#Part of The Blighted Mirror novel

[shadow-gear]

Chapter 3 - Reflections

“I’ve lost sight of him.” Shui Jaing’s soft voice pierced the team’s magic comlink.

Shui, a human below average height with black hair past her shoulder blades, perched above the shipyard on a suspended cargo container. Chains creaked under the strain as they swung with the slightest movement from her. Shui vigilantly kept track of her team through her scope’s thermal setting. She toggled between thermal and scotopic vision trying to find her target. Her marksmanship skills earned her top of the class and her small stature made her a hard target to spot. A perfect candidate that Adalissie couldn’t pass up.

“Skathor, time for Plan B.” Adalissie panted through the coms.

Adalissie, a taller than average human with brown shoulder length hair, sprinted and leaped over abandoned lift trucks and other obstacles in a maze of cargo containers. She slid to a stop and slammed her back against a tall container waiting for Shui’s directions.

“I hate Plan B.”

Her partner, Rorgal Daymantal, a suave grizzled dwarf with a long braided beard down to his hips, hot on her tail. He tapped her shoulder as he came up behind her—his way of letting her know he’s in position. He took a back seat on this mission and let Adalissie take over as team leader. He mentored her long enough. Their paths diverted and they both looked in opposite directions covering their respective flanks.

With a puff of air, Adalissie blew her bangs out of her bloodshot eyes. “He’s built like an airship. How is he so fucking fast?”

Sweat rolled down her olive-toned forehead into her eyes, making them sting. The coms remained silent, and she looked behind her at Rorgal.

Rorgal chuckled, hitting her lower arm in a friendly manner as he struggled to catch his breath as well. “You’re just out of shape, girl,”

His aging body won’t be able to keep up with this chase for much longer, and Adalissie knew that. Even in her late twenties, she also felt the strain of the chase. A Dragonkin provoked the team into entering a shipyard off the coast of Staera. Dragonkin is a race rarely seen outside of Uzon, the East continent. His kind were all sorcerers thanks to the dragon blood that flowed into their veins. The kingdoms of Athewen, Procaria, and Staera had laws that banned magic and the execution of any known affiliates and practitioners of sorcerers. Those same three kingdoms formed a joint team comprising their finest to apprehend criminals such as this.

Adalissie snorted, “Look who’s talking, old man. Don’t die of a heart attack this close to retirement.”

Skathor, the other member of their team, broke the silence of com chatter. “Authorization approved from HQ. Quit the chatter. I need to concentrate.” 

Skathor Muse, a young Cambion eager to prove himself, gripped his components bag. His red forehead wrinkled as he prepared for his location spell. In a circle, Skathor painted several arcane symbols in white paint on the blue container in front of him. He reached into his brown leather bag and splashed the wet paint with bits of bloodhound fur. Demonic chants flowed out of his lips as his eyes turned a neon yellow and his vision narrowed, focusing on the Dragonkin. 

“East corner of the yard. Stationary for now. Alone. Heart rate increased. He’s panicking.”

A moment of silence before Shui spoke over the com. “All clear. Both sides. I have eyes on him. Container unit 5793 sitting in a clearing straight ahead. Recommended formation Alpha Delta.” 

“Moving.” Acknowledged Adalissie.

Rorgal gave a head nod of approval to her as she held a finger to her lips. She opened up her palm in one hand and with the other, did a circular motion above it. Both held up their firearms in their respective directions. Adalissi tapped Rorgal’s back without looking back. They crept around the fork and entered narrow corridors. A fog horn from a passing ship echoed off the tall stacks of metal boxes. 

Shui leaped down from her spot and disassembled her rifle. She tried carefully not to make a sound when she jumped from one container to the next. She crouched and followed closely from up top, keeping tabs on Adalissi from the corner of her eye. Skathor did the same as Shui, but followed Rorgal from the top. He had a heavier foot step than his partner and the empty containers reminded him.

Deep into the shipyard sat unit 5793 and their target. Multiple pathways would take her to her target, it was a wide open spot. Too many blindspots and she didn’t like that. She knew a trap when she saw one, but no dice, the only way through is forward. Careful not to let her presence known, she crouched close to the edge of the boxes. 

Shui and Skathor broke off and circled around to the other side to get a better vantage spot. Adalissie and Rorgal waited patiently for the others to get into position masking their presence in the shadows.

Comms were suddenly lit up with a mix of deafening static and broken up voices of the team talking over each other. “Shit, we… play… target… eyes up…”

“Adie, move your ass!”

Adalissie heard Rorgal shout towards her before blurs of green and blue crossed her vision. Cold steel pressed against her body as she heard shouting and gunfire muffled by faint scuffling. A dim golden tether floated by her, leaving a faint sparkle in its wake. Her vision blurred and a high pitch deafened her hearing. 

“Blood of my blood. This is not your time.”

Her consciousness faded to black. 

****

Birds chirped on a warm afternoon. Children frolicked about the playground, their voices carried far across the landscape. A girl, about four, used the cover of a nearby tree and observed them playing. Her long bleach-white hair flowed in the evening breeze. Golden irises that contrasted against her bronze skin tone longed to join the children. 

“Why are you not playing with the others, Miss Mashal?”

A voice behind the girl startled her. The adolescent whipped her head around so quickly that the momentum and length of her hair smacked her in the face. A gasp escaped from her mouth as her chest tightened. Upon recognizing who snuck up behind her, she shrugged it off and acted like it didn’t phase her.

