todays bird
2025 on Tumblr: Trends That Defined the Year
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Stranger Things
Xuebing Du
★
PUT YOUR BEARD IN MY MOUTH
Discoholic 🪩
PR's Tumblrdome
KIROKAZE
almost home
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Jules of Nature
if i look back, i am lost
macklin celebrini has autism
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Alisa U Zemlji Chuda
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seen from Italy
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@kristanna-collaborations
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Here is the AO3 collection link. Authors, please feel free to add your stories and additions as you would like them to appear. It is an open moderated project. Once the stories are approved, they will appear in the collection. Thank you for revisiting this with me! I’m actually excited to have it on the Archive!
Past Life AU Master Chapter Post
Chapter 1: By bri-ecrit. Set in Mesopotamia Chapter 2: By upthenorthmountain. Set in Roman Britain Chapter 3: By frenzy5150. Set in Late Classic Maya Chapter 4: By ominouscloudsofarendelle. Set in Medieval Europe Chapter 5: By lukin08. Set in the early Scottish Highlands Chapter 6: By maddysicepalace. Set during the Renaissance Chapter 7: By Punkpoemprose. Set during the Salem Witch Trials Chapter 8: By whitefeather79. Set during the American Revolution Chapter 9: By karis-the-fangirl. Set in the Regency Era Chapter 10: By upthenorthmountain. Set during WWII Chapter 11: By ravenwritesstuff. Set in modern times Epilogue: By teneniel-of-dathomir. Set in KSR’s colonized solar system
Peacin’ Out
Hey fam!
In light of the purity culture BS winning tumblr, I’ll be deactivating all my accounts at the end of this week. Please be sure to reblog or save all desired content from the following blogs:
@kristanna-collaborations
@the-lucian-archives
Before that time. Additionally, to keep in touch personally you can find me on Twitter
Thanks for the good run, the fandom fun, and all the friendships I’ve made here! This is honestly a great push for me to give up one more piece of social media so I’m too upset. I hope you all have great times in fandom moving forward!
-Val
A quick word
Hi all, Yes I still want to do the bound book of the collaboration. I have to sincerely apologize because I didn't realize how much time, skill, and money would be involved. My kids are both still so young and I can't find 5 uninterrupted minutes together on good brain days. This has been weighing hard on my conscience for months now and I thought I had better address it. I hope I haven't upset anyone with my lack of ability to follow through 😔 ❤️❤️
Past Lives WW2: Elizabeth’s letter
I can’t leave this AU alone apparently
Keep reading
Past Lives WW2: Epilogue
This is a little bit of a follow-up to my second Past Lives story, set during WW2, because I’m incapable of leaving finished stories alone
Happy birthday @flathtrash!
Keep reading
An epilogue for the WWII era!
Hey hey hey!
So, predictably, I won't be getting the bound copies out by the end of the year. Part of it is me being lazy and just wanting to enjoy the holidays, part of it is not wanting to push people to do their edits during the season. So! I will keep everyone updated after the end of the year. Feel free to keep sending me edits and your preference/contact information (authors and artists only).
Authors and Artists!
As a special thank you, I will be printing and spiral binding a copy of this collaboration for each of you!
If you are uncomfortable giving a mailing address, I can email you the finished PDF instead for you to keep or print as you like.
What I Need From You:
If you would like to edit your piece or add content (either within your piece or as an appendix), please do so by Wednesday, November 23rd.
You may either submit your edited piece to this blog again or email it to me (PM for address)
Please PM me either your email (for a PDF copy) or a mailing address (for the hard copy)
I will do my best to get them mailed out by mid-December.
The bound hard copies are open ONLY to the twelve authors and artists who have already submitted their work. HOWEVER, if you would like to submit art between now and November 23rd, I will be happy to include it and email you a copy of the PDF.
Thank you so much again for all your hard work and great comments! I had a lot of fun with this project and I’m already thinking of the next collaboration!
Don’t forget to send me your preference and revisions! A little over a week left before the artificially imposed deadline. If you need more time please let me know about how much.
Authors and Artists!
As a special thank you, I will be printing and spiral binding a copy of this collaboration for each of you!
If you are uncomfortable giving a mailing address, I can email you the finished PDF instead for you to keep or print as you like.
What I Need From You:
If you would like to edit your piece or add content (either within your piece or as an appendix), please do so by Wednesday, November 23rd.
You may either submit your edited piece to this blog again or email it to me (PM for address)
Please PM me either your email (for a PDF copy) or a mailing address (for the hard copy)
I will do my best to get them mailed out by mid-December.
The bound hard copies are open ONLY to the twelve authors and artists who have already submitted their work. HOWEVER, if you would like to submit art between now and November 23rd, I will be happy to include it and email you a copy of the PDF.
Thank you so much again for all your hard work and great comments! I had a lot of fun with this project and I’m already thinking of the next collaboration!
Thank you so much Val! :D what a great idea :)
I might have some changes to the second story because I did it in a hurry, will go through it again
Oh, and FYI, it’s also TOTALLY OKAY if you don’t want this gift. Believe me, I understand. Sometimes the internet just...needs to stay on the internet. XD
Authors and Artists!
As a special thank you, I will be printing and spiral binding a copy of this collaboration for each of you!
If you are uncomfortable giving a mailing address, I can email you the finished PDF instead for you to keep or print as you like.
What I Need From You:
If you would like to edit your piece or add content (either within your piece or as an appendix), please do so by Wednesday, November 23rd.
You may either submit your edited piece to this blog again or email it to me (PM for address)
Please PM me either your email (for a PDF copy) or a mailing address (for the hard copy)
I will do my best to get them mailed out by mid-December.
The bound hard copies are open ONLY to the twelve authors and artists who have already submitted their work. HOWEVER, if you would like to submit art between now and November 23rd, I will be happy to include it and email you a copy of the PDF.
Thank you so much again for all your hard work and great comments! I had a lot of fun with this project and I’m already thinking of the next collaboration!
Past Life AU Master Chapter Post
Chapter 1: By bri-ecrit. Set in Mesopotamia Chapter 2: By upthenorthmountain. Set in Roman Britain Chapter 3: By frenzy5150. Set in Late Classic Maya Chapter 4: By ominouscloudsofarendelle. Set in Medieval Europe Chapter 5: By lukin08. Set in the early Scottish Highlands Chapter 6: By maddysicepalace. Set during the Renaissance Chapter 7: By Punkpoemprose. Set during the Salem Witch Trials Chapter 8: By whitefeather79. Set during the American Revolution Chapter 9: By karis-the-fangirl. Set in the Regency Era Chapter 10: By upthenorthmountain. Set during WWII Chapter 11: By ravenwritesstuff. Set in modern times Epilogue: By teneniel-of-dathomir. Set in KSR’s colonized solar system
Gravity
Kristanna Past Lives AU: Epilogue
Set in the year 2240, based generally on Kim Stanley Robinson’s colonized solar system Written by @teneniel-of-dathomir
Rated: K
A hollowed out asteroid hurtled toward Earth. It was moving fast, but not as fast as the express that shuttled people directly between Saturn’s moons and the central planets. It spun at the exact rate needed to emulate .4g. Inside, it’s walls had been converted to a pastoral biome and the temperature was a balmy 20 degrees Celsius as the sunline hit its peak for the day.
A man sat in the middle of a rolling field, looking up to the sunline. He would never know why he ended up on that asteroid, which slowed at every planet down-system and made his journey to his Earth sabbatical five times longer. Or why he chose shepherding as his chore on the journey, when he’d never even seen a real sheep. He couldn’t say why he’d quietly accepted the death of his husband or the all but dissolution of his crèche back on Titan with a bowed head and a set jaw. The man had always felt adrift.
He would never know why all that went away when he first saw her.
He would never know why, as she walked up the field toward him, he smelled jasmine and palm oil. Why he thought of a single red flower in a field of snowberry, gaggles of wild haired children, and flawless steel. He couldn’t say why he felt a sharp twinge in his side as he stood up to greet her, or why he caught the barest scent of charcoal dust as they came face to face.
But he did know, as he gazed into her deep brown eyes, that those eyes were also green, and blue, and pale grey. He knew that when his gaze roved down her neck, he’d see a crescent shaped birthmark just below her collarbone. He knew that she was strength and tenacity and boldness. He knew her. But most of all, he knew his life changed the moment that they came face to face.
A Martian woman, of all things. Headed to Earth. She’d decided to singlehandedly heal two centuries of bad blood between Earth and Mars, she told him. He was unsurprised by this. He was unsurprised also when he told her simply, “I’ll help you.”
He was unsurprised when she responded with a brilliant smile and said, “I’m glad I found you.”
Or when he quietly responded, “So am I.”
