#’what was he supposed to do? in forcing him to fight this war the treasury was emptied’ idfk but there’s gotta be other ways to get cash

[wardencommanderrodimiss]

Ser Cauthrian: You have torn Ferelden apart to oppose the man who ensured that you were born into freedom.

Catalina, an alienage elf, whose neighbors and friends were just sold into slavery, which Loghain signed off on: yeah go to hell

[robininthelabyrinth]

A prompt for you (though honestly I'll read anything you write because it is always excellent): Wen Ning never dies, but somehow still ends up becoming Wei Wuxian's most feared subordinate...

ao3

Untamed

“Sect Leader Nie,” Jiang Cheng said, hurrying after the other man, who stopped and turned with a welcoming expression on his face even though Jiang Cheng knew he was in a hurry after everything they’d just planned. After Nie Mingjue had volunteered to go into the Nightless City himself, a reckless charge to try to kill Wen Ruohan, while the rest of them attacked directly - a final strike, if they could only manage it. “I just…”

He trailed off, unable to complete the sentence.

He didn’t even know what he was doing here.

Nie Mingjue didn’t call him out on it, though, only stepped forward and put a hand on his shoulder. “I appreciate your support,” he said, voice a little gentler than usual. Like he was trying to comfort Jiang Cheng or something.

Like he wasn’t the one volunteering to go die.

(Just like Jiang Cheng’s mother, and father, and - )

Oh. That’s why he came here.

“I’ll be there,” Jiang Cheng said suddenly, and Nie Mingjue blinked. “At – at the Nightless City. After you kill him, after we take the city…I’ll come find you, to make sure you’re all right.”

That was stupid, he thought to himself as soon as he said it. Nie Mingjue had an entire sect, and friends, and all that – he didn’t need Jiang Cheng hounding him with his insecurities, his worries, his fear that Nie Mingjue would die, too, die and leave him behind just like all the others. Why should he be the exception?

But Nie Mingjue smiled. “I look forward to seeing you then.”

Jiang Cheng swallowed and nodded. “It’s a deal, then,” he said, and watched as Nie Mingjue strode away.

He promised himself that he’d do as he said he would.

Even if all he found was Nie Mingjue’s corpse.

-

It ended up not being Nie Mingjue who killed Wen Ruohan, but rather a combination of Wei Wuxian’s new cultivation style and Meng Yao, who’d apparently been working as a double agent or – something.

Jiang Cheng wasn’t really clear on the details.

He rushed over to Wei Wuxian’s side at once, checking him over as best as he could, yelling at him over…he wasn’t even sure what, it wasn’t really important. Recklessness, probably. Wei Wuxian seemed to understand what he meant, though, grinning at him with bloodless lips.

“You worry too much,” he said cheerfully. “I’ll be fine. I just need to sleep for – a week. Maybe more. Let’s go back to camp, and I’ll do just that.”

Jiang Cheng was about to agree when he remembered his promise.

(Nie Mingjue hadn’t been there at the final fight, although Wen Ruohan hadn’t been at his full power, either. Had he sacrificed himself to wear down their enemy?)

“What is it?” Wei Wuxian asked, noticing.

“Chifeng-zun,” Jiang Cheng said. “I didn’t – see him.”

Wei Wuxian frowned. “You think…? Oh, poor Nie Huaisang..!”

Jiang Cheng wondered for a moment why Wei Wuxian’s first thought was of Nie Huaisang, then remembered that Wei Wuxian hadn’t been there for all those months of working as Nie Mingjue’s lieutenants, him and Lan Wangji and even Jin Zixuan. He wouldn’t have that personal connection with the man, beyond the brief meeting they’d had with him before the indoctrination camp - he wouldn’t have experience with his reliable competence and his talented leadership, his compassion or the gruff praise that he gave sparingly but sincerely and which made Jiang Cheng feel for once in his life like he was every bit as good as Wei Wuxian.

“I want to…” He was going to sound dumb. No, he was a sect leader, as Nie Mingjue often (gently) reminded him; he had to decide for himself what he was going to do, and have faith that his decisions were the right ones - and act accordingly. “We’re not leaving yet. We’re going to go further in, see if we can find him. Do you think you can hold up a little longer?”

“Yes,” Wei Wuxian said, straightening up. “I’ll be fine for a while yet. Let’s go.”

“You’ll tell me if you –”

“Yes, Jiang Cheng. Stop nagging. Now are we going or not?”

-

Unexpectedly, Nie Mingjue was alive.

Alive, and also extremely pissed off.

“I’ll take him back,” Jiang Cheng said to Lan Xichen, who looked relieved: he was protecting Meng Yao from Nie Mingjue for some reason. “Better to go separately.”

“Thank you, Sect Leader Jiang,” Lan Xichen said.

Jiang Cheng saluted and went over to Nie Mingjue, who was leaning on Wei Wuxian – a case of the injured helping the injured, in Jiang Cheng’s opinion, and he glared at his disciples until they ran over to assist them both.

Wei Wuxian was frowning, he noted. “What is it?” he asked, and Wei Wuxian shook his head, refusing to talk and inclining his head meaningfully down towards Nie Mingjue, who looked more tired than anything else. Exhausted, injured, even half-dead…“We should go.”

“No,” Nie Mingjue croaked. “There are probably – prisoners.”

“It can wait until we’re back at camp, surely?” Jiang Cheng asked. “We lost a lot of people in that battle. We could get reinforcements, then come back and do a full sweep when we’re less exhausted.”

“They might be injured, though,” Wei Wuxian put in, though he looked tired, too. “It’d be a pity for any person to die in Wen Ruohan’s custody right after we finally defeated him.”

It was a good point, Jiang Cheng thought, and although he was pretty exhausted himself, he forced himself to nod. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll go sweep the place, look for prisoners. But you two are going straight back to camp, okay? No exceptions, no heroism, nothing! If I get back and I hear that you two took a left turn and fell face-first off a cliff into a pile of magma because you thought there was a baby bird that needed rescuing, I will personally resurrect and stab you both!”

Both Nie Mingjue and Wei Wuxian were grinning at him in a suspiciously indulgent (and almost identical) sort of way, Jiang Cheng noticed, but they also agreed solemnly to make no detours, not even if it was the most heartrending of baby birds, and Jiang Cheng supposed he had to be happy with that.

They staggered off together as he turned to go further in, and as he did, he thought he heard Wei Wuxian say, “Tell me more about what Meng Yao said to you –”

-

“Sect Leader Jiang!” one of Jiang Cheng’s subordinates said, rushing over and saluting. “I found another cell!”

Jiang Cheng ran his hand over his eyes, wanting nothing more but to sleep. “Show me where,” he ordered instead.

He’d already dispatched one of his disciples to act as a runner to Lan Xichen, asking for him to send more disciples from his Lan sect and the Nie sect (which he’d been helping coordinate in Nie Mingjue’s absence) to help get all the prisoners out – there were so many of them, and many of them were, as predicted, in poor health. He would’ve preferred to ask someone else, since the Lan and Nie sects had suffered as many injuries as his Jiang sect, but the small sects were focused on themselves right now and the Jin sect…well, they’d done so little in the war up till now that he’d almost forgotten that they were an option until one of his subordinates had suggested them, and then he’d dismissed the suggestion, too.

If the Jin sect were here, he thought ungraciously, they were probably busy trying to find the treasury.

At least the Lan and Nie sects had managed to confiscate the Yin metal first.

At some point, they’d have to find a way to destroy it…

Distracted by thoughts of politics, Jiang Cheng followed his subordinate down a twisting hallway to yet another set of cells, dark and dank but not quite as close to the place where the Yin metal had been used to refine ghost puppets, and there were men and women chained to the wall here. Unrecognizable, most of them, beaten and starved. They were probably the scions of small cultivation clans…

“Wen Ning?” he blurted out, surprised to recognize the kind-looking face of one of them. To barely recognize: Wen Ning had circles under his eyes, bruises on his face, and his usually round cheeks were thin. “What are you doing here?”

“He’s been here for weeks and weeks,” one of the other prisoners said at once. “He’s not – one of those Wens.”

Wen Ning could still blush, Jiang Cheng noticed, and as much as he would have said he hated all those surnamed Wen – well, that wasn’t quite true, was it? Wen Ning had been there with Wen Qing, when they’d helped them. Jiang Cheng had rescued and released her, giving her that comb as a keepsake…it would be manifestly unjust to make the exception for one and not the other.

His disciples were looking at him.

“What are you waiting for?” Jiang Cheng snapped at them. “He’s a prisoner, he’s hurt. Treat him as you would any of the other prisoners we’ve rescued.”

That would be his story, he thought, if anyone later came knocking at his door to ask what he was thinking, letting a Wen go free.

-

Maybe it was his fault, Jiang Cheng reflected. He shouldn’t have thought ‘go free’.

Go free implied that Wen Ning would go somewhere else, rather than following him and Wei Wuxian around like an imprinted puppy. It only got worse when Wei Wuxian spontaneously declared that he would help him find Wen Qing to make sure she was safe – without asking Jiang Cheng first, which was unhelpful.

“We can’t be seen as being partial to the Wen sect,” he groaned, head in hands. “Not even the distant branches, but much less someone adopted by Sect Leader Wen himself…no offense meant, Wen Ning.”

“None taken,” Wen Ning said.

“But they helped us,” Wei Wuxian argued, clearly choosing to take the offense on Wen Ning’s part. “It would be unjust for us to turn on them now, when we have the power and they don’t, when they took risks on our behalf in the past.”

Jiang Cheng squinted at him. “Is this related to your weird thing about Lianfeng-zun?” he asked. Wei Wuxian had taken a firm stance against the man recently, and had spoken of it incessantly.

“No! Or, I mean – I would’ve done it anyway, okay? Listen, I really don’t like that guy.”

“No,” Jiang Cheng gasped dramatically. “You, Wei Wuxian, don’t like Lianfeng-zun? Wen Ning, did you hear that? Can you believe it?”

Wen Ning was hiding his face behind his sleeve – a Jiang sect outfit, one of Jiang Cheng’s own spares, since that was what they had, but the dark purple suited him rather well. Better than the red ever had.

His shoulders were shaking with laughter.

“Traitor,” Wei Wuxian told him.

“Sorry, Wei-gongzi!” Wen Ning giggled.

(Jiang Cheng did not think that Wen Ning was cute when he laughed, nor did he wish to see it happen again, to be the cause of it again. He was the leader of a sect, with an obligation to have heirs to carry on his parents’ legacy – he could think Wen Qing was pretty, even if she wasn’t exactly an advantageous match, but he was not allowed to think the same about Wen Ning.)

Wei Wuxian sighed and flopped down. “His conduct is questionable,” he grumbled. “Lan Zhan agrees with me…Anyway, why are we talking about Lianfeng-zun again? I thought we were talking about finding Wen Qing, and the rest of Wen Ning’s family?”

Jiang Cheng groaned again. “I can try to raise it at the meeting in Lanling,” he said, even though they’d all agreed that it made the most sense for the Jin sect to be the ones to resettle any prisoners of war, mostly on account of them having the money, the manpower, and the time, being the only sect that didn’t have significant work to do rebuilding after Wen sect aggression. “Provided you behave. Okay?”

-

Wei Wuxian, predictably, did not behave.

“Sect Leader Jiang?” Nie Mingjue unexpectedly said from the doorway to the room Jiang Cheng was staying in, and Jiang Cheng spun to stare at him in horror that someone was seeing him in this state. The other sect leader stepped inside, ignoring the mess of things on the floor from Jiang Cheng’s temper tantrum, and closed the door behind him. “Are you all right?”

Jiang Cheng opened his mouth to say something – something confident and self-assured, something that would help brush away Wei Wuxian’s atrocious behavior and his own as nothing to worry about, something befitting the sect leader of the Jiang sect – but the words stuck in his throat and, instead, to his absolute disgust, he burst into tears.

He expected Nie Mingjue to make a hasty exit at that point, appalled by the rampant display of emotionality, and that he’d have to apologize later for disgracing himself in such a fashion. That had been the way it had always gone with his parents, his father who hated sadness and his mother who hated weakness, and so he wasn’t expecting it at all when Nie Mingjue stepped forward and pulled him into his arms. Into a hug.

It was terrible: there was absolutely no way Jiang Cheng would be able to get ahold of himself now that he was feeling warm and protected and like someone gave one single damn about him.

Nie Mingjue didn’t let go of him, not even when he tearfully apologized for making a display – “It’s not wrong to have feelings, Jiang Wanyin, and it’s not harming me to be here while you let them out.” – or even when, in broken unfinished unpolitical sentences, Jiang Cheng started stuttering his way through…he wasn’t even sure what he was saying.

Possibly a rendition of all the bitterness and resentment he’d ever had in his life.

When it was done, after he’d wept all the tears he’d hidden inside of him, Nie Mingjue said only: “Feeling better?”

Jiang Cheng swiped at his eyes with his sleeve. “…yes,” he said, realizing that he did. “I’m sorry –”

“Do not apologize for having emotions like any other human being. Or for being a burden on me, which you are not.”

Jiang Cheng wished it didn’t feel so good when Nie Mingjue – stiff, stern, harsh Nie Mingjue, who rarely said kind words and never said anything just for the sake of saying it – said things like that. It would make it far easier to keep his dignity intact.

“Why did you come here?” he asked, instead. “It wasn’t to hear me talk about Wei Wuxian.”

At least, not the lifelong story of how Jiang Cheng had always been second to him even before he’d shown up – how his birthday was only a few days later, his skill a little bit less, his temperament inferior, his life inferior; how Jiang Cheng could ignore all of that if only Wei Wuxian were his brother the way he was his, the way he’d promised to be, and yet more and more nowadays it felt as if it were slipping out of reach.

“It was,” Nie Mingjue said. “He’s been coming around rather a lot to discuss Lianfeng-zun. It was his vehemence on the issue that reassured me that I wasn’t overreacting to the unnecessary death of my sect cultivators at Lianfeng-zun’s hands –”

The what?

Maybe Jiang Cheng should have listed a bit more when Wei Wuxian started ranting about how untrustworthy he thought Lianfeng-zun was.

“– and you have always had the strongest confidence in his sense of righteousness, even after he switched over to using demonic cultivation. Based on that, I thought there might be some reason behind his actions.”

Wei Wuxian’s actions: kidnapping an entire cohort of Wen sect cultivators from a Jin sect resettlement camp, assaulting several guards, running away, bringing shame on the Jiang sect by association…

“If I knew anything, I would tell you,” Jiang Cheng said bitterly. “But that would require Wei Wuxian telling me. Anything. At all.”

Nie Mingjue nodded thoughtfully. “Do you think he acted maliciously?”

“What? No,” Jiang Cheng said at once. “Of course not.”

“Do you think his thinking was affected by his demonic cultivation?”

“I almost wish it was, but no. He’s always been – like this. Reckless and over-confident, never thinking of consequences.”

“So you still have faith in him?”

“Of course!”

“That’s good enough for me,” Nie Mingjue said, as if Jiang Cheng hadn’t spent half a shichen crying on his shoulder about how all of his problems and how he couldn’t do anything right. “Let’s go ask him.”

“What, now?”

“Are you doing anything else?”

-

Fair was fair, but politics were politics: “If you’d gone about it the right way, perhaps the Jin sect wouldn’t have a claim,” Nie Mingjue said, pacing around the Burial Mounds with a scowl. “But as it stands now, it’s your word against theirs – and yours will be considered impaired on account of your demonic cultivation.”

“What about the testimony of the victims?” Wei Wuxian demanded.

“Wen sect,” Jiang Cheng put in, and shrugged when Wei Wuxian glared at him. “It’s true! Like it or not, their surname is Wen, and for Wen Qing and Wen Ning in particular, they were Sect Leader Wen’s wards.”

“It was not our choice,” Wen Qing said. Her voice was cold, and she’d tried to return the comb to him, earlier, though he’d refused – why he refused he didn’t know, since her decision to approach Wei Wuxian to seek help in rescuing the rest of her family rather than him had cut off any hope of anything between them. Even if she eventually understood his perspective, or even apologized for judging him unfit or unwilling to help her, he didn’t think he could live the rest of his life with a woman who had picked Wei Wuxian first.

“That isn’t what’s important, though,” Wen Ning said unexpectedly, and they all looked at him. He ducked his head, picking at his sleeve. “It isn’t. Sect Leader Jiang’s right: our surname is Wen. It’s reasonable for people to assume that we’re loyal to the Wen sect, and to treat us accordingly.”

“We never fought against anyone! We’ve never –”

“It doesn’t matter what we did, jiejie,” Wen Ning said. “Whether or not we fought for our sect, we would’ve benefited if they won, right? You rise when your clan rises, and fall when it falls. Why should we be an exception?”

“Well said,” Nie Mingjue said, and Wen Ning abruptly turned bright red – Jiang Cheng shot him a sympathetic look; he entirely understood the issue there. “Your testimony will be deemed self-interested, and even asking for it will only undercut Wei Wuxian’s position. Not to mention the Jiang sect’s.”

Jiang Cheng nodded, but Wei Wuxian crossed his arms. “Then just kick me out of the Jiang sect,” he said.

“What?” Jiang Cheng exclaimed, and even Nie Mingjue looked startled. “Absolutely not!”

“Why not? Isn’t the whole point that the Jiang sect is being dragged down by me and my new cultivation? Kick me out, and the problem’s solved.”

“I could cut off your head, and that of everyone else here,” Nie Mingjue said. “That would also solve the problem, but for some reason I’m not suggesting it. Can anyone tell me why?”

“…because it’s a bad idea?” Wen Ning volunteered.

“Because it’s a stupid idea,” Nie Mingjue agreed.

“It is a stupid idea,” Jiang Cheng growled. “Even putting aside that I don’t want to cast you out, do you really think people will stop blaming the Jiang sect for your actions just because you’re formally not aligned with us?”

“There isn’t another option,” Wei Wuxian said. “I’m not giving up the Wen sect, I’m not changing my cultivation style, I’m not giving up the Tiger Seal – and I’m not dragging the Jiang sect down with me, not if I can help it.”

-

“Are they really calling me ‘Ghost General’?” Wen Ning asked on one of his visits to the Lotus Pier to pick up supplies for the Yiling Burial Mounds.

Since Wei Wuxian had been so set on splitting from the Jiang sect, they’d eventually reached a compromise, of sorts. Wei Wuxian’s actions in rescuing the Wen sect remnants was – not endorsed, per se, as it was clearly wrongful, but Nie Mingjue announced that he had examined the Wen in question and found evidence suggestive of malnutrition and abuse, which indicated at minimum some negligence on the part of the Jin sect in not supervising the guards better. Accordingly, the Wen sect would be removed from the Jin sect’s custody and permitted to set up camp in Yiling under Wei Wuxian, but as punishment for his reckless and unsanctioned behavior, Wei Wuxian was to be expelled from the Jiang sect.

Since the expulsion was mandated by external forces, rather than being a result of his own decision, Jiang Cheng was able to give Wei Wuxian a sizeable settlement as a gift for his separation – the cultivation world gossiped about it, but most people seemed to think he was just trying to get his own back at Nie Mingjue for supposedly forcing the decision to expel Wei Wuxian down his throat – and to set up something of a trade agreement to send them more, although exactly what the Jiang sect was getting out of their side of the ‘trade’ was still up in the air.

Despite these outward signs of remaining support, several small sects had made attempts on the Burial Mounds, growing more reckless once they realized that Jiang Cheng really hadn’t left any forces behind to protect it – stupid of them, of course, since the reason he hadn’t left anyone behind was because he didn’t need to.

Wei Wuxian could handle himself perfectly well.

As could Wen Ning, apparently – he was a truly excellent archer, it turned out, and capable of waiting in all sorts of strange places with perfect patience, even if sometimes he had strange ideas about painting his face with mud to better blend in. It’d been one of those incidents that had given rise to the rumor that he was actually dead, having been resurrected by Wei Wuxian…

“Yes,” Jiang Cheng said. “Sorry about that. I tried to tell them to stop, but…”

“It made it worse?”

“It made it so much worse,” Jiang Cheng sighed. “Anyway, would you like to drink?”

“…do you mean tea?”

“No.”

“Yes please,” Wen Ning said. “I have been – so stressed. You wouldn’t…actually, you probably would believe it.”

“I grew up with Wei Wuxian,” Jiang Cheng said grimly. “I believe anything.”

-

“It would be good to bring a representative of Yiling Wei sect to the conference, even if it can’t be Wei Wuxian himself,” Nie Mingjue remarked, looking down at the plans Jiang Cheng had laid out for the first discussion conference to be held in the Lotus Pier since the war. “You’re on good terms with Wen Qionglin, aren’t you? Ask him –”

“No!” Jiang Cheng exclaimed, then realized he was being suspicious and cleared his throat. “Maybe someone else should invite them.”

Nie Mingjue looked at him over the table. “…has something happened?” he asked.

Jiang Cheng stared down at the plans and hoped he wasn’t blushing. “Nothing important,” he said, and his voice cracked on the last sound – embarrassing.

Still not as embarrassing as that time he cried into Nie Mingjue’s arms, no, but still…embarrassing.

“Oh,” Nie Mingjue said. “You slept with him.”

“How can you tell?” Jiang Cheng hissed, mortified beyond all belief. “Is it – written on my face –”

“According to Huaisang, it’s always a safe guess,” Nie Mingjue said, and shrugged when Jiang Cheng gaped at him. “Either they admit that that’s the case, as you just did, or they get all up in arms and explain what it really was while denying it.”

