#milky way saints
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"The Cosmos" | Mt. St. Helens, WA || Chris Williams
#mount saint helens#mountain#mountains#mt. st. helens#volcano#milky way#stars#wild flowers#flowers#chris williams#nature#landscape
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Milky Way over Glacier National Park
space.by.jase on Instagram
#stars#astrophotography#milky way#night sky#nature#landscape#astronomy#mine#saint Mary lake#Montana#USA
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Timelapse of the Milky Way over Mont Saint-Michel, France.
📹: Tanvirul Rafin
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The magical light and energy of New Mexico.
#jim crotty#landscape photography#photography#new mexico#Saint Francis#taos#santa fe#pueblo#petroglyph#milky way
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Milky Way over Mount Saint Helens
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A 10 000 Kilometer Galactic Bridge : With this creative astro-collaboration you can follow the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy as it bridges northern and southern hemisphere skies. To construct the expansive composite nightscape, skies over Observatorio El Sauce in Chile (top) were imaged on the same date but 6 hours later than the skies over the Saint-Veran observatory in the French Alps. The 6 hour time-lag allowed Earth's rotation to align the Milky Way above domes at the two sites. All exposures were made with similar cameras and lenses mounted on simple tripods. A faint greenish airglow is visible in the dark Chilean sky that also features the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds near the observatory dome. In the French Alps light pollution is apparent, but the distant Andromeda Galaxy can still be spotted near the horizon in the northern night. On planet Earth the two observatories are separated by about 10,000 kilometers. via NASA
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Heyo! Could you write cuddling hcs for tfp, tfa and RID bumblebee? Reader is a gn plus size human btw. If it’s too many then just tfp and RID then pls ^-^ thank you!!
Bumblebee Cuddling Headcanons (sfw)
Heyooo thank you for requesting!! Haven't written hcs in a while so it's been a nice refresher!
Reader is implied to be plus sized, gender neutral and human
TFP
- The sweetest, with the gentleness of a saint.
- He will constantly beep for permission before even laying a servo on you, knowing how important it is to not push you into doing anything you dislike.
- Despite his exuberant personality, he's very timid regarding physical touch. You'll need to take the lead to give him some encouragement.
- "It's okay, Bee, c'mere."
- If you accept and take the lead, there will be no shortage of soft touches. Bee just loves how soft you feel pressed against him.
- Lay on him. Please. You're not heavy to him at all. Lay on his chest or cradle in his neck, wherever you feel most safe, as long as he can touch you.
- Will give you gentle head nudges and nuzzles in place of kisses.
RID15
- He's also considered rather sweet but exudes more passion and romance in his movements.
- If you're resting alone, Bee will gently approach you and lay a servo on your back or side.
- Especially if you're relaxing outdoors, it's even more enticing if it's under the Milky Way.
- "Hey, mind if I join you?"
- He will protectively curl around you, pulling you close to him with your hips.
- Bee loves to play with your hair/massage your head, amazed at how relaxed you get when he does.
- But what he loves even more is teasing and squeezing your squishy parts gently, finding it one of the more endearing parts about you physically.
- Gentle kisses wherever he can reach. Your back, head, tummy, hands, lips; he will appreciate and worship you like the celestial being you are.
TFA
- Expect spontaneous, affectionate cuddle sessions with this version of Bee.
- On the couch? In your comfy bed? Wherever you are, he will search for you and jump into your soft arms (metaphorically, of course, to minimise bruising).
- The one to most likely seek you out for his comfort. Either from a long day or to find refuge from the rest of Team Prime for teasing him.
- Whatever it is, he'll always come to you.
- Wants to lay on your lap and nuzzle into your soft tummy more often than not but is not opposed to the opposite.
- "Can I stay here for a little while? I promise it won't be for long..." Please don't fall for it; he always lies.
- Intense, playfully romantic staring competitions/try not to kiss each other challenges. Bee always loses, though; he just can't resist how cute you look when your face gets red, trying not to laugh.
#transformers#transformers x reader#transformers prime#tfp x reader#transformers animated#tfa x reader#transformers rid2015#tf rid15 x reader#tfp bumblebee x reader#tfa bumblebee x reader#tf rid15 bumblebee x reader#bumblebee x reader#transformers x humans#sfw#headcanons#cyberrosewrites
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speaking of pussy drunk reader, how abt reader asking abby/ellie to sit in reader's face???
also reader making their eyes rolling back, thighs shaking, back arching, BODY SPASMING, by overstimulating them because reader obviously cant get enough of their pussy ohmygod
i'm sorry :((
ugh i love this
ellie x f! reader | warnings: switch ellie, overstim, profanity, use of “cunt” and “pussy”
being a top was ellie’s pride and joy. domming you? even better.
her hand wrapped around the small of your throat as she shoves her fingers knuckle-deep in your cunt, whispering sickly sweet praises into your ear to coax you over the edge until you’re squirting all over her green bedsheets. you always got your way, ellie’s little pillow princess. this is why ellie wasn’t surprised when she gave in to your distressed whines and pleads to eat her out as she tried to get up and go on patrol, frantically pawing at her black jeans. how she ended up on your face though, hands gripping her wooden headboard, she’ll never know.
“fuck,” she curses out. her green eyes are screwed shut as she grinds against your hot mouth, chasing yet another orgasm. your face is already slick with her juices, hungry eyes never leaving her face as your mouth works against her cunt.
your movements are sloppy now and you work her through her second orgasm, watching her defined abs taut and ripple as she tenses with the heat of pleasure pooling in her stomach. the pure sight of you below her, face glistening and eyes blown, is pure seraphic. an elysian she’d see in her dreams again that night as she subconsciously humps the pillow between her legs.
your hands massage the plush fat of her ass, savouring the feeling of her between your fingers. her moans and whimpers are obnoxious and she definitely knows jesse and dina can hear her from their room.
“so close, my girl,” she says between heavy gasps, breathing stuttered as her head falls between her chests with her chin against her chest, “love your fucking mouth, oh my god,”.
Your tongue flicks, grazing that familiar sweet spot in her that has her crying out, back arching as her hickey-covered thighs squeeze the sides of your face. her eyes roll back, lashes fluttering as her mind goes foggy and blank, absolutely weightless.
“holy fuck,” she breathes out, arms trembling and threatening to give way as she feels her cum drip down her gummy walls, clenching around the soft muscle of your tongue. you watch as her belly jumps slightly, the coil causing it to spasm as it snaps. milky nectar glistens over your face, dripping down your chin and neck as your face emerges from her heat. you looked heavenly, a saint drenched in the saccharine flow of her lover’s lust.
“no, baby,” her voice coarse, a slight chuckle leaving her lips, “i know you want more but i can’t.
your soft kisses on her clit have her hips jumping, pulling away from your face.
“no- ah- i cant,”.
you look up at her through dark lashes, doe eyes melting and glassing with tears at her rejection.
“okay, sweet girl” she stutters out and watches as your arms instantly wrap around her thighs, pulling her back down until your mouth is hot against her rosy, creamy-coated lips, “just one more.”
inbox/requests are open.
#┆ 𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚊’𝚜 𝚖𝚊𝚒𝚕𝚋𝚘𝚡.#┆ 𝐛𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐫𝐨𝐭𝐬#anon. ᥫ᭡#ellie williams#ellie williams smut#ellie williams x reader#x reader#x female reader#lesbian#ellie williams x you#ellie williams x y/n#ellie williams x reader smut#brainrot#smut#br:elliewilliams
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So I have seen most of your yanderes being males how about a female yandere just for the funni. Like I really just wanna suck some milky tits 🤤
(you can ignore it if you want to)
I love women, reader is kinda dumb but that's ok because reader is based of me when I see a hot woman
yandere! cosplayer x gn reader
"would you like me to do... this instead?"
you blush as she pushes her tits up against your chest. why wouldn't you? you were in an extremely sexual interaction with a super hot girl right now! and she's even dressed up as bayonetta! a character you absolutely love and adore! you'd have to be a saint to not combust on the spot.
plus this cosplayer was one of your favourites, her stunning cosplays whisking you off your feet with every picture she posts. today, you managed to meet her at a convention she's said that she's attending. you managed to find her amidst the crowds and luckily for you, she noticed your prescence.
though it was a little weird that she knew so much about you. I mean, she knew your name, when you'd be visiting, and practically everything about you! it's so weird! because your all of your profiles are on private and you've never talked to her, not even once! but who cares am I right? she's hot so it must just be a coincidence haha!
you had just wanted to get a picture with her, maybe a hug or two. but she had other plans apparently. pulling you aside, dismissing all of her other fans, it was like you were her lover. and weirdly enough, she even encouraged it when others called you her lover. like??? hello??? you two literally just met???
you couldn't understand it. not one bit. but to be honest you didn't mind. she probably has no bad intentions either way so it's alright to just go with what she wants.
though you didn't expect to be rizzed up like this. her gently carressing your face as she whispers about how much she loves you... wait is this a fanfic novel come to life?! your face was burning hot as you stared at the attractive cosplayer with wide eyes.
you couldn't move your body, too confused, horny and attracted to your favourite cosplayer confessing her love for you. wait, she knew you all this time and decided to start cosplaying to get your attention?! she hacked the algorithm to allow her posts to show up on your feed?! what?!
your mind was a mess, but so was the thing between your legs because god damn you did not expect for such a hot and sexy woman to be interested in someone like yourself. I mean, yeah you were hot but still!
meanwhile, the smitten cosplayer silently chuckled as she pinned you against the wall, her alluring eyes staring down at you. you were just so cute! so adorable~ she just couldn't help herself!
