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mask131 · 2 years ago

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Dante’s Hell: The Midlands of Hell

X) The City of Dis

The City of Dis is one of the biggest landmarks of Dante’s Hell. It is the midpoint of the infernal realm, marking the delimitation between the Upper Hell (with the sins of Incontinence we saw), and the Lower Hell where people are sent for the sins of “Malice”. That is to say sins, crimes and actions perpetrated not out of blinding emotions or excessive desires, but out of a cold, calculating, conscious logic, sins committed with the full thought and intent of doing crimes, of harming people, of doing evil things – evil by choice, rather than evil by moral weakness. The City itself is a great and terrifying sight: great walls of iron behind which rises glowing mosques and towers, all buildings burning bright red like hot, recently forged metal – for in this infernal city burns a perpetual and internal fire that never stops, and that is so bright it is actually the only source of light brightening up the lower circles of Hell, which would be plunged in darkness without it. [For the name of this infernal city, Dante used again a Roman mythology reference – Dis was both the name of the underworld where the dead dwelled in ancient Roman culture, and the name of the god ruling over it, also called Dis Pater, the same way the Greeks called “Hades” both the underworld and its god-ruler).

Upon arriving by boat (through Phlegyas) in front of the great walls of the burning Dis, our duo meets some resistance. The citizens of Dis, who are all “fiendish angels”, aka fallen angels and demons, refuse to let Dante pass through their city, because he is a living and does not belong among the dead – they tell him to go back all on his own through the Upper Hell. Alone, because while they allow Virgil to pass through their doors, they make it clear they will keep him locked in Dis for perpetual torment. While Dante is very frightened by these threats, Virgil is not. So far all of the “staff” of Hell has been hostile towards them (Charon refusing to let Dante climb in his poet, Minos and Pluto/Plutus trying to scare Dante away, Cerberus attempting to devour the travelers…), and each time Virgil invoking the fact that the journey they are undertaking was ordered by the forces of Heaven themselves worked enough to bend the will of these beings. But this time… it doesn’t work. After Virgil reminds the demons of Dis that they are sent here by God and that it is the will of the most powerful forces of Paradise, the fallen angels just slam the doors of Dis in Virgil’s face and lock them out, refusing them access to the Lower Hell. As a result, Virgil decides to call forth back-up – Heavenly forces that will come down to teach a lesson to these “insolent demons”.

Virgil reassures the frightened Dante with various stories – for example he explains how the demons also tried blocking the entrance of Hell to Jesus Christ as he died, back at the Gate of Hell, but couldn’t keep him out ; and he also reveals the reason why he knows so much about Hell despite being a soul of the First Circle – a witch named Erichtho once used necromancy to submit his spirit and send it fetch the soul of another sinner, into the “pit of Judas”, lowest and darkest place of Hell, so this is why he knows the way. This story-telling time is brutally interrupted by the arrival of three of the most terrifying denizens of Dis – the Furies or Erynies from Greco-Roman mythology, here depicted as female entities covered in blood, wearing hydras as belts, wth snakes instead of hair, constantly shrieking and self-harming themselves. The Furies, from the top of one of Dis towers, call forth another terrifying monster, Medusa the Gorgon, and order her to turn to stone the living being that dares attempting to enter in their realm. Virgil covers Dante’s eyes to protect him from the petrifying appearance of the Gorgon, but hopefully the back-up from Heaven arrives: in a loud, exploding noise of wild storm, an angel arrives above the Styx, crossing the mists of the marshes, all the damned souls of the sinners of wrath fleeing in terror in front of this holy being, who walks on the Styx’s water without being wet, and with just one move of the hand pushes back all the putrid air far away from him. Armed with a wand, the angel touches the gates of Dis, which open on their own, and then he promptly berates the fallen angels of the city for trying to oppose the will of God. Without a word or even a look for the protagonist, the angel then returns to Heaven, his duty done. [In this passage there are several mentions of Greek heroes that went into the Underworld, and who apparently also existed in this version of Hell – from the Furies who want to destroy Dante because they made the mistake of sparing Theseus when he tried to snatch Persephone away, to the angel reminding them of how Hercules made his own way through the Underworld by dragging Cerberus away, leaving even today the hair/skin of the beast’s chin and throat is “peeled off clean”. ]

[A second interesting parallel here is that… Here the three Erynies/Furies appear to block Dante’s path into Hell. But at the beginning of the poem, before Dante entered Hell, we learned that this travel through the afterlife was decided and approved by three celestial women who organized everything in Heaven: Beatrice, Dante’s lover, Saint Lucy, and the Virgin Mary herself. So there is a play here on the two trios of celestial and infernal female entities.]

As a last note: the reason mosques are said to be part of Dis’ architecture, is because at the time of Dante, the Muslims were the main enemies of the Christians, and Islam the main threat to Christianity, so of course Dante would place their religious architecture as part of the “city of Hell”, the very opposite of the “city of God” imagined by Saint Augustine.

XI) The Sixth Circle

Interestingly, beyond the walls-towers of Dis, there isn’t an actual city… But the Sixth Circle itself, which is apparently the same thing as Dis. And what does this sixth circle looks like? A giant cemetery. A landscape of sepulchers and graves modeled after the Ancient Roman cemeteries (such as those of Arles or Pola) – except that here each grave has its lid slightly pushed to the side, to reveal what is within them… flames. The same bright, eternal, burning fire that lit up Dis itself – the hottest fire one will ever see. And lying within these graves of fire and stones… are the Heretics, the sinners of this Circle.

The more “heretic” they are, the stronger the fire of the flame will burn ; the lesser “heretic” they were, the lesser the fire is. But what is an “heretic”? I want to briefly define that, because there is a widespread misconception that “heresy” means “not being part of the Christian religion”. That is false, there is a clear divide between “heresy” and “paganism”. “Paganism” is all the religions that are not Christian, and thus considered “wrong” religions. “Heresy” is rather doctrines and beliefs held or created by Christians themselves, but which oppose themselves to the official dogma of the Church and canons of the religion. This is basically the “non-canon” content of the Christian religion, which was fiercely and furiously hunted down throughout the Church’s history. An ancient Babylonian worshipping their god wasn’t considered an heretic, but a pagan. However if a Christian priest started a cult centered around how Jesus was a dog disguised as a human, he would be an “heretic”. There is a lot of “heresies” that the Church denounced, opposed and fought, ranging from belief debates to little political details – some of the most famous including the Arians (who considered that Jesus was not divine in nature, the son of God yes, but a mere man) ; the Marcionites (who believed that the God of the Ancient Testament wasn’t the same as the one of the New Testament), the Cathars (who thought the physical and material world was created by evil itself, and that God and good could only be found in the spiritual and immaterial world), or the Nestorians, that considered that Jesus the Christ wasn’t the Son of God, and that the Son of God was a separate character…

Dante here, however, only focuses on one particular kind of “heresy” – the Epicureans and affiliated heresies. This will probably confuse you, because the Epicurean were Greek philosophers of the Antiquity, and thus should be considered “pagans”, right? But that’s forgetting that the Christian Church saw the Greek philosophers (such as Aristotle) as proto-Christians, who had managed to find the basic truths and principles of Christianity before the Christ was even born (which is why Dante uses a moral system based on Aristotle and Cicero for his Christian Hell). One of those was the belief in the existence of an afterlife, and the immortality of the souls. But the Epicureans rather believed that there was no afterlife, no immortality of the soul, that the death was a final thing destroying both body and mind, and as a result they said that one should focus on happiness and pleasures in the living and material life, without any regard for a possible “after-life”. This led to the Christian Church deeming them as “heretics” even though they were pagans – and indeed, several other Christian heresies also held the idea that “heaven was on earth” and there was no afterlife to look for past the death of the body.

This is why the punishment of the Heretics is to be forever stuck into graves: those that denied the existence of a life after death or the immortality of the soul are now entombed forever as “living corpses”. In a more general way, the whole point of the Christian religion is that the Christ promised that the deceased would be free of the grave, by accessing a new existence in an afterlife or heaven – and here, the Heretics are simply stuck forever in a cemetery, never “delivered from the grave”. There is only one other type pf heresy mentioned explicitly by Dante – the heresy of Acacius, that denied that Jesus’ birth was divine in any way, and claimed that he was born like a mortal man, solely and exclusively out of mortal parents.

In this Circle, Dante has more chats and talks with the damned, again mostly about the conflict of the Guelfs and the Ghibellines, but we do learn a few interesting things. For example we have here a clarification of the knowledge of the damned: once in Hell, the shades have a full knowledge of the past and of the future, which allows them to understand a lot of things and deliver prophecies. BUT they actually do not have access to the present or the immediate times around their death. In their own words, they perceive it as if they had “faulty visions”, which explains why several of the sinners Dante meets ask him for information about certain person and certain events, while also delivering him prophecies about what will happen. But this immense knowledge, a form of “gift” of those damned souls, will disappear upon Judgement Day – those sent back to Hell upon their last, eternal punishment, still blind to the present, will have no more future to look into since time itself will end, and slowly their knowledge of the past will fade away into oblivion, leaving them in absolute emptiness…

[Interestingly, throughout the travel of the Sixth Circle, there are references to a mysterious queen of Hell that never actually happens. The Erynies already were presented as the “handmaids of the queen of timeless woe”, here clearly referring to Proserpine, the queen of the underworld and wife of Pluto ; but one of the sinners of Heresy refers to fifty cycles of the moon in the living world as “fifty times the face of the queen who reigns down here will glow”, rather depicting the queen of Hell as Hecate, known as the Greek goddess of both the moon and the dead. So it seems there is a sort of Proserpina/Hecate amalgam somewhere in Dante’s Hell.]

As they approach the next abyss leading to Lower Hell, Dante and Virgil have to stop due to an extremely powerful stench making them sick. As they rest, Virgil explains to Dante the whole moral and ethical logic behind the system of Hell, that I already talked about. Virgil explains how those “outside of the fiery cities”, the sinners of the Upper Hell, are those of incontinence – who through their moral incontinence earned God’s wrath, but offended him the least and “merits the least blame” compared to the other sinners – those of the Lower Hell, the sinners of malice, who acted with “injustice” as their sole endgoal, and who committed their malice either through violence or fraud. Now, while Virgil doesn’t explicitly says it, he purposefully leaves out Heresy and the circle they are in from both the Upper Hell of Incontinence and the Lower Hell of Malice – because heresy is actually a strange in-between, there is not done with the purpose of doing evil like Malice, but isn’t either related to natural human emotions and desires like Incontinence, and thus stands in a strange in-between, in the very midway of Hell.

[It is actually quite unclear where the City of Dis ends… the flaming tombs of the Sixth Circle are clearly said to be directly beyond and within the Walls of Dis, and that the burning city lights up the darkness of the Circles below, so for some Dis is just the Sixth Circle and its protecting walls – but other times, the characters speak and imply that basically Dis is the ENTIRETY of Lower Hell.]

#dante #inferno #hell #dis #city of dis #circles of hell #sixth circle #heresy #dante alighieri #the divine comedy #furies #gorgon

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rjalker · 25 days ago

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oh boy Ka the Appalling (by L. Sprague de Camp, originally published in August 1958, Fantastic Universe Science Fiction magazine.) has 8,530 words. Took up 18 pages in the original magazine. Which means around 500 words per page.

probably some typos still. I'll fix them later.

Public domain.

Official Blurb:

It is a dangerous thing to invoke a God, particularly when this God demands human sacrifices and offerings.

My summary:

Gezun, a visitor to a foreign city, is an asshole who decides to kill a cat that stole his lunch. He is then immediately set upon by a mob seeking revenge, and only escapes with the help of an old thief named Ugaph, who has a beautiful young daughter named Ro that Gezun immediately sets his eyes on. After a day of Ro teaching Gezun how to catch bats to feed their blood to Ugaph's demon familiar, Tety, who takes the form of a fennec fox, Ugaph is almost caught on his latest heist because his daughter wasn't there to cause a distraction for him, and bemoans his constant bad luck to his guest later that night. That's when Gezun comes up with the idea of how the two of them can get rich quick: Invent the most terrifying god they can imagine, to trick the city into paying them donations to keep his wrath at bay. They call this invented god Ka the Appalling, and quickly go about revealing him to the masses. But the two men are at odds with one another. Gezun wants to own Ro, and continually assaults her until she gives in, and wants his half of the money they've mad so far. But Ugaph wants his daughter to marry a rich man, and insists he needs all of the money so far to build a temple to complete the scam and secure them endless wealth. Both men are sceptics, and do not believe in the existance of gods. But that does not stop the city from believing in the truth of Ka the Appalling, and if the two would only be less sceptical, they would have remembered in time that belief is what makes a god a god.

8,500 words long. Casual misogyny and not-explicit sexual harassment and assault that's portrayed as romantic because we just can't have nice things and men really want to pretend that a woman saying no means she's actually saying yes. Racist caricatures that pretend all non-Christian religions do human sacrifice.

(Archived read-more link)

As he ran through the streets of Typhon, Gezun of Gadaira recalled the words of the Ausonian adept he had met in Maxia:

“Typhon rises in black and purple from the mystic margins of the Sea of Thesh, amid the towering tombs of kings who reigned in splendor over Setesh when mighty Torrutseish was but a village and golden Kerne[E with pointy hat] but an empty stretch of beach. No man knows the total tale of Typhon’s history, or the convolutions of its streets and secret passages, or the hoarded treasures of its kings, or the hidden powers of its wizards…”

Just now Gezun would gladly have given the hoarded treasure of the Seteshan kings to be carried far from this accursed place. For a youth of nineteenth, he had seen much since slavers had stolen him from his home in windy Lorsk in Pusad[A with pointy hat], or Poseidonis as the Hesperians called it. But he had never seen a city where people tried to tear a man to bits for killing a cat.

He rounded a corner as stones whizzed past him. If there had been only a few Typhonians he would not have fled. As it was, he had laid out two with his staff before the throng had become too many to handle, even though he was nearly twice their size.

For the Seteshans were a small people, dark, slender, hatched-faced and scant of beard, while Gezun was a typical Lorska: over six feet before he had reached his full growth, with the bold rugged features, the big sharp nose, beetling brow, and square jutting jaw of his folk. His skin was almost as dark as a Seteshan’s. His hair was thick, black, and curly, and he had a respectable beard despite his youth. A girl in Yavan had told him he looked like a god—not the grim sort of god who broods on people’s sins and dispenses doom by thunderbolts, but the kind who roams the earth teaching people to make wine and looking for likely mortal maids on whom to get demigods.

In the open, he could have outrun most Seteshans. But in these twisted streets he hesitated at turnings long enough to let the mob gain back what they had lost in the straight stretches. Furthermore, with such a large crowd, there were bound to be some swift runners. These pressed to the front. Their teeth gleamed, their eyes glared, and foam blew back from their chins. They bore knives, stones, bricks—whatever they had snatched up. Their panting breaths were like the hissing of a thousand snakes.

Gezun passed a tavern where a pair of King Zeremab’s archers lounged in the doorway. He slid to a stop and pointed back at the mob.

“They—look—help me—” he gasped.

The soldiers glanced. The mob shrieked: Slay the cat-killer! Burn the blasphemer! Flay the foul foreigner!”

The soldiers looked at one another. One cried: “Slay the foreign devil!” and drew his dagger.

Gezun hit him over the ear with his staff and knocked him sprawling. The other archer started forward but fell over his companion. Gezun ran on, a corner of his cloak flapping behind him like a flag.

Passing a potter’s stall, he jerked the rack of finished pots so that it fell forward with a crash, filling the street with bouncing, rolling, and smashing pots. The obstacle hardly checked the mob. The leaders cleared the pots in long leaps. The rest flowed over them like some natural force. A few fell, but the rest trampled on and scrambled over the fallen, heedless of what bones of their own folk they broke if they could only get at the hated alien.

Another corner. Gezun’s teeth showed too as he gasped. His staff got heavier with every stride. Should he throw it away or keep it for his last stand? He had a short bronze Tartessian sword under his cloak, but with the staff he might be able to hold the mob at arm’s length. The sword, though deadlier, would let them close enough to fasten on him like the giant leeches of the Tritonian Sea and pull him down.

With a burst of speed, Gezun gained enough so that he turned one corner before the mob rounded the last one. Coming out upon a street in which Gezun was not to be seen, the mob hesitated before dividing like a stream of ants, half going each way.

Gezun made another turn, into a mere alley, not wide enough to let two men pass unless they sidled past one another. It was so crooked he could only see along it a few paces. On either side rose high walls of stone or brick, without openings, save once in a while a stout wooden door. Gezun knew enough of Seteshan customs not to expect help there.

The alley ended. Gezun faced another wall across the path. He was in a cul-de-sac. The walls rose smoothly around him, save where to one side there was a gap a pace wide between two houses. The space was blocked up to the height of a man by a mass of rubble from some earlier edifice, which had been simply pushed into the place between the houses when they were built. A man could climb over the fall masonry, but beyond it rose the wall of still another house. So the space between the houses formed another cul-de-sac, branching off from the main one.

The sound of the mob, muted for the moment, rose again. Plainly, they were coming down the alley to see if he had taken refuge there. The crowd had put off an offshoot, like a tendril, to probe all nearby cavities for its prey. In such a narrow space they could come at him only one or two at a time. If they were mere soldiers he might hold them off, at least until he dropped from exhaustion or somebody fetched a bow to shoot him. But with a mob of fanatics, those behind would push those in front, willing or not, up against Gezun faster than he could knock or cut them down. So the end would be the same, with the swarm fastening on him, using teeth and nails if there was no room to wield a weapon. Teeth and nails would kill one just as dead as swords and spears, and rather more painfully.

Gezun pounded on the nearest door. The copper shutter that closed the peep-hole on the inside moved aside. A black Seteshan eye looked out.

“Let me in,” said Gezun. “I am beset.”

The shutter moved back into place. Gezun angrily thrust at it with his staff, but it held. He was not surprised. The noise of the mob grew louder.

The pile of rubble might make a better place for a last stand than the alley proper. Not only was the gap between the houses narrower, but also by mounting the pile one could make the pursuers climb up and whack them on the sconce as they came.

Gezun sprang into the gap and had begun to climb the pile when a voice said: “In here, foreign devil!”

Between the pile of rubble and the wall of the right-hand house, and opening had appeared. A face, obscured by deep shadow, looked up.

“Hasten!” said the face.

The crowd-noises sounded as if they were just around the next bend.

Gezun lowered his large feet into the hole and squeezed through. His feet found a dirt floor.

“Out of the way, fool!” said the face. The owner of the face pushed Gezun aside and thrust a piece of old rotten wood into the opening. It cut off most of the light, though since the fit was not tight, some light came into the tunnel around the wood. The tunnel itself was not utterly dark. A flickering light came around the first bend.

“Come,” said the man. He was a small brown Seteshan in a long dirty robe. He had sharp irregular features and crooked teeth. He was bald save for gray tufts that stood out over each ear.

The man led the way down the tunnel, muttering: “Hurry, barbarian clod! They may poke around and find my tunnel. And watch your head.”

The last advice was too late; Gezun had just hit his forehead on a cross-beam. The tunnel had been built for Seteshans, not towering Pusadians. The roof had been shored up by odd bits of timber, so that to walk through the tunnel one had to duck and dodge with every step. Gezun followed, bent over, his head ringing. He still gasped from the run; his tunic was sweat-soaked.

Around the corner, a Seteshan girl held a rushlight. She walked ahead of the two men, shielding the light with her hand. The tunnel bent this way and that but seemed to be going deeper. The soil, powder-dry near the surface, became moist as they went down. The blistering heat of the Seteshan summer gave way to delicious cool.

The tunnel branched and forked. Gezun tried to remember his turnings but soon gave up.

The tunnel became a regular structure of dressed stone, as if they had reached the crypt of some large building. They halted where the tunnel opened out into a series of rooms. The girl lit two more rushlights. Gezun saw that she was handsome in a slender birdlike way, though she looked a little like the man. Like him she had blue-black hair and olive-brown skin.

“Sit,” said the man.

Gezun sank down on a bench and threw off his cloak. He sat holding his head and drinking in the cool air. He sneezed, wiped the drying sweat from his face with a corner of his cloak, and said:

“How came you to save me?”

“I saw the start of the chase,” said the man. “I went into my tunnels and later heard the sounds of the mob near another of my entrances. You must have circled round and nearly returned to your starting-place.”

“I don’t know Typhon well.”

“So I see. Who are you?”

“Gezun of Gadaira.”

“Where is that?”

“Far to the west. I was born in Poseidonis.”

“Of that I have heard; a sinking land in the sea.”

“Who are you, sir?”

“Ugaph the son of Shepsaa. This is my daughter Ro. What do you so far from home?”

“I like to wander. I make a living as a wizard.”

“You a wizard? Ha!”

“I was a pupil of the great Sancheth Sar.”

“I never heard of him, and if he was not a Seteshan he cannot have amounted to much.”

Gezun shrugged. “I let my clients praise me.”

“When got you here?”

“Yesterday. I was strolling about, minding my own business—”

“Slowly, or I cannot understand. You speak our tongue barbarously.”

“I was minding my own business and enjoying the sights of the city when your people tried to kill me.”

“What led you to do so mad a thing as to slay a cat?”

“I bought a loaf and a fish in the agora for my dinner. Then I went to a tavern by the side of the agora. I bought a mug of barley-beer, and the tavener cooked my fish. I had my dinner laid out on the table outside the tavern and had just turned my head to look at a pretty girl, when this wretched cat leaped to the table and made off with my fish. I struck it with my staff and killed it, and was scraping the dirt off my fish when the mob began screaming and throwing things. By Lyr’s barnacles, why?”

“Cats are sacred to Shekmet. Since nobody hinders them, they take what they like.”

“Why don’t you kill me, then?”

Ugaph chuckled. “I have no love for the official cults. Priests magnify the powers of their gods to awe their dupes. Often I doubt if gods exist.”

“Really? I knew a philosopher in Gadaira who said there were no gods or spirits, but I’ve known too many supernatural beings for such an extreme view.”

Ugaph waved a hand. “Oh, spirits exist. In fact I, who dabble in magic, have my own familiar. But as for gods—well, there are all sorts of theories. Some say they are created by people’s belief in them.”

“Then let’s be careful not to believe in them, lest they get power over us. But what of my fate?”

“I can use you, young man.”

“For what?”

“Have you ever hunted bats?”

“No. Why should anybody hunt bats?”

“I have use for them. My daughter has been getting them for me while I went about my business.”

“What business is that?”

“I am a collector. As I was saying, Ro has been getting my bats, but I need her help in my business. Moreover she is likelier to catch a rich husband in the city than prowling dusty tombs.”

“I see.”

“And furthermore, other members of my profession sometimes try to take from me the part of these tunnels I have marked out for my own, and I need a strong arm and a keen blade to drive them out. So if you will serve as my apprentice, I will hide you, disguise you, and protect you from the superstitious mob.”

“Will you also feed my and replace my garments when they wear out?”

“Surely, surely.”

“Then let’s begin. I was hungry when the mob drove me from my dinner, and now I’m ravenous.”

Ugaph wrinkled his nose. “You are not backward. Ro, get Gezun something to eat.”

The girl went to the adjoining chamber. Gezun said: “I know not how you can call collecting a business. I’ve heard of people who spent trade-metal that way, but never of anybody who made it.”

“”That is simple. I am a benefactor of the people of Typhon.”

“Oh?”

“You see, the temples are full of loot which the priests have fleeced the folk by playing on their fears. I recover this stolen wealth and put it back into circulation. Like this.” Ugaph showed a handful of gold, silver, and gems. The pieces of metal seemed to have been broken or cut from larger structures.

Gezun looked at the man with more respect. Of all thieves, the temple-thief needed the most nerve, because of what the priests did if they caught him. The priests of Typhon, especially, were known for the ingenuity of their human sacrifices. Ro came in with a plate of food.

“Thank you, beautiful.” said Gezun.

Ugaph said: “Cast no lustful eyes thither, Master Gezun. A daughter of Setesh mates not with foreign devils. It were both immoral and unlawful. Nor think to flout me behind my back, for I have magical powers. I shall watch your everymove from afar.”

“So?” said Gezun, stuffing his mouth.

___

Next morning Gezun went to the public stables, where he had left his ass, to get his belongings. Ugaph had fitted him out to look like a Seteshan. Like other commoners of Typhon, he wore only sandals and a linen kilt. His whole head and face had been shaved, save for a short braided scalp-lock behind and a narrow little goatee on his chin. He had left his sword and staff in the tunnels, the former because commoners were not allowed to carry them, the latter because it might help some member of yesterday’s mob to recognize him.

When he had gotten back his gear and paid for fodder for his ass, Gezun rejoined Ugaph and his daughter. Ugaph said: “I will take your bags to our quarters while Ro shows you how to catch bats.”

