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forestwater87 · 3 years

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Chapter 15: Grand Gesture

Summary: GRAND GESTURE: He or she must be willing to put it all on the line now or risk losing the one thing they need to become whole-hearted. It’s life or death now.

CW: Smut in the last third of the chapter. Questionable quality.

Summer 2017

“Fuck!” Gwen felt her center of gravity shift as she leaned forward, overbalancing on the rickety chair she’d been using to reach the ceiling. It tipped perilously on two legs, then lost the fight with physics and sent her sprawling with a crash that shook the dozens of tiny papers taped around the room. She hit the ground with her hip and the side of her face, one of them making a disturbing crunch sound and both shooting bright white pain down her entire right side. “Shit!”

She was halfway to her feet, wondering if the crossed-eyes dizzy feeling was from lack of sleep, hitting her head, or marker fumes, when fingers closed around her upper arm and she was hauled upright. “Gwen! Goodness, are you okay?” David let go of her, his gaze roving around the room as he took a step back. “What happened in here?”

She looked around, taking a deep breath and noticing for the first time in hours the thick perfume of tacky glue and paint, as though David walking in had turned her senses back on. It was done, mostly. Well, no — it’d never really be done, but it was enough to prove her point.

She hoped.

While she was panicking, David had wandered over to the center of the room, ducking to avoid a string of origami animals dangling from the ceiling. “Is this for camp?”

“Yes — I mean, no, it’s from camp, and maybe we can reuse some of it but no, it’s . . . not really . . .” She’d planned this, during her mad crafting frenzy: how David would come home, wonder what she was doing, and she’d carefully tour him through everything — or maybe she’d let him get on with his morning routine while she added a few more things, made it just a bit closer to perfect.

But his presence had pulled her to a halt. She’d been like a shark all night, afraid to stop moving or she’d die, but now that he was here she felt drained, the giddy, terrified adrenaline that’d been keeping her going evaporating in an instant.

Though hey. At least she had a good reason to be tired, for once.

He frowned at her discarded supplies strewn carelessly around the room. “Are these from Art Camp?”

The question jolted her into action, and she stumbled forward jerkily, like the Tin Man without oil. “Yeah, but I already took it out of my paycheck, it’s fine. I’ll go shopping tomorrow for new stuff.” She wanted him to hear what she really meant, what she was trying to put together through exhausted babbling: that this was important, that it was worth sacrificing sleep and money for, that she loved him and she respected him and she wanted him to know that.

Finally, finally, he turned his attention to the walls. “Gwen, what is all this?”

“It’s you,” she blurted out, then winced and rested her forehead in her palm. “No, that’s not — it’s — some of the stuff you’ve taught me, look . . .” She took his hand, her nerves trembling at the brush of his fingers against her own, and pulled him toward the doorway. She’d made a messy semicircle around the room, right to left like a supermarket. Dropping his hand, she took a step back, steepling her fingers like she was praying and pressing them to her lips with another steadying breath.

She had one chance.

“Okay,” she began. “So . . .”

---

Gwen looked like she was on the verge of falling over, listing dangerously to the side as she led him across the room. There were feathers in her hair, and scraps of paper; she was speckled with color, marker and paint and even a smear of glitter glue on the tip of her nose, the pads of her fingers nearly black with a rainbow of ink that stained his hand as she held it. It was obvious she hadn’t slept, even more obvious that she desperately needed to.

But her eyes were bright even if the circles under them were dark, and she thrummed with an energy and animation David hadn’t seen all summer.

And he couldn’t bring himself to interrupt her, not when it finally felt like she’d returned to him.

“— song you taught me last year,” she said, and he felt a flash of guilt that he hadn’t been listening. She tapped the paper she’d stuck to the wall, the lyrics of his Camp Campbell song scrawled across it in uneven lines. “All the camp activities, remember? At least the most important ones.”

(It was really just the ones that fit best into the rhyme scheme, but he didn’t correct her as she moved on to a second piece of paper.)

“This is a list of all the facts about nature I’ve learned since I started here,” she continued, gesturing. This one was crammed so tightly with writing that he could barely read it, bullet points snaking in all directions and increasingly smaller handwriting as it moved down the page, until finally Gwen had started attaching sticky notes to the wall below and around the list. “I had to keep going back and adding things as I thought of them. I know I’m forgetting something, but I can’t —” She gestured around her head in a classic “scatterbrained” motion, chuckling weakly. “I’m kind of all over the place right now.”

Next: a bullseye, a pencil stuck point-first into the wall. “I couldn’t really shoot an arrow,” Gwen explained, “but remember that summer you taught me archery? I’m still pretty good at it — we went to a shooting range for Claire’s birthday last year and I was the only one who hit the target every time.”

Next: a messy drawing of a forest, a little stick figure kneeling next to a moss-covered rock. “That one time we got lost in the woods trying to find a good place for bug-catching, you got us out because you knew how to find north. You’d be pretty great in a zombie apocalypse.”

Next: a sheet of black construction paper poked through with holes, hastily taped to the back window so light from the lamp outside shone through in little pinpricks. He leaned closer and realized that they were in the rough shape of the constellations visible above Lake Lilac. “I didn't know much about stars and shit outside of, like, horoscope stuff — I mean, in the city you can’t even see them — but you always pointed out which constellations and planets were out during the summer and now I know them all too.”

And on, and on. Scale models of the crafts and activities they’d done at Camp Campbell, nature facts, and on one wall she’d tacked up a typewritten letter to the Director of Admissions at Queen’s University Belfast. Skimming it quickly, it looked to David like an application.

“I was trying to get into their Environmental Science program. I wrote about Sleepy Peak Peak and Lake Lilac,” she admitted, looking almost embarrassed. “I got in. And I mean, they’re not the best program out there, but they’re still in the top 300 worldwide so that’s pretty cool, I guess —”

“Belfast?” He leaned in closer, confirming that he’d read correctly. “Isn’t that in England?”

“Yeah.” She looked impressed, and he suppressed a weary smirk; yes, he did know a bit about the world outside of Camp Campbell. But she surprised him by adding, “I had to look that up, actually.” She shrugged. “Guess I should’ve just asked you, huh?

“Anyway, that was a couple years ago. I didn’t go, obviously,” she added, responding to his unspoken question. “International travel’s a bitch. I needed a scholarship, and my grades weren’t good enough. I think I only got in at all because of my letter.” She gestured at it, not quite meeting his eyes. “Which I never thanked you for. Or most of the stuff I’ve learned from you. I’ve been . . . kinda taking all that for granted. So, uh . . . thanks, David.”

He wanted to tell her she was welcome, that she didn’t need to thank him at all. That sharing these things with her had been the highlight of his life since they’d met, even if it hadn’t seemed like she cared about any of it. But there was a lump quivering dangerously in his throat and he didn’t trust himself to speak, so he just nodded.

After a second she cleared her throat awkwardly and led him over to a row of stick figures hanging from the ceiling. “Some of these are from Yoga Camp,” she said, pointing at a few of the ones contorted into uncomfortable shapes, “but also all that other stuff you do. Like smile exercises —” and yes, one of the stick figures had a big pink smiley face, “— and breathing techniques and stuff. I use those sometimes when I’m having a panic attack. They really help, even if smile exercises still make me feel like a dumbass most of the time.”

The decorations started to get more abstract as they made their way around the room, simple crafts and trivia giving way to colorful scribbles and symbols, representing things he’d said to her about her relationship with her parents, her love life. “You have really good advice, you know that? You could be the next Dear Abby or something, seriously. I think that’s still running.”

(It was; he read it every morning with his pre-breakfast tea.)

“These get worse, sorry . . . I was getting tired.” Gwen jerked her chin up at a wobbly butterfly — or was it a bird? — dangling over their heads. “I use your advice about hummingbird-ing all the time. With writing, mostly, but sometimes at work or something, too.”

He gently reached up and touched the bird’s feet, watching it spin in a lazy circle. Technically the idea had been his mother’s, a way to avoid burnout by flitting from one project to another and adding just a little bit to each, instead of devoting all energy and resources to one thing and slogging through until it was done. The whole idea was part of his ethos of being a counselor — wasn’t Camp Campbell a place to get a little taste of everything, after all? He remembered explaining it to Gwen during her first week at camp, just over five years ago.

He wouldn’t have ever imagined that she’d actually remembered.

He didn’t think she remembered any of this.

But the evidence was all around him — on the walls, hanging from the ceiling, dozens of examples, mementos of the tiny moments that meant everything to him. Immortalized, remembered, in increasingly sloppy handwriting and doodles.

In the corner was a bright red card that looked familiar. David moved over to it and laughed in recognition: it was one he’d sent her after her first or second summer at Camp Campbell, when he’d seen on Facebook that she was looking for work. He tugged it off the wall, careful not to damage the cheap cardstock, and smiled down at the deer wearing a plaid hunting cap, which he’d made out of tissue paper and markers (he’d gotten much better since then, thanks to a few years of Decoupage Camps).

‘Good luck on your job HUNT! I know you’ll slay the interview!’

“I’ve kept that for years to show my friends,” Gwen said, making him jump; he hadn’t realized she’d come up behind him, but she was close enough to nearly rest her head against his. “I felt like it really captured the kind of guy you were.”

Her breath prickled the side of his neck, and he distracted himself by opening the card — ‘oh deer, is this joke going on too long? I feel like it’s overkill!’ — noticing how worn the crease was, like she’d opened and closed it hundreds of times. “Does it?”

He felt her shake her head without having to face her, stray wisps of hair that’d escaped her ponytail tickling his cheek. “Not even close.”

Unable to resist, he looked back at her over his shoulder, and she took his arm, turning him around the rest of the way. He thought she was going to kiss him — she was close enough that he could see a smeary glue thumbprint on her cheek and what looked like half a smiley-face sticker in her hair — but she just took the card from him, setting it carefully on the couch before taking hold of both his hands. Her expression was grave, shining faint with hope, and between the craft debris and her naked earnestness, she looked incredibly young and vulnerable.

“There’s more,” she said, gesturing with her chin toward the far wall, “and I’ll let — I want you to look at it, but . . . I just had to tell you, I’ve been taking you for granted and it’s not right. I’ve been pretending I still think of you as this —” Pulling one of her hands away, she picked up the card again, her fingers shaking so the deer’s toothpick antlers clacked together, “— sweet, silly, kinda childish David, who belongs with someone sweet, and silly, and kinda childish. And I tried to be that and . . . I mean I sucked at it,” she said, breaking off with a weak laugh, dropping her eyes to their joined hands. “And it . . . kind of broke me. But I didn’t even think to ask if that was what you wanted, because I thought I knew what you needed, and that was — so, really fucked.” She looked back up at him, her eyes dancing with purple fire, her grip on his hand tightening. “And I — I don’t, you know so much that I don’t — I could fill the entire cabin with stuff I’ve learned from you, this doesn’t even scratch the surface.”

She paused, like she was waiting for him to interject, but David felt like he’d been turned to stone, paralyzed and unblinking while his brain whirled.

“But none of it matters if it doesn’t show . . . if you don’t know —” Her voice cracked, and she dropped his other hand, pressing a fist to her mouth. “— h-how amazing you are, how much you matter to this camp and to me and . . . and I didn’t know people could actually be happy 'til I met you. I mean, I guess I knew technically, but not that it was a real thing people actually were. But you figured it out. You’ve known what you wanted since you were a kid and then you got it and I’ve never done anything without second-guessing myself a million times but you just did it, and it meant making so many decisions about your life that could’ve turned out wrong but they didn’t because they were the right ones for you. And you knew it. You always have.” She swiped at her eyes with the heels of her hands, crying in earnest now. “You’re a marvel, David. I should’ve said that every fucking day. And I know it’s probably too little, too late, but I’m sorry. For not telling you and — and for everything.

“And I . . .” She swallowed hard, taking a few heaving breaths before continuing, and he knew she was trying to hold onto her composure even as tears poured down her cheeks, “I don’t know what you wanna do. With — with us, I mean. But you’re right, I haven’t been a good girlfriend to you, and if you don’t want to . . . if you want me to leave right now or after the summer ends or if you just wanna be friends or whatever , that’s fine. A-and — if you do . . . y’know . . .” Her face crumpled, her shoulders curling in on themselves. “I love you so much,” she managed, her words harder to make out through damp, hiccuping breaths. “Whatever — whatever you want — I — I — I trust you.”

Understanding pierced his chest, a small pinhole that allowed light to pour, warm and white, into his heart.

“I trust you.”

David hadn’t realized how desperately he’d needed to hear those words until that moment.

He stepped forward, plucking the card from her hand and tossing it onto the floor (he could make her another one, dozens if she wanted, hundreds) and tilting her chin up so he could kiss her. Her cheeks were wet under his palms, her mouth salty and acidic with the taste of not-quite-morning breath, and each brush of his lips against hers was broken by her pulling back to drag in a sobbing gasp, her mouth moving clumsily like she was as close to fainting from exhaustion and emotion as she looked.

It was, without question, the best kiss of his life.

He broke away to press his forehead against hers, sliding his hands from her face to cup the back of her neck and closing his eyes. “I love you too, Gwen,” he murmured, his heart fluttering at the giddily-incredulous, teary laugh she gave in response. “And I think you need to go to bed.”

She leaned back, and the bleary confusion on her face was so precious he rose up on his toes to press a soft kiss to her forehead. “Huh? But what about . . .”

“I’ve got some stuff to think about,” he said, then gestured at the crafts she hadn’t shown him yet, “and look at. And after that . . . we should talk. But it won’t be a very good talk if you fall asleep,” he added with a laugh as her eyes drifted closed.

She opened them halfway, just enough to glare at him, but the effect would’ve been more intimidating if she hadn’t been swaying slightly. “’m fine.” The adrenaline that’d been keeping her going was clearly wearing off fast, and David was a little worried she wouldn’t make it to bed, that he’d just find her unconscious on the floor of the hallway. “You didn’t sleep either,” she accused, pointing at him with a finger stained silvery with graphite.

Goodness, he loved her so much he couldn’t stand it. “I had a nap.” Not a long one, but he was used to not sleeping much. “Get some rest. We’ll talk in the morning.”

“It’s already the morning,” she complained, but like a sleepy robot she turned and shuffled back toward the front of the cabin. “I’m gonna brush my teeth and shower and stuff. So I look less like a sludge goblin.”

“You do that, Gwen.” He waited until the bathroom door had clicked shut before turning back to the mess she’d made of their living room. It was almost hard to tell the difference between what was art and what was trash left over, there was so much of both; it looked like an explosion had hit a crafts store.

Gwen wasn’t someone who put a lot of effort into things she didn’t care about. It was one of the most frustrating things about having her as a coworker, but he’d be lying if he said he didn’t love how unabashedly honest she was, how he could read her feelings just by looking at her work.

There was the soft sound of tape unsticking and one of the decorations sagged, a corner curling away from the wall and drooping down. He pushed it carefully back into place and fumbled for his phone, setting it to camera mode.

This was worth remembering.

---

Gwen was positive she’d never be able to fall asleep; how could she, when things were still so up in the air? But she wasn’t twenty anymore, and after the exhaustion and emotional turmoil of the last few hours — days, weeks; hell, if she was being honest it’d been years since she’d truly felt well-rested — and despite the anxiety buzzing inside her skull she was out in moments.

Soft fingers in her hair drew her back to earth, and when she opened her eyes David came into focus, crouching next to her bed so they were at eye level. He smiled as she blinked at him, warmth and sunshine he probably didn’t even know he was emitting. “Goooood morning, Gwen!” he chirped, his voice way too loud for how close they were, and she winced. “Sorry,” he added, his voice dropping to a murmur. “Habit.”

“It’s fine,” she said, because she’d missed his morning bellow so much more than she could ever miss having non-punctured eardrums. She sat up, clumsily swiping at her face to double-check for drool or errant eye gunk. “Morning.”

“How are you feeling?” He hopped onto the bed, making her and everything else on the mattress bounce. He was being so . . . normal, like all the drama last night had been a dream.

Fuck it. They had some hard, painful conversations coming; she could enjoy a little bit of normalcy while her brain booted back up. “Good,” she replied, yawning. “I mean, tired, but I’m always tired so —” Her blood chilled, and suddenly she was wide awake.

There went normal. All because she had to remind him of what an unloveable disaster she was.

But when she looked back up he didn’t seem annoyed. He leaned against the wall, stretching his legs out so they dangled off the edge of the bed. “It’s okay. I don’t mind.” She scoffed before she could stop herself, and his gaze flicked up to hers, taking her breath away. (God, how she’d functioned for almost four years without feeling more than a flicker of attraction to this man was unfathomable.) “Really. I want to know what’s going on with you.” His hand landed on her knee, light as a bird but blazingly warm even through her blankets. “All I want is for you to let me in.”

A swell of emotion swept up from somewhere in her chest, causing her eyes to prick with tears for the thousandth time. She looked away and sniffed as discreetly as possible — which wasn’t very, she assumed, since he immediately reached over and handed her a tissue from the pack he kept stashed in his pockets. “I mean, if you want me to complain, I can do that,” she muttered, tamping down another flow of tears through willpower. “I can complain about fucking anything.”

David’s laugh made her turn back toward him, because it didn’t have a trace of sadness or pity or anything she’d expected. It was so purely, entirely delighted , more than even he could fake, and he was looking at her like she’d said something surprising and wonderful.

“You really like it,” she blurted out, unable to hide the awe in her voice. “That I’m like this. Whiny and —” she waved vaguely “— bitchy, and whatever.”

“I don’t.” He shook his head and her stomach plummeted. But as she took a breath to respond he shifted closer, gently cupping the back of her neck so he could tap his forehead against hers. “I love it, Gwen. I love everything about you.”

A laugh burbled out of her before she could stop it, and she pulled away to hide her face. “Oh my god. You bastard. You’re so cheesy.”

His fingers closed around her wrists, tugging her palms away from her face. “I love you,” he said, kissing the skin she’d covered with her hands — the tip of her nose, each cheek, her top and bottom lip, her eyebrows.

“I love you, too.” She could already tell that if he was going to keep saying that to her she’d spontaneously combust, because this was all too cute and romantic and lovely and she still didn’t fully understand how this was happening, why he didn’t hate her.

But she’d promised she wouldn’t question his decision, whatever it was. She owed him that much.

His smile faded slightly, a faint line appearing between his eyebrows. “What’re you thinking?”

“Nothing,” she lied automatically, and when that only made him sigh she added, “I said I was going to trust you,” hating the note of defensiveness in her voice, because of the two of them she didn’t have much grounds for righteous indignation.

“Then trust me with how you feel.” It should’ve sounded too much like a cliche, something she’d tease him for, but he was right and they both knew it.

She’d put him through hell by not telling him the truth, and they both knew that, too.

Gwen closed her eyes, taking a deep breath and forcing herself to relax. Things were — they seemed okay, didn’t they? Almost normal, but better, because all her ugliness was out there for him to see and he knew about it and he didn’t seem to mind. And wasn’t that something she’d never thought she’d ever actually find? “I don’t get it,” she admitted, her voice sounding small and stupid. “I keep feeling like . . . like I tricked you somehow. Like I didn’t explain well enough why you shouldn’t want me, because if you really got it you wouldn’t be here. Not because I think you’re stupid,” she added quickly, desperately, “because I don’t, really! But — but even smart people can be . . . I don’t know, manipulated?”

The confusion in her voice made her pause, sit back. Manipulated? That couldn’t be right, could it? She wasn’t trying to manipulate anyone, and she was pretty sure you couldn’t manipulate someone by accident.

Or maybe you could; she hadn’t always paid a ton of attention to her psych classes in college.

“I’m sorry,” she managed after a few deeply uncomfortable moments of silence. “I’m trying, I promise, but I understand if . . . you know. Whatever.” (She still hated saying it, especially now that it seemed like it might not happen. Breaking up with David was hard enough without having to say it.)

He put his arm around her shoulders, tugging her into his side and kissing her temple. “Thank you for telling me, Gwen.”

“You’re not mad?”

She felt him shake his head as she rested hers on his shoulder, scooting down to make up for their (lack of) height difference. “I wasn’t really mad when I came back this morning,” he said, “even before I saw everything you’d made. I had some time to cool down, and I . . . started thinking, I guess.”

Gwen wanted to look up at him, but she wanted to soak in his warmth more so she nuzzled into the curve of his neck, inhaling the smells of floral detergent and piney-woodsy cologne left over from the day before. “About what?” she asked, like there could possibly be more than one answer. Like maybe he’d been pondering the sociopolitics of Malaysia or something.

He let out a little huff of laughter, and she knew without looking that he’d glanced up at the ceiling in a slow blink (that he insisted was less rude than rolling his eyes outright, even though it was just as obvious). “You. Everything that’s happened this summer — and before it.” His shoulder shifted slightly under her cheek, a shrug aborted halfway through so she’d be comfortable. “Things started making more sense after everything we talked about tonight. Like the day we . . . well, when you told me about that gentleman you . . . almost took home.”

“He wasn’t a gentleman, he was a douchebag,” she interrupted, immediately feeling like an asshole. But David chuckled and squeezed her closer, like he enjoyed her company even when she was being annoying (which he did; somehow he actually did) and she let herself relax against his side, believe that maybe things were going to be okay after all.

“I’ve thought about the stuff you said a lot since that day. Mostly the parts that made me feel the worst.”

She flinched. “I’m so sorry —” she began, but he cut her off with a kiss to her forehead.

“I have trouble with . . . rejection,” he continued, sounding embarrassed. Like that minor character flaw even came close to the millions of ways she was fucked up. “I — I guess you could call it ‘abandonment issues’? But at first, and for a while, all I could hear were the ways you didn’t . . . seem to want me around anymore.”

“But I did —”

“I know.” Another soft kiss, and she wasn’t sure if it was to reassure her or himself. “I know that now. And I think, knowing that . . . it made what you said sound different.

“You were drunk — I know, you downplayed it, and it wouldn’t have excused . . . but your judgment was still impaired. And you didn’t kiss him. Thinking back, it didn’t even sound like you really wanted to. Did you?” She shook her head, not willing to look up at him because no matter how gently he tried to frame this she still felt like it was her fault. “And I just couldn’t stop thinking, how if this had happened a few years ago you would’ve told that story so much differently. If we were still just friends, maybe. You would’ve stormed into the cabin raging about how some jerk had ‘put his mitts all over you’ —”

Gwen couldn’t help it; she burst out laughing, pushing away from him and resting her head in her hands. “That can’t be how you think I talk!”

“It was an edited version,” he admitted, flushing. His smile was wide enough to illuminate the room, catching and refracting the dreary dawn light. “Please come back?”

She snuggled into his outstretched arms, her heart panging at the plaintive note in his voice. She wrapped herself around him, legs entangled with his and arms squeezing his waist; she’d missed him just as much. “Your impression of me is really bad,” she said with an uncontrollable giggle that made her feel like she was fourteen.

“I’ll work on it.” For a moment he just held her, soaking in the relief of being together and being okay. (At least, that's what she was doing.) “Why did it bother you so much?” he asked after a minute or so. “It doesn’t . . . well, it just doesn’t sound like you did anything wrong.”

“I guess — yeah, maybe not, technically anyway. But you’d just visited and saw how terrible my life is, and I was having an even harder time being a less-shitty version of myself . . .” He made a soft noise, almost pained, and pulled her closer. “So when this asshole showed up and was, like, exactly the type of guy I usually go for, it felt like . . . I don’t know. Like the universe was telling me we didn’t belong together. That sounds stupid. Never mind.” She pressed her face against his chest with an embarrassed groan. “Pretend I said something that doesn’t make me sound like I write horoscopes for a living.”

“I like horoscopes!” he replied, because of course he did. After a moment he added, “Thank you for telling me. It . . . helps confirm some things I was thinking earlier, when I left. Because what you said, and what you’ve been saying for a long time . . . I’ve been hearing it the way that’d hurt me the most, but I think you meant it to make me hate you.” He paused for a second, then added, “Do you think I’m right?”

Gwen shrugged, feeling more than a little like one of his campers receiving an aggressively pacifist talking-to. “Yeah. I don’t . . . like myself all that much.”

“I’ve noticed.” And David pressed another kiss to the top of her head, like he was rewarding her for being honest. Or like he just couldn’t help himself. “You haven’t treated me very well lately, Gwen. And I was — am very unhappy about that. But I don’t think it holds a candle to how you treat yourself.”

She wriggled away enough to sit up and look at him, frowning. “So you’re, what? Willing to come back to a shitty relationship because you feel sorrier for me than for you?” she demanded, even though it would’ve been smarter to just not say anything and enjoy his pity while she still had it.

But again, she said she’d be honest. And the true Gwen was kind of a bitch.

