#Even the Mask of Ice who we all know is Pryce WHICH I WOULD LIKE TO PERSONALLY SHAKE THAT ANON'S HAND BECAUSE I ABSOLUTELY LOVE THAT ARC | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

ceep-it-kanon · 6 years ago

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Ruby and Silver are so freakkin difficult to get straight. I mean, they’re both extroverts by nature, but plot happened and hit them hard & they ended up distrustful introverts. They ended up the exact opposite of the kind of person they are, and with Silver especially it makes circumstances difficult for them and self-conflicting. It’s fascinating, unbelievable, sad, and frustrating all at the same time, to think what kind of great person they both would have been if pl*t hadn’t happened to them and messed with their senses of right and wrong and their abilities to trust other people. I don’t mean that they’re the same; by nature they’re different (Silver has a very submissive personality underneath all that corruption, while Ruby had a sensitive, outgoing, personality, sort of like Black, except a lot more people-oriented, among other things) and the people the ended up becoming are just as different (Ruby has a tendency to run away from things, and because of that he feels guilt and because he feels guilt he tries to be self-focused and selfish as a method of coping with the reality of his actions hurting people, and his experience with the world is that once a bridge is burned it can’t be repaired, it’s probably his fault, and he runs from that guilt. Silver… has many many layers to him, more than his simple, just-want-to-do-right personality could normally manage. [Also hc that’s a double burn on Giovanni, cause that’s the kind of person Red’s dad, Giovanni’s little brother, was, and Giovanni hated mediocrity and how he all he needed to make him happy was to please others, while part of Giovanni wished it could be that simple for him, etc.] Silver ends up a very confused, conflicted, corrupted shell of what was only ever a child in an unstable world, with his only desire [after Pryce was defeated] was to find a place where he had both a belonging and purpose, but found only fate at every corner, found that the past he had been longing to know and return to was the fall in development of the Team Rocket empire, and that his existence was not only the catalyst to cause the destruction of the era of prosperity of those who had long been downcast, in taking the power and glory of the privileged, and giving to them the fear, exile, and punishment that they of different moral had been forced. They of team rocket were the outsiders, those in society who were smart enough to see the corruption of the world, who had morals of personal justice which would remove the wool over society’s eyes to their world, that would disrupt the careful lies those in power preached to maintain it, and under one man united to take the lifetime they believed their kind–the thieves & the cold-hearted, the homeless and disadvantaged–should be given, and had been deprived from them and their ancestors since Kanto began the inevitable corruption of a society’s order and hierarchy, the government. I’ve started rambling crap help And for Silver, to have been taken as a product of that corruption and to be used as a tool for a corrupted man, struggling to understand his humanity, happened to get into what we would of course call the “right crowd” (but which all Team Rocket would for different reasons disagree), and his experience was twisted a third time into something he couldn’t make sense of, and upon finding his purpose–both why he was conceived and what he could do to make his impact–to become the leader of Team Rocket and shut everything down before the three warring factions that were shards of the glory the team was under Giovanni’s leadership before Ariana (his mother, ironically) and the other executive admins tore the region–and those following them, who were once again suffering most, in a place where they had nothing left and nowhere to go–apart. In Petrel’s strange obsession with messing with Silver’s mind; in Archer’s loyal delusion of returning Giovanni to Team Rocket and refusing to accept his death for what it was; in Proton’s fear of losing his power, of needing to be right and uncontained; and most importantly Ariana, who, as Kanto crumbled in the fourth reign to being more corrupt than ever before, sought to gain power during the chaos, to mess with other’s minds and know how to gain control over any human on earth, to prove that she was more worthy than justice-loving Giovanni (who before you ask there was never anything between them & Silver was not in the slightest notion an accident, and she never wanted nor had to have anything to do with him, from the deal they made. and yes, Giovanni didn’t intend to, but he had loved Silver more than he had ever loved anything. Also if it isn’t obvious Silver got his personality from his father.) To her, life was a game. She only ever wanted to control people. She had no interest for the long run, or in keeping the power she gained. She was strange in that either the way her brain was wired or her upbringing or both left her unafraid of the world. She didn’t fear dying for her mistakes, as Pryce had; it hardly crossed her mind. She had no inhibition whatsoever and lived for the thrill of the present, which made her all the more dangerous of an antagonist, for all her actions were in fear of nothing, so for her even the unthinkable was doable, for she failed to care for the retributions to her or others caused by her actions. (Again, the opposite of Pryce. It’s interesting that two major villains for Silver to face were both motivated and made dangerous by fearing the effects of their mistakes and paying no heed to the effects of their mistakes respectively.) At the end of the fourth and final reign of Team Rocket, and era of either greatness or fear for three entire generations, it came down to Silver’s mother, as it began with his father. And he was the once who was neither hero, nor bad guy, nor bystander, for what he was, what he caught caught in, and what fate brought him to would not allow him to be any of those, yet he was all at once: in being loved, in the blood which he never got a chance to know love from, and in who he is without the corruption of the Masked Man and that world. In his hatred, in his regret, in his loyalty, his despair, and his desire for simplicity, Silver is human. His father, a great, sensible, intelligent man, sought nothing more than to pursue the justice he believed in, as a boy from rich family on the wealthy side of society, seeking the company of others with intelligence, and finding it in the criminals society hated and feared, whose views are too harsh, too close to the truth for the blinded and softened multitudes to accept and thus take everything from them out of fear and disbelief. Giovanni’s truest desire was to understand why he hated the mundane, why simple oblivion disgusted him, why he couldn’t love his sipping-wine-patio-party-go-entertain-yourself parents, his what-will-make-you-happy-I’ll-do-it-that’s-what-makes-me-happy brother, and the life where everything, even education, was given to him without having to lift a finger. No one else he knew felt this way, so he looked elsewhere for others like him. And he found thieves, and at once knew what kind of life he could dedicate his incredible intelligence to, instead of wasting it away sipping wine. Silver’s mother, who found her happiness in manipulation of others. She had a desire to play the devil. She was not born with it, but as she grew the love of control grew with her, to an amount that could not be fulfilled by any life other than the one she lead. Like I said, her only desire was to play the devil. And as the Team Rocket era began with Giovanni, whose ability to understand others and to bring those at their knees to their feet and those at their feet to their knees, to gain the trust of those who never trust, to fulfull every promise and create a network of thieves, assassins, and the like, over half of which would die for him… Giovanni was near a god in that sense, and he was to many of those poor who joined Team Rocket. Ariana was the devil among them, and it all ended with her. After all of Team Rocket had been finally disassembled by the dexholders and the remaining of the the remaining unwanted masked children, and Silver, the human product of the two, fulfilled his father plea to him and rescued the poor Team Rocket members, who had suffered brain damage from Pryce’s ice-alchemy control, who had been hated even more than ever before by society after Giovanni’s death, and who again now were suffering the most under poor leadership, with the executive admins all either insane or of a selfish motive, and these poor thieves who had known nothing but hate from society for who they were, who believed in Giovanni and gave up what little, prideful life they had to follow him. Giovanni’s plan for a world that valued what he believed to be right, which I may add was entire possible for a godly man like him to achieve, was cut short, and the power he had gained over others to use for “true justice” had no cap, no government to pull the wool over society’s eyes and keep them from panic, no human greed to settle the system, just confusion, chaos, fear of both sides from both sides, and likewise with hatred. This all could have settled and been figured out, but those who had some of that power, who should not be in power without a fair-minded leader above them, who should be in jail, the smartest admins of the fallen team, they sought to take advantage of the chaos and confusion and hatred and fear and grab as much as they could for themselves. And the kind-hearted, the misunderstood, those who wanted this new regime for everybody because it was the morals they believed to be right, ended up, as they always have in history despite Giovanni’s attempt to change that, suffering most. It was Giovanni’s last wish that Silver, though not indebted to Giovanni in any way, become the leader of a great new world he had been created with hopes of becoming, and stop this unneeded suffering of “those who are truly great, but misunderstood” before it leads to even more suffering for all. (Remember that Giovanni valued “well-distributed intelligence” in people above all other things.) All of Team Rocket, even those who had used Giovanni’s dream to gain power for themselves, (Courtney is an example of that kind of person, just saying), both respected and feared Giovanni, and while the great man who was like a father to so many without one had not the power to stand, his hope was that they would listen to Silver. And for Silver, who had gone from “team-rocket-is-bad-and-must-be-destroyed” to “is-this-where-I-belong?-it-can’t-be-these-people-are-scum-and-I-hate-having-it-in-my-blood-thus-I-hate-myself” to “these-people-aren’t-really-at-fault-it’s-the-greedy-ones-like-Petrel-who-take-advantage-of-people-with-good-hearts” to “I-have-to-do-this-it’s-not-who-I-am-but-it’s-what-I-can-do” to finally after all that suffering for him alone and weight he didn’t want on his shoulders etc he goes to “the-seven-of-us-have-been-a-family-all-along” and I’ve literally been on the computer typing this for almost four hours and it feels like thirty minutes and I still have to get started on homework and crap cause I’ve literally been writing this since I got home five hours ago and it was supposed to be a quick observation of how Ruby and Silver are very similar in one way, but lol I guess sometimes fate has other plans.

