Send Asks? Only If You Want To, No Pressure.

Send asks? Only if you want to, no pressure.

Also, I won't have any posts for either several days or longer—I've been busy since my classes started.

MOOTS ASSEMBLE.

Favorite season and why??

I would say the fall since it’s more moderate in temperature. And while it can be cold at times, I enjoy windy weather.

POV: Rhian and Rafal go ice skating

Rafal: Keep up, Rhian. [he clips as he glides past Rhian as if in flight, posture ramrod straight, elbows out, hands tucked behind his back.]

[Rhian stalls at the edge of the lake from where he hadn't yet moved since lacing up his skates.]

Rhian: I still don't think it's a Good idea to skate over the Wish Fish. They're hibernating at this time of year, and the surface is thawing. It may not be safe.

Rafal: [scoffs from afar as he turns round a bend, completing his first circuit.] Safe? That's why I froze it over again.

Rhian: You could've harmed the fish!

Rafal: Don't be daft. I didn't. How could they sense our presence if they're dormant? You told me you wanted to skate, didn't you? Well then, wish granted. [He spun on his heels to skate backwards in a shower of ice chips, flung out both his arms to gesture at the lake below, and leaned into a passive-aggressive, obsequiously low bow, before straightening up again.]

Rhian: [firmly] But not here, not over their rightful home. Besides—you can grovel before me [he pauses] and them for forgiveness, another day. [he snipped primly.]

Rafal: You can't be scrupulous about everything in this world, or you'll never get anything done. Now, are you joining me? I gave my undeserving Nevers and that miserable Humburg a holiday today, so we could get out of the tower. [snidely] Or will I get the pleasure of watching the coward slink away from a challenge once again? It's not a good look for Good, you know.

Rhian: [mutters offhandedly under his breath] Wish you'd learn your lesson...

Rafal: What was that? [he calls back as he approaches Rhian at the edge, beginning to skid to a stop.]

[The ice beneath Rafal gives out in that instant and he falls through, into the pitch dark water, with one last gurgled shout, the fish shimmering under the surface, twinkling back at Rhian, dimming as Rafal kicks up sediment.]

Rhian: Nothing. [he said wide-eyed and guilelessly.]

[Rafal resurfaces, coughing up clouded, brackish water, dragging himself back over the edge of the broken ice, and glares up at Rhian.]

Rafal: [menacingly] Tell me, brother. Whyever would that happen, hmm? [he pressures. Yet, the effect is spoiled as he pulls a wriggling, silver-scaled fish from his jacket pocket and tosses it back into the gaping hole.]

Rhian: [hesitates, lips curling for a moment before he gloats:] Told you as much. The ice was bound to fall through. You never listen.

Rafal: [waves a hand dismissively.] Bah! My spell would've held if it weren't for, for—well, I just know you interfered, somehow.

Rhian: [grins, beside himself with mirth, having swallowed a laugh.] Let's get you inside. [He holds out his gloves as a peace offering to Rafal.]

Rafal: [bats them away into a snowdrift.] Don't need them. I'm cold no matter the weather.

Rhian: Inside and out. [he sighs.] Just when I thought you'd grown out of temper tantrums, you double back with twice the force...

Rafal: Can't expect any better from Evil. [he grins and yanks at Rhian's scarf, causing Rhian to stumble forward. Then, he takes off before Rhian can grab him out of the sky by his coattails, flapping stiffly in the chill like tail feathers.] Last one back's got to deal with the pots! [he crows.] And, they're on strike, again, so you ought to polish them.

Rhian: [breaks into a fervid sprint] RAFAL! YOU OLD CHEAT! I DON'T GIVE A FLYING FIG ABOUT WHO'S BACK FIRST—AND YOU WILL POLISH THEM IF I HAVE TO DRAW MY LAST BREATH TONIGHT!

Rafal: NOT A CHANCE IN THIS CENTURY!

Rhian: THEN I'LL WAIT A MILLENNIUM FOR YOU TO ACT YOUR AGE AND LEARN TO KEEP HOUSE!

Rafal: LIKE I SAID, NOT A CHANCE. [he cackles at the prospect in the distance.]

Rhian: IF YOU THINK THAT'S AMUSING, YOUR EAR CANALS MUST BE FULL OF WATER!

French rose.

I'm kidding. (Tell me I'm funny.)

Fern.

You are funny.

You also win a prize for responses that always seem to make me do a double take or rethink things!

Quintana: You should be locked up! You are a danger to humanity!

Rafal: [seething with rage] That will never happen.

⸻

200 years later:

Rafal: [indignantly to no one in particular] Hmpth, I chose to lock myself up!

Agatha: [through an air vent, rolling her eyes] You must've gone stir-crazy. Even locked up you still endangered us.

⸻

Post-TLEA:

Dean Sophie: Oh, this old thing? Yes, I renovated everything in the tower—couldn't possibly live in a musty, old cell like Rafal did. I have standards.

This photo from Pinterest provoked a thought in me:

Light is traditionally characterized as good and celestial while darkness is not. And yet, people find refuge in the darkness, how it can be comforting, as an excess of searing light can be blinding. And that reminded me again of Rafal turning into a shadow and Rhian turning into light towards the beginning of Rise and the subversion, of course. (This is sort of an offshoot from my flame versus non-existent shadow/Pans/eternal youth symbolism post and its companion post.) And of how James reacted to each of the brothers' souls: the reassuring, probably less volatile, unchanging quality to Rafal's and the deep-rooted instability of Rhian's.

The reaching motion in the photo also reminded me of a line from TLEA and how Rhian was foiled in being both extreme, strait-laced Good and extremely and throughly Evil—partly because he expended too much effort every time, and never allowed himself the chance to inhabit a natural state of being.

"The more you chase the light, the more darkness you find."

This also happens to relate to an idea I once heard in a class, that people (in general, not the Woods denizens themselves necessarily) consider Goodness the default state of being because Evil cannot produce any Good of its own, nor can it be anything more than the hollow "ape of Good" (or God, in some contexts). All it can do is imitate Good because it lacks all that Good has (the heavenly virtues? Perchance, think: patience versus restlessness?). And thus, Evil is the perversion of being. It is (was, in Rhian's case, as he had no "healthy" outlets for emotional release or catharsis, unlike Rafal's seemingly instinctual violence) deprived of being and parasitic toward the Good.

Also, have more photos from my Pinterest because why not?