ohhhhh i think autumn loves eris for many reasons. because eris is blood of its blood; because eris loves autumn so much; because beron, once chosen and favored of autumn, spurned it so greatly, and now threatens to irreparably ruin its next chosen. who did eris have when he ached down to his bones and could not cry in front of his disdainful father, could not bear to look into the face of his passionless mother? the steadiness of the trees against his back, the reach of the leaves drying his tears. who did eris have when his anger boiled over and he wanted to hurt, wanted to destroy, wanted to make someone, anyone else feel the way he did, pushing everyone in his life who could love him away? the hush and shush of the wind at his ear, its fingers through his hair. who could take everything eris gave it, be it fire, be it harvest, be it life, be it hate, be it love, be it rage, be it griefāand still look at him, and want him, and want him as he is, and want him as he ever will be? the land, the land, the land. eris depends on autumn, and so autumn takes care of eris; autumn depends on eris, and so eris takes care of autumn. both know what it is to do whatever needs to be done to protect blood of their blood, kin of their kin. eris is autumn; autumn is erisāevery slight against him is a slight against it. it wants him on the throne because he will nourish it where beron pillaged it, over, over, over again. it wants him because he should have broken down a thousand times over, but always he persists after the reaping, always he endures after the taking, always he recuperates after the ravagingāand where autumn is always release, where autumn is always letting go, where autumn is caught perpetually looking forward into the darkness of a winter never to come, eris is the most stubborn, unrelenting light it has ever known.
send a š« and iāll write four headcanons i have about our museās relationship:
autumn
although she spends more time with summer, she's always really liked autumn when they run into each other at various events in los angeles. they've always got someone else to talk to, but she knows she could trust the other woman to scare away an unwanted conversationalist.
the bigger the family the better to her! she went way overboard on gifts for all of the manchesters this christmas. she got autumn way too many bag trinkets and scarves, and gloves, and sweaters from hermes, but she just wanted them to feel loved for taking in crispin and his care.
she invites summer and autumn over for dinner every monday night, because she always lets the cheer team off a little early on the first day of the week. even when autumn rejects it in favor of other plans, the next monday the invitation is there all the same.
sometimes she thinks about asking autumn for advice on her engagement. she's the closest person in carroll that might know how to handle the spotlight and public pressure. but, she keeps stopping herself because she doesn't want to betray fitz's trust and burden her cousin with the thoughts. she doesn't even want to burden herself with them!
aggie
ingrid doesn't think negatively about anyone. but, sometimes she catches aggie's profile, and she remembers holding emily while her best friend cried over having to leave the cheer team. it leaves a funny taste in her mouth that she'd rather ignore, alongside basically all of aggie.
they share a lot of the same students between dance and cheer, so the moms often pass along conversations they've had with aggie. she doesn't retain much of the details, preferring to just keep things fun with her girls without the pressure of miss. a's warm-ups.
one time aggie spilled a coffee on her when they were trying to pass at cup cake's it was totally ingrid's fault, and she bought the dancer a new latte right away while they made small talk about people on the cheer team. it was the longest they'd ever talked to each other with no intermediary. she had to go home and change right after, her own drink grown cold long before she could drink it.
sometimes she wonders if one of the manchester siblings was adopted. she can never figure out what happened that lets ruby be totally calm as she and joel destroyed second chance. she thinks aggie would have a breakdown if that happened to her.
Summary:Ā Semi learns a bit of music therapy and makes a track to help Shirabu keep his focus while studying.
Semi Eita and Shirabu Kenjirou were a match made in Heaven. Ā
Of course, neither the couple themselves or the people around them dared to say it out loud. It was just a fact that everyone silently acknowledged. Well, everyone except Shirabu, that is. Ā
He would sometimes catch a few words spoken in hushed whispers about how he and Semi were both similar and different in all the right ways. They perfectly complemented each other to fit together like puzzle pieces.
