Fantastic Muses

Sentence starters from Sarah J. Maas’s Crescent city. Because I am a slave to @nogoodnessimproveme‘s whims. Spoilers ahead.

Feel free to reblog/change pronouns as needed.

”Does this make you feel like you’re on the right path? Was this worth it?”

“I have a reason to work for my freedom. I thought you did, too.”

“Seeing you with them... it takes me back to that place. I’m sorry.”

“I’m still scared of that fancy coffee machine you bought us.”

“You might be able to accept the bit in your mouth, but I never will.”

“Don’t be such a cliche.”

“I’m getting real sick of you telling me where to go and forbidding me to do things.”

“It is a symbol - and symbols will always wield a power of their own.”

“Allow me to demonstrate why you can all kiss my ass.”

“You look how I feel. Every day.”

“You want me. I want you. It’s been that way for a while, and playing with those guys/girls hasn’t done a damn thing to make you forget that, has it?”

“Come on, ___, don’t be such a wimp.”

“I have too many things to wish for.”

“I saw them when I was a kid and thought they were the most magical thing I’d ever seen.”

“Promise me you won’t go ballistic.”

““There are better ways to deal with everything.”

“I knew you wouldn’t drink it if it tasted like rubbing alcohol.”

“You’re not the only person to have lost someone you love.”

“I’m trying to do something nice, and you’re not making it easy.”

“They deliberately chose not to help!”

“We were right then, and we’re still right now.”

“You pretend to be irreverent and lazy, but deep down, you don’t give up.”

“That room is yours, if you want it.”

“I was so worried about you.”

“I’m glad you called me tonight. I know things are fucked up between us, and I know a lot of that is my fault, but if you ever need me, I’m here. Anytime at all.”

“At the risk of sounding like a cliche, I like seeing you in my shirt.”

“I’d say most people need liquid courage when dealing with you.”

“I was asking why they’re not here, not whether you’re dating, but good to know.”

“I thought to myself, ‘there’s someone I want guarding my back. There’s a friend I’d like to have.’“

“I’ve known who you were this whole time. I never forgot you.”

“I should have been the one to shut them up.”

“I never wanted you to be hurt. I never wanted you to know -”

“Your heart was already so broken.”

“I realized all of this was the wrong path.”

“You are where I wanted to end up.”

“She’s done with you. All of you.”

“It stops when you’re dead. When everyone we love is dead.”

“Nothing’s changed. Nothing has gotten better.”

“She loved me enough to have said yes.”

“I heard you want to kill me. Are we really back to that old game?”

“Who knew you could act so commonly?”

“I’m just checking to see if the sky is falling, since you’re thanking me for something.”

“I just thought you should know something before I go.”

“I promised not to do anything stupid. I didn’t say I wouldn’t do anything smart.”

“Please don’t take them.”

“Your loyalty was the one good thing about you.”

“Don’t listen to a word she says.”

“I know your secret. I know what a prize you are.”

“You thought you were safe from me?”

“You should have slit their throat when you had the chance. I speak from experience.”

“I will never forgive you! Never!”

“I will not apologize for protecting you.”

“I couldn’t take the risk of him finding out.”

“I said I’ve known you’re important for all of an hour and you’re already a pain in my ass.”

“You? Are dead to me.”

“I don’t think you’re quite as much of an asshole now.”

“Together, we’ll get through this.”

“I’m not considering such changes in my life right now.”

“It’s not about the money. It’s about the care of this planet.”

“What I’m looking for? I’m looking for you.”

“I enjoyed every second of it.”

“I told them I’d forget it, if they did one little favor for me, at just the right moment.”

“He played you like a fucking fiddle.”

“Why not cause a little more chaos?”

“I know. I peeked in your drawer.”

“Tell me that’s not what I think it is.”

“They’ll be too late.”

“I’ve been waiting for this call.”

“She loved him much more than she hated you.”

“I believe it all happened for a reason. I believe it wasn’t for nothing.”

“I know it’s bad right now. I know it feels impossible.”

“We’re going to go home. You and me. Together. We’ll have that afterward.”

“I wouldn’t be so smug.”

“It got too hard. Without you. It is too hard without you.”

“We were supposed to live our lives together.”

“I couldn’t take that risk.”

“They wouldn’t have wanted you to stop fighting.”

