I am having a lot of emotions! There's going to be too many exclamation marks! I'm going to try to do this in some kind of orderly fashion (Me? Really?) Alright, lets dig in~
1. Augusta & Radomir I love that Augusta calls it a "woodshed" but it's really made of mostly glass and stone and metal and is probably one of those incredibly chic modern structures found in architecture magazines. The sort that seem completely unlivable, where one would feel forever on display to the world outside. It seems very befitting of Augusta that her particular world stage would be a snowy, cold landscape. Eye of the barren storm. ...I don't know if that makes Radomir part of the storm, or the building. Both? Both. Both is good. /Road to El Dorado
"he is single-handedly the bodyguard, the butler, and the cook. He considers it a privilege." This is so his favorite time. Not just because Augusta sheds her skins (which jeez "Radomir watches the way her many selves seem to sluff off of her the moment they enter. Each of her personas collect, like carcasses, at her feet until she is maskless and true. It is not a subtle transformation but immediate, as though one footstep through the frozen security gate and the steel security door breaks her cocoon." come ooooon!!) but because he's It. The Only Living Thing. He's at her mercy. I realize in any other pairing it would be "She's at HIS mercy." but this is them. He is forever at hers. Even out in the wilds, where he could leave her to rot with no hope of survival. He's the supplicant. He's at heel.
"He’s careful not to actually pose a question; Augusta likes strength, confidence, even in language." I like this little call back to one of the things that originally caught Augusta's attention. Radomir as the teacher's helper, with his perfect grasp of words and languages. Startlingly intelligent standing behind a man who was half so.
"When Augusta looks at him, her eyes are amber in the firelight, similar to his creature’s. She thinks for a moment and then her thin mouth twists. He can’t tell if she’s smiling or scowling. “Tired of this skin already?” “I can wait.”" Dude. Duuuude. The man puts his animal on pause for her! What is this control?! Freaking hell, my guys a zen master. He should be out there teaching classes. ...Sorry, I'm gushing about Rad instead of the writing. I just really love Rad okay?! *__* Also that he assumes thats the right answer to her question. A non-answer. An offer to forget his needs. Anyway! I love the visual of Augusta's eyes flashing like his mountain lions. Sometimes the Vries are more vicious than the predators.
"When she makes a noise, some small, unintelligible response from the back of her throat, he cannot decipher if Augusta is proud or repulsed or both. He slinks closer, distinctly aware of her lack of fear, and pushes his white muzzle against her fingertips." I wonder, and this comparison makes me more uncomfortable than it should, if she's turned on like Harrow gets? Harrow forces Ita to change in the middle of parties, as a performance, and it definitely does something for him. The power - both his over her and hers over nature, and because there's got to be some beastiality tingles going on in this messed up world we've made. Augusta's lack of fear is such a good character detail too. She's seemed to have decided fear was a waste of time and energy at a very young age and now she just... gets shit done.
2. Haven & Luke My rereading of this to comment is now colored by what I'm writing in my response piece. Haven's a little bitch and I love her but god damn girl. God Damn.
"“What are you thinking about?” Luke asks. Haven briefly lifts her eyes from the glossy magazine pages she has not been reading." Nooo never ask that of your sister, jaysus Luke! She might ask you to rob a bank while naked or something. And you'd do it, because you're a dope. Haven and her denim shorts. It amuses me that she seems to avoid wearing them around David because she needs to portray a certain kind of girl. A certain kind of girl willing to help a man cheat on his invalid wife. Those kinds of girls don't wear short cutoff denim and Nirvana tshirts though. They wear sundresses and, like, gold bangles. It's a weird balance of Slutty But Not Too Slutty. While Luke is just looking at the shorts and thinking "clinging to her thighs so tightly that he assumes they must chafe" Choose your date: A man who thinks you're TOO Slutty for wearing denim shorts, or a man whose worried about the comfort of your thighs.
