last night I read every page of your Scarlet Hollow tag as a bedtime story, haha
😅😅😅 So, like five pages of (mostly Tabitha) fanart and me agreeing with people going 'NO REALLY THE CHOICES DO MATTER?' and occasional incoherent screaming when my feels overflow?
/hey, have you tried to leave town in chapter five yet? HAVE YOU? It's my favorite worst thing ever. (because at least it should be over but it's never ever over)
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You wrote recently about the public perception of Ysonia's complicity, and how the MC can try to vindicate her in the public eye. Out of curiosity, will an especially resentful MC be able to make her look more guilty? Just, you know, if they feel like her life hasn't been sufficiently ruined.
Oh, yes, absolutely. It would probably even win the MC some points with the public, as it would distance them from Ysonia and House Maeliah, as well as their sins — those both proven and only alleged — altogether.
The MC could do it out of spite or simply as a calculated political move.
I enjoy pain, so #38 for any romantic pair you feel like.
38. “Never mind, the moment’s gone.”
(Hilariously, I would have interpreted this as a humorous prompt left to my own devices, but then I realized Thenali spent most of PoE and all of the time between that and Deadfire NOT TALKING ABOUT HER FEELINGS so this happened??? Oops.)
[snip]
Thenali nearly says something dozens of times, once she realizes. It shouldn’t be hard, right? It always sounds easy in the tales, anyway. But it’s never the right moment. She can’t say it when he’s offering her support, because she doesn’t owe him warm and squishy feelings in exchange for his kindness. Telling him isn’t a demand that he keep giving time and affection and honesty and humor when she’s collapsing under the weight of everything. Or at all.
It’s meant to be a gift, not an obligation.
Sometimes, like tonight, all she needs is someone to sit with her in silence, and he offers that, too. He stays until she feels like she can hold her own weight again and she pushes herself mostly upright from where she’d been leaning into his shoulder because her head is heavy enough without the added weight of destiny (or very bad luck, or the compound interest on her inherited sins).
She can’t say it now.
She smiles, instead, holds it until it feels true, and touches his hand.
“Thank you, Edér.”
He shrugs.
“You’d do the same for me. Have done.”
–
He makes her laugh, constantly, and every time the words nearly trip off her tongue, trailing after the giggles. Every time she closes her teeth just in time. Her faith demands honesty, but this doesn’t stop being true just because she hasn’t said anything out loud.
It’s obvious most of their companions know, or at least suspect. She hasn’t denied it. She can’t, and wouldn’t want to. The oceans are wide, Stalwart is cold, Raedric was mad as a box of rabid weasels, and Thenali, Watcher of Caed Nua, loves Edér Teylecg.
But she can’t (doesn’t want to) say it. So she fills the silence other ways, instead;
“What’s a pirate’s favorite letter?”
“Kinda thought they were mostly illiterate,” he muses, and she bursts out laughing all over again.
He grins back.
–
“Let me see,” she says, and holds out her hand.
“Nah, it’s nothing, don’t worry about it.”
“Edér. Let me see.”
“You know,” he says, giving her his hand, “my mom used almost exactly that tone when me ‘n Woden had gotten in just that little bit more trouble than she was willing to overlook.”
“Don’t pretend,” she says, inspecting the bite, “that it wasn’t just you three times out of four.”
“Woden didn’t let me get in trouble alone very often,” he says, and there’s an undercurrent of something wounded in the tone of his voice that’s so much worse than this little bite. Itumak is careful. History is not.
A little spark of magic burns out the possibility of infection, and she grabs a roll of bandages.
“It’s not as bad as all that,” he protests, and she gives him her best flat look.
“This is not because it needs bandaging, it’s because I’m hoping having something on the hand will remind you not to stick it in Itumak’s mouth.”
“If I’m not supposed to pet him, why is he so soft?”
Thenali shakes her head and picks up Auspice from where the cat is draped around her shoulders, depositing her negligible weight in Edér’s lap.
“Here,” she tells him. “Soft and for petting, rather than just soft.”
“Sagani pets him,” Edér says, but it’s not a real objection. Only about a sixth of his attention is still on the conversation; the rest is on the cat, who makes an agreeable cheep and then starts purring like a rockslide.
She watches a moment to be sure, but Edér is actually very good with animals - he’s gentle, and when Auspice’s tail starts twitching, he stops and offers his hand until she butts her head against his palm again.
There are at least five other cats at Caed Nua, and a mess of dogs, two hatchlings, and a pig. She’s going to drop ALL OF THEM in his lap the next time they’re home.
She catches that thought, corrects it.
It’s not home. She was born on a ship and she’s sailed across seas and walked across nations. She doesn’t have a home.
Home is for keeping things, and people, when you find a situation so perfect that even the itch to chase the horizon can’t make you want to leave. She doesn’t have that, never has.
