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wintersandthebeast · 1 year

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Get to know your fic writer!

Do you prefer writing one-shots or multi-chaptered fics?

Do you plan each chapter ahead or write as you go?

Describe the creative process of writing a chapter/fic

Where do you find inspiration for new ideas?

Do you like constructive criticism?

Do you have your work beta'd? How important is this to your process?

How do you choose which POV to write from?

Do you prefer the beginning, middle, or end of a story?

Do you comment on stories you read?

Cltr+f "blinks" on your WIP & copy paste the first sentence/paragraph that comes up

Link your three favorite fics right now

how does receiving or not receiving feedback/support impact you?

what’s a common writing tip that you almost always follow?

how do you write emotional scenes? Do you ever feel what the characters feel? Do you draw from personal experiences?

How do you write smut scenes? Do you get very visual or detailed? How important is it to be realistic?

How many fic ideas are you nurturing right now? Share one of them?

What do you do when writing becomes difficult? (maybe a lack of inspiration or writers block)

Do you title your fics before, during, or after the writing process? How do you come up with titles?

What is the most-used tag on your ao3?

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Best writing advice for other writers?

Worst writing advice anyone ever gave you?

What fic do you wish you got more of a response on?

Which of your fics would you call your wildest ride?

What is your most and least favorite part of writing?

On average, how much writing do you get done in a day?

What’s your revision or editing process like?

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Do you start with the characters or the plot when writing?

Name three of your favorite fanfic writers.

Do you want to be published some day?

Five years from now, where do you see yourself as a writer?

What is one essential thing to remember when writing a villain?

How do you write kissing scenes?

How do you choose where to end a chapter?

Would you ever write commissions?

Share a snippet from a WIP

If someone were to make fanart of your work, what fic or scene would you hope to see?

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How long is your longest fic?

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Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

How do you spend your time when it comes to fanfiction? Are you primarily a fic reader, writer, or a perfect 50/50 split of both?

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Of the characters you write for, which is your favorite? Has that choice been swayed at all by your followers/readers’ reactions to certain ones?

What’s something about your writing that you pride yourself on?

Do you prefer editing as you write, or waiting until it’s finished?

What part of the writing process do you enjoy the most? (Brainstorming, outlining, writing, editing, etc)

Does anyone in your personal life know you write fic? if not, would you tell anyone?

Have you had a writer you admire comment on your fic? What was that like?

Why do you continue writing fics?

Thoughts on cliffhangers?

Something you hate to see in smut.

Something you love to see in smut.

Tell us about what you’re most looking forward to writing – in your current project, or a future project

How do you deal with writing pressure (ie. pressure to update, negative comments, deadlines, etc.)?

Do you prefer prompts and challenges, or completely independent ideas?

What, if anything, do you do for inspiration?

What work of yours, if any, are you the most embarrassed about existing?

When asked, are you embarrassed or enthusiastic to tell people that you write?

When it comes to more complicated narratives, how do you keep track of outlines, characters, development, timeline, ect.?

What order do you write in? front of book to back? chronological? favorite scenes first? something else?

What do you think makes your writing stand out from other works?

You’ve posted a fic anonymously. How would someone be able to guess that you’d written it?

What scene in [Fanfic Name] took the longest to write? What was difficult about it?

Did you have any ideas that didn’t make the final cut of [Fanfic Name]?

Do you have a favorite scene you’ve written from [Fanfic Name] story/chapter?

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wintersandthebeast · 1 year

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Lady Dimitrescu's daughters be like

"In life and death, we give glory to you, Mother Miranda. Btw what eyeshadow palette do you use??"

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wintersandthebeast · 1 year

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iv, the blurs of memories

re8 | canon x oc: karl heisenberg & hildegard taube | 3rd person perspective

+18 chapter iv | beobachten | die skizze

this chapter Hildegard is making a portrait of Karl, under the spell of observing him and the discovery of herself. but she's not the only one who observes the other, and discover oneself.

warnings / minors dni. no smut but nsfw-ish/suggestive content. mentions of self-hate, physical and mental self-destructive behaviours and suicidal tendencies; slight mentions of Karl's blonde fixation; appreciation of Karl's face, specially for his lips ( I just love those silly warnings ).

sorry for any possible typos.

Just like Karl, freedom was something she sought for, searched for; but except for Miranda, she didn't know from what she had been wanting to be free for all her lifetime. Fortunately there are times when she didn't feel that way, the times she found freedom was when she was creating something, her art and her clothes; and the times when she was taking a walk on the outside, and those times when she was all alone by herself. And now there was a new addition: the times when she's spending her time with him.

In 3 weeks of living here, she sometimes goes outside, to a place a bit far away from the mansion, a natural place that's lacking people, and runs, as much and hard as she can. Freely, without a doubt, anxiety, someone else's thoughts. When there were no people, she could expose and embrace the childish side inside of her without being judged, by running aimlessly and idly at those places; a child inside of her, someone who never had a childhood but she somehow protected throughout her lifetime.

In nature, today, she thought about how real the stories were; the bonds between characters in the stories she made in her head was something she had in his life now too, in the bond she had with Karl; how gentle, how naive it was, which gave it the power and sturdiness it has.

He made her feel different and she was in no situation to deny it, it was so clear. Wasn't it as though life speaking with her, with holding a mirror of him and her emotions, feelings and thoughts everywhere? On her own reflections, on the dinner table, on the walks she took, on the moments she simply watched a view from a window or balcony, on everywhere, as if he was with him; with all the things she had for him inside, kept right there, following her wherever she reached, went.

There was no escape nor denial, she knew she would lie to herself if she thought of that otherwise. She loved him, desired him, secretly and gently.

Sometimes, in those sweet, sometimes unintelligible moments, an intensity filled with confusion would make her want to go back to her cell. The cell could be any corner or the side of any window; here, it was some parts of the mansion, the place where she was going back to. There were no servants here any longer as she couldn't afford all those women, especially when she could do the chores by herself, except one thing, that she was always so distant and disinterested in: cooking. Only the cook stayed here from the start.

She had to prepare the needed ingredients, because today was, as they talked last night with a telephone, about an event that they first spoke about a few days ago: Karl's portrait day. A sketch of Karl. The one who could always be with her, in her hands, in her arms, look at her through the paper. The Karl that she could stroke, to smile at comfortably when she's looking at him.

She was in her casual, calm demeanor but inside, she felt like she could faint out of excitement that made her heart beat so fast, sweetly, not in an anxious or paranoid way, but sweetly. The sweetest panics of all.

A beam of morning light of winter hitting on the side of her filtering from one of the french windows of the mansion, like a promise of tomorrow, of future; like a light of the future. While the rest of the room and her were still in the dark, like the sneak doubts inside of her that wanted to slowly make their way to eat her, left her to sink in rot. A hopeful, light smile appeared on her face as he saw an appearance of a walking masculine body that seemed to walk towards the mansion, amongst the snow. His figure seemed clearer as he approached: a grayish brown hat on top of his head, a dark blue, tied coat, pants in dark burgundy tones and black boots.

When he arrived at the door, she greeted her with her casual calmness and that sincere, warm smile of hers, that no one ever made her occur that smile on her face but him. With her smile, he smiled in response, showing his white teeths. For once in his life, in the lifetime of traumas, he found a person who is simply genuine and kind towards him, but most importantly, someone who saved him, saw something in him, to the point of lying to Miranda.

She made cracks on the walls he built, that life taught him how to build. Amongst these cracks she made, beams of lights filtered through them, lightning the dusted parts of him that's left in the forgotten parts of the factory. All those attacks against his walls in order to overthrow them strangely did never make him feel a moment's vulnerability. The irony is, those tough walls that've been builded with the help of life's hands, throughout his terrifying lifetime cracked with very simple things— a glance and a smile.

"I'm so happy you like that idea of mine." She said as he placed his coat and hat on the coat rack, revealing his black hair with gray strands fallen on it and his black coloured buttoned shirt, that is worn above a black turtleneck sweater. His burgundy pants were velvet and sure were not for work, especially for his work, which meant he especially prepared himself in this way; unlike how he is in the factory and how he is at the meetings.

"I didn't want to miss the first opportunity of being a model in my life." He chuckled.

"Do you want to know something?"

"Hm?"

"I did modeling in my life for some few years. I even have photos from 2017."

"For photography?"

