#At least she's thinking one step ahead. — good on many levels

[acourtofquestions]

They drifted into the blackness for another day, then two. Still the sea did not appear.

Aelin was sleeping, a dreamless, heavy slumber, when a strong hand clasped her shoulder. "Look," Rowan whispered, his breath brushing her ear.

She opened her eyes to pale light. Not the ocean, she realized as she sat up, the others rousing, undoubtedly at Rowan's word.

Overhead, clinging to the cavern ceiling as if they were stars trapped beneath the rock, small blue lights glowed.

Glowworms, like those in the lantern Thousands of them, made infinite by the reflection in the black water. Stars above and below.

From the corner of her eye, Aelin glimpsed Elide press a hand to her chest. A sea of stars—that's what the cave had become.

Beauty. There was still beauty in this world.

Stars could still glow, still burn bright, even buried under the earth.

Aelin breathed in the cool cave air, the blue light. Let it flow through her.

Rattle the stars. She'd promised to do that.

The emerald on her marriage band glistened with its own fire.

Beauty remained—and she would fight for it. Needed to fight.

It was a constant thrum in her blood, her bones. Right alongside the power that she shoved down deep and dismissed with each breath. Fight—one last time.

She'd escaped so she might do it. Would think of all those still defying Morath, defying Maeve, while she trained. She wouldn't hesitate. Didn't dare to pause. She'd make this time count. In every way possible.

Aelin could have sworn the living stars overhead sang, a celestial choir that floated through the caves.

A star-song carried along the river current, running beside them, for the last miles to the sea.

[magicalbats]

Kinktober 2024 Day 4: Sampo x Reader

Rating: R-18+

Word Count: 7082

Warnings: afab!reader, Silvermane Guard reader, size difference, age difference, handcuffs, cunnilingus, cumming untouched, cum in pants 🤭 dubcon, piv, mentioned stomach distention

A/N: So I'll fully admit that part of what went into this was me being petty lol ofc I was excited to write for Sampo again anyway, but I got a comment on the first fic I did for him that accused the reader of being underage. When she most certainly was not. If that was the angle I was going for, trust me, you'd know about it. So I played up the size difference big time in this one and made our reader a sweet little virgin for him to take advantage of 🤭

⭐

It’s not every day that Sampo Koski finds himself on the sharp end of a Silvermane Guard’s short sword and for that he has to give you credit. 

The fact you’d managed to track him down at all, let alone way out at the far edge of the old abandoned city is impressive enough on its own. Not many could have accomplished even that much. But to then face him by yourself rather than calling for backup? 

Well, it looked to him like you were just chomping at the bit to sink your teeth into some trouble. 

“I’ve got you cornered now, you crook. Make any sudden movements and I’ll run you through. You’re under arrest.” 

That was all well and good, but as he looks down the length of your very pointy sword he understands why it's not one of the standard issue halberds you’ve got pointed at his face. You were tiny in comparison to him and hardly the sort of girl he’d call intimidating. He could probably take you, sword or no sword. In fact he’s sure he can, considering he must’ve had at least a hundred pounds on you easy, and yet … the clear glint of challenge in your eyes makes him reconsider that choice. Although he’d come out on top eventually that didn’t mean he wouldn’t suffer a few puncture wounds for it along the way and he isn’t quite convinced he can afford that price. Getting into a tussle with you probably wasn’t worth it. 

Feigning defeat, he lets out a heavy, long suffering sigh and slowly lets go of the bag full of smoke bombs sitting on top of the rickety old table. Just as any good con man knows when to quit while he’s ahead, Sampo recognized that now was the right time to throw in the towel. He could always figure something out further down the road, after you’d put your little sword safely away.

And besides. You did strike him as someone who might be fun to play with for a while. 

So he harmlessly lifts his hands up in what should have been the universal gesture of surrender but you jolt as if he’d just reached for a loaded gun. The blade aggressively bobs with the involuntary flex of muscle and nearly takes off the end of his nose, surprising an undignified squawk out of him. A bit on edge, yeesh. 

“Alright, alright. Let’s just calm down and take a few deep breaths, okay? You could really hurt someone waving that thing around like that!” 

“Be quiet!” You hiss up at him. 

Keeping your weapon leveled at the center of his face, you take a step forward as if to close the distance but he’s quick to scuttle back a pace. It’s not like he really had much of a choice, your eyes flashing dangerously as you follow after him. 

“Do not even think about trying to escape, you damned nuisance. In the name of the Amber Lord and under order of the Supreme Guardian, I’m taking you into custody.” 

“Sure thing, missy. I hear ya’ loud and clear!” He says, trying to laugh it off even as he dances back on his toes to keep at a safe distance. If he just maintained his cool long enough you’d eventually let your guard down. Probably. “But you’re not going to have anyone to arrest if you poke me full of holes! Say, here’s an idea. How about you put that oversized butter knife away and then we’ll talk this out, hm?” 

“As if I have anything to say to the likes of you.” 

“Oooh, come on. Don’t be like that.” His hapless chuckling abruptly cuts off with a not entirely feigned gulp when he backs all the way up into the wall. With nowhere else to go, Sampo can only tip his head back with a dull thump against the aged and decaying wood when you bring the end of your sword so close that he almost goes cross eyed trying to track its movement.  

Sure, he’d admit you were good and evidently not the sort of person who would make the mistake of underestimating a much bigger opponent just because you had him at sword point but that didn’t mean you wouldn’t slip up eventually. He just needed to bide his time, pick his cards right and do what he always does best. 

Playing the fool. 

“Okay, look! I’m ever so sorry for whatever crime you think I may have committed to make you come after me like this,” He croons in his most convincing, well practiced tone of solicitation. “But I’m sure this is all just one big misunderstanding. If you’d just give me a chance to explain myself I think we’ll get this sorted out in no time and then we can both be on our merry ways. Come on! That only sounds fair, doesn’t it?” 

Eyes narrowing up at him, you haughtily lift your chin as if in outright defiance of his entreatment. “You are not entitled to fairness after all the scams and cons you’ve pulled on other people, you blue demon. I’m afraid I have no pity to spare for you this time.” 

“I can see that.” Sorely grumbling under his breath, Sampo drops his attention down and to the side to fix on a seemingly random spot on the floor. He can see you shifting slightly at his peripheral, restless and maybe just a little nervous now that you were face to face with the supposed scourge of Belobog. Although it was obvious you were well trained you were still just a bit too naive and trusting if you were really going to fall for that old trick. 

“As long as you cooperate and don’t make this any harder than it needs to be,” You intone, indeed reading his body language as that of defeat. “Things will be much easier for you in the long run. I’ve got you cornered with nowhere to go. Just give up and come peacefully.” 

Slowly taking one of your hands off the hilt, you reach back with a careful motion for something in your supplies pack. He has a few guesses what it might be, of course, but you don’t quite make it that far. Sampo spots his chance when the backward stretch of your arm pulls your gravity off center just so to make you redistribute your weight more on the left leg than the right. It’s slight enough to be almost imperceptible to the average man but average man Sampo Koski is not. 

His arm snaps up to grab at your outstretched wrist like a striking serpent, your eyes going big and round when he redirects your sword away from him with a smoothly controlled jerk. Your reaction time is quick though and you start to bring your other hand back around to restore your grip. The following rush of motion happens so fast that most of it is just adrenaline fueled muscle memory on his part. 

Blindly reaching for you with his opposite hand, Sampo pushes off from the wall so he can use his greater size to spin you, effectively trading places. He shoves you back with a bit more force than he’d intended to and the resulting thump makes the old rafters rattle in protest. The impact seems to force all the air from your lungs, momentarily stunning you, and he takes quick advantage of that opportunity to snag your other wrist so he can slam it back against the groaning wall. At the same time, he presses into you with his weight to fully pin you there and stop you from struggling, effectively trapping you in place. 

It’s over in an instant. 

Letting out a faintly shuddering breath, Sampo tips his chin down to look at your face. Glaring right back at him, you visibly gnash your teeth and try to push back on his hold with your sword hand but it’s no use. Not only is he bigger and stronger than you, but he’s heavier too. Just as he’d expected then. You were a bit too undersized to take him on. 

“Guess you should have called for backup, eh?” He teases you, letting his mouth curl into a sleazy grin that just seems to further grate on your nerves, given the way you make a wild attempt to thrash yourself free. 

In truth he finds it rather cute for all of five seconds until your desperate twisting brings one of your knees up a little too close to his crotch. His smile drops immediately, and he quickly wedges his thigh into the space between your legs to further limit your range of movement. Couldn’t have you incapacitating him that easily, now could he? 

And the sharp gasp you pull in at the nudge delights him to no end, especially when you go stockstill between him and the wall. The startled look on your face is priceless and he can’t quite stop himself from cooing at you as he dips his head down to get a better view. Such a pretty thing for a Silvermane. It seemed a real shame that you were wasting all your time and energy putting yourself in danger for nothing more than a few cheap medals of honor. Perhaps he could change that though. 

“Now, now. There’s no need for all this nonsense, is there? If you’d wanted a piece of ol’ Sampo Koski so bad, all you needed to do was ask. I’m not so cruel and cold hearted to deny a cute little thing like you.” 

Even through two layers of clothes, both his and yours, he can feel the vague sensation of your pussy squeezing against his thigh. It makes his cock twitch in fast growing interest as he wonders what your cunt must look like, what it tastes like. And although it’s hard to tell through the uniform, he suspected your tits were big and juicy too, given the way they heavily shift under your clothes when you give a weak jerk against his hold. Oh, but he couldn’t wait to help himself to you. 

First though … “Why don’t you go ahead and drop that sword for me, sweetheart? Hm? Be a dear, won’t you?” 

“Bastard - -!” 

Obviously you weren’t going to willingly give up the fight anytime soon, so he makes careful work of readjusting his hold on your wrist. Sampo’s hand greatly dwarves yours just as the rest of him does and it’s easy for him to twist it at just the right angle to make your fingers go lax. With a wordless cry from you, the blade noisily clatters to the ground which he quickly uses his other foot to kick away. Reluctantly going still, you shoot him a wary, guarded look that brings the smile back to his face. 

“There. That’s much better, isn’t it? Now if you’ll just relax a little bit we can - -“

His grip on you barely eases up for a second and you’re yanking your hand free with a violent lurch to smack him right across the face. The hit itself does more to surprise him than any pain that might come with it, and his head jerks to the side with a dramatic ‘oof!’  

So impressed by your gumption, he doesn’t immediately react so you have enough time to twist in his hold and slam your boot into the back of his knee. He crumples just like that, hitting the ground at your feet, but you’re quick to follow him down. 

Throwing yourself across his back, you frantically grab at his arms to yank on them and he’s so bemused by the whole thing that he just lets it happen. It takes a great deal of effort on his part not to outright laugh when he was getting such a kick out of this, instead playing along with a series of lilting grunts and ‘ow, ow, ow’s that he hopes are sufficiently convincing. What an interesting woman who would choose to wrestle with a man double her size after she’d already been unarmed. He couldn’t wait to see what you’d do next. 

Panting heavily, you at last manage to get his arms wrenched behind him and you dig your knee into his spine to force Sampo all the way down on the dirty floor. He can hear you fumbling with your pack as much as he feels it when you’re sitting on top of him, but this he just lets happen as well. 

And with a sudden, triumphant exclamation of victory, you viciously snap a set of handcuffs around his wrists to secure them in place. 

As you start to ease off him with a shuddering sigh of relief, he gives his fingers an experimental wriggle to flex his arms and test the give. Nice and tight. Ah well. It wasn’t the first or last time he was going to find himself in this predicament. 

“There. I’ve got you now.” You wheeze, gingerly climbing to your feet to stand over him. Moving forward, you reach down to fist your hands in his shirt and roughly yank him up. He almost decides to give you a hard time about it but you’re doing such a good job that he doesn’t quite have the heart to make this any harder for you, so he helpfully gets one of his long legs under him so he can push himself to sit upright on the floor. 

Craning his neck back, Sampo looks up at you with a sly Cheshire Cat grin although it evidently is not the kind of expression you’d been hoping for after all that. With a bothered hiss between your teeth, you bend down to shove at his broad shoulders and force him back against the wall before straightening again. 

You’re still trying to catch your breath when you take a step back to survey your handiwork. Taking advantage of his first opportunity to do so, he appreciatively drags his attention over your vibrating body to take note of everything and commit it all to memory. The Silvermane uniforms were not designed for women, hence why so many altered theirs to better suit their needs and mobility, but you’d left yours almost completely unchanged. It was hard to get a good idea of the figure you were hiding underneath all the layers, but he was confident it would be good. His intuition rarely ever steered him wrong on such matters. 

“So,” He says at last, keeping his tone friendly and conversational. “You’ve caught me. Congratulations. What are you going to do now?” 

Shooting him a wary look, you bring a gloved hand up to wipe a bead of sweat off your cheek where it had started to run down. “What do you mean? I’m taking you back to Belobog and throwing you in jail where you belong. I’d think that should be obvious by now.” 

“Eh, sure. You could do that, and I’ll even admit it would be the logical thing to do. But don’t you think there’s something else you could do instead? A far more fun and exciting secret option that I can see you haven’t thought of yet.” 

Brows knitting in genuine confusion, you look down at him like he’s just sprouted a second head. “Have you gone mad? I have no idea what you’re trying to say, you big oaf.” 

Allowing his grin to take on a sharper, more pointed edge, Sampo gives his shoulders a meaningful shrug as he tips his head to one side. “Ooh, are you really that naive or are you just pretending not to know what kind of position I’m in right now? Well, I’ll tell you something, little miss Silvermane Guard. You can’t fool me. I know good and well how you reacted when I had you pinned you up against the wall a moment ago and now I’m completely at your mercy. So why don’t you just help yourself? I won’t even put up a fight, promise.” 

He throws you a saucy wink, and you immediately choke on a sharp intake of air as you reel back. Honestly he’d think it a bit dramatic if it weren’t for the way your expression darkens with unmistakable fluster and embarrassment, clueing him in that you weren’t simply playing up the innocent maiden schtick to keep your pride. 

And his brows take a very expeditious trip up to his hairline with that realization. “Don’t tell me … you really hadn’t thought about it? Oh me, oh my, could it be you’re actually a virgin standing before me in the flesh? You poor thing.” 

“O - of course not, you fiend! How dare you speak to me like this!” 

“But if that’s true then … surely you must not have any problem making a wager with me, hm? I mean, if you’re so experienced and knowledgeable in the ways of the adult world there’s no way I’d win, right?” 

His smirk grows when your eyes widen to the approximate size of dinner plates, just staring down at him like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming vehicle. Oh, but this was too rich. You’re doing a horrible job of pretending like you were at all comfortable with the direction this has gone and he can see his window to strike gradually revealing itself. You would have been easy enough to sucker in just about any other situation, especially for someone of his caliber, but like this? When he already had you so rattled and disoriented? This was going to be like taking candy from a baby. 

“I can see I have your attention.” He goes on, speaking in a slow, confident drawl now. “How about it then? I’ll even give you the advantage by promising to only use my mouth. No hands or — other extremities, just to keep it fair.” 

You look like you just might faint dead away as you surreptitiously glance down at his lap before snapping your attention back up with a wordless cry. “W - what are you even talking about? Why do you think I’m going to strike a deal with a criminal like you, Sampo Koski?” 

“Ah, so you do remember my name.” He graciously inclines his chin, every bit the performer at home on his stage even for an audience of one. “And I know you’re going to strike a deal with me because I can tell just how hot and bothered you’re getting from over here. You haven’t been able to stop thinking about your pussy since I pinned you to the wall, have you? Yeah, thought so. Alright. Here’s the deal, sweetheart. Give me five minutes, that’s all I ask. Just give me a chance to rock your world and if I can't make you scream for me in that time you win. I’ll go along peacefully with you back to Belobog. You won’t even hear another peep out of me the whole way, scouts honor.” 

“Wha … and if you win?” 

“Then you’ll take these handcuffs off and let me use my hands for a little while.” 

Squeaking shyly at the salacious waggle of his brows, you quickly turn away from him to look elsewhere. He watches you fidget and squirm for a drawn out moment, clearly wracked by indecision while he patiently waits to find out what you’ll choose. It was a bit of a gamble, sure, but he was no stranger to low odds bets and he was relatively confident you’d take the bait. After all, carting him all the way back to Belobog by yourself would be no easy task. 

And just as he’d expected, the promise of having a willing captive eventually wins out against your common sense and you slowly turn back around towards him. Your eyes stay downcast, preferring to look at the floor rather than at him, but that doesn’t particularly bother him much. 

Especially not when you bring your hands forward to hover at about waist level, uncertainty and nerves making you hesitate. 

“Should I just …” 

Breathing out a terse sigh through his nose, Sampo bumps his head back to rest against the wall with a knowing smirk. “That’s right. Slide your pants down and come here.” 

You look like you’re going to back out after all for the stretch of a single heartbeat but then you seem to hastily gather your resolve, mouth settling into a firm line when you reach down to fumble with the front of your slacks. The pristine white fabric slouches around your hips as soon as you get them unfastened but you stubbornly keep them held up while you shuffle forward to stand before him. 

Still smiling, Sampo inquisitively cocks his head to one side and you glare at him as if in warning before at last shoving your pants down to pool around the boots they’re tucked into. Your panties quickly follow suit to leave you bare from the waist down and nervously fussing with the bottom hem of your uniform jacket which you tug at to cover yourself. It’s plainly obvious that you’re a mess of nerves, not at all comfortable with being even partially naked in front of another like you’d wanted him to believe, but that was all right. He’d fix that soon enough. 

“Closer.” He murmurs, coaxing you with a grin. “I can’t reach you like this. No hands, remember?” 

You suck in a rough breath and hold it in your chest for a harrowing moment. 

Abruptly squeezing your eyes shut, you yank the front of your jacket up and shuffle into the space between his bent knees to offer your cunt to him. And Sampo immediately feels his mouth start to water when he gets his first good look at you just a hair's breadth from his face. 

The curls framing your pussy look soft and ticklish, a perfect place to lose himself in, and your inner thighs are soft with a welcoming pudge that begs to be squeezed. He’d have to save that for later though, and he gives his lips a quick swipe with his tongue before leaning up to dip his mouth close. 