Gezun hesitated about giving up his bags, but Ro would serve as hostage for them. Ro carried two bags herself, one empty and the other containing food and rushlights.

“Let me bear that for you,” Gezun said.

“I see your tribe of barbarians spoils its women,” said Ugaph. “Farewell.”

Ro led Gezun west, away from the waterfront, picking her way through the maze of crooked streets. Typhon, Gezun thought, stank even worse than Torrutseish. After an hour’s walk they passed through a gate in the wall. Beyond the wall, the city thinned out to suburbs. Beyond the suburbs lay fields criss-crossed by irrigation-ditches. Beyond the fields, on the skyline, lines of squat, bulky structures rose from the desert sands. Gezun had seen these on his way to Typhon.

“What are those?” he asked.

“The tombs of our kings,” said Ro.

Some of the structures were true pyramids, some truncated pyramids, some stepped pyramids. The tallest of the true pyramids towered hundreds of feet high. Some were new, surrounded by complexes of walls, courts, and temples; others were old, with the complexes robbed of their stones and the pyramids themselves crumbling at the edges.

As they neared the tombs, Gezun noticed the newer ones seemed manned. Soldiers walked the walls of the complexes, and he glimpsed priests in the courtyards.

“Who are those people?” he asked.

“The attendants of the kings of his dynasty, the ancestors of King Zeremab, on whom be life, health, and strength.”

“What about the older tombs, those that seem to be falling down?”

“King Zeremab cares nought for the ghosts of kings of former dynasties. So their tombs have all been plundered and lie open to us.”

“Is that where we’re going?”

“Aye. I thought we should try to the tomb of King Khephru. It has many passages where bats seek refuge during the day.”

“Now what in the seven hells does your father want bats for?”

Ro smiled. “His familiar has a taste for bats’ blood.”

“You mean a familiar demon?”

“Aye, Tety. Here is Khepru’s tomb.”

She led him into the ruined courtyard, where the sand covered most of the pavement and half buried such statues as remained. The original entrance to the pyramids had been blocked by blocks of granite, but spoilers had bored through the softer limestone around the granite.

“What your step,” said Ro, leaping up the first few tiers of stone. “Are you good at making fire?”

“None better.” Gezun got out his tinder-box and fire-stones and in a quarter-hour had a rushlight lit. Ro led him into the passage, which sloped down and forked. By the light of the rushcandle Gezun saw more forks.

“By the beard of Roi! This place is like a rabbit-warren,” he said.

“Not so loud; you will frighten the bats.”

___

They crept along, talking in whispers. Presently Ro pointed to a little black blob on the roof of the passage. She stole up and snatched it. The bat fluttered and squeaked in her grasp, but she popped it into the bag.

“Now you try,” she said.

Gezun missed his first snatch; the awakened bat whirled off into the darkness. There was a chorus of squeaks and a sense of fluttering.

“Clumsy oaf!” whispered Ro. “Now we must wait for them to quiet down again.”

“A creepy place! One would expect it to be haunted.”

“Some are. King Amentik’s tomb has a deadly demon with wings, beak, and claws. Three men who invaded it were torn to bits.”

Gezun tried for another bat and caught it. The bat bit his fingers, but the tiny teeth failed to draw blood.

In exploring one passage they came to a place where a large block had fallen from the ceiling. Gezun trod on something hard and looked down. There were human bones on the floor, some half under the block.

“The kings put such in their tombs to foil robbers,” said Ro. “When you step on a particular stone—boom! The ceiling falls on your head, or you fall through a trapdoor. I know many such traps, some not yet sprung.”

“Hm. I see your father cares not what befalls me when I go to hunt bats by myself.”

“Oh, no! We do not wish you slain while you are still useful to us!”

“How kind of you!”

“Fear not; I shall tell you where to hunt each day.”

After several hours’ hunting, the bat-bag was comfortably full of squeaking, fluttering captives. It moved with a life of its own.

“That will do for today,” said Ro. “Let us go back to the entrance and eat.”

“I hope you know your wave through this maze. Why did the kings put all these tunnels in their tombs? To mislead tespassers?”

“Partly, but also to serve as meeting-places for their cults and to store their treasure, their archives, and the mummies of their kin. You’ll find little treasure now, though.”

At the entrance they opened the food-bag. When Gezun had eaten and drunk he looked more closely at Ro. She was a pretty little thing. Like most women of Typhon she wore a tight short dress that covered her from knee to midriff. A strip rose from the front of the dress, between her bare beasts, and encircled her neck.

Gezun ran a hand up and down her body. She slapped the hand away. “My father warned you! Tety might be watching.”

Gezun let it go. There would be more opportunities.

___

Back in Ugaph’s quarters, Ro cut the throats of the bats and bled them into a bowl, while Ugaph burned incense and chanted an incantation. When Ro had finished, there was hardly more than a big spoonful of blood in the bowl. Something appeared in the magic circle Ugaph had drawn.

At first Gezun thought it was a cat, but it was a kind of small fox with a snub nose and enormous ears. It frisked about the circle and whined. Ugaph picked up the bowl, saying:

“What news, Tety?”

The familiar spoke in a shrill bark: “The ruby in the left eye of the statue of Ip, in the temple of Ip, is loose.”

“Not very helpful, as the statue is higher than a man and set back from a railing. What else?”

“The front rung in the chair of the high-priest in the temple of Neb is also loose. I think not that you can get the rung out without tools, but the golden sheathing is cracked and easily torn off…”

After several such responses, Tety said: “I told you all. Now my blood!”

Ugaph put the bowl inside the circle. The beast lapped up the blood and vanished.

“What’s that?” asked Gezun.

“A fennec,” said Ugaph. “Now that you are an initiate bat-hunter, I shall take Ro tomorrow. I will try that ruby in the temple of Ip. If she can make a disturbance—say by fainting—I’ll knock the gem from its socket with that staff of yours and push it into a recess in the base of the statue. It is an ornate thing, full of hiding-places. Then after a few days I’ll slip back in and take the ruby.”

“Ho!” said Gezun. “You’ll not send me hunting bats by myself yet. Think you I wish to be gobbled by some demon or fall through a trapdoor?”

“Ro can tell you want to do.”

“I won’t do it alone.”

“You shall!”

“I shall not.”

“I’ll set the mob on you.”

“Try it. They’d be interested in your little hoard of stolen sacred things.”

“Well t hen, when will you be able to hunt by yourself?”

“It will take many days of Ro’s guidance.”

“He’s right, father,” said Ro. “If we ask too great risks from him, he’ll flee.”

“Oh, very well, very well. Though so far you’ve been of no use to me, and you eat enough for three.”

___

Next day Ugaph, still grumbling, departed on his business while Gezun and Ro went back to the tombs. Again Gezun made exploratory passes and was rebuffed. When he pulled her into his arms she burst into tears, babbling of her father and his demons. Gezun let her go, not because he feared Ugaph and Tety, but because he was of too kindly a nature to make the girl suffer.

So it went for a quarter-moon. Gezun made advances and accepted repulses until one day Ro began to weep almost before he started.

“What now?” he asked.

“Oh, Gezun, see you not? I am truly fond of you; it is all I can do to hold you off. When you look at me with those great brown eyes my sinews turn to water. Yet if you got me with child, my father would slay me.”

“I’ll take care of him.”

“You talk folly. He could cut our throats any night while you like snoring like a cataract.”

“Then lets not go back to your catacombs but flee to Kham.”

“Father would charge you with felicide before the magistrate, and King Zeremab’s chariots would overtake us on the road.”

“Shall I cut your father’s throat, then?”

“Nay, not that! I should be accursed forever!”

“Oh, come, you don’t believe that. Your father’s a sceptic.”

“I know not what to believe. He cares nought for me. All he wants is for me to keep my virginity until he has sold me to a rich husband. As though one of Typhon’s lords wold wed the daughter of a temple-thief. But I would not have him slain, especially as Tety might warn him and give him a chance to strike first.”

___

Back in the hideaway they found Ugaph pale and trembly.

“It was a near thing today,” he said. “A very near thing. I tried for that ruby in Ip’s eye and came a hair’s breadth from being caught.”

“What happened?” said Gezun.

“I started to thrust with the staff at the eye when a priest came around the corner. He called me a blaspheming robber. He would have given me up to the soldiers had I not pacified him with a large offering and a tale of wishing to draw magical power from the statue. Now I must hide for a time. This priest will have warned his colleagues to watch for me.”

“Let me get you supper,” said Ro. “Then you’ll feel better.”

“It is all your fault for not having come with me. I am a poor old benefactor of humanity, but nobody gives me a chance. If there were gods, they would not let the universe run so unjustly.”

All through supper, Ugaph whined about the way the world treated him. After supper, over a game of checkers with Gezun, he said:

“For once I think you foreigners are right about Setesh.”

“How so?”

“They are a peevish, ungrateful lot, blindly groveling before the most cruel and gloomy gods their priests can imagine, while spurning enlighteners like me.”

“Agile fellows!”

Ugaph, who seldom laughed and never saw the point of joke, went on: “Curse of the green hippopotamus, that one of my virtue should be so put upon! And this is no life for my daughter. How shall she catch a rich husband while lurking in these crypts?”

“Why not change your ways?”

“What can I do? There is no reward for the lifter of superstition. Whoever thinks up some new and bloodthirstier divinity makes his fortune, whilst I starve in squalor—”

“Why not make our fortunes the same way?”

Ugaph stopped in mid-move, holding a draftsman. “My boy, forgive me occasional harsh words. That was a proposal of genius.”

“We’ll make our god the ghastliest of all. He shall hate everybody and pursue his victims into the third and fourth generation unless propitiated by huge offerings.”

“Just so! He shall demand human sacrifices, to be slain with hideous tortures.”

“Why human sacrifices?”

“The Typhonians love the spectacle.”

“Well,” said Gezun doubtfully, “I don’t mind fleecing Typhonians, but that’s going too far.”

“It is a common custom here.”

“So? How do you go about it?”

“One gets a license.”

“But whom do you sacrifice?”

“One buys slaves or kidnaps a foreigner off the street. Nobody minds if he is not of a nation with whom the king has a treaty.”

“You mean I could have been seized by some gang all the time I’ve been here and hauled off to a temple for carving?”

“Surely, surely. Who cares for foreign devils?”

“Well, I care for this foreign devil and will not encourage a practice that might bring my own doom. Besides, it’s not a Pusadian custom. If you want me help there shall be no more talk of that.”

___

Ugaph argued, sulked, and gave in. Thus it came to pass that, a quater-moon later, a peasant on the outskirts of Typhon, hoeing his plot, struck a bronzen tablet.

“Praise be to Neb!” he cried as he dug it up and brushed the dirt off. The tablet was inscribed, though he could not read. It weighed about a pound.

Two men had been sauntering down the nearby road and came over: a snaffle-toothed middle-aged Seteshan and a gigantic young foreigner.

“What is that?” asked the middle-aged one.

“I have done nought wrong, my lord,” said the peasant. “I found this just now. It was on this plot, which I own in freehold, and so belongs to me.”

“What will you do with it?”

“Sell it to a dealer in metals, my lord.”

“Hm. Let’s have a look at it.”

The peasant put the tablet behind him. He could not hide it in his clothes, because he wore none. “No you don’t, sir. You will snatch it and run, and then where shall I be?”

“All right, you hold it and let me look at it.”

Some peasants in the neighboring fields came over to see what was going on. Some travelers on the road stopped too, so presently there were a score of people around Ugaph, Gezun, and the farmer. Ugaph tilted the plaque andread loudly:

“I, Ka the Appalling, eldest and father of the gods, creator and master of the seven universes, shall soon come to dwell in Typhon in the land of Setesh. Woe to the sinners of Typhon! Now you shall be under my very eye. For, I am a great, fierce, and jealous god, at whose very name the other gods tremble. Where they beat you with switches, I shall beat you with cudgels; where they smote the sinner, I shall smite all his kin, neighbors, and friends. Repent ere it I too late! I, Ka the Omnipotent, have spoken.”

Ugaph said: “This is surely a portentous matter. Fellow, I will give you half the weight of this tablet in silver, which is more trade-metal than you would normally see in a lifetime. Then I shall take it into the city to see what the wise priests of Typhon make of it.”

“Are, take it!” said the peasant.

___

A few days later, when the rumor of the finding of the tablet had gone around, Ugaph appeared in the agora. He was naked, with red stripes on his face and ashes on his body. He foamed at the mouth (by chewing sapwort) and altogether was the holiest-looking thing the Typhonians had seen in a long time. He waved the tablet, cried its message in a loud voice, and called on the people to repent. Gezun went about with a basket to catch the wedges and rings and bars of trade-metal they tossed into it.

“A temple for Ka the Appalling!” shrieked Ugaph. “What will he think if he comes to Typhon and finds no god-house. What will he do? What will he do to us? It is our last chance…”

Gezun checked a smile. He composed Ugaph’s speeches, since Ugaph’s talents did not run that way. On the other hand, provided somebody put words in his mouth, the temple-thief made a fine prophet, being of naturally solemn and pompous mein.

After another half-moon they were counting their wealth in the hideout. Ro sorted the different metals while Ugaph and Gezun weighed them, Ugaph, who had some small education, added up the totals on the wall of the chamber with a burnt stick. He said:

“We have more here than I have made in my whole career as a collector. Why thought I not of this before?”

“Because I wasn’t here to suggest it,” grinned Gezun. “Now, know you what I’d suggest further?”

“What?”

“That we put this stuff in stout bags and get out of Typhon. We could go to Kham. Your share will keep you in comfort the rest of your life, and mine will take me to all the places I have not yet seen.”

“Are you mad, stripling?”

“What mean you?”

“This is nothing to what we shall collect once we get our temple built.”

“You mean you would go through with that scheme and not merely talk about it?”

“Surely, surely. I have already seen Sentiu the building-contractor and visited the artist Heqatari. He shall design our temple and the statue of the god.”

“Then give me my half, and stay here with yours.”

“No! We shall need it. And think not to take your share by stealth. Remember it was not I who slew the sacred cat.”

Gezun glared but subsided. Ugaph might be right at that: he had had more experience at this sort of thing.

___

Soon the site of the temple sounded with hammering. Walls rose, floors were laid, and in the midst of it all the great Heqatari worked with his apprentices on the statue. It was to be an imposing affair of gilded bronze, showing a vulture-headed Ka with multiple wings and arms, hurling thunderbolts and brandishing weapons.

When the workmen stopped for their noon meal, Gezun went around to where Heqatari and his apprentices gnawed bread and cheese in the shade of a wall.

“Greetings, great artist,” said Gezun. “Can you explain something?”

“What?”

“What’s that walled section in the rear, with the deep embayment? It was not in the original plan.” Gezun pointed.

“You must mean the stable.”

“Stable?”

“Aye. Ugaph has bought a chariot and pair and wishes room to store them on the temple grounds.”

“Why, the foul—” began Gezun, when the clopping of hooves made him turn. There came Ugaph, standing in a gold-trimmed chariot drawn by a pair of whites. He reined up, cursing as the horses skittered and bucked and the workmen grinned at his lack of skill. Gezun strode over and began:

“What’s this folly? And what mean you by commanding an enlargement of the temple without my knowledge?”

Ugaph’s face darkened. “Keep your voice down, stripling, or I shall raise mine too. I might even speak of cats.”

Gezun almost sprang upon Ugaph, but mastered his rage and said: “We shall speak of this again.” He walked off.

___

They had a furious quarrel in the underground chambers that night, Gezun pounding the table and shouting, “You profligate old fool! We’re in debt far enough now to put us into debt-slavery for our lives.”

“And who told you how to run a cult? You think a baby like you, a third my age and a barbarian to boot, can teach me the art?”

“I can tell when an enterprise is being run to death. Instead of getting out with your paint and ashes and digging more gold out of the Typhonians, you swank around in embroidered robes and drive your gaudy toy.”

“That shows your ignorance. By showing the mob how successful we are, we prove our god is truly mighty.”

“Said the drunken yokel who fell down the well, how clever I am, for I shall never be thirsty. I want my share of our property, now!”

“You cannot have it. It is tied up in the temple.”

“Sell my interest in it, or borrow it. But I want that trade-metal.”

“Impossible, you dog. When we have made our fortunes you may ask.”

“I’ll go to law to force a division.”

“See how far you get when the magistrate hears you are a felicide!”

Gezun started to rise, murder in his eyes, when Ro seized his arm, crying: “Gezun! Calm yourself! He has powers!”

A squeak from the corner made them turn. There sat Tety the demon in fennec-form.

“O master!” whined the fox. “It is long since you have fed me. Can I do nought for you?”

“No,” said Ugaph. “Begone and bother me not.”

“Pray, master! I must have the bats’ blood. I perish for want of the mystic ingredients.”

“Begone!” yelled Ugaph, and ripped out an exorcism. The familiar vanished.

Gezun’s temper had cooled, so the quarrel was dropped. For several days Ugaph worked at his evangelism, crying doom about the agora while Gezun collected. Gezun noted that the collections were dwindling.

“By Neb’s toenails, it will soon not be worth while,” grumbled Ugaph one evening. “All the Typhonians have heard our message and await something new. We must hurry the temple.”

“How long will it take?” said Gezun. “Be Sentiu’s original promises it should be done, but the roof is not up yet.”

“That is the way with builders. I see where we made several mistakes, but when we build our big temple those shall be corrected.”

“What big temple?”

“Oh, this is only a small affair. As our cult grows, this building will not hold our congregation. We shall build a magnificent structure like the temple of Shekhemet.”

“Hmp. You mean after you’ve paid off my share.”

“Why so eager to withdraw?”

“I tire of Typhon. They hate foreigners as one would expect of some backward Atlantean village, but not of a great city. Besides it is too hot, and the fleas and flies give one no peace.”

Ugaph shrugged. “Each to his taste. Tomorrow I will oversee the putting up of the roof.”

___

Next morning, after Ugaph left, Gezun was loafing and watching Ro clean up their breakfast, when Tety appeared, whining: “Good foreign devil, my master neglects and spurns me. I starve for bats’ blood.”

“That’s sad, little one,” said Gezun.

“Can you do nought for e?”

Gezun started to say no, then grinned and said to Ro: “Beautiful, those bat-hunts were fun. Let’s make another.”

“But that long walk? In this heat?”

“We’ll use the chariot. It’s half mine. And the tombs are cool.”

“Oh, bless you, dear mortal!” said Tety.

Hours later they were deep in the bowels of King Khephru’s pyramid. When their game-bag was full they went to the entrance and ate. Then Gezun pulled Ro to him and kissed her. She resisted, but not enough, so that what started as a youthful game turned into a real love-tussel. A little later Gezun slept in the tunnel entrance, snoring thunderously, while Ro wept for her lost maidenhood and covered his face with damp kisses.

___

Ugaph hung around the temple until Heqatari flew into a tantrum. He cursed Ugaph and all his ancestors because, he said, Ugaph got in his way, distracted him by his idiotic suggestions, and did not understand that the artistic soul was purer and finer than the souls of common men. Ugaph, disgruntled, went to the stable where he kept his chariot. He was even more vexed to learn that his partner had taken the vehicle. Scowling, he walked to the palace and gained admittance to the office of the Registrar of Licenses. He asked for a license for human sacrifice.

“You know the rules?” said the Registrar.

“Surely, surely, my lord. Pusadians are not among the protected groups of foreigners, are there?”

“What are Pusadians?”

“Far-western barbarians. Is everything in order then?”

“The priests of Neb and Shekhemet and the others are up in arms over your competition, but we cannot afford to offend any god. So here is your license.”

“I abase myself in humble gratitude, my lord. Come to one of our services.”

Ugaph backed out, bowing. Next he went to the thieves’ quarter, a tumbledown part of the city where people were either too poor to escape or sought refuge there from King Zeremab’s soldiers and officials. He sought out a brawny cutthroat named Eha, whom he had known in his thieving days. He said:

“Are you looking for work, old comrade?”

Eha grinned and flexed a muscle. “I might, if it meant enough metal and not too much work.”

“I need a couple of stout fellows to help me with the temple: to sweep the floor, guard the loot, and the like. Have you a friend I could trust?”

“What about that foreign devil, your partner?”

“I think we shall not long be troubled with him. Are you up to desperate deeds?”

“You know me, Ugaph.”

Eha got his friend, a silent hulk named Maatab. Ugaph took them to the temple and put them to work on small tasks, such as moving the gear from the hideaway to the temple when the dwelling-rooms were finished. Gezun made only a mild objection to hiring this pair, as Ugaph explained that three could not do all the work of the cult. Gezun was going about starry-eyed, as he had decided he was in love again. Ugaph, who might have been expected to notice the signs that Gezun and Ro gave of their attachment, seemed to pay no attention.

___

The day came when the last bit of plaster had dried, the last mural had been painted, and the last patch of gold-leaf had been hammered into place. Ugaph called Gezun, Ro, Maatab, and Eha into conference. He sat at the head of the table in a gold-embroidered robe of shiny eastern stuff and a tall pointed hat. He said:

“Tomorrow night is our dedication. The temple will be filled. I have bought an ox for sacrifice to get things started. But our future depends on this ceremony’s going smoothly, to get our pious fools worked up to a big donation. Let us be sure we all know our parts perfectly…”

When they rehearsed again, Ugaph said: “Gezun, Maatab and Eha and I are going to fetch our ox. I leave you here to guard the temple. We shall be gone an hour.”

He led the two thieves out. Gezun looked at Ro. He had not been alone with her for any length of time since that day in Khephru’s tomb. All that made him hesitate was that Ugaph’s parting words sounded like an invitation. But for one of Gezun’s age and vigor, the contest between lust and suspicion was too once-sided to last long.

Ugaph led Maatab and Eha to the main chamber of the temple. In front of statue of Ka, Ugaph said: “How is your courage?”

Maatab laughed and Eha made muscles.

“Good,” murmured Ugaph. “The plan I have discussed is the one that young dog thinks we shall follow. But what we shall really do is this: He will be in his room at the beginning of the service, primping. He will come out thinking he is to enter the main chamber and slay the ox with the sanctified ax. But you two—”

Eha broke in: “Is it wise to talk of this so near the god?” he jerked his head towards the brooding idol.

“Ha! That is but a thing of bronze and wood. I planned it and Heqatari made it, just as I invented Ka and his whole cult. Unless we believe in a god he cannot exist.” Ugaph spat at the statue. “If you fear…?”

“I? Fear?” protested both thieves at once.

“Well then, listen. As Gezun steps from his room, you two shall seize him. Slay him not, nor even stun him deeply. I wish him awake during the sacrifice; the throng loves the screams of the victim. Bind his wrists and ankles firmly and bear him to the main chamber. Lay him on the altar, and I shall do the rest…”

___

In his chamber, Gezun could hear the voices of the congregation as Ugaph led them in a hymn, for which Ro played a lyre. He put the last touches on his costume: A knee-length kilt embroidered with gold thread, gilded sandals, and an ornate conical cap like Ugaph’s, but not so tall. He listened for his cue. When it came, he stepped to the leathern curtain in the doorway. His hand was out to thrust the curtain aside when he heard a squeak. It was Tety.

“Gezun!” said the familiar.

“What is it?”

“There is something you must know—”

“No time! Tell me after the service.” Gezun reached for the curtain again.

“It is a matter of life and death.”

“By the holy crocodile of Haides! Eha and Maatab will be leading in the ox. Save it till later.”

“But it is your death! They will slay you instead of the ox.”

Gezun stopped. “What’s this?”

Tety told of Ugaph’s orders. “I was hovering in my spirit form in the temple and came to warn you because of that bats’ blood.”

“But why should Ugaph slay me?”

“To get sole ownership, to give the Typhonians a gory show, and to see that you shall not object to such sacrifices in the future.”

Gezun saw he had been a fool. With a smothered curse he leaped for his belongings and got out the double-curved Tartessian sword. “We shall see who sacrifices whom!”

“Go not into the main chamber!”

“Why not?”

“I know not, but there are portentous stirrings on the spiritual plane. Something dreadful will happen.”

“Hm. Anyway, my thanks, little devil.”

Gezun went to the doorway on tiptoe. He stood to one side of the door and jerked the curtain aside. Seeing movement in the dark corridor, he snatched. He caught a muscular arm. With a mighty heave he pulled Eha into the room. Eha struck at him with a short leaden bludgeon. As Eha was off-balance at the time, the blow did not hit squarely. It knocked off Gezun’s wizard hat and grazed his shaven scalp, filling his eyes with stars. He thrust the sword into Eha’s neck.

Eha stumbled to hands and knees with a gurgle, dropping the club. Maatab bounded into the room. Gezun tried to withdraw the sword from Eha, but it stuck fast. Then Maatab was upon him.

