A Little Bit Of Compassion Leads To The First Step To Friendship

A little bit of compassion leads to the first step to friendship

Cold as it was in the office space, nothing was colder than the stark gaze aimed directly at the new owner of OrangePerfect Inc. No words were spoken between the owner and the client, but there was a very real weight in the room as time went on.

With a slightly annoyed sigh, the client spoke. “Ms. Ann, are you sure you’re even up to this right now?”

“W-what makes you say that?”

His arms crossed. “Because we’ve been sitting here in dead silence for almost an hour. There’s no way you haven’t come to terms with the contract. Either make adjustments or stop wasting my time.”

His harsh words were nothing new in the entertainment industry, at least as Ms. Ann learned. In her few years dealing with various media giants she learned this was common place. However used to it she was, it was difficult to get her bearings whenever she heard things like this.

Fumbling around with the paper in her hands, she still said nothing.

“Besides, aren’t you the infamous owner who has such particular contracts that most refuse to work with you?”

Ms. Ann remained quiet for a second. “I guess so…”

“Then what is the problem? Is it something you wish to bring up with me?”

Ms. Ann knew what she wanted to say, but actually saying it was an entirely different story. She didn’t want to bring most of this up knowing how it would sound and right now, she wasn’t in the position to argue with anyone.

“Um, I guess I do have a little issue…” She eventually said.

“Wonderful. Now would you mind telling me what it is?”

Ms. Ann, once again, took a long pause. At this point, the client grew even more agitated. He sat up reaching and grabbing the contract out of her hands, forcing her to look at him.

“Listen, if you have an issue, feel free to bring it up. If not, then I'll say it again, stop. wasting. my. time.”

His intense gaze made her freeze up, but she took a small breath and tried to keep herself calm.

“Um, I guess I don’t… particularly like the idea of how long you’d be working with us.”

“Finally.” The client leaned back. “Is the time frame too long?”

“No, actually, it’s the opposite.”

“Excuse me?”

“I don’t… really wanna work with someone I can’t keep an eye on. Maybe if this project was smaller, I wouldn’t mind, but knowing the recording time is likely going to be several months, I don’t want this to be the only time we work together.”

“Oh. So, you’re saying because you know I’m talented you don’t want me just running off somewhere else?”

“P-pretty much.” She got out.

“I understand that much. I have no issue with that, to be honest. I feel the same way that I wouldn’t want your company to turn into a shit hole that drags my name through the mud years after the fact.”

“N-nothing like that would happen.”

“You mean, nothing you all would promote?”

Ms. Ann looked off. “Yes… we would never allow anyone to do something abhorrent and just let it slide.”

“Good to know. Then let me ask you something?” He paused. “If, say for example, someone from my company were to be caught doing something. What would you do?”

Ms. Ann looked at him and found herself in a strange position. Not only did she want to ask him why he was asking this hypothetical question, but she also wanted to know what exactly he was mentioning. She stared at him and found his eyes never losing their lock on her.

“Well, without knowing what you’re talking about, I wouldn’t drop you. Unless, it was you specifically, I’m not going to assume you knew anything about it.”

He then smiled. “I was hoping you’d be a little more scrutinizing.”

She took a small breath. “I wanted to ask what this hypothetical situation would even be about.”

“Given the work we do, take a wild guess.”

All the news pertaining to media companies, movie directors, and other obscenities, Cassie made an assumption and gave him and knowing look.

“Is this particular issue with someone you can easily report?”

“No. In fact, I’m sure what you’re thinking is the exact person I’m talking about.”

Cassie didn’t like the sound of that, but she understood how serious this must be if he couldn’t even fully mention it to her. She shifted in her seat and finally looked at the client with a less stressed look.

“Kit? I promise you, if we work together, I’ll never allow for something like that to go unchecked. I won’t throw you or anyone else affected under the bus either.”

Kit didn’t seem fully impressed by her words, evidenced by the dazed look he gave her. “Am I too assume your words are enough?”

“Most likely not. How would I prove it to you?”

Kit remained quiet for the longest time since they begun talking. He spoke up after a moment. “Maybe I’ll believe you if you stop acting so damn scared by everything.”

