Melissa Albert terrifies and inspires me in equal measure.
Her books have an otherworldly quality that gives you the sense that as you read them you are changing - or the world around you is changing, or perhaps, being revealed for what it truly is - and if you don’t stop, things will never be the same. Our Crooked Hearts is no exception.
I read Our Crooked Hearts late into the night while peering over my pages to make sure nothing was lurking in the shadows. Unspooling in dual narratives of a mother and daughter during their tumultuous teenage years as they discover themselves and their magic, Albert renders a world of misshapen motherhood, flailing youth, forging friendships, and just-this-side of possible witchcraft.
But if we’ve learned anything from The Hazel Wood, it’s that nothing is free. What I love most about Albert’s work is that there is nothing gratuitous or excessive. She manages to conjure fear, terror, sadness and rage - and it all serves a purpose. The characters are all flawed and flailing but not feckless; they strive to protect, to learn, to rectify, to save. This is evident in the conclusion of the book, which I won’t spoil for you here, but what I will share is wholly satisfying and positively positive. Yes, amidst a book that is terror incarnate, there is, dare I say, somehow, hope.
What is also remarkable about Albert is her ability to wield the written word. She is not only writing, she is crafting a new language. Her prose is like if Neil Gaiman and Maggie Stiefvater had a baby and it were raised by Patti Smith. She crashes words together and creates the most unlikely metaphors that make so much sense it hurts. She writes with the angst of a teenager but the wisdom of a beat poet and the heart of a goddess who still loves humanity. Her text is so palpable that in reading it, I feel like I am participating in a secret ritual that may in fact conjure actual magic. Her writing is the stuff of future lore, of fractured spells, of midnight swims in moon-bleeding waters. She is inventing a story and a form - and it’s the perfect love letter scrawled in black magic for the raging teen trapped inside of us all.
okay so as some of you know i wrote a trans little mermaid rewrite already. this is that same story, but with A LOT more content (haha 6k more aka almost twice as long as the first one) to hopefully be more true to real live trans girls’ experience, and not a magical world with shortcuts where everything is much, much easier
one million thanks and hearts and good things to @gemcuttlefish for all her helpful advice and ideas. this rewrite would not exist without her.
ok so here we go
~
when the mermaid athena marries king triton and becomes queen of the sea, there is a prophecy announced by the powerful sea witch ursula.
the king and queen will have seven daughters to represent the seven seas. athena names their daughters just then, her bridal crown still on her head. they will be named attina, alana, adella, aquata, arista, andrina, and ariel.
things do not go as planned.
the queen dies. ursula is banished and proclaimed a betrayer of the crown.
the seventh child is not quite as expected.
~
ariel is the youngest of triton’s children – the most treasured, the most coveted and protected.
ariel is triton’s only son, and the heir to the kingdom of the sea.
his mother had given him his name years before. the healers hadn’t had time to tell her that she had borne a son, not a daughter, before she died.
they all call him ari.
~
he is beloved. his eldest sister fawns over him, attina trying her best to be a mother to six children even though she’s barely a teenager. she may be queen on day – no one yet knows who will succeed her father, but she is the eldest, and clever, and not a bad hand at magic. she may be queen one day, and if she cannot comfort six mourning children, how will she rule a nation?
they have many nannies, people to make sure they are fed and dressed and bathed. but it is attina they turn to with their nightmares, their cries, and their hurts. it is attina who first forces ariel into their father’s hands. “he’s your son,” she says, desperately.
triton has been as affectionate as always with his girls, has embraced them and kissed their cheeks when they come to him sad and scared at the loss of their mother. but he has not yet picked up the child his wife died to give him. triton looks down at the small babe and says, “he has her hair.”
“and her eyes,” she says, “don’t you want to see mom’s eyes again? look into his, and you will.”
he heaves a great sigh and hold out his hands, something guarded and stony in his features. attina carefully places ari into them, anxiously watching as her baby brother breaks into a huge grin, grabs onto their father’s beard, and tugs.
she wants to scream. why couldn’t he have giggled or smiled or done something else adorable and lovable –
but triton’s whole face softens and he throws back his head and laughs, the first one she’s heard since their mother died. the sadness is still there, but as he gazes down at ariel, the first hints of true happiness peak through.
“he’s just like her,” he says, and when he looks up at her, she realizes she’s smiling too. she hadn’t done that since her mother died either.
~
ari is two years old, sitting in his father’s lap in the middle of a council meeting, when he topples forward and grabs onto the trident for balance.
“no!” triton yells, horrified, pulling him back even though it’s too late, even though one touch is all it takes.
but his son is unharmed. he’s not a pile of ash, he isn’t crying, there are no deep bloody wounds on him. instead ari reaches for the trident again, and this time no one tries to stop him. he bites it, liking the feel of cold metal on his sore gums as his teeth start to poke through. all that happens is a little spark of electricity travels up the trident.
the advisors are staring. triton has no choice but to make a public announcement.
prince ariel, the youngest of his children, is the chosen heir to the throne. there is no longer a question of succession.
the trident has spoken.
