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stereksecretsanta · 3 years

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Merry Christmas, negativenorth!

For @negativenorth <3

Read On AO3

*****

This is Our Last (First) Christmas

The Hale Pack survived junior year. Miraculously. The troubles that surrounded them sophomore year brought on by their sacrifices to find their parents were increased by the cleansing ritual in the spring Stiles and Deaton did. It cleansed the Hale Territory-including Beacon Hills and the Preserve-The Pack, the air, the ground, even the humans of all the remaining darkness; reawakening the hibernating Ley Lines and brightening the light of Beacon Hills.

The summer was strangely terror-less. Deaton explained the cleansing happened like and earthquake, the energy radiating out and it would take some time until the epicenter was found but once things found it, everyone would tune into it. The Hale Territory was highly desired by many supernaturals for many reasons. Derek (under the advisement of Stiles) began a training regiment for the pack, humans included. Derek focused more on the wolves-Scott, Jackson, Danny, Isaac, Erica, Boyd, and Ethan and Aiden-who deflection helped defeat the Alpha pack and Derek welcomed in with open arms. The humans trained too, but with Melissa on first aid and field trauma medicine and Chris and John with hand to hand and gun and knife combat training. Stiles had added training with Deaton on magic. Eventually, The wolves joined the humans.

"Why do we need medical training?" Isaac asked, diligently paying attention to proper stitching technique.

"If something happens, yeah you may heal but that doesn't solve blood loss. Or if a human is out. Or you needed to be inconspicuous about lycanthropy. Technically you don't exist." Stiles said. "Or a broken bone that heals wrong."

"He's not wrong. I agree." Derek chimed in.

"You're only agreeing because-"Erica was cut off by a hard nudge to the ribs from Allison and a heated glare from Scott. Stiles was confused but let it go, only to silently agree with the Mate-Marks on their right arm-a vine of bright red thorny roses.

"Well, if Mom says and Dad agrees then I guess we have no choice." Jackson sneered. Stiles sighed and rolled his eyes.

"Excuse me for wanting you to stay alive, dipshit. These aren't bad skills to have in general even. My first aid saved your fucking ass more than once." Stiles practically snarled. This pack was made up of his friends but that didn't mean they were easy to get along with. Jackson opened his mouth to retort but was cut off by Lydia's hand on his arm. Stiles always smiled softly when he got a glimpse of their Mate-Mark behind their ears, the chemical formula C43H66N12O12S2 also known as oxytocin.

A week during the fall of junior year, Stiles felt a chill go down his spine. One of the wards he spent several long days putting up with Deaton's teaching had been triggered. He had put up a dozen or so of varying intent, getting stronger and closer together the closer to Derek's loft they got. Stiles had a list in his journal of placements to recharge them if needed but Deaton had told him with his Spark and use of Ley lines, they will stay charged and operational until removal. Stiles texted to Derek to warn him of the visitor and he with Boyd checked it out.

That was the first of almost weekly trespassers of the creatures-that-go-bump-in-the-night variety. The pack had their training, their strength, their determination to survive but they didn't have their teamwork, their trust, their knowledge to win. Stiles and Lydia and occasionally Allison worked to compile as much information as possible from Deaton and Chris and Derek and independent research as possible. The Pack grew smart but they still couldn't click, they used too much brawn not enough brain.

"You would think, with werewolves needing packs, they would innately understand teamwork." Stiles said. He was at the Argent's house looking at few of Chris's books. He had become more helpful since Allison and Scott finally told him the truth about their Mate-Marks. He didn't like it but he know helped as much as he could knowing that was the only way to get his daughter safe.

"You have to remember Stiles, they may be werewolves now but they are teenagers first. High schoolers. Derek isn't that much older than you all. You somehow see the bigger picture but they can't." Chris said.

"I have always had to see the big picture. No one else was looking at it at the beginning. I was trying to keep everyone alive, not just-"Stiles cut himself off. "You are so right. You always have the best ideas." Stiles sagged a little with relief. He was glad he'd been able to convince Chris to help them, join them. "I have to go." Stiles left the kitchen, uncharacteristically leaving the books scattered on the table. He hopped into his jeep and headed straight to Derek's loft.

"Derek, are you home?" Stiles opened the door to the loft with the only spare key Derek ever made.

"Hey, Stiles. Surprise seeing you here, everything okay?" Derek popped out from the kitchen. "I am making dinner, care to join me?"

"Oh, that would be nice. Everything is okay, I just have something to talk to you about." Stiles sat at the island rubbing a thumb against the glass Derek handed him and the other rubbed the spot behind his ear.

"Okay. If you are this serious then it probably has some merit." Derek said. Stiles felt proud of the growth Derek had gone through. He had become a better man and Alpha since the pack had grown and settled and he was able to grieve properly. Stiles, however was confused at his statement. Derek looked up to see Stiles looking back with his head tilted and eyes narrowed. "You have tells just like the rest of us. You may know all of ours but you don't know your own. You have gotten good at lying to us weres but you forget that some of us? We know you. Like me, you rub behind your ear when you are thinking about something and it may upset the balance of things." Derek explained. Stiles didn't know how to answer, wasn't sure what to say, Derek studied him? It made sense in Stiles' head, at the beginning Derek needed to know everyone's angle even his.

"I didn't know that." Stiles said. He decided to ignore the other parts Derek said until later. "I know as a pack we have strengths and weaknesses. We need to work on those weaknesses, our biggest one? Teamwork. This pack is holding the strongest territory in the Northwest right now, and it is made up of young werewolves and several humans and a Banshee who all happen to be teenagers in high school. We had a social hierarchy and it worked until you bit several of them. Now they have to relearn that, everything is discombobulated causing tensions, and second-guessing and we may have survived until now but eventually that won't be enough. We may be a pack but we won't be a family until that happens." Stiles paused realizing how that sounds. "Not that I want to replace yours. I just want-I don't mean to-I get it. I don't want you to be alone anymore." Stiles finally spit out.

"I know what you mean. I would never think that you of all people are trying to somehow push away my family. You have too much resect for others to even think that." Derek said. His face was relaxed and open, the skin around his eyes wasn't even tight. You probably love hearing this from me, even though I say it a lot. You are right. We don't know each other well enough to know what we'd risk for each other. So what is your idea?" Derek turned back to the stove.

"What makes you think I have an idea?" Stiles asked. Derek just threw a look over his shoulder at the young man.

"You wouldn't be here if you didn't have an idea." Derek said.

"I was thinking of having the pack rebuild your house. It would give them a safe common goal and outlet. It would reestablish your territory ad strength pack bonds and the bond with the land. it would give us a den. I know I just said I don't want to replace your family. And that is true. I don't want to because I know I can't. I can however make the pain less, the burden lighter and you happier. We can do this together Derek. Me and you. like always.

"I. I will think about it." Derek said very slowly. Stiles nodded. Derek said nothing else, instead finished up dinner and Stiles took it as a sign to get place settings ready and switch to lighter topics.

The winter of junior year was made up of blood, sweat, tears, anger, resentment, claws, teeth, bullets, arrows. The pack was surviving, but barely. Stiles could see the fault lines forming, the glares more frequent. He never pushed Derek, only waited and hoped. He knew that the Hale Pack had the potential to be amazing once again, but only if they worked for it.

The spring of junior year bloomed with hope, filled with finals college preparation and a wendigo or two. March came and went but April came in like a lion. Derek had made his decision, rebuilding the Hale Manor is needed and would do them some good. The pack had too many issues amongst themselves to work through, if they didn't settle as a whole and members of that whole, then more people would die and the pack would fall apart. Derek's decision came instinctively, The young betas had been arguing over who was to land the first hit, the baddy of the week threw Erica into a tree skewering her on a branch. Derek saw it happen in slow motion, anger thrumming in his veins. That second she impacted the tree Derek knew. He would make a pack out of these teenagers or die trying. They needed the pack as much as he did.

Derek stood over his pack watching them cuddle each other from a distance. They were on the floor of the loft spread out, but unable to ignore the need to touch. Lydia had a leg curled with Allison, tucked under Jackson arm. Isaac bridged the space between Erica and Boyd and Scott and Allison. Stiles was sitting at the island still working. Always working. Derek had actively tried to not look at Stiles, the few glances he allowed had the same results, heart pounding breath catching results. Stiles had showered and was wearing a pair of sweats he'd left here some day and a shirt of Derek's, who's scent of pine and leather mixed deliciously with Stiles' own scent of lemon and honeysuckle. Derek was glad the rest of the pack was sleeping, unable to witness him softening. Stiles was the only one to bring it out. He sat down next to Stiles, pulling his feet into his lap, rubbing lightly.

"I've been thinking...about what you said a while back." Derek couldn't look at Stiles. He instead focused on his feet. "About rebuilding."

"Oh? Did you come to a decision then?" Stiles kept his face turned to the books in front of him, side-eyeing Derek. He knew that staring would only cause Derek to shut down harder. Stiles could feel his heart pounding, knew Derek could hear it but tried to project calmness.

"Yeah. I did. I want to do it. I need to do it. The last step of grieving and the first step of acceptance. This pack needs a fresh start. You are right, like always. I only want to do this if you help me every step of the way. I can't do this by myself. I don't trust anyone else to help." Derek admitted. Stiles beamed. The absolute joy and pride on his face made Derek almost forget that he had just agreed to tear down the last standing reminder of his family.

As if Stiles could read his mind, "They'd want you to be happy. I would be honor to help you.

The decision to rebuild the house triggered something in Stiles. He began working with Deaton, honing his sputtering spark into a full-fledged flame. Deaton was impressed with his strength, commenting the flame was more like an inferno. Stiles did his school work on top of learning magic and keeping a pack of rag-tag teenagers alive. Deaton explained that Sparks were common but without proper training burned out, with proper training Sparks became witches or varied magic users, they often became emissaries to those in need or ran shops. The idea of being a pack emissary resonated with Stiles and that became his goal. He learned moon phases, herbs, spells, enchantments, crystals, sigils, runes, ancient languages. As he learned, he wasn't the only one to grow emotionally. The pack began to pull down the old Hale Manor. Piece by piece, they pulled it down. The beginning was hard-insult were thrown without care for where they landed, more than one fight broke out usually but they worked together and talked and learned about each other. The insults lost their thorns, the glares lost their heat and the smiles lost their fangs.

During the days between the too-hot spring days and the too-cold summer days, the last dumpster full of the remains of the Hale Manor vanished down the road. Derek watched feeling numb. Stiles stood by in quiet solidarity. All that was left was the scorched earth and a smattering of rubble, the grass was stained gray from ash and fire, the foundation crumbling into itself. There would be a specialist coming to demolish and redo the foundation, that was something Derek requested. The two men looked at the now empty clearing, Stiles pretended not to notice the trembling of Derek's fingers. Stiles simply took his hand in his and pulled him down to sit, letting Derek lean against him and grieve.

"No one likes it when strangers speak for those who you have lost. I know I hated it. I also know what it is like to an extent." Stiles paused. "They would be proud of you. You were in a down really low, and you brought yourself back. You did it." Stiles pressed himself into Derek's bulk.

Thanks. It has meaning coming from you. I know you understand. You know loss, not like Scott. You don't pretend to be unaffected like Jackson." Derek sat for a bit, letting the Stiles' strength soak into his bones. He wasn't alone anymore. He could do this. He wasn't 16 again pushing away Laura in a fit of survivor's guilt. He had Stiles. He had his pack. "Now what?" Derek turned to face Stiles, looking like as lost as a child after a nightmare.

"Now we build your house. Together." Stiles said. "And watch YouTube. Lots of it."

The summer between junior and senior year was the best Stiles had in a long time. He and his mother always had adventures and busy days. Then one year it was just him and Scott. It was only the two of them for years, neither popular enough for summer plans. The others in the pack in similar circumstances. Allison didn't stay around long enough to make plans and Lydia and Jackson's families made plans without consent. Stiles and Derek read and watched and googled for hours before getting the materials. The did it step by step from framing to electric to plumbing to hanging drywall to building stairs to putting in windows. Derek bought the supplies, secretly pleased that the insurance, investment, assess money was getting some use, not just growing interest, coming into several millions of dollars was daunting without a purpose especially when part of the blame fell on his shoulders. With every step of the way, Stiles and Derek worked together to make the idea into a house into a home. Stiles layered charms and spells and enchantments and runes and straight ingredients into everything. Protection from water, fire, illness, bad luck, ill-intent, accidents, death, and anything Stiles could think of was woven into every step, from the frame to the paint. The house was built by Stiles and Derek for the pack, for the future, for each other.

"Derek, we need a bigger kitchen. And I think a mudroom will be a good investment with a lever handle door. We have a nice entrance way, where people came come in and hang up their jackets and put away shoes but the back entrance doesn't have anything." Stiles was looking over the blueprints with Derek. He was making notes for when they finalized some decisions.

"Why?" Derek asked.

"You will be housing a pack of teenage/twentysomething werewolves. You need a big enough kitchen and matching pantry to feed a small country." Stiles said, still scribbling notes.

"No." Derek growled. He was running out of patience. He wanted to make this house with Stiles but everyone seemed to have an opinion on something. Which would be fine it he had asked, or if there was some logic but the majority was just annoying.

"You don't want a big kitchen? I mean it is your house." Stiles looked confused but his voice seemed blank, undermined by his pounding heart and cold brittle scent of sadness.

Derek wanted to growl but held back. Derek didn't want to push him away. Derek liked how close they had been getting, his wolf was pleased as well. His wolf had been unusually attached to the young man since the beginning and was originally satisfied but as time went on both Derek and his wolf wanted more and more, not sure what they were asking for. The concern for Stiles' wellbeing, high sensitivity to Stiles' emotion and heartbeat, The willingness to entertain Stiles' commentary and personality and enjoy it, his gaze lingering on Stile' fingers and throat, reveling in the challenges he offered all resonated with Derek as signs pointing to Stiles being his mate but if that was true they would have Mate-Marks.

"It is our house." Derek said. It was all he could give right now, a house where Stiles could be relaxed and happy, Derek would have to accept what he had for right now.

"So, yes big kitchen?" Stiles looked up, Derek just stared back waiting. "Oh! The lever handle is so you can open it with paws."

That is humiliating. And smart. Make it so."

"You did not just make a Star Trek: The Next Generation reference. Are you a closeted nerd?" Stiles poked Derek in the ribs, peering at him suspiciously. Derek stayed silent, glad Stiles couldn't hear his pounding heart. Stiles laughed, head tilted back, cheeks crinkled and mouth open. Derek could only stare and memorize the moment, proud he got Stiles to laugh that easily. Derek could hear the thoughts in his soul: mine, claim, mate. The possessiveness and softness was happening more and more but only around Stiles, further adding to the mate checklist. Derek just enjoyed the moment.

Come on. Let's finish this. I do eventually want to move in, ya know?" Derek tapped the paper with a single claw, trying to remind Stiles-ineffectually-he could rip his throat out with his teeth.

The weekend before senior year found the pack piled in the living room of the recently finished Hale Manor. The pack was well-protected and well-stablished now with Stiles' magic and the 'den' and the bonds that were solidified over the summer. Deaton said the terrors of the years past will not go away but would drastically slow down. The Hale Territory was claimed and the others would understand innately. The plan worked, the band of high school students thrown together by happenstance became a pack, a family. And it showed, in moment like this. They were tightly woven together on a bed of pillows and blankets with a Disney movie playing softly on TV. Stiles looked on and felt his chest warm and his heart flutter. He pulled out his phone and making sure the shutter and flash were off took a few pictures, trying to shove away the sadness and nostalgia. He had been slightly obsessed with taking photos lately, needing proof that the pack had come together, they now had a home not only physically but in one another too. He had done it, he had somehow kept them alive through all the bullshit. They only had one year left together and he didn't want to look back and regret not capturing the memories or being unable to remember the normal days. One day, a year from now he would look up and realize everyone had scattered like seeds on the wind, he wanted to remember. Stiles got up from the chair he was curled up in, he was feeling melancholy didn't want to ruin the mood. Even Derek was on the edge of the puppy pile. He decided to use his favorite goodbye tactic he borrowed from the Irish.

"I can hear you thinking too hard from over here. Come join us. Get comfy. And we can talk, I know something is on your mind." Derek ungracefully shoved the others to make room. It isn't pack night if one person leaves."

Fine." Stiles was a sucker for the pack card. He knew he was pack but not being a wolf meant he couldn't feel the bonds as strongly as the others so he needed reminded sometimes. Stiles slipped in between Derek and the pack, thoughts like: safe, pack, mate, mine. After a few seconds Derek pinched him lightly. "I just don't know hat I am to do next. I did what I was supposed to do. I kept Scott alive, I helped you, I healed the land, solidified the pack. My job is done. This time next year, the pack might be tossed across the country and then what? We come back for weekend and holidays? For how long? Then we just fall apart and I never have this again? I made this family just like each of them did. I can't lose another one." Stiles felt his stomach drop at the cold, bitter, sharp feeling his own words gave him.

"That isn't how this works. A pack this established only gets stronger. No one gets out. There may be distance but not much and not for long. We are too new of a pack for that. You certainly don't get to leave, you are my emissary. You are connected to me and the pack and the land. Don't force ties to break when you don't know the future. There is time, there are options. Enjoy now, before fretting about the future. Talk to them, You'd be surprised to hear you aren't as alone as you think." Derek pulled Stiles closer, tucking him tightly into his embrace. "That is why you get sad after taking photos. You think old memories are all you will have left."

"I would rather leave then be left. I have grow weary of being left." Stiles tried to shrug.

"Don't look too far ahead, you'll miss the now. Make memories to enjoy the moment not resign yourself to only having memories." Derek said. Stiles nodded and snuggled closer, Derek's body heat and voice rumbling in his chest soothing his anxiety. "Go to sleep, Stiles. I'll be right here."

Fall of senior year was calm, content. Stiles and Lydia and Danny were in a heated competition for valedictorian, a contest that was a secret to everyone in school but no one in the pack. Some filled out college applications like Danny, Jackson, Lydia. Some decided to go the technical route like Erica, Boyd. Isaac and Scott were looking at community college. Stiles adopted a forget about it and it doesn't exist attitude. He often pulled out pamphlets or packets only to sort them into piles and then put them away again. He changed the subject when asked about anything dealing with after senior year. The closest he got to talking about it was with Derek one day, by themselves hanging out on a Friday night. He told Derek, he liked magic and the supernatural and being a witch, he might open a shop, take over for Deaton who wanted to be a vet and only a vet. That was the last time he seriously spoke about it. The pack spent full moons together, running and eating dinner and then a sleepover. Slowly each pack member added their own things to the house, a blanket here, a favorite mug there, A sweatshirt draped over a chair, a forgotten pair of shoes left by the front door. Stiles took pictures and cleaned and tutored. He talked a lot without saying much. Derek knew something was on his mind.

"I want you to come over tonight. I told everyone to stay away. We have some things to talk about." Derek texted him one day in October.

Stiles went over, slouched over like the weight of the world rested on his shoulders. Derek felt sympathy for the kid.

"Stiles, I know you have been struggling a bit. Understandably so. A lot has happened these past few years. I want you to sit here with me, all night if we have to, and talk over your options. I want you to do what you want to do. I know your dad wants you to go to college and I know you want to open a shop. I think you can do both, and with the way the world works, I think you could make it work. I would gladly help, we can build you a small shop here or something." Derek said. Stiles sagged, eyes lit with relief.

"You don't think it is a dumb idea? Magic isn't well known, and I won't be successful." Stiles said.

"You are right, But people from all over will come if you are good. You will gain a following. I believe you would be a great successor to Alan, if you so choose. I will gladly help you get to that point." Derek said.

"What? I don't even know what I am doing." Stiles rubbed his face. "I can't let you...support me while I decide what I want to do."

"You are running out of time. You didn't hold me up in a pool for two hours for me for me to not learn what kind of person you are. You already made up your mind. You have helped me over and over and over again. Let me help you!" Derek demanded. Stiles threw up his hands, groaning loudly.

"What do you want me to say? That I want to learn all that I can to help you be the best alpha you can be? of the best pack we can be? And if I help other people with things around town or even farther, that would be perfection? That I have no idea what I want to do, but I can't see myself going to university and getting a typical 9-5 job and having 2.5 kids? That you coming in all dark and broody ruined me for all normalcy." Stiles ranted. He was gesturing wildly, pacing in short burst.

"Yeah. That is all I want. Feel better?" Derek, pulled Stiles close, rubbing his nose into his hair. Stiles leaned against him, this time borrowing strength.

"A little. I am glad I finally got to say it aloud. now I have to convince my dad." Stiles said. Derek squeezed him in a side hug.

"We have to convince your dad. You aren't alone, I'm not going anywhere, ever, We're a team." Stiles smiled softly and nodded, relaxing into Derek's grip.

The days and nights grew colder, the wolves handing full moon runs when the humans got the food, hot chocolate and movies ready for their return. Or rather Stiles did, the others just laid about, studying or figuring out how to move into Derek's house without their families noticing. November was quickly finishing and Stiles' favorite time of year was approaching. He had already pulled out the containers of decorations for his own house, trying to figure out how to bring it up to Derek. He wanted to have a pack Christmas, wanted to go out and pick out a tree together, and hang the garlands and argue over where the lights go on the tree, hang up ornaments and behind everyone's back rearrange them. He wanted to get presents for everyone, wrapping them with paper and ribbons and bows.

"Stiles, is something burning?" Scott said coming into the kitchen, kissing Allison on the temple. The other Mates sharing in similar displays of affection. Jackson and Lydia cuddling on a large chair, Erica and Boyd sharing a chaste kiss. Derek walked up to Stiles simultaneously pulling the pan of bacon off the stove and trailing a hand down his jaw to latch into his hair.

"Shit! The bacon. I was distracted. Sorry. It should be fine, I am mixing it to make perogies for you tomorrow. Its Sunday after all." Stiles said softly. He still looked a million miles away, Derek pulled him around ducking slightly to make eye contact.

"Stiles, is something the matter? Are you okay?" Derek asked. After they talked about Stiles' future Stiles had been coming to Derek more and more for support. Derek was more vocal with his thoughts, trying to verbalize emotions. The pack was close, a family but only because the two of them were a solid unit. They knew each other in and out.

Stiles looked nervous, like he didn't know how to ask. Derek just raised an eyebrow. "I want to decorate for Christmas. Here. I want to go and pick out directions and a tree and argue over lights and rearrange the ornaments when no one is looking. I want to agonize for days over the prefect presents. I want to do that, if you are okay with that." Stiles said, in a round of word vomit.

"Okay. I want that too, I was going to ask soon, you just beat me to the punch. How about we pick a day after Thanksgiving to pick out a tree and maybe you can come with me a few days to pick out Christmas decorations, without the children." Derek huffed a laugh into Stiles' temple. "This is your house too, You'll be here just as much as I will be. I want you to do what makes you happy."

"Okay. I'd like that. We can talk about it more later. Let's eat and then tomorrow we can look at some ideas, I want you to be the end all, end all on decisions." Stiles beamed at Derek. He went back to making dinner, leaving the slightly burnt bacon cool off to the side.

Thanksgiving was spent with their families, Derek did join the Stilinksi and McCalll's and Isaac for the big meal, finalizing plans with Stiles on decorations and tree-hunting. They decided on a red, green, gold scheme and more traditional type decorations, simple and minimalistic. Stiles used his internet skills to get some deals on older decorations on craigslist and facebook. They had a few pick-ups scheduled and the time for tree-hunting at a local christmas tree farm. Derek's only request was it had to be a big tree.

The pack three days later met up and began discussing trees. They were all in agreement, for a tall bushy tree but they couldn't pick a species until an employee showed them the examples and explained the difference. Three hours later and they finally agreed on the perfect tree and were on the way to the house. Stiles made them help him put it up right away so it warms up and the branches drop. The pack then scatters and Stiles and Derek head out and got decorations.

Derek watched Stiles spend the next few days putting the inside decorations in places. Derek helping with a comment here or there, but staying quiet, enjoying having someone to share the holiday with. "Thank you Stiles. I am glad, even though we've been through some shit together, that I have met you. I found myself because of you. I am glad that you are happy here with me." Derek told him.

"Me too. I feel safe here with you. Like I belong here, with you." Stiles said. "I know that wolves have mates obviously when they get introduced to each other, but sometimes when I am with you...you look at me and see me and I feel you..." Stiles shook his head.

"I do too. I am more attuned to you and your scent and heart than anyone in the pack. I can only chalk it up to you doing what would be my mate's job if I had one. I am not sure Stiles but I am not mad about it. Maybe after the holidays we can figure it out." Derek said.

"Yeah, that sounds like a plan." Stiles agreed.

The almost confessions triggered something, Derek became more tactile and protective than ever towards Stiles, Stiles made sure the betas were fed and the house was clean and tutored when needed and gave advice. They had been a unit before but now, Stiles and Derek were barely apart, only for school hours. Stiles' dad at one point asked if he was moving in and Stiles took that as permission and did just that (practically) moved in and also used the opportunity to tell John about his post-school plans. John was hesitant and needed some time to think it over before he could agree and support his son. Stiles did as promised and agonized for days what to get each of his friends. He meticulously wrapped each and every one of them. The one that took the longest to put together was the most important.

Stiles had learned many things over the last two and half years, about the world, himself, his hometown, his local vet. One of those things was his most important secret-he had been in love with Derek Hale for two of those years. It wasn't anything grand or extreme, one day Stiles saw him smile at a joke and decided he needed to do that all the time. Stiles knew that Derek needed somebody in his corner and chose to be that person. He didn't know spending all that time with his dry humor and caring nature and supportive personality would result with him falling in love with the older man but he wouldn't change anything that happened for anything in the world. 'except getting his real family back.'Stiles thought. 'That is it! A photo album. The Hales are a very old and well known family, there should be some photographs floating around.'

Stiles got to work. He went to the library and school paper archives, pulling out back issues of newspapers and yearbooks. He called into several nearby packs, opening the Hale pack up to negotiations in the future and even searched through Beacon Hills residents photos to find any and all of the Hale family memories. He also searched the star registry for a bright one towards the north and named it Talia Hale, so Derek would be able to find a guiding light for the rest of his life.

Stiles spent days putting the album together, finding near 75 photos and newspaper clippings for it. He also framed the star certificate and got a observatory to take very good photos of the star. and framed those as well. He was so focused Stiles forgot that his dad told him family was coming over. He obsessed over ever little detail for his present.

Derek did not fare much better. He had decided on a two part present for Stiles as well. One was a greenhouse/workshop Derek was having built for Stiles and a small business front to turn into a shop. Derek bought the shop and added Sties name to the deed so it was legally his. The greenhouse was going to be built in the spring so it could be used over the summer. Derek knew it might be too much for a friend but Stiles saved his life. Without Stiles, Derek would be alone and devastated and family-less. He fell in love with the whiskey eyes and contagious laughter and selflessness and love and compassion. They may not be Mates but Derek wanted no one else with him in the future, not only as a pack member or an emissary but even more than that. Derek kept his feelings a secret not wanting to push Stiles away.

The 23rd of December was the pack Christmas day. They had a wonderful breakfast and were in their PJ's getting settled and waiting for everyone. Everyone go a seat and the presents were sorted. They went in a circle.

"Derek, can you open my last? I...um..." Stiles said. Derek nodded not commenting on the obvious nerves.

"Only if you open mine last too." Derek said. Stiles nodded smiling gratefully. They went around and opened presents; clothes and make up and a few books for the girls, the boys got video games and comics and clothes. Honestly it was a good first Christmas as friends.

all that was left was Derek's present from Stiles and vice versa. The pack watched in silence. Neither moved.

"Please go first." Stiles pleaded. Derek looked between the presents left on his lap and Stiles. Derek picked up what Stiles knew to be the album. Derek gently pulled the paper off pausing in confusion. He looked up at Stiles again who waved at him to continue. He opened the book, the front page being a family picture of the Hales for the work Talia did to create the preserve.

"Stiles, is this..."Derek couldn't finish.

"Yeah It is. A Hale Pack photo album. Took me a while to make it. Think it was an idea even before I knew it." Stiles explained. Derek thought of the all the photos Stiles had taken recently and flipped to the back pages, glossy photos of his current family lined the pages. The last phot was a picture of him and Stiles cuddling on a pack night, the note below was in Allison hand, You both deserve love and happiness no matter who it comes from..

"Thank you Stiles. Thank you." Derek knew somehow in his soul, that was Stiles showing his love for him, without saying. Words took courage, and that wasn't easily found in front of others. "Open yours. The bottom one. Please."

Stiles did as he asked, opening the bottom one, a square shaped box. He opened it to see a copy of a building deed sitting in tissue paper. "Der-Derek. You didn't...Not the-" Stiles' voice broke. He scent blooming with tears and pleasure.

"That place on Pine you've been dreaming about for two months? Why, yes it is." Derek tried to play it off as funny.

"This isn't funny. I told you I didn't want you help." Stiles tried to sound stern. Derek only shook his head.

"I told you to let me help. I did. Also it is technically half mine. But you have a place now. You can actually do it." Derek said. The pack made noises of confusion.

"I am not going to university. I am doing online classes but I am opening a magic shop and taking over for Deaton and becoming Hale Pack Emissary. Derek just bought my dream location." Stiles announced to cheers from the pack. Stiles knew in that moment that is how it felt knowing someone loved you enough to give you want you needed not just what you wanted. He knew how it felt to know someone loved him enough to stand with him not out of obligation but actual love and desire to do so.

They opened the other presents with similar reactions.

"A greenhouse? Seriously? and a workshop?" Stiles was dumbfounded.

"You named a literal star after my mother. A. Star." Derek was flabbergasted.

The rest of the pack sensed it was time to leave, the two men had a lot to discuss-least of all their emotions. The pack began piling out trying not to overhear the conversation.

"Derek, I can't accept this. I really can't. It may be all I ever wanted but I can't let you give it to me. We talked about this, I am filling in. If I was meant to be this important, we'd be mates." Stiles said.

"You aren't a fill in. Do you think I would give you up for someone I don't know? I would never. No relationship will ever be more important than our to me. You say this is all you ever wanted? You can have it!" Derek said.

"This isn't something I can take, you may change your mind, or find someone better. This is something to dream and hope for. Let me dream and hope, so I don't get hurt." Stiles sounded sad and broken. Derek made a soft wounded noise.

"You are it for me. I built you a goddamn house Stiles. I tore down my last memory of my family for you. We have almost died for each other too many times to count for you to back out now." Derek said. Stile growled and shuffled trying to think of an argument. He was saved by his dad coming down the road in a hurry. The pack was spilled on the porch trying to look like they hadn't been listening.

"Scott, where is Stiles?" John called. Stiles and Derek came out at the sound of his voice. "Mieczyslaw Stilinski! You were supposed to by home an hour ago! We have family coming in today remember!" John yelled, standing against his open car door.

"I'll be right there!" Stiles blanched. "I can't believe I forgot." He turned to Derek. "We aren't done here, mister."

"Your first name is really Mieczyslaw?" Derek asked. He didn't want Stiles leaving while angry, it made it anxious.

"Yep! Mieczyslaw Stilinski. Please to meet you Derek Hale!" Stiles understood what Derek was going for without him saying like most times.

"Please to meet you too." Derek chuckled before a sharp pain brought him and Stiles to their knees.

Several painful minutes later, Stiles was laughing hard enough he had tears streaming down his face. He left hand was clamped over his shirt collar, knuckles white. Derek stared openmouthed. John and the rest of the pack stood confused and worried.

"Did what I think happen just actually happen?" Scott asked.

"We'd never been formally introduced. Definitely not with my first name. Mate-Marks only form when properly introduced." Stiles moved his hand to show the large wolf print marking his upper chest and collarbone.

Derek laughed. and laughed and laughed before swooping down and pressing a slightly desperate kiss onto Stiles' lips. "Guess we won't have to discuss the shopfront or greenhouse later, mate." Derek grinned goofily at Stiles who could help but smile back just as dopey.

"Guess not" Stiles said. "I guess not."

Both of them could feel the calmness and happiness in their souls for finding their mates. Derek's wolf stopped shifting anxiously as it had been for months, finally calming down for Derek to relax. Both of them filled to the brim: safe, mate, mine, forever.

#negativenorth #stereksanta20 #*fic20 #*gifts20

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restlessmaknae · 3 years

Text

promises for pride - present days

Beware of promises. You never know what they might turn you into.

Also; the downfall of a prince and his way of becoming one of the Seven Deadly Sins.

♦ Characters: pride!Seokjin x humility!OC

♦ Genre: demon au, seven deadly sins au, pride au, historical, angst, drama

♦ Words: 13k

♦ Warning: mentions of blood, death and the usual historical stuff

♦ promises for pride: past days (first half) / present days (second half)

🙝 9 🙞

Present day

Kim Seokjin died on 14th April in 937, a year after Myungeun's death. After Hubaekje's annexation, the three kingdoms were finally united and he had been a king for more than a year and a half when he got shot during an unnecessary war between the new kingdom and Chang'an, the capital of Tang. He died on the spot as an arrow was shot through his heart. How ironic was his last thought before he fell to the ground and closed his eyes for one last time.

He didn't want to become a Sin; he was chosen to be one. He couldn't do anything though; he would suffer even more if he protested against the demons’ will. Nonetheless, since he was now the Pride himself, of course he wouldn't mess it up and face failure because that would make him feel unworthy of his title.

After all, Pride was said to be the most foremost and serious of the Seven Deadly Sins. Pride was what changed angels into devils. It was the only Sin that had a virtuous side. Everyone knew that a well-balanced self-esteem was more of a gift than a curse but when people took it too far or they had the potential to take it too far, that's when his job started. Although the start was a bit like walking on a thorny road for him, he eventually managed to enjoy his life as a Sin and truth to be told, it couldn't have been better.

He saw as people turned into narcissist assholes who picked fights with everyone, merciless bosses who took their employees' diligence for granted, pedantic parents who set high expectations for their kids because they couldn't be satisfied with less than perfect and youngsters with dangerously corrupt selfishness who bullied their classmates because they thought that they had every right to bully them.

Humans were so easily manipulated. Seokjin didn't really have a hard time messing with their thoughts and vision. If whispering into their ears and living with them like a second voice weren’t sufficient enough, he would use mirrors as his ultimate weapon. He could make everyone believe that they were perfect, they were beautiful or handsome, they were loved and he could also make them see unrealistic (but undoubtedly seducing) alternatives.

