#IN THE LAST CHAPTER HE GIVES UP AND GIVES INTO OZ'S REQUEST TO BE TRUTHFUL TO ALYSS WHICH MAKES ME ????

[starswake--archived]

i’m still in love with the fact that jack basically serves as the starting point for oz -- the way both of them keep lying and dwindling their feelings down to nothing to keep themselves protected and alive in a way. because then you can actually compare oz’s growth from the way he used to be to jack, and can even see the clashing of what oz could have turned out to be had it not been for other people intervening 

[calliecat93]

So… been a while since I did one of these. Yeah, long story short 2020 just ruined my anxiety and a bunch of other things and I just couldn’t handle doing the reviews after I feel so behind during the first half of V8. Even the six-week break didn’t do anything to reignite the motivation or help the anxiety, so I decided it was best to quit and just wait for the volume to be over. Which with how emotionally draining the volume was which may have very well impaired my judgment at the time, was probably the best decision. But V8 has been over for months now and we’re awaiting V9. So it’s time to finally finish this.

I normally do one chapter per review, but since I now know all that’s coming, I’m going to do two chapters per review. That means four total reviews, then a mass V8 review, and then hopefully things go better when V9 starts. So last I left off, we got Cinder backstory, the Ace-Ops running into YJR, and Salem breaking Atlas’ shields to finally go forward with her invasion. The dark times are upon Atlas and our heroes are running out of time. So… what happens now? Well, let's find out.

Overview

I normally break down everything moment by moment, but we’re gonna keep it brief since there’s a lot to cover.

In War as Salem’s attack marches forward, all of our heroes are in a bind. RWB wants to help Atlas while May wants to return to Mantle and points out that they can’t have both. Nora is still in need of a doctor, which causes Whitley, who overheard, to call in a character that we haven’t seen in quite a while. With JYR, they were captured by the Ace-Ops, who has now been tasked to use a bomb to blow up the whale. Our heroes negotiate with Winter to allow them time to go in and rescue Oscar and causes Ren to make an unexpected discovery. Meanwhile, in the whale, Emerald overhears Oscar/Oz again pleading to Hazel to see reason, even going as far as to give him the password to the Lamp. Not for Salem, for Hazel. This causes Emerald’s doubts to become even more concerning and with Mercury leaving with Tyrian for Vacuo and Cinder focused solely on her quest for power, she is left alone to decide what she wishes to do.

In RWBY’s 100th chapter Dark, we are at the Schnee Manor where the power blows out. But when they recall that they have an emergency generator, Whitley realizes that they can use the SDC to get supplies to the Mantle refugees. Ruby and Blake go to restore the power as Ruby is still struggling to maintain her usual optimism, but they encounter a Grimm in the process. Specifically, The Hound. Meanwhile, Penny, who crash-landed in front of the Manor last episode, tries to maintain control as Watts’ virus goes into effect. During the battle, it ends with Ruby discovering The Hound. One that utterly horrifies her…

Review

Okay, there is a LOT to go over with these two chapters, So let’s break this down event by event.

Monstra

Let’s discuss our villains first since we have some pretty major developments. First, we have Hazel. We had just about everything that I had assumed before confirmed. The reason that Hazel works for Salem isn’t merely just because she claims to want a new world order. Honestly, I think that Hazel just fooled himself to justify his decision to himself. No, as he talks to Ozcar, the truth becomes crystal clear. Hazel has given up. He confronted her once, and all that happened was she kept coming back until he was too exhausted to fight anymore. She broke him. Fighting her was futile and by taking advantage of this, Salem set him on the only path that he had left: getting revenge on Ozpin. Even though he’ll reincarnate, he can still be hurt. He can still be killed. He can still suffer. It was all that Hazel had left, and it consumed him.

As much as I know that some had issues with Hazel’s backstory, losing your sibling to circumstances that weren’t really anyone’s fault but you still feel so angry that you just need to blame something is very understandable. I’ve been in that place. I think that many of us have. And to learn that he did try to fight Salem at first but in the end, gave up due to her immortality… can you imagine how many others likely went down that route? Wanting to fight Salem but when the horrible truth came out were left empty? RWBY went through it in V6 and barely recovered, so it’s easy to see where Hazel is coming from. It’s easy to see why he won’t believe Oz when he tells him what Salem’s true goal, the release of death via summoning the Gods judgment, is. Oscar takes over and reveals the password, trusting Hazel to decide for himself what to do. Not Salem, Hazel. Will it pay off? Only time will tell.

But Hazel isn’t the only one privy to this new information. Emerald overheard all of it. Whatever fears that she had were all confirmed. Mercury is dismissive, both not believing it (until Tyrian confirms it) and even if he did, points out that Hazel failed and fell into line. It’s going to take time for the assassin to change his mind. As far as he’s concerned, he’s on top of the world, or at least in the best place that he can be in. Better than when he was with Marcus at least. Emerald though? She’s been doubtful and scared since at least the end of V3, even earlier if we count the flashbacks in Beginning of the End. The only thing that has kept her around along with the fear of Salem has been her devotion to Cinder. But with how Cinder has been coldly dismissive of her thus far this volume and now knowing that she’s part of something far worse than she imagined, it looks like Emerald may be deciding that it’s not worth it anymore. The question is, will she act before it’s too late? With Mercury off to Vacuo, she’s on her own to make that choice.

The villains’ stuff is mainly setup for Chapter 9 but it’s good stuff. We’re getting everything in place for the many payoffs that we’ve been waiting a long time for. Many of us have been hoping for Emerald to defect. While IDT as many have wanted the same for Hazel, he’s certainly the nobler of his buddies and has shown signs of possible redemption, so I’ve been hoping for it. Oz and Oscar’s efforts seem to be paying off and Oscar taking over and playing a huge gamble is pure excellence. It’s both Oz trusting the boy and working in tandem with him showing how he is genuinely trying to be better and showing Oscar’s growth with his more diplomatic skills here. It failed to work on Ironwood, but perhaps this time he’ll have better luck.

JYR and the Ace-Ops

Like with the villains, their stuff is contained all within War. But boy do we have plenty to go over. With Atlas in utter chaos, to the point of all the citizens having to hide in a subway, Ironwood has decided to have Winter and her team bomb Monstra. Which makes sense… except that Oscar’s in there. Needless to say, JYR isn’t happy about that. But Harriet, Elm, and Vine remain committed to their ‘we have no feelings’ routine. Even though it’s so obvious that they’re lying through their teeth. Ren’s Semblance confirmed it, but it’s not hard to tell. Elm and especially Harriet are hiding their feelings through their anger and doubling down on following orders. Vine does try to remain reasonable, but otherwise retains his emotionless demeanor. Marrow… he just clearly doesn't want to be there anymore. He’s still trying to remain comitted to what he’s doing, but this and Chapter 9 are going to be changing that big time

And WInter? Oh Lord Winter. She wants to do the right thing but is bound to her loyalty and duty to Ironwood and Atlas, and she doesn’t know which one to follow. Her orders? Or her heart? The choice may seem like a no-brainer to us, but to Winter it’s more complicated. She feels that she owes Ironwood so much. Because of him and the military, she escaped her father and his control. I think that she does realize that this point that she’s just exchanged one puppetmaster for another, but she doesn't know how to cut the strings. We see some signs of hope, both in the last volume when she allowed Weiss and the others to escape, and here when she grants JYR’s request to go into the whale to find Oscar before the bomb arrives. She knows that if Ironwood finds out she’ll be in trouble. She remains conflicted, but it’s still a signt hat it’s not too late. It allows her (and Marrow forthat mater) to remain sympathetic while others like Harriet… well, they’re not making it easy, let’s leave it at that.

That brings us to Ren. He’s had it hard thus far, his emotional control slipping, his split-off from Nora, and everything that built up the last volume coming crashing down. He’s been pushing everyone away, but now? He can’t afford to do so. Not with Oscar in danger. When Harriet says that teammates are replaceable, he strongly disagrees. He and Jaune would absolutely know how wrong this is. They’ve never replaced Pyrrha after all. Even if one considers Oscar part of JNR, he’s never been considered the new Pyrrha. He’s just Oscar, their friend. When he finally admitted that to himself, it allowed Ren’s Semblance to evolve. Instead of simply masking emotions, he can now see them via colored flower petals. Yes dear readers, Ren is an empath.

This development is perfect/. It happened at the right time, Ren finally admitting his feelings for those that he cares about instead of internalizing them and pushing those people away as he has been with Nora. It’s a natural evolution of his powers. He can mask emotions to protect others from the Grimm, and now that he can take it off he can see beneatht he masks of others. Harriet and Elm’s rage. Vine’s uncertainty (I’m assuming anyways based on what happens later). Marrow’s sadness. Winter’s collection of so many different colored petals, reflecting the war that she is having with herself. Now that Ren is beginning to open up, he can now help others do the same. Semblances reflect the on using them, and I think this says a lot about what Ren is truly meant to be and will be in the future.

Schnee Manor

Now we get to the meat of this post. Let’s go over the events in War first. While our heroes are safe at Schnee Manor, they’re conflicted on what to do. May wants to, and by Dark does, go back to Mantle since things are just as bad there and they don’t have the military to save them. Weiss however? She wants to help Atlas. Despite everything, Atlas is still Weiss’ home and there are still family and innocent people that she wishes to save. She’s a Huntress, that’s her job. May however? Her family dismissed her when she was their son, and she made it very clear that she is in no way their daughter. Which first, that was a brilliant way to add that representation. Kdin confirmed that May was Transgender last volume, but now we have undeniable proof in the show itself and it was perfectly delivered. She also makes a good point, Mantle has no protection. The whole reason that RWBY went against Ironwood was that he chose to leave Mantle to die. At this point, it does seem like the heroes can have it both ways. It worked in the past, but not here. Not anymore. But even May admits as she leaves that at this point, there might not be anythign left to do for either city. It’s just… bleak. Even moreso than in V3.

This of course hits Ruby. Normally, her optimism and hope carry her through. It was practically what got the heroes through V6 alive and well. But now? No. Even she can’t deny how bad things have gotten. When she and Blake go to turn on the backup generator, it’s clear how conflicted she is. She wants to help everyone. She chose to send the message because it seemed like the best chance to save everyone. But the longer that she waits, the more unlikely it all seems. She’s becoming utterly overwhelmed. Honestly, with how 2020 went, I find this very relatable. You w\see all the suffering caused by COVID and the horror of the police brutality against Black people and so many other awful things we’re still in the midst of. You want to do something. You want to help everyone and want things to just be okay. But when you do, all of it weighs down on you because you simply can’t help everyone. As Klein said, you can only focus on what’s in front of you first. You feel helpless, scared, maybe even angry. But we’re only human. We can only do what we can a step at a time in whatever way we can, even if it’s just being a shoulder to lean on. It’s at least something.

This leads to something that I have practically been begging CRWBY to do for years now, have Blake comfort her. We’ve had very scarce Ruby and Blake interactions, but it’s always been pretty clear that Blake trusts Ruby and has followed her lead faithfully more or less since the team formed. I think it was very fitting for Blake to be the one who reached out to her as it calls back to when they first talked in Volume 1. Back when Ruby expressed her love of books and wanting to make the world better like the heroes that she would read about. How Blake admired her goal but also viewed it as rather childish. Considering everything with the Faunus oppression, the White Fang, and of course Adam, who could blame her? But Ruby gave her hope. Ruby got her to see that they can make the world better. That despite everything, it’s their job to protect everyone and to move forward. Ruby’s been able to push them ahead so much, and they all still need her. It’s what Ruby needed to hear and it shows how far that both girls have come since those early days at Beacon. Which since this happened in the 100th episode, was very fitting.

Now I’m not gonna say too much about The Hound here. The entire fight scene was awesome and the thing stalking through the Schnee Manor? It somehow felt more horrifying than The Apathy did in Volume 6. How do you manage that?! Whitley and Willow ultimately killing it via the armor was also pretty cool and it’s nice to see the civilian characters getting involved, showing that they don’t have to be helpless like with the ship captain and crew back in Volume 4. Then the final revelation, that The Hound was not only human but had Silver Eyes… yeah Ruby’s reaction could not be more justified. I’m gonna go into my thoughts more in the 11-12 review since Ruby goes more into her feelings there. But the revelations that this one scene caused… yeah, it’s added a whole new level of horror to not just Salem, but the Grimm as a whole. It’s kind of a bummer that The Hound was killed off and it just feels so soon, but with how so much is going on at this point… yeah I’m gonna forgive it especially since the death still leaves a lot to think about in the future.

So let’s talk Schnee family! First, Willow. I like how they handled her here. She’s an anxious mess, which makes complete sense. She has to keep forcing herself to not drink, but without that coping mechanism, she’s so anxious that she ends up running out of Weiss’ room in utter panic. Fortunately, she’s still able to get her act together enough to be of help. She uses the security cameras to warn Weiss and keep an eye on The Hound. Which also allows her to see it heading for Whitley. But instead of waiting on Weiss and since Whitley understandably doesn’t want to listen to her, she does the right thing: act like a mother and save her child. Including actually using her Glyphs to summon a Boarbutusk. Yes, Willow. In a jam-packed volume like this, it’s nice to see these bits of character development for even the minor characters and it was done well here.

