#cold reality

[pr0ceeding]

— Alexandre Dumas, from "The Count of Monte Cristo"

[glittergroovy]

[the-therapist-needs-therapy]

Cold Reality

Pairings : Jeon Wonwoo x Reader

Genre : Angst

Warnings : None

You get a text from your boyfriend at midnight to meet you at the park, as he wanted to talk to you.

The cold breeze kissed your skin, making you shiver. It was close to midnight, so you were quite surprised when your boyfriend asked you to meet him at your usual dating spot at the park.

As you were waiting for him, your mind replayed the times you spent with Wonwoo, which were the nothing but the best, always never failing to put a smile on your face. He was like god's gift to you during the times you were struggling to not fall apart. Your eyes crinkle, as a smile makes it's way to your face, thinking how far you've come in life because of Wonwoo.

Ten minutes later, you could see Wonwoo's tall figure and you shoot him a smile before greeting him enthusiastically. The same couldn't be said for Wonwoo. He looked upset, maybe a bit tired. Whatever it was it wasn't good. The look in his eyes made it clear.

"What is it that you wanted to talk about, darling?" you asked him, and his gaze darkened, making you think if you shouldn't have talked first. He was already in a bad mood. You didn't want to make him upset all over again.

"You look pretty today, Y/n," he noted, his voice barely a whisper as if the small comment that made your heart flutter was more to himself and not you. You were merely wearing a hoodie and sweatpants that you were wearing at home, being too lazy to change into better clothes.

"Please don't tell me you asked me to come here to tell that," you looked at him, your eyebrow shooting him a questioning look. He laughed a bit at that, before going back to being silent.

Gazing at Wonwoo, who seemed to be interested in playing with his jacket's zipper, you started to wonder what had gotten into him. He didn't usually speak in riddles. If anything he was the most straight-forward, down-to-earth person you'd ever met.

"What is it, Wonwoo?" you ask once again. Your tone was much serious this time. You knew there was something he can wanted to say. You could read him far too easily, the product of being his girlfriend for too many years.

He turned to look at you, then your lips. His gaze remained at the latter. He quickly pressed a kiss against your lips. His lips were soft as usual. Timid as always.

In other circumstances, it would gave been super romantic. Two lovers kissing under the moonlight. However, you couldn't focus on the kiss so instead of kissing him back, your mind was filled with millions of questions. Most of them being 'What's with, Wonwoo?'.

When he pulled back, the emotion you felt strongly at the moment was confusion. He had pressed you foreheads together, so you could feel his warm breath.

"I'm asking again, Wonwoo. What's the matter?" you asked him, voice barely a whisper.

He looked at you once more and it seemed like he was making up his mind whether to tell you or not.

"I- we can't be together anymore, Y/n"

You stared at him, trying to trace any hint of sarcasm in his eyes but saw none. You let out a forced laughter, the kind which meant that you hoped what he said wasn't real.

"Stop joking, Wonwoo"

"I'm not"

There was no doubt. He wasn't joking. Definitely. Your mind seemed to have stopped working, as you couldn't process his words. A single tear slipped out from your eye. You weren't even bothered to wipe it off.

"Why?" your question came out after what seemed like an eternity.

Wonwoo stayed silent. His silence was driving you crazier than what he said did.

"Why, you bastard? Did you find another woman?" at this point you were starting to cry, as more tears slipped out.

"I found no one"

"Then, wasn't I good enough?"

That was when Wonwoo snapped.

"Look around you, Y/n. Whatever you see is reality. Your fantasy about me isn't"

It finally made sense.

↶*ೃ✧˚. ❃ ↷ ˊ- ↶*ೃ✧˚. ❃ ↷ ˊ-

Author's Note : It's supposed to be a realization for fans that whatever we read about our idols isn't going to happen. It was that kind of concept. I wanted to make it meaningful.

[nyssatrevelyan]

Abandoned

Story available on Archive of Our Own, will update when I can.

Chapter 1

Nyssa had awoken alone.

For a moment, she was cold and disoriented, and she looked around blearily, trying to make sense of the world.  Straw was scratching her, and she was sore and naked and….

Blackwall.

She looked around the upper story of the barn, but aside from a cat prowling about looking for mice, she was alone.  She could hear the mounts shuffling and making quiet noises to themselves, and Horsemaster Dennet speaking to them softly.  Maker, if she could hear him….