~
if this were normal circumstances, then the confirmation ceremony would commence immediately, and ariel would be named a regent.
but this is not normal circumstances. ari is not of age, is a baby who touched the trident by accident, who was named crown prince of the sea by accident. “we do not know how the trident will react to my daughters,” king triton objects, “perhaps it likes all my children equally, and it is simply ari who touched it first.”
“regardless, he has touched it and been declared worthy,” his councilman says, unimpressed. “let your daughters hold it then, and we shall know for sure.”
there’s a chilling fear up his spine, because if they are not so favored it may kill them. they are of the royal line and magic blood and it will not mean to, but there is a reason he himself did not hold the trident until he was a man.
this must all show on his face, because his councilman softens and says, “we shall move up the timetable from eighteen years old to ten years old. your two eldest daughters will attempt to hold the trident immediately, and each daughter shall attempt the same on her tenth birthday. then, if the trident chooses any or all of them, we shall know for sure who shall be declared regent on the day of their twentieth birthday.”
it’s a compromise, and one he doesn’t like, but one he must stomach. news of ariel using the trident as a teething toy has already spread even farther than the oceans, is being whispered about by the gods and spirits of the surface and the sky. “very well,” he says, pretending he has a choice in this at all.
attina manages a full five seconds with her hand on the trident before she releases it with a cry of pain, her palm coming away bloody. alana barely places her fingers against it before she pulls it back, shrieking, the skin where she touched it gone completely.
triton cleans their hands and heals them, kissing the wounds to comfort them. somehow, he’s feels like this is how each of his daughters will fair when the time comes.
he’s not wrong.
~
ari is slightly less beloved after that. it is unavoidable – he is a treasured, a crown prince when they are only princesses, and even as a child his talent with magic is obvious, his affinity for controlling the power of the ocean plain for all to see.
he spends long hours with tutors, with old men and women who teach him the basics of wielding power, and then even more when his talent and intellect demands it.
but he is still a child.
“this isn’t fair,” ari pouts, clinging to his sister’s hand as she tries to pull away, “i want to go to!”
“you’re too little,” aquata says, finally shaking him off, “father doesn’t want you leaving the castle.”
he runs to the window and calls out, “when can i leave?”
“when you’re older!” andrina answers, laughing. he watches his sisters’ tails create a rainbow as they all swim away from him.
andrina is only a year older than him. this doesn’t seem fair.
~
he is young still when he first realizes something is off, that perhaps he is not just like other boys. but he doesn’t know that many boys to compare himself against, so he tries not to dwell on it.
the way people call him prince, sir, brother, son – it doesn’t seem quite right. but he’s not sure what else it would be, so he keeps quiet.
~
ari has big blue eyes and hair a brighter red than anything else in the ocean. he looks like their mother, or so everyone tells him, and he wonders if that’s part of the reason their father doesn’t let him stray.
he grows his hair long, and it raises a few eyebrows, but not too many. triton has long hair, even if it’s not the current style. ari’s is different, though, and he knows it. his father’s hair is wild, more of a mane than a head of hair. ari’s isn’t like that, he spends longer than his sisters combing it each day, and loves its softness and it’s shine. he likes the weight of it on his head, something solid and grounding, and it’s a smooth and cared for as his sisters’ hair.
he’s swimming down the hall, trying to memorize a scroll of spells that his father is going to test him on tomorrow. he passes by as alana is complaining to arista, “i can’t get that knotted bun to sit right, it keeps getting loose and falling apart! i think i’m getting an arm cramp from redoing it so many times.”
“well don’t’ looke at me,” arista says, “last time i let you practice on my hair, attina had to spend twice as long trying to undo it and brush out all the knots.”
“that was one time!” alana says passionately, “come one, please?”
arista is already shaking her head when ari says, “you can practice on me.”
they both turn to him, surprised to see him next to them. he tries not to feel upset that they hadn’t noticed him before. “really?” arista asks eagerly.
“sure,” he shrugs, “i just have to sit there, right? i have some reading to get done anyway.”
“nerd,” arista says, but alana grabs his hand and is so excited she practically shoves him into their room. he loves his sisters’ room. as the only boy and crown prince, he has his own quarters, away from them. he wishes he didn’t. he feels separated from them enough as it is.
it’s bright and glittering, littered with jewelry and hair ornaments, with sparkly shell tops that he loves to touch. he likes things that sparkle, he’s discovered. but if he walks around wearing his crown, he looks like a jerk.
alana gets to undoing and brushing out his hair. he wears it in a long braid down his back because it gets in the way when he’s reading, when he struggles to summon the power his father uses so easily, when he’s trying to memorize spells and languages no one else in the kingdom will ever know.
there are other magic users in the kingdom, of course, but the extent to which they can utilize their power and effect the world, and the extent to which the ruler of the sea can do such things, are so far apart as to be laughable.
arista sits by them, “wow, his hair is the longest of us all. trying to look like a girl, ari?”
he rolls his eyes, but loses track of his thoughts hallway through. he supposes his long hair does kind of make him look like a girl. but he likes it – does it matter? there’s nothing wrong with looking like a girl. he likes girls. when his sisters aren’t being annoying or mean, they’re his favorite people.