Then we have Whitley. I’m gonna admit it, it feels like his change is pretty rushed, but again we have about a million other things going on. Plus I guess the worst situations can bring out the best in people. That’s certainly the case here. He over-hears RWB and May talking and decides to call Klein, who is apparently a doctor, not only a butler (the temptation to NOT make an ‘I’m a doctor, not an X’ joke after getting into Star Trek is REALLY hard XD) to treat Nora. Which Weiss’ reaction to seeing him and him not at all blaming her for being fired was just beautiful. But it’s Whitley making a decision. Not due to his father’s influence. Not to get Weiss’ attention. He did it because Nora needed help and it was simply the right thing to do. The fact that he acted independently makes Weiss so happy that she hugs him. It surprises Whitley… but you can tell that he’s happy about it.

I think that really encouraged Whitley. Jaques isn’t there anymore. There’s no one controlling his fate anymore. It doens’t matter if Whitley defies him now, Jaques can’t do a thing about it. It’s Whitley who realizes that they have the resources and ability to send supplies and help to Mantle. It’s him who goes to his father’s office to get the process underway. Even when The Hound comes in, he still makes sure to give the authorization before making a run for it. With the fear of his father gone and Weiss showing more support, Whitley is showing that he’s not a bad person. He was very much like his sister was; someone trapped and forced to succumb to the toxic influences to survive. He didn’t have the support that Weiss did, nor the skills that either of his sisters had that let them escape. But he’s taking those steps now. He has an attitude still, but he’s kind of where Volume 1-3 Wess was; a major brat but one very much on their way to improving. If Whitey ends up taking over whatever remains of the SDC or outright remakes it, I think that he’ll be a fine leader while his sisters continue as Huntresses.

Finally, we come to Penny. I should probably talk about Nora as well, but since Chapter 11 is when she expresses how she feels ike how Ruby does, I’m going to hold off until then As far as Penny goes… God, I… it just hurts. Knowing how this ultimately will end only makes it more painful to go back through. But just as Chapter 5 made it look like Penny would finally be allowed to choose for herself, Watts ruins all of it. This is a girl who is utterly trapped. Ironwood bound her down by isolating her and then forcing the protection of a whole city on her. Pietro, while well-meaning, was over-protective and allowing that to keep Penny held by her strings. He let go… and look at how it ended. The Maiden Powers, while something that Penny accepted, now has her targeted on all sides and she can’t escape them while bound tot he responsibilities that come with it. Now we have Watts’ virus and despite her best efforts, she can’t stop it.

It’s just… heart-wrenching. Especially when Nora wakes up and calms her down by reminding her that whatever is trying to take over is only a part of her, not the whole being. It works… for a few moments. But in the end, all that Penny can do is succumb. This girl truly has no control over anything. Not over her own life. Not over the abilities that she possesses. And now not even over her own mind and body. She keeps having her strings yanked back and forth, wanting to just snap them off but all her limbs are held in place so she can’t. Watching her act utterly robotic, blankly describing how she will open the Vault then self-terminate… it’s just so wrong. Not to mention her coming dangerously close to being carted off to Salem with only Ruby managing a Silver Eyes blast saving her. It was hard to watch back when these premiered but after the finale? It’s just… it’s just so cruel.

Both of these chapters were excellent. War is mainly a setup chapter and ho boy the event that it sets up for… Chapter 9 is gonna be fun to talk about! But it also had plenty of pay-offs, especially for Ren and great moments like May’s scene, Salem conducting the Grimm, and it just captures the bleakness yet determination of our heroes perfectly. Then Dark… boy is that chapter title appropriate. Again great moments like the Ruby and Blake talk, the entire fight sequence, and probably the most horrifying revelation thus far. There’s some minor stuff like the jailbreak as well that made RWBY’s 100th chapter, as well as the chapter to kick off the return after the six-week hiatus, a thrill to watch. That's not even going into Alex Abraham's spectacular score, especially when the big reveal/death of The Hound happens. Just... it's just perfect. It can feel like there’s just so much going on that it gets hard to keep up with at times… but to be fair, that’s how our heroes feel as well, so I supposed that’s appropriate.

Chapter Stats

War

Favorite Character: Lie Ren

Favorite Scene: Ren unlocking his emotion-reading power

Least Favorite Scene: RWB sipping tea. It’s not a bad scene, but them just kind of standing by while the chaos is going on… it just feels a tad out of place.

Favorite Voice Actor: Kdin Jenzen (May Marigold)

Favorite Animation: Salem conducting the Grimm attack.

Rating: 8/10

Dark

Favorite Character: Ruby Rose

Favorite Scene: Ruby and Blake talk

Least Favorite Scene: I got nothing. Everything here was perfect.

Favorite Voice Actor: Arryn Zeck (Blake) and Jason Liebrecht (The Hound)

Favorite Animation: As horrifying as it was, The Hound reveal.

Rating: 10/10

Final Thoughts

When I watched these, all I could really do was stare wide-eyed. Even though I knew that this volume was going to be intense, somehow I wasn’t prepared for any of it. Certainly not for everything in these chapters. But all of it was just so freakin’ good. Does it feel emotionally draining? Yes. It was a big part of why I’m only getting to these several months later. But was it still worth watching? Absolutely. Compare Dark to the first chapter of Volume 1. RWBY has come such a long way. A lot of things both good and bad have happened in between, but it’s still going and I plan to be here until the bitter end. With quality like this, it gives me a good reason to stick around. So six more chapters/three reviews to go.

(Image Sources)

[rinusagitora]

The love, lead, and the undead.

Fandom: Monster Prom

Characters: Damien LaVey, Brian Yu, Zoe, Vera Oberlin, Amira RashidLiam de Lioncourt, Stan LaVey, Dahlia Aquino, Vicky Schmidt, OC: Jamison, OC: Berenice

Pairings: Brian/Damien/Vicky, Oz/Zoe, Amira/Vera

Words: 2.4k

Summary: Canon divergent. Chapter 7/?. WARNINGS— funerals; It is the day of Vicky’s funeral.

A/N: Sorry this took so long. I caught a whopper of a stomach bug and then I had to work over the holiday. I will be on hiatus until the 16th or 17th of December to work on a couple of holiday projects.

Stan guided Brian and Damien into the overworld. Brian drove them to the mortuary and none of them so much as uttered a word. Damien was preoccupied with what Brian told him before they left: by the conversation between Lucien and Mugandr, about Vicky’s soul. She had done more than enough to warrant damnation.

Damien had met Mugandr before. He was quite a terrible creature. Although seeming loyal to them, it was fearsome to know Mugandr was able to single-handedly create the carnage Damien only enviously dreamt of.

More importantly, Damien was preoccupied with why his parents chose to keep something so… important a secret. It had to be a lie or a dream, but why would Brian have lied? And he was wide awake, it couldn’t have been a dream! The more Damien contemplated it, he became increasingly horrified. He didn’t want to believe it. He didn’t want Vicky, sweet Vicky,

He should have checked the big book before they left. He wanted to see Vicky’s fate for himself.

They parked behind the mortuary. Inside, they were met by a creature with a bulbous jaw and cloudy, albeit kind eyes. “Your Majesty, Prince Damien, Mister Yu, welcome. My name is Jamison. I’m the director here.”

“Jamison, it’s a pleasure finally meeting you. Lucien has told me so many things about you.”

“Your Majesty, your husband saved me and my family many years ago, long before you left your family. I owe him my life. Preparing your daughter-in-law’s funeral is the very least I can do for your family.”

“We’re not… we’re not married,” Damien remarked.

“I trust these are your sons,” Jamison said. He took Brian’s and Damien’s hands into his own. “Mister Yu, Prince Damien, I’m so sorry for your loss. She was a loving woman. I saw it in her eyes. I see it in your eyes. Wherever she is, I hope she finds peace. I hope you find peace as well, dear boys.”

Damien smiled joylessly. Jamison must have been an empath. “Thank you.” He hadn’t the energy to bully the creature.

“The body is prepared. We have taken her into the viewing room if you like to visit her,” Jamison said. He led them into the viewing room. After rows of pews like a chapel, there was Vicky’s grey casket. Even from the other side of the room, he saw strands of Vicky’s hair from the top of the casket. Damien’s knees locked up.

Brian took a step forward and stopped when he realized Damien couldn’t move. “Please,” Brian whispered, “I need you.”

Damien reluctantly nodded. He followed Brian to the casket where Vicky was laid in a nest of her beautiful hair and a satin dress. It wasn’t the same, though. Her eyes were sunken. Her lips were pale.

Brian kissed her forehead. He stroked her hand with his thumb.

“Damien, Brian,” Stan said, “do you have anything to say to Vicky?”

He wanted to shake his father. He wanted to scream at Stan until he was told the truth about Vicky. Instead, he only shook his head.

They sat. He couldn’t bear to look at her casket any longer. As Damien stared at his shoes, people trickled inside, and his father thanked them for their kind words Damien was deafened to. He didn’t want kind words. He wanted their situation to make sense. He wanted Vicky back. He wanted to hope that his fathers hadn’t hidden Vicky’s fate from him.

Liam sat behind Damien and clasped his shoulder. “You look like you spent the last couple of nights sleeping on stone.”

“I’m tired,” Damien replied quietly. “I haven’t had a good night’s sleep since she was killed.”

“I’m still processing all this myself. But Vicky loved us. She loved you guys.”

The constant reminder made Damien ache as if he failed Vicky. As if he should have shoved her out of the way. As if he could have talked her out of robbing a lab.

“Is Vera coming?”

“Yes. She’s coming with Amira and Valerie. Blobert texted me earlier, he should be here soon.”

“What about Oz and Zoe?” Brian asked.

“I don’t know. I haven’t heard from either of them today.”

Oz and Zoe wouldn’t have bailed out on Vicky’s funeral. They wouldn’t have dropped off the planet, either, not when Brian, who was one of their best friends, just suffered such an enormous loss. The whole thing felt like a conspiracy. It only confirmed what Brian said. It gave Damien the chills. Why else would they, as well as his father Lucien, not be there?

Later, the Oberlin girls approached the body. Vera rarely faltered, but she faltered that moment, and Valerie had to take her to their seats. When Blobert came, he sobbed against Vicky’s shirt. Damien only felt hollow when he was hugged. Blobert felt cold like Vicky.

Jamison mounted the podium. “Good morning, loved ones of Missus Vicky.” They weren’t fucking married. It cut Damien to the bone. He loved her like they were husband and wife, yet they were so many only-s Damien hadn’t realized before then. They were only dating, only together for a week, only children. It cut Damien deeply enough he began to cry there. “I am gladdened to see so many of you partook in Vicky’s rich and wonderful life. I will waste no time giving the stage to Missus Vicky’s loved ones. After eulogies from His Majesty Stan LaVey, Vera Oberlin, and Liam de Lioncourt, we will continue into the parlor.”

Stan strode to the podium. "Hello, all. Thank you for coming."

"I didn't know Vicky for long, but what I did know was that she was incredibly loving and she spent every minute possible with the people she loved. My son Damien has regaled myself and my husband with many tales of his friendship with Vicky, and ever since he got together with her and Brian, he's been the happiest he's ever been."

“I will miss Vicky’s softness. My son told me how she enjoyed the rush of violence, but he told me about how much she cared for her friends. She stayed with him when he felt down, he forgave him for his wrongdoings. She stood up to terrible, bigoted people to defend her friends. Given the opportunity, I know she would have made a fantastic warrior and ally. I know she was for all her loved ones, and I know she will be forever missed.”

It was moving, and somehow, it felt like a lie too. Nonetheless, after Stan sat, Vera replaced him. Her cheeks were wet.

“I’m not one for speeches. I’ve spent two days since Vicky was pronounced dead to come up with something to no avail. But I have to do this because Vicky was like a sister to me. Neither of us had families. Her’s had their flaws, and until my father took me in, I didn’t have anyone. You scrounge for anything when there’s a hole like that. In a lot of ways, Vicky filled that hole with my sister and father.”

“Vicky became my best friend. She was fun. Unpredictable, passionate, it made for a lot of insane stories. We became close and then became business partners. Before I knew it, most of my world was the two of us. It was me, Papa, Valerie, and Vicky, all of us together.”

“I haven’t been able to stop crying since she died. I cried this morning, I cried all the way here. I can hardly keep it together now. I can’t help but feel like I didn’t tell her how much I loved her as much as I should have. What I would have done to keep her safe and happy. I’m sad without her, but I try to think about how I would want her to feel if I had died instead…. I’d want her to grieve in her way, with loved ones, and I’d want her to be happy.”

Vera escaped off the podium, tearful before she sat so hard the wooden bench groaned.

Damien felt kind of numb. After his father’s speech, everything seemed like a lie. Vera was Vicky’s best friend, but Damien still wanted to turn around and tear Vera’s head off so she wouldn’t act like she hadn’t treated Vicky like a tool.