“Such a pretty girl,” He says, low and husky, to make sure you can feel his breath wafting against your skin before he actually touches you. “I don’t understand how you’ve possibly gone this long without having anyone eat you out but it’s okay. I’m here to remedy that for you. Just relax for me, alright?” 

At your flustered little whimper, assuring him you were doing everything but relaxing, Sampo places a lingering kiss to the curls that pad your cunt. He takes his time with it as he slowly works his way down to the apex of your mound where the fleshy seam starts and he gets his first taste of you with a quick flick of his tongue. You jolt as if he’d just electrocuted you via static shock, swaying on your feet. But you stay right where you are, which he had to give you props for, merely squeezing your thighs as if to shut him out. 

Tipping his head at an angle, he presses up into the tight, hot space to startle a mouse squeak out of you. The insistent nudge of his mouth forces you to adjust your footing for balance and you reluctantly shuffle into a wider stance as he buries his face in you. His olfactory senses are immediately overwhelmed with the smell of your cunt, your taste where it settles on the back of his tongue. Slightly bitter and salty, and yet so incredibly flavored with sweet notes of arousal that he was sure to remember it for as long as he might live. 

His cock eagerly flexes in his pants to push up at the zipper as if trying to escape on its own accord while he continues to nuzzle into you, kissing and licking at fleshy lips to part them. Each lap of his tongue brings a fresh taste of you with it and he quickly realizes just how wet you really are as he worms his way into the slick crease of your body. It was clear he excited you way more than you were willing to let on and that pleases him a great deal. No wonder he’d been able to feel your pussy clenching on his thigh if this was how sensitive you were. 

“Oohh, that’s - -!” You cut off with a flustered gasp when his tongue at last nudges your clit, a barely there, featherlight caress, but still more than enough to make you judder for him. How cute. He wasn’t even going to need five minutes at this rate. 

Grinning into your cunt, Sampo undulates his wet tongue up to massage over that tender little button just gently enough to let you acclimate to the sensation. The last thing he wanted was to scare you off by going in too hard too fast but, to his continued delight, you warm up to it quickly enough. He can feel the shift in your body language when you start to relax into it, shyly jutting your hips out to better offer your pussy to his mouth. And you just keep getting stickier and stickier for him, saliva mixing with slippery arousal to leave your slit a mess with the viscous gossamar. 

He can barely contain his own excitement when he at last starts to lick you in earnest, flicking his tongue up to swipe through fleshy creases and folds, bumping against your swollen clit head on. You beautifully jerk in response, hands fisting the bottom of your jacket into a wrinkled mess until you at last give in to the urge to reach for him. 

Your fingers feel heavenly in his hair as you grab onto his head, even when they fiercely shake because of what he’s doing to you. Whining low in your throat, you again start to fidget and twist your pelvis as if to escape the onslaught of his attention and yet … you don’t actually move to pull away nor do you shove at him. You just stand there and take it while Sampo batters your poor little clit back and forth before finally sealing his lips around you to suckle. 

That seems to make your knees almost give out, and you mewl a sensitive sound into the otherwise still and silent building when you weakly rock against him, clutching his hair so tight he thinks you might actually pull it out. Oh well, though. It would be well worth it once he won this little wager and got to put his hands on you. 

“Oh! Nnghnn … gods, that’s …”

He suddenly pulls his head back with a loud, wet, obnoxious smack of his lips. 

Chuckling softly under his breath at your frazzled whine, Sampo tips his head back to look up at you again. “Amazing? Wonderful? The best gosh darn feeling you’ve ever experienced? Well, little miss Silvermane Guard, are you still feeling so confident now?” 

You shoot him a deeply embarrassed look accompanied with a soft, helpless whimper that rushes straight to his cock. It was clear enough that you didn’t know how to fully process any of this and you weren’t confident enough to take the lead either, to use him for your own pleasure like he so wished you would, but that was alright. He was keen to teach you a thing or two before this bet was finished. 

“Do me a favor,” He husks, spreading his legs wider out across the floor to lessen some of the uncomfortable strain in his pants. “Turn around and back up on me. Hey, don’t look at me like that! It’s not so strange a request, is it? It’ll still feel good, I promise.” 

“B - but that’s - -“ 

“A great idea, of course!” He cuts you off with a playful wink. “Just trust me. You won’t regret it.” 

War wages across your face for a drawn out moment while you try to parse through this no doubt confusing situation. It’s a difficult thing to do though when your pussy was coated in slick and sticky saliva, begging for more attention that he wasn’t going to give you until you either complied or made him. 

He would have been perfectly happy with the latter, truth be told, but ultimately the former wins out. You were just needy enough not to let common sense cloud your judgment and you stiffly disengage from him so you can shuffle back half a step. 

Hands reaching down to hike up the back of your jacket as you spin around, showing off your (frankly amazing) ass, you nervously glance over your shoulder at him for further instruction. “Like this?” 

“Yeah, that’s right. Now back up, and don’t be shy about it. Pretend like you’re going to sit on my face, mmkay’?” 

You give him an exceedingly strange look before clearly deciding it wasn’t worth it to question him any further. He could see the flustered resignation in your expression even from where he was sitting, and he draws an anticipatory breath to brace himself when you finally start to nudge back on him. 

If he’d had the use of his hands he would have been happy to yank you down and hold you in place no matter how much you squirmed and whined about it, but. Well. We can’t have everything we want in life, now can we? 

Instead he has to make do with watching you slowly inch back towards him, stiff and halting even as his cock restlessly flexes inside his slacks. Unable to take the waiting any longer when you still hesitate at the last moment, he leans forward to meet you halfway and he shoves his face tight into the cradle between your legs, eliciting a startled squeak of surprise from you. 

But then he opens his mouth wide, dragging his tongue from the starting dimple of your slit all the way up to your entrance where he teases you with the suggestion of penetrating you with it, and you seem to completely forget your initial reticence all at once.

Choking on a half formed moan, you blindly push back on him as you arch your back to better settle your cunt against his mouth and receive his attention. The force of it shoves his head back against the wall with a dull thud, making him groan a heavy sound into you, but it’s not near enough to deter him. Neither is the way you effectively cut off his air supply like this, making it almost impossible for him to breathe save whatever little bit he can pull in from his mouth. If anything it just fuels his own excitement to even greater heights as he hungrily laps at you now, swirling his tongue round and round your clit to leave you uncontrollably twitching against him. 

And as the seconds continue to tick by in this fashion you become increasingly more fidgety and antsy until you’re all but writhing on his face with stiff, unpracticed swivels of your hips. It smears your cunt across his nose and mouth in the process, the rush that comes with it shooting straight down to his throbbing cock where it pitifully strains against the zipper, in need of a good tug or two. It probably wouldn’t have taken a whole lot to have him shooting hot ropes everywhere and he once again finds himself sorely wishing he had his hands. 

But his inability to touch himself just seems to make it ache all the worse while, conversely, you appear to be enjoying yourself quite a bit despite the dire tinge in your stretched thin voice. Sampo can tell you don’t know what to do, how to make any sense of what’s happening to your body, and it just spurs him on to attack your defenseless clit with even greater ferocity. 

Burn everything, he couldn’t even recall the last time he’d been this hard. 

And then you say it. 

A breathless, tiny little, “M - Mister Sampo!”

That’s all it takes to make him cum, his hips stiffly rolling against the floor while he creams all over the inside of his underwear. He can hardly breathe through it, grunting a masculine sound into your cunt while the sensation of his fast cooling load bleeds into the front of his pants. In truth he’s so lost in the surge of fast pumping endorphins and potent adrenaline that it takes him a prolonged beat to realize that you’re cumming too. 

Crying out in pleasure, you shake and judder through your release far longer than he does, sucking in one frantic breath after another while you sensitively squeal his name for the whole building to hear. If this had been anywhere other than the old city the two of you probably would have had a couple of good Samaritan’s running to check what was going on to make a woman cry out like that and he’d quickly find himself on the sharp end of another Silvermane weapon. 

But luckily you are in the old city, not Belobog, and he slouches back against the wall with a heaving groan when you finally pry yourself away from him, still twitching with the lingering remnants of your orgasm. He only needs to take one look at you, legs trembling like a newborn foal while you try to orient yourself, and he knows what he needs to do. 

Recovering much quicker than you do, Sampo leans forward even when it just makes his underwear give a wet squish at the change in position and flexes his arms to test the full range of motion allotted to him by the cuffs. They don’t even budge but that wasn’t a problem. He has enough room to flick his hand up and out, summoning a small blade of wind to slice clean through the metal chain connecting the two links with a barely audible rattle. 

He quickly brings his hands around and reaches for you, grabbing onto your hips before you can react or even realize what’s happening. Completely ignoring your squawk of surprise, he yanks you down into his lap to sit on his still achingly rigid cock and he curls himself over you, chuckling softly at the way you gape up at him in barefaced shock. 

“W - w - wha —“ 

“Oh, did I forget to tell you? You’ll need something a bit stronger than that if you want to keep me locked up. Surprised?” 

Keeping one arm secured around your middle, he reaches down with the other to splay his fingers across your rapidly flexing stomach and then drags it lower to dip between your legs. You gasp and twist in his hold, uselessly smacking at whatever part of him you can manage to reach, but it’s all an effort in futility. He already had you trapped in his clutches despite all the squirming, and his gloved finger takes a casual swipe through the creases of your messy cunt to make you jolt. 

“Well, well, would you look at that. I’d say I won our little bet, wouldn’t you? That means I get to put my hands all over you and … other things too, isn’t that right?” 

“Wait! You can’t - - nnghn!” 

Tossing your head back when he finds your sopping wet entrance and pushes one finger inside to feel the stretch, you seethe up at the ceiling. He’s acutely aware of your body trying to reject it and keep him out, but you were much too slippery to stop him even when your thighs valiantly squeeze shut around his hand. 

“That’s a tight fit.” He murmurs, perfectly offhand while he makes casual work of slowly thrusting his digit in and out of you. Your pussy softly clicks with the motion, so wet for him that the smooth material of his glove slides easily through your constricting passage. The only response he gets is a sharp, overwrought hiss while you halfheartedly try to shove at his arm. 

It was likely too soon after your orgasm when the nerves were still vibrating and tender, so he decides to take pity on you at least for the moment. Carefully withdrawing his hand from between your legs, he instead reaches up to yank at all the buttons and latches on your jacket to get that undone too. He couldn’t wait to see those tits for himself, and not even all your fitful writhing was enough to deter him from it. 

You harp at him the whole time of course but Sampo just coos at you to relax while he fumbles to get the inner thermal shirt yanked up around your neck. With his chin tucked over your shoulder he has the perfect vantage point to look down at the soft white bra that holds your breasts in place and he takes a moment to indulgently squeeze at them through the material, kneading the flesh until you finally relent with a harried moan. 

Only then does he hook his finger into the band and tug it down. Realizing what he’s doing, you make a desperate attempt to swat his hand away but the moment your tits spill out into the air you violently shudder so hard it seems to temporarily immobilize you. Punchdrunk and dazed, you reluctantly allow your head to loll back against his shoulder as he sets his sights on the stiff, pebbled peaks of your nipples. 

“What do you know, Sampo Koski’s intuition is always right it seems.” He murmurs, quite pleased with himself as he tweaks one of the buds to leave you moaning in his lap. “I had a feeling these were going to be nice and juicy. Are you sure no one’s ever played with these before? You look like you’re enjoying this …” 

You give a weak, faltering little mewl in response, tense fingers digging into his forearm where you’re clutching onto him for dear life. Chuckling a husky sound into your neck, he nuzzles against you to kiss and nip at the vulnerable skin there before slowly working his way up. Still idly toying with your nipples, pinching and pulling at them, he brushes his mouth across your cheek to finally claim those kissable lips for himself. 

And you let him do it, groaning hotly into his mouth while he kisses you deeply and lays total claim on your person. There isn’t an inch of you that he won’t have touched by the time he was done, and the knowledge that he was undeniably going to be your first fills him with a sick sense of pride. The signs were all there, even if he did tease you contrarily. And oh, how he was going to wreck you for any other man. It would always be him who you thought of, comparing everyone else to the so-called crook who so expertly turned your own body against you on the floor of an abandoned building in the old city, and wasn’t that just the greatest punchline of all? 

“Are you gonna’ be good for me?” He says at last when he carefully reaches under you to unfasten his pants, lips brushing yours as he speaks. “Gonna’ let this dirty old man have his way with you, right here, right now? Just like this? Hm?” 

Lost in the stupor of your arousal, you blithely nod for him even as a brief flash of uncertainty crosses your face. It seemed that some part of you understood his intention, the full brunt of the implication of what he was about to do to you, but you were too far gone to stop it and it was already much too late. Sampo has his cock fished out and he pauses only long enough to give it a perfunctory tug, smearing his own spend over the length of it to help lubricate the way. 

Angling it up, he blindly nudges through your soaked cunt until he feels the dip of your entrance, so wet and creamy against his tender glans it makes him suck in a slow breath. You go ramrod stiff in his hold, lurching forward as much as you can with his forearm still locked around your middle while your hands frantically ball into his jacket sleeves. There was no escaping it though, not in the wholly defenseless position he’s got you in, and you wordlessly cry out when he starts to push up. 

A rattling breath puffs out of him as your pussy slowly spreads open around him, granting him entry to your body. The overwhelming heat of you accompanied by the too tight squeeze makes him glad for his first orgasm, premature though it may have been, because he isn’t so sure he could have held it back otherwise. Your guts are alive around him as he gradually sinks deeper and deeper into you, aided by the help of gravity. Vulnerably curled up on his lap like this, the only thing you can do is take it. 

And you do take him, beautifully in fact. Every inch of his cock gradually slides into the tight embrace of your inner sleeve until he at last settles against the end of you with nowhere else to go. You wail a pitiful sound at the pressure that pushes in on your organs and choke on a tiny little sob as your trapped legs futilely kick at the air. It wouldn’t have helped much even if your pants weren’t tangled around them though, not when Sampo already had you fully impaled on him. 

That'd been the deal, right? 

Well, maybe it hadn’t been stated out right but that should teach you not to make deals with shady businessmen or Fool’s. 

Rumbling a low sound of pleasure as he slides his hand around, caressing over the faint bulge created by his cock through your lower stomach, Sampo nuzzles at your face again to get your attention. He wanted to make sure you weren’t drifting off to la-la land on him, and when you tip your head to blearily glance up at him with a deep felt shudder, he allows himself a sly smile. 

“Let me hear you scream my name again, pretty girl.” He purrs, narrow hips bracing to angle out of you so he can slam back in. “And don’t forget the ‘mister’ either. I think I rather liked how that sounded.”

⭐

Crossposted: here

[redbullcateringfiction]

Chapter 2 -

Cantata

Arabella is the executive assistant for Mercedes Team Principal Toto Wolff. 10 years into her career, it looks like the tide is changing, and she's beginning to question her relationship with him. Is it something more, or nothing but an idea lingering in her head?

F/M, Fluff, Boss/Employee Relationship, Romance, Pining, Love, Slow Burn

Second chapter below the cut or click here for AO3

Click here for the previous chapter on Tumblr, and click here for a list of all chapters

(Total: 7270 words thus far)

“How long have you been with Mercedes?” Mr. Wolff asked me.

“2 years at this point,” I nodded.

“And prior to that?”

“I was a personal assistant for an acting agent at United Agents,” I answered. “Prior to that, I received a Level 5 executive assistant diploma and project management diploma at Souters in the Netherlands.”

“What languages are you fluent in?”

“German, Dutch, Arabic, English, and French,” I explained.

“Arabic…that’s helpful,” he nodded.

“Yes. There was a continuous call for an executive assistant in the marketing department who spoke Arabic when I first applied here. I thought I’d be a good fit.”

“You only have 5 years’ experience at this point, and only 2 in Formula 1. Would you be prepared to take on the level of responsibility that this comes with?”

“With all due respect, Mr. Wolff, I’ve made it through 5 rounds of interviews and 4 exams. I have yet to fail a single one. This might just be what I was made for.”

Mr. Wolff looked up from his note pad and smirked. He seemed to think for just a moment, and then looked me in my eyes. “I agree. Can you start next week?”

~

“There’s a 90-day trial period when you first begin. If we decide to proceed, you’ll sign a formal employment contract for this role. If we don’t, returning to your role in Marketing will still be an option. If this role re-opens, you can re-apply in a year. Do you understand?” The HR manager asked me.

“Yes,” I nodded.

“Do you mind if I say something…off the record so to speak?” He asked.

“No, no problem. Go ahead,” I nodded.

“This will be very hard. And you’re quite young. What, 25? You’ve been here for 2 seasons. We’ve only really been this team, like this at least, for 3 seasons. This will only continue to get harder. With Haug gone, we’ve got this new guy. You’re not just his assistant, you’re going to act like his curator with everyone else. You’re going to be the one really driving this connection. Afterall, you’re the one who plans every step of the day. If you leave during those 90 days, you get to take home 50% of your salary to keep you from going to another team. If you leave after 6 months, you get to take home 100% of the salary for a whole year. I’m just saying, you won’t struggle if you get tired of this.”

I thought for a moment. Was he telling me to leave or was he telling me I could? Was this a warning or a recommendation?

“Thanks,” I answered. I picked up my new badge off the desk. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

~

“It’s the end of the 90 days, Ms. Lazaar,” Mr. Wolff said, sitting me down at his desk. “Let’s have a talk.”

I could feel my forehead dripping beads of sweat. I hadn’t been perfect. Not at all. But I’d been pretty darn close. I have no clue what the threshold is for failure. That’s not something I was entirely used to. Executive assistants frequently find themselves doing this for years. If this didn’t work out, I don’t know if I would want to go back to marketing. I had spent the past 3 months in different countries, watching races from the pit practically. I experienced Formula 1 at a level I never imagined. Going back to sitting at a desk answering phone calls wouldn’t cut it anymore. This felt like it. And there’s only so many teams. There are only so many jobs just like this with my skillset. If this didn’t work out…well…I’d probably be at a bank by next year.

“How do you think you’ve done?” He asked. I hated questions like these. What was the point? You already know how I’ve done.

“I think I’ve done well. I haven’t been perfect. The first two weeks were hard, but after that settling in was easy,” I explained, with a small white lie about the ease. Nothing about this was easy.

“Easy?”