“That’s –” Really useful and Jiang Cheng will have to put it into effect immediately. “– terrible.”

“Works, though. Why the embarrassment? I didn’t think the Jiang sect cared about cut sleeves.”

“We don’t,” Jiang Cheng said, sitting down and putting his head in his hands. “But I’m sect leader –”

“You had sex, it’s not like you got married.”

“I used to have a thing for his sister.”

“Awkward, I suppose, but it never went anywhere, did it? One can hardly hold your past inclinations against you –”

“We were both thinking about you,” Jiang Cheng blurted out, and then promptly wanted to die. He could have just not said that. He could have said anything else but that. He could stab himself right now and maybe Nie Mingjue would be so distracted by the bleeding and screaming that he would just forget what Jiang Cheng had just said…

“You could always just ask,” Nie Mingjue said.

Jiang Cheng looked up through his fingers. “…are you serious?”

Nie Mingjue looked at him with arched eyebrows. “Are you asking me if I’d be flattered by being propositioned by two extremely beautiful and deadly cultivators?”

“I wouldn’t rank those two as equally desirable traits in a lover,” Jiang Cheng said, and it was almost not a lie, “but…yes?”

He thought for a moment.

“If I did invite Wen Ning to the Discussion Conference…”

-

“Well,” Wen Ning said. “This wasn’t how I was expecting to end up.”

“Me, either,” Jiang Cheng said. He was staring up at the ceiling and thinking about not moving again for – possibly ever.

“Same for me,” Nie Mingjue, on his other side, agreed. “But I have no objections to how it worked out. There aren’t two other cultivators I’d rather be with.”

“There’d better not be,” Jiang Cheng said on automatic, then considered bashing his head in – luckily both Wen Ning and Nie Mingjue reached over and put their hands under his head so he couldn’t, which made him feel warm and happy in a way subtly different from the way the sex had. “I mean, who else would it be? Zewu-jun and Lianfeng-zun?”

“Wei-gongzi still thinks Lianfeng-zun is trying to kill you, you know,” Wen Ning said to Nie Mingjue, who looked long-suffering. “He’s got this idea –”

“He can’t be trying to kill me,” Nie Mingjue argued. “He’s just offered to help Xichen play calming music for me –”

“Wei-gongzi said that maybe he’s trying to kill you through the music –”

“I’m going to sleep,” Jiang Cheng announced. “When I wake up, we can discuss the political implications of letting there be rumors about us sleeping together, which will make it both convenient for us to do this again and also maybe using the potential threat of a Yiling Wei-Yunmeng Jiang-Qinghe Nie alliance to force the Jin sect to take action so we can figure out once and for all if Lianfeng-zun is actually planning to do something. But for the moment, I am going to sleep.”

“…seems fair,” Nie Mingjue agreed. “Communication and straightforwardness is important in relationships like these.”

“Uh,” Wen Ning said, glancing at Jiang Cheng. “About that…if, theoretically, I were to know something about someone…”

[wreckofawriter]

Magnolia Final Part

Pairing: Sirius Black x Reader

Word Count: 3.3k

Warnings: Mentions of blood and death

Summary: idk dude just read the other chapters first or this is gonna make no sense

A/n: I did this instead of studying for my finals, also it could probably use a neither round of editing but I was anxious to post it. And I really don't give a fuck if this is historically inacurate all research done for this was from Pirate of the Caribbean.

Part 1 Part 2

♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~

You considered the stars your friends, their predictability and reserve made them easy to get along with. You had been taught to read their language from your early days of ships and oceans. As a child, you would speak to them, whispering secrets from your bedroom window. Your young nights had been filled with time spent stretching from the top of your magnolia tree to try and grasp their beauty. Even now as you stared up at the heavens you wished to cradle them like priceless jewels, their wonder never faded. But you supposed their mystery is what made them so appealing, everyone wanted something they could never quite reach.

The news of your captured prince had spread like fire in a dry wind, the letters you had sent to Aldir and their neighboring kingdoms throwing many into action. Sirius’s kingdom was large, powerful, and merciless. Some wanted the prince for leverage, many others wanted blood; revenge driving them to empty treasuries and sharpen swords. At first, you had been sitting pretty, letters of bids coming to you at every stop you made. Eventually, prices got too high and kingdoms decided it would be easier to take than to pay.

Ash burned in the back of your throat, you stared at your feet as the second ship that week crumbled into the ocean. Its flames were heavy on your back, reflecting in the greys of the sea. A particularly large crack of the fire made the breath catch in your throat. Your fear of the element had persisted for years filling your nightmares with smoke and screams. 

As the distance between you and the defeated ship lengthened your heart began to calm. The air was thick with moisture, purple clouds bruising the dull sky. The ocean was frothy, waves lapping tirelessly at the sides of your ship.

Your mind felt dizzy, the taste of blood still thick in your mouth. Two more men had been lost in the fight which had taken place just minutes ago. One flung into the ocean and the other struck by a bullet. That was six bodies that you had been forced to dump into the sea the past month. 

You had to get rid of Sirius before more corpses were to be fed to the sharks. This had never been so strikingly obvious before yet, you hesitated. Nails dug into your palms, the voices in your head fighting a clamoring war. Your feelings were illegible, their messy colors smeared together in an uninterpretable painting. So you threw them away, ignoring the throb in your chest and taking a breath. Sirius was to be sold to the highest bidder and that was that. You felt your past’s grip on your throat loosening. There was only one way to get rid of what used to be, you had to kill it. 

   

Sirius had never been so bewildered before. His life had been a book that was written a thousand times over. The prince falls in love, the queen doesn’t approve, the love runs off, the prince finds the love, and then happily ever after. But life wasn’t as sweet nor simple as a children’s story and this may be the first time that he had ever truly realized that. All it took was the prince to be tied in the love’s basement ready to be sold to his death. 

Sirius woke with a start as metal clattered inches from his face. His heart pounded loudly in his ears as his breath slowly returned to his lungs. He stared at the plate which had woken him, it was piled higher than normal with two rolls dropped next to it. He peered up at the giver of this gift.

He recognized the small blonde as the one he had threatened a few weeks before, the fear he had seen in her eyes that moment now replaced with pity, bitter and soft like rotten fruit. 

“I wanna talk.” She said plainly, toeing the plate towards him like a bribe, he supposed that’s exactly what it was. 

Sirius sat up ignoring the hammer of his head. His hair stuck to his cheek, slick with sweat. The woman whose name he never learned dropped to a squat beside him, a small knife held in her hand. His eyes widened as it glinted in the small gas lamp hanging above his head. 

“Relax.” She sighed cutting the rope that tethered his hands behind his back. 

Sirius felt his shoulders groan in protest as they fell forward, his wrists aching and rubbed red. Hot pin pricks filled his fingers as he clenched and unclenched his fists. 

When he looked back up Adrie was now seated in front of him, her legs crossed. She glanced down at the food and then back up at him, “You can eat if you agree to answer some questions.” Her demands were simple. 

He let silence settle for just a moment, “Fine.” After all, what did he have to lose? His dignity? His pride? They had been sleeping with the fishes for ages. 

She pushed the plate towards him, watching him quietly as he began to eat, “You don’t look like much of a prince to me.” She hummed after a moment.

Sirius swallowed, licking his lips, “Does anyone after two weeks locked in the bottom of a ship full of scum?"

Adrie cracked a smile, “I suppose not.” 

She stared at him still, she was lying a bit. Years held prisoner couldn’t erase the royalty he was raised with, it stuck to him like wet stuck to water. Nothing and everything proved him a prince, you could take his crown but you could never take his title.

“How do you know y/n?”

Sirius was startled by the suddenness of the question but not remotely surprised it was asked, “She hasn’t told you?” 

“I wouldn’t be asking if she had,” Adire responded, her tone was blunt. 

He bit into a roll thoughtfully taking his time to chew slowly, she was patient, her blank expression, not faltering.

“I thought you were friends.” He mumbled with a full mouth. 

Her jaw tightened, “Y/n doesn’t speak of her past.”

“So you’ve come to me for information?” Sirius said mild mockery in his voice.

“Obviously.”

He eyed the woman curiously, she was not what he had expected of your right hand man. Sirius smiled loosely, “You sure you wanna disobey Captain’s orders?” 

“Start talking or I take the food and hang you by your ankles.” 

Sirius huffed glancing between her and his food, “Fine, you win.” 

“Good. Tell me everything.” She demanded.

Sirius felt his throat tighten around the potatoes he had swallowed, his mind ached with hazy memories of summer days and speeding hearts, “There isn’t much to tell.” 

“You’re a bad lair.” Adire hummed. 

Sirius sighed, eyes falling to the bright white scars which laced his hands. He wasn’t sure where else to start but the beginning. He told of a loud baker girl who snuck over the walls into his garden and brought him pastries and friendship. He continued with vague details, of growing up together with swords and stars, reliving each moment he shared. 

He felt his words stiffen as he spoke of falling in love with you. Part of him felt like he was talking of someone completely different. Someone who had burnt up with her parents in a small bakery a million miles away. What was left, muffling cries above him, was a shell of that girl her soul replaced with seaweed and smoke. He pushed the thought away, swallowing it with the lump in his throat as he continued to speak of a proposal he regretted and the consequences of disobeying his mother. 

The broken fairytale cut his tongue filling his mouth with a bitter taste. He attempted to wash it down with the rum his listener had brought to him but its flavor was just as bad, it's only redemption was the warmth that filled his stomach.

Adrie looked at him blankly, "I don't blame her for wanting you dead." 

Sirius wished she had stayed silent. 

"But I pity you, you don't deserve death." 

He didn't look up and instead finished his drink, "Your pity means nothing to me." 

She sighed standing to her feet, "I never thought it did." 

When her boots disappeared up the ladder he let his cup drop to the ground, it rolled knocking into his heel as tears dripped from his chin.

By the time you had dropped anchor just off of Haran, the moisture had dropped from the air. Dry winds and clear skies greeted your crew. 

Rowboats were dropped in the water quickly, the sun was setting fast and a night of cheap ale and cheaper women were in the forefront of many a man's heads. 

You were tired, the happiness of your crewmates falling short at your feet. Exhaustion had replaced all anger and sadness you had harbored for the past weeks making your eyes grow dull as the bags beneath them. The satchel burned under your arms had a note you had written agreeing to the Yerith King’s price. You had singed your finger on the wax used to seal the envelope, it still throbbed a bit with the unsteady beat of your heart. You tried not to think about much on your way to land instead filling your head with that faint burn and fog of the setting sun. 

Adrie watched as you played with the diamond strung around your neck, a new piece she had only seen in recent days. She assumed you had taken it from one of the ships which had recently burnt into the sea. The bright stone was so different from the rest of your jewelry she was surprised you wore it all. Obnoxious gems had never been your type.

She was wrong on this thought, large jewels used to be what you would stare at as you passed shop windows, wishing you had the money to clutch one in your hand. They used to be a dream and a wish, now they were just things you stole and sold to the highest bidder.

Sirius had been briefly told of the plans for the evening. Two men whom he had become somewhat accustomed to during his stay had tied him up. The knots were tighter than usual as they were to be gone for the night. In his usual nature, Sirius complained about the ache of his wrists and the cramps in his legs. His grievances went unheard and his company disappeared from sight. The boat was quiet within the hour, nothing but the creak of old boards and calls of gulls far above his head breaking the silence. 

He drifted in and out of sleep for a few hours, time passing in its usual way, slowly. Finally, a clear thought came to Sirius’s head, he had the whole boat to himself. That meant there was no one to stop him from escaping his certain and quickly approaching death. 

Sirius tried to twist his hands out of the rope for what must have been an hour and only resulted in drawing blood from his wrists. Switching tactics he began to slowly shuffle and roll around the cabin he was in, searching for anything that could cut rope. As the sun’s light began to fade his task was growing difficult. Just before he gave in to his exhaustion Sirius found a bent nail sticking about a centimeter out of the ladder that led to the upper deck. The next two hours were spent rubbing his binds against the dull metal until they finally snapped. 

    After a month of being held prisoner, freedom left him stunned. He stumbled up the ladder until he reached the ship’s deck. The warm breeze which washed over him felt like a gift from the gods. A smile stretched his aching cheeks and for the first time in a while Sirius Black let out a genuine laugh. 

He quickly found a small boat which he could lower to the water. He could be miles away before the sun rose and you found his binds cut. Judging by the port you had stopped at he was only a few days' row from neutral lands. There he could gather himself and write for help. He was saved.

Sirius’s glee was cut short as he realized that he was missing one vital thing; you. The only reason he was out here in the first place was for you. He had spent years following rumors across the sea, he had given up his place as king, he had spent hundreds of thousands on supplies. But the truth was even if he hadn’t done all that, even if he had stumbled across you within a week and spent no more than ten doubloons he still wouldn’t leave this ship alive unless you were by his side. 

Sirius cursed, slamming his fist into the deck. His eyes darted around in what felt like panic. He was trapped between your love and his life and while he had chosen the former weeks ago he had no way of securing it. 

In the dark, a glint of light was seen. A crate of liquor stowed next to the captain’s quarters revealed itself to the pale moon. The man's mind buzzed, he realized quickly that he would need to act fast, the hours of the dark he had left must be well used. 

The deal had been easy, one glance at the large gem and you had a buyer offering hundreds. You walked away with 400 doubloons knowing it was worth much more. Not that you cared, you had been hours from chucking the necklace into the sea. 

It was late at night now, the golden light of pubs and brothels spilling onto the gravel road you walked. Your legs still felt weak, they were accustomed to the sway of boats on sloshing waves not the strange sturdiness of the ground. You hadn’t been able to sleep well on land since you had stepped off it, you had always opted for a swinging hammock over a still cot. 

You swung your bag of coins round in circles as you made your way to the beach. The water was smooth save the ripple of waves drawn by the full moon. Sand glistened silver under your boots, the light crash of water on rocks echoing around you. 

You had never intended to spend the full night on land, your crew was well aware of this fact and none would be surprised to find you gone in the morning. You shoved one of your beached row boats back into the water, splashing about ankle deep before leaping into it. 

When you reached your ship, you sensed something was wrong immediately. The small voice which you tended to ignore was screaming in the back of your head. As you climbed onto the deck the strong scent of liquor overwhelmed you. You heard a soft splash and glanced down to look at the puddle you had stepped into. Swiping two fingers through the fluid and plopping them into your mouth you hummed. There was no mistaking the sharp taste of gin. You looked around to find the leak and instead locked eyes with a figure who stood about 20 meters in front of you. 

“Sirius?” You asked though you already knew it was him, you didn’t think you would ever forget his face, even if it was obscured by the shadows of the moon. 

He gapped at you, unsure of what to say.

You took a step closer and caught a glance of the bottle he held in his hand. Its thin neck was stuffed with a piece of cloth, the soft glow of a gas lamp flickering behind him. The second you realized what he had planned your gun was pointed at his chest.

“Drop the bottle Black.” you hissed with a steady voice despite the fact that your gun was rattling in your hands. Your thoughts were now fogged with fear, plagued by smoke and flames.

Sirius had suddenly found his voice, “I know you’re not stupid enough to fire that. One spark and we’ll both go up in flames.”

Your breaths quickened, vision blurring as tears welled in your eyes. “Why are you doing this?” You croaked. “Why do you want to ruin everything I’ve built for myself?”

“I’m not leaving without you y/n.” He shouted, “I can’t live without you. Just come with me. Please. Just come with me and it will all be fine.” 

You shook your head, “No.”

“Please, please! I need you y/n, I can’t go back without you!” He begged, snatching the lamp from behind him, “I won’t be able to live.”

It was in that moment that you understood he was just as desperate as you, just as lost and hopeless. You dropped your gun to your side, tears sliding slowly down your cheeks. Your throat tightened holding back a sob, “Okay.” You said with a broken voice.

Sirius cracked a small smile, “I knew it.” He sighed, “I knew you still loved me.” Setting down the lamp he opened his arms walking towards you. You met him halfway burying your face into his rough jacket.

“God I missed you y/n,” he whispered as you slipped a knife from under your sleeve.

“I’m so sorry Siri.” You mumbled in response before plunging the blade into his back. 

You held him as he collapsed forward, choking back on his own blood. You had begun to sob, hand still clutching the hilt of the blade which was lodged into him. Eventually his weight became too much to bear and you both fell to the ground. Sirius rolled off next to you, his hand still clasped around your own. The two of you started up at the stars listening as his breaths slowed. Just before they stopped completely you felt a small squeeze of your hand and for just a moment you saw the soft pink of a petal floating towards you.

You weren't sure how long you lay there, staring up at the sky but it was long enough for you to finally realize that you were the villain of your story. It was an odd thing to recognize considering in all of the books you had carried as a child you took the place of the protagonist; the one who swung the sword to save the kingdom You had always been the one to end your life with a happily ever after. 

Now you had realized that you had never been a hero. You had spent your life as a villain in the making, each step you had taken leading you closer and closer to your undeniable fate of evil. You had your chance to be the princess trapped in the tower, but you had ignored the prince and now took the shape of a witch. A witch who stole and killed and burned all that she hated. Some had to do it after all, we can’t all be heroes. There is no story without a villain, at least not one worth reading.

As much as the small baker girl who rested amongst the magnolia tree would have hated you, the woman you saw when you looked in the mirror was okay with who you had become. And if she was okay with it, then why did it matter what the past would have thought? You had been running from it for years and now you would never have to again. Because now your past ran from you. 

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so many of u changed ur urls so if I have the wrong person tagged or the wrong username let me know

Masterlist

[blackswaneuroparedux]

Anonymous asked: As a beginner in Classics I love your Classicist themed posts. I find your caption perfect posts a lot to think upon. I suppose it’s been more than a few years since you read Classics at Cambridge but my question is do you still bother to read any Classic texts and if so what are you currently reading?

I don’t know whether to be flattered or get depressed by your (sincere) remarks. Thank you so much for reminding me how old I must come across as my youngish Millennial bones are already starting to creak from all my sins of past sport injuries and physical exertions. I’m reminded of what J.R.R Tolkien wrote, “I feel thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread.” I know the feeling (sigh).

But pay heed, dear follower, to what Menander said of old age, Τίμα το γήρας, ου γαρ έρχεται μόνον (respect old age, for it does not come alone). Presumably he means we all carry baggage. One hopes that will be wisdom which is often in the form of experience, suffering, and regret. So I’m not ready to trade in my high heels and hiking boots for a walking stick and granny glasses just yet.

To answer your question, yes, I still to read Classical literature and poetry in their original text alongside trustworthy translations. Every day in fact. 

I learned Latin when I was around 8 or 9 years old and Greek came later - my father and grandfather are Classicists - and so it would be hard to shake it off even if I tried.

So why ‘bother’ to read Classics? There are several reasons. First, the Classics are the Swiss Army knife to unpick my understanding other European languages that I grew up with learning. Second, it increases my cultural literacy out of which you can form informed aesthetic judgements about any art form from art, music, and literature. Third, Classical history is our shared history which is so important to fathom one’s roots and traditions. Fourth, spending time with the Classics - poetry, myth, literature, history - inspires moral insight and virtue. Fifth, grappling with classical literature informs the mind by developing intellectual discipline, reason, and logic.

And finally, and perhaps one I find especially important, is that engaging with Classical literature, poetry, or history, is incredibly humbling; for the classical world first codified the great virtues of prudence, temperance, justice, loyalty, sacrifice, and courage. These are qualities that we all painfully fall short of in our every day lives and yet we still aspire to such heights.

I’m quite eclectic in my reading. I don’t really have a method other than what my mood happens to be. I have my trusty battered note book and pen and I sit my arse down to translate passages wherever I can carve out a place to think. It’s my answer to staving off premature dementia when I really get old because quite frankly I’m useless at Soduku. We spend so much time staring at screens and passively texting that we don’t allow ourselves to slow down and think that physically writing gives you that luxury of slow motion time and space. In writing things out you are taking the time to reflect on thoughts behind the written word.

I do make a point of reading Homer’s The Odyssey every year because it’s just one of my favourite stories of all time. Herodotus and Thucydides were authors I used to read almost every day when I was in the military and especially when I went out to war in Afghanistan. Not so much these days. Of the Greek poets, I still read Euripides for weighty stuff and Aristophanes for toilet humour. Aeschylus, Archilochus and Alcman, Sappho, Hesiod, and Mimnermus, Anacreon, Simonides, and others I read sporadically.

I read more Latin than Greek if I am honest. From Seneca, Caesar, Cicero, Sallust, Tacitus, Livy, Apuleius, Virgil, Ovid, the younger Pliny to Augustine (yes, that Saint Augustine of Hippo). Again, there is no method. I pull out a copy from my book shelves and put it in my tote bag when I know I’m going on a plane trip for work reasons.

At the moment I am spending time with Horace. More precisely, his famous odes.

Of all the Greek and Latin poets, I feel spiritually comfortable with Horace. He praises a simple life of moderation in a much gentler tone than other Roman writers. Although Horace’s odes were written in imitation of Greek writers like Sappho, I like his take on friendship, love, alcohol, Roman politics and poetry itself. With the arguable exception of Virgil, there is no more celebrated Roman poet than Horace. His Odes set a fashion among English speakers that come to bear on poets to this day. His Ars Poetica, a rumination on the art of poetry in the form of a letter, is one of the seminal works of literary criticism. Ben Jonson, Pope, Auden, and Frost are but a few of the major poets of the English language who owe a debt to the Roman.