“be nice,” attina says absently, head buried in a book. “you’re just jealous because your hair keeps breaking midway down your back and you wish it was as long as ari’s.”
arista scoffs, but takes one of his hands, “here, brother, you should have the nails to match.”
he wants to protest that he needs his hands to read, but he can already tell she’s going to ignore him. so he uses a quick spell to make the scroll hover in front of him. it’s easier than trying to argue with her.
for the next hour arista polishes and shapes his nails before painting them the same shade as his tail. alana works at his hair, twisting his mass of red hair into several styles before finally mastering the knotted bun. She dots it through with pearls and abalone shells carved into floral shapes, which he doesn’t think is necessary. but they are shiny, and he likes shiny things, so he doesn’t say anything.
“this looks fun,” adella decides, and takes her own spot in front of ari. he officially gives up on getting anymore studying done. she brings over a set of pots and a couple delicate brushes, setting them out just so next to her. she swipes on eyeliner and paints his lips red, then grabs some of the expensive glittery green powder from that attina’s vanity.
attina sighs but doesn’t move to stop her. “that’s only for special occasions.”
“be quiet, it’s perfect,” adella says, using delicate fingers to smudge the powder onto his eyelids.
finished, they all lean back to look at him. his other sisters crowd in close, and even attina looks up from her book. “huh,” arista says, “it was meant to be funny, but – you look really pretty ari.”
he turns and finally allows himself to look into one of mirrors.
huh.
he raises a hand to his reflection, then lowers it. he – he does really look like a girl now. he likes it. he doesn’t know how to feel about the fact that he likes it. is it like his long hair, just something he likes? or is it something – else. “guess it’s time to take it all off,” he says, but doesn’t move to do so, only keeps staring at himself. he doesn’t want to look away. he doesn’t know why he doesn’t want to look away, which is the most concerning part.
no one says anything until attina snorts, “they spent so long making you look pretty, ari. you should at least keep it all on for the rest of the day.”
he snaps his neck around to look at her, but she’s already focused back on her book. “okay,” he says, and the wave of relief is – strange.
“you might as well keep the pearls,” alana says, trying for nonchalant and failing miserably, “they look better on you than me.”
“i don’t know how to put them in,” he says, and winces. he should have said that he didn’t need them because he was a boy, and boys didn’t wear pearls in their hair. or, well, maybe some boys do, just like there are boys who like having long shiny hair. there’s more than one way to be a boy, right? he’s just a boy who likes looking like a girl.
right?
or maybe he’s not a boy at all. but he’s not a girl. he would know if he was a girl. wouldn’t he? if he’s questioning it, then he can’t be one. he would know if he were like Mistress Megara, his scary history tutor who used to look a lot different before a potions regimen and used to be called Master Markle.
“well,” alana says, a small smile tugging at the corner of her lips, “i guess i’ll just have to teach you then.”
he smiles back.
he has his sisters around him, all being nice for once, and a list of spells to master before tomorrow otherwise his father will give him one of those awful disappointed looks.
(This story is about my farm girl Ruthanne, who resides at @ruthanne-winter. For the ease of organization for @sea-wolf-coast-to-coast, however, I will be posting this here to my main blog and simply reblogging it to Ruth’s, where it belongs.)
Thick, grey fog hung almost suspended in time, muting the light, the horizon, and the sounds of the morning like a wet woolen blanket. Unseasonably warm rain the night before clung to the earth stubbornly, even as cold winds breached the La Noscean shore and swept across the landscape. Nasty morning to be sure, and Ruthanne was happy to be toasty warm inside, humming as she flitted about in the kitchen trying to ignore her brother. Her mother’s old recipe for lemon pound cake was clipped to a board on the counter, and she was taking her time to check and double check all the ingredients she’d laid out before she began mixing.
“So how you s'pose it is she’s pregnant, anyway?” Finneas was cocked back in a wooden chair, leaving only the back two legs on the floor. With his socked feet kicked up onto the table and a bowl of grapes in his lap, the position seemed rather precarious; Ruth was just waiting for him to fall on his ass.
“Ugh, don’t be daft, Finn!” The subject of her sister’s pregnancy had been much talked about since she announced the news, but leave it to the mouth of the family to be so blunt. "I’m pretty sure you know about the birds and bees, seein’ as how I damn near walked in on you and Marla Westwood last week.“ Ruthanne made a disgusted noise and wrinkled her nose. "Gross.”
