Simple/Low Energy Witchcraft

★ Discipline Made Beautiful

Discipline and consistency are often seen as heavy or restrictive, but they are the foundation of any goal. By reframing these practices as empowering and beautiful, they stop feeling like sacrifices and start feeling like acts of self-respect. The key to achieving your dreams is aligning your daily actions with the life you envision.

So, I have a list of actionable ways to embrace discipline and consistency in your life!

⋆ Reframe Discipline as Self-Care Instead of viewing discipline as deprivation, see it as an act of love toward yourself. Showing up for your goals—whether it’s working out, studying, or creating—fosters self-respect and builds confidence.

Example: Choosing to eat foods that nourish your body isn’t about restriction but about creating a body you feel confident and strong in. The same idea applied here.

⋆ Build a Lifestyle That Reflects Your Goals Align your habits and routines with the person you want to become. When you act in ways that reflect your goals, you start believing in the possibility of achieving them.

Example: Slow, intentional mornings with a cup of tea and a moment for gratitude can make success feel attainable and normalize a higher standard of living.

⋆ Normalize Small Wins Create small, intentional experiences that reflect the life you want. These moments help you feel successful and keep you motivated to stay consistent.

Example: Rewarding yourself with a favourite skincare product or a relaxing bath after sticking to your routine reinforces positive feelings about your journey.

⋆ Fall in Love with the Process Not every part of building the life you want will feel exciting, but you can find joy in knowing these actions contribute to something greater. Consistency becomes easier when you view it as part of your identity.

Example: Journaling may not feel thrilling every day, but it’s a ritual that connects you to your goals and fosters clarity.

⋆ Practice Gratitude for the Journey Appreciate how far you’ve come and recognize that every small step matters. Gratitude helps you shift your mindset from focusing on what’s lacking to seeing the beauty in the progress you’ve made.

Example: Look back on a previous version of yourself and celebrate the growth that discipline and consistency have brought into your life.

When you align your actions with the life you desire, success stops feeling distant and starts feeling inevitable.

Celebrate your progress and trust in the journey—you are building something beautiful.

Wishing you all the best,

Imbue your art with magic and intention 💖🌌🌈

Compass

Simon 'Ghost' Riley x Reader

Crossposted on AO3

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Word count: 5.2k

Summary: where Simon finally gets it.

18+

CW: angst, hurt/comfort, canon typical violence, fluff

Masterlist 🦊 | In The Walls Masterlist 🦊

Staring straight at the screen won’t make that form fill in, yet it’s all you’ve been doing. 

The office is cold. Freezing. Your fingers are stiff when you punch the keys, rough skin tight at each knuckle. 

Price has asked you to do it. He’s tired and needs to lean on you for a moment. You know how hard it must’ve been for such a proud man to ask for help, so you don’t have the heart to refuse him. Even if you’re just as exhausted, just as worried, because the op went tits up so quickly and suddenly that you’re still recovering from it.

Faulty intel. Ambush. Tactically placed C4 blew the place up into smithereens. Mayhem ensued—you all lost sight of each other and then met again. 

The ringing in your ear still sounds fresh. A new cut on your brow your new shiny scar, the crescent of speckled mauves under your eye yet another reason for the brass to come and shower you with meaningless praise so you’d keep up with this unforgiving job without rest.

Chest candy as a prize. As if you care.

Your eyes burn. They squint at the unforgivingly bright screen; bloodshot sclera and a healing bruise, cheekbone swollen and tender.

Casualties And Damage Assessment. 

The cursor on the document blinks right next to it. 

Write above the dotted line. Do it. It’s there. It’s not hard, it’s just a name—a name among thousands. You could be typing John Doe, and it should feel the same.

So do it, love.

Type it in.

Type “Simon Riley”.

You feel your eyes sting wet. 

Johnny is still out there, searching for his whereabouts. Kyle’s with him, probably trying to be the voice of reason—the only one with a head still on his shoulders. The one who grabbed you and handed you to Price so he could slam you in the helo for takeoff. It left without Gaz and Soap in it.

Without Simon.

Crystal clear is the memory of Price’s finger pointed at your face as you huddled your knees to your chest—glossy, bloodshot eyes seemingly lost as they looked back at him, trying to find a compass to guide you through this dreadful darkness, through ice cold fear.

Instead, you found a scowl that struggled to mask a quiet threat beneath it, something you knew he’d been almost impatient to tell you.

Something you knew he knew.

You should’ve known better than to bring feelings into the job. I trusted you and your judgment and you failed me. You failed us.

