Aphrodite

Demeter's Resurrection: A Harvest Moon RP (Huge WIP, No prior knowledge of HM needed~)

Dude, I am so into this. Love me some Harvest Moon. Count me in.

All The World's A Stage (Shakespeare Modern AU)

So sorry for the delay! I do feel much better now though, which means I should be more active this week. Finally have my first post up though. <3

All The World's A Stage (Shakespeare Modern AU)

The chateau Gertrude called home nestled at the end of a winding road on the outskirts of Stratford-upon-Avon was delightfully silent in the summer air. She had given her only maid, a jittery freckle faced girl in her late teens, the night off to enjoy the festival with friends. After a glass of Chardonnay Gertrude had sat down at the grand piano that encompassed the entrance hall and played a few tunes, manicured fingers deftly plucking at polished keys, but her mind was elsewhere. Windows were often left open during the summer, and as thus not only did the smell of blooming gardens enter her home but of fried confectionery and burnt rubber courtesy of fireworks as well.

In the few years Gertrude called Stratford-upon-Avon home, she had not once ventured to attend the festival held every summer at the square, but something called to her this time. It might have been the loneliness pricking underneath her skin or perhaps the stuffiness of having been cooped up too long, but for whatever it was, Gertrude left a fine wine glass, half filled with a mauve lip stick stain tainting the glass on the lid of her piano to dart upstairs and get dressed in more appropriate attire.

Some twenty minutes an airy, pale canary sundress adorned her willowy limbs and a pair of simple, eggshell Jimmy Choo kitten heels adorned manicured feet. Hair, always coiffed to perfection, was touched up in a gilded mirror and necessities (as well as a small flask, for she would never drink the swill that they served in town) neatly put in a pearl enclosed clutch dangling from fingertips as she began the walk to the square. Driving would've been a much more sensible choice, but she didn't live that far from town, and how she hated to get behind the wheel. The flaxen haired woman breathed deeply, enjoying the assault of summer's aroma on her senses.

It wasn't long until kitten heels stepped gracefully onto cobblestone and crowds of gay merrygoers covered the streets around her. Other than nodding respectfully, no one approached her - that was to be expected, though. Gertrude hadn't made much of a name for herself as a gossiper or small talker. It was all the same to her that she be left alone to enjoy the festival, though there was something ironic in her leaving the solitude of her home only to feel it more sharply surrounded by people.

An almost sickly sweetness assaulted Gertrude's senses, then, and she sniffed surreptitiously, her nose guiding her to a stand selling toffee apples. She smiled warmly at the elderly man commandeering it.

"May I purchase one of your apples, Alfred?" Gertrude questioned, lilting British voice that had so often gotten her admirers when a young girl now tinted with undertones of thick vowel usage, having spent so long speaking Danish in Copenhagen. It still felt odd to her to go back to her mother tongue sometimes.

"Of course, Madame von der Maase." The old man replied cheerily, wrapping one up for the elegant woman that stood before him. Gertrude, waiting patiently for the man's arthritic hands, glanced to her peripheral vision to her left, noticing something odd. Two young men, finely dressed and lavishly accesorized, appeared to be speaking quite near the toffee apple stand she currently stood at, one with a cigarette dangling between fingers. Gertrude smiled faintly. The way he held himself - so self-assured, but with an aggravated stance. He reminded her of her Hamlet.

She thanked the old man for the apple and held the stick between two manicured fingers, taking a seat on a bench near the two men and appeared to be enjoying the festivities around her, though her sharp ears were instead listening to the conversation a stone's throw away from her.

All The World's A Stage (Shakespeare Modern AU)

Indeed I am, I'll have a post up later tonight.

Olympus Falls

slightly irritated it's so short and probably riddled with errors but I can feel my pain medicine kicking in so I'm going to go lay down for a nap for now. It will have to do. If it doesn't make sense I 100% blame the drugs in my system.

Also @ScarlettWaters16 see you in London <3

Olympus Falls

Aphrodite & Eleanor

Aphrodite

Eleanor

It wasn't necessity that compelled Eleanor to open her eyes upon waking but trained instinct. Long ago, when still a little girl with a cherub face, she would awaken but keep her eyes closed, for what need did she have to open them? There was no benefit to her so she saw no point in it until her old man had gently scolded her, but the sting was taken out of his words as he ran bony fingers through her curls.

"You frighten people when you sit up like that." He informed her. "They believe you are still asleep and it confuses them. People are harsh to what they do not understand. They world has not offered much kindness to you but you have nothing but kindness to offer it in return, so please do so by opening your eyes."

And so Eleanor trained herself to do so, blinking eyelids drowsily as she woke from slumber. She was generally able to tell time of day and location by her other senses - the smell of freshly baked bread signified the beginning of day, the sound of angry businessmen on phones, the faint scent of cigarette smoke meant midday as they rushed to lunch, the tinkling laughter of children generally heralded mid afternoon as they raced home from school. Her eyes were simply open to placate those around her - but today, today she sensed something different.

"You ... " Eleanor murmured. The world was muted around her. Nothing but different shades of darkness - but, rubbing her eyelids furiously, she blinked. The blob in front of her did not move. "Are you ... are you the little girl from earlier?" A head shot up and suddenly the small bit of darkness, more pronounced than that around it, dropped something onto the ground carelessly and darted towards Eleanor.

"You can see me!" She squealed, "I thought - I thought your eyes didn't work. Mummy said your eyes didn't work - she's getting us food, she told me to watch you but I got bored so I was drawing, you can draw with a rock and works just as good as chalk, Mummy says it looks just as good as all the other kids' drawings and we don't even have to pay for the rocks like you have to pay for chalk, they're just lying around - "

"My eyes don't work." Eleanor interrupted dumbly. She wasn't lying when she said she'd never needed them to, either. So why - why now? Exactly what kind of deep slumber did she go into?

