99% of the thing is written, i just need to finish a bit of cleanup on the later chapters, so new chaps will be posted within a week of previous chaps. so sometime between 2 days and 7, because why keep a consistent schedule when i could be chaotic as hell instead lmao

They traveled through the long, drafty halls and endless sets of stairs. Constance had been afraid she would not know the door again, so she had asked Merit to put some sort of marker on it. He had put, or more likely caused to be put, a little piece of yarn, tied to the heavy iron handle.

"You can stay outside," she told her guards. "This is the only door."

This dispensed of, she and Lord-willing slipped into the room. They left the door open to cast extra light, for they would need it in these sartorial discussions. They both sat on the floor, as if they were girls, but the chill bleeding into Constance's hips reminded her that this was only an illusion.

"There's beautiful things in here," said Lord-willing. "Some of them are proper clothes, too."

"I thought, just for my wedding..." said Constance.

Lord-willing nodded. "You must be married in the right clothes."

"I'm relying on thy judgement as to what the right clothes are," said Constance, sighing. "I've never dressed myself for something like this."

"Your own wedding?" said Lord-willing. "I should think not."

"Any occasion on which I was a central figure without having regnal garments," said Constance.

"Hmm. Remind me, milady, of the impression you wish you create?"

"That's the other half of the difficulty, of course. My rank as it would be, or my future husband's rank?" Constance shrugged. "A compromise? Supposing I was a rich merchant's daughter and I married a member of the King's Guard. That wouldn't be so ridiculous."

Lord-willing nodded, and plunged her hand into the pile.

Gradually, through iteration, they chose such garments as seemed suitable for a woman of the station Constance pretended to. And when they had picked them all and folded them neatly, Constance rummaged in the chest again until she found three linen tunics, two for a woman and one for a boy. It seemed to her that taking so many garments out ought to leave the chest emptier, but, well, it was a big chest. She closed it and laid the tunics out.

"There," she said.

"Milady?" said Lord-willing.

"One for thee--" Constance laid it on her lap -- "And one for thy mother--" again -- "And one for the little boy. I know it's rather large but they grow fast, I'm told."

Lord-willing looked into her lap. "You can't," she said, but as she said it she picked them up and fingered them, feeling the weave.

"It's the price," said Constance. "What I take I must give away. Three garments for me: the tunic, the gown, the coat. Three for thee."

Lord-willing had the tunics in both hands now. She said, "It's not proper. Really it's not," but Constance knew she was weakening.

"Ladies give their old things to their maids all the time," said Constance encouragingly.

"These are not old things!"

"They belonged to my mother."

"You and I both know that old things and heirlooms are not the same!"

"Well, you can always sell them, if you can't get another position immediately," said Constance briskly. She remembered what Merit had said to her. "Think of it as--perks. A pension, perhaps."

Lord-willing's face was uncertain as she lifted it. Constance got to her feet and said, "Come. I shall have to try these things on, so we can get them properly fitted."

In an act of minor cowardice, she waited until Lord-willing was lacing up the surcoat to say, "The bride's side of the home visit is poorly filled. Wouldst thou like to--"

Lord-willing's hands stilled on the laces. "You have family, milady."

"They all despise me," said Constance, trying not to sound like a petulant child. "Which is their right, of course. I did take away many privileges from them."

After a moment, Lord-willing's professional ministrations began again. She had laced Constance up so many times that she knew exactly how to do it without making Constance feel pulled about. It was not until she had finally finished that she said, "You needn't try to buy my attendance."

"I'm not," said Constance. I'm buying something else instead.

"It's not proper," said Lord-willing, which Constance had known she would say.

"Nothing about what I'm doing is proper," said Constance.

Lord-willing stepped back. "Turn yourself around, milady."

Without thinking about it, Constance twirled like a little girl in her first long gown. Then she spun again, slower, because she knew that Lord-willing needed to see how the clothes moved on her.

"It's not so bad," said Lord-willing. "The sleeves of the gown will have to be shortened, but the skirt length suits the occasion."

"Hmm." Constance wiggled a little, testing her range of motion. "This one must have been my mother's; she was taller than me."

"Who else is coming to your home visit? On your side," said Lord-willing.

"It's only Merit," Constance admitted.

Lord-willing considered this. "And your future husband's?"

"I don't know. His immediate family, I suppose. Dost thou think the armholes of the surcoat are too deep?"

"Maybe." Lord-willing stepped closer and gently raised Constance's arm. "Maybe, aye. I think we'll need to speak to milady's tailor."

"I suppose if she can manage to fit those awful ceremonial things, this will be nothing."

Constance began to loosen the surcoat laces, but Lord-willing gave her a gentle push and did it herself. Soon enough, Constance thought, Lord-willing's gentle touch and stern manner would be out of her life forever. She willed herself to remember this, to press it in her memory book like a flower for drying. But somehow nothing stuck. Nothing could be made realer than it already was.

"What position does your husband's father hold in the city?" Lord-willing asked, pulling the surcoat over Constance's head.

"If I remember correctly, he works in the port guard," said Constance when she emerged.