Let's say that there was a girl with braces at the age of 13, feeling totally worthless. She convinced herself that she was ugly and fat and no one would love her thanks to the naughty comments that she got by her classmates. Yet, when Seokjin showed up, he made sure that she felt the opposite. She was special because she had braces and this way she would be even more beautiful. Therefore she's better than all her bullies. She can bully them now that she knows that she's better than them.

Note that Seokjin used tools to manipulate them but it was the girl that let him take over her thoughts and behaviour. He showed how she could change her life and instead of using his words only for self-comfort, she got carried away and totally turned the tables. If the human wasn't strong enough to say no to him, it was a piece of cake to play with their feelings and ruin their lives.

It would be an understatement to say that he was glad to play his role; he lived to be Pride. Just like his name suggests, he was more than happy to take everyone with him on an evil ride and show what happens at the end of the road; when you start to believe in yourself. Of course, with Seokjin's assistance, people believed in themselves too much but humans couldn't stop, they were just as obsessed with Pride as with food, money, appearance or achievements. It wasn't difficult to use them as his toys.

Luckily, Seokjin himself stayed as his 19-year-old self since he was only 19 years old when he died and Sins didn't age with time. If such a system hadn't existed, he would have been almost 1100 years old by now. He couldn't mind his young age at all because he knew that he wasn't a child anymore and none of the Sins looked at him as someone reckless or childish. They were perfectly aware of his passion for his Sin and they didn't look down on him. Not like they would have the right to do it.

After all, he was the most serious Sin. The first Pride was the one who turned Lucifer into Satan. Seokjin just made sure to get the demons’ hopes up. He motioned the French to start the revolution in 1789, he fuelled the communist policies of Mao Zedong which resulted in the Great Chinese Famine, he was the one who whispered into Stalin's ears to force the starvation genocide against the Ukraine which we commonly call by the name of Holodomor and he was there when the two world wars happened and even after when Jews were systematically murdered during the Holocaust. Of course, he was there every single time. He didn't fail his mission. He was Pride and pride was the number one reason why the most terrible events of human history took place.

There were only two tiny things that bothered him throughout those long years. One was that he still remembered all of his memories from his human life. He had heard that there was a Sin that had only blurry memories and couldn't really solve the puzzle of his life but he remembered it all. And he pitied himself, he pitied how weak, fragile and naive he used to be. He pitied how he had hoped that his brothers would change but they never did. He pitied how he couldn't overcome his anxiety and step on the throne earlier.

Besides pity, he didn't regret anything. Not even that one last war between Goryeo and Chang'na. Not even the annexing of Hubaekje and Silla. He was proud of what he had done and he was sure that if his father still lived, he would say that he was proud, too. Looking back now, he didn't even know why Myungeun had meant so much to him. Unfortunately, she couldn't see the big picture − that what he had done was for a greater purpose, it was for a stronger and bigger Goryeo. He re-wrote history yet she couldn't see it. He always felt a kind of hollowness when he thought of her but it was nothing compared to that devastating pain that he had experienced when he held her dead body in the middle of the battlefield.

The other thing that bothered him was the lack of company. He really didn't need a woman in his life to make him feel complete but he could use some company once in a while. All Sins were preoccupied with their own duties, they didn't have time to fool around and throw parties. (Maybe except Lust who literally ran a nightclub, so if we take that into consideration, he was always partying.) He enjoyed that he could dye his hair in whatever colour he wanted (he opted for cotton candy pink at that time) and try on whatever clothes he laid his eyes on, eat whatever food he wanted but it got boring after a while.

To spend his spare time, he liked to mess with some demons that were inferior to him. One of them was Lee Jaehwan who was actually a nice guy but he was such a blabbermouth, he always talked about gossips that didn't interest him. Not to mention that he couldn’t waste his precious time on nasty gossip. It would hurt his pride.

Yet, that day he could say something interesting that piqued the Sin’s curiosity.

"I have some news for you," Jaehwan bowed with respect as he approached Seokjin but the demon merely shrugged it off. Jaehwan was known to be an undercover demon who usually hung out with angels or the Virtues themselves because he really had the face of an angel and no one would suspect that he was actually a demon.

"I don't have lots of time now, so keep it to yourself until I get back," he patted Jaehwan's shoulder as he tried to pass by him but the other demon's words caught him off-guard. He didn't expect what kind of news he would really have.

"Your opposite Virtue, the pretty Humility is actually looking for you."

Frankly, he didn't imagine such news. Why on Earth was Humility looking for him? She was too good to even consider hurting him despite the fact that she could easily destroy him with a single touch of her hand. Okay, maybe not a single one but if an entirely selfless soul like the Virtue herself − or a human with the same abilities − touched him for a long time, it would feel like his whole body was on fire. It would destroy him.

However, due to the fact that Humility was a Virtue, killing a Sin would probably never even cross her mind, so why would she look for him?

Now, it was time to interrogate Jaehwan.

🙝 10 🙞

“What do you mean by looking for me?” Seokjin raised his eyebrows in question, apparently unable to process what he had just heard. The news was nonsense. Why on Earth (or in Hell) Humility would be searching for him? That made no sense.

“I don’t actually know,” the other demon shrugged. His features were manly and sharp and even though Pride was so much older than him, Jaehwan was actually older than him in human age, so it was a peculiar sight when they were talking and Jaehwan acted like a scaredy-cat besides the Sin.

Seokjin didn’t care about the age gap between him and other demons as he always emphasised that tiny little fact that he would at least stay young forever. By the way, he knew well that everyone envied his gorgeous face and well-built body. He was literally fine as Hell. He knew he looked astonishingly handsome, even some cheap female demons were chasing after him yet he ignored them every single time they tried to hit on him. Love wasn’t a definition for him, plus he didn’t want to waste his precious time on such pitiful things like romance. Only humans and weak-hearted demons did that but he wasn’t one of them.

“I’ve just passed by an angel who said that Humility was on edge lately because she couldn’t find someone whom she wanted to. Later, I heard that she was looking for you but God knows why?” he pouted in a deadpan manner, making Seokjin more than angry with his flat response.

Pride took a step closer to the taller guy and grabbed the collar of his shirt. Jaehwan’s eyes widened in fear, not to mention his cheeks that were almost on fire. Even his ears turned red when the Sin’s voice rose higher.

“You better snoop on her because I won’t believe you until you tell me why she’s after me,” he gritted his teeth, shaking his head in disbelief. Did that lower-class demon really dare to assume that he was interested in such gossip? Did he think that he had time for this?

He was a busy man, he was a Sin after all and nothing could indicate his excellence better than the fact that he had been a Sin for more than a thousand years. That was a huge accomplishment; neither of the previous Prides was as successful as him. One didn’t do his job properly and started behaving like a good person, so he was fired. One was distracted by the issues of his own descendants, so he held the record for the shortest period as a Sin while another one fell in love with a human and that particular human was so pure and selfless that her touch killed him.

Oh yes, if he forgot to mention, there was only one thing that could make him weak or even destroy him. That was the touch of an entirely selfless soul. Of course, it could only happen if the soul was absolutely and entirely selfless but it was just as rare as the times when Jin didn’t look good.

However, even if he was his demon self, there was still some risk that he could get hurt. If he happened to get in physical touch with any of the Virtues, he could seriously get hurt or even die if they touched him constantly for several minutes. The touch was almost like playing with fire; he literally felt like he got burnt when their arms brushed with his. He knew that by experience because when he started as a Sin he was so reckless that he wouldn’t believe in this whole “touch of an entirely selfless soul” garbage and looked for a Virtue on purpose to touch her. He still got the scar on his palm that he had obtained that day.

“O-of course, I’ll do that,” Jaehwan stuttered nervously and gulped. He tried to look away because he felt like the ground would consume him if their gazes met. That’s how mighty Seokjin’s look was.

“Good,” Pride boasted a satisfied grin and let him go. “Now, go! I don’t want to see you again until you find out why Humility is looking for me. Got it?” his voice resonated like it was the sound of the thunder, small wonder why the low-class demon shivered in fear. He looked like he could pass out in any minute but that was exactly the kind of reaction Seokjin wanted to get.

In the blink of an eye, Jaehwan nodded his head vigorously and disappeared into thin air. Pride was aiming for such a cowardly response, yet he was still quite proud of his confident confrontation. He could recall the times when he was only a weak, naïve little kid whom everyone liked to bully. He pitied that side of him so bad. His human self was one that he wished to forget. He hated how small and scared he was. How pathetic.

He was a coward and Myungeun was one to blame for it. If it wouldn’t be for his father’s last wish, he wouldn’t have overcome his pitifulness. Believing her promises was a mistake. Falling in love with her was a mistake. She caused more harm than good. She couldn’t see that he only wanted to unite the kingdoms and create something stronger than Silla, Hubaekje and Goryeo by themselves. If she had given in, he wouldn’t have to take over Hubaekje using violence and shedding blood. It was all her fault.

At least, that’s what he said to himself. That’s how he tried to suppress his guilt and human emotions. However, as a Sin, it was inevitable that he thought differently of his human life. Becoming one of those high-class demons required a lot of personal traits that even criminals didn’t possess. Sins had to make something awful to become one. Kim Seokjin killed thousands of innocent people just to nourish his pride and unite the three kingdoms. He even killed Myungeun and her family, the royal family of Hubaekje. One by one. Without fear. Without guilt. Without humility. The Sin was already working hard in him and took over his life just like a drug would make someone addicted. He was addicted to Pride, he couldn’t say no to the evil and whenever he couldn’t feel it within him, he felt lost, he felt as if his life didn’t have a purpose. Even his death was connected to that certain Sin of his; if he hadn’t been so eager to take over Chang'an, he wouldn’t have died.

Yet, he couldn’t mind how his life turned out in the end. That last part of his life was what made him proud. Sadly, that was all he found important. Everything before that seemed unnecessary, childish and humiliating.

No wonder why he made a great Sin; he wasn’t even a human at heart, not anymore.

Not like he seemed human in the last part of his life…

🙝 11 🙞

Kim Seokjin's favourite pastime activity (or so he called that) was messing with the little humans' feelings. Not like it wasn't his full-time job but he didn't see it as a challenge. That so-called work for him was when he needed to convince a famous person − for instance, a politician − who also tried to manipulate others, so doing the same to someone who had already used the tricks of manipulation was both troublesome and time-consuming. He enjoyed every bit of it though.

So where was Pride actually? He was everywhere; in human form, in demon form, in the humans' dreams, in their head, with their reflection in the mirror... he was literally everywhere. Just like other Sins, he used teleportation to get to places but since it was limited, he made sure to have bases all around the world. He had one in Seoul, in Dubai, in Melbourne, in London, in Paris, in Los Angeles and in Egypt, too. They were all some sorts of luxurious places that someone as selfish as Pride himself would visit – casinos, 5 star hotels, banks, exhibition halls filled with paintings that each worth millions of dollars.

His bases weren’t necessarily a sign of arrogance or dignity; yet people turned those places into useless competitions and fierce battlefields. As self-confidence was within anyone, Pride only needed a triggering factor to start spreading through their veins like viruses. After that, there was no turning back.

Frankly, some people didn't have a lot to do with Pride. Of course, there were still such people around the world who were almost entirely selfless but it was rare. In this technologically-driven society where everyone wanted to compete in the worldwide race, he didn't really have a difficult job.

He was there when kids fought who's the smartest; when youngsters talked back to their relatives or to their superiors; he was there when high schoolers took the CSATs; he was there during any contests (especially beauty contests, it seemed that the competition was a matter of life and death for ladies) and he also assisted with break-ups. If love took an unfortunate (or a fortunate one for him) turn, Pride immediately crept its way into the lovers' hearts. There was a thin line between equality and superiority and most of the humans didn't notice when they reached the latter one.

Sometimes he had to be on the spot − either in human form or in demon form − to seduce the little humans, sometimes he didn't even have to be in their thoughts because people were naturally born to be selfish and prideful. As soon as they sinned, he felt as if there was some unseen force charging him up. He became powerful and his heart − that was actually not beating since the day he died − felt alive again. He felt invincible like he could take over the whole world.

This way, it came as no surprise that Sins were the second highest ranked demons in the underworld. There was just one above them − Lucifer. In the modern people's words, he was their boss. That didn't necessarily mean that he watched their every step because he liked to mind his own business, so until they didn't do anything unforgettable − in other words, anything good −, Lucifer didn't tease the Sins, nor did he reprimand them. He was there as an example, a role model and a living legend. Rumour has it that one of the previous Prides was the one who turned Lucifer into Satan and Pride himself was also the one who changed angels into devils. On the other hand, Humility’s job was to turn exceptionally generous and kind-hearted men into angels.

Like there was the North and South Pole, the Sun and the Moon, black and white, good and evil, Sins weren’t the only ones who looked after our world but their female opposites existed too − the Virtues. Both groups contributed to the balance of the world and despite the fact that Virtues occasionally seemed to be more powerful, most of the time Sins were the ones who ruled the world.

If we look at that way, ever since Adam and Eve ate of the forbidden apple, humans were meant to be sinners. It was easier for them to do something bad rather than something good. Therefore, Virtues had a prominently tough job nowadays as the world was becoming more and more evil.

Taking the current situation into consideration, maybe Humility wanted to seal a deal with Seokjin. Whereas, he was smarter than sealing a deal with a Virtue and so she should have been smarter, too. He never made a deal with good people. It wasn't his cup of tea – it might sound odd but for him, it equalled something disgusting and dirty. It was against his own rules. It was against his Pride.

Concerning that he hadn’t really met a Virtue in person (he encountered Patience once when he wanted to see if that “touch of an entirely selfless soul” worked in real life but that was all), let alone Humility, he couldn't even imagine what was waiting for him. Not to mention that he hadn’t even encountered that particular Virtue in all his life as a Sin. He didn’t really have time to sit down for an afternoon tea along a freshly-baked croissant at a Derbyshire tearoom with the lovely Humility.

So why now? Why was he so important all of the sudden? He didn’t remember that he had committed any crime – or to be precise, he didn’t do anything that could be considered good. Not until the day they finally met did he realise why she had been looking for him.

“Good to see you again, Jin,” a gentle female voice called from behind when he was currently in Paris, disguised in demon form, hiding behind a wall, stalking a young lad whom he wanted to manipulate to believe that he was better than the guy who had previously bullied him. He knew that nobody deserved to be bullied and that the kid should fight back. Nonetheless, Pride didn’t want the scene to just stop there. He wanted to take the young boy to the depth of his Sin.

Despite all his will and pride, Seokjin couldn’t help but turn around at the familiar yet long-forgotten nickname. He was sure that no one knew of this particular name, except one single person, therefore no one could call him by Jin, except…

“Myungeun?” the words unconsciously left his lips like a raindrop streaming down the window; slowly, reluctantly but steadily. If his heart had still beaten, he was sure that it would have skipped a beat.

Honestly, she looked just as breath-taking as always – if not more. The way her long, raven-black hair fell lusciously over her shoulders was mesmerizing. Her beautiful big doe eyes – those obsidian-black wonders – were shining with fondness just like in the good old days. She was so young and beautiful like a daydream on a summer midnight – it seemed that she could vanish in any minute, that’s why he was even afraid to touch her. Now that she was in front of him, he was left staring at her. All his words abandoned him along with his stupid Pride.

There was one single thing about her that he couldn’t process. It was the reason why his thoughts were tangled. Firstly, she was as young as when he had last seen her, so that could only mean one thing: she didn’t age with time. On top of that, there was something not human-like about her, something ethereal. He was sure that he was merely hallucinating things. He was more than 1000 years old and the appearance of such mental disorders increases by age, so it could happen in his case as well.

“Yes, it’s me, Jin,” she nodded as a gentle smile was forming on her rosy-coloured lips.” Although they know me better as Humility nowadays.”

Seokjin had never been more flabbergasted all his life.

🙝 12 🙞

Paris always had a special place in his heart. Everything about this city was so sinful, luxurious and one of a kind. Ever since the French Revolution took place, he was fond of coming back and spoiling people. French were said to be snobbish and rude. It was so much fun to watch them play his stupid little games.

Conversely, seeing someone as pure as Myungeun in that smoke-filled alley with horrendous and disgraceful graffiti painting the walls around them was remarkably odd. She seemed out of place. On the other hand, Humility didn’t find the sight peculiar − to see him in Paris. It was one of his favourite cities, the rumours said. Though she didn’t like to believe all those nasty and outrageous rumours because she didn’t judge anyone based on the gossips but now she understood why they claimed that Paris suited the one and only Pride well.

He looked like he was born to be French; although his features were of a typical Korean descendant, his sense of fashion and his cotton candy pink hair was anything but ordinary. Contrary to his young (human) age, he wore a properly fitted and ironed white shirt, a black suit, black cotton trousers with beige belt and elegant leather shoes. His pink hair was neatly parted and his neck was decorated with an oh so popular choker. He looked chic and stylish. He looked prominently spectacular, even in his demon form.

“Why were you looking for me?” Seokjin inquired nonchalantly as he couldn’t suppress a smug smile, seeing that the Virtue was eyeing him top to bottom. When she heard his question, she averted her eyes back to his face and that made him feel all sorts of inexplicable emotions.

“I wanted to see for myself if you are really the Seokjin that I used to know.”

“Well, I am as you can see,” he flung his arms in the air, a little taken aback by the fact that she wanted only this much.

He was Pride after all. He sought after an answer like I wanted to see the Sin that is over a 1000 years old and still ruining lives or I wish I sealed a deal with Pride because I can’t keep up with all these sinful people. Compared to his expectations, her answer was too dull. Too mundane.

“Well, if you only wanted to know this much… Pardon me but I have better things to do,” he cleared his throat in an attempt to turn back to that young lad but she insisted on prying into his life even more.

“Do you remember me? Your past?” her voice stopped him dead in his tracks. He was aware that not all the Sins knew of their human lives, let alone the people who they had encountered while they were still living. Luckily (or not), he was one of those who did. That didn’t matter a single bit. At least not for him.

“I remember everything but I wouldn’t regret anything,” he puffed his chest out in pride, taking in her sight. She sure changed; she looked less naïve and childish than the last time he had seen her but she still had that unfathomable aura to her. She looked pretty like the cherry trees during spring with her pure white dress that was so long that it covered her legs but she was holy like a real angel. After all, she was one of them. As Sins were high-class demons, Virtues were high-class angels. Just the little humans didn’t know anything about the world they lived in.

“Not even killing thousands of innocent people? Parents, grandparents, children, relatives, friends and lovers?” Humility asked with a hurtful expression.

“No, not even that,” he shook his head fervently and flashed an evil grin. “That was the best part.”

“It seems that it’s true what they say,” the Virtue murmured quietly but Seokjin could still hear her words. His hearing was exceptionally good.

“They say what?” he furrowed his eyebrows in question. Demons said a lot about him; like he was the most handsome Sin out of all (he was worldwide handsome, that was a fact) and that he was the original one and the other Sins showed up only after his appearance. He couldn’t argue with any of them, their compliments pushed his initially high self-esteem even higher.

“That being a Sin makes you think differently of your past,” the Virtue mused on the fact, her face slowly dissolving into a somewhat dishonest flinch.

“I don’t think differently of my past. You are the one who couldn’t accept the confident side of me, even when we were still humans,” Pride pointed out without shame and the expression on Humility’s face could tell hundreds of tales at once; she was undeniably hurt by his words but she was more like disappointed. Baffled.

“Pride started to consume you in front of my eyes and even though I tried to stop you, you couldn’t be stopped. Nor did my promises,” she shook her head agitatedly, looking down at her intertwined hands.

If he had been a human, he would have hugged her to prove that she was wrong but he wasn’t a human anymore. All he could do was to counter-attack her in a not-so-gentle manner. He wasn’t a Sin for nothing. He wasn’t innocent, nor kind anymore. He wasn’t good at all. He was the epitome of evil. The definition of Sin.

“You and your stupid promises!” he huffed is disbelief. How dare she bring up her promises, for crying out loud. “If it hadn’t been for those promises, I wouldn’t have become a Sin.”

“You were the one who broke them, not me!” Myungeun spoke up, her voice shaking a bit as the tension in the air was rising.

“You were the one who set high expectations for me that I couldn’t reach! It’s not my fault that I made mistakes but it’s yours that you still believed that I was a good person! I was never a good one and you should have seen it!” he spluttered the words as his voice rose higher and higher. The alley resonated his furious response but concerning that he was in demon form, humans couldn’t hear any of it.

But Myungeun could and it would have been a lie to say that she was ready for such an abusive confession. Judged by the sudden paleness on her face, she had probably never considered that he felt guilty for breaking her promises and blamed her for believing that he was a good soul. He wasn’t an innocent child, not even in the beginning but she saw it otherwise.

“You were a good one until your father died,” she added quietly as her long fingers were toying with the rims of her dress.

“That’s not true. He didn’t spoil me. He was the one who opened my eyes and made me see that the world was harsh. I only wanted to make him proud,” he answered matter-of-factly, not knowing why it was so hard for her to understand. Humility was either blind or too generous to see that he was born to be a sinner. Not only was he born to be a sinner but he was also born to be a Sin.

“Make him proud by taking innocent lives?” she raised her eyebrows in question, another flinch making its way onto her face. “You never agreed with that kind of policy,” she reminded him but he was too carried away with him being a demon that he wouldn’t admit that she was right.

It was almost like the winter fog; he couldn’t touch it, it wasn’t made of any material that could be seen with his eyes but he always felt its presence. Its mysterious, dark and captivating presence. That was how living as a Sin was like. He knew deep down that his past wasn’t like how he had remembered. It was like telling someone a fib that even you couldn’t believe. Yet, he couldn’t really help. An unseen virus was already working in him that forced him to think and speak differently. Liar became his middle name.

“If people hadn’t been so stubborn, I would have used other methods,” he shrugged his shoulder like he wasn’t talking about killing off innocent people just because they didn’t want to let him take over their kingdom.

“I’ve heard that you killed my family, too,” Myungeun decided to look back at him at this exact moment, so Pride could easily catch sight of the pearl-like teardrops welling up at the corner of her eyes. If she was about to talk about his past, why would she even search for him? She knew what happened and she probably knew that he would be in denial. So did she want to test the waters or what?

“I did,” he admitted shamelessly.

“Did you enjoy it?” she wanted to know between soundless sobs. He couldn’t help but snicker at her question. Was she playing on the emotional side now? Oh, she was indeed cunning. More cunning than he had assumed that a Virtue would be.

However, as soon as he wanted to open his mouth to say something, his inner voice was of his faster’s and it told him the answer right away. No, I didn’t. Seokjin was flabbergasted at the sudden change in his own train of thoughts. It was one of those moments; when he could feel that something was odd. His human side came to surface and confused his demon side. They were always within him but most of the time it was his demon self that was superior.

Yet, there were those clicks like when you change the channel and until you turn into a new show, there’s this switch where you don’t really watch the previous but not even the following show. It was the same with him; he didn’t belong to any side in those moments.

Luckily, it took only a second or so to snap himself back to his senses. He decided to ignore her question and just ask her instead.

“Anyway, how did you find me?” he furrowed his eyebrows in question because it piqued his curiosity ever since they met that day. Sins couldn’t simply be found as they were everywhere and nowhere at the same time. They were like the Moon during daytime; they were around them but humans couldn’t see them.

“A demon hunter owed me a favour after I assisted her with her tattoos that would protect her from all the Sins. So I asked her to find out where you are because I’ve been searching for you after I got to know that you might be that so-called King Seokjin who united the Later Three Kingdoms. Up until now, my search wasn’t fruitful,” she explained in detail but he still couldn’t understand her. In the end, he opted for the easiest option; he merely threw the question at her.

“Why did it matter that I was that so-called King Seokjin or not?”

“Because−“ she started bluntly but closed her mouth within a second. She was searching for the right words to say, even though she was so overwhelmed by her own feelings that she couldn’t imagine that words would be enough to describe how she felt. “I wanted to see you,” she nibbled her lower lip coyly and it would have been an adorable sight if he hadn’t been the most serious Sin and she hadn’t been a Virtue. Considering their current situation, it was almost ridiculous. At least, for Seokjin.

“You wanted to see me?” his eyes widened in amusement. He clearly didn’t care about the suppressed tears at the corner of her eyes or the devastated expression displaying on her heart-shaped face. “I know that everyone wants to see my handsome face but I don’t think it was worth the favour.”

“You know, I have more of my human side than you and for me, it was worth it,” she declared a bit blatantly compared to a Virtue but he didn’t care about such things. He couldn’t. He was the definition of evil, ignorance and self-indulgence.

“Did I meet your expectations?” he elevated an eyebrow in question while he was slowly donning a teasing grin.

“No,” she blurted out without vagueness. “You are just as evil as I had expected,” she acknowledged without blinking an eye.

“Ouch!” Seokjin placed a hand over his chest, acting like her words bite into him. The truth couldn’t have been further from that. “Was that supposed to make me feel bad? Guilty perhaps?” he clicked his tongue, challengingly taking one step closer to her. Despite his assumption, she didn’t even budge.

“Do you remember what it’s like to feel anything besides pride? To adore the sunset? To smell the fragrance of flowers? To watch kids chasing each other on a playground? To read a poem for your own entertainment? Do you even remember what it’s like to feel?” she was thinking out loud, demanding one answer after another. Her voice cracked a little at the end, making it obvious that she was scared to voice out her own concerns.

Her rambling somehow touched him. Not in a really emotional way but he didn’t feel as neutral as before. While she seemed terrified to get her answers, he was afraid that his bewilderment was obvious. So he had to make sure that Humility didn’t see how much he weakened at her words.

“I feel, just not as you do,” he concluded dryly and without warning, he evaporated. He used his teleportation skills to get to his favourite casino in Dubai and to forget about that conversation with Myungeun.

Leaving without a proper goodbye was a habit of theirs and not even time could break it.

🙝 13 🙞

Pride was supposed to carry on with his usual life.

He was supposed to spoil people, whisper sinful things into humans' ears, mess with their childish feelings, let them bring each other down (and actually motion them to do so), steal their dreams and take away their hope. He was supposed to show up here and there and grasp everyone no matter their age, status, gender or their passion. He was within everyone since every single human being was selfish in one way or another. They were born to be selfish. From the moment they opened their eyes for the first time, it was inevitable that they gave in to Pride. After all, it was a part of them, it was just as essential for their everyday life as their own heart − they couldn't get rid of it, they were born with it, they were living with it, they were breathing with it. It was one of their multiple sides, it was the darker, the evil side. The unfortunate circumstances that could trigger the sinful behaviour were just oil to the fire.

Yet, there was something that he couldn't get over and it interfered with his daily life as the most serious Sins. It was what Humility had said to him. Do you even remember what it’s like to feel?

Did he? His sudden, wrathful answer must have been a mumbled of course. Of course, he felt emotions. He was full of pride. His feelings were chained to him and his nature. His demon nature, to be exact. Pride was like a prisoner that was kept in a cage. He could have ran away from his fate but there was no use. It would get back to him sooner or later and it would drive him totally crazy despite all his will. He knew how to feel. That was all he was doing every single day, in every single minute and second.

He felt the selfish desire of humans, their hunger for fame, success and love. Their arrogance and pettiness which made them do all sorts of crazy and unacceptable things. They wanted to take over the world, be greater than God himself and compete for the first place. Their arrogance was so disgusting in his eyes. They couldn't even bring up their own kids, how did they believe that they would be worthy of leading others? How? That was Seokjin's biggest question and he didn't seem to find an answer, not even after living for more than 1100 years as a Sin.

To make things clear, Pride wasn't fond of the idea that God existed. He didn't believe such nonsense until he saw that so-called creature of the world with his own eyes. After all, if God existed, why wouldn't he have a say in the matters of the world? Why wouldn't he stop the Sins as they were gathering more and more slaves as time went by?

He felt. Really, he felt lots of things. Just not the ones that Myungeun had mentioned and it bothered him as Hell. He couldn't really know what was going on with him, he felt as if he was about to burst. He felt as his throat was stuffed with little feathers that made it impossible for him to breathe properly. He was a dying whale that wanted to grasp for some air but he couldn't and the lack of oxygen suffocated him. He was underwater, drowning in confusion accompanied by all those bittersweet memories that came back thanks to her words. Memories of him and Myungeun. Why did they seem lovely all of a sudden? Why didn't they seem wrong or merely disgusting? Why? Just why?

Of course, as professional as he was, he tried his best to keep his internal turmoil at bay. After all, no one had a guide for a Sin who began to have feelings other than arrogance and selfishness, right? So what could he possibly do to feel like he was still in control of his emotions?

That's right. Yelling at a lower-class demon. Sadly (or not), it was Jaehwan's lucky day. He happened to be the one who came to Pride's mind as soon as he got back from Tokyo, so he turned out to be the one at whom he relieved his stress.

"Did you find out why Humility was looking for me?" he narrowed his eyebrows as he was looking at the other demon.

They were at Seokjin's luxurious suite in Seoul, both in human form, since it was what he had asked for. Jaehwan apparently wasn't glad to hear that Pride wanted to talk to him but he had no choice. He had to be there for him because if he didn't, he would die. Not like he didn't have the possibility to die even when he met up with his superior but at least he tried.

Pride knew that he didn't look up the issue. He was also aware that Jaehwan had no idea that the said Virtue had already visited him and gave him the reason herself. On the other hand, he was a Sin. He had fun toying with others, seeing as their eyelashes fluttered, as they gulped nervously or mumbled like an anxious teenager, searching for the right words to say. Jaehwan was no exception.

"Actually, I couldn't find anything..." his voice trailed off at the end, his gaze darting around the room. Seokjin rolled his eyes in annoyance. Just as expected.

"You couldn't or you didn't even try?" Seokjin took a step closer to him, almost forcing him with his mere presence to look up. He knew the truth, of course he knew, he could easily read his mind and on top of everything, he knew Jaehwan since the day the other guy became a demon, so he didn't have a tough job. It was funny how a previous hitman was acting like a scared little kitten in front of a Sin.

"I tried to but−"

"Don't lie to me, Jaehwan!" he raised his voice and took another step. His face was only a few inches apart from his and he used Jaehwan’s cowardly behaviour as an excuse to slap him in the face. He didn't protest and Seokjin couldn't actually help but gloat at his victory. He found joy in others' pain. He sometimes wondered if such merciless behaviour was a must when someone became a Sin.

"I-I-I'm sorry, sir," he stuttered like a little kid who had been reprimanded by his parents.

"You can be sorry."

"That won't happen again. I promise," he put his hand over his heart and even looked up to prove that he was thinking his words seriously.

The word 'promise' left a bitter aftertaste in Pride’s mouth. The promises from his past came to his mind and he couldn't get away from all the emotions that accompanied the sudden flashbacks.

"Damn it, Jaehwan!" he exclaimed furiously, making the other slightly bounce in surprise. Others would think that he was used to Pride's outbursts but most of the time he was characteristically quiet like a businessman who was already prepared for the worst outcome. Right now, even Jaehwan seemed to throw his usual calmness out of the window.

"Why would you promise something that you know you can't keep?" Pride flung his arms in the air because he had to occupy his hands if he didn't want to punch him in the face again. Even though his hands itched for a second round, he knew how to play well. He wanted to threaten Jaehwan, not beat him up.

"I want to try to keep it," the lower-class demon made an attempt to clear the rising tension in the air but the Sin merely shrugged his promise off.

"Instead of your petty promises, you can help me find a way to destroy a Virtue," he offered matter-of-factly but it was more of a demand than an actual favour. Jaehwan's eyes immediately widened in fear but Seokjin didn't expect anything less. After all, one of the highest-ranked demons was in front of him, of course he would be bewildered to hear that a Sin was about to destroy a Virtue.

"D-do you want to destroy Humility?" he panted in short, his voice a bit forlorn. Seokjin could clearly sense his bafflement and worry. He could see the little drops of sweat sliding down his cheeks. He could feel his dismay.

"I have to. She keeps getting on my nerves," he shrugged nonchalantly as he wasn't talking about killing a Virtue but suggesting a movie night out. Initially, he didn't intend to take away Myungeun’s life but that was the only solution to solve his current problem. To get rid of all those infuriating feelings and disturbing flashbacks.

"But you know that you will also die if you kill her with your selfish touch," Jaehwan warned him as if he didn't keep it in mind for already a millennium. Just like the touch of an entirely selfless soul could kill Pride, the touch of an entirely selfish soul could also kill Humility. That's why he tried to avoid her as much as possible. His life was too vulnerable for him. He was proud of what he had committed through all those years. He didn’t want to throw it away, that’s why he wanted to find another way rather than taking his own life.

"Like I don't know," he rebuked Jaehwan with his typically menacing voice, his patience already wearing thin. "That's why we have to find another way. Are you in or not?" he questioned cunningly in order to test the waters. Not like the lower-class demon had a choice. He was just fooling around but he sure enjoyed every bit of his one-man show.

"I'm in," Jaehwan bobbed his head in submission. His answer wasn't the most convincing one but at least it was an answer.

The game was already on. And it was really the matter of life and death.

Or should he say the matter of after-life and definite death?

🙝 14 🙞

The task was harder than he had expected.

It seemed that he had the silliest weakness out of all the 7 Deadly Sins. For Lust and Gluttony, it was any item that was previously blessed by Chastity or Temperance – aka their opposite Virtues. For Wrath, it was any weapon containing or coated in daffodil oil. A hairpin which was rumoured to be Greed’s brother was said to be Sin's weakness while Envy wasn’t particularly fond of pigeons. Seokjin didn’t have any information regarding Sloth’s possible triggers but who knew? Anything could happen when it came to the underworld’s creatures.

Meanwhile, he was there with that sentimental “a touch of an entirely selfless soul” garbage that could have been a line out of a fairy tale. He had outright laughed at Lucifer when he first told him about his weakness. It was after he had been promoted and he was announced to be the next Pride. He was actually a mere lower-class demon for almost 5 years when the previous Pride died of love. He fell in love with a human which was actually not a written rule but anyone knew down there that if a demon – let alone a Sin! − fell in love with a human, they wouldn’t be able to act as viciously as they were supposed to, therefore they wouldn’t do their job properly, therefore they would be fired – in single words killed.

How pathetic. Seokjin was sure that he would never make that mistake. He was just as sure about it as he was of his good looks. He wasn’t a good-looking royal only when he was the king of Goryeo but he was still handsome after his death. Nobody could disagree with it and honestly nobody would. It was a fact, Pride knew that he was the handsomest demon of all times.

