into like the plague was just like the 1300s and I was like ah, modern medicine. And every– it was like an undergrad class, and like you could see like some of the students were like what? (Alana laughing) The professor was like she has a degree in archaeology. She's gonna say stuff like that.

Alana: It’s modern! Four digits common era years, that's modern.

Haley: I agree.

Alana: That's how I feel. So early advocates for women in medicine during a time when women like for reals, for realsies, weren't allowed to practice medicine, advocates for women being able to practice medicine and repealing that kind of ban used her as an example. But they can't use a legend as an example. Like, she has to be real to be legit. All of the real scholars, the classicists, say this is a legend. The people on Tumblr say this is real. You decide who is right, except it's definitely the scholars and experts. And that's the story of Agnodike. Or Agnodice, depending.

Haley: So I’m gonna hop on that like, Greek train of yours and choo choo on the way to Persia. And we're gonna travel back in time, so like this is a time traveling train, just to let you know, to go back to the fourteen hu– not the 1400s the 400s BC. I'm still thinking about the plague.

Lexi: The plaque is always relevant.

Haley: Yeah.

Alana: Especially right now! The plague!

Haley: Anyhoo. Okay, I'm gonna hop on that Greek time traveling train and go back to the 1400s– oh my fuck god damn it. I’m still thinking about the plague. Alright. (Alana laughing) We're gonna be in Greek– ancient Greek history but for Persia instead. There's like a little… little tangle of where we are and how I'm gonna define that she's in Persian mythology rather than Greek mythology and who am I talking about? I'm talking about Artemisia of Caria, and yes, I'm using my Spanish accent because I can't do anything else about it. Or Artemisia the First. I'm gonna call her Artie because that's just how… in my notes she’s Artie.

Alana: We are on first name basis with all of these women.

Haley: Yes. Absolutely.

Alana: So we will be calling them by their first names and nicknames that we have given them. We have that privilege as history podcasters.

Haley: Yes. I was going to use her for a different one, but I really Persian mythology from being half Persian and I want to sprinkle some spice in here. And this one was tricky for me because I knew about her already from like all the history classes we had to take an undergrad, my general love for Persian mythology and history, and then also I had to like crack out my Herodotus, like the histories and like all the other ancient writers because she's not talked about that much, but the men and the battles back– like around what she's engulfed in are. Like the Battle of Salamis we're talking– we're going to talk about so much stuff about that battle, and just like Greco-Persian Wars, even as trickle down to our history classes in high school. But this gal Artie nothing. Or very little that I am– this is a good source to work off. Anyhoo I got really excited at first because I thought you're like a Google Arts and Culture like nice little museum page or just like a profile and I could go on and on about how arts and cul– Google Arts and Culture is like making a come back for like being decent because now a lot of their pages are run by the museums, or like exhibits straight from museums. But I digress. It really wasn't a cool thing that I could use, it was just a link or like a small pinch from her Wikipedia page who could have been written by anyone. So most of my sources are coming from primary accounts like Herodotus, who is an ancient Greek historian but was born and lived in the Persian Empire. And yes, I’m gonna get it out there; for those who've seen 300: Rise of an Empire, that like that movie, out in 2014, yes she was in here. I want to say that she looks like like me as like a cousin. I’m gonna describe her: she's like smaller, petite woman with olive skin, long dark black hair. And I was just like huh that's cool. And I actually remember watching this in like 2014 just being like yeah I see myself. I could be her. That was my rep– like female representation in movies was looking at ancient Persian characters, so that's just a glimpse into my life. But YouTube didn't even have like documentaries or anything so I'm sad. Okay so her name is Greek, it is coming from Artemis, but she is with the Persian Empire under Xerxes the first– at least I believe it was Xerxes the first, one thing said Xerxes the second, and I was like no this is not with the timeline. And she is most noted as not necessarily a warrior or like a fighter in any of the Greco-Persian Wars or any wars on the Persian side, but as a council member to Xerxes, which you can debate is a higher honor or not. Regardless, she was a badass. She was the daughter of King Lygdamis of Herculaneum and then a Cretan mother whose name is unknown. We just know that she was from Crete. So it's also like in the Greek area but Herculaneum… Herculania… Herculaneum… forgetting that word now is Persian territory at this point. She assumed the throne with– when her husband, who has no name, died. But it wasn't that she assumed the throne, as like sole queen of everything. She was acting regent for her younger son, and there's really no record of him ruling but the record of her ruling with him, in a sense. Overall the primary source for all her achievements and like the Greco-Persian Wars, which is what I'm gonna be focusing on, is from Herodotus. And Herodotus wrote his account of the Battle of Salamis in his book or like his works of the histories. She's mentioned by like a bunch of other guys. Guys as actual guys they were the writers and this history goes like a thousand years in the future so that's why a lot of her stuff can be legend because it’s people writing about this history, but like writing it so far apart that it's more like they're writing down their oral tradition. That's a huge thing when it comes to like, the Bible, and other ancient history sources. Whipped out Herodotus and Plutarch for this, and the Battle of Salamis. In like 480 BC she fought for the Persians and distinguished herself not only again like in battle, but also the fight she gave. And that's really like where she's talked about, not her battle strategy. And there's also a note where we do get into the battle strategy where she saved Xerxes kids from getting like harmed and such. We’re at the point where the Greek mainland was taken. Athens is burned, like, hell’s breaking loose. Persians are basically taking over, Xerxes is trying to figure out what his next move is. Like he– he understands that he has the upper hand, but now needs to figure out how to keep the upper hand. Herodotus gave like a whole account, there are a lot of quotes where he's just talking about army stuff and basically saying that she was particularly remarkable; that really if he only needs to mention one warrior, she's the only one that like he believed did the best work. And it was not only her attitude and behavior that like made her such a great warrior, but made her kind of move up and up up the ranks of roles and like nobility power and such. So yes this praise was mostly about her being a woman and I got like from reading it like the sense that it's more about ‘wow women can do this? Women can fight in battle?” But nonetheless she got some good pats on the back for being a badass. And again, like my other two stories, the legend comes with their death. We have no idea where her body was when she died, what condition, anything like it's really– this is where we get to writers a thousand years in the future, so like going into like 800s CE or AD, whichever one you would like to use, describing what happened to her. And honestly this is the juicy toocy part. So she– she's recorded that after she brought Xerxes’ sons to like a safe area, brought them back, she fell in love with a prince, Dardanus, I kept reading as Darius but it's not Darius. And for some reason, who knows, Dardanus rejected her, and was like ‘nope I don't love you’ or ‘nope I don't I don't want to be with you, cool thanks bye.’ And in her despair she threw herself into the sea. I don't know what sea that is, it just said ‘sea’. That's a lot of bodies of water in the like Persian-scope empire. And she drowned. There aren't other ancient records that's say like ‘yep this happened’ it's like one guy's account of like writing the history. There's like some statues that happened to be found, or like excavated in Sparta that were like ‘oh this is Artemisia’ but there's no record like no engraving in the marble statue that like this is her. People are just saying ‘oh it's in the Persian hall, it's in honor of her’ that's all we have. Like the British Museum had some like images of the statue saying this could be her but if you scroll all the way to the bottom it says like we don't know for sure. So like part of me is like ‘what really did she do’ but other parts are like ‘yeah this could have happened’. Honestly, read Herodotus. He’s a fun time, a good time.

Alana: Lexi’s turn?

Lexi: Me? (singing) Me me me me. Okay so you guys… are you Disney fans? I feel like you are. You like Disney.

Haley: I love Disney. I would die for all the Disney characters collectively in a bunch.

Lexi: So you're probably gonna recognize this quote: “the flower that blooms in adversity is the most rare and beautiful of them all.”

Haley: Absolutely.

Alana: Of course.

Lexi: And that quote is where any reference to Disney, the Disney franchises, Disney studios, Disney parks, and Disney in general shall end. And any relationship to Disney at all will now stop.