Nyssa raked her fingers through her hair, and felt straw in it.  She blushed, groping for her clothing.  As she did, she noticed the soft gleam of metal by her feet, and leaned over.

Blackwall’s Warden-Commander badge.

A chill raced down Nyssa’s spine.  Why would he leave this here, with her?

By the time she’d made it down the stairs to the ground level of the barn, Dennet had blessedly found something to do outside by the well.  She was more than half convinced by the way he studiously stayed at the well that he HAD heard what had happened last night, and was trying to give her an escape route.

Might well be he was trying to give HIMSELF a way out of an uncomfortable encounter, too.

A piece of paper caught her attention, balanced against the griffon riding toy Blackwall had been carving.  She picked it up, her stomach knotting with dread.

 My lady:

 There is little I can say that will ease this pain.  Just know that while it hurt to leave, it would've hurt more if I stayed.  

I am deeply sorry. -- Blackwall

She stood, staring at the note, her mind racing.  He'd.... left?  He'd left, and had tried to make it seem... good that he'd left?

She gripped the parchment hard, unconscious of crumpling it in her suddenly damp fist. It couldn't be, he loved her and she loved him, he wouldn't  --

Unless...

Her cheeks burned with shame.  She hadn't told him, not until they were already.... that this -- that he was her first love.

He'd stopped, frozen for a moment, and she'd seen something in his eyes -- indecision? Worry?  For a moment she'd thought he'd stop, and had begged him to go on.  He'd seemed to come to some decision, and instead of stopping, he'd been very gentle and compassionate, attentive to her beyond all imaginings.  He'd coaxed her to pleasure repeatedly, until she'd dozed off, limp and exhausted, nestled against his side.

Maybe.... maybe he hadn't liked her.  Maybe her inexperience....  Or worse, maybe he'd never liked her.  Maybe he had only wanted to bed the Inquisitor.  People were attracted to power, and she was no fool -- she was attractive enough, physically....

Maybe that was all he'd ever wanted of her.

Her stomach twisted with nausea as she turned toward the barn door and saw a scout standing there.

“Sister Leliana has confirmed it.  Blackwall has gone.”

Nyssa nodded slightly, the parchment damp and crumpled in her fist, then noticed the look of sympathy in the runner’s eyes.  She looked away quickly, her face suffusing with shame.  “Thank you,” she said softly, her voice barely able to get around the lump in her throat.  “That will be all.”

She didn’t run.  A lifetime of Circle training took over, and she walked purposefully but without unseemly, eye-catching haste – her hand wrapped so tightly around the Constable’s badge that the edges cut painfully into her hand. 

He should never have allowed her to accompany him back to the stables.

Blackwall tightened the cinches on his -- well, the Inquisition's horse, really, but the little gelding he rode most often when they went into the field.  Brown as dirt, steady, with a deceptive gait that ate up distance even with a hairy lummox like him aboard.

The gelding turned to look at him, nudging the warrior with a soft nicker. Blackwall usually had a carrot or an apple for him, but now, tonight -- he hadn't taken the time to get one from the kitchens.

He glanced at the ceiling above him praying that even this slight noise wouldn't give him away, heard nothing, and turned back to his task.   With every buckle fastened, disgust, guilt and sorrow made him more desperate to be away.

He'd known he was worthless.   He'd known and he'd begged Nyssa to believe him when he said he was nobody, and that there no life they could have together.  And now she was another regret, another stain on his soul -- another life he'd fouled and ruined, just because he was too weak to do the right thing and leave her alone.  A woman twenty years his junior... bad enough he was old enough to be her father, but the life she'd had forced on her had left her far more innocent than he'd realized.

He'd wanted to believe her.  That was his only excuse, and still, the blame was his entirely, not hers.  He'd wanted to believe her when she told him she knew he was a good man, he'd wanted to believe her when she looked at the death and destruction in his wake and said, "You don't have to face this alone."  And blessed Andraste, the way she looked at him, and the gentleness of her touch... the way she believed in him, trusted him....