We owe to Horace the phrases, “carpe diem” or “seize the day” and the “golden mean” for his beloved moderation. Victorian poet Alfred Lord Tennyson, of Ancient Mariner fame, praised the odes in verse and Wilfred Owen’s great World War I poem, Dulce et Decorum est, is a response to Horace’s oft-quoted belief that it is “sweet and fitting” to die for one’s country.

Unlike many poets, Horace lived a full life. And not always a happy one. Horace was born in Venusia, a small town in southern Italy, to a formerly enslaved mother. He was fortunate to have been the recipient of intense parental direction. His father spent a comparable fortune on his education, sending him to Rome to study. He later studied in Athens amidst the Stoics and Epicurean philosophers, immersing himself in Greek poetry. While led a life of scholarly idyll in Athens, a revolution came to Rome. Julius Caesar was murdered, and Horace fatefully lined up behind Brutus in the conflicts that would ensue. His learning enabled him to become a commander during the Battle of Philippi, but Horace saw his forces routed by those of Octavian and Mark Antony, another stop on the former’s road to becoming Emperor Augustus.

When he returned to Italy, Horace found that his family’s estate had been expropriated by Rome, and Horace was, according to his writings, left destitute. In 39 B.C., after Augustus granted amnesty, Horace became a secretary in the Roman treasury by buying the position of questor's scribe. In 38, Horace met and became the client of the artists' patron Maecenas, a close lieutenant to Augustus, who provided Horace with a villa in the Sabine Hills. From there he began to write his satires. Horace became the major lyric Latin poet of the era of the Augustus age. He is famed for his Odes as well as his caustic satires, and his book on writing, the Ars Poetica. His life and career were owed to Augustus, who was close to his patron, Maecenas. From this lofty, if tenuous, position, Horace became the voice of the new Roman Empire. When Horace died at age 59, he left his estate to Augustus and was buried near the tomb of his patron Maecenas.

Horace’s simple diction and exquisite arrangement give the odes an inevitable quality; the expression makes familiar thoughts new. While the language of the odes may be simple, their structure is complex. The odes can be seen as rhetorical arguments with a kind of logic that leads the reader to sometimes unexpected places. His odes speak of a love of the countryside that dedicates a farmer to his ancestral lands; exposes the ambition that drives one man to Olympic glory, another to political acclaim, and a third to wealth; the greed that compels the merchant to brave dangerous seas again and again rather than live modestly but safely; and even the tensions between the sexes that are at the root of the odes about relationships with women.

What I like then about Horace is his sense of moderation and he shows the gap between what we think we want and what we actually need. Horace has a preference for the small and simple over the grandiose. He’s all for independence and self-reliance.

If there is one thing I would nit pick Horace upon is his flippancy to the value of the religious and spiritual. The gods are often on his lips, but, in defiance of much contemporary feeling, he absolutely denied an afterlife - which as a Christian I would disagree with. So inevitably “gather ye rosebuds while ye may” is an ever recurrent theme, though Horace insists on a Golden Mean of moderation - deploring excess and always refusing, deprecating, dissuading.

All in all he champions the quiet life, a prayer I think many men and women pray to the gods to grant them when they are caught in the open Aegean, and a dark cloud has blotted out the moon, and the sailors no longer have the bright stars to guide them. A quiet life is the prayer of Thrace when madness leads to war. A quiet life is the prayer of the Medes when fighting with painted quivers: a commodity, Grosphus, that cannot be bought by jewels or purple or gold? For no riches, no consul’s lictor, can move on the disorders of an unhappy mind and the anxieties that flutter around coffered ceilings.

Caelum non animum mutant qui trans mare currunt (they change their sky, not their soul, who rush across the sea.)

Part of Horace’s persona - lack of political ambition, satisfaction with his life, gratitude for his land, and pride in his craft and the recognition it wins him - is an expression of an intricate web of awareness of place. Reading Horace will centre you and get you to focus on what is most important in life. In Horace’s discussion of what people in his society value, and where they place their energy and time, we can find something familiar. Horace brings his reader to the question - what do we value?  

Much like many of our own societies, Rome was bustling with trade and commerce, ambition, and an area of vast, diverse civilisation. People there faced similar decisions as we do today, in what we pursue and why. As many of us debate our place and purpose in our world, our poet reassures us all. We have been coursing through Mondays for thousands of years. Horace beckons us: take a brief moment from the day’s busy hours. Stretch a little, close your eyes while facing the warm sun, and hear the birds and the quiet stream. The mind that is happy for the present should refuse to worry about what is further ahead; it should dilute bitter things with a mild smile.

I would encourage anyone to read these treasures in translations. For you though, as a budding Classicist, read the texts in Latin and Greek if you can. Wrestle with the word. The struggle is its own reward. Whether one reads from the original or from a worthy translation, the moral virtue (one hopes) is wisdom and enlightenment.

Pulvis et umbra sumus

(We are but dust and shadow.)

Thanks for your question.

[alderaani]

Skies

summary: After a long campaign, Jesse and Hardcase indulge in some well earned TLC. AO3 | Series 

Part of my 100-clone centric prompts series, prompt list used is here

wanrings: allusions to canon-typical violence, death mention.

a/n: oof, I’ve been so unmotivated to write recently, so i’m honestly just relieved to have finished something. i’ve been wanting to write this for ages, based off this post by @lilhawkeye3 - it’s such an endearing image.

-

The ocean didn’t smell anything like Hardcase thought it would.

He slipped his bucket from his head, squinting against the sudden rush of unfiltered light. On either side of him troopers broke free of the tree line, and, feeling sand beneath their boots, took off whooping towards the frothing crest of the sea. The sunset blazed red and orange, bleeding like a punctured egg yolk across the cloudless horizon and into distant water. Hardcase breathed in, wrinkling his nose against the salt-laden tang, so visceral he could taste it.

It wasn’t like Kamino. That was almost the biggest surprise. He’d thought that oceans would be the same everywhere, but this wasn’t a bad way to be proven wrong. It was the salt, he realised after a moment, darting his tongue out to touch his lips. There weren’t really any beaches on Kamino, though he supposed there must be sand under there somewhere. There were no winding strips where ocean met land, where the sun could ferment the pools, rocks and shells left behind. It tasted lighter there, cleaner, more cut through by its brutal winds. He breathed in deep again, wrinkling his nose and grinning at the way the seasoned tang sat on his palate here, briny and thick.

It was the colour too, that really made the difference. It was so pale and clear on this far-flung planet, instead of the angry greyish blue he remembered. The waves were...politer, somehow. Less vengeful, not boiling with ever-falling rain. Several troopers had reached the shore now and were chasing the surf, shouting and laughing when it nipped at their heels.

He decided he rather liked it.

It was something different after weeks spent cowering under cover further inland, coated in showers of dark earth from enemy artillery and rationing out stale water in mouthfuls that were barely enough to coat the back of the throat. Even the air was damp here, and overhead the gulls were crying, sharp against the thundering crash of the waves. He lived for these moments, these breaths between the axel-grind of war. It was true that he loved the spoil of a fight, loved sinking into it and letting his Z6 sing. But there was a different, more intoxicating thrill in these snatched hours or - if they were lucky - days. He’d never voiced it to anyone, but he sometimes thought he might like to do this all the time, one day, trawling the stars and standing beneath unfamiliar skies. For the views, this time, explored under his own rhythm.

Yeah. That sounded pretty good.

“Oi, Hardcase!” Someone bellowed, sticking up a hand and waving at him amidst a far away knot of troopers knee deep in the sea. “You coming?”

He shook himself, setting down his pack and his Z6 with loving care amongst the mountainous piles of gear, before jogging down the dunes, following the trails of discarded armour and the shouts, happy laughter and splashes echoing from the water. The wind was sharp on his face and neck and on the strips of skin at his wrists, intoxicating and too heady to ignore. The sand was strangely weightless beneath him, too. He’d slept on a real feather pillow, once, while they were hunkered down on Ord Sedra and several hundred crates of luxury bedding had gotten damaged in the crossfire. It had felt like floating, and all of them had tossed and turned all night. This was similar, and just as strange...what would it all feel like on his skin?

The thought wouldn’t let him go. Halfway down the beach he sat to strip off his boots, then his plates, then his blacks, until he stood in just his greys, laughing at the feeling of the wind and the spray licking against his body. The way it cut through the stubble sprouting on his scalp after far too long stuck in a bucket-locked zone was...disconcerting. The prickle of just-forming curls felt like phantom fingers on the nape of his neck, and he’d found the way sweat clung to hair under his helmet sort of disgusting - it reminded him of being an under-washed cadet. Frankly, he didn’t plan on letting it stay long enough to get used to it.

The sand though...now that was weird. The way it sat between his toes made him squirm, each grain a bolting pinprick against the soles of his feet. When had he last had his boots off? Back on the Venator in the communal fresher, probably. It was a cruel galaxy when that barren room and its clinical racks of scentless soap started to look like a king’s treasury. He dug his feet into the cold, wet sludge, shivering in disgusted delight as the beach swallowed them whole.

“Hardcase!”

He looked towards the bellowing figure stumbling up the sand towards him, squinting as the sun hit their upturned face. Then he barked a laugh of surprise at the edge of the Republic cog he found there.

“ Jesse? Kriff, vod, barely recognised you.”

It was the first time he’d seen his flesh face in weeks, aside from in hurried moments allocated for gulping down rations. Jesse’s hair had grown in thick and black, much to the consternation of several brothers who were offended he could grow a moustache like that and still chose not to. Right now, he reached up to scratch the offending hair on his cheeks and scowled.

“S’rich comin’ from you. What is that slug on your face?”

Hardcase winced. His own unwilling hair cultivation very much proved that clones were not all made equal.

“It’s a casualty,” he said, feeling the short, patchy bristles on his upper lip. His trainer had always promised it would settle as he came out of puberty. That had been a lie. Hardcase blamed it on the crack in his growth jar, like he did most minor physical inconveniences. “This is why I don’t bother with the stuff.”

Jesse nodded, turning away to rummage through the packs strewn over the sand. “It just won’t stop itchin’.”

“You’re telling me.” Hardcase groaned. “You didn’t get woken up last night because your hair tickled the back of your neck and made you think you were bein’ jumped.”

Jesse snorted, straightening back up with his meagre GAR-standard microfibre towel in hand and a ration bar hanging from his mouth.

“Was that what that was about?” he asked, voice muffled. “We thought we could hear you squirmin’.”

Hardcase kicked lightly at Jesse’s ankle. “Real nice of you to not even ask if I was alright.”

Jesse broke off the ration bar and smirked round his mouthful.

“‘Case, it’s when you go quiet that we start asking questions.”

Hardcase shoved him. Jesse went down with a yelp and a curse, his towel catching under his ass and the loose end flapping like a banner in the wind. Hardcase bellowed a laugh, kicking sand towards him. It was a fatal mistake.

Jesse caught him by the ankle and yanked him down too. He landed on his stomach, still laughing as the wind knocked out of him, and scrambled forward with abandon, yelping with shock as water seeped cold and heavy into his greys. He wasn’t fast enough. A leg slung heavy over Hardcase’s ankles, pinning him, and then Jesse’s weight was pressing down on his back, forcing his face towards the wet sand.

“Get off, you kriffin’ shabiir,” he laughed, groaning as Jesse adjusted his weight and squashed the air out of his lungs.

“I’m not the one startin’ fights they can’t finish,” Jesse retorted, his voice light.

“Who said I was finished?” Hardcase shot back, going limp and then bucking hard. Jesse swore, losing his grip, and then they were scrabbling again, a tangle of limbs and righteous yelling.

The fight ended with them lying side by side on their backs, both covered in muck. Hardcase was sure he had sand in his crotch. The sun was still blazing on the horizon, lower now, deepening from yellow to dark, hazy red. It gleamed like fire on the water, like copper on the sand. This world was so reluctant to let the light go, eking out the daylight drop by drop. An errant touch to his thigh made him look over. Jesse was rummaging around underneath himself, grumbling about something digging into his back.

“You think we’ll get to stay here long?” Hardcase asked eventually.

“Aw, hell,” Jesse said, pulling the squashed, sandy remains of his ration bar from underneath him. “This was my last flavoured one. What’d you say?”

“D’you think we’ll stay long?”

Jesse hummed, flinging the ration bar away up the beach. A gull immediately swooped down to snatch it. “Here? Don’t think so. Heard Rex talking to the General, lots still to do before we can get off this rock.”

Hardcase sighed, letting the disappointment wash over him quietly. He shut his eyes again, just listening for a moment, committing the sounds of the sea to memory. It wouldn’t be goodbye. He’d come back to this place, one day. He’d make sure of it.

“So,” he said, cutting himself off before the longing could get too strong. “We gonna shave or what?”

Jesse scoffed. “What? Now?”

Hardcase shrugged. “Why not? We leave here, we’re gonna be back on water rations, right? You really want that nest growin’ for however the fuck long?”

Jesse sighed. “Course I don’t. But what the hell’re we gonna shave with? You didn’t bring your razor, did you?”

“Not a chance,” Hardcase said. That was only a mistake shinies made.

It wasn’t so bad if you lost one of the Kamino issue ones - those were about as blunt as a butter knife. Better to grow hair on campaign and hack it off later than lose one you’d bartered. He still mourned the first he’d ever owned - he’d never seen another with the same quality Corellian steel, and Uppercut had been so smug to win it over sabaac. Gracious enough to let him keep using it though. Some of Hardcase’s best memories were in front of fresher mirrors with him, taking it in turns and helping catch any stray hairs, paying each other in gossip for their trouble. He still hadn’t forgiven that bastard for dying. The first time he’d had to shave after had left him curled over the sink, his head half lathered and his whole body shaking, so on their next planetfall he’d taken the razor with him and buried it in the nicest spot he could find.

Uppercut had always preferred cities to trees, but Hardcase hoped that, wherever he was, he’d appreciated the effort all the same.

“I do have a vibroblade, though,” he carried on brightly, grinning at the way Jesse’s expression fell.

“Absolutely not.”

“Aw, come on. It won’t be that bad.”

Jesse pushed up on his elbows, his face scrunched. “If you think I’m gonna let you dry shave my head with a dagger, ‘Case, you’re more stupid than you look. I want a haircut, not a cut head.”

Hardcase rolled his eyes. “Who said anything about dry shaving? I’ve got soap.”

Jesse paused. “You’ve had soap this whole time? Here?”

“What can I say, I’m an optimist,” Hardcase said, peeling his back out of the sand. “You in or not?”

Jesse didn’t answer, just stood, grinned, and offered Hardcase a hand.

The light continued to wane as they made their trips up and down the beach, finding a good spot where the shoreline banked a little, and where it would keep the worst of the wind off while Hardcase lathered Jesse’s head. He stuck his tongue out a little as he worked, trying not to get distracted while the frothy water lapped at his ankles. He felt himself loosen as he scraped the vibroblade over his brother’s head, even just the act making him feel more like himself. It relaxed the jittery edge his thoughts always had, dialling down the almost frantic noise that built in combat and then sat under his skin. Usually it took a good spar to bounce it all back out of him, but this had always worked too…it had just been a long time since he’d had anyone else to go through the ritual with.

When it was his turn, he all but melted under the gentle, smooth touch of the vibroblade on his head, the soapy lather chilling quickly on his skin. He hummed, the feeling of the pads of Jesse’s guiding fingers on his chin almost too much sensation after so long under plastoid. He let his mind drift, watching the ocean and listening to Jesse’s mutters and curses as he concentrated.

When they were done and had rinsed in the freezing water, the sun had almost vanished, leaving only a purple after-bruise on the darkened sky. Most of the battalion had settled much further up the beach near the largest sand dunes, so they drifted there and claimed a patch of sand, pulling on their blacks when the sticky film of drying salt water got too much in the cold night air. After a late meal of ration cubes, and, far more enticing, some dried bantha milk the last villages they’d fortified had gifted them, Hardcase was splayed out on his back again and feeling quite ready to have a nap.

Jesse was lounging beside him, carefully rehydrating his milk with water from his field flask. Hardcase couldn’t remember the last time they’d had a night like this, where the war had felt so far away.

They turned their heads at several loud hoots, a crash, and a cheer, followed by an angry bellow. He squinted his eyes against the sudden flare of bright light.

Several brothers had constructed a modest bonfire out of driftwood - and, Hardcase suspected, several unlucky clones’ blacks - and had just tossed over a spare fuel canister, setting the whole thing ablaze in a column of blue flame. The tense figure stalking towards them looked awfully like Appo.

“D’you think we should help him?” Hardcase murmured, his hands propped comfortably under his head. Plasma always burned fast and hot, and he could already feel it faintly against the side of his freshly exposed head. It was nice; soothing, even.

Jesse hummed, pushed up on one elbow so that he could sip at his drink.

“...Nah,” he said slowly, lowering his cup and scrubbing away the blue moustache left behind. He flopped back down with a boneless huff. “Appo’s a big boy. He’s got this.”

Hardcase turned his head again, in time to see Appo tug futilely at some of the dark fabric being swallowed by flame. He chuckled and shut his eyes, breathing in deep and enjoying the soothing melody of shouting that, for once, was not being directed at him.

“Yeah,” he murmured after a moment, sighing as the heat flared and there were more jubilant whoops. “I think you’re right.”

taglist // @nelba @leias-left-hair-bun @simping-for-fives @missinashkin @iscream4clones @majorshiraharu @dom-i-nic @snippytano @808tsuika @eries45 @whatanoof // list here

[miss-choco-chips]

Drink and make merry, my friend (you'll be gone come morning)

Day four: historical- pirates // sci-fi- space

There are three pirates chilling in the dungeons. None seem overly concerned about the fact that they’ll be hanged come morning.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

Bartholomew H. Allen. Bart for the friends. ‘The red nuisance’ for everyone else. Wasn’t the first time he’d been inside this very same prison cell; probably won’t be the last. The guards stationed in front of his door were the quickest on their feet, so maybe they’d have a minimum chance of catching the fucker should he escape again. Probably not, but the Arch Duke had been particularly displeased the last time he’d weaseled his way out of their prison, so they had to at least pretend to try.

He’d been unconcernedly chewing on dried meat for hours now. How did he manage to smuggle it into the cell, no one knows, but after he bit the first few hands that tried to take his treasure away, the general consensus was to let him be.

Similarly, anyone who held any notions of spending a fun afternoon with the only woman among the sea bandits was quick to be corrected, either by a broken hand or a kick that stole the air from their lungs like it was gold from a ship’s treasury.

Her name? Cassandra Sandsmark. She did not fuck around, and really, considering she would be dead by that time the next night, it was’t worth it to punish her for ‘prisoner misconduct’. That was why they left her be. Not because she scared their balls back into their bodies. The fact that she was Princess Diana’s wayward niece and, death row or not, the noble Lady would murder them all for even breathing in her direction, was a notable plus.

The last pirate, well… He’d chosen to spend his last night on earth doing push ups. It was probably better to leave him to his own devices.

Conner Kent. Whether or not he had any relation to Crown Prince Kal was anyone’s guess, but they did look startlingly similar; something the younger man had taken advantage of to avoid capture multiple times in the past.

To catch any of them wasn’t an easy task. The fact that they were all there thanks to the same man was beyond amazing.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

An auburn haired boy ran through busy port streets, his form almost a blur between passerbys. Jumping over crates, avoiding street vendors, sliding over banisters and landing at the very last step of any stair in his way, the youngster made a truly astounding escape.

Tough luck his opponent had accounted for that.

Just as he was rounding that last corner separating him from the port (and his freedom), a foot struck out. Quick thinking saved him from face planting on the disgustingly dirty streets, but his surprise and momentum cost him precious seconds of stumbling.

The swords pointing him from every direction when he straightened weren’t as threatening as the lone young man standing behind the National Guard, unarmed but from the cutting edge on his glare. Without breaking eye contact, the runner threw both hands up in surrender.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

The guards barely even glanced up when the servant girl let herself in, softly pushing the trolley. They did, however, when the scent of food caught their attention.

“That for us, pretty lady?”

Blushing, the girl looked at both men from under her brown fringe.

“The… the prisoners…”

Elbowing each other, they smiled, sharks smelling blood in the water as they eyed the delicacies on display.

“It’d be a waste to let people who are gonna be fish food by this time tomorrow eat such an amazing feast.”

The girl hesitated again, her duty to feed the prisoners at war with the populace general unwillingness to disobey their military enforcers.

“Come on, pretty lady”, the other one edged on. “Who’s gonna tell the higher ups?”

Something flashed behind her beautiful blue eyes, and she nodded, gently pushing the trolley in their direction.

From within their cells, the three pirates watched in silence.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

If anyone were to ask, he’d been minding his own damn business when shit went down.

He had only wanted a beer. Really, life just wasn’t fair to wanted criminals.

It was just his luck that his crew chose this particular tavern to drink and make merry. Though, Kon supposes, it wasn’t their fault either. How would they know that the Lavender Throne pirates favored the same establishment?

He’d only been a member of the Renegades’ crew for about two months now, but he already knew how this fight would turn out. He was easily their best fighter, and the Lavenders were all about the same level of well trained; so here he was, alone in a circle of enemies, fist held high and feet doing their best not to trip over fallen crewmates.

Or maybe not so alone. A smaller back pressed against his, and he could see from the corner of his eye how the men trying to get his blind spot fell like flies. Not one to doubt his blessings, he doubled his efforts.