They staggered back into the middle of the room, kicking, punching, gouging, and grabbing for holds. Maatab hooked a thumb into Gezun’s nostrils, but Gezun kicked Maatab in the crotch and sent the Seteshan back groaning. They clinched, fell, and rolled. Gezun felt the bludgeon under his hand. He picked it up and struck at Maatab. The blow struck Maatab’s shoulder. Maatab broke away and tore the sword out of Eha.

Then they were up again, fainting, dodging, and striking. Each leaped at the other for a finishing blow, but each caught the other’s wrist. They staggered about, each trying to wrench his right arm out of the other’s grasp. Gezun felt a grip on his ankle. It was Eha, not yet dead. Gezun fell heavily. Maatab leaped for him, but Gezun flung both legs and drove his heels into Maatab’s belly. The Seteshan was flung back against the wall. He dropped the sword and half fell, coughing and gasping.

Gezun rose and lunged for the sword. There was an instant of floundering as each tried to pick up the weapon at the same time to kick or stamp on the other’s groping hand. Then Gezun kicked the sword out into the middle of the room. He scooped it up and straightened to slash at Maatab, who turned and half fell out the doorway.

___

To kill time, Ugaph had stretched his sermon, reiterating the awfulness, ferocity, and vindictiveness of Ka the Appalling. Then, instead of a bound Gezun being carried out by Eha and Maatab, Maatab appeared running with Gezun after him. Maatab stumbled around to the front of the statue, trying to cry out a warning but too winded to speak. Both were disheveled, their kilts torn, their faces and bodies covered by bruises and scratches. Sweat and blood ran down their limbs. Ro dropped her lyre with a twang.

“He—he—” gasped Maatab, dodging behind Ugaph.

“I’ll—” panted Gezun.

Ugaph retreated toward the crowd, shrieking, “Seize the felicide! He is the foreign devil who slew the cat in the Month of the Camel! Tear him to pieces!”

A murmur in the congregation rose to a roar. Much as Gezun wanted to see the blood of Ugaph and Maatab spurt, he did not with to be torn to bits afterwards. The crowd fell silent. He stepped back towards the statue and glanced at Ro.

Ro was staring at a point behind him and some feet over his head. He looked up. An arm of gilded bronze, ending in a clawed hand like the foot of a bird of prey, was coming down upon him.

Gezun made a tremendous leap. The wind of the snatch fanned his back.

With a loud creaking, the statue stepped heavily down from its dais. Ugaph and Maatab stared in unbelieving terror, while behind them the audience began to scream and stampede. Ugaph and Maatab turned to run, but two long arms shot out. One arm seized each man, the claws sinking deeply. Ka raised the two kicking, screaming men towards his vulture’s beak.

Gezun caught Ro’s wrist and dragged her through the other door. Back in the corridor he started for the door to the stable. Then he said: “Wait! Hold this!”

“But Gezun—”

He pressed his sword into her hands and darted into Ugaph’s chamber. On the floor lay the chest containing their liquid funds. It was locked and chained to a ring in the wall. Gezun picked up the chest and gave it a mighty heave as if to throw it. On the first try the chain held, but on the second the staple pulled out of the wall. Gezun ran out with the chest under one arm.

The screams from the main chamber of the temple came higher and higher. They faded behind Gezun as he pulled Ro out to the stable, hitched up the whites, whirled the chariot around, and set out for the north gate at a gallop. They skidded around turns.

“What—what happened?” said Ro.

“Your father didn’t believe in Ka, but he convinced so many others that their belief called the god to life.”

“But why did Ka animate the statue and attack father?”

“Well, he was described as fierce and vindictive, so he’d be angry when I wasn’t sacrificed as promised. Or perhaps he resented Ugaph’s atheism.” He slowed the team to a trot. “Let’s stop at the fountain to make ourselves look respectable, or the guards won’t let us out the gate.

___

A few minutes later, Gezun whipped up the whites and galloped out on the long level desert rod to Kham in the land of Kheru. Behind him, a somber shadow seemed to brood over Typhon.

“Anyway,” he said. “I’m through with experiments having to do with gods. Men are hard enough to deal with.”

End.

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anonthenullifier · 4 years ago

Text

An Awakening

Vision learns the truth of his life prior to Westview which leads to an honest conversation with Wanda.

Ao3 link

There is nothingness and then there is a calliope, it’s jaunty little ditty shocking his mind enough that Vision’s eyes snap open. Blades of grass tickle his cheek and an aura of flashing lights draws him up, palms pressed firmly onto the ground as he hoists himself up into a seated position. His body aches, a faint echo in his mind of being violently torn apart, but it is a feeling that fades the faster he thinks about it. Since it seems important, he tries to move his mind away, hoping that if he doesn’t explicitly focus on it that it will not be forgotten.

Vision nods, goes to stand up, but finds his legs not responding fully, knees buckling under the weight of a fleeting memory of immense pain. A hand loops under his right bicep, the woman’s other hand coming to rest on his back as she helps him up with an aggrieved, “Why can men never admit when they’re hurt?” The snark behind the comment feels forced, the same underlying terror on her face as all the other residents here.

That’s when he remembers, most of it at least. He was on his own reconnaissance patrol, inching ever more methodically toward the edge of town to see how far Wanda’s influence reached. The horror of his findings, their frozen, crying faces, almost knocks him back to the ground, but luckily the woman’s hands are still there to steady him. “Thank you.”

“Did you go in the funhouse?” It’s not really a question the way her voice falls, more of a statement with a rhetorical uptick at the end. “Heard it’s really disorienting with all the clowns.”

Vision doesn’t recall such an attraction anywhere in Westview but then he looks up, following the still present music in the air, and finds an entire carnival before him. Red and white striped tents tower out of the ground, stalls for food send plumes of greasy smoke into the air, and numerous game stalls are lined up where stuffed animals and blowup hammers hang joyfully from the walls. This is new. What is also new is that there are houses and roads beyond Ellis Avenue, which seems right, as if it was always like that, but there is a niggle of unease that tells him this isn’t true, if only he could access the information that makes him feel that way.

“Oh, um , thank you.” His costume is, at least by his understanding of how Billy and Tommy reacted, not sick by any means. Regardless, he finds his hand moving on its own accord to grip the cape, wanting to feel the object of her jealousy. It feels different, slicker and more aerodynamic than the one Wanda left in the closet. He yanks it a bit farther forward and notes that it is also a much more subdued gold with flecks of crimson in parts. A glance down also confirms that his green and yellow ensemble is gone, replaced by teals and reds, no athletic shorts covering the skin tight ensemble.

This is all wrong.

Vision knows the town never had a circus, nor the rows of houses beyond Ellis, he knows that he was not in this outfit and that everything feels just a bit off.

“Do you want some coffee or a ride back home?” The concern in her voice goes deeper than one would expect, even though she did find him injured on the ground, something more wavers in her words. Vision decides that he needs more answers than questions and, even though he hates taking away people’s autonomy, he reaches towards her temple. “Woah,” the woman swats his hands away, “I have pepper spray.”

“I will not harm you.” Oddly her face softens and she drops the threat, allowing him to send a pulse of golden energy into her head.

The change is instantaneous, the woman’s face becoming far more animated, “Vision?! Oh my God, you’re okay!” This is now the second awakened person to recognize him, to be excited at the prospect that he is there to help. “Oh what the hell!” Vision watches the woman’s hand run along her gaudy canary and ruby diner uniform, one that is common in little run down diners on the highway, a thought that he doesn’t quite know how to substantiate since he doesn’t seem to have a memory of such a stop and yet the knowledge is there. As she inspects her clothes, grunting in disbelief and irritation built into every movement, she confuses him further, “I’m an astrophysicist and this is what I get? So disrespectful.”

Neither Norm nor Agnes responded in such a...laid back way to be awakened, both in immeasurable pain that this woman seems to show no signs of. “Miss, are you okay?”

“Doctor, not Miss.”

“My apologies.”

She turns a bright, closed lip smile towards him, reaching out her hand as she says, “I’m Darcy.”

He takes the proffered hand and gives it a polite shake. Even though it is clearly unnecessary he adds, “And I’m Vision.” What he says next is a bit of a surprise to him, mainly because he doesn’t feel like he has a basis for the assumption that she will know the answer, but for some reason he has full faith she can help him, that she wants to help him. “Who am I? What,” he surveys the carnival around him, “what is happening here?”

“Straight to the big questions.” It is not derisively or caustically stated, in fact there is far more affection than one would expect from a stranger. Darcy glances around, nervous for the first time, “I’ll try to be quick, I’m sure your wife’ll be here soon.” This fear is not new, sadly, the same insinuation made by Norm about Wanda’s involvement. “Let’s see, you’re Vision, obviously,” a small, self conscious chuckle goes along with the statement. “You’re an Avenger,” luckily, she senses his desire for more, quickly adding, “group of super powered people, well, not all of them have super powers, some just have really amazing tech, but anyway you’re a team that fights bad guys and saves the universe.”

“Wanda and myself, we were-“

“Yep, joined at the same time and then fell in love, really cute.”

This confirms what Agnes said, which suggests that perhaps her other words were true as well. “Am I...dead?” All joy leeches from Darcy’s face, a deflated nod going along with the tightening of her lips. “How?”

Darcy looks around again and Vision can’t help but join her in the action, can’t help but feel a little bit nervous about who doesn’t want him to know this. “Shortened version - big purple angry grape named Thanos was collecting all the infinity stones, this includes the Mindstone,” Vision’s fingers rise up to brush the gem. “Wanda had to kill you to try and stop him.”

“She killed me?”

Quickly context is added, “Only because you,” she levels a finger at his chest to emphasize his role and take blame off his wife, “insisted she do it.”

None of what she says makes sense. “Why would I do that?”

The next statement is said in a way that typically is coupled with a playful fist against the shoulder that leads into a jovial shove. “Being all self-sacrificial’s kinda your thing. Which is super noble, don’t get me wrong, but a bit rough on the people around you, like asking them to kill you for the greater good.”

Which is a fair point and one he will need to cogitate on at a later time, “Why did Wanda, specifically, have to kill me?”

“Oh because she was the only one strong enough to destroy the Mindstone.”

A logical assessment that he can easily believe his former self to have made. “Was she successful?”

Darcy’s voice quiets somewhat, a slight tremble in her words, “She was. But then Thanos reversed time, brought you back, and murdered you right in front of her.”

Suddenly his worldview shifts, new meaning and understanding emerging as to some of Wanda’s actions and her strong reaction to his accusations the other night. Despite this dawning of understanding, there is still a major question he feels hasn’t been answered. “But then how are we here? How am I,” he falters on the next word, as early as this evening not thinking it was something that could be false, “alive?”

“That’s the million dollar question. No one knows.” A high pitched whizzing vibrates in the air, punctuated by calls of Vision! “I gotta go,” she begins to walk away, but turns back with an anger not yet present in her words, “Quick FYI, if you meet a guy named Hayward, don’t trust him, he’s a dick.”

“I um, will not, thank you.”

She starts to leave again and then stops, “Also, we don’t have proof it’s all Wanda. Food for thought.”

Vision appreciates the comment, “Thank you.” It is when she actually walks away that he is the one that has a realization of not re-invoking whatever trance the people of the town are in. “Darcy!” She turns expectedly towards him as he approaches with his hands out and ready to take the pain from her, except she swats his hands away, yet again.

“Stop it, I’m a better ally awake.”

Based on the prior two people he has spoken to in their awakened state, this seems a poor choice for her. “Does it not hurt?”

“I mean, yeah, feels like I went on a tequila bender last night and haven’t had water in weeks.” How she remains so lighthearted is beyond him, but he admires it immensely, “but I can’t help you if I’ve forgotten.”

Though he isn’t sure it is in her best interest to remain in such a state, the idea of a confidant is appealing. “Very well.”

Seconds after she walks away, blue streaks materialize around Vision, both his sons and his wife appearing suddenly in front of him. This is unusual but he doesn’t get a chance to inquire about their speedy entrance, Billy rushing towards him first with a relieved, “Dad!” Vision catches him, using the momentum of his son’s leap to lift him and hold him close, Billy’s arm wrapping protectively around Vision’s neck. Tommy follows shortly after, his run far more powerful as he slams into Vision’s torso with a tight hug.

It is Wanda who hesitates, her eyes faintly glowing red, a deep, concerned frown on her lips. “Vizh,” her voice cracks and his heart breaks at the pain she tries so valiantly to mask. Vision manages to get one of his hands free enough to motion Wanda closer. She accepts the offer, one arm winding around his waist and the other laying on Tommy’s shoulders.

They have only been home for three hours and yet this is the tenth Wanda has found herself standing in the doorway, hand propped along the wooden frame. In the room Vision lies in bed, eyes closed and resting, Billy is wrapped around him, his arm thrown across his father’s chest and head buried just under the vibranium dot of Vision’s chin, and Tommy is curled snuggly into Vision’s other side. The boys are still in their costumes, Billy’s cape sprawled behind him on their mattress and Tommy’s now flat hair looking a bit crusty from the spray dye. It’s an idyllic scene and yet Wanda fights back tears, shoving the drops away from her eyes as if they are an enemy that needs to be thwarted.

She almost lost Vision...again. The boys almost lost their father at ten years old, an age for which grief is overwhelming and confusing, can shape a life forever, or so she intimately knows.

Reluctantly her body pulls away from the door, arms crossing over her chest as she walks back downstairs, not once considering peeking in on her brother in the guest room. That is a problem she is still trying to figure out, the man a stranger, an antagonist, but with her brother’s name. There are too many inconsistencies in his behavior, too many contradictions in his words, half of them true to her brother and the other far too knowing of events that occurred after his death. Unsurprisingly he and Vision clash, a thought that briefly makes her mouth perk up, always having a belief that if her brother lived he would have begrudgingly accepted her relationship while also making it his personal duty to make jabs at Vision, who Wanda always knew would take it with a silent dignity that was then removed late at night when he’d insist on lengthy conversations with her to figure out the insults. That’s what life was supposed to be. What life is now, technically.

The gurgle of water washes away these thoughts, her focus now solely on filling the kettle and getting it on a burner to boil. Except the distraction is short lived as she sits down at the kitchen table to wait, fingers interwoven and glowing faintly of the residual scarlet energy she had to use tonight. Wanda fixates on her fingers, bending and straightening them, unsure how she knew what to do or even had the power to expand the town. But that’s not the most troubling incident of the night. No, what pesters at her resolve is a simple thought: Why did Vision want to leave? They have everything here - a house, Billy and Tommy, each other, and the time they always tried so hard to find.

Wanda startles at the creak of the kitchen cabinet, heart still racing as she takes in the curve of Vision’s shoulders and the vibranium band along the back of his head. Silently he makes her a cup of tea, hands moving calmly through the ritual he created, the cup always the same distance from the kettle, bag placed at the bottom with the string hanging out precisely two inches, both hands holding the kettle (one on the handle and one at the base) as a perfect arc of water fills the cup, and finally one and a third spoonfuls of sugar. The sequence completed, Vision walks the cup to the table, placing it gently down with barely a clink from the porcelain. She expects him to sit down across from her, to silently stare for a minute or so before bringing up the town again, reopening the wounds of their last fight because they never actually resolved anything other than to try and act normal around the boys. But he doesn’t, instead he takes her hand, tugging it until she stands, and then he hugs her, engulfing her entire being in his presence. The firmness of his chest and the tinny waft of vibranium are just as soothing as the kisses he peppers along the top of her head, each one more doting than the last. “Vizh,” Wanda reluctantly pulls back a few inches, hand squeezing between their bodies until she can cup his face, “are you…”

“I know,” he kisses her properly now, not like the emotionless peck earlier in the day, this one imbued with all of his love and all of his concern. “I know enough.”

A chill moves through her body, limbs growing rigid and heart almost coming to a complete stop. “What do you mean?”

Vision’s fingers move up to trace lines through her hair, palm coming to rest on her cheek. The surety of his prior statement lessens, mouth sinking lower until it’s a shallow frown. “I know that I am,” it is unlike him to pause like this, to seem to want to avoid a conversation he himself brought up, “that I was dead.”

Her denial is immediate and viscera, “What are you talking about, why would you…” but then his doleful gaze meets hers, the ridges of his synthetic skin bunched together in a show of deep, aching pain, though it is clear from the way he holds her, the way he places a far too gentle kiss to her forehead, as if the action itself might knock her over, that he is more concerned for her than himself, which is the epitome of who he was...who he is. If there is anything she can offer that matches this unerring compassion, it has to be honesty because clearly hiding the truth from him will not stop his incessant march towards the truth. But that is easier to think about than it is to actually commit to doing. Wanda swallows down a sob and fights to keep her voice calm. “You were.” The confirmation is too much, her chest heaving as all the memories rush to the forefront of her mind--her hands erupting in red at the feel of the Mindstone fracturing, at the almost silent I love you , and then having to watch him come back only to die in a far more brutal way.

Strong arms that shouldn’t exist continue to encase her, draw her deeper into the comfort of his embrace, the feel of his fingers running through her hair with the same gentle “Wanda” he always said when soothing her. Deep down she knows it is all a lie, this life, this man, this blissful existence. Because as a Maximoff there is only one constant in life and it is sorrow, biting, empty, unavoidable sorrow. Which begs the question of how, exactly he found out. A question that infuriates her and invokes the well know feeling of being caged in by the inevitability of her life.

Wanda steps out of his arms, trying her best not to show how much pain that simple movement creates, her body screaming to remain against his forever, but selfishly she needs answers more than anything, needs information to help her regain some level of control over her emotions, has to know why he put his family through so much just to find out this awful truth. “Why aren’t you happy here?”

A denial forms quickly, his body taut at the accusation, “I am happy Wanda, how could I not be?”

“Because you left, you...you abandoned us today,” Wanda knows she shouldn’t use the next part in anger or for gain, but she needs her husband to understand the severity of it all. “Did you know Billy can sense you?”

Vision’s “He can?” is hard to read, both concerned and in awe, with something else she can’t quite pinpoint.

“Yes, and his first experience of that was feeling you try to die because we apparently aren’t important enough to stay alive for.” The comment hits as intended, Vision stepping back, horror forming in the spasming muscles of his face as he looks up towards the ceiling, towards where he left their sons. “What are you trying to find out there?”

Vision’s simple, “The truth,” is aggravatingly vague, thankfully, or not depending on how this goes, he clarifies, “There is something wrong in Westview, Wanda. The people are in agony.”

A fed up laugh comes out with her “Aren’t we all?” Only Vision can’t find the humor, the gears in his eyes twisting clockwise and counterclockwise while he stares at her, face ladened with a suffocating sympathy.

He takes a step towards her and she steps back, not missing the way her reaction hurts him. “Wanda, it is not like you to inflict pain on innocent people.”

Since they started this new life, her memories have been hazy, coming in and out of consciousness, enough clarity to understand that whatever is happening in Westview is preferable to outside of it. After tonight, after Pietro’s comment about her dead husband, it’s all there and she realizes that she’s never gotten to say out loud what she did, what Thanos forced her to do, the Avengers too scattered with all that needed to be attended to after his defeat to focus on anyone but themselves. So she squares her shoulders, lifts her head and puts all of her self loathing into her next comment, “If that’s true, then why did I kill you?”

This time when Vision steps towards her she lets him grip her arms, let’s him guide her until her face is pressed into his chest, allowing her to hear the beating of his synthetic heart. “You were only doing what I had asked.”

“Well it wasn’t worth it,” her voice is muffled by the teal sweater he’s wearing, “and I can’t, I can’t forgive myself.”

His arms tighten around her, one hand gripping the fabric of her sweatshirt and the other holding her head to his sternum. “You did nothing wrong. If anyone is to blame-”

It doesn't take a telepath to know what empty words he is about to mutter. Wanda forces herself from his embrace and stares hard into his eyes, “Don’t, Vision, just don’t. It won’t change what happened.”

Reluctantly he accepts it, moving cautiously back to the original topic of their discord, “Is this,” he gestures vaguely around them, “the result of,” it is still hard for him to say, which she appreciates because she can’t say it easily either, “my death?”

“I don’t know,,” this time he seems to accept her ignorance, which allows her a chance to actually consider it more. All she can really recall is the crushing loneliness and the suffocating despair of losing the last person she loved in the world. It’s not a stretch to assume that had something to do with now. “Maybe?” If he knows about his death, she reasons that she might as well tell him the other nightmare she discovered upon her own rebirth, something she’s tried to block out as best she can. “It could also be from finding out some shady government organization was experimenting on your corpse.”

Shock is too gentle a word, hatred a tiny bit too strong for the tone of his voice, “That does not seem like an activity I would condone.”

“It’s the exact opposite of what you requested.” Wanda thinks back to that day, and unlike Vision, pure, unabashed hatred flowed through her veins when she received an anonymous tip. Hatred at S.W.O.R.D, at the scientists going against Vision’s will, hatred at the world for being so awful, and hatred at her teammates who let it happen, who didn’t seem to consider that agencies like that lie, that they would never want the body only for “safe-keeping.” All Vision wanted was a burial and she was determined to provide him that, to allow herself the closure she needed. So she broke in, sickened at the way they’d disassembled him and had separate monitors attached to his limbs and head. “I broke in,” Vision holds his breath as she talks, “I took you from them and all I remember is flying away. I was going to bury you in the forest, like you wanted.” That’s where her memory stops and where Westview begins. “And then we were driving to our house after getting married.” Finally he releases his breath with a shuddering gasp. “That’s all I remember, you have to believe me that I have no idea what’s going on.” Unlike the other night, he wordlessly accepts her ignorance, mind likely still reeling from the revelations she shared. It is this lack of judgment that emboldens her to say what’s been swirling through her mind whenever the knowledge of reality sets in, a thought that should carry with it guilt but she can’t muster up guilt when she finally has what she has been denied over and over again. “But I’d be lying if I tried to convince you that I don’t prefer what we have in Westview.”

With a hand on her back, he leads her to the table, pulling out the chair in front of the barely steaming tea, and then he sits directly next to her, tenderly taking her left hand in his own, thumb rubbing absentmindedly along her wedding ring. “I cannot fault you in any way for that feeling. If not for being complicit in the pain of so many, I would wholly embrace this life we have now.”

His tacit disapproval is only slightly less painful than his yelling, but she has to begrudgingly accept that he may not be completely wrong. Whatever pain he has sensed in others was enough to make him tear through the barrier and risk losing his own family. “But what if,” still she fights against figuring it out, unsure she can handle what it might lead to, “what if fixing this means I lose you again,” which is already incomprehensible, but is made even more harrowing by the next possibility, “what if it means losing Billy and Tommy too?”

Tears lick at the corners of his eyes, a war waging on his lips of how to proceed. “It will be horrifying and it will be immensely difficult but you,” he grabs her other hand, his fingers forming a vice around her own and she isn’t sure if he is trying to convince her or himself more, “are so remarkably resilient.”

Sometimes she wishes his density manipulation applied beyond just his body. “Clearly not, Vizh. Look around us.”

Vision doesn’t, instead he looks down at their enjoined hands, a shaky breath recentering his thoughts. “I think we may be, as they say, putting the cart before the horse.” The verbal shift is so utterly ridiculous that she chuckles, an action that causes him to smile nervously. “Did I use it wrong?”

“No, it just, you always say it so academically.”

“I see.” Finally real, genuine amusement flits across his face. “Well, regardless, we don’t know what is happening, unless there is something you aren’t telling me.” It is not an accusation in the slightest, in fact it is said as an aside, almost hopeful that she’s waiting to surprise him with the solution.

There is a lot she hasn’t said, but none of it seems vital other than perhaps one observation. “I definitely have control here,” this itself is painful to admit. Where he is merely complicit if he remains here, she is actively continuing it, “but, I don’t, I don’t know how to explain it, but I don’t know how I’m doing this.” Vision takes in the admission, brow furrowing as he no doubts files it away in his future mysteries to solve mental folder. “Like tonight,” she thinks back to when Billy told her about the soldiers, to the moment she realized what Vision had done, “All I knew is that I needed to save you because I couldn’t lose you again. I didn’t have any idea of how or what to do, but I felt like if I just put all of my powers into it, that something would happen.”

It’s amazing how easily he transitions into his cool and clinical investigator voice, “Is this the first time you’ve felt that?”

“No. I mean sometimes I have an idea of what I’d like,” such as when she saw the beekeeper come out of the sewer and then vanquished it, “but other times I just have a hope it will be fixed.”

“That is a start.”

Wanda waits for more and when it doesn’t arrive,she pushes for it, “What does that mean?”

He releases her hands and pats his legs, an odd energy reinvigorating in him. “We must figure out the source of these alterations. Clearly it is not just you.” A fact she can’t say for certain but doesn’t have the heart to correct him on, enjoying how it feels like they’re a team again instead of bitter foes. “I met someone tonight who has knowledge of our prior lives.”