Recessive Traits
Kristanna Past Lives AU: Chapter 11 Modern Day Written by @ravenwritesstuff
RATING: T (adult themes; death; vague sexiness; POETRY!?; only kinda researched; excessive prose; general author douchebag-ery; I am bad at this; I cannot write anything halfway; frohana is not a thing in this; lotsa stuff implied; but very little written explicitly; Raven pretended to science; 6000 word limit?; DAFAQ; just kidding; I have no idea how many word this is; Ten is The Best; sorry I got carried away; tags are my favorite; #notAo3; #dontcare)
prologue. RECESSIVE re·ces·sive rəˈsesiv/ relating to or denoting heritable characteristics controlled by genes that are expressed in offspring only when inherited from both parents, i.e., when not masked by a dominant characteristic inherited from one parent.
…
Place: Sabah, Malaysia Existence: Ayu 06/21/1992 - 02/18/2078 Ning 9/14/1996 - 02/19/2078
…
may each step we take upon this road oh love this unforgiving road sweet love may it bring us closer closer oh love & at the end oh love sweet love my love may we rest in peace oh love may we rest together
…
…
…
i. INHERENT in·her·ent inˈhirənt,inˈherənt/ existing in something as a permanent, essential, or characteristic attribute.
…
Her earliest memory was green.
Green: shimmering, thick, but irridescent wavered in her mind’s eye. It bent, shifted, and gave way to patches of red and orange. The colors took shape. Leafs, fur, and faces. At the tender of age of two, deep in the jungles of Borneo, Ayu fell in love for the first of three times.
….
He did not have the hands of an artist. His mother had said so. His father had agreed. He had the hands of a rice paddy worker. He had the broad shoulders and strong back of a man built for labor, like his father. The propensity he showed for finer motor tasks indicated only that he had a great future in checking the plants without damaging them, of repairing irrigation systems or tying up stalks. They said he could be just like his father, that he could bring honor through his work and his obedience.
He did not have the hands of an artist. No. Despite their surety and grace, despite the lines that flowed so effortlessly from his pencil, despite his ease and interest - they all assured him that there was no lifetime where he could be an artist.
After all - who had ever heard of an artist who was colorblind?
….
They had an understanding, the orangutans and Ayu. They both were products left behind from a bygone time and never quite understood why the world no longer accepted them on the terms it had once. They shared more than just a longing for a world that had long escaped them by time and what some called progress. They shared the same color.
Ever since Ayu was born she was set apart from her contemporaries, her family, by inexplicable, unavoidable, red. The same way the orangutans were set apart from the green world into which they were born, so was she. They were a collective strangeness, she and the orangutans, an anomaly in evolutions rigid mandate of uniformity.
They were together.
They were singular.
They were red.
….
His name meant soundlessness, the void of sound, and he wore the definition as a birthright. Afterall, what was there to say? The things of which longed to speak brought sadness to his mother’s eyes and disdain to his father’s. They were trying to protect him, the assured him. They were sheltering him from a rejection so inevitable it may as well have been etched into his skin.
He had his fate. Not the fate of an artist - no. The fate of his father, and his father’s father. The fate of a paddy worker. A fate he did not want but could not speak against.
His parents called him Ning, and he could not speak against it. They had made certain of that.
He was soundless.
Mutable.
Void.
….
He drew anyway.
After coming in, soaked to the bone and exhausted from the backbreaking work, he would go to his small but tidy desk, reach for a pencil, and drew until his eyelids drooped and his arms filled with cement. He would draw whatever he had seen that day, whatever his mind had imagined while he toiled in the fields he had no interest in. He drew faces he did not recognize. He drew unfamiliar places. He poured himself out onto the page.
He would draw because he could feel the call of charcoal in his blood. He would draw because the lines and curves reminded him of a time he could not remember, something in his blood older than himself.
He drew what he could not speak.
….
There were four in their family though she only knew them as three.
A mother, a father, and two daughters as distant and different as their ages. By the time Ayu could walk, Erra had left the home. Erra, The Older Sister who hung in the shadows of the Danum Valley where Ayu lived with her parents and other scientists and always reminded her that she came second.
Older Sister did not come to visit.
The Parents did not visit Older Sister.
Ayu never asked why but he understood somewhere in her heart that even though they were four, they were actually three.
The Parents and Older Sister.
The Parents and Ayu.
Never all four together as The Family, but rather two interchangeable, mutually exclusive groups.
They were three, always three, that is until they were one.
….
He was six when it was discovered that certain aspects of the world would always be withheld from him. Greens, reds - these were denied him. They were replaced with shades of gray.
He thought, perhaps, to be outraged by this lack in himself, to feel slighted by the universe for denying him understanding of something as simple as color when it had already put him on a path he had no interest in walking. He had no forwarding address for his rage however, so it sat on his tiny desk and waited.
He was built for rice farming, his father had said. He was just like his father, his mother said, but his father could see the color of grass and leafs and blood. Ning could not.
Ning also could not derive the pleasure or purpose in the long hours of planting, tending, and harvesting. He could not find contentment slogging through knee deep water, swatting mosquitoes, and swiping sweat. He was not like his father, not in any way.
It was the only comfort he could take when, ten years later, he found his father facedown in two inches of water, lifeless.
He would not live for these fields.
He would not die in these fields.
He was not like his father, much to his mother’s chagrin.
….
The night the poachers came there was a new moon, dark as blood. Inky blackness crept over the Danum Valley and its protected (what protection can there really be in this life?) rainforest.
She was awoken by what she was so sure was a distant scream. The sound of it rattled her mind as she sat up in bed in her family’s quarters, but the world was silent now. The familiar rattle of her table fan cluttered her hearing. The depth of her breathing obscured the outside world.
It must have been a dream.
She was certain it was a dream.
People did not scream in the middle of the night. They slept, as she should be doing.
Somewhere in the dark a clouded leopard called. Its voice was familiar and comforting. The world was as it should be.
She lay back down and fell asleep thinking all was well in her world, that she had somehow evaded the mystery of change,
She did not hear her mother’s cries.
She did not hear her father’s shout.
She did not hear the gunshots.
She did not hear any of it.
She slept and dreamt of eagles.
….
His mother followed his father. Their union had been arranged but they had found true companionship in one another. To be ripped apart proved to be a challenge insurmountable by his mother. She did not fight the grief, but instead let it take her underneath its unrelenting tide until she was pounded into a fine dust and scattered to the wind.
He thought once at his lowest moment that perhaps he had killed his mother as much as his father had. Perhaps if he had been able to manifest the man she thought he was, to pull the fatherly traits out from within himself, he would have saved her from her end.
Perhaps.
Perhaps.
He would never know for sure.
…
…
…
ii. IDIOSYNCRASY id·i·o·syn·cra·sy ˌidēəˈsiNGkrəsē/ 1.) a mode of behavior or way of thought peculiar to an individual. 2.) a distinctive or peculiar feature or characteristic of a place or thing.
….
She went to live with Older Sister in the mysterious city of Sandakan. Ayu had been to Sandakan a few times with her parents by way of transporting apes to the Sepilok Rehabilitation Center, but never had met with Older Sister in those times. Nearly seventeen years her senior, Older Sister was as distant in memory as she was in age to Ayu.
It was better that way, her parents had assured her, but now she disagreed.
Now she was a stranger to her sister for reasons she could not fathom. The roof they slept under was their only commonality. Older Sister’s hair was dark as night, straight and perfect. Her skin smooth, sleek, and without blemish. Her demeanor was quiet, reserved, and respectful.
Ayu could not help but wonder if the reason they never crossed paths was because her sister’s perfection would serve only to emphasize just how different Ayu was from the rest.
….
He took precious little from the stilted hut he had shared with his parents.
The two pictures they had on the walls, his clothes, his parent’s wedding bands, his pencils and paper, and what little money they had saved in the jar on the top shelf. They had so little to show for their life together. It was difficult for him to understand how three entire lives could be condensed to one pack on his back, yet there it was.
He did not bolt the door.
He would not return.
….
Orangutans, while having clear and complex social structures, were primarily solitary creatures. They operated amongst the treetops in a systematic hierarchy of territory and strength. Within this framework they existed in stunning complexity.
They loved. They fought. They celebrated. They grieved. They played. They worked.
In almost every way Ayu found orangutans to be more human than the classmates with whom she now shared secondary school.
If an Orangutan found one of their own kind odious in any sort, they would simply leave the offensive party alone. They would roam through the jungle until they found a place where they could be away from those they did not enjoy.
Ayu admired this approach to life and attempted to emulate it on every occasion. Though there were none whom she would actively avoid on her own, it was clear as the innumerable freckles on her nose, as apparent as the inexplicable white patches on her forearm, that she was the one to be avoided. Here in this school, this classroom, this cage, with the collar of her stiff uniform scratching her sticky neck, she could not move.
She could hardly catch a breath.
She was trapped with girls who had teeth as sharp as tigers. Girls with hair thick and dark as night, without freckles on their noses, all so much the same. Evolution dictated that like group with like and those girls followed this instruction to the tee. The encircled her with their hatred, their exclusivity, and tore her to shreds.
