Out of the main four Idris is definitely my favourite! (Although the others are great too) I will not shut up about them/hj
He's just so unintentionally nonchalant about everything and takes every so seriously to the point where it's almost comedic, sort of like Saiki in 'The Disastrous Life of Saiki K' in a way.
I'll be hoping to post Idris best friend next week, and if I have time, a few of Idris's family members. They do need redesigning though because I've decided to change a few things about the setting.
Made another little town in the TL universe that's somehow worse than Providence AND Copper Springs. A warm hearty welcome to Knowhere, a sleepy little town in the middle of Not Maine
Summary: Some wishes just don’t come true... Or maybe they just need a little time.
Note: Part 1 of the folklore project! Most of these are gonna be quite short and this one if no exception. Hope you like it :-)
--
The amount of times you’ve almost called Nate isn’t something you’re proud to admit to, but if you’re honest it’s probably at least twice a day.
Now it’s not like you’re still that hurt. Sure, after you’d just broken up you were a mess: it was all tears flowing into wine glasses and wearing old hoodies that smelled like him, your friends taking your phone away from you because you couldn’t stop staring at his Instagram and still making his favorite dishes for yourself.
You thought you’d never recover.
“If you never bleed you’re never gonna grow,” your best friend had wisely said, one night when you were crying on her couch again, watching sappy romantic comedies that did nothing to improve your mood.
It wasn’t something you were ready to hear, back then, but it turned out she was right. You were alright, now, and the whole experienced changed you for the better.
You started saying yes instead of no. Doing some cool shit on your own. And you were sure he was doing cool stuff, too, thought about it sometimes.
Had he met someone new?
“Dating isn’t really for me,” Nate had shrugged once. “I can’t really just go on Tinder and meet someone.”
Maybe he had, though, maybe he had met someone on the internet and taken her home and now they were happy together in the way that you and him used to be.
Back before everything went wrong, back when you still believed he loved you.
Sometimes, you think you see him at the bus stop.
It’s never him, though.
--
“I’m not drunk,” you giggled, high heels clicking on cobblestones. Nate’s arm was securely wrapped around your waist, holding you tight. “I’m just living the Greece life.”
“Greek life, you mean?” Nate steered you around a particular crooked stone with the easiness of someone who had been doing it a while.
Your first vacation together was one to Greece, with some of his teammates and their significant others, too. Tonight, rosé had been flowing freely during dinner and now the world was tilting on its axes right before your eyes.
It was fine, though. Nate always kept you safe, and you had no doubt it would be like that now, too.
“Nathan,” you declared, your voice slurring a little. “I think I love you.”
“You think?” Nate raised an eyebrow, though the corners of his mouth were lifting up.
“No, I know,” you corrected. “Like, those guys are family, you know? Your family. But now mine too, cause I chose them.”
Nate’s lips were soft, pressed against your forehead. “You’re drunk,” he mumbled, sounding fond. “But you are my family, too.”
“If I could make a wish right now I would wish for you to be with me forever,” you told him. You pulled your lips into a pout as you looked around. “I’ve got a penny, but there’s no wells here.”
Nate seemed to think for a second, and then his face lit up. He got that determined look on his face that he usually only got on the ice, like he made a decision and the world would have to end for him to give up on it.
“Come with me,” he said, and he started pulling you with him. It was dark around you, but the stars were brighter than they ever were at home in Colorado, and you would’ve followed Nate into the black abyss if needed, anyway.
The air was thick with the heat of the summer day, and you could hear the ocean rushing somewhere far away. Somehow, you kicked off your heels and held them in one hand, Nate’s hand tightly in the other, as you followed him.
The pool shone bright blue in the darkness, like a magical glow.
“It’s not a well,” Nate said, grinning, as he handed you a penny. “But water is water, and I don’t think the penny will notice.”
“It might,” you protested, mostly to be cheeky. “Pools have chlorine, I don’t think wells have chlorine.”
“If you don’t throw the penny I might throw you,” Nate threatened, and you shrieked as he wrapped his arms around you and pretended to push you towards the water.
To be fair, it was still very warm outside, and you wouldn’t mind a little dip.
Making the wish, however, seemed more important.
You closed your eyes, inhaled the air filled with the scent of chlorine and salt, and threw the penny.
“I won’t ask you what the wish was,” Nate whispered in your ear. “But I hope it had to do with me.”
You never told him your wish. Because if your wish had come true, well, it would’ve been him. He would’ve been the one.
But it wasn’t. So. Maybe pennies do know the differences between a well and a pool.
--
It’s exactly a year after that night in Greece that you see a familiar head of hair in front of you at a movie theatre and your heart starts beating very quickly.
You probably should just let him go.
But.
In your defense...
Well, you have none. You shouldn’t dig up this grave another time, should just leave this alone.