“You have to hurry. You have to decide now.”

“I’m waiting for you.”

“You waited to admit it until I was almost dead, you fucking coward.”

“Now come say it to my face!”

“Too bad all that didn’t turn you into a decent person.”

“I guess that bastard finally realized he owed me that much.”

“It was too much to hope that achieving all that gave you a sense of dignity.”

“It was incredibly fortunate that you found a solution.”

“Want to come play scary asshole with me?”

“You are one lucky idiot.”

“You’re my ___. Of course I’d come to save your ass.”

“You really think I care more about that than you?”

“Yeah, yeah, you’re a fucking hotshot.”

“I didn’t trust anyone. Even you.”

“I think his father would have been proud.”

   “Hmm, I like to think I am a picture perfect captive, but I’m sure she’d say otherwise,” Percival muttered. He’d been as cooperative as his pride would allow for very good reason. Grindelwald was too close to Percival’s family for Percival to be able to take the risk of truly pissing anyone off. Still… Rosier had as much of a talent of rubbing him up the wrong way and he did her, he might not have been entirely amicable. “I’m not sure she could have done without it actually. She did seem to have rather a lot of anger that needed a release. And if it was me instead of my family it was released on… can’t complain really.”

Coming to the conclusion this woman wouldn’t be standing against the farthest wall and having an almost friendly conversation with him if she was going to take a few swings at him herself, Percival deigned to raise his head a little higher, straighten himself up best he could to take her in more closely. He couldn’t recall ever seeing her face even before all this - probably some legitimately good person who had fallen for Grindelwald’s speech. Though, to be close enough to the man that she could access Percival, she was probably quite high up the food chain.

   “Well, I’m Percival Graves. I’m afraid it’s not entirely a pleasure to meet you, given the situation, but you appear to be a much more reasonable young woman, so at least you have that going for you,” he commented, only a slight amount of snide bitterness in his tone. Ultimately, she wasn’t making any particular move to help him, even if she wasn’t hurting him. “I have to say, I am offended. As a guest here, I should be the number one priority.”

“Even if I didn’t highly doubt that, like I said, it wouldn’t matter. I would say she has a mean streak, .” She stayed leaning against the wall, wondering why exactly Vinda was working so hard to break the man. They already had what they needed from him. Granted, that had taken a lot of work, by Gellert’s accounts. The man’s mind was strongly protected, and it had taken causing him physical pain - plenty of it - to get past of that. But that Vinda continued was just a testament to her unending annoyance with people. “Vinda won’t go anywhere near your family, no matter what she threatens,” she commented, seemingly offhandedly, but fully aware that Vinda would be pissed that she had ‘let it slip.’ Not that Vinda could do anything about it

She didn’t flinch or shy under his examination as she once might have. It had taken her years to convince herself that she could go around without being recognized, and even now she avoided being spotted in public with Gellert. She didn’t want to risk it. But the odds of a random American piecing together who she was were slim. She examined him in return, almost wishing she could help him - after all, it wasn’t his fault he had been pushed so aggressively into the system that oppressed them. She tried not to begrudge anyone their situation, knowing they might eventually be brought around to see how they’d been screwed over.

Bane was going to give her whiplash. After months of being told to let Graves do his own thing, and she was better off being paired with one of the other men, she was paired with him. They were all dumbasses, of course, and more often than not, it felt like she was doing her own thing with the men she was paired with nothing more than dead weight. She had joined the aurors after a failed attempt at jump starting her political career (she hadn’t been able to advance further than the simple position of aide for two years, after the other 4 years spent to even get that high), so she should have been behind. But they were all idiots.

And apparently, this job for two was too big for any of them to screw it up. She sat across from him in one of the interrogation rooms, the file she had already read sitting in front of her. He had been perfectly silent, and she wondered if he thought the whole ‘brooding auror’ thing he had going was to try to seem tough.

@styleoverlaw

If only she used commas

Rosier hadn’t left that long ago - Percival couldn’t exactly tell the passage of time in the windowless little room he was stuck in, but he was relatively certain it was at least still the same day - which made it highly unusual to have the door open again. A part of him hoped it was Rosier coming back, deciding it was time to have a little mercy on him and put him out of his misery… but he’d also come to know the woman was far too vindictive and poisonous to give him any such relief.