This is unexpected and terrifying. Perhaps the only good thing is that she knows it is not Pietro, because she is not willing to trust him, but to be fair, she isn’t sure she can trust whomever Vision found. “Who is it?”

“Her name is Darcy, she says she is an astrophysicist and has a seemingly strong grasp on what happens outside of Westview.”

Vision is not a very strong judge of character all the time, quick to trust and slow to lose hope in a person, as evidenced by his continued trust in her, yet she asks him anyway. “Are you sure we can trust her?”

“I believe so.”

“Okay.” For now she lets him hold on to that belief, knowing that she will be able to assess this person when they meet. Which also means she knows, deep down, that if this person ends up like Monica, one of S.W.O.R.D.'s cronies, that she’ll be forced to take control again.

The sincerity of his “Thank you,” and the tenderness with which he grabs her hand again, bringing it to his lips with a bit too much romantic melodrama, brings about a fluttering warmth in her chest she has so dearly missed, one that chases away all the disparaging thoughts of what is to come, “truly, for your honesty.” Wanda simply smiles in return, not entirely certain her honesty is worth much at the moment.

It is a relief when Vision maneuvers the conversation to a happier topic. “You said Billy could sense me tonight?”

Pride spreads her lips into a toothy grin, “He’s a natural telepath.”

Vision shares her feelings, sitting back with a satisfied smirk. “We shall have to see if he has your telekinesis as well.”

“We will. Also, Tommy has superspeed.”

Vision’s paternal delight perks up his entire body. “Remarkable.”

“They’re pretty impressive.” Wanda finally picks up the tea and takes a sip, not caring it no longer holds any warmth, far too enamored and distracted by Vision launching into a suggestion of a training regime for their sons, the Maximoff family seeming to be front and center in his mind. If there is any kindness in the world, they deserve at least one night to care about themselves and no one else.

#wandavision #wanda maximoff #vision #darcy lewis #scarlet vision #mine

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kinnoth · 4 years ago

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AVENGERS INFINITY WAR MEGATHREAD

-really doubt i'm gonna be able to finish this movie so we'll just see where i get to

- we already know how i feel about loki and thor, we don't need to revisit this

- ok but if i were going to revisit this, i mean come on, who wants to talk about "hela draws her power from asgard, same as you" cos i wanna talk about that

like what if that's the reason thor, god of thunder, king to a civilisation of warriors, was unable to fend off like, 4 dudes and a big purple dinosaur? the royal family of asgard draws its power from asgard, and without it, they are weak, they are mortal. maybe that's why heimdall is unable to just, you know, bifrost everybody off the fucking ship the minute it comes under attack. maybe that's why loki can't fucking conjure up a swarm of fucking microscopic knives to fillet the invaders from the inside out. MAYBE THAT'S WHY LOKI TRIES TO KILL THANOS WITH A FUCKING DAGGER. BECAUSE TAKE AWAY HIS POWER, TAKE AWAY HIS GODHOOD, WHAT DOES HE HAVE LEFT OTHER THAN HIS WILE, HIS TRICKS AND HIS BROTHER

WHAT IF IN SAVING THE UNIVERSE AND DESTROYING ASGARD, THEY'VE LOST EVERYTHING INCLUDING WHAT MAKES THEM GODS

somebody talk about this

- etc etc what if the reason loki is unable to attack the purple dinosaur with magic is because when he tackled thor earlier, he used whatever magic he had left to spare in order to heal him

checks out cos thor goes from flat on his face to swinging his fists in the space of like 30 seconds and the only thing to happen to him in between is said bit about loki tackling him

- why does heimdall save hulk? i mean, i could understand it if he were trying to aim the bifrost at thor and somebody somehow knocked off his aim and he accidentally saves hulk, but like, we've established that heimdall's loyalty is to the royal seat of asgard upon whom sits thor's mighty ass. thor who, in this scene, has just been incapacitated by a metal eggshell(?) and is at the mercy of their assailants. given heimdall's priorities, it is baffling to the point of inconceivability that he would preferentially save fucking HULK over his own king.

- if this next scene isn't the guardians of the galaxy coming across thor clutching loki's dead fucking body floating through space then i don't know why any of us are even here

- "he sent loki! the attack on new york was thanos!" makes no sense? like, if loki's scepter had the mind stone in it, which we established it did in the last movie when we broke it open to retrieve vision, then.....why didn't thanos just....take the mind stone in the first place? cos rock collecting is and has always been his goal?

what, do you think that just because you assert a thing makes us forget all the shit that happened before?

- i.....am actually with tony stark. why don't they just destroy the stones they have so that thanos can't get to them? oh, you made a promise? well promises change and circumstances change! you tell him tony! you tell that stupid fucker --

oh my god i'm gonna be ill

- i think the only person whose ego can match tony stark's is probably a neurosurgeon so 👍 i guess

-i love how we immediately went back to the "so dark can't see shit" aesthetic after ragnorak because ensuring that one's audience can SEE what is HAPPENING IN YOUR MOVIE is apparently for radical directors like taika waititi

- cannot believe that tony stark staring at captain america's phone number is being played with the same emotional intensity as thor losing his soulmate entire people

- honestly how many times is the mcu gonna invoke 9/11 imagery til someone calls them out for being terrorists

- lmao i know i said this before but peter's spidey senses tingling AFTER the giant alien anus has already started sucking up new york and it is right outside his window is fucking hilarious. that's just called using your eyeballs peter

- "friday notify first responders about the giant alien anus sucking up new york" lol like the first thing somebody did when the alien anus showed up wasn't to fucking call 911 GREAT IDEA TONY

- still can't believe that they let failed neurosurgeon dr strange do more magic than god of tricks and sorcery loki lol

- i know i rag on dr strange a lot about the fact that he's a neurosurgeon it's just that he sucks.

as a neurosurgeon eyy.

- i hate that peter parker has to be here!!!!! leave him alone!!!!!

- tony stark should not be allowed within 100 feet of children or minorities

- it is very weird to me that steve "brooklyn" rogers has an area code from georgia

- since when was hela a half-sister? ODIN'S DAUGHTER AND THOR'S BLOODED SIBLINGS OR BUST YOU FUCKING COWARDS

- i am very disappointed that thor is going to go get another weapon after we spent the whole last movie talking about how he is not the god of hammers

- i just need thor to have much more PTSD than he has right now. fucking hulk has ptsd. maybe they're saving the ptsd for later. one can only hope.

- i am glad that they are letting him be cleverer though

- THEY ARE LETTING VISION DATE A TEENAGER WHY

GOD. FUCKING GROSS.

- wait when did vision turn into a white man again? did i miss that movie?

- i am disappointed that vision the computer techno robot apparently has a penis. like what a stupid limitation to give your computer techno robot, gender. 🙄

- i think that the mass destruction of infrastructure and architecture in the MCU is because of the pg13 no blood limitation that disney has set? like there's no way to show destruction to the body, so one may only show the exponential destruction to one's surroundings. like imagine how much more dramatic intensity you could wring out of a regular fight scene would be if people were allowed to bleed?

- cannot believe that a computer techno robot and a witch are having a punch up with the bad guys. of all people to fight with something not their fists, it's these two

- wanda has no enhanced strength or durability? she's a regular teenager who's a bit witchy. the first time she got thrown through a glass door should have shattered her vertebrae. again i don't understand why we insist that everybody must have the same powers and capabilities when it's clear they don't. think about how much more interesting it would be if some avengers were more fragile than others and had to be given accommodations as such

- IT IS INCONCEIVABLE TO ME THAT FUCKING BLACK WIDOW (regular human), CAPTAIN AMERICA (enhanced human), AND FALCON (regular human with wings) CAN DEFEAT THE CHILDREN OF THANOS WHEN THOR COULDN'T UNLESS THOR (god of fucking thunder carved of steel and stone) WAS NERFED

- still don't understand how we'll lend aliens afro features but not afro hair, like, seriously? you're gonna dream up green aliens with gills who look like black people but imagining them with black hair is a step too far?

- the gap of commentary in this liveblog is simply because i do not care at all for the galaxy defenders

- "earth just lost her best defender" who? who does captain america consider earth's best defender? it's not thor; he doesn't know thor's presumed dead. it's not tony; he doesn't know tony's on an alien anus. who else has died so far?

- love how exhausted bucky looks. have always loved how exhausted bucky looks. love bucky.

- i forgot that tony was with peter parker. god i hate that.

- "i'm peter btw"

"dr strange"

"oh you're using the made up names then. i'm spider man"

ok that was cute, but peter's cute, we knew that already

- i want to fling both strange and stark into space and i'm having a hard time deciding which one to push first

- "you went to bed hungry, scraping for scraps" oohhhh thanos is just anti-poor people, he would literally rather poor people be dead than struggle, i get it nowww

this is on brand for mcu

- oh my god thanos gets 2/6 stones by torturing siblings in front of other siblings, seriously? you couldn't come up with 6 different ways to find his stupid rocks you had to reuse one twice?

- which one of thor's friends was stabbed through the heart....? fandral??

- "if i don't get my vengeance what more could i lose" more like what else is there eh? what else is there for a king of no people but their vengeance?

- CANNOT BELIEVE THEY GAVE HIM BACK AN EYEBALL JESUS CHRIST IF YOU DIDN'T LIKE THOR RAGNORAK JUST SAY SO YOU DIDN'T HAVE TO FUCKING

VEHICLE FOR AUTHORITARIANISM, NOTHING IS ALLOWED TO CHANGE, FUCK YOUR CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT I GOT MINE

FUCK

- i do enjoy that thor is now science fiction rather than fantasy, i don't think anybody knew what to do with fantasy cos fantasy is again, ultimately about conservatism and the status quo. so i do like that we're embracing the new and boundless for whatever that's worth.

- marvel is a cesspool of toxic masculinity. at no point are characters allowed to actually feel anything because weakness is uncool i guess and therefore unmanful. like thor lost ALL OF HIS PEOPLE. fucking ALL of them. he watched his brother die in order to save him. he is not allowed a single fucking response of mourning. i don't care if he's pushing it back because revenge or whatever, this is the sort of grief that rules you, which will bring all your load bearing structures down to heel, and they let him do nothing; he does not even rage. perfect control. smooth witticisms. why. why aren't we allowed to see his sadness?

- yo i can't believe red skull is a scifi villain now lol space nazis for real

- OH MY GOD THEY WASHED BUCKY'S WIG AND IT LOOKS SO BAD

- michael b jordan was right btw wakanda is complicit in africa's exploitation

- i do LIKE black panther i guess in the way you technically like that cousin you met once when you were like 9 and never saw again?

i like how we have here in wakanda the sears tower (chicago), the batman building (nashville), and the gherkin (london)

- ok but like, presumably not a death cult super technologically advanced wakandans who are deffo made of human flesh and human blood still arm their people with spears

i mean unless wakanda is also a death cult

why is this chicks entire fucking face cgi'd she looks like a fucking cut scene video game character

- oh ok they have LASER spears, ok

so then why did they give bucky a fucking gun

- what is bucky supposed to be able to contribute here exactly, like fucking, again, he's spycraft isn't he? he's a one man, dead of night, operation go loud and then immediately silent kinda operation. why do they have him on the front lines of a fucking lock-step formation battle??

- "it will be the noblest ending in history" WHAT, FIRST COUNTRY TO EVER BE OVERUN BY ALIEN JACKALS??

- stormbreaker is just leviathan axe, somebody's said this already right

- omfg i'm so glad they're finally acknowledging that thor is OP as fuck and does not belong amongst the fucking squabbles of earth

-"titan was like most planets, too many mouths to feed not enough to go around, so i proposed a plan, dispassionate to rich and poor alike" JUST SAY YOU HATE POOR PEOPLE MCU. YOU CANNOT HAVE RICH AND POOR, YOU CANNOT HAVE DISPARITY, YOU CANNOT HAVE SOME WITH TOO MUCH AND OTHERS WITH NOT ENOUGH AND CALL IT EXTINCTION. THAT IS NOT A QUESTION OF OVERTAXED RESOURCES THAT IS A QUESTION OF RESOURCE FUCKING MANAGEMENT. IT IS AN ARTIFICIAL CRISIS IF THERE EXISTS ENOUGH TO GO AROUND BUT SOME PEOPLE ARE JUST HOARDING IT THAT'S WHEN YOU KILL THOSE PEOPLE AND TAKE THEIR SHARE. KILLING HALF THE PEOPLE IS THE KIND OF FUCKING SOLUTION TO INEQUALITY THAT RICH PEOPLE COME UP WITH

GOD. ITS LIKE NONE OF YOU EVER READ

-you've got the big fucking boss in an ambush AND YOU ATTACK HIM WITH A MAGIC SWORD STEVEN STRANGE?????

THIS FRANCHISE HAS NO IDEA HOW TO UTILISE MAGIC USERS FUCKING HELL

- when will somebody please utilise ironman like the one man artillery he fucking is WHY IS HE FIGHTING WITH HIS STUPID FISTS HE IS LITERALLY ONE CONTINUOUS CARPET BOMB JUST USE HIM THAT WAY

cut of his arm CUT OFF HIS ARM YOU BLOODLESS SPINELESS USELESS FUCKING CUNTS . this is a manufactured crisis, KIND OF LIKE THE ONES THANOS LIKES I GUESS LOL

- dr strange could have very easily prevented or stopped quill from punching thanos but he didn't cos i guess even the movie forgets steven strange exists sometimes

- i like that the shield around wakanda has the same weakness as a poorly constructed chicken coop -- you always build into the ground a couple feet to stop the diggers man, come on, what is this, your first energy shield?

- oh disgusting, a girl boss moment. whatever you're all fascists.

- nobody adores martial might like fascists do fucking change my mind

- " avengers: not one person in this fucking cast is able to stomach ANY AMOUNT of personal sacrifice" more like

- "why did you give away the time stone?" "we are in the endgame" THAT'S NOT AN ANSWER THAT'S A FUCKING MOVIE TEASER FUCK YOU

- why didn't strange just trap thanos in a timeloop again? we've already established that is a perfectly acceptable way to deal with planetary annihilation. IS IT POSSIBLY BECAUSE NOBODY ON THIS WRITING STAFF KNOWS HOW TO DEAL WITH MAGIC

- THOR OP BLIZZARD PLS NERF

-CAPTAIN MARVEL SERIOUSLY THAT'S WHO YOU'RE GONNA SEND YOUR LAST PAGE TO JESUS FUCKING DISGUSTING

#the asshole liveblogs #avengers infinity war #internal thor tag

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alarawriting · 4 years ago

Text

Writeober #3: Bone

Gerlach Schwartztern cackled maniacally as he felt the bindings keeping him out of the world faltering. He had expected this, ever since he’d seen that the historical building where the ritual had been performed was scheduled to be knocked down. There had been three days of demolition, and finally, the sacred circle at the center had been breached. He was free!

“Hey! You! This is a hardhat area! You can’t be in here!”

Gerlach shuffled around – being bound out of reality, able only to see what was transpiring, without having muscles to move, had done no good for his physique, and all his muscles were stiff beyond belief – to see a man in a bright yellow helmet and a shining orange vest, yelling at him.

“Dost thou know to whom thou speaketh?” he said, smiling cruelly, raising his own bony fingers as he prepared to teach the fool a lesson.

“Come on, asshole. Don’t give me that Scadian shit,” the man said. “You need to get off the grounds. It’s not safe.”

“Unsafe for whom?” Gerlach laughed, and reached out with his power. He called out to the dead buried below and all around to rise from their graves.

Nothing happened.

“Unsafe for you, asshole. You. Did I stutter? Get the hell out of here before I have to call the cops.”

Where were the dead?

Now that he was looking for them, he couldn’t feel them. In the Old World, there had been skeletons everywhere. But he’d had to flee the witchfinders – not the idiots who accused old women with black cats and herbal knowledge of being witches, but the ones with real power, who hunted those with real magic – so he’d taken passage to the New World, four hundred years ago.

Life was hard, then. Many colonists died, and their skeletons became his servants. He’d terrorized the colonists and the natives alike… until mages of both groups had teamed up against him. The natives had used their magic to confine him within a single town, herding him to the colonist mages, who’d bound him and locked him outside the world so long as the runes and symbols they’d carved in the stone under a church floor remained intact.

Now that the church was demolished, and the stone broken, Gerlach was free. He’d been able to see the world from his prison outside it; he’d seen the population explode. Surely the dead must be everywhere! People still died in this brave new world, did they not?

“Very well, knave. I shall leave, if you direct me to a graveyard.”

The man in the yellow hat sighed. “I don’t have to do this,” he said. “You’ve been an ass. But fine. The new church that replaced this one is about two miles down the road, and it has a graveyard. I think you have to turn right on Whitman – or I dunno, maybe it’s Baker? One of those streets. Go in about three blocks, you’ll find the church, and the graveyard’s across the street.”

“Then there I shall go,” Gerlach said, picking up his robes – they were dragging in the dust of the construction – and walking toward the gate in the fence. An interesting fence, that, made of wires woven together loosely.

“Thank you is a thing, asshole!” the man called after him, but Gerlach did not thank his inferiors.

***

It took far longer to find the church than the knave’s directions suggested. Gerlach was calling down curses on the man’s entire family unto the seventh generation by the time he finally found it, his legs and feet screaming at him for making them perform so much work after just being embodied again.

But there it was. The graveyard. And now he could feel the dead, lurking below, waiting for his call. With them at his command, he would rule over this town – and others. As the dead came to answer him, he would grow in power, and he would be able to call more and more of them as his power expanded. Eventually he would rule over this entire nation. Perhaps even the world.

Gerlach took a deep breath, and then called to the dead.

He felt them respond, felt skeletons restless in coffins push against the lids.

And push.

“What transpires here?” he roared. “You should be rising from your graves! I have called you, and you must come!”

Skeletons still pushed against coffin lids.

“Why can you not come forth?!”

Some skeletons broke their wrists and fingers trying to push open their coffin lids. None of them succeeded in actually opening anything.

Gerlach tried for hours. And then he walked to another graveyard and tried again. Still the dead could not open their coffins. Gerlach was furious. Back in the Old World, only the most wealthy had even had coffins. And they were decorated wooden boxes that a sufficiently motivated skeleton could punch through. Here in the New World, four hundred years after arriving, apparently skeletons were all contained in unbreakable coffins.

He sank to his knees on the ground and screamed, his dreams of conquest dying just like the skeletons trapped in unbreakable coffins, and just as unlikely to rise under his power.

***

Elias Whittaker was furious.

The city had concealed the plans to demolish the old church until he was out of the country, and then gone through with the destruction. He hadn’t known about it until his daughter drove by the place and saw it destroyed. It had been a month.

None of the records of the Whittaker family, passed down from father to son (or daughter in some cases), had said anything about Gerlach Schwarztern being a patient and crafty man. A brilliant necromancer, yes, but he’d named himself Black Star in German for gods’ sake. He was not the type to lay low. So why hadn’t the city fallen to walking skeletons yet?

Could it be that Schwarztern had died in his prison, or perhaps died the moment he re-entered the world and time began for him again? Maybe all the aging he hadn’t done while he was trapped caught up with him at once.

But Elias didn’t think that was likely. From everything he’d read in the family tomes, carefully preserved for four hundred years, the crafters of the spell hadn’t thought it would do that. They had warned, over and over, of the danger should the binding circle they’d carved into the rock ever break or wear. All of them had passed on the knowledge to their children, but between illness, war, and adult children’s desire to strike out west to make a new life for themselves, far away from their parents… Now the Whittaker family was the only one left.

Elias had been on the Board for Historical Preservation, had argued for years that that tiny run-down little church needed to be preserved exactly as the city’s founders had left it, that it was nearly 400 years old and was a view backward into a past that America had almost lost, the early days of the colonies. And what happened? The moment he was out of the country, the rest of the Board caved in like a wet tissue and let the city government have its way. They were going to put up some mixed-use development there, townhomes and offices and retail all mixed together, somehow. And that was worth letting an ancient necromancer free in a world where almost no one remembered that magic existed, or how to invoke it. Right.

But there was nothing Elias could find to indicate that Schwartztern had escaped. No graveyards were disturbed. No records of dead people getting up and walking. No disturbances at the morgue.

His daughter Rebecca found something—a record of an old man who’d been caught in the Jewish graveyard, obviously digging up graves because several graves had shown signs that the dirt had been interfered with, holes and clods and piles of dirt all over the graves. The elderly caretaker for the graveyard was still spry enough to shoot at an anti-Semite committing a hate crime, though. Rebecca reported that the old caretaker didn’t know if he’d actually hit the man in the tattered black coat or not, but that if he had, he must have only winged him, because the man had run without sign of injury. Since then, members of the Jewish community had been taking turns helping him guard the graveyard, with their own guns, and there had been no further disturbance.

Oddly, the fellow hadn’t left a shovel behind, but Ira Friedburg, the caretaker, had never seen him carrying one, either. Maybe it was under his coat, and the bullet had hit it instead of the man.

Of course, Elias knew why Schwartztern hadn’t needed a shovel. The graves had been disturbed from the inside. But why had the Jewish graveyard been affected, and not the much less well-guarded Catholic and Protestant ones? Schwartztern might well have been an anti-Semite, considering that in that time period almost everyone was, but he had never shown a preference for any specific type of corpse.

For the first time in his life Elias was grateful for the Second Amendment. Gerlach couldn’t know of any firearm technology more advanced than maybe a musket. A small weapon that fired deadly ammunition with terrifying accuracy and speed was nothing Gerlach Schwartztern could have any experience with. And the Jewish graveyard had suffered enough hate crimes that the caretaker patrolled it with a gun, regularly, and was small enough that Schwartztern hadn’t managed to raise a single body before being caught at it.

It was frustrating and maddening. He searched for three months. No sign of Schwartztern anywhere. Had the man left town? Was he right now trying to raise the dead in New York City or Washington DC or something? Had he returned to his homeland? Wait, no, he couldn’t have done that without a passport.

In desperation Elias started going around to funeral homes, asking them if they’d seen a man of Schwartztern’s description – long graying hair, a long beard, pale skin, aquiline features, crooked teeth. None of them had.

Until Elias went to Baron and Sons Funeral Home, and was met at the door by a man who looked exactly like the portraits of Schwartztern that had been passed down, if the man had gotten a modern haircut, a shave, and gotten his teeth straightened.

Elias’ eyes widened. “Gerlach Schwartztern?”

The man looked surprised. “There’s not many who know me by that name,” he said, and called back into the funeral home. “Mr. Baron, there’s a man here who wants to speak to me specifically. I’ll take a break to talk to him and then return to the clock.”

“Sure, that sounds fine,” a man’s voice called back.

“How are you – Why are you – What, did you find religion while you were trapped? You were freed almost four months ago,” Elias hissed. “But you’ve raised nothing.”

“Not entirely true,” Schwartztern said. He had a thick accent, but it wasn’t quite placeable – which made sense, because it was from another country 400 years ago. His English, though, sounded plausibly modern for a foreigner. “Let us walk to the back.”

“Where the graves are, and where you can attack me?” Elias snapped.

Schwartztern shook his head. “There is a contemplation garden for the grieving. No funerals are scheduled now, so it is unoccupied. We can talk without interruption.”

Oh. Right. There wasn’t a cemetery anywhere near the funeral home. That was why funeral processions were a thing. He followed the ancient necromancer, bemused, to the garden. “Did you forget your powers? Or lose them?”

“I assume from your knowledge of my name that you were one of the guardians my captors must have left behind to keep me contained,” Schwartztern said. “You may call me Gerlach Schwartz now, though. Or simply Gerlach. Apparently this new age is one of great informality. And yet they don’t even use ‘thou’ anymore.”

“Uh, yeah, we got rid of that a while back,” Elias said. “And you’re correct. My family has been keeping watch. Everything I’ve read said to expect an insane necromancer who would do anything to rule over the living with the power of the dead. But here you are in a building with… maybe two dead people?”

“There are four corpses here, in fact, but you’re correct. Four corpses is far from enough to conquer a town with.”

“What happened?”

“Modern caskets,” Gerlach said simply. “In my day, only the wealthy were even interred in a coffin; most bodies were lowered into the bare ground. Apparently since that time everyone who dies is buried in an impregnable sepulcher called a ‘casket’, or they are burned to ash… except for the Jews, who bury their dead in wooden boxes that I could at least work with, before the Jew fired his weapon at me.”

He shook his head. “The weapons they have in this time! It would never work, raising the dead, not now. I have been watching some of their movies—” He put a strange emphasis on the word. “So many tales of dead rising and biting the living to make them a risen corpse as well. And in these tales, everyone has one of these terrifying weapons, and they can entirely destroy a corpse with them. Perhaps a skeleton would be more difficult to hit, but with sufficient ordinance, they would prevail over my skeletons as well. The creators of these tales added the part where the dead can bite and their bite kills to make it a believable tragedy, else none would believe that enough firepower could not overwhelm even the dead.”

