outofshadows | Shipping Meme

Welcome to the ToS Shipping Meme! The rules are simple.

1. Post your character/preferences.
2. Reply to other characters with one of the following scenarios
3. Ship it!

Remember, this is just a fun meme so you can ship things that would NEVER SEE THE LIGHT OF DAY in game. Yay for no in-character consequences to bad decisions.

SCENARIOS
1. Stupid Cupid Your characters stumble upon a room in the temple that is dedicated to Berkano, which is the rune of love and new beginnings. Think Midsummer Night's Dream. Your characters may be close friends, strangers, or sworn enemies. Whatever the case is, they are now suddenly and inexplicably in complete and total love. They may or may not be aware that this makes no sense, but they can't help themselves.

2. Some Like It Hot Forget love and new beginnings. Your characters have ACTUALLY stumbled upon a room in the temple that is dedicated to Kenaz, the rune of fire, passion, and sex. There's no stopping you, even if you tried. Luckily, the room is prepared for that, and comes equipped with a bed. Whether or not you guys make it that far across the room is another question.

3. I Can Hear The Bells Your characters are getting married. Maybe it's true love, maybe it's to get out of marrying Tristan, maybe you're being forced into it and this ship is a little dub-con, or maybe it's because you accidentally participated in some Nysgod ritual and weren't aware of its implications. Either way, the wedding is about to happen or just has. How do you feel about that?

4. I Don't Want To Go Your character has been determined to NOT be the one for Tristan. Whether or not they like it, they're being sent home. Do they choose to spend it with a close friend, with the one they love? Or maybe, do they decide to finally tell that person they've always had a crush on just how they feel? You only have one night left, what you do with it is up to you.

5. The First Time Your characters are interested in each other and it's time to do something about it. Either the first date, the first kiss, the first I love you....or some other significant first. Whatever it is, it's definitely time to take that step. So who's going to take the initiative?

6. The Morning After Your characters definitely went at it. Maybe it's the first time, maybe they're cheating on someone, maybe it was out of anger. Whatever the case, for some reason, it was significant and you're going to have to talk about it. Good morning, Starshine! The earth says it's time for some cuddling and/or awkward conversation.

7. Potpourri Have another idea? Pregnancy, proposal, accidental body contact, trapped together, caught in the rain, hurt/comfort, etc? Go for it! Make your own scenarios up and run with them.

NOTE: Feel free to throw any mirrors into play if you're interested!

[ I totally stole the source code off the old one, so ALLLLLL credit goes to the mods.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

And he was close to asleep for the moment, dreaming lightly of other times and other places or old stories rewritten--all these things seemed true at once. How could they not be true? But though he slept or dozed or dreamed, he held her tightly, and sighed once into her hair.

Gods, there was the loveliest sense of bliss, lying with him. Clinging to each other, just bare skin and soft sheets. It was right. And it was so different from the limited sexual encounters she had experienced before... Holding onto him, resting against him afterward...

"You're a goddamn fool, Roland," she murmured, more to herself than anything, "but I love you."

Now he stirred, because there had come a voice--in his mind? No, more in his ear. And voice and dream suddenly seemed misaligned, or torn apart, or shattered. The truth of the waking world disagreed with the pleasing lies of sleep. And sometimes there's no way to hold to those lies. Not when waking truly takes hold.

He stirred against her, stroked her hair, opened his eyes...and frowned.

Aileen smiled in spite of the frown, lifting her eyes just enough to watch him. She didn't let go in the least.

"Sleep well?" She could ignore the frown. It wasn't unusual, and it didn't surprise her in the least.

"Yes," he said, flatly, because he seemed to have slept well though he couldn't recall much leading up to finding himself asleep and then waking from that sleep. And it seemed that much had happened before finding himself asleep and waking from that sleep. Much. And none of it--well, faint blurs, faint sensations, but more like dreams than memories.

He moved to untangle himself from her.

"Did you?"

Her answer might shed some light on things.

Aileen sat up as he pulled away, messy curls falling over her shoulders. No, of course he wasn't going to cuddle with her. She had had her one chance, and it was over now. It made her heart heavy, to think on it that way, but that was the only way she could look at it. The best she could do was to not be bothered by it, but that was harder than she told herself it would be.

"Slept like a babe." She knelt next to him, reaching for him in spite of herself. Aileen's hand came to rest lightly on Roland's arm.

He did not move away from her touch so quickly this time.

If he could have loved her in her lifetime. If he could have. He had realized it too late that he would have wanted that, to have loved her, if he could have. But he realized it too late and she had died with that confession unspoken and unheard.

And now here they were, she in this life-after-death. But he still could not love her, though he might wish it. Never could.

And now here they were, in the small morning after some great thing had passed.

"I don't recall..." he began.

Aileen blinked, that awful and familiar sinking feeling in her chest as he spoke.

"You don't remember?" That was it, then. One night of touching and kissing and holding onto each other and that was it, most likely brought about by some madness this place sometimes incurred in its residents. And nothing else. It didn't matter what passed between them. Roland would never care. Not the way Aileen so desperately wished he did. Her hand drew away, falling limp by her side.

"I'd venture to guess it was thanks to our hosts... messing with our heads again."

"Like as not."

No, he remembered, but vaguely, as though they were someone else's memories and he'd been given them--some boxful of something forgotten or almost forgotten and now opened again but not especially recalled. A story of a story.

He remembered wanting nothing so much as the curve of her neck, the hollow in her collarbone below it. He remembered feeling that want and knowing that it was not his, that it was induced and not of its own will (or his own will). He remembered wanting and resisting that want because he could not and would not love her--not like this nor like anything else (save as a sister). He remembered wanting to see her neck and her shoulder. And then seeing wasn't enough, he wanted to touch. And then touching wasn't enough, he wanted to kiss. And then her neck and shoulder weren't enough--he would have her hands and her ear and her jaw and her mouth. and more.

It was desire, perhaps, but it was not his own.

He remembered, but it was as if he had been watching himself from a great distance.

Aileen nodded, though it was more for herself than for Roland. She didn't care if he saw. She sighed, quietly, pulling her hand away, her arms resting uncomfortably in her lap. She said nothing, swinging her legs over the edge of Roland's bed and beginning to pull on her clothing.

He caught her arm (of course he was quick enough to catch her; this was no question) when she turned away. He said nothing for a moment, staring fixedly before him. Then:

"This isn't what I would have wanted for you."

And only then did he turn toward her.

Aileen was still. For how long, she wasn't entirely certain. Her shirt slipped out of her free hand and onto the floor and she turned, watching Roland's eyes.

"How do you mean?"

"Like this. Made mad by the Nysgods for a night."

And with me, but he doesn't speak that thought. He would love her, if he could, if such a thing were possible. It isn't. He doesn't. And he feels as much betrayer as betrayed, another one caught in the temporary madness, made to forget and confuse.

But what's done is done. And cannot be undone, not now nor ever.

"It's more of their lies and falsehoods."

Aileen deflated once again, slipping her arm from his grip to return to dressing herself. He really was miserable at giving comfort, wasn't he.

"Yes. Just lies." She shouldn't have come here last night. All that came of it was an awful, twisting feeling in her chest. Madness, he called it. But it was over now, and the 'sane' Roland was back. The real Roland. Who tried, in his own sorry, broken way, but in the end only made it worse. Aileen hid her face, dangling her feet over the edge of the bed. If he were any other man, it would have been easy.

Perhaps this was so difficult because he met this like he met everything else. Dry logic and no emotion. He spoke the truth, but the truth hurt. Especially after pretending for a night.

Shipping Meme

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