But now all that feels so unimportant. Price’s disappointment is only another notch to your belt of failures, and you know it’s gonna get even thicker and tangled if you don’t type that name into that form.

If you don't prove to him and everyone else, yourself included, that you’re still somewhat sane. That you didn't lose your marbles on that day, only a chunk of your heart.

Nails tap nervously on your desk. The clock ticks out of beat. Your eye twitches restlessly, but you punch the keys. 

Simon Riley — MIA

A weary breath escapes you. 

Good girl. 

And the leftovers of your heart crack something vicious, a perpetual hairline fracture that will not go away. Your molars grind until your head hurts. Your eyes water, because it’s all happened so rapidly, that you don’t think you’ve had the time to metabolize it.

S’alright. S’alright. You did right.

You sniffle. Wet your lips. Your face screws up to keep it all inside because you can’t have him see you like this—he’s not here, and yet he might as well be, with how clear his voice is echoing in your head. 

Why shouldn’t it be? Your last talk was barely a week ago. Your last kiss not even ten days prior. 

Softer than the ones he’d given you before. Wet lips stealing your breath, big hands holding you tight by the waist.

The slow, purposeful drag of his cock inside of you as he flattened his chest to yours. The wordless whispers tumbling out of his mouth—uncontrolled, reverent of you. 

His lips on your skin, both selfish and selfless: descending to your throat, where the taste of you intoxicated him—and where you shivered, moaned, sunk your fingernails into his back, painting it red.

Your brows pull tight, but you can’t stand it a moment more, as that name typed black on white looks at you expectantly, like you could pull it out of there and bring it in your arms.

Don’t, sergeant. Need you sharp.

You cry, because logic is knocked back into you, and there is no Simon Riley if not the memories rushing in your head.

If not the weariness with which he’d invited to his flat for the first time. Burnt the eggs he cooked for you the next morning, as you slept soundly in his bed. Asked you to stay, even if you were as cautious as can be—a gazelle in the lion’s den. 

“Not fuckin’ it up, this time,” he’d told you. 

And even in your caution, you could recognize that silent pleading—that almost a year without you has taught him the pains he would endure to not go through it again.

It didn’t soothe your worries, but it did smooth down the line carved between your brows. 

You slump back on the chair and think of the times he’s told you there were no strings attached between you two, and how those strings inevitably formed.

How he’s annealed them, as time passed, going against everything he’s ever vouched for.

How he watched you snoop around his bedroom, allowing you to study his home and his habits—voluntarily and without an ounce of reluctance in him.

Sobs wreck you as you recall that night: you hadn’t even bothered wearing something, just tiptoed around naked the way you left the bed. 

You tinkered with the few framed photos he had on the shelves, recognizing the people in them: the team, your face squinting at the sun while wearing khakis, and the family he told you about as the muscles of his jaw jumped with tension.

How you scoured through his books, giddy when you double-tapped those you’d read too. 

Or how you smiled when you found the wrinkly receipt of that drive-through, dated on that day, being used as a bookmark in the novel you’d recommended him ages ago. 

You glanced his way every once in a while, just to make sure he was still asleep. Instead, you found a man bathed in moonlight and lazily wrapped in wrinkled sheets—a knowing smirk on his lips, one that made warmth bloom on your chest, all the way to your cheeks. 

He’d patted the spot next to him on the bed, inviting you back beside him. 

That was the first night you held each other for no other reason than the pleasure of being close.

In the days that came after, there were countless nights just like it.

And now, drowning in your own tears and snot, you don’t know if there will be more.

If you’d feel his thumb run along your jaw again, his fingers brushing down your spine—or pinching your cheeks to make you take a breath when you rambled on. 

If you’d feel his lips on yours, tasting you and your voice, with the veiled excuse to make you quiet. 

Wondering if he’ll ever smear greasepaint on your brow, if he’ll ever fix the straps of your vest.

Each tear that falls now is chock full of memories, old and lost. The ones you could’ve had but you’re not sure they’ll ever be. You cry, as you hold yourself together—arms around your chest, nails digging into your biceps, painful enough to anchor you back to earth.

You cry until your throat burns, until your eyes yield, and you fall asleep; the document blank on the screen, only his name as the blatant proof of your failures.

A hand rests on your shoulder. 

It’s soft at first, a thumb brushing against your collarbone. When you only shift, the grip gently tightens in a brief shake.

“Sergeant,” you hear.

Your eyes blink open, then, struggle against the crust formed between your lashes. They focus on an equally as tired pair of blues, a mouth that breathes some relief in your weary bones.

“John,” you croak, stretching your limbs behind your head until you hear a sequence of pops in your spine. 