Elias rather thought no one had done anything to the plots of zombie movies to make them believable, but he could see how a necromancer might have a different opinion. “So you’re telling me you’ve given up. That I don’t need to kill you or capture you because you aren’t interested in raising the dead to conquer, anymore.”

Gerlach laughed. “Interested, perhaps. But it will not work, and this I now know. There are far more dead today, but that is because there are far, far more living, and they greatly outnumber the dead. Most of the dead are locked away in boxes far too strong for a skeleton to break open. I know, for I have made them try, and try again.” He shrugged. “So it is not practical. And it is also hardly necessary.”

“Why unnecessary?”

“Men live like kings in your time, young man.” Elias was not a young man – he might actually be older than Gerlach was when he was trapped – but this didn’t seem like something worth arguing to a man born over 450 years ago. “You need no servants to bring you hot water for your bath – simply turn a knob, and hot water comes forth! Food of any kind can be had at any time, no matter the season! Music can play anywhere, whether musicians are there to play it, or not. Entertainments as rich as the plays put on for kings can play endlessly, never repeating, on a box of light in your home – a home which is heated in the winter and cooled in the summer, and both are done evenly, throughout the home, without risk of fire. And there are treatments for lice.”

That explained the shorter hair. “So you’re, what? Trying to be a good tax-paying citizen now?”

“I am told there will be great, great difficulties in becoming a citizen, as I cannot present papers to prove what nation I was born in, or what date, or when I came to this land. Apparently I am an ‘illegal immigrant’, and if I am found by the authorities, they will deport me… somewhere. Since my own nationality no longer even exists, I have no idea where. But my employers here are sympathetic.” He nodded at the funeral home. “I came here because I thought the presence of the dead plus the title Baron meant another necromancer was here, but that was not the case… as I suspect you know well. They’ve arranged for me to work here and learn their trade, for there are many techniques of preserving the dead that exist now but did not, in my day. Apparently they are paying me ‘under the table’, an expression I understand not, except to say it is a means of paying one with no papers to prove their identity.”

“It means they’re paying you in cash and not taking out your taxes, so I guess you’re not a taxpayer after all.”

“In my day, taxes were paid in grain.”

“Sometimes money is referred to as ‘bread’ in this day and age, but the days when you could actually pay tax in grain are long behind us.”

“I do realize that,” Gerlach said. “Have I satisfied your curiosity? Do you understand now that I present no threat to your world?”

“And you use your necromancy here?”

“As God witness, no, why would I do that? They have techniques for moving bodies and they know nothing of magic. If I were to use the power I have over the dead, now, it would perhaps be as a detective, who can hunt down dead bodies after they are murdered and hidden away by the murderer. I have watched many entertainments about detectives,” he said, in a tone as if he were telling a salacious secret. “In my day the profession didn’t exist, but today it seems a very popular job. I wonder that any murderers can go free, with so many detectives.”

“It’s… not actually that popular in real life. People just like stories about detectives. They like to see a mystery presented to them, so they can try to solve it, or enjoy watching the detective solve it.”

“Ah. Well, I have much to learn about this new world before I dare leave this job,” Gerlach said. “They provide me with a room here to live in, upstairs, but for food and clothing and a box for entertainments I must pay my own way.”

Elias shook his head in complete bemusement. All of the effort he’d put into, his whole life, to keep the necromancer contained, and this was what Gerlach did when he got free. “Well, there’s nothing I can charge you with and nothing you’re doing that warrants my interference… but I will be watching you.”

“That would be delightful!” Gerlach said. “It grows tedious sometimes, to have no acquaintances I can share knowledge of the past with, or my necromancy. You would make an excellent companion!”

I have worked all my life to keep this man in prison and he wants to be my friend. Well, it would help Elias make sure that Gerlach was continuing to not be a threat. “Fine, I’ll come take you out to lunch sometime.”

“I look forward to it greatly!”

As Elias left, he wondered how he was going to explain any of this to Rebecca.

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

From @writing-prompt-s, “ An ancient evil awakens to destroy humanity, only to find out he is no match for modern technology, thus forcing him to become a functioning member of society. “

#writeober 2020 #alara's october 2020 prompt fics #writing-prompt-s

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anubislover · 5 years ago

Text

Super Drake

“Nami? Robin?” Chopper called, glancing around the busy shopping district of Sabaody. He’d been momentarily distracted by a candy shop window; there was a cotton candy display shaped like a giant sakura tree. He’d spent a few moments drooling over it before he realized Nami and Robin—who must not have realized he’d stopped—had disappeared into the crowd.

The pint-sized pirate tried to duck and weave between the legs of the various people that walked past, but for the most part he just ended up bumping into them and getting knocked around. Besides that, with his height, it was hard to pick out Nami’s bright orange hair or Robin’s sharp features in the crowd. He considered transforming into his larger humanoid form, but that risked frightening unsuspecting shoppers.

So, he was stuck on a busy street, lost, with no idea where his crewmembers might have gone or if they even realized he was missing.

The little reindeer started to panic, running back and forth, crying for his nakama. His little hoof caught a stray stone, and with a yelp he pitched forward, blue nose bumping hard into the ground as he fell on his face. “Ow!”

“Are you ok?” came a deep, unfamiliar voice.

Whimpering and trying not to cry from embarrassment, Chopper nodded as the stranger helped him up. “Fine. Just lost,” he said with a sniffle, straightening his hat. He shouldn’t cry. Zoro never cried when he got lost. Probably because he was used to it, but still.

Composing himself and knowing he should thank the man before trying to find Nami and Robin, the small doctor looked up.

And up.

And up a few more feet until he finally could see the face of an enormous masked man frowning down at him with concern. He had an X-shaped scar on his chin, red sideburns, and a hard jaw, and his skintight, leather outfit was all blue, except for a black and red cape.

The man’s brow furrowed beneath the shadow of his pointed hat. “A tiny thing like you in this crowd? Of course you’re lost.”

Nervous and a little ashamed, Chopper kicked the ground lightly, knocking the pebble that had tripped him across the street. “It’s not like I meant to,” he grumbled under his breath.

“Are you trying to get to a specific place?”

“No, just trying to find my nakama. We got separated.”

The crowd gave the large man and tiny reindeer a wide berth, making it far easier for Chopper to get his bearings, but he still couldn’t see much over everyone’s heads. At this rate, he’d have to climb onto a roof or something in hopes of spotting his friends, but that didn’t mean his tiny legs would be fast enough to catch up. Perhaps he could turn into his full reindeer form…

Chopper jumped as the stranger replied, “Dangerous thing to happen in a place like this.” Crouching down so they could better speak face-to-face, he peered at him inquisitively. “Now I know where I’ve seen you; you’re the Straw Hat’s pet. What are you, if I may ask? Zoology’s a hobby of mine, but I’ve never seen anything like you. Are you a breed of tanuki?”

“I’m a reindeer and the ship’s doctor!” he snapped, stomping one of his hooves in annoyance. It was bad enough the Navy classified him as a pet instead of a full-fledged pirate, but people getting his species wrong was just as insulting.

“Ah. That explains the antlers. In my defense, I’ve never met a talking reindeer before.”

“Have you met any talking tanuki’s either?” Chopper countered.

With a chuckle, the man shook his head. “I suppose not. Nor have I met a doctor version of either. Straw Hat’s crew is certainly an interesting one.”

Chopper blinked as he finally registered that the man had recognized him as a Straw Hat, which meant he’d seen his wanted poster. Was he looking to turn him in? If Robin and Nami came looking for him now, would they be in danger? Hatchan had warned them that Sabaody was a dangerous place, with slavers and Marines and other unsavory folk. He started to sweat, realizing this man could very well be more dangerous than he seemed.

The man seemed to sense his concern. “It’s smart of you not to trust so easily, but I promise, I’m only trying to help. I read about what Straw Hat did when Nico Robin was taken; I would be a fool to kidnap his doctor.”

Narrowing his eyes suspiciously, Chopper slowly nodded. “Ok. But if you hurt my nakama, it won’t just be Luffy you have to worry about,” he said sternly.

Lip twitching upwards for a brief moment, the man nodded solemnly. “I understand. Here,” he said, grabbing the miniature doctor around the waist like a child as he stood, lifting him up so he could see over the crowd. “Can you see them?”

Blinking, Chopper took a moment to scan over the tops of the swarm of peoples’ heads, grinning when he spotted Robin and Nami, who were looking around frantically. “I see them! About a hundred feet in front of us! Two human women—one has black hair and is carrying books, and the other has red hair like yours!”

The tall man lowered him down to rest on his shoulder. “Hold onto my cape. I don’t trust you not getting stepped on or lost again before we reach your friends.” Quickly, he pushed through the crowd, his large bulk easily cutting through the dense sea of people.

Settling against him and burying his hooves into the soft fabric, Chopper sighed in relief. “Thanks. What’s your name, by the way?”

The man seemed to hesitate. “X Drake.”

“I’m Tony Tony Chopper! It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Drake!”

A small grin curled his mouth. “It’s Captain Drake, actually.”

“Oh, sorry about that. It’s nice to meet you, Captain Drake!”

With Drake’s long legs, they caught up to the Straw Hat women easily. Nami was practically beside herself trying to figure out where the little reindeer had gone to, muttering terrified ramblings about kidnapping and bounty hunters to herself. Robin was much more subdued, though from the way her arms were crossed, Chopper could tell she was concentrating on opening eyes and ears on every wall between there and where they’d last seen him.

“Excuse me, Miss? Is this yours?” Drake asked, gently tapping Nami on the shoulder.

Turning around, the navigator’s face lit up in relief as Chopper was dropped into her arms. “Chopper!” she exclaimed, hugging him tightly to her chest as if her were a lost teddy bear. “Oh my God, we were so worried about you! I’m so sorry; we thought you were right behind us!”

“You should be more careful, doctor-san,” Robin chastised, but her smile and the gentle way she patted his head told him she was relieved he was safe.

“Sorry. There was a cotton candy display that caught my eye, and by the time I noticed you were gone, there were too many people in the way to see you. Good thing I had help!” he said, pointing at Drake.

Both women’s eyes widened in clear recognition; the two were avid readers of the paper and were smart enough to keep an eye on potential rival pirates.

Nami hugged Chopper a little closer, ready to make a run for it, while Robin daintily crossed her arms again, her calm, polite smile never faltering. “Well, we appreciate you aiding our dear shipmate, Captain X Drake.”

“Wait, you know him?” Chopper asked, innocently confused.

“Only by reputation,” Nami replied, frowning suspiciously as her free hand drifted to the batons strapped to her thigh. She may not have been much of a fighter, but she was ready to pull out every trick she knew to protect her trusting crewmate.

For his part, Drake found himself wishing they had been as ignorant to his identity as a pirate as Chopper—it had felt nice, being looked up to again, even if just by a small reindeer. He fondly remembered children from villages he saved from pirates beaming at him, shamelessly following him around while whispering to each other about whether or not they should talk to him.

Since he’d become a pirate, those whispers had taken on a more fearful tone, and children didn’t smile at him anymore.

Concerned at the sudden tension in the air, Chopper studied his savior closely. Sure, he was dressed pretty unusually, but he didn’t look like a Marine, or even a pirate. At least, most of the pirates he’d met had been dressed far more comfortably. Maybe he was one of those “brave warriors of the sea” Usopp would tell him stories about? But then why would Robin and Nami be afraid of him?

A sharp wind blew past, lifting Drake’s cape, and a particular story Usopp had told him popped into his head, making everything click into place.

“Wait…you’re a superhero, aren’t you?” Chopper asked, eyes lighting up with wonder.

“…a what?”

The younger pirate was too thrilled to notice the others’ confusion. Of course! It explained everything! Usopp had told him about men who wore capes and masks, wandering cities helping people in distress. He always described them as big and strong in elaborate, skintight costumes, too. And it would explain why Robin and Nami were so on-edge; superheroes arrested criminals, and pirates typically counted, especially cat burglars and fugitives.

Despite the danger such a realization should have invoked, Chopper was too starstruck to care. “I got rescued by a real superhero! Captain X Drake!” he said excitedly, sparkles glimmering around his head.

“No, Chopper, he’s—” Nami started, but Robin stopped her.

“Yes, thank you for your help, superhero-san,” the archeologist said with a knowing smile, unwilling to dampen her friend’s innocent excitement. Besides, Drake could have easily kidnapped their companion instead of helpfully returning him, and the poor man looked so utterly bewildered at the praise she couldn’t help but be amused.

The Supernova blushed, and Nami, catching on, gave a cat-like grin. She was still suspicious, of course, but she trusted Robin’s judgement. Plus, the little pirate in her arms was practically vibrating with glee, and it was easier to escape from a flustered man, anyway. “Oh, yes, thank you, Captain Drake!” she giggled with a wink. “You really saved the day!”

Still gazing at the man with wonder, Chopper gushed, “Can I have your autograph?!”

Drake sputtered in disbelief, “You want my autograph?!”

“Yeah! Usopp and Luffy’ll never believe I met a real superhero otherwise!”

For a moment, he looked like he was going to refuse, but Robin’s dangerous smile and Nami’s protective glare made him faulter. His resolve weakened further when he looked down at the little reindeer’s hopeful face. Tugging his hat down a little lower over his head in hopes that the shadow would better hide his blush, he replied, “I don’t suppose you have a pen and paper?”

“Here, you can sign this,” Robin said, pulling a piece of parchment out of her bag. She folded the top and bottom fourths before carefully ripping them off, handing the paper to him.

A large sweatdrop ran down the back of Drake’s head. In his hands was his bounty poster, but with the WANTED and reward sections conspicuously torn off. He glanced up, ready to argue that this probably wasn’t the best thing for him to sign, but Nami pointedly shoving a pen in his face kept him quiet.

With a sigh he carefully signed his name across the upper-right corner, handing it to Chopper to inspect. The small pirate’s beaming grin could have rivaled the sun, and Drake felt his heart swell a bit with pride. The whole situation was ridiculous, but he’d endured worse than a little embarrassment.

And even if he hadn’t, that smile would still make it worthwhile.

“An autograph from a real superhero,” Chopper whispered with wonder, holding the poster gingerly so his hooves didn’t risk smearing the still-wet ink. “Thank you!”

“You’re…welcome. Be more careful and stick with your friends,” he said, awkwardly rubbing the back of his neck.

“Well, after that little adventure, I think we need something sweet,” Robin said, ushering Nami and Chopper down the busy street. Tossing a wink over her shoulder, she added, “And I’m sure superhero-san has many other people to save.”

“Uh, yes, I um…need to go patrol the streets for evildoers,” he replied lamely.

“You do that,” Nami said, patting Chopper’s head fondly. “Thanks again for helping our shipmate.”

“Yeah, thanks again, Captain Drake!” the reindeer called over Nami’s shoulder, waving one of his hooves eagerly, the other still tightly clutching the autographed poster.

With a wave of his own, Drake made his way back up the street, a small grin lifting the corners of his mouth. He was far from a superhero, but it was a nice reminder that, despite giving up his old life and reputation, he wasn’t entirely a pirate, either.

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starswordartblog · 4 years ago

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Super duper late thing for @oc-growth-and-development OCtober day 14, Cornered. I was super busy this week.

This can be read on its own but it’s a direct sequel to Day 4′s piece. Because tumblr is tumblr I’ll put a link to that in a reblog.

Also, content warning for religious trauma, I think? I did not base the Cavesong Cult on anything real but I think some warning is necessary for this.

Silvana didn't know why the men of the Cavesong Cult had her cornered. She was a simple village woman in the middle of her daily chores, getting some water from the river through her usual path, one familiar enough for her to navigate in her blindness.

"Miss Silvana, it's an honor to finally be in your divine presence," one of them said, voice trembling with delight.

"Um, excuse me?" She tried her best to hold back the shocked yelp she wanted to give, it would probably be rude around those important men. "I'm sorry but you must be mistaking me for someone else, I'm, I'm no holy woman, I'm but a humble villager under the grace of our God," she explained. No one had been forced to join the cult, but the people all came to accept the Cavesong God in some way. After all, His followers brought prosperity to all the villages in the area in name of their God, and had their magic as proof of His power. The more His influence spread, the more dangerous it seemed to be to invoke His wrath, and some defiant people had already paid the price, having been cursed with bad luck or illness or dried out crops.

"Oh, but you have been chosen to be so much more," the man said, getting close enough to caress her face. She recoiled from the sudden touch, and the man grabbed her by the arm. "There's no need to be afraid. You will finally be saved. You will be the next priestess."

"N-no, I..." the whimper of protest came out before she could stop it. She trembled in his strong grasp, terrified of what could happen if she upset him.

He pressed a finger to her lips. "Now, why would you deny it? God has chosen you to bless all the people in this land. If you reject your duties, surely terrible things will befall the village. You wouldn't do that to your people, would you?"

Why her? The priestess was vital to them. She would seclude herself in the holy grounds and dedicate body and mind to God and magic, securing their holy powers. Even the common people had several prayers to thank her for such an important role.

Why would they chose one this way? How could she shoulder all that? She would fail one way or the other.

But shaken by the man's words, she couldn't find it in herself to voice any more fears. She let herself be dragged away, head low to hide the fearful tears forming in her eyes.

She had never walked that far in her life, so she had no clue where they were anymore, she could only assume she had been taken to the holy grounds in the mountains, where the cult had been born. It was said it was once only a cave, but with magic, they had turned it into a mighty sanctuary, overseeing the passage between the region they oversaw and the rest of the world.

If any of the men had seen her cry, they had thankfully said nothing. She had had time to get used to their voices by then, they were four besides the men who held her, and didn't have the same grave tone as him. In fact, they sounded relaxed, complaining that the priest was getting a bit too paranoid sending so many to escort a single lady, and playfully joking about how special she was. To her humiliation she had also heard they laugh at her tripping countless times along the way, as she struggled to keep up with the hurried man pulling her along.

"Be at ease," he said, to no effect, "there will be no need for you to see or walk. You will only have to listen."

The words hadn't become any clearer or less ominous by the time they finally arrived. At first she heard their fellow holy men greet them, and felt the air change as they came indoors. Then all noise died down. The men behind her no longer cracked jokes or said anything at all, even their footsteps sounded more regular. Were they approaching the priestess' dwelling? She didn't know what to expect. Not for the first time she wondered what had happened to the priestess to start all of that.

She heard someone close a heavy door behind her, and the man who had guided her spoke.

"We have brought her, holy priest."

That actually gave her small relief. She knew the priest. Not only did he often preach in the village and lead the cult's magical effort, he had helped her personally when she needed the most, when she buried her old mother a mere year ago. Maybe with him there things could be cleared up, she was sure it had been only some big mistake.

She was pulled further into the room, her escort having adjusted himself to be at her side instead of in front as he had been so far.

She heard something in front of her move, the scratching noise of rock against rock. It grazed against her mouth, and the man finally let go of her arm to instead grab her head and press her against the stone shape.

"You will not talk," said the voice in front of her. She could barely recognize it as the priest's voice. It had no warmth, no energy, and was followed by a raspy noise.

"You will not run. You will not fight. You will not ask or beg. You will not cry. You will not harm yourself. You will not wish or desire. Should you do that, you and your village will be punished until not even rubble remains. No one will come for you. You will be proclaimed dead tonight, any sighting of you a haunt to be banished."

The stone shifted slightly, scratching her lips. Her arm ached. Her legs trembled. He continued in the same grave, monotonous voice.

"You will kneel in the depths of that cave, until your hear God's voice. You will listen, and the only words that will escape your lips will be His. You will listen to His songs, His magic. You will listen to His every whisper and secret. You will listen until you can tell all of His miracles, His cures to every ailment."

The stone pulled back. Her legs gave in, though her escort caught her by both arms this time, twice as inescapable. Once again she let herself be dragged by him, with no tears this time. She was shocked well past that.

Before walking away without a word, the man set her body to sit against some rocks, but she let it slip and fall to the floor without resistance. Without resistance was her chosen behavior for the day, and possibly her life from there on. It wasn't that part that bothered. She knew she was weak, every peasant should accept that from birth. She didn't mind bowing to higher powers, facing unfair hardships, and being dragged into pointless things. Her entire life was pointless, and it had been peaceful and lovely just like that.

This fate however, was a cruel mockery of her. Thrown into a fancy title, passed around by cruel people who expected so much of her, things she couldn't do. No humbleness, no peace, some futile turmoil where everyone would be doomed. What would happen when she failed, as she was obvious no real priestess? Who would be hurt? How many would be hurt? Why would they hurt the villagers for her mistakes, she had no family anymore and was too shy to have close friends, no one had reason to be involved in this, why not just her? She'd gladly stay with them if they didn't touch anyone else, why make her shoulder so much?

Footsteps approached, and someone wordlessly left a bowl next to her, leaving immediately after that. She recognized the smell of common fruits, freshly peeled. The fruits she grew herself in her small patch of land, the ones she'd eat at breakfast, the ones she'd serve to weary travelers in need of some hospitality.

It was the smell that belonged to a loving home, and the last straw for her. She wailed and wept into her hands, knowing they would disapprove of the noise, they'd warned her, but the guilt only made her cry more. She had worked so hard, no matter how much others looked down on her, all she wanted was an honest life, and now she had no clue what to do, if she'd ever have water to replace all those tears, if she'd ever get to cook again, if she'd ever feel a fresh morning breeze again.

The stale air of that chamber felt like poison. Back in the river they had cornered her. Here they had buried her alive. And that seemed like a long, long death.

Her screams died out into weak sobs, then even those dried out, and she was still alone. Time passed and more time passed, and she was still alone. Her stomach grumbled, and she was still alone, still with no intention of touching any food. Would they force her? Were they even real, had today been just a long nightmare? In that silence, nothing mattered, only the panic inside her mind wouldn't shut up.

"Eat."

She thought she had imagined the whisper, but the wind caught her attention. A weak breeze had blown from somewhere, and her relief was immense. Where did it come from, she assumed she was in a closed off place. She got up to her knees and ran her fingers along the wall, looking for some crack or hole.

It blew again, playing with the curls of her hair around her ear. "Eat," she heard, a little louder.

Silvana took a fruit from the bowl, understanding now the order, even if she didn't know where it came from. She hadn't heard anyone approach, nor did she feel any presence near her.

She felt once more that anguish in the pit of her stomach, that food was now something to be ordered to eat, no love, no care, hosts who didn't even bother to stay around. She clasped the fruit tightly within both her hands and held her head down.

"Please, please," she whispered, "I don't know what to do, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, please talk to me, please just tell me what to do." The weakest breeze caressed her face for a little longer and then, defying logic, twisted and picked up strength only around her arm. The pain she felt from her escort's endless grip was soothed. She touched her lips; the scratches there were also gone.

"I am God," the voice said. "Worship me, pray to me. That will be all."

It was only more orders, but Silvana held tight to the brief kindness the healing miracles had shown her.

"Thank you," she said, and murmured a simple prayer before eating. She hoped that would be enough. She hoped God did not leave her in that silence again.

Theodora risked turning on the dimmest of magical lanterns for a moment, to see the sleeping face of the human woman she had taken pity on. For weeks she had sneaked around in that endless maze of caves and tunnels, unable to escape the watch of the Cavesong Cult enough to leave the mountains. The shame of lying and hiding away burned her spirit, but it wouldn't destroy her. She wasn't throwing her pride away; that was all for the sake of surviving as the last Air Elemental left, her father's beloved Sky Gift.

The Cavesong Priest was an utter fool who had killed her father to conquer the hidden power of the mountains. Even now as it consumed his flesh he still wouldn't repent, strengthening his hold on the region and believing himself holy enough to win a miracle cure. Theodora was a miracle cure yet had no intention to serve him, but if he was desperate enough to beg for messages in the wind she'd gladly play along.

What of the new priestess, though? She was a regular human with almost no magic, what did he expect to gain from her? Maybe he just didn't want to expose himself out there in the mountains, but how would a weak woman protect him more than his subordinates? It was pointless cruelty.

Her father always told her it was a duty of Elemental Spirits to protect humans as the weaker creatures they were. Having only seem the greedy, murderous lot of them, she hadn't had the chance. The young priestess however was merely a victim. Maybe she could be just as evil and corrupted if given the right temptation, but Theodora would say the same of herself if she had looked at the weeping human without a sliver of compassion.

She was no real god, but she could hopefully do something to keep that one safe. One day they'd both escape that hell.

#oc tober #writing #writeblr #writers on tumblr #fantasy #magic #despero #the priestess of cavesong #theodora the air elemental #silvana the priestess #the cavesong cult #cavesong priest #2020

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moon-ruled-rising · 4 years ago

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as the rain hides the stars | xvi

XVI: smiling for miles in pink dresses and high heels

read it on ao3 or Wattpad

I was reading slim Aarons and I got to thinking,

I thought.

