#‘his eyes fiery like blood in a wound’ and ‘his purpose brutal as if facing a battle’

[daydreamerdrew]

excerpts from “The Worn-Out Dancing Shoes” in The Complete First Edition: The Original Folk & Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm, translated and edited by Jack Zipes, and from “The Twelve Dancing Princesses” in Transformations by Anne Sexton

[whatifxwereyou]

The Oncoming Storm Part 6: Blood and Ink

Liu Kang x Reader and Kung Lao x Reader (gonna do both, two paths!)

Yay! Two days in a row! Next post will be Saturday. I had extra time today!! Enjoy some Kung Lao! As always, open to suggestions. Thanks again. You guys are the best.

Part 5 Part 7 Chapter Index

The sky was still dim with the rising of the sun somewhere far beyond your window. You woke to find that you had been placed in your bed and tucked in. This time, however, Liu had left no note on your bedside table. You had been thankful to dream of nothing for the remainder of the night but were curious to know how long Liu Kang had stayed. You liked to think that it had been for a while.

You cleaned yourself up, got dressed into a white gi, ate, and then went to the infirmary to have your wounds cared for. The wound on your right arm was healing far better than your left thanks to Liu’s fire. Then you made your way to the fight pit though there was no one there waiting for you this time. It was pretty early, and you had both been up late, so you weren’t terribly surprised. It was remarkable that you were awake and had so much energy now that you thought about it. You walked through the sand and made your way across the pit, climbing atop the shortest wall on the other side. You sat on the platform there and meditated, grateful to finally have your rebellious imagination under control.

Footsteps approached the pit and leapt into the sand but the energy that accompanied them was not the fiery and familiar Liu Kang.

“Y/N!” Kung Lao called, and you snapped your eyes open in surprise. He approached with wide strides from across the pit, so you jumped down from the platform to meet him. He held a wide-brimmed hat under his arm and tossed it into the air behind him as he got closer.

“Kung Lao!” You couldn’t believe how happy you were to see him. It was odd, to have rekindled a bond with someone that you had thought long since dead. You hadn’t gotten to speak much or discuss anything, really, but the more you’d remembered of him the more fondly you’d thought of him. Much to your surprise, he lifted you right from the ground into a hug. You laughed and returned the gesture and when he set you down, you dusted off your gi. “It’s been ages.”

“Sorry about that. I had an important errand to run for Raiden but I’m back now for a time. I wasn’t supposed to be there that night. You got lucky.” He turned and much to your surprise, he caught the hat that he’d tossed behind him and then slipped it back on his head, tucking the strap under his chin securely. “I heard you’re in need of a training buddy today.”

You couldn’t hide your surprise. Were you in need of a training buddy? Did Kung Lao really need to wear those straps around his biceps? There were no right answers.

“We just started training yesterday. Liu Kang was supposed to meet me here this morning.”

“And your arcana? Anything yet?” He adjusted the armor on his shoulders.

“Nothing yet.” You sighed and he nodded in understanding. “What’s yours? I asked Liu but he wouldn’t tell me. Said he didn’t want to spoil the surprise.”

“It’s… complicated.” He tapped his hat, and you heard the metal beneath his fingertips. The brim was, in fact, a deadly sharp blade.

“…it’s not the hat, right? Arcana can’t be just a hat.”

“To my credit, it’s a very special hat.” He winked and then looked you over from head to toe which startled you immensely. You hadn’t gotten much of a chance to get to know each other again but he had been so careful that first night that you had misjudged him. He was much more the boy you remembered than you expected. “How are you feeling? Your arms are still bandaged.” He picked up your hand and turned it over so he could observe the bandages.

“It’s been slow going. That poison was… brutal. I was very well taken care of but I’m still on the mend. Liu cauterized the other arm yesterday during training so that’s a bit better off.”

“I told him that it was important that you were cared for.” Kung Lao let go of your hand and then took a step back. “Well, we better get to work then.”

“What about Liu? I’m supposed to meet him. Wouldn’t it be rude?”

“He’s not here. I am.” Kung Lao brushed his fingers over the brim of his hat, and you could hear the sound of metal against flesh which made you shiver. “Either you keep waiting of we get started.”

You felt guilty starting without Liu, but it would be good for you to spend some time with someone other than him. The two of you had become inseparable and you thought that maybe it would do your brain some good to be out of that mindset. It had become especially difficult to maintain any healthy distance since you’d left the infirmary. At least then you’d had the monks to chat with. You had clung to him in your time of need, and he had embraced you and reciprocated. It wasn’t a bad thing, but it would be good to lift your head and breathe something other than his intoxicating air every so often.

“I suppose that we’ll get started then.”

“Good.” Kung Lao walked away from you. “Ready?” He was very much that young boy all grown up into a man. He had the same confidence and charisma. It was wild for you to think that it had been the same person before but now there was no doubt left in your mind.

“Of course.” You readied your stance and he turned toward you, stepping carefully into a stance of his own and one that was incredibly familiar to you. Wing Chun was the very same martial art that your father had been proficient in. Kung Lao’s hat obscured much of his face from view and in that moment, he was incredibly attractive.

Unlike Liu Kang, Kung Lao didn’t seem afraid to strike. He rushed toward you and you dodged to the side. He turned and punched you quickly and repeatedly, but you blocked with your arms up and slid back from the force of the blows. Your wounds ached but there was little time to focus on it. You slid back further and ducked beneath his strike then stepped around him and slammed your palm hard into his back. He flipped around and kicked high so you ducked beneath him. He flipped back and then grasped you around the waist and wrestled you to the ground.

You yelped in surprise and panicked very briefly. You even heard Kung Lao laugh under his breath. You had to switch mindsets. You struggled and he pinned you. There was no way you would break from his grapple with your usual wushu. He was too big in comparison. So instead, you swung your arm over your head to force his grasp around you to release, and then gripped his palm, twisted his wrist, and pushed him from where he’d held his weight. When you got to your knees, you stepped further into his space and flipped him onto his back with a shout. He coughed on the ground and sat up quickly.

“Aikido? Really?”

“How else am I supposed to flip a guy so much bigger than me?”

“Thanks for the compliment.”

You backed up and bounced back into your stance. Kung Lao flipped onto his feet and then with a twist, he disappeared into the ground in a blazing white light.

“Oh.” You dropped your stance.

His arcana. It was complicated. You saw that now. With a deep breath you calmed your raging thoughts and searched for his energy. It was like Liu had said the night before. There was something tangible about your energy. It had to be the dragon marking. You turned just as he rose from the ground in a spin and a spray of white light. You were knocked back and rolled out of the way as he struck the ground then stomped toward you. You grabbed his leg, twisted, and flipped him onto his back.

He leapt back to his feet, pulled off his hat, and swung it toward you like a blade. You kicked it back and tried to knock him off balance, but he and the hat were one. He twisted back and you watched as he threw the hat. It zipped around the pit and you spun out of the way and ducked low. It stopped and turned back toward you, so you waited for it to get closer before jumping aside. You misjudged the throw and it sliced through your gi and left your right side bloodied. Kung Lao caught the hat and hurried toward you.

“Are you o-“

You switched stances and didn’t let him finish. You kicked then threw blow after blow, forcing him on the offensive. He used his hat to block the blows and your fists rattled to the clang against metal. You had to get behind him and knock him off his balance. He was too steady and stable. His guard would never be broken before you were worn out.

You stepped back and made to kick high then instead made to duck and roll around him but as you kicked, you were surrounded by a flurry of something dark and when it cleared, you were behind Kung Lao. On instinct, you kicked and made contact with his neck and knocked him to the ground with great control. Then you returned to your stance. It had happened so fast that you weren’t quite sure what had happened, and Kung Lao didn’t seem to, either. You tried again to will that aggressive energy back to you and your fists were at once covered in something dark and tangible. It wasn’t like smoke; it was like liquid and you could feel it whipping about your fists though it didn’t hurt you. It splattered against your skin and surrounded your forearms and elbows.

Instead of attacking, you held your palms up and willed the dark puddles to float above your hands. There they formed into magnificent orbs of shadow.

It was ink. At least you thought it was.

With a smile you willed the puddles of ink to dance between your hands. Kung Lao dusted himself off and approached you, slowly clapping, and tilting his head as if impressed, a small smirk on his face. He then placed his hat back atop his head. You let the magic go and watched as it faded before dripping to the ground. Your arms and hands were stained black and your gi was a mess. Kung Lao was stained with ink along his neck and back. You beamed with pride and punched the air happily.

You’d done it! You’d done it on accident and then on purpose. That was huge progress.

“Cousin? You’re back?” Liu Kang’s voice broke the happy silence and he stepped into the fight pit. Kung Lao walked to Liu Kang and grasped his arm in greeting.

“Got back this morning. Heard you were busy.”

Liu Kang looked him over in surprise and scrunched up his nose at the sight of the ink. “What is this?”

“Y/N found her arcana.” Kung Lao gestured toward you and you waved happily. Liu’s brow furrowed as he looked from Kung Lao and back to you. Then he approached you curiously.

“Is it fire? That would be odd.”

“No!” You smiled and made to explain but Kung Lao interrupted.

“Tonight, we celebrate your success!” He beamed with pride.

“If not soot then what is this?”

“I’ll show you.” You eagerly met him halfway in the pit. You held your palm facing upward and focused. It was more difficult to conjure out of combat and for a second, you weren’t sure you could do it, but then you manifested a small wave of magic above your hand. “It’s ink. At least I think that it is.” Liu reached to touch the wave curiously and as you admired his reach, the ink took the form of his hand and imitated his motions. You were startled and almost lost your grasp on it.

“Remarkable.” He was in wonder of your gift just as you had been of his. You turned as Kung Lao approached you and tossed the glob of ink right at him. It splashed and splattered over his chest and face harmlessly. He stared at you in mock offense.

“Now we’re even.”

“Be careful or I might just start a real fight, Y/N.” He laughed.

“As far as I’m concerned? I won that last one.”

“Not a chance.” He tapped the brim of his hat.

“Kung Lao? I need a word.” Raiden’s voice interrupted, commanding from the hall outside the fight pit. Kung Lao bowed to them both and then rushed out of the fight pit, taking the steps two at a time. You watched as he disappeared behind the pillars to speak with Raiden.

“I’m sorry that I didn’t show up this morning.” Liu bowed and you returned your attention to him. “There were urgent matters that I had to attend to. I had asked Lord Raiden to send someone to let you know that I would be late.”

“Don’t worry about it. We’d both been up late, and I knew that you had to be doing something important to not show up. Besides, Kung Lao was there to help me.”

“How did that go? Are you hurt at all?” He gently took your wrist and tried to look over the gauze on your arms, but you pulled your am free and swatted at his hand as he reached for you again. He laughed in disbelief. “You’re covered in ink! I can’t tell.”

“I’m fine. I promise.”

“That hat of his is much more difficult to control the damage of than my fire. And he can be a bit careless in such matters. I can’t tell you how many scars I have from that thing.”

“I’m really fine. Just a few bruises and scrapes, I think.”

“Good.” Liu gestured toward the platform that you’d sat upon earlier. “Come meditate with me.” He sat down and patted the ground next to him as you had often done for him. You joined him but sat in front of him instead. “Let’s see just how much you can manipulate your arcana. You mimicked me very well before, so let’s try that.” Together they sat and he coached you through the familiar breathing and grounding exercises but as soon as he held his hands in front of him and summoned his flames, your calm was gone. All that meditation went right out the window. His arcana was beautiful, and you briefly forgot that you were supposed to be imitating it. “Can you do it again? Mimic me?”

“I’ll try my best.” You wouldn’t admit that you had gotten distracted. You took slow careful breaths and focused on your own energy. It coursed not only through you but around you, much like that flickering lamplight Liu Kang had described it as the night before. You smiled as you were able to summon the ink above your hands just as Liu had done with his fire. It moved in slower and less controlled motions than Liu’s fire, but you managed. The more you did it, however, the weaker you felt.

You felt your posture failing and held a hand to steady yourself against the ground, the other focused on your magic.

“Take it slow, Y/N.” Liu soothed you and then closed his eyes. You followed along with him but were suddenly aware of eyes on you from the other side of the fight pit. Kung Lao was approaching you, and he was fixed on your magic. Your stomach fluttered with confused butterflies and you mentally threatened to drown them in ink.

Much to your surprise, there was a surge of heat and fire rose from Liu’s hands and spread up his arms and behind him, taking the shape of a magnificent dragon. It roared and breathed fire from fire before swimming in the air behind its maker. You leaned back on your hand and stared, awestruck. Liu opened his eyes, reflecting the reds and oranges of his fiery dragon.

“Show off.” You heard Kung Lao mutter.

“Don’t give up, Y/N.” Liu Kang urged but the sheer magnificence and power of what he was capable of had you overwhelmed. “Try. For me.”