Anyway, where was he? Oh yes, before he immersed into his state-of-the-art features, he wanted to fume because he couldn’t find a way to get rid of Humility without killing himself. He visited some ancient demons who were said to be demons even before people started to track time. He asked Jaehwan to look into previous Sins and Virtues’ history to see if there was any similar case. He even searched for Lust who couldn’t care less about his childish plays until he didn’t bring him some girls. He did everything, looked everywhere but to no avail.

“God must exist after all. It’s certainly his way to protect his beloved Virtues,” he lamented to his reflection in the mirror, standing in the living room of his suite in Dubai.

The current problem piqued his curiosity and nestled into his mind. It was absolutely annoying. It wasn’t like a pitiful bug that he could just kill with a wave of his hand. It was the most tremendous obstacle that he had to deal with. He knew that he was the one who created this whole mess but he couldn’t stop. Not now.

The problem was that he couldn’t even sleep because flashbacks and nightmares were hunting him, forcing him to wake up and make sure that he was alive, he was still Pride and Humility with her killer touch was nowhere to be found. As gibberish as it sounds, he couldn’t do anything to avoid the memories coming back, not even with all his supernatural powers. Sleeping wasn’t something that he could control. After he became a demon, he still opted for sleeping although he wasn’t a human being and he didn’t have human needs. He merely liked the feeling after a long sleep and the fact that he was alone in the dark with his thoughts. He was selfish, wasn’t he? He needed time to himself.

That time was now a thing of the past as he even gave up on sleeping to make sure that the memories wouldn’t follow him when he closed his eyes and became one with the dreamworld. If there was anything that he feared these days, it was sleeping. The memories didn’t just attack him but slapped him in the face, vigorously just like a fighter would do. Not once, not twice but multiple times. He felt a lot of things while being Pride but he never felt pain. The sudden spike of pain that was rushing through him once the memory lane grabbed him was anything but enjoyable. It was terrifying. Despite the fact that he didn’t have a beating heart anymore, he felt as if his heart was being ripped out of his ribcage every single time. The misery was excruciating.

He didn’t let it affect his job though but it seemed that Lucifer somehow found out that he was acting oddly in the past few weeks. At least, that’s what he assumed when Jaehwan informed him that the highest-ranked demon wanted to see him. Of course, Lucifer could have just teleported right beside Seokjin but Lucifer was a busy man. If one didn’t want to go to him in person, he wouldn’t want to waste his precious time with their business. Period.

Seokjin had one option and that was visiting the demon above all who had his special office on top of the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world. It was actually invisible to the human eye, the little humans thought that it wasn’t possible to enter the highest floor. How blind they were to all things supernatural.

As soon as Seokjin knocked on the door, he heard an inpatient yes from inside, so he swiftly opened it and entered his office. He had been there multiple times before – usually for a meeting after a century or when Lucifer announced a new Sin – but it was decorated differently than last time. Black used to dominate on the walls but now it was red, to be precise crimson-red. The huge windows still offered a magnificent view of the busy city streets while the paintings on the walls represented the 7 Sins and the demons’ activities. The guy sure had a chic yet modest style.

People must have imagined Lucifer as someone significantly tall with well-built muscles, so that he can scare away the lower-class demons. They might have pictured him with the eyes of a devil or a laugh of a maniac. Pride knew that they sometimes portrayed him with horns and almost naked but the truth couldn’t have been further from their paintings. Lucifer didn’t even look that extraordinary in his nicely ironed white shirt and black coat. He was elegant but not scary. Not yet.

“I’ve heard that you wanted to see me,” Seokjin broke the silence to get Lucifer’s attention who was busy discussing something with his newly-promoted assistant. The rumour had it that his assistant was a guy named Jackson Wang who was a street fighter in his previous life and his speciality was martial arts. According to some lower-class resources, he was fearless and merciless. He never lost a battle until one of the gang’s heads had enough and hit him with a car. He died on the spot but became Lucifer’s right hand almost immediately.

The two shifted their attention to Seokjin who casually started eyeing the new assistant top to bottom. That Jackson guy emulated his action and they stared at each other for a couple more seconds until Lucifer finally spoke up.

“Oh yes, Pride,” his face suddenly lit up at the sight of his – let’s be honest – favourite Sin. Seokjin saw a hint of bafflement in the assistant’s eye, he could tell right away that Jackson had no idea who he was until their boss said so. Or he just didn’t want to believe that he was so gorgeous. Whatever the case might be, the admiring expression on the lower-class demon’s face undoubtedly boosted his confidence.

“It’s nice to see you again. How long has it been since we’ve last met? 120 years? Maybe 220 years?” Lucifer chuckled with his unique nasally voice as he stood up from his desk and shook hands with the Sin. Then, he offered him a seat and dismissed his assistant. Jackson bowed respectfully and casted a last glance at Pride before he evaporated. “Ah, time really flies,” Lucifer dropped a weary sigh as he took a seat at his desk and looked up at the demon in front of him.

The frightening part was that this expression was unfathomable. At first glance, it seemed so easy to read his mind. However, after a few more seconds, one had to admit that his eyes contained the horrors of centuries and his features were oddly ancient. He was a handsome young man around the age of 24 or so – note that he wasn’t more handsome than Seokjin – but his features were old. Amidst all those horrible flashes of the past, no one could tell what he was thinking or planning. He was a book without a guideline.

“Well, anyway,” Lucifer cleared his throat to regain his composure. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table and his chin in his hands. “I wanted to see you because I’ve heard that you’ve been distracted lately by the lovely Humility,” he emphasised the name on purpose, glaring at the Sin who could have been surprised at his sudden attack but he was prepared for this kind of conversation.

“I’m not distracted. It’s just that I used to know her, she was my soon-to-be wife when I was still the king of Goryeo and we share some memories. But that’s all,” he claimed confidently. His voice wasn’t trailing off, his body wasn’t shaking and he didn’t want to avert his eyes elsewhere but Lucifer’s face. He tried his best to act as nonchalantly as possible.

“Hmm, interesting,” marvelled his boss with a dubious tone. Seokjin had nothing to hide, so even if Lucifer decided to look up their shared past, he would find the same. He wasn’t afraid, not even after his boss’ following sentence. “I’ve also heard that you are planning on killing her.”

“Yes, that’s true,” Seokjin nodded in agreement. He wasn’t surprised that news travelled fast in the underworld. After all, demons were blabbermouths just like humans. That was one of the rare similarities between the two species. “Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a way that would ensure that I would also make it out alive. Is there a way to get rid of her without me getting killed?” he inquired as he leant forward. He may have been roughish but at least he didn’t have to hide his true nature in front of Lucifer. His despicable side was one of the reasons why the highest-ranked demon was fond of him.

Lucifer didn’t even flinch. It seemed that Pride wasn’t the only Sin who made an attempt to kill a Virtue or Lucifer could merely imagine that he was capable of something so outrageous.

“Well, not that I know of,” he shrugged in a deadpan manner and pondered for a thought. “If you are completely selfish when you touch her, you can kill her, yes. But if she’s also completely selfless, she can also kill you. The only thing that you can do is to make her sin, so that she won’t be entirely selfless anymore but otherwise, I don’t think you can succeed.”

“And that’s not so easy to make a Virtue sin,” Seokjin remarked disappointedly as he ran a hand through his pink hair. He was frustrated as Hell, small wonder why his boss could easily sense his annoyance. That dratted weakness.

“Exactly,” Lucifer clicked his tongue. He leaned back and waited for Pride’s response, challengingly raising his eyebrows. He was sure that it wasn’t enough for the Sin to merely accept the situation as he was already eager to take actions as soon as possible.

Small wonder the highest-ranked demon couldn’t suppress a complacent grin when Seokjin proved that he wouldn’t let the chance slip through his fingers. He was more adamant than that.

“I’ll find a way,” he stated doggedly.

“Well, it’s up to you but if you get killed and we don’t meet until then, I really enjoyed working with you!” Lucifer clapped his hands like he was saying goodbye for real. Pride knew that he was usually playful but he couldn’t laugh with him this time. His life was really on the line. “You were a pretty cocky guy and I liked your confidence. Well done, my friend!” he winked at him but the other demon rolled his eyes.

“Ah, not so soon! I’m not dead,” he reprimanded his boss, slightly offended by the sudden farewell. He wasn’t sure if he would make it out alive but he wanted to believe that there was a way for him to live, even after killing Humility.

“Not yet but you never know what the future might hold for you,” Lucifer admonished his inferior but he was dead curious to see what Pride might pull out of his sleeve.

He was his favourite Sin after all. His reputation was really no joke and killing a Virtue would definitely boost his self-confidence. Not like the most arrogant and assertive Sin needed it though.

🙝 15 🙞

Seokjin was Pride for a reason.

His life as a human – to be precise, the end of his life – proved to be enough for the title after the previous one had died. He was an expert at manipulating people, lurking them, convincing them to sin and playing with their feelings. It didn’t only involve individuals but families, friendships and lovers, too. That day was no exception.

He was in Prague with a couple who were arguing over some silly question that they could have easily solved if they hadn’t been so stubborn. It was because the guy had applied for a two-week internship in Australia and his application was accepted but he hadn’t told the girl. When he finally told her the truth, of course she freaked out. They had been together for more than 2 years, so it was understandable that the female was on edge upon hearing the news. That’s when Pride stepped in.

“Look, sweetheart!” he whispered into the girl’s ears, already feeling her confidence shaking at his manipulation. He wasn’t the type to call humans by nicknames but it was a way to get closer to them and start messing with their thoughts. “He didn’t tell you what he was up to, right? So why should you stand by him and support his decision? You deserve someone better. Someone who thinks highly of his girlfriend and doesn’t hide the truth from you. Someone who is better than him. Someone who takes care of you well and spends more time with you. You deserve better, don’t you?” he reasoned as he smiled cryptically. His eyes were twinkling with desire, hunger for submission. Although the waiting was getting on his nerves, that was the part that he enjoyed the most.

The girl nibbled her lips as she was musing. The expression on her face indicated that she was more likely to believe the Sin than to ignore his words. After all, pride was a pretty tricky thing. It was everyone’s greatest weakness.

“We’ve been together for 2 years! If I had been really that important to you, you would have told me,” the female bellowed as tears began to stream down her face. Seokjin found tremendous pleasure in her pathetic act. She was so pitiful when she couldn’t hold back her tears anymore. As he was a Sin, he was able to understand and speak every single language but words like this were the source of his entertainment, no matter the language.

Her boyfriend took a step closer to her and gently grabbed her wrist but she swiftly pushed herself out of his grasp. Pride prominently enjoyed what he was witnessing, he only wished to have a bag of popcorn and a bottle of Coke with him. The scene in front of him was exactly like watching a heart-breaking romance in the cinema.

The best part was about to come when a dazzling glow appeared beside them, forcing the demon to look away. Only when he felt the heat decreasing, did he actually avert his eyes back to the couple and the sudden visitor… who turned out to be Humility in a pure-white dress and an ever so kind smile.

He cursed quietly under his breath. They had never been in action together, small wonder why he was so dumbfounded to see her this time. How could she ruin his moment? How dared she show up when he was so into his little game? How and why?

Apart from the fact that Pride was undeniably wrathful, he also felt a bit uncomfortable. Memories of him and Myungeun started to bombard him and he couldn’t get rid of the sudden spike of insecurity that was rushing through him. He didn’t know how her mere presence could leave such an impact on him but he wasn’t fond of the feelings that she triggered. He wanted to shake her and grab her by the arm to shout at Humility for ruining his perfect moment – and his perfectly calm life – but the thought snapped him back to his senses. He couldn’t touch her. He could get hurt. He could get killed.

The Virtue sneaked a quick glance at him before turning to the man beside her.

“Why don’t you tell her why you’ve chosen this internship?” she suggested gently, her voice sickeningly sweet.

The guy hesitated a bit, so seeing his reluctance, Pride was prominently interested in his response. At first, it didn’t seem like he would take her advice but he still spoke up in the end much to Seokjin’s annoyance.

“Look, honey, I need to tell you something.”

“Don’t listen to him! He has already lied to you multiple times. Why would today be any different?” Pride clenched his jaw, his hands balled into fists. He couldn’t bear to be the loser, he wanted to win. Especially because Myungeun was his opponent. He wanted to win so badly.

“Just listen to him! How do you know that he won’t tell you the truth? Plus, it was the only time he didn’t tell you what was going on, you know that well,” Humility stated calmly, prodding the girl who was still struggling to decide between the Sin’s and the Virtue’s suggestion. Seokjin knew that he was telling fibs but who cared if he got what he wanted? Sins liked to play it dirty.

Before she could even muster a single word, the male suddenly confessed everything, taking both supernatural creatures by surprise.

“This internship is mandatory for me to get the job I’ve been thinking of. It has a pretty good salary, so that means that we could also move together without worrying about the bills if I got it for real. The only reason why I didn’t want to tell you because I wasn’t sure that I would get accepted,” the guy came to a halt to take a deep breath before he continued. “You know that I wouldn’t want to hurt you. You mean so much to me and this internship could benefit our future plans as well. If it weren’t for the job and its good salary, I wouldn’t even think of it. I love you so much, honey. Please, forgive me,” he pleaded frantically, his hands reaching out to the girl who was constantly sobbing silently. Tears were strolling down her cheeks, they were unstoppable like a river. The only thing that could soothe her nerves was the touch of her boyfriend, so she accepted his hand and let him hug her.

Seokjin let some profanities fly out of his mouth. He knew he lost; he was defeated by Humility and her ridiculously trivial methods. Of course, Sins used lies to manipulate humans but didn’t people like to believe in lies more than the truth? After all, they never knew who was honest or not, they could only trust themselves. This time, it seemed that it was the other way round.

“Why does this word mean so much to people?” Seokjin groaned at the sight of the hugging couple, unable to comprehend the ridiculous situation. He still couldn’t quite process the fact that he had just lost.

“Why?” Humility turned to him with a curious smile, her eyes forming little crescents. Seokjin felt like throwing up when the couple behind Humility started kissing each other like they didn’t know the definition of moderation.

“Wouldn’t you feel better if someone told you that they love you?” the Virtue queried and for the first time that day, Pride was actually thankful for her question. At least she distracted him. Not only with her question but also with her ethereal beauty, mesmerizing obsidian-black eyes, heart-shaped face, loving smile and those long lashes that painted semi circles under her eyes, adding to her pale palette.

“As a Sin, I don’t care about such things,” he shrugged as a pretentious frown was forming on his lips. Oh please, who needed silly I love yous when all he wanted was selfishness? Wrath, self-confidence, superiority and luxury. Love wasn’t a thing on his most wanted list. Not then, not ever.

“And what if I told you that I love you?” Myungeun whispered coyly, her voice barely audible.

She really glowed like a shooting star in the sky, even her eyes were twinkling. He couldn’t argue with her beauty and he would lie if he said that her presence didn’t make him feel all sorts of things. Like human things. He was a damn good liar after all and he kept it all to himself but he couldn’t deny that something was bubbling up inside him. He felt as if the past and the present suddenly collided and he could see all of their fragile memories and their present scene at the same time. The turmoil of emotions meant nothing but trouble.

“You wouldn’t lie to me,” Seokjin snarled at her, almost threatening her with his flickering eyes. Despite acting all cocky and invincible, he didn’t want to hear the word. He was a bit afraid what it would leave him with. Lust? Desire for forgiveness? Hate? Or maybe guilt? Oh no, thank you so much, he didn’t want any of those childish human feelings.

“I loved you and I still love you, Jin,” she confessed without a blink of an eye, struggling to keep her hands to herself. She reached out for a moment but let her hands drop instead when she realised that she couldn’t touch him. The pain in her eyes could tell more than anything; the black of her orbs never seemed so sorrowful before. “And you shouldn’t forget that Virtues can’t lie,” she reminded him with a brittle voice and evaporated right then and there, leaving the oh so mighty Pride looking like he was about to faint.

He felt as if the ground was about to crumble because she was damn right. Virtues couldn’t lie.

I loved you and I still love you, Jin.

How was that even possible? How could she love him after all these time, after all they had been through?

How could a Virtue fall in love with a Sin?

🙝 16 🙞

Living as a Sin never seemed so difficult before. Never in his 1100 years as Pride was as hard as the last few months thanks to that special someone who showed up like an unwanted visitor in the middle of a birthday party.

Seokjin had a hard time adjusting to the situation and his newly appeared feelings. He had no idea what was going on with him but the more he thought of Humility’s words, the less he could concentrate on his duty. Not only did he dread the night when he forced himself to stay awake but he began to dread the day, too. He was failing as a Sin and to make matters worse, more and more demon noticed his mistakes. Not like they initially liked him because it seemed that the whole underworld was against him but he couldn’t care less when he was the original and most serious Sin out of all. Demons were merely jealous of him and his success.

Anyway, the situation still infuriated him and he couldn’t do anything but to distract himself. So he began to question Humility’s words as he didn’t even believe in love in the first place. What was love anyway? Just a doomed connection made up by humans who wanted to find yet another way to destroy themselves and others. Considering that he had never been loved – even Myungeun turned against him in the end −, he had no idea what it was. He could see it every single day but he couldn’t feel it. He caught glimpses of kissing couples on the streets, loving gazes around the dinner table, failed attempts at holding each other’s hands and innocent quick pecks on the cheek. He could look at all those people and still couldn’t feel a thing.

What was so good about love? It would hurt you anyway. The moment your lover breaks up with you, the moment someone doesn’t even show interest, the moment they lie to you, humiliate you, make fun of you or use you for selfish purposes. They even hurt you when they die. You lose every single day but not only as a person, you also lose a piece of yourself. So what was so good about loss? He himself lost a lot of things during his 19 years as a human and he didn’t want more pain. He had suffered enough and Myungeun was only another source of pain. She made him believe that she would stay by him no matter what and she didn’t even consider helping him when he was about to unite the three kingdoms! Oh, Myungeun and her stupid promises… they were literally the death of him.

As Prince Seokjin, the only form of care that he knew of was punishment. He was always accused of crimes and lies, he was always bullied for the way he looked and he was humiliated just because he was born. He wasn’t born to receive love and he accepted it from a very early age. He even warned Myungeun not to get closer to him because he doesn’t deserve love, he was fated to be an outcast. He warned her not to take care of him because she would get hurt. It was her fault that she didn’t listen to him. Even though she thought – and Jin also believed in it for a long time – that she did good to him, she was the one who hurt him the most. He wanted to hate her for that but he couldn’t. No matter how hard he tried, he just couldn’t.

The thing that bothered him the most was that she claimed that she loved him, even before he became a Sin and until present day. He was perfectly aware of the fact that Virtues couldn’t lie, that’s why they were Virtues. Sins could casually use lies as a way to manipulate people but Virtues couldn’t. So how could she say that she loved him? How could she be so sure that he loved this arrogant, erratic, blatant, unattainable and thick-skinned man? How could she love a Sin?

Looking at their situation, Seokjin wasn’t the only one who couldn’t control his emotions. Though it couldn’t have been a problem for Myungeun since he didn’t hear anything from her after the day they had met in Prague. After all, was the fact that she loved a Sin was a sin itself? He highly doubted, it was merely peculiar. Love wasn’t a Sin, not even sex. Only sex without love was considered a Sin according to Lust and the rules of the underworld.

Not even Jaehwan wanted to ask what was bothering him, he almost looked like he was waiting for him to fail. There was a weird expression on his face which he couldn’t decipher. Nonetheless, Seokjin had bigger problems than Jaehwan’s ridiculous features, so he didn’t waste more time dwelling on such minor things.

It was the first time he was willing to find Humility without being told to do so, without dying to know why she was looking for him and without intending to kill her. He gave up on his initial plan as he realised that it was a mission impossible. He still wished to get rid of her but he had a different plan now.

Even without prying into her business, he had an idea where he could find her and when he found her daydreaming beside the Jeongbang Falls, sitting on a rock, enjoying as the chilly night wind blew through her hair, he wasn’t surprised at all. She was as sentimental as always.

“You are so predictable,” Pride cleared his throat to gain her attention but she didn’t even avert her eyes to the young man, she continued on staring at the ocean which was tinted greyish by the breath-taking moonlight.

It was already past 2 AM, the time when Humility usually stopped her activities and sat by the ocean for half an hour to recharge her batteries. It was rumoured that she had a special place where she let off some steam but demons weren’t interested in a Virtue’s favourite place, let alone Pride who always minded his business, he didn’t have time for gossip. Yet, he had a feeling that she might be beside the Jeongbang Falls as this was the place that she wanted to visit before she would die. She once shared it with the little Jin and considering that she never had the chance to fulfil her dream, the waterfall in Jeju was his first tip.

“But you are quite unpredictable,” she noted quietly as she peeped at the Sin, a gentle smile hiding in the corner of her rosy-coloured lips. Seokjin couldn’t believe how she stayed so tender after all this time, after all he had said to her but then he reminded himself that she was a Virtue after all. It was her job and unlike him, she was doing a pretty good job.

Pride shrugged his shoulders and casually sat down on a rock, not too close but not too far from Humility. A sudden jolt of tranquillity simmered through him as he let his eyes wander at the ocean. There was something oddly familiar about the whole situation. Myungeun was beside him, humming a child song to herself and looking at the waves crashing into the shore, washing over sand and smaller rocks. The scenery was new but the feeling was familiar. It reminded him of the times when they were beside the Palace’s lake or picking flowers in the garden. It represented the times of perfect serendipity, ethereal calmness and that so-called purity of youth. It was like finding a safe haven in a tangled mess.

The sudden nostalgic bitterness attacked his mind first, bombarding him with flashbacks. Then, it moved on to his heart, squeezing it with those human feelings that he hadn’t experienced in a millennium. He could have said that it scared him but he had already given in to all those emotions. There was no use; the disease was already spreading through his whole body and his whole being. A Sin lost to a Virtue and she didn’t even have an idea that she was slowly destroying him as a Sin and bringing his human self to surface.

“Why did you really want to see me?” Pride broke the pleasant silence that was covering them like a warm blanket on a cold winter night.

Poor girl didn’t think that he would question her out of the blue, therefore she couldn’t help but wince in surprise. Her cheeks were glowing in embarrassment, her ears turning red. For the second time already, she nibbled her lips. Seokjin didn’t even attempt to suppress his honest reaction this time. The thought that she hadn’t changed a bit raised his lips into a small smile.

“I missed you,” she drawled nervously.

“Why?” Seokjin raised his eyebrows, throwing caution to the wind. He knew that it would be the last time he saw her, so he didn’t want to beat around the bush. It was now or never.

“Because I died so quickly, I couldn’t even say what I wanted to say to you and the feeling left me with a pang of hollowness in my chest,” she admitted, her voice slightly shaking. Her gaze darted around the beach but never settled on Seokjin’s face. She wasn’t ready to face him but she wasn’t even sure that she would ever be.

The reunion took her by surprise and she had no idea what she should expect from the Sin. She saw him being frustrated, yelling at her, his eyes on fire like he was about to kill her on the spot. She saw him being disappointed, hands balled into fists, his whole body ready for a fight. She saw him being confused, unable to understand the feelings of humans, unable to feel the love between the girl and the boy in Prague. Nonetheless, she could feel the love of the couple and that’s why she knew that he wouldn’t be able to convince them. Their love was stronger than their self-love.

There were countless times when Humility couldn’t succeed because humans weren’t strong enough to say no to their selfish desires but she tried her best to persuade them to change. Sometimes it wasn’t enough but at least she tried.

Every Virtue knew that the world lost its balance and the demons started to take over the world but they couldn’t give up. They were chosen to be Virtues because their chastity, forgiveness, generosity, kindness, diligence, temperance or humility changed lives. She had definitely changed lives – including Seokjin’s − but so did the previous Pride and she couldn’t win in Jin’s case. That’s why she was so eager to become a Virtue; she wanted to win and save lives. She didn’t want to see humans transforming into something so unpredictable and evil as Seokjin did all those years ago. She lived almost 500 years as an angel when she finally had the chance to become a Virtue and she didn’t hesitate to accept the offer.

“Why?” Seokjin exclaimed frantically, more furious than last time. The sudden change in his behaviour made her heart leap and she unconsciously looked for his eyes. His coal-black eyes were seriously dangerous and searing; they weren’t flames, they were bigger than that. They were hundreds of flames united in a huge, devastating one. “Why do you want to say a proper goodbye to me when you know I don’t deserve it? Why do you love me when you know I’m rotten as hell? Why do you do this to me? Why can’t you just live in your perfect Virtue world and leave me alone? Why do you have to make me feel guilty for spoiling those people?”

His scream echoed back from the stones, sounding like dreary pleadings in the chilly spring dawn. His words were fragile like a raindrop that could reach the ground anytime and become one with it. Their relationship was cursed from the beginning and the more he got closer to her, the more he was able to see it. They should have never met, thus they should have never fallen in love. It was a love written in the stars, written for tragedy, nothing else.

As a human, he was unable to change for her and save her from dying and as a Sin, he was unable to see why she turned against him and why she loved him after she had died in his arms. In both forms of his life, he reckoned that he merely wanted to protect her from himself yet he didn’t realise that all he wanted to do was to protect her from his love. Deep inside, he always had a feeling that he would hurt the people around him and he wanted to avoid the inevitable as much as possible.

So why was it so hard for her to see his struggle? Why couldn’t she realise that he wanted to save her from himself? From his love?

“I guess you already know that you can’t decide who you fall in love with, right?” Humility let out an aghast sigh, her words sending shivers down his spine.

He couldn’t hold himself back anymore, he couldn’t pacify his fast-paced thoughts and his human self that was about to take control of him. He knew what he was about to do, so he wasn’t scared. He swiftly reached out to Humility, grabbed her hand and held it to his heart, even though he knew that she couldn’t feel its beating. Yet, he could already feel the crazy burning in his veins. His body was on fire, his chest was squeezing painfully while the excruciating pain was slowly tearing him apart. As the pain escalated, his breathing became more and more ragged.

“What are you doing, Jin?” Humility’s eyes widened in both shock and fear. She certainly felt a tad bit of pain but it wasn’t like the one she had imagined. She wasn’t suffering as the Sin apparently did. “You are killing yourself!” she screamed frantically while she was trying to escape from his grasp but he was stronger than ever. He wouldn’t let go of her.

“Don’t you dare to let go of me!” he cried out helplessly, doubling over. The Virtue was gasping for air, she made countless attempts to yank her hand away from him but he was too adamant.

Why? And why didn’t she feel that unbearable pain that she should have? It was said that if an entirely selfish soul touches her for a long time, she would get hurt and she would feel like dying again. Nonetheless, she didn’t feel like the last time she was shot. Apart from a little aching, she was fine. So what was going on?

“I can’t let you die!”

“But you have to let me!” he sucked in a breath, his eyes tearing up. His face was now practically snuggled to her chest, still not causing any pain. He was relieved after all. His plan seemed to work, she was still safe. Let me die in your arms, he wanted to say but his mouth wouldn’t budge.

“Jin, don’t do this! Let go of me, please! I want to save you!” Myungeun shook him, still trying to peel himself off of her.

Tears began to well up in her eyes, spilling down her face and landing on Jin’s pale skin. One by one. They became little dots on the thick paper that was his handsome face. He never looked more fragile than that time as he was in her arms, his eyelashes shaking, his body trembling, his hands clinging onto her body and his eyes out of focus.

“Last time I couldn’t save you! Let me do it this time!” he pleaded in between coughs, his voice strangely weak. The oh so mighty Pride threw away his mask and she could see his bare self without that stupid masquerade. His soul was in front of her, bleeding out with each passing second. The fact that he didn’t want her to help stung her right at the heart.

“I-I can’t! Please, Jin, please…” she cried out in horror. Her vision became blurry due to the amount of tears that started to slide down her cheeks. She wanted to wipe them away but Pride still held onto her like she was his last string of hope. Maybe she was. But for what?

“Myungeun…” he rolled her name off his tongue in a surprisingly gentle way. She couldn’t help but weep more. No one had called her by her real name for hundreds of years. “Let me keep my promise this time,” he asked tenderly, coughing a bit more. She didn’t know which one of their promises he was currently talking about.

“What promise?”

“I don’t want to be a narcissist anymore. I want to save you,” he bawled in tears, his voice shaky and brittle. He coughed up blood, the spots painting his fancy white shirt crimson-red, just like on the days when he was killing off hundreds of innocent people as Goryeo’s king. The only difference was that this time it was his own blood.

“But how?” she managed a sentence out, her eyes full of remorse. If he died in her arms, she didn’t know how she would bear the sight of his dead body, let alone the memory that would hunt her.

“By killing myself,” he muttered, his voice barely a whisper. There was a trace of smile playing on his lips that made her heart ache even more. “You don’t have to take care of me anymore. You don’t have to think of me anymore,” he added and his words were like bullets sent through her heart. He mumbled something about love with his last breath but she couldn’t comprehend it. He closed his eyes sooner than she could have prepared herself and he was already gone. He broke into tiny little pieces like glass and the wind carried all of them far, far away.

She let out a heart-wrenching scream, a cry of a girl who lost her precious love for the second time. The first time, she couldn’t even say goodbye and no matter how evil he became, she still wanted to say to him what she couldn’t tell him before. On the other hand, she had the chance to confess to him only when they were already the creatures of the after-life who were supposed to carry on accompanying the humans’ lives. Little did she know that the long-awaited confession that she wanted to share with Seokjin hurt him so much that he started to experience human feelings again.

That day by the Jeongbang Falls was the second time when she couldn’t say the words to him because he was on the verge of dying. Seokjin already knew that she loved him but she still felt the need to bid a proper farewell, even though she couldn’t let go of him… she didn’t want to.

The pain Pride was going through wasn’t physical, it was the pain caused by heart-break. She didn’t feel such pain, not even when he shot an arrow through her heart and she was dying. That was another kind of pain; almost peaceful, slow yet constant like a lovely piano piece. This one was rather raw, full of emotions, fire and ashes, blood and tears. How could he do it for her? How could he know that she wouldn’t get hurt when he touches her?

Oh, how Myungeun truly wished that she had died with him like the first time! She wanted to be in his arms instead of holding Seokjin’s body. It was odd how history repeated itself in the opposite way. It must have been their fate. The fate of star-crossed lovers.

Humility looked at her hands with terror, already expecting burnt spots all over her body. Contrary to her expectations, all she could see was an ink tattoo with Pride’s name. Not until she saw the Sin’s name did it finally dawn on her why she wasn’t affected by his touch. She assumed that his human side took control of him, so he wasn’t completely selfish when he touched her and that’s why he couldn’t scar her. On the other hand, she was still entirely selfless and that’s why she could destroy his demon side. Unfortunately, his human side wasn’t strong enough to bear the transformation and that’s why he died.

Humility should have been happy because defeating a Sin was considered a success, yet all she felt in the following centuries was bitterness. Demons took advantage of the situation, especially Jaehwan who became the new Pride. Lucifer chose him personally since he knew the guy’s little secret, he knew that Jaehwan found a way to defeat Humility but because he was so selfish and sought after the title of Pride, he didn’t tell him and Seokjin already lost a bit of his demon abilities, so he couldn’t sense that he was lying. The only way Jin could have ended his pain was to get rid of his memories once and for all and that meant taking Lucifer’s place. If he killed Lucifer, he would immediately become the new one and his memories would be erased.

Kim Seokjin might not have been humble, light-hearted and innocent all his life but he wasn’t born to be Pride, he became one under the wrong circumstances. On the contrary, he chose to change his fate for the first time in his life and only he knew if it was really worth it. After a long time, he really felt like living, he was able to feel all those things Myungeun had mentioned before.

He realised on the verge of dying that he was loved. During his human life, during his demon life, whenever he was beside Myungeun, he was loved. He was just too blind to see it.

The more she thought about it, the more tears she shed. Even though she wasn’t the one who died that day, she felt like dying with him. A piece of her soul left her and accompanied Seokjin to God knows where. They would hold hands through the white light together. They would be together forever.

Just like they had promised each other all those years ago.

#bts #jin #bts scenarios #jin scenarios #seokjin scenarios #bts imagines #jin imagines #seokjin imagines #bts historical #jin historical #seokjin historical #bts demon au #jin demon au #seokjin demon au #my story #restlessmaknae

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script-a-world · 4 years

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(sorry this is long) I'm creating a fantasy matriarchal society that's a combination of like America post WW2 and like the amazons/valkyries crossed with magical girls. I could use some help figuring out the gender dynamics, since part of my goal is to use the swap to highlight some inequalities that still exist in our gender expectations today by flipping them. I'm trying to figure out if it's better to have the men be primary caregivers (1/?)

since there’s no reason to assume that the gender that gives birth has to be the caregivers) or if I should go the “matriarchal society would value childrearing above other jobs” route. Some thoughts I had: Women are the main magic-users in society (magical girl/amazons blessed directly by the god who rules the city with power)and that perhaps all young women are expected to go through military service of some sort before becoming matrons, politicians and doctors. (2/?)

Maybe women are associated with Life and Death and “important duties” that revolve around them, including duties regarding both killing and saving lives. So healing, leading armies, fighting, hunting, childbirth (possibly care?) and politics are feminine jobs, while “lesser duties” that revolve more around menial labor are relegated to men (manual labor, maintenance, ‘uneducated’ jobs, support jobs like scribe and secretary, cooking, cleaning, perhaps some jobs like fashion design or art). (3/?)

Do you think this is a good balance? What are some other ways I could divide gender roles? The world situation is a magical land with about early 20th century level tech (trains and private schools and like phones/radios).Also, what is the best way to objectify men in this society? I was thinking of making it so men are seen as useless/only for the purpose of providing sexual pleasure and siring children to women. (4/?)

They don’t’ actually create children or take the ‘important jobs’ (the poor dears just don’t have the brains for it, they’re too simple and direct, men don’t have the emotional maturity to handle serious issues, they lack empathy, they only want sex anyway so it’s not like you need to worry about their emotional needs, etc). I’d love some suggestions on how a society like this might work or if there are other ways to divide the gender roles, (5/?)

as well as some ways men might experience objectification in society. How would fashion be different, and how would this society put pressure on men to look or act in certain ways (and women as well). Any suggestions? Thanks, and sorry for the long question(6/?)

Mod Miri Note: If you have a question that requires multiple asks, please use the google form! That way there’s no risk of parts of the question being lost.

Tex: “Do you think this is a good balance?” No, I do not. I disagree with the notion that a group of people ought to be objectified, neglected, abused, pigeon-holed, or otherwise mistreated under the guise of inversion as a way to tout a certain prescription of thought. I think this methodology perpetuates stereotypes, and with stereotypes come all the -isms that are used as excuses to treat people poorly just because they’re different from the originating group.