Maybe I’d get less stressed if I was tested less like,

All of these debutantes.

Smiling for miles in pink dresses and high heels and white yachts

-Lana Del Rey, “hope is a dangerous thing for a woman like me to have, but i have it”

Dany could hear the conversations happening in the other room and dreaded what awaited her there. She looked in the mirror again, hoping that she could find another thing to fix so she could delay her departure from the safe space. She went to tuck her hair behind her ear and noticed the shining rock decorating her finger.

The ladies would all be asking about it. Especially if they noticed that it was different than the one she’d been wearing. None of the ladies at court made an effort to get too close to Dany, keeping a safe distance from the foreigner in their midst, but they still saw things and whispered. If anyone asked, Dany would say it was being resized. That would slake their thirst for new rumors but it would start fresh ones too. Anything to keep them entertained she supposed.

In the mirror she could see the ivory dress bag containing her wedding gown. The whole thing had arrived from White Harbor with the designer that morning for a fitting. The wedding planner reached out to as many Westerosi designers as she could and they raced to send in their portfolios. After looking through them all, Dany selected a northern designer named Jeyne Poole who worked for a well-known fashion house in Norvos. Her submission was an unused design for an upcoming bridal collection.

Dany cast it aside at first, claiming it wasn’t her style, but when she looked at the sketch again she saw potential. She and Jeyne worked together to achieve what Dany now considered her dream dress. If she was only going to be married once she at least wanted the dress to be perfect.

Hanging next to the monstrous bag were two dress options for the engagement party. One of ivory tulle and the other of champagne chiffon. They were both modest lengths and clearly meant to invoke the word ‘bride’ without being too obvious. She chose the champagne dress as it was darker and featured a thick sash of lavender silk around the waist, then she swept her hair into a simple yet elegant knot at the nape of her neck.

Styling her hair on the go was a trick from princess training she found increasingly useful. All of her appointments were scheduled one after the other, she barely had time to breathe between them let alone manage the various costume changes. Dany preferred it that way. If she kept herself distracted she wouldn’t think about anything else but the task at hand.

She slid the last pin into place and glanced at the tiara sitting in its case, surrounded by red velvet. A simple band with a fringe of raised silver points glittering with little gems.The sparkling piece wasn’t hers, it was on loan from the Queen’s personal collection. Catelyn wore it to her engagement celebration and wedding and claimed she would be honored if Dany wore it too.

With a gentle hand, she grazed her fingertips over the uneven points before lifting the tiara from its cushioned nest. The fringe sparkled in the moody lighting of the room and Dany realized it was meant to represent icicles. Without any blue tinted stones, it looked more like dozens of little swords. It gave Dany a fierce look once placed atop her head and she was grateful for it. She needed strength now more than ever.

“Dany?”

Jon stood in the doorway, dressed in the semi-formal attire required of the official engagement party. She noticed his eyes flicker to the large dress bag.

“Is this the dress?”

“Yes,” she answered before turning back to adjust the tiara.

She watched, partly in horror, as Jon reached for the bag.

“You can’t look at it!” she whirled around and intercepted him.

“I didn’t know you were superstitious.”

“I’m not. I’d just rather not tempt fate.”And risk fucking things up more than i already have.

“Okay, I won’t look at it. Are you ready to go? I don’t think our guests will appreciate it much if the couple of the hour is late.”

She adjusted the high neck of her dress and fought the familiar urge to run. She promised herself no more running.

Accepting Jon’s arm, he escorted her to the neighboring room. They paused outside the heavy door as their names were announced. She tried not to tighten her grip on his arm when it hit her that there were no rules regarding PDA this time. And people were expecting the young love-birds to act like they actually liked each other. And while they had come to an understanding between each other, Dany wouldn’t label them as friends.

The ring caught her eye again. A small smile escaping her at the reminder of the unnecessary proposal. It was such a sweet thought, no ulterior motive and he didn’t make a big deal out of it. She doubted her deserving of a ring with so much sentimental value but she saw at once why Jon picked it. It was geometric and different, simple yet powerful.

Dany swallowed her stubbornness, it was time for her to step up to the plate. She slid her hand to plant it with Jon’s. She didn’t intertwine their fingers. There was no need to, it wasn’t that kind of gesture. There were no words between them, only smiles as the doors opened and the attendants politely applauded.

For an event on a joyous occasion, there was a bit of somberness to it. There were no real decorations but a banquet table of finger foods and several members of the waitstaff meandering around with trays of champagne. Dany wanted to grab one but she and Jon were ushered to the head of the room before she had a chance.

They would accept congratulations from a long line of courtiers, organized by precedent. There were the Dukes of large swatches of land and the Lords of castles and strongholds. Down to the smaller, ceremonial titles of Baronet and Earl and the knighted citizen who happened to be at court that day. Someone was announcing their official titles and names but Dany was already on autopilot. Sentiments like ‘thank you’ and ‘we’re so glad you could be here’ slipped past her lips with unconscious ease, her mind barely registering the actual words anyone was saying.

There was an art to it, she supposed, being able to shake hands and smile and be grateful while her mind was somewhere else. She’d employed the same trick half a million times at the required state functions and once or twice at college parties.

As the Duke and Duchess they were addressing took their leave, Jon’s posture grew tense. It was enough to make Dany shift back to manual.

“His Grace, Roose Bolton, Duke of The Weeping Water and Lord of the Dreadfort.”

A man with eyes as cold and unforgiving as winter itself stood before them. The pink shield shaped pin on his lapel glinted, showing off the red blood drops and the shape of man without skin. His gaze chilled Dany’s blood and she stepped closer to Jon.

“Your Highnesses, my congratulations on such an advantageous engagement.”

Despite the room buzzing with the sounds of smaller conversations, it seemed eerily quiet as Bolton spoke. His voice soft and lacking the boisterous quality the other courtiers possessed. It made his compliment sound more like a nasty piece of gossip he shouldn’t be spreading.

“And my best wishes on a long and happy marriage.”

From the tone of his voice, Dany knew he was praying for exactly the opposite. She reinforced her smile and wrapped her hand around Jon’s arm in what she hoped was perceived as a loving, possessive manner.

“Thank you for your kind words, your Grace, we are wishing for much the same.”

She looked up at Jon in affirmation. Breaking out of the odd state, he grinned at Dany with much the same false pretense as her hand on his arm. The Duke’s face remained in its unimpressed scowl as he left them to face the next people in line.

Dany had half the heart to ask if they could take a break but the assembly of attendants was so long there was no time. She took a deep breath and tried to shake it off. It was no different than the few occasions she’d had the displeasure of dealing with Cersei Lannister, whose mannerisms were as fake as her waistline. At least Dany wouldn’t have to deal with that woman on a regular basis anymore.

Once they’d made it through the long and impressive list of courtiers, she and Jon split up to meander through the room and socialize on a more personal level. Dany was about to raid the food table when she was tapped on the shoulder. Expecting it to be Catelyn about to scold her manners, she was surprised to find a lady of the court she hadn’t yet been introduced to.

She was taller than Dany even though she wasn’t in heels and wearing a simple wrap dress of forest green. The lady looked like she was meant to be gliding down the runway at a couture show instead of couped up at court.

“Your Highness, I wanted to compliment you on the engagement and your beautiful dress.”

“Oh, thank you.”

Dany was a little put off. None of the court ladies made an effort to befriend her and she wasn’t sure if the lady’s intention was good. Dany smiled anyway, if they kept talking she would figure it out.

“Princess Sansa was telling me about your charity in Essos and I got curious.”

“It’s not my charity really, it’s a non-profit that was willing to let me work with them.”

“And what do you do there?”

“Mostly photo ops but I love interacting with the children and I help make the food for the shelters. It drives my family insane because we’re not supposed to champion causes that concern real people.”

“That’s pointless. How are you supposed to help the people of your country if you’re not allowed to?”

“Exactly! Gods, I’m so glad there are more people with common sense here.”

“I’m Dacey Mormont.” she extended her long arm out to Dany.

“Nice to meet you, Dacey.”

“I’d love to introduce you to some of the other ladies. They’ll be nicer if I’m with you,” she promised.

Dany agreed and allowed herself to be led to a group of other ladies. She noticed Wynafryd Manderly among them. After she was introduced to the ladies, one of them blurted, “Can we see it?”

She knew what they meant but was still taken aback.

“Of course,” she stuttered out, offering her hand.

They gathered around and gaped at the stone, whispering about how it was Princess Lyanna’s and how pretty it was. Dany detected a little jealousy but that was to be expected. Any of them would kill to be a princess. Hell, they would commit war crimes to be queen and all Dany had to do was be born with the right name.

The ladies did seem too bothered by it though. They asked her questions about where she’d traveled and what schooling in Essos was like. They were vastly more interested in Dany, for when she tried to change the subject to one of them, it somehow came right back to her.

Dany felt bad that she’d assumed the Northern court was anything like the one she hailed from. These women were genuine as far as she could tell, asking her about her opinions on fashion and even current events.

As Dacey was telling Dany about Bear Island, she looked past Dany’s shoulder and smiled.

“Your Highness, I apologize for stealing your fiancée but she’s been so busy planning that damn wedding, me and the ladies haven’t had a chance to talk to her.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Jon shrugged.

Dacey started talking to him about something but Dany was distracted by the feeling of a pair of eyes on her. It was Roose Bolton.

“What is his problem?” Dany blurted and immediately regretted it.

Dacey pursed her lips, “I’ll let you handle that one, your Highness.”

As Dany’s new friend slipped away, Jon followed her gaze.

“Bolton’s had a stick up his ass since I can’t remember when. I don’t think I have to explain why he’s not pleased about this whole ordeal.”

“He’s more than welcome to join the club,” Dany muttered and took a sip of her champagne.

Jon scoffed, “I hope you’re watching how much of that you drink.”

“I am. Why?”

“Something tells me you would be sharing some strong words with His Grace if you were drunk enough.”

She hummed in agreement, “More than words. First it was the condescending attitude and now he can’t keep his eyes to himself.”

“He’s just playing mind games, trying to get under your skin. Ignore it.”

Dany nodded and took another sip of champagne, finding comfort in the way the fizz felt on her tongue. She looked at the other members of court and noticed they all had sigil pins somewhere on their person.

“What is Duke Bolton’s sigil?”

“What?”

“His sigil pin had a man without skin, is that a metaphor?”

“Quite the opposite,” Jon began, “A long time ago, when the Boltons styled themselves the Red Kings, they practiced flaying. They used the skins as decoration in the Dreadfort and some accounts say they wore them as cloaks, but they don’t like to talk about that part. It’s illegal now, of course, but they’re still mad about it.”

“They were kings once. Any man that had to give up that kind of power would carry a grudge so strong it became generational.”

Jon chuckled, “I suppose your right.”

The herald banged his staff and the volume in the room dropped, everyone turning to see who was late to the party. Dany couldn’t believe someone missed it but she was still unfamiliar with all the title holders at court.

“Her Majesty, Queen Elia of House Martell. Accompanied by Her Royal Highness, Crowned Princess Rhaenys II and His Highness, Grand Prince Aegon III of House Targaryen. And Miss Missandei of Naath.”

Dany’s heart swelled and she had to hand her glass to Jon so she wouldn’t drop it as the doors opened. She pushed through the crowd, forgetting that she was supposed to keep her princess composure. Dany felt a tear slip down her cheek as she threw her arms around her best friend.

“I thought you weren’t coming until the day of the wedding,” she gushed to Missy’s shoulder.

“I wasn’t supposed to but Galazza’s cashing in a favor you owe her.” Missy patted the press badge on the neckline of her dress.

Dany knew all too well what that meant so she promised Missandei they would talk later as she gave Elia a quick squeeze.

“Aunt Dany, you look so pretty!” Rhaenys gaped from beside Elia.

“Do I?” Dany carefully dabbed at her eyes to make sure they were dry.

“You always do,” agreed Aegon.

“Even when I look like this?”

Dany stuck her tongue out and crossed her eyes, her nephew bursting into giggles. Jon came up beside her and she quickly returned her face back to normal.

“Rhae, Aegon, I want to introduce you to Jon. He’s going to be your, uh, uncle,”

For some reason, the phrase felt strange leaving her mouth. Bringing him into the family meant adding another title to his already long list. Prince, future king, son, brother, soon-to-be husband and uncle, and somewhere down the line a father.

Gods, she hadn’t even thought about kids. She knew they were necessary and expected for the heir to a throne but hopefully it was far down the line for them. Dany didn’t even know if she was completely ready for kids. She wanted them of course, she’d known since a newborn Rhaenys was placed into her arms.

She remembered her sister-in-law’s nervousness about all the pressure to start having kids. Elia was twenty-two when she and Rhaegar were married and twenty-four when she had Rhaenys. So Dany wasn’t too far behind in the heir-making game but she couldn’t believe she would have to join it soon.

Rhaenys and Aegon were wary of Jon, Sansa was the only Stark they formally met and even then they were reserved, but once he got down on their level the two were as talkative as ever. If Jon and Dany had the same luck as Rhaegar and Elia, maybe kids wouldn’t be a challenge. She needed to take her mind off it’s current course so she turned her attention to Missy and Galazza’s favor.

“She heard you’re not letting the press cover the Northern wedding so in exchange for saving your ass a few weeks ago, she wants the rights to document the whole thing. It’s going to be the first story in her new publication The Green Grace. She’s branching out.”

“We already made a statement about barring the press from the ceremony. If I let Galazza in, I’ll have to let everyone in. And you know I don’t want that.”

“Galazza figured you’d say that and that’s why she sent me. We figured it would be easier if it was somebody already invited to the wedding.”

“You majored in Public Relations, why does she have you playing field journalist?”

“It’s just this one assignment. And all she needs are my notes and some photos so she can hand them off to her real writers. Although, she would love it if you would let a couple, more qualified, people in.”

Dany sighed, “I’ll talk to everyone tomorrow and see what I can do.”

#jonerys #jon snow x daenerys targaryen #jonerysfanfic #jonerys fanfiction #daenerys targaryen #jon snow #ao3 #ao3link #wattpad #wattpad link

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hellishmess · 5 years ago

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7: Favors

October 27, 2017

I picked up the phone on the first ring, "What's up?"

Maeve’s voice was pressed on the other line. "I need a favor." She was hushed, the rustle of busy action behind her almost drowning her out.

"That is?" I asked, sitting up in my seat.

"Go to 124 Grade Avenue and protect the residents there." I hurried to type down the address.

My eyebrows stitched closer. "From what?"

Maeve's voice lowered even more. "The Assault Team*’s gotten their hand on bad magic. They plan to use it to kill some dangerous otherworlders with void connections and history. Some are saved that have signed as allies but the people I need you to help haven't."

"Then why am I protecting them?"

"They're not void, Aspen. Just stubborn and prideful. They're neutral right now but I'm working to get them to my side."

"Your side?" I mused.

"Aspen." Maeve was firm. She meant business.

I sighed. "Yeah yeah yeah. Gotcha. Consider it done."

"Thank you," she breathed, exhaling tension I didn't know she held. "When you get there, if they try and fight you, don't fight them, just defend yourself. Ask for Shay, Nik, Eli, or Jesse. Tell them what's happening and that I sent you, but only them. The extras there aren't important."

"Shay?" I recognized the name. "I'm finally going to meet your bf?"

"He's not my boyfriend," she snaps, before softening her voice again. "Please just hurry Aspen. They're getting the spell work ready now."

"Right. Okay. I'll get on it."

••

The drive was an avenue of oaks and ended in a roundabout in the front of the stone manor. I pulled up to the front and cut the engine off.

Getting out of the car, I cast my gaze to the sky. Clouds had rolled in fast.

I squinted my eyes, feeling the calm before the storm as magic gathered above.

The sound of gravel crunched under foot as I headed to the front door. I was pleased when my boots made little knocks against the stone walkway.

With a quick tap on the fancy oak door, I only had to wait for a few seconds before I came face to face with a vampire.

His eyes narrowed. "Who are you?" His accent was thick.

My eyes slid past him to the few other vampires lingering in the foyer. "I'm a friend of Maeve's. She sent me here to help. I need to see a Shay."

The vampire hesitated, not moving an inch as he studied me.

"It's okay, Bernard." A new voice said.

Bernard bowed his head and moved aside, revealing the figure behind him. This man was big. Business dressed and professional in nature, I took a step back.

"I'm Nikolaus. Second of this nest." He watched me with pinpointed eyes. Power radiated off him like a heater. "What's your business here?"

Huh. I cocked my head to the side. What an intimidating presence, I thought. Power like that was ancient. Familiarly ancient actually. God Maeve what company have you found yourself in.

I smiled, "Ahh. It's Nik right? I'm Aspen Farley. Maeve sent me here. Told me to speak to her boyfriend Shay?"

He didn't react, but I hoped the casual nickname was enough to prove my story.

He nodded, opening the door for me to step through. "What's this about?"

"Maeve's caught wind of a nasty spell the Assault Teams cooked up. Hoping to kill off some of the void underworlders, they're gonna cast it tonight," I retold all I knew. "So she called me. To protect you 'neutral' people."

I rolled my eyes at the word 'neutral'.

"I think we can handle ourselves," a blonde man said, stepping up from the crowd behind Nik.

I laughed. I wonder if vampires this old even remember what fear feels like.

The vampire stood with his chest out and fangs bared.

It was silent and I composed myself, coughing and brushing my hair behind my ears. "You think so? I don't know about you but I can feel the magical charge amassing above your house. It's not even to full strength yet but it will smite this nest off earth's shitty surface."

"Nik?" I turned to see another vampire just as powerful as the nest's Second. He stood in the threshold. The man's eyes were on me, picking up details on myself while I did the same. "Who's this?"

"Aspen Farley," He gestured a hand towards my frame. "Apparently a friend of Maeve and here to save us from some impending doom."

The dismissiveness in his voice grated against me. I swallowed a sharp retort. Jesus Christ does Maeve have to deal with this all the time?

The other name stood up straighter at Maeve's name. I went on a limb, speaking to him. "It's Shay right? Maeve's boyfriend?"

His lips parted into a small smile, "I don't know if I would say we're courting but I suppose."

Typical.

Shay studied me for a moment longer before turning to his brother, "Let her help us. What would be the harm if it was unneeded?"

Nik thought for a second before agreeing with a simple shrug of his shoulders.

"Sweet so lets see," I paused, thinking. Maeve didn't tell me what type of spell they were using but I'd guess it was from above.

I turned to Shay, "You have any crystals, salt, and umm? Dill herb seasoning?"

He made a face.

"Ah shit. I should have known." I chewed my lip. "Well you have salt right? I know you gluttons like to eat regular food too."

He actually laughed. "Yes, we have salt."

"Good. Get me a lot of it."

He snapped his finger and a vampire went off immediately.

I paced a bit, thinking of a way to protect this place from an Assault Team Cast Death spell. If I can't absorb it, it'll hit them and fry us all. I didn't know if they were just going to target the house, and burn it to the ground; or if they managed to find a way to hit specific targets.

My fingers brushed through my hair.

God Maeve could have made this easier on me.

I stopped. The light bulb in my head flickered on. "Y'all have a big mirror? Like an old antique mirror. The ones with the silver backs?"

"What makes you think we have one?" It was almost like he was joking.

I shot Shay a look. "Do you not?"

He regarded me for a moment before his lips split into another grin. "Of course we do."

"Good," I said, almost wide eyed at the energy of this encounter. "Get me one."

"I see how you and Maeve are such good friends." He chuckled, turning to usher another vampire off for the mirror.

"And I see how y'all are totally 'not' dating."

The salt was here before the mirror. The vampire had a huge sack of it and even brought the kitchen shaker too.

A vampire appeared with the mirror a minute later.

"Sweet sweet. Where's the center most window of this place?" I ask.

Shay walked off, and everyone followed without a word.

I roll my eyes. Dramatic, but okay.

We headed down several corridors, twisting and turning, before eventually settling in an octagon shaped room. I looked up, and saw a giant skylight was the ceiling. It truly was marvelous with a beautiful pattern made of clear and stained glass sheets.

"Alright, I can work with this." Really this couldn't have been a better set up.

I approached the women who held the mirror. It was a big wall piece. Its edges emboldened in untarnished silver. She reached to hand it to me.

I smiled gently back at her. "Can you hold it for me for a moment please?"

She nods with a straight face.

I tapped the glass, hovering my hands just over the glass surface before weaving my magic into it.

I focused on the energy and its purpose. The mirror was to draw and reflected all the harmful magic back, effectively sparing these vampires from the hit by taking it for them.

I knew it wouldn’t fail me.

I finished when I felt a hum of power reverberate through the glass and silver. I could see it, iridescent and shimmering. It was how I imagined air to look if we could see it.

I met the woman's eyes again. She had a shocked look on her face. Her hands trembled as she gripped the mirror.

I knew she could feel the magic. "I'll take it from you now. Thanks"

She nodded again, stepping back and rubbing her hands together.

I stood in the center of the room, eyes heavenward as I figured where the best spot was.

With a shrug, I laid it flat against the marble floor. I guess here's as good as anywhere. "Alright. So give me the salt."

The man handed me a sack with a hole torn in the top.

“Thanks" I muttered, immediately getting to work drawing a thick circle close around the mirror.

Working from the inside in, I drew a small circle. Then a bigger one 4 feet away from it.

"Shay," I spoke as I drew the circle. "I'm going to need you to get every vampire in the nest in here."

He didn't reply but he did leave.

I froze as the last bit of salt fell into place. The hairs on my arms and neck stood. "Ohh noo"

The atmosphere pressure changed, growing tense with energy. It was thick to breath.

The spell was finished.

"Alright. So don't leave until I say it's over and please don't like, freak if you start to feel weird." I say, thankful that Shay made it back when he did.

A murmur ran through the room but of course it was too low for me to hear. I ignored them, focusing on the energy above us. I could almost see the power rubbing together, readying itself to strike us all.

Someone gasped and slowly they all grew more serious. I smirked when I saw Nik and Shay both glance towards another man. All their faces were grim.

They feel it now.

Inappropriately, the "Can you feel it now, Mr. Krabs?" meme flashed in my head.

I strengthened my stance and raised my arms. Calling my own magic, I switched tongues, invoking an old incantation in the First Language*.

Protect us all in this time of need from the forces gathered to do us harm.

The energy I harnessed spilled out into the room, engulfing myself and the vampires. It encased us all individually, protecting us for as long as I kept my focus. I flexed my fingers, keeping my body firm.

With a thunderclap, the death spell barreled down from the sky. The sound was deafening when it hit the mirror. Raw energy caused the metal to sing. My eardrums popped at its melody.

Glass rained down as light and heat suffocated us all. I closed my eyes, but didn't dare move.

The room was so suddenly stifling. My head tried to swim at the pressure. Blood rushed through my body and my heart sung, but I ignored it.

My eyes shot open and my breath hitched. Sharp pain, shook my focus. The protective barrier around us to thinned, burned away by the offensive magic. A vampire's started yelp added a testament.

Glass sliced across my face, cuting a gash into my skin. I refocused and pushed my power out, recovering the vampire while I was at it.

I felt blood starting to trickle down my cheek and shoulder. Inhaling, I shook off the stinging sensation.

An even breath renewed the strength in our protection. The vampires stood stark still as they saw the ray meant to kill them fall and bounce back into the sky. The woman who had held the mirror was wide eyed as she focused on the protective magic that flowed around them.

I sensed when the energy fled, vanishing back to where it was borrowed from. The last of the magic entered the ozone, carrying on until it too dispersed

I relaxed my hands and rolled my shoulders.

It was silent still.

Eyes were on me as I started to influence the lingering energy.

My right hand circled the space in front of me, brushing my sternum every counter clockwise rotation. With a little nudge all the straggling magic fled back into the earth.

Finally, I broke the salt. Letting all my magic go lax, the protection around the vampires faded away.

My guard stayed sharp though. The blood trailing down my neck and arms a clear reminder to do so.

Shay approached me behind the man that Nik and him shared a glance with.

His demeanor was relaxed and unthreatening. Yet, he held authority and too much power to understand.

My eyes narrowed. I couldn't place the sense that I've met him before. It was like my magic recognized his.

He smiled, showing mostly straight teeth. "It seems the gifted see us as a threat." It was an assumption phrased as a statement but holding the obligation for me to answer as if it was a question.

My shoulders tightened as I looked up at him. "I don't speak for the gifted that did this." My voice was also tight. "Matter of fact, I don't speak for the gifted at all. I came as a favor for Maeve."

He nodded, still ever so slightly pulling at my mind with his own will. The pull was harsh, unlike anything I've ever felt from a vampire.

He hummed, continuing to bully me with his influence. "May I hear your opinion on this hit then?"

I felt my brain slow, wanting to fall into his influence. My eyes blinked, while my brain struggled to comprehend what was happening.