"everything I do is for you... I love you~"
she cooed, watching as your face continued to redden in embarrassment. god, she's thankful she found salvation in you. for if she didn't, she would never have experienced the love and joy of loving someone so adorable.
#tw yandere#yandere x reader#yandere#yandere cosplayer#yandere cosplayer x reader#female yandere#suiana rambling#suiana brainrotting
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If you’re still accepting prompts, may I humbly submit : “You don’t have to leave, you know” with Yuri!
“You can stay, you know,” Yuri murmurs. You look over at him. Dawn’s first light nudges through the curtains, paints the room eggshell blue, touches the strands of his hair with pearlescent light. You feel newly hatched. Clumsy, clueless little heartbeat beating wings against your ribcage. The blanket is pooled at his waist. He’s all pale and lean, comfy as a cat under the spot of sun.
You’re in the middle of shoving your trousers back on when he beseeches you. Caught red-handed. His cheek is smooshed against the downy pillow, eyelids low and voice soft with slip. But he’s still smiling. A drowsy kind of smile. He’s like an old painting, pale brushstrokes capturing the foggy, ethereal feel of the hour. The last stars twinkle in the milky periwinkle skies.
You drop your pants for the second time, and march back to the bed like the lucky fool you are, thunking dead onto your side of the mattress.
“I know I can stay. It’s my bedroom. In my house.”
“Yet you’re always so eager to scuttle away the moment I take my eyes off you,” Yuri replies, just as easily. He reaches over, idly runs slender hands up and down your arm. That tender touch ventures to your back, bleeding the tension out of you. “I think I spend more time in here than you do.”
“I’m not running away,” you mumble, cross at his teasing. You settle onto your side. The haze of sleep still clings to his expression, glassy eyes blinking slow as he takes you in.
“Mhm,” he sounds horribly unconvinced. “Sorry. I’m not sure what else to call it when you wait until you think I’m asleep to sneak out of bed.”
“I just thought—” you splutter, suddenly mortified. How many times has he pretended to be asleep? How many times has he witnessed you stumble around the room like a newborn foal, plucking your clothes off the floor and off the bedpost and off the chair by the window? “I just though you might want some space.” You shove your face into the sheets. Your hand rests palm flat on the space between you.
“Mmh. Did I say or do anything to give you that impression?” he asks, suddenly thoughtful.
“No. I just—I mean, you see me almost every day. It’s probably good to give you a break, y’know? So you don’t get sick of me,” you say, as wryly as you possibly can. Better a half-truth than outright admitting your own insecurities, admitting just how much stock you put into his opinion of you.
“I’ve spent the past two years following you around like a lost mutt. Do you really think I would do that for someone I could ever possibly get sick of?” he looks at you incredulously. “Saint Seiros, you’re dense.” He sounds utterly bemused, but his hand settles atop of yours to pin it to the mattress. He interlaces your fingers. You smother your face into the sheets.
“Well, sorry! It’s not like I can read your mind!” you grumble, increasingly mumbled.
“Then c’mere and read my lips,” Yuri yoinks you from your hiding spot with a hand between your shoulder blades. He nudges you onto your back with devastating ease, smooth as silk in the way he slots a thigh between your legs. “I’m obsessed with you. Have been ever since you fell face-first into the Abyss.”
You grimace at the reminder of the incident. The loose, rotting floorboards of a particularly disused shed gave way. You would have wound up a splatter on the floor of the Abyss’s arena had Balthus not been there to catch you.
“Don’t go anywhere,” Yuri presses his lips to your chin, and then to your cheeks, retaining your attention with practiced finesse. Not that he ever has to try very hard. “And listen really close, because I’m not good at saying this kind of thing.”
“I need you. I want you. I don’t know what I would do if you ever left me,” Yuri smoothes himself atop of your prone form, palms sliding up your forearms to pin both hands to the sheets. “Do you understand?” he murmurs against your jaw, placing kisses there too. Lips warm and smooth.
You manage a scandalized squawk, heat flooding your cheeks. That seems to mollify him.
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★ MILKY WAY. ━━ (000) profiles: sanrio trash
‹ PREVIOUS ᜊ NEXT ›
@ST5ROFFICIAL. ━━━━━ STAR (Start To A Revolution) is a 5 member kpop girl group under pnation that debuted in 2019 with their hit song Ponzona. STAR consists of Seulgi, Fatou, Yn, Swan and Yuna. their fans are called shooting stars and they just came back with a new album called Stamp On It!
KANG SEULGI. ━━━━━ leader, main dancer, main vocal: mom(my) of the group, has the patience of a saint, leader but doesn’t stray away from fun and her juniors feel very comfortable around her. most likely to survive a zombie apocalypse
FATOU SAMBA. ━━━━━ main rapper, sub vocal, center, 1/2 of the foreign line: low key the groups tsundere, pretends to hate affection but everyone knows she actually loves it. yn was her first friend when she came to korea! also she is convinced that she is a aggretsuko, so stop calling her cinnamoroll (she’s wrong)
YN LN. ━━━━━ lead vocal, lead dancer, lead rapper, 2/2 of the foreign line: in one word unique, she’s a little bit of a punching bag for the kpop community but goes viral every like week anyway. her nickname is The 4th gen lead girl (like it girl). in love with her fellow music bank host.
PARK SUJIN, SWAN. ━━━━━ main vocal, 1/2 of the maknae line: swan seems shy and timid but don’t be fooled, she can be awfully honest and self aware. she’s still deemed the groups sweetheart. also the smartest in the team and not a big fan of yuna’s memes
SHIN YUNA. ━━━━━ lead rapper, main dancer, sub vocal, visual, 2/2 of the maknae line: the most maknae-est maknae to ever maknae according to herself, enjoys being the youngest and adores her members (yn in particular even if they squabble sometimes). impulsive and a big fan of her own jokes
NOTES. (every member of this grp is my one of my actual ults lol) yn is a ‘00 liner and i won’t attach a country to her but she’s not from sk originally, i will be using pictures but yn doesn’t have certain look it’s just for the story. also don’t u just think that the sanrio theme is adorable, the users are a bit lame but i don’t know what i’m doing either, still i’m kinda proud of the idea! these are secret accs btw, only their manager knows about these. ps: i would advice u to listen to the playlist to kinda understand their sound ‼️ spotify also adds songs but i added only 12 and the sumni song is the last one ^_^ thank u
TAGLIST. @bunnystrm
#★ MILKY WAY — smau#ateez#seonghwa#san#mingi#ateez smau#seonghwa smau#san smau#mingi smau#ateez x reader#seonghwa x reader#san x reader#mingi x reader#ateez social media au#ateez texts#ateez twitter#kpop smau#kpop social media au#kpop x black reader#ad0rechuu — works
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on that tree i'll carve our names (01)
pairing: Ominis Gaunt x fem! Hufflepuff Reader; Sebastian Sallow x Male MC
Synopsis: You have never believed or trusted in Prophecy, not with the way you were brought up. Paying attention to Prophecy is like tossing real diamonds in the air mixed with shards of broken glass. The grab is rarely worth the injury.
But when the new fifth year arrives, so do trouble and mischief, and you're inadvertently thrust into adventures and secrets too grand to deal with by yourself.
Yet with hardships come friendships, and while you learn to trust the new student with your life, you're less keen on trusting the cunning Sallow boy or the quiet Gaunt heir. Still waters run deep, as they say, and you can't shake off the feeling something dark hides at the bottom of those white-veiled unseeing eyes.
content: canon divergence, fighting prophecy, enemies to friends, reluctant soulmates, platonic soulmates, slow burn, basically HL but Reader isn't MC, angst, hurt and comfort, Sebastian and Reader can't stand each other (until much later), they're all mean, because they're starving for love, will love and kill for each other, dark(ish) ominis, satisfying female rage, also Quidditch because screw Black
notes: [02]
words: 5.9k
a/n: this is so self-indulgent, i don't even know if i'll keep this up. but right now i need to get this out of my system, so here is tragic platonic soulmates with delicious slow burn for borth of them and my favourite slytherin boys. hope you enjoy!
01: hawthorn makes the heart burn
The new student has been at Hogwarts for only a week, and already you cannot stand him.
It’s got nothing to do with the fact that he is a Slytherin. You have never been a fan of the sorting system, because even if it is partly at fault for sticking kids into boxes and teaching them to think in categories, the students surely don’t make it better living by these stereotypes. Not all Slytherins are bad people, just like not all Gryffindors are brave; not every Ravenclaw is a genius, and not every Hufflepuff is a saint, e.g.: You.
“You’re joking! Three Sickles and fifteen Knuts for a Pocket Sneakscope? That’s way too expensive!”
Lifting your eyes from the list of gadgets you need to buy on your next trip to Hogsmeade, you raise an eyebrow at the second-year Ravenclaw boy. He’s taller than most of his fellow housemates, shows signs of a long, hawkish nose and has pimples scattered on his cheeks like a Leaping Toadstool Cap. You can’t really remember his name. Freddy or Fred or August, maybe.