His smile turned sad, and he carefully tucked a flyaway hair behind her ear. “See, that’s what I mean. You never give yourself the benefit of the doubt.” When she frowned, not understanding, he took her hand and began playing with it, wiggling her fingers and twining them with his. “I understand better, now. How you’re feeling and what you’re thinking. And I’m not going to let you treat me like I’m a kid, or — or stupid, or whatever. I know you don’t really think that,” he added as she opened her mouth to argue. “There’s a whole cabin’s worth of proof in the living room that you don’t really think that. That’s why I wanna try again. Miscommunications, misunderstandings . . . those are fixable. And now that I know what’s been going through your head, I don’t think you’ve done anything I can’t forgive.”

Her eyes filled with tears — again, and she was going to die of dehydration if she didn’t get ahold of herself — but this time she couldn’t resent them too much, not when it felt like she was brimming over with hope that was eager to burst free. “What’re you saying, David?”

He shifted back, turning so he was sitting cross-legged facing her, and took both her hands in his. “I keep . . . trying to find a way to say it,” he admitted, looking down at their twined fingers and flushing pink, “because ‘do you want to be my girlfriend again?’ is maybe too middle-school, but ‘dating’ sounds too casual, and —”

Gwen pulled out of his grasp and closed the distance between them, straddling his lap and taking his chin in one hand. His face lifted toward her before his eyes did, darting from her chest to over her shoulder before finally meeting her gaze. She wound her free arm around his shoulders, sliding her fingers into the short, soft hair at the nape of his neck. With the hand cupping his jaw she gently swiped her thumb across his lower lip, slightly chapped but still warm and softer than it looked, each breath skating across her skin feather-light and making her skin prickle. “Yeah,” she said, closing her eyes and pressing her forehead to his, holding back a laugh — or maybe a sob, she wasn’t quite sure; the emotions roiling inside her were too much to separate between happy and sad. “Whatever you’re asking, yes, I want it.”

She felt his smile spread under her thumb before he brushed her hand away, tilting his head so he could kiss her. “Good,” he murmured with a breathless chuckle, wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her closer. “I mean, I was pretty sure you’d say that, but still — that’s a relief.”

She laughed, shaking her head. “You idiot.” Her blood turned to ice, and she pulled away from him, stricken. For fuck’s sake, couldn’t she be anything but herself for five minutes? “I didn’t mean — !”

David smiled, far more fondly than she deserved. “I know, Gwen.”

Groaning, she buried her face in his shoulder. “I’m trying, really I am.”

“Don’t.” He put his hands on her shoulders and pushed her back until she was upright, looking down at him again. “Please don’t try so hard to be what you think I want. Just be you.”

“Right.” She forced her shoulders to relax, tilting her head back and rolling her neck until it cracked. “I’m . . . gonna have a hard time with that. ‘Just me’ is kind of the worst.”

“I know you think that,” he said, pressing his half-open mouth to the hollow of her collarbone and making her shiver. “And I’ll keep reminding you until you don’t think it anymore.”

She managed a weak chuckle, leaning into his lips as he moved up her neck. “Good luck with that.”

His answering laugh rolled over her skin, warm and teasing. “Haven’t you heard, Gwen? I like projects.”

Jesus. Grabbing a fistful of his hair, she tugged him upright, taking a moment to appreciate his gasp that wasn’t just surprise. “I love you,” she said, loosening her grip and kissing his forehead, petting away the furrows her fingers left in his fluffy red hair.

His expression softened. “I love —” he began, and Gwen tightened her hold on his hair and pulled back, just so she could watch his eyes flutter shut and his breath catch, “— y-you too.”

Dragging her palm down the side of his neck, she settled her thumb on his throat, feeling his pulse flutter rapidly, and bent to kiss him again. She hadn’t necessarily meant to turn it into anything, just wanted to feel his lips against hers, but her fingers tightened involuntarily in his hair and he moaned, and it was a lit match dropped down her throat to a stomach full of gasoline, a whoosh of heat blazing to life in the pit of her belly. “David,” she breathed, not so much because she had anything to say but because she needed to say it, to roll the sound of his name around in her mouth, let it melt like chocolate on her tongue and infuse her whole body with sweetness.

“Gwen,” he said, and she thought he was doing the same thing, saying her name just because he could, but then his hands were on her shoulders and he was pushing her away, gentle but firm. “Gwen, wait, we should — talk about this —”

“Oh, shit, yeah. Okay. Sorry.” She sat back, her face warming. But as she settled her weight more firmly in his lap he jolted; and if she’d thought she was embarrassed it was nothing to the way his already-flushed cheeks flamed pink, spreading in blotches up to his hairline and the tips of his ears, down to disappear underneath his bandana. He stammered out an apology, avoiding her eyes even as his cock twitched, like bashfulness could disguise how hard he was against her. She quickly rose back up — the last thing she wanted was to make him feel ashamed, or pressured; everything between them was as tremulous and new as the first time — but realized almost instantly when David squeaked that this just shoved her chest in his face.

She hovered there for an awkward second, the two of them staring at each other in mortified horror. Then his whole expression wavered, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth before quickly flattening into a thin line, and the break in his composure took hers out too. She snorted, and they both burst out laughing. “I’ll just sit over here,” she said through giggles, rolling off his lap and settling on the other side of the bed with her feet curled under her so they were no longer touching. He made a small sad sound like a squeeze toy deflating, and Gwen rolled her eyes and stretched out one leg until her foot brushed his knee. “Here, hold my foot if you’re that lonely. It’s practically holding hands.”

His eyes widened, hands closing around her ankle and setting it on his thigh with something like reverence. “Thank you,” he murmured, gently tracing the outline of her foot with his fingertips. “That was very sweet, you know.”

God, she was blushing, wasn’t she? She had to be. “Yeah,” she agreed, trying to ignore the ticklish feeling as he kept playing with her foot like it was a toy doll. “Felt weird, too. I kinda wanted to insult you or something, just to balance it out.”

He smiled, wiggling her big toe like he was playing that little piggies game she used to do with her nieces when they were babies. “That’s my Gwen.” And he sounded pleased, almost proud, like she’d done something wonderful.

But that was David; even though sometimes he was completely oblivious, sometimes he noticed and appreciated the tiniest, most inconsequential things. That’s my David, she thought, her heart swelling like it was going to burst. “You wanted to talk about something?” she reminded him, waggling her toes to get his attention.

“Oh! Right.” He gently took her foot and set it on the bed next to him, grabbing a pillow and hugging it to his chest. “Sorry, I was getting distracted, and that was the whole point of you moving over there.” (He said it with a pout, like she’d gone to Spain instead of just out of arms’ reach.)

“I thought the whole point of me moving over here was so you could cool down, tiger,” she teased. But when he didn’t respond except to flush darker, his gaze firmly on a fraying edge of the pillowcase in his arms, something weird and hilarious clicked in her head. “Oh my god, are you into feet?”

“No!” He lifted his head to give her a tragically betrayed expression. “Not a weird amount!”

She grinned, poking his thigh with her outstretched foot. “What’s a weird amount?” she asked.

He shrugged, not quite able to maintain the kicked-puppy look when a smile kept trying to break through. “I don’t know. Watching people in heels step on fruit. I don’t like that sort of thing, I’ll have you know,” he added defensively, and for a second Gwen was sure he’d stick his tongue out at her.

“Sure, but you’re into them enough to know those videos exist.”

“I think I’d like to go back to you being nice to me,” he muttered, and she felt a stab of panic before he gently patted her ankle and met her gaze with a slight smile. Like he knew what she was thinking.

So she shoved past her nervousness and said, “But I thought you wanted me to be myself. And as myself, I can’t believe you never told me you were a foot guy!”

“I’m a you guy. And . . . you know. All of you. You’re perfect.”

“Yeah, but the feet are a thing, huh? At least a little bit.” When he didn’t answer she laughed, shaking her head. “So do you, like, want a footjob or something?”

“I really don’t.”

“How have we been dating this long and I didn’t know about this? What other freaky sex things are you hiding?”

“Nothing!” he said, hugging the pillow tighter. After a moment he looked away and added, “I didn’t want you to think I was weird.”

��David.” She leaned forward, waiting for him to look at her and see in her expression just how ridiculous that was. “You can’t get weirder than I am. You know that.” When the color in his face receded just a little bit, and his eyes flicked back toward her hopefully, she sighed and attempted to dredge up one of the strangest kinks in her vast library. “I’d totally fuck Drogon.”

He frowned thoughtfully. “From Game of Thrones? So would I- Iiiiiii mean, s-so would most people.”

“No, not Khal Drogo, Drogon. The dragon. Not like a humanized version, either — just full lizard.”

“Oh.” He smiled a little, almost a smirk, and Gwen felt distinctly, lovingly judged. “That does make me feel better. Thank you.”

“No problem. And tomorrow I’m gonna go into town and get a pedicure, just for you.” She wiggled her toes at him, grinning. “I’m thinking something slutty, like hot pink.”

“Gwen!” He shoved her foot away, laughing. “I was trying to have a serious conversation before you started talking about — about slutty toes and dragons!”

She cracked up too, falling over onto her side and nearly toppling off the bed. “Slutty toes,” she repeated breathlessly, and it took a few minutes to recover; every time they tried to make eye contact they burst out laughing again.

“Okay, okay.” Gwen finally sat back up, trying in vain to smooth her hair out of its mass of tangled bedhead. “I’m sorry, you were trying to say something serious. What’s up?”

“Right.” He took a deep breath, fingers knotting in her blankets until his knuckles were white. “It’s just . . . it was starting to seem like we were going to — um, you know. Be intimate.”

She resisted the urge to tease him for his word choice. “I was open to it, yeah.”

“M-me too! That’s why . . . well. Okay.” He took a deep breath, dragging his hands down his face, and Gwen noticed for the first time how tired he looked.

“Hey, we don’t have to do anything,” she said, shifting closer so she could put her hand on his shoulder. “You know that, right?”

He nodded, patting her hand before brushing it away so she didn’t feel rejected, and once again she felt a rush of love so intense it almost brought tears to her eyes. He could be so simply, effortlessly kind, without even thinking about it. “I do. At least, I think I do. I- I mean, I know I do, but it’s hard to . . .” He waved his hand around his head like his thoughts were scattering birds.

“The night before we . . . well. Ended things.” He flinched at his own words, and she felt the same pain flicker over the surface of her heart.

It’s okay, she reminded herself, wishing she could sweep him up in her arms and block out all the bad memories she’d put there. It still hurts, but we’re going to be okay.

Like he’d been thinking the same thing, David stretched out his hand to find hers, squeezing her fingers. “I said I didn’t want to,” he continued in a rush, “you know. Be together like that. And you . . . seemed to get mad — at me. And then the next day you broke up with me.” He squeezed his eyes shut, taking a shuddering breath that had tears behind it, and she tightened her grip on his hand. “It’s okay,” he said, opening his eyes and giving her a slightly-watery smile. “I’m okay. But I just need to know . . .”

“God, no,” she jumped in, taking up the thread of his question as it trailed off into nothingness. “David, no, it had nothing to do with — I freaked out, but I was already — I mean, I was gonna fall apart over anything, it didn’t have to be that. You didn’t do anything wrong, I promise.” She couldn’t stand it anymore, so she pulled his hand to her lips, kissing his knuckles because she wanted to respect his need for space but she had to touch him or she was going to die.

He swallowed, watching their joined hands for a moment before looking away. “You — that really hurt me, Gwen. I just needed to tell you that.”

All the anger he’d thrown at her in the past several hours, all the pain and frustration, and it was those small, matter-of-fact words that slashed her heart in two. “I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”

She hated apologizing — it always felt weak, or dangerous, or something. Like it was an opening for someone to hate her even more, like she was handing them a weapon to hold over her head for the rest of her life. (It was why she hated receiving them, too; she could be spiteful and vindictive as anyone, but it was uncomfortable watching someone flay themselves in front of her.)

But with David . . . it didn’t feel like she was giving him leverage when she told him she was sorry. She wasn’t scared he’d hold onto it and throw it back in her face someday. She wasn’t resentful of him, and she wasn’t worried about how he’d react.

She wasn’t anything but truly, genuinely sorry.

And he didn’t brush it aside, act like she had no reason to apologize the way she’d half-expected. Either she hadn’t been giving him enough credit, or he’d grown up while she wasn’t paying attention. Maybe a little of both. But whatever the cause, he just stroked her cheek with the backs of his knuckles and nodded, a ghost of his smile returning for a second. “It’s okay,” he said, looking at her like she was — god, like he loved her. “Hearing it helps.”

She wasn’t sure if he needed more than that, but she wasn’t going to let a single doubt linger in his mind. “Seriously, David, you can — I won’t ever be mad at you for saying no, ever. For any reason, or no reason or . . . whatever. It’s okay. It’ll always be okay.”

“I — um, I had a reason.” He spoke fast, his eyes wide like he’d surprised himself. Still, he pressed his lips together into a flat line and met her gaze, clearly nervous but just as clearly not intending to end the conversation until they’d said everything they needed to. He was so brave. “I should’ve mentioned it at the time, but I guess I was scared.”

Gwen snorted, rolling her eyes. “Yeah, I can relate to that.”

He rewarded her with a small, soft smile before continuing, “The thing is, everything had just been so gosh-darned strange between us, and it felt like you were avoiding me all the time — except when we were together like that.” He scratched the back of his neck, looking embarrassed. “It sounds silly, but I couldn’t help but worry that maybe that was . . . all you were interested in me for.”

Her stomach sank. “And then when you said no, and I freaked . . .”

David nodded, his throat moving as he swallowed again. “Yeah,” he murmured, looking away. “It — it sure felt like you only wanted me for that one thing, all of a sudden, and when you couldn’t get it . . .”

“I dumped you,” she finished, covering her mouth in horror. “Oh, David.”

“I was a little nervous to tell you to stop.” He pulled his hands from hers so he could fidget, twisting his long fingers together. “Earlier — just now. A minute ago. So we could talk. I — I know it wasn’t fair, but I couldn’t stop thinking you might get mad at me again.”

“I wasn’t mad,” she replied, her hands shaking with how badly she wanted to hug him. (And god, what a change from their normal paradigm, that she was the one who had to hold herself back from a hug.) “I mean, I was, but never at you. I was mad at me, for screwing things up. I — you’re right, I was avoiding you, or avoiding talking to you, I guess. Because I didn’t know how to talk to you, how to act so you wouldn’t find out that I’m . . .” Her throat closed, thick and gummy with tears, and she took a deep breath and swallowed them back. “Rotten,” she finished, which was a stupid, melodramatic word but it felt right; it described the way she still felt despite everything, squishy and overripe and putrid. “It was getting harder to hide, once we were together all the time. And when we were fucking —” She couldn’t tiptoe around the words like David, not when she could just say it and watch him flush red. Even her rotted heart skipped a beat whenever he smiled. “It felt like I didn’t have to try so hard. I couldn’t be amazing, but I could make you feel amazing. And if I could do that . . .” She sniffed, looking away and wiping her face clean. “I thought I was letting you know how much you mean to me,” she admitted, the realization coming right on the heels of the words. “I mean, obviously I wasn’t — add that to the list of things I suck at — but when you didn’t want to have sex, it . . . I took it really hard.”

Her face was turned away, so his hand on her shoulder made her jump. “It felt like I was rejecting the only thing you had to offer,” he guessed, his voice soft and sad but no longer on the verge of tears. “Gwen . . .”

“It’s fine,” she said, shaking her head like she could rattle her self-pity out of her head. “That was just me being stupid, I know that. More importantly — seriously.” She looked back at him, at his beautiful open face, at the way he was watching her like she could possibly have something to say that mattered. “It’s never been about sex with you, David,” she said. Felt the encroaching tears yet again and decided to ignore them. If they came, they came; they weren’t going to stop her, because it was the most essential thing in the world that he knew, that he believed her. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, the sex is really good —” He chuckled, blushing exactly the way she’d hoped he would, and it gave her a little glowing spark of strength, “— but it doesn’t even come close to being what I love most about you. None of that stuff —” She gestured toward her bedroom door, and the mess of crafts cluttering their common room. “— comes close. It’s — everything, a billion other things I don’t know how to explain or describe or show you but I love you, so much, more than I’ve ever loved anyone and it scares me, and — I’m rambling. Sorry.” She shrank back, feeling like an idiot again. “I just wanted you to know that. It . . . we don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, ever, and I’ll never be mad at you, or disappointed, or anything like that.”

“Thank you, Gwen.” He was quiet for a minute, and she felt the tension ratcheting up in her shoulders with each long, spiraling second. Part of her wanted to snap at him to just say something, finish the damn thought before he gave her a heart attack, but that was her anxiety and regret talking, and she never wanted to take her own issues out on him ever again.

(She probably would, considering what a mess she was. But she sure as hell wasn’t going to do it on purpose.)

“You’re right, though.” David’s voice was a surprise, as was the soft laugh accompanying his words. He was sitting with his head tilted back against the wall, looking up at the ceiling like he could see through it to the fading stars and brightening sky. His gaze dropped to meet hers, and he immediately looked down and away, biting his lip to try and hide a smile. “We are pretty darn great together.”

A massive weight dropped from Gwen’s chest, rolling away like a stone. “Yeah,” she agreed. Then, to test the waters: “I taught you well.”

It worked; he turned back toward her, his shyness replaced with half-serious indignation. “I like to think some of it was natural talent!”

“Ehh,” she teased, holding her hand out flat and seesawing it back and forth in a “so-so” motion. “Pretty sure enthusiasm was doing most of the heavy lifting in the beginning there.”

He crossed his arms over his chest with a disbelieving scoff. “Well, I never!”

She pressed her lips together to keep from giggling. What a dork. “Y’know, I should say we were insanely good. But I dunno, for all I know you’ve totally lost it.” Shaking her head mournfully, she quickly glanced over to make sure he wasn’t actually offended.

His mouth dropped open, his eyes growing wide before narrowing. “I haven’t lost anything!” he snapped, and — oh, the playful irritation in his voice made her stomach twist. Not in the awful sick way she’d been tied up in knots earlier, but with a flush of heat that took her breath away.

Managing a smirk, she laid back on her elbows, a warm glow of satisfaction blooming in her chest as his gaze dropped to her stomach, to the narrow strip of skin where her camisole had ridden up. She waited until he dragged his eyes back up to her, dark and intense like the ocean in a storm, then grinned at him.

“Wanna bet?”

His face lit up — or, not quite. Because his smile was bright and warm as sunshine, but underneath the tenderness was a sharp competitive edge that he almost never turned on her. It was almost intimidating, but the shiver it sent down her spine had nothing to do with fear. “Always,” he replied.

Before she could respond he’d pushed himself to his knees and grabbed her just above her calves; a quick tug forward and Gwen was pulled flat on her back, dragged down the bed until her body was sprawled out beneath him. He let go of her, bracing his hands on either side of her head and bending down to capture her mouth in a kiss.

She curled one hand around the back of his neck and pulled him closer, bending her knees so he was caged between her legs and arching her back to bring as much of her skin against his as possible. He was warm, almost uncomfortably so — her furnace, her own personal sun, and she wanted nothing more than to melt into him. When he abandoned her mouth in favor of trailing long, suckling kisses down her neck she pressed her lips together, biting hard on the inside of her cheek to keep from making a sound.

“You could’ve —” A gasp, too sudden for her to swallow it back, and she felt David’s satisfied smirk against the base of her throat as he bit down again. “— given me a concussion, you asshole.”

He hummed in assent, his lips skating up to her ear and his tongue lapping at the sensitive spot just behind it. “I know,” he said mildly, “but I didn’t.”

He gently took her earlobe between his teeth, and she couldn’t help the strangled noise that was somewhere between a moan and a sigh. Grabbing his hair again, she dragged his mouth back for another kiss, enjoying the shudder that rolled down his spine and made him tremble everywhere his body was touching hers. For a few dizzying minutes she held him there, barely allowing either of them to draw breath. His mouth was blood-hot, warmer than even her fevered skin, and she didn’t know exactly where she wanted it because she wanted it everywhere — against hers, his tongue lapping at the roof of her mouth and making her shiver; around one of her nipples, his teeth catching on the pebbled skin; sucking bruises into her inner thighs, closing around her clit, dipping inside her cunt, her asshole, along the sensitive strip of skin between the two. She wanted him to kiss her places that weren’t even close to erotic but she knew would burst into flame if he so much as brushed his lips over them: the bone jutting out from her ankle, the ticklish spot inside her elbow, wherever the fuck he wanted to press the gorgeous wet heat of his mouth she wanted to let him, because from the very first kiss he’d been good, better than he’d had any right to be but time and experience had worked their magic and now his mouth could ruin her; without even trying he could reduce her to twitching, shuddering goo.

“Take this off,” she gasped, not sure if she meant her clothes or his because she was wriggling out from under him and trying to remove both at the same time, her fingers clumsy and shaking with how badly she needed to touch him without any fabric in the way. She struggled to her knees, practically yanking her camisole off and throwing it across the room before hooking her fingers in his belt loops and dragging him close enough for her to undo the buckle. “Come on —”

“So I won?” He laughed breathlessly, untucking his shirt and pulling it over his head in one fluid motion, smugness making him unfairly graceful like he was trying to show off.

“Sure, whatever,” she muttered, because who cared about some bet when he was kneeling half-naked in front of her? They’d had silly, jokey sex but that was not this, not when he was so beautiful she was having trouble looking directly at him, hair mussed and lips damp and swollen and pink blooming in blotches under the light constellations of freckles across his skin. He looked debauched, flushed and obscene even with half his clothes still on, and there wasn’t room in her brain for humor when all she could feel was clawing shaking need. She dropped onto all fours, leaning down to trace the hard outline of his cock with her tongue, and even through his shorts he was burning warm. He sucked in a sharp breath, his pulse spiking under her mouth, and Gwen couldn’t resist closing her lips around the shape of his erection, breathing in the salty-ammonia smell of precome and feeling her mouth water. “David,” she began, but there was no end to that sentence so she lifted her head slightly, bit the delicate ridge of his hipbone where it peeked out from the waist of his shorts, caught him as his hips stuttered forward. She kept him steady, one hand splayed across his lower back, as she rose to her knees without lifting her mouth from his skin: over the barely-there softness of his stomach (no werewolf six-pack here, despite his lean strength), tongue swirling among the faint red hair below his belly button, following the curve of his ribs, just barely brushing one nipple — he made a small, strung-out noise in the back of his throat, almost despairing as she moved on up to his neck — until she found his lips again, dragging him into a bruising, breathless kiss.

When she pulled away David’s smile was gone, drawn out of his mouth and leaving him panting. “Okay,” he murmured, soft and almost reverent, but before she could figure out what specifically was okay he hauled her forward like she weighed nothing, capturing her lips for a second before trailing down her throat, pausing at a sensitive place above her pulse point and biting down hard, sucking the skin between his teeth.

Pain bloomed under his mouth, rippling out into shockwaves of cold-hot pleasure, and when he bit her again she couldn’t hold back a moan. “You’re gonna — leave a mark,” she gasped, gently shoving his head away and running her fingers over the damp skin. It was already tender, and judging by David’s expression, contrite and amused and darkly heated, it was going to be a hell of a hickey. “I can’t hide this!”

“I’m sorry!” he tried, but it wasn’t close to convincing when he couldn’t hide his grin. His eyes drifted down to the mark again and he licked his lips, expression growing dazed for a moment before he snapped back up to look at her face. “I can make you a bandana, if you want. Just until it fades.”

“Fucker.” Gwen laughed, not so much because it was funny but because it was him, and she loved him more than she could possibly stand. Tired of the overheated, confining clothes she was still wearing, she shimmied out of them, tossing her pajama shorts and half-soaked underwear without bothering to see where they landed. “Come here,” she said, pressing her legs together and shivering at the wet slide of her inner thighs and labia, a thousand nerve endings sparking to glistening life. “You can make it up to me.”

She swore she could almost see his mouth water, his gaze dropping between her legs as he took a deep breath and swallowed hard. “Yes, ma’am,” he said — and they’d never tried that before, but judging by the way his cock twitched and his eyes jumped sheepishly to hers, it was something he’d thought about a lot. Filing the information away for later, she held out her hand and pulled him closer when he took it, resting her forehead against his. It took just the slightest shift in the angle of her head to kiss him again so she did it without thinking, her hand sliding between their bodies to curl loosely around the outline of his erection.

He gasped shakily against her mouth, his hands fluttering up and down her waist like he couldn’t decide where to touch her. One of them dropped to her ass, a light, almost hesitant touch, and she rewarded it with a soft groan; he made a weak noise in the back of his throat and pulled her closer, kneading her ass before slipping lower, between her legs. The heel of his hand brushed teasingly against her clit as he pressed two fingers into her, and she mimicked his pace, gliding her palm down the length of his clothed cock and relishing the way his fingers twitched against her inner walls.