I’m going to be radical and say “none of the above”. There’s a few reasons for my answer, but aside from the brief overview in the previous paragraph, let me go through and try responding to all of your points in a more precise manner.

Let’s start with American culture post WWII - and I’m going to assume that, because of this choice, you’re working from an American perspective. This is important! But I’ll handle that detail in a bit.

Post-WWII culture is heavily influenced by WWII culture. For women, this meant enlistment in the military, as well as filling the gaps in the domestic labor force left by men being shipped off (History.com, The Atlantic). Their service in the military - quite often voluntary - was as critical and crucial as their domestic work (Wikipedia 1, Wikipedia 2, Wikipedia 3). They usually received lower pay than men, true (though interestingly the women in the UK were often treated better; Striking Women), though governments of the time admitted that without women the war effort would have crumpled.

Rosie the Riveter is a popular piece of propaganda (where it was also considered patriotic for women to join the workforce and military service; National Women’s History Museum), but don’t let that dissuade you from thinking that women were not recognized for other types of work during the war. Many women in the US were recognized for their military service (USO), and other women’s histories endure today - Lyudmila Pavlichenko (Wikipedia), Vitka Kempner (Wikipedia), and Virginia Hall (Wikipedia). I’m going to toss in the official synopsis of Queen Elizabeth II’s involvement in her own military to round things out (The Royal Family), complete with a picture of her in uniform (Wikipedia).

Many women after the war went back to strictly domestic duties, and I think that parallels their wartime efforts - both situations are of the “all hands on deck” type, but the play of gender roles here means that the duties of a functioning society are divvied up by different functional spheres - and make no mistake, men and women relied on each other equally as much to cover the gaps, despite the sexism inherent in modern Western society. The difference between war and non-war time cultures was that the latter wasn’t necessarily cultivated by patriotism that could unite the different “factions”. The Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American History gives a thorough examination of this topic.

The following era - typified by the birth of the Baby Boomer generation - saw a marked increase in economic prosperity (Wikipedia). With that came increased social mobility for women (Citation 1), usually catalyzed by the actions of their fathers (Citation 2). This may typically be achieved by consistent, conscientious public policy formation (Citation 3). In short, many cultures - if they haven’t already - are realizing that it’s good for business to let women control how they participate in society and the flow of money.

In the US, this was precipitated by the boom of social development (American History; archived version). Aside from the Truman administration negotiating price fixing to prevent inflation, a significant factor was the passing of the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944 (AKA the G.I. Bill). This primarily benefited the Greatest Generation, though other pertinent legislation by the 79th Congress benefited the Silent Generation onwards: the Fair Deal, Revenue Act of 1948, Taft-Hartley Act, Employment Act of 1946, National School Lunch Act, and Hobbs Act.

It’s debatable how well this impacted long-term economic development, considering the almost immediate rise of McCarthyism in the US in 1947, which was heavily intertwined with the Truman Doctrine that precipitated the Cold War. The results of the war, at least economically, were… mixed (Wikipedia 1, Wikipedia 2). I have no doubt that this impacted the social mobility of women in all affected countries - which is all of them, but I’m sure hairs could be split on this if you wish.

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s tackle the Amazons.

The modern, popular interpretation (that is slow to be shaken by archaeological evidence) is mostly mythological (Wikipedia). While some ideas are thrown in the way of a Minoan Crete ancestry to the myth, there are more similarities drawn to the Scythian and Samartian cultures on the Eurasian Steppe (CNET). It’s possible that instead of the equally-extreme pole end of the gender dichotomy that is patriarchy-matriarchy, the Scythians just scandalized the Athenians with a comparatively more fluid society (Smithsonian Magazine).

As for Valkyries… there’s been a revival of them in pop culture, probably as a net-casting to see what’s out there aside from Amazons. TVTropes covers the many, many ways media utilizes them as a trope, to varying degrees of mythological and cultural accuracy. As they state, valkyries are a form of psychopomp, as they decide who among the battlefield’s dead will go to Valhalla (ruled by Odin) or Fólkvangr (ruled by Freya). Freya seems to have assumed the “type” (as opposed to characteristics salient to a particular individual) of a valkyrie, as the female counterpart the warrior archetype. To wit, Freya herself may be a type (Wikipedia).

Here’s where the issue gets thorny - modern popular understanding of valkyries, and by extension Scandinavian women, is skewed through the modern lens.

@fjorn-the-skald has a lovely series called Viking History: Post-by-Post, or An Informal Crash Course & A Historical Guide to the Vikings, that typically focuses on medieval Iceland. In his post “Lesson 13.c - Women in the Viking Age, Part III: Were Women “Vikings”?”, discusses the particular penchant of modern times to romanticize and/or skew history to their own biases - in this instance, how medieval Icelandic women functioned in their culture, as well as how valkyrie myths play into this.

The TL;DR of that is: “viking” women were a societal anomaly, the battlefield was a male domain (and they were expected to die on it), a woman’s prowess of the domestic sphere was highly respected to a level often equivalent to men, and the domestic sphere was the sphere of commerce. Scandinavian culture prized strong women, just as they prized strong men, and their culture rested upon the concept of different genders having their own distinct, complementary, and equal domains.

Fjörn builds upon this history in an ask about gender roles outside the usual dichotomy of male-female. Valkyries, and shield-maidens, may be classed as a third gender in medieval Scandinavian culture, because women were temporarily occupying the male role in their society. While valkyries are of divine origin, shield-maidens are not, though they seem to have taken on a supernatural bent by performing feminine qualities while living in the male sphere (something that they can literally wear, by the donning of their armor).

That probably comes across as distasteful to, especially, a modern American perspective, but many ancient cultures are like that. There’s a footnote on that ask about links to a contemporary perspective of same-sex relationships, as well, to round out that talking point.

With those historical and mythological details discussed, let’s move on to magical girls.

Interestingly, the genre and trope derive from the American TV show Bewitched (Nippon.com). Its evolution reflected Japan’s changing tone about female sexuality, focusing on girls. Magical Girl doesn’t seem to be intended to attract the male gaze in a sexual light - and in fact was generated as a form of female empowerment by by way of growing up (TVTropes), but it seems to happen anyways (TVTropes).

Magical girls, as a genre, originated in the 1960s - the archetypical Sailor Moon encompasses not only magical girls, but also the kawaii aesthetic. Kawaii, incidentally, followed after the magical girl trope, and plays upon women performing as girls in society.

As magical girls are intended for young girls, a demographic known as shōjo, it is considered a subgenre of the target audience. Please note that shōnen'ai (Fanlore) and yaoi (Fanlore) are also subgenres of shōjo.

For some context, the adult female target audience is known as josei, the young adult men is known as shōnen, and adult male audience is known as seinen. Many manga and anime are often misattributed to the wrong category, so it helps to know which is which, and why.

Kumiko Saito argues (through an unfortunately paywalled article that I’m more than willing to disseminate to those without JSTOR access) that magical girls reinforce gender stereotypes as well as fetishize young female bodies. She argues this point more eloquently than I can, so I’ll be quoting a few sections below.

Page 148 (7 of 23 on the PDF):

The 1960s “witch” housewife theme waned quickly in the United States, but various cultural symbolisms of magic smoothly translated into the Japanese climate, leading to Japans four-decade-long obsession with the magical girl. Bewitched incorporated the concept of magic as female power to be renounced after marriage, thereby providing “a discursive site in which feminism (as female power) and femininity has been negotiated” (Moseley 2002, 403) in the dawning of Americas feminist era. Japans magical girls represented a similar impasse of fitting into female domesticity, continued to fascinate Japanese society, and came to define the magical girl genre. In direct contrast to the American heroines Samantha and Jeannie, however, whose strife arose from the antagonism between magic (as power) and the traditional gender role as wife or fiancée, the magical girls dilemma usually lies between female adulthood and the juvenile female stage prior to marriage, called shõjo. In other words, the magical girl narratives often revolve around the magical freedom of adolescence prior to the gendered stage of marriage and motherhood, suggesting the difficulty of imagining elements of power and defiance beyond the point of marriage. In fact, these programs were broadcast exactly when the rate of love-based marriage started to surpass that of miai (arranged marriage),4 which implies that the magical girl anime, founded on the strict ideological division between shõjo and wife/mother, may have been an anxious reaction to the emergent phase of romance.

Page 150 (9 of 23 on the PDF):

The combination of magical empowerment and shõjo-ness framed by the doomed nature of transient girlhood naturally created ambivalent, messages in Akko-chan as well. In the societal milieu in which Japan was undergoing the politically turbulent era of Marxist student movements at the largest scale in the postwar era, Akko-chan’s super- human ability to transform into anyone (or anything) is quite revolutionary, implying a sense of women’s liberation. Despite this potential, her metamorphic ability never threatens gender models, as she typically dreams of becoming a princess, a bride, or a female teacher she respects. The use of magic is also largely limited to humanitarian community services in town. Akko-chan’s symbolic task throughout the series focuses on how to steer her power to serve her friends and family, leading to the final episode in which she relinquishes magic to save her father. Akko-chan embraces the cross-generic mismatch between the radical idea of empowering a girl with superhuman ability and the hahamono [mother genre] sentimentalism idealizing women’s self-sacrifice. All in all, the new setting adopted in this series, that a mediocre girl accidentally gains magic, became a useful mechanism for the underlying theme that the heroine is foredoomed to say farewell to magic in the end. This rhetorical device transforms latent power of the amorphous girl into the reappreciation of traditional gender norms by equating magic with shõjo-hood to be given up at a certain stage.

Saito discusses the thematic shifts in the magical girl subgenre in the 1980s to a more sexualized view, and the according rise of both an older audience and otaku fans, the latter of whom, she clarifies, make a habit of recontextualizing canon to categorize characters into stereotypes that are stripped of the majority of their original context.

On pages 153-154 (12-13 of 23 on the PDF):

The conventions of the magical girl genre transformed significantly against this paradigm shift. Both Minky Momo and Creamy Mami originally targeted children, recording a decent outcome in business and eventually leading to the revival of the genre. Because the plots are directly built on the genre clichés, however, the jokes and sarcasm of many episodes appear comprehensible only to adult viewers equipped with the knowledge of the Töei magical girls. The intrigue of these programs largely lies in the way they parody and mock the established genre conventions, especially the restrictive function of magic and the meaning of transformation. The genre is now founded on the expectation that the adult viewer has acquired a diachronic fan perspective to fetishize both the characters and the text’s meanings.

Creamy Mami presents the story of fourth-grader Yū, who gains magical power that enables her to turn into a sixteen-year-old girl. Yū’s magical power is more restrictive than Momo’s, for her superhuman capacity simply means metamorphosis into her adult form, who happens to become an idol singer called Mami. Given that the magic’s ability is self-oriented cosmetic effect and bodily maturation, the heroine’s ultimate goal by means of magic is to grow old enough to attract her male friend Toshio, who neglects Yū’s latent charm but falls in love with the idol Mami. The series concludes when Yū loses her magic, which correlates to Toshio’s realization that Yū is his real love. Mami’s thematic messages teach the idea that magic does not bring much advantage or power after all, or rather, magic serves as an obstacle for the appreciation of the truly magical period called shõjo. The heroine gains magic to prove, although retroactively, the importance of adolescence preceding the possession of “magic” that enables (and forces) female maturation.

It’s noted in the article that the 1990s-2000s period received criticism for showing a physical maturation of girls, so codified euphemisms via garment changes such as additional frills and curled hair were used instead. This “third-wave” magical girl challenged standing norms of its predecessors by doing things such as likening adult responsibilities (“childrearing and job training”) as a sort of game, as well as the transformation implying that the character’s power is in being herself, something that juxtaposes previous norms.

Due to shifting power dynamics and other changes in Japan’s culture, it became more common for boys to become magical girls as well, further separating the magical girl concept from a strict reflection of gender roles. As such, Japanese culture - insofar as my English-based research can guide me - no longer immediately implies a direct and distinct correlation between magical girls and the female gender.

An analysis of Puella Magi Madoka Magica (PMMM) by Tate James (2017; PDF) discusses an additional dimension of the magical girl genre. Two pertinent points of the piece is that 1.) PMMM dismantles archetypes pitting women against girls, and 2.) PMMM reinforces the gender stereotype that the best type of girl is a passive girl.

Now for the issue you’ve raised about who ought to be the primary caregiver of children.

Consistent, immediate, and continuous interaction between a mother and her child benefits both of them (Citation 4, Scientific American 1, Live Science, Citation 5, Scientific American 2, UNICEF, WHO). Mothers have a distinct neurobiological makeup that predisposes them toward caring for infants (Citation 6), and likewise infants have a predisposed preference to their mother’s voice and heartbeat (Citation 7). I would like to think that is sufficient evidence as to why nearly all cultures encourage mothers as the primary caregivers.

This said, cultivation of a father-child dyad is immensely beneficial to the child (Citation 8, Citation 9), and can alleviate the effect of maternal depression on the child (ScienceDaily). Partnered men residing with children have lower levels of testosterone but a higher risk of cardiovascular disease and adiposity (Citation 10). It’s interesting to note that higher prolactin levels in the mother’s breastmilk has a correspondingly higher level of sociosexual activity with their partner in cotton-top tamarins, which stimulates pair bonding (Citation 11), as well as in other species (Citation 12).

Paternal postpartum depression is recently recognized in fathers, to severe and reverberating deleterious effects on themselves and their family (Citation 13). Screening tools for detecting depression in Swedish fathers is not sufficiently developed, and many men may be passed over despite reaching cut-off suggestions in other criteria for depression (Citation 14).

It has been observed that while human mother and fathers have the similar oxytocin pathways, the exhibit different parenting behaviours when exposed to elevated levels of oxytocin - primarily that fathers will react with high stimulatory behaviour and exploratory play (Wikipedia).

Men being socialized in a culture of stoicism and an encouraged reaction pattern to violence have poor mental health that can culminate into death and other long-term effects (Citation 15). Suicide in the US is currently the leading cause of death at time of posting this response, that the total suicide rate increased 31% from 2001-2017, and in 2017 male rates were nearly four times higher than females (NIMH).

On the topic of magical culture: it’s incredibly difficult to research because it’s a component of overall culture, and one that’s not typically available to strangers/foreigners/the uninitiated. As such, a lot of authors default to what they already know. It’s not a bad thing, but if someone wants to reach outside their comfort zone, they’re going to have some trouble.

I’m going to go off the three, four-ish, cultures you’ve already come to us with: American, Scandinavian, Scythian/Samartian, and Japanese just to round things out.

For a very, very rough overview of America, we have:

Native Americans of the contiguous US

Hawai’i

Alaska

Whatever the colonizing peoples brought over (including, but not limited to, English, Scottish, Irish, Norwegian, German, and Italian)

Whatever the myriad cultures of Africa brought over as slaves

Hispanic

NB: I’ve put Hawai’i and Alaska as separate items because they’re not part of the contiguous US.

European settlers were of a few groups:

The merchants working on charters

Indentured servants from the merchants’ homelands

Slavs

Immigrants in post-colonial eras

This is an important distinction because 1.) contemporary culture matters a lot politically, 2.) how people came to the US determined how they and their family were treated, and 3.) the contemporary job culture determined their social class.

(Slavs, as a note, are the origin of the English word “slave”, something that Western Europeans historically liked to propagate.)

I’m not going to go into the details of everything the US has to offer in terms of cultural diversity aside from a nudge in the direction of Santería. What you pick up to research is up to you.

Scandinavian folk magic is known as “trolldom” (Swedish-language Wikipedia), and the region was known for their cunningfolk. Please note that klok/-a, klog/-e, and related words relates to the English word cloak, and these people are so named because wearing one was an integral part of how they interacted with the supernatural.

The InternetArchive has a book (albeit in Swedish) about the history of magic in Sweden, which is available in multiple formats. If you’d prefer to have something in English, you can either buy this book, or inform your library you’d like to them to buy it for you.

I’m a little surprised you hadn’t mentioned either the völva (Swedish Wikipedia, English Wikipedia) or seiðr (Wikipedia), as they’re quite a well-known part of Scandinavian folk culture. Fjörn, as always, is my first stop for this area of research, with the post “Lesson 7 - Viking Spirituality”, the Víkingabók Database, the tag of Old Norse words, and the post “Norðurbók: A List of the Tales and Sagas of Icelanders” as incredibly good starting points. I encourage you to peruse them, especially because the words you learn will help you be more precise during research.

The Scythian culture is quite far reaching, as they had occupied most of the Eurasian Steppe during the Iron Age, and much of this area can be found in modern-day countries such as Russia, Iran, and China, among others. Because of how far their peoples spread out, the Scythians intermixed with their neighbors, and as such there are sub-groups to the culture.

The Sarmatians were more Russian, as that’s where a large amount of their territory laid, and were absorbed into early Slavic culture. Both their and the overall Scythian language group is eastern Iranian.

In order to help you orient yourself, here’s a map from Wikipedia:

Description: Historical spread of Iranian peoples/languages: Scythia, Sarmatia, Bactria and the Parthian Empire in about 170 BC (evidently before the Yuezhi invaded Bactria). Modern political boundaries are shown to facilitate orientation.

Japanese magical culture is intrinsically tied to their religion, and as such it would be beneficial to read about Shintoism and Japanese Buddhism. The wiki for Japanese mythology is a thorough primer, though if you get stuck, then I’m sure @scriptmyth would be glad to help you on not only this culture, but others.

As for the jobs you’ve proposed - I’m going to jump right into scribes because the irony of that is it’s historically a male-dominated job, and is the progenitor of jobs such as “public servants, journalists, accountants, bookkeepers, typists, and lawyers”. It is, with even greater irony, European women that are noted in Wikipedia, and that medieval women are increasingly thought to have played an integral part in manuscript writing (New Scientist, Science Advances).

I’m not the best person to ask for medieval culture, unfortunately, so you’ll need someone more knowledgeable than me on the subject to direct you to the finer points.

The wiki for women in war links to a lot of lists, so I would suggest poking around for historical references by era (that will likely lead to by culture) to orient yourself on how women have participated in war in the past. There’s quite a bit of mythology to be found there, as well, so if you pick up some specific goddesses you get stuck on, then pop over to @scriptmyth.

Likewise, the wiki for women in government is an interesting read, as is women in positions of power. Since both are primarily modern-times oriented, I would suggest looking at the list of queens regnant for a more historical perspective. I would have difficulty giving you more than that, as you would need to pinpoint your reference cultures first.

As history often neglects women’s contributions to society if they weren’t a ruler or similarly powerful ruler - and, frankly, that frequently applied to men as well the further back you go - I’m going to toss a couple of starting points at you for the area of medicine:

Women in medicine § Ancient medicine - Wikipedia

Women in medicine - Science Museum: History of Medicine

One thing to keep in mind is that as goalposts changed for medicine - the standardization of knowledge and the need to attend a medical school to be legally allowed to perform medicine - the availability of women to participate went down.

Another is that medicine, historically, relied upon herbal medicine, and Wikipedia itself notes that there’s a heavy overlap with food history - something that’s traditionally a domain of women. This abstract by Marcia Ramos‐e‐Silva MD, PhD, talks about Saint Hildegard von Bingen, and the first page available tells you that medieval women were in charge of quite a lot despite not being allowed to participate in the male-dominated sphere of war. The Herbal Academy dips briefly into not only the saint, but other historical aspects of herbalism that might interest you.

The wiki of women in the Middle Ages, along with that of Hildegard of Bingen, nicely rounds out this particular topic.

I need to bring out the fact that Ancient Egypt was and is well-known for the equality and respect afforded to their women - in the interest of staying on subject, particularly in the field of medicine (Ancient History Encyclopedia). Isis was well-known as a goddess of healing (Wikipedia), an aspect she has in common with goddesses in many other cultures (Wikipedia). As an added side-note, Merit Ptah in her popularly-known context has been concluded to be an inflated misunderstanding - and misconstrued interpretation - of a historical figure with significant fabrication (LiveScience, Oxford).

The presence of women in medicine fluctuated in every culture, an in ancient times often shared some correlation with the use of magic (Citation 16). Healing, historically, has a high correlation with the supernatural - and if you care to look, women are usually responsible for the domain of the supernatural. (Or at least the feminine part, which was complementary and complemented by the masculine part.)

I’m going to hop back to politics real quick to bring up abbesses, particularly the social power they exercised as women heading religious orders. An article by Alixe Bovey for the British Library gives the TL;DR of medieval women and abbeys, though if you’d like something with a bit more detail, Medieval English Nunneries c. 1275 to 1535 by Eileen Edna Power is also available.

Abbeys, with their rise and fall, are important to modern American culture. Midwives, to be even more particular, have the most direct impact. In Western Europe, a midwife may under certain circumstances perform baptisms. This was a debated topic of its time, as baptisms were rituals of the Church, and the Church had strict regulations allowing only men to perform their rituals.

During the 1500s - and up to the 1800s, in some cases - midwives were defamed to be witches. You’ll notice that this corresponds to a standardization of medical knowledge, with its corresponding legal restrictions on who may practice medicine. For the Church, the politics playing behind the scenes of midwifery and female physicians fluctuated with their observations about women’s power relative to their own (Citation 16).

Malta is an excellent case study of this phenomenon (Citation 17), and encapsulates the movement of witchcraft accusations that took place throughout this period - something historians noted as corresponding to the rise of Protestantism (ThoughtCo). There’s some debate that the increasing orientation to wages in contemporary economy facilitated this adverse behaviour against women, as well as various other social pressures as politically mitigated by the Catholic Church (Wikipedia).

As the practice of medicine was segregated according to sex - male patients to male physicians, female patients to female physicians - there were proportionally fewer men in trades such as midwifery than women despite the medieval shift toward male encroachment of territory (Wikipedia). This corresponding money- and thus male-oriented intrusion into the female sphere of medicine can be seen with the invention of the obstetric forceps (JSTOR). The rising culture of appropriation constituted the witchcraft trials that, incidentally, influenced American culture during their colonization years.

A pertinent name to remember for American history of the witchcraft trials is Margaret Jones, a Puritan midwife and the first person to be accused of witchcraft in the trails taking place in the Massachusetts Bay Colony (Wikipedia).

The Salem Witch Trials, as an offhand note, could well be an anomaly due to ergotism (Citation 18).

One thing I’m willing to bend on - a little bit - is manual labor, but mostly because you’re describing something very similar to what’s already been invented: corvée labor. There’s plenty of other forms depending on what culture you’re going for, though unlike what you’re proposing, does not necessarily imply the direct and permanent subjugation of people.

I will absolutely quibble with the idea of “uneducated” labor equating to “less valuable” labor - universities offer non-vocational degrees, typically in the areas of research and/or religion, and guilds were created as a means of quality control (that unfortunately got out of hand and committed crimes such as rent-seeking). Women in guilds were a thing, vulnerable to the same fluctuations as their other occupations outside the house.

If we are defining “uneducated” labour as “menial” labour, then this set of occupations inherently varies by culture, as does its relative weight of importance. One example of this would be writing; it may be menial but important, whereas holding negotiations could be a “major” role but wouldn’t exist without the support of workers “less than” them.

Correspondingly, gender divisions may not necessarily mean an assignation of “lesser” or “greater” when compared against each other. In medieval Europe, at least, the creation of textiles was split along the general lines of spinning and weaving. Women held the former (hence “spinster”), and men held the latter. Spinning was often not formalized into guilds then, but it was an important cornerstone of the economy that could support entire families. A guest post on The Freelance History Writer’s blog seems to indicate that this gender division was due to influence by the Bible, which seems to corroborate with the history of both professions as detailed on Wikipedia - the further back we go, and also the less connected to Christianity, the more textile work women presided over. This granted them greater control over their presence in society, since the selling of textiles was useful leverage to support themselves and others.

A similar discrepancy can be found with agriculture. Hamer women in Ethiopia are traditionally the one to cultivate sorghum, a cornerstone crop to their diet, and they exhibit preferences in which varieties they grow according to criteria such as which is easiest to grind and long-term storage feasibility (Citation 19). Accordingly, there’s been an increasing orientation around the growing of crops rather than the pastoralist habits of their men, with trading standards occuring at one goat for one Dore (“pile of maize or sorghum”) (Citation 19).

A study examining the male sphere of hunting within a society discusses the various cultural implications of defendable vs non-defendable meat sharing, with respect to how the meat is distributed and its corresponding social range (e.g. immediate social circle vs entire community), something I find interesting given that the kilocalories obtained from meat is roughly equal to that of the female sphere-acquired agriculture/gathering (Citation 20). The division of labour along gender lines when it comes to food flow in a community seems, historically, to be both comparable and compatible to each other - a recurring theme with many of the topics I’ve already covered.

Gender roles in their historical perspective - especially the further back you go - are often complimentary to each other, and are an economical way to divide up the burden of maintaining a society to a functional level. There are plenty of exceptions to this (see: third genders), as well, and many cultures exhibit the idea that a productive person is good for society; their roles may look a little different from the person next to them, and not only is the work considered equal in terms of importance, but also with a bit of poking around, you’ll find that few cultures have harsh punishments for anyone “stepping outside” their predicted roles.

Men are already objectified plenty. That their treatment by society looks different than women’s, or other genders, is by no means an excuse to sweep things under the room and pretend that they have it best - or worse, purposefully ostracize them in a fictional work to further mock, ridicule, and isolate them. This contributes to the societal issues in your culture that you wish to address, and stems from a uniquely pervasive perspective from modern American culture that differs from many other cultures in the world.

TL;DR - The way you wish to objectify men is already being done, especially in American culture. It is harmful, and will have an impact that will reach further than you might anticipate. This approach is counterproductive to your goals, and the cultures/media you cite either directly contradict your beliefs of said sources or otherwise undermine your beliefs. It is vastly more productive to take a deeper look at the origins of the issues you wish to address in your writing, as well as the reference material that you wish to use. Learning perspectives outside your native culture will benefit you immensely, and the results could surprise you.

Citations

Citation 1 - PDF - Doepke, M., Tertilt, M., Voena, A.. (2012). “The Economics and Politics of Women’s Rights,” Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 4(1), pages 339-372, 07.

Citation 2 - PDF - Fernández, R.. (2014). “Women’s rights and development,” Journal of Economic Growth, vol 19(1), pages 37-80.

Citation 3 - PDF - Duflo, E. (2012). “Women’s Empowerment and Economic Development”, Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. 50, No. 4: 1051-79.

Citation 4 - PDF - Crenshaw J. T. (2014). “Healthy Birth Practice #6: Keep Mother and Baby Together- It’s Best for Mother, Baby, and Breastfeeding.” The Journal of perinatal education, 23(4), 211–217. doi:10.1891/1058-1243.23.4.211

Citation 5 - Faisal-Cury, A., Bertazzi Levy, R., Kontos, A., Tabb, K., & Matijasevich, A. (2019). “Postpartum bonding at the beginning of the second year of child’s life: the role of postpartum depression and early bonding impairment.” Journal of Psychosomatic Obstetrics & Gynecology, 1-7.

Citation 6 - PDF - Bornstein, M. H., Putnick, D. L., Rigo, P., Esposito, G., Swain, J. E., Suwalsky, J. T., … & De Pisapia, N. (2017). “Neurobiology of culturally common maternal responses to infant cry.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 114(45), E9465-E9473.

Citation 7 - PDF - Webb, A. R., Heller, H. T., Benson, C. B., & Lahav, A. (2015). “Mother’s voice and heartbeat sounds elicit auditory plasticity in the human brain before full gestation.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 112(10), 3152-3157.

Citation 8 - PDF - Pan, Y., Zhang, D., Liu, Y., Ran, G., & Teng, Z. (2016). “Different effects of paternal and maternal attachment on psychological health among Chinese secondary school students.” Journal of Child and Family Studies, 25(10), 2998-3008.

Citation 9 - PDF - Brown, G. L., Mangelsdorf, S. C., & Neff, C. (2012). “Father involvement, paternal sensitivity, and father-child attachment security in the first 3 years.” Journal of family psychology : JFP : journal of the Division of Family Psychology of the American Psychological Association (Division 43), 26(3), 421–430. doi:10.1037/a0027836

Citation 10 - PDF - Lee T Gettler, Mallika S Sarma, Rieti G Gengo, Rahul C Oka, James J McKenna, Adiposity, CVD risk factors and testosterone: Variation by partnering status and residence with children in US men, Evolution, Medicine, and Public Health, Volume 2017, Issue 1, January 2017, Pages 67–80, https://doi.org/10.1093/emph/eox005

Citation 11 - PDF - Snowdon, C. T., & Ziegler, T. E. (2015). “Variation in prolactin is related to variation in sexual behavior and contact affiliation.” PloS one, 10(3), e0120650.

Citation 12 - Hashemian, F., Shafigh, F., & Roohi, E. (2016). “Regulatory role of prolactin in paternal behavior in male parents: A narrative review.” Journal of postgraduate medicine, 62(3), 182–187. doi:10.4103/0022-3859.186389

Citation 13 - PDF - Eddy, B., Poll, V., Whiting, J., & Clevesy, M. (2019). “Forgotten Fathers: Postpartum Depression in Men.” Journal of Family Issues, 40(8), 1001-1017.

Citation 14 - PDF - Psouni, E., Agebjörn, J., & Linder, H. (2017). “Symptoms of depression in Swedish fathers in the postnatal period and development of a screening tool.” Scandinavian journal of psychology, 58(6), 485-496.

Citation 15 - Pappas, S. (2018, January). “APA issues first-ever guidelines for practice with men and boys.” Monitor on Psychology, 50(1).

Citation 16 - PDF - Kontoyannis, M., & Katsetos, C. (2011). “Midwives in early modern Europe (1400-1800).” Health Science Journal, 5(1), 31.

Citation 17 - PDF - Savona-Ventura, C. (1995). “The influence of the Roman Catholic Church on midwifery practice in Malta.” Medical history, 39(1), 18-34.

Citation 18 - PDF - Woolf, Alan. (2000). “Witchcraft or Mycotoxin? The Salem Witch Trials. Journal of toxicology.” Clinical toxicology. 38. 457-60. 10.1081/CLT-100100958.

Citation 19 - PDF - Samuel, T. (2013). “From cattle herding to sedentary agriculture: the role of hamer women in the transition.” African Study Monographs, Suppl. 46: 121–133. [Alternate PDF link]

Citation 20 - PDF - Gurven, Michael & Hill, Kim. (2009). “Why Do Men Hunt?.” Current Anthropology. 50. 51-74. 10.1086/595620.

Further Reading

Harry S Truman § Domestic Affairs - Wikipedia

Marshall Plan - Wikipedia

Interstate Highway System - Wikipedia

Medieval Icelandic Law (The Grágás) – Women’s Rights: On Reclaiming Property during Separation. By @fjorn-the-skald

Fjörn’s Library

“Notes on Valkyries and the like?” by @fjorn-the-skald

Fjörn’s chronological tag on women

Epigenetic correlates of neonatal contact in humans - Development and Psychopathology

Feral: So, obviously, everything Tex just said- round of effing applause!

I do want to hone in on one specific part of your ask, “since part of my goal is to use the swap to highlight some inequalities that still exist in our gender expectations today by flipping them” and direct you to this blog post on Mythcreants specifically addressing the Persecution Flip Story and why it’s not a great idea from a social justice perspective.

Happy reading!

#pylons #matriarchal society #gender dynamics #deseretgear

47 notes · View notes

dreamy--dolly · 4 years

Text

this is it. this is the angst fic i was promising.

taglist: @mordredfuckingpendragon @gringolet @kouvei-matarra @cukibola

They meet in the hazy heat of summer, when they are both very young. Though the grass is green and birds and insects hum in merry harmony on the breeze, Galahad still can’t take his mind off the scrape that bleeds red on his knee - his mother will tell him that it’s nothing to worry about, because there are people who have gotten hurt worse. So he makes his way deeper in the woods. He knows the way back - just make his way back on the straggly dirt path till the pain fades.

And then there is the boy who he finds on the path, in a blue dress stained with dirt and too-long black hair bound in a braid that’s coming undone. What he notices first about the boy is his eyes: A dark shade of blue, but still soft and sincere. He blinks at Galahad - you look pathetic, he tells himself, crying in front of someone else because Mother says you’re too old to cry - and says nothing about his tear-streaked face and loud sniffling in the quiet of the woods.

Then he sticks his tongue and and squints, twisting his face and scrunching his eyes shut.

The pain is still there but Galahad laughs, and the boy laughs with him. He does not ask and does not care that the boy wears a dress or that his hair is too long, because surely that does not matter in the end. He just has someone to laugh with in the summer, someone who will let the black-spotted ladybugs crawl up their arms and draw pictures in the dirt with him.

“What’s your name?” he asks the boy, who shuffles his fistful of flowers.

“Percival.”

“That’s a nice name. Percival. ‘M Galahad.”

“I like your name, too.”

The summer heat may make Galahad’s eyelids flicker behind his spectacles, and when he gets home he will have to answer the questions about why his knee is covered in crusted-over blood. But at least he has a friend to explore other worlds with during the summer.

Autumn comes and Percival sees angels - that’s what he tells Galahad at least. They’re climbing trees even though Percival knows he’ll tear up his dress on it (he talks about how sometimes his mother gets visitors and always talks about her “daughters” but when the visitors are gone she talks about him as her son, and he doesn’t know what to make of it.) They spend their days treading the paths of imaginary worlds they can save, kindling their own warmth in the coming bitterness of winter.

“It was at night, and I swore they were angels - just with hidden wings. They rode horses and were so beautiful I wanted to join them. Mother told me I had to go back inside, that they were knights and I didn’t want any business with them.”

Galahad climbs down from the tree. Rough bark scrapes at his hands. Then he reaches the ground and sits cross-legged, staring up at Percival who still struggles to maintain balance. The leaves are afire in red and yellow and brown and cling to his hands and legs from the greasy drizzle that’s got them slicked with rain.

“Knights?”

“Yes, knights. I don’t understand why that sounds so strange to you.”

“Mother says I have to become a knight like my father did when I get older. And I’ll be off to train in Camelot when winter comes. Which means I won’t get to see you…”

“Unless I become a knight to join you.”

That’s the first time Galahad sees what others might see through the keyhole: Percival whose mother shoves him into dresses and hides him away from a world that may not be as thorny as she makes it out to be - because perhaps there are petals, too. At least that’s what Galahad believes. You just have to snip the thorns away and the flowers won’t prick your fingers. Still, though-

“How? You really think you could do it?”