"Yes." She said, "I unfortunately don't have the photos here." She said and leaned closer to him, "But when I get my hands on them on the day we're free and on my house, I'll show them to you." She whispered to his ear, in case of not get caught by the cook.

"Would you host me there?" He whispered back. His whispering voice made her shaky a bit for a moment. She swallowed, controlling it to be a slight one to not take an unwanted attention from him.

She smiled, "Yes. Of course. Where do you have to live otherwise? And I'd gladly be your housemate."

He pulled himself back with that characteristic grin on his face. After she guided him to the parlour (for the first time), he looked around a bit before sitting on the green, old couch. The mansion was abandoned more than 200 years ago, so it belonged to the village without any certain possession. Within those passing years, its rooms were used for charity works, while its library and some rooms provided access to books and educational work and throughout these years, electricity installation was also done and restored. The furnitures was old but sturdy, and it was cleaned well since the day Hildegard woken up in Miranda's lab from her 3 days of sleep.

"Now sit where you want and pose however you want, I will draw."

"Like this." He said as he sat on the green couch, legs crossed, an elbow leaning on the edge of the couch, his other arm that he kept close to himself was leaning in the opposite side through his leg. "How long do I gotta stay like this?"

"Depends," she smiled. "But you can move if you need to. We can go back to the actual position and draw later."

"Okay."

"Would you mind if I observe you a bit? It will be helpful before drawing your reference."

"Do as you wish. I wouldn't mind a beautiful, blonde woman staring at me."

Her eyes widened like how the little smile widened into a big one.

She observed. You should see the way her eyes widened and shined, looking straight in stubbornness. They were not the eyes of a predator, but the artist's. She observed him with the eyes of curiosity and adoration, the way his inside reflected on the outside; body was the writer of mind, and she was reading his story from his body;

On the wrinkles on the corner of his eyes and on the cheeks, on the scars that littered on his skin that she found as adornments, on the tones of grays that fallen to his black hair, on his lean, big arms and on the glances of vividness and rebellion circulated by the blue-hazel colour.

There were remains of sorrow in his eyes, as it never left, coalescing with anger fed by his sense of justice in a strange way. Everything is placed, kept and taken care of in the encircling blue-hazel colour.

And his lips, his plump lips, that she couldn't tear away the image of it; it was haunting her, appearing and disappearing in moments in her mind.

His face was oval, his jawline prominent behind his beard; the outline of his face and jaw, and his cheekbones, with the natural symmetry and asymmetry of the human body, was like an example of a workmanship. The structure of his face was so alike to hers as she also had an oval face too, but she does not consider hers that way.

Along with his eyes and hair, his lips were also her obsession: the line of his lips were curvy, and the view of the corner of his lips hit differently when his lips parted and the edges of each side were still joined, the tubercle was big and round, the plumpness of his lips went bigger in the middle parts, creating a big curve. That one scar made it even different. She could feel something moving, that is warm, slightly burning, somewhere in her body, the part which she knew and felt so well.

Actually, that ( observing ) was something she would do from the very start of knowing him, but this time was more different.

But she wasn't the only one who observed the other.

"You scratch your nose when you feel confused." He said, made her look in shock and curiosity to him. "What?"

"I noticed some features of you. It's not new. From the very start of our acquaintanceship. Remember those times?"

She smiled. "We would always stare at each other or make and catch a glance when the meeting hadn't started, or in the dinner times made in Castle."

"You always took my interest. The energy you had… how to describe… the way you talk, you looked, you carried yourself. In you, there was always some sort of… a wise humbleness." He said. "When you observed me, what was left for me to observe?" He grinned in a feeling of victory.

She didn't answer, so he continued: "You look at the ground when you remember something positive or don't know what to say."

Right after he ended his sentence, "Your face goes still when you're confused or sad." She said, suddenly."And when you feel like you're above, you grin. And when you realise you are not, you raise your eyebrows a bit." She said, never breaking her casual demeanor. A silence occured, Karl's chest started to rise bigger with each inhale. "When you lose control, your breath becomes deeper." After saying this, she finally bowed her head to the sketchbook and began to draw the outlines with the eyes that looked up from the sketchbook to her model in short intervals.

She was not an easy target to tease, much to his annoyance, and amusement at the same time. He loved how challenging her nature was, and it was different from any type of challenge, which was strange and adorable for him; it merged and rose from her calmness from deep inside, roots intertwined with her control over herself. She was not a young woman with rather little life experience, after all, she knew how to act and talk in needed moments.

The sketch was done, roughly but with some detailed parts. Her aim was done, he could now stare at her under her hands.

❦

( Karl, in the factory )

He smoked his Cuban cigar, exhaling and inhaling with hard-to-bear feelings on his wide chest. Confusion? Fear? Anxiety?

The more he spent time with her, the more he wanted him, and the worst part is that he wasn't aware of that. The feelings that he yet spoke of to himself, was just something he felt on his chest, sometimes painfully, sometimes with a blissful intensity, sometimes both; but never tranquil. The feelings that one did not confess their own self could not be tranquil. It wants the host to feel themselves, and giving borderline, sometimes contradictory signs was their best way.

He wanted to touch her, but he was afraid; afraid that she might see something in him, due to her powers. It was not because he especially didn't trust her; if there was anything life has taught him, it was to not trust anyone. Her breaking his walls, strangely, was not felt a problem, but doing that physically, actually, in a very moment sounded different and vulnerable. Everything was under the control of her fingertips.

But everything about her held a contradiction, because he also simultaneously wanted to touch her; he remembered that moment, her fingers on his forehead, amongst all the anxiety and worry, a warmth also reached to him from her fingers. Her red nails, blue veins…

She was special to him, because, oh, how gentle she was to him. Perhaps the only person who understood him, took time to understand him, the one who could feel behind his shells, his sunglasses. All he had for her inside came from the things he mentally returned from her. The way she moved her hands, her salient knuckles…

An image of her, so realistic that it was almost real: both of her hands tied to the headboard together, each angle is tied to the each thigh for the allowance of easier accessibility; a genuine smile on her waiting lips, the loveliest of all smiles, and a warm glance on her confidant brown eyes, her breath going out of her in a shaky way, her eyelids shutting down with a deep, a bit shaky exhale, and opening back with the shining eyes. She is at her most inviting. How inviting, how welcoming she looked: spreaded, smiling, happy and waiting; her softness and warmness was wet, her folds burning with wordless impatience. The skin lining her neck below her tilted head came to talk, inviting him. All those, only for him and him alone. One night, he thought, where she could belong to him, with all of her body, and he could belong to her, with all of his body.

He couldn't control the feeling of ache occurring below his waist.

The questions coming from the hostile, similar, soundless voice made him docile for a moment. Was he worth that? To her, to her body, to her skin, to her mind?

Karl was a man who was his enemy and friend at the same time; simultaneously, he was against himself and helping himself. He was helping himself to keep himself motivated, alive and uplifted with the mind that had a special storage for self-hate. Physically, it was unsure if he has self-destructive and suicidal tendencies but he mentally had them. He was like his own chess opponent, on the square white-black patterns about himself. And whose king would win was variable.

And after Hildegard, they somehow become less than how they were before.

#lord heisenberg #Getchu some Hildegard

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wintersandthebeast · 1 year

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I do hold scorn for people in weed states I do. I really do. The way your stupid 21 year old ass can go to the weed store and buy weed. The way your stupid 21 year old ass can buy weed online not a care in the world. And you have so much to choose from. You have so much fucking gorrila cumshot big fat load of cum horse cock mega 1 billion tch % to choose from and they all got different names and when our good texan plugs come home from colorado they bring that poison with them. They bring that poison home to us. And the people of texas, we're smoking that poison. Were smoking that filthy filthy colorado 10000 thc shit, and were dying. Were dying out here. The soil down here is lerfect for weed. If we could have weed we could create, beautiful poison. Way more toxic than colorodo. Way more toxic than california. We can make weed so insane, bitched from colorado will come down here, to smoke OUR poison. And WE could name it shit like Ram Ranch. We could name it shit like Horse Erection. We could name it shit like, I dont know, Forget The Alamo. YOU, worthless idiots up north, can smoke our latino magic. You dont got tejanos. You dont got our technology. You don't got what it takes. You dont know what its like. Theyre not legalizing weed down here cause they hate us. You know they do. You know for a fact they do. So yeah. Just think before you spark up with that shit you got down the street trouble free. Do so in my name. In our name. Keep the less fortunate in mind. I HOPE THE CIELING FAN FALLS ON YOU

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wintersandthebeast · 1 year

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50. This Dance

RE8 | Wintersberg | Romance, Slow Burn | Action, Sci-Fi

Link to Master List

Magnetic fields with Miranda’s crystallized rope were a strange, fascinating combination. Heisenberg’s hammer spun near the material, and the field seemed to ‘catch’ within the circle, bouncing off its boundaries, intensifying and concentrating the field’s effects.