Damien was a pretty terrible friend.

Liam had taken the stand. He said some things or another, and he played a video where Vicky was perched on top of a ramp wearing knee pads and a helmet, she howled as they rode down the curve, and then stood and played with her hair as the ocean lapped at her ankles and the sun tinted her cheeks.

Vicky fell on the ramp. The sun sank behind the ocean.

Vicky fell onto the sidewalk. Her casket sank below the earth. Damien wanted to sink with her.

---

Brian ached the entire procession. His eyes, his chest, his knees. Like he crawled mile after mile to weep before her casket. But nothing came from his body, no tears, no whimpers. He couldn't even bleed those days because his blood was a net of coagulation like mucus between his fingers.

But Damien howled like a hound with his head buried in Brian's shoulder. He clutched Brian's blazer so hard his knuckles were pink.

All Brian wanted was a drink. Something hot to scald his throat and deafen him to the ungodly creak of his bones and the drone of plangent eulogies.

When he looked over his shoulder (the way his neck creaked made him sick) he laid eyes on Zoe with a veil over her face by the door.

Brian's head spun. Where was Oz? Did she turn down Lucien's request for help? Was she there to mourn with the rest of them? He couldn't contain his racing mind. He slipped away and followed Zoe into the lobby.

Damien caught his hand. His cheeks were puffy from crying. "I can't do this without you," he croaked.

"I think Zoe has something to tell us," Brian said.

Damien was frozen for a moment before he quietly nodded. They followed Zoe into a family bathroom. Brian locked the door behind them and looked between Amira, Vera, and Zoe.

"Most of you should be able to guess why you're here," Zoe said. "Vicky is alive and we know where she is."

Damien's legs gave out and he sobbed on the floor. Even though Brian knew she was alive, to have heard it with confidence from someone else confounded Brian. He waded in suspense, horror, relief, yearning. It ripped through him and put his hair on end.

"How the hell is she alive?" Vera quivered.

Amira interrupted, "More importantly, where is she? We need to get her back here!"

"It's not that simple," Zoe said. "Vicky is dead. She doesn't have a feasible body to return to, and that's just the beginning. The Aquino has her spirit."

Damien's fist crashed into the floor. It cracked the linoleum as he snarled. "They what?"

"Dahlia must've overheard about the lab robbery. So after Vicky killed someone, Dahlia leaked her identity and schedule so she could be taken out. The Aquino then took advantage of the situation and stole her soul to make her into a weapon against the LaVey. That's the gist of it, at least," Zoe explained.

"Okay, let's get her the fuck out before someone gets hurt!" Vera snapped. "Absolutely none of that matters. Vicky needs us now. We have to save her."

"It's not that simple," Damien grunted.

"Why's that?" Amira asked.

"Vicky isn't like Damien. She doesn't have a corporeal body. Without a body, she may not be able to leave Hell, and seeing as how her body is currently unsalvageable without a brain, I doubt that we can do anything."

Brian's knees couldn't take the weight of his heartache. He sunk to the floor. It was hopeless. Vicky was so close, and yet so far away.

"Take it," Vera said.

"Absolutely not," Zoe snapped.

"Shut up! I don't care what it takes. Take my soul, my life, my empire. I know you can help us. I know you can fix her body"

"Vera, what the hell are you doing? Do you understand what you're saying?" Amira gawked.

"Can it, Amira!" Vera screamed. "It's my fault Vicky died. I got greedy and careless. I'm going to be responsible for bringing her back now, too."

Brian watched with bated breath. He was a horrible friend to hope Zoe agreed. He needed Vicky there. He needed her back.

Zoe finally nodded. He sobbed with Damien, from grief and relief, and thanked them for their generosity.

---

Vicky fell

and fell

and fell.

She must have fallen for days. The winds were so strong she couldn’t even open her eyes. Breathless, yet unsuffocated, she tumbled, and tumbled, and tumbled into bottomless oblivion, until oblivion caught her in leathery arms.

Vicky peeled her eyes open. Blue, horned creatures looked upon her oddly. Like hyenas.

“Dahlia, Is she alive?”

“What?” Vicky croaked. Her throat was dry, it hurt to speak.

They applauded. It sounded like drums underwater.

“Where am I?” Vicky pleaded, only to be drowned out by the jubilee. She freed herself. When her foot hit the damp stone, it crackled with electricity. She covered her ears, she hobbled and wobbled, before she screamed, “where am I?”

From her elbow and eye, lightning arced into the ground and ceiling. She screamed with the thunder, with the hammering of her head.

“Where am I?” she howled. “Where am I?”

It stormed without rain or clouds. She was in so much pain, she was so confused. Why did they applaud? Who was she, even?

“Enough!”

Vicky was suffocated by a dense fog, petrified and bent in horror. A second later, she collapsed and gasped for air. She was surrounded again. She felt like an animal in a zoo, without compassion or privacy.

“Out, everyone needs to leave! Give the poor thing some space.”

Vicky gazed upon a glistening demon without eyes and spotted ears that dragged on the floor. She almost wanted to dive into their arms like a child hid under their mother’s skirt.

“Berenice, what are you doing?” the enormous woman demon said. “We need to take her to my dad.”

“Look at the poor thing, Dahlia! She’s so overwhelmed. Let’s get her somewhere she can calm down and reorient herself.” Berenice picked Vicky off the floor.

“We can’t! She can reorient after she meets with Dad.”

Vicky looked to Berenice with fear and longing. It seemed like Berenice was Vicky’s only ally amid the petting zoo she was a part of. But even Berenice was helpless against an army.

“I’ll be okay,” Vicky told Berenice. “It’s just a man I’m meeting, right?”

“It’s a king.”

Kings bled, Vicky told herself. Nonetheless, she was afraid.

[jamalexlee]

Ask me: FANDOM EDITION: Allll of them, please!?

To clarify its for Brooklyn 99

A - Your current OTP: Ok so I have to cheat right out the box - cos I have two. Jake Peralta and Amy Santiago and Captain Raymond Holt and Kevin Cozner. They’re just perfect for each other, so complimentary and so in love - but real you know?

B - A pairing you initially didn’t consider but someone changed your mind Jake and Doug Judy. They are a friendship otp (mostly) but yeah lifelong togetherness. And it was tumblr that got me wondering on this.

C - A pairing you have never liked and probably never will Jake and Amy with anyone that isn’t each other during the show. Brooklyn 99 is better at this than most tv shows but the people introduced solely to keep the will-they-won’t-they couple apart will always annoy me - its just taking air time from the bits of a show I like and forces so much jealousy and stuff - and I’m not into that

D - A pairing you wish you liked but just can’t Rosa Diaz/Adrian Pimento. They just never clicked for me as a couple and she is so out of his league its painful. Not that I’m against Rosa having a boyfriend I actually liked her with Marcus and was upset when they broke up. But yeah…

E - Have you added anything stupid/cracky/hilarious to your fandom, if so, what I don’t think I’ve offered much to the 99 fandom - I mostly reblog others bits and agree or add silly comments.

F - What’s the longest you’ve ever been in a fandom? 22 years. I was with Buffy from the get go - and while its got its issues and bits of it hasn’t aged very well I wouldn’t have been the same without this show in my life.

G - Do you remember your first OTP, if so who was in it? Bangel. The combinded high romance and excruciating pain had me hooked. I still feel it when I watch it all these years later.

H - Do you prefer characters from real action series or anime series? My anime interest has grown over the last few years but action still wins overall - especially since I can’t help loving seeing my favourite characters in pain - and the live action means we get to see the actors and actresses hurt and cry for the sake of the drama - anime can’t compare.

I - Has tumblr caused you to stop liking any fandoms, if so, which and why? I try not to let tumblr do that to me if I can help it (these days anyway) but (and I realise I could die for this) I have started to dislike corners of the Star Wars fandom due to their treatment of certain characters.

J - Name a fandom you didn’t care/think about until you saw it all over tumblr. Oh god so many - but… sense8. It was advertised no where so I wouldn’t have known it existed or watched it without tumblr giffing the hell out of it - and wouldn’t that have been a shame.

K - How do you feel about the other people in your current fandom? I’m assuming this is Brooklyn 99 so… I love them. Honestly. Their love kept the show going when it was cancelled allowing us to continue enjoying this wonderful funny show.

L - Your favorite fanartist/author gives you one request, what do you ask for? @lupismaris please please more chapters for But Alone is Alone (Not Alive)

M - Your favorite fanart or fanartist? I’m so bad with names - but I’m hoping the upcoming Silverflint Big Bang and rarepairing weeks will teach me the names better.

N - Your favorite fanfiction or fanauthor? See above - I have so many I love but I suck with names.

O - Choose a song at random, which OTP does it remind you of? Only Love Can Hurt Like This - Paloma Faith -  and Silverflint. Seriously there’s a fanvid to this on Youtube that fits them so well.

P - Invent a random AU for any fandom (we always need more ideas): Black Sails - Thomas comes to Nassau instead of Flint going to him. There are so many characters I need him to meet on that island. Feel free to have him arrive in earlier season to meet characters that totally didn’t die (vane cough cough) - and p.s. I’m total Silverflinthamilton trash so yeah…

Q - A ship you’ve abandoned and why? Destiel. I hung on to this for far longer than I should have mostly because I couldn’t handle the truth of this pairing - that it was world-class queerbaiting of the highest degree - mind you I stayed with Supernatural for longer than was sane too (9 seasons god help me)

R - A pairing you ship that you don’t think anyone else ships. Is there actually a ship in any fandom that no one has ever thought of before? I mean even as Crack!fic it’ll have been done. I guess my closest is Joshua Donovan and Steve Jinx from Warehouse 13 - I don’t know if anyone ever put those two together and its a small fandom

S - Show us an example of your personal headcanon:  I don’t really have a personal headcanon for Brooklyn 99 - I agree with a bit of fanon that’s gotten popular - Bi!Jake. Honestly I kinda love the idea of Jake having been oblivious and accidentally had a boyfriend without him realising - and it being played by John Mulaney.

T - If you mostly have homoships, do you have any heteroships? Bangel, Peraltiago, Willow/Oz, Fred/Gunn - though I should mention that I headcanon one or both of these couples as bi so… not totally hetero.

U - If you mostly have heteroships, do you have any homoships? I mostly ship queer ships - its just a fact. And if I ship it I’ll reblog about it - probably more than people would like honestly.

V - Are you one of those fans who can’t watch anything without shipping? Don’t be daft. But on the same token - why’s it bad if you do? Shipping is just another part of fandom. Another avenue of interest and discussions to have in your fandom. And why would you deny yourself an extra dimension of enjoyment.

W - 5 favorite characters from 5 different fandoms: Ok so not choosing Black Sails for this because how in the hell do you pick just one favourite character in that? I’m changes several times a day. Honestly I’d struggle to do a top 10. So Tara Maclay, Buffy The Vampire Slayer - I saw so much of myself in her when that show first came out and she was a very important character - and I’m still pissed about what the show did to her. Captain Raymond Holt, Brooklyn 99 - god what a character, so much too long about him and he is a complete character flaws and all. Wynonna Earp - I love this woman soo much - and not just because the actress that plays her is a goddess either (honest), Dave Lister, Red Dwarf - I’m literally watching it right now - and honestly it was the first time I’d heard my own accent on television and I fell in love immediately and The Doctor - honestly a favourite character that can be a totally different character from one season to another? Classic - this character hasn’t been used the best yet (seriously why always white and why so long to be present as female?) The Doctor is still unique and wonderful character I’ve loved many versions of.

X - 3 OTPs from 3 different fandoms: Silverflint - there’s just so much in that relationship so much to work with, unpack, rewrite and do with it - you’d never run out of things to do with it - especially if like me you’re cool with either Hamilton or Madi added in (or all of the above), Holmes/Watson - in all versions in all mediums they are soulmates in all of them and I’ll never get bored of these two together, Posner/Scripps - it never happened in canon but it should have - Scripps is oblivious but totally in love with Posner and Posner knows - Scripps will figure it out in University and they will live happily ever after.

Y - A fandom you’re in but have no ships from:  The IT Crowd - I don’t ship anyone there. Not really anyway.

Z - Just ramble about something fan-related, go go go: Black Sails is awesome - if you haven’t watched it go do it now - you won’t regret it - but fair warning it’ll ruin all other shows for you.

[teamhook]

Captain Swan Supernatural Summer - Second Contribution

Hello! Well, before the cssns was announced I was already thinking about writing this story but I wasn't sure, I needed a sign and then Krystal posted the signup for the event. So I went with it. It's a supernatural story that I had been playing with.

Thank you @kmomof4 for enabling all us, and organizing the event.

Thank you, @hookedonapirate for being my Beta.

Thank you, @revanmeetra87 for your support even though supernatural fics aren’t your thing.

And last but not least @kymbersmith-90 for being there for me, when I freak out at the craziest times.

Originally my idea was fusing in a few things together. I loved the storyline for Dracula 2000 and to be honest I think Captain Swan should be all movies. I was going to use a few points of the story but it evolved into something else. It has hints of some of my favorite movies and tv shows.

