#Endurance & Miracles

[acourtofquestions]

Kingdom of Ash Chapter 61

Chapter; Highlights (okay the entire chapter is a highlight)🤣

As requested @mysterylilycheeta I NEED TO SQUEAL IN WYVERN FANGIRL WITH YOU NOW CAUSE OH M GOODNESS THIS CHAPTER ON SO MANY LEVELS I JUST AHAKWIHUHFEJLZXBKEKA

Agony was a song in Lorcan's blood, his bones, his breath.

Every step of the horse, every leap she made over body and debris, sent it ringing afresh. There was no end, no mercy from it. It was all he could do to keep in the saddle, to cling to consciousness.

To keep his arm around Elide.

She had come for him. Had found him, somehow, on this endless battlefield.

His name on her lips had been a summons he could never deny, even when death had held him so gently, nestled beneath all those he'd felled, I, and waited for his last breaths.

And now, charging toward that too-distant keep, so far behind the droves of soldiers and riders racing for the gates, he wondered if these minutes would be his last. Her last.

She had come for him.

Lorcan managed to glance toward the dam on their right. Toward the ruk rider signaling that it was only a matter of minutes until it unleashed hell over the plain.

He didn't know how it had become weakened. Didn't care.

Still Elide kept urging the horse onward, kept them on as straight a path toward the distant keep as possible.

No ruk would come to sweep them up. No, his luck had been spent in surviving this long, in her finding him. His power would do nothing against that water.

The farthest lines of panicked soldiers appeared, and Farasha charged past them.

Elide let out a sob, and he followed the line of her sight.

To the keep gate, still open.

"Faster, Farasha!" She didn't hide the raw terror in her voice, the desperation.

Once the dam broke, it would take less than a minute for the tidal wave to reach them.

She had come for him. She had found him.

The world went quiet. The pain in his body faded into nothing. Into something secondary.

Lorcan slid his other arm around Elide, bringing his mouth close to her ear as he said, "You have to let me go."

Each word was gravelly, his voice strained nearly to the point of uselessness.

Elide didn't shift her focus from the keep ahead. "No."

That gentle quiet flowed around him, clearing the fog of pain and battle. "You have to. You have to, Elide. I'm too heavy-and without my weight, you might make it to the keep in time."

"No." The salt of her tears filled his nose.

Lorcan brushed his mouth over her damp cheek, ignoring the roaring pain in his body. The horse galloped and galloped, as if she might outrace death itself.

"I love you," he whispered in Elide's ear. "I have loved you from the moment you picked up that axe to slay the ilken." Her tears flowed past him in the wind. "And I will be with you ..." His voice broke, but he made himself say the words, the truth in his heart. "I will be with you always."

He was not frightened of what would come for him once he tumbled off the horse. He was not frightened at all, if it meant her reaching the keep.

So Lorcan kissed Elide's cheek again, allowed himself to breathe in her scent one last time. "I love you," he repeated, and began to withdraw his arms from around her waist.

Elide slapped a hand onto his forearm. Dug in her nails, right into his skin, fierce as any ruk.

"No."

There were no tears in her voice. Nothing but solid, unwavering steel.

"No," she said again. The voice of the Lady of Perranth.

Lorcan tried to move his arm, but her grip would not be dislodged.

If he tumbled off the horse, she would go with him.

Together. They would either outrun this or die together.

"Elide-"

But Elide slammed her heels into the horse's sides.

Slammed her heels into the dark flank and screamed, "FLY, FARASHA." She cracked the reins. "FLY, FLY, FLY!"

And gods help her, that horse did.

As if the god that had crafted her filled the mare's lungs with his own breath, Farasha gave a surge of speed.

Faster than the wind. Faster than death.

Farasha cleared the first of the fleeing Darghan cavalry. Passed desperate horses and riders at an all-out gallop for the gates.

Her mighty heart did not falter, even when Lorcan knew it was raging to the point of bursting.

Less than a mile stood between them and the keep.

