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sotwk · 1 month

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hi! in the spirit of showing oc love, I was wondering if there's a particular oc you're looking forward to introducing to people in upcoming projects?

I'm tripping over myself to answer this Ask! (Thank you thank you thank you, Ace!)

May I please introduce two?

I've been shy about sharing these because they're not only Silmarillion OCs (I'm still intimidated by the Silm fandom, even though I have many lovely Mutuals from there, you included), they're OC WIVES of Silm Canons. Two of the most popular Silm canons. I'm pretty sure OC creators have been flogged for that.

But since you asked... onward with SotWK AU reveals and spoilers! The stories are tragic because that's the First Age for you!

Velcálë Vanandur

Wife of Maglor and grandmother of Elvenqueen Maereth (wife of Thranduil)

SotWK Fancast: Zendaya Coleman as Velcálë

Her name means "flame doer" in Quenya.

Velcálë had one child with Maglor, a daughter named Laurinwen, who was born and grew up in Tirion.

She was a Noldorin apprentice who served directly under Vána, and was thus given the prestigious epithet "Vanandur" (Servant of Vána).

She was a great tender of gardens, and her songs could cause plants to immediately flower or bear fruit.

Only out of love and devotion to Maglor did she decide to follow the Fëanorians in Exile, taking their daughter with them.

Velcálë was greatly affected by the violence of her kin and constantly homesick for Valinor. A lover of light and warmth, she suffered in the harsh lands where her family dwelt.

The toll of her heartbreak muted the strength and power she possessed in Valimar to nearly nothing, although she did her best to help sustain their people by cultivating the lands for limited-scale food production.

Because she tried to hold Maglor back from "necessary" violence and constantly made him question his commitment to the Oath, she was disliked by all of her brothers-in-law, except for Maedhros.

Velcálë was eventually slain in the battle of Dagor Bragollach when Himlad fell, leading to a permanent estrangement between Maglor and his daughter, Laurinwen.

Elemírë

Wife of Glorfindel and twin sister of Elenwë (wife of Turgon)

SotWK Fancast: Vanessa Kirby as Elemírë

Elemírë had a fierce warrior’s spirit, but violence of any kind was considered unbecoming by her family.

She joined the Exile because she did not want to be separated from her sister Elenwë, a gentle spirit whom she always sought to protect.

She was loved by her childhood friend, Glorfindel. Although she reciprocated his feelings, he was the more passionate and demonstrative one. Elemírë factored in Glorfindel's own decision to (reluctantly) join the Exile.

Elemírë nearly died trying to dive under the Grinding Ice to save her sister, but she was held back by Glorfindel. This embittered her heart towards him. Instead of following Turgon to Vinyamar (and eventually Gondolin), she decided to join Fingon’s people.

Over the course of the decades, she grew into a skilled cavalry rider, and was accepted into the ranks of Fingon. She became devoted to Fingon for personally mentoring and training her.

During the Long Peace, Glorfindel (who had missed and yearned for Elemírë all those years), sought permission from Turgon to leave Gondolin so he could seek her out.

He came to Hithlum reaffirming his love for her and seeking her hand in marriage. Elemírë would not say yes, but could not bring herself to refuse him either. Glorfindel committed to staying for as long as needed to convince her, and this courtship lasted for nearly half a century.

Eventually, Fingon himself encouraged Elemírë to realize and follow her true desires for peace and love. She betrothed herself to Glorfindel and returned to Gondolin with him.

The couple married and bore one child, a son named Ingwil.

As the Lady of the House of the Golden Flower, Elemírë was also one of its fiercest warriors. She fought alongside her husband for the first time in the Nirnaeth Arnoediad.

Elemírë died during the Fall of Gondolin, rescuing her son from an attacking fire drake, which she successfully slayed before perishing.

Thank you again for the ask @hobbitwrangler, and for encouraging my foray into the Silm fandom. I hope you (and anyone reading this) enjoy learning about these OC ladies! Maybe with the right amount of courage, time, and motivation, I may someday even write some actual one-shots including them!

For more SotWK AU headcanons: SotWK HC Masterlist

Elves HC Tag List: @a-world-of-whimsy-5 @achromaticerebus @acornsandoaktrees @aduialel @asianbutnotjapanese @auttumnsayshi @blueberryrock @conversacomsmaug @elan-ho-detto-elan-15 @entishramblings @glassgulls @heilith @heranintomyknife23times @ladyweaslette @laneynoir @lathalea @quickslvxrr @spacecluster @stormchaser819 @talkdifferently6 @tamryniel @tamurilofrivendell

Special Moots who might be interested tag: @emmanuellececchi @from-the-coffee-shop-in-edoras @scyllas-revenge @g-m-kaye @quillofspirit

Other useful links:

Introduction to SotWK

Fanfiction Masterlist

Fanfiction Request Guidelines

#sotwk answers #ace reporter hobbitwrangler #sotwk oc #sotwk headcanon #glorfindel #maglor #silmarillion #tolkien #sotwk fancast #lord of the rings #maglor headcanon #maglor x oc #glorfindel headcanon #glorfindel x oc #the silmarillion #sotwk oc: elemire #sotwk oc: velcale #sotwk oc: maereth

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eleanorfenyxwrites · 2 years

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The Sculptor

Chapter 11 - Epilogue - Double the Lavender, Double the Fun

[Masterpost] [AO3]

-/-

Wei Wuxian and Luo Qingyang, longtime friends and well-matched in temperament, get married in midwinter just after the start of the local university’s Christmas break, their friends and Family gathered to celebrate what the uninitiated herald as a clearly perfect union. Precious little A-Yuan, freshly adopted into Lan Wangji and Wen Qing’s home just a month prior, does a perfect job as their ringbearer. Lan Wangji is beautifully stoic as his best man, and Wen Qing the world’s sternest matron of honor for Luo Qingyang.

At the reception, they accept toast after toast, laugh through cutting their cake as crackling, fizzling flashbulbs blind them, and Wei Wuxian, though he promised not to get any cake on his wife’s face, can’t quite resist the temptation of swiping icing-covered fingers against her cheek to make her chase him around the table, both of them still laughing as she curses him for a terrible husband already.

They slip away to the next town over the following morning for a ‘honeymoon’, conveniently timed to match Lan Wangji and Wen Qing’s first official vacation as a married couple since their honeymoon years ago. And oh, what a coincidence, they’ve booked rooms in the same hotel. How funny, the newlyweds laugh when they spot their friends in the lobby of the Hilton, that their tastes are so similar even when they travel. And their rooms are right next to each other as well! The receptionist who checks them in laughs politely along with them as he hurries to get them their room keys - and out of his lobby.

