#have only ever used saffron once in cooking BUT I WANT IT
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nothing in the world is mine, but my love, mine
hey hey I did a one-shot for once, I've posted it on Ao3 here but I know some of y'all like to read fic on tumblr so it's below the cut
Comments and likes always appreciated <3
He clocks the bard as either noble or a romantic the moment he sees the gloves on his hands. They're subtle, as far as the custom goes, a dark olive colored kidskin with a simple flower button wrapped around his wrist and covering only his thumb.
The Witcher always wears gloves of a kind, Jaskier determines after a few weeks on the path together, though out of utility.
a quick soulmates AU where soulmates have matching marks on the sides of their hands // title shamelessly stolen from Mitski's "My Love Mine All Mine"
Rated: T for swearing
Fandom: The WItcher TV
Pairing: Geraskier (Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier), background Yennralt (Yennefer of Vengerber/Geralt of Rivia)
Language: English
He clocks the bard as either noble or a romantic the moment he sees the gloves on his hands. They're subtle, as far as the custom goes, a dark olive colored kidskin with a simple flower button wrapped around his wrist and covering only his thumb.
It's not satisfying when the bards confirms both to be true on their way to investigate the devil but when they're being kicked by Toruviel, he thinks that if the bard was a full gloved wearing hack then they'd both be dead.
Which also isn't satisfying.
.
The Witcher always wears gloves of a kind, Jaskier determines after a few weeks on the Path together, though out of utility.
Apparently the most dressed down the witcher ever gets is a pair of fingerless gloves worn even to sleep. Something about improving his grip and tendon injuries- Geralt tenses up when he can sense Jaskier wants to ask if witchers even have marks. Jaskier can feel how fragile their friendship is. He doesn't press the issue.
He hopes that puts a mark in his favor.
.
By the end of the season, Geralt determines the bard has no less than seven pairs of gloves- yet only two of them are permitted to actually get dirtied. Two suede pairs to match the colors of his "lover's eyes" (unoriginally brown and blue), three pairs for wearing in town, and a scant two pairs for all his bathing, cooking, and laundry.
It's utterly ridiculous.
Before they part at Ban Glan for the winter, he tells the bard to get more sensible gloves before spring on the Path.
He's at Ard Carraig before he realizes he planned for the bard to join him again.
.
When he returns to Oxenfurt, the two pairs of gloves he has for washing are nearly worn to shreds- he throws them down on the table at the Wishful Warbler with a grin when Shani asks about his travels. He's going on real adventures with his-maybe-friend-Geralt and getting dirty and everything. He spends the winter as a research assistant to Professor Berlyn and learning to make stacks of washing gloves.
His friends, who largely only own a pair or two or have entirely dispensed with the custom, are overrun with gloves of varying quality. Priscilla generously accepts a stack whose thumbs must all be split open to accommodate even her dainty digit.
He manages to barter for a pair of amber saffron dyed kidskin gloves- painstakingly transcribing Metz's treatises on celestial calendars small enough for Valdo Marx to use them as crib notes.
It's worth it.
It's a true lark to set them along with his brown and blue gloves and he whistles when they meet up in the spring and he waggles them in Geralt's face and thinks Geralt is about to strangle him- before the ludacris stack of washing gloves topples out of his bag onto the witcher's lap and he can't help but bark a laugh into Jaskier's delighted face.
.
He knows the bard is, at least, serious about walking the Path when he drops the stack of gloves on Geralt's lap. It's a bit of a child's attempt at adulthood, he admits to himself because he knows it would crush the bard to know twenty years of life does not make a man.
Still, it dampens his concerns of noble nonsense a bit to see where the calluses from needlework have made his fingertips even more knobby alongside the ones from his lute. For all the work Jaskier puts into his hands- carefully filing down his calluses and nails when they crack and rubbing ointments in before he beds down- Geralt can see it's a dedication to practicality and not vanity.
The bard is unconcerned by the healing scars where broken strings have cut into the flesh or the uneven tan marks across the backs of his hands where the different gloves have sat.
.
Jaskier wonders, just a teensy bit, if Geralt's glove wearing excuse isn't a little... weak.
Always needing his full grip strength?
It's a lighthearted solstice evening where he's helping Geralt in the bath when the witcher turns his head to the side, immediately stands up and storms over to the next room (nearly cock out and everything if Jaskier hadn't thought to throw the bath sheet at him) and throws an unwanted suitor off the serving girl.
There's suds dripping out of Geralt's hair all over the floor that he knows he'll wipe up later with the very gloves he's wearing now and Jaskier thinks he is maybe falling in love, for real this time.
.
A handful of times, he catches the bard cooing over marks in taverns. He wonders if it's a bit- some flirtation over how a lass or lad with such lovely signs could possibly take up with a scoundrel like him.
It's not the most rakish bit he could suspect of the bard- though he notices the bard never takes off his gloves in return. He wears them even in the cities and hamlets where the custom is less common or replaced with simple patches of dyed skin.
It makes him seem damn right virginal to keep them on all the time.
Perhaps the bard's mark is something obscene- it's not unheard of. If that were true though, he suspects the bard would leverage it into some pickup line about his prowess in bed.
Perhaps the bard has no marks- a person blessedly free of obligation or destiny.
He thinks it would be a kinder fate for Jaskier to be free of those kinds of concerns.
.
Jaskier knows his fastidiousness with wearing gloves is a little unusual for the current fashion but he commits to the bit.
He thinks it's more romantic to have them revealed and thinks his are especially gorgeous; a simple sun on his right hand and a moon on his left, a small comet arcing over each and a few lines he thinks are wind or perhaps clouds. He's seen more ornate or filigreed marks- even the occasional mark with a splash of color- but his marks are so curiously endearing.
When he links his bare hands together he sees a miniature of the universe and hopes that one day, he may hold his soulmate's marks against his own and feel the world between their hands.
He'll admit he's kept the privilege of the reveal to himself; but he'll be a little selfish if it means he can know to watch their delight when he reveals a world in his hands- a world to share.
He's not sure where his soulmate will fit in this life he's made in Oxenfurt and on the Path, but he never could have predicted the love that's already sprung up in his life already.
.
It's a very late night, or a very very early morning, when Geralt asks Yennefer about her marks- the marks erased when she became a mage.
"Never had one," she says, teasingly tracing the edge of his gloves, "I never needed fate to find love."
In the dark, between a sigh and a moan, his gloves are cast away.
When the sun has properly risen and midday creeps closer, she holds hands between her own.
"Rather provincial, aren't they?" She brings the tender pale flesh of his palm to her mouth and bites playfully, "I'd expect nothing less of a Rivian."
"Not quite a Rivian," he says and gently wriggles his fingers against her jaw, smiling as she can't help laugh and let the marks out of her teeth, "are they to your liking?"
Her answer comes as a carafe of apple juice.
.
It's a hard day: starting with Geralt stumbling through a portal smelling of lilac and gooseberries and ending with Jaskier dragging a nearly-drowned Geralt out of a waterhag's shack.
Two baths were called- a rare luxury in a rickety town- for Jaskier knew a shared bath would end up with at least one of them more disgusting at the end. Geralt is, Melitele be praised, uninjured besides a black eye that blooms stark against the lingering potion-pale pallor he'd had earlier.
The two strip and Jaskier climbs into his bath: Geralt casts a look at the door and cocks his head and throws his pus-soaked gloves straight into the chamberpot.
They soak, side by side, and chatter tiredly and Jaskier thinks nothing of it when Geralt offers to perk up his water and he sees the moon and comet and dappled lines on Geralt's right hand as he casts Igni into the bath.
The smell of lilac and gooseberries and fucking are starting to sweat out of Geralt's hair and the memories of the wedding feast cut through him, unbidden, and Jaskier should have won another master's degree in performance for the way he blames the jump in his heart on the scalding water.
The curling misery he later blames on the thought of ridding the swamp stench from his boots.
.
Jaskier learns to knit gloves sometime around when Geralt forces himself to admit the bard is past boyhood. It's a rather domestic skill for Jaskier to learn in adulthood, though he claims they're easier to make and repair on the Path: which isn't a lie exactly and the bard does earn them a few coins fiddling with the needles in town and selling the gloves.
The knitted gloves seem to be his preference now- less prone to tearing as they wear and able to go longer without laundering. It's the threads of anxiety beneath it that give Geralt pause, he's been presuming Jaskier was unmarked entirely and wore the gloves for attention, but the longer he guards the little span of flesh the more Geralt thinks a tragedy must lie beneath the scraps of fabric.
Perhaps the person he shared his marks with had rejected him- though Geralt thought that unlikely given how firmly Jaskier had attached himself to Geralt's side despite him trying to outrun the bard for a year. Whoever shared his marks didn't stand a chance against Jaskier's persistence. Against his smile.
Perhaps the person he shared his marks with was already dead. Geralt didn't believe in the machinations of destiny or soulmarks, but that too twisted at him. Jaskier was a scoundrel, yes, but didn't deserve that so early in life. At the very least, it would explain why the bard wasn't concerned to muck with his fate by sharing his time with a witcher.
At the very least, he counts their time together as a blessing now, even if it's stolen from another.
.
Jaskier thinks it's finally time to come clean about his marks- their marks really. Not all marks are about just two people, he knows that, and Yennefer isn't the worst person to share a life with.
Honestly, he already does- Geralt's adverse to destiny but Yennefer would be sensible working out some kind of custody schedule if they didn't want to invite him in. He shares his life with Geralt, which is more than many soulmates get. He's not even sure he wants more of their lives shared, but the longer he keeps the marks hidden- the more the omission feels like a lie.
The more he knows he's lying to Geralt.
He figures it's an even shot Geralt that he'll never see him again or he'll be invited to winter at the Kaer.
It turns out he didn't even need the marks to drive Geralt away, being himself was enough.
"See you around Geralt."
.
A week after the dust settles and the Deathless Mother has been banished from their plane, Geralt notices Jaskier's gloves stretch from wrist to fingertip and when Jaskier is pulled into what is rapidly becoming Yennefer's lab, he can hear a sympathetic pained groan from Yennefer as Jaskier's fingers are rebroken.
.
Geralt knocked against the open door of Jaskier's room: Jaskier kicked another log into the fire-
Geralt should have thought of that.
"Come in," Jaskier said and settled back into the chair before his diary. Geralt saw a page with very few words and many drops of ink smeared across it.
Geralt took the poker and rearranged the wood of the fire to burn more evenly, "Yenn says you haven't been caring for your burns," he coaxed the fire into a more even burn and pressed it further back into the hearth.
There was a long silence, "I can't open the jar," Jaskier admitted.
"You know anyone here would help you, Jask-" he dragged a hand through his hair, had he really fucked it up that badly?
Jaskier's silence said what it needed to.
"I'm sorry I didn't make that clear, Jaskier," he said and saw Jaskier's gaze drop lower, to the page in front of him, "may I help you now?"
"I would like it if you opened the jar," Jaskier said, "I don't want to trouble you any further. And thank you for the fire-"
"It's not trouble, I should-" Geralt huffed a sigh, "I should have thought of it sooner. Thought of you sooner- please, let me help you."
Geralt could have heard a pin drop on the opposite side of Kaer Morhen as he waited for Jaskier to say something- anything.
He opened the jar of ointment and held on to it, even when Jaskier put a trembling hand out to grasp it, waiting for Jaskier to permit him to tend to the burns. Jaskier gave him a worn look.
Jaskier carefully took his gloves off- his fingers still wracked with the persistent tremors that made the single button at the wrists take an achingly long time to unfasten.
"The draughts help," Jaskier said softly, "but they will take time to subside."
They do not speak of the lute calluses that have started to thin and peel off entirely.
The gloves came off Jaskier's hand- revealing two palms and thumbs soiled by burns. There, amongst the gnarled scars, laid the burst remains of a sun and a moon.
Metz's treatise on the formation of the celestial spheres says the bursting of a sun creates a black hole: swallowing whole planets into its gravitational pull.
Geralt thought, perhaps, he should have considered his own marks when he wondered of Jaskier's for how often their hands touched.
"Don't-" Jaskier started, he took a deep breath and looked at the marks and not at Geralt, "please just the ointment, Geralt," he held out a hand again to take the pot from Geralt.
Geralt took the little pot of ointment, preciously carried in his saddlebags from Cidaris to Gulet to Kaer Morhen, and tugged off his own gloves as well. He carefully scooped out some of the ointment, the smell of dusk campion faint and familiar, and he warmed it between his palms.
He gently dragged his palms over Jaskier's before nimbly working the oil and medicine into his skin, taking care to rub into the creases between his fingers and the bumps of his remaining cuticles.
Yennefer says the draughts will help the nerves return and the ointment will smooth the burns.
Geralt was careful to be methodical and detached as he covered the marks with beeswax and the scent of campion. He cannot help but imagine the pain that forced Jaskier's sun and moon to bubble and split so wide; the layered burns that distort the comets into slashes of lightning.
He cannot help but wonder why Jaskier didn't leave him to rot.
He cannot help but wonder why soul marks are counted as a blessing when his sun and moon remain clear and smooth while Jaskier's have ruptured into glowing black holes. He must not be an expert, there must be a gap in his knowledge, for he'd once counted Jaskier's dismissal as a blessing.
"Easy there, Geralt," Jaskier said kindly, "there's no reason for all that."
Of course Jaskier could interpret the bite of Geralt's lip and the furrowing of his brow.
Geralt held Jaskier's hands between his own, their suns and moons nearly meeting where the burns didn't warp them, "I'd given up on seeing this," Jaskier said fondly, "our own little world in our hands." He traced Geralt's comet down to the bowl of the moon, "Thank you Geralt, you did a very good job."
"I'm sorry," Geralt managed, "I didn't know."
"I didn't really want you to, would you have received it well?" Jaskier said pointedly, then his voice softened, "it was bad enough I wormed my way beside you- this- Geralt,” he gently squeezed their hands, “This is more than I dreamed of.”
"You should want more," Geralt said, "You should ask for more. I'm sorry-"
"I've said the same of you," Jaskier laughed softly, a rare sound of late, "I've said the same of you many times. Perhaps we can work on this together."
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top 5 best meals you've ever had (so far) - seriously the way you talk about foods/restaurants in your area has me intrigued
Oh Lords okay we're going to stick SPECIFICALLY to meals in my area (Baltimore) and recent meals because if i were to bring in places I've traveled and go back past years the list would go on forever lmao
In no particular order-
Cosima- for my birthday last year we went to our local favorite Sicilian restaurant and had mussels with spicy Italian sausage and broth, a pizza to share with scallops/bacon/chili oil, I had the duck breast with yam puree and cranberry confit, and they brought us a limoncello tiramisu for dessert. The drink parings were an Italian golden ale and an amaro Manhattan.
Lamb tajine - i made this myself in the traditional clay tajine my bf got me for Christmas. We take half a leg of lamb, dice and marinade it in olive oil and Ras Al hanut, then brown it in a skillet. Once that's browned you add yams, beets, onions, figs, carrots, about two cups of beef broth, and a cup of red wine. Let it simmer for ten minutes then carefully ladle it into the warmed tajine, which should have been brought to temp in the oven. It cooks at 300° for about three hours or so, occasionally adding water if it gets too dry. It's excellent with pita and saffron rice.
Petit Louis - after i got out of my recent cancer treatment and isolation we went for dinner to my favorite french place here in Baltimore. It's a classic bistro style place with dusty mirrors and red leather seats and wine bottles on the wall. Their best deal is the prix fixe lunch they do from 11-2pm but i can't get away with it all the time. We shared the Pâte de campagne, had a glass of wine each to pair with our main courses, and i got the roast lamb, which was some of the best I've had in a while. And yes i treated myself to a pot of chocolate mousse and a glass of Armagnac for dessert.
Neopol Smokery - this is the smokery/deli I've been talking about a lot recently they have a store front set up in an open market and visit a few farmers markets where you can get their prepared salmon filets, pies, grav lox, and more. The smokery in the market however makes some of the best sandwiches I've had and they also have smoked mussels, duck confit, salmon plates, all kind of daily rotating offerings for lunch and dinner and the staff are phenomenal, everything you want out of the old school deli you become a regular at.
Mason's Lobster Rolls- look. I do not live in New England. I know that. Our lobster will not compare. These are however the only lobster rolls i will eat outside of New England. They do them every still, CT/Bar Harbor/RI, and have a few soup options as well. It's pricey as good seafood usually is, but it's filling and delicious so i tend not to mind as a treat. Also fantastic crew running the show.
Honorable mentions
Wet City Brewing - great drinks, great brisket poutine, excellent vibes. Highly recommended for hanging out and getting some food after a long day though parking will be a headache.
Di Pasquale's - old school Italian deli and market that is so old school Al Capone once did their book keeping as a teenager. Yes it's actually true the owner has the old employee registers from his grandfather hung up on the back wall of the new store. The sandwiches are stunning, the arancini are authentic, the cannoli are worth getting two. Tied with Pastore's for my favorite Italian deli (the latter is closer to work).
Clark Burger - great burgers, great poutine, next to a vintage 1920s movie theater that routinely shows golden age classics alongside new films. My favorite local burger joint.
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Artifacts
“Uh…” Aang looked down at the dilapidated wooden bucket that was placed reverently into his hands. The man bestowing it sank deferentially into a low bow; his head ducked so deeply that all Aang could see was the back of the man’s thin topknot tied far back on his balding head. “Uh… thanks?”
Aang looked down at the bucket in his hands. The bucket was old; that much was obvious. Aang held it up to get a closer look. The metal braid that held the darkened, dried wooden planks together was rusted until it was nearly black. When Aang looked into the bucket, he noted that the plank at the bottom didn’t fit snuggly like it should.
“Do you want me to… um, to help you fix your bucket? If you soak this wood, the planks will expand tightening the planks, and I can straiten out that bottom piece for you… this isn’t very useful if we can’t get it watertight again. But I can always make you a new one, if you, you know… need a water bucket… or something…?” Aang trailed off as the gentleman rose slowly out of his bow, looking at Aang with a look of utter disbelief, as though Aang’s words filling him with dismay.
“What?!” the man sputtered. “Make a new one?! No, no! You must not understand! This is an authentic, an original, air nomad water bucket!” He enunciated each word as though only someone truly obtuse would not see this for the prize that it was.
“Oh, right…” Aang hedged, looking at the beat-up old bucket. “I see.”
Of course Aang knew what this was. He and his friends had carried buckets just like this to and from the stream near the Southern Air Temple everyday. Each monk child would carry one in each hand as they bounded back from the stream, anxious to deliver the water to the cook. It was a mundane thing, something that just needed to get done. The sooner they got through with that chore, the more likely they might be able to squeeze in a quick game of airball before breakfast!
Out of habit, Aang looked behind him, searching for Katara to swoop in and help him navigate this awkward interaction. But of course she wasn’t there, Aang remembered with a slight drop in his stomach that he had come on this trip solo. Katara was still back in Ba Sing Se, busy working on a new project for the museum. Aang didn’t plan to be here in this small village more than a day, so instead of pulling Katara away from her work to come with him as he wanted to, he simply opted to handle this little task alone.
Aang held up the bucket with an importance he certainly didn’t feel and declared, “Why so it is! This is… um, very… special.” He looked at the bucket again, biting on his lip at his choice of words. To him, this bucket looked anything but special.
But the man beamed with delight at Aang’s praise!
“Yes, yes, it is!”
The man in his enthusiasm took the bucket from Aang’s hands and turned it over excitedly. “See!” The man pointed out. “Right here! An Air Nomad symbol!” Again he spoke the words like they were wondrous. “Carved right here on the bottom!”
Aang bent over to look. Sure enough. There it was. Three Air swirls carved (rather poorly, Aang noted) in the bottom wood piece.
“Well,” Aang said, brightening up a little as he took the bucket back from the man. “that would explain why the bottom doesn’t fit!” Aang shifted his staff into the crook of his elbow and turned the bucket upside down under his arm and gave the bottom a firm pound with his fist, knocking the bottom panel right out. The man gave an audible squawk, his hands jumping over his mouth aghast as the piece of wood fell into the dirt.
But Aang kept talking as he picked up the bucket’s base and flipped it over, fitting it back into the bottom of the water bucket. “See we always put the symbol on the inside of the bucket.” After making sure the base was fit in more securely, Aang handed the bucket back to the man. “There! That ought to hold water a lot better now! I still suggest you soak the whole thing, but now it ought to do it’s job just fine!”
The man looked at the bucket shoved so casually into his hands with a gaping mouth for a moment. Then his words began to tumble out of his mouth. “Oh, thank you, thank you, Avatar Aang! Now I know: the symbol goes on the inside! Oh I wish my father was here to see! You see my father acquired this treasure on one of his travels along the Granite Trading Route when he was a young man, bought it off a peddler near Dong Shaan City. This has sat in a place of prominence in my house ever since! My father had a great appreciation of antiques; and he had quite a collection. But this was his most prized – his only genuine Air Nomad artifact!”
The man’s face sobered, his voice taking on a formal tone as he once again fell into a deep bow, holding the bucket out towards Aang reverently. “But I would like you to have it now, Avatar Aang. A way to return it to its rightful place, among its rightful people. It wouldn’t be right for me to keep it, when an Air Nomad still exists to return it to.”
Aang hesitated before taking the old bucket apprehensively. The bucket suddenly felt heavier, and he felt heavier too. Sure he had run into situations like this before, where people felt inclined to present him with gifts. But it was always the most awkward for him when-- like now-- they were gifts recovered from the Air Nomads: a set of long cooking chopsticks, a half-broken glider, a rare item of fragile old saffron clothing. But these items didn’t belong to Aang, and they held no significance to him personally. Like this bucket. It is true that it appeared to be a genuine Air Nomad bucket. But to him, it was just a bucket. Something they had used a dime a dozen when he was a child. A tool. Nothing sacred or important and certainly not something revered. What would he do now with a leaky old bucket?
Wish for a new one, probably. Aang answered his own question ruefully. One that held water better, I’m sure.
He knew Katara would probably be thrilled if she were here. She was always getting excited over every little Air Nomad trinket or knickknack they found. In fact, a new Air Nomad exhibit at the Museum of Natural History is what Katara was working on right now in Ba Sing Se. In addition to working as a consultant for the project, Katara was also donating a great many of the things she had collected to the exhibit, things she had gathered over the past couple of years since she and Aang had begun traveling together.
Aang never objected when Katara would accumulate Air Nomad objects, and he appreciated her enthusiasm. Really. He was touched by how important his heritage was to her. However, there was something about it that more recently had begun to bother him. He wasn’t quite sure what it was, but Katara’s tendency to “collect” his people’s leftover things didn’t always sit right with Aang.
Maybe it was something about how collecting these “antiques” made him feel even more distant from his people; each item proof of how long they had been gone, how far removed he was from them. Proof that his family was little more than memories and artifacts now. These items served as a concrete reminder that his people were extinct, gone forever. It made it harder to just forget and pretend he was just on a journey right now. That the others were still out there, just not right here with him.
