honestly, it’s terrifying a bit. with her smaller backpack’s straps hanging off of her shoulders loosely, her hair tied up in a tight ponytail in the hopes of the style making her seem a bit smarter – she even bought a nerdy looking pair of glasses that had non-prescribed lens to give it all and make her appearance perfect, but now that she’s here, she feels out of place. maybe she tried too much to fit in?
and for nothing. because the students who pass by her don’t have anything intidimating about their looks as she had expected; instead, they seem almost disappointingly normal. well, hopefully her groupmates won’t write her off as a try-hard. it’s not like they know the glasses are just for show, right?
her class is starting soon but there’s some unknown force that enroots jisoo’s feet into the ground, making her unable to move. she’s jus staring at the enormous building of the university, still not quite wanting to believe that she’s really here. reapplying for the scholarship after last year’s failure was completely on a whim – jisoo never actually believed that she would be awarded it. sure, she did work for it, but everyone else who applies for scholarship is in the same shoes, aren’t they?
nevertheless, it’s silly to contemplate such things now, causing herself an unnecessary drop in her mood. she did it, she is here, that is all what matters. she knows it’s going to tons of fun even if she would have to study twice as much as before and she never liked that, so why is she even here in the first place? that’s a rhetorical question, and jisoo knows that, too; she may need to learn more at a university, but at least, she will study only things she’s actually interested in. no more korean literature, no more torturing history classes.
Briony’s plans for after graduation went almost exactly as planned. At least at first. She visited with Luka’s family in Italy and began her garden in the plot she’d been given for her birthday. When she returned home, she sat down with her parents and spoke about everything that had gone on in the last year, and before that.
All problems between her and her parents, especially her father, were sorted out, and when she told her mother what she wanted to do, they both accepted it with enthusiasm.
And so for a couple years she worked with her mother in her flower shop, learning the ropes and learning about the business part of it as well. Once she felt she knew everything, and once Luka managed to find an apartment, she moved to Italy with him. She found the perfect location for a store, and within a year it was open and thriving, selling mundane and magical plants alike.
Her family life was everything she’d wanted. She and Luka had kids, more than she ever expected, but she loved every one and always said if more were to come, they would find a way to handle it. And they did, she took her kids to work with her, and was delighted to find most actually enjoyed the days at work, which worked out seeing as both she and Luka had successful jobs.
Life wasn’t easy, per say, but it was everything Briony could have hoped for. She had a family that cared for each other, no matter any differences, a job she had dreamed about, and everything was perfectly imperfect, as she’d remind everyone when things became strained. And no matter how tired she became, no matter how stressed, she wouldn't change anything for the world.
When: 14 March 2016
Where: Mainly at the Russo home
Who: Dalton and Malina “Lina” Russo
Summary: It’s Lina’s birthday and the day goes the same as all her past birthdays. Though this time, she asks a question Dalton was not yet prepared for.
“Daddy, I”m ready for school!”
Dalton, in the middle of doing his eyeliner, looked away from his bathroom mirror to see Malina at his doorway. About to tell her to go eat some of the breakfast he made, he notices her outfit and smiles.
Red jeans, plain black shirt, and black converse.
The exact outfit he was wearing.
“I’m almost done, sweetie. Why don’t you go to the kitchen and eat? I made your favorite. Chocolate chip pancakes!” Her smile widens as she gasps in excitement and runs out his room, then turns back to the mirror to finish getting ready.
--
Both still in the same outfit, it was now dinner time and the two were eating Lina’s favorite meal. Well her current one anyways. Bacon Mac N’Cheese. They were watching Big Hero 6 as they ate, sat on the floor in front of the TV.
“Daddy?” His attention snaps away from the screen, giving Lina a gentle smile as his gaze falls to her. “I know you says they don’t matter very much...but...does I have a present?”
“Of course. You always get one from me. I thought you’d never ask,” he chuckles, reaching to a spot behind them to get the neatly wrapped box he had somehow successfully hid. “Happy birthday, princess.”
Her giggles filled the air as she put her plate next to her and took a hold of the box. She shook it slightly before taking the bow that was taped on it and placed it at the top of her head. “Pretty?”
“Very.” He gives a thumbs up and takes out his phone to take a picture.