He should never have let her accompany him back from the tavern.  They'd drunk some, but he wouldn't excuse himself with that.  He hadn't been drunk.  Neither had she.  The difference was he'd known, he'd known from the moment he asked her to accompany him to the tavern that he would be leaving.  He'd known what he was doing, and couldn't -- and didn't want to stop.  She had probably imagined this was the start of their life together when he knew, he'd always known, it was goodbye.

Another lie.  Another betrayal.

He leaned forward, his head against the saddle, a hand over his eyes, his breath unsteady. The one person in the world who thought him worth something, and to do this to her....

He swallowed, straightened, and continued his task, now fastening his saddlebags to the saddle.

He'd taken her innocence on a stack of hay bales in a stable.

The shame of that hit him like a hammer blow; it took his breath away.  He hadn't realized until her sharp gasp, and when he'd realized, tried to disengage, she'd clutched him tighter and pleaded with him not to worry, to go on, that she loved him....

A worthless bastard like him.

He'd loved her like a man possessed, whispering his adoration of her with every stroke -and then he'd loved her again, kissing her, stroking her, licking her.  He'd managed to build her pleasure, tease her until she came, stifling her cries in his shoulder.

He could still taste her.  Maker, he had thought to take the memory of her to his pyre, but once he realized that he was the first man she'd lain with, he'd used every technique he knew to bring her to fruition, three times to his once.  To leave her with at least one good memory of him.

"She's happy."

He gasped, whirling.  Cole, of course.  "Maker's balls," he swore, taking the horse's reins.

"Guilt, shame, another life ruined, another lie, another betrayal -- go before I can't. It's better this way." Those pale eyes looked at him from beneath a fringe of limp blonde hair and that ridiculous hat.  "You don't want to go.... and she needs you."

"The last thing she needs is me," Blackwall said.  "Maker forgive me for hurting her like this -- I know I can't."  He looked at the strange spirit boy.   "Let her sleep," he begged.  "Let her have some happiness before she realizes.... before I'm gone."  He led the horse outside.

"She loves you."  Cole sounded a little confused, a little worried.  "She'd help, I know she'd help!  She'd want to -- "

"No, Cole!"  The whisper came sharp, and fierce.  "She mustn't know, she mustn't.... it's kinder to let her remember me as she sees me -- not as I am."

Blackwall mounted the gelding.  "Let her dream," he repeated softly.  "Let her have some peace.  Maker knows she gets little enough of it."

He'd left the note on the unfinished griffon riding toy -- and the Warden-Constable badge beside her.

Let her love the dream.  The reality would be a bitter disappointment.

He'd ridden through the silent, empty courtyard and out of Skyhold, alone.

When Dorian knocked at Nyssa's door a few hours later, it was opened after a good few minutes of fumbling.

Nyssa was swaying slightly as she held the door open, a bottle of Gwaren whisky clutched by its neck in her left hand.  The bottle glowed a peculiar green as the mark pulsed against the cold glass. “Dorian!” she said, a bit too loudly.  “C’mon in, have a drink with me, cousin!”

Dorian stepped in, shutting the door and guiding her back up the steps with his hand gently resting on the small of her back.  “I see it’s been that sort of day for you this time, Nyssa.”

“He’s gone,” she said, plopping gracelessly onto the couch by the top of the stairs and taking another swig from the bottle.  She coughed, then looked away at the pattern in the carpet.  “Gone,” she repeated.   “Without a word.”

She didn't need to clarify:   runners had been racing through the library up to and down from Leliana's roost all day.  It hadn't been long before he knew that Blackwall had gone, whither no one knew.

“Somehow it doesn’t feel very gratifying to have been right about his boorishness.” Dorian reached over and gently tugged the bottle from her fingers, then took a swig himself.  His nose wrinkled at the taste.  “Nyssa, I thought you had better taste than this.”

“It’s strong,” she said, raking her fingers through her hair.  “I need strong.”

He considered the missing Warden, and kicked himself for having encouraging her in her pursuit.  Yes, she had been attracted to Blackwall, probably his physical strength.  He WAS quite a burly man, and muscular.  What must he have seemed to her when mages tended to be lithe?  He was larger than Cullen, and any of the templars in the courtyard sparring.   He must have felt safe, like protection.  But there was also that quiet resolve to do one's duty as one must.  Duty, sacrifice, and honor.  Nyssa had fallen for that, too.

