#Ardi just came from the other direction | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

roman-writing · 3 years ago

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no great revelation (8/8)

Fandom(s): The Haunting of Bly Manor / Star Wars

Pairing: Dani Clayton/Jamie Taylor

Rating: M

Wordcount: 9.012

Summary: Jamie just wants to enjoy a drink after a hard day’s work on the Telosian Restoration Project. The last thing she needs is to get herself caught up in a mysterious woman with a lightsabre at the local bar.

read it below or read it here on AO3

VIII.

—

Getting to the planet’s surface was the easy part. Jane was told to wait in orbit, while they boarded Rebecca’s ship and flew down. They were all crammed into the tiny cockpit of Rebecca’s ship, where without enough seats to go around most of them had to simply hang onto whatever fixture they could find and pray. Jamie herself had been relegated the space at the very front, which in the event of a crash would’ve sent her hurtling straight through the reinforced glass windows. The Republic military feed they had cottoned onto earlier barked at them down the line, demanding their authorisation codes or threatening swift retribution. Rebecca acted quickly, keying in a sequence on her ship’s dash and sending it off with an expert flourish.

“Calm down, Sergeant,” she said in a cool tone, and her voice was run through a modulator so that it sounded low and raspy. “This is shuttle hotel charlie two five niner with the Third Fleet. I’ve been called from logistics as backup.”

A crackle of static followed, then, “Hotel charlie two five niner, you’re earlier than expected. You’re cleared for landing. Please proceed with caution. Do not engage hostiles until the rest of your squad arrives. I repeat: do not engage.”

Rebecca hit the button to respond. “Copy. Hotel charlie two five niner.”

And without further ado she began the sequence for final descent.

“Well,” said Owen. “That was efficient.”

Rebecca did not look up from where she was guiding the ship to the surface when she replied in a distracted tone, “I’m very good at my job.”

“Clearly,” Hannah said.

When they got within a certain distance from the planet, Dani straightened from her place jammed into Jamie’s side and tried to peer through the glass. The mountains of Alderaan were jagged caps of blue and grey and white. A rather dramatic landscape, if Jamie were being honest; she was far more interested in the way Dani pressed up against her seemingly without meaning to do so.

They swooped around a mountain peak, the spear-point parapets of House Thul coming into view. Below, people scurried about the ground like insects shooting pinpricks of red blaster fire at one another. The air was filled with enough smoke that it was difficult to make them out, but when Jamie squinted she could just see that the main doors had been breached and the attackers were attempting to push their way inside.

The ship was pinged by someone on the ground, and Rebecca accepted the transmission.

“Unidentified spacecraft,” growled a voice down the comm in an Imperial accent, “state your allegiance and business immediately, or we will not hesitate to shoot you from the sky.”

This time when Rebecca replied, she did not modulate her voice through the computer, though her tone was just as calm as before. Perhaps with a bit more of a bite. Definitely with a smoother Imperial accent that would’ve fooled Jamie herself if she hadn’t known what Rebecca really sounded like. “Corporal, this is Tau Gamma Three. If you delay my landing on the eastern high ground, I will report you to my Rear Admiral for contempt.”

The corporal responded very quickly, “My apologies, Commander. Your transponder code has just been confirmed. Please proceed with all haste. I will personally greet you on the ground and act as your escort.”

“Copy. Tau Gamma Three,” Rebecca said, then took her finger off the transmission button and whispered in her usual accent, “Fuck.”

“Think you over cooked it that time,” Jamie said.

Rebecca gave an exasperated shake of her head. “Damn boot-licking Imps.”

She guided the ship towards where Dani had indicated earlier, landing in a rumble and jerk before cutting the engines and unstrapping herself from the captain’s chair so she could be the first down the gangway.

“Let me handle this,” Rebecca told them.

She smacked the button to lower the gangway to the ground, while outside three people in Imperial grey strode up the hill towards the ship. One, the corporal, had a single red tab of rank on his chest, while the other two bore plasma rifles and shiny black chest plates. Jamie, Hannah, Owen, and Dani all squeezed themselves into a corner of the cockpit so they could peer out the side of the ship and watch.

The corporal saluted as Rebecca walked down the gangway, his mouth moving but his words unintelligible from where Jamie and the others watched. If Rebecca responded, they could not hear her. Without breaking stride, Rebecca unholstered the pistol at her waist and fired three shots. The corporal and one of the infantrymen dropped to the ground. The remaining infantryman fell, but turned over and tried to crawl towards where he had dropped his firearm. Rebecca stalked forward, stepped on his hand, and shot him in the back.

He stopped moving. A hole through his chest cavity smoked gently.

Turning back towards the ship, Rebecca saw them all gawking at her from the cockpit, and gestured for them to come out.

“Where did you meet her again?” Owen asked in a slow, slightly awed voice.

“Nar Shaddaa,” said Jamie.

“Huh.” Owen nodded. “You know, I don’t think you’re cool enough to be her friend.”

Jamie stepped on his foot and glared.

Rebecca was re-holstering her blaster pistol when they all emerged from the ship. “I did my job,” she said, then gave a nod to Dani. “Where to next?”

Dani pointed towards a building complex about five hundred meters away. “This way.”

Jamie made a gesture for her to lead, and Dani started off in the direction she had indicated. They walked briskly, and every time Jamie heard another blast in the distance — some Imperial or guardsman of House Thul throwing firepower at one another on the ground below — she winced and quickened her step. It was nice to see she wasn’t the only one, until the five of them were rushing into the guard complex, slightly out of breath.

When they reached the shut doors, Dani placed her hand on a panel. It scanned her biosignature and flashed green before the doors opened with a hiss of pressurised air. They ducked inside, and Jamie breathed a sigh of relief when the sounds of fighting faded slightly through layers of metal.

“The checkpoint is just around the corner over -” Dani was saying as she led them further down a set of steps, but when she rounded the corner she froze.

Where before the entryway had been completely empty of people — signs of a great hurry evident, upended chairs and half eaten rations — now there was a single guardsman staring at them just down the hall. His face was white as a sheet, his livery of House Thul scuffed and scorched, and in his hands he clutched a blaster rifle, which he pointed at them.

“I don’t suppose you know him?” Owen asked in a low voice to Dani, who shook her head.

With raised hands, Jamie took a step forward and said, “We’re just here to -”

Before she could get more than a handful of syllables into a sentence however, the guard fired. Jamie flinched, squeezing her eyes shut, but the smell of acrid smoke and burning flesh never came. Instead there was only a strangely familiar buzzing sound. When she peeled open her eyes, one after the other, it was to find that Hannah had moved faster than the guard could pull the trigger. A dark scorch mark marred the floor beside her feet, and Hannah held the purple blade of her lightsabre extended at a perfect angle.

Hannah straightened, lowering her lightsabre but not sheathing the blade. The guard staggered back a step, hands trembling around his rifle.

He stared at them for a split second, and then fumbled for the comm unit strapped to his shoulder, pressing the transmit button. “This is Ardi in Post; I need -!”

Hannah waved her free hand, and his own hand suddenly wrenched away from the comm, both of his arms snapping to his side as though he were coming to attention. His wide panicked gaze dropped to his own arms, and he made a weak terrified noise when he could not move.

The comm at his shoulder crackled, and a voice said, “Come in, Ardi. What’s the problem?”

He opened his mouth, but Hannah spoke before he could do so much as squeak. Her voice was like a riptide, like a set of strings attached to a wooden frame. “You will not panic, and you will tell them nothing is wrong.”

The guardsman blinked at her, his eyes going fuzzy and unfocused, while his shoulders and jaw went strangely slack. Then his hand drifted up to the comm. He pushed the button and said in a flat tone, “Nothing is wrong.”

His hand dropped back to his side and he gazed blankly at Hannah for further instruction.

“You will go about your duty,” she said. “You did not see us.”

“I did not see you,” he mimicked in that same tone, then he strode forward, walking directly past them and continuing on his way. They turned to watch him go.

“Always creeps me out when you do that,” Jamie muttered.

Hannah sheathed her lightsabre, but kept the hilt at the ready. “Needs must. Miss Clayton, you were taking us inside?”

Dani snapped her mouth shut from where she had been gaping at the scene. “Oh,” she said, then started forward. “Right! Yes. We just need to go down this hall here.”

Thankfully, the next hall was completely empty. They jumped the barriers at the checkpoint and continued down another hallway leading to a set of armour-reinforced doors, which Dani opened with the press of her hand. The doors slid open, and suddenly they were face to face with a whole squad of Imperial soldiers.

Jamie didn’t know who was more shocked to see the other. Them. Or the Imperials. One member of the squad was kneeling down by the corner of the door, trying to hack his way through the system to get the doors open.

Jamie shot him, while at the same time Dani slammed her hand back down on the bioscanner to shut the doors before the Imperials could react.

“Right,” said Rebecca, who had also taken out her blaster pistol and was ready to fire at the next thing that moved. “Any other ways in?”

Dani shook her head.

“Front door?” Owen offered.

With a low groan, Jamie shifted her grip upon her blaster pistol and jerked her head at Owen and Hannah. “Knights up front.”

Sighing, Hannah and Owen nevertheless dutifully stepped forward and unsheathed their sabres, purple and blue blades between the two of them.

Dani hovered her hand over the bioscanner, but hadn’t unsheathed her own lightsabre. “Is this really the best idea?”

“Too late now,” Jamie grumbled.

“I told you,” said Rebecca.

“Shut it.”

“Open it,” Hannah said to Dani in an exasperated tone of voice.

Dani did so. All of the Imperials had retreated to find cover behind massive pillars and big statues that lined the great hall. The moment Jamie saw one of their stupid grey caps poking around a pillar, she took aim over Owen’s shoulder and fired. Bloody Imps fired back, and soon the air was filled with a volley of blaster fire ricocheting off stone pillars and archways, sending chips of stone spinning across the floor.

Hannah and Owen deflected anything coming their way with an almost lazy indifference, as though they were swatting a few pesky flies out of the sky. An Imperial soldier was hit by his own blaster fire and fell to the ground. Jamie nailed another one in the shoulder, and he swore loudly, crouching back behind cover.

Ducking down slightly, Rebecca nudged Hannah’s shoulder. “Can you two advance? Slowly?”

Owen nodded and the two of them walked forward in step with one another, deflecting incoming blaster fire as they went. Realising what was happening, the Imperial squadron began to panic. A handful tried to make a run for another pillar further along the hallway in an attempt to put ground between them and leaving behind a few of their injured peers in the process. Owen reached out his hand, made a pulling motion, and it were as though three of the fleeing soldiers were yanked back on wires. Hannah chucked her lightsabre — Jamie really couldn’t think of a more eloquent way to describe it apart from ‘chucked’ — and the blade went spinning forward through the air, slicing clean through the soldiers before returning straight to her hand in time for her to sweep aside another attack.

The only soldier left alive was the one Jamie had shot in the shoulder. He was pressing a hand to his wound, sitting on the ground with his legs sprawled and his back leaning against a pillar base. Rebecca rounded the pillar and cocked her blaster pistol.

“Please,” the soldier whimpered.

“Don’t try that shit with me,” Rebecca hissed. “I know what you do to POWs.”

When she raised her pistol as though to whip him with it, he flinched, but the blow never came. Hannah had reached out and the air seemed to solidify into a jelly that held back Rebecca’s arm.

“Miss Jessel,” said Hannah, “Forgive me, but I will not be complicit in the mistreatment of prisoners of war.”

The muscles stood out on Rebecca’s jaw, but she nodded and the sensation of being held underwater rushed from the air. Jamie felt at her own chest and cleared her throat.

“Is it safe to come out yet?” asked a distant voice.

With a frown Jamie turned to find that Dani had remained behind in the hallway, and her head was poking through the door, peering left and right for any sign of lingering danger. Jamie waved her over and Dani quickly crossed the room to stand beside her.

Meanwhile Rebecca shook her head and holstered her blaster pistol. “Last time I saw you, you made mince of seasoned soldiers.”

Ducking her head, Dani shrugged her shoulders uncomfortably, her grip tight around the unlit hilt of her lightsabre. “I wasn’t really myself then.”

“Clearly.”

Jamie nudged the injured soldier with the toe of her boot. “Oi. Where’s the Sith gone?”

At the mere mention of the Sith, his face went pale, his dark eyes glancing between the five of them standing over him. His voice trembled when he spoke. “We - We were just supposed to hold ground behind him.”

“We’re not going to hurt you,” Owen assured him. “Just tell us which way he went.”

The Imperial soldier lifted a shaking hand and pointed at a door further along the hallway, branching to the left. Dani sucked in a sharp breath.

“What’s that way?” Jamie asked.

“Lord and Lady Wingrave’s quarters,” said Dani.

“There are others,” the soldier said. “My squad was just supposed to flush out any stragglers.”

“Any other way in?” asked Rebecca.

“Uh -” Dani bit her lower lip and glanced about the great hall. ��That wing has been shut for years, but I think - I think so. Yes.”

Jamie made a shooing gesture. “Lead the way.”

“What about me?” said the Imperial soldier.

“Owen?” said Hannah.

“Right,” said Owen, and he leaned down to tap the soldier aside the head, upon which the soldier immediately slumped, head lolling to one side, fast asleep.

“Useful, that,” Jamie mused. “Can you do that to me next time I’ve had too much stimcaf late in the evening?”

“Only if you want a migraine when you wake up,” Owen said dryly.

“Mmm. On second thought -”

“Come on, you two,” Rebecca said in exasperation, already following closely after Dani and Hannah down another hallway.

Leaving the wreckage of the main hall, they hurried after their guide. Dani led them through twisting corridors and broad rooms, the house like a vast labyrinth of doors sprawling in all directions. At one point they passed through what was clearly a little girl’s room — at least, if all the dolls and the miniature estate were any indication. Jamie accidentally trod on something, and she glanced down.

It was a handmade doll. Pale-skinned. Grey-robed. Long and dark-haired. And completely faceless.

With a faint shudder, Jamie kicked the doll aside and continued after Dani who had taken them to — of all places — a walk in closet. At the far end of the closet was a floor-length mirror. Dani froze so suddenly that Jamie almost walked into the back of her.

“What’s -?” Jamie started to ask but never finished.

Looking over Dani’s shoulder, she could see all of them reflected in the glass, except Dani. In her stead, a grey-gowned shadow with a face worn smooth by time and memory.

“Dani,” Jamie murmured, staring at the reflection. When she touched the small of Dani’s back, Dani jolted and the apparition vanished like a wisp of smoke.

“It’s fine,” said Dani too quickly, her voice tight as a clenched fist.

“Is something wrong?” Owen asked, peering over the tops of their heads for a better look.

“No,” Dani insisted. “It’s nothing.”

Feeling vaguely sick, Jamie opened her mouth to speak, but Dani had already stepped forward, approaching the mirror with a trembling outstretched hand. A press of her fingers and the mirror swung forward on hidden hinges, revealing a dark passageway yawning beyond it. Inside there echoed the sounds of blaster fire, of grenades and men screaming in the distance.

“Yeah - uh - no offense,” said Rebecca, “but I do not want to go in there.”

Dani steeled herself and took a step inside. When she peered back at them, one of her eyes gleamed golden and owlish from the shadows. “It’s the only shortcut to the Lord and Lady’s wing. I discovered it by accident one day.”

And without further ado, she turned and vanished into the narrow warren. When the others all stepped forward to follow Dani into the darkness, Rebecca groaned and trailed after them. Jamie lost all sight when Rebecca shut the mirror behind them. Owen unsheathed his lightsabre, holding it up into the air to light the way as though he were carrying a blue torch. Dani was already far ahead, walking without the aid of light, a silhouette through the murk.

The sounds of battle grew louder the further they delved. At one point Jamie nearly jumped out of her skin when a bang made the wall to her immediate left vibrate and shed flecks of plaster.

“Fuck’s sake,” Jamie gasped, clutching her chest in one hand and her blaster pistol in the other. “Can we please get out of here? I think I’m going to have a heart attack.”

Dani walked a few more steps, then stopped before a section of wall that looked like all the other sections of wall. That was until Owen drew close enough that the light from his sabre revealed the faint outline of an old mechanical panel. Dani placed her hand upon it and glanced over her shoulder at the others.

“Ready?”

Hannah pushed the button to unsheathe her lightsabre, and she and Owen took up post on either side of Dani, while Rebecca and Jamie stood behind them, blasters at the ready. Dani gave Jamie a questioning look, waiting for a nod before she drew a deep breath and twisted the panel to a horizontal position.

The wall rumbled slightly, then swung outward with a groan of hinges. The room beyond was not, as Jamie had originally suspected, a bedroom. Instead it was a sprawling lounge. Once lush and wood-panelled, the walls lined with old paintings, now filled with smoke and blaster fire. Guardsmen in House Thul colours scrambled to hold ground in this last bastion of the manor, while Imperial soldiers crowded the only entrance chokepoint.

Neither side had yet noticed the ragtag group of Jedi, smugglers, a gardener and a governess that had walked through an enormous painting along the wall.

Jamie didn’t need to be told this time where the Sith had gone; it was clearly evident in the path of destruction in his wake. Dead guardsmen in various states of dismemberment. Great gouges raked along the floor and walls, the stone still simmering with the faint glow of embers. A pillar had been cut completely in half and was sprawled along the ground. The room was a scarred and smoking ruin barely clinging to life, leading up a set of sweeping stone staircases, and the path curving out of sight beyond a cavalcade of slashed portraits.

“Rebecca,” said Hannah in a brook-no-nonsense tone. “With me. We will hold off the Imperial troops. The rest of you -” She looked at the three of them, ending with a softer glance towards Owen. “Find the children. And come back to me.”

Owen nodded and his moustache twitched in a tell tale smile. Then he looked back at Jamie and Dani, jerking his head towards the staircase. “Follow me.”

Rebecca was already going through the motions of checking her blaster pistol to ensure it would shoot without error.

“Are you keen to kill a few Imperials, Miss Jessel?” Hannah asked, sounding amused.

Rebecca smiled and cocked the pistol. “Always.”

Hannah made a gesture towards the fight. “After you.”

And they were off to the races. Jamie shook her head after them, then followed Owen, who was already hurrying up the stairs with Dani. There were no soldiers here, neither Imperial nor Thulian. The door to the sleeping quarters was open, and the sound of muted conversation issued forth, as of two people discussing a mundane topic over a drink. Steeling herself, Jamie stepped into the room just behind Owen and Dani.

The room sprawled, as large and opulent as the rest of the estate. A four poster bed stood proudly at the far end. Portraits continued to dot the walls at all levels. There were a few armchairs and a plush couch, and in the centre of the very room, two men.

The Sith wore a black and fully self-contained suit, complete with a red-eyed mask and tubes that hooked over his neck and shoulder into some sort of apparatus at his back. Jamie had only ever seen someone wear an outfit like this once before, and it was to combat the Rakghoul plague on Taris. His speech was interspersed with sporadic coughing fits, but his movements were steady. He held up Lord Wingrave in the air with the Force as easily as though holding up a cup of tea.

“You cannot hide them forever,” he was saying, his voice altered through a respirator. “I will tear this manor apart, limb from limb. And that gift which to others hath been a boon shall to you be a very bane."