“Well,” Wei Wuxian huffs happily when he flops down on the king-sized bed in the honeymoon suite with a downy-soft thwump. “That all went extremely well, don’t you think?”

“Mn.” Lan Wangji lays down next to him much more neatly, because he’s fussy like that, and Wei Wuxian turns immediately to hide his grin (and happy tears) in the crook of his lover’s neck. Lan Wangji wraps him up immediately in his stupid, beautiful, strong arms, where Wei Wuxian goes willingly, half-laying on his chest so he can pepper it with a flurry of little kisses he still can’t quite believe he gets to give.

“You sound awfully pleased with yourself,” Wei Wuxian teases warmly, because he’s become even more versed in all of Lan Wangji’s little nonverbal communications since the summer and he knows when his partner is being a smug little shit. “Happy, Lan Zhan?”

“Yes. I am.” He says it so peacefully, so simply, that Wei Wuxian loses his solid 48-hour long battle with his tears and dissolves into a sobbing mess right there on the enormous bed in the honeymoon suite at the fucking Hilton.

Lan Wangji curls around him and holds him through it, through the happiness and the release of adrenaline and the gut-wrenching grief of thinking of all the people he’d always dreamed as a child would be at his wedding but who now have no idea it’s even happened. The fact that it’s a lavender marriage doesn’t matter to him - it’s his life, and the people who raised him, his adopted siblings he devoted his childhood to protecting and loving, don’t know anything at all about him. They don’t know about the honors he’s received, the awards his work has won, that he’s made a life for himself that’s good, that’s everything he’d dared to yearn for as a boy, secret and afraid but wanting it all the same. He’d given up their love to chase what he wanted, but he can’t help but wish in that moment that he could’ve ever been happy making choices that wouldn’t have led to his estrangement.

Lan Wangji holds him through it all, and he doesn’t shush him, doesn’t tell him that it’s alright, or that he shouldn’t cry. He tells him instead that he’s here. That he’s never leaving. That he loves Wei Wuxian more than life itself. By the time he’s too wrung out to cry any more, Wei Wuxian even believes it.

Maybe, he thinks as Lan Wangji strokes his hair back from his face and kisses his forehead, his cheeks, his nose, his aching eyes, there’ll come a day in the future when everyone he misses will find their way back to him, or he to them. He hopes it’ll work out that way, but he knows that even if it doesn’t he’s made his choices, and he’s happy with the outcome of them down to his bones, despite everything. He’s got his new family, and his Lan Zhan, and the kind of life he’s always wanted to live. For now it’s enough.

-/-

There’ll be plenty of time later for Wei Wuxian and Mianmian to buy the house next door to Lan Wangji and Wen Qing, and for the four of them to knock down the fences between their backyards to make dispersing into the correct homes in the evening much easier (and more discreet).

The maquette of Lan Wangji as Prometheus will stand in pride of place on Wen Qing’s mantelpiece. The sculpted family of three with their donkey and their reaching hands will find a home in the back garden to watch over their massive vegetable patch that’s the result of Wei Wuxian’s and Wen Qing’s combined work. No one will admit to being the one to steal it from the studio, but all three of Wei Wuxian’s closest People will watch him cry happy tears over it with smug satisfaction (it was, of course, a joint effort).

A-Yuan will grow up well-adjusted and happy with a painting of two kissing rabbits in his bedroom and four parents to dote on him. Wen Qing’s family will rest as easy as Lan Wangji had hoped they would - and they will love all of Wen Qing’s chosen family as if they were their own. No one will fuss too much over labels or who they suspect sleeps in whose bed; None of it really matters, in the grand scheme of things.

A few years into his new life, through Jin Zixuan - by way of Mianmian - Wei Wuxian will be reunited first with Jiang Yanli and then with Jiang Cheng, both of whom bully their way back into his life in their own unique ways, and the Family gets that little bit bigger, that little bit stronger.

Lan Wangji will learn in the same month that his brother hasn’t even bothered to find a woman to marry - he’d just moved in with his so-far-secret boyfriends the week prior and thought little of justifying himself to anyone. Lan Wangji will envy him the seeming ease of accepting a queer life for himself without apology, but in the end he wouldn’t trade his own partnerships, such as they are, for anything in the world. He and Lan Xichen will protect each other from Lan Qiren’s disapproval.

Lan Wangji will come to learn, gradual and soft as a sunset, that a quietly authentic life with the handful of people who know the most vulnerable parts of him is everything he could have ever thought to ask for.

#the untamed fanfic #wangxian #mianqing #Wen Qing/Luo Qingyang #Wei Wuxian #Lan Wangji #Wen Qing #Luo Qingyang #epilogue #Happy endings all around y'all

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stellarfoam · 3 years

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Fic I'll Never Write

asking the aspens

Caleb/Nott | Veth, Caleb/Astrid/Eodwulf, Nott | Veth/Yeza, eventual Caleb/Nott | Veth/Yeza

Slowburn, Childhood Friends to Lovers, Yearning

Bren - Caleb - and Veth - Nott - have always been close. Sometimes you just know there are strings of fate that hold you together, binding and safe and comfortable.

But threads fray, and life goes on. Caleb goes to college and Veth gets married, has a child. They write. They think of each other.

Caleb comes home.

He's not the same man he was. Exhausted, drained, perhaps even haunted.

And Veth's changed too. A little older, a little more wistful.

How do you bring two halves together again? How do you make the pieces fit when the puzzle doesn't match?

How do you keep from falling in love with your best friend, again and again and again?

Ft. Caleb/Yeza circling each other like wary cats and falling in love on accident-purpose, Astrid and Eodwulf as estranged but oddly helpful exes, and Luc, who is entirely too susceptible to bribery.

#zest.txt #widobrave #stay at home dad and his two sugar spouses #dusk spoilers #cr #ok to rb and or write

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gadgetgirl71 · 4 years

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Amazon First Reads for June 2020

I know I say this every single month, but I can’t get over how quickly the last month has gone. Meaning that for Amazon Prime Members we get to choose which Amazon First Read were going to download for free. Again this month as most months there are eight books to choose from.

This months choices are:

Suspense

The Bone Jar by S W Kane, Pages: 328, Publication Date: 1 July 2020

Synopsis: Two murders. An abandoned asylum. Will a mysterious former patient help untangle the dark truth?

The body of an elderly woman has been found in the bowels of a derelict asylum on the banks of the Thames. As Detective Lew Kirby and his partner begin their investigation, another body is discovered in the river nearby. How are the two murders connected?