Though there was never any blood, never a single outward scratch, she felt each jab just as brightly as if they had sunk their teeth into her skin.
….
There was not much in the way of work in Sandakan for a man-child with little to no compulsory schooling. Still he managed to obtain a tedious job at a palm oil manufacturing plant. He found a room to let nearly the size of the entire shared hut he had grown up in. He went to work every morning and cooked his dinner on a hotplate each night.
Here in the city of Sandakan he found a new place away from the quiet and tedium of the country. He found a new heartbeat, a new rhythm, and though it was not what he ultimately wanted he found himself lulled into complacent contentment. There was more out there for him, he knew. He felt an adventure calling him, but he did not know how to answer. He did not understand the language.
But he listened anyway, waiting for the day he would understand.
….
The second time Ayu fell in love it was with a man, older and charming in his ways. She had met him during her tertiary studies and thought it nothing less than miraculous that he would give her and her peculiarities any attention at all. It was doubly miraculous when only a week after meeting he suggested she come live with him.
She did, but not without suffering much disdain from Older Sister.
“You cannot move in with a man you just met.” She had told Ayu, but Ayu had not heard her. She had not wanted to. It was not until she moved back in with Older Sister six months later, black and blue, that she acknowledged the merit of her words.
Older Sister had not said anything else on the matter for which Ayu was grateful but she could feel the strain in the air. What had never been an easy coexistence was now a minefield.
The day after she completed the coursework for her Masters of Science, Ayu moved out.
….
There was so much to draw in the city.
His mind took pictures on his walk home from work that he would draw the moment he came in the door. The walls of his single room apartment were blanketed with the charcoal snapshots. The untaped edges fluttered and curled in the sticky breeze whenever he propped open his window.
They were mostly urban images. Curbs and cars, buildings and bicycles. The only softness in the images came from the humans he worked into the scenes but even they had hard, rushed lines to them. He remembered the drawings he would create after coming in from the fields. There had been blades of grass, ripples of water, petals of flowers, smiling faces of strangers. He had not drawn that softness in years and it haunted him.
Perhaps he had lost the softness.
Perhaps it had bled out of him.
An unease settled upon his broad shoulders and he suddenly felt too large for his skin. The box he lived in shrank around him and though it had been years since his parents had died today was the first time he remembered what it was to really be alone.
He put away his pencils and charcoal. He tucked the blank paper away in his drawer. He could not trust himself with those tools now, not when they betrayed him with such doubt.
After that he spent more and more evenings at the local bar with coworkers after a shift instead of returning home to sketch.
He could not return home, not really. He understood that now.
He had left the door unlatched, but he could not return anymore than he could pretend the box he lived in now was a home.
He could not hear his heartbeat any longer.
So he laughed too loudly. He spoke to more people than he ever had in his life. He tried to fill his chest with the echo of forced contentment but it faded as quickly as it came in accordance with his name, his birthright.
Ning.
Soundless.
Mutable.
Void.
…
…
…
iii. EPITHELIUM ep·i·the·li·um ˌepəˈTHēlēəm/ A membranous cellular tissue that covers a free surface or lines a tube or cavity of an animal body and serves especially to enclose and protect the other parts of the body, to produce secretions and excretions, and to function in assimilation
….
He had been told that blood was red, that the things holding him together inside were a color he had never seen, and he no longer wondered why he did not feel like he knew himself. How could he? His parents had spoken false expectations into him. His body had betrayed him and hidden the richness of the world he so badly wanted to hold in his hands. And now he was denied the truth of his innerworkings.
He was adrift, afloat, unanchored. He had been for some time, but he did not want that now. He did not want to feel the way he did. He wanted something to hold onto.
So he went looking.
….
The day she got her uniform and clearance to work at the Sepilok Orang Utan Rehabilitation Center was like breathing for the first time in years. She would live on site and be working alongside dozens of other zoologists in the demanding work of rehabilitating orphaned orangutans. It felt good. It felt right.
She gave Older Sister her new address as her last step before the move. Older Sister looked at her then, really looked at her, with misty eyes. “They would have wanted to see you like this. They would have wanted to see you happy.” She said and Ayu’s throat tightened.
“They would have wanted the same for you.”
Older Sister’s face turned down at that, focusing on where her feet rooted to her door jamb, and whatever wall that had fallen between them a moment before was back in place.
“Please call if you are in Sandakan. You may stay here but I will need notice.”
Ayu shifted on the sidewalk.
“You can come to the sanctuary any time you want. Your name is on a list. You can get in for free.”
“Thank you.” Older Sister said, but Ayu knew she would not ever come.
“Goodbye Erra.”
“Goodbye Ayu.”
Ayu could taste the unspoken words between them, and she swallowed. They would never be close the way she longed for, not in this lifetime, but perhaps the next one.
She laughed at the ridiculousness of that idea as she drove away.
….
The day he bought his ticket for public bus number fourteen was his one day off that week. He was uncertain from where the overwhelming compulsion to leave Sandakan had come, but it had as loudly and clearly as a sompoton blowing by his ear.
In his worn old knapsack lay his pencils, his paper, and half a dozen passion fruit. His hands twitched at his sides the entire ride. He had not removed those tools from their resting place in his drawer for over a year and now their proximity taunted him.
This whole outing taunted him. He did not know what or to whom he was trying to prove anything, and yet there he went. The uncertain anxiety left him uneasy.
This was his first time to leave Sandakan since the first day he had set foot in the city as barely more than a child and the idea leaves him a bit shaken. Would he even recognize a world not made up of buildings and infrastructure? Had he grown too urban to appreciate the gentler things, the unwound pace?
He was uncertain but reassured himself this was hardly an excursion into the wilderness. At the end of the day he would return on the same bus that carried him to his destination and be no different than when he had first ventured out. Of that, he was certain and he held onto that certainty for dear life.
….
She had worked and lived at the Sanctuary for nearly two years now. The rhythm and pace of the place are hers now. She felt them tingle through her system like a familiar friend.
She had not seen Older Sister since that final moment outside of her home. She had not needed her, and apparently her Older Sister had not needed Ayu either. It was all well and good. Ayu was more than needed here to make up for any lack she may have felt otherwise. Even so, the ache of wanting to belong to someone spread through her chest each night she climbed into bed alone.
But it was day now and her arms and heart were full with work that gave her purpose enough to sustain her. After completing her morning rounds in the orangutan nursery, she made her way out to the larger of the two public observation decks. She was on liaison duty for the day, a task she was often assigned as one of the junior zoologists and a strange enough blend of european and asian characteristics that the head of staff thought she would be the most approachable of the current staff.
There she would watch families, couples, and friends all come and go. The visitors would watch the training exercises, the feeding times, and the general play of the young orangutans as they climbed over the immense teaching apparatus. She answered dozens of questions, in half as many languages, smiling and being sure to express her gratitude to the visitor’s patronage. Most of all, however, she watched the children.
She wanted to see if any of them would fall in love with the creatures the way she had.
She wanted to see that first expression of wonder when they witnessed their first orangutan.
It never came, however, no matter how many children she watched.
No it never came on the face of a child.
It came on his face, but not when he was looking at the apes. No, it was when he looked at her.
….
He would forever remember that first moment he saw her.
She was unlike anything he had ever seen in the most literal sense. The instant his eyes focused on her across the crowd of tourists - everything changed.
The first thing he noticed was her hair. It was a color unlike anything he had ever seen before in his life. It shimmered and waved from where it was pulled back in two tight braids and the only thing he could think to compare it to was the feeling of warmth. Her hair was warm and he did not know what that meant until he realized that all the foliage around them had changed too. Instead of deep blue-gray shades dancing in the breeze he realized that he was seeing green for the first time.
His heart seized in his chest, overwhelmed by the implication of what his mind trying to tell him, what his heart already knew. The world moved beneath his feet and he had to sit before he fell. He folded onto the ground with no regard to the foot traffic around him. Every fiber of him shook.
He looked at his hands. Even his skin was different now, less sallow. Had he always been this color? Had the world always been this bright?
His head swam.
He wanted to run back to the bus and hide until the shock wore off. He wanted to undo this somehow, to go back to a world before miracles because somehow he knew that more than just his visual perceptions were irrevocably altered.
He felt her at his side. He did not even need to look because out of the corner of his eye he saw her warm hair. Warm - red - he realized with a start. Her hair was red. The freckles across the bridge of her nose, splayed over wide cheekbones, were a familiar constellation. Wide, slanted eyes that were not quite brown, not quite green, gave him the impression that he could see back in time and in that instant he realized that he had drawn her before.
He had drawn this face a dozen different ways on a hundred different days.
He had traced the slope where her neck met her shoulders with his pencils.
He had shaded the shape of her lips with reverent strokes.
He had held her in his hands without ever knowing that he had done so.