(Alana laughing)

Lexi: Now let's talk about the real, not real, maybe real story of Hua Mulan. So again, preface, I don't speak Chinese. I speak Korean which is not Chinese and is not related enough that I understand Chinese. For people who don't understand how Asian languages work they're not very closely related. There are loan words, there are borrowed words, but I do not speak Chinese. So please give me some leeway with these pronunciations of certain things. So the original poem-song, it's a poem that is sung, you know this is really common in ancient times to have a poem that can be set to music. So the original poem-song which described Hua Mulan was written by Tzu-Yeh, a woman who wrote Yueh-Fe style poetry which is a really common style poetry that was a form of oral tradition sharing and folklore sharing. And it was a rhythmic style of poetry set to music. Basically people would travel from town to town performing these songs to tell traditions and folklore and stories. So the translations that we have don't really follow the meter or rhythm, so when they are set to music they don't really sound correct. So the only true way to experience Yueh-Fe is in its native form. So if you don't speak Chinese and there are different versions of Chinese so if you don't speak the specific versions of Chinese that Yueh-Fe is written in you won't fully understand the poetic nature of the story. But we do have translations of the story that help us understand who Hua Mulan was. So I'm gonna tell you based on translations the true story or maybe not so true story of Mulan. The poem opens with Mulan, a young girl, showing disinterest in womanly activities– womanly in quotes– so she doesn't like doing things like household chores or marriage. She's disinterested in you know finding someone to marry, she's disinterested in her parents arranging her marriage, she's just interested in cooking, cleaning, dressing like a woman. She just doesn’t like any of it. And a request from the government comes around to each family–

Alana: I am also disinterested in cleaning.

Lexi: Yes.

Alana: For the record.

Lexi: I think every human is, so I– well maybe my mother loves cleaning. I don't know. She does it a lot, and she really does it with a… Yeah she does it with such a feverish passion I don't know– maybe she doesn’t like it. But yeah. There’s a request from the government, comes around to each family. I assume it is some sort of scroll that is delivered to families that are noble and have people who can read, but it might also come from a person who tells it. I am unsure based on the translations of the poetry. So the request comes from the government to have each family send a son or brother, so like a young unmarried uncle, brother, man, or a son of the family who can serve in the army. But Mulan's family is very small. She's an only child so she doesn't have an older brother for them to send. And Mulan sees this is an opportunity. So she buys the equipment required to enlist in the military, which is a horse, a whip, a saddle, and a bridle. And she shows up at the military encampment dressed as a man. And the poem continues with Mulan journeying far from her home on a trip that takes ten years and covers ten thousand miles. And at the end of her military service, her only request is to return home. She's offered the option to take money or land, but all she wants to do is return her family. So she returns to her family, and when she arrives home, her parents have had another child, a little brother, so Mulan has a little brother. And Mulan returns to her quarters, and she assumes a feminine identity. She puts it back on. She brushes her now white from years of hard work hair, she puts on makeup, she gets into feminine clothes, and then she goes out just to meet up with her buddies from the military, to see them search to rekindle, you know, the military friendship, bros being bros. And they are shocked to see her dressed in feminine attire because they've known her for a decade and the whole decade they assumed that she was a man. And so the poem closes with a simple phrase and it basically translates to two rabbits run side by side but when they run side by side you cannot tell which is a male and which is a female. So this is folklore, tradition, you know… it might be true, it might not be true. So, some other details: Hua Mulan means flower; so Hua flower, Mu wood, lan orchid. And Hua is the surname and Mulan is the given name. So Mulan is her first name, so that's why in some depictions you will just see Mulan, that is her first name. But some sources, the surname Fa is used so sometimes she is Fa Mulan. The most common tradition and most common translation is Hua Mulan.

Haley: That was gonna be like my immediate question was I thought it was Fa Mulan this whole time.

Lexi: That's because Disney used that version.

Haley: Not even from Disney– from just like knowing because I– When I got back on like the Disney Plus kick train, I wanted to like watch all the Disney princess movies but just compare them to like their actual stories and sometimes I saw the Fa Mulan so it’s like oh did Disney do this correct…?.

Lexi: Yeah. It's it's because it's it's not really a person– well it might be– but it's not really a person, so when this story goes from place to place, versions of it change, so evidence as to whether or not Mulan actually existed is basically nonexistent. We don't have any sort of physical archaeological evidence. Like, while folk songs and oral tradition hold her as a symbol of bravery and resilience, no physical evidence exists at all. There are no royal history books or official records that mention her, even though there are military records from that time. Now some people, who are Mulan truthers, may think ‘oh well she probably used a masculine name’ but again it's totally up in the air we're not sure. So, you know, even in the era and area in which she existed and like where she was from… it's completely up for debate whether she was from South China, from the Chinese plains, like no one's really sure. And some people say she's from one time period, and some people say from another time period. You know, is she lost to history? Is it possible there really was this heroic warrior in disguise who fought for her people and her family? and maybe her name and origin and era are just lost to history. So different versions of the story attribute different names, like her surname changing. Different eras, different places of origin because they don't know the truth of the original story. or is it more likely that there were several women who fought in disguise throughout Chinese history as they've done in many societies, in many aspects of history, but that their stories have been molded into a single poem through the passage of time.

Haley: I love that. That was a great closing.

Alana: That’s so cool. I love that.

[Ancient flute noise]

Lexi: You can find this podcast on Twitter and Instagram at LadyHistorPod. Our show notes and a transcript of this episode will be on lady history pod dot tumblr dot com. If you like the show, leave us a review or tell your friends about us, and if you don't like the show keep it to yourself.

Alana: Our logo is by Alexia Ibarra you can find her on Instagram and Twitter at LexiBDraws. Our theme music is by me, GarageBand, and Amelia Earhart. Lexi is doing the editing. You will not see us, and we will not see you, but you will hear us, next time, on Lady History.

[OUTRO MUSIC]

Haley: Next week on Lady History: we're going to dive straight in, misbehave a little bit and talk about the ladies who committed some crimes.

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jarienn972 · 5 years

Text

A Simple Spell - Chapter Two

A Captain Swan Supernatural Summer Tale

Tonight, I’m bringing you Chapter Two of my @cssns story. This chapter is a brief flashback to Emma’s actions that will set the rest of the actions into play and I’m going to preface it with a quick disclaimer that the witchcraft portrayed in this story is entirely fictional and is not intended to be an accurate portrayal of Wiccan practices. I've adapted the depiction of magic and spells strictly to fit this narrative. Also, please forgive me if the Latin phrases presented are a little off. I tried my best to ensure the correct translation of the phrases in the spell presented but I'm a little rusty.

Again, I have to give a huge amount of thank yous to the creators of this event for allowing me to stretch my creativity and to my beta, @lassluna for helping me keep this all flowing correctly! Last, but not least, thank you to @cocohook38 for her incredible artwork!

I hope you enjoy Chapter Two!

Also on AO3 and FF.net Chapter One

The Previous Evening

Emma had, from her first visit with the Mills sisters, found it a tad morbid that their coven gatherings were held in a vault deep beneath the crypt of their parents' mausoleum. She could still recall Regina leading her down this path through the fog-obscured graveyard - when it appeared as though Emma was about to be on the receiving end of a very bad practical joke. She'd kept a tight grip on her service weapon as she'd followed the mayor down a carved stone stairway until they reached the faintly illuminated room hidden below.

After several months of meetings here, visiting for various lessons or to simply bear witness the Wiccan rituals, Emma was growing accustomed to the eerie surroundings. There was always a hint of unease in the pit of her stomach when she descended below the land of the dead but it just didn't nauseate her as much now as it used to.

Tonight, she'd trekked through the cemetery after work, running just a little late for the 8pm conjuring practice session that Zelena had planned. Emma was heading into the night a little half-heartedly after nagging memories plagued her all day. Memories that continued to haunt her as she descended deeper into the earth. Sure, making a ball of flames appear out of the palm of your hand was cool and all, but it truly wasn't where Emma's thoughts lay tonight.

She allowed herself to slink down the steps, hoping she'd arrived unnoticed, but as she turned the corner at the vault's entrance, she was met by Regina's disdainful glare.

"You're late, Miss Swan," was the greeting that spewed from the Mayor's tongue.

"Sorry," Emma stammered. "I had some paperwork to finish up before I could leave the office but I got here as quickly as I could." It was mostly a lie, but Regina didn't need to know that she'd actually been contemplating not even showing up tonight.

"Well, we were just about to don our robes. Hurry up and join us in the circle," Regina instructed as she thrust a jet black, hooded brocade robe into Emma's hands. The student accepted the garment from her instructor with a nod of thanks while quickly shedding her crimson leather jacket. She tossed her jacket haphazardly over a wooden armchair as she tugged the robe over her shoulders before proceeding into the main chamber. She was immediately reminded how claustrophobic the vault could be when their entire coven was present.