But. You were never very good at that.
“Nate?” Your voice is quiet. The movie is still going on, but Nate stepped out, presumably to get some popcorn, and you’re not even that ashamed to admit you followed him out of the theatre.
There was once a time where you would’ve followed him anywhere, so.
He swirls around so fast you’re almost sure he must be dizzy, but his eyes fix on yours right away.
“Y/N,” he says, and he sounds... happy, to see you, which is somehow not what you expected. “That’s a coincidence, to see you here!”
“Escaping the movie?” you ask. Your voice sounds far away and it’s shaking, a little, and that’s probably because your heart is beating in your throat.
He laughs. “I guess the greatest film of all time was never made.”
It transports you back immediately, to your first date. You went to see a movie, back then, too, but it hadn’t been great. The conversation had come to your favorite movies and Nate had asked you what the greatest film of all time was, in your opinion.
“I’ve not yet seen a film I loved enough for it to be the greatest film of all time,” you had shrugged. “So I’m hoping it’s still gonna be made.”
“I think I knew you were my soulmate when you said that,” Nate had said later, eyes shining in a dark bedroom, sheets tangled around your legs.
“Y/N?” Nate asks now, and the current Nate looks a lot like the Nate you loved, but he’s a little bigger, buffer, stronger. His jaw seems sharper and there’s a stubble to his chin you’re not used to.
You shouldn’t say it, but. But, but, but...
“We were quite something, don’t you think so?”
Something flashes across Nate’s face that you don’t recognize, which is an awful feeling because you used to be able to read him like an open book. But then he smiles.
“We sure did make it count.”
There’s an edge of sadness there, or maybe it’s nostalgia. You’re not quite sure, you just know that you had some of your best times with Nate, and maybe if he had shown you how much he wanted you, back then, everything would be different, now.
Time and time again, you’ve resisted the temptation to ask, but now that he’s right here, you can’t resist it anymore.
“If one thing had been different, do you think everything would be different today?”
“Sometimes I wonder that, too,” Nate says, which you suppose is answer enough in itself. “It would’ve been fun, no?”
You must seem confused, because Nate smiles at you again.
“It would’ve been fun if you would’ve been the one.”
You wonder if he still could be. The greatest loves of all time have been over many times before.
“Do you wanna get some coffee?” he asks. There’s a red glint on his cheeks and he’s avoiding your gaze. He seems nervous.
Summary: seven // august by Taylor Swift
Words: 2k
Note: I was just minding my own business, thinking I wasn’t gonna bother with the folklore project anymore, when someone asked if I would write for Leon. Does this answer your question? Not proofread, we die like men.
--
Leon remembers you.
Sure, it’s a little fuzzy around the edges, the way memories will get when they’re stored away for so long. He was only seven when he knew you, and the storyline has become frazzled; he doesn’t always remember your face exactly, and he knows your name only because his mom told him.
He still remembers he loved you, though. Thinks he loves you still, now.
He remembers the swing over the creek. It had felt like a million feet in the sky, back then, but looking back it was only a tiny swing built with ropes and planks found at random sheds around the neighborhood. He doesn’t know how many of the neighbor’s kids had helped built it, but he remembers how you used to giggle as you swung across the creek.
You loved the creek, told him time and time again how it was the most beautiful thing in the world. Sometimes, you said it was the only beautiful thing in the world, and that’s where Leon would disagree.
After all, you were beautiful, too.
You never jumped into the water, always too scared, even though he used to tell you it’d be fine.
“I wouldn’t let anything hurt you,” he said, and your smile was always soft.
“I know. Still not jumping.”
There were other things you would trust him to protect you from, though.
“I think your house is haunted,” Leon said, wrapping his small arms around your tiny body. You were shivering a little, tears streaking down your face. “That’s why your dad is always mad.”
Your dad would scream all the time, so loudly Leon could hear it even from his house. You lived next to him but the houses weren’t that close together, and Leon didn’t think it was normal that he could hear.
His mom would tell him to ignore it, but how could he? If your dad was screaming, that meant you were crying, Leon had learned, and if you were crying he couldn’t just do nothing.
So he climbed through your window.
It wasn’t easy but Leon was strong for his age and there was a big oak tree next to your house that could be used as a ladder if only he managed to jump high enough the reach the first branch.
Somehow he managed to get into your room and you’d ran to him immediately, throwing yourself at him until he hugged you tight.
Even at that age, there was nothing Leon hated more than to see you cry.
“You should come live with me,” Leon mumbled into your ear. “We can be pirates, and then you won’t have to cry.”
“If I go live with you, would I learn how to skate?” you sniffed in response. You’d been bugging Leon about teaching you how to skate, because he was so good at it and you loved watching him fly across the ice.
He always looked so free, and you longed to feel that type of freedom in the form of the icy wind on your face.
