handsomest man to ever handsome

it's in the blood // this is tradition

Summary: Children inherit all sorts of traits from their parents. Not all these traits are good.

"My reputation preceded me before I was born."

[ charlotte & lola au ]

A/N: 2292 words. Halsey's new album killed me on the spot. i talk a lot about the next gen being mirrors of their parents, but i'd like to go into detail about that not necessarily being a positive. @misscharlottelee this made me feel things. i love these kids.

Warnings: overdose mention, addiction discussion, mentions of drug abuse.

Penelope Dingley-Lee

Tommy can count the amount of times he'd seen Razzle truly angry on one hand, and here and now he can see it again, written all over his neice's face. He'd thought she would look like Charlie when she's angry, and occasionally she does, the way her lip curls derisively, dismissively, that's very reminiscent of his cousin, but here and now, her blue eyes are hazy, cloudy, and her lips twist with an irate arrogance that is worryingly familiar.

Angry and high and wearing clothes that don't quite match, in this moment she's exactly her father's daughter.

She's been in the papers again. Her tits have been in magazines again. Tommy bites down on his instinctual desire to repremand her; she'd call him a hypocrite, call him an old man, tell him to keep his opinions to himself while she could still buy his sex tape out of a shady car boot down the street.

Charlie was like that too, on occasion, wit too quick for him to keep up with. When she got into a mood like this, Tommy didn't have to worry so much; usually Razzle would egg her on, but knew when to pull her back.

"It's my god given, motherfucking right to go feral -" he'd heard Charlie back in the eighties holler at three in the morning, high on amphetamines and waving a gossip rag above her head. Razzle would be on the sofa, equally fucked up, but gazing at her like she hung the stars in the sky.

"Lola gets photographed at least once a month stark naked along the strip like it's a sport, why is my Playboy shoot a national crisis?! My tits are fantastic!"

"They are, my love," Razzle nods seriously, and Tommy pulls his pillow from beneath his head, trying to either block out their voices through the thin walls, or maybe smother himself. The girl beside him, the groupie whose name he doesn't know, asks blearily why there's so much yelling. Tommy doesn't answer.

A week later, Tommy is the one to bail out Charlie and Razzle for public indecency, and they're both beaming from ear to ear.

Here in the present, Penny is draped out on the sofa, laughing low and pleased as she watches TV.

"TMZ blurred out my tits," she snorts, "cowards."

"Penny..." he can't help the faintly disappointed notes in his voice when he says her name.

"Thomas, I've read The Dirt," Penny fires back venemously. Hypocrite he hears in her tone, you have no power over me.

There's something hollow in her eyes in the photos he sees of her in the papers. She wears her father's inflluence and her heart on her crushed velvet sleeve, on the arm of a shallow, pretty, band boy who plays badly and loudly. But she laughs louder, though tthe sound is low and unconvincing if anyone bothered to listen hard enough, and Tommy wonders if he has enough dark hair dye left for when that boy breaks her heart.

Jupiter Lee

Tommy is proud to watch Jupiter on stage, but he is afraid.

Their anger is something he remembers from Lola, the way they cling to the past with vitriol echoes their mother, but on stage, they drink up the attention, get high off the love the audience gives, and he sees himself in those moments.

A child of addicts, Jupiter had drawn lines in the sand for themselves that they refused to cross; no alcohol, no drugs, and they'd stayed loyal to that. But highs come in all forms; they simply picked a different kind of poison without realising.

On stage, halfway between the gutter and a god complex, Tommy knows the smile they wear all too well.

Rebellion from Jupiter didn't shock the world like it did when it was Penny's name in the papers. Jupiter's trajectory was spot on in the eyes of the public, but rebellion wouldn't be the thing that broke them.

Once, so long ago that it's a miracle the memory survived, Tommy remembers asking Lola what she would be doing if she wasn't with the band. Lola gave him an easy, bleary smile, laughing sweetly when she told him that one way or another, she'd be here. In the moment it overwhelms him with love. In hindsight it breaks his heart.

"Come on, I think this is inevitable," Jupiter smiles on television as an interviewer asks them the same question; if they weren't making music what they'd be doing, "as if I'd do anything other than this."

'Don't you know where I come from?' is left unspoken, but Tommy still hears it.

He tries to picture himself in a life without the world at his feet the way he has now. No image comes to mind. Nothing else makes sense. Even if he wanted to do something else, wanted to grow up to be something else, he couldn't even begin to picture it for himself, tragedy and all.

They play their parts. They let history repeat itself. Jupiter makes mistakes Tommy and Lola had already learned from. Penny plays Jupiter's conciousness until the role grates on her nerves, diving head first into chaos, taking Jupiter with her with little convincing.

Tommy remembers this too.

When the world looks at Penny and Jupiter, they like to remember how Lola was seen as a bad influence on Charlotte, but forget that Tommy would have followed Charlotte in to Hell without hesitation.

Leo "Seo" Sixx

Lola has google alerts set up for her son, Seo, because he disappears for months without warning. Tommy asks how he is, and Lola looks to her phone with a tight smile, telling him that he's competeing in a skateboarding competition in Prague. She learned that from Twitter.

Seo comes and goes without warning, and talks to his siblings more than his parents. He loves them, but he hasn't allowed himself to stop for years. He doesn't know how. Then again, neither did Lola or Nikki.

"Jupiter thinks a lot about legacy, don't they?" He's in Tommy's kitchen, eating a poptart, when Tommy returns home one friday evening. He's waiting for Penny and Jupiter to finish getting ready, the three of them going out.

"Do your parents know you're in town?" Tommy asks with faint amusement, though there's a twinge of guilt in his gut when Leo considers that he should probably let them know. Says he forgot. Tommy's not sure if he believes him; like his parents before him, he tends to leave a lot unsaid. It's part of his charm, the world seems to think, but Tommy knows all to well how deliberate of an act it can be.

"Jup's got all this stuff in their head about legacy and who they should be," he continues his earlier thought, "which I guess makes sense, they tie a lot of themselves up in their identity," he shrugs, then, "I don't know Leo."

Tommy's not sure if he's talking about the grandfather he's named after, or himself.

"You've given this a lot of thought," Tommy says quietly, humouring him.

"I think a lot," Seo responds, "I've been thinking about going back on my meds, its weird being off of them." Of course this concerns Tommy, who knows objectively that Seo isn't his kid, but he's close enough that Tommy feels like he's allowed to be concerned. "I'm worried a doctor's note isn't going to be enough to let me compete at the Olympics on speed," falls too casually from Seo's lips, alarming Tommy in an instant. Though it must clearly show on his face, as Seo breaks out into an apologetic grin, "dextroamphetamine, for my ADHD. I've been trying to wean off it for the Olympics, it's been hard -" but his next words, said so blithe, so casual, have Tommy's heart stopping in his chest as he's thrown back thirty years, "I've been on them since I was like eleven years old; it was great, I could think, like the right amount, but now I... I think everything. I feel everything. Its a lot." He shrugs, like he didn't just become an echo of his father.

Seo's parents both died twice from overdoses, and now their son feels like he can't function without amphetamines.

Objectively Tommy knows that they work for Seo, that he's not abusing them he simply uses them to help him function, but the irony is not lost on him. It's a lot to unpack. He doesn't think to ask about the Olympics; it slips his mind until he sees Seo and a silver medal on his Twitter feed.

Lola calls Tommy in tears. She's proud, but she wishes she'd known, wishes she'd been able to watch it live, or go over and support him in person.

No-one in Seo's life seems to fully know or understand his intentions or actions, no-one can predict his next move. He puts up a bright facade, but like his parents before him, he does not trust the world to know him.

They don't know where he goes in the few months after the Olympics, all they know is that he doesn't come home.

Cerie "CerieThree" Sixx

Since she'd turned sixteen, Tommy has never seen Cerie Sixx without a smile. That is a very deliberate choice that she's made.

She's made a choice to rise above the percieved grime of her origins. She's halfway across the country, smiling for a camera she can control, editing her image before she lets it out into the world. Cerie Three - even the name the world knows reflects this; she's picked apart the context she was born into, disecting it, deciding which was useful to show the world, disposing of the rest.

She speaks warmly to her family, from what Tommy can gather, but the people on the peripheries of their life seem more like associates in the coldest sense of the world. Her smile doesn't reach her eyes half the time when she sees Tommy, and she shakes his hand when her brothers will hug him. The internet is closer to her than he is.

Cerie looks the most like her mother of all her siblings; she's 21, the exact same age Lola was when she met Tommy, but half the time he can barely see the resemblence. Lola had let the world see a villain at that age; Cerie had learned from that, had rejected that, rejected the cold, hard humanity of her mother's fronting. Cerie wanted to be perfect. Cerie had to be perfect, hyper aware of her own image, like her siblings seem to be, but the way she'd so effectively shaped her public identity was kind of terrifying.

Perhaps this was what it was like for people who didn't know Lola, only allowed to know the image she put out into the world, or people who only knew Nikki for his stage presence.

But the more Tommy thinks about it, the more he remembers just how effectively Lola had wrapped the band around her little finger when she set her mind to it, how she talked her way around exectives despite being dressed like she'd woken up in the gutter and fucked up on any number of drugs. Lola understood people, and it seemed Cerie did too.

Cerie Sixx, twenty one, doesn't stop creating content, doesn't stop studying, and doesn't stop smiling. Two of those three things are inhereted traits, inhereted determination, and the third is a choice.

Cyrus Sixx

Though Cyrus had inhereted much of his parent's musical talent, the same way Jupiter had, Cyrus had also inhereted a love of the high life. Even so, he's so full of love, kissing his mother on both cheeks before he goes out to get shitfaced in the bars she was decades before he was even born.

He works hard, at his job, on his music, but his partying matches it just as well. He knows exactly how far he has to fall before he meets the depths his parents' had sunk to, and though he doesn't voice this, his arrogance comes across in his actions.

There'd always be someone to pull him away from swan diving to rock bottom. He takes that for granted, and keeps getting closer and closer.

The only one of Nikki and Lola's children who still lives at home, he's the only one like them in the way they'd feared.

"He's going to have more success than he will ever be able to comprehend," Nikki had told Tommy, the day after Cyrus had been admitted to hospital after staying up for four days while high and obsessing over a song he had been working on. Nikki had found him having a fit after having fallen from his desk chair. Now, sitting on Tommy's patio in the sunset, he looks tired, he looks afraid, "if he doesn't end up killing himself first."

A month ago, the fire department and the police had to pull him, kicking and screaming and bareass naked from a tree in the middle of town. His parents had bailed him out, had felt a familiar sting of guilt as they find themselves reminded of their own youthful exploits. They repremand him, of course, but they both know the only reason they stopped climbing trees was because there had been no-one to pick them up after.

Nikki sees himself in his sons mistakes, but he'd had to learn concequences the hard way.

Tommy loves his family and all it's strange branches, as well as their raucous youth, but his closest friends were some of the most volatile people he'd known, and somehow he'd forgotten that as time as taken people and memories from him.

But these children were made in their image.

Post pictures of your first ever (fictional/celeb) crush to the latest one and tag five others to continue the game.

Ali tagged me, thanks. I guess 😘 @lanzhansmiles​

A’ight so I’m simply taking this as an opportunity to show off my frankly impeccable taste 😌 *coughs into the crook of my elbow with my mask on and from a safe distance* More under the cut, godspeed!

I’m tagging uhh I really don’t want to expose anyone but uh. @morifinwes​ @ttaechwita​ @sunshine304​ @treemaidengeek​ @flamingwell​ no pressure tho!!

Since 2006

Janina Fautz: Die Wilden Kerle, anyone?? Tbh i had a crush on quite a lot of the characters/actors but in hindsight Janina was and is the most influential one. Also probably my first ever girl crush (again, in hindsight bc it took me until 3 years ago to finally find out i’m queer lol)

Eva-Maria May: Yeah well I’m not gonna talk about where I know her from let’s say it was an incredibly bad soap opera my mom used to watch. She was one of the reasons why I went Yeah I Have Always Been Into Girls. I was pretty obsessed with her to the point where mini me secretly printed out a photo of her to look at lmaooo the signs have always been there and it’s truly amazing how I had been missing them for years

Amy Adams: Her as Amelia Earhart in Night at the Museum was also definitely a huge Thing to young me. Again, I had been completely oblivious about this crush for years

David Luiz: HAH! This is the point where we do NOT get into my football/soccer crushes bc this list would get WAYYY too long hahaha. I had to cut loads of people from my list for this post bc I develop a new celebrity crush every 5 minutes basically but yeah. David Luiz was definitely my biggest football/soccer crush out of..... everyone else

M*rvel

I don’t have a lot to say about any of them since I’m not into m*rvel anymore TFATWS makes me want to stick the tip of my toe back into m*rvel waters but otherwise NO THANKS

Sebastian Stan was, if my judgement of my archive is right, the longest highkey celebrity crush I’ve ever had. Mostly because I love Bucky a lot and he was so amazing in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. I must’ve had a crush on him for as long as I had been in the m*rvel fandom

Recent Past

some celeb crushes from last year that were all more or less short-lived tbh

Ester Expósito: As it often goes I didn’t find her spectacular in the beginning but as Élite went on I started to develop a huge crush on her. I still find her pretty hot but I’m not invested in Élite so yeah..... I have no object permanence

Mina El Hammani: Got to know her through Élite, too. She’s so incredibly beautiful. Had a hard time choosing a photo of her bc I’d stare at every single one for ages. Wow.

Danger Days!Gerard Way: Hah! The ones of you who’ve been following me for longer might remember my posts about wanting to dye my hair neon red. Well, him’s the reason and also clinical depression. Ended up with natural red/ginger bc my hair is too thin for bleaching lel. ANYWAY

Maxence Danet Fauvel: Pretty short-lived crush from my Skam days

Ramy Moharam Fouad: So Ramy has a brother, Tamino-Amir Moharam Fouad, who makes INCREDIBLE music. Ramy made some of his music videos (directed them? not sure), that’s how he came to my attention. Idk man he’s just so incredibly beautiful.... gives me a hint of genvy, too......

Janelle Monáe: Became a fan when Make Me Feel came out, listened to the entire album for days and eventually inevitably crushed on her

Lera Abova: Saw her in ANИА and fell in love. I screamed to my friends for weeks about how she was the most beautiful human being I’d ever seen etc etc. Eventually my crush went away mostly, but I still think she’s stunning

Keiynan Lonsdale: Keiynan said FUCK gender and I said 😍😍😍 and that’s all you need to know.

Current

*deep breath* alright let’s gooo

Bright (Wachirawit Chivaaree): Crushed on him for as long as I watched 2gether/Still 2gether lmao. I still like him a lot and sometimes lose my mind over him but I’m not exceptionally Thirsty™

Tul (Pakorn Thanasrivanitchai) and Max (Nattapol Diloknawarit): If you search either of them on tumblr you will have to scroll for a long, long time to find seperate photos of them. However, I’m not patient enough so here we are. Re: Tul, actually I want to copy/paste what Ali said bc DAMN a man who is confident about his masculinity and sexuality really is kinda hot. Same goes for Max tbh. Also Max’ lips look so soft I [redacted]

Lukas von Horbatschewsky: Also known as Lukas Alexander. He did an amazing job in Druck and he’s just a person I admire in general. As one of the few out trans actors in Germany, he had a main role as a trans boy in Druck and also co-wrote Druck’s seasons 5 and 6. He’s just a huge role model to me and, apart from that, Big Crush Material (h i s  e y e s)

Li Wei: Someone suggested him as Hua Cheng for the TGCF live action and my life hasn’t been the same since. While I’m open for whoever will get that role in the end, I could look at his face for hours and not get bored. Major Genvy, too.

Li BoWen and Liu HaiKuan: I will have to deal with these two in one paragraph bc LanLan bc they have the exact same effect on me which is. that they’re not 100% my type but I WILL go absolutely feral about them at regular intervals, if you know what I mean

Song JiYang: ohh honey. oh honey.......... hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. I have a natural affinity for aquarius ppl and this one lives in my heart rent free. I’d even make him soup if he’d ask.

Wang YiBo: WELL HOLY SHIT. listen. LISTEN! the hype around him is 100% justified imo he really is That Bitch and I love him so so much for it. Fucking ICON

Honorary Mentions: Gender Envy

Here’s to the People I Thought I Had A Crush On But Not Quite until I learned the word Gender Envy:

Zhu YiLong: Man, this is the person who’s mainly responsible for me finding out AT ALL about not being entirely cis. The POWER he holds!!! His performance as Ye Zun in Guardian was like a breakthrough point for me which. certain people witnessed in real time hahaha oh I love this fandom!!

Zhu ZanJin: HIM. AAAH!! He’s literally so beautiful and whenever I see him I just go ZANZAN!! in my head and in the tags bc. well. hIM.

Xiao Zhan With Long Hair: Look, Xiao Zhan is always amazing but BLESS the person who made these manips. I can finally rest.

Wang YiBo: uhh what’s he doing here again?? Tbh YiBo is one of the few, if not the only person that gives me Major Gender Envy that I would also [redacted] if they asked. Do I want to be him or be with him? The answer is Yes.

I skipped the fictional characters bc I tend not to crush on them 👉👈 Instead I will just directly crush on the actors/actresses lol!

Thank you for bearing with me. As a prize, you can choose between a ladder supported forehead kiss, or a bowl of homemade soup. ❤

Chloe’s Last Straw

Synopsis: 

Chloe is guilty of many things in her life. But not this. Never this. So when her mother says something unforgivable to a person she'd usually consider an enemy, it's up to her to put things right. Grab your popcorn folks, and get ready for a roasting. Written for Blackout Tuesday.

..............................

Caline Bustier sighed in exasperation, wondering how her once promising career as an educator had stuck her with this… the most ill-disciplined, out-of-control bunch of students she’d ever had to guide since her formative years as a kindergarten coordinator.

But even those young rapscallions had some level of respect for their elders, whereas the current batch of alleged ‘maturer’ teens…

They couldn’t even raise their heads for role-call in the morning.

“Max! Stop playing with that flying toy this second ! Mylene, Ivan… you can kiss each other during recess! Return to your desks now ! Nathanael! Put down those pencils and listen to me! Lila, I know you said you suffer from ADHD, but until I see a doctor’s note, I expect you to respond immediately when I call your name! Honestly, it’s like trying to herd cats! And where on Earth are…”

“I’m here! I’m here!!” As if in answer to her request, Adrien Agreste bustled in just then, out-of-breath and apparently with a ready-made excuse to explain his absence. “Dawn fashion shoot… then piano recital… early morning practice… stop me falling behind. A-Apologies Miss Bustier… you know how it is with my father…”

“Hmm, yes… I’m afraid I do .” The frowning teacher gave an understanding nod, for Gabriel Agreste’s huge expectations for his son often led to constant late arrivals for his son. “I would say ‘try not to let it happen again’, but something tells me it’s out of my hands. Oh well, at least you haven’t missed any actual lesson time this week. Go and sit down, please. Now I wonder where…”

“ Argh ! S-Sorry Miss! Mom got sick… and usually she handles the morning deliveries… so I had to take a quick detour on my way here… and…” bang

At least, that’s the sound effect there would’ve been, if a stumbling Marinette Dupain-Cheng hadn’t been caught by Adrien on her inevitable descent to the floor. Right place, right time.

Still didn’t stop her blushing like a stoplight though.

“A-Adrien!! Gulp. H-Hi. ” The blunette gave a passable impression of a fish out of water.

“Hey there! F-Funny the places we run into each other, isn’t it?” Adrien seemed equally struck for what he wanted to say.