"“Is it David?” he says the name more loudly than he had intended. “Is it David?” she mocks, her voice going nasal and obnoxious in pitch, her petulance making Luke’s own annoyance pinch suddenly between his eyes. “Okay.” Luke rolls his eyes and grabs the remote for the TV." Haha they're such siblings. I kept expecting her to stick her tongue out!
"her elbows on her knees in a mild imitation of their father’s favorite confrontational stance." THIS MADE ME SO UNCOMFORTABLE! In a pairing about incestuous con artists, one sitting like the father the other hates is the thing that made me shift awkwardly in my seat. Luke's future boners died.
" “No, but I understand him.” Luke doesn’t say anything. He’s learned over the years that silence more often than not will weigh her down. She’ll buckle under its pressure as though her golden shoulders are incapable of upholding anything other than her own pretense. “Fine,” she admits after a few moments. “I like him. He’s handsome and funny and richer than God. I like him. Sometimes. Happy?”" That was such a good description of Haven being unable to handle Luke's quiet. -chefs kiss- So smooth, so creamy, so delicioso! (...I ate Mexican food and it was fantastic. This was on that level.) Also David isn't rich, Rowena is rich. Haven should be seducing Rowena.
"you went down on me and I don’t know which makes me wetter—him not knowing about you or you not knowing about him.” When Haven grins, it’s full of teeth, like a crocodile, and Luke feels the old familiar twist of lust and shame low in his groin. " 1. Damn girl, get it. 2. Poor Luke, he should have married Betty. 3. All these people grinning with all their teeth. Are we shark dentists? 4. I'm actually mentioning in my piece how Haven can get away with not doing her job, as a maid, while Luke actually has to do his as a gardener/groundskeeper. Because David knows why Haven is there, but Luke needs to earn his keep. So while Haven's getting fucked over the kitchen island, Luke's trimming hedges. My boy even did research on proper garden care so he could be ~authentic~. Then Haven has the audacity to be like "You're taking too long to get with Rowena!" Bitch, he just cleaned the entire pool! /rant
3. Palmer & Sunniva The moral of this story is that everyone should listen to Sunniva all the time. The End. Commentary over.
...
Okay, no, let's talk. I love that The Emerald Isle is this big fancy place, but for """some reason""" Palmer and Sunniva always end up near each other. (Not just because we're the writers and we want them to interact. Lets be real, they float around each other when left alone too.)
"We’re still her favorites. Well, I’m her favorite, you’re the runner-up.” Sunniva’s face is blank. She doesn’t reward him with a smirk or an eye-roll or even a clipped tone. “I’m not jealous although I’m glad your perception is still as dim as ever." Palmer I love your dumb dumb smug stupid dumb face. And you know Sun is really worried/scared when she's not even clipping her tone. She actually sounds a little bored when she's terrified. A very strong nonchalance.
"They can’t clamor down here and start rounding our employees up. Or you, for that matter, Sunshine." Your looooooooove is showing Palmer~~ ...I feel like if someone went up to him and casually said "Your love is showing." he'd check to see if his fly is down? I don't know why that was the instant visual I got after I typed that comment. Also Palmer literally beating someone up who tries to take Sunniva is really hot and she'd probably yell at him and fuck him. Just, FYI, future reference.
"“What were you saying about favorites again?”" Sun you sassy little shit. Lets be wed at once.
4. Roman & Lene Always a good start to a Roman piece when it's just him with his cold hands all up in someone's business!
"the blood beneath her skin ripening on the vine" ...I love you so much it has turned to hate and back again. What is this? Why is this so good? Why didn't my brain think of this? How dare you steal my unthunk thoughts! Fuck. I... I wanna eat a sentence? What the shit.
"She’s vaguely annoyed by this turn of events" Lene's feelings towards everything in a nutshell.