Before long, the secrets of Blackwater Asylum begin to reveal themselves. There are rumours about underground bunkers and secret rooms, unspeakable psychological experimentation, and a dark force that haunts the ruins, trying to pull back in all those who attempt to escape. Urban explorer Connie Darke, whose sister died in a freak accident at the asylum, is determined to help Lew expose its grisly past. Meanwhile Lew discovers a devastating family secret that threatens to turn his life upside down.

As his world crumbles around him, Lew must put the pieces of the puzzle together to keep the killer from striking again. Only an eccentric former patient really knows the truth—but will he reveal it to Lew before it’s too late?

Contemporary Fiction

Someone Else’s Secret by Julia Spiro, Pages: 363, Publication Date: 1 July 2020

Synopsis: Here’s the thing about secrets: they change shape over time, become blurry with memory, until the truth is nearly lost.

2009. Lindsey and Georgie have high hopes for their summer on Martha’s Vineyard. In the wake of the recession, ambitious college graduate Lindsey accepts a job as a nanny for an influential family who may help her land a position in Boston’s exclusive art world. Georgie, the eldest child in that family, is nearly fifteen and eager to find herself, dreaming of independence and yearning for first love.

Over the course of that formative summer, the two young women develop a close bond. Then, one night by the lighthouse, a shocking act occurs that ensnares them both in the throes of a terrible secret. Their budding friendship is shattered, and neither one can speak of what happened that night for ten long years.

Until now. Lindsey and Georgie must confront the past after all this time. Their quest for justice will require costly sacrifices, but it also might give them the closure they need to move on. All they know for sure is that when the truth is revealed, their lives will be forever changed once again.

From a fresh voice in fiction, this poignant and timely novel explores the strength and nuance of female friendship, the cost of ambition, and the courage it takes to speak the truth.

Mystery

Never Look Back by Mary Burton, Pages: 332, Publication Date: 1 July 2020

Synopsis: Expect the unexpected in this gritty, tense, and page-turning mystery from New York Times bestselling author Mary Burton.

After multiple women go missing, Agent Melina Shepard of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation makes the impulsive decision to go undercover as a prostitute. While working the street, she narrowly avoids becoming a serial killer’s latest victim; as much as it pains her to admit, she needs backup.

Enter lone wolf FBI agent Jerrod Ramsey. Stonewalled by a lack of leads, he and Melina investigate a scene where a little girl has been found abandoned in a crashed vehicle. They open the trunk to reveal a horror show and quickly realise they’re dealing with two serial killers with very different MOs. The whole situation brings back memories for Melina—why does this particular case feel so connected to her painful past?

Before time runs out, Melina must catch not one but two serial killers, both ready to claim another victim—and both with their sights set on her.

Thriller

Find Me by Anne Frasier, Pages: 286, Publication Date: 1 July 2020

Synopsis: A bone-chilling family history is unearthed in a heart-stopping thriller by New York Times bestselling author Anne Frasier.

Convicted serial killer Benjamin Fisher has finally offered to lead San Bernardino detective Daniel Ellis to the isolated graves of his victims. One catch: he’ll only do it if FBI profiler Reni Fisher, his estranged daughter, accompanies them. As hard as it is to exhume her traumatic childhood, Reni can’t say no. She still feels complicit in her father’s crimes.

Perfect to play a lost little girl, Reni was the bait to lure unsuspecting women to their deaths. It’s time for closure. For her. For the families. And for Daniel. He shares Reni’s obsession with the past. Ever since he was a boy, he’s been convinced that his mother was one of Fisher’s victims.

Thirty years of bad memories are flooding back. A master manipulator has gained their trust. For Reni and Daniel, this isn’t the end of a nightmare. It’s only the beginning.

Book Club Fiction

The Lending Library by Aliza Fogelson, Pages: 295, Publication Date: 1 July 2020

Synopsis: For fans of Jane Green and Loretta Nyhan, a heartwarming debut novel about a daydreamer who gives her town, and herself, an amazing gift: a lending library in her sun-room.

When the Chatsworth library closes indefinitely, Dodie Fairisle loses her sanctuary. How is a small-town art teacher supposed to cope without the never-ending life advice and enjoyment that books give her? Well, when she’s as resourceful and generous as Dodie, she turns her sun-room into her very own little lending library.

At first just a hobby, this lit lovers’ haven opens up her world in incredible ways. She knows books are powerful, and soon enough they help her forge friendships between her zany neighbours—and attract an exciting new romance.

But when the chance to adopt an orphaned child brings Dodie’s secret dream of motherhood within reach, everything else suddenly seems less important. Finding herself at a crossroads, Dodie must figure out what it means to live a full, happy life. If only there were a book that could tell her what to do…

Historical Fiction

Opium and Absinthe by Lydia Kang, Pages: 379, Publication Date: 1 July 2020

Synopsis: From the bestselling author of A Beautiful Poison comes another spellbinding historical novel full of intrigue, occult mystery, and unexpected twists.

New York City, 1899. Tillie Pembroke’s sister lies dead, her body drained of blood and with two puncture wounds on her neck. Bram Stoker’s new novel, Dracula, has just been published, and Tillie’s imagination leaps to the impossible: the murderer is a vampire. But it can’t be—can it?

A ravenous reader and researcher, Tillie has something of an addiction to truth, and she won’t rest until she unravels the mystery of her sister’s death. Unfortunately, Tillie’s addicted to more than just truth; to ease the pain from a recent injury, she’s taking more and more laudanum…and some in her immediate circle are happy to keep her well supplied.

Tillie can’t bring herself to believe vampires exist. But with the hysteria surrounding her sister’s death, the continued vampiric slayings, and the opium swirling through her body, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for a girl who relies on facts and figures to know what’s real—or whether she can trust those closest to her.

Epic Fantasy

Scarlet Odyssey by C T Rwizi, Pages: 534, Publication Date: 1 July 2020

Synopsis: Magic is women’s work; war is men’s. But in the coming battle, none of that will matter.

Men do not become mystics. They become warriors. But eighteen-year-old Salo has never been good at conforming to his tribe’s expectations. For as long as he can remember, he has loved books and magic in a culture where such things are considered unmanly. Despite it being sacrilege, Salo has worked on a magical device in secret that will awaken his latent magical powers. And when his village is attacked by a cruel enchantress, Salo knows that it is time to take action.

Salo’s queen is surprisingly accepting of his desire to be a mystic, but she will not allow him to stay in the tribe. Instead, she sends Salo on a quest. The quest will take him thousands of miles north to the Jungle City, the political heart of the continent. There he must gather information on a growing threat to his tribe.