“ Ahem !” That was the sound of an impatient teacher, who obviously had no romance in her soul and was eager to restart the headcount. “If you two are quite finished with your impromptu act, you can save it for the talent show next month. Take your respective seats so we can get on. Wait…”

Glancing at Adrien And Marinette’s chairs had revealed something unprecedented in the recent history of this hallowed halls of education. In fact, so unbelievable was it, Miss Bustier had to rub her eyes twice just to make sure what she saw wasn’t just another product of her espresso-infused imagination.

For it would appear as though young Agreste and Dupain-Cheng, by some measure the most tardy pupils Caline Bustier had ever known, were not among the last ones to arrive that incredible day.

No, that dubious honor belonged to none other than the students the aforementioned pair shared a desk with, namely Nino Lahiffe and Alya Cesaire.

W-What the… the panicking teacher’s look of astonishment was completely forgivable, as both Marinette and Adrien made good their escape. I’ve never known anything like this to happen before. It’s most unlike them. I just hope they’re okay. Maybe, if they’re not here soon, I should ask the headmaster if…

Miss Bustier’s short soliloquy was interrupted by an unpleasant shrieking noise as a familiar pair strode in. The high-pitched noise made the hairs on her neck stand on end and shattered the formerly serene atmosphere of the classroom once and for all.

“ Dahling . You know I wouldn’t go back to New York without saying goodbye to my precious Coraline, don’t you sweetheart? I might be away for quite a while this time, even past Christmas, but you understand, right? If I’m not there to personally introduce my new range of spangly negligees to the world at Fashion Week, my competitors might steal my thunder! I might even be bumped off the front page of Vogue! And you remember what I’ve told you every day, since the blessed occasion you were born, whenever that was…”

“Yes, mother. ‘If you’re not somebody, then you’re nobody.’ I get it. But do you ‘get’: my name isn’t ‘Coraline’, it’s Chloe . Coraline is that so-called kids movie we saw years ago, the one that was so scary I nearly wet… you know what, n-never mind.”

The loud screech of Audrey Bourgeois’s voice was almost enough to give poor Miss Bustier a migraine, as if the prospect of trying to teach her disruptive daughter good manners wasn’t difficult enough. Why did this have to be the one day I forgot to bring my aspirin to class with me? Tell me, what did I do to deserve this? Did I walk under a ladder yesterday? Did I crack a mirror, or step on a gypsy’s foot by mistake? Please, if I am cursed for whatever reason, let me know how I can fix it. For the love of…

“Mrs Bourgeois! What an unple… u-unexpected pleasure!” The rapidly unraveling teacher put on her fakest, friendliest face to welcome the surprise guest. “How are you? When was the last time we met? I seem to recall it was at the salon…”

“What was that? Who is this strange person heckling me, dear?” Audrey pulled down her shades to stare closer, as Chloe whispered in her mom’s ear. “Oh yes, your public school educator. Still with the red hair I see, ugh . Yes, I remember… I told her to dye her roots blonde like me if she wanted a better job than the impossible task of instructing these degenerates. Because as we all know: ‘blondes have more fun’. Isn’t that right, Chlorine?”

Whether Chloe was still sore from Audrey getting her name wrong twice now, or just plain embarrassed by her female parent’s condescending behavior, who knows. She didn’t repeat her mother’s mantra again like last time though, and instead stood there nervously with her hands in her chino pockets, portraying quite an un-Chloe lack of confidence.

“Well anyway, if you simply must know Miss… Bustier, was it?” An uninterested Audrey inquired, proving the rumor true that her daughter’s name was the only one she regularly forgot. “I was just seeing my precious off, before catching the afternoon plane to uptown New York. It’s just wonderful there in the summer, with all the glitterati in attendance for the various functions. You really must try it, darling… oh sorry I forgot: on your meager salary, it might prove to be an impossible dream. Still, we can’t all be as ridiculously wealthy as me and my husband, can we?”

“Y-Yes, I suppose so.” Miss Bustier desperately kept her sentences as short as possible. She didn’t want the dreadful woman to stay there a second longer than absolutely necessary. “W-Well, I don’t want to keep you, if you have things you need to…”

“So, these are the local children you go to school with, dear?” Deciding she was tired with Miss Bustier’s ‘rambling’, a bored Audrey fixed a critical eye over the classroom. “Well, I must say, I’ve seen far better. A poor crop if ever there was one… why your father refused to let you be privately educated is beyond me. I suspect it’s because he wants to boost his election prospects by letting you ‘mingle with the common folk’, but is it really worth it? I hate to think the effect such distasteful surroundings must be having on your delicate young mind.”

Outraged gasps erupted from all around the room, and if Chloe could’ve jumped into a fifty-foot hole never to emerge, she likely would’ve done so with relish. Alas, this was not an option, and so once more the twitching girl was forced to deal with the consequences of her mother’s shameless arrogance and total lack of volume control.

But just as even the usually docile Miss Bustier was about to say something stronger to defend her visibly irritated students, the last two attendees emerged through the door, puffing and panting as they arrived at long last. Also noticeably, covered in what can only be described as black oil stains.

First up was Nino Lahiffe, who paused slightly to catch his breath and adjust his cap. Then came his girlfriend Alya Cesaire just behind, who despite being pretty exhausted herself, began to speak “N-Nino’s dad gave us a lift, but the car broke down. We had to help him fix it…”

Suddenly Audrey Bourgeois, obviously on a roll, glanced behind her with a pronounced sneer. Upon seeing the pair in question, her expression of disapproval grew even more pronounced…

And what she said next was truly shocking. Except, maybe not her.

“Who might these ‘people’ be, then? While I think it’s laudable you’ll let just about anyone into these types of schools Bustier, I hope you realize some individuals can’t be taught. Just look at those hopeless youths, for example. Obviously from a rough neighborhood, probably down to one parent each, deprived of everything to judge by their filthy clothing, and they can’t even be in class on time. Probably wasting their lives on the street listening to ‘wrap’ music, or whatever it’s called. As if this sort even need an education, in their future careers as minimum wage cleaners or drug-dealers. Really dear, you’d be better off kicking them out and investing in school uniforms instead…”

“ That’s enough !!”

Stunned faces all around. Jaws dropping to the floor. A few people on the verge of fainting, at the identity of the person who uttered those two screamed words.

It wasn’t Miss Bustier, who was prepared to declare her response by more physical means (a hard fist to the face of an unrepentant bigoted snob, if you must know).

Not Alya, who looked just about ready to burst into tears, being held by her apoplectic boyfriend  in his arms (otherwise, he might’ve formed an unstoppable tag-team with his teacher to kick some serious a**).

The surprise shouter was none other than Chloe Bourgeois, who having finally been pushed to her absolute limit at her mother’s complete lack of respect for anyone besides her own reflection, had finally snapped.

And boy, was it something to behold.

“Mom, as I’m sure anyone who isn’t you would agree, I’ve put up with a lot over the years. The insults. The dirty looks. Long absences. Always getting my name wrong. Never telling me you love me. Raising me to think ‘sacking’ anyone who disagrees with you is permissible behavior. I can tolerate all this and more, but there is one thing where I must draw the line. You want to know what that is?”

“ Must we get into this now, dear? You know I like first pick of the best VIP seats…” There Mrs Bourgeois went again, thinking this was just another conversation where she could brush off her daughter’s genuine concerns.

Well, in this case, she was about to get ‘schooled’ (pun not intended).

“Well, I’m going to tell you anyway. It’s racism Mom, plain and simple, and I won’t stand for it! Whatever problems I might’ve had with Alya and Nino in the past, and believe me there’s been plenty, I’ve never treated them differently due to the color of their skin! How shallow can you get?! And coming from me, this is the biggest of big deals!”

It was as if someone had lit a fuse underneath Audrey’s designer shoes, as the formerly unflappable woman suddenly recoiled in shock. “W-What… well I never ! How could you say such terrible things to me, Chlorophyll? Why, if you weren’t my own flesh and blood, I’d sue you on the spot! I’ll have you know, some of my best workers are blac…”

“Yeah, ‘workers’. You just made my point for me. That’s all they are to you, aren’t they? I’ve seen the way you treat them differently to even our other staff, calling them ‘tanned’ and ‘colored’ right to their faces. They don’t say anything because they don’t want to lose their jobs, and shamefully neither do I because frankly, you scare me sometimes. Well, that ends this second . The instant you behave that way again, I’ll be on you like a ton of bricks. Also, do you wanna know something else?”

“H-Huh?” Audrey’s demeanor had abruptly switched from coolness personified to utter confusion. Being called out so blatantly in front of a bunch of ‘underprivileged ragamuffins’ by her petulant child was not on the itinerary today.

“I’ll spoil it for you again. Father hates your attitude even more than I do! Whenever you finish treating the staff like the dirt under your feet, he goes to each one in turn to apologize personally. As well as give them a few extra euros that month, as if that’ll make up for the abuse they have to suffer. But look who I’m talking to! The woman who thinks Chinese and Japanese people are practically the same! And people wonder where I got such a stupid idea from…”

‘I-I…” For the first time in her life, Mrs Bourgeois was completely lost for words. All she could do was stare dumbly and numbly at her irrepressible daughter, as the young girl finished her extended lecture with a flourish.

“Finally, I suppose I should let you know about the head cook at our hotel. You know, the one who you think makes the best meals around for Daddy and his clients at short notice? Or when you have to entertain people, and she puts on a spread that’ll put any other caterer in the city to shame? That’s Mrs Cesaire, the mother of Alya over there. How do you think she’s going to feel, when she hears you racially insulted her daughter so terribly in front of her entire class? I don’t know, but if I were you I’d check my food for signs of saliva for a while. Also, put your lawyers on stand-by, because I think it may be heading for court. And if you want to know who’s side I’ll be on, here’s a clue…”

At this juncture, Chloe put her mouth to her now trembling mother’s ear to whisper sharply:

“...It won’t be yours!”

That was all it took for Mrs Audrey Bourgeois to collapse on the floor, in such a comatose state that not even the strongest smelling salts around could revive her in the foreseeable future.

...Not that anyone really wanted to do that, of course. Even the school nurse balked at helping someone who’d been so vile to the innocent students there. So, in an unconscious heap on the floor she stayed.

In the end, she missed her flight and the free expensive champagne on offer. Oh dear. How sad. Never mind.

As for Chloe, having said her piece and blithely sauntered over to her seat next to Sabrina afterwards, she was most surprised by the deafening cheer that subsequently erupted, as well as the much better treatment she got for an entire week afterwards by everyone present (even from Marinette).

As unusual as her newfound popularity was though…

She could quite easily get used to it.

If only she could master this whole ‘being nice’ thing.

..............................

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Remember everyone, having White Privilege isn’t just about paying lip service to the concerns of minorities and posting black squares and hashtags one Tuesday to show you care…

It’s about using your advantageous platform all year round to speak up to defend those in need, whoever they are. After all. if activism was just listening to others whilst doing precisely nothing to change the world outside the confines of social media, how are we gonna change the world?

Food for thought. Hope you enjoyed the story, which (I hope) got the point across well enough. Whatever you think, let me know… and thanks for reading! :)

The Prince’s Offering, Pt.3 (cn: noncon, “historical” fiction, harems, public use, forced prostitution, other fun things)

The hollow feeling grew stronger, but Davai willed himself to push it down inside him. He heard a high giggle and looked at the serving girl who had draped herself over Karim's shoulders. "Lord Davai, I am Tabitha. Would you like to know how I became a serving girl?"

He felt himself nod in response. His mouth was unnaturally dry, and when he picked up his tea to wet it the cup almost slipped from the sweat on his hands.

"My father was a wealthy merchant, and our family lived on an estate north of Samarra. He traded spices, curatives, dyes and fine rugs, which afforded him much land and coin, and our estate had beautiful gardens of jasmine and crocus flowers. We lived in luxury, until he allowed his hirelings to water down the medicines that Imperial soldiers bought and used."

"He threw himself at the Imperial magistrate and begged for mercy when they began to investigate. He knew his own death was unavoidable, but wished to spare his family from the same fate. The magistrate was not an unfair man, but a cruel rival of my father's was present in the court and paid some sum of coin to sway his opinion.

A strange, dreamy look crossed Tabitha's face. "To save my siblings and a small fraction of the family's wealth, my mother and father and I were taken in shackles to a brothel where the forty-four soldiers who had been sickened by weak medicine awaited us. My father was forced to watch as the soldiers ravished his eldest daughter, one, two and even three at a time, hour after hour for two days and two nights. My mother serviced each man before and after they violated me, ensuring that they were able to perform, as the soldiers mocked my bound father for his deceit and cowardice. They told him his wife and daughter both were braver than he, and that we were more loyal to both our family and the Great Empire, especially its soldiers.

"My father was beheaded after this, and my mother and I were sold into slavery to keep my siblings out of the most wretched poverty. I was sold to a harem, trained for a year in every art of pleasure, and sent here. I have not seen my mother since, and I do not expect I will ever see her again." She giggled again, before sitting back on her heels, resuming Karim's shoulder rub.

Davai sat in stunned shock for a moment, questions and thoughts of horror spawning within him and threatening to spill out. He knew of the depraved justice that heathen rulers could mete out, but had never heard it directly from the spoils of these rulings. He found her very demeanor chilling, for she spoke of such things as a knight might speak of his first year of squiredom. It raised the question of whether subsequent events had been so unpleasant that her capture seemed favourable in comparison, or if her trials had molded her so thoroughly that she had become content with her lot. He was unsure which answer was worse, and felt more perturbed by the moment.

What perturbed him further was the sensation of his stiff cock straining against his stockings. His heart thumped and his mouth felt drier still, and he wondered if the subtle incense pervading the room had some form of exciting effect. He sipped his tea again, subtly pulling the hem of his tunic over his lap as he did.

"Might I ask your thoughts on that?" said Karim.

Davai nodded, and considered his answer very carefully. "It seems a dire punishment," he said, "but the crime, too, was a dire indeed. One wonders how many others would attempt such things if they went unpunished, and some men do not fear death alone."

Karim nodded, seemingly satisfied with this response, and the girl behind Thom spoke up.

"Lord Davai, would you care to know how I became a serving girl?"

Against his better instincts, Davai nodded. The girl stepped forward to sit closer, allowing him to see her properly. She had removed her thin veil and she was beautiful indeed, of Far Eastern stock, her cheeks as red as blood and her skin as white as snow. Her jewelry was bizarrely intricate. Her left arm was clad in a series of silver chains, bracelets, plates and rings that fitted together into a complex metal gauntlet, and under her gauzy top her nipples were clearly pierced.

"My name is Mido, lord, and before I became a serving girl I lived in a city of the Old Eastern Kingdoms before the Great Empire swept them away. The rulers of the city were uncaring and indolent, and rather than pay tribute they had the emissaries beaten and sent away. When the forces of the Emperor surrounded the city, the nobles refused to negotiate. They sealed the gates and dug in for a siege.

"All the food in the city was confiscated and rationed. The punishment for hiding food was death by ice, and the punishment for stealing food was far worse. All of the administrators were corrupt, exchanging food for favour, and in the first winter of the siege many citizens starved. My father was a tailor and his services were well enough needed that we ate on most days, but in the spring he took ill.

"The only food inside the city was reserved for the nobles and their soldiers, so I looked outside. At night I snuck out of the city, stole a hen and her eggs from the Imperial camp, and crept back in. It kept my father alive, and so a few nights later, I did it again. I was more cautious this time; I took scraps and grains and picked wild berries in the dark. I did it a third and a fifth time, and my father soon recovered. On the sixth trip, I was caught.

"The men beat me until I fell, and then beat me until I could not stand. The next morning they displayed me. First, I was stripped naked. My legs were tied at the thighs and ankles to a beam of wood, stretching them out to the side until it felt as if they would pop out of my hips. A beam was placed down my back with my wrists bound behind it, the two beams were fixed together in a cross, and then my captors coated two thick, polished wooden poles in grease.

"They forced one pole inside my womanhood and the other in my rear, and when I screamed from the pain of being split open in such a way, the soldiers urinated in my open mouth. They coated my body in filth and pig-slop, then raised me up on a gigantic wooden ladder that came level to the city walls. I was left for the day like this, alongside a dozen other girls who had been sneaking out in the same manner as I, in front of a banner that told the citizens that their defeat was inevitable, that betrayal and surrender were the only options, and that if their demands were not met, the same fate awaited every woman in the city.

"I saw my father standing on the city walls, looking at me. The shame was too much, and he died of heartbreak. Soon after that the city fell, with most citizens faring better than I, but all of the nobles faring much worse." She looked contemplative, and in the dull light of the parlour her brown eyes were entirely black. "The Imperial army had no use for me after that, and while I was forced to warm the bedrolls of horsemen for some time, they soon sold me on. From there, my story is little different to Tabitha's."

The music of the flute had softened, and Davai could hear the groaning of the wind behind it. In his mind, he could picture nothing but the image of Mido with her legs spread wide as rough men forced a pole inside her, her face contorting in pain. He did not know why his cock was twitching.

"Thank you, Mido," he murmured. Karim was looking at him expectantly. "This... siege warfare is a dark thing, and we know this all too well in Rus and Europe. It does not lend itself to mercy or glory."

Karim nodded. "It is an art that the Great Empire has refined in recent years. A siege that ends quickly and terrifyingly is far preferable to one that draws on for months and leaves a city of walking skeletons in its wake. Not to mention, a city that knows that it cannot resist a siege does not, generally, risk provoking one."

A voice whispered in his ear. "I too have a tale should you wish to hear it, Lord Davai," said Bahar.

His heart pounding, Davai could only nod. He did not flinch as she moved around him, but suppressed a yelp as the serving girl took a seat on his lap. Her buttocks were soft and thick, and she had perched herself just-so that his erection was pressed between them. She wore a subtle perfume but with his face all but nestled in her black hair it filled his nose and clouded his senses. He did not know where to put his hands and so pressed his palms awkwardly onto the cushion until Bahar took his wrists and moved his hands onto her soft belly so that he could hold her from behind.

"My tale is a rather more simple one, lord," she said, wiggling from side to side to get comfortable. "My father was a prince, and when my mother passed he remarried. Neither my father nor my stepmother wished me to have any role in either inheritance or succession, so one night I was dragged from my bed, bound and gagged with rough ropes, and locked inside a chest.

"When the chest was opened, I found myself in the barracks of Imperial soldiers. In lieu of spices and a portion of silver, I had been given over to the Great Empire as part of the yearly tithe. Had my father kept back a fraction more silver for himself, I would have been kept virginial and taken as a wife by an Imperial officer, as that would have been the most valuable use of a young foreign princess. But out of cruelty, they tithed extra, and so the Imperial soldiers did not need my full value."

Bahar kept shifting in her seat in a way that made Davai's cheeks turn pink, for each movement sent a twinge of pleasure through his rod. It crossed his mind that she might be doing it on purpose.

"They took this spare value by using me as a pleasure toy for several months," she continued. "The soldiers drew lots each night to pick whose bed I would warm. I was fed no meals; when they ate I would crawl under the tables and give suck to each man in turn, and if I pleased them they would feed me scraps before I was dragged to the next man. They made a game of how many men could take pleasure from me at once."

She turned around, hair whipping gently over Davai's nose, and looked him square in the eye. "Seven men. Two in my mouth, one in each hand, one in my rear, and two in my cunt."

"Sounds uncomfortable," said Thom, loudly.

Davai glared at him. "Obviously."

"I meant for the men."