Retrospectively he would consider how strange it was that the idea of this all had brought him comfort instead of trepidation in his moment of anxiety, of how a bizarre fantasy that he could somehow know this small woman brought him solace instead of additional panic. In that moment, however, he leaned into the familiarity no matter how unjustified.
He leaned into her and she leaned, too.
…
The third and final time Ayu fell in love she was first struck by the imposing size of the subject of her affection. He stood a head above the rest of the crowd. His black hair was thick and shaggy over his ears. His jaw was sloped. His nose was large. His shoulders were broad and she knew the way it would feel to bury herself in those arms, that chest. Not in an abstract way, mind you. No - in a very real, concrete way.
Orangutans were one of the few species outside of humans that were known to be able to recognize one of their own.
She thought perhaps now, for the first time, she was recognizing one of her own.
When he disappeared in the throng, sinking beneath the others, she went to him without thinking. She found him cross-legged on the wooden plank walkway staring at his huge hands. She knelt next to him, throat dry, and then he looked at her again.
His eyes were full of wishes she had not known she had made. The color of them, an iridescent brown, were a memory she did not have. Her heart leapt in her chest.
“Are you okay?” She did not recognize her own voice. “Do you need anything?”
“I think -” he starts, shakes his head, and looked back at her. “I lost my balance.”
She did not think of rules, time, or propriety when she made her next choice.
Instead she stood and extended her hand.
“Come with me.”
….
She led him by the hand back through a strictly employee only section of the Sanctuary, but neither of them are concerned with protocol at the moment. Rules had no hold on them. Not when their fingers laced so perfectly. Not when it felt like they were jumping, soaring, flying.
They crossed one last threshold. She let go of his hand as they passed into tiny space. Neither grieved the loss of contact too greatly but for no reason they could pinpoint particularly.
Her room was small, sterile, and efficient. The twin bed was rumpled. The desk in the corner was covered in assorted papers and knicknacks. The wall is littered with pictures of people he assumed her family as well as a worn poster of the inner workings of an orangutan’s digestive system. The outline of the ape was red. He knew that because he could see that now.
She perched awkwardly on the edge of her desk, hands gripping the wood. He leaned back against the closed door. He did not have the vocabulary for this situation.
“How’s your balance now?” Her voice had a slight rasp to it. It tickled his ears. “Is it better? Because you could sit, if you wanted to.” She gestured to the bed. “Or I could get you some water. You probably want some water. I want some water.”
She stepped towards where he blockaded the door and then stopped halfway and rocked onto her toes. She looked up at him with those eyes again and his heart skipped.
“Do you want water?”
“No. I’m - I’m fine.” Speaking had never been easy for him, but she makes it easier.
He pushed off the door and took a step into the room. The motion put them closer than ever and he breathed into the space. He reached to his shoulder to adjust the strap of his pack just to give his hand a reason not to touch her. He did not know why he wanted to touch her other than she was gravity and he had no idea how to escape her hold.
He did not want to escape her hold.
“I don’t normally do this.” She fiddled with the end of her braid, her red - red braid. “I don’t normally take people places. Well. This place. I don’t think I am allowed to.”
He nodded, fascinating with the way her lips moved around the words that sounded familiar. She was familiar. This was familiar. He did not know how. He did not care, but he did not want her to be uncomfortable.
“Should I go?”
“No.”
Her hand shot out and gripped his wrist. The contact sent a shockwave up his arm, straight to his heart. Their eyes stay locked. He licked his lips and she turned pink. He had never seen that before. Had never seen the flush of heat spread across another’s skin and oh. Oh. It was transfixing.
“Stay.” She said, her grip on his wrist not abating. “Please.”
They both forgot about the water
….
She asked him what was in his pack and he showed her without hesitation and it was not long before he put its contents to work.
He drew her, the first drawing of his creation in over a year, but it was like had had never stopped. The lines returned easily.
He sat on her bed, balancing his paper on his knees, and she on her desk chair doing her best not to fidget. It did not matter much if she stayed steady. He did not need to look at her. He knew each slope and line inherently. He did look at her though, could hardly take his eyes off of her for more than a few seconds at a time, could hardly believe the familiarity of this stranger.
He half expected to wake any moment back on his pallet in Sandakan, the world gray again.
He did not know how he would return to such a world after having seen this one.
He couldn’t.
He wouldn’t.
There would be no life without her in it.
He knew it and he knew her.
He did not know how, but he was certain of it.
“Here.” He flipped the paper in her direction and showed her his sketch.
She grabbed at it with eager hands. He smiled at her enthusiasm.
“It looks like me.” Her eyes went to his. “You even drew my freckles.”
“I like your freckles.” He said without thinking and she blushed again. He could get used to that.
“Thank you.” She said. “You so talented. You should be a professional draw-er - er - artist. You should be. You could be. Are you?”
He liked the unhindered cadence of her words, like her mind was always sprinting after her mouth in attempts to keep up.
“No, but thank you.”
The room was so small that their knees almost touched from where they sat. He leaned forward until they did. She did not turn away. He could feel the warmth radiating from her and he wanted to wrap himself in it. He wanted to drown in her. He wanted to -
She looked at him again with those eyes like gravity drawing him in and oh. Oh sweet love. He felt himself move towards her. He felt the give and shift of the earth beneath them until they met in the middle, lips matching over the forgotten sketch in her hands.
He knew this touch.
He knew the shape and style of her tongue sliding against his.
He knew her.
Oh.
And how he had missed her, had not known he was missing her, would continue to miss her for all of eternity.
She discarded the sketch and climbed onto his lap. Her warmth was all encompassing, overwhelming, and he leaned back to accept the onslaught. One of his hands caught their weight behind him, the other cradled the fragile curve of her spine. Her thighs bracketed his hips. Her palms pressed matching bookends into the sides of his throat, fingertips playing against the too-sensitive skin behind his ears.
He broke away for a breath.
“We don’t -” He could hardly form the words with the blazing heat of her searing into him. He has not known a woman this way before. “Tell me to stop. Tell me to stop or else I won’t.”
She answered him with a kiss that caused him to collapse flat backed onto the bed behind him. She followed, and though this was his first time - it never felt that way.
….
Her fingertips traced the circular birthmark over his right pectoral. The shape of it is perfect, unavoidable, and she was transfixed.
“What is this?” She asked.
“Something I’ve always had.” He traced the deep discoloration on her forearm. “And this?”
“My mother always said it was where she grabbed me, where she held me when she picked me out of all the other babies to be born.” She blushed again. “That is silly. I know. But that is what she told me.”
“And you a scientist.” He teased back, smiling into the kiss he pressed against her waiting mouth.
…
She rolled him onto his back and moved astride him. The motion was liquid, effortless, as she joined them once more. Her body quaked and trembled when he reached up for the hair that tumbled around her shoulders.
She had not expected this.
This was not what she expected.
She had known her whole life about the act of it, about the biological processes and ramifications, but she had never known it could be this.
She dug her fingers into his shoulders and pulled her spine into a cathedral arch.
They had been two, but now they were one.
…
He visited each day he had off from that moment forward until two months after the color arrived in his world he moved into the small, sterile room with her. She had upgraded to a full mattress (a luxury on the salary she was paid and the space she was allowed) but they did not need more. They slept each night as two parts of a whole, tangled together in something greater than each of them could have been alone.
Then he did not go back to the factory in Sandakan.
He stayed with her.
His drawings of the orangutans, personal and candid, became best sellers at the conservatory guest shop allowing them financial favor and freedom within the organization.
The bought a small home off site but close when their first child came, which grew to a larger home as the second, third, fourth… came.
They were happy.
They were together.
Nothing much mattered after that.
…
…
…
epilogue. TRANSCEND tran·scend tran(t)ˈsend/ To be or go beyond the range or limits of (something abstract)
…
The moment she was gone, the world turned gray again as if her final exhale had blown the color from his life. He kissed her one last time where she lay on her hospital bed before he walked out the door, away from the family that had surrounded her in her final moments, and then all the way home.
If anyone had tried to stop him, he had not heard.
He took off his shoes at their door, as was the rule of their home, and placed them besides hers. His shoes were nearly twice the size of hers and he tried to remember what color they had been before, but could not. Blue? Orange? It did not matter.
Not really.
Color only mattered when she was there to see it with him.
He went to the bedroom they had shared the better part of forty years. Her favorite earrings sat on the dresser. Pictures of their children and grandchildren, Ayu’s favorite orangutans, and his best sketches lined the walls. The bed was still made from when everything was normal the day before.
All was still.
All was quiet.
He went to his closet and pulled out his nicest set of clothes. He changed, old muscles protesting over small buttons and tight trousers. He could hear Ayu teasing him.
Breathe in, Ning. Breathe in deep!
So he did and the button fastened.
He smiled.
She always knew just what to say.