Correcting your posture, you felt the weight of exhaustion on you. Your arms would not stay upright on their own, so you rested them against your knees. Even though you wished to give up, you breathed through the exhaustion and discomfort. You urged your arcana forth. Despite your willing it to, it couldn’t find a form like Liu’s, but a wave of ink flew through the air and followed the dragon’s graceful path. Ink splattered and hissed as it fell upon the dragon, but it did not extinguish Liu’s arcana. Each drip stained the ground black. You watched, bewitched by the beauty of this thing that you had created from nothing but your energy. The way that the darkness intertwined with the flames made you forget about all other things.

Applause broke you from your reverie. Kung Lao was smiling at you both. You gasped for breath and dropped onto your back with a thud where you laughed in exhaustion. The ink fell in a puddle and soaked you, making you only laugh harder. Above you the sky was a brilliant blue speckled with white and you were mystified by the beauty and complexity of the world. As tired and conflicted as you were in so many other ways, you felt at peace with this one thing. You’d done it. With any luck your arcana would give you the strength and skill to be a warrior worthy of Mortal Kombat.

Kung Lao’s face appeared above yours, blocking your view of the sky, but you didn’t mind. He extended a hand to help you up. He and Liu Kang had been talking but you hadn’t heard their words. You didn’t need to. You took Kung Lao’s outstretched hand and got to your feet with his help. Then you laughed at the sight of yourself. You were drenched in ink. Every bit of you was stained. Kung Lao wiped at your face and shook his head in disapproval.

“What a mess.” He looked you over and then looked to Liu Kang who had returned to the fight pit. “I think she’s earned a trip to the hot springs.”

“There have been hot springs here this whole time and no one told me about them?” You pouted. All this time you’d been missing baths and proper showers and there were hot springs? Liu bowed as you joined him in the pit.

“They slipped my mind. I don’t think of them often. My apologies.” He smiled softly at you, a look of pride in his eyes. You couldn’t help but be filled with glee to think that you were the source of that pride. “But Kung Lao is right. You have more than earned them and I fear you’ll never be clean without them. I’ll happily escort you.”

“I don’t mind.” Kung Lao folded his arms over his chest. “As long as you don’t throw anymore ink at me.”

“Well, don’t do anything to deserve it then.” In truth, you were so tired that you were certain you couldn’t have done it if you had tried. Liu bowed to you.

“Study later then?”

“After we celebrate.” Kung Lao interrupted.

“Yes, of course. I look forward to it.”

[mymostimaginaryfriend]

one inch from the edge of this bed

♛ 5x01: James dreams about Teresa. (1.6k words; rating Mature: language, violence, sexual situations) tags: james can have some magical realism as a treat, morphine is a helluva drug

 ➢ read on ao3 or below the cut:  

(note: I originally wrote this as part of a longer story about James’ journey to reunite with Teresa, so for the purpose of this drabble, morphine is making him forget he’s already seen her...cool? cool. thanks for reading!)

♛

James rarely sleeps deeply enough to dream. What starts as a coping mechanism in his childhood only gets cemented further by the military. Now no matter how tired he becomes, he can never quite turn off that last light in the back of his head. It’s for the best, probably. The things he’s seen—the shit he’s done. Who knows what nightmare would crawl out of the well of his subconscious if given half the chance.

The rare times he does dream, he’s usually able to wake himself up within a matter of seconds. It’s automatic now, like he’s rewired a shortcut in his brain. By the time he opens his eyes the dream is nothing more than a faint memory skipping across the surface of his mind without ever dropping an anchor.

The big, bad assassin and his built-in night light. He’d laugh if he didn’t count it as yet another valuable weapon in his arsenal.  It’s not like he doesn’t know this concession by his personal demons is only a layaway plan. Whatever he doesn’t pay for now will come due at least ten times over later.

Still, when he opens his eyes to see morning light filtered through breeze-stirred curtains, he doesn’t catch on right away. It’s not the sunshine that tips him off or the softness of the bed. It’s not the light breeze wafting through the open window, or even the dip of the mattress behind him.

It’s a sense of peace he hasn’t known in nearly a year. It’s the sound of her hushed voice, whispering his name.

“Don’t hide from me,” she says. “I know you’re awake.”

His heart leaps then plummets at the smile he hears in her words, sweet joy chased by sick panic. It’s not just the nightmares he’s been avoiding in his sleep. 

Dreaming of Teresa is an indulgence he can no longer afford.

When he left with Devon, he knew he’d need more than just physical distance between her and his new life, from what he’d have to do there and who he might have to become to do it. He couldn’t risk it warping his feelings for her.  He couldn’t let it twist his memories or cloud his purpose.

So in the last moments of his freedom, as Devon drove him away into the night, he allowed himself to hold close all that she meant to him: her innate goodness, her fierce bravery, how her eyes warmed whenever she smiled.

And then he built a room around those memories—built the wall brick by brick in his mind until they were shut away. He didn’t need a key. He didn’t even build a door. It was the only way of protecting both those memories and himself.

Leaving her meant leaving her behind.

One look at her now will undo all of his careful compartmentalization. One look at her, no matter if she’s real or imagined, will destroy those walls to dust.  He can’t get off mission, he has to stay on task, he has to—he can’t remember what exactly.  But it feels important, deathly so.

He closes his eyes and waits for the awareness of the dream to catapult him to consciousness but something is wrong. His mind refuses to obey the command.

Error: shortcut not found.

And with every passing second it’s harder to remember why it’s so important for him to resist, his urgency to awaken quickly replaced by an urgency of a different kind.  He can’t stop the hum in the back of his throat at the touch of her fingers brushing across his abdomen or how his body automatically angles itself toward the warmth of hers, inexorable like the tide.

She laughs and the sound of her joy hooks beneath his ribcage, turning him toward her.  They never had enough time.  Little things like lying in bed together, easing into the day with lazy touches and hushed sighs turned into something valuable, something to hold on to, something that’s supposed to be in a lockbox behind a fucking brick wall.

“Hmm, it’s like that is it?” she asks, voice like warm honey sending an anticipatory flare of heat up his spine. “Let’s see if I can’t wake you up.”

The drag of her hair across his chest is all the warning he needs before her lips find his and what’s left of his resistance falls away like tumblers in a lock.  There are no more walls left between them now. No air. Just heat, hands and skin so soft he can barely manage not to bruise it in his desperate need to get her even closer.

An alarm bell rings in some distant corner of his mind, but one hand has already buried itself in her hair, angling her head for better access to her mouth.  The other has slipped beneath her sleep worn shirt, fingers brushing up her ribs to the soft, warm weight of her breast.

This isn’t real.

He doesn’t fucking care.

The past year has been a brutally cold one, filled with blood-soaked ops and people he couldn’t trust.  He’s spent the last twelve months always on guard, either enacting violence, experiencing it or expecting it. To have Teresa here, tangibly safe in his arms, and so, so warm is almost more than he can take, let alone resist.

Her breath stutters against his lips and it feels like a hit of pure oxygen, like she’s reviving him from the dead.

He opens his eyes, pushing her hair back up and out of her face to take her in. She always smiled more freely in their quiet moments together, something that made him feel more powerful than any firearm ever had. Her lips curve now, soft and sweet, her eyes half lidded by pleasure and the knife that’s lodged in his heart tears a downward path, spilling all of his carefully contained emotions from the wound. His grip on her waist tightens too much to go unnoticed.

“What’s wrong?” Her eyes flicker quickly over his face, the ever present worry never too far from the surface of their lives.

He wants to reassure her, to hold onto the playfulness between them, but the ache of it makes him honest. “I miss you.”

“I’m right here,” she replies, voice barely a whisper, perhaps sensing the deadly seriousness of his words. He’s never missed anything half as much as her.  It used to scare him to think of what he’d be willing to do to have this once again. What lines he’d cross to get back to her, to this.

He no longer wonders anymore.  He knows.  The knowledge that he’d do it all over again if it kept her safe didn’t absolve his crimes.  It sure as hell didn’t silence the echo of screams in his head.

“Are you?” His voice is rough but he gentles his hand, smoothing it down her hip to lightly grip her thigh, relishing the strength he can feel beneath his fingertips. He forces a smirk, an attempt to salvage the lightheartedness, and though the slight narrowing of her eyes suggests she sees right through his façade, she concedes to his wishes with a soft smile, tossing her hair over one shoulder to lean down and nip his jawline.

“What do you miss?” she teases, biting gently at the tendon of his neck, sucking lightly at first then sharper.  “This?”

His breath catches in his throat and she hums her approval into his skin.  “Or maybe this?” she murmurs, shifting to run a flat palm down his belly, lower and lower until she’s cupping him through his boxer briefs.

He groans as she strokes him, and she smiles in delight as his hips reflexively rock up into her hand. Her eyes lock onto his, like she knows exactly what power she has over him, like she wants to see the exact moment he surrenders.  It won’t take long. It feels so fucking good that it’s only his pride that keeps him from panting.

Her eyes dance wickedly.  “Or maybe this?”

As quick as lightning, she releases him to grab at his waist, tickling in just the right spot to make him nearly levitate off the bed.

“Fuck,” he laughs, grabbing for her wrists to roll her underneath him, pinning her arms above her head. She’s breathless and beaming and so goddamned pleased with herself that he can’t take his eyes off of her.  She’s beautiful.

“This,” he murmurs, slotting himself between her legs, rolling his hips hard and slow, repeating the movement when her face goes slack with pleasure.

“This,” he breathes, as her heels dig into the back of his thighs, pressing him closer as he leans down to catch her moan with his mouth.

This, he thinks, losing himself in the hazy heat of her. This, this, this.

He senses it a split-second before it happens, like a sudden change in air pressure.  The distant urgency of his mission slamming into focus with the echo of a high powered rifle shot and the shattering glass of the window.

Fiery pain rips through his abdomen, but it's the soft cry beneath him that has him in agony.

He remembers now what was so important.  He remembers now what he was supposed to do.

“Teresa,” he chokes, slumping to the side to get himself fully between her and the window.  He's losing strength fast, barely able to prop himself up enough to assess the damage.  At first he thinks the blood covering her chest is his own, but then he sees it: the entry wound where the bullet passed through him into her.

Her eyes stare up at him in disbelief, words gurgling around the blood pooling in her throat. “James?”

He has to —

“James,” she repeats, blood trickling out the corner of her mouth, her voice growing faint.  

He has to —

“Save me.”

♛

ao3

[arkt-nehrim-archive]

[Vyntober Day 4 - Traces of the Past]

@vyntober​

It wasn't a hard task at all to find his quarry.

Narathzul prided himself on the fact that despite growing up in an environment where those of his kind were spurned and distrusted, he hadn't let such virile hatred keep him from honing his natural advantages.  Keeping his steps light, his ears guided him toward the basements reserved for fresh initiates to train. He knew there was only one from the sound of a dummy being struck- rather brutally if he was any judge; his quarry wasn't sparing effort for keeping to restrained forms.

'Like she's trying to draw attention to herself. She'll hardly improve her chances here that way...'  he thought to himself, moving with curious earnestness. As he continued the descent, he would ponder to himself,  ' Am I obligated to stand by her just for being aeterna? Any other that had done what she had and I’d not even think about aiding-...' -- 'No other -would- have gotten away with what she did, -because- she was aeterna.'  his eye twinged at the immediate counter thought, as his fingers brushed the dusty stone archway that lead into the training hall.

Plain to see and all alone, the new initiate was -indeed- brutalizing a training dummy with a dulled sword, puffing and yelling along the way. It was needlessly sloppy work given what Narathzul has seen of this Zelara already.  Despite the fact that she had been placed up against a fully fledged Paladin- an above average example of one at that, she held her own well enough, and when she could see defeat was in sight, she resorted to cheating to win.  A fact Narathzul didn't actually fault her too much for, considering the odds. Their mutual superior had been quite purposeful in setting his new aeterna initiate against an impossible foe and would have penalized her for losing; meanwhile she'd -still- been reprimanded harshly for her victory, predominantly for using methods not "in the sword drills".  

