reference image for the angst gang, with heights!!!
from left to right we have:
thirteen fireflies among falling leaves
ghosts of everlasting glory
fractals upon fractals, infinitely repeating
two miracles for every tragedy
a final sunbeam, fading with dusk
five cicadas, two herons
they've all got a shit ton of lore im just too lazy to type it all up right now
“held me up, every night. you and I, damn near invincible. then the wind, blowin' in threw me right off of my pedestal. that night you told me ‘I hung your moon.’ I jumped right in with no parachute.”
Salem Mitchell’s relatively normal life is turned on its head when her estranged father returns unceremoniously in a bar, the same night she drunkenly kisses her best friend. Now she’s forced to comes to terms with being confronted by the man who abandoned her and make sense of the feelings she has for the one that stuck around. And, thanks to the Navy, she just might lose them both at once.
salem tag: @caelipartem
tag list: @starcrossedjedis @heirsoflilith @phoenixsupremacy @eddiemunscns @darknightfrombeyond @sgtbuckyybarnes @raith-way @hiddenqveendom @foxesandmagic @chlobenet @edwardsshinyvolvo @eddie-munscns @chrissymunson @katiekinswrites (want to be added? hmu ♡)
— Sneak peak below the cut —
She gathered herself as she walked to the bar. Dipping around a couple of patrons, she tip-toed quickly to the bar top. “Hey, Pen,” she shouted a little to be heard, the woman’s back to her. As Penny turned around at the sound of Salem’s voice, another patron was revealed, materializing in the stool in front of her like an inkblot on the backdrop. And Salem’s stomach twisted.
Something in Penny’s eyes told her that she knew. That she could sense the turmoil, the sudden onset of nausea. There he was. The man who all but abandoned her at five years old stared back at her with a similarly bewildered and dumbfounded expression. His lips parted, but no words formed. What would he even say? How would someone start this kind of conversation? He wanted to say more, to explain himself—and, most of all, apologize—but he bit his tongue. “Hi,” was all he could say.
Salem’s eyes flickered toward Penny. “I need another. Make it a double.”
Penny gave a single nod and moved to pour her a drink. In the silence, Pete simply stared. There she was, his little girl, standing across the bar as a fully grown woman, and all he could do was stare. But who could blame him? Her hair was dark like his, but she had her mother’s brown eyes to match and her petite jawline. There was so little of him in the image—though, he wouldn’t change anything. He sat in awe on the bar stool. Salem, however, was beginning to steam.
She could feel her skin start to itch, crawling beneath his unwanted gaze, and her eyes steeled as they met his once more. “What?” she snapped, the word darting past her lips without a second thought. It was like everything in the bar had suddenly stopped moving. Time slowed down as the venom was flung across the bar, landing right in the center of his chest, and he almost felt himself cave from the inside. He understood her anger—but he’d hoped for something else. Anything else. Almost as if she could read the disappointment on his mind, she continued to bite, “A little late for excitement, don’t you think?”
It was then that Penny set a full glass on the bar in front of her. “There you go, hon,” she told Salem, before her mouth settled into an apologetic smile, lips pulled tight into her cheeks.
Salem’s features were blank, her eyes still gently rounded from the shock but hardened in disdain, offense at the notion that he would dare come here of all places—her spot. He could certainly find his own bar, couldn’t he? He didn’t need this one. Or, she would find another herself. Either way, she had no plan to stick around any later than she had to tonight. She took the glass off the bar and glanced at Penny only for a second to give a nod of thanks, and then she was turning on her heels to leave.
Her feet barely touched the floor as she marched quickly back to her seat by the pool table. The movement drew Phoenix’s eyes away from the next target on the table. It was intended to be a quick glance, a fleeting look, but she found herself standing upright, brow furrowing as she scrutinized Salem’s features. “You good?” she asked her.
The question brought the attention of the others at the pool table right to her face, and Salem sighed into her glass as she brought it to her lips for a long drink. “Do we need to call it a night, Mitchell?” Hangman’s voice was patronizing, teasing as he grinned at her from the other side of the pool table.
Phoenix turned her head to glare up at him, but he was unyielding. “I’m just getting started, Assman,” Salem deadpanned, and Bob snorted to her right. Hangman’s features remained stilled in their positions, but something in his eyes had shifted.
“It’s Hangman.”
“I said what I said.”
Snickers were stifled beneath the music among the others nearby, and the dent in his resolve was almost visible. But he simply doubled down, pushing off the wall to walk toward her, rounding the end of the pool table. “You’re lucky you can’t fly for shit,” he remarked, staring her down with a pompous smirk as he passed, and Salem leaned back on the stool. “You’d be eating those words.”
Salem’s eyes rolled back into her head, and she resisted the urge to send her boot into the back of his neatly pressed slacks. “Whatever gets your dick hard,” she mumbled, before swallowing down another gulp of poison from her glass.
“It’s disgusting to think that that used to be you,” Phoenix wrinkled her nose at Salem.
“Wait a second,” Bob’s eyes rounded in shock as they flitted quickly between Phoenix, Salem, and sporadically Hangman. “Did you guys date?”
“A mistake I won’t be making twice,” Salem dryly quipped. It was then she felt a faint buzz against her backside. Her phone, she knew. She set her glass down on the partition wall behind her before digging a hand into the depths of her back pocket for the device. When she unearthed it, the screen lit up with an incoming text message. Her eyes landed on the contact name and the air left her lungs.
“No, no, no. Come on,” he stepped away from the wall and reached for her arm, the one not holding a drink, before giving it a tug. “This is unacceptable. You’re not allowed to be sad tonight. It’s illegal, okay?”
Salem only slid off the stool begrudgingly, humoring him out of sheer curiosity. She lifted a brow. “Oh, they passed a law?” she quipped at him dryly, near monotone.
“Yeah, it’s new. Come on.”
salem tag: @caelipartem
tag list: @starcrossedjedis @heirsoflilith @blue-sparrow-15 @eddiemunscns @darknightfrombeyond @sgtbuckyybarnes @raith-way @hiddenqveendom @foxesandmagic @chlobenet @edwardsshinyvolvo @roosterbradshaws @chrissymunson @katiekinswrites (want to be added? hmu ♡)
John 4:54. “This is again the second miracle that Jesus did, when He was come out of Judaea into Galilee.”
Jesus used miracles to bless the recipients; He also used them to give the much-desired signs of Who He was to the people who came to see Him, and hear Him teach and preach.
His first miracle, in Cana, served to be a sign that helped His disciples believe.