Suddenly, before Leon could have answered, another thought occurred to you.
“Your parents wouldn’t want me to live with you.”
Leon shrugged. “You can hide in the closet whenever they come into my bedroom. Or you could pack your dolls and a sweater and we’ll move to India forever.”
Of course neither of these options were possible, but at age seven, it feels like everything in the world is a possibility if you just want it hard enough.
You had never wanted anything more.
“Why India?” you questioned.
Leon noticed your breathing had calmed down while talking to him, and you weren’t crying anymore. Even for that reason alone, he started talking more; about your neighbor across the street who came from India and gave you candy all the time, about his white family dog that had rolled through the freshly mowed grass and ended up colored key lime green, about pirates and princesses and a talking mouse.
He made up stories until you fell asleep, and then he wondered if one day, the story of you two would become a story that people told each other, too. He liked the thought of that: your love would last until nobody told your story anymore.
And Leon wanted your love to last forever.
--
But things don’t usually go the way you want them to.
--
The August heat is sweltering, sticky and heavy the way only August can be. It’s not like that in July, not in Germany, where July still holds a hint of spring, with crispy mornings and darkness setting early evening. In September, the leaves will change color and the air will hold the smell of rain, but in August, there’s just the heat.
“I can’t believe you canceled on me for him.” Your best friend’s voice doesn’t sound upset per se, but it sounds disbelieving. To be fair, it’s really not something you would normally do.
But.
Leon is lying face down in the grass, tiny droplets of sweat forming onto the tanned skin of his back where his spine dips. You can’t imagine it’s comfortable to have the grass pressing into his face, even though it was freshly mowed this morning; you can still smell the scent of it, if you really try.
“I’m sorry,” you tell her before you hang up. You’re not sure if you mean it.
When you canceled your plans to go swimming with her, this morning, you hadn’t even known if Leon was going to call at all. You canceled just in case he would, and you’d been glad for it when your phone rang early afternoon.
“Meet me behind the mall,” was his greeting. “Ice cream. My treat.”
The heat melted your ice cream fast enough that it was dripping down your fingers before you could even get halfway through, and Leon had laughed at you as he stuffed his entire ice cream cone in his mouth in two bites.
You only got him back three months ago.
You let your eyes fall back onto Leon. His eyes are closed, eyelashes fluttering against his cheek, but you know he’s not sleeping.
Sometimes, when you look at him, you remember that you’re on a time limit, and you wish you could just write your name into his skin, so he’ll always just be yours. You don’t like the idea that he’ll go back to Canada and belong to the city of Edmonton, and forget about you.
You allow yourself the simply pleasure of tracing his spine with your index finger, featherlight; his muscles jump where your finger passes.
“Hmm,” Leon hums, not opening his eyes. It’s an acknowledgement that he’s awake, but it doesn’t seem like he feels the need to move or say anything.
To be fair, it’s way too hot for that.
“It’s kinda crazy that we ran into each other like that,” you whisper. Your hand reaches the part of his spine where his back meets his ass and you let your hand rest there, not daring to go any further.
Leon opens his eyes, now.
“I recognized you right away,” he says, with a smile. “We hadn’t talked in years.”
“Since we were seven,” you agree.
“But it felt like we never missed a beat.”
--
You ran into Leon at a coffee shop, back in May, and you’d just been pouring sugar into your latte when you’d heard your name, in a voice that was foreign and familiar all at the same time.
You didn’t have to search your brain for who it was.
“Leon!”
Leon had been all smiles and polite chatter, but he looked so tired and worn out, and you weren’t the slightest bit surprised when he ordered a triple espresso.
“You won’t sleep for the next week,” you’d joked, and Leon had replied: “Wasn’t going to, anyway.”
You still don’t know why he’d immediately decided to trust you, but he’d asked you to sit down for coffee and you hadn’t been busy so you’d agreed.
He told you about where he worked now, in Edmonton. Played hockey for a living, in the NHL. He’d come home for the summer because they’d not made the playoffs, again. You didn’t really know exactly what that meant but you could tell it pained Leon to talk about it, so you hadn’t asked.
He said he was tired, and that he wished he could skip summer entirely, but also wished summer would last forever. That he felt like he could sleep for months, but when the night fell, his brain never seemed to quiet down enough for him to actually fall asleep.
That he remembered you, from when you were seven. Leon’s parents had moved when you were seven, and there hadn’t really been any way for you to stay friends. But he remembered a lot.
You talked about the swing over the creek, that wasn’t there anymore. It broke when you were nine, sent a neighboring kid down into the creek with a splash. It was one of the kids that used to make mean jokes about your father, so you hadn’t felt bad for him.
Your father left when you were 11, and you hadn’t really felt bad about that, either.
When you were 8, you dressed up like a pirate for Halloween, but it didn’t feel quite the same, without Leon.