Owen hefted his lightsabre and said in a commanding tone, “Let him go.”

The Sith glanced over his shoulder and turned. The eyes of his mask were scarlet half-moons that gleamed through the darkly paneled space. Behind him Lord Wingrave continued to choke, face purpling.

The Sith tilted his head, sizing up his unexpected company. Then to Jamie’s shock and confusion, the Sith bowed to them — or, rather, to Dani.

"My Lady," he said, straightening. "Your presence humbles me. We shall find for you a more suitable host in due course."

Dani stared at him in absolute horror, saying nothing.

Owen stepped forward. “Your fight is with us, not him.” Owen gestured towards Lord Wingrave with his lightsabre, and he repeated, “Let him go.”

“But of course,” said the Sith. He unsheathed his lightsabre — red as a bloody dawn — and held it to the side so that when he released the Force, Lord Wingrave fell directly upon the blade.

Dani cried out, but Jamie held her back before she could move forward. Lord Wingrave slumped, his body pierced completely through the chest. He choked on an inhalation, and then the Sith deactivated the lightsabre, and Lord Wingrave crumpled to the floor.

The Sith stepped over his body, approaching them and coughing, a wet and sickly rattling of his lungs. When he spoke, he addressed Dani alone, as though she were the only person in the room. “The Force has brought you to my side. And I will not let such an opportunity slip between my fingers.”

At the front of the group, Owen kept looking between the approaching Sith and the man dying in his wake. He did not turn around to ask Jamie, “Think you handle this?”

Jamie glanced at Lord Wingrave. His chest was still rising and falling, but his breaths were shallow and growing weaker by the second.

“No,” said Jamie. “But go anyway. I’ll cover you.”

With a nod, Owen sprinted forward. Jamie fired several shots at the Sith, not aiming to hit, just to distract. The Sith, of course, deflected every blaster fire with his lightsabre as though batting aside a particularly irritable fly. However the cover fire served its purpose, and Owen was able to slip by without the Sith engaging him in combat directly.

Indeed, the Sith seemed utterly uninterested in anything else in the room that wasn’t Dani. He continued to stride forward, steps slow and sure and steady as the tide. Behind him, Owen dragged Lord Wingrave into the far corner beside the bed, lightsabre sheathed, and began to tend his wounds. Jamie wasn’t well versed in the healing arts — never would be, truth be told — and honestly it seemed like all Owen was doing was meditating beside Lord Wingrave’s body. Must’ve done something, though. At least, she hoped it did.

And all the while, the Sith was striding towards them with singular intent.

"You can start shooting again now," Dani muttered to Jamie.

"Do you remember blaster fire being useful against you?" Jamie asked, incredulous, even as she holstered her pistol.

“No,” said Dani. Even so, she pulled out her lightsabre hilt, ready to unsheathe the blade at a moment’s notice.

The Sith stopped a few paces away. Close enough that Jamie could see the scars on his armour, the ragged hems of his robes, the piercing quality of his mask’s eyes. When he spoke, it was only to Dani, as though Jamie weren’t there at all.

“Your love for these people makes you weak. You are ruled by your own fear, rather than taking control of it. If only you had the stomach,” he hissed. “You could be so much more. But as you are, you’re not fit to play host to The Lady.”

Dani’s hands trembled around the hilt of the lightsabre, but her voice was steady and clear. “You know nothing about me.”

The Sith’s laughter was broken by coughing, his broad shoulders shaking, yet for all that he never appeared any less commanding a presence. “Your emotions betray you. Lay you bare. I can taste your fear, feel your anger.”

He circled round her with slow footsteps and Dani turned to follow him with the tip of her lightsabre. She shook her head, eyes unyielding, jaw tightly held.

“No?” he asked, his tone amused through the rasp of his respirator. “Then, prove me wrong.”

“Don’t listen to him,” Jamie said, low and warning. She could see the way Dani’s throat bobbed as she swallowed, but otherwise Dani did nothing.

“What are you waiting for?” he growled, and in a motion too quick to follow he hefted his lightsabre — the blade a darker, muddier red beside the pure crimson of Dani’s kyber — and slashed at Dani’s feet with a snarl, making her leap back and leaving a smouldering furrow in the ground. “Strike me down!”

Dani regained her footing and brought her lightsabre back up into a defensive position.

“I will kill all you hold dear. I will make you watch as they die. I will take you to my master on Dromund Kaas as a prize, and you will know such suffering. Until we pry the soul from your lungs. Until the very end.” The Sith stalked to and fro like a great animal pacing its enclosure, dragging the tip of his lightsabre on the ground behind him so that sparks scattered at his footsteps. “Your name will be a blight on this house, a mark of its end. I will find these children and make them instruments of the Dark, and they will know that you were the reason why.”

Hands tightening around the hilt of her sabre, Dani’s eyes darted away from him and towards one of the paintings hung low on the far wall. The Sith paused, then followed her gaze.

“There you are,” he murmured.

He reached out a hand and the painting was ripped from its hidden hinges on the wall, revealing a small chamber beyond, just enough for people to hide objects of value. Except in this case, there were two children huddled and crouched. The elder of the two — a boy — saw Lord Wingrave sprawled on the ground, attended to by Owen, and he cried out, “Uncle Henry!”

“Miles, don’t -!” Dani shouted.

The Sith caught him by the scruff of his neck and dragged him close. Miles struggled and kicked, but the Sith’s grip was iron.

“My, look at you,” the Sith said, tilting his head as though appraising a piece of fine jewelry. “So wrathful for one so small.”

Miles tried to claw at the Sith’s respirator, and for this he was backhanded so hard he staggered and fell, clutching his cheek. Both Dani and Jamie took an abortive step forward. His sister raced forward to make sure he was all right.

The Sith gestured to the children behind him. “New apprentices for my master. Or perhaps, only one is needed.”

When he raised his lightsabre, Dani moved before Jamie could stop her. She caught the blade with her own, parrying it aside and putting herself between him and the children, lightsabre raised and ready, eyes hard. The Sith tested the edge of Dani’s blade, the sound of two lightsabres running against one another like nothing else, electrifying the very air, and they began to circle around one another like a pair of vultures over a carcass.

The Sith moved with the swiftness of a snake, striking with sure movements that Dani could barely deflect, her brow pinched in concentration. As they moved about the room, Jamie sprinted forward, avoiding the fight so she could crouch down beside the children.

Miles was fine, though addled and shaken. His breath came shallowly and he trembled more from fear than anything else. The girl meanwhile was putting on a brave face.

“Hey. Hi. I’m Jamie,” she said, slightly breathless. “Can you stand?” she asked Miles.

He nodded, but struggled to do so. She picked him up and half carried him towards a more sheltered corner, urging the young girl to follow her closely. Jamie checked Miles for any other wounds, but there was nothing but the bruise blooming across his cheek.

“You’ll be right,” she murmured, cupping said cheek and giving him what she hoped was a reassuring smile.

Behind her, Dani was losing ground, giving ground, defending rather than attacking. The Sith seemed to be toying with her, darting his blade in various directions to see how she would react, testing the waters and thoroughly enjoying himself if his creepy fucking laughter was any indication.

“Stay here,” Jamie said in a low tone to the kids, eyes fixed upon the Sith.

Her blaster pistol was next to useless in a fight like this. Jamie patted herself down. She slipped her hand into the pocket of her slacks and withdrew the small mining laser. Its blade extended maybe only a few centimeters in length, bright green and hot.

Glancing up, Jamie watched as Dani and the Sith circled one another like two wary predators. She adjusted the mining laser in her grip and waited until the Sith’s back was to her. Then, drawing a deep steadying breath, she rushed forward before her courage could fail, and stabbed into his back. The laser’s tip pierced through one of the hoses wrapped around his neck and shoulder. Instead of oxygen leaking out, a billow of sickly yellow smoke streamed from the ruptured section of hose, smelling strongly of sulphur. With a snarl, the Sith turned and slashed his lightsabre in a raking blow. Jamie ducked to the side but not fast enough.

The last time Jamie had been on the wrong end of a lightsabre wound, it had burned a hole straight through her shoulder as though her bones were made of softened butter. This was a similar experience, and one she had hoped to never feel again. The tip of the lightsabre whipped up, missing her arm and torso, and instead scoring her face.

A flare of white-hot pain. Jamie flinched and scrambled away, nearly losing her footing and only managing to catch herself on the edge of an armchair. The mining laser clattered to the floor. One hand reached up to test the left side of her face, and she grit back a hiss through her teeth. She had shut her eyes reflexively and was now afraid to open them for fear that one might not work anymore. Tentatively she peeled them open — one after the other. Her left eye stung, unable to see through the curtain of blood dripping down her face. She blinked and tried to wipe the blood away, but stopped when she accidentally touched the wound slashed from brow to cheek.

“Are you okay?” asked a small voice through the din, close by.

The boy, Miles, had crawled over to check on her, his face pale. Jamie nodded and tried to stand up, but felt woozy. Flashes of red and animalistic snarls. With her right eye Jamie could just make out two figures fighting tooth and nail in the centre of the room.

Where before Dani had never attacked, now she never defended. Her lightsabre struck out, sharp and sweeping and reckless, always advancing, always taking ground, always seeking an opening, demanding an opening, finding an opening. The Sith stumbled back with a desperate parry, the air like a painting itself streaked with the red of their sabres and the yellow of sulphur and the bright, crucible gold of Dani’s gaze. And it was cold, a cold so deep Jamie could feel it congeal the blood on her face.

Dani thrust out her hand, a wave of the Force slamming into his chest and forcing the Sith back until he was cornered against the foot of the four-poster bed. He held his lightsabre up to deflect another attack, but could not move as Dani rained down blow after wailing blow. No art to it now. Just mad ferocity. Hacking at him as if with an axe, teeth-bared, hair wild, terrifying to behold.

“Shit.” Jamie kept a hand on Miles’ shoulder, putting herself between him and the scene unfolding even as she fought the urge to shrink back, to grab him and run for the exit.

Something darted just under Jamie’s sight, a flurry of movement past her bad eye. Before she could stop her, Flora raced over and jumped atop the bed, wide-eyed and terrified. “Stop it! Miss Clayton, Stop!”

Dani froze, panting, lightsabre lifted overhead, mid-swing. She blinked, her face slackened, and she slowly lowered the lightsabre with a small shake of her head. The Sith at her feet was wheezing, wracked with intermittent coughs as the gas in his suit bled out. And when her guard was lowered just fractionally too much, he let out a sound like a growl and stabbed.

Dani swept her lightsabre down in time to block the attack. What exchanged was a brief flurry of action so fast Jamie could scarcely follow it. Parry, riposte, and then they were poised in trembling finality, Dani’s lightsabre struck through his chest in a killing blow.

The Sith’s hand trembled. He reached forward to clutch her close by the shoulder and whisper something in Dani’s ear. Jamie couldn’t hear what he said. She could only see the way Dani’s eyes widened, the way Dani sheathed the lightsabre and caught him before his body could fall to the ground, lowering him gently into death.

Jamie let go of Miles, and he raced forward towards his uncle, kneeling beside him. Owen seemed to come from a trance, looking pale and exhausted. When Henry took a deep breath and sat up, Miles made a sound both choked and relieved, hugging him tight. Meanwhile, Lord Wingrave grimaced in pain, barely able to do more than wrap an arm around his nephew and send Owen a confused glance.

Mopping up the side of her face with the sleeve of her shirt, Jamie stepped forward. Dani was still kneeling on the ground, supporting the weight of the Sith with a dazed expression on her face. The young Wingrave girl sat crouched on the bed, trembling and frozen in place. Jamie touched Dani’s shoulder, feeling the tense of muscle there, and urge her to stand upright so she could bring her into a swift and fierce hug. Dani breathed harshly in her ear, sounding dazed, sounding thready and disbelieving.

“I’ve got you,” Jamie said. “I’ve got you. Well done.”

Dani reached out a hand and pulled the Wingrave girl into the hug until the three of them stood there in vaguely puzzled bliss, unsure of how exactly they had escaped, unscathed.

When Dani let go, the Wingrave girl jumped down from the bed to join her brother beside Owen, the three of them checking on her uncle. Dani’s gaze followed them, looking pained, even guilty.

“Hey,” Jamie said, drawing Dani’s attention. She pointed at her own face. “We match.”

For a moment Dani simply blinked at her in confusion until Jamie indicated her own fucked up eye. Then Dani laughed, shocked, brief, and belly-deep. She reached up and gently stroked the side of Jamie’s face, her expression pained. “I’m sorry.”

“Some things are more important,” said Jamie, lifting her hand to cover Dani’s. “Like: does it make me look dashing?”

With another incredulous laugh, Dani leaned forward instead of answering and kissed her. Jamie winced when Dani’s nose brushed against the burn on her cheek.

“Ow.”

“Sorry! Sorry.”

Dani pulled back and tried to pull her hand away as well, but Jamie held it where it was so she could press her lips to the centre of Dani’s palm.

Owen was urging Lord Wingrave to his feet when Hannah strode into the room. Her lightsabre was hooked back onto her belt. She had a few marks on her otherwise pristine burgundy robes, evidence of the fight she and Rebecca had endured on the front lines. Rebecca herself was in deep conversation with a Thulian guardsman near the exit.

Dani spared Jamie a rare smile before she rushed over to Henry and the others when Jamie let her go. Touching the wounded side of her face, Jamie blinked through a layer of crusted blood and was gratified to find she could, in fact, see through her left eye.

“How’d you get on?” she asked as Hannah stopped before her.

“All’s quiet on the front,” answered Hannah. “The Imperial invasion of House Thul has been thoroughly cast aside.”

“Happy fuckin’ days,” said Jamie, still exploring the wound on her face with a tentative press of her fingertips.

“You look a little worse for wear,” Hannah replied, cocking her head to one side. “Though you seem to have done the job.”

Lowering her hands, Jamie gave a bitter laugh. “Not me. All Dani. I just stood there like a muppet half the time. And got injured, to boot.”

Hannah made a soft sound in the back of her throat. “Pasha and his Troopers were looking for a Sith assassin.” She nudged the dead Sith’s robes with the toe of her boot. “This looks like a Sith assassin to me.”

“Yeah, but they were looking for someone of Dani’s description.”

“Unfortunate that,” Hannah sighed. “How easy it is for innocent people to be pulled into the undertow of Sith machinations. Lord Wingrave will say nothing of her, I’m sure; his debt is too great. The children are young; they will forget. And the overwhelming evidence will say that Danielle Clayton was never here.”

Jamie stared down at the Sith corpse before her. She mused over the possibility of tearing off his mask and looking upon his face, before coming to the conclusion that she would rather not know. That he was better in her memories as this — the awful caricature that he wished to be perceived as. With a shake of her head, Jamie tore her gaze away in favour of watching Dani across the room.

Dani talking to the children. Dani talking with Owen. Dani tucking a lock of hair behind her ear and standing with hands clasped gently before her and an auspicious smile on her face.

"Such a small thing. Such a little thing to house the echo of a soul," Hannah mused beside her. "It's got me to wondering about our dear friend Miss Clayton."

Jamie made a noise to indicate she was listening, even while both their eyes remained training on Dani, watching her chat with Owen and Lord Wingrave.

"Holocrons, you see," continued Hannah, "wouldn't make for very good receptacles of secret knowledge if they could be opened by just anyone. To open one requires use of the Force. A great deal of it, I might add."

With a jerk, Jamie tore her gaze from Dani to stare at Hannah. Then she turned her head back towards Dani, who was now crouching down to talk to one of the children — the little girl. Jamie watched as the girl threw her arms around Dani’s neck and something flickered, gold and bright, in Dani’s eye, her expression unreadable before she relaxed and returned the hug with an easy warmth.

“Does she know?" Jamie asked.

Hannah shrugged. "I have hinted at it, but thought it best to leave it at that for now. She should come to this realisation on her own. I'm telling you, because in the future the two of you might want to explore what she is."

"And what is she?"

Hannah smiled. "Herself, of course."

Across the room, Rebecca gestured from the main entryway and called out. “Pubs incoming. We should get a move on.”

Dani straightened, hand lingering on the girl’s shoulder. She nudged Flora towards Owen, who was now talking directly to the Wingrave boy. Meanwhile Henry took the opportunity to pull Dani into a grateful hug of his own, making Dani go rigid all over then laugh nervously and pat his shoulder. As Jamie watched her, she felt something warm in her chest unspool.

Beside her there came a slight cough. Glancing at Hannah with a frown, Jamie said, “What?”

Looking like she was trying to bite back a smile, Hannah shook her head. “Nothing,” she said, one hand toying with a gold earring. “Just nice to see you so unsurly for once. She’s a good influence on you, that one.”

Jamie narrowed her eyes. She nudged Hannah’s elbow with her own and grumbled, “Shut it.”

Hannah chuckled, a low warm sound. When Jamie started towards the exit as well, Hannah did not follow.

Jamie stopped. “You coming?”

With an all-encompassing gesture towards their ruined surroundings, Hannah said, “Someone has to stay behind and spin a tale for the Republic Troopers. And doubtless there’ll be paperwork for Owen and I to fill out regarding our new Temple initiates.”

Jamie nodded. “Thanks. I owe you one.”

“You and I both know that’s not how this works, dear.”

“Right.” Jamie gave a rueful shake of her head and rubbed at the new scars on her face; they itched something fierce. “More Jedi bantha shit.”

Rather than take umbrage with Jamie’s word choice, Hannah simply made an amused sound in the back of her throat. “The fact you think that doesn’t apply to you after all these years -” Hannah trailed off and waved Jamie away. “Laughable. Really.”

Jamie backed away towards the door in lazy strides. “We’ll see you soon?”

“You had better,” Hannah replied in a warning tone. “Three years of nothing but pre-recorded postcards? The gall.”

With a laugh, Jamie blew Hannah a kiss — which earned her an exasperated roll of Hannah’s eyes — before finally turning and walking towards the exit, headlong. Dani stood just outside the doorway, waiting. When Jamie drew near enough, Dani tangled their fingers together and gave Jamie a tremulous smile.

“Okay?” Dani asked.

Jamie squeezed Dani’s hand. “Yeah. Perfect.”

Dani reached up but did not actually touch Jamie’s face. “We should probably get this looked at.”

“Later,” said Jamie with a dismissive shrug. “I bet Jane can’t wait to hold my head under a kolto tank until I drown.”

“Jane likes you,” Dani insisted, dragging Jamie along so that the two walked after Rebecca and out of House Thul.

“Do they, though?”

“Well,” said Dani, then she paused in consideration. “I think so, anyway.”

Guardsmen of House Thul scurried about. They were taking prisoners and speaking into comm units to — presumably — incoming Republic troops. Dani and Jamie slipped past them all, doing their best to avoid all and any notice. Nobody stopped them, just as nobody stopped Rebecca, until the three of them had left the manor and stood before Rebecca’s ship. The three Imperial soldiers were still sprawled on the ground from when Rebecca had shot them. The Corporal’s eyes were glassy, his muscles rigid in death.

When they had reached the ship proper, Rebecca holstered her pistol and turned. “Guess this is it,” she said.

Jamie stopped and squinted at her friend. "If I hug you, are you going to taser me again?"

