#antique copper pots
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Buy Online Vintage Copper Pot - Yellow Verandah
Vintage Copperware always bring charming aesthetics to our home, reminds us our rich heritage!!
This handpicked Vintage Copper Pot is an old collection from 19C Rajasthani Royal Colonial era - a legacy from Haveli culinary & culture.
Place this exquisite decor piece on your coffee table or console as a timeless collection or turn this into a beautiful flower Vase.
Each piece is collected and not newly manufactured. There may be multiple imperfections, damage, dent, color blemishes because this is an old piece. Each piece will be different from each other in color shade, texture, polish, finish, shape, weight, size. That's the beauty of old restored collections. That makes it special !!!
Size : H - 5.5", Dia - 5.5"
Weight : 270 Gm
Shop Now: Copper Pot
#copper pot#antique copper pots#copper pots#copperware#vintage home decor hyderabad#Vintage home decor online store#home decor items online hyderabad#antique decorative items hyderabad#indian antique home decor online
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www.frenchcountrycottage.net
Warm patina of copper.
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. . Once in a blue moon finds . Antique holy water pot, golden bronze alloyed fully embossed, etched super fine floral detailing all over...80+ years old collectible in good condition...well maintained Features floral motifs, geometric shapes...Heavy hand made collectible . . Note - Minor dents Seen which is commensurate with age & antiquity but that doesn't affect the overall charm and appeal of the piece . . Dimensions 5.5 inches tall 5.5 inches wide . . 🛒 Now for Sale 🛃 Check📏 Dimensions for size 📮 DM for 🏷 Fair Price ✅ Booking on full payment only 🚚 Free Shipping all 🇮🇳 ✈ Safe Shipping 📦 Worldwide 🌎 . . #indiantiquest #etched #antiqueshop #antique #pot #copper #bronze #antiques #vintage #vintagevignettes #holywater #oldworld #vintagedecor #oldisgold #curiocollection #interiorstyling #pujastylingprops #homedecor #pujaphotoprops #vintageart #decorprops #gangajal #antiquesforsale #homedecor #collectible #antiquedecor #interiordecor https://www.instagram.com/p/CdQSQqvAATD/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=
#indiantiquest#etched#antiqueshop#antique#pot#copper#bronze#antiques#vintage#vintagevignettes#holywater#oldworld#vintagedecor#oldisgold#curiocollection#interiorstyling#pujastylingprops#homedecor#pujaphotoprops#vintageart#decorprops#gangajal#antiquesforsale#collectible#antiquedecor#interiordecor
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Wow, this is 1931 home in Winnetka, Wisconsin is impressive. 9bds, 9ba, $8.9M.
Wow, look at the carved wood walls. There's an original tile floor in the foyer, too, and a leaded glass inner door.
You know, I like the white carpet on the stairs. I wouldn't want to clean it, but it looks beautiful. This home has those bas relief ceilings, too.
Is it the way they're photographing the room to get the ceiling in, or are the ceilings low? The large sitting room has wood paneled walls to match the entrance hall, plus the same ceiling and a beautiful fireplace.
Very classy guest powder room. Black marble floor with white veining, and the marble counter on top of an antique dresser has a sink ringed in gold. The gold wallpaper ties it all in.
Comfy home office. The rounded desk looks art deco and is nestled perfectly in a triad of framed windows.
The library shelving is gorgeous. Oblong octagonal cutouts in carved shelves, and that gorgeous fireplace in the middle has a pediment with a pineapple and a black & white marble surround.
I like this light dining room. Cream and pale blue bas relief ceiling is so soft and stunning.
These cheery bright dining spaces are so pleasing. This is a breakfast room in creamy white and it gets a lot of sun from the windows to the garden.
The kitchen is a professional chef's kitchen. It begins with a large pantry done in the same cream color with large glass paned doors on the cabinets so you can see the dishware. The kitchen cabinetry looks maple and has a cute corner fireplace, black countertops and copper pots hanging over the double island.
At the top of the stairs on the 2nd level is a magnificent oval leaded glass skylight. The glass panes are opalescent. And, there's a large sitting room up here, too.
They've made a walkway between 2 area rugs in the huge primary bedroom. On one side is a lovely mahogany canopy bed that contrasts well against the white room and the other side is a sitting room.
There is a huge home office up hear with a pretty French Provincial desk and a chaise lounge.
The bath is nice, there's a separate room for the toilet, and a lovely vintage marble counter on the sink. Love the rust-colored marble on the floor.
What a lovely guest room. It's so large, there's a huge picture window between 2 full-sized canopy beds.
Down in the large basement is a rec room that looks like the ultimate man cave. Rich dark wood furniture, a red pool table with an unusual pool lamp- it's not the usual stained glass, this fixture has foxes in red waistcoats holding up electric candles - love that.
Wow, man cave indeed. That fireplace is the size of a room. You can definitely walk in there. And, look at the life-sized butler statue in the corner. Is he creepy?
The home gym looks commercial. Mirrored walls and a black ceiling make it look industrial.
Outside, the iron gate makes it look like a secret garden.
The hedges are cut in patterns.
It must cost a fortune to maintain these gardens. The property is 3.25 acres.
Is it me, or does the pool look like a fidget spinner.
I love conservatories and this one is lovely. The plants and wicker furniture really bring the outdoors in.
This is the prettiest tennis court with the trees and latticed fencing.
An elaborate play set for the children looks like it conveys.
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/44-Locust-Rd-Winnetka-IL-60093/70453195_zpid/
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Discovery of Roman Buried Coins in Wales Declared Treasure
Two sets of coins found by metal detectors in Wales are actually Roman treasure, the Welsh Amgueddfa Cymru Museum announced in a news release.
The coins were found in Conwy, a small walled town in North Wales, in December 2018, the museum said. David Moss and Tom Taylor were using metal detectors when they found the first set of coins in a ceramic vessel. This hoard contained 2,733 coins, the museum said, including "silver denarii minted between 32 BC and AD 235," and antoniniani, or silver and copper-alloy coins, made between AD 215 and 270.
The second hoard contained 37 silver coins, minted between 32 BC and AD 221. Those coins were "scattered across a small area in the immediate vicinity of the larger hoard," according to the museum.
"We had only just started metal-detecting when we made these totally unexpected finds," said Moss in the release shared by the museum. "On the day of discovery … it was raining heavily, so I took a look at Tom and made my way across the field towards him to tell him to call it a day on the detecting, when all of a sudden, I accidentally clipped a deep object making a signal. It came as a huge surprise when I dug down and eventually revealed the top of the vessel that held the coins."
The men reported their finds to the Portable Antiquities Scheme in Wales. The coins were excavated and taken to the Amgueddfa Cymru Museum for "micro-excavation and identification" in the museum's conservation lab. Louise Mumford, the senior conservator of archaeology at the museum, said in the news release that the investigation found some of the coins in the large hoard had been "in bags made from extremely thin leather, traces of which remained." Mumford said the "surviving fragments" will "provide information about the type of leather used and how the bags were made" during that time period.
The coins were also scanned by a CT machine at the TWI Technology Center Wales. Ian Nicholson, a consultant engineer at the company, said that they used radiography to look at the coin hoard "without damaging it."
"We found the inspection challenge interesting and valuable when Amgueddfa Cymru — Museum Wales approached us — it was a nice change from inspecting aeroplane parts," Nicholson said. "Using our equipment, we were able to determine that there were coins at various locations in the bag. The coins were so densely packed in the centre of the pot that even our high radiation energies could not penetrate through the entire pot. Nevertheless, we could reveal some of the layout of the coins and confirm it wasn't only the top of the pot where coins had been cached."
The museum soon emptied the pot and found that the coins were mostly in chronological order, with the oldest coins "generally closer to the bottom" of the pot, while the newer coins were "found in the upper layers." The museum was able to estimate that the larger hoard was likely buried in 270 AD.
"The coins in this hoard seem to have been collected over a long period of time. Most appear to have been put in the pot during the reigns of Postumus (AD 260-269) and Victorinus (AD 269-271), but the two bags of silver coins seem to have been collected much earlier during the early decades of the third century AD," said Alastair Willis, the senior curator for Numismatics and the Welsh economy at the museum in the museum's news release.
Both sets of coins were found "close to the remains of a Roman building" that had been excavated in 2013. The building is believed to have been a temple, dating back to the third century, the museum said. The coins may have belonged to a soldier at a nearby fort, the museum suggested.
"The discovery of these hoards supports this suggestion," the museum said. "It is very likely that the hoards were deposited here because of the religious significance of the site, perhaps as votive offerings, or for safe keeping under the protection of the temple's deity.
By Kerry Been.
#Discovery of Roman Buried Coins in Wales Declared Treasure#coins#collectable coins#roman coins#metal detecting#ancient artifacts#archeology#archeolgst#history#history news#ancient history#ancient culture#ancient civilizations#roman history#roman empire#roman art
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Here is our list of every artifact in the statement and what entity we believe they align with. We are more confident about some than othersss ... PLEASE share your opinions
ceramic pot modeled on a shouting human face- stranger
large bear skin rug with sharp teeth- stranger
large chandelier of dark glass- dark
oversized gramophone with a collection of records of religious plainsong- dark
crudely carved rocking horse- spiral
grandfather clock leaking dark oil- end
heavily vandalized set of the encyclopedia Britannica- weeeeeb?
extensive collection of abstract canvas artworks- spiral
two large soiled crinoline dresses- buried
chaise lounge with cushions filled with course sand- desolation?
taxidermy vulture- stranger
rusty antique printing press- eye
a collection of old medical equipment that seems recently used- slaughter
leather kite- flesh
oddly curved brass telescope- eye
wheelbarrow full of shifting fossils- buried
armload of swords- slaughter (woooow the slaughter being as subtle as a knife lol)
lengths of rope- vast??? (I'm so sorry, we tried our best)
tin bathtub full of moldly food- corruption
stack of old dental retainers- corruption
brace (a pair) of half butchered pheasants- hunt
jars of pickled hands- flesh
ancient diving suit filled with sawdust- buried
a broken picnic hamper- lonely
a jar of imperial copper coins- slaughter
#the magnus protocol#tmagp#alice dyer#samama khalid#tmagp spoilers#tma spoilers#tma entities#sam khalid
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Ok so besides the big things in EP 7 ( Celia! Gwen!! Jon???) I've been thinking about a couple of other things well lots of things - the donations! The pot with someone screaming does that not remind us of another pot (vase)?? So I've gone through and copied all the mentioned artifacts that were donated. I'm seriously wondering if there's connections to things in TMA either artifact storage or Mikaela. Here's the list;
somewhat disconcerting ceramic pot modelled on a shouting human face
donation in the form of a large Bearskin rug.
made donations of a large chandelier of dark glass and an oversized gramophone with a collection of records of what I believe to be religious plainsong
they had also brought personal donations in the form of A crudely-carved rocking horse, a grandfather clock that leaked some sort of dark oil, A heavily vandalized set of the Encyclopedia Britannica and an extensive collection of abstract canvas artworks respectively.
two large, soiled Crinoline dresses, a Chaise Longue with cushions filled with some sort of coarse sand, a taxidermied vulture, a rusty antique printing press and a collection of old medical equipment that had seemingly been recently used
some sort of leather kite, an oddly curved brass telescope, a wheelbarrow full of shifting fossils, an armload of swords, lengths of rope…
A tin bathtub filled with moldy food, a stack of old dental retainers, a brace of half-butchered pheasants, jars of what appeared to be pickled hands;
my shoulders crushed against an ancient diving suit filled with sawdust, with my neck wrenched under a broken picnic hamper whilst bloodstained china was ground beneath my feet.
mouth filling with the copper taste of imperial coins pouring down on me from a jar above.
...,..........................................................................................
If they are connected that means things are bleeding together - more of the physical fear things are coming through and might explain how Celia is over in this timeline maybe she jumped through whatever happened to let more than just our three voices through.
#tmapg#the magnus protocol#tmagp#tmagp spoilers#tmagp theory#tmagp ep 7#all the things#timelines#tmapg spoilers
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A Dream’s Winding Way
Part II — The Weaver and the Loom
Pairing: Arthur Morgan (high honor) x Female Reader
Summary: For as long as you could remember, you dreamt of falling in a love so whole and pure it was worth enduring the many griefs in your life. But the world, cold and cruel as it was, robbed that dream from you, and you believed you would forever be broken until you met a man who was scarred in his own way.
Word Count: 10.8k
Warnings: sexual assault trauma responses, murder, canon-typical violence.
A/N: Arthur will make his appearance at the end here ♥ thank you THANK YOU @the-halo-of-my-memory for beta-ing 💞
Part I | ao3 link
~ II — The Weaver and the Loom ~
Snick.