Bahar had a faraway look on her face. "Sometimes they would use me as a threat, to shake down local peddlers or to motivate their prostitutes if they went whoring. They would tie me to a stool, gag me with my headscarf after using it as a washcloth, and then a dozen of them would each line up to spill their seed on my face. Whoever they wished to bully would be brought in to see me, and the soldiers would tell them, 'Do as we say, or we will do this to your wives and daughters, or to you.'

"The worst part of that was the boredom, waiting in place on an uncomfortable seat with sticky male essence drying on my face. I still find it difficult to sit comfortably to this day," she said, bearing down on Davai's lap until he felt his cock pressed against something snug and mind-meltingly hot. "It ended in a familiar manner: the soldiers needed coin and so they sold me on. I did not need much training after the hands-on experience they had given me, and becoming a serving girl was a natural fit."

She gave Davai a warm smile, and Davai could only mumble out a thank you. She dismounted his lap with leonine grace, but instead of slinking back behind him, she waited at his side. Her hand remained on his lap. Specifically, her hand remained directly on his stiff cock.

"Oh, Master Karim," said Bahar, her voice soft and guileless, "I believe Lord Davai has felt the effects of our tea!"

Davai tensed up. "What's in the tea?" he said, with no consideration to the impudence of his question. He felt sweat beading on his forehead, his hands were shaking, and his cock was so hard that it tingled with pain.

Karim was unbothered by his tone, and seemed genuinely apologetic. "It is not what is in the tea, but what tea is in it. It is a peculiar blend of leaves that can be concentrated to produce an invigorating tincture, and the dilute tea can induce a similar strength in those unused to it. I am deeply sorry for not informing you beforehand, Lord Davai."

"What do I do?" he blurted out, before blushing at the implication.

"I have a few ideas," grunted Thom, but the other men ignored him. He scowled, then scooped Mido up and onto his lap, which elicited a squeak before she began to nuzzle and rub up against him.

"It will pass soon," Karim told the young lord, "and some wine will speed its passing greatly. Fareeh, summon the cup-bearer would you?"

"Yes, Master," said one of the serving girls.

At the edges of Davai's vision black fuzz grew, shifting out of view when he looked towards it, and persisted until he scrunched shut and opened his eyes. The light of the blue torches flickered in a queer manner, the warmth of the room was stifling, and the low wail of the wind had an almost animalistic edge to it, masked though it was by the flutist's music. He could feel the linen of his tunic clinging to the small of his back from sweat, and wished he could cast it off entirely. He inhaled deeply and tried to calm himself: he had known to be distrustful of his host and his companion, but it was another matter to be distrustful of his own senses.

"If my lord has become agitated, I suggest these cloyingly maudlin tales are the cause. Does every girl in your retinue have such a woefully woeful yarn to weave?" asked Thom, sneering. He pointed to the serving girl Pasha, who sat playing her flute. "Did the Imperials pin down your music girl and stuff her gash and arse with her own instruments?"

Davai's eyes went wide at his companion's near-suicidal rudeness, but when Karim and the serving girls burst out laughing he remembered a detail of Imperial custom: the power of insulting remark was proportional to the stature of the remarker. Thom had no land, no great fortune, and no title that was not a pejorative, and hence was incapable of any insult that fell short of treason.

"If such things found their way into my gash and arse, they were put there of my own accord," replied Pasha. "You know how it is I'm sure, you seem the sort who'd misplace his own tools of trade up his arse if given the chance to do so."

Karim laughed uproariously at this, and even in his state Davai couldn't suppress a small smile. Thom's sneer froze in place, but quickly passed into a smug grin. "So what happened to you then, serving girl?"

She placed down her flute, the sounds of wind sharpening as she did, and said, "When I was one less a score in age, I performed with a playing company in the borderlands of the Near and Far East. Many of our homes had been destroyed by the Great Empire, and we acted many plays detailing the depravity of their deeds and the enormity of their conquests so that all might know this horde of men as the monsters they truly were. One fateful night, an Imperial spy caught wind of our performances..."

Davai grimaced. He knew of a pair of troubadours who had sung slanderous tunes about the Prince of Kiev up and down the land before the prince's men arrested them. A thick tome had been written on the hundred tortures used on the two men and the new songs that were wrought from them, and it was bound with their flayed skin.

"They reacted poorly, I take it?" he said quietly.

Pasha shook her head, beaming. "Not at all, indeed the opposite! They saw our plays as a true and honest reflection of their prowess, and they paid us a handsome stipend to travel out to unconquered lands as harbingers of their terror."

Davai blinked. "You are... no longer with them?"

"We traveled far and wide, and I had a great many adventures with my troupe, but after a year in these parts I grew fond of these Western lands—the coolness of the air, the gentle rains, the crisp apples and the strong black bread." Her expression was one of genuine contentment. "At the same time, I grew tired of the constant travel. I made enquiries, and I joined Master Karim's harem. The conditions are luxurious, and the work is very similar."

"I will admit, the similarities are not wholly apparent to me," said Davai distantly, watching from the corner of his eye as Thom licked Mido's neck and mauled her breasts with his thick, hairy fingers. Pasha laughed, smiling.

"A performer can earn a modest wage through spectacular plays in front of swollen audiences, and a very immodest wage through harlotry with the wealthiest attendees. I assure you, lord, my wage was not a modest one." Her smile turned sultry, and she returned to her flute.

The men listened to the music and were pampered by the girls for a while, talking on topics of little consequence, before Davai asked a question that had been weighing on his mind.

"Sir Karim, I must apologize in advance for revealing my ignorance of Imperial customs, but there is something I do not understand," he said.

"Oh, lord?"

"When we spoke earlier of Justyna," said Davai, averting his eyes from the bound and defeated peasant girl, "you told me that when she is gifted to you, you must receive her as a slave, with all the harshness of training that such a thing requires."

Karim nodded. "Yes, this is correct."

"And when Pasha spoke, she said that she was never taken as a slave or prisoner, and is not a slave or prisoner now. Your harem girls are not all slaves."

"This is correct also."

"Then I am confused and curious: why are you compelled to receive Justyna as a slave, if those who are not slaves may also be serving girls?"

"Assuming, Lord Davai, that you still wish to gift her to us."

"Which the Houses of the Amber Plains do wish to do, yes."

Karim leaned forward, stroked his mustache absentmindedly, and then tented his fingers with a thoughtful expression on his face. "That is a fair question, and a good one," he said. "I believe I can answer it: the circumstance of a girl's joining of the harem must determine the circumstances of her living within it.

"Picture three sowers in a field, one a freeman, one a serf, and one a slave. Their function in the field is identical. A corn of wheat scattered in the furrows by a slave grows all the same as one scattered by a serf, a weed pulled by a serf is no different to a weed pulled by a freeman, and a bushel cut by a freeman weighs no more and no less than the same bushel cut by a slave.

"But their function they each serve to society is quite different. The freeman works to pay taxes to his king, the serf works to benefit his lord, and the slave works to obey. Their reasons for work differ, and hence as lords and masters, the inducements to work must differ with them. Tell me, Lord Davai, if one required a task to be seen to and wished a freeman to do it, how would one motivate him to do so?"

Davai considered the question a moment, then said, "At the base level I would offer coin at the proper rate, but beyond that, a freeman has a chosen vocation which they take pride in and see their craft as a form of virtue. The coin brings the work, but their duty to craft brings the effort, and hence you must appeal to these virtues."

"A fine answer that I am inclined to agree with," said Karim, "for I have seen nobles forget such things and reap the consequences. Permit me a second question: how would you motivate a serf to work?"

This question required far less consideration. "In the simplest form, a lord provides protection in exchange for the serf's work on his land. But if such a relationship is to thrive it must go beyond mere expedience, it must be built from fealty and obligation. The serf must love his lord to be willing to toil his land, to bring the greatest tithes and to be an attentive steward, and yet the lord must also love his serfs to be willing to lay down his life and the life of his knights to protect them from banditry and invasion. In other words, you must appeal to the faith and fealty of a serf."

"That is a straightforward answer, yes." Karim grinned devilishly. "And a slave?"

Davai turned up his palms. "It is not a common institution in these lands, though if you know the answer I would be interested to hear it."

"A slave is given life, and gives obedience," said Karim. "He is forced to work by the prospect of a continued existence: of another meal, another drink of water, and another night's rest, as well as by the pain of the lash. But it is a different matter to work than to obey, and an unruly slave may break his tools and skirt his tasks.

"A slave, then, must know terror. Not the simple fear of the whip's bite, but terror of its inevitability. The master must observe him constantly for some time and ensure that no infraction goes unpunished and no mercy is given. The slave must learn that his master knows his every move and error just the same as Allah knows his every sin and virtue, and indeed the two figures should blend together in his mind. Fear will make a slave work, but only awe will make him obey."

For a moment Davai felt paralysed by the intensity of the man's eyes, but he quickly composed himself. "And if you were to treat a freeman as a serf, or a serf as a freeman, you would squander the best qualities of each and reinforce their worst vices."

"A most adroit assessment, yes."

"And because Justyna has not come here to volunteer willingly and wholeheartedly, she must be treated as one who is entirely recalcitrant."

There was a hint of weariness in Karim's eyes. "Yes, unfortunately. The results of any other method are not preferable to any party, not even to Justyna in the end."

Davai nodded. "I thank you for your insight, Sir Karim."

There was another lull in the conversation. Pasha exchanged her flute for a miniature harp, and in the moments of silence between instruments, Davai felt an oppressive sensation from the room around him, the part of an unsettling dream before you realize you're not awake. The air felt thick in his mouth, the blue torches flickered slickly as their smoke rose up towards the vents, and something seemed subtly off about the way every object in the room looked and moved as if all of reality had become smooth and glassy. On the dais in the background the chair was a bestial skeleton and under the dim light the cast-iron dogs twitched like golems rising from their slumber.

He very much doubted that some lustful excitation was the only symptom of the strange tea, and he doubted that the promised wine would be a simple curative. Bahar's hands traced over his chest and thighs and felt like the sole thing anchoring him to his senses. A deep drive to clutch her like a child at their mother welled within him, but even in his state he was unwilling to abandon his decorum. The music soon returned. soothing something within him, and with a few deep breaths the room largely returned to normal.

A husky, feminine voice made him give a start. "Your wine, Master."

Davai turned to the source of the voice and stared.

This serving girl was waifish in comparison to the other, more voluptuous women that lounged around the parlour, with bony shoulders and slender hips, and probably stood a few inches shorter than Davai. She wore no veil and no gown, her top was a sheer chiffon mantle that barely fell over her shoulders and her skirt was a sash barely a hand's width in length. She had a short, boyish bob of auburn hair, her lips were painted a garish red, her eyelids thick with kohl, and her face carried a slack, euphoric affect that came only from rapturous pleasure or powerful narcotics.

She carried a tray carved from walnut and inlaid with gold, and on that tray were four silver goblets and a quarter-gallon jug of wine. The girl did not carry the tray in her hands, however, which were behind her back. The back of the tray was strapped to a leather belt that wrapped around her skinny stomach, and the front of the tray was suspended by a pair of silver chains sloping down at an angle, like the chains on a drawbridge. Both of these chains connected to thick, heavy piercings that went through the girl's bare nipples.

"Ah, Ihsan, thank you," said Karim as the girl knelt by his side. He tousled her hair, eliciting a delighted squeak as she placed the four goblets on the table. Despite her unfocused eyes and dazed expression she filled up each cup with deep, dark wine without spilling a drop. She placed the jug in the center of the table, detached the serving tray from her nipples to place aside, and sat cross-legged by Karim to provide refills as required. Thom stopped nipping at his serving girl's neck just long enough to notice the wine, and the girl who had poured it. He bumped Mido off his lap and leered at the wine girl.

"I met this one last time did I not, Sir Karim."

"You did indeed sirrah, when she was barely a season into her training. I am sure you can see some changes, and if they are not immediately apparent I'd be delighted for you to inspect her further."

"Well then little Ihsan, let's have a look at you," he growled lecherously, beckoning her forward. A look of genuine worry flickered over her face but passed as she stood up. She yelped when Thom grabbed her slender wrist and began groping and squeezing her.

He made crude remarks about her every feature as inspected her. "Her skin is softer... Bit slimmer on the tummy... By God I might take a bite out of these buttocks... Open your mouth, girl," he ordered, and when she complied he stuck two fingers in her mouth to grab the silver stud in her tongue. She whimpered softly, sticking out her tongue as far as she could to avoid hurting herself. "Oh, now this is new," he murmured. "Do you remember the things you did with your tongue the last time we met? Do you?" He tugged on her piercing to hurry her answer.

"Y-yeth!" she replied, her voice shaking.

Davai watched with contempt and not a little disgust as his companion examined the poor wench like a cow at market. He wished to order him to restrain his base lust, but Karim was watching the whole display with delighted amusement and the liberties that Thom was taking were ones explicitly offered up by him. To hold Thom back would be no different than rejecting Karim's hospitality if not worse, for it would imply gross impropriety on their host's part, so he resigned himself to watching out of the corner of his eye, and sipped the wine. It was rich in flavour and in spirit; he'd drank brandies with less kick than this wine, but the heady vapours of the alcohol dissolved the edges of his anxieties at least.

"What else, what else... Udders filling out nicely, ooh, I love the reins," Thom said, tugging the chains leading to the thick piercings through her nipples, eliciting a moan that could have been pain or pleasure. "Smells good, tastes good—" he took a heady lick of her neck, "—now lets see that cunt of yours."

He reached out to pick up a small clay flask of olive oil from the table, spilled it over his fingers with not a little dripping onto the unthinkably expensive rugs below, and slipped his hand under Ihsan's bottom. She squeaked and threw her head back as his thick fingers probed her crack, pressing her skinny back against his chest, her nipple-chains rattling as she took halting, shuddering breaths.

"Open up your legs and let me in," Thom growled softly. Ihsan did so, opening her knees, spreading her skinny thighs wide, and pushing out her hips.

A glint between her legs caught Davai's eye, an intricate decoration made from thick golden wire. He stared for a moment, and his mouth fell open as he realized what the finely-wrought device was: not jewellery but a cage, a cage that fit around a small pair of testicles and an equally diminutive cock, preventing its wearer from becoming hard.

"Ihsan is a man!" he blurted out.

He felt many sets of eyes on him. Sir Karim and Thom the Brigand appeared confused, and Ihsan was plainly uncomfortable. The other serving girls were staring at him too, and the pair of hands that had been pleasantly massaging him had stopped. He felt a tightness in his chest, and something sharp and icy deeper within him.

Thom and Karim burst out laughing, and laughed uproariously for some time. Several of the serving girls tittered softly before returning to their activities, and Davai felt the pair of hands resume stroking his chest once more. Ihsan had closed their eyes, and was trying to push their ass down onto Thom's fingers. The panic faded, but the confusion and vague sense of dread remained.

"I—Pardon my, I did not wish—" he stuttered.

"I assure you that Ihsan is not a man of any kind," said Karim, grinning.

Davai couldn't stop himself from looking directly at Ihsan's cock, bound up in a golden coil. "But there's an, uh..."

Thom scoffed loudly. "If I met a traveler on the road with this little maiden's chime between their legs," he said, slapping Ihsan's cage and eliciting a pained yelp, "and they claimed that a pathetic endowment such as this gave them claim to manhood, I'd bugger them until they admitted otherwise and sell them on to Karim."

Such callous cruelty and open sodomy turned Davai's stomach, and against his better judgement he turned to his host for counsel. His heart thumped in his throat and his cheeks burned red as he spoke.

"I apologise for," he gave a start, "for my, ah, awkwardness. Sodomy is not a custom I am overly familiar with, and I have been taught by the church that such things are dire sins. You have my most solemn word that I do not intend to cause offence."

Karim waved him off, and did not appear upset in the slightest. "Permit me another question, Lord Davai: sodomy is a sin because it is gravely wrong to lie with another man as one would a woman. It is a grave wrong because we owe our fellow man some degree of respect and dignity, and to push a man to the floor and fuck your seed into him as if he were a mere concubine injures him and degrades you. Is this what you have been taught?"

Davai nodded. "That is the rough shape of it, yes."

"But what makes a man, Lord Davai? A man fights and conquers, a man thinks and creates philosophy from aether, a man shows loyalty to his leader and to those men he leads, a man has strength, a man has honour, and if a man is owed respect and dignity it is on account of his honour, and honour depends on one's ability to defend and uphold it."

Two thick fingers slipped inside Ihsan's ass, and as she babbled with pleasure a line of clear fluid drizzled from the tip of her cock to pool on the corner of the table.

"You see, Lord Davai, it is not easy to truly be a man in the eyes of Allah," Karim said matter-of-factly, "but just about any pretty thing can be turned into a serving girl."

"I do not imagine that a man as tall and broad as you would have to worry unduly about such a fate," said Davai wryly.

Karim gave a sly grin. "Do not be so sure, lord, for I know of men who prefer their serving girls to tower over guests. It is true that I have never feared such a fate befalling me. I do not need to worry, for the same reason a lord like you does not need to fear it."

Something in his tone gave Davai a burst of curiosity. "Oh?"

"What separates the slave from a truly free man, Lord Davai?"

"I would say shackles and the sharp end of a spear," said Davai, "but again, it is a custom I am not intimately familiar with."

Karim grinned broadly at him and swigged his wine. "Your unfamiliarity shows, Lord, for the difference is simple: a free man has honour, shown through his willingness to defend what is his, and a slave has none. Some men appear free but are no more than masterless slaves, and would submit to the first soldier to put a boot on his neck."

Davai steepled his slender fingers. "I can see how lack of honour would make one a slave, but I cannot yet fathom how a store of honour would prevent it."

"Because an honourable man cannot submit to slavery; he will resist until he dies or overpowers his captor."

Davai sucked air in through his teeth. "That's a dear proof indeed."

"Yes, and a man's honour is a dear claim." He lowered his empty goblet to the table, where it was immediately refilled by Tabitha. "It is not so different to this land's own feudal arrangement if you consider it: your serfs do not possess the honour of a noble house, so they willingly pledge fealty to those who will fight and die to protect the land. In the eye of my people, noble blood is only important insofar that it predicts noble honour. Your Western societies are stable because true nobles will choose death over submission."

Davai did not consider himself a man of unparalleled bravery, and knew many nobles who were far more cowardly than he. "A system that runs on such honour is most stable when it is never tested."

“And yet an unproven system atrophies from lack of testing until one strong attempt can push it down entirely; such is the fate that befell the Kingdoms of the Far East and the Caliphates of the Near East.”

Davai nodded and recalled the handful skirmishes he had been party to, despite being nobody's picture of a fighting man. "In Rus and across all of Europe we are sometimes too eager to prove such things, I fear."

Karim nodded in assent, and around the table they returned to drinking—excepting Thom—until the first jug of wine was depleted. Mido put the goblets aside and refilled the teacups, falling onto Davai's lap with blatant premeditation. She apologised profusely to Davai, and turned to Karim."Master, Lord Davai is still suffering from the tea," she said, pouting.

"It is quite alright, I do not—"

"May we extend him the hospitality of relieving his tension?"

Karim turned to Davai, grinning widely. "Of course, my dear girl. Tabitha, attend to me in the same manner if you would.”

From behind, Bahar slipped her hands under and up the front of his tunic and hooked her heels over his crossed legs, parting them slightly. She kissed his neck as her soft fingers caressed his nipples, her jewellery cool against his skin, and before he could say a word Mido was in front of him. He looked into her eyes for a moment, so black and yet so gentle, and she pressed her lips to his. The kiss was a brief one, the taste of rosewater and fresh mint lingering on as she made her way down his chest. His heart thrummed in his throat as her hands reached his stockings.