Theirs was currently a coven of five. As Emma saw it, there was one member for each point of the pentacle inlaid within the marble circle that adorned the vault's floor. The Mills sisters were, by far, the most active and the most powerful practitioners of the group, but they were joined by Ruby Lucas, the waitress at Granny's diner - whom Emma suspected might have a few other hidden powers, and Ingrid, an older witch of the prior generation whose methods and ideals quite often clashed with the Mills sisters. Ingrid was the last remaining member of the original coven, having practiced alongside Regina and Zelena's late mother, Cora, but that was all Emma knew. No one really talked about the old guard much, but Emma knew they'd been a formidable group of sorceresses.

Emma made her way into formation as Regina's flame-haired older sister, Zelena, lit the candles positioned within the circle with a mere flick of the ebony wand clutched in her hand. Emma found some of the rituals a bit unnerving, but like being twenty feet beneath a tomb, she was growing used to the feeling. Her mind was just wandering a bit more tonight than normal.

Today had been an auspicious anniversary for her and the only reason she'd even made the decision to come was that she absolutely didn't want to be sitting around the loft with her overly-positive sister-in-law. She'd decided that a coven gathering in the crypt was preferable to drowning her sorrows down at the Rabbit Hole - and a lot less expensive. Plus, the vault gave her access to collections of books and scrolls that might help her find something useful should she be given permission to search them. She just needed something to keep herself distracted for a little while. Something to prevent her from falling back into any of her old, desolate traps - because tonight was the anniversary of the day she'd had her heart crushed into a million pieces - a story she'd not yet shared with anyone here in Storybrooke.

That heartbreak had become the catalyst that really kicked off her quest to discover her family and the history her mother had hidden from her. She'd believed that solving her own personal mysteries would be the best way to heal after being abandoned by the man she'd thought she'd loved - the man she'd given her heart and soul to. When things had gotten too difficult, he'd bolted, never even saying goodbye and even after a decade, it still stung. His betrayal hurt as deeply as losing her beloved mother only months before he'd run away - and as bitterly as the miscarriage she'd suffered alone. All combined together in such a short amount of time had left her feeling utterly alone. She was now striving to push beyond those losses, determined to reconnect with the family she still had, and then maybe, just maybe, she could find someone to help mend her broken heart. And if magic could help her fill those voids, she was determined to try.

But at this moment in time, she knew she was simply going through the motions as she recited her ritual incantations and completed the mundane tasks asked of her. It wasn't hard for anyone else to see her lack of conviction either. Her heart simply wasn't in it, and as her lackluster attitude caught Zelena's attention, her mentor decided to cut the evening's lessons short rather than keep going with an inattentive student.

"How about we pick things up again on Friday?" Emma heard Zelena ask as the redhead brushed back her hood. Emma heard what she was saying but didn't completely comprehend the words.

"Huh?" Emma replied, startled by the query that pulled her back from her reminiscing.

"I was asking if we should pick this up again on Friday," Zelena repeated with a hint of irritation in her voice. "Weren't you listening to anything I said tonight?"

"Sorry… I'm a little distracted tonight and I guess I'm not feeling particularly well…," Emma fibbed in a feeble attempt to cover her obvious disconnect.

"Why don't you head home and get some rest then?" Regina suggested. "Friday's full moon will allow us to try out some new spells too."

"Actually, if you don't mind, Regina, I'd like to take a look through some of the potion books to see if I can locate a remedy for this lingering tiredness I've been experiencing. Would you mind?"

Regina thought about the idea for a moment, but granted permission. "Just stick to the newer potion books on the shelf under the mirror. Most of those ones are either already written in English or have already been translated from the original text. Most of the older books are written in Latin, Greek, Elvish - you get the idea? Your study of ancient languages hasn't advanced enough for proper translation yet so stick to the ones you can read, okay? Oh, and lock up when you leave."

"I can do that," Emma smiled graciously. "And I promise I won't stay too long, and I'll be sure to clean up and lock everything away."

"See that you do, Miss Swan," Regina stated as she undid the clasp on her robe and allowed the garment to slide off of her shoulders. She draped the robe over her forearm as she gathered her belongings from the desktop beside her apothecary cabinet. "Have a good evening, Deputy."

"Good night, your Highness," Emma quipped as Regina ascended the stairway towards the crypt above. Zelena smirked at the nickname as she followed her sister out of the vault and soon, both Ruby and Ingrid made their exit as well, leaving Emma alone in the creepy confines.

Hearing only the tap of her own footsteps echoing off of the slate floor, Emma made her way over to the towering shelves, teeming with an expansive collection of books ranging from spellbooks to recipe books to a weathered, and likely very dated, set of encyclopedias. She quickly figured out the filing system that Regina utilized and began scanning for a specific volume. Her eyes darted back and forth across the third shelf up from the bottom trying to find a book that Zelena had shown her a few weeks earlier when they'd practiced a few basic potions. She remembered looking at a sleeping potion, a memory potion and even one that was rumored to improve the mood of even the crankiest Storybrooke resident, but Emma wasn't actually interested in potions right now.

While Zelena had been busy preparing the ingredients for one of the potions, Emma had flipped through a few of the yellowed vellum pages, glancing over random potion recipes and spells handwritten in flowing Latin. She was still learning the basics of the language, understanding a few words and phrases that appeared frequently. Words that were unfamiliar were easily translated with an app on her iPhone, although she did know that just having the translation of the words didn't always help as figuring out the grammar could be awkward. She was determined to try anyway.

She located the correct, ornately decorated spine and carefully lifted the gilded book from the shelf, carrying it to the podium the Mills sisters had installed in the center of the vault, directly beneath the chandelier - one of the few nods to modern conveniences down here (although Emma had yet to figure out exactly where the electricity came from as there were no visible power lines around the mausoleum). She took extreme care in opening the cover, turning the pages gently as she sought the specific spell she'd seen before.

Nervousness began to overcome her, causing her to repeatedly glance back toward the stairs as she flipped through the ancient pages. She feared that someone might return to interrupt her and discover that she was perusing books that weren't in the officially-approved collections. She was taking a huge risk that could destroy the trust she'd built within the coven but right now, she had a singular focus.

It took a few minutes in the dimly lit vault to locate the spell she wanted but once she did, she picked up the crystal candlestick with its nearly fully melted ruby red taper from atop the desk and brought it closer to the podium to get a better view as her fingertip dusted across the flowing script. Her excitement and anxiety both increased exponentially as she stared at the spell she hoped might change her life.

Her brain immediately began translating the Latin text, beginning with the instructions preceding the spell itself. Succensa - set alight. Sapiens - sage. Roris marini - rosemary. She recognized the herbs and knew she needed to light them on fire as the smoke from burning them would cleanse the air prior to her reciting the incantation. She retrieved sprigs of both herbs from the apothecary cabinet and dropped them into a charred marble bowl then ignited them with the flame from the candle.

As the fragrant herbs burned, filling the small, subterranean room with their aroma, Emma continued translating the remaining text as well as she could. Verus amor - true love. That was her goal - to find her own true love and fill the void within her heart that she'd struggled with for so many years. Since the moment she'd stumbled across this spell, she'd been determined to cast it when the time was right. She had to. Why else would she have been gifted with these supernatural abilities if it wasn't meant to bring her some semblance of happiness? She wanted the type of love that her brother shared with Mary Margaret - that close companionship that just wasn't going to be found in friendship or familial relationships. She just wanted to be loved and have someone to love in return.

Alone in the vault, she began to recite the Latin phrases from the page.

Verus amor occurant - encounter true love.

Verus amor reveles - discover true love.

Those phrases she translated easily, but there were others she wasn't as certain of.

Verus amor agnocis. She didn't know what agnocis meant, but in the context of the words she understood, it had to be another part of finding true love, which led into the last phrase - Confirmare verus amor - confirm true love.

Once completed, she sealed the spell by pricking the tip of her finger with a needle and allowing three minute drops of her blood to fall atop the smoldering herbs. One for her, one for the love she sought and the third to unite them. Now, all she had to do was wait to see if it all worked - and get everything cleaned up, put away and locked up before anyone became suspicious.