You still braided your hair. Leon still knew how to braid it for you.
At the end of it, Leon had said he would like to see you again and you’d exchanged numbers.
You don’t think you’ve ever wanted a call so much in your life.
--
There’s a small problem, with your current arrangement with Leon.
Namely, that he’s going to go back to Edmonton at the end of August, and you’re falling in love with him.
You should’ve known.
“Want another one?”
Leon holds up the half empty bottle of wine, raising a questioning eyebrow. You’d been staring into space, you realize, and he noticed it, because he somehow always notices everything about you.
“Sure,” you answer, holding out your glass and letting him pour the wine.
There’s a fire crackling in your backyard. The night isn’t cold, on the contrary, but fires are somewhat of a summer staple around the neighborhood and Leon has made it somewhat of a hobby to build the most perfect one.
“You’ve been thinking very loudly,” Leon says.
You turn to look at him. The orange glow of the fire illuminates the bright blue of his eyes, and there’s shadows cast onto his face. It makes him even more beautiful than he always is and there’s almost something magical about it.
You almost say it, then.
What happens when I lose you?
Almost, but not quite.
“Thinking about you,” you answer instead, and it’s not a lie but it’s not the truth either. Leon takes it the way you knew he would, and he reaches out and extends his hand towards you. You stand up and go to him willingly, let yourself curl into his lap, your face hidden in the crook where his neck meets his shoulder, his strong arms wrapped around you like armor.
He’s everywhere, all around you, and it becomes less scary when you’re this close to him.
Leon’s voice is soft when he mutters you name.
“Yeah?”
“I know this is probably not the right thing to say this, but I need you to know that I want August to last forever.”
He doesn’t have to tell you what the words really mean, beneath the surface, where the truth always hides.
It can’t happen, but I want this. I want us.
You suppose sometimes, wanting is enough. At least for right now.
You kiss him, then, press your lips against his in the most careful way. He tastes like red wine and like the smoke of the fire, the freshly mowed grass, the heat of the day.
He feels like summer.
--
When Leon goes home, he kisses you so deeply you can feel it tingle in your toes, but he doesn’t promise you he’ll call.
You guess you can’t live for the hope of it all forever, and sometimes wanting isn’t enough after all. You hadn’t really thought that it would be.
You’d always known you’d lose him to hockey: and maybe in a way, he was never yours to lose.
So August slips away into a moment in time, sipped away with a bottle of red wine, tangled up in white sheets. And September comes with her golden leaves and the crispy mornings and the rain heavy in the air, and Leon doesn’t call and summer feels like forever ago.
YES!! Now THATS what im talking about!!! This is sooo gonna be me as I get wiser.
Ione Nash
Ione Nash's career in dancing started in 1950, when she was in her late 20s. She had been discouraged from dancing when she was young and took it up only when she could manage it for herself. She was first drawn to ballet but expanded to modern, jazz, tap, and interpretive dance (as African dance was called at the time). In 1960, when Ms. Nash opened her dance school in the 5800 block of Germantown Avenue, she was the first African American to open a business on that street. She had to go to court to keep the right for her drummers to perform. Times have changed. But nearly 35 years later, Ms. Nash is still dancing and still teaching - and the vitality of the local African dance scene can be partly credited to her early efforts.
Ms. Nash's dance background is broad: she has studied ballet, ethnic, modern and jazz dance, as well as African dance forms. She worked with Haitian dancer John Hines and Ghanaian dancer Saka Acquaye, who founded an African dance troupe in Philadelphia. From 1958 to 1960, she was one of 10 dancers in Acquaye's ensemble. Other important teachers were Marion Cuyjet (with whom she danced on pointe), Savilla Forte (from whom Ms. Nash learned the Dunham technique), Olatunji, Ernie Pahan, Joe Nash, and Olive Bowser. Over the years, Ms. Nash has performed in a variety of settings. In earlier days, she danced with John Hines on the cabaret circuit in Philadelphia's Crystal Ballroom and in various New York venues. From 1960 to 1963, she danced as a partner with Arthur Hall.
She founded her own company, the Ione Nash Dance Ensemble (INDE) in 1960. INDE's repertoire mixes Brazilian, Haitian, and Congolese dance with an American influence and includes such pieces as "Dance of the Witch Doll," "Fire Dance," "Dances of the Sacred Skull," "African Stool Dance," and "Warrior and the Panther." The dancers perform in costumes they create themselves, including traditional Samba skirts, raffia skirts, scarves, and beadwork.
Ms. Nash's many years of contribution to the Philadelphia dance community have been honored by the Stockton Rush Bartol Foundation, at Movement Theatre International's Philly Dance Africa, and by Ekuejo at the University City Arts League, where former students and their children commented that they were amazed and inspired to see her still dancing.