#pokespe #ceeping it kanon #long post -

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pardontheglueman · 5 years ago

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The Christmas Message

Three sleeps before Christmas, Leigh found herself startled awake in the middle of the night by the utterly impossible sound of falling snow. Leigh knew that this phenomenon couldn’t really be happening, knew that the sensation she felt deep in her bones was inexplicable, that even a million snowflakes, woven into one unfathomably magical snowfall, could never make so much as a single sliver of noise as they settled upon the face of the earth, knew that even the heaviest snowfall is masked by the infinitesimal ticking of the bedroom clock, as it measures out the slow, circuitous, passage of time. Nevertheless, the fact remained: a midnight snowfall had mysteriously disturbed her rest.

Leigh lay motionless for the longest while. As she listened to the percussive sound of the snow rap against the misted glass of her bedroom window, she sought to persuade herself that the icy drumbeat might be explained away as a simple hail-storm, or by an angular wind rasping against the treetops or, more imaginatively, as the ricochet of white lightening deflected sharply from the rows of smoke-smudged rooftops opposite. Deep down, though, she sensed that there was nothing to disturb the louring night other than the lonesome murmuring of the moonlit snow. Leigh tried to calm her breathing, to think beyond the strange turbulence outside. Something about the music of the snow thrumming along the power lines had unnerved her. With her eyes squeezed shut, she imagined a plume of incandescent snow spreading beyond her garden, engulfing the whole of the town before disappearing into the darkling night.

Leigh had always loved snow, loved nothing better than to trek playfully across an unblemished landscape first thing of a winter morning. She delighted in leaving her size five footprints on the newly-minted surface while daydreaming of sledding toward the Pole. She liked to see a hard rind of crusted snow packed tight against the windscreens of parked cars, or blown up against the driveways of the expensively furnished houses on Cardiff Road. She liked rolling stupendously large snowballs just for the sake of it, although she sometimes put her hard work to good use by aiming them at unsuspecting snowmen, congratulating herself with an excited whoop each time she dislodged one of the oddly misshapen heads from its roly-poly body. She studied the greened mountains that turned impossibly white between the closing of her eyes last thing at night and their opening again first thing in the morning. She even ordered the ranks of Christmas cards on the dining room mantelpiece solely with regard to the amount of snow pictured on them, placing those with idyllic, wintry snapshots, even if they were from obscure aunts she had never met, in front of the cartoonish offerings hand-delivered by her best friends. She liked shaking snow-globes furiously until the mini-blizzards she created seemed ready to shatter the glass in her hand..

Leigh believed that snow brought an air of mystery to her drab old town. She believed in the power of snow, like magic, to deceive the eye, to trick the grubby, littered streets of her estate into becoming a vast, white wilderness ripe for exploration and discovery. She loved snow most of all, though, because her father had loved snow. She remembered a night when he propped a kitchen chair against the back door and sat there for hours on end watching the snow falling from a Christmas sky, determined to remain at his sentry post until the flakes dwindled down to nothing or he simply fell asleep, whichever came first. It hadn’t snowed at Christmas for three years, though, and even then it was little more than thin sleet, late on Boxing Day, that had failed to settle. Her mother had let her stay up late that night to see if the snow amounted to anything. They drank milky coffee together and watched in disappointment as the slivers of sleet turned to unwelcome rain.

‘It just doesn’t snow like it used to when I was a girl’, her Mam had observed, looking wonderingly at an old photo of herself perched on her home-made sled with a smile blossoming on her face as big as the Brecon Beacons itself. ‘The most we get these days is a dusting that’s gone before you know it’. ‘Dad always used to say that snow fell like manna from heaven when he was a boy’, Leigh replied, her voice snagging against the still-raw memory of her father’s voice echoing throughout the house.