Aang imagined taking this man’s bucket back to the museum. He imagined it being put behind glass on a display pedestal. What would people gain from observing this bucket? How would a bucket like this make them feel? It certainly wouldn’t make them laugh remembering the time that Dhun got his head stuck in one of these buckets when he’d been showing off for the girls from the western air temple and fell head first into the custodial closet after tumbling off his glider. They wouldn’t imagine the taste of sweet exhilaration from that water fight Aang had started that time when all the kids had decided to dump their buckets on each other instead of delivering them to the cook (they also wouldn’t recall the feeling of raw hands after lugging one of these buckets up the northern chanting tower to scrub every, single, stair as punishment for their water fight.)
What would this bucket teach a common museum patron about Aang’s people? About who they were and how they lived and what they valued?
Nothing. It would mean nothing at all.
And seeing it on display would only solidify the cold, concrete feeling in Aang’s gut that he was also an artifact now. A remnant of a nation dead. And long since, at that. Should he be on display? Did he now fit better in a museum among his people’s remaining relics than anywhere else?
Maybe it was these unspoken apprehensions that spurred Aang to find excuses to leave the museum as often as possible. Aang knew that the Museum Curator would gladly have Aang take up a permanent residence at the museum if he could finagle it, just so the dry little man could pepper him with questions about his people’s agricultural practices, yearly migration habits, and gross national trade products. Katara’s project was a good one, but one that Aang found himself finding more and more excuses not to be a part of.
Aang hadn’t told Katara any of these feelings, so he knew he couldn’t expect her to just know. And sometimes he found himself falling into the same trap, getting excited or possessive of every scrap of his culture they came across. But lately he had been working extra hard, actively trying not to. This was exactly the kind of attachment his people had tried to avoid; placing value on something that was inherently temporary and unimportant.
Aang knew he couldn’t let go of his attachments to the people in his life – a spiritual flaw that he had long since come to accept about himself – but attachment to things was still something he still tried valiantly to avoid.
Aang looked up from the bucket in his hands at the man before him, his head still bowed, although he glanced up apprehensively, evaluating Aang’s reaction to his gift. Aang could see the sincerity in the man’s eyes, his wish to honor the Last Airbender with this gift. But there was pity there too. And maybe even a little guilt? A glimpse of the world’s collective shame at allowing an entire nation to be massacred.
Aang was used to these kinds of looks: looks of pity, shame, guilt. He had lost more than anyone would truly understand, but that didn’t mean he wanted to be pitied all the time for it.
Aang took a fortifying breath, and as he exhaled, he let go of the flare of resentment he’d felt. It was his choice how he would respond. Would he pity himself too? Or would he choose to live in the moment, accepting without clinging to the loss?
Aang smiled and moved the bucket handle onto his arm, and his glider into the crook of his shoulder so he could bow respectfully to the man. “What did you say your name was?” Aang asked warmly.
“Um, I didn’t say, but it’s Shao, sir,” the man replied as he looked self-consciously to the side, his shoulders still hunched in a bow.
“Well, Shao!” Aang said cheerfully as he wrapped his arm around Shao’s shoulder, lifting him from his bow and compelling the man to walk with him. “This is a really nice bucket—I mean a really nice genuine Air Nomad artifact. And I am honored by your generosity and your gift.” Which was true. Aang was honored that Shao would offer something that clearly meant so much to him. “Please consider your gift accepted and appreciated. However,” Aang stopped walking and turned toward Shao, placing the bucket back in his hands, “it would make me happiest if you would keep it. Remember your father when you look at it. The Air Nomads, we gift this back to you.”
Shao looked at the bucket in his hands, stunned before a glow began to lighten his expression leaving a large smile radiating brightly on his face. “Thank you, Avatar Aang! I, and my children, will treasure this forever!”
Aang clapped Shao’s back heartily before walking backwards several jaunty steps.
“Or maybe just get yourself a drink of water with it,” Aang winked before opening his glider and lifting lightly into the sky, flying light and free, unburdened. Remembering his people by being one.
Just a Nomad on the wind.
………………
Other works in this series:
Chant
Incense
#ALTA#aang#avatar aang#the last airbender#do I belong in a museum?#air nomads#airbenders#kataang#Avatar the Last Airbender#choose your own reaction#he ain't dead too
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Happily Ever After - 2
Paring: dark!Steve x desi!reader
Summary: You are welcomed in your new life, as the bride of Steve Rogers
Words: 4k
Warnings: Non-con/dub-con, smut, loss of virginity, breeding kink (I think), 18+ ONLY
A/N: huge huge huge thanks to @donutloverxo for the inspiration of this chapter. I swear I may have written it, but most ideas belong to the wonderful girl Berry! You’re a sweetheart!
Part 1 (can be read as standalone but maybe read the previous part)
MASTERLIST
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You felt sick as you gazed at the Avengers Compound, the whole building lit up with lights and decorated with flowers. Steve took your hand in his, a grin on his face as he led you past the beautiful rangolis in your welcome. You tried to take your hand away from his and he tutted.
“Now wife,” He seemed to love using that title, “don’t be a brat. Look how warmly everyone has come to welcome and congratulate us.”
You followed his gaze to the main door which were ajar, your new family waiting for you. You couldn’t help the scowl on your face when you noticed everyone was donning desi attire, not in the least bit bothered about how this wedding actually came to be. The tinkling of your anklets echoed as you approached the smiling avengers, a huge cheer booming for your welcome. Bucky stepped away from behind you and joined the crowd at your front, taking the aarti ki thali from Nat and wiggling his brows. He rotated the plate in front of you and Steve, showering you with flower petals. You bared your teeth at him, only making him smile wider.
Steve chuckled at you, leaning down to brush a very soft kiss on your brow and your jerked away.
“Be a good wife and kick the pot” He said pointing at the floor. You looked down and your mouth parted in surprise at the rice filled kalash on the doorstep, waiting for you to gently kick it inside. Steve really had outdone himself, read up on every small detail of your culture. You wondered if he knew the symbolism of this and glanced at his smug face from the corner of your eyes. He winked at you and you breathed sharply, kicking the kalash harder than necessary and sending the rice in it flying inside. The avengers clapped and cheered as you took a step inside, but before you could do more Steve swept you in his arms.
“Steve!” You shouted, arms automatically coming to hold him around the neck as he carried you over the threshold. Your heavy lehenga didn’t deter him, and he walked in with you with barely any effort.
“Some of your traditions darling, some of mine.” He whispered in your ear and you dunked your head in embarrassment as he took you towards the elevator to his floor. You didn’t bother glancing at the laughing people surrounding you, each of them as depraved as your husband.
Husband
It hadn’t sunk in yet that you were married to Steve Rogers, but as he carried you inside the elevator and the doors shut behind you both, fear gathered in your heart. You chanced a look up at his face, finding his cobalt blue eyes already locked on your face. The nervousness in your eyes just amused him more and he bit his lip before licking them.
“You’re going to love the room, I had Nat and Wanda decorate it for us.” He said once he finally set you down on your feet on reaching his floor. You wrung your hands uneasily, the truth of what lay ahead making you want to puke. Steve glanced at you, quirking a brow when you didn’t come forward.
“There are more rituals left, wedding games to be played.” You said softly, trying to stall a little more. Steve snickered at your obvious attempt to delay the night and he came forward to pull you in by your arms. He’d undone the top few buttons of his Sherwani, and you blinked as his chest barely peeked from the gap.
“We’ll play all the games that you want, fulfill all your customs and rituals wife. But tomorrow. I’ve waited too long to have you to wait another night.” His mouth met yours suddenly, huge bulky arms holding yours and restricting your movements. You hummed into the kiss, trying to shake your head but Steve held fast, parting your mouth with his tongue and deepening it. When he pulled away you were panting, hands trembling slightly as they rested on his massive chest.
Taking your hand in his, he pulled and your feet reluctantly dragged behind him, slipping slightly on the polished floor. Steve surprised you by not taking you to the bedroom but in the kitchen, leaving you only to pull out a saucer from his cabinet and the carton of milk from his fridge. His smile had turned mischievous and you backed away from until you met the cold marble counter at your back.
“Gotta say darling, your culture is amazing. They look after their men, don’t they? Like making them milk with aphrodisiac spices to maintain stamina at night?”
You shook your head when he looked at you expectantly, pointing at the milk and spices. When you didn’t move, he came forward and clutched your waist, the bare flesh between your blouse and lehenga meeting his warm hands and breaking into gooseflesh.
“Why must you make everything so difficult, huh? Just make me the goddamn milk.” He hissed, standing so close that your chest brushed his. You trembled as his eyes grew annoyed and jumped into action when he pinched your waist, making you squeal. You turned around and out of his hold, gathering almonds and saffron and quickly grinding them together in a pestle. As you worked you could feel Steve’s warmth at your back, his hand sneaking out to hold you from under your chest.
“Steve, I am cooking.” You complained felt his chest rumble in laughter behind you. He rested his head on yours, caging you against the kitchen counter with his massive body. Somehow, his body heat felt warmer than the steam rising from the boiling milk on the stove from your front. As you added your spices to the milk, watching it turn from white to pale yellow, one of Steve’s hand unclasped the heavy jewelry from your neck. Your eyes squeezed shut as his touch roamed over your back and traced the column of your neck, his breath hitting you right behind your ears and making you shiver.
“I don’t need this milk for stamina, you make me hard for days, but I am honoring your culture. You’ll be such a good wife to me, I’ll make sure of it.” He said and pressed a searing kiss on the juncture of your throat, his hands clutching you tight to him. Your breath became labored as his lips trailed over your shoulder and you wiggled. He let you go so you could pour him the saffron milk, smirking as he sipped it.
“You wanna feel magic?” He asked, taking your hand and pressing it to his crotch. A whimper escaped your lips as his hardness swelled beneath your palm, his own hand over yours keeping it in place. You begged him with your eyes to let you go, but he simply pressed harder in your hand and let out a groan.
“Steve, please.” You pleaded when Steve put down his empty glass beside you and trapped you against the counter. His breath washed over your parted lips and you could taste it on your own tongue. His hands wound around you, pulling you flush to his chest until there was nothing in between.
“You look so pretty when you beg me” He breathed. Your head was cradled in his chest, hands fisting his sherwani when a few errant tears dropped past. Steve touched the wetness on your cheeks, spreading it with the pad of him thumbs over your face. “God, what a mess you’ll make with this makeup as I make you choke on me. Look at this tiny mouth, darling.”
A discomforted whine tore free from you when he pushed two fingers inside your mouth, spreading them apart to stretch open your lips. The ends of your mouth arched, his thick digits pressing over your wet tongue, making you gag. He laughed at that, wiping his wet fingers softly over your lips before chastely kissing your forehead.
“Come, lets go christen our house.”
Your heart was thudding painfully in your chest and your bangles clinked together as you fought him. It was ridiculous how insignificant your strength was compared to him, how easily he could pull you along just like a toy. Your cries pierced the air, but your husband simply shoved you inside the bedroom and shut the door. Even with terror flowing in your veins, a begrudging appreciation was apparent as you looked at what would be your bedroom.
The whole room was fragrant with flowers, several chains of flower hanging over the bed and making a beautiful canopy overhead. The bed itself was decorated with rose petals, and soft candles were sputtering in every corner. Your breath hitched in your throat as your stared at the room, the sheer domesticity and beauty of it feeling like a taunt. The ugly nature of your union with Steve was about to sully the piousness of this night, and you resisted the urge to tear away every decoration hanging from the ceiling.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Steve purred in your ear, his hands coming to hold your from behind. His hardness ground in your lower back, and you sniffed as you felt his teeth nip your earlobe.
“Please don’t do this Steve.” Begging him was your last resort, you’d already lost your dignity. But you’d give away the last shred of it to save your innocence. “You promised you love me, please don’t do this. Give me some time.”
Steve turned you around to face him, your chin in his finger and thumb as he peered deep in your eyes. The blue in his had given way to a darker hue, almost black as lust invaded his senses. He pushed you back towards the bed, not looking away from your face for one second.
“Time? Baby, this night should have come months ago. You should have been on your knees for me that night I first I asked you, but you had to be a fucking bitch about it. But no matter, I’ve got you now. You can worship me now.”
The back of your knees met the mattress and you sat on the edge of the bed, looking up fearfully at Steve who was methodically removing his clothes. His eyes seemed glued to your form as he unveiled his body to you, carelessly throwing away his clothes. You gulped in fear, eyes moist when you realized what would happen.
“Don’t look like that honey. Consider them lessons as a wife in training. A good wife should always know how to pleasure her man.”
He finally pushed down his boxers, his cock bouncing out and hard, pointing right at you with its weeping head. You stifled another gasp because it looked so red and angry. And huge. Its head was mushroom shaped, leaking dewy pre-cum from its slit, the roundness of it so huge you wanted to bolt away. Steve chuckled as he took in your reaction to his cock, his fist enveloping his length to stroke up and down, pulling on the soft skin.
“Don’t worry honey, it will fit. That’s my job to make sure it does. You…You just need to suck.”
You closed your eyes, hoping you’ll escape the terror this way. It was just like you were a kid again hiding under your blanket, believing that if you couldn’t see the horrors, they’d stop existing. Those silly notions however remained in your childhood when you felt his heavy tool slap your face lightly, some of its wetness sticking to your cheek. Strong fingers grasped your jaw, forcing it open and Steve pushed into your mouth slowly. A sinful moan emanated from him, your mouth holding his pulsing length in your warmth.
“Open your eyes, let me gaze at your soul as I make your body mine.”
You blinked at him with watery eyes, your hands pushing against his thighs when he thrust in deeper. His hands were in your hair, helping you bob up and down as you slobbered over him, your saliva dribbling down to his balls. Pleasured grunts kept leaving Steve’s open mouth as painful whimpers left yours. He was so huge you could barely take half of him, the corners of your mouth cracking open a little due to his girth.
“Just like that honey, suck a little harder – Yesss! Now press that tongue on my underside…Just like that, yeah.”
You tried to breath through your nose, following his commands that made it a little easier. Your tears had pooled at the point of your chin, dripping down slowly. Steve pulled out of your mouth suddenly, pinching his cock a little with a pained expressed, relaxing after a minute.
“You’ll learn to swallow me later, but tonight my cum is going straight in that cunt of yours.”
Your eyes widened in terror, the mascara and makeup smudged all over your face casting you a pitiful creature. Steve to your surprise gently started removing the numerous jewelries from your body, his hands soft as they reached the hundreds of pins keeping your hair up.
“Steve, I – I don’t want a baby. Not yet.” You said and he shot you a cheeky smile.
“I don’t too, not yet.” He assured you, still detangling your hair with utmost care. “I want you to myself for some time, need you only for my pleasure. I am not ready to share you with a squealing brat anytime soon, even if that brat is mine.”
Your scalp hurt as it was finally free off the accessories, and Steve massaged it with his fingers. Why was he being so sweet all of a sudden? You peeked at him with a confused expression on your face, the pout on your lip making him coo.
“Believe what you will Y/n, I have loved you most ardently. It may not seem like that now, but it is true.”
His words should have soothed you, given you hope about the grim marriage you were forced in, but instead they made you mad. How could a man be so ignorant to think his obsession as love? How could any person in the world treat someone they love as Steve did to you? You drew in an angry breath, a curse hissed from between your teeth before you punched his stomach. Steve staggered back, more from surprise than the force behind your weak punch. His own angry eyes met yours in challenge and you were thrown in the center of the bed before you realized it.
“You dumb bitch!” He seethed, his body hovering over yours and trembling with barely suppressed rage. “I’ve tried to be fucking gentle with you, but if you want to act like a spoiled brat, then that’s how I’ll goddamn treat you!”
Two hands grabbed your blouse and pulled, the ripping noise echoing in the room as your beautiful blouse gave out at the seams and split. You cried out under him, breasts spilling free and bouncing. He didn’t seem to feel your hands pushing on his bare chest, too busy to remove your heavy, multi layered lehenga. When he finally removed the offending garment, he settled over you, his heavy cock hitting your clothed center. You were trembling in a mix of fear, nausea, and anger. The spare few bangles on your wrists merrily jingled as you struggled with the kiss forced on your lips, Steve’s lips travelling down from there to your throat, leaving teeth marks in their wake.
“You are too wild my wife, but I know how to tame a fiery dame. I’ll show you how to worship your man.”
The heat of his mouth enveloped your hardening nipple, his tongue swirling around it. You keened under him, your tears leaving black mascara tracks over your cheeks and spilling on the pristine white bed sheet beneath. Rose petals crushed under your body, their sweet smell the most offending thing to greet you in this moment.
“Stop it! Please!” You begged, not because it was too painful but just the opposite. The captain on the field was also a captain in bed, leading your body in a journey of sweet sweet pleasure that had you mewling as his mouth descended. You didn’t want this feeling, this excitement that coursed through your body and settled like simmering heat deep in your womb. You didn’t want to let out that moan when Steve ripped off your panties and licked your drenched core.
“Oh good lord, you take like heaven. My angel, my beacon of light, so sweet like honey.”
His words affected you as much as his tongue, your lust addled brain taking his sweet praises directly to your heart and warming you up for him. As you writhed under him, felt his supple tongue dip inside you and around your hard nub, you pondered over the irony. By all means, he was your husband. Forced as the marriage may have been, it was conducted with full rites in the holy witness of agni (fire) and with proper rituals. Was this why you felt this way? Because somewhere, in some deep recess of your twisted mind you accepted the role as his wife, as his other half whose sanctified role was to serve and please him?
Your body drew up in an arch, eyes snapping open as you howled your release in the air, your juices spilling directly in Steve’s mouth who slurped them away with relish. The maintained the eye contact as he licked the last of your essence had your walls clenching around nothing and you drank in the erotic sight of his massive body between your thick thighs, his blond hair askew.
“You see how good we can be Y/n? How good I can make you feel?”
He pushed a finger in your still slightly pulsing channel, rubbing along your spongy walls to help you open. He was so thick, so meaty that you’ll pass out from the pain if unprepared. Another finger entered, and you threw your head back, sobbing and confused from the conflicting emotions inside you. You felt him scissor you open, your untouched entrance straining under the pressure and a pained hiss escaping you.
“Just a little more my darling, need to loosen you up.”
He climbed up your body, bringing his face over yours and kissing you deep. You responded without thinking, tasting yourself on his tongue as he moaned. When you felt him line up along your entrance, your hands shot out to take hold of his shoulders, squeezing.
“Condom. Please, you said no kids.” You begged and Steve kissed you again, brushing his nose against yours.
“Our first-time won’t be with a layer between. I want to feel you, and nothing will come in the middle of this union. In fact, nothing will ever come between us. I’ll get you on birth control, but I am not wearing rubber. My seed will always find their end deep inside you.”
You shook your head, fisting his hair to get his attention.
“Steve please, don’t do this. Its too much of a risk…You have a very potent DNA. You’re enhanced.”
Steve ignored your words, reaching down to align himself again and starting to push in. You scrunched your eyes shut as his bulbous head barely started stretching your walls, your pathetic sniffles fanning his neck.
“Listen to me well, you don’t tell me what to do. I will always have you as I want, whenever I want. Your job is to present for me, be ready for me with a wet cunt to slide right in.”
And he did just that. He fed in every inch of this thick cock in your core, tearing through the flimsy barrier that made you cry out loud. You were sobbing in his chest, holding onto the one responsible for the pain in the first place. When you felt his pelvis flush against yours, you buried you head in his neck, begging him to stay still.
“Shh baby, its okay. It had to happen. It won’t hurt in a little while.” He soothed you, distracting you with little kisses all along your face and collarbone. You looked at him with watery eyes, not knowing how to feel about him as he sat balls deep inside you. It was when he reached between your bodies and drew back bloody fingers that your heart contracted in sorrow. Your virtue, all but snatched from you.
“Look at you staining the white bedsheet with the proof of your innocence. You saved yourself for your husband, and here is your reward.” Steve murmured and your walls trembled when he sucked your virgin blood in his mouth. You breathed deeply, gazing into his eyes and your hands traveled to his back, the thick muscles rippling under your touch.
“If I bleed, so will you!” You declared and with that you dug your nails in his flesh and raked them down his back in vengeance, his pained screech followed by just as painful a thrust. He moved inside you like a demon, pushing into your body as if trying to come out of the other end. Both your voices rose in the air along with pants, your nails digging deeper in his back and a small stream of blood poured over the curve of his back and met the white sheets.
“You!” Steve hissed, kissing you, fucking you. His hands travelled the expanse of your curves, dipping into every crevice and his hard cock scratched your walls deliciously. “You make me so fucking mad. I want to kill you, but I want to kill you by giving you so much love, so much pleasure.”
As his words became unintelligible, his thrusts harder and deeper, your voice higher, the coil in your gut tightened and tightened until it finally snapped and your heat clutched him in a velvet grip, milking his cock. Steve groaned, his head falling in the crook of your neck as he breathed heavily, the last of his cum painting your womb.
You lay beneath his heaving body, your blood staining his cock while his stained your hands. You matched the fire in his eyes with the glowing embers in yours, and a smile tugged on his lips as he delicately pulled out. You winced in pain, a chocked noise coming from you that made him wince in return. He reached over the other side of the bed, pulling out a basin from underneath and a wet towel. You watched in awe as he slowly, almost reverently cleaned between your legs, soft hushes cooed to you in a kind voice.
“You don’t see it yet, but you need me just as much as I need you. Fire like yours, it can only be matched by someone like me. You’ll burn every other man to a crisp, but me? I like that burn, I challenge your fire. We are made for each other, for no other woman could have taken me like you just did.”
You turned away from him, him and his words that made shame wash over you. How wantonly you had responded to his touch, how ferociously you had clawed his back like a tigress, subconsciously leaving your mark on him as he did on you. You felt his warm, sweaty body curl against you from behind, holding you close.
“I love you” He confessed again. “I will always love you, despite the glare of your eyes and venom of your words. I will always come back to you, just like you will to me. You’re not leaving me wife, not now, not ever.”
Your husband gathered you in his massive arms, cocooning you in his warmth and love as the last of your tears dried. He let you sniffle, hand running through your damp hair in a loving caress.
“I won’t take your name.” You suddenly blurted and Steve’s form shook behind you with silent laughter. His arms tightened around your middle, his semi hard cock nestling between the plump cheeks of your bottom.
“Take it? My dear, you talk like I ever gave you the option. The future for us Rogers seems to be bright indeed.”
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taglist: @what-is-your-wish @stanmysoul @littlegasps @sweeterthanthis @shooting-star-love @bluemusickid @scentedsongrebel @harrysthiccthighss @muralskins
#dark!steve x reader#dark!steve rogers x reader#steve rogers x reader#steve x reader#dark!steve rogers#forced marriage#desi reader
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Secrets Part Two - Nessian
Written for Nessian month using prompt: Nessian on a date
*****
The terrace was empty. Nesta leaned against the railing and sighed, staring out over Velaris, the lights of homes and businesses glittering like stars in the night sky. She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, reminding herself why she so often kept it braided out of the way, even now with only half down and the rest twisted up onto her head she knew it would end up annoying her later. But, for all it's annoyance, it gave her the opportunity to use Feyre's mating present to the best of its ability. She grinned to herself, imagining Cassian's reaction when he saw her, her usually golden brown hair glimmering with the stardust she'd brushed through it, shining with a light of its own in the absence of the sun. It had taken longer than she'd expected but it matched the glimmering thread woven into her black dress. Sleeveless, backless, cut just above her knees, it was daring enough to make sure Cassian would notice nothing else all evening, whilst remaining within her comfort. She glanced over her shoulder, and smiled again at the sight of her reflection in the House's windows, her new mating tattoo of Illyrian wings across her shoulders and back totally exposed by the cut of her dress.