This early in the morning before classes start, the air is especially thick with the smell of late-summer: sweet buddleia in full bloom, the rich green leaves of trees as they sway gently in the wind. Mist hangs low in the valley and over the Great Lake, a milky curtain hiding its resident gently poking long tentacles into the warm sun. The castle is only slowly waking up after a short night—the last grace of long summer days approaching their end as October draws closer.
A beautiful landscape you can hardly enjoy with the second-year’s whiny voice buzzing around your head like an annoying mosquito.
“Look, you wanted a Pocket Sneakscope, I got it for you,” you say and unhitch yourself from the cool stone pillar, one of many holding up the roof of the Viaduct Courtyard’s passageway. “It’s not my fault the underground path is infested with spiders.”
Damned Weasley could have warned you though. You have been using the secret passage under the humpbacked, one-eyed witch leading to the cellar of Honeydukes since your second year when you spied Garreth Weasley sneak through it, and since then you both agreed on staying out of each other’s way as long as nobody rats out the secret passageway to the faculty. He gets to obtain whatever he needs for his weird concoctions, and you get to continue your little business of providing first and second years whatever they want from Hogsmeade since they can’t go themselves yet—all for a certain price. It makes trips to Hogsmeade easier when you can’t use your broom, though the occasional acid spit launched your way is less favourable than the breathtaking view of Hogwarts towering majestically as the sun sets, throwing the whole castle in stark, black contrast against the warm, orange sky.
“Unless you want someone else to get you stuff from Hogsmeade,” you continue with a shrug. “Good luck finding them though.” You move to put the Sneakscope back into your pocket, barely managing to keep on a neutral expression when Freddy or Fred or August, maybe, gasps as though you have reached into the Ravenclaw’s house point hourglass, grabbed a handful sapphires and chucked them at the Headmaster.
“It’s just—it’s just a whole Sickle more than I can spend this month!” he protests, but judging by the quiver of his voice he’ll eat out of your hand in no time.
You give your brightest smile. “Not my problem.”
The Ravenclaw-boy fumes, but when you hold out your hand, he slaps the coins into your open palm, his pale face blotched red with fury.
“Pleasure doing business with you.” You hand over his Pocket Sneakscope and watch him stamp off towards the double doors leading inside the entrance hall. He stops with a small, pale hand on the bronze doorknob, turns around as by his touch alone the doors squeal open with the magic that recognises students entering. “You are the worst Hufflepuff at this school!” he shouts and quickly dashes inside.
You don’t know why he felt the need to point it out. It’s not as though people don’t know who you are: the Hufflepuff who burnt down the left greenhouse in her second year when trying Incendio after agreeing to a bet; the Hufflepuff who broke a Ravenclaw’s nose because said Ravenclaw accused her of cheating in Defence Against the Dark Arts; the Hufflepuff who smoked Silverweed in a corner under the Great Staircase in her third year to see if it would yield any relaxing effects; the Hufflepuff who actually cheated on her very first exam in History of Magic—all in all the Hufflepuff who really should have been sorted into Slytherin on her first day, according to everybody else. Except the Slytherins have no love left for you because you wear yellow.
It is a wonder you have not been expelled yet, surely to do with the fact that despite it all, one student outshines your delinquent record. Your grades are passable, neither at the very top nor bottom, though you do have a knack for quickly learning spells and charms. What keeps you in somewhat good grace is being the Beater for the Hufflepuff Quidditch team—and what a Beater you are: ruthless and quick with strong arms. Maybe not as fast as Slytherin’s Captain on a broom, but you feel comfortable enough up in the air. All your problems seem so much smaller when you soar through the sky. Speaking of Quidditch, a Gryffindor second-year asked you to get a fake Snitch to practice for the team’s try-outs. Hopefully the Spintwitches Sporting Needs opens within in the next week; you’re in need of a new broomstick servicing kit, preferably before practice starts.
You move towards the Great Hall before they clear out breakfast. You did ask Javi to save up some Pumpkin Pastries for you, but he’s been in a foul mood since yesterday because Peeves destroyed a bust in the Astronomy Tower and he had to take the brunt of it. But while you’re crossing the courtyard, you notice a shadow standing under a wide archway, tall and sinewy, though body shapes are usually hard to guess under the loose, floaty school robes. Yet you know that despite looking lanky, this boy is nimble and quick, and his presence is utterly unappreciated—that is how the circle closes; the reason why you can’t stand him.
Even from this distance, you can make out Callum St. Jude’s pale grey eyes—they stand stark against his unruly map of ink-black hair. Paired with skin pale as moonlight, he looks like one of Hogwarts’s residual ghosts.
You feel your face turn into a scowl. It seems that no matter where you are these days, he is lurking nearby. At first you thought he was spying on you to check out the competition for tonight’s Crossing Wands duel. It is the finale after all. But when you had confronted him about it, catching him on his way down to the Slytherin dungeons in the Grand Staircase after your shared Charms class, he had considered you with a blank expression. “Who are you?” he’d asked, looking down at you from a few steps above.
Behind him, trailing him like a shadow since day one, Sebastian Sallow had sniggered. “Seems like you already have admirers,” he’d said with his insufferable haughty voice. “Though that Hufflepuff is more trouble than she’s worth.”
You were about to show him trouble, face hot with shame, when Javi hauled you up, hands under your armpits, and carried you away as if you were a sack of potatoes. “You can’t get detention now, it’s still the first week,” Javi had said mildly.
At least it would have been worth it. It would have been so satisfying to blast that cocky grin off Sallow’s face, to silence St. Jude’s little mocking huff. You firmly believe St. Jude is suffering from the worst ailment to date: Main Character Syndrome.
The symptoms have been evident since his first day: joining Hogwarts as a fifth-year, arriving late to the Sorting Ceremony due to a dragon attack, besting Sallow on his first Defence Against the Dark Arts lesson (though you can hardly criticise him knocking Sallow down a peg) and mastering every new spell and charm as though it is as easy as breathing. Just last week, he fought off a grown troll and defended Hogsmeade, and now the whole school doesn’t shut up about it.
It is with eager anticipation that you await tonight’s Crossed Wands’s finale. Your fingers practically itch to draw your wand and Flipendo him just to juggle him around a little and wipe that blank expression off his face. He is beautiful, you hate to admit, feeling a sour taste in the back of your throat, but he’s using that face in all the wrong ways. He has the sort of face they’d probably frame in a museum, the kind that’s unbelievably pretty, but unattainable.
“Preying upon second years this early?” St. Jude tuts. “It seems there really is no rest for the wicked.”
“Looks as though I am already punished for it,” you grumble. “Otherwise I wouldn’t have to deal with you.”
St. Jude cocks his head to the side, looking thoughtful. “Interesting way to talk to someone you fancy.”
“I do not,” you press out between gritted teeth, shouldering past him as he steps into the entrance hall first, “fancy you.” You hope the Thunderbrew potion will be the first you’ll learn in Potions class. Watching St. Jude getting struck by lightning would lighten your mood considerably.
“For someone who pretends not to be interested in me,” he continues, ignoring you, “I see you around an awful lot.”
You consider tripping him as you two ascend the stairs. “Yes, that seems to be the very problem.”
“Won’t make me take it easy on you tonight though.” Since he is nowhere near a gentleman, he doesn’t hold the door open for you and it almost slams in your face. “I always duel to win.”
“I hope you don’t mind spending the next couple of days in the hospital wing.” You bump into his shoulder, hard, when you finally enter the Great Hall and immediately aim for the Hufflepuff table to the far right of the hall without another glance at him.
The hall is buzzing with students, the air filled with the tasty smell of crispy bacon, grilled leak, slightly burnt toast with melting butter on top. It isn’t as crowded as at lunch or dinner time—most students tend to skip breakfast to either sleep in after a long study night or use the hour before classes to finish assignments and homework.
The ceiling shows a clear blue sky with thin clouds drifting past lazily. You slide in the free seat next to your fellow Beater near the front of the table. Javier García is shoving scrambled eggs into his mouth, his bright brown eyes fixed on the Daily Prophet. In your first year, you didn’t pay much attention to him. If you look up Hufflepuff Student in any dictionary, it will show Javi’s face—a hard-working, loyal individual that always reminds you of a golden retriever until he steps on the field and turns into a pit bull from a fighting ring. Every summer he returns to his muggle family where he helps tending to the crops and fields, evident in his arms the size of tree trunks used to heavy lifting. Perfect for hitting Bludgers at opponents and slamming them off their brooms.
You pour yourself coffee and begin spooning slabs of apple-cinnamon-oatmeal into a bowl.
“Ranrok’s Loyalists have put up more camps around the Hogwarts highlands,” Javi says, mouth half-full. “It looks like they’re moving closer towards Hogwarts.”
“Why would they come to Hogwarts? There’s nothing here.”
“The castle has tons of secrets still uncovered. Why wouldn’t they try and get inside?”
“As if they’d manage to get through the defences. Hogwarts is impenetrable.” You take a long sip from your cup, hoping the caffeine kicks in fast. “No one’s going to get inside. Forget about the goblins. Did you see the Quidditch board? Our first game this season is against Gryffindor.”
Javi groans. “I hate their Seeker. Too small to hit with a Bludger, too quick to slam off the broom. We might as well throw in the towel.”