The bolts inside the cabinet lock slid free. Between your finger and your thumb, the tarnished key in your grasp opened a long-latched door, a swoosh releasing dormant air. Inside the stale cell, relics of the past awaited, felty with dust. A chatelaine belt rested on the shelf, ornate with filigree, alongside a satin pouch, a crystal hat pin, silver spurs with brass rowels, and a wedding bouquet, its once-white roses shriveled and decaying. You paused once, running your fingers over the cool rivets of a sapphire brooch, and overlooked it all, instead retrieving a new vase for the kitchen table—one that would not shatter into pieces when it fell—and a tattered recipe book.
With the book settled in your lap you opened it with a crack. Antique, creamy pages inked with words fluttered past your fingers, food stains mottling the margins alongside cursive pencil scrawls. A flattened sprig of poppy bookmarked the page for an oatmeal pie recipe. You tucked it back in for time to keep safe. A few gentle turns later you found what you were looking for and rose from the floor of your grandmother’s room, relocking the cabinet, and shutting the door behind you. You donned an apron and began your work.
The rugs, the curtains, all were taken down and rolled up, flapped outside, and beaten with the handle of your broom. You swept the floors of broken vase shards and stray leaves, replenished the oil in the lamps, trimmed the candle wicks, tossed out last night’s dinner, laid a new tablecloth, filled the silver ewer from your grandmother’s cabinet with water and fresh flowers, and scraped the ashes out from the fireplace. Wood clopped as you piled it up in a canvas carrier outside and lugged it in. Soap suds splashed your wrists as you scrubbed the dishes spotless. All the while the clock ticked on, from hour to hour, the day waning, until you could no longer prolong the inevitable, and commenced your grisly task.
You propped your family recipe book open on the counter and fetched a large stew pot from the wall rack. The cutting board hosted the full spectrum of ingredients you needed, so you set the pot over the stove flame and warmed a dollop of butter and olive oil. The yellow onions you chopped sizzled as you added them in, and, using a knife, you deployed your special ingredient from the cutting board. A few dashes of salt and pepper joined the mixture next, and once the onions popped their flavor, caramelizing, teaspoons of dried sage and thyme hand-picked from your garden snowed from your hand with clumps of chopped garlic.
Stirring, mixing, curdling, after a few minutes a pour of red wine and a splash of vinegar came next, making the soup bubble fragrantly. You scraped the copper bottom with a wooden spoon, stirring the browning bits of onion and garlic around, and drowned it all in three cans of beef broth from the general store. Two bay leaves fluttered in last before you covered the pot with a lid to let it simmer.
The Sheriff would have a fine last meal.
When the first three stars appeared in the evening sky, your cottage was aglow with soft light and welcoming with the scent of a rich dinner. Fine dishes and silverware sparkled on your table with a basket of bread in the center beside a lit candelabra. A fire warmed the hearth, and the alluring shimmer of dusk slipped in through the clean curtains. All was set. You sat in your armchair and waited, staring at the flames.
Hoof beats. Sweat chilled your palms as the sound drew nearer and you stood to peer out the window. The dot of a lantern bloomed in the distance. You tucked your shirt into your belt and clutched your shawl tighter, holding your heart to tame its wild beating, fingertips bumping the band of your mother’s ring, still hanging around your neck from a chain. The most important thing for you to do was breathe, slow and even, so your blood could thrum throughout your body as it was supposed to and give you strength. It flowed into your heart and you closed your eyes.
“Ease up,” a voice called. His voice.
A horse nickered, blowing out its nostrils. Leather creaked as he dismounted from his saddle and the bit tinkled as he hitched the reins, whistling. You could imagine it all, him fixing and grooming himself as he walked up, expecting a girl who would be so happy to see him and enamored with him that she made her home all nice to welcome him after a noble day of hunting outlaws.
The jingle of his spur was as foreboding as a snake’s rattle as it marched up the flagstone path. You positioned yourself in front of the stove, bending over the pot with a spoon and stirring the flavorful broth, a smile schooled on your face.
“Honey pie, you home? It’s me.”
The picture of a perfect wife, you thought, standing in your inviting home in a cooking apron. He would only see what he wanted, blind to you being capable of anything else.
“Door’s open!” You chimed, and the doorknob turned.
Some change at once went through the room. In a heavy, dominant rush it all came back, like the strong winds the night before that rattled the window panes and made the trees plunge and bow. You spent all day distracting yourself from the flashbacks of his lurid words, the fondlings, and the sound of his labored breaths. Anguish seized your throat at the footfalls entering your home once again and the pillar of strength you constructed within, had leaned upon, began to crumble.
You had a hangnail on your thumb. You discovered this while squeezing your fist tight, tethering yourself to the present. It was a welcome, soft twinge of pain for you to focus on and you picked at it, fixing your eyes on the window. The candle before it illuminated the glass, and you watched the sapphire heart of the flame waver, heard the little hiss of it, and glanced beyond. A sky wistful with waning blue, a sunset throwing gold on all that was green, a hush of wind passing through the leaves, and your reflection blending in between. To take it all in brought you forward in time, to a crackling fire and a bubbling soup, and a purpose hanging over your heart.
It is not happening again, you reflected. And it will never happen again.
You were safe, you reminded yourself, safe in the present, grounded, and irrevocably turned to face the man who hurt you in a way no one ever had. You looked at him without seeing him, a dish towel in hand.
“Come on in, I have some dinner on the stove. It'll be ready in a jiff if you want to hang up your things.”
“I would be delighted,” was his reply.
He took off his Stetson, hung it on the hook. The sound of his coat being tugged down his arms and his gun belt unbuckling made your heart beat fast and your fingers curl into your palms again. Shaking, you gripped the edge of the counter. Steam from the bubbling pot kissed your cheeks.
A chair scraped across the floor. “It smells delicious, sweetness. I’m downright famished.”
You breathed in and out slowly. He folded his leather gloves beside his table settings and you prepared a dish for him. With a gulp and a clench of resolution, you dipped the ladle deep and unearthed the chunks of vegetables, pouring them artfully into a bowl, spoonful after spoonful.
“Any luck tracking down that gang?”
He sighed, deep and tired. His elbows knocked on the table as he reached for the loaded bread basket.
“They slipped through our fingers last night, but we almost had ‘em.” Pulling the loaf apart, he ripped a piece and tucked it into his mouth.
You rounded the table and laid the baleful meal on his place setting, in a daze as he happily snatched up his spoon.
“Oh my,” he marveled. The polished silver of the utensil disappeared in the broth and came back up replete with the softened wild bulbs.
“These onions are quaint,” he commented.
The lie came to your tongue easily. “They’re called pearl onions. I have them growing in the back.”
And with a pleased grin, he feasted. You sat across from him with your own bowl, your spoon a special porous one so you could pretend to eat alongside him. He dipped his bread in the soup and drained his glass greedily, refilling it himself from the pitcher you set on the table earlier. Before long he scraped the bottom of the bowl and you replenished it.
You tried not to pay attention to his sordid aspect. The way he sniffed loudly and chewed openly, the dirtiness of his face from riding, the grease slicking his unwashed hair and the matted tips of his mustache, his eyebrows also unkempt and overgrown. You fixed your eyes to the grain of the wood instead, ate your bread with a slice of cheese and a handful of walnuts, munched on the salad of spring greens you prepared, all the while waiting for time to take its natural course as the toxins of the ostensible pearl onions invaded his system.
“You’ve been quiet,” he observed. His hunger appeared to sate as he scraped up the last dregs of his supper, affording his utmost attention back to his hostess. “Why won’t you look at me?”
You lifted your chin from your palm. Something in his expression shifted with awareness.
“Is this about last night?” he went on. When you remained simmering in your silence, he deflated. “Listen, I–I didn’t mean to get so rough with ya. I was drunk, and I’m sorry.”
Your insides twisted and flamed, refusing to be quelled. You shot up, turning your back to him and crossing your arms as you faced the window.
“You’re sorry?” you seethed. A drum pounded in your ears; it was the mad pulse of your heart. Tall in your judicial resolve, you whirled and directed your fury towards him in its full magnitude. “Not a bone in your body is capable of being sorry,” your voice shook, low in its tenor. “You saw an opportunity to take advantage of me and seized it. The way you spoke to me—degraded me—it’s impossible for me to believe you didn’t enjoy every moment of your vulgarity.” Split flew as you scoffed at him. “Regret is not within you. Not when I see now that you planned it. All along.”
He broke into a laugh of disbelief and leaned back to survey you. The worst kind of smile distorted his face, as if your fit of temper delighted him.
“Yer actin’ like you didn’t want it. Like your cunny wasn’t drippin’ wet for me–” you lunged forward, vision red and nostrils flaring, ready to seize his neck in your hands and crush his windpipe like the frail stalk of a vegetable, but stopped, grasping the back of your chair instead. You despised the idea of having to touch him and were reminded that you would not have to get your hands dirty to kill him. But you were prepared to. How much longer could you stand his gloating and his shameless iniquity? The wood of the chair’s cross rail creaked beneath your unforgiving knuckles. The Sheriff smirked at your little display.
“I think you’re just ashamed and don’t know how to admit that you liked it,” he argued, pointing his finger at you; then he shook his head. “What nerve you have, bein’ a little cocktease with me. But I didn’t treat you like those whores in town, no, I went out of my way to…to enamor you, bringin’ you flowers while you greeted me in your garden in your lace and your pretty smiles, a pie coolin’ on your windowsill. You know my dear Carolynn never blessed me with a child, and here you were,” he gestured to your frame and the home around you. “Takin’ on the responsibilities of housekeepin’ all by yer lonesome. All you needed was a man to take care of you, and I could be that man. Honey, I want to marry you. I could make you happy! Can’t you picture it?”
Flushed from his diatribe, he pleaded with you, half-rising from his seat until you thrust out a hand in warning. Surprisingly, he heeded your tacit command. Disgust curled your lips into a sneer.
“Marry you?” you echoed, hollow with disbelief. Your vision blurred and you blinked against the mounting tide of revelation washing over you. His mindset, his reasoning, it was unfathomable, and you struggled to piece together a sentence. “This whole time…that was your object? And you thought that by—by trapping me, and giving me no other choice, that I would accept you?”
His eyes rolled heavenward and frustration flashed across his oily face. “Lord knows I’ve been patient,” he gnashed his teeth, voice raising a note higher. “I didn’t want any other man to have you. What, you think you’re meant for one of those half-witted grangers in town? They don’t know the first thing about women, let alone how to keep one as pretty, smart, and pure as you. You know it’s downright sinful to keep such gifts to yourself.”
His words were worse than his touch. You had not one to describe your own sensations; the shock of his inflicted on you completely suspended your power to think and feel.
“Sinful…” you wandered over his meaning. “You’re a hypocrite.” Releasing the chair, you stepped away a few paces and shook your head, huffing to contain your brimming despisal for this man. You refused to listen to him any more. All throughout the day strands of thought had weaved through your head, firmly knotting into what the shame made you believe about yourself. That you were ruined. That you were worth less. He must have thought he was paying you some kind of compliment, saying what he said. The refutation rose in you to a forbidding height, like the dust before a whirlwind, and your lips parted to release your final judgment of him.
“You don’t know the first thing about me: about what I want, or what I need. What you did was assume. You assumed I wanted someone to come around and sweep me off my feet, save me from my solitude, and you assumed that I wanted you. A gluttonous, arrogant, entitled pig who can’t take responsibility for his own actions, who would rather blame them on the beast at the bottom of the glass,” you spat with venom. Emotion began to wrack your voice, lifting and dropping it like the swell of a wave, but you plowed forward, pinning him to his seat with the fearsome gleam in your tear-stricken eyes.
“The worst part about it is you could’ve made your intentions clear! I could’ve been spared from all this pain if you had only the stones to be straightforward. But I guess the prospect of your hurt pride was too much to endure. Deep down, you knew the only way you could have me was unwillingly.”
Your hand clutched at your breast, wrinkling your shirt and tangling in your necklace chain. You let go and charged forward again, and this time, the chair rail snapped in your hands at your final word.
“You had no right. You’re the most pathetic excuse of a man I’ve ever seen, and I’ll be glad to see you drop dead.”
At the crack of wood he sneered. No longer tolerating this speech, he stood, and for a fleeting moment you shrunk back. Until his hand—his fat, pallid hand, still bearing a wedding band—braced itself on the tabletop and he wobbled on his feet. Blood rushed to his face and a delta formed in his forehead as he blinked at the ground, as if his vision was filled with spots while his legs drooped unsteadily beneath him. He clenched his gut and groaned.
A griefless laugh croaked from you. “You know, they say that wishes and dreams have a winding way of coming true. It looks like you are gonna spend the rest of your life with me, Sheriff.”
His sight fixed itself on the bowl in your place setting, at the spoon resting in it, and how none of your portion was consumed. He had the look of a man who realized something too late. The vein in his neck fluttered and his breaths sawed in and out of his lungs. Sweat dotted his temples and a thread of saliva spilled from his wobbling lip.
“Wh–what did you d-do?” He choked out.
The compass of your soul spun and whirred, before the ruby-tipped point settled decidedly south.
“What I had to.”