She sighed again, this time a slight huff of annoyance, she'd rushed to finish her hair, and Cassian had the nerve to be late after leaving her alone all day. She was still thinking of how to get back at him when a pair of arms wrapped around her waist. Nesta started but relaxed into Cassian's hold a moment later, murmuring a greeting as he pressed his lips to her temple,
"Sorry I left you waiting, Sweetheart, I wanted it to be perfect,"
"What? What did you do?" She questioned, suddenly worried that her planned some annoying practical joke, but her suspicions faded when he tugged her back against his chest,
"It's a secret," he whispered, and she spun round to face him, her eyes widening at the sight of him. With a new, ironed, shirt tucked into a pair a black pants, and his proper coat, Nesta had never been so attracted to him, half of her was tempted to drag him back to their bedroom at once, but she wanted to know the secret so she'd play along. "You look beautiful, Nes," he murmured, and she wrapped her arms around his neck as he carefully lifted her into his arms, a glowing red shield appearing around them as he moved to take off. At her questioning glance her grinned, "I wouldn't want to mess up your hair," he chuckled, winking before leaping into the sky, leaving Nesta with no doubts as to what he wanted to do later.
They flew over all of Nesta's favorite restaurants and continued along the Sidra, waving to Feyre when they passed over the River House. She knew something, Nesta could tell, her sister had been scheming with Cassian, and she couldn't figure out why, it was infuriating. Still, she kept her features carefully neutral, if a little entranced by the beauty of the city, at least until Cassian set her down on the far bank of the river, in Elain's garden, night blooming flowers surrounding them.
Cassian reached out to pluck a rose from the nearest bush and tucked it behind her ear, grinning to himself as he led her through the multitude of blooming flowers, clearly noting her reactions to them all, she'd hardly be surprised to find a pot of the moonstone dahlias waiting on the windowsill when they got home. She matched his grin when her eyes landed on the little table by the water's edge, set for two with a little Illyrian slow cooker set a little away from it.
"Did you do all this?" She breathed, "It's beautiful, Cass," he just grinned again and pulled out a chair for her,
"I figured it was time I returned the favor and cooked for you,"
"Perhaps yours will be better than a stale biscuit," she laughed, knowing full well how good he was at cooking. Still, he snorted with laughter,
"Not setting the bar very high, are we?"
"Oi! That biscuit sealed the mating bond so you can shut up," she huffed, trying to sound annoyed, but her soft giggle gave it away, and Cassian brushed a wing against her collarbone as he moved to the cooker.
Nesta's mouth watered at the scent of the delicately spiced slow cooked lamb that he set down on the table, the delicate scent of Adriatan saffron from the accompanying Summer Court inspired rice dish. All her lingering annoyance that he'd left her all day faded at the first mouthful, the lamb practically melting in her mouth. Not that Cassian needed an ego boost, but she had to admit, there was one thing he'd always be better at, cooking, she could admit now that no matter how much she practiced, she didn't have the instinctive knowledge of which spices to use, how best to cook something. She could always learn, but she's never match the instinct to just know. She must have said as much as Cassian laughed and compared their dancing abilities, likening himself to an elephant. Nesta had never seen an elephant, having never traveled to the continent, but she knew what one was from her early education. She snorted in laugher and made Cassian promise that they could go to the continent just as soon as tensions died down and they could be spared from the Night Court.
There was no other way to describe it, the evening was perfect, the stars glimmering off the Sidra's glassy surface, the flowers swaying softly in the wind, and Cassian. No one had ever done something like this for her, there had never been anyone she had wanted this with, but she couldn't imagine anything more perfect. Once they'd finished eating, Cassian spent an hour or so pointing out every constellation until Nesta could see them, she could see Enalius' belt, see the shape the stars made of the ancient warrior. She grinned when Cassian pointed out the brightest star in the sky,
"That one, Nes, that's ours, whenever you look up at that star when we're not together, I'll be looking too, that's our reminder, our way home." And it was their way home, for the star glimmered right above Velaris, their star, she would never forget that one, not in a thousand years, the other ones maybe, but their star, never.
The table was gone when they turned back, everything cleared up, but Feyre's scent was unmistakable, and Nesta had no doubt that she'd also supplied the rarer spices for the meal. With the space empty, she could just lean back into Cassian's arms, the sounds of the garden and the city surrounding them, the light of their star shining down. They might have stood there for a minute, an hour, but time really stopped when Cassian spun her round in his arms, kissing her with all passion and love they'd both been holding back for so long. Nesta wound her hands into his hair, coming up breathless when he finally pulled back, their star reflected in his eyes as he whispered her three favorite words,
"I love you ."
#fanfiction#fanfic#nessianmonth#nessian#nesta archeron#nesta#cassian#Nesta x Cassian#acotar#acosf#a court of thorns and roses#a court of silver flames
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Good, Good, Good, Better
Medieval King!Kylo Ren x Reader
3.1k ; Content warnings: Mention and description of food, NSFW (Aphrodisiacs, mutual masturbation, hand-feeding, bathtub sex, rough sex, PIV, multiple orgasms, overstimulation, dirty talk)
Available on AO3!
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He is not but three steps through the grand wooden doors which lead to the bed chambers, when he is met with your body colliding against his.
Without thinking, Kylo winds his arms around you to catch you as you jump into his embrace, an act on instinct born from having loved you for so long. Your laughter is bright as he spins you around, as your arms lock themselves around his neck.
“Kylo! Darling, you’ve returned just in time.” Your eyes are wide and filled with sparkling mirth, something far more than just the reflection of the golden candlelight. He holds you round your middle so that your feet do not touch the floor, and you cross your ankles behind you as you whisper low in his ear, “I’ve planned a very special meal for us this evening.”
“I’m ravenous.” He smirks at you, settling you down gently and pushing on your shoulders. You immediately go to your knees in the way he had hoped you would, and fuck do you look so good on your knees like that. “Come rest your ear against my stomach, see how it rumbles.”
You bite your lip, and from your spot on the floor you ruck up his tunic enough to expose his abs. A thick thatch of coarse black hair trails down from his naval, and you do not restrain yourself from the desire to lick the hard muscle which burns so hotly under your touch.
Laughing the slightest bit at your theatrics, Kylo pets down your hair and presses your ear to his abs, when at just the right moment, there is a rumble through him. Ravenous, indeed.
“How loud!” You grin up at him, so pleased that he has returned home to you in as good condition that he has. He is filthy, and hungry, but there are no wounds to be seen, and for this you are grateful.
So grateful that you cannot help but be more playful than usual, so you smile as your cheek squishes against his abs, “Oh my King, this is a dire case, I must see at once that you are…satisfied.”
You look at one another, and he gives you a quirk of his brow, a suggestive quirk, as if to say, but you’re on your knees…
You don’t take the bait, instead getting up with a wide smile and taking his hand. He expects you to pull him through the castle and to the great hall, so when you head the opposite direction, head towards the bathing room he frowns concerningly.
“Blossom, this is…” He trails off though, when he sees the spread in front of him.
There is a large tub that has been brought to the center of the room, sitting over the fire pit which has gently been smoldering away, not much more than hot coals enough to keep the water steaming. A wooden plank stretches across one side of the tub, lavishly decorated with plates piled high with food and golden goblets of wine.
Floating in the water are herbs that produce a beautiful fragrance as they steep, candles are lit and near the opposite end of the bath, a musician is seated, gently strumming their lute.
“I thought you might like to enjoy your dinner with a long, hot, wet, soak.” You turn to your husband, licking your lips as your fingers deftly untie the yellow lacing which adorns your surcoat.
Kylo only hums in agreement, takes a step closer to you. You offer yourself to him, allow him to undress you in a way that he always clamors to do. The surcoat is a fine silk brocade, a pale blue with yellow filigree. It slips away from your body as Kylo unties it the rest of the way, and you practically shiver with anticipation as he unclasps a golden armband around the sleeve of your kirtle from each arm. After that, you are free to raise those arms above your head, and Kylo’s warm hands pull the bright blue kirtle up and over your head, letting it fall down to the floor, leaving you naked before him.
“Into the tub.” He instructs, reaching up to caress your cheek for a moment, before unpinning your hair and watching as it cascades down your back.
You do as you’re told happily, letting out a great moan as you step into the hot water, your body slinking down down down until your breasts are just barely covered. Kylo can see your nipples through the water, can see how they grow stiff as you adjust to the temperature. You look divine, next to the food. He doesn’t know what he wishes to feast on first.
Kylo rids himself of his clothing quickly, glad to have stopped by the armory to turn in his suit and mail for polishing before making his way to you. And make his way to you he does, the water spilling ever so slightly over the side of the great wooden tub, his muscles grateful for the heat of the water. Steam clings to his body as it does to yours, and he does not even think before corralling you onto his lap, licking and kissing slowly, steadily, at your throat.
“Open your mouth.” You whisper.
He looks up at you, sees what you have in your hand. You offer him what appears to be a large chunk of meat, roast venison and a perfectly soft and fragrant garlic clove. He accepts it, sucks on the fingers which enter his mouth as you press the food against his tongue. It is so flavorful, so tender and juicy, he moans as he licks up your wrist where a small droplet of sauce from the meat had rolled down.
“Again.” You grin, glad that the taste pleases him.
This time it is a large chunk of quail dipped in a pomegranate wine sauce, and the time after that it is steamed clams. Each bite is succulent, his mouth waters for it, so much so that he finds himself drooling as he watches you feed yourself in time. One for him, one for you, back and forth until your bellies begin to fill with the richness of the food.
Roast beef cooked as rare as was allowed, wrapped in a puff pastry spiced with saffron. Turnips, asparagus, carrots roasted in wine, scoops of hummus he licks and sucks off your fingers, out of your palm, kissing your skin after he swallows. You look at him with such joy, such heat behind your eyes.
“I know you have a plan of some sort, blossom, and if it were to kill me I’d be dead already.” Kylo teases, as he begins to feel…different.
Different in a good kind of way, different in a way that has him sweating – and not from the heat of the bath. His cock is achingly hard, his heart flutters, his stomach swoops, he finds that he has such a strong desire to fuck you that it’s beginning to take over every other thought in his mind. You are still on his lap, naked and beautiful and you smell so sweet, his dick rubs against your thighs and it has started to drive him mad.
Are you so affected? You must be, you’ve eaten the same foods, drank the same wine, surely you must be so affected.
He cranes his neck to look at you, and oh yes you are.
“Quite the opposite. I missed you.” You moan ever so softly as you move his hand.
Those hands of his have had a death grip on your waist and thigh, the way you’re seated on his lap has you turned sideways and your breasts are nearly pushed up into his face, he is nearly drooling with want.
“I was gone for two days.” His voice is husky, hoarse, as you guide one down between your legs, his large palm cupping your pussy. He can feel it pulsing for him, and his throat goes dry.
“Two days is a long time to go without my Knight in shining armor.” You whimper, pushing his hand against you more fully.
He gets the hint, and two of his thick fingers push into you easily to your absolute satisfaction. It’s a hard angle, but you waste no time wrapping your free hand around the thick shaft of his cock, giving it a steady squeeze. With your other hand, you reach back to the board of food and press a cream-covered chestnut into his mouth, and his cock only throbs harder.
“Oh!” Suddenly he understands, it’s the food that’s making you both like this, spurring you on. Something about the reaction your bodies have to the flavors, the spices, the something oh he doesn’t know, he doesn’t know but he wants more of it right now.
“There you are handsome.” Your face breaks into a breathtaking grin, and your hand speeds up, now that he’s finally gotten your plan all along. His moves in time with yours, and you lean your head on his shoulder as you jerk each other off, breathing a little quicker as you ask, “Feel good?”
“Y-yes,” Kylo is quick to respond, his fingers moving and stretching your cunt so you can better take him. He is so hard, his cock is so heavy in your hand even there under the water, the curve of it a promise of that sweet burn of pleasure as your fingers trail up and down the thick veins which protrude from it. “Heaven above your touch has never failed in its magnificence.”
“I’m so wet for you Kylo, feel me, touch me, see how wet I am.” Your mouth is dropped open, the wet shine of your tongue darting out to lick at your lips, and something in Kylo’s brain trips up when your hips open wide enough for him to slip in a third finger all the way to the knuckle.
“I – I have to fuck you.” He grunts out, and you’re nodding before he’s even finished getting the words out.
“Grab me, go on, be rough with me.” You encourage eagerly, quickly, happily, practically begging him, “I need you, Kylo, I need you.”
With all the strength he possesses, he lifts you clean off his lap and turns you more fully to straddle him. Your back is pressed firmly against his chest as he sits you hard on his hard and doesn’t give you much time to adjust before he’s planting his heels on the basin of the tub and thrusting up into you.
“Ah!” You gasp aloud, your mouth latching onto his throat, teeth sinking into the meat of his neck as your muffled voice moans, “You’re so big, fuck -- !”
“You can take it blossom, my good girl, I know you can.” He pulls out nearly all the way, feels the muscles of your pelvis clench around him, desperately wanting to keep him inside, before thrusting back in and knocking the wind out of you. “It’s – shit that’s tight – it’s only been two days.”
“You have to fuck me twice as hard, to make up for it, oh Kylo!” You arch your back slightly, just enough for your ribcage to expand as you take in sharp breaths on each hard push of his cock through the slick folds of your pussy.
The water does the unfortunate thing of washing away all the pretty slick that comes out of your body, but you are smart, so smart, and you’ve oiled up the water so that it might help things go smoothly, and Kylo groans groans groans as he shoves his cock farther into your cunt.
“Did you play with yourself while I was gone?” He demands to know, his arms hooking under your armpit and nearly holding you in a headlock, keeping you still. You’re squirming so much, the sensations from the food filling your whole body and driving you just as mad as he.
“No!” You wriggle against his hold, wanting to touch your clit, wanting to fuck yourself harder on his cock. He’s got you tight, the fast drag of his dick against your walls has you moaning loud, “No I saved it just for you, I haven’t come in ages!”
“M-me neither.” He grunts, pleased to hear this. Sometimes you’re not so well behaved, sometimes he has to punish you for not following his orders. But this time, this time you were good, he can tell, can tell by how tight you are.
“You gonna come in me?” The back of your throat clicks as tears of pleasure begin to cling up on your eyelashes, “Are you going to fuck me full of your big hot load?”
“(Y/N),” He pants grunts groans as the water splashes out of the tub, as he bounces you on his cock hard fast wet wet wet, so hot, burning up from the inside out, “Say my name, keep – I want to hear you crying for me.”
“Please! Please, I – Kylo, Kylokyloooohgod!” You’re shouting, eyes shut tight as your body tremors on top of his, as your teeth clack together from how your orgasm shoots up your spine.
Quickly, Kylo grabs that golden goblet from which he has sipped all night, cradles the back of your head gently yet firmly and tips the rim to your lips.
“Drink this and come on my cock.” He encourages, and you let it pour into your mouth, overflow all across your chin, let it drip and stream in rivulets between your breasts.
He has to see, has to taste it, so he pulls off of you for only long enough to turn you to face him fully, your legs shaking so badly that they cannot find purchase around his hips, so he must hold you up. You take the goblet in a pleasure weak hand and slosh spiced wine onto your breasts more heavily, your hand pushing Kylo’s head down to take them into his mouth.
“Fuuck,” He sucks and licks the wine off your nipples, broad strokes of his tongue as he lifts and lowers your hips fast fast fast and hard, fucks you on his cock, “I’m going to come in you, I’m going to come in your perfect fucking cunt.”
“Yesyesyesyes!” You’re hiccupping, crying around him, chin wobbling and eyes shut tight as you clench around him.
He slams his cock up into your pussy once more, his spine on fire from pleasure, tears coming to his own eye, drool hanging off his teeth and chin, as he comes and comes and comes, hot and thick, and so much of it that you’re sure you can feel it spreading through you. You’re moaning, and he’s grunting lowly against your chest, sounding almost like he’s in pain.
“I’m…fuck I’m still hard, I’m – ” Kylo’s starting to see spots, his vision clouding out as his cock pulses inside of you, spills and spills and spills but still craves more, “Blossom, don’t move don’t -- ohh.”
You lay him back against the edge of the tub, determined and hungry, eyes blown wide and pupils black with lust, as you find a second wave of energy to ride him fast fast fast, your hands braced on his chest as his cock splits you into two.
He grabs at your chest and kisses all over you, harsh biting kisses that will leave marks and bruises, the kind that when you’ve had your fill of one another, he will press his thumbs into to make you moan once again and again as they fade. He bites down, sucks and kisses at your shoulders, your breasts, your throat, his hand slipping down between your bodies to shakily rub at your clit.
“I’m so close, harder? Harder, please, please I’ll do anything – right there!” Your voice rises rises rises in volume until it breaks, cracks under the pressure of pleasure and screams for him, “Don’t you dare stop, don’t you fucking stop!”
“I won’t -- I need more,” Kylo’s jaw is dropped, his eyes rolled back into his head, visions of heaven sprayed behind his eyelids, visions of you. He does not even open his eyes to groan, “Stars, but you’re beautiful.”
You come again, your body wracked through with nerves so hard that you’re nearly convulsing, knees shuddering shaking around his wide hips. Your body collapses on top of his lap, gone limp in a way that has your hips relaxing and somehow, somehow, Kylo’s cock is forced deeper from the gravity of your relaxation.
He comes again, simply from the sheer all encompassing feeling of you – your body on his, your cunt tight hot wet on his cock, your hands in his hair, your taste on his tongue, your scent curling up into his nostrils and making him have no other means to function other than to come in you.
Your breathing is hot and ragged, both of you. The lute playing has since finished, the musician likely having gotten the hint and left the room unnoticed. Food has been knocked everywhere, goblets of wine are overturned. Everything is still, and Kylo is content to simply hold you and caress you as you rest your head on his chest.
He brushes your soaked hair away from where it sticks to your back, his calloused fingers grazing up and down your spine as he softly kisses your temple.
“Thank you, darling.” You sigh, your voice unsteady but filled with bliss.
“You’re trembling.” He chuckles deep in his chest, looks down at where you’re against his chest and kisses you properly, kisses your shaking smile.
“You’re still hard.” You shift your hips on his cock, not having pulled off of him yet. He groans softly, licking his lip as pleasure tickles his mind. You regard him with such love that he has to blush, when you say, “Tis a good thing then, that the fire underneath this bath has not gone out yet.”
“What have you done to me? What spell am I under?” He mumbles softly, teasingly, wanting to make you laugh. He does so love to hear you laugh.
“No such witchcraft, only the natural properties of a good meal, good wine, and good baths.” You wink at him, tucking his wet hair behind his ears. He blushes some more, embarrassed of the way his ears stick out, but you only give them a sweet tug.
“Mmm, and better pussy.” He agrees, picking up a last surviving piece of food that had not yet fallen off the board, and pressing it into your mouth, gearing up for a long night ahead.
#kylo ren#kylo ren x reader#kylo ren/reader#kylo ren x you#kylo ren/you#kylo ren imagine#kylo ren fanfiction#kylo ren fanfic#kylo ren smut#medieval au#medieval!kylo#knight!kylo ren#historical au#my writing#knight!kylo
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Ginger Snap, Chapter 2
A/N I am breaking probably the only rule I gave myself when I started writing fanfic, which was Don’t Ever Post a WIP. But lord knows I’m not immune to peer pressure and the narcotic that is reader feedback, so here it is, the second chapter of what is now an open-ended modern AU story about Jamie the Chef and Claire the Kitchen Disaster. Still a first person Claire POV, so I apologize in advance for any stray pronouns.
For the first chapter, I recommend reading it on Ao3, since I’ve made some minor edits since I first posted it on Tumblr. See above re. not planning on posting a WIP.
Oh, and funny story. When I decided to check the location of the real Ginger Snap catering company in Edinburgh, it was squished between “FrazersOnline” and “McKenzie Flooring”. If that’s not kismet, I don’t know what is. The location I describe below, however, is based on a catering venue here in Ottawa called Urban Element, where I’ve attended a few team-building events. I have yet to set anything on fire, though.
I checked my phone for the third time, confirming I wasn’t lost.
Frank and I moved to Edinburgh over the summer, just in time for him to start his position as Associate Professor of History at the University of Edinburgh. Despite our years spent in America, neither of us cared overmuch for driving, so we chose a flat (or rather, Frank chose a flat and I concurred) not far from campus. Therefore, this was the first time I’d ventured as far afield as Leith, a maritime enclave just to the north of the capital that couldn’t seem to decide if it wanted to be grittily working class or artistically hip.
When I finally reached the address, I had to smile. No main street pretensions or non-descript commercial frontage for Ginger Snap Catering. Before me stood a two-story red brick fire station, still emblazoned with the crest of the Scottish Fire and Rescue Services. The two massive truck bays were now enclosed by see-through doors that could be drawn back on a sunny day. Through these a warm yellow light could be seen, spilling onto the grey, damp pavement.
A petite woman with dark hair manned the small reception area, a red-haired toddler clinging to her like a marsupial. She held a phone to one ear while simultaneously pacing the polished concrete floor. I stood as unobtrusively as possible near the door, but in such an open space it was impossible not to overhear her side of the conversation.
“... they willna take ‘im back until ‘is fever goes down... aye, an hour ago when I picked him up but it hasn’t... nay, i dinna think it’s... tis jus’ terrible timing with two weddings t’morrow... Could ye? Och, I owe ye Mrs. Fitz, a million times o’er... Anytime, we’ll be here. Alright, soon.”
The speaker turned to me, the harried look of a working mother sharpening her already honed features.
“I apologize fer keeping ye waiting. What can I do fer ye t’day?”
Before I could respond, the young boy, probably no older than two, began to fuss, rubbing his flushed cheek against his mother’s shoulder.
“Och, mo ghille, Mam kens ye’re poorly. Mrs. Fitz is coming as fast as she may.”
Unable to quell my instinct to diagnose and then cure, I spoke up.
“I couldn’t help overhearing your conversation. Based on his age and the way he’s holding his head, it may be an ear infection.” At the woman’s penetrating look, I hastened to explain: “I’m a doctor. Would you mind if I took a closer look?”
Permission granted, I carefully palpated the boy under the jaw and peered as best I could without an otoscope into the offending ear canal. Confident in my diagnosis, I recommended treatment with a warm compress, an over-the-counter analgesic ear drop, and children’s paracetamol to control his fever. If, after twenty-four hours the symptoms had not improved, they could consider seeing his pediatrician for antibiotics, but these were only truly necessary for a persistent infection.
“Och, ye ‘ave no idea what a relief it is tae hear ye say so, lass. He’s my first bairn, ye ken, an’ I can ne’er tell if I’m over-reacting or being negligent. Can ye say thank ye tae the nice doctor, Wee Jamie?”
My stomach jumped. “Wee Jamie? Is he related by chance to Jamie Fraser?”
“Aye, tis his nephew. I’m Jamie’s sister, Jenny. Ye ken my brother, then?”
The pieces fell into place, and my insides settled.
“We’ve spoken before,” I explained. “I’m Claire Beauchamp. You and your brother helped me with a dinner party emergency last Tuesday. I came to return your market bags, and to thank you again for coming to my aid during my hour of need.”