'I'm sure he got a kick out of making -me- of all people fight the only other aeterna in our ranks too... pathetic son of a wh-'  Narathzul's less than polite thought was interrupted as he realized Zelara had caught notice of him, the young woman having turned round, long walnut colored strands disheveled as verdant hues glared at him from underneath. She was leaning from the effort she'd expended, one palm curved over the pommel of her training blade, which currently served mostly as a support. "What? Here to even the score?"  she challenged, raising both brows as she steadied her breathing. Oh, so that's how it was going to be, was it?  Charming. Narathzul surprised himself with how the barb mostly rolled off of him, acting on a well of patience he generally didn't grace others with outside of the superiors he -had- to obey. "I came to apologize, actually."  he answered honestly, idly keeping an ear out for any others that might happen upon them.  His words blatantly shocked the woman, an unfitting, musical chortle escaping her lips before she turned to set her blade back upon its rack, sending a long ponytail wagging as she shook her head. "You're not the person who owes me one..." she scoffed, turning her back to a wall and crossing her arms.  She didn't look the part at all of Paladin initiate, and it sent Narathzul's mind awhirl at pondering just -who- she was. She certainly didn't fight like she needed formal training. Was it for the status then? How had she even been accepted? Clearing his throat softly and regarding her aloof haughtiness with a dismissive nod of his brows, he rested a hand on his hip, leaning his weight to one side as he clicked his tongue. "-Well-.  Mine is the only one you're going to -get-.  Take it for what it is."  Narathzul chastised, striving to keep the sneer from his voice, to middling success, "We both know our superior today manufactured that event for some pure, sick amusement. If you couldn't tell, he's not a man particularly proud to see an aeterna in his ranks, much less two."  "-Half- Aeterna."  she replied in an obstinate tone, intentionally ignoring the majority of his words as her eyes narrowed further. Everything about her posture screamed -get out-, but Narathzul had never been one to pay service to such bluster- he could do it too, he just didn't -need- to prove anything. "Same difference." he replied calmly with a half shrug, "Some of us live behind stone walls, under laws not of our own writing, but we become the same long eared, magic-tainted menace the moment we show signs of slipping our leashes." The young man's blatant, level tone in regard to sensitive political issues was a touch jarring to the woman as she let up in the aggressive behavior just long enough to look confused- definitely taking his measure through a new filter. "... you talk like a rebel. Yet you're happy to exist under their confines." she accused, at least maintaining her standoffish tone of voice, but her eyes betrayed a perplexed curiosity. Narathzul was starting to feel the oddest sense of entertainment as a result, though he surmised it wouldn’t last; it never did. She undoubtedly wanted the opposite, but her present company was rooted to his spot- at least for now. "Quite presumptuous of you." he chided, leaning back on his heels as he cocked his head at her, "Happy is a misjudgement... However, I'd challenge you to act differently. You wear the same insignia I do; seem desirous of it even. Yet I don't see you in any greater hurry than I to leap onto a pyre for our ability to recognize that -this- is all wrong." By "this", he of course meant the over-arching greater problem of aeterna being consistently treated as second class citizens, as well as the fresh troubles of the day itself. Zelara would take some time to digest his words, idly tapping the toe of her plated boot on the stone. Fired up as she was, Narathzul could read her as wanting to keep fighting over suffering the indignation of coming down off the rafters.  He couldn't exactly blame her, he'd -been- her enough times, and the -one- time he lost control- whilst fearing for his life no less, he lost the dearest person he knew.  'Ah. -That's- why you're helping her...'  he pondered to himself, feeling the pang of grief from the still yet to heal wound of losing Miriam the way he did. What a monstrous world they all lived in... Squirming away from his guilty sorrows, he drew in a sharp breath through his teeth as he clasped his hands behind his back and stood up straight; a pose he'd often watched his father take when addressing those beneath him on important matters. "-Look-, I'm not sure if you've noticed, but you and I are the only ones of our kind in Erothin's ranks, from the city guard to the Order of Paladins stationed here. An entire capital's military, and it's just us. Take that into account while you keep your chest puffed out at me like that. I'd like us to be on good terms."  he stressed, stoicism coming naturally to his voice that he strove to tone down in hopes of coming off more genuinely, "If we make amends, he loses. Just to point that out. And, if I advocate for you, there's a chance you get to stay."   That gave her a bit of information that wasn't Narathzul's to share, the young woman's brows creasing as she nodded to herself. "So they are expelling me then...and over something so small." she sighed, reorienting her glare in a way that made the young Paladin tense and almost want to reach for his sword, "And you sound like an opportunist. All I see is a man who wants to take advantage of my position-  to keep me under his thumb. We may share blood, but you think like they do." 'If only she could swing a sword like she wielded half-cocked accusations, she might've beaten me fairly...'  he mused inwardly, some of the venom reflecting on his face. "Take my offer however you like." Narathzul's response was measured, refusing to rise to the comparison of his genuine want to help her being anything close to what most human men would want of her,  "I can prove nothing to you until you allow me, and I won't act if you're not interested in a hand up. It's not like me, I confess, but I try to help fellow aeterna where I can, which thanks to them is a rare chance." Gods, was he making headway finally?  He saw her expression shift in the torchlight as she chewed on all he'd brought forward, before she decided to maintain her consistent abrasiveness, her lips twitching into an awkward half grin. She would cock her head along with it, having made a decision he hadn’t been able to read as she spoke quietly. "...  Most would call that generosity a flaw. Maybe a fatal one.~”   Was it a final challenge?  Why was she -smiling- like that?  First poor attitude and now she was playing games with him. He was beginning to think he didn’t have the patience for this after all.  "Then I'm flawed! Shall I point out some of your's to put us on -some- notion of even footing? Or would you rather I help you to a running start instead, seeing as you're not long for our ranks and have no mind to change that?!"  Narathzul hissed it with a spark of fiery frustration, inwardly kicking himself that he'd even bothered trying with this one; he'd never been one with a good eye for allies. Then came the most audacious thing she'd done yet.  She -laughed- in his face, hard enough she damn near doubled over...

                                                    ~~~

"-Laughed-?  My my, the brazen thing...~"  a voice like velvet purred into his ear, chuckling along with his tale. "I can see how she caught you so fast. I daresay there wasn’t ever a moment she wasn’t running circles around you after such an introduction~."    He kept his eyes shut gently, breathing in the mix of chilly desert air and the smoke of a fragrant incense his company had lit. He found some notion of delight in how she ran her fingers along his form, especially his scars; those traces of his past. Narathzul still boggled at the truth of where and how he was. The very scene he rested comfortably in was alike to a dream; surrounded on all sides by the desert that was once Saldrin's domain, lounging upon feather pillows and silken sheets, in the loose embrace of a lover he most certainly did not feel he deserved after all he'd put her through and been through himself.  He cracked a silvery eye open as he felt her palm spread over the scar where Arkt's blade had pierced clean through, drawing in a quiet hiss through his teeth. She would apologize with a kiss to his hair, settling her cheek against pillowsoft golden strands whilst electing to entangle her wandering hands in his own to keep herself still and to comfort him.  "Thank you for telling me about her. I know it must be painful."  she murmured, her voice reflecting a genuine concern. Yet another thing about her that had been hard to believe about Lithirill Andethil. The true and real giving a damn; accepting him for all that he was. It had been so very long since Narathzul had known the feeling that it might as well have been new.  While it had indeed hurt to speak of Zelara at length, he appreciated the opportunity Lithirill granted him to do so. She often enough wanted to know about the better times with her, their companionship, their fierce idealism and hope that kept them going through trial after trial...  only for him to ruin-  Lithirill could feel where his mind was going in the way he tensed, and she preemptively squeezed his fingers, gently tapping a thumb along his ribs.  A simple reminder to keep from spiraling... or to go ahead, if he needed to- she would be there either way. Swallowing, Narathzul would master that well of emotion for the moment, snaking his arms away from her as he sat up, peering upwards at the moon for several seconds before wiping at his eyes and clearing his throat, turning over rather suddenly. He would take in the beauty before him, her pale form lit in the warm tones of wall sconces, before dragging himself over her, her hues of peridot following him for every little motion as she tried to figure what he was doing next.  He would let her mind race for a handful of seconds, looking every bit the great cat she oft described him as, before he elected to settle against her, chest to chest, finding a comfortable spot in trapping her form in his arms and welcoming the comfort that come from feeling her hand slip under his hair and caress the back of his neck. He didn't say any sort of 'You're welcome' or ‘No, thank -you-.’ to her statement. He didn't need to, it was written all over his face and his desire to be as close to her as possible.  A question did pull at him however, taking some time to brave its way out as he listened to her heartbeat. "Why do you wish to know of Zelara anyway? You mean to grant me the gift of closure, this I know, but there must be more to it than that."  he murmured quietly, tilting his head into her hand as he watched her closely. Lithirill thought about it, adopting an expression that took Narathzul back centuries in its similarities to the woman he'd lost, and...in a way, found again. She savored that sad look of wonder as her fingers curled in his hair. "I suppose...I want to know as much as I can of the woman I was...or at least, to understand -that- part of myself.  We'll likely never settle the exacts of that matter, but to know her helps me to piece together my part in all of this...and ponder at Fate's peculiar sense of humor."  she would answer, her fingers escaping their self-made confines as she drew a gentle fingernail along his cheek, "We are, all of us, traces of the past now...With their aid, we ought to paint something new, mm? Perhaps not the future you had planned of course, but something...” Narathzul would've laughed at the poetics were this another time and place, but in the moment, he could only smile. He'd never know what he did to have earned it, but neither did he surmise he'd find an end to his gratitude.  In a long, strange, convoluted way, it was as he'd wanted it, and there would never be enough words to do the feeling justice of finally finding it.

[allyvampirelass29]

The King of Nothing: Scene 3

A Vampire Diaries Prequel By: Allyssa J. Watkins

Klaus felt the adrenaline coursing through him like an addictive toxin, infecting his whole body, and he moved with callous force to blur to her side, when an even more ferocious flash slammed hard into him, knocking the air from his lungs, one of them deflating with a sickening, anguished gasp.

The two vampires landed with a bone-shattering thud, creating a crater as the ground sunk beneath them, and Klaus could already feel his brother's fist cracking against his jaw with ravaging, undiluted, rage.

He grunted and growled, as Elijah assailed him, first one fist, and then the next, his neck jerking back and forth, feeling the bruises spread on his face as they took form, and for the first time in a veritable age, he considered biting him, making the holier-than-thou fop bleed, and cower before his King Brother. 

Elijah roared again, his whole body shaking uncontrollably seizing Klaus' neck with both hands, his nails biting hard into the skin, his grip like an iron restraint around his neck, lifting his head, strangling him mercilessly. Klaus fought back, almost impressed as the calm, austere face he knew and sometimes loved, erupted, animalistic, into a bubbling volcanic seethe. Elijah, The Eternal Peacemaker, was GONE, his eyes, whites and irises, a blind window of red, his back arched, his fangs gnashing in Klaus' face, and when he spoke, even Klaus felt the ice crystalize in his blood.

"IS THIS THE VIOLENCE YOU SO CRAVED, BROTHER!? TELL ME!!!!" Elijah slammed Klaus' head back, with concussive force, almost burying it into the ground, and Klaus choked on the dirt as it streamed down, crumbling from the broken earth. "DOES THIS DO TO SATE YOUR STRINGENT THIRST FOR SHEER BRUTALITY OR SHALL I TRY...… AGAIN!?"

Klaus flew up from the ground, leaping, his own eyes murderous and flashing erratic red, his mouth open and snarling, fangs dripping, like a riled, uncaged beast, but Elijah was driven by both the powers of love and hate, harnessing their combined strength, and he didn't even hesitate to halt Klaus, mid-air, with a single strike to his still bleeding heart, and effortlessly flip him over his shoulder, snapping his arm in two.

"YOU DEMON!!!!!" Elijah roared, his voice deafening, making the overcast air shudder, as he whirled around, poised to strike again, his eyes wild, and incensed. "YOU DARED DRINK FROM HER!?!? HELLSPAWN BLOOD OF MINE, if you EVEN so much as make one single move towards THAT girl, An Original SIN such as even Cain and Abel did not know will be perpetrated on this unholy ground, upon which you stand!!!"

Klaus screamed into a blur, holding his wounded wing to his chest, and unleashed his fist, Elijah's windpipe crushing beneath his knuckles, and his boot connected severely with his knee. Elijah let out the faintest, gravelly groan, sinking for a split second to his knees, and he felt the steel press against his throat, as Klaus towered over him from behind, breathing heavily, blade raised, and the thunder above them, threatening the inevitable storm, clashed with the thunder of Klaus' own tempestuous scorn.

"Come, COME, now, Brother of the two of us, which is more likened to CAIN, himself, having the courage to ERADICATE his own BLOOD!?!?" Elijah gritted his fangs, as he felt the sword, covered in Klaus' blood, cut shallowly across his own throat, mingling with his. "Am I my brother's keeper, or his KILLER!?" Klaus mocked bitterly, making another cut, and Elijah did all he could to suppress his anguish. "Valiant Elijah, Chivalrous, STUPID, Prim Paladin, YOU think yourself her Champion, but you are only going to make things infinitely worse for her, by CHALLENGING ME!!!!"

"WHO THE HELL ARE YOU!? VILLAIN, I KNOW YOU NOT, AND RECOGNIZE NO BLOOD OF MINE IN THAT HATED FEVER THAT FLOWS THROUGH YOU!!!!" Elijah's voice drowned out the growing thunder, a glint of blood and silver catching his eyes, and he struck at the sand, retrieving his stained dagger, plunging it deeply into Klaus' hand, making him fumble his sword, and Elijah blurred swiftly toward Natalia, standing between the monster he called brother, and the beautiful thing he had sired.

Klaus thrusted his now healed arm out, pointing his sword in a fiery seethe at his brother and enemy, his blood and Elijah's one as it reddened the blade, but now they stood here as strangers. "Let me tell you...… who the HELL I am, you PREACHING HYPOCRITE!!! I am the man that is going to save this girl, yes, this one that you seek to save from me, and it is I who am going to SILENCE her demons once and for all. Now, step AWAY from My Sired!!!!"

Elijah shook his head, bewildered, frustrated, and Klaus watched a little amazed, as his perfect brother, ran his fingers, deranged through his once, never-a-strand-out-of-place coif, wrecking it with purpose. "WHAT MADNESS IS THIS!? You FRIGHTEN ME, KLAUS, HOW do you seek to slay this girl's demons!? By becoming the WORST of them!?"