There were things he should tend to before he lay down. He knew that, but he would not do them. Details were for the living, not the dead.
He lay on her side of the bed. He did not pull back the covers, just rested atop them, and settled his arthritic hands on his stomach.
He thought to perhaps draw one last time, to create something to ease the loss for their children, but he did not. He stayed still and quiet, treasuring each breath that pulled the fragile scent of her into his lungs. If he tried hard enough he could pretend she was there still too. He could all but hear the gentle rasp of her breath, could almost feel the press of her against him.
He went to sleep then, and dreamed of eagles streaking across a crimson sky.
…
…
…
A/N: I deviated from the strict zoo AU as I felt compelled to contribute something more unique and original and to let the zoo AU breathe inspiration into this piece, but not to have it be bound to it. I did a fair amount of research but some things are altered for the sake of narrative/the fact that I have never been to Sabah (but want to go now more than anything). It would have been longer, but you gotta respect the wordcount. Thank you to Merriam-Webster for the definitions and such used at each subsection as a header. Thank you all for reading and moreso for participating in this little collaboration. You have turned my word vomit into a truly fun and energizing project. And a hugely special thanks to Ten for organizing. You all da best.
WHEW. Everything is submitted and scheduled. YAY!
After the epilogue posts on October 29th, I will work on a master post with links to every chapter. Two more days!
Feel free to tag me in art or headcanons inspired by any of the pieces in this project, and I will reblog them. Thank you all! This is even better than I imagined it would be!
I am so behind on reading these :-(
But I might as well wait for the master post! Or someone could print them all out and bind them in a nice leather bound book so I can cuddle up with it
Jenn may be on to a surprise I have planned for the participants *waggly eyebrows*
WHEW. Everything is submitted and scheduled. YAY!
After the epilogue posts on October 29th, I will work on a master post with links to every chapter. Two more days!
Feel free to tag me in art or headcanons inspired by any of the pieces in this project, and I will reblog them. Thank you all! This is even better than I imagined it would be!
Kristanna Past Lives AU: Chapter 10
WWII Era: British homefront
Written and illustrated by @upthenorthmountain
Rated: K
—————–
(These letters were received by First Officer Elizabeth Rendell while she was serving in the Women’s Royal Naval Service (or Wrens) during the Second World War, and are now held in the collection of the Imperial War Museum in London. Her replies have not been found and presumably do not survive)
White Horse Farm
Arundel
West Sussex
12th September 1939
Dear Els,
Here I am safe in the country! A long journey, two different trains and then a bus and finally a farm cart, but I didn’t lose any of the children and I saw them all off to their billets before taking the last one for myself. Please find my new address at the top. It’s a lovely dairy farm, lots of cows and chickens and things, and the farmer is called Mr Beaumont. Not sure what I think of him yet, I don’t think he likes me being here much. But here I am so he’ll have to get used to it.
We’re sharing the school with the local children so I only have to teach in the mornings and then I’m free the rest of the day, so I’ve been helping on the farm, it’s hard work but such fun! You should see me digging over the vegetable patch and rummaging around in the straw for eggs. I want to help with the milking but I haven’t managed to wake up early enough yet! Despite the noisy cockerel under my window. Did you know they crow all day not just at dawn? I didn’t and I thought this one was faulty. But it isn’t, just loud. I’ve told everyone my sister is a Wren and they’re all very impressed. Do you have a photograph of yourself in uniform yet? I’m sure you look so smart, blue always did suit you.
Your loving sister,
Anna xxxxx
==#==
White Horse Farm
20th September 1939
Dear Elizabeth,
Has it only been a week since I last wrote, it seems like so much longer! But quicker too because I have been so busy. In the mornings I have to feed the hens and find the eggs, then breakfast and I have to try and tidy myself up ready for school. It’s about a twenty minute walk and such a lovely one, along lanes and over stiles and there’s always fun things to see, birds and flowers and once I saw a rabbit. Although I can’t stop too long or I’ll be late for school. My children are all in one class which is a bit tricky and goodness knows what they get up to in the afternoon but I think it is good for them, the fresh air and being able to run about as much as they want, don’t you think? I feel like it’s good for me! Mr Beaumont says it won’t be such a nice walk when autumn comes in properly and it is cold and wet. In the afternoon sometimes I go for a walk or there is always something I can do to help him. He would hate to see me write this but he is struggling to keep the farm running by himself, there used to be three men here and he has a bad knee (that’s why he didn’t get called up). But even if I do some of the housework it helps him I think. He’s stopped complaining that I’ve moved his things or that I’m spoiling his dog (I don’t feed it, I just give it lots of hugs and strokings, it’s such a lovely big woofety dog).
He did tell me off for listening to the wireless while I was cooking yesterday though! Said it was too loud and he didn’t like the music. Though I’m sure I heard him whistling it in the stable later on.
I didn’t tell you about my room. It’s at the back of the house and under a bit of the slope of the roof which makes it seem extra cosy. The window looks out over the fields and I can see all the cows, standing around doing cow things. Mainly making cow pats for me to step in. I have a big bed with huge brass knobs on the corners and a patchwork quilt that is going to holes, every night I think I must sew it up and then I forget about it until the next night. But it is still quite warm though it is true it is only September yet.
I hope it is warm where you are. I know you can’t tell me where that is. But I think about you all the time and hope you are safe.
Your loving sister,
Anna
Xxxxxx
==#==
White Horse Farm
1st October 1939
Els,
Thank you so much for your letter! Don’t worry about it being short, I shall treasure it all the same. A lot of it was censored but it was still wonderful to hear from you. You asked a question but I’m afraid I cannot answer it…you asked about Mrs Beaumont but there isn’t one! You said ‘please don’t tell me you’re living alone with a man’ but it is too late! I have been here two weeks so my reputation is ruined anyway. I’m joking, no one here is bothered about it. I am the teacher so I am the epitome of respectability and the farmhouse is quite big so there is plenty of room for us to rattle around in. Did I tell you when Mr Beaumont collected me from the village hall on the first night he thought I was a schoolgirl? Because I’m so little. But now he says I make up for it how much noise I make. I think he is getting used to me though and now we are friends. He says he likes to be by himself but I think when he is alone ALL the time he gets a bit melancholy.
His knee is because of a childhood injury. I asked so he told me about it and was complaining about his bad luck, I think he feels it keenly that he is stuck here while every other young man in the village is off fighting. He asked why I didn’t join up like you, so I told him I was going to but then we had to organise the evacuation so here I am. Sometimes I still think about it but then who would look after the farm? There were supposed to be some land girls coming but no one yet. I’m a part-time land girl I suppose. I told Christopher yesterday that he wouldn’t be able to manage without me and I thought he’d scoff but he didn’t, he said maybe I was right.
Anyway it’s time to go and shut the hens in their coop for the night to keep them safe from the naughty foxes, until later I remain,
Your loving sister,
Anna xxxxx
==#==
19th October 1939
Elizabeth,
Well now autumn is properly here and Mr Beaumont was right, the walk to school is not quite so pleasant! I had to buy some new boots because the thick mud in the lanes was quite ruining my shoes. My raincoat is still good though and that’s just as well. But we have had some lovely autumn days though, all the leaves are turning. You seem to notice the seasons more here. I bet spring will be lovely.
All right, maybe I do call him Christopher. And I told him not to call me Miss Rendell, it seems so silly to be so formal when we share a breakfast table! But now he just avoids calling me anything, when he calls me Anna he blushes. Yes he’s older than me but possibly not as much as you think, he’s more like your age. But imagine he’s 75 if it helps. Anyway he’s a perfect gentleman and has never done a single thing to make me feel uncomfortable about living here with him.
Well except yesterday when he came in while I was in the kitchen and asked if I knew how to make rabbit pie, and I said I thought I could manage, and he put a rabbit he’d shot on the table and it still had all its skin and ears on and everything! I nearly shrieked. Then he rolled his eyes at me and called me a city mouse, but he did skin and clean it while I made the pastry. I used the leftover pastry to make jam tarts, do you remember how Cook used to let us do that when she made a pie? And he rolled his eyes at that too but someone keeps eating them and it isn’t me.
What else for news….the barn cat had kittens and I named them, Tabitha, Dusky, Midnight and Ginger. Christopher says Tabitha is a boy cat but it’s too late now. None of the other cats have names, or the cows or the chickens. I’m not allowed to name the chickens because one day they might be dinner. But I’m going to name all the cows.
Love,
Anna xxx
PS don’t you think it funny? How when we were little we thought we’d grow up to be ladies of leisure with rich husbands and silk gowns and now you’re off swanning about with sailors and I’m looking after hens. I haven’t told Christopher my father was a baronet, it seems almost hilariously irrelevant when I’m weeding the vegetable patch
==#==
White Horse Farm
1st November 1939
Elizabeth,
I meant to write yesterday but I had so much sewing to do, not just finally fixing the patchwork quilt (it gets so cold in my bedroom now I could feel the wind whistling through every hole) but also letting out my skirts, I’m glad I made them with good seams! You would not recognise me my cheeks are so rosy and I’ve definitely got stronger, when I got here I could only lift the chicken feed bucket with both hands but now I can carry it easily in one. Not sure if it’s the fresh air or the exercise or just getting enough to eat for once! Everyone grows their own food and keeps chickens, I have an egg for breakfast every day if I want one.