She looks at him again, petting Auspice, and realizes - she might want to.
She doesn’t know how to say that.
–
She does, in fact, persuade two of the dogs to flop down next to Edér after she has deposited ALL of the cats in his lap. They do not all fit, and some relocate to nearby furniture, but that doesn’t spoil the effect - ‘the effect’ being a big strapping soldier measuring his considerable length on the floor, covered in animals, and laughing.
She crows, “The mighty warrior lies vanquished! I shall commission a commemorative painting at once. To hang in the great hall, I think.”
He starts to sit up, so she completes the picture by depositing one of the tiny wyrms on his head to make a mess of his golden hair.
“This isn’t quite what I imagined when people used the phrase ‘mad as a Watcher.’”
“My family, if you ever meet them, will be delighted to inform you that I’ve always been this way.”
It’s familiar, now; she bites the words back again, swallows down the warmth. She’s not even sure why she does it, anymore, except part of her fears it’s just her. If there were anything worth speaking up for, after this long? He’d have said something himself, surely.
The silence stretches for a moment too long, and he gives her a serious-eyed look that she likes not at all.
“Never mind,” she tells him cheerfully, scooping Lady up into her arms before the beagle can annoy Garnet into scratching her . The moment’s gone, the words no longer tangling in her throat.
There will be another moment. She won’t take that one, either, but there will be more after that.
–
The world heaves, and she falls, and stones fall, too. There’s black-edged agony screaming everywhere she’s not cold and numb.
She regrets so little - something to be thankful for - but she regrets this: Swallowing down words. She’ll never get to speak them, now.
(Except she does NOT die and gets to go back to Deadfire chasing after her god and going ‘EXCUSE ME EOTHAS SIR you seem to have picked up most of MY soul on accident’ and hopefully gets to smooch Edér. The end!)
Hours pass, interrupted only by the sudden onset of the tea trolley, which thunders through the polished corridors like the fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse.
*barges through the door* PARKER POV OF ELLIOT FINDING OUT THAT HARDISON GOT HIM OMEGA PREGNANT
This made me snort-laugh in delight, and then I pictured it, and then I swapped it around in my head that Hardison was pregnant, and both versions were AMAZING? Pregnant!Eliot, all grumpy and nesting, and then pregnant!Hardison who is only grumpy when someone makes him drink something besides orange soda and THEN! BECAUSE HE'S SO TALL, HE COULD BE SO SO PREGNANT BEFORE HE STARTED SHOWING, and then I wished I could art instead of fic.
But then I attempted to fic again, (only I had lost track of the prompt and kept going with pregnant!Hardison) and I feel as if Parker would actually have figured it out before Hardison even and then think because she figured it out (and she's bad at figuring out relationship/people cues so often) she's think that Hardison and Eliot would both HAVE to have already known and she's just waiting for them to tell her and she gets why they wouldn't immediately, like, obviously, she's not good with kids, she doesn't know how to interact with anyone normally and it'd be so easy to fuck up a child, they need so much, and she'd hate if they ended up with a childhood like hers...
(And then I stopped laughing because I'd made myself sad, join me in the Parker feels y'all.)
And then she's made herself worried and wonders if that's really why they haven't told her, they don't know how to tell her that they're worried about her and their kids, but they'd be their kids, she'd love their kids so much!
Only then, maybe they wouldn't be hers, too? Maybe the problem is Hardison and Eliot think they'd just be 'their' kids and she'd only be... Aunt Parker or something.
(And she's been DELIGHTED at being an Aunt to some of Nana's fosters, but this is different, and she's not sure why, or how to explain it, and Eliot and Hardison still haven't said anything and like. What if she's got everything about their relationships wrong and it's not that they don't know how to tell her, it's that it never even OCCURRED to them to tell her anything because it's not about her at all?!?!?!?!?)
and Hardison and Eliot are all trying to figure out how to ask what's wrong with Parker to the point that Hardison STILL hasn't actually realized he's pregnant and he's getting all flustered and they're having the weirdest almost-argument because he's worried about her but trying so hard not to push but he's clearly just getting more and more upset and she keeps trying to get him to calm down and rest it can't be good for him and Hardison's all what the fuck are you talking about?
And that's when Eliot finally gets it.
*Insert his italicized oh here*
(And then they're all a little emotional and melodramatic and kind of yelling but in a good way until they all figure out what's going on and they're all on the same page and they're a little scary in the baby stores as they go shopping to decide how to set up the nursery, and they end up having even more kids on purpose via a couple different combinations of parents and foundlings and they're all very happy and ridiculous, the end.)