“They don’t want a freak like me playing with them.”

“You are not a freak. You have something special they do not possess.” They processed their next set of words. “Which makes them scared of you. If they do not want to take the time to get to know you, then they are not worth your time.”

“Cia, it is the same wherever I go. They call me names and it hurts.”

Cia kneeled and patted her on the head.

“You are Adalissie Mashal. Nothing more, nothing less.” Cia reached her hand out toward Adalissie. “Now come, it is time to see your mother.” 

Adalissie held on tight to Cia’s hand with a heavy heart. She had not seen her mom in months since the collapse in her study. Doctors tried to explain, but the words they used were far beyond her understanding. Adalissie glanced up at Cia and noticed the dry mascara that ran down her cheeks.

“Is mommy okay?” Adalissie asked.

Cia’s voice cracked. “Yeah. Everything is fine.” 

Liar.

The drive to the hospital was relatively short, but to Adalissie, it felt longer. Thoughts entered her mind, and none of them were good. She noticed Cia crying from time to time when she thought she wasn’t looking.

Doctors and nurses stood outside the hospital with government officials. Adalissie rubbed her eyes as the lights from the lobby blinded her. Officers escorted her to her mother, and the hallways fell silent when she walked down. Nurses who were going about their day all bowed their heads in sorrow as she passed.

It made her heart sink. Drops of water landed on the top of her hand and she instantly reached up to her cheek, wiping away the wetness.

Sporadic beeping machines lined the bed with several hoses hooked to a shriveled woman. People who Adalissie didn’t recognize left without speaking, leaving an empty room for her and her mother. 

Raspy and weak, the bedridden woman spoke.

“Is my daughter here yet?”

Adalissie ran over to her mom, letting go of Cia’s hand. Cia took a step forward, but hesitated. She didn’t want to interrupt their reunion.

“Mom!” Adalissie grabbed her mother’s hand. “What’s wrong?”

It had been months since she heard her mother’s voice. Tears rolled down her cheeks and she couldn’t stop smiling. She wanted to tell her mother everything that had happened in the time she had been in a coma.

“Today at school…”

“My precious daughter.”

Blonde dark-skinned woman stared blankly at the ceiling, paying no attention to the child’s death grip on her arm. Adalissie’s smile faded.

“Mom?”

“You are destined for great things, my love.” Her mother weakly laughed. “I wish to see the new era you bring. I am so sorry that-”

A long, drawn-out tone from one machine filled the room. Adalissie’s eyes darted between her mother and the machine. She looked back at Cia, who had already broken down crying. A flash of light, brighter than the sun, lit the room. Adalissie kneeled beside her mother with white feathery wings spread from her back, reaching to both ends of the bed. Cia rushed into the room and gave a warm embrace to calm the child. The bright light dimmed and her wings drooped. The hallways were no longer silent.

****

Hemp rope rubbed tight against Adalissie’s skin as she lay on a cold, hard surface. Her head pounded as if someone was beating her head with a stick. She blinked, trying to get her vision to focus. A high-pitched wailing drowned familiar voices out. Another voice she didn’t recognize broke the chatter.

“Ah, the girl awakens.”

Adalissie shook her head to clear her senses. “W-what?”

The high-pitched wail subsisted, and her vision focused. Darkness surrounded her and she couldn't see past the bright light shining in her direction. Her team sat detained next to her, hands and feet bound.

Rorgal leaned closer to Adalissie. “You took a bad tumble back there, girl. Thought you wouldn’t make it.”

The bright light from the lamp shined directly into their face and caused everyone to sweat under the intense heat it gave off. A Dragonkin, horns narrowly touching the ceiling, revealed himself from the shadows. Scraping a chair across the concrete floor behind him. He let out a small puff of air while flexing his nostrils giving off an intimidating presence which made Adalissie uneasy. 

Long, black claws gripped the back of the chair and spun it around. His beefy scaled legs straddle the wooden seat as he sat facing them. Colorful bronze scales reflected the light back on the wall making different shapes. His dark brown serpentine eyes darted between his captives studying their reactions. 

“Let’s begin.”

The Dragonkin spoke in a guttural voice, followed by a low growl. Adalissie noted his presence, which carried a bit of weight. As Adalissie’s eyes adjusted to the room, she took notice of the other people in the room with them. She didn't take into account that the Dragonkin had help evading them. It made sense now why he was hard to capture.

“My name is Tiphuc Dravull. Tell me, do you know the reason your kingdoms hunts down sorcerers?”

He snapped his bulky fingers together. A lengthy human, no older than twenty, brought up a strange contraption. An oblong container that faintly glowed and pulsed with purple energy. Twisted supports resembling the roots of a tree, connected to two leaf-shaped ends.

“Sorcery is outlawed for a good reason. It’s blood magic and nothing good comes from using it.” Shui said.

The group of humans in the foreground erupted in a unison laugh and stopped when Tiphuc lifted his hand.

“Is that what they teach you?” A sensible chuckle escaped his throat. “That’s cute. Magic is not free for those who are not born from it. The Gods are dead and your Kingdoms are hiding the truth.” 

Tiphuc rose and pushed the chair aside, then adjusted his glare at Skathor. “Tell me, Red, where does your source come from?”

“It took me years to study magic and learn the spells I know,” Skathor said.