The memory brought a grin to his face, and he somehow managed to toss a grape in the air and catch it in his mouth without collapsing in the floor. "If you’d just knock…“
“I’m not talking about this with you.”
“I’m serious though! Clara’s a huge prude. How’d she even know what to do?? Do girls just come programmed to know how to make babies?” Finneas finished chomping on his grape and swallowed before plucking another one off the stem.
“Finneas Winter! That is sexist and shitty and daddy would snatch you bald-headed if he heard you talk like that!” She scowled at him, her perpetually pink cheeks turning even pinker with irritation. The huge messy bun of mint-colored hair bobbed atop her head as she scolded him. "What if I were to ask you if boys were just born knowing how to be idiots and jerk off?“
That time he damn near did fall, throwing his head back to laugh. Finn was getting more handsome and manly by the day, but that grin on his face was all boyhood. "I’d say you’d be just about right on that one, Annie.” He chuckled and set down the front two legs of the chair, then put his bowl on the table. "I didn’t mean it as an insult, I’m just sayin’! Clara’s straight-laced, you know? Prim and proper.”
Ruthanne rolled her eyes and blew an errant lock of hair away from her face. “Then maybe she did it with her clothes on.” As soon as the sentence came out of her mouth, she groaned. “Quit bein’ so dang blue and come help me with this.” Ruthie glanced up to the pot rack hanging from the ceiling above the butcher block. “Grab me that bundt pan, would you?”
“What are you making, anyway?” Finn did as he was told, popping up from his chair and grabbing the pan before peering over Ruth’s shoulder to look at what she was stirring in the big mixing bowl. “…Looks like brick mortar…” With another circle of her arm the spoon sent a lovely whiff of lemon floating upward, and Finneas’ eyes went wide. “Momma’s pound cake?? Can I lick the spoon??”
Ruthanne laughed and popped him lightly on the nose with it, leaving a dense blob of batter there. “Maybe.”
This is so good, I love the brother sister dynamic.
“You know, Grey,” began the blonde Elezen Corwynn was lunching with. He’d just taken a bite of a chicken wing, and was chewing slowly, thoughtfully. Corwynn wondered momentarily if it was simply a particular gene that Elezen possessed which made them elegant even when eating and talking at the same time. Tomas might be Gridanian instead of Ishgardian, but damned if he didn’t carry himself an awful lot like Raven did.
”I can always tell when you’re interested in someone - you know, really interested, like, not just for a roll in the hay - whenever you act like this.” He licked his lips and nodded to himself, then cleaned the rest of the meat off the bone.
“Act like what?” asked Corwynn. His eyes glanced quickly to the side, scouting out the waitress who’d been waiting on the tables across the room. He knew as soon as he did it, though, that Tomas saw.
“Likethat.” Tomas pointed his chicken bone accusingly at Corwynn. “You can’t keep your eyes off her, I dare say, and it’s not the first time.” He grinned just a touch, a little lopsidedly. “I mean, I can’t blame you, really. She’s pretty.”
“Lotsa pretty girls ‘round here,” Corwynn replied carelessly. He sunk his spoon down into the beef stew he’d ordered and took a careful bite.
Tomas lifted an eyebrow at Corwynn’s genteel manner with his lunch, and he realized then why he’d only ordered one bowl of stew instead of two. “True enough, but apparently only one pretty enough to make Bottomless Pit Corwynn Grey only order one bowl of stew for lunch.” He picked up another chicken wing and pointed at Corwynn’s spoon. “And make you eat like you actually have manners.”
“Oi!” Corwynn’s eyebrows drew together underneath his mop of blonde hair, and he scowled across the table. “I had a big breakfast, awright?”
Tomas chuckled through a mouth full of chicken. “Just ask her out!”
“I don’t want to.”
“Why not?”
“Because.”
“Because why?”
“Just because!” Corwynn was getting tired of the questioning, honestly irritated at this point. Tomas Bouvreuil might be handsome and elegant, yes, but something about his needling manner made him leagues more annoying than Raven. Or… was it just that he was hitting a nerve?
After placing the now-bare chicken bone onto his plate, Tomas leaned back in his chair and wiped his hands thoroughly on his napkin. “Because you’re a coward, that’s why. You’re scared she’ll say no.”
In lieu of slammed hands on the table or another scornful gaze, instead of another exclamation or some stammering defence, Corwynn simply met the Elezen’s gaze with a dark but otherwise blank expression. He held his eyes for a few long moments in silence before finally putting his spoon down on the table and pushing his chair back.
“Ah, look, Corwynn, I… I didn’t mean that, I’m sorry.” Tomas had never quite seen his friend switch off like that. His normally fun-loving and jovial demeanor tended to make one think Corwynn never got mad at all. Never had a bad day, was never sad or upset or angry. But apparently that assessment was wrong, and good job, Tomas, for figuring it out like this.