Jenny and I spoke for another ten minutes, sharing the superficial narratives of two strangers brought together by circumstance. She was warm and thistly by turns, and I felt a longing for the honesty of female friendship that I’d given up when we left Boston. Eventually a matronly woman arrived to collect Wee Jamie. I carefully wrote down the exact names and dosages of my prescribed remedy.
After Mrs. Fitz and Wee Jamie had left, it occurred to me that Jenny needed to get back to work. I’d accomplished what I’d set out to do, even if I hadn’t thanked Jamie himself. As I began to make my goodbyes, however, Jenny interjected. “If ye’re no’ in a rush, why dinna ye join our afternoon cooking class? My brother will be demonstrating how tae make quiche. Tis the least we can do, after ye helped Wee Jamie.”
Which was how I found myself standing behind one of six cooking stations arranged across the fire station’s main area, a bright red apron covering my black slacks and saffron turtleneck. My impetuous curls were slowly breaking ranks from where I’d slicked them into a bun that morning. I worried I looked like a human Pez dispenser.
I glanced at the workstation immediately to my left. A slight woman who I guessed to be roughly my own age was engrossed in her phone, a cheeky smirk playing on her berried lips. Her strawberry blond hair was swept into an effortless chignon that made me twitch with envy. She looked up from her screen and caught me looking her way.
“Geillis Duncan,” she said, offering a well-manicured hand.
“Claire Beauchamp. Pleased to meet you.”
“Is it yer first time taking a class, Claire?” At my nod, she leaned in and whispered conspiratorially: “Ye’re in for a treat.”
Before I could enquire what she meant, a murmur amongst the other students (all women, save one) was accompanied by the heavy tread of work boots on polished concrete and a familiar Scottish burr.
“Good afternoon, everyone. Thank ye fer joining me on this dreich Scottish day. I ken a few of ye are new, so let’s start with a brief overview of yer stations and some basic safety reminders, before we tackle the quiche.”
Today Jamie was wearing a pair of olive pants that tapered down his endless legs and a technical shirt that clung valiantly to his upper body. He looked like he’d just stepped off the nearest rock climbing pitch. I wondered if he owned anything that answered to the name of a professional wardrobe, but I couldn’t deny that he looked impressive, in an athleisure sort of way.
“See what I mean?” Geillis hissed at me as Jamie made his way to the front of the hall, speaking now about optimal burner temperatures. “That man is a dozen kinds of yes.”
I concentrated on each step of the ostensibly simple recipe. Pie crust had been the previous week’s assignment, so I had only to blind bake the prepared dough already at my workstation. Once I had the crust centered exactly in the pie pan, pierced with a fork in orderly rows and placed in the oven, I rushed to catch up with the others. I’d missed Jamie’s instructions regarding pan frying the bacon, so I increased the flame, thinking I could make up a little time. The fatty meat crackled pleasingly as I set it in the lightly greased pan. I was inordinately proud of myself.
Things went very badly, very fast. First, my eyes wouldn’t stop watering as I meticulously peeled then dissected the onion into near-transparent crescents. Tears obscured my vision and I tried to wipe them away without contaminating my hands. To my left I could make out Geillis skillfully cracking eggs into a glass bowl, her pie crust already elegantly filled with crispy morsels of bacon and caramelized onion bits.
A vague sense of having forgotten something important tickled my mind. My pie crust! Grabbing a silicone glove (I wasn’t making that mistake twice) I rushed to the wall oven and extracted the pan. Giddy with relief, I saw the dough was only a little dark around the edges.
Before I could return victorious to my station, Jamie uttered a Scottish noise of alarm from his vantage at the front of the class. We both rushed across the room to where my rashers of bacon now resembled blackened shoe laces obscured by a heavy veil of smoke. With practiced ease, Jamie lifted the entire skillet into the adjacent sink and turned on the cold water. A cloud of steam enveloped his head, highlighting his auburn curls. I bit my lip as he looked my way in amusement.
“I hope ye werena planning on serving quiche to yer faculty guests t’night, Ms. Beauchamp?”
I stood meekly next to Geillis for the remainder of the class, no longer trusted around open flame without adult supervision. She graciously allowed me to extract her quiche when it was done baking. It looked like a magazine cover. Meanwhile, my workstation looked like the scene of an industrial accident.
While we were waiting for her quiche to cook, Geillis and I got to know each other a little better. She was a Highland lass from up near Inverness. Married to a wealthy older man, her life sounded like an endless quest for diversion. Despite this, or because of it, she had a sharp-witted frankness that I appreciated. She was also a hard-core gossip.
“Wee besom,” she remarked with a nod towards a blond girl who was currently monopolizing Jamie’s attention with endless questions punctuated by manufactured giggles and flicks of her pin-straight hair. “Tha’s Laoghaire Mackenzie of the Mackenzie brewing dynasty. They’ve a live-in cook, so there’s only one reason she attends these classes, and it isna for the quiche.”
I watched Jamie laugh over something the girl said, mineral eyes alight and his perfect white teeth on display. I suppose I couldn’t blame her. I wasn’t here for the quiche either.
The interminable ninety minute lesson finally ended. I thanked Geillis profusely and we exchanged numbers before she rushed off for her reiki treatment. Gathering my trench coat and purse, I tried to slink away without calling any further attention to myself.
“Ms. Beauchamp!”
I cursed under my breath, then turned to face him.
“Please, call me Claire. After I nearly burned down your place of business, we should probably be on a first name basis.”
Jamie chuckled. It sounded more natural and lived-in than his earlier response to Laoghaire, but I was likely fooling myself.
“Och, wha’s a cooking demonstration wi’out a wee bit of drama. Will ye be joining us next week? We’ll be making ceviche, sae I willna need tae put the fire brigade on stand-by.”
“Bastard,” I replied to his cheeky smirk. “Alas, I don’t think I’m cut out to be a cook. It appears to be the one science I can’t master.”
“Cooking isna a science, Claire,” he explained with sincere intensity. “Tis an art. Perhaps tha’s the root of yer struggle.”
“Perhaps it is. But in that case, I may as well give up now. I haven’t an artistic bone in my body.”
His languorous perusal of said body lit a different kind of flame in my belly. Geillis was right; he really was a dozen kinds of yes.
“I canna say as I agree. Come back any time if ye’d like tae try again.”
I blushed, thoroughly discomfited by his blatant flirting. He knew about Frank. He’d fled from him onto my fire escape, for Christ’s sake! Maybe when you looked like James Fraser, every interaction with a woman was merely a chance to hone your craft. Or maybe he was truly ignorant of his effect.
“I’ll take that under advisement. Thank you again, Jamie.”
“Until the next time, Arsonist.”
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Buttercream
Summary: A reuquest sent into me that I wanted to try: Usopp impressing Sanji with his baking skills? Maybe include the line: “baking is just edible chemistry.” (can be taken as light Sanuso or at the least Sanji & Usopp friendship and support)
****
"What are you doing?" Sanji asked, his voice a mixture of exhaustion, bewilderment, and aggravation, not yet approaching anger.
Not yet.
Usopp, frozen like a rabbit caught in the sights of a fox, stared at Sanji holding a small spatula, the tool just hovering over a cake. Flour was on the floor, on Usopp's face, and in his hair. The sugar bowl was spilled over, and an egg was smashed on the ground near the fridge. Sanji, fished out a cigarette, and plopped it in his mouth, hurrying to light it while he tried not to get angry, but oh, he was getting awfully close to-
He froze.
On the counter, just beneath Usopp's trembling hand, was the most marvelous cake he had ever seen.
(The Most beautiful Buttercream cakes you could ever see)
It was half done. Base layer of the cake was white, and Usopp was delicately sculpting yellow and orange buttercream flowers into the side of the cake. Layering them on top in globs, before somehow shaping them into a blooming flower. Two other piping bags, filled with green and pink buttercream were set aside, and Sanji let the cigarette fall from his mouth so he could ask in a reverent breath, "What will you do with the green and pink bags?"
Usopp slowly, carefully, catiously---relaxed, eyes full of doubt, suspicion, and anxiety. He flicked his eyes down to Sanji's leg, and then back up to Sanji, who was walking forward, his eyes only on Usopp's cake.
"Green... for leaves, and the pink is for a big rose for the top. I thought about... putting dewdrops on the petals... but I don't... I couldn't find any blue... for... for the buttercream," Usopp answered carefully.
"I ran out of the dye drops when I made Nami's birthday cake," Sanji admitted. He had made her an ocean. A cake with rolling waves, and dusted in gold glitter. He had been proud. That cake was nothing, compared to Usopp's half-finished masterpiece.
Sanji turned to his pantry, and disappeared before reappearing with a head of red cabbage. With a dismissive wave, he muttered, "Keep working. I'll make you blue dye."
Usopp watched Sanji chop the head of cabbage, waiting for the other shoe to drop. But Sanji made no movement towards him. Neither leg nor voice was raised. For now... Usopp was alive, and seemingly given permission to continue with his project.
He turned back to his task of shaping flowers into the cake.
With nervous energy, Usopp created his pristine flowers. Sanji was saying nothing. Not asking about how Usopp broke into the fridge, or why he was doing what he was doing. The kitchen was silent.
After thirty or so minutes, Usopp went back to his work, consumed by his edible art project.
Sanji in the meantime sent the cabbage to boil, and after twenty or so minutes strained the cabbage. He set it aside for later. He could make stirfry tomorrow, perhaps, or sneak it into an omelet. No... maybe the stirfry was best. Sanji could decide later. With the purple water, he poured it carefully into a pan, and slowly began to reduce it. A task that should take him at least forty-five minutes.
In that time, he would sneak looks at Usopp's hands. The sniper, with the gentlest of touches, was shaping a yellow petal, curling it gently as if it was naturally blooming. He worked slowly, and quietly, his face focused on his task completely. Sanji was in awe. Why in the world, had Usopp never baked a cake before? Sanji hoped, sincerely hoped, he hadn't chased Usopp out and away from the kitchen, but Sanji couldn't recall the sniper ever asking to bake something.
To Sanji's knowledge, Usopp hadn't shown any interest in baking before.
Well, maybe eating the baked goods, but not making them.
When the purple cabbage liquid had reduced enough, Sanji poured it into a bowl and added a tablespoon of baking soda. He stirred it slowly, and the concoction bubbled slightly, and then... the deep purple liquid shifted into a rich deep blue. Smiling, he picked up the bowl and brought it over to Usopp. The whole method had taken Sanji almost two hours... and in that time Usopp had completed his cake.
The cake was a garden. A living mound of yellow and orange flowers, with a big pink rose on top, bloomed and curling delicately on the top.
Sanji offered the bowl to Usopp, "Natural blue dye. It may... weaken your buttercream a little, so don't use a lot,"
Usopp startled, looking up at Sanji. He had forgotten the cook was there. He nodded numbly, and took the bowl. Dipping his spoon in the blue dye, he transferred it to his white buttercream and stirred, creating a very gentle blue. He pulled a chopstick from the counter, already lightly coated in various colors, and gently added light blue dew drops to his flower.
Sixteen total and he was done.
Gawking, the pair stood over the cake and Sanji let out a shaky breath, "How?"
Usopp shrugged, shrinking into himself. For once, a lie didn't spring to his lips. He seemed at a loss for how to answer.
"Usopp... this... this is beautiful. How did you learn to do this?" Sanji asked again. He was beyond exhausted, and now that the cake was completed, he remembered he had come in here to start preparing meat for dinner tomorrow, and then prepping breakfast for the crew. He peaked out the door, the sky already begining to grow pale.
He'd have to change the menu today in order to feed everyone on time.
He looked at the cake. It made him emotional in a way that only truly marvelous food could.
This beautiful cake was worth changing his menu.
"How?" Sanji asked again, and then an excitable, "Why?"
Usopp, twiddled his messy fingers, "Mom used to make cakes. For fun. And she was pretty good. We always made one together... and went all out on her birthday. I... I kept up the tradition. Even after she was..." Usopp shrugged a shoulder again, sealing his mouth shut.
Sanji looked at Usopp, a frown set on his face, "We've been on the sea for years."
Usopp nodded, "Yeah."
"And you get up, in the dead of night, and do this? Alone?"
"Yup," Usopp murmured popping the 'p,' loudly.
"What do you do with the cake?" Sanji asked looking back at Usopp's new creation. It had to be three-layered. It was a hearty cake.
"Eat it in a private place, before anyone knows," Usopp mutters again, and then laughs, "Always makes me super sick."
Sanji is hugging Usopp before he is aware he wants to. Usopp hesitates, but then clings to him. Sanji, spotless, clings to the dirty young man in his arms, Usopp's strong arms somehow foreign to the Usopp in Sanji's mind's eye. In his head, Usopp is still small, still scared and unsure, and still needing protection. This Usopp is stronger now, and surer of himself, he really doesn't need to be coddled. But Sanji squeezes him, thinks of the years Usopp had spent alone, sneakily making a cake to honor his mother, and thinks Usopp could still use a little protecting.
Or at least some support.
"Ask. Any time you want to bake... just.... just ask! It can't interrupt our mealtimes, but I'm not going to stop you from doing a family tradition," Sanji says, voice thick.
Usopp trembles against Sanji a little, and nods his head. The, 'thanks,' he mutters is very faint and weak, but Sanji hears it.
They push away from each other, and Sanji looks at the cake, so Usopp can hide his tears. He's seen Usopp cry before, but knows Usopp would appreciate him not looking now.
Usopp clears his throat and picks up a knife, and Sanji gasps as Usopp cuts into the cake.
"No!"
Usopp laughs at Sanji's horror, "It can't last forever, let's eat up."
Sanji sighs, knowing Usopp is right, but still... he's a little sad to see the cake cut so soon. It should be displayed for longer, or allowed to set up in the fridge. He shakes his head with regret as Usopp offers him a slice. Sanji takes the extended cake and then asks, "Are you sure I can have a piece?"
Usopp cuts himself a slice, toppling it gently on the plate. A flower smooshes, and Sanji mourns again. Usopp smiles, "Your hard work deserves a reward! Besides... I'd like to hear what you think. I've had to guess at the measurements, but this is just like figuring out gunpowder ratios..."
Sanji snorts, "Ah, so baking is just edible chemistry to you?"
Usopp grins, his eyes still brimmed with unshed tears. He waggles his eyebrows and adds, "Most of my ammo is just edible chemistry."
They share a quiet laugh.
Sanji takes a bite. It is plain vanilla, and a little denser than he likes, but it is decent. Good, even. With some coaching in flavor, Usopp could make his cake taste as exceptional as it looks. He smiles, "...Maybe next year I could help you change the flavor. Lemon? Or even rose and saffron to go with your theme..."
Usopp blushes, "You'd... you'd like to do this again with me?"
Sanji nods, taking another bite, scooping up a half bloomed yellow rose on his fork. He examines the piece before grinning back at the sniper, "If you'll let me."
Usopp puffed up his chest, "Why the great Captain Usopp, famous Pâtissier amongst the beautiful mermaids in all the sea, would be glad to have you along!" He took an exaggerated bite of his cake, and added, "It's easier to eat a cake between two people anyway."
Sanji swallows his chunk, a gentle gaze landing on Usopp's face, "You don't want to share this cake with the crew?"
Some of Usopp's bravado deflates, and his hand trembles a little as he takes another bite, "N-Not... not this year."
Sanji nods, and runs a hand over Usopp's back. He lets them have peace for another few minutes. Sanji keeps his hand on Usopp's back the whole time.
When Sanji's piece of cake is gone, he picks up a dishtowel and swats it at Usopp's face, "Clean my kitchen up! I'll work on the cake. it better be sparkling by the time I finish my half."
"But! But-"
Sanji leveled a glare at Usopp, "You messed it up, you clean it! And chop, chop! Or Luffy's gonna know who to be mad at when breakfast is delayed!"
Usopp jumped up, and rushed for the utility closet, tripping over his feet in his hurry. Sanji snickered and turned back to the cake. Picking up the spatula Usopp had used to shape a gently sloping leaf, Sanji tries to turn it upwards. He ruins it as soon as he touches it.
He shook his head, marveling at Usopp's skill again.
Usopp was an artist.
Usopp cried out as he spilled half a bucket of water on the floor.
He was lucky this cake was so astounding, or he'd be a dead artist for the dreadful state of Sanji's kitchen!
"You better not scratch my floors!" Sanji growled in warning, stabbing another piece of cake.
He feels a little bit of pleasure from Usopp's worried whimper.
#kazi fanfic#one piece#Usopp#Sanji#Sanuso#kinda. more subtle#friendship#cooking with feelings#giving support#toucha angst
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Ten Sides (Part 14)
“Where’s the bison anyways?” Azula asks.
“I took a boat to get here.” Aang replies.
“Well that’s inconvenient.”
“I figured that I’d be mostly staying on facility grounds so there was no point in bringing Appa.”
“In that case, I suppose that it would be impractical to bring the...Appa along.”
“You do have enough coin to pay for a ship ride back to the Capital, yes?”
“Umm, well, I have something better.”
Azula sighs, “Let me guess, ‘I’m the Avatar so you will let me board this vessel.’”
“First of all, don’t tell me that you haven’t used the princess card. Second of all, I would have said something like, ‘I’m the Avatar so can I please ride on this ship?’”
“You’re too soft.” She mumbles.
At last they reach the end of the jungle. It gives way to a small fishing village that smells of freshly cooked fish and spices, saffron, nutmeg, and ginger mostly. The atmosphere is lively with traditional song, the beating of a drum and clanking of jewelry as a performer dances. It is rich with Fire Nation culture, he wishes that he could spend some more time here but he assumes that Azula is growing impatient, even if she carefully concealed it away.
“He could have just sent me here or something.” Azula grumbles. “It would have done me better.”
At this he chances asking, “can we stop to get some real food?”
“I thought that you didn’t have any coin.”
“Watch this!” He grins. He sprints off to the nearest eatery, looks over his shoulder to make sure that the princess is still watching, and says to the man at the counter, “I’ll show you some neat airbending tricks for a meal!”
“If I wanted a street performance I would go over there.” He points at the dancer and her entourage. “She’s more attractive.”
Azula wanders up behind. “How about a meal for your princess.” She lazily drawls.
“Sure.” He replies. “If she were here.”
Aang is surprised that she doesn’t visibly recoil. She doesn’t even flinch. Though he imagines that she is, inwardly. He can’t imagine that this has done her shaken confidence any favors.
She shrugs, “if you say so. I’ll be sure to send someone to teach you some respect once I get back to the palace.”
“Azula!” He exclaims, though the man’s face is quite priceless. “You can’t just punish people for...for not believing you.”
“I can.” She replies. “I am the princess.”
“At least you know that this man doesn’t stand for imposters, right?” He tries. Though her bluntness is reassuring. Her manner of speech leaves him feeling optimistic about her recovering from her time with Sangyul so he won’t hassle her too much for it.
Azula shrugs, “I suppose. But that doesn’t get me my smoked crab legs.”
“Is that all you want?” The man asks.
She nods. “Season it heavily and add a touch of pepper.”
“And I’ll have…” Aang starts
“What she’s having.” The man fills in. “I don’t give out free meals to just anyone.”
“Not even the Avatar.”
“Do you know how many Avatars I see? And they all just so happen to be with tourist groups.” He pauses. “Though this is the first time I’ve seen an Avatar and a Princess Azula together. Think of this dish as a reward for creativity.” He hands a platter of crab legs to Azula.
“It is the truth.” She assures him.
“Thank you.” Aang smiles and tugs her away before she can argue. He leads her to the nearest table and sits down.
“I am Azula.” She frowns. “I...am I not acting like it?”
Aang laughs, “trust me, I’ve never heard you sound more like you.”
“Then why would he question me?”
“Probably because he never expected Princess Azula to show up in such a small town. Your haircut probably doesn’t help.”
Azula combs her fingers through her hair.
“Trust me, no one ever believes me when I say that I’m the Avatar. How do you think that we managed to stay on Ember Island without getting caught?”
She seems to stare off for a moment before picking out a crab leg.
“Just so you know, I agree.” He says upon sitting down.
“With what?”
“That it would have done you much better to send you to a village like this. There’s fresh air and lively people. You could have gotten to know a few people, make some friends. It could have been relaxing and you could have learned how to cook and...” He trails off. “But would you really have stayed if he did?”
“No.” She shrugs. “But he could have had you act as a monitor.”
“And you would have been okay with that?”
“Absolutely not.” She snaps off part of a cooked crab leg and pops it into her mouth.
He chuckles. “I didn't think so.”
“It still would have been better than Sangyul.”
“Hey, wanna go watch the street performer?”
“We have to focus.”
“We’ve been focusing and working hard since we broke out.” Aang pouts. “I think that we could both use a break. I can anyways.”
.oOo.
Just as he was unable to charm his way into a free meal, Aang had no luck procuring them a ship ride home. He did, however, swipe some parchment and paint. He’d left it to her to steal a messenger hawk. She watches him scrawl out a request to Zuko to have a ship or some coins to buy one sent to them.
She doesn’t enjoy having to sit still and wait. Though she supposes that it is a necessary inconvenience. A ship sent from the palace would be much more comfortable than some rickety vessel from a small port town.
She questions Aang’s decision to spend the night on the beach as lays back and listens to the waves crash against the sand. Sand that she has taken special care not to step upon, the last thing she needs is sand in her hair and clinging to her skin to add to the discomforts she already has.
Granted most of the discomforts come from within.
He has already assured her that it has nothing to do with her own demenor and yet she can’t put it out of her mind the man’s blatant dismissal of her royal status. No one has questioned her identity, no one that she hadn’t wanted to. But this man refused to believe that the woman before him could possibly be his princess. And it must be something that she is missing. Something that she lacks that she hadn’t before.
Maybe she has come across as too timid. Maybe she simply hadn’t been as imposing as she used to be…
And she couldn’t even flash her fire to put him in his place.
The waves give a particularly loud crash and she rubs her hands over her face. But the Avatar had assured her that she has sounded more like herself than she has in a very long time. Yet, since when did she have to depend on his opinion to form her own. Her nerves leave her queasy.
She wishes that, that was the only thing that has left her rattled.
There is something else. Something that leaves her disoriented with dread. Something that comes to the surface each time Aang does something either bold or comforting. It is only a little thing, an itch in her mind. A feeling that, even after so much time, the Avatar is still there in her mind. Somehow still lingering. Why else would Ai-Emi still be flitting about in her mind, gently imploring her to pursue the Avatar?
It isn’t her.
It can’t be.
Azula can’t be smitten with anyone, much less the Avatar.
And yet there is something enticing about the boy’s dark, do-what-needs-doing side, about his bold readiness to confront and argue with her. About his willingness to give her the harsh push that she had needed to find herself. That side of him, that sinister, brazen side of him is rather admirable. Appealing. That surprising cunningness that she hadn’t expected of him…
She shakes her head. She she doesn’t understand why she can’t be rid of those soft shades of pink that he has put into her spirit energy.
It is no wonder the man hadn’t recognized her. She still can’t recognize parts of herself. She still hasn’t reclaimed herself in full.
She isn’t sure if it is more or less comforting to think that her mind is still touched over thinking that these feelings might be wholly and indisputably her own--the unintended by product of opening herself up to someone who truly seems to care for her.