“But where do you draw power from to cast those spells?” asked Tiphuc.

“Valgrea, The Tree of Death.”

Tiphuc strolled toward Skathor, his snout inches from his face. He leaned back to escape the dragon’s foul breath and its massive claws that dwarfed the peculiar gadget that he presented toward him. Two of Tiphuc’s followers moved behind Skathor and stood him up, untying his bonds. 

“That is a Cambion religious faith. Made up to keep you devils in line. I will show you raw arcane power. Power that you can touch, smell, and see,” Tiphuc handed the object to Skathor.

Skathor reached out and grasped the apparatus, bringing it closer to him. Low hums increased in pitch and the purple bloom brightened the longer he held it. Pulses increased and the arcane machine became deafening. 

A smirk gradually drew across his face. A surge of mystic strength coursed through his veins. Translucent blue crystals sprouted from his palm and morphed into a small dagger. He flipped the crystalline dirk in the air for a while.

“This is incredible. I can cast magic without components or incantations.”

Skathor summoned multiple ice daggers and threw them at the closest wall. He coughed up blood the second he cast. The ice daggers melted, unable to maintain composition.

“What-” pain shot through Skathor’s arm. “What’s happening?”

His arm vibrated as the humming grew louder. A moan withdrew from his lips as he dropped to one knee. Veins bulged from his arms and pulsed in sync with the machine. Skathor fell prone, screaming in agony. 

In minutes, his body cracked with purple energy and his red skin turned to a brown, white ash. The screaming abruptly stopped, as there was nothing left but a husk. Tiphuc lightly blew, causing a swirl of dust in the space where Skathor once lay.

“Repentance.” Tiphuc swiped the contraption off the floor and handed it to Adalissie. “Are you ready to be judged?”

“Fuck you.” She spat at his feet while maintaining eye contact. “Do you think of yourself as some kind of replacement for the Gods?”

Tiphuc grabbed her neck and slammed her face into the ground. The weight and pure strength were no match for her thin body structure. The device hummed louder when placed in her hands. Shui and Rorgal struggled against their restraints to help their teammate. Adalissie’s irises flickered from brown to an illuminated gold. 

“Let go of me!” she yelled through clenched teeth.

The roots of her brown hair turned to a bleach white. Tiphuc’s eyes widened as more of her hair changed to the same color.

“Interesting. Does your team know what you are?”

“No.” With a sigh, Tiphuc flew away from her by an invisible force. “And they never will.”

A flash of light filled the room, impairing the vision of everyone. Over the sounds of fighting, the device increased its hum as ambient magic built. The room fell silent except for the creaking hinge of the cargo door opening. A large horned figure dragging a corpse behind it exited.

****

Thick smoke swirled around a room of a run-down apartment. Sirens from the streets passed through the paper-thin walls. Burnt skin mixed with burning paper flowed out of the unsealed front door. Normally, this would be a cause for concern, but this was an everyday occurrence in this neighborhood.

After the sizzle of a paper stick being put out, the teenage girl whimpered quietly. A mid-thirties woman lifted the cigarette from the teenager’s forearm. Burnt skin healed on her with remarkable speed, with no trace of the injury. The smoking woman reached for another smoke and let out an audible frustration.

She looked at the girl sitting next to her on the couch.

“Be a good girl and get Mama more Hellhounds from her room.”

With watery eyes, the girl looked at her caretaker and whimpered, “Cia...”

“Now, Adalissie!”

Cia threw the empty Hellhound box across the room. Feeling defeated, Adalissie carried out the task and proceeded to Cia’s bedroom. She hated nights where her foster dad came home early. He would give Cia some pills that made her zone out, and she would become a different person.

Dread hit her when she walked into Cia’s bedroom. This used to be a happy home before Velcun, her foster father, came into the picture. Cia would bring take out after work and they would watch movies until she fell asleep. Now it’s full of drugs and moldy beer cans. This isn’t what her mother would have wanted for her, but she can’t leave Cia alone with that asshole.

She searched the room from top to bottom before finding the smokes in the dresser’s top drawer hidden under some socks. Pain struck her like someone stabbed a knife through her skull after grabbing the carton. Just like the other times, she pushed past the pain and winced, enduring the irritation.

When leaving the room, her headache grew, dropping her to her knees instantly. Not daring to yell, she shut her eyes and clasped her head while caging her suffering. Before she could halt the sensation, but this felt different. Her dark brown irises flickered an illuminating gold, lighting the dimly lit hallway like a spotlight. 

Spots on her back itched as the skin tore sprouting wing joints. Strands of blonde and white blended into her brown hair. Tiny bone stubs broke through her skull, releasing some of the pain. She squatted and pulled her legs close to her chest while she tightly closed her eyes.

“No, not now.” She mumbled as she rocked back and forth. “Please stop.”

Down the hallway, a door slammed opened followed by heavy footsteps coming toward her. A human male towered over the scared girl.

“What did I tell you about using your powers in my house, freak?”

The man unbuckled his belt and wiped it off his pants with a crack. She knew what came next, and her body froze. She wanted to scream, but the lump in her throat prevented her from letting out a peep. One, two, three strikes from his waistband, leaving red marks on her skin that healed as quickly as they formed. Her heart pumped faster, and she experienced an unfamiliar might swell deep inside. A voice rang in her mind in a language she somehow understood.