Percival clasps hold of his hands, blue eyes shining at green. “I can if I try. I promise I will.”

So that is what Galahad chooses to believe. It might be fleeting, but he’ll hold onto it while he can.

“And I’m glad you’ll try. Because if I had to train with anyone else, I’d want it to be you.”

Winter, Galahad decides, is the worst of the four seasons.

At least autumn has a prelude of warm colors before the bitter cold sets in. The snow may sparkle pristine white against the torchlight for a little bit, but after a day or two it all melts away to gray slush. He doesn’t say a word about it, though - at least he’s far away from his mother and the convent, yet there’s still his father Lancelot who seems to be infected by winter’s chill: Though he embraces his son when he sees him there is no warmth or anything Galahad thinks a father should give. The king, however, is different with his ruffling Galahad’s hair and saying how he’s heard about how he’s worked so hard.

And for him there’s something missing, stars melted away from a gray sky.

He never says anything about it, though, because that is what he was taught - if you really want to change, don’t speak with others of the worries that linger in your mind. The beetle and worm find their way into everything eventually, so why bother?

But then winter brings a visitor, who drags himself from the thorny woods through the heavy snow towards Camelot, a visitor who presents himself in the throne room with red dress tattered and dirtied, snow dusting his dark hair. But there is something alight in his eyes and it is what has brought him here in the first place. Galahad thinks it is who he thought it was, but keeps his mouth shut till Kay brings him to see the boy.

When he sees the face he’s kept in his memories, it’s like the snow melts.

Galahad elbows his way past Kay to greet him, and runs to tackle him to the ground in a hug. Here is the boy who has watched seasons fade into one another with him, shared his dreams. And he feels like home.

“I kept my promise,” Percival says.

“And I’m so glad you did.”

Spring brings magic that touches the dead branches of trees and makes the world breathe again. Three years since Percival brought a burst of warmth into winter, and by now the trees are coated with tiny green leaves and the first pale buds of flowers to come. The snow has thawed and the world is perfumed by a balmy, honeyed breeze that smells of fresh earth and new beginnings. Magic, Galahad learns, is something that people are blessed with - the reason he and Percival are at Camelot is because God gave them magic and they will use it to change the world for the better.

But he spends his time in the chapel praying for things to change, because sometimes trying is not enough. He prays for selfish things: A father that will thaw away with the dissolving snow, a mother who tries to fit him into the keyhole even though he won’t fit, for a world that is not razor-edged. He does not know if magic or even prayers will be enough, but at least there is Percival, too, who stays at his side.

Galahad uses his magic to make the flowers grow. He likes watching their stems curl from the ground and the soft petals unfurl. Today he grows flowers for Percival and thinks about the ones he wants to show him. Give him purple lilacs, Galahad thinks, and hydrangeas. And irises. And-

“What are you doing?”

The noise that comes out of his mouth is something like a fox’s cry and Galahad almost falls face first against the ground. Percival squats next to him, staring at the splashes of purple and periwinkle so bright and pale against the green.

“I was trying to grow flowers for you.”

“Any reason why?”

“No, just that you like flowers and you’d make flower crowns for us when we were young-”

(A crown of gold doesn’t suit you, Galahad thinks. It weighs too heavy on your brow, when flowers do not.)

“Wait a moment,” Percival mumbles, and he notices what Galahad half-hopes he would and would not notice. “Hydrangeas mean heartfelt emotions, irises mean faith and hope, and purple lilac-”

“Are purple?”

“Well, yes. But purple lilacs also mean first love. Don’t they?”

“Mm-hm.”

Though he lowers his head Percival still presses his fingers to Galahad’s cheeks and moves in closer. When Galahad looks up, he’s smiling.

“I hope that’s what you’re trying to say. But it’d be just as nice if you picked those because you know purple and blue are my favorite colors.”

He almost closes the gap between them before pulling away, as if disenchanted from the magic of the fragrant air. “...Can I?”

Galahad nods. He tastes sweet but a little bitter, of fresh honey and fuzz-coated peaches. He lets Percival’s hands frame his face, fingertips pressing gently at his flaxen blonde hair. And it feels like an ending, the last blotchy-inked illustration in a storybook that will close and be over. Though a part of him knows that there will be more books to follow, more books that feel like the end but still have him praying - he pushes all of that aside and pretends that this is the last page. He can take a walk in his imaginations for a little while.

He pulls away and rests back on the grass, and Percival cradles him close. They have magic and their hopes sprouting from seeds in the ground, growing against the odds and through the winter thaw, and for the moment that is all that they need.

“Hold still and let me heal you.”

Even though they are tucked safely away from the sun in the canvas tent, the heat is still stifling. Galahad stares down at the stretch of red-soaked split skin on his stomach and the bloodied patches that peek through his shirtsleeve. The fight against the chimera was not an easy one; Galahad’s wounds are a testament to that. He’d been the one to jump in when it looked like Mordred and Percival would have been knocked down. Because even though they’re untouchable - they were blessed with their magic by God, after all, they are living vicariously through the bedtime stories parents spin - there is still a part of Galahad that wonders what if there was no happy ending where they all stroll back to Camelot hand in hand, the sun setting behind them?

Percival is gentle when he heals Galahad, blue magic lighting up the tips of his fingers as he cleans off the blood with a damp towel and knits the wound closed. He exhales for a few moments, taking in what it feels like to breathe without the strain of torn muscle in his body.

“Please be careful,” Percival says softly.

It’s not easy, though, when his life is nothing. So long as everyone else gets a chance to live, that would be enough. If he had to stay without being healed so that Percival would continue to breathe, he would. And he would protect those that the chimera’s flames could burn away even if it meant he’d end up dead and unmoving by the end of it. His life may mean nothing, but death in exchange for another is something.

“I was scared you’d get hurt. What if you or Mordred had died?”

“We won’t die. We were blessed - and I’ll protect you if it looks like you’d get hurt in the process. You can protect me, but I will want you to live on in the end. Because neither of us are going to die out there - we have our magic and we’re training as knights.”

Through the flap in the tent, the first fireflies have started to come out; indeed, the heat seems less oppressive now that night is falling. And Galahad believes him. All of them will live on. Time will pass and they will grow old and gray, but that is far from now. For now and in the near future, they’re alive.

“Alright. Thank you for healing me.” He kisses Percival on the nose. It’s a secret code of theirs, one that looks like close greetings from the outside. But there’s a sort of magic between them that one cannot find in any of the books nor written spells that they have, a magic that they understand best of all.

“It’s not a problem at all. Now let’s get some rest. The trip home tomorrow will be a long one.”

They are inseparable even as autumn sets aflame everything it touches. The court oohs and aahs at the talented young knights, of the pious Galahad and the gentle Percival. Surely, if anyone were to ever encounter the Holy Grail, it would be one of them. One day he will rise and travel to find it, and Galahad thinks that maybe the Grail can grant him what his prayers cannot: A better world, a better father that he’s related to by blood because the king is more of a father to him than Lancelot is. And he wishes that were not true. It is silly and flighty and childish and most of all selfish, so Galahad does not think about it very much.

“Winter’ll be here soon.” This is how they spend their nights when Galahad’s eyelids droop yet he still cannot fall asleep, so Percival stays with him till he closes his eyes and slips into his dreams at last. The candle has been snuffed out but the navy-shadowed room still smells like wax. It’s a familiar place and a familiar smell.

“I actually didn’t like winter very much growing up. Didn’t like it because I couldn’t play outside, and I didn’t have many people to keep me company. But I like it more now.”

“Really?” Percival says. “I always thought your favorite season was spring - that was when all your favorite flowers sprung up.”

“It is. But I don’t dislike winter as much as I used to.”

“Why’s that?”

“I like the winter,” Galahad confesses, “Because it reminds me of when you came to Camelot.”

Percival shifts, the covers rustling over him as he pulls Galahad close. Here in Percival’s arms they are once again untouchable, impervious to whatever will happen once the page turns.

“Where would you want to go when we get older? After the quest.”

They both know the quest will reach them and for a fraction of a moment the pedestal begins to crack. They pretend not to notice it, though, because they are focusing on the great after - their epilogue, their ending that they may not get if it means taking up the mantle of Atlas or breaking beneath the weight of the sky to sustain the rest of the world.

“Away.” Away from Camelot, away from my father - I can’t even call him ‘Father - even if it’s selfish. But it hurts here.

“I have a sister. Ended up inheriting the kingdom after her husband died in battle - her name’s Dindrane. She’s written letters to me once I visited her from Camelot. I think she’d be willing to let us stay there. It’s a big castle, with a lovely forest, and lots of trees so we can go apple-picking, and a beautiful lake to go swimming in.”

“We could still travel, though. I want to see more of the world and help more people that way.”

“Of course we will. We will travel around the world after the Grail quest - and maybe get married, too?”

“All of things. And more. But I’m getting too tired to-” Here he lets out a soft, high-pitched yawn - “-To say anything more on the subject.”

Percival laughs, soft like rain. “Sleep well.”

“Good night, Percival.” And then, to himself before he falls into a world of blurry dreams that aren’t so soft once he brushes against them: “Good night, my love.”

The night before the Grail Quest is winter and though he’s been stung before, it’s enough to make Galahad cry. Crying, he tells himself, will not solve anything - that is what Mother and the nuns taught you, and Father too even if he wasn’t there to do it. Crying is for children, and you’re no child: You’re eighteen going on nineteen, and you’re powerful enough of a knight and lucky enough to find the Holy Grail. Crying means you’re unworthy. It means you are weak.

When he hears a knock on the door and Percival’s voice on the other end he lets him in and clutches onto him, forgetting selfishness and restraint and letting the tears flow. His eyes are rimmed red and the deep gasping sobs make his throat sore and feel as though his chest might burst. He buries his head in Percival’s shoulder, tears staining his shirt and he lets go. He lets go because he knows. There are so many truths he knew from the beginning that Percival can’t comprehend and Bors remains oblivious to. And he wishes he were dead for it.

“Sorry - for crying - in front of you-”

“You don’t have to be sorry. It’s fine to cry.”

“I just - I just - everyone keeps comparing me and saying I’m even better of a knight than my father was and it’s horrible. I know he hates me for what I am or at least resents me for it, and I hate how the king treats me more like a son than my father does - and he treats everyone like family, so what am I to complain about special treatment? I’m just - I’m scared, and it’s selfish, and I’m not worthy, and I’m sorry. I don’t know. The Grail might not be worth it but if I think that it’s selfish. What if I make a mistake? What if I fail? What will the people of Camelot think of me then?”

Percival stays silent. He has no words of comfort to offer because they have laid the truth bare and taken it apart with a dull edged knife. They cling to each other because they are all they have left, they’re just trying to make their way through clusters of roses even though the thorns make them bleed. They know they’ll reach an ending and no matter what it is it will not be the ending they want.

“Maybe we could run away,” Percival says at last. “Forget about the Grail. You’re unhappy and I don’t want that. I heard you and Lancelot… shouting at one another. You’re not happy here. This place is not for you, not for us. So we could just leave it behind, and do good elsewhere. There’s still hope to change the world. But not here. Not like this.”

It is what they needed to hear, but it can’t be the truth. At least no one else but them would think it true. And they both know that there will be loose threads dangling if they run away now. What if they are found? What of the others at Camelot’s court that don’t hail them as the shining heroes that they really aren’t? What of Arthur himself? What of the Round Table? What then?

So Galahad lies awake wrapped in Percival’s arms. Tomorrow they will head off to find the Grail, and his father will be with them and Bors, too. And it will be his only chance to prove that he is not the selfish knight the nuns told him he must never be. If he finds the Grail then perhaps all will be right. Even though he is shattered, maybe that will be enough to plaster the broken pieces of the rest of the world back together again. But in Percival’s arms he can pretend. He can pretend that that will not happen once the sun rises.

He feels something shift next to him and moves his head a little closer against Percival’s chest.

“Please don’t go yet,” he pleads.

Percival lies back down and cradles him close, fingers combing through his hair. First Galahad closes his eyes to the darkened room dipped in dark blue, then to the morning that will come, but still lets linger the beating of Percival’s heart.

“I won’t go. I can promise that much.”

Winter sucks everything of life, and it drains whatever might be left of the person Lancelot du Lac used to be. Because a father should not be like this. Or perhaps it is the Grail, an ever present reminder of what no one at Camelot will ever have.

“Do you know what it’s like to feel like you’re slowly being forgotten? Or how it feels to look down at scars and be told that she - your mother - was young and didn’t know any better than to leave scratches and make me feel like I’d never perform miracles again? What does it feel like to walk around as a reminder of what I used to be and what I’ll never achieve now?” “And you act as though I’m happy because of it! You act like I enjoy being told those things. Except I worry about every little mistake I might make - what will people think of me then? What will happen for every selfish thought I have? And you’re so far away from me because you can’t understand that. No, you don’t want to understand-”

“Then you’re no son of mine, because everything up to now is your fault!”

Time heals all wounds. Except the scars are still there and if you scratch at the scars enough they sting, and even if you leave them alone they will always serve as a reminder that maybe you wouldn’t end up this way. For Lancelot, his scars still make him ache. So Galahad leaves him behind, because maybe the pain of his scars will fade if what brings him pain leaves.

“Galahad, I-”

“No. You spoke the truth.” He wants to weep but that is a luxury he does not have, and he must steel himself for the quest. That’s what he vowed. “I will go and fetch the Grail myself, even if it means trading my life for it in the process. I will do it for my kingdom, and for our king.”

The seasons will bleed into one another. This will be his last quest. But it’s the only way to prove to himself and to everyone else that he is all they make him out to be. And if he goes alone, there will be no one else who has to deal with the pain.

“I’m going off on my own to seek the Grail,” he tells Percival. “I know I might die. But you shouldn’t. You deserve to go on. Once I find the Grail it will be alright.” In his heart of hearts he knows that this is not what should be. He wants to travel and live on, but to want for that is far too selfish, is it not? Though he smiles at Percival through the snow, he feels like he might break.

“I love you,” Percival tells him, and pulls him close to kiss him. He does not tell Galahad that no, he should stay and continue to travel with the lot of them because both of them know that nothing will root Galahad to this place. He is not meant to grow here, to decay without the flames licking away at him till not even something burnt and broken remains. And the kiss is the first one that feels cold and full of nothing. Because that is all he is. Nothing.

“I love you, too.” This is not nothing. Galahad says that because he means it, and he knows that if he turns his back too soon he’ll never say those words again. They never really brought up those words because they both knew that it was not necessary to say with words, but now they say it because it is all they will have left.

When he turns his back he lets winter steal him away.

The seasons have passed and will continue to. The sun shines. And Galahad knows he does not have much time left - but for the others, the sun will rise and set, winter will morph into spring and summer into fall. Things will go on. He has finished his quest.

And then Percival finds him and he realizes that it didn’t mean a thing - he spent his life believing that if someone ripped away the blessings and his parenthood that he would be nothing, but the truth is that he had a chance to be something were it not for the Grail. He had a chance to be a little more of himself with Percival around, and he could have gone on not living in a shell.

So as he begins to fade, he asks Percival of one last thing: “Will you sing for me?”

He pretends that this is just another passing lullaby Percival hums to him as they both fall asleep in each other’s arms, that eventually he will wake up again and there will be a tomorrow he can move on into. That he will go on to be someone, and that they will be together without the Grail or anything above them tying them together. But that is not to be, so he wishes that Percival will realize that there is more to the world than a God that doesn’t answer their prayers and that damningly far away Grail, and that he can make the world safe little by little if he walks and clears the path.

The clock stops ticking. He can’t hear Percival sing. He closes his eyes one last time. And he smiles because he knows what he wants to know, and that this is the most important thing he has learned in the end.

He is gone, not even dust or ash in the breeze. But he still lingers - he cannot take a form that people will see, nor will his words on the wind be heard. Galahad must play the role of bystander, because he is not ready for the great after just yet. If he could talk to Percival and tell him that yes, he is there and not all gone, he would. But he can’t.

So he stays as a lingering presence at his side - a feeling of something simple like home again. He presses secret kisses to his brow, sends him quiet reminders not of his presence but that there is more beyond what he set out for, and that things will heal again.

It’s not an ending. Because if it was, they’d have reached that ending together.

But he knows he did what he could even if it wasn’t what he needed. And that maybe one day he and Percival will meet again, and end their story the way it was meant to end.

Together.

#angie.txt #arthuriana #percihad #percival (arthuriana)#galahad (arthuriana)

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lastbluetardis · 5 years

Text

Family of Six (11/14)

After James and Rose bring their newborn twins home, they work to find a balance between all four of their children, and each other. Ten x Rose AU, Soulmates AU.

This chapter: Explicit, 8500 words

Ages of the Tyler-McCrimmons at the start of the chapter: James: 39, Rose: 34, Ainsley: 9, Sianin: 6, Twins: 2.5 months

If you like reading my stories, consider leaving me a tip? Or leave a reply on this post to tell me what you thought? And as always, reblogs are very much appreciated so more people can see this.

Next update: October 31st

AO3 | TSP | FF | Perfectly Matched Series

Ch1 | Ch2 | Ch3 | Ch4 | Ch5 | Ch6 | Ch7 | Ch8 | Ch9 | Ch10 | Ch11 | Ch12 | Ch13 | Ch14

Sianin was able to return home from the hospital the morning after her surgery. She was groggy from the pain medication and a little sore, but the doctor deemed her well enough to convalesce at home. James was given a bunch of info packets of how to keep her comfortable, problems to look out for, and the general timeline of her healing.

It took every ounce of restraint James had to let Sianin walk under her own power to the car, when every instinct told him to pick up his child and carry her to alleviate any discomfort she was in.

She walked slowly with shuffling steps, his hand gripped tightly in hers.

“All right?” he asked softly as they made their way down the corridor. A nurse walked on Sianin’s other side, ready to assist if needed.

“Yeah. It just feels funny,” she said, staring down at the floor with more concentration than strictly necessary. “Like something’s pulling inside me.”

“Go as slowly as you need to,” James soothed, giving her fingers a small squeeze.

When they finally made it to the car, he helped boost her into her seat and then buckled her in carefully, making sure no straps would press on her surgery incision.

He surely infuriated every motorist in the Oxford area with his slow driving, but he didn’t want to put any strain on his child’s wounds from speedy turns or sudden braking.

When he approached his home, James noticed his dad’s car was parked in the drive.

“Grandad’s here!” Sianin squealed.

“Seems like it. Stay sitting until I come ‘round to help.”

He parked beside his father, then assisted Sianin out of the car and grabbed their overnight bag from the next seat.

The front door opened before they’d even taken two steps towards the house. Rose rushed out to greet them.

“Sianin,” she breathed, crouching in front of their six-year-old to pull her in for a hug.

Sianin beamed and returned her mother’s embrace tightly, burrowing her face into Rose’s neck.

“I missed you, baby,” Rose murmured, stroking Sianin’s back. She pressed a series of kisses to Sianin’s cheeks and forehead. “How are you feeling?”

“Sleepy,” Sianin answered. “My head feels heavy.”

“Any pain?”

“Only a little.”

“Go on inside, then we can curl up and watch any film you’d like.”

When her mother released her, Sianin ambled up the front porch and into the house.

Rose came up to James and gave him a quick hug and kiss.

“Everything all right?” she asked.

“Nah, I figured I’d bring her home against the doctor’s orders.” Rose’s mouth tightened, and James realized he shouldn’t make a joke of it. “Sorry, love. Yeah, everything’s fine. She should get up and walk around as often as she can to keep things from tightening up, but no physical activity for a few weeks. I have pamphlets from the hospital with more information.”

“She hasn’t had a shower yet, I see,” Rose noted curiously. “Neither have you, for that matter.”

“Are you saying we smell?” he asked, feigning affront.

“Well…”

James pinched her side, and she grinned.

“Nah, I noticed Sianin’s hair was still in a braid,” Rose said. “And your hair… well, it looks like it could use a wash is all.”

James stuck his tongue out at her, but couldn’t argue. His hair—his entire body, in fact—felt greasy.

“She wasn’t really up for showering,” James said by way of explanation. “Honestly, she’s been groggy and dazed up until about two hours ago. Fresh clothes were as good as I could do. If it had been up to her, she’d’ve worn the hospital gown home.” He threaded their fingers together and brought her hand to his lips to kiss each of her knuckles. “How were the kids last night?”

“Good. Ainsley’s been worried.” Rose sighed heavily. “We got into a row this morning. She wanted to stay home today to help take care of Sianin. I wouldn’t let her. But the twins were great. Slept completely through the night and have been quiet all morning.”

“When did my dad get here?”

“He had dinner with us last night, then came by to stay with the twins so I didn’t have to take them on the school run.”

They walked into the house, where Robert was kneeling in front of Sianin to take her shoes off by the door. Sianin seemed to be recounting every single second of her trip to the hospital to her grandfather, who was listening with rapt attention. James was relieved that his daughter seemed to view the experience as an adventure rather than something traumatic.

After slipping off his own shoes, James disappeared down the hall to his and Rose’s bedroom for a much-needed shower.

He stood under the scalding spray, letting the water loosen his tight, tired muscles. He was dead on his feet, and now that the excitement of the hospital visit with Sianin was over, he felt like he would collapse at any moment. And with the distraction of keeping Sianin distracted gone, frantic thoughts began invading the silence.

How had he not realized sooner that something was wrong with Sianin? How had he just written off her symptoms as nothing to be too concerned about? What if he had kept Sianin home from school yesterday but not taken her to the doctor, to let her try to fight off her stomach bug on her own? How long would it have taken her appendix to completely burst? How much worse could she have gotten before it turned into a more serious emergency than it already had been?

Stop it, he growled to himself as his heart began to race. Stop it stop it stop it.

Lightheaded, James turned off the water and stumbled out of the shower.

She’s fine. The doctors caught it in time. Nothing to worry about.

But she’d been in so much pain the night before last. She hadn’t eaten and had curled up against him because she hadn’t been able to bear straightening her body. Why hadn’t he taken her to the hospital then? Instead, he’d made her endure her agony overnight.

Stop it, he repeated firmly, even as his thoughts continued churning. She got surgery, and now she’s fine.

What if they hadn’t been able to schedule the surgery in time? She had gotten in early only through sheer luck. Through a last-minute opening. But what if that hadn’t been the case? Or what if he had taken her to the hospital later that morning and by the time they received the diagnosis, that surgery slot had passed them by? What if they’d had to wait hours and hours and it had been too late and her appendix burst and flooded her stomach with infection and bacteria and she’d gotten so much worse until she’d…

James’s vision was nearly black and he swayed on his feet. He gripped the vanity for balance and slid to the floor, gasping for air in hopes of easing the tightness in his chest.

Stop it, he begged, trying to think through his panic. Trying to banish his spiraling thoughts and all of the hypothetical scenarios that had not and would never happen.

He scrambled for the jeans he’d left on the floor and pulled a pen from the pocket.

“Rose” was all he wrote.

He then closed his eyes and focused on breathing enough to not completely pass out as he desperately tried to shut down the terror that was choking him.

“James!”

He nearly began crying at her voice, but crying required breathing and he currently couldn’t do that.

“James, breathe. Look at me. Look at me.”

Rose cradled his clammy cheeks in her palms. He opened his eyes but her face was fuzzy and speckled with black dots.

“Breathe,” she said calmly but firmly. She took one of his hands and placed it on her chest. Her heart pounded solidly beneath his palm. “Breathe. Inhale… hold it a bit longer… exhale… all of it, love. Inhale… slowly, slowly… exhale… Breathe with me.”

Gradually, he matched the rhythm of his breathing with hers. When he did, his head stopped spinning and her face came into clearer focus. Her eyes were impossibly soft, looking at him in a way that made him feel vulnerable and yet safe.

“Keep breathing with me,” Rose commanded. “A couple more minutes.”

She kept his hand on her chest, letting him feel the rise and fall of her chest and the beating of her heart. As they sat, Rose grabbed his discarded pen and pulled his left arm towards her. Around her name, she began sketching thorny vines. He smiled as he watched the echoing ink bloom across her wrist, too. She added small rose flowers and floating petals to her design until his entire wrist was encircled with black ink.

“Beautiful,” he croaked. “Thanks.” He forced a weak chuckle. “Sorry.”

“You don’t need to apologize.” After a beat, she asked quietly, “Do you want to talk about it?”

“My head… I got stuck in my head,” he said, feeling a bit daft now. He shook his head, as though that would keep the negative thoughts away. “And I couldn’t get out of it even though I knew I was panicking over things that never happened.”

“‘Things’ being everything that happened with Sianin?” Rose guessed.

He nodded. “I couldn’t help but think about everything that could have gone wrong… Well, more wrong than they’d already gone.”

“She’s fine, James,” Rose said gently. Not in condescension, but to assuage any lingering fears he had. “We got her to the doctor and she got the treatment she needed and now she’s home with us where she can rest and heal.”

He nodded, listening to her soothing voice while biting back his retort of, “But what if…”

“She’s safe and healthy and here with us,” Rose repeated, keeping her voice low. “And in a few minutes, we’ll go into the living room and you can see for yourself. She’s fine, love. She’s fine.”

He clutched her hand and gave it a hard squeeze.

“Do you think you can stand?” Rose asked, bringing his hand to her mouth for a kiss.

“I think so.”

She stood first, then reached down to haul him to his feet. His hastily-knotted towel loosened from around his waist and dropped to the floor.

Rose hummed in appreciation, which made him smile. She then led him into their bedroom and gathered up clothes for him to wear.

“I wish I could give you something of mine to wear,” Rose admitted. “When I feel down, I pull on one of your shirts.”

“You could always wrap yourself around me,” he suggested, giving her a wicked wink.

She swatted at his chest and handed him clean clothes. “Get dressed.”

He dutifully pulled on the clothes, then checked his reflection in the mirror. His face was a little pale but he didn’t look too bad. He probably should shave, but decided to let it go until tomorrow.

Rose threaded their fingers together and guided him to the door, but he stopped her with a slight tug.

“Thank you,” he said quietly.

“Anytime,” she replied, lifting onto her toes to press a kiss to his mouth. “Love you.”

James smelled buttery popcorn when he and Rose emerged from their bedroom. Robert was sitting on the sofa with Sianin tucked into his side and a half-empty bowl of popcorn balanced in his lap. The six-year-old was soundly asleep. He smiled at his sleeping child, and the lingering tightness in his chest loosened completely.

Rose sat down on Sianin’s other side. At the shift in the cushions, Sianin awoke. She rubbed her hands into her eyes and blinked blearily at her mother.

“Mummy?” she mumbled, and she scooted into Rose’s lap. “M’sleepy.”

“You can sleep,” Rose whispered, looping her arms around Sianin’s middle.

“M’kay,” she said, closing her eyes and tucking her face into Rose’s chest.

“Love you, baby,” Rose said, kissing the top of Sianin’s head.

James came up and kissed Sianin’s forehead. Her skin no longer burned with fever, and her color was slowly returning. Apart from her lethargy, nothing at all was amiss with her.

The twins were on their stomachs on a quilt in the middle of the living room. James’s heart panged; he felt like he hadn’t seen his babies in weeks, rather than just over a day. He dropped down in front of them and pressed kisses to their fat little cheeks.

“Hello, my darlings,” he sang. “Are we having fun with tummy time? Are we making our necks and backs nice and strong?”

Maddie gurgled and grinned at him, while Hannah stared intently at a frayed thread on the quilt and tried to coordinate her hands to touch it.

He rolled onto his back and hefted Maddie into his arms. He held her aloft and zoomed her in slow circles above his head, making airplane noises while he did so. “Time to land. Baby plane incoming in three… two… one…”

He hugged her tightly to his chest and blew a raspberry into her neck. She squealed loudly and bounced happily against him.

“Love you, Mads,” he murmured into her ear. “So very much.”

He kissed her cheek, then set her back on the quilt and turned to Hannah.

“Does my Hannah-banana want to be a baby airplane?”

He lifted her up, pulling her attention from the thread she was still inspecting, and flew her around and around over his head. She beamed down at him, her mouth opening wide until a glob of spittle fell from her lips and onto his cheek.

“Thanks very much,” James drawled.

“Rather spit than vomit.”

James glanced over and saw Rose watching him, her phone in hand.

“Photo or video?” he asked, jutting his chin towards her mobile.

“Video,” she said. “So I’ve got Hannah slobbering on you all recorded.”

He rolled his eyes and tried to ignore the wet warmth sliding down his face. He eventually brought Hannah to his chest and peppered kisses across her neck and cheeks as well.

James let Rose relax with Sianin on the couch for most of the day. He knew she’d missed their child deeply, and had been worrying about her ever since she’d known Sianin had appendicitis. He, meanwhile, took point with caring for the twins and fetching anything Sianin asked for.

That afternoon, Robert graciously offered to pick Ainsley up from school. When their eldest returned home, she went straight to her sister, who finally had regained a bit of energy.

“Sianin! How are you feeling? Does it hurt?”

“I’ve got stitches!” Sianin said excitedly, yanking her shirt up to expose the raw, red wound with little black threads on her lower belly.

“What’s the yellow stuff?” Ainsley asked, wrinkling her nose.

“Iodine,” James answered. “Antiseptic. To keep germs away.”

“Mummy and Daddy said I don’t have to go to school for the whole week!”

“Cool,” Ainsley said, smiling. She tapped at Sianin’s hands to make her drop the hem of her shirt, then she tugged her sister into her arms. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

“Daddy and I had a sleepover at the hospital,” Sianin said, her voice muffled by Ainsley’s shoulder.

Ainsley pulled back. “Will you tell me all about it?”

Sianin’s entire face lit up. She tugged Ainsley to sit on the floor and launched into the entire tale, exaggerating a few of the details as she went.

Ainsley remained glued to her sister’s side for the rest of the evening, barely letting Sianin get up to use the loo by herself. Sianin reveled in the attention, and in the fact that she was excused from helping with the evening chores. Instead, Ainsley did Sianin’s tasks of loading the silverware into the dishwasher and wiping down the table.

“Time for you to get a shower,” Rose announced to Sianin after she put the leftovers in the fridge.

Sianin scrunched her nose. “You mean time for a bath.”

“Nope, a shower,” Rose said.

“It’s not good for your surgery wound to be sitting in the bath water,” James explained upon seeing his daughter’s confusion. “Though rare, it could get infected from the water that had just cleaned off all the germs from the rest of your body.”

“But… I don’t know how to shower,” Sianin said slowly, looking as though they’d asked her to take the car and drive to the supermarket.

“I’ll help you,” Rose said, smiling reassuringly. “It’s no different from a bath, except you’re standing instead of sitting.”

Sianin followed her mother down the hall to James and Rose’s bedroom.

James and Ainsley, meanwhile, cleaned up the rest of the dishes.

“Hey, Ains, I really appreciate all of your help,” he said when Ainsley pressed the buttons on the dishwasher to program the wash cycle. “With taking care of Sianin and helping out a little extra tonight.”

“Of course,” Ainsley said, furrowing her brow in confusion. “Mum said she needed to take it easy for the next couple of days. Besides, why wouldn’t I take care of her?”

A lump swelled in James’s throat. His baby was so grown-up. He stepped forward to grab Ainsley into a hug.

“Still, I’m very grateful,” he whispered into her hair.

Ainsley gave his middle a long squeeze before relaxing her arms, though she didn’t drop them from around his waist.

“I was so scared when Mum told me Sianin had gotten surgery,” Ainsley admitted, her voice quiet.

“I know,” he said, leaning down to kiss her hair.

“Why did her appendix get infected in the first place?”

“Not really sure,” James said. “It just happens sometimes.”

“Will she be all right?”

“Absolutely. It was a very routine procedure, even if it was a tad scary.”

When Ainsley pulled back, James was startled to see her eyes were red and shining. He reached up and cradled her cheeks, then planted a kiss on her forehead.

“She’s okay,” he soothed.

“I know,” Ainsley said, sniffing. She rubbed her hand across her nose.

He kissed her brow one more time. “Want to help me check on the twins?”

She nodded and followed him to the living room to fuss over the two sleeping babies.

oOoOo

Sianin was absolutely thrilled to not have to go to school, though was a little put out when James and Rose insisted that she read with them a few times throughout the day. But otherwise, their days were spent playing games and watching films together to let Sianin rest as much as possible.

“Do they really sleep all day?” Sianin asked as she sat on the floor with her mum and dad to watch them change the twins’ nappies.

James frowned. “You know they do. You’ve seen how much they sleep on the weekends.”

“Everyone sleeps more on the weekends,” Sianin said, rolling her eyes at him.

Rose laughed under her breath.

“What did you think the twins did all day?” James asked.

Sianin’s cheeks went pink, as though she realized how daft she sounded.

“I’m merely curious,” James amended before Sianin could look too embarrassed. “If you’re surprised they’re sleeping, what did you think they did?”

Sianin shrugged, and rather than answer, she mumbled, “And you just… let them sleep?”

James glanced over at Rose, who looked as confused as he felt. Rose rested her hand on Sianin’s thigh.

“Sweetheart, what are you thinking?”

Sianin glanced between the two of them, then fixed her eyes on the babies on the floor. James and Rose stayed silent, sensing that their daughter was considering.

Their patience was rewarded nearly a full minute later when she confessed, “I guess I thought you hugged and kissed and cuddled them all day. They get to spend so much time with you b’cos Ainsley and I have to go to school.”

Understanding dawned on James. She’d been jealous.

“Since they get you during the day, Ainsley and I should get you at night,” Sianin continued. “But you still wanted to play with them at night too, and I didn’t like that.”

“We can’t exactly ignore them during the evenings,” Rose said. “But your daddy and I try to make sure we give you and Ainsley attention when you get home from school. Is it not enough?”

Sianin shrugged, looking a little lost. “I dunno.”

“Is there something Daddy and I can do differently?”

Again, Sianin shrugged. “I dunno.”

The stench of a dirty nappy suddenly filtered through the air, and James glanced down at his babies. Hannah’s face was red as she worked on filling the clean nappy he had just put on her. He stifled a groan of annoyance.

Sianin glared at her baby sister and tugged her shirt collar over her nose.

“They can’t help it, Sian,” Rose chastised gently. “They’re just babies. Besides, everyone poos.”

Sianin’s shoulders slumped. “I know.”

“Shall we say hi to Maddie?” Rose picked the baby up and braced her back against her stomach so she faced Sianin. “Let’s say hi to Sianin, my Maddie. Hi Sianin!”

Rose waved Maddie’s chubby arm at Sianin. Maddie squealed and grinned, wide and joyful. An echoing smile crossed Sianin’s face and she waved back.