“I may have been bluffing,” I quickly gave up. He chuckled in response. Suddenly the air felt much lighter. My nerves suddenly subsided. I blotted my forehead with a tissue.

“Do you feel close to burning out at all?”

Yes. “No.”

“Was that a bluff?”

Okay, maybe I had been a bit emphatic with that no. And perhaps a bit dramatic with my thinking. “A little. This isn’t easy. This is hard. This is tiring. But I like it. I think I might even love it. I enjoy it. Sacrificing a few hours of sleep makes this worth it,” I answered.

“Well, I can tell you enjoy it. I think you’ve done a great job. I’m excited to see what you do with the rest of your tenure here at Mercedes,” He smiled, passing me an official hiring contract. I signed it with no second thoughts.

~

I looked down at my Tinder profile. In several of the pictures, I had put forth an effort to show off my long and dark curly hair. My favorite picture, was of course, first. It helped to showcase the kind of lifestyle you lead to ensure you only get matches you actually like. That picture was of me, on a yacht in Monaco with Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas. What else screams “are you good enough for me?” quite like that? I need a new one though. This was getting a bit old.

“Ten years, yes?” Toto suddenly asked.

“Huh?” I lilted, looking up from my phone.

“Ten years at Mercedes for you. Coming up, isn’t it?”

“Is it? Has it been 10 years? Oh…well yes. I guess it has. I think in April.”

“April 18 th , to be exact,” He nodded.

“Cool,” I sighed, going back to my phone. I felt a hand come over and my phone had suddenly disappeared out of my view. I turned and Toto had it in his hand. This was the stuff of nightmares. There is no way in hell my boss can know I’m on Tinder. My heart jumped out of my chest as I suddenly went to reach over for it, I saw the screen had darkened. He at least had done me the favor of pressing the power button.

“Give it back,” I groaned.

“You’re so glued to your phone,” He mockingly groaned back.

“It’s literally my job to be.”

“Ah, then what are you so busy with at this moment that you can’t tell me what you’d like for your 10 th anniversary at the company?”

“None of your business,” I frowned.

“Then answer what it is that you’d like.”

“I don’t know, a pen or something? Can I have my phone back now?”

“A pen? A fucking pen? For a decade at a company, you want a pen? ”

“Yes. I’d love a pen. Now give me back my phone.”

He disappointingly handed over my phone. I continued swiping away until I noticed him take out his own phone. I looked up and scoffed, and he chuckled knowing exactly why. I looked back down and saw a profile that stood out. A super like.

Jeffrey, 40

I’m the nice guy your mom told you to settle down with, but with slightly less hair and more traveling.

Yeah, I’ve read worse. I swiped right and messaged him. As I patiently waited for a response, I looked back at Toto. I watched as he looked through the padfolio, seemingly memorizing every word on the page. I had, for a long time, deliberately put my head in the sand when it came to him. This morning though had seemed to shock me, and suddenly I found myself lingering on him. His hands turning the pages, his glasses slipping off his nose, and the way his dark eyes traced the pages I had written. In many ways, he is incredibly-Ah, my phone vibrated.

Jeffrey: Hey! Nice to meet you, Arabella. You’re a secretary?

I sighed and typed out my reply. Not a secretary. An executive assistant. “Fucking men,” I mumbled. Toto looked over with an eyebrow raised. I awkwardly smiled and went back to my phone.

Jeffrey: Oh, sorry! So, you know Hamilton?

If I were the type to cackle evilly, I would at this moment.

Me: I work with him.

Now, to let that fester a little bit. I looked down into my bag and pulled out my schedule and began making the necessary calls for tonight. It’s important to verify everything. First, the hotel, immediately followed by the driving company. I had nearly forgotten and phoned down UBS to ensure that the investors have their meeting scheduled for the correct time. I placed the necessary checkmarks in my schedule that represented ‘Yes, I’ve called them. Now it’s their fault if anything has gone wrong.’

And of course, to top it off, Bombardier. “Yes, we have the jet chartered for tomorrow morning at 8am,” Our private contact, Leanna, answered.

“Oh, perfect. And could you make sure that breakfast is ready for everyone?”

“Yes, absolutely. The usual for everyone?” She asked.

“Yes, and make sure Mr. Wolff’s pumpernickel snaps like a cookie. I think I recall it being a little too lightly toasted last time. Oh, and next week, we have that flight scheduled, too? Right?”

“Yes. I’ll send you an email too to verify all the rest of the flights for the year. But for you, Arabella! I don’t have your breakfast here.”

“Oh, I’m going to cook for myself in the morning. I’m a sucker for an English breakfast.”

“You sure?” She insisted.

“Really, Leanna. They are my bread and butter. Literally.”

She gave me a nice pity chuckle. “Okay, well, Francis will meet you at Heathrow.”

“Thank you, Leanna. Speak with you next week.”

“Obviously!” She laughed, hanging up the phone. I placed my checkmark next to the flight. I looked over at my phone and saw the new response.

Jeffrey: Oh, you work at Brackley?

You could say that.

Me: Yes.

Jeffrey: Well, I’d love to meet with you tonight and talk more about ourselves. What time are you free?

I gave it a little thought. It’s so easy to plan for everyone else.

Me: Does 9pm work for you?

Jeffrey: Perfect, how about Angler?

I’m impressed. And its close! Oh, God. Does he work for UBS? Am I over thinking this? I’m overthinking this. Why would 9pm be okay if he worked for UBS? He would certainly be at this event.

Me: Perfect-er.

Jeffrey: See you then.

I took my last glance at my phone before looking up at the driver’s GPS. 45 minutes left to go. I checked my email and did the slightest bit more work but otherwise enjoyed the little break I was getting. Every so often, I would peek my head up at Toto and watched him do little of much alike me. It doesn’t take long to read the documents I prepare, by design. I watched briefly for a moment as he Facetimed his children and watched his face beam with pride and joy. I tried not to watch for long, pretending instead that I wasn’t listening. Slowly, but surely, 45 minutes turned to 30, and then to 5. Then all of a sudden we were on the move. I grabbed the suitcases out of the trunk as Toto managed the other bags. We headed in through the large omniscient glass doors after crossing the courtyard, and I phoned down to the UBS executive assistant.

“Hello, this is Marie.”

“Hi, Marie. It’s Arabella and Mr. Wolff. We’re in the lobby,” I spoke quietly.

“Excellent, I’ll come down and meet you. Mr. Fischer will be about 5 minutes late for the meeting, but Mr. Wolff is welcome to start.”

“I’ll let him know. Thank you, Marie,” I said, right before hanging up.

“Okay, Toto. Bobby Fischer is going to be about 5 minutes late, but you’re welcome to start. Please actually do start. Don’t linger,” I explained.

“Will do, Arabella,” He sighed. He handed me my crossbody and I slinged it over my shoulder. “Ah there she is.”

I looked across the lobby and saw Marie walking towards us. The world of executive assistants is small, and we’ve truly all begun to know each other. Not all of the driver’s have assistants but Marie was Lewis Hamilton’s ex-assistant. Leaving your boss in this line of work is truly a bit like a break up, and this must feel like running into your ex’s parents a bit. I still get uncomfortable walking past the Marketing department. However, Marie was just like most of us current or ex F1 assistants. She was a hard ass. Much more controlling than you’d expect out of your typical assistant, and if I’m considered demanding, Marie is 10-fold. I don’t know if that management style worked for Lewis, but it's what a field like banking demands at times, so I imagine the crossover wasn’t as odd as it must seem. 

“Wonderful to see you again, Arabella. And you too, Toto. Arabella, meet us on the 38th floor at approximately 1:30. I can have coffee made for you at arrival. Black coffee right?” It sounded less like a question and more like a statement.

“Absolutely. See you then,” I nodded. She ceremoniously walked towards the elevator with Toto, almost like a passing of the torch. I headed outside and brought up the directions to the hotel. Just around the corner really, but I can be a bit silly and somehow get all turned around. Truly why F1 driving was never for me.

I wandered into the hotel and saw the clear signs for the Angler restaurant. I knew it was close to the hotel, but it hadn’t processed it was in the hotel. I walked up to the check in counter while sending off the quickest message to my Tinder date. Have you made reservations? 

“Hello, yes, I need to check in for Torger Wolff,” I explained.

“Ahh, for the Mercedes F1 team staying here tonight?” She asked. 

“Yep,” I nodded.

“Can I see some ID?” 

I handed over my ID and my phone quickly buzzed. 

Jeffrey: Yes! Wouldn’t dare not to.

Oh, perfect. Great. Couldn’t get any better. 

Me: Oh! Perfect! Great, couldn’t get any better! See you there.

I looked back up at her while she studied my ID. 

“Are you with the Mercedes F1 team?” She asked.

“Yes.”

“What is it that you do?” She asked, almost snidely. 

“I’m an assistant.”

“To whom?”

“Who do you think? Lewis Hamilton? Or the guy who’s bags I’m trying to drop off?” I smiled.

“Well, I don’t see you have a room booked here. How am I to know if you’re not just a groupie or something?”

“A groupie? In a suit?” I questioned, before shaking my head. I was trying to shake off what I really wanted to say in this instance. “Check the notes. It’s very clear that I’m authorized to enter his room and to check in.”

“I see no notes,” She smiled. 

“Then call your supervisor,” I smiled back. I saw her roll her eyes as she picked up the phone. Soon enough, a young gentleman walked behind the counter. He had to be younger than me.

“Yes?” He asked.

“She is attempting to check in for the Mercedes F1 Team Principal. I see nothing on here about her checking him in,” She explained. Her manager took a glance at the computer screen, then over at me. He looked me up and down, before going back to the computer screen.

“Is this your ID?” He asked.

“Yes,” I groaned.

“Please, don’t catch an attitude. We’re simply trying to ensure the safety of our guests,” He smiled. An attitude? “I see you have no room booked tonight under the block of rooms for Mercedes-Petronas. Am I to believe that you simply are here to enter his room and then leave?”

“Yes, you absolutely are. Especially considering I have shown you my ID,” I explained.

“Then why aren’t you staying here if you’re with the team?”

“I live in London. In Chelsea?” I nodded.

“That’s a long way from here,” He sighed.

“Is it? It’s like half an hour,” I insisted. “No, nevermind that. I am here to check in for Toto-Torger Wolff. I am his executive assistant. I have a badge for Brackley that I will happily show you. I have no intention of staying at your hotel today because I would like to sleep in my own bed before heading to a whole other country for testing. I would like to simply drop off his bags in his room and ensure everything is up to snuff because that is my job . Nothing else, nothing more.”

“How about you just give us the bags and we’ll drop them off in his room?” He tried to appeal to my growing frustration.

“How about I take the bags up so I can do the other half of my job?” 

He simply shook his head. I handed him my Brackley ID and he looked it over.

“Could these be faked?” He another hotel staff member who came over due to the commotion

“Fur sure they cud’ be,” he answered in a thick scottish accent. “My mukker’s git one for McLaren.”

“We won’t accept this,” He smiled at me again. The smiles were beginning to look faker and faker by the moment. This is the primary issue I find myself in being a Black woman working for what are essentially, sports celebrities. At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if they turned around and asked Lewis to leave. 

“Here,” I gave up. I took out a business card for Bono. “Has he checked in yet? Give him a call and let him verify me.”

They took the card and dialed the number. They hung up after a few moments.

“He didn’t pick up,” They shrugged. 

“Fine, do me the favor of at least taking the bags then? Up to the room?” I babbled. Words seemed to be lost on me at this moment.

“I think we’ll actually not. We can’t be sure what the content of those bags are,” the manager nodded.

Please. For fuck’s sake. “I’ll see you back at 2:00pm,” I tried to smile.

I took the bags back over to the UBS offices, and took the elevator up to the 38th floor and walked towards Marie’s desk. There she was sitting scrolling through her phone.

“Oh, Arabella,” she mumbled looking up. She looked at the clock, and then at her phone, and then up at my face. She stood up and looked down at my hands. “You’re early…and you still have the bags. Was the room not ready?”

“They refused to let me in,” I sighed. 

“Again?” She questioned. I raised an eyebrow up at her. She was a pale skin tone, and had medium brunette hair that brushed her shoulders. 

“I’m black, Marie. Yes, again,” I stated as I sat on the chairs by the office entrance.

She frowned. “Let me go get your coffee, love.” It was truly the lightest voice, and kindest voice, Marie had ever offered me. She usually gives me no type of affection, even though were in the same career. I think it’s a bit cutthroat and she got used to turning everyone away. I wasn’t used to this type of response from her. She soon returned and handed me the cup of coffee, sitting down next to me.

“Well, I’m sorry about that. I know, beyond all else, I can’t understand this type of situation as deeply and as well as you. Nonetheless, I know you’re good at your job, and that this simply isn’t fair for someone of your caliber.”

I stared into the cup of coffee for a moment, really letting her response process. I looked up at her and her flat expression. A signal of care for her. 

“Thanks, Marie,” I offered a slight smile as I sipped my coffee.

“No need to fake a smile. I would call, but they’d probably pretend they don’t know who I am either,” She acknowledged. 

“Don’t worry. His bags have to get in somehow.”

“So, what have you been up to you? Outside of this?”

“Nothing really. This is all I’ve been up to.”

“Listen, I don’t miss that life at all,” She mumbled. “There’s nothing quite like getting to work at 9 in the morning, and leaving at 5 in the evening. This is consistency. There’s no jetting across the world. I mean, I can actually have a relationship. I’m getting married, for Christ’s sake. That’s not possible in F1.”

“I want none of those things.”

“Is that why your phone just went off with a Tinder notification?” She chuckled. I looked down and Jeffrey had sent a message. I think I just passed you in Broadgate Circle! You must be there for the Mercedes event tonight at UBS, right?

I quickly responded. Yes, actually! Sorry, I didn’t notice you.

“That’s for hookups,” Not for boyfriends.

“Ah, nothing more, huh?” She answered.

“No.”

Jeffrey: Oh! Did you want to push our dinner to another day? Or did you want to meet at the event? I’m a lawyer for UBS so I didn’t see much of the point of going, but I’d be happy to.

Fuck. 

Me: No, no! I’m completely fine with meeting at 9. I’m leaving the event early.

Jeffrey: Okay, great! Sorry if there was any confusion. See you at Angler.

I wasn’t overthinking! Isn’t this the best? Your anxiety being right always prevents it from going too far the next time. Obviously. Totally. For sure.

“I’ll leave you to your work now,” Marie smirked, standing up. “But I highly recommend leaving F1. What’s the plan? To be 60 and still galavanting around?”

“Presuming Toto Wolff still is, yes,” I grinned falsely. She rolled her eyes and walked behind her desk. I looked over my notes for the hotel. Everyone knew I was supposed to be checking in, and yet, nothing changed. These kinds of things seem to somehow never change. But, my checkmark reassured me. You did everything right. Now it’s their fault if anything goes wrong. That’s what it means, and it's a serious thing. 

Soon enough, Toto left the meeting.

“Have a good afternoon, everyone! See you tonight,” He smiled, shutting the door. He looked over and saw me with the bags, and gently pinched the bridge of his nose. “Again, Arabella?”

“Again.”

“Once every few years, huh,” He said, grabbing the bags and immediately walking towards the elevator. I jumped up and followed him. As the years had gone on, Toto had gradually become more keenly aware of two things: He is a celebrity, and I am Black. As a result of his growing celebritas, and my very unchanging Blackness, these types of occurrences had become more frequent. 

“So what was the reason now?” He asked. 

“I look like a groupie,” I shrugged.

“A groupie? In a suit?” 

“That’s what I said.”

Toto rolled his eyes and moved his glasses to his shirt collar.

“How was the meeting?” I offered.

“The usual. Numbers this, offers that. Etcetera, etcetera,” He waved his hand almost at the suggestion we could have a normal conversation at this moment. I took that as my sign to quiet down, and just follow him. So I did. The second we arrived to the hotel I watched as the original front desk employee scurried to the back, and the supervisor made a return. He smiled far too brightly for this moment.

“Arabella, introduce yourself,” Toto gestured to the supervisor as we walked up.

“No introduction necessary. The employee who just ran to the back introduced originally,” I smiled, even more brightly than the supervisor. I watched as his look turned a bit sour.

“Ah, well go grab her too. Was anyone else involved in this?” Toto asked me.

“A Scottish man but he didn’t really have much to say,” I shrugged.

“Oh, never mind who did and didn’t say anything. The point remains. Go grab the other two individuals she’s referring to,” He ordered the supervisor. We watched as he scurried about the backroom and nearly dragged the two out by their necks. As they approached the desk, he hid behind them like a scared puppy.

“I saw that your name tag said front desk manager, you can’t hide behind these two,” Toto complained. The man stepped from around the two employees. “Go ahead, tell me what happened.”

“What happened with what? I’m sorry, can we check you in Mr. Wolff? I’m not sure what’s going on,” The young lady suddenly piped up.

“You seem awfully scared to not know. Let me have an explanation, please,” Toto nodded.

“Well-” She began to speak again but was quickly interrupted by her boss.

“We asked her to show ID, and the produced ID appeared to be fake. So we did not allow her into the room,” The manager stated, suddenly piping up.

“So, did she provide any other identification?” Toto asked. 

“No,” The manager replied.

“Arabella, don’t you usually have a lanyard with your Brackley ID on it?” Toto asked, turning to me.

“Oh, yeah, they have it. I never grabbed it back. Nor my ID for that matter, which they didn’t mention being potentially fraudulent when I came up here,” I sighed. 

Toto put his hand out, and they handed over my identification. A Danish passport and the Brackley ID.

“And Bono’s card,” I gestured. The manager reached into the trash and took out Peter Bonnington’s business card, and handed it to me.

“So, did you call Bono?” Toto asked them.

“We did yes, but he didn’t pick up,” The manager replied.

“Oh okay, let me verify right quick,” Toto nodded, taking out his own phone and dialing Bono. “Bono, hello, you’re on speaker phone. Did you get a call from the hotel earlier?”

“No…was I supposed to?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Toto said immediately before hanging up. He just simply stared at them for a moment.

“Here’s your room key, Mr. Wolff,” The front desk woman said, handing the key to Toto.

“One for me, too,” I smiled. She produced another and handed it to me, with huge screaming eyes that said ‘save me.’ No, I don’t think I will.

