Rise Up, Oh Heart, For There is Another Battle to Win

aethersea asked: For the ask meme - how about Sophie Devereaux?

Sophieeeeee yes.  Headcanon meme.

A: what I think realistically

Sophie is highly suspicious of Maggie a while.  Not because of Nate, just because.  Because Maggie is Maggie.  Because Maggie is good and honorable and honest and Sophie is…Sophie is not those things.  Sophie is a criminal and her thefts might not have hurt anyone, but sometimes she thinks about little children with stolen artifacts, about the look on her team’s faces when they realized she’d played them, and wonders what the fallout pattern of her life looks like.  Maggie surely doesn’t have to think about that (Sophie is wrong about this) and Sophie cannot understand why someone like that would willingly put herself in the middle of all this.

Sophie gets past this, of course.  Maggie, she comes to realize, is just.  Maggie. She is good and honorable and honest, and just as furious and steely and brilliant and cold-eyed as her ex-husband.

So obviously Sophie sleeps with her.  It’s a good fling, all intimacy and affection with absolutely no romance, and Sophie is lying in bed when Maggie bends down to kiss her forehead and say, “I hope things work out with you and Nate.  You’re too good for him.”

“Of course I am,” Sophie sniffs.  “We both are.”

B: what I think is fucking hilarious

To be COMPLETELY clear, Nate gets Sophie’s wedding ring engraved with ‘Your Name Here’ even though he knows!  He fucking knows!  He knows her real name!  He knows all her titles and ranks and everything (you’ll never tell me that Sophie isn’t actually a British noblewoman okay) and yet! Fucking!  Your Name Here!

They have to pause the service so that Sophie can stop laughing.

C: what is heart-crushing and awful but fun to inflict on friends

Sophie really wants to be in love, but she’s…she’s afraid of the part between being strangers and being in love.  It’s so vulnerable, putting little bits of yourself out there one at a time and waiting to see if the other person is going to slap you down.  She wonders, every time she sits down with a new person, what they would think of the real her, and she opens her mouth to say “my name is Sophie Devereaux” and instead some other name pops out.  And in the end, inevitably, she slips up, gets too comfortable and shows a bit of the wrong self and…

Well, there she is again.  Wanting to be in love and sitting down to introduce herself and giving the wrong name.

D:  what would never work with canon but the canon is shit so I believe it anyway

Um…I honestly have no idea, so instead here’s an AU I want.

I want a mutant AU where Sophie is a metamorph a la Mystique, and her ‘Sophie’ face isn’t actually…her real face.  Like, she thinks of it as her real face.  It’s the face she always wears when they’re not doing a con.  Even when they are doing a con she doesn’t like to depart too far from it.  But when she was a kid she had a different face, and she shifted whenever she could, into whoever she wanted, and then one day she was standing in front of a mirror and shifting back and she…couldn’t quite remember what color her eyes were. Hazel, or mahogany?  Black lashes or brown?  Did her skin have pink or yellow undertones?

Sophie Devereaux wears a face assembled out of her favorite features.  She takes a picture of that face, the moment she fixes it the way she likes it, and keeps the picture beside her mirror so that she can always get it right.

@c-foley tagged me in this meme - share a line/paragraph/excerpt from your current WIP (fic or otherwise), so here’s a chunk of stuff from Alleirat out of context.

One was a girl, younger than I’d been when I first came to Alleirat, and she caught my hand fearlessly as I passed.

“Sena,” she said in a clear voice, and I looked down in surprise, meeting her dark eyes. She stared back, her skin darkening with a flush, until finally sweat broke out on her forehead beneath her curls and I shifted my gaze to her cheek.

“What can I do for you, meilali?” I asked, crouching down to be on a level with her.

“Is it true?  My mama says that the Fireheart died in battle against the White Wolf,” she said with all the self-import of a young child assured of her own knowledge, “but Merra’s mama says that she heard from her wife’s amiasa that you’re really her.”

“I, ah.”  I looked up at Krei, helpless, and she held out a hand, as if to say it was up to me.  I turned back to the little girl, who reached out to touch a lock of my hair where it had tumbled over my shoulder.  “Yeah, meimare,” I said quietly.  I hoped that meimare was still an endearment people used—little fish, uncommon in inland areas but popular in Dase in my time.  “It’s true.”

“Wow,” she said, eyes wide, and she looked up into my eyes again, the flush rising on her beaming cheeks again.  “I’m Lillet, sena.”

I grinned a little.  “Ilna nai, Lillet,” I said, offering a hand, and she bounced on her toes as she clasped my wrist, excited to be treated like a grown up.  “I’m Brenneth.”

I’ll tag @littlestartopaz​, @wildehacked​, @aethersea, @skymurdock, and anyone else who wants to do it.

almost twins

SWEET GIRL, Death sighs, sliding through the motionless candle flames of the cave.  The Slayer is weeping into her hands, horrible ripping sounds as she stands with the water of the pool lapping at her feet.  She is dressed all in white, and so is Death, and they could be twins.  The Slayer is still afraid of Death, this time.

“Please,” the Slayer gasps.  “Please, I don’t want to go.”  