Klaus smiled, but it held nothing but foreboding and threat, his eyes focused hard, and unfeeling, almost reptilian. By making them..... FEAR ME. You, yourself, have seen me as thus, HELLSPAWN, yes, so poetic, Elijah, truly. You see this as a battle of that which is good, versus that which is evil, but the only thing evil fears, Dear Brother, is WORSE evil, and if I must frighten you, or her, or HELL itself, so BE it!!!"

Elijah, stepped back, as though to guard Natalia's helpless form from this inherent madness. "Do not THINK I have forgotten your crude display of INSANITY from the day previous, FORSOOTH, SIR, I am just as potently plagued by it!!! Those words...…. they're the fatally blind ambition and uncouth ravings of a MADMAN. You don't want her to be better than you, Niklaus, you want to harm her, PUNISH her, and you DARE do it under the guise of instructed PROTECTION!? YOU SICKEN ME!!! You're going to DRIVE this spirited maiden to her DEATH!!!!"

Klaus laughed cruelly, the sound biting, digging his blade into the ruptured earth, twisting it, each word spat from his mouth. "Oh POOR Elijah, without this darling Spanish Rose, whoever will you charm, scrape and bow to? She will be the BEST, or she will die...… Are we any worse off than before if she does? Tell me, what is truly lost, when you kill an already dead girl?

The tears fell from Elijah's stricken brown eyes, his lips quivering at he stared at this malignance incarnate that bared no resemblance to his brother. "You- You don't mean that.... You CAN'T mean that...…. Not even if your heart were carved of stone could you- could you speak so heinous...….

Elijah got very quiet, and Klaus watched suspiciously, as he knelt down beside Natalia, lifting her head delicately, his fingers poised beneath her chin. "Look at her....." He said softly.

Klaus' eyes went wide, and he brushed off Elijah's request with haughty annoyance. "What are you playing at? I don't need to look at her, and I should punish you for even touching her...…….

"Klaus...… Do you think I don't see it? Do you really think you can deceive me in this, hide your heart from the brother that knows it better, even than I presume, yourself? She's young, so young, she doesn't know you, not like I do, your mannerisms, your idiosyncrasies remain a confounding mystery to our young lady, while I can read them like words you've written in your own hand. It's so slight, these nuances, subtle movements, almost invisible flinches...… Your body whispers, what your mind screams in anguish to drown out. You're in love."

"Am I, now?" Klaus scoffed, his fingers tightening on the blade in his hand, moving closer, his eyes, cool, sapphire rings of azure fire. "WHAT a revelation!!! First, I am accused of being too cruel to this bloom, and now I LOVE her!? My, my Elijah, how ridiculously you contradict yourself. Which is it, then!?"

"Look at her. You know, and I know, Brother, it is no contradiction..... It is both."

"Impossible!"

"LOOK AT HER!!!" Elijah commanded, holding Natalia's head up higher, her curls dangling, "DAMN IT, I said LOOK!!! Look into the face of your greatest happiness, look at that which you love and therefore fear with more suspicion and frenzy than even the evil of your own parentage!!! This beautiful, alive soul, who's ONLY crime exists in feeling tenderness for a diabolical, lunatic king!!!! You are Richard III, Klaus, save that your deformity lies not in the physical, but in the perversion of your heart. You ARE King of Nothing, except reigning royal of CRUEL Men!!!!"

"DO NOT SPEAK TO ME OF CRUEL MEN!!!!"

The lightning struck blue and purple in the sullen sky, as if summoned with the raging power of Klaus' piercing scream. His chest heaved, and his eyes were deadly with blue lightning of their own. Elijah caught the thrown sword between his palms, it's razor point just inches from his forehead, and he hurled it over the fence, thankful that Rebekah was safe inside and spared the inhuman evil now possessing her favourite brother.

"I was not borne of a cruel man, but I am the bastard Frankenstein creation of one!!!!" Klaus seethed, his voice a low growl, feral and frightening. "As much as I loathe this cruelest of all CRUEL men, as much as I ache to drive a blade through his cold heart, just so that I might be granted the utmost pleasure of doing it again and again, until I spear it out with coursing triumph, I was MADE INVULNERABLE by a cruel man. There is NOTHING, not one contrived torture by mine enemy's hands that has not already been thus afflicted by my HELLION father. Cruel Men don't only make monsters, they make...…. Indestructibles……. A Cruel Man, with far greater purpose than the one that came before, is what's going to turn a fast withering rose into sharp-edged diamond that can cut glass. Do not speak to me of Cruel Men...… when they are what forges warriors."

Elijah shook his head slowly, his eyes even darker, rife with revulsion, his elegant hands, hardened fists.

"That's it then, Your Grace? The sins of the father become the sins of the son!? You would commit these same atrocities against her, as they were waged against you!? YOU would recreate her in YOUR image!? Are you a King or a GOD, Niklaus, WHICH IS IT!?!? You ply the heart of the woman you love with the sword, to harden it against you, and here you stand, daring to EXALT the conniving TYRANT that made MONSTERS of us all!? Tell me, Brother, TELL ME your love and your hate are NOT one and the same!!!!"

Klaus growled turning his back on his brother, fangs bared, wishing he'd had another sword to hurl at him in a rage. "One is just as much a curse as the other, my love, my hatred, what does any of it even matter if both parties SUFFER!? He paced back and forth violently as he spoke, snarling the words, deranged, his irises still glowing blood red. "I do not exalt the DAMNED CUR, Elijah, do not mistake me. I exalt the hatred he instilled in me, that breathtaking animosity that made me strong enough to slay him, the author of my hell, along with any man or beast that dares thwart MY WILL!!!!"

"And WHAT, PRAYTELL, is your WILL for her!?!?" Elijah screamed, pointing accusingly at Natalia's form, which had assumed every appearance of death. "You drive me, spur me on to HURT her FOR YOU!!! Again, again, AGAIN!!! It's NEVER enough, and I am ASHAMED of the PAIN, the psychological and physical, that this young, vivacious creature has suffered at BOTH of our hands!!!"

"Ahhhhh," Klaus arched an eyebrow, with a horrible smirk, the tip of his fang visible through his pressed lips. "There it is...…. There we find why you've so smartly donned your kid gloves, Brother, why you've been less than useless to me today, why you will never be a suitable sparring partner for her, THERE we find, why you stint her promising potential...…. I pushed you too hard. You actually got those white gloves dirty, and you're scared that she'll see the monster in you too, even more treacherous for wearing the guise of mannered civility. You do not yet realize in this selfish attempt to keep yourself above it all, you prove yourself her worst enemy."

He started to move slowly toward them, stone-faced, and Elijah's lip trembled, the placid surface of his own countenance rippled with the angrily thrown stone. "DAMN YOU!!!! DAMN you to HELL!!! I am her ONLY solace in this INFERNO you have authored, with the SAME hand as the father you revile!!!! I used to think you were better than him, Klaus, I used to hope there was something still HUMAN behind those imperious eyes, but I LOOK at you, at what you're doing to her, why you're doing it, and I see only HIM!!!"

Klaus' chin shook with his indignation, his red hot irises blazing rings of fire, his seething breath, making his shoulders rise and fall, until they remained hunched with his venomous fury. Elijah's lips were tremulous, as he moved to protect Natalia, regretting the words as soon as they let loose their barbed arrows, but what they reaped in return, made his blood run cold, for never in a thousand years had he tasted more paralyzing fear.

"GOOOOD!!!!" Klaus thundered back, still advancing on them both, eyes manic, getting closer and closer, his voice more howl than human sound. "If you see in me, that particular evil, if my words bite with that wretched POISON, it means my plan is WORKING!!!!! MY PLAN that will make this girl a MARVEL, as opposed to yours that douses her fire, leaving her like this, limp and lifeless!!!! YOU, LOOK AT HER!!!! IS THIS WHAT YOU WANTED!?!?!?" Klaus' shuddering yell reverberated through the arena, making the air tremble all around them, and the lightning itself shivered in spastic flashing trails.

"I WANTED HER.....… FOR YOU!!!!!!" Elijah roared back, open mouthed, drowning out the next clap of thunder that rushed down at them, and Klaus took a step back, his own screaming threats falling silent, unnerved.

"What did you just say to me?"

"I wanted her for you...…. I wanted love for you, to gentle you, to heal you, to help you forget these long worn scars, Klaus!!! I saw something rare and uncommonly beautiful, a purity in this divine bond between you and her, love at first sight, such as there has never been before, nor will there ever bloom again, but you- you have poisoned this apple of Eden, and I see how blind I've been. I see how unnatural, how twisted this affect, one on the other, truly is. This isn't love, this can't be love, it's something darker, something wrong...…. You love her...…. but it is WRONG."

Klaus scoffed, flinging his arms out, exasperated, and broke into a joyless laugh. "Love, love, LOVE!!! How QUAINT!? What kind of FOOL do you take me for, Elijah, I barely know the girl, and she DESPISES me, she'd kill me right now, all you need to do is put a white oak stake in her hot little fingers, and point to my allegedly existent heart!!!!! WHAT are these flinches, these purposed movements that confess to you my love, hmm? Why do you think me capable of so weak, so human an emotion, that fragility, that madness, that hateful infestation that can only be called love!?"

"Me thinks he doth protest too much...…." Elijah said much quieter, searching his brother's eyes for mercy, but was not at all surprised when he found none. "Rant, rave, spew the opposite, but Brother, your body fails you in this unnecessary deception. I see you...…. Every blow, every cut, every bruise, every pain, that has befallen this young woman, is mirrored in your own body. You flinch when I strike her, even as you command me with your own lips to strike her harder, you wince at her wounds, and I see the glimpses of an escaped truth. Her hurt is your hurt, you feel her pain, and still you make her suffer, and in effect, suffer yourself. You hurt her with your own hands, you BIT her, tasted her blood, such graphic theatrics all to prove you feel nothing. All to prove...…. you don't love her, but oh the elaborate and ghastly lengths you go to, prove that you do."

Klaus rubbed his lips together, his gaze hard, flitting from Elijah, to Talia, but his eyes were unwavering in their indifference.

"Why do you do this to yourself, Niklaus...….? Why suffer the girl, sacrifice her, for the sake of your own unyielding pride? FORGET this Fool's Errand. This MAD babble about making her better than you, you're an ORIGINAL, such a quest is a death sentence for any who seek to undertake it. Stop pushing her. Stop pushing her away, let her in, save her...… even if it must be from yourself. Either let her in...…. or let her go...…."

"No." Klaus said with a scathing finality, his red, bloodshot eyes piercing into Elijah's as he leant forward in his face. "I told you, I cannot be deterred from this path...…. Whether it is love or hate that burns between us...…. She WILL be better than me, SHE will be the most powerful vampire of all time, or she will be...…. sacrificed. My course is charted, call it madness, call it prudent, but you will not stop me."

Elijah looked down at Natalia's slumbering form, and Klaus could see it in his austere brown eyes, his temptation to gather her up in his arms, and speed her away, never to return, but instead Elijah breathed deeply, palms up, backing away. "I will not court this madness, I will never condone this obscene abuse, this hold you have on each other, this ruined love that now shackles you together, condemning you both. These fates once braided, cannot be untied. I wash my hands of this...… I wash my hands of YOU."

Elijah turned, shaking, blurring away, and the moment he was gone, Klaus felt his legs falter beneath him, stumbling forward to Natalia, collapsing in the mud, his eyes stinging, as the dreary sky opened up and wept with him in a deluge of descended rain.

His tears mingled with the pelting raindrops, tasting salt and freshwater on his lips, as they shook, and he coughed, choking on his own flooding sorrow. He crawled through the mud, moving closer to her, more tears streaming from his anguished blue eyes, and he brought forth a trembling hand to touch her face, a pained murmur escaping him, as he brushed it against her cheek, moving his fingers up to the wound gaping, haloed with a bruise, at her temple, single tears becoming sobs, as his hand trailed with the rushing water down her neck, the rain washing clean the dark red blood pooling from two deep puncture wounds. The artist's unsavory mark.

He fell upon her chest with a desolate scream, as though cursing some unseen evil, knowing full well this malevolent foe that so assaulted his beloved, resided inside him even now. He wept bitterly, gathering her up in his arms, holding her to him, his head pressed against her heart, the beat of which soothed the chaos within. He slowly lifted his drenched hyperion curls, rain falling from his eyelashes, streaming down his nose, soaking his leather clad skin to the bone. His two fingers shook even more, the closer they drew to the bloodied bitemark, and he forced himself to touch it, feel the depth of his imprint, more sobs released, her blood on his hands in every sense. It dripped down his fingers as he spoke, staining them red, his other hand drifting through the water droplets collecting in her muddy, mangled curls.

