Could have been me and him, up there on the beach in front of everyone. I thought it would be, someday, maybe. He talked about it once or twice. Never thought I was the marrying type until...
...enough, Ironskull.
[Brick hums quietly - an old hymn.]
It was a nice ceremony, though. Good to see the two of ‘em happy together. Not enough of that in the world. ‘S- important. There’s always gonna be trouble, but people keep finding each other. Has to be a reason to keep going.
Ry says I can stay with his brother, so that’s figured out for now. He’s got a cat, apparently. Wonder if I could bring Marmalade?
...yeah, that’s a bad idea. Damn animal’d take the skin off a strange cat. Shit, I think I’m actually gonna miss the little asshole. Nibras’ house is his home, though, and I’ve no business hauling a cat around with me. Doe will look after him.
Got to get back to training with Ry. I owe him better than this. World doesn’t stop moving just ‘cause I got my heart broken. And training for me, too, I think. I’ve been slacking, playing house with the others like that was gonna be my life. Nice dream, but ‘s time to give it up, even if it hurts. Settling down with a lover and a garden isn’t- isn’t for me. Crying about it won’t fix anything.
I’m... okay, I think. Getting used to it, anyway, keeping my head above water. That’s enough for now. Got a place to sleep, money isn’t great but I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to keep Beauty stabled and pay Doe to watch the zoo. Using Nibras’s money to actually feed ‘em, and if he doesn’t like it he can fuckin’ come back and tell me himself.
[Brick sighs.]
Light, I’m worried about him. A big part of me still wants to go after him, but, shit, I’m no mage. This isn’t like last time. If he doesn’t want me to find him, there’s fuck-all I can do about it.
'S not like he got kidnapped. He doesn’t want me. Just gotta keep telling myself that. Whatever he’s up to, he doesn’t want me around any more. He gets to choose and that’s what he chose. I gotta respect that.
I would kill you.✧ I would physically hurt you.✧ I would attack you unprovoked.✧ I would manipulate you.✧ I dislike you.✧ You annoy me.✧ You scare me.✧ You intimidate me.✧ I hope I intimidate you.✧ I pity you.✧ You disgust me.✧ I hate you.✧ I’m indifferent toward you.✧ I’d like to get to know you better.✧ I’d like to spend more time with you. ✧ I’d like to be friends with you.✧ I’m unsure what to think of you.✧ I’m unsure how I feel about you.✧ You are my friend.✧ You are my best friend.✧ You are my mentor.✧ I look up to you.✧ I respect you.✧ You are my hero.✧ You inspire me.✧ You are my enemy.✧ You make me happy.✧ I want to protect you.✧ I would fight by your side.✧ I consider you an equal.✧ I think you are beneath me.✧ I think you are above me.✧ I would lie for you.✧ I would lie to you.✧ I would sleep with you.✧ I would sleep by your side.✧ I would hug you.✧ I would kiss you.✧ You are family to me.✧ I would die for you.✧ I would kill for you.✧ I would trust you with my life.✧ I would trust you with my most precious belonging.✧ I would trust you with a secret.✧ I would trust you with my biggest / darkest secret.✧ I love you (platonically).✧ I love you (romantically).
He remembered thinking, very clearly, that his hands were cold. It was a stupid last thought.
Haelix had tried to teach him to shield, but in the cold of Icecrown she lost her temper even more quickly than usual, and most of her energy had to go towards keeping their unit healthy and minimally frostbitten. (Brick shouldn’t have been there at all, probably, but the armies of the dead spread rot and disease, and when your arm was turning green even a half-trained apprentice was better than no healer at all.) He’d picked up most of her lessons quickly enough, but he just couldn’t get protective Light shields.
So when the bone drake dove towards him, wind whistling through its empty skeleton, there was nothing to do but be suddenly, irrationally aware of the sluggish chill in his limbs. The drakes weren’t necessary his worst fear - there were so many horrible ways to die in Northrend that it was hard to pick just one - but the sight of them dropping screaming soldiers from hundreds of feet in the air was hard to forget. In a strange way, Brick was grateful that this one seemed to intend to kill him first.