But a thunderous, groaning crack cleaved the world, echoing off the lake, the mountains.

There was nothing he could do, nothing that brave, unfaltering horse could do, as the dam ruptured.

Rowan made himself stand there, to watch the last moments of the Lady of Perranth and his former commander. It was all he could offer: witnessing their deaths, so he might tell the story to those he encountered. So they would not be forgotten.

The roaring of the oncoming wave became deafening, even from miles away.

Still Elide and Lorcan raced, Farasha passing horse after horse after horse.

Even up here, would they escape the wave's reach? Rowan dared to survey the battlements, to assess if he needed to get the others, needed to get Aelin, to higher ground.

But Aelin was not at his side.

She was not on the battlement at all.

Rowan's heart halted. Simply stopped beating as a ruddy-brown ruk dropped from the skies, spearing for the center of the plain.

Arcas, Borte's ruk. A golden-haired woman dangling from his talons.

Aelin. Aelin was—

Arcas neared the earth, talons splaying.

Aelin hit the ground, rolling, rolling, until she uncoiled to her feet.

Right in the path of that wave.

"Oh gods," Fenrys breathed, seeing her, too.

They all saw her.

The queen on the plain.

The endless wall of water surging for her.

The keep stones began shuddering. Rowan threw out a hand to brace himself, fear like nothing he had known ripping through him as Aelin lifted her arms above her head.

A pillar of fire shot up around her, lifting her hair with it.

The wave roared and roared for her, for the army behind her.

The shaking in the keep was not from the wave.

It was not from that wall of water at all.

Cracks formed in the earth, splintering across it. Spiderwebbing from Aelin.

"The hot springs," Chaol breathed. "The valley floor is full of veins into the earth itself."

Into the burning heart of the world.

The keep shook, more violently this time.

The pillar of fire sucked back into Aelin.

She held out a hand before her, her fist closed.

As if it would halt the wave in its tracks.

He knew then. Either as her mate or carranam, he knew.

"Three months," Rowan breathed.

The others stilled.

"Three months," he said again, his knees wobbling. "She's been making the descent into her power for three months."

Every day she had been with Maeve, bound in iron, she had gone deeper. And she had not tapped too far into that power since they'd freed her because she had kept making the plunge.

To gather up the full might of her magic.

Not for the Lock, not for Erawan.

But for Maeve's death blow.

A few weeks of descent had taken her powers to devastating levels. Three months of it

…

Holy gods. Holy rutting gods.

And when her fire hit the wall of water now towering over her, when they collided —

"GET DOWN!" Rowan bellowed, over the screaming waters. "GET DOWN NOW!"

His companions dropped to the stones, any within earshot doing the same.

Rowan plummeted into his power. Plummeted into it fast and hard, ripping out any remaining shred of magic.

Elide and Lorcan were still too far from the gates. Thousands of soldiers were still too far from the gates as the wave crested above them.

As Aelin opened her hand toward it.

Fire erupted.

Cobalt fire. The raging soul of a flame.

A tidal wave of it.

Taller than the raging waters, it blasted from her, flaring wide.

The wave slammed into it. And where water met a wall of fire, where a thousand years of confinement met three months of it, the world exploded.

Blistering steam, capable of melting flesh from bone, shot across the plain.

With a roar, Rowan threw all that remained of his magic toward the onslaught of steam, a wall of wind that shoved it toward the lake, the mountains.

Still the waters came, breaking against the flames that did not so much as yield an inch.

Maeve's death blow. Spent here, to save the army that might mean Terrasen's salvation. To spare the lives on the plain.

Rowan gritted his teeth, panting against his fraying power. A burnout lurked, deadly close.

The raging wave threw itself over and over and over into the wall of flame.

Rowan didn't see if Elide and Lorcan made it into the keep. If the other soldiers and riders on the plain stopped to gape.

Princess Hasar said, rising beside him, "That power is no blessing."

"Tell that to your soldiers," Fenrys snarled, standing, too.