As his knees gave out beneath him, the Sheriff clutched the table’s edge, and the peaceful, law-abiding chapter of your life ended. The scent of bile fouled the air as he retched and retched, his body rejecting every morsel of the Death Camas he had stomached, and the pallor of his skin colored to that of fish’s belly before the monger’s crude knife carves it open. Not a twinge of sympathy or regret rippled inside as he fell helpless to the floor. Not at his struggle for breath, at his uncontrollable muscle spasms, or the chunks of undigested food dangling from his chin. He would lie there, wheezing and convulsing in a mound of his own vomit, until his heart stopped. You had no desire to watch, and you had no desire to wait any longer for your meteoric flight from this tainted place of grief and despair.
You unlatched the trunk in your bedroom and sifted through your belongings. Two saddlebags quickly filled. You packed the essentials: bedding and a camp outfit, medicine and provisions, clothing for severe weather, and valuables to fence. Rummaging through the kitchen, yanking open drawers and cabinets, you moved mechanically, occupying your mind with a plan moving forward, all the while a man lay dying on your floor, twitching and choking, sightless and inert. His breath was a mere rattle as you dressed yourself for travel and long riding, laying your necklace with your mother’s ring inside a sack for safe keeping. This was not the time for thoughts and moral ruminations, it was the time for action.
It would buy you time–and perhaps forego a bounty altogether–if you buried the body. His absence from town would not go unnoticed, but—Oh, yours would not either. Regardless, your next course of action began to formulate itself. You would need a shovel, a rug or a blanket, and a lantern, for the sun had dipped below the horizon and would not light your path.
As the night closed darkly in, the sunset folded its wings over the rib cages of clouds; the last pulse of color on the shore of the world a glowing, molten shade of marmalade. Insects clacked and clicked in the dusk as you stepped out in your hunting jacket, hoisting your supplies over your shoulder on the dirt path to the stable with a lantern swinging in your free hand. White moths flittered around the light and followed in your grim, resolved wake.
You hung the lamp on a hook behind the creaking door, illuminating the hay-strewn space. Bridles, bits, and martingales populated the wall inside the stable, with rakes and shovels propped up from the ground. An empty wheelbarrow served as a temporary home for your provisions, setting them inside so you could perch yourself on a stool in the corner to strap on your spurs.
Willa shifted on her hooves to adjust to the weight of the various sacks and pouches you affixed to her saddle, but she complied with a trusting snort. You spoke to her kindly, stroking her forehead, knowing that she was listening in her own way and understood her importance to you. Without her, you would be alone. Without her your future, your freedom, it would all be infeasible. You led Willa out into the night, a shovel tucked under your arm and your lantern restored in hand.
An owl hooted and a pack of coyotes yipped and yowled, the sound carrying throughout the valley. Willa’s keen ears flicked, along with her long tail, and you gestured for her to wait behind the cottage, hitching her to an oak sapling. You intended to trudge through the muck of the funereal situation as quickly as possible while the night breeze slipped cool fingers through the forest and snuffed out the last tendrils of daylight. You marched back into the firelit house for the last time.
The stench hit you first. Foul and nose-wrinkling, you tugged your collar up against the smell and regarded the log of the Sheriff’s body, lying rigid. In death, he soiled his pants, as all men do. The body releases everything and the muscles stiffen and lock, blood stagnates in the veins, the skin purples, the tongue lolls out, and the eyes fix wide open to meet the unknown. Nature takes its course. Flies are drawn by some promising whiff of a feast in the air and consume the dead flesh in a quivering swarm of greed. Time passes. Maggots crawl. And bones will be all that remain, until, some day, they are dust for the wind to claim.
He was the one you rushed to when you found your grandmother cold in her bed. He was the one who arranged for the church to collect and prepare her body for burial beside your parents in the local graveyard. He was one of the persons who offered you words of comfort during the funeral.
He was the man who hurt you most in the world.
And he was no more.
It was a yawning, black moment, the one in which you stood, hesitating on some windy pinnacle, reflecting on not what will be, but what, long since, has been. Your throat choked around nothing. What has become of you? The future stretched out before you gray, interminable, and desolate. Thoughts crowded thick and fast in your mind, and you imagined carrying out the rest of this act—covering his body, dragging it across the floorboards, the weight of it, the slack look on his face, the creases of his fat fingers outstretched from his limp hand, and you knelt to the floor with a gathering horror of your deed, a tremor pulsing in your throat, your heart crumbling to the same ash dropping in the dim fireplace.
A numbness possessed you to pull up the corners of the rug, to nudge his body to the center of it with your foot, to wrap the carpet around his form and tuck him inside. To do what needed to be done. Your mind turned off. It had to, for it was the only way to endure. There was no choice left for you. But you wished you had listened. To the night, to the change in the wind, for the footsteps of fate and the creeping shadow of the terrible god of chance stepping into your doorway, eclipsing your hope of escape from this dire strait. A darkness was gathering in the hush; the kind something crouches within.
Fate is a weaver, poised at a loom; the spider over your garden gate. It works silently and unseen, amidst an intricate and silvery web, attaching invisible strands of possibility along a path leading to an inescapable epicenter. Fate, with its nimble clutches, spins and entwines, pulls one thread, wends the other, until the time comes when the unwary traveler reaches a pivot point, the moment when their life goes down one path or another, and the spider strikes the grappling victim caught in its web.
Back first, you dragged the carpet bearing the Sheriff’s body outside your door. His boots stuck out from the roll, thumping along the ground as you grunted with the effort of transporting him, using the strength behind your legs to shuffle farther along. The light from inside spilled out along the flagstone path, and as you stopped to establish a stronger, more efficient grip, your ears pricked at a pair of unfamiliar spurs clicking and scuffing to a halt behind you.
A pin-drop silence encased the air.
Your heart froze. Ice enveloped your ribcage and crystallized the blood inside their elaborate vessels, each breath serrating through your chest like a razor. For a time, only the stars moved with their twinkling. Slowly from the ground, inch by inch, you turned your head and your sight rose to the face of the intruder, the sole witness to your grisly act, and you almost laughed at how twisted fate could be.
A faltering deputy was fixed in place on the path, taking in the undeniable scene before him. He was no stranger. You recognized him in that slant of dandelion light by the curled tip of his nose, his ruddy cheeks, and the cleft in the middle of his chin. His beard was strong, a shade darker than his hair and not so red as his skin, and he had grown into his jaw, the line of which had become more pronounced and square. He wore wrinkled pants tucked into worn, dusty boots, with his lanky frame swallowed by a long duster, a vest beneath it buttoned all the way, and a gun belt sagging around his hips. Ungloved hands hung at his sides, fingers that long ago squeezed the curves of your budding body dangling emptily.
Though he scarcely looked it, he was the boy from the orchard with russet hair and dimples all those years ago, whose mother treated you like her own; but he had grown since that uncomplicated beginning. How a broken collarbone led to a friendship, which ripened into an affection and concluded in bitter resentment, was unforeseeable at the time. You never guessed that the two of you would end up like this.
“Gideon,” you breathed. “What are you doing here?”
The hungry, sweeping motion of his mouth against yours invaded your mind. In the blink of a moment like this, despite the current of the years that swept past and weathered away the discomforting, stony edges of the memory, you could relive the minutest details of your past with him: the sloppy tangle of tongue and teeth and the scratch of an adolescent mustache; the mopey, beseeching expression on his face, begging for more of you. A chill crept across your skin at the remembrance of his neediness and desperation, making it hard to look at him, shame rooted so deeply in you.
He uttered your name in the same stunned tone, his mouth agape until he swallowed his alarm. “It’s been a long time,” he said, and his eyes, murky, silver, and cold—like a pond in winter—cut to the sagging roll of carpet in your arms. An unmistakable pair of boots stuck out. “And I see much has changed.”
None of your muscles moved—but the weight of the deceased tired your arms and you ached to rest them. You slowly lowered the rug to the ground, your eyes never leaving one another’s.
“This isn’t what you think it is.”
A disbelieving scoff left him. “What I think it is,” he echoed. “I’m thinking that better not be who I think it is. I’m thinking ‘she went from breaking men’s hearts to stopping them altogether’,” his long legs carried him forward and your spine stiffened. His face came into the light. You shrank back. “Something tells me you don’t have one of Dutch Van der Linde’s boys wrapped up in there. See, I knew the Sheriff would be here tonight, and that’s his horse hitched there,” he jerked his thumb in the direction of the animal. “You have five seconds to produce the man I’m looking for alive and well or I’m taking you in.”
You wished to heaven you could think of a way out of this. What vestige of freedom you could still secure was within your grasp and it made your teeth grit that the bitter waters of life would surge high once again at this crucial hour. It figured; the final wave for you to overcome came in the form of Gideon Taylor, the pouty boy who you had no remorse for jilting. Your fists clenched beside you and you lifted your head, standing tall, measuring and meeting the danger of his presence.
Holding his stare unblinkingly, you pitched your voice low, words growing frost. “You should leave.”
Though he had a gun and lasso on his hip and an inflated sense of superiority to empower him, Gideon hesitated.
“I will, once you tell me where the Sheriff is.”
His spurs jangled. He spoke to you cautiously, as if you were a skittish animal about to bolt for an impenetrable thicket, the flit of his eyes gauging your every move, and his hand rose out to you while he subtly reached beside him.
Before you a narrow avenue of escape flickered, shrinking smaller and smaller like the last sliver of the moon in the dark of an eclipse.
When lightning flashes, the precise amount of moments that pass between the initial burst of light and the thunder that follows measures the distance between the strike and the listener. A blink, a heartbeat, a slow breath. That was how much time you had to act, before the thunder came and the earth trembled. In that slow, blinking, beating instant, you knew how this would play out.
When his gun began to clear leather your instincts kicked in, quick as a snap. You leapt backwards into the house, throwing the door shut. Fumbling with the bolt, the rusty metal bar slogged its way through the lock, making you cry out in frustration as you strained to jiggle it forward. The bolt slid home the instant Gideon’s shoulder rammed against the boards.
Your teeth rattled at the battering of the frame. He charged against it repeatedly and your eyes, in darting about the room, snagged on a buffet table. Praying the old lock would hold, you rushed to push it in front of the door and the furniture groaned as you shoved it in place, only for Gideon’s attempts to break in to cease.
“So, we’re doing this the hard way?” Gideon yelled through the door. Your heartbeat thumped in your ears and your face grew hot at the rushing of blood. You moved to extinguish all the lamps and candles, flooding the room in darkness and the lacy scent of candle smoke. His voice came again a moment later.
“Shit, what the hell did you do to him?”
The body. Beyond the threshold. He must have peeled back the rug, looked upon the Sheriff’s vacant eyes and felt his clay-cold cheeks. A leaden weight sunk into the pit of your stomach. There was no escaping what you did. But a small chance remained to evade capture. You could sneak through the back window and mount Willa quietly, get a head start before Gideon gave chase. You could lose him in the woods near Lady Face Falls and follow the water north—
A bullet crashed through the window. You dropped to the floor. Moving forward, you crawled towards the bedroom, covering your head with your hands whenever glass shattered and chunks of wood flew. Along the way your foot slipped through a sludge of the Sheriff’s vomit and your knee banged against the wood. You bit your cheek so as not to cry out in disgust and pain and shuffled slimily onward by the heels of your hands.
Gideon fired off six shots in total before you made it safely to the other room. Quietly, tortuously, you unlatched the window and pulled it up by the handles in increments to prevent any sound while outside Gideon cursed to reload his weapon faster. You winced as it gave a squeak, but the noise was muffled by the breaking of a window in the front room. A heavy stone’s thump followed after.
Gideon called out in the dark. “Are you gonna come willingly or do I have to shoot you? There’s nowhere to go!”
The night air beckoned. Without another thought you swung a leg over the sill and ducked out, making a break for Willa. Behind the cottage, you slid down a slippery bank of pine needles until you reached your moonlit mare, grasping the smooth horn of the saddle and clambering astride to get a move on.
“Ya!” With a kick to her flank, Willa gave a jolt and a toss of her head before starting forward. Moments. You had bought yourself moments to escape, merely. Snatching up the reins, you seated yourself properly and urged Willa through the grove of trees, hunching low to dodge the lash of branches.
She moved with a swift determination beneath you. With hooves heavy upon the earth, she sensed your urgency. Twigs snapped and spears of moonlight shot through the pine canopy as you wove through a wide belt of trees, your breath coming hard and fogging in the air.
The lane of a meadow came into view and you burst through the tree line, into the moon-bright open. Willa vaulted over a fallen log and landed in the muddy grasses, your rear hitting the saddle hard while pellets of ice flecked your cheeks as she scudded over a sheaf of unmelted snow.
“Go, go, go!” Crying out, you nudged her flank again, and Willa obeyed, breathing hard. The prospect of speed and gaining distance from your pursuer outweighed the risk of exposure, riding in the open like this. Her pace transcended into a gallop. You clung tight, blinking against the cold air as it pricked your eyes. The thunder of her feet matched the beat of your heart and the landscape became a blur of stubby trees and boulders smudging past you. In the wind she made Willa’s mane flowed, and you trusted her completely to deliver you from danger.