"Lene wonders if this is what a blood craze must feel like, a hazy, hungry ache that makes her mind unable to focus on anything else, and if as on cue, Roman pulls her neck back by a fistful of her blonde hair and drags the tips of his fangs across her neck with careful, teasing precision. She bites back the whimper that tries to struggle past her teeth and forces herself to still, willing herself to be as stubborn as stone." Yesssss! Honestly this is a vast improvement to how I imagine the first time he tried to drink from her neck went. - He probably did the hair grab thing and went for the neck without discussion (not a place shifters are prone to baring to strangers) and she just... grabbed his hair and yanked his head back too. Then they were awkwardly stuck there. Stubborn as stone indeed.
"the press of his mouth, faint as a ghost" Affection? In my vampire?!
" Lene’s face dissolves into a blank mask, as perfect and vapid as a china doll" And to think the Insurgence wanted Anders to infiltrate! Anders!! Psh. Psshhh.
"Radomir, more out of a place in a suit than Lene is in a lace dress" Oh gosh, I wrote part of a thing where Lene wears an actual girly dress to a school dance and Radomir is there in a suit and they're both relieved that someone else there is as uncomfortable as they are. Rad is only a minor blip of an appearance in that, but this reminded me.
"“Sorry. I was sidetracked by other delights. Can’t blame a man, can you?” Roman leaves them in the fog of his departing smug laughter, unphased, moving around the massive man in front of him without a hint of fear. From where the party is eating, Lene can hear Roman slap Harrow on the back, but the joke he must say is muffled by Arletta asking for her." Ah Roman, a dick as always. And you say it to one of the few men in the entire compound who won't sexualize Lene in the slightest. I like that Arletta asks for her. It both implies that Arletta cares/noted her absence and that she already knows Roman is the cause of said absence.
" They don’t speak, but Radomir gives her the tiniest of nods, allowing her permission to leave." Okay, picture this: Kim, Radomir, and Lene. One giant who everyone fears and keeps their eye on, and the two tiny containers of violence ready to be unleashed. Just... silently chilling at a table, eating lunch, while their charges do stupid human stuff. Now thats a clique you want to be in.
5. Chason & Ita Our babies *_________*
I don't have much to say because you made me too sad. I'm saaaaaddddddd!!
"His eyes aren’t as bright as they used to be and this, probably more so than anything else, saddens her." His eyes were the first thing that got her, remember? In the photos, and the hallway, and the intake cages as she offered her plan. The eyes. Aw. BABIES!
"“Somewhere along the way, I’ve forgotten how to be horrified.” “I haven’t,” she says quietly." ...Why are you doing this to me? I feel like I should be listening to that old Natalie Imbruglia song about lying on the floor or something. Jesus.
"“I’m better than him, I mean. I’ll always be better than him. Them. I won’t scare you.” Ita’s smile is bright even though her lips are chapped." ;__________________; BAAAABIIIIES!!
"He holds her thin waist and kisses, slow, like he’s trying to drink her. “I’ve missed you,” she tells him against the shape of his mouth, and he knows she’s blushing, the pretty quartz pink of a more innocent girl." I'm not clutching my chest like someone in an Austen movie adaptation, you're clutching your chest like someone in an Austen movie adaptation!
6. Abigail, Gerhard & Renan What have we dragged this poor girl into? Renan, get your ass in here and explain yourself!
"It’s another gift from Renan and something Abigail would have adored in its beauty if only it had come from the younger Prince instead of the King." I'm still recovering from Chason and Ita and you throw this at me?!
"He is not a drinker, but he’s been wearing his pain so openly these past few weeks and few other than his sister Polina dare to remark about his uncanny thirst." Okay, I just laughed at the visual in my head of Polina being like "Ger, this wine in NOT that good. Go weep on the moors like a normal person." While everyone else tiptoes around his pain.
"“Better that I never saw you.” “Don’t say that. I can’t endure that.”" Moors! Weeping!