She curls herself up beneath a palm tree and hugs her knees to her chest. Somehow she thinks that her feelings are indeed all her own. She wishes that she could know. She wishes that they hadn’t shaken her sense of self so terribly.
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The scarlatinas are a big family with aunts and cousins visiting a lot right? Have you got an idea of how their house looks? (also could you release the Scarlatina family descriptions you gave me to the public?)
well, really the scarlatina family isn’t big in the, uh, family tree sense; it’s not like Velvet has 100+ cousins and that sort of stuff, but they’re big in the sense that they all live together, hjdshkjfsd. so it’s a big household! sixteen people! it’s nothing to sniff at! so the aunts and cousins dont visit, really, because they literally live next door, lmao.
the scarlatina homestead is split into two houses that keep getting added to every once in a while. the bigger one (aka the first) has georgette, rajah, taffeta, ash, chiffon, velvet, satin and hickory live there, whilst the second (rapidly growing) house has cotton, tenné, hawthorn (+ hawthorn’s wife, saffron, and their kid, fir), ramie (+ her wife, auburn) and birch. that said, the houses pretty much act as one, and people tend to drift in and out of either of em at will.
the houses are similar in terms of their footprint, since they sorta both evolved abt the same time for the same needs (oh shit a kid oh shit a marriage oh shit ANOTHER kid), and save for two smaller second storeys for storage/spare room needs, almost the entire thing is on the ground floor (heat rises, baby). they share a big old shed/workshop which ash lingers in CONSTANTLY, as well as two little gardens where they grow their own produce. they also have some solar panels and a huge windmill out front, both of which usually power their houses since they don’t typically draw a TON of energy, though they do have a generator that runs on fuel as a backup.
okay if we’re describing the whole family im gonna shunt this under a cut this goes on for a while dsfjhgjhskfgd
GEORGETTE SCARLATINA: the matriarch of the family! well, sorta; she’s let her own daughters sort of have run of the place in her stead, because she’s “retired” now and that means she mostly sits back and enjoys not Working all the time. back in her heyday the woman was an absolutely powerhouse, 24/7 on the grind, but even now she’s very… well, she’s still a force to be reckoned with, really, and whilst she isn’t uuuuuuuh Strict, per se, she’s very disciplined, and no matter what her kids and grandkids choose to do, she expects them to really throw themselves into it. weiss is both terrified of her and desperately wants her approval, which isn’t hard to get, but weiss is, how they say, dumbass. georgette is also the reason why taffeta and cotton are… Like That. like what? stubborn loud fuzzy taking zero shit, etc,
RAJAH SCARLATINA: scarlatina women seem to always land themselves timid men and nobody is sure how, or why, but georgette wasnt the first to start this trend and shes def not the one to end it. rajah is pretty mild-mannered, but like georgette, never rested when people needed help. he and ash (and tenné) get on real well because they’re happy enough to mind their own Fuckin Business whilst their wives barrel around with all the grace of rampaging bulls. still, rajah’s also very much a product of his time as an early settler to menagerie; he’s never really… happy with everything, because they lost so much leaving for this shithole, so he’s always kinda… mildly sad about stuff, but the same can be said of any faunus his age tbh.
COTTON SCARLATINA: the older of the two Scarlatina Daughters, cotton is… manic. full of energy, always looking to burn it off. she’s an optimist at heart since she and taffeta came to menagerie when they were ten and therefore are more accustomed to the island, and her primary objective is making a good home and a good start for the family. she’s not too interested in politics or revolution, mainly because she’s the type of woman who plans by meals and mouths to feed, if u get me. she’s also pretty smug because her side of the family are rly growing up (TWO wives. a GRANDKID. its ALL COMING UP COTTON) and it means she gets to spend more time doing stuff she’s passionate abt!!!!!!! nice!!!!!!!!
TENNÉ SCARLATINA: i put an accent on his name and i regret it every day of my life. anyway. tenné isn’t entirely sure how he ended up with just The Most scarlatina, but he did and, well, there’s no backing out now. tenné‘s a deer faunus and was around cotton’s age when he and his family moved with the scarlatinas to menagerie, so he and cotton have always been close. he’s very patient and doesn’t always have a lot to say, but he and cotton are a great team when it comes to managing the entire homestead together. again, he’s not a political type, and just wants to keep his corner of things safe in uncertain times. he always pretty rarely leaves the homestead for anything, so he’s also kinda reclusive, but so is cotton! it all works out!
HAWTHORN SCARLATINA: i won’t go into the partners lest i Die but hawthorne is the eldest child of cotton and tenné. got antlers like his da, and he’s a pretty big fellow by scarlatina standards (that is to say, not thin enough to fly away in a stiff breeze). hawthorn is… well, long and short, he’s a himbo, but he’s also a pretty devoted homesteader (this is a trend! watch this space). his wife, saffron, was from desert sands and they’d been dating for a While before they got married, and they’re the first to have kids of all the first-gen* scarlatinas. he’s got cotton’s love of the family and tenné’s sort of quiet offset nature, though he was pretty rowdy as a kid (he grew out of that once velvet broke his nose tho).
RAMIE AND BIRCH SCARLATINA: twins! twins! oh my god! twins!!! fraternal twins!!!
ramie is the older of the two (my friends who were w/ me when we played the RWBY ttrpg will Remember Her) and she’s. well she’s surprisingly enough like taffeta that cotton jokes that clearly she’s gone and had the wrong kid. she’s very Firm abt things and has a way of naturally corralling people to follow after her, if only because this bitch has enough common sense for herself and, like, five people. she was also voted Best Lesbian Cousin five years in a row, and she and auburn get on like a house on fire. they’re also very into PDA, don’t mind them.
birch is the younger of the two and ramie always calls them the emo one. they’re not really so much into people as they are into their crafts and their plants (their bedroom looks like a greenhouse dont mind them) and they have tenné’s nature and georgette’s focus on working all the goddamn time. they’re good company is you strike up convo in the areas they have interest in, but sometimes it’s like talking to a brick wall. ramie is very fluent in their noncommittal grunts of disinterest, though.
FIR SCARLATINA: he’s one year old. he’s a baby. idk shit.
TAFFETA SCARLATINA: here’s the bitch we’ve all been waiting for
taffeta is like georgette if georgette was somehow more like herself. whereas the other half of the family are more core to the values of the clan, taffeta’s a tribe woman, and when she wakes up in the morning her focus is always on the wider community. taffeta’s very much just a machine of intent; she farms, she builds, she repairs, she trades, she gives, she travels, she does SO much and she’s very much the face of the family at present (which is why ppl hear the name ‘scarlatina and go ‘oh god’ w/o realising the other half wont bother u even slightly djsfggjsdfh). she’s STURDY she’s FLUFFY and she has zero qualms abt putting u in a headlock if u deserve one. dont test her. that said, taffeta’s a very reasonable woman; i’ll eventually go more into that at some nebulous point in the future hdjsgfjghksfd
ASH SCARLATINA: it’s everyone’s favourite da! i’ll TRY and keep this short. ash (MUCH LIKE THE MEN SO FAR) is just. so chilled out. can everyone PLEASE be quiet. well, he didn’t used to be – ash lived in kuo kuana before meeting taffeta and had such severe anxiety abt crowds that the boy could barely put a sentence together, let alone much else, not in the scarlatina household, he’s very calm and hard to ruffle. ash really just likes to do his thing, which is everything taffeta doesn’t do; he cooks, he watches the kids, he fixes stuff in the workshop, and he’s big into photography of the family, which is where velvet gets it from! ash is basically taffeta’s counterbalance, but being with her means he’s also become pretty well known about the town (if not for. entirely the reasons you think,)
CHIFFON SCARLATINA: the eldest of ash and taffeta’s kids! chiffon is a weird one; she takes a lot after ash in that she’s pretty reserved and doesn’t let a lot bother her, and when stuff does bother her, she expresses it pretty quietly. also, unlike her cousins who are all homebodies, chiffon was the first kid to actually leave the homestead for kuo kuana to work on the docks during a biiiig overhaul and extension of the boardwalk. she wanted to get out and see the world, but human tourists really out her off the idea, so after about a year and a bit she ended up returning home where she’s stayed ever since. after taffeta retires, she’ll probably be the next face people know and relate to the name scarlatina, tbh.
VELVET SCARLATINA: do i. do i have to say anything about her. you KNOW this bitch. anyway. velvet’s got taffeta’s stubborn sense and ash’s compassion, wants to travel like chiffon, has enough determination to just keep going when it gets her down. extremely stupid. herbo energy. trans jock. has fists will punch. fluffy. fuzzy. hot. dumbass. seriously, do i have to say anything else?
SATIN SCARLATINA: it’s a baby! just kidding, she’s 11. satin is pretty young but she’s at that age where she’s tryna figure out the world for herself. she’s already shaping up to be a lot like taffeta – bold and brash and determined – and much like her older siblings, politics is already playing into her interests. satin really wants to see vale and her tribelands, but after what happened to velvet at uni, taffeta’s trying to… well, not talk her out of it, but encourage her, gently, to reconsider. it’s not working. she and chiffon get on spectacularly well, and she and velvet get on ever better.
HICKORY SCARLATINA: okay, NOW baby. well………. okay, yeah, he’s 7. hickory is a little dreamer, never really in the present. he’s super into making stuff and helping out the adults around the homestead, and he’s not really noticed enough to be infuriated like satin, so he’s got that youthful, uh, innocence, let’s say, that means right now? life is GREAT! eventually he’ll find out that no, it’s not all that great, tbh, but right now he’s a champ at feeding the rabbits, pulling up veggies, and finishing his plate. good job hickory!
AND THAT’S THE FAM (save for the inlaws). theyre great and i think abt em all the time. could u tell? could u tell, sharkie,
*so i looked up the whole ‘generations’ thing to check if i was right and it turns out both first-gen and second-gen have incompatible definitions (thanks america) but for the sake of not going nuts, all of cotton’s and taffeta’s kids r first gen and fir is second-gen. u could also argue cotton and taff are first-gen on account of being pretty young when they came to menag but honestly it’s too complicated. lets just leave it at that sdfjhgksdf
#rwby#ask#the scarlatina family#murphy's lore compendium#that's the tag for it now lmao#god this took FOREVER#subw00f3r
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What D and D should have included in Daenerys’ arc but didn’t...
1) Her ordering the Unsullied to kill all freeborn teenage boys (those wearing a tokar) in Astapor. And then showing them killing those children - because teenagers are still children!
"Unsullied!" Dany galloped before them, her silver-gold braid flying behind her, her bell chiming with every stride. "Slay the Good Masters, slay the soldiers, slay every man who wears a tokar or holds a whip, but harm no child under twelve, and strike the chains off every slave you see." She raised the harpy's fingers in the air . . . and then she flung the scourge aside. "Freedom!" she sang out. "Dracarys! Dracarys!" (ASoS, Daenerys III)
2) Dany not only allowing people to sell themselves into servitude but also taking a portion of the profits from the sales. Thus she becomes part of the slave trade without even realizing it.
“My queen?” Daario stepped forward. “The riverside is full of Meereenese, begging leave to be allowed to sell themselves to this Qartheen. They are thicker than the flies. "Dany was shocked. "They want to be slaves?” “The ones who come are well spoken and gently born, sweet queen. Such slaves are prized. In the Free Cities they will be tutors, scribes, bed slaves, even healers and priests. They will sleep in soft beds, eat rich foods, and dwell in manses. Here they have lost all, and live in fear and squalor.” “I see.” Perhaps it was not so shocking, if these tales of Astapor were true. Dany thought a moment. “Any man who wishes to sell himself into slavery may do so. Or woman.”She raised a hand. “But they may not sell their children, nor a man his wife.” “In Astapor the city took a tenth part of the price, each time a slave changed hands,” Missandei told her. “We’ll do the same,” Dany decided. Wars were won with gold as much as swords. “A tenth part. In gold or silver coin, or ivory. Meereen has no need of saffron, cloves, or zorse hides.” (ASoS, Daenerys VI)
3) Dany’s rare moments of insight and self-doubt, the moments where she recognizes her brutality but then justifies them to herself or represses them.
She had them nailed to wooden posts around the plaza, each man pointing at the next. The anger was fierce and hot inside her when she gave the command; it made her feel like an avenging dragon. But later, when she passed the men dying on the posts, when she heard their moans and smelled their bowels and blood … Dany put the glass aside, frowning. It was just. It was. I did it for the children. (ASoS, Daenerys VI)
Dany remembered the horror she had felt when she had seen the Plaza of Punishment in Astapor. I made a horror just as great, but surely they deserved it. Harsh justice is still justice. (ASoS, Daenerys VI)
“I made a horror just as great!”
All my victories turn to dross in my hands, she thought. Whatever I do, all I make is death and horror. ... The way before her was fraught with hardship, bloodshed, and danger. Ser Jorah had warned her of that. He'd warned her of so many things . . . he'd . . . No, I will not think of Jorah Mormont. (ASoS, Daenerys VI)
Mother of dragons, Daenerys thought. Mother of monsters. What have I unleashed upon the world? A queen I am, but my throne is made of burned bones, and it rests on quicksand. Without dragons, how could she hope to hold Meereen, much less win back Westeros? I am the blood of the dragon, she thought. If they are monsters, so am I. (ADwD, Daenerys II)
4) What happened in Astapor AFTER she left for Meereen. They should have showed us this, not just told us - and they did neither.
The master of the Indigo Star was Qartheen, so he wept copiously when asked about Astapor. "The city bleeds. Dead men rot unburied in the streets, each pyramid is an armed camp, and the markets have neither food nor slaves for sale. And the poor children! King Cleaver's thugs have seized every highborn boy in Astapor to make new Unsullied for the trade, though it will be years before they are trained." (ASoS, Daenerys VI)
Frog would be glad to put Astapor behind him. The Red City was the closest thing to hell he ever hoped to know. The Yunkai'i had sealed the broken gates to keep the dead and dying inside the city, but the sights that he had seen riding down those red brick streets would haunt Quentyn Martell forever. A river choked with corpses. The priestess in her torn robes, impaled upon a stake and attended by a cloud of glistening green flies. Dying men staggering through the streets, bloody and befouled. Children fighting over half-cooked puppies. The last free king of Astapor, screaming naked in the pit as he was set on by a score of starving dogs. And fires, fires everywhere. He could close his eyes and see them still: flames whirling from brick pyramids larger than any castle he had ever seen, plumes of greasy smoke coiling upward like great black snakes. When the wind blew from the south, the air smelled of smoke even here, three miles from the city. Behind its crumbling red brick walls, Astapor was still asmolder, though by now most of the great fires had burned out. Ashes floated lazy on the breeze like fat grey snowflakes. (ADwD, The Windblown)
5) Her authorizing the torture of the wineseller’s daughters.
Mercy, thought Dany. They will have the dragon's mercy. "Skahaz, I have changed my mind. Question the man sharply." "I could. Or I could question the daughters sharply whilst the father looks on. That will wring some names from him." "Do as you think best, but bring me names." Her fury was a fire in her belly. (ADwD, Daenerys II)
6) They should have SHOWED us the sack of Meereen:
She heard the city fall from half a league away, though, when the defenders’ shouts of defiance changed to cries of fear. Her dragons had roared as one in that moment, filling the night with flame. The slaves are rising, she knew at once. My sewer rats have gnawed off their chains.
When the last resistance had been crushed by the Unsullied and the sack had run its course, Dany entered her city. The dead were heaped so high before the broken gate that it took her freedmen near an hour to make a path for her silver. Joso’s Cock and the great wooden turtle that had protected it, covered with horsehides, lay abandoned within. She rode past burned buildings and broken windows, through brick streets where the gutters were choked with the stiff and swollen dead. Cheering slaves lifted bloodstained hands to her as she went by, and called her “Mother.” (ASoS, Daenerys VI)
These details would have made her descent into darkness more coherent but they wanted to have their cake and eat it too... They wanted the “badass” YAS KWEEN moments that powered the marketing of the show - but they also wanted her descent into villainy. And thus we got a narrative arc that zig-zagged between extremes of heroism and villainy in a way that had a large portion of the audience confused.
Her story is a tragedy where she ends up becoming what she originally opposed - all because her methods were as brutal as the people she fought against. She has become what she abhorred because she chose to fight inhuman brutality with her own brand of inhuman brutality. That is utterly tragic but it wasn’t something that happened overnight and not just because she lost loved ones. It was a path she stepped on when she decided to treat the Masters just as inhumanely as they treated their slaves. She didn’t rise above their brutality and savagery, she joined them - and that is her tragedy.
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and the spider lilies bloomed in the fall (chapter 18)
Rating: T
Warnings: Violence
Pairing: Gin/Ran
Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10, Chapter 11, Chapter 12, Chapter 13, Chapter 14, Chapter 15, Chapter 16, Chapter 17, Chapter 18
“They say that lovers doomed never to see each other again still see the higanbana growing along their path, even to this day.”
A girl collapses on a dusty road one day. A boy takes her home.
The girl lives.
—
(The boy doesn’t.)
Even weeks later, Ayame could not leave the subject alone. She brought the subject of Rangiku's victory up so frequently and so loudly that Rangiku had developed a scheme to feign deafness whenever Ayame started up.
"I just don't understand why you wouldn't-" Ayame would huff.
"What? I'm sorry, Ayame-chan, but I-"
"I said that I just don't understand why-"
"SORRY, AYAME-CHAN, BUT SUDDENLY IT'S VERY HARD TO HEAR ANYTHING. I think I might have blocked ears!" Rangiku would cheerfully lie.
Ayame would glare. "Don’t be so immature. You can't just pretend to be deaf to avoid conversations you don't want to hear."
Rangiku would momentarily pause in her efforts to mop the floor, and squint at her, digging at her ears. "SORRY, AYAME-CHAN, WHAT DID YOU SAY? I SAID I CAN'T HEAR YOU."
And Ayame would throw her cleaning rag down and storm off, leaving Rangiku grinning widely in her wake.
Whatever illness it was that Ayame seemed to have been suffering from also seemed to have passed. She was adamant that the vomiting spells which had plagued her were just her stomach adjusting to the inclusion of Rangiku into the cooking roster, reasoning which everyone else could quite easily buy, though which Rangiku herself contested hotly.
"There is no kitchen curse!" she would shout angrily. "You're just picking on me, like you always do!"
Regardless, one morning a little over a month after Rangiku's fight with the shinigami student, Chiyo had taken a long, hard look at Ayame, taking the girl’s jaw in one lined hand and examining her with brow-knitted intensity.
Ayame had gone pale and still, her eyes wide with fear as she suffered Chiyo's scrutiny.
"You've not been looking well lately, Ayame," Chiyo had said, slowly. "It's been too long since you've had a rest, I think. Take the morning to go into town. I have some things I need you to pick up."
Ayame had crumpled then with the release of that strange tension, and relief had filled her eyes.
"Of course," she had said weakly, her eyes darting to the door as she did so. "Thank you, Chiyo-san." She had made to leave as quickly as possible.
"Ayame," Chiyo had called after her serenely. At the sound of Chiyo's voice, Ayame had frozen in place.
To Rangiku, watching on, it had made for an odd spectacle indeed.
"Take Rangiku with you," Chiyo had said pensively. "It wouldn't do for you to take ill on the road on your own."
"Y-" Ayame had cleared her throat nervously. "Yes, Chiyo-san. We’ll leave straight away."
Which was how Rangiku suddenly found herself following Ayame through the streets of the fourteenth district, aching with a sense of sudden, dizzying freedom.
It was only seldom that she left the confines of the Floating Moon, and every time she did, she felt the openness of the sky towering dizzily above her. It was strange, but she never felt imprisoned until she was allowed out into the open, where suddenly she found she could breathe more easily. Today, the air was thick with water vapour and overripe with the potential for a storm.
As she breathed in, she breathed in water; the air felt wet and heavy and it lay on the two as they walked, clinging and soft, like an embrace. The sky was iron dark and gray, but it did little to suppress the energy humming under Rangiku's skin. If anything, the dark shadows on the horizon just made the bright leaves of autumn even more beautiful, and Rangiku more appreciative.
In fourteenth, the district had had the means somewhere down the line to plant decoratively- the elegant palm fan leaved gingko trees were beginning to turn butter yellow and the maple trees were sporting shocks of red and fierce orange. The air painted everything in soft focus, muting and blurring the edges of everything solid until it was as hazy and indistinct as a dream.
As Rangiku walked, she raised her arm up and let her fingertips brush against low-lying leaves the color of the sun rise, and she smiled softly to herself in the descending mist.
The sky was dark- so dark- but everywhere, the world was turning to gold.
I'm going to live beautifully, she thought suddenly.
Even if I have nothing else in the world. Even if I'm abandoned time and time again. Even if everyone says that I'm naïve and empty-headed. I'll live with my head held high and my fingers touching gold, and if I can do that, it will have been a life worth living. There is beauty everywhere for those who care to look, and I'm going to find it.
It was a secret vow she whispered to herself, and she held it close to her chest, tucked next to her heart with all the other small and profound things of which she was comprised- the taste of dried persimmons, abrupt kindness to a fallen enemy, the sound of a party in full swing. She felt warm, suddenly, in spite of the damp chill.
Even in the gray light, Ayame looked healthier, as if even just a morning off was good for her soul.
Rangiku was glad to see it. The past few weeks had given Ayame a wan, thin cast to her face.
"Ayame-chan," she called out happily, "I have money for mochi. Would you like some? We could get some tea to go with it."
It was testament to the heady power of a morning off that Ayame hesitated even for a moment. But in the end, not even a morning's freedom could curb Ayame's natural tendency to always, sensibly, obey the rules.
"We should do Chiyo's chores first, Rangiku-chan," she said, though a note of wistfulness was threaded through her voice. "Maybe once we're done with those though."
"I'm going to buy matcha flavoured mochi," Rangiku announced boisterously. "Matcha mochi, yuzu tea." She paused. "Matcha mochi, yuzu tea, and maybe a new ribbon from the market." She bounced slightly on her heels in giddiness. "Where do we have to go for Chiyo's stuff? What does she need us to get?"
"Lye soap, for laundry; jasmine oil for the bath."
"Do you know where we need to go for those? Where on earth do you buy jasmine oil?" Rangiku asked quizzically.
"Chiyo only ever gets the cheap stuff. There's a florist over on the corner that gives Chiyo a cheap price for her loyalty. That's where we'll go."
The inhabitants of the fourteenth were better heeled than the inhabitants of Rangiku's home district. By no means was anyone rich- certainly not by the standards of Seireitei nobility- but the inhabitants all had shoes, and looked to bathe at least semi-regularly.
There were no children with hollow, empty eyes and naked backs here; no curdling stream of filth running through the street. Whores here did not heckle and solicit on street corners, but were obliged by law only to operate within certain areas of the district, over clean waters and arched bridges the colour of saffron.
The women went about with wooden combs in their hair, their healthy bodies draped in cheap cotton yukatas of every colour. It was rare to see a mouth of cracked and calcified teeth, and rarer still to see the pock-marked, poverty-disfigured faces which had been the norm where she came from.
It had been over two years since Rangiku had last felt rain dribbling on her face through a threadbare roof. Over two years since she'd had to bathe in a river. Over two years since she'd had only one stained, ripped and patched yukata to wear.