Sadly, after my computer crashed I felt lost, for a moment the story was eluding me. I confess it was hard to get back to it because so much of what I had planned had vanished and now I'm slowly getting my groove back. There will be mentions of different types of creatures but I will not go into great detail about all of them.

I give you Captain Swan Supernatural Summer my new multi-chapter story.

|AO3|  |FFN|

...

My Fate is Darkness

A/N: Is there light in darkness? Throughout the realms, there are all sorts of supernatural creatures roaming the lands. And there are those who are tasked with protecting the innocent. Fated to be enemies, can true love find its way through time?

Chapter 1

...

In the outskirts of the small town was a small cabin with a loving mother singing to her baby boy as she gazed into his loving blue eyes. Her soft voice carried throughout the home, soothing the little bundle in her arms.

"-And fondly I watched her

Move here and move there

And she went her way homeward

With one star awake

As the swans in the evening

Move over the lake-"

Pausing near the end of the song, she peeked out the window when something caught her attention. The shadows by the trees moved unnaturally. The hairs on the back of her head stood up; she hadn't felt this uneasy in years. She quickly moved the rug on the floor, lifted the small cellar door and grabbed her small son, hushing, "Killian, sweetheart, please stay quiet for mum. You are such a good baby." His blue eyes looked deep into her own as she slowly lowered him into the small wooden bassinet. She closed the door and rose to her feet, grabbing a dagger from the small trunk under her bed. Cautiously stepping outside, she slowly closed the door behind her.

She walked around the house looking for any broken tree branches or indication of unwanted company. She had to move quickly because Brennan and Liam were due to return from the docks and she didn't want them to be caught by surprise. Her boys loved to watch the ships arrive at the little town.

She had circled back and was assessing the area one last time before she deemed it safe. The yellow eyes pierced through the foliage. The distance between them was now obvious. He was just a few feet from her favorite berry tree just before reaching the forest entrance.

She hadn't moved that fast ago in years - since her last hunt. Her motivation was a lot more primal than the thrill of a kill; she was protecting her family. Years of training had resurfaced when she saw standing before her a yellow-eyed demon. He came at her, taking swings at her head, stomach and wherever he could reach. She fought back, blocking and landing some punches before finally putting the dagger to use, but it felt as if he were toying with her. He could've used some of his powers on her to end it swiftly, but his arrogance would not allow it.

She finally managed to get the upper hand.

"Darkness is coming, Hunter and you will lose." The demon spat black blood at her.

"It may be coming, but you will not be here to see it. This is where you fall down." With that, she gave the final blow, and blood was splattered everywhere. She pulled out the dagger and wiped it clean with her brown blouse.

She turned to look at the house and ran towards it, feeling queasy as she approached; the air was hard to breathe. She ran inside and found a cloaked figure standing were Killian's empty crib was.

"Where is the boy?"

"What do you want with my son?" She tried to step closer but was suddenly frozen in place.

"Oh, I have plans for him. Now answer my question: here is he?"

"He is not here."

"Tsk tsk; don't lie to me, Hunter. I know he is here. I can smell his sweet blood. He gets that from you, you know."

Alice made a face at the comment. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"The older boy has it too, but it doesn't match the young one. I had hoped to be finished by the time you came back in from dispatching my soldier, but you hid the boy. I will find a way to get him, and you will not be here to protect him anymore." He lifted her body with an invisible force and pushed her against the ceiling wall, knocking the wind out of her. With a flick of his hand, suddenly the cutlery flew toward her.

As he walked out, the flame of a small candle near the window ignited the curtains, causing a fire.

She'd never expected to feel this way. She had heard that a person's life flashed before their eyes, and they reflected on their lives as they neared the end. But she was at peace, unafraid and happy, knowing Killian was protected by the enchanted wood the cellar his bassinet was hidden in was made from.

Alice Jones had always done what was expected of her. Since she was a little girl, she was told what to do, who she was supposed to be and who she was meant to love. Pesky little birthmarks and soul mates were overrated, even when she thought she had taken control of her fate and had decided who to love. She had done what she was supposed to do, but sometimes one cannot escape fate.

As she surrendered to her fate, her thoughts lingered on the road so far.

The truth about monsters and all that goes bump in the night is simple - they are real. Just because you don't believe in them, doesn't mean they don't believe in you.

Demons, vampires, skinwalkers and the occasional werewolf are a few of the otherworldly creatures that plague the worlds and have to be terminated. It'd been an almost eternal battle to protect the innocents and the light.

There had been an unnatural amount of activity in all the realms; hunters were struggling to keep up and were forced to hunt alone, no longer in pairs.

Paranormals would jump realms on occasion, which meant there would have to be a hunter or a guardian close behind. They would travel from Oz to Wonderland and all the realms in between in order to protect the light from the darkness that threatened to extinguish it. They've traveled from realm to realm at times to fight and protect the innocents or to take the survivors to a sanctuary.

The land without magic was one of those realms. This world had been touched by evil and because of its lack of belief in the unknown; the view of these events was altered. History gave a different account of the unknown. One of the most well-known accounts took place in London. For there had been a terror in the late 1800's (the exact year was hard to pinpoint). Jack the Ripper had not been a simple serial killer. Many had fallen victim to him; he did not discriminate. There was no known pattern; the only similarity is that the bodies were drained of their blood. Two tiny twin puncture wounds would be found in the lifeless human body, so small sometimes it was missed. The truth was Jack was a different kind of killer; he was a vampire. His reign of terror had ended at the hands of hunter Evangeline Van Helsing, Alice Burkhart's usual partner.

Like most hunters, Alice had spent time in all of the realms. She hated the difference in the time periods from realm to realm. It could make anyone dizzy. She never looked forward to jumping between realms. It was hard going unnoticed when the wardrobe made her stand out. Her favorite realm was the one that held her home. Beyond the land, far out at sea - that is where Haven Isles lies hidden to the naked eye. The Enchanted Forest was the closest land to her home. After her last hunt, she had decided to eat a warm meal at the little pub at The Den's Inn. She sat with her back to the wall, always paying attention to her surroundings to ensure no surprises were coming her way.

A group of men entered the Inn and asked for the stew of the day. One of the men looked at her and smiled. She couldn't help herself and reciprocate the gesture. He approached the table. "Hello lass, may I join you?"

She gestured for him to sit.

"Thank you, my name is Brennan Jones. May I inquire the name of my lovely companion?"

"Aren't you a gentleman? My name is Alice Burkhart."

...

Not far from the little house, a man holding a young boy approached the home.

"Papa, look - fire!" The boy pointed at the small house now set aflame.

"Liam, please wait for me here. Do not move."

The boy nodded in agreement as Brennan frantically ran into the house. He opened the door and ducked as the flames attacked him. He saw his wife lying lifeless on the floor, her hand resting on the cellar door handle. He looked around and couldn't see his youngest boy. "Killian?" Of course, the boy could not answer his call, but Brennan knew he was there. He picked up his wife's body and noticed the door handle was still within her death grip. He opened the door and saw Killian looking at him with his deep blue eyes, barely making a fuss. He grabbed the bassinet as he threw her body over his shoulder.

…Years later…

Brennan Jones still mourned his long lost love. He still could not wrap his mind around the fact that she was gone. So many unanswered questions; the dagger she had on her body. The craftsmanship of the blade was incomparable. The cellar had been made with enchanted wood and she had requested special designs carved into it. She was knowledgeable of magical items to an extent that he had questioned her about it only to receive a smile in return.

They weren't given enough time. And now he would never see her smile or look into her eyes ever again.

He would stare at his youngest son and get lost in memories of Alice; Killian looked so much like his mum. And now she was gone and he was still here.

Brennan had become the shell of his former self. He drank away the few coins he earned instead of providing the essentials for his sons. He just wanted to disappear and fall into the void. He couldn't go on without her. He was running away and kept moving what remained of the small family from village to village along the coast.

He raised the boys to the best of his ability. They were getting so big and Liam was already becoming a young man. Brennan had caught Liam doing small chores for whomever that would provide him with a coin. Killian on the other hand still didn't understand why his mum was gone, even if he didn't remember her.

At least Brennan didn't believe so.

The broken-hearted man slowly slipped further into despair. Soon enough he had accrued debts he couldn't pay for, even after selling the last physical connection he had to Alice - the dagger she had when she died. He had gotten silver and some gold doubloons, but it didn't last. He then started stealing, and soon his thievery caused him and his young sons to be on the run.

"Liam, please help Killian get ready; we are going on a grand adventure out at sea. We are to sail on one of those ships that you boys love so much." Brennan smiled and wobbled away, almost falling to the floor.

"What did you do? All you do is drink and gamble."

"Liam, I just want to be a good father to you and your brother. I know I've made mistakes and because of those mistakes, you've had to grow up. You take care of Killian and yourself."

Liam looked at his little brother and quickly helped him dress. He still kept an eye on his father; almost two years had passed since the time Liam caught him trying to sneak away. His father had told him that the kind spinsters that lived next door would have gladly raised them.

"Papa, we are ready," Liam told his father as he held Killian's hand.

Killian stretched his small hand for his father to hold and once his father reached for it, he offered a sweet dimpled smile.

They arrived at the docks and soon the salty sea air filled their noses with the fragrance of adventure.

They boarded the merchant ship and soon were led below deck next to the crew quarters. Brennan had spent his last coins getting them the last cabin of the ship. The ship had finally set sail.

Liam was the one to speak, "Papa, where are we going?"

Brennan extended his arms to reach for both of his sons and pulled them to his lap, one on each side. Liam was getting too big, but Killian clung to Brennan with eagerness for his father's affection. He hadn't done this in so long. He held them tight.

"The ship is traveling to Wayward Port. A small port just outside of the Maritime Kingdom"

Killian fell asleep in his father's arms.

"Liam, you should sleep and let the waves lull you into sleep like Killian did."

Liam looked at his father still holding Killian in his arms and slowly approached the bunk on the other side.

"Son, sleep and I will tuck Killian in. I shall share the bunk with him. He is still so small even at his age. Don't worry, just sleep."

Liam pondered his father's request and decided he could not go anywhere. He closed his eyes and fell asleep.

A few days at sea had passed and Jones had enjoyed his time with his sons. He knew in his heart it would've made his Alice happy. Now they were up on deck watching the water.

"Papa, I like this ship. Can we stay forever?"

"I'm afraid not, son," he replied to Killian. We will soon make port and find a new home."

Killian couldn't hide his disappointment at his father's response.

"Come on little brother; let's go to our room so you can take your nap."

Brennan gazed out over the vast ocean as the boys walked away. As soon as they were gone, someone tapped him on the shoulder.

"Mr. Jones, may I have a word." The man gestured for Brennan to follow him to the most secluded part of the ship.

"Captain Silver, is there a problem?"

"I'm afraid I have some bad news for a family man such as you. It has come to my attention that at Wayward Port there are some people awaiting our arrival; more specifically yours. You will be arrested upon arrival."

Brennan's face went pale as all of the blood drained from it.

"I may have a solution, if I may make a suggestion? As you are aware, the ship has a rowboat. I could offer it in exchange for some extra coins. I'd settle for some copper."

"That would be lovely if I had any. I used the last to pay for the room. I have nothing else of value."

The Captain considered his answer. "I believe you are still in possession of something of value. I'm in the need of a cabin boy or two. Does that help?"

Brennan looked at the man as he processed his comment. He couldn't attempt an escape with the kids with him. It could be dangerous and they would get hurt. He knew his capture was inevitable and what would happen to the kids? He had no family to take them and Alice never talked of her family. Their best chance was on that ship.

"How long would they need to serve you for?" Brennan couldn't believe he was considering the proposition.

Captain Silver pondered the question. "Each of your boys will serve for a mere ten years. Please, consider that they will be together and have nothing to worry about. They will be better off with me than if the authorities get a hold of them. Imagine them in an awful orphanage."

The thought of Brennan's boys in an orphanage killed him. At least with Silver, they would be at sea and his sons loved it.

"You have a deal. I will take the rowboat once it is dark. The kids will be in the room."

"I would hurry if I were you. It seems there is a storm coming," the Captain informed him and walked away.

Brennan headed below deck to his room. He opened the door and slowly entered only to find Liam and Killian napping on one of the bunks.

He watched as his sons slept. Suddenly, lightning flashed, and the ship swayed, tilting abruptly, waking Killian in the process."Papa, I'm scared."

"There is nothing to be afraid of son. Before you know it, you're going to be a man, so I'm just trying to prepare you 'cause then you're going to have to answer life's big question: what kind of man are you going to be?"

Killian smiled. "I want to be like you, Papa."

Brennan looked at his son and knelt by him. "No, Killian, promise me you will be a better man. Don't be like me."

Killian's eyes slowly closed and he fell asleep.

Brennan kissed his forehead and whispered, "I wish I could be the father you deserve." He rose to his feet and moved toward Liam and kissed him as well. "Liam please look after Killian." With his final words, he slipped out of the cabin, into the night and disappeared.

Early the next morning the sun shone brightly, leaving no evidence of a storm.