On the way to the city, he is joined by three fellow outcasts: a shunned female warrior, a mysterious nomad, and a deadly assassin. But they’re being hunted by the same enchantress who attacked Salo’s village. She may hold the key to Salo’s awakening—and his redemption.

Children’s Picture Book

Kat and Juju by Kataneh Vahdani, Pages: 40, Publication Date: 1 July 2020

Synopsis: An unlikely duo star in a charming story about being different, finding courage, and the importance of friendship in the first book in a new series from an award-winning animation director.

Kat likes doing things her very own way, but sometimes she doubts herself. So when a bird named Juju arrives, Kat hopes he’ll be the best friend she’s always wanted. He’s outgoing and silly and doesn’t worry about what others think—the opposite of who she is. Bit by bit, with Juju’s help, Kat discovers her strength, and how to have a friend and be one—while still being true to herself.

*** Which book will you choose? I chose “Opium and Absinthe” as soon as I saw the cover I knew that was this book I had to choose. Let me know which book you choose. ***

#amazonfirstreads #amazonkindle #amazonprimemembers #bookclubfiction #books #childrenspicturebooks #contemporary fiction #epicfantasy #goodreads #HistoricalFiction #Kindle #Kindlebooks #mystery #suspense #thriller

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celxstialclanarchive · 5 years

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Of Noble Designs: A Royal Verse Fanfic

@theredpalace @hikaru-mikazuki

Chapter 1: The Shocking Dawn

The continent of Mihen was sprawling with a myriad of nations, kingdoms and a quickly expanding empire. The once small nation of Homura expanded under the reigns of Tajima and his eldest son Madara after internal struggles that lasted several years. In the first years of his reign, Madara moved on from reclaiming his throne to expanding territories with much success, save for the island nation of Uzushio, ruled by his estranged friend’s wife.

At 28, Madara was quite the accomplished ruler. However, not even his military prowess could keep his court from pressuring him to seek out a wife, despite already being father to the fondly nicknamed Spitfire Prince, Musashi. Deeply interested in Yugen’s mystical and fabled fountain, he planned to marry into the Yugenian royal family. However, he and the crown princess quickly realized they were too incompatible. So in an uncharacteristic move, he played matchmaker and arranged for a distant, more lively cousin to be his replacement. Funny enough, it worked.

However, what he did not expect- besides an invitation by the Yamamori royal house to participate in their annual Spring Lantern festival- was to find the perfect bride to make up for it.

Yamamori, despite its name, was more hill country and full of deciduous forests than mountainous. It was still a beautiful country, and Madara only hated that he could not bring Musashi to marvel in it. While the boy didn’t quite enjoy travel, he enjoyed being with his daddy. When entering the court there was very little fanfare, he was greeted by the Second Princess of Yamamori, Duchess of Suzukane, High Priestess Kagura. The official introductions would be much later.

“Hello, princess~” Madara purred as he bowed to the duchess and high priestess of Yamamori. The young emperor looked up with analytical eyes, a cocky yet inviting grin. “I am the emperor of Homura, Uchiha Madara.” There was a pause where she was supposed to fill the silence with her name. Fortunately, though they were outside, they were not in the public eye.

She was contemplating his name, as if they met somewhere before. Likely at his old childhood friend’s wedding, where she was a guest and a friend of the bride. Perhaps as children, trying to survive in a world where they were expected to stay out of adults’ way, but some were also expected to fight like them and against them at far too tender ages. Perhaps as adversaries meant to become eventual lovers. Regardless if it was any of the scenarios he had conjured up and more, the duchess’s silence was starting to verge onto too quiet.

“You have an odd name. That is the name of the man who strikes fear into the hearts of generals and warlords all over the continent? A man named Spot?” . . . What? That had been the reason for her silence? The meaning behind his name? He could feel himself get more and more incensed as her eyebrows furrowed, genuine confusion then a playful demeanor in her expression. “How much did your father hate you, exactly?”

“A lot, but my name had nothing to do with it!” Kagura smiled and shook her head, not taking this as seriously as she probably ought to.

“I see. My name is Kamiya Kagura. It is nice to meet you.” It was Madara’s turn to be silent for almost two minutes, mostly out of a need to be petty. “So your parents named you “divine entertainment”? You were named after a dance?” He could feel the corner of his lips twitch in an amused smirk. “Could your father not come up with a more sophisticated name?” The duchess gave him a matter-of-fact expression, head tilted to the side as she gave him a once-over.

“My mother named me. And I do believe it to be much more sophisticated than one designated for pets.” Madara chuckled, and usually that was a warning that doom was afoot. However, not in this case. With a somewhat mock glare, he responded with a once-over of his own.

“Of course you would, Your Highness. I am weary from my travels, so I must cut this conversation short.” The festival that night was well underway when Madara saw the princess again, yet he was surprised to see her unhappy. A lord from a southern province west of Shiori was accosting her, though she pulled away from his grasp.

“You think I am some ditzy little girl who cannot spot ill intent?”

“Your Highness, I simply-”

“You are a spineless coward who doesn’t seem to have grown out of his boyhood days. Get out of my face.” Splash! The lord in question was drenched when he tried to grab her again as she stormed off. Surprisingly, no one seemed too shocked to see this happen.

“That’s the third guy this year,” one man chuckled, shaking his head. Madara followed shortly after, seeing her walk towards the bridge.

“You know something? Your name is quite sophisticated. You have proven to be quite entertaining to me.” He walked towards her with all the swagger of a predator stalking its next meal. “A woman such as yourself must be quite the prize, with all these men still competing for your hand. And yet you spurn them all. Does your heart yearn for a lost lover?”

“No. I spurn them because it’s just a game to them, nothing more. I have made it clear time and again how unattractive weak men are to me. Perhaps they are doing it to see if I will eventually wear down.” Kagura leaned over the side of the bridge, gazing out into the night sky. “My heart is not a plaything.”

“That is an utter waste of everyone’s time and energy. I agree with you. Weak people are ugly,” Madara murmured, copying her actions. “You live rather modestly for one destined to a comfortable life here. Have you thought of doing more with it? Outside of your duties as the High Priestess, that is.” The paper lanterns below illuminated the river, showing glimpses of fish looking for a late meal and the reflections of the two royals just above the river. Madara watched as a camellia shaped lantern floated between their reflections. This kingdom was so peaceful, its royal family welcoming and sincere. This peace would be uncomfortable for him. He was forged in iron and hardship.