Sometimes she wondered whether the stains and watermarks of that old life were branded onto her soul, evident for anyone with keen enough sight to see. Would she always walk through busy streets with her fists clenched, ready to swing? Would she always scan dark corners and alleyways for the next attack? Would it show in her manners, in her speech? Was the dirt and shame caked on so thick and deep that she could never be rid of it?
Could everyone see it on her face?
And if they could, did that matter?
She was strong, she was young, she was beautiful. She was moving forward, striding forward. That had to count for something.
(But still, she feared those things burnt on her soul- the fears and the anxieties of abandonment and hunger. She feared them because she knew that they still had a hold on her and moved her in incomprehensible ways, like a magnetic field moves a compass needle. She could gather her things in a sack and walk a thousand miles from that place, but something of it would always be inside her; the fear.)
Here and now, she was indistinguishable from any other person living in the fourteenth district. Her clothes were every bit as clean as theirs. I look as if I was born here. she thought fiercely as she and Ayame walked through the cobbled streets. I fit in here. I’ll smack anyone who says otherwise.
There was a rumble of thunder far off.
"Did you feel that?" Ayame asked suddenly. "I think that’s the rain. Did you remember to bring the umbrella?"
"Erm." Rangiku scratched at her head. She had heard that they were to have the morning off and had scrambled excitedly to find her money, like any person with sane, healthy priorities would.
"Rangiku-chan!" Ayame groaned in annoyance.
"Hey!" Rangiku protested hotly. "You have arms! You have legs! Why didn't you bring the umbrella?"
As they were bickering, the sky, thickly filled to saturation with water, finally burst. The rain which dropped fell in fat, heavy droplets which smacked against the ground. Ayame, fussy at the best of times, yelped in shocked outrage.
Rangiku grabbed her by the hand and began to run, overbalancing as she did so.
She only made it a few feet before she felt her arm yank in its socket.
"You're running the wrong way," Ayame shouted, though her voice was drowned out by the rain. Her chestnut coloured hair was stuck to her face with water.
"What?" Rangiku yelled back.
"Oh, for fuck's sake! You're runnin- you're running-" Ayame gave up and grabbed her arm and began to stride in the opposite direction. Rangiku followed blindly, an arm raised above her head to in the hope of some meagre cover.
The florist's was only two streets away, but they were soaked through and breathless by the time they arrived, Rangiku's fumbling with the door adding a good twenty seconds to the time they spent in the rain.
"Great!" Ayame complained, raising her hands in annoyance. "Chiyo gave me the morning off to improve my health, and here I am, soaked through and shivering!" She glared around the shop.
"That's not my fault!" Rangiku protested.
"I didn't say it was!"
"You aimed it in my direction!"
"I know you don't control the weather, Rangiku.” She drew herself up haughtily. “Don't be childish."
Rangiku glared mutinously. "You're not much older than me. I'm sure of it."
The shop assistant coughed politely, a hand as white as porcelain coming up to cover her delicate mouth, but Rangiku was pretty sure she could detect the hint of an amused smile beneath it. Ayame immediately looked mortified; Rangiku continued to shoot daggers at Ayame.
"I am," Ayame tried to smooth her clothes to make herself look a little more dignified, "so sorry about that. We didn't mean to create a scene."
Gin had seemed to make it his life's work to terrorise every shopkeeper he came into contact with. Rangiku hardly thought that raised voices and endless complaining warranted the level of embarrassment that Ayame was displaying.
Color flooded Ayame’s cheeks. "If you don't mind me asking,” she said in a quick bid to move on from the supposed shame of minor public disturbance, “where's Kojima-san? Is she working today? Not we have anything against you-" Ayame added hurriedly- "it's just that she has an understanding with my employer regarding prices, and my employer is very strict about this sort of thing."
There was a quiet, understanding amusement at Ayame's fumbling in the young shop assistant's violet eyes.
"Please don't worry," she said, her voice as soft and sonorous as glass chimes. "Is it the jasmine oil that you're here to purchase? I've been made aware of the arrangement, if so."
"Yes," Ayame said with a sigh of relief. "Yes, that's it. I don't believe we've met before. Have you only just started working here?"
"Six weeks ago," the shop assistant admitted shyly. "I've only just moved here."
"Oh? Did you travel far?”
The shop assistant's ears turned a delicate pink, as if she were about to divulge a shameful secret. "Inuzuri," she murmured, unable to look Ayame in the eyes.
If anyone could understand that feeling, it was Rangiku.
"Shit," she said appreciatively. "That's further than even me, I think, and I lived in the middle of fucking nowhere."
"Rangiku-chan, watch your mouth!" Ayame cried in shock.
"What have I done this time?" Rangiku complained in despair.
The shop assistant laughed then, an awkward, breathy laugh and the flush settled lightly on her cheeks. She looks good laughing, Rangiku thought. Healthier, more alive, more like a person. She smiled to see the woman’s composure waver.
"What's your name, shop assistant from Inuzuri?" she asked warmly.
"Hisana." The woman paused. “Just… Hisana.”
No surname, Rangiku noted pityingly. It was not unusual for those from the poorest districts not to have one.
“I’m Rangiku, and this lovely lady,” she draped a clumsy arm over Ayame, “is Ayame.”
There was a short awkward pause whilst Hisana looked them over, during which the drumming noise of the rain filled the shop.
They were soaked, and their thin yukata had done nothing to prevent them from being soaked through to the skin by the weather. A cold, dim light filled the shop, second-hand light filtered through the rain clouds. Rangiku’s tabi squelched in her sandals as she shifted her weight, her chin raised pridefully as Hisana looked them over.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you both,” Hisana said formally. She looked at them thoughtfully for a beat. “What perfect names you both have for the setting.”
Ayame wrinkled her delicate nose, but it was Rangiku who explained.
“We get that a lot, in our line of work. Men always think they’re so original.” Rangiku put on a comically gruff, masculine voice. “’’Lovely little flowers. I’d love to pluck your petals,’ and all that rubbish. It makes my skin crawl. What losers. They always think they’re so original as well, the smelly goats.”
Hisana looked confused, but was too polite to pry further into their employment histories. It was, Rangiku figured wryly, probably why she worked at a florist and not behind the bar in a whorehouse.
“The rain is pouring down very heavily,” Hisana noted, “and neither of you seem to have an umbrella. Would you like to stay here while the rain eases off? I could make a pot of tea.” There was a desperate look in her eye.
Ayame looked torn- it was very wet outside, but she was uncomfortable imposing too long on someone else’s kindness.
Rangiku had no such qualms.
“Hisana-chan!” she cried out, tripping over her feet in an effort to take Hisana’s hands in her own. “You’re our very own saviour! Thank you!” She barely paused. “Do you have yuzu flavoured tea?”
“Rangiku-chan!” Ayame scolded.
“What? She offered!”
HIsana shook her head regretfully. “I’m afraid we don’t have any yuzu tea. Only standard green tea.” Anxiety entered her voice. “Will that suffice? Is that alright?” she asked, a slight worry in her eyes.
Ayame nodded firmly. “Pay no attention to Rangiku-chan, that klutz. Green tea would be lovely. Thank you for your kindness.”
Whilst Hisana pottered about making tea in the shop’s backrooms, Rangiku took the time to look closely at the wares.
Autumn was just beginning to set in, and the shop had wild bunches of the last of the summer cosmos on display, tied with string, pink and yellow and orange, childishly bright. The elegant, slender petaled chrysanthemum flower that was her namesake was also on display in singles and doubles, and she bent her head down to smell them, her nose filling with their green, aqueous smell. It was usually the second to last flower to bloom in the year. There had been no chrysanthemums growing where she had grown up, and she had scarcely known that she was named for a flower. It wasn’t until Yuki had offered to make her a cup of chrysanthemum tea that she had learned that fact.
As she cast her eyes around, they landed finally on a familiar sight, a scarlet nest of spindly protrusions, grown from a bulb, fierce and scarlet and beautiful.
Her eyes went wide.
He had been full of happy impatience, that day; all smiles and nervous movements. He had wanted to give it to her, that patch of ground, had wanted to make a present of it. She had not known at the time, but it had been his way of saying this is your home, this garden is mine but it is yours too, put something of yourself into it so that you can know that it belongs to you, that you built something here with me, that we were here together.
"This spot is for ya'.” He had said. “Grow whatever ya' want here- onions, scallions, garlic, cress, cabbage. Whatever ya' want."
“Here. Give them to me. I'll carry 'em for ya’."
"They're pretty. This was a good idea ya' had. I wonder what these are?"
“The fox is having his wedding…”
He had given her a spot of her own in the garden in which to grow whatever she’d wanted, and she had wanted flowers. She had raced to the river and dug the flowers out of the riverbed with her bare hands, carrying them back bulb and all.
She had greeted him with mud on her face and arms full of spider lilies, and he had pronounced them beautiful.
He had barely looked at the flowers. She had thought that he must have been lying, just to appease her.
They were the first thing that they had put in the flower bed, and her spider lilies had returned every year after, as constant and steadfast as the rain. They had always bloomed for his birthday, and for hers too, thriving brightly as the world around them was beginning to decay.
It had been so long since she had seen them, and her heart ached all of a sudden for a ramshackle garden and a rundown house, for happy summer days, and for a boy made of smiles and silver, all so far away.
Hisana had returned with the pot of tea, and she poured a cup for each of them. In the damp autumn chill, the steam from the tea condensed quickly, spiralling and smoking in the air.
I need to have one, she thought. She burned with it, suddenly, the need to have some reminder, some memento, some thing that could tie her present to her past, something to convince her that it had been real.
(Because it had been real. Hadn’t it?)
(Hadn’t it?)
“Hisana?” Rangiku asked abruptly. “How much is it for one of these?”
Hisana’s hands flew to her mouth as if she had sparked off a catastrophe.
“Oh,” she said gravely. “I didn’t realise. I’m so sorry for your loss.”
Rangiku’s face contorted in confusion. “Huh?” she asked, her mouth a small ‘o’.
Hisana took her hand gently. “You’ve not lost someone?”
Rangiku blinked. “No…?” She laughed loudly, retracting her hand to thread it nervously through her hair.
“Oh. Then I’m sorry. The higanbana is not a pleasant flower,” Hisana said in a small voice. “We only stock them for O-Higan, so that people might commemorate their loved ones who have passed on.”
Rangiku was silent, her brow wrinkled.
Ayame looked at her gently. “They’re flowers for the dead, Rangiku-chan,” she said. “People put them near graves, so that vermin won’t get at the bodies.”
“I didn’t know that,” Rangiku said quietly, a strange despair curling in her belly. “I always just thought that they were pretty.”
Hisana was a kind soul, and she rallied quickly to try and brighten Rangiku’s spirits.
“They are very pretty, and they do look interesting. There aren’t many flowers that look like a spider lily, and not many flowers at all grow so late in the year. And there are so many stories about them. They’re interesting flowers really.” She smiled enthusiastically.
Ayame was contemplative.
“They say that once upon a time, the flower was the most sacred flower of all,” she said pensively. “Two spirits were commanded to guard the plant. One guarded the leaves, and the other the flower. But the tragedy was the leaves and the flower can never grow at the same time, so the spirits could never see each other.
But the spirits fell in love anyway, though the stories never tell that part. They decided to run away together, to become everything to one another, defying every law of the gods in the process. The gods raged at their disobedience, as all gods do, drunk and violent in their power, and they decided to punish the lovers for their insolence, for daring to abandon their god-demanded duty.
They would never meet again for all eternity, and never will, not until every star in the sky blackens and sputters out. Not until the sun and moon embrace each other in the sky without covering one another up. Not even then. They say that lovers doomed never to see each other again will still see higanbana growing along their path to this day, because of those two spirits. Red spider lilies.”
Rangiku’s expression must have been strange, because Hisana took her hand gently and looked her in the eyes earnestly.
“They’re just stories, Rangiku-kun,” she said kindly. “It is also said that the higanbana light the way to the next life, for what that’s worth. So they’re not all bad. You shouldn’t let stories get in the way of a pretty thing. If you want one, you should buy one.”
But something of the melancholy of the story had worked its way deep into her heart, and she felt like an empty-headed fool all of a sudden to have liked them so openly and enthusiastically.
Knowing the sad truth behind the lovely scarlet flowers, she was certain that she would never be able to look at them in the same way ever again. Joy in their beauty and all of her fond, sun-lit memories would be tinged forever now with a streak of sadness, like a line of spilled blue ink.
She could not stand the sight of them.
Outside, the drumming of the rain was beginning to slow.
She laughed a bright, fragile laugh, but it sounded a little hollow even to her own ears.
"No, no," she said, "I wouldn't want something as depressing as that in my room, Hisana-chan. Only pink cosmos for me from now on. You've done me a favor in any case, because I was going to spend my money on mochi, not flowers." She grasped around desperately for a change in subject, so that the two women would stop giving her such pitying looks. "Good job that your boss isn't here! What would she think of Hisana actively stopping her customers from buying flowers, eh?"
When she laughed this time, it was more genuine.
Hisana blanched in anxiety.
"It's okay, it's okay," Rangiku said smiling, and sipped at her tea. "We won't tell if you don't."
Ayame glared daggers at Rangiku, who pulled a face at her in return. "When does O-higan start this year, Hisana-san?" she asked, kindly changing the topic for Hisana.
"Tomorrow, actually. It's a little bit later this year, apparently. O-higan follows the movement of the sun, or something like that," Hisana paused thoughtfully. "Or at least, that's what I've heard. It will end on the 29th though."
"Due to the nature of our, ah, work, it's very easy to lose track of time. Days and nights kind of all blur together. September already..." She trailed off suddenly into a fraught silence, looking unsettled, like the end of September heralded a death sentence.
Rangiku had other concerns.
"It's only a week until my birthday!" Rangiku yelped.
Hisana looked very confused.
"I do not know your line of work," she said politely, "but do you not have calendars there?" The question seemed genuine, but Rangiku pointed her finger at her all the same.
"Ayame-chan! Look at this! Hisana-chan has only known us for forty minutes, and she's already giving us sass about our inability to keep track of time. She knows us both so well already!"
Hisana looked shocked, but it only lasted a moment before she broke into a delicate, tinkling laugh. "I don't quite know how to respond to that. Happy birthday then, if I'm not fortunate enough to see you again before next week."
Ayame stood abruptly. "We should go, Rangiku-chan. We have chores to do, and the rain has eased off," she said shortly, her expression stormy.
"Eh? But I was having fun talking " Rangiku complained.
"We shouldn't infringe too long on Hisana-san's hospitality. We're keeping her from her job."
Rangiku was about to protest that the shop was empty, and likely to be empty for the rest of the morning, with the weather being as bad as it was, but she stopped herself when she caught sight of Ayame's troubled features. Her eyes narrowed.
"Okay," she nodded quietly. "Let's go."
If Hisana found their sudden departure rude or unexpected, it did not show on her smooth, polite face. "Don't forget the jasmine oil you ordered," she reminded them courteously.
Ayame looked at her. "Thank you. I might have, had you not reminded me." She paused, and her expression softened slightly. "Thank you so much for giving us shelter from the storm, and for the tea you made us. You didn't need to do that. Kindness is rare, even here. We appreciate it."
Hisana smiled sadly. "I've not met many people since I've moved here.” She ringed her delicate, pale wrists with her hands anxiously. “I left everyo- thing behind in Inuzuri. I spend most of my days here, in the shop, alone. It was nice just to have someone to talk with."
"Then I'll definitely come again when I next have a morning free," Rangiku vowed. Ayame gave her a sharp look, and she swiftly moved to correct her.
"Rangiku-chan doesn't get many mornings off, so that might be difficult," she said smoothly. "But I do. I'll definitely visit."
Rangiku was puzzled, but said nothing. They made their farewells, and left soon after.
As they turned the corner, Rangiku craned her neck to look back. Hisana sat behind the counter, alone. Her pale fingers played slowly with the petals of the spider lily.
It made for a sad picture.
The rain had stopped, but the cobbles on the street were slick with rainwater.
Gigantic puddles stretched across the street and captured the sky in their flat, reflective surfaces. It seemed to Rangiku that there was a second sky right at her feet, that she was walking above it, and that with every step, she might fall through the clouds. It was a dizzying, vertiginous feeling, like standing on the precipice and preparing to let herself fall. Her heart beat an odd, syncopated rhythm against her ribcage, and she could feel her pulse in her neck, and it made her feel slightly sick. A strange sense of unease settled over her.
They walked in silence, Ayame's face tight with some unspoken emotion, Rangiku's eyes downcast.
They bought the lye soap Chiyo requested, and stopped at a market stall so that Rangiku could buy her mochi, but by the time it was time for her to order, she had changed her mind and decided to buy herself hanami dango instead. It was almost time for them to be returning to the Floating Moon, and she figured that it would be more easy to eat dango as they walked across the bridge to get home.
Home.
She was just starting to eat the red bean dango, when Ayame stopped abruptly in front of her. Rangiku was so absorbed in eating that she walked barged into Ayame's back.
Her eyes flashed in irritation. "Hey!" she hissed, outraged. "Don't just stop in the middle of the road! I could have dropped my dango, and then we would have had to go back so that I could buy more." She pouted childishly.
Ayame closed her eyes and inhaled as if trying to reign in her temper. She exhaled steadily, and when she opened her eyes again, she said:
"You and I need to talk. Properly this time. No stupid games."
"I've not done anything wrong," Rangiku insisted immediately.
"No,” she said. “No you haven't. But you're making a huge mistake, Rangiku-chan."
Rangiku looked up from her dango and gave Ayame her full attention. "Hm?" she said, taking a bite.
"You're making a mistake." Ayame repeated quietly.
"What do you mean?" Something twisted nervously inside her at Ayame's tone of voice.
"Why are you here?"
Rangiku didn't understand.
"I work here.”
“No, Rangiku. You know what I mean.”
She didn’t.
“I need to eat, and this job's better than the alternatives,” Rangiku protested weakly. “And anyway, I like it. I like being around you, and Yuki-san, and Sayaka-chan, and Rin-san, and everyone else. I like being useful." To Rangiku, it was simple. She needed to eat, yes, but more than that, much stronger still, though she would never tell Ayame, she knew that she would sooner die than be alone again.
"Rangiku..."
Ayame sighed. Something in her seemed to crumple in on itself then, as if some iron pillar in her had collapsed under an immense weight. She looked Rangiku straight in the eyes, and her brown eyes were bright and almost desperate. Rangiku stared into them uncomprehending, and she tried to smile, to get Ayame to smile with her, but it was no use. Her gaze was almost too uncomfortable to bear.
"Not everyone is as lucky as you," Ayame gritted out. "Not everyone gets a choice. How do you think Yuki got started? She was thrown out of her house because she was found kissing girls, and had nowhere else to go. Sayaka? Sayaka was hooked on drugs when she was too young and trusting to know any better. Rin? Fled a marriage to a prosperous man who nearly killed her. She still has the scars on her back. Rangiku-" Ayame's voice caught in her throat, "don't make the mistake of glamorizing this. All of us were desperate. None of us had a choice. Maybe there are some girls out there who are lucky enough to have a say in whether they do this or not, and frankly, more power to them if they do. But never forget for a moment- for most of us, there is no choice, and there never has been."
Rangiku breath caught in her throat. "Why are you telling me this?" she asked weakly.
"Do you know how many of us get our start? We're sold into it. That's how it was for me, and that's normal." Ayame swallowed. "I've only just paid off my starting debt. I could leave, but there's no other way I'd be able to make money, so I'd just find myself back where I started, on the street. Girls like me- we’re trapped." She paused, and when she spoke, her voice was thick. "But you're not. You could leave today if you wanted. You could leave now. You've got power. You've got prospects. Why don't you understand? Why won’t you leave?"
Rangiku could feel a kind of hot shame curling in her chest. Her voice wavered when she spoke. "But who would keep you safe?" she said, her hands balling up in her yukata. "You need me." She was certain of that. "I keep you safe. You need me."
The look Ayame gave her was unspeakably soft.
Her words were not.
"We don't need you," she said gently. "We were alright before you came, and we'll be alright after you're gone." She paused, and when she repeated herself, she sounded so thoroughly matter of fact that Rangiku wanted to cry. “We don’t need you at all.”
Her cheeks were suddenly wet, and her dango felt sticky against her hand, but she barely noticed.
It's happening again, Rangiku thought dully. Why? Why does this always happen?
She had made this, this small thing for herself, this space of shared jokes and shared nights; she had folded herself inside it, had made herself indispensable to it in the hope that she would not ever have to suffer loneliness again. It was her sandcastle, standing small and proud on the shoreline, the work of childish hands and clumsy labour, and she had smiled to see it, to know that it was hers and hers alone.
But the tide was coming in. There was one truth for her, though never for anyone else it seemed: there could be no security anywhere in the world. Just this: the futile effort of building, building, building, just to see it all swept away in the end.
"That's the truth," Ayame said and her voice cracked. "We don’t need you. You'd never have to see any of the awful things you see regularly here ever again. Do you think it's healthy? To be responsible for the safety of so many people at your age? To have seen the things you've seen?"
Rangiku cheeks burned. Her mind replayed Ayame's words over and over again on repeat; we don't need you.
"Rangiku," Ayame said, her voice low and urgent. "Do you really think Chiyo is content to let someone like you sit around playing barmaid when you could be making her money? When I'm gone, the first thing she'll do is coerce you into whoring yourself out for her in my place. I'm on your side, and I will be even when no one else is- you have to listen to me."
It was this which snapped her attention back to Ayame.
"What do you mean, 'When I'm gone'?" she asked, her voice small and tremulous.
But Ayame was tight-lipped and would not say anymore.
"There is a place for you. Out there, behind those pale stone walls. The new term starts in January. If you aren't there, in that stupid uniform, when it starts-" her voice came out of her throat almost like a sob "-then I'll kick your ass into next Tuesday. I swear it. I will. I don’t have powers, but I’ll do it."
Rangiku was dazed. It felt as if the entire world had tilted sideways, like she had stepped through the clouds and she was falling through space.
"What is happening...?" she mumbled to herself in horrified wonder.
Behind gray clouds, the sun was beginning to dip below the skyline, and the shadows of the golden leaved gingkos and fire-garbed maple trees were beginning to crawl and lengthen over the cobbled street. What little sunlight was to be found played idly on the slow eddies of the river below.
She watched Ayame looked up at the sky, her expression unreadable.
How fragile, this life. How easily it crumbles apart.
Ayame sighed. Ragiku watched her as she readjusted her yukata neatly, as fastidious as ever.
"We'd best get back," she said with distantly. “The gong will be sounding soon.”
She walked ahead, and Rangiku watched her as her green-clad back got smaller and smaller , before finally disappearing around a corner.
Rangiku looked helplessly at the dango in her hand. Her hands were sticky, like a child’s.
With a heavy sigh, she lobbed the stick into the air.
It tumbled several inelegant somersaults before splashing into the water below. She was no longer hungry. She felt sick.
#bleach#ginran#gin ichimaru#rangiku matsumoto#hisana kuchiki#spider lilies#real life is kicking my ass#writing is just... not feasible for me rn#fyi check out gxlden's new fic on AO3#sterling characterisation#places due importance on Gin's relationship with Aizen AND Rangiku#*chef's kiss*
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“He just - dumped a pound of asafetida onto that meal,” the cook whimpers. He survived three years at Denny’s and once worked two 24-hour shifts in a row. The smell coming from the now-empty dining room was unlike anything he had ever known.