Dorian huffed, trying to distract her as he considered how best to help her.   "I suspect the last thing you'll need in the morning is the hangover this swill will trigger."  He sat beside her on the couch.  "But, if needs must, we'll be miserable together.  Mother Giselle can shoot me some more dirty looks and make a few veiled comments about my undue influence on you, but ha! the joke will be on her -- it will be your influence over me!"

Nyssa stopped, looking stricken.  "I don't want that 'bad Tevinter' nonsense coming back up."

"Well, I AM a bad Tevinter.  Ask my countrymen."  He smiled at her, leaning and crossing his leg negligently.  His rings flashed as he saluted her with the bottle.

Nyssa flopped back against the couch, groaning.

Dorian took one more swallow of the whiskey, then set it out of her reach, shaking his head at the taste.  "People come and go from Skyhold for all sorts of reasons.  Why is this particularly upsetting to you?  I know you were fond of...."

She closed her eyes, took a breath.  "Because I spent the night with him," she said in a small voice.  "And when I woke, he was gone."

Dorian went still, his grey eyes darkening.  Oh, he knew how that went, well enough.  The difference being that he had known each time what the outcome would be come the morning.  Clearly, Nyssa had not.

She sat forward, elbows on her knees, running her fingers through her hair nervously.  "I feel so stupid," she said, her voice tight and shaky.  "I'm not... I hadn't...."  She stilled, unable to meet his eyes.  "Maybe.... I just wasn't g--"

Maker.  She was ashamed.

Dorian shook his head. "Stop.  I refuse to listen to you running down my best friend."  There was anger smouldering in his eyes, but Nyssa could also see -- not pity, but understanding.  He put a hand on her shoulder.  "No matter what you may think or feel, it has nothing  to do with you, and everything in the world to do with his being a swine."

Nyssa shook her head bitterly.  "Everyone leaves me," she muttered.

"Nyssa...."

She looked over at him.  "Everyone, Dorian.  My parents... they couldn't get the templars out to take me away fast enough.  When I was in the Circle, I didn't.... I wasn't able to inherit but I had it pounded into my head that there had better not be any Trevelyan mage bastards.  So I wouldn't.... and my friend decided to move on to someone who would."  She drew a short, shuddering breath.  "And when the Circle dissolved -- my Aunt Lucille took me, just long enough to send me to the Conclave with my templar and clerical cousins.  They're all dead now."  She sat stiffly.  "So this, this being alone thing, it's not new to me.  But it still hurts.  It hurts that no one stays, ever."

He sighed, and there was something unreadable in his eyes as he slid closer and wrapped an arm around her, tugging her close.  "I'm afraid you're stuck with me, my dear.  Poor as that company may be."   He felt her start to relax against his shoulder fractionally, and patted her back gently, soothingly.  "And one of the first things we are going to work on, beside your perception that you are somehow unworthy of people's regard, is your pedestrian taste in alcohol.   Surely as Inquisitor you should have better ways to drown your sorrows!"

He sat there, soothing her, until she finally fell asleep.

[zeitlosigkeit]

·

[snowandstarfire-blog]