You look around to assess where you are. The sunlight, dimming behind the windowpane, tells you that you’ve slept on your chair for half of the day.

Your neck tingles as it wakes, aching from the awkward position in which you fell asleep.

Blinking away the drowsiness, your eyes land on the document plastered on the screen. 

Your stomach turns into a boulder once again.

“What is it?” You say, returning your focus to Price standing next to your chair. You press your thumb between your brows to dispel a migraine sure to fall upon you. “Almost done with the report, gimme a few more ho—”

“He’s back, darling.” 

Your body deflates pitifully. Dread clogs your throat with ice, because Simon being back doesn’t necessarily mean he’s back alive. 

Your hands tremble as they land limp on your thighs, and you don’t care if you’re giving too much away; John already knows, after all, doesn’t he?

And he senses it: the gnawing fear, the supplication in your eyes.

“He’s in the med bay, overall lookin’ fine.”

You stand up so quickly that the chair is knocked back. 

Your vision gets spotty, and suddenly the poor nutrition of the past days rears its ugly head in the form of low blood sugar.

John senses it and places a hand on your bicep when you wobble on your feet.

“Bit dehydrated, few scraps here and there, but eh—" A tired smile stretches his lips as he squeezes your shoulder. “We both know it takes a lot more to bring down tha’ bastard.”

John can’t even finish his sentence that you’re curled on your laptop, typing something he can’t see. You stand upright, and with a rush of thank yous that barely make sense, you bolt out of the door.

The captain huffs and rubs his face in exhaustion, before his eyes swivel to the screen.

Casualties And Damage Assessment. 

Simon Riley — MIA & found

He sits there, hunched on the gurney like he’s too big to fit on it. His uniform has taken a lighter hue because of sunlight and dust from the unforgiving desert. A nurse is fumbling with a tube on his arm, a needle already inserted in the crook of his elbow for rapid hydration. There are two crumpled bottles of water on the shelf right next to the gurney, and even though Simon's still hiding under the mask, you're sure he's just finished chugging on both.

Johnny stands by his side, arms crossed and a lazy smile on his face. Sunburnt cheeks and a dusting of freckles on his nose. 

Kyle talks to a doctor, fiddling with his cap in hand—you catch words like “bruised ribs” and “sunstroke” and something about his ankle but you’re not sure. They get lost in the chatter surrounding you when Simon lifts his head and clocks you at the door.

You stare at each other for what feels like centuries, his eyes always sharp as those of a hawk—yet a little more tired, this time. A little more rough.

When the nurse moves away to tinker with the IV bag, Simon’s hand on his thigh twitches, and he subtly beckons two fingers at you. 

It’s all you need.

You beeline your way through passing doctors and nurses alike, until you come to stand in front of him, long legs dangling off the gurney. He’s subtly parted them for you, but Johnny has noticed it and he’s sporting a smarmy grin because of it.

You decide he can have it for today. 

Jaw clenched, you swallow before you speak. “Gave us a scare, yeah?” 

He doesn’t answer, because his eyes are locked to the thin white bandages taped to your brow. His focus shifts to your cheekbone, then, and the mauve shade it’s taken after the bombs went off out of the blue.

“Quite the shiner you got.” He drawls.

His voice is raspier from disuse, almost a croak. It makes your heart soar and your spine shiver, because it feels like years since he’s gone radio silent. 

You gesture vaguely at it, a slight shrug of your shoulder as you try to hide how tight your throat has gone at the realization that he’s alive and kicking, and not an unnamed corpse under some rubble.

“Yeah,” you reply, “Shrapnels—uh, something hit me when those things went off. Just a bruise.”

A sentence he’s heard more times than he cares to count, but he seems unfazed by it this time around. Maybe the relief of being safe has finally set his priorities straight.

You smile wearily, uncharacteristically quiet even as you try to make light of it. “Reckon purple’s my colour, eh?”

He nudges an admonishing foot to your knee. You lose your balance for a moment and blink back at him with a frown.

“Reckon it ain’t.” He grunts with a pointed look, as if you said something unbelievably stupid. But then his voice softens. “But it’s hard for things to look bad on ya, eh?” 

His eyes are crinkled at the corners. Simon smiles through them at you. “Still, tha’ bruise ain't it, if ya ask me.”

You huff.

“Flatterer.”

“Thought we’d established flattery worked jus’ fine with ya, mh?” 

You choke on a laugh, running the back of your fingers to your lips.

“Yeah, yeah.” You clear your throat, trying to dissipate the warmth in your cheeks. "Got it."