#cssns #captain swan supernatural summer #cs ff au #cs ff #cs au ff #witch emma #a simple spell

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umbralogia · 5 years

Text

et in arcadia ego.

ch. 1-- gold.

(read on ao3)

Arcadia was an escape.

The daylight birds chirped their wilderness song, in no way afraid of him or anyone else who might disturb their forest. They didn't flee unlike the critters whose fragile sounds could be heard across the forest floor, scitting into their dens.

Pan's woods looked to be untouched by man except for a footprint every so many steps down one of the natural paths. Magnus had found it unnerving at first, mortals had saturated the world, their hands, their creations, marking every landscape no matter how barren.

He continued through the forest, following the natural winding paths of green beauty along the riverside.

All of it was said to belong to Pan, the half-man, half-goat God of the Wilderness who played his pipes and chased after nymphs. He was said to have the power of inducing panic through his yell, a panic that drove men to murder and madness. The mortals that lived at the foot of the mountainside claimed that you could hear his song if you stayed still long enough, but Magnus had never dared to try.

Mortals were clueless about the affairs of gods. They had their stories, their mythos, most of them created to scare children away from wandering alone and to startle young people into avoiding possible divine encounters.

They directed their fear onto the gods--any suitor could be Zeus in disguise, and any contest, no matter how silly or small could result in a war between two great civilizations. In all of it, they forgot the nymphs, the most beautiful tricksters to exist.

They lured shepherds into the woods to lose them, convinced men to jump overboard, teased their beautiful appearances and sexual exploits. They were all well aware of their unattainability, even those in the Underworld.

Magnus thought of the nymph connected to the river Styx, of her dark long curls tracing over the skin of his chest, her sharp little teeth teasing his skin with nips and scrapes. Their encounters were never permanent, never longer than a week or so at most. Styx always found better company.

He supposed that loneliness had made them that way. The gods were far less lonely, they had each other, but nymphs, always so eternally beautiful, unmarked by time and boundaries, stuck in the mortal realm. They found no consequences, and love without consequences was like not loving at all.

The trees ahead grew thicker, their branches weaving in and out of each other like a longing embrace. Magnus slipped through the long, towering trunks into the clearing of the glade.

It was said to have belonged to the nymphs, perhaps it was an old religious site, but even they had abandoned it.

It was eerie, peacefully silent with clusters of wildflowers in tall, unmanicured grasses to keep him company. The only object anyone had possibly left behind was a large rock in the center of the glade with a smooth face, marked with small indendentations. Upon first glance, Magnus had suspected that the stone was a funerary marker, the inscription long worn away by weather, but he had sensed no death.

He had realized that in the end, it didn't matter. The mystery of the nymph glade was a mystery for man, not god.

He laid down in the grasses, smoothing them down halfway between the rock and the treeline that bordered the clearing. The soft wind brushed through the treetops and grasses around him, rustling them and petting his skin softly with cool kisses as the clouds shifted overhead.

Only mortals could be surrounded by such beauty and not appreciate it.

The mortals had written songs and poems about Arcadia, a land so disconnected from the buzz of Athens and the political turmoil of Rome that it had become unattached from reality. It was considered to be a land of barbarians, uncivilized and populated only by the shepherds and hunters of old times.

At time city folk wandered from their own creations into a world created by gods, a safehaven of anonymity and peace. They always returned, and Magnus supposed that even the gods returned to their own duties, often remiss in the beauty of it all.

They spoke of the Golden Age, a time where gods and mortals lived with one another, took each other as friend, family, and lover. There were no qualms or consequences to be had. Time was free, Death was not yet born from the womb of Mother Earth.

Mortals wrote poetry, plays, and songs about a time before him, a time before death had been introduced to the world. Their shepherd boys created competitions for the best goat song, Pan and his nymphs, too. The gods smiled.

Death was born, small and feeble from Gaia herself. Slowly, the Golden Age came to an end as shepherd boys died as did their songs.

The mortals created a verse for him, a line he had said in one of their many works. It was said by the voice of Death.

Et in Arcadia ego.

And in Arcadia I am.

Magnus had no memory of ever saying such a thing. Of course he was in Arcadia, but could they really blame him for the downfall of it all? Could they blame a child for the birth of war and famine?

He closed his eyes.

Pan had had the right idea. As God of the Wilderness, he detached himself from the rest of the immortal gods, from their labels and politics and found company with beautiful trickster nymphs and silvery melodies.

The gods had clearly lost their way. Magnus almost wanted to bring them back to it, to share the true peace of the forest and Helios’s soft golden rays. He thought of them all, living amongst one another in a different time.

Had Zeus restrained himself? Or had Hera not been jealous? What had Athena done with no humans to guide with her immortal wisdom?

His dream turned to violence.

Artemis with her eyes sharp like the tips of her arrows, crushing through thickets with her hunting dogs. Her dear brother Apollo laughing ever so lightly like a string of chimes. Their arrows knocked, arms tight pulling the bowstring back, firing into the heart of a stag.

The elegant creature, large and white, peacefully walking through the thick intertwining natural paths of the forest. It glanced at the gods before their arrows sank deep into its heart. It crumpled, unable to even scream.

Magnus blinked, the image disappeared, leaving him with a heavy sorrow in his heart.

Perhaps they didn’t deserve to know such joys.

He nearly closed his eyes to drift back off into a half-sleep when the treeline rustled from something more than wind or twin gods and their bows. Magnus opened his eyes, blinking a few times to clear his sight.

Whatever it was, it was alive.

In an instant, he thought of Pan and his multitude of nymphs. He thought of the goat god’s ability to shout mortals into a frenzy that could drive them to murder. Magnus prayed that he would never hear such a noise. His heart leapt to his throat and he remained entirely still.

It entered the grass.

He thought of the rabbits that had burst from his sight and ducked into their burrows, how terrified they had been at the presence of misery around him. It flickered inside of him, almost inspiring the thought on its own. Quickly, Mangus sprung to his feet, ready to destroy whatever had disturbed him.

The air beside him shuddered. An arrow sunk into the soft soil.

A young man stood in the shadows of the treeline, his bow lowered slightly, but an arrow still perched carefully against his fingers. He looked as though he had stepped out of a mosaic-- beautiful dark hair, golden skin, a soft, white chiton. He said something quick, almost unrecognizable as a language.

Magnus stood fully, his arms at his side, but power stirred under his skin, aching to strike if need be. He didn’t dare take his eyes off the young man as he took a careful step forward. “Do you always shoot at strangers?” he asked.

The young man was still watching him, his bow and arrow lowered to the forest floor. He said something again, a phrase that Magnus caught this time, something in Greek rather than the Empire’s language.

“Do you speak Latin?” Magnus asked. “Lingua Latina?”

He frowned and spoke slowly. “Who are you?” His words accented heavily with the harsh tones of Greek consonants.

Magnus couldn’t think of an answer to give the young man. He thought of mortal names, any mortal name, but all that came to mind were the names of heroes-- Jason, Hercules, Achilles, Odysseus.

“Outis,” he answered, providing the young man with the name Odysseus had given the cyclops Polyphemus when escaping his cave den-- nobody. He smiled softly. “And you?” He asked, watching the young man take a step back to keep the distance.

He looked aggravated. “Nemo.” He answered, giving the Latin word for nobody.

“Do you shoot everyone you meet, Nemo?”

“Only those sleeping in nymph groves.” He said, stumbling over the words only slightly. Nemo took his arrow off of the bow string and held it loosely in his fingers. “These are Pan’s woods.”

It was apparent that Nemo wasn’t truly concerned, that he wanted Magnus to leave his hunting grounds so he could continue hunting rabbits with sharpened sticks. He looked around the clearing, at how it was as untouched as it was before except for Nemo’s presence.

“What if I am Pan?”

Nemo gave him a look, the look that Magnus was used to receiving from Ragnor. “You don’t have goat legs.”

“You’re right, I'm the god of the river.” Magnus walked back to his place near the flat rock and sat down in the tall grasses. “Now, if you don’t leave, I’ll dry the whole riverbed.”

Nemo scoffed and took a few steps forward. He didn’t look at Magnus as he leaned down to take his arrow from the dirt. He straightened and scraped the dirt from it, cleaning the arrowhead before he returned it to his quiver with the other in his hand.

“What do you even hunt here? There are no animals.” Magnus stretched out, watching Nemo start back towards the way he had cme.