"CURSE these wayward hands that have done naught but bring you harm. CURSE these impure lips that dared profane your neck, your blood!!!! CURSE this man who was never anything but a monster, who does not know how to love something without killing it DEAD!!!!!" Klaus sobbed profusely, his voice broken and choking, his words bleeding with the profound depth of his pain. He fumbled into an upright position, pulling her tenderly to him, laying her body across his lap, his chest shuddering, her head resting atop the curve of his shoulder. "Never...…. again." He whispered, his lips still trembling, the words drowning in his misery, with barely a sound. "Never again, will I violate you so, drink from you without your consent..... this I vow….... Forgive me, Natalia...…. Forgive me, though in secret, never shall I forgive myself."

He bit deeply into his own wrist, much harder than necessary, squeezing his eyes shut, wanting it to hurt, the way it had hurt her. Fresh tears blurred his woeful gaze, as he pressed his bleeding wrist to her wet, luscious lips. "Drink, My Love....... I know it is not recompense sufficient for the pains I have caused you these languishing weeks, but let me heal you, repay the blood I have so recklessly taken, both with blade and fang. Precious blood spilt by a mad king. You were right, Sweet Talia...… I am the King of Nothing. How else can I do this, fell my own sacred queen? Where is my kingdom? Here lies King Richard III, I, with my deformed love, clinging to my crown above all else, and I wish you would prove him and I, the same in such heartlessness, return that sword to this sheath a hundred fold, for this sin unforgivable. He pressed one hand against his pierced heart, still holding his bleeding wrist to her lips, but they stayed unmoving against his skin.

"No, no, no, my bloom of fire, you must drink, please, let me ease your suffering and thus...……. my own. Elijah's innate perception serves him far too well...…. I cannot see your pain, without it becoming my own...….. He sighed, cradling her curly head in his palm, easing her mouth open with a trembling finger, the rain cascading over them both. "I am doomed Hamlet, driven his dear Ophelia, and himself mad. This is courting madness, and I muse how long until this worn mask becomes my real face? That face which you could never love......"

He felt more tears stream from his stricken eyes, as he dripped his aromatic, spiced blood into her open mouth, watering his rose, drop by drop, and he saw her crimson lip quiver with hunger. "Yes, there's a good girl," he whispered through his raw ache, returning his wrist to her mouth, and this time she drank deeply from him.

"That's it, Mi Reina, bebida," he whispered in Spanish, watching her curved chest lurch forward to get more, and he stroked her soaking wet, raven tresses, his touch tender, letting each glistening curl fall through his fingers. He gathered her into his arms, lifting her up from the mud, and his face was solemn as he held her, cradled her, assailed by the unrelenting rain.

Curse these arms that are strong, but not careful enough to hold you, curse these eyes that cannot look on you with love, unless yours are closed...….. His mind lamented, his expression hard as he carried her inside, rain pouring off of both of them. Curse this lying tongue that dared call you dead, when I've never seen anything more fearlessly alive...…. Curse the wounded heart that will always break yours.

<3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 

[dndeviants]

Corrupt Cronies

Linda rushed forward to Ismark, gripping the wounded man’s shoulders. "Which way did he take her?"

Ismark caught his breath and pointed south of the square, "He took her that way... Linda, this town is bad! So many people saw what was happening, and they did nothing! I was trying to threaten to go to the Burgomaster, but... everyone just.... kind of stared at me..." Ismark’s eyes began to water in frustration, "I'm... not used to that. At least in the village, we try to help each other."

Ruki nudged Vasili’s arm, and spoke, “My lord, I do believe that we must free this town of its corruption- for Lord Strahd's sake...”

"Forget Lord Strahd's sake...” a righteous anger crept into Vasili’s voice, “Let's free the village of its corruption, since the people are too frightened to do it for themselves!"

Everyone advanced forward, townsfolk parting from their way, and hurriedly leaving the Burgomaster and his cronies as the party came forth, filled with anger and purpose... Aric and Jeeves stayed back, and disguised their approach, aiming to be as inconspicuous as possible.

As they got closer to the Burgomaster, the townsfolk had almost completely vanished, much to Vargas Vallakovich’s confusion and ire. The burgomaster of Vallaki puffed himself up to make him appear taller and more authoritative, placing a hand over his breastplate for dignity... In contrast, his thuggish brute of an assistant stood beside him loyally... a demonic arm crackling with hellish embers was his most prominent feature... second, his soulless eyes.

They were both surrounded protectively by a guard wearing special colors, which appeared to be no more than hired mercenaries and thugs.

"Vargas! What is the meaning of all this?" Vasili fumed.

Vargas Vallakovich spun to face Vasili, triumphant. He smirked and strutted to the end of the stage he stood atop of, and held out his arms in a welcoming gesture, that was also quite mocking,  "Well, Vasili!” The Burgomaster laughed, “I was wondering when you'd return, groveling for your master...Despite your rudeness in neglecting my title, I will let you know... All of this-” he waved about to the posters, the banners, and the stage, “-is the step toward liberation! Finding happiness through celebration! Eliminating all the spies for the Devil... Now, you have a chance to cut your ties, and join us! You know it is only a matter of time before the Devil is deposed..."

"Not likely," Vasili spoke quietly, but firmly.

Vargas was stunned at Vasili’s response, but before he had a chance to retort, Ismark rushed up with Linda in tow. He pointed to the man with the demonic arm.

“That’s the one!“ Ismark shouted, “It’s him, he has my sister!“

Vargas looked confusedly over to his assistant, “What is this one on about, Izek?”

Izek looked over to the Burgomaster, “The boy lies...” his voice was harsh and gravelly.

Linda looked at the man and cracked her knuckles. Lowering her voice to a threatening tone, she growled, "Seems like we have a kidnapper. I don't take kindly to that."

Vargas looked over the motley assembly, unimpressed. He turned to Izek, patting him on the shoulder, "Well, you know what to do. I have decorations to make, and my wife is making tea, and my boy...” He shakes his head in disgust, “Well, the lazy sod will probably need to be disciplined for something. Take care of them Izek."

Vargas began to walk away, whistling a bright tune. Izek and the remaining “guard” readied their weapons.

Izek laughed quietly, pulling out his axe, “Ready boys? You heard the burgomaster... let’s take care of these killjoys...”

Linda whipped out her revolver, not waiting for the men to get anywhere near them. She aimed at Izek, and fired two quick shots-

Izek still stood. Smugly.

Her stomach lurched...She did hit him- she was certain of it....

So why was he still standing?

Then she saw his wounds... Horrible, and bleeding now, but he didn’t seem to notice... didn’t seem to feel pain.

What kind of man is this?! she screeched in her own head.

Leaping from the shadows, Jeeves managed to get around the posse surrounding Izek like a shield... One swipe of the shortsword, another swipe... the purple poison glistened as it slid through flesh.

Jeeves stood, waiting for the man to fall. Instead, Izek only staggered and turned to face Jeeves.

“Is that all?“ The man droned, his hollow eyes piercing through Jeeves...

Jeeves froze. Then he saw the glow of the flaming arm...

Instinctively, he dodged out of the way and rolled underneath the stage- and was glad that he did...

Izek roared as his arm glowed with a fiery, demonic fury- his own men scattering as a balls of flame hurled indiscriminately through the square...

Linda ducked behind a crate filled with paper lanterns. She cursed herself as those went up in flames and singed her leather jacket. She pat out the flame and reloaded her revolver, not hurt at all by the attack.

Ruki and Vasili ducked behind a column, but the cover only helped them minimally. Small flames licked at their feet and burned through their shoes.

Ismark had no time to even think before a large ball of flame knocked him off of his feet and slammed him into the ground. He laid there, unmoving.

Izek laughed at the sight. Ruki hopped up onto the stage, filling her staff with her psionic power, and rushing Izek. She slammed him twice, hearing bones break underneath his skin.

But again, Izek stood. Calm. Uncaring. He took his battleaxe from off of his back and made one feral strike against Ruki.

Ruki managed to dodge the devastation of the attack, but still felt her blood rush up as the man slashed her arm. She grit her teeth, and psychically boosted her strength to lessen the damage she had taken.

The guard took advantage of the chaos caused by Izek and rushed the scattered party members... Two went on stage and tried to clobber Ruki with their batons, a guard ran under the stage to corner Jeeves, Three guards ganged up on Linda and begin to try and beat the gun away from her...

A few guards made swipes at Vasili...

Aric looked at the situation and decided his next move... no one had spotted him yet... and it looked like Linda was in need of the most help. He quickly backstabbed one of the guards accosting Linda, killing him... then struck at one of the remaining two, before dodging back to his hiding place...

That should throw them off, he thought.

Vasili unsheathed a longsword and made a cleaving motion in front of him, crimson splashing on the pristine silver of the blade. The guard clutched at his wound, and fell to his knees, screaming in pain. Vasili coldly cut off his scream- and his head- with the return strike.

Linda’s eyes widened as she saw that, but heard a moan on the other side of the field... she looked over and saw that it was coming from Ismark... she felt a bit of relief.

He’s still alive...

Back on the stage, Izek swung his battleaxe at Ruki. “This one is mine!” He barked at the guards.

Ruki pulled her staff up for protection, and grit her teeth as the man began bludgeoning her with the blunt of the axe... she had to focus her psionic power just to keep up...

Linda pulled out her machete and kicked away the guards, swinging her machete to keep them off of her. She felt resistance as the machete met the upper arm of one of them, but fought through it anyway. The guard screamed curses at her, clutching his arm.

Jeeves hid from the guard pursuing him and crept back on stage... Izek was the biggest threat, and it seemed that his injuries were adding up... He may not have been able to feel them... but his body was suffering all the same. He took his short sword and plunged it into his back- making the brute pause in his barrage assault on Ruki.

“Now!“ Jeeves cried out.

Ruki did not need to be told again. In one burst of strength and psychic energy, she struck Izek square in the chest. He twitched for a moment, the light fading from his soulless eyes as he fell first to his knees, then thudding face down on the floor of the stage.

A silent pause fell over those fighting. Izek’s fall seemed to spook most of the remaining guards; some drop their weapons and run. But a few stand and ready themselves for the fight’s end...

Aric took the opportunity first, picking off one of the remaining guards with his rapier, and hiding again. It was a tried and true strategy.

Vasili also spared no time for pity, brutally cutting down the man in front of him... and then elegantly, and quickly passing through the ranks of the guards to get by Ruki’s side...

Ruki’s heart dropped, What are you doing? she fumed in her head. It would do no good for Strahd if the others noticed him using his vampiric powers... She quickly looked over the other members of her party... None of them seemed to notice his approach to her. Good. She brushed aside the observation, resolving to reprimand him later.

Linda shot at the guards in front of her, dropping them. Jeeves struck down a guard, focusing on finding Aric.

Ruki scanned the field... she saw the burgomaster, still casually strolling on, oblivious that his assistant had fallen. Infuriated, she filled her steps with psionic power and advanced down his path, getting close enough to thrust herself into his mind.

Stop. Now. she commanded.

Vargas Vallakovich stopped whistling abruptly, and clutched his head from the sudden intrusion, “Wha- not the voices!” he cried.

“VARGAS!“ Ruki roared, “You are not fit for the title of Burgomaster!“

Vasili was distracted by Ruki’s outburst and didn’t notice the remaining guard swinging a mace at him. The mace made contact with Vasili’s head, and the guard became giddy, thinking he had downed the man. He made a return swing-

Only to be caught by Vasili’s hand, which stops the mace in its tracks. The guard looked at his restrained mace in shocked terror, then up to Vasili, whose eyes were glowing red.

Aric saw Ruki mentally assaulting Vargas, and fidgeted with his ring... He decided to help Ruki keep the Burgomaster in place, and test out the Qysari ring at the same time. He tapped into the ring’s power...

A spectral wall of glimmering blades appeared in the alley, cutting off Vargas’s path, and preventing any escape. Magical energy flooded the streets as these blades of all shapes and sizes whirled threateningly.

Vargas shrieked in fright as these blades appeared before him.

Vasili squeezed down harder on the guard’s arm, savoring his fright, before taking his free hand and punching the man in the face, rendering him unconscious.

Vasili felt the surge of magical energy, and looked to its source... Aric. He quickly strode over, looking at the barrier of blades.

“What on earth is that?” he questioned.

“A powerful magical item,“ Aric pat the ring’s surface, “Part of a set that I wish to get back.“

Vasili raised a brow, “I see... no wonder.” He looked to Vargas and Ruki approaching the cowering Burgomaster.

Ruki showed no sympathy nor remorse, instead regarding the Burgomaster coldly. She pointed to the whirring wall of blades and gloated, “Your path is cut off, Vargas...” she took a moment to savor her pun before lowering her hand, using her natural thaumaturgy to make herself more intimidating, “The only way is through me!”

Vargas fell to his knees with a heavy clunk! “Alright! I surrender!” He cowered before Ruki and Vasili, “What do you want? You killed my men, ruined my festival plans... what do you want from me?!”

Ruki felt a fury boiling in her stomach, “Pathetic,” she spat, “Stand up and fill that over-sized armor like a man!” 

She grabbed a hold of his shoulders and hoisted the Burgomaster to face her,  “Those who do not respect Lord Strahd, and do not have his respect in turn are not worthy of the title of Burgomaster!” 