When things died down, Kon relaxed, marveling at the fact that just two of them were enough to deal with a full tavern of enemies. The bar maidens started to rise from under the tables they chose to hide behind, and Conner was about to turn around and thank his surprise saviour, when the feeling of cold metal against his neck stopped him in his tracks.

Uniformed men started bleeding into the room, dragging unconscious pirates away. When one approached him and his mysterious capturer, he almost felt the man behind him shaking his head.

“This one is high risk. I’ll take him myself.”

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

“Are you sure? There’s plenty enough for all of us”, asked Dumb Guard Number one again, words almost unrecognizeable under his chewing.

The girl, sitting primly in the chair they oh so gentlemanly had offered for her to wait on until they finished their impromptu dinner, shook her head.

Dumb Guard Number two didn’t need to be told twice and snagged the last piece of bread.

“Is it just you two for the night?”, she asked, apropos of nothing.

The more sharing of the two nodded. “Yeah, until the morning shift guys come and take them away to the plaza for their sentence.”

She whistled softly.

“Seems kind of mean, having only you two to guard three of the most wanted pirates of the last few years.”

The second one smiled a bit. “Nah, we got dealt a nice hand. We get to eat and laze around, and as good as they are, they can’t weasel their way between those bars. No excitement here. The day guards are the unlucky ones here.”

“How so? Aren’t them, like, a lot more? Seems like it’d be easier, sharing the weight of it.”

“Yeah, but Lieutenant Drake will be with them, ‘s going to personally oversee the executions. Can’t exactly slack off with the favored son of Archduke Wayne breathing over your shoulder, now can you?”

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

“Cassandra!”

“Go! I’ll hold them off!”

The older woman, holding desperately to the other’s hand, made a sound of profound distress.

“But-!”

“Donna, just go! If they catch you- just how much do you think Diana is going to suffer?”

“It’s the same with you! We can run together, there’s space in the spare boat”

They were running out of time. She knew convincing her older sister figure to leave her behind was not going to end well or happen quickly, so the blonde pirate shot a look to vice captain Artemis. They both knew Donna was just too important to risk like this, her relationship to Diana recognizable enough to use her as leverage against their Princess. Cassandra, as beloved as she was by the women who took her in, had spent the better half of her childhood hiding her real identity and running amok where few would be able to point her out as Princess Diana’s protegeè.

Ignoring her mistress’s screams, Vice captain Artemis’s arms went around her waist, lifting her clear off her feet and dragging her away, her strength forcing Donna’s hand free of Cassandra’s arm.

Soon, Cassie stood alone in an empty ship, sword in hand as she watched the sun setting over the horizon, the distant figure of dozens of escape boats a mere shadow in the distance.

When the sound of boards and then feet hitting the deck reached her, her hand tightened on the sword’s hilt, but she didn’t turn to see.

“It was a bold move. Brave, though.”

The words made her startle, spoken so closely to her ear, the approaching presence absolutely unnoticed until that exact second.

Breathing in deeply, Cassandra spun on her feet, sword raised. Her enemy was already a few feet away, safe from her board attack. His cold stare clashed with her feral growl, an ice prince facing off against an amazon fighter.

No other soldier dared approach them, as the sound of their clashing swords echoed in the quiet of the night as thunder.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Just as a distant clock was about to point both arms to its highest point, both guards fell asleep. Literally fell, face planting in the dirty prison ground.

Sighing tiredly, the young serving girl rose to her feet. Walking towards Dumn Guard Numer 2 (stopping only barely on her way to nudge Dumb Guard Numer one to the side, so he wouldn’t drown in the puddle his face had landed on), she crouched down and took the keys from his belt.

When she stood again, all three pirates were on their feet near their doors, waiting.

“Who’s first this time?” asked the youngest, voice vibrating in his excitement, smile bright.

“Me, for sure”, crowed Conner, hands on his hips.

“What are you talking about? I made him fight for it. Drew blood, even.” Cassandra, proud smile and raise hand, threw back in challenge.

To all their surprises, the maiden went straight for Allen’s door.

“What? Me?”

“What the fuck?”

“Are you seriously telling us IMP is the one who gave you the most trouble this time?”

The girl shrugged, but a small smile could be spotted under her calm facade if one cared enough to look for it (which they all did).

“I had to chase him all through Star Port city. I was tired afterwards. The two of you made me fight, but it wasn’t nearly as exhausting.”

The boy jumped out of his cell as soon as the door was opened, fist raised in victory.

“Yessss! Free booze!”

“It’s a stupid bet”, the girl shrugged at the other two’s upset frowns. “None of you are an actual challenge, after all.”

“Oh, shut up, asshole. Get us out of here before those dumbasses wake up.”

Before long, all three pirates and the young castle maid were running through empty streets towards the port.

“The ship is ready for you to take. I made it look like you stole it from a very drunk, very unsuspecting crew of beginners.” As they all ran, she… he, took his hand to his head, snatching away the brown wig. Hair, black like a raven’s wings, fell over his icy blue eyes.

Cassandra, keeping pace with him, accepted the disguise. “Where to, after?”

“There’s instructions on your next mission already written down on the back of the map, on the captain’s cabin. I left the key to the cellar as a paperweight over it, so there’s no way you’ll miss it.”

Behind them, the other two boys crowed in delight. Bart even makes a small little jump, never slowing their pace.

“Is it fully stoked?”

Turning to look at the bigger man over his shoulder, the maid-turned-criminal rolled his eyes.

“Half. I do need you all lucid enough to do your chores. But whatever you find along your way that doesn’t slow your progress on the mission, you can loot for yourselves. There’s an empty treasury on the right side of the ship just for that.”

Another jump, this time from the other pirate. The two running ahead shared an exasperated, though fond, look.

They reached the promised ship before long. It sat there, beautifully tilting this way and that thanks to the gentle waves reaching shore.

They stopped there for a second, the three pirates facing their rescuer.

“Will you be alright? Won’t anyone suspect?”

He shook his head, hands demurely raising his dress a slight inch from the ground in a small courtesy.

“Caroline Hill has a perfectly solid cover, and there are lots of people who’ll vouch for her if she’s ever suspected for tonight. Also, the guards chosen for the night shift are known for slacking off in their duty. Falling asleep close enough to the cells for one of you to snatch the keys and free themselves won’t be too much of a stretch for anyone to imagine.”

They smiled back at him.

“Do try to catch some sleep before going back there as Lieutenant Drake. You’ll need your beauty rest to give a convincing ‘I left those criminals in your care and you LOST THEM?!’ show.”

“The laughable state of the kingdom’s military is perpetually infuriating to me. Don’t worry, I’ll be believable. And I can use this as an excuse to fire the most incompetent guards in the history of ever.”

“Do you ever do anything without at least two different reasons and multiple plans banking on it?”

“Why would I, that just sounds like a waste of my time. Now go, run off, before someone sees four people hanging by the port and gets curious enough to remember faces.”

“When will we see you again?”, asks Conner, hand catching his friend’s shoulder before the man in the dress can turn around and leave.

“This mission should last a month or so, and after you hid the objective in the safe place I designated for it for me to pick up later, you’ll need to scatter. I’ll catch you again soo after that, so in total… maybe two months? Three if any of you give me an actual challenge, but I’m not holding my breath for that one.”

“Bastard. See you soon.”

“Make sure to take us drinking next time, Tim. We barely see you now that you have to play good lawful boy with your dad.”

“Only if you idiots take good care of the ship. The Red Bird is a delicate lady and I’ll hang you myself if there’s even a scratch on her beautiful shell.”

“It’s almost as if you care more about a bunch of wood and metal than us.”

“Because I do. Now fuck off.”

[In which Tim is a privateer (Basically a pirate with papers. As the name suggests, privateers were private individuals commissioned by governments to carry out quasi-military activities; in this case, Tim does illegal things for the greater good. As a military agent, he’s hiring himself lol) and the other three are pirates working for and with him, because they like to help him do good things and they also get a chance at fighting people, drinking and looting treasure outside their missions. Tim catching and then freeing them is how they exchange information or he gives them his orders.]

[apinklion01]

Trailing Along the Dark

Day Twenty-One: Relic

A03 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/34214308/chapters/86289043

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No warnings this chapter.

Aragon heard the doors slam behind him. How could his father, the powerful ruler of the kingdom, even consider abandoning the crown? And for what? The death of his queen?

He let out an angry sigh. ‘No, this was foolish of me to even consider he would stay to fight back. Grandfather said he’d take any route to avoid war. Negotiations, treaties, bargains, anything that prevented him from taking any sword. Thank goodness you were there in his place, Grandfather, and helped me to see his hesitancy and stupidity.’

Aragon loved his Grandfather. He was the only real family he cared for. Not his father and mother, who returned after nearly a decade of negotiating with other kingdoms. Not his sister, Dorathea, who had grown up with a soft heart like her father, and even learned some knowledge that only male heirs to the throne should learn.

‘I’m certain my father wants to end the crown because I would’ve forced Dorathea to give it to me. What a fool to think a woman could hold such a title, let alone the power.’

‘But rest assured, Grandfather. I’ll claim the crown in your honor, and history will know of my name.’

Aragon heard some footsteps approaching from behind, and he turned around to greet the face of Brenner, his closest friend and a recently made Commander.

“Aragon, I heard the news of Queen Rohesia,” Brenner said. “My condolences to you.”

“My mother’s death is of no importance as of the inconceivable news I’m about to tell you,” He replied. “King Elric wishes to abandon our castle instead of facing King Guiscard’s army. And soon after, he’ll end the crown.”

Brenner’s face dropped in shock, his hazel eyes blinking multiple times. “..W-What? A-Abandon the crown… He can’t.. He mustn’t do that!”

“Agree, which is why it’s time to take matters into our own hands.” Aragon extended his hand. “Are you with me?”

The knight looked at his hand for a moment before shaking it firmly. “Till the end, my liege.”

“We mustn't waste any time,” Aragon said as he walked up close to a cross section of the hallway. Instead of continuing along, he went to press against a stone brick. The wall rumbled and a secret stairway was revealed. The prince went into the darkness, Brenner following right behind him after grabbing a torch.

“King Guiscard’s army will soon approach in less than three days. Our numbers may be small, but I have a plan in mind… Do you know of the legend of Hayden the Conqueror?”

“Yes, I remember your Grandfather talked about him once. Wasn’t he the one who supposedly killed the last of the dragons?”

“That’s the way the tale ends if you hear it from anyone else. But my Grandfather revealed more about how Hayden did it. You see, Hayden knew the ways of magic, and he didn’t just kill them, but made several talismans so he could turn into them.”

“Turn into a dragon?”

Aragon nodded. “How else do you suppose our small kingdom has stood out seemingly for all of eternity and rarely loses a war? It’s all because of Hayden’s talismans.”

Brenner’s mouth twitched in curiosity. “Why doesn’t your father use them?”

“My father’s foolish. He tried using them one time, but the talismans need one who’s bold and strong of heart to use them. He locked them away down here, but my Grandfather gave me his key upon his last days so that I may one day use them in my first battle as a king.”

Both went silent as they made it down the final steps and into the darkness of the treasury. The sound of water dripping down was faint. Brenner grabbed a torch that remained lit and used it to light their way.

“... You were close to your Grandfather, correct?”

“...Yes...”

“... He was a good man, Aragon.”

“... He was a greater man than my father will ever realize.”

They made it to the door where all books of magic and enchanted items were stashed away. Ever since his Grandfather’s death, Aragon came here to study them intensely, reading every single one, and transcribing those from other distant kingdoms. His father didn’t bother to put any guards, thinking the hidden stairwell was enough to hide them.

‘I’ll prove that to be his undoing,’ Aragon thought as he grabbed the key from the silvery chair he had around his neck. ‘Now, Grandfather… Now it’s time I earn my birthright.’

The door opened, and inside were all that he and Brenner would need to fight against the invasion. Aragon went and grabbed a small box from a shelf. He beckoned his friend closer to reveal the powerful artifact inside: a peridot gemstone embedded with a pitch black shard of onyx that resembled an eye. It was attached to a golden chain where tiny dots of onyx dotted the outside.

“Brenner, behold.. the Onyx Eyed Talisman. Hayden himself used it centuries ago to win his battles. And it’s the one I’ve trained to use.”

His friend let out a soft gasp as he looked toward the artifact. “... What can you do as a dragon?”

“Fly at fierce speeds, breath Greek fire, and strong scales. Though I’m certain that Guiscard won’t have anything that could stand up to a dragon, we must still prepare as many soldiers as we can for battle.”

Brenner nodded and scratched his chin. “I know a good number of men who would gladly join us once they learn of what your father plans to do. Maybe even one of the Grand Cross, if you come with me to talk with him.”

“But of course. Once this is over, my father must crown me king after everyone hears of how he planned to abandon it.”

“... What happens if he tries to stop us?”

Aragon closed the case of the Onyx Eyed Talisman. “Don’t worry, I have another plan in mind. One that my sister will unknowingly assist us with.”

He walked up and from another shelf pulled out another box, this one smaller. Inside was an artifact similar to the Onyx Eyes Talisman. The main gem was a turquoise gemstone, and in the center was a shard of opal. It looked about as dazzling as any jewelry that his mother had, and undoubtedly Dorathea wouldn't notice the difference.

“After all, I did say Hayden made more than one talisman…”

[corvusravenette]

Fan Fiction: Qi Ye

Title: I Thought of You and Yet You Came Based on Original Work: Qi Ye Author: Priest Genre: BL Warning: Gore and Violence Rate: Teen / Young adults Pairing: M/M (Wu Xi + Beiyuan) Chapter: 4 of 5 (... maybe 10. I don’t know. We’ll see...) * This fiction might have a few more chapters extended. I ran away with the plot again. Too much coffee does that to people. I also started a Mafia AU on WenZhou. The first few chapters will probably be up in a couple of weeks. We’ll see...  +-+-+-+-+-+-           “We… want to see him if he’s alive, his corpse if he’s dead! Someone! Come here!” the Emperor bellowed hysterically, almost dementedly.           Wu Xi stared at him fixedly, unblinkingly, apathetically. His decision had been right. There was no way this man could be allowed to know the Beiyuan was still with him. He would not allow it in this lifetime or any other lifetimes. As the imperial doctors and attendants hurried into the room, Wu Xi turned amidst the chaos and left without saying anymore lest his face betrayed his disgust.           He knew that this would not be the last time he had to deal with the Rongjia Emperor. +-+-+-+-+-+-

          He was not as calculative as Beiyuan but his despicable beloved had taught him in a short span of days how easy it was for the Prince to manipulate and to lie through his teeth. A spark of anger was ignited in his heart. How was he to forgive this betrayal? Did he not understand he was his man? That in this lifetime, it can only be him, to live and die for him, no one else but him? They were supposed to stay together, fight side by side together… die together. Was he the only one who believed in that? Did he think he needed protection against a bunch of barbarians and dimwitted power-hungry courtiers? He was no longer a child!           How was he to forgive Beiyuan for throwing him away after leading him on, making him believed that there was no one else in his heart but him, and taking him to bed? How dare he use his own drug on him after making his heart bleed open with a love so beautiful, so painfully obsessed, so wretchedly enraptured by him?! What was he to do now when the love of his life was comatose and bedridden, and on death’s door? Did the damn bastard realize just how much he loved him? That he would have died for him and taken his place on the battlefield? Did he not understand the significance of his own life? Did he not care whether he lived or died?           Did he not care about… me…?           Can he not see that without him… without him, I cannot breathe?           Can he not see.. without him, I do not want to live…?           Without him, there is no point in me… living…?           Hot tears pricked his eyes and he lowered his gaze to the ground, blinking away rapidly as this small voice whispered his deepest pain and fear, buried in the abyss of his heart. A few of the guards who were stationed outside the inner courtyard escorted him out, struggling to keep up with the Great Shaman’s long strides. He was taller than most Great Qing people, and had an air of powerful but cruel nobility about him, now that he had inherited the Illustrious One’s position as the Great Shaman of Nanjiang. He was paler than most Great Qing people as well, his bone jade skin a stark contrast to his pearl-black eyes and thick eyebrows. Beautiful, yet menacing at the same time.           The guards escorting him towards the outer courtyard stole furtive glances at him, their hearts admiring and fearing him. They had barely rested after the battles were over, many of their comrades dead although many more were saved by the timely arrival of the Nanjiang-Great Qing border army as well as the Great Shaman’s own personal troops. The shortage in personnel had forced them out of their resting beds and onto guard duty at the Imperial Palace now that the Emperor had return to the dragon throne despite barely recuperating from their wounds.           As their eyes followed the Great Shaman on the long trek to the outer courtyard, they noticed that he was still wearing the very same robes he wore on the battlefield, he had not changed at all, his fingers were still caked in blood and traces of dried blood was visible on his clothes. The image of the Great Shaman swooping into the battlefield like he was the reincarnation of Asura himself was still fresh in their minds: his long saber swinging and slicing through countless Vakurah necks; the bloody crimson arcs that accompanied the flying heads; the horrendous screams that were cut off mid-voice as he slaughtered his way through; the thick aura of death that clung to him as blood splattered on him, soaking him to the skin.           They would be awed and haunted by the brutality of the Nanjiang warriors as they stormed the battlefield in all their might that day. They were a different breed of people: taller, more muscular, more unforgiving, more ruthless in their approach than their own soldiers. It was the Great Qing’s blessing to have this fearsome race on their side for once. They were their saviours but they were also a double-edged sword. If that sword had turned on them, they would not stand a chance… like the Battle of Nanjiang, where the Great General Feng was entombed in the grasslands of Nanjiang, along with four thousand of his elite knights.           In their hearts, they knew that the Great Qing dynasty owed their lives to these Southern warrior race for turning the tides of this war. Right now, there were thousands of Nanjiang warriors camped outside the city. Despite being a vassal state of Great Qing, their pledge of loyalty was only to the Great Shaman in front of them. They only needed one word from this man, and protector could turn conqueror overnight. The guards shuddered at the thought.           The black stallion was making its rounds on the grounds of the outer courtyard, waiting for its master to come back. At the sight of him coming down hurriedly from the stairs, the stallion neighed, shaking its head away from the guard holding on to its reins and pulled towards Wu Xi as though it could sense his tumultuous heart. The familiar sight of the man seemed to have calm the warhorse down, as it butted its head against his face.            Wu Xi didn’t smile, but his heart settled a little. He always had an affinity with animals: the sable, the little viper he now kept in a cage lest it got injured in the war, the tigers and wolves he kept back home in Nanjiang… Patting the horse’s neck, Wu Xi saddled it, gave a nod to the saluting guards and galloped back where he came from – back to the large posthouse located quite close to Martial Order Gates, back to his heart, his beloved, back to what he had to do to keep his man safe and sound.           Judging from the Emperor’s reactions, he would follow suit soon. Smiling grimly, he thought of Beiyuan. You would be proud of the bastard I’m becoming Beiyuan, you taught me how to do this, what a brilliant teacher you are. Spurring the black beast on faster, he reached the posthouse in record time. It was heavily guarded by his own intimidating warriors and his fearful neighbors steered clear of the area, affording a wide berth of privacy for him and his men, and more importantly, for his beloved.           There were curious stares as Wu Xi made his way through the streets. Hawkers and vendors were just setting up their stalls, shops were just opening their doors and about to do their morning sweeps, and inquisitive neighbors had started milling about their compounds. There was still fear of a future unknown, but life needed to go on.           The war had ended, and the people picked up where they left off. Like every other war before this, the National Treasury would suffer a large blow: to feed, clothe, weaponize and support an army numbering in the tens of thousands would drain what few luxuries their country had. It didn’t help that years of idleness and corruption made it even worse. Life would be difficult for some ten or twenty more years, more so for peasants and farmers who were already struggling to make a living. It would not be easy to rebuild but they have done it before, and they would survive again.           The posthouse was converted from a private mansion with its own four-walled compound. It was a lot smaller than his residence behind Prince Nanning’s own personal residence but large enough for a man of his standing. It was also hastily prepared for the Great Shaman given the circumstances of the war. Helian Yi must’ve had someone run ahead to get it ready.           It was within reach of the Imperial Palace but its stone throw’s away vicinity to Martial Order Gates was also tantamount to how much Helian Yi unconsciously wanted to keep the Great Shaman at a certain cordial -if not cold- distance. Regardless the reasons, Wu Xi could only thank Gazh for his lucky star aligning. Its location afforded him a hiding place for Beiyuan, as well as time needed to do what was necessary to accomplish now.           With the posthouse coming to view, and the familiar banners of his Nanjiang colors snapping against the wind in this frigid morning, Wu Xi’s heart settled more even if it was just a smidgen. It might not be home, but these familiar colors and the sight of the Nanjiang warriors guarding the entrance six feet apart from each other warmed the cockles of his cold soul. The political tide was going to turn in their favor, he would force Helian Yi into submission or risk a second all-out war. He knew that Helian Yi would feel threatened enough with the Nanjiang encampment just outside of the biggest gates to the city. He only needed to say a word, and they would assemble and attack at a moment’s notice. He was no longer a hostage, and he had been crowned the new leader of his people, he had the power of Nanjiang in his hands, and unlike his Mentor, he was crueler in nature. He would make this proud city blessed by Heaven bend to his will.