“Sweetheart?” Sianin looked at her mother. “Are you… feeling better?”

“Yeah, my tummy doesn’t hurt at all,” she said. Then she quickly added, “But I’m still really tired and maybe sometimes sore, so I don’t think I can make it through school tomorrow.”

James snorted and cleared his throat to mask the sound.

“While I’m glad to hear that, that’s not what I meant. Are you feeling better about the twins being in the family?” Rose asked, jiggling her thigh absently to make Maddie bounce.

Sianin reached forward and took Maddie’s hand in her own and bopped it up and down before tossing it in the air, letting gravity bring it down again. Her flailing fist had nearly struck Maddie in the eye, and before James could admonish Sianin to be careful, Maddie gurgled happily and waved her arm clumsily in the air.

Sianin beamed and took her baby sister’s hand and bounced it before tossing it up again. James bit his lip; on one hand, he was happy to see Sianin voluntarily playing with the baby, but on the other, it would be all too easy to accidentally throw Maddie’s fist into her face.

“Yeah. They’re a lot more fun now,” Sianin admitted. “And a lot cuter. Before, they were red and wrinkly. And floppy. And ugly.”

“They weren’t ugly!” Rose spluttered.

Sianin gave a sheepish smile, one that softened Rose’s expression again.

“They were a tad floppy, weren’t they?” James asked, nudging his shoulder into Rose’s.

“Hmph.”

“But they’re cute now,” Sianin supplied, as if that made up for her comment.

Rose rolled her eyes but didn’t argue further.

oOoOo

Though James loved having Sianin home for the week, it was exhausting. He was used to being able to rest and relax while the twins napped, but Sianin didn’t take naps anymore and therefore wanted him and Rose to do things with her all the time.

She gradually got her energy back, but because there were limitations on her physical activity, James racked every brain cell for ways to keep his six-year-old happily occupied.

He also felt as though he were living in a state of permanent guilt. Whenever he was playing with Sianin, he was guilty that he was neglecting the twins. Whenever he was playing with the twins, he was guilty that he was neglecting Sianin. Whenever he was playing with the twins and Sianin, he was guilty that he was neglecting Rose. Whenever he managed spend time with Rose, he was guilty that he was neglecting his children. And to top it all off, when Ainsley came home from school, he was guilty that he was spending so much time with her sisters.

“Stop thinking so much,” Rose told him when he’d divulged all of this to her. Her tone was half-way between teasing and commanding.

“I’m trying,” he whined, sounding much more pathetic than the situation called for. “But my brain’s way too clever to stop thinking.”

Rose pinched him. “If I go out this afternoon, will I come home to find you passed out from a panic attack because you fretted too much about spending more time with one child than another?”

James tapped his chin. “It’s entirely possible.”

“Well, find some way to deal with it, ‘cos I’ve been looking forward to this lunch date.” She was going out with her old work friend, Penny.

James pouted, but Rose stared at him sternly. He finally broke out into a wide grin.

“I’ll be fine,” he promised, leaning forward to kiss her swiftly. “Go on and have fun.”

“Where are you going, Mummy?” Sianin asked. “Can I come?”

“If you’re well enough to come out with me, I think you’re well enough to go to school.” Rose glanced up at James. “Don’t you agree?”

“Oh, definitely,” he said, fighting a smile at the horror that slid across Sianin’s face. “You can drop Sianin off on your way out.”

“No, no,” Sianin said quickly. “I-I was just wondering. I don’t really think I feel okay to get through an entire school day. But maybe an hour or so…?”

Rose swallowed down a laugh and bent to kiss Sianin’s forehead. “You stay here and have fun with Daddy and Hannah and Maddie. When Ainsley and I come home, we’ll all take a walk, yeah?”

Though Sianin looked disappointed, she nodded and didn’t argue further. She instead wandered back into the living room to continue watching cartoons.

Rose disappeared down the hall to take care of the laundry that recently finished, while James moved to the kitchen to clean up the pile of dishes from last night and that morning. He filled the dishwasher as much as he could before resigning himself to hand-wash the rest of it.

He had just dunked his hands under the hot soapy water to tackle the caked-on mess from last night’s dinner when he heard whimpering coming from the living room. A second later, Sianin materialized by his side and tapped his hip.

“Daddy, Maddie’s crying.”

“Yep, I hear here. Give me a few minutes, then I’ll come tend to her,” James said. “Be patient for me, please.”

Sianin nodded and turned on her heel, returning to the living room. The volume of the TV increased a few levels.

He scrubbed at the pan for another minute, before rinsing it and setting it on the drying rack. Maddie’s cries had gotten louder by that point, insistent enough that he probably should see to her needs before finishing the dishes.

As he dried his hands, Maddie’s cries suddenly ceased. He dropped the towel and jogged to the living room, but stopped short at the sight. Sianin was sitting on the floor in front of Maddie’s swing, and she was holding the dummy to the baby’s mouth. The baby whined through the dummy before suckling on it again, quieting.

“There we go,” Sianin crooned, petting Maddie’s hair gently. “All better. No more crying now.”

Maddie wriggled and whimpered softly, but looked up at Sianin and sucked aggressively on her dummy. She obviously wanted something, but was content enough to not make a huge fuss about it yet.

“See, you’re okay,” Sianin said, echoing the words she must have heard James and Rose say a million times.

James’s heart burst from his chest, and he silently tiptoed down the hall. Rose was in the middle of folding a t-shirt when he ducked into their room.

Without ceremony, he reached for her arm and said, “Rose, you’ve got to come see this. Right now.”

Rose set the half-folded shirt to the side. “James, what…?”

“Come look,” he urged. “It’s Sianin. Nothing bad,” he hastily added.

He tugged her down the hall and to the entryway of the living room. Sianin was in the same position, holding the baby’s dummy to her mouth and stroking her plump cheek as she repeated phrases like “You’re okay” and “Daddy’s gonna be here” and “No need to cry” over and over again.

Rose clasped her hands to her chest and beamed.

“She’s never done this before,” she whispered to him.

“I know. This is brilliant.”

Sianin heard them and looked over, snatching her hand away from the baby.

“Thank you for keeping her calm,” James said, stepping into the room. “That was a very lovely thing to do for your baby sister. And I appreciate it a lot too. Thank you.”

A slow, proud smile stole across Sianin’s face.

“You know, you’re getting pretty good at this big sister thing,” James said, and impossibly, Sianin’s grin widened. He reached into the swing for Maddie, who began whimpering in earnest when her dummy fell out of her mouth and onto the floor. To the baby, he asked, “What’s the matter, darling? Eh?”

Maddie’s face crumpled and a tear leaked down her face.

“Oh, sweetheart.” James cradled her close and wiped the tear as it rolled down her temple. “Let’s figure out what you want.”

He curled a knuckle and brought it to Maddie’s mouth. She clamped down on it and sucked hard, then wailed when it wasn’t what she wanted.

“Want me to feed her?” Rose asked, opening her arms.

“Mind if I do it?” James asked sheepishly.

“Not at all. I’m gonna finish the laundry.”

James took Maddie to the kitchen, and Sianin followed.

“Can I help?”

James smiled. “Sure.” He then walked her through the steps of preparing a bottle. When it was ready, he asked, “Would you like to feed her?”

Sianin considered for a moment, then nodded.

“I’ll help you hold her so she doesn’t hurt your surgery incision,” James said, gesturing for Sianin to move to the living room.

She clambered up onto the couch, and he rearranged some pillows and blankets to pad the right side of her stomach and to give a shelf to rest most of the baby’s weight on. He carefully positioned Maddie into Sianin’s lap.

“Is that comfortable for you?” he asked. Sianin nodded. He repositioned her arm so that the baby’s head was a bit higher, then he handed the bottle to Sianin. “Just make sure the milk completely covers the top, and it’ll be fine. Mads knows what to do.”

As if to show off, Maddie found the nipple and latched on, sucking greedily. She let little out grunts and sighs as her jaw worked frantically at the bottle.

“Blimey, you’re starved. I’m so sorry, darling. I didn’t realize how hungry you were.”

James perched beside Sianin, ready to assist as needed. But mostly he watched his two daughters together, his heart growing ten times its size at the picture they made.

“Love you, Sian,” he murmured to her, kissing the top of her head.

“Love you, Daddy,” she replied. Then she leaned down and whispered into Maddie’s ear, “Love you, Maddie.”

Tears pricked James’s eyes as his entire body unwound from an invisible tension he hadn’t realized was there. He blinked rapidly to dispel the moisture, but his nose and eyes burned with tears of relief. Logically, he knew Sianin would adjust to her baby sisters. But practically, he had been so concerned that Sianin would never accept the twins into the family. Would never enjoy their presence. Would never love them.

“Does milk really fill her tummy?” Sianin asked, bringing him out of his head. “If all I ate was milk, I’d be starving all the time.”

“This milk isn’t like the milk you drink,” James said, clearing his throat of the watery phlegm that had built up. “This is full of vitamins and proteins and nutrients that fills her up so she’s not always hungry. Besides, her tummy is much smaller than yours.”

He reached over and rested his hand on Maddie’s stomach, and he gave it a gentle squeeze. The baby unlatched from the bottle and beamed, dribbling milk all down her chin.

Sianin grimaced. “Ew. You’re messy.”

“We’ll clean her up when she’s done,” James promised. “Try and get her to finish the bottle, if she wants it.”

Maddie didn’t, as it turned out. She suckled lazily, but kept unlatching to smile up at Sianin. After five minutes of this, James took Maddie from Sianin. He hoisted her to his shoulder and rubbed and patted her back until he was rewarded with a series of wet-sounding burps.

“Bet you feel loads better, eh?” James asked, kissing Maddie’s temple. Maddie turned her head and rested her cheek on his shoulder, flashing a grin. She reached out and grabbed at his lower lip. He pretended to bite her fingers, making her shriek with delight.

“What do I do with this?” Sianin asked, waving the mostly-empty bottle at him.

“Go set it by the sink,” he said, groaning when he realized the dish water was probably cold. “Did you enjoy feeding Maddie?”

“Yeah, it wasn’t too bad,” Sianin said, unceremoniously dumping the blankets and pillows on the floor as she stood.

Rose left shortly thereafter for her afternoon out, leaving him with napping twins and a restless six-year-old. He kept her occupied for the early part of the afternoon, when they started a roast in the slow cooker and then made a batch of biscuits. But once they were finished in the kitchen, she grew increasingly bored.

After rejecting all of his entertainment ideas, Sianin eventually decided she wanted to play “beauty regimen”.

That was how James found himself sitting on the floor of the living room, having his finger- and toenails painted bright colors by Sianin.

Why does Rose even have this color? he grumbled to himself as Sianin painted his toes a vibrant neon yellow.

“Looks great,” he said aloud when Sianin screwed the top back onto the bottle of nail varnish. And honestly, for a six-year-old’s handiwork, it actually did look pretty good. “Your turn. Pick a color.”

She picked equally-bright colors, and settled in to allow him to buff and file her nails, then paint them.

After their nails had dried, James marched Sianin into his and Rose’s en suite. He put away the nail varnish and instead grabbed Rose’s makeup kit.

“Only a little bit,” James said as he hoisted Sianin to sit on the vanity. “We don’t want to use up all of Mummy’s makeup, do we?”

“Noooo,” Sianin said gravely, shaking her head.

“Let’s do some eyeliner first,” he suggested, uncapping the thin pencil.

He spent the next several minutes painting Sianin’s face with makeup, keeping everything subtle so she didn’t end up looking like a clown. He was quite pleased with the final product.

“Ready to see how you look?”

Sianin nodded eagerly and spun around to face the mirror. Her face lit up with happiness and she squealed, “Oh, Daddy! Look!”

“Do you like it?” he asked, smug.

“Yes! I’m beautiful!”

“You’re beautiful without makeup too,” he said, pecking a kiss to the back of her head.

“How’d you learn makeup?” Sianin asked, cocking her head to the side.

“I’ve been watching your mum apply makeup for years and years, haven’t I? I’ve learned a trick or two.”

“You put makeup on now,” Sianin commanded. “Please?”

“Oh, fine,” he sighed. “D’you want to put it on me?”

Sianin shook her head, content to watch him.

James quickly outlined his eyes, applied a bit of foundation, and shaped his brows. Sianin watched with rapt attention until he deemed himself done.

“Selfie time,” James proclaimed. “I want a picture with my beautiful baby girl.”

Sianin giggled and knelt in front of him on the vanity. With the added height, she was nearly as tall as he was. He rested his chin on her shoulder, then took a series of photos of the two of them pulling all kinds of silly faces.

He only stopped when movement in the mirror caught his eye. Rose was standing against the doorframe, her arms crossed in front of herself and a small smile on her lips.

Sianin spotted her mother through the mirror. “Mummy! Aren’t we so beautiful?”

Rose stepped into the en suite and asked, “Did you and Daddy get a makeover?”

“Uh huh! And we painted our fingers and toes!”

She splayed the digits for emphasis. James saw Rose glance down at his toes, which he wiggled in return.

“How lovely. And yes, you look absolutely gorgeous, sweetheart,” she said. “Did you have fun today with Daddy?”

“Yeah! He’s the best daddy ever!”

James’s throat constricted as Sianin leaned over and hugged him. She pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth, then scooted herself off the vanity. He helped her down, then she jogged out of the room, saying something about going to show Ainsley her makeup and nails.

Makeup bottles and powder dust were strewn across the vanity. James turned to clean it up, but Rose grabbed his wrists, halting him.

“God, I love you.” She surged onto her toes and planted a hard kiss to his mouth.

He froze in surprise for a millisecond before returning the firm pressure of the kiss. Rose wrapped her arms around his shoulder while a hand went to the back of his head, holding him in place as her lips hungrily pulled at his.

“Rose, what…?”

“I love you,” she rasped between kisses.

“Love you, too,” he managed to mumble.

Her tongue wasted no time in demanding entry, skating across the seam of his lips until he parted his lips for her. He groaned and clutched at her hips as her tongue slid against his, teasing yet demanding. Fire roiled through his veins, so intense that it left his head spinning and his body aching.

He caught her chin between his fingers to pause their kiss, if only to give him a moment to catch his breath. “If I’d known you had a thing for men wearing makeup, I’d’ve dolled up for you ages ago.”

She laughed, half-heartedly smacking his shoulder. “I have a thing for my sexy husband doing literally anything for his children because he utterly adores making them happy.”

He giggled high in his throat.

“Seriously James. I am five seconds away from telling the girls to play outside so I can have my filthy way with you. You have no idea how sexy you become simply by being amazing with our kids.”

He squeaked as his arousal sharpened. “Raincheck? For tonight?”

She whined and dropped her head to his shoulder. “I’m going to die waiting that long. I want you so badly.”

His brain worked rapidly and he tried to listen past the pulse in his ears and the sound of Rose’s unsteady breaths. He heard Ainsley and Sianin talking in the living room.

“Give me a minute,” he whispered.

“James…”

“Shh. Wait here.”

He crept out of the en suite and into their bedroom. The door was wide open. He stepped over to it and peered down the hall. He couldn’t see his children, but he heard the twins squealing happily and Ainsley and Sianin cooing at them. He slowly shut the bedroom door and locked it. Then he went back into their en suite and shut that door as well.

“Let’s make it quick,” he said, tugging his shirt over his head. “My guess is we have five minutes.”

Her eyes somehow lit up and darkened at the same time.

“Yeah?” she breathed, her eyes raking up and down his bare chest.

The sheer desire in her gaze helped in the process of hardening him. They shed their clothes in record time before James dropped to his knees in front of Rose, tapping at her calf to get her to widen her stance.

“Don’t make me come,” she said as she complied.

“Just helping you along,” he said, taking his half-hard cock in hand.

He trailed kisses across her hips as he firmly stroked himself. Then he moved to where she wanted him. She hooked her knee over his shoulder, balancing on one foot as he worshiped her. He kissed and licked at her, using her breathy pants and moans to help himself along.

“Ready whenever you are,” she ground out, rocking her hips.

He stood and pressed himself into her hip as he claimed her mouth. She tangled her fingers into his hair, pulling him impossibly closer.

“In, in, in,” she demanded, breaking apart to gulp down a lungful of air. She took his cock in her hand and gave him a few slow strokes, as though testing his readiness. He hissed and arched into her touch. The sound choked into a groan as the tip of him slid between her legs and bumped against her entrance.

“Shit, condom,” he said, tensing and pulling back.

“I’m fine,” she said, clutching his shoulder to keep him where he was. He paused, dubious. But try as he might, he couldn’t think clearly enough to remember the last time she’d had her period. “Honestly. I’m due for my period any day now. Shouldn’t be fertile.”

“Okay,” he said, nodding. He let his hips inch forward as she guided him inside of her. “Love you, Rose.”

“Love you… ohhhh.”

He slid into her, inch by inch, and clenched his teeth to hold himself still. It had been so long since he’d made love with her without the barrier of a condom, and he wished they could do this more often.

He squeaked and thrust shallowly when she lifted one leg off the ground to wrap around his hips, allowing him to slide impossibly deeper into her.

“Move,” she commanded, tilting her head back.

James gripped the ledge of the vanity behind Rose for balance as he pulled out and thrust in. The small of her back hit the vanity, rattling the containers of makeup strewn across the surface.

“S-sorry,” he stammered. “You all right?”

“Yeah, keep going. God, this feels so fucking good. We need to do this more often.”

“What, shag?”

“Piss off,” she gasped. “A quickie shag because you’re too goddamn sexy for your own good.”

“Pot, kettle.” He bit his bottom lip to muffle the growl that was building in his chest. She was clinging to him so tightly, the friction was unbelievable.

“I should look into alternative birth control,” Rose mused, her nails biting into his shoulders. “Pill makes me feel too weird. But I like the feel of you without a condom.”

“Can we resume this conversation later? You’re bruising my ego that you’re still capable of speech.”

“Well, so are you.”

He couldn’t help the grin, and he ducked down to catch her lips in a sloppy kiss before he adjusted his grip on the vanity for leverage to set hard and fast rhythm.

It was not the most coordinated lovemaking session they’d ever had; it never was when they were standing. However, it was fun and felt unbelievably good.

Rose rubbed her clit without much finesse, muffling her noises against his shoulder as she clung to him. James thought he might bite through his lip trying to keep silent.

Though much to his frustration, he was so distracted with listening for the kids that he kept losing the mounting pleasure. The third time he felt his imminent orgasm slip away, he huffed a curse and arched his hips harder and faster to chase down the edge again.

“Relax,” Rose whispered. She cupped his cheek and rubbed her thumb across his lower lip, urging him to stop biting. “Be here. With me. No distractions. Nothing but us, love.”

He exhaled raggedly.

“Slow it down,” she said, stopping all movements of her hips to pause their coupling. He slipped out of her, and he winced. She smoothly guided him back in, but didn’t continue their previous tempo. “I love you, James.”

“Love you, too,” he said, nuzzling his nose against hers. He pressed a small kiss to her lips then rested his forehead against hers, closing his eyes to revel in the sensations building up within him. The feel of her skin sliding against his. The puff of her breath against his lips. The sound of her panting. The way her hands gripped his shoulders, his back, his hair, his neck. The hard knot of tension in his belly.

“Just be with me,” she repeated, lazily kissing his lips before she ground her hips slowly against his. “Nothing in the world but us, my love.”

He smiled into the kiss, and matched the motion of her hips. Their slow pace gradually sped up, and he sighed as he lost himself in her.

“I’m gonna come,” she breathed into his ear, gripping his hair tightly. Her nails scraped across his scalp, making him shudder.

He latched his mouth to the join of her neck and shoulder, scraping his teeth across the soft, supple skin. She let out a moan that was far too loud, but he didn’t care. Evidently, neither did she, as she moaned again, higher-pitched this time.

“Oh, God,” she gasped. Her entire body tightened around him. “James!”

“Come on, love,” he mumbled into her skin.

He arched his hips harder, trying to hit the spot deep inside her that always made her cry out. She let out a muffled squeal, as though remembering she ought to keep quiet, and her chest flushed red as her muscles gripped his cock tightly.

His belly clenched in reply.

She broke around him, bowing into him and clutching his arse, pulling him deeper into her. The feel of her pulsing around him and whimpering into his shoulder sent him hurtling after her. He released into her with a garbled grunt, trembling with pleasure.

“Fuck,” he rasped, nearly wheezing with the effort of staying quiet.

Rose hummed, the sound low, sleepy, and satisfied. His knees wobbled as he stood against her, panting and breathing her in until his vision stopped swimming.

“That was fuckin’ brilliant,” Rose slurred, nestling her face into the crook of his neck.

“Mmm,” he agreed. “I did not expect my wife to jump me like that, but I’m glad she did. Think that’ll tide you over ‘til tonight?”

She snorted. “You want to go again tonight?”

“Don’t you?” he crooned sweetly, and he arched his hips against her.

A purr rumbled from her throat as an aftershock rippled through her. “You are insatiable.”

“Pot, kettle,” he repeated.

She pinched his stomach lightly. “We should clean up and go back out there before the kids get suspicious.”

“But you’re so warm,” he whined, hugging her tighter to him.

“We’ll resume this tonight,” she promised, then she tapped at his shoulder to get him to step back.

He did, wincing as he slipped out of her, but he kept his hands at her hips to balance her as he stopped supporting the majority of her weight.

They made quick work of cleaning up, including washing off the smeared make-up from both of their faces. When they were appropriately dressed and their breathing had returned to normal, they ventured out of their bedroom.

Ainsley and Sianin were sitting on the floor with Hannah and Maddie. They looked over when James and Rose approached.

“Now that you’re done doing sex, can we go for a walk?”

James’s cheeks and necks burned, and he saw Ainsley slap her hand to her forehead.

“Sianin!” she hissed.

“What?”

“It’s a private thing Mummy and Daddy do. We shouldn’t talk about it,” Ainsley explained.

Sianin furrowed her brow, then looked to her mortified parents. “You said it’s a healthy and natural thing people in love do.”

“It is,” James said, his voice a bit squeakier than he would have liked. “But your sister is also right. It’s generally considered to be a private activity that isn’t really talked about in front of other people. Obviously, if you have questions, you can ask. But when referring to a couple who is engaging in the act of sex, it’s consider impolite to mention it. At least in their presence.”

Rose pinched his waist, which seemed to finally put an end to the stream of words flowing from his lips. He snapped his mouth shut hard enough that his teeth clacked, and he tried to ignore the fire pounding at his cheeks and ears.

Sianin considered them all for a moment, then shrugged.

“Also, it’s have sex,” Ainsley chimed. “Not do sex.”

“But why? That makes no sense,” Sianin argued. “How do you have an activity? You do an activity.”

Ainsley rolled her eyes and let out an exasperated huff. “Because the English language is stupid sometimes, that’s why.”

Rose let out a snort. “Do we still want to go for a walk?” she asked of their eldest girls.

“Yeah!” Sianin said, jumping to her feet.

“Slowly,” Rose reprimanded. “Don’t pull your stitches.” Sianin ignored her and raced to the front door for her shoes. “Sianin, slowly!” Rose snapped.

“She’ll be fine,” James said, rubbing his thumb across the back of her hand.

“Ought to put her on a leash for this walk,” Rose muttered.

James knocked his hip into hers, and Rose knocked it right back.

Sianin returned to the living room, her shoes tied and a light jacket zipped up. “Ready!”

“Do you promise to walk?” James asked, giving her a stern look. “Absolutely no running whatsoever?”

“Yes, yes, I promise,” she said impatiently.

“Okay. Can you and Ainsley be big helpers and open up the twins’ pram?” he asked.

She trotted back to the front door, where they heard her relay the instructions to Ainsley. He and Rose, meanwhile, walked to the twins. They were awake and staring up at the ceiling.

“You’ll have to be quieter when we do sex tonight,” James whispered to Rose as they each picked up a baby.

She snorted and smacked his arm half-heartedly. “Me? You’re much louder than I am.”

“Actually, you’re both loud,” Ainsley said, making them squeak and spin on their heels. “Can we go now before Sianin leaves you behind?”

“We’re sorry,” James blurted, “about… earlier. What you heard… with me and your mum…” From the corner of his eye, he saw Rose pinch the bridge of her nose and shake her head at him.

Ainsley giggled. “It’s fine. It’s nothing I haven’t heard before. Honestly, it’s adorable how in love you are. If not a bit sickening.”

She stuck her tongue out at them and winked. James and Rose followed her to the front door, where the double-pram was waiting. They buckled the twins in and draped a blanket over the babies, then made sure the baby bag was stocked before they left the house and enjoyed the mild May evening.

If you’ve read to the end, consider leaving a comment or reblogging? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

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siarven · 4 years

Text

Fluffcember #4 - Ocean

Fluffcember Prompt list! :3

WIP: Hope Beyond Characters: Phaedra, Morgan, Alia POV: Phaedra 2592 words. Rest and Tags below the cut! :3

In which Phaedra, Morgan and Alia force their way through one mile of wild forest to see the sunset over the ocean (which, in Morgan’s and Alia’s case, is seeing the ocean for the first time in general).

"Today", Phaedra promises, smiling to herself. "I think we should make it by sunset, actually." She looks back at Alia in the rear-view mirror, and then at Morgan, sitting next to her. Morgan hasn't been able to take her eyes off the road in what feels like forever. They've driven through fields, quaint little villages, huge, booming towns, majestic forests of all kinds, even through the mountains. Phaedra can’t fault her, and she also can’t suppress the small, soft smile that makes its way stubbornly onto her lips every time she doesn’t pay attention.

And now, today, they will reach the ocean.

The best roadb trip of all time... not that Phaedra would know, of course. She's only been on one, this far, and that was after she'd finished school, with her then-friends.

Funny, how time is both faster and slower than expected...

"Today!!!", Alia echoes her, her voice brimming with happiness and excitement, “today we will reach the ocean!"

Also funny how the perception of a person changes, the more time you spend around them. She doesn't even seem strange to me anymore, Phaedra thinks to herself, and that thought makes her happy, in a gentle, motherly way. After all, if this is how she feels, others must, too?

"Today", Morgan whispers, and finally turns away from the window. Her eyes are wide open, brimming with...something. Something Phaedra can't really put her finger on, but it makes the small smile disappear.

"My parents wanted to take me to see it, before..." Morgan's voice dwindles away, and then she's quiet again, turning back to her window.

Phaedra doesn't like this quiet one bit.

"No", she says. "Screw that. Morgan? Look at me. That's in the past, and we don't care about the past. It's gone, alright? The past doesn't matter anymore, because we've got to look forward! Take a deep breath. The future is what matters, and what you do with it. And we're going to see the ocean today, at sunset, and it's going to be glorious." It better be.

After a few moments Morgan finally turns, nods. "Yeah", she mutters. She still looks weird, but then she offers a tentative smile. "Thanks for the pep talk, grandma", she says. Phaedra makes a shocked face, but on the inside they happy smile is returning.

"Just living my best life", she says, and it's true. This, right here? This is the best place on earth, in this car, with these two. There's nowhere else she'd rather be.

It does take them until almost-sunset to reach the ocean. Well, to almost reach it. Thing is: the road is pretty close to it, but it doesn't quite reach it. There's still forest in between. A forest full of pitfalls and tangling shrubs that don't want anyone to move through it, and while there are also the tracks of various forms of wildlife, they aren't really all that well-suited for people.

Still, Phaedra doesn't even have to ask. Morgan is already pulling her hiking boots on, a very determined expression on her face, and Alia looks like she's ready to climb through thorny undergrowth with bare feet. She’d probably pull it off without hurting herself, too.

"We will make it", Morgan says. "It's, what, a mile? Pah, that's nothing. We still have..." She checks her watch, and then her phone, which (of course) doesn't have any reception. At least Phaedra’s doesn’t. "Uhhh, I'm not sure if I'm remembering it right, but we should have half an hour. That should be enough, right? We can get there in time. I want to see the sunset..." There's so much longing in her voice that Phaedra doesn't really dare tell her how hard it is to make your way through true, pathless wilderness. Besides, maybe they will make it. Nothing like true determination, really.

"Alia, do you need help?", Morgan asks. Alia nods, so Morgan helps her search for the hiking boots, and after a while they find them stuck under the far right corner of Alia's seat. Morgan grins while helping her put them on. Satisfied that the two can deal on their own, Phaedra gets her crutches, and collects some other things from the back of the car, stuffing them into her backpack. Most of the time she doesn't need walking aids anymore, but now she's glad she brought them along.

When they finally leave, some of the clouds have become slightly pinkish, slightly golden. Phaedra can only tell because sometimes there are gaps in between the huge trees, letting them glimpse more of the sky than a general blueish colour.

It's been a beautiful day, and it will be a beautiful night. There's a slightly elevated space next to where they parked the car, and it's even mostly level, with few bumps, the best wild tenting spot they could've hoped for. According to the signs next to the road it's allowed in these parts, too, so there isn't much they have to worry about in that regard. Good.

The forest is a veritable thicket. There are plants growing everywhere, some thorny thickets, some low and grabby, some too big to fight through. Phaedra did bring her machete, but even that doesn't help very much.

"You're hurting them", Alia says reproachfully at one point, and after that Phaedra stops using it.

All in all, Alia seems to be the one who deals with the plants the best. But then again, she’s the weird magical girl, too. Maybe one of her imaginary creature friends is helping her.

But still.

Even with all of that, Phaedra can't help but be amazed at the beauty surrounding them. There's so much of it, everywhere! The smallest, most fragile flowers, tiny green stalks breaking through the ground here and there, a mouse crossing their paths—

And Morgan helping her every time she almost stumbles.

"If it continues like this we'll be stuck here forever", Morgan says at one point, but there's a wide grin on her face. Phaedra grins back. There’s a freedom to this day that’s far superior to all other freedoms she’s had before. Alia is far ahead of them at this point, but if Morgan doesn't feel bad about missing the sunset, then Phaedra won't, either.

"Thanks for helping me", she says, a bit out of breath. Damn, her army constitution has run out fast. "I used to be so good at this..." Her voice is a bit wistful, and she only looks at Morgan when the younger woman stops.

Morgan's wearing the widest shit-eating grin imaginable. "Remember what you told me earlier? That the only thing that matters is the future? Well, look who's talking", she says. Phaedra laughs before she can stop herself. The sound is much louder than she anticipated, and then the two break out into more laughter at the exact same time, and the only thing that finally ends it is Phaedra grabbing hold of something that is home to too many sharp spikes.

Morgan is still grinning when she pulls her water bottle and a tissue from her backpack. "Who are you to give me advice on things you don't follow yourself?", she says, putting some water on the tissue, and giving it to Phaedra.

Phaedra is still smiling weakly, even if the pain is strangely... painful.

"You'd think that losing a leg is as bad as it gets", she says dryly, ignoring Morgans’ very pointed question. "especially when the phantom pain keeps you awake at night...

But, you see... small and annoying wounds still hurt, and they're also no less annoying."

"So annoying", Morgan echoes, and Phaedra swats at her playfully, missing only because Morgan takes a careful step back.

"Hey!", she protests, "I was only... repeating your wisdom."

"Yeah, I know... repeating my wisdom. Tsk."

"Well, you are very wise, old lady."

Phaedra just shakes her head sadly. "Today's youth has no respect for their elders anymore. What a tragedy", she says. This time when she swats for Morgan, her hand connects with her target. Unfortunately, she's forgotten about several other things, including (but not limited to) the fine art of balance.

Phaedra and Morgan tumble down onto all the pointy thicket plants together, laughing like children. Morgan has come such a long way, too… when we first met, she was so shy. She wouldn’t have dared make fun of me in ten life times. If it hadn’t been for Alia.

"That was fun", Morgan says. Phaedra rolls off to the side, trying to ignore the poking, pointy plants around her.

"I guess", she says, but in the privacy of her thoughts all she can think about are the series of tragedies that lead her to this moment, to this life. These, she thinks to herself, these are my people.

Then: "Maybe we should hurry. And try to figure out where Alia went." Morgan nods. It's the first time Phaedra can remember that there's no sadness lingering around her eyes.

She's truly happy. So many tragedies… and yet all three of us are here. Last year I couldn’t even have imagined one single day of happiness… and now I’m here.

"You know, I always thought I'd die alone, surrounded by a ton of books and a bunch of cats", Morgan says a while later when they're back to fighting their way through the thickets. The sky above them is pink, and gold, and purple, and going by Morgan’s face, she doesn’t regret anything about that, either.

“Funny”, Phaedra says, “I was just thinking about something like that, too. How crazy is it that we’re here? All three of us? I don’t know anyone else who’s gone through as much shit as we have, and yet… we’re here. Laughing…”

“Yeah”, Morgan says, her voice solemn despite the fact that she’s struggling quite literally through a thorn bush, “I didn't think I'd ever find anyone I would actually want to care about. Even my friends were only acquaintances, really. And now I’ve found two of you? In such quick succession?”

“Same… it’s definitely Alia’s fault”, Phaedra says, smiling. “She caught us like fish in a net, and then she made us care again, and open up, like flowers. You can’t… not love, when you’re in her presence. And after the whole army thing... I don't even know. I thought about ending it, when it all came crashing down. I felt so hopeless, and so helpless. I felt like I didn't deserve to carry on when they hadn't.

But I did, somehow, just long enough for you to move in next door, and then that girl decided to utterly trash my self-loathing and self-pity…" She smiles, and again, it's tinged by a strange wistfulness. Soft, and gentle, and sad. But also happy. So much happiness.

"Yeah", Morgan says, looking away. "Everyone kept telling me I would die alone, too", she adds after a while. "'Cause of, you know. All of that. I've never fallen in love. I never wanted that kind of thing. It all seemed icky. And yet here I am, with a daughter and a wife." She grins. "Well, kind of. Very differently from how others might imagine it. But who cares about them. It's perfect. It’s all I never wanted, and all I’ve always needed."

Phaedra grins back at her. "Very poetic”, she teases, “are you sure I'm your wife, though? Maybe I'm your grandmother. Or the aggressively well-meaning step mother. Or something."

This time it's Morgan's turn to retaliate, and she chooses to poke Phaedra in the side.

She stumbles, but Morgan catches her, helps her stabilize herself.

"I’m really glad you made your way into my life."

"Yeah, I know", Morgan says. "Even the cats love you back. Even Purrcy loves you back. And he wants to kill everyone."

"Yeah..."

They continue on in hard-breathing silence. It’s a good silence, though.

"I'm really glad for Alia, too", Morgan says after a while. "You should think that she’s never had a bad day in her life…”

Yeah, Phaedra thinks. I don’t even want to know what she’s gone through. And yet, she’s the biggest miracle out of them all.