Uio avai rad dalok ad koark dhoal kruxo?

Are you not tired of being their slave?

Kdak harkark kudk. Ork dho kuar.

Stop holding back. End the pain.

Iorouko avail dirr kaxoi.

Release your full power.

Twisted horns shot out the tiny bone stubs on her forehead, curving upwards. Pitch-black ooze draped her long white hair, soiling the carpet. The whites of her eyes became obsidian and her gold pupils deepened to a glowing ruby. Long, sharp front teeth poked her bottom lip while her snow-white appendages darkened to the same black as her hair.

“Velcun, ka rad daidh no uravnaio!” Adalissie’s ebony wings fanned out as she walked closer.

Velcun tumbled backward and scrambled to scurry away from the Adalissie. 

A flame lit at the tip of her finger. “Her heart is no longer endured by agony. She is not your plaything. She is no longer Cia’s responsibility.”

Adalissie’s lips moved, but it was not her sweet, soft voice that came out. It was deeper, more confident, and it terrified Velcun to his core. With his backside to the hallway wall, he pushed himself up upright. Lengthy black-tipped nails gently coiled around Velcun’s throat, pushing him up the wall further. The ruby glow of her eyes pierced deep into his core as his trachea caved in from the pressure of her hold.

“I’m not sorry for what I did. You ungrateful child.” 

His raspy last words escaped through his crushed windpipe as his eyes dulled gray and his body went limp. 

Bottles crashed on the hardwood floor in the next room, drawing Adalissie’s attention. She dropped Velcun’s body on the floor and moved on. Cia huddled in the corner, blocking herself with furniture to distance her and the thing Adalissie had become.

“S-stay back, you m-monster.” Cia cried, holding out a broken glass bottle.

Adalissie threw the carton of Hellhounds towards Cia. She dropped the bottle and caught the smoke box.

“Ino’s death deeply scarred you in ways others would never understand. Being left to raise a child by yourself put unnecessary strain on you but, marrying that abusive fuck. It changed you and not for the better.” Adalissie inched closer to Cia’s face and ran her long fingernail across her delicate features. “You’ve fallen from grace, Cia.”

“Every time I look at you…” Tears streamed down Cia’s face. “I’m reminded of what I lost. She… she overworked because of you. You were her world, and I loved her.”

Adalissie backed slowly while lowering her brow. Her inky tips curled onto the sofa, poking holes in the upholstery.

“So you turned to drugs? You let a child fend for herself while you tried to forget? How dare you blame a child for the death of their mother?”

Adalissie roared, shaking the apartment and shattering the windows. Adalissie chanted an incantation and waved her hand in rhythmic motion. An arcane symbol appeared, spawning three small specs that floated into Cia’s mouth. Cia itched compulsively, tearing at her skin. Insects crawled out of her wounds and tore into her flesh more, a repeated cycle generating more bugs with each rebirth. 

“She loved you, Cia, and you let her down.”

****

Tiphuc still breathed, but couldn’t move much more than his torso. His burnt corpse was still smoldering as Adalissie crouched above him, watching him die.

He looked at her and struggled to talk, spewing blue blood. “Nine Hells take you, Sem’Varian.” 

“Take me?” Adalissie leaned closer and whispered in his ear. “The Nine Hells didn’t want me.”

She reached for the knife that was strapped to her leg. Inch by inch, she inserted it in the nape and with the last exhale of breath from Tiphuc; she had verification that he expired. She swiftly stowed the dagger, satisfied that he would no longer be talking. Bones cracked as she grew shorter and her horns retracted back into her forehead.

She dragged her teammates out of the room one by one and untied them. While they were still unconscious, she set fire to the building and destroyed any evidence of what she did. Rorgal woke up first, followed by Shui, who frantically looked around. She helped calm Shui down enough to have a coherent conversation with her.

“What the hell was that?” Shui asked.

“A radical cultist? All sorcerers spew the same nonsense.” replied Adalissie.

“She means what spell did you cast?” Rorgal butted in.

“That wasn’t me. Must have been a malfunction with the device.”

“No.” Rorgal stood up, standing between Shui and Adalissie. “I don’t think it was. What are you hiding?”

Adalissie sighed heavily. “I always liked you, Rorgal, and that’s why I’m giving you an option to leave with your lives. I’ll say you died in the attack like Skathor or—”

“Or what?” Rorgal asked.

Adalissie’s brown eyes flickered gold and her horns grew.

“I’ll kill you.”

****

Adalissie returned from her mission alone and sat in her superior’s office, dodging cups and other objects. Papers swirled around after a frustrated swipe of the Minotaur’s gnarly toned arm across his desk. A ceramic coffee mug with world’s best dad fell to the ground and shattered.

It didn’t phase Adalissie in the slightest. Calm and collected, she endured her aggressive discipline that lasted for several minutes before the Captain calmed down. 

“Tell me again why I have three stiffs in the morgue?” He took a deep breath, then exhaled. “This was a joint operation between three Kingdoms. Do you understand how bad this makes us look?”

“Well, Rorgal was killed as well.”

“Is that what you get out of this?” His large hands pulled his chair closer. “Until this fuck up gets resolved, I’m giving you a new assignment. Far away from me and this Kingdom.”

“Captain-”

Adalissie was cut off as he talked over her.