A gun fired off in the distance. You were forced to let up, arming yourself with your father’s hunting rifle, the stock firm against your shoulder as you peered down the sight and readied your aim. A quarter of a mile off a glint of moving light came from a lantern, and it struck your heart with a pang to do it—to fix your sights on the pulse of it and fire with violent intent. The sound split through the valley. The empty cartridge ejected.
Astride his horse, Gideon shouted as it reared up. Your round pierced the dome of his upheld lantern and sent glass and kerosene raining. In the briefly purchased interval you prompted Willa onwards, back into the ponderosas that environed the open meadow and the darkness their bristling boughs afforded before he and his horse finished screaming.
The farther into the woods you ventured the thicker the trees crept in, until you were forced to a walk. Into the silence of the night you listened, straining for any sound of pursuit. Nothing, only the cold shadows, dim moonlight, and scaly bark of pines passing by your knees. You propped the rifle against your thigh and loaded another brass round into the breech before hopping down from your mount. If the necessity rose again, it would be easier to aim on solid ground rather than swiveling on horseback.
Pine cones and fallen twigs scattered at your step, and you took care to prowl lightly through the snowmelt. You held Willa’s bridle in one hand, her bit jingling, and led her until the murmur of flowing water pricked your ears. Miserable cold began to set in. At every rustle and riffle of leaf and breeze your eyes snapped to each corner of the woodland on high alert. More than anything, you wished for the warmth of your hearth—to be nestled in your favorite chair like any other evening spent in the solitude of your home. Not gripping a loaded gun in a dark forest, heart racing for your life.
But at home, you remembered, lay the body of a dead man. To return to such a place was to hold to your ear a shell from the sea of the past, filling you with the hollow echo of what once was and no longer is. Those chapters from before fluttered away—as the seasons did.
The soil turned mossy and spongy from the lush influence of the river, with trilliums springing up between tree roots and felled, sun-bleached logs. You let Willa walk on ahead, and the music of the water dampened the far-off sounds. Your breath came out slowly as you surveyed the wooded area behind you.
How smart had Gideon grown in the past few years? Could he track you, undetected? Was he stalking you through the woods, with the patience and guile of a hunter? In truth, you had no idea what he was capable of, and it made your fingers twitch towards the trigger. Then again, what were you?
The treetops stirred. A gale whistled down from the mountains, hauntingly cold, and spliced through your jacket, meanwhile the starlight twinkled on. The moonlight turned the river iridescent. Willa drank her fill of water and you settled back into the saddle to trudge downriver. Gideon would lose the tracks you had no time to cover once he reached the stream, but could easily piece together your route. You stowed your rifle and formed a grip over the reins, knuckles over, and moved to fit your boots into the stirrups to give Willa a kick.
You wondered how you could not have heard it: the low, whisking sound of a twirling lasso. By the time it dropped around your shoulders, it was too late. With a violent lurch you were dragged backwards from your horse into the numbing, snow-fed water. Hard and unforgiving rocks bashed into the side of your face as you slammed into the streambed, the taste of coins flooding your mouth as your teeth cut through your lip and tongue. You wrestled with the unyielding hold of the rope amidst the water flowing around you, the shock of which soaked ice in your blood instantly. Black flowers blossomed behind your eyes. A hard yank snagged the air from your lungs and pulled you free from the chaos of the current.
Coughing, spluttering, blinking and gasping, twigs and gravel scraped your palms and before you could brace your hands against the silt someone else’s pinned them together and pushed you on your stomach.
“You’re not gettin’ away now,'' a voice hissed. You remembered those hands on you years before, stronger since, and contempt flamed up in you, compelling the fight in your limbs to kick and scramble beneath Gideon’s hold.
“Quit makin’ this harder for me than it already is!” he snapped. With force, he wrapped the rope around your wrists in a tight bind. All that was left to fight him with was your ankles and you thrashed your knees to shake him off, but the solid weight of him prevailed.
“No,” you groaned, and it took all of your strength to. The rope bound your feet together, and a stupor sludged your limbs from the shock of the cold water. You were flipped onto your back, flinching at a face you were loath to look into. Gideon shook you by the shoulders and your eyes rolled.
“Tell me why! Why did you kill the Sheriff?!”
The river still roared in your ears. Water dripped down your neck, bunched in your lashes. You thought they might turn into icicles, like the great big ones that hung from the cottage roof in the wintertime. Senses dulled and dazed, you could hardly see from the blur of tears and cold, but you caught the echo of his question, and the vial of indignation within you overflowed past the chatter of your teeth and the shivering of your limbs, unable to contain the seething words any longer.
“You have no idea–” a cough interrupted your speech. “What kind of man you are defending.”
Blood from the cut inside your lip spattered onto his face and he only blinked as if it were water. His astonishment was beyond expression. By the moonlight, the dark of his eyes narrowed, and you wormed beneath his glaring sneer.
“He was a great man. Everyone saw the good he did. But you–” he yanked you up from the rocky bed by the elbow, your head lolling. “You were all he talked about. And I tried to warn him about you! You know what he did? He just laughed at me and said I wasn’t man enough to handle you.”
His statement stunned you into silence. Upright, your senses were slow to sharpen with the fog accumulating in your head. The idea of the Sheriff boasting about you to his fellow men sickened you more than the memory of his touch almost. But you had no time to harbor the thought before Gideon dragged you to his mount like a lamb to slaughter.
Within the narrow, binding circle in which your ankles could shuffle you were pushed along, stumbling over pinecones and driftwood. You were too cold and cut up by the rocks to fight him, but you dug in your heels as you approached the tan horse’s flank, the gelding’s tail twitching.
You rolled your shoulder as he shoved you harshly forward by the center of your back and searched for your horse desperately. Willa had taken off during scuffle, trotting down the opposite side of the riverbank. You whistled for her, and her head swung in your direction.
Gideon lost what little patience he had and pulled you up by your underarm. “Do I need to gag you as well?” You braced your arm against his horse’s side to keep your footing. “I think I should, since you’ll be savin’ your confession for the judge.”
“Gideon, stop. Please,” you wheezed. “There was a wrong done to me.” You hoped the pain in your voice would make him pause and see the misery in your eyes, think about the weight behind your words. Maybe he would remember the girl you used to be, and recognize that she was gone, wondering what took the light from her heart. A minnow of doubt darted across his face and his grip nearly faltered, until the breeze blew cold and snuffed any flame of apprehension sparking inside him.
“And you call what you did makin’ it right? Killing a man is against the law,” he elucidated. His spit sprayed across your cheek and you flinched. “But I’ve heard all that I have an ear for. You’re spendin’ the night in a cell.”
Gideon crouched and lifted you from around the legs, hefting you onto your stomach over the horse’s rump. Blood rushed to your head as your weight gravitated to your abdomen and your muscles strained to support it. The steed’s legs shifted underneath you and you lifted your head with a painful effort to speak your mind as he rounded the horse.
“The law doesn’t tell you what’s right and what’s wrong; it only says there’s a price to be paid for certain actions,” you snapped. Disdain pulsed through your veins, your blood humming with contempt.
“Yeah?” Gideon’s feet slotted into the stirrups and he gave a kick, gripping the reins and flicking them to the right. “And you are gonna pay—with your life. What’s that tell you?”
You balled your fists and squirmed, the weave of the rope digging into your wrists. Gideon started forward, roughly, back into the darkened forest. Your chin knocked against the horse’s hide and you held your head up again. “Men like the Sheriff bend the law in their favor whenever it suits them to get what they want and never pay that price. The law doesn’t protect those beneath it.”
“Spoken like a true degenerate.” He tossed you a look over his shoulder and scoffed. “God, if my mother could see you now.” At the memory of Mrs. Taylor and her old warmth towards you, you flamed up again, voice coming out in a growl.
“Oh, you don’t have room in your head for more than one idea!”
“I know better than to listen to this. I know you. A man’s heart is your joy to play with–”
“And it’s your joy to play the victim! Even now you can’t fathom why I despised you. You filled me with shame. Men like you and the Sheriff, all you care about is what I can give you. My heart, my feelings, they don’t matter. In the face of your desires they mean nothing. They don’t so much as cross your mind. The Sheriff took advantage of me and he would do it without a second thought over and over again unless I stopped it!”
“Shame?” Gideon turned back to you. The cold pinked the tips of his ear and nose, his knuckles also red from their place on the bridle. He went quiet for a moment before going on, the scenery passing by vaguely in shadows and shafts of moonlight. Your sternum ached at the pressure accrued from resting on it, and every time your head bounced along with the rhythm of the horse you glimpsed your bound feet on the other side.
He spoke softer this time. “You must not remember how sweet I was on you when we were together. But the way you turned so sour so suddenly, when I could’ve sworn you liked me just as much…it made my head spin more than anythin’. I didn’t know what I did wrong.”
The confession strummed a somber chord within you, twisting your expression grimly. You stepped out of the present, back into the years, while Gideon emerged from the cover of the woods and picked his way onto a pale ribbon of trail that wriggled ahead like a snake. A sign post at the fork heralded the one mile marker to the main road into town, painted white and chipping.
“We were so young. We were children, Gideon. It wasn’t love.”
It struck you that, at the age you spoke of, you did not know how to say no—the word not being something girls were taught. What you knew of women’s’ relationships with men was the expected role they fulfilled: giving. Giving affection, pleasure, children, companionship. In theory the rationale was not so terrible. Love was a dream. To be in love was everything. But your tryst with Gideon acquainted you with a breed of men who were used to taking what women were expected to give. Your kiss, your touch, your embrace and your body, these were all special to you; a gift to be bestowed, the chance to do so reveled. Not things you were expected to surrender to the first boy who looked at you lustfully, unconcerned with your true, inner value. You wished you knew that then.
The train of thought led you, for a glimmer of a second, to believe you could have stopped the worse act inflicted upon you by the hands of the Sheriff. As quick as it came it died. He would have found a way to get what he wanted, regardless of pleas, or strength, or precognition. You were not to blame. Bad people would always exist in the world and take advantage of others, and it was no fault of yours.
Gideon shook his head, sighed, and muttered to himself. Pivoting, he looked down on you with a pinched mouth, his eyes hidden in the shadow cast by the brim of his hat. “Yeah, well. We still knew what we were doing.” The cutting edge of his words dismissed you and he spurred his horse into a faster trot.
I think you’re just ashamed and don’t know how to admit that you liked it. A ghost whispered. The soft choke of his death rattle gripped your memory and you flinched from it.
The hardheaded hold Gideon held on his grievances made your teeth clench. If only the perfect string of words existed to compel him to release them, you would draw the strands from the air, thread them together into a net, and cast their influence over his mind to pluck his heartstrings and make him remember the boy he once was; the one who looked upon you so fondly. But the notion came to a halt at that, for was he ever a boy capable of thinking beyond his own wishes, considering the thoughts of others?
“You’re so selfish. You’ll never change,” you found yourself saying without thinking. But he did not catch your words, and you spoke up as your despisal surged anew. “Maybe you knew what you were doing when you groped me, and ground yourself against me, and kissed me slovenly, but I didn’t. Because maybe you’ve forgotten, but I just sat there. You only ever cared about making yourself happy.”
He scoffed. “As much as I know you’d like to think it is, this isn’t about what happened between us. I stopped thinking about you in that way a long time ago, along with asking myself why. What you offered—” Gideon cut a withering look to your frame and grunted. “Wasn’t that special. There’s plenty of other girls out there. I’m just glad I didn’t end up in a goddamn carpet.”
Further and further away your hope slipped. Your heartbeat pounded in your head, making it throb and ache as you hung over the horse’s side and your feet grew numb. Inevitably, water pricked your eyes. A chill breeze brushed past your nose and snot began to dribble from the end of it while your vision blurred and your voice broke.
“There is no getting through to you, is there?”
In reply, Gideon only spurred his horse to trudge an incline in the road and leaned back in the saddle, steering away from the deeper patches of snow. A knot formed in your throat as you choked down useless tears. He owed you nothing. His nature was not understanding, or reflective, or critical of himself. It was self-righteous and vindictive. The conviction rested in his eyes as unyielding as the laws of justice. An ounce of sympathy from him was as likely as drawing blood from a stone.
Bitterly, your head fell, and you sucked your quivering, gashed lip. One last time, you tried to implore him. One last time, you sought your freedom, because it was the only thing you had left to lose.
“You can let me go. I’ll never come back here! Whatever you’re trying to prove, you don’t have to–”
And he slapped you across the face to shut you up.
The strike stung like nettles and your ears rang. Shrinking away, your mind blanking with static and noise and blinding white despair, fresh blood spilled from your lips from the slap and your trembling body remembered how cold your dip in the river had been. Worse was the wind, billowing down from across the distant mountain peaks, and the shivers set in deep. The trot of the horse went on, up a hill and off the trail through the terrain once more.