“What?”

“We both know it’s true. You’re frightened at the idea of making any mistake so you try and fix problems before they’ve even happened. When all it makes you look like is a scared little girl.”

Cassie tried to keep her resolve. “I am fairly new at this, I would imagine anyone in my position would be a bit on the cautious side.”

“Well, that’s the thing; you’re not cautious. You’re fearful. That’s why I can’t fully believe in your words that if something were to come out I would rely on you to hold up your end. Not fold to any stack of cash or the will of a man’s finger.”

“You should talk to my boyfriend- sorry, husband then. I don’t think he would agree with you.”

“Is that so? Well, maybe I could better understand what you’re talking about if you explained why you’re hiding the fact that you’re pregnant.”

Cassie froze at his words and saw the smirk on his face grow. Trying not to move, she remained in her chair exactly how she was as to not give him any better of a view of her body.

“W-why are you saying that?”

“Come on, most of my close friends are women, you think I can’t tell when a woman’s pregnant?”

“M-maybe, but why would that have anything to do with this?”

“Because if you’re hiding something so normal as a pregnancy, what would be the case if something more serious were to happen?”

Cassie dropped her head understanding what he meant by that. Slowly, her hand came to her stomach and rubbed the small bump hidden underneath the large jacket she wore.

“I get why you feel that way, but imagine being in my position. Everyone coming at you with all the normal nonsense of the day and then I have to deal with having a baby?" She sighed. "I should take some time off but…”

“I bet you don’t trust anyone else with your job.”

With a downcast gaze, she nodded. “Not only that, but I didn’t think I’d be so stressed out. I got in my head somehow and now I’m worried about this baby and… even my own life.”

“As wealthy as you are, you can’t hide some more doctors to put you at ease?”

“You don’t know me that well. There’s not a single thing anyone else could tell me, I have to come to terms on my own before I start feeling better.”

“Humph, I guess that makes sense.”

“But you know what, I never thought about what you just said.”

“Hm?”

“If I’m so worried about everything that I end up even hiding something like this, then what would I do is something that’s an actual issue were to pop up?”

She was more speaking to herself in this moment, but Kit responded. “That’s what I would like to know. If you know me at all, you’d know I don’t like working with spineless individuals.”

Her eyes narrowed. “But you’re okay working with some loser who, hypothetically, is committing an actual crime?”

Kit grunted. “Hypothetically, I don’t have much choice here. Until I can effectively prove what’s going on is a punishable offense, I can’t just kick him in a grave myself.”

A small smile came to her face. “I get what you’re saying. If you swing and miss it’ll only worsen the situation.”

“Exactly. At least you’re smart enough to understand that.”

“That’s not exactly a complicated thing. You do know I happen to be trying to get into the true crime world. Romance is great and all, but I want to branch off into the world of crime dramas.”

“Humorously, that seems to suit you quite well.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that I’ve heard people say you think of every little possible thing when agreeing to a contract. You seem not to like anything that doesn’t fall in line with your mindset perfectly.”

“I’ve actually heard that before. Me and my husband think it’s because thinking of everything that could possibly happen eases me. Like I know every outcome and can plan accordingly.”

“Then maybe that’s the answer.”

“To the hypothetical?” Her head shook. “If I did that, there are several ways this could turn out, especially if you’re somehow involved at any point.”

“Of course, but I don’t mean that. I mean for me to believe you. Maybe if you prove you’re unlearning that scared personality of yours, I’ll feel your words are much more truthful.”

Cassie took a small breath. “With everything you’ve said, I feel like my best bet would be to act how I want to. That includes getting this little secret off my chest…” She laughed a bit. “More like out of my belly.”

Kit rolled his eyes. “Is that really funny?”

“Of course not, but it made me giggle a little.” Cassie continued to look at her stomach and gave it some gentle rubs. “You know, if that what it takes then I think I can relax a bit.” She looked at Kit with a newfound vigor in her words. “How do reoccurring roles sound?”

“What?” Seemingly lost for a second, Kit responded with confusion.

“Well, I don’t like the idea of you participating in just one role. I’d want you back here as much as possible!”