Heisenberg in particular enjoyed this; Zoe was staring, mesmerized, at all of the metal parts of her clothing that tugged and pulled thanks to the alternating field, and Ethan simply struggled to tighten the straps on his holster and the shotgun’s carry strap as the weapons whipped to and fro across his body in the “wind.” Finally they were taut against his body, and he nodded at his friend.

The medieval ceremonies had lots of chanting, but they were praying over empty crystals, hoping to call forward spirits. Those rituals didn’t include a very old, very well-preserved being sitting, playing on the rock with Rosemary as Eva did now. Neither Ethan nor Zoe felt the need to chant, but they stretched their hands over the rock. Ethan closed his eyes, and opened them--in the liminal space.

Rosemary was here, Eva was here. Zoe was here. Heisenberg flickered in and out, connected to them by the magnetic field, looking like a wizard as lines of flux cascaded in zigzags from him around the circle. There was something else here, Ethan realized; it was dark overhead, and large snake-like tendrils of mold wove their way through the hollow. Perhaps the mold had grown here, undisturbed, for years, creating a stronger “blanket.” It certainly looked old.

Ethan listened for the whispers that always accompanied this realm. At first he only heard Rosemary’s conversational babbling. For her, sitting on a rock near midnight with a ghost was entirely normal behavior. He chanced closing his eyes again; he would ask in his usual way.

Hey uh…anytime now.

The whispers almost immediately answered him, thousands of quiet voices murmuring amongst themselves. Ethan opened his eyes, peering through the black lines created by Karl. The magnetic lines were thicker here than he’d ever seen; it must have been Miranda’s insulator. Thunder threatened overhead once more, though this realm never had clouds, simply a reddened sky. Mold likely had no need--or way--to catalogue accurate, complex cloud patterns or stars.

What should he say now? Something cheesy like ‘arise’ ? Ethan instead spoke aloud, straining to see the blackened soil around the rock.

“Come on,” he insisted stubbornly. “You know what to do.”

The Black God must not have found his unimpressive way of speaking to be blasphemous, for moments after he muttered this, black hair-like strands wove out of the water. They threaded their way across the wide rock, and Ethan struggled not to squirm at how disgusting they looked.

More and more thin tendrils took up the cause, waving and pulling with the aid of more energy, thanks to Karl’s magnetic field. This was moving twice, maybe three times as quickly, as the tendrils of mold in the memories he’d seen. Zoe recognized this as well, exclaiming, “Look, Ethan! It’s movin’ so fast!”

Rosemary completely ignored the hairlike structures that snaked past her and toward the crystal that Eva held. The mycelium somehow knew to avoid the purple lotus. Curious. Instead, the strands wrapped around the other small, white crystals placed there earlier. Eva watched with a nervous glance as the black slipped around the crystal she held. Every time a strand came into contact with a crystal, it blanched, whitening. More snaked around the sitting figure.

Ethan glanced over the rock, realizing he knew what to do next. And so did the mold. This was part of its programming. How curious. Who the hell programmed it? The medieval religious folk? Someone else? It knew what to do. It simply needed the energy and communication to do it, and that’s what the group provided. If the energy of the original priests was a single horsepower, they were pushing a cool 100, thanks to Karl, and having all three mold beings inside the dome of energy.

Eva’s consciousness was not within a single crystal, but her link to Rosemary was more than enough for the mold to recall her. Or so they surmised.

The whispers in Ethan’s ear sounded curious, intrigued. He attempted to focus on them for several moments, understanding nothing, but nonetheless feeling the emotions around him. Fear, trepidation. Fatigue. But also wonder, confusion.

Somebody, somewhere in there, could speak English. He heard it whispered many times in many different voices.

Not Miranda?

Not Miranda, he affirmed mentally. So she affected this world, these worlds? These voices, whoever they were, knew her.

At his confirmation, the whitened tendrils sprang into crystals. More and more lined up, crackling sounds snapping over the hum of Heisenberg’s hammer.

Ethan looked at Eva. She still sat on her haunches, and the whitened tendrils made their way across her lap, over her hands. The blond girl lowered her arms carefully, head turning toward Ethan to give him a hesitant look.

“It’s okay, we’ve got this,” he said confidently. “Just hang on.”

Eva’s form began to glow, and soon he couldn’t see her face as well in the bloom-filter the liminal space offered. He squinted against the bright, harsh light. Heisenberg flickered into view again, and he was staring at Ethan.

“Company,” he said simply, and Ethan transferred himself back into reality. The red sky and bright light disappeared. He heard the rain pattering, saw that clouds had breached the clearing. Ah, fuck. A broken howl sounded from farther in the hollow.

“Goddammit,” Ethan muttered, and he glanced back at Heisenberg.

“You okay?” Black fluid trickled from the engineer’s nostrils; he still held the hammer out with one hand, saluting Ethan sarcastically and flamboyantly with the other. The blond rolled his eyes, and scanned Zoe and Rosemary.

“You good, Zoe?”

“Just fine,” she said happily, and Ethan was happy to see that Zoe radiated within the magnetic circle. She looked as at peace and calm as Rosemary, which was good, because things were about to not be as calm elsewhere. Eva was flickering in and out of visibility, but still mostly looked formless as the strings of mycelium continued to crystallize, creeping up her form. Soon they would envelop her, creating the crystallized form.

He had time to wonder, before his next move, if the situation that brought him back to life was similar.

Ethan spun on his heel, locating Joe, who stood by the fire, gazing toward the mouth of the hollow. He caught Ethan’s stare, and cut his eyes to the blond long enough to nod once. It wasn’t a ‘we’re okay’ nod, more of a ‘we’ve got this’ nod. The sound of a rifle echoed off the rocks nearby, someone shooting toward the road behind them.

Karl was to Ethan’s right, the wagons to Ethan’s left, but the dizzying effect of the magnetic field meant that the wagons and their lamps were blurred to the blond’s vision. A yawning black spot appeared in the air nearby, outside of the circle. With one final glance at the others, Ethan sloshed through the water toward this black void. He turned toward it, squaring his shoulders forward as if to protect what was happening behind him. That’s exactly what he intended to do.

He knew exactly who would step out of that blackness. He wasn’t prepared, however, for how she would look. Gasps and screams sounded from the riverbanks as Roma teenagers fled back to the safety of their wagons, and more shots rang out, some now farther away. Miranda was dressed in the clothes she must have worn during her life, a simple linen dress and apron, loose blond hair flowing as if it were windy. It wasn’t; she was affected by Karl’s energy as well.

She looked angry, but confused. The snarl that crossed her face when she saw Ethan was palpable.

More screams caused her to turn and survey the scene, the wagons behind the crowd. When several of the men in hats fidgeted uncomfortably, Ethan held his hands up. “Remember, she’s just a mirage,” he snapped loudly. “Don’t shoot, it won’t do any good!”

“Ethan,” Miranda said pointedly, snapping her head around to stare at him with wide eyes. “What are you doing?”

So she didn’t know. Good. He hoped it would stay that way. Ethan wanted to smile, but a snarl was all he could manage. “Go to hell, Miranda.”

She looked so different without the ridiculous robes and accessories. Just as he had been with Donna, and even Alcina, he found himself slightly disgusted and alarmed with her elegant beauty. The tall woman strode through the water toward him, the look of hate even clearer on her face, but she paused when she clearly felt the radiating boundary of the crystals.

Her face fell, and she looked down. Ethan smugly stepped forward, toeing the edge of the bone and mineral creation. “Using your own ritualistic bullshit against you,” he said in a lighthearted taunt, though his hands were balled into fists. Behind him, Heisenberg snapped in a rumble, “Careful, Ethan!”

Miranda’s expression changed completely when she saw Heisenberg; her eyes danced over the scene and her lips parted in almost-surprise. She looked like a moth drawn to a flame, Ethan thought in disgust, and the woman seemed to completely forget about, or ignore the others as she sidestepped Ethan toward her “son.”