In silence, in anguish, in defeat, you wept. Over the side of a horse, bound, slapped, and subdued, you wept and embraced the taste of salt. For your lost girlhood. For the grandmother who raised you and the mother who did not have the chance. For your life, for the ruination of your dreams, from the unfairness of it all. Was this the harvest of all that had been planted for you? Bone-weary, you slumped against the animal’s hide and let yourself rock with each step. If only sleep could take you. You were ready for all of this to be over, to be a dream you could wake from in a sweat and try your best to forget. Bleeding and shivering, you longingly ached for something to fetch you out of your present existence, and lead you upwards and onwards, but you had no heart left for anything.
Glancing up at the sky, a bank of clouds enveloped the moon. Over wood, over water, the flood of its silver radiance receded, the ensuing darkness weaving a mystery in every drop of dew and creaking branch. An owl hooted, but its mate did not answer. The stars did not have any either as you searched for them.
The tall trees rustled, violently unsure, and the night breeze carried a sickly sweet scent in its passing, as if stirring something hidden under rotting leaves. As Gideon passed beneath them, the ragged shadows cast from the spruces closed in, and in the gloom an old stone rose from the earth like a grave. It may as well have been your own. Darkened by the color of moss and damp, the granite ledge presided over the forest, sundered by some glacial movement from the mountains eons ago while death and rebirth churned in the woods all around.
Unable to face what was to come, you turned your head. But in so doing, you caught sight of Willa trailing you from a short distance, the spot of white on her forehead unmistakable, and your tears subsided. Your heart glowed and lifted; a wobbly smile dimpling your cheeks. Graceful and poised, steadfast and resilient, she trotted in the passing shadows like she was of its fabric, her coat the same shifting shades of moonlight while she moved like a river, the sinews of her forearms and chest a changeful, inky black above her socks of white. Her hooves were too soft to hear in the spongy dirt.
Willa’s softly brown and gleaming eyes held a star in them. Every journey you embarked on, she was beside you. She carried your bushels of burdock root and feverfew and fireweed back to your cottage without complaint, conveying you home through the forests and switchbacks countless times, and in turn you took care of her since the day your grandmother bought her from the livery.
The events which occurred in the past day loosened your foothold on your sense of self. But in that moment, pondering Willa, it came back to you. You remembered who you were, and what you believed you were meant to be. A girl brought up to respect the Earth and revere it, who kept hope in her heart always, and dreamed that she could be loved. With crystalline clarity, your mind broke free from its chains and a wind stirred a flame back to life inside of you.
From a drained well of will, you gathered your strength, braced yourself for another struggle and one last trial of endurance. While you raced to think of a way to cut your binds, Gideon’s head snapped around, and you stopped. His revolver was drawn in a flash and his horse whinnied and raked its hooves. He fixed his eyes on the tree line and you strained for any telltale sound while his gelding started to canter to the side uneasily. Something spooked it.
“What is it?” you hissed. He ignored you.
A twig snapped close by. “Who goes there?” he called out. Not far off, a ribbon of campfire smoke wove up into the night air and you squinted at the shadows.
Gideon tugged the reins hard to the left and clicked his spurs, venturing to investigate and evade the open clearing. Your head joggled with the movement and you grunted. A patch of ground ahead, though sideways from your point of view, appeared odd, misshapen, the thick carpet of pine needles too obvious to be natural. But Gideon was not watching his tread and aimed his horse’s walk right over it.
A dire creak made you freeze.
“Look out!”
It was too late.
A shrieking snap, and next, the wind was in your ear as the earth gave out from beneath. With a cry, the horse stumbled and reared and everything went upside down. Your heart seized during a timeless, weightless, airless second as a lattice of concealed logs collapsed beneath the load of Gideon and his horse, and you all fell in an outcry.
The sap and pine scent of fresh wood rushed up your nose as it cracked all around you. Unable to reach out for anything or protect your face, the sharp edges of branches snagged at your clothes and stabbed at your sides, needles scraping and stinging your skin. When the slamming force of the ground ended it all, a spike of wood tore a scream from you as it impaled your thigh.
The tumult fizzled to a static in your ears. You roiled on the dirt floor of the manmade pit, curling into yourself like a pill bug at the hot, pulsing throbs of pain in your leg surrounding the intrusion. You cried out at the unbearable and debilitating burning shooting throughout your body. Throat raw, vision white, breath sawing raggedly, your senses came clear enough for half a moment to observe Gideon, still astride his hysterical animal, gripping the bridle and urging the horse out of the pit. He kicked it harshly to vault over the rim back to solid ground.
He spared you one glance before riding off, and left you.
Tears stung your eyes and you wailed out your pain freely. Scratching at the rope around your wrists was useless, your nails only drew blood. All over, your body ached with bruises and fatigue, and it depleted all of your strength to focus on your breathing alone. Frustration and pain tangled in your chest like a mass of snakes, warring each other, and all you could to do alleviate the pain was roll onto your uninjured side. Your leg gushed like an oil-well.
Once everything started to fade, time ceased mattering, and you slipped in and out of consciousness. You blearily wondered why you were still fighting. A cold sweat chilled your neck and your chest palpitated unbearably.
Sounds from afar, beyond the pit, invaded your ears. There were hoof beats. The shouts of more riders, pursuing Gideon most likely. He would be rounding up what was left of the Sheriff’s posse, going after this gang that has been troubling this valley the past few days. No doubt this pit was dug by them, a trap for someone who got too close to where they were camped out. The whole town would be in a frenzy, meanwhile you...fading, languishing in the dirt…no one would find you in time…
With a quavering sigh, you began to let go. There was only so much your body could take; it would so much easier to sink into this grave than crawl your way out. To breathe became like listening to a lake lap a shore with its waves, growing fainter, quieter, and more still.
The moonlight was serene, and the coolness of this cavity of earth was welcome. Tree roots poked from the stratified layers of dirt, worms and centipedes clinging to the moisture therein. Above, a scuff of needles and a snort announced the presence of your most trusted friend.
Willa whickered, eyes finding your curled form in the pit. She paced around the edges. What remained of your hope ached. Through a glaze of tears you tried to speak, to soothe her, but no sound broke from you other than a whimper. But you were not alone. Never alone…in these woods…these mountains…with these familiar stars above…until unknown, male voices dispelled the cloud hovering over your thoughts.
“I’m telling you, I heard something. Someone in pain.”
Footsteps, a pair of them. You fought to stay awake, aware, but your willpower was slipping like the final sands through the waist of an hourglass.
“It’s probably another one of them law boys,” someone grumbled. “Maybe we caught one.”
“As soon as Dutch gets back we need to skip town without kissin’ the mayor goodbye.”
“You’re telling me. We should’ve left after that business last night.”
A haze began to drift over you again, sweeping you under the blessed numbness unconsciousness promised. Your eyelids were so, so heavy.
Willa nickered, the white of her eyes showing as the pair of men presumably approached her.
“Whoa, easy there.” One of the men regarded her, gently shushing and calming her in a matter of moments. In a way only you could—
“Look.”
“It’s a girl. Tied up like a steer.”
A gun being holstered, a thump of feet, and you were no longer alone. A shadow passed over the moonlight on your face. It was too dark to see, to know if you were about to be saved or damned by whoever was crouching over you. Dimly, you hoped you looked too powerless and broken to be mistreated.
“Pl—please,” your weak words tasted of copper. The apricot glow of a lantern warmed your face, and you looked up into a pair of eyes you trusted instinctively.
“What happened here?” The man who asked you this was older, with graying blond hair swept beside his temples. You had never seen him before. He had deep lines beside his shrewd eyes and his mouth was grim, but a kindness of understanding softened his countenance. It had been such a long time since any sincere compassion had looked at you through eyes other than your grandmother’s.
“Deputy—was bringing me in—left me here—“a spasm of pain interrupted your slurred speech. Wincing, you gestured to your thigh with your chin, seeing the pool of red darkening your pant leg for the first time. “Can’t move.”
The older man’s companion joined him in the light of his lantern. He was younger; tall and well-built, with a gun belt slung across his hips replete with ammunition, the brass of his bullets shining. A satchel hung from his side and he unsheathed a hunting knife attached to his belt. The quick gleam of it filled you with uncertainty.
“Easy, miss,” he raised his hands. “We don’t mean you any harm. I’m just gonna cut you free. Hold still.”
In a few saws of the blade the rope loosened its pitiless hold over your limbs; the relief of clutching your wound with your own hands was enough to make you sob. The men grew quiet, considering your condition. All of the blood was draining from your head, like it was all racing to escape out of your leg. The chunk of wood was buried in it, likely holding back a gushing torrent of crimson like the river miles and hours back. You wanted nothing more than to yank it out. It had not gone all the way through.
“We need to take her to a doctor,” the older man asserted, and his companion made a noise of protest. “I don’t know if Susan and Bessie can patch this up.”
“No—“ you cut him off, as forcefully as you could. “I can’t—I can’t go back there,” your breath began to labor and dizziness crept in as you moved to sit with your back against the packed dirt wall of the pit. “They’re gonna—gonna hang me, for killing that awful man.”
Clutching the wound, the blood oozed out warmly between the webs of your fingers, the dark, iron scent of it pungent in your nostrils. Air hissed out sharply between your teeth.
The two men looked to each other in mute discussion.
It left you in a sad whisper: “You should just leave me here.”
“We’ll help you.”
“We will?”
“Arthur.”
The fading began in earnest. You were incapable of protesting what came next. A pair of hands grasped your elbows, guiding you to your feet, which only stumbled because there was no strength left in your legs. Boneless, a broad chest caught you, your head lolling in the pillow of an arm, your nose grazing the fur of a jacket, and you burrowed into the scent of smoke and forest with a groan.
“We need to get back.” The lantern flame was doused, and the arms surrounding you lifted you in their hold. Your lashes fluttered to catch a glimpse of him, the man who held you, but his hat cast a shadow over his gaze and the night around him was dark with blue.
“You’ll be safe with Arthur, miss,” a voice said, but you were far away, lost to memories and hollow dreams. They dragged you down deep with pictures of bluebells in a water puddle, of lightning flashes through a curtain, of useless wrists beside you.
Your last awareness was of a sky made of woods and branches, with all of its stars perishing.
#arthur morgan#arthur morgan x reader#arthur morgan x female reader#arthur morgan/reader#rdr2#rdr2 fanfic#red dead redemption 2#arthur morgan fic#red dead redemption x reader#red dead redemption fic#rdr#rdr fic#arthur x reader#a dream's winding way#*my writing
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28 and Billy x (my) girlfriend reader? 👉👈
Lyrics // "Scars are fading every day
You seem a little more like yourself"
This drabble exists in the same universe as Lazy Sunday, just delving into how they first met. I hope you like it! 💜
It could be said that fate waited to weave Billy into your life, but you have never believed in that sort of thing.
You would say it was purely happenstance that the coffeehouse was hiring after your quarter-life crisis that pushed you to withdraw from your university and live damn-near a nomad for half a year. You had sold most of your belongings to weightlessly flit across Europe, creating a constellation of cities visited until your fundings ran dry.
At first your parents had been empathetic, thrilled even that their prodigal daughter returned to London, and even offered you to stay with them with your promise to enroll and finish your degree. You balked at their proposition, transitioning to flat-out refuse, and instead found your independence at this antique coffeehouse and a newfound passion for creating artwork in microfoam, with a natural skill that you quickly became renowned for.
This was how you met Billy.
He moved as if he did not wish to draw any attention to himself, but your eyes noticed him, his long and lithe frame, and how he needed to dip to pass through the door to enter. There was an awkward grace with his gate as he moved towards the till, a flush staining his skin and the glisten of perspiration from a long day that was coppering his disheveled sandy locks, curling onto his brow and the back of his neck; there was a matching mess of stubble across his angular jaw.
Despite the shop’s display to showcase your niche talent, he still quietly asked for a flat black.
You watched him, your skepticism tucked away behind your now mastered customer-service-smile, as his slender fingers rummaged to pull out three £1 and one 50p coins that clanged onto the wood countertop.
He then sat at the end of the bar, solemn and quiet, stirring in seven sugar packets and sipping gingerly. Your eyes would return to him and his morose air; there was something heavy on his wiry shoulders and it seemed to hunch him over his mug.
In truth, he was kind of pitiful, and it tugged at your heart in such a way that when he finished his cup, you were quick to refill it without him even asking. It was then that he properly met with your gaze and that was the first time you saw his brilliant blue eyes that almost glittered under the fluorescent lighting. His lips curled with his soft smile when he thanked you.
You could not help your smile in return.
He came back until it was habitual, always near the end of the day, the end of your shift, to a point that you found yourself making a fresh pot so the coffee would be warm and ready for his arrival. Billy–as you learned his name–showed himself to be an open book with any question you dared, and you enjoyed his low cadence as he shared about his life decisions that inevitably brought him here.
The shame burned bright from him and your hand seemed so small when you reached across to lay it on top of his own, a light touch, your thumb drawing small circles. Billy was flustered with the gesture, his rose coloring bringing a new tensity so his eyes were now the same cerulean that stretched over a cloudless summer sky.