“Mmm, not really. I am happy being as I am. I might not act like a princess all the time, but I can’t imagine myself as anything else.” They sat in silence a little longer as Madara studied the woman before him. She was strange. She spoke in a rather simplistic fashion in more intimate settings and was rather direct about her desires, likes and dislikes.

“Then why not become the bride of one of the most powerful men in the world? You will want for nothing, have however many or few attendants you desire. You will not have to concern yourself with another weak boy pretending to vie for your affections. You will be well respected and envied by women. You deserve a man who will at least respect you as his partner.”

Kagura chuckled humorlessly. “That is... not exactly why I desire strong men, nor is status the motive. Nevertheless... That is merely a fantasy. Not out of the realm of possibility, but still a fantasy, nonetheless.”

“I could make that fantasy reality, if you would let me.”

Kagura, content to watch the paper lanterns float, snapped her head up so quickly her royal kanzashi loosened. Surely, she heard him wrong or he was just joking. They had only known each other less than a day! “I’m sorry, what?” He looks on, serious, as if he were discussing weapons’ schematics. This can’t be happening. He isn’t really suggesting…-

“You think I joke about things like this?” The air was slowly starting to chill, and Kagura could see her breath coming out in puffs of hot air. “Marriage is a serious commitment, Your Highness-- one I do not take lightly. I am not one to be so fickle as to plan to divorce, remarry or behead any wife who does not produce a son. I may not be as devout as you, but I do my best to respect the wishes of the divine.” The priestess was speechless. She had never been proposed to so casually yet so intimately. Not only that, there was almost some kinship in their views, even if his are a bit more draconian in nature. “That is, if you are willing to have me as your husband.” She nearly jumped at the sound of his voice. “Well?” Kagura jumped up, walking away.

“Well, just give me a moment! I’m going back inside.”

“Oh, princess? Castle’s the other way.” Kagura turned the other way quickly, walking off as fast as possible. After she walked inside, Madara felt the weight of his actions creep on him like the night’s chill. Just what was he getting them into?

#📜 the holy scrolls; my writing #👑 of noble design; royalty au

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aurriii · 4 years

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10 Books That Will Transport You To The Beach If You Can’t Go IRL

Maybe you’re social distancing. Maybe all of your friends are. Maybe your funds are tight. Many of us have a good reason our summer is not quite like summers of our past. We miss the waves just as much as the next person not within walking distance to the ocean, so we’ve compiled a list of books where we can all escape to a far away island or beach town, no sunscreen needed. Or hey, lather it on. We’re not opposed to a little sensory enhancement.

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Big Summer: A Novel

Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter

28 Summers by Elin Hilderbrand

The Vacationers By Emma Straub

The Jetsetters: A Novel By Amanda Eyre Ward

The Guest List: A Novel By Lucy Foley

Beach Read By Emily Henry

Sex and Vanity: A Novel By Kevin Kwan

Hello, Summer By Mary Kay Andrews

The Summer Set Aimee Agresti

1. Big Summer: A Novel

by Jennifer Weiner

Six years after the fight that ended their friendship, Daphne Berg is shocked when Drue Cavanaugh walks back into her life, looking as lovely and successful as ever, with a massive favor to ask. Daphne hasn’t spoken one word to Drue in all this time—she doesn’t even hate-follow her ex-best friend on social media—so when Drue asks if she will be her maid-of-honor at the society wedding of the summer, Daphne is rightfully speechless.

Drue was always the one who had everything—except the ability to hold onto friends. Meanwhile, Daphne’s no longer the same self-effacing sidekick she was back in high school. She’s built a life that she loves, including a growing career as a plus-size Instagram influencer. Letting glamorous, seductive Drue back into her life is risky, but it comes with an invitation to spend a weekend in a waterfront Cape Cod mansion. When Drue begs and pleads and dangles the prospect of cute single guys, Daphne finds herself powerless as ever to resist her friend’s siren song.

A sparkling novel about the complexities of female relationships, the pitfalls of living out loud and online, and the resilience of the human heart, Big Summer is a witty, moving story about family, friendship, and figuring out what matters most.

Source: Publisher

2. Beautiful Ruins

by Jess Walter

The story begins in 1962. On a rocky patch of the sun-drenched Italian coastline, a young innkeeper, chest-deep in daydreams, looks out over the incandescent waters of the Ligurian Sea and spies an apparition: a tall, thin woman, a vision in white, approaching him on a boat. She is an actress, he soon learns, an American starlet, and she is dying. And the story begins again today, half a world away, when an elderly Italian man shows up on a movie studio’s back lot, searching for the mysterious woman he last saw at his hotel decades earlier. What unfolds is a dazzling, yet deeply human, roller coaster of a novel, spanning fifty years and nearly as many lives. From the lavish set of Cleopatra to the shabby revelry of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Walter introduces us to the tangled lives of a dozen unforgettable characters: the starstruck Italian innkeeper and his long-lost love; the heroically preserved producer who once brought them together and his idealistic young assistant; the army veteran turned fledgling novelist and the rakish Richard Burton himself, whose appetites set the whole story in motion, along with the husbands and wives, lovers and dreamers, superstars and losers, who populate their world in the decades that follow. Gloriously inventive, constantly surprising, Beautiful Ruins is a story of flawed yet fascinating people, navigating the rocky shores of their lives while clinging to their improbable dreams.

Source: Publisher

3. 28 Summers

by Elin Hilderbrand

A “captivating and bittersweet” novel by the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Summer of ’69: Their secret love affair has lasted for decades — but this could be the summer that changes everything (People). When Mallory Blessing’s son, Link, receives deathbed instructions from his mother to call a number on a slip of paper in her desk drawer, he’s not sure what to expect. But he certainly does not expect Jake McCloud to answer. It’s the late spring of 2020 and Jake’s wife, Ursula DeGournsey, is the frontrunner in the upcoming Presidential election. There must be a mistake, Link thinks. How do Mallory and Jake know each other? Flash back to the sweet summer of 1993: Mallory has just inherited a beachfront cottage on Nantucket from her aunt, and she agrees to host her brother’s bachelor party. Cooper’s friend from college, Jake McCloud, attends, and Jake and Mallory form a bond that will persevere — through marriage, children, and Ursula’s stratospheric political rise — until Mallory learns she’s dying. Based on the classic film Same Time Next Year (which Mallory and Jake watch every summer), 28 Summers explores the agony and romance of a one-weekend-per-year affair and the dramatic ways this relationship complicates and enriches their lives, and the lives of the people they love.