Shirabu thought this was bullshit. Those people knew nothing but to gossip all day about otherās love life! It wasnāt them who had to actually be in a relationship with Semi. Not that Shirabu didnāt want to be in a relationship with Semi per se but still, there were moments when he seriously questioned the sanity of his past self who agreed to it. Ā
Shirabu let out an exhausted sigh, stretched out his limbs and rubbed his tired eyes. He still needed to review ten pages today to prepare for the exam coming up next week. He was spending the past few days with constant studying so he would at least have the chance to keep his good grades in university. Being a medical student was not easy... Too many all-nighters, too much material to get inside his head. Shirabu could already feel his concentration slipping away.
He stood up, deciding that a break would be good for his efficiency. He stretched his arms and back, and walked to the window, pulling the curtains open and watched as people passed by their apartment building; some alone, some with others, some walking their dog. The autumn sky was dark and cloudy, it would probably rain soon and freshen up the dried soil and the polluted air. Shirabu let his thoughts swim, pulling him further away from the textbook that laid on his desk, waiting for him.
Shirabu sighed when he realized what he was doing. He did have a problem with concentration and found himself zoning out or distracted by irrelevant things way too often. That was another reason why his relationship with Semi somehow didnāt always work out well. Semi was a musician. He enjoyed playing whatever instrument heād gotten his hands on, tapping with his feet or his fingers, listening to music on a loud volume. These all were extremely distracting for Shirabu. Semi promised to close the door of his āstudioā they sat up in the room next to their bedroom, and use headphones instead of the speakers when Shirabu needed to focus on the upcoming exams but reality didnāt work this simply. Even though Semi tried his best, the music was part of his body and Shirabuās senses were overly sensitive in the silence. Silent humming, an accidental exclamation, the drumming of ten fingers, heād heard all of them.
Shirabu never outright mentioned this to Semi, he felt that he shouldnāt complain when his partner was already trying his best for him. In addition, it wasnāt like Semi was the only thing distracting him. A car passing by, a dogās barking, his own thoughts.
Shirabu sighed, willing himself to go back to his desk and continue studying or he would never finish. The sooner he finished, the sooner he would be able to go to bed and snuggle up to his boyfriend as a small reward.
He sat down with a resolve, put on his glasses and-
Flinched when he heard a shout from the next room. He glared at the wall separating him from the makeshift studio but the sound of rapid footsteps tapping against wooden floor made his eyes soften before opening wide in curiosity as he expected Semiās running form appear in the door.
āKenjirou, Kenjirou, Kenjirou!ā Semi called excitedly. He had his headphones and his phone in his hand as he hurried to Shirabu.
āWhat is it?ā
āListen to this!ā Semi shoved the phone and headphones into Shirabuās hands, a wide grin on his face.
Shirabu shook his head disapprovingly. āI canāt, I have to study. Iāll listen after Iām done.ā
āNo, I just made this for you,ā Semi insisted.
Shirabu was unmoved. āThanks but Iāll listen to it later, okay?ā
Having a song dedicated to him wasnāt anything new. Semi wrote tons of songs about or for Shirabu, claiming that Shirabu was his muse or similarly cheesy lines. Shirabu received songs for birthdays, anniversaries, Valentineās Day, Christmas, etc. It was not enough to prioritize it over his education. His exam had a deadline, his time with Semi was forever.