“Nah, mate.” Corwynn fished a few bills from his wallet and tossed them onto the table. “Yer right.” He grabbed his mug and downed the rest of his ale in a couple of long swallows before setting it back down. “Yer right.” With a mock salute he turned and walked out the door, furry tail drooping behind him.
Drowsing in the minds of children from the very time of birth - before, even - live fantasies of other realms. Mothers reciting poems to their swollen belly, singing songs of faraway places. Fathers reading from tattered volumes under the soft shimmer of candlelight, their little ones tucked safely into bed. Storybooks, more often than not, told tales of sweet, rebellious girls whisked away to another land. Hair groomed into silken plaits or gilded coils, dresses made from the finest velvet and lace. Swept up in a magicked wind from some nameless, dusty, depressing place, only to be deposited into paradise, shining and ambrosial. Slow-falling for days into rabbit holes with the leisure to have tea and jam on the way down, read the papers even, and come to rest softly on a nest of leaves at the bottom.
Symphonies of miniature harps and seashell horns were played by the tiniest of gossamer fairies in these stories, ephemeral, and fading in and out like the tide. Clouds floated pink and blue, spun from sugar. Garden blooms shifted from color to color, and in some lands, in some places, the very blades would whisper limericks into your ear. It was into these stories, the stories of illusion and fancy, that every rebellious little girl wanted to go. Sometimes, even still, Manon would dream of a land full of rainbows and speaking cats. Sometimes, though, the evils of the real world crept inside, insidious and contagious, and bit by bit her utopia grew ill.
(This story is about my farm girl Ruthanne, who resides at @ruthanne-winter. For the ease of organization for @sea-wolf-coast-to-coast, however, I will be posting this here to my main blog and simply reblogging it to Ruth’s, where it belongs.)
Ruthanne darted inside the Winter family home just in time, only a handful of huge, inky-dark droplets of water having planted themselves heavy and hard onto her shirt. She shrieked and shoved the door closed behind her, breathless and smiling. “Gods, the sky’s about to rip open!” She’d run from the chocobo stables, knowing she was in a race with the rain.
“Told you to stable the ‘bo’s sooner rather than later,” replied Finneas from somewhere in the living room. A low rumble of thunder punctuated him, and a moment later a sheet of rain crashed into the roof of the house. Ruthanne gasped, wide eyed at the sound. “Land sakes alive!” She was grinning though, high on adrenaline from outrunning the storm. “Where’s dad?”
“Card night, dumbass. He’s at Royda’s”. Ruthie’s brother was sitting on the couch with their newest (and first) niece, Hattie, reading to her from a shiny cardboard picture book.
When Ruthie poked her head into the living room, she gasped. “Finn! Don’t say those words around her!”
“What, card night?” He grinned, knowing of course exactly what she meant.
(This story is about my house knight Charlemont (Julien), who resides at @house-mercaiges. For the ease of organization for @sea-wolf-coast-to-coast, however, I will be posting this here to my main blog and simply reblogging it to Char’s, where it belongs.)
There is nothing to forgive, she whispered, petal-pale lips brushing ghostly and chill over my warm skin. Oh, if only it were true. Such a thing, such a lie, if there were only a sliver of truth inside it I would lose myself, cling to the shard of hope that somehow, some way, perhaps I was not guilty.
Lightning flashed outside, silent and blinding. For half a heartbeat the room went white and frozen. A sulfur and tin still life snapshot. Flowers wilted, dust gathered, and my voice died on my lips.
You could not have known, she insisted, and the world sank back into saturnine darkness. The lift of the light come crumbling into ash. I did know, you see, long had I overheard the secrets of the woods, hummed along to the warning hymn I knew from childhood.
Thunder bubbled up from malms away, low and hungry, and swelled into a devouring, starving thing. Yes, devour me, I thought, me and all around me. This house, its very foundation, the woods themselves. As if I could invoke such power. As if thunder had such strength. It is in silence, rather, the gentle quietude of the star-dark and glowing beams of the sun, that power lies. In the whisper of her voice.
I love you, Julien.
Oh, that voice. Reader, know that even in death, even in phantasm, her voice was honeyed wine, sweet and quickening to my very soul. It haunted and inflamed me; the ache in my bones, the ache in my blood, the ache in my heart and between my legs drew me all at once in a rush back to her face. Diaphanous and pale. Spectral. Beautiful.
No, I would not be forgiven for not saving her. Not in this life. Only in the bittersweet falling asleep.
Once upon a time sunlight shone warm and golden through Coerthas. It flickered and filtered through emerald leaves, played peek-a-boo with billowy, cotton clouds, and kissed everything it touched. Skin darkened and flowers bloomed, deer basked underneath it in the fields every summer. Cicadas droned. Frogs sang. Blades of grass rustled with the wind and soft, springing footfalls of hares, and the lazy ripples of the pond could lull one to sleep in minutes.