He fingered her like that, slow and steady, for — she didn’t know how long. Lost track of the strokes that sent warmly buzzing tendrils up her spine, lost count of the breaths gasped raggedly between their lips, of the kisses that melted into one another until she wasn’t entirely sure where she was, she was hyper aware of the heartbeat pounding in her clit and every too-gentle drag of his hand but numb to literally everything else that wasn’t right here, wasn’t David —

“Fuck,” she breathed, pressing her forehead against his shoulder with a shuddering sigh. She turned her head and lapped at his throat, sucking his skin into her mouth and biting down hard enough to make his fingers jolt inside her, pressing against her g-spot for one delicious moment. “God, I -- please, David, just make me come, please --”

Another shiver, another twitch of his fingers that took her breath away. “Okay,” he said, his voice strangled and hoarse. He pulled out of her and sat back on his heels. “Lay down, all right?”

Yes, yes, whatever he was thinking was 100% all right with her. She almost kneed him as she scrambled into position, but her embarrassed giggle evaporated as he lowered himself onto his elbows, scooching her up the bed like she weighed nothing and settling between her legs. Alarm cut through her arousal, her mind immediately trying to calculate the last time she’d showered, let alone shaved --

His eyes flicked up to hers, a small smile tugging at his lips. “I know,” he replied before she’d even opened her mouth. “I promise, I really want to.”

Oh, god. She covered her face to muffle a squeak, flopping onto her back and looking up at the ceiling. “I’m that predictable, huh?”

David hummed thoughtfully, the sound vibrating up the inside of her thigh. “Only with some things. Other times you surprise me quite a bit.”

“Yeah?” He kissed the top of her mound, his tongue dipping into the V formed by her lips and just brushing her clit — a teasing touch, his mouth moving away even as she lifted her hips instinctively. “I’m surprising?”

“You are,” he said, the camp-counselor cheer in his voice making what he was doing feel even more obscene. He traced the line of her cunt with his mouth before gently fingering her open. “The first time you did this, for example. That surprised me quite a bit!”

“This?” She knew exactly what he meant — her stomach still dipped and swooped at the memory of kneeling on the floor of his shower, the heady rush of confidence and vulnerability she’d felt looking up at him with his cock at her lips — but she tilted her head back with a sigh and breathed, “Pretty sure I’ve never eaten you out before. Not that I wouldn’t be into that, just saying.”

He gasped and spluttered, pulling back to wipe his mouth and staring at her with wide, shocked eyes, then coughed, tapping his chest with his other hand. “Excuse —?!”

When he lowered his head to cough again and take an unsteady breath, Gwen sat up on her elbows, not sure if she should be amused, worried, or mortified. “Oh my god, please tell me you did not just choke on cunt juice!”

David gave her a disgusted look, shaking his head and clearing his throat. “There had to be another way to word that,” he said, as primly as he could while still struggling to catch his breath. “But — um, you didn’t…w-was a joke, or…?”

“I meant it,” she admitted, “but I get it if you don’t want to, don’t feel pressured either way —”

“No — I want to.” He looked startled by his own words, and immediately dropped his gaze, smoothing his palms down her thighs like he could disguise how his fingers trembled. “Sometime. If — if you do.”

Gwen let the awkward silence linger for another moment, not quite sure how to move forward. “Good. That’s…something to put on the to-do list.”

“Y-yes. Okay.” He did meet her eyes then, brightening. “See, you did it again!”

She frowned. “Did what?”

“Surprised me.” He leaned over her body to tug her into a slow, sweet kiss. When she pulled back to breathe he cupped the back of her neck, holding her close and brushing his nose against hers. “You’re an adventure every day, Gwen,” he murmured.

“Yeah, I’m a real goddamn roller coaster,” she grumbled, shifting her hips upward in a blind search for his touch. “And I’d appreciate it if you’d fucking ride me already.”

David laughed softly against her mouth before turning his attention to her jaw, throat, collarbone — a damp, shivery brush of his tongue against her skin moving down her body. “Well goodness, Gwen, now I’m confused.” She both hated and loved the smug, teasing tone he got whenever her composure cracked. “I could make love to you,” he continued, nipping the skin just below her bellybutton and making her jump, “but I thought you wanted me to do this first.”

He closed his lips around her clit and sucked gently, catching her with an arm behind her back as she arched toward the maddening wet heat of his mouth. Lowering her hips back to the bed with infuriating tenderness, he paused, resting his cheek on her inner thigh and looking up the length of her body. When she met his eyes he smiled, pausing to press a chaste kiss to her leg before returning her gaze.

“What do you want, Gwen?” And he asked it untauntingly. Seriously. Like he wanted nothing more than for her to tell him what to do, and like he’d do it without question.

His sincerity was going to be the death of her, she decided with a groan, burying her hands in her hair and shielding her face from his view with her arms. “Fuck. I don’t know. Everything.”

When it came to David, she always wanted everything.

“That’s a real swell coincidence, then!” He traced the seam where her hip and leg met, then dipped down, dragging his fingertips through the wetness smearing her thighs before swiping them up to circle her clitoris. “Because ‘everything’ is exactly what I’d like to give you.”

She barely had time to absorb the statement before his mouth was on her again, sliding the hood back with his lips before swirling his tongue beneath it and around the exposed clit. It was almost too much, too sensitive, bordering on painful and if he stopped she might actually die; she knotted her fingers in the flimsy sheets to keep from pushing his face harder against her, vaguely aware that she was mumbling nonsensical pleas, an incoherent litany of “oh god yes please fuck don’t stop” —

He didn’t. Without lifting his mouth he braced one hand under her knee and pushed it toward her chest, bending her leg and using two fingers of his other hand to enter her. It took him a second but when he found her g-spot he pressed up hard, stroking with the same rapid pace of his flicking tongue. It was more pressure than she was used to, strangely achy but pleasurably so, and it was impossible not to writhe under his touch as the need to come coiled tighter, dragged her higher, kept her suspended on the brink for a frustrating, dizzying, electrifying moment that stretched like a rubber band…

Then it snapped — a dam breaking, a wave cresting and finally letting gravity take over — and she curled forward with a sob of relief, pleasure rippling through her limbs and turning her bones to liquid, trembling through the aftershocks.

The shift from overwhelmingly perfect to just plain overwhelming was a split second. “Nngh, stop, stop —” She pawed weakly at his head, just barely smacking the edge of his fringe with her fingertips, but he lifted his mouth from her with a look of concern. “You’re fine,” she added quickly, struggling to catch her breath and shivering from the buzz of overstimulation, “s’just too much.”

David nodded, relieved, and sat back, wiping his face with the back of his arm. “Wow,” he murmured, eyes wide and awed. “Wowzers. Gwen, have you ever done that before?”

She sat up, frowning. “Come like a train? Like every time we — whoa.”

The sheets between her legs were wet. Not damp, wet like she’d spilled a glass of water (and cooling rapidly, she realized with a grimace, shifting to avoid the blotchy patch). Presumably the same wetness dripping down David’s chin.

“Oh my god.” She groaned, hiding her face in her hands like if she couldn’t see it, it would disappear. Or feel it slicking her inner thighs. “And uh, not really,” she finally muttered, a belated answer to his question. “Once or twice, but you’ve really gotta work over the g-spot to make it happ --” She glanced up just in time to catch his expression, a flash of recognition mixed with pleased sheepishness. “Which you were.” David quickly looked away, worrying his bottom lip between his teeth and flushing pink. “On purpose?”

“I -- I’d read about it, that’s all!” he said, meeting her gaze defensively. “I knew it was, well . . . a thing. That some wom- people can do. And I was -- I’ve seen -- I was curious!” Gwen tried to stifle a laugh and failed, turning it into a choking snort, and he blushed even darker. “I know I should’ve just asked, but I couldn’t figure out how to say . . .”

She waited for him to finish the sentence, but when it became clear he had no intention of doing so, she injected as much demented cheer into her voice as possible and chirped, “‘Golly gee, Gwen, could I try making you squirt sometime?’”

Her imitation of his voice was passable -- she’d spent enough years making fun of him to get good at it -- and though he turned his head away she was positive he rolled his eyes at her. “I don’t know if that counts as bad language or not.”

“Oh no. It’d be so shocking if I said one of the no-no words.”

He chuckled, trying and failing to disguise it as a sigh, and climbed out of bed, tugging the rest of his clothes off. (As he picked up his shirt and wiped his face clean, Gwen quickly bent forward and sniffed the damp spot on the mattress. A little like saline, mostly like nothing. Good to know.)

“So how often do you trawl the internet for sex tips?” she asked, grinning. “Or -- god, tell me you’re not checking out books from the library.”

“Of course not!” He looked horrified at the thought. “And . . . sometimes. More often, after we started dating. I . . .” He paused, looking like he was reconsidering the rest of that sentence, and joined her on the bed to lean back against the headboard. “The time you visited, when I -- used my mouth on you for the first time.” (And what was it about his delicate tiptoeing that made it sound so much more filthy than if he’d said it outright?) “I thought -- or, well, I hoped . . . anyway, I did a little reading. Online, obviously. Just in case.”

So that was how he’d been so goddamn good right off the fucking bat. Always prepared, her boy scout. “Well, I appreciate it,” she said, and sat up, throwing one leg over his lap and draping her arms around his shoulders. “Can I please fuck you now, Mr. Greenwood?”

He sucked in an unsteady breath, his cock twitching up against her; the tip of his head slipped between her outer folds, making them both gasp. “C-condom,” he breathed, his voice raspy and uneven, and she scrambled off his lap before she could give in to the voice in the back of her head insisting they didn’t need to stop and get anything, he was right there , if she’d angled her hips right he could’ve been inside her already --

Her fingers were shaking as she retrieved the foil packet and brought it over, letting him take it with relief. (There was no way she wouldn’t have ripped it, with the way her whole body was trembling like the room had dropped ten degrees.) She watched him roll the latex down his cock, unable to tear her eyes away from how beautifully flushed it was, precome beading at the tip and slicking the inside of the condom.

God, she needed him inside her. Immediately.

David caught her with a breathless laugh as she vaulted back up onto the bed, curling his fingers around her hips and holding her steady. “Careful,” he murmured, and she rolled her eyes, fumbling blindly between her legs to line him up. “Have I- hhha --” He cut off, squeezing his eyes shut with a sigh as the head of his cock pressed into her, “t- told you how beautiful you are?”

Gwen frowned. It was kind of hard to focus on the question when her body was fluttering and pulsing as it adjusted to the welcome intrusion. “A lot?” she guessed, sinking down the last few inches too fast and bottoming out with an electric shock of pain and pleasure. “Fuck.”

“No. Not like that.” He slid one arm between their bodies, parting her folds to see the way she stretched around him. “I -- think you’re so pretty,” he managed, gently tracing her inner labia with his fingertips. “I like your colors. And how we -- um, contrast.”

No one had ever told her that her cunt was pretty before. It was just the kind of stupid, romantic thing David would do. And he was right; his cock looked so pale against her, where she faded from shocking pink into a dark purplish-brown that lightened as it blended into her normal skin tone. There was something about it that reminded her of a sunset -- which was just the kind of stupid, romantic thing David made her think.

“You’re an idiot,” she said, pressing her forehead against his and raising up a few inches, “and I love you so much.”

“I — love you too.” Suddenly he froze, his eyes widening and his grip tightening around her waist, keeping her from moving.

“David? Everything okay?” God, he wasn’t having some kind of terrible flashback, was he? Maybe they shouldn’t be doing this.

His eyes flicked up to hers, and a wide, sunny smile spread across his face like spilled honey. “This is just like the first time.”

It took her a moment to understand what he was talking about, but then it hit her: this was like the night they’d first had sex, from the position to the location to the dizzying, giddy strangeness of it.

God, he was perfect.

“Sort of.” She pressed a hard, quick kiss to his lips before grabbing a fistful of his hair and tugging his head to the side so she could reach his neck; he whimpered and twitched twice, each pulse against her inner walls taking her breath away. “Except I know you way better now.” She punctuated the statement by licking a wide stripe up the side of his throat, then sucked a mark right beside his Adam’s apple, where it’d be safely hidden by his bandana. “All your weak points.”

“I—” He swallowed, tilting his head obediently as she trailed a line of open-mouthed kisses up to his ear, “d-don’t know what you’re talking about.”

She just hummed; that wasn’t worth dignifying with a real response, and the vibrations against his damp skin made him shiver. Instead she toyed with him: tracing the shell of his ear with her tongue, nipping at his earlobe with just a hint of teeth, exploring the delicate area around his ear and neck she knew so well, had staked her claim to a hundred times before.

David’s breathing quickened, roughened, and she had to tighten her grip on his hair to keep him from squirming. Her hips weren’t moving but his were, minute jolts she was positive he couldn’t control. “Gwen,” he gasped, “please, I -- hhit's too much, I can’t --”

“Could you come like this?” she asked, fighting to keep her own voice level. She could feel his pulse pounding in his cock and in his throat, under her lips; her clit throbbed in response, a metronome perfectly attuned to him. “Without me even moving? Or just . . .” She squeezed her internal muscles, clenching around him in a quick staccato pattern, and lapped her tongue against his neck in time.

“Nnno. Or -- yes?” His fingers tightened around her hips, a helpless spasm. “I don’t know. It’d . . . be torture.”

His voice was so low, wrecked, and Gwen’s stomach went into a dizzying, delicious free-fall. “Good,” she said before she could stop herself, think it through and reject it as sounding weird and freaky. David successfully pulled back from her, his eyes wide and blown out with arousal, and he looked so beautiful she couldn’t stop herself from blurting out, “I want to torture you sometime. Nothing you’re not okay with -- and not now, but . . .”

“Yes,” he breathed, and the word was barely out of his mouth before his hand curled around the back of her neck and he was dragging her mouth to his, a kiss made of teeth and desperation with words gasped out against her lips: “yes, god, whatever you want Gwen please I love you --” His other hand slid to cup the curve of her thigh, urge her up onto her knees so he could fuck her properly, pull her back down to set a rhythm that bordered on frantic.

She couldn’t help but laugh, even as she braced her palms against the headboard for better leverage to ride him faster, harder. “Told you,” she teased, biting his lower lip hard enough to drag a breathy whine from him. “Weak.”

That made him moan, drawn-out and broken, and he slipped one hand between their bodies; curling it into a loose fist, he splayed his index and middle fingers just enough for her clit to glide between them, adding an extra jolt of friction every time she moved her hips. Gwen gasped, clutching at his back with one hand as her second orgasm coiled tighter at the base of her spine.

She bit his shoulder because she could, because she had to, because he’d like it and because it was that or scream loud enough to wake the entire camp. “Fuck, god, David --”

He shuddered and buried his face in her hair, his breath hot with a stream of pleasured mumbles beginning and ending in her name --

Gwen didn’t know which of them came first. It didn’t matter, really, because they dragged each other over the edge. His cock was almost painfully hard, unyielding as iron as her muscles tightened and fluttered around it, and the sudden snap upward of his hips as he came nearly knocked her breathless.

She was going to be sore tomorrow. Or . . . later today. She turned her head and mouthed at David’s neck, relishing the sweet-salt taste of his sweat, and let him hold her up as they caught their breath.

“I love you too,” she whispered belatedly. David huffed a weak laugh into her hair, stroking her back with a touch that was light and ticklish. “But we’re sleeping in your room tonight. I don’t wanna deal with the wet spot.”

Yeah, she was going to be sore, and exhausted, and facing a hell of a cleanup both in her bedroom and outside of it.

David groaned and gently pushed her upright, sliding out from under her and taking her hand, like she was a camper who needed to be ushered back to bed. “Phone,” she bleated, weakly reaching for it as they walked past, and he paused to pick it up for her, and in that second she loved him even more, more than she’d ever thought possible.

Worth it.

#campcamp #camp camp roosterteeth #gwenvid #cc gwen #cc david #this ending is too awkward to put in the main tags but fuck it #i spent weeks working on this okay #maybe even months #i am exhausted and cannot look at this anymore #hope y'all like your smut interspersed with pages upon pages of talking #because that's what you're getting #the only reason this isn't a total disaster is raenbows and don't anyone forget it #forestwriting

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guileheroine · 3 years

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a sky full of song, chapter two

As her friendship with the Princess continues to deepen, a road trip to the Earth Kingdom compels Asami to reflect on her place in the world / Korrasami royalty AU / ao3 / chapter one

Asami exchanged eager glances with Miki and Khiem. Silaq stood by the door with his arms crossed casually, but they were all invested. As soon as the rickety panel separating them from the magic chamber slid aside and Korra emerged out, Miki caught her arm.

Asami caught the other one. "So what did she say?"

"Hey! That's between me and Mistress Meng." Korra winked, while Asami rolled her eyes. "Your turn, quick. She was meant to close fifteen minutes ago but I gave her a little extra so she'd do everyone. At the behest of the princess and all."

Asami almost expected her to wink again as she pushed her through the door. "We'll get dinner and head for the inn afterwards," she heard her say to the others.

Everyone meant the three waiting after Asami, so Korra must have paid the old woman handsomely indeed, and Asami expected to be rushed through the process. Instead she found herself in a smoky little tearoom, at the pointed end of a gaze glittering with curiosity.

"And who are you when the Princess isn't around?"

Asami coughed, eyes smarting in the smoke. "A blacksmith at the palace. One of her companions."

"I see. Married yet?" Mistress Meng posed the question as discreetly as possible, after her eyes had surreptitiously scanned Asami for any telltale glints of yellow gold.

"No, madam. I only wish." Asami bit the inside of her cheek and humoured the woman. This region of the Earth Kingdom was mighty superstitious, and the lady was smart to make a decades-long vocation of it. If Asami could see straight through it... well, Mistress Meng needn't know she was impervious to her airs.

"Very well." Mistress Meng pulled up her voluminous sleeve. "Drink of this vial and place your palm out for me."

Asami swallowed the sweet concoction she was handed and closed her eyes to protect them, while Mistress Meng put a papery hand under hers. She settled comfortably on the cushions, wondering what her fortune would hold.

Already life had taken a turn for the wondrous. They had been on the road for the better part of a week now, though it felt longer. The wedding of the Earth Prince was in another ten days, and Makapu Village here was one of their nightly stops on the great east road that would bring them to Ba Sing Se. Korra had convinced her to come along with her small hand-picked party, rebuffing the Lotus Guard that King Tonraq had offered. In the end, all Asami had to do was rush the final week of her apprentices' training and visit the palace dressmaker in between to have a couple of fancy gowns made—although Korra whispered in her ear, distractingly enough, that the finery was only for Ba Sing Se and they would wander free the rest of the time. So they had, riding down through the great forests of the north, crossing the choppy sea by ship, and camping in the mountains of the northern Earth Kingdom.

"My wisdom for you, dear," Mistress Meng pronounced dramatically, snapping Asami out of her reverie, "is that seeking true love is like asking for the moon…"

Asami's first faintly irritable thought was, that's not a fortune. The second, later that evening, quieter, would be, tell me something new.

"But," Meng drew the word out in a long croak, closing the other hand over Asami's, "it cannot come down from heaven, if you do not find the courage to ask."

Asami made a mental note, because the others would want to hear something as extravagant as that.

Early the next morning, they were dallying on the benches in the yard, mulling over whether to take a detour to the lake as they prepared to depart.

"Too cold to swim," said Miki dismissively, chewing on some berries she had brought out from the breakfast table, "even for me. And that one will freeze to death."

She had been chosen by Korra as part of the entourage for being one of the more intrepid and easygoing members of the staff, and they were good friends besides. She tossed a few nuts to Asami, who pulled her hand out from beneath her shawl just in time to catch them.

"You with the reflexes," Miki whistled, satisfied.

On the bench across from Asami, Silaq, bodyguard to the Princess (that was his official capacity), clasped his broad hands together over the map he had laid out. "Well, Mistress Meng did say I need to take some risks today." He winked at Asami, who scrunched her nose teasingly. He was a large and genial man, and had been kind to her since he was first tasked with helping haul her iron to the smithy from the ships that visited Agna Q'ela from the quarries.

"Wait, didn't she say that to everyone?" Korra piped loudly, directing her attention to the table and away from the innkeeper's son on her hip.

"She said that to everyone," Khiem said simultaneously. He had just finished saddling up their packs, and he stood tickling the reinmule's belly for a moment. Khiem took care of the Princess's dogs at home, and the pack animals on the road.

"Anyway, lake," Korra said with finality, and then softened it with a, "We're not in a rush, are we?"

It was settled. It wasn't that Korra was used to having the last word so much as everyone was generally in accord with her decision. Asami pulled the thick shawl around her, enjoying the crisp air. She had missed this—the kind of morning chill that made you shiver in relish rather than fright.

Korra had turned back to the innkeeper's son, who was being introduced to her mare. The child and the white-coated elk horse regarded one another with mutual caution. Asami sympathised with his wariness. It had taken her a while to warm up to the elk horses, who turned restless with cabin fever aboard the ship soon after Asami had first met them. But since then she had taken to the mount Korra and Khiem brought for her, a sable stallion who liked when Asami rested her face in the scoops of his ostentatious antlers.

"A show-off, like you," Korra said later, as they rode abreast, the lake behind them. "That's why I chose him."

Asami scoffed and laughed, not quite dismissively. She tugged the towel from her hair so that the midday sun could dry it. Asami had taken an inadvisable, yet irresistible, dip in the lake; her scream upon contact with the frigid waters had echoed through the forest bounding them, scattering the birds. Korra and Silaq, the resident waterbenders, had dove in without hesitation. It took a little extra effort to warm the waters as they swam, but polar people did it by instinct. Miki the non-bender had fought the cold valiantly, while Khiem abstained, laughing them off from the bank.

"I'm only moved by the spirit of adventure," Asami said, tossing her wet hair to her back.

The others rode a way ahead of them on the current path, a wide trail shrouded on either side by trees twice as tall as any at the north pole, strewn with their needles. The smell of spring came strong from the woods. Summer crept close on their tails.

"I wonder how they're doing back at the shop," Asami mused.

"You're not worried, are you?" Korra said, and before Asami could answer she corrected herself. "No, you're not. You've been having way too much fun this week."

Asami stared at her with a soundless laugh.

"And to think I had to drag you!"

"You didn't drag me! It's just that I was worried. But I didn't realise how much of a break I needed until we left." Over the week, Asami had provided some minor wheelwrighting services to those they met on the road, but for the most part she was blissfully free of strenuous work. Breathing in the clear air beyond the royal forge, she was sensible to sights and sensations she had largely been shut off from for a year, her escapades with Korra notwithstanding.

"Did you always know you wanted to be a blacksmith? I mean, did you choose such a gruelling trade?" Korra said.

"Oh," Asami said, staggering on the question while she caught up to Korra's thinking. "Um, actually, I'm not sure I ever thought about it—maybe I should have, huh? It's just what I was always supposed to do, growing up with my father."

"I know what that's like…" Korra sucked air through her teeth. Then she cocked her head. "For what it's worth, I'm sure there's a lot you'd be great at, if you ever wanted to switch things up."

Asami gave her a humble little mock curtsey, as far as possible on horseback. "And you? Have you wondered who you might be if you weren't the Princess of the North?" That was the title that always went before their company in these parts.

"Ah, not really." Korra sounded recalcitrant, like she didn't want to entertain the trail of thought for fear it might leave her wistful.

It wasn't a mood Asami wanted to encourage. "Well, then let me. First of all, it's quite easy to imagine the improvement on your personality we'd have if you weren't highborn—"

Korra wasn't hard to rile. "You're awful!"

Distraction achieved, Asami backed down. "And luckily, you really aren't," she countered without a beat, smiling her deference. She felt her own eyes soften when Korra returned the smile, disarmed and placated. Then Asami was humbled in sincerity, at the instant enhancement she had made on Korra's mood.

"You'd make a good princess," Korra said. "Better than me."

"No," Asami returned, "that's not true."

Though she meant it, she sounded less convincing to her own ears this time, because she was willing the bittersweetness out of her voice. "Your people love you," she added. "They don't see the slow parts. They see a warrior, passionate and big-hearted. And I know their trust means the world to you, even if you get impatient sometimes."

Some of the levity had dissipated, the air with all its scents was heavy now, and Asami wondered if she had overstepped. "Me," she continued, "I can't talk to someone on the street like I've known them my whole life."

After a long second, Korra said, "You could do the three hour round tables." It wasn't a counter to Asami's statement but a submission; and in responding so, Korra was gently accepting her kindnesses as well.

Asami concurred with a sigh. They would make a good team, then. They did .

The path was widening out now, but so were the trees, prickly branches curving into their way. A pleasant breeze rustled in them, softening the hard sunlight into an ideal haze. They both closed their eyes against it for a while.

"Well," Korra said, snapping off some needles from the branches pushing against her, "enjoy this while it lasts, because we'll probably have to sneak out at night if we want any freedom in Ba Sing Se."

"Uh-huh." Asami eyed her, brow arched. "Could it be that that's why we're taking the long route?"