If you two weren’t so lost in this conversation, you wouldn’t have missed the baffled look Johnny was giving you both, talking like he wasn’t there to witness it all. 

But now Simon looks at you with such an intensity that Johnny’s behavior falls into the background.

There is no discovering Simon Riley, today; he’s taken the toll of discovering you, because while you’ve always cared and he’s always known, your eyes are telling him that there’s something he’s yet to find.

Or perhaps he’s found it already, ages back, when you called his name in his sheets, when you bit a promise on his fingers, when he coloured your skin with his own—kisses and sweat and grease.

When you left, and he inevitably drifted—a demagnetized compass that couldn’t find its north again, and you were just as adrift.

Good luck, you’d said. And fucking hell he’s needed plenty of it—found it too, it seems, since he’s back where he’s safe. Where he’s home.

“You alrigh’, yeah?” You ask, causing his mind to flounder back to earth.

His throat bobs.

Simon nods stiffly but doesn’t speak. 

Johnny sighs heavily and takes the burden from his shoulder instead. 

“Aye, he’s a big lad, hen.” He rumbles from your side, and you turn your body to him to give him your attention—wide-eyed like you’d forgotten he was there at all. 

Johnny snorts.

He starts to ramble on, and you listen intently to how they found Simon crawling blindly towards them, as he and Kyle ran in his direction.

Simon’s eyes, however, are on you. 

And so are his fingers. 

Leaning forward, he rests his elbows on his knees and starts tracing subtle patterns on the back of your thigh. 

A tickle that would normally make your knees jerk, but you push through and stay still—because what if he stops, then. What if he believes you don’t want him to touch you, after almost a week with no clue about his well-being.

God forbid he pulls away. 

God forbid he thinks you don’t want his hands all over once again, and from this day on.

As Johnny tries to fit some light in the dusk of your eyes, Simon discretely hooks one of his fingers in the pocket of your fatigues and doesn’t let go—holding onto you as much as you are to him. In fact, one of your hands lands on his knuckles, thumb rubbing soothing circles on the inside of his wrist.

“Doc said you can go rest in your room for tonight,” Kyle’s voice pitches in. “Just come back tomorrow for a checkup.”

Johnny beams at that. The world weighing on your shoulders suddenly lifts an inch, and you manage to take a breath. 

“No injuries, then?” You ask, turning between Simon’s parted legs. 

His forefinger stays hooked at the hem of your pocket even when you do.

“Nope.” Kyle smiles. “A concussion, maybe, since he’s not being chatty—oh, wait.”

Simon grunts. “Piss off.”

It’s only when he's done with the IV bag that you’re finally helping him carry his things to his quarters. 

Johnny and Kyle don’t bat an eye when you offer to take the lead, and you stop wondering whether they’re aware of your and Simon’s thing the moment Johnny gives you a glaringly obvious wink.

Simon tries to hide a limp as you walk through the hallway, and you’d love to keep his stupid pride intact for his sake, but yours has gone and drowned in the shitter the moment you broke down into sobs in front of Price. 

So, you don’t see why his can’t be a little bruised too, tonight.

You hook your arm around his waist, mindful of those eventual bruised ribs you heard the doctor talk about with Kyle. Simon only looks down at you but doesn’t put up a fight—instead, he leans into you and unexpectedly accepts your help.

When he hands you his key, you try to fit it in the keyhole and fail a few times, until you force your hand to stop shaking and the lock clicks. You two stumble inside, as the heavy door closes with a loud thud. 

His backpack is dropped carelessly, key on the floor next to it.

“Easy, there.” You whisper, noticing how he almost tumbles onto the mattress. 

A deep, drawn-out sigh escapes him as his whole body deflates now that he’s sitting somewhere comfortable.

You crouch in front of him. 

No words are exchanged as your fingers work with the straps of his vest on each side. Simon carefully lifts his arms to help you help him, and it’s the first time in years of camaraderie in which he’s actually cooperating. 

Vest on the floor. Gloves off. His tac belt is carelessly tossed behind you, as you unlace his boots with his eyes burning holes down at you.

“You need a shower,” you mumble as you slide one boot off his foot. “And then I’ll check those bruises myself, see if I can help somehow.”

Simon is deadly silent. 

Or maybe it’s you who can’t quite catch any sound, as the blood rushes in your ears, your heart a violent drum.

“Gonna take a look at your leg too.” You go on, relentless, as your voice cracks unbidden. “It’s probably just a sprained ankle, but it’s better to ma—”

His hand cups your jaw, then, stopping your endless ramble. 

You stain the cracked skin of his palm with tears you didn’t know were falling. Simon holds your face until you find it in yourself to look up at him. 