And most of my children are thriving, it’s so lovely to see! Although some are still very homesick. Thomas Edmunds got a letter from his mother last week and he cried all morning at school. Sometimes I miss living in London, if I want to go to the pictures here I have to take a bus to Worthing and it takes nearly an hour! But there is no one in London for me so I might as well stay here.
I wish you could meet Christopher. I think you and he would really get on.
Anna xxx
==#==
White Horse Farm
10th November 1939
Elizabeth,
Well I have nothing to do but write but not much to write about as I have managed to damage myself, I’ve sprained my ankle and can’t do much of anything except sit here with my foot on another chair. It’s very irritating and of course I can think of a hundred things I would rather be doing or that need doing.
All I did was try and climb out of the pig pen, I dropped my scarf in there and I climbed over the fence rather than go round to the gate, which is held together with a piece of rope and I’m not good at doing the knots back up, one time the pig got out, so I climbed in and got my scarf, then when I was climbing out again I sort of tripped on the top bar and my foot got caught and I wrenched it as I fell. And I landed in a big puddle, of course, and I might have screamed so Christopher came running and he had to carry me into the house. I can’t put any weight on it and also I can’t get my boot on so I can’t go outside anyway. Christopher had to take my boot off and strap my ankle up.
I thought he would tease me about it but he didn’t, he just pointed out that we both have the same bad leg now (the left) and he made me a cup of tea and fetched my writing things and my knitting. And he found me my favourite cat to sit on my lap so I wouldn’t be lonely. Then he muttered something about the drainage in the lower field and left.
I should knit while he’d not here, because I’m making him a Christmas present, I know it’s a way off yet but I’m being organised for once! I’m making him a new hat because his old one is just one big darn pretty much. I only have red wool so I hope he likes it.
Yours,
Anna xxxxx
==#==
20/11/39
E,
Don’t be so ridiculous.
A
PS My ankle is much better, thank you.
==#==
White Horse Farm
21st November 1939
Elizabeth,
I’m sorry, that was rude of me. Hopefully you’ll get this at the same time as the last one (I got your last three letters all on the same day). But, oh dear. Let me explain.
Miss Hope, the headmistress at the school here, well there’s only two teachers plus me but she’s in charge and she calls herself the headmistress, well a few days ago she pulled me aside before class and asked how I was getting on living at the farm, and I said everything was fine. And she asked how I get on with Mr Beaumont and I said fine. And then she started insinuating all these things, pretending she cared about my reputation but just really being awful, saying that she’d seen how he looked at me and how I talked about him and she just didn’t want me to get into a Bad Situation, and it was horrible. I was so happy and settled and now it’s awful. I went home later on and I could barely look at him! And he asked what was wrong and I couldn’t say and now everything is weird and awkward and ruined.
And it isn’t like that, it really isn’t. We’re just, comfortable together. It isn’t anything like it was with Henry, though that turned out to be a disaster so maybe it’s not a good way to measure these things. I don’t know.
Miss Hope said maybe I should go and stay with someone else but I don’t want to. I won’t. I’m fine here. And the chickens would miss me.
Anna xxx
==#==
2 The Cottages
Arundel
10th December 1939
Dear Elizabeth,
I’m so sorry I haven’t written but so much has happened! New address at the top but don’t worry if you write to the farm I will still get it. I had to move out for a while but I’m going back! No you know what I’m going to tell you the WHOLE STORY then I will tell you the BIG NEWS
No I can’t not write it I’ll explode
I’M GETTING MARRIED!!!
So anyway let me start at the beginning.
There was a Christmas party at the village hall, a dance, and Christopher didn’t want to go but I made him because there are hardly any men, we needed all of them even if he sat at the side (I wasn’t planning to let him sit at the side but I had to get him there first). So we walked into the village, we didn’t take the cart so the horse wouldn’t have to stand, and I’d decided to ignore everything that interfering old biddy had said and we just talked and it was like old times.
The dance was fun, I mainly ended up dancing with the other women but it was still good! There were a few older men, and Christopher, and a couple of older schoolboys. We danced and everyone had brought food and we had a good time. Then Christopher and I walked back home again. It was very dark and at one point I stumbled in the ditch so he grabbed my hand, and he didn’t let go, we just walked along (slowly, his knee was bad) holding hands and I started to think, okay, maybe Miss Hope had a point. But I didn’t care.
Anyway we got back and we took off our boots and coats and then we were just standing there, smiling at each other, and I thought, he’s going to kiss me. I was so sure he was going to kiss me but he didn’t, after a minute he just cleared his throat and said ‘Goodnight Miss Rendell’ (he hasn’t called me Miss Rendell in weeks, MONTHS) and then he went past me upstairs.
So I didn’t know what to think! I hadn’t thought much about his kissing me but after that I couldn’t think of anything else, I just kept thinking about it and why he hadn’t and I didn’t sleep for a long time.
The next morning he was already up and out before I got up and the cup of tea he’d left me was stone cold so it had been a while. It was Saturday so no school so I did my chores and tidied up a bit then I decided to go and find him.
And he was in the barn looking for something. He looked cross when he saw me and I thought he was annoyed with me so I went to walk away then I saw him wince when he put his left leg down so I knew his knee was just hurting him, and that was my fault for making him go out the night before, so then I felt bad again. He asked me if everything was all right and I said yes. But then I heard myself say, I thought you were going to kiss me last night. I tried to laugh a bit like it was a joke but then he said ‘I wanted to’ and I looked at him and the expression in his eyes made me stop stock still. I said, so why didn’t you. And he said, ‘because you’re you, you’re too pretty and clever and special to be a farmer’s wife’.
And I said ‘oh’ and then before I knew it I was kissing him, and he was kissing me, and it was wonderful, and it took me a few minutes to think, was that a proposal? And did I accept it? But I didn’t care, Els, I really didn’t. He had his arms round me and I felt warm, properly warm, for the first time in months.
So now I’m staying with Mr & Mrs Pentwhistle, a lovely elderly couple, for a few weeks while we sort out the wedding and everything. I’m so sorry to do it when you won’t be able to come but I couldn’t wait, I spend every spare minute at the farm but I can’t live there at the moment until we’re married.
So next time you see me I’ll be Mrs Beaumont. Can you believe it? I can’t! But I’m so happy, Elizabeth. I don’t have a ring yet but he gave me a necklace that was his mother’s, a family heirloom, it’s like a crescent moon made out of gold, I think it might be very old. I haven’t taken it off since he gave it to me.
I’m so happy.
Your loving sister,
Anna xxxxx
Kristanna Past Lives AU: Chapter 9
Set in the Regency Era Written by @karis-the-fangirl, Art by @upthenorthmountain
Author’s Note: I’m afraid this story is a bit silly, because while I adore Jane Austen, it’s so much easier to imitate the work of Georgette Heyer (other Heyer fans can probably guess from this story, my favorite Heyer is The Grand Sophy).
Rated K+
The curricle bounced along the lane, silent except for the thudding hooves of the matched greys and the crunch of the wheels.
“You know that I was right,” Anna said finally. Her companion ignored her, keeping his eyes fixed on his horses. His gloved hands were tight on the ribbons and the tension made the greys fretful. “Everything turned out for the best,” the young woman insisted. “You know that I couldn’t love Elisa more if she was my own sister, and she—”
“You didn’t need to interfere,” he growled.
She peeked up at him. His jaw was set, and the unruly golden hair, so unfashionably long that it brushed his collar, did nothing to soften his expression. “Of course I didn’t need to interfere,” she said sweetly. “But I wanted to.”
“You—” He bit down on his words, but not before his brown eyes, smoldering with anger, raked over her. “I had everything in hand.”
“Of course you did.” Anna smoothed the printed muslin of her skirt. “That’s why your sister was almost engaged to the most tedious man alive, and you, my dear Christopher, were engaged to the most odious woman in London. You were all set up to be the most miserable—”
“Hannah is not odious—”
“Oh of course not, I forgot. No one with five thousand a year could be odious. She is…fashionable. And controlling. And a lying, red-headed bag—”
“If there’s a red-headed baggage in this tale,” he snapped, “it is you.”
———#———
Everything had been settled before Anna Rivenhall had been dumped on the Beaumont household. Her father, a widower and career military man, had raised his daughter at military postings all over the continent before bringing the freckled, unpolished, over-enthusiastic young woman to England to be brought out into society. Mrs. Beaumont had never seen her goddaughter before, but agreed at once to take her in and present her to the world. Why, she’d brought out her own daughter Elisa just the year before, and Elisa was expected to enter into a very desirable match any day. Christopher hadn’t been consulted, despite the fact that he managed the estate and the finances that his father had left in such disarray. But he had still been extremely civil to their new guest.