“Don’t let Captain hear that or she’ll turn you into a fox and wear you as a collar.” The Hufflepuff’s Quidditch Captain, Mary J. Lockwood, is sweet in pretty much every aspect except when it comes to Quidditch, and she never hesitates making you take the brunt of it. You’ve stopped counting how often she’d condemned you to run laps around the field as punishment for talking back or disrupting practice.
You finish breakfast and quickly drop by the common room to get your parchments and books for Divination class, hoping it will let time pass quickly until evening. But while staring for roughly an hour into the lazily swirling fog inside a crystal ball without an answer to how this year’s Quidditch season will end, time seemed to move slower than a snail. After dozing off twice and woken up by Adeleide Oakes’s pointy elbow to your ribs before Professor Onai could notice, the class finally ends.
Next up is Herbology and after that you’ve got two free periods until lunch and then end the day with double Potions. It’s a slow day for a Wednesday, and you can’t wait until practice starts in October to give you some change from sitting for hours in the library and going through dusty old tomes or watch the first and second-years getting roped up into playing Gobstones in the common room by the older students, filling it with the putrid smell of its foul liquid. You just enjoy being outdoors more. Which is why Herbology is somewhat fun, even if you and Javi prefer to pass time by betting on who can stick their finger closest to a Chinese Chomping Cabbage, earning a scornful side glance from Leander Prewett.
You promised Samantha Dale and Nellie Oggspire to work on the assigned group project for the essay on Ghouls for DADA during your free period, but when you’re about to set out to the Great Hall to grab a few snacks before going through the list of books you’ll need from the library, Professor Garlick appears before you suddenly as though sprouting from the ground like a flower.
“Oh, delightful, my dear, there you are!” she beams. Small brown parcels flutter around her head like butterflies. “Here is the delivery for Mr. Ollivander, if you’d be so kind and bring them to him now.”
Just in case, you look behind you. Nobody there on the stairs leading up to the central hall. Even Javi has made himself scarce already. She really is talking to you.
“Why me, Professor?” Someone must have hit you with Obliviate. You can’t remember having agreed to any favour for her.
“Oh? Frederick Gustave told me you would offer! Quite an attentive, nice boy! He will grow into a splendid Ravenclaw student one day!” Frederick Gustave? In Ravenclaw? You don’t know anyone called Frederick or Gustave or—the thought strikes you like lightning. Freddy, Fred or August. “All you need to do is bring these little parcels to Mr. Ollivander in Hogsmeade. These are magically nourished woods he has requested, and I am quite eager to see the results for myself.”
With a flick of her wand the parcels change course and begin to circle around your head before you can even begin to explain that this is a huge misunderstanding. She pats your cheek affectionately and twirls around, descending the stairs back to her flowery domain.
Javi is waiting for you at the top of the stairs, ignoring your scowl as he whistles the tune of The School of Jolly Dogs. His face lights up. “Since you’re heading to Hogsmeade, can you bring me some white Chocolate Frogs? Mine hopped out of the window last night because Arty forgot to close it.”
You answer with a rude hand gesture and stomp out of the hall, heading for where you keep your brooms stashed in the Hufflepuff locker room.
~ ⋆｡°✩ ~
The flight to Hogsmeade takes longer than usual. Every time you move too fast, the parcels begin to cry and whine like little abandoned ducklings until they catch up to you. Other than that, it is a beautiful morning as the sun keeps dipping in and out between wispy smears of clouds on the wide blue canvas. The tiny, homey town is alive with witches and wizards scurrying around to get their errands done. The novelty and excitement from visiting Hogsmeade in your third-year has worn off after two years, but it’s still a nice change from the dark school corridors and unending spiralling stair cases.
You leave your broom leaning next to the entrance of Mr. Ollivander’s shop. This shouldn’t take more than five minutes, darting in and out; you’re pretty sure you’ll be quicker than a Niffler digging through a pile of Galleons.
The door swings open easily. It has been five years since you last set foot into the small, cramped shop, yet nothing has changed and suddenly you feel as though you’re eleven again, entering for the first time. It smells of polished wood and something burnt underneath like a misplaced Incendio. Nearly every wall is stacked high with countless wands up to the ceiling, waiting to choose their witch or wizard. Back then you felt very small as a first year, anxious and excited to finally attend Hogwarts and get your own wand—the very first object that truly belonged to you and was not one of your older sisters’ hand-me-downs.
From the back of the shop you hear heavy knocks and a shrill screeching sound that makes you want to put your hands to your ears. Just like five years ago, you reach for the bronze bell on the counter but before your fingers can touch it, it lifts on its own and jingles beautifully. The knocking immediately stops, followed by a last dull clatter and then Mr. Ollivander emerges from the back room, dusting himself off.
He looks at you over the rim of his golden glasses, and a small smile spreads on his face as recognition dawns. The wide counter flap squeaks open when he swishes his wand to step through.
“Ah, the Hawthorn girl,” he says in greeting, quickly closing the space between you and taking your hands in his; you feel every wrinkle against your palm, every patch of rough skin from decades of work as he squeezes your hands. “I have hoped that I would see you soon.”
The question mark must be evident on your face, for Mr. Ollivander explains, “I remember every student and wand I paired, and you my dear, I remember the day five years ago when you came to my shop and your wand found you. Spiral, twelve inches, and a phoenix feather core. Unyielding. But what makes your wand so special is the wood it is made of. Hawthorn makes such a strange, contradictory wand, as full of paradoxes as the tree that gave it birth, whose leaves and blossoms heal, and yet whose cut branches smell of death.” He chuckles to himself, blinking as if lost in a memory; not noticing how tense you are and the way your uneasy smile curls downward. As though you could forget what the hawthorn means. But instead of allowing your mother’s voice inside your head and poisoning your heart, you square your shoulders and pull your hands away from Mr. Ollivander’s grasp.
“Delivery from Professor Garlick,” you say with a faux cheery voice. It seems only then does Mr. Ollivander notice the parcels still fluttering around your head.
“Ah, yes, yes! Allow me.” He points his wand at the parcels, then to his back room and they float through the shop in rank and file, all in proper order. “And here of course, the payment.” Mr. Ollivander hurries behind the counter, and produces a heavy pouch that he hands over to you. It jangles handsomely when you take it from him.
“Well then, I wish you a nice da—”
“Tell me, dear, have you met him?”
Feet already pointed towards the entrance, you turn your body halfway back. “Met who, sir?”
Mr. Ollivander looks up from the account books he’s been writing in. Something glints in his eyes, but maybe it’s just the reflection on his glasses. “Why, the Blackthorn boy of course.”
You rack your brain for anyone you know who’s called Blackthorn but come up empty. “I’m afraid I have not made any acquaintance like that, sir.”
The wandmaker’s eyes are calm, a sparkling blue of sunlight lancing off a stream. “I see,” he says. “Well, my part of this was fulfilled when I matched your wants with you. Everything else is up to you.” He gives you a little secret smile, then goes back to his ledger, the conversation clearly over even though you have dozens of questions swirling in your head.
Back out on Lower High Street, you have been released of the fluttering parcels and instead Mr. Ollivander’s words torment your mind. You can feel a memory hiding behind a thick fog, blurry and barely visible but its presence heavy and lurking like a ghost.
Wasn’t there something he had told you five years ago? When he had presented your wand to you, still resting in its narrow satin casket. You were too excited to pay him any mind—it had sounded too much like one of your mother’s stories; like an augury or worse even, a prophecy—when he had told you about a cursed kingdom, two brothers, and a hawthorn and blackthorn tree. Why listen to old fairy tales when the real adventure—Hogwarts—was waiting for you?
Besides, if by ‘Blackthorn boy’ he meant someone with a blackthorn wand, finding that person would be nearly impossible. And why would you look for him in the first place? Superstitions and divinations have no place in your life. Not after how it had dictated your childhood with a cold iron fist.
The trip back to Hogwarts is significantly faster without having to look after enchanted parcels behaving like newborn Fwoopers. With what happened at Mr. Ollivander’s, you completely forgot to drop by Honeydukes for Javi, which makes him look like a kicked puppy for the rest of the day.
You manage to start your essay for the group project, although you don’t get nowhere near where you wanted to be before the match. Lunch is a blur of tasty shepherd’s pie and grilled mushroom skewers with a small handful of students passing where you sit to wish you good luck, pattung your shoulder hard enough you almost choke on your pumpkin juice. Others send you little notes with crude drawings showing St. Jude zapping you with a spell and losing tonight’s duel. The messages are charmed to head dive into your cup and plate, splattering mashed potatoes on your uniform.
Adeleide plucks a nervously flapping piece of paper out of your meal and unfolds it. “At least they’re creative,” she notices mildly.
You throw a wary glance at the note. “That doesn’t even look like me.”
“I don’t know.” Javi slurps loudly from his cup. “They got your scowl right.”
Double Potions after lunch flies by for a change. Your Wiggenweld Potion tends to be a tad bluer than Professor Sharp’s apple green concoction bubbling at the front table for reference, but you have a hard time focusing when your mind is already occupied with how tonight’s duel might go.
You have a handful favourite spells that you’ve practised long enough they come as easy to you as breathing. But from what you have seen during the last Crossed Wands duels where St. Jude has participated, he seems to have a natural gift for duelling. You’ve heard he competed alongside Sallow in his first duel, but every after he’s been on his own and you’ve seen the battered and bruised leftover competitors limping out of the Clock Tower. You don’t plan to follow in their footsteps.