Lord-willing frowned and nodded. "And could I bring my family? My mother, and my brother, and his wife, and their children, and my little boy?"

"It would be nice to have a few more people on my side." Constance half-smiled as she began to remove the gown. "Perhaps we might outnumber the groom."

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: ジョジョの奇妙な冒険 | JoJo no Kimyou na Bouken | JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Narancia Ghirga & Guido Mista Characters: Narancia Ghirga, Guido Mista, Bruno Buccellati, Pannacotta Fugo Additional Tags: Domestic Fluff, Pre-Canon, Canon Compliant, Team as Family, Team Bonding, Bruno Buccellati is Spelled Bruno Bucciarati Series: Part 4 of PRISM, Part 8 of Write-tober 2020 Summary:

Narancia is dying to play his new video game with a player 2, and Mista is just gullible enough to be dragged into it. Narancia's carefree lack of life skills is quickly coming to bite him in the ass.

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this should be interesting! let's see how this goes

hi everyone, call me book, my main blog is @theoriginalcrossjumper and you can find me posting all kinds of random stuff and art and such there.

....but if you're interested in any of my writing, this is where you're going to want to be going forward!

(or my ao3, which is also theoriginalcrossjumper)

essentially, this is going to be a blog centering around my writing - this includes the numerous fanfics i'm sort of working on as well as the at least three (3) original stories i'm trying to write. hopefully, making this blog will help incentivize me to actually make progress on them. and if not it gives me somewhere to ramble to the three people who might be interested about the worlds living rent free in my head!

mainly i'll be working through my list of wips after a friend asked about Every Single One Of My Thirty-Plus Dedicated Wips during an ask game on my main blog, but i'll also be using this to store references and other notes and snippets for my original stories. a lot of my art for these associated stories and fics will also be posted here. we'll see how this goes!

list of discussed stories/fics under the cut (links & more wips and such will be added after i actually talk about them):

ahaha it's so funny you picked that because that's actually one of the four (4) wips on this list that i have absolutely no scenes written for yet, just vibes and some loose plot notes. but you're right, it is in fact a tau wip!

specifically, that's (going to be) the fic that shows the first meeting between alcor and the current mizar alive at the time of How (Not) to Get Away With Murder - the biker mizar, if you remember that drawing i did.

like i said, i don't have too much written down for this yet so i sadly can't give you any scenes, but here's what i'll do instead: you get pieces of the background going into the fic!

also, you get to be the first one to know that this mizar finally has a name: her nickname is Mal! (this is short for Malachite, which was originally from her hair color, and is a nickname she's gone by for so long it's more her name than her actual birth name - also something we're used to in gravity falls and tau fandom haha).

hence the name of the wip: "alotau" is a mash-up of Alothia (the world the Fox Greenstrike is from) and TAU, which is what i use to refer to the verse that h(n)tgawm is set in; "malcor" is Mal + Alcor meeting lol

so, plot notes:

one of the things i want to do with this fic is make a mizar who is actually kind of excited about the whole reincarnation thing and is really gung ho about fighting cults, learning about demons, etc. and also, in kind of a twist on the usual meeting, alcor isn't the one who seeks mizar out - mal is the one who summons alcor (for reasons entirely unrelated to the mizar thing, which she doesn't yet know about) for their first meeting.

the fic'll deal with that, and then the repercussions of that, and then mal actually learning she's the current mizar reincarnation, and also some of alcor's side of reeling at this because he's in a very big Angsty kind of "everything i touch always dies, so why should i even bother reaching out when i know they're just going to die anyway" kind of mood when this starts. also will get more background on the Comet bike and the quick sort-of-cameo it got in h(n)tgawm!

In the thick sunlight of the garden she began to sweat. Doves sang a soft, hooting song. Oo-woo oo, oo, oo. Insects buzzed on the edge of hearing. Under her bare feet even the grass felt hot; the dew had burned off long ago. Even in a linen smock, hair bare and drying from its wash, she still felt smothered.

It was only partly the heat. There was something about the little stone bench and the crumbling waist-high stone walls that made her feel trapped. It was odd: the walls had been much higher in the gardens she walked as a child. Maybe that was the key. Walls higher than you gave a sense of expansive space. You, a little crawling thing, could wander endlessly, taking first this path and then the other. In this garden she felt huge. Stretching out both arms, you'd have to be careful of everyone else's space.

Well, that was the key, wasn't it. Butting up into everyone else's space. Like it or not, she had to ruefully admit, she wasn't used to space belonging to other people. They always called it a gilded cage, but it was also a very big one. So big that you could hardly see the bars.

She had never thought herself spoiled or demanding. Sometimes during times of famine she had pared her own meals back to brown bread and oats. During times of war she had slept in the dirt, anxiously waiting news of the latest battles.

But that was for a purpose. And her critics had been right: a choice was a choice. And above all, above all, there was one thing she had always had, one thing that no one would deny to her: space. She might sleep in the dirt, but no one dared crowd her. She might eat bread and water, but she slept in her own bed, in a room larger than this garden. Although she was never alone, no one dared intrude on her thoughts. She could always retreat behind her own face and demand silence.