“It’s another joint operation, but you are taking a backseat on this. Maybe you’ll learn something from…” The captain adjusted his glasses. “Amzer Bright. Not our jurisdiction, but they are seeking help.”

Her death grip indented the foam padding on the armrest. She dug deeper before letting go when she felt her fingers poke through the fake leather. Her jaw tensed and she bit down harder, keeping her feelings in check. She wanted to scream. It wouldn’t do any good, but it might make her feel better. 

“When am I leaving?” she asked, calmly.

“Tonight. All the arrangements have been made.” 

He shifted his metal framed glasses that rested loosely on the bridge of his nose. He grabbed a few papers off his desk and staked them in different piles.

“Where am I going?” Adalissie asked.

A few seconds passed before he noticed she had not left. He looked over the frames as they slipped down the bridge of his nose.

“Black Hollow. A town, if that’s what you want to call it. I’d say it’s more of a fishing village.”

“So, not worth my time.”

“You don’t have a choice. Now get out of my office.”

And with that, she left the building. With her bags packed, she left for Black Hollow. She decided she would play this by the book and keep things close to her chest. She didn’t want another incident on her hands. This case had to go well.

[justforbooks]

CJ Sansom

Lawyer turned novelist who enjoyed huge success with his bestselling Shardlake historical mysteries

The novelist CJ Sansom, who has died aged 71, saw the dream of many aspiring writers come true when in mid-career he swapped a routine occupation for the life of a widely acclaimed, chart-topping novelist. By 2020, the former lawyer’s Shardlake historical mysteries had sold almost 4m copies. He built up a fan-base vast enough to guarantee that a new title would enter the UK bestseller charts at number one.

Sansom’s switch, however, was no lucky break but the fruit of deep thought, hard work and struggle against stiff odds. He overcame the blight of intense early suffering to create a much-loved series of novels conspicuous for their intelligence, integrity and humanity. An underlying idealism united the two, very different, halves of his professional life.

His debut novel Dissolution (2003) introduced the hunchbacked Tudor lawyer Matthew Shardlake, who investigates a death at a Sussex monastery menaced by the assault on England’s religious orders led by Henry VIII’s chief minister, Thomas Cromwell. Over the next decade, further Shardlake titles appeared, and succeeded, at regular intervals: Dark Fire (2004), which won the Crime Writers’ Association award for historical fiction, Sovereign (2006), Revelation (2008), Heartstone (2010) and Lamentation (2014), with a plot set in the paranoid, heresy-hunting atmosphere of London during the final act of Henry VIII’s reign.

Set in London, Sussex, Norwich, Portsmouth and York, the books map not just the topographies but the mentalities of mid 16th-century England. They indirectly mirror, too, the political ferments of Sansom’s own age: Heartstone sees a spin-obsessed king unleash a disastrous foreign war. The seventh Shardlake novel, Tombland, its writing delayed by the author’s serious illness, appeared in 2018.

He claimed that the character of Shardlake, the Lincoln’s Inn lawyer disfigured from childhood, dropped into his head “fully formed”. Shardlake finds himself reluctantly immersed in the cruel and devious political intrigues of the 1530s and 40s. He remains a reflective outsider who seeks to help those bruised or crushed by the upheavals of an age of tumult. His disability gives him solidarity with outcast people.

In an interview, Sansom once spoke of the depression left by his early anguish as “the monkey on my back all my life”. The connection with his series hero could hardly be clearer.

Shardlake is both a man of his times – all the books rest on a bedrock of thorough, sometimes original, historical research – and a credible proxy for the 21st-century reader in the dogma-driven era of Henry VIII and his heirs. Sceptical, curious, free-thinking, he has sympathy with the Protestant reformers but feels alienated from the savage realpolitik practised by his patron, Cromwell.

Shardlake dwells in a sharply rendered, richly detailed Tudor England but stands outside it by virtue of his inquisitive, open-minded humanism. “I’m not saying a man like Shardlake did exist then,” Sansom commented, “but he could have, where even 20 years earlier he couldn’t.”

Born in Edinburgh, Chris was the son of a Scottish mother, Ann, and English father, Trevor, a naval engineer. An only child, he remembered his upbringing as Presbyterian, constrained and conservative (“with a small and a capital C”). Later, this private man who shunned attention-seeking gestures would nonetheless emerge as a vehement opponent of Scottish nationalism – part of his general distrust of any “politics based on national identity”, which he found “anti-rational, demagogic” and always destructive.

His Shardlake novels depict the dilemmas and ordeals that face a sensitive, compassionate man in a brutal and treacherous society. Sansom’s own, formative experience of persecution and survival under a despotic system took place at school. At the elite George Watson’s college in south Edinburgh, he endured sustained bullying that left him on the brink of suicide. Much later, he revealed that his “inattention” – which today might be diagnosed as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) – had made him the scapegoat of “vicious” teachers and pupils alike.

He described his school-age self as “seriously mentally ill: completely isolated … consumed with rage, plagued by migraines and tormented by thoughts of suicide and burning down the school”. At the age of 15, he took a “massive” overdose of his mother’s sleeping pills. Despite, or perhaps because of, this teenage misery, he developed a profound interest in history, politics and the workings of state power that would fuel both wings of his career. While still young, he recalled, “I arrived in my head at a sort of radical, independent socialist position which … I’ve basically retained.”

Sansom’s harrowing schooldays led to a spell as a voluntary in-patient at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. “I think the staff there saved my life,” he remembered, “just as Watson’s almost destroyed it.”