Instinctively, Ethan thrust his hands forward, grabbing her for no reason other than to hold her in place, keep her away from the other man. Heisenberg raised his hammer up, causing the fields to fluctuate unevenly, waves of energy rippling through the dome. Ethan heard the splintering sounds of crystallization behind him, and as he grabbed Miranda, he yelped at the engineer, “Whatever you just did, keep doing that!”

Heisenberg shook his head. “Too unstable!”

Ethan’s head snapped to the cult leader, who grabbed at the hands on her shoulders. She had been a mother and a biologist, not a fighter, and he easily pinned her. Ethan pushed himself into the liminal space, where Miranda was in even clearer view, her face inches from his.

“I don’t care,” he yelled back to Karl. “It’s more energy, it’s making it move faster!” To Miranda, he growled, “I can hold you, I’ve got all night, you crazy bitch.”

Peasant-Miranda seemed unequipped to deal with Ethan’s manhandling. He felt odd, with his arms and one leg out of the circle. Dizzy. But he would manage. He planted his feet firmly on the ground, forcing Miranda to face him. Finally she gave up on trying to wrestle from his grip, and instead tossed her hair away from her face.

“You are so like me, Ethan,” she taunted instead, her lip curling in a satisfactory way. “And you don’t even know it. What a team we could make.”

“You really have lost it,” he retorted. “We’re nothing alike.”

“Oh? So you would not do whatever it took to get your child back?” She leaned back, forcing him to lean forward. Ethan ground his teeth, wondering if he should try to choke her to death in front of a crowd. They probably wouldn’t mind. In a flash, it seemed Miranda remembered who she was, and with a twist of her neck, her peasant clothes disappeared. They were replaced with the familiar regalia, black and silver cascading over her form.

Yeah, he was going to find it much easier to choke her now.

Miranda’s cage mask was missing, but feathers floated around the pair of them as she continued jeering. “You would not condemn yourself to death upon losing your child, and then if given a sliver of hope, take that chance?” She hissed the last three words, her accent sharp. Behind him, Heisenberg did as he was instructed, interrupting the flow of the changing fields and causing the energy within the circle to expand.

“You would not exist in whatever form necessary, recruit whoever you could, use whoever you could, to return her to you? The way you used Heisenberg?”

Ethan’s sneer was faltering as he heard at least some truth in her words. Miranda sensed this and threw her head back, laughing hysterically. “We are alike, you and I. So alike, Ethan, you owe your entire existence to me, as the rest of these rats and their pretend ritual.”

“Fuck you,” he snapped.

Miranda raised a hand past him, her long golden-tipped fingernails gesturing toward something hidden in the depths of the waterfall’s plunge pool.

“Let’s change things up, shall we. Come, my beauties,” she said in a lighthearted tone. Ethan heard nothing other than the roar of the waterfall in that direction, but the sound of snapping and crackling grew in volume around his feet.

Ethan made the mistake of looking down at the crystallized insulation; it was breaking, he realized, overloaded by the energy within the group. He shoved Miranda away as hard as he could, hearing her laugh almost drunkenly in response as he spun around.

Hunched on the rock was an almost solid chunk of crystals, vaguely Eva-shaped. He would have marveled at the sight, but had no time as he warned Karl, “Ease up, the boundary!”

“I told you,” the other snapped in the bitchiest tone Ethan had ever heard from him, but he was holding the hammer still, trying to equalize the waves of energy. It occurred to Ethan that Heisenberg loathed being a power source when he could have been shoving the hammer down Miranda’s throat, but there was nothing they could do about that now.

Rosemary was crying; Ethan picked her up and glared at Miranda, who waltzed around the outside of the circle, flickering in and out of visibility as she smirked at Heisenberg.

The blond yelled at Joe, who still stood by the fire, but was eyeing the mouth of the hollow with a scope. When he heard Ethan, he lowered the scope. Ethan pointed toward the waterfall. “She…did something, over there,” he said in a frustrated tone. “I don’t know what.”

What soon became evident as the slurping, squelching sounds of mold and…something else…sounded from that direction. Ethan’s lip rose in another sneer and he kept his eyes on the woman. Her eyes were solely on Heisenberg now, and she strolled in a wide arc away from the boundary line.

Ethan remembered from the Lycans in the field; she needed either crystals, or a body, to form a being in this plane.

And according to Karl, there were bodies.

“Jesus Christ,” Ethan exhaled when he saw the forms emerging from, and beginning to cross, the water. It was worse than he could have dreamed; in a sense, zombies, or something of the sort. Mold grew on skeletal forms, where bones and rotten flesh protruded. They were warped, broken. Obviously, he figured, since they’d leapt to their deaths. They couldn’t walk properly and stumbled, still squelching, toward the circle.

The worst part was that several not-adult-sized figures were in this jumble of corpse-molded. Ethan’s eyes brimmed with tears almost immediately; Karl caught this expression and turned, taking his eyes off Miranda for the first time since she’d appeared. He only looked at the monstrosities for a moment, and then his gaze turned back to Miranda.

She was near, within touching distance.

The Roma still seemed to be handling the lycans, or whatever lurked out of sight. Rounds were fired into the night, the sound of bullets peppering the valley mixing with the steadily increasing rain. Drops fell into Ethan’s eyes and he squinted.

She couldn’t touch Karl. Right? Eva couldn’t.

But Ethan doubted himself. Karl was a power source. They were…kind of in the middle of something. What if she could touch him, affect him? What could go wrong? Probably a lot. There was a crystallized vessel being created mere feet away. Maybe she knew that.

Ethan would have to leave the safety of the circle, he decided, and try to take her on himself. He could go into the liminal space, put her in a headlock, see if she’d drown in six inches of water. Unlike Zoe, the only other person who could transfer spaces, he’d dealt with her before.

Karl seemed afraid; he drew his shoulders back from Miranda as she approached. His face was hidden from Ethan, and the blond stared at the confrontation as, behind Heisenberg and Miranda, Joe was running across the water with a lit drum of gasoline over his head, which he chucked unceremoniously at the Beneviento… beings .

The other American ducked at the resulting explosion, ranting a string of expletives that were mostly English, maybe some French. Even Miranda turned to see what the commotion was. Ethan wanted so badly to punch, or shoot, or otherwise inflict damage on her…but he had to get to her first. He handed Rosemary to Zoe, who uncertainly backed away from the black-robed figure, protectively huddling with the toddler.

“What the--” she began.

“I’ve got it,” Ethan said in a confident voice, gripping her shoulder. “You stay inside the circle. The minute it breaks, get to the wagons.”

Ethan stepped beside Heisenberg, and the expression he saw was not one he hoped for. Instead of anger, or hate, or any trace of bitterness, the engineer simply looked lost. Ethan grasped the engineer’s shoulder, wondering what to say to reassure the other.

Miranda spoke as Joe prepped another gasoline barrel.

“Such a disappointment,” she tsked. Her slow saunter had brought her directly to the engineer. She glanced over him as if debating whether touching him was a good idea. Maybe that meant she couldn’t, or shouldn’t. Ethan glanced around again, wondering what the hell he could use to fight her with.

Miranda smiled coldly, as, instead of touching Karl, she raised a gold-covered palm up toward his head. Immediately the engineer yelped in pain, nearly dropping the hammer, but he managed to hold it up and now clapped his other hand to the side of his head, doubling forward.

“The cadou still speaks to me,” Miranda hissed in what was clearly an offended tone. “I do not know why you think you can silence it. Silence me .”

“Ethan,” Karl moaned, “I can’t--”

“It’s okay,” Ethan said hurriedly. “Drop the field, it’s okay.”

Karl grasped the hammer with both hands, rearing back like a baseball player with a bat. He would transfer the energy, Ethan knew, and probably try to lightning-bolt Miranda back to the depths of Mold Hell, but the shock might affect them all.

He could use the opportunity to move to the liminal space, and attack her head on. Ethan had no idea how the shock would affect Eva’s ceremony, or if it would, but as Ethan’s thoughts raced, Miranda’s head shot toward him. Her look was murderous.

“EVA? What ceremony ?”

Ethan took a step back. So…guess that worked both ways here.

Karl pivoted on the backswing, but before he could even get leverage, the sound of shattering crystal and bone splintered through the air, breaking the magnetic field on its own. Ethan, Karl, and Miranda were all thrown forward. Zoe and Rosemary fled back toward the wagons, and Miranda was the first to look up, and see what had caused the explosion.