“For what reason exactly?”

“Because, as a kid, I remember absolutely loving your character roles. It was a little bit of a dream of mine to work with someone I enjoyed listening to as a kid.”

“You do know the kinds of roles I had as a kid were… much more mature than I should have been in right?”

“Yes, I’m very aware of that. Here’s a little fun fact about me: I used to watch M and R rated stuff when I was just eight years old!”

Kit shook his head. “No wonder your ideas are so crazy, you must have something wrong with you.”

Cassie smiled. “You know, most likely.” She exhaled. “Wow, that feels really nice to let someone know.”

“How?”

“Because it’s hard keeping things like that bottled up. I’d love to tell people that the stuff I watched as a kid really screwed my brain up. I learned about things kids just shouldn’t have and now that I’m much older, I understand how that’s shaped even the world’s I create on paper.”

“You’re not all bad all things considered.”

“Trust me, I know, I know I could have been a lot worse than I am now.” She paused. “Speaking of which, maybe I should really give in and embrace that. I should try and reclaim the bit I lost as a kid now.”

“And how would you expect to do that?”

“With this office, of course. It’s so drab and business-like. I wanna create something little kid me would have loved to work in!”

Kit listened as she went on about what she was going to do. “Honestly, the day I see that is the day I’ll know you’re really being truthful with your words.”

“Really? Then I guess it’s settled. Leigh isn’t gonna be happy at the renovation cost though.”

“That doesn’t matter to me, all that does is you don’t go back on your word.” Kit then got up. “If so, then it’ll be a pleasure every time I’m asked to return here.”

“Oh, we didn’t agree to anything though!”

“I know, I’ll be back the next time you’re free and by then you should be staring those renovations right?”

Cassie smiled and gave an eager nod. “By then, you won’t be the only one who knows about my little secret.”

Kit, amused by her words, said nothing as he made his way out of the office.

“Oh, you must think he’s gonna be good too because you’re craving the good stuff!” Cassie reached for her phone and eagerly dialed her husband’s number to give him the good news and to get her and her baby fed.

Words into Potions: a month-long writing challenge!

We're excited to announce Moon + Seraph's newest event...

Words into Potions (or, WIP!)

Join us this March 1st - 31st for a month-long writing challenge, where any and all types of writing goals are welcome! Use our event to draft a whole novel, outline a new WIP, finish a short story, or accomplish anything writing-related!

We have lots of exciting freebies to help you along the journey!

Track your milestones on a free, downloadable map

Collect digital writing-themed badges

When you reach your goal, randomly pull 1 of 12 digital tarot-inspired cards

Plus, to celebrate our birthday and the event finale on March 31st, we encourage you to post an introduction of your WIP(s) and a wrap-up of all the progress you made. Tag us and we'll reblog your post!

Optionally, join our Discord server to get more out of the Words into Potions writing challenge!

(Learn more about the server here.)

Earn special Discord roles by doing writing sprints

Participate in a weekly writing marathon, where we collectively try to reach a larger goal

Weekly WIP question trades, where we talk about each other's stories and encourage each other to keep writing

Share links to any progress updates you post on Tumblr in our dedicated event promotion channel, and we'll reblog them here

For a sneak peek at our free rewards and more details, read on below!

If you're going to participate or just want to help spread the word, please give this post a reblog! It's very hard for posts to be seen on Tumblr right now, and we really, really want this to find as many writers as possible.

Take a peek at a small section of our milestone map!

As you journey to your writing goal in March, you can also journey through a forest and collect different ingredients from mythical characters, creatures, and locations! Our map milestones are percentage based, which means they'll work for any goal you choose. Whether it's words, pages, hours, or anything else!

This is a super high-res file, so you'll be able to set it as your desktop wallpaper, zoom-in on all the details, and even print it as a poster! (We'll share more details on our printing recommendations when we release the full map mid-February.)

Here's 3 of our 38 writing badges, designed just for this event!

When we get closer to March we'll release a full list of our badges for you to reference and download throughout the month, or if you're in our Discord server, we'll have an automated system for you to claim your badges!