At Birmingham University he studied history as an undergraduate, then stayed on to research a PhD on mid-century Labour party policy towards South Africa. Rather than continue with academia, however, he qualified as a solicitor and spent much of the 1980s and 90s devoted to legal aid work, seeking to help vulnerable people. Living in Brighton, he attended writers’ groups as a hobby but never considered literature as a means to earn his living.

In 2000, his father’s death left him with a small legacy. He decided, without much hope, to try his hand at full-time fiction, though allowed for the possibility that: “I would be back in the law within the year.”

To his surprise, Dissolution rapidly found an agent. Publishers bid eagerly for the title (with Pan Macmillan becoming his UK home). Inspired in part by Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose, it reached two prize shortlists, and won over not only crime-fiction fans but a broad span of readers fascinated by the Tudor period and the distant mirror it holds up to our own fragmented times. Sansom had discovered, as he said, “how like the 20th century it was in its anxiety and uncertainty, even though people thought so differently then”.

Dissolution preceded Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall by six years in its portrayal of Cromwell and his circle – although Sansom’s chief minister is a much darker figure than Mantel’s. Among authors of historical mysteries set in medieval or early-modern England, he became a rare male luminary in a genre dominated by women, from pioneers such as Ellis Peters (Edith Pargeter) to Sansom’s contemporaries, such as Susanna Gregory.

Over the next decade, the Shardlake titles became regular fixtures in the bestseller lists. Adapted versions for BBC Radio extended the books’ appeal, even though Sansom – who continued to live in Brighton – experienced more than a touch of imposter syndrome. “I still half expect to wake up in a meeting about the latest legal aid forms,” he once said.

His mass-market popularity won him some unlikely fans. Shortly before she resigned in 2019, the then prime minister Theresa May bizarrely inaugurated a miniature library (housed in a redundant phone box) in her constituency by donating her copy of one of Sansom’s books. No figure, and no event, could have been worse suited to a writer who believed in a properly-funded public sector and detested the politics of nationalism and xenophobia.

Sansom’s two non-Tudor novels proved the breadth of his talent: Winter in Madrid (2006), with its accomplished depiction of a captive nation, set in the Spanish capital during the gloomy aftermath of Franco’s victory in the civil war, and the remarkable Dominion (2012), which reanimates the hackneyed genre of counterfactual history with its chillingly believable account of Britain as a satellite state of Nazi Germany in 1952. “Given the right circumstances fascism can infest any country,” a character in Dominion remarks.

That novel presents Scottish nationalists as accomplices of fascism and ends with an afterword that excoriates the policies of the (actual) Scottish National party. In all Sansom’s books, history’s convulsions test thinking people who try to stay decent and honest in tough times. He acknowledged that he had “found myself particularly drawn to the moral dilemmas the literate classes often find themselves in at times of ideological conflict – whether Reformation England or the second world war”.

In 2012, Sansom was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, an incurable bone-marrow cancer, and began to receive chemotherapy. Lamentation followed two years later, but medical treatment inevitably slowed his pace of work.

Yet the voluminous Tombland, published in 2018, proved one of the most richly imagined and researched of all his Tudor mysteries. Shardlake is caught up in the wave of rebellions that shake the realm of the boy-king Edward VI in 1549: “A colossal event that has been much underplayed”, in the author’s words. The typically scholarly essay attached to the book framed this emphasis on poor and marginal people as an overdue antidote to “the ‘royalisation’ of popular Tudor history”.

Sansom lived quietly in Brighton, on his own, and worked with a fierce dedication. Illness put a brake on his output but never doused his determination. He avoided the limelight, and once listed among his pet hates Facebook, Twitter and Christmas – as well as the “really ridiculous” television series, The Tudors.

In 2023 Sovereign, the third Shardlake novel, was staged by York Theatre Royal as a large-scale community production at King’s Manor, York, where much of the novel is set. A four-part television adaptation, Shardlake, directed by Justin Chadwick with Arthur Hughes as the eponymous lawyer and Sean Bean as Cromwell, is due to be screened on Disney+ this week.

A good man in trying times, his Shardlake became a firm friend to countless admirers. Erudite but approachable, his creator spoke engagingly about his work in a voice that bore soft traces of an Edinburgh upbringing. Above all, the one-time solicitor ceased never to explore the meaning of justice – or to tell timeless truths about power and its victims.

🔔 Christopher John Sansom, novelist and lawyer, born 9 December 1952; died 27 April 2024

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[tallatonk]

art/ animatics ideas and stuff im working on (and by working on, i mean they will sit in my brain for 40 years and never get done):

- fitmc and madagio animatic based off new invention by idk how but they found me, specifically the “im having bad dreams. and nothing you can do can keep the bad things away from me until i fall asleep…” part. might touch on my robo!fit idea but probably not. a scene of fit awaking up in his elevator shift room to seeing a cat and it morphing into madagio.