A white, glowing figure stood on the rocks, legs slowly unfolding underneath her as she stood. A white glowing hand outstretched; it was covered in crystals that gleamed with inner light. Energy. All of Heisenberg’s power. The blond shielded his eyes at the searing blue-white light, and he saw Karl lower the hammer in shock at the figure.

Miranda was squinting as well. She exhaled. “What is this.”

The glow increased, and the extended hand waved its palm in a similar manner as Miranda had earlier. White-bright energy exploded in a shower of sparks, directly at the other woman. Ethan and Karl both ducked from this energy blast, falling in opposite directions. Miranda was behind them, and didn’t even have time to cry out as she was hit with the flash.

When the searing arc cleared, Ethan’s ears were ringing and he groaned, picking himself up out of the water. Gasoline still burned close to the falls, threatening to come downstream toward them, so the blond sloshed toward Heisenberg, who for the first time in a while seemed to be in physical pain, holding his head as he picked up the hammer.

The pair stumbled away from the glowing figure and toward the shore, where Joe stood, weaving between the pair. He put an arm around each of the men, mostly to steady their uncertain footsteps. He stared directly into the glaring light of the figure.

“Will ya look at that,” he said, mesmerized, so Ethan again tried to look, this time holding a palm up to shield his eyes.

He could feel the energy radiating, almost as if it were dissipating into his palm. It seemed to be. The glow dimmed, and more of the crystallized figure came into view. As the energy used to create her dissipated, she stepped from the rock down into the shallow water, which caused most of the energy to leave in a fluid manner. The crystals popped, crumbled, and seemed to melt down into pale skin that soon turned peachy.

Ethan stared; she was finally visible. He lowered his palm. There in a simple, sheet-like garment was Eva.

Zoe had approached from behind the girl, Rosemary in tow. The little girl was lunging forward toward her friend, and the reverent silence that they all shared was broken when Rose uttered a stubborn first word.

“Eba!”

Eva turned at the sound, her stunned expression melting into her familiar warm smile. Ethan turned to look at Karl; the engineer looked rough..er than usual. But he nodded at the sight in front of him. The Roma began spilling out of their wagons, the unmistakable cheers and whoops filling the hollow, which before had been filled with the sounds of the dead.

Karl propped himself up on the hammer, surveying the flaming water, the exploded ceremony site, and the rowdy crowd that moved to surround Eva, Zoe, and Rose.

One of the Roma men tossed more wood on the fire, punctuating the action with a splash of gasoline that lit everything a bright orange color.

“Bonfire?” Ethan guessed.

Karl licked his lips. “Bonfire.”

Ethan scratched his head. He looked up; it was still raining, though with Miranda’s departure, it was now a tolerable sprinkle. He huffed.

“Dancing in the moonlight?”

“Seems that way.”

“Are you okay?”

“I’m gonna eat a cigar,” Karl responded nonchalantly, and began fishing in the trench coat pockets. Ethan stepped next to him and pressed his lips to the other’s forehead. “You were amazing.”

“Made of sugar,” Karl corrected, withdrawing the cigar. A faint version of his smile returned as his eyes met Ethan’s. “Go ahead.”

Ethan moved toward the group, feeling awkward as everyone parted, recognizing his right. Other members of the clan were drinking and dancing near the water, more or less avoiding the flowing gasoline. Someone produced a radio and approached Karl with it, and Ethan could hear what he assumed were Romani pleas for electricity, from a cacophony of teenage voices.

He heard the clear sound of Karl sighing, but soon music filled the moonlit hollow. Ethan finally reached the tow blond head, and tapped Eva on the shoulder. When she turned toward him, an impossibly wide smile on her face, he held out a hand.

“May I have this dance?”

the end

lol just kidding but this is the end of this book

love you all, hope you enjoyed. please leave feedback or thoughts on what you'd like to see with the other lords coming back, since I'll be writing the second half to this soon.

#winters and the beast

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wintersandthebeast · 1 year

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49. Waterfall

RE8 | Wintersberg | Romance, Slow Burn | Action, Sci-Fi

Link to Master List

I’ve read these things a million times, Eva. I don’t feel like I’m any closer to figuring out how to do this.

I may be able to help. It’s hard to find memories past a…certain length of time, but deep in the consciousness, memories of the actual rituals of resurrection might exist. Memories from spectators.

Can I go that deep?

Perhaps, but it is dangerous, and there is no need. I can store the memories for you, in a crystal. Then you can hold it, and…experience it, as you have, other memories. Observing is far better than reading.

-----------

There was no hesitance this time from Ethan as he allowed Heisenberg to pull him up on the horse behind him, and no hesitance as he positioned himself behind the brunette, arms wrapping around the other’s waist. He didn’t see Karl’s smirk as he lifted the reins and the horse cantered past the line of wagons.

Heisenberg rode to the front, then back again, not attempting to slow the spirited horse as he gave the thumbs up to the wagons. Ethan was blushing when he saw many faces upon them, and he was surprised again at Heisenberg’s odd charisma among some groups. The Lord seemed comfortable atop the gigantic horse, leading a caravan into the dark forest.

The first wagon began to roll, the horse pulling it moving steadily down the dirt road. Karl’s mount slowed to a trot, and the brunette steered toward the Duke’s carriage.

“Hi, Rosemary!” Ethan said to the wide-eyed toddler, and she screeched from Zoe’s lap. As Ethan continued to coo over the girl, who was bundled in a white fur wrap, Zoe called to Karl. “How uh..how is Ethan?”

“He’s a goddamned gigglin’ idiot,” Heisenberg replied, which made Zoe laugh a little too loud. She continued to laugh at Ethan’s withering stare toward his companion, and the Duke chimed in as his wagon rolled slowly.

“How quickly things change, eh, Ethan?” the large man said with a playful tone in his voice. His head canted toward the blond. “All for the best.”

He couldn’t help but smile, though he felt strange--different, yet again. If the mold consciousness was a multilayered onion, then so too was Ethan, and he had crossed another layer today. Fully into madness, he figured. Moving to Romania was supposed to be a necessity, it was supposed to be protective. Instead he’d been used. His daughter, used as bait.

And now he was here, in the remains of the Village of Shadows, having spent the last month brushing up on his knowledge of medieval revival ceremonies and falling in love with…among other things, a descendant of a King. Trekking through the haunted forest to find a magic spot alongside whatever fairies were supposed to come out tonight.

After pausing beside every other slowly rolling wagon, Heisenberg steered them back to the front of the procession, where they rode among several other riders. The lights from the bright wagon shone on the road, lighting their way, while the horses cast long shadows that fell in front of them. Ethan’s heart rate increased as the valley disappeared behind them, trees looming. He’d never been down here, not since…that day. Karl came down to work on the road from time to time, but Ethan had not wished to literally or figuratively walk that road.

His arms tightened around Heisenberg’s stomach, and the other slid his hand over Ethan’s forearm as he had last time. Heisenberg was speaking to the men in Romany, and Ethan had no hope of understanding it, still. The engineer translated over his shoulder, as one of the men nodded. “We’re goin’ on ahead. Make sure the bitch isn’t up to anything.”

“Wouldn’t you need your hammer if she was?”

Heisenberg seemed insulted when he replied, “Yeah…an’ I can pull it to me.”

So he could. Ethan remembered one of their first meetings, when Heisenberg had snapped at Dimitrescu. The hammer had rang then, snapping into his open palm from only several feet away, but it was still impressive. Less impressive when Ethan had to deal with all of their bullshit…but, still.

“Very Thor of you,” Ethan quipped, and Heisenberg snorted. His only other response was to urge the horse into a gallop, and the pair pulled away from the group. The blond closed his eyes, feeling the cool night air on his face. He couldn’t see well here, and he doubted the horse could either. Heisenberg alone knew the way, and saw it where others did not.

---------------

The bitch didn’t make any sort of appearance. The road hugged the river on and off over the span of several miles, but Ethan could see little more than broken shards of moonlight on water. Finally the road sloped downward and craggy mountains rose up all around them. Ethan stared up at the jagged lips of the canyon, trying to picture how it had looked before the explosives.

