Also for valentine’s day: have a snippet of the first conversation Isabelle and Chris have! It’s not romantic, per say, but first meeting are always important ;). (small warning for length) (I don’t know if this is the sort of thing you use a taglist for, but i’ll tag you guys anyway :) @jess---writes and @ravenpuffwriter)
Izzy stared at him for a few seconds, processing it. “You patched me up… with moss?” She repeated, slowly.
“It’s medicinal?” Chris offered weakly, making a vague hand gesture. “I didn’t really have a lot on hand, and you were bleeding, like, a lot, and I don’t really know much about traditional medicine, but- my aunt taught me some stuff about herbal remedies and natural medicine and stuff. So. I improvised?”
There was a beat.
“Ah,” said Izzy, in a tone that would’ve implied she understood him if he wasn’t too telepathic to see through it.
His cheeks burnt a little. “She liked plants,” he tried again, pushing on. “It’s what she did for a living, growing them and, uh, making stuff with them to help people. It’s not a pseudoscience thing, I mean, it’s actual clinically-proven methods and… I figured it worked better than taking you to a hospital, anyway.”
He forced himself to stop, because Izzy seemed to be getting more and more distressed the longer he rambled, which was the opposite of his goal. He tried for an encouraging smile.
“I promise I’m not poisoning you,” he teased lightly, monitoring her reaction. “This isn’t, like, a long con murder plot, or anything.”
He felt the briefest flare of amusement come from her before immediately being quashed down, and she gave the tiniest twitch of her nose and flexed her hand awkwardly. “I do appreciate it,” she said after a second, her voice taking on an unnecessarily apologetic tone. “I’m just- I mean- thanks.”
“You’ve already thanked me,” said Chris, amusement in his voice. She flushed darkly, which wasn’t his intention, but before he could say anything else she looked down at her stomach and blew out a breath.
“I’m just trying to process this,” she said, sounding tired. “I mean, I woke up… here, and then you tell me you live here, and that your like me, and now you’re saying that I have moss plastered to my stomach-“
“If it helps, the moss is boiled,” offered Chris, mostly as a joke, but she just looked back up at him and bit her lip.
“Thanks,” she said. “I… It’s nice of you to do all of this.”
“You’re welcome,” said Chris, supressing the urge to make another joke as concern flared up in his own chest. Part of him desperately wanted to ask her a million and one questions, to have her tell him the whole story from start to finish, and finally explain what was happening.
The rest of him could feel her exhaustion and stress from where he was sitting, no matter how hard he tried to ignore it.
“This place is comfier than it looks, by the way,” he added instead. “There’s enough blankets and stuff here to make a bed of spikes feel comfortable, so you don’t have to worry about anything like that. Also, we have plenty of food and stuff, so-“
This time, his abrupt stop had nothing to do with what he was saying and everything to do with the wide look Izzy was giving him, which he couldn’t quite interpret.
“…so you can just relax until you feel better,” he finished awkwardly, unable to keep the confused expression of his face.
There was a pause that felt like it lasted about two years.
“Oh,” said Izzy eventually, and her face seemed to crumple in on itself for just a second before she looked back down again. “Oh. Um. I, uh, really appreciate all of this, but you don’t have to- I mean, I don’t want you to feel like-“
“It’s really no problem,” Chris cut in, still frowning, and she looked up to give him a weak smile before averting her eyes again.
“Thanks,” she repeated, biting down on her lip harder. “I just- y’know, it’s great, but I don’t want to step on your feet, so it might be best for me to… um-“
“You want to leave,” Chris finished for her, and she flushed again.
Chris forced himself to breath slowly and focus. On the one hand, the last thing he wanted to do was force her to stay here. On the other, he remembered the state she’d been in with perfect clarity, and he doubted that was going to fade soon.
“I don’t want to seem ungrateful,” she said, sounding apologetic again. “I just… need to…” she let herself trail off. He waited a few more seconds for her to start again before he spoke.
“It’s not ungrateful to want to leave,” he said, feeling like he was talking through cotton. “I’m not going to force you stay.”
“Oh, I wasn’t implying you would-“
“What were you doing out there?”
The question slipped out almost without him meaning it, and there was a long moment of silence between them. He didn’t need to clarify it. He could tell by the look on her face and the deep thrum of fear and pain beating out of her that she knew exactly what he meant.
Neither of them moved.
Finally, Izzy blew out a soft breath. “Can’t you read my mind to figure that out?” she asked, her voice tight, looking away.
“I told you I don’t like using my powers for that.” Chris crossed his legs, but let some sympathy leak on to his face. “I try my best to stay out of people’s heads. But you… you do dream loudly, so I… I picked up on some of your nightmares. But nothing concrete. And, really, who of us doesn’t have nightmares at this point?” He braced himself, though he wasn’t sure what for, and Izzy flexed her hand again, still looking away.