And then suddenly, just as she had been able to see different shades of darkness, she blinked and nothingness filled her vision again.

It was almost disconcerting, to feel vision. Eleanor wasn't sure she liked it and was almost comforted when it went away of its own volition. A fluke. The woman mused hopefully. From being asleep for so long. It - it must've messed with my head somehow.

"Where is your mother? I'm hungry."

Olympus Falls

I'm 900% sure I've somehow caught the flu in the middle of the summer (thanks, immune system) but I'm going to attempt to power through it and continue with this. I've just started my next post but it will probably be tomorrow before it's up.

Post Your Pikcha

what's up I have arrived

(though my hair is shorter now and my eyebrows are nicer)

Hider

Olympus Falls

Alright, posted. Still deciding if I'm going to give her her eyesight back. If I do, it will probably be a gradual thing - first shadows, then shapes, etc etc.

Olympus Falls

Aphrodite & Eleanor

Aphrodite

Eleanor

Tucked into a corner of London stands a copper haired girl, barefoot in a stained sundress, knees bent as if to take in a large breath of air and left hand dangling, holding an expired bottle of pills between grimy fingertips. Though she herself was unkempt, dirt underneath chipped fingernails and wild mane in knots, the alleyway she stood in was immaculate, though a light dusting of dirt covered the area, a stark contrast to what it had been when she first stepped foot into it a year ago. Surrounding her body were wilting flowers, anemones once a myriad of colours, dying tulips attempting to soak in the rare sunlight of a London day. Even a teddy bear was placed in front of her delicate feet, as if an offering to the girl frozen in time, yet it was transparently obvious that the stuffed animal was not newly placed; its ears were still damp from rain and paws caked with dried mud. It had been laying on the pavement for a long time.

The street urchin with freckled cheeks and a dirty mouth had been turned into some sort of altar for the homeless, a patron saint to the unfortunate. Destitute little children with sticky hands and wide eyes played ring around the rosie around her and beggar women pressed pennies into their palms before her, wishing for Lady Luck to smile down upon them, but they soon stopped their pilgrimages when the girl showed no signs of waking, and refused allowance for their children to play there as well. Men did not usually visit the macabre sight; once, months ago, an old man had sat by her side every day, but soon, even his visits began to dwindle. The beggar women assumed he had died - they could think of nothing else that would force the elder whom had so vehemently denied giving up on the girl, but the children, frank as they were, simply believed he had given up hope.

"Mommy, is she ever gonna wake up?" A little girl poked her mother's side and pointed at the statue of a woman. She often came to the narrow alleyway with her daughter to think. It had once been swamped with curious eyes, but now it was generally vacant - no one came around any more.

"I don't know, darling." The woman replied, counting the pennies in her lap absently. She would soon have enough to buy her daughter a new pair of shoes if she saved wisely.

"I'm going to make her wake up!" The daughter declared.

"You do that, sweetheart."

With a determined look on her baby cheeked face the girl hopped away from her mother and began jumping up and down in front of the frozen woman's unmoving eyes, waving her arms frantically.

"Wake up, wake up!" The little girl screeched, "Mummy says I shouldn't sleep so long and that it's bad for me so it must be bad for you too!"

Miraculously, ironically, at that exact moment the bottle of pills slipped between the woman's fingers and hit the pavement, her knees following a second later. The little girl's eyes bugged and she opened her mouth.

"MUMMY - "

"Oh, God," Eleanor moaned, her voice raspy as she covered her ears against the shrill sound. "Please don't yell. It hurts."

But it wasn't just her head that hurt - the migraine forming between her eyes was only the tip of the iceberg. Her knees felt like she had been shot in both of them and her slim fingers cramped something fierce - she had never known such pain in her life. It felt like she had been unconscious for weeks. Eleanor had never been sick in her life; had she suddenly been struck by something that had been hiding in her immune system for years? A heart attack, stroke? She tried to swallow. It felt as if her throat was lined with sandpaper. Then - the old man. Her heart jumped into her throat and Eleanor struggled to stand, pushing herself up on wobbly arms.

"I've got to go - "

"Please stay," Another voice, this one older, warmer - must be the little girl's mother, Eleanor surmised, "You've just woken up, you've been asleep for so long - "

"How long?" Eleanor interrupted, unadulterated fear engulfing her. If she wasn't there to take care of the old man, who would? He couldn't have lived on his own, he just couldn't. He was so weak, so frail -

"Maybe a year, I think." The other woman responded hesitantly.

"A year?"

"I know it sounds impossible - "

"It sounds like bullshit!"

"Just let us help you!" The other woman's voice was firmer than it had been, a motherly tone that she had obviously perfected with her rambunctuous daughter. Eleanor cursed, but, feeling herself wobbly on unsteady limbs, acquiesced to the woman's plea. She was in no state to walk, much less go searching for her old man. She allowed herself to be lowered onto the woman's ragged blanket and was close to succumbing to sleep when something soft and small was pressed into her cheek.

"This - it's your teddy." A timid voice said. Eleanor's lips curled upwards and her breath evened out.

__

"The beautiful do not rest in alleyways with vagabond women and mendicant children."

"I'm not too concerned with beauty. You shouldn't be either."

"You are awfully self-assured for such a homely girl."

"I wouldn't know. I don't know what I look like."

A pause.

"Your eyes. They don't work."

"No. They never have. I've never needed them to."