“And at this moment, right now, place a note on the account saying Arabella Lazaar is my assistant and any needs she may have related to my reservation should be addressed,” Toto ordered them.

“Actually, could you tell me who made the block for the rooms?” I asked.

“That would be uh…” The manager said, scrambling around the computer. “Um…you Ms. Lazaar.”

“Is this incompetency or is this bigotry? I’m not sure which, but whichever, I recommend the three of you have new jobs lined up in the morning. And when they ask ‘Oh how did you get fired?’ Don’t put anyone from my team’s name in your mouth, including my own,” Toto grumbled. They nodded, and he turned on his heel and walked towards the elevator.

“Oh, Mr. Wolff!” The front desk lady nearly screamed at the top of her lungs. “We’ve upgraded your room to the presidential suite.”

He threw his hand up dismissively as we got into the elevator, as if to say both ‘thank you’ and ‘just stop.’ As we got in he turned to me and took a deep breath. 

“They were quite the group of idiots weren’t they? I’ll call the company behind this place and get it sorted out.”

“I appreciate that.”

“Nothing to appreciate really, these things shouldn’t go this way. You provided everything they needed, and yet they decided to still treat you wrong. That’s on them, and they should’ve known there would be consequences for their actions,” He explained. “We have our own security. It helps when the front desk at hotels also pays attention to possible situations, but at the end of the day, they’re not supposed to go beyond their liability. They took it much too far, and who’s to know if you were the first, or if they’d be worse next time?”

“I understand that, but,” I hesitated. “They still need their jobs, and I don’t want my boss turning around and using his fame to protect me.”

Toto looked up at me, and smiled. “Arabella, we have responsibilities to one another. You handle nearly every moment of my life. In turn, yes, I pay you, but I also make sure that while under my employment, you’re well treated. That would be the same if this were Formula 1 or if it were just another company.”

I thought for a moment, and while I knew he was right, I don’t know how comfortable I felt having anyone take responsibility for me. But…I suppose…everyone needs things addressed that they can’t handle themselves. There isn’t really anyone else for me to rely on. That’s kind of frightening. Suddenly, Marie’s words hit me like a ton of bricks. I almost thought I would get dizzy. I’m 35 now. I love my life, but am I wasting it? Should I be settling down? 

I looked over at Toto who seemed to be patiently awaiting my response. 

“Yes. You’re right,” I stated, a little too shakily. 

“Are you nervous?” He asked as we exited the elevator. 

“No, just stressed, really.”

“You have vacation days. You should take one,” Toto shrugged, pressing the key to the door and swinging it open. 

“I only use them during the holiday break. We’re far from that.”

“If you think of the week between testing and the first race as a holiday, then it’s right around the corner,” He winked, as he opened the door for me.

“Absolutely not,” I chuckled, setting his suitcase on the bed. I took a quick look around the room and then texted security to let them know Toto was inside the hotel room. 

“Looks good, Toto. I’ll head out,” I said with a quick head nod. 

“There’s a whole separate room attached here. If you want to change here, you’re welcome to,” He spoke without looking up from his phone. 

I could feel my cheeks get hot, so without thinking I just ran out of the room, trying to pretend I didn’t hear him. I immediately pressed my hand to my forehead. That was stupid. It was a relatively normal offer. There was nothing weird about that and yet I reacted like he asked me to jump off of the London eye. Shit. I made it weird didn’t I? Or did he make it weird? Was it weird at all? No, no it wasn’t. God, Arabella. Stop overthinking for once. I headed for the elevator and went down. As I was leaving, I couldn’t resist making a little bit of eye contact with reception. 

Ha.

Tags: @daddyslittlevillain

[storiumemporium]

Trauma and Repeating Cycles

Full disclosure before I get into this little ramble I've been wanting to make— a lot of the theories and mutterings here are just the culmination of other theories and thought processes I've seen from much cleverer fans around the inets (primarily here and twitter), I would link them but frankly there's so many and I have no idea who would truly be the original coiner of these thoughts 😭😭😭

And also, of course, par the course for this show, very dark themes ahead.

I've just been thinking (probably too much) in depth about how Aegon and Aemond in particular are the final culminations of literal generations of sexual, psychological, and emotional abuse at this point. How Aegon wants so desperately for his mother's approval, and ends up instead a dark mirror of his father. And how Aemond wants to be his own, and instead ends up a dark mirror of his mother.

Alicent

I think it's important to start here with Alicent and just... Take a moment to truly detail and soak in the level of horror this poor girl has been subjected to.

She's the tender age of fourteen (important to keep this in mind later) when she's preyed upon by a man she not only regards as her father figure but is- yes- in fact the same age as her actual father. This man is the father of her at-the-time best friend. And though it's made more overt in the script than in the scenes, we see immediately even before the guillotine drops the fissures within Alicent's mental health. (Biting and chewing at her nails aggressively, for one.)

This is already horrifying enough, it should be enough. But it's exacerbated by the fact that this predatory union is propagated by her actual father, and that both of these men work to sequester her from the only person she would have had for support in this. Rhaenyra. The one with the temper, and the power, to be enraged by this without consequence. Conveniently, the only one who could have hissed and spat her rage at her father with impunity is the one completely erased from her life by them.

And by the time she finds out? It's too late, (none of the blame lies with Rhaenyra for her reaction, as she herself is a teenage girl going through horrific grief and finding out what has been done behind her back) Alicent is already set to be wed to Viserys, to become her step-mother.

This evolves into the first signs of an extremely important trauma response that we see carry down in different ways, much later on in the story. Alicent begins to lean upon duty, upon sacrifice, upon law and order. These things that she swaddles herself in from her youth to protect from having to admit how unfair all of this has been to her. What is leadership without sacrifice? What is being a Queen without suffering? She's too young and too wounded to look at the truth, she needs the structure of pain being a necessity in order to survive the burden of being a mother at fifteen years old. Of being the victim of martial rape at that tender young age.

And through these repeated traumas, she bears four children. The only part of her life worth anything to her, in the end. She's too young for them, too traumatized, too unequipped, but she loves them down to their souls.

And then, in her attempts to remain a good friend to Rhaenyra, in vouching for her, her father is ripped out from under her and she is completely alone with these toddlers. A moment which becomes defining for Alicent.

The moment Otto plants within her the seeds that would turn her- well, into Otto himself. Something she only realizes when it is tragically far too late.

Otto tells her, impresses upon her in a moment of extreme distress, that Rhaenyra will butcher the only good thing that has come of her traumas in life. That she will do anything to maintain the power her son rightfully (at least in the laws of Westeros) should have. She's not as cunning as Otto, and so where he uses cleverness and cunning she uses desperation and strict force (duty, suffering, law, order) to impress upon her firstborn that be must be King to survive.

As we all know, the death knell of Alicent ever believing otherwise first calls at Driftmark. When her son is maimed and Rhaenyra calls for torture (a desperate move to protect her own sons, but alas).

Now, why do I mention all of this that we've seen repeated plentily about Alicent? Because of how it trickles down into her children. Aemond in obvious ways, but less obviously in

Aegon

People have no trouble looking at Aemond and Alicent for the horrors that have been wrought throughout their lives, but not so much for Aegon the Elder, and while I think that's completely fair considering what we see of Aegon on the surface level throughout the season, I'd like to cut deeper into him.

Primarily, that I think Aegon himself has been severely sexually abused and traumatized, and that the character we see by the end of the season is a result of a great deal of very horrific circumstances that the show unfortunately either makes light of or completely undermines.

The mildest of the things I want to bring up is that Aegon's alcoholism very likely stems from that of Viserys- either the man is an alcoholic himself or at least fosters the unhealthy codependence in Aegon. I mean- he's two when Viserys first gives him a drink from Viserys' own cup. From a very young, very very much so still developing mind, I can't imagine what that would do to him.

But the more keen points, Helaena and Flea Bottom.

We all make our cracks about Aegon running to Flea Bottom for safety, that he's passed out drunk in a puddle somewhere or singing shanties in a bar with pirates. But I do want to point out the overwhelming odds that Viserys brought him there, or at least ordered for it to happen.

We even outright hear Daemon state that they used to run the whole of the Street of Silk in their youth. Viserys doesn't deny it, he simply grows hypocritically enraged that Daemon would do so with his daughter. Not his son. His daughter.

Who else in the entire keep would have the power and- frankly- the audacity to take Viserys' eldest son out into the city and to a brothel? Who would even benefit from that happening? And sure, you could say that Aegon simply chose to do it of his own agency. But how is it that a thirteen-fourteen-fifteen year old boy manages to escape what should be the most densely guarded location in the whole of Kings' Landing to go gallivanting off in the most dangerous corners of the city all night long? To end up drunk until sunrise there? At the very least do you think Otto would let his key to the throne go risking death constantly?

Unless, of course, the person to first bring him there has more power than Otto.

Aegon, at least from an age as young as Aemond and Alicent, had been brought by his father or at his father's behest, to a brothel to have sexual relations likely of a similar age gap to that of Aemond with the Madame.

Now, I want to bring up something that I already have a couple of times, something that I think envelops itself into his early experiences at the brothel.

There are two separate scenes, both dismissive and used as humor, that paint an incredibly bleak and tragic picture.

Aegon, age fourteen (the same as Alicent), outright stating that he does not wish to marry Helaena. He doesn't want it, and he words it in a crude and cruel way- as a drunken fourteen year old might be so inclined to do- but the sentiment beneath remains. Aegon is an unwilling participant in this marriage.

Aegon must, for duty, for order, for sacrifice, for law.

Helaena, standing from her chair with a cup in her hands, proclaims that Aegon mostly just leaves her alone, unless he comes back drunk.

On the surface? A joke that embarrasses Aegon and cuts the tension of the scene. Beyond that?

Aegon has already expressed that he did not desire to marry his sister, and now we hear that the only time he touches her is when he's inebriated. This doesn't give the impression of consent.

Which brings why I wrote about Alicent first into this. We see her impress duty upon him so aggressively, that it is his necessity to be King and all things that come with it. This is the product of a trauma response that duty and order and sacrifice and law are the means by which she survives, as well as a long held terror that her children will be butchered by proxy of having a stronger claim to the throne than Rhaenyra.

As a result, Alicent unwittingly subjugates her eldest son to the exact same traumas as Otto did with her. Aegon is robbed of his agency and autonomy in life. Everything about him curated with the intent to take a throne that was never meant to be his, that he does not want. He is forced to marry his sister against his express desires, and he is forced to bed her.

And make no mistake, it's force. Aegon is a notorious man-whore and lecher, he's a regular purveyor of brothels is he not? And yet he requires alcohol to crawl into bed with her, to sleep with her as he regularly and enthusiastically does other women.

I cannot say what this does to Helaena, I would like to think she is either neutral or accepting of this since she mentions what happens so casually and openly to her family. (Otherwise, we would need to get into the topic of a harmful stereotype of the neurodivergent girl being portrayed as having childlike innocence/stupidity and not understanding her own circumstances).

But at the very least, this means that Aegon is forcibly complicit in his own sexual assault, his own rape. Because he has to perform his marital duties, he has to have children by Helaena, it's his duty.

And we see the way this cultivates in Aegon. One of the most common symbols of someone attempting to seize control of their own life is to cut the hair (for a real world example, Britney Spears). It is extremely common symbolism in media, it has meaning in multiple cultures, even TGC himself says that Aegon's hair is short as a rejection of his blood, feeling like the black sheep of the family. I believe he hacks at his own hair in a desperate bid to feel some sort of control or ownership of himself in a world where he otherwise has none. Aegon copes by becoming an alcoholic and developing hypersexuality, he lacks any understanding of boundaries or what would be reasonable in a sexual environment.

It results in Dyana, and it results in Aemond.

Neither of which are forgivable things, neither of which become less horrifying, neither of which become more acceptable. (And we're very blessed to live within an era and society where it is commonly held knowledge that these things are unacceptable and horrific). But with the context that Aegon has been subjected to brothels and sexuality from such an early age- and against his will- it sheds a little light on Sara Hess' statement that Aegon doesn't understand consent, for himself or for others. Even his depressive acceptance of becoming King. He never once mentions that it's unfair to him, he just reaches out like a child, asking do you love me? Wanting to know that if he does this thing being demanded of him, he'll be rewarded with affection for it.

It's a tragic shame that the first season was so short, because we didn't get remotely enough time with the children, I think it would have been valuable to flesh out Aegon's relationship with self actualization and lack of control. That everything he wants and desires is out of his hands, that he must perform, and that even when he does it's not enough because he doesn't do it right. He proclaims that he tries so hard in that scene with Alicent, and that it's never enough, and it sounds comedic because they don't even take the time to show us, or to expand upon the morbid crumbs left behind of how Aegon is in a very predatory situation of his own, and that it's burnt away at his understanding of how the world works.

Which in my mind, plays out why he would bring Aemond to the brothel. In some convoluted, distorted way, I could see it being his attempt to comfort or reach out, Aegon's deeply warped perception of bonding and affection. Their father brought him to one at the same age, no? Aemond needs to take his mind off of what is still a relatively recent trauma, and so Aegon supplies the only way he can, the only way he's equipped to do so. Unwittingly, like Otto upon Alicent and Alicent upon Aegon, Aegon traumatizes Aemond further.

Aemond

Which brings me to Aemond, I think this will be a touch more brief than the others because plenty of people much more eloquent than myself have already expanded upon the tragedy of Aemond and how he turned out the way he did.

Unlike Aegon, Aemond never had the burden of the spotlight, the opposite in fact. By the time Aemond existed, all of Viserys' children by Alicent had fallen out of favor, and so Aemond has never once known the attention or the love of his father. Instead, the only consistent and parental figure Aemond ever had in his life was Alicent. Alicent already favored restriction and piety from a young age, as a result of the things done to her, though they hadn't quite hit their summit yet within the story.

Instead, Aemond is raised nestled into her skirts, resenting Aegon for his behaviors toward him and being ostracized by all else. Helaena was the only other kind figure aside from his own mother in his life, and her absent mind meant that Aemond truly lacked any peers in his life to bond with.

As a result, we have a child that is incredibly isolated, attributing all the cruelties and absences in his life upon his own shortcomings, his need to succeed and match the image of the Targaryen Prince, because then Viserys would have to notice him, because then his nephews and brother would have to respect him. And so he does something incredibly brave, incredibly reckless.

As a result? He's permanently maimed. And who is punished for it? Him, his mother. Not the one who did it, the one who tried to protect him. He watches his mother have a massive outburst and he watches how emotion is a crime, he's witness to the fact that feeling anything at all is sin and makes you the one in the wrong. She's made out to be a shrieking lunatic, that Rhaenyra and her children are the innocents, that Aemond was the criminal in this.

Alicent retreats into herself, that transformation finally hits it's pinnacle, and Aemond chases after it. He learns to bottle himself the exact same way, he learns to suppress everything and to instead focus on violence and physical prowess. But Aegon learned to cope in completely antithetical ways, and so when he attempts to soothe, he further harms. He subjects Aemond to yet another scenario in which he has no control, in which leaving makes him the bad guy- wasting Aegon's coin, disappointing him at least. It completely solidifies Aemond's dislike of things he perceives as unclean or uncouth, and he becomes a violent and barely composed mirror image of his mother.

All in all, these three are on a wheel turning against each other, unwittingly they cultivate harm that drips from one onto the other. Aegon knew their love once upon a time, and so he dives into the unhealthy things laid at his table, he gorges upon them until he needs to vomit and consumes again in the attempt to return to the feeling of love that they gave him so long ago that they will be fleeting, foundational memories and little else, anymore. (Might I remind everybody of that conversation between Jason Lannister and Rhaenyra? "I wonder, Princess. Was your own second nameday as grand as this?" "I honestly don't recall, and neither will he.") Aemond never once knew those feelings, he never knew massive hunts and banquets and celebrations, gargantuan bonfires and fawning nobility. So he shelled in on himself, he became utterly cold and disconnected. The distance was his friend, but now he's completely alone and with absolutely no one to lean on, no one to understand him, and no outlets for emotions that refuse to be bottled up when Lucerys enters his life again. Aegon invites him to the feast, but there's nothing on the plates, and there hasn't been for a very, very long time.

Alicent became a facsimile of what harmed her in the pursuit of protecting her own children, not realizing she was sentencing them to the same fate. Not realizing until the ashes were settling around her and green was as horrifying as red that they'd never stood a chance, at all.

[druidx]

7 Snippets, 7 People

Thanks for the tag, @artdecosupernova-writing, @eli-writes-sometimes & @late-to-the-fandom. Because I got many tags for this game, I figured I'd throw them together and do 21 excerpts.

Tagging back: @aalinaaaaaa @thewriteflame @wildswrites @aquadestinyswriting @artdecosupernova-writing @autumnalwalker @blind-the-winds @eli-writes-sometimes @hannahcbrown @oh-no-another-idea @rhikasa @swordsoulwrites @winglesswriter @andromeda-grace @writingmaidenwarrior @wispstalk @late-to-the-fandom @athenswrites

Rules: Post 7 snippets and then tag 7 people (DW, I'm not expecting anyone else to do 21 snips 😅️)

Once again, all these are from Alexis Dalliance vs the Evil of Titan, in my unending quest to edit the damn thing.

One

Alexis hurried off again, every step taking her further from her companions. Halfway down the west corridor, the tapping of claws sounded from around the corner ahead. Alexis' heart sped up. Along the long, straight corridor there was little cover – only the nook where a support buttress met the ground. Quickly, she stuffed herself into it, crouching down, thinking small, invisible thoughts. Two goblins passed her hiding spot. By their conversation, their attention was less on any interlopers and more on what they were having to eat once their shift was done. Alexis waited, hardly breathing, until they had turned the corner. She counted out slowly, keeping her ears alert. When it was clear they'd moved on, she slipped out of the nook, continuing her investigation.

Two

At the corner, turning back east, she noted an alcove on the inner wall. A quick look showed a set of stairs spiralling down into the inky darkness. Not the direction they intended to travel, but worth noting for later investigation. Alexis continued down the corridor, passing a wide door of sturdy, studded wood. It must lead to the outer defences. At the further end, she paused at a door on the outer wall to check the sounds coming from within; a barracks, this one. Once again, the corridor turned sharply right, southwards now. Halfway down was a shadowy alcove. Alexis frowned – that had to be the stairs up. As she approached, the scritching of goblin claws on stone came again. She ducked into the alcove’s far side with only a moment to spare, breathing lightly as the goblin guards rounded the corner on their patrol and strode on past. She waited, eyes on the winding stair above, willing her heart to slow, as the receding click of claws counted down the seconds.

