Jun 15, 2021
//To be folded up together as if we were silk
Anne Sexton
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//To be folded up together as if we were silk
Anne Sexton
Favorite Matches of 2018 - 13/?
Aja Kong vs. Hikaru Shida // OZ Academy: Flower Bloom In Yokohama (9/17/18)
“How did you find me?” I asked. I was beginning to shake in reaction, and folded my arms around myself to still the quivering. My clothes had dried completely by this time, but I felt a chill that went bone-deep.
“I thought better of leaving ye alone, and sent a man back to stay wi’ ye. He didna see ye leave, but he saw the English soldiers cross the ford, and you wi’ them.” Jamie’s voice was cold. I couldn’t blame him, I supposed. My teeth were beginning to chatter.
“I’m s-surprised that you didn’t just think I was an English spy and l-leave me there.”
“Dougal wanted to. But the man who saw ye with the soldiers said you were struggling. I had to go and see, at least.” He glanced down at me, not changing expression.
“You’re lucky, Sassenach, that I saw what I did in that room. At least Dougal must admit that you’re not in league wi’ the English.”
“D-Dougal, eh? And what about you? Wh-what do you think?” I demanded.
He did not reply, but only snorted briefly. He did at last take pity on me to the extent of jerking off his plaid and flinging it over my shoulders, but he would not put his arm around me nor touch me more than strictly necessary. He rode in grim silence, handling the reins with an angry jerkiness quite unlike his usual smooth grace.
Upset and unsettled myself, I was in no frame of mind to put up with moods.
“Well, what is it, then? What’s the matter?” I asked impatiently. “Don’t sulk, for heaven’s sake!” I spoke more sharply than I intended, and I felt him stiffen still further. Suddenly he turned the horse’s head aside and reined up at the side of the road. Before I knew what was happening, he had dismounted and jerked me from the saddle as well. I landed awkwardly, staggering to keep my balance as my feet hit the ground.
Dougal and the others paused, seeing us stop. Jamie made a short, sharp gesture, sending them on, and Dougal waved in acknowledgment. “Don’t take too long,” he called, and they set off again.
Jamie waited until they were out of earshot. Then he yanked me around to face him. He was clearly furious, on the verge of explosion. I felt my own wrath rising; what right did he have to treat me like this?
“Sulking!” he said. “Sulking, is it? I’m using all the self-control I’ve got, to keep from shakin’ ye ’til your teeth rattle, and you tell me not to sulk!”
“What in the name of God is the matter with you?” I asked angrily. I tried to shake off his grip, but his fingers dug into my upper arms like the teeth of a trap.
“What’s the matter wi’ me? I’ll tell ye what the matter is, since ye want to know!” he said through clenched teeth. “I’m tired of having to prove over and over that you’re no an English spy. I’m tired of having to watch ye very minute, for fear of what foolishness you’ll try next. And I’m verra tired of people trying to make me watch while they rape you! I dinna enjoy it a bit!”
“And you think I enjoy it?” I yelled. “Are you trying to make out it’s my fault?!” At this, he did shake me slightly.
“It is your fault! Did ye stay put where I ordered ye to stay this mornin’, this would never have happened! But no, ye won’t listen to me, I’m no but your husband, why mind me? You take it into your mind to do as ye damn please, and next I ken, I find ye flat on your back wi’ your skirts up, an’ the worst scum in the land between your legs, on the point of takin’ ye before my eyes!” His Scots accent, usually slight, was growing broader by the second, sure sign that he was upset, had I needed any further indication.
We were almost nose to nose by this time, shouting into each other’s face. Jamie was flushed with fury, and I felt the blood rising in my own face.
“It’s your own fault, for ignoring me and suspecting me all the time! I told you the truth about who I am! And I told you there was no danger in my going with you, but would you listen to me? No! I’m only a woman, why should you pay any attention to what I say? Women are only fit to do as they’re told, and follow orders, and sit meekly around with their hands folded, waiting for the men to come back and tell them what to do!”
He shook me again, unable to control himself.
“And if ye’d done that, we wouldna be on the run, with a hundred Redcoats on our tail! God, woman, I dinna know whether to strangle ye or throw ye on the ground and hammer ye senseless, but by Jesus, I want to do something to you.”
At this, I made a determined effort to kick him in the balls. He dodged, and jammed his own knee between my legs, effectively preventing any further attempts.
“Try that again and I’ll slap you ’til your ears ring,” he growled.
“You’re a brute and a fool,” I panted, struggling to escape his grip on my shoulders. “Do you think I went out and got captured by the English on purpose?”