Bracing for whatever new form of ‘delightful’ torture the French-woman wanted to put him through, Percival was surprised to smell someone else’s perfume, hear someone else’s voice as the door closed again. Spectacular, another psychotic supporter of Grindelwald, no doubt come to double down on Rosier’s fun. Still, he lifted his head out of curiosity if nothing else. A new face was a new face, and he could add it to the list of Grindelwald fanatics he would gladly destroy once he figured out a way to break these chains.

    “Ah, the nose is hardly her fault,” he replied, tone light and conversational. He refused to have his spirit broken. “I was practically asking for it. The rest I could have done without. I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure of your company before.” Hanging by the back wall, the woman wasn’t giving him any immediate impressions of being hostile. Usually the first thing anyone did when they walked in was get as close as possible to prove he couldn’t get at them.

She was starting to get frustrated with the lack of any sign of the child. Beyond the moments that the obscurus wreaked havoc across the city, they had no indication of who it could be. The longer they went without finding them, the higher the chance of the child dying was. She had to keep reminding herself that they would find the child, and give them safety. Even as worry gnawed at her at the thought of them still being out there. She forced the thought out of her mind, focusing instead on keeping a rein on her own powers, not that the room was really giving her much to do with them.

The room was... stifling. She had known he was incredibly powerful, but the dampening spells on the cuffs were so strong they were practically leeching into the rest of the room. She was probably a bit more sensitive to it than most, but she still hated it. She had to stifle a shudder, and she gladly turned her thoughts away from that when she saw that he was actually moving and responding - and not nearly as hostile as she expected. Perhaps because she had yet to do anything to him

Ariana knew they were holding him - Gellert had been very clear about the plan, and the Director’s involvement in it. But she hadn’t been around to see him before now. She had been conducting her own search through the city, but it was fruitless so far. She wanted nothing more than to just end the woman at the head of the society, but she was their biggest clue until the child was found.

One thing she hadn’t realized was where they were holding him. The building they had commandeered wasn’t exactly meant for holding prisoners, so when she entered one of the rooms and found him dangling from his wrists, she shouldn’t have been surprised.

Y r u like this

Percival raised his hands in surrender almost as soon as he’d walked through the door to the Hog’s Head. Aberforth’s welcome didn’t surprise him in the slightest, and Percival couldn’t decided at this point whether he was in the mood for a fight or not. He shouldn’t have ignored his cane. Percival forgot just how fucking miserable the weather in this country could be, and his knee always paid the price when the pressure dropped and the sky threatened to open. It put him in a foul mood that would no doubt make winning over the stubborn bartender all the more difficult.

    “Take it easy,” he muttered. “I’m here to drink, not to interrogate.” Percival never wanted to sit in on another interrogation in his life. It was time to retire, he’d decided over the course of the Ministry’s incessant badgering. Sure, MACUSA ran things a little differently, but ultimately, everyone was the same, and Percival was quickly coming to realise he didn’t want to be a part of it. He didn’t know what he was going to do with himself without his job, but he also couldn’t picture himself going back to work any more.

    “I see I’ve caught you in a good mood,” Percival joked. “Look, I’m stuck in this fucking country until Travers stops being an asshole, and since we all know that’s never going to happen, I need a place where the drinks are good or I’m going to fucking kill someone. I’m not here as an auror, I’m so… I’m so fucking sick of aurors, I would gladly never look at one again. Please. My leg hurts, my head hurts, I just jinxed an owl for daring to fly too low… I need a drink.”

He didn’t care about the man’s attempt at being placating - if anything, it just made him more annoyed. His hands curled into fists, and he inhaled sharply as he tried to keep a somewhat level head. It was a hard enough feat for him on a normal day, let alone when people he hated came around. His pub was his place and of course Grindelwald managed to ruin that, too. Even if it was indirectly. None of this would have happened if he hadn’t shown his ugly face in Godric’s Hollow.

“I don’t care what you’re here for,” Aberforth replied, the edge not leaving his voice. “And I don’t care if you’re here to cure dragon pox. I told you to get out, and when I say ‘get out’ I mean ‘stay out.’ What about that is so hard to understand?” He was already sick of the man being there. He just wanted his pub to be somewhere he could be without being harassed, but that seemed to be near impossible these days.