Korra's eyes crinkled. "It's not a secret, Asami."

"Shh."

Korra threw her clump of twigs and needles at her, and they both laughed.

"You're kind of dreading it, aren't you?" Asami said. "Why… You'll be a great envoy for the tribes regardless of whatever the Earth elite think of us. And the King can't be too concerned if he let the council delegate to you... I mean, how hard can it be to attend a wedding?"

"You know, my mother's hoping it's going to provoke something in me."

"The mission?" Asami shielded her eyes as she gazed ahead to see where the others were. Accustomed to trips with Korra alone, she had forgotten to keep them in account.

"The wedding."

Asami turned back to Korra. "Is that right?" She pouted sympathetically. "She says that all the time. She's hoping everyone you meet with will magically infuse you with dreams of courtship."

"Well, this time, it's my dad, too."

"Oh… "

Korra gave her an exasperated look; Asami laughed, shaking her head.

"I mean, it's a funny thing to tell you when you're literally about to run away."

"That's what I thought! But I guess at least it means he thinks my sense of diplomatic responsibility has improved."

Asami got the impression that it wasn't that much of a bright side to Korra, and it coloured the air strangely again, but then she was startled into distraction. A butterfly had alighted on her nose, appearing from nowhere. It had been a long time indeed since she had seen one. Korra turned sharply at her gasp of delight. Gently, Asami coaxed it to crawl onto her hand, which she held out to Korra.

"These were my favourite! I used to plant flowers just to attract them."

"I see. So was that hard for you? Not being attractive enough for them all on your own?"

It took Asami a moment to understand her meaning, and then she sniggered. The butterfly wove around Korra and her stallion before flying off, and once they had watched it go, she said, "Hey, why are you in such a mood today?" She waited for Korra to return her pointed glance. "Tired of me already?"

Korra shook her head, sweeping her hand through the stallion's fur. "What? I adore you."

They did not look at each other then. Asami's knuckles tightened on the reins while the thrill of the words rose and abated. It was just a second in their familiar repartee, a long and blistering second. Korra fiddled with the bridle on her mount.

"Alright, well, since you're feeling so belligerent, why don't you race me?" Asami shifted on her mount. "We should catch up to the others."

It was for the best, because the farther they traveled from the Water Kingdoms, the keener the sense of possibility became, and the softer and more yielding the boundaries Asami knew, which meant all the more that she couldn't risk prodding them. And since the excitement she felt was for the fresh and familiar landscapes, not just from them, Asami directed her mind to that. Korra's spirits had been high and easy, too, from the advent of their journey—until today, it seemed. It occurred to Asami that Korra had never actually mentioned what Mistress Meng had divined for her.

In the town of Tenduk, it had been arranged for Princess Korra to open a new museum. Asami knew that cutting ribbons wasn't one of Korra's favourite activities, as it usually preceded a lot of sitting through—or worse, making—formal speeches. But the palace had arranged it upon request by the town, after the mayor learnt that they would likely be passing through that part of the kingdom when the museum was scheduled to open.

The night before, they arrived at the town's finest guesthouse. It was jam-packed, owing to the impending ceremony, but they offered Korra the final single room. Miki, however, was nursing the final strains of a back injury from a snowshoeing accident in the winter, and Korra insisted she take it with its softer bed. It left her to accompany Asami in the shared room. When they sat on the plentiful cushions over a nightcap of strong tea, they agreed it recalled Korra's apartments at home. Except the night outside was darker than it ever got with snow and ice around, and beyond was a foreign land that held them to no account, far from any castle, the room they lodged in belonging to neither of them. That made it different in a way they couldn't quite discuss aloud.

Once Korra was ready for bed, Asami shut the window, where she had been listening to the cicadas chirp in the moonless night. Korra turned out the smelly lamp. It was cool inside now, and the dark almost too eerie to sleep in. From the other side of the bed, she heard Korra sigh.

"Excited for tomorrow?"

"Sure. Asami?"

She was about to say princess, into the dark and thrumming night, but the circumstances might have carried it to an unfamiliar place, so she bit her tongue. "Hm?"

"Would you stay here, if you could?"

Here? Asami thought, before it dawned.

There was a beat before Korra spoke again. "In the Earth Kingdom. You miss it, don't you?"

"It's been a long time since I lived here. It was a long time before the war, even."

But it was a notion Asami hadn't realised she was nurturing, until Korra put it to words. It was true that the north was not the only place she could have made her post-war life—she'd simply taken the first chance that befell her to escape her father's legacy. In any case, the future certainly held other options, if the future looked the way she thought it might.

Korra didn't push, though Asami waited to see if she would ask again. Instead all there was was the dim whir of the cicadas, and the space on the bed between them.

"Maybe one day," Asami said finally. "Who can say?"

"Of course," Korra replied softly. The way she said it made Asami wonder, and suppress the immediate urge she had to reach out for her.

Korra cleared her throat. "Are you sleepy? I'm not."

"No." Asami sprang on the word, overhasty.

"Let's walk in the garden." Korra was out of bed no sooner than Asami had heard her words. "It looked so nice, and we probably won't have time tomorrow."

After a breakfast that included the fried cicadas Korra had begun to inquire about not five minutes into their stroll, they were led to the museum. Streamers hung from the building with the banners of all four kingdoms on them—it was the first public collection to open that brought cultural displays from across the world, a gesture of harmony after the war. After Korra cut the ribbon on the flagstones in front of a politely buzzing crowd, Asami and the others hung behind while she led the first patrons that had queued up inside. The impromptu tour that ensued, they later heard, had not been a part of the plan, but it proved a hit with the audience, who hadn't expected to hear the Northern Princess regale them firsthand.

"It must have been nice to put your royal history education to use for the first time ever," Miki commented, while they sat together picnicking afterwards. Korra spluttered her agreement, laying back on the mats they had loaned from the guesthouse.

"I just did the Water wing," she said, "so, um, the other hundred books could have been more useful."

"You can put some more of it to the test for the Earth Queen," Khiem said dourly, "impress her a little."

Korra struggled up and reached to steal some flatbread from his plate. "You want to feed me to the wolves!"

Asami giggled and followed suit, tearing some bread. Korra had done well, made the event her own. She was skilful now at knowing when to put her touch on things, how the line should be toed; a sense that served a figure such as herself well. Her mood, in turn, was vibrant today. Asami took the effort to gaze up at the sunset, away from Korra reclining in its glow.

Silaq was cutting persimmons from the trees around them, with permission from the warden that had scouted this spot outside the town for them. Some of the surrounding trees were blooming, while others were fat with fruit.

"Shake them!" Asami called. "You just have to shake them, and they'll fall."

Some of the fruit hit their heads on the way down. Asami took one of the blossoms in her lap and put it in Korra's hair as a token of congratulation, and Korra caught her hand for a moment as it left, beaming. As Korra stood to join Silaq in gathering the fruit, Asami thought that perhaps their moods had switched today. Korra's words last night had imparted an itch in the back of her mind. She bit into a persimmon and the silky cinnamon taste only intensified the nostalgic pang.

She turned to Khiem, who was a rare earthbender who had been born at the North Pole. "Khiem, how did you end up in Agna Q'ela? Did I ever ask?" She offered him the fruit.

"Same as you, I suppose," he laughed.

What did that mean? At Asami's creasing brow, he took a bite from the persimmon and continued.

"My father moved there from Yousheng prefecture to breed elk horses. The wild elk horses in the north… They're not suitable as mounts. When the King wanted elk horses for riding, my father was hired to take animals from the continent to breed with them so they could be domesticated, and to teach the royal stables how to keep them."

"Wow," Asami said. "I see—"

"Like your foundry."

"Yes, I got it," she laughed. "So he never came back?"

Khiem shook his head. "He fell in love with a northern girl." He handed the persimmon back; it was Asami's turn. "Are you planning to return? I hear your apprentices are shaping up."

"I haven't thought about it," Asami admitted. "But I think that thought will be due soon."

"Well, it's not an easy place to settle unless you grew up there. I doubt you have everything you want in the Water Kingdoms…"

No, indeed.

It was midday when they arrived in Ba Sing Se, sweaty and hungry. At the east gates of the Lower Ring, they were met by a representative of the Earth Queen, and another from the Water consulate here in the city, who took them up into the palace and housed them like all the other guests that had been filtering in from all four kingdoms. The wedding was tomorrow, and tonight they would soiree with the other guests, but they took their lunch with the Water consul in the Upper Ring.

The consul received them eagerly, and served them fresh seasonal fare, introducing the latest goings-on in the city.

"All the festivities down there are beautiful," Korra enthused. The party was already in full swing in Ba Sing Se; they only had one prince, after all.

"Wait until you see the fire show tonight," the consul said. "There's more than just gold in the Earth Queen's coffers. Gunpowder! They have the finest technicians working on it. That will be something to behold for us northerners."

Korra's face lit up at the mention of fireworks. Asami was ready to return her grin when she sought her gaze, as she passed her the bowl of sauteed greens. She smiled behind her cup as Korra told the consul all about her pyrotechnics.

"Your Highness," he said, when they sat in the veranda office and rested afterwards, "there is the matter of the wedding gift, and venue, and the list of attendees for the ball tonight with the Queen and the Prince… There are a number you should definitely meet with, the others I will leave to your discretion. The wedding itself will be at the Summer Palace in the morning... doubtless the Earth royals will be preoccupied, so make your acquaintances tonight and then enjoy the day, I say..."

While the consul engaged Korra on these matters, Asami turned to Silaq. "Will we all go tonight?"

"Yes, I think so. It's a party, not a meeting. Remember your titles, though."

"Titles? How will I know—"

He patted her shoulder. "For Korra, I mean. In the palace, in company, it will be your highness —or my lady, or miss if you're feeling brave… And we'll be her household, since we're all in the employ of the palace."

"That's kind of fun," Asami said, and they shared a quiet laugh.

Their rooms at the Royal Palace were lavish. Asami and Miki hurried through the halls once they were clear of any staff, admiring the thick tapestries and the ornaments of silver, jade, and cinnabar. Each object and surface seemed to heave with ancient grandeur. They slipped into their second finest dresses, the Water folk in shades of stunning and patriotic blue. Asami kept her hair down. She had been taking every chance to, since it was an impossibility when she was at work. The gathering commenced in a series of massive drawing rooms, the largest boasting a high, golden vault carved with star maps and scenes from legend. Asami could have spent all evening gazing up. While Korra met with various nobles, she and the others clung close to one another, drinking careful amounts and milling with the looser guests. After a while, they fell into a game of hunting the aristocrats, pointing and guessing discreetly from the seating map who each of the fanciest guests were. When it was time, however, they all had to be introduced to the man whose wedding they had come for.

"Princess Korra! You , my lady, look ravishing ."

Korra and Prince Wu bowed to one other; a shallower and stiffer movement than the one Asami was used to seeing in Agna Q'ela. He had removed the tasselled crown he first entered in, leaving his mantle of green silks to shine, which he wore over a matching tunic lined with gold brocade. If not for the top-notch tailoring, they would have swallowed him.

Korra held her hand out for him to kiss, and then when she kissed his cheek as customary, a look of daze befell the Prince that made Miki clinch Asami's arm and snort. In fact, Prince Wu kissed the hands of all the ladies once Korra had named them to step forward and bow—decorum be damned—and he even offered Silaq a rather shy pat on his solid arm. Korra's eyes were narrowed, lips pressed tight, caught between irritation and laughter. Korra didn't like the Earth Prince. Asami didn't think she would either, but he was certainly a character.

The prince's betrothed, on the other hand, while he did not turn heads, left a more curious impression. He was modestly but finely dressed—the seemingly plain cut shirt clearly made from the finest weave upon a second glance—but he spoke little and did not seem to capture any of the guests for long. Naturally, he was the first topic of conversation when they sat for a bite. Korra's party shared their table with a couple chatty ladies, daughters from some southern freehold, who seemed to know all there was to know.

"That man is a commoner," one of them hiccupped over her sweetmeats. "Nothing but a beautiful, common commoner."

Korra's head rose instantly and she set her chopsticks down halfway to her mouth. "Oh, really?"

"Rumour has it," her sister to her left leaned in with a conspiratorial tone, "he was born in the slums in the Lower Ring and abandoned by his hussy mother. He would have died if one of the maidservants here didn't rescue him and raise him as her own."

The final southern woman, clearly the elder, cast them both reproving looks, as if she was disappointed that they would relay this gossip before the Princess of the North..

"One of the staff I was chatting to in our foyer said he used to be the Prince's bodyguard," Miki said. "Far to go, huh?"

"Or close, I guess," Khiem said, next to Asami, elbowing Silaq suggestively. Korra scoffed at him.

"I wonder what the Earth Queen thought of that," she said.

The older woman answered cautiously. "I'd wager the Prince just pitched a fit until she relented. Love him or hate him, not having his way is a foreign concept to His Highness."

The youngest girl was bored of this now. She turned to Asami, who had noticed her hawkish gaze on her once or twice. "Are you from the Fire Empire, Miss? You have a look."

"I am," Asami said. "Though I was born here in the Earth Kingdom. But I'm a blacksmith in the north now."

"A blacksmith." The girl repeated. She looked ahead, and her chin turned up a fraction as she sipped. "My sifu defeated the master arrowsmith for the Yuyan Archers during the war, and he says Fire Empire smiths are deadly warmongers."

Asami's heart sank in a flare of regret. From the corner of each eye, she saw the girl's sister shooting her a warning glance, and Korra clenching her jaw. Korra, of course, was not above invoking her station to put an enemy in their place.

"It's alright," Asami said quickly. "He's correct, unfortunately. But I haven't been with them a long time. I'm making amends."

Korra grazed her arm under the table. She already felt guarded here and she knew that Asami felt doubly conspicuous in these grand halls. At least the young lady had the good sense to look contrite.

"You look like... a goddess of the forge," Korra said, her cheek in her palm, leaning back to assess the gown.

Asami snorted, her sharp stance before the mirror failing. They had risen early and were mostly ready by the time the sun was fully up. It would take a half hour by rickshaw to reach the Summer Palace, and they would need to get there long before the prince in his palanquin.

"Nooo, don't go all red. See, it's gone now."

"Well, it's warm in the forge," she retorted. "Are the others ready?"

"Almost. Khiem's shining his shoes." Korra rose up onto her elbow reluctantly, yawning. She turned to the little box of jewelry she had brought, which lay open on the bed. "Hey, come here. Do you want to wear some of this?" She held up an elaborate necklace of pearl and pink ruby. I think this matches you better… And you know, they like seeing this stuff, at least the Earth Queen does."

"Right, the heavier the gold, the more highly she'll think of you," Asami said, bungling a mantra someone at the party last night had mentioned. She smoothed her dress one last time, glancing at Korra. Korra was arrayed in deep and regal teals, stretching the dress code a little only as a comely and commanding young princess could. The code for the wedding was simple: green, the colour of the Earth Kingdom, the colour of spring. Asami's own jade gown was embellished with pink spring blossoms. It was oddly exhilarating for them to be in summer garb, and Asami, for her part, couldn't recall the last time her arms had seen the sun.

She knelt on the bed and examined the jewels in Korra's hand. Asami's own gold had been paid in reparations, along with most of the other assets her family had held, after the war. All she kept were a few pieces that had belonged to her mother. Asami cleared her throat.

"Is it alright for me to wear this?"

Korra nodded mildly no sooner than she'd asked. "Of course. It's mine. Turn around."

She climbed to her knees behind Asami and unclasped the necklace, pausing first to sweep her hair from her shoulder. Asami's skin pebbled before the cold metal touched it, and she made her exhale soft. Though she said nothing, Korra must have noticed because she placed a hand over Asami's shoulder while the other straightened the chain at the back of her neck.

"You wear it really well." Korra placed her other hand on her too now, almost down at her own hand. "You look beautiful."

Asami didn't dare look up into the mirror; instead she felt the cove of Korra's shoulders, tucked around her own, close. When she had rescued her voice, she managed, "Thank you." She knew what she had to say next— which one are you going to wear? —but it was impossible not to defer it another second, two seconds—

There was a pointed cough at the doorway. Korra's hands dropped; Asami turned and sat on the bed, retracting to one corner.

It was one of the palace staff; wearing the doormen's colours, albeit in what looked like a special silk for the occasion. She gazed in the middle distance and rattled off, flustered. "Your Highness and our esteemed guests are expected in the reception rooms in twenty minutes for departure." Before they knew it, she had bowed vaguely and scampered.

Miki materialised where had been. "Oh, good. We're almost done, no?"

"Yes," Korra said, searching for Asami's eye, and Asami nodded blankly.

"I'll—go put on my shoes then."

Korra put on a necklace and a glimmering silver coronet. Asami picked up the shawl that matched her dress. They were finished in minutes, ready to head for the foyer. Asami shut the door of her suite firmly behind her as they left.

#korrasami #korrasami fanfiction #lok fanfiction #legend of korra #**#asfos

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wreckofawriter · 4 years

Text

~Part 1~ ~Part 2~

Parings: Sirius Black x Reader, Regulus Black x reader, Remus Lupin x Reader, James Potter x Reader

Word Count: 3.5k

Warnings: Mentions of blood, fist fight, crude language

Summary: Everyone is lost in the world as the man soon to be called the Dark Lord rises to power. Your parents are already ready to give their life along with your own for this man. You spend your seventh year in Hogwarts being pulled apart by the expectations for you and the hope placed in you by your childhood friend Sirius and his closest companions.

A/n: I'm not a huge fan of this chapter, but here goes anyway. Sorry for inactivity, I've been struggling to focus. I hope you guys enjoy!

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James Potter was simply exhausting. His voice rang in your ears unpleasantly and each time he threw his arm around your shoulder you had to resist punching him in the nose. Unfortunately, there was no escape. The moment he heard you had accepted Dumbledore's offer he had taken the liberty of being your personal owl. Every bit of information you were given about the Order was passed to you through him. His preppy attitude became tiresome quickly and it didn’t take long for you to picture yourself breaking his glasses with your knuckles every time he appeared in front of you.

You knew it was really jealousy eating you alive not anger but the hatred remained the same. You had never much liked the head boy. He was privileged in a way no other was. You had the money he had but you got the pain that came with it. His full childhood and easy life made your blood turn green with envy.

He didn’t seem to catch on.

“You should come to my quidditch game on Sunday.” James mused beside you his arm rested on your head.

The thin thread of your sanity had been torn apart by worries and anxieties. You couldn’t seem to think straight recently as strange dreams you couldn’t quite remember ravaged your mind. You felt like you were thrust into a poisonous haze.

“It would be really fun,” He continued not noticing your unstable state of mind, “You could see what a badass I am on the pitch.” The wink he threw at you made all that uncomfortable envy you had been holding spill out in front of you. How dare he flirt with you while you were thinking about your very plausible death?

You stepped away from him fast enough to make him stumble, your books drawn to your chest, “Do you have anything related to the Order to speak to me about?” You spat.

James suddenly noticed the anger you exhibited, his doe eyes blowing wide for a small moment. He reached for his glasses fidgeting with them for a moment, “Only one thing.”

“Then say it.” You muttered.

James didn’t argue, “Dumbldeore wants you at the meeting tonight. No else one but Remus, Peter, Sirius and I know.”

“What time?”

“Midnight. You know where.”

You nodded curtly turning to leave. You stopped in your tracks turning back towards the curly-haired boy, “Just because I’m friends with Sirius doesn’t mean I’m friends with you.”

James felt his face crumble, you didn’t speak another word to him disappearing from his view as you headed towards your class.

Remus watched as you chewed on your nails, their polish chipped and uneven, “Are you alright?” he whispered.

You froze for a moment, “Oh I'm fine, just a bit nervous.”

He nodded, taking you half-assed answer and going back to side-eyeing you skeptically. A few minutes passed and you only continued to look worse and worse, your face seeming to pale as seconds ticked by.

Remus sighed, “Look if you’re worried about the meeting tonight, you’ll be fine. You’ve got James, Sirius and I at your side. Not to mention Dumbledore.”

“It’s not that.” You mumbled, “Look I’m fine okay, just…” your sentence trailed into nothing and Remus didn’t want to pry. So instead he watched you suffer, not sure what had you biting your lip raw but wishing he could help you.

You knew he would be waiting for you. He always was on Fridays, then the two of you would walk back to the dungeons for your little gathering with psychopaths and killers.

Regulus had his back pressed against the wall next to your classroom, his hands were stuffed into his pockets, eyes on the ground.

“Hey, Reg.” You grinned watching as he looked up to find you.

His smile was soft as he approached you, not even asking as he swept the books from your hands.

“I can carry them myself.” you huffed.

“I know.” He shrugged, “Doesn’t mean you have to.”

You felt a smile twitch on your lips, “You’re such a gentleman Reg! How do you not have a girlfriend?”

His face erupted with color, “Anyway. The meeting is canceled today.”

The rush of relief that you felt kept you from picking up the intentional switch of conversation. You felt suddenly at peace, the world had stilled. You felt comforted and safe like you had been laid down onto clean bed sheets.

“Oh.” You tried to remain stoic.

Regulus nodded, his eyes flickering around you, almost as if he was scared. You frowned but spoke nothing of it. The air was suddenly tense, the strange electricity of it almost startling you.

Regulus cleared his throat before speaking, “Actually y/n, I was wondering if you wanted to go on a walk with me?”

You scrunched your brows, “A walk?”

“Y-yeah, I heard it was supposed to be super pretty out with all the snow and everything.” He explained, “If you don’t want to it’s fine.” he added quickly afterwards.

You shrugged, “Why not? Sounds fun. I haven’t been out in a while.”

You felt a swell of joy watching his face blossom into a wide smile, his face seemed rosy with happiness. You momentarily forgot that he was your enemy, that he was on your opposing side. At that moment he was just Regulus. Adorable, smiling, happy Regulus.

“Great.” He spoke but you hardly heard him over the sudden admiration which took root in your stomach.

You giggled feeling light on your feet, “You’re so cute Reggy.” you cooed before disappearing into your common room.

Regulus almost dropped your books, his cheeks gleaming red.

It was beautiful out. You had never been one for cold weather but the soft blanket of snow which coated the castle and its ground made you reconsider. The sun was casting small shadows around you, it’s gleam turning the snow into rainbow glitter. You marveled at your surroundings, feet shuffling through the fluffy snow as you walked beside Regulus.

“It’s gorgeous.” You mumbled eyes flirting around the vast desert of white.

Regulus hummed in agreement, his gaze dancing between you and his feet.

You set out towards the lake, a few third years attempting to skate atop it, “This was a really good idea Reg.” you said bumping his shoulder with your own.

“Thanks.” He responded sheepishly, “How are your classes going?”

“I’m so bad at Transfiguration it's a miracle I'm passing.” You groaned, “How about you?”

He shrugged, “FIne, a bit more work than last year but it's not too much.”

You sighed, “You are way too smart for your own good, I think you took all of your brother’s brain cells.”

Regulus laughed, breath coming out in puffs in the cool air.

“I swear he is an idiot. I mean he slept with Pearl and then I had to deal with it. Can you believe that? Pearl. The kindest person alive.” You complained, lips pulling into a pout.

“What is your relationship with Sirius anyway?” the dark-haired boy asked suddenly.

You tilted your head slightly, “What do you mean?”

He looked away from you, “After everything he did you’re still friends with him, I just don’t get it.”

You felt your lips twitch downwards, “I’ve known him forever. I can’t just throw him out.”

“I could. I was his brother and I could.” Regulus spoke bitterly.

You felt your chest clench, “Don’t say that. He’s still your brother.”

He sighed, “You need to look at the future. After school, Sirius isn’t going to be part of your life anymore. I think you need to accept that.”

You stopped. A cold wind blew your hair from your face, the atmosphere was stiff. “Don’t tell me who will and won’t be in my life.” You stated plainly, “I will decide that.”

Regulus had turned back to look at you, his larger form guarding you from the wind which had suddenly picked up. “You’re right.” He said, “But it's something you need to think about.”

No matter how much you wished he was wrong, he knew he wasn’t. Your life was split in two, the straight path your parents had paved for you suddenly forked away. You were standing just before them, unsure which way you should walk. You needed to make a decision, you couldn’t linger too long and risk losing both options.

You straighten your shoulder, “I know.”

Regulus nodded and you both began to walk leaving the strange tension behind.

“Hows quidditch? You guys still practicing in the weather?” you spoke, the switch of conversation fast.

“We’re still practicing, I like it though.” He uttered, “It’s really fun.”

You hummed, “Well that’s good.”

Regulus paused for a moment, “I know you’re not big on quidditch but I was actually wondering if you would go to my match on Sunday.”

Your thoughts flashed to James that morning, “I don’t know, I mean-”

“You don’t have to.” He cut you off, “I just thought it would be nice to have you there.”