"“He’s expecting me,” she protests, not quite urgently enough, her hands like broken-winged doves when he moves them away from her tear-stained face. “I doubt it,” Gerhard murmurs, pressing his mouth to her upturned cheeks, kissing the salt from her skin. “This isn’t about you.”" Okay, it's totally a 100% Gerhard thing to move her hands because he's all about ~faces~ and ~eyes~ and learn to control your longing for connection young man. And he kisses her tears while drunkenly being like "My bro wants to ruin my life and possibly fuck me as much as I want to fuck him... what? I didn't say anything."
"When he enters her, she bites down on his shoulder, stifling a cry. It will be the last time he has her, this drunken, clandestine moment of fervidity. It will be the last time he has her, until it isn’t." Does the bite leave a mark? Does the bite leave a mark?! Renan, Renan did you peek this shit later? Moors! Weeping!
"He is acutely aware of how heartbreak seems to agree with his brother, to heighten his good looks, and then Renan’s acutely aware of how little this bothers him. In fact, it does the opposite, and he feels a stroke of desire smolder inside of him." That's fucked up bro. I like it. Tell me more. (~Tell me more, tell me more, did you get very far?~)
Then he lays face down on the floor of the chapel with an erection and I'm torn between loving the visual and cackling wildly. It could go either way. That's the type of artwork I'd have on my wall and not tell anyone the details of and just... enjoy differently every single day. The gift that keeps on giving. Also this reminds me of how I've been wanting to write about a nun? With like, an illicit affair with another nun, or a priest, or a rugged handyman drifter who's staying in the barn and might be a serial killer. You know, something. That's a random tidbit.
"The next day, Gerhard avoids everyone until the evening dinner, where the hall is crowded with the usual courtiers and ladies. He sits beside Polina at the royal table and when he watches Renan clutch Abigail’s hand and press it to his knuckles, he has a sensation under his ribs that he knows must be his heart breaking." ...I gotta... Polina, leaning over to Gerhard: "Moors, weeping."
no subject
I'm going to try to do this in some kind of orderly fashion (Me? Really?) Alright, lets dig in~
1. Augusta & Radomir
I love that Augusta calls it a "woodshed" but it's really made of mostly glass and stone and metal and is probably one of those incredibly chic modern structures found in architecture magazines. The sort that seem completely unlivable, where one would feel forever on display to the world outside. It seems very befitting of Augusta that her particular world stage would be a snowy, cold landscape. Eye of the barren storm. ...I don't know if that makes Radomir part of the storm, or the building. Both? Both. Both is good. /Road to El Dorado
"he is single-handedly the bodyguard, the butler, and the cook. He considers it a privilege." This is so his favorite time. Not just because Augusta sheds her skins (which jeez "Radomir watches the way her many selves seem to sluff off of her the moment they enter. Each of her personas collect, like carcasses, at her feet until she is maskless and true. It is not a subtle transformation but immediate, as though one footstep through the frozen security gate and the steel security door breaks her cocoon." come ooooon!!) but because he's It. The Only Living Thing. He's at her mercy. I realize in any other pairing it would be "She's at HIS mercy." but this is them. He is forever at hers. Even out in the wilds, where he could leave her to rot with no hope of survival. He's the supplicant. He's at heel.
"He’s careful not to actually pose a question; Augusta likes strength, confidence, even in language." I like this little call back to one of the things that originally caught Augusta's attention. Radomir as the teacher's helper, with his perfect grasp of words and languages. Startlingly intelligent standing behind a man who was half so.
"When Augusta looks at him, her eyes are amber in the firelight, similar to his creature’s. She thinks for a moment and then her thin mouth twists. He can’t tell if she’s smiling or scowling.
“Tired of this skin already?”
“I can wait.”"
