I’m done over-thinking. It’s simple, really. I have to run towards danger. It’s my job to protect the Gem Cities. To protect my friends. No matter what price I have to pay. I won’t stop running. I’m The Flash… this is what I do.
“I’m thinking.”
“Does it hurt?”
“Shut up.”
📚🔔 Tatil zili çaldı!
Bir yıl boyunca verilen emeklerin ardından şimdi dinlenme, keşfetme ve yeni maceralara atılma zamanı. 🌞
Bu yaz bol kahkahalı, bol anılı ve elbette bol kitaplı geçsin. Tüm öğrencilere keyifli tatiller diliyoruz! 💙📖
How we think about childhood is intensely bound up in our ideas and understandings of time. To be a parent is to be always looking forward, both in our children’s lives (celebrating milestones as they acquire new skills, chalking up lines on the door frames to measure their growth, imagining what the next stage of parenting will bring) but also in how we think about ourselves, situated on a family tree stretching back into the past and onwards towards future generations. Yet while we might have long-term dreams and fears for the children in our lives, we also live alongside them in the present. When my daughter falls down and scrapes her knee, I respond to her in the here and now, not because I’m thinking about how this will affect her in the future, but because I love her and want to support her through her discomfort. I see her as the person right in front of me, not her future self.
To acknowledge a child’s personhood without invoking their potential as an adult does not mean that their future ceases to be important. We would do the children in our care a disservice to never be thinking about the years to come, just as we as adults think about our own futures too. This is why we might still insist on teeth being brushed, even when the child in front of us doesn’t feel it’s high on their priority list! But we can speak to children about their hopes for the future and how we can support them to meet these, rather than making assumptions about what a ‘good’ future life should look like. It is their lives, after all, not ours.
Sword Buddies
“Nia.” Raphael takes a step closer, his sword drawn. He looks
confused, his dark eyebrows drawn together. A faint look of hurt
shines in his silver eyes.
I swallow. “Raphael.”
Talan unsheathes his own sword, the scrape of metal piercing the tense
silence.
I hold up my hand again. “Don’t, Talan.”
“It’s true,” Raphael says in a voice rough as broken glass. “You’re
working for this living nightmare.”
“Not working for me.” Talan’s smooth, silky voice echoes off the highvaulted ceiling. “I’m a terrible boss, ask anyone. She’s my wife. But I do
recognize you. The Pendragon agent who broke out of our dungeons. With
Nia’s help, of course. So lucky, having her watching over you.”
“This bejeweled psychopath is your rebound, Nia? Really?” Venom
drips from Raphael’s voice. “How unfortunate for you.”
“You told me about him, didn’t you, Nia?” Talan says quietly, his eyes
aglow with mockery. “The ex-lover who has a bad habit of running away
from things. The one who chose his work over you. I believe I said he
sounded fucking boring. And I must admit he has pretty eyes, but he is very
tightly wound. Must be exhausting.”
Raphael’s jaw tightens. “I’m not a Pendragon agent. I’m the boy your
army left for dead, the one whose mother your army killed in her kitchen
while she begged for our lives. That’s who I am.”
“I know.” My voice wavers. “But that wasn’t Talan’s order. He tried to
save the demi-Fey, you know that. Ask Ysolde about the Blue Dragon
Project later, if we make it out of here. We don’t have time for this
argument right now.”
He doesn’t lower his sword.
I take a step closer to him. “Listen, the Pendragons have created a
plague to annihilate all Fey and demi-Fey. I have it here in my bag, and I
want to destroy it. Talan is here to help us save the Fey. That includes
Makeup
I stare up into Talan’s heartbreakingly beautiful face. Even
though I should be scared out of my wits, all I can think about is
how desperately I wanted to see him.
“Nia.” Talan’s voice sounds wrecked, like he hasn’t slept for days. “You
came back.”
“I’m not allowed in Camelot anymore. They say I’m a traitor.” My
voice cracks a little. “They arrested me. I can’t go back there.”
“Did they arrest you? It’s hard to say when you lie endlessly.” His voice
is barely a whisper. “You faked your family. Your name isn’t Vaillancourt, is
it? And the man I buried—”
He breaks off, staring at me.
I feel myself crumbling into ash. “He was a member of the resistance.
Anti-monarchy. Demi-Fey.” I swallow hard. “And no, I’m not the farm girl
you thought I was. I’m Nia Melisande, Mordred’s daughter. He’s still alive,
in Avalon.”
He stares at me without moving. Not betraying a single thing.
“I grew up in America, speaking English,” I add. “I grew up believing I
was human. You heard my thoughts for years. I heard you repeating them
once in your sleep.”
A tiny twitch of his lips is his only reaction to my confession. “You’re
here only because you have nowhere else to go.”
Desperation crackles through my nerves. “I wanted to see you.”
His eyes flare like torches in the breeze. “I want to hear it.”
My heart is beating faster. My blood pumps hard. “Hear what?”
“You.” He switches to English. “Speak to me in English. I want to hear
how you sound.”
I stare at him, startled by the thickness of his accent. I’d only heard him
speak English once before, briefly.
Swallowing, I search for the right words. “‘Where fairytales come to
life,’” I say in my American accent. “That’s what I heard you say in your
To Him
“I’m not sure how much time we have,” I say. “And like you said, I’m
forged from your blood and bones, the daughter of a king. You said I will
crush my enemies. Remember?”
He nods slowly, the sun glinting in his golden eyes. “And what are you
proposing?”
“I don’t know yet. I can’t go back to Camelot. I can’t go to
Brocéliande.”
He takes a step closer, keenly interested. “And yet?”
“I won’t sit here rotting while Wrythe slaughters the Fey. We are their
protectors. You their king, and me their Lady of the Lake.”
He scrubs a hand over his mouth. “Good. Good. Morgan would not sit
idly by, either, but what if you did return to Brocéliande?”
My eyebrows rise. “I tricked the portal guards once, but next time,
they’ll be ready. Talan surely told everyone I’m a spy. They’ll be looking
for me now. They’ll murder me the second I step out of the portal.”
Mordred stares out the window at the lake, thinking deeply. He’s
wearing a dark cape trimmed with lush, black fur that frames his head like a
lion’s mane. “It might interest you to know there are no guards on the ley
portal. No one’s there to kill you.”
I tilt my head, curiosity blooming. “There aren’t? I thought Talan
would’ve made sure I couldn’t come back. Why wouldn’t he guard the
portal?”
He shrugs. “I still have a moth in Brocéliande. I can’t tell you why it’s
unguarded, only that it is.”
“Seriously?” I stare at him, and my heart flutters. “Maybe I can find
what’s left of the resistance. Brados is still there, from The Shadowed
Thicket.”
“Didn’t the resistance nearly kill you?”
“Yes, but now I’m sure that Wrythe gave them the wrong information.
He wants me dead. If I can connect to the resistance, then maybe I can take