We encourage you to share the badges you earn on Tumblr, along with your progress! Please @ us in your posts if you do, so we can reblog and encourage you!

Reach your goal, and randomly pull 1 of 12 digital, tarot-inspired cards!

These are digital, downloadable cards that you can share on Tumblr, set as a phone lock-screen, and even print! We'll have size options for different desktop/phone wallpapers, as well as some dark mode versions! (Printing recommendations to come!)

Things to Know:

Words into Potions begins on March 1st 2024 and ends on March 31st 2024.

This event is geared toward original fiction writers, but all are welcome to participate.

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Have questions? Send us an ask!

We're very excited about this writing challenge, so we're more than happy to answer any questions you have!

So, I had these sitting in my gallery and decided to share what they were related to :D

Here's the link to the original Picrew and the artist who made it.

So, this is related to my story titled Kingdom of Bumalia (if you wanna know more check this out!) where all of the inhabitants are kind of anthropomorphic.

The main groups are Birds, Insects, sea mammals and land mammals.

Birds are only royals so they don't have "common" forms. There's only three living birds in my story anyways and they're all related to the royal family.

Next are insects. There're more of them, but it's still common for there to only be royals. In this case, there's only one main insect and that's the cousin of the next-in-line (1st pic).

Common traits: Narrow green eyes, wings, [which the picrew didn't have :( ], dark hair, and royals.

Next is Aquatics and they're common folk along with everyone else below this point.

Usually aquatics are gentle and carefree with the traits that all their hair is blonde and their eyea blue due to being underwater most the time.

They can exist on land, but they usually don't have normal legs looking like these mfs for the most part.

These were some of the common folk I made.

Common traits: curly, bleached blonde hair and blue eyes. They usually have dry skin from being on the surface for too long.

For land mammals, these are pretty much the low class citizens who work coin bag to coin bag.

There's a lot of land mammals in the story, but with the options I had, I couldn't make them exactly to my liking. So, I made these guys who came out perfectly!

Common traits: having nothing in common. Most land mammals look different from species to species. Unlike every other species where everything is uniform.

Words into Potions: Introduce Your WIPs!

We want to know what you'll be working on during our March writing challenge!

Introduce the WIP(s) you'll be working on during March using the template below!

Make sure you add the tag 'MS: WIP Intro', so we can browse through all your projects and reblog them to Moon + Seraph!

Please include a link to our Words into Potion introduction somewhere in your post, so anyone can easily learn about and join our writing challenge.

WIP Introduction Template:

— Title — Genre — Summary — Optionally, any WIP-related links — Optionally, your WIP hashtag — Optionally, one WIP graphic/art — Optionally, a short snippet

Looking to make friends during our writing challenge? Take a look through the WIP intro tag here and find writeblrs to follow and support!

Courage from Love

The night seemed as if it would stay uneventful, but right as it hit midnight, Cassie's phone went off. Knowing the only person who'd be calling her, she went and answered it with an eager smile on her face.

"Hey, what's up Haku?"

"I honestly wish it was nothing." His voice was irate, not very much so, but it was noticeable to Cassie who was more than used to his soft spoken tone.

"What's up? You sound upset."

"Sorry if I do. It's just so stupid. No one wanted to go back to the dorms to get this… thing they bought—I think it's some kind of drink—so I eventually offered to go get it for them."

Cassie sighed slightly. "Sometimes you're too nice for your own good."

"Tell me about it." He sighed. "I just thought to call you for some company."

Cassie smiled and sat up in her bed as she listened to Kohaku talk. As she did so, a resolution to this dilemma occured to her.

"Hey, maybe… I could just get it for you instead."

"Really? You don't mind?"

"No, I'm cool doing it for you."

He let out a relieved sigh. "Honestly, it'd mean a lot if you could."

Cassie then got up. "Where is it?"

"It's one door from my dorm. I'll just meet you halfway, so tell me when you get to my dorm."

"Alright, let me get changed real quick."

Cassie got up and went to her closet, however, it dawned on her that she'd be going outside on one of the busiest days on campus. Everyone was having parties, going out, or hanging out and she'd have to go past them all.