"Depends on where you put your hands." With a laugh, Rebecca pulled her into a hug, arms wrapped tightly around Jamie’s shoulders. Jamie returned the gesture, tucking her face into Rebecca’s shoulder before stepping away.

"I really need to dash before either the Pubs or Imps find out I've been here." Rebecca grasped Jamie's shoulder. "We even, now?"

"Yeah, yeah. Go on, then. Wait -" Jamie said when Rebecca took a step back. "How are we supposed to get off the surface without you?"

Rebecca made a vague gesture to the sky. "Jane has a transport shuttle. Just call for it."

"Jane has a transport shuttle?"

"Good grief, Jamie. I gave you one of my favourite ships. The least you could do is talk to it."

"I'll think about it." Jamie grinned when Rebecca rolled her eyes. "We'll probably head off to -"

"Ah, ah!" Rebecca shook her head and mimed covering one ear. "Don't tell me. It's better if I don't know."

Her dark eyes drifted over Jamie’s shoulder. Jamie heard light footsteps approaching, and Dani stepped up beside her. She smiled at Rebecca. “Just thought I should say thank you, before you go.”

“My pleasure. Really.” Rebecca held out her hands. “Don’t suppose you want a hug, too?”

With a shake of her head, Dani nevertheless stepped forward, smiling into the hug. Rebecca patted Dani on the back, her hand getting tangled up in Dani’s nanosilk cloak.

Laughing, Rebecca stepped away, untangling her hand from Dani’s cloak. “How you manage to fight with that thing on is a miracle.”

Dani straightened the cloak around her shoulders, grinning broadly. “Just lucky, I guess.”

“From what I understand, luck has nothing to do with it.” Rebecca glanced between Dani and Jamie, her smile softening. Behind her, her ship lowered its gangway. Rebecca lifted her hand and touched her brow in a jaunty sort of salute. “Don’t be strangers.”

Dani waved as Rebecca turned and boarded her ship. The gangway retracted behind her and the ship sealed itself. Jamie watched through the transparisteel windows of the cockpit as Rebecca strapped herself into the captain’s chair. The engines revved to life and with a burn of fuel, the ship rose up into the air, and she was gone.

Jamie fished out a handheld transponder from her pocket. "Jane?"

The ship's computer spoke through the little speaker. "How may I be of assistance?"

"We need to get off the surface. Think you can help?"

"I am sending a transport shuttle now. Estimated time of arrival: two minutes, thirty-seven seconds. Please stand by."

Lowering the transponder, Jamie pocketed it right beside the small mining laser. Dani had her head tipped back to look at the sky to watch Rebecca’s ship go, shielding her face from the watery sunlight with the flat of her hand. With a smudge of dirt across her cheek and her hair a-tumble, standing amidst the rubble of a warzone, she was perfect.

"Do you think it's warm on Corsin?" Dani asked idly. When Jamie did not answer, Dani lowered her hand and tipped her chin back down to face her. She blinked in confusion. "What are you looking at?"

The cold mountain breeze toyed with the long curls of Dani's hair that had come loose during the fight. With a smile, Jamie gave a slow disbelieving shake of her head. Then she reached out and tucked a stray lock of hair behind Dani's ear.

“You,” she said. “Just you.”

—

The ship’s engines hummed steadily. Rebecca had set the computer to control autopilot, and now stood over a small table in what was supposed to be the dining area. She never used it for that. Only for storage. The place was littered with things most people would pass over with a sniff of disdain, but which years of experience had taught her could get her out of a bad scrap in a pinch.

The table was cleared of everything except the frame of a square object, small enough to sit in the palm of her hand and made of a black gold metal. Inscriptions had been carved into each triangular section, the pieces carefully assembled into a diminutive and unassuming box. Reaching into her pocket, Rebecca pulled out a final triangular piece. For a moment she turned it over between her fingers, then set it carefully into place, so that the holocron was once more complete.

The holocron hummed, filled with a brief intense light, then went out like a snuffed candle.

“Well,” said Rebecca softly. “Shit.”

Behind her a light blinked at the terminal dash. With a grimace, Rebecca looked around before slinging a spare jacket over the holocron to hide it. When she touched it even through the fabric however, she could still feel a faint hum that tingled through her palm and all the way up her arm, an intense numbing itch. Shaking her hand free of the sensation, Rebecca turned around. She ran a hand over her hair and clothes to ensure her appearance was somewhat tidy. Then with a deep breath, she straightened her shoulders and pressed a blinking button on the terminal. She tucked her hands smartly behind her back and lifted her chin as a holo flickered to life.

The projection was life-sized. A towering figure all in black. Black robes. Black hood. Face hidden utterly behind a black mask. Rebecca set her jaw and swallowed, tamping down the unsettling urge to look the figure in the eye, even though there were no eyes to look at. And though there were whole solar systems between them, she could not shake herself of the feeling that if the figure reached out, they could grab her by the neck and hoist her up into the air as easily as if she were a child’s toy doll.

When the figure spoke, their voice was deep and crackling through the speakers of their mask. “Have you recovered the holocron?”

Rebecca kept her hands clasped behind her back, her gaze kept straight ahead at a space just over the figure’s shoulder. “Yes, my Lord."

“And?”

“Nothing,” she said. “It seems to be inactive, now that The Lady no longer resides within it.”

“I find that disappointing,” said the figure.

A brief terrifying silence followed, during which Rebecca counted her heartbeats, wondering when they would stop. She squeezed her hands together behind her back when the figure started to speak again.

“Where is the host now?”

“I do not know,” Rebecca answered.

The figure tipped their head slightly to one side and a red light gleamed across the mask. “Are you lying to me, Agent Jessel?”

“No, my Lord.”

“Quint thought he was a good liar. You’re not under such delusions, are you?”

“No, my Lord,” she repeated.

Behind her, she swore she could feel the holocron hum. She had to dig her fingernails into the palm of the hand that had touched it through layers of cloth to ground herself. The figure’s head jerked towards the sensation, sightless gaze watching the space behind Rebecca as though they could see beyond the simple holo of herself she would have projected in return. Most days she was confident in the fact that she had coded her holo to not give away any of her surroundings, no matter where she was. Today, she was not so sure.

The figure looked back at her. “You will return to Drommund Kaas to receive further instruction.”

“And the Jedi?”

“Are none of your concern, Agent. Report back immediately for a full debrief.”

“Yes, my Lord.”

The holo flickered out of view. Only once the light had stopped blinking on the dash did Rebecca allow herself to breathe properly again. She inhaled deeply and shook her head. Then she turned and pulled the jacket off of the holocron.

It was still unlit, but it hummed gently.

With one last look at it, Rebecca left the room and returned to the cockpit. She sat in the captain’s chair, keying in commands with practised ease.

The coordinates to Dromund Kaas were set, and she hit the jump command to hyperspace.

#thobm #the haunting of bly manor #star wars #dami #dani clayton/jamie #no great revelation #roman writes

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ladyaudentium · 4 years ago

Text

Devil Trigger (Rewritten)

Summary: Escaping my imprisonment had been my only goal, making friends- and perhaps something more- was never something I thought I would ever experience again. But freedom and happiness always come with a price. Mine is watching and waiting, carefully pulling strings from the shadows. (pre-canon)

Characters: Marco, Thatch, Izo, Whitebeard, Whitebeard Pirates, Doflamingo Donquixote, Female OC

Pairing: MarcoxOC

Rating: T/M (Graphic depictions of violence/abuse)

Disclaimer: I do not own One Piece.

On both FF.net and A03 under the title above and the username LadyAudentium.

Chapter 1: Escape

A thin figure in a ragged cloak dashed down a dimly lit hallway. Dark stone lined the walls and floors, uninviting and cold. Bare feet slapped against the floor, and breathing came in rapid, hoarse wheezes.

The figure crouched at the next corner, so far everything was progressing smoothly, but that could change at any minute. The guard that had been drugged to allow their escape could be found at any minute. Even though the escape plan had been planned carefully, if anything went wrong, it would be all over.

Footsteps approached the corner, and the figure tensed, preparing for a fight.

Launching their weight around the corner, they attempted to catch the approaching person off guard. Skeletal-like fingers reached for the throat, to silence the potential assailant before an alarm could be raised.

“Ack!” the person choked, “Ardyn, it’s me. Let go!”

Grey blue eyes widened in shock, and the skeletal fingers released their death grip on the new comers throat, “Kensei!” they whispered hoarsely, “Thank goodness, I thought you were a regular guard.” the mysterious figure pulled down the ratty hood to reveal the face of a young woman.

Her head was shaved bald, but strawberry tinted eyebrows suggested her hair would be pink if allowed to grow. Stormy blue eyes stared up hopefully at her friend.

He grinned widely, revealing pearly white teeth, as his bright green eyes sparkled with amusement, “Hee hee, well I guess I’d be out cold right now if I was. I can’t believe the grip you had on me there!” the grin fell from his face as he checked the surroundings, “we don’t have much time though. We need to get out of here now, it won’t be long before they find that guard in your place. Come on, this way!”

Grabbing her hand, chains jingled dully, their noise muffled by the cloth that had been weaved into the links. They were horrible things, they drained her strength and made her feel sick, but they were a necessary evil. They were the only thing able to stave off the demon that lived inside her.

The two dashed through the hallways of the base, seemingly endless and winding, but Kensei knew the way. Ardyn trusted him firmly. The white coat around his shoulders identified him as a guard, but he was different than the others. He took no pleasure in her pain or suffering like the rest, he harboured no resentment towards her because of the demon she carried. He was the only good thing about this hell.

“Alright, we should be good now, just around that corner, and we’re home free!” Kensei announced excitedly and the young woman was practically vibrating with excitement. It didn’t seem real. Surely it was just a dream, and any second now she would wake up back in the cold, dirty cell.

Suddenly, an alarm blared loudly, the sound echoing off the walls as red and yellow lights flashed. “Red alert! Red alert! Subject Zero-Five has escaped! All personnel on high alert, recapture is the number one priority!”

Ardyn’s heart sunk deep in her chest. The dream had ended.

“Shit,” Kensei cursed, as he took hold of the young woman’s arm and began to run.

Pandemonium erupted in the base as the hallways flooded with white coats, “There it is!” they cried as they caught sight of the young woman and her blonde partner.

Tears began to stream from her eyes, freedom was so close.

“Ardyn, look, that’s the front door! We can make it!” Kensei called back to her.

A wrenching tug on the thin, ragged cloak choked her. It was followed by a man calling, “I’ve got it!” he pulled back, tearing the fabric, but it was enough to break Kensei’s grip on her hand.

“Kensei!!” Ardyn called, fearfully. Images of the deathly cold cell flashed across her eyes. She couldn’t, wouldn’t go back after this. She would rather die than go back to that windowless room.

Turning around, green eyes narrowed in rage as he levelled a pistol at the guard holding her, “No you don’t!” he cried, as a gunshot rang out in the main hall.

Ardyn’s ears rang loudly as the gun fired and the cloak come free before she was once again being pulled along.

“Kensei, there’s no way we’re going to make it! Look! The door!”

Sure, enough the heavy main doors had begun to shut and the white light at the end of the tunnel began to slowly disappear. Reaching into his coat pocket, he pulled out several round objects and with his teeth pulled the tabs on them causing them to start sparking. “Oh yes we are!” he cried before throwing them as far as he could. There was a moment where they bounced off the doors with an innocent ‘ting’ before there was a huge flash of light and a wave of scalding heat before the bang.

Throwing his free arm around Ardyn, the young man used his body to shield her from the blast of the bombs. Screams of the soldiers around us before the young woman was once again being pulled roughly by the arm. Rubble and stone continued to fall all around them. The light continued to dim as rubble piled up in front of the door, until only a single ray of light shone down through the dust that hung in the air.

‘Kensei was right,’ Ardyn allowed herself to smile, ‘they were going to make it!’

The smoke cleared in a great sweep of a staff to reveal the guard Captain between them and freedom. His coat, worn off his shoulders like a cape, billowed in the breeze he’d created. The strong jawline eerily backlit by the light created a sharp outline of his face. The hollows of his deep-set eyes and cheeks gave him a skull like appearance and she felt a deep-seated cold fear take hold of her. Here was the prime source of her suffering. This one man had taken it upon himself to make sure his subordinates hated her fully.

“You have made a valiant effort, Kensei, clearly you hold some sort of demented feelings for this creature. But this is as far as you go. You will pay for your betrayal with your life.” The large man spoke in a deep commanding voice exuding an intimidating air like none Ardyn had ever felt before. “Return Zero-Five to us, and I will ensure your death is a painless one.” the butt of the stave was levelled towards Kensei’s face and the last of the smoke cleared to show that we were surrounded by more men in white outfits armed with rifles and swords alike.

Clinging fearfully to the man beside her, Ardyn looked up to him. She didn’t want Kensei to die for her, if she’d known that would be the punishment he’d been facing, she never would have agreed to his escape plan.

“Hey, Ardyn,” Kensei beamed, his smile lighting up her whole world, “why don’t we run away together?”

Tears welled in her eyes at the memory. He was willing to put his life on the line to help her. The least she could do, would be to at least make sure he didn’t suffer in his death.

Squeezing her hands reassuringly, Kensei looked down towards the young woman. “Don’t worry, Ardyn, we’ll be getting out of this together. I won’t die here.” turning towards the guard captain, Kensei addressed him, “You can’t stop what I’ve done here! This will all end one way or another!” his hand left mine and with a great flourish of his coat, he revealed a belt full of explosives. In one smooth motion he lit them all, “Run, Ardyn!” he cried before throwing the explosives behind them.

“I won’t let you!” the captain cried before lunging towards them, arm extended to grab the young woman and staff raised to hit her blonde partner. For a moment she was stunned in fear until a gunshot ring through the air. The Captain dodged to the side and the bullet whizzed past to embed in the rubble ahead.

Kensei’s voice rang out true in the aftermath “RUN!” and Ardyn didn’t question it any further before her legs propelled her forwards, adrenaline pumping hard. The chaos seemed to happen in slow motion as men screamed and began to panic from the explosions. Only a few of them seemed to be focused on the escaping woman as they all began to flee for their lives in all directions, trampling and hindering their still focused colleagues in the process.

“Keep running! Don’t look back!” the young man called as the bald girl reached the rubble that remained of the front door. Unable to resist, she looked back and immediately wished she hadn’t.

Kensei had the Captain pinned underneath him, a small crater cracking the ground around them. The remaining bombs on his belt were sparking wildly. Green eyes met gray, and Ardyn could see the anger and regret deep inside.

No, he couldn’t die here! He wouldn’t! he promised!

“KENSEI!” she screamed

The young man softened his gaze, and smiled genuinely, “Don’t worry, Ardyn I won’t be dying here.”

The young woman made a move towards him but was blinded by a flash of light and an explosion that rocked the entire building. The heat seared her face as the blast blew her out into the courtyard. Ardyn’s ears were ringing as she tumbled ass over teakettle into the dry grass. Rocks and bits of stone peppered the grounds as well as her unprotected body. Curling into a tight ball, she tried to protect herself as best she could

A moment passed with her face buried in her arms and after a moment of safety, she allowed herself a careful glance up. Stormy eyes widened in shock when only a bare skeleton remained of the building that had once caused her so much agony. The once imposing stone fortress was ablaze with flames reaching all the way up to the very top of the tallest tower.

Guards and white lab coats alike scrambled for their lives and desperately searched for a way to quench the hungry flames. Ardyn sat in shock and awe at the awesome sight before she felt her eyes begin to burn. ‘How on earth could Kensei have survived that blast? There’s no possible way, he was right in the middle of it.’

Leaping to her feet, she absolved to search the wreckage. She couldn’t leave without him! The rubble that had taken the brunt of the explosion were still hot and scalded her hands as she attempted to move them. Her arms shook with the effort to lift some of the bigger pieces, but to no avail, she was too weak.

Tears blurred her vision as she desperately tried to find even a trace of her dear friend. A sob wracked her chest a moment before a skinny man with overly thick glasses spotted her, “Kyaaa! Do not let Zero-Five escape! Our research must be continued!” he screeched in a reedy, almost pre-pubescent voice even though he was old enough to be her grandfather.

Steeling herself, Ardyn glared hatefully at the old man as guards surged towards her. She now had a choice; stay, and attempt to avenge her friend, or run and fulfill his dying wish to help her escape.

As the guards closed in, the young woman cursed her weakness and selfishness. She turned and fled.

Heart beating hard enough to burst from her chest, the young woman ran as fast as she could. The road down the hill was uneven and full of gravel with tiny sharp rocks that dug into the soft soles of her feet. She could not afford to stop, however as the pursuant clamor of armed guards hot on her heels.

The chains around her wrists sapped her strength and continue to take a heavy toll on her body as her legs began to give way beneath her weight. A particularly bad stumble sent the young woman staggering dangerously close to the edge of the road that was bordered by a steep cliff. Desperately, Ardyn attempted to steer away from its unforgiving edge but her legs gave out and with a scream of terror she tumbled over the edge.

Curling into a tight ball she attempted to avoid injury as much as possible could, but the sharp rocks dug into every bit of her body. The ground was unforgiving as she landed heavily, the wind knocked from her lungs. Her body spasmed as she attempted to take in a breath, but her lungs refused to work.

A distance voice cursed, “Shit! It fell! We’ll go down and trap it against the cliff, come on!”

“It’s a miracle, It’s still alive!” called another as they ran off.

A ragged breath finally entered Ardyn’s lungs before a violent, hacking cough overtook her. Rolling over, she clawed her way up onto all fours and pushed herself up. They were coming for her, she had to keep moving.

Glancing up, Ardyn found her salvation.

A town.

Stumbling into a shuffling, limping run she made her way over to where there would be other people. Ones that weren’t employed under the so called “scientists” who worked up in the newly destroyed lab.

As she got closer, Ardyn could see the townsfolk milling all about the edge of their houses and shops, watching with horror as the large building atop the mountain burned to ash. A few women noticed her and covered their mouths in shock.

“Help! Please help me.” The young woman begged, approaching the closest woman, her voice ragged and weak.

Her brown eyes stared at me in horror, “My poor dear, what on earth has happened to you?” she asked me, terrified. The motherly concern radiated off her in waves, and Ardyn felt some of the fear leave her.

“The Lab blew up and I was finally able to escape, please help me. Don’t let those men get me.” she pointed to the guards who had finally reached the bottom of the road and were sprinting towards them at full speed. It would only be another moment or two before they arrived.

“Young lady what were you doing up there? And why are you--?”

“She’s got a demon in her! Look! She’s wearing those special chains!” a man cried from my left and roughly grabbed me by the wrist and held my arms above my head to show the other villagers. The cloth that had been weaved through the links to prevent them from making noise fell out, and the chains rattled loudly, drawing everyone’s attention.

“Please,” Ardyn choked, “please don’t let me be taken back, I promise I won’t hurt anybody!” hope was dying in her chest. Her salvation quickly turned to damnation.

“Demon! Go back to hell!” another man from the crowd cried as the guards approached en masse.

Panicked, Ardyn began to struggle, desperate to escape. “Let me go!” she cried, tears streaming down her face. In desperation, she glanced to the woman who’d first spoken to her, but her face carried the same hatred as the rest of the villagers.