Liam woke first and noticed the other bunk was empty. Killian was still asleep, so he slowly got up, careful so as not to wake his brother up.

He dressed and hurried to go look for his father. The bunk had not been slept in.

As he was running to the deck, he bumped into someone.

"Boy, where is the other one?"

"What other one are you referring?"

"I believe he is your younger brother."

"He is asleep; I was looking for our father. Have you seen him?"

"Oh, he is long gone."

"Gone? But we are still here."

"That is because you are now part of the crew."

"What are you talking about?"

"Your father needed a rowboat and I needed some extra help."

"He just left us?"

"I'm afraid so. You are both now my property. I think it is time to wake up the other one. There is work to do before we arrive. And don't get any ideas."

Liam walked away and headed back to the cabin. How was he going to explain to his brother that their father had left them?

[forkanna]

[AO3 LINK] [EF LINK]

NOTE:  Told you I was going to keep this moving! We should also have another fic going soon on this account again - though I'm going to try to hold off on beginning that one until more of Coven is complete (so I don't wind up in the situation I had with Bind Us/Precious Little Knives lol). Enjoy!

A brief discussion followed as they retreated from the Upperuplands, winging their way further East to Pumperdink. Glinda had requested that be their next stop, and Elphaba was too worried about keeping her eyes peeled for the local law enforcement to worry overly about why. At least it was unlikely that the formerly royal armies could have swept that far north, if indeed they were still being pursued.

"Of course we are," she told Glinda impatiently as they drifted over the tops of the trees of the Great Gillikin Forest. "Didn't you hear the way those guards were shouting at us? And I have his Grimmerie!"

Redoubling her grip around Elphaba's waist, she said reasonably, "But it was such a little mistake, wasn't it? Taking the book. Why, the library at Shiz doesn't call out the army for an overdue fine!"

"You've seen what this book can do. Flying brooms and trunks and monkeys, and that's from a single spell! What do you think we can accomplish when we start learning about the others?"

"The others? You mean… you mean you intend to continue sorcerism?! Oh, that seems- I mean, with Morrible and the Wizard, and now we're- do we really want to dig ourselves any deeper? The teensy bit we've learned so far is already turning us into wanted criminals!"

"You have a better plan?" No answer. "I thought not."

"Fine, I don't, but that doesn't mean we should be stealing any more spellwork from His Wizlyness! If we give the book back now, with only the one spell used… maybe he won't mind at all! What's one flying broom between friends, right?"

Elphaba sighed as they wove between two taller treetops. "I doubt it will be that easy. But… perhaps we should ask for word at our next stop. See what the situation is in the Emerald City, if the search has reached this far North. Or if he's called it off; we could get lucky."

"Agreed. And I'll handle that job, since you… well, you're…"

"An artichoke."

"More noticeable," Glinda finished lamely. It earned her a rueful chuckle.

"Where is this we're heading, anyway?"

"My granny's house. She's not as rules-oriented as my parents, and might have some idea where we can go if the Wizard can't be reasoned with. Which I still think he can, once everything's a little calmer!"

Her response was scarcely a whisper. "Let's hope you're right — on all counts."

                                                     ~ o ~

Granny Upland lived in a small domicile on the outskirts of the nicer side of Pumperdink — which is to say, it was still grander than Elphaba's childhood home in the governor's estate in Nest Hardings. Such a disparity between Gillikin and Munchkinland was well-known, but only hearing Glinda's descriptions of "quaint little bungalow" and "cozy Pumperdink" really drove it home. The hour was quite late, so they felt guilty ringing the bell to fetch anyone, but it was either that or sleep on her doorstep.

"Yes?" asked the Quadling servant whose round face was sandwiched by the door and its frame. Elphaba blinked and drew back in surprise, having at least expected a Gillikinese person to answer.

"Pardon the late hour and our intrusionary ringing," Glinda said with a curtsy. "But is the mistress of the house still up to receiving guests? I'm her granddaughter, Glinda — or Galinda, as she might remember me."

Elphaba's face fell into her palm.

"She is, but only just. One moment, please." The door closed, leaving them on the stoop as the sounds of footsteps receded. Within another five minutes, the servant returned and showed them in.

"Galinda, my dear, precious child!" the wizened old woman cried as she hobbled in on a cane, reaching out with the free hand to first grasp her forearm, and then draw her in for three-quarters of a hug. "Ohhh, I did wonder if I'd get to see you before your second year at that infernal university began! You're looking well, quite well!"

"Good eve, Granny! It has been ever so long, hasn't it? Oh, and this is my travelling companion, Elphaba!"

"Saint Aelphaba?" the woman gasped, obviously teasing. "Why, as I live and breathe; we've been blessed with a visit of a divinitous nature!"

Laughing, she turned to pull Elphaba closer, the latter hitching a pained, polite smile into place. Glinda already knew by now that she found being compared to the holy figure from Oz's history books beyond grating; anyone would, especially given the legend of Aelphaba disappearing nude into a waterfall. She could hardly blame her for wanting to distance herself from any kind of story that would encourage boys to ask her to shuck her clothing anytime it's raining. Not that it had stopped Glinda herself from making a remark or two when they were newly acquainted; she felt a little guilty about that now, but youth and idiocy often went hand in hand.

"Silly Granny. No, no, she's the daughter of the Eminent Thropp, the Munchkinland governor! Isn't that nifty?"

"Indeed, indeed. By the look of her, I'd have guessed she's from the Emerald City!" Chuckling at her own joke, Glinda merely grimacing and Elphaba too used to such remarks to react, she motioned for them to join her on the sofa. "Come, sit, sit. Have some Quox nuts - roasted just to the right darkness, very good for you."

"I'm allergic, Granny," Glinda told her patiently. "You knew that."

"Stuff and nonsense! Try a few, these are really quite good!" Glinda mimed reaching toward the bowl as the old woman turned toward Elphaba, pulling back her hand with no nuts in it once the attention was no longer on herself. "And you, Miss Aelphaba — how did you come to companionably travel with my little apple-cheeked granddaughter? And why are you wearing her hat?"

"Her hat?!"

The conversation meandered around from there, and they never did broach the subject of the Wizard and stolen spellbooks. This wasn't helped along by the fact that Granny was getting a little hard of hearing in her old age, and occasionally had to ask for clarification on several points. The effort of explaining fleeing the Wizard's palace in fear of their lives would be made that much harder.

At last, they retired for the evening. Nestled in one of the guest rooms that had two beds, they weren't awake for much longer. Already, Glinda felt odd with Elphie so far away; it had only been a couple of nights bunking together, but she had found it comforting to have her friend so closeby, within reach of her hand should she suffer a nightmare. She hadn't enjoyed that type of reassurance since she was a little girl.

"Can't believe you pawned off your dear, sweet grandmother's hat on me just because you didn't like it."

"Shhh, Elphie! I did like it, but didn't think it suited me. But seeing it on you, I genuinely think it works quite well." At least that last part was the full truth; she might feel guilty about deceiving Elphaba before, but the end result was that she now had a hat that looked as if it had been fashioned specifically for her head. All's well that ends well, as they said. Whoever 'they' were.

"Fine, fine. But don't think I'm…" A yawn interrupted the rest of her words. Smiling to herself, Glinda decided to interrupt that train of thought.

"Don't worry about it. Let's get some rest. Then tomorrow…"

"Tomorrow, we'll figure out our lives," Elphaba promised her. "Whether I should go on alone, and you stay here, or… something else."

Glinda smiled across at the other bed's occupant. "A girl could start to think she's not wanted with talk like that." But before Elphaba could reply, she yawned and snuggled into the pillow. "Goodnight, Elphie."

Harrumphing, she returned, "Goodnight, Glindie."

"Watch it, Fabala."

                                                    ~ o ~

A week passed with little change. Though Granny played a wonderful host, she was useless at actually focusing on any deeper, darker subjects. Any time Glinda began to ask for help, or Elphaba attempted to confess her sins for a third time, she would change the subject. Whether this was by design or by chance was unclear.

Glinda did steal into the main square of town the fourth day, asking around the local watering hole. With a scarf on her head, she looked like any other Northerner, and gave her name as Gayelette — earning her some titters at the odd-sounding moniker. No one had heard any juicy gossip from Emerald City in a good, long while. She caught snippets of older bits and commented on them as if they were news to her, but otherwise came up dry. That was a positive thing, after all; the longer it took for news of their exploits to spread, the less frantically they would have to relocate.

Between chats, she also managed to pick up another dress or two that would fit Elphaba's taller frame. This involved a lot of over-describing to the clothiers, but in the end, she got the job done. She was tempted to pick up more travelling supplies, and did get herself a lovely pink cloak for those breezy flights high in the sky, but otherwise abstained. They should discuss what they might need together before she burned through their meager coin and had to pawn more valuables.

"Listen to this," Elphaba said from her perch on the bed, fingertips holding the pages of the Grimmerie open. "My Ancient Lurlinic is as rusty as can be, the characters are so hard to read… but I think it says, 'To turn a frog into cheese.' What possible use could this be?!"

"Don't look at me, Elphie; you know I can't read that gobbledygook."

Sighing, she nodded as she flipped through more pages. "I could probably teach you if I wasn't awful at it myself. Still… maybe if I spend enough time with this thing, I'll sharpen my skills. Learn to read Lurline's old scribbly mess as easily as Standardised Gillikinese."

"Maybe so — except I thought we would be returning that when we could," she reminded her pointedly.

"Right. Right, yes, we are." Nodding resolutely, she shut the book and set it aside. "It's just all so fascinating; not so much that I want to learn the spells, just that I want to know what spells there are to be learned. Does that make any sense at all?"

"It does; you have a thirst for knowledge. Always did at Shiz, too! I think that's commendable and worthy of respectfulness."

"Why do you always make up words that sound like other words, but longer?"

Blinking, Glinda looked down at the hole in Elphaba's cloak she had been patching and tried not to let herself blush. "W-well, I… it's fashionable. Don't they sound nicer when they're longer like that?"

"No, they sound longer." When Glinda only pouted a little more, she stood and brushed her knees off, then strode across to the window. "But what do I know?"

"You know Lurlinic, for one." Her patchwork could wait; there was no hurry. Crossing the little room, she stood by Elphaba. "Have… you thought about what you're going to write to the Wizard?"

"I have."

"And?"

Her fingernails dug at a small knothole on the windowsill. "And I still have no idea. Well, that isn't accurate; I have many ideas. All bad."

"Aww… here, why don't we get started? There's a stack of papers on the writing desk, and I'm sure it won't take us more than a few tries digging in before we strike emerald." Before Elphaba could protest, she took her by the elbow and turned her so that they were facing each other. "I'll take dictation; I may only know one language, but my penmanship is exquisitous."

That time, Elphaba only smirked at her odd little phrasing. "Alright, then. Suppose we might as well give it the old Shiz try." Once Glinda was seated at the writing desk and had unstoppered the inkwell, she asked, "Ready?"

"Hold on, let me test the nib." She scratched out a couple of words on a spare scrap of paper that had likely been torn in half to dash off a quick note. Satisfied, she redipped her quill. "Okay, let's have it!"

"Okay. Hmm… here. 'Dearest Wizard'- no, wait, forget that. He's not dear to me, he scarcely knows who I am!"

Glinda frowned up at her. "You're so nervous and I haven't even written anything!"

"You know how much I used to respect him! Even if… well, everything's gone wrong by now. But that's- okay, focus. I need to focus." She began to pace as she thought, and then suddenly began, "'Dear Wizard. I am deeply regretful that I… absconded with your Grimmerie.' Does 'absconded' sound okay?"

"Divine, Elphie. Keep going, this is all fine so far."

"Good. 'With your Grimmerie. It was never my intention to do so, especially because I did not know it existed before that day. However, the consequences of the spell you bade me read were not… were not…' Um… I didn't know what it was going to do…"

"Readily apparent?"

"'Readily apparent to me until they had already been read. Seeing the monkeys in such pain from the spell I read for you frightened me, and I panicked. I hope you can understand how I reacted. Therefore… it is with great regret that I apologise, and offer to return your Grimmerie to you, intact.' How is that?"

Glinda read it back to her, and Elphaba nodded along, still pacing. Then she asked, "Were you going to mention him letting us go?"

"Right, yes — that's what's next! Okay. '...to you, intact. In exchange for this, I wish you to grant Glinda Upland a full pardon, for she was an innocent bystander in all of this. As for myself, I will accept whatever punishment you deem appropriate.'"

"Wait, Elphie," Glinda said, just having finished writing down the last word. "What do you mean? Couldn't you ask for a pardon for yourself, too?"

Sighing, she turned weary eyes toward her friend. "It's asking too much. Look how far we ran off with the book! You really think he's going to just shrug and say 'oh well', especially now that we know how powerful it is?"

"Well… no, but it doesn't hurt to ask!" Dipping the quill again, she added on her own, "'But I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive and forget.' There, that way you're only asking, and not making it a condition of the Grimmerie's surrender."