He peers down at you through the eyehole of the balaclava, ripped and singed in various spots as a testament to his survival.

He presses a thumb against the corner of your mouth, forcing it into a plastic smile. But those teardrops are still regrettably streaking your cheeks, your lips still trembling in a fruitless attempt to keep quiet.

His other hand comes to grab your bicep to help you up. 

You’re on shaky legs, probably worse than the stagger he had when walking down the hallways. You come to a stand right between his thighs nonetheless, pressing your palms on his shoulders for balance.

Simon doesn’t speak as he looks up at you—doesn’t have the strength to do it, nor does he know what to say when you look so vulnerably lost. 

He uses actions, instead. 

Languidly, he slides the balaclava off his head, showing the cuts on his skin that match the rips on his mask. His forehead is ruddy and chapped, flaky skin peels off the bridge of his nose right where it gets redder and inflamed. His lips look thinner and pale, like he hasn’t had a good gulp of water in a while.

Your brows pinch and you instinctively lean forward until your noses brush. 

Simon takes a generous look at you, taking note of all the things left unsaid that are so clearly etched into the fine lines of your face. 

He nods softly, like he knows you need him to give you the green light.

And so, you kiss him right then, not wasting a moment longer. You both don’t bother to pretend to build up the tension when the rubber band has obviously already snapped. He parts his mouth for you and tilts his head until you can only breathe him in.

You taste the salt of your own tears, and his acetone breath of days spent without having a bite. You reckon yours isn’t much different—fear and hunger your only companions in his absence. Similar desperation in his hands running up your spine, in the panting of his breath, clogging your lungs already filled with a cocktail of dread and relief—poisonous, yet so comforting.

His arms are sore, muscles taut, but he uses them anyway to wrap around your thighs, bringing you in. 

But it’s then that you stop: when your knees dig into the mattress on each side of his hips—your hands softly pressed to his chest to push him away. 

His eyes land on your lips, already swollen and glossy after he’s kissed them to bits. He watches them move when you speak, entranced, as tears trail into the corners of your mouth.

You think he’s a bit lost in that moment, possibly not entirely listening to what you’re saying, yet that doesn’t stop you from rambling like time is running out.

“You have to shower and rest; we can’t be doing this now.” You’re stumbling over your words. “What if you got a broken rib that might puncture your lung, I gotta be careful.”

He blinks, snapping out of his head. Brows tight in a frown, he lifts his arm and grabs the nape of your neck, pulling you in.

“No, you gotta come 'ere.”

Your lips crash onto his. 

The salt of your tears stings your tongues, dancing together just because your mouth is already open, busy mumbling something under your breath.

“Simon,” you’re saying, but not in the way he likes. “Listen—”

He stops. Sighs like the world has been dropped on his shoulders, breath heavy in your mouth.

His eyes shut close, lips to lips ready to ravage yet both stand still and anticipating. His fingers flex at the back of your neck, others dimple the fat of your thigh through your trousers. 

Anxiety has your stomach in a clutch, and you fear he knows because he can read you like a book, easy as anything, like he’s taken notes through your pages firsthand.

When Simon gazes back at you, his eyes are close enough for you to distinguish the bloodshot whites, the enlarged pupils eating at the chestnut irises. You don’t look at his lips, but you feel with yours how he tentatively opens his mouth a few times, as if he wants to say something but thinks back on it every time.

Until he speaks.

“Please.” 

You want to give in. Have him show you he’s still alive in the only way he knows: with the touch of his hands, the flawless glide of his body with yours.

But you’re relentless, and you mimic him—if not even more desperately. “Please.”

He sighs, completely disarmed.

Both his hands come to cradle your jaw, then. He starts tracing a path with his lips—kisses so tender you can barely feel them, landing blindly on your cheeks.

“Just a few days out there, just—” he murmurs, voice low and breathy. “Fuckin’ sweltered all day, then soon as the sun fucked off—cold as a witch’s tit.”

He breathes a hoarse chuckle, such a weak one that instead of stealing a smile it pulls and knots at your heartstrings.

You gulp. It’s fruitless, there’s something lodged in your throat so thick you abandon any effort to identify it. Fear peaks, however. Cold as the harshest of winters.

You stay silent. You listen. No questions asked, no interjections of any kind. A dance you’ve learned over time, from past mistakes you promised to never make again.

“Been through worse, y’know?” he mutters to your skin, words interrupted only by his own kisses on your cheeks. “Much bloody worse—an' this? This was nothin’. Part an' parcel of the job, love, bound to happen sooner or later.”