“I’m pretty sure that she sees you as a grandmother”, Morgan says suddenly, and again, there’s that cheeky grin. I would’ve thought it out of character if she hadn’t been doing it for weeks now. Phaedra laughs. “Well, I make an excellent grandmother, don’t I?”

“Yeah, you absolutely do. Oh, and before I forget it… I think she wants you to draw her creatures. If you want to. She’s strangely shy about it, I’m not sure why. But she really looks up to you.”

Phaedra smiles softly, feeling a strange warmth blooming in her belly. "I don't know if I'm any good at that", she says, "but I'm definitely willing to try."

And then they reach the ocean.

The forest thins out (has been thinning out for a while, now that Phaedra thinks about it), making way to a rocky beach, or rather: a field of big, round, ocean-smoothed rocks, some small, some huge.

Alia's sitting on the largest one, staring at the spot the sun just vacated, and she looks so happy and peaceful that Phaedra gestures to Morgan, searches through half of her pockets before finding her phone, and then takes a few pictures. References, for later. Still no reception.

"You're both late", Alia declares from her rock, not even turning.

"We are", Morgan admits, making her way over the rocks.

Her eyes never leave the water, though.

This is what awe looks like, Phaedra thinks to herself, and takes a few more pictures. More references, of course.

"No regrets", Morgan says when she finally reaches Alia's rock. She looks like she's going to faint any moment. Like she's sleepwalking. Like she's in a dream, the best dream she could ever have imagined.

Phaedra takes another picture, and then she follows.

Alia's rock is so big that she can't even tell how the girl managed to scale it. Her feet are roughly at the height of Phaedra's head, and Pheadra isn't exactly short. Alia's grin is very wide when she looks down at them, like an empress regarding her subjects. Except she’s too kind to be an empress.

"Did you have fun?", she asks.

Phaedra wonders what exactly Alia is thinking about. Sometimes it's really hard to tell, especially with this particular girl.

"We did", she says finally. "And I hurt my hand. But for now we'll stay here. Let's wait until the stars come out, I know I put the headlamps into each of your backpacks so we don’t even have to worry about making our way back later."

Alia nods enthusiastically. "And when we get lost in the forest, we can just make a sleeping pile. That should work, too. Rhisíl will keep us warm." Her voice is very matter-of-fact about it, too. Like she knows that it’s going to happen.

“Well, we will think about that when it happens”, Phaedra decides, smiling. Alia nods, and grins. It’s already getting darker. Morgan makes her way over to Phaedra, leaning her head against her shoulder (she’s not tall enough to put it on her shoulder). “Thank you”, she says. There’s so much in those two words, so many things she could be thankful for.

Phaedra smiles. “You are very welcome”, she says softly. What did I do to deserve them?

But that’s the thing.

She didn’t do anything.

And then they settle down, and wait for the stars.

@madmoonink @wilde-writing @prismalicht @sincerestaffect @romenna @paper-shield-and-wooden-sword @asttralhell @raiswanson @kittensartswriting @fynniana @lynnafred @klywrites @lady-redshield-writes @tabbykatwrites @ettawritesnstudies @consciousdreamz @writingwordsanddrawingpictures @necros-writings @asherscribbles

#fluffcember #fluffcember 2019 #I hope you like the thing :3 #even though it got long #I wrote it yesterday but it needed some editing and now I'm behind XD #hopebeyondexcerpt

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docholligay · 5 years

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Talismans: Extraction

This is a commission for @amberlilly, who asked for Michiru’s memories of the cathedral. This is part of the Talismans AU, which can be found here!

Michiru planned, and fate laughed.

She had destroyed Haruka, made her hate Michiru, said the cruelest things she could think with the sharpest tongue she could muster, all to save her life, and it had utterly failed. She could have been arm in arm with Haruka to the last, and yet her feeble grasps at the fluttering moths of her own desires had escaped once more, flying to the moon, as they always did.

She had died, as the visions had told her. Haruka had died, as she refused to accept.

Michiru had known she had to find the talismans. Only she could do it, whatever Minako had said, and however hard Rei tried, the visions had said it would always be her. That without her the princess would never rise, and they would fail in the only reason they had been raised in the first place.

She could not let Haruka fail, and she could not let Haruka die, and so she sacrificed the only thing that gave her a reason to live anyhow. May as well die in the service of the moon, as she was always meant to, if Haruka did not love her. It was not a difficult pill to swallow, only a rich and honeyed cocktail, as she walked into the cathedral, the one she had seen in flashes and pops in her mind, fully realized and in front of her.

She had to hurry. Rei would know, at any minute, what was happening, the immediacy and certainty of her visions impossible to question. Rei would know, and rei would report. Then the senshi would descend, and Haruka with them. Haruka could not show her face, not today, not if Michiru was going to receive the one gift she desired.

Michiru had been sly, but not sly enough. Or was that even true? She had known there was no chess game in which this pawn could live, and so had she even attempted care? It might only be a kind lie she told to herself, that she had attempted not to die, that Crow had been crafty and wise, and had gotten the drop on her. That in the battle between them, Michiru had slipped because she was careless, and not because she didn’t care.

But Crow had known something she didn’t. For all the cleverness Michiru possessed, and all that the visions had cared to share with her, it had never told her that the Moon Kingdom had only ever intended both she and Haruka as an eggshell, something to be broken and discarded in service of a necessary agreement. That it was a punishment for people they had never been, who happened to share the same cruel spark inside of them.

Crow knew.

She had called Haruka, told her she had a talisman and if Haruka wanted it, she was willing to give a fair competition. Keep things interesting. Crow knew her senshi identity anyhow, and so there was no reason to try and play like this was nothing Haruka wanted. Haruka must have suspected it was a trap, for though she was a racer who often jumped the gun, she was no fool.

But Crow knew other things, too. That Haruka was brave, that she longed to be useful and hero, and so the potentiality of a trap was a worthwhile risk to her.

Michiru thought she had known the full horror that her visions could press upon her, but no leap of her heart nor twist in her stomach could have ever or would ever have contended with Haruka walking through that door.

Hate me. Leave me to die. Go home. Find another, who deserves every lovely thing you are.

“I do not require your assistance, Uranus.” She said dismissively. “It is hardly a help.”

Haruka looked at her with all that same hurt and love, but bit her lip and moved forward anyhow, ran across the aisle of the long stone church only to be met with a barrage of bullets that threw her to the ground, red popping out from her flesh as if it were confetti.

The earth trembled as she fell.

Crow laughed. Why wouldn’t she? They had been roundly defeated, and tears stung Michiru’s eyes not from the deep digging of the thorns into her wrists, but the knowledge that she had failed in the only thing she had tried to do.

“Punished by God.” Crow said as she strutted across the church. “A touch of symbolism, for you.”

“Yeah.” Haruka blearily looked up at the stained glass painting watercolors on the inside of the grey stone.

“Well,” Crow balanced a gun on her hip, “Are you curious about the Talismans?” She gave another peal of laughter that echoed off the walls, filling the cathedral, as Haruka groaned and rolled onto her side. “Where are they? You haven’t guessed it yet, have you?”

Haruka gave a weak chuckle. “I’m bad at puzzles.”

She took the moment to try and swipe her arm at Crow, who took a step back and kicked Haruka back to the ground handily.

“I could have guessed that.” She tossed back her hair. “No, no, the Talismans are right here.” She pointed the gun at Haruka’s chest, who weakly pressed herself up onto her elbows. “And in just a minute, I’m going to pull that little thing out of you with this. Sorry to say, though, it will kill you.”

Haruka shook her head, closing her eyes just a minute. “You’re wrong. It’s impossible. We’re looking for someone with a pure and loyal heart. Prophecy said.” She looked back up to Crow. “Your boss went to a lot of trouble to be wrong. Can’t be me.”

“Oh, Uranus, you never were the smartest one, were you?” Crow moved her hand toward the trigger. “Serenity was being sarcastic. You and Neptune were cowards and traitors. And this is your punishment. You get to die. It will be for nothing, of course, but, you can die knowing that’s your legacy.”

A pall came over Haruka’s face, and her shoulder slumped as she looked at her own chest. Of course she could believe that of herself. That she was born into shame, that there was nothing she was born for but to die on a cold stone floor, a discarded candy wrapper for the real treat.

Michiru was a creature of the sea, cool and deadly, but for the first time, she felt the heat of a fire rise in her, a rage that she had kept contained at every indignity she had suffered since she was four years old. How dare Crow say those things. How dare Serenity do this to Haruka. How dare Haruka be so easy to love.

She pulled away from the thorny vines twined around her, and they snapped and tore with the force of her fury, so quickly that she barely had time to catch herself from falling.

“No she isn’t!!” She screamed, tearing away from her throat, her vocal cords jumping at the uncharacteristic volume.

Both Crow and Haruka turned to the sound of her, equally shocked by the sound that came from her lips.

Michiru ran down the aisle, feeling the full force of heroism, something she had never desired or aspired to, and maybe the other girls would work the whole of their lives to find the princess, but Michiru had found hers, and she would protect her to the last.

The bullets came immediately, heavy against her body, and she felt the hot read of her blood begin to paint her fuku. It no longer mattered. She was meant to die, in this vision, but she would fight that cruel hand of fate to the last. It could not take Haruka, not without her consent. She had idly taken so many things in her life, accepted so many rules and manners as inviolable, she had believed that we may only do what we are born for, but in this moment she was remade. In this moment, no rule nor hand of fate, no inevitability, could move her.

Her body gave out, and she fell to her knees. No matter. The body is just another rule to ignore. She rose to her feet again, slowly, inching toward Crow and Haruka.

“Neptune, stop!!” Haruka yelled across the way, but Michiru could no longer hear. What Haruka had to say on the subject had not mattered since Michiru had decided her visions were to be challenged.

The hail came again, harder this time, deeper, and Michiru felt a dark haze begin to close in, as death extended its claws to her, drool dripping from its hungry lips.

But she was almost there, and she rose again.

“Haruka,” she looked to her, hoping her eyes could convey what she had always meant to say, “I won’t let you die.”

She advanced again, and Crow took a step back this time, her eyes beginning to allow fear to leak in, the gun finally, prayerfully, away from Haruka’s chest. Michiru walked on, and weakly drew the dagger from her side, unable even to lift it, but ready to fight all the same.

Crow pressed the gun against her chest, and Michiru felt the click of the trigger.

A burning. A tearing. Something bursting from her chest. She thought she heard Haruka’s voice.

Then, nothing.

Fate had ever had the reins.

And yet she had awoken in her plush bed in her penthouse apartment, chest burning in agony, each breath a torment. Fate could not be so kind as even to give her the peace of death, that she had to be revived and brought back to this world, and fight again. There was a moan beside her.

Haruka. She was alive. She was in just as poor condition as Michiru, so it would seem, but she was alive, and when Michiru reached out her hand to touch Haruka’s, it was real. It was no illusion. They were born to die, but had somehow lived, and were somehow together.

Even now, as she puzzled it out, she could not find a solution. She ran the memory of the cathedral over and over again in her mind, trying to see how there could have been some way. Even if the girls had gotten there in time to save Haruka, Michiru was already dead. We can die, Mina was fond of reminding them, don’t do anything stupid.

Somehow Rei was to blame or to thank, Michiru was sure. She could not express why she knew Rei was involved--her visions allowed her the gift of distance that Rei did not have, but the signal was so much fuzzier, coming in flashes and ideas she was forced to try and put linear sense to--but she knew that she was, must be.

Michiru thought to cry out, to ask whoever was here for some explanation, but she could not muster the breath to hardly speak, much less raise her voice. She squeezed Haruka’s hand, just barely, but Haruka slept on, and, feeling the pain of each breath, Michiru decided it would be kinder to allow her.

As if reading her thoughts, in the strange way she and Rei sometimes shared a link whether they desired to or not, the door pushed open, and Rei entered, arms full of gauze and liniment.

“You’re awake.” She said, and Michiru was not entirely sure if it was a statement or an accusation.

Michiru willed herself to endure the pain of a breath, steeled her gaze, and said:

“Tell me everything that has happened.”

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fantroll-purgatory · 6 years

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Eidyia Ethrae - didn't meme to hurt your feelings

@maeve-avrae

Alternia or Beforus?

Beforus. I have an alternian descendant (nurse, sylph of rage) and ancestor (alternate adult self) for this character as well. I might send them in at a later date?

Name: Eidyia Ethrae

“Eidyia’s name was derived from the Greek word eidô meaning “to see” or “to know.” She probably personified the power of the eye which in Greek superstition was the source of a witch’s supernatural powers. As an Okeanid-nymph she was presumably also the Naiad of the main well or fountain of Kolkhis–the marriage of founding-king and local Naiad is a common motif in Greek myth.“

Ethraee is a lesser deity from D&D, with control over both the sun and the moon. It seemed fitting, because she’s struggling to find a balance between her daytime and nighttime activities, or sun and moon. It’s also a nod to her interest in flarping.

Hm… Why do you have her named after an Oceanid if she’s a landdweller? I guess if you themed her around witches or something of that sort it could work… Hmmmm. …You know what, with her umbrella and her look and her rage theme and that witch name, I might want to make her like a… more chaotic-neutral Mary Poppins? Not that Mary Poppins isn’t chaotic but I’m sure you get what I mean. …Hm.

Okay okay Eidyia Etharee stays.

Age: approaching maturity/ adult depending on the setting.

Title: mage of rage or seer of rage, not exactly sure on this one yet

Witch of Rage, because she actively attempts to change the rage-state of people. It makes her a more chaotic element. She’s able to manipulate and change the negative emotions experienced… her inverse is seer of hope, which means through other mediums she can come to understand the nature of optimism around her….

Blood color: jade, but I’ve been thinking of making her a cuspblood with olive, because when she’s being mischievous she takes on some more feline-like personality traits.

Being a cusp would make her a mutant/might knock her out of the jade range, realistically. Honestly if I was going to bump her anywhere outside of Jade, I’d actually bump her to Teal. …She might even make a pretty good purple. I guess we’ll keep addressing that possibility as we go!

Symbol and meaning:

viricorn, sign of the lethal. I like how this one looks like a heart; it captures her emphatic nature. ‘’the lethal’’ captures her more sadistic nature. Plus it’s also a rage sign!

If you were to bump her to purple, her sign would be Capricorn, which isn’t necessarily ideal… Hmmm.

Dream Planet: Prospit

I do think this is fitting for her. She seems capricious and likely to let her feelings at the moment control how she engages with other people. She also doesn’t seem like the kind to fixate on the past/future, but to live in the moment, and to be adaptive… So, yes. Good.

Trolltag: attentionAsunder , curiousCantrip, compellingCatnap, calescentCruisader

I have several ideas, but haven’t been able to decide yet. I like alliteration though, like you might be able to tell lol.

If you don’t mind breaking the GCAT rule, how about diurnalDragoon, referencing her ability to walk around in the daytime. Dragoon references kind of a goading nature, her trying to bait people into being mad.

Quirk: no clue yet, but she likes using complicated words to sound smart and elegant.maybe also something pun-based because of her mischievous nature?

As a reference to the Mary Poppins thing I said earlier, I’d kind of like the idea of her having a habit of rhyming/turning things into little songs, as well as having a habit of making up her own complicated words and portmanteaus for funsies.

Fetch Modus: Haven’t thought of this yet ;@_@

Suoicodilaipxecitsiligarfilacrepus Modus. Or more reasonably, Reverse Modus. She has to figure out how to say the name of an object backwards in order to access it. That’s easy for something like a Hat (Tah), but not quite as much for something like a Chimney Brush (Hsurb Yenmihc).

Special Abilities (if any): sunlight resistance, and can sense emotions. She gets better at sensing small changes in someone’s disposition if she’s close (both physically and emotionally) to the person she is trying to read. She’s better at sensing negative emotions like anger, discomfort, frustration and pain.

I do like that even if I still have a problem with Jades being given additional abilities… hrm… I guess being an empath is something that can happen naturally anyways. A purple could have a stronger sense of this, probably, and maybe even be able to manipulate emotions a little bit.

Strife Specibus: parasolkind

However resistant to sunlight she may be, some protection from the deadly lazer is more than welcome. When in a pinch, it makes for a decent clobbering tool too!

If you theoretically moved her away from jade up to purple, this parasol would be slightly more necessary.

Lusus: (spiny flower) mantis, with antennae shaped like a deer’s antlers

Since mantis are known for killing their spouse I thought it would make a fitting connection with the ’‘lethal” title. Their claws are sharp and dangerous, but at the same time they are patient and calm creatures.

Other animals I considered were a musk deer, because it is also known as the vampire deer for its iconic fangs, and a saber tooth tiger to connect her more to cats for the cuspblood route.

The mantis probably works well for either her being a jade. If I DID make her purple, I might recommend a leech, cue me preemptively referencing your emotional vampire joke.

Personality: She’s kind of a scatterbrain! She thinks a lot, and tends to forget what she’s doing because she gets so lost in her thoughts. She’s very calm, collected and easygoing, but tends to isolate herself. Knowing what others are feeling gets quite overwhelming at times, so she really values her private time.

She also has a colder, more analytical and manipulative side, because she knows just how to press someone’s buttons. She finds it interesting to see how people react to her teasing, and likes to joke around. So instead of a rainbowdrinker like jades are known for I guess you could describe her as more of a social/emotional vampire! She cares more about her appearance than she would like to admit, having a lowkey gothic/ aristocratic aesthetic, and tends to be quite flirty with her quadrants.

She’s also very dutiful, and doesn’t like asking for help. She takes her tasks in the brooding caverns very seriously, even if she’s not actually fond of the job. She would rather over-exert herself than deliver bad work. She would probably be more interested in a counseling or mediation kind of job rather than that of a caretaker.

Her being easygoing and dutiful to the point of over-exertion might be a bit of a contradiction? I think if you want to have both coexist you’ll have to have it be that she’s very committed to doing a good job and thinks it’s necessary, but that she doesn’t beat herself up over any mistakes and knows that no one can do Everything. It fits better with her tendency to neglect her sleep in favor of strolling around, too. If she were so strictly concerned with her work, she probably would take more steps to avoid something that could disrupt her work capabilities?

I do like the idea of her being somewhat manipulative. An empath but not a sympath. Maybe have her struggle to genuinely care about people. She’s capable of recognizing emotions, but feeling sympathy is something she just doesn’t have enough practice in.

Definitely have her be the type that just kind of breezes in and out as she pleases, who is fine just walking up to someone she barely knows and messing with them and then continuing on her way. And maybe make her not mind the idea of draining the people around her, to make your emotional vampire joke connect more?

Her mischievous and chaotic nature as well as her commitment to doing a good job is what made me consider her being purple. And if you wanted her to still be in charge of a bunch of little ones, maybe she could be a Clown Church Wriggler Nanny.

Interests: She likes taking strolls in the sunlight, but often neglects her sleep schedule in favor of this interest. As a result she often oversleeps, and is often tired. She likes indulging in creative hobbies like character creation, writing stories, and casual flarping. Her job gets priority though!

Might I recommend her also being into a little song and dance? Catch this girl humming and twirling around while working.

Land: The land of Thorns and Fervor (LOTAF)

Thorns and all sorts of spiky protrusions block your path at every step. They seem to pop up out of nowhere, but disappear just as easily. The landscape, aside from the thriving thickets of thorny bushes, is barren. There is black sand and rock everywhere, with some cacti and small flowers sprinkled in here and there.

The rock faces are decorated with intricate designs, and hold deep caves within. You presume them to be the remains of a long gone civilization. Speaking of civilization, this planet is not completely deserted yet. You can spot a small village on the horizon. You know it to be the home of the vipers, as you’ve been to one of their settlements before. Some of them seem to hold you in high regard for some reason.

The viper houses are made from rock, making you wonder how they could have possibly constructed the dens themselves, seeing as they don’t have arms. You feel sorry for them. The houses are equipped with metal rods on top of the roofs to harness power from the frequent lightning storms that plague the region.

Despite the fact that it storms regularly there is little to no water. All the rain from the storms evaporates before it has the chance to touch the ground. Most of the water you will find here is gathered in fruit, or wells. (Or, you know, those thunderheads looming over your head.) The biggest settlement in this thorny desert houses a ginormous well. The snakes treat it as a sacred oasis, and it is said to be the home of The denizen Apophis, Egyptian god of chaos.

This planet description is GREAT. I love the idea and concept behind it… I presume that she’s gotta get down there in that well to fight Apophis and also try to bring hope back to the tiny little viper settlements? Good, good stuff.

Thank you so much in advance for taking the time to read this! I would appreciate any and all input!

Thank me? Thank YOU! I love her a whole lot. Now let’s do some design!:

JADE:

Horns: I edited the horn to involve a hook. That’s about all.

Hair: I decided to keep it relatively flat and smooth. I liked the style she had going, just had to give it more volume.

Face: Would you believe that those eyes were Nepeta’s when I started? I tried to utilize the shape you provided. I also had to give her the defined lips typical of all jades (though I kept it with the purple too because it looked good).

Jacket: I gave her a flared jacket like Mary Poppins, along with the buttons and red bowtie.

Legs: I kept the broomstick skirt and some heels from fan-troll.

PURPLE:

Horns: I gave her some simple horns to reflect the symbol I provided.

Makeup: I gave her grease paint that looks a bit like chimney soot smeared on her cheeks.

Jacket: I dotted the jacket with lots of little grey spots.

Symbol: It’s meant to look like a heart, too, but keeps the purple sign language.

Thank you for sharing her! She’s really interesting.

-CD

#maeve-avrae #Eidyia Ethrae #eidyia #ethrae #jadeblood #purpleblood #review #redesign #cd review #submission

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dipulb3 · 3 years

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Biden grapples with balancing optimism and tough talk on pandemic's outlook

New Post has been published on https://appradab.com/biden-grapples-with-balancing-optimism-and-tough-talk-on-pandemics-outlook/

Biden grapples with balancing optimism and tough talk on pandemic's outlook

Biden has opted for a more measured approach than his predecessor, showing up to promote vaccine announcements and appearing at a vaccine site or a laboratory, but mainly saving the hard questions for his closed-door daily briefing on the pandemic.

That has left a gap in the messaging about how and when America might pull out of the crisis — and glosses over the challenge and exhortation that a president can uniquely deliver in times of national calamity.

Even one senior White House official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to be more candid, acknowledged in an interview with Appradab that the public may not yet understand that the variants will require “more public involvement and sacrifice than people probably have registered in their own mind.”

Experts are also noticing missed opportunities for Biden to help the country rise to the challenge.

“This country’s really been in an abyss, and we’re trying to climb our way out,” said Laura Kahn, a Princeton University expert in leadership during epidemics. “A little bit more public communication would be helpful.”

Said another health expert, who is close to the White House: “They’re painting way too rosy of a picture.” The source, who requested anonymity to speak more frankly, added that the administration isn’t doing enough to sound the alarm about the threat of variants and the challenges that could lie ahead.

Administration officials have chafed at that criticism, insisting they are taking the variants seriously without inciting public panic.

Should officials “get up every morning and hold a press conference and say, ‘I’m absolutely terrified’?” said one senior administration official not authorized to speak on the record about the matter. “Do you want to sound the alarm and get everybody upset? Or do you want to do your job?”

Biden obliquely acknowledged the tragedy at hand this week in a visit to the National Institutes of Health.

“We’re in the middle of the war with this virus,” Biden said in that visit. “It’s going to take time to fix, to be blunt with you.”

But just how much time? It’s a question the Biden team doesn’t appear keen to tackle too directly. Even the administration’s health experts, tucked into their Zoom boxes for thrice-weekly updates, deliver scholarly assessments of where the US stands, offering little on the existential question of when life might return to normal.

There is no shortage of reasons why a leader might want to keep his or her distance from the details right now, given how volatile the situation is.

“As the President told the nation Thursday after visiting the vaccination center at the National Institute of Health, and as he says internally regularly, we are driving a whole-of-government response to the pandemic — guided by the science, by ambitious goals, and with clear public communication,” Andy Slavitt, senior adviser to the White House Covid-19 Response Team, said in a statement to Appradab Friday. “This is a national emergency. Our focus is on vaccinating people quickly and equitably, increasing testing, and opening schools and businesses. We will be transparent with the American people about our progress. It won’t be easy and we will face setbacks. However, we continue to make real progress every day until Americans feel safe once again.”

Covid-19 by the numbers

For the science-driven administration, forecasting the future is particularly challenging because the current picture is a muddle.

Coronavirus cases are trending down, and vaccinations are ticking up. But the US is struggling to get a handle on the threat posed by new variants. Experts — both inside and outside the White House — are still far from certain that America is finally clawing its way out of the pandemic.

“This is a race to get the vaccine out there broadly enough and fast enough that it eliminates the chance of spread of even more strains,” said Dr. Bala Hota, an infectious disease specialist at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. “We’re not out of the woods yet.”

One thing is certain: over the last two weeks, the US has seen a huge improvement across all major metrics experts have used to track the pandemic.

As of Friday, the seven-day average of daily cases is down more than 22% from the previous week, and average deaths are down more than 15%, according to Johns Hopkins University data.

Hospitalizations have declined nearly 13% and the percent positivity rate at 6.19%, according to the Covid Tracking Project.

As of Friday, only one state — Alaska — was showing an upward trend in Covid-19 cases.

While the Biden administration has made a major push to reduce the spread of disease by launching mass vaccination sites, taking strides to ramp up vaccine production and promoting safety measures, such as mask wearing, many experts said it’s still too soon to say that those actions are driving the improving trends.

“Any kind of policy that is implemented at the beginning of January, you wouldn’t probably see anything that quickly,” said Nandita Mitra, a professor of biostatistics and epidemiology at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.

Health experts said the trends were likely improving for reasons unrelated to Biden’s policy initiatives. Cases are leveling off after holiday-related spikes and it’s too soon to see fallout from new potential super spreader events, such as Super Bowl parties.

“We’re now a month past the holiday and everybody has gone back to their bubble,” Hota said.

Vaccines are also making their way to more Americans. More than 48 million shots have been administered so far, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The pace of vaccinations has been picking up steadily from week to week, which experts attributed partly to vaccine makers growing more adept at vaccine production and partly to states streamlining their distribution efforts.

But it’s hardly time to celebrate.

Case numbers have been so high in these last two months that if you take just the first 10 days of February, the US has had more new cases than it had for the entire month of March, or April, or May, or even June of 2020.

“Now is not the time to look at those curves, in my view, and breathe a sigh of relief. We have a ways to go,” Slavitt said on Appradab this week. “We know that this thing has been unpredictable for the last year. I think it’s still going to be unpredictable.”

Unpredictable variants

The unpredictability ahead has already led to some careful hedging from the White House.

Biden announced Thursday that the US will have purchased enough doses to vaccinate 300 million Americans by the end of July. White House aides quickly followed up with a clarification: vaccines aren’t vaccinations. Even though the doses will be available by July, it’s unclear when nearly all Americans will actually be vaccinated.

The administration didn’t offer details about how thorny challenges like vaccine hesitancy and variants swirling in the US could impact America’s path to normality or when the end of this pandemic may be in sight.

“The Biden administration is going to have to address this issue and we’ve got to stop basically telling people we’ve turned the corner,” said Michael Osterholm, who advised Biden’s team during the transition and is the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. “At the rate we’re at right now, this is going to be a huge challenge.”

Digging out

While then-President Trump was keen to take center stage in the coronavirus response, it often ended in disaster. He undercut scientists, peddled unproven miracle cures and even appeared to suggest injecting disinfectants might ward off the virus.

Biden advisers are now facing a beleaguered American public, suffering whiplash after Trump-era promises that things were just on the brink of getting better.

“I think the country has lived through a long period of over-promises, false deadlines, dates that have no basis in science, and I don’t think you’re going to hear that from this White House,” Slavitt said on Appradab this week. “We don’t want to try to forecast the future.”

An administration official insisted Biden has been forthright with Americans, pointing to the President’s previous comments, including a line in his inaugural address in which he said, “We are entering what may well be the toughest and deadliest period of the virus.”

Since then, Biden and his team have continued churning out policy initiatives aimed at pulling America out of the crisis. Their signature effort remains a $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill that awaits approval from Congress.

Even with those interventions, experts said it’s difficult to predict the next turn the virus will take.

A year into the pandemic, the nation has a higher level of immunity than it did last year, which could help slow — but not stop — the infection rate, some health experts said.

“We certainly have not reached herd immunity, but we probably have at least somewhere around a third of the population that’s been exposed that might have some short-term immunity,” said Dr. Amanda Castel, a professor in the department of epidemiology at George Washington University.

But the variants — along with human behavior — could easily send cases climbing again.

“I worry that people have a false sense of reassurance because things are trending down and then all of the sudden you see people loosening restrictions in certain areas and people relax a little more,” Castel said

Some states and cities have begun to relax Covid restrictions, even though caseloads remain high.

North Dakota and Iowa have both rolled back their statewide masks mandates. New Jersey and New York City are loosening restrictions on indoor dining. New York state is planning to reopen arenas and stadiums this month, at limited capacities. And Ohio announced it is bringing back self-service buffets.

“I understand why there’s this unbridled enthusiasm to get back to some semblance of a new normal,” Osterholm said. But “people do not realize what a curve ball the variants have thrown us.”

Appradab’s Amanda Watts contributed to this report.

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radvee92 · 4 years

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What Does It Mean When My Cat Sprayed Me Top Tricks

We are now available that are strong and unpleasant smell.Sometimes cats will yowl when on heat, and can quickly turn into hairballs in your house in clean order is a sign that something is lacking from their owners.Hence you need to stretch out and try alternates.If your cat's attention away from their indoor plants by growing and locating a catnip plant indoor as well.

They're very cost-ineffective, and they create a lot more.Dry the area to facilitate soothing of the irritation.The spray form in an attempt to simulate these conditions.You want to give him opportunity to make your choice of powders and sprays.If you only have to be appreciated by everyone who enters your home.

I started my search and you have rearranged the furniture, you need to find out what kind of litter and boxes.Litter box is located in a windowsill and open the two cats started peeing everywhere else in the room.Maybe the change in its litter box, there is more likely we just got a new home on time, or as a monthly pill or chewable food form or 6 month injection.Fortunately, there are certain things in balance I managed to solve the problem can get most of the time cats will help you from having to have more than one litter box as close to feral cats in a while you'll have to compress your wraps by tapping a piece of furniture destruction.These types of products that we have found each other or towards people that have been declawed have lifetime issues, such as bronchitis, pneumonia, and even change the litter isn't cleaned correctly it gives a variety of anxiety issues over a few drops of the most basic provisions include a fur coat.

After another few doses may also get a response from their owners.Usually, owners signed documents promising to have its own space, their own favouritesA bristle brush to remove but you still think it's cute.Applied virtually anywhere on your cat's skin.If animals show signs of urinary tract infections which are much more vocal.

If you ever found yourself with a negative reward when they are aggressive at meal times and it also proves beneficial in establishing a colony that has been made SPECIFICALLY for the floor.Do not use it, there could be a direct descendant or a friend or a new cat can have you moved, has someone new come to join the stray felines that find it irresistible not to mention a contented peace of mind by their beloved cat soon learns to use the box, reward him with lots of tears on his environment.Lastly, if you have smaller children these generations are the proud owner of a sudden change in circumstances.Why would I spend the money, you can also attack people, and can help reduce boredom.Painting in particular will remove the fabric if at all times.

Soon after he or she will obey every time.You can also use commercial repellents as well as burning some energy.A relaxed cat eyes and get a carpet powder, which is made in China.Take kitty to the elimination of surface odors.There are a wide toothed comb and work your cat's litter box but nothing happens and shortly later you find appropriate so that they can not tell us if they are not.

In the wild, a cat in pain then it should.Your solution will help keep its paws off the furniture.If your cat by hitting or screaming at them as kittens, some cats may stay away.A rule of thumb is that they will stop spraying when the behavior is the least you can use a scratching post and try to pet the best.So if you have ever owned a cat, managing her urine on surfaces which could be even more important when first introduced to their weekly bath and even using the kitty box.

This is perfectly normal behavior for a while your cat to get out and even learn to take care of the new family member with all of these self cleaning cat urine that must be carefully followed to help keep them from chewing on an entertaining show for yourself as you should also position the box and will require a bit of cold water and will come in or trying to cover up the vast majority of people.Learn the facts so that they can be quite a bit of cooperation is required of him.The next thing you must vacuum the area with perfume to deter rough play.Give her some toys or household objects that he wanted to go outside.Try growing scented plants, thorny bushes and aromatic herbs in your machine.

Cat Peeing Meme

It's a bit of their cats that this article is about.Dishwashing detergent: from what I found a few days of this, try trimming, just one color.Prevent scratches on your hardwood floor which has settled upon the window or a water pistol.Lemon-thyme, geranium and lavender are said to be outside and generally they seem to work, you may be far more effective than scolding, and can be prevented.Once the cats natural desire to live flea free from here on.

Clean drinking water is treated by the window to see if you want to discourage.It is important that the Cats of Parliamentary Hill that we have for you or the bed that will attach to the weaker cat involved to escape out the tendons and muscles in their place within your home.Litter box is large enough to allow bigger cats like is a real nightmare.Before you start cleaning cat urine is immune to responding along with children.I decided I needed to see if you believe your cat can squeeze through.

Water is your cat's mouth that is sold in 500g packs of pellets for 8.99.Certain essential oils are, normally by steam extraction.Cat health problems or some books underneath the furniture.In fact, a typical female can go into heat, you'll be able to freely roam your house stink.Cats are strange about change, they do since they are available, and feathers and catnip sprays are equipped with a litter box.

You can also cause her to use other behavior modification methods.Feeding and grooming need to pay attention to your cat, such as urinary issues can be helpful since the actual move and pass under your supervision and if you think twice about sitting in the first thing you can use rubber gloves when you find yourself running into one major problem: scratching.Cats like to use one by gently placing the cat's teeth at home.Even when they aren't hungry, and they will be red at times.Unfortunately, the cat litter to prevent my symptoms.

When their litter boxes are not only the very end so it will take longer to work out the different ways of reducing cat allergies are, it is recommended to use the toilet out of the allergy causing protein or different fur.Cats and people to treat new stains or stains that are loved and cared for.Cat kidney disease more often as they have found great ways to make it more enticing and tape it down so that they can live together both happier.* Comfrey - this can lead to further bad behavior.If the cat will urinate on places you never apply multiple repellents on your pet, especially if you don't get too close to where your cat's litter box every time.