“I thought it looked like saffron.” The woman beside him has a cigarette in one hand, and passes it over without a word.
“No. Asafetida is both -.”
“The devil’s dung and the food of the gods.Also a gum, and smells so bad it was a cure-all.” She closes her phone. “And the wandering magician is ignoring his texts, so -.” She turns to the one waiter who hasn’t fled. “Going to need to boring you for a second?”
And the cook stares as old Carlos vanishes from view. The woman takes back the cigarette and finishes it, opening the door and heading back into the restaurant.
“Hi, Charlie,” the boy says between bites.
“Jay. What are you eating?” she asks, somehow not fleeing.
“It’s called qirah and it’s a food from the future that is maybe not a food cuz no one else eats it but! it’s really nummy! Especially with spices since that gives it a kick!”
The cook glimpses the food but once, and after can never even look at a gumbo again. The door closes. The smell does not.
Five minutes later, the smell is gone. Carlos comes back into the kitchen alone.
“Charlie got Jay to depart,” the old man says calmly. “We had to use every spice in the building. I will try and explain this to Ms. Fleur.”
“We did have too many spices,” the cook says weakly.
“We did. Ms. Fleur’s first chef was - a trifle obsessed. Had connections, and supplied all the spices himself so no one could well say no. We will need to adjust many recipes.”
“I - yes.” That almost shook the cook back to normal. “Carlos. The woman. You?”
“I have been with Ms. Fleur since the beginning,” Carlos says mildly. “You have worked in other places, with long-term staff or those who feel like it. Someone or thing always there, like a charm?”
The cook nods.
“Think of me as a household god, but for a business. I can only do small things.Charlie - was able to do more with me, because of what she is. It is not important. You met Jay, which is a wonder, but in time the world will seem normal again.”
“It will?” the cook asks, not certain if this is wanted. Surprised by this.
“The food of the gods is also the devil’s dung. So are adventures also not-adventures, in a way. It is the nature of things to find a balance. There is less growth in that, but more survival.”
The cook nods. This makes sense. And customers are returning. There is work to be done, recipes to make and within the hour all the other staff have returned and things are back to normal.
The cook almost cries later, not quite knowing why. Carlos is nowhere to be seen, but Carlos does help everyone.
The cook clocks out, and goes for a long walk. Everything seems normal, even if it should never seem normal at all. A text is sent, to a friend of a friend, asking for a pound of asafetida to be delivered to the cook’s home without question. Some memories fade, but the experience the cook knows had to be kept. If only as a warning.
#this is jay#who did an entry for the#writerscreedchallenge#all about asafetida and! it's part of the#magician series#too!!!!
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Wednesday, 18th September/Thursday, 19th September 2019 – Restaurant a l’Echevin, Colmar
As part of the deal at the Hostellerie Le Maréchal we had two night’s dinners included (not three, no matter what the young man on reception when we checked in insisted) and although you never know what you might get when it comes to hotel restaurants, in what is clearly paradise for gourmets, Alsace and the restaurant A l’Échevin did not let us down. The first night we drank a glass of local crémant in the bar first, alongside a snack of some rather wonderful pastry straws that were as light as you could wish, which suggested that at least their pastry chef was up to speed.
We then moved into the restaurant and were pleased to be shown to our table (Table 2 apparently) in the long, narrow dining room that overlooked the waters of La Lauch and the barques moored outside. We were slightly less pleased with the acoustics that meant we could hear every word issuing from the irritating couple on the table behind ours (Table 1) but that’s not the hotel’s fault! We were on a set menu with matching wines as part of the deal that the hotel had offered so the decision making process had been largely taken away from us. Now to see if the rest of the brigade could cook as well as the pastry chef. An amuse-bouche of a foie gras paté and an apricot sorbet suggested the answer to that question might well prove to be “yes”.
The menu itself started with what was listed as “Presskopf” of smoked haddock and smoked trout, basically the chef’s take on a regional speciality, brawn, but with fish and not the more usual meat. It was light, delicate, the jelly perfectly set and the herbs just providing a lift of flavour to counteract the oily fish. There were tiny chunks of vegetable alongside the chunks of trout and haddock and it not only looked lovely, it was lovely.
Fillet of pike-perch cooked in Riesling, with mangetout turned out to be a perfectly executed piece of fish, the skin crisp and golden, sitting on top of a bed of mangetout, with a puddle of creamy Riesling inflected sauce. Throw in the odd micro-herb and enjoy! It was also a perfect excuse to rip off a piece of the brilliant bread roll and dunk it in the leftover sauce afterwards. The kitchen was having none of that back!
With both the fish dishes we drank a 2018 Alsace Pinot Blanc from Pierre Henri Ginglinger. The wine comes from a blend of Pinot Auxerrois from different parcels, harvested by hand and fermented over several months before being aged on fine lees. It’s a bright yellow in color, with white-fleshed fruit aromas, and peach notes. We liked it enough to make a note of it and to consider whether we needed to visit the Ginglinger domaine. While we pondered that question, the meat course arrived, a serving of leg of deer with cranberries, cross-border pasta specialty spaetzlés (as the French appear to spell it) and fromage blanc. The meat was cooked to perfection, as were the vegetables and to add a fillip to what might have seemed quite a restrained plate, there was also a “pastilla” full of slow cooked meat to enjoy alongside the pink cooked flesh that we’d been expecting. It was all beautifully executed and we knew we’d made a good choice to eat in the hotel.
A serving of perfectly kept Munster cheese from a local farm came next and was just the thing to help us finish off the red wine, a 2017 Alsace Pinot Noir “Les Princes Abbés” from Domaines Schlumberger, one of the big wine names in these parts. The wine itself is made of a blend of Pinot Noir (80% from the limestone Bollenberg plot and 20% from the marl-limestone Saering plot). Vinification occurs during a maceration period of two weeks and it is then matured in traditional tuns for 10 months. What you get is a wine that is cherry red with purple reflections, and an aroma of red fruit scents (blackcurrant, cherry) and a hint of rose. Redcurrant, blackberry, vineyard peach as it opens out and slight woodiness also come through. It was served at what we might consider a low temperature for red but to get the most out of these wines 16°C is what you’re looking for. It was smooth against the punchiness of the cheese and the combination was really rather wonderful. The spoonful of cumin seeds served alongside the cheese were an interesting – and welcome – touch too.
We finished off with a gourmandise du pâtissier which took the form of a gloriously gooey plum and raspberry confection, on a biscuit base that couldn’t be faulted, the ice cream all creamy and rich and the sorbet sharp and cleansing on the palate. It was looking good for our second night, and we went to bed happy after finishing our dessert wine (and cheering when the annoying pair behind us had cleared the room and gone to their own beds). It made the wine taste even better, which, as it was a 2017 Gewürztraminer Tradition – Gold Medal wine from Bott Frères was quite a smart trick. The wine is brilliant and crystal-clear in shades of light green and has a youthful, fresh and flowery (rose and acacia) aroma, added to an exotic taste of pineapple and oriental spices characteristic of Gewürztraminer. Perfect with dessert and on its own, as we went on to prove!
On the second night we wandered out for an aperitif, ending up drinking a glass of wine by the waterside at La Krutenau, for the simple reason that it was the first bar we came across that had waterside views and an empty table. It was another lovely evening so we were quite content to be outside a while longer.
On our return we decided it was getting a little too cold to stay out for a second aperitif so we took to the room just off the hotel’s courtyard for a second glass of wine and some more of their fabulous pastry straws, before swinging indoors to see what was on offer on the tasting menu. As ever they started us of with a delicate little amuse-bouche before things got serious. We’d deliberately avoided anything after the charcuterie plate at Joseph Cattin’s for the remainder of the day because we reckoned we’d be best arriving hungry. We didn’t even do the flammkuechen as aperitif nibbles thing because that seemed unwise. This time they started us with a cheesy mousse and a tiny tomato gazpacho, which was refreshing and sharp.
And then it was into the serious wine and food. The starter was a terrine of duck foie gras with figs and a fruit chutney. It was smooth and rich and fabulous and it probably didn’t need the toasted brioche with it (though I have to say we both caved and ate part of it). Given we also had more of their fantastic bread as well it was overkill, but gloriously so. With it we moved from the crémant to a far more suitable wine, a 2017 Pinot Gris from Maison Martin Jund, who are now entirely biodynamic in their practices. This wine is described as “expressive and tender, from the very beginning, a fruity wine if there is one”. The resulting wine is a golden yellow with metallic reflections, and the aroma is of ripe yellow fruits (pear, peach). It’s perfectly sweet and an ideal match for foie gras.
The second course was a crayfish casserole, tiny and packed with pieces of sweet-fleshed, juicy, tender crayfish tails, dotted with chives and swimming in a creamy sauce. I loved it (and the little Staub cocottes it was served in, which are from a brand that started in Alsace, and that cost an absolute fortune). I pondered the possibility of getting out of there with one hidden in my handbag! the sheer weight of it put me off the idea, if Lynne had not also vetoed it. We already had a fabric heart that was in our room as a present from the hotel when we arrived. That would be far easier to carry… I settled for mopping up the sauce with the bread roll and we sat and waited to see what else we would be fed.
The second fish dish was a piece of nicely filleted halibut, in a saffron sauce. Saffron is tricky stuff – overdo it and you have a sauce that is bitter and deeply unpleasant. Get it right and you have something golden and warm. They got it right and the fish was also perfect, white and flaking and moist, sitting on a small pile of fresh carrots and a pool of pale golden sauce. Both this and the crayfish came with a 2016 Grand Cru Froehn Riesling from Jean Becker. This wine is made from grapes grown on limestone and sandstone at 270 to 300m on soil consisting of dark gray schistose marls, with fine white limestone beds as well as carbonate and ferruginous nodules. The wine resulting wine is floral and fruity, combining richness, finesse and breadth regardless of varietal and there is a fine and strong acidity that becomes salinity and minerality with aging. Am excellent choice once again. Someone really knows their wine and food matches, and they want you to have the best Alsace can offer
The interlude was a palate cleansing lime and apple sorbet which really woke the tastebuds up and prepared us for a meaty main course and a change of wine.
This came in the shape of a pink-cooked beef fillet, with a fine selection of small organic vegetables including a smooth as silk potato puree, some pickled radish and onions (tiny, sweet, giving a lift to the meat), courgettes, carrots, fine beans and broccoli. The meat could probably have been cut with a spoon, it was so tender and perfectly cooked. There is a sure hand at work in the kitchen, in the shape of the head chef, Thierry Chefdeville, who has been here for two decades, producing a very harmonious menu where each dish could stand along but equally fits together. I would happily eat there again, and that was before we made it all the way through the menu.
The wine served with the beef was a 2017 Alsace Pinot Noir from Pierre Henri Ginglinger. This is made from a blend of Pinot Noir from different plots, harvested by hand, then de-stemmed and allowed to macerate for 15 days. It is then moved to old wooden casks for malolactic fermentation. What you get as a result has a beautiful purple hue, and a nose that is very fruity with notes of cassis and cherries. It’s light, fresh and pleasant with a little tannin and is best served chilled down to between 12 and 14ºC. It also went very well with the assortment of three cheeses which included a relatively young Comté which always makes me happy. But then, Comté always makes me happy, a fact that can probably be confirmed by the bloke at Borough Market who sells it to me and to le Manoir Aux Quat’Saisons!
Pré-dessert was chocolate in a number of forms, including ice cream, and would have been a dessert in its own right (and certainly more than sufficient), especially with meringue as well, and I could have happily stopped there.
I was glad I didn’t stop there though. The pineapple and lemon cappuccino mojito-style might not have been desperately photogenic but it was desperately good, with a hit of alcohol and sharp pineapple, underneath a light, foaming lemon cream.
We ended the night full of food and nursing the dreaded food baby (twins I think), more than satisfied with our two dinners in a fine restaurant. We did get stuck with a second table full of irritating fellow diners again though, who were first minded to be annoyed by the service, which they felt was too slow (OK, it’s not quick but you’re there for an evening out so I’d prefer not to be rushed), and who then talked utter nonsense all night, strong in so many incorrect opinions (the Italians didn’t have any colonies or any colonial “adventures” – tell that to the Libyans, Ethiopians, Eritreans, and Somalians – and the Germans don’t make cheese being just two of them). So if you do go try and get Table 1 so there won’t be anyone behind you!
Travel/Food 2019 – Alsace and Baden, Days 6 and 7, Restaurant a l’Echevin, Colmar Wednesday, 18th September/Thursday, 19th September 2019 - Restaurant a l’Echevin, Colmar As part of the deal at the…
#2019#A l’Echevin#Aperitifs#Bars#Colmar#Cooking#Dinners#Drink#Drinks#Europe#Food#Food and Drink#France#Hospitality#Hostellerie Le Maréchal#Hotels#Restaurants#Travel#Wine
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Evading
Heather & Valencia - Femslash February - Day 27 - Quiet [2,207 words]
Valencia sank onto the outdoor lounge chair with a weary sigh that seemed to rise from the depths of her soul. She shut her eyes and tried to let the pleasant evening temperature mute her thoughts. The glaring sunlit afternoon gave way to a moderate nightfall around her. Splashes of warm colors seeped across the faded blue sky.
A sliver of tentative optimism, or at least the willingness to fight for a brighter outlook, had at last been restored inside the house. Their friend had accepted her recent diagnosis and was prepared to seek treatment. It was the most hope they’d had since before Rebecca disappeared, but such a potentially fragile thread did not provide the type of irrefutable comfort Valencia craved.
She reached for one of the throw pillows and clutched it near her chest. Even though she had finally allowed herself to cry, Valencia’s throat ached from the countless times she’d suppressed sobs over the past six days. She hid her face behind the fabric of the cushion and curled onto her side.
“Hey.”
Valencia tensed. She sat upright to turn toward the sound. Heather leaned against a nearby pillar with her arms folded over her stomach.
“Hi,” Valencia replied softly.
“Do you mind if I join you?”
Valencia tilted her chin at the vacant lounger. Heather shucked her jacket and swung it across the chair. She reclined to observe the lingering clouds. They were stretched thin and etched in purples and grays like the passage of hours had left them ashen and bruised. Valencia studied them too, but doing so left her feeling small and overwhelmed all over again.
“God, this has been the longest week of my entire life.”
A humorless laugh puffed out of Heather’s chest on an exhale. “Same.”
The two shared space without talking while the gradient above deepened its hues -- carmine becoming vermilion yet somehow blending seamlessly with saffron and amber.
“V?”
“Mm?”
“Are we okay?”
Valencia smoothed the ruffles on her shirt. “I don’t know,” she admitted, “... but I want to be.”
“Me, too.” Heather pushed stray curls aside and grimaced. “The past one hundred and forty-nine hours have really driven home how everything can go from fine to fucked up with no break in between.”
“You counted?”
“I’ve had a lot of spare time on my hands once it gets dark. You weren’t wrong about that... during our fight last night... I haven’t been sleeping. Like, almost at all.”
Valencia craned to look at Heather, although her view was limited given the angle of their chairs. “Yeah, well, I can’t take too much credit for riddling that one out. The shadows under your eyelids gave it away.”
Heather rolled over and propped her chin on both hands. “I’m surprised you didn’t throw some new concealer at me from one of your swag bags.”
Genuine giggles felt impossible to muster, but they offered each other feeble smiles.
“I really spiraled, didn’t I?” Valencia tucked her lower lip into her mouth.
Heather brushed Valencia’s forearm with her fingertips but did not allow the caress to linger. “We both did. Yours was just on a broader scale.”
“Global.”
Heather inclined her head in recognition. “Even when you’re avoiding your problems, you don’t do anything half-assed.”
“No. That wouldn’t be on-brand.” Valencia’s expression was self-deprecating.
Heather put a pillow under her face to take the pressure off her palms. She wrapped both arms around the cushion and stared into the middle distance. “I shouldn’t have brought Hector to the hospital,” she declared without preamble. “He was a distraction, like you said. I needed to be there physically but not mentally, and he was the only person removed enough from the situation that I could do that. I was able to talk about something else - anything else - and I couldn’t pass it up because that little waiting room made me so antsy. The thing is, I already wasn’t alone before he tagged along. I had you. But once Hector came to keep me company, you didn’t have me. And that wasn’t fair. Paula was keeping watch; I was checking out, and there you were, dealing with a lot of this by yourself. I should’ve realized that before, but it didn’t register until after everything. I’m sorry.”
Valencia blinked and inhaled deeply. “I’m sorry, too. I took it all too far. The vlogs, the way I’ve been acting around Hector, how I’ve treated you -- everything.”
Their eyes met. For a moment, the events prior to the crisis hung in the air between them and they paused, motionless. Valencia fought to avoid the memory of their kiss, but she felt the contact as vividly as if it were happening again in the present.
Heather gulped. Her response was so faint that Valencia read her lips to verify the words. “It’s okay. I forgive you. Do you forgive me?”
Valencia’s eyes burned but she held Heather’s gaze. She nodded as her vision swam.
“Good.” Heather turned to the side, concealing her features from scrutiny.
Their conversation tapered off once more. The night descended in earnest, leaving their surroundings shrouded, and Heather briefly departed to turn on the courtyard lights. When she returned, she pulled the jacket onto her shoulders and rubbed the sleeves.
“It feels weird. This is the first time since it happened that the silence hasn’t made my skin crawl. Living with Rebecca, there’s kinda always a lot of racket, y’know? She’s making a reference, cooking up some scheme, going on a rant, or nagging me to try something new. It never stops. So, when it did, when the house was actually quiet...” Heather shuddered.
“It was a constant reminder that she wasn’t around,” Valencia supplied, “like her absence left a void of white noise and emptiness.”
“Yeah.” Heather jammed both fists into the pockets of her shorts.
Valencia drew her knees up to her torso. “I kept wanting to go outside, thinking it would help me breathe, but for some reason it only pissed me off.”
“Why?”
“I hated that nothing was different. The weather was good. The people passing by were busy with their own business. The planet just kept spinning the same way it always does. For all of them, existence was the same, but for me, everything was a single sentence away from falling apart. It made me want to scream.”
Heather joined Valencia on the second lounger. “I don’t think any of us would’ve blamed you if you had.”
“I was just afraid that, once I started, I wouldn’t be able to stop.” Valencia watched as a few stars winked into visibility beyond the glow from the city. “The only thing I wanted, all this time, was for my life to go back to how it was. But now that our routines are picking up where they left off, and we have to go back to work, I don’t know if anything will ever be truly normal.”
Heather mirrored Valencia’s seated position and draped her elbows over her kneecaps. “I think what we consider ‘normal’ changes with us. There’s not a set standard. I mean, think about the years before Rebecca. Would literally anything that’s happened since have been ‘normal’ to you back then?”
Valencia’s mouth twitched. “Not at all.”
“Exactly.”
They adjusted by degrees until they were angled toward one another, almost facing directly but not quite.
“Heather?”
“Yeah?”
“I really need a hug.”
Heather glanced up to see Valencia looking so weary and forlorn that she couldn’t help but give her a sympathetic pout. “Fine. The sad Tweety Bird eyes are wearing me down. Scoot over here.”
Valencia gratefully did so, and Heather draped an arm across both her shoulders. Heather’s cheek rested atop Valencia’s hair. Though Valencia attempted to keep her voice steady, fresh tears spilled along her cheekbones. “This friend group... what we have... it’s what matters most to me. I can’t lose that now. I just can’t.”
Heather tightened their embrace while the bridge of Valencia’s nose pressed against her neck. “I know,” she whispered. “Neither can I.”
Valencia succumbed to helpless weeping for the second time that day. The warm droplets fell onto the skin pressed flush with her own. Heather’s breathing became uneven yet she somehow maintained her stoicism. Her knuckles rubbed Valencia’s shoulder blade in absentminded ellipses.
The curtain over one of the double doors folded away and Paula appeared on the other side of the glass. Heather awkwardly raised her free hand in greeting.
Paula jerked a thumb in the direction of Rebecca’s bedroom then lifted folded hands beside her cheek, pantomiming sleep. Heather nodded in response. She pointed to Valencia and dragged a fingertip down her own jaw to indicate crying. Paula moved her index fingers back and forth in a gesture that clearly said, ‘Should Mama Paula step in?’ Heather subtly shook her head and rested a palm over her chest. ‘I’ve got this.’ Paula gave an encouraging salute. She held her fists at ten and two while mouthing, ‘I’m going home.’ Heather waved. Paula blew them both a kiss even though Valencia wouldn’t see and then departed.
“Is she heading back to her house?” Valencia mumbled.
“Who?”
“Paula.”
“How--”
“I could feel you moving,” Valencia explained. “Also, Rebecca would’ve come outside if she knew Heather hugs were available for a limited time only.”
“She does appreciate a good cuddle,” Heather acknowledged.
“We’ll offer her a rain check for tomorrow since she missed this one.”
“Deal.”
They let the tension leave their muscles while the sounds of distant cars and a neighbor’s muffled music drifted through the night. Valencia leaned away just as Heather looked down at her. She noticed how Heather’s gaze drifted to her lips and found herself similarly distracted. Her pulse quickened and Valencia shivered with fear and longing. Heather’s expression changed in a way that brought about a stomach twist of guilt, a frown-forced-into-a-smile that Valencia had learned to recognize as the instant personal feelings were put on the back burner in favor of sympathy.
“We should probably go back.” Heather let her arm fall to her side and stood.
Valencia worked to ignore the tingling left behind by Heather’s touch. “Okay.”
They went inside but only took a few steps before their movement stilled again. Heather glanced in the direction of the bedrooms while Valencia reluctantly peered through the darkness at the front door.
“Does it make me a coward if I really want to put off going to my apartment for one more night?”
Heather hooked her thumbs in her pockets. “Is it pathetic that I’m so tired my vision keeps going out of focus but I don’t think I can sleep in my bed?”
They answered one another in unison: “No.”
Heather walked backward and held up a hand. “Wait here.”
She returned a minute later with two pillows from her room, a sheet, and a quilt. Heather dropped a pillow on the right side of the couch and, after brief hesitation, let the sheet pool beside it. She put the second pillow and quilt on the chaise.
Valencia accepted the unspoken invitation and stretched along the sofa. “Thank you.”
Heather shrugged. “We can navigate the revised definition of normal tomorrow, right?”
Valencia gave an affirmative nod as she slid under the sheet. “The world can wait just a little longer.”
Heather spread the quilt across her legs and gripped a corner of the cloth in her fist. “Cool.”
Valencia situated herself more comfortably. A familiar blend of outdoor smells rose from the satin case when she nestled against it. She circled her arms around the pillow and relaxed. Valencia crossed the line between waking and dreaming without marked delineation, but her return to full awareness was easy to pinpoint due to its catalyst.
Heather was stuck in a nightmare.
The sharp gasp roused Valencia first, followed by a nearly imperceptible whine. She twisted to squint through the gloom. Heather’s body twitched and her fingers clenched by her sides. Her face angled into the moonlight, and Valencia thought for a second that she saw moisture glistening on the ends of her eyelashes.
Valencia’s mouth formed her name without sound. ‘Heathe...’