"Ruki..." Vasili stepped forth and put a hand on her shoulder. His voice quiet, but firm,"You did well. But you forget. We aren't here just to deal with him."

Ruki contemplated shoving this man, for which she had two lifetimes full of contempt, into the bladed barrier... but she let go. Vasili was right.

Strahd was right.

Vasili leveled his eyes at the burgomaster. His voice low and demanding... "The girls. Where are they?"

Vargas looked up to Vasili, perplexed, “Girls? What girls? I have no idea what you are talking about.”

Ruki grit her teeth, and stepped forth, clenching her fists. Vasili held out a hand blocking her from assaulting the man. 

“He speaks the truth, Ruki. He doesn’t know about Arabelle... or Ireena,“ Vasili looked to Ruki.

Ruki calmed herself and closed her eyes. When she opened them, she glared at Vargas and used her psychic senses to affirm the statement...

Much to her disappointment, the Burgomaster did tell the truth.

Damn it! The only one who would know is Izek, and he’s beyond giving answers! she raged in her mind... Unless...

She thought of the spells she had seen Strahd use... A Spell to Speak with the Dead.

Ruki reached out to Strahd telepathically, My Lord, perhaps conversing with his dead companion will provide answers... She jerked her head to indicate where Izek lay.

Strahd hesitated. He was in his Vasili disguise... using such an overtly necromantic spell would raise suspicion... But service to a vampire would justify at least some knowledge of necromantic art... 

I suppose so... Strahd conceded. It is our only lead.

“Vasili“ walked over to Izek’s corpse.

Aric and Jeeves regrouped and tended to each other, watching Vasili’s odd behavior. Linda scanned the fallen, and saw where Ismark lay... a pit of dread formed in her stomach as she rushed over to him. She knelt by him and checked his pulse and breathing... 

Alive.

She pulled his hair from his face and tapped his sooty cheek, “Ismark...? Hey, wake up, buddy...”

Ismark groaned coughed, his eyes fluttering open, “I got my ass handed to me... again."

He slowly rose with Linda’s help. Linda chuckled quietly, and pat him on the back, “That you did, but we were here to back you up.”

Linda threw his arm over her shoulder, helping him walk over to where everyone else was gathered.

Ruki folded her arms and looked to Vargas, “I will keep watch over him.”

Vasili knelt next to the corpse of Izek, and turned him over to face upright. He reached into his spell component pouch and brought out a cone of incense, holding it in his hand. He hesitated and looked over to Aric and Jeeves, who were regarding him curiously... and then to Linda and Ismark, who had just made their way over.

“I apologize for what I am about to do, in advance...“ Vasili sighed, and began his grim work.

He muttered something low in a language no one present could understand, waving his free hand over the incense he held. A small ember ignited the incense, filling the air with a musky, sweet scent, gray-blue smoke trailing low over the corpse of Izek... it caressed the face of the Burgomaster’s henchman and seeped into his eyes, nose and mouth... 

The incense burnt out. A moment passed... then two...

Izek’s corpse suddenly shuddered, as if a spider were skittering over hot stone... He gasped and writhed, struggling to fill his lungs with air... a pale blue light radiated from his eyes... incense smoke dripped from his mouth.

Everyone was too shocked for speech.  Everyone except Ruki, and Vasili, who regarded the corpse with no emotion.

Vasili studied Izek for a few moments. “Where is Ireena?” he asked, “The girl with the copper hair, who came into town this very day?”

The corpse laughed, its speech filled with whispery echoes, “She is safe... In fine company...”

Vasili processed the information, before moving on,  "Where is Arabelle? The Vistani girl who went missing... Who was going to be used in the festival?"

“With the wolf hunters... in the town, still... at least until tomorrow.”

Vasili nodded, and rose to address the party, "I'm done asking my questions. Anyone else who wants to may ask three more. I think we should search the Burgomaster's mansion. Tie him up, and take him with us."

Vasili began to walk southward.

Linda blinked and felt the hair on the back of her neck settle... Three more questions? She looked at the corpse...

“Fuck that...“ she whispered.

Aric, Jeeves, and Ismark nodded in silent agreement.

Ruki tied Vargas securely, and whispered a vow in her native Vistani tongue, Patterna:

“If anything happens to my sister, I will end your miserable life...”

[kriegisms]

100 Prompts - 001Birth

Inspiration Playlist: x x x

She isn’t long for this world.

She knows it as well as she knows herself. Knows every tract of land, every curve of the terrain. It is her, after all. Everything she is, everything she stands for. Or stood for; what she was and is has begun to change, she can feel it in her gut the shift of power over what she perceives as her place, her lands. Lands she has put herself on Death’s very threshold to protect, people that will soon no longer be hers.

Protect it from the creature who lies not far from her own broken body. Torn apart by this monster in human skin, the body lying within reach, his own sword sticking from his chest and a blood-curdling smile still plastered across his face. His eyes are still open, gleaming with his wrought carnage across their glazed unseeing surface.

They called him ‘War’. He was bigger than she was, likely due to his ever-imposing and brutal presence on the world. Maybe she wonders what will happen now that he’s dead, slain by her hand driven by rage and maternal instinct to guard. Will another take the mantle? Will there always be such a beast in this world that causes malady and destruction?

He inflicted heavy damages of his own, to be perfectly honest. Her body is torn, her ankles and parts of her lower legs splintered beyond repair. How she stood to face him after he broke her is a mystery she quietly and briefly entertains herself with before a final fleeting thought of how stained and torn her once-pretty dress is, smeared in dirt and gore. It was a gift to her from her people and she has sullied it.

Any semblance of structure is lost to her, punctuated with a wet cough, her arms shakily holding her lofted giving way and collapsing. Her mane, flowing and cloud-like, drops like dead vines to the earth alongside her, no longer wisping of its own accords. The final breath is a death rattle, the world fades to black and she finds peace in it.

The heartbeat is not expected, deep and pounding. Painful.

The ether is lost in a flash, a brilliant white light flaring across glazed eyes striking her back into wakeful agonizing life. Or something akin to it, at any rate.

Another thump in her chest, more forceful than the last. She gasps at it, her lungs greedily gulping in as much air as they can from being rendered inert. A wet wheezing hack erupts from her, her body starting to activate long before her mind does. It will be some time before she realizes on any conscious or subconscious level where she has been and come back from.

One hand claws at her chest, gripping it as another heartbeat thumps, threatening in its tenacity to kill her again before she has a chance to fully revive. They come more frequently but no less ferocious. Her existence reignites around this pulse, driven by solid instinct alone to push herself up with her free arm. The foundation is shaky at best, but it holds long enough for her to stabilize herself with her other hand, dirty fingernails leaving grimy scratches in her skin, deep enough to bead dark blood just barely to the surface along her throat and upper chest.

It is a little easier to breathe without the burning, her heartbeat steadying and no longer explosive. She is stable for a second when her abdomen cramps painfully and she loses the lock on one elbow. It sends her sideways before she balances again, the loose arm pulled to put pressure on her middle.

The whimper that escapes is punctuated with a heave. She tries to hold it in, attempting to exercise some sort of primitive subconscious control, unaware of the scratched lines tracing all across her body. Blood rises like dark pearls before, with a wet tearing noise, they rip open. The shock of feeling it happen simultaneously is the final tether on that basic control and with a final heave, she empties her stomach much against her will onto the ground in front of her.

She hasn’t noticed yet that it is not actually blood that leaks from her new stripes, not even appropriate vomit. Black and oozing, staining everything it touches a sickly shade of very dark green. Her hair falls in front of her face, dripping with the same ooze, no longer voluminous. She has all of a half-second to contemplate this turn of events before the next few violent stages of the transformation happen.

It starts with a tingling sensation under the skin, from head to toe. Curious, until the muscle in the areas under and around the striping wounds bulk and tighten, wrenching a cry of surprised agony from her gasping maw. The feeling of her teeth growing and shifting in their places makes her tighten her jaw against it, clenching the now-fanged jaws together as though the pressure will make them stop.

The sight is indescribably hideous, a mass of vague human shapes and little semblance to the being it was before. Beneath the mass, she still holds what she can only assume was what she was before. She feels everything in this space between space, a tiny hole between the body she was and the ever-shifting blob that is pushed into its place.

The stripes begin to heal, knitting grotesquely together as she continues to leak ichor from every opening and orifice, her watering eyes dripping black tears behind a veil of oily tendrils attempting apparently to melt into the ground around her and take her with it.

With the healing striped scars comes something more pressing. The splintered and shattered ankles and legs are slowly pulling themselves back into alignment. It hurts like fiery coals have been injected into her skin and when they are nearly done, only then does some conscious thought manage to tell her that something has gone horribly wrong in this process, but it doesn’t know what exactly is wrong.

The tingling sensation returns, behind her eyes before the migraine comes. Strong enough to blind her, to make her feel dizzy and nauseous again, her arms wrapped at her middle in an attempt to keep herself from throwing up. It lasts for a fair while, she loses track of how long exactly. It ebbs out like a slow tide, the last appropriate precursor before the blob of goop pulls and shapes and solidifies itself back into her.

Besides the staining on her skin, her hair is the only remnant of the ooze that she simply is, a metamorphic beastly creature that has no one face it can use. She will mostly keep the face she can remember and knows the most familiarly. Her mane, however, will be no more cloud-like and wispy as fog, but oily in its constant movement and as black as the void that spawned it.

She thinks individually, fully aware of what is happening when the main ordeal is over. Her brain functions enough to barely croak out her name as though afraid she will forget it. She thinks in maneuvers and movements, strategies and tactics and equations. She thinks like a general and will perform like a soldier. It is the only thing she knows now.

It all comes flooding back to her from before her change and for the first time she can actively remember, she hates. Her land and country are no longer hers. She feels empty and alone and now she hates. Hates the horror War, lying nearby, his body growing cold and grey and starting to crumble to ash and dust beginning with his extremities. Hates the Polish monarchy what sent little Germanic crusaders to sweep in from the south at the behest of this monster she has slain. Hates that she no longer feels her earth, her people. It leaves her feeling none but pure, raw rage.

She would cry bitter tears here, would declare revenge on those responsible for what she is now. Except now she doesn’t know why. Like a flash, it is there and then gone and she remembers none of why she feels this cold empty loneliness. She merely assumes this is what she is supposed to feel at any given time, and accepts this and the feeling of wrath that is residual of her final thought.

She concentrates on who she is, but draws a complete blank. She no longer remembers the name she had before, but a new one flashes like bright red letters:

War

War. Her name is War. This is the name she is bestowed, the identity she remembers.

She tries to stand, to find where she belongs. There is a sharp jolt of burning agony up her legs from her ankles, causing her to fall again with a sickening crackle. She looks down at them, bared from beneath the torn skirts of the destroyed dress to see a subtle disparity between her lower legs and the ankle joints. The bones reformed, but the main break did not line up correctly. A purse of her lips, she knows now that the misalignment is permanent to her.

Unable to move, unable to remember what it is she is supposed to be doing or was doing, and feeling fatigued, she curls up where she is. It isn’t long for her to drift silently off into a dreamless sleep, hoping as she leaves the waking world that the nap will help her remember what her purpose is.

She is awakened by the sound of pounding hooves. Her eyes open slowly to take in her surroundings to determine if she needs to defend herself or not. The corpse next to her is hardly anything but moistened grey ash, piled around a sword stuck in the ground. But that is not what catches her attention besides passing glances.

Three massive horses are circling her continuously, going around and around and around her. Their riders are like something out of a horror story, told around a campfire by travelers to both ease the time and warn others of what lurks in the dark beyond the firelight.

One is grey and waxy, the perfect masque of ill. One misses their bottom jaw. One is hardly a skeleton with skin stretched on it.

The horses are not normal either; an emaciated white horse, a dark brown one with bright green eyes, a grey one with gleaming eyes of fetid copper. All of them fly a tattered black cloth from the back of their saddles, rogue tendrils and threads clawing futilely at the air as the three continue their endless circling.

Just beyond them is a larger circle of other horsemen, a normal-looking human cavalry of fair size, all flying the black cloth from saddles and bridles. The tack and armor on these horses vary from horse to horse. This is no standard cavalry. Unlike the three of the inner circle, these stand still. Or as still as a horse can stand at rest. She would be lying if she said she wasn’t curious to their presence.

New movement draws her attention forward, toward a stocky little man of dark skin and pale gold smiling eyes, almost as striking as the massive horse he leads. The beast’s head is trying to toss against the grip on its bridle’s chin strap and in lieu of not having such freedom, it ripples through its body instead. It is purely black, save for the flashing red eyes. An indeterminate breed, monolithic yet elegant. When it bares its teeth, it displays prominent canines in its upper and lower jaws.

The man stops in front of her and there is silence for a moment before he offers his free hand toward her. She takes it tentatively and he pulls her up to sit on her knees, but no further.

“You should probably mount your horse.” he tells her in a hushed tone.

She shakes her head, not even questioning why she understands him perfectly. Her voice is still rough, cracking from disuse. “I cannot stand. I think I hurt myself.”