Those were the days Manon remembered most of all. Those were the days, when she thought back to her childhood, that she always let paddle through her mind unhurried. Blissful, innocent days, waxing full with the promise of happiness and forever. If she closed her eyes now and exhaled the world, the years began to slip backward. Slowly, at first, then with increasing speed. To before The Calamity, before Ul’dah, before she lost mother and father and Avoie. To before the days she’d trained so hard as a knight. The years slowed to months, then weeks, then wound to a gentle stop during the languid, luminous days of summer in Coerthas.
If she held her breath, she was certain that the memories would never end.
“Nine hundred ninety-nine gil?? Are you mad??” The glottal stop of the word “ninety” crashed into the well-groomed aetheryte attendant like a runaway train. He blinked at the scrappy blonde miqo’te in front of him, entirely unsure whether or not he was joking. “What, just to go to Doma?? Mate, you are off yer bleedin’ rocker.”
“Sir,” came the miraculously calm voice. “Aetherytes are a highly advanced piece of ancient technology that must be maintained regularly. Without charging a…”
“Yeh yeh, I’ve ‘eard all that a million times before. S’all right if it’s a couple hundred to pop over to Ul’dah or sommat, but you’re talkin’ nearly a fousand gil!”
The hyur cleared his throat. “Doma, sir, is not in Eorzea. It is considerably more difficult to send someone over a distance that great.”
Corwynn wasn’t normally the type to roll his eyes, but there are always exceptions to the rule. He socked his hand on his hip. “You fink I don’t know that? What, like imma expect to just hitch a free ride to another continent? Fing is, mate, they’s a boat nary a hop, skip, and a jump away what’ll take me for a fraction of what you want!”
By now, the long-suffering attendant was suffering a bit too much Gods be good, though, he managed to maintain a relatively pleasant if weary demeanor as he clasped his hands behind his back. “Sir, if I may… passage to the continent of Othard takes in excess of a sennight, whereas teleportation by aetheryte is near instantaneous.”
“Yeh, and I’m payin’ also for the chance of aefer sickness, innit?”
“…or seasickness, alternatively…” murmured the hyur.
“You wot, mate?”
He shook his head. “Also, if I may add, the aetheryte network is not one that is open to bartering, I’m afraid.”
Corwynn took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He knew, of course, that such a thing **technically** wasn’t a service you could get a discount on, but here and there, off and on, a favor done or claimed would work in Cor’s favor. Hell, more often than not he had some aetheryte tickets on him. Just not today. The one day Mr. Stick-In-The-Mud Play-By-The-Rules was on duty.
“Look. You know Rodney, right? Over in Gridania? Aeferyte attendant. Been there for years! Since I was a wee lad, really. Short hair, greyin’ now though, you know, more like salt and pepper than anything. Scar over his left eye, lil’ bit of a limp? Old lady’s named Gertrude.”
“Rodney.” The attendant was unimpressed.
“Yeh! Good ol’ Rodney. He’ll usually float me a free ride if I’m a bit light, yanno? Can’t see why you wouldn’t do me a solid as well, really.”
“Sir…”
Another rejection was just waiting to spill forth when an older, care-worn miqo’te wandered up. Downright grandfatherly. “Highway robbery is what it is, lad. Highway robbery.” He shook his head and clucked a bit as he reached his hand into his pocket. Drawing out his wallet, he gave Corwynn a gentle smile. “Anymore I don’t travel any further than Gridania, and that’s only now and then. My daughter, bless her, she keeps giving me these aetheryte tickets so I won’t have to fork over any gil when I go visit her.” The stack he pulled out of his aching leather wallet had strained it to its limit, and he chuckled at the mass of them. “Tell you what. You give me more gil than a trip to Gridania… say… five hundred a piece? And I’ll trade you a stack of these.”
Corwynn’s eyes widened, and a smile bloomed on his face full of satisfaction and justification. “Ya see?” He shook his head in a gentle reprimand toward the poor aetheryte attendant as he dug his own wallet from his pocket. He handed twenty five hundred gil over to the older gentleman for five aetheryte tickets. “A little bit of caring and compassion, mixed with a little bit of dealin’, and what do you have?” Both the older gentleman and Corwynn sorted their currencies. “You got a happy traveler, a richer old man, and…” He smirked at the hyur and handed over one aetheryte ticket. “…a paid aeferyte attendant.”
“Thank you kindly, lad. Thank you kindly.” The grandfather tipped his imaginary hat and regarded them both with a soft smile.
“Indeed,” sighed the attendant as he accepted Corwynn’s ticket. “What a bargain.”