Sometimes, she asked her mother to tell her about the great snowfall of 1963, when bakers’ vans got stuck in the snow by the dozen and her Grandfather had stupidly got himself lost in a blizzard on his way for a swift pint in Rhydyfelin Non-Pol. Her Grandfather had a soft spot for snow too, especially if it resulted in a whole fleet of 132’s being marooned in the freezing tundra of Maerdy bus station, leaving him unable to get into work for a day or two! Leigh, smiling at the memory of those conversations, reached under her pillow and checked her watch, only to find that Old Father Time had somehow nodded off, or that the world had seemingly snowed itself to a standstill. She lay there a while longer, listening to the cold clacking of the snow while summoning up the courage to look outside. When she eventually pulled back the curtain her room was lit suddenly with the luminous glow from an astonishing snowfall that had somehow drifted all the way up to her bedroom window. She looked up at the sky through a tremulous swirl of flakes that ricocheted against each other in the freezing wind and was surprised to see that Eglwysilan Mountain had disappeared altogether behind a fog of snow.

It was then that she looked down into her garden and saw the strangest sight. Her name had been carved deeply into the brittle snow. She blinked in exaggerated fashion a half-dozen times, then let out a thin whistle and a fat giggle, both at exactly the same time; a neat trick that she had only recently perfected, and of which she was still immensely proud! She stared at her name for the longest time, then cŵtched herself into a ball and watched the blizzard blow for another hour, expecting at any moment that her name would vanish forever under the rushing of the snow. Instead, her name became cemented in the blue ice, shining crystal clear in the snow-light. She imagined God, in his heaven, looking down and reading her name out to the angels. She imagined her father doing the same.

For a while, soon after his passing, Leigh had spent her evenings in her father’s old room, leafing through rows and rows of his books in an attempt to rekindle her memories of him. She was disappointed, though, to find no trace of his daft sense of humour sandwiched between the yellowing pages of ‘The Great Gatsby’ or ‘Tess of The D’Ubervilles’. She felt there was nothing in either book that was revelatory, nothing that offered a new clue to his character, nothing at all that would stop her memories of him from evaporating with the passing years.

When dawn broke she dressed, sprayed on the last drops of her White Musk perfume and went to stand quietly in the centre of the garden. The snow continued to fall heavily about her and it became impossible to see the sky through the kaleidoscope of snowflakes that dappled the air. Because it was Saturday she’d let her mother lie in and, anyway, she didn’t feel like talking to anyone, not to a single person on earth. She was transfixed by the message in the snow. What could it possibly mean? There was no rational explanation for it. She had understood that much immediately.

Nobody, not even the class clown Martin Pryce, who had been nursing a crush on her since primary school, would be crawling around her Antarctic garden in the middle of the night trying to sculpt a declaration of undying love into the freezing snow. For a while, she considered the possibility that the word etched into her garden was supposed to be sleigh and that the letter S had been lost in the drifting snow. However, that seemed an even more ridiculous explanation. It was more magical, more mysterious than that, she was sure of it. What else could explain her name still being preserved there, throughout an endless snow-squall?

Leigh decided not to tell her Mam about the bizarre message. Instead, she took refuge in her room, making up an excuse that she was having a Christmas Movie day - a triple-decker of It’s A Wonderful Life, Miracle on 34th Street and Muppet Christmas Carol. She spent the day, though, mostly watching the unrelenting snowfall, her thoughts drifting off into the dreamy whiteness outside her window. Inexplicably, her name did not vanish but remained firmly embedded in the snow. Exhausted by a mixture of worry and excitement, Leigh fell asleep before supper.

When the sunlight fizzed between the blinds, catching the girl a glancing blow across the temple she stirred and began, at once, to remember the mystery of the snow. She rolled across the bed and raised the blinds. The snow had continued to fall between the constellations the whole night long and now, in the fresh snow, underneath her name, the words ‘BE MERRY’ had been chiselled into the pallid surface. Someone, somewhere, was sending her a message. She was unsurprised when she began to cry. She felt a surge of loneliness sweep through her body and lodge squarely behind her eyes. She waited a long while for the redness around her eyes to melt and for her headache to simmer down before attempting breakfast. She picked up a handful of mail, blotted with fresh snow, from the rumpled doormat and yawned her way into the kitchen. She made herself a coffee and a boiled egg. She thought hard about telling her Mam about the message in the garden. She pictured an uneasy smile spreading over her Mam’s face mid-explanation. Her Mam had a lopsided sort of smile that occasionally hung about the corners of her mouth a fraction too long as if it didn’t know where to go when the fleeting moment of happiness that had prompted its surprised appearance had passed. She looked at the boiled egg and grinned, the half-hacked shell dangling over the edges of the eggcup reminded her of one of her mum’s sad, unfinished smiles.

She retreated, instead, to her bedroom with the intention of listening to her father’s favourite festive record, ‘Christmas Greetings with Perry Como’, an album that was played faithfully in the run-up to Christmas each year. She didn’t play the record, though, preferring to sit in silence while watching the crumbling snow slip through the cracks of a gloomy sky. Eventually, she drifted off to sleep in the pale shadow of the snow, as the pleasant voices of carollers exchanging their Merry Christmas’ carried across the town’s snow-cusped streets. When Leigh went downstairs for her tea she found her mother writing Christmas Cards and listening to “Fairy Tale of New York”. Her mother had a tear in her eye, which she quickly blinked away.

‘Can you believe it’s still snowing?’ her Mam asked. ‘What’s the forecast say, Mam?’ ‘It’s a bit strange, love. They say it’s stopped snowing everywhere, but right here. I can’t really account for it! It’s raining down the road in Nantgarw, and your Nan says it’s been tipping down in Pentre all day too. It seems that good old Ponty is the only place in the whole of Wales that’s set for a white Christmas this year!’ Leigh sat down by her Mam’s side ‘Mam, were you crying because of Dad?’ Leigh asked, quietly. ‘It’s okay, love, it’s just the time of the year. I should be getting used to it by now’. Leigh gave her mum’s hand a squeeze. There is no getting used to it, though, is there, she thought to herself. ‘Do you remember any of Dad’s Christmas stories, Leigh?’ ‘There were so many, Mam - ‘Rudolph’s Ruined Reputation’, where Rudolph, of all reindeer, got himself lost on another foggy Christmas Eve, ‘The Golden Key’, where the key for the toy factory went missing just as it was time to load up Santa’s sleigh, and then there was ‘Heatwave’, where unusually clement weather threatened Christmas!) They both laughed out loud. ‘The course of Christmas never did run smooth, Mam.’ ‘But there was always a happy ending, Leigh’. Santa always got that sleigh off the ground in the end and there were always presents under the tree. Your Dad cherished his childhood Christmases, he wanted you and your sister to feel the same way’. Leigh gave her Mam a long hug, which was her way of trying to fend off the familiar sadness that clouded over her when she talked about her father. ‘You just missed Louise on the phone. She’ll be arriving around six if the trains are on time’. Leigh was only half-listening to the news of her older sister’s Christmas plans. She was still thinking of her father.