Without warning, the man threw the young woman down at the feet of the guards who were waiting patiently to see what would happen. “Here,” the man spat, “keep this under better watch, It put us all in danger. Just look what It did to your base!”

Ardyn lay on the ground where she’d been thrown, curled up in a ball trying to hide from the word and hoping against hope that if she curled up small enough that she would just disappear into the ground. The pain from her injuries began to ache and throb throughout her body, combined with the special cuffs, the young woman wasn’t sure if she could muster the strength to continue running. Her feet felt like they were on fire, no doubt shredded from all the sharp rocks and gravel. “Yes, It is very dangerous, your assistance in catching it is greatly appreciated. We’ll make sure It’s locked up nice and tight.” rough hands grabbed her arms and shoulders and without a care for her well being, hauled her up onto her feet. “It won’t be seeing the daylight again for a very long time after what it pulled today.”

The man speaking grinned cruelly, and Ardyn recognized him as the Lieutenant. A horrible, sadistic man who was second only to the now dead Captain when it came to enjoyment from her suffering. Unlike the late-Captain, who had taken pleasure in physical beating, this one preferred withholding food and water until the young woman had nearly died.

“That wasn’t m--!”

*SLAP!*

Her cheek burned with the sting of the backhanded slap.

“You can’t afford to let it speak; it talks of nothing but lies.” The Lieutenant lied, as the crowd hummed in agreement.

A coppery taste drifted into her mouth and Ardyn could tell that the inside of her cheek was bleeding. The last of her resolve slowly dissolved, it was over. They had caught her, maybe if she was good now, they wouldn’t be too horrible to her again.

Thick silent tears rolled down her cheeks. So, this was it then was it… this is how she would spend the rest of her life. A caged lab rat.

A lone voice spoke up from the crowd, “I can’t sit by and watch this anymore,” the click of a pistol cocking caught Ardyn’s attention as her head snapped up, “Let the girl go, now.”

Her savior was adorned in a pink kimono and their hair was done up in a womanly fashion. They levelled a gun at the Lieutenant’s temple and fiercely stared him down, daring him to disagree. The crowd stepped away from them, creating a wide berth to avoid association.

“This demon isn’t a girl; it just takes the form of one. You’ve been fooled by its lies.” the Lieutenant answered shakily, clearly intimated by the person holding a gun to his head. Ardyn stared in awe, she had never seen him scared before.

“People like you disgust me.” the mysterious figure, pushed the gun against the Lieutenant’s skin, and his throat bobbed as he swallowed nervously. “Let her go, I won’t ask again.” the rage was clear in the newcomer’s voice and the young woman felt hope surging in her heart once again.

“I would listen to him, boys. Izo isn’t one to make idle threats,” another male voice spoke up and the two holding me turned to another figure in a white suit and a very tall, brown pompadour hairstyle. He was holding twin blades and stood with a lazy confidence.

Using the distraction of yet another newcomer, Ardyn renewed her struggle to escape. Planting her feet, and thrusting upwards with all her strength, the young woman felt her skull collide with the noses of her captors. They cried out in pain; their grip momentarily weakened. She surged forward, attempting to run, but before she could take a full step, they had recomposed themselves. An arm wrapped around her neck and pulled her back into a solid chest, his grip constricted until she was choking.

“Filthy demon, hold still.”

The Lieutenant grit his teeth until a vein popped on his forehead, “How dare you interfere in our business? Don’t you know who we’re funded by?”

“I think you got bigger problems if you don’t know who we are, yoi.” a third man called from a rooftop, he wore a purple shirt and had a shock of blonde hair atop his head. Across his chest was emblazoned a blue cross with a half moon curving upwards through the center. Ardyn watched in awe as blue flames engulfed him.

As quickly as she’d been grabbed, she was released. The one holding her crying out in fear, “W-Whitebeard Pirates!”

At his exclamation, everyone scattered in panic. The guards forgot about me in their panic, and the townspeople created pandemonium as they pushed and shoved at their neighbors, desperate to be the first into the safety of their homes.

Ardyn covered her head to protect herself from the dust and debris that was thrown up in the wake of the panicking villagers.

Footsteps approached her back, and with a panicked glance over her shoulder, Ardyn saw the one dressed in white standing over her, “I think you boys understand the predicament you’re in now, yeah?” as he spoke, his gaze drifted down to the young woman at his feet. Blue gray eyes widened in fear, frozen where she lay. He smiled warmly, but it wasn’t until his attention returned to the Lieutenant that she could breathe properly again.

“So, we’ll give you a choice, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. But either way the girl will be coming with us.” the pink robed figure stated plainly, without any room left for argument.

“L-lieutenant, what do we do?” one of the grunts asked, fear clear in his voice even though he was still one of the braver (or more foolish guards) to have stayed.

There was a beat of tense silence as the newly appointed leader weighed his very limited options. Ardyn glanced up to see the lieutenant was still on the dangerous end of the pistol pointed at his head, while sweat bulleted down his temples. The sound of his teeth grinding was clearly audible even from where she lay.

“It’s not worthwhile to fight here and die for that… thing, boys.”

“But sir--!” cried one of the others.

“DO NOT QUESTION ME, PRIVATE! Our employers wouldn’t want to cross Whitebeard. Plus, this isn’t a fight we will win. Not against three Commanders,” he ground out clearly displeased with being overpowered in this situation.

The one in the kimono pulled his gun away with a small, triumphant smirk but he did not step away, nor did he disarm the weapon. The young woman watched with only minimal relief as the troupe of soldiers retreated up to the ruined lab. It was only once they were gone, did she realize the pirates themselves hadn’t moved.

The closest one in the pink kimono turned towards her and upon making eye contact her body flew back into a panic. Heart racing, and breathing fast, he scrambled to get on her feet and turn to crawl away. Traitorous arms failed her in that moment as they gave way beneath her, the shackles digging painfully into her skin.

“Woah, hey now,” the voice of the one in white reminded her that he was closer than she would have liked and renewed her struggle once more. Desperately kicking her legs, Ardyn attempted to stand, but her legs were too weak to support her further. All she gained were bloodied feet. A warm hand appeared on her back and instinctively, she curled tightly into a ball, expecting the worst. Shocked, the hand disappeared, but she refused to uncurl and expose herself, any second now, the blow would hit. Gravel crunched under someone’s shoes as another of the three approached.

“It’s okay, you’re safe now. We aren’t going to hurt you.” the voice of the pink robed one spoke gently, “You’re injured, come with us, we can help you.”

Ardyn curled tighter, this was surely too good to be true. What horrors awaited her on the pirate ship?

“Izo, look, she has sea stone cuffs.”

“A Fruit user…” Izo confirmed as Ardyn felt the chains jostle around her wrists. A trembling started up in her body, the terror finally taking hold of her.

A thud, and the crackle of flame caught her attention. The young woman dared a peek up to see the third member of the group land on the ground as blue flames dissipated from around him.

“Oh, and the little mouse pokes her head out to see the pretty birdy.” The one in white joked, a cheery grin breaking over his features. The one he was talking to glowered back at him and there might have been a retort of “Oi, I’m not a ‘pretty birdy, yoi.” But she took no heed, instead she saw another face flash over her eyes in that moment.

Kensei.

A deep ache took root in her heart as the brown-haired man turned to laugh at his compatriot in the purple shirt who returned his grin with a stoic mask. Ardyn could only stare at the man in white as he turned back to face her, the grin softened as he caught her gaze, “see? Nothing to be afraid of here, girlie. My name’s Thatch, that’s Izo” -he pointed to the one in pink- “and that’s Marco,” -he pointed to the one in the purple shirt- “we’re here to help you now, okay? you don’t need to be afraid anymore. You’re safe with us now. What’s your name, girlie?”

A large, scarred hand extended towards her, offering to help her stand. The young woman hesitated for a moment, surely if they were going to hurt her, they would have done so already. She had known evil and cruelty, it wasn’t something that could be hidden. It seeped through the pores of those infected with it, tainted their words. There was no evil from these three.

“Ardyn…” she replied weakly as she cautiously accepted the offered hand, gingerly placing her skeletal thin hand in his. Thatch’s grin widened, pleased that she had accepted his help. In one smooth motion he stood and pulled her along with him.

The raw, open wounds burned against the ground, and with a wince, she stumbled. Strong arms caught her and held her securely to a firm chest.

“Her feet are injured, Thatch you should carry her back to the ship, Marco fly ahead and warn Pops we’re brining someone back with us.” Izo delegated and Ardyn watched as blue flames once again engulf Marco. She didn’t realize they were wings, until he surged upwards and they extended to either side of him.

‘Oh, that’s what Thatch meant about ‘birdy.’’

“So your name is Ardyn? A good strong name for a girlie. Hold on now,” Thatch commented good naturedly as he whisked her feet out from underneath her, “and up we go!” the brown-haired man grunted as he straightened and she squeaked in surprise. “Sheesh, you’re naught but skin and bone! When did you last eat, girlie?”

His blunt question caught her off guard, and she could feel the blood rushing to her cheeks. Tears of shame pricked at her eyes as she dropped her gaze.

“Ah, I understand… I’m sorry, girlie.” The once boisterous man murmured quietly as he began walking down the path, his grin faltering only for a moment, “Don’t worry, we’ll make sure you’re well fed from now on.”

Ardyn couldn’t do much more but blink and nod wordlessly in agreement.

Izo followed as he muttered to himself, “how horrible. It’s a shame that base is already destroyed, I know I would have loved to do the honors.”

Another stab of pain lanced through her heart, that too had been a result of Kensei’s sacrifice. A hot tear dropped onto her chest as she once again attempted to curl into a ball. Thatch remained blissfully silent and said nothing about her behavior in his arms.

As they made their way through the town, Ardyn could feel the eyes of townsfolk on her as they passed, but she didn’t dare look up.

Thatch and Izo talked quietly to each other, but the young woman wasn’t listening to the specifics of the words. The soft rumble of the brown-haired man’s chest was soothing, and he was warm, immeasurably so. She couldn’t remember the last time she had been so comfortable.

Slowly, she began to relax. The tension slipping from her muscles, and by the time Ardyn heard footsteps on wood, she was nearly asleep. Not even the metal jingle of keys roused her. It wasn’t until the cuffs on her wrists dropped away did she fully realize what was happening.

“NO!” she cried, leaping from Thatch’s grip to land heavily on the wooden deck.

The shocked faces of Izo and Thatch were the last things she remembered before her vision exploded in white.

Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed the new and improved first chapter!

Please leave me a review if you’d like! I’d love to hear your thoughts and feedback!

#grandlineocs #othercrews #whitebeard pirates #whitebeard #marco the phoenix #thatch #izo #donquixote doflamingo #fanfiction #my writing

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lambs-rest · 4 years ago

Text

Shadowbringers - An Exchanging of Words

Track: Gwen Login Theme (Spotify | YT)

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"Are you ready?”

The Capitol towered over them, the three enormous front doors staring them down like looming brass monoliths. Amaurot had a knack for making her feel small and insignificant, but knowing who awaited her beyond those doors, knowing that the blossoming Light that drowned her soul threatened to break loose at any second, knowing he wouldn’t play fair…

She was terrified.

“Do you want me to stay?”

Granye shook her head at Ardbert’s offer, still clutching the visitor’s writ in both her hands. Surely by now, after that farewell, it was a crumpled mess. Surely she would be sent back to the Bureau of the Secretariat for another copy…

“You can do this, Granye. Remember what I promised you – I’ll be right there if you need me.”

She shut her eyes and breathed in slowly.

“Thanks Ardie.”

When she opened her eyes, he was gone. True to his word, he would leave her to confront the Architect on her own. Her first step was the hardest. After that, they flowed, and before she knew it, the middle doors swung open automatically at her presence, revealing the hall beyond.

It was grander than that of any of the previous Bureaus. The lights flooded the enormous space and the warm, multi-coloured stone tiling that spread through the hall, with dark geometric stone patterns stretching up the back wall where two particularly impressive gold doors stood. It was easy to imagine such a vast room being occupied by clusters of ancients, huddled in their own bubbles of conversation as they came and went through the smaller doors that branched off from the hall.

A shade waited just inside. Waiting for her, she knew. Granye approached them, craning her neck up.

"Welcome to the Capitol. All visitors must present an official writ of permission before admittance will be granted."

She held out the writ and the shade accepted, opening the envelope and unfolding the somewhat crinkled document before scanning through it.

"Your documents appear to be in order. You may proceed."

She nodded her head in thanks, then chided herself for doing so in the same instant. The shade faded before she could lift her head level again, stealing with it her document. Granye walked forward, her assumptions guiding her to the big gold doors at the back of the hall.

The all too familiar bubbling flurry of darkness erupted before she could reach them, halting her in place. When Emet-Selch emerged, Granye could barely wait for the darkness to swarm shut before she spoke. She wanted to say so many things – to accuse him, and ask him why. She wanted to hear his answers, even though she knew what he must say.

"Couldnae even wait fer me to find ye, hm?"

He crossed his arms. "I believe I've waited long enough. Perhaps I should have put arrows on the streets to aid you."

"After such a piss poor set of directions, aye, would've been nice to have some clear instructions on what to do once I got here."

"Yet here you are." He frowned slowly. "But my invitation was for an abomination, ripe with the power to bring about the world's annihilation. Not this half-broken mess that stands before me, held together by naught but the meddlesome Oracle's fraying bandages."

Granye forced a grin. "I thought it only manners to keep meself from droolin' all over yer floors."

He rolled his eyes before casting them beyond her and to the empty, open front doorway. "At least you've the sense to come alone. Though, I am surprised to see it so."

Granye lifted her chin. "I'm nae alone."

"Oh dear." He tutted, shaking his head pityingly. "It seems I underestimated how far gone your mind is."

Granye scoffed and folded her arms. "I's nae my fault yer eyesight’s failin’, old man."

The lapsing silence was uncomfortable; the calm before the storm. She could taste it; feel the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end as they stared at each other.

"So. What's the grand plan, exactly?"

Emet stared at her flatly. “After all this- You still haven’t figured it out?”

“I want to hear it from you.” She said firmly, staring at him, unblinking.

He rolled his eyes, tilting his entire head along with the motion. “All right, I’ll spell it out for you in plain Spoken. We shall continue our work – incite as many Rejoinings as needs be, until the star is whole once more. When that is complete, Zodiark will regain His full strength and shatter His prison. Then we shall offer up the Source's remaining inhabitants in sacrifice, that we might resurrect our brethren who died."

"Ye really think there'll be that many people left after another seven calamities?"

"Mankind is not the only inhabitant of the world whose life essence counts.” He said flippantly. “There we'll be enough.”

Her brow furrowed slightly. “And ye really think Zodiark’ll give back any of the power those lives ‘ave given Him?”

“Of course. He is the will of the star. He was born of our desire to save it, and ourselves.”

She tilted her head, smiling sadly, almost mocking him. “Oh, Emmie. Ye must understand that Primals dinnae work like that. I’s the one lesson the Ascians have drilled into our history – a mandate that built an empire. Primals – each and every one of ‘em – are a blight upon the star. They cannae be suffered to live.”

He had not thought that those words, spoken a literal lifetime ago, would come back to bite him so soon, or so hard. But the way she said it – the finality in her eyes, and the ring of conviction in her voice – made him want to shiver. The sight of the mortal’s champion going to war with their great god flashed into his mind, and though he slapped away the possibility of it ever coming to pass…he found the thought too vivid to put down to a fantastical ‘what if’.

If ever there was one who would plunge a blade into the hearts of those gods, of their greatest and final concepts…

“That’s quite the bold statement from you, when you can hardly stand.” Though he was no Speaker, he felt his own words drown out slow drip of uncertainty that chilled his veins. “Since you’re obviously not here to take advantage of my gracious offer of hospitality for your upcoming demise, what was it that you came here to do, exactly?"

Granye's frown deepened. "Ye ken why I'm here."

His right brow arched. "No, I really don't. You can't stop me, especially not in that state." He gestured in disgust at her, the cracks in her soul a glaring, ugly flaw to his eyes.

"I came to bring G'raha home."

"How noble of you." He rolled his eyes. "And ignorant. You can't have him. His secrets have the potential to open up myriad new possibilities."

Her glare sharpened.

"How far back would ye try an' go, Emet? To this moment? To the days before the fear corrupted Amaurot?"

He stared, caught off guard by the precision of her question.

"Or would it be after more'n two thirds o' yer kin gave their lives?"

Emet’s face twisted into an angry snarl. "You know not of which you speak."

"I know enough. Hythlo gave me a very clear history lesson. How sad that after all this time, I should get my answers from a shade 'stead o' you."

He grit his teeth, hissing like steam escaping a pot as he looked away. Damn that reconstitution!

Granye took one relaxed step forward. "But I also came because I wanted to understand where ye were comin’ from. Ye might be more willing to talk about yer motives than Lahabrea, but yer still shockingly terrible at making people relate."

He stared at her pathetic attempt of reaching out, and Granye looked at him with exasperation.

"Emet, yer nae the only one who's lost people they love. I ken it’s damn near impossible to get through that without at least talking to someone. I'm tryin' to help! Please, I dinnae want to–"

"You think your tattered souls of equal worth to those I lost!?" Emet fumed suddenly, eyes growing wild with indignant rage. “You would dare make a comparison of the two!? You do overstep your bounds!”

The step Granye had taken back suddenly reversed and she stepped forward, angered by his words. "Ye think yer the only one worthy o' grief?" She challenged, hissing. "Yer people were not perfect!"

"You-!

"They're just as flawed as the rest of us, only in different ways! Scared o' their own feelings; their own jealousy and differences in morality – I’ve seen it meself!” The two debaters arguing amicably about the theory of helping others; the shade that urged her to conform, to wear the matching plain clothes of their city. “Such eternal lives, an' they're all afraid to live them completely! It’s a bloody wonder how the three of ye thought up such a hare-brained scheme in the first place without bein’ paralysed by the immoral cost of it all!"

Granye shook her head. "…There’s only one thing I envy the ancients for; the confidence they had in their leaders. They listened to yer choice, an' obeyed because they trusted you."

"And that is precisely why we must-!"

"Stop it!” she snapped, leaning forward sharply. “Stop lying! Yer doin' this because ye cannae bear bein' alone anymore! So STOP passin' off yer pain as duty to the fallen! Own it!" Granye's shout bounced off the Capitol walls, ringing in his ears over and over until they faded.

"...It's okay." She croaked finally. "Yer allowed to be in pain! To be angry and scared, and to want to happy. Why are ye tryin' so hard to pretend yer nae goin' this far fer selfish reasons?"

His face twisted into a snarl. "Selfish?" Emet seethed. "You would stand in the way of the resurrection of a utopia, and you call me selfish!?"

"A poor utopia it would be, with no-one to fill it.” She retorted. “They didnae give their lives at yer request because they were expectin' to come back. They gave their lives because they believed in the Convocation—in the choices made! Ye only decided to beg that lump o' black crystal fer an undo when ye realised what the consequences of said choices were – that ye’d likely have to surrender the role of steward to another race in time because there just weren't enough of ye left! I've been here fer barely a bell an' already I ken what they'd say if yer plan worked an’ the ancients came back. They’d be horrified to ever know what cruelties you all committed to bring them back into bein’!"