"I did not mean it that way," Hasar snipped, and awe was indeed stark on her face.

Rowan leaned against the battlements, panting hard as he fought to keep the lethal steam from flowing toward the army. As he cooled and sent it whisking away.

Solid hands slid under his arms, and then Fenrys and Gavriel were there, propping him up between them.

A minute passed. Then another.

The wave began to lower. Still the fire burned.

Rowan's head pounded, his mouth going dry.

Time slipped from him. A coppery tang filled his mouth.

The wave lowered farther, raging waters quieting. Then roaring turned to lapping, rapids into eddies.

Until the wall of flame began to lower, too. Tracking the waters down and down and down. Letting them seep into the cracks of the earth.

Rowan's knees buckled, but he held on to his magic long enough for the steam to lessen.

For it, too, to be calmed.

It filled the plain, turning the world into drifting mist. Blocking the view of the queen in its center.

Then silence. Utter silence.

Fire flickered through the mist, blue turning to gold and red. A muted, throbbing glow.

Rowan spat blood onto the battlement stones, his breath like shards of glass in his throat.

The glowing flames shrank, steam rippling past. Until there was only a slim pillar of fire, veiled in the mist-shrouded plain.

Not a pillar of fire.

But Aelin.

Glowing white-hot. As if she had given herself so wholly to the flame that she had become fire herself.

The Fire-Bringer someone whispered down the battlements.

The mist rippled and billowed, casting her into nothing but a glowing effigy.

The silence turned reverent.

A gentle wind from the north swept down. The veil of mist pulled back, and there she was.

She glowed from within. Glowed golden, tendrils of her hair floating on a phantom wind.

"Mala's Heir," Yrene breathed.

Down on the plain, Elide and Lorcan had halted.

The wind pushed away more of the drifting mist, clearing the land beyond Aelin.

And where that mighty, lethal wave had loomed, where death had charged toward them, nothing remained at all.

For three months, she had sung to the darkness and the flame, and they had sung back.

For three months, she had burrowed so deep inside her power that she had plundered undiscovered depths. While Maeve and Cairn had worked on her, she had delved. Never letting them know what she mined, what she gathered to her, day by day by day.

A death blow. One to wipe a dark queen from the earth forever.

She'd kept that power coiled in herself even after she'd been freed from the irons. Had struggled to keep it down these weeks, the strain enormous. Some days, it had been easier to barely speak. Some days, swaggering arrogance had been her key to ignoring it.

Yet when she had seen that wave, when she had seen Elide and Lorcan choosing death together, when she had seen the army that might save Terrasen, she'd known. She'd felt the fire sleeping under this city, and knew they had come here for a reason.

She had come here for this reason.

A river still flowed from the dam, harmless and small, wending toward the lake.

Nothing more.

Aelin lifted a glowing hand before her as blessed, cooling emptiness filled her at last.

Slowly, starting from her fingertips, the glow faded.

As if she were forged anew, forged back into her body.

Back into Aelin.

Clarity, sharp and crystal clear, filled its wake. As if she could see again, breathe again.

Inch by inch, the golden glow faded into skin and bone. Into a woman once more.

Already, a white-tailed hawk launched skyward.

But as the last of the glow faded, disappearing out through her toes, Aelin fell to her knees.

Fell to her knees in the utter silence of the world, and curled onto her side.

She had the vague sense of strong, familiar arms scooping her up. Of being carried onto a broad feathery back, still in those arms.

Of soaring through the skies, the last of the mist rippling away into the afternoon sun.

And then sweet darkness.

[nameification]

First real contribution to the fandom and it's. The zealous pictographs of a raving believer. Hear me out. Please

[rauhallinen-hauki]

(this isnt to shit on Miura. his work has endlessly inspired and meant a lot to me, but that doesn't mean that it is exempt from constructive criticism)

i love Casca but damn it if she isn't the most misused character ever. I can understand what happened to her in the Eclipse from a narrative standpoint (Miura really didn't need to draw that scene in titillating angles though. It was fucking disgusting already). I can understand Casca loosing her memories. And as much as I despise it I can even understand her going into a zombie child-like state.