“I do think ye did it on purpose, to get back at me for what happened in the glade!”
My mouth fell open.
“In the glade? With the English deserters?”
“Aye! Ye think I should ha’ been able to protect ye there, an’ you’re right. But I couldna do it; you had to do it yourself, and now you’re tryin’ to make me pay for it by deliberately putting yourself, my wife, in the hands of a man that’s shed my blood!”
“Your wife! Your wife! You don’t care a thing about me! I’m just your property; it only matters to you because you think I belong to you, and you can’t stand to have someone take something that belongs to you!”
“Ye do belong to me,” he roared, digging his fingers into my shoulders like spikes. “And you are my wife, whether ye like it or no!”
“I don’t like it! I don’t like it a bit! But that doesn’t matter either, does it? As long as I’m there to warm your bed, you don’t care what I think or how I feel! That’s all a wife is to you—something to stick your cock into when you feel the urge!”
At this, his face went dead white and he began to shake me in earnest. My head jerked violently and my teeth clacked together, making me bite my tongue painfully.
“Let go of me!” I shouted. “Let go, you”—I deliberately used the words of Harry the deserter, trying to hurt him—“you rutting bastard!” He did let go, and fell back a pace, eyes blazing.
“Ye foul-tongued bitch! Ye’ll no speak to me that way!”
“I’ll speak any way I want to! You can’t tell me what to do!”
“Seems I can’t! Ye’ll do as ye wish, no matter who ye hurt by it, won’t ye? Ye selfish, willful—”
“It’s your bloody pride that’s hurt!” I shouted. “I saved us both from those deserters in the glade, and you can’t stand it, can you? You just stood there! If I hadn’t had a knife, we’d both be dead now!”
Until I spoke the words, I had had no idea that I had been angry with him for failing to protect me from the English deserters. In a more rational mood, the thought would never have entered my mind. It wasn’t his fault, I would have said. It was just luck that I had the knife, I would have said. But now I realized that fair or not, rational or not, I did somehow feel that it was his responsibility to protect me, and that he had failed me. Perhaps because he so clearly felt that way.
He stood glaring at me, panting with emotion. When he spoke again, his voice was low and ragged with passion.
...
“And when ye screamed, I went to you, armed wi’ nothing but an empty gun and my two hands.” Jamie was speaking a little more calmly now, but his eyes were still wild with pain and rage. I was silent. Unsettled by the horror of my encounter with Randall, I had not at all appreciated the desperate courage it had taken for him to come into the fort after me.
He turned away suddenly, shoulders slumping.
...
“You’re tearin’ my guts out, Claire.”
Something very similar was happening to my own. Tentatively, I came up behind him. He didn’t move, even when I slipped my arms around his waist. I rested my cheek on his bowed back. His shirt was damp, sweated through with the intensity of his passion, and he was trembling.
“I’m sorry,” I said, simply. “Please forgive me.” He turned then, to hold me tightly. I felt his trembling ease bit by bit.
“Forgiven, lass,” he murmured at last into my hair. Releasing me, he looked down at me, sober and formal.
“I’m sorry too,” he said. “I’ll ask your pardon for what I said; I was sore, and I said more nor I meant. Will ye forgive me too?” After his last speech, I hardly felt that there was anything for me to forgive, but I nodded and pressed his hands.
“Forgiven.”
In an easier silence, we mounted again. The road was straight for a long way here, and far ahead I could see a small cloud of dust that must be Dougal and the other men.
Jamie was back with me again; he held me with one arm as we rode, and I felt safer. But there was still a vague sense of injury and constraint; things were not yet healed between us. We had forgiven each other, but our words still hung in memory, not to be forgotten.
— Outlander/Cross Stitch
Photos: farfarawaysite.com, Season One, Episode Nine, April 4, 2015 (1st & 2nd)
Photos: outlander-online.com, Season One, Episode Nine, April 4, 2015 (3rd, 4th, 5th)
Book: Outlander (Cross Stitch), Diana Gabaldon, 1991
Tumblr: September 17, 2018, WhenFraserMetBeauchamp 🏴❤️🇬🇧
WFMB’s Tags: #Outlander #Season One Episode Nine #S1E9 #The Reckoning #Outlander/Cross Stitch #Chapter Twenty-One #I’m no but your husband #I’m only a woman #Forgiven lass #Forgiven #Claire Fraser #Jamie Fraser #51 #091718
09.17.18
It was a good thing that we had slept while we had the chance. Anxious to reach Castle Leoch before the Duke of Sandringham, Dougal kept to a fast pace and a grueling schedule. Traveling without the wagons, we made much better time, despite bad roads. Dougal pushed us, though, stopping only for the briefest of rests.