Her Dad had loved everything about Christmas; from opening the first door of his Advent calendar on the 1st of December to singing Auld Lang Syne at the top of his voice at midnight on the 31st and anything remotely Christmassy that went on in between. Each year his ritual would be the same; re-reading A Christmas Carol on his commute to and from work, decorating the tree to the sound of Perry Como’s “Home For The Holidays”, highlighting his favourite festive films in the bumper edition of the Radio Times, taking us to see Father Christmas switch on the Taff Street lights and even to meet him in person, usually in Caerphilly Garden Centre, or, in later years, when the old gent seemed to be going up in the world, in his very own grotto in Ynysanghard Park! For Leigh, Christmas simply hadn’t been Christmas since her dad’s passing. For sure, she still liked Christmas, but it was just that she couldn’t bring herself to love it anymore.

To stop herself from thinking, Leigh went out into the street to inspect the snowmen along her road. Some, it had to be said, were pretty poor specimens, but there they all stood; bellies haphazardly bloated by the whisking snow. She couldn’t help but laugh at their inelegance, clad as they were in ill-fitting Santa hats and threadbare scarves. Most had carroty noses that jutted out from king-sized heads and scraggly branches of uneven length for arms. She watched a family; a mother and father, two girls, one around her own age, and a very small boy move their belongings into the house opposite. As the children carried their small cases back and forth up the snow-chalked driveway she waved in their direction. They gladly returned her gesture, the boy wishing her a Merry Christmas at the top of his voice. She felt cheered and, without noticing, began to murmur a song her Dad would sing to her at Christmas when she was very small -

‘Christmas Day is on its way It’s time for Kris Kringle Through the hush of a starry night You can hear his sleigh bells jingle’

She tried to recollect the rest of the song but could only bring to mind the chorus

‘Good old Santa, Good old Santa Claus What’s yours is mine, what’s mine is yours You’re a good old Santa Claus’.

She stayed in the street for a very long time because she sensed that the crisp evening air was somehow redolent with the fragrance of Christmas. A change in the direction of the wind blew a puff of snow into her eyes, so she huddled back in the doorway, watching a sluggish convoy of snowploughs wind through the neon-lit lanes, until the wintry night began to close in, and she could see her breath unspool in the starlight.

Louise was only 10 minutes late. She came in carrying a suitcase and a bag of presents, singing “Home for the Holidays” so boisterously that she scared the neighbour’s cat off the relative warmth of the windowsill and out onto the cold lawn. You always knew when Louise was home from University, because the quiet house would suddenly be filled, room by room, with the sound of her enthusiastic singing. Leigh gave her sister a cŵtch and helped her stack the presents under the tree before blurting out, ‘Come and see the garden, college girl’ I’ve seen enough snow for one day, Leigh’ ‘There’s something out there I want to show you’ ‘It’s too cold and I’ve just got these boots off’ joked Louise ‘Okay, come to my bedroom, you can see from the window’ They raced each other upstairs and jumped on the bed. Louise pulled up the blind and waited for Louise’s reaction. ‘Uh, okay, you’ve written your name in the snow. It’s mad, Leigh, you must have frozen out there, How many hours did it take you? ‘I didn’t write it’ ‘Mam then, how long was Mam out there’? ‘Mam doesn’t even know it’s there. It just appeared, overnight. It’s snowed solidly for twenty-four hours but it hasn’t swept the name away. If it snowed for twenty-four days and twenty-four nights, it still wouldn’t. It’s magic, Louise, or a miracle, or something. I heard it fall, too, Louise, that first night the snow actually woke me, me of all people! It’s not ordinary snow. It can’t be’.

Louise felt Leigh’s hand tighten in hers, as they continued to watch clusters of snowflakes quake and tremble in the wind.

�� Louise lay on the bed and Leigh cŵtched up to her until their mum called them for supper. After Louise had told them, at great length, how rehearsals for ‘A Christmas Carol’ were going - she was playing the part of Fred’s wife (again) - she put on her duffle coat and went into the back garden. The skyline and the snowfall were an indistinguishable grey. The words were still engraved on a slab of settled snow, clear and visible until the streetlights dimmed, one by one, and night fell over the white gardens of the Valley.

In the morning, while Leigh slept, Louise went again to look at the message. The snow still fell in abundance. She looked for the longest time and a tear settled in the corner of her eye. When she went inside she woke her sister gently and brought her a breakfast of tea and toast. ‘There are more words. Look and see’.

Leigh peered through the frosted pane and the glimmering snow falling over the garden. The message had been added to again during the night, but now seemed complete. LEIGH BE MERRY CHRISTMAS AND FOREVER XXXX

Leigh said nothing. She sat at the window, brushing her long, brown hair, while staring out at the marbled garden. A cool riff of wind blew a dusting of flakes from the old, ice-capped, willow trees that rimmed the lawn. Louise said quietly ‘Come downstairs when you’ve finished, I want to show you something’. When Leigh came down she saw her sister sitting at the dining room table surrounded by a stack of Christmas Cards ‘Louise, it’s too late to be sending cards. It’s Christmas Eve, though we can pop one across to the new family opposite. ‘They seem very nice’. ‘These cards have already been sent, to you, to me, and to Mam, a long time ago. Come and read them’ Leigh picked up a Christmas card that showed a small cottage in the snow, with a Christmas robin in the foreground. She opened up the card. Inside, in her father’s untidy handwriting, was a declaration to her mum To Karen, Be Merry, Christmas and forever Love, Gary XXXX Louise handed her another card that showed a jolly Santa flying his sleigh through the thickening snow at the pole To my Darling daughter Becky - Leigh BE MERRY Christmas and forever xxxxx Dad P.S, only seventeen days to go!!!!

