#l7d

[esseastri]

anyway I wrote 5k words today who wants to see some of it

HEY LOOK AT MY GARBAGE BOYS THERE THEY ARE ONE IS A DUMPSTER FIRE AND ONE IS GOOD SWEET COMPOST BUT THEY ARE BOTH GARBAGE AND I LOVE THEM

[esseastri]

“I am afraid, but it doesn’t matter.”

A Last Seven Deaths aesthetic for the now-completed first draft. I have no self-control and I’m a little bit in love with this book that I wrote. On to edits!

sources: (x)(x)(x)(x)(x)(x)(x)(x)

[esseastri]

SCREAMS FOREVER

I?? FINISHED?

MY BOOK?

[esseastri]

For those of you wondering why you haven't been allowed to read L7D yet: these are the revision post-it notes for the first 20 pages alone. We've got a long way to go until beta reading is a thing...

[esseastri]

you guys know that Ekshan is basically just a Persuasion AU without the boats and the letters and with extra swords, right?

[esseastri]

FUN THINGS TO DO WITH YOUR AFTERNOON:

say, “Hey, I’ll go to the library so I can write without distractions like the internet!” and then proceed to write the saddest goddamn part of your entire book iN PUBLIC AND HAVE TO TRY REALLY HARD NOT TO CRY AND MAKE THE CUTE OLD COUPLE SITTING IN THE COMFY CHAIRS NEXT TO YOU UNCOMFORTABLE.

In other words,

guys, I finished Part 4 of L7D and also cried in public today, so you take the win with the loss, you know.

[esseastri]

Eks/Ashan, Hallmark movie style

shit. that’s. that’s good. that’s damn good.

.

It hits her then, watching Ashan dance with some other girl, everything she could have had, everything she wanted, everything she could still get if she only admits her own mistakes, her own misgivings, her own fears. She shakes herself free of Peg’s grip on her arm and pushes her way through the dance floor, up to the stage, and asks the band for a moment with the microphone.

“Sorry to interrupt,” she says as the crowd quiets and turns to face the stage, and she almost freezes, almost curls right up in a ball and dies of fear with all those people staring at her, but she finds Ashan’s face in the crowd, keeps her eyes locked on Ashan’s curious gaze. “I just need to say something that I should have said years ago. Ashan, I love you. I’ve always loved you. And people kept telling me that I shouldn’t, that I shouldn’t hold you back, that I shouldn’t drag you with me through all the…crazy ups and downs I’ve had over the years. And I listened to them, and that the biggest mistake I ever made. Because even if I don’t deserve you, even if I never should have loved you, I do. And I didn’t stop, and I can’t stop, and I don’t want to stop. And if you’ll accept this apology and know that I’m stupid for having listened to some kind of logic instead of my heart, then maybe…maybe we can start over. And maybe this time, I won’t leave. And maybe this time, we can…”

She trails off as Ashan pushes her way to the front of the crowd, and Eks slides off the stage to meet her, and Ashan catches her and kisses her, right there, in front of Peg, in front of everyone. Long and hard and half-desperate. A long time coming.

“I thought you hated me,” Ashan says, pulling back just far enough that Eks can see her smile. “You never responded to my letters, and you left so suddenly, and then you came back but you were so distant. I thought you’d forgotten me and I didn’t want to… I thought you’d moved on, and so I tried to, too, but I–”

“I don’t ever want to move on, ever again,” Eks said, smiling and wrapping her arms more tightly around Ashan. “If you’re staying here, then I am, too.” Ashan smiled, and kissed her again, and the band started playing again and they danced. And everything was right again.

.

god I love Hallmark movies this is EXACTLY HOW CHEESY IT SHOULD BE

[esseastri]

femslash february drabble 3 for @kogiopsis

Eks/Ashan 8 or 35

Funnily enough, both of these can be snippets from canon or backstory, and they actually work...together. Have a backstory.

8. As an apology; 35. As a goodbye

The sea glittered in the morning sun, startlingly blue even in the dawn, the sun just cresting the watery horizon. Peg kept her hand on Eks’ elbow, half-guiding, half-dragging her through the city toward the Beach Gate.

It would have to be the Beach Gate.

“It will be easier without goodbyes,” Peg said quietly as they drew nearer the gate. She did a terrible job of masking the bitterness in her voice, the aching anger that she was forcing Eks to do what had been done to her so long ago. “Trust me.”

“You can’t stop me,” Eks muttered, the same bitterness in her. “I’ll come back.”

“You won’t,” Peg said. “You will do what must be done. I told you not to get attached.”

It was a moot point now. Eks had already done that, and there was no way to undo it. Peg sighed, the dark figure leaning against the wall in the shadow of the gate standing up as they approached. Her dark hair hung loose about her shoulders, her perfect eyebrows were drawn together in a frown, her scarred hands were stuffed in the pockets of her comfortable linen trousers. And Eks felt her lungs collapse; suddenly it was impossible to breathe, and she didn’t care.

Peg’s grip on her elbow tightened a second, hesitating, before she let go. Letting Eks go to her. She didn’t have much choice. Not with Ashan standing there in the dawn, practically glowing as the sun reflected off the sea in the place where they had fallen in love by accident.

Eks reached her, steps slow and hesitant. The longer she took to reach Ashan, the longer she could see her, drink in the sight of her, not have to look away and never see her again. She stopped two steps away, memorizing the angles of her face in the morning light, the way the sun turned her skin to gold.

“Don’t go,” she said. As if it were that simple.

“I have to,” Eks whispered, and her heart hurt, her head hurt, her lungs hurt, and her hands curled into fists so that Ashan could not see the way they trembled. But Ashan reached up and put one hand against Eks’ cheek and knew anyway.

“You don’t,” she said quietly. “But if you didn’t, then you wouldn’t be who you are, and I wouldn’t--” she stopped. The two steps of space between them was an ocean. Ashan stepped over the ocean somehow, miraculous in her strength as always, and leaned down to press her lips to Eks’, tender, fierce, longing, angry. Lonely.

Already lonely.

“I love you,” Eks breathed against her, and she meant it, but she meant other things too, things she couldn’t ever say. Apologies and explanations and justifications and more apologies. And goodbyes.

Ashan stepped back and let the ocean rush in to fill the space she vacated, her hand dropping away. Eks caught it, a lifeline in a storm, and squeezed so hard she thought their bones might break.

“Ashan--”

She merely shook her head. “I know,” she said. “I know.”

Peg’s hand was on her shoulder again, pulling Eks away with silent apologies glowing across her impassive face. Eks did not let go of Ashan’s hand until the last possible moment, her fingertips straining to reach behind her until the space between them grew from an ocean to the vast vacuum of the sky.

“I warned you not to get attached,” Peg said as the Beach Gate closed behind them. Eks said nothing, staring back at the space where Ashan had been, feeling the empty space in her vision mirrored in the empty chasm in her heart.

“I know,” she said quietly.

“Apologies, Hannadreksia,” Peg said, and Eks heard her own pain manifest in her teacher’s voice.

“I know,” she said again. She didn’t know what else to say.

.