This area was mostly intact as well, as Chris’s focus had been the factory and village where the mutamycete sprang up to heed Miranda’s call. This path had formerly led to Donna’s home, but most of the paths over the mountains, like the one he’d taken, were gone. He could still see the ghosts of wooden footbridges, mostly broken, swaying from cliff sides like broken arms.

The last part of the journey led directly into the river; Heisenberg had created a road that ran down into a shallow ford. He could hear the roar of the waterfall ahead of them as the horse stepped carefully into the water. Ethan stared down at the water, hoping that it would do its job of not only helping them conduct a bunch of crystals into a human form, but also keep Miranda away. Save for the whole minor almost-drowning incident, the day had been lovely. It would be nice to close on an easy note.

The horse carried them upstream for another hundred yards before they rounded one last sheer rock face, to see the hidden lagoon and base of the falls. Ethan stared, without care at how dumbfounded his expression was. It was breathtaking. The fall created a wave of mist that fogged up around the base of the area. A large shallow pool stretched out in front of them, with plenty of room for multiple wagons along the rocky banks.

Then Ethan’s heart flew into his throat when his scan of the moonlit clearing illuminated something he hadn’t anticipated seeing. It was high above him, blending in with the steep cliffs so well that he’d missed it at first. He was shocked that it still stood. The Beneviento home. He swallowed, feeling a chill run down his spine.

Karl seemed to sense the change in Ethan’s demeanor, and he glanced over his shoulder, following the blond’s gaze. “I expect she didn’t uh…give you much of a welcome,” he said awkwardly.

Ethan swallowed, and Karl tried again as he led the horse toward the yawning shore. “What’d you see in her basement?”

“A…baby,” he said, blood turning to ice in his veins, and Ethan’s frown reached a new, startling level. “I guess you could call it that.”

“Ah, yeah,” Karl said flippantly. “Guess you an’ her share that particular uh...trauma…made it easy to use.”

“What?” Ethan snapped, and Karl paused in his own motion to dismount.

“I just meant.” The engineer did dismount, and held out a hand for Ethan. “She c-could make people see things, but uh…changed the hallucinations based on the, uh. Person. That baby w-was, one of Donna’s own…demons. Knowin’ you were lookin’ for your own baby…” Karl gestured vaguely.

The blond was again, unintentionally, sensing the other man’s emotions as he stuttered. His glare cut through the dark like a knife, and Karl drew back in surprise.

“You cared about her,” Ethan said accusatorily. He didn’t know why that was a surprise, but he heard the engineer’s earlier words again. Ugly ass psycho doll.

He had commented on Angie. Not Donna.

He stepped closer to Karl. “You, YOU. Heisenberg, the guy who hated everything about his life and his servitude to Miranda…cared about Donna. The literal most psycho person in this village.”

“Fraid that title goes to Miranda,” Karl said, a bit stunned as he surveyed the blond, the dangerous look crossing his face as his eyes narrowed. “But yeah, I did.”

“Why not recruit her to help you fight the woman who hurt you both?” Ethan was feeling irrational, in fact, he was feeling heated. What the hell? He snapped his mouth closed after the question, warning himself to shut the hell up as his ears reddened.

Karl was not impressed, it was clear by the tone of his voice. He began leading the horse to a nearby patch of soggy grass, where trees sprang up in the hollow. “Because Miranda brainwashed her into thinkin’ she cared about all of us, an’ Donna had to do whatever Miranda said. Killed half her family, other half--” he jerked a thumb up to the waterfall. “Suicide. Parents pulled the kids with ‘em. Donna wasn't ever right after that.”

This shook Ethan and his anger suddenly lifted as he imagined that specific situation, his hazel eyes lifting again to the silhouette of the lonely house. Karl laughed a humorless laugh, and said as he tied the horse, “I know the guy who married a goddamn bioweapon engineer an’ then wrecked the bioweapon into a swamp isn’t lecturin’ me on who I had feelin’s for.”

“No, no, you’re right. I’m sorry.” Ethan was used to apologizing, he’d done it so often with Mia. He gave one more forlorn stare toward the home and then shivered, deciding he was done looking at it for the night. He wrung his hands as he sloshed through shallow, cold water, peering around the area. “What do you think?”

“I think here--” Karl stepped forward and gestured, “is good, nice an’ shallow, but close to the shore. You’ve got this big flat stretch of rock you can put Eveline’s crystal on. Then…what is it? You have to get the mycelium up on it, yeah?”

“Yeah. It can do that easier through water, it moves faster. Though…judging by what I saw Miranda do, it can move anywhere.”

“She’s got about a hundred years on you, though,” Karl acknowledged. He stroked his beard. The sound of approaching hooves echoed through the high canyon walls, and both men turned, seeing the bobbing lights appear around the bend. “Perfect.”

When the engineer moved to pass him, to meet the convoy, Ethan grasped his elbow. “Karl, wait.”

The other turned, expectantly. He exhaled. “Go ahead, Winters.”

“I…understand, I’m not upset.” Only partially true, but he couldn’t justify his own anger, so there was no need for Karl to try to fix it. Ethan himself had been struck by Donna’s beauty, so it was easy to understand at least part of Karl’s fixation. “I just want to know…that's not the reason you want to bring her back, is it?”

“No,” Karl said with ease. Ethan would have to get accustomed to such blunt and simple honesty. He sighed.

----------

The gift-borrowed gift-from the Duke would hopefully insulate the space they were working with, only allowing the mold and mold creatures inside of it to affect each other’s synaptic impulses--for lack of a better term--and create a Miranda-proof workspace. Eva had warned them all that Miranda might appear, ghost-like, as she herself could appear in the presence of crystals. Rosemary alone might have the energy needed to manifest, but it would only be a mirage. Without a physical body, she had no way to cross the realm.

Well, no way except sending other creatures that did have bodies to do her bidding. But, that’s what the rifles were for, right?

Ethan stood out of the water, his back to the falls, as he watched the caravan spread out, the wall of wagons effectively barricading the downstream, and beyond, from this hollow. The group would be insulated, Ethan thought with interest. The darker part of his mind chimed in. Cornered, you mean.

Some brave souls stepped from the wagons and found seats, a few brave souls climbing the moss-covered banks to get a higher vantage point with which to watch. The Gabori men spread out, looking warily around as they sized up the area. Most of the Roma, Ethan noticed, avoided even looking in the direction of Donna’s home. He felt very validated.

Heisenberg donned his leather gloves and then took the box from the Duke, while Zoe and Rosemary approached Ethan. He embraced them both, and then said in a faux-serious tone toward his daughter, “We’ve really gotta work on your bedtime, young lady.”

“It’s only eleven,” Zoe argued. “Shoot, I stayed up later than that to watch the Three Stooges on Wednesday nights. And that was a SCHOOL night, Rose! Don’t let him bully you.”

Heisenberg was dutifully setting up the perimeter without interrupting the trio. Joe approached and began to help. The diameter of the circle they made with the macabre rope was maybe ten feet--plenty of room, Ethan decided, as he surveyed the line. Here, the group would be perhaps fifty feet from the row of wagons and their spectators. Karl returned to the wagons for his hammer, and the box where Eveline’s strangely blueish purple crystal awaited. The box Heisenberg had made for the…specimen? Was insulated itself, to stop Miranda or anyone else from using it. The Duke had instructed them on this, which only made Ethan more curious about his background and intent.

The box was placed on the ground, and Ethan placed it on the flat rock with more tenderness than he anticipated from himself. Without Eveline haunting his dreams for the first time in three years, he felt himself not only sympathetic to what the young girl had to endure, but grateful to her for what she’d done. Eveline, in some way, chose his fate. It wasn’t one he would have ever chosen for himself, but given the circumstances, she had always somehow been on not his side, but…adjacent.

And her powers were here, stored in this stone that glittered in the moonlight. Ethan caressed it solemnly as he leaned forward. Was she in there somewhere? Watching? Or had her consciousness ceased to exist completely? Ethan might have been imagining things, but now in the presence of the lotus, he thought he felt her nearby. Not jeering or screaming with a hateful tantrum.

Had Death changed her too?

He pulled away, wincing in pain, and turned his thumb over. The spot where he’d caressed the stone had sliced him open, and black fluid trickled from his skin.

“Ugh,” Zoe said, as she withdrew other crystals from the box, mostly small ones created by Rosemary, but a few from Ethan and herself as well. “That’s Eveline, all right.”

Ethan laughed, straightening and watching the wound close before his eyes.