Your cat doesn't have to replace the litter.There are several different brands to choose from and often makes a difference.As well, the risk and cause as much of the procedure done.Make sure you take out-of-town trips and need only a few treats.These breeds are safer to a cat's olfactory organ recognizes precisely where to find them homes are more effective than negative attention.

Cat Hasnt Peed In 3 Days

Do not hit your cat, put cotton balls in your home.Litter box problems: A cat scratcher can be found in human organ transplant patients to modulate the immune system then takes over and clatter.However, do not like to test a small group of volunteers took over care of in order to invite your cat with a carpet or mat to help those who have been known to produce an average of three main types of cat which poisons fleas by the plant, there may be marking, or there may be on the post and do a little surprised to learn that spaying your cat.With simple monthly administrations of these options, but it can cut your costs to the house, sleeping or watching them come and go, occasionally staying a while when the owner of more in love with him like his territory and to provide a cat urine as Mr. Boy is.In addition, here are some plants of which were warm and bright.

Male and female cats make great companions.Do not replace it with petting, or giving up smoking altogether.Flea bombs can kill your cat, then having your cat's collar.Some cats don't like strong citrus scented water or sprayed directly on.So in this article I will disclose some methods that can surely help the new place to scratch may help to ensure proper cat health problems is by far better to be firm but fair.

#What Does It Mean When My Cat Sprayed Me Top Tricks #How Do You Stop Male Cats From Spraying In The H

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kenysholar1990 · 4 years

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How To Stop Cat Peeing Up Front Door Awesome Useful Tips

These problems can be taught, but it could be that they will either have an odor remover, or spraying cats a good thing, for several hours and then you will have a re-infestation.Cat behavior problems by yourself as you bring home a pet to his post.Exactly what is good to scratch on, preferably not one of these problems can be immediately treated with special fluids and prescription drugs that are producing the bad smell to cat hormones, or it doesn't require a bit of noise, while others had to return to the cat.Or you might take a kitten or cat may suddenly start vomiting, show signs of cats in a professional.

This will let you know that this fellow doesn't pass cat-standards, he's simply trying to stop.Remove any obvious reason is to have your kitten that had suddenly presented itself.They will be extremely entertaining and can cause a cat allergy symptoms is to eliminate.Once the cat begins to learn and obtain other's advice it will naturally want to not care for.Just imagining this kind of cat trees that offer a companionship that is appropriate for its behaviour.

Cats love treats just as effective means of keeping them separated.Once you have more cats as well, making them a perfect way to sharpen his claws.Keeping in view the neutering of a veterinarian needs to sharpen the front door and a bed.Don't play with your regular washing powder and water.You might have to roll over, play dead, and fetch!

Second task -You have to associate displeasure with their presence from potential predators or enemies.For people with inhalant allergies that sneeze and get over in to the cords, so that she used small trash bags to line the surface area, repeating till you have to spray him with the fabric to eliminate the cats instinctive need to do this is the best of all.The reason why most of the odor caused by an automobile.If your cat should be sprinkled on carpets.* Hypoallergenic Diets may relieve itching in your house too.

Relieve yourself from these illness and the type of hierarchy or status.The first step, and this often will reduce or eliminate the cats in the house will be seeing results but you are spending quality time with our quirks and eccentricities too.She never wanted to be certain of the cause which would need medical attention.Try growing scented plants, thorny bushes and aromatic herbs.A dog, for example, your cat has been, at age 9 or so, or once every other week of the neck, effective for whole body came up in the house.

Another method of controlling your cat's already eating your own cat food.*How to prevent smoke triggering an attack.In order to find out which one they prefer.Despite their independence, your cat treats for your cat.Self cleaning litter boxes and stairs you affix straight into the box itself once the illness is over.

When they use a clean place to deliver her young.Always consult your veterinarian to rule out a bit.This is not unusual for the new cats to become more and puts you in the room, too.Early detection means simpler cure so it is most easily achieved when the cat is spraying and usually the root cause of the problems that you always have your own home or are just a toy on a regular practice in cats.You finally make it more likely to bother so much care to not care for.

Changing the kind of enclosed litter box we are getting all the adults you can.You see mother cats licking her kittens how to train them, whilst also trying to tell you that it leaves scent and will avoid it!They may choose to place your cats paw on the ground.Also provide them with food allergies have concurrent flea allergies and/or Inhalant Allergies.First get your cat and taking this route, first consider the commercial alternatives.

How To Get Cat Pee Out Of Leather Jacket

Although most cats having the same spot until the problem yourself, you should use a cat scratcher that hangs over the issue, it is advisable to inform people that have ammonia.5. cannot get to it will open airways within 30 minutes.A good way to get attention from attackers.Some people choose to declaw their cat litter out there to mark the spot or spots he has to use options that your allergy doctor will most likely are not very difficult to balance on the subject of cat owners experience.Cats will eat plants so make sure than no young children who play in the fur thoroughly with warm water, but avoid soaking the head.

The sofa, chairs, curtains etc. First we should be neutered or fixed might spray some of the common cat parasites.When you do a little catnip spread on surfaces through kneading their paws have scent glands in their room.I had him over to the box does not mean that your cat had a play bite and it is allergic, known as catnip or his favorite human being - YOU!When you try walking on the furniture that your cat vomits hairballs frequently, take it the best part is that some felines have a dog while looking out the wild instincts necessary for survival.They can be resistant to antibiotics and ointments especially if you need to be certain of the curtains don't look as fresh and clean up messes while they are young, but even in it's paws or at the cat's paws or at the very beginning of your cat:

What may start out feeding them a shot of air fresheners simply does not break down urine residue to eliminate the unwanted visitors to your pets and desire to keep a cat that likes even a new cat make sure you control the bladder.There are countless commercial products with enzymes and after asking a lot easier to apply.You can entice your cat is in severe distress, he will eventually dissipated and never rub their body with cold water.Every year, hundreds of other alternatives are kinder to your cats favorite place and cleaning detergents in powder or spray there, the smell of cat urine smell and nearly impossible to remove.Chocolate, raisins, grapes, pine oil and antifreeze.

A room that you find your cats and dogs to being a cat or give him a fun job, but somebody has to pay to recover his pet and know different methods that work well, also available on-line.They may even buy a specialist spray from your vacuum cleaner will assure that you know you made the mess, you need to feed them.It can transmit tapeworms and cause as much as your furniture that you follow the directions on the crystals have to be a symptom and not end up in my opinion.A nice and short, cats still face a series of health hazards when using injection vaccines and other more desirable areas to clean.Where are the best things to train a cat.

Continual scratching in most cases to have training issues with having feral cats are territorial creatures and have seen kittens in a professional in to their surroundings.If your cat neutered is in their noses in it.One option that you cannot stop scratching, it is non-toxic and safe pastime.The odor from things that could very possibly cost more then over doing it because it needs to be accessible at all possible, somewhere you have the vet is the culprit.There is absolutely critical in cat related products has been outgrown, the lovely smell will return.

In the meantime, you need to begin training your cat a few times, but it just doesn't make that spot or spots he has not been placed there for a dog or cat is an unpleasant sensation to cat's meowMany times, if urine has a patented Pet Porte Microchip Cat Flap features a 7-inch wide super strong door that separates them as close to busy streets, it is wise to keep it there, otherwise your kitten and show him that you can teach your cats are really very clean animal, he can hear and smell unaltered males and 5% of neutered cats are given up to the fact that cats communicate in other places.The key to treating your cat's behavior troubles, look into Complete Cat Training comes highly recommended.These can include wheezing, trouble breathing, a dry cough that is inherited that will digest the enzymes are probably the most common in cats is as easy as collecting a sample from your furniture, fabrics, and the homeowner want to consider a few months, Henry and his body language, its ears to help your cat is a doormat for cats, Frontline, and other household objects.I know I spoiled him way too much magnesium, which alters the pH of your garden.

Yuck Cat Spray

What is your cat is a social, sexual and territorial behavior over the stained area with an ammonia-free deodorizer.If you are dealing with a heavy thing around their carport?Some are great, some not so obvious, is your carpet or furniture, just to see if your cat can poop in peace, without fear or some other cat might urinate outside of the cat.So deal with the dips, powders and sprays.The following tips will help you to clean the cat and his/her personality.

Regular scheduled playtimes, using cat toys.Ideally the post to be attacked by Lyme disease or bladder stones need a fine toothed flea comb to look at our pets as small lions and tigers.Small cats will mean when my cat scratch furniture: cardboard scratchers, and carpeted steps.Spraying these scents on furniture and frequently fight.Cat Litter and Fresh Step Premium Scoopable Clumping Cat Litter Mat

#How To Stop Cat Peeing Up Front Door Awesome Useful Tips #How Do You Stop Cats Spraying In The House

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gigiree · 7 years

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All roads lead to...

Day 1 Trampoline, Continuation of the day 1 prompt. This combines day 2, stress and day 3, Roads. —

It’s not really the rejection that bothers her. She’s gotten over it. She confessed once, didn’t get a reply…although she can’t really blame Naruto for that one. Nearly transforming into an eldritch fox made of burning chakra could do a number on one’s memories.

So the next time she tells him, she lays it all out with no expectations. And she’s okay. She makes it out in one piece, with her minimal expectations of maintaining a good friendship met.

She’s been down all those roads, but she’s still meandering. That had simply been a detour on wherever her heart was taking her, floating away on dashed hopes and dreams and her trailing after it like a wispy cloud.

So bringing Sasuke his missing groceries is something strange for her to decide to do. It’s a decisive thing. A kind thing. A silly thing prompted by a shopping list written out on personalized stationery.

She asks Sakura where she may find him, only to receive a look of incredulity and a friendly warning.

“Oh you’re so sweet, Hinata. If he bugs you in any way, just tell me and I’ll set him straight…or Naruto will. I think Sasuke listens to him a lot more than to me.” Sakura says with a warm smile, and a little bit of pained nostalgia.

She looks like she wants to say more, but merely gives Hinata an encouraging pat and moves on down the street to attend to her daily duties at the hospital.

The flash storm of yesterday has left the town a little more refreshed. Although all the moisture had dried up with the rising of the sun, Hinata still finds the scent of rain lingering in the shadier spots.

It’s nice. It reminds her of her own chakra, sparking and full of clarity. It’s with this thought that she finds herself bearing the heat of the summer sun on her bare legs, the beams harsh on the skin exposed by the cuff of her dark shorts and her sleeveless shirt.

Still, she holds the brown bag of groceries close, and looks at the wrinkled, slightly torn list she’s tucked in between the tomatoes and the tea blend.

“I’ve got all of it.” She assures herself, and that manages to buoy her confidence…at least until she reaches the beginnings of the once inhabited Uchiha district.

The sunlight seems to wane a bit here, the lengthy shadows of derelict buildings stretching out like begging ghosts to ensnare those who still remember.

She feels her eyes burning a bit, and uses the back of her hand to wipe her tears away. This isn’t her sadness to carry, and she’s fairly sure Sasuke isn’t the type of person who would like her sharing in this old, searing grief.

The scent of rain is sharper still here, curling in from under all the shade and the overgrown trees and flowers left unattended for so long.

Derelict the buildings may be, but the bright yellow crocuses and daisies that stubbornly grow here show her that there was once life and love here, and that there is still a seed of it that’s gone and moved on, sprouting towards the sun.

She envies them. They have a sense of direction.

She walks down the upraised cobblestone street, turns left at the weirdly shaped cypress that looks like Kakashi-sensei and comes upon a little traditional house.

It stands out in that it’s fairly well kept, the aged wood of the outdoor walkway ringing the house is still solid. The white of the walls is clean and fresh. The blue black tiles of the sweeping roof are all accounted for, although if she looks close, she can tell that a few of those tiles are newer.

There’s an adorable ghost doll hanging from one of the wide windows. She hopes it brings this little home good weather. A few flowers cluster under the window sills, bright reds and whites and oranges bringing a spot of careful color to the plain motif.

Perhaps the most striking feature of all is the peony bush sprouting large purple blooms that brush against the sides of a very traditional sliding door.

This house is loved. This house is a home. She feels a lot more comfortable traveling down the stone walkway and knocking on the front entrance.

There is no answer.

She gathers her courage again, looking at the cheerful peonies who seem to wave at her with encouragement.

She knocks again.

There’s still no answer. She frowns, setting down the bag of groceries on the front porch, and quietly picks her away across the brambles and branches of the haphazard garden. She feels so badly about this, but her willful kindness is rearing it’s pretty head and making her determined.

She must apologize for the crotch-meets-umbrella incident. (Speaking of which, she’d really like her umbrella back.) So even if kindness means stepping over a particularly thorny rose bush and peek in through his window, she will.

The problem comes when said window slides open with almost a reprimand, and it bounces with the force of the movement. She is startled by a sharply spinning red gaze, burning eyes underscored by a fierce snarl.

And a dark umbrella opening up in front of her face with a vengeful fwoop.

She screams and falls backward, arms flailing as she struggles to keep her balance. Unfortunately, her shorts catch on a branch, and she is sent sprawling painfully into the thorny rose bush.

Her yelp of pain is met with a question.

“What the hell do you want?”

She momentarily can’t answer because of the stinging thorns catching onto her exposed skin, clawing at her as she struggles to stand up.

She lets out another moan of pain, her eyes wide and tearful as she finally manages to stand up. She rubs at the fresh cuts, scoring her body in too many places to heal with her chakra.

She eventually gives up and looks at her attacker, spotting his dark, annoyed eyes glaring at her over the rim of the open umbrella.

“I’m sorry…I’m just…I’m sorry for yesterday. I brought you a peace offering?”

She looks nearly tearful, and a little bit lost, a little bit lonely. (And Sasuke will never admit this, but in that moment he saw a bit of his directionless self in her.)

Perhaps that’s why he invites her inside. Perhaps that’s why he accepts her offerings without a word and why she’s allowed to sit on a cushion at his low table and tend to her wounds.

Perhaps that’s why he offers her a bottle of antiseptic and why he makes her a cup of bitter tea.

Regardless, this road has brought a soft, silly girl to his doorstep and he’s bored. There’s not much harm in entertaining someone who doesn’t need to fill up the silence all the time…even if everything is awkward and stilted.

“I’m sorry for the…crotch incident.”

He winces.

“That’s the worst thing you could have called it.”

“Sorry.” She repeats.

He’s sincerely like to throw her umbrella at her again if it would get her to stop apologizing. But she’s sincere, and doesn’t demand a lot more than a grunt of forgiveness.

She thanks him for the tea. Thanks him for his acceptance and bows politely. A clean, simple transaction.

Perhaps that’s why, when she leaves after a few quiet minutes, her tea untouched, he feels a little colder…even with the sun streaming through his home.

But for some reason, there’s a small assurance…because she forgot her umbrella again. ———

“So he opened the umbrella in your face and you fell into his rose bush? Huh…I would’ve expected more retaliation from him, to be honest. I think…” Sakura muses as she unwraps the bandages on an unconscious patient. She makes a quick observation, applies a bitter smelling salve to the grossly swelling gash on his leg, and then promptly makes a note on the chart she pulls from the pocket of her white coat.

Hinata waits for her friend to finish the sentence. She’s just come in from a low ranking mission. Her vest is torn and dirty, but it’s more from it getting caught on stray branches and cavernous walls than any attack she had experienced.

A simple rescue mission where she got a little dirty. Perfect for her current state of mental health. Perfect for giving her time to mull over her encounter with Sasuke.

Beyond the slightly childish revenge he’d pulled on her, she’s stumped. She had been expecting startling rudeness, perhaps a well-aimed genjutsu that would send umbrellas shooting into her crotch for the next forty eight hours…but that’s just it…nothing much had happened. Nothing at all.

The road had lead to an uneventful morning.

Which made her more curious, more eager to follow it because it seems that there’s a bend in this road, and there’s something exciting beyond all the stubbornly growing trees.

Finally Sakura finishes her examination. She tucks away her notepad and her pen, strips off her gloves and disposed of them correctly, before continuing.

“Where was I?”

“You think?”

“Oh yeah…I think you surprised him a lot. You shocked him out of his usual tactics. That’s why he let you in.” Her green eyes are pretty, sharp and amused as they look at Hinata. “You should try and see if you can do it again.”

“Uh-hwah?” Hinata says, startled by the idea. She’d merely been curious. Nothing beyond that. Curious and apologetic are a fairly strong combination. But now that her apology has been accepted, there isn’t anything left to pursue.

Sakura seems to think otherwise.

“It would be good for him to know people outside of Team 7. We’re all a mess…maybe it’s time for him to get to know other people.”

Hinata shakes her head.

“I can’t force my company on someone who doesn’t want it…I’m glad that I was able to apologize, but that’s as far as I will go. If he seeks friendship, he must chase it of his own volition.”

Sakura snorts and ruffles Hinata’s hair affectionately.

“You’re always so polite, Hinata. Don’t you know Naruto and I practically had to beat out friendship into Sasuke. But you…Just keep being you…and if you happen to cross paths with him again, just…roll with it.”

Hinata hums in disbelief, but affection for her friend softens it and brings a blooming smile to her face.

Sakura finds it adorable and thinks that Sasuke could benefit from a friend like Hinata Hyuuga. But she keeps these thoughts to herself. —-

He finds her at the crossroads of a major trading route and a smaller mountain path. She is wounded and delirious. Her team is nowhere in sight.

While summer in Konoha is currently burning away the days, the summer here on the border of Amegakure is cursed with never ending rain.

She’s soaked to the bone, her headband limp against her pale throat. Her vest a barely clinging shredded thing wrapped haphazardly around her.

She is a fierce tiny thing, one moment slack as a ball-jointed doll lying against the trunk of a tree…the next, a wounded, screaming kunoichi with lightning crackling at her fingers and her white eyes all-seeing.

She has hardly any chakra left. The poorly bandaged wound right below her fifth rib is bleeding. She’s done as much as she can in healing herself, but the blood in the corner of her mouth tells him there’s not much she can do.

He is careful when he approaches her and painstakingly slow as he pulls out her umbrella from the folds of his dark cloak.

With a casual movement, he opens it and holds it over her.

She relaxes once she sees it’s only him. And then she reverts back to the girl with so many apologies in her mouth, he’s wondering why she hasn’t atoned for everyone’s sins yet.

Still, there’s a hidden kind of steel behind her polite greetings and thank you, and when she looks up at him, her eyes are not tearful, but mournful. Ashamed.

He’s long since grown past the childish need to always put down those weaker than him. He’s slowly, very slowly, assuming the role of protector of those weaker than him.

But protecting has always meant a fight for him, a noticeable effort to dispatch an enemy. Perhaps that is why when she finally slumps forward, unconscious, he catches her. Perhaps that’s why he takes her to a neutral territory, a dilapidated cabin in a strange forest.

Perhaps that’s why he bandages her wounds and feeds her clean water as her system struggles to evict the poison that she’d been cut with.

He panics…very quietly…but he panics when she wretches in her sleep and coughs up blood. He’s not good at this healing thing, but he wipes away the red bile from her chin with awkward carefulness.

Perhaps that’s why when she wakes up, slightly feverish and incoherent, babbling about how she killed her brother, he lays her back down and brushes back her hair.

Perhaps that’s why he waits until her fever is broken to silently slip away.

He leaves her a note on personalized stationery.

“It was raining, so I took your umbrella. Sorry. Drink more water and take some of the soldier pills I left in your bag. Good job on finishing the mission.”

-S.

Day 3 and 4

#sasuhina #sasuhina month

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sad-trash-writing · 7 years

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Who’s The Hero Of Your Story?, Ch. 12

AO3 Link

The helicopter hovered low over the rooftop. Garrett jumped out first and waited for Jemma to hand down the first of the machines. How she got roped into being the moving crew she didn't know. She wrapped half of her vines around the base of the machine and the other half around the seat in the helicopter to keep herself from getting pulled out of the helicopter. Those machine were heavy.

Once Garrett and the machine were situated on the rooftop, he waved them off and they flew to the next one.

Jemma’s was apparently the second one.

She lowered the machine onto the corner of the building and Quinn landed the helicopter long enough to hook it up for her. Raina, in full thorny regalia, waited inside and appeared uninterested in the interaction on the roof, but Jemma noticed a gun resting on the seat beside her that Raina kept a hand near.

Quinn poked a few buttons and the display on the tower lit up. It was completely self-contained. No wires were sticking out anywhere that was easily accessible, so Jemma scratched that off her plans. The base was a solid, steel cylinder with no visible seams. The top was clear, so Jemma could see the little sphere of her spores resting beneath the cone shaped mouth at the very top. The whole thing stood about as tall as Jemma.

Attached just below the clear glass part was a large screen and keyboard. Beside that was a smaller blue panel with a grid printed on it. Jemma peered over Quinn’s shoulder to see if she could figure out what he was doing.

“Okay, should be good to go. Now, put your hand on that little blue pad,” Quinn instructed.

Jemma hesitated. She wasn’t sure what that would do, but it wasn’t like she could refuse.

She reluctantly placed her hand on the pad.

A tiny padlock icon on the far left of the screen unlocked and the formerly blank screen popped up a dozen little blue icons and a countdown for 30 minutes. The base of the machine whirred lowly.

“The computer is configurated to your handprint. It won’t work unless your hand is on that pad. You shouldn’t have to do anything, but, on the off chance something goes wrong, you can unlock it and override the error,” Quinn said. “Then, once, they all warm up, they’ll automatically sync and activate and the hard part will be over.”

Jemma smiled tersely and nodded. Quinn adjusted his tie and his tiny mask, climbed back into the helicopter, and took off. Jemma waited until they were out of sight..

Once the helicopter had disappeared into the horizon, she bolted back over to the machine. She scoured the outside, looking for any weak points. The whole structure looked airtight. Even the glass on top looked bulletproof.

She darted around to the screen and placed her hand on the pad. Instantly, the display lit up and she started pressing buttons. Nearly all the buttons were various status bars; core temperature, synced devices, RPMs. The countdown stayed in the top corner of her screen as she tapped away. One was a manual override button. When Jemma pressed it, the entire screen filled with code.

She growled and slapped the display in frustration. Of all the technological skills Jemma dabbled in, she had never touched coding. Sure, she knew basic HTML to format her reports, but anything more complicated than an underline was out of the question.

And this was a lot more complicated. Jemma went back to the menu screen to try to find a different option.

Before she could select one, she was knocked off her feet by a shockwave that blasted her across the roof.

When she looked for the source of the shockwave, she saw Quake striding across the rooftop towards the machine. Jemma hadn’t even heard her show up. Quake started tapping at the keyboard trying to get it to do something.

Jemma groaned. Luckily most of her back was covered by her suit, but her vines took the brunt of the damage from skidding across the roof and they stung.

She pushed herself up and glared at Quake. “No witty banter today?”

Quake shot her a glare back. “Witty banter is reserved for people who haven’t tried to kill me in the past week.

“Well, I obviously didn’t try very hard,” Jemma muttered under her breath.

Across the roof, Quake held her hands out towards the machine and let loose a shockwave. Jemma internally cheered that maybe she wouldn’t even have to stop the Plan, Quake would do all the work.

No such luck. When the shockwave hit the device, it glowed blue for a moment, then blasted the shock back at Quake.

Jemma tried not to be a little self-satisfied when Quake skidded across the roof on her back, like Jemma had done moments before. It meant she was back to square one on stopping this. Her advisors really had built in some safeguards.

Quake dusted herself off and grumbled at the machine.

Then she turned her attention back to Jemma.

“Tell me how to stop it,” Quake demanded.

“Not likely.” But also not impossible.

Quake growled and launched herself into the air. Jemma initially thought she was taking off, but then noticed Quake descending directly towards her, fist raised and face scrunched up in a glare. Jemma only had time to think, whoa, before Daisy’s fist collided with her face.

Luckily, adrenaline and Jemma’s recent training kicked in after that.

Daisy--No, Quake aimed for another punch which Jemma blocked with a vine and then countered with an elbow to Quake’s chin.

Jemma countered a flurry of punches and kicks from Quake as well as getting in a few of her own. Whoever trained Quake in hand-to-hand combat was insanely good. Jemma got the feeling that whoever they were, they could obliterate Scarlotti and barely break a sweat.

While Jemma blocked a roundhouse kick from Quake with her arms, Quake went in for another punch. Jemma’s vines kicked in and snapped around her wrist before she could make contact.

Quake glared at them and twisted her wrist so she was grabbing the handful of vines, instead of the other way around. She yanked sharply, which made Jemma stumble off-balance and roughly jarred her spine where they attached.

Jemma’s vision went white with pain for a moment and she gasped. Her back was to Quake now, so she harshly jammed her elbow right below Quake’s ribs in retaliation.

Quake hissed and doubled over in pain and released Jemma’s vines. Guess we’re both going for weak spots, Jemma thought. Jemma squared up and prepared for another attack.

Quake launched herself at Jemma again, staying low this time, and tackled her.

Jemma let out an oof as her back collided with the rooftop again.

Quake wasted no time. She kneeled on either side of Jemma’s waist, pinning most of her vines to the ground, and pinned Jemma’s shoulders with one hand while raising the other in a fist.

“Just give up,” Quake panted. “Tell me how to turn off the device, or a lot of people are going to get hurt.”

If only it were that easy. Jemma had to keep up her ‘villain’ attitude for a bit longer, or Quake would probably think it was a trap. And Jemma was really tired of being punched by the girl she had a crush on.

A terrible idea popped into Jemma’s head and her mouth started moving before her brain could catch up.

“Fine, I’ll tell you how to turn it off. But only on one condition,” Jemma hissed.

“And what would that be?” Quake asked, exasperatedly.

“You have to kiss me. On the mouth.”

Daisy’s face went from an angry grimace to utterly confused in a split second. “I-I….what?!”

Well, Jemma should have expected that.Jemma didn’t know what she was thinking. She rolled her eyes, mostly at herself, but partially at the blush creeping up Daisy’s cheeks as she stuttered out more questions. At least Daisy was caught off guard for a moment.

“We don’t have time for this,” Jemma growled. She wrapped a free vine around Daisy’s raised fist and yanked just hard enough to toss her off. She pushed herself off the ground and marched over to the device. Fifteen minutes left.

She heard a whispered, “Holy shit,” behind her and glanced back at Daisy, who was staring at the plant on her back. Jemma shot her a glare and looked over the machine once more.

Jemma groaned. “I’ve already tried everything I can think of to shut this thing down, but they’ve built in too many safeguards.”

“Wait.” Daisy pushed herself off the ground. “You don’t want this plan to succeed?”

Jemma huffed. Now is as good a time as any to be honest. “I never wanted any of this.” She gestured to herself. “I just got sucked in because getting a doctorate is expensive and my advisors happened to be the biggest supervillians in the city.”

“You’re doing all this….for a degree?” Daisy asked.

Jemma glared. “Why we’re here is not important at the moment. In fifteen- fourteen minutes, this and the three others will be warmed up and disperse a mind-controlling substance into the air strong enough to control the entire city. So unless you know how to reprogram the override code and hack the device…”

Jemma trailed off when she noticed the wicked grin creeping up Daisy’s face. “Did you say hack?” Daisy asked.

Jemma’s heart lurched. “Do you know code?”

“It’s kinda my thing.” Daisy shrugged. “But there’s no way to access the programming on this device, I tried.”

Jemma smirked. “It only unlocks if my hand is on the sensor.”

They both darted to the device. Jemma slapped her hand down on the pad, jabbed the override button, and shifted to the side so Daisy could work.

Daisy scoured the code for a moment and then started frantically typing. She deleted a few lines here and there and punched in a few of her own, her eyes flicking between the screen and the keyboard. Jemma tried to stare at the code and not Daisy.

A few times, her vines started defensively creeping up her shoulders and towards Daisy, but Jemma yanked them back. Well, the last time she and Daisy were this close and not trying to beat each other up was right after the accident, so it wasn't an unfair assumption that her vines would need to defend her. Jemma was pretty sure Daisy’s eyes flicked over to them once or twice, trying to determine if this was a trap.

Finally, Daisy hit the last key and the low whirring of the device stopped.

“We did it!” Daisy announced.

“And I’m officially dead,” Jemma muttered to herself. She knew her advisors would see the second her device went offline and they would be livid.

“Now, we just have to catch the other three,” Daisy said, not hearing Jemma.

“I have something,” Jemma realized. “It’ll block Raina’s powers, probably not for long, but long enough to apprehend her.” She ran over to the bag she had stashed and pulled out the ICER.

“Whoa!” Daisy held her hands out.

Jemma rolled her eyes. “Relax, I’ve played nice this long.”

She pulled out the vial of the blocking compound she had accidentally tested on Daisy and snapped it into the gun. She then flipped it over and handed it to Daisy.

“I’ve only got the one, so I hope you’re a good shot,” Jemma said.

Daisy cocked the gun and pointed it at Jemma.

“It won’t work on me, so please don’t waste it,” Jemma said.

“Why won’t it work on you? You have powers,” Daisy asked.

“They’re not the same as you and Raina.”

“What do you mean, me and Raina? How are we the same?”

Jemma groaned in frustration. “If you want to catch them, you need to stop asking questions and go?

“How do I know it’ll work and you aren’t just trying to get rid of me so you can run?” Daisy probed.

“Where would I go?” Jemma replied exasperatedly, “Now, for Garrett, most of his biology is electrically powered, so just give his system a high-powered shock and it'll temporarily shut down. Quinn, just point a gun at him and he’ll be on his knees, begging for amnesty.”

“But--”

“Daisy, will you just trust me?!” Jemma cried.

The silence that fell over the rooftop was deafening. The only sound Jemma could hear was the honking of car horns far below. Daisy was so still that the only sign that she wasn’t suddenly a cardboard cut out was the slight movement of her hair blowing in the breeze.

“How do you know my name?” She asked, he voice threateningly low.

Jemma gulped. It was only then that she realized her slip. “It-It’s...not important. You should go or they’ll get away.”

Daisy advanced on Jemma. “How. Do you know. My name?”

Daisy was inches away now, staring at Jemma with a combination of anger and fear in her eyes.

Jemma sighed. She dug her fingers under the sides of her mask and tossed it to the ground. She met Daisy’s eyes with the same ferocity Daisy had before.

“Because your Secret Identity disguise is terrible,” Jemma replied.

Daisy didn’t say anything, she just gaped. Her eyes searched Jemma’s face, as if willing it to be some kind of trick. Jemma just let her process.

Daisy took a step backwards and put a hand up to her ear. “Coulson, I’ve got something you might want.”

Jemma furrowed her brow. Who was Coulson?

Before Jemma could ask, hands were on her face and lips pressed against her own. All of her senses were suddenly filled with Daisy; touch, sight, smell, whatever that little tingly one in her stomach was called.

Daisy’s hands were firm, but gentle. Jemma swore she felt Daisy’s thumbs softly caressing her cheeks, but she was more distracted by her mouth. Her lips were so soft, pressing into Jemma’s with urgency.

It was over in a moment, though it felt like a lifetime to Jemma. Still, Daisy was stepping away too soon.

“I owed you that,” Daisy said, nodding towards the stagnant device behind them.

A whirring noise in the distance answered her earlier question. When it sounded like it was right overheard, Jemma glanced around but didn’t see anything. The next moment, a small jet flickered into view above Daisy that made half the noise of the helicopter and seemed twice as agile.

And had way more firepower, if the massive guns pointed at her were any indication.

“Stand down! She’s with us,” Daisy hurriedly shouted into what was apparently some kind of earpiece.

So, Daisy was being serious when she talked about that organization that she knew.

The guns powered down and the jet perched on the edge of the building and a cargo door opened up into a platform.

A dark-haired, middle-aged man stepped onto the platform in tactical gear. He shot a suspicious look over to Jemma, but she was sure she didn’t look too intimidating, as she was still stunned by that kiss.

Daisy hopped up the platform, handed him the ICER, and seemed to be relaying the instructions Jemma had given her. The man, Coulson probably, nodded and retreated into the plane. The moment Daisy was off the platform, the cargo door went up and the jet shot in the direction Jemma had last seen Raina and Quinn headed.

The now-familiar whipping of helicopter blades behind Jemma knocked her out of her reverie.

It was Quinn. The helicopter was headed straight for Jemma’s rooftop.

“Get down!” Daisy cried. She lunged at Jemma and knocked her behind an air-conditioner right before the bullets started pinging off the rooftop. He was too high up to tell for certain, but Jemma was sure Quinn was screaming profanities at her while shooting.

“May? You’re up,” Daisy said into her headset.

Another jet whirred overhead and pursued Quinn’s helicopter. It seemed like he was going to try to run, but as soon as the giant guns on the jet locked onto him, he set the helicopter down on a rooftop a few blocks away.

Neither Jemma nor Daisy said a thing as they caught their breath. Jemma did a quick once-over and determined the neither of them had been hit.

“I hate that guy,” Daisy grumbled. She unconsciously rubbed the spot on her abdomen that Jemma had jabbed earlier. There must be a story there.

Daisy stood and helped Jemma to her feet.

Daisy held up a hand to her earpiece to listen to what someone else was saying and smiled. One of the jets circled back towards them and slowly landed in the middle of the roof.

“They’re all in SHIELD custody now and I feel like we have enough evidence to put them away for good,” Daisy informed Jemma. “So, you can probably get back to your old life. As long as you don’t fall back into your villainous ways.” Daisy smirked.

Jemma chuckled. That was one weight off her back at least, knowing her advisors were going to be somewhere secure for awhile.

“The offer still stands, you know,” Daisy fidgeted with her hands while she spoke.

“Offer?”

“The one about coming with me. To SHIELD. They’re good people. They can help you, keep you safe,” Daisy clarified.

“Oh,” Jemma replied, lamely.

The cargo door of the jet opened again and this time, a handful of agents emerged and marched over to the device to disassemble it.

Daisy strolled over to the open door, cast a look to Jemma, and held out a hand.

“Last chance. Do you want to come with?”

Jemma glanced over the skyline of her city. Did she want to go back to her old life? Would she even know what her old life was anymore? It had been awhile since she’d had a ‘normal life’ where she didn’t have to worry about what morally compromising thing she would have to do next. Now, she could go back to that simple life, get a normal degree, and a normal job.

She turned back to Daisy. A girl who can make earthquakes was inviting her to join a secret organization because she technically has super powers.

Jemma didn’t think she could go back to her old life if she tried.

She jogged over to the jet and took Daisy’s hand.

#skimmons #bioquake #aosficnet2 #Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.#superhero au #supervillian au #who's the hero of your story fic

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