           Receiving the salute of his men patrolling the entrance and around the compound, Wu Xi got off his stallion, gave it a good pat and a whisper of thanks in his native language before letting one of his guards take the horse away for rounds, water and hay. Ashinlae and Nuahar came out of the main house, greeted him in unison and informed him that a certain visitor had come. Wu Xi listened carefully, the tones of both men had changed – there was a solemn urgency and seriousness in Nuahar’s voice, unlike this morning and Ashinlae, the more hot-headed of the two also seemed to have a change of attitude.           Wu Xi nodded. “Lead the way,” he instructed simply. His voice uninflected and unperturbed. His face a cold mask of indifference. He had learned the hard way, the fastest way to remove all traces of emotions from his face. He had his beloved to thank for the forced enlightenment. There was an unyielding bitterness in his heart, and nothing anyone could say would heal this hurt.           “Nuahar, have the servants ready hot water and new robes and my veil for me. If my guess is right, within the next hour or so, the Emperor will make his way here. I need to take a bath,”           “Immediately, Great Shaman,” Nuahar nodded, excusing himself from the receiving room of the main house. They had brought several of their servants from Nanjiang as well, and though this mansion had their own servants, it was better to have their own people serve them.           Those ‘borrowed’ servants were only too glad to make an exit. No one wanted to work with the Poison King. They had heard horror stories over the years from the mouths of the Great Shaman’s previously hired Imperial Tutors. How he would let poisonous critters crawl around freely in his now former residence. How he would experiment with toxins and venoms of vipers and scorpions on himself and his warriors. How he would leave weapons tipped with poison drying out in the open, that if someone had accidentally stepped on it or nicked themselves on it, would suffer a pain unlike no other.           No, no one wanted to work with him. They were only too glad to be allowed to leave in one piece. Aside Prince Nanning’s own servants who were familiar with Wu Xi over the last ten years and were comfortable with his eccentricities, everyone else opted to leave the very night they could.            Wu Xi turned his unwavering gaze to the man waiting for him. Unlike the night before when he had slunk into the posthouse to remind him of the Emperor’s impending visit, today he had cleaned himself up and had discarded the torn garb he had on yesterday. He no longer hid his face from view, and in its place was the clean, misleadingly trustworthy face of a young man, possibly in his early twenties, maybe older than Wu Xi by a couple of years. He was even more good-looking in his imperial guard uniform, his facial features gentle yet unreadable, his frame slender but hiding the forms of a master martial artist, his eyes focused on the Great Shaman yet not betraying any of his own tumultuous inner thoughts.           Wu Xi thought to himself, this was a man not to be trifled with, he was a master con artist, a master of disguise, an assassin working in the dark for the Emperor. A blind, unwavering loyal follower. Wu Xi could not fault the man, he could not fault a man for his loyalty, no matter how misplaced he believed it was. If it was another lifetime, he would welcome this man as a friend. Beiyuan and himself had good affinity right from the start, Wu Xi lamented, two peas in a masquerading pod.            “Master Zhou, are we ready?” Wu Xi questioned, a nod and a frank remark all in one in a manner of greeting. He was not known for beating about the bush. He had no patience for mere trivialities. He hit the mark immediately.           “We are. Come away, Da Wu,” Zhou Zishu replied. His heart the lightest it had been in so many years of toiling about in the dark in the name of the Emperor, his hands never recovering from its bloody stains. He led the way to an opposite exit from where Nuahar had left.           The posthouse had several main rooms, and several smaller ones – usually reserved for the lower family or the concubine family. Zhou Zishu explained that he had Ashinlae locate the remotest room in the posthouse, preferably an inner chamber and they had helped him move the Prince there. It was done quickly and with as little hassle as possible, only keeping the bare necessities in the room. They came up to an unassuming door after what seemed like a maze of steps, twists and turns.           Zhou Zishu knocked thrice and the door opened to a darkened room. Ping An stuck his head out and saw who it was, stepping to the side to let them in. It was akin to a treatment room: clean, sterile, practical. Wu Xi was greeted with the sight of Beiyuan sleeping on the bed, a medicine table by its side, and several bottles of his personal concoctions arranged on it by labels. There was also a small medicinal stove in one corner, and an unpleasant smell was currently wafting from it.

          “Beiyuan…” Wu Xi whispered softly, lost in himself for a moment as he approached the sleeping Prince. His features soften as he watched Beiyuan’s serene face.           He sat on the bed, the thin mattress dipping slightly under his weight, and took Beiyuan’s wrist in his hand. Checking his pulse, he nodded and stood to lift the cover of the brewing pot in the corner. He took the ladle on the side and slowly stirred the contents of the pot, scrutinizing its color and smell. Lifting the ladle to his lips, he took a small sip and frowned from the biting bitterness. Turning his head to Ping An, he instructed in clipped tones to feed Beiyuan one bowl of the medicine in approximately half a shichen.           “Where’s the corpse?” Wu Xi asked Zhou Zishu curtly, earning him a reflexive shudder from Ping An who knew why the Captain of the Imperial Guards was here for.           “Da Wu, are you alright?” Ashinlae asked worriedly, his eyes staring at the black stains on the Great Shaman’s lips. He knew Nuahar had added Manchurian scorpion venom to the concoction, “Is… is the remedy working?”           “The poison is reacting well with the herbs,” was all the answer Ashinlae was going to get from him before Wu Xi stepped out of the room with Zhou Zishu in the lead. It was enough for Ashinlae to believe him. Ping An on the other hand looked up sharply but the warrior warned him to stand down with one look. “Trust our Great Shaman, I know you are worried for the Prince, but you have seen how strong his medicines are. He will save your Prince. It isn’t a choice for him,”           With that said, Ashinlae closed the door behind him and ran to catch up with his leader. Ping An stood staring at the closed door long after it was shut, shaking in his boots as he turned trembling gazes over to the insignificant pot brewing quietly in the corner on the stove.           Poison? He was going to feed the Prince… poison? He turned his eyes back to the shut door and nodded vigorously, steeling his resolve. If poison would revive the comatose Prince, he would pour all the poison in the world into his mouth. He was sure of it. He had to be sure of it. He had to trust the Great Shaman.           Wu Xi followed Zhou Zishu back to his own compound, noting that the doors were shut tightly and a few of his Nanjiang guards were stationed there. It was quite heavily guarded. Voicing their salutes, they stepped aside to let their leader in. Wu Xi cracked opened the door and he immediately had cause to pause in his steps. He recognized the man lying down on the bed but he was clearly also, very dead.           Finally gaining his senses, Wu Xi stepped in, and walked closer to inspect the man’s body. He had similar wounds to Beiyuan, a long deep gash from shoulder to abdomen, a similar physique to his beloved as well: tall, slender and lean. If he had not been lovingly intimate with Beiyuan, he would easily have mistaken him for his Prince as well. The similarity was too striking. As morbid as it sounded, this would work in his favor.           “Master Zhou, are you sure?” Wu Xi probed out of courtesy. “He’s…”           “Yes. It’s what I should do. He would’ve agreed as well, I know he would. It would be just like him. He had a fondness for the Prince, and we’ve shared many a jar of wines together,” Zhou Zishu replied, “Let him take the Prince’s place,”           Both of them stood by the bed, a heavy grief in the air as they looked upon the young man who had a future so bright but was taken too soon from them. “Rest well, dearest shidi,” Zhou Zishu whispered. His hand caressing Liang JiuXiao’s pale face, his lower lip trembled, his face breaking into a rare sliver of emotion as a tear fell from his lashes. Even in death this child always seemed like he was smiling, he thought fondly as his heart contracted painfully from his sorrow.           Wu Xi bowed his head in a reverent prayer to his Almighty Gazh, closing his eyes and entering a semi-trance like state. He prayed that this young man who – even in death would serve his final act of goodness – that his next reincarnation be a happier, more fulfilling one. Wu Xi casted his prayers into the heavens, and just as he opened his eyes, a slight breeze floated in from the open window, carrying with it the telltale scent of peach blossoms. He nodded to himself, as though it was a sign from the heavens. “Go in peace little brother, may we meet again in the next lifetime. Let us be friends once again then,”. To be continued. +-+-+-+-+-

Click here for previous chapters: [1] [2] [3] [4]

[nanso]

Pretending that Rhaegar wasn't gonna be super gross and marry his daughter(s) to his son (Aegon) and he wins and becomes King, who do you think he'd betroth the remaining Targaryen family to, and why if you're up to it?

Oooh, this is a really interesting ask! I don't know how well I'll fare but here's a try

Since you said 'he wins,' I'm assuming we're talking about a canon divergence from how the war ends (and not, for example, divergence of no rebellion). If Rhaegar won, everything is still a mess of course cause buddy boy and his pa pissed everybody off. There's a lot of ways this could go because various questions/strands can lead to multiple divergences, for instance: 

-Are the rebellion forces so decimated that they can't really push back against the crown? (The rebel forces were doing pretty well since the Stoney Sept and the royal forces got pretty squashed at the Trident)

-Immediately after killing Robert, does Rhaegar suddenly grow a brain and say 'Ok, let me try to reason with them and what kind of agreement we can come to now since I 1) set all this in motion 2) disappeared for, shit, a really long time and 3) endorsed what dear ol' dad did by fighting against the rebels.'

-Or Does Rhaegar believe that by winning, his reading of the prophecy is correct and validated - and therefore says 'fuck it, I do what I want!' 

-What's up with Tywin and the Lannister forces? 

Let's handwave somethings for simplicity since this is supposed to be an entertaining and fun ask **jazz hands** And we'll even give Rhaegar the benefit of the doubt (even though he doesn't deserve it) and let's assume he realizes that he really needs to make amends and show that he respects the noble houses and people of the realm. I operate from the mindset (others may not agree with that) that Rhaegar would actually really need to show the realm he is *not* his father and that he respects them. 

I think it's somewhat fair to argue for a betrothal between Aegon and Margaery to reward the Tyrells (not that Mace Tyrell really did a lot - Tarly was responsible for Ashford and the siege at Storm's End "dragged on a year to no result," as Tyrion notes in ASoS). But they stuck by the crown technically so <shrug> - lock down one of the few friends you got. 

There's the matter of Tywin - did Tywin come in to help defeat the rebel forces? IIRC, the treasury was doing fairly well during Aerys's reign, according to Ned in AGoT ("Aerys Targaryen left a treasury flowing with gold") so I'm guessing Lannister money wouldn't be necessary. But maybe Rhaegar asks a favor of the High Septon (not sure why the HS would be inclined to grant it if this Rhaegar is like "polygamy rules!") and asks for Jaime to be released from his vows. That isn't much pertaining to marriage but relevant to stability. But if Tywin was part of them winning at the Trident perhaps, that changes things. (Otherwise if he did nothing - can't see him being rewarding with a betrothal at all)

You could also make an argument that a betrothal to a future daughter of House Baratheon could make sense  (if, again, Rhaegar wants to make amends - which also will have to go beyond betrothals, I’d argue. But it also may be a step too far when it comes to amends). But this scenario is also reliant on Stannis having a daughter (also not sure who he would be married to in this scenario, tbh). 

As for Rhaenys, again it depends on a lot of the factors above. I, personally, don't think Ned is going to want to have anything to do with the crown whatsoever (I'm assuming Rhaegar, in this AU of him growing a brain, doesn't send Ned to the Wall after his dad killed Rickard and Brandon) - so sorry my RobbxRhaenys peeps. But maybe Hoster decides he'll take a tie to the crown as a peace offering - and she is betrothed to Edmure. 

I think Viserys wedding Arianne makes a lot of sense, tbh.  While the Martells were technically allies, they were forced into it - on top of the various insults to Elia and House Martell by Rhaegar. They're gonna need a little bit of assuaging to soothe things, I'd think. And given that Viserys would be next in line to the throne after Aegon, that should go a long way - particularly with Jon around (as a bastard). 

If this is after the war, Daenerys should technically exist. It's not clear to me how old Monford Velaryon is - but he could make sense as a longtime Targaryen ally (though I believe Lucerys was part of the Aerys faction at court/on the small council...). But hopefully Dany just says 'fuck this noise!' and decides she likes hanging out on Dragonstone and finds some eggs and hatches them and flies around happy. 

That isn't terribly creative, I'm afraid (I didn't even touch the Vale cause I have to get back to work soon, sigh). In any case, there are just so many what-ifs and unknowns about what would be happening after Rhaegar won so I'm sure there are a lot of holes in the above and other reasonable choices!  

[the-wlw-cafe]

[E]nnui - a 2BA2 fanfic

Warnings: Self-harm, self-destructive behaviour, heavily implied suicidal ideation - there’s comfort in there too I swear!

Read it on ao3 here!

Another piece of her skin had come loose near her hips. It had to have happened a while ago, judging by the dust and dirt clinging to the adhesive on its underside. She hadn’t noticed it back then, being occupied with fighting for her life, the misery, the toil and pain and the war . But now, after the end of it all? Nothing would take her mind off it. She’d catch herself absent-mindedly tugging at the loose piece every now and then, or rather, Pod would catch her and admonish her in his usual robotic manner.

Alert: Continuing to irritate the area will cause further damage to unit A2. Proposal: Stop.

And he was right, of course, but that just made her want to throw a brick at him all the more.

(She also hadn’t noticed when she’d switched to referring to Pod as he instead of it, but he didn’t call attention to the change and she’d rather die than admit she th ought of him as anything but an annoyance.)

Well, Pod wasn’t here now. Being assigned to two units, he usually split his time between monitoring 2B and herself, or sometimes the pods just headed out by themselves to do God knows what. Maybe there was a part of A2 that wondered what they were up to, a part of her that might have been curious enough to ask about it lifetimes ago, but now? The task of having to ask and listen to a reply seemed insurmountable.

Shit, she really needed to trash something. Before, whenever such thoughts threatened to overtake her, she’d simply pick a fight with the first machine she saw, rinse and repeat until she was too exhausted to continue on or move or even think. But of course even that was taken from her as the machines were gone now. Not physically gone, of course, they were still dotted throughout the landscape, but they were empty. Just vacant shells, unmoving, staring off into space.

“They’re among the stars now”, 9S had said, as if that would explain anything. A2 hadn’t had the energy to ask for clarification. They kept their distance from each other anyway, since being in the other android’s presence dredged up emotions and red hot flashes of pain pain pain she no longer had a release for.

The sound of tools scraping and metal being torn and bent drifted to her from way down below. She came up here often now, to the window where she’d first awoken again. It was a long way down, and not for the first time she wondered whether the pods had placed her there intentionally. A second chance, and an easy way to refuse the gift. Again and again she found herself drawn to this spot, looking down until the instincts she was programmed with to keep her body safe flooded her system with dizziness that forced her to back away from the window. She used to feel so far away from everything here, but apparently, the real world had forced itself even into this space. The resistance had begun scrapping the empty machines down for parts, and even though she’d tried to help them initially just to have something to do, once she was actually faced with one of the shells, still faintly whirring with the machinery still ticking away in the rusty chassis but at the same time nothing going on inside, she felt like vomiting. An echo of the time she’d shared a mind with 2B, she supposed, she’d looked into the machine’s unseeing eyes and seen Pascal, seen the children, and she just couldn’t…

With an abrupt sting of pain she realized she’d been doing it again, finding that loose piece of skin and mindlessly tugging, only this time, Pod wasn’t here to tell her off. She gritted her teeth against the sting and began pulling, watching with an almost morbid fascination as the skin peeled to reveal more of the black exoskeleton underneath –

“Stop that.”

The sudden interruption startled A2 enough to actually obey, letting go of the abused patch of skin as if it had burned her. She turned towards the newcomer, one hand instinctively reaching for the hilt of her sword she no longer had a use for. She relaxed incrementally when she found that it was 2B who’d snuck up on her, her hand uselessly coming to rest at her side. She wasn’t at ease, she figured she hadn’t been at ease since the day she was fabricated, but something about the combat model seemed to calm her – a sentiment she would have laughed at weeks ago, given the many times 2B had been sent to execute her only for A2 to destroy her again and again, each time coming closer and closer to defeat as 2B profited from combat experience while her own body degraded. But there was no way of sharing a mind, memories and decades of pain with another person without retaining some familiarity after the fact.

It was difficult to see the unfiltered version of 2B she’d experienced through her memories in the carefully schooled expression of the android in front of her. The version A2 had experienced loved fiercely, cared deeply, and was hurt beyond measure, but the 2B she saw now let almost none of that show. Calm, collected. The very model of a YoRHa executioner. A2 didn’t have to ask why 2B still saw the need to guard her expression so thoroughly. After all, it was the same reason why A2 cleaned and sharpened her weapons every day with more care than she’d ever afforded her own body, or why 9S had taken to painstakingly record ing all of his memory, each minute detail of e very day he experienced with pen and paper and was keeping this treasury of memories hidden under his pillow.

“You need maintenance”, 2B stated, taking tentative steps closer and, when A2 didn’t object, sat down beside her. She didn’t look at her, instead fixating on some point in the distance, beyond the grey husks of concrete buildings leaning heavily against each other, as if they might collapse at any moment. Her voice betrayed no emotion, but the faint golden glow of the lunar tear tucked neatly above her ear said otherwise, said it’d suit your stylish looks, said thank you for the flowers, said desert roses are beautiful, aren’t they. The grief A2 felt upon these echoes flashing through her mind might as well have been her own. They’d both lost so, so many people, and yet they were still here, alive even after having literally died. It was almost funny. Almost.

“Nah, I’ll be fine”, A2 said, “I’ve survived this long even with machines looking to destroy me at every turn, I won’t fall apart now.”

2B made a non-committal sound, and a long stretch of silence followed. A2 had to stifle an irrational urge to laugh, because for two people who literally had their minds melded at some point, they sure were bad at communicating. But the silence continued, gaping, deafening, and a strange anxiety rose in A2, a compulsion to fill it with something, anything, even though she knew that no words could ever do justice to the things she longed to express, the things that bubbled and churned inside her like a vile acid she needed to expel.

“I miss it.”

A2 was almost surprised that she had spoken. She might have been inclined to believe it was a hallucination caused by one of the many glitches she’d contracted over decades of neglect of maintenance, if 2B hadn’t turned to look at her, head slightly inclined to the side, encouraging her to go on.

Well, shit. The rat was out of the bag now, or whatever the humans used to say, so there was no point in backing down. A2 leaned against the wall with a heavy sigh, craning her neck to stare at the webbing of cracks along the ceiling, because making herself vulnerable was hard enough without looking into 2B’s face and seeing whatever pity or disdain she might be too slow to hide.

“I mean, the fighting. Always being on the move. Never having a moment of quiet, never having a moment alone with your own thoughts. I was so busy surviving that I didn’t have the time to ask myself why I was surviving in the first place. I think it was spite, mainly”, she added with a mirthless chuckle that sounded hollow in the empty room. “But now, with YoRHa gone and the war over, there’s nobody left to spite, and that leaves me with…”

She didn’t voice the nothing that was on the tip of her tongue, but it hung over them like a heavy, suffocating blanket nonetheless. Truly, how selfish was she, to prefer the never-ending suffering of the war over this peace, this chance for Anemone and her people to build something new, something substantial. She didn’t dare to open her eyes and face whatever 2B must be thinking of her, and this was new too: She cared now, cared what others thought of her, because now she ha d people with opinions to care about.

And yet, the silence continued, the tension reaching a fever pitch until A2 could be ar it no longer. She braced herself and turned to face the combat model once more, no matter what she –

Oh.

2B’s gaze was trained on the horizon once more, but she’d placed a gloved hand over A2’s own, her thumb rubbing comforting circles over the exposed exoskeleton.

A2’s core temperature spiked with embarrassment as she cleared her throat. “Yeah, I…I can’t actually feel that, sorry”, she huffed. “I don’t know how it is with you newer models, but my more delicate sensors were located directly under my outer skin and I lost that ages ago. So, yeah, it’s gonna take nothing short of shoving my hand between two moving gears to actually generate some feedback.”

“Oh. I’m…sorry”, 2B murmured, removing her hand to clench it in her lap in a demure gesture that was so unlike her it made A2 feel even worse. She’d never felt self-conscious about the state of her body before. She’d been frustrated, sure, when she found her capabilities steadily decreasing the more time she spent on the run, but she’d never felt so outright ashamed that she could hear her black box whirring in her ears, but now that her deficiencies had been brought into such stark contrast against 2B, perfect, pristine 2B -

“A2.”

2B’s firm voice pulled the attacker model out of her spiralling thoughts. 2B’s eyes were focused on the spot on her hip where she’d been subconsciously scratching at the loose patch of skin again. A2 clenched her blackened fingers into a fist, fighting against the overpowering compulsion to just rip it.

“You need maintenance”, 2B repeated, with more insistence than the first time.

“Are you still on about that?” A2 groaned, running a hand through her hair.

“You’re literally coming apart at the seams!” 2B hissed, and there was fervour there, a real concern.

“Don’t I know it”, A2 said, throwing her head back and barking out a laugh that was devoid of any happiness. She just wanted this conversation to be over, she wanted 2B to stop wasting her concern on her, she just…wanted everything to stop.

Another pause, and then…a sensation, a touch, ever so lightly, ever so softly, a pair of lips against her cheek. The contact lasted a second at the most, before 2B pulled back an inch, her face still so close that A2 could feel her breath ghosting over her skin as she spoke her next words.

“Can you feel this?”

A2 didn’t answer, but she didn’t have to, not when the staccato beat of her pulse and the stuttering of her breath spoke volumes. 2B slid closer to her now, sitting directly next to her so close close close that their thighs were touching and A2 could feel it and shit, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d been touched with care, like she mattered, like she deserved any of it. Pressure was building in her throat and she clenched her fist tighter until she could hear the joints of her fingers cracking. And still, she leaned into the contact, closed her eyes and held onto that moment while it lasted.

“Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing”, 2B said quietly. A2 couldn’t guess how much time had passed, how long they’d simply been leaning against each other.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about”, A2 lied without any conviction. She had no doubt 2B would be looking right through her.

“Refusing maintenance. Coming up here every day.”

A2 opened her eyes as an errant breeze blew in through the window. She squinted against it. It was a long way down.

“Anemone is worried about you. I – we all are.”

“Well, you’re wasting your time”, A2 bit out, her voice tight against that god-damn lump in her throat. Too much, it was all too much. She had to go, go…somewhere, anywhere. Away. Away from people who looked at her, saw right through her, right down to the very core of her as if she was made of glass. She made a motion to get up, but 2B grabbed her wrist and tugged her down harshly.

“A2, you deserve to be cared for.” 2B’s voice was still so quiet, but as unyielding as the concrete beneath them. “You deserve this”, she said, one hand coming to rest against A2’s cheek. The touch was nothing but gentle, and yet it felt scalding. She batted it away.

“You of all people should know how it feels. We’ve killed, more times than we could count, more times than can ever be forgiven, it’s the only thing we were made for and the only thing we’re actually good at, and you’re telling me I deserve anything?”

2B shrunk back as if she’d struck her, and immediately a cold wave of guilt washed over A2 and settled deep and heavy in her core. She knew 2B, she could still feel the disgust and self-hatred emanating off of her whenever A2 had addressed her as 2E, they’d shared the pain of killing her closest friend over and over and over again. A2 reached out, to touch 2B, to hold her perhaps, but she thought better of it. She wasn’t made for gentleness. Everything she touched fell apart.

“I’m sorry”, she mumbled, her words falling pathetically short.

“Appreciated”, 2B said through gritted teeth, her fingers clenched into the hem of her dress so tightly her knuckles were turning white. She was close enough to touch, and yet they were miles apart. A2 had broken them miles apart. She had broken them apart, and she had no idea how to fix this divide. She wasn’t made for fixing.

“Shit, 2B, that was a fucked up thing to say to you, I’m-”

2B silenced her laughable attempts with a single, stiff wave or her hand.

“You’re right.”

A2 immediately opened her mouth to protest, to silence whatever nonsense she’d put in the combat model’s head, but then she met her eyes, cold steel blue more fiery than ever, and any words she might have said wither ed on her tongue. She was fixed to the spot, unmoving.

“And if we really are one and the same, A2, then you’ll understand why I can’t bear another death.”

It was too much, it was far too intimate. A2’s first instinct was to deflect, this was her they were talking about, she’d hardly be missed by anyone, having outlived almost all who might at some point have cared about her. And 2B, especially 2B, whom she’d killed dozens of times…

Unbidden, the ugliest memories reared their head, flashes of deep, oozing slashes in 2B’s body as her teammates stumble over themselves in retreat, flashes of loosing herself in B-Mode when she couldn’t keep up with her opponent anymore, only coming to again when her form was beaten, bloodied and almost unrecognizable. The same nausea she’d felt when asked to dismantle the machine husks rose in her again, that feeling of wrong wrong wrong and she couldn’t stomach it, not even the thought of it…

This time, she caught herself. Her hand halfway to her hip, she froze, biting her lip to distract from the urge to just tear at pieces of herself. 2B noticed, of course she noticed, placing a hand over the damaged area. It was tender, and though every fibre of her being cried out that she didn’t deserve it she didn’t deserve it she didn’t deserve it she swallowed them down. Laid her hand atop 2B’s. Threaded their fingers together.

She watched 2B fail to hide a soft gasp, and it made something within her lurch in delight. She gave 2B’s hand a gentle squeeze, wishing now more than ever to be able to feel the warmth of her hand radiating through the smooth satin glove.

It was a stupid reason. It was as good as any other.

She allowed herself to rest in this moment for a few seconds longer, then she slowly rose to her feet, groaning under the aching of her stiff joints. How long had she been up here?

“Come on, let’s head back before Anemone sends out a search party”, she said, pulling 2B upright, and when she was standing, A2 was struck to the core when she saw her smile. It was a subtle, understated thing, barely even visible, but shit, if she could make 2B smile like that one more time she knew she’d be worth something more than the scrap metal she was made of.

She took one last look out of the window over her shoulder. She could barely stomach it – it was such a long, long way down.

Feeling 2B’s hand in hers.

Making her smile.

They were better reasons than spite, she decided.

[aswithasunbeam]

May 1814

The great commotion in the front hall woke Hamilton before the knock on the bedroom door. He could hear distant voices, muted but abuzz with excitement, and a drumbeat of heavy boots against his hard wood floor. After adjusting the blankets over Eliza’s shoulder, he rolled to the side and began the arduous task of transferring himself into the chair parked beside the bed. By the time his aide made it to his door, he was arranging a blanket over his lap.

“Sir? Urgent news.” The light of a lantern spilled through the small crack in the door, just large enough for his aide’s head to peek inside.

“So I gathered from the circus in my front room,” he grumbled in a whisper.

“Sorry, sir. The news caused a bit of a stir.”

His aide pushed the door wide for him to make his way through to the hall. Hamilton motioned his head for his aide to close the door behind him. Only when he’d heard it click closed did he ask, “What time is it?”

“Just about four, sir.”

Lanterns were lit in the front room, he could see, and men in blue and buff uniforms were hurrying to and fro as though it were mid-day. Not yet ready to face the brightly lit and busy scene, he rolled into his office instead, his aide a pace behind him.

“What’s happened?”

A wrinkled note was thrust into his hand. He unfolded the paper and stared at the scribbled intelligence report. With a sigh, he rubbed his hands over his eyes before fumbling through his desk for his glasses. At last the blurry scribbles assembled into intelligible words, but he still stared down, blinking.

“Has this been verified?” he managed.

“Yes, sir.”

He looked down at the paper and read the message yet again, eyes fixed on the first two catastrophic words:  Bonaparte defeated.

“Then God help us.”

His aide bowed his head momentarily. “Shall I prepare the carriage, sir?”

“Yes. Yes, I suppose. I should be at the White House.” After his aide hurried out, he added to himself, “For all the good it will do.”

Quietly as possible, he made his way back to the bedroom, forgoing any light in the vain hope of not waking Eliza. He’d nearly managed to wrestle himself into uniform in the dark when he heard her stirring in the bedroom. “Alexander?”

He sighed. “In here,” he called, a little breathless as he finished maneuvering his breeches into the right position. His arms were shaking from effort as he reached for his uniform coat.  

A soft golden light flickered to life behind him. He heard her footsteps coming towards him as he finished fixing his cuffs, caught up in the sleeves. Her arms circled around his shoulders.

“You should be asleep,” he said.  

“So should you,” she replied, squeezing him gently. “What’s happened?”

“Napoleon Bonaparte has abdicated his throne and gone into exile in Elba.”

“Bad news for Bonaparte.” She yawned over the name, her nose nuzzling the nape of his neck. “But why has that gotten you out of bed at this hour?”

“It’s bad news for us.” He took a moment to adjust the Diamond Insignia of the Society of the Cincinnati that had once belonged to Washington, his palm closing around it for a brief moment. “If the British aren’t fighting Bonaparte, they only have one conflict to turn their attention towards. British troops will be flooding into Canada, and more undoubtedly will be reinforcing Cockburn on Tangier Island.”

“You’re worried about the capital.”

“Yes.”

“Madison still won’t see sense?”

“Every time I start to bring him around, Armstrong steps in his with nonsense. He’s convinced Cockburn and the rumors of a threat to Washington are a distraction meant to draw troops away from the real conflict in the North.”

Eliza’s lips tickled at the sensitive skin under his ear.

“Stop.” A laugh slipped from his lips despite himself as he turned his head back towards her. “You’re tickling me.”

“Oh, am I?” She sounded far from repentant. The feather-light touch of her lips resumed.  

He laughed softly as he reached back to shoo her away. “If you’re going to kiss me, do it properly.”

She shifted, her hand running over his shoulders as she came around to face him. In the dim light, he could still see the strain from her bout of pneumonia in the slightly sunken quality to her cheeks, the loose fit of her night dress, the lingering pallor in her cheeks. Stark reminders of the price this pointless war had nearly extracted from him.

He’d insisted she return to the Grange to recover when the worst of the danger from her illness had passed. The tragic loss of their dear sister Angelica during her convalescence had been yet another blow. Hamilton had felt it keenly, both for having lost a treasured friend and as another reminder of how very real the threat of losing Eliza was. When he'd arrived home for the funeral, he'd found his wife a shadow of herself. He'd stayed in New York for two weeks, comforting her as best he could. And when he finally could put off the journey to the capital no more, Eliza had insisted on joining him again. Had he been stronger, better, he’d have insisted she remain at home, safe away from the political machinations and the real threat of invasion. But having her at his side once again, so close and real, had proven a temptation too sweet to resist.

He reached out to brush a loose curl back behind her ear, his thumb stroking over her cheek. His strong, steady, beloved wife. Her lips brushed against his. He tugged her closer, deepening the kiss. When she pulled back, she looked into his eyes and smiled.

“Everything will be all right,” she whispered.

“You don’t know that.”

“I know you. That’s enough.”

“Sir?” His aide knocked on the outer door to the bedroom, interrupting the moment. “Your carriage is ready.”

He blew out a frustrated breath.

Eliza’s hands cupped at his cheeks, forcing him to meet her eyes. With utmost certainty, she repeated, “Everything will be all right.”

From her lips to God’s ears, he prayed.

“Go back to sleep,” he ordered, nudging her gently. “Rest. I need you strong, my angel. You have no idea how much.”

“I’ll try.” She stole another kiss before releasing him. “You go save the nation.”

He chuckled. “I’ll try.”

**

“British warships are already heading across the Atlantic,” Madison read aloud from the latest intelligence dispatch.

“Any word of their heading?” Hamilton asked.

“Canada, obviously,” Armstrong answered, without having looked at a single piece of intelligence.

“Obviously,” Hamilton repeated under his breath.

Armstrong shot him a look across the table. Hamilton answered by making another attempt at his coffee, the poor quality masked nicely by the fact that it was still boiling hot. Madison pushed the dispatch towards him.

“You’ll need to alert Burr. He needs to prepare.”

“Of course, Mr. President.”

The Northern front, at least, he felt more confident about, especially now that Wilkinson had offered his resignation in the face of certain Court Martial and removal. Wilkinson’s conduct had been negligent bordering on treasonous, but it had ended with the right man in command. And after a full winter of solid training and proper supplies, the troops were as ready as they’d ever be to face battle once more.  

“And,” Madison paused for a long moment, deep in thought, “Start preparing a small force here in the Chesapeake.”

“Mr. President,” Armstrong objected immediately.

“Small?” Hamilton asked in the same moment.

“Two thousand men to start.”

“Two thousand? Against the full might and fury of the British army?”

“We can muster militia to make up the deficit of numbers should they be needed.”

“Should they be…” Hamilton took a breath, trying to keep his voice even. “They’ll come for the capital, Mr. President. I can assure you of that. Even without reinforcements, Cockburn is preparing for an invasion.”

“We can muster militia,” Madison repeated.

Gritting his teeth, he forced out, “Yes, Mr. President.”

“A waste of resources,” Armstrong muttered stubbornly.

“Whether they are necessary or not, we can’t afford to equip another full army,” Gallatin added from down the table. “Harrison’s force in Detroit cost us nearly three million dollars without having marched an inch. The war has interrupted commerce to such an extent that even with Congress authorizing additional taxes, our revenue is still down. We’re teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, Mr. President.”

“But Congress authorized another thirty-two million in loans, didn’t they?” one of the clerks from the War Department asked nervously.

“We have no credit abroad,” Hamilton offered, meeting Gallatin’s eye. “No one wants to lend to us.”

Gallatin nodded.

“If I may, Mr. President,” Gallatin continued tentatively, “I do have a suggestion for mitigating the crisis.”

“What’s that?” Madison asked.

“Re-charting the Bank of the United States may ease some of the financial strain.”

Hamilton had to work to keep his jaw from falling open in shock.

Madison wasn’t as successful. “How exactly does another bank help us, Mr. Gallatin?”

“The Bank of the United States was empowered to make short term loans to the government, removing the necessity to go begging abroad. We were also entitled to a portion of the Bank’s profits from the commercial business, a revenue source sorely missed especially now when taxes aren’t bringing in revenue as they should be. And the Bank was authorized to manage timely repayment of foreign loans, a job that very shortly will be taking up a great deal of resources from the Treasury.”  

“Congress isn’t going to authorize a second Bank in the middle of a war,” Madison said.  

Hamilton cleared his throat. “If I may, Mr. President, there won’t be much more of a war if the country goes bankrupt. Of course, ideally, the charter wouldn’t have lapsed in the first place. This is precisely the sort of crisis the Bank was designed to mitigate. And getting it up and running again in this economy will be no easy accomplishment.”

Gallatin met Hamilton’s eye. “Should Congress authorize another charter, I would…I would appreciate your input on seeing it successfully enacted, General Hamilton.”

“Of course,” he replied, striving for a casual tone. “It would be my honor, Mr. Secretary.”

Madison’s lips thinned. “Keep trying to find a source for the additional loans Congress has authorized, Gallatin. I’ll… I’ll give some thought to the other matter.”

“Yes, Mr. President,” Gallatin agreed.

Hamilton looked down at his notes in front of him, fighting a triumphant smile.

[ashleyswrittenwords]

How To Be A Queen [Part 4]

Summary: Princess Zelda is at a loss. Her handed royal responsibilities have begun to weigh heavily on her and she is eventually backed into a corner. Live a life she loathes or run away from everything she’s ever known? Navigating life is hard, and Link forces her to learn that she doesn’t have to do it alone.

Warning: None.

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Part 1

How To Be A Queen

I pulled my arms into my chest as I stood in the cold halls. My legs felt weird. The dark trousers I wore weren't mine, I actually haven't worn proper trousers since I was small. Honestly, I couldn't stop staring at my legs. A thick leather belt hung tight around my hips and the pants ballooned slightly from there. The excess length was tucked into black military boots that I wore only a handful of times for parades. I hummed to myself and grinned, they weren't a bad sight. I lifted up my right leg as far as I could. Oh Hylia, I was enraptured by the versatility.

It was late. Closer to dawn than dusk and my eyelids fought against me. Despite the anguish of the night, adrenaline coursed through me. I was leaving! Din, give me courage, I was leaving! A smile played on my lips and my foot tapped in no particular rhythm. I could hear chattering behind the door to my uncle's office. Link has been in there for a half hour. Against my better judgement, Link insisted we talked with him before going anywhere. I wasn't sure exactly what his plan was but he seemed to know what he was going to say.

My hands ached from the chill and I curled into myself. Despite all my best efforts of wiggling and jumping the frost entering the castle didn't seem to be hindered. I heard the door clank open and a blond head of hair poke out, "He wants to speak with you." His voice was hushed and husky from talking. It took a lot to match Uncle's energy. My mind forgot about the cold for a moment and a rush of blood went to my cheeks, "Oh, okay."

The room was welcoming. A fire roared within, illuminating the many medals and military memorabilia my uncle collected both from the recent past and all the way to the First Queen. To think of it, it was an impressive sight. Many historical swords and plaques hung from the wall, reflecting the hearth's gaze. Precious artifacts that the castle historians revere. It was a different side of my uncle to say the least. He had a stone cold exterior that breaks for not anyone. Afterall, he was General Nathaniel Nohansen. However, being his only niece, I certainly wasn't just anyone.

But now, he was sitting back in his chair was his brow low and the fire's light just barely reaching his features. I saved a glance at Link and stood tall as I walked to his desk, I wasn't accustomed to this. I wonder if it was because of Link's presence or the circumstances of the situation. My lips pursed into a straight line and I looked at him expectantly, I wasn't going to fold.

"So!" Uncle boomed and folded his hand over his chest, "The lad assumes that you'd like to go on a venture."

I swallowed the lump in my throat, "He assumes correctly."

"You're running away from your problems, now aren't 'cha?"

My brows drew together, "No! I'm not." I cursed myself for letting my face turn pink with embarrassment.

"Oh, well I heard you made quite the blunder tonight, little lady," he tsked and I hoped he'd bite his tongue. My eyes fell and anger bubbled inside my chest. This was a stupid idea. Goddesses, I wanted to cry all over again. Damn it, you can't cry twice in one night. "I'm only an old veteran," he grunted as he stood up, pausing to look about the study, "And in my profession when one loses a battle, there is cause to retreat. I'm sure you know all about the history of this land by now. How many years has it been since Hyrule lost a war?"

My mind blanked.

"Hundreds of years. Yet, we've lost hundreds of battles." He watched my surprised reaction, "We are strong, yes, but a battle does not determine a war, now does it? We only remember the outcomes of wars, yet not the trials and errors that brought us there. There are so many elements that make up what it is to have a 'great army'. You could have the strongest mercenaries, the best training, the sharpest steel, and the steadiest walls. It is all for naught without a cause.

"Of course," he looked at me with a whimsical smile, "Those factors matter, but the most important of them is for our men, our country, to rally for a cause. A passion, if you will, makes fighting worth something. Each and every man in these castle walls have their own cause. Something or someone to go to war for. A spouse at home, children, parents, or siblings. For me, it's my brother, you, and all these men who pledged their lives. And it is my pledge to lead with purpose."

I fidgeted with my hands, "I understand, but you were able to choose."

Uncle hummed, "You are right. I was fortunate. I was fortunate that your grandparents had two children instead of one." He sighed, "Zelda, believe it or not I was your age once and I could not learn one waltz nor how to hold my spoon right at the dinner table. I felt alone. Despite it all, your grandfather wanted me to take the throne. He married old and wasn't getting any younger." He grew quiet for a moment, looking up at the painting above the mantel in thought. It was of my grandfather. I noticed both my father and uncle were slowly growing into his aged features. "Well," he cleared his throat, "He passed not long after and I couldn't handle it. I left. Took whatever I could and fled from the castle. I swore to Hylia I would never look back.

"I was bitter towards my father and angry at my mother for drowning in her grief. There was no one to rule with a sound mind other than I, and then I thought I was doing the right thing for both the country and myself. I wasn't. Your father was 15 years old during his coronation. Did you know that?" Uncle turned to me, I shook my head. I didn't know any of this. I was told of Father's coronation, but I suppose it was strange to hear nothing of Uncle Vernon. "Ah, well," he shrugged, "I suppose it doesn't shed the best light on the crown. I digress, it was possibly the worst best decision I ever made. I was gone for about two years."

"What were you doing?" I faintly said.

"Traveling," a broad grin crossed his features, "I was exploring and trying to understand life outside of the castle. I met people across lands. I laughed, I ate strange food, I shared rooms with the most fascinating of people, and I loved," Uncle wiggled his eyebrows and I rolled my eyes. Nevertheless, I was enraptured by his story. "All the while the Crown pronounced me dead! So, no worrying about recognition, at most I was called a lookalike in areas around the castle. Farther in Hyrule, most wouldn't recognize royalty unless they were crowned."

I gasped, "Father said you were died?"

"Oh, no," he shook his head and paused, "Kind of. The advisors did. They thought it best to protect our reputation and your father had no one in his corner. I did abandon him, keep in mind." He was so nonchalant about the fact.

"But… you wanted something more than being king. How is that abandonment?"

"Because Rhoam is my brother and I left my kid brother to fend for himself in a sea of sharks," Uncle said before adding, "And even though he now denies it, I understand why he could feel bitter still. I would feel the same. I had a choice, he did not."

I looked towards the ground, feeling guilty for nothing in particular. Perhaps for not understanding Father's point of view. My premonitions of leaving are nothing but a child's dream. An emptiness filled me. Who am I to leave here and cause chaos in my stead?

"However, that being said, I do believe you should have a choice to live your life the way you want," Uncle continued talking as I looked up in bewilderment, "You're young. And unlike my tale your father is not on death's door. And with recent events, I believe a royal retreat is in order."

"Royal retreat?" My voice sounded shaky.

"You lost a battle tonight," he simply said, "And as general, it is custom to retreat to regroup. So, take as much time as you need. It's a great opportunity to learn more about the kingdom you will rule one day. Not everything is within the books your Nanny gives you."

"But what will Father say?" Oh Hylia, what is going on?

Uncle shrugged, "You'll be going with a convoy."

"I don't need a convoy."

"Oh, yes you do. You're bringing him whether you like it or not," Uncle motioned to Link behind me.

I twisted to look behind me at Link, who stared back with a subtle smile. "One man is not a convoy, Uncle."

Uncle placed his reading glasses on, "To your father he is." He thumbed through some papers and scribbled on one, "Besides, he's a fantastic soldier, Zelda. There's a reason you're his charge."

"Link," Uncle held up a piece of paper. It looked like a bank statement. "Take this to the treasury and withdraw that amount. Do not let anyone know the reason. This is your allowances."

Link curtly nodded and I looked incredulously at them both, "Isn't that technically my money? Why can't I take it?"

Uncle looked at me through his glasses, "Zelda, you don't even understand the concept of currency yet."

I huffed and crossed my arms.

"You will leave tonight," he sounded exasperated, "Do not let anyone notice you and most importantly…"

I waited for his last request before he placed his hand on my head. "Do not forget your dear old uncle," he smiled jovially.