However, Semi seemed extra insistent today. Irritated, he took the headphone from Shirabuās lap and placed it on the younger oneās head. āIāve been trying to make a song that helps you focus better when youāre studying. It should be a melody thatās steady, tunes out the little noises but doesnāt distract you.ā
āDoes something like that even exist?ā Shirabu stared at him skeptically. Ā
āSure, it does. Iāve read a bunch of articles and a few books about it,ā Semi said with a proud grin. Ā
āAnd you made a song like that for me?ā Ā
āWell, weāll see if I actually managed to do that after you listened to it.ā Semi took his phone and played the melody, gesturing Shirabu to go back to studying while he distanced himself and sat on the bed. Ā
Shirabu listened to the melody that played on repeat. It was nice and calming and had something of that style Semi seemed to inflect into all of his creations, a certain atmosphere that screamed āSemi Eitaā. An atmosphere Shirabu loved. It soothed his anxious mind and he made an attempt to read the biology text in front of him. Ā
Before Shirabu even realized it, he reached the end of the section he assigned for himself for today. He read through all of those ten pages without falling out of focus and stopping. He just read while the pleasant melody played in his ears, cancelling out every other noise and distraction. Shirabu felt touched. Semi really did make something for him to help with focusing in his own way. He almost felt like tearing up. He rubbed his eyes, telling himself that he was only too stressed and exhausted, he definitely wasnāt crying because he felt an overwhelming wave of love for Semi rush over him. Ā
He slowly took off the headphones and placed it on the table. Ā
āYou done? How was it?ā Semi glanced his way and sat up on the bed, looking at Shirabu expectantly. Ā
Shirabu didnāt say anything, just walked over to Semi, stood between his legs and hugged him tight. Ā
āThank you,ā he muttered, a faint blush dusting his cheeks. Ā
Semi smiled, āSo, I take it itās good, huh?ā
āMhm, itās perfect,ā Shirabu nodded. Ā
The exhilarating feeling of success washed over Semi and he felt like he was flying over the moon. Finally, after so much trial and error, he managed to create something on his own that would help Shirabu. It was the best reward for his hard work. Ā
āThen Iām glad,ā he sighed, unable to stop grinning, and he tightened his arms around his boyfriend before falling backwards on the bed with Shirabu landing on his chest. Ā
āHey!ā Shirabu yelled but Semi pushed his head back to rest in the crook of his neck. Ā
āSleep. You worked hard today,ā he said, brushing his fingers through Shirabuās soft locks and the other man slowly relaxed. Ā
Shirabu inhaled Semiās scent that he started to associate with home and closed his eyes. āMake me more songs for studying?ā he mumbled against Semiās skin. Ā
Semiās breath got caught in his throat. He created so many tracks about or for Shirabu but this was the first time that he was asked to make more. Ā
āIāll make you an entire album,ā Semi said, and he was a hundred percent sure that heād fallen asleep with the widest grin on his face that night because as for his heart, it couldāve burst from all the happiness heād felt. Ā
i need you to know that i woke from a dead sleep at 4am and was so haunted by this idea that h2g tears kept slipping from my eyes and i had to stay up just to get it down. cws for vomiting, death/grief, and body horror (kinda) ā find it on ao3
Alongside the forest, Eris walks.
A simple procession on a brisk, breezeless morning. His hounds he left to their kennels, having no need of their noses. He feels their absence keenly. It would have been easier with them, but then that is part of the leaving, too.
The river he follows is long, wending past the Forest House and out nearly to their southern border. He used to race along it as a youngling, goading water sprites, sparking off embers at pixies. All of his brothers after him did the same.
Lucien was clever to run it along the opposite bank. Their mother forbade them to cross it, too wide across for comfort, and his brothers had all been young enough still to heed her, glad for the short while they could play along it at all. But Lucien, like Eris, knew a secret: the river thinned where the forest grew dense around its mouth, just enough to make a youngling feel brave. When he ran it along the opposite bank, his feet were sure where those giving chase were not.
It takes Eris hours to reach the end.
His tongue chafes with thirst, and the sweat trickling down his spine brings fresh torment to the burns on either side of it. Though perhaps that is blood. He is not especially damp anywhere else, even for the weakness made of his body the eve before.
The reminder that time has continued since it all happened, and will continue on yet, nearly collapses him.
Eris keeps walking.
He will never be able to say for certain how he knows that the clearing he comes upon is the one. There is no stench of blood on the air, coppery and violent, familiar in itself as it is of their bodies. No overt trace of conflict mars the land. Any snapped branches have swept away or mended themselves, and any fallen trees are covered in lichen and moss, such that they could have been that way at the conception of the land. Even the small shrine the forest constructed seems a thing of natural order, meant always to be this way.
But of course it is not. It is not meant to be this way, and it will never be the way it was again.
Entering the clearing feels no different from stepping into a tomb. The stagnant mourning sweeps the breath from him, and he feels the rageful beast stir in its place, lip pulling back, canines glinting.