There was another awkward, albeit shorter, silence.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she said finally, her voice cracking, and he was suddenly hit by a wave sadness strong enough to briefly making him lose track of his own thoughts. “Can that be my answer? I don’t wa- I don’t want to.”
She swallowed, hard, and he could see the shininess of her eyes even from here. A stab of guilt ran through him.
“No- hey-“ he held up his hands, forcing himself not to move forward. He didn’t know if that would be welcome yet. “I mean, yes, it can be- sorry- I’m sorry-“
“No, it’s not your-“
“No, I shouldn’t’ve pushed it, I just-“
“It’s fine.” She wiped her hand across her eyes harshly. “It’s fine- I shouldn’t be-“ she cut herself off with a sound that fell somewhere between a laugh and a groan. “I’m sorry-“
“Don’t be, please don’t be.” Chris shuffled forward just a little, trying to avoid her personal space. “I- I can feel that you’re- I just-“ he stopped, and she screwed up her face for a second before letting out a slow breath.
“I’m okay,” she said, and her voice sounded jarringly normal. “I’m okay.”
“Okay?” Chris repeated, disbelieving, but he realised he couldn’t feel the same level of radiating sadness anymore, and he lowered his hands. “Okay, good,” he said uncertainly.
She closed her eyes. “I get where you’re coming from,” she said slowly, her voice almost eerily calm. “But it’s not- it’s fine. I was just… walking. I was dealing with something.”
“You were dying,” said Chris flatly, and he couldn’t help but wonder how something so cold could sound so calm in the context.
Izzy furrowed her brow for a second before smoothing it back out and opening her eyes. She looked straight at him as she spoke, like she was trying to speak the words into his soul. “I was walking,” she repeated, slowly. “I was dealing with something. I needed to clear my head.”
“You were dying,” Chris repeated in kind. “You were dying of, like, four different things.”
There was a beat.
“I know,” she said, and this time her voice didn’t even break, which was somehow so much worse.
Chris looked away from her, studying the space to the left of him carefully. “Why do you need to leave?” he asked finally, once he’d gathered enough of his wits back up. “Why do you want to go back to being alone so badly?”
She didn’t answer, and after a solid minute of silence, he turned back to her. She was still watching him with that same blank, calm expression, but this time he thought he could see just beneath the surface at all the turmoil.
Then again, maybe he was being optimistic.
“I think you should stay,” he said finally. “I think that would be safer.”
Finally, her expression faltered, and he could practically see her desperation to insist that either way would be fine. After a second, she pushed the tip of her tongue out of her lips and visibly bit down on it, which would’ve probably sent a jolt of surprise through him if it wasn’t for the situation.
“It’s not your job to help me,” she said slowly, finally, in a tone that was clearly meant to reassure him.
He shook his head. “I found you,” he reminded her. “I took care of you. It didn’t need to be my job. It doesn’t need to be now.”
“I don’t want to get in your way, or waste your time-“
“You won’t,” he assured her. “I have very little to do with my time, and it’s all carefully scheduled. Anyway, I’m not planning to babysit you 24/7 or anything. It’s just a place to stay. And some food and water.” And a guarantee you’ll have someone nearby, he added to himself, but he didn’t say it out loud. He suspected he didn’t need to.
Izzy looked at him with an emotion he couldn’t even start to describe, and then turned to look into the rest of the cave. “I’m tired,” she said, finally.
It was an agreement, even if it didn’t sound like one.
“That makes sense,” said Chris, keeping his voice calm. “You can try and get some sleep before I make dinner, if you want? You’ve got a few hours.”
She nodded mutely, then, “I also need to pee really bad.”
Chris tried to suppress his snort, but her brief look at him told him he’d failed spectacularly. “Sorry,” he said, and she gave him a sad smile that seemed to be the most she could muster. “That was blunter than I was expecting. Uh, right, I’ll show you were to go.” He pushed himself to his feet. “Like I said, these are the old stow-away tunnels. We have running water and everything.” He grinned at her as she stood up, rolling her probably-aching muscles.
She glanced over at him as she flexed her ankles, and raised an eyebrow. “You called them the hidden tunnels earlier,” she noted, lightly.
“Well, yeah, same difference.” He shrugged easily, but she didn’t drop her slightly bemused look. It took him a second to process it. “You don’t know what these are?” He realised, surprise clear in his tone.
She shook her head mutely.
“Le grotte nascoste? Like from the last war?” He stared at her incredulously. “You never did that in history?”
“I didn’t take history.”
“Yeah, but I mean, when you were kid- like, when it was mandatory-“ he drew in a deep breath to cut himself off, realising he was going on a tangent. “You know what? Never mind. I’ll explain it to you later.”