When evening falls on the castle and the long, narrow corridors awake with dim candlelight, you follow the throng of hooded students hurrying towards the Clock Tower after dinner. The excitement ripples through the lines of people like a physical force, alive and rearing when the first students file into the Clock Tower and find a seat close to the walls and away from accidental stray spells.
You spot Lucan Brattleby surrounded by a handful Hufflepuff and Slytherin students. Javi is among them, and when you draw closer you notice the ledger in Lucan’s hand and the Sickles being passed between him and Javi.
Javi startles when you step next to him like a Mooncalf facing an oncoming card. “Hiya,” he says in the very familiar voice that sounds a lot like him hoping you won’t be mad.
You raise an eyebrow. “Placing bets?” Your eyes linger on the page as you scan the names on the chart on your side. Only a few names—Leander, who’s been especially snappy since he lost against St. Jude in the semifinals, a handful other Gryffindors, one or two Ravenclaws and the rest are students from your house. On St. Jude’s column, Lucan has started to write the names as tiny as possible to fit them all on the page. Javi’s is amongst them. He ducks away from your scrutinising gaze. “He slew a fully-grown troll last week!” he pleads his case. So much for the infamous Hufflepuff loyalty. “I’ll invite you to Honyedukes after and pay whatever you want from the win.”
“Whatever.” You turn away to get ready, walking into a hard, solid body.
Callum St. Jude steadies you before you can stumble. “Easy there.” His smile slices white. “Am I already sweeping you off your feet? We haven’t even started yet.”
You shrug his hand off your arm. “The only sweeping happening today is when I wipe the floor with you, St. Jude.”
He hums thoughtfully. “We’ll see.”
You stare daggers at his back as he retreats to his side of the hall, welcomed by other Slytherin students who pat his back and ruffle his unruly jet-black hair as though he is the fifth year’s Champion already. He doesn’t linger around them for too long, and instead retreats to a far corner where Sallow is already waiting for him. What an annoying duo.
Tugging your black robe off, you begin to stretch your limbs. For today’s occasions you’ve chosen to wear a simple shirt with ribbon uniform tucked into your plaid trousers. More mobility, less fabric flapping around. A tie or a blazer would allow too much surface for a nasty Accio. From the last duels you’ve watched, you know St. Jude is as sharp as a whip, and he uses everything in his so far meagre arsenal of spells to win.
You’ll need to keep all your wits about you. If he, and the majority assembled under the giant swinging pendulum today, underestimate you, it will be your pleasure to remind them what vicious creatures badgers are. And that they devour snakes.
When you turn, St. Jude is already standing ready, his wand raised. He’s shrugged out of his robes as well and pulled off his tie, following your example. Gone is the hint of the cocky smile he always wears, so infuriating and inviting to punch. Now he is serious, his face an impassive mask that betrays nothing but you have seen it change within a heartbeat before knocking an opponent out with a savage blast of his wand. Like a snake, waiting and watching, until it strikes viciously and sinks its venomous fangs into your skin.
“Attention!” Lucan Brattleby hops in the centre, his arms raised. “Wizards and witches! Welcome to the fifth year’s Crossed Wands Championship Round!” He lets the audience get the whistling and bellowing out of their system before he introduces both parties. “Competitors, let’s get started!”
He quickly dashes out of the way—rightly so, for St. Jude’s opening move is always a lightning-quick Levioso, just like Professor Hecat taught him. You dodge the spell and hear it disperse against the wall behind you, feeling the sparks nip your skin.
“Accio!” You whip your wand towards you, only able to catch St. Jude by the cuff of his white sleeve as he evades with a side-step. But it’s enough to unbalance him as his arm is pulled in your direction and he retaliates by using the moment to blast a few Basic Casts your way which you block by well-timed Protegos.
The crowd’s cheers disappears into background noise as you and St. Jude continue your tense dance of attack and parry; a step forward, another step back, his Incendio is answered by your Glacius; since he prefers fire you do him the pleasure of casting Confringo which forces him to dive to the side. Your spell blasts the wooden weapon rack behind him into splinters and pieces, showering the Slytherins sitting beside it with glowing embers.
“Come on, new guy, give her a proper Slytherin treatment!” one of them yells. St. Jude doesn’t let himself get distracted, not even by the instructions of his fellow housemates or the quips from your side of the room. His eyes are pinning you like a butterfly on a corkboard, following your every step. They are frighteningly bright, you have the feeling that no move will go past him.
From behind you, you pull a large crate from under the buttocks of two Gryffindors with Accio, ignoring their protests when in the last second you fling it bodily towards St. Jude with Depulso. You’ve been working on the right timing for this for a long time—people usually don’t expect to be thrown at with things instead of spells. It hurls through the hall, and to your utter astonishment St. Jude blocks it in the last second with a flying object of his own—a practice dummy.
But where was the spell? You didn’t see him cast one when he hurled that dummy through the air.
At your puzzled expression, St. Jude grins at you, his smile so sudden and jarring as a thunderclap. You narrow your eyes. There’s something growing in the pit of your stomach, rearing its ugly head and snapping sharp, volatile teeth. Basic Casts don’t feel enough, and every vicious Diffindo St. Jude parries or dodges in the last moment. His retaliation is a fiery Incendio after Incendio—you’d think after this time one of you would grow weaker, lose focus, but the heat flaring your way and the flames licking up your uniform feel anything but harmless or tame.
Sweat runs down your temples, along your cheeks, down your neck. Your wand feels hot in your hand, but you grip it tighter, knuckles white. Your lungs feel tight in your chest, but you breathe in stronger, eyes wide. That rage that always lives inside you rears. It is an almost physical pain, like nails against flesh; like teeth against bars. That unwanted animal is starving, it wants nothing more than to get out and you’re surprised nobody else can hear it howling.
“Not as quick or cunning as that Sallow boy, but her spells pack a mean punch,” they say about you. You couldn’t best Sallow, and now there is this new contender and you refuse, refuse to slide down to number three; always coming in last, always pushed aside. You snarl at St. Jude as though trying to wrap your teeth around the world.
The air crackles with magic. Faintly, you hear an echo of a familiar voice. “Do not be surprised at your wand’s ability to perceive your intentions—particularly in a moment of need.”
It seems your wand shares your taste for violence—you can feel that this is the best Expulso you have executed since you taught yourself the spell in year four. You swing your arm, wand scorching hot in your hand—vibrating even—and hurl the Blasting Spell at St. Jude.
You can see his mouth move as he speaks a spell, blue sparks fly from the tip of his wand and then crackling lightning intercepts your attack. Through the sparks and bolts you see St. Jude’s puzzled expression—now is the chance to strike. A surprised opponent is a weak opponent; you swing your arm back—your arm is stuck.
From the tip of your wand a wiry crimson light crackles across the room, connected to St. Jude’s wand. When you try pulling back again, an invisible force lurches you forward, forcing your arm up until the thin light grows stronger, redder like spilt blood. Your arm shakes with the feeling of wrongness crawling up your arm, a kernel of god-awful flavour that has you biting your bottom lip. You feel an awareness. No. More than awareness, more sentient than that. It is recognition.
The point of your wand, shining a blazing white, shakes with the effort of you trying to pull back; shakes from whatever magic is transpiring between you two. On the other side, St. Jude has his free hand around his other wrist, trying to lower his wand, his face as white as a wall. To no avail.
The magic spreading from your wand through your body is like curious, warm fingers touching up along your arm, curling around your shoulder, settling against your cheek. They wander lower and splay across your chest, then sink through your ribs. Close around your heart. Squeeze.
The world explodes.
The magical blast sends you flying. Your teeth clang together as you slam on your back. Pain radiates through your body. Black dots dance before your eyes and blur your vision as you’re struggling for air.
A hushed silence has settled inside the Clock Tower. You shake your head, your free hand rising to your chest where you still feel a sharp twinge. Gingerly, you pick yourself up, carefully feeling for injuries. The whole room is a mess as though a wild Graphorn has ravaged inside and destroyed most of the furnishings. When your eyes lock with St. Jude’s across the room, your heart beats in your throat, making it hard to breathe.
Mirroring you, one hand is pressed against his chest, the other holds his wand in a vice-grip as though his life depends on it. You see him shudder helplessly, as if it were winter and he has gone outside without gloves and caught a terrible chill. His eyes meet yours, then drop to your wand. His lips mouth a single word, and you stare at him, throat tight, the cold sweat sensation of dread spreading slowly through your limbs.
And all of a sudden, you remember very clearly one thing Mr. Ollivander had told you all those years ago.
Once your paths cross, your fates will be irrevocably connected, growing together like the roots of old trees. Your wands have come from the same seed. There is no doubt that you fill find him.
Your Blackthorn boy.
A/N: If anyone is interested in this story, I can make a taglist :) Would also appreciate any sort of feedback, or just hitting the little heart so show me you enjoyed it
#hogwarts legacy mc#hogwarts legacy fanfic#sebastian sallow x mc#sebastian sallow x male mc#sebastian x mc#ominis gaunt x reader#ominis gaunt x you#ominis gaunt x y/n#ominis x reader#ominis x you#ominis x y/n#ominis gaunt#sebastian sallow#phill.hl
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the night before -
The Morvants have their own Christmas Eve traditions.
warnings: allusions to child death and animal death, some gore, necromancers being creepy and possessive.