Leigh sorted through the cards, they were all written by her Dad and they were all signed off the exact same way. Tears burnt her eyes as she read and re-read them, trying to picture her father saying the words ‘Don’t you remember, Leigh, Dad always used to say that ‘Be Merry, Christmas and forever’ ‘It can’t be Dad, Louise. You know it can’t ‘. ‘I’m sure it is. Who else would write it? We should show Mam’. ‘No’, shouted Leigh, and ran upstairs crying. For what seemed an age she stared blankly through the window at the message written in the midst of the immeasurable snow. Before lunch, Leigh put on her favourite Christmas jumper (Santa shaking hands with a snowman), her matching hat and scarf and went into the garden. The rooftops remained cloaked in snow, and the sky was shrouded in a frail mist. Snow continued to fall about her as she walked toward the message. Leigh reached down to touch the snow, tracing her hand along the powdered groove of the first letter. As she crumbled the stone-cold snow between her fingers she began to tremble and her heart started to jitterbug crazily inside of her. Visions of her past, present and future went bobsleighing before her big brown eyes and she started to swoon. She fell backward, arms outstretched, into the snow and lay there flat on her back. Her mother happened to glance out of the kitchen window, at precisely the time Leigh crash-landed in the snow. Her mum smiled; making a snow angel was such a cool thing to do she thought as she carried a tray of mince pies toward the oven.

As Leigh lay motionless, visions began to swirl about her like cascading snow; she saw herself first as a child, being raised high by her Dad, to deposit a golden star on the top of their Christmas tree; then she saw her teenage self being chased around the garden by her Uncle, who just happened to be carrying an armful of heavy-duty snowballs. Suddenly, she was walking up the aisle to be married, and at Christmas too! One of her bridesmaids was the girl who had just moved in across the street, the other with bobbed rose-gold hair, was her sister. The groom looked handsome and, indeed, somewhat familiar. Leigh couldn’t entirely dismiss the sickening possibility that it was Martin Pryce, her unrequited Romeo from junior school. A hard-edged breeze jostled snow shavings loose from the overhanging branches and the flakes fell like confetti upon the couple as they walked hand in hand toward their wedding car.

Then she could hear the voices of children, echoing across a snow-frosted mountain. Twin girls, who looked the spit of her sister, and an older boy, were sledding down an alabaster slope. The boy turned toward her and shouted ‘are you watching, Mam?’. She looked carefully at the lively boy as he smiled, and there really was no mistaking that smile. She’d seen it time and again in family albums – it was her father’s smile, the one captured in her most treasured photo of her dad pulling a small dinghy through the green shallows of Tenby’s South Beach, a bountiful smile broadening across his face, frozen forever in time. The small boy, battling his way through the bone-sapping snow had the exact same purposeful smile as his late Grandfather.

‘I’m watching, Ga’, you’re super- brave’. She heard her answer ferried back on the breeze and felt a cheery glow as the boy responded by thrusting his gloved thumbs up into the whitening air. He held the pose long enough for his mother to document his triumph over Mother Nature and then re-launched himself onto his sled and whooshed back down the snow-flossed slope for the hundredth time. Then she was awake, terribly cold and confused by the sight of her mother and her sister bending over her, trying to lift her gently from the clasp of the snow. She remembered nothing of the flurry of visions, but she was aware of an intense feeling of well-being and the pleasant warmth of absolute happiness spreading over her as she looked into the concerned face of her big sister. That night it had stopped snowing, as she somehow knew in her heart that it must. Soon the snow would start to thaw, gradually thinning into clumps of slush to be kicked haphazardly against the kerbsides by bands of small boys making the streets playable for the traditional Boxing Day footie matches that would spring up out of nowhere. Coal-grey rain would soon resume its routine dominance of the valley landscape, washing away the snow for another year. Leigh woke early on Christmas Day to find that the message had disappeared sometime in her sleep, but she was not saddened by the discovery. As dusk fell, she stood in the garden to better hear the Christmas bells ring out and to look up at the night sky and the braille of bluish stars that divined a pathway through the heavens leading, she felt certain now, from one world to the next.

In the turmoil of the last few days, her memories had become unmoored, had drifted dangerously in the cross-currents between the past and the present. She had, though, discovered a precious secret in that journey between the distant poles of life and death. The becalming knowledge that as we seek to make our way in this world memory can grant us safe passage, and provide us with a place of sanctuary in which to rest until the storms of unimaginable loss finally blow themselves out.

Leigh knew, then, the true meaning of her father’s Christmas message. Knew, deep down in her soul, that the communion between father and daughter would last forever. Knowing that was so, Leigh fell in love with Christmas and with life all over again.

The End

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tarisilmarwen · 8 years ago

Text

Cracks In The Mirror: Caught

(I have had this idea for a terrible “Through Imperial Eyes” AU running around in my head for like three weeks and now I must inflict it on the rest of you, because the hiatus is already stinging.

The basic premise: Kallus gets held up on the way to Ezra’s cell, so Thrawn gets there first.

Also on FFnet here.

Enjoy.)

—

He had to hurry.

Lyste's stolen data cylinder burning a hole in his front pocket, Kallus beelined for the secure cell where they had taken Ezra. The quicker the boy was out of his hair and restored to his crew, the better. Kallus had no intention of leaving with the young rebel--and if the plan he'd set in motion panned out, he wouldn't have to. But it required careful speed and precision.

He was almost to the right corridor. If that junior officer hadn't waylaid him in the hall earlier he could have been here ten minutes ago. Every second counted in operations like this, and he sped to make up the lost time.

Kallus was in such a rush he breezed right past Chopper and AP-5, hovering just shy of the corner.

AP-5 raised a hand. "I wouldn't--" he tried to warn the agent.

Kallus rounded the corner and then immediately had to lunge back behind it, biting down an internal scream of frustration.

Thrawn and Pryce and three Stormtroopers were right outside Ezra's cell.

No no no! Kallus groaned. Why is he here now?!

If Thrawn made Ezra--and there was no way he wouldn't--it was all over. He'd be exposed. Unless he managed some very clever deflection, came up with some kind of explanation or excuse for why he hadn't recognized and reported Bridger's presence.

They were already opening up the cell. He had no time to think up a plan for distracting them. What he wouldn't give for one of Sabine Wren's explosive devices!

"What the--" the foremost trooper exclaimed.

Kallus peered closer, morbidly interested. Had the boy already escaped?

But Pryce had her blaster out now and was leaning into the doorway, checking the corners. Kallus saw her jerk it up and fire a stun bolt.

He heard a yelp from Ezra and then a loud, painful-sounding CRUNCH! as the boy dropped, presumably from the ceiling. Kallus grimaced at the impact, which shook the walls even where he stood.

Two of the troopers moved into the cell, as Thrawn gave an approving nod to Pryce.