Dude. Duuuude. The man puts his animal on pause for her! What is this control?! Freaking hell, my guys a zen master. He should be out there teaching classes. ...Sorry, I'm gushing about Rad instead of the writing. I just really love Rad okay?! *__*
Also that he assumes thats the right answer to her question. A non-answer. An offer to forget his needs. Anyway! I love the visual of Augusta's eyes flashing like his mountain lions. Sometimes the Vries are more vicious than the predators.
"When she makes a noise, some small, unintelligible response from the back of her throat, he cannot decipher if Augusta is proud or repulsed or both. He slinks closer, distinctly aware of her lack of fear, and pushes his white muzzle against her fingertips." I wonder, and this comparison makes me more uncomfortable than it should, if she's turned on like Harrow gets? Harrow forces Ita to change in the middle of parties, as a performance, and it definitely does something for him. The power - both his over her and hers over nature, and because there's got to be some beastiality tingles going on in this messed up world we've made.
Augusta's lack of fear is such a good character detail too. She's seemed to have decided fear was a waste of time and energy at a very young age and now she just... gets shit done.
2. Haven & Luke
My rereading of this to comment is now colored by what I'm writing in my response piece. Haven's a little bitch and I love her but god damn girl. God Damn.
"“What are you thinking about?” Luke asks.
Haven briefly lifts her eyes from the glossy magazine pages she has not been reading." Nooo never ask that of your sister, jaysus Luke! She might ask you to rob a bank while naked or something. And you'd do it, because you're a dope.
Haven and her denim shorts. It amuses me that she seems to avoid wearing them around David because she needs to portray a certain kind of girl. A certain kind of girl willing to help a man cheat on his invalid wife. Those kinds of girls don't wear short cutoff denim and Nirvana tshirts though. They wear sundresses and, like, gold bangles. It's a weird balance of Slutty But Not Too Slutty. While Luke is just looking at the shorts and thinking "clinging to her thighs so tightly that he assumes they must chafe"
Choose your date: A man who thinks you're TOO Slutty for wearing denim shorts, or a man whose worried about the comfort of your thighs.
"“Is it David?” he says the name more loudly than he had intended.
“Is it David?” she mocks, her voice going nasal and obnoxious in pitch, her petulance making Luke’s own annoyance pinch suddenly between his eyes.
“Okay.” Luke rolls his eyes and grabs the remote for the TV."
Haha they're such siblings. I kept expecting her to stick her tongue out!
"her elbows on her knees in a mild imitation of their father’s favorite confrontational stance." THIS MADE ME SO UNCOMFORTABLE! In a pairing about incestuous con artists, one sitting like the father the other hates is the thing that made me shift awkwardly in my seat. Luke's future boners died.
" “No, but I understand him.”
Luke doesn’t say anything. He’s learned over the years that silence more often than not will weigh her down. She’ll buckle under its pressure as though her golden shoulders are incapable of upholding anything other than her own pretense.
“Fine,” she admits after a few moments. “I like him. He’s handsome and funny and richer than God. I like him. Sometimes. Happy?”"
That was such a good description of Haven being unable to handle Luke's quiet. -chefs kiss- So smooth, so creamy, so delicioso! (...I ate Mexican food and it was fantastic. This was on that level.)
Also David isn't rich, Rowena is rich. Haven should be seducing Rowena.
"you went down on me and I don’t know which makes me wetter—him not knowing about you or you not knowing about him.”
When Haven grins, it’s full of teeth, like a crocodile, and Luke feels the old familiar twist of lust and shame low in his groin. "
1. Damn girl, get it.
2. Poor Luke, he should have married Betty.
3. All these people grinning with all their teeth. Are we shark dentists?
4. I'm actually mentioning in my piece how Haven can get away with not doing her job, as a maid, while Luke actually has to do his as a gardener/groundskeeper. Because David knows why Haven is there, but Luke needs to earn his keep. So while Haven's getting fucked over the kitchen island, Luke's trimming hedges. My boy even did research on proper garden care so he could be ~authentic~. Then Haven has the audacity to be like "You're taking too long to get with Rowena!" Bitch, he just cleaned the entire pool! /rant
3. Palmer & Sunniva
The moral of this story is that everyone should listen to Sunniva all the time. The End. Commentary over.