Anyway the scene in question was that during a ‘date’ between two of the characters were they basically just go and relax in the middle of nowhere cause god knows they deserve a break, on of the characters reads to the other.
And i thought it was cute, but i couldnt think of any reason for them to read out loud.
UNTIL NOW.
So have the (sleep deprived) scene that kind of explains it:
***
Obviously, Izzy knew what book it was. The first one in an old, practically- if not literally- ancient fantasy series. In fact, in the fantasy series. The quintessential one, according to like everyone ever.
Much to Chris’ absolutely horror, she’d never made it past a few chapters.
“It’s just the writing style!” She justified herself with last time they’d mentioned it. “It’s too description heavy and not action-y enough and I can’t focus on it-“
“It’s a literary masterpiece,” Chris had argued. “With the greatest characters and settings known to man-“
“And the slowest narrative ever. There’s so many periods of nothing but needless descriptions-“
She lifted her eyes up from the book so she could raise an eyebrow at him.
fuck this casual shit were committing crimes together & breaking into each others houses & doing blood oaths & breaking the laws of magic day one or bust
every sapphic relationship has to have the weird little freak gf with valuable insight into the magical realm with the physical strength of a twig & the strong jock gf who knows nothing about spellcasting
Chris and Izzy’s tastes in books/literature are basically just my way of working out my conflicting views on old/classic literature.
Chris vs Izzy is just my appreciation for the aesthetic, the flowy prose and the fact it often explored some deeper concept in an interesting way vs my conviction that none of these old white guys knew how to WRITE
Some people were introduced to Miami's Zoey Dollaz when they heard an update of his summer 2015 song, "Blow A Check," towards the end of Puff Daddy's MMM album. The song has been a staple in the Southern club scene for quite some time now, and now Zoey reveals a video for his bubbling single. "The inspiration behind the song "Blow A Check" was to create a song that would motivate people to go for theirs and accomplish whatever they put their mind to, while having fun from the fruits of their labor by blowing a check from time to time," Zoey describes "Blow A Check." Meanwhile, the Chrizzy- (of Cinestream Films) directed visual has him scrambling harder than Randall Cunningham away from the Feds throughout its three minutes. Because, sometimes, the checks one may blow may not necessarily be theirs...
Alright... so if there’s one trend I’m noticing in the Lancaster county produce boxes from F2F/NKCDC so far this fall, it’s purple. I’ve gotten purple carrots, purple potatoes, purple sweet potatoes, and red beets (which are actually purple)-- and they’ve all been as delicious as they are color-coordinated. Even today the F2F facebook page posted this interesting tidbit about purple vegetables (idk how legit RandomInterestingFacts.com is, but we’ll go with it). All of this got me thinking: why so much purple?
Could they be pumping this stuff with a blend of red & blue food coloring just to make it look cute? Not from this organic farm co-op...
Could these particular veggies just be high in anthocyanins, the naturally-occurring pigment in certain plants that causes a purple hue? (Check me out, @scienceandfood) I doubt it...
Could these farmers from Lancaster be as into Prince as I am, lovingly nurturing their crops by playing #1 hits like “I Wanna Be Your Lover” and “Do Me Baby” for them from the time they’re seeds? This... this seems much more likely.
So as I looked at all of my purple produce last night, I thought of the Purple One himself.... the man who spent the last 30+ years writing anthems that inspire the world to dance and/or make love; the man who has consistently blurred lines across music, culture and sexuality; the man who (whether he knows it or not) has been turning all of my food purple through song & sound-tracking my kitchen adventures since childhood. I put on the “Dirty Mind” album (fully aware that re-acquainting my lovely Lancaster vegetables with their childhood lullabies could only enhance their flavor) and got to work.
First, I preheated the oven to 425°F & chopped my veggies into 1-inch-ish pieces: purple potatoes, purple sweet potatoes, carrots, onions, and garlic (I left the garlic cloves whole.... just peeled them). I moved all of that into a glass baking dish and added salt & pepper, sage from my garden, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and red wine. I threw the whole thing in the oven while I prepped some organic bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs by patting them dry & seasoning generously with salt, pepper, and dried oregano. When they were ready to go, I nestled the thighs right on top of the already-roasting veggies & let the whole thing bake for about 45 minutes (the veggies were in for an hour altogether).
When all was said & done, this dinner turned out pretty much perfectly. The skin on the thighs was extra crispy & delicious, the vegetables picked up some of the flavor from the chicken (along with the vinegar & wine), and it all combined to make a really colorful & balanced plate. And it was all because Prince, my guardian angel, was there with me.... in spirit, in my speakers, in my food, and (as always) stuck in my head. Before we do pictures, I’ll leave you with his words of wisdom & generally sound life advice: “Act your age, not your shoe size.” I love you, Prince.
onions, carrots, purple potatoes & sweet potatoes, garlic, and sage