Our leave was bittersweet. I followed Link like a little kid and noticed how much more he knew of servant passages than I. We stopped by the barracks as he picked up some clothes and a conservative cloak for me. He also slipped away into the armory, coming back out with a claymore to his side and a bow and quiver in his arms. Whatever else he brought, I wouldn't know. I had raised my eyebrows in question, and he offered a shrug in response. "Don't look anyone in the eye when walking out," he had said, "Just keep your head down until we get out of Castle Town." I had pitched a small fit, complaining how I was just a just an ordinary person like the next woman and all he did was look at me and shake his head with a smile. "You are much more than an ordinary woman. Anyone with eyes could pin that down."

We stopped at the treasury momentarily and Link used a string bag that he attached to his belt to house the rupees. Our escape through the merchant entrance was unnoticed by the guards and I wondered why they were so relaxed watching a decorated soldier and an anonymous woman leave unquestioned. I voiced as much once we were out of earshot. Link only shrugged, "At most they're probably wondering why I'm not with you." He didn't elaborate further, but it did make me understand what it meant to be to be Uncle's right hand. I looked up at Link who stared forward as we crossed the moat. He was stoic, only focusing loosely on where I was and what was ahead. A shiver went down my spine and I pulled the cloak taunt, not sure if it was due to the frigid cold. My boot hit the stone road and I gaped.

I did it.

I got out.

I noticed Link peering expectantly, but I couldn't help stopping. "Are you okay?"

"Yes," my voice was wavering, "Yes, I just. I've always seen this place from out my window. I never thought I'd see Castle Town as myself and not as…" I stopped myself.

"It's okay," he said suddenly, "I get it." Link held out his arm and I took it. Immediately he launched into a narration of all he knew about Castle Town. The people he has grown to meet, the various types of characters that tend to wrangle for prices way too high in the Marketplace, the tourists that fall prey to them. I smiled whimsically. There was not much of anyone else walking the streets other than us, the occasional street sweeper, and the stray cats. Despite that, I could imagine in my mind's eye the bustling crowds and the shouting tradesmen through Link's accounts. So many people, no one inherently special, and sounds I could faintly hear. A magnificent scent enraptured me, pulling me out of the fantasy and into reality. "What is that?" I said, stopping Link's description of the meat market.

"What is what?"

"That smell," I sniffed again and my stomach rolled.

"Oh, it's Mr. Lind's Bakery," he said nonchalantly, "Him and his family start baking before that sun rises to meet demand."

"You know them?"

"No, not really, but I stop by every Monday morning."

I wondered aloud, "How do you know about someone and not actually know them?"

He shrugged, "Sort of like how you know of every parliament minister without formally meeting them I suppose. Gossip and whatnot. You should wait until you meet one person in my hometown." A smile slipped into his speech, "Once you meet one, everyone knows all about you."

I watched him reminisce and my stomach churned out of sudden nervousness. "I'll be meeting your sister?"

He glanced at me, "Well, I mean we don't have to go." Link cleared his throat, "I just thought later down the line you'd like to see a traditional village."

He thought about bring me to meet where he grew up? "I'd love to," I was beaming.

We were talking further towards the exit of Castle Town. The walls loomed over the city and I pushed the butterflies aside and focused on my guide instead. He's done so much for me in such a small amount of time.

A displeased noise came from him.

"What?"

"The sentries are sleeping."

I looked up at the towers and sure enough they were.

"Oh, Hylia above what in Hyrule are you doing?" I gasped as I watched Link pull the string of his bow. All he did was grin and aim at the tower. "Link!"

The string released in a crisp SWIP and the arrow hit the wall inside the tower.

"McCathery!" Link shouted in a tone I had never heard from him.

I heard a chair fall back, scrambling, and a head popped out of the tower.

"Ah, Captain, is that you?" the sentry sounded half asleep. Suddenly he straightened, "Oh, Captain."

He paused and turned towards the man across the wide gate and whispered aggressively, "DARIAN."

I felt Link pull the hood to shadow my face. Oh, I almost forgot.

Finally 'Darian' woke up with a start. "Damn it, Trog, what do you want?" Trog pointed down at us. The sentry fumbled with words. "Captain! So nice to see you on this nice night! You just caught us doing drills," he paused, "Right, McCathery?"

"Yeah, um, drills. Such as sleep yoga."

The man named Darian aggressively whispered something and stood attention afterward.

"Is that right?" Link spoke.

They nodded quickly. "Yes, Captain."

"If I catch you men sleeping on the job I'm making you do boot all over again. Maybe then you'll have enough discipline that a girl will give you a second glance."

Trog grinned wryly, "Looks like you caught yourself a gal, eh? Going to take her home to auntie, eh Captain?"

I felt my face light up.

Link went to grab another arrow from his quill.

"No, no! Link I was kidding! Kidding, mate!" McCathery ducked.

Link chuckled, "You boys have a good midwinter." He motioned for me to follow down the path, and I did. The sentries chattered behind us and I looked at Link. "I went through training with them," he said without my question, "They can be a riot when they aren't slacking off."

We walked in a comfortable silence for a while and a strong breeze hit my face. The hood slipped off my head and for the first time the sky opened up before me. Stars glittered the sky and I gaped at the landscape around me.

"It's beautiful, right?"

I sniffled, "People have often told me how beautiful the Great Plains were, but I didn't expected this."

Link shuffled with his pack, but I didn't want to look away from the stars in childish fear that they would disappear. "Never have I felt more small yet so large before," my lips formed my thoughts. A tear formed in the corner of my eye and a wiped it away. So overcame with emotions, my throat closed. I shook my head with the absent thought that my mother would love this. I tried distracting myself with watching Link make a fire.

"Are we stopping here for the night?"

"Oh, yes, sorry. There isn't an inn for another several miles. I would have had us stop in Castle Town, but you wouldn't be inconspicuous in daylight," he sounded remorseful.

"No, this is perfect," I knelt before his work as he sparked a flame over a patch of dried glass. "Thank you." My words were thick with sentiment. He must have noticed because he looked up from the kindling fire.

"You don't need to thank me, Zelda."

"I do though," I argued, "You walked away from your job for this."

He shook his head, "Think of this as a vacation for me. It's not a big deal."

"It was a big deal when I asked you."

He didn't reply for a moment, "We should sleep." He had rolled out two mats on opposite ends of the fire and I didn't complain. My bones ached from the corset still and my legs needed a rest. So, we laid before the fire without another word.

"Hey, Link."

He hummed in response.

"Do you think she'll like me?"

"Who?"

"Your sister."

He sat up and looked down at my incredulously. A wry grin crossed his lips.

"Zelda. She will love you."

[textbookmobster]

it all begins with a rebellion

This is inspired from a drawing made by the lovely lesbina in the moraghid discord server.

Pre-relationship, fusion fic. Maybe I’ll write more someday.

It’s strange how easy your life might change in just under a day.

It all begins with a rebellion.

It’s one that’s been brewing for a while now, ever since the young Emperor refused to go to war with the Gormotti for a piece of their land. They had underestimated how unhappy the civilians of Mor Ardain were. With the Senators stirring unrest, and the military fractured underneath its various generals, it was only a matter of time before the tide of dissatisfaction turned against them.

Mòrag had been paranoid in the final days leading to the collapse of the Empire. She had studied maps of Mor Ardain and its many trade routes. She had befriended friendly ship captains where she could and squirrelled away coin and physical assets in foreign banks under the guise of long-forgotten Ladair relatives. When the opportunity to audit the Royal Treasury had presented itself to her, she had quickly taken two of Mor Ardain’s most precious Core Crystals, knowing how easily such things could be turned into weapons.

She had not anticipated using one of them herself.

They’re helping Senator Stulc and his wife board the small salvaging vessel Mòrag’s second had acquired when a contingent of soldiers close in, having been alerted to the location of the smugglers’ cove.

Niall, running on nothing but worry and adrenaline, stumbles in front of them, throwing his arms up defiantly. “It’s me you want!” he shouts. “Let the others go. Please.”

He’s brave—braver than Mòrag who is all too happy to throw some other stuffy, well-meaning Senator under the line of fire.

“Get back inside, Niall!”

“These are my people, Mòrag! I won’t let them die.”

“Who the fuck cares?” she all but screams. “Idiot brother!” This is all for you, don’t you understand?

But of course he doesn’t. Because he’s never had to face his mortality as intimately as she had faced hers.

She picks him up by the scruff of his shirt and shoves him into the direction of her second-in-command. “Don’t let him out of your sight.”

“Sir!”

With her back towards her brother, she takes a deep breath and rushes for the swarm of advancing soldiers. She doesn’t notice the soft blue light that begins to emanate from her brother’s haversack, which had fallen in the chaos.

"Mòrag!"

She's a whirlwind of death, her rapier snaking into joints and cracks with pinpoint accuracy. The buckler that she had taken from her second-in-command slams into a nearby foot soldier, redirecting a spray of bullets away from the ship. She's careful to stay within melee range, their eagerness an advantage: with too many bodies between her and the Ardanian gunners, getting a clear shot on her would take skill and a lot of luck. She only hopes that she can prove to be adequate distraction for her fleeing countrymen.

Blue light begins to trace the outline of her figure, curling along her arms and across her torso. Some of the soldiers scramble back, alarmed at the ghostly aura that begins to manifest around her. It's a short respite, however. A brace of gunners take advantage of the clear field, emptying a clip at her general direction.

Mòrag grimaces and braces herself against the small buckler, barely large enough to cover her sword arm. Pain drowns her other senses as she falls to her knees, darkness slowly consuming her vision. The last thing she sees is the Ardanian salvaging vessel flying westward towards freedom before everything goes dark.

- - -

It's a different woman who steps out of the steaming body of Mòrag Ladair.

She is made brilliant by the bright blue flames that outline her body. A wingtip steel visor hides much of her face beyond the curl of smug lips, emphasizing the eerie flicker of blue along her black stresses. Though she wears the uniform of an Ardanian officer, there’s a provocative quality to the sway of her hips and the transparent cloth that covers her lower torso. Behind her, a long wisp of a man falls to his knees, offering a double-bladed katana with easy reverence. “We’ve work to do, it seems.”

“Pity,” the woman says, adjusting her grip on the katana, watching her brother-in-arms dissipate into her form. “A full body resonance—and I get to spend what time I’ve been given fighting against impossible odds.”

She cracks an exultant smile. “So be it.”

Death follows her wake like a wildfire left unchecked. She cleaves into the soldiers with frightening speed, revelling in the body that she has been gifted. It’s not often that a human succeeds in awakening the Jewel of Mor Ardain, let alone one that has had a taste of battle.

In a matter of minutes, she has decimated the incoming force of foot soldiers.

Aegaeon reappears by her elbow, the exertion of maintaining a form evident from the sweat of his brow and his fading smile. “She won’t have the energy to keep both of us.”

“I’ll send her your regards.”

“My thanks.” He returns to his Core Crystal which the woman quickly scoops up and pockets.

She heads to the wharf in search of a vessel.

- - -

Mòrag wakes to the gentle press of heat against her skin, the warmth of the morning sun like a heavy blanket. She aches all over and feels the world around her teeter when she tries to move.

The creak of wood and easy sway of the ground underneath her startles her. If not for the sudden arm that wraps around her, she would have fallen on her side, just below the crude cot from where she rests.

“Easy there,” a mellifluous voice murmurs from beside her. “I’d hate for you to undo all the hard work that I’ve done so far.”

Her senses sharpen, pinpricks of light fading into dark, muddy browns that hint at her whereabouts. “Let go of me,” she demands, straining against her captor’s hold.

“Will you behave?”

She grits her teeth. No, she wants to say, but knows that she will have a better chance of escaping if some slack is given. So she relaxes her limbs, focusing on her breathing to stabilize her senses.

"Good girl," the woman murmurs, leaning into her space to reveal strands of bluish purple hair escaping a pair of braided buns. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. My Drivers tend to be feisty little things.”

“I’m not little,” Mòrag sputters.

“I’ve had taller Drivers.”

It’s an awkward conversation: one that starts out accusatory before meandering into the territory of expository with a dash of flirtatious. Mòrag knows about Crystal Cores, Blades, and Drivers, but she had never been interested in the specifics until now.

Because it isn’t every day that you get to awaken a Crystal Core, one that’s so attuned to your soul that you get a fully-formed Blade instead of the less visible spectres that Mòrag is familiar with. Brighid is shockingly solid—a presence that Mòrag cannot so easily ignore—and it unsettles and invigorates her in equal measure.

She’s in a strange boat with an even stranger woman by her side, an empire crumbling behind her, and a brother, lost, waiting to be found again.

It feels like the beginning of something good, something exhilarating: a promise whispered in the dead of night, the thrill of numerous possibilities racing along her spine.

It feels like a start.

[anchanted-one]

Eternal War 22 Asylum

Lana walked out of the shower to find that Arro had already fallen asleep. He looked so peaceful! She chuckled softly, taking it in for a second. She walked up to him and placed a gentle kiss on his cheek, getting a whiff of the mint-essence soap they had both used. It had only been six days since his rescue, so it still brought a thrill to see him alive, well, happy, and free. Given the circumstances of their relationship they were already geared away from taking each other for granted; but having lost each other for five whole years she suspected that it would be some time before she got used to the sight of him.

She chose a red plaid shirt and loose fitting swamp-green pants for a change, since it had been ages since she had truly felt secure enough to walk around without her armor. Her Lightsaber, of course, was never out of her reach anymore. 

As she made her way to the bridge, Senya emerged from her own cabin down the hall and grinned at her. “Morning Lana. Sleep well? Or at all? I imagine last night was the first time you two had time to properly celebrate your reunion.”

Lana’s answering smile was arranged to convey just how happy she was, since words alone wouldn’t suffice. “I can’t even begin to describe how happy I am right now. Arro’s out of his prison, and he’s safely away from his captors despite the odds being so heavily against us. And when I was with him the past few days, just being in the same room as him, talking to him, laughing with him… it felt so damn good!  Sex has never felt that great before either.”

Senya giggled, elbowing Lana in a comradely fashion. “You’ve earned it little girl! I’m so pleased for the both of you; I can’t believe I actually had a part to play in the most romantic kind of story there is!”

“And now I will keep my word and help you all out against the Eternal Throne. I believe I got the sweetest bargain in history.”

Senya threw her head back and laughed heartily at that, and Lana joined in. “You know, Lana, looking at you one would never guess what a romantic you are. Or how open. You look quite the opposite. Like you’re reserved and secretive. In most ways you are even a staunch pragmatist. But in dealing with allies and interpersonal relationships you are much more open. Especially given how every last one of the other Sith I have encountered are like. It always amazes me.”

Lana smiled sadly. “Well, there is a reason for that. But I can’t bring myself to talk about it in depth. In summary though: In the days leading up to the second outbreak of open hostilities, and during the war itself, I worked with Intelligence. There were so many secrets, lies, betrayals. I tried to leave it all behind, but even as late as Rishi, I was still keeping secrets. Using my allies. But that last time was too much for me. I swore I would always be honest and open with my allies at the very least. I never want to be that woman again.”

“I understand,” Senya patted her back sympathetically. “We all have things we don’t want to talk about.”

They had reached the Bridge. The door opened, revealing Koth and Knight Farya arguing light-heartedly about guns

“C’mon girl, you know the M-96 Mattock has a much higher fire rate!” Koth was laughing “And almost a third as light too. Chugging a Zaber around is tiring work!”

“But the Zaber’s Explosive Heads pack enough of a punch to make your target’s ears ring,” Farya argued. “And that’s when they block it with their shield! When it hits the body... I’ve seen a marksman headshot a Swamp Maworr that was charging at his buddy from three hundred meters away; that thing’s head exploded! Deadly, and so accurate too! The weight actually absorbs some of the recoil! And they’re so powerful they have to be custom-made for their bearers.” 

“Oh, sure, sounds good for a pampered rich kid” Koth responded disparagingly. “But the M-96 is a true veteran’s choice! It’s larger magazine allows us to fire a lot more rounds before running out!”

“I’m glad to see you two getting along,” Lana remarked. 

“Farya’s great!” Koth beamed. “Whoda thought that Knights were such purveyors of fine arms?”

“Vortena kinda knows his weapons too,” Farya grinned. “I am suitably impressed.”

“Did you sleep well?”

Lana gave them her warmest smile in response, making them both blush.

“So when do we reach Asylum? And how’s the ship holding up?”

“Three more hours in Hyperspace,” Koth answered. “Hyperdrive worked well. Once. Omnicannon worked. Once. We can start working on repairs once we’re docked. I reckon we’ll need to requisition a lot of technicians, droids, parts, and heavy machinery. With a standard workforce it should take... Maybe a month to get it fully operational, two tops?”

“That should be fine,” Lana answered. “TeeSeven is interfacing with the ship, acquainting himself with the Droid brains. He should have a good working synergy with the ship’s main computer soon enough.”

“Hell, that droid’s so good he’s done already, getting himself an oil-bath now.” Koth said incredulously. “I still can’t believe he found us in the middle of the Swamp and got onto the ship without any of us noticing!” 

“On the subject of capable Droids, where is HK?”

“He’s offered to help the refugees learn some basic tasks on the ship; and to keep them safe from any lingering infestations.” 

Lana nodded approvingly. “Once we get to Asylum we can take some time, stretch our legs. We can resume our last meeting. We can drop the disguise filters since we’re on Asylum now.”

“What about Arro?” Senya asked.

“He is still recovering, so we can’t expect him to fight Arcann, Vaylin, and Akahte all by himself. Yet. But he can meet the others, start familiarizing himself with the Leadership and the makeup of the Alliance.”

“In other words, if we get to fight on our terms, Arro can beat all three? I find that hard to credit!”

“You’ve yet to see him at his best,” Lana assured them. “His display yesterday was still a fraction of what he can do.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Senya said. “But Arcann and Vaylin are mighty enemies. And this Akahte… by all accounts she held her ground admirably against Vaylin herself. The three of them together…!”

“In the right circumstances there won’t be time for much use of the Force. In Saber combat, he is peerless. He could take down all three before they could react. But Akahte knows this, and she will never face him directly, if she can help it. Which is why we need the Alliance in the first place; so that we can create the most perfect opportunities we can, to face them in and not just point him in the general direction of the enemy and say ‘Get em, boy!’”

“Even Valkorion feared facing him head on,” Senya conceded. “On that subject, I believe Valkorion when he says that he does not plan to take over, and that he sincerely wants to aid Arro. For now.”

“Then why offer his power at all?” Lana asked. “Why not just sit back and watch?”

“Valkorion might see Arro as being worthy of His powers since he beat Him in fair combat.”

“The Immortal Emperor—” Fariya started uncomfortably.

“Don’t, Fariya. You don’t know Him like I did.”

“Try sharing a little less,” Koth laughed.

“That… wasn’t what I meant!” Senya said, face reddening. “What I mean is… He’s not some God. He was a man, and far more cruel than noble. To the rest of the Galaxy, he’s an outright monster.”

The junior Knight shivered. “That will take some getting used to, Lord Commander. For us all.”

“Take all the time you need,” Senya assured her. “It’s not my Husband we’re fighting against, it’s—well. It’s my children.” 

*

“There it is: Asylum!” Koth pointed at the forward Viewport. It was a blue world with a big moon. From the flashes all over the planet, it appeared that the world was prone to lightning storms.  “One of the depressingly few places in Wild Space which is still free of Arcann’s control!”

“That Shadowport isn’t on any map,” Lana said. “It’s a haven for refugees fleeing Arcann’s regime.”

“I can’t wait for you to meet my crew,” Koth grinned. “They’ll be so happy to see you! And one of them claims he’s already met you, so you can finally put an end to the question whether or not he was making it all up!”

“Does he say I owe him money?” Arro asked, much to Lana’s amusement.

“Do you owe money a lot of people?” Knight Khoarad asked, as he entered the bridge leading his comrades Wodar and Jettarn. All of the Knights had discarded their Zakuul armor, at least until they could modify them in some way to reflect their new allegiance. 

“The Jedi aren’t supposed to own anything,” Lana gasped, struggling to breathe from her laughter. “They usually draw funds from a collective treasury when they need to pay. Trouble is, those funds are only good in Republic space, and to a lesser extent, Hutt space. Sometimes though, they’re worthless, and have to rely on goodwill, barter, or—most often—for non-Jedi comrades to pick up the tab. Which means that at any given point of time, they owe money to a half the galaxy!”

“I’ve repaid my debts,” Arro said defensively as the others roared with laughter. “Mostly.”

“And still tens of thousands in debt, no doubt!” Lana chortled. “Oh, don’t worry about it, my Love! I’m sure most of them have forgotten by now!”

Arro gave a pained chuckle. He should never have asked.

*

The ship shuddered as it entered the upper atmosphere of Asylum. The familiar bzzt of the atmospheric shields protecting the ship that Arro normally took for granted were a great relief to hear; given that this had been a derelict ship a week ago, he was afraid of critical systems malfunctioning when used even though he had triple checked each of these. All the more important since they were attempting to enter during a lightning storm; the flashes left deep dark after-images in his eyes and the thunder made his teeth click.

The Landing systems, however, were far from perfect and required a fine handling which Koth didn’t seem to have. The Gravestone all but crashed into the dock.

“That’s it, Koth, as soon as we get a better pilot you’re relegated to cheerleading duty!” Senya admonished.

“My landing in the swamp was better than this,” Arro complained.

“You’re welcome!” Koth glowered. “And welcome to Asylum Kiwiboy!”

“Don’t I get a welcome too?” Farya pouted. 

“Welcome to Asylum Farya.” Koth replied, hastily adding “And all you others too!” before each person called him out for forgetting them.