"That's good, that's good," Elphaba confirmed as she hunched over the back of the chair, gazing down at the sheet. "And it looks clean and neat so far. Well done."

"Thank you," she whispered with a tiny smile. "Might not have many talents to my name, but penmanship is one of them. Okay, what else?"

"That's it. I don't want to beleaguer the point and take up too much of his time. Sign it 'Sincerely and ashamedly,' and my name."

"You sign your name," she asked once she had put down the rest, holding out the quill. After a brief moment of indecision, she did, with a flourish and some slight blotting that made the final letters look a bit spidery. Then she handed back the quill and reached to pick up the page. "W-wait, don't you want to use pounce first, so it doesn't smudge?!"

"O-oh, I… you're right, how stupid of me. What is wrong with my brain today?"

Smiling up at her as she reached for the pounce pot, she whispered, "You're fine. Just… nervous. I understand." She sprinkled the fine powder on the page, soaking up the extra ink. Then she turned toward the window, picking it up by the edges. "Can you…?"

"Yes, of course." Elphaba gently eased the window open, and Glinda blew the dust out into the late evening. Once the window was shut and they were back by the desk, Elphaba read over their work. "I hate it. However, I honestly don't think I could make a better job of it if I tried again, so we might as well leave it this way."

"Fine by me. Just hope it does the job that it should do."

Then they sealed it inside an envelope, took a deep breath, and turned in for the evening.

                                                    ~ o ~

Another day passed much the same. Still they got nowhere with Granny conversationally, and still they had no clear idea of where to go, what to do. Elphaba wasted great gobs of time leafing through the Grimmerie, but it was more to keep from pacing or talking to herself than out of a desire to plumb the depths of its material. Glinda tried to take up most of her time mending clothes or chattering, which she could tell was beginning to get on her companion's nerves, but she had no better notion of what to do with herself. All her life, people had been shunting her in one direction or another; the few independent thoughts she had summoned were all very closely related to ones others had stated at one point or another. Life with Elphaba was highly challenging in ways she never could have predicted.

The next afternoon, Glinda was on her way back from the market with a few minor odds and ends when she stopped in at the Bittuvalai Inn again. She asked the same old questions, expecting nothing more than the same old answers.

She was sorely mistaken.

"You aren't a 'Gayelette' at all!" one of the men accused once he'd clapped eyes on her. "You're a Galinda!"

"That's Glinda, please!" she snapped — before she could stop herself. Covering her mouth with her hand, she hurriedly added, "And I don't know what you mean!"

"Knew it!" he said, nodding over his shoulders. "Ain't any girls 'round this pathetic town as lovely as her, she had to be from somewhere's else!"

Smiling in spite of herself, Glinda tittered, "Oh, you do go on, sir!" Then she noticed the patrons were closing her off from the door, attempting to corral her into the corner. "W-wait, you don't go on… I m-mean, you should let me go, please!"

A squat, middle-aged woman demanded, "Or what? You'll curse us?"

"Curse you? Please, how would I even know how to do such a thing?! I am but a poor student from Shiz University; I barely know how to put one wand in front of the other!"

"WITCH!" a mousy-looking man somehow managed to shout at the top of his lungs, bringing around the few other patrons who had been ignorant of the scene.

"Who, where?!" she squeaked innocently.

"You won't get away from here so easily, witch!" the woman went on as the dozens of pairs of eyes fixated on her, seeming to drill right through her body. An urge to poke them welled up within herself. "We'll turn you in, we will, and our names will be praised by His Wizliness!"

"Perhaps there'll be a reward!"

The moment the first man said that, there were many murmurs of assent. That did not tip things in her favour at all. Glinda's blue eyes swept up and down the scrubby wooden tables and chairs, to the well-polished bartop and the bartender crouched behind it. She could only hope he wasn't going for some sort of weapon he kept just in case of similar disturbances. Ordinarily, she would have been glad of the protection… but not when she wasn't the one being protected.

"Please, look at yourselves!" she urged as she pressed back against the wall, palms finding its surface as her cloth sack swung from her elbow. "I h-haven't cursed you for threatening me already, so how could I be a witch? Y-you're being silly, all of you!"

"Silly and rich, soon enough!" said the mousy man.

There was nothing else to be done; she had to think of some way to trick them out of attacking. Glinda reached into her bag and pulled out a beetroot. "Do you see this?!" she screeched, causing them all to hesitate. "One false move, and I'm warning you… I'll do to you what I did to him!"

A collective gasp went up. That was enough; she had thrown the shadow of doubt across their zealousness. Tossing the beet into the air, she dashed for the door, only barely glimpsing that several of them dove to catch what they presumed was a transmogrified person. One man had to be elbowed out of the way, but he was surprised enough that she could manage it and make good her escape.

How much longer will they stare at it, waiting to see if it speaks? she couldn't help thinking to herself as she dashed up the lane toward her Granny's house. The situation didn't merit such japes, but she felt she had to take the amusement where she could find it.

Once bursting through the door, she saw Granny perched on the sofa with a cup of tea in her hand, and Elphaba poring over the book. They both started, a few drops of tea falling to the rug from the cup.

"They're coming!"

Immediately, Elphaba shot to standing. "How many?"

"From the look of it, the entire village!" Glinda panted as she leaned against the door. "Oh… oh, we have to fly! I don't want us to still be here when they catch up, and ruin my Granny's lovely Quadling rugs trying to catch us!"

"What's all this about?" Granny asked in mild confusion, squinting as they began to head for the staircase. "Who's coming?!"

There wasn't time to explain to the poor old thing. The minute they reached the bedroom, they began to cram everything into the trunk as quickly as was possible; Grimmerie, new purchases, even one of the pillows from the bed wound up padding the inside. Of course, the flying spell was still in action upon the trunk, as a spell cannot be undone once it's been said, so they tied it to the back of the broom as efficiently as they could without muddling the process and prepared to leave.

"Really, this is a most unceremonical exit you're making!" Granny pouted as they began to approach the front door.

"I am sorry, Gran!" Glinda bade her, wringing the old woman's hands. "I've been trying to find a way to explain, but I… oh, it's really just so horribliffic, I don't want you to think any less of me! Of us!"

"We can't endanger your safety because of my mistake," Elphaba cut off further protests. "We'll just… well, I don't know where we'll go now that we've run out of relatives. But we'll figure something out."

Granny tutted her disapproval, but still patted Glinda's elbow. "You do as you must, dearie. Just take a few Quox nuts for the road!"

"Gran, you know I'm allerg-"

"We have to go now!" Elphaba hissed, gesturing to the windows. Indeed, there were mobs already gathering outside, stirred up by the ones from the tavern. They weren't knocking on the front door quite yet, but it wouldn't be long.

"Why does it feel like we're always rushing off somewhere?" Glinda sighed, embracing her grandmother. "We'll be back, though, you'll see!"

"Very well! Safe trip, don't do anything I wouldn't do!"

As they stepped outside, they did notice a few eyes turn in their direction, but they were already mounting the broom and readying to take off, not wasting a moment. By the time anyone had roused themselves enough to dash in their direction, it was too late; they were airborne.

However, the moment they were skimming past the upper-story windows of the homes, they began to feel sharp pains inflicted upon their legs and hips. Glinda glanced down and let out an exasperated squeak.

"What is it?" Elphaba asked through clenched teeth. "I'm concentrating on flying!"

"They're throwing rocks! Oh, of all the uncouthful, ridiculous- how can they be so rude?!" As they passed a particularly thick knot of Gillikin citizenry, she shouted down, "WHAT CHILDREN!"

"WITCH!" was all she heard in return, and had to flinch back to avoid a sound clouting of her nose with what seemed to be half a brick.

"Forget them," Elphaba snapped over her shoulder as they began to rise high enough that it would no longer be a problem. "They've made up their minds."

One last sound of a rock smacking against their trunk reached them before Pumperdink was behind them, the shouts fading in their wake. Alas, Elphaba was right about one thing: they were out of family members to beg for sanctuary. Where in Oz would they go now?

                                                    To Be Continued…

[hollywoodjuliorivas]

NONFICTION

‘She Said’ Recounts How Two Times Reporters Broke the Harvey Weinstein Story

ImageJodi Kantor and Megan Twohey

Jodi Kantor and Megan TwoheyCreditCreditMartin Schoeller

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By Susan Faludi

Sept. 8, 2019

SHE SAID

Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story That Helped Ignite a Movement

By Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey

Tell the truth: Do you really need to hear more about Harvey Weinstein? The open bathrobe, the hotel hot tubs, the syringes of erectile-dysfunction drugs delivered by cowed assistants, the transparent requests for “a massage,” the ejaculatory exhibitions — it’s not just indictable, it’s … ick, simultaneously pathological and pathetic.

Which explains the reluctance I felt sitting down to read “She Said: Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story That Helped Ignite a Movement,” wherein the New York Times reporters Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey revisit at book length their investigative reporting on Weinstein, promising a “substantial amount” of new information. New information? More than 80 women have come forward to recount their encounters with the Oscar-award-monopolizer-and-patron-of-progressive-causes-turned-Tinseltown’s-über-ogre, the beast whose fleshy unshaven headshot every famous Hollywood beauty knows to hate, and whose trial has now been rescheduled for January to allow for additional testimony against him. What new gruesome details do we need?

But “She Said” isn’t retailing extra helpings of warmed-over salacity. The authors’ new information is less about the man and more about his surround-sound “complicity machine” of board members and lawyers, human resource officers and P.R. flaks, tabloid publishers and entertainment reporters who kept him rampaging with impunity years after his behavior had become an open secret. Kantor and Twohey instinctively understand the dangers of the Harvey-as-Monster story line — and the importance of refocusing our attention on structures of power. When they at last confront Weinstein, in a Times conference room and later on speakerphone, he’s the mouse that roared, the Great and Powerful Oz turned puny humbug, swerving from incoherent rants to self-pitying whimpers (“I’m already dead”) to sycophantic claims of just being one of them. (“If I wasn’t making movies, I would’ve been a journalist.”) He’s loathsome and self-serving, but his psychology is not the story they want to tell. The drama they chronicle instead is more complex and subtle, a narrative in which they are ultimately not mere observers but, essential to its moral message, protagonists themselves.

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[ This book was one of our most anticipated titles of September. See the full list. ]

Kantor and Twohey broke the Weinstein story. Their 3,300-word Times article on Oct. 5, 2017, aired allegations against him that had been piling up as whispers and rumors for 30 years. That report, and the ones to follow, were grounded in scores of interviews with actresses and current and former employees, supplemented by legal filings, corporate records and internal company communications that documented a thick web of cover-ups, bullying tactics and confidential settlements. It was bravura journalism.

“We watched with astonishment as a dam wall broke,” Kantor and Twohey write of the response to that first article. A day after it was published, so many women phoned The Times to report allegations of sexual harassment and assault against Weinstein that the paper had to assign additional reporters to handle the calls. On Oct. 10, another round of women, including marquee names like Gwyneth Paltrow, Angelina Jolie and Rosanna Arquette, went public in a second article in The Times. Three weeks later, a third article detailed still more accounts of sexual abuse by Weinstein, spanning the globe and dating back to the 1970s. “This has haunted me my entire life,” said 62-year-old Hope Exiner d’Amore, who recounted being raped by Weinstein when she was in her early 20s.

This series of articles in many ways ignited the #MeToo movement, already smoldering in the atmosphere of frustration after reports of Donald Trump’s alleged sexual predations (a story that Twohey broke with another reporter) and the release of the “Access Hollywood” tape failed to slow the reality star’s march to the White House. Their reporting, Kantor and Twohey recall in “She Said,” seemed to operate as a “solvent for secrecy, pushing women all over the world to speak up about similar experiences.”

And a solvent for the structures that enforced that secrecy. A day after the first story came out, a third of the (all-male) board of the Weinstein Company resigned and the remaining members put Weinstein on leave. Two days later, he was fired. Within a year, his corporation declared bankruptcy — and, as part of the Chapter 11 filing, released employees from nondisclosure agreements.

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What explains the company’s decades of inaction? Answering that question, and parsing the ways that such entities and their centurions functioned as Weinstein’s shield, is the prime focus of “She Said.” The guardians the authors unmask aren’t only the obvious ones. Yes, Weinstein’s board members looked the other way long after they knew; yes, The National Enquirer and Black Cube security snoops deep-sixed damaging accounts and shut down whistle-blowers. Yes, Weinstein’s brother, Bob, the company’s co-founder, kept mum beyond all reason — even after Harvey had punched him in the face. But there was also the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which often kept its settlements secret. And David Boies, the lawyer admired for championing gay marriage before the Supreme Court, who served as Weinstein’s personal consigliere and tried to squash every threat of bad press. And Linda Fairstein, the celebrated Manhattan sex crimes prosecutor, who, after an Italian model reported to the New York City police that Weinstein had groped her, brokered connections between Weinstein’s legal team and the lead prosecutor and tried to discredit the woman’s allegation to Twohey.