Source: Publisher

4. The Vacationers

By Emma Straub

For the Posts, a two-week trip to the Balearic island of Mallorca with their extended family and friends is a celebration: Franny and Jim are observing their thirty-fifth wedding anniversary, and their daughter, Sylvia, has graduated from high school. The sunlit island, its mountains and beaches, its tapas and tennis courts, also promise an escape from the tensions simmering at home in Manhattan. But all does not go according to plan: over the course of the vacation, secrets come to light, old and new humiliations are experienced, childhood rivalries resurface, and ancient wounds are exacerbated.

This is a story of the sides of ourselves that we choose to show and those we try to conceal, of the ways we tear each other down and build each other up again, and the bonds that ultimately hold us together. With wry humor and tremendous heart, Emma Straub delivers a richly satisfying story of a family in the midst of a maelstrom of change, emerging irrevocably altered yet whole.

Source: Publisher

5. The Jetsetters: A Novel

By Amanda Eyre Ward

When seventy-year-old Charlotte Perkins submits a sexy essay to the Become a Jetsetter contest, she dreams of reuniting her estranged children: Lee, an almost-famous actress; Cord, a handsome Manhattan venture capitalist who can’t seem to find a partner; and Regan, a harried mother who took it all wrong when Charlotte bought her a Weight Watchers gift certificate for her birthday. Charlotte yearns for the years when her children were young, when she was a single mother who meant everything to them.

When she wins the contest, the family packs their baggage—both literal and figurative—and spends ten days traveling from sun-drenched Athens through glorious Rome to tapas-laden Barcelona on an over-the-top cruise ship, the Splendido Marveloso. As lovers new and old join the adventure, long-buried secrets are revealed and old wounds are reopened, forcing the Perkins family to confront the forces that drove them apart and the defining choices of their lives.

Can four lost adults find the peace they’ve been seeking by reconciling their childhood aches and coming back together? In the vein of The Nest and The Vacationers, The Jetsetters is a delicious and intelligent novel about the courage it takes to reveal our true selves, the pleasures and perils of family, and how we navigate the seas of adulthood.

Source: Publisher

6. The Guest List: A Novel

By Lucy Foley

A wedding celebration turns dark and deadly in this deliciously wicked and atmospheric thriller reminiscent of Agatha Christie from the New York Times bestselling author of The Hunting Party.

The bride – The plus one – The best man – The wedding planner – The bridesmaid – The body

On an island off the coast of Ireland, guests gather to celebrate two people joining their lives together as one. The groom: handsome and charming, a rising television star. The bride: smart and ambitious, a magazine publisher. It’s a wedding for a magazine, or for a celebrity: the designer dress, the remote location, the luxe party favors, the boutique whiskey. The cell phone service may be spotty and the waves may be rough, but every detail has been expertly planned and will be expertly executed.

But perfection is for plans, and people are all too human. As the champagne is popped and the festivities begin, resentments and petty jealousies begin to mingle with the reminiscences and well wishes. The groomsmen begin the drinking game from their school days. The bridesmaid not-so-accidentally ruins her dress. The bride’s oldest (male) friend gives an uncomfortably caring toast.

And then someone turns up dead. Who didn’t wish the happy couple well? And perhaps more important, why?

Source: Publisher

7. Beach Read

By Emily Henry

They’re polar opposites.

In fact, the only thing they have in common is that for the next three months, they’re living in neighboring beach houses, broke, and bogged down with writer’s block.

Until, one hazy evening, one thing leads to another and they strike a deal designed to force them out of their creative ruts: Augustus will spend the summer writing something happy, and January will pen the next Great American Novel. She’ll take him on field trips worthy of any rom-com montage, and he’ll take her to interview surviving members of a backwoods death cult (obviously). Everyone will finish a book and no one will fall in love. Really.

Source: Publisher

8. Sex and Vanity: A Novel

By Kevin Kwan

The iconic author of the bestselling phenomenon Crazy Rich Asians returns with the glittering tale of a young woman who finds herself torn between two men: the WASPY fiancé of her family’s dreams and George Zao, the man she is desperately trying to avoid falling in love with.

On her very first morning on the jewel-like island of Capri, Lucie Churchill sets eyes on George Zao and she instantly can’t stand him. She can’t stand it when he gallantly offers to trade hotel rooms with her so that she can have a view of the Tyrrhenian Sea, she can’t stand that he knows more about Casa Malaparte than she does, and she really can’t stand it when he kisses her in the darkness of the ancient ruins of a Roman villa and they are caught by her snobbish, disapproving cousin Charlotte. “Your mother is Chinese so it’s no surprise you’d be attracted to someone like him,” Charlotte teases. The daughter of an American-born Chinese mother and a blue-blooded New York father, Lucie has always sublimated the Asian side of herself in favor of the white side, and she adamantly denies having feelings for George. But several years later, when George unexpectedly appears in East Hampton, where Lucie is weekending with her new fiancé, Lucie finds herself drawn to George again. Soon, Lucie is spinning a web of deceit that involves her family, her fiancé, the co-op board of her Fifth Avenue apartment building, and ultimately herself as she tries mightily to deny George entry into her world–and her heart. Moving between summer playgrounds of privilege, peppered with decadent food and extravagant fashion, Sex and Vanity is a truly modern love story, a daring homage to A Room with a View, and a brilliantly funny comedy of manners set between two cultures.

Source: Publisher

9. Hello, Summer

By Mary Kay Andrews

New York Times bestselling author and Queen of the Beach Reads Mary Kay Andrews delivers her next blockbuster, Hello Summer.

It’s a new season…

Conley Hawkins left her family’s small town newspaper, The Silver Bay Beacon, in the rearview mirror years ago. Now a star reporter for a big-city paper, Conley is exactly where she wants to be and is about to take a fancy new position in Washington, D.C. Or so she thinks.

For small town scandals…

When the new job goes up in smoke, Conley finds herself right back where she started, working for her sister, who is trying to keep The Silver Bay Beacon afloat—and she doesn’t exactly have warm feelings for Conley. Soon she is given the unenviable task of overseeing the local gossip column, “Hello, Summer.”

And big-time secrets.

Then Conley witnesses an accident that ends in the death of a local congressman—a beloved war hero with a shady past. The more she digs into the story, the more dangerous it gets. As an old heartbreaker causes trouble and a new flame ignites, it soon looks like their sleepy beach town is the most scandalous hotspot of the summer.

Source: Publisher

10. The Summer Set

Aimee Agresti

Recommended by Glamour * Bustle * Popsugar * Booklist * Playbill

Charlie Savoy was once Hollywood’s hottest A-lister. Now, ten years later, she’s pushing forty, exiled from the film world and back at the summer Shakespeare theater in the Berkshires that launched her career—and where her old flame, Nick, is the artistic director.