Death smiles.  DO NOT BE AFRAID OF ME, MY DEAR.  WE ARE MUCH ALIKE, YOU AND I.  AND BESIDES, Death soothes her, IT IS NOT YOUR TIME YET.

“Thank you,” the Slayer sobs, and Death rests a bone-pale hand on her shoulder to press her back into the body in the pool.

***

The next time, it’s been a few years, and the Slayer–the Slayer, Death always thinks of her as such, even though there have been two, one passed through Death’s own hands and the other very close now, since last time–isn’t afraid of Death anymore.  They are allies, even friends, well-known and often met in the course of the Slayer’s duties.  Almost twins.  She’s not dressed in white, she’s dressed in her own blood and vindication and hospital paper, and she’s sitting on the foot of a hospital bed.

DEAREST, Death croons, sitting down next to her and stroking her hair with a hand while she lets her fingers hover just above the hand of the body in the bed.  She cannot touch the body, but Death can offer her this little comfort.

“I can’t die,” the Slayer says, looking at the unhealthily white skin of the body in the bed.  Even the golden hair looks washed out.  “The Ascension is tomorrow and I have to be there.  And–and, God, he’ll never forgive himself.  It’ll kill him if I die from this.”

I HAVE MET LIAM MORE THAN ONCE, Death says, somewhat disapproving.  HE WAS RATHER QUESTIONABLE THAT FIRST TIME.

The Slayer almost smiles, but tears break over her lashes instead.  “I’ve heard.”

Death allows, HE HAS IMPROVED TREMENDOUSLY.  THE LAST TIME–  Death stops, and the Slayer’s shoulders are stiff as stone under the thin paper of the hospital gown.  HE IS A GOOD MAN, Death finishes.

“Yeah,” the Slayer sniffs.  “Try telling him that.”  She raises her head and looks back to Death from the body in the bed.  “That’s why I won’t die here,” the Slayer says, iron-clad.  “You can’t take me from him.  Even if he’s going–even if he’s going to leave me.  And the Ascension…you can’t take me.  I won’t go.”

Death laughs.  ALMOST I BELIEVE YOU COULD STOP ME, DEAR GIRL.  BUT DO NOT WORRY.  THIS WILL BE NO BATTLE.  IT IS NOT YOUR TIME YET.  And Death presses her back into the body, and the Slayer clutches gratefully at Death’s wrist before she goes.

***

It is longer, before the next time, and this time the Slayer does not resist, throws herself weeping into Death’s arms and lets herself be held close to the thin body under the white cloth, and buries her tears in Death’s neck.

DEAREST CHILD, Death whispers into her golden hair, YOU HAVE FOUGHT FOR SO LONG.  COME WITH ME, AND YOU CAN REST.

***

Death has never considered mutiny before, but seeing the Slayer torn back into life almost brings it to mind.

***

They meet again, and again, for years.  It is not frequent, but it is not infrequent either, the Slayer brought close to Death’s hands more than once by her burden.  The Slayer doesn’t stare at the body anymore, sits at peace and smiles when she sees Death, and they talk like old friends, like family long parted.

“How is Tara?  How is Jenny?  Tell me about Cordy, is she doing all right?  Did you see my mother, is she okay?  How is your work?  Is it my time?”  The Slayer asks her questions like there’s nothing to fear, and Death tries to keep a mental list, tries to check up on all her loved ones so that the Slayer can be assured of their wellbeing.  The Slayer’s list of loved ones is long.  Death hates to have to tell her, when the soul of Liam has passed through Death’s hands again, and always makes sure to let her know when it is restored.

LOVE, Death says quietly, every time, at the end of their talk, DO YOU WANT TO REST?

“No rest for the wicked, didn’t you hear?”  This is always the only time that the Slayer’s eyes glisten, her lips tremble.  “I still have so much to do.”

LET THE OTHERS DO IT, DEARHEART.

“Maybe next time,” the Slayer says, looking away, as ever, to hide the tears threatening to slide down her cheeks.  “Maybe next time I’ll rest.”

Death takes her face in bone-pale hands and kisses her forehead, a benediction.  They are almost twins.  YOU ARE THE BRAVEST OF YOUR KIND, SWEET GIRL.  And Death presses the Slayer back into her body

jerseydevious:

ricobrzenskas:

hypocean:

deedeedeebee:

I usually have two or more sets of headcanons with characters
Headcanon A: what I think realistically
Headcanon B: what I think is fucking hilarious

you forgot
C: what is heart-crushing and awful but fun to inflict on friends

#option D: what would never work with canon but the canon is shit so I believe it anyway

new game: send me a character and i’ll give an example of each

(via skymurdock)

so…

s/o to any teachers who follow me, if I wrote a couple of very passionate letters about how much specific college professors and an elementary school teacher meant to me because they gave a shit about my ass and sent them, would that be weird?  good weird?  unacceptable?

Moran Rereads the Animorphs

Book 8: The Alien

AKA “Ax is not to be trusted in public, the PTSD squad learn how Andalites eat, and we meet Alloran-Semitur-Corrass”

Keep reading

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(Source: wornquillsandspilledink, via notahotlibrarian)