"D-don't—oh!" His protest dissolved into a weak moan as Bahar nibbled his ear, and it was a protest so bereft of conviction that both girls freely ignored it.

Mido pulled down both his stockings and the linen braies under them, freeing his stiff cock. Davai's stomach curdled with embarrassment, as he had last performed a cursory wash with campfire water and damp rags two days ago and had not bathed properly since he had left his estate. His small thatch of pale blonde pubic hair was matted with sweat and he caught hint of his own musky scent through the incense, but it did not seem to bother Mido, who curled her gauntlet-clad hand around the shaft. It had been a long time since Davai had felt any touch there but his own. His toes curled, and he inhaled sharply.

Without breaking eye contact with him for a moment, Mido lowered her head, planted her lips at the base of his cock, and touched her tongue to the shaft. She dragged her tongue up slowly, leaving a generous coating of saliva on his skin as he twitched and fidgeted, her breath oh-so-warm on every inch of him, moment by moment, until she reached the very tip. With her tongue stuck out, Davai could see she had a similar tongue piercing to Ihsan the wine girl.

She closed her eyes and swallowed his entire length.

Davai cried out softly, and as he did Bahar pinched his nipples and bit down on his neck, turning his cry into a squeak. His hands grabbed at the fabric of the cushion, his hips jolted forwards, and if not for the serving girl holding him tightly from behind he would have fallen backwards. He looked down and saw a pool of soft black hair in his lap hiding Mido's face entirely. He didn't need to see her face to feel her nose nestled in his pubic hair and her tongue sticking out past her bottom lip, lapping at his balls.

"Do not be anxious, Lord," whispered Bahar in his ear. "Mido's talents are unparalleled and only available to a select few, so please, enjoy them. You are in good hands, and mouths."

He could think of nothing to say in response, and looked on dumbly as Mido rose up, her warm, wet mouth rising up his shaft with her lips wrapped tight around him, until only the tip remained inside. She looked up at him, brushing hair out of her face with one hand as her other pumped up-and-down his cock. Her studded tongue slipped under his foreskin and swirled around the head. Davai felt as if all the bones in his body had momentarily turned to aspic, and before he could release another girlish moan, she swallowed his entire length again...

Part 4 here: https://writefinch.tumblr.com/post/642674526881284096/the-princes-offering-pt4

The fallacy of being “Open minded”

(also known as the tolerance paradox)

Some people think that being open to anything and everything, and “respecting” every believe and behavior out there, makes them somehow better people.

And it doesn’t. There are some things that require opposing.

But beyond applying this to political believe (like “we must tolerate nazis because of freedom of speech”), I was thinking more about the role this plays in interpersonal relationships.

Specially so when people try to hide behind the excuse of “you have to accept me or this behavior of mine, because it doesn’t affect you” - and although this can be true in some cases (like, idk, what color you dye your hair or what diet you choose to have), it is often an excuse abusers use to justify their abuse.

First and foremost, people are allowed to enforce boundaries and tell you:

- You’re not gonna mistreat me and, if you can’t not do that, then I need you out of my life.

- I disagree with that behavior and I will not be an accessory or an accomplice to it - if you can’t keep me out of it, then you can’t be in my life.

Second of all, this belief that everything goes, everything is valid, and everything must be tolerated, stems from two things:

- Either you are delusional and you want other people to accept your harmful behavior without any pushback, criticism or consequences.

- Or you are simply misguided, misinformed, and unaware about how your actions hurt others.

I have a particular pet peeve with people who think their substance abuse is just a “personal choice” that hurts no one but themselves - as if drugs didn’t literally rewire your brain, affect your mood and behavior, your impulse control and your ability to empathize and foresee the consequences of your actions (not to say the entire socioeconomical and political aspects of it). Drug abuse absolutely affects everyone around you - you just don’t want to see it, and/or surround yourself with people who will justify it because they also abuse drugs and admitting to this would be having some self-awareness (and, god forbid we have any of that).

It also applies to other abusive behavior. Can you really “tolerate” the behavior of your friend once you learn he’s a womanizer who exploits women and predates on girls younger than him? Can you really be “open minded” with someone fully knowing that they’re manipulative and liars and gaslight people in their life? with someone who hits and terrorizes their kids?

No. And you shouldn’t be. And you’re conflicted when this is someone you love. Because how can this person who is so important to you be so harmful to others? And then you fall into the trap of justifying them.

First, you have compassion and understanding and you try to get to the bottom of why they are like that (and this is not a bad thing to do). But then comes the question: when I see this person engaging in this behavior, what am I supposed to do? call them out? stop them? intercede? and, sure, you can do that - but then you fall into the role of being their Jiminy Cricket, of having to tell them that what they’re doing is wrong, and that they shouldn’t do it. And then it happens again, and again, and again. And the relationship completely falls out of whack - because it’s no longer equal, because you’re putting in so much emotional labor. Because now they’ve put you in the role of mother, and teacher, and nurse. Now you have to be the fixer because they just can’t be decent.

So what is your other option? setting boundaries. Sometimes it’s easier, sometimes it’s harder. You start by not wanting to discuss the behavior - you just, don’t want to know anymore if they did or if they didn’t do the thing. But then it becomes stiff, and awkward, because they have no option but to lie to you - sometimes out of deep shame, sometimes because they just don’t want to be held accountable. And the relationship breaks. Because if there’s no honesty, how can you really connect?

And then, the last and inevitable realization is that you too could be victimized. And that they probably have victimized you before. And that they will continue to do so - and that, the more trust there is in the relationship, the more likely it is that they will either victimize you or use you as an accomplice to victimize others.

So that’s how you finally understand that, no, not every behavior is justified. That you’re not supposed to condone everything they do and “agree to disagree”. That sometimes you have irreconcilable differences that cannot be bridged. And that the only way you can stay in relationship with these people is if you let them drag you with them.

And that’s when you have to decide to part ways, unless and until they decide to make a change.

And this doesn’t make you intolerant, this doesn’t even make you love them any less. You’re just rejecting to be in relationship with this person if and as long as it is framed in this way. And hey, you can only hope that this will be the wake up call to reconsider - but that’s on them, not on you.

I was fourteen when I first tasted the sweet, aromatic blend of tobacco, sugars, and ammonia compounds. It was 1998. The year of Clinton and Lewinsky. The year the guy from Die Hard was saving the Aerosmith-adjacent Earth from a Michael Bay Meteorite. 

I was fourteen. Instead of navigating the intolerable 3D world of Hyrule in Ocarina of Time, I was out making an imprudent moron out of myself with an RCA Solid State Image Sensor VHS Camcorder. My idiotic entourage and myself thought we were the uproarious epitome of cool. In actuality, we were ridiculous, annoying fuckwits. I was an absolute pain in the ass.

I'm not going to cock and bull with excuses. I started smoking because I thought I was fucking cool. I had older friends that did it and I dated girls that did it. When my mum found out I was flicking the Bic on the cancer stick, she was both disappointed and somewhat content. Her contentment for my lung corruption behavior was only because it meant she now had a smoking mate.

Mum and Pops didn't always have a harmonious relationship. They would cross swords and oppose each other's views a lot. Mum would complain about Pops never being home. Pops would bewail mum's smoking habit. It was always constant repetition down the same path. Dad never knew I smoked. He would of berated mum and blamed her if he ever found out.

Because of our shared toxic pastime, my mum and I became very close. We discussed all things life. Everything from grace and elegance to the septic shithole bottom. We talked about atrocious dislikes and stupefying satisfactions. We told mindless jokes and gave deep-thought opinions. 

For the sake of storytelling length, let's just say we always had each other's back. 

Unfortunately, the clock ticks, and the hours pass. In a blink of an eye, things are different. I grew up. I got married. I moved. Mum was downhearted and sad. I was the first of her children to leave from beneath her roof. 

I've worked lousey, shit jobs just to make ends. It is indeed accordance with fact, smoking does alleviate stress. I didn't think it was cool to smoke anymore, instead I smoked because my shitty job was an emotional mindfuck. Pounding the coffin nails down my throat made me feel better. 

I didn't want to poison my saclike respiratory organs anymore. I tried quitting. I tried the gum that supposedly calms cravings. I tried the rubber band wrist snap when I had the desire. I tried the ridiculous electronic substitutes. Nothing worked. I thought, fuck it. I didn't want to grow old and become one of the dust bags that retire in Florida anyway.

It was October, 2015. I was just finishing a much needed break from my mediocre job. My phone vibrated in my pocket. It was mum calling. I contentedly answered it. 

She said she had a mass on her lungs. She told me not to be worried, it could be pneumonia. She said she would let me know more tomorrow. 

I instantly broke down and wailed. I could feel that something was extraordinarily wrong. My heart was in excruciating pain. It was exceedingly difficult to finish my shift that night. Every time I was alone, my eyes would swell. It was a long, tedious night.

The following day, I anxiously waited for mum to call. 

Haplessly, she called right before I had to go to work. She said it was stage 4 lung cancer. She told me not to worry. She said she was going to get help. I knew stage 4 was the inevitable. It's treatable, but not curable.

I was so heartsick.

I lit cigarette after cigarette.

My family was devastated. Mum is the support beam that holds my lunatic family's structure together. My brother and sister were in severe shock. Pops was completely shattered. 

The following week, my wife and I picked mum up from the hospital. She was being fitted for a radiotherapy mask. Mum was spiritless. She lacked vigor and enthusiasm. She looked defeated. This was the one time I convulsively, and uncontrollably sobbed in front of her. If you knew mum, she was always resilient and enduring. She was wholehearted, and a matriarch to many. It was challenging to see her in that frail condition. 

I lit cigarette after cigarette.

Mum had sort of a short fringe hairstyle with spiky bangs. She would ornament it with a decorative headband. Often she would dye it golden or honey blonde to hide the off-putting grays. 

The days passed. Weeks. My wife and I made frequent visits. Mum was sitting in her recently purchased stationary style comfy chair. She was wearing a sun-style flat brim cap. Mum never wore hats. “I'm losing my hair,” she said. She lifted a grocery sac where she was accumulating a large cache of her hair. 

Eventually Pops shaved her head. 

My wife and I purchased her a collection of hats.

The holidays came. Thanksgiving. Christmas. Mum always took pride in cooking the meals. She couldn't anymore. She was too weak. She could hardly walk. It was now Pop's responsibility to  prepare the brown sugar glazed ham. She shouted out the recipe to him in the kitchen. “Heat the honey and sugar until it dissolves!” Pops would earnestly urge her not to yell. She was always short-winded and depended on oxygen gas to breathe.  

Christmas morning was grim. Mum kept saying she wanted to have a nice Christmas. “This might be my last Christmas. I want it to be nice,” she despairingly would say. 

We wore smiles but they were fraudulent. Inside we were somber. Cheerless. Gift exchange was dispiriting. We were appreciative, but it was hard to express it. The only audio in the room was the pulling and shredding of novelty wrapping paper. We played unintellectual board games while Mum sat in the living room and stared at the TV. The Hallmark holiday collection was on but Mum wasn't interested. She was disconnected, absent of response. 

My wife and I went home. I lit cigarette after cigarette.

January came and went. February came. Mum had gotten worse. We went to visit her on my birthday. She was without emotion. Unresponsive. Pops struggled to make her recognize my company. She was comatose-like. Pops was in a panic. We rushed her to the ICU. She now had malignant brain tumors. Her recent actions were symptoms. The drowsiness. The constant agitation. 

She was given enough treatment to restore her moral senses. She asked to see me and my wife. Mum was stretched out on a hospital cot. She was buried beneath intravenous lines and hoses. She saw us and smiled. “Watch this,” she gently said. She proceeded with plucking the pulse oximeter from her finger to mortify the doctors. She still had her sense of humor. 

Later, Nurse Ratched impertinently pulled my family away from Mum. She disrespectfully spoke of Mum's unavoidable fate. Ratched told us that Mum will die. She told us to make sure we make the correct decision when the time comes. 

No one in my family wanted to hear that. 

The hospital discharged Mum.

My wife and I went home. I lit a cigarette. I took a drag, hardly inhaling. I breathed in a few more. 

I delve into searches about the great demise on Google. I’m not one who appreciates surprises, so I wanted to be hauntingly prepared. 

As the end approaches, your role is to be present, provide passionate comfort, and remove doubts from your loved one with soothing words and loving actions that help maintain their mental ease and dignity.

The entire evening I fixedly scrutinized my phone screen. It made me overwhelmed with grief. It put me in an unsettling place. It was that night that I accepted that my Mum was actually going to be gone.

Her condition continued to worsen.

It was difficult for her to digest food. She no longer could intake any solids. Pops couldn’t accept the harshness of the situation. He was in rack and ruin. Blatantly, he would hurry to the nearest fast-food establishment and order her a strawberry milkshake. In double time he would speed home to give her the malted treat. She would fiercely vacuum in the strawberry drink through a straw. Clearly she was hungry, but her gasping, pain and abnormal breathing patterns made it difficult for her to swallow. 

Pops told me, the prior evening, he strenuously got Mum into the loo. He proceeded to aid her, however she immediately denied his assistance. “Let me help you,” he despairingly said. “But you're a boy and I'm a girl,” she woefully baffled. 

Delirium. One of the common symptoms observed near death. 

Pops was hysterical. This unforeseen responsibility was so unfamiliar to him. He was terrified. He was frightened to lose the one person he spent his entire life with. 

Again he rushed her to intensive care.

My wife and I were at home. I lit a cigarette. I took a drag and quickly put it out.

Mum was denied anymore treatment. She was recommended hospice care and medically necessary equipment for at-home use. 

Pops thought hospice may not only be valuable to Mum, but also beneficial to him because the workers could assist him through the inexperience and unexpected. We all knew what misery and despair would come next, but Pops was in a idiosyncratic denial. 

Hospice was fucking useless, but more on that a little later.

My wife and I visited her everyday. 

Each day she worsened and disintegrating. 

She was often confused. She would appear asleep, but her breathing would be noisy, congested. She would appear peaceful and at rest, and within seconds she would begin screaming. She would holler agonizing cries. Dad would have to pump her with morphine to tranquilise her treacherous pain.

Day after day, her conditioned intensified. Her skin's pigment distorted to a grayish tone. Her face had depressed and sunken below her eyes. Her lips dried up and shriveled. 

The drainage bag connected to the catheter began to fill with a rust color. 

She had abnormal growths swell in unusual parts of her body.

Day after day we visited. She no longer would move. The congested breathing was the remaining sign of life. We attentively watched over her like this for days. She didn't want to go. She dearly loved her family. The Oncologist asked her, “what do you live for?” Her response was so straightforward and emotionally rewarding. She said, “my family”. Mum was uncomplicated. She lived to be a loving mum and caring wife. She always put her family first. That's who she was. 

She died on August 22, 2016. She battled cancer for seven months. She spent nearly four weeks in hospice care. Only four short instances was Hospice workers available for aid, one of the times being immediately after death. The available nurse plucked an orange Marigold from the neighbors’ garden and lied it in my Mum's cold hands. She called the Funeral Home to coordinate arrangements for pickup and hastily left. 

It was a horrifying experience for my family. Not only for us observing every nightmarish minute, but for Mum too. I can't imagine how afraid she was and how she felt. I just hope it wasn't guilt that resonated with her in her final days. She was the reason my family was so profound and passionate about things. The reason we were all there, again and again, expressing our sorrow and love together.

I haven't smoked a cigarette since her later days in hospice care. 

She was a beautiful, loving person, and we watched her severely weaken and diminish largely because of a lifelong bad habit. I never want to put anyone I love through that, ever again.

#2- poppies and cornflowers

the second portion of the fantasy writing anthology i’m working on, focusing on the plainslands.

the ceremony begins at three. no tale of missing persons and dead birds could have deterred me from that moment; my prize after years of work and study. my position was a great burden on me- it meant wandering through sunbitten fields or waterlogged marshes should it be required of me- but i had no hesitation to show, none left in my body. i was ready. and i said it to myself in my mind until the words began to mean nothing anymore: the ceremony begins at three. i was to meet everyone there, and i could not be a minute late.

the story behind the ceremony began what is now perhaps ten years ago. when i had left my education, a rural school located several miles from our lonely village, there had been a celebration in my family. we sat around the oak dining table, next to the fireplace, and covered it with the worn green-with-gold-trim cloth which had been given to my parents as a wedding gift, and there we ate wild-caught pheasant and drank heady molasses beer until my uncle askram could not walk properly. as we lifted his body to the rocking chair to let him rest, all the while his mouth foaming and spitting out garbled sound, my mother turned to me and began to speak.

“you’re going to have to find some work soon.” it was the line i had dreaded hearing. educating me had been a novel idea in the first place, as i was the only child and my father eagerly awaited someone who would assist him with the leatherwork, but my grandparents had insisted on it. now it was over there was not much i could do to hide from this new inevitability. it was not a trade school; as such i had no vital crafting skill that i could put to use. and though i fished in my spare time my mother would often insist that the river dwellers were dirty types, and to avoid them. learning magic was not an option, nor could i leave for the next town over to employ my arithmetic skills. they were also “dirty people” in the town.

“i don’t really know what to do.” askram was mostly limp by this point, yet finally setting him down was a great weight off my shoulders. all i could do was be honest with her about how i felt, regardless of her response.

“you should do what your father does and make leather with him” she responded to me curtly.

“but i don’t know how to make leather.” she tutted in response.

“it’s in your blood, isn’t it? or was all your blood washed out by some teacher up in that shack of yours.” her comment angered me, but i kept my mouth shut and tried to step silently towards the table up until when i heard her voice ring out from behind me.

“did you hear that, everyone? sajorie doesn’t know what she’s going to do for work.” i froze in my tracks, feet pausing before i could tiptoe to the next floorboard. “what a little genius she’s turned out to be!” clearly she had attracted some attention with her words, as everyone else in the house excluding askram had turned to look at her once more except me. my grandfather- my mother’s father, with his wife and my grandmother having passed a few years earlier- sighed and shook his head in response.

“she’s just finished, mirice. give her today for a celebration, why don’t you?”

“because i woke up at six to milk the goats at five years younger than her and didn’t complain for a minute.” he laughed, turning her pale face pink.

“you saved the complaining for after you had to feed the chickens and weed the mint garden. oh, and after you had to read the letter sent by our neighbour complaining of the noise you made chasing after the kid that escaped the day before!” this time the whole table erupted into laughter while my mother’s face only got redder. my other grandmother beckoned me towards her and put her hand firmly on her shoulder when i came.

“there is plenty of work out there for a healthy young girl like you. my sister, your great-aunt, when she was younger- well, she was a courier. the special type with all the bright colours.” like her i could not remember the specific name for the role, but i knew instantly what she was referring to. i had seen them many times before running out behind the bird shed, unable to stop for a second so as to not interrupt their constant pace, and there were the times i saw them delivering letters to my mother at the door. these letters were from far away- travelling relatives or invitations to trade shows- and my mother had a habit of reading them aloud like she had done in her youth. the runners.

“with the floral patterns?” i asked.

“mhm. all dyed for that one purpose. at night, the outlines of the petals light up like fireworks.” suddenly i was young again, barely knee high, listening to her recounting ancestral tales by rote. “it is not easy work, but you can get the hang of it very quickly.”

“the dyeing or the running?”