He turned, annoyed. “There are plenty of animals, they just have more sense than you do. They stay out of the nymph glade.”

“Scared?”

“No.”

“I dare you to stay in this nymph glade.” Magnus countered. He stretched his hand over to his side and smeared down some of the tall grass, making a space for Nemo.

Nemo huffed from out of his view. “Why would I stay?”

Magnus sat up just a little, to see the annoyance on his face. It was a shame it made him look so much older. “Competition.” He smiled a little, hoping to look convincing enough to keep the young man.

“You’re a strange man.” Nemo turned away and stepped out of the clearing, through the edge of the cospe and out of his sight.

Magnus laid back down and let his eyes watch over the drifting clouds. The wind blew the treetops, rustling them softly like fingers against a dog’s coat. He watched a cloud that looked like a ship drift off into a slowly mutating shape.

He wondered if the Golden Age had ended not because man had gone about creating their own things, but because the gods were rather bored. Magnus couldn’t imagine Zeus remaining still for more than a few minutes at a time. He couldn’t imagine Hera restraining herself from causing one disaster or another.

He thought of the boy, Nemo, with his messy dark hair and muscular legs, his hands carefully holding his bow as though he were posing instead of simply standing. Magnus almost wished that he would come back, that he would take his advice to sit in the glade and relax, enjoy the creations of mother Gaia around them.

His fingers brushed against the soil, tracing a small circle into the dirt.

The breeze came again, the grass around him brushed forward, kissing his skin with its soft blades. The hair on his skin stood on end, the air felt heavy, anxiety inducing. Magnus sat up and brushed himself off, but didn’t stand until he heard it.

The wind again, this time with a small musical trill.

#shfanficnexus #malec #shadowhunters #magnus bane #alec lightwood

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him-e · 6 years

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this might be a dumb comparison but would you consider star wars/skywalkers in general to be kind of like a greek tragedy? or at least inspired by greek tragedies? i just really love mythology and would like to think there’s some sort of connection in some way. thank you! :)

Definitely! Star Wars relies heavily on archetypes and psychological motifs, and many of them come from Greek and Latin literature. In the original trilogy, taken in isolation, you see more echoes of arthurian myths and classic fairytale elements than tragedy. It’s when you think of the three trilogies as a whole, particularly in terms of Anakin’s arc, his rise and fall and redemption and the repetition of the cycle with Ben’s fall just a generation later, that the Greek tragedy vibes become evident.

To put it in very simple terms, Greek tragedy typically revolves around a good/average man who has one “fatal” flaw (usually an error in judgment or hubris). Because of this, but also because of the crucial role played in the genre by the inevitability of fate and the cosmic order dwarfing humanity, fragile and powerless even at its best and at the mercy of much bigger and incomprehensible forces, the hero is bound to fall. And one fundamental aspect of tragedy is that the audience knows he’s going to fall, and watching the events unravel to the inevitable gut wrenching conclusion is cathartic. (see how the whole prequels experience is built on the premise that you know exactly how it’s going to end.) (also, side note, catharsis is a major reason why even today we need fiction, including “dark” fiction.)

The fall of the hero often takes the form of a heavily immoral act, a horrific crime against the aforementioned cosmic order that the hero performs either in good faith, as a result of his hubris, anger or passion, or because he feels he has to—be it accidentally killing your father and sleeping with your mother, sacrificing your own daughter to the gods, punishing your asshole ex husband by killing your own children, or choking your pregnant wife who has come to confront you after you slaughtered a temple of younglings. As monstrous as the act can be, the audience can’t help but sympathize with the fallen hero, because it’s clear he’s motivated by a desire to do the right thing (or to fix some wrong), he loves fiercely and intensely, he is (at least in part) a victim of circumstances, and the pain and punishment inflicted on him and everyone who he loves and who loves him is disproportionate. What happens to the protagonist is a metaphor of the fragility of human condition, in which sometimes a minor mistake or an unforeseeable chain of events leads to catastrophic consequences. Individual responsibility matters, but it’s always portrayed in tension with the cruel irony of a blind, irrational fate who tears good people and bad people down alike, which it often succumbs to, or is proven to be eventually irrelevant.

You can see how Anakin is in this sense the quintessential tragic hero. A good man raised in humble conditions but destined to be royalty, to be the hope of a galaxy, the fulfillment of a long awaited prophecy, who rises to a state of quasi-kingship (becoming a Jedi master, marrying a former queen), but remains ultimately a slave—to his own passions and fears, to destiny (as personified by Palpatineworking slowly to corrupt him), to the will of the gods (the Force), to the trappings and limitations of a corrupt society (the Jedi order and the republic). His one fatal flaw, loving Padmé, backfires and turns him into the very cause of her death.

Ben’s fall is also deeply tragic, as it’s the result of a twofold lapse in judgment: Luke’s (who falls for a second prey of his own darkness and briefly considers executing his nephew for the greater good) and Ben’s himself (who mistakes this one second of weakness for a truly murderous intent, and violentlyretaliates, and never stops acting on the false assumption that his uncle was really going to kill him).

Hubris and madness are two other crucial themes in greek tragedy and I can see the dark side as a fascinating space opera portrayal of both. And then, vengeance, and family—and even more relevant to star wars, the cycle of violence-pain-revenge. The original crime opens a wound in the cosmic order (you could also say: the Force becomes unbalanced) that spreads like a cancer dooming multiple generationsand is only really healed when there is a genuine will to step out of this cycle.

This is imo the key to understand the three trilogies in their entirety, and what they’re trying to do with the sequel trilogy in particular. Many people struggle with Ben’s fall because he “had everything”—i.e. was born in a time of peace, from a loving family of revered rebellion heroes, with unique force powers and someone to teach him how to use them, etc.—so his turning to the dark side is thrice as hard to swallow. Was he a bad seed from the start? Or did he just infuriatingly squander all he had? Other people complain that the new trilogy is built on a nihilistic concept, that evil always come back cyclically one way or another, that victory is never complete, that the heroes are bound to make the same mistakes over and over again, or that everyone is inevitably destined to be corrupted and lose hope (see the discourse re: Luke in TLJ).

Both miss the point, in my opinion. The way I see it, it all ties back to Anakin’s original crime—his tragic, blood-soaked fall to the dark side, order 66, and most importantly Padmé’s death—and how that crime was a cosmic wound that tore the balance of the universe apart and was never fully healed. So it reverberates across the galaxy, onto his progeny, and his progeny’s progeny (Ben).

Luke did begin to make things right—by choosing to reject violence he gave Vader the chance to sacrifice himself to to kill the emperor and save his son, which earned him his redemption. And…it’s a good way to end a story if you want it to end there, but if you want the story to continue, then you have to face the fact that it’s only a partial, and in many ways convenient solution to a much larger problem. Vader’s redemption did nothing to eradicate the deep-seated political views of those who were still loyal to the Empire and fighting for a dictatorship in the moment when Palpatine was killed. It wasn’t enough for Luke and Leia to actually embrace their lineage and come out as Vader’s children, if Bloodline is to be believed. It wasn’t enough to shield little Ben from Snoke’s attentions—in fact, Anakin’s blood is exactly what put a big ol’ target on Ben’s back, with nothing of his grandfather’s post-redemption wisdom to keep him on the right track, only the myth of his legacy, a myth that as we’ve sadly seen can be easily misconstrued and exploited and that Leia and Luke never properly explained to Ben either. Anakin just died, and if that single sacrifice was enough to save his soul, it actually didn’t do much to fix the countless wrongs he contributed to create during the two decades he served the Empire as lord Vader. The galaxy bled because of him. And he just died and left his children to clean up his mess. Lucas’ original idea that Vader’s redemption brought balance to the Force is a good happily ever after, but only if you don’t really plan to deal with the consequences.

More on a thematic level, RotJ represents a perfect fairytale ending on almost all fronts but it leaves a question unanswered: was Anakin wrong to love Padmé? Is romantic love wrong? Aside from Han and Leia—whose marriage didn’t end well anyway—romantic love comes out of this narrative as a tragically negative force. Specifically, romantic love for a Jedi. If you consider the first six films, the logical conclusion is that the Jedi were right, after all, to forbid romantic attachments, because look at the mess Anakin made. Anakin destroyed himself and Padmé. It was only Luke’s familial love that made him come back to the light—Luke, the eternal celibate Jedi. Familial love is good, romantic love is poisonous. The narrative absolutely implies this reading.