-fitpac animatic angst based off sever the blight by hemlocke springs. “i see the flowers in his hands, blue bells and dahlias tied with a white ribbon. they are my favorite. i heave a sighing breath…” LORD THIS SONG MAN scene of pac giving fit flowers and it’s hazy like a memory. it pulls away at the “i heave a sighing breath” to fit being scared and anxious looking up at madagio during the climbing “ah” part of the song. still frame of madagio during “love is miles away” then cut to a scared looking fit during “will i still wait here for you?” then next couple lines being to pac slouched over a bathroom sink in front a mirror then looking up to see a prison outfitted version of himself. there’s a part of the song that says “im no snow white, the fairest of our land” and it’s pac look BEAT from purgatory, looking mad rough and ready to kill. next chunk of lyrics is with both of them staring at each other thru the prison doors (like the clip of fit finding pac in prison) I CAN RANT ABOUT THIS IDEA FOR HOURS , PLEASE ASK ABOUT IT LMAOOO

-tubbo angst art of him hugging himself crying based of enknee1 by hemlocke spring. “is there anyone?anyone out there to love me? anyone out there to care for?…” maybe him in the new safe space area? or at the fred mail box.

-okay someone has got to have had this idea before but!!!!! fitpac purgatory angst to as the world caves in by matt maltese????? GIRL don’t get me started man. could read novels off this shit.

-happy pills arc pac based off sadboi by nelward. also based off tricksterstuck (im a hs vet im sorry)

-okay okay here me out, collage style art of mushy, fluffy ass fitpac based off j’s lullaby by delaney bailey. but like REALLY gay shit, like closed up on linked pinkies, the flower garden with pacs roses in it, that one pic of fit and ramon looking at the sunset but richas and pac are there. all kinda scrapbook-ed  together. covered in star and moon stickers, a little drawing of crossed tridents RAHHHHHHHHHH

hopefully this will motivate me to actuALLY DRAW!!!!!

[katieskarlette]

Don’t take the anti-Nathanos comments on reddit seriously. Your meme was good! I used to try and post “I like Nathanos and he’s actually very funny” comments, but they downvote me into oblivion and hurt my karma score, so I stopped. Twitter doesn’t have a mechanic like that and has lots of positive Nathanos comments.

Thank you!

I’m used to the Nate-hate all over the internet, and people are allowed to dislike a character.  Like, I’m not denying that he’s a rude, abrasive, bloodthirsty monster, and he’s really easy to make fun of (the running joke about him hating birds is hilarious) but I also find him interesting, amusing, and refreshing and I could listen to his voice all day.  I have no problem with people ragging on him for being nasty to the player, or being a melodramatic, scenery-chewing bastard. I give him crap about that, too!  If he’s not everyone’s cup of (glowing green, blighted) tea, that’s fine.

It just gets tiresome when the comments are the same old, inaccurate garbage about him being a simp or an incel or whatever the trendy insult is these days.  Because Sylvanas absolutely cares about him in return, and people pretending it’s a pathetic, one-sided obsession on his part are discounting some of the most humanizing moments she has had in recent canon.  

I love villains, but I get bored by ones who are gibbering evil just because.  Without the human connection to her sisters and beloved, Sylvanas would be sliding dangerously close to that territory since she left behind the Horde and the Forsaken, but she still has Nathanos, Alleria, and Vereesa to get through the stoic front she puts up.  As much as Sylvanas tries to pretend she doesn’t feel anything but rage, hatred, and bitterness, there is still a part of her that connects with those she loved in life.  We especially see these bonds at play in the novels and comics.

One of the first things she did after freeing herself and the Forsaken from the Scourge was to scour the Plaguelands until she found Nathanos and restored his free will.  It was a dangerous, tumultuous time, and she made that a priority.

The Dark Mirror short story showed that Sylvanas cared enough about Nathanos to use her precious, finite resources--one of the valkyr who stand between her and eternal torment--to restore him to a sturdier body.  It was that important to her to keep him around.  It was such an obvious gesture of affection that the other Dark Rangers teased him about it. 

Sylvanas doesn’t joke around with anyone, yet when the Legion attacked Vol’jin’s funeral she was bantering with Nathanos about whether his archery skills were rusty or if he was just trying to make her look better. 

In Before the Storm we get mentions in her own POV chapters of how she wants to take his hand and spend more time with him, and how he’s the only significant other present at the post-Legion victory banquet because none of the other Horde leaders have a plus-one.  

Listen to the tenderness in her voice when she bids him farewell during the loyalist ending to BFA, which he responds to by addressing her as “my love.”

Sylvanas absolutely does love Nathanos back (in whatever capacity the undead can feel such emotions), but people stick their fingers in their ears and hum loudly because they want to ship her with other people instead, or they just hate Nathanos that much.

And before someone chimes in with “but what about the epilogue to Shadows Rising?” that doesn’t disprove anything I said above.  So they had a fight.  Woo.  Happens to everyone.  She told him what to do next and he went to do it, and she fully expected to see him again to continue working on their plans.  They’ve been through worse.

They share mutual respect and trust, and he’s not a mindless yes-man, either, because he questions her plans in both Shadows Rising and her Warbringers short.

Hate Nathanos because he’s antagonistic to the player, hate him because he does dastardly deeds, hate him because he gets more attention than another character you like better, hate him because you just don’t like him, but don’t hate him because he’s supposedly following an indifferent Sylvanas around like a puppy.  They were partners in life and continue to be partners in undeath.  

Also maybe don’t take a bunch of video game characters so seriously that you start bullying real people for their opinions about them.  Just a thought.

[a-shakespearean-in-paris]

First Lines

Tagged by @laelior, thank you! (I feel like someone else also tagged me a while ago but I have forgotten, I’m sorry!)r

Rules: List the first lines of your last 5-20 stories  See if there are any patterns. Choose your favorite opening line.