Worried about appearing strange amongst all the night owls dressed up, she decided to dress as she would during the day and found a decent enough outfit to go out in.

She picked up her phone and headed for her door.

"Oh, by the way, I think what they want is pretty heavy, so take your backpack."

"How'd they forget something like that?"

"I could take a guess."

Cassie giggled at Kohaku's more than annoyed voice, but she went for her spare backpack, the one she took on exam days when she didn't need to carry around five notebooks. It was styled like a bear, so she held it in her arms while leaving her room.

It didn't take Cassie very long to get to Kohaku's dorm.

"Okay, I'm here."

"Alright, they said the door should still be open, it's two doors from my dorm." Cassie followed his direction and went to open the door. It was unlocked, but unfortunately for her, a group of students were inside.

Cassie froze for a second and someone looked back seeing her.

"What are you doing here?"

"Did someone invite her?"

Cassie tried to speak, but nothing came out. A few in the room snickered at the frozen appearance of the girl before them.

Someone then said, "come on, what are you here for?"

Their impatience wasn't lost on Cassie and she just gave a small shrug.

"I'm getting something for a friend."

"Cassie?" Kohaku's voice on the phone snapped her attention back. "It should be on the floor near the bed."

Cassie looked there and found what Kohaku was referring to, she quickly went over and retrieved the bottle. She said nothing else and scurried out of the room. Some annoyed sighs followed her closing the door and Cassie just hurried out as quickly as she could.

"I got it…"

"Was someone in there?" He asked.

"Uh, yeah, I guess some people were having a party." Cassie left the male dorms. "But, where are you?"

"By the courtyard."

"Okay…"

Cassie couldn't help but think about the partygoers in the room. She hoped they would just ignore her, but a part of her couldn't help and think that they were laughing at her, getting enjoyment out of the encounter after she left.

Her walk down the sidewalk slowed and her very invasive thoughts came to the surface, making her gaze drop further and her mind run miles around the last few minutes. Every which way that could have happened went through her head and she almost wanted to revert time to do it again.

Cassie made it to the courtyard and found Kohaku waving her down.

He jogged over to her and while he had a smile on his face, it faded when he saw Cassie.

"Hey… what's wrong?"

She looked at him. "Nothing, it's just something stupid."

He pursed his lips. "Cassie, you're tearing up." He reached and grabbed a hold of her face in his palms.

They were cold against her skin, but his gentle touch was enough to mitigate that. Cassie's frown only got deeper and eventually she spoke.

"They just… I just think I bothered them. I'm sorry for making you worry over something like that."

Kohaku took a sharp breath. He gave Cassie a bitter smile and pulled her in for a hug.

"You're so cute… Cassie, you're making me wanna just stay with you for the night."

Cassie shrunk in his hug, but nuzzled against him as she always did. "No, you should go and have fun."

He pulled back and locked eyes with her. "No seriously, stay right here." He took the bottle from her bag and jogged off.

Cassie watched him drop the bottle off to someone. He spoke for a second and immediately turned back to Cassie where he rejoined her. Kohaku reached for her hand and turned them back in the direction of the dorms.

"Kohaku, no seriously, go and hang out with your friends."

"Does it seem like I was even enjoying that?"

She pouted. "No, but-"

"So don't worry about it. I'd rather help you not think about those jerks anyways."

Kohaku's hand was cold, but feeling it against her palm made her warm up, slowly that warmth crept to her face and her mouth turned up in a smile.

"Some day, your friends are gonna hate me because you always dip on them for me."

He chuckled. "No one would hate such a cute girl. Really, why'd you dress like that just to go out for a second?"

They stopped and looked at one another. "I'm… cute?"

Kohaku's face grew red as she looked up at him. He scratched behind his head and started to walk again.

"Well, I just think you could have dressed in any kind of way, really."

Cassie smiled at his embarrassment and happily walked beside him; knowing even if she was nervous and anxious, it didn't matter once they were together.

I love building character relationships and the impersonal ties between different species, races, and other characters in my stories.

I really like to explore all the different ways people can relate (or not relate) to one another.

What do you love most about your story's world building?