(I wanted to get this up earlier tonight, but my sister in law got in and I got distracted visiting, so! consider this a late night bite for the nocturnal crowd 🖤
As always, you can read this for just your favorite, or you can read it as though you’re dating a combination of all three - so long as you don’t mind your bed being very crowded at the end 😜)
All three Morvants share memories of the looming dread the holiday previously inspired:
The skeletal revenants that glowered through the House in the days leading up to the gathering — ritualistically sweeping, dusting, and mopping until their fingers fell off, or their task was complete and they immediately collapsed again into a heap of paper-thin skin and bones (that the boys then had to sweep up themselves and return to the basement).
The continued frustration of Maxi and Hector being constantly shooed out of the kitchen, despite both eagerly wanting to help prepare for the festivities, and being forced to go sit uncomfortably with the other men of the family as they visited before The Night’s Trial. Not to mention the guests of They Who Decide, who lounged around smoking eye-watering cigars and drinking heavily in the parlor while they talked of their grim variations of business.
The fury of a protesting Rora repeatedly being near-dragged back into the kitchen by her mother’s iron grip at her elbow, no matter how often she tried to slip away, or fake cramps or a headache in the later years, because Mathilde insisted it would be Rora’s duty to be hostess of such glittering evenings herself one day.
(Hector, to this day, swears that whatever dish Rora was forced to touch during the cooking process always tasted bitter. Like her anger had seeped into the food itself.
Rora, when asked, would simply say it was a trace amount of the cyanide her mother had caught her trying to slip in when her back was turned.)
The stiff, uncomfortable clothes - starchy old-fashioned suits for the boys, a tulle nightmare-confection for Rora, all with entirely too much ancient lace and in a grim grave-shroud white for the season.
They would be buried in them, after all, if they failed. As Vincent so loved to remind them.
Where other children waited eagerly for Christmas Day, eyes bright with the hope of presents to come, the three little ones all felt dread piling up in the pits of their stomachs like snowdrifts for weeks in advance. Each door of the antique wooden advent calendar revealed another implied threat — behind one, the baby teeth of a long dead relative who had neglected his necromancy studies. Another displayed two desiccated little slips, barely bigger than moth wings: the eyelids of a little girl who wasn’t asleep when Saint Nicholas arrived.
None of them cried when they took turns unveiling each grim reminder. They stopped all that carrying on when they were seven and eight, respectively, even when the occasional wet specimen — already milky white from a century of preservation — made one of them shiver, unsettling their breakfast in their stomach.
The little cabinet of horrors sat on the mantle all the way up to Christmas Eve, Vincent’s recitations of how each souvenir came to reside there echoing in their heads as they went about their Yule preparations.
Maxi would join his father in the embalming room, preparing for his teenage apprenticeship that would be his destiny. He learned how the dead would whisper anything they could still remember, too terrified to remember restraint, and how to salt the wards in the House’s guts that kept madness and death where they belonged.
Hector’s father would take him into what would one day be repurposed as his dark room, where he would study how to make himself a better vessel for the dead (until his mother Esperanza found an excuse to spirit him away, and showed him how redraw the boundaries within his own head).
Rora would be left alone with Mathilde, who would at first be eager for the prospect of time shared with her only daughter… until she sulked and snapped her way through every attempted lesson in the Things A Lady Should Know, be it cooking or sewing or coquetry. When Mathilde at last threw her hands up in disgust, waving Rora away, she would be left to her own devices… as well as her grandfather’s taxidermy diagrams and tools.
The three would study as diligently as each knew how, learning whatever tricks they could that might give them a way to survive the encounter.
At midnight, they snuck into each other’s rooms - a different one every night, so they might avoid any lurking ears or spectral gaze - and traded what little they knew. It was against the rules of the challenge, and if caught, they would all have to pay the price.
But none of them wanted to see the others lost. Especially to the black teeth and sightless eyes of that ancient wretched thing.
Though they had no way of knowing it yet, this would be only the first instance of breaking every rule they were ever forced to learn,
-
Ten Christmas Eves, they survived.
Every one of them made it out of the midnight maze one way or another, some years by the barest strands of ectoplasm.
Sometimes Saint Nicholas stole a strip of skin, a hank of hair from their scalp — anything it could get its bone-thin hands on, desperate to sate the aching hunger that plagued it. Hector lost one of his back molars the year he turned fifteen, and saw the creature place it right in his own jaw before he fell back through the other side of the dark.
They found each other every time as dawn broke over the cemetery on Christmas Day, wrapping each other in the by-then damp blankets that had been left out for them on the frozen ground, and watching the light push back every scrap of night left to make sure the creature in red couldn’t find its way back out to them again.
Then Hector was taken away to Mexico when he was sixteen.
Rora died the day she turned eighteen.
Hex completed his last run through the midnight maze by himself, and Maxi’s first Christmas Eve not spent fleeing in terror happened in a House where the only voices were those of the dead.
Those years, they all agreed, were the worst.
Christmas Eve with you is so different, for them, it’s surreal.
While Halloween holds his heart, Maxi doesn’t mind Christmas so much anymore. After years of keeping only to the traditional decorations so his late ancestors didn’t complain - red candles, white lights, garlands of dried herbs that had been handed down for generations - he finds he actually enjoys dressing up the House when you’re around.
He lets himself be silly now, hanging black stockings with skulls and crossbones for each of you on the mantle, decorating a tree with peculiar and morbid little ornaments - many of which are now momentos from the odd places the two of you end up together. He insists on watching Nightmare Before Christmas and It’s a Wonderful Life at least once each season, in pajamas with hot cocoa, and he has a whole other repertoire of cookie recipes that he only makes in winter.
(If he holds you a little tighter and kisses your temple during George Bailey’s shouts of delight as he realizes he’s alive again, you don’t notice enough for it to strike you as odd.
You’ll never know how happy you made him to be alive again, too.)
He relishes the hunt for the perfect present, spending all year making notes to himself about the things you want but hesitate to buy yourself, or what you’re still trying to convince yourself you need. He wants to take care of you in any way he can, and if that means giving you permission to let yourself have something, then he’s happy to grant it.
A pattern returns from your more intimate moments, though: he focuses all his attention on you, eager to please, but the minute you show him any attention in return, he’s so overwhelmed he nearly forgets what he wants altogether.
You’re enough.
Every Christmas morning he wakes up in your bed with you, unscathed and unbloodied, unafraid, is more than enough.
-
Christmas Eve, however, he still insists on the two of you staying at your place.
He frames it more as wanting a break from the House, with all the decorating he’s been up to, and that’s sort of right. But truthfully, it’s because he’s certain he’ll never be able to sleep there on Christmas Eve as long as he’s on this side of the Veil.
At night, after the two of you have finished your last sugary snacks, and he’s held your back against his chest until you slip into a seamless sleep, he still lies awake until he absolutely has to move. He kisses the soft center of your cheek before he does, as if that itself is a spell of protection for the brief time he’s away.
He pads on silent feet to your living room, pausing at your fireplace with a wary glare to ensure his contingency measures are still in place.
The fine strand of silver-coated wire glints in the light, stretched taut across the width of your firebox and deceptively smooth for how sharply razored it actually was.
On your hearth, there are wards and glyphs in an unrecognizable dialect, all written in something the dull color of dried blood.
Subconsciously, he sucks the tip of his index finger as he turns towards your front door, the faint taste of iron filling his mouth.
Toeing into his shoes and sliding on his coat, he steps outside onto your porch as silently as he can manage. When he hears no noise from your bedroom at the creak of the floorboards of the soft squeak of the door hinge, he finally closes the door.
While you sleep, warm in your bed and your sugarplum dreams, he circles your house counter-clockwise seven times, trailing salt behind him as he speaks in a dialect of Louisiana French you’ve never heard from his lips in the daylight.
When he hears the slow, rhythmic ring of distant sleigh bells, he doesn’t stop or hesitate. He keeps one eye on the moon, iris reflecting solid red in the winter light.
He’s not a crying little boy anymore. He can fight back now, and he knows damn well how.
If he speaks the invocation a little louder, a challenge to the listening dark, he doesn’t realize it.
He’d take apart a centuries-old shambling corpse of Theseus of you. In a heartbeat.
When he enters your house again, the salt border over the sparse ice on the ground gleams with a tinge of red like bloody snow.
After checking the fireplace one more time, he finds the most central, load-bearing wall in your house. It has to be this one. No other will do.
He sets his left palm against it, feeling for something… before he sets his right one against it as well, satisfied. He leans his forehead in the space between them, and as his eyes close, the words tumble out of his mouth on an exhaled sigh.
If he’s learned anything in all of this - how the flesh and the sinew of a body calls to him above all else, how blood controls the flow of life, how decay is the purest form of devotion - he knows how to protect you.
And he’ll do it with everything he has, to his last breath.
Then he’d come back and do it again, so long as you were still alive.
The heater in your house kicks on briefly as something seeps deep through the wall, starting and stopping in a perfect imitation of a single human heartbeat.
Satisfied for now, Maxi abandons his shoes and his coat, padding his way silently back towards your room.