It was no secret that Cam'nahl Zarasten loved books. Seeing him carrying around large, dusty tomes filled with magical or medical theory as dry as they were was not unusual. What the casual observer didn’t realize was that his very favorite sort of books, the ones that he would obsessively read cover-to-cover in a single sitting if he wasn’t physically dragged away, were romance novels.
Living now in Shirogane meant that Cam’s favorite bookstore in Limsa Lominsa was a little too far away for a casual jaunt. On one of his walks through the streets of Kugane, shopping basket tucked neatly beneath his arm, he stopped suddenly and clutched the basket’s handle. Tucked between two much larger, bustling shops, was a tiny little storefront with a single swinging signboard. The board was emblazoned with a book.
Cam was a Miqo'te of simple pleasures: he saw a bookstore, he went into it.
The shop was cramped, the already small space further reduced by the maze of shelves that weaved back and forth as well as lining every wall. Delighted and excited, he traversed each narrow aisle as his mismatched eyes scanned the spines. He pulled one down, then another. Another and another, until his arms were straining under the weight. There were too many volumes that sounded interesting, from slim novellas to long-winded tomes nearly as large as his textbooks. All of them promising stories of true love - among other, spicier things.
Nearly staggering to the front desk, Cam carefully dumped his finds for the amused clerk to ring up. While he waited, he continued looking around the store, only for his eyes to alight on a box beside the counter. The word “BARGAIN” was printed in large letters on one of the flaps. Curiosity got the best of him, causing Cam to take a peek at the contents while the total of his purchase continued to climb.
As Cam skimmed title after title, moving each layer to see the one beneath, his tail poofed all the way from base to tip. He hefted the box and hoisted it up onto the counter, giving the cashier a look of fiery determination. “I’ll take the lot!”
(This story is about my house knight Charlemont (Julien), who resides at @house-mercaiges. For the ease of organization for @sea-wolf-coast-to-coast, however, I will be posting this here to my main blog and simply reblogging it to Char’s, where it belongs.)
They carried the bodies out one by one, single file, I’m told. They weighed heavy and damp against cloth drawn taut, growing heavier with the fat, slick droplets of rain that fell boneless from the darkening sky. For a time some brave souls had gathered nearby: clutching at each others’ sleeves, mouths covered with drab old hand-me-down handkerchiefs, stuttering, guttural sobs drowning in the distant eruptions of thunder. Only for a time, though. The Twelveswood grew a hearty, proud, and all together enduring stock, but only for so long could one - even a Gridanian - stand hollow in the cold dirge of winter to watch their loved ones so unceremoniously taken away. Taken from the house they were murdered in.
By the time we realized where all the girls had gone - maids and cooks, neighborhood teenagers, even cousins of our own - it was all together too late. They disappeared one by one, much in the same manner the wood wailers carried them lifeless and decaying from the manor that day. The time to repent, the time to save, the time to reverse it all… well, yes. Too late. That time had long passed. Her appetite had grown so great, so insatiable, that even we - we who had turned a blind eye, day after day, moon after moon - even we could no longer ignore it.
I wasn’t there that day. I’d escaped, been hidden. All these things I know have arrived to me second-hand. Stories from ghosts, rumors passed along the branches of the very trees in The Black Shroud, texts from services and threnodies. In the years that have passed my regret hangs sodden and mournful, and in the moment I believe I have broken free of it I hear the rhymes of children on the wind.
six a bell six a bell twelve times twelve line them up and slit their throats and whisper fare the well
a chime, a scream her teeth agleam she murders all the night beware beware, my maiden fair voracious appetites
Comments:Eeeeeeeek! ikevamp exchange!!!! ❤My sweet little victim for this ikevamp exchange was none other than the very lovely @dear-mrs-otome.❤Hehehe just in case the first two didn’t tickle ya fancy, I wrote one last one❤ Thank you again @ikemenlibrary for setting the whole exchange up! Getting to know you has been a joy!❤❤❤❤❤
“Howdy,” a voice whispered directly into his ear, leaving a shiver to run down Theo’s spine. The dutchman’s head whipped up from the tattered pages to glare.
“What,” he grunted out, face-pulling sour at the interruption.
“You come here often?” She asked with the sway of the hips and an all too dazzling smile that creased at her eyes.
“No,” and with that, his attention was drawn back to his bookmark littered book.
“What’s your name?” She tried again—insistent— this time poking his shoulder repeatedly, and when he didn’t move an inch or respond in kind, she moved closer to him.
Relentless, the little thing was, bouncing to the other side of him with a toothy smile. “Is that a book about poetry? I love poetry!”
She reminded him of the curious rabbit he and Vincent had come across once, springing around the meadow without a care in the world. It, too, had come closer to investigate him and his brother, being so bold as to even climb into their picnic basket and steal whatever vegetables they had to offer.
“Good for you,” he said dryly, repeating the process of before, but this time with the addition of a sip of his wishy-washy whiskey.