The gentle smile on his lips as he spoke of you broke the small walls you had built, “I’ll go.”

His grin widened, “Really?”

“From what I’ve heard you're pretty good,” You smirked, “You better win.” Just as you finished your sentence something cold and wet hit the back of your head, you shrieked as the snow melted down your back turning swiftly to see Sirius standing a few dozen meters away. It was clear he was cackling, his form doubled over in laughter.

“You bitch!” You hollered running towards him, hands scooping up some of the snow as you neared him. His laughter was cut off as you nailed him in the chin, snow spraying over his face. His eyes went wide and you giggled reaching for more snow. Before you could act he was lunging at you, body colliding with you as you hit the powder with a thump. Snow splayed around you, some landing on your face and beginning to melt. You attempted to move only to realize Sirius had pinned you to the ground.

“I win.” He grinned down at you, his hair speckled with white.

You frowned, “You cheated.”

“You’re just a sore loser,” he argued standing up and offering you a hand which you took.

You shook your head, “Shut up cheater.”

Your mind wandered back to the younger black brother quickly. You turned to find that he had disappeared, the only evidence of his presence the footprints he had left behind. For some reason the lonely prints made your heart squeeze uncomfortably in your chest.

Midnight came in minutes. It seemed like each time you blinked an hour had past and the sun had disappeared before you could even reminisce about its glow. The stars were hidden by deep grey clouds that night. Snow had begun to fall heavily as you made your way towards the room of requirement. The windows were iced delicately by jack frost as slopes of white hid in their sills. You held your robes close to your chest heart-thumping recklessly within. The empty corridors were cold as if you had walked through a ghost.

You climbed the stairs of the dungeon and beyond, the portraits murmuring and snoring around you. You felt yourself wishing for someone at your side. You missed Regulus’ comforting presence, his footprints still causing a small ache within you.

The seventh floor was just as dead as the rest of the castle, its silence deafening in your ears as snowflakes pelted the windows around you. You paced slowly, your heartbeat growing louder and louder with each echoing step. You continued to think of the secret meeting room, James’s advice ringing in your ears.

The stone began to move in an instant, a door appearing before you. It handle a rusted gold. You reached forward sucking in a breath and pushing the old oak open, its hinges creaked and you were bathed in a warm light. A dozen sets of eyes locked on you.

“Ah y/n, you’re here.”

You nodded stiffly, eyes flirting from your professor back to the faces of your peers. There was not a single green robe among them, red overpowering everything else. You gulped at the looks of disgust you received, lips turned into grimaces, and eyes narrowed or blown wide in surprise.

You searched desperately for Sirius, but his grey eyes were not among the crowd. Neither was the soft hazel of Remus. Even James’ deep brown was missing. You felt your hands begin to shake, stuffing them into your pocket before anyone could notice.

A blonde in red was the first to speak, standing from her chair she advanced towards you, fire in her gaze, “What the hell are you doing here you fucking death eater?”

You felt like you lost oxygen, you were there to help, didn’t she know that? Suddenly there was an arm around your shoulder.

You glanced up to see Sirius, his eyes narrowed at the girl in front of you. Remus fell to your other side, arms crossed lazily. James stood just behind you, a soft pat on your back telling you. Peter stood to Remus’ right.

“She’s here at great personal risk, not that it's any of your business Mckinnon,” Sirius spoke, his voice strong and unwavering as he stared down the glaring girl.

“She’s a purist.” The blonde hissed, “She’s a murder. She can’t be here.”

You stiffened, “I’m not a purist.” you spoke, relieved your voice wasn’t shaking, “And I sure as hell never killed anyone.”

Suddenly a Ravenclaw lept from her seat. She shouldered past Marleen and lunged at you, “Lair!” she shrieked.

You stumbled as she collided with you, hitting James and toppling over. The girl reached for your hair and tugged on it as her other hand scratched at your face. A nail digging into your skin as yells broke out around you. Sirius tackled the girl holding her to the ground as Dumbledore swiftly stepped between you.

“Your parents killed my brother you bitch! They are filthy murderers just like you!” her voice ringing loud in your ears you felt blood drip into your left eye, the world spinning in red as you tried to recall what had just happened.

“Murdering whore, fucking cunt!”

“Shut up!” Sirius hollard, his hand slamming roughly over her mouth and muffeling the cusses she threw at you.

You sat up attempting to wipe the blood from your face. You could see James beside you on the floor, his attempt to catch you only gaining him an awkward fall. Remus bent down to your level,

“Are you alright?” he asked, his voice seemed far away like he was deep underwater.

Your hand went to cradle the back of your head and you winced, “My head hurts,” you mumbled.

Remus cringed, “You might have a minor concussion. You hit your head pretty hard.”

You could hear more yelling, you felt your senses slowly coming back to you like someone had wiped the fog from your vision.

“Y/n/n, can you follow my finger?” Remus asked and you nodded. His finger lined in front of your head, you followed it back and forth before the brunette was satisfied.

“I think I’ve got blood on my face.” You mumbled, each time you swiped your hand across your forehead it came back red.

“You definitely do, that girl scratched the hell out of you.” Remus leaned forward, his hand coming on contact with the fresh cut and you hissed.

You heard voices behind you

“We can’t trust her!”

“She’s giving up more than you could imagine to be here! To help us!”

“Except she’s not!”

“She’s lying! She is going to ruin us!”

Your head ached with each word the blood wasn't stopping, more and more dripping from the long cut in your forehead. You scrubbed at your eyes everything was going wrong. You were going to be thrown out, you were going to have your choice made for you. Again. The small amount of control you had gained in your life would be ripped from you. You pushed Remus away from you getting to your feet, stars blinking in your vision as the blood rushed to your head.

Suddenly you couldn’t breathe, the air stolen from your lungs, you gapped helplessly grasping at your stomach. You glanced up in time to see the boy who had punched you. His second stroke landed on your cheek before you could raise your hands and you hit the ground with a loud thud.

“That’s for my mother you bitch.” He spat.

Your body collided with the floor in slow motion and Sirius’s vision went red. The Yellow robed boy standing over you with a triumphant smile making his blood run cold. He was across the room in record time, his fist connecting with the side of the boy’s face with a yell. Teeth and blood sprayed from his mouth and he fell to the floor. Sirius was on top of him in an instant landing four more punches on the unconscious student.

James lept into action snatching the dark-haired boy by the waist and tackling him off the other boy. Sirius fought him yelling incoherent sentences as he tried to shove the quidditch star away from him.

“Pads! Calm down!”

“He fucking hit her! He hit her twice, get the fuck off me, I’m going to make him pay.” Just as he finished his sentence his eyes got droopy, his head falling limp as the struggle stopped.

Lily stood next to him, her wand pointed at the sleeping boy.

James looked around, the daze of what had happened settling in uncomfortably. Three bodies lay on the floor, each leaking blood onto the carpet of the large room. The students turned to Dumbledore whose eyes were uncharacteristically wide.

“I think it's time I explain some things.” He muttered.

You stood motionlessly in front of the painting. Its colors seemed dulled and greyed. Your father stood behind the chair where your mother was seated, both wearing blank stares. You sat beside your mother, face chubby with baby fat, hair cut at your shoulders. Your hands were bandaged in white. The living room reeked of something you couldn’t quite place. The smell making you gag on the air around you. You could feel yourself slipping into some strange obscurity of the world. The scent suddenly became clear. Copper invaded your nose as you choked on blood. Crimson bled from the painting dripping down the expensive wallpaper and pooling on the hardwood floor. You hoped it wouldn’t reach the rug as you rushed to clean the mess before your mother saw. The blood didn’t stop as you scrambled to soak it up with your clothes, the white gown you wore stained with the liquid. Suddenly your hands feel through nothing and you were plunged into a pool of warm red.

You woke suddenly. Eyes popping open to stare at the white ceiling above you. The room was dark, your eyes slowly adapting to the lack of lighting. You sat up slowly, an ache in your stomach making you hiss. You glanced around you, eyes landing on a mop of black of hair which rested on your bed. Sirius was seated in a chair beside your bed, his head resting on his arms which were folded in front of him. You felt a smile twitch on your lips as he snored softly.

Your cheek felt numb and puffed, you raised your hand to it and yelped as a sharp pain shot through you.

Sirius bolted upright, “Are you okay?” He asked his voice gravelly with sleep.

“I’m fine Siri.” You mumbled eyes landing on the white bandages which wrapped his knuckles. You sighed taking his hands into your own, thumb running over the stark white. “What did you do?”

Sirius wouldn’t meet your eyes, “He punched you. Twice.”

“How many times did you punch him?” you huffed.

The room stayed silent, you looked up at Sirius to see his eyes locked on your intertwined hands. He hesitated for a moment more.

“Five times. James pulled me off him.”

“I’ll thank him tomorrow.” You murmured, “I’m tired.”

“Me too.”

You began to move, Sirius watched as you pushed yourself to one side of the small hospital bed, “You’re not sleeping in that chair idiot. The last thing I need is you bitching about your back.”

Sirius smiled, slipping off his shoes and crawling next to you. He could feel your thigh brushing against his as you shifted to face him. His eyes widened when he saw the gloss of your eyes.

“Why couldn’t it just be easy?’ You whimpered, “I just wanted something to work out for once. I can’t even do the right thing without getting punched.”

Sirius didn’t know what to say, his words caught in his throat as you looked up at him, a tear melting down your cheek. Sirius let the words he wanted to speak die and instead wrapped his arms around you, pulling you into his chest.

God how he wishes things were easy.

Taglist:

@accio-rogers @roslea @k3nz-doodl3 @theseuscmander @sleepingalaska @chloe-geoghegan1 @songforhema @wangmangagavroche @evyiione @atomicpunkrock @fairywriter-oracle @moon-zodiac @willowyreads @approved-by-dentists @itslilithsstuff @captainshazamerica @findzelda @oldspirit @smiithys @raised-by-fandoms @lotties-journey-abroad @teheharrypotter

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commander-isekai · 3 years

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Commander Isekai - commander from an another world

A/N:

Hi all! This my tongue-in-cheek fic about a commander, who’s actually a human player from the real world, and who now lives through the game, but armed with previous knowledge about it. They aren’t happy just to follow along a story, so things will get different quickly enough. Hence their name is commander Kai, as a pun from the isekai genre. I’ve been inspired by similar fics done about other games, and I thought gw2 could be a fun one too.

Chapter One:

The Second Awakening or how I found myself in a video game world

Sometimes, all you can remember is falling. It was the only sensation I could comprehend. The world around me was a blurry, like a messy watercolor painting. If there were any noises, I couldn't hear them. I just fell.

A painfully bright light drilled into my eyes.

I woke up with a great thump, as I landed into a large pile of dry leaves. They managed to soften my landing to a degree, but I was aching from all over, like if I had rolled downhill like a cheese in a cheese-wheeling competition, determined to win the first place no matter how crumbly my state would be at the finish line.

"This fucking sucks.." I groaned, tossing my arm out and trying to find my glasses, or my phone, but only grasped more leaves. I hoped I hadn’t broken either one during my fall.

"Are you alright, Valiant?" I heard a concerned voice ask, "the awakening can be sometimes rough, but you'll find your bearings soon enough."

Oh no, had I fallen asleep outside? I had a bad habit of dozing off, but the embarrassment of sleeping outside and this kind person having to wake me up made me wish I could knock myself out permanently rather than face them.

"Yeah yeah, I'm sorry about this, just give me a minute..." I tried to form coherent sentences while pushing my hair away, but my hand gathered only more leaves? and no hair??

I pulled my hand in front of my face and yelped in surprise when I saw that it was bright lavender, a color that my regular human hands should not be, and that I was grasping purple and pink ferns instead of my regular colored human hair.

"Wh-what the hell is going on?" I looked at myself and the person helping me, and only then I realized they weren't human either, but a pea-green person who seemed to be made out of plant material and flowers. Behind them, I could see a shimmering lake and a small village, with more denizens similar to them and me.

As I gasped upon the scene, the two braincells inside my skull finally hit a nerve and made the connection that I had been missing:

A) Somehow, I was in Caledon Forest. Like, the starting zone in Guild Wars 2, an MMO I used to play lot back in the day until I got too busy with my life and other video games.

B) Also somehow, I wasn't a human anymore. I was a walking, talking, internally-panicking sylvari.

C) Last but not least, I could see everything clearly without glasses. This fact stressed me out the most. Had my vision somehow been fixed when I fell? I did like my old glasses, and really hoped they were in one piece somewhere.

"Are you feeling enough well to stand?" the sylvari that must be a mender asked me, offering a hand that I gladly took as I wobbled onto my feet like a newborn calf.

“I think I am?” I answered hesitantly, not certain if I’d stay upright after she’d let go of me.

" I am mender Lorean. What's your name?" the sylvari asked me.

" Um, Kai" I said, as the first name in my mind was the name of my commander character, "short of Cainneach, but just Kai is fine."

It didn't feel right to introduce myself with my given human name, as it was definitely not a sylvari name, and that would have revealed me being something else than your regular baby sprout. I really wasn't married to that name anyway, so Kai came out naturally. I had already used Kai as a all-around nickname, so I settled into it like putting on a new, yet surprisingly comfortable shirt.

"Alright, Valiant Kai", seeing as I could hold on my own against the gravity, Lorean let go of my hand, and explained: "Now, it can take some time to get used to the world outside the Dream. You shouldn't wander off too far from the Grove, at least not until you're experienced enough. You should find anything you need inside the city, and the mentors will help you along. Caithe also asked me to tell you that she wants to speak with you, when you are ready."

The mender that helped me did not seem to comment on my errantic behaviour - they must have seen a wild variety of saplings in their time.

"Wait, why do you keep calling me a valiant?" I asked, trying to wrap my head around what I could remember about Caithe. The total sum was not much - an assassin with a troubled past: a guild of heroes that basically cut ties after a failed dragon killing quest and ex-girlfriend who's in the lead of the bad Nightmare sylvari. That'd be a lot for anyone.

"Caithe told me, about how you joined forces with her to defeat the a large nightmare beast in the Dream. That must be a sign of a great Wyld Hunt", Lorean explained, and asked curiously: "don't you remember the Dream?"

Oh right. The Dream, or the tutorial part with the big dragon monster. I somehow completely skipped that in this new, 4D-supported version of Tyria. At least I did not remember experiencing anything resembling fighting a giant dragon to death, not after waking up here. I had an inkling that telling so would only raise more questions, and I had plenty of those myself.

"Oh yes, it's all coming back to me", I lied with a practiced straight face, "I must have just hit my head hard when I awoke, that's all. I'll be on my way now, thanks!"

I waved and nearly dashed to an exit before Lorean could respond. They were being just nice, sure, but I needed a moment for myself with no one else right now, or I would explode on the spot.

'''

Not far from the village, but enough far that no one would hopefully bother me, I made my way to the large pond, to really take in all the changes.

"Oh no, the fireflies are actually that big", I grimaced when I saw a group of the flying creatures gather around one of the light-giving plants, "That's going to take some time getting used to."

I sat down next to the water's edge, and I could finally take a look at my new features. They were nothing like what I'd been used to - instead of soft skin, my face was hard, bark-like texture. My hair was like plant's leaf, yet sturdier - it hurt when I tried to pull it. My form was different too, almost like I had had a second puberty without knowing it - my limbs were taller than what I had been used to, and I felt my presentation was more masculine than what it had been when I was human.

The more I sat and contemplated my situation, everything around me seemed to make no sense. I was stuck in an unfamiliar body, in the role of the main character of a video game, and while I did not remember every detail of what happened in the story, I knew it wouldn't take long for things to get hairy. Why I was here? Why did I look like this? No matter how I tried to rationalize it, I had no answers, and I was only left with piling up frustration, and tears began to form in the corners of my eyes.

“Hey, are you alright?” A new voice dragged me out of my depths. It belonged to a blue sylvari with a mushroom-capped head, and whose leaf-like outfit seemed to grow naturally as a part of their body.

“I don’t know, it’s just - a lot of stuff to process. The whole awakening, and everything”, I told them as honestly as I could.

“You seemed to be a little more lost than the other sprouts - and I do not mean that in a judgmental way”, the sylvari said and hold out something: “here, take this, it will help.”

“Oh, thank you”, I accepted the carved bowl that seemed to be made out of a giant nut, and the gentle smell of pumpkin soup overwhelmed me. Gods, I realized only now how starved I felt, like I had not eaten properly for days.

“I don’t have any money, or gold-” I tried to say, but the other sylvari cut in quickly:

“Do not worry about it! I hope you have a pleasant evening!”

The sylvari took off, and I was too mesmerized by their kindness towards a random stranger like me that it did not even occur to me to ask their name. The soup, still warm in my hands was a temptation too great to resist, and I wasted no time devouring it.

Maybe this world isn’t too bad after all, if people are gifting food freely to others like that, I thought to myself, earlier anguish almost completely forgotten.

#gw2 #guild wars 2 #yes the player is like free soup free gender? yes please

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voiceracha · 4 years

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voices | chapter one

a stray kids thriller au

genre: crime, thriller, angst

warnings: violence, mature themes & language

voices masterlist

watch the trailer here

01 | MURDER AT MIROH CAMPUS

word count: 1.6k

Wednesday, 17 June – Two weeks before

Mornings were always chilly and serene at Miroh University. The campus was large and commodious enough to hold its own little town, building a community amongst the students and staffs as if they were one big family.

There were rows of shops and cafés just on the outskirts of the campus—old fashioned with intricate designs contrasting the modern architecture of the main academic buildings. As it was a weekday, students were out and about whether on foot or on bicycles, getting to and from classes in different parts of the place. Those who were having a free time, however, could usually be found in the cafés and restaurants surrounding the area.

Inside one rather small café, with calming ambience and the pungent aroma of espresso, several students resided at round tables for two and four, either alone or with a peer. The television became background noise, hanging in one corner of the café near the entrance where everyone could see it. On one side of the place were multiple bookshelves holding a myriad of books ranging from fiction to nonfiction.

It worked as both a bookstore and a library, as one could buy the books or simply borrow it to read as they drink coffee. Some students sat there to study, and some found their escape between the shelves, reading comic books and manga during their free hours as they took breaks from the real world.

For Seo Changbin, it was his workplace.

The literature student stood behind the counter, waiting for a woman to make their payment for three thick, postgraduate physics textbooks. He smiled at her as he received the money and waved when she turned to walk out the door. The bell jingled after her, and the door closed without a sound.

Being the son of the owner, he chose to work a couple shifts at the café when he had no classes. The café was his father’s inheritance from his grandparents, and he didn’t mind managing it while his parents worked. There were two other employees, but since they currently had classes, Changbin remained alone behind the coffee machine on Wednesday mornings.

His degree course required a lot of reading, analyzing, and writing, and he could do all that from behind the counter when there were no customers to attend to. Sure, he could easily do all three at home, but he liked having the smell of coffee and the white noise of insignificant conversations floating around him as he read a dreadful Charles Dickens novel. Sometimes he wanted to hit himself in the head for choosing to study modules such as Victorian literature. What was he thinking?

Changbin sighed before going back to making coffee for himself as there were no new customers. It was 9:56 a.m., and the ones present in the café looked well occupied enough, immersed in their reading or speaking in low volumes to their friends. One of them, though, was thoroughly studying and typing away at their laptop at a table close to the counter.

Of course, it was law student Lee Minho.

For him, Changbin’s café “Streetlight” was like a second home. The table near the counter was his table, and he could always be found studying or resting there if he wasn’t out with his beloved boyfriend. It was a rare sight, seeing him without the other boy around, but they were both their own individuals who studied different things—they needed their own time and space to get work done.

“Binnie, can I have another latte please?” Minho asked, briefly looking up at Changbin who was about to pick up a novel from his stool.

“One latte coming right up.”

Changbin took a cup from beneath the counter and began making it when the news came on at ten o’clock sharp. He glanced at the TV every once in a while as he prepared Minho’s latte, just in case something important came up.

“Breaking news for the people of Miroh Campus: the murderer strikes again,” said the reporter, a man no older than twenty-five. He stood at what could clearly be seen as Pace Park, surrounding the manmade lake in front of the main building of the university. “Two bodies identified as Choi Hwa Sung and Park See Hyun were found here at the Pace Park jogging track this morning, believed to have been victims of a homicide incident last night.”

Hearing the gasps of the customers, Changbin placed Minho’s cup aside and turned the volume of the TV up for them to hear better. As the reporter continued speaking, he took the latte and brought it to his friend’s table, placing it beside his previous cup and taking a seat across from him.

“Police have arrived at the scene and the ongoing investigation will be carried out by the finest detectives of Bay 8. Sources of death have not been confirmed, but it is believed that the victims were violently beaten up to death, despite no weapons being found on the scene.”

Minho whisteled lowly as he turned away from the screen, instantly picking up his cup of hot latte and taking small sips of it.

“Who do you think did all that?”

Changbin shrugged, his eyebrows knitted together in a frown as he met his friend’s eyes.

“Honestly? I have no clue. It’s hard to tell the good guys from the bad ones these days, and the killer could be walking among us without us noticing at all.”

“Well, whoever it may be, this clearly isn’t the first time.”

Just then, the bell jingled above the main entrance and in came Hyunjin, dressed in matching black sportswear. His skin glistened with sweat, and he used the small towel around his neck to dry it.

“Look who it is,” Changbin grinned while his best friend made his way towards their table. “Where were you? It’s already ten.”

Hyunjin pulled a chair from the next vacant table and sat down between the two.

“Running, duh? Where else would I be?”

“Bro, you stink,” Minho pinched his nose dramatically.

Hyunjin only made a funny face at him in reply, sticking out his tongue. He wiped his face with the small towel while the TV behind him switched from the news to a detergent advertisement that no one cared about, so Changbin used the remote to decrease the volume once more.

“So, who do you think the murderer could be?” asked Changbin.

Neither of them noticed, but Hyunjin almost choked on his own spit and stopped his movements abruptly as soon as the words left his friend’s mouth. He felt his heart hammering in his rib cage, the sudden urge to throw up building at the back of his throat and clawing at his skin.

“Murderer?” he replied slowly, his voice barely audible. The look of confusion on his face only made Minho and Changbin chuckle, which he received with a sigh of relief.

“Oh my god, you’re clueless!” said Minho, slapping his right arm lightly. “They just informed on the news that there’s two dead bodies found at the park, where you always run at, and you don’t even know.”

“He only cares about running, Minho. He even forgot he’s supposed to meet us here forty minutes ago. Now we gotta push our meeting to another time.”

Hyunjin didn’t know why his friends sounded so calm when the news of two students being found dead just dropped on them, but he gulped and tried to put on his best nonchalant tone anyway, smiling smugly at his friends.

“Please, I’d rather run until my lungs give out then sit here and hear you two discuss your conspiracy theories.”

Changbin stood up, Minho’s previous cup of latte—now empty—in one hand.

“They’re not conspiracy theories,” he said, defensive. “They’re actual crime cases that Minho studies and I’m interested, okay?”

“Then why the hell do you need me here?” asked Hyunjin. “I’m not interested in that.”

“You’re here because you’re my best friend and I need you to back up my points against this lawyer wannabe.”

“Aw…” Minho smirked, lightly punching Hyunjin’s arm in a teasing manner. “Changbin and Hyunjin sitting in a tree—”

“You better shut the fuck up,” Changbin pointed at the older man from behind the counter, his eyes shooting daggers at the latter who was laughing in his seat.

Minho’s phone rang right then, and he excused himself to answer it.

“Must be the love of his life,” Hyunjin teased, wiggling his eyebrows at Minho.

“Shut up,” he whispered before holding his phone to his ear. “Hello?”

When he was done talking twenty seconds later, he ended the call and began gathering his books, placing them in his backpack.

“Let me guess, Master Han Jisung awaits?” Changbin raised an eyebrow, amusement glinting in his eyes.

“You know he’s gonna whoop your ass if he knows you call him that, right?”

“Not if I whoop his ass first.”

“Well, tell him I said hi,” Hyunjin said, pulling Minho’s latte towards himself since the man didn’t look like he’s gonna take it with him.

Minho nodded, “Will do. He needs help with his photography assignment on the other side of campus, and also, I’m a great model so...”

The two friends made gagging noises at him as he laughed, and they waved goodbye until Minho walked out the door, making his way towards his motorbike.

“Okay, that reminds me,” Hyunjin started whilst standing up, “I need to meet Felix and discuss about our short film, so I’ll see you later?”

Changbin pouted for a second before sighing.

“Fine, see you later. And you’re paying for Minho’s latte.”

Hyunjin groaned and gave Changbin the money while the latter laughed at him.

After giving his best friend a quick hug, Hyunjin took one step out the door, and his smile disappeared with it.