Tearing away at the paper and opening the box, she gasps excitedly and takes out a lavender dress. It was simple yet elegant enough for her birthday tea party. “I loves it! Thank you da-” Her attention gets caught by another thing in the box and moves the tissue paper around until it reveals a small leather jacket.
“It’s a dress for your party. I know you don’t have a dress that color and you can wear this one whenever you’d like unlike the other ones you have. And the jacket is so you can still be like daddy. Princess with an edge,” he smiles.
Lina picks up the jacket and tries it on. But not before carefully placing the dress back in the box. “It fits! And looks like yours! Thanks yous!” She tackles him into a hug, his own arms immediately wrapping around her.
“Don’t thank me, thank Uncle David. He helped pick it out. The dress I mean.”
“Is Uncle David coming?”
“He’s gonna try, sweetie. Work got him super busy.”
“Oh. Okays.” Her eyes go back to the screen on the TV just as Tadashi mentions his and Hiro’s parents. “Daddy?”
“Yes, princess?”
“Where’s mommy?” Dalton froze at the question. “I always sees my friends with their mommies. And I gets asked where mines is. They sees Freya and Bryce sometimes. And they think they’re my mommy. Are they?” Her blue eyes look up at his sea green ones, filled with curiosity.
“N-no, sweetheart. They’re just friends of ours.”
“Oh...then where’s mommy? Is she here when I’s sleeping?”
With every word she spoke, his heart sank a little.
He couldn’t tell her that her mother had literally left her. Gone with out a trace.
He couldn’t tell her that she was cliche-ly left at her father’s doorstep. --Even if he could, it wasn’t his doorstep. It was David’s.
Then he would have had to explain how he wasn’t biologically her father, and that technically both her biological parents didn’t want her.
He couldn’t tell her any of this.
Not yet anyways.
He shakes his head slightly. “Lina, sweetheart. Mommy...Your mom...she...” Dalton couldn’t find any words to say. Couldn’t even try to make up a lie.
However Lina seemed to pick up the general message and looked down, a frown evident on her face. “ I don’t have one...”
Tears started to form in his eyes as he heard soft sniffles from her. “I’m so sorry, Malina,” he whispers, his hold on her tightening a bit. “I don’t understand what happened. But she’s...she’s just gone.” Kissing the top of her head, he rocks them back and forth slightly.
Little sobs escape Lina’s lips as she tucks herself into Dalton’s chest. “I wants a mommy...”
“I know, baby girl. I want you to have a mommy, too. --Do you wanna share a mommy? I’m sure grandma won’t mind,” he says, joking slightly.
Though Linda shakes her head no. “Who gonna be grandma then?” she ask after a few moments.
“You know, if you think about it. I’m kinda both daddy and mommy.” He explains to her how he’s always taken care of her, how he’s able to pick all her clothes without too much trouble, does most things that “only mommies do”; just basically everything he’s ever done for her.
She nods, somewhat understanding, and calms down a little. “Can I still has a mommy though?”
“One day, sweetheart.” He kisses the top of her head again, turning off the TV and silently declaring it’s time for bed. “I promise.”
It wasn’t much of an issue for Beau to gain access to Brooklyn’s stuff. She was so often out of her room, that he’d managed to work out her schedule in just a couple of days, using his nightly astral adventures to look through her planner. He also made sure he knew exactly where she kept everything, so he wouldn’t have to be inside for very long; just in case. Getting a key was a little more difficult, so he bypassed that by studying the locks instead and working out a good method for picking them.
So when Beau was sure Brooklyn would be out, he slipped in, going straight for her underthings, and packing them all into a bag he’d brought along. He thought about wiping her external hard drive while he was there, but that was just for his own purposes, and Unknown might not like his straying from the goal. He’d brought along a few strands of Ezra’s hair that he’d lifted previously, and put them in some choice places in regards to the underwear. He didn’t think DNA testing would be involved, but Brooklyn might see them and it would help his case later.
There was a sketchy moment where he thought he heard the door open, and Beau readied himself to slip into the astral world if needed, but it turned out to be nothing. So he slipped out as quickly and effortlessly as he’d gone in, bag now in hand, and headed to Ezra’s to stash the goods in an out-of-the-way place, certain no one had seen him on Brooklyn’s floor at all.