“It is,” he agreed, and he paused when saw that a trio of Roma men were starting a fire on one small patch of land nearby that wasn’t waterlogged. They carried torches and wood over from the wagons. “A fire?”

“Part heat, an’...” Heisenberg supplied as he sloshed through the ford, hammer at ease on his shoulder, “Part…..security.” He pointed a thumb at several large canisters of gasoline that were carried over. Ethan realized the fire was in the direct line of the ceremony site.

“Oh, great,” he said sarcastically, “So if we make a wrong move and Miranda pops up, they’re gonna just blow us up?”

“If they need to,” Joe said cheerfully. When Ethan gave him the signature Ethan look, the white-haired man tossed his head back defiantly. “Hell, boy, you’re toughern’ shit, you can handle it.”

“There will BE no explodin’,” Zoe said loudly, rocking Rosemary. “Ever-thin’s gonna go fine.”

“Don’t forget my daughter will be right here,” Ethan said angrily, adjusting the shotgun strap that went over his chest. “And don’t forget that Miranda can’t actually show up, so if you do see her, she’s not really here.”

Joe made a high pitched, skeptical sound, but said nothing. Thunder rumbled overhead, and many eyes turned upward, searching the clear sky for where the sound had originated. Ethan glanced over at Karl, who shook his head, indicating he was not responsible or aware of the origin.

“Let’s do this,” the blond said, patting Zoe on the shoulder. He and Zoe fell into step, moving to face each other with the flat rock, and crystals, between them. They had both watched the preserved memories of this ritual within the mold, and the two exchanged a smile as they prepared to begin. Karl surveyed the circle of crystallized rope on the ground around them, and hesitantly put one foot inside the boundary. This grounded him similarly to the boundary on his property, but he looked uneasily at the river. So much conductive energy, and mold all underneath them.

Would the rope even make a difference?

Rosemary leaned forward, reaching out for one of the crystals on the rock. When Ethan nodded, Zoe set the child down, and--still wrapped in fur--she bent forward to grab the rock. Rosemary babbled to someone unseen, holding the stone up. Just as Ethan smiled, wondering what on earth she was doing, it became clear; Eva appeared, sitting on her haunches, holding not only the crystal but Rosemary’s hand.

“That’s good,” Ethan laughed, and his smile at his daughter was pure pride. “Smart girl.”

Murmurs among the crowd of Roma, some of whom had never seen Eva before, punctuated another rumble of thunder. Karl swung the hammer into the circle, his face containing no trace of the excitement that Ethan or Zoe had.

“Say the word, Papa,” was his only contribution.

----------------------------

note: this story about donna is taken from scrapped concept art and developer notes. highly recommend my fic nothing gold can stay if you'd like to see a young karl and donna.

find it here (I'll post it on twitter in a bit too)

#winters and the beast #karl heisenberg x donna beneviento #karl x donna #donna beneviento

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wintersandthebeast · 1 year

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48. Iron Steed

RE8 | Wintersberg | Romance, Slow Burn | Action, Sci-Fi

Link to Master List

Ethan felt more at home in the ‘Karl’ section of the manor than he ever had; after he exited the bath he flopped down onto the gigantic, canopied bed and closed his eyes, drifting with his thoughts while the engineer moved around the room, presumably finding clothes from 1957 to wear for their…ritual? Experiment?

His heart was still in his throat, and he couldn’t wipe the smile from his face, so Ethan settled for grabbing one of the nearby pillows and putting it over his head. He realized it smelled like Karl’s hair--was that sandalwood? Rain, tobacco, diesel exhaust. The blond was happy his face was hidden, because he was blushing.

He couldn’t believe what he’d said; the entire conversation was difficult to process. And he’d laughed . Who was he? Ethan thought back to his teenage and young adult years. Really, the only person he’d ever chased was Mia, starting in high school. When the two fell out of touch in college, Ethan was known as the king of non-commitment, because nothing felt ‘right.’ For years he thought Mia had, but there were so many lies in those years, he could barely reconcile with his emotions from the time.

When he’d approached her again, after a summer where she’d returned home, and they kept meeting at parties and seeing each other around town, Ethan had been serious, solemn. His intentions, he had no doubt of. When they moved in together, he was even more serious, excitement taking a backseat to the reverence he held for true commitment.

When he bought the ring, he was likewise earnest, determined--the jeweler had even told Ethan to cheer up, that weddings were supposed to be a celebration. The entire time, he’d simply brushed it off as being misunderstood. Ethan was so committed he needed everything to feel as solid, sturdy, serious, as he had felt.

And thus began a long string of lies. Protecting him. Or so she’d thought.

And here he was, three years dead, making plans to raise Miranda’s daughter from the dead as well…something that Miranda herself had planned for a century and killed hundreds to attempt. He was a single father, laying in the bed of a maniac, with a pillow over his face. And he’d confessed his feelings while laughing like an idiot.

Ethan couldn’t even blame the wine; he only had one glass, and was still sober. He was definitely going to blame Zoe, he decided as he shook his head. But now he pondered over what he’d said, blurted out in the heat of the moment, when overcome with emotion.

It wasn’t a lie. It was something on his mind especially since Zoe’s arrival; the blunt, easygoing friend had a way of pointing out the glaringly obvious things to the obtuse man. Men, because she pointed out Heisenberg’s emotions and intentions as well.

He realized that he was always honest with Heisenberg in the same seemingly involuntary way that Heisenberg had always been honest with him; the two seemed compelled to speak truth, even if it wasn’t in the most direct ways. Despite Ethan’s heated moments of confusion, they always circled back to what they would both define as truth, reality, unquestionable. It was their language. Unlike anything he’d ever known with another person.

Ethan in particular tended to word-vomit to the other, somewhat to fill the space of silence--Karl could go hours without speaking--but also because Ethan had never really had that dynamic with anyone. Conversations with Mia, especially after Dulvey, had descended into knife-dances, where every remark or question was like dodging, or inflicting, a slash on each other.

He loved Mia--in hindsight, he loved what he’d thought they were together. Two geeky, smart kids full of good intentions, caring souls who wanted to experience the world together. There was poison in that deep well. It had slowly but surely tainted the entire relationship, and Ethan could not take most of the blame for it. Or really, any.

He loved Karl as well. Their poison was obvious, wasn’t it? It was either kill or be killed, and here both stubborn assholes were, living and breathing alongside each other. He didn’t know what awaited their futures in terms of other poison; likely it existed. His mind drifted toward the strange conversation with the Duke earlier, when he’d urged Ethan to consider reanimating the other Lords, and the heavy silence with which Karl regarded the conversation. Things were still hidden, related to Miranda, and he now pondered over the possibility that things with Heisenberg could go as impossibly south as things had with Mia. Miranda had been a part of Mia’s secrets as well.

No. He wouldn’t allow it. Ethan had changed. Heisenberg, however he was before the village tragedy, had also changed. Heisenberg was similar to Eveline in that his ‘evil’ traits were mostly simply survival mechanisms stuffed down his throat at a very young age, by an insane abuser, who they both intended to get rid of forever. That made him different than Mia, Ethan decided. Mia was a grown adult the entire time she participated in toying with the Mold to create bioweapons, to create things for Miranda. Karl’s background of being abused was clear, had never been made more clear when the man spoke of it in clipped half-sentences.

This was different. This time things would go differently. He felt it in every fiber of his being.

“All exposed except your face, huh,” Karl said in an amused tone, and Ethan remembered he hadn’t dressed as he felt the bed springs compress. The other plopped down next to him. He soon smelled familiar cigar smoke and for the first time it was comforting, even arousing.

Ethan’s eyes widened, and he pulled the pillow from his face. Karl reclined near him in cargo pants and a military green tee, tanker boots already buckled, ankles crossed casually on the bed. He raised his eyebrows at Ethan’s expression and the blond snorted. “I wasn’t….I guess I should put some clothes on.”

“Up to you,” Heisenberg shrugged, but his eyes were shining with his usual mirth. “Could go out in the fields an’ dance in the moonlight with the girls, give the Duke an’ eyeful.”

“I’d need more wine for that,” Ethan admitted. Karl held out a half full glass of whiskey, which Ethan tentatively tasted. He made a face and gave the glass back, licking his lips while cringing. Karl chuckled and placed the glass on his nightstand. “Better hold off on a cigar then.”