Three

As soon as it was safe, Alexis started to duck out of the alcove but paused. Richard and Ithanor hadn’t come rampaging around the corner yet, and it would be prudent to at least observe the next level… As fast as she dared, she scampered up the stairs, peaking into the next level. The brightly lit corridor led away in the same manner as below, racks of arms and armour lining the way. Odd, that no doors lead off the inner wall… Feeling she was probably pushing the limits of her companion’s patience, she padded back, completing her circuit of the tower.

Four

This floor was well lit, flicking touches replaced with wicked lanterns, the light forced outwards by metal dishes behind each flame. A hacking cough from her left made Alexis freeze. She pulled back into the shadows of the stairs. When the cough didn't get any closer, she peaked out. At the end of the corridor was a barred door. On either side stood goblins with spears. There was no way of her exiting the stairwell without being seen so she retreated back to the others.

Five

"There's some kind of prison cell up there, and it's being guarded by two gobbos. They're looking right down the corridor. I'm good, but not even I can hide in plain sight like that," Alexis told them Richard hefted his sword. "They're evil. We should kill them." With a heavy sigh, Ithanor put a hand on Richard's blade, lowering it. "We can't. It'll create a ruckus and bring the whole tower down on our heads." "Maybe," Nathardin said, running a finger along his bowstring, "we should turn back. Captain Hengar told us not to take any unnecessary risks." As one, the group turned and glared at him. Nathardin held up his hands in defeat. "I'm just saying." "We have made it this far," Victor said with a glance to Richard and Ithanor. "We are strong, brave, and true! I know we have it within ourselves to defeat Zagor. We must continue!" "There was a lot of goblin and orc styled armour on this level. The woodling and I are both reasonably small. I bet we can convince them to leave their post. Right, Half-pint?" Ithanor raised an eyebrow. "It could work. Do you speak the goblin tongue?" Bastet's grin faltered. "No…" "I do," Alexis said. Richard and Nathardrin raised an eyebrow each at her. Alexis shrugged. "To know the language of one's enemy means you can always defeat him. That's what my Uncle used to say, anyway." Ithanor nodded. "Then it's agreed. Go select your new outfits, ladies."

Six

Their old armour shucked, Alexis passed her pack to Ithanor, muttering phrases in Goblinish. "You alright, Sprout?" Ithanor asked. "Yeah. I'm just rusty." Alexis blew out her cheeks. "Listen, Sprout." Ithanor crouched down. "I know you can do this. And you know, if Sindla fails you, we've got your back. You've just got to holler." "Keep forgetting that." "You'll get get used to it, lass." He rapped on the top of her helm. "Off you go. Telak guide your tongue."

Seven

With that, Alexis continued to feel out the lock, brow furrowed in concentration. With a faint clunk, it popped undone. "There." The dwarf shoved open the door. "Well knock me down with Moradin's hammer! 'Tis a woodling after all. Nice job with them green-skins, lass." "Thank you." Alexis' ears twitched, catching the distinctive rattle of Richard's heavy plate armour. "And here is the rest of our group."

Eight

As the others crowded around, Alexis introduced her companions to the dwarf. "I am Magar Silvarius, the boss of this here fort," the dwarf said, reaching up to shake hands with everyone. "I'm right glad you folks have come. My fellows are in the other cells. You think you can get 'em out?" "Of course we can free them," Richard said. With a flourish, he gestured towards the other barred doors. "Alexis?" "Yeah, sure. I'll get right on that," she muttered, heading towards the doors. Over her head, Magar called out, "Worry not lads and lassies. You’ll be out in a jiffy." The lock Alexis was picking popped open. "One down, seven to go…" The dwarves inside pushed out, shaking first Alexis' hand, then bustling over to Magar who embraced them. "Hey," Alexis called, "what happened to the gobbos we sent down to you?" "We took them out, of course," Richard answered. "Right. They have any keys on them? This would go a lot faster if I had help." "I think I saw a keyring on one of them," Nathardrin said. "I'll go check." Alexis sighed and got to work on the second door.

Nine

"Alright now, settle down, settle down!" Magar called after a while. "I've had a wee word with her ladyship-" here he nodded to another dwarf, standing a little apart, dressed in fine velvets, "-and we've agreed it's only right and proper we compensate these fine folk for their work in freeing us and taking our home back from these marauding nuisances." The dwarves cheered. Magar turned to the group. "The next level up contains our vault. But it’s also the most fortified level. There’s a guard post at every corner of the tower, and Moradin knows how many gobbos are in each." "We can take on whatever’s above," Richard said. "But there are still many vermin in the lower levels which stand between you and reclaiming your tower." Victor scratched at his chin, glancing at Ithanor. "A little help would not go amiss," he said and turned his attention back to Magar. "There are arms and armour down below, if you’ve any men still able to fight?" As he spoke, Alexis saw many of the dwarves nodding their heads, some pounding fists into their opposite hands. Magar must have seen it too, as she ran a critical eye over her people. "Aye. I think I’ve a few."

Ten

Soon the dwarves were back, armed and armoured. Five of the dwarves remained with the group; the rest were led by Magar's lieutenant back to the lower levels, set on wiping out the goblinoid invaders. "Here's the plan then," Ithanor said. "We'll split into groups of three. Alexis and Bastet will lead our most stealthy into position outside the furthest rooms. They'll hold until Richard and I can get into position. We attack simultaneously. Agreed?" Ithanor glanced around as the group variously nodded heads or gave murmurs of assent. "Alright, Alexis, take your team and check the coast is clear." "Right. Nathardrin and Victor, you're with me," Alexis said. "We'll take the far left room. What d'you think, Bastet? Five verses of Down in the Square?" "Make it seven," Bastet said, looking at the two dwarves who'd come to stand next to her. "Richard, Ithanor, give us seven verses of Down in the Square to get in place before you come up and give the signal." With that, she scampered up the stairs, and, once sure the coast was clear, called down, "C'mon, lads."

Eleven

The others were similarly successful; by the time the three of them had moved forward, the fighting was over and Magar was dismissing the dwarves to help with the fight downstairs. "Right, then," Magar said. "Now yer all here, let's have a wee look at those feckless beasties have done to my vault." They followed her around to a solid metal door, decorated with ornate geometric designs.

Twelve

"Magar," Ithanor said as they were finishing up. "Thank you for these gifts, and your help to clear the lower levels." "It’s no problem, laddie. You’ve still a few levels to go. Sure you don’t want an extra hand or three?" "We’ll take it from here. With these new weapons," Ithanor hefted his warhammer, "we’ll have the fort freed in no time." "Alright," Magar shook Ithanor’s hand. "Best of luck, all of ye. Moradin’s strength go with ye."

Thirteen

At the final stairwell, they paused, silent. Ithanor motioned for Alexis to go up first. Her heart in her throat, Alexis glided up the stairs, her crossbow primed. The top of the tower was a domed, circular room. To the south, bookshelves stood sentry beside a writing desk, piled high with scrolls and pens. To the north was a gleaming piece of equipment, with balls of multicoloured stones on concentric rings, taking up a large space by itself. But what caught Alexis’ eye was the figure to the east of the room, turned away fiddling with something on a bench filled with esoteric rods and scrolls. It was long and lean, draped in an ill-fitting robe of yellow. This has to be him! Alexis thought. There was no one else in the room, and he certainly fit the ideal of an evil warlock. She breathed out softly and raised her crossbow, training it on the creature’s narrow back. Her trigger finger curled. One good shot could end this now– "There is no point in doing that, little one." His grating voice filled the space. "You’ll find it will not work." Alexis jerked. Her bow triggered. The bolt rattled harmlessly off an invisible shield. Zagor sighed and turned. "What did I tell you? A shame. I thought you were the observant one." He tapped his foot, and it was then Alexis noticed the circle inscribed around him, arcane sigils dancing at its edges.

Fourteen

Alexis shivered. Her hand groped out for her meagre blanket; it found only hard-packed dirt. The air was cold and still and weighty in her nose – like the hours after a snowfall. Her face scrunched up. The middle of summer shouldn't be so cold. She rolled over, hand exploring a different way. Where was her blanket? She'd always had her blanket. After the Wargs and their riders had left, the folks who found her let her take items from her ransacked home. The blanket embroidered by her step-grandmother had been the first thing she'd grabbed, and it had never left her side, ever. So where was it? Her questing hand hit something hard and cold that rang with a dull chime. Smooth, metallic. Round. Alexis opened her eyes. Darkness, pressing in on all sides. A blank, black void. She sat up. If it wasn't for the feeling of her chest rising with each breath, or the sound of her heartbeat drumming in her ears, Alexis might have thought she'd gone to the Here After.

Fifteen

She sat, perfectly still, with one eye squeezed closed. In the incessant dark, she counted out time with her heartbeat. Slowly, she became aware of others breathing nearby. When she opened her eye, lumps appeared a few meters away, softly rising and falling. They were too slight, too low to the ground to be her companions. Confused, Alexis stood, turning to take in more of the strange situation. A chill breeze pricked her flesh. She wrapped her arms around herself, shocked to find she was wearing nothing but her undershorts and shift. Her eyesight more attuned, she searched for her equipment but found only the bars of a cage. The metal was cool and slick under her hands, ringing with a dull chime when she taped it. "Oh," she breathed. "Bollocks."

Sixteen

"Wake up, scum," the guard said, then in a mocking tone: "Breakfast is served." He slung a bowl of thin gruel onto the cell floor, barking out a laugh as half of it split on the floor. The women took turns, each quickly eating a spoonful of the gruel, with Bastet and Alexis last. Alexis tried not to think too hard about the taste or what it may have been made from, as the guards unlocked the cell.

Seventeen

Soon enough the menfolk were brought down. Alexis strained to see in the guttering torches, watching the procession of haggard elves as they passed by. She felt her heart lighten as she caught sight of the rest of their party. Nathardin and Victor looked ragged, but Richard and Ithanor still stood strong and true – though the latter already sported a purpleing bruise on his cheek. Alexis waited while the men's line was secured and the guards passed back, before she gathered up the slack in her line, shuffling to be closer to where Richard stood at the end of the men's line. She hissed up at him, and the elf looked down, relief spreading across his face. "Alexis! Thank the gods!" "Shh! Keep your voice down, you big twit." "Sorry," he whispered. "You have a plan, right? You can get out of this?" Alexis huffed. "No, no plan yet. They took all our gear." "Same here. We woke up with nothing." "There's very little I can do without my lockpicks. Even if I had something to use as a rake and tension, I'm not sure how much good it would do us. I'm sure you've noticed all the heavily armed guards?" Richard blinked and nodded. "Yeah. So even if I could get us out of our cells, we still have to deal with them in nothing but our skivvies." Richard opened his mouth – but was cut off by a whip-crack behind him. "Keep working, scum," a guard snarled. He prodded Richard with the but of the whip. "You – stop slacking!" Richard raised his pickaxe, face contorting, but Alexis put a hand on his knee. He looked down to see her shaking her head, eyes wide. With a growl, he turned the pickaxe on the mine face. The guard watched as Richard hewed huge chunks of rock and opal from the mountain. Satisfied, the guard turned, making his way further up the line. Richard paused. "He's gone," Alexis whispered. Richard dropped his pick. "I know you'll figure something out," he patted Alexis on the head, "cuz you're super smart. I'll pass the word along that we've got a lock-breaker who just needs some tools. Maybe one of the elves has something."

Eighteen

From Richard's other side came a heavy thud. Alexis looked around him to see one of the elves, an older man, collapsed on the floor. "Hey!" called the guard, marching back towards the fallen elf. "Get up! I said, get up you worthless milk-drinker!" The guard pulled back his foot, intending to kick the old elf. Before anyone else could move, Victor was there. The wizard cried out, falling to one knee as he took the blow meant for the elf. "Leave him alone," Victor ground out. The guard laughed. "Look like we got a hero here, boys," he called, summoning three other guards to join him. One of the new guards drew back his lips in a contemptuous snarl. "A good beating will teach you how things work around here." No matter how much she and Richard strained against their bonds, the chain wouldn't budge. They watched, helpless, as the three guards used feet and fist and whip to beat him bloody. Alexis growled – if only she had her tools! In frustration, she spat out a curse. One of the guards turned around. "You want some too, short-arse?" he said, flexing the whips between both hands as he strode towards her. Alexis cursed herself for being so stupid. The guard raised his arm. Alexis flinched back, squeezing her eyes closed. The blow never came. Only a pained grunt from above her. Alexis opened her eyes to find Richard standing between her and the guard. His back was ridgid, his fists clenched. The guard backed away, flicking the whip. "Back to work, cur," he snarled, but Alexis could see the fear in his eyes. Richard's head turned as he watched the guard back away, stumbling over a loose rock, until he was back with his mates. "All of you," the guard cried, cracking his whip again. "Quit gawking. The opal won't mine itself! Go on, move it!" Two of the guards dragged the elder elf away, the other two walking up and down the line, their whips flicking, as they cowed the slaves into action once again.

Nineteen

Back in their cell, the women were given another bowl of slop and a bucket of gritty water before the lights were expunged. The rest of the women curled up, as they had before, against the far wall. Bastet laid down in the middle of the cell, putting herself between the door and the women. Alexis was moving to join her when Nassurae called her name softly. "Yes?" Alexis asked, as Nassurae shuffled over. "I just wanted to thank you for what your friend tried to do today. The old man who fell was my father. He had been growing sicker for the past week. Nothing could have been done to save him – but your friend's actions allowed him to pass in some dignity, and for that I am thankful." Nassurae's green eyes shone in the darkness. "The resistance you showed too… We quickly gave up on our hope. But, perhaps – with your help – we may find it again. Goodnight, sá itil." "Good night." With that, Alexis curled up, back to back with Bastet.

Twenty

The next day arrived and left the same, but on the third Nassurae came to Alexis again. "Sá itil," Nassurae said. Alexis looked up from listening to Bastet's plans for eviscerating their captors. "Yes?" "I have something for you." The woman beckoned Alexis closer, and from the skirt of her shift revealed a flat section of metal and a piece of moulded wire. Alex's eyes grew large, and she hurried to take them, hiding them in the waistband of her shorts. "Where did you get these," Alexis breathed. "They are from my husband," Nassurae said. "He had planned to attempt our escape himself but did not have confidence in his abilities. After hearing your friends' tales of your skill, we agreed they would be better in your hands." Nassurae grabbed Alexis' hands, moss-green eyes mositening, her voice sinking low and shaking. "Please, please get us out of here. I know your people did their best for my father, but I could not stand it if I lost my husband here too." "It's okay," Alexis said. "We'll find a way, I know we will. My companions are resourceful and clever. I'll let them know of these tools and we'll come up with a plan to free everyone. I promise." Nassurae still gripped Alexis' hands, but she nodded, acorn-brown hair swaying with the movement. "Now, you must sleep," Alexis said. "Tonight is for remembering the stars. Tomorrow is for planning." "Of course." Grudgingly Nassurae let go of Alexis' hands and shuffled away to sleep with her people.

Twenty-one

Alexis returned to where Bastet sat cross legged, and lay down behind her. "What did she want?" Bastet asked. "She gave me some things I can use as lockpicks," Alexis said, her voice hushed. "I suppose Ithanor or Richard convinced the men we have a plan to escape. Being able to pick the cell doors is a good thing, but I'm not sure it helps us really." Alexis sighed. "I don't know if I'd be able to find our weapons and the men and free them before the guards would catch me." Bastet leant back against Alexis, her nails sounding a dull staccato on the dirt floor. "What if…" Bastet said slowly. "What if I could create a distraction?" Alexis rolled over, looking up at Bastet's face, creased in thought. "How would you do that?" "Drow men are easily swayed by feelings of power, and it's not often a drow woman will allow a man to have power over her. If I can convince the guards to let me… entertain them, that would give you enough time to get out and let the others out." "But what about weapons?" "Maybe the men have something improvised that can be used while we find our own. We'll need to discuss this with the others. " Bastet yawned. "Either way, it's time for sleep. We're going to be busy tomorrow." With that, she laid down, back to back with Alexis, and fell asleep.

[dogmomwrites]

Seven Snippets

This tag came from @traveler-of-realms, so thanks for including me in this game!

Gonna pass it on with soft tags to @papercutsunset, @crypticcodexcreations, @andromedaexists, @oh-no-another-idea, @pandawriterstuff, @krokuswrites, and @briannaswords, as well as leaving an open tag. Rules—share seven snippets from your WIP/s and tag seven people

.

One  Riley risked a glance under the truck to see that the men had split up. He could see three pair of boots moving into the street to circle around the truck while the other man kept Riley pinned down with constant gunfire. Not a good position to be trapped in. At least, not normally. 

Dropping his backpack, he quickly reached inside and pulled out a small oval of dark green metal. The last one he had. He pulled the pin out, waited a second, and rolled it underneath the truck. 

“Is that a fucking grenade?” one of the men asked just before it went off. 

Two  Maybe...maybe he shouldn’t have let the men kidnap him. 

Aaron sighed, the sound lost to the helicopter’s windstorm. It seemed like a good idea at the time. 

Three  “I don’t think we need to sit around for three days,” Riley had said. As much as Jimmy hated it—as much as he hated agreeing with anything Riley said—he couldn’t find anything to say as refute. One stretch of road work had somehow brought them to Oregon far ahead of their time schedule, and while Jimmy had been grateful they were saved more hours in the car, he began to wonder if sitting still for many hours and contending with Avalanche’s unending energy was preferable to admitting that Riley had a point. 

It wasn’t that Riley was unintelligent. He was just very annoying. And any time Jimmy was forced to side with him never went unnoticed. 

Four  Aaron had no idea how to respond to their story. They didn’t appear concerned by that, however, and he let them move on to a new topic as though the previous one hadn’t been a roller coaster in its own right. Meeting his mother’s eyes, he silently asked, I’m not the only one with vertigo, am I? 

She hid her laugh well, and the brothers didn’t notice. No, you’re not. I honestly don’t know what else to expect from them at this point. 