"You think it unfair that you are subject to suffering? That your lives will be sacrificed for the ancients? That yours is the only life worth living!?” Emet spat. “Look at me! I have lived a thousand thousand of your lives! I have broken bread with you, fought with you, grown I'll, grown old! Sired children, and yes, welcomed death's sweet embrace!"

"So how come yer still so bloody ignorant to the value of our lives!? How dare you pretend to be on the same footin' as us!?" Granye thundered.

"Ye havnae died, yer standing right bloody here, fresh as a daisy! Yer meatsuits might've packed it in, but yer free to move onto the next whenever ye please! You die an' it's an experience. We die an' that's IT! Ye have no IDEA what it's like to truly be us! To be helpless and fragile and desperate fer safety! If ye spent half the effort ye put into makin' terrible empires into teachin' an' nurturin' mankind we might 'ave gotten somewhere in yer eyes!"

"For eons have I measured your worth and found you wanting! Too weak and feeble-minded to serve as stewards of any star!"

"On whose authority!? By whose BLOODY MEASURE!? Yer own skewed yardstick!? Ye make decisions that are nae yers to make! Ye piss away our lives like nothing!"

"They ARE nothing!"

"THEY'RE ALL WE'VE GOT!"

She hissed suddenly, pressing her hand to her chest, as if to physically stop the Light that clawed her insides from spilling over. Emet-Selch lowered his head, arms dropping to his sides, forcing himself to take slow, calming breaths.

"...Have your recent spats with Vauthry and his sin eaters taught you nothing? Have you not learned that your ignorance and frailty beget only endless misery?"

"Ye want to talk about Vauthry?" She forced out through her grimace. "The child you twisted into a monster 'fore he drew his first breath!? Every word that comes out of yer mouth is another notch on the board of how little ye understand us! I's nae wonder ye hate us so much."

"How much more of your bumbling interference would you force me to endure?" He breathed, exhausted. “How many times would you have me watch, over and over, the futility of man’s pathetic steps through time? You blame me for my work with Allag and Garlemald, and yet you do not pause to think of the ages prior, where we watched and waited and hoped that the beings who survived would prove their value. Time and time again, we beheld the true nature of those who succeeded our kin! If you had witnessed your bloody history as I have you, would not spout such nonsense!”

Granye grit her teeth, her insides snapping with the strain of Light, lashing out of control with her emotions as he continued.

"Let us imagine that the laws of reality are again undone, and the world faces true annihilation. Do you honestly believe that half your number would sacrifice themselves to save the other!?"

"NO! I may be a fool but I'm nae that much o' one!" she barked back, breathing hard. "But I would never allow tha' in the first place. I would NEVER allow it! One soul - one sacrifice! Tha's all ye need to bring about a change—Minfilia proved that! An' I would throw myself on any fire before I let half the bloody world die in me place! Tha's what we do. We protect each other! The strong take blows fer the weak so that they can grow! Yer people knew that better than any, didnae they!? Tha's why they chose to give their lives. So how are we any different? Apart from the ridiculous reserves of aether and magic—what makes us so different to you?"

He spat, disgusted at the very thought of comparing the two. “You are welcome to go back out into the streets and see once more for yourself.”

Granye felt her lungs aching with every breath. "We're flawed. I know that better'n most! We can be stupid and weak and greedy! But we're nae the sum of our imperfections. We're so much more, an' the fact that yer eyes are so clouded ye cannae see that is YOUR failing, not ours! Yer wrong!"

Emet, shutting his eyes slowly, sighed before he shook his head. "…It makes no difference what you shout. You cannot be entrusted with our legacy. I will bring back our brethren. Our friends. Our loved ones. The world belongs to us and us alone."

Granye couldn't hold off from holding her side any longer, from doubling over in pain and gasping.

"...Liar! LIAR!" She dropped to one knee, heaving as she fought to speak. "Amaurot was nae the only city! Yer people were nae the only ones, even back then! It was Zodiark who made the first Spoken races, after the ancients died to return life, aye!? It was–" she coughed abruptly, letting the liquid cough past her lips, desperate to get her words out before he left. Before he turned his back on her again. "It was yer god who gave us our flaws! Yer choice that backfired in yer faces! Dinnae dare spin it on us an' say WE failed, when YOU dropped the ball so bloody hard!" Granye curled her hand into a fist, pressing it to the cool stone floor.

"You…were supposed to protect us. To guide us! Ye abandoned yer duty because ye couldnae let go of the past! An' now ye want it back!? Ye left the world to fend for itself, nae only against the struggles of life, but against yer own damn schemes!" She clenched her teeth, light dribbling from her lips as she pushed herself up, back to her feet and glared at the back of his head.

"Ye dinnae get to go back and undo everythin' because it didnae turn out how ye wanted! Yer supposed to raise what comes after, no matter what! To help us be stronger and smarter, an' encourage the best in us! Instead ye turned us against each other. Imagine where we'd 'ave gone with the Ascians guidin' us! But you chose to prey on our every vice instead. Ye nurtured the worst in us because ye could nae bear the idea o' there bein' somethin' good to come out o' yer loss! War after senseless war-! You did that! Ye broke us down every bloody time!"

Granye wiped her mouth, flashing her teeth. "Do not dare claim yer path is righteous when ye failed so miserably at yer duty! Ye have no right to hate us so much fer what we are, when ye did NOTHING to mentor us!"

He kept walking. She couldn’t see the curl of his lip, or the unholy anger in his eyes. Her words clawed his ears, poured salt into ancient, throbbing wounds. He would not hear any more.

Granye panted hard, her breathing ragged and torn.

"I will not abandon my duty! Do you hear me!?” Her voice cracked. The words made her feel sick. She knew what it meant; what she was committing to. “Even though I hate what it costs me, I will not fersake those under my protection! I will fight fer those in the here and now, fer the ones I love, an' fer the ones I have lost! I will not let them be forgotten! Even if…" Granye was forced to draw a quick breath while her head spun. “Even if I’m the only one who remembers!”

So many faces and names, so many smiles and stories she had learned over the years. Friends and enemies alike – the tales that spanned decades, even centuries. They were hers to protect, to remember and share. Their songs were hers to sing. If she failed, who would hear Ratatoskr’s melody? Who would hear the Greatwood’s greeting, or the tale of the Dawn and Dusk Wyrms and their brood? Who would know the truth of Ardbert and his companions? Who would hear Hydaelyn’s lament, and Amaurot’s elegy to its long-dead past…

"...You believe yourself worthy to inherit the mantle of steward?”

Granye lifted her head, the hand on her side clawing at her flesh with the pain. He stood before the doors, watching her with that singularly unsettling gold stare that pierced through flesh and cut to the soul.

“Then come!”

A loud, muffled bang echoed in the hall as his raised his arms wide and the doors at his back swung open, groaning at their own weight, as though they and not Bismarck’s breath held back the ocean.

“Prove your worth. Witness the coming oblivion – the end of our era, and the beginning of our great work."

It was fire that met her stare and that drowned the scene beyond, leaping and crackling at the doorway, desperate to race free and flood into the rest of the Capitol, into the Tempest itself. The flickering tendrils licked and pulled at his coat, dragging him into the flames, like the hands of adoring ghostly lovers. The heat made her eyes water, made her doubt her sight when she thought she saw the great towers of Amaurot in crumbling ruins beyond.

Above the roaring blaze, she heard his voice.

“Your final judgement awaits, challenger.”

She took a step toward the searing heat the buffeted her clothes and hair. One step after another, dragging herself toward the end. Toward those dreadful Final Days, the inevitable event that she must witness, that formed such an immovable lead weight in her gut.

Her right leg buckled, and Granye fell to her hands and knees, chest heaving and ears ringing. The fire burned and crackled too loud, too fierce! It made her head spin. She couldn’t do this alone. Where…? Where was-

"Granye!"

The glow that hazed her vision grew brighter as suddenly, Ardbert was there, crouched and trying to keep himself in her sights. Had she said his name aloud, or had he somehow known? Ardbert hovered near her, wanting to put his hand on her shoulder to steady her, but unsure of how helpful it would be.

"Hang in there. We're almost through this."

"I'm...trying-!"

"Granye!"

Ardbert lifted his head suddenly, a smile of relief breaking over his face. "They're here. They're here! You're not going into this fight with nothing but my good words to keep you standing, you hear me?"

Granye cracked a faint smile. "Yer good words would've been enough."

"Gods, I'd cuff you for that if I could." He laughed.

And suddenly there were hands on her, people surrounding her, chasing Ardbert from her sight.

"Granye-!"

"What were you thinking, running off alone!? Do you know how worried we were!?"

"Are you all right? Is the Light-"

"Where is Emet-Selch, and the Exarch!?"

"All right, all right, back up, all of you!" Thancred said loudly, cutting through the flurry of panicked questions.

Ryne and the twins eventually stepped back and Urianger took their place, offering his arm to help her stand. He held her steady until she stopped swaying on her feet.

"I'm... I'm all right. Thanks, angel."

Y'shtola's tense frown was the first glowering stare she she saw when she looked down, but certainly not the only one. Granye sheepishly dropped her head.

"I'm sorry. I didnae want any of ye to be around if... somethin' went wrong. I couldnae handle waitin' around to do the Ondo's chores."

Y'shtola pursed her lips. "I hope you at least managed to put your head start to good use, then."

"Aye. Aye, I did. No luck finding G'raha, but..." She looked beyond, into the roaring inferno. "Emet's waiting inside."

"What else awaits, I wonder." Thancred mused darkly, glowering at the blaze.

Granye shut her eyes. "The end of their world. The calamity to end all calamities. This city’s a bubble—a moment in time he recreated. Everything is...a record. His memory of their Final Days. We're going to see why they created Zodiark, an' what they were trying to stop."

Alisaie looked up at her with a frown. "Is that a genuine 'we'?"

Granye nodded. "Aye. I cannae go in there without all o' ye with me..."

"Then why did you skulk away? You're not well, Granye, and we wouldn't have found you at all if we hadn't heard your shouting." Ryne pressed.

Granye sighed and looked despondently at the floor tiles. How to put it into words they would understand…?

"You wanted to speak to him alone, didn't you?" Alphinaud said softly. "To try it your way first."

She exhaled, the breath trembling past her lips before she nodded. "I had to..." Granye raised her head. "But I’m nae so fool as to think I can do this part alone."

Thancred put his hand on his gunblade, staring at the flames. “And you won’t have to. We’re seeing this through to the end. Together.”

——————————

<- Previous TBW | Next TBW ->

#muse; insufferable lover #granye #granye x lahabrea #The lyrics title is relevant because *snaps fingers* guess who was listening nearby~#Oh! Well imagine! As i'm pacing the streets near the Capitol~#I can't believe how much this argument fell into place when i was writing #like the arguments definitely needed some finagling but MMMM love when it all clicks

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note-katha · 6 years ago

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Evenfall Chapter One

Alright, according to my notes, it’s just about time for the story to begin. Now, before we get started, we should review some very important things.

What we discuss while this story unveils you might want to keep secret. You could tell people, but then I’d tell you to expect more than a few weird looks and questions about your mental stability. If that’s what you were aiming for, go ahead!

I personally find that keeping the ongoings of Everless a much more favorable (and easier!) solution.

Secondly, I hope you don’t find yourself at a loss with all the information the story requires, I understand that there’s quite a bit you don’t know, but that doesn’t mean you can’t learn! Learning is very important and you can count on me to be a wonderful teacher!

So, without further ado, let’s begin!

The Melpomene dorm was the school’s oldest dorm, the first one built and the smallest to boot. It wasn’t used as often as the other dorms, only really being used if there were too many students. Or given to a very particular type of students, which was quite rare but not unwelcome. Usually.

For one reason or the other, Kalavathi, Juli, and Ardis found themselves assigned to the dorm, taking residence alongside six others.

Taking the other suite on the single floor of the dorm was a quartet of second-year students who seemed very...odd.

While we know that there is much more to the world than humans, these people seemed to barely pass as such.

Oh yes, and filling out the fourth slot in their room was a girl named, hm, really? One moment, let me check this.

Right, yes, yes, that’s actually her name? Wow.

Filling out the fourth slot in their room was a girl named “Mary Sue”. Yes, really. I can’t believe it either.

The final person in the dorm was their “RA”, resident advisor. A relatively charming demon-type who rarely fit the assumed archetype for demons. Don’t let the horns fool you, they’re very nice. You see, however, the problem with demon names is that they’re written and pronounced in a script which is also used in magic, usually demonic specific magic. It’s not hard to say words in that script normally, but those not trained to know the difference usually face some problems.

Their name will damn any normal human that attempts to say it to another realm in which no one has ever been able to return to, so when I tell you, don’t say it out loud.

It’s Tattvagyega. They usually go by Tatti or Cels. They visit me frequently and we talk about the people trapped there. Cels visits them to apologize and bring snacks. They make a mean sugar cookie, you should try them one day.

Apologies, that was off-track, let’s focus on our main trio, yes?

Kalavathi was the first, as usual, to arrive. “So, this is my new home,” she thought aloud, as she was prone to do. “Could be worse,” she shrugged, pulling the school-provided luggage cart behind her as she walked up. Kal pulled the keys to the dorm out, this building is so old they have keys instead of cards, scary, I know. She unlocked the door, entering the quaint and warm building. She walked in backwards, in order to properly pull the cart in.

“Hello!” A voice called out to her, “Welcome! I’m your RA, Cels Ev’rals. You are?” Kal didn’t answer for a moment as she yanked the cart into the building.

“My name’s Kala—” she cut herself off with a panicked scream when she finally turned around. Cels was a demon, a Southern Demon to be exact, which meant deep red skin and curly, ram-like, horns. I can see why that would be a bit scary, especially for someone like Kal who managed to make it this far without realizing that Evenfall wasn’t normal.

Cels frowned, cocking their head to the side before glancing down. “Aw man, I forgot my glamour, didn’t I?” They, in fact, had but with a quick rambling recitation of their glamour spell, the young demon appeared far more human. A deep tan and messy brown hair replaced their demonic visage. “Better?” they asked.

Kal stared blankly for a moment, running through what had just happened in her mind. As rational as she usually was, she had had a sneaking suspicion that Evenfall wasn’t normal, one that was just confirmed. Taking into account that information she groaned. Quite loudly as she crouched to the floor.

Cels took a step forward, unsure how they could help.

“Kalavathi Nayri, I prefer Kal and I’m a Computer Science and Graphic Design double major.” She took a moment to regain her composure and stand. “On my acceptance, it said W, Creation. I have no idea what that means.”

“Oh, Creation Witch?” Cels offered, glancing at his list, “That matches up. You’re our only second circle. Nice.”

Kal opened her mouth to ask questions.

“Wait till orientation, they’ll explain better than I can.”

“Alright,” Kal nodded. “Nice to meet you, by the way, Cels,” she said, offering a hand to shake. Cels beamed as they accepted the handshake.

It was now that our second and third main characters finally managed to make their first appearances in considerably less fanfare than Kalavathi.

Ardis pushed the door open, scanning the room with a hesitant expression. Or, rather, it seemed like a mostly blank one, but that’s because Ardis isn’t the best at facial emotions. I can relate, Ardis, so don’t feel bad.

“Hello?” He called out to the two. “Uh, I’m here to move in?”

Cels waved, “Hello, welcome!” They took a few steps back, giving room for Kal and Ardis to adjust their carts, along with a third person, whom as previously mentioned, is Juli. “Welcome to Evenfall, if I can get you two’s names, I can leave you alone to unpack before your orientations.”

“Ardis Akiya-Blair, freshman Astrobiology major.”

“The Nature Witch,” Cels said aloud as they checked it off, “And you?”

“Juli Cárdenas Rivera Silva Vicente,” she answered without hesitation, “Major is currently undecided.”

“The Voice Witch, nice to meet you guys. Let me know if you have any questions! This right here,” they pointed at the entrance right beside the group, “is actually your suite. Four rooms, a full kitchen, and a common area. We’ll deal with rooming agreements tomorrow, you guys relax tonight and have fun at orientation.” Cels gave them a charming smile, as they were prone to do, smile before heading off.

“Uh, they’re not human,” Kal said as she faced the group. “Are you human? You look human but I’m not sure what to trust anymore.”

“I’m pretty sure I’m human,” Ardis nodded, “I found out about the magical thing, which might make me not human.” He shrugged, “My name’s Ardis, by the way.”

“Kalavathi, but you can call me Kal,” she answered on instinct, “Thinking about it now, I probably shouldn’t be that surprised that this school isn’t normal.”

“Yeah, I kind of just came because it was in-state for me. Magic was not expected,” Juli admitted, “Call me Jules, nice to meet you guys! We’re suitemates it seems, huh?” She grinned at them, “Then that means we gotta team up to figure out everything new we’re gonna experience.” Ah, fortunately, Jules was at the very very confident end of her confidence spectrum. Good, that’s going to help today.

There was a beat of silence and before anyone could speak, the door swung open.

“Of course, I get this kind of dorm,” someone groaned loudly as they entered.

Ah, yes, her. Mary Sue stepped into the building, her blonde hair tied up into a ponytail. A somewhat ridiculous expression of apparent irritation. Her scowl got worse as she looked around as if she had heard something.

She eyed the group, “Do you know where the RA is?”

The three pointed in the direction Cels had gone in. Without even any thanks, she walked off to find Cels.

Jules frowned lightly, but shrugged, “Hey, anyone have a preference about their rooms in the suite?”

“Let’s get into the suite first, then pick,” Kal offered, “We should head over for orientation afterward.” Aw, Kal’s trying to socialize. I’m so proud of her!

Orientation took place in the school’s amphitheater, the heart of Evenfall University’s campus and a typically beautiful place which students often used as a hangout spot.

However, now, as the sun was slowly beginning to set, students of all types that made up the freshman class were finding seats on the grass. Many whispering between each other, trying to figure out what was going on.

Not too long after our trio arrived, taking seats close to the stage, did they notice the two professor-looking adults milling about on the stage itself.

“What school does their orientation when it’s getting dark?” Kal murmured, “On top of that, what school makes their freshman wait until the day after orientation to sign up for classes?”

“It’s certainly weird,” Ardis nodded, “The school’s seemingly pretty well functioning, so I don’t think there’s much cause for worry.”

Before Kal could respond, there was a small commotion. The two professors scrambling off the main stage before an explosion of smoke erupted and spilled out of nowhere.

Lights were the first thing visible. Shapes on the grass, ones that began to light up everywhere.

A line within a triangle within a square within a pentagon, all starting from the very top of the pentagon with a small dot in the center. Ah, yes, the Five Circles of Magic! A lovely symbol.

Once the smoke dissipated, there stood a woman, brightly smiling and illuminated by the sigil beneath her feet.

“Welcome to Evenfall University!” The woman waved, “My name is Suvati Kair and I’m the Dean here at Evenfall.” Ah, yes, Suvati. Her flair for the dramatics will never end, it seems. “I’m sure many of you have questions, so allow me to explain.” With a flick of her wrist and a recitation of something that wasn’t exactly English, lights began to flicker to life around her, fifteen to be exact. “It might come as a surprise to some, though I imagine at least a few of you have figured it out, but Evenfall is home to one of many magical universities devoted to providing a place of education and safety to all students. We also work to find students with Nevermore heritage or magical background in order to educate them on their identity and abilities.” She pointed at one of the professors, “Dr. Avali here will take over to discuss the basics of what Nevermore and Everless are.”