"Excellent instincts, Governor, " he complimented. "A paltry trick like that might have fooled a lesser officer."

"Thank you, Grand Admiral," said Pryce, beaming at his praise. Her voice and expression took on its usual ice as she turned. "Now, let's see about our shuttle thief."

He couldn't watch this. He wanted to run, to flee the scene. But his feet wouldn't obey. They stayed rooted, the rest of him transfixed in mute horror. Kallus could do nothing but watch as the two troopers dragged Ezra up the stairs to present him to Thrawn. He hung limp in their hands, unconscious from the stun blast.

Thrawn stirred in interest, reaching down to grab Ezra's chin and turn his cheek, studying the distinctive twin scars intently.

"Well, well..." he said, red eyes lighting up. "This is a turn of events..."

"The Bridger child!" Pryce hissed, her hands clenching. "What is he doing here?!"

Kallus moaned softly, palming his face in his hands. No no no no. This was exactly why he hadn't wanted them to extract him!

"This will require my personal attention," he heard Thrawn saying. Kallus looked up from his hands to see the Grand Admiral calmly gesturing to his troopers. "Bring him," he ordered.

They followed after the admiral as he turned to go, carrying Ezra between them. Kallus watched them disappear down the opposite end. He waited until they were out of earshot, before whipping around and slamming his fist into the wall with a primal scream.

The heretofore quiet Chopper let loose with a string of harsh beeps.

"It is not my fault, I was thinking of how to get the clearance codes!" AP-5 protested hotly. "We would never have been able to get off the ship even if we had freed Bridger first!"

"That won't do us any good now!" Kallus snapped. "They know who he is, they'll be expecting a rescue!" He stopped, forced himself to take a deep breath and calm down. Getting agitated wouldn't help Bridger. He needed to think.

He rubbed his forehead with his fingers.

"Who was on the retrieval team? Who was coming to get us?" he asked.

Chopper responded promptly with a series of warbles.

"Contact them. Tell Jarrus and Commander Rex to divert course, they are not to retrieve us," Kallus emphasized. "They are not to exit hyperspace until I've come up with a plan."

"What plan would that be?" asked AP-5 with withering cynicism.

"I don't know!" Kallus said, throwing up his hands as he headed back the way he'd come. "I'll improvise!"

"No wonder you defected to the Rebellion," AP-5 snarked at his receding back. "You fit right in. They never have a concrete plan either."

Kallus ignored the remark. If he encountered that junior offer that had held him up he was just going to strangle him.

It was time to make himself very scarce.

***

Ezra's head was still throbbing from the stun blast, but he was clear-minded enough to think, This is not good.

His breath had hitched when the cell door opened to reveal not a Stormtrooper guard, not even Kallus, but the Chiss Grand Admiral Thrawn himself, with Governor Pryce beside him. Ezra had held his breath, clinging to the ceiling, not daring to move a muscle. But Pryce had spotted him and shot him off the ceiling--which was probably why the whole back of his skull and spine felt bruised.

And now he was under armed guard being escorted to Thrawn's office.

Not good, not good!

They passed through the doors into a narrow antechamber. It and the room beyond was set up like an art gallery, and Ezra spotted something familiar, displayed prominently on a pedestal to the right.

Hera's kalikori! He paused a little too long looking at it; the troopers gave a hard shove to his shoulder to push him forward. Ezra was sat down in a chair opposite the Grand Admiral's imposing-looking desk.

The doors hissed shut and latched behind them.

"Ezra Bridger."

Ezra gave an involuntary shiver. He hated the way his name sounded dropping from the man's lips. Like a cold, clinical slither. Thrawn came around, not to stand behind his desk but next to it, uncomfortably casual. The faint hint of an amused smile ghosted his mouth.

"We didn't get a chance to be formally introduced back on Ryloth. I am--"

"I know who you are," Ezra interrupted, glaring at the Chiss.

"Then we are on the same page," Thrawn replied without missing a beat or showing any sign of irritation at him. "Your reputation precedes you, Ezra." Once again, Ezra shuddered at how Thrawn said it. The Grand Admiral angled towards him, hands folded calmly behind his back. "Disguising yourself as a mercenary to infiltrate an Imperial starship was your idea, wasn't it?"

"Maybe it wasn't," Ezra shot back.

"Unlikely," Thrawn dismissed. "Your over-fondness for orange hues suggest you picked out the armor yourself."

He's guessing, thought Ezra, even as his pulse pricked up. He can't really know that.

"You don't know anything about me," he said, brows dark and narrow over his eyes.

Thrawn said nothing, regarding him with an expressionless mask. Wordlessly, he stepped around his desk and pressed a series of keys on the console.

Dozens of holographic images sprang up, filling the air above the desk as Thrawn projected what looked like an entirely library of information for him to see.

Ezra's eyes widened and he inhaled sharply. It was... everything. Transcripts of some of his parents' broadcasts. His forged cadet profile from the Imperial Academy. Incident reports from local garrisons on Lothal. Arrest records, from his time on the streets. Grainy still frames from security cameras showing some of the Ghost's past missions. Schematics for his tower. Even pictures of some of the graffiti he'd tagged on walls with Sabine. His whole life, exposed and laid bare for Imperial eyes.

There was a gleam of triumph in Thrawn's eerie red eyes. "I know everything about you, my dear boy," he said calmly. He began to stalk back around the desk, slowly, like a circling predator. "Where you come from, who your parents were, where and how they died." Ezra flinched at that, biting down the swell of guilt that coursed through him. Thrawn seemed to take a perverse enjoyment in that, in how his words were affecting the young rebel. "How you grew up on the streets, scrounging to survive. How you fell in with a crew that became like a second family to you, even," he continued, "about your special connection to the energy field you call 'The Force'."

Thrawn closed in, coming to stand in front of Ezra.

"In fact, the only thing I'm curious to know..." he said. He leaned in, looming over Ezra as he placed a hand on the corner of the chair, looking the boy right in the face. "...is just how long it will take--" His red eyes narrowed. "--to break you."

Ezra swallowed nervously, pinned under Thrawn's probing stare and looking up at him in fear.

***

Ezra was hyperventilating, his breaths quick and shallow, watching wide-eyed as Pryce and another Imperial worked the restraints holding him to the interrogation table.

"Can't these restraints pull any tighter?" Pryce complained, yanking on the metal band in aggravation.

"Sorry Governor," the Stormtrooper apologized. "We're doing our best. He's just a little too small for them."