He pulls back, his gaze meeting yours as though he could show you what he’s endured, like snapshots unfolding in a reel of film.

Your fingers lace through his hair, and specks of sand and grime settle under your fingernails as you scratch his scalp. Slowly, you lean in, and press a kiss to his forehead.

Simon imperceptibly softens against you, like his body wants to but his head won’t allow him. The muscles in his shoulder are taut but the ones in his neck are loose and flaccid, head bowed to your lips.

“But fuck—” he breathes. “Never been so bloody scared.”

When he takes his hands away from your face to wrap his arms around your waist, you know better than to move—as if the ghost of his fingers still lingers at your jaw. 

He holds you closer. Fists your shirt between his fingers until it’s pulled tight around your middle. 

Seconds pass, in which you do nothing but wait with bated breath for him to elaborate further.

“But not f’ me.” He sighs. “Don’t care if I live or die, yeah?”

It’s not a surprising statement. It doesn’t leave you as floored as it should’ve. 

It’s one you’ve internalized so long ago, even before you two engaged with this nonsense of a thing that only ended up hurting you both.

When you first got to know him, it fell upon you not slowly like a setting sun, but more so like a comet crossing the sky—quick and sharp. Burnt itself into your bones, in the crevices of your heart: that in front of you was a man who didn’t care for his life. A ticking time bomb bound to blow up.

And this knowledge properly slapped you when he went MIA. 

A handful of days of nausea and shaking limbs.

Days in which you bit your nails until they bled, refusing to mourn a dead body you couldn’t see.  

“You listenin’?” He asks hoarsely.

Gingerly, you nod. Your lips brush his forehead. They’re wet. Tears are falling again, salt as needles puncturing the cracks of your lips. 

“You get it, yeah?” He murmurs, and this time it’s him who guides your eyes back to his. They’re dark and heavy with sorrow and, for once, not chained shut.

Days in which you didn’t know where he was—if he was at all. 

His eyes search for yours. Palms to your cheeks like you’re made of glass and might shatter if he holds you too tight.

“You get it?” He asks again, low and breathless.

Days in which he didn’t know where you were—if you were at all, too.

“I do,” you croak.

There's a sense of grounding, then—tectonic plaques settling back after the earthquake. The needle of your compass locks back into place, finally pointing North—no longer caught in an erratic spin.

And it’s so quiet after that. 

Two words that hang in the air and cut the tension in half, until it finally dissipates when he brushes the hair off your forehead.

Simon holds your eyes for a moment more before he brings your lips to his own. 

He kisses you slowly like he doesn’t know the way you like it, like he’s doing it for the first time. 

And maybe, he is.

That night, Simon doesn’t fuck you. 

He’s naked, just out of the shower you helped him take. He sits at the edge of the bed, fists curled around the blanket haphazardly thrown over it, towel crumpled at his feet. 

His skin is damp, glistening under the low lights—gentle highlight of scars you’ve traced, and newer ones. The knotted lines and the inflamed cuts. The pale stretches of skin interrupted by speckled purples, greens, yellows—entire galaxies blooming on his shoulder, on his ribs, on his abdomen and on his thighs.

If that isn’t enough to make your knees buckle, enough to make your heart crack, it’s his request that does it.

“Stay,” he croaks.

That’s just how he says it, blunt as ever—gritted through his teeth, still coarse in the attempt at tenderness. Trying to fit in a role he’s never thought he’d get the chance to play; where he's not a killer, only a man.

That night, Simon doesn’t fuck you, no.

Simon holds you to his side, deaf to your protests when he guides you to lean your cheek to his heart—all the be careful’s stumbling out of your lips tossed out the window by the very man they were meant for.

Still, he brushes your hair, fingers gently lacing through it. His hand faintly trembles—discomfort in the unfamiliar, you think. 

However, even in their uncertainty, the gesture’s enough to make you fall asleep, lulled by the warmth of his body tucked under the duvet with you. Pine needles of his body wash, vestiges of tobacco, antiseptic you smeared on his cuts—the strange familiarity of it, the comfort you hope he's found too.

And maybe you’re dreaming. Maybe it’s the delirium — the adrenaline crash, the hunger, the sleepless nights. Or maybe it’s just the overwhelming relief of having him here, real and warm, alive with blood that still runs.

You feel it rumble in his chest first, before it properly travels to your ears.

A curse. Drawn out, rouged with tender resignation, with honeyed surrender. A beautifully dreadful feeling, conveniently compacted into a single, wretched word. 

Wet lips touch your forehead. They brush left and right but never press in a proper kiss.