Dr. Avali, an Angel, and not exactly the type you’ve read about, though I can see why you’d think that, with the fluffy white wings and all, took center stage.

“Hello, my name is Dr. Alex Avali, I’m a professor here, I teach a variety of mathematics classes along with the Angelic Educa class here at Evenfall University,” he began, his voice managing to ring throughout the amphitheater yet remain soft. He’s using a vocal enchantment charm, to explain. Alex loves those things, he doesn’t have to raise his voice for people to hear him. “We’ll start with what is Everless. The answer? This.” He waved his arms around, “Here is Everless. This town, this country, this continent, this world, this solar system, galaxy, universe.” Dr. Avali listed.

He glanced around, not seeing enough understanding in the students. I know I could explain it far better, but he continued. “We are the other side of the pond, but I don’t mean across the pond. Everless is the place when you jump into the pond and emerge on the other side. The other side to us is Nevermore, the birthplace of magic.”

Kal leaned forward, entranced. She didn’t need to spare a glance to her new roommates to know that they shared in her wonder.

Taglist, asked to be added or removed: @spacebrick3, @no-url-ideas-tho, @arynneva, @superwaywardangel, @likeicarusifall @aschenink, @writing-for-the-batfam, @ekrizdis, @wiccanchester

#notetalking #note writes #my writing #writing #project: evenfall

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thatssonanii · 6 years ago

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Excuse Me, Miss

Bloodline Family Series Shorties / Family Ties

"That purple, Sissy."

"It sure is," Haleigh nodded.

The sisters stopped so Melody could point to and stare at a poster on the wall. They were backstage of the arena at the Raw after Wrestlemania. Haleigh’s mom, her other siblings, aunts and cousins had come along with her, Ardian and Carlito and of course Melody didn't want anyone but her sister.

Ardian and Carlito had gone ahead to meet Rezar and Roman in catering while the sisters stopped off at the bathroom. Haleigh had been to enough shows with her daddy to know how to maneuver backstage without getting lost.

"Alright, pretty girl. Let's go meet up with Daddy." Haleigh told her pulling on her hand a bit.

Melody looked up at her and smiled. "Daddy eat, eat, Sissy."

Haleigh laughed pulling her sister along. "Yeah, he's getting food, baby. Come on."

Wrestlers that had been around Haleigh as she grew up, spoke to her and Melody, who wasn't very fond of anyone talking to her, on their way to catering. The sisters stood in the entry way as Haleigh looked around trying to spot one of the men she was looking for.

"Excuse me, Miss."

Haleigh stopped looking around the room and looked to her left at the person talking to her. She smiled a bit to be polite and Melody glared at them.

"Uh yes?"

"I'm sorry for just walking up on you like that, you just looked a little lost." He told her smiling and rubbing his hands together.

Melody let go of her sister's hand to move around so she could find Roman. She wanted Roman to make him go away.

"Oh no," Haleigh laughed, "I'm not lost. I'm just looking for someone. Thank you though."

"Whoever let you roam around here by yourself is a fool. You're too beautiful to be by yourself. I'm Lio. What's your name?"

"Uh, thanks, Lio. It's Haleigh and I really need to find someone so," she said trying to go around him but he didn't budge.

Lio laughed and Melody growled at him catching his attention. He bent down to her level smiling.

"Hey there, cutie. What's your name?"

Melody held onto Haleigh’s leg and jumped at Lio. "My sissy. You go 'way."

"Be nice, pretty girl."

Lio stood back up, moving his focus back to Haleigh. "She's cute. So what is it gonna take for you to let me take you out?"

"No, um that's not gonna work. I'm sorry, do I not look familiar to you?" Haleigh asked trying to be as nice as she could.

"You look like the girl of my dreams if that's what you mean."

Melody had finally spotted her daddy standing with Rezar, Ardian, Carlito and a few other men. She took off towards them not giving Haleigh a chance to catch her. When she got to Roman she pulled on his pants leg till he picked her up.

"Hey Babygirl," Roman said happily. "Where's Sissy?"

Melody pointed in the direction she came from. "Him move from Sissy, Daddy."

"Is that Lio? The hell is he doin by my daughter," Roman growled under his breath. "Rezar, can you hold her please?"

All three men looked in the direction she was pointing and sucked their teeth. Haleigh had her arms crossed and a frown on her face, clearly unimpressed with whatever Lio was laughing about.

"Nah," Ardian said shaking his head, "I got it. Dad, you'll hold Lito for me, real quick?" He passed his son to Rezar getting ready to cross the room to get to Haleigh.

"You sure? Cause I can handle it, been doin it her whole life."

Ardian nodded, very sure of himself. "I got it. I be back."

As Ardian approached them, he locked eyes with Haleigh, who visibly lit up. She was very happy to see him so she could get away from Lio.

"What's up man? Why you so close to her?" Ardian asked looking Lio up and down.

Lio frowned a bit then started laughing. "Her and I was just chopping it up about this date ima take her on. Ain't that right, Red?"

"No, not at all and my name isn't Red."

Ardian shrugged, unable to fight the smirk on his lips. "Ion know man, don't sound like she goin nowhere with you. So do yourself a favor and go about your business."

"Don't really think we were talkin to you so why don't you step away. Let me finish talking to the beautiful lady."

Laughing a bit to himself, Ardian turned to Haleigh and kissed her lingering for a few seconds then turned back to Lio. She was taken back by Ardian's boldness, she wasn't used to him being that way.

"And I think you're done talking to her. You've embarrassed yourself enough, it's not gon happen. Right, baby?"

Haleigh mumbled a small yes, staring hard at her boyfriend as she switched her weight from foot to foot a few times.

"That's alright, she knows where to find me later when she wants a real man that can give her what she needs," Lio quipped still laughing.

"What is it that you think she needs?" Ardian asked folding his arms across his chest.

Lio grabbed himself through his joggers, "You know that answer already, son."

Haleigh scoffed, disgusted at the audacity. If Lio hadn't already offended her with his terrible flirting that was definitely the nail in the coffin. Ardian swung his arms at his side laughing along with Lio then swung his right fist. His fist colliding with Lio's jaw knocking him to the floor.

Ardian squatted down beside Lio, who wad holding his jaw, ignoring Haleigh and Roman calling his name and Rezar fussing at him in Dutch.

"Disrespect my lady again, in front of me or not, and ima do worse than that next time." Ardian smacked his face lightly before standing back up. He ignored his father's co-workers staring to approach Haleigh. "You aight?"

Haleigh nodded folding her arms once again. "I'm alright, Ardian. You didn't have to do that."

"Like hell he didn't," Roman fussed.

Rezar passed Carlito back to Ardian, Roman passed Melody to Haleigh and both snatched Lio up off the floor. Rezar called Ardian once more.

"Yeah, Dad?" Ardian answered never turning away from Haleigh.

"We talk later."

Ardian nodded as both their fathers left the catering area with Lio in front of them. Haleigh leaned in to kiss his cheek.

"That was nice of you to do that, Ardian. Thank you."

"Don't thank me for doing my job, Pig Tails."

Haleigh nodded then turned her attention to Melody, who was smiling. "What's so funny, Melly?"

"Ardi hit him, Sissy!"

"Yeah," she laughed, "He hit him because he said something not nice to Sissy, pretty girl."

Melody's eyes lit up and she reached out for Ardian. Even though Ardian was praying to himself that she didn't bite him again, he traded kids with Haleigh and held Melody in his arms.

"What's up, Mel?"

"Me like you, Ardi," she giggled kissing his cheek.

Haleigh laughed at his facial expression. "Don't look so shocked, crusty."

"Shit, I am," he said honestly.

"Come on let's go find our seats," Haleigh said leaving the catering area. "And we will talk about what happened later. Alone."

Ardian smirked, "Alone or alone, alone?"

"Alone, alone."

#bloodline family series shorties #family ties #ardian & haleigh #Carlito #Haleigh & Melody #Rezar #roman & kandice

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ncfan-1 · 6 years ago

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The Mirror Pool

One day, Lúthien took Galadriel to a mirror pool. [Written for the April 1st general prompt, In the Mirror.]

[Also on AO3 | Dreamwidth | Pillowfort]

Honestly, Lúthien had not expected Ardis—Celeborn had taken to calling her ‘Galadriel,’ but Lúthien did not sense much in her in response to the name, asides from ambivalence, and thus, to Lúthien, she remained Ardis—to agree to her request to accompany her out into the depths of Region. Ardis had shown little interest in exploring the wide forests of Doriath. She was hardly bereft of natural curiosity—Lúthien didn’t think her mother had ever had so eager or so diligent a pupil—but that natural curiosity did not seem to extend to the natural world.

The offer had been made largely out of sympathy, though there was some desire for Ardis’s company interwoven with that sympathy. Winter had been a hard one, the snowdrifts deep and the skies absolutely choked with clouds, and Ardis had withered like an autumn flower that died with the first hard frost. Lúthien had known very few of the exiles, but Ardis’s brothers had had the same reaction, and when Lúthien attempted to divine the answer, she was met with jagged spires of ice, and walls behind that Lúthien could have broken through if she wished to, but did not care to shatter. There were lines that should not be crossed without permission, doors whose locks should not be picked. The lesson had been slow in the learning, but Lúthien remembered it.

Today was the first properly warm day of spring, and Lúthien had thought that Ardis, who had spent the entirety of winter immured in Menegroth, would appreciate the opportunity to come out of the depths of the caves into the sunlight and the fresh air. And perhaps Ardis would like to take a walk around the part of the forest closer to Menegroth later, but Lúthien had not expected this to be the offer that Ardis accepted.

Being wrong was always startling, but in this case, it was also welcome.

“That’s right, you never have been to this part of Region, have you?”

Ardis nodded, the heavy, deliberate nod that was so uniquely hers that it would have looked utterly unnatural on anyone else. “I cannot say that I have.” A frown flitted over her lips, translating into a faint jitter in her mind that Lúthien heard in a flurry of sharp whispers behind Ardis’s skin, before everything smoothed back out, thoughts and face both. “The path I travel from Finda—“ she frowned again, and the jittering disquiet in her mind persisted into her speech “—Finrod’s stronghold does not pass through this part of Region.”

The background noise that had flowed out of Ardis’s mind had been, Lúthien knew, completely involuntary, and she knew also that Ardis was not the sort of person who would appreciate Lúthien’s prying, no matter how well-intended it might have been. Lúthien did not think it a trait shared by all the Tatyar; Ardis’s older brother seemed frankly eager for someone to discuss things with, for all that he would lead a merry dance around the point of the subject at hand. There, the need for privacy and the need for comfort were locked in an eternal clash. In Ardis, Lúthien saw the battlefield where the former had prevailed over the former long ago.

“Excellent,” Lúthien said brightly, and constructed her face so that her smile was just as bright. “We can go slowly, if you wish. When experiencing this beauty for the first time, I wouldn’t want you to miss any of it.”

From Ardis, there came a movement of the shoulders that wasn’t quite a shrug. “As you like.”

Lúthien slowed her pace so that they walked shoulder to shoulder, trying to ignore the way the song of contentment in her breast had been replaced by a giddy cacophony. Someone who could not think clearly would make a poor guide, though she knew they had no set destination in mind, and that Ardis’s silence was of a kind that did not desire to be roused to speech. She just—sunlight poured through the gaps in the trees, dappled and golden and wonderfully warm, and Ardis’s hair glinted like veins of the gold and silver it was oft describe as—needed to keep her mind.

And the forest of Region was such a lovely place in spring that there was no need for Lúthien to give any commentary. The verdant green leaves on the holly trees shone like polished emeralds. Scattered among them were the other residents of the forest, beech and yew, elm and rowan, sprawling oaks and slender cherry trees. Some of these trees were crowned with delicate, fragrant flowers, nearly all with new, translucent leaves, and all were so gloriously awake that if Lúthien had sang to them, she would have half-expected them to sing back. The next time Lúthien encountered an Onod, she would have to ask them the ways her songs could reach the trees; she knew there were ways, she just didn’t know how to go about it.

The ground was soft and sun-kissed under Lúthien’s feet. The ground was blanketed with new, vivid, sweet-smelling shoots of grass, with flowers quivering in the gentle breeze coming up from the south. The snowy-white niphredil were long-loved, and would be in full bloom for the rest of spring. Hellebore shot up above the niphredil flowers nodding in the breeze, white petals dappled with wine-violet speckles. Clumps of yellow primroses and early, slender pink harebells dotted the forest floor in all directions. Lúthien saw smudges of violet and blue, but didn’t care to stretch her sight to determine just what they were. The air was filled with a sweet perfume, and the swifts had returned to the forest and were darting through the trees, chirping cheerily.

There really was nothing Lúthien could say that would be up to the task of adequately describing what she experienced. She knew that Ardis could not hear all the things that she could. She knew that Ardis, no matter how gifted she might be, could not hear all the undercurrents of song that thrummed so loudly in Lúthien’s veins. There had only ever been one person who could hear everything that Lúthien could hear. It was… That was stifling.

You would think that if there were those who were fully of the Eldar who could hear everything that I can hear, Ardis would be among them. Lúthien looked down at Ardis, who was beginning to survey her surroundings with more open interest than she was willing to evince before. She quickly looked away—Ardis seemed always to know when someone was looking at her, and Lúthien would rather not be caught—and the stifling feeling only grew.

Mother’s tutelage could introduce the students to mysteries that they would never otherwise have had access to, or even knowledge of. Perhaps with Ardis, who unlike the others had had access to and perhaps teaching from Mother’s kin in the Blessed Realm, would be able to bridge the gap. Lúthien would like that. The Iathrim looked at her and saw someone far beyond them, someone to be held in awe as much as loved. It would be a welcome change to be with someone who had something resembling the same perceptions as her.

“Were there forests such as this in the Blessed Realm?” Lúthien knew Ardis to not speak of the Blessed Realm especially easily. Once, she’d spoken of them very easily, but after the truth of the Exiles’ departure came to light, words had stopped flowing, slowing to a trickle so miniscule as to barely be noticeable. This would be a safe topic, surely. There was nothing to hearken back to the unrest that had soured the bliss of the Blessed Realm in a question about forests, surely.

Still, Ardis’s answer was slow in the coming. She halted, another small frown marring the statuesque perfection of her face. None of the jittery disquiet echoing in her mind this time, just a harder current to try and push information through.

“There are few places in Aman where the Ainur have poured as much of their power into a location as the queen has here,” Ardis said at last. “There was little need, in such a place as Aman. Little need for more beauty, and no need for more safety. In many regards, I would say that Doriath is unique. The closest we had in Aman to this were the gardens of Lórien.”

“What are they like?” Lúthien asked curiously. “Mother doesn’t speak of them often; she says there’s no point to it, when there is so much to occupy us here.”

A low, hoarse chuckle slipped from Ardis’s mouth. “A direct quote?”

Lúthien rolled her eyes and laughed. “Yes, that was a direct quote.”

Ardis pursed her lips, though the ghost of her chuckle glimmered still in her eyes. “The land had much the same resonance as the forests of Doriath. The power of the Ainur was very strong there, strong enough that even the untrained and the uninitiated could sense it. Indeed, the unprepared were likely to be overwhelmed. The flora was infused with the power of Irmo and Estë and the Maiar who attended them. The gardens were more alive than the surrounding lands.”

She did not elaborate on that, but she didn’t really need to. Lúthien had never left the eaves of Doriath, but she knew many who had. They had described the differences well enough that Lúthien could paint a picture in her own mind. She couldn’t imagine what it would have been like to live in a place untouched by her mother’s power. The thought was forlorn, but also oddly exciting.

“I wonder…”

Lúthien fell silent, frowning.

Ardis peered up into her face, her sharp green eyes trying to scour past the skin, though with a mind such as Lúthien’s, her chances of success were close to nil. “What is it?”

Lúthien waved her off. “It’s nothing.” It would likely be something, in a few minutes. Her eyes fell on a patch of reflected sky, and she strode towards it, beckoning for Ardis to follow. “Here is something that might interest you.”

The two knelt by a wide pool. It was perfectly round, with a smooth, stony lip and a diameter that was perhaps the same length as the length of Lúthien’s arm, from shoulder to fingertips.* The surface remained as smooth as polished obsidian, no matter how strong the wind was. It never dried up, no matter how little rain there had been, and it never overflowed, no matter how much rain there had been. The water was always cool enough to send prickles up Lúthien’s flesh, and there was an undertone of power to the still water that whispered to her spirit.

Ardis did not disappoint today; barely a moment after she had settled on her knees by the pool, she began to peer intently at it, her brow furrowed. “This is an interesting place,” she said quietly. She stretched out her hand towards the water, but withdrew it at the last moment, fingers curling in on her palms like withering flower petals curling up in the heat of summer.

“There are places like this in Doriath,” Lúthien murmured, nodding. “Mother’s magic had more effects than simply what she intended. People come here at times, when they need an answer to their troubles. The waters show the truth.”

At that, Ardis’s face froze, and though Lúthien was not entirely certain as to why, she could think of a few reasons. “The truth of what?”

Lúthien shrugged. “It tends to vary. What is certain is that that the water shows the truth, without fail, every time you look into it closely.” Her mind slipped back in on itself, and suddenly Lúthien was wincing, putting a hand on Ardis’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, I should have asked you. Would you rather not…”

But Ardis only shook her head. “I have nothing to fear from the truth. I would sooner know the truth than live my life in ignorance, no matter what the truth might entail.”

Which sounded like bluster to Lúthien’s ears, though it might have been delivered more steadily than Beleg’s insistences that he could go back on duty in spite of broken ribs or a sprained ankle. She was hardly going to bar Ardis from the pool. The truth was something everyone must face sooner or later, and if Ardis wished to drink a dose of it today, Lúthien was no one to stop her.

Lúthien took a breath before looking into the depths of the pool. She did not know exactly what other people’s experience with the pool was, for this was the first time she had ever come here in the company of another, and though she had heard stories, had divined some further details by accident from the minds of those who told those stories, it was not the same as having experienced it for herself.

She only ever saw one thing when she looked in this pool. The same thing, every time.

And sure enough, when Lúthien looked down, the longer she looked, the more the reflection rearranged itself into a familiar image.

Her appearance was mostly Eldarin. Lúthien knew from the tales that others had told that when she had been very young, this had not been the case. When she was very young, she had been less solid, and some of her parents’ early followers in the heart of Doriath had actually been quite wary of her, believing her a wraith or some other fell spirit. But as she grew older, she became more accustomed to the Eldar, and more proficient at taking on what could, for the most part, pass as an Eldarin form. For the most part.

Lúthien’s mostly Eldarin form stood head and shoulders taller than most of the women in Menegroth. Ardis herself came up to around Lúthien’s chin, and the only woman in all of Menegroth who was taller than Lúthien was her own mother. Her hair was… Well. The Eldar did not have hair that flowed like water or looked like smoke, did not have hair where tiny white flowers grew in spring and summer, and were replaced in autumn and winter by holly leaves and berries. The Amanyar could restrain the power in their voices more easily than could Lúthien. The eyes of the Lechind burned with dimmer fires.