She untangled herself from the sheet and knelt on the floor. Her hands flitted through the air with uncertainty. The simple act of drifting off had been so difficult for Heather lately that Valencia hesitated to wake her, but leaving her tormented by a troubled mind was out of the question. Valencia tucked the quilt more securely around Heather’s restless form, cocooning her, and ran a soothing palm over her furrowed brow.
“Everyone’s all right. Just rest. It’s all right. We’re all here.”
Heather’s features smoothed and her breathing slowed to a steady pattern. Valencia sighed with relief. She waited on the ground a while longer, just to make sure no further distress arose. Heather remained serene, mercifully restful after an exhausting ordeal.
“Why do I get the sense you’d be angry your subconscious made you vulnerable?” Valencia joked in a gentle murmur. She shook her head and returned to her spot on the couch. “Well, for what it’s worth considering you’re too fast asleep to hear this right now, I’ll keep your secret safe.”
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Sleeping Arrangements
Summary: When Belle and baby Gideon come home from the hospital with Rumplestiltskin, he sets Belle and himself up in different bedrooms. Neither wants to sleep apart, but neither wants to say so.
A/N: Follow-up to If Tomorrow Never Comes aka what would have happened if Belle and Rumple gave birth to Gideon together and all went home together. Awkward, estranged marriage bed-sharing, guys. Written for the October @a-monthly-rumbelling: “This can’t keep happening,” but I’m late. Thanks to @maplesyrupao3 for looking over this!
Rating: T
On AO3
“You have everything you need in here?” Rumplestiltskin asked, pushing past the lump in his throat.
Belle stopped her careful appraisal of the guest bedroom, a generous smile curving her lips as she turned around. He hovered in the doorway, helpless to do anything but lean against the molding and stare. If he dared to let go of the doorframe, he would fall on his face at her feet.
Gods, she was beautiful. He’d admired her as his maid, loved her as his girlfriend, and adored her as his wife. Now that she was the mother of his son, his feelings for her had only deepened. Life seemed more real somehow, and infinitely more precious. It wasn’t just the two of them anymore.
Three-day-old Gideon was tucked into the crook of her left arm, cradled with the tender precision of a brand-new mother: firm because she was afraid of dropping him; ginger because she was afraid of breaking him. Nothing rivaled the nervousness and joy of holding your own child, but as much as he relished caring for Gideon, seeing Belle and their son together was its own miracle.
“Everything I need?” She giggled, then spun around the room slowly once more, careful not to jar their son. “Are you kidding? It’s like staying at a five-star hotel.” She shifted the baby onto her shoulder and peered at the bed fitted with his best silk sheets and the freshly washed and pressed duvet. “Rumple, are those chocolates on the pillow?”
He colored, wondering if he’d gone overboard in his desperation to make her feel welcome, and deflected the question with a sheepish smile. “Hopefully the food here is better than what they served in the maternity ward.”
At lunchtime this afternoon, while he had rocked Gideon as Belle rested, a hospital orderly had delivered a tray bearing a suspicious-looking hunk of meat covered in gray sauce accompanied by limp broccoli. He’d wrinkled his nose at the meal and gone to the nurses’ station, demanding they process Belle’s discharge papers posthaste. There would be no more nondescript, lukewarm blue plate specials on his watch.
“Dinner was fantastic.” She patted her full stomach with a contented sigh. “But you’ve been at the hospital with us day and night. When did you have the time to make seafood stew?”
Thanks to Dove, his personal assistant, the rich, hearty scents of shellfish, vegetables, and saffron had perfumed the house when they’d stumbled into the house carrying Gideon and a case of diapers as wide as the front door. “I had some help,” he admitted. “Dove is actually quite a cook.”
“I never would have guessed,” she murmured, smiling even through her exhaustion.
It was still early evening, but dark shadows stood out beneath her eyes, pronounced against her ivory skin. Between Gideon’s round-the-clock needs, the wails of other babies being born, and the revolving door of hospital staff poking and prodding her at all hours, Belle hadn’t slept much in the hospital.
He gave the room one last critical assessment and nodded in satisfaction. Bottled water and a sparkling, crystal glass sat on the nightstand, all of Belle’s clothes were folded and placed in bureau drawers or hanging in the closet, and in the kitchen, her favorite foods lined the pantry and refrigerator shelves. The overnight bag from the hospital had already been emptied and stashed in the closet.
His chest felt hollow, and he took a slow, deep breath, an attempt to fill that empty, inside-out space. He was grateful beyond words to have Belle home, but seeing her in the guest bedroom--a space she had decorated herself in shades of royal blue and gold during the early, tender days of their marriage--was bittersweet.
On the evening they’d spoken their wedding vows at the well, life had been bright and new, filled with possibility. Yet the shadow of Baelfire’s death and his gruesome months in captivity stood between them like an impenetrable iron wall. He couldn’t stop blaming himself for his endless parade of transgressions, and Belle couldn’t stop ignoring their problems and trying to make the best of things.
Their rushed engagement amid lies about the dagger had been no way to enter a marriage. One hasty reconciliation, whirlwind trip to the Underworld, wild goose chase in New York City, abbreviated pregnancy, and new baby later, they’d agreed to put the past behind them. It was time to make a fresh start for the sake of their son.
At best, he had hoped for a relaxed visitation schedule and the occasional overnight with Gideon. Belle’s desire to make a home here again was a dream come true. But he wasn’t fooling himself. Everything Belle was sacrificing by moving here was for Gideon, not for him.
As with all major decisions he made, he’d given careful consideration to offering her the second-best bedroom in the house. Rather than stammer and stumble his way through excuses and empty the room they had once shared, he’d opted to outfit the largest guest suite with the most luxurious appointments money could buy in the shortest amount of time possible. Dove had arranged for a hand-painted bureau with a secret compartment, an antique Aubusson carpet in plush blues and soft creams, cozy bookshelves, and a king-size bed to be delivered and ready for Belle when she arrived.
He would have gladly turned over the master suite if not for his paranoia. Sleeping arrangements. They had a way of turning the most benign circumstances into an awkward mess, and this situation was highly unusual. The idea of living under the same roof with Belle and not sharing a bed was already driving him mad. He didn’t expect to make love to her, not when he’d just watched her deliver their son, but he ached to hold her close.
He didn’t sleep much. An unfortunate side-effect of being the Dark One was an exhaustive supply of nervous energy. When he and Belle had been together, crawling into bed and resting in her arms had calmed the storm inside him. She’d given his nights a purpose and made him feel almost human.
But no matter how much he missed lying next to her, sharing his bed was the last thing Belle would want.
Growing restless, Gideon squirmed, whinnying like a foal. Gold opened his arms and Belle handed him their son with a grateful sigh. They might not be compatible as husband and wife anymore, but they were fast becoming adept at co-parenting, seeming to know by instinct when the other person needed help or relief.
The accidental bump of her shoulder against his made his insides puddle, and he focused on the tiny vertical lines above their son’s nose. Rumplestiltskin didn’t know if he would ever grow accustomed to Belle’s touch. Since the day their lives collided in her father’s castle, it took nothing more than the brush of fingertips, a tender look, or a hot cup of tea from this woman to render him a fumbling, babbling disaster.
Fears of Morpheus’s prophecy that he would destroy the two people in the world who meant the most festered like an open sore. What if it was all true? What if he did the wrong thing again? What if he’d broken things so badly they could no longer be fixed? His family wasn’t a chipped cup he could piece together with glue and promises.
No, he wouldn’t succumb to his own negative self-talk. Belle had taken the first step in asking to come home with him. It was up to him to take the next. He took another deep breath and plodded ahead.
“Belle, before we settle in for the night, would you like to see the nursery?”
Three weeks later
Her stomach growling with hunger, Belle splashed her face with cool water. While she patted her puffy, red face with a soft towel, she glanced at Gideon, gurgling in his bouncy seat on the bathroom floor.
He was too little to play with the toys dangling above his just head yet, but he could enjoy the soothing sounds and lights of the toy rainforest and the plastic monkey’s goofy smile. All that really mattered now was the seat held his attention long enough for her to wash her face and make herself presentable.
Gideon looked up at her with wide, trusting eyes, the irises already several shades darker than when he’d been born almost one month ago. Mother’s instinct told her their son would inherit the amber-flecked brown eyes of his father, and she was both glad and afraid. Rumple had intelligent, beautiful eyes capable of penetrating the flesh and piercing a person’s soul. When he looked at her, Belle always had the sense there was nothing he couldn’t see. Every part of her being was laid bare for him. A shiver of awareness coursed through her, and she covered her face with the damp towel again before Gideon could sense what a foolish mess his mother was.
Stop being an idiot, Belle, she scolded herself. He’s a baby.
She scooped Gideon up and trudged down the stairs toward the kitchen dressed in sweatpants and a long-sleeved t-shirt, a smile plastered to her face. The aromas of bacon, toast, and coffee were trailing up the staircase, and a fresh wave of tears stung her eyes. Rumple was so thoughtful. She paused at the bottom of the stairs to wipe her red-rimmed eyes with the edge of her sleeve. Bloody stupid tears!
Last night, she’d cried until she fell asleep for the fifth night in as many days, pressing her face into the pillow to muffle the sobs. She didn’t want to wake Gideon and worry Rumple. If he suspected something was wrong, he would be across the hall in a flash, and he wouldn’t rest until she blubbered out all her worries and went back to sleep. There were plenty of problems to blame the tears on—a reduced milk supply thanks to her accelerated pregnancy, hormone spikes, the exhaustion of waking up every two hours to feed and change an infant.
But none of those things truly bothered her. What kept her awake and crying into the designer sheets were the sleeping arrangements. More than anything, she wanted to share a bed with her husband again. There was such comfort in his presence, strong, warm, and reassuring in the bed beside her. She missed his kisses and the steadiness of his arms around her, his breath on her face, faintly minty from toothpaste and magic, his dark eyes glittering with amusement while they shared stories about their day until Belle was too drowsy to talk anymore. While they were married he never went to sleep before her, always waiting until she had drifted off to take his own rest or to sneak downstairs to work or spin.
What right did she have to complain, though? He’d outfitted the guest suite like she was royalty and waited on her like she had broken both her arms. And Gideon’s nursery! Decorated in grey and gold and with the same crib Snow and David had chosen for Emma back in the Enchanted Forest, it was a room fit for a prince. It pained her to tell Rumple she preferred to keep their son next to the bed in a bassinet until he was old enough to sleep through the night without needing to nurse or take a bottle.
Nonplussed, Rumple had immediately gone online and ordered the most luxurious bedside baby cradle he could find.
His determination to do everything was worrying her. Since she’d come home, he’d spent day and night working himself into a shadow. He prepared hearty, delicious meals and hovered until she cleared her plate, brought Gideon to her when she was able to nurse, and gave him a bottle when she couldn’t. Always willing to rock or walk Gideon, he would leave her to read or nap. She wasn’t angling to be alone, though. She wanted her husband. “The Dark One doesn’t need sleep,” he would say, clicking his tongue whenever she protested or tried to share the workload.
She was feeling pampered, spoiled, and pissed off.
But Rumple was another story. Never had she seen him so content. Even from here in the front hallway, she could hear him in the kitchen, rattling pans and humming an off-key tune while he flipped eggs in a skillet. Every request and every need—whether it came from her or Gideon—brought a delighted smile to his face. Their too-brief time with Neal had shown her Rumple was an excellent father, but caring for a baby was balm for his battered spirit. Maybe it was silly but in a way, Gideon’s arrival made her feel like Neal was with them again.
So what if her heart fluttered whenever her husband entered the room or the sound of him reciting poetry to the baby made her breath quicken? His interest in her didn’t stretch beyond her position as the mother of his child. He wanted Gideon in his life, and she was lucky enough to be along for the ride.
No, she refused to let Rumple see her selfishness. All telling the truth would lead to was heartache. And they had suffered more than enough pain for ten lifetimes.
Her eyes dry and her smile in place, she marched into the kitchen with their son in tow.
One week later
Belle awoke from a sound sleep to the sound of pitiful wails. Groggy, she blinked, trying to figure out who was crying and why. Before she gained enough awareness to turn toward the cradle sitting eighteen inches from the bed, a shape was filling the doorway, backlit by the nightlight in the hallway.
“Belle,” Rumple whispered, his slippered feet shuffling across her bedroom carpet. “Are you alright, sweetheart? What do you need?”
She jolted up in bed and rubbed her eyes, knocking her pillows to the floor. He had to stop waking up during the night and crossing the hall this way. It was madness. “This can’t keep happening,” she blurted, groping for the switch on the bedside lamp.
Between the foot of her bed and the cradle, Rumple froze, suspended in time while Gideon’s cries rose in volume and urgency. A muscle ticked in his jaw and he blanched, his shoulders slumping in defeat.
“Of course. You’re right. I’m sorry. I’ll go.” His voice was wooden, remote; like it belonged to a stranger.
“Wait, Rumple-”
Her stomach plummeted into her knees. She hadn’t meant the words they way they sounded, but before she could explain, he was out of her room and halfway across the hall. She scrambled out of bed to chase after him, reaching out to snag the tie on the back of his dressing gown as he crossed into the master suite. She yanked him into the hallway, his back colliding with her chest. He teetered on the balls of his feet and she slipped her arms around his waist and held on.
She was breathing like she’d run a marathon, her heart squeezing inside her chest until she thought it would crumble into dust. Gods, she had tried! She had tried to make it seem like sleeping in the guest room without him while he stayed across the hall didn't bother her and she'd gotten good at pretending she was fine. But she wasn't.
Nothing about this arrangement was even remotely fine.
Last week, she had brushed an imaginary fuzzy out of his cropped hair for the sheer pleasure of feeling its softness between her fingers. Since he’d cut off his shaggy brown locks, she had no more excuses to push wayward strands behind his ears. Yesterday, there had been an eyelash on her cheek, and she’d held her breath in anticipation while he cupped her jaw and swept it away, the spicy scent of the lasagna he baked for dinner still lingering on his fingers.
Inventing excuses to be near him or relying on accidental touches was more than she could bear. She would rather live somewhere else than be under the same roof with him and be treated like his maiden aunt or long-lost sister or even worse, the pathetic charity case he had once loved.
He stiffened in her grasp, and she tightened her arms around his waist, determined to hold onto him no matter what. His torso was leaner than her hands remembered, wiry from worry.
Their son continued to cry, his lungs rivaling the Storybrooke High School’s marching band. Her milk started letting down, wetting the front of her nightgown and probably soaking into the back of Rumple’s nightshirt, but nursing Gideon would have to wait. She needed to clear the air.
Maybe she had turned into a bloated, unreliable milk machine, but she was human and Rumple was a handsome man. She wasn’t the only one who found him attractive, either, she thought miserably. There had been others, most recently the Evil Queen, a woman who differed from her in every way imaginable. That harpy had chased him like a bitch in heat and Zelena couldn’t wait to tell her about it.
But she was here now, and Rumple was still wearing his wedding ring. He was her husband and she was going to fight for him.
“I didn’t mean that the way it sounded,” she clarified, murmuring against his shoulder. “I meant you getting up during the night and coming across the hall to get Gideon.”
He slipped out of her arms and turned to face her in the dim hallway. The only light came from a small lamp at the end of the corridor, but it was enough to see the wariness in his eyes. “I understood you the first time, Belle.”
“No.” She tilted her head, trying to read his face in the dark. “I don’t think you understand me at all.” She twisted her fingers together. This agonized, consuming jealousy was utterly wretched. “Is it because of her? The Evil Queen. Do-do you miss her?”
“Gods, no!” His face was haggard, regret etched into the lines around his mouth. “I told you in the hospital there was nothing. She was nothing. It was a business arrangement, and I let her believe what she wanted. And after what she did to us...to you…” His voice hardened. “She’s lucky she’s not dead.”
Belle shuddered. She didn’t want anyone to die because of her, but she’d be happy not to see that despicable woman ever again for the rest of her days. And she certainly didn’t want Regina’s evil twin running her blood-red fingernails all over her husband.
“Listen.” She touched her finger to his lips finding them soft and dry. She shivered, wanting nothing more than to close the distance between them and kiss him senseless.
“What?”
“Nothing. It’s the sound of nothing.” She cocked her head and savored the blissful silence. “Gideon stopped crying all on his own.”
Rumple shoved his hands in the pockets of his robe with a wry smile and stepped back. “Perhaps he didn’t need me after all.”
Belle recognized that look--he was trying to shut her out. Well, she wasn’t going to allow it this time. She moved closer to him, stepping into his space and smoothing her hands down his shoulders. “Not for the moment, no. But he does need you. And so do I. Not what you can do for me—not how well you cook or entertain Gideon or order Dove to redecorate. Just you. Your presence. The sound of your voice. Your arms around me.”
Admitting she missed him, saying the words out loud, made her feel free. It was okay to admit she needed him. She craved his touches, his kisses, the way he used to look at her like she made a difference in his world. All her life, people had admired her beauty, but Rumple was the only person who ever made her feel beautiful.
“What about you, Rumple?” she asked. “What do you need?”
The next thing he knew, she was leading him by the hand back into her bedroom. Confused, he stumbled along behind her like a drowsy child. “Where are we going? I don’t understand.”
She had the audacity to grin at him, her teeth flashing in the low light. “We’ve established that,” she whispered.
She pulled back the covers on the smooth side of the bed-- his side, he realized. She was still sleeping on the right side of the bed as though they were sharing it. Whenever they’d been apart, it had become his habit to lie down on her half of the bed, imagining he could still detect her scent in the sheets. Sometimes he would even hold a pillow against his chest and pretend it was Belle. It was foolishness, but it helped him make it through the long, lonely hours of the night alone.
Her hands clutched at his shoulders, soft but insistent, and she pressed him down on the bed. “Belle, what are you doing?” His voice sounded loud in the still, cool room. From the cradle, Gideon whiffled in his sleep.
“Shhh,” she said, pushing him onto his back and combing his hair off his face with his fingers. Her touch felt amazing and he closed his eyes with a blissful sigh, mesmerized by the warmth of her fingers against his skin. She crawled into bed next to him and pulled the blankets over them both. “Stay here with me? I know you say you don’t need the rest, but you’ve been working so hard doing everything for Gideon and me.”
“Alright,” he conceded, but he lay on his back with his eyes open, as rigid as a statue. She switched off the bedside lamp and he stared into the blackness, trying to catch his breath. The mattress was soft, the sheets warm from her body and luxurious, but he felt as though he was strapped to a gurney.
“Are you comfortable?” she asked. He felt the mattress move as she scooted closer.
Comfortable? He couldn’t even remember the meaning of the word. All he was aware of was Belle. Her scent, her warmth. Gods, he was half-dizzy with her closeness. “Ah, are you?” he countered.
“Yes.”
Something about her tone made him shiver. She slid one of her legs over his, her clammy feet tickling the hair on his calves. He bit back a groan. “Do you need another blanket?” he asked after a moment.
“No, thank you.”
She snuggled even closer until her breasts were pressed against his side. He could feel the dampness of her nightgown where her milk had wet the fabric and a tug of arousal pulled at his groin.
“An extra pillow? I could fetch one from the closet.” He sounded out of breath. Was it getting warmer in here? His heartbeat sped up and his lungs struggled to take in oxygen. “Maybe we should switch on the ceiling fan?”
Her laughter was muffled. “You just offered a blanket. I’m good. Let’s just relax and try to rest. Unless you want the fan on?” She wrapped her arms around one of his with a contented sigh, holding onto his forearm like a child might clutch a doll or a stuffed bear.
“Not if you don’t.” He was at a loss. Surely there was something he could do for her.
They lay in silence for a few minutes and he tried to relax, but each tick of the clock on the nightstand sounded like a hammer and the pillow behind his head felt like a boulder. “I’m supposed to take care of you,” he said desperately. “It’s my job.”
“Rumple, you’ve been wonderful. No one could take better care of Gideon and me than you have. But not everything is about me or our son. I asked you before and you didn’t answer. What do you need?”
The tears came then, hot and urgent. He didn’t know the source of this maelstrom of emotion, only that he was in perfect control one moment and sobbing like a babe the next.
“Rumple. My Rumple.” Belle guided him into her arms, urging him to rest his head against her chest. Her arms wrapped around his shoulders while he cried, great wracking sobs that shook his body and stole his breath.
“I need my wife.” He clutched at her waist, the words stuttering out in a jagged, tear-choked whisper. “I need my wife.”
“You have me, darling, you have me. I’m here and I’m not going anywhere. There’s nowhere I’d rather be than here with you.” She cradled him in her arms, stroking his back and rocking him like she did Gideon and he shamelessly allowed it. He wept for the loss of Bae, his fears and failures, his poor treatment of Belle, who was still by his side no matter what he’d done.
All the while he clung to her and cried, she whispered reassurances, anchoring him in the shelter of her embrace. Soaking the top of her nightgown, he gobbled up her crooning words and healing touch until his heart resembled melted wax, his strength drained away with the tears that had left his body. Exhausted, he slumped against her breasts, calming himself with the steady beat of her heart under his ear.
Never in his life had he cried this way, not even after that enormous, green pit in the ground had swallowed Baelfire, taking him to another land, while he had clung to his precious knife and clawed for purchase in the dirt, too terrified of the unknown to follow his boy. Those tears had been building inside him for centuries, into a hard, cold mass of hurt, turning his heart into a wretched, brittle thing. At last, he had allowed himself to be broken.
“Belle.” He reached for her face and when he stroked her cheeks, he found them damp with her own tears. He didn’t know if she was crying with him or because of him, but he pressed his lips against hers in an urgent, seeking kiss, groaning as the salt of their tears mingled with the sweetness of her mouth. He poured all the love he felt for her into his kiss and she opened for him, accepting what he offered and returning it full measure.
“I didn’t bring you here just for Gideon,” he confessed hoarsely when he released her mouth, his breath ragged. “I wanted you here because I love you.”
She pressed her kiss-swollen lips together in a tremulous smile. “I didn’t ask to come here just for Gideon, either. I love you, too. Oh, Rumple, I’ve missed you so much. I’ve hated being us being apart.”
“You have?” His surprise was genuine. “But I’ve been here with you every day. I haven’t used magic, I’ve been spending fewer hours at the shop...”
“And I appreciate all of it.” She lay down again, drawing his head down to her chest once more and began to stroke his hair. “But you’ve been keeping your distance from me. You think what I want is a caretaker, but you’re wrong. I want us to raise Gideon together—as a family. And no more separate bedrooms, okay? I need someone who’s going to appreciate my snoring and you can’t do that from across the hall.”
He snorted. “You do snore. Rather loudly.”
“What did you say?” She swatted him lightly with a pillow.
“I said as you wish.” Grinning, he lifted his head and rubbed his nose against hers, and they both laughed. He couldn’t remember when he had ever felt this light and happy. “Are you going to hog the covers, too, Mrs. Gold?”
“Always.” Her smug tone made him laugh again. “What about you?” She poked him in the ribs, softening the attack with another kiss. “Are you going to lie awake watching me sleep?”
“Every night,” he whispered, settling back against her breasts and wrapping his arms around her waist.
His eyes were already closing as she began to stroke his head again. And with her hands in his hair and the cadence of her heartbeat in his ears, Rumplestiltskin found sleep.
###
#rumbelle#rumbelle fic#rumplestiltskin x belle#gold family#awkward married bedsharing#rumbelle angst#mqc writes#a monthly rumbelling
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