"Well find a way to make do!" Pryce snapped, stepping back from the table. She turned an icily sweet smile on Ezra. "We don't want our guest leaving prematurely," she crooned.

If Ezra could have burned her with his glare, he would have. He was rapidly beginning to despise the woman, who'd seemed to take an almost gleeful satisfaction in hitting and slapping him when he'd refused to answer Thrawn's questions. His cheek still stung from one of her blows.

She assumed a calm, professional stance, smirking at the brief look he darted at the Stormtroopers pinning him down. "There's still time for you to avoid this," she told him. Her voice was deceptively soothing. "Tell us the location of the rebel base, and you'll be treated well," she offered.

Yeah right.

Ezra's glare remained firmly in place. "I'd rather kiss an inventory droid," he snarked.

"Suit yourself." Pryce reached back to take the datapad an aide handed her. She scrolled through the information, her eyes keening at something. "Ah, allergic to symoxin are we?" When she glanced back up at him her expression held an unsettling gleam of excitement. "That will be interesting to play with."

Ezra held back a scream. How?! He hadn't even told the medics at Chopper Base yet, he just tried to avoid getting hurt enough to have to see them! He hadn't had a reaction since--

Thrawn must have gotten hold of his childhood medical records. Ezra squirmed uncomfortably. Was nothing of his private anymore? The thought of Thrawn's extensive file on him, of the Grand Admiral scrutinizing his intimate details, studying him, like he was some kind of lab specimen...

Ezra felt sick. The technicians and guards buzzed around the room and his pulse started racing watching them. His lungs felt like they were tightening. Fear rippled through him.

Kanan had taught him how to resist mind probes, how to use the Force to block out pain, but this? he thought, as he took in the tray-fulls of needles and syringes, the electro prods and sharp metal instruments. This was on a whole different level.

They couldn't break him. He couldn't let them. For everyone's sake--for the base, for Phoenix Squadron, for Kallus--he had to keep his mouth shut.

Kallus, Ezra thought nervously, looking up towards the observation window, where Thrawn overlooked the room, reminding Ezra of a large, patient spider. If you're really on our side, now would be a great time to prove it.

But he was beginning to think even Kallus couldn't get him out of this one.

***

Thrawn watched through the window as Pryce directed preparations.

The boy had held up under the initial round of questioning... remarkably well. He had feigned ignorance at first, tried to pretend he didn't know anything. When that had inevitably failed, he had assumed a defiant silence. All of Thrawn's probing questions--and a few nasty hits from Pryce--had yielded only the occasional smart remark.

He was actually a bit impressed that a teenager--normally so volatile and easy to read--had been able to hide his emotions so well. Thrawn had even shown him the map, to gauge his reaction, pick up from his expression some final clue to narrow down the location of the Rebel base, and Ezra had kept the stoic mask up, his face betraying nothing. The Jedi rogue must have taught him a few tricks.

No matter. He'd have the planet's coordinates soon enough. Extracting them from the boy might prove difficult, given his stubborn nature, and the rebels would undoubtedly attempt some sort of rescue for him. But Thrawn had ideas on how to deal with that as well. Assuming, of course, the boy survived more... extensive interrogation.

Either way, Thrawn would have what he wanted. One way or another, Ezra Bridger would be of use to him.

There was another matter he needed to see to presently. Thrawn addressed one of the troopers in the room with him.

"SL-7514, if you would... please send for Agent Kallus."

***

He had been ducking patrols and avoiding people in the hallway for at least an hour. The only person he'd spoken to had been Lieutenant Lyste, who had been all too eager to come find him after tailing Pryce to Bridger's cell to brag about "his" catch. It was only by pure luck that Kallus and Lyste hadn't run into each other when they had all converged on that brig hallway--though Lyste was probably trusting enough that he wouldn't think anything unusual about Kallus skulking around and hiding. Kallus congratulated the man, certain chagrin was showing through the cracks in his expression, but had hung on to Lyste's data cylinder. It might still help him. If he could only shake its owner off.

"He looks so different now, it's amazing we didn't recognize him sooner!" Lyste was babbling excitedly.

"Indeed," Kallus said flatly, awkwardly looking for an escape. ��Chopper had updated him a few minutes ago, rolling by and warbling out the news, unnoticed by Lyste. Kanan and Rex were holding steady in a remote system, close enough to hop onto the hyperspace lane and reach Lothal in minutes, but far enough that the Empire wouldn't be looking for them there.

Kallus was still working on ideas for how to extract Ezra. Each plan he came up with sounded flimsier than the last. He was beginning to feel desperate. Short of requesting an all-out attack on Thrawn's Star Destroyer by Phoenix Squadron, he had no clue how to get Imperial attention off the boy long enough to snatch him. And he couldn't ask the Rebels to do that, not for him, not even for Ezra, though he knew they wouldn't hesitate to risk it for them.

He couldn't lead them into that kind of danger.

Stealing a shuttle was looking more and more like the best option for escaping the Chimera. Once again though, how to get Ezra out with it.

"Agent Kallus! Sir!"

Kallus almost jumped out of his skin. "What?" he blurted a little too quickly, turning to face the speaker.

"The Grand Admiral wants to see you on Level 6, sir," the Stormtrooper reported.

Oh hell.

Dread pooled in his stomach and it took all of his ingrained self-control not to let it show.

His voice was still a little more strained than normal as he replied, "Ah... yes. Yes of course, I--Right away. Thank you, trooper."

He avoided Lyste's eyes--avoided looking at anyone really--as he reluctantly began to head down.

Nothing for it but to go straight into the rancor's den. Running now was futile. Refusing the Grand Admiral's summons would only confirm Thrawn's suspicions. If he had any chance of scraping through this undiscovered he had to just go in, learn the extent of what Thrawn actually knew, and then bluff his ass off and hope it would be enough.

This stress was going to murder him.

With effort, he managed to compose himself by the time he reached the interrogation room.

Thrawn was standing at the window, observing with a pensive hand to his chin. Red eyes flicked to him briefly.

"Agent Kallus," said Thrawn. "I thought you'd be interested to know the shuttle thief Lieutenant Lyste apprehended turned out to be a much bigger catch. One you're quite familiar with."

The man was unreadable. Heart thumping, Kallus cautiously stepped into the room and came over to stand next to him. Thrawn turned his head toward the window, to indicate.

"The young Lothal rebel Ezra Bridger."

Kallus bit his tongue, forcing his features to remain still, as he looked down into the chamber, where they had Ezra awkwardly secured to an interrogation table and were finishing up final preparations. The boy looked terrified, nervously watching the IT-O droid floating from side to side.