So although RotJ’s ending fixes everything on a superficial level, the wound keeps festering underneath, there are still many things that weren’t made right, and this is why only a few years later Luke is still so haunted by the darkness and still so afraid that a new Vader is possible that he actually considers killing his nephew for a split second. This is why the ashes of the old Empire don’t die out, but instead give birth to a new tyrannical power; and why Leia cannot be free to live her life in peace with her family, but still feels committed to a rebellion that never ceased to have reasons to exist, even after the Emperor’s death.The gods (the Force) aren’t satisfied, if you will, so they keep punishing this family. The original evil has not been completely exorcised. Love, personified by Padmé’s unacceptable, unnatural death, hasn’t been vindicated. The balance is not restored. And Ben falls.

The sequel trilogy is set to heal this wound, for real, this time. It’s also why it has a much darker tone (despite the superficial humor) than the original trilogy. It’s not impossible for a tragedy to have a happy ending, but the resolution must have the same tone, the same gravity of the premise. The prequels are a tragedy, and the original trilogy is essentially a fairytale, a hero’s journey—they’re basically two different genres, and Vader’s last minute redemption seems (and is) inadequate once you’ve seen all three movies of his very detailed and nuanced fall to the Dark Side.

We’re watching, through Ben, the tortured redemption arc that should have been written for Vader if this story had followed a chronologically and stylistically linear narrative. Through Ben and Rey, we’re watching a reconciliation of the Dark and the Light side, whose unresolved conflict, worsened by the repressive puritanical policy of the Jedi order, originated the schism in Anakin’s soul. And we’ll also (hopefully) get the answer to that question I said earlier, and see the redemption of romantic love.

#anon #asks #sw asks #sw for ts #sw**#///#greek tragedy #house skywalker #reylo for ts #just a little #mmm i hope this makes sense

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dfroza · 4 years

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death, burial, and rebirth is the key to life.

(it is a gift of grace)

because we all have to deal with these aging, imperfect bodies. and the promise in Love is to restore it, to make it new, just as the heart becomes in its rebirth when a person chooses to “believe...” in Christ the Son

to believe in the heart and to mirror it with the lips of earth through a physical body, in silence & sound

what do you see in the Christmas Tree?

what do you think of the birth and death (and rebirth) of Christ as a seed for all of us?

this is what Today’s reading of the Scriptures points the heart to, here on Christmas day in ‘19 from chapter 19 of the book of John:

Then Pilate ordered Jesus to be brutally beaten with a whip of leather straps embedded with metal. And the soldiers also wove thorn-branches into a crown and set it on his head and placed a purple robe over his shoulders. Then, one by one, they came in front of him to mock him by saying, “Hail, to the king of the Jews!” And one after the other, they repeatedly punched him in the face.

Once more Pilate went out and said to the Jewish officials, “I will bring him out once more so that you know that I’ve found nothing wrong with him.” So when Jesus emerged, bleeding, wearing the purple robe and the crown of thorns on his head, Pilate said to them, “Look at him! Here is your man!”

No sooner did the high priests and the temple guards see Jesus that they all shouted in a frenzy, “Crucify him! Crucify him!”

Pilate replied, “You take him then and nail him to a cross yourselves! I told you—he’s not guilty! I find no reason to condemn him.”

The Jewish leaders shouted back, “But we have the Law! And according to our Law, he must die, because he claimed to be the Son of God!”

Then Pilate was greatly alarmed when he heard that Jesus claimed to be the Son of God!So he took Jesus back inside and said to him, “Where have you come from?” But once again, silence filled the room. Perplexed, Pilate said, “Are you going to play deaf? Don’t you know that I have the power to grant you your freedom or nail you to a tree?”

Jesus answered, “You would have no power over me at all, unless it was given to you from above. This is why the one who betrayed me is guilty of an even greater sin.”

From then on Pilate tried to find a way out of the situation and to set him free, but the Jewish authorities shouted him down: “If you let this man go, you’re no friend of Caesar! Anyone who declares himself a king is an enemy of the emperor!”

So when Pilate heard this threat, he relented and had Jesus, who was torn and bleeding, brought outside. Then he went up the elevated stone platform and took his seat on the judgment bench—which in Aramaic is called Gabbatha, or “The Bench.” And it was now almost noon. And it was the same day they were preparing to slay the Passover lambs.

Then Pilate said to the Jewish officials, “Look! Here is your king!”

But they screamed out, “Take him away! Take him away and crucify him!”

Pilate replied, “Shall I nail your king to a cross?”

The high priests answered, “We have no other king but Caesar!”

Then Pilate handed Jesus over to them. So the soldiers seized him and took him away to be crucified.

[Jesus Is Crucified]

Jesus carried his own cross out of the city to the place called “The Skull,” which in Aramaic is Golgotha. And there they nailed him to the cross. He was crucified, along with two others, one on each side with Jesus in the middle. Pilate had them post a sign over the cross, which was written in three languages—Aramaic, Latin, and Greek. Many of the people of Jerusalem read the sign, for he was crucified near the city. The sign stated: “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.”

But the chief priests of the Jews said to Pilate, “You must change the sign! Don’t let it say, ‘King of the Jews,’ but rather—‘he claimed to be the King of the Jews!’” Pilate responded, “What I have written will remain!”

Now when the soldiers crucified Jesus, they divided up his clothes into four shares, one for each of them. But his tunic was seamless, woven from the top to the bottom as a single garment. So the soldiers said to each other, “Don’t tear it—let’s throw dice to see who gets it!” The soldiers did all of this not knowing they fulfilled the Scripture that says, “They divided my garments among them and gambled for my garment.”

Mary, Jesus’ mother, was standing next to his cross, along with Mary’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. So when Jesus looked down and saw the disciple he loved standing with her, he said, “Mother, look—John will be a son to you.” Then he said, “John, look—she will be a mother to you!” From that day on, John accepted Mary into his home as one of his own family.

[Jesus’ Death on the Cross]

Jesus knew that his mission was accomplished, and to fulfill the Scripture, Jesus said: “I am thirsty.”

A jar of sour wine was sitting nearby, so they soaked a sponge with it and put it on the stalk of hyssop and raised it to his lips. When he had sipped the sour wine, he said, “It is finished, my bride!” Then he bowed his head and surrendered his spirit to God.

The Jewish leaders did not want the bodies of the victims to remain on the cross through the next day, since it was the day of preparation for a very important Sabbath. So they asked Pilate’s permission to have the victims’ legs broken to hasten their death and their bodies taken down before sunset. So the soldiers broke the legs of the two men who were nailed there. But when they came to Jesus, they realized that he had already died, so they decided not to break his legs. But one of the soldiers took a spear and pierced Jesus’ side, and blood and water gushed out.

(I, John, do testify to the certainty of what took place, and I write the truth so that you might also believe.) For all these things happened to fulfill the prophecies of the Scriptures:

“Not one of his bones will be broken,”

and, “They will gaze on the one they have pierced!”

[Jesus’ Burial]

After this, Joseph from the city of Ramah, who was a secret disciple of Jesus for fear of the Jewish authorities, asked Pilate if he could remove the body of Jesus. So Pilate granted him permission to remove the body from the cross. Now Nicodemus, who had once come to Jesus privately at night, accompanied Joseph, and together they carried a significant amount of myrrh and aloes to the cross. Then they took Jesus’ body and wrapped it in strips of linen with the embalming spices according to the Jewish burial customs. Near the place where Jesus was crucified was a garden, and in the garden there was a new tomb where no one had yet been laid to rest. And because the Sabbath was approaching, and the tomb was nearby, that’s where they laid the body of Jesus.

The Book of John, Chapter 19 (The Passion Translation)

and a footnote about verse 30:

“When he had sipped the sour wine, he said, “It is finished, my bride!” Then he bowed his head and surrendered his spirit to God.”