I stood there, neither of us breaking contact. Nik and Shay were off to the side standing behind him like body guards, watching, and expecting me to crumble like some worm.

Oh shit. It all clicked. The familiarity. The severity of these men's power. And the fact that there's a Second and a Third.

This is a True Master's nest. One of the first vampires to be created. The first product from the Lord of Darkness.

One of the Otherworld's own cryptids. They’re supposed to be a legend among legends.

How the hell did Maeve stumble onto them? More importantly do they realize the connection they bare?

I blinked, pulling myself away from his mind games. "Sure. Be happy Maeve was watching out for you because you'd all be dead if she wasn't." I paused, my eyes searching for any signs of hostility. "And pick a side. This is a war that none of us can stay neutral on. Either the Sun* comes for you or the Void does."

It was silent again as we both held eye contact. My hands had wrung my fingers behind my back and now they just tightly grasped them.

He smiled again, "Well I suppose a thank you is in order."

I shrugged. "It was no problem."

"I'll have Shay show you your way out." He turned and started off down one of the many hallways. Nik following at his side, both heads were turned in a serious conversation.

I laughed to myself, releasing the worry I had.

I suppose I'll just let them sort it out. Maeve's smart enough, and the True Masters have enough wisdom to make the connection.

——————————————————————

Assault Team is an association of highly powerful gifteds. They first founded to save the world from Hell’s wrath a long time ago. Now they act as the Sun’s warriors, keeping Void down and ect. Members are connected and bonded forever by a binding spell engraved in their ribs. Members live whatever life they wish and their involvement in the Team is kept as secret.

The Sun is a term for the Otherworld’s government. This includes the 4 families, the Assault Team, and any other associations that work for them. They are what keep order.

The First Language is basically the Language the Lords used in the creation of the world. Only few can speak it and it carries great power as the words carry magic themselves.

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secretlyatargaryen · 6 years ago

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The Strings of Those Who Came Before, An Analysis of Tyrion and Tywin as Rulers Part II: I Must Be Stone

I said in Part 1 that although Tyrion tries a lot to emulate Tywin in the political/military sphere, he’s at his best when he ISN’T doing that. Tyrion’s best successes as a ruler are when he shows compassion and uses his natural empathy for others to understand how best to rule. A lot of what he learned from Tywin, although good for creating immediate success, is extremely toxic. Although Tyrion probably didn’t have much in the way of formal training on how to lead, because he was never expected to either inherit a lordship or lead men into battle, and I don’t think Tywin ever expected to put him into the position of power he puts him in at the end of AGOT, Tyrion did pick up quite a lot from his father, and because Tywin was a terrible father, a lot of that was negative. From Tywin, Tyrion learned how to be ruthless, how to be cruel, how to instill fear. In particular, we see this in the scene between Tyrion and Cersei after she tells him that she’s taken Alayaya.

What’s interesting about this scene is that Tyrion is playing two roles. One is Tywin 2.0, and the other is the monster Cersei has always thought him to be, and he’s actually combined those two monstrous figures that have overshadowed his life to try to give himself an image of authority over the sister who he knows he cannot show weakness in front of.

She truly believes I mean to kill my own nephew. "The boys are safe," he promised her wearily. "Gods be good, Cersei, they're my own blood! What sort of man do you take me for?"

"A small and twisted one."

Tyrion stared at the dregs on the bottom of his wine cup. What would Jaime do in my place? Kill the bitch, most likely, and worry about the consequences afterward. But Tyrion did not have a golden sword, nor the skill to wield one. He loved his brother's reckless wrath, but it was their lord father he must try and emulate. Stone, I must be stone, I must be Casterly Rock, hard and unmovable. If I fail this test, I had as lief seek out the nearest grotesquerie. "For all I know, you've killed her already," he said.

and

He pushed himself to his feet. "Keep her then, but keep her safe. If these animals think they can use her . . . well, sweet sister, let me point out that a scale tips two ways." His tone was calm, flat, uncaring; he'd reached for his father's voice, and found it. "Whatever happens to her happens to Tommen as well, and that includes the beatings and rapes." If she thinks me such a monster, I'll play the part for her.

Cersei had not expected that.

It’s interesting that Tyrion both is mindful here of how his disability puts him at a disadvantage (contrasting himself with Jaime, who never untied a Gordion knot when he could just slice through it) and aware of how Cersei sees his dwarfism as evidence of his inherent immorality, and expects danger from him. This is an experience that I think is familiar to a lot of oppressed people, the feeling of being treated simultaneously as a threat and a victim. As Tyrion says, though, the scale tips two ways, and he uses this to his advantage. Which IS a truly smart move.

And in order to reach for the authority and danger he is trying to project, he of course reaches for his father. He reaches for Casterly Rock, and stone. This is a really great symbolic image because Casterly Rock itself is symbolic for the dysfunction of House Lannister, repression and emotional coldness, lack of humanity, lack of empathy. Stone symbolizes strength but it also symbolizes cruelty, and it’s not the only time in the text that Tywin Lannister is associated with stone, in particular in Tyrion’s mind.

“They say that the Shrouded Lord will grant a boon to any man who can make him laugh. Perhaps His Grey Grace will choose you to ornament his stony court."

Duck glanced at his companion uneasily. "It's not good to jape of that one, not when we're so near the Rhoyne. He hears."

There’s an obvious association between Tywin and The Shrouded Lord, right down to his name. In ADWD, Tyrion is seeing Tywin’s ghost everywhere, including in Old Griff, but in particular we are introduced to this legend of a Shrouded Lord, shrouded obviously invoking the image of a corpse wrapped in a burial shroud, a lord of the dead, a lord of stone. A lord who never laughs.

And what Haldon says also invokes the idea of Tyrion as dwarf jester, a court ornament, sImilar to the way Tywin saw Tyrion as a mockery of him and his house. It’s also an interesting association because in our own history, court dwarfs were meant to appear ridiculous in order to contrast with and emphasize the power and respectability of the royals. By making Tyrion an ornament in his court, Tywin, or the Shrouded Lord, is emphasizing his own power. Which I think is also why, although Tywin complained about Tyrion being an embarrassment to him, he never tried to teach others to respect his dwarf son. Thus Tyrion becomes the scapegoat for House Lannister, both the shame of the Lannister name and a contrast to emphasize the greatness of the others.

Tyrion is affected by the story of the Shrouded Lord almost immediately upon hearing it.

His grey kiss. The thought made his flesh crawl. Death had lost its terror for Tyrion Lannister, but greyscale was another matter. The Shrouded Lord is just a legend, he told himself, no more real than the ghost of Lann the Clever that some claim haunts Casterly Rock.

Despite spending most of the series as a self-professed cynic, it’s interesting that Tyrion chooses this moment to believe in ghost stories. Although, then again, Tyrion also has a strong affinity with dragons (and peering into flames), so perhaps it’s not that strange after all. Notice the association with the supposedly haunted Casterly Rock, another link to Tywin and House Lannister.

The association between Tywin and the Shrouded Lord does not end there.

"We are made of blood and bone, in the image of the Father and the Mother," said Septa Lemore. "Make no vainglorious boasts, I beg you. Pride is a grievous sin. The stone men were proud as well, and the Shrouded Lord was proudest of them all."

For all that Tywin Lannister wants to convince the world that he is made of stone, he is strongly associated with the worldly sin of pride. So, too, it is pride that is strongly associated with the stone men and their dead lord.

The specific wording in the above quote also calls to mind the play-within-the-story that is about Tyrion, specifically:

When the dwarf appeared suddenly from behind a wooden tombstone, the crowd began to hiss and curse. Bobono waddled to the front of the stage and leered at them. "The seven-faced god has cheated me," he began, snarling the words. "My noble sire he made of purest gold, and gold he made my siblings, boy and girl. But I am formed of darker stuff, of bones and blood and clay..."

Pride here is associated with thinking that one is above human failures. We are told that the gods make us out of flesh and blood, they make us to be fallable, human. Lord Tywin passes him and his house off as if it is made of gold. And even though it’s repeated as a joke, the idea that even Tywin’s shit is gold is also a symbolic defiance of the gods, a presumption to be above mere humanity. It’s fitting that the divine punishment for such a person should be to slowly become hardened from the inside out, flesh turned to cold stone.

He dreamt of his lord father and the Shrouded Lord. He dreamt that they were one and the same, and when his father wrapped stone arms around him and bent to give him his grey kiss, he woke with his mouth dry and rusty with the taste of blood and his heart hammering in his chest.

Notice how the Shrouded Lord becomes Tyrion’s father in the dream, when he goes to wrap him with “stone arms” and “give him his grey kiss.” This is a pretty direct analogy not only for the fear of death that greyscale represents, and which has also become associated with Tywin in Tyrion’s mind after his father’s death, but it’s a great metaphor for the lack of parental affection Tyrion received. Tywin’s embrace is stone and his kiss is grey, bringing not love or belonging but death and fear.

Tyrion wanted to slap him, to spit in his face, to draw his dagger and cut the heart out of him and see if it was made of old hard gold, the way the smallfolks said.

For hands of gold (or stone) are always cold.

There’s another version of the Shrouded Lord tale that doesn’t involve him being (un)dead, but rather a legacy title:

"The dead do not rise," insisted Haldon Halfmaester, "and no man lives a thousand years. Yes, there is a Shrouded Lord. There have been a score of them. When one dies another takes his place.”

This is interesting because of the question that I’ve dealt with before in Part 1, and from which the title of this series comes: are we doomed to repeat the mistakes of our parents? I think it’s significant that Tyrion comes very close in this book to literally becoming like the Shrouded Lord himself, turning to stone from the inside out. This is a literal representation of the existential crisis that he faces with regard to what kind of man he will be in the end.

Beyond the veil of dream, the Sorrows were waiting for him. Stone steps ascending endlessly, steep and slick and treacherous, and somewhere at the top, the Shrouded Lord. I do not want to meet the Shrouded Lord.

The endless stone steps, slick and treacherous, make me think of Casterly Rock. I imagine Casterly Rock was full of stairs, carved into stone and slick with seawater. Not exactly friendly to someone with Tyrion’s bad legs and chronic pain.

What is interesting, though, is that right after he thinks this, Tyrion literally falls down a flight of stairs.

Tyrion fumbled back into his clothes again and groped his way to the stair. Griff will flay me. Well, why not? If ever a dwarf deserved a skinning, I'm him.

Halfway down the steps, he lost his footing. Somehow he managed to break his tumble with his hands and turn it into a clumsy thumping cartwheel. The whores in the room below looked up in astonishment when he landed at the foot of the steps. Tyrion rolled onto his feet and gave them a bow.

What saves Tyrion from falling down the stairs? Embracing precisely the part of himself that was an embarrassment to Tywin.

Going back to the scene where Cersei confronts Tyrion about Alayaya, though, way back in book 2, it’s Tyrion’s attempt to channel Tywin, although done to protect Alayaya from harm, that ultimately works against Tyrion.

"I have never liked you, Cersei, but you were my own sister, so I never did you harm. You've ended that. I will hurt you for this. I don't know how yet, but give me time. A day will come when you think yourself safe and happy, and suddenly your joy will turn to ashes in your mouth, and you'll know the debt is paid."

In war, his father had told him once, the battle is over in the instant one army breaks and flees. No matter that they're as numerous as they were a moment before, still armed and armored; once they had run before you they would not turn to fight again. So it was with Cersei. "Get out!" was all the answer she could summon. "Get out of my sight!"

Tyrion again thinks of Tywin, here, and he wins the battle but he doesn’t ultimately win the war. Not only can he not truly protect Alayaya, but his threat against Cersei is ultimately used as evidence against him in his trial during ASOS, and used as proof of his monstrosity. I think this does say something about the inherent contradiction in Tyrion trying to model Tywin’s ruthlessness in order to accomplish what is a worthy goal - protecting someone in need of protection. Tyrion can’t protect Alayaya in the end, and also is unwilling to follow through with his threat against Tommen, and in the end he’s the one who ends up looking like a monster because of the ableist campaign against him.

In my opinion, Tyrion’s best moments, that show him as a true leader, are not when he pretends to be made of stone, not when he tries to model the legacy of pain and cruelty that he was born into, but when he shows compassion and empathy despite it. When he leads the sortie during Blackwater, when he protects Sansa, when he empowers Bran, when he gives counsel to Jon, when he takes the initiative to free himself and Penny and Jorah from bondage, these are the moments that show him as a true leader.

Tyrion ultimately loses power in King’s Landing because of factors that spiral beyond his control, but I do think that GRRM is trying to say that hardening your heart to others is not the way to be a true leader. Tywin Lannister meets his end after a legacy of trauma and devastation that nearly swallows Tyrion as well, but Tyrion is not without his own allies, those who remember his kindness, and three of those people, Sansa, Jon, and Bran, are poised to have a strong impact on the future of Westeros already.

I’ve talked a lot about Tyrion’s association with stone in a negative sense, but stone is also an element that has positive connotations, and this essay which I find very interesting also posits Tyrion as representing stone/earth, the third element grounding ice and fire. SInce Tyrion is a dualistic and liminal character in multiple senses, I think it’s fitting that he should represent both of these connotations. You could also say that stone and earth are two different things, or two different sides of the same coin. I also think I made the connection before of Tyrion’s black eye representing earth, in which case the green eye, the Lannister one, might represent stone, emerald being a gemstone often associated with the Lannisters. Tyrion’s eyes are one of the most visual representations of his duality, so they’re important.

Which I think is all I have to say on this subject for now.

#tyrion lannister #asoiaf meta #valyrianscrolls #house lannister #tywin lannister

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admin-240 · 2 years ago

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Naberius sans BackStory!!! new lore

Millions or billions of years ago, Naberius used to be the Primordial God of Libra and lived in Zora's Realm with his two sisters Kora and Shara. He was quite happy with his life, but one thing kept him out of his mind, being the negligence of his creator, Zora. He asked the other Primordials for a method to make Zora be who he was meant to be. But they didn't even bother to listen to Naberius. Over the years, Naberius begins to believe that he is the best candidate to take Zora's place, and Naberius's personality turns into the worst person in the world. The manic and proud Naberius made a special ritual that included one of the most Divine artifacts created by Zora himself called the Crodox Stone. Still, the problem is that Naberius cannot absorb all of Zora's divine power with the stone, so he decided to share Zora's powers in 7 books each.

His sisters Shara and Kora found out about Naberius' plans and decided to confront him, but Naberius killed them both. The other Primordials didn't know anything about his plan and as Zora was easy to fool, Naberius' plan didn't have any problems.

But still, a problem appeared that Naberius did not foresee, it is the fact that the Realm in which he lived needed Zora to exist. All of Zora's world including Naberius was destroyed and the books were scattered throughout the Multiverse. The entire multiverse suffered some major breakdowns without Zora the Primordials had to take care of them. They knew what Naberius had done and they were furious, but they still knew it was only a matter of time until Zora was revived.

A few years later, somewhere in a place without a moon, Naberius wakes up, but he realized that he no longer looks like he used to. he had several eyes on half of his face and some parts of his body were made of unknown living material. Naberius had realized that when Zora and his Realm were destroyed he was somehow transported to one of the Layers of the Multiverse instead of dying completely. He tried to break the Layer so he could get out of his dungeon, but all he could do was just a crack and he couldn't get out completely. He created an avatar that looks almost like him but because he couldn't completely get out the avatar looks like a green hologram.

The crack was in an AU called __+_Tale which was in the medieval era.

The first person he met was a 26-year-old human named Adam. The presence of Naberius began to change the attitude of the inhabitants of the respective AU. The priests and Adam blamed Amon because in their religion Amon is Satan in person, Nabeius was amused because Satan who they believe brings all misfortunes was actually him. Adam asked Nabrius for help in killing Satan, and Naberius said he would give him the strength to face it. But in reality, this was Naberius' diabolical plan to take control of the AU. Naberius invoked the Demon Mammon (the eldest son of Amon) to make Adam believe that he is Satan. Adam with Naberius powers kills Mammon and becomes the hero of that AU but the terror wasn't over. For a while those close to Adam were dying for unknown reasons, Naberius told him that this could be Satan's curse. But in reality, Naberius corrupted the majority of AU, he killed those around Adam so that they would not find out about his true intentions.

One day Adam found out what Naberius was really doing, he revolted against Naberius and he ripped out his heart and eliminated Adam's mind. Adam's body was completely empty, so Naberius owns the body so that he can transform into a man when he needs to.

Naberius realized that he could not find all the books by himself, so he corrupted AUs as much as possible and made agreements with other people to become his puppets with which he formed the Fleandura organization. Even more powerful puppets are called Titans.

But Naberius wished to have a much stronger puppet. So he decided to use his human form from Adam and seduces a demi-goddess named Ava whom he marries even though he has never loved her. Naberius and Ava had a child whom they named Zagan. When Zagan was 2 years old, Naberius killed his wife Ava because she was no longer useful. He told his son how he used to be God and how Zora killed his sisters, his wife, and what she did with his powers. He lied to Zagan all his life so he could mentally manipulate him because his powers protected him from Naberius's corruption and other abilities.

Naberius' goal is to find all the books and take down the Multiverse King at the right time and keep an eye on Vos sans.

more info on his wiki https://vosetale.fandom.com/wiki/Naberius_Sans

#naberius sans #vosetale #undertale au #sans au

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datura-foxglove · 6 years ago

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(Dazatsu Week Day 7) Chains of Souls

Prompts : AU (this is actually kind of combination from Cardcaptor Sakura and Persona AU. How did this happen even I don’t know)

Rating : T (slight violence and Chuuya’s language)

Summary :

I am thou, thou art I From the sea of thy soul I come

I am thou, thou art I I shall grant you a name and bind our hearts together.

Notes : This has been a really awesome week! I’m so glad for all the amazing contents from all the amazing people! I had a lot of fun writing fanfics everyday for this pairing and it’s sad that the week is over, but I hope our works help to share the love for this pairing!

The witching hour.

The time of the night, where magic thrummed in the air at it’s strongest. The time when supernatural beings came out and play, hidden from the eyes of unaware humans. The time when humans’ ignorance and disbelief tightened the veil around their heads, or time to sleep for the lucky bunch that actually had normal and regular sleeping schedule.

For Dazai though, it’s time to work… he should be working, yet here he was, sitting without care on the top of one of Yokohama’s tallest skyscraper. There were furious battle brewing just a few buildings away from him, barely able to be contained within barrier to not alert the civilians underneath them. His black coat fluttered from the wind yet strangely not blown away despite just being haphazardly thrown on his shoulder. White bandages covered one of his eyes and head. Black suits complete with a tie, while formal, looked just as strange as seeing a teenager hanging out on the roof of a skyscraper at three in the morning.

“Stop running away, fuckers!” the loud voice of another person unfortunate enough to have the same job as him could be heard even from where Dazai was watching and he looked in boredom as Chuuya took too long to chase after the weaklings. They were weak, but they were fast and many. Black cloth spiked through the floor of the roof and skewered a few of them, but not quite enough to annihilate them all.

“Hey, bastard! Stop lounging around and move your ass!” Chuuya growled at him, a struggling black blob in his hand crushed from his sheer frustration. He wore almost a similar clothes with Dazai, although he had fedora hat and just a vest in place of Dazai’s black coat and suits.

“Eh… it’s such a drag.” Dazai had the nerve to yawn, which only intensify the killing intent from the shorter man. “This job suited a slug like you, Chuuya.”

“Oh?” the red haired man smirked widely, his glare would send lesser man to their knees sobbing. “Hey Akutagawa, you said that you make this barrier big enough, right?”

Black cloth gathered beside Chuuya, morphing into a black dog shaped shadow. “…yes.”

“Does that mackerel sucked inside the barrier too?” Chuuya started cracking his knuckles, magic gathering eagerly on his fists like a smitten lover.

“…yes.” The black dog sighed softly, it’s form scattered again into ascending platform, already knowing what his partner wanted.

Chuuya leaped along the platform until he was floating high in the sky, supported only by black cloth underneath his feet. The crackling energy on his fists expanded like a balloon until the red and black energy grew even bigger than his own body. Despite the threatening gesture, Dazai’s smile never left his lips. Chuuya’s irritation exploded along with his magic, which he sent hurling towards the building ridden by the black balloon like monsters. The moment the magic impacted the building, the force of the explosion sent stones and glass flying everywhere. Even the buildings nearby were all decimated, smoke rising from the ruins that were once a luxurious skyscraper.

Chuuya shrugged seeing the destruction. It’s not as if Dazai would die so easily like that and more importantly, he felt relief as his frustration bled away. His fingers shook a little, so he curled his fingers into fists to hide it. A black cloth slithered from the platform he was standing on, leaving just enough for Chuuya to keep hovering on night sky while the rest of it accumulated on his shoulder. The black cloth morphed into a small puppy like being, black eyes stared impassively at the damage. It coughed quietly, the smoke irritated it’s fragile lungs. The shadow like apparition sat on Chuuya’s shoulder and they waited.

Because like hell it was over already. Their job would be too easy if it did.

The ruins started to shake and a gigantic being crawled out from beneath the destruction. It’s long and elegant neck unfurled, a pair of black wings flapped once and the force of the wind it caused almost threw Chuuya off from it’s platform if not for the black cloth keeping him in place. Red gigantic eyes glared at him and it’s beak let out a shrill shriek. The bird like creature flapped it’s wings, removing any remaining debris from it’s body and preparing to take flight.

“Oh no you won’t! I don’t spend all that energy and time fighting your minions just so you can escape now!” Chuuya gathered more magic in his hands. “Akutagawa, assist me!”

The puppy like creature on his shoulder froze. “Wait, Nakahara-san!”

“Heed my words.”

Below the rubble underneath the bird’s talons, black magic circle glowed ominously. The bird shrieked in panic, it’s wings spread as wide as possible to get away but black chains captured and held the bird down to the ground. Akutagawa had to pull Chuuya back farther to the sky so they wouldn’t be dragged down too. So that was why Dazai’s partner was missing all night, he had been preparing the trap.

“I shall chain thee to the sea of my soul. Vow to me, and I shall break thy servitude to madness.”

The chains wrapped around the bird so tightly that it choked the bird, it let out a weak shrill as it’s body melted back into shadows. The shadow shrunk into a small ball, flying towards the source of the spell. Chuuya barely able to see Dazai on the ruins far below them, seated on a white tiger.

“I am thou, and thou art I. Thou shall become my new mask. Arise, Feng Huang.”

The bandages on Dazai’s face burned away in blue fire, but the teenager didn’t panic or seemed to be in pain. In fact, there was an almost excited smile on his face as he watched the white tiger beneath him suddenly sprouting red wings on it’s back. The wings flapped once, twice, before the white tiger took flight. Dazai laughed in delight, the wings of fire leaving behind red colored light trailing behind them as it took off to the sky with Dazai on it’s back. Chuuya watched the two of them gone, whistled quietly to himself for another job well done.

Wait a fucking minute.

“God fucking damn it, Dazai!” Chuuya screamed on top of his lungs and he swore he could hear Dazai laughing at him. “That’s my prey, you bastard!”

Flying on the sky with his partner on his back, Atsushi grumbled. “Chuuya-san is going to be so mad at us the next time we meet again…”

“When is Chuuya not mad at me, Atsushi-kun?” Dazai waved that matter off, instead rubbing his palm on one of the wings on Atsushi’s back. “I knew it. You look so beautiful with these wings.”

Their flight wobbled a little as the white tiger shrieked. “Dazai-san, that tickles!”

After ensuring that they wouldn’t fall to their death, Atsushi sighed. “Dazai-san, you shouldn’t go around gathering demons that you think will make me pretty…”

“Hey, I gathered some useful ones too.” Dazai leaned down and wrapped his arms around Atsushi’s fluffy neck. “I got us a Phoenix so you get a regeneration ability. A Makara so you won’t accidentally drop me when I was on your back. A Satori so I gained mind reading ability. I even don’t create a contract with goddess Ixtab because you begged me not to!”

“Because she will pleasantly let you hang yourself.” Atsushi growled. “Making a contract with deities are more dangerous than just normal demons, Dazai-san.”

“Aww, is Atsushi-kun worried about me?” Dazai snuggled to the warm fur, hiding his smile.

“Of course.” Atsushi answered with hesitation, invoking a warmth in Dazai’s chest. “I already vowed to you that day, that I will always be by your side.”

“I am thou, and thou art I.” Dazai whispered the spell, not weaving magic into it but still making them both shivered. “We have created a new vow. This bond shall become our wings and bound our souls. I pulled thee from the sea of souls and grant thee a new name.”

The two of them went silent after that, the only sound echoing in their ears were their shared heartbeats. The thrumming of their resonating souls.

They tried. They tried really hard. Dazai even suggested to use magic to hide them, but Atsushi immediately turned it down in case they got caught.

And caught they were.