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[ “She Said” names some of the people who helped Harvey Weinstein evade scrutiny. ]

And then there was Gloria Allred, the crusading feminist lawyer, whose law firm, in 2004, negotiated a nondisclosure agreement for one of Weinstein’s victims; the firm pocketed 40 percent of the settlement. “While the attorney cultivated a reputation for giving female victims a voice,” Kantor and Twohey write, “some of her work and revenue was in negotiating secret settlements that silenced them and buried allegations of sexual harassment and assault.” Allred went on to do the same with women who had been abused by the Fox News host Bill O’Reilly and the Olympics gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar. In 2017, after a group of lawyers in California persuaded a state legislator to consider a bill that would ban confidentiality clauses muzzling sexual harassment victims, Allred denounced the move and threatened to go on the attack. The legislator, Connie Leyva, quickly shelved the idea. (A year later, Leyva introduced such a bill and it was signed into law.)

Maybe the most appalling figure in this constellation of collaborators and enablers is Lisa Bloom, Allred’s daughter. A lawyer likewise known for winning sexual-harassment settlements with nondisclosure agreements, Bloom was retained by Weinstein (who had also bought the movie rights to her book). In a jaw-dropping memo to Weinstein, Bloom itemized her game plan: Initiate “counterops online campaigns,” place articles in the press painting one of his accusers as a “pathological liar,” start a Weinstein Foundation “on gender equality” and hire a “reputation management company” to suppress negative articles on Google. Oh, and this gem: “You and I come out publicly in a pre-emptive interview where you talk about evolving on women’s issues, prompted by death of your mother, Trump pussy grab tape and, maybe, nasty unfounded hurtful rumors about you. … You should be the hero of the story, not the villain. This is very doable.”

“She Said” contains a second story of what’s doable against great odds: how two reporters with no connections in Hollywood and with almost no one willing to go on the record were able to penetrate this omertà and expose what lay behind it to public scrutiny. This is the book’s deeper level, the story of getting a story, signaled in the choice of chapter titles like “The First Phone Call” and “‘Who Else Is on the Record?’” Kantor and Twohey have crafted their news dispatches into a seamless and suspenseful account of their reportorial journey, a gripping blow-by-blow of how they managed, “working in the blank spaces between the words,” to corroborate allegations that had been chased and abandoned by multiple journalists before them. “She Said” reads a bit like a feminist “All the President’s Men.”

Kantor and Twohey take us through the time-consuming, meticulous and often go-nowhere grunt work that’s intrinsic to gathering evidence, winning the trust of gun-shy victims and maneuvering past barricades that block the path to a publishable article. Along the way, we witness how much institutional support such a protracted effort requires. Kantor and Twohey make a point throughout the book of stressing their reliance on a multilayered editorial team, from rigorous young research assistants like Grace Ashford, who combs through government employment data and tracks down a key former assistant from the late 1980s at Miramax, Weinstein’s film production company, to seasoned elder hands like the Times investigative editor Rebecca Corbett. “Sixtysomething, skeptical, scrupulous and allergic to flashiness or exaggeration,” Kantor and Twohey write of her, “but so low profile that she barely surfaced in Google search results. Her ambition was journalistic, not personal.” The night before the first article ran, Corbett remained in the newsroom until dawn, weighing and reweighing every word.

In this way, “She Said” is a dead-on description of what makes so-called “legacy” journalism so powerful. Ironically, the #MeToo movement that Kantor and Twohey’s articles about Weinstein helped launch promulgates an opposite message: that the best way to bring injustice to light is to get rid of the “gatekeepers” and let rip on Twitter, that we’ll only get to the “truth” when the Establishment is brought down and no one is in charge.

[ Read: “I’m Harvey Weinstein — you know what I can do.” ]

It may be, as the political writer Lee Smith argued in The Weekly Standard, that some journalists had protected Weinstein partly out of a craven illusion that the Hollywood rainmaker would someday make rain for them, buying their articles for high-grossing films. And no doubt the #MeToo movement has prompted the mainstream media to take these stories more seriously. Would Vanity Fair’s editor today omit allegations of sexual assault from a profile of Jeffrey Epstein, as happened in 2003? Nonetheless, the big-league sexual predators who have been brought to justice in the #MeToo era have been brought there not by internet whisper campaigns but by good old-fashioned reporting: O’Reilly by The Times, Nassar by The Indianapolis Star, Epstein by The Miami Herald, Roy Moore by The Washington Post, Weinstein by The Times and The New Yorker. “The Weinstein story had impact,” the authors note, “in part because it had achieved something that, in 2018, seemed rare and precious: broad consensus on the facts.”

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There’s an implication here: The answer to institutionally protected predation isn’t the anti-institutionalism of social media and viral tweets, but a powerful counter-institution capable of mounting a rigorous investigation, run by, yes, gatekeepers. Not spelled out but amply evident in Kantor and Twohey’s reckoning is the importance that those gatekeepers be female as well as male. In 2013, Jill Abramson, then The Times’s executive editor, promoted Corbett and another woman to the paper’s senior editorial staff, making the masthead 50 percent female for the first time in history. What happens when you get that kind of sisterhood is familiar to any spectator of the Women’s World Cup. Watching Kantor and Twohey pursue their goal while guarding each other’s back is as exhilarating as watching Megan Rapinoe and Crystal Dunn on the pitch.

Toward the end of the book, Kantor and Twohey devote two chapters to Christine Blasey Ford and her decision to air her sexual-assault allegations against the Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. This, and the book’s finale, “The Gathering,” seem appended, an anticlimactic climax. In “The Gathering,” the reporters assemble 12 of the sexual abuse victims they interviewed (including a McDonald’s worker, Kim Lawson, who helped organize a nationwide strike over the fast-food franchise’s failure to address sexual harassment) at Gwyneth Paltrow’s Brentwood mansion to talk, over gourmet Japanese cuisine, about what they’ve endured since going public with their charges. The testimonials inevitably descend into platitudes about personal “growth” and getting “some sense of myself back.” At one point, Paltrow starts crying over the way Weinstein had invoked his support for her career to get women to submit to his advances, and Lawson’s friend (a McDonald’s labor organizer who came with her so she wouldn’t feel alone in a room full of movie stars) hands the actress a box of tissues.

These therapeutic scenes paste a pat conclusion onto a book that otherwise keeps the focus not on individual behavior or personal feelings but on the apparatuses of politics and power. At the least, though, the contrast throws into relief how un-pat, instructive and necessary “She Said” is. It turns out we did need to hear more about Weinstein — and the “more” that Kantor and Twohey give us draws an important distinction between the trendy ethic of hashtag justice and the disciplined professionalism and institutional heft that actually got the job done.

Susan Faludi is the author of “Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women” and, most recently, “In the Darkroom.”

SHE SAID

Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story That Helped Ignite a Movement

By Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey

310 pp. Penguin Press. $28.

[dailyaudiobible]

05/26/2019 DAB Transcript

2 Samuel 9:1-11:27, John 15:1-27, Psalms 119:49-64, Proverbs 16:1-3

Today is the 26th day of May. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I’m Brian. It is great to be here with you as we walk into a brand-new week together and it’s kind of something that we remind each other most every week. Nothing’s happened yet…just…like the week is out in front of us and we get to live into this new week however, it is that we choose. It's a fresh start. And as we continue to allow God's word to speak to us and inform our choices and decisions well, then we walk the narrow road that leads to life. So, I'm excited to spend the next week in God's word with you. We’ll continue our journey through the book of second Samuel during this week and continue the journey alongside King David. We’ll be reading from the New International Version this week. And today, second Samuel chapters 9 through 11.

Prayer:

Father, at the beginning of this week we take into heart the last thing that was just sent from Your word, “Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and He will establish your plans.” And, so as we enter this new week, we commit Lord, to You, all that we will do and we invite the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth that Jesus was just talking to us about from the Gospel of John and ask that You lead us into all truth, and that You will show us when we begin to take back the reins and stop committing whatever we do to You. Come Holy Spirit we pray into this brand-new week we ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com, is the website, it’s home base, it’s where you find out what’s going on around here.  So, be sure to stay tuned and stay connected.

The Daily Audio Bible Shop is at dailyaudiobible.com where you can find resources for the journey that we’re taken together through the Scriptures this year. So, be sure to check that out. Check out the journals, the Daily Audio Bible journals and all of the writing materials that we have. The Promised Land films are there, all kinds of resources are there. So, check it out and stay connected that way.

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And, as always, if you have a prayer request or comment 877-942-4253 is the number to dial.

And that is it for today. I'm Brian I love you and I'll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Community Prayer and Praise:

Hello, my beautiful Daily Audio Bible family, this is Candace from Oregon recovering from total hip replacement. I’ll tell you what, it’s arduous. It takes some patience but it’s going really well. Would you pray with me? Lord, thank You so much, thank You for the gospels that we’re finishing now, the gospel of John. Thank You for all the commentaries from Brian Hardin and how importantly life changing they are for us. Lord, would You help us? Would You help us each one to do only good and not harm on all Your holy mountain? Like You say in Isaiah 11, “May the earth be filled with Your goodness as the waters cover the sea.” It says, in the home and Christian Standard Bible in Isaiah 11:9, “no one will harm nor destroy another on my entire holy mountain for the land will be as full of the knowledge of the Lord as the sea is filled with water.” Forgive us Lord for what we’ve done, like disobeying You and falling from Your grace. We thank You that at the cross You made this heaven possible once again that You made us for. Thank You Lord Jesus You have been so good and so gracious to us. Teach us also how to have grace for one another in Jesus’ name. Amen. Candace from Oregon.

Hi this is White as Snow calling from Tennessee, this is my first time calling and it’s my second year going through the DAB and I’m just blessed that God led me to this podcast. I’d like to thank all the people behind the scenes that make it possible, all their hard work. And I was just calling asking prayer for my brother Don. He’s in his late 50s, he’s mentally ill for about 30 years. He’s basically paranoid and misinterprets what people say and he seems to be getting worse as he’s getting older and I’d just like prayer for wisdom, discernment, you know, how best to help him and just, you know, that God’s will produce complete healing. And I just thank you for your prayers.

Hey DAB family this is Byron out in Florida. I was listening to the community prayers and I heard Catherine in Maryland, your call, thank you so much for praying for my wife and for her complete healing. That really touched me. It’s telling because you mentioned also that you’re praying for her peace and comfort. And almost around the same time that you were probably calling in my wife and I were having a conversation about just that, comfort, and about how I can do a better job comforting her. I do a lot for my wife because of her sickness. I spend a lot of time with the kids while she rests, I do a lot of work around the house and spend a good amount of money and medication and therapies and various doctor’s appointments and whatnot. And, so, I feel like I do a lot but apparently, I can do more to comfort her. And it’s interesting because I can’t do anything about my wife’s sickness, about my wife’s pain and the exhaustion that she feels but apparently there is something I can do to make her feel better and it’s really telling that you were praying for her comfort because I think the Lord heard that prayer and allowed me to accept that guidance without any kind of offense or defensiveness that I might’ve usually mustered up because of all the stuff that I am doing. And it allowed me to realize that my wife needs something additional and more. And, so, I covet your prayers and the rest of the community’s prayers in that regard. Because I’m not terribly good at all the emotional stuff and if there’s something that’s my wife really needs I want to be able to give that. And we’ll get there by the grace of God and prayers of the community. But I just wanted to mention that. It was cool that you were praying for that at the that same time we were talking about it and made a big difference. Love you all. Bye.

Hi, DAB, I am a listener and I am calling to today…it’s so hard…for my daughter-in-law delivered a grandchild 7 ½ weeks early. He’s okay. He had a little bit of breathing problem. they think he might’ve swallowed some fluids but it’s been six days now and he still can’t come home but he has developed jaundice in a bad way they call it __ or something, I’m not quite sure but they tried for 10 years to have this baby and had to go through fertility clinic and all kinds of money and it finally went through and two weeks ago some people tried to do an invasion of their house with masks on and I believe that stress is what caused…maybe because the early delivery. They wanted to get in. I guess the cops were able to catch the three suspects at another place but in the meantime, nobody can’t hold him, nobody can see him. He weighs 5 lbs. 4 oz. and he’s only 2 pounds now. They said he could very well…they don’t believe his liver is fully developed yet. So, but I trust in the Lord and…

[teamhook]

Captain Swan Supernatural Summer - Second Contribution

Thank you @kmomof4 for enabling all us, and organizing the event.

Thank you, @hookedonapirate for being my Beta.

Thank you, @revanmeetra87 for your support even though supernatural fics aren’t your thing.

And last but not least @kymbersmith-90 for being there for me, when I freak out at the craziest times.

Thanks to @searchingwardrobes for letting me vent and your patience.

I give you Captain Swan Supernatural Summer my new multi-chapter story.

|AO3| |FFN|

My Fate is Darkness

A/N: Is there light in darkness? Throughout the realms, there are all sorts of supernatural creatures roaming the lands. And there are those who are tasked with protecting the innocent. Fated to be enemies, can true love find its way through time?

Chapter 1

...

In the outskirts of the small town was a small cabin with a loving mother singing to her baby boy as she gazed into his loving blue eyes. Her soft voice carried throughout the home, soothing the little bundle in her arms.