And then Anna Rivenhall had upended their lives with a speed that left him spinning.
———#———
“If you were so concerned about Elisa’s happiness,” he said, “surely you could have found a less outrageous method.”
“But I couldn’t! She was utterly convinced that she had to marry that tedious Mr. Fishface—”
“Flitman.”
“—Fishman, and after you said all those horribly disparaging things about Martin, she knew that you would never dream of consenting to a match between them. Really, Christopher, you don’t know your own sister. Elisa needs approval so much, and she wants to do the right thing so badly, she was prepared to be as miserable as possible if that was what you wanted. So I had to get Mr. Fishboat—”
“Flitman.”
“—Mr. Fishlips to elope with me instead, because then naturally he could never marry Elisa.”
“And what if Elisa hadn’t followed you? Were you so dedicated to my sister’s happiness that you were prepared to become Mrs. Fishwoman?”
“Flitman,” she corrected primly. “And I was never concerned about that, because of course I knew that you would come after me. Hannah,” she added darkly, “was an unexpected complication.”
———#———
Miss Rivenhall had been the toast of London. Miss Rivenhall was lively, charming, witty, at ease in any company. Miss Rivenhall was no blushing young miss out of the schoolroom, but a young lady with numerous acquaintances among the diplomatic community and the young officers. She was instantly friends with everyone. Miss Rivenhall had callers every day, and Christopher complained to his mother that their sitting room might as well be an assembly hall, since it was so crammed with people. Miss Rivenhall was an heiress, Miss Rivenhall was an accomplished horsewoman, Miss Rivenhall, Miss Rivenhall, the celebrated Miss Rivenhall was all that anyone seemed to talk about.
Miss Rivenhall very nearly made red hair and freckles fashionable, something that Hannah Westgard had failed to do in three years on the town.
“My dear Christopher,” Hannah had said, “your new guest is a delightful creature, but so very…” She paused. “Enthusiastic,” she added finally. “Perhaps, since she surely looks on you as a brother, she will see me as a sister, and let me give her just a little advice.”
Miss Westgard was praised for her elegant figure, her aristocratic features, her exquisite manners. It was true that she had gone three seasons without forming an engagement, but no doubt her very modest fortune was to blame. When Christopher’s mother had threatened to die of a spasm if he didn’t pull his nose out of his ledgers and find a wife, Miss Hannah Westguard had been there in front of him, exactly the woman he was looking for in every way. Accomplished, sober-minded, a good family.
And now she was latched to him with a proprietary arm through his elbow.
Anna was laughing in the arms of yet another young officer, gliding around the room with him. Her silk dress was extravagantly embroidered and far too bright a color. She smiled far too much. She flirted with anything that moved, including the middle-aged Mr. Flitman, who was expected to formally propose to Elisa any day, although he had started to favor Miss Rivenhall. And that left Elisa free to take the arm of that young Mr. Martin.
“What did you say?” Christopher asked, tearing his eyes away from the dance floor to look down at his fiancée.
“I said, perhaps I could encourage Miss Rivenhall to have a little more decorum. I would be so distraught if she let her charming natural enthusiasm betray her into behaving too loosely.”
———#———
“Miss Westgard was concerned for your reputation. You left London, in company with a gentleman, unchaperoned, carrying luggage in a carriage suitable for a long journey—”
“But we only went as far as my father’s house,” Anna pointed out. “We weren’t even an hour’s journey from town, and besides, as you found when you arrived, my dear godmother was there! My reputation was perfectly safe!”
“You should have left my mother out of it,” Christopher growled.
Anna fiddled with the ribbons of her bonnet. “But, Christopher,” she said, her blue eyes wide and her smile impish, “I thought you would be pleased. You had said that I needed to take more care with my reputation, and I heeded your advice!”
“I meant that you should not go galloping in the park, and that you shouldn’t make a spectacle of yourself flirting with cohorts of men in the street—”
“Oh really, my dear Christopher, even I couldn’t flirt with a whole cohort at once. I’d have to arrange a schedule.”
“Stop calling me that.”
“What? My dear Christopher? You never seemed to mind it when Miss Westgard used it. She would say ‘my dear Christopher’ and pet your arm like you were her spaniel, and then you would do whatever she told you because she’d convince you it was proper and fitting.”
“I do not—” he cut off the words and his lips compressed into a thin line. Anna waited for him to continue, but he just glared over the horse’s ears.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“I’m taking you back to London.”
“And you swore that you’d never take me anywhere again, after I teased you into that evening at Vauxhall!”
“You were abominably rude that evening, and you know it.”
“I do,” she admitted. “Although in justice to me, you must remember how badly I was provoked. Besides, I apologized to Miss Westgard, and she snubbed me.”
“She was extremely upset.”
“Yes, and she invited herself today because she was so concerned for my well-being. That’s why she called me a—what exactly did she say?”
Christopher frowned. “It wasn’t something a gentleman should repeat.”
“And not something a lady should have said at all.” They both fell silent for a moment, and Anna toyed with the button of her glove until it twisted off in her fingers. “I suppose you’d never seen Hannah Westgard lose her temper before,” she said finally.
“No.”
“She’s very good, at acting. She has wonderful self-control, usually.”
“Yes.”
“I did want you to see her as she really is, but I’m sorry that it happened that way. I’m sure it was very unpleasant.”
Christopher rubbed absently at his cheek, where Miss Westgard had slapped him during her tantrum. “It was.”
Anna winced. “I really am sorry. You aren’t heartbroken, are you?”
“Why did you think Mr. Martin was a suitable match for Elisa?” he asked, ignoring her question.
———#———
Mr. Martin was a cheerful young man, from a family of no particular note, and with the fortune to match his unremarkable birth. He was not particularly tall, nor particularly handsome. But he was a good dancer, a good horseman, and had been at school with several wealthier men who were glad to have him as their guest in London. He was not a catch and he knew it, contenting himself to fill out the numbers at card parties and to provide a neat but shabby contrast to the sartorial splendors of his friends.
Until he saw the shy, pale, pretty Miss Beaumont and utterly lost his heart.
He had already known, before he ever saw her, that Miss Beaumont was as good as engaged to the wealthy and distinguished Mr. Flitman. When he learned the name of the beauty in the ice-blue gown, he had given his heart up for lost.
Until an angel in vibrant green arranged to be introduced to him.
Anna had liked Martin immediately, and she had liked the way he looked at her friend, as if Elisa were the only woman in the room. Mr. Flitman was polite and honorable and paid Elisa all the proper attentions, but his manners were perfunctory and his eyes would wander. Anna thought that, underneath his well-bred manners, he was a bit of a letch. Besides, she already knew perfectly well that he didn’t love Elisa, and Elisa didn’t love him, and so it was settled—she would have to find someone else for Elisa to marry. In Mr. Martin, she knew she had found the right one.
She just needed to come up with a plan to drive Mr. Flitman away before he could get around to proposing.
———#———
“Martin loves Elisa, and she loves him. I know it isn’t a brilliant match, and they won’t have a great fortune, but that’s all to the good. Surely you know that Elisa dislikes London as much as you do! She hates the season and the bustle and all of it. Martin is going to have the living at the church near my father’s estate in the north, it’s all arranged. He will carry her away to a lovely little vicarage, with some hardy roses growing over it that can survive her attempts at gardening, and they’ll be ever so happy together. It’s true love!”
“It’s nonsense.”
“Oh, Christopher, really. You saw how happy she was! And the banns will be posted properly, and an announcement made in the paper. It’s not as if she’s running off to Gretna Green.”
“No,” he snapped. “She’s not.”
———#———
Anna’s plan had not quite worked the way she anticipated. It was easy to coax Mr. Flitman’s attention away from Elisa and onto herself. It was harder to convince Elisa to spend enough time with Martin to fall in love, but Anna had managed. It had been easy to arrange for Mrs. Beaumont to be at the Rivenhall house, on an outing with her daughter and that kind Mr. Martin. Anna had planned it all herself, including suggesting a stop at her father’s house for a picnic in the orchard, but then had contrived a headache.
And it was shockingly, embarrassingly easy to get Mr. Flitman to drive a pretty young red-headed off into the country unchaperoned, and with luggage—a detail that Anna had arranged to be mentioned to Christopher by one of his friends, knowing that the young Mr. Beaumont would come to rescue her from the error of her ways.
She had not expected his fiancée to have heard the rumor as well, however, or for Hannah Westgard to insist on joining the chase.