A man wearing a pink apron shouldn’t have any right to be this menacing, but somehow Ango managed to look so scary looming after the two boys wearing school uniforms kneeling on the floor in seiza position.

“I won’t even pretend Dazai-kun will ever listen to me.” Dazai whined in protest, which was promptly shut up as Ango pointed a spatula threateningly to him. “But I expected better from you, Atsushi-kun. You are supposed to be a good example for Dazai-kun here and don’t follow his bad example to go home at five in the morning.”

Atsushi, now had transformed into his human form, fiddled with the longer part of his bangs anxiously. “I-I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”

“Come on, Ango.” Dazai wrapped his arm around Atsushi’s shoulder. “I know you are worried, but you know I won’t put Atsushi-kun in danger.”

“The two of you are still teenagers, Dazai-kun.” Ango fixed his glasses to better hide his eyes. “As an adult I’m obligated to worry about you two.”

Dazai pouted. “You are only four years older than me, Ango.”

The door to one of the bedroom opened and a man with dark red hair came out from it with a yawn. He took a look at Dazai and Atsushi kneeling on the floor with angry Ango looming over them. It took only a moment before it clicked in his brain. “They are going out at night again?”

Ango sighed, his suffering clear as his shoulders sagged. “Odasaku-san, this is why I said you should be stricter with them.”

Oda nodded easily. “Okay.” Then he scratched his chin where stubble had already grown again. “Is breakfast ready?”

Ango smacked his palm to his face, while Dazai whooped in joy. “I’m hungry too! Mama Ango, feed us!” Dazai elbowed Atsushi, who squeaked in panic and blurted out.

“I-I’m hungry too…” he winced when Dazai whispered the words on his ear. “…mama Ango…”

Oda looked at the two of them and followed along with a perfectly straight face. “Ma—“

“Odasaku-san, for the love of all that is good, don’t finish that.” Ango smacked the snickering Dazai with the blunt side of his spatula. “Dazai-kun, shut up.”

Even though they had promised to not sneak out to the night again, their job forced them to break said promise. Well, Atsushi was probably the only one who felt any sort of guilt, Dazai just cheerfully opened his bedroom window while humming another suicide song.

Sometimes Atsushi wondered how he could get a partner like Dazai. Magic may flow underneath his skin, but Dazai’s magic was cold and felt empty without any life in it. A void, a black hole capable of sucking down numerous demons into contract with him. Atsushi didn’t really remember his past life, but he remembered floating inside the sea of human’s souls, waiting for the one who would summon him. Byakko was only a reflection of human’s myth and legend, empowered by human’s wish just like any other demon. He was just supposed to be an unfeeling and loyal familiar, but Dazai had extracted him from the sea of souls and named him.

Thus, a single Byakko was granted a will. A soul. A life.

Nakajima Atsushi was born the day Dazai bound a contract with him. This life, that had been so graciously gifted to him, was Atsushi’s to spend however he wished. Yet, he had chosen.

Dazai sat on the window, legs hanging out of the window dangerously. But Dazai wasn’t afraid of the possibility of falling. He turned his body around and held his hand out to Atsushi. “Come, Atsushi-kun.”

Atsushi almost lunged into Dazai’s embrace, Dazai laughed at his eagerness despite the fact that they both were falling out of the window. A bright light enveloped the two of them, the orb of light gently landed on the ground and dissipated. From inside the cocoon of light, two new figures appeared. A regal white tiger and the teenager clad in bandages around his head and black suits and coat riding the tiger’s back.

Dazai leaned down and laying down easily on the tiger’s back, looking towards the full moon above them. “What shall we hunt today, my dear?”

“Whatever you wish for, Dazai-san.”

“Then, goddess Ixtab!”

“No.”

This life, he wanted to burn together with his love.

#dazatsu week 2019 #dazatsu #fanfic #day 7 2019 #this... is the unholy combination of mahou shoujo trope and shin megami tensei trope #in case people wondered why dazai is so eager to get a contract with ixtab #well #goddess ixtab is the goddess of suicide by hanging #so there #I dunno if I will ever explore this one further #but I have fun writing it #thank you for reading my fanfics this week!#let's see if I can actually update my regular story soon lol

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kinsbin · 6 years ago

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Raiden’s Greeting

Title: Raiden’s Greeting Ship: Raiden/Alexys [Mentions of Alexys/Johnny Cage/Kuai Liang [Self Insert/Canon] Word Count: 2028 Summary: While waiting for her boyfriends to return home from a special mission, Alexys gets a visit from an unlikely god at the Special Forces base camp. He proceeds to take...something of a liking to her.

A/N: Another commission for @bad-blue-moon-rising! This one is more focused on Raiden, who is a vERY GOOD SHIP WITH HER 10/10 WOULD GUSH ABOUT TO HER IT’S SO WORTH IT.

Alexys took a breath, exhaling with the slightest of annoyances as she tapped her fingers aimlessly on the cold steel table stretched out before her. The quiet of the military base was interrupted only on occasion by the soft ticking and beeps of monitors surrounding her, the surveillance and meeting room otherwise empty besides the warmth of the machinery. Under both Johnny and Kuai’s orders, she was to remain in the base and within its protection. Both men were terrified of losing the woman and it showed in the way their eyes sparkled with pain as she disagreed with them, saying how she wanted to be at their side no matter what the outcome of their battles with other realms brought about.

It took both of them embracing her, their heads resting on either side of hers and a slow explanation of their fear of loss towards her for Alexys to finally agree, the pout on her lips still there but her eyes sympathetic as she nodded. Her hands held both of theirs tight before they finally slipped away, both of their gazes reassuring on her heart as Johnny declared how, soon, they would be back for her and ready to make up for any lost time they had together. Even those words made Kuai chuckle as they exited, the steel door shutting tight behind them.

Later in the day others left too. Jaqui and Cassie moving on with Takeda and Jax to pursue more missions under squadron command and Sonya soon announcing that she needed to give backup to a squad somewhere on the other side of the military endeavor that was having trouble with a legion of Netherrealm goons. Alexys allowed them to go with a smile on her lips, assuring them that it would be fine if she was alone for a while until they all returned.

Now, however, in the otherwise monotone environment with the steady beeping of machines and cold metal encasing her like a cage, she felt claustrophobic. The loneliness was jarring, easily attacking the back of her mind as she tried to push it away but failed miserably through its snarking words and intense pressure. That pressure seemed to fill up her lungs as she fiddled with her fingers, her phone doing nothing to entertain her since she had long beaten all the games she had downloaded on it. There wasn’t good signal in the area, anyways, considering it was a military operation. Outside forces were kept at an easy limit, much to her dismay. Couldn’t they at least keep her safe somewhere in the outside world? Maybe with a wifi connection and a plethora of videos to binge for a later date? Another sigh escaped her lips at he thought as she put the device down and rested her head on her arm with an incohesive grumble.

She would just have to wait...yeah...some fun waiting was when she was the only one there.

As if on cue the air electrified around her. Alexys felt the tingle of it in her skin, goosebumps rising as the hair on her arms grew stiff with friction. She watched them with wide, confused eyes as she felt her body tingle. Her fingers twitched against her will and she bit her lip, head tilting in confusion at the events going on. She caught the glimpse of her hair rising and shifting with the waves of electricity apparently sparking vehemently around her body. Everything felt so much more all at once that she wasn’t sure what to make of it. Panic pounded hard in her heart as she turned around, the sound of distant crackling growing more and more intense with every passing second.

Without warning, a crash echoed through the military base. The sound of thunder burned loud in her skull, ringing it loudly as her brain rattled against either side. The intensity of the sudden electrical onslaught caused the mortal girl to scream in surprise, backing up on her chair only to feel it catch on the floor beneath it. With a slow tip of itself backwards, Alexys found herself on the ground in just moments. Her back and tailbone burned with the pain of having being landed on, the groan escaping her lips a deaf noise under the secondary crackle of red lightning that summoned forth a silhouette from its very recesses.

Grey eyes widened as they watched the appearance of a silhouette in the smoke of the room sauntered forward. Lighting revealed it to be a face she had never seen in real life, but, knew close enough to have the inkling suspicion of just who it was.

Johnny and Kuai both had told her stories of the godly protector of earth realm, yet, for some reason it felt as though Raiden looked different than what she had pictured in her mind. The mind, of course, was a poor thing to rely on when the set in stone looks of others was brought about certainly, but regardless her surprise was still there. It was painted across her eyes along with her fear as Raiden cast his gaze from side to side, brows furrowing with frustration at the lack of people within the room. At last, however, they followed the trail of the fallen chair next to the table, towards the phone that had clattered off of the edge at some point, and finally settled on the long haired human staring in surprise at his being.

“You,” He demanded sharply, “Who are you? Where are the commanders of the Special Forces Unit? Answer me.”

Alexys stuttered for a few moments between the questions, her words dying on her throat until the man ceased his sharp questioning and stared her down with an arched white eyebrow. His eyes were gorgeous, she had decided after a moment as her jaw dropped despite herself, his face so smooth and mature. Yet...young despite the age she was sure the god was. After the time of admiration passed, however, Alexys sat up a little bit straighter and gestured around the room with one hand, using the other to keep herself perched up as she replied:

“Uh-um! I’m Alexys, uh, Johnny Cage and Kuai Liang’s girlfriend and-well-they’re all out on a mission and thought I would be safest here so, uh, I’m on watch I guess? No, that’s not right. I’m not actually a military official I just kind of go here. Not ‘go’ here, really, I just! They’ll be back in like an hour or two if that helps?”

HIs mouth opened wide as his brows furrowed, the serious body language causing Alexys to flinch away in terror that she would receive the wrath of the god without necessarily invoking it. Tears sprung in the corners of her eyes for a moment as she bit her lip, waiting for the verbal snark to arrive swiftly. Raiden saw this and his heart, still rough and tumbled from the abuse Earthrealm had weathered, softened the slightest. She was, after all, a citizen under him. A mortal who lived on the planet he had sworn to protect and, as a result, was a being he was to treat fairly.

He took in a breath as he approached her, leaning down to offer a hand out in her position. Alexys looked on from the hand and towards the man with confusion, as if not quite understanding what he wanted out of her. Patiently, Raiden continued to hold out his hand for her until she finally understood the gesture. Placing her own in it, Alexys allowed the Thunder God to take her hand in his own and pull her into an upright position at his side.

“I...apologize for startling you like that,” Raiden mumbled, “You are of Earthrealm, and I mean you no harm from it. I simply have urgent matters to discuss with Johnny Cage and Kuai Liang both. You said they were...your boyfriends correct?”

The word held confusion in its tone, but, it wasn’t anything Alexys wasn’t surprised at. Most had reacted that way towards she and her two men when first being told. Smiling, she gave a nod to the god before her and gestured somewhere vaguely in the distance, her mind momentarily wandering as she explained almost on instinct:

“Yeah, both of them...They love me a lot and, well, Johnny believes in polyamory more than most. So we all make it work, I suppose. Either way, you’re welcome to wait with me here if you want...I’m sure they’ll be back soon.”

Her voice was soft in its last explanation, blush coating her face as she averted her gaze from Raiden for a few moments. Stupid, she realized in the back of her mind, how stupid was that! To explain to an ancient god about polyamory and then invite him to hang out with you while your boyfriends are out? He certainly must hae thought of her as a fool in any case. There was no way-

“Johnny Cage is a man whose heart spans wider than most,” Raiden seemed to agree after a moment, “Very well, I will wait here with you.”

“You will?” Alexys sounded incredulous.

As if to prove his point, Raiden rolled a nearby chair up and sat down on it, arms crossed as his eyes closed, hiding the red glow of their light from the human at his side as she, too, picked the chair that she had fallen from up and sat in it. The two sat in silence for a long moment, Alexys staring at the God before her and the God, in turn, remaining pensive and quiet. She wondered how time worked in his mind...Would this be long, or short in comparison? Would he mind the wait, or push it away with annoyance later?

“I didn’t get...your name,” Alexys finally spoke up softly, “Even though I gave you mine.”

“Surely you know of me if your significant others are Johnny Cage and Kuai Liang.”

His tone of voice was teasing and Alexys could spot the slightest hint of a smirk rolling itself against his lips. She couldn’t help but giggle at the way he spoke, the lightheartedness of it small but so different in comparison to her first impression of him. Perhaps there was something in him that made him, at the very least, amusing to be around? For the sake of her and other humans?

“It seems to have slipped my mind,” She retorted wickedly, leaning on the palm of her hand as she arched an eyebrow.

Raiden raised his own, a challenging look to the one she offered up behind her chorus of soft laughs and teasing hums. The noises she made were pleasant, he realized with a moderate shock to himself, as his cheeks warmed and were hidden by the glowing red of his eyes. How could one human make such a pleasant noise? Her mouth was curled so easily into a sweet smile, he almost regretted taking it away from them the first moment they had met. Half of him wanted to wait in his response, to see just what she would do if he didn’t answer her teasing question. Or what if he had teased another word in response? Something about it seemed like an interesting endeavor with her.

Instead, however, he relented.

“I am called Raiden.”

This seemed to introduce an opportunity that made Alexys’ eyes twinkle with delight.

“Nice to meet you, then, ‘Called Raiden’.”

The groan that left his lips wasn’t intentional, but, it was enough to make Alexys laugh in amusement, her free hand covering her mouth to try ands top the noises but fail miserably.

“I can see how Johnny Cage would like you...And how you might make Kuai smile.”

Alexys felt her face heat up in the form of a blush at the compliment, her hand falling from her lips to show it to the God, who appreciated the gaze she was giving him with moderate pride swelling in his stomach. He may not have gotten just who he wanted to see, but, Alexys certainly wasn’t bad company.

He wondered how these feelings would blossom, but ignored them for now. They would get there in time, as all things did.

#self insert #self ship #self shipping #writing commission #kinley writes #mortal kombat #mkx #mk11 #raiden

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inazumafocus · 7 years ago

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Fudou Akio analysis

Hello dearies! This is my first post on this new blog and I’ve decided that it will be a character analysis of Fudou Akio, hope you’ll enjoy!

Since I love studying characters I am often baffled by the lack of understanding when it comes to the ones that are a tad more complex than your regular everyday do-gooders. And when it comes to Fudou Akio I see a LOT of misunderstanding: he’s either an ass or a tsun tsun. Excuse me while I try not to barf. So, for the love of everything that I hold dear and my sanity, lets dive into a step-by-step analysis of the amazing character that is Fudou Akio.

We will start from the Inazuma Japan arch, hence him not being his true self in the Aliea Stone’s arch (everyone seems to forget how he too was wearing the stone and thus having his negative side taking advantage of him). Let’s go chronologically so we can all see how his true character unravels before our eyes and gradually morphs.

The first important scene they gave us and that we should pin point is during Ep71 “Raise the curtain! A challenge to the world!”. The coach gives precise instruction not to leave the building and for everyone to stay in their rooms, to which the general response is unhappiness and concern. Then we have Fudou, completely calm and slightly annoyed at the other’s antics “if you’re going to lose confidence just ‘cause you can’t practice for two days, then give up being a national!” as if he was full of confidence in his own abilities and while yes, he knows he’s good, we are showed a short sequence of him laying on his messy bed, with the wall next to it covered in ball’s marks and dirty clothes on the floor. It’s obvious that he was training until few moments ago, sweating like there was no tomorrow (and he probably was at it far before anybody else, since when the others are training, he’s already trying to rest).

Conclusion? He cares a lot but doesn’t trust anyone enough to show it. But why is that? Well the answer is very clear in Ep82 “The perfect strategy! Perfect zone press!”, his first official game against the Fire Dragon, and it’s given to us through a flashback. His father was a weak, inept man that left him and his mother struggling against debt collectors and his mother, although not with ill intentions, told him the one thing that would shape his way to see things and people: “grow into a powerful man so you can get back at people”. Saying this to a six years old child, whose father just abandoned and that basically lived on the streets, would obviously bring him to believe that “the strong feed on the weak in order to survive” as he will state during the match. It’s a twisted conclusion and surely not what his mother was trying to say, but his past, the things he had seen and the habitat in which he had to struggle not only to survive but to get to the top, surely didn’t help him grow into a trusting, happy pre-teen. And we have a confirmation of his untrusting nature in Ep83 “Get up captain!”, where Fuyuka states “I don’t think that person believes in anyone. That’s why no one tries to believe in him”. And here’s the interesting thing. It’s true that Fudou doesn’t trust others and it’s also true that he doesn’t care weather or not others trust him on a normal basis, but after seeing that his passes are not working because his teammates don’t trust him and his judgment on the field, then that’s a thing that really annoys him. He even looks kind of hurt.

And this is a situation we will see in several occasion (like during the match against Team K, when the Italy’s representative was having difficulties to follow his directions).

But back to ep83, we have the BIGGEST step forward for his character development! While he’s using some unorthodox methods to test and understand the rival team, getting a hand of what he’s after, Kidou decides to do the one thing he has to, in order to re-establish balance: being the first to trust Fudou. “His plays are trying to bring out the best of YOUR abilities too!” says a very clever Endou and his theory is proven by the first pass to Kidou going smoothly. “Maybe Fudou’s been working hard while we weren’t watching” that sure as hell is correct! Ever asked yourself what was he doing all the time you practiced together? Studying you, of course! So that he could lend the perfect passes and help the team wins. In the end he is still pretty detached from the others but they’re starting to slowly catching on: “what’s with that attitude?” “That’s Fudou Akio”.

So now Inazuma Japan is more prone to trust him during a match, but do they trust him as a person? Not yet. In Ep91 “Teikoku’s curse part2!” he is accused of betraying them and working with Kageyama, but what is his reaction? He laughs, without denying anything and that’s because, again, you can think whatever you want of him, it’s not his business and he seems pretty used to people not trusting him. That’s probably because to him the world works like this: no one should ever trust anyone in order to survive. He’s so used to it that when Endou says “I trust Fudou” he’s the most surprised by far.

Have you noticed anything suspicious tho? Like, for example, how easy it is to understand his true emotions just by looking at his face? It’s all written there: anger, disappointment, surprise, concern. He doesn’t hide behind a mask of indifference, he constantly shows genuine emotions through his eyes and here’s a piece of the article dedicated to him in the Animage September 2017: “He says more with his eyes. Fudou is a very blunt person but in actual fact he makes a variety of expressions. From a suspicious face, to a face full of contempt, to a shocked face – his expressions are more honest than you might think!” Is he aware of it? Does he not care? Are people always so blinded by prejudice that he thinks no one will ever notice?

Surely enough, after understanding how he wears (consciously or not) his heart on his sleeve, we can start to actually see how much he’s beginning to care for his teammates. The first indicator is the deep shock we can read on his face after Kidou “almost gets hit” by a bunch of wooden boards.

Later, on Ep92 “Terrifying! Another Kidou!” he tries to wake Kidou from his fear induced trance “stop being buried in the past already!”

(Here I would like to add how this phrase is probably referred to himself too, hence the following “you’ll be the one landing me a hand” muttered in response to Kidou’s help request “lend me a hand. Fudou, Sakuma!”. And related to this whisper of his, there’s an interesting thing his VA, Yuuki Kaji, stated in an interview on the Animage October 2010: “I had to record that line about ten times. This line in particular needs to be said gently, without any harshness”. And why should Fudou gently whisper something like this, hoping not to be heard, if he wasn’t talking about how he too was struggling to leave the past behind him and with it the old core of his existence: the hunger for power?)

Back to us! After stealing the ball from Kidou, thus helping him to weak up, he is again accused of betrayal. But this time… this time he answers. “And here I was trying to put an end to his plan by myself”. This phrase right here is another big step forward, he’s admitting that he was trying to work alone to destroy Kageyama and you could say “yes, because of personal revenge!” and the answer is: at 50%, yes. He really does want to beat him in order to move on with his past, but he is also furious with him for trying to destroy his team: “if Kageyama says he’s going to destroy Japan’s team, then I’ll bring him down with soccer!”

See? No one ever asked him to, no one expect for him to care that much, maybe not even you that are watching the show, but did you notice how he started to work with Kidou? Against Fire Drason first, then the private practice just the two of them, plus his constant watch over the other teammates, everything in order to bring the team to victory, not only himself. He is exactly what the creator intended him to be when they gave him his name. The name Fudou Akio (不動明王), in fact, originate from Fudō Myōō (不動明王) which is the Japanese name of the deity Acala. Acalanātha means "immovable protector" and in Japan is also known with the name "Wisdom King Acala", he is invoked in Buddhist rituals to "frighten gods, titans, men and destroy the strength of demons", and he slays all ghosts and evil spirits. He is also oftentimes drawn with intense facial expression and demeanor. So, a fierce god with intense expressions, that protect others and is particularly used against demons, mmhhh does this ring any bell to you? Like, I don’t know, a certain someone always there to fight against anything and anyone ill willed? Someone with a brilliant mind? That helps others escape from the control of an evil spirit? And that will be very mad during a specific game against an army of so called demons? No?

Let’s move on.

Back to ep92 he is also very pleased when Kidou actually comes back to his senses, he even smiles and for the first time accept that working on his own just won’t do.

After that, in Ep93 "Strongest Confrontation! Penguin vs. Penguin!!" we are showed again how he looks down on his past self when Demonio goes “Commander has given us the power to fight against the world. If this is the price I have to pay for power then I can endure this level of suffering” and Fudou comments, almost as if the thought slipped through his lips, “Power, eh…” Demonio reminds him of how power hungry he was and it’s clear at this point that Fudou has bidden farewell to the words his mother said and it’s ready to close that chapter of his life once and for all after the match against Team K.

Now we can really say that his character has reached at a turning point.

From the seemingly indifferent lone wolf that decided to come alive only during matches to a silent guy who’s able to smile with contempt alongside his teammates even off the field, like at the end of Ep95 "Desperate! Inazuma Japan Defeated!?" He doesn’t even care about victory as much as he wanted us to believe in the first episodes.

Then we got another insight on Ep96 "Fuyuppe's Secret" where he states, “looks like his leg injury wasn’t light anyway”, thus showing his close attention to the well-being of all the others and another fundamental thing! Why didn’t he tell anything to the coach if he knew Kurimatsu was injured? Well, because he respects him, his guts and his pride and in Ep107, "Grandpa's Last Note!", we have the confirmation of this theory when he is shown to have the “Heart #11: the heart to persist even if one hits rock-bottom, Warrior’s Pride”. So, being a proud warrior himself, he couldn’t, wouldn’t ever have outed Kurimatsu on something like that.

He is also making new friends aside from Kidou and Sakuma. In Ep105 "Decisive! Endō vs. Fidio!!" he high fived Someoka when switching during the match (and he also showed again just how much he trusts Kidou)

and during Ep110 "Demon Army Z!" he’s pretty pleased to have the helping hands of both Tsunami and Tobitaka while being the driving force against the hated “demons”. He is just so mad at them (*cough*ThinkOfHisName*cough*) he even takes one for the team, literally, by blocking a fierce shot with his body despite being hurt and full of bruises.

And if you’re still having doubts about him caring for the others, just watch at how he sneaks into Gouenji and Toramaru’s training to simply lend a hand and even quotes Sakuma! Also, Sakuma’s words may imply how Fudou is trying to hide his real feelings of affection for the team.

He’s gradually toning down, losing completely that poisoned tooth (even if he keeps his sassiness, thank god), when he’s around those that we can now call his friends. Because yes, they are, they know that he has that certain attitude and, as Hiroto states in Ep111 "The Devil's Decent! Dark Angel!!", “He shows what he means through actions. That’s Fudou Akio”, and this is fine by them, they accept him, even if he’s still so surprised when someone apologizes and is nice to him (but he’ll get used to it, he’ll eventually understand that he is worthy enough of affection).

It’s also important to state that when Coach Kudo calls their names during Ep122 "Inazuma Japan's Final Battle!", and everyone’s having a flashback of their first crucial step as better players, for Fudou it’s the moment when he decided to trust and cooperate for the first time, generating his first hissatsu with Kidou.

We can also see his changes by the enthusiasm he expresses after a victory. At first, he was distant, unaffected, then he started to smile a bit but while still keeping a bit of a distance, now, at the end of Ep125 “Final Truth! Number One in the World!!", he just run smiling with the others, happy as he should be and with no problem in showing it to the others.

He also shows up to the Raimon final match at the end of the graduation’s ceremony in Ep127 "Kick-off to Tomorrow!".

And finally, his speech to Tsurugi during “Inazuma Eleven GO Movie, The Ultimate Bonds Gryphon”: “Tsurugi, listen up! Friends are those you can depend on, and those who can depend on you!” This shows just how much he was able to change and mature over the years thanks to his friends!

And with this, my dearies, I salute you, hoping it was somewhat useful to you for a deeper, better understanding of an amazing character with a wonderful development!

#fudou akio #inazuma eleven #inazuma eleve go #inazuma eleven ares #character analysis #inazuma japan

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