“the running, my dear.” she whistled for a second. “they taught you to run a field in school, didn’t they?” i nodded, and she tucked a strand of her once-brown grey hair behind her ear. “then you can run even further.”

that was when i knew.

and now i was finally finished, my preparation and training had been exhausted. i was to meet haines and forrel by the burning wooden effigy of a cockerel out in the circle where the grass had been cleared, wearing my crown of poppies and cornflowers, dancing around in a circle as the brightness cast our shadows on tall heather overgrowth and erect wild wheat plants. my grandmother took me by the shoulders once more, called me by my full name, brushed wild seeds from the red capelet i wore.

my name, sajorie cullathan ythes.

So I LOVED Tech Week! The AU is amazing and fresh, and the characters were true to canon but also modified nicely into the setting and situation. I would love to see some more of this universe as some cute one shots showing the different personalities of the skaters as portrayed in your AU. Love love love! 😍

Alright, so first of all, thanks so much for the ask!! I’m so glad you liked Tech Week!!

Second of all, ask and you shall receive. :) Huge shout out to @caitsyoi for betaing this quick for me and making sure it’s at least slightly coherent. :)

****

Leo was pacing. It wasn’t even the cute ‘walk three steps and turn around’ pacing, either. No, Leo de la Iglesia was spanning the whole hallway, back and forth, back and forth, music pounding into his ears at a volume that was probably louder than necessary.

Maybe if he went deaf from the headphones, he wouldn’t have to hear JJ gloat when he inevitably got the lead.

Again.

It would be just like Cinderella.

Except this year it would be worse because they were seniors. They were seniors, JJ was drama club president, and this time he’d be the actual lead instead of a love interest.

God, Mickey was going to die.

“Leo,” Guang’s voice said, somehow cutting through the music. “Sit.”

Leo looked at him skeptically but caved within seconds. He sat down on the floor and took his headphones out, giving the best smile he could.

Guang just laughed. “No use pulling that here. I’ve listened to you stress over the cast list for the past three days, I know you’re a mess.”

Leo shrugged as Guang started working through his hair. “It was worth a shot. And is that really necessary?”

“I told you. If you want to keep your hockey flow, it’s getting braided. No exceptions.”

Leo sighed but didn’t protest.

They were the first ones to the scene- Guang had a study hall seventh period and Leo had left Algebra early. Technically, they still had three minutes until the bell rang and their hallway filled with people.

Three minutes never felt so slow.

Eventually, the time passed and school was officially out. People flooded out of classrooms and into the hallways, ignoring Guang and Leo sitting by the auditorium wall.

It took less than a minute for the next drama student to arrive- he practically flew around the corner, almost knocking over a crowd of cheerleaders. Thankfully he came to a stop before tripping over Leo and Guang.

“What did I miss?” Minami asked eagerly. “Is it out yet?”

Leo just laughed. “The bell literally just rang, remember?”

Minami shrugged and sat down on the floor. “I mean, you never know. Maybe Mr. Nikiforov posted it during seventh period.”

“JHS Drama Lesson number one,” Leo said with a smile. “Nikiforov never does anything early.”

“Ever,” Guang added for emphasis as he stuck a bobby pin into Leo’s hair.

A few more people drifted into the foyer. A small group of freshmen formed in the corner, Emil and the Crispinos finding space a bit farther down the hall.

Mickey already looked annoyed.

That wasn’t a good sign.

At least Emil had put on some muscle over the summer and could probably hold him back.

Yuri was the next arrival, looking pissed off as ever.

“Leo you look like a fucking princess, what the hell.”

Guang just laughed. “Don’t worry, I’ll do yours next.”

Yuri rolled his eyes and found a spot to sit against the wall.

A few more minutes went by, the remaining drama club members slowly trickling into the hallway. Guang finished Leo’s hair, poking a few more pins into the braided crown.

“Beautiful,” Minami said. “Do you do hair dye?”

Guang didn’t get the chance to answer.

“I brought cupcakes!” JJ announced as he walked into the hallway. “Nothing like sugar to keep the nerves away, am I right?”

“Buying affection yet again,” Yuri muttered bitterly.

JJ just laughed. “So you don’t want a cupcake?”

Yuri rolled his eyes. “Of course I want a fucking cupcake.”

“Hey, where’s Otabek?” JJ asked while passing Yuri the tupperware container. “He’s coming, right?”

“He’s with Nikiforov. He’ll bring the cast list down when it’s ready.”

“Nikiforov’s not bringing the cast list?” Emil asked from across the hall.

“I mean can you blame him?” Mila answered. “After what happened last year?”

“What happened last year?”

Leo sighed. “Alright, I’ll answer that one,” he said before JJ or Mickey got the chance to interject. “Last year we did Cinderella, right? It was a good show. But long story short, there were a few people upset about the casting of Prince Topher, and there was a bit of a fight when the list was posted. Nobody got hurt or anything, but stuff was said. Nikiforov got yelled at pretty bad, a few people quit the show. I think he’s trying to avoid a repeat performance.”

“People actually quit the show?” one of the freshmen asked. “Over casting?”

“JHS Drama Lesson number two,” Leo said. “Nobody out-dramas the drama department.”

“Ever,” Guang added for emphasis.

“Well, I mean you can’t really blame them,” Mickey muttered bitterly. “The casting was awful.”

“I’m right here,” JJ shot back. “God, could you just-”

He stopped suddenly, eyes snapping to the other side of the hallway. A few of the freshmen laughed. Yuri rolled his eyes for what had to be the fifth time in three minutes.

“Hey, Isabella,” JJ said smoothly. “Welcome to the party. Cupcake?”

Isabella smiled sweetly but shook her head. “No thanks, sorry,” she said. “I’m sure they taste great.”

JJ’s face visibly fell, but he quickly recovered. “It’s all good, don’t worry. More cupcakes for the freshmen.”

“More cupcakes for me,” Emil corrected as he reached for another.

JJ just laughed. “Should I save Otabek a chocolate or a vanilla?”

Yuri shrugged. “Give me a sec, I’ll ask him.”

For a moment, things were relatively quiet as Yuri typed into his phone.

“Wait,” JJ said. “You’re texting Otabek. Otabek’s with Nikiforov. Nikiforov has the cast list… Do you know things?”

Yuri just laughed. “Trust me. I know all thing things.”

Leo couldn’t help but perk up at that.

“Who?” Mickey snapped.

Yuri just rolled his eyes.

“Yuri Plisetsky you can’t just say something like that… And after I brought you cupcakes?”

The stage manager laughed. “Well, for starters, the role of Al Peterson is going to Sara Crispino.”

Leo hoped one of the freshmen got JJ’s reaction on camera.

“What the��”

“Haven’t you heard? It’s like a steampunk, gender-bent interpretation of Bye Bye Birdie.”

“Nikiforov would never,” Mickey said curtly.

“JHS Drama Lesson number three,” Leo said. “Nikiforov would do a lot of things if he didn’t have Lilia Baranovskaya breathing down his neck.”

“Ever?” Guang said hesitantly. “Does it work in that context? I don’t think ‘ever’ works in that context. Leo, you messed it up.”

“Sorry?”

“How the hell would you even steampunk Bye Bye Birdie?” JJ wondered aloud. “It’s set in the freaking sixties.”

“Fifties,” Mickey corrected. “God.”

“You know, this is why nobody likes you.”

“You’re one to talk.”

“Starting this shit already?” Otabek said. “I mean I would’ve thought you’d be able to hold out at least through the read-through.”

Mickey rolled his eyes. “Look, nobody asked-”

“Otabek!”

Thankfully, the stage manager was able to move before the cast flooded the auditorium doors. Leo ended up slammed between Emil and Minami, not quite tall enough to see the list. He could hear the reactions, though.

“Wait, does that mean-”

“What the actual hell.”

“Leo de la Iglesia, my man.”  

After what felt like forever, Emil moved out of the way and Leo started to read from the bottom up.

Minami was going to be Randolph.

Mila was Mae Peterson, she’d be great at that.

Mickey was Hugo Peabody, that in and of itself would be hilarious.

Sara was Kim Macafee.

JJ was Conrad Birdie.

Leo had to reread the line.

JJ was Conrad Birdie.

Conrad Birdie.

Not Al Peterson.

Isabella was Rose Alvarez, not that it mattered.

No, the only thing that mattered was the first line of the cast list, the name Al Peterson, and the name printed next to it.

Leo de la Iglesia.

All of a sudden, he was painfully aware of the whole cast’s eyes on him.

He froze.

And then Emil started what had to be the most chaotic group hug in drama club history.

“You, little man, are gonna kick so much ass,” JJ said. “It’s gonna be great.”

And somehow, standing in the middle of a full-cast group hug trying not to suffocate, it really was great.

(New to this AU and looking for Tech Week? Full story is here.)

                                     This   was   supposed   to   be   a   visit   like   any   other.

 Everything   had   been   normal   at   first.     He'd   felt   the   familiar   sensation   of   needing   to   be     somewhere,   footsteps   guided   by   nothing   but   the   shadow   of   gloom   that   surrounds   a   death,   and   the   body   he'd   discovered   in   the   quaint   little   cottage,   laid   on   its   back   in   what   would   be     considered   the   ''master   bedroom''   of   such   a   small   house,   had   been   wholly   unremarkable.       Another   day,   another   death--   it's   always   been   the   way   it   goes.

 Prepared   to   get   to   work,   the   harbinger   had   spared   but   a   glance   down   the   short   hallway,     ears   perked.     The   moment   he'd   started   listening   properly,   he   could   hear   the   faint     sound   of     children   whimpering.     They   must   have   known,   then.

 With   a   brief   sigh,   Crow   had   turned   back   to   the   body,   placing    a   cold   hand   to   its   forehead     and   closing   his   eyes.     Even   after   a   body   has   stopped   moving,   there   is   still   life   caged   inside   of   the   empty   vessel;     it   flutters   like   a   moth,   clumsy   and   rapid,   weaving   between   stilled   ribs     and   weakened   organs,   guided   only   by   the   dying   light   that   was   once   the   consciousness.     It     had   always   been   his   job   to   cleanse   the   desolate   carcass   of   everything   that   made   it   a     sentient    individual   in   its   lifetime.

                                                                                            ❛    ---------------   who   are   you...?   ❜

                 And   such   a   fateful   statement   had   drawn   him   from   his   half-awake   stupor,                                                           forcing   him   into   the   present.

 Remaining   life   now   fully   in   tow,   the   harbinger   turns,   able   to   see   the   face   of   a   woman     barely   peeking   through   the   door.     Dry-eyed,   though   as   pale   as   a   ghost...     pretty,   too,   behind     it   all.     Crow   takes   a   moment   to   collect   himself,    pulling   away   from   the   deceased   man,   and     faces   her   with   a   clean   turn.

               ❛    ---------------   y'wouldn't   believe   me   if   i   told   y'.  ❜

 Silence   fills   the   space   between   them,   heavy   in   its   muteness,   before   the   woman   cautiously     steps   further   into   the   hall.     She   looks   as   if   she's   from   another   time   completely.     Though   she   dons   the   typical   frock   that   women   do,   her   hair   is   a   pale   blonde,   almost   white...     the   kind   of   colour   that   can   only   be   achieved   through   a   coat   of   platinum   dye.     Eyes,   wide   and   blue,     host   a   fire   he   hasn't   seen   in   most   females   from   this   time   period   too.     They're   always     subservient   in   some   way;     submissive;     under   the   control   of   the   man   of   the   family,   occupied     only   by   children   and   house   chores.     Even   from   a   distance,   Crow   can   tell   that   this   woman     yearns   for   far   more   than   the   life   she's   been   handed,   that   unspoken   dreams   bloom   like   roses     along   the   pathways   of   her   brain.     All   in   all,   he   feels   incredibly   grateful   to   have   seen   such   a   thing.     Somebody   who   wants   for   themselves   is   always   a   nice   change   of   pace.

               ❛    ---------------   I'll   be   leavin',   then.   ❜                ❛    ---------------   wait...!!   ❜

 Her   lithe   frame   slips   through   the   crack   in   the   door,   shutting   it   quietly   behind   her.     Now   fully     in   view,   the   harbinger   can't   help   but   be   curious   about   her.     She   finds   a   stranger   in   her     house   and   her   response   is   to   talk   to   them?     She's   either   incredibly   foolish,   or   flooded   with     courage,   and   he   can't   quite   decide   which   is   more   admirable.     After   all,    stupidity,    even   in   its   purest   form,   leads   to   ingenuity   on   occasion.     Her   hands   fumble   briefly   in   front   of   her   before   she   looks   up   at   him.

               ❛    ---------------   a--are   you...   an   angel?   ❜               Crow   stares,   then   barks   out   a   laugh.                ❛    ---------------   d'y'see   a   halo,   girlie?     Yer   not   even   close.   ❜

 She   does   something   he   doesn't   expect:     she   scowls.     That   action   alone   prompts   a   moments     pause,   blood-red   eyes   taking   the   time   to   trace   her   features.     This   is   so   bizarre   to   him...       others   who   have   run   into   him   have   either   excused   themselves   incredibly   early,   or   screamed     and   retreated   altogether.     Never   has   a   human   found   him   in   their   abode   and   chosen   to     engage   with   him,   especially   not   with   a   hint   of   attitude   in   them.     Pointedly,   Crow   asks:

               ❛    ---------------   aren't   y'gonna   leave?   ❜                ❛    ---------------   I...   I   need   to   know   what   you   are.     I   know   you're   not   human.                You're   here   for   my   husband.     Is   he   destined   for   Heaven?   ❜                ❛    ---------------   nah.   ❜

               A   small   hand   flies   over   her   mouth,   eyes   widening.                ❛    ---------------   H--Hell...?   ❜                ❛    ---------------   nah.   ❜

 For   a   moment,   the   creature   revels   in   her   confusion.     In   this   confounded   state,   her   eyes   look   like   crystals,   lower   lip   trembling   like   the   beginnings   of   an   earthquake.     For   the   first   time   since   they've   laid   eyes   on   one   another,   she's   beginning   to   show   grief.     In �� a   defeated,   exasperated   tone:

               ❛    ---------------   then   what...?   ❜                ❛    ---------------   nothin'.     There   isn't   anythin'   after   death.   ❜                ❛    ---------------   I   can't   ACCEPT   that!!   ❜

 In   her   desperation,   she's   taken   steps   forward.     Though   she   stands   perhaps   the   closest   a     human   has   in   a   long   time,   her   form   still   trembles   like   a   daisy   in   a   gale.     For   a   short     while,   all   she   does   is   stare   hopelessly   at   him,   arms   wrapped   around   herself.     Despite   her     best   efforts,   tears   are   beginning   to   roll   down   her   cheeks.

               ❛    ---------------   my   husband   was   a   good   man!!          HOW   CAN   YOU   SAY   HE                ISN'T   DESTINED   TO   BE   WITH   THE   LORD?!   ❜

 Such   rage   surprises   him,   encourages   him   to   take   a   small   step   back.     He   could   easily   shatter   her.     Reaffirm   that   God   doesn't   exist,   that   nothing   exists   for   those   whose   lives   have   burnt     out,   but   what   would   be   the   point?     With   the   vehemence   she's   shown,   it   doesn't   look   like     she'd   accept   it   anyway.     She's   crying   now,   but   beside   the   sadness   lays   an   anger   so   fierce   it   dumbfounds   him.

               ❛    ---------------   he   didn't   even   love   me   and   he   stayed!!     He   stayed   with   me                  and   my   children   and   provided   us   shelter   and   guidance!!     He   took   care   of                us--     and   now   he's   gone!!   ❜

 Inevitable   hysteria   overtakes   the   woman,   breaths   coming   out   in   shallow   pants,   knees   knocking     as   her   hands   shield   her   face.     She   doesn't   collapse   to   her   knees;     she   collapses   into   his     arms,   thin   fingers   clenching   the   thick   material   of   his   suit   between   them.     Grief   leaves   her   in     violent   waves,   though   her   sounds   are   smothered   by   the   crimson   fabric   of   his   shirt.     He     doesn't   know   why   he   stays   there,   why   he   stands   like   a   pillar   of   stone   put   there   solely   to     support   her,   but   he   does   it   regardless.     Not   once   does   a   hand   touch   her,   make   gentle     contact   with   her   tremouring   form,   but   he   remains   still   throughout   the   throes   of   her   trauma.       Her   husband   is   gone...     with   that   in   mind,   so   is   her   source   of   income.    She’s   a   sitting   duck   in   this   crumbling   economy

 Somewhere   along   the   way,   her   sobs   die   down   into   pathetic   sniffles,   hands   loosening   from   the   death   bearer's   jacket   until   her   arms   hang   limply,   defeated,   by   her   sides.     Her   life   has   been     nothing   but   a   struggle,   having   dreams   too   big   for   her   role   in   society,   then   being   wed   to   a     man   she   didn't   feel   anything   for   and   being   forced   to   have   his   children...     if   anything,   she     should   be   relieved   that   he's   gone,   but   she   knows   that   without   him   she's   in   trouble.     No     money,   and   her   children   will   grow   up   to   be   delinquents   without   the   presence   of   their   father...     so   many   things   worry   her   now   that   he   is   no   longer   in   the   picture.

               ❛    ---------------   ... I   don't   know   what   to   do...   ❜

 The   admission   causes   Crow   to   blink.     Her   voice   is   now   hollow   and   empty,   as   if   she   truly   doesn't   care.

               ❛    ---------------   did   you   love   him?   ❜

 The   woman   slowly   pulls   away,   wiping   at   her   eyes   with   the   heels   of   her   palms,   fishing   a     handkerchief   out   of   her   frock   pocket   and   dabbing   at   her   face.     Even   flush   and   puffy,   eyes     tinged   red   with   sorrow   and   exhaustion,   she   still   resembles   a   flower   as   opposed   to   a   weed.

               ❛    ---------------   ... no.     But   I   never   wanted   him   to   die...   ❜                ❛    ---------------   everyone   has   an   end,   dear.        Everyone.   ❜

 She   doesn't   respond,   more   occupied   with   mopping   herself   up   than   she   is   his   statement.       Does   it   matter?     Is   that   supposed   to   make   it   easier?     Just   knowing   that   people   die   isn't     enough   to   quell   the   heartache   that   blossoms   when   they   do.     Even   for   somebody   she   didn't     love,   she   longs   for   him   back,   if   only   for   the   sake   of   his   utility--   the   very   same   reason   he     kept   her   around   too.     How   else   could   he   have   children   if   not   with   his   wife?

               ❛    ---------------   I   would   focus   on   yer   kids.     They're   gonna   need   y'more   than                ever   now,   don't   y'think?   ❜

 Kids?     This   stranger   talks   funny.     Come   to   think   of   it,   she's   never   heard   an   accent   quite   like   his.     It's   so...     lazy,   in   comparison   to   what   she's   used   to.     Did   he   even   go   to   school...?

               ❛    ---------------   I   suppose...     you   never   did   answer   me,   though.   ❜                ❛    ---------------   what's   that?   ❜

 The   woman   is   staring   at   him   again,   cobalt   finding   scarlet   once   more.     It   seems   she's   trying     to   discern   an   answer   herself   rather   than   relying   on   him   to   provide   it.     Finally,   she   gives   in,     resigning   herself   to   asking   instead.

               ❛    ---------------   what   are   you?   ❜

 A   fang   peeks   out   then,   sharp   ivory   toying   with   his   lower   lip   as   he   regards   her   with   a   stare   of   stone.     He's   thinking...     would   it   be   worth   telling   her?     Could   she   even   believe   it?     Even     if   she   doesn't,   does   it   really   change   anything?     With   a   soft   sigh,   the   harbinger   allows   the     corner   of   his   lips   to   twitch   upwards.