Then his gaze falls upon an oak sapling sprouting proud from a verdant, body-sized patch of ground, and that brief reprieve flees him. His lungs stutter. He swallows against them.
Marius carried Silas home. Or so Eris was told afterwards. He had not been conscious to see it for himself, the terrible way his brother clung to the body of his twin, both of them covered in gore, both of them empty of life. He wishes he had been, if only to watch Marius unleash himself on their father in his demand for a bloodprice to soften the loss of Silas, though that battle was forfeit before it began.
Too much blood had spilled here to find its match.
As he must, Eris walks beyond the sapling and over to the shrine: a bowed latticework of branches and foliage, curved around like hands. The forest parts its palms for him as he nears.
There is nothing in his stomach to expel, so he heaves only bile onto the ground. It stings the back of his throat and up into his nose. He spits, but the sensation remains.
The land tried to make Ronan presentable. It arranged him on his back so that his empty gaze could marvel always on the canopy overhead, and it drank down his lifeblood so that none remained to mar his skin, and it kept the insects away, and the animals, and the creatures so that his pallid flesh would not be eaten. There was nothing it could do for the yawning gape of his chest or the split of his jaw but to patch them over with moss.
Again, Eris feels his stomach heave, a cramp in it that refuses to ease. Nothing more comes up, so he lowers slowly beside his brother, moving with the caution of a youngling who does not wish to be caught peering wonderingly into a cradle.
Eris stares for a long while. He knows this only because of the dappling of sunlight arcing steadily across them both: time happening to them, inexorably. All else has fallen away, save for this brother of his and the gaping wound of him.
"Come," Eris says, pulling this biggest of their skulk into his arms and holding him close, "I have you now." He cannot bring his voice above a rasp, torn through still from his own screaming, choked around by something else besides. A final lie: "Everything will be alright."
It seems, as Eris smooths at Ronan's hair, that there is life in his brother yet. His body is moving in his embraceāheaving, as though with breath. There is noise between them, gasping, shuddering. Tears, too, trickling down his broken face and gathering in the moss like dewdrops. Blurry-eyed, Eris stares at him and wills it true.
But there is only so much the forest can do.
"Take him," Eris asks more yet of the wood. "I don't want him seen like this." Softly, cracked down the middle, "He will rest easier, here with you."
Their mother will loathe him for this, he knowsāfor even this, the closure of a last look, taken from her. But he knows, too, that it will ruin her more to see yet another of her sons damaged beyond hope.
It is better for her to remember him whole.
The forest opens its arms without expectation or urgency. It alone knows what an agony it is for Eris to lay his brother down into them, to accept, with such astounding finality, a truth that he has never been able to before: there is nothing more that can be done. It waits patiently as Eris runs his dazed fingers through Ronan's hair, the clumps of filth in it impossible to unknot; for him to recall himself from his shock and magic away the grime, the rends from the clothes, until Ronan almost looks only to be in repose; for him to plait a lock of Ronanās cleaned hair, sever it off, pocket it away. It waits.
And when at last its heir cedes the body of his kin to its keeping, it wishes its vines might be fingers, that it could wipe the sorrow from his cheeks. The best it can give him is another oak, just beside the sappling, this one grown full and strong with the might of the offering.
Often, in the time that comes after, Eris makes the long, wending walk along the river, following the opposite bank until he reaches a clearing, where he is the closest to his fallen brothers that he will ever be again.
The forest walks alongside him, itself shrouded and grieving his pain, every time.
Do you have mood boards for Eris x the embodiment of autumn or any visuals that inspired you for that concept? š
oooooo it was primarily inspired by the sentience of the forest as i was writing the first few chapters of eiteio, particularly these lines: āHis power ripples out from him in a heated caress, and all of the earth seems to arch toward him in response.ā / āThe leafy branches above curve down over his body as though they might now protect him from what has already come to pass.ā / āAn insistent breeze, perhaps, carrying on it the entreaty of the court he is to someday rule, itself so unwilling to lose him that he cannot in good conscience ignore its distress any longer.ā but i Do have a few pins saved to my pinterest board for it :ā¢)