Things had gotten a little messy once everyone was in one place, Anna could to admit to that. But Mr. Flitman had proved himself to be unworthy, and Mrs. Beaumont had instructed him never to call on her daughter again. Elisa had managed a very convincing faint into the arms of an alarmed Martin, who had carried her to a couch and fretted over her and begged her mother’s permission to propose as soon as Elisa regained consciousness—which she did quite quickly, after that. All of that had gone well, and Christopher had arrived in time to witness it.
Hannah Westgard, however, had proved far more mercenary than even Anna had anticipated. Finding a far wealthier gentleman unattached, she had contrived to make a scene on the spot, a bitter, engagement-ending argument. And then she had departed with Mr. Flitman for the border, leaving everyone in her wake dumbfounded.
Anna hoped that she would be very happy with her new fortune, at least. And it did save Anna the trouble of coming up with her own plan to end the engagement. But it had been awkward, and now Christopher was angry with her, which did complicate things.
———#———
They completed the rest of the drive in silence. Anna tried a few times to speak, but Christopher was sternly mute, and her self-confidence faltered enough that caught herself chewing her lower lip anxiously. Her companion didn’t speak until the curricle had clattered to a halt in front of the Beaumont’s London residence.
“I trust you can step down without my assistance. I want to take the greys round to the stables myself.”
“Of course.” Anna hopped down from the vehicle smartly.
“And do not get into any trouble before I get back,” he added. Then he was gone. She frowned after him, tapping her foot for a moment. Then she went up the steps, where a footman let her in to the house. Relieved of her bonnet, Anna went to pace in the sitting room until she heard voices downstairs. She was daintily embroidering a handkerchief when Christopher strode in. Really it was Elisa’s handkerchief, but Anna had snatched it up in her hurry to present a composed, unconcerned countenance.
“I do hope the horses are all right,” she said. “It really is a terrible road between here and my father’s house. I must tell him to see if something can be done about the condition of the—”
“I am not,” he said abruptly, and she blinked, looking up at him for the first time since he’d entered. Christopher was standing stiffly by the fireplace, his grey coat severe, but his neckcloth looking rather crumpled, as if he’d been tugging at it. His hair was tousled—certain gentlemen of Anna’s acquaintance went to a great deal of trouble and hair wax to achieve a similar style, called the Brutus, but she knew that Christopher simply couldn’t be bothered to look in a mirror after removing his hat.
“You aren't…what?” she asked. “You don’t agree that the roads should be repaired?”
“No. I mean, yes, they’re abominable, but I meant—you asked me, earlier, if I was heartbroken.”
“So I did.”
“And I am not.”
“Oh.” Anna set the handkerchief aside. She’d interrupted Elisa’s pattern of blue flowers with a sloppy red daisy. “Well, that’s good.”
“You should know that I—” He stopped, then turned away from her to face the fireplace.
“What should I know?”
Christopher sighed. “You may have been right, about Elisa,” he said. “She did look happy. I worry what years of poverty will do to that happiness.”
“Oh they won’t be in poverty, really, it’s quite a good living, you know. And Martin will probably get a tidy inheritance from a childless uncle of his, so that will provide a future for their children. I do think ahead sometimes, Christopher.”
“So you do. Very well. And you anticipated the end of my own engagement.”
“Yes, but I promise that I had a plan that would have been less awkward. You simply couldn’t remain engaged to Miss Westgard, though, Christopher. She brought out your worst stuffy, bossy traits, and suppressed all of your good qualities.”
“Oh yes? And what good qualities will now be unleashed?”
“Your sense of humour, obviously,” Anna said promptly. “That’s already recovering. And your spontaneity. The ability to have fun. And hopefully you’ll finally wear something other than grey.”
“I have a dark blue jacket.”
“Hmm. Well, it’s a start.”
“There will be a scandal,” he muttered, leaning his arm on the mantle.
“Yes, and I am sorry about that. But you know that most of it will be on Hannah’s own head, after all.”
“I’m afraid I can’t take comfort from that. I do not defend her behavior, which I admit was appalling, especially toward you—”
“Thank you.”
“—But I do feel responsible. There will be a scandal, and I can’t excuse myself from my part. I drove Miss Westgard into an unbearable situation.”
“You did no such thing! Hannah Westgard created the unbearable situation herself, and I’m sure she did it on purpose. She was tired of dealing with me, for one thing, and she saw a chance to hitch her cart to a better fortune. Christopher, she didn’t love you.”
“I was aware of that, thank you.”
“Well, then. If Hannah Westgard’s reputation is ruined, she has no one but herself to blame—although I will be completely surprised if they actually went to Gretna Green, you know. I will wager anything you like that she talked him into taking her home and having a proper engagement. Besides, even if they do elope, everyone will forget soon enough. Scandals don’t stick to the very wealthy, do they? And Mr. Flitman is wealthy enough I suppose.”
“He is. I, on the other hand, am not. If I am honest, I am not sorry that Miss Westgard broke it off, but there are things you do not know, Miss Rivenhall.”
“If you mean that inheritance from your grandfather, the one you won’t get until you’re married, I know all about it,” Anna said. “And if you mean the debts your father left, I’m afraid I know about those too. Your poor sweet mama told me everything one day when she’d worried herself into a sick headache. You see, she didn’t want you to marry Miss Westgard either, because she knew you’d be unhappy, and she felt that she’d driven you into the engagement by telling you about the bequest.”
“I see. And yet you have failed to make provision for me,” he said, a faint, wry smile curling the corner of his mouth as he looked at her in the mirror over the fireplace. “Is there no Miss Martin that you have arranged for me to become engaged to?”
“Oh, don’t be silly, of course not!” Anna exclaimed. “You’re going to marry me!”
“You!” He swung around to face her, brown eyes wide and incredulous. “Don’t be ridiculous, you can’t marry me.”
“I can, it will be easy. I looked up the ceremony and memorized the words already, and I know just where to get the lovely pale green silk for—”
“Anna,” he said heavily. “You and I both know that you are an heiress, with a fortune far exceeding mine. And you are sure to have many proposals—”
“I’ve had three,” she interrupted. He stared at her. “I’m sorry, go on. You were saying?”
“You’ve had three proposals?”
“Yes. Lord Selachi, the Earl of Genua, and that poet. Mr. Bryont. But probably I shouldn’t count him, I don’t think he was serious.”
“The Earl—Anna, you know I’m right, then. You could marry far higher. Your father expects you to—”
“I turned all three of them down on the spot,” Anna said. “Do you know why?”
He shook his head.
“Because I already knew I was going to marry you.”
He shook his head again, turning back to the mantle. “Anna—”
“I knew as soon as I met you that I was going to marry you.”
“Anna—” Christopher raked his fingers through his hair. “You can’t know that you’re going to marry someone you’ve just met.”
“But I did! I met you, and you said ‘How do you do, Miss Rivenhall’ and bowed so stiffly that you might have been made of wood. And I just looked at you and thought—and thought how familiar you were. And that I would have to marry you. It was a terrible blow to learn that you were already engaged, because I thought perhaps you were already in love.”
“But I wasn’t.”
“I know. I could tell. And I was sure that you could feel it too, that you knew me. Didn’t you?”
“Of course not,” Christopher said, addressing his curt words to the mantelpiece.
“No? Not even when we danced, at Lady Sybil’s ball? I could see it in your face. But after that you would never dance with me again.”
“Anna—Miss Rivenhall—”
“Why don’t you kiss me?”
“I can’t,” he stammered. “You—you’re too—”
“What?”
“You’re too short.”
There was silence. Christopher leaned his head into his hand. “That’s not what I meant,” he admitted. “I mean—I’ve wanted to kiss you since I first saw you. It was like…like seeing sunlight for the first time. And I can’t kiss you before you’re too much, Anna. You’re overwhelming. If I kissed you, I don’t think I could stop. Sometimes I feel like the needle of a compass, and you’re the north. Like I could point to you with my eyes closed, no matter where you are. And that’s terrifying. I—”
There was a dull thump on the carpet behind him, and he turned to find himself eye to eye with Anna Rivenhall for the first time. She had carried over the little footstool, and was standing on it.
“Kiss me now,” she said.
His fingers brushed her cheek, cupping her jaw as if the soft curve belonged in his palm. Their noses bumped, and Anna laughed softly against his mouth, but then he found the way to tilt her head so that his lips muffled the sound, so that he could taste her laughter and feel the vibration of the pleased hum that escaped as she leaned into him.
Anna was sunlight, warm and life-giving. Anna was a maelstrom. Anna was running her fingers into his hair, Anna was as familiar as his own heartbeat, Anna was tracing patterns across his jaw, Anna was overwhelming—
Anna was laughing breathlessly as she tilted her head back, and Christopher realized that his arms were tight around her waist. Her slippers must be dangling several inches above the floor, because they’d knocked the stool over. He set her down gently.
“Anna—Miss Rivenhall, I—would you—”
“Yes.” She smoothed her dress, and took his hand, smiling up at him. “I would be honored to marry you.“