“You get it, uh?”

A sigh, then. Or a hoarse chuckle, maybe—you’re not sure. Warm breath grazes your forehead, tickles your scalp until shivers tiptoe gently down your spine and you unconsciously huddle closer.

Simon only holds you more thoroughly.

“Can't fuckin' believe it,” he whispers. 

There's something feather-light in his voice that betrays a hint of careful awe—jarring, misplaced, especially after days scraping by on the very edge of life.

Something akin to hope.

A lot from a man who insists he doesn't care if he lives or dies.

Still, Simon doesn’t bother to conceal it—perhaps because he thinks you're long asleep, perhaps because he doesn't care about hiding at all, not anymore. It curls into his vowels, bleeds golden into his tongue clicking at each t.

“Yeah,” he breathes. Kisses your forehead. “Now I get it too.”

What are your top 12 favorite fairy tale princesses/heroines?

@ariel-seagull-wings Thank you for this question! <3

I admit that this was harder to narrow down than I thought and I am sure that tommorow I'll remember some childhood favorite that I forgot to mention, but here I go:

1) Kate Crackernuts She is the "less bonny" sister who runs away from home, visits the fairy kingdom like it's nothing, single-handedly saves her sister and saves her Prince. This girl has done it all. I wish there were more adaptations though. The Czech one from 1993 is decent but it focuses more on the love story between Anne and the young king, so Kate doesn't have as much space as I would prefer. And with the book retellings being on the rise in the past years, I am surprised that no-one dared to tackle this story…. (there is a book by Katharine Mary Briggs, I've tried to read it but the language-wise it's a very difficult and frankly, boring read)

2) Allerleirauh I love nearly all variants of this tale, be it German Allerleirauh, English Cap-o'-Rushes, Catskin or Czech Princess With the Golden Star. I definitely prefer versions that go with forced marriage to an evil king, rather than to the Princess's own father and many of my favorite adaptations choose this path as well, be it Russian "Donkeyskin" (1982), Czech "Princess With the Golden Star" (1959) or Czech "You're a Princess, Láďa!" (1979) - which is a more comedic version where the Princess crossdresses as a boy and becomes a kitchen helper.

3) The girl (Bohdanka) from The Seven Ravens I like The Wild Swans and The Six Swans variants just as well, but I very much prefer the Czech version where the siblings are not royal and Bohdanka only becomes a Princess by marrying the young king. I love the 2015 Czech adaptation (Netflix), the 1993 is a bit too dramatic for my taste and takes the spotlight from the heroine which I think is a shame. Märchenperlen's The Six Swans from 2012 was on the other hand very well done, with the story concentrated on the bond between the siblings and the love between the girl and the King, as it should be.

4) Cinderella She was my favorite when I was a child and I always enjoyed Němcová's version* which is actually similar to French "Finette Cendron" and has Cinderella killing ogres before the whole shenanigans with balls and slippers even start. *Božena Němcová (1820–1862) was a Czech collector of folk fairytales I need to talk about my favorite adaptations some other time because this post is already getting way too long :).

5) The heroine from East of the Sun and West of the Moon As with Allerleirauh, I like all the variants of this tale I've read so far, I love how it gender reverses the usual trope and it's the heroine who sets off to save her lover who is, for the most part, more of a passive character (ok, special shout out to Black Bull of Norroway, who literally slays a devil/dragon)

6) The Princess from "Fearless Mikesh" Doesn't matter if we're speaking of the written tale by Němcová or one of its film adaptations, such as The Brave Blacksmith (1983) or Fearless (1988), the core story is the same: a young man sets off to learn how to fear and decides to find a kidnapped and/or enchanted princess that disappeared from her kingdom. The princess secretly helps him on his way, often in different forms (as a fox dwarf or an old hag), to test his skills and to lead him to the magician who cursed her. (cool girl, shapeshifting powers probably borrowed from the evil wizard who kidnapped her, helps the hero to save the day)

7) Růženka (Rose) from "The speaking bird, the water of life and the three golden apples" by Božena Němcová (gets magical objects, saves her brothers, resurrects her mother, reunites her parents and calls it a day) Recently a variant of this tale was adapted by Sechs auf einen Streich series: Three Royal Children/Die drei Königskinder from 2019.