He looks over her shoulder to where she favors her broken ankles and his lips purse behind his magnificent beard of greying red thoughtfully. He looks over his shoulder, lets go of her to wave a few others in the outer circle to him. A couple dismount, a few others in infantry uniforms run between the tight ring of horses.

“Help the commander mount her horse.”

She wonders why the rank for someone who has woken with no recollection of anything but her name and condition before she is suspended between hands and placed precariously on the saddle; the horse is surprisingly still during mounting. The soldiers run back to their positions as she takes the reigns offered her by the handler who greeted her and it is almost like magic. With someone on its back and the reigns in their hands, the massive beast becomes easy to control. Which is a good thing, considering she is unsure how to handle something as volatile as its display showed earlier. As if on cue, the other three horsemen circling slow down and file in behind her.

“We will have to help you with those ankles. We’ll head for Damascus; their metalsmiths are some of the finest. Wouldn’t hurt to get you a better saddle too.” the greeter says.

She shifts in the saddle a bit, aware that it was made for someone at least twice her size. The one before perhaps.

The man walks toward the sword sticking out of a pile of ash on the ground, pulling it up and sliding it into a hidden sheath at the left-front of the saddle before looking up. “I am Balthazar of Midian. I’m one of your generals for the Legion.”

“My name is...” She pauses, trying to remember her name. All that flashes is the one word, the concept. The idea. Surely, she has something different to offer...

At her confused silence, Balthazar picks up the slack. “You are War.” he assures, taking hold of the stallion’s bridle again and leading her and the others off toward the east. “You have much to learn of your new purpose.”

[kketura]

As Hard As I Try, Part 4

A/N: Part 1, Here

Part 2, Here

Part 3, Here

AO3 Link, Here

Thanks for reading!

Rey awoke to pain.

She gasped, sitting up and clutching her side, looking around the room frantically. She saw nothing out of place as she slid off her cot. The sound of something hitting the floor caused her to spin and suddenly Ben was there, crashing down onto one knee, his fiery red lightsaber ignited and lighting the darkness.

Rey stepped forward, shocked, but he was back on his feet a moment later, the lightsaber swinging in an arch to catch on something in the air that Rey couldn’t see. She felt panic grip her, the urge to help raging through her, but unable to do anything except watch through the bond. Ben moved again, raining vicious blows down on his phantom opponent. He made one final, brutal slash and then sent still, his breathing ragged, before he fell heavily to his knees. “Ben!” she skidded to his side, dropping to her own knees before him. “What happened?”

He looked up at her, his sweat damp hair hanging in his eyes. When his gaze met hers she saw relief sweep his face, a brief reprieve from his expression of pure rage. “I thought they already found you.” She frowned and looked him over, noticing his hand pressed to his side. He saw her look and pulled it away, his glove wet with his own blood. Rey grabbed his hand, pressed it back against the wound. “Who did this, Ben?” she asked with more venom in her voice that she would have liked. She felt an anger deep in her belly at the thought of someone hurting him, just like she had in the throne room watching the last Praetorian guard try to strangle him.

“Hux turned the Knights against me. He claims he has proof that I killed Snoke. Half of them are coming for you.”

“If Hux turned the Knights of Ren against you, what about the rest of the First Order? Ben, you have to get out of there!”

“I’m going to destroy all of them,” he growled.

Rey shook her head, reaching out and brushing his hair back as she took his face in her hands, forcing him to look at her. “Don’t do this. You can’t fight the entire First Order alone. You told me to let the past die. Maybe it’s time you did the same.”

“If you came to me, no one would be able to stop us.”

Rey closed her eyes. “That’s not my path.”

“Then at least tell me where you are so I can help you!” he snarled, and her eyes flared open at the pain and anger in his voice. She’d seen him feed off his own pain before, feeding it into the dark side to keep himself fighting long after he should have fallen. Hearing the raw emotion in his voice made her strongly suspect he was doing it again and the thought sent fear coursing through her.

Her hands dropped from his face and she sat back on her heels, wary. “If I tell you where I am, you’ll know where the Resistance is as well. I won’t risk their safety for mine.”

“I don’t give a damn about the Resistance. This is about you. Tell me where you are!”

She gritted her teeth, and waited for the fallout. “No.”

He growled and she felt him probe at her mind, something she hadn’t experienced since her capture on Takodana. Then it had felt alien, but now she recognized the feel of Ben—no, Kylo Ren—in the Force. The touch on her mind turned rough, a stabbing pain shooting between her eyes as she ground her teeth and fought him back. They held in balance for a brief moment before she gave one last push and suddenly found herself swarmed by his thoughts.

Everything hurt, not just the bright, burning pain in his side, but everywhere. The fight had gone on for some time before she’d been drawn into it. They’d betrayed him. And he was so afraid. He’d lose Rey and then what would he have? The idea of nothing made him sick… Pain exploded in her head and she suddenly found herself back in her own body, gasping. She looked up to see him doubled over, sucking in deep breaths as well, and anger flooded her. “How dare you try to do that to me again,” she yelled, stumbling to her feet. “You don’t understand…”

“I do, Kylo Ren. I asked you to trust me, and you couldn’t do that.” He visibly flinched, not looking at her for a long moment. 

“You’re on Crait,” he finally said with no preamble or apology, looking up at her with burning eyes.

She felt the blood drain from her face and she stumbled back a step. “Don’t you dare come here.”

He forced himself to his feet, bent over his wounded side. “I’ll see you soon.”

Rey was racing back towards the Resistance base in the Millennium Falcon. She had to warn them so they could start evacuating. A day ago, she might have trusted Ben to come himself for the sole purpose of seeing her safe, but in his current state, fueled by pain and rage that made it so easy for him to access the dark side, she didn’t know what he would do. She didn’t even know if he still had the ability to bring the First Order down on them. She did know, though, that she had to get her friends to safety.

She landed at the small back entrance, tucking the ship into the rock formations like she had before. She was barely off the ship before Poe was there, blocking her entrance.

“He knows where we are,” she said bluntly, not wanting to waste time with pleasantries.

Poe closed his eyes for a brief minute then nodded. “Follow me. We need to start the evacuation now.”

The hanger erupted into controlled chaos as soon as word was passed that they were leaving. Rey helped load boxes and equipment where she could until she saw Leia appear, a single point of calm in the madness. She sat down her current load and walked over to the older women, her throat tight.

“I’m sorry,” she said as she stopped in front of the general. “I didn’t want this to happen.”

“We were going to have to move eventually anyway. At least you gave us a head start.”

“I don’t know how close he is. I don’t even know if the fleet will come with him. Hux and the Knights of Ren turned on him. He might not even be in control of the First Order anymore.”

Something flitted across Leia’s face. “Is he alright?” she asked softly, as if she didn’t want to ask the question, but didn’t have a choice.

“He was hurt, but I don’t think that will stop him from coming here.” “Then we all best be gone when he does.”

“Not me,” Rey said, realizing abruptly that she’d made her decision long before that moment. “I’m staying.”

Leia frowned. “You shouldn’t—”

“I can’t come with you. Like you and Poe said, I’m a liability. He found you because of me. And I have other reasons. I just need to see him in person.”

Leia reached up, taking Rey’s face in her hands and holding her for a brief moment. “I know the Force will be with you.” She let her go, a sadness coming over her as she turned to walk away. “I don’t know if my son can be saved. Don’t lose yourself trying to accomplish the impossible.”

Rey nodded firmly, unable to speak past the lump in her throat. “A ship just landed out on the flats,” Poe said, running up to them breathlessly.

Rey’s heart jumped into her throat. “Is it him?”

“No, I don’t know what it is. Four people just got off and they’re headed this way.”

She swallowed hard. “Get everyone out of here. I think it’s the Knights of Ren.”

She watched the last of the Resistance disappear through the back of the cave, taking with them what supplies and equipment that they could, then turned back to the task at hand. Rey knew she couldn’t meet them on the flats. She’d barely held her own against Kylo in the forest. She knew she didn’t stand a chance against four Knights of Ren on her own, not on open ground. Her only hope lay in using the debris scattered hanger to her advantage and try to pick them off one by one.

She looked down at the new lightsaber in her hand. She’d finally completed it the day before, but had yet to ignite it. She had no idea if it would work, if every wire was properly connected and the emitter matrix installed correctly, or if it would explode in her hand, the strain on the shattered kyber crystal just too much to handle. The vents she’d welded into the hilt pointed up and outward, almost framing where the blade would be, and she hoped they did their job. If the lightsaber was flawed, there wouldn’t be much for the Knights to find anyway.

She watched as they approached, black mars on the white surface of the planet. They reminded her of the first time she’d seen Kylo Ren, dark and imposing and utterly terrifying. Their masks blocked all features and she had no idea what lay underneath. Rey stepped to the middle of the hanger, and waited.

They stopped just inside the raised shield doors, their attention fixed on her. One ignited a red saber pike, lifting it to rest on his shoulder. “You are the scavenger. The one that killed the Supreme Leader,” another stated, stepping in front of the others.

Rey held her breath and punched the ignition switch on her blade. A crackling hum ignited from her hand and the air rushed out of her. She shot a quick glance at the unstable blade, surprised to see the color had bleached to an almost white color, still blue but not nearly as clear as she remembered.

Answering hums met hers and she looked up to see the remaining three Knights ignite the blades of their various weapons. She swallowed hard. “I killed your master, just as I’ll kill you,” she growled, swinging her blade up before her.

The Knights charged, spanning out before her. She pulled her blaster off her hip and aimed two shots at the pike wielder, watching him deflect them with a vicious swing of his staff. She cursed, and spinning on her heel, ran. She shut off her lightsaber as she went and headed for the darkness deeper inside the hanger. She ducked around the edge of a ship and scrambled up onto its wing, waiting for one of them to follow her.

It was several moments before one of the Knights with what appeared to be a whip rounded the corner slowly. She waited until he was right underneath her before she jumped, her blade hissing to life as she came down on top of him. He dived away at the last minute, her blade searing down his arm, leaving a vicious, smoking gash. She landed on her feet, bringing the saber around just in time to catch the tail of the light whip as it snaked towards her. She deflected it, stumbling back as it flashed out again, coming in from unpredictable directions, driving her farther back towards the main part of the hanger.

The tail flicked across the outside of her leg and she jerked away with a shout, losing her balance. As she fell, she reached out instinctively with the Force, grabbing one of the huge engines sitting to the side of them and pulling with a scream.

The Knight turned in shock, but wasn’t fast enough to stop what was coming. The massive engine rolled over him, crushing him under its weight as his whip fizzled off.

Rey’s victory was short lived as she ignored the burning in her leg and pushed herself to her feet. Her heart sank as she turned to see the other three Knights surrounding her. She tightened her grip on her hilt and charged.

The pike Knight moved to meet her, matching her flurry of strikes with sweeps of his own. She saw out of the corner of her eye another Knight moving into her side and barely spun in time to stop his attacks. She desperately wished she had a staff, or at least another blade to help her defend against so many opponents, but the thought was gone a moment later as all her concentration went to staying alive.

One of her vents locked against the blade of the pike, holding it in place as she tried to push her attacker back. She barely saw the other blade descending until almost too late. She ripped her blade free, diving away but not before it bit into her shoulder, burning into her flesh. She gritted her teeth against the pain, not having time to dwell on it before she was back into it, blocking thrusts and parrying blows.

A particularly vicious one knocked her back off balance and before she could right herself, she felt an arm slip around her throat, cutting off her air and a hand grip her wrist, holding her lightsaber at bay. She struggled wildly, unable to draw breath as she saw the pike level in front of her face. It lifted, her eyes unable to look away, for the final blow.

And then it flew across the room, ripped from her would be executioner’s hands.

Ben dropped it on the floor where he stood just inside the entrance to the back tunnel, and Rey felt hope ignite in her chest for the first time since the fighting started.

“Your brothers are dead,” he said with a sneer, walking slowly closer. “Did you really thing the scavenger was going to be more of a threat than me?” The Knight that had spoken early turned to him. “Hux assured us he could handle you.” “And you believed that sniveling dog?” “It doesn’t matter now, Kylo. We have the girl and we’ll soon have you.” Ben’s gaze flicked to hers. “You always were a fool, Temi.”

Rey dropped her blade, force pulling it into her opposite hand and driving it back into her captor’s side, punching it clear through his body. The grip on her vanished and she gasped for air, stumbling back away from the two remaining Knights of Ren.

Ben moved at the same time, his saber swinging in a brutal arc. The unarmed Knight ducked, grabbing the downed Knight’s sword and moving toward Rey as the one named Temi rushed at Ben.

Rey could feel the energy between them as they fought. She could feel the Force humming with balance, the rightness of her and Ben striving for the same goal. It seeped into her very being, singing in her veins, and making her feel alive in a way she’d never felt before. She was almost surprised when her opponent fell, collapsing into a broken pile before her. She looked up and saw that Ben had just done the same. His chest rising and falling with his deep breaths as he stared down at the dead Knight at his feet.

He looked up at her, a look of passion and joy breaking over his face a moment before he fell.