“THEODORUS VAN GOGH, you are terrible at this!” She sighed out dramatically, making a big show of rolling her eyes and throwing her hands in the air as she collapsed her back against his. She leaned her head back into the crook of his shoulder and neck.
It took everything in his power to bite back the smile that wanted so desperately to escape its confines. But releasing that grin to the world would mean she would win, so instead, Theo turned his head in the opposite direction, resting his chin on the palm of his hand. The best offence was defence.
“You are hopeless, a complete basket case, and even worse! You cost me 10 euros,” she continued to rant with upturned eyes.
“Serves you right for betting against Arthur,” he quipped back, not able to hold back his grin any longer. Afterall when it came to her, he was never able to hold that hard exterior of his, no matter how hard he initially tried.
“You are a horrible best friend, you know that,” she said with a sigh, straightening herself and signalling for a drink. He missed the warmth of her back against his, and the faint smell of lilies from her hair.
“Who said we were even friends,” he shot her a bored look and rolled his eyes. Heaven knows he didn’t want to be her friend; he hadn’t for a while now. However, under the facade of friendship, things were easier. Under this guise, he could keep her at arm’s length and maybe, just maybe, it would not hurt as much when she would finally walk through the door and say goodbye to the world she had stumbled into.
“You know, that face of yours might attract a girl, but you seriously need to work on your people skills if you want to keep her hooked,” she ignored him, rambling on with her back now leaned up against the bar while hopeful eyes scouted the dimly lit jungle.
“You need to stop hanging around that klootzak; besides, I don’t want some random pup yapping at me,” because you are the only one I could and will ever love, he completed in his head.
“What about blondie, 6 o clock,” she pointed out with a tip of the chin.
“Too loud,” Theo said without even looking. He often humoured her and Arthur when they would try and set him up. He would humour, but never act. And today was no different.
“Brunette, with the pretty blouse,” she nudged him with her elbow until he turned his head to look.
“Yeah, not my type. Try again,” he deadpanned with a sigh, and this time she threw her hands up in defeat. A small part of him had always hoped that it was because she also loved him, in some small way. That she didn’t want him to be snatched up by one of these Parisian pompouses with wolfish grins.
The night progressed, they drank their fills, and it wasn’t long before the barman called the last round.
She had long ago tapped out for the night. What started off as a simple “rest her eyes” turned into soft, delicate snores and gentle mumblings.
He poked her marshmallowy cheeks in an attempt to wake her, but she only groaned in response, burrowing further into him. “Hey! Wake up! I know you can hear me.”
Nothing
He finished his drink while the bartender moved to the door to close, lock and flip the sign. Theo was regular enough for the man to know he was on his way out, no matter how drunk.
Had she been awake, she would have seen the way those gentle blues kissed the shore. But had she been awake, he might not have been as bold; he might not have crumpled under that soft, adorable trusting expression she wore. A pang shot through his heart as his fingers reached up and ghosted over her cheek.
“Please,” the words came out in a pleading whisper.
“Please stay,” he managed, the world’s weight seemingly lifting from his shoulders.
From the boulder being lifted to the mountain crashing down, her heavy eyes fluttered open and met his.
Shit shit shit he repeated over and over in his head, hoping she hadn’t heard him, hoping he could play it off as a dream.
The silence stretched before her eyes closed once more, and her head fell heavy onto his shoulder.
Theo held his breath.
Despite her now sealed eyes, she snuggled closer, breathing lightly against his neck, and had he not been a vampire. Had he not been reborn with excellent hearing he might have thought he misheard. But, even if he had, he would forever remember those words. Forever ingrain this memory into his mind. He would cherish it in his heart forever.
“I will never leave you Theo; you are my forever.” her voice was as gentle as the summer breeze planting the seeds of hope.
Releasing a shaky breath, Theo secured his arms around her and effortlessly lifted her into the air, cradling her against him like a precious painting.
He pressed his lips to her forehead, a silent promise, a hoping heart, an adoring memory.
Definitely deserving of a slow burn piece! Do it do it do it!!!
Also, yes, Theo is the very definition of: better when he keeps his mouth shut.
Hehehe the more theo the better this event should have been in May that way it could have been 2 birds with one stone for theos bday
Idk how I missed this, the tag isn’t even showing up for me in my mentions. Tumblr, how rude ;-;
okay, it’s official. I am soft for Theo at the moment. especially a Theo who has his mouth shut asdlkfjasdf
thank you again for participating in my event, Zeta <3 you went above and beyond and I cannot thank you enough
I read this through again today and it’s just so lovely. Theo has never been a favorite for me, but his vulnerability here is so appealing. Beautifully written. *sigh*
This is absolutely incredible, thank you so much holy shit! I love how you handled the transformation and what you’ve done with the concept of really weird wheat. I’d love to draw something up for this later if you don’t mind!