"-And fondly I watched her

Move here and move there

And she went her way homeward

With one star awake

As the swans in the evening

Move over the lake-"

Pausing near the end of the song, she peeked out the window when something caught her attention. The shadows by the trees moved unnaturally. The hairs on the back of her head stood up; she hadn't felt this uneasy in years. She quickly moved the rug on the floor, lifted the small cellar door and grabbed her small son, hushing, "Killian, sweetheart, please stay quiet for mum. You are such a good baby." His blue eyes looked deep into her own as she slowly lowered him into the small wooden bassinet. She closed the door and rose to her feet, grabbing a dagger from the small trunk under her bed. Cautiously stepping outside, she slowly closed the door behind her.

She walked around the house looking for any broken tree branches or indication of unwanted company. She had to move quickly because Brennan and Liam were due to return from the docks and she didn't want them to be caught by surprise. Her boys loved to watch the ships arrive at the little town.

She had circled back and was assessing the area one last time before she deemed it safe. The yellow eyes pierced through the foliage. The distance between them was now obvious. He was just a few feet from her favorite berry tree just before reaching the forest entrance.

She hadn't moved that fast ago in years - since her last hunt. Her motivation was a lot more primal than the thrill of a kill; she was protecting her family. Years of training had resurfaced when she saw standing before her a yellow-eyed demon. He came at her, taking swings at her head, stomach and wherever he could reach. She fought back, blocking and landing some punches before finally putting the dagger to use, but it felt as if he were toying with her. He could've used some of his powers on her to end it swiftly, but his arrogance would not allow it.

She finally managed to get the upper hand.

"Darkness is coming, Hunter and you will lose." The demon spat black blood at her.

"It may be coming, but you will not be here to see it. This is where you fall down." With that, she gave the final blow, and blood was splattered everywhere. She pulled out the dagger and wiped it clean with her brown blouse.

She turned to look at the house and ran towards it, feeling queasy as she approached; the air was hard to breathe. She ran inside and found a cloaked figure standing were Killian's empty crib was.

"Where is the boy?"

"What do you want with my son?" She tried to step closer but was suddenly frozen in place.

"Oh, I have plans for him. Now answer my question: here is he?"

"He is not here."

"Tsk tsk; don't lie to me, Hunter. I know he is here. I can smell his sweet blood. He gets that from you, you know."

Alice made a face at the comment. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"The older boy has it too, but it doesn't match the young one. I had hoped to be finished by the time you came back in from dispatching my soldier, but you hid the boy. I will find a way to get him, and you will not be here to protect him anymore." He lifted her body with an invisible force and pushed her against the ceiling wall, knocking the wind out of her. With a flick of his hand, suddenly the cutlery flew toward her.

As he walked out, the flame of a small candle near the window ignited the curtains, causing a fire.

She'd never expected to feel this way. She had heard that a person's life flashed before their eyes, and they reflected on their lives as they neared the end. But she was at peace, unafraid and happy, knowing Killian was protected by the enchanted wood the cellar his bassinet was hidden in was made from.

Alice Jones had always done what was expected of her. Since she was a little girl, she was told what to do, who she was supposed to be and who she was meant to love. Pesky little birthmarks and soul mates were overrated, even when she thought she had taken control of her fate and had decided who to love. She had done what she was supposed to do, but sometimes one cannot escape fate.

As she surrendered to her fate, her thoughts lingered on the road so far.

The truth about monsters and all that goes bump in the night is simple - they are real. Just because you don't believe in them, doesn't mean they don't believe in you.

Demons, vampires, skinwalkers and the occasional werewolf are a few of the otherworldly creatures that plague the worlds and have to be terminated. It'd been an almost eternal battle to protect the innocents and the light.

There had been an unnatural amount of activity in all the realms; hunters were struggling to keep up and were forced to hunt alone, no longer in pairs.

Paranormals would jump realms on occasion, which meant there would have to be a hunter or a guardian close behind. They would travel from Oz to Wonderland and all the realms in between in order to protect the light from the darkness that threatened to extinguish it. They've traveled from realm to realm at times to fight and protect the innocents or to take the survivors to a sanctuary.

The land without magic was one of those realms. This world had been touched by evil and because of its lack of belief in the unknown; the view of these events was altered. History gave a different account of the unknown. One of the most well-known accounts took place in London. For there had been a terror in the late 1800's (the exact year was hard to pinpoint). Jack the Ripper had not been a simple serial killer. Many had fallen victim to him; he did not discriminate. There was no known pattern; the only similarity is that the bodies were drained of their blood. Two tiny twin puncture wounds would be found in the lifeless human body, so small sometimes it was missed. The truth was Jack was a different kind of killer; he was a vampire. His reign of terror had ended at the hands of hunter Evangeline Van Helsing, Alice Burkhart's usual partner.

Like most hunters, Alice had spent time in all of the realms. She hated the difference in the time periods from realm to realm. It could make anyone dizzy. She never looked forward to jumping between realms. It was hard going unnoticed when the wardrobe made her stand out. Her favorite realm was the one that held her home. Beyond the land, far out at sea - that is where Haven Isles lies hidden to the naked eye. The Enchanted Forest was the closest land to her home. After her last hunt, she had decided to eat a warm meal at the little pub at The Den's Inn. She sat with her back to the wall, always paying attention to her surroundings to ensure no surprises were coming her way.

A group of men entered the Inn and asked for the stew of the day. One of the men looked at her and smiled. She couldn't help herself and reciprocate the gesture. He approached the table. "Hello lass, may I join you?"

She gestured for him to sit.

"Thank you, my name is Brennan Jones. May I inquire the name of my lovely companion?"

"Aren't you a gentleman? My name is Alice Burkhart."

...

Not far from the little house, a man holding a young boy approached the home.

"Papa, look - fire!" The boy pointed at the small house now set aflame.

"Liam, please wait for me here. Do not move."

The boy nodded in agreement as Brennan frantically ran into the house. He opened the door and ducked as the flames attacked him. He saw his wife lying lifeless on the floor, her hand resting on the cellar door handle. He looked around and couldn't see his youngest boy. "Killian?" Of course, the boy could not answer his call, but Brennan knew he was there. He picked up his wife's body and noticed the door handle was still within her death grip. He opened the door and saw Killian looking at him with his deep blue eyes, barely making a fuss. He grabbed the bassinet as he threw her body over his shoulder.

…Years later…

Brennan Jones still mourned his long lost love. He still could not wrap his mind around the fact that she was gone. So many unanswered questions; the dagger she had on her body. The craftsmanship of the blade was incomparable. The cellar had been made with enchanted wood and she had requested special designs carved into it. She was knowledgeable of magical items to an extent that he had questioned her about it only to receive a smile in return.

They weren't given enough time. And now he would never see her smile or look into her eyes ever again.

He would stare at his youngest son and get lost in memories of Alice; Killian looked so much like his mum. And now she was gone and he was still here.

Brennan had become the shell of his former self. He drank away the few coins he earned instead of providing the essentials for his sons. He just wanted to disappear and fall into the void. He couldn't go on without her. He was running away and kept moving what remained of the small family from village to village along the coast.

He raised the boys to the best of his ability. They were getting so big and Liam was already becoming a young man. Brennan had caught Liam doing small chores for whomever that would provide him with a coin. Killian on the other hand still didn't understand why his mum was gone, even if he didn't remember her.

At least Brennan didn't believe so.

The broken-hearted man slowly slipped further into despair. Soon enough he had accrued debts he couldn't pay for, even after selling the last physical connection he had to Alice - the dagger she had when she died. He had gotten silver and some gold doubloons, but it didn't last. He then started stealing, and soon his thievery caused him and his young sons to be on the run.

"Liam, please help Killian get ready; we are going on a grand adventure out at sea. We are to sail on one of those ships that you boys love so much." Brennan smiled and wobbled away, almost falling to the floor.

"What did you do? All you do is drink and gamble."

"Liam, I just want to be a good father to you and your brother. I know I've made mistakes and because of those mistakes, you've had to grow up. You take care of Killian and yourself."

Liam looked at his little brother and quickly helped him dress. He still kept an eye on his father; almost two years had passed since the time Liam caught him trying to sneak away. His father had told him that the kind spinsters that lived next door would have gladly raised them.

"Papa, we are ready," Liam told his father as he held Killian's hand.

Killian stretched his small hand for his father to hold and once his father reached for it, he offered a sweet dimpled smile.

They arrived at the docks and soon the salty sea air filled their noses with the fragrance of adventure.

They boarded the merchant ship and soon were led below deck next to the crew quarters. Brennan had spent his last coins getting them the last cabin of the ship. The ship had finally set sail.

Liam was the one to speak, "Papa, where are we going?"

Brennan extended his arms to reach for both of his sons and pulled them to his lap, one on each side. Liam was getting too big, but Killian clung to Brennan with eagerness for his father's affection. He hadn't done this in so long. He held them tight.

"The ship is traveling to Wayward Port. A small port just outside of the Maritime Kingdom"

Killian fell asleep in his father's arms.

"Liam, you should sleep and let the waves lull you into sleep like Killian did."

Liam looked at his father still holding Killian in his arms and slowly approached the bunk on the other side.

"Son, sleep and I will tuck Killian in. I shall share the bunk with him. He is still so small even at his age. Don't worry, just sleep."

Liam pondered his father's request and decided he could not go anywhere. He closed his eyes and fell asleep.

A few days at sea had passed and Jones had enjoyed his time with his sons. He knew in his heart it would've made his Alice happy. Now they were up on deck watching the water.

"Papa, I like this ship. Can we stay forever?"

"I'm afraid not, son," he replied to Killian. We will soon make port and find a new home."

Killian couldn't hide his disappointment at his father's response.

"Come on little brother; let's go to our room so you can take your nap."

Brennan gazed out over the vast ocean as the boys walked away. As soon as they were gone, someone tapped him on the shoulder.

"Mr. Jones, may I have a word." The man gestured for Brennan to follow him to the most secluded part of the ship.

"Captain Silver, is there a problem?"

"I'm afraid I have some bad news for a family man such as you. It has come to my attention that at Wayward Port there are some people awaiting our arrival; more specifically yours. You will be arrested upon arrival."

Brennan's face went pale as all of the blood drained from it.

"I may have a solution, if I may make a suggestion? As you are aware, the ship has a rowboat. I could offer it in exchange for some extra coins. I'd settle for some copper."

"That would be lovely if I had any. I used the last to pay for the room. I have nothing else of value."

The Captain considered his answer. "I believe you are still in possession of something of value. I'm in the need of a cabin boy or two. Does that help?"

Brennan looked at the man as he processed his comment. He couldn't attempt an escape with the kids with him. It could be dangerous and they would get hurt. He knew his capture was inevitable and what would happen to the kids? He had no family to take them and Alice never talked of her family. Their best chance was on that ship.

"How long would they need to serve you for?" Brennan couldn't believe he was considering the proposition.

Captain Silver pondered the question. "Each of your boys will serve for a mere ten years. Please, consider that they will be together and have nothing to worry about. They will be better off with me than if the authorities get a hold of them. Imagine them in an awful orphanage."

The thought of Brennan's boys in an orphanage killed him. At least with Silver, they would be at sea and his sons loved it.

"You have a deal. I will take the rowboat once it is dark. The kids will be in the room."

"I would hurry if I were you. It seems there is a storm coming," the Captain informed him and walked away.

Brennan headed below deck to his room. He opened the door and slowly entered only to find Liam and Killian napping on one of the bunks.

He watched as his sons slept. Suddenly, lightning flashed, and the ship swayed, tilting abruptly, waking Killian in the process."Papa, I'm scared."

"There is nothing to be afraid of son. Before you know it, you're going to be a man, so I'm just trying to prepare you 'cause then you're going to have to answer life's big question: what kind of man are you going to be?"

Killian smiled. "I want to be like you, Papa."

Brennan looked at his son and knelt by him. "No, Killian, promise me you will be a better man. Don't be like me."

Killian's eyes slowly closed and he fell asleep.

Brennan kissed his forehead and whispered, "I wish I could be the father you deserve." He rose to his feet and moved toward Liam and kissed him as well. "Liam please look after Killian." With his final words, he slipped out of the cabin, into the night and disappeared.

Early the next morning the sun shone brightly, leaving no evidence of a storm.

Liam woke first and noticed the other bunk was empty. Killian was still asleep, so he slowly got up, careful so as not to wake his brother up.

He dressed and hurried to go look for his father. The bunk had not been slept in.

As he was running to the deck, he bumped into someone.

"Boy, where is the other one?"

"What other one are you referring?"

"I believe he is your younger brother."

"He is asleep; I was looking for our father. Have you seen him?"

"Oh, he is long gone."

"Gone? But we are still here."

"That is because you are now part of the crew."

"What are you talking about?"

"Your father needed a rowboat and I needed some extra help."

"He just left us?"

"I'm afraid so. You are both now my property. I think it is time to wake up the other one. There is work to do before we arrive. And don't get any ideas."

Liam walked away and headed back to the cabin. How was he going to explain to his brother that their father had left them?