               ❛    ---------------   I'm   the   Bringer   of   Death,   sweetheart.   ❜

Hiding in the Impala Part Three

Pairing: Sam x Reader  Characters: Sam, Dean, Reader, Reader’s Ex  Warnings: swearing, angst, violence, fight scenes  Word count: 3241 Summary: Sam, Dean and the Reader come up with a way to solve their case and be rid of Zach forever.  A/N: Not my original idea! This was inspired by @writingthingsisdifficult ‘s original work, you all should go check out her page it’s awesome:)  Tag List: @jessabro101  @deascheck @cwstandsforcaswinchester @fralackles@danandphilforlife112 @rdy4thevoid @disneychic8 @deepbreathssammy@amanda-teaches @myplaceofthingsilove @evyiione @gallifreyansass @star-arm-and-shield @macymoosesuniverse @rosep16​ @arianacullen2008 @spectaculicious @spnfanficpond @amanda-teaches @myplaceofthingsilove@evyiione @mogaruke@aliensdeservebetter@27bmm@craving-cas @spnfanficpond​ @amanda-teaches  @myplaceofthingsilove  @spectaculicious@bambinovak @bambinovak@writingthingsisdifficult@padackles2010 @mamaredd123@milkymilky-cocopuff @iwantthedean@zeppo-in-a-trenchcoat @spntrista @d-s-winchester@just-another-busy-fangirl@winchesterprincessbride@waywardjoy@supernaturalyobsessed@whywhydoyouwantmetosaymyname@sandlee44@fangirl1802@kittenofdoomage @evyiione @winchestersmut@purgatoan@mogaruke @therewillbeblood @megansescape @taste-of-dean@leatherwhiskeycoffeeplaid  @scarlet-soldier-in-an-impala@deathtonormalcy56@wildfirewinchester @notnaturalanahi@jensen-jarpad@impalaimagining@fangirlextraordinaire@itseverythingilike@jesspfly@lovekittykat21@mysteriouslyme81@mrswhozeewhatsis@aiaranradnay@supernatural-jackles@girl-next-door-writes@spnsasha@27bmm@spnfanficpond @amanda-teaches@myplaceofthingsilove@spectaculicious@bambinovak@writingthingsisdifficult@spn-imagines-to-feel@spn-ficfanatic@cleverdame@saxxxology@jensen-jarpad @keepcalmandcarryondean dancingpanda137

When you woke up, you were sprawled on your stomach in the middle of the bed Sam had made for you. Layers upon layers of blankets and comforters were twisted around you and your head was buried in an enormous pillow. Last night you’d slept the best you had in a while. It was easy; you drifted off the minute your head touched the pillow. Waking up, you were groggy yet content. For the first morning in a while, you felt safe. You didn’t feel like someone was watching you or hunting you. You didn’t have to hurriedly flee the motel to change locations and run away yet again. You could just lie there, sleepy and content, wrapping the blankets tighter around you. 

You poked your head up from where it was resting, hair strewn across your face, and saw Sam. He was lazily draped over the couch, ankles resting just off the edge. He was still asleep, his chest rising and falling in a steady pattern. You glanced over to the twin bed next to yours and saw Dean. He was also lying on his stomach, head pressed closely to the mattress below. His face was turned away from you, and his hair was mussed up- looking vaguely like a porcupine. You smiled silently to yourself at the sight of him, sprawled out in a similar fashion to you. With a deep sigh you buried your face into the pillow below and relaxed your limbs. Even though you’d only gotten about 4 hours of sleep, you felt rested, content even. You and Sam had stayed up most of the night talking. You felt yourself growing incredibly close to the younger Winchester. The entire night you’d joked and laughed, completely forgetting about the danger you’d faced earlier that the day.  

Sam woke up with a groan, stretching his arms up above his head. He turned to you and said in a sleepy voice, “Morning, (Y/N)” 

“Morning”, you smiled back, sounding equally as groggy. 

“I’m gonna make breakfast- what do you want?”, he replied, stretching again and standing up from the couch. 

You were taken aback by his offer, he was going to cook you breakfast. It was more than that though, it was a specific type of kindness that nobody had shown you in years. Years, wow- years was right. You knew the way you reacted was ridiculous, he was only making you breakfast. But it felt so normal, so real and considerate. So you just sat there for a minute, stunned into silence. 

“(Y/N)?”, he repeated himself. 

“Oh- sorry, um anything is fine. Just like eggs or cereal or something”, your head snapped up and you stuttered back at him. But he just smiled and walked towards the kitchen. He was still wearing his pajamas from the night before and hadn’t bothered to change. A fitted white shirt clung tightly to his torso, you noticed the way his arms shifted from side to side as he walked. And how the veins of his forearms bulged ever so slightly as he braced them on the kitchen table. He was attractive, there was no denying that. You loved his shaggy hair, the way his brown locks fell in front of his face and he was perpetually brushing them back. His eyes were all but a mystery to you. Their color was indescribable, and you found yourself studying them constantly. You knew nothing would come of it, because nothing could come of it. He and his brother were literally hunting your ex, who was hunting you. The circumstances were so, so strange. And also, why would be want you? He was close to perfect in looks and personality as well. And you were the strange girl he found in his car, on the run from her crazy, demon, ex. 

“Alright, scrambled eggs with orange juice coming right up,” he smiled back at you with a wink. You let out a small laugh and looked down at the bed. You were sitting cross-legged, with your pajamas lazily hanging off you. They were crinkled from rolling around throughout the night, similar to the blankets and sheets strewn throughout the bed. Your eyes shifted to the left as Dean woke up with a groan. 

“Morning, guys”, he addressed the two of you, his morning voice low and gravelly. 

“Morning”, you and Sam said in unison. Your cheeks flushed red and you smiled down at the sheets below. You dared a glance upwards in Sam’s direction and saw he was doing the same thing. 

About 20 minutes later you had showered, gotten dressed and were sitting at the kitchen table with Sam and Dean. You were wearing the same clothes from the night before, which Sam had promptly washed for you. Black skinny jeans clung tightly to your hips and thighs, and a loose tie dye shirt hung just past your navel. On your feet you wore the same white ankle socks and grey Van shoes from yesterday. Sam and Dean had both changed into different colored flannels; you noticed how they were dressed comically similar to each other. 

Sam had cooked scrambled eggs for the three of you, and they weren’t bad. Even though Dean helicopter-chefed him the entire time, grumbling and yelling to add more salt or less cheese. None of you had brought up the inevitable yet, most likely because nobody knew what to say. You knew something was going to happen with Zach, it was unavoidable. 

So the three of you sat in silent tension until Dean finally said something, “Okay so here goes. Sam, we’ve been hunting this thing for weeks. And, (Y/N), I’m sure you wanna do something. So here’s what I’m thinking: (Y/N), you call him, tell him you wanna meet or something and get him alone. Then Sam and I will get rid of him.” 

Your heart skipped a beat at the way he said ‘get rid of him’. Were they going to kill him? You wouldn’t feel remorse, definitely not. But you didn’t know if you could handle seeing somebody- anybody- ‘gotten rid of’. 

“Hold on, Dean. She’s not gonna be bait, that sounds an awful lot like her being bait”, Sam responded, quickly angering at his brother’s suggestion. 

“Okay, Sam, why don’t we just call him up ourselves and have him step right into the devils trap?!”, Dean yelled back, sarcasm lacing his words.  

“Wait, what? What’s a devils trap?”, you asked, defusing the mounting tension between them.

Both brothers looked at you as if you didn’t want to know, but then Sam responded with, “Um, it’s a spray painted star that demons can’t get out of”

Their words flew through your mind, giving you headache. You poured over the phrases they were throwing at each other: ‘devils trap’, ‘painted star’.  Your brain desperately tried to make sense of the conversation unfolding before you, but failed. You didn’t know what any of it meant, you were confused and overwhelemd and wanted some sort of an explanation. Your mind felt foggy, muddled and clouded, you couldn’t think clearly. The dull throb in your temples had progressed into a steady pulse. Eyes darting between the two Winchesters, you let out a long breath- trying to calm yourself. You didn’t know what it was, but once in a while you’d get like this. Face flushed and sweating with a pounding headache, brain aching with uncertainty. You thought they were some sort of panic attack, but knew it probably wasn’t that drastic. A few pants later it had passed, you composed yourself and willed your headache into a dull throb once again. Flicking your eyes between the two Winchesters- both oblivious to what had just happened- you gave your best impression of a brave face. Sam was looking angrily at Dean, as if the suggestion alone incriminated him. But you’d happily do it- be the bait- if that was the role you needed to play.

“Sam, it’s fine, I’m fine.”, you said, willing your hands to stop trembling beneath the table.  

“No, it’s not- Dean shut the hell up that’s not an option.”, he practically snarled back. 

“Sam, seriously it’s okay.”, you started to get angry- who the hell was he to tell you what you could and could not do?

But he just pressed on, “No, it’s not. It’s not happening, (Y/N)”

“Sam I swear to god, stop. It’s fine and I’m going to it!”, you yelled back at him. You could feel your voice rising, your own Pandora box opening itself up and unleashing hell. You were livid at this point- he had no right to tell you what to do. You’d been controlled one way or another for too long, coasted through too many conflicts by bowing your head and giving up. But not this time, not when the stakes were so important. So, with a groan of your chair against the hardwood floor, you rose and decided to yell at him. 

Sam was standing now too, facing you with his hands clenched, as he said, “No, it’s not fine! I’m not talking about you being able to do it or not, (Y/N). I saw you in the Impala, you... you froze.” 

His voice trailed off and you could tell he regretted it the instant it crossed his lips. You froze. The words echoed through your head, bouncing around and validating ever negative thought you’d ever had. You froze. Not even the look on Sam’s face could make up for what his words had actually meant. He thought you couldn’t do it- couldn’t master your panic. He’d seen you last night, both hiding in the Impala and then the bathroom. And he assumed you’d choke, he assumed you’d become paralyzed with fear as you had the night earlier and ruin everything. You took a small step back from the table, which Sam was standing on the other side of. The regret on his face was clear; his lips were pursed and his eyebrows furrowed together into a frown. The way his voice had trailed off after he had said the words was indication enough. But you weren’t going to forgive him solely because of a look. Sam was refusing to meet your gaze, which was more of a glare than anything. His head was angled down towards the table with his eyes focusing on his plate. You knew he wasn’t going to justify it, he didn’t even open his mouth to breathe. He only tried to apologize with a sorrowful, “(Y/N)”. 

But you cut him off, “Let’s just go”, and hurriedly headed out the door and towards the Impala. He didn’t believe in you, and even if it had come out harshly- the meaning was the same. And somehow, his disapproval was the one that hurt the most. 

Dean let out a long sigh and followed after you, but not before giving his brother a look you couldn’t decipher. Once the three of you were in the car, you set off on a tense ride. 

You were sitting in the front seat, wedged tightly between the two Winchesters. Dean was driving and Sam was staring guiltily out the window, still refusing to meet your glare. The three of you had spoken enough to come up with a plan, which was: You would call Zach. You’d lure him to the abandoned warehouse that the Winchesters had picked out and wait for him to show up. Once he arrived, you’d again draw him into the devils trap- which apparently was nothing more than a star and a few symbols painted on the ground. Sam and Dean would ‘take care of him’ from there. 

You spent the rest of the ride fiddling with the radio or counting the cars you saw ahead. Sitting in the middle, you didn’t have a lot of space. You were tightly crammed between the two Winchesters, shoulders brushing theirs. The frequent bumps and jolts of the car didn’t help the situation either. Dean was easily driving 20 miles above the speed limit, and the Impala’s engine was roaring loudly- the sound practically filled the car. The leather of the seats were worn and smelled faintly of both the men sitting beside you. You found yourself inhaling the scent constantly throughout the duration of the drive. 

As the Impala pulled up the gravelly driveway of the warehouse, time seemed to pass slowly. As if your own fear had stopped the clocks and forced the world into slow motion, you wouldn’t be surprised if there was truth in that. You felt every beat of your heart, loud and rapid, pump against your chest. Noticing you had been holding your breath, you let out a long sigh as the Impala roared to a stop. Sam quickly shuffled out the car and held the door open for you; you walked past him- trembling. Clasping your hands in front of you, you desperately tried to still their shaking. But found it was uncontrollable, even your knees were knocking at this point. With every step towards the old, run down, building that stood before you, your heart dropped further. 

From the looks of it, the warehouse was once some sort of supply building. When the three of you entered, you found a large expanse made up most of the inside. Towering, empty shelves lined the walls and you wondered what they were once filled with. You tried to picture the building 50 years ago, anything to distract you from the fear growing from within. You felt it take over like weeds in a flower garden, unwanted and uncontrollable. By the time Sam and Dean had finished spray painting the devils star, it was a miracle you were still standing. 

“You ready?”, Sam nodded in your direction. 

And you didn’t know what it was, maybe the blind terror mounting within you, but you felt yourself forgive him. He’d said a stupid, dumbass, thing- but obviously hadn’t meant it. And in that moment, you needed all the encouragement you could get. 

So you admitted the truth, shaking your head and whispering a broken no before burying your head in his chest. He wrapped you into a powerful embrace, tightly clutching your shoulders and the small of your back. You felt him bury his own head into the crook of your neck and inhale deeply, something you thought he did more for his own benefit than yours. 

When the hug was over, you took a step back and looked at Dean. Who gave you a supportive you got it, kiddo before beckoning Sam behind the storage shelves where they would wait. 

With trembling hands, you pulled out your phone and dialed Zach’s number. 

“Zach? It’s me.” 

His voice sounded relieved more than anything as he said your name. 

“Yes, I want you to take me home. I’m at an old warehouse just outside of the gas station- can you come pick me up please?”, your voice was shaking as much as your hands at this point. 

You didn’t understand how it was possible, but within minutes he was there. He looked more unhinged than the last time you saw him. His brown eyes were blood shot and puffy, most likely from the copious amounts of alcohol you knew he drank. His hair was unwashed and he wore the same tattered sweatshirt from the night before. The sight of him chilled your bones and made your knees even weaker than they already were. Thoughts of doubt flooded your mind, what if Sam and Dean didn’t get there in time? What if he killed them? What if he killed you? 

“Hi, Zach”, you said, not daring to meet his gaze. 

“(Y/N)”, he repeated your name similar to the way he had on the phone. 

Then it turned ugly, his voice became low and predatory, all previous relief drained from it. This was the man you knew, this was the one you’d been running from all those months. 

He was on you in an instant, hand gripping your throat, “You really thought you could get away, didn’t you?!”

You clawed wildly at him, scratching and tearing away at the backs of his hands. You knew you drew blood as he cursed loudly, gripped harder and whispered a sharp you’re mine in your ear. But you wouldn’t let him win this time. Adrenaline rushed to your head and you did what you’d never been able to do before. You fought back. With a swift kick to his shins, you got him to loosen his hands around your neck. You saw the opportunity and took it, clenching your hand into a fist and connecting it with his nose. He swore loudly and lunged at you, but you sidestepped him and he stumbled past you. 

“Someone’s learned some new tricks”, he practically spat in your direction. 

“Trust me, I’ve learned a lot”, you snarled back. 

Suddenly Sam and Dean were there, jumping out from where they had been hiding and joining the fight. Sam beckoned you to follow him, out of the circle you and Zach had previously been standing in, while Dean held the demon down. You assumed that Zach hadn’t known what a devils trap was, he probably didn’t even know he wasn’t human. When he’d made that deal, it was out of desperation. He needed you as much as he needed water or oxygen. And he’d turned himself into even more of a monster to get you back. The thought repulsed you. 

“Don’t look”, Sam whispered to you as Dean started muttering words in a language you didn’t understand.

You turned your back to the circle and stood there, gripping Sam’s wrist, and hearing the horrible animal-like noises that Zach was making. You had no idea what Dean was doing to him, but, frankly, you didn’t care. Let him suffer. Was the only thought circulating through your head. 

You felt Sam wrap you into another hug and you gripped his shirt tightly. In moments, your knuckles had turned white. You fixed your gaze on the dusty old shelf standing in front of you. You saw old and empty jars lining it and forced yourself to wonder what had once filled them. When a long, gruesome howl erupted from Zach, you felt yourself grip Sam even tighter. He put a hand across your face, as if to shield your eyes even though you were facing away from the action. You were trembling now, and had absolutely no idea what was going on behind you. Your only hints were the god awful noises Zach was making and the foreign words Dean was now shouting. 

Seconds later you felt a powerful wind cause you to stumble further into Sam’s arms. And, looking up, you saw something that utterly bewildered you. A large cloud of what appeared to be smoke had hurdled itself through the windows above, sending shards of glass clattering to the ground in front of you. But in a moment, it was gone. And everything was silent. The only sound you heard was your own breath- panting rapidly and gasping into Sam’s flannel. 

His grip loosened and you heard him say, “It’s over, you can look now” 

So you did, and all you saw was Zach’s body slumped on the ground. 

“Is-is he dead?”, you looked to Dean with eyes shining from tears. 

“Yeah, something like that”, he promised in return. 

Why eggs and bunnies aren’t ‘pagan symbols’ (long, pedantic, dull, sorry)

Today's topic is something that's haunted the Eostre debate for years, dragging in such luminaries as Eddie Izzard and Bill Hicks, and it is this: aren't eggs and bunnies obviously pagan symbols of fertility, though? In my experience, you can cite sources and quote Bede and quote Grimm and quote Hutton and point out the limits of what's known until you are blue in the face and still you will hear the retort 'yeah well that's all very interesting, Cav, but at the end of the day, eggs and bunnies are obviously pagan fertility symbols, aren't they? I mean it just makes sense. Fertility, innit?' Okay, let's break it down. First, let's look at the evidence.

Do we have any historical evidence that eggs or bunnies were used as symbols of Easter fertility by European pagans?

NO.

There is precisely jack shit direct evidence that either the Anglo-Saxons who gave us the word 'Easter' or any other European pagans used eggs or bunnies as symbols of fertility, or indeed as symbols of anything.

There is a widespread assumption that they did so, but it is not based on evidence.

So where has the extremely widespread belief that eggs and bunnies were pre-existing pagan symbols come from?

In general terms, it has come from people following these steps in their thought:

1. It's an long-established tradition

2. It's not obviously Christian

3. Therefore it must have been pagan

4. Therefore the Christians must have stolen it.

In specific terms, the speculative association of the Osterhase or Easter Hare with the pagan goddess Eostre begins with the folklorist Adolf Holzmann in his Deutsche Mythologie (1874) while the speculative association of Easter eggs with pre-Christian pagan rites begins with the folklorist and linguist Jakob Grimm in his Deutsche Mythologie (1835). Yes, they are two different books with the same title.

So how long-established are the egg and bunny traditions of Easter?

We can't say for sure. The Easter Hare is first mentioned in 1682. Easter eggs, in the sense of eggs decorated and/or eaten as part of a Christian celebration of Easter, are first mentioned in 1610. Textual sources from the 17th Century trace their origin to the early Christians of Mesopotamia.

Are there Christian explanations for the egg and bunny traditions that people have overlooked?

Yes. The Osterhase or Easter Hare was a bit of a Santa figure in that he rewarded children for being good little Christians. It's also worth noting that hares were used to symbolise chastity rather than fecundity.

So far as the egg goes, as well as the Mesopotamian custom of dyeing eggs to represent the blood of Christ, we have to consider the role of eggs as a foodstuff that was banned during Lent: 'In the medieval era eggs were considered to be dairy products (they were derived from animals without causing harm or the spilling of blood) so they were banned for Lent. This gave them a tinge of luxury when the 40 days of fasting was over... people were eager to eat them again.' (Historian Greg Jenner.)