This is from the Hebrew word kalah, a homonym that can mean “fulfilled [completed],” and “bride.” Jesus finished the work of our salvation for his bride. The translation has combined both concepts. For a fascinating study of the Hebrew word used for “bride” and “finished,” with its universe of meaning, see Strong’s Concordance, Hb. 3615, 3616, 3617, 3618, and 3634. Although the completed work of salvation was finished on the cross, he continues to work through his church today to extend God’s kingdom realm on the earth and glorify the Father through us. He continues to work in us to accomplish all that his cross and resurrection have purchased for us, his bride. His cross fulfilled and finished the prophecies of the Messiah’s first coming to the earth. There was nothing written that was not fulfilled and now offered to his bride.

to be accompanied by wisdom from the book of Proverbs with chapter 25 for Christmas day:

Solomon’s proverbs, published by the scribes of King Hezekiah:

God conceals the revelation of his word

in the hiding place of his glory.

But the honor of kings is revealed

by how they thoroughly search out

the deeper meaning of all that God says.

The heart of a king is full of understanding,

like the heavens are high and the ocean is deep.

If you burn away the impurities from silver,

a sterling vessel will emerge from the fire.

And if you purge corruption from the kingdom,

a king’s reign will be established in righteousness.

Don’t boast in the presence of a king

or promote yourself by taking a seat at the head table

and pretend that you’re someone important.

For it is better for the king to say to you,

“Come, you should sit at the head table,”

than for him to say in front of everyone,

“Please get up and move—

you’re sitting in the place of the prince.”

Don’t be hasty to file a lawsuit.

By starting something you wish you hadn’t,

you could be humiliated when you lose your case.

Don’t reveal another person’s secret

just to prove a point in an argument,

or you could be accused of being a gossip

and gain a reputation for being one

who betrays the confidence of a friend.

Winsome words spoken at just the right time

are as appealing as apples gilded in gold

and surrounded with silver.

To humbly receive wise correction

adorns your life with beauty

and makes you a better person.

A reliable, trustworthy messenger

refreshes the heart of his master,

like a gentle breeze blowing at harvest time—

cooling the sweat from his brow.

Clouds that carry no water

and a wind that brings no refreshing rain—

that’s what you’re like when you boast

of a gift that you don’t have.

[Wisdom Practices Self-Control]

Use patience and kindness when you want to persuade leaders

and watch them change their minds right in front of you.

For your gentle wisdom will quell the strongest resistance.

When you discover something sweet,

don’t overindulge and eat more than you need,

for excess in anything can make you sick of even a good thing.

Don’t wear out your welcome

by staying too long at the home of your friends,

or they may get fed up with always having you there

and wish you hadn’t come.

Lying about and slandering people

are as bad as hitting them with a club,

or wounding them with an arrow,

or stabbing them with a sword.

You can’t depend on an unreliable person

when you really need help.

It can be compared to biting down on an abscessed tooth

or walking with a sprained ankle.

When you sing a song of joy to someone suffering

in the deepest grief and heartache,

it can be compared to disrobing in the middle of a blizzard

or rubbing salt in a wound.

Is your enemy hungry? Buy him lunch.

Win him over with your kindness.

Your surprising generosity will awaken his conscience

and God will reward you with favor.

As the north wind brings a storm,

saying things you shouldn’t brings a storm to any relationship.

It’s better to live all alone in a rundown shack

than to share a castle with a crabby spouse!

Like a drink of cool water to a weary, thirsty soul,

so hearing good news revives the spirit.

When a lover of God gives in and compromises with wickedness,

it can be compared to contaminating a stream with sewage

or polluting a fountain.

It’s good to eat sweet things,

but you can take too much.

It’s good to be honored,

but to seek words of praise is not honor at all.

If you live without restraint

and are unable to control your temper,

you’re as helpless as a city with broken-down defenses,

open to attack.

The Book of Proverbs, Chapter 25 (The Passion Translation)

my personal reading of the Scriptures for Wednesday, december 25, the 5th day of Winter and day 359 of the year:

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vacanpaathy · 5 years

Text

ETHAN NAKAMURA BIO

// BASICS //

NAME: Ethan Nakamura NICKNAMES: Bold of you to assume he has friends. BIRTHDAY: TBD. LOCATION: Wandering / Verse Dependent AGE: Aprox. seventeen ( verse dependent ) ZODIAC SIGN: TBD. GENDER: Demimale ( he / him ) SEXUALITY: Great question PARENTS: JACOB NAKAMURA & NEMESIS SIBLINGS: Damian White ( half-brother ; Nemesis ) SPOKEN LANGUAGES: english, spanish, latin, ancient greek / greek. RELATIONSHIP STATUS: That’s HILARIOUS / verse dependent OCCUPATION: embittered radical asshole / verse dependent

// PHYSICAL //

EYE COLOR: Pure black. HAIR COLOR: Black usually messy hair of varying length and cut. HEIGHT: 5ft 6in BODY BUILD: Wiry as all fuck. TATTOOS: None atm. SCARS: Many, mainly on his arms focused on his forearms & hands. Several on other areas like his torso legs and back, mainly from slashes with a few burns, stabs or other source here and there. DISTINCTIVE FEATURES:

EYEPATCH. Ethan has been wearing basically the same patch since he was about 14, the thing is battered as all hell and looks as depressing as he is.

EMPTY SOCKET. His LEFT EYE is completely missing from its socket which means that the entire area is very noticeably sunken and his lid appears permanently closed, though thanks to the nature of how he lost it he still has function in his lids which means that unless asleep or blinking / winking ( yes he can still do that ) it appears to be open by just a sliver.

// PERSONALITY //

POSITIVE: Loyal, patient, empathetic, good listener, fair, honest, protective, hardworking NEGATIVE: Single-minded, callous, aloof, spiteful, vindictive, petty as all fuck, loner FATAL FLAW:

DEDICATION. While the word alone does not imply something so terrible as a fatal flaw the reality is that sometimes you need to know when to quit and Ethan does not quit. Ever. He is single-minded in his goals to the point he is willing to give anything– his eye, his life– it doesn’t matter if it means in the end whatever his current goal is is completed. He is willing to go to extremes that will horrify others and burn bridges forever in the quest to reach his goals and sometimes without even realizing he’s gone that far.

// HISTORY //

❖ Lived with his father, a police officer until he was about 5 when his father was killed in action. ❖ He then entered the social services system and bounced between various facilities, group homes, foster families etc. and homelessness as fairly early in this period is when he began to be attacked by monsters. ❖ Unable to deal with everything he officially started living on the streets / run at about 7 - 8 until a satyr found him and brought him to Camp Half Blood. ❖ He lived unclaimed in the Hermes Cabin until he finally couldn’t stand it anymore and left camp when he was 11 - 12. ❖ Shortly after he met his mother and in 1 fell swoop was claimed, partially blinded and promised a grand destiny. ❖ He then spent the next few years of his life going between living with a group of rogue / homeless half-bloods and going solo. This was in many ways the best time of his life and when he met many of the people closest to been called his “friends”

❖ At 16 - 17 he found his way into the Labyrinth and was living in it exploring for a few months until he was cornered by Luke’s men.

// SKILLS //

Normally for this I’d link off to the wiki or just copy that section here but his page on the wiki is a joke so I have to do the heavy lifting myself.

GENERAL DEMIGOD ABILITIES:

ADHD: supernatural alertness and keen senses that keep him ready for, and alive, in battle. It also lets him analyze his opponents fighting style as well as pick up minor details about an opponent, such as where their muscles tense so he can tell which direction they’ll attack from. However outside of these situations it presents as classic ADHD.

DYSLEXIA: His brain is “hard-wired” for reading divine Ancient Greek instead of mortal languages.

DREAMS: Like most demigods, Ethan has dreams that show him events occurring in the past, present, and future. His relation to Nemesis, Hypnos & Morpheus his “uncle” & “cousin”, and the Fates his “aunts” have a potential to affect the nature of these dreams and what he sees in them. He has no control over this at all.

ENHANCED PHYSICAL CONDITION: As a demigod Ethan is faster, stronger than a normal mortal, as well as being more agile and durable. These physical attributes have allowed him to perform feats normal human can’t, as well as survive situations mortals cannot.

FIGHTING SKILLS: Ethan is a naturally talented and excellent fighter and his skills continues to grow as time passes, capable of holding his own against and even defeating larger, more experienced, and more powerful opponents, as well as monsters as proven by the fact he made it to 16 / 17 with little to no real help and largely on his own. He learned to fight first against mortals as a children defending himself and then was taught swordplay, archery, spearwork etc at Camp Half-Blood where he continued to excel thanks to his unnerving tenacity. Even after the loss of his eye he remained a formidable enemy having trained intensely to adapt to the change. His speciality is swordplay.