By the time we rode once more through the gates of Leoch, we were nearly as bedraggled as the first time we had arrived there, and certainly as tired.
I slid off my horse in the courtyard, then had to catch the stirrup to keep from falling. Jamie caught my elbow, then realizing that I couldn’t stand, swung me up into his arms. He carried me through the archway, leaving the horses to the grooms and stableboys.
“Are ye hungry, Sassenach?” he asked, pausing in the corridor. The kitchens lay in one direction, the stairs to the bedchambers in the other. I groaned, struggling to keep my eyes open. I was hungry, but knew I would end up facedown in the soup if I tried to eat before sleeping.
There was a stir to one side and I groggily opened my eyes to see the massive form of Mrs. FitzGibbons, looming disbelievingly alongside.
“Why, what’s the matter wi’ the poor child?” she demanded of Jamie. “Has she had an accident o’ some sort?”
“No, it’s only she’s married me,” he said, “though if ye care to call it an accident, ye may.” He moved to one side, to push through what proved to be an increasing throng of kitchen-maids, grooms, cooks, gardeners, men-at-arms, and assorted castle inhabitants, all inquisitively drawn to the scene by Mrs. Fitz’s loud questions.
Making up his mind, Jamie pressed to the right, toward the stairs, making disjointed explanations to the hail of questions from every side. Blinking owlishly against his chest, I could do no more than nod to the surrounding welcomers, though most of the faces seemed friendly as well as curious.
As we came around a corner of the hallway, I saw one face that seemed a good deal friendlier than the rest. It was the girl Laoghaire, face shining and radiant as she heard Jamie’s voice. Her eyes grew wide and the rosebud mouth dropped unbecomingly open, though, as she saw what he carried.
There was no time for her to ask questions, though, before the stir and bustle around us halted abruptly. Jamie stopped too. Raising my head, I saw Colum, whose startled face was now on a level with mine.
“What—” he began.
“They’re married,” said Mrs. Fitz, beaming. “How sweet! You can give them your blessing, sir, while I get a room ready.” She turned and made off for the stairs, leaving a substantial gap in the crowd, through which I could see the now pasty-white face of the girl Laoghaire.
Colum and Jamie were both talking together, questions and explanations colliding in midair. I was beginning to wake up, though it would have been overstating matters to say I was entirely myself.
“Well,” Colum was saying, not altogether approvingly, “if you’re married, you’re married. I’ll have to talk to Dougal and Ned Gowan—there’ll be legal matters to attend to. There are a few things you’re entitled to when ye wed, by the terms of your mother’s dower contract.”
I felt Jamie straighten slightly.
“Since ye mention it,” he said casually, “I believe that’s true. And one of the things I’m entitled to is a share of the quarterly rents from the MacKenzie lands. Dougal’s brought back what he’d collected so far; perhaps you’ll tell him to leave aside my share when he does the reckoning? Now, if ye’ll excuse me, Uncle, my wife is tired.” And hoisting me into a more solid position, he turned to the stairs.
— Outlander/Cross Stitch
Photos: outlander-online.com, Season One, Episode Nine, April 4, 2015
Book: Outlander (Cross Stitch), Diana Gabaldon, 1991
Tumblr: September 17, 2018, WhenFraserMetBeauchamp 🏴❤️🇬🇧
WFMB’s Tags: #Outlander #Season One Episode Nine #S1E9 #The Reckoning #Outlander/Cross Stitch #Chapter Twenty-Three #it’s only she’s married me #You can give them your blessing sir #Claire Fraser #Jamie Fraser #52 #091718
You ever think about the shit you used to do when you were young & realize that you’re so old & boring now 😭
Toxic people
There’s a million and one ways of saying “if you have a toxic person in your life, get rid of them”.
But what if you are the toxic person? What are you supposed to do? You can’t drop yourself. To put forth the effort to be better you decide that maybe you should drop everyone else. But is that actually helping?
What if my toxicity is because I need help? Granted you can’t look for other people to be your therapist. But support is all you look for.
So am I toxic because I decide that to hurt me is better than to hurt other people? Am I toxic because the way I handle things is unhealthy? Am I toxic because of how my actions affect how other people feel?
I feel like internal and external toxic behaviors shouldn’t be seen as one. They are separate. If I’m seen as toxic to others I feel as though it should be me intentionally trying to hurt them. I’m putting forth effort to make you upset or unhappy.
As compared to me trying to get through my day the best I can without being really, really, irrational.
No one wants to be seen as a toxic person but maybe I don’t know how to not be.