There were things no amount of control or suppression or illusion could hide, and Lúthien knew how many of her people saw her. Love was mingled with awe. That emotion that promoted closeness was mingled with something that drove all closeness away. Even with many of those she called friends, that distance sat between them, squat and baleful, denying Lúthien what she craved.

The pool… The image she showed her was an image Lúthien had grown accustomed to, from many visits when she had hoped it would show something different, then many visits when she no longer hoped for such, and merely looked for more information.

The sky reflected was a pale, soaring azure. Never mind the time of day, never mind the weather, and never mind the fact that the pool was flanked by trees. The trees never appeared in the pool’s reflection, and even in storm, even in dead of night, the sky reflected in the pool was always that cloudless, unblemished azure.

Lúthien had seen her mother cast off her disguise of flesh just once; she did not see that image reflected in the pool. Nor did she see the body of a normal Elda, untouched by the blood of the Ainur. What the water showed Lúthien instead was Ardis’s reflection vanishing from her sight, and her own becoming hazy. A pillar of white light that burned too brightly, crowned with rippling black smoke, something that was not her mother, and could not be taken for a normal Elda. The reflection could not convey sound, but still, Lúthien could feel the songs of power that poured from her reflection-self’s translucent skin in a torrent. She could smell the sharp, green smell of plants growing too rapidly, urged on by magic. She could smell the red, copper smell of dead flesh.

The water showed the truth, alright. Pity it didn’t come with a neat, concise, easy-to-understand explanation as to what it all meant.

Lúthien’s reflection-self wore just the same expression it had always worn when Lúthien visited the pool. The red smell could be strong enough that an Elda would have gagged, and the look on the apparition’s face would still be one of mild benevolence. That mild look was inevitably what drove Lúthien to look away from the pool, and today wasn’t any different. She rose to her feet, and went to sit leaning against the sturdy trunk of an elm tree carpeted with springy moss.

Ardis lasted nearly a minute longer, scanning the water with an expression of intense concentration and an undercurrent of something taut that Lúthien could likely have easily identified if she had stretched out her mind, but honestly? She didn’t care to. Finally Ardis asked, a few moments before tearing her gaze away from the still water, “What did you see?”

“Myself,” Lúthien said simply. “And you?”

Very softly, with an acrid aftertaste of bitterness, “Myself.”

Ardis remained sat by the pool, though she no longer looked into the water—indeed, the way she avoided staring into the depths seemed frankly pointed. What statement that was supposed to make, Lúthien had no idea. Her companion had a stillness to her that seemed always to elude her brothers, indeed eluded most of the Iathrim. That stillness settled over her like the return of winter all at once, and the only thing to differentiate her from a statue was the gentle rise and fall of her breast.

They sat like that, and the only sounds that came to Lúthien’s ears was the wind, the call of swifts, and the far-off, muffled voice of the Esgalduin. Quiet wasn’t stressful to Lúthien, wasn’t soothing—it was what it was, and quiet, by itself, inspired in Lúthien absolutely nothing at all. Her curiosity had added a taut tune to the silence, and eventually, the tune grew so sharp that silence must be broken.

“Ardis…” Lúthien combed a hand through the thick smoke of her hair, coming away with a few scattered flower petals. “…I want to know… Why did you agree to come out here with me?”

Green eyes dragged themselves to her face. “What do you mean?”

“I… did not expect you to agree, actually. I would have thought you would have other things you wished to do.”

She was happy, of course. Just a little lost, as far as clarity went.

One fine eyebrow arched quizzically. “And I suppose I cannot simply have wished for the pleasure of your company?”

“It’s certainly possible, but if you have any other reason…”

Ardis paused to consider it. The sunlight made her hair shine; metallic thread in the hems of her robes glinted bright and hard. “I do enjoy the chance to leave Menegroth, at times.” She looked away, her mouth grown hard. “Much the same as in Aman, I like my solitude.”

“You’re not alone, though,” Lúthien pointed out, voice soft. “I’m here with you.”

Another long pause. If Lúthien concentrated, she could hear the faintest strains of Anor’s energetic, almost frenzied melody. Then, there came a roll of Ardis’s shoulders in a shrug. “It’s…” Her mouth twitched, ever so slightly. “It is no burden to me. I feel no expectations upon me, when I am with you.”

Lúthien’s mind burst into undiluted light. “Likewise.”

-----------------

* My Lúthien is 6’10”, for reference.

Amanyar—‘Those of Aman’ (Quenya) (singular: Amanya—probably) (adjectival form: Amanyarin); those Elves who made the journey to Aman, or were born there. Anor—the Sindarin name for the Sun Eldar—‘People of the Stars’ (Quenya); a name first given to the Elves by Oromë when he found them by Cuiviénen, but later came to refer only to those who answered the summons to Aman and set out on the March, with those who chose to remain by Cuiviénen coming to be known as the Avari; the Eldar were composed of these groups: the Vanyar, Ñoldor (those among them who chose to go to Aman), and the Teleri (including their divisions: the Lindar, Falmari, Sindar and Nandor). Esgalduin—literally ‘River under shade’ (Sindarin); a tributary of the River Sirion, which originated in the Shadowy Spring in Ered Gorgoroth and flowed southward to empty into the Sirion; marked the borders between the Forests of Region and Neldoreth. Iathrim—the Sindar of Doriath Lechind—'Flame-eyed'; a name given to the Ñoldor by the Sindar, referring to the light of the Trees that shined in the eyes of those Ñoldor born in Aman during the Years of the Trees (singular: Lachend) (Sindarin) Niphredil—‘Little pallor’ (Sindarin); a white flower that bloomed first in Doriath when Lúthien was born. It also grew in Lothlórien, on Cerin Amroth. In appearance it was similar to a snowdrop. Onodrim—the Sindarin name given to the Ents (Sindarin) (singular: Onod) Tatyar—‘Seconds’, the second clan of the Elves of Cuiviénen, named for Tata and Tatië, the former of whom was the second Elf to awake (Singular: Tatya) (Adjectival form: Tatyarin). Their name in Aman, ‘Ñoldor’ (meaning ‘the Wise’), was given on account of this clan showing the earliest aptitude for intellectual and technical pursuits; it has a Primitive Quendian original in ‘ñgolodō’, from which is also derived the Sindarin ‘Golodh’, ‘Golodhrim.’

#Tolkien #The Silmarillion #Legendarium Ladies April #LLA 2019 #Femslash Big Bang #Fanfic #Luthien Tinuviel #Galadriel

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newstfionline · 7 years ago

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As companies relocate to big cities, suburban towns are left scrambling

By Jonathan O’Connell, Washington Post, July 16, 2017

OAK BROOK, Ill.--Visitors to the McDonald’s wooded corporate campus enter on a driveway named for the late chief executive Ray Kroc, then turn onto Ronald Lane before reaching Hamburger University, where more than 80,000 people have been trained as fast-food managers.

Surrounded by quiet neighborhoods and easy highway connections, this 86-acre suburban compound adorned with walking paths and duck ponds was for four decades considered the ideal place to attract top executives as the company rose to global dominance.

Now its leafy environs are considered a liability. Locked in a battle with companies of all stripes to woo top tech workers and young professionals, McDonald’s executives announced last year that they were putting the property up for sale and moving to the West Loop of Chicago where “L” trains arrive every few minutes and construction cranes dot the skyline.

In Chicago, McDonald’s will join a slew of other companies--among them food giant Kraft Heinz, farming supplier ADM and telecommunications firm Motorola Solutions--all looking to appeal to and be near young professionals versed in the world of e-commerce, software analytics, digital engineering, marketing and finance.

Such relocations are happening across the country as economic opportunities shift to a handful of top cities and jobs become harder to find in some suburbs and smaller cities.

Aetna recently announced that it will relocate from Hartford, Conn., to Manhattan; General Electric is leaving Connecticut to build a global headquarters in Boston; and Marriott International is moving from an emptying Maryland office park into the center of Bethesda.

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel (D) said the old model where executives chose locations near where they wanted to live has been upturned by the growing influence of technology in nearly every industry. Years ago, IT operations were an afterthought. Now, people with such expertise are driving top-level corporate decisions, and many of them prefer urban locales.

“It used to be the IT division was in a back office somewhere,” Emanuel said. “The IT division and software, computer and data mining, et cetera, is now next to the CEO. Otherwise, that company is gone.”

The migration to urban centers threatens the prosperity outlying suburbs have long enjoyed, bringing a dose of pain felt by rural communities and exacerbating stark gaps in earnings and wealth that Donald Trump capitalized on in winning the presidency.

McDonald’s may not even be the most noteworthy corporate mover in Illinois. Machinery giant Caterpillar said this year that it was moving its headquarters from Peoria to Deerfield, which is closer to Chicago. It said it would keep about 12,000 manufacturing, engineering and research jobs in its original home town. But top-paying office jobs--the type that Caterpillar’s higher-ups enjoy--are being lost, and the company is canceling plans for a 3,200-person headquarters aimed at revitalizing Peoria’s downtown.

“It was really hard. I mean, you know that $800 million headquarters translated into hundreds and hundreds of good construction jobs over a number of years,” Peoria Mayor Jim Ardis (R) said.

Long term, the corporate moves threaten an orbit of smaller enterprises that fed on their proximity to the big companies, from restaurants and janitorial operations to subcontractors who located nearby.

“The village of Oak Brook and McDonald’s sort of grew up together. So when the news came, it was a jolt from the blue--we were really not expecting it,” said Gopal G. Lalmalani, a cardiologist who also serves as the village president.

Lalmalani is no stranger to the desire of young professionals to live in cities: His adult daughters, a lawyer and an actress, live in Chicago. When McDonald’s arrived in Oak Brook, in 1971, many Americans were migrating in the opposite direction, away from the city.

To Peorians, Caterpillar’s change of heart came suddenly. Two years ago, the company’s leadership team joined state and local officials at a ceremony to announce plans for a new $800 million, 31-acre headquarters aimed at reviving a downtown pockmarked by vacant storefronts.

“We’re here in Peoria to stay,” Caterpillar’s then-chief executive Doug Oberhelman declared at the time. Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner (R) stood to applaud.

Then, in January of this year, Caterpillar abruptly canceled the Peoria headquarters complex and said it would move about 300 top executives to the Chicago area.

The local reaction wasn’t just disappointment but bewilderment. Three generations of the city’s residents have worked at Caterpillar--designing, assembling and painting tractors and pipelayers.

Like other firms, Caterpillar had a digital hub in downtown Chicago, just over a mile from the new McDonald’s headquarters. But now it is also moving many of its top executives away from where colleagues are designing, producing and shipping the company’s products--and the possibility of more Caterpillar jobs leaving looms.

“There are definitely people in this region who don’t want to go to Chicago and are worried that their jobs are going there,” said Jennifer Daly, former chief executive of the Greater Peoria Economic Development Council.

If more jobs go, it will diminish the options for highly qualified managers and executives who have chosen to make their homes in Peoria--a far more affordable, less congested place than Chicago or Deerfield.

The decision has left Peoria officials scrambling. They are focusing on different industries, such as health care, and helping the city’s other manufacturing firms to find work beyond building tractors. About 100 small manufacturers in the area rely largely on Caterpillar contracting work.

#Oak Brook #McDonald's #rural/urban divide

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spitfirerose · 8 years ago

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RWBY OC: Gwenna Hearthspring

Member #3 of SUGR. “G” has changed a ton since the start of the team idea.

Gwenna Hearthspring: A seventeen year old female and sole human of the team. Gwenna is quite shy and timid at first, complying to whatever anyone says and tries not to be a burden to others. She’s enrolled at Beacon to be a Huntress, but is poor at combat. It’s hinted that she was accepted because of the Headmaster (like Ruby was), but she doesn’t know why. Gwenna uses twin tonfa that double as guns, utilizing different dust clips located on the back of her belt. Her semblance is dubbed the ‘Maiden’s Eye’, an ability that allows her to hit her target even if it has moved since firing. She can manipulate the bullet’s path with her eyes, but this can backfire if she looks at a teammate whilst using it.

Ironically, she is a Maiden, too.

Gwenna was born in a small village, her mother a Huntress and father a gardener. There were always flowers around. Things were always so nice.

But then the Grimm happened, and that wasn’t very nice. She doesn’t remember much after that, and was taken in at a nearby town’s Orphanage, known as the very shy and quiet girl who was fixated with flowers, as that’s all she really can remember of home. Little Gwenna tended to wander off, wanting to go back home though she didn’t know where it was. Time after time, she’s harshly told that the village is gone, and if she keeps acting like she is, that no one will adopt her.

Hana, the current Spring Maiden, and young Ardilla arrive at the town, here to help however they can before passing through, requesting that for their safety, that no one mention them. Hana reminds Gwenna of home, and of her mother by how kind she is. Like Ardi, the Spring Maiden sees potential in her, and so she asks the pure soul if she wishes to leave this place.

She does. The Orphanage easily forgets her face.

They reach the ruins of Gwenna’s home village next, and while she doesn’t find the remains of her parents, she does come across her mother’s weapons, the twin tonfa. Hana promises that she’ll teach her how to use them when she gets older, if she so wishes. Ardi is trusted to look after their newest member as Hana summons flowers for unmarked graves as a sort of Sending to the lost souls.

Along the way, they all bond with one another, and Hana asks them what they would do with great power. They’d use it to protect each other and be kind, and Hana foreshadows that she wishes she could see it. Because she knows she won’t. They’re being tracked by Salem’s minions, and their time together is running short. They’ve been together for about a year, Ardi a month longer. The girls get along pretty well, with Ardilla being the more adventurous and chatty, and Gwenna shyly hiding behind her. They’re like sisters.

The trio travels throughout Remnant. They reach ‘Mother Goose’s Tales’, a traveling theater of performers that strive to bring light to a dark world. The Maidens’ Tale is their most popular story. Hana, ironically, played the role of Spring, and was the best. Analise, Annie, a dashing rabbit faunus, runs the troupe, and calls Hana ‘Rosie’. They have history. Hana requests that Annie look after the girls, as she has business to attend to, and she won’t be returning. Annie calls her out that she can’t do this, just showing up only to leave again.

Hana leaves in the middle of the night, and Gwenna follows her. She worries because Hana leaves her bag behind. Gwenna takes both hers and Hana’s.

Hana confronts those that have been tracking them all this time. She knew they were close by, and it’s now that she deals with them. The two children, those she has chosen as her successors, are safe with the troupe that will be moving come morning. The Spring Maiden will hold these monsters off and hold nothing back.

Except Gwenna is there, hiding beneath brush and witnessing this go down. Hana is pinned beneath one of them, and it’s then that she sees her. Gwenna’s name is shrieked, a warning for the girl to run.

Hana is slain in that next second.

Gwenna’s gifted her powers, being her last thoughts.

She screams with grief, and everything is consumed by furious mother nature. All that Deus Ex Machina goodness. Stricken with loss and fear, Gwenna is too afraid to go back to the Troupe because she thinks this all her fault. She pulls a Simba, hearing voices in her head telling her to run.

Hana’s body turns into a mass of flowers. Roses.

Since no one knows that Hana was killed, Salem probably just thinks her minions fucked up. Gwenna is safe, for the moment, and continues running away and hiding, afraid of her new power that she suppresses. She survives off of what rations were in the bags, and fumbles to use her mother's weapons. She's saved a lot by passing Hunters and Huntresses, and is reminded of Hana saying to protect others. She knows she's not strong enough, and so she goes to Beacon. Completely inexperienced and totally unqualified, she performs terribly at registration. The lowest of low scores, and makes a fool of herself despite trying her best.

Ozpin knows what she is, because he knows everything, and has her accepted into the school regardless, much to Glynda's disapproval. Gwenna is quite literally launched in. It's not until much, much later does Oz explain why he let her in, and that he knows she’s a Maiden--which she didn’t even really know, because no one bothered to fill her in on where her power came from. Like literally almost two school years? Ozpin, the fuck. It’s like you just threw this plotline in last second. And even then, she’s told that she’s getting transferred to Atlas, as bad guys are afoot in the school and it’s no longer safe for her here. Gwenna begs to stay until the Festival is over, as she doesn’t want to leave her team just yet, can’t bring herself to say goodbye. He allows this, warning that the longer she takes, the harder it will become to leave. She can’t tell them why she has to go, or her secret identity. Then Ardilla shows up, and things get more complicated.

But that’s all future stuff. Back to Team Building.

After recovering from her landing strategy, or rather lack thereof, Gwenna comes across Renari. He is immediately unimpressed, and completely abandons her seconds later, as it’s clear she can’t do jack against a few meager Beowolves. Suddenly alone, she uses a tree to hide behind when Sven comes to the rescue, taking out the Grimm with ease. He knows she’s there with his faunus hearing, and says that it’s safe to come out now. Gwenna comments that he’s strong, and now that they’ve made eye contact, he acknowledges that they’re partners now, yes? Her previous partner of five seconds has abandoned her, so she nods in agreement, feeling more at ease with him than that mean guy. Being the Maiden of Spring, the forest and its flowers whisper to her where the goal is, and so she uses this to guide them. He just thinks she’s really good with directions, and trusts her completely, boosting her poor confidence.

They make for a good pair, and to her worry, is paired back up with Renari and a very bubbly, excitable girl. The fox is incredibly mean to her, whereas Una is superbly nice.

When they train as a team, Renari belittles her, scoffing at her incompetence and that she shouldn’t be here. Her existence generally pisses him off, even though she is kind and tries too much to be helpful. It’s not that he hates her personally, but rather that she is at an Academy to be a Huntress, but can’t even do the basics or knows anything at all. Una defends her, as he’s being really mean to her regardless if she...isn’t as good a fighter. There’s an incident in a training simulation that reminds her of Hana’s last moments, and Gwenna straight up panics and flees the room. Renari has had enough and lets it be known, and Sven informs him that he’s just as bad. He’s not helping at all. Teammates help another, and he’s been nothing but an ass to this girl.

Sven finds her and has her breath to calm down. Her immediate words are that she’s sorry about what happened, as Una had been in peril, to which he replies that she’ll be okay. He’s here for her. She wants to be here, wants to be a Huntress, but never learned how to use her weapons, and she can’t talk much about her past without crying again. So. Sven chooses to focus on that, offering to teach her how to use the tonfa guns.

With the much needed one-on-one time, Gwenna learns. Her semblance kicks in, and she’s actually a pretty good shot. If she can see her target, she can hit it. Also her teammates if she gets distracted and they end up in her vision. It requires concentration and lots of breathing to keep calm and focused. Gwenna also picks up on self-defense, able to defend some attacks with the tonfa. If Sven is unavailable, Renari takes over training. It’s good practice for her, as he can mimic about any weapon, adding to her range of how to deflect attacks. Though he’s not about to give up his grumpiness, he does admit that she’s improved. He’s not as much of an ass.

Misc. Facts: Una uses Gwenna to win prizes at the Festival. Anything involving shooting a moving target. Gwenna does a lot of shopping for supplies on her own, as she doesn’t want to be a bother to the others. She has frequent nightmares about Hana and those minions finding her. Flowers always perk up around her, reading her moods. Ren is lowkey jealous that the plants in her room are livelier than his. Conveniently, her eyes flash green when no one is looking, and she panics whenever someone mentions them, though they’re referring to her semblance. They’re violet! Always have been! During the Festival, she had recorded messages for her team and Ardi on her scroll, as she knew she wouldn’t be able to say goodbye directly. However, Beacon falls and they find her scroll, but no Gwenna. Where has she gone?