But weren't pagans all about Symbolism?

Well, no.

Here's what actually went down. Back in Victorian times and for a good while thereafter, a bunch of learned gentlemen were very eager to show off how learned they were. They got it into their heads that the ancient world, including that of their own European forebears, was just awash with Symbols. Tomb walls, monuments, artefacts, ritual costumes... so many juicy, enigmatic Symbols there for the interpreting. And being both learned and male, they decided that it was they who were going to do the interpreting.

There's a lot to say about colonial attitudes here, in which the pompous white western academics have an Educated Overview which the mere common folk who actually perform the traditions do not. But that can wait.

To the Victorian folklorists, the appeal of 'symbols' was that you could take the remnants of former civilisations and read whatever narrative you liked into them. This went double when it came to treating folk customs as the remnants of former ritual practices. Nobody was going to tell you you were wrong, after all; the ancients weren't around to correct you and the commoners weren't educated like you were. Some of your fellow academics might have variant theories, but that just made for a good back-and-forth in the journals and a respectable debate or two at the club.

So the belief that eggs and bunnies are 'pagan fertility symbols' is modern.

Yes.

What people are actually saying when they claim 'eggs and rabbits were obvious pagan fertility symbols' is 'eggs and rabbits remind us of reproduction, and those pagans were all about Fertility weren't they, so they must have been fertility symbols'. Remember, if you're going to claim that a naturally occurring phenomenon is a 'symbol', you have to show evidence of its USE as a symbol in a particular context, as verified by participants in the culture in question. In itself, an egg is just an egg. So, 'bats are used in Chinese art to symbolise good luck' is a coherent & potentially verifiable statement. 'Eggs are pagan symbols of fertility' isn't. As mentioned above, the problem we so often face is that learned men have, for years, decided that they are more equipped to decipher the 'symbolism' of various folk traditions than are the people who actually practice those traditions. We are thus confronted with a horrendous backlog of prescriptive analyses of alleged 'symbolism' which, on being investigated, inevitably prove to be the pet theories of some folklorist or other of the last century. Ron Hutton is particularly brilliant in his acid condemnation of these people: '...it was assumed that the people who actually held the beliefs and practiced the customs would long have forgotten their original, 'real' significance, which could only be reconstructed by scholars. The latter therefore paid very little attention to the social context in which the ideas and actions concerned had actually been carried on during their recent history, when they were best recorded. Many collectors and commentators managed to combine a powerful affection for the countryside and rural life with a crushing condescension towards the ordinary people who carried on that life.'

Eggs and Bunnies in modern media When people refer to 'the eggs and bunnies' of Easter, they don't generally specify which artistic or other cultural context they're referring to in which said eggs and bunnies appear.

So what is that modern context? Well, long before chocolate Easter egg packaging and cartoons were a thing, greeting cards played a big part in popularising imagery. Easter postcards are believed to have originated in 1898 or thereabouts and employed the familiar motifs of yellow chicks, eggs and anthropomorphised rabbits. (They also featured cherubic children, lambs, little gnomes, fairies climbing out of eggshells, and a host of other peculiar images such as a child driving an egg-shaped chariot.) So we have a rich visual heritage of modern Easter imagery that involves eggs and bunnies. This explains why we associate those images with Easter. We've been drowning in this iconography since childhood. It's worth noting here that the greetings card industry thrives on cuteness. Fluffy chicks are cute. Fuzzy bunnies are cute. Foxes were not seen as cute. This may be part of the reason why the other egg-bringers of Easter, such as the Osterfuchs or Easter Fox, are all but unknown now. The Easter Fox, the Easter Stork and the Easter Cuckoo are all recorded egg-bringers in various parts of Germany, but the bunny has long since eclipsed them all. I believe we can blame the greetings card industry for the bunny's usurpation of the Easter Hare, too: it was the Osterhase, the Easter Hare, that was the egg-bringer in the earliest recorded mention of an Easter Egg-bringing animal (in De Ovis Paschalibus). Rabbits are cuddly, whereas hares are staring-eyed and a bit mad. So what did eggs and bunnies symbolise to the people who printed and sold the Easter greetings cards? I think we can safely conclude that they symbolised market appeal, while selectively tapping into familiar pre-existent traditions. Turning to the actual tradition of a hare bringing eggs, it's difficult to see how the hare can 'symbolise' anything, because it's not being employed in a context in which a symbolic subtext could meaningfully apply. In England, we have a legend that the Devil spits (or pisses, depending on who you ask) on the blackberries in the hedgerows on October the somethingth, so we shouldn't eat them after this date. The practical purpose of this tongue-in-cheek legend is to prevent us (and our kids) from eating blackberries after a frost. The Devil doesn't 'symbolise' anything. The functional purpose of the Easter Hare is readily apparent: he allows parents to prepare a tasty, colourful treat for children while pretending that they were not responsible. In this respect he is exactly like the Tooth Fairy or Father Christmas. Nobody wastes their breath arguing what the Tooth Fairy may 'symbolise'. We just understand. Let's remember, too, that Adolf Holzmann considered the Easter Hare tradition 'unintelligible'. The best he could do was to speculate that the hare might have been the 'sacred animal' of his speculative Goddess. So when the German folklorist who first tied the bunny to the Goddess has nothing more solid to say than that, maybe the rest of us should be hesitant about slapping it with the 'pagan fertility symbol' label. Easter Imagery Before The Greetings Card Era We cannot say whether rabbits, eggs or hares were used to symbolise anything in pre-Christian Anglo-Saxon sacred art, because there aren't any known examples of such a use, symbolic or otherwise (to the best of my knowledge & research). It is therefore seriously pushing it to claim any of these things were 'pagan symbols'. The claim is made not by reference to Anglo-Saxon religion itself, nor to documentary or archaeological evidence thereof, but by reference to activities in an entirely Christian context that were first documented many centuries after Christianization and are imaginatively supposed to be dim and distant echoes of a forgotten pagan past. Such an interpretation, long after the fact, is exactly the kind of learned speculation-from-without that Hutton condemns above. There is a tradition of rabbits and hares being used in a symbolic manner in Christian art. Wikipedia is pretty good on the subject. Strikingly, we find that rabbits and hares were employed as symbols of virginity as well as symbols of fertility or lust. This should act as a warning against any simplistic, generically 'pagan' interpretation of perpetuated images. The Problem With Eggs It is often pointed out that the decorated eggs from the Zoroastrian New Year celebration of Nowruz 'represent fertility'; indeed, Nowruz is inevitably referred to in discussions of Easter's alleged pagan roots, as if one non-Christian spring festival somehow set the template for all others to follow, regardless of cultural, temporal or geographic distance. The symbolism does not appear to be universal; other descriptions of Nowruz eggs hold them to represent creativity and productivity. Decorated eggs are only one optional element of a Haft-Seen and do not form one of the seven S-items. In Easter greetings card art eggs are frequently depicted as freshly hatched, with unrealistically fluffy chicks peeping out. This calls our attention to a singular problem with the notion that eggs represent 'fertility'. It is impossible to tell by looking whether a given egg is fertile or not. In fact, the eggs that are typically eaten are NOT fertile, for a very good reason. Unless you are deliberately trying to breed chickens, you don't let the cockerel fertilise the hens' eggs. Fertile eggs run the risk of containing developing chicken embryos, which (at least in western Europe) isn't something you want to run into. (There are issues about whether fertile eggs are kosher, recalling the inarguable and evident influence of Passover upon the Christian Easter.) So unless you show an egg in the act of hatching or shortly after, there's no way to demonstrate that what you're showing is a fertile egg. The typical symbolism accorded to Easter eggs is that they do not celebrate 'fertility' but rather new life, a subtly different concept. 'Fertility' has (entirely non-coincidental) steamy associations, smacking as it does of Summerisle-esque pagans frolicking naked under the full moon, whereas 'new life' puts one in mind of lambs and fluffy yellow chicks. If we look at what our modern heritage of Easter iconography really depicts, it's not fertility, which is merely the passive potential to produce life. It's the actuality of new life. Little lambs, hatching chicks: spring's busting out all over. Lambs and chicks, by the way, provide a very useful thought experiment. Why is it that people always mention 'eggs and bunnies' as 'pagan fertility symbols' but never mention the other, equally common symbols of Easter, namely fluffy yellow chicks and white lambs? The obvious answer is that fluffy yellow chicks and white lambs do not make us think of pagan fertility rites. They're too innocuous, too cute. They don't put us in mind of sex. So to harp on about 'eggs and bunnies' and ignore the other, incompatible imagery is disingenuous, focusing selectively on only those Easter images that pander to our preconceptions of pagans. Next time you hear the 'eggs and bunnies' argument trotted out, try saying 'So fluffy chicks and white lambs make you think of sex, do they?' while stroking your chin thoughtfully. You may see some surprising results. So What Is A 'Pagan Symbol' Anyway? Glad you asked. 'Pagan' is bloody useless as a cultural signifier, because it's exclusive, not descriptive. It describes what something is NOT, not what it was. It's like claiming something was a 'barbaric symbol' or a 'gentile symbol'. Which specific pre-Christian faith do we mean when we say 'pagan'? Norse? Celtic? Saxon? Greek? And which time period are we talking about? Neolithic? Bronze age? Early mediaeval? The moment we begin to speak of 'pagan symbols' we inevitably invoke the Pagan Sausage Machine Fallacy, i.e. the delusional belief that there was such a thing as a common 'pagan' identity in which the various pre-Christian faiths shared, and that there are fundamental factors common to them all. 'Pagan symbolism' means thinking of 'pagan' as a mindset; a naive, scary but oddly appealing, fertility-obsessed, nature-worshipping, openly and frankly sexual way of seeing the world. If this seems familiar, it's because the Victorians created it (and dreaded it) while the neopagan movement embraced it and tried to identify with it. It may be compelling, particularly when it's used as a stick to beat Christianity with, but it's not real. It's nothing but the exaggerated, idealised contrary to urbanised humanity; what we needed our ancestors to represent back then, rather than who they actually were. Yeah But Fertility Though The same woolly-minded thinking that tends to cludge all diverse pre-Christian beliefs into 'paganism' also tends to posit 'fertility' as one of the pagans' prime concerns. This is because such an image was the very antithesis of the modern post-industrial society that produced Frazer et al. To the Victorian and post-Victorian folklorists, the bestial primitivism of the 'pagans' produced a sort of horrified fascination. They spoke of 'fertility rites' as a sanitised way of discussing the phallicism and ritualised sexual behaviour that they believed was going on. In Margaret Murray's case, the belief in an underground pagan 'fertility cult' ran so deep that she attempted to connect it with historical accounts of witchcraft. This in turn led to Gardner's creation of Wicca, which was nothing more than an attempt to make Murray's theory into reality. Murray's work has of course been long debunked, but the intrusion of flawed theory into real-world practice helps to perpetuate the misconceptions; self-indentified pagans are now asserting that 'their' traditions really do reflect an ancient preoccupation with fertility, now construed as healthy and natural, in the face of censorious Christian prudery. 'Fertility' is such a darkly evocative term, isn't it? This is especially true when it is used in the context of pagan religion. Whose fertility is being implied? The fertility of the land? Of the beasts? Or of the people? Or, most likely, some generic boundary-crossing 'fertility' in which land, beasts and people are blent together in a piquant, sweaty, atavistic fug. To speak of 'pagan fertility symbols', then, is to perpetuate an ignorant and condescending view of the past that said a lot more about the respectable scholars who created it than it does about the people we seek to understand. It's illuminating to look at the frequency with which the term 'fertility symbol' occurs in published works over the last couple of centuries. As you can see, a phrase (and concept) we take completely for granted has only come to prominence very recently. The pagan Anglo-Saxon culture that gave us the word 'Easter' (from Eosturmanoth, as Bede attests) has one known 'fertility symbol' of which I am personally aware, and that is a cake. Cakes were placed into ploughed, barren fields in order to restore fertility to them; see the Acerbot, a (barely) Christianised ritual. What you will not find are eggs and rabbits.

LUCY - WHAT I AM IS BRAVE

June 16, 1983

By Lynne Hirschberg, Rolling Stone Magazine. Reprinted in the Dayton (OH) Journal-Herald

Lucille Ball is not Lucille Ball. She is Lucy. 

In Los Angeles, everyone knows where Lucy lives. The mansion is a big, white affair in Beverly Hills. Fans pose for photos in front of it, and they dig up Lucy's front lawn. 

Inside the mansion, the visitor is led through a series of spacious rooms to what appears to be a large den. The predominant color is orange. Dark-green carpeting with upholstered , orange chairs. Lots of orange and lots of plants. One wall is completely glass and overlooks a large yard, also filled with plants. Lucy, you are told, loves to garden. 

Lucy enters from the yard. She has just taken a singing lesson. She is wearing big pastel sunglasses, a black V-neck sweater and matching slacks. Her hair is a strange shade of reddish pink. She adjusts her sunglasses. Takes them off and cleans them. Her eyes are very blue. She puts her glasses back on and extends her hand. "I'm glad to meet you," Lucy says. "My name Is Lucille Ball." 

As we speak, she begins to smoke, and smoke. "I smoke a lot," she says, "but I never inhale." 

The smoking seems to elicit questions. Lucille Ball likes to ask questions. She likes an honest response. She asks questions like, "Do you ever dye your hair? Do you believe in astrology? Do you want a grilled cheese sandwich?" These questions give way to statements. Statements like, "You should dye your hair. Have a grilled cheese sandwich." And, then: "I believe in astrology." 

Lucille Ball explains. She is 71 years old, born Aug. 6 and a Leo. Leos are, she says, vain, proud and forthright. She is startlingly forthright. "Leos know what they're about," Ball says. Leos are also, she adds, accident-prone. "We break a lot of bones." She has broken this very leg. She even suffered from rheumatoid arthritis. "They told me I'd never walk again," Ball says, "But I want you to just feel this leg." 

She points to her leg. The leg is truly beautiful, a showgirl's leg. I feel it gingerly. "THAT'S NOT THE WAY YOU FEEL A LEG," Ball screams. "My God - don't you even know how to feel a person's leg?" She grabs my hand and then, hand in tow, grabs her leg around the calf. The leg, In fact, appears to be quite sturdy. "Years ago, that leg was completely weak. But that was years ago. Today Is another story." 

Today is another story, and "years ago" was New York. Lucille Ball was not Lucille Ball then. "I was known as Diane Belmont," Ball says, after fixing herself the much-discussed grilled cheese sandwich. "You have to understand, I am from a suburb of Jamestown, New York. 

"When I was four, my father, who was an electrician, died. I was always what you would call stage-struck. I would recite speeches at the drop of a... anything. I'd sing, I'd dance, I'd perform all the time. But I was always interested in being of the business. Of the business. Any part of, it: makeup, costumes... anything and everything. My mother finally sent me to the John Murray Anderson-Robert Milton Dramatic School in New York City. Bette Davis was their star pupil. After one semester, they sent my mother a letter saying she was wasting her money. They said I'd never learn to talk, never learn to walk across a stage. That left a helluva mark on me. I had very little, if any, self-confidence after that. I didn't change until I was a model for a while." 

Diane Belmont was born several years later. "To this day," Ball says, "people say, 'Why did you change your name to Lucille Ball?' Can you imagine anyone changing her name to Lucille Ball? My real name is Lucille Ball. Diane Belmont was a much classier name. I came up with it in the car. I always loved the name Diane, and I was driving past the Belmont race track, and the names seemed to fit together: Diane Belmont. It was such a glamorous name. A real model's name." 

Belmont was successful. She became a Chesterfield cigarettes poster girl, a hat model and a dress model. But BelmontBall hated New York. "I didn't have any friends. No girlfriends and no boyfriends. I didn't have big dreams about where I was going or with whom. I didn't go out. I was never boy crazy or man crazy or car crazy or anything crazy, but New York was a lonely place. I never even felt pretty. I was clearly a lesser beauty. I had a very dull existence." 

When she was 17 Belmont/Ball's career was interrupted by a debilitating disease rheumatoid arthritis. "One day it just struck me," Ball recalls. "I was working too hard and not taking care of myself. I was laid up for three years. I had to work pretty hard to walk again, but I was lucky. Since I had no money, my boss sent me to her doctor, and he sent me to see this specialist. I became a guinea pig, and this doctor would experiment on me. The guinea pig experiments worked. In three years, I was v modeling again." Not for long.

"I seldom use the word luck" says Lucille Ball. "But in 1933, when I became a Goldwyn girl - that was pure luck. I was just walking down the street. It was unbearably hot and someone - I don't remember exactly who - came up to me and said, 'How'd you like to go to California?' This was New York, so you had to be careful when anyone asked you anything, but this was a woman asking me, so I figured I was safe. She told me that the girl they had already found for Goldwyn couldn't make the trip. They wanted poster gals for the film Roman Scandals, and since I was the Chesterfield Girl, I fit the bill. They said the job was for six weeks. I said, 'I'd go anyplace to get out of this heat.' I went out to Hollywood and" - Ball smiles - "I never came back." 

"My hair," Lucille Ball Is saying "has always been the bane of my existence." Ball fluffs up her curls. Her hair goes straight up about six inches. "I have never known what to do with my hair," she says. "It was just never chic." A natural brunette, Ball has tried several different hair colors. Blonde. Platinum. Red. Pink. Orange. Diane Belmont was a blonde, and when she arrived in Hollywood and retrieved her own name, Lucille Bail was a Jean Harlow platinum. "You had to be a platinum blonde then," says Ball, almost apologetically, still fussing with her hair. "They wanted you to be a platinum blonde, so I was a platinum blonde."

There were other accommodations. "We had to line up for Mr. Goldwyn when we first went out there," Ball recalls. "You had to have on the inevitable bathing suit. Mr. Goldwyn and 40 other men would walk by and stare at you. We were all self-conscious, but those who were Ziegfeld girls and Shubert girls were very well stacked. They were less nervous. They had it, you see. I didn't have it." 

Ball points to her breasts. 

"So I made fun of myself. I put toilet paper and gloves and socks and anything I could find in the bust of my bathing suit. Some of the toilet paper was still trailing out of the top when Mr. Goldwyn came by." Bail pauses. "If nothing else, they certainly noticed me. 

"I think the one virtue that helped me was I didn't mind doing anything. Nothing was beneath me. I'd scream; I'd yell; I'd run through the set; I'd wear strange clothes. To me it was just getting your foot in the door." 

She went from Goldwyn to Columbia to RKO, where because of her less than magnificent films, she became knows as "Queen of the B's." But Bail did make some widely praised films. Stage Door (1937), The Big Street (1942) and the Cole Porter musical DuBarry Was a Lady (1942) all met with a critical positive response. 

The latter film marked the beginning of her red-headed days of Technicolor Tessie, a name given her by Life magazine. 

"Red was a happy color. It was good with my eyes, and it photographed well. It turned out to be a successful color. There's nothing more to it than that," she says. 

Ball says she fell in love with Desi Arnaz at first sight. 

"That was real love. We met on the set. We were making a movie called Too Many Girls. I played the ingenue lead." "I asked her if she knew how to rumba," Arnaz has said. "And when she said no, I offered to teach her." 