...
Okay, no, let's talk.
I love that The Emerald Isle is this big fancy place, but for """some reason""" Palmer and Sunniva always end up near each other. (Not just because we're the writers and we want them to interact. Lets be real, they float around each other when left alone too.)
"We’re still her favorites. Well, I’m her favorite, you’re the runner-up.”
Sunniva’s face is blank. She doesn’t reward him with a smirk or an eye-roll or even a clipped tone. “I’m not jealous although I’m glad your perception is still as dim as ever."
Palmer I love your dumb dumb smug stupid dumb face. And you know Sun is really worried/scared when she's not even clipping her tone. She actually sounds a little bored when she's terrified. A very strong nonchalance.
"They can’t clamor down here and start rounding our employees up. Or you, for that matter, Sunshine." Your looooooooove is showing Palmer~~ ...I feel like if someone went up to him and casually said "Your love is showing." he'd check to see if his fly is down? I don't know why that was the instant visual I got after I typed that comment.
Also Palmer literally beating someone up who tries to take Sunniva is really hot and she'd probably yell at him and fuck him. Just, FYI, future reference.
"“What were you saying about favorites again?”" Sun you sassy little shit. Lets be wed at once.
4. Roman & Lene
Always a good start to a Roman piece when it's just him with his cold hands all up in someone's business!
"the blood beneath her skin ripening on the vine" ...I love you so much it has turned to hate and back again. What is this? Why is this so good? Why didn't my brain think of this? How dare you steal my unthunk thoughts! Fuck. I... I wanna eat a sentence? What the shit.
"She’s vaguely annoyed by this turn of events" Lene's feelings towards everything in a nutshell.
"Lene wonders if this is what a blood craze must feel like, a hazy, hungry ache that makes her mind unable to focus on anything else, and if as on cue, Roman pulls her neck back by a fistful of her blonde hair and drags the tips of his fangs across her neck with careful, teasing precision.
She bites back the whimper that tries to struggle past her teeth and forces herself to still, willing herself to be as stubborn as stone." Yesssss!
Honestly this is a vast improvement to how I imagine the first time he tried to drink from her neck went. - He probably did the hair grab thing and went for the neck without discussion (not a place shifters are prone to baring to strangers) and she just... grabbed his hair and yanked his head back too. Then they were awkwardly stuck there. Stubborn as stone indeed.
"the press of his mouth, faint as a ghost" Affection? In my vampire?!
" Lene’s face dissolves into a blank mask, as perfect and vapid as a china doll" And to think the Insurgence wanted Anders to infiltrate! Anders!! Psh. Psshhh.
"Radomir, more out of a place in a suit than Lene is in a lace dress" Oh gosh, I wrote part of a thing where Lene wears an actual girly dress to a school dance and Radomir is there in a suit and they're both relieved that someone else there is as uncomfortable as they are. Rad is only a minor blip of an appearance in that, but this reminded me.
"“Sorry. I was sidetracked by other delights. Can’t blame a man, can you?”
Roman leaves them in the fog of his departing smug laughter, unphased, moving around the massive man in front of him without a hint of fear. From where the party is eating, Lene can hear Roman slap Harrow on the back, but the joke he must say is muffled by Arletta asking for her." Ah Roman, a dick as always. And you say it to one of the few men in the entire compound who won't sexualize Lene in the slightest.
I like that Arletta asks for her. It both implies that Arletta cares/noted her absence and that she already knows Roman is the cause of said absence.
" They don’t speak, but Radomir gives her the tiniest of nods, allowing her permission to leave." Okay, picture this: Kim, Radomir, and Lene. One giant who everyone fears and keeps their eye on, and the two tiny containers of violence ready to be unleashed. Just... silently chilling at a table, eating lunch, while their charges do stupid human stuff. Now thats a clique you want to be in.