#RWBY oc #Rose writes #Gwenna Hearthspring #she's gone through so many changes and stuff #Sven Ursajor #Una Racuna #Renari Bleufeu #he next #team SUGR #then Ardilla #Hana Rosa

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badgalvi · 8 years ago

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Challenge No. 1 | The First Time

It was another late night. It was a good thing she worked for family, Vi thought, and that she owns one-third of the company, or else her bad habits would catch up to her and get her fired. She could never see herself working for other people in that sense. She was too used to setting her own hours and having people work for her and alongside her. It was something that Kellan taught her when her mom started selling her liquid lipsticks, mainly on Etsy. Kellan was good at business and how to make deals. Most importantly, he was good at living—how to live, exactly. How to dress, what parting gifts to buy when hosting a business party, where to take your clients after closing a good deal. He knew how to sway people in his direction and how to be charming. It was Kellan who taught Vi how to be smooth around people when she used to be so awkward and unassuming. Kellan taught her how to be a forceful presence in a room full of white men and women who didn’t believe in her.

Vi huffed out air she didn’t know she was holding in. She didn’t want to be thinking of him this late in the night. Her car drove itself to Ardis’s apartment, it seemed like. She would make this trip every few nights when he wasn’t making the exact same trip to hers. It was automatic, a reflex.

She entered the unlocked door, locked it herself, and went straight to his room like she owned it. There were lit candles this time around, and she couldn’t help but let out a soft laugh.

“What—you don’t like them?” Ardis asked. His dark brown eyes reflected the twinkling of the flames placed around the tables and shelves.

“No, not that,” she replied. “I’m trippin’ on the nostalgia right now.”

Ardis looked around with a wondering stare, then softened his eyes and smiled. “I remember,” he said, chuckling. His hands covered his face in embarrassment, “God, I remember,” he groaned.

Vi laughed and wrapped her arms around his waist, resting her head on his chest as he put his arms around her body, squeezing.

After nights of begging, weekends of annoyance, recess periods of nonstop pleading, Ardis agreed. He invited Vi to his house when his parents were out on a date, and it was just him and his kid brother, DeShon, in charge of their two-story home. DeShon was fast asleep and Vi walked over to his house, just around the corner of her own, and silently followed Ardis into his room.

Ardis had never been anyone’s first, as his first girlfriend already had a boyfriend before him. He didn’t know whether to make it special for Vi or not, but he figured it couldn’t hurt. Vi was his friend and was asking for a favor, and he wanted her to feel comfortable. Before she came over, he lit the candles he could find around his house and his parents’ bedroom.

Vi was awed. She didn’t expect anything special—just a good 10-15 minutes of unusual physical contact, and she would be freed from the dread of never getting to experience something everyone had already gone through. She didn’t have too many friends growing up, and she didn’t have the money to afford anything. She used her mom’s old clothes when she grew tall enough to fit them, then used her aunty’s old shoes when her mom’s shoes were getting too small. Everything was hand-me-down or handmade, and no one thought it was cool to hang out with that raggedy skinny doll in school. Ardis was one of the few people who didn’t care what she looked like and was friends with her anyway.

Ardis stood awkwardly by the bedside, scratching his elbow and looking at the floor. “Okay, you gotta come closer.”

Vi nodded, feeling his contagious awkwardness and suddenly becoming very self-conscious. She walked towards him. She felt his body heat emanate from his skin. She looked up and met his eyes immediately—Ardis was not that much taller than her, since her growth spurt came around the time she got her first period.

“Now what?” she asked, trying to prepare for what it was the adults do in the movie scenes she wasn’t supposed to look at.

Ardis lifted his hand and gently cupped her chin. It startled Vi, but she didn’t move away. He pulled her head towards him and kissed her lips. He opened his mouth, so Vi followed. He used his tongue, so Vi used hers. Ardis finally started getting really into it, and Vi followed every step and let him lead her body.

“Unbutton my pants,” he said under his breath. Vi quickly reached for them, but then stepped back, startled after she felt the bulge under his boxers. Ardis smiled. “You okay?” Vi nodded, coming closer again. Ardis took her left hand and guided it towards his dick. Vi didn’t know what to expect, but it felt bigger than she thought it was supposed to be, using all her skinny fingers to cover the whole thing. He let her hands rub up and down, cupping his dick and telling her it’s okay to squeeze a little bit harder. “You wanna suck it?” Vi bit her lips, still unsure. “You don’t have to if you don’t wanna,” he told her.

“I don’t know,” she replied, looking down at the floor.

Ardis smiled. “That’s cool.” He took her to the bed and sat down next to her. They continued kissing, which Vi found she was really into. It was like a dream, connecting lips and exploring the inside of each other’s mouth with their tongues. She could do this forever.

“Can I touch your boobs?” Ardis asked. Vi nodded, and immediately Ardis cupped her tiny tits, flicking them until they were hard. She took off her bra and lifted her tank top above her head. Ardis began kissing her chin, then her neck, using his tongue to make a trail to her nipples. When his lips first touched it, she felt the pleasurable sensations inside her pants, too. She let out a sigh and he led her back onto the bed.

His lips eventually went down to her stomach. He slowly unbuttoned her shorts while still kissing her skin, then slid off her clothes. He lifted his head to look at her, then down at her thighs. He kissed every part of her body that made her tickle until he came to her pussy. He kissed her panties right in the middle and Vi giggled girlishly. “Do you like that?” he asked. She was smiling at him, nodding for him to continue whatever it was he was doing to her.

Her panties came off in one swift movement, and Ardis took a few seconds to admire her. It triggered her insecurities suddenly, and her heartbeat was off its rhythm. “What?” she asked, a worried look on her face.

Ardis shook his head, still smiling. “Nah, it’s nothing. It’s cute,” he admitted, licking his lips and suddenly his head bowed down. When his wet lips touched hers, she opened her mouth and closed her eyes, her head relaxing on his pillow. He kissed her clit and licked and flickered. Her breathing excelled as he continued. He paused for a moment just to put his two fingers in her mouth. She licked them, looking into his eyes and pretending it was his dick. She would do this for real next time, she thought at that moment.

When his fingers were sticky with saliva, he traced it down her pussy lips and gently thrusted it inside her. The sensation wasn’t as fun as when his mouth and tongue was there, but it wasn’t completely uncomfortable. Ardis’s fingers went in and out in a steady motion and his tongue was flickering her clit at the same time. Vi decided this was something she wanted to do on the regular. She needed this.

Ardis’s fingers started pushing deeper inside of her and Vi’s pussy was wetter with each thrust. Finally, Ardis pulled his finger and took off his tank top. He pulled down his pants and underwear and exposed his bareness in front of her. The shadows from the candle danced on his dick as Vi saw it through half-open eyes.

Ardis took his dick in his hands and rubbed it against her pussy. There was nothing Vi wanted more than for him to stick it inside, to feel how he feels when he fills her up. “I want it,” she said in a whisper. Their eyes met and Ardis pulled in closer, skin against skin. Gradually, his dick went inside her, only a little bit at first. He started thrusting and Vi began to pant. She was so wet, he felt like he could slide deeper and deeper inside with each thrust. He kissed her neck and she straddled him with her legs, holding his body tightly around her.

Her cries of pleasure began echoing in the room. She dug her nails into the bed, into the pillow, into his skin. The steady mix of pain and ecstasy was so fulfilling—she thought she would implode from the inside out and leave a mess all over his room.

Ardis’s pace quickened and suddenly—right when Vi thought she couldn’t handle anymore—he thrust one last time and quickly got up, his dick out and throbbing in front of her, cum squirting onto her belly and chest. She huffed and puffed like she was deprived of oxygen for the entire scene.

Vi looked around, trying to ingrain every detail of the moment to her memories. She heard from other girls that their first time wasn’t as cool or good or comfortable as people make it seem like. Vi was glad her first experience wasn’t like that. Most of all, she was glad it was over with—she would never have to be embarrassed if any of her friends asked her if she ever kissed anyone or had sex before. She could proudly say that she did all of that, even if it was just this one time, even if no one would ever touch her again, she had finally gone through it.

Ardis kissed Vi on the lips. “Ah, so, you wanna recreate your first time, then? Since we got the mood goin’ an’ all.”

Vi’s responding smile was sly and playful. She took something out of her purse and showed it to him. “Yeah, we can recreate it. But let’s make it a little more interesting, huh?” In her hands were a single bandana and golden handcuffs with the fur.

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dontjudgemeimawriter · 3 years ago

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Excerpt/Sketch Scene: Ardisci

I shared lines from this recently but in looking it over I remembered how much I love it so I decided to share. From Ardisci’s POV, Ardisci is the god of knowledge and is living sort of in-hiding on Earth.

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Alright. So we’re here: Kaitlyn is lying on the couch, reading chapter 3 of her textbook on cultural anthropology. Netalia is lying on the floor, her book— a thick book with thin pages that’s a survey English literature— open above her. It’s open to Lines Written in Early Spring by William Wordsworth, but I’m not sure if she’s reading it— Buttercup, her golden retriever, is licking her face, and she’s laughing and pushing her away. I’m taking notes in my notebook. My reading, Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, is open as a pdf on my laptop, though that’s mostly for show, since Netalia is here. My notebook, which Kaitlyn insists is technically a journal (but it’s not my place to say it is or isn’t— language and labels aren’t my responsibility to determine), lies in front of me, and I’m scribbling in it with a recycled water bottle pen that I got at freshman orientation that Netalia always marvels that I haven’t lost and Kait and I then share a knowing look about. If Kait (and the collective’s) definition of “journal” is a place for writing out one’s own thoughts, rather than simply noting facts for studying purposes, then yes, it is a journal. I don’t have much need for notetaking— even without the constant stream of direct-and-all-encompassing knowledge, simple information—what’s part of the collective knowledge—is provided to me automatically. But that’s why I love philosophy classes. In the science class I took I did find it interesting what aspects they taught or what they knew, but still, so much of it was known information, simply a method by which to integrate that knowledge. It didn’t excite me the same way. But philosophy? No answer came to me automatically. I know how others have answered the question before, yes, but there’s no collective answer, and I can listen to classmate’s opinions and thoughts and I actually feel like I’m learning.

Focusing. I’m journaling on the allegory of the cave. I won’t be able to bring what I write up in class, but thoughts—my thoughts, my own!—are coming tumbling out. Because I know the outside world, the sun, all of it, I am the regular people in this metaphor when everyone around me are the prisoners who know only shadows and can but squint at the sun. Because not knowing and a limited perspective isn't something I was ever able to to really have. Because not that long ago I didn’t even have an “I” through which to narrate. Google doesn't have an “I” and never has a choice in knowing that these are shadows, not the extent of human existence, but maybe I could know only that. And who would feel jealousy of prisoners chained up in a cave with only a fire casting shadows to quantify as real— and since when has jealousy been a thing I feel?

Kaitlyn had been the one to suggest I write, to journal. She’d given me a look that she told me later was frustration (which I don’t feel bad about not recognizing— psychologically speaking, most people don’t recognize the facial expression “frustrated” as they do “happy” or “sad”—it’s not a basic emotion) and said in a very calm voice that as much as she loved listening to my rants, not everyone had the collective knowledge at their disposal—she actually had to study. And she later suggested writing out my thoughts, telling me that writing could be helpful in self-discovery, which got a green-light from the collective knowledge, so I agreed to try it.

Netalia pushes Buttercup’s nose away. “Buttercup, go-lie-down. I gotta read this.” Buttercup harumphs and trots over to me, pushing her nose into the space between my arm and my waist. That’s something I never got to appreciate—the simple joy of an animal burrowing into you. Of loving you. I suspect that’s something few gods get to experience—at least, outside of the Nature domain. And to have that physical form in which an animal can burrow into.

I can’t write with Buttercup there, so I finish the sentence, put my pen down, and turn to Buttercup, taking her face in my hands and scratching behind her ears. Buttercup starts panting, her tail wagging loud enough to slam against the carpet.

“Did the good doggie get snubbed?” I coo to Buttercup. It’s lucky humans developed a way to communicate thoughts, or I may never have had access to even the concept of thoughts and emotions, just behavior and knowledge of consciousness. At least a person can tell me what they’re thinking and feeling, even if it’s not always true— or all I’d have is what I can tell about animals, what their behaviors indicate.

“It was not a snub,” Netalia said. “I have to read this.”

I quiet, just smiling at Buttercup and scratching behind her ears. Kaitlyn’s looking at me. I know what face she’s making without looking up, but I look up anyway because sometimes using the human eyes helps me interpret it better. There’s a slight smile. I think it’s in reference to “Some of us need to actually read the assignment.” Just because that’s usually what Kaitlyn likes to tease me about.

Kaitlyn closes her textbook and sets it down on the table. “Talia, can we take Buttercup outside and play with her a bit? I think Addie’s getting antsy.”

Addie’s not really my name—my god name is Ardisci, and before going into hiding, Kaitlyn called me Ardi, which I love—never had I been close enough with someone for them to need a shortened way to refer to me. It felt affectionate. But going into hiding I needed a name-name, something not quite my god name. Kaitlyn had actually said that Adelaide felt too close to Ardisci to her, but once I’d picked it it had felt comfortable and I couldn’t pick another one, so we went with it. Plus, “Addie” and “Ardi” sounded similar, which made the transition easier.

“Sure,” Netalia sits up, folding the book over her finger for a moment. “Her toys are in the basket next to the porch.” She stood and sat down on the couch Kait had been lying on.

I stood, giving Buttercup a tug towards the door. Buttercup lept, realizing what we were doing, and ran to the door, barking when it didn’t open for her.

“Hold on, girl.” Kaitlyn followed us over to the front entrance and grabbed her jacket off the hook, then handed me mine. Now out of earshot from Netalia, she said to me, “The rest of us need to actually read the assignment.”

“I know,” I said. My jacket was thick, zippered, and knit, with cables curling up the sleeves. I wanted to try knitting sometime, to see if it was as easy as the information of “how to purl” came into my mind. Kaitlyn had said she’d knit when she was younger, had described how she’d learned to spot the difference between a knit stitch and a purl stitch and how to make a cable or bauble. When I look at it I know, but I have a feeling that that knowledge is different from recognizing it.

Kaitlyn takes a moment to adjust the collar of my jacket, which wasn’t folded properly. “I know you know,” she smiles—me saying “I know” is ironic, she’s said, just as anyone saying “do you know?” is to me. But “know” doesn’t, in my case, always mean knowing, it means understanding, and that (I know) is a different thing.

Buttercup bolts out the door as soon as I turn the handle to leave—it’s into Netalia’s family’s backyard, where Buttercup has previously been allowed to roam freely, so I’m not concerned—and Kaitlyn shouts to Netalia’s mom that we’re taking Buttercup out. Her mom, Lynette, tells us alright, and that she’s heating up some hot apple cider for us. Lynette was horrified my first year living as a human that I’d never had hot apple cider, and had filled me up on it ever since. I’d told Kaitlyn how I knew what apple was used, the origins of the drink, different versions, what was considered the best mixture.

“Alright,” Kaitlyn had said. “But the drink you’re drinking right now. Do you like it?”

I’d been confused at first. I’d taken another sip— not really familiar with the concept of myself liking things. I knew it was generally accepted as good, but then I really absorbed the flavor, the heat, the spice, the sweetness. “Yes,” I’d said finally. “I like it.”

I bound outside, running to the basket under the porch and grabbing a frisbee. “Wanna catch?” I ask Buttercup. Buttercup jumps side to side, ready. I swing my arm, try to snap my wrist, and let go. Buttercup runs after it, but the frisbee curves, making about a 60° angle away from where I thought I’d aimed. I laugh, and Buttercup, who started running straight, looks around in confusion.

“I gotta get better at that!” I shout to Kait, and run over to where the frisbee landed. Running is nice, a feeling I’ve gotten used to. The exertion, adrenaline, my lungs pulling in air, my heart beating, lactic acid starting to flow through my muscles (which’ll make them sore later). One of the things I can’t know, I have to feel. I get to feel. I scoop up the frisbee and toss it again. This time Buttercup knows to watch it, and runs after the very curved path it follows. I run back over to Kait, meeting Buttercup halfway as she trots back with it. Kait takes the frisbee.

“Here,” she holds it out, but instead of letting me take it, guides my hand to hold it. She takes me through the motion of throwing it, of the flick of the wrist. “And here you let go. Eyes on your target.” she says.

I know how to on an instructional level, but when Kait releases my hand for me to try, this time I pay attention not to the collective knowledge, but her instruction. I follow through, and this time it goes straighter, only curving a bit at the end. Buttercup races after it, then picks it up from the ground.

“Better,” Kait observes. She’s staring at Buttercup at first, but her eyes don’t follow the return, so she seems to have spaced on the trees. “Russell never quite figured out how to throw one,” she said.

I take the frisbee from Buttercup, spinning it in my hand for a moment. I don't look at her, knowing she won’t notice me averting my eyes.

I still haven't told her. I should tell her. It’s my obligation really, to our friendship and to my role as god. But really, just because I am the god of knowledge, did that mean I have to tell her? I’m trying to escape that role.

She’ll find out eventually. And maybe I can say I just hadn’t thought of it— I’d been shutting down the constant stream of information, and one person's death isn’t collective knowledge. If I hadn’t wondered, I still wouldn’t know, not actively.

But I do know actively. I’d checked in and realized. And decided not to tell her.

Her brother had died two years ago. That’s why he’d never found her, never shown up. I hadn’t known him, not really, but I knew him somewhat through Kait, though her memories and relationship.

Maybe it’s a bit selfish, too. I don’t know how she’d react, but I have a feeling (that was new too, having a feeling) that knowing might change things. It might lead her back to her family, and yes perhaps I can stay in hiding without her, but I don’t want to.

A part of me has always longed to do this. Live as a person, learn, experience. Not be the source of all knowledge for once. And part of why I finally had was the pressure had gotten worse—but really, a large part of it was meeting Kaitlyn. Kait, who never used me, who never asked questions I wouldn’t know if I wasn’t god of knowledge. Who actually got to know who I was, with enough patience to handle me. Who’d believed I even got the chance to be an I.

I throw the frisbee again. It arcs a bit, but Buttercup jumps up and catches it midair. “Whoo!” Kait cheers.

I bend down, clapping and then petting Buttercup. “Good job!” I tell her.

“Good job to you,” Kait says, tousling my hair the same way I’m tousling Buttercup’s ears. I grin.

#ardisci #second chance #crossed lines #Again need a series name #Been thinking about the overaching theme and like ik what it is I just don't know a way to cover it #I know I want an actual series name and not just 'Second Chance 2: Crossed Lines'#Because Second Chance is only significant in that it's where we start and the route in it's not inherently more important than the others #Like Chrys is hardly in the later books #/will be #Anyway. meet my favorite character wo write who probably will ever be a main #who*#Kait might. maybe #*gasp* just remembered picrews exist. Gotta make Ardi's human form

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