It wasn’t unusual for Briony to get letters from her parents separately; her father would send her letters from wherever he was for work. What was different was the scrawl on the front that she could barely read as her name. Her father’s handwriting wasn’t the neatest, but this was something she’d never seen before. Curious and confused, Briony opened the letter, but what she read was far from anything she could have imagined.
Briony, love,
I don’t want to do this for you. My hand is shaking even writing this letter, and I know that what I’m about to ask is unfair and something that you should never have to be a part of.
Lately, it seems like all of you children are a part of something that you shouldn’t be. I can’t keep pretending that you’re a little girl anymore, even when I want to. You’ve been through a lot, and I suppose this is my way to try and ensure that you don’t have to go through more.
I can’t tell you everything. I know this will be hard to understand, but I promise that I’ll tell you more as soon as we can see each other over your break. A letter.. isn’t the way that I want to do this. Right now, however, I have no choice.
You can’t ask me how I know, and I can’t tell you, but I need you to read this very carefully and do what I ask. You’ve always understood the importance of some things, Briony, and I’m thankful for that. This is one of the most important things I have ever asked you to do.
I have knowledge that people are plotting against Aaron Cohen. I can’t tell you who, and I can’t tell you why. Only the bare minimum, love, and only because it’s the only way. If I could do this myself, that’s all I would do.
He’s in danger, Briony, and I can’t tell him or warn him myself. It would be far too suspicious. It wouldn’t work. I’ve gone through different ways in my head, over and over, but none of them end the way they need to, except for one. You.
Contact Aaron’s son. He’s one of your classmates. Tell him what I said, show him this letter, whatever you need to do to get him to believe you. It’s important that he does. It’s important that he believes you enough to warn his father.
A letter from a son to a father won’t be looked at the way anything else would.
I want to apologize again. I hate this more than you can imagine. I love you, Briony, and if I didn’t absolutely need your help, I swear to you I wouldn’t ask it.
We’ll talk again soon. I love you.
- Dad
By the time she had reached the sign off, Briony’s hands were shaking just as her father’s hands had been while writing it. Memories of the summer flooded back; the strange voice from the fireplace, the odd conversation she overheard, her father’s angered attitude during the attack on Diagon Alley... She had never worked up the courage to ask about any of it, too afraid he’d be angry at her for eavesdropping. But now she wished she had, because this letter was far from a normal letter a dad would send his daughter.
After those thoughts left her mind came an even scarier thought; what this letter was actually saying. Somehow her father had gotten information on an attack on one of the Advisers to the Minister, and it was up to her to tell his son so she could warn him? None of this made sense, none of it was right. She had too many questions; how did her father know this? What if he was wrong? What if Ezra didn’t believe her? What if Mister Cohen died because of her? Briony suddenly felt dizzy and if she hadn’t been sitting, she knew she would have lost her balance.
She knew she was getting odd looks from the others in her common room, and so she quickly tucked the letter away. After a couple deep breaths, Briony felt the wave of dizziness pass and then she was on her feet. She may not understand it completely, but she knew one thing for certain. She needed to find Ezra Cohen.
skin rubbed raw against burlap, blackness under moonlit sky fades into blackness fades into you. your hands are nowhere to be found and the silk is sticky and heavy against your back. you only know your head is still there from the throbbing in your skull. fists pound against bone but to you this cranial space is empty without thought. where are the thoughts? where are your thoughts?
outside of your own body, your voice whines in cracking sobs. your entire body aches when you cannot think. your nerve endings send messages to your brain; all you know is that it hurts, a cognative brick wall of pain. who told you to seek this fate? you are but a child.
they carry you with brutish force, knees jabbing you, knocking you around. every time you hit the ground the cycle begins again: skin rubbed raw against burlap, blackness blending into blackness, seeping into your skull, liquid vacancy pouring through your eyes, your nose, your lips. where are your thoughts? who told you to seek this fate?
the universe holds no answers for you (or perhaps it does, but fear and pain and punches of solid emptiness flood your skull until you cannot hear them). only blackness, fading into blackness, fading into you. fading, fading, fading.
gone.
ii.
outside yourself, this dimension is a rhythmic thudding, cement so cold it numbs your muscles and feels like cotton. behind your eyelids, a world is dreaming for you.
a wooden closet door slides open in the early morning. you are four, living in a large cardboard box with cut-up memory foam bedding and downy quilts. an older boy smiles at you.