But I never did manage to write it, so I guess this is all you're going to get. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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38. Running fingers through hair while kissing [post]
I hope you enjoy some Nathalie/Clarmont now, ever so many eons after you requested it. I failed entirely to do the 'while kissing' thing and focused much more on the hair. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The Matchmaker may have announced them, they may consider themselves engaged, this might be exactly what they should be doing as these connections are exactly what the Summit claims to be for... but Nathalie's a 'known' seductress and suspected murderer, but Clarmont's only 'allowed' here for the Royal Family to keep an eye on him, to make sure he knows how generous they are being with their mercy.
Every day of this supposed peace conference is dangerous. Too many eyes, too many secrets, too many ways to fail.
She's terrified, in fact, of this, of him, of a quiet night and a clear sky and no one around and he's warm along her side and they're alone and it's beautiful and if she thinks about it, about what this is and what it might be and what the rest of her life will be with more of this, of him, the devastation if she never gets it again, she might break.
She closes her eyes and leans her head against his shoulder and grips his jacket too tightly between her fingers, and even so it's barely tight enough to hold her there, to hold her in one piece.
He keeps one arm around her shoulders, his thumb rubbing slowly up and down against her arm. He shifts, slowly, carefully enough she never has to lift her head, never has to let go.
She feels his free hand move, fingers finding the edges of her hair, her pins, and she knows what he's going to do and she lets him, lets him tug her hair free, one pin, one curl, one twist at a time.
She can't remember the last time she let her hair loose. She braided it loosely when she was sleeping, kept it fashionable and impeccable and impressive when out.
But now it tumbles free, catching on his sleeve and her neckline and his fingers and her jewelry and she's laughing, softly, her grip easing as she turns her head enough to press her face against him.
He strokes her hair, smoothing the top, then letting his fingers find their way through it, layer by layer, until she realizes she's half-asleep, curled up against a man in the middle of the night with no one around and not afraid at all, not of him, not of the Summit, not of the future.
She hums, too drowsy and comfortable to manage words, and she feels him kiss the top her head. She shivers, and they both know it's not from the way the breeze has picked up.
He keeps soothing her, though she doesn't think it would be possible to be more comfortable. He occasionally lets himself linger, fingertips against her forehead or temple or neck for just a moment before they find their way back into her hair, always moving, slow and gentle.
I love you, she thinks, and hopes he knows, for all she can't risk saying it aloud.
Not yet.
But soon.
They're almost there. They'll make it. They have to.
TESTING OUT THE QUOTE REPLY THINGY? Very long after the post that inspired said replies, but what-the-fuck-ever:
@theladyw replied to your post “I have 314 things in my q it is dumb how happy...”:
Pi
🥧! I have turned into a failure of a nerd, I didn’t even notice that, I’m just still thrilled I can go over 300 now, after getting into some very bad drafting habits from getting stuck at 299 a few too many times 🤣
@oranges8hands replied to your post “so staff is working on POLLS which will be great...”:
#6 could be fun but true vote is mermay fic (assuming this is referring to the malec fic - or even better the follow-up to the AU mermay fic cause that thing lives in my head rent free) or sh wip - like another chapter of "if broken hearts were whole" or if you were still doing a sequel to "with an if in its soul".
I mean. IN THEORY ALL THOSE THINGS WILL HAPPEN SOME DAY?
I don’t usually actually totally abandon the WIPs. I have only done so twice in a dozen years? That’s not bad odds, tbqh. Now, has it been longer than usual without managing forward progress on quite so many of them? Perhaps....
*sighs forever*
@jadesabre301 replied to your post “so staff is working on POLLS which will be great...”:
considering I just wrote a nearly 6K summary of a fic I'm not going to write, I'm a big fan of the not!fic collection idea. But also you should probably work on the thing where snippets are due soon.
Not!Fic is fun! (I have like 10k of journal entries for Ella Shepard that aren’t fic but are good background references, yk?)
& I did not do the thing, and continue to be snippet-less past the deadline. No art for jilly. (But a belated thank you for the pragmatic advice? 😅😅😅😅)
@leahazel replied to your post “so staff is working on POLLS which will be great...”:
I should do a poll like this but for all the unfinished scenes in one WIP.
On the one hand, YES! otoh, my polls have not actually been helping me do anything lately, so uh? YMMV?!?! *snerk*
@servantofclio replied to your post “so staff is working on POLLS which will be great...”:
I admit Downworld for Dummies sounds hilarious to me
I mean. I find it hilarious, that’s why I started writing it? But then it needed more effort and I went *thbbbbbbbt* because my brain is mushy.
@thedivinemissema replied to your post “so staff is working on POLLS which will be great...”:
4 sounds good to me!
WELL IT SOUNDS GOOD TO ME TOO BUT I KEEP NOT WRITING IT?
I should yell about it on a 7kpp server or something, see if that helps me get back into it 🤞🤞🤞 (I just realized I don’t think we share any discord servers, wtf? How did that happen? Or not happen. Also I have too many that I never check in on, I should do some pruning.)