[ CHAPTER TWO ]

#hwang hyunjin #hwang hyunjin angst #stray kids #skz #serial killer au #voices au #bang chan #lee felix #lee minho #han jisung #seo changbin #kim seungmin #yang jeongin #skz au #stray kids angst #voices #stray kids au

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thebibliomancer · 3 years

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Tides of the Dark Crystal liveblog pt 18

Tides of the Dark Crystal by J.M. Lee because HEY PERISS WHATS THE BIG DEAL?

Last times on book: Amri and co are on a quest to unite all the Gelfling clans against the Skeksis. They’ve crossed Maudra Ethri and the Sifa off the list and have headed into the desert to meet the Dousan clan at the Wellspring gathering place. After spending some time at a lake and eating some melon and stressing about a storm that’s not supposed to be hitting the Wellspring at all, the gang is further alarmed when their guide Periss takes Kylan hostage and forces them to come with him.

Chapter 18

Quest Log updated: Save a tree

Periss directs the team to a cave in the cliff wall. There’s a bunch of astrological carvings on the cliff face but Amri doesn’t have time to look at it. What with the storm. And the hostage crisis.

The cave is large enough to hold several dozen Gelfling and yet its just Periss and his captive audience. Which raises some questions from Amri.

“What were they doing back there?” he cried. “I saw them -- the Dousan, all just... just sitting around the lake! While the storm destroyed the Wellspring! Why?”

“Because that’s how they are.”

I’m still seeing why Periss was at odds with Dousan culture.

Periss lights a torch letting all the people without darkvision (everyone who isn’t Amri) to see how nice this cave is.

On the walls, reaching up about as high as a Gelfling stood, were carved and etched illustrations. They showed Gelfling with shaved heads and tattoos, bearing incense, all standing in a line in sets of three. The row of Gelfling ended facing a beautifully articulated tree, with long gnarled roots surrounding by a pool of water. The tree branches and leaves spread wide and tall over the heads of the Gelfling. Above the canopy were the jagged depictions of lightning and storms, and at the tree’s base sat a long-backed creature with a heavy tail. Four big arms and a mane tied in knots and braids.

“A Mystic,” Naia gasped. “The ancient sage?”

Ooookay. The puzzle pieces are starting to come together now.

If an urRu was the sage who taught the Dousan their rituals and traditions, no wonder the clan is passive and stagnant!

Kylan asks about the tree in the picture since there was no such tree at the Wellspring, although there were a lot of roots.

Periss tells him that the songs say that the tree was once so tall that it could be seen from any part of the desert. But the tree - and the lake which once filled the entire valley - started to shrink. And the tree was just a dried up old trunk eventually felled by a summer wind by the time Periss was a child.

Amri assumes that the tree died but Periss firmly denies it. But that’s what the rest of the Dousan think too.

They gathered the dried up branches and burned them.

But Periss knows that the tree is still alive because if it weren’t the lake would have dried up. He’s sure that the tree is the source of the water.

“Maudra Seethi was the first person I went to. She told me I had to let go. That clinging to things that have passed on will only chain me to an effigy of the past. She even gave me a part of it to burn. Can you believe it? A pyre for a tree that lives! That is the ritual taught by the sage, from hundreds of trine ago. But she wouldn’t understand that rituals must change with time, and circumstance.”

This still does sound like the kind of sidequest you’d get when rolling into town in an rpg.

Heck, I think fixing a tree IS a quest you get when rolling into Whiterun in Skyrim.

Can you imagine though going ‘you just need to let things go’ ABOUT THE DEATH OF ONE OF THE GREAT TREES? Because that’s what I’m assuming this is. A tree big enough to be seen through an entire desert? That’s pretty great. And the Dousan just shrugged and went ‘i guess it’ll die.’

(At this point since the group is listening to him and engaging and not having to be threatened, Periss puts away the knife. Good call, Periss.)

So Periss left the Dousan in anger, traveled the world for a solution, found some of those exposition petals, recognized the group in Cera-Na and thought ‘these protagonists will definitely be able to fix the tree.’

I mean, good call there, honestly.

But specifically its because of how Kylan dream-stitched the petals and how Naia healed the Cradle Tree in the first book. An event that was included in the exposition petals.

I love how Kylan’s quest concluding at the end of the second book has driven so much of this book. He shotgunned a bunch of petals out into the world and it keeps paying narrative dividends.

Periss also gives Kylan back the firca. Yay, best boy has his magic instrument again!

Naia agrees that the tree is probably alive based on what she sensed about the lake waters but she’s not sure that this is within their power to solve. The Wellspring tree is in a whole lot worse shape than the Cradle Tree.

“Well, we might as well try.” Onica stood near where the cave opened back into the valley. The storm outside was so dense, it was like the fabric of a Skeksis robe. “If we don’t, this storm will destroy everything. The Dousan, the Crystal Skimmers, the Wellspring. Even if we survive the storm itself, we may be trapped in this cave.”

“Caves aren’t really that bad, but I get what you mean,” Amri said under his breath.

HAH!

With the fate of the entire clan and maybe them on the line, Amri steps into the silence.

“Onica is right. We have no choice but to try. But let’s make one thing clear” -- Amri faced Periss and held out his hand -- “we’re doing this as friends. Not as hostages. Got it?”

The Dousan boy hesitated, but one glance out at the storm sealed his resolution. From the strength of his grip, Amri wondered if he would have preferred it this way from the beginning.

I KNEW IT! WELCOME TO THE TEAM PERISS.

There’s coffee in the waiting room when you’re not in the active party and you can order a team jacket through HR.

Amri is a cave boy so he’s the one who finds a direction in Naia and Kylan’s doubts.

I guess that Amri has rock sense? I mean, there’s been bits where he’s talked about hearing the voice of sand but I didn’t remember whether that was something he had been doing before. But if so, cool, another clan specific ability for anyone wanting to make an trpg or something. Grottan have rock sense.

Amri feels that there’s water under the cave floor and deduces that the water streams to the cave from the Wellspring.

He tells Kylan and Onica to stay in the cave while he, Naia, and Periss head back out to the lake where the tree was.

“The firca definitely won’t be heard by the tree all the way from this cave!” Kylan protested. Amri put a hand on his friend’s shoulder and squeezed.

“Mountain water is full of minerals. You tasted them in the Wellspring. The minerals will have formed crystals around the underground rivers. Minerals like that will carry sound just fine. The clearer the better. That’s how the Grottan speak when we’re spread out among the caves.”

“But I don’t know if I can -- I’m not a Grottan --”

“That doesn’t matter. I believe in you!”

Aw frens.

And another Grottan power maybe?

But Amri tells Kylan to find a spot with good acoustics and play the song of life. Find the life still in the tree and awaken it so maybe Naia can heal it.

When Amri (with special guest Tavra), Naia, and Periss go back out into the storm, its gotten even worse. And it was already pretty bad!

They reach the lake with all the Dousan sitting around it not reacting to the storm or to them really.

Except for Erimon who asks them what the heck they’re doing.

“Could ask you the same thing!” Amri cried. “I thought you said the storm wouldn’t come here!”

Erimon grimaced. “Where are you going?”

“Into the lake. We’re going to revive the tree,” Periss said, pulling Erimon away in defiance. “And you’re not going to stop them.”

“No!” Erimon shouted. He faced his brother. “Periss, listen to me! For once, just listen! The tree is dead. You have to let it go. This is out of our hands. There’s nothing more we can do except surrender to Thra’s will. Why can’t you understand this?”

“You may not be able to hear its song, but I do. I hear it in my dreams and in my nightmares. My own clan won’t believe me, so I brought someone who would!”

Oof. No wonder Periss is so prickly.

Erimon tries to convince Naia and Amri that diving into a lake could kill them.

“You could die down there, and for nothing.”

“If we stay up here, we’ll die anyway,” Amri said.

OH DANG!

Heh.

Anyway, Naia and Amri dive into the lake.

Its a very important two-person operation. Naia can breath underwater. Amri can see. They need both things.

And there’s a third thing that needs doing too.

Amri remembers from the last book that Kylan’s firca had driven off the spiders even before being refined into a firca. And Tavra is a spider. Amri can’t hear the song underwater because there’s water in his ears but Tavra can.

Glad you are with us, he thought to the Silverling.

Perhaps this spider body can be put to use, after all.

Frens.

But also, its pretty cool how Amri thought of a plan that used all of the skills the group has. Except Onica but she’s done her part.

Also, Amri, Naia, and Tavra are dreamfasting to communicate underwater without blubbing bubbles at each other.

Its been a minute so woo another cool application for dreamfasting.

Also also, Naia can swim FAST with her wings which are not nonadjacent to a fish’s fins.

Amri held his breath as Naia pumped her wings and plunged, powerfully driving them into the murky deep. When his lungs screamed for air, Naia breathed life into him, gills open like lace around her neck. Tavra caught a bubble, holding it under her legs like a smooth, clear opal.

The lake seemed endless. It had been dark above, but as they dived, the lightning of the storm dimmed to a dull flicker. The sounds of the storm, the drumming, earthshaking thunder, died away, and as it did, Amri heard the sound of a flute. Through the underground streams and water it sounded like the eerie song of a ghost -- transcendent and unending, calling out to something that might no longer be strong enough to hear. Surrounded by the song, it was as if they were floating through a dream.

This sequence would have been very hard to do for the show but how I would have liked to see it.

They reach the lake bottom where Amri starts digging through the mud with his feet trying to find any sign of life. And he does.

Something “ringing, softly moaning in answer to Kylan’s song” under think layers of mud, there’s a spot of green among the decomposing roots of the once-Great Tree.

A stubborn tree. Still alive even in just one part of the roots. Amazing.

No wonder the Dousan thought it dead. They can’t breath underwater so they couldn’t check this deep. And they don’t have healers like Naia so what could they do even if they had found the sign of life?

Good thing a diverse group of trouble-solving protagonists rolled into town.

Naia gets on that spot of green and tries healing the tree but runs into a complication.

It’s calling for someone else. I can’t do this alone.

You mean me? Can I help?

No, it’s...

Naia closed her eyes, focusing. She had a gift; he’d seen it before. To hear the songs of Thra, to dreamfast with creatures other than Gelfling. He put his hand on her shoulder, lungs aching for his next breath.

It’s asking for the Dousan, she said finally. She looked up at him. Its people. Periss, Erimon. We need them here, now, or this tree will die, and the storm will kill us all.

Aw, dang.

Anyone know where we can rustle up more Drenchen on short notice? Or does someone want to invent scuba gear like yesterday?

#dark crystal #the dark crystal #Tides of the Dark Crystal #liveblog #Amri #Naia #Kylan #best boy #also best hostage #Tavra #Onica #Periss #Sandmaster Erimon

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coyotesongwriting · 4 years

Text

Home - Ch. 5

Chapter 5 - Ghosts

Chapter Summary: When a blast from the past walks in years later, what hapepns next?

Word Count: 3135

Author’s Note: Thank you so much for reading this story and I hope you enjoy it. I’ve tried a new writing style for this fic and I can definitely say it’s not my cup of tea but I love the story anyways!

Disclaimer: I don’t own the characters so don’t sue me please. I just really like them haha

Previous Chapter Series Masterlist

You drove North. When you were making the plans to leave, you knew there were only two places for you to go - the North, or down to the South. You’d always complained about the cold of winter, so the team would surely expect you to go to the southern states, somewhere winter wouldn’t bug you. When you reached Vegas, you sold your car and bought a new one at a different dealership under your new name to hide your tracks.

You spent all day in the car, stopping every time the twins cried and spending the night in roadside motels. With all of the stops, it took you four days of driving to reach Montana. Your plan was to go up to Eureka, Montana and make a life for you there. With just over 1000 occupants, the town was small enough that you could get to know everyone but large enough to hide you in events.

You were almost there, 20 minutes outside of Eureka in a town called Trego when you passed a small run-down diner off the side of the road with a ‘For Sale’ sign out front. The old light blue paint was peeling, the signs outdated and the lights had long ago burned out. But something about it, some part of it called to you. You unloaded the babies, dropping the windows in the car and leaving Rex inside as you headed inside the diner.

Inside the vinyl on the benches had become cracked, the linoleum chipped. But there was something about it. From the moment you walked inside, it felt comfortable. Walking through those front doors felt like home, and you knew you’d found where you were meant to be.

Within a month, you’d bought the diner from the old owner, as well as a beautiful log cabin on the edge of Dickey Lake. The locals had been very displeased when you immediately shut the diner down, but when you’d hired some handymen to help renovate it, their attitude turned around.

With a new paint job and reupholstered booths, it wasn’t long before the diner was ready to re-open. You changed the name to Rebecca’s and a month after buying it, you re-opened. It quickly became a beloved spot in town. People passing through on Highway 93 began to pour in, and business was soon booming.

People questioned why you had named it Rebecca’s at first, while they liked the new name, there was something about losing a name they’d loved. You’d explained a few times that it was the name of your dead sister-in-law, and word seemed to spread quickly. The new name quickly caught on, and it wasn’t long before you’d hear people downtown talking about going to Becca’s for dinner.

Raising the twins was hard, as you’d known it would be. There were many sleepless nights, nights where they’d take turns crying and waking you up and you’d find yourself crying yourself to sleep, exhaustion breaking you down. You’d quickly made friends in town though, and on your worst days, one of the locals would stop by and stay for a few hours so you could take a nap.

When you’d first arrived, there had been some questions about the boy’s dad. You’d taken to wearing Bucky’s ring, trying not to wonder how he’d have reacted when he saw you wearing it. As far as the town was concerned, your husband James had passed away in a mining accident, and with no family, you’d decided to try your luck somewhere new. No one questioned it.

The first year was the hardest. You missed the Avengers. You missed getting to text them, getting to tell them the boy’s first words, getting to send them pictures, and share your life with them. Every day, you wondered if you’d gone too far if maybe you should reach out to them, let them know you were okay, you were safe. Until one day, when the news reports featured a war in Upstate New York, the complex took heavy damages. Luckily, there were no casualties but you couldn’t help but think how much easier it would be to hurt you and the boys alone in remote Montana. As time ticked by, you slowly thought about calling them less and less, every day adjusting to the new normal.

Rex was happy in his new life too. He loved exploring the woods at your home and watching as the boys learned to walk. Whenever you were outside with the boys, Rex never took his eyes off of them, always keeping a close eye for danger. On the days you went in to work at the diner, Rex would tag along with you. No one seemed to mind as he came and went, approaching people for a quick scratch before laying back down behind the counter. You’d even set up a small place under the counter for him to sleep but keep him out of the way.

As the boys got older, you started bringing them with you to the diner to work instead of leaving them with a babysitter. You set up a playpen in a back corner near the counter and you’d keep an eye on them while you worked. The boys learned to walk in the diner, toddling along the linoleum floor in between customers.

You slowly became a beloved family member of the town. You were invited to birthday parties, holidays, everything. The guys looked after you like their own baby sister, and the girls made sure you never felt alone. Of course, there were some old busybodies always starting trouble, spreading rumors about the new girl from out of town but no one paid them any mind.

Over the years, life moved on and you did too. You missed Bucky, of course, you did, but in the end, you were happy there in your new home. When you’d see the Avengers come on tv, it felt like that life belonged to a different person, and in a way it did. You were no longer that person you’d been. You no longer killed, no longer woke up each day not sure if it would be your last, and that feeling… was intoxicating. You still trained daily, in the early morning hours before the boys were awake, just in case anything ever happened, but it was different now. It was more of an exercise, as opposed to being prepared for the almost daily life or death battle.

The boys may have been identical physically, but personality-wise they couldn’t have been more different. James was a shy child, always hanging on to you as you worked, hiding his face behind your leg when someone tried to talk to him. George on the other hand? He was so outgoing it scared you, he’d run up to anyone and start babbling away, he had no fear of new people.

What threw most people though, was the fact that James may have been the quiet one, but he was the trouble maker. Your favorite story to tell people about him was the time he decided he wanted a cookie after you’d told him no, so he’d dragged a chair over to the counter, climbed up, then onto the counter and was halfway onto the fridge before you realized what he was doing. George was just sitting at the bottom, watching cautiously.

Your favorite story to tell about George was the time he managed to get into the giant tub of coconut oil. You’d bought a 5-gallon bucket on Amazon once, instead of the small tub you’d intended to, and it had been sitting in your pantry ever since. You’d been on the phone with the neighbor while you cooked dinner, and when you turned around there he was, covered head to toe in coconut oil and you couldn’t help but laugh. He’d pouted at you for laughing at him, and you’d scooped up your oily little boy, kissed him on the forehead, and immediately went off for a bath. He smelled like coconut oil for a week after that.

When the boys turned four, you signed them up for swimming lessons. James took to it like a duck to water, and you had a hard time keeping him out of the water the following summer. George wasn’t a big fan of all the rules, but what he did enjoy was splashing everyone - particularly James.

You cried the day the boys went to kindergarten for the first time. Their teacher, Miss Jay, was a frequent customer at the diner and the boys couldn’t wait to spend the day with her so when you dropped them off, they ran into her room with just a wave goodbye. You’d gone back to your car and sobbed for thirty minutes. On days like that, the ghost of Bucky sat heavy, and the guilt you’d long ago accepted came flooding back. It was hard, but you made it through. And when the boys came home that day telling you so excitedly about their amazing day, you smiled and laughed along with them.

Teaching them to ride a bike had been a disaster. You’d brought the bikes home and spent all morning putting them together. The only problem was, James’ bike was missing a piece. And it wouldn’t be in for two weeks. The boys hadn’t wanted to wait any longer and had convinced you they could just share until then. Which seemed like a great plan until James was ready to ride without the training wheels and George was not. For the next two weeks, it felt like you were constantly putting on and taking off the training wheels.

For their sixth birthday, you took them on a trip to California. Rex wasn’t happy to be left behind in Montana, but you guys were flying and you didn’t feel right putting him on a plane. The first thing you did when you got there was take the boys to Disneyland. George fell in love with Cinderella from the get-go and had stood back watching her for the longest time before she saw him and posed with him for a picture. James was infatuated with Peter Pan, and you’d spent all day trying to figure out where he would be. You’d almost given up hope when a cast member saw how upset he was and managed to arrange a special meeting. For the rest of the trip, the boys just kept talking about how amazing it was.

You’d taken them to the beach for the first time too. You’d spent weeks before the trip teaching them all about the dangers of the ocean waves and currents, and so when you told them they could only go in the water when holding your hand they didn’t fight you. After that, you took them to the Aquarium of the Pacific, where they got to pet the stingrays and jellyfish and got to feed the colorful birds.

After you got home from the trip with the boys, you soon learned that the Avengers had been in that same part of California as you had. The fear rose in your chest, and for weeks you worried they’d found you, that they’d show up and you’d have to leave again. How could you raise the boys on the run? Forcing them to leave behind the only home they’d ever known because you worried someone bad would find you. As weeks passed with no unexpected visitors, you merely chalked it up to an unlucky moment and decided to be more careful on vacations in the future.

Through the years you’d become close to your neighbor down the road. Ty owned the mechanic shop right next door to the diner, and whenever something broke that you couldn’t fix he was your first call. He’d lost his wife to cancer two years after you moved in, and the two of you had bonded over the loss of your loved ones. It seemed like everyone in town had a bet on when the two of you would start dating, but you both knew that would never happen. It probably didn’t help that you both loved Criminal Minds so he’d taken to calling you a variety of fun pet names every time. You loved each other like siblings, and he was more than happy to step in and fill the role of father figure for the boys. Of course, they knew he wasn’t their dad but it was nice to have a positive male role model for them. Part of you wondered what things would have been like if you’d let Steve, Sam and Tony be in their lives, but that only lasted until news of another Avengers related disaster hit the news.

Ty’s mother, Kay, soon became Grandma Kay to you and the boys. Since Ty and his wife never had children of their own, she was more than happy to welcome your family in as her grandchildren. You never felt unwelcome or out of place in her house, and growing up the boys loved getting to go spend the night at Grandma Kay’s, or “Gamma Kay’s” house as they’d say when they were younger. For the first time in a long time, you felt like you had a real family and you couldn’t have been more grateful to them for welcoming you in without a second thought.

On April 28th every year, Ty would take the boys for the day. He’d take them to the movies and ice cream, and out on adventures so you could have the day to yourself. That evening, they’d always spend the night at Grandma Kay’s. And every year, you’d spend the day crying in bed. While the rest of the year you managed to get by with just a few shed tears here and there, the anniversary of Bucky’s death hit you just as hard every year. Long ago you’d learned to accept that the past couldn’t be changed. You couldn’t go back and save him, the only thing you could do was let go of the guilt and the blame.

When the boys were old enough, they joined the local cub scouts group. The night of their first-ever camping trip you stayed up all night and didn’t sleep a wink. You’d never spent a night away from them before, and you kept waiting for a phone call. It wasn’t until dawn that you nodded off on the couch, phone clutched in your hand, and Rex curled up at your feet. The boys were so excited when they got home they wouldn’t stop talking about how much fun it had been for almost a week, and you had to promise to go camping with them as soon as you could.

It was a slow Wednesday afternoon in the diner, the lunch rush had already passed but the dinner crowd hadn’t come yet. You were just hanging out with the server and chef on duty, talking about your plans for the upcoming weekend when a news bulletin caught your attention. There’d been another attack on the Avengers complex in upstate New York, and this time it was a bad one. Most of the buildings had been completely destroyed, and no one knew if there had been any casualties.

Your employees couldn’t figure out why you looked at the tv like your world had just come crashing down around you as you waited for any news. Eventually, they’d called Ty and he’d taken you back to your home. You didn’t explain, and he didn’t ask questions. Your eyes were glued to the television for the rest of the day. Ty took the kids for the day, and you could never thank him quite enough for that. Rex and you watched the reports, hands shaking until you saw your team give a press conference reassuring everyone they were okay.

For their seventh birthday, James asked for a skateboard and George asked for a pony. You couldn’t say no to them, not on something like this, but you weren’t quite sure you guys were prepared for the life of pony ownership, so instead you signed George up for lessons at the local stable.

George took to riding like a natural, and the smile that lit up his face the first time he mounted up brought a tear to your eye. Within six months you’d bought him a sweet old school horse, a horse who had seen and done it all and was perfect for him to learn on. George named him after his favorite Avenger - Falcon. You cried that night, wanting nothing more than to just call and catch up with Sam and Nat, but you didn’t.

James was a nightmare with the skateboard and within a week he’d started building ramps out of spare wood he earned helping out at the hardware store in town. Ty helped him build the ramps, and you watched nervously as he became more and more of a daredevil. When he fell and broke his arm, Ty cried and blamed himself. You’d merely sighed and told him James would have found a way to do it anyways, if anything Ty had made sure it was only a broken arm.

The years slowly ticked by and before you knew it, it had been eight years since you’d last spoken to any of the Avengers, almost nine years since you lost Bucky. Life was good, and your biggest worry was Rex getting up there in years. The vet said he was almost 10 now, and you could see it in the graying of his muzzle. He wasn’t quick to greet every visitor to the diner anymore, happy to just sit and watch the people as they went about their lives.

You didn’t hear the chime of the diner door opening, too busy chatting with Ty at the far end of the counter as you poured him a cup of coffee. It wasn’t until Rex let out one loud bark that you turned around to see what was up. In all the years you’d been running the diner, he’d never once done that so when you noticed the stranger standing at the diner entrance you watched cautiously as they removed their baseball cap and looked up at you.

The carafe slid from your grasp, shattering on the linoleum at your feet. Your hands flew up to cover your mouth and you froze, your eyes locked on the familiar figure in front of you. Your eyes knew what they were seeing, but your brain couldn’t process it, couldn’t believe what it was seeing.

You felt a warm hand settle on your shoulder and Ty’s voice seemed to echo through the now silent diner, “You okay, baby girl?”

The familiar man in front of you glanced at the ring on your finger, then Ty’s hand on your shoulder, and shoved his baseball cap back on his head, leaving just as quickly as he had arrived.

You stood there frozen for a long time, before breaking out of the trance and racing out the door after him. He was long gone, no trace he was ever there and if it wasn’t for Ty and Rex’s reactions, you’d have thought he was a hallucination. Ty followed you outside, but you weren’t listening to anything he said, could barely hear the questions that poured from him.