"He's... taller than I remember from the last time I encountered him," Kallus commented awkwardly.

"And cropped his hair, likely why he felt confident enough to return," Thrawn added in a clinical monotone. "He assumed he wouldn't be recognized."

Was there a hint of accusation in there? Kallus couldn't tell. He was straining for signs from Thrawn, for a look, for an inflection in his voice, something. The Grand Admiral was as impassive as a droid--worse than a droid, Kallus corrected, remembering Chopper and AP-5 and their respective colorful personalities--and it was killing him.

Stay calm, he told himself. Getting nervous will tip him off.

To distract himself, he studied the tray of bottles and syringes Pryce had set up next to her.

He stiffened, recognizing several of the drugs and the particular cocktail they mixed. They can't be... The Brisney-Favvin Method?

"Is there something wrong, Agent?" Thrawn asked, with a eerie stare.

His heart was having trouble keeping up with his anxiety. Kallus phrased his words very carefully as he met the man's eyes, feeling his extremities prickling.

"With... all due respect, Grand Admiral," he pointed out, "that table and that procedure are usually used on adults, surely--"

"Ezra Bridger is an enemy of the Empire," Thrawn interrupted emotionlessly. His eyes turned down towards the chamber. "His age is irrelevant."

"Of... of course, Grand Admiral..." Kallus replied meekly, hidden nausea churning through his guts.

He had witnessed dozens of interrogations. Overseen a few himself. But he would have never stood for something like this, even if he hadn't already defected. The Brisney-Favvin could break a full-grown Tradoshan. And they were using it on a teenager. Even Colonol Yularen would find it distasteful.

Which was probably why he wasn't there, thought Kallus ruefully. Thrawn hadn't invited him. He didn't want anyone's conscience pricked enough to pose objections.

It was the kind of thing Kallus couldn't help notice now that his eyes were open.

He hated how blind he'd been before.

Pryce was holding up the first syringe. Skirtopanol--a common truth serum, Kallus identified--and a concentrated dose. With a gesture from her, the IT-O droid bobbed forward, robot pincer coming out and clamping on Ezra's chin harshly, pulling down, forcing his jaw open. Pryce stepped forward, also pinching his face with her free hand as she shoved the tube of truth serum directly into his mouth, probably the most uncomfortable place she could inject it.

"Aah..." Ezra whimpered, feeling a sharp pinprick of pain as the needle pierced his gums at the base of his molars.

Kallus winced in sympathy. Pryce stepped back, waiting a few moments for the drug to begin taking effect. Then she called up to the window.

"We're ready to begin, Grand Admiral," came her voice through the speakers.

Thrawn leaned forward, pressing the call button. "Proceed," he told them. "Set voltage to eight milliamperes and duration for ten seconds."

The technicians complied, and Kallus felt his fists tightening, his nails digging into his palms. Wanting very much to be anywhere but there.

Hold on, Ezra, he prayed.

The head tech threw the switch.

The electrodes on either side of the table sparked to life, arcing across metal and flesh. Ezra convulsed, curling into himself, his face squeezing tight... but his mouth firmly, valiantly, remained shut. All they got out of him were a few pained grunts.

When the ten seconds were up and the electricity ceased, Ezra gasped as if coming up for air--he'd held his breath, Kallus observed--and panted hard, recovering from the shock.

Both figurative and literal in his case.

"Interesting," Thrawn commented, leaning on the call button again. "Increase voltage to thirty milliamperes and set duration to fifteen seconds."

Kallus looked at him in alarm. Down in the chamber the technicians complied and Ezra had only a few seconds to close his eyes, his face growing serene, focusing--no doubt--on the Force to brace--

The electricity arced again and this time a scream tore from him, shrill and high-pitched. Kallus felt it like a slap to his ears, and it twisted a knife in his gut.

Ezra shrieked until the switch was thrown and the current turned off. He slackened in his restraints, head hanging, eyes on the floor, breathing hard.

"S... Sithspit..." Kallus heard him breathe weakly.

Thrawn gave a cold smile of satisfaction. "I believe you have your sweet spot, Governor," he told Pryce. "Continue with the interrogation."

Pryce's smirk almost cracked her face as she motioned for the techs to shock Ezra again. The boy's head and back jerked up, slammed against the metal table as his body thrashed involuntarily.

Kallus's face was ashen. The nausea was churning full throttle in his stomach now. Once again his feet had taken root, refusing to budge no matter how much his insides clawed for action.

He was petrified, a prisoner in his own body, helpless to stop Ezra's torment.

The boy looked up through the window right at him, blue eyes desperate, pleading. Telegraphing a terrified, Help me!

Kallus's eyes pinched, his features twisting hopelessly. I can't.

He was suddenly aware of Thrawn's eyes on him, and swallowed, trying to rearrange his expression. His neutral facade felt flat, unconvincing.

He knew immediately that Thrawn could see right through him.

"It's fascinating, really," the Grand Admiral was commenting lightly. "Just how far these Rebels will go for their mission. What risks they will take for their friends."

Kallus felt his heartrate spike and sputter.

"The boy did not return to Lothal to steal a shuttle. He came to retrieve something. Or rather... someone."

Dread congealed in his gullet and Kallus closed his eyes.

He knows.

Thrawn regarded him with an icy look of disdain, frowning, brows low over his eyes. "A pity that he met with failure." He straightened, rigid and imposing. "Troopers, take Agent Kallus into custody," he ordered.

As the troopers came forward, Kallus numbly accepted defeat. Ezra's screaming continued down in the chamber, his agony beating on Kallus's eardrums like a merciless sledgehammer.

I'm sorry, Ezra, thought Kallus, as the binders clicked around his wrists. I'm sorry.

That was all he could think as the troopers led him away. Just those two words, over and over.

I'm sorry.

---

Chapter notes!

1. Symoxin, according to Legends canon, is a common painkiller. According to Wookiepedia concentrated doses can be used as a knockout substance. So basically Ezra is allergic to the equivalent of aspirin or penicillin.

2. Commander Brisney and Barrisk Favvin are both New Canon members of ISB.

3. In addition to being a truth serum, skirtopanol also increases sensitivity to pain.

4. The average human body can withstand electric currents up to 60 mA (depending on fat and muscle structure and not without some damage if the shock is prolonged) before serious chances of death start.

Planning at least two more chapters. Stay tuned.

#star wars #star wars rebels #ezra bridger #grand admiral thrawn #agent kallus #prompt fics #spoilers #fanfiction

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