Five  “Awoo?” Avalanche asked, and Jimmy froze midway onto the chair. 

“No, I wasn’t watching a...dirty video? Who told you I was watching porn?” 

“Rawr-y.” 

“Fuck you, Riley!” 

Six  She threw herself from the steps into Aaron’s arms, her trust in him perhaps stronger than he was; if Riley hadn’t been there to steady him, they would’ve hit the ground with maybe enough force to lower Aaron’s mood. 

“Awoo!” she cheered him. 

Aaron grunted as he struggled to maintain his grip while shifting it to something more manageable. “Hey, sweetheart,” he said. 

She chattered rapidly at him. 

“Yeah, of course. You can have all the pinecones you want.” 

“Awoo awoo awoooo!” 

Laughing, he turned to Riley for some help and together, they lowered her to the ground. She gave them no assistance, and made no effort to get up, instead choosing to roll onto her back and wriggle her joy at all the pinecones she was going to make Jimmy bring home for her. 

Seven  But then Jimmy had come back in, sleeplessness wearing away at his emotions. Turning his anger into sorrow. Bringing him back to apologize, to break down, to remind Riley that there was nothing he could do to help. And on a horrible level, Riley had resented him for it. Even as he’d held him, even as he’d gone downstairs with him, even as he’d stroked his hair until the medication finally put him to sleep, it had been there. Burning in his chest like an ember he couldn’t put out. 

 Because holding onto his anger gave more comfort than holding onto a stuffed leopard. 

[claire-starsword]

The Guardiana Magic School Run - Part 17

Hey everyone, remember this? I sure don't! I was swept away by the task of translating the novel and, while this haunted my every moment as something i didn't want to leave unfinished, i barely remember what was going on. I do remember being not excited at all for the boring battle ahead, but hey, chapter 6 is a difficulty spike, so let's get over this already.

First of all, let's make things even easier.

We're past easter and egg hunts, it's now time for fish hunts. Hanzou pops out as a reward of this silly puzzle, which is leagues better than his original hiding spot. Also we get to enjoy more chapters with him. That's right, he's a magic user! Totally valid for this run.

I also thought you needed to click on the fish to find him but you just have to stand on it. So he just jumped out while i was busy typing, which scared the hell out of me, don't do that again, man.

Anyway, his attack is massive, surpassing even Max, but his defense is uh, on par with Tao's. That's bad (she does have a couple Steel Rings to have that though). Because of that, I'm passing the Repel Ring from Gong to him so that he doesn't have to worry about counters at least. We can do even better though.

I completely forgot in the last updates, but Waral sells a unique item, the Wind Ring, which grants +5% evasion. I don't think I'll be needing too much money for a while, I'm holding back on a lot of promotions so mages and healers won't be using the late staves yet, also I remember there is at least one free Holy Staff next chapter. Also, evasion is very ninja-like, isn't? So I get two for Hanzou, one for Gong and one for Tao. I also set Hanzou with some Healing Seeds and a Shower Cure, as I have some of these just laying around, I guess? I really don't remember a lot lol

Anyway, it's time to leave Waral for what I consider the most boring battle in all of this game.

It's the ship. Again. It was easy last time too. Yay.

Truly this chapter is the filler arc of Shining Force. It even got a beach on it.

Anyway, the clear bonus is the Soulbuster, which has already shown up in the Deals section, but would be nice to get it for free instead. I probably already talked about it when it first popped up, but who says I remember that, and who says you can make me shut up. So, the Soulbuster is a sword made for human enemies. There are not many of those, I think the Dark Priests count, but! I believe it counts for Cain. You can see it's being given right before chapter 6. And while this run has been easy so far, I still fear Cain. I ALWAYS fear Cain. So yeah, I want this.

Thankfully this battle won't waste our time with enemies behind the ship. We can just advance. I believe more enemies will be spawning in the middle.

Domingo is my greatest tank by far in both HP and defense, so he can probably handle whatever.

Arthur apparently has good defense right now, which always takes me by surprise.

I assume there's no need to stress here, so I'm spamming heals with the healers to get exp, and I don't think Narsha's Attack boosts will be needed even everyone's pretty strong already, so I'm Boosting Anri's spells with her instead. She levels up for her troubles and get Attack level 3, which I don't think I ever used.

Turn 2. Only a Sea Bat came forth. I'm bored. Domingo continues to advance and taunt enemies while tossing a Freeze 1 at it. Arthur finishes the job.

My plan with Narsha was to boost Tao's spells next, but she doesn't need it, so I'm casting step on Anri instead to see if she can reach enemies, because this woman is behind on levels and it's sad. It's still not enough for her to reach anything yet!! dang it!!

Turn 3. Trying to bait a pegasus knight with Domingo while still trying to get rid of this Gargoyle before it reaches anyone squishier.

how is he real

Arthur is poisoned but I honestly don't think that matters. He levels up and gets +3 attack.

Oh I'm remembering now how absurd this woman currently is.

Khris is so nice that she actually reaches to heal 3 HP of Arthur instead of spamming for exp only. With this she nabs an important level up! She has Heal 3 now, which was my main reason for delaying her promotion. I'm still on the fence if I'll delay until level 20 for Aura, depends on the equipment we'll get next chapter, and if I'll even get opportunities to safely use these priests for attacking.

Turn 4. Finally the pegasus knights are coming, and more enemies have spawned. Unlike what I thought they spawn further to the right. The empty middle of this map really was just to waste our time. Fiiiiiiiller.

Domingo has a chance to do AoE, and I love that. I am a bit worried about Anri exposed, but I'm hoping she can survive at least one hit, and that they'll also be obsessed by Max as usual. I don't wanna miss the bonus so I need someone to go ahead.

Arthur finishes the bat. Tao sadly cannot reach anything. Khris can, but I'm worried so I'll continue spamming heal for now.

Hanzou debuts with style! And then I cramp his style by failing to screenshot that caption properly, it was a double attack.

Max obliterates a bat with unnecessary violence (critical i failed to screenshot), and also does his most important job: baiting everything and anything away from Anri.

Unfortunately these enemies are so easy that she gets only 16 exp from a kill, I'm fighting a losing battle trying to get anything useful out of this.

BWAH???

okay i completely forgot that Max's defense hasn't keep up with the enemies in this run, I'm way too used with this man being a tank. At least he does have lots of HP to spare. And the other enemies aren't nearly as strong as the knights (knights have 30 attack, conches have 22 and the bats even less).

Thankfully Lowe moves right away to help his roommate. Also Arthur kills a conch on counter, which is awesome.

On Turn 5 he one hit kills another Conch and I regret scrolling fast because he gets another massive level up which i would've liked to screenshot. Lots of 4 and 5, you had to see it. Really wild how good he is if you put in the effort.

Tao obliterates the greatest threat we faced here.

I decide Max can just tank for a while and maybe, just maybe, Anri can get something more out of this.

Since the battle is ending I waste a whole Aura of Narsha just to heal Arthur's poison damage. She gets 20 exp out of that, which is wonderful, I love mass healing.

Hanzou continues to be wonderful. I was right about the rings.

She gets a level! :D

Turn 6. I start worrying about the bonus and decide Arthur should just kill the final enemy. Arthur proceeds to miss. Then Domingo gets a Freeze on the thing and I decide to risk things a bit and wait for Anri to get the kill. Not like she can miss, I'm just paranoid about doing things tight like this.

But never mind that! Everything goes perfectly fine, and she gets… 9 exp.

Please let this filler end already.

[insert screenshot of the clear bonus here, i hit the image limit but we did get it]

Losses: 0 Deaths: 2

[proofwhisky]

TOMMY HAD NEVER EXPECTED TO meet someone so completely and totally in tune with his weaknesses as Fiachra Kelly. It's like the man knows exactly how to get under his skin; like he knows every in and out of his very soul. Already Fiachra's been able to successfully ambush Tommy, to successfully lure him out in the open another handful of times without even having to lift one of his own fingers. It's like he can see right through Tommy.

It sets Thomas on edge, makes him reckless & impulsive, which, in turn, makes him an even easier mark. The worst part is that Tommy hadn't even noticed it was happening; hadn't noticed Fiachra's presence in his life until far too late. Fiachra had been at least one step ahead of him before Tommy was even aware that there was a race. Hadn't been entirely convinced of the threat the other man posed until he'd found himself lyiing on the cold wet asphalt, warmth from his blood seeping out of the wounds in his head to flow into the gutters with dirty rainwater.

Thomas Shelby can confidently say that he's met his match.

Having to come to terms with his own shortcomings has been a long and brutal lesson in humility. No matter how many times he's tried to get info on the man, or how many men he's sent out in search of any modicum of leverage, he's come up empty-handed. Losing like this over and over again has forced Thomas to admit to his weaknesses. Without information, without knowledge, he is just a man with a gun & razorblades sewn into the lining of his clothes. He is not a threat. He is not an adversary.

Stanley had eventually been the one to talk him off of the edge. For some reason, Stanley had been the only one capable of reaching Tommy on the level required to spur him back into action, to rush headfirst straight back into another losing fight.

The heart monitor beeped steadily, the only signs of life for a long moment while Stanley laid still against the starched hospital pillows, glazed eyes looking out the window by the bed. Tommy stood there with his hands in his pockets, waiting for Aisling to return.

"Can you kill him?" He'd said.

"What?"

"Can you kill Fiachra Kelly? Before he kills one of yours?"

"..."

"It was your brother in the hospital before, wasn't it?"

"It was me."

Another long silence passed between them, the heart monitor keeping time between seconds. Stanley had made eye contact with Tommy. They'd held each others' gaze.

"I'll give you every last penny that I have if it means I know he'll be gone for good."

"I have no use for your pennies, Stanley."

"Please, Tom-"

"It will be done."

They locked gazes again, something unspeakable communicated between their eyes as Aisling showed herself back into the room & Tommy looked away, stepping back to let the two of them talk again. He worried his bottom lip between his teeth. He was going to kill Fiachra Kelly, even if it was the last thing he ever did.

He'd been so confident then. He isn't anymore.

Now, Aisling's been MIA for days, not answering his calls or his texts. He'd looked everywhere he could think of, & he's on his way to check out one last spot: Stanley's room at the hospital. He prays that she isn't there, not somewhere so obvious, somewhere so out in the open, practically begging Fiachra to swoop in and kill her ( nevermind him being so keen to go there himself ).

He stops short when he sees a well-dressed man sitting upright on the made-up bed, facing away, gazing out the window.

"Ah, look what the cat dragged in," the man says. "Just another peaky bitch."

Tommy stands, rooted in place for a long time, attempting to wrestle his heart rate into submission and keep the rush of fury and terror off of his face. He clenches his jaw, hand moving slowly to curl around the handle of his pistol where it sits in the holster at his ribs.

"... Fiachra," he says.

"Mr. Shelby," Fiachra says, turning to face him with a polite smile. "I think it's time you & I had a chat."

Tommy stays still, hand wrapped around the butt of his gun, ready to draw it at a moment's notice. Fiachra makes no move to attack, gives no indication of hostility. Minutes pass in silence. Finally, Tommy lowers his hands, glancing behind him to find the empty chair he'd occupied during his visit with Stanley, & he sits down.

Another few second pass in silence, the sound of the heart monitor eerily absent. Nothing fills the room but the sound of Tommy's heart, thundering in his ears.

"So," he says, meeting Fiachra's eyes. "Let's chat."

starter for @bailesona !!

[mazegays]

could've followed my fears all the way down

Chapters: 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30

Chapter 31

Thomas keeps a few steps ahead of them, walking backwards and using their warnings to know when to avoid something on the ground.

Before long, he can see Harriet, working on… something with a group of kids, and Jorge, talking to one of the builders working on the kids’ building.

Gally hasn’t been checking on that as much as he should, probably. 

“Hey, Thomas, kids are messing around not far behind you, maybe turn around!” he warns. Either that or Thomas will wait for them.

“Thanks, Gally!” Thomas keeps walking ahead of them.

Oh, that’s right. The kids swarm Thomas. Gally’s not sure why, he never really paid attention, but Thomas is pretty good with them, when he’s given a chance.

Mostly, they’re busy enough that they don’t have anything to do with them. At least Gally is, and he’d like to keep it that way. They kind of scare him sometimes. 

Some of the kids are tossing something back and forth, switching who they’re throwing to every time— some sort of game. The ones closest to Harriet are sitting in a circle with one running around the rest.

Harriet sees Thomas and excuses herself from the group. Minho and Gally join them a minute later.

“I’m going to guess that you don’t want to play ‘Catch the Crank’ with us.” She winces a little when she says it. “It’s apparently supposed to be a duck game? But they changed the name.”

“No, thanks, I think I’ll sit out of that one.” Thomas is aiming for lighthearted, but he misses the mark.

“What else do these kids do?”

“Throw things, race, I don’t know.” Harriet says. “I’ve only really spent this morning with them. Sonya had volunteered, but she woke up sick so I said I’d do it for her.”

Some of the kids start screaming.

“You sure you don’t want to come help?”

“I think we’re good, but you have fun.” Minho tells her. 

“They’re so loud!” She grumbles before heading back to the kids.

“What do you think those kids are doing?” Thomas nods to a few on the edge of the forest.

“Who cares? As long as they don’t go in, we don’t have any problems.” Gally watches them for a minute to make sure they’re not going to, just in case.

“Thomas!” One of them breaks off from the throwing game, her friends yelling after her. “My dad says I’m old enough to be in the greenhouse now! Can I come with you next time?”

“Yeah, Mal. Sonya will probably be there too. I bet you’ll be really good at helping us water all the plants.” Thomas crouches down on her eye level.

“Mal! Come back and play!”

“I don't think they'll wait much longer, Mal, you should go back. Don’t worry, you’ll have lots of time to talk to me in the greenhouse.”

“Okay!”

finish on ao3 or continue reading

Thomas watches her run back, accepting Minho’s hand to help him up. “She’s been begging to work in the greenhouse for months. She’ll be fun to have around.”

He scans the rest of the kids, or maybe he’s checking where Harriet is, but Gally turns to follow Thomas’s gaze.

The kids who were at the edge of the forest aren’t there.

“Do you think they went in? There are too many kids here for one person to keep track of them all.” Gally doesn’t remember there being this many kids when they first came here, but maybe he just doesn’t interact with them a lot. He’s pretty sure that kids take a while to grow, so they can’t all have been born here.

“I really hope not, that would suck.” Minho mutters.

Thomas keeps looking around, doing a slow spin. Gally doesn’t bother; if he sees something, he’ll let them know.

Minho sees it before either of them.

“Thomas, move!” They both turn to look at what he’s talking about— 

Those kids weren’t by the forest because they were going to go in.

They’d found an animal of some sort, probably wounded, and tried to catch it.

Minho pulls away from him to shove Thomas out of the way, Gally only seconds behind him. He catches the animal— he’s not sure what it is— before it can get its teeth into any of them.

“Jorge!” He yells, over the kids now screaming and crying. “Get a cage for this thing or something!”

Jorge sees what he’s holding and sprints into the greenhouse.

“Are you both okay?” Thomas is still on the ground from Minho’s shove; Minho’s on his knees in front of him.

“Winded, but I should be fine.” Thomas answers, only meeting his eyes for a second before looking at Minho.

“I’ve got a few scratches, but I’m not bleeding. Gally caught it before it could do anything. What even is that?”

“No idea.” Gally admits. “If there were wolves this close, I might think it was a cub or something. But there’s nothing that big in this area.”

Harriet rounds up the kids, keeping them far away as Jorge comes back with what looks like a hastily-made wire cage.

“It should hold it for a minute. At least long enough to get it away from the kids.” He explains.

Getting the animal in the cage is a lot harder than just holding it. It went mostly limp when he picked it up, but it does not want to be in an enclosed space.

It takes all four of them to get it in far enough to shut the ‘door’ and bend the wire to keep it closed.

“I’ll handle this, hermanos. Thanks for catching the thing.” Jorge lugs the cage away. Gally doesn’t really want to know where he’s going with it.

“So, are we still on for reading in bed?” Minho asks. “I could really go for that right now.”

“Yeah, sounds good.” Thomas sounds distracted, though; he’s more focused on watching the kids than them.

What’s going through his head?

And why hadn’t he moved?

If it were any other night, Minho would have told Thomas no when he said he wanted to go sit in the forest for a while.

But something about that animal today shook Thomas up. He doesn’t know what it is, or why, but even after reading and napping most of the afternoon, he’s still not acting normal.

At least this time, he’s wearing pants and a long-sleeved shirt. 

(Thomas is still probably going to steal Minho’s jacket, but he really only wears one so he can steal it at this point, so that’s okay.)

They take a few blankets and wrap up some food, and it reminds Minho so much of the day they tried to take Thomas on a ‘date’ that he doesn’t know if he should laugh or cry.

There aren’t going to be any trees falling on them this time.

They’re not going to be sitting against trees.

The walk out is quiet.

For once, Minho can’t tell what either Thomas or Gally is thinking, and that worries him more than anything else that happened today.

“Why did you jump in front of me?” Thomas whispers. Both Minho and Gally had tried, but in the end it had been Minho in front of him and Gally handling the animal.

“Why didn’t you move?” Minho counters.

Thomas avoids their eyes, not wanting them to see the truth in his. 

The stars above them are easier to focus on— he can name all the constellations, but he doesn't remember learning them. That doesn’t matter, anyway, because they're not the ones asking for answers. The constellations don’t care what’s happening down here, because some of them probably aren’t even there anymore.

He’s staring at ghosts.

“Thomas, why didn’t you move?”

He doesn’t know what to tell them.

He doesn’t know what they want to hear.

He was startled? They won’t believe that.

He can’t tell them that for a split second, he’d thought about what would happen if the animal got its jaws around his throat. He would have been dead for good then.

Anya wouldn’t be able to fix that.

He can’t tell them that for a second, he’d been looking at Newt again, terrified and crazed.

He doesn’t want them to know how bad it really is.

Thomas doesn’t think he’s ever going to not feel like this, and, selfishly, he doesn’t want to leave them. He doesn’t want to leave them, but he doesn't want them to have to try and figure him out.

They deserve more than him.

Gally shifts so he’s sitting in front of Thomas, so he can’t avoid his gaze.