“help my pick out my outfit, soosoo! did you prepare my bag last night? did you see the books i brought you? am i going to be late?”
giggling, you push open the closet door and slip clothes off their hangers, throwing them at the boy's face, singing hyungie! over and over again at the top of your lungs. “hyungie, you should really wake up earlier!”
before he leaves for school, you hug his legs; he ruffles your hair, kisses your forehead.
“i'll miss you, hyungie!”
“i'll be home before you know it.”
the door slams shut and the ground dissolves into the golden frame of a polished chandelier. twelve now, looking down at your human family, your mutant family, each and everyone with an aluminium death sentence clasped around their wrists. the end happens so quickly, and everything in the middle is a fast-forward blur of smiles and pillow fights and reading aloud in dramatic voices and asking questions and homework together, curled up under the blankets to watch lightning perform from the window, hyungie, what does this word mean? and neatly wrapped books every weekend. none of this you can hold onto; the picture that sears itself into your mind is the end, the one that happens so quickly but so clearly. those warm brown eyes overheating, on fire; nothing left to do but be the first to march in the front lines of a war owed to a con artist who demands one.
iii.
the war is a call to duty, one that teaches you how powerful your mind can be, how knowledge is the ultimate weapon. you learn yourself through and through and the scar on your left index finger tells you that you are weaponized to win. the venom in your teeth and the silk concealed beneath your fingertips tell you you are here to fight, and that the only fuel you need is revenge.
brains and hearts, you learn, are too different to function together before desire and brokenness bring them together. you meet love incarnate visiting a child in the hospital, collateral damage you've bandaged up and dropped off. he catches you sleeping against the wall in the hallway, and you catch him following you out the hospital. he knows you are the one who saved the boy with spidersilk bandages, and eventually, lets you know his own secret. yet again, everything in the middle passes so quickly and you wish every day that you could've held on better, but it's hard to keep a hold of those seconds when you focus too hard on the boy whose apartment you've made your home, and whose smile makes your heart his. time slips from between your fingertips until the wall against your i love yous becomes too much to bear and you ask him to show you he cares.
“leave,” he tells you. somehow you expect this from him, but hearts and brains never agree outside of longing and heartbreak, and with every pump of blood through your veins you were hoping for something else. the hours pass by and you don't move a muscle.
finally, you look him in the eye and ask, “... forever?” not sadly or angrily, but just to know.
“yes. forever.”
the world shatters for the first time, glass hitting glass inside your eardrums, static crackling like transparent screens embedded in your eyes, heartbeats tearing themselves in half, pursed lips like sharp plastic shoved into position on your face. you pack. you leave. forever begins when the door closes behind you, a daunting stretch of nothing that even you, with every fighting cell in your body, cannot defeat.
the definition of forever is written in your dictionary as for all future time; for always, and you mean to do exactly as he asks. you wait by yourself until you know there is no future time left, until you know that if you do not see him for another second you will not wake up the next morning. and then, to be sure, you wait one day more. forever and a day, you can tell him. he will not say he loves you, but this is no longer of consequence. in the end, he does not need to resupply the love you give away by giving you any of his. you have waited forever and a day, and the love you give him knows no bounds.
the world shatters for the second time when you tell him you've come back after forever and he doesn't answer the door. you knew this would happen but not now, not now, not when time ceases to be a continuum without the boy you came here to see. you check the hospital every day, sit in front of his apartment and make his hallway your home. the receptionist tells you he hasn't shown up for a month, and when you go back to his door, the rent is overdue. the world shatters, shatters, shatters. first your brother, now jongin. time and space are but pieces strewn across the floor, irrelevant.
you will not wake up tomorrow.
iv.
alas, the heart and mind agree only after fate beats love into a bloody pulp on the floor and you are no longer a weapon, but a force. you seek not revenge, but justice; you pursue not destruction, but the recovery of love. your brother and jongin—you will not believe they are anything but dead, and you will fall with them in the name of bringing them back to life.
you open your eyes to wet grass soaking into your clothes, stars spilled out over the sky, the distant sound of ocean meeting shore. your name rings loud in the sky and you think about the one who must have killed your brother, the one who must have killed jongin. you wonder how ugly their names will ring on your tongue; you wonder how ugly this feeling is, the feeling of wanting to kill. neither of them as ugly as war, and war not as ugly as the man who enjoys it.
pushing yourself from the ground, you take the backpack next to you.
it is time to bring the world back together again.