You bit back a sob, one name slipping through your lips as tears began to track down your cheeks, “Bucky….”

~~~~~

Next Chapter ->

Taglist OPEN: @he-is-chaotic-she-is-psychotic @queenoftheunderdark @redfoxwritesstuff @brokenthelovely @collinsstanharbour @samsgoddess @redhairedfeistynerd @winterisakiller

#Marvel's Avengers #marvels the avengers #Marvel The Avengers #marvel #Marvel's The Avengers #angst #angst with happy ending #Angst with a happy ending #bucky barnes x reader #Bucky Barnes #fanfic #Avengers #The Avengers

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techmomma · 4 years

Text

Okay you fucks, here we go. The unfinished chapter. I had a bunch of other chapters planned but only as basic concepts of where I wanted to take Tech as a character. Typically I’d have concepts and flesh them out as I neared the end of a chapter, keeping things open until really put to page.

So first, I gotta admit one of these parts I haaate to divulge like this because it was absolutely meant to be a visually scary thing and describing it in text takes away all the spook factor. But I’m not finishing the chapter so it’s not like it’s about to spook anyone anyway, so might as well describe it.

There were actually two creatures. One was to be explained. The other, well… that friend was just going to lurk in the background, leaving hints but never explained or even touched on. There was going to be a single gag of Tech eating a can of beans as an asker mentions the weird shadow skull thing that had shown up while he was sleeping, and the very next panel would be the fire put out and Tech clearly GONE in a very NOPE NOPE NOPE. That friend was this:

Rusty and I came up with this one and I still wanna use it someplace. There were gonna be some neat creepy animations to it. It probably left some weird hollowed out deer carcasses. Very very Search and Rescue Horror Stories vibe.

So for the actual plot! There were two versions that I actually never ultimately decided which route I wanted to take. One was a little bit safer, the other, while much more poignant and thematically appropriate, being a much darker route that I actually liked a lot, but couldn’t decide if I wanted to take Tech’s blog in that direction or go that dark. Not, y’know, grimdark. But there’d be some death. But there are parts in common for both versions, so I’ll describe the common beginning, two separate middles, and common endings.

We would follow Tech through these very old burnt-out woods, the recent victim of either a wildfire or volcanic eruption. It’s a long, quiet montage of Tech travelling, much like the long, quiet travel scenes in Samurai Jack. I took a lot of inspiration from Jack and the Lava Monster, replacing the ash fields with an ash forest, basically. As he travels, he finds a lake and he notes that the lake is technically artificial. He notes that it’s an ancient mound dam, and that it was likely to aid in trapping fish. Finding the dam, he follows the dry riverbed as it meanders through the black forest. Following it, he finds an absolutely ancient, overgrown village almost unrecognizable from the forest itself. He practically stumbles on it when he probably smacks face first into a big tree in the riverbed.

Version 1: Safe version

Tech explores the quiet, bleak village, nearly unrecognizable. This part of the forest, while not exactly thriving, was spared some of the fiery destruction, but is still being choked out by ash. He moves into buildings, finds the remains of life, and touching various things lead to visions of the ancient people who lived there. Always a different person, various stages of life, seeing things through their eyes as if he were them.

This is where Tech would likely first meet the spirit. And it is… not happy. He recognizes it from of the local native equestrian’s stories, and knows that it means business. There’s a mad-dash scramble for his life into the woods, where eventually the ground collapses under him and he falls into an ice cave. For now, he’s safe.

There, in the ice cave, he sees remains of life, again. This place was likely used as another altar or shrine, some writings on the wall. Tech likely has another vision, and he starts to put together the pieces: by damming the lake, encouraging their food supply, the people that had lived there had unintentionally hurt the forest. The spirit, a protector of the village, could only watch sadly as its village began to fall into despair, moving away one by one, causing great and terrible pain to the spirit that had loved them deeply. The anger and eventual choking of the forest, long after the people had left for greener pastures, had turned the spirit into what it was now.

In this last vision, Eddy sees that the tree he’d run into was no tree: in his vision, it’s a revered statue, a shrine, meant to be cleaned by the running river.

Ergo, the solution, obviously, is to return the river.

Version 2: darker version

Again, I did like this version better, but y’know. Being an mlp blog that typically tried to stay relatively within the tone of mlp, if maybe for a PG-13 audience instead of a G-rated audience. This one really pushed on my limits of what I really wanted to show in the blog, so you can see my dilemma.

Tech, again, basically stumbles on the old village, but rather than being alone, he actually finds a couple other people in the area too. Either hikers who made very poor life decisions or some other guards who’d gone out to make another sweep for injured civilians and gather clues in the process. But after some introductions, they all decide to explore the village together.

And this goes very… poorly. Tech realizes much sooner, perhaps having heard more of the local stories than version 1, that there is a shrine they need to find. It needs to be cleaned, in order to satiate the spirit. So he and this gang search everywhere for this shrine, there aren’t any visions. Over the course of exploring, each member is picked off one by one. As in, they die. Blatantly. Eventually it’s just he and one other, and maybe during a lull, they have a candid conversation. But they’re picked off too.

So it’s just Tech. Tech eventually finds the shrine, completely on accident. He stumbles into the tree, realizes it doesn’t make the right noise, and wipes away some ash to reveal stonework. It’d big and there’s too much mud around the base to clear entirely. He’s enraged and heartbroken that it was there, right there. And they missed it. And once more, he is the sole survivor.

So, like version one, the solution is to return the river.

Back together

Either way, Tech runs back to the dam, alone. He doesn’t have enough magic pull to bring down the dam with just his magic, so either he uses some good ol’ physics with some boulders to smash open the dam a la BOTW boulders and magnesis, or he gets the attention of the guards who stopped him from before, and all of them bring down the dam. The river makes a big entrance, something something this probably sounds like a certain Disney movie but I made this plot five years ago. >:U

The river returns, the village is washed away but the shrine remains standing. The spirit, once monstrous, transforms back to its original form. In version 1, Tech visits the shrine again, there’s likely a beautiful illusion of springtime and the flourishing village, vanishing into ashy reality as the spirit walks away. He moves on, there’s likely a scene in a diner nearby with locals talking about the dam, and possibly returning to the area. In version 2, Tech has a moment of breaking down, sitting for a long time on a high cliff, before a very quiet and heartbroken return to Ponyville. Both versions have him approach only to stop on the hill overlooking the valley, indecision clear on his face, and turn around to leave again.

So there ya go! Maybe it lived up to whatever you might have imagined it would go, maybe it didn’t! But I really did enjoy this chapter a lot and am still pretty mournful that it never got to come to light. I think I would have had the most fun with this one. But c’est la vie, que sera sera. Maybe I can frankenstein something from this in a later project.

Maybe someday I’ll say what Tech’s super secret magic ability was. ;3

#there ya go #enjoy #I realize the darker version wasn't exactly dark for pony blogs #but it was dark for Tech's blog #which i mean #considering...

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readersguidetotheuniverse · 4 years

Photo

Beach Read, by Emily Henry

Beach Read was a ridiculously well written view on the tragedy of losing one’s father and dealing with a very well-kept secret.

Cover-content

Alicia: Okay, so let’s start with the name. How delusional of me was it to expect an actual beach and people reading in it? Also, the cover does not help at all to make you think you’ve got another thing coming. I don’t think this cover fully represents the concept of the book, to be honest. I mean, spoiler alert, they do read in a beach. At the very last chapter! If you have to read the whole book for the cover to make sense, maybe it’s not the right cover.

Ariadna: I found it quite misleading. I expected sand, sunscreen and ice lollies, but it turned out to be… a lake. A bit underwhelming (the cover, not the book). A romance novel coming out in May, expected to be a Beach Read. Ok, marketing team, we see what you did there!

Marina: I expected a summer romance on a beach in, say, Florida and got an enemies-to-lovers on a lake. I get that they live right on the beach (lake-shore more like) but they barely spend any time (reading or otherwise) there except for the last chapter when they read each other’s books. I guess they must have chosen it because of the title.

Past- vs. Present-January

Alicia: In my opinion, past January was a bit too naive for her own good. She sees the world through rose-colored glasses and that’s okay while you’re young, but at some point you have to grow up and see that life is not that simple. Happy endings don’t just happen to everyone. Not everyone has the luck to have good supportive parents, a career in something you love, loving partners or friends… people are a spectrum and sometimes you just lie there in the grey middle and that’s just how it is. Now, I think the change in January’s ‘personality’, or just her way of interacting with the world, is simply the consequence of life hitting you with the worse it’s got. She has not only lost two of the most pivotal people in her life, she has also found out that she has kind of been living a lie, and also she’s stuck in her career and money is starting to run low. That changes you whether you like it or not. And even though I would not wish that suffering and pain to anyone, I think she really needed it to finally grow and find herself.

Ariadna: Me being a single, unemployed, 28yo romantic booknerd born in January whose father died a bit more than a year ago, January’s description in the first chapter felt almost like a personal attack. Overcoming her emotional turmoil post her father’s death, all the doubts, the anger, the sadness… Imho, all that makes the new January much more plausible character-wise than the “rose-colored glasses” Janie from before. I really liked her evolving through the chapters into a less naive, more realistic and emotionally intelligent adult.

Marina: Even January says it during those first few chapters: she was living in her head, a life that could be but never was. I can only imagine what it would have been like had she not lost her father or never discovered his affair. Then again, she was wound to find out eventually as he writes in one of his letters. This “new January”, as she keeps calling herself, to me is a medium point between the January that believed her life to be a romance novel and the January that knows her life is not perfect and that’s ok. Throughout the book January explores herself, the character development is there, though subtle.

The families

Alicia: It was a bit hard for me to relate to January’s family issues. The same way I don’t believe in perfect love stories, I also don’t believe in perfect families, so the fact that January’s family is represented as such a perfect unit just makes it a bit too unreal for me. And I don’t need a cheating husband, which felt a bit too shoehorned in the story, to know that it just couldn’t be that good. It’s definitely a ‘too perfect to be true’ kind of situation that only really happens in novels. And I know romance novels are labeled as ‘fiction’, and this is not supposed to be an accurate depiction of any real family. But still this kind of perfect people with perfect relationships makes me not connect as much to the story or characters, ’cause I don’t believe in perfect anything. Gus’ family, on the other hand, seems painfully real, damaged, abusive,… which is not nice. But family is not always nice.

Ariadna: Even though both Janie’s and Gus’ family stories are crucial to the plot, both “alive” families seemed too artificial to me, put there by the author just to help move the plot forward, as could have been any other character. I felt the relationship between January and her mother could have been explored a great deal more, and it would have helped her make sense of her father’s secret without the deus-ex-machina in shape of letters. Gus’ aunt and her wife felt a bit neglected to me too. I understand the journey of mutual understanding and openness between the two main characters, but I think Pete’s big mouth could have been a greater catalyst for the big fight… which actually wasn’t either. Too random, too vanilla for my taste.

Marina: Can I just start by saying I think it would have been way more realistic if the author had introduced more interactions between January and her mother and Gus and his aunts. The reader barely gets any context on what’s going on with January’s mother. She is also a grieving person and I feel like the author centers too much attention on January’s feelings about being betrayed by her mother and too little time exploring how to deal with those emotions, or how THEY dealt with those emotions.

The romance

Alicia: I’m about 0 percent romantic. I don’t like romance. I don’t believe in it. I believe in love but not fairytale romance. So I am always a bit dubious when I read romance novels ’cause it just doesn’t seem realistic to me. And this was a beautiful love story, there’s no denying that. And I’m a sucker for an enemies-to-lovers story. But this one in particular felt, maybe, too cliché? Maybe. For starters, what was the chance of her moving next door to her college enemy? This is the US we’re talking about. Over 300 million people. My scepticism was too strong for this. Cliché #1. Then, turns out, he loved her basically from the get go. She thought he hated her so she ‘hated’ him as well but they had been ‘thirsty’ for each other the whole time.. The ‘I look at them all the time but they never looks back at me’ type of thing. #2. Then little clichés all over the place. Confessions and kissing in the pouring rain. Notes through the window Taylor Swift style (I did love this a lot to be honest). Letting her go because she is too pure for this world and he doesn’t deserve her… Anyway, this book kind of failed at making me believe in romance, but still made me root for them and their love story which is a lot.

Ariadna: Maybe I’m a bit cynical –which I am, why lie– but I found the romance between January and Gus to be a bit forced, for the sake of the plot. Nemesis turned lovers, both writers, both living next to each other, both developing feelings the second they see each other… I think it would have been nice to use the family stories, the secrets and subplots, to make them connect more, and not fall in love because they already fancied each other but because they really came to understand the other in depth and fell in love with that “new” version of them.

Marina: Not going to complain about this, enemies-to-lovers is one of my favourite tropes in romance fiction. Though at times it felt like reading YA, not Adult Romance because January acts a bit like a teenager at times. For example, when she hides from Gus at the bookstore. And ALL THE DRAMA, by God, the drama! That reads YA through and through. But, oh well, if there weren’t drama it wouldn’t be a romantic novel, would it? Even though the romance is a bit weird, to be honest. The reader knows from the beginning that January is halfway in love with Gus and that’s not really an enemies-to-lover theme, is it? I would have liked it more if January actually despised the guy and then, slowly, came to the realization that “oh, this guy is not so bad!”.

Light & dark personalities

Alicia: There is this part of the novel that especially resonated with me, in which Gus describes his parents as a black hole and a bright light. It took me a moment to digest this ‘scene’. First ’cause I think the concepts of black hole and bright light as types of personality are really good metaphors and I was a bit wowed. Second because I sometimes see me as a black hole myself, and this hit too close to home. It made me reconsider some aspects of myself I do not like very much. I have doubted myself and my relationships with other people one too many times because of this. And seeing a character go through the same process and describe himself in a way I can see myself in, it was hard. I have bright lights in my life and day after day I think ‘one day they’ll get tired of me, one day their light will outshine me forever’. This book, in some way, made me feel seen and understood. And somehow that made me feel better. Gus sees himself as a black hole, but I could definitely see the light in him. January is a bright light but I could definitely see the darkness in her. This book gave me hope that it is possible to find someone that sees my darkness and doesn’t reject me for it, but finds light in it. I’ll hold onto it.

Ariadna: At first, I identified with January because of all she was going through. But as soon as I saw her “real” personality, all rosy and bubbly and outgoing, I fell out of love with the character (see above). However, it hit right in the heart when Gus opened up about his feelings, specially about how he felt about himself. I’ve personally felt like a black hole so many times in my life that, well, I literally cried while reading that. I think that passage is what really made me root for the love story and specifically for Gus. It made him much more realistic than “early-thirties-crisis” Janie, and I love how Emily worked their story and developed both characters to the point where they realise that “bright light” and “black hole” coexist in a person, but don’t actually define them, as a sign of emotional maturity and a glimpse of hope for those who feel lost and broken. Repeat after me, those feelings do not define us!

Marina: When January first started telling her story I saw her anger. Not just towards her parents but the world she had had to survive in. Those first chapters shaped her to be almost embarrassed to have felt that way. I think growing up and seeing how much her parents loved each other and then to suddenly discover that her dad had been cheating on her mother the whole time must have been a huge shake to her world-view. Emily Henry made a wonderful job describing the reticence of losing that last part of your loved ones, the last thing you have that belonged to them. Meanwhile, there’s Gus: a morally grey character who failed at showing his emotions towards January when they were younger because of the way he was brought up. And this brings me back to what I was saying about the families: there’s not a whole lot of background even if at the same time you get parts of their lives before they met.

Overall

Alicia: It is a pretty good novel. It was definitely enjoyable, relatable, funny, dorky… It’s not a novel you have to take seriously word by word. But at the same time it does touch some dark topics and it can be a bit painful to read at times. It surely was a bit overwhelming to me at some points. But I think the tougher themes and the lighter ones are well balanced, and these darker topics give the story a depth that many romance novels do not have. I liked it quite a lot.

Marina: Would recommend exactly for what the title says: as a beach read. It’s funny, it’s light and you can easily read it in a couple of days while sunbathing and/or drinking your favorite cocktail!

#beach read #emily henry #book #book rec #romance #group reading #book club #feel good #book recommendations #book review #rg2universe #rg2u #readers guide to the universe #goodreads #group read

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jtsodergren · 4 years

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The Best of 2019

2019, what an exceptional year for movies! A great way to close out the shittiest decade! Here are the 50 best films I saw this year... click on the title to go to the IMDB page, and I’ll try to post a link to where you can see many of them. Also for the first time this year, I’m including MOM WARNINGS! My mom reads this list and sometimes actually watches these movies... so to save her some grief, sadness, or general concern for my psyche, there will be a NOT FOR MOMS!! warning where applicable... here we go!

50. STAR WARS - EPISODE IX: THE RISE OF SKYWALKER (Amazon)

People really hated this movie... I actually really liked it! Aside from the horses running around on the outside of spaceships (which makes no fucking sense... didn’t Leia get all space frozen exactly one movie ago??), it was a satisfying conclusion to a franchise I guess I don’t really care about as much as other people, so I was into it!

49. JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 3 - PARABELLUM (Amazon)

Quickly becoming one of the more well produced action franchises of all time. Probably two too many machine gun shootouts in this one for me (I get a little exhausted with gun violence), but the hand-to-hand stuff is brilliant and bloody and badass! Not to mention the deepening of the mythology and Halle Berry and her dogs. It’s a fun time, a welcome addition to the series, and I can’t wait for number 4.

48. QUEEN & SLIM (Amazon)

Billed as the black BONNIE AND CLYDE and from first time feature director Melina Matsoukas, this atmospheric tragedy is gorgeous to look at, delivers a pair of standout lead performances, and proves to have one of the more stressful final 30min of any of the films I saw this year, even if you know the inevitable conclusion is just around the corner.

47. UNDER THE SILVER LAKE (Amazon PRIME)

A wild Los Angeles noir story from the director of IT FOLLOWS. Plays like if David Lynch directed THE BIG LEBOWSKI, a weird, screwball whodunit. It’s a little long, and there are so many loose ends that seem to be thrown in just to fuck with the protagonist (and the audience), but it’s a really fun time and you’ll want to stay to the end to see it all play out. LA looks gorgeous too.

46. KNOCK DOWN THE HOUSE (Netflix)

Truly inspiring. Really shows how if you put your mind to something, believe in yourself and that you can make a difference, you can accomplish anything. Regardless of your political leanings, or how you feel about AOC personally, this is well worth your time and it has a great message for young people, especially those young women of color who might not think they can achieve great levels of success. It made me cry the happy tears.

45. LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT (Amazon)

Best known for it’s remarkable 59min-3D final take, this hallucinatory journey through memory and dreams is mind-blowing and breathtaking. Hard not to leave this one feeling like you’ve been put though some kind of experiment that you don’t fully understand, but you’ll want to experience again. Highly recommended if you have access to 3D, or simply have some killer edibles and want to be thrown for a loop.

44. CLIMAX (Amazon PRIME)

NOT FOR MOMS!!

Speaking of being under the influence, holy shit is this film nuts! From Gaspar Noe, who if you’re aware of his work, you kind of already know what you’re in store for here. It’s been described as “FAME directed by the Marquis de Sade”... incredible dance sequences and audacious camerawork that slowly but surely devolves into hell. It’s a blast!

43. HAIL SATAN? (Hulu)

A fresh and funny documentary about a group of smartass Satanists exposing the hypocrisy amongst bible-thumping Christians who’d rather stomp their feet and be the loudest in the room than listen to anyone else’s perspective. Frustrating and entertaining in equal parts, this compulsively watchable film makes you want to scream at these Jesus freaks as much as you want to laugh along with the antics of these harmless, intelligent and organized troublemakers. An excellent time well spent.

42. FIRST LOVE (Amazon)

(Probably) NOT FOR MOMS!!

Director Takashi Miike’s yakuza action-comedy is the most accessible of his films I’ve seen (he’s now made more than 100 movies, which is insane), but that doesn’t mean it’s not a gonzo wild time at the movies. The violence is here in full force, but unlike AUDITION or ICHI THE KILLER, you don’t need a barf bag close by to enjoy it. It’s often hilarious and moves at a breakneck speed. Super fun!

41. THE DEAD DON’T DIE (Amazon PRIME)

Jim Jarmusch’s star-studded, droll zombie-comedy came and went from theaters without much fanfare, but provided me with plenty of laughs. It’s also the second of 3 Adam Driver vehicles to be on this year’s list. Bill Murray and Driver lead the way along with plenty familiar faces in cameos throughout (including the RZA in one of my favorite scene’s of the year). Classic Jarmusch... a meditation on death and mortality in his vintage style.

40. EL CAMINO: A BREAKING BAD MOVIE (Netflix)

Dude, Aaron Paul is a legit GREAT actor. Picks up right where the show left off, and I was on the edge of my seat and filled with anxiety just like I was during the best moments of the now classic series. It was good to hang out with my old friends again.

39. DOCTOR SLEEP (Amazon)

A box office flop due to poor promotion and a title people weren’t familiar with, this sequel to THE SHINING is based on the Stephen King book of the same name, which I read, and I can’t recommend it more. Great suspense, and fantastic performances from both Ewan McGregor and (especially) Rebecca Ferguson. It’s a dark and scary film that is a fun trip back to the Overlook Hotel... provided you wish to return there...

38. THE LAST BLACK MAN IN SAN FRANCISCO (Amazon PRIME)

About 90min into this beautifully shot film I was ready to lock it in as a possible Top 5 contender. Then the bottom fell out for me the last quarter of the movie and lost my confidence. No bother, it’s still wonderful enough to find a spot on the list and carry my recommendation. Young men and women watching their city change before their eyes, and wondering what the concept of “home” really means is a real challenge facing many people here in the Bay Area. This film does a fantastic job conveying that, for most of the film anyway.

37. THE PEANUT BUTTER FALCON (Amazon)

A bonafide crown-pleaser of a movie, and another example of the true talent Shia LeBeouf has and is capable of (more on him later). A young man with Down Syndrome escapes his assisted-living facility to track down his wrestling idol the Saltwater Redneck with the help of an outlaw and a social worker. Sweet, funny, and heartfelt... a feel good surprise.

36. A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD (Amazon)

I didn’t cry nearly as much as I did during the excellent documentary WON’T YOU BE MY NEIGHBOR from last year, but if you’re a Mr. Rogers fan, you’ll still shed a few during this heartwarming film. Tom Hanks does his thing, and even though this movie is guilty of borrowing a little too much from the previous doc, it’s still a great showcase for the truly selfless and beautiful force of nature that Fred Rogers was. Bring tissues anyway.

35. CARMINE STREET GUITARS (In Theaters Now)

A love letter to both New York City and the art, joy, and love that goes into honing and maintaining one’s craft. Meanwhile the looming doom of gentrification hovers over the proceedings, never letting you get fully enrapt in the sweetness that these artists (and their many famous customers) exude when talking about and playing their one-of-a-kind works of art. A stunning and lovely piece for musicians and talentless fans of music alike.

34. HOLIDAY (Amazon)

NOT FOR MOMS!!

A tough, cold film with nary a character to actively root for... until after about an hour of icy behavior comes (no pun intended) a scene so shocking in its graphic and disturbing nature, people left the theater without staying for the final resolution. First time director Isabella Eklof pulls off the bold and audacious maneuver, all while making it seem like she doesn’t care whether you like her characters (or her film) at all. It’s a very fine balancing act, executed to perfection. But be warned... it’s rough.

33. AVENGERS: ENDGAME (Disney+)

What can I say? You saw it. It’s good. A bunch of Supermans fly around and blow shit up. A satisfying end (until the next 20 films).

32. MIDSOMMAR (Amazon Prime)

NOT FOR MOMS!!

A disturbing slow burn of a gothic horror film. Characters do hallucinogens while ritualistic religious murders and tribal mating practices threaten to ruin everyones existence. Florence Pugh is phenomenal (more from her in a minute) in a very trying roll. Doesn’t pack quite the punch of the director’s last film, HEREDITARY, but it’s still well worth the watch. But yeah, it’s disturbing.

31. APOLLO 11 (Hulu)

A fascinating look at the first moon landing from rarely seen archival footage and audio. Seeing it on the IMAX screen was intense and exhilarating, unlike narrative pictures like the severely overrated FIRST MAN. This isn’t my favorite documentary of the year, but it is an absolute lock to win the Academy Award for Best Doc of 2019. It’s a must see, a must experience.

30. HIGH LIFE (Amazon PRIME)

NOT FOR MOMS!!