But what I can't understand is her being in this state…for what is essentially almost the entirety of the main story (20+ real life years) and GET 0 CHARACTER DEVELOPEMENT IN BETWEEN.

Don't get me wrong, arguably the best scene in the story is when she finally "wakes up" in Elfhelm. But they couldn't even give her a single thought, a short internal dialogue of the conscious part of her brain in between all this time? Nothing for who is essentially the tritagonist and supposedly the main heroine of this story, to who is at her core a really interesting and beautiful character with tons of wasted potential?

[randomfoggytiger]

Eight Nights of Mulder: Day 5, Endurance & Miracles (Part II)

Mulder includes Scully in his post-Drive thoughts.

*****

“Mulder? We need to follow the ambulance back.” 

He hadn’t heard her walk up, intent on the calming rhythm surrounding him-- so different than the one he'd been locked with for hours. The thought Mr. Crump is waiting struck suddenly, stung; and Mulder peeled away reluctantly from his peaceful corner of the world. 

Scully remained a few feet apart, waiting for her partner to make the next move. Remarkably distanced from the more personal aspects of this case. Remarkably whole, remarkably kind. Miraculously alive.

“On days like this it’s hard to believe in miracles, Scully.” 

For the first time in their partnership, Mulder gloried in being the sole eidetic pontificator because all he could think next was weariness of the flesh and he knew that quote was somewhere in Scully’s bible and he was grateful, so grateful, that he could count on Scully not to quote chapter and verse of her scripture at him, either in agreement or correction. The whispers of his maternal grandmother hovered at the edges, her tongue clucking over the Christian additions to the Jewish religion-- another normal person with a normal life that he’d lost along the way.  

Scully, meanwhile, stayed silent and watchful. 

He’d forgotten: she distrusted miracles, spent too much time juggling her science and her faith to argue semantics with him or a higher power. He, the unbeliever, espoused belief in yet another metaphysical she chalked up to Christmas magic or pixie dust. She explored her world with the same map and compass that guided her steps in religion, cancer, and death: God and science. Mostly an "either, or" between the two, with some careful hedging thrown in to cover the gaps; and that system-- he guessed-- covered a multitude of Congressional and familial sins. Did nothing to repel unexpected disasters, however: the ones that clung to collars across state lines and threatened to permanently injure with nothing more than bad timing and chance.

The past summer…. He’d never asked her what she’d believed since; but he liked to think that Scully would rationalize that he, her partner, was the common denominator in each scenario. “Believe in a miracle and you’re halfway there” she’d said once; and perhaps that’s all that could be drawn from her on the subject. Willpower and determination were more steady, achievable things than luck and miracles.

Mood askew, Mulder sighed, scrambled for stability, nodded, and followed her back up the road. There was an investigation still to wrap up, Kersh still to face, government lies still to choke down; and, reflecting, he shifted swiftly back into his former gloom.

Scully beat him to the driver's side. They locked eyes tiredly, without challenge; and he saw a flicker of hesitation before she straightened further and softened her tone. 

“Mulder, Crump would have died hours ago if not for your efforts. In a way, your concern and cooperation gave him a longer life.” She paused, and her expression shifted: serious, angry. “And now we give him justice.”  

Any other day Mulder would have glibly ribbed his partner’s bloodthirst for retribution. Today was not one of them: today he let her words seep into his cracks and crevices, followed them into the car and around the parking lot and back up the hill, and hoped they would drive him closer, faster, to normal.

*****

Thanks for reading~

Enjoy!

(Tagging @today-in-fic~)

[mymiraclebox]

I’ve seen you pick villain MCs for other boxes but what if you made a heroes team (made of 5 like ladybug, cat noir, Rena rogue, carapace, queen bee) for the boxes

A lot of the Boxes of the Order Generation are pretty small, so I'm going to stick to the bigger boxes for this question, just so there's options to choose from. I will also being mirroring the canon hero team, with a pair acting as leaders with three main teammates working with them.