Alice was never one to read the Daily Prophet. It was a difficult task to accomplish, seeing the slander that was often directed at her family and friends. It awoke within her an anger that she could do nothing to stop such injustices. She wanted to right all the wrongs that seemed so ever present in her world, but it was a hopeless task. Protected by the guise of its large title, one could not simply attack the Prophet, when it was the ministry, the people behind it, wreaking havoc on society. She was helpless against the masses. However, Alice had made a habit of reading the paper this year over every dinner, thumbing through the pages looking for unrest: a disappearances, an attack, or Merlin forbid, a murder.
As of late, the Prophet had been generally quite dull, lacking any substantial content. Sitting over dinner today, she could only read the whispering of what Wizarding singers were in a tryst, or what shape her hat should be for the coming winter. Elbow propped up on the table, hand resting on her cheek, it was a rather mundane evening for Alice. Eating as she read, zoning out her classmates’ chatter, all seemed to be as it should. A much awaited calm. With a quidditch game come and gone, the drama from a party already fallen into place, and her own affairs in order, mostly regarding a best mate who seemed to be doing much better, all was on the up and up. In this moment she could breath. Until the gasps came. The shrieks fell from worried lips. A clatter of silverware dropped in surprise, all pulling Alice’s attention up over her paper to see worried eyes looking to the professors’ table, eliciting a whisper of surprise as she dropped her paper: “Dad?”
The word fell quickly from her lips, but quicker was the piercing scream that followed “NO !”. It was more of a shriek than anything, the long vowel of her cry resonant of the depth of her pain that struck her so suddenly. Alice did not think that tears could come so rapidly and violently, staining one’s cheek in a moment until this. Her feet took to running but strong arms held her back, causing words to escape trembling lips once more. “Dad, no!” Her body shook in anger until a long and grateful sigh greeted the night as her father’s body rose up, death not greeting the Longbottoms tonight.
Seeing Neville sit up, life in his eyes, silenced Alice’s words, but it did not quell the anger stirring within her. In her chest was that feeling she had come to hate of helplessness in the face of injustice, that she could do nothing to help those that she loved. All the wrongs of the world weighed heavy on her shoulders then and she yearned to right them. The lion in her chest roared violently, clawing then to get out and unleash a certain wrath, resonant of the fighter that Alice had always been. Feet kicking still, the girl could not be contained, beckoned by the call of war that had breached these castle walls. Too long had she stood idly by, feeling helpless to the unknown and waiting for it to unleash itself upon her life, only to handle the consequences of it when it came. No long would she wait. No longer would she be subjected to this, and others had a right to know. They deserved to see that they could not break her, but had only made her cause stronger. If people had questioned Alice Longbottom’s fight before it could not be mistaken now as her words shattered the silence, the arms around her doing nothing to stop what was to come.
❛ Whoever did this you’ll pay.
I’ll make you PAY for this ! ❜
It was the lioness’s first true roar.
The w a r r i o r ‘ s first battle cry.
Hyungwon was aware that he was asleep, he was aware that his body was heavy from his fatigue and that everything he was seeing, feeling, and experiencing were all just part of a dream. A horrible dream that sent a chill down through his spine.
He stood over a dirt plot in the middle of a dark forest, knees weak as he took deep breaths to try and even out his racing heartbeat. He felt tired and sore, like he had just finished a marathon; scared, like he had been chased by his demons for miles with no chance of escaped; restricted and trapped, because he couldn’t move. He stared down at the ground, eyes shutting tightly as his heavy breathing seeming to echo in the silent forest and his heartbeat beat loudly enough to hear from a mile away.
It’s just a dream.
The blonde reminded himself over and over again. Whispering to himself as he tried to convince himself and wake himself up without calling attention to himself. He could feel it— the looming presence that hid behind the circle of trees behind him— the murderous intent that oozed from whatever lurked in the shadows.
It’s just a dream...
A heavy breathing could be heard approaching him from behind, an intense gaze causing his goosebumps to form as the hairs on his arms stood. “You’re not real. It’s just a dream—”
A blur of choked screams and running caused the tall male to shoot up from his sleep. Smacking his head against the bottom of the top bunk of his head, he groaned. “Fuck...” He muttered to himself as he rubbed his forehead to try and ease the pain. “Fucking nightmares...”