5. Chason & Ita
Our babies *_________*
I don't have much to say because you made me too sad. I'm saaaaaddddddd!!
"His eyes aren’t as bright as they used to be and this, probably more so than anything else, saddens her." His eyes were the first thing that got her, remember? In the photos, and the hallway, and the intake cages as she offered her plan. The eyes. Aw. BABIES!
"“Somewhere along the way, I’ve forgotten how to be horrified.”
“I haven’t,” she says quietly." ...Why are you doing this to me? I feel like I should be listening to that old Natalie Imbruglia song about lying on the floor or something. Jesus.
"“I’m better than him, I mean. I’ll always be better than him. Them. I won’t scare you.”
Ita’s smile is bright even though her lips are chapped." ;__________________; BAAAABIIIIES!!
"He holds her thin waist and kisses, slow, like he’s trying to drink her.
“I’ve missed you,” she tells him against the shape of his mouth, and he knows she’s blushing, the pretty quartz pink of a more innocent girl." I'm not clutching my chest like someone in an Austen movie adaptation, you're clutching your chest like someone in an Austen movie adaptation!
6. Abigail, Gerhard & Renan
What have we dragged this poor girl into? Renan, get your ass in here and explain yourself!
"It’s another gift from Renan and something Abigail would have adored in its beauty if only it had come from the younger Prince instead of the King." I'm still recovering from Chason and Ita and you throw this at me?!
"He is not a drinker, but he’s been wearing his pain so openly these past few weeks and few other than his sister Polina dare to remark about his uncanny thirst." Okay, I just laughed at the visual in my head of Polina being like "Ger, this wine in NOT that good. Go weep on the moors like a normal person." While everyone else tiptoes around his pain.
"“Better that I never saw you.”
“Don’t say that. I can’t endure that.”" Moors! Weeping!
"“He’s expecting me,” she protests, not quite urgently enough, her hands like broken-winged doves when he moves them away from her tear-stained face.
“I doubt it,” Gerhard murmurs, pressing his mouth to her upturned cheeks, kissing the salt from her skin. “This isn’t about you.”" Okay, it's totally a 100% Gerhard thing to move her hands because he's all about ~faces~ and ~eyes~ and learn to control your longing for connection young man. And he kisses her tears while drunkenly being like "My bro wants to ruin my life and possibly fuck me as much as I want to fuck him... what? I didn't say anything."
"When he enters her, she bites down on his shoulder, stifling a cry.
It will be the last time he has her, this drunken, clandestine moment of fervidity.
It will be the last time he has her, until it isn’t." Does the bite leave a mark? Does the bite leave a mark?! Renan, Renan did you peek this shit later? Moors! Weeping!
"He is acutely aware of how heartbreak seems to agree with his brother, to heighten his good looks, and then Renan’s acutely aware of how little this bothers him. In fact, it does the opposite, and he feels a stroke of desire smolder inside of him." That's fucked up bro. I like it. Tell me more. (~Tell me more, tell me more, did you get very far?~)
Then he lays face down on the floor of the chapel with an erection and I'm torn between loving the visual and cackling wildly. It could go either way. That's the type of artwork I'd have on my wall and not tell anyone the details of and just... enjoy differently every single day. The gift that keeps on giving.
Also this reminds me of how I've been wanting to write about a nun? With like, an illicit affair with another nun, or a priest, or a rugged handyman drifter who's staying in the barn and might be a serial killer. You know, something. That's a random tidbit.
"The next day, Gerhard avoids everyone until the evening dinner, where the hall is crowded with the usual courtiers and ladies. He sits beside Polina at the royal table and when he watches Renan clutch Abigail’s hand and press it to his knuckles, he has a sensation under his ribs that he knows must be his heart breaking." ...I gotta... Polina, leaning over to Gerhard: "Moors, weeping."