It very nearly succeeded. The hot pain of its teeth scoring through the skin over his skull broke through his frozen panic, and in an instinctive desire to keep it from crushing his head like a child would eat candy, he reached. The glowing bubble that surrounded him was clumsy and inefficient, but the undead dragon shrieked and dropped him, and his shield held long enough for him to safely plummet to the ground.
He survived the battle. The gashes on his head healed, although the scars remained visible on his face and through his hair. Most of his unit had seen the drake spit him out, and it felt like they started treating him as a soldier instead of a kid.
Haelix huffed and told him his skull must be made of iron. It stuck.
If you don’t believe Russian fairy tales are hardcore, remember that in “The Death of Koschei the Deathless”, Prince Ivan first encounters Princess Marya Morevna amid a field of corpses spanning from horizon to horizon, which turn out to be an invading army that the Princess has just slain in battle, apparently single-handedly. She then invites him into her tent and spends two days and nights banging his brains out, and that’s how he ends up getting married.
(Later, the Princess goes off to fight another war and leaves Ivan to look after the housekeeping, with strict instructions not to go into a particular basement. Of course he disobeys, and finds the eponymous Koschei the Deathless bound in enchanted chains, because apparently keeping immortal sorcerers chained up in your closet is just a thing that you do when you’re Princess Marya Morevna. The subsequent accidental unbinding sets off the main plot, making this tale one of the relatively few instances of the traditional forbidden-room device in which the disobedient spouse is the husband rather than the wife.)
Yeah, “Vasilisa the Beautiful” is also a pretty good one - though personally, I prefer the versions where it’s clear that Baba Yaga is fully aware that she’s being used as an unwanted stepchild disposal service, and she resents it, so she’s torn between free child meat and taking the opportunity to give the stepmother an ironic comeuppance. You don’t often get to see her conflicted like that!
Flowers from Kris, left on the couch with a "Too" and "From" tag. -Chrysanthemum General– You’re a Wonderful Friend Gladiolus– Strength of Character, Honor Iris Blue– Faith, Hope Rose Dark Pink– Thankfulness Sunflower– Pure Thoughts, Adoration, Warmth Tulip Yellow– There’s Sunshine in Your Smile
“Uh.” Brick glanced around, halfway suspecting that this was some kind of trap and Kris was about to leap out from behind a door and do something embarrassing. When the ambush didn’t come to pass, he let a grin slide over his face, ears slightly pink as he picked up the bouquet and buried his face in it.
Brick has very few possessions, and even though he’s been living at the Eversong house for months, most of them are still in a neat pile in a corner of Nibras’s room. The shed is a good place for narcoleptic warlocks to nap, on the other hand, and apparently he’s a little less organized in there.
Most of the shed is filled with tools and wood scraps, but among the sawdust is:
A faded, baggy, much-repaired sweater, removed during a hot day and forgotten
A sheet of paper covered in essentially illegible scribbled numbers
A tiny potted rosebush - Nibras’s, but Brick is particular about moving it wherever it’ll get the perfect amount of sunlight
A piece of Beauty the kodo’s tack, halfway repaired
A shapeless quilted object that looks like it might have been a prototype of Kris’s tail cozy
A handful of little wooden carvings, mostly cats and farm animals. The workmanship is a little rough, but each one has been lovingly sanded.
A neatly organized but unlabeled collection of plant seeds
What looks like a tiny shrine tucked in a corner: nothing more than a few flowers, a candle, and one of Brick’s carvings, this one a flat disc with a raised geometric pattern. The area around it is spotlessly clean.
This isn’t true, unfortunately. These people have tested about 1200 Eevees and their evolutions seem to be random. https://www.reddit.com/r/pokemongo/comments/4s135q/lets_test_how_the_eeveelution_system_works/
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