Ethan generally has two styles for fighting– Scrapper & Defensive, which he uses depends on mainly context and available resources. For example, while on the streets he’s most likely to be a scrapper, fighting quickly & aggressively using whatever’s at hand and whatever works to get the job done since most likely the only thing he has going for him is his dagger, strength and wits. While in situations like the Arena in the Labyrinth, knowing he’s going to be up against most likely monsters of various levels of skill and given a wide choice of tools he opts to be defensive. Despite his skill and the tenacity at usually sees him through most battles, that same intensity can also be his weakness as we see in his fight in the Arena against Percy, where he’s too focused on his larger goal to completely focus on the fight thus losing.

GODLY ABILITIES:

TYCHOKINESIS: also called Stochokinesis / Stochastokinesis or Luck / Probability Manipulation is the ability to mentally alter the flow of stochastic fields, allowing one to generate good or bad “luck”. One with this ability could give oneself and/or one’s allies uncanny good luck, afflict foes with really bad luck, etc. The user might even be able to psychically amplify stochastic fields to set events into motion (instead of influencing events already in play) as long as there is a chance the event would happen anyway, and thus causing normally-improbable events to happen, normally-likely events to not happen, or the like.

Snippets about children of Nemesis I’ve managed to find, I’ll expand on these over time but I don’t want this page to become a novel so I’m leaving them in a more accessible and easy to reference note/list form for now.

Nemesis’ children have the power of Tychokinesis and limited mind-reading.

They are loyal to allies and merciless to their enemies. Like their mother Nemesis, they have a strong sense of justice and balance.

The children of Nemesis are said to always get their revenge.

Whenever they are struck in battle they become stronger.

Children of Nemesis have a strong sense of right and wrong, as Well as what is fair or unfair.

All children of Nemesis are very determined to make sure things are Balanced. Though they will go to any length to extract revenge or to bring justice to those who deserve it. They would travel across the world if need be.

Some children of Nemesis have the ability to give others the lust for revenge.

Most Nemesis children prefer to use a Sword or Whip like their mother. They are Natural at using a whip and sword in combat.

They believe that people who are to full of themselves are unworthy and should be brought down.

They never forget an Insult.

They make good allies.

// MISC. //

WEAPON: RECOMPENSE. / ἀμοιβή • (amoibḗ) / A dagger of celestial bronze given to him by his mother. The blade does not need to be coated as the poison is impregnated in the blade itself. It is possible for Ethan to choose via will whether or not the poison is “off” or “on” so that his victim gets “what they deserved”. It’s also very handy as it means he can handle and maintain it without you know, risking poisoning himself.

#ETHAN ❭ META

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theanthropist · 5 years

Text

The Accumulation of Small Changes

In a story, the Greek hero Theseus leaves for a long sea journey. During his voyage, one by one, each plank of the ship was broken and replaced as the ship travelled from harbor to harbor; the sails ripped and new ones were raised; masts burned and new ones set in their place; supplies exhausted and replenished. Every man of the crew, one by one, decided to stay on one exotic shore or another, caught some disease or tasted the blade of a sword, and all along new members joined and were hired.

When all was said and done, and the ship made it back home, none could recognize it. It shared nothing in common with the ship that had left the port decades before.

Was it the same ship that left? And if not, when did it stop being the same ship?

One can imagine countless variations of this thought experiment, commonly known as the Ship of Theseus. What if you could salvage the original parts of the ship and rebuild it, would that be the original ship, or would the ship that arrived at the port be the original? What if two sister ships left each on their own journey, and came back vastly different, at which point did they stop being ships of the same make?

The questions are of course largely rhetorical. The truth is, there is no ship. There are only atoms. But we can't respond to that which we don't recognize, and we can't recognize that which we don't categorize. Things separated by only small differences fit in the same box, while those with large differences belong in different boxes. The trouble comes when small changes accumulate into large ones.

The accumulation of small changes is core to the theory of evolution. It is an observable fact that children are slightly different from their parents, but only slightly: human parents give rise to human children. Siblings are more similar to eachother than first cousins, who are closer than second cousins, but all still the same species. But eventually the differences are way too big for to fit our boxes: a dolphin and a hippopotamus, while very different, are simply distant cousins, a relative stone's throw away in evolutionary terms.

Of course the dolphin's mother was still a dolphin, and so was the hippo's mother. So were their mothers' mothers and mothers' mothers' mothers. In fact, every mother in that chain was the same species as her daughter and the same species as her mother. Yet, somewhere along the dolphin's chain, we find animals that aren't dolphins, and eventually animals that aren't even whales. Yet at no point do we find a non-dolphin giving birth to a dolphin, or a non-whale giving birth to a whale. Each change is subtle, but just because a single step doesn't carry you far doesn't mean ten thousand can't.

At some point in the chains, the distant ancestors of the dolphin start to look almost indistinguishable from the distant ancestors of the hippo. Eventually, the chains are connected: one daughter of this four-legged, amphibious creature would go on to be the ancestor of the dolphin, and in fact of all dolphins. Another daughter could trace its descendants down to the hippo, and all hippoes everywhere. Yet they share a striking resemblance to their mother and each other, and little resemblance to their eventual progeny.

Even more confusing is the concept of ring species: a species is traditionally defined as a group of organisms that can produce viable offspring. But this definition too has its limits: if lizards of subspecies A can breed with those in subspecies B, which can breed with those in subspecies C, the members of A and C might be too different from each other to crossbreed! Thus As are the same species as Bs, which are the same species as Cs, but Cs aren't the same species as As. It is like a ring with a section missing, whence the name.

"Species" are thus not something that is inherent in nature. It is a way for us to satisfy our desire to categorize. Often it is useful; sometimes it produces only confusion.

Another phenomenon that works much like life is language. Anyone who has ever read Shakespeare can attest that the English language has changed in great ways across the centuries. In fact that change continues now too, just slow enough that you can convince yourself the language is staying in essence the same. And decade to decade, it is. Just not century to century.

The word "word" can trace it's lineage back to the word "werdʰh₁om" sharing the same meaning, 4000 years ago, all the way back in the language only known as "Proto-Indo-European", dialects of which would go on to become Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, and indeed English, Russian and Hindi.

"Werdʰh₁om" would develop in one dialect into the Proto-Germanic "wurdą", from which came the English, German, Swedish and Dutch words, among plenty of others. In another branch, it became the Proto-Italic "werβom", from which came Latin "verbum", from which English "verb" was borrowed.

So when did English diverge from Proto-Germanic? When did Proto-Germanic diverge from PIE? Any answer more precise than a century or two will be unsatisfactory, because there is no moment at which a language stops being a distant dialect and starts being a close language. If you want to viscerally feel this as an English speaker, this video on the Scots language in said language is a great demonstration. There are even analogues of ring species in languages, known as dialect continuums, where all nearby people understand each other, but one end of the continuum is incomprehensible to the speakers of the other.

Even more interesting is the way stories can evolve by small changes. While some try to shock us by comparing Disney's retelling of Cinderella to the much more violent Aschenputtel by Brothers Grimm; but Disney's story was instead based on Cendrillon ou la petite pantoufle de verre by Charles Perrault, a much lighter and more fanciful version of the story.

Which version is then the original? Neither.

Both are well preceded by Cenerentola by Giambattista Basille, itself wholly different in the details from either of the stories that followed it. All are based in local variations in the story, as well as the authors' own embellishments.

Cinderella, more accurately its ancestors and cousins, have existed since time immemorial. In Ye Xian, a Chinese story written down around 860, a girl abused by her evil stepmother is dressed up in fancy clothes by magical fish bones to go to a festival, but has to run from it and accidentally loses her golden shoe. The shoe ends up in the hands of a king, who wanted to find who the shoe belongs to. When his search leads him to Ye's house, the king is instantly stricken by her beauty and they go on to marry.

At which point does a story become a different story, rather than a different version of the same story? By this point, you surely know that there is no answer.

Even my retelling of the Ship of Theseus, right at the beginning, is significantly embellished from the barebones thought experiment I originally learned, and even further changed from its original version, in which the ship is simply preserved as a museum piece, long after Theseus's time. So should it be further retold, the story itself will become an example of the very phenomenon it describes.

And wouldn't that just be appropriate.

#evolution #language #fairytales

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