It’s not exactly her first choice. But as parts are cast and rehearsals begin, Charlie is surprised to find herself getting her groove back, bonding with celebrity actors, forging unexpected new friendships and even reigniting her spark with Nick, who still seems to bring out the best in her despite their complicated history.

Until Charlie’s old rival, Hollywood’s current It Girl, is brought on set, threatening to undo everything she’s built. As the drama amps up both on the stage and behind the curtains, Charlie must put on the show of a lifetime to fight for the second chance she deserves in career and in love.

“A page-turner set in the intoxicating theater world, The Summer Set considers the price of fame, the power of second chances and the enduring nature of love. A truly enjoyable read!” —Elyssa Friedland, author of The Floating Feldmans

Source: Publisher

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Jonda cynecki hasn't seen her twin sister Wanda in 13 years and doesn't hold out much hope that she ever will. Their last contact came at a family gathering in Ohio for Christmas, after which Wanda returned to her home in Key West, Fla. Then she disappeared. She didn't call, didn't write and couldn't be reached. When her parents died several years later, her siblings had to use intermediaries to get through to her. She called to borrow money about a year ago. Since then, the only sign she's still alive is that no one has heard anything to the contrary. And yet Jonda, 54, a school librarian, says wistfully of Wanda, "There isn't a day that goes by that something doesn't remind me of her."

Usually that something is doing the laundry. Whenever Jonda goes down to her basement to wash clothes, she sees, tucked under the stairs, an old tandem stroller. Her father crafted it from spare parts, painted it white and wrapped rubber around its wooden wheels. Jonda won't get rid of the stroller, even though it provokes sorrow and anger toward the sister who walked out on her family. What Jonda doesn't know--and might never know--is why.

Estrangement from siblings is a powerful ache not only for Jonda but for millions of other Americans as well--especially during the year-end holidays, when the absence of relatives is most poignant. Many of the 77 million baby boomers, now well into middle age, live farther from their brothers and sisters than did previous generations. And with each passing year, they face more of the life passages that often trigger splits with siblings, particularly arguments over the care of elderly parents or over their estates. At the same time, boomers have more divorces and fewer children and are less tethered to neighbors than were their parents and grandparents, so they are more in need of strong relationships with sisters and brothers--the most-enduring ties many of us have in our lives. Eighty-five percent of adult Americans have at least one sibling, yet an estimated 3% to 10% have completely severed contact with a brother or sister.

Such absolute estrangements may not be the norm, but experts who study family relationships believe they are on the rise. Psychologist Carol Netzer, author of Cutoffs: How Family Members Who Sever Relationships Can Reconnect, thinks that today's broader cultural freedoms have made it easier for people to say goodbye to traditions and to relatives. "The nuclear family is not as tight as it once was," she says. Some rifts reflect larger trends. The Woodstock generation, Netzer explains, was full of young people leaving their families to lose themselves in drugs or join religious groups, political movements and communes. "Often, when that ripple in the culture passes," says Netzer, "people go back to their families." Terry Hargrave, family therapist and author of Families and Forgiveness, believes that while the psychological self-help movement has been largely positive, "it teaches the individual that 'you're the most important thing; family is not.'"

The origins of a sibling breach often can be traced to childhood. Psychologist Stephen P. Bank, co-author of The Sibling Bond, observes that eldest children who are expected to care for younger siblings may feel overburdened and resentful. Children born too many years apart, says Bank, may never share common interests or developmental stages. For them, slender ties are sometimes easy to cut.

Nancy B. (who asked that her full name not be used) is a management consultant with a sister older by six years and a brother older by 12. She doesn't speak to either of them but for differing reasons. "The age gap was so significant," she says. As a child, she worshiped her brother, whose trips home from college were cause for celebration. A few years ago, he stopped returning her calls. She doesn't know why.

On the other hand, she was never comfortable with her sister. "There was always tension between us," Nancy, now 52, says. "I couldn't figure it out." Nancy ended contact after the sister attached herself to yet another violent man, and Nancy felt relegated to the role of caretaker--for someone who didn't want to be helped. The three siblings were last together 25 years ago at their mother's funeral. Nancy still feels the loss, she says, "but my heart isn't breaking anymore. I've figured out a way to be in the world without trying to make love happen where it isn't."

Yet in other families, psychologist Bank says, large age differences can help alleviate competition for toys, friends and parental attention. Some older siblings enjoy being caregivers, often in exchange for adoration. Studies show bonds among sisters tend to be strongest, epitomized by Bessie and Sadie Delany, co-authors of Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters' First 100 Years. And when parents are absent, neglectful or abusive, siblings often fill the void by forming tight bonds, as did the brothers in the movie Radio Flyer.

Major life changes such as marriage, divorce, birth, illness or death can trigger a separation, Netzer says, but usually only if tensions have been building for years. Consider, for example, the case of Michael Carr, 42, a money manager, and his older brother Steven, who ended contact with each other two years ago. When they were growing up, Michael saw Steven, two years older, as his best friend and guardian angel. "We were really close," Michael says. "He was the ringleader in the neighborhood. He was my hero." (Steven did not respond to requests for an interview.)

http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,91424,00.html

n the early '70s, Michael says, Steven became temperamental and less reliable, no longer resembling the person Michael had admired. Steven wasn't crazy, Michael says, just increasingly moody and self-centered. About six years ago, their father was hospitalized, and the brothers went to Florida to see him. They stayed with their stepmother, with whom Steven had a quarrel. Steven told Michael he was going to the hospital to tell their father about it. "It was ridiculous," Michael says. "My father was at death's door, and my brother wanted to complain to him about my stepmother! I had to physically restrain him from going."

Their father died that night, and Michael hasn't seen his brother since the funeral. "I wouldn't be surprised if I never see him again," Michael says. "If I saw him on the street I would talk to him, but I wouldn't let him back in my life. I don't know who he is."

Money issues are a common source of strife between brothers and sisters: Why wasn't that loan repaid? Who can afford the bigger house? How should the family business be run? Behavior outside the family's value system can also trip the switch: coming out of the closet, marrying interracially or converting to a new religion. Then there are cutoffs linked to extreme emotional states, the reasons for which--such as untreated mental illness, substance abuse, incest and violence--may never be brought out into the open.