When he passes the innocuous milk and cookies waiting on your coffee table, he mutters a curse for the devourer to choke on them, long and hard.
He’ll spend the rest of his night with one of his hands under your heart and the other wrapped around his scalpel.
If he looks a little tired in the morning, when you kiss the edges of the bags under his eyes, he’ll only grin and tell you he was too excited to sleep.
Hector is used to loud, crowded Christmas Eves, whether it’s warm and welcoming with his mother’s family, or cold and cramped with the elite of They Who Decide.
The ones he spends alone with you, however, are always his favorites.
Hex, for not liking to sing too much, is nearly always humming something cheerful under his breath when the two of you are together. He’ll sing quietly along to the remixed and traditional carols from his childhood that he has on a playlist dancing in small, shuffling steps through the kitchen as he prepares his next creation. If it’s a baked good, there might be a few pleading prayers in between verses, oscillating between languages, desperately trying to thwart the curse that causes some of his most beautiful creations to end up frosting-side down on the floor.
If it’s something he’s cooking, though, then whichever of your houses he’s in will be pleasantly warm and delicious-smelling for the rest of the evening, and even a bit into the next day.
When he’s not in the kitchen, then all the man wants is to be warm, and his favorite way to be warm is with you. He’ll spend all his time sprawled across your couch, keeping you next to him with a fuzzy blanket, or tucked into the other half of his hoodie. Being colder than you, he breaks out his collection of fuzzy socks, only sliding one off when he sneaks his toes onto the back of your knee to shock you awake from an afternoon doze.
His presents, while maybe not as obsessive, are still thoughtful. Something that makes him think of you, even if it’s not something you strictly need, per se. It’s also more likely to be something the two of you can share somehow: a movie you both wanted to see, a video game you can tag team on, a bottle of some really lovely mezcal to split after Christmas dinner. Something to give him an excuse to spend more time with you, even though he already loves being attached your side.
He’s going to be here forever. He’ll make sure of that.
-
He also would insist on spending Christmas Eve at your place — he knows the ghosts in the House very well. They’re family, after all.
But even that doesn’t mean shit on a silent night.
He makes sure to serve your favorite at dinner that night, getting you nice and pleasantly full and sleepy on something delicious. If you drink, he’ll encourage you to imbibe a glass or two, maybe three. Anything that will get you through this evening as quickly and painlessly as possible, to make sure there’s no risk of you waking up.
He couldn’t stand it if that scarlet-suited fucker ruined it for you.
He knows what that’s like.
He’s a restless sleeper, but he lays still with his lips to your shoulder until your breathing settles, and he can watch the gentle little twitches of your deepest dreams. He only moves when he’s sure it won’t disturb you, and even then, he lingers for a moment, caught by the curve of your eyelashes against your cheek. He has to remember to take a photo of that sometime. Capture it against film, so the beauty of it can be seen for long after you’re both gone.
He slips out to your living room, checking the precautions he’s set up for the umpteenth time: the firebox wire is fit in place, and he’s strung its match across the bottom of your bedroom door for good measure.
He can be hard to reach, sometimes, if his soul wanders away from his sleeping body. He’s not about to risk drifting off on the job when it comes to you.
If he’s lucky, he’ll remove it in the morning, and you’ll never be the wiser.
But better safe than sorry.
On the brick floor of the firebox is a thin scattering of terra-cotta colored ash, the scent still heavy on the air as if something beautiful was freshly burned. On the back wall are etchings of the same color: wards, drawn with a smoldering stick of his mother’s incense.
He isn’t sure if the remaining curls of smoke are actually comforting, or if it just smells to him like coming home after a long time away.
Seating himself in the dead center of your couch, he lets his head fall back, his hair spreading across the tops of the cushions. He puts his hands, palm-up, out to either side of him, arms limp like he excepts to fall asleep at any moment.
He listens to the soft sounds of your house, the settling of the floorboard, the winter wind tapping at the windows.
Like the ends of fingers, flesh gnarled away at the tips down to bone…
When he thinks he hears the faintest hint of crunching ice, he closes his eyes, and his chest falls still.
For a few minutes, there’s nothing. Utter silence, muffled by the cold against the glass panes.
His fingers twitch, moving like they themselves are dreaming.
When he opens his eyes again, breathing deep like he’s just come up from under water, both hands are being solidly held.
He sits up, looking to his right — and sees a stranger in a white nightdress.
Her features are pale, her lips blue like she was kissed by frost. Her hair hangs around her face like it’s still faintly damp with clammy sweat, and her eyes are glazed, even when it’s obvious she’s trying to focus on his face.
When he looks to his left, his heart drops.
Seated next to him is a young boy, no older than eight or nine. His clothes look like something out of a period film, patchwork at the knees of his pants and elbows of his jacket like they’ve been darned and re-darned multiple times.
His skin might have been tan, but the full color of it is lost under a disquieting yellow from underneath.
He must have been sick.
When he smiles at Hex, hopeful, one of his teeth is still missing.
Hector sighs, returning the smile somewhat guiltily.
Beggars can’t be choosers.
Quietly, he looks between them, and explains what they need to do. Where they need to stand, and for how long.
What to do if Saint Nicholas tries to talk to them.
They listen, and when he finishes, they sit so still he’s almost afraid they don’t understand.
But as one, they both silently rise to their feet, and turn in opposite directions. The woman exits through the back wall of your house, melting through like water. The boy, holding himself straight and proud with the weight of his new responsibility, marches through the front wall and out onto the porch.
With a quick look over his shoulder, and another smile through the window, he begins to circle your house.
Hector stays until they’ve both covered one counter-clockwise rotation, then rises to his feet. His joints crack a little as he does, and he winces slightly.
Before he heads back to your room, though, he looks over to where the milk and cookies are perched on your coffee table.
He uses both hands to flip it the bird. He put red pepper and cayenne in that shit, he hopes it hurts like hell going down.
Rora has… never been much of one for holidays. Especially not the ones that require being performing for family. She was already reminded every day how much she disappointed them by being something other than the perfect debutante; the holidays only heaped that on in spades.
But you. You are an excellent reminder of the joy that can be found by being alive.
In an attempt to make some cash (the whole ‘being undead’ thing kind of hampering the legal on-boarding process at most companies), Rora would be spending the season harvesting fresh mistletoe and American holly out of the swamp to make her own wreaths and decorations. She figures, having already established herself as a local artisan (to the degree that taxidermy dressed in burlesque gear counted as art — which maybe you would argue for more than her).
She wouldn’t drag you along to come foraging with her - unless you wanted to, in which case, you’d be more than welcome.
But she would be happy to spend the month joining you in whatever holiday traditions you preferred, as long as you didn’t mind her braiding and weaving various forms out of her plants when she did.
You’d sit with your head on her shoulder, your eyes torn between the black and white movie on the screen and the skillful work of her nimble hands. While you wrapped presents or trimmed your own tree, she’d be a chair away, working on her latest projects (until you needed help reaching something on the tree itself, in which case she’d immediately shoo you off the ladder like you were something fragile and take your place).
The only time her hands would stop were when the two of you were getting ready for bed — or when she’d abruptly appear next to you when you were reading or watching something, holding a sprig of fresh mistletoe over your head with a sly smile on her face.
For the holiday, you would find at the end of a silver chain a resin pendant, encasing a smaller sprig of mistletoe.
Rora, at your request, would put it on you immediately, her eyes glowing the same soft green as the leaves inside…
And then immediately bend down and enthusiastically kiss your chest, all over and then some.
She was only human, after all.
Mostly.
-
She, too, would insist on your house for Christmas Eve.
The House didn’t frighten her. Nothing really frightened her anymore, after being dead for so long.
Save for something happening to you. She would do anything, bend this world and the one beyond to her will, if it meant she could keep you from seeing a tenth of what she’d had to endure.
The mistletoe and holly served a dual purpose, you see. For every so many sprigs and boughs set aside for her little stand at the local flea market, she set one aside for you.
In the winter evenings, when you were busy with your own holiday secrets or blissfully asleep, she would tinker with the branches and the leaves, waiting for them to dry and diminish of their original hue before she infused it with some of her own.
On Christmas Eve, after she’d thoroughly worn you out before bed (she couldn’t cook, but she was always delighted to dine) and laid out milk and cookies both laced with enough cyanide to kill a horse (it wouldn’t work, it was just for her own catharsis), she set to work on her true, intricate design.
Yes, she uses the firebox wire, same as the boys. They’d been using it since they were thirteen, she wasn’t about to abandon tradition. But she also etches her own runes around your mantle, hiding them after with a garland of beautifully arranged plants that seems to nearly glow with just how verdant they are.
When the whole fireplace almost seems alive with fresh greenery, she settles herself on the hearth, pulling on the protective smock she wore over her clothes for all her taxidermy projects.
After a deep breath, and a moment to angle her arm around the firebox wire, she shoves her hand as far up the chimney’s throat as she can manage it.
She grumbles as she searches, wincing at the ash that falls while she moves her hand over the bricks and around the lintel - and nearly smashes what she’s looking for.
Oh-so-carefully, moving as slowly as she can, she frees the pathetic little bundle from its tomb before bringing it back down to her own eye level like she’s holding a handful of diamonds.
It is, in fact, a collection of mouse bones.
Small, sad, discolored from age and long shot of any fur it might have once had in life, the skeleton nearly crumbles apart in Rora’s hand.