“Why didn’t you move?” He says it so softly, so gently, that he wants to tell him. He wants to tell him everything: How the panic of being in the forest makes him feel something again, how he keeps thinking about going back to the river when he’s laying awake in the middle of the night.

All the nightmares they don’t wake up for.

He hasn’t slept through the night… well, maybe since Denver. He’s not sure. It’s not something he’s keeping track of.

“I—  I don’t know. I just froze.”

He’s never frozen before. They know that. His reaction is always to fight.

“Thomas.”

“I really don’t know.”

“It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it.” Minho rolls him a little so they can cuddle.

It’s nice, but he doesn’t deserve it.

“I don’t. Maybe in the morning.” He already knows he won’t. He won’t sleep tonight, and tomorrow they’ll ask more questions and maybe he’ll go talk to Jamie or Sonya or Frypan or someone, and then he’ll come back to them and talk about it some more.

But it won’t be tomorrow morning.

He waits until he’s sure they’re asleep to move.

<- 30 32 ->

[purpleprincessonfyre]

And now something a bit soft, inspired by an idea that @jackiequick gave me that devolved into a full fledged Found Family fic. Sorry not sorry.

Marvel AU - Not Your Barbie Girl

Characters: Liane Felton and Jason Underwood aka JJ

Mentioned: Ethan Lensherr, The OG Avengers, Rochelle Romanoff-Felton, Rei Stark

Setting: The Avengers Tower, post Battle of New York

Themes: Found Family, Grumpy and Sunshine friends

IB: Not Your Barbie Girl by Ava Max

Liane was stressed. She was pacing her room back and forth, her music nearly blasting, her bed strewn in dresses and outfits, shoes cluttered across her floor and she was clenching her pillow tightly, trying not to scream. She was not doing well.

Ethan had asked her on a date. Yesterday. He was very slightly nudged by his brother Cole into saying it outloud but Liane had said yes almost immediately. Actually she'd shouted it. Causing everyone to stop in their tracks as her cheeks turned a deep shade of peony. But Ethan had smiled, that dumb sweet grin that made Liane feel special.

But now she had the arduous task of choosing what to wear. Smart? Casual? Smart casual? Streetwear? Black tie? She was racking her brain trying to predict what kind of date this was going to be or how her date was going to dress. Ethan wasn't really a suit person but what if he wore one tonight? There were too many options.

Finally Liane settled on a classic look of hers; white collared blouse, pale pink sweater, plaid grey skirt, white knee socks and black Mary Jane heels. She smiled as she put it on, feeling that confidence she had before and stepped out of her room to check with the other girls about her outfit choice.

But as Liane entered the main area she realised how quiet it was. She looked around and only saw one person. Jason Underwood. She frowned, clearly confused.

"Where did everyone go?"

"Nat's off training Rochelle and a few of the others, Bruce and some of the guys including Rei are at the lab and the rest are busy. I'm only here so the Tower isn't left unsupervised."

"Oh. Okay. Do you...do you mind if I get your opinion on something?"

"Go ahead but it might not be flattering," stated Jason, his eyes still fixed on his newspaper. Liane stood in front of him in her outfit, smiling.

"Does this outfit look good for my date tonight with Ethan?"

"Sure it does." Jason replied, still not looking up. Liane sighed.

"At least look at it."

"Fine." His gaze flicked up to her outfit then back to his paper.

"Yep, you look like your usual...pinky self."

"I- But what do you think? Be totally honest."

Jason lowered his paper, making eye contact with her, not sure if this was a trap or not.

"You want ME to be honest?"

"Brutally honest."

"Fine." He put his paper down, sat bolt upright and fixed his gaze on her outfit. He looked her up and down carefully before he spoke, having made up his mind.

"You dress like a Boarding School Student who thinks they're rebellious for wearing nail polish and earrings at school. You're on a date, not taking your SATs. All you'd need to top it off is a dog in your purse and a crucifix necklace to show them just how devout you are."

"Okay now you're just being rude."

"You wanted honest! And honesty is I don't like your outfit. You need to find something new."

"Wait what?" Jason stood up and got up to Liane's eye level, using all his skills acquired from being a godfather to Rei to try and talk some sense into Liane.

"You have spent your whole life dressing the way people expect you to dress, talking the way people expect you to, dating the way people tell you to and living the way people think you should live. Why don't you figure out who the real Liane Felton is for once?"

"N-no one's ever asked me that before...I- would you come shopping with me? For new clothes?"

Jason stopped still. He hadn't expected that. He turned around and saw her hopefully eyes and remembered that despite her reputation she was still so young. And naive. And he was literally her only option. If anyone could help this poor girl salvage a personal style from the wreckage of her preppy barbiecore closet then it would have to be him.

Jason held out his hand kindly, smiling.

"Let's get you some new clothes, Doll."

-----

The unlikely duo got out of the car and headed into the mall, in search of new clothes for Liane. Liane strode ahead, her eyes determined while Jason followed behind closely, also slightly acting as a guard dog to her since she wasn't the most liked person in the world.

They headed into the first clothes store they saw and grabbed a basket.

"Okay so what is your signature colour right now?"

"Uh pink?"

"Exactly. Not that pink isn't pretty but of course but maybe it's time to add some other colours to your closet. Pick out an outfit in every colour of the rainbow. A jacket, a dress, pants, a suit, skirt, you name it. And well we'll see what your new thing is."

Liane grinned. If there was one thing she excelled at, it was making an outfit. Soon the basket was overflowing with shades of crimson, ochre, tangerine, emerald, azure, navy and lavender and some whites and blacks were thrown in for good measure. After being satisfied with her choices, Liane marched into a dressing room with her outfits ready to try each of them.

Jason took a seat outside the changing area, ready to critique each look. Eventually Liane emerged in a red dress, topped with a red coat, black boots and a red hat. Jason raised an eyebrow, amused.

"A bit Carmen Sandiego for you."

"I dunno I think femme fatale suits me."

"Try again, Miss Scarlet."

Next she entered wearing a sunny yellow 50s style dress with white heels, a little cardigan and a bow in her hair. Jason tried not to laugh.

"Tell me about it, stud."

"Oh man! Not Sandra Dee! I was going for Marilyn.."

She kept trying on outfits in varying shades and pulling funny faces when Jason gave his verdict until he stopped her when she reached green, looking her up and down.

"None of these are working...what colours do you have left?"

"Blue, dark blue, black, white oh and purple!"

Jason's eyes lit up. He took Liane by the hand and led her back to the room.

"Try the purple jacket with this top, these pants and those mini gogo boots."

Liane nodded, seeing his vision and stepped back into the dressing room to redress, hopefully the final time. When she finally emerged Jason beamed from ear to ear. Liane was wearing a turtleneck styled white top with high waisted blue jeans, a purple leather jacket, white mini gogo boots with gold hoops in her ears and had stuck her signature heart-shaped sunglasses in her hair like an Alice band.

"What do you think?"

"I love it. It's mature, the colour suits you so well and you don't look like a school girl. And it's understated too. Very nice. But what do you think?"

"I really like it, it's so comfy too!"

"Liane Felton we have found your colour. But don't be afraid to experiment with other colours too don't limit yourself."

"Who knew you were so good at fashion?"

"Clearly I didn't."

"Ethan would be crazy not to be impressed by that outfit too."

"You think so?"

"I know so, Doll."

Liane smiled softly, then flung her arms around Jason's neck, standing on her tiptoes to reach as she hugged him tight, engulfing him in a cloud of her candy scented perfume. He was taken aback at first but realised she probably really needed this hug. Reluctantly he wrapped his arms around her in the hug, smiling as she held him close. Sometimes it was easy to forget that these Heroes of the Future are still pretty scared young people with fears and needs.

None more than Liane, who had been her mother's personal doll since birth. He'd heard the stories and the rumours but now he knew the real Liane he had nothing but sympathy for her. And after having dealt with her father in previous skirmishes and work, he felt sort of protective of the bubbly blonde princess. And she finally had a chance to break out of her shell for once and be her own person.

Hope you enjoyed!

Tagging: @jackiequick @gcthvile @cherrysft @blueboirick @meiramel @askstevella @ask-missparker @ask-starrk @therealdaydreamstark @thechoooooosenone @wizzzardofoz @finlayholmes @rickb-chaos @luna-d-marsh @missstrawbs2001

[raiii-bee]

I know this is talked about to death and this is an unpopular opinion on here, but as a trans jew I honestly do not see as much issue with people pirating the awful Hogwarts game.

Is it still a problem that they're willing to play it? Yeah. Absolutely.

But if they do the bare fucking minimum and recognize and criticize the anti-Semitism/transphobia, educate themselves, then ok. At least it's something while minimizing some damage.

At least no money went to JK or the shitty devs. No record can be made of this purchase, she can't use it as "evidence" people agree with her.

It's not innocent. For sure. I still judge people willing to still be into HP at this point, and willing to play this game. But at least it's a step in the right direction.

And honestly with how many people just straight up have no idea what's going on (because if you are mostly offline you wouldn't have a reason to know), and how many people say "it doesn't matter." At least someone pirating the game made the conscious decision to weigh their options and avoided sending their money towards something that harms people. It's something. It's better than thinking you can buy the game then donate to a trans charity (because that's a BS solution).

Sure I'd rather we move on from HP and no one buy it. But in this world, in this current reality, someone having the thought to pirate it is already ahead of most people. It's not perfect, but it's something. And that something is better when they also bother to recognize and discuss the problems with the game itself.

They should still be shamed. But I feel that considering it on the same level as legally buying the game is doing more harm than good. The people who are on the fence are just going to buy the game because it's easier if you tell them no other solution is better. With a stupid juggernaut like HP, we can't convince everyone in a swoop. Small changes. Steps. Pirating is not as good as ignoring the game entirely, but it is better than buying it, in my opinion.

Still spoil it for people though. That's funny as fuck. Lol.

I don't have anything against people who think otherwise. If you despise pirating it just as much as buying, that's fair! You go! This rant is just my own thoughts on the matter.

Tldr: pirating the Hogwarts game, in my opinion, is still bad. But it is not the same as buying it legally. It is at least slightly better.

[themarvelhorse]

2022 Year in Review

How should I look at the stars tonight?

The Weather Station’s song (above) gave me something to think about for the New Year. A celebration justifiably, or is it really something to mourn, given how we treat how the past year has gone, and we always hope the next year will be kinder?

I’m going to do a relatively short review, a summary, in the hopes that I can try to settle on what I’ve done, what’s happened, and what needs to be done. Also try to work on my ability to not ramble.

This year I:

Held a constituency meeting with my MP about divesting from fossil fuels

Went to more local climate group meetings

Helped my mom move into her new apartment and as well as help with some health issues

Got got a contract in my field for the longest period of time I’ve had a job at a single place

Did some outreach and engagement for my local democracy group as a founding member

Had a presentation for some kids at a local school about environment and the election

Came up with so many new ideas for future projects I’d like to see done

Spent time in downtown Toronto to get a taste of true city life

Completed another school (micro)-certificate

Helped coordinate a couple climate events

Sewed some small holes in some shirts

Maintained enough of an exercise routine that I haven’t lost significant progress on (as I have in the past)

Realized I have a mild case of ADD

Tried keeping in contact with friends and family

And what has that resulted in?

The constituency meeting wasn’t a directly personal win, but 8 months later there was another push to divest away from international fossil fuel projects. 3 months later, Canada made that commitment advocates asked for

Tried to help get signatures for community support for climate action locally but well... we barely made progress on our goals. It did highlight an issue we’re asking another local institution for help on though

Municipal outreach helped fill a gap and people really appreciated what we were trying to do, but its hard to tell if we made a dent in engagement. It didn’t matter much either way, since failing the provincial election led to the current provincial government eroding democratic processes at the provincial and municipal level alike.

Provincial democratic outreach came out to a loss - provincially, only 17% of eligible voters voted for the party in power. Which has led to so many more problems. I went to two different ridings for voter engagement one turned out fine but the other, not so much

The job was good! Learned a whole lot, and my co-workers assured me that everyone who does this job goes on to do great things. It just ended the other day, so onto new paths ahead.

Was inspired by the micro-certificate and how to help change at the grassroots level

I’m picking up more on repairing, sharing, and reusing old things, and trying to do that more and more. Small steps in living a more sustainable life

I’m doing better at understanding myself, where my problems are that need improvement and how I can address them

I got more time with my family at least, even if some of my closest family  seem to be declining in health overall.

Unfortunately, a lot of those things that could facilitate me doing better are the things I do not have access to. I realize the good causes, the struggle, it connects back to this, but the great catch is that both can worsen health.

I talked to my doctor. She told me she would not be retiring for at least another year. She’s already delayed her retirement by a year. She told me there’s too many people who need help. I think she's one of those people, and she was going to retire because of the toll it took on her health. I talked to another doctor about my mom’s health. He told me that while we both tried our best, there wasn’t really much hope because there was no one else out there in the province to provide the medical help she needs. (She’s alive and high functioning right now). You're screwed if you try to look for a new G.P. The hospitals are screwed. There’s very little out there to support anyone getting better in this province. All because Premier Doug Ford decided to screw everyone else over (not only in health, but in so many more sectors essential to human life)

I swear to god, this world will break my heart~

I swear, it already has.

But what has been planted? And what has sprouted?

A guidance doc that was used exclusively for years that I led has now been publicly released and my name is among the list of authors

Youth I’ve spoken to might just believe in their future now (I've planted a seed that would not have been planted otherwise)

Our local democracy group has people wanting more of it! People want things like this!

Ford’s fucked up and corrupt and people know this, people have mobilized to stop him. Some of it has worked, some may take more time.

It’s not obvious, but talking with your elected reps and advocacy works

Knowledge - I’m more knowledgeable about my field and the work, and the conditions of my family members than I was before. Could I do it better if I was given a second chance? I certainly hope so. I think there will be a second chance.

But how many second chances can we get before the damage is too great? If we plant seeds and they sprout, only to have a big bully come in and trample it, dig it up and toss it in the trash, and plow the ground with salt?

So, how should I look at the stars tonight?

I don’t know. But it doesn’t matter. People come to me for help or advice for some reason, that's not just something, that's a lot. I hope I can guide them to what they need.

And even if they don't, I'll still do what I can, where I can. I’ll still draw inspiration from those who are fighting harder than me, and others who light up life with their goodness, simply by being who they are. For those kids that ask me what they can do, if we can actually survive what’s coming. I always tell them what I believe in my heart to be true. We can do it. We just need to have the will. Its very hard to have any will to do even the bare minimum we need to do to survive in this world though, I know.

This year has shown me that there's a lot we don't see, we don't know, we may never know. Its hard to know or believe our vote will count, if our protests make change, if a single act of kindness is even appreciated by a stranger. But it's worth trying. Nothing to really be proud of except that you tried. Even if all you try to do is make it another day. Speaking as someone who's been shown kindness and has tried to spread that kindness and give hope, you never know who your kindness might reach, and what wonderful things that person might do.

So I will continue on as I always do, with spite and hope - one in each hand. One for defiance and one for love.

Or what your evilness and corruption might do. Who it might harm. I will not go gentle into that good night.

All the best to you good people this New Year.

[witchesoz]