“Why are you so nice to me still?” The conflict played across his sharp features, his obvious want for a connection but his own skepticism of your genuineness.
You offered a small smile. “I like you, Billy,” you admitted, squeezing his hand for a moment. You then understood he would never make a move. “Let me finish closing up and I am going to take you to dinner.”
His flush darkened. “I’m still in my work clothes–”
“And I’ll be in mine.” You interrupted with your laugh and his lips quirked in the corners slightly. “It won’t take me very long, wait for me?”
And Billy did, finishing his coffee before pushing away from the bar so you could finish wiping it down. You could feel his eyes on you, brighter now, flitting along with your every movement until you finally stopped to stare back at him, arching an eyebrow to dare him, relishing in the lines that dimplied his cheeks with his shy smile.
You could not help but smile back; in part it was because you did actually like this pitiful boy, but also your quiet realization that the weight Billy had been carrying since he first came in had seemingly lifted from his shoulders on this night.
Spotify Wrapped 2023
#☆ Spotify Wrapped 2023#billy blushing because he has a crush#billy washington x you#billy washington x reader#billy washington#just some fluff
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Hot Chocolate
Minors DNI
A bit more than 2k words
-Its a threesome with Soap and Ghost set in a snowed in cabin (｡・//ε//・｡)-
Contains- Smut, Oral (F/receiving), mention of stomach bulge, threesome, creampies (pls use a condom irl), Overstimulation. Also no plot just porn (~￣³￣)~
I think that's it (lmk if I missed something :P), Enjoy! (｡•̀ᴗ-)✧
-
Frost nipped at your nose, hot puffs of air blurring your vision alongside the harsh current of snow weaving around your bundled form.
A slight sting in your eyes as you kept them narrowed enough to keep out the snow, and that the brown logs stacked in an orderly fashion ahead were a vaguely recognizable blob.
Your fingers and nose felt numb by the time you reached a solid wooden door, fingers fumbling with the half frozen knob, as the ice barricading it finally came loose, and a rush of warm air flew into your face along with the shrill scream of the wind as you shut the heavy door behind yourself.
Boots kicked off, crunchy snow flaking off and melting into a puddle under the thick rubber material, your other layers soon followed haphazardly draped across an antique coat rack.
Fingers still numb and splotchy with a confusing hot cold sensation even with the soft cotton gloves wrapped around them
Tilting your head up at the smell of rich chocolate, your eyes and nose drew you towards the small wood burning stove of the cabin,
Amber coils of heat glowing from inside the cast iron base, a copper pot sitting atop its burners.
Ghost lazily stirring the rich brown ambrosia, while Soap lounged by the counter like a clingy dog, it was pretty adorable actually
"Make enough for me?" the question stirred out with a slight crack in your voice.
A affirmative grunt was the response, as you strolled over to the low sitting bed, and plunked down with a slight whine from the old frame and spring mattress,
The amassed pile of thin and thick blankets swallowing you a little, "Anything?" The one worded question this time from Soaps warm, soothing to the right ear voice asked
"Nope, not a sane thing would be out there in that storm anyways" you said with a bit of a peeved lilt to your voice as you yourself had been forced to go out there under "following procedure", I mean really you could barely see the shoes under your feet out there.
You leaned up on your elbows watching as Ghost-Simon, grabbed the handles of three ceramic mugs, a click as they were all pushed together before being set on the meager counter space not being occupied by Soap-Johnny.
Lifting the pots handle he slowly poured the warm drink into the three cups
Opening your hands to accept the tan with brown speckles throughout and a chip near the handle mug. You went right in to take a large sip, before recoiling in clumsily visible shock as your lips and tip of tongue were burned into numbness, eyes watering with a disgruntled look cascading over your face,
A snort very obnoxious to your ears left Simon as he dropped down onto the bed, Soap quickly following draping along near your side, your hot, hot drink sloshing in its cup, with the tremors their combined weight brought the bed.
"I hope you stub your toe" You muttered to Simon, while trying to nurse your lips by slathering them in spit, giving them a glossy finish.
Soap's eyes drawn to your face "I can kiss 'em better if you want,"
You almost accepted the sly comment if Simon didn't beat him to the punch, leaning over and gently pressing a chaste kiss to your lips, the wool of his mask preventing you from fully feeling the soft sweetness of his lips,
He whispered a half-assed apology to you while his hands crept up into your lap, moving up to grasp your mug and set it on the bedside trunk, sliding it to sit along with his own.
Soap, taking that as an invitation for competition, leaned over grasping your jaw to bring you into a bruising, suffocating kiss. Both of their hands now roaming Soap's up more towards your chest with one still around your jaw, Simons fiddling with the zipper of your pants subtly enough you hadn't noticed until you felt his touch on your navel only separated by the thin cotton of your undergarments.
Soap's pleasantly rough stubble still rubbing up against you as he had moved on from your lips allowing you to greedily suck in gulps of air,
A trail of lightly bruised skin following Soap's lips on your neck and collarbone, his hands now toying with the buds of your nipples.
"Why don't me and Lt. warm you up, mhm?" Soap murmured from between your chest.
"Sargent." Soap understood the message and lifted you up enough that Simon was able to pull your undergarments and cargos off.
A squeak caught in your throat as Simon and Soap's eyes narrowed in on your now exposed cunt,
"Well aren't you a pretty one lass" Soap said in appreciation for your newly exposed skin,
"I think getting a taste would be even better" Simon's ruff voice spoke, as he raised his skull balaclava to rest just above the bridge of his face now in view.
And before you could give a notion as to how much you would love that he dove right in, the blonde scruff on his chin scratching pleasantly on your thighs as the tip of his tongue nudged at the swollen bud between your legs,
Soap's hand went to his lieutenants head as he pushed him a bit closer to you letting Simons nose pressed up against your clit and his tongue reach the entrance to your cunt
"Atta' boy Simon" was the pretty comment Soap had for the man currently lapping at your hole while your thighs started to quiver, and little gasps of hot air leaving your mouth
Soaps hands were very active today as they moved to the hem of your shirt to pull it up and off, then fingers twisting at your bra to peel that away as well, leaving you nude to the fully dressed men consuming you whole.
"f-fuck Simon please" The winey sentence coming from your cunt rather then your brain
"Come on Lt. why don't you make our pretty girl come all over your tongue." Soap commanded the masked man between your legs and just like that a thick finger plunged into your sticky entrance , pushing in and out with a little curl in the tip of it, and Simon's lips suctioned onto your puffy bud,
Soap had to reach down to hold your thighs as they threatened to suffocate Simon, trembling with the effort to clamp down on his head as the knot in your stomach snapped, leaving you to gush all over his face.
"Atta' girl, did so well for us hm" Soap whispered into your ear, but you could hardly hear him over the flood in your ears and the white behind your eyes as they rolled in to the back of your skull, and when you could finally focus enough your eyes blown out as they watched Simon fisting into the back of Soaps fluffy mohawk while their tongues passed your slick among themselves.
"Lt. Why don't you watch for a bit while I take care of our pretty girl, yeah?" Johnny said and then gave an approving hum when Simon leaned back on his hunches pulling his finger from your hole with a slick pop.
"Now let's get you nice and stretched for the both of us lass" He followed up his words by nudging two thick fingers into your hole, making you jolt at the welcomed intrusion in your still sensitive hole.
"Need some help holdn' er down sergeant?" Simons accent seamed even thicker than usual, while he itched to get a bit closer to you and at least lay his hands on any but of your skin,
"No, you can wait, right Lt?" Soap's fingers curled in and out of your pussy with lewd wet noises, and not to mention the pathetic mewls from your mouth at the dual sensation of one of his rough calloused hands grouping at your chest.
"Please just fuck me Johnny!" you cried out almost sobbing from being denied both of their cocks for what felt like forever
"Alright bonnie" Soap soothed, his slick fingers leaving you clenching hole, and fumbling with the zipper on his pants for just a second before he was slicking his cock with your juices that had clung to is fingers in sticky strings,
"Easy lass" He continued to soothe you while you body visibly trembled a bit at the entrance of his blunt tip pushing inside your to tight hole,
"Ya' gotta ease up bonnie, how else am I suppos'ta fit my cock in ya" He said in a gentle tone while rubbing patterns into your navel, chest heaving under one of his palms.
Simon all but forgotten in the corner of the springy bed palmed his heavy cock to the absolute eye candy before him, drips of pre gathering at the flushed tip which he rubbed away to smooth his long strokes from tip to base,
Soap having now soothed in almost all of himself into your tight channel, letting you feel every inch he pushed in
"There we are taking me so well lass" Soap praised as he bottomed out into you, your mouth open in a crescendo as your back arched a bit, and you could see a little bulge on your stomach, something which Soap quickly pushed down on, causing you to let out the whiniest cry you ever did, feeling his cock press all that more into all your internal soft spots.
Soap started a slow rough pace that picked up pace soon enough that he was pounding into your cunny, with wet noises that filled the room and only increased Ghost's hand fucking speed,
"Ya gonna cum on my cock Bonnie?" Soap slurred, a few Scottish curses slipping out under his breath as you all but sucked him in,
One small circle from Soap's calloused pads on your sticky clit and your world went white for the second time that day, your hole gushing along his cock, that could only give a few more shaky thrust before soap with sweat dripping along his toned body was cumming deep inside you painting your walls white,
"Please Johnny can I fuck her now?" Simon gasped out his cock looking painfully red, as he was reduced to begging a little after siting still and watching his sergeant fuck and fill you like a good ol' boy.
You were drooling a bit, but Soap simply nodded towards his superior's before nudging you until your watery eyes cracked open and Soap was able to ask if you had it in you for another round, you could only lull your head in a light affirmative before Soap moved to cradle you from behind and Simon crawled up right in-between your trembling legs,
He rubbed the tip of his dripping cock at your soaked entrance the bulbous tip of Ghost's cock picking up a bit of Soap's leaking cum, before he pushed the tip of his cock in with a messy squelch,
The relieved groan Simon let out was drowned out by your whimper while your walls closed tight around his cock, a gush of Soaps seed being pushed out with the space Simon's cock was taking up as he quickly bottomed out in your sloppy cunt.
Simon lost himself completely in the feeling of your warm hole, and right away going for a fast pace that had you sobbing out with pleasure in Soap's arms,
"FUCK! You're so tight around me princess" Simon gasped out into the junction of your shoulder where he had quickly shoved his head to mark up your neck and shoulder in more pretty red hickeys and bite marks.
Simon really couldn't last long which was a relief for your spent body as you both trembled when he filled you up, his spend mixing with Soaps and your own, as well as gushing out around his slowly softening cock.
You must have blacked out a little as when you eyes cracked open again, Soap was wiping away cum from your entrance with a warm washcloth, and Simon was holding your long forgotten hot chocolate to your kiss-swollen lips, he must have rewarmed it as it was warm when you hastily gulped down the sweet, after such an intense round,
"Ah slow down love, How are you feeling?" Simon questioned in a raspy fucked out voice, you lazily hummed and leaned into Simon's chest he nor Soap had really removed any articles of closing during your session, and you pulled at the hem of his shirt until Simon lifted it up and off, allowing you to absolutely met at the skin on skin contact,
Soap finished up cleaning you, and himself, so he also shed his layers until he was just in his pair of cotton boxers, Simon set aside the drink gave you a soft kiss on the forehead before shifting a bit to you head was resting on his chest and Soap was curled up around you back, the blankets drawn up over the three of you cuddling together in the small snowed in cabin.
"So how's that for warming you up Bonnie?" Soap said a cheeky voice You responded with a gentle smack across his chest,
Simon let off a snort of amusement before pulling you in a little tighter as you dozed off peacefully in the comfort of your two lovers.
#john soap mactavish x reader#soap cod#ghost smut#soap smut#ghost mw2#simon riley x reader#ghost x reader#cod mw2#soap x reader#soap x you#ghost x you#simon ghost riley x reader
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Ministry Days: Oui, Chef!
Genre: Pure fluff, comfort, kitchenalia, some foreshadowing of future events, an attempt at comedy was made.
Rating: The swears, simulated wanking
WC: 2438 (I have no idea how this happened)
Warnings: A little sappy, threats of violence, light Chapter 16 spoilers. Copia suffering, no door, too many tax receipts, Seestor being a big meanie.
A/N: All HCs are my own damn fault, or taken from various bits of the Chapters, interviews, Tender Father’s ramblings. Also may have been absorbed by osmosis and exposure to the fandom. You are welcome to use them.
The kitchen was Mountain's happy place. The rhythm, sounds and organised chaos was very much like being on stage, his steady heartbeat moving things along, suffusing each dish with a bit of that ethereal ghoul magic. He could be found here most evenings, amongst the polished copper pots, his head deftly bobbing between the battery of cooking implements hanging from wrought iron racks.
There had been a few teething problems involving chipped horns and swollen lumps that had to be soothed by Aether. Even though Aeth had tisked and chided Mountain each time, he was tickled by his new found love for cooking.