Wanda's older brother Charles Bucklew has only a few clues as to what might have caused his sister's self-banishment, including her drinking in the midst of their nearly teetotaling Lutheran family. Wanda, who no doubt has her own analysis of the split, never explained; her siblings never asked. And she could not be located by TIME reporters in Key West and New York. "There may be some reason out there that if you knew, it'd bring you to your knees, and you'd say, 'Oh, my God!'" says Bucklew. "But I don't know."

The drive to create sibling bonds or something like them is to some experts primordial--even for an only child. Parents always have a disproportionate power over offspring, but siblings teach peer-level tolerance, loyalty and constancy--qualities that later apply to colleagues, friends and lovers. In moderation, sibling discord is useful, says psychologist Bank. "If the frustration is too great, it cripples you. But we all need a level of frustration in our lives in order to move ahead."

In a 1996 study of people ages 18 to 86, 33% of those surveyed described their sibling relationships as "supportive," and only 11% were "hostile," with the rest falling somewhere in between. "I understand that there is sibling rivalry because I have two brothers and a sister," says Robert Stewart, chairman of the psychology department at Michigan's Oakland University. "But if something came up, and I needed to be on the other side of the country because one of them called, I'd go. There's not a whole lot of people in the world I'd do that for." Most people think of "rivalry" and "siblings" as synonymous and negative, he says, "but I think of it as a close affectional relationship where affection is not necessarily shown in a Hallmark card kind of way."

The sibling relationship of D.B. (who asked that her name not be used) won't ever be confused with a greeting card. As a child, she looked up to her brother, 3 1/2 years older. After his marriage broke up, though, D.B. didn't like the way he treated his ex-wife. Well after the two divorced, he abandoned their original settlement agreement, demanding half the house and full custody of their daughter. D.B. saw his demands as unfair--and didn't think much of his parenting skills. "I just felt he was such a pig," she says. So she stopped talking to him--for seven years. "I come from a long line of grudge holders," she says. "They like their grudges. They air them and walk them and make jokes about them--embellish them."

The silence ended, though, when an aunt died, and D.B. and her brother were the only relatives left to arrange her burial. "I remember thinking, Damn, now I have to see my brother." But the two reconciled somewhat and now talk occasionally on the phone. D.B., now 54, says if she ever needed money, she wouldn't hesitate to ask him for it. She has no money to offer him if the situation were reversed but says, "I would give him lots of time."

Often, estranged siblings are struck by a sudden yearning to reconnect. Says Bank: "Your children leave home, your friends are sick, the leaves fall off the trees, and you say, 'Well, what do I have from my past?' And for better or worse, you've got this sibling who might have been a pain in the neck but who probably knows more about what it was like to live in your childhood home than anybody else."

http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,91424-2,00.html

Yet even for siblings who wish to reconcile, breaking the ice is hard. "The difficulty most of us have is how do you pick up the telephone after so many years?" says Stewart. "People get into a pattern, and even though they're not comfortable in it, they can't imagine an alternative. Or the amount of courage and energy it would take to try to change may be beyond what they're capable of doing right now."

The ability to overlook imperfections for the sake of a relationship is one hallmark of maturity. Siblings may decide to forgive one another once they have their own children. For Mark Horton, 44, a recent falling-out he had with his eldest sister still baffles him. He's not sure what happened or why. Now that they are back in tentative contact, they still haven't talked about it. "It was kind of a Twilight Zone episode," he says. But he does hope things heal. Horton (whose sister declined to be interviewed) says she has done remarkable things for him--sending him money when he was a poor college student and then being the only one to show up at his Harvard graduation. And he wants his four children to know their aunt. "It places them in the world," he says. "They're not comets flying through space randomly; they're part of a solar system."

Reconciliation, experts say, is almost always worth an attempt. But about 40% of the families in Hargrave's clinical practice fail at reconciliation, mostly because when difficult issues get stirred up, no one is willing to take responsibility for what happened. Says Hargrave: "The person who has left just seals off again."

For Douglas Matthews, 49, a human-resources consultant, finally breaking off from his parents and three brothers three years ago brought immense relief--and not just to him. "I see it as the best thing he could have ever done for himself," says his wife Teri-Ann, "and for me and the kids."

Matthews has always been reluctant to discuss his family situation because he felt that well-meaning people just wouldn't get it that his parents and siblings were harmful to his happiness. "I learned early on that very few people understand the positive aspects of estrangement," he says. For decades, Matthews waffled between trying to be part of the family and retreating. He would try to initiate changes but says no one was willing to join in. Over time, and with therapy, he discovered that the yearning he felt was based on an unrealizable ideal of what his three brothers might have been to him. "A real brother would be there no matter what," Matthews says, "and not have an agenda for you--just accept where you are and listen. But it would be unconditional--nothing could break it. And also do the stupid things, you know. Go to a ball game together." But what Matthews has with his wife and two sons is no fantasy. "I have a home," he says, "and that's what I didn't have before. And I cherish it."

Cutting off can be beneficial in some cases, says psychology professor Stewart, if what you're getting is nothing but negativity or grief. But it's "escape learning," he says, and if the other people involved are ever willing to work on the problem, "you won't know it because they're gone."

For 15 years Keith Bearden, 33, had given up on his family, including his elder brother Dean, 38. Their parents' divorce cleaved the family into separate camps, and Keith wanted no part of either one. "I was really angry," he says. He also felt that he, a self-described "meek intellectual," had nothing in common with his tattooed, motorcycle-riding, machinist brother. Then Dean started telephoning a couple of years ago, just to see how Keith was doing. Keith, to his surprise, was happy to get the calls. Dean says he had no particular plan, that he had never even thought about the years when they were out of contact. "If you were never close," he says, "you never miss it."

But becoming a parent got Dean thinking about family, and as Keith says, Dean was never judgmental or bitter about what had happened in childhood. Now the brothers talk regularly. They visit each other every few months and have realized they have the same sense of humor, the same taste for adventure, and they notice the same things--someone's weird shoes on the subway or a cute woman in a bar.

Keith says he's much happier accepting rather than resenting the differences in his family, that it's helped him with all his relationships and that Dean deserves the credit for helping him reconnect. "Dean kept the door open, and I eventually walked back in," he says.

Jonda Cynecki hasn't closed the door on her sister but is at a loss as to how anyone can pass through it. Since the death of their parents, Jonda has felt an increasingly acute sense of the irreplaceable nature of family. "There's that line that connects you," she says of her missing twin, "and I don't know if it'll ever be broken. Certainly when one of us passes away--and she could be gone now--I don't know if I'll ever know that." Cynecki pauses, wipes away tears, and collects herself. "Someday, I really need to find her. But just not today. Not today."

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