“Yeah,” Ethan agreed, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth, and then he rotated, laying on his side and propping himself up on the pillows with an elbow. Ethan could now gaze at Heisenberg directly, and the yellowed eyes meeting his were curious, amused.

“Tell me about your mom,” Ethan said, and then inwardly cringed at himself. Idiot. Since when did he just blurt out things without rehearsing them in his head? Especially someone as volatile as Heisenberg. He tried to recover.

“Your….real mom. The woman in the picture on the mantle? That’s her, isn’t it?”

Ethan’s entire body was tense. He’d just asked an invasive, stupid question, at a time when Karl was also likely trying to get his bearings. Whatever rejection the engineer would give him, he deserved to hear. He chewed on his lip as Karl tapped the cigar ashes into a…hubcap, yeah. Apparently they were a multi-use tool.

“Don’t really remember her,” the engineer admitted in an oddly confused tone, and Ethan’s eyes drifted from the hubcap back to the other. He was shocked that he was getting any type of answer; Heisenberg had a way of always surprising him. “She got sick when I was four. So I remember….”

Silence fell. The singing outside had stopped recently; Ethan surmised that most people were heading home. Soon the house would be completely empty, when the small group departed for their own pagan-rooted rites in the mountains. He was anxious for that, but completely spellbound by the other man at this moment.

“I remember the smell of her bakin’ things….I remember gettin’ in trouble, when I snuck bread and cookies before dinner. I remember bein’ sick and havin’ her rub my back. I took apart one of dad’s machines under my bed with a screwdriver, an’ she saw it an’ thought it was cute. She never told him it was me.”

“You took apart a machine with a screwdriver when you were four?”

“Yep.” Karl smoked again, squinting as though he were trying to recall more. Now the tendrils of smoke exited his nose and Ethan stared at the scarred face, trying to imagine the boy on the mantle again. He wanted to ask more questions, say something, but he was still spellbound.

“Then she got sick,” Karl shrugged, snapping out of his own trance. “Almost died. My father….”

Ethan didn’t know what Heisenberg was going to say next, but he sensed emotions, and the emotion was dark. Incredibly, profoundly sorrowful. Karl cleared his throat. “...Didn’t want her to, I guess.”

“What did he do?”

Now Heisenberg did shake his head, the trance settling over him again. This one was too difficult to speak of, but he didn’t need to; Ethan saw red lights--the factory? In his mind’s eye. A corpse strung up on pulleys. No, not a corpse. An emaciated thing, but alive…teeth pulled away from the skull, eyeballs protruding, exposed organs, tubes and wires--

“Are you in my fuckin’ head?” Karl spoke abruptly, and with undertones of anger. Ethan blinked rapidly and he suddenly found that he couldn’t speak properly.

“I--I’m so sorry, I didn’t--I can’t control, it…I didn’t mean--”

There was definitely a not-so-subtle passing of rage across Heisenberg’s face. When he stared at Ethan, his expression was similar to that first meeting, in his quarters. Heisenberg had drawn back, squinting suspiciously, as though Ethan ceased to be a person, and turned into nothing but a threat to discard. Moments later he’d kicked the chair. Ethan had the feeling his proverbial chair was about to get kicked again.

Ethan, for his part, was simply appalled. Firstly, at what he’d seen, and secondly, that he’d invaded privacy so easily and with no warning. He faltered again when speaking. Heisenberg swiftly brought the cigar to his lips, eyeing the blond while he smoked again.

“Well, that answer your question?”

The blond sat up, scooting toward the engineer, and wrapped one long arm over the wider man’s torso, burying his head on Heisenberg’s shoulder. He wanted to speak, to say he was sorry, to comment on how horrible it was, but Ethan knew that saying anything, especially something so caring would have a repelling effect on the man. Instead he just hugged him fiercely, while Karl stiffened, then relaxed, at the touch.

The cigar was discarded and finally Heisenberg cleared his throat as he moved his arm to drape around Ethan, signaling that the flash of anger had passed. His fingers traced around the other’s lower back.

“Him and Mirander, two peas in the same piece of shit pod,” he spat with a shake of his head.

“Did Miranda offer to help him do….”

“Oh I’m sure,” Karl’s accent was lilted, “I’m sure she lured us all out here knowin’ she could lead him on about reunitin’ with the dead or whatever. He was a doctor after the First War, an’ just the kinda’ asshole she’d want on her side.”

“Did he know about…when she…to you…?”

“Don’t think so. Don’t know.”

Now Karl stretched, clearly over this conversation and everything to do with it, and he surveyed the nude blond laying in his bed. “As much as it pains me to say it, Buttercup, you probably need to get dressed. S’time.”

-------

Ethan felt strange about moving from a linen shirt and flower crown, to a navy polo and thigh holster over his jeans, but he supposed it made just as much sense as everything else in his current life. The house was oddly quiet, and he wondered if the majority of Roma had fled the ‘haunted’ area at sundown.

Ethan had already decided that Rosemary would be present at the ritual, not because he wanted to use her as Miranda did, but mostly because the little girl was very close to Eva. Ethan often joked that she would say ‘Eva’ before a proper ‘Dada’. (At the moment, it was an endless string of da’s.) If they had any chance at making things work, Rosemary would be key.

Ethan also had the protective instinct to keep his daughter near him always, since Miranda still had some control of molded creatures in this realm--though she’d probably learned her lesson on that one after Karl ripped the entire mycelium carpet off the ground, he mused.

When Ethan appeared, dressed, in the hallway, Karl was there, an unreadable look on his face. He seemed to be almost buzzing with energy, his eyes luminous, hammer slung over his back. The hat and coat were back, somehow comforting at this point. As comforting as the Mauser on Ethan’s hip, and the shotgun he’d slung over his shoulder.

“What?” the blond asked as Karl led him into the empty ballroom, but the other just shook his head and gestured toward the door. A familiar suspicious glance was exchanged between the two, and Ethan recalled the last suspicious glance--preceding the bath. He saw the sly note of cheerfulness cross the engineer’s features. It became evident why when Ethan stepped out into the night air.

The haphazard lot of vehicles and wagons was gone, replaced with a single line of six total horse-drawn wagons. A clear convoy awaited them. Most of the wagons were ornate and large, resembling the vardoes Ethan saw romanticized in several history museums in Europe. The carriages were all decorated, strung with brightly glowing lanterns, and Ethan’s gaze of awe now turned to the expectant line of black-hatted Gabori. The men stood outside one of the wagons, some loading cargo inside; several were on horses of their own. He realized they were all shouldering rifles. Joe stood next to this group of men, beaming. When he saw Ethan, he winked.

“I…”

“Talked to ‘em about it when you went out with Zoe,” Karl said proudly, the reason for the twinkle in his eye once again clarified. “Some of ‘em, mostly the younger crowd, wanted to go, give backup. Everybody here has ancestors from our village. Part of their history too. All okayed by their elders.”

Ethan felt a surge of pride, and then he realized that every pair of eyes looking at him now would be watching him at the waterfall.

“So…we’re really going to have an audience.”

“An entourage .” Karl sounded uncharacteristically cheery about being around others.

“No need for performance anxiety then,” Ethan said, but the sight was touching, and cheerful somehow. The Duke’s carriage was in the lineup, and Ethan saw Zoe twist toward him from the front seat, Rosemary in tow. Both waved. Ethan returned the wave, watching Rosemary’s little hand open and close. God, she really was growing up. In spite of everything.

“Dunno why you’d have that, you did just fine,” Karl said with a grin. Ethan rolled his eyes while Karl approached the nearest wagon, lovingly sliding his hammer under a bench seat. Ethan was still drinking in the beautiful sight of the lantern-lit wagons and put his hands in his pockets, sauntering toward the row.

He wondered where he was supposed to sit, and then realized Karl had left his side again, this time passing by in the opposite direction. When Ethan turned in the darkness, the moon illuminated the leather hat, and cast a shadow over the other’s face. His golden eyes were barely visible.

Karl led the same draught horse he’d ridden at the funeral procession. The horse was dark, merely an inky shadow against the backdrop of the manor, and Ethan recalled the poem at the end of the macabre book Mia-- Miranda , had given to Rosemary. What had it said?

I approached an Iron Steed adorned with gold.

“Ready, Papa?” The voice from the hidden brim was booming, deep. Once again Ethan was reminded how intimidating Heisenberg was, despite his warmth.

Ethan’s voice was just as full of conviction as it ever had been.

“Let’s go.”

#winters and the beast

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