The road to hell, in fact, was paved with dinners. Some lavish to the point of obscenity (particularly if the ministry was hosting high-ranking clergy from abroad), some as simple as a bowl of warming soup and dark bread fresh from the ovens. It would of course be slathered with butter made from the milk of Primo's prized dairy cows who doubled as the resident lawn trimmers. Every ghoul was threatened under penalty of death - fuck with the cows and find out at your peril. As such, the ministry kitchens were equipped to feed a small (unholy) army.
The ghouls, however, kept stranger hours- often more active at night and sleeping after dawn crept its fingers over the spires of the ministry chapel. Once the kitchen had cleared of the daytime staff, it was Mountain's preferred spot. A fire would be lit in the hearth again, kicking up embers to light new tinder and carefully stacked logs. Then there was the large bay window that had become home to a variety of potted herbs and trailing ivy - all courtesy of him. The day staff had delighted in the addition, never needing to venture outside in the bitter chill of winter in Lincopia to harvest herbs from the ministry greenhouse.
The one exception to this was Sundays. Papa insisted that he make the ghouls a communal dinner, from scratch, all by himself (unless Dewdrop decided to force his involvement on the former cardinal). Papa had a paternal streak a mile wide, and loved tinkering with old recipes until they were just right for his little band of hellspawn. Dinner on Sundays was usually late, even by ghoul standards.
Oddly, Dewdrop was an occasionally curious kitchen hand, very adamant that he be shown things step-by-step and in great detail. Whenever Mountain would gently inquire, why exactly Dew was so keen, he would be admonished with a sullen stare that hinted at acts of future violence.
On this particular night an English roast dinner had been requested, with Aether claiming he had developed an affinity for them after spending some time in Britian in an earlier century. Under a different, unnamed master.
He had conjured up visions of tables laden with joints of roasted meat, stuffings, potatoes roasted with drippings or lard, vegetables glazed or creamed into submission, sauces aplenty and those strange little puffs of air called 'Yorkshire puddings'.
Mountain had practically galloped to the library - Dew madly scrambling to keep up with him. The library had a considerable collection of antique cook books and treatises on the culinary arts. The siblings of sin had helped him find a volume titled 'Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management', from around the time Aeth said he had been in service.
The book was bound in red linen, with gilt lettering and counted among its charms a stained title page, several pages of the 'Cakes' section glued together by Satan-knows-what and, curiously, an entire chapter on 'Carving at the Table' had been unceremoniously ripped out.
Walking back into the kitchen Mountain set the book on the long wooden trestle table that graced one side of the main kitchen and sat on the well-scrubbed bench seat.
"Well, looks like we're a little fucked on the pomp and ceremony bit but at least we can scrape together some of the easier recipes."
Dew stood behind him, peering over his shoulder, making a range of faces that covered everything from abject disgust to confusion and back to dry wretching.
"It's all so fucking BROWN! How could Aeth even stomach this stuff much less want to eat it again?" Dew hissed through gritted teeth.
Mountain knew that Dew also had questionable taste in food, once having caught him eating spoonfuls of dry spices, but decided to keep that thought to himself. Dew had nearly choked to death in a puff of cinnamon when Mountain had opened the pantry door looking for the fancy fleur de sel Terzo had brought up from France.
"Well, they say that brown equals flavour, buddy. Millions of people can't be wrong, well I mean they can, but let's just go with the former. Alright, let's gather everything we need up, I'll head to the root cellar, can you crank the ovens? Let's do roast pork with crackling, glazed root vegetables, crispy roast potatoes, apple and onion gravy, horseradish cream and maybe some of those yorkshire pudding things?"
"Oui, chef!" Dew practically yelled, puffing his chest out and standing as tall as he could (he was still very small, but the effort was what counted).
Mountain gave an awkward thumbs-up, wondering what the fuck had gotten into him lately? Everyone knew he was a raging perfectionist that mastered every task he was given, but this was just extreme.
There was a door adjacent to the pantry that led down into the root cellar, Mountain practically doubling over to avoid concussion as he descended the narrow stairs. The ministry had long sat unused until the 1930s, and was a former abbey dating back to the 1400s with an extensive network of catacombs, underground chambers and cellars. This was just one storage cellar, the ministry being dotted with them, some still sealed and unused.
The cellar room itself was large enough for Mountain to stand up in, with a small, vaulted ceiling from which hung braids of garlic, onions, dried peppers and woody herbs. The door was always tightly sealed to keep Copia's rats from infiltrating the stores.
Mountain collected his root vegetables (wintered carrots, parsnips and yellow turnips) from wooden boxes and grabbed a large burlap sack of potatoes, still dirty with sandy soil. He relished the smell of soil in winter, even if it was long dry and devoid of the rich aroma of life and death that all healthy earth has. A braid of garlic, a few stray apples (these would need replenishing from the larger store cellars) and six onions were added to his basket.
Upstairs, Dew had collected a pair of ancient roasting tins that would hold two racks of pork, which he was salting and oiling. Mountain tipped his basket out onto the table and brought the onions and apples to Dew.
"Alright, slice these thinly and make a bed for the pork after you put down a little oil. Toss a few sprigs of rosemary underneath the pork as well."
Dew relished the knifework, his fingers flying adeptly just as they did on-stage. Soon sounds of sniffling and cursing could be heard from his corner of the kitchen.
"Mounty, can you pass me some paper towel? Please?"
Mountain dutifully ripped off a few sheets and handed them to Dew. Tears were streaming from his eyes, and they had gotten incredibly red, much more than any human Mountain had seen chop onions.
"Buddy, are you ok? You don't look so great..."
Wordlessly, Dew picked up the knife and pointed it at Mountain's chest.
"I...am...fine...I'm...not...crying. If you tell the others, I will end you."
Dew slowly turned to face his stinky nemesis again, his knife now pointing down at the alliums.
"I am the lord and master of these onions and will prevail. SUBMIT TO ME, YOUR ONION LORD!" Dew exclaimed as he began furiously slicing the onions again.
Mountain stiffly turned back to his own cutting board while questioning the choice of giving Dew access to a large, sharp knife. Maybe he should just give him the vegetable peeler next time...
Soon there were neat piles of chopped veg, minced herbs and bowls of coarse salt and freshly ground pepper in front of Mountain. A large tray lined with baking paper stood ready, as he tipped and mixed everything together. A final flourish of honey from the pantry was drizzled over everything.
Dew had indeed conquered the onions, and the pork was sizzling in one of the large, furnace-like ovens. Little sparks of fire magic were floating around him like orange fireflies, and Mountain could tell that Dew was manipulating the fire, willing the ancient oven to get hot enough to properly cook the crackling roast.
"Thanks buddy, you're doing a great job there."
Mountain gingerly patted him on his shoulder, to which Dew blushed and fumbled a "Thanks, chef."
While the roast was cooking, the pudding batter was assembled, the horseradish grated and gently folded into cream with a little vinegar, salt and pepper (more tears from Dew, Mountain wordlessley handing over paper towels).
It was time for the potatoes to be tipped into hot fat, and the tray of vegetables to be placed into the now less-furnacey oven. Dew had opened the oven and with his golden crown of hair blowing around him, had drawn the heat into himself, then promptly run outside and exhaled vast quantities of steam. Mountain marvelled at how strong his magic could be when he was focused and calm, something he noticed was happening more often these days.
Returning to work, they scrubbed the boards, knives, bowls and utensils, and set the table for Papa and the ghouls. They had a little time to have a cup of tea and biscuits, as the meat had to rest before carving. The siblings of sin always kept a tin of biscuits around for the ghouls, as it was an easy way to barter with them - they had become fond of earthly delights.
Mountain loved the little heart-shaped linzer cookies filled with jam, while Dew enjoyed the dark chocolate shortbreads dotted with orange zest and redolent with spice. They missed them while on tour, and would often request that the kitchen send along a tin or two to fix any cases of homesickness.
The smell of dinner had clearly wafted through the abbey as Aether poked his head through the huge wooden double-doors of the kitchen.
"Almost dinner time, lads? Want me to fetch the others?"
"Yes, and make sure to get Papa as well, I don't care if you have to tear him away from his bloody tax returns, Sister can get fucked for once. Every time I walk past his room he's either playing video games and eating Pocket Coffees from a giant bowl or wringing his hands over a pile of paper and swearing in Italian." Mountain's brow creased in worry - Copia needed a solid meal and some companionship, this work schedule was killing him...
It was time to pour the batter for the puddings into their screaming-hot moulds. Mountain carefully distributed the liquid and then immediately shoved them in the oven to bake.
Dew was already moving the vegetables onto large platters, and pouring the gravy into the Ministry's bizarre collection of animal-shaped gravy boats. His personal favourite was the puking cat.
Mountain was left to carve the pork, quietly working the slices from the rack, the crackling sublimely crisp and shattering. He heard the scrape of a chair behind him and suddenly felt a hat being negotiated over his horns.
"Gotta look the part, hey chef?" Dew proclaimed, as he slid the chair back and stood beside him, wearing a floppy, old-fashioned chef's toque like some bizarre character from an 80s children's show. It was fucking adorable.
"Absolutely bud, only the height of professionalism around here."
The other ghouls began drifting through the doors, excitedly chatting and sniffing the air. The girls coo'd over Dew's hat while also trying to dip their fingers in the gravy boat as he fended them off with a slotted spoon.
Aether and Papa were last, with Aether holding Papa up with an arm while he shuffled in, still wearing his little rat slippers and looking positively dreadful.
"Amici miei....my beautiful children, you are a sight for sore eyes. Sister, she is relentless, she has removed my door! I can't even, you know, ehhh..." he made sad, unenthusiastic wanking motions with his hand.
Suddenly, Copia closed his eyes as his nose began to twitch. He inhaled deeply, a flush of colour returning to his cheeks.
"Quell'aroma meraviglioso...Mountain, Dewdrop, you have outdone yourselves...my mama, she could have never..." Aether sat Papa down at the head of the table, gently tucking a napkin into his burgundy hoodie and pouring him a small glass of wine.
Dew held up his own wineglass, tapping it with his gigantic slotted spoon.
"The chef would like to say a few words..." he announced, chest puffed out again and wiggling an eyebrow at Mountain.
"Uh yeah, Aeth requested this one, so, uh, enjoy this surprisingly delicious brown food."
Everyone clapped, while Mountain's hat slid forward as he bowed. Suddenly, he bolted upright -"Fuck, the puddings!"
Without a hint of hesitation Dew jumped up and ran to the oven, pulling the pan of crispy puffs out with his bare hands. "Got 'em! Nice and golden, sneaky little fuckers."
"CAZZO! Put the fucking pan down, you're going to have terrible blisters, mamma mia!" Papa yelled while clasping his hands over his face, elicting a gasp from the other ghouls.
"Nah, I usually wear oven mitts just so the siblings don't lose their tiny minds when they realise I'm unburnable. Don't want to give them the brain scramblies, ya know?"
The ghouls uttered a collective sigh, of course a pan wasn't going to burn him. They all suddenly felt a little foolish, like they'd been living amongst humans a bit too long.
Swiss, however, looked contemplative, while shoving a hot yorkshire pud in his mouth he began, "The brain scramblies are bad news, like that time Rain dove into the lake and didn't come up for 20 minutes in front of the novices..."
Soon enough, laughter echoed through the hall. Mountain was content, his family was here enjoying the fruits of his labours, while their collective magics mingled in the warm air. Dew offered up a crinkly-eyed smile in his direction, which he returned with a nod and subtle grin.
They would all sleep well, with full bellies and comfortable dreams of warm hearths, surrounded by good friends.
#ghost band fanfic#the band ghost#ghost fanfiction#dewdrop ghoul#mountain ghoul#shitghosting#nameless ghouls#cardinal copia#papa iv#sodo ghoul#ghost band headcanons#ghoul headcanons
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So I went to an antique store today, which I always enjoy. I've found some good stuff at antique stores. Pretty jewelry, adorable copper cake tins, a cute teeny-tiny address book...
But today I think I made the best find at an antique store I ever made. I saw one of the most gorgeous items I've ever seen, and thusly I thought to myself, "If I don't buy this, I will regret it for the rest of my life."
And so I have brought home this beauty.
I love it so much. It's one of the most beautiful vases/pots/urns I've ever seen. I'm so happy I found it, and it was such a steal, too.
I just wanted to share this. It made me really happy.
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I just got a uge lot of pudding lot, with the most beautiful antique forms. It will soon be in my vintage Etsy shop "Ulula alla Luna".
And many more to come too!
#copperkitchenware #copperpot #copper #antique #antiquekitchen #kitchen #vintagehouse #vintagekitchen #oldhouse #oldkitchen #pot #pots #iron #forged #forge #forgediron #gipsy #rom #romany #calderari #kalderash #rom #gipsy #gypsies #kalderashrom #romany #romani
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OCkiss23 Day 5 - Yearning
A little aside with two fish-elves (called Kyekian elves by those in Maki, or Shoruns by "Kyekian" Juzhingfa citizens) pining for one another - Jabar Yanlin, a Maki-raised Kyekian elf, and Shiung Minfengchao, Shiung Yaohai (Hai)'s son. They're pretty cute if I do say so myself.