French auteur Claire Denis’ bizarre, erotic sci-fi mindfuck about isolation and humanity is not for everyone, but is a brilliant take on the genre, and is yet another showcase for Robert Pattinson, who is quietly becoming one of my favorite working actors. Juliette Binoche also is on fire here and has what one critic calls “the single greatest one-person sex scene in the history of cinema.” So it has that going for it.

29. TRIPLE FRONTIER (Netflix)

A fully loaded heist film with no real bad guy, but instead a group of recognizable badasses in a Netflix-released action thrill ride. There’s absolutely no reason this should’ve worked, or even been half as good as it is, but boy is it good! Compulsively watchable, and rewatchable. If this were on Showtime as much as DEN OF THIEVES is I’d have seen it 30 times by now. It’s one of the most pleasant surprises of the year.

28. 1917 (Amazon)

An unbelievable visual achievement from cinematographer Roger Deakins and director Sam Mendes. The story isn’t the greatest war story ever told (are there great war stories?), but it’s shot to look like one continuous long take, sustained for 2hrs. It’s really an unbelievable feat, but doesn’t come off as gimmicky or distracting. It’s intense, beautifully staged, and sad. A big screen spectacle.

27. TOY STORY 4 (Amazon)

Woody and the gang are back, and the films continue to keep the dust from collecting. It’s still so much fun to hang out with this group of misfit toys. There was talk that after the incredible TOY STORY 3 this was just a money grab and was labeled unnecessary, but I found it to be a sweet, charming, and nostalgic trip I was glad I took.

26. HONEYLAND (Hulu)

My pick for documentary of the year comes from the mountains of Macedonia, where a woman named Hatidze lives with her dying mother making a living cultivating honey. When a family of shitheads moves into a shanty next door, what seems like a fix for her lonely existence becomes catastrophic as they disregard her teachings and threaten her livelihood. I was an emotional wreck throughout the experience and it goes without saying it’s a must-see. Gorgeous and heartbreaking.

25. LITTLE WOMEN (Amazon)

I have never read the book, nor seen any of the film adaptations, so I went in blind to this lovely film. Director Greta Gerwig follows up the phenomenal LADYBIRD with this Altman-esque rendition of the widely beloved literary classic. I found it exceptional in its execution and performances, including the previously mentioned Florence Pugh, who is a knockout. A wonderful addition to the ever-growing stable of Christmas films I look to enjoy during future Decembers.

24. GREENER GRASS (Hulu)

It’s as if Tim & Eric made BLUE VELVET. Bizarre, outrageous, gross, and a guaranteed future midnight movie favorite. My sides hurt. A satire skewering upper-middle class suburban soccer moms and dads alike. Babies are given away. A boy turns into a dog. Everyone has braces. There’s a creep on the loose. It’s wild and flat-out hilarious literally from start to finish. Almost too many jokes to keep up with. Watch it! Bring weed.

23. RELAXER (Amazon)

NOT FOR MOMS!!

Speaking of gross, this film is disgusting, but in a good way. A satire about lazy consumerism and self-destruction. It’s a short hang, thankfully, but if you can stomach it to the end (remember, it’s nasty) you’ll be rewarded with not only a hilarious dark comedy, but also an unexpected haymaker of sadness you didn’t see coming. It’s a pretty impressive feat, and an overall success. But, yeah, it’s fucking gross.

22. AD ASTRA (Amazon)

APOCALYPSE NOW in space starring Brad Pitt. If you need more information than that, I don’t really know what else to do for you.

21. SLUT IN A GOOD WAY (Amazon PRIME)

(Probably) NOT FOR MOMS!!

A black-and-white raunchy French arthouse teen comedy that gives a middle finger to the double standard set by the equally raunchy teen-boys-will-be-boys genre. It’s so much fun, and honest, and the actors are such natural talents you forget the subject matter is at times shocking (only because of said double standard) and just go with it. I think it’s just wonderful. Seek it out!

20. US (HBO)

Jordan Peele’s excellent follow-up to GET OUT. Doppelganger home invasion terror with a killer twist. To describe more would be to risk giving something away. I’ll just say that Lupita Nyong’o is my pick to win her second Oscar, this time as Best Actress, here in a dual role. She’s incredible. If you haven’t seen it, try to go in blind, you’ll be rewarded.

19. THE FAREWELL (Amazon PRIME)

A heartfelt homecoming film about family, culture, and how the things we don’t say can be just as strong of a show of love as the things we do say. It’s sweet, tender, and bursting with personal flare and emotions from director Lulu Wang. Awkwafina also curbs her more manic and loud tendencies as a performer for more quiet, thoughtful, and somber choices. She’s phenomenal.

18. KNIVES OUT (Amazon)

A clever ensemble whodunit that’s just as funny and smart as it is mysterious. Everyone across the board delivers as the assorted motley crew. The film rewards repeat viewings and Daniel Craig knocks it out of the park, stealing every scene he’s in, reminding us all what a fantastic actor he can be when he’s not sipping the Vespers.

17. BOOKSMART (Hulu)

The female SUPERBAD is the elevator pitch, but this coming-of-age gem is really unlike any other example in the genre. They’re privileged, uber-smart, and have never partied. Yet they have the same neuroses as any other teen scared to death of what to do next or how to be normal. It’s also fucking hilarious. You wanna hang out with these girls and at the same time bury your head under the covers because you feel their pure terror/embarrassment. It’s a blast.

16. THE MUSTANG (Amazon)

Starring Matthias Schoenaerts, one of the finest actor’s working today, this understated and emotional drama about rehabilitation and redemption floored me upon first viewing. It is a gorgeous film. You’ve probably seen stories similar to this before, but rarely is one told with such compelling conviction. A borderline masterpiece.

15. HONEY BOY (Amazon PRIME)

Remember a few years back we had the McConaissance, where everything Matthew McConaughey did was solid gold after years of middling bullshit? I’m calling it right now: Shia LaBeouf is about to have the same thing. He wrote the script and plays a version of his own father in a brutal version of his own fucked up childhood as an up-and-coming child actor. It’s heartbreaking and absolutely riveting. I’m hoping he gets an Oscar nod, but regardless I implore you to seek this film out, he’s incredible.

14. MONOS (Hulu)

(Probably) NOT FOR MOMS!!

A bizarre, bewildering, chaotic, and unsettling film. Some of the most beautiful photography I saw on the big screen this year, yet some of the most surreal and disturbing imagery as well. It’s a militarized, Latin American LORD OF THE FLIES with commentary on tribal behavior and violence. It can be a tough sit, but boy is it beautiful.

13. DOLEMITE IS MY NAME (Netflix)

What a wonderful, welcome surprise! Eddie Murphy in an awards caliber performance as Rudy Ray Moore, the multi-hyphenate performer who created the alter ego Dolemite, spawning a film franchise and many legendary comedy albums. It’s obviously hilarious, and a great behind-the-scenes biopic, but also shockingly sweet and heartfelt, even between all the cuss words. I even teared up a couple times. The 3rd best thing Netflix released this year (more on that in a minute).

12. JOKER (Amazon)

You already saw this.

11. THE IRISHMAN (Netflix)

It’s far too long. It could’ve done with being cut as a three part miniseries or special. There’s about 45min worth of scenes that are quintessential DVD bonus features (I’m looking at you Action Bronson), but goddamn if it’s not Scorsese doing his Scorsese thing. It’s a gangster film, but it’s also a meditation on aging and death. Pesci is incredible and Pacino steals the show. Sure, the de-aging thing is distracting, the curb stomping scene is embarrassing. But still, I mean... IT’S MARTIN SCORSESE!

10. PAIN AND GLORY (Amazon)

Pedro Almodovar’s most personal work to date, a tale about making art and the loneliness of love. If you are unfamiliar with his work, this is a great jumping off point. His movies can be challenging and dark, but this film has such joy and hope amongst the heartache. The final reveal, while not earth shattering on paper, is nonetheless so moving it left the screening I attended without a dry eye in the place. It is his best film yet.

9. THE LIGHTHOUSE (Amazon)

From the director of THE WITCH comes another type of gothic horror, this time with the legendary Willem Dafoe and the (already mentioned) brilliant Robert Pattinson marooned on a lighthouse rock alone to drive each other completely insane. It’s hallucinatory, violent, disorienting, and flat-out brilliant. If it weren’t for another guy we’ll get to in a minute, Dafoe would be a lock for Best Supporting Actor here. It’s a slightly challenging film, with the period style mariner dialogue, but it’s just as funny as it is terrifying.

8. JOJO RABBIT (Amazon)

A beautiful, touching, funny, crowd-pleasing comedy about a little Nazi whose imaginary friend is Hitler. Yep, your read that correctly. There are about a million reasons this should absolutely not work. Yet, it’s one of the best theater going experiences I had this year. A must see... ESPECIALLY with Mom!

7. MARRIAGE STORY (Netflix)

The best written and acted film of the year, and the third Adam Driver vehicle to appear here. Sad but honest. Touching but brutal. It’s awkward and a bit of a bummer, but there’s such great work being done here, in front of and behind the camera. Noah Baumbach is a force of nature, and has yet to make a film I was even iffy about. He’s the real deal and this might be his masterpiece.

6. WAVES (Amazon)

Speaking of auteurs, Trey Edward Shults is now 3/3 on features after the brilliant KRISHA and IT COMES AT NIGHT. Here he follows a middle-class black family, led by a domineering father, through a tragic moment in all of their lives. The first half deals with the son’s story, then abruptly switches to the daughter’s life post said event. It shouldn’t work, yet somehow manages to be one of the most emotionally affecting pieces of art I saw this year. The camera never stops moving, constantly swirling and whirling and you can’t help to be sucked up into it. It’s a beautiful tragedy.

5. LONG SHOT (HBO)

The biggest and most pleasant surprise of the year. An opposites-attract rom-com with more brains, bite, social commentary, and laughs than it has any right to have. Easily the most fun you’ll have with (almost) the whole family... there’s a lot of cum jokes. But don’t let the vulgarity dissuade you! It’s a total riot with just the right amount of sweetness to balance out the saltiness. I love love love this movie.

4. THE ART OF SELF-DEFENSE (Hulu)

What starts as a strange, dark comedy morphs into a FIGHT CLUB-esque thriller with allusions to disturbingly toxic masculinity and an offbeat take on what it takes to “be a man.” It is laugh-out-loud hilarious, and expertly made, while really having something to say, and it says it in a way I’ve never really seen before. It’s not surprising this didn’t get more attention, the characters are truly difficult to relate to, let alone root for, but as far as originality goes, you’d be hard pressed to find anything this year much better than this.

3. UNCUT GEMS (Amazon)

(Probably) NOT FOR MOMS!!

The cinematic equivalent of being locked in the brain of a lunatic having a cocaine-fueled anxiety attack. If that sounds like fun (AND IT IS!!!) then this is the film for you! Oh, and Adam Sandler is going to be nominated for an Oscar for Best Actor. For real. It’s a chaotic, stress-filled masterpiece.

2. ONCE UPON A TIME... IN HOLLYWOOD (Amazon)

My favorite filmmaker’s 2nd best film. A personal story about the love of film during the late 60s, a time of dirty hippies and Charles Manson, as well as the passing of the torch from old Hollywood to the “golden age” of cinema. It’s a fairytale of sorts, with Tarantino’s trademark flare for spontaneous violence and mining multiple genres to make his most mature work since PULP FICTION. I’ve been rewarded with new takeaways upon each subsequent viewing, and my love and appreciation for it only grows and grows. Brad Pitt is a lock for Best Supporting Actor, he’s magnificent. It was always going to be my #1 with a bullet no matter what, because it’s just that great...

1. PARASITE (Amazon)

...but then Bong Joon-ho, the master of new Korean cinema unleashed PARASITE. Not only is it the best film of 2019, it’s one of the best films I have ever seen. Like EVER ever. He is in such astonishing control of his craft it’s hard not to sit back and marvel and the sheer skill on display. You can be laughing one moment and then recoiling in horror during the same breath. He’s using multiple genre tropes, incredible set design, pitch perfect acting/writing, and such exquisite planning you can’t possibly know what’s in store for you from one scene to the next. It is an absolute masterpiece and if it doesn’t sweep every category it’s nominated for at this year’s Oscars, it’ll be a travesty. If you have even a passing interest in film as an art form, the power it can wield, and the messages it can convey, you owe it to yourself to see this film. It’s perfect.

Well, there it is. Thanks for reading any part of this. Now go see PARASITE. I love you.

#movies #top50 #2019 #movies of 2019

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nevergiveupneverrun · 5 years

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Bodyguard - Chapter Thirty-Eight “Private world” Part Two

Hello, I hope you’re all doing great and that you’re happy. Here is chapter thirty-eight of my Story Bodyguard. It’s Friday and Friday means that a new chapter is here!

I’m sorry by advance for the mistakes… English isn’t my first language and I do my best. Here is the link of the previous chapter: Click Here.

I hope you will enjoy this chapter :) 💛

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- He’s always been like that, our Owen… he can not bear to have something that resists him… or scares him. Do you remember how you scared us when you wanted to learn to swim? Asks Rosie in a laugh.

- Rosie, have pity, not yet these anecdotes, I answer in a smile.

- Wait, this one I love it, replies Rosie. Owen’s father had forbidden him to come too close to the lake when he was still a little boy, she said, turning to Amelia, explain to him that it was dangerous, that you had to know how to swim… and of course, all that intrigued Owen. He ended up meeting us one afternoon on the terrace… you were, what, 6-7 years old? She asks me speaking to me again.

- Yes, something like that, I answer embarrassed.

- So we were sitting, his parents, my husband and myself… we thought he wanted to sing us something or play to us some notes because he was precocious of the guitar and piano like his father. But there, we watched with fright the jump of this little boy all dressed in the water after having launched with conviction a: “I’m not afraid!”.

- No, you jumped! Exclaims Amelia looking at me.

I nod with a smile.

- And we’ve seen him struggle before he can more or less keep his head above water, but his father jumped into the water quickly to bring him back to the bank. He has never agreed to not know how to do something, to have that feeling of fear, he prefers to conquer it as soon as it’s born and feel it.

I feel Amelia’s eyes piercing me for a few moments but I dare not meet her eyes…

- I hope you will remember that when you will be a father, in your turn… your children will necessarily be a little daredevil…

- You will remind me when it’s on the agenda… which is not the case at all…

- It will be and maybe faster than you think. If there is one thing I want to see in this world, it’s a little Hunt Junior. You will make a great dad, don’t doubt it…

I look up and find directly the pupils of Rosie who watches me moved before her attention goes to Amelia.

- Well, kids, it’s a little late, I’ll leave you, she said, standing up from the table.

- I’ll go back to change quickly, to give you back the dress, replies Amelia leaving her chair quickly.

- Amelia, said suddenly, Rosie. It’s not necessary… this dress is for you, you can keep it…

- But… well, it’s yours and I cannot…

- She’s not mine… she’s your’s now… explains Rosie in a whisper.

I tiptoe to get the coat and the purse of Rosie.

When I come back to the living room, my accomplice took Amelia in her arms and I can tell she’s blowing something into her ear which Amelia nods weakly.

The two women come off after a few seconds and turn to me.

I open Rosie’s trench to help put it on and then hand her, her purse.

- Thank you, Owen, she says in a smile.

- Wait, I’ll take you to your car, I suggest opening the door of the house.

Rosie lets me do it and passes in front of me, while we find the outside.

We walk a few steps in silence before I break it.

- Thank you so much for the meal, Rosie. I think it did a lot of good to Amelia and with all my favorites plates, it was nice attention from you. And it is adorable to have offered her the dress.

- It’s normal, I have no use… I don’t have a girl to give it to… and something tells me that this young woman deserves it because she seems special for you… or am I wrong? She asks me, arriving in front of her car.

- I… do not really know, you know… I answer, lowering my eyes.

- Hey, look at me.

I perform and find the eyes of Rosie shining in the darkness around us.

- You know it deep inside you… and if you want a scoop, it’s completely reciprocal… the looks don’t lie, believe me. Don’t leave your chance of happiness pass. React like this little boy who was not afraid to jump into the water to learn to swim. You just have to do the same to prove to yourself that you can love, to learn how to make this young woman happy. She’s waiting for you…

She opens the door and slides on the seat after these last words.

- And I was not joking that you would be a wonderful dad… and in my opinion, you have already found the perfect mom… she says in a wink while starting.

Her little Hyundai moves away quickly, disappearing after a few meters through the forest that surrounds the property.

I go back to the house with a steady step: Rosie’s words had marked me, she was formidable to make me think and point sometimes what could seem obvious, but I did not see.

I open the front door slowly and find the warmth of the house.

Jingling glass and porcelain immediately catch my attention.

I take the direction of the kitchen and I discover Amelia facing the sink, busy doing the dishes.

I block a moment, seeing her from the back: she had tied her hair for the occasion and my eyes could scan her bareback at leisure…

- You should not have… you already did everything with Rosie…

- It doesn’t bother me…

- But it bothers me, I reply as I approach.

She turns slightly to the side to speak directly to me.

- You would be the first man to claim the right to be able to do the dishes.

- And you, the first woman who does not take the opportunity to escape it.

- I started, anyway… and I’m almost done.

- And stubborn with that… I’m going to at least wipe and tidy up then, I said, putting on a clean towel and smiling at her as she looks at me.

I am tackling a task without waiting, the only sound of the lapping of the water and friction of fabrics rising around us… until the soft sound of Amelia’s voice resonates again.

- Rosie really cares about you. You seem to have a strong connection.

- Yes… she is a wonderful woman… she considers me a bit like her son, you know… she and her husband, unfortunately, couldn’t have children…

- She has very maternal words about you… and she is very concerned about your well-being…

- That’s the least you can say, I replied with a smile.

- It’s very touching anyway, she murmurs while wiping her hands after finishing the dishes.

Her weak voice warns me slightly. I watch her leave the kitchen quickly. I finished wiping the elements that I had in hand and left with haste to follow her.

I find her sitting on the couch, staring at the fireplace in front of her.

- Amelia? Something is wrong?

I go around the sofa and place myself in front of her. She doesn’t react and I sit down on the coffee table, to find myself at her height.

- No, don’t worry, it’s okay… this evening just makes me aware of many things…

I don’t press her and watch her patiently.

- I just realize… I don’t have an anchor like you in a beautiful story, no reason to be… I’m more of a life accident… she says with an awkward smile.

- An accident? But what do you mean?

- Your parents have desired you and Rosie is right, this house is full of love… just the opposite of what I experienced…

I perceive her pupils twinkling, moistened by an emotion that suddenly wins her.

- I am the result of a mistake, Owen… I’m sure you have plenty of memories of your parents sharing moments of complicity and tenderness? She asks me, finding my gaze in front of her.

I nod silently without daring to interrupt.

- I never lived this for myself… because my father died… when I was five years old… I have very few memories of him but the only ones I have left are the moments spent with him in his shop. He was always there for us, especially for my big brother, Derek and me… and then, one day, I was with Derek in his shop… two guys came in, they took the money but they wanted his watch…they killed him before our eyes… two guys killed my dad for his watch…

I put a hand on her knee, feeling that the story deeply feels her.

- My mother was growing distant with me after his death just as my sisters… I became addicted to oxycodone during my teenage years… slowly losing the link with reality… and I was just a burden to her and my sisters, I overdosed drugs when I was 16… I discovered what « descent into hell » meant… and yet, there was a wonderful man by our side, a man who helped us and who helped me tremendously…

She looks down at my hand against her knee, staring at my gesture for a few seconds.

Her voice resounded again, hoarse by the beginnings of sobs.

- Richard did everything for us, for me, he helped me a lot with my brother… he has been present at every important moment of my life… always there for me… even when I went to the rehab center… she says stopping a few seconds. It was a ray of sunshine, my Richard…

My heart squeezes in realizing Richard’s role for her, and how much her loss was a cataclysm.

I immediately think back to the accident and the guilt directly overwhelms me.

- It’s thank to him, I think I held during those years… to his regular visits, his little attentions, his help to realize my dream…

My fingers tighten a little more on her knee while a breath escapes from my lips.

- I am sorry, Amelia.

She is looking for my eyes and her wet eyes make me flinch.

- Everything is my fault… if I did not have this idea to shoot the music video elsewhere, it would never have happened…

- What?

- I thought I was the smartest… and result, I tore you off the dearest person in your eyes… if you knew how bad I am...

I drop my head over my words, ashamed myself, unable to support the gaze of Amelia.

Silence settles unbearable after my confession.

Until unexpected warmth and gentleness suddenly cover my hand.

The one I had kept on Amelia’s knee.

And I then notice one of her hands resting on mine while perceiving her thin voice.

- You have nothing to reproach yourself for… you could not know…

- I should have thought about it… this is not the first time I’m dealing with this kind of crazy… I could have put myself in his head and I would have immediately perceived the risk…

- Please, don’t torture yourself… nobody could imagine that he would go there… it’s not your fault,… you hear me?

I feel her fingers tighten against my hand, and I gently lift my face to her.

- It is not your fault, she repeats, staring into my eyes.

I nod, troubled by her look with this certainty and sincerity that I read there.

- I miss him, but It is this crazy who is the only one responsible… and what hurts most is that he took my only support in my tortured past… Richard was my only marker, my only constant… and everything evaporated with his departure…

- No…no, he is always there with you… even if you do not have a place that includes all these memories, you just have to create it inside of you… and to regain that strength and energy that Richard has so often transmitted to you…

She scrutinizes me, her eyes a little bigger, after my remark.

- All you need is an image, a sound… when I don’t come back here and I need to remember memories that are dear to me, all I need is music… a melody and the voice of my mother that I have on an old vinyl… for a very particular song which is for me inseparable from my parents. I’m sure you have something similar which would allow you to rebuild that feeling of well-being, those fleeting notes of happiness that you experienced…

I watch her intently as she seems to think.

I turn my hand under her to embrace our fingers.

A sign to encourage her to express this bond that will allow her to remember Richard and his forays of happiness that he offered her during this unstructured childhood that she endured.

- It can be an image that you just have to visualize… or maybe a song…

She hesitates while I see her nibbling her lip.

- Well…

- Yes, tell me…

- There is a song indeed. It’s the first song I heard on tape… one that Richard… that he had offered me and that helped me to keep going when I was not going well when I was in rehab center… or when I had a hard time.

I extend my head a little close to her, encouraging her with a benevolent look.

- It’s… it’s Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen.

Bohemian Rhapsody… the opportunity was too good… I had the song in my father’s discography.

- Wait for me a second… we’ll test the method right away, I said with a finger raised with a smile.

I go upstairs to my room: my child’s room that I had brought up to date in my previous passages. I had always refused to occupy my parent’s room.

I opened a large wardrobe where I had taken care to store various souvenirs, including all the records of my father. I start reviewing them when suddenly it’s a whole other object that captures my attention. An object that I had decided to hide previously several years ago.

I had to redeem myself, to fade that guilt I still felt after Amelia’s confession.

I needed to prove to her that I was there for her.

That I was ready to do anything to support her… all the sacrifices… all the challenges…

And it was a perfect symbol.

I take this object that I install on my shoulder without shivering through me.

I go back to the ground floor and find Amelia, stare into space while waiting for me.

I stand in front of her and she looks at me with big eyes, stunned.

- Owen, what are you doing with…

I don’t let her finish her sentence, sliding my fingers on the guitar while scrutinizing her.

Her pupils widen at the first notes and at the precise moment when my voice rises in the room.

Then after a few seconds, I can see her eyelids relax slightly as I continue the melody and the words escape freely from my mouth…the lyrics of a song that I know perfectly.

I discern a tear escape and slip slowly on her cheek in parallel with deeper and regular breathing.

She smiles shyly and puts her head against the couch and I had the impression that the song was part of her, that she literally carried it.

Her head sways subtly, her lips suffuse a few words (”as if nothing really matters”) and then soon her eyes slowly close: I continue the song until I conclude it with a series of chords that I improvise… and watching the young woman in front of me, her head bent against the edge of the couch.

A young woman who has finally found peace, carried away by one sleep that I hoped would not torment her, but would be able to soothe her as my hands and my voice had seemed to achieve.

Finding the sweet memories of this man who has constantly supported her in the hardness of her childhood.

I remove the guitar and pose on the coffee table near me.

I am slowly approaching Amelia: she is definitely asleep, her face serene and peaceful.

I sit at her side and slide my hands on one hand under her legs and behind her back to take her in my arms.

I get back on my feet and go into the house, bringing her against me.

I step onto the stairs when I feel her head nestle in my neck and her fingers slide against my chest. I continue to climb with caution without being able to ignore these small gestures… and the soft skin that I feel under my fingers… the skin of her back uncovered and her thighs half-bare by her dress.

I enter the room of my parents, occupied by Amelia during our stay.

I put her as gently as possible on the bed, untied my hands from her in a slow and controlled movement. I then cover her with a light blanket at the foot of the bed.

I fix her a few moments, reassured by recognizing the same calm face that I had observed a little earlier… making me think that the dreams that occupy her are sweet for once.

I feel a smile settle subtly on my lips and an irrepressible desire wins me by looking at her asleep.

My body sets in motion without my being conscious of censoring it.

Until that sweetness that my lips taste me hangs on me at the moment.

My gaze stared on that forehead that I just have kissed, wishing her a “Good Night” more affectionate and intimate that by three words that I could have whispered to her.

I leave the room on tiptoe and go down to the living room to check the closing of the door and windows.

My eyes are on the coffee table that sits in the living room… and on this guitar, I had the strength to get out of its “prison”.

An instrument that represents so much pain… and yet in this evening, it had allowed me to comfort this woman so special to me…

This music that I had cursed all these years was the key to her rest and probably her rebirth.

And maybe mine.

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#greysanatomy #omelia #omelia fanfiction #omeliafics #Owen Hunt #amelia shepherd #owen x amelia #amelia x owen #richard webber #bodyguard #fanfic #Fic

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