What we know of Oz: Book 2, Gillikins and Mombi

The second Oz book is “The Marvelous Land of Oz” (of its full title “The Marvelous Land of Oz: Being an Account of the further Adventures of the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman”), published in 1904. # The first thing this book makes us learn about Oz is the famous Northern Country! Remember, in the first book the land of the North was left unnamed. In this book we discover that it is the “Country of the Gillikins”, with for titular color purple. Now, at first we think it is just like in the first book, the color only applying to people’s clothes and houses and such. But here, Baum went a step ahead… Indeed, Tip mentions that in the Gillikin Country “everything” is purple: the grass is purple, the trees are purple, the houses and fences, even the mud is purple! This “everything” mention still seems like an exaggeration though, because the narration still mention the “green” of the corn stalks, and the “golden red” of the pumpkins. This is probably a retcon because Tip also claims that everything is blue in the Munchkin Country, yellow in the Winkie Country, and so on and so on, yet we know from the first book that it isn’t true. The description of Tip and Mombi’s farm also give us some indication about the Gillikin Country – it is located near a forest on one side and a valley on another (“below” the farm). It has several corn fields and pumpkin fields, and the animals raised there are several brown pigs and one four-horned cow, said to be the “pride” of Mombi. From the farm, one can see hills to the east. Interestingly, Mombi’s farm is said to be “dome-shaped”, “round” and the narration clearly states that all of the farms of Oz are shaped this way (in fact, later it will help the characters differentiate the farms from Oz and the ones from the “Outside World”). # One of the two big characters introduced here is Mombi, or “Old Mombi” as the book likes to call her. Keep in mind that Mombi wasn’t identified yet as the former Wicked Witch of the North, this was an idea that came later in the series. In this story, Mombi wishes to be a Witch, but we learn that the Good Witch of the North forbid any other Witch to exist in her “dominions” (quite a specific term to choose), so Mombi, while “aspiring to work magic”, can’t be a Witch due to it being unlawful, and has to be “a Sorceress, or at most a Wizardess”. This description is quite interesting because it gives us a new look at the world of magic in Oz. According to this book, Witch is merely a title and seems to correspond to the high magic practitioners, or the magic practitioners of high level, with under it the title of “Wizardess” and at the bottom the one of “Sorceress”. Which is quite weird given that Glinda, specified to be above Mombi in terms of magic, is still said to be a Sorceress while Mombi is said to be a Witch… If we are pragmatic, we know very well that Baum was merely inconsistent in his confused world-building, but it can still leave us with many theories. Mombi is introduced as the guardian of Tip, full name Tippetarius. Physically, she is described as an old woman that hobbles and need a cane or a stick to walk. Usually wearing an apron and knit stockings (with a cloak for her travels), she is described as having “stern and wrinkled features”, “long bony fingers”, a “crooked form”, “evil features”. To the point that the Tin Man calls her “ugly”, and both Jinjur and the narration refer to her as an “old hag”. We know that she has a bad reputation due to people suspecting her of indulging in magical arts, which alienates her from the Gillikin community. However, she has neighbors that directly know of her “curious magic” and thus are afraid of her, treating her “shyly but respectfully”. Due to the vastness of her farm, she seems to be quite rich. At the beginning of the story, she says to Tip that she goes to buy “groceries” at the village, a travel of at least two days, when in fact, she went to meet a mysterious figure only said to be a “Crooked Wizard” who lives in a lonely cave “in the mountains”. She traded several “important secrets of magic” with him, obtaining in the process three new recipes, four magical powders, and a selection of herbs of “wonderful powers and potency”. However, Mombi reveals that she “wickedly fooled” the Crooked Wizard, and that he was stingy, giving him the smallest portions possible (one of the objects traded being the Powder of Life, of course). Mombi’s other defining trait is to be the one taking care of Tip, the book’s young hero, an adventurous boy. Tip is the charge of Mombi, but she rather treats him as a slave, making him do all the chores: feed the pigs, collecting wood in the forest, working in the cornfield, milking the cow… Yet Tip is by no mean servile. Whenever he can he plays around or laze about instead of working, and he hates deeply Mombi, often playing tricks on her or trying to scare her. In relation, Mombi seems to be quite violent, given that she threatens to beat Tip “black and blue” for his latest trick – Tip himself says that he knows she is “bad and revengeful at heart” and that she doesn’t hesitate to do “evil things”. It is later revealed that she only keeps Tip around to do all the work for her (the narration mention that he is “as strong and rugged as a boy may be”): once Jack Pumpkinhead is “born”, Mombi decides he will be her new slave now, and that Tip can just disappear. Yet she insists on keeping him around… By turning him into a marble statue. Because she plans to grow a beautiful flower garden in Spring, and she thinks he would be a perfect ornament there. We later learn why she wishes to keep him around no matter what, even turned into a statue, but one think that is jarring about this scene is that Mombi tells Tip right in front of his face what she is going to do to him. She doesn’t think one minute that Tip would try to flee or go away or resist his fate (even though she still takes the precaution to keep the magic potion in her room so that Tip wouldn’t destroy it). Did she spill the beans because she was tired and it was the end of a long night? Or was there another reason she thought Tip wouldn’t flee? Mere sociopathy or something else? Theories are open. # The Powder of Life is one of the biggest new magical items. Sold by the Crooked Wizard to Mombi, it is kept in an old pepper box, with a label written by the Wizard himself. The Wizard only have enough for two or three uses. The Powder of Life’s power is that, when put on an object correctly, it can bring it to life. One just needs to sprinkle the powder like pepper on the object, and then to accomplish a small ritual similar to the one needed to activate the Golden Cap: lifting the left hand with the little finger pointed upward, say “Weaugh”. Then, with the right hand lifted with the thumb upward, say “Teaugh”. Finally, with your two hands lifted and all fingers spread out, say “Peaugh”. Then the object will come to life. During the book it animates Jack Pumpkinhead, the Sawhorse, as well as the Gump-Thing. Note however that the object must be ENTIRELY covered in the Powder, else the parts that did not receive it will stay numb and inanimate. # This book confirms that winters exist in Oz, because Mombi and Tip feed their cow pumpkins during “winter time”. We also know that sickness exists in Oz, given that Tip had the “ague” one year prior to the story. # Here’s what we know of Mombi’s “how to turn children into marble statues” recipe: in a small black kettle, measure equal part of milk and vinegar. Add to it several packets of herbs and powders, wait until the potion boils. Then let it cool for a whole night – in the morning it will be ready for consumption. # Jack Pumpkinhead gives us two interesting bits of information. One, about his clothing: the clothes he wears are all possessions of Mombi. Tip found them in a “great chest” where Mombi keeps all of her keepsakes and treasures, including these clothes. One might wonder why they are of such importance to her. Said clothes are: purple trousers, a red shirt and a pink vest dotted with white spots. The other interesting point is that the narration keeps talking about the real-life Halloween tradition of “Jack Lanterns” and how, since Tip had no playmates, he ignored everything about emptying the pumpkin beforehand. This comment can be interpreted in two ways: 1- This was a joke intended for the modern American reader 2- Jack Lanterns are indeed known and a common child’s game in Oz.  Take your pick. # More animals of Oz: we get the confirmation that horses and donkeys are actually common animals in Oz, since Tip speaks about them. # Tip tells to Jack the recent history of Oz, and it is quite interesting to note that it slightly differs from the events of the first book – showing that what really happened and what people, or at least Tip, heard of are slightly different. Tip explains that the Emerald City is the “biggest town” of the country, located at the center of the Land of Oz. He heard many stories of it – of how it was built by a mighty and powerful Wizard name Oz, of how the Scarecrow was “invited” by the citizens of the City to rule over them, just like the Tin Woodman was (and not, you know, appointed by the Wizard as in the previous book). Tip mentions that Dorothy is from Kansas, a place in “the big Outside World”, which seems to be a new notion in Oz. Tip doesn’t mention at all the Lion in his stories, in fact the Lion is completely absent of this book (for reasons I’ll explain later). And he also adds that the Wizard “wasn’t so much of a Wizard” and that he fled in a balloon because Dorothy and her friends were angry at him for being deceived and threatened to expose him. Something which enters in direct contradiction with the events of the first book… but again, Tip is a little farmboy living far away in the North of Oz, and since stories spread from mouth to hear, it may have been heavily distorted. But we know that the Scarecrow is a very popular ruler at the Emerald City (and again we have a big ambiguity, the Scarecrow being at the same time said to be the ruler of the Emerald City, and the City alone, and yet the ruler of the City also ruling over Oz entirely). # Something people tend to forget: there is another yellow brick road! Indeed, when Tip goes to the Emerald City, he follows a Yellow Brick Road that leads to it, and even has sign posts indicating things such as “Nine Miles to the Emerald City”. Interestingly, just like how the Brick Road in the East got cut off by a wide river, this Northern Road is also cut by a broad and swift rider (two miles after the “nine miles” sign). This river however has a man with his ferry-boat that can let people pass, but only if they pay him with good money (he is noted to have a face looking “cross and disagreeable”). This river seems to be the limit between the Gillikin Country and the Central region – indeed before the river, the “purple tint of the grass and the trees” faded away to a “dull lavender” than “greenish tint”, but past the river, the grass and trees become “bright emerald-green”.

- - -

Because yes, ladies and gentlemen and animated woodpeople, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz got a sequel if you ignored it! The kids kept sending Baum many letters asking to know more about Oz, to read more about Oz, and they had a special interest in the characters of the Scarecrow and the Tin Man, that were apparently very popular. So Baum finally gave in to the popular demand, was published in 1904, four years after the first book, "The Marvelous Land of Oz". The full title however is "The Marvelous Land of Oz: Being an Account of the Further Adventures of the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman". But it was sometimes shortened to "The Land of Oz", just like how "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" was shortened to "The Wizard of Oz". This book was a very big success at the time, before falling into oblivion for the decades following the MGM movie, and then springing up again, first n the 80s/90s thanks to "Return to Oz", the movie, and then in the 2010s thanks to modern Oz takes such as Emerald City, and also the feminist, LGBT and transgender movements, because... well, you'll see. One thing to note is that this book was written in a different style than the first. The first was really a sort of little fairy tale, with simple descriptions, a simple plot, simple characters, and self-contained chapters that could easily be cut-off. This second book however is clearly intended for an older audience, even though still young, being more complex in terms of characters and plot, having a lot of jokes and being much more funny/parody in style than the first, having chapters often ending in cliffhangers or cutting in the middle of the action, and in general being thicker and filled with much more action than The Wizard of Oz.  

[bllsbailey]

NEW POLL: Kamala Harris Won the Debate—yet It's Trump Who Gained a Point in Voter Support ( Keep reading as this is not a pro-kamala article.)

Talk about mixed messages. Many viewers did not think Donald Trump had his greatest debate performance Tuesday night as he was frequently interrupted and fact-checked in real-time by the biased ABC moderators, and new polling results reflect that. Half the respondents to a new NY Post poll conducted by Leger thought Kamala Harris won, while 29 percent thought Trump did, and 13 percent called it a draw.

But here’s the surprising part—not only did that not help her, but Trump garnered a one percent rise in his approval rating compared to a pre-debate poll, while Harris did not get a similar bump. She remains ahead of him in this poll by a very slim margin, 50-47, although the RealClearPolitics average of all polls shows the former president up by 3.1.

So far at least, it would seem that voters weren’t swayed by Harris’ performance. That’s not the news the VP was hoping for:

POLL: 14-Point Shift Among Independents Toward Trump

Hilarious Cope Flows Like Fine Wine After Times Poll Shows Trump Beating Harris

Trump Takes Shocking Lead in Top-Level Poll, Completely Shifts Perception of the Race

I know, I know, they’re all just polls, and there’s only one that makes a difference, and that’s on November 5. But if you pay close to politics or write about them for a living, polls are an interesting, if not particularly accurate, way to get insight into how events are shaping the mood of the electorate. To me, what I look at is the aforementioned RCP average because by averaging all the top polls, you can erase some of the bias and outlier results.

And Trump is winning in that average.

The numbers will likely continue to change as voters digest the debate, but at least for now, it doesn’t appear to have moved the needle much. Harris came flying out of the gates after Joe Biden stepped aside, but after her brief honeymoon in the surveys, voters woke up to the fact that she has no substance, so it’s back to a neck-and-neck race. Many consider that an advantage for the former president since polls underestimated his support in both 2016 and 2020.

My take is that voters in this poll say she “won” the debate because she mostly stayed on script, got out her memorized lines, and didn’t have any major brain malfunctions. Trump, however, came across to some as a little agitated and angry (with good reason—he was ambushed in a three-on-one scrum).

I would argue that the poll results show that as far as appearances go, she did better in the eyes of these respondents, but they weren’t particularly moved by what she actually had to say. If you watched the whole thing, you know she pretty much said nothing other than a bunch of buzzwords and happy-sounding phrases strung together. (“Opportunity economy”: in which we take your money and give it to other people.)

Debates and polls are interesting—but it’s grocery store and gas prices at the end of the day that most people care about.

[icharchivist]

Like yeah y I don't mean to imply that Wilnas is stupid. He is a bit simple and kind and I think he doesn't care for overthinking or making long, complicated plans. He's a good boy

YEAH i just need to make sure we're all on the same page since i'm making the ask public, i didn't get the feeling you felt that way about Wilnas, i just wanted to make sure "for all intend and purpose we're just not discussing in depth why Wilnas is like that" yaknow? just to be sure!

but yeah that's pretty much how i think he is yeah. I think, a bit like the element he represents, he's spontaneous, he acts in the moment, he's warm and passionate and all of that, but he can be acting on the spur of the moment without thinking too hard about it.

He still thinks ahead and makes plans when the situation calls for it (when Galleon went out of control in Old Bonds he was the one to call for Ewiyar to stop just laying around and doing nothing while she had superiority over Galleon's element, if i recall?? ), but when it's not an emergency, he's not really thinking too many steps ahead.

Like on top of Ewi easily making him do whatever she wants (which also is very elemental-based interaction with the way wind can move up flames and all even though fire has superiority over wind), we also have this whole scene in Old Bonds where he challenges MC to a farming contest and then overwork himself because he didn't consider that he should take rest, and then just praised MC for their genius to *check notes* taking into account their bodies limitation.

so sometimes he gets so carried away he doesn't think of the consequences, and when called out about it he just laughs and calls you clever for having prepared for the consequences while he hadn't, all while praising how resourceful humanity can be.

So far he hasn't really been faced to a threat he actually had strong negative feelings about -- in Old Bonds and in "and you" he had to fight *friends*, so it adds that we don't really know how he'd behave if he had to face someone he is supposed to be antagonistic about.

so as of now we do have his happy go lucky attitude to account for instead and he's great about it.

Not specifically stupid, but he's not working on human's scale so he ends up just doing things a little bit to the left without hard feelings.

And i did think you didn't mean "wilnas is stupid" in your ask don't worry it was really just a disclaimer to be sure for anyone else since i don't want to reduce anyone to just being the stupid one (... maybe except the Lowain bros but i'd die on the hill that they are emotionally smart and extremely creative. Just. with also the stupidest levels of stupidity.)

... and also because it's hard to squeeze all of this "here's why Wilnas would be, not stupid, but at least simple with all of this" in a joke post that had something else to focus on

so just a slight disclaimer of "he's not THAT stupid but yknow. himbo."

[angelsndragons]

okay since folks really like my original cockroach party post i’m going to expand a bit and talk about how and why the mighty nein turned into a cockroach party.

but before we do that, i’m going to talk about mechanics on this post. warning: long post ahead.

first, let’s define terms. all adventuring parties find their own play style when it comes to combat. from my experience, these tend to fall into three broad categories that i am calling the glass cannon, the control, and the cockroach. to be clear, no one party style is better than another; the players and characters simply have different priorities and skill sets.  

glass cannon: these parties are built for doing damage. that’s basically it. they do damage and hope that they kill their enemies before their enemies kill them. these parties tend to be low on support casters, healers, or both. round 4 is where things start to get really rough for these parties and chances are good that if the fight has gone on this long, someone’s at least unconscious.

control: these parties tend to go around obstacles and enemies. there are a million ways to do this; for example, these parties can regularly avoid conflicts all together via stealth or charisma or some other check. when forced into combat, they excel when they have plans or traps to spring on opponents. they struggle a bit but ultimately triumph because they have a myriad of ways to not get hit or they are able to escape and lose their pursuers. 

cockroach: these parties don’t engage in combat, they endure it. their goal is to outlast their enemies via healing, support, and tanking. you hit them? joke’s on you, they don’t care. unlike their glass cannon counterparts, round 4 is where things turn around for the cockroach party. they’ve dug in and are starting to push back.

vox machina is a quintessential glass cannon party. part of that is simply down to player availability; ashley their cleric worked across the country so that made it tough for her to attend on the regular. but. the party technically still had a primary healer who could have stepped in and filled that role: keyleth. druids are pretty dang good healers and support casters, even moon druids. however. marisha and keyleth decided to instead take a dps and tank role similar to grog. this ain’t a diss either so don’t any of you all start anything, especially considering keyleth was often burning her higher slots just to get vm to different places. when keyleth was tanking in wild shape and focusing on dps, it meant that vox machina was reliant on: vex’s cure wounds (and with her being a half caster, you weren’t getting a lot of mileage of it), scanlan as the only support role, and later vax’s lay on hands for emergency healing. percy could heal himself a bit if things got really dicey, grog was taking half damage from most attacks, and the twins could hide as a bonus action or stay at range out of the way. in fact, most of vm had some method for staying at range and letting grog and keyleth tank. and this style worked for them for the most part. their biggest dangers were always the longer fights, with or without pike. longer fights meant more chances for these fragile kids to get hit and possibly drag out the fight even longer by trying to get someone up.

the ashholes from exandria unlimited is a great example of a control party. i count half of their encounters which they’ve been able to wriggle out of without killing their opponents. their liberal use of charm spells, high charisma, and just flat out out of the box thinking (they flipped a fucking crocodile!!) has saved their bacon so many times. during unavoidable combat, they have struggled a little bit, but they’re a low level party to begin with so struggle is expected. all the casters appear to be offensively geared with dariax and fearne having prepped utility on the side. even so, that control vibe still permeates the party; dorian’s most clutch move was that dissonant whispers on mister, which he cast not to harm mister but force him to move away from the rune that transformed and powered him, thus ending the combat.

and finally we have the mighty nein, the cockroach party. we’ll get into the hows and whys later, for now, cockroach parties are built on three major founding principles: action economy, mindset, and versatility. action economy is king in dnd. pcs get an action, bonus action, and reaction per turn. having turns each round is critical to a dnd party's ability to overcome the enemy and the more turns you have compared to your opponent, the better. for large parties, that is a sizable advantage over enemy monsters, which is why even low level monsters are packing multi-attacks, decent ac, and/or good solid hit points. more members means more attacks the creature(s) needs to take and focused fire adds up fast, even at low levels. for example, kylre had about 90 hp and was dead in three rounds, with fjord alone dealing 64 points of that damage. yeah. want to know why mid to high level monsters have legendary actions and resists? action economy. want to know why some silly min-max number crunchers think that cleric healing is severely under-powered? action economy. laura's assessment of healing, that it is better to damage the enemy and only heal to bring people up to make sure they get their turn, is a solid, reasonable assessment of the economy, especially when it comes to the cleric spell slot economy which I elaborated on here.

so, in light of the action economy, let's talk about the cockroach mindset. the cockroach party doesn’t ask ‘how do we beat this opponent’, it asks ‘how do we outlast this opponent.’ it’s a subtle difference in combat focus but an important one. survival of the party is the cockroach’s top priority and all members go into the encounter with that priority in mind. the players aren’t focused on the survival of their character, however, they are focused on giving their party another round to act. they give themselves room to breathe. whether that is stunning the enemy completely, whether it's lowering the enemy's attacking ability, whether it's giving a party member an extra action, whether it’s bringing someone up from unconsciousness, those methods combine with damage generation to win an encounter. cockroach parties don't rely on damage output to keep themselves safe, they rely on their own ability to survive and support their team. 

which brings us to versatility. cockroach parties tend to have a wide array of skills at their disposal and aren’t afraid to use them. while they have solid support roles, casters are not the only ones who can bring utility to a party. just ask beau. just ask yasha as she flew caleb out of danger in the first lucien fight. heck, just ask orym and his swip swap battle flop. or damian and the owlbear from the darrington brigade. cockroach parties, more than control and glass cannon parties, prefer to have a wide range of options available to them. the more tricks up your sleeve, the more likely you are to have something to deal with whatever the dm throws at you. marine layer, anyone? at the same time, the party also uses this wide array to have multiple ways to handle the same problem. jester is the backup stealth scout and teleporter. fjord is the emt, able to remove and heal injured party members if caduceus or jester cannot. caleb is the backup backup cleric with polymorph. veth can also stun/incapacitate enemies with her spells. caduceus is the backup backup tank and battlefield control via his shield of retribution and spirit guardians to beau and jester.

these three tricks combine into one inescapable reality: there is no one better or obvious target to take out. the entire party is one giant interlocking trap; break one and the others will reinforce the weak point and make you pay for the effort.

(incidentally, the cockroach approach is so ingrained in the cast that the vm side of the battle royale didn’t play with the urgency the vm playbook requires and that, more than anything, screwed them over. but that’s a different post.)

tune in next time for a break down of how, when, and why the nein went from glass cannon to cockroach because it is a fascinating ride.