Hair as black as obsidian in a tight, flowing ponytail, iridescent antennae with thin tendril-like fronds. Steely gray eyes, lidded and heavy with sleepiness. Gray, scaled skin with stripes of light navy. Full, voluminous gills. Tight, striking black clothes that compliment his lithe figure perfectly.
Yanlin let out a dreamy sigh as he leaned against the counter, head in his hands. His clawed fingers tapped the tips of his cycloid scales. The shop was bustling with activity, though not with any customers — an everyday occurrence for Kyekian Antiquities, a shop full of deep red and copper knickknacks, decorations, and bobbles from Kyeku. Streamers donned with sparkling fish and serpents strung across the ceiling. At the same time, potted bamboo bushes jutted from hidden corners of the shop. Master Shiung, a devilishly dashing Kyekian elf, often had elves and orcs under his employment frequent the establishment where Yanlin worked part-time. They never bought anything, though he would have been surprised if one of them tried to purchase a knick-knack designed for the Maki tourists in the Village.
Yet he could hardly focus on any of the burly, gruff elves and orcs that marched in and out of the back room. His eyes glittered as he fawned over Minfengchao, who leaned against the door frame and directed the men coming and going from the shop. His heart skipped a beat when Minfengchao’s eyes met his; he quickly looked away, feeling a heat under the thin layer of scales across his cheeks.
On schedule, mist sprayed overhead and blessed the shop’s dry air with light humidity. It cooled Yanlin’s skin, and his gills opened, drinking in the pleasant moisture as he admired Minfengchao across the shop. He toyed with a few pieces of jewelry on the counter, brass and copper bracelets with accents of pearls and shells. He arranged them first by color, then by shape and size. Every minute, perhaps more frequently, he glanced up at Minfengchao, who was now engaged in a conversation with a burly orc whose fangs protruded at several angles. Yanlin pouted when Minfengchao did not look his way, then began to take inventory of a shelf of zhanfanfaūnyuu incense — a sweet liquid that left a sugary taste on his tongue several hours after consuming it. A favorite of Kyekian elves, it was also quickly becoming a favorite of Yanlin’s, one he’d often eat on break.
At last, the gruff men appeared to have gotten what they arrived for — two bulky orcs towed a heavy-looking box out of the back room, one of many marked with Master Shiung’s insignia. Yanlin didn’t know what kind of work Master Shiung did that required tasks like this, delivering and picking up industrial-sized crates, but he did what he usually did — he shrugged and turned back to his shelf to continue taking inventory.
“Jabar Yalin?” a monotone, croaky voice murmured beside him.
Yanlin’s white and orange-speckled skin came ablaze with a blush as his eyes met Minfengchao’s. Many of the men cleared out of the little antique shop, leaving them mostly alone, save for a few elves who gabbed by the exit. The two elves quickly exchanged bows. Yanlin bit back a nervous laugh as Minfengchao’s dark, gloomy eyes looked into his.
He’s so handsome… Yanlin thought. He’s so cool… What’s he want from me?
“You can call me Yan. It’s okay,” Yanlin said with a smile.
Minfengchao’s eyes went wide, bits of color forming on his cheeks under his thin scales. Yanlin stomached a pained grimace — he wasn’t raised with Kyeku cultural etiquette, and the appropriate customs were still new to him.
“W… Well, Yanli— Yan…” Minfengchao cleared his throat, scratching his cheek with a talon. A few cycloid scales flaked off, revealing the soft, bluish flesh underneath. “I am Shiung Minfengchao, but…” He sighed. “Call me Minfeng.”
Yan nodded, giving another short bow of respect. “Of course, Minfeng,” he said, hoping his gesture would ease the man’s nerves.
It did not. Minfeng glanced over toward the exit and glowered at the elves loitering there. Their fanged grins looked cruel and taunting. Yan maintained his pleasant expression, but a frown tugged on the corners of his lips.
Minfeng turned back to Yan with a sigh. He shoved his hands into his trouser pockets, then looked upward at the ceiling. The fine mist had primarily faded, absorbed into their elven skin. Still, Yan could see faint rainbows of refracting light glittering faintly across the top, illuminated by sunlight pouring in from the windows. Yan felt his cheeks grow hotter — a romantic atmosphere for someone likely asking him for a glass of water. He looked back to Minfeng, eyes sparkling with curiosity.
“Are you…” Minfeng tapped a foot with evident anxiety. He cleared his throat and cursed. “Are you free tonight?”
Yan’s eyebrows raised. All thoughts, concerns, fears, worries, anxieties — all gone. His heart stopped. His mind blanked. Then raced. “I… free? Me?” He pointed a finger against his chest. A nervous laugh escaped his lips; he covered his mouth as Minfeng’s eyes shot up to meet his in a wary squint. “I… I need to ask my dad, but… I think I’m free.”
Minfeng stood motionless. The air was still. “I can stop by when your shift is over…” the handsome elf said slowly.
Yan nodded. “I’d like that.” He smiled bashfully. “I’ll call and make sure it’s okay.”
Minfeng nodded absentmindedly — he looked shell-shocked, as though the most impressive or horrific thing had altered the course of his life forever. Yan hoped it was terrific.
The roguish elf turned toward the door. “I’ll see you soon, then,” he murmured. He walked briskly toward the door, glaring at the elves lingering in the shop’s entryway. They scattered, hurrying out the door like rodents fleeing from a hungry hound.
Yan stood by the zhanfanfaūnyuu shelf, a hand to his chest. He felt his heartbeat in his whole body, pounding through his veins. He had a date—a date with Minfeng.
A date.
“Wait!”
Yan rushed to Minfeng, who paused in the doorway. He didn’t know what overcame him — he yearned to act. Taking hold of Minfeng’s arm, he pulled the elf down to meet him. Minfeng yelled in surprise, the most energy he’d seen in the typically-drowsy man. Yan stretched out on his tiptoes, determined to kiss Minfeng’s cheek, but in his zeal, he found himself clumsy: his lips met Minfeng’s.
Their eyes both widened, lips drawn together. Yan clutched Minfeng’s arm, claws nearly tearing through the fabric. They parted, both breathless, staring into each other’s eyes.
“I… I’ll see you soon.” Minfeng’s voice was barely a whisper.
“Yes…” Yan nodded. “I’m excited.”
Overhead, the shop released a glimmering mist.
#ockissweek#ockiss23#oc kiss week#fantasy writing#fantasy#fantasy wip#psalms from the mountaintop#writeblr#wip#writers#writers on tumblr#writing#romance writing#romance
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i wish we could go back to being kids, Leah.
that’s not to say that i want to re-live those years; cold, wet, angry years. i’m saying i want to re-live you. i want to gather up those summer/autumn/winter/spring days in poulsbo, put them safe on my shelves where i can remember them.
my memories come and go, but i can’t forget walking through your neighborhood (always your neighborhood, not mine. i used to joke that if you came within a ten foot radius of my house, you'd explode), past the worn houses with their overcrowded decks and equally overgrown lawns.
past the house with the fenced-in yard and the yapping dog, rusted car in the driveway. down the hill, pocked with pot holes and muddy grass, dead trees that will be heavy with crab apples and too much pollen in three months.
down to the street, make a right, echoes of heated conversations carried in the breeze. four blocks to the next neighborhood, with it’s shiny new houses- fresh coats of paint, artificial gardens, and security cameras watching us warily from their perches in windows, blinds drawn tightly.
something about them used to make me so angry. i made an effort to pass by with as much disturbance as possible. i was so loud. i still am. always have been. i think you know, Leah, that it’s my way of forcing my presence into the world, of demanding not to be heard, but to be listened to. ‘don’t ignore (forget) me!’
you’re the only person i know that can love me like this– loud and mean and broken.
it doesn’t take long to leave the houses and their people, with their range rovers and organic granola, behind.
now we cross the street, half running because people come flying at this turn. we’re giggling at the same jokes we’ve been telling for years when we meet the new strip of sidewalk. we hurry down the block, towards the pizza/tattoo/coffee shops all squeezed into one building, the one with the bench (you know). turn the corner, and we’re home.
we invade the stores of downtown poulsbo, with their overpriced antiques and mass-produced 'rustic' home decor. make our rounds; the bead store (im sorry), the bakery, pass the shitty coffee shop on the way to the pocket-sized book store, the dainty stationary store, the diner and the seafood place, sometimes down to Mora's. businesses that had to learn to accept us.
we make up stupid names for some of these stores, ones i still can't let go of them after all this time. leave most of them with nothing, borderline harass the locals (mostly me).
always, we wind up at Cups, share a mexican brownie after pretending to read the menu. sometimes, we get milkshakes. sit outside if the weather is feeling generous. usually, it isn't.
we're here for hours, suspended in these moments. i yearn to feel them again. i can see your face so clearly. we were so young, the weight of it all wasn't quite as heavy as it is now.
downtown poulsbo isn’t the same anymore, but neither are we. we grew out of it, and it grew away from us. but i still see you in those stores, on the pier breathing in sea salt, down the sidewalk. i still see you on the hilly walk home, illuminated by the dying sunlight. in the abandoned house and the barn, at copper top and metro market, and the thicket of trees in front of Sakai.
i'm lucky now if i get to see you once a year, but in my mind, i always see you, and i love you. you are otherworldly, then and now.
#poets on tumblr#poetry#could be considered creative writing#free verse#writing#writers on tumblr#writeblr#writers and poets#platonic love#love letters#friends#lgbtq#he/him#transgender
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WIP Wednesday
I'm three scenes into this chapter with all seven drafted in dialogue... Just gotta face my age old enemy WORD PICTURES again. I'm angling for a Friday drop date per usual, but it might be Saturday since I'm busy today and dunno how much writing time I'll have.
But to tide you over, here's a little snippet of Yussa having the Worst Day.
Beau slipped into what Molly thought of as her Cobalt Soul business voice- just a bit too condescending and lightly authoritative in a very annoying way, but fuck if it didn’t actually work. “We ran into some setbacks. Best laid plans, you know?”
Yussa exhaled. “I did not like any of this from the start and it seems you have brought me bad news. Very well. Sit.”
He gestured to the couches and the Nein dropped down onto them like scolded puppies- exhausted, battered, scolded puppies. Part of Molly wanted to strangle this asshole for not having an iota of sympathy for what they were going through right now, but logic, as stupid as it was, said that they were the interlopers messing up his evening and he had every right to be annoyed by what this favor he’d agreed to entailed.
So he just grit his teeth in a grateful smile and thanked the Moonweaver that Caduceus was quick to do the talking, busying himself with a tea set that had been placed on the table in front of them before they entered.
“We did everything right. We just underestimated our enemy.” He noted the pot was empty. “This is a nice set. D’you mind if I brew something? I promise it won’t be like anything you’ve ever tasted before.”
“Certainly.” Yussa dropped down onto one of the chairs and adjusted his robes- fuck, was that real gold thread? For a moment, Molly was fascinated by the way every stitch caught the light from the chandelier above and only snapped out of it when Yussa continued, sharply:
“Indeed you did underestimate them. And there will be consequences for that. Fortunately, I have no love for the Assembly.” Yussa ran a hand over his forehead, brushing some of his wavy white hair to the side. “Still… You have put a great deal more strain on my life than I anticipated when Marion came to me.”
Caleb spoke for the first time, startling Molly and Beau both, despite how small and forlorn he sounded. “We will not let this come back on you.”
“It will not. I can assure you of that. Regardless, you will be hunted in the Empire and it is not wise for you to stay here. Where will you go?”
“To Eiselcross,” Cree replied, curtly. She had chosen not to sit and hovered behind the couch, her fur on end. Her disdain for strange wizards apparently hadn’t gotten any better over time. If anything, Molly was starting to agree with her.
“Then I would avoid Balenpost. It is-“
“An Empire outpost, aye.” Cree’s fur fluffed out even more with clear indignation at his presumption that she didn’t already know that. “I have been there with the previous Archmage of Antiquity. My former group was hired by her for an expedition a few years ago.”
Yussa raised an eyebrow at previous. “I heard about DeRogna’s death. Xhorhassian assassins?”
Molly swallowed. In for a copper... “Not exactly.”
No one offered elaboration and Yussa was clearly clever enough to read between the lines of the awkward silence. He drew a sharp exhale between his teeth and rubbed at his eyes. “If I am reading this situation correctly… You killed an archmage of the Cerberus Assembly and then attempted to kill another?”
Jester slapped her knees, indignantly. “They came after us first!”
Yussa was unmoved. “So. You kill archmages. You dismantle cults. You stand out when you should be blending into the shadows to protect yourselves. Who are you exactly, Mighty Nein?”
Caduceus was still in the process of getting the tea ready and therefore didn’t look up when he said, “I dunno if we have an answer to that yet, but… I think we might be heroes.”
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