She holds it close to her face, poking through it with her index finger as she counts. When she knows for sure she has the skull, and enough limbs for it to work, she folds the tiny remnants into her delicate fingers.
What happens next is hidden by the dark veil of her hair, her own deep green shining between the strands as she whispers something in Latin.
Around her, a breeze gathers in your perfectly still house, tiny whispers seeming to echo off the walls.
When she raises her head again, the scars from her own resurrection are a deep, pulsing green -
But the mouse skeleton is standing upright in her palm, assembled like it hasn’t been in years.
The eyeless little thing looks up at her, and if it had a nose to sniff and ears to twitch, it would.
She smiles at it - a soft one, one she usually only saves for you - and kisses the tip of her finger before pressing it to the tiny arc of the dusty skull.
The mouse, at first surprised despite its featureless face, presses back.
Rora strokes her finger along its spine, watching it shiver its little vertebrae in happiness as she whispers to it.
She holds her hand back to the firebox, and with some gentle urging, the little skeleton skitters onto the bricks again. Glancing back over its tiny scapulae, it eyes her with its empty sockets, before scrabbling its way back up into the chimney from which she pulled it.
Rora stands again, dusting her hands off on her smock before just standing there. Waiting.
Then, just as whispers had filled your house before, a new breeze sweeps along something else: squeaks.
As she listens, the tiny, echoing squeak develops yet another echo. Between your floorboards, she can see the hint of a deep green spark, which in turn seems to split itself in two.
She stares down, watching the green spark divide itself over and over as tiny echoing squeaks grows into a veritable chorus.
When it finally stops dividing itself, she stamps twice on the floorboards, and a mass of something that grows vivid green rattles incessantly in the direction of your chimney.
A small army of skeletal creatures in varying states of assembly squeezes its way out between the cracks in your floor, the pieces throwing themselves into the firebox and up the flue like some sort of horrific reverse vacuum.
Rora supervises until an entire extermination van’s worth seems to have shoved itself up your fireplace, glowing a nuclear green that fills the whole room, before it at last falls deceptively silent.
Smiling like a cat, she steps out of her smock, depositing it behind a chair and out of sight before sauntering her way back to your room.
Let that dead fuck try his luck against her new darlings.
She’d been wondering how well that petrified skin would hold up against thousands of little tiny teeth.
When she crawls back into your bed, you barely even stir when she pulls you close.
-
You will never know the terrors that lurk in the depths of old magic.This time of year will always be joyous for you.
They will each and all make sure of that.
(if you read this far, I hope your holiday is going swimmingly - or at least, less stressful than theirs. :’D thanks for stopping by and sharing part of it with us! 🥰♥️
merry creepmas to all, and to all a good fright! 🖤⚰️)
#slasher ocs#southern slasher ocs#necromancer ocs#queer horror ocs#original queer horror#christmas at the mortuary#morvant mortuary#maxi morvant#maximilian vincent morvant#hector morvant-casares#hex morvant-casares#hector emile morvant-casares#aurore morvant#rora morvant#aurore marie morvant#daniel brühl fc#diego luna fc#eva green fc#monsterkisser fics
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Forgot to ask when Taigong is doing his special chant why did he name those specific gods are they important to him and who are they exactly? I know that Yuanshi is Taigong teacher and that Nüwa is Daji’s boss.
Before me, the King Father of the East, Dongwanggong
Xiwangmu, the Queen Mother of the West, is a major figure that frequently appears in Taoist narratives due to her status as the one governing all the Xian women. In contrast, Dongwanggong, the King Father of the East, exists only as her mirror image, barely gets mentioned anywhere, and while he gets the equivalent status of governor of the male Xians, there are a handful of male Xians blatantly above him in the hierarchy. Also, archeological evidence of Xiwangmu's worship is quite a few centuries older than his, so it's pretty well accepted that he was created just to be her counterpart.
To my right, the Flame Emperor, Shennong
Shennong is one of the three divine sovereigns of China. A man with the head of a bull and a great elemental affinity for fire. He was crowned the god of agriculture for teaching humans how to grow crops, weave clothes, and practice commerce. He also earned his status as the god of medicine by testing hundreds of herbs and sorting which were toxic and which were healing. I guess Prometheus is a good comparison point for him, as they share the fire imagery and the history as a granter of knowledge. FGO has him as one of the two gods incorporated into Xu Fu's Saint Graph.
Behind me, the Queen Mother of the West, Xiwangmu
The aforementioned boss of the Xian women. She's originally described in the Classic of Seas and Mountains as a woman with a human face, tiger teeth, a leopard tail, and unkempt hair, but later texts beautify her. She's also responsible for the peaches of immortality and famously offered one to Emperor Wu. She's the goddess of criminal punishment, associated mainly with the five more cruel sentences (marking criminals with tattoos, scraping off noses, cutting off feet, castration, and execution).
Some of her cameos in myths include:
Being the Yellow Emperor strategy teacher, who he calls for help in the battle against Chiyou.
Giving the peaches of immortality to Hou Yi.
Offering a peach of immortality to Emperor Wu.
Being the mother who doesn't let Zhinu (better known by her Japanese name Orihime) be with her mortal lover for 364 days of the year in the tale of the Star-Crossed Lovers.
Hosting the peach party that Sun Wukong raided to steal the peaches of immortality early into the Journey to the West.
Lending her Flag of Clouds to Guang Cheng Zi in the Investiture (and being regularly mentioned as Princess Longji's mother).
To my left, the Mother Goddess, Nüwa
Nuwa is the world creator, who also created mankind in a collaborative project with her husband Fuxi. She has a major part in the Investiture, as you mentioned. After having the honor of seeing her, Emperor Zhou of Shang got too excited and wrote an erotic poem on her temple's walls. Very offended by this, she dispatched our lovely trio of Daji, Hu Ximei, and Wang Guiren to cause the downfall of his empire. However, Daji proved herself to be a callous overachiever and a bad influence on her two companions, so Nuwa sided against her own subordinates in the war.
However, her main myth is about how the primordial gods of fire and water picked up a fight with her and the battle resulted in a hole in Heaven, causing the water of the Milky Way to leak downward, almost causing humanity's extinction. Nuwa used all of her power to patch the hole with colorful rocks and to recover from that, she took a nap she still hasn't woken up from.
May the great Jade Emperor bestow his blessing upon us
Yu Huang Taidi, the Jade Emperor, is the emperor of the celestial realm. Officially he is the direct assistant of Yuanshi Tianzun, and that makes him the most important Chinese god as far as mankind is concerned because the Three Pure Ones above him don't concern themselves with the affairs of either the human or the regular Xian worlds.
under Torch Dragon Zhulong's radiant light!
That's the guy who controls when it's day and when it's night. His eyes are vertically laid in the center of his face, and it gets bright when he opens them and dark when he closes them.
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So I did a quick translation of Flight 23-ji, the second ending of SamFlam. :)
Without hanging my head,
If I had smiled while quietly looking up at the same night sky,
We wouldn't have been separated, right?
A familiar voice, on the other end of the phone receiver
You seem to be doing well, and I sighed with relief
How long has it been since we became unable to meet,
When I waved to you from the platform?
I close my eyes, on this night flight
On the dark side of the moon, as usual
We'll rendezvous at 11:00 PM
No matter how far away, I will be able to meet with you
The Saint-Exupéry I read long ago surely said,
"What is essential is invisible to the eyes."
And certainly, in my heart you are there
With all of your different expressions on your face
Without hanging my head,
If I had smiled while quietly looking up at the same night sky,
We wouldn't have been separated, right?
I wouldn't be so lonely now, right?
"You won't tell anyone?" In hushed tones, I suddenly
Asked without any context.
It just finally burst out, and made you mad...
This talk is only between us.
It's just like time travel
By the time you cross over the dates
An anthology I've collected
Of words precious to only the two of us
Paul Géraldy's words are engraved in my heart,
"We must be a little different to love each other."
When we're together, or when we're rocky,
I love you either way.
So keep on singing and keep on playing
So that I can always feel you by my side
A tiny little Milky Way
That fits right into my hands
The Saint-Exupéry I sent you surely said,
"What is essential is invisible to the eyes."
And certainly, in my heart you are there
With all of your different expressions on your face
Without hanging my head,
If I had smiled while quietly looking up at the same night sky,
We wouldn't have been separated, right?
I wouldn't be so lonely now, right?
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2022 June 3
A 10,000 Kilometer Galactic Bridge
Image Credit & Copyright: Maxime Oudoux, Jean-Francois GELY
Explanation: With this creative astro-collaboration you can follow the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy as it bridges northern and southern hemisphere skies. To construct the expansive composite nightscape, skies over Observatorio El Sauce in Chile (top) were imaged on the same date but 6 hours later than the skies over the Saint-Veran observatory in the French Alps. The 6 hour time-lag allowed Earth's rotation to align the Milky Way above domes at the two sites. All exposures were made with similar cameras and lenses mounted on simple tripods. A faint greenish airglow is visible in the dark Chilean sky that also features the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds near the observatory dome. In the French Alps light pollution is apparent, but the distant Andromeda Galaxy can still be spotted near the horizon in the northern night. On planet Earth the two observatories are separated by about 10,000 kilometers.
∞ Source: apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap220603.html
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