---

Direction Box - I actually do have a team of 5 in this AU for this Box: with Eagle (Eagle Miraculous) and Ampere (Thunderbird) acting as the team leaders. Then their main teammates are Melodie (Deer), Masked Owl (Owl), Eye of Ra (Falcon).

Enduring Box - The five I would choose for the Enduring Box would probably be the Griffin and Gorilla as the main duo, Griffin acting as their main powerhouse of the team, with the Gorilla being a general protector who always places themselves between their team and the threat. For their teammates I have the Okapi, who could be great for intel and sneak attacks. Then the Secretarybird, whose diverse power potential would be good for team building. Finally there's the Chameleon, whose powers could help both with keeping the team together and getting the upper hand against their foes.

Cycle Box - I'm going to make the Grim and the Qilin as the team leaders here, not only because of their contrasting nature of their powers, but simply because I feel having partners with kwamis who hate each other would be pretty interesting for their dynamics. As for their teammates, I'd say: Tortoise to act as a strategist of the team, Pangolin to be a defensive force, and Rhino for offensive power.

Season Box - I think Kelpie and Elk would be a fun leader pair, with the water and plant powers acting as a fun duo even if the Kelpie is technically stronger as an Elemental. For the teammates I am of course choosing the Ant, with their Hivemind able to create perfect teamwork. Next will be the Crab, which will always provide a power they need the moment they need it. For the fifth member I will go with the Lynx, whose ability to see glimpses of near future events would be very potent in tandem with the Ant.

[esleep]

i have spent my entire 29 years of life not understanding how bad it sucks to adjust to glasses for the first time, and now that the taxman cometh i am a little bit in mourning for the days when i did not feel kinda nauseous all the time. life-long glasses-wearers are powerful heroes to me.

[carlosyt14]

Honoka, Chika, and Ayumu broke.

Oops.

[cherubchoirs]

somebody else brought up pyrite girl as an AM song to you before but it's also so extremely a V2 song for me. i opened my ask blog with that song on purpose it makes me go crazy !!!!!

REAL....i think v2 has a lot to contend with, with its extensive repairs and the fact that. it really did die, as much as a machine can, before being brought back with so many scrap parts. i like to imagine there is some pride in being a supreme machine, that they really aren't as given to scavenging or modification, as they are already so powerful and so consider most parts inferior to any equivalent of their own. PLUS a lot of original parts, what are left of them, had to be imperfectly restored and i like to think of most of them have been left sun-bleached or stained with the gold sand of greed. it paints itself over and over, covering up its faded parts or those that were never its to begin with, hating the other colors trying to come through beneath careful applications of red and black. they serve to remind it of its failure, yet at some point it must accept its modifications in the only way that it can - that it can remake itself again and again, and there is a certain immortality in it. maybe it's not what it once was, but soon it begins to see it as the damage being done and so what does any more matter. it lost so much of what the v2 model was but v2 itself survived, and now it hardly makes sense to be so precious about its parts when so many have been replaced and it knows how easily it could lose the others. so why not make itself better, why not create something that actually has a place in hell?

[inyourbenevolence]

Music for I Need A Miracle is by Katharine Seaton

Katharine works with Rusty Quill as sound designer and composer, and made her BBC Radio 4 debut on Easter Day 2023, as composer for the radio adaptation of Ian McEwan’s novel Enduring Love.

@merelymatt says, once upon a time, my plan was not to have music in I Need A Miracle. That would have been a sad, flat world. Katie got me thinking about the vibe of the series, and its themes, motifs and recurring moments and moods, in a way I never would have without a composer on board – and then translated those raw thoughts perfectly into sound. Her music is the first thing you hear in each episode, and it acts like the best teasers and trailers – giving you just a sense of what you're in for, calibrating your receptors ready for the episode to activate your emotions (yes all of them, all at once).