Shit I Wrote Recently

I’m writing this to try and make an honest evaluation of my feelings and myself. I don’t know if I’ll succeed because it’s hard for me to know who “myself” really is at the moment, or at any moment.You now my name, and I’m seventeen years old. I was born on the sixth of June, nineteen ninety eight. I am the eldest of four children, the son of a primary school teacher and an IT worker. I was born curious. I sought out knowledge, and I quickly rose to a state when I knew more than everyone else. Knowledge was my trade, I was optimistic and hard-working and confident in what I knew. That was years ago, when knowledge alone could drive me, knowledge and creativity. I have a wildly active imagination, and when you’re a child that’s a good thing. Looking back though, I always suspected that something was wrong. I’m not stable. I’m not consistent and I’m not reliable. Imagination is strange, the way it works. Often it just involves the brain’s ability to replicate what it has seen before, to produce something that makes sense. I have an incredible memory, did I mention that? I can relive events in my head, like a tape recorder, I can see everything, feel everything, hear everything. I can replay my sorrow and my joy until they corrupt in my head, and the past becomes a sour monument to a better or worse time. The thing is, I’m chaotic, unpredictable and my mind, while being my greatest tool, is not always in my control. I remember when I was young, I saw things that weren’t there. I let my nightmares creep into reality, I became obsessed with ideas that had no root in reality. My mind works too fast, it works too well, it can paint a realistic picture from nothing, and who am I to doubt my own eyes? I can tell the difference now, when I look back, between what was real and what wasn’t, but I couldn’t at the time. I was more intelligent than most and I still allowed myself to be caught up in those delusions. Now I am more cynical, I believe very little. I am suspicious of people, suspicious of ideas and reluctant to enter into any kind of commitment. I trust nothing, nothing and nobody, but I trust myself. Am I wise to trust myself? No, not at all, but it’s all I have to trust. I find comfort in logic, the things that are black and white, and we cannot argue over. Human emotions are dangerous and painful. Everyone else can deal with them but I can’t. I feel too strongly, I know humiliation, fear and pain too well. I know what it’s like to doubt myself, to doubt everything that I hold dear. A lot of the time, i feel nothing, my emotions are just grey, no happiness, no sadness, just emptiness. Sometimes I have highs, but they never last, do they, sooner or later I have to remind myself how little anything I believe actually resembles how things are in reality. Optimism, wanting things I probably can’t have anymore is just another path to more suffering. Now, I’m not grey and I’m not high, I’m just incredibly sad, filled with regret, regret for who I am and what it has cost me. My friends say I have no emotions, that I don’t take anything seriously, that I don’t have a deep side. It’s just him, they say. But he has serious trouble opening up with people, being himself, because he doesn’t think people will ever take him seriously, that they won’t ever understand the place he has gotten himself into. I’ve spent too long trying to hide my pain from the world, building this wall of normality, of wit, of humor. And I do find things funny, I enjoy laughing because it helps me get through the day. If I didn’t have humor, or friends, I don’t know what I’d do, don’t know how I’d cope. The truth is, I have to be the way I am, I have to be the emotionless, cynical, humor driven character that people see, because they can’t take the real me, nobody can. The real me is a wreck, he’s impulsive, he doesn’t hold back, he harbors a tortured, twisted psyche full of unimaginable horrors and incredible beauty. He is chaos, and he is locked in a small room full of shelves overflowing with meaningless documents, dark, alien, unsettling pieces of artwork, piles of unread books, drawers spilling a limited set of clothing, mostly blue, broken pieces of technology, wires, frayed earphones, long dead cells, ancient audio equipment, scattered souvenirs,  a wardrobe full of memories, more rubbish and a few more valuable pieces of clothing, broken dumbbells, a box of decaying memories, forgotten toys and trinkets. A dead plant, a digital alarm clock with a smashed face and an old style globe that doubles as a reading lamp decorate a bedside chest of drawers, crammed with more crap. This place is falling apart, much like I am, and it is inescapable. It is the past, and the past, happy or sad, brings me to misery. The past is a ghost, and It’s haunt in unending. They say the present is a gift, I disagree, it is a prison. I cannot find a way out of the present. The future is a dream they say? No. For now, the future is a nightmare, a dark, cold place of isolation and loneliness. I could go on forever, but I won’t. I have vented enough for today. The door is open.

[daysofdeviva]

When you hope against hope

When you love beyond logic

Then reality slams down

Crushing your bones till you are deep in the ground

Then leaves cover you stacked so high they ridicule the sun

but then the phoenix comes but then the phoenix comes

You stir then writhe but it means you are alive

Soon to break forth with the coming dawn

[llcbookofarticlesandpoems]

The Cold Reality!::an article

by Richard Grooms

…

…

I'm truly in awe at how some try to crucify Mr Trump over his position on illegal immigration. But, lets get real now, American citizens! If 20 million US citizens marched at once to the US/Canadian border and ran into Canada, you can bet your rear-end that Canada would see that as an invasion.

As would Mexico, if 20 million US citizens just poured across the Rio Grande river and into Mexico.

And it has nothing to do with the immigrants themselves. OR their race or ethnicity. It's the hundreds of millions of legal US citizens having to fork over billions of tax-payer dollars annually to feed and house the masses. And that's a reality.

And Hillary Clinton, nor her cronies, can care less about the cost on American citizens. Her noted positions encourage further invasion on US territory. And Mr Trump is only speaking the will of America's masses of Americans, who came to America legally.