Rey screamed, dropping her weapon and running to his side, catching him just before his head hit the ground. She gripped his face, her eyes flying over his body and catching on the myriad of wounds. It seemed that most were from his earlier fight and had been somewhat tended to but had broken back open in the fight. She didn’t see anything life threatening, but he was losing a lot of blood. “Ben,” she breathed, “don’t you dare die on me.”

He made a noise and she could have sworn it was a laugh. “Nothing a good med droid and some bacta won’t fix.”

“I don’t have a med droid.”

“You’ll have to do then.”

She let out semi relieved breath. “I’m still mad at you about how you found out, but I’m glad you came.”

He reached up and pulled her down to him, capturing her lips with his. Her eyes went wide with surprise for a split second before she sank into the kiss, her lids drifting shut at the feel of his lips against hers. He hesitated when she didn’t move, and started to let her go, but she moved into him and then she was kissing him back, her fingers sinking into his hair. She ignored the part of her that was thinking she didn’t know what she was doing, and just savored the taste of him, loving the way his lips tugged at hers, the smooth glide of his tongue that sent heat straight to her core. He groaned, whether from pain or pleasure she didn’t know, so she pulled back reluctantly with a gasp, staring down at him in awe.

He lifted a hand, ran his bruised knuckles over her cheek. “Never leave me again.”

She caught his hand, wrapping her fingers around his. “I think I know what my vision meant.” He frowned and started to say something but she silenced him with her thumb on his lips. “I saw you stepping from darkness, into light. I thought that meant that you would turn, but I don’t think that’s right.”

“Why?” he asked softly.

“When we were fighting, didn’t you feel it?” She brought his hand to her chest, pressing it to her heart as she pressed hers to his. His eyes drifted closed and he pulled in a shuddering breath. She could feel him reach out with the Force, just as she did, the two of them meeting in the middle. “Balance,” he breathed, looking up at her again with wide eyes.

“Balance. We don’t have to turn. We don’t have to be something we’re not. We just have to be.”

He nodded, and she noticed the wince that flashed across his face. “Let’s get you back to the Falcon before you pass out.”

“Might be too late for that,” he said grimly.

She smiled. “I’ll be here when you wake up.”

Between the med unit she found on his ship and her poor sewing skills, Rey managed to get the worst of their wounds patched up fairly well. They left Crait soon after, bouncing between back water planets while they slowly healed from their wounds.

Rey discovered that upon learning of Hux’s and the First Order’s betrayal, Ben had dismantled their High Command, laying waste to their leadership before he’d left and killing the last two remaining Knights. Despite his previous devotion to their cause, they’re betrayal of him had left Ben with no qualms about destroying them. When it did come up, he spoke of the Order with disdain, a darkness in his voice.

She quickly realized that all he had ever wanted was something or someone to be as devoted to him as he was of them. And Ben was fiercely devoted to her.

She could still sense the darkness in him, his anger and rage making appearances numerous times, but she found that it no longer frightened her the way that it used to. The outbursts were farther apart and tempered by her calm, just as her sometimes passive nature was stoked to violent action by his passion.

She eventually convinced him that she had to contact the Resistance to let them know she was all right and what had happened. They both knew she couldn’t return with him by her side, and even if her friends would have been accepting of it, she knew that he wasn’t ready to face his mother. The very mention of Leia would send him into silence for hours. Healing would take time, she knew, but it would come eventually.

With the First Order in shambles though, Rey didn’t feel pressed to hurry back. The Resistance could see hope on the horizon and didn’t need her to light the way. So she and Ben decided to disappear into the galaxy, discover exactly how to live with the newfound balance they had discovered in one another before having to face their pasts. They made love for the first time on a planet covered in green, plants and life every direction they looked. It was awkward and thrilling and painful and wonderful all at the same time. Neither one was very experienced in any of it, but they were quick learners and they were anything if not dedicated to improving.

The first time she said she loved him was on the Falcon, the blue lights of hyperspace illuminating his face. He’d stared at her like she had said the most insane thing in the galaxy before pulling her into his lap and kissing her till she was gasping for air and ripping at his clothes. Afterward, as they lay in a pile of discarded cloth and languid, naked limbs, he’d pulled her closer and whispered the words back.

Rey had smiled and tucked herself in closer. They still had a long way to go, but she knew everything would work out. They had all the time in the galaxy and everything they needed.

The End.

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[djgblogger-blog]

The NFL and 'Close Ranks,' 100 years later

http://bit.ly/2GYyoVu

The NFL is attempting to make protests like this one by members of the Cleveland Browns illegal in the league. AP Photo/David Richard

The recent decision by the NFL regarding player protests and the national anthem has yet again exposed the fraught relationship between African-Americans and patriotism.

The controversy has taken place nearly a century after another time when African-Americans painfully grappled with questions concerning loyalty to the nation and the struggle for equal rights.

W.E.B. Du Bois. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division

In July 1918, at the height of American participation in World War I, W. E. B. Du Bois, the acclaimed black scholar, activist and civil rights leader, penned arguably the most controversial editorial of his career, “Close Ranks.”

“Let us, while this war lasts, forget our special grievances and close our ranks shoulder to shoulder with our own white fellow citizens and the allied nations that are fighting for democracy,” he advised his fellow African-Americans. Du Bois acknowledged that this was “no ordinary sacrifice,” but black people would nevertheless make it “gladly and willingly with our eyes lifted to the hills.”

Pressured from league owners, white fans and the president of the United States, black NFL players are now faced with the dilemma of closing ranks and forgetting their “special grievances,” or continuing to protest against racial injustice.

The history of African-Americans in World War I, as I have explored in my work, offers important lessons about how to confront this challenge.

The NFL, race and the national anthem

Last season, during the playing of the national anthem, dozens of NFL players kneeled, locked arms and raised their fists in protest against police and state-sanctioned violence inflicted upon African-Americans. Their actions elicited a fierce backlash, much of it fueled by President Donald Trump, who encouraged his overwhelmingly white base of supporters to boycott the NFL so long as players, in his view, continued to disrespect the flag. Seeking to avoid further controversy, on May 23, Commissioner Roger Goddell announced that for the upcoming season, “All team and league personnel on the field shall stand and show respect for the flag and the Anthem.” Not following this directive could result in teams being fined and players subject to “appropriate discipline.”

Approximately 70 percent of the players in the NFL are African-American. They have also been the most visible faces of the national anthem protests, which began in 2016 with quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who is currently unemployed and suing owners for collusion to keep him out of the league.

I see the decision by the NFL as an unmistakable attempt to police the actions of its majority black work force, impose what amounts to a loyalty oath, and enforce through intimidation and threat a narrow definition of patriotism. The message is clear: Either demonstrate unqualified devotion to the United States or be punished.

African-Americans and World War I

African-Americans confronted the same stark choice during World War I.

In previous conflicts, African-Americans had sacrificed and shed blood for the nation. But patriotism alone has never been enough to overcome white supremacy. By 1917, as the United States prepared to enter the world war, disfranchisement, Jim Crow segregation, and racial violence had rendered African-Americans citizens in name only.

Black people thus had every reason to question the legitimacy of fighting in a war that President Woodrow Wilson declared would make the world “safe for democracy.” African-Americans immediately exposed the hypocrisy of Wilson’s words, while also seizing the opportunity to hold the United States accountable to its principles. They did this, in part, by serving in the army, as some 380,000 black soldiers labored and fought to not just win the war, but to also make democracy a reality for themselves.

African-Americans also recognized the importance of protest. Discrimination and racial violence continued throughout the war, highlighted by the East St. Louis massacre in July 1917, where white mobs killed as many as 200 black people. In response, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People organized a Silent Protest Parade in New York City, where more than 10,000 black men, women and children peacefully marched down Fifth Avenue carrying signs, one of which read, “Patriotism and loyalty presuppose protection and liberty.”

‘Closing ranks’ and the costs

Just as it does today, protesting racial injustice during the war carried risk. The federal government wielded the repressive power of American nationalism to crush disloyalty to the United States. The Espionage Act (1917) and Sedition Act (1918) severely curtailed civil liberties by criminalizing “disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language.”

“100 percent Americanism” entailed the policing of immigrant communities, restricting freedom of the press, jailing anti-war activists, and monitoring African-Americans, including W. E. B. Du Bois, for potential radicalism. This pressure, along with the personal desire to demonstrate his loyalty to the nation, compelled Du Bois to soften his critiques of the government and issue his call for African-Americans to “close ranks.”

“The words were hardly out of my mouth when strong criticism was rained upon it,” Du Bois later remembered. Even during a time of war, most African-Americans refused to set aside the “special grievances” of segregation, lynching and systemic racial abuse. And Du Bois paid a heavy price. William Monroe Trotter, the fiery newspaper editor and civil rights leader from Boston, branded Du Bois “a rank quitter,” adding that his one-time ally had “weakened, compromised, deserted the fight.”

But African-Americans, having fought for democracy, would surely be rewarded for their loyal service and patriotic sacrifices, Du Bois reasoned.

To the contrary, they were greeted with a torrent of racial violence and bloodshed that came to be known as the “Red Summer” of 1919. White people, North and South, were determined to remind black people of their place in the nation’s racial hierarchy. Race riots erupted throughout the country and the number of African-Americans lynched skyrocketed, including several black veterans still in uniform.

The NFL’s decision is essentially an attempt to appease the mob in 2018.

Echoing the backlash following World War I, the vitriolic reactions to the national anthem protests reflect what happens when African-Americans physically and symbolically challenge an understanding of patriotism rooted in white supremacy and racist ideas of black subservience. I believe the NFL has acquiesced to the threats of President Trump and the unrest of its white fan base by establishing a policy that requires black players to remain docile, obedient employees, devoid of any outward expression of racial and political consciousness, which sole purpose is to entertain and enrich their owners.

And now, the NFL wants black players to “close ranks” by giving them the false choice between standing for the pledge or hiding their protest in the locker room, conveniently out of sight of fans in the stadium and away from television cameras.

The league ignores any mention of the “special grievances” of police brutality, racial profiling and antiblack harassment that remain alive and well. Ironically, the NFL has been the one to transform the flag into a political weapon to silence black activism, protect its corporate interests and maintain a racial status quo. Displays of patriotism and loyalty to nation are meaningless when not accompanied by the actual freedoms and protections that come with being a citizen.

W. E. B. Du Bois would spend the rest of his life questioning his decision for African Americans to “close ranks” during World War I. He ultimately recognized that until America reckoned with its racist history and embraced the humanity of black people, the nation would remain deeply wounded. At the age of 90, reflecting on the questions that shaped his decades of struggle, Du Bois pondered, “How far can love for my oppressed race accord with love for the oppressing country? And when these loyalties diverge, where shall my soul find refuge?”

Like the battlefields of France 100 years ago, the football fields of NFL stadiums are just one place where African-Americans have historically sought to answer these questions. And simply closing ranks has never been sufficient. In this moment of racial repression and moral mendacity, when the ideals of democracy are undermined daily, the debate over national anthem protests reminds us that the fight to affirm the sanctity of black life is much longer and deeper than a Sunday afternoon game.

Chad Williams does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

[libidomechanica]

‘Holding a little man’

Could you offer to others that might help them achieve the grace you found? It is like a hollow ledge

Holding a little man, not Rumpelstiltskin, at all, at all… he took the fullness that love began.

To seek another land. Somebody who should have the North to-night— The cold, enduring North.

While, look but once from your farthest bound, At me so deep in the light          a we-see poem, a they-love poem.

So short a thing to weep, So short a thing to weep, So short a thing to weep,

So short a thing to weep, So short a thing to sigh; And yet by trades the size of a plum.

If you weren’t real, I would address this letter to one of two entities: myself, or everyone I love, to move openly together in the pull of gravity

                          keeps me from falling off this Earth          for 7 hrs on yr name day. And I was a bum on the bumpers a thousand days and nights,

Till Age snow white hairs on thee; Thou, when thou return’st, wilt tell me All strange wonders that befell thee,

And swear No where Lives a woman true and fair.

Yet do not; I would not go, Though at next door we might meet. Predatory hawks, we soar above and look down,

We are two fishes swimming in the duck pond, rapping with the scented dew long cupped In lilies, that for rays of sun had seen

Only God’s glory, for never a sunrise mars The luminous with industry. Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores,

Or gazing on the bar stool, downing stingers and peanuts, singing ‘That ole Ace down in the hole,’

would understand. You oil my scalp.

It will make your reflection a wobbling photo of grief. Though my mother was already two years dead

Dad kept her slippers warming by the gas, put hot water bottles her side of the bed and still went to renew her transport pass.

With implacable sweetness, if each day, each hour,

you feel that you are free and have given over your sighing, You think that you were born, the table of elements Was lacking, and I as a noble gas floated

Free of attachment. A purple bunch of bursting grapes, his eyes fiery like blood in a wound, his purpose brutal

as if facing a battle, hurried with his lips were red Like poppies, and his large eyes Were clear as crystal, naked all was he,

White as the snow on pathless mountains and the plasma, listening to the heart monitor, the death cricket bleeping,

she who calls you ‘we’ and keeps vigil like a ballistic missile, would understand.

Somebody who should have the North to-night— The cold, enduring North. And guard the body.