[sunoflegend]

usually my rule of thumb is if a bad thing can happen to starscream it will like some sort of fucked up murphys law but im thinking about her mtmte verse again and thinking about how she managed to dodge like the biggest bullets of her life by joining team getaway its so funny. she managed to sidestep the like worst experiences she could've dealt with ( the fucking DJD, she was Literally on the list at a certain point ) ( functionist universe she'd want to explode ) and i dont even think she had a bad time on getaways lost light cause he only fucked with the life cords of people who were hesitant on joining and she absolutely wouldnt have been so. she did manage a win this once and sidestep my rule of having the worst possible reality.

[kurthorton-moving]

this isnt an au ive talked ab on the dash much its mostly been written on discord but i am thinking heavily about the au where kurt spends his entire teenage years kidnapped and finally escapes a little while after he turned eighteen and the way he has to adjust to the shift in his life from being hostage and conditioned into the lifestyle he lived vs freedom and rediscovering the world and more importantly rediscovering himself

[dent-de-leon]

what if animated mighty nein has a little moment that implies mollymauk is fate touched like lucien? ;;

[secondpersonpoetry]

"meditations on an emergency", cameron awkward-rich // "a note on the body", danez smith // "kindness", naomi shihab nye // "when giving is all we have", alberto ríos // "you, if no one else", tino villanueva // "you are who i love", aracelis girmay // "a small needful fact", ross gay

anyway, we get up, we make the bed, we feed the pets, we try to let kindness guide our encounters with the world, we scream and scream and scream and scream until it turns into manic laughter, we feed ourselves, we water the plants, etc

[wickedzeevyln]

5 A.M.

One of the wonders this universe holds is that while many humans are endowed with intelligence, I sometimes find it easier to talk with someone who wags his tail happy to hear me out with eyes lighting up and clearly doesn’t give a damn about language barriers. At night, he’d jump out of his stupor, as if he just snorted cocaine, just to amble about on the way to the fridge with me. ‘You…

[randomfoggytiger]

Eight Nights of Mulder: Day 4, Endurance & Miracles (Part I)

Mulder's introspects post-Drive.

*****

Mulder stood as far as he could from the blood and the gore and the rotting scent of failure, willing the ocean air to leech the exhaustion from his bones.  

Mr. Crump was dead. Mr. Crump’s wife was dead. The road had run out. 

A different man-- more able to lose himself in horrifying possibilities without the blinders of training, experience, and sheer, audacious will to curb his mind-- would imagine Scully screaming in the backseat as her cancer thrummed, thrummed, thrummed in time with the tires, with the engine, with the pulse in her head. Would imagine her final, squelching scream as the cancer burst from her brain in an explosion of pressure and tissue matter. Those thoughts were dwarfed by the simple yet daunting fact that she’d been handed its cure by the same men who blew apart the Crumps’ lives, and with the same justification: progress. That she’d been given salvation because-- and only because-- those men had known her death would hone their enemy to the single-minded focus of revenge, that he’d have run them down for it. 

But what good was his revenge if his justice-- or a form of it-- had failed one Mr. Crump: red-faced, insulting, and implying, Crump had felt the injustice of his situation though he’d misdiagnosed the cause. The gravity of the unfolding horror was just beginning to sink in when his mind was steered too right or too wrong or too slowly and it exploded along with Crump’s hopeful desperation-- obliterated under the wheel of progress.  

While Mulder and Scully endured miles and miles of twisted roads and endless pit stops and somehow survived, somehow kept going, Mr. and Mrs. Crump had stayed stationary and safe and woken up to the ugly reality of their irreversible deaths, forced to become wanderers for survival but still dying in the attempt.   

Mulder still stood, still hoped the ocean roar would cool the fury of his mind. 

*****

Thank you for reading~

Enjoy!

(Tagging @today-in-fic~)

[north-wilkesboro-moonshine-cave]

okay my one bitchy little personal post about the mess. Jesus fucking Christ why do I have to be in graduate school at the most annoying possible time.