Arnaz, in 1940, was the chief rumba proponent in America. A native Cuban, he and his mother had fled their country following the 1933 Batista revolution. The 16-year-old Arnaz drove a cab, worked as a bookkeeper and cleaned out bird cages until, in 1937, he became a member of the Siboney Septet, a swanky hotel band. While performing with this group, he was spotted by Xavier Cugat, who hired the young singer. A year later, Arnaz started his own ensemble. He became a sensation in New York and Arnaz landed the lead role in Too Many Girls. He came to Hollywood, fell in love and within six months, he and Lucille Ball were married. 

"Our marriage," Bail says, "was rough. We had a rough go. For the first nine years, it seemed like we were only together a few weeks." First work kept them apart, then he was drafted, and after the war he toured with ins band for five years. "It was very successful for him but disastrous for our marriage. You can't have a marriage over the phone. We were on our ninth year, and we'd spent something like eight and a half of them apart. We decided that we wanted to be together." 

During this period, Ball, fed up with movies, starred in a radio program titled “My Favorite Husband” (l947-1951) (1). She played Liz, the zany wife of a staid banker. CBS wanted to transfer the concept to television and Bail said OK, providing Desi play her husband. The studio objected, but Bail and Arnaz were steadfast. They put together an act, created their own company, Desilu Productions, and hit the road. The public response was terrific. CBS took notice and finally relented. Their show was “I Love Lucy”. The rest is history. 

“I am not funny," says Lucille Ball, sounding very funny. "My writers were funny. My direction was funny. The situations were funny. But I am not funny. What I am is brave. I have never been scared. And there was a lot to be scared about. We were innovators. 

"At the beginning of Love Lucy, they gave us a choice of five, six, seven scripts and asked us what we wanted our characters to be like. No one had ever done that before. 

"I... didn't want us to be a 'typical Hollywood couple,' whatever that is. I wanted our characters to have problems. Economic problems. Ail kinds of problems. I wanted to be an average housewife. A very nosy, but very average housewife." Ball pauses. "And I wanted my husband to love me.” By the beginning of the second season, the show was the biggest hit In TV history. But not everyone was happy. Vivian Vance, for Instance. Despite her rather matronly appearance, Vance was actually one year younger than Ball (who was 41 when she became Lucy). And to guarantee Ethel Mertz' dowdy image, it was stipulated in Vance's contract that the actress always remain 20 pounds overweight. This agreement caused some friction. (2) 

But Lucy was positively gleeful about the show. It was her family. Her second child, Desi Jr., was born to much fanfare the very same night Lucy Ricardo gave birth to her baby, Little Ricky, on national TV. An estimated 44 million viewers watched. 

"Things were wonderful then," Ball says, almost dreamily. "Things were just wonderful." 

But there was still trouble in her marriage. She thought the show would turn things around. But Desi Arnaz, apparently, was not Ricky Ricardo. "He was like Jekyll and Hyde," Ball says now. "He drank and he gambled and he went around with other women. I was always hoping things would change. But Desi's nature is destructive. When he builds something, the bigger he builds it, the more he wants to break it down." 

In 1957, "I Love Lucy” ceased weekly production. The show's format changed Ricky Ricardo bought Club Babalu. Guest stars began popping in for nightcaps. And “I Love Lucy” reappeared as hour-long specials that aired roughly once a month. 

In 1960, Lucille Ball filed for divorce. The divorce was uncontested. She was awarded half of Desilu Productions, the Beverly Hills house, two station wagons and a cemetery plot at Forest Lawn. 

Gary Morton is Lucille Ball's second husband. She met him in New York while she was starring on Broadway in the Desllu-financed musical Wildcat. Morton was a stand-up comic. Now his office at the Twentieth Century-Fox studios is papered with framed Lucy photos. 

"We are very compatible," Morton says. "We even sing in the same octave." Morton runs Lucille Ball Productions, an outgrowth of Desilu Productions. Desi Arnaz, who ran Desilu after the divorce, had built the company into a multimillion-dollar business. Not only did it produce love Lucy, the company also produced 60 other prime-time series, including “The Untouchables” and “Our Miss Brooks.” 

Lucille Ball looks sad when she talks about Lucy. She isn't Lucy, you see. "Lucy, for me," she says, "is like a memory. I am nostalgic about Lucy. I could still be playing that part. Before I quit working in 1974, my ratings were high, and they wanted me to sign on for another five years of “Here's Lucy.” I said, That's ridiculous.' The Lucy character is too old to run around like an idiot. (3) I'd probably still be playing Lucy if I'd signed that contract, but it was silly to keep playing the same thing." 

Ball pauses. 

"But now I miss her. I miss my arena. I miss getting up and going to work every day. I have my charities, and I'm getting my house in order, but it's not the same."

#   #   #

FOOTNOTES FROM THE FUTURE

This article is a reprint of an article that appeared in Rolling Stone Magazine on June 23, 1983.  Magazines were usually post-dated, so this issue of Rolling Stone was already on the newsstand on June 16, 1983.

(1) “My Favorite Husband” aired a pilot episode on July 5, 1948, not 1947 as is stated here.  However, the source material naturally pre-dates the radio series. 

(2) The controversial contract that kept Vivian Vance frumpy was discussed on “Dinah!” on December 1, 1975.  Vivian has brought a long a copy of the ��contract’, which she describes as a gag, never to be taken seriously.  Whether Vance is now covering for Ball’s initial misgiving’s about her casting, or the contract was indeed a joke, we will never know. 

(3) Perhaps Lucille Ball forgot about this fact when tempted back onto television in 1986 for “Life With Lucy.”  Most of the critics remarked that it was not funny to see a woman of Ball’s advanced age doing pratfalls and stunts. 

This same article was published two days later in The Ottawa (CAN) Citizen. The photographs, artwork, and headline were different, but the text remained essentially the same. 

Fans outside the stadium, the official Jordan-Hare time is...

Yesterday marked two weeks until kickoff, so now we’re going to get into the real rollercoaster ride that’s been Auburn football over the last dozen years or so. Today we talk about the number thirteen.

2002 - Auburn 13, Penn State 9

We touched on this game very briefly just a couple of days ago during the article about the 2002 season. Auburn had just beaten Alabama with a bunch of backups on the field after having nearly beaten Georgia the week prior. The Tigers had finished the regular season strong, winning four of five and taking out two top ten teams along the way. Ronnie Brown had been a major workhorse in his time taking over the starting role, and despite and ankle injury that kept him out of the Iron Bowl, he’d be well enough to play in time for the Capital One Bowl against the Nittany Lions.

Auburn and Penn State met on New Year’s Day 2003 with the Tigers back at full strength, but with a big test ahead. PSU featured Larry Johnson in the backfield, a powerful tailback who’d eclipsed the 2,000-yard mark over the course of the year. He’d even finished third in the Heisman voting behind Carson Palmer and Brad Banks of Iowa. In his final four games of the regular season, he’d gone for 279, 188, 327, and 279 yards with ten total touchdowns. The guy was a machine and would certainly pose a huge threat to the Auburn defense.

He got completely outclassed by that Tiger D and Ronnie Brown. Johnson was limited to just 72 yards on twenty carries, while Brown rumbled for 184 yards and the game winning score with just a couple minutes left. Auburn ended up winning 13-9, setting up impossible expectations for the next season.

1983 - Auburn 13, Georgia 7

I would expound on this game that sent Auburn to the Sugar Bowl with a conference title, but why not just let John Facenda, aka the Voice of God, do it for you?

What’s not shown there is a nearly-field-length touchdown run by Bo Jackson, who barely grazed the sideline on his way to paydirt and negated what would’ve been one of his signature runs. Either way, and you see it in the video, Georgia had no business testing that Auburn defense, and the furtive sugar-licking glances of Pat Dye afterward suggest as much.

13 Years Ago - 2004

And here we are, finally reaching 2004. Up until Cam Newton arrived on the Plains, this was the greatest year in the last half-century of Auburn football. Undefeated, conference champs, SEC Player of the Year Jason Campbell, two top-five draft picks, and some of the best football played at Auburn in some time all came out of this season.

How did we get there? Well, after the fiasco of 2003’s offense, the Nallsminger experiment, Tommy Tuberville knew he needed to modernize just a bit. Thus, the coaching search began for a new coordinator. I remember the prospective guys, from small schools with high-flying attacks like Miami (Ohio) and Toledo.

Then, a decision was made. Auburn hired Al Borges from Indiana. He hadn’t really been on the list, and after looking at the Hoosiers’ stats from 2003, I had 100% confidence that we’d screw up Campbell, Williams, and Brown’s senior seasons. Indiana averaged less than fifteen points per game, good for 115th in the country. They barely put up 300 yards per game, again near the bottom of the ranks. This did not look good.

Still, as we watched Auburn in the opener against Louisiana-Monroe, we saw some different things. Oh, there’s a deep ball. Hey, they threw to the running backs. That out route actually went past the sticks on third down. It was super vanilla, but it got the job done and the Tigers took the opener 31-0 over the Warhawks. We’d see how things went in a couple weeks against the defending national champions when LSU came to town.

There was still a game against the newly-led Mississippi State Bulldogs before that. Gone was Jackie Sherrill, and in his place was the first black head coach in SEC history in Sylvester Croom. Croom seemed to be a great hire — a former star under Bear Bryant and a well-respected coach around the country. He just had too much going against him in Starkville, where the cupboard was completely barren.

Against the Bulldogs, Auburn really opened up the offense a bit. Both Williams and Brown went for over a hundred yards, while Jason Campbell threw for three scores. Auburn got up 43-0 before MSU hit a couple of garbage time touchdowns, but it was still a very satisfying win.

At 2-0, Auburn would have to now face off in a huge early season matchup with LSU, the defending national champions. These two had traded 31-7 wins the last two seasons, but LSU had hit its stride under Nick Saban, boasting a stingy defense and an offense that put up points fairly quickly. Two days before the game, however, Hurricane Ivan struck the Gulf Coast.

Living in Montgomery at the time, the road to my house was blocked from trees falling everywhere around it, and we didn’t get power back until Sunday night. All Thursday, the winds blew and rain spat down from above and doubt was cast upon whether they’d be able to play the game. Friday dawned hot and humid with power out around the Southeast, but Saturday emerged with all the clouds sucked away by the storm and a gloriously dry and wonderful September Saturday.

When the game kicked off, LSU took its opening drive on a quick march all the way down the field and scored on a Dwayne Bowe touchdown that took nearly seven minutes out of the opening quarter. The Bayou Bengals would miss the extra point, putting them up 6-0 (this would be so important later).

Auburn notched a field goal by John Vaughn on its opening drive, and LSU matched with a kick of their own early in the second quarter to go up 9-3. For nearly 45 minutes after that, the two teams played even football.

In one of the most hard-hitting and tense ballgames I can remember, Auburn and LSU went back and forth, advancing and retreating, jabbing and blocking, weakening each other with each blow, until Auburn ended up with the headshot late.

The Tiger defense stood tall after allowing the nine early points, hitting as hard as possible and abusing the LSU offense throughout the rest of the game...

Auburn’s offense wouldn’t have it any easier. You could tell they were close to breaking through, even failing on a fourth down inside the one late in the third, but they couldn’t cross the goal line. With just a few minutes remaining in the game, however, they’d need to cobble something together to get the necessary points.

The Tigers began their final drive methodically with about six minutes left on the clock, starting with powerful running from Ronnie Brown and a stellar catch-and-run from Anthony Mix for first downs. Still, they’d find themselves in a fourth-and-twelve situation inside the LSU 30. This was where the Auburn Tigers of my childhood would fail and we’d be disappointed, but not overly surprised. This time, though, Jason Campbell calmly rolled out and found Courtney Taylor at the last second just past the sticks for the first down and new life. Three plays later, Taylor again came to the rescue.

Oh, the bewildered looks of Nick Saban and Will Muschamp on the opposite sideline. That was one heck of a coaching staff that also featured Jimbo Fisher at offensive coordinator. Good Lord.

We weren’t out of the woods yet, as Auburn missed the extra point but was given a retry thanks to a newly-instituted leaping penalty. The Tigers booted through the second attempt and led 10-9 with a minute to play. Junior Rosegreen intercepted Jamarcus Russell’s last-second pass to seal the win and Auburn had escaped with a monumental victory.

The win vaulted Auburn into the top ten, and they’d cruise against The Citadel a week later, getting everyone involved in a 33-3 win. It set up a top ten tilt with Tennessee inside Neyland Stadium the first Saturday in October. College Gameday was there, as Tennessee rotated two fantastic freshmen quarterbacks in Erik Ainge and Brent Schaefer. In an interesting move, ESPN got not a Vol legend to visit the show for their final picks, but Sir Charles himself. And Charles had no qualms about sticking up for his guys.

If you watch past the picks and listen to Tubs’ pregame speech, I love his rationale for playing on the road. “No stupid penalties, we on the road, so you know they gonna call ‘em.”

What followed was a complete evisceration of Tennessee. Auburn gave notice to the entire country that they were playing with the big boys. The Tigers led 31-3 at halftime and ended up winning 34-10. Junior Rosegreen picked off four passes on the night, and Ronnie Brown made a poster of Vol safety Jason Allen. It was both one of the loudest atmospheres (right before kickoff) and the quietest (right after halftime) that Neyland Stadium has ever heard.

Auburn moved up to #6 in the polls following that win, and breezed by Louisiana Tech 52-7 the next week. With other teams around the country falling off, the Tigers sat at 6-0 and #4 in the land when Tuberville’s personal bugaboo visited the Plains for what everyone hoped wouldn’t be a classic spoiler game.

The day of the Auburn-Arkansas game, my grandfather was on death’s door. I was at home, while both of my parents waited at his house for the inevitable to happen. Just as kickoff happened, I got the call from my dad that he’d finally passed on after a long battle with cancer. After breaking the news (and he knew I was watching the game), I could hear him walk out of earshot of everyone else and he asked “So, uh... what’s going on with the game?”

I told him Auburn had the ball first and had just run its first play. He told me they’d be over there for a little while making some arrangements and he hung up. The very next play, something miraculous happened.

I like to think my grandfather going out had something to do with that, but it could’ve just been good timing. Anyway, Auburn throttled the Razorbacks, winning 38-20 as Jason Campbell threw for more touchdowns than incompletions.

Auburn enjoyed an easy win over Kentucky the next week by a score of 42-10, then headed to Ole Miss for a Halloween showdown with the SEC West on the line. That’s right, the Tigers could win the division before November, and all they had to do was beat Ole Miss.

The Rebels proved to be a tough home opponent, and stymied the Auburn offense for nearly thirty minutes. Auburn finally broke through on a Campbell sneak at the goal line in the final seconds of the first half, but a 7-0 lead was shaky at best. The Tigers scored on their opening drive of the third quarter, but Ole Miss answered with a long touchdown pass to cut the lead back down to a touchdown. It went like that all night long before Auburn finally pulled away late with two fourth quarter touchdowns for a 35-14 victory.

It wasn’t even November, and everyone else in the SEC West might as well have stopped playing. Auburn had won the division and would play TBD in Atlanta the first weekend in December. There were still much bigger things on the table than a chance at the Tigers’ first SEC title in fifteen years.

Sitting at 9-0 and #3 in the polls behind unbeatens USC and Oklahoma, Auburn needed a statement game against a powerful opponent to truly pull into the discussion for the BCS National Championship. What better opportunity than with #5 Georgia heading to the Plains the next week with an 8-1 record and a national TV audience?

With another College Gameday setup, all eyes were on Auburn to see how the Tigers would fare against their first really good opponent since LSU. Auburn didn’t disappoint.

After a testy first drive from the Bulldogs, Auburn went on autopilot. A cold, relentless machine that ran over and around Georgia in all facets. The Tigers marched down the field on their opening drive to take the lead, then dazzled the crowd with trick plays and murderous defense. Ronnie Brown showed off the hands that helped earn him a high draft grade, catching seven passes for 88 yards and score, while Carlos Rogers probably won the Thorpe Award in this game by locking down Georgia’s passing game all day.

24-6. Auburn. All day.

The win propelled the Tigers into a tie for second with Oklahoma. Auburn was finally in the actual discussion for the national championship, and had overcome the huge lead the Sooners had in the polls. Just beat Alabama, and this could hold up.

Easier said than done.

A trip to Tuscaloosa is never easy, and even when Auburn has been the vastly superior team, the Tigers have failed to run the Tide out of their own building. Same story, different day on November 20th, 2004.

Alabama succeeded in limiting the effectiveness of Auburn’s West Coast passing game, negating Brown and Williams out of the backfield, while the wet conditions evened the playing field just enough to keep Bama in it. The Tide led 6-0 at the half and things were on edge. But just as they’d found ways all year, the Tigers took one shot early in the third quarter, and it hit.

After the big completion to Aromashodu, Auburn took control, scoring three straight touchdowns to lead 21-6 before a late Bama score made it look closer than it was.

The damage had been done. Oklahoma regained its lead in the polls and Auburn fell back to third, but the SEC Championship still loomed the next week with a top fifteen opponent and another chance to show off for the country.

Auburn met Tennessee for the second time that season, making it the second Tigers-Vols meeting in Atlanta as well. Of course, Auburn had massacred Tennessee back in Knoxville two months prior, but today would be different. That didn’t mean that the Tigers still wouldn’t start off in a hurry.

Auburn scored barely 90 seconds in to take an early 7-0 lead, then followed it with another touchdown and it looked like the rout was on again. Tennessee did regain composure enough to cut the deficit in half, and keep within striking distance until Gerald Riggs’ 80-yard burst tied the game at 21 midway through the third quarter.

The Tigers didn’t panic, as Jason Campbell was having one of the games of his career. Two long late touchdown passes sealed the deal as Auburn won 38-28 to claim the first SEC Championship since 1989. Campbell won the game MVP award, and Auburn sat at 12-0. Some people threw oranges onto the field, but the win had a bittersweet taste due to the fact that most already knew Oklahoma or USC would likely have had to lose for the Tigers to move up in the polls.

While the Trojans got to play a weak UCLA team (and squeak by 29-24), and Oklahoma got to wear out a 7-4 Colorado team in the Big Twelve Championship Game, Auburn had beaten a top fifteen team by double digits after already rolling them on the road earlier in the year. I won’t go through the entire case for the Tigers to play in the title game, but it was hefty.

Auburn was “rewarded” with a trip to the Sugar Bowl to face ACC Champ Virginia Tech. In a lackluster game, Auburn took a 16-0 lead before the Hokies finally scored twice in the final seven minutes to make it a close ballgame. The Tigers held on for a 16-13 win and a perfect 13-0 season. It was a dream year, but right in the middle of the celebration was a jilted feeling of being perfect in the nation’s best conference and getting left out.

It would’ve felt better if Oklahoma played USC close in the BCS title game. It would’ve been alright if it seemed like both of those teams were better than Auburn. The fact remains that only in one ballgame all year (LSU) did an opponent have the ball in the fourth quarter with a chance to take the lead over the Tigers. It’s astonishing when you consider that Tuberville sat on the ball with a big lead and Auburn didn’t score nearly as much as it could’ve. The Tigers had the nation’s best scoring defense, while Oklahoma and USC were taken to the wire several times that year.

Everyone remembers the 55-19 Trojan win, but before that, they nearly lost at 4-7 Stanford, 6-6 UCLA, and 7-5 Oregon State. Not exactly the best of the best. Meanwhile, Oklahoma got scared by Texas A&M and Oklahoma State in back-to-back weeks. Auburn won four games against ten-win teams. OU and USC combined for that many victories against ten-win teams.

Some good did come out of the snub. The SEC got a free pass after that, and finally Florida showed what the league could do in 2006. Auburn would get its own chance just a few short years after that.

Coming Up: What Comes After Perfection?

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