As they emerged from the ship’s main boarding ramp, a group of rough-looking thugs walked up menacingly to intercept them. Probably not happy with Koth’s landing, Arro thought. “We don’t want any trouble people.”

“That’s a shame, cuz trouble just walked right up to yeh!” The apparent leader, a particularly tall and muscular human male said with a wide grin. Cracking his knuckles, he added “Nice ship you got there. We’ll be coming on board.”

“Please don’t make us fight,” Arro groaned. “It feels like that’s all I’m ever doing! Just for once, can I be welcomed like a friend? Or at least without knuckles and guns, or something?”

“Heh heh heh! Wish granted!” the tall man boomed, slapping him hard on the shoulders. “Welcome to our little haven, half-pint!”

Half-pint? Arro thought indignantly even as he was confused by the sudden shift in demeanor. The man turned his wide grin to Arro’s side and bounded forward, roaring “Captain!”

“Outlander,” Koth said as he returned the man’s bear hug. “Meet my crew, the best Engine Burners in WIld Space?”

“Is that your official name?” Arro asked with interest and Senya said “‘Captain’? Did you promote yourself after deserting?”

“‘Engine Burners!’,” a woman with shoulder-length, electric blue hair barked. “We could work with that!” “This is Len,” Koth said, introducing the giant. “My Second-in-Command. Blue here is Tora, the best engineer you’ll ever meet!” “Wrong!” She declared. “The best Engineer… EVER BORN!” She struck a pose for effect before dropping her arms to her side again. “This is one fugly ship, bossman I can have it scrapped in just a few moments, I don’t think we’ll find anything interesting in that piece of junk.”

“Your best Engineer,” Arro said cheerfully. “Tora, like Koth, you will be kept as far away from important tasks on the Gravestone as we can possibly keep you!”

Tora’s face froze midway into the expression of outrage she was about to assume when she heard Arro’s words. “The Gravestone? This piece of crap?” The others were also stunned into silence. As one, they looked to Koth, who nodded impressively. Like a proud salesman showcasing his prize ware, he indicated the ship behind them. “She may not look like much, but that’s coz we pulled her out of her grave in the Eternal Swamp and only just put some life into her! But even this was enough to take out hundreds of Eternal Warships! Wait until we have her fully operational!”

The silence stretched for almost a minute before the Engine Burners began cheering wildly. They began to talk all at once when they were done applauding. “How did you find it?”, “I wanna take er for a spin NOW!”, “Hundreds of ships?”, “I heard that was from a reactor blowing!”, “The Gravestone!”, “The GRAVESTONE!”, “We’re gonna win this, you hear? We’re gonna win this!”

Arro disengaged from the throng along with Senya and Lana, leaving Koth to talk with his exultant gang. As he did, he recognized a man with an aim-aiding Cybernetic. A soldier—Republic, but who was stationed on Marr’s ship during their fateful expedition.

“Well it’s good to see you alive, soldier!” Arro called. “Corporal... “

“Name’s Rallo!” The Soldier replied, fighting to get to Arro. “You saved my skin that day! Mine, and a bunch of others! I never thought I’d get to say thank you in person!” He grinned as he shook the Jedi’s hand. “Thank you so much, man! I’ve treasured each second of my life that you saved from the past few years more than I did my entire life before! Found my wife, joined a new family—” he indicated the Engine Burners. “And learned to take a moment to be grateful for every day I managed to live through!”

“Well done, Ralo!” Arro laughed. Grinning, Rallo saluted before returning to his new crew.

“There are some more people you should meet now that we’re here,” Senya told Arro. “We can start with the Scions. They were the more mystical of the Orders protecting Zakuul during Valkorion’s reign, but they didn’t fall in line with Arcann, so he had them massacred. The Survivors have an enclave here. They have been greatly looking forward to meeting you.”

*

[accidentally-a-writer]

If you want, could you write "Verbal Abuse", "Suicide Attempt", and "Tearful Smile"? You're gonna make us all cry with your stories so lets take up a notch and make us sob

It was a beautiful day. The sun had risen and painted the skies in pinks and golds, without a cloud in sight. The air held the crispness of morning dew without suffocating the rising men and women, who woke up with the expectation of rain, as clouds had shrouded the city until that day. 

Such was the case for Alexander Hamilton and his family. He woke with a grimace, wishing for a few more moments under the covers with Eliza’s body warmth enveloping him, before seeing the delicate rays of light filter in through the curtains to their bedroom. 

He rolled over, placing a gentle kiss against her hair before setting his feet against the floor. Eliza groaned, and turned over, still mostly sleeping. 

There weren’t any true babes in their home at the moment, all being old enough to sleep through the night. It’d been ten long years of disrupted sleep for his wife, Hamilton figured he could gift her this a morning to stay in bed just a little bit longer. 

His bare feet padded down the hallway to the nursery, where most of his children slept. (Phillip, being the oldest, had garnered himself his own room and study for his schoolwork.) As if it were some sort of miracle, most of his children remained asleep as well. 

Alexander regretted his work hours, and the impact it had on his family life, he did; but the work he was doing for the President, and therefore the country, outweighed his own desires. 

He kissed the tops of each child’s head, careful not to disturb them in sleep, and left the nursery. Getting ready for work was a dull affair, it usually was, but today felt different somehow. There was an anticipation in the air that Hamilton could not place but welcomed all the same. 

When he left for work the painted sunrise had dimmed, but it was replaced by a sea of light blue and warm sunlight, so Hamilton didn’t count it as a loss. 

Hamilton enjoyed the walk to work, it was a part of his routine, rain or shine. It was almost like he was loyal to the route, depended on it to stay unchanging, no matter what the circumstances. 

It was a beautiful day, so he should have expected that it would go wrong. 

When Alexander Hamilton arrived at work all conversations came to an abrupt halt. The staff stared uncaringly at him, before resuming making whispered remarks. Hamilton furrowed a brow; he’d had some controversies yes, but nothing to incite such treatment. He tipped his head to the staff nevertheless and made his way to his personal office, trying not to let the rapid whispers that followed upset him.

Getting lost in his writing, that was what Alexander loved about his work everyday. The way the quill seemed to flow his its own volition, etching words that only came to his head after they were on paper. It was not enough to stave away his growing anxiety at whatever was being said about him behind his back. 

He knew of the gossip, of course he did, but that was gossip. This seemed… bigger than that. 

This seemed like a scandal, and he had done nothing scandalous (barring his scrappy attitude and controversial plan for the National Bank,) to warrant his colleagues’ attention. 

Jefferson, Lord help him, knocked on Hamilton’s door, which was already opened. 

“What can I help you with, Jefferson,” Hamilton sighed, not glancing up from his work. 

“Just wanted to congratulate you, Hamilton.” Jefferson was smirking, Alexander could hear it, but that wasn’t his main concern. The cold tendril of anxiety began to fill his veins as he finally put the quill down and looked at his adversary. 

“Congratulate me on what, Jefferson?” 

“Why, your rise out of poverty of course. You had us all fooled, bastard, that you were an orphan from a poor, but proper, family. But my God, that is an exaggeration isn’t it? You come all the way from the trading colonies, and your mother was no better than a two-bit whore.” Cold and absolute terror filled Hamilton’s core at Jefferson’s words. The blood drained from his face as he sat speechless and listened to him go on. “Did you not know?” Jefferson went on, “your whole life’s story was published this morning in a paper. Shame, that seems like something you’d want to stay under wraps, yes?” 

With a triumphant smirk Jefferson parted, leaving a hyperventilating Secretary of Treasury in his wake. 

Hamilton ripped out of his seat, rushing towards the only place he could think to go. He knocked and the door opened instantly, as if Washington were expecting him. 

Well, if he’d read the fucking papers he probably was. 

“Hamilton…” The president hadn’t even finished his greeting before Hamilton had shoved into his office unceremoniously. Washington sighed and shut the door behind the boy, praying to the Lord for strength for the next few minutes. 

“Did you know?” The man (boy, he’d always be just a boy) asked, already starting a pace infant of Washington’s desk. 

“I’d wondered - guessed, I suppose, that was back during the war. I never gave it much thought, son.” 

“I’m not your son,” Hamilton bit back. He stopped his pacing and gave a breathy chuckle, his head whipped and met Washington’s gaze. Washington felt his breath sucked away from his chest as he realized Alexander had tears in his eyes. “I’m not anyone’s son, as everyone now knows, don’t they?”

“I’m sorry about the article, Hamilton. They had no right to publish such personal information of you as they did.” 

“It’s not like it matters anymore, what’s done is done. Everyone knows, and we can’t make them forget. Dear God, my children, my children will be in disgrace with my misfortunes. I’ve ruined the family.” 

Washington watched in despair as Hamilton’s breathing become shallower and shallower, the hysteria in his eyes growing more and more pronounced. He wanted desperately to say something to make this okay again, to offer some sort of comfort to his former aide. But what could he say to this? This news, being released to the public in such a fashion… Washington couldn’t even imagine. 

No one deserves this. 

“Your family loves you, no matter your parentage. Did Eliza know before she married you?” Hamilton nodded jerkily. “Then what difference does it make to your family? You’re still Alexander Hamilton.” 

“Hah, Alexander Hamilton; bastard, orphan.” 

“Anyone who’s opinion is worth listening to will not give it a second thought.” 

“So you didn’t stop and reevaluate whatever the Hell this is? When your ‘suspicions’ were confirmed after all these years?” 

“I-” and of course Washington was going to deny it vehemently, because it doesn’t matter to him, it doesn’t, but there was a moment when he saw the article and felt his entire system grind to an abrupt halt. 

The pause was all Hamilton needed to infer a rejection. 

“No, Alexander, wait!” Washington called after the boy as he rushed from the room, his whole body jerking in an effort to catch him before he was out of his grasp. 

Once again, Hamilton’s entrance was met with sudden silence over the staff, paired with accusing and mocking stares. 

Bastard 

Haven’t you heard? Hamilton’s a bastard to some whore on the islands. 

Old habits die hard, is that how he secured his position? 

With the general? 

Who else? 

Maybe he’s the president’s bastard 

Scum

Dirty 

Half-breed

It went on and on and Alexander just wanted it to stop. The door slammed behind him with some force, he pulled the lock and let himself sink to his knees. This couldn’t be happening, why him? What had he done in is life to deserve this? It wasn’t his fault, James Hamilton abandoned him and his mother, it wasn’t his fault. 

So why was God punishing him? 

“Hamilton?” Someone was knocking on his office door. He didn’t want to see anyone, especially not the president. “Hamilton, open the door.” 

Twenty years, that’s how long he’d stayed in Washington’s service; twenty years of Washington guessing and wondering and pondering the tragic backstory his aide had divulged one night. He said that now he knew the truth it didn’t make a difference, but Alexander could see in his eyes, it did. It always made a difference, no matter where he was or what he did, or what he helped to build, it always made a difference. 

Shaky hands pulled a pistol, almost forgotten, from his desk. 

The pounding on the door was still here. 

“Go away.” Hamilton’s voice was weaker than he’d meant it to be. He tried again, “I said go away, sir, I don’t need you here for this.” 

The pounding stopped, but only for a stunned second. 

“For what? Alexander, for what? What are you doing?” The president was yelling, he was making a ruckus, surely someone on the staff would notice. He didn’t want anyone to notice him ever again. 

“Stop!” Hamilton cried, fighting for control of his breaking voice. “I can’t- I can’t do this. I’ve lived through so much, built my way up, built a life, and for what? It all comes crashing down for the same reason I built it in the first place.” 

Alexander didn’t realize he was crying until he felt a tear hit his shaking hand. 

“No, no, no, no, Alexander, listen to me, okay? We can move past this, no one will give a thought to it in a few months’ time. Your writings, they inspire people, you have that spark in you son, your writings make it so that it doesn’t matter who your father is. I’ve known that from the moment I met you, this country has known that from the moment you burst into motion. I need you to open the door Alexander, please, open the door.” Washington’s voice was becoming more and more frantic, the jiggling of the doorknob more and more pronounced. “I cannot lose you, please open the door.” 

It was enough for Hamilton’s shaky hand to glide the lock undone. Washington burst forth instantly, relieved eyes finding their way to Hamilton’s. Then they found the gun and a hysterical breath ripped its way out of his throat as he tore the metal away from Hamilton’s grip. 

His next motion was to simply cling to Hamilton, wrapping him in his arms as the boy broke down. They stayed like that for a while, not caring about the outside world for that little moment in time. 

Because they both knew the world would be waiting when they separated. 

[thelawyerthatwaspromised]

Hi! I'm a jonerys shipper but I find your theories very interesting. I wonder though, how will you feel about the show/Asoiaf if Political!Jon is debunked with season 8? Do you think it will change your opinion on Jon? And will you still ship Jonsa if he truly bent the knee because he is in love with Dany? I suppose I'm wondering how a post S8 Jonsa faction will look.

Hello! I really appreciate the question because it’s not a bad one: what if political!Jon isn’t a thing? First, I guess I’ll explain what I think has to be true for political!Jon to not be true.

Jon has to have total faith in Dany’s ruling ability; not just her capacity as a conqueror. Jon has to have thought it was acceptable to give away the Stark ancestral home without consulting anyone about it. Jon has to have actually been unable to lie to Cersei at the Dragonpit. Jon has to actually believe that the stuff he warned Dany about earlier in the season (about northerners not wanting to follow a southern ruler) is either not true anymore - or - at least not as important as the urgency to give away his crown before he could even talk to them about it.

All of these have terrible, terrible implications on Jon’s character.

Because it will mean a number of things…

1) It would mean that Jon really didn’t learn anything from Robb and Ned and their respective downfalls. That’s tragic in itself. When it comes to Robb, sure he made mistakes that cost him his life - but he was also way too young and thrust into a position he should never have been forced to undertake. The same is somewhat true for Jon, except he’s now been in leadership and he knows his family’s mistakes. 

I don’t want “aww shucks” stupid heroes. I don’t enjoy that type of storytelling. I don’t think it’s something I can suspend my disbelief while I’m watching if I actively think “he is a complete and total idiot” and he’s supposed to be un-ironically a hero of the story. Beyond that, I think that’s the opposite of the point of Jon’s arc, most especially in the books but also on the show. 

Robb and Ned are there to be cautionary tales for good people who are struggling with the intricacies of dangerous political games. Jon being as dopey as not learning anything from their decisions cheapens Robb’s story, it cheapens Ned’s story, and it makes Jon simply a lucky idiot if he somehow survives.

Jon is also taking a gigantic risk throwing all his eggs in Dany’s basket even if he thinks she’s the most wonderful person. He has no idea what she’s like as a ruler. He didn’t know anything about her other than she’s come to Westeros and has three dragons. He doesn’t know anything about her tenure in Essos - or that it concluded with her very responsibly have Daario Naharis overlooking the biggest political transition in thousands of years over there. No big deal.

In the best case scenario, Jon would have been detained on the island, been “asked” to bend the knee to Dany on multiple occasions, and agreed to go on a mission that he otherwise wouldn’t have gone on (since he asked Dany multiple times to come North without regard to Cersei’s intentions) and almost died on that mission only to have seen Dany take another big risk by flying her dragons up North to try to save him.

That’s not even close to enough information for Jon to know whether Dany is in any way a good ruler. Flying dragons and ruling are two different things. He took a huge gamble whether it’s political!Jon or not; but at least with political!Jon it was because he felt he HAD to do it to ensure her commitment. The alternative is Jon handing that over without any clue as to whether she can do the mundane things like administer land dispute decisions or responsibly manage the treasuries of Westeros. 

2)  It would mean that Jon governs and makes decisions based solely on his own emotional impulses which would really suck. It’s practically inexcusable for Jon to behave this way. It’s irresponsible as a ruler for him to just hand Dany power like he did at face value without talking to anyone from the North about it first. You could have made an argument to me that Jon could legitimately think Dany should rule the North and it might be a plausible explanation without making Jon a terrible rule IF Jon had actually waited until he returned North to tell the lords in person that he planned to give away the crown for her.

By not doing so, it tells me that either Jon is inconsiderate and impulsive enough to give away something as sacred as an entire country (on the macro) and his childhood home (on the micro level) - OR - there’s something else in play for why he felt it absolutely necessary to “bend the knee” with the timing as it occurred. If there’s some 3rd explanation that I haven’t thought of - I’d actually be willing to read it first before I decided whether it’s an idea willing to entertain.

I don’t talk politics thaaaat much on here, but the analogy really would be that, after being elected, Donald Trump literally believed he had the authority and moral high ground to hand his presidency over to Putin. Not only would everyone hate him, but he literally does not have the authority to act like that and would be removed from his position before it happened.

[to be clear Jon =/= Trump and Dany =/= Putin. It’s an analogy on political leaders behaving in another context. If you want, you can imagine the PM of Canada and the the King of Wakanda as substitutes behaving the same way.]

By going solo in that process - Jon almost guaranteed at the very least a gigantic amount of political turmoil in the North…but it’s something I think he’s aware of and has anticipated. If he hasn’t - he has no business ruling anything ever. 

There is no reasonable explanation for the timing of Jon bending the knee (before consulting with anyone in the North let alone his very own travel companion Davos) other than political!Jon and realizing the exact moment was right because Dany had just promised to help fight the Night King and Jon wanted to cement her commitment as much as he could.

3) It would mean that Jon genuinely valued everyone knowing openly that he planned to fight Cersei in the war after the Night King over actually getting the truce to allow them to fight the NK. If Jon did what he did at the Dragonpit - then he proved himself a liar when he said just before that “there is only one war that matters” because he immediately (again, in the absence of political!Jon) affirmed his position in the war for the Iron Throne at the expense of the war to save the Realm. 

Beyond the silliness of the idea that Jon Snow is incapable of lying to Cersei - it really is highlighted perfectly in Jon’s scene with Theon:

“You risked everything just to tell an enemy the truth.”

I mean…is telling the truth generally good? Yes.

Is telling the truth still good if….

SCENARIO: Bad Guy has their finger on the button to launch a nuclear weapon on a Sunday and they say, “oh wait, these nuclear codes were only good until Sunday and now it’s after midnight so it’s Monday!” 

Bad Guy is momentarily confused. “Or is it still Sunday? Say! You, Honest Fellow! If it’s really after 12:00 AM, I’ll have to leave here and try to grab more launch codes, is it really after midnight? I don’t have my watch.”

Honest Fellow: “I’d like to tell you it’s 12:04….but alas, I cannot. It is 11:58-…”

*KABOOM*

Well…you’d rightfully be displeased with Honest Fellow. But, then again, I think Jon Snow would hate this honest fellow as well. How stupid is that if it’s the same story we heard at face value? 

“I just can’t lie!” 

That’s irredeemably stupid. It KNOWINGLY put everyone at risk and actually is LUCKY that Cersei planned all along to accept a truce so she could have time to replenish her forces with the Golden Company. 

I’d recommend that the Honest Fellow version of Jon Snow climb up that 700 foot Wall he’s supposedly been working so hard to protect and fling himself off. They could call it Lord Commander’s Landing.

4) It would completely upend the part of Jon’s story where he has yearned to truly be a part of House Stark, his residual guilt about not being there to help Robb when the fighting began, and his close relationship with Sansa after their reunion. 

I could say plenty of shippy things about how the absence of political!Jon would completely ruin the relationship with Sansa that Jon’s built since they reunited but I don’t even have to go there. Simply as a close companion and trusted adviser and family member, Jon would have spat right in her face.

People seem to misinterpret Jon feeling like an outsider with the rest of the Starks with Jon never feeling welcome and never wanting to be a member of House Stark. The exact opposite is true. Jon’s detachment was due specifically to his wanting very much to be Jon Stark but feeling like it was an impossibility because of his birth. Jon loved the Starks. He wanted to be known as Ned’s son. He craved acceptance from Catelyn but never received it. It’s caused him to feel unworthy of that. 

When they found the direwolf pups, Jon wanted each Stark to have a wolf first. It was essentially a gift of the gods that Jon “heard” Ghost (who is famously silent) after his noble self-denial in favor of the trueborn Starks. 

Immediately after winning the BotB, Jon makes sure Sansa takes up residence in the Lord’s chambers. He didn’t do that because he doesn’t care. He cares very deeply. He wanted Sansa to know that she is House Stark’s true representative. He doesn’t feel like he deserves that, hence the sadness in his voice as he says “I’m not a Stark.” He reiterates that Sansa is the Lady of Winterfell. Being the Lord or Lady (as opposed to “acting” Lord or Lady) means that Sansa has hereditary rights over Winterfell - something they both fought like hell to re-take.

Now I’m supposed to believe that the guy who didn’t even want a simple puppy before the other Starks, who fought like hell to re-take Winterfell, who tried to desert the Night’s Watch once and arguably did a second time to fight for the Starks, who very intentionally placed Sansa as the head of House Stark rather than himself, who then passed to her specifically ruling authority over the North while he was away - THAT GUY - is now supposed to think it’s fine and necessary and RIGHT to give ruling authority and his crown over to a woman before she ever even stepped foot in the North.  (The Gift, which is the territory along the Wall is owned by the Night’s Watch independent of the North. Even if you count the top of Eastwatch as Dany stepping foot up there, she’s still not in the political North)

All of this, too, without ever talking to a single person about the decision beforehand. 

That’s a Jon Snow I cannot root for or reconcile with the rest of his story. In my mind, it’s character assassination.

It would make me wonder what the point was of Jon Snow even coming back from the dead.

Thank you for the ask. Hope this answers your question sufficiently. You’re welcome to ask more anytime.