8) The Peasant's Wise Daughter from the fairytale of the same name (outwits the king, fights for justice for the lower class)

9) The Princess from The King of Seven Veils ("Il Re dei Sette Veli", collected by Antonio de Nino) It's kinda like gender swapped King Thrushbeard or Němcová's Punished Pride: instead of a proud princess refusing a perfectly nice king, here we have a beautiful but vain king who refuses a lovely princess. And she does what any other girl in her position would do: sets off to the world with a regiment of soldiers (they always come in handy), in one kingdom she saves a princess, in another she saves a queen, before finally arriving the the land of the King of Seven Veils. He falls in love with her and she embroiders his veils with a picture of a monk and a nun (because he said he won't marry her unless he becomes a monk and she becomes a nun), but he doesn't take a hint, so she leaves him an actual written note and returns to her kingdom, so he can pursue her :D. I just had to include at least one Italian fairytale, I love how active the heroines in Italian fairytales are, many of them just literally go around the world and save random people before returning home/finding true love for themselves. And I love this one especially because it was loosely adapted as a Czech 1999 TV fairytale film "The Princess of Rimini" which I adore to bits <3

10) The Frog Princess/Vasilisa the Wise While the Princess from Fearless has magic because of her curse, Vasilisa seems to have magic independent of Koschei's powers. And I am always here for witch-princesses, we need more of them in our fairytales. Shout out to Mila Sivatskaya as Vasilisa the Wise in The Last Warrior (2017) who is literally a kick-ass apprentice of Baba Yaga in this adaptation.

11) Beauty from Beauty and the Beast No, it wouldn't be fair to omit "Belle" whom I loved from Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont's version even before I've seen the timeless Disney movie.

12) Princess Desirée from The White Doe/The Doe in the Woods by Madame d'Aulnoy She is not a particularly active character which might make her a strange choice among the others I named, but I was always fascinated by her curiosity of the outside world and later by her free life in the woods where she's a doe during the day and a human by night. As a child, I thought it was a cool deal and I was disappointed when she got "saved" by the Prince and left the woods where she's been so happy.

Honorable mentions: Fanta-Ghirò the Beautiful, Molly Whuppie, Sorfarina, Janet from Tamlin, youngest princess from Salt Above Gold, Tatterhood…

I was talking with my housemate about how to be more physically active if you’re not used to it at all because everywhere you’re told to start a training routine where you push yourself a little every day, and while that may seem easy for some people it can be really fucking daunting if you start from zero.

As someone who comes from a very physically active family that doesn’t exercise just for the sake of exercising but do things like walk to the grocery store and bike to work, here’s my advice that has always worked for me:

Go super duper easy on yourself.

If you want to walk more start by walking for 3 or 5 minutes. The shortest possible walk you feel you’re capable of. A trip around the block or across the yard. You don’t need to sweat or get your blood pumping. Just a short stroll. The hardest part is to convince yourself to set aside 5 minutes every day to go on this short walk but nothing else about it should be hard. Do it every day and one day you’ll realize that you don’t want to go home just yet. It’s very important that you don’t think “I want to pressure myself to walk further” but rather “I haven’t spent all my walking energy yet. I have more walk in me” and only then do you lengthen the walk. I repeat, at no point should it be exhausting or difficult because even when it feels easy your body will be building muscle and stamina and it will eventually feel too easy and you’ll naturally want to crank it back up to easy again.

If you’re not used to being physically active it might not make a ton of sense when I say that you’ll have more walking energy left but trust me, you’ll get it when you get there.

I grew up with going on evening walks with my parents and passed that on to other housemates who didn’t get it at first but are now going on walks long after they moved somewhere else. Because once you get the hang of it you’ll realize how calming it is on the brain to move the body even if the body isn’t exhausted afterwards.

And it of course helps to entertain yourself especially in the beginning. My housemate started out listening to audiobooks and podcasts but eventually realized Pokémon Go was the best motivator. Whatever you feel like you want to do on your 5 minute easy stroll.

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Definitive Guide to Stop Checking Your Phone Compulsively

1. Set Specific Check-in Times – Limit phone checks to designated times, like after a relaxing activity or during breaks.

2. Keep Your Mind Busy – Engage in activities like reading, exercising, listening to music, or creative hobbies.

3. Practice Mindfulness & Breathing – When tempted, take deep breaths and remind yourself of your well-being goals.

4. Remember Your Purpose – Stay focused on your inner peace and personal growth.

5. Redefine Your Focus – Visualize how you want your day to end—calm and fulfilling.

6. Find Alternative Activities – Replace phone-checking with reading, journaling, or relaxing exercises.

7. Create “Phone-Free Zones” – Avoid your phone during meals, walks, or before bedtime to be more present.

8. Use Reminders & Affirmations – Place visible notes or phone reminders like “I choose peace over uncertainty.”

9. Take a Mental Pause – If overthinking, focus on your breath or something positive to regain clarity.