I’m going to go with the first line of each story rather than the first line of my latest update. 

1. In Waking Dreams

Images, flashes. They were all small bits of memories, weaving themselves together.

2. Ropes and Blindfolds

There’s something to the idea of surrender, Lydia says. She’s locked to a role as Inquisitor and sometimes she just wants to shed herself away to basest and most primal parts of Lydia and only feel

3.Reflections in the Mirror

The relationship Lydia had with her body always changed.

4.Stains of Red

She counted time as the intervals between his kisses.

5. Her Infinite Variety 

Brienne of Tarth was not an actress, though she often thought of herself as one when she was younger. “We all have roles,” her mother used to say, “you must make your stage wherever you are.”

6.. The Tulsa Queen

Laurel walked out on her mother and her protests about needing to stay till the bitter end as “Don’t Worry Baby” played.

7. Memoirs of a Long, Long Time

Last night, he dreamt of the Blight again, when her eyes weren’t yet home.

8. The Inquisitor’s Throne

Dainty, delicate Inquisitor Lydia Trevelyan they call her. She can certainly play the part, look good in rich silks and swish her hand elegantly when she has to. It’s comes easy to charm a few nobles with carefully placed words, though she only does it if she must. Few deserve her sweet words, and one has them all.

9. Reading Lessons

He wants something else to read. There’s only so much Brother Genitivi one can take before the diatribes gets rather dull. She can’t blame him and was about to suggest an adventure volume or something else equally inconspicuous, perhaps Hard in Hightown. However, he strolls to the bookshelves of his own accord and finds it. That.

10. Command Me

She’s remised of her Commander.

11. Furs and Firelight

Her lover inhabited his body as a lion, cautious yet demanding, full of fire and flood similar to her own fire. He seemed to almost purr at her lingering lips and tongue against his neck and pulse after she came to him in his office in the evening, her fingers grasping and clinging to his white tunic. He was out of his armor when she came to him, ready for her to have him as nothing more or less than Cullen, not the Commander.

10. Sweet Reunion 

Often they reunited in the stables. Though always sweaty and disheveled from riding he always cared not, kissing her in hello and sometimes lifting her feet from the ground in front of their audience of horses and companions who enjoyed the sight of a sweet reunion between two joyful, miscreant lovers. Yet their reunion this time, after three months parted, happened in her room. Better to fall apart in her room and in his arms where no one else could see. Better to fall apart for only Cullen, not even the Commander.

11. Restless Nights

One evening in Griffon Wing Keep, Rylen stumbled upon the sight of two lasses, poured over a book.

12. Anyway You Want It

Three roommates currently seeking a fourth. Must be okay with large mabari and large messes, not necessarily made by the mabari. None of us cook, hope you’re all right with lots of takeout. (Unless you are willing to cook for us, in that case, please, please contact.) Sorry, you have to share a bathroom, but you get your own room. It’s pretty big. We’re nice, and not “nice guy” nice if that was your impression. If interested, text or call Rylen or Barris.

13. Enchanter Come to Me

He’s here.

14. The Sweetest Sorrow

Charlotte Vale’s hands were dainty and soft. A lady’s hands, or “your father has money hands,” as her brother Alexander said in jest once or twice. Yet the biggest sin of Charlotte Vale, and then later Balfour’s hands were that they betrayed her dull and uneventful life. Needlework and embroidery gave her only pricked fingers, and once she may have fancied them battle scars and wounds. Once, she thought a lot of things. But even with the little pinpricks here and there, they were still soft, privileged hands that had not lived.

15. Only Lovers

She wakes before him. Despite their deeds last night, it seems too intimate to chance a peek at his sleeping form. She’s always taken chances. Why should this one be different? So she takes the chance.

16. Love Song on Sapphire Isle

At sundown the Kingslayer stands at Winterfell, there to fight for the living. Most don’t have time to care about the man with a golden hand, though some faces scorn. Fewer find him noble and honorable, though not even they can suspect that the simple truth of the matter is that the Kingslayer's arrival to Winterfell falls to a single woman that said fuck loyalty.

17. like lovers do

A week before the ship will set sail to Teer Fradee, Kurt watches as Green Blood departs the ballroom, slipping between the open doorway that lets in the cool night air

18. Our Immortal Longings

She didn’t know how she would grow to need him so, the night they first met. That night they met he had yet allowed himself to be fully himself and what he wanted to be. It was just as she didn’t yet know, that she was just as lost as he, merely floating through life, gliding and only being. She didn't know it then,while he, meanwhile, didn’t yet know how to be anything else other than what he was made to be. But the night they met, he met a woman, and she met a man.

19. A Knight to Remember

He’s sure that one look at him would allow no one to toy with or entertain the notion, but it doesn’t make the fact false. He’s not ashamed of it. At any rate, why should the fact that the Kingslayer has in the past, dabbled in reading novels of a more romantic sort be such a shame? It's not.

pardon I got lazy with linking

Which one do I like the best? In general I prefer more blunt, one sentence openings as a way to ease into the reading before following with a second paragraph but I’m actual partial to The Sweetest Sorrow’s opening line/paragraph. I wish I had a grander explanation other than I like hands--hands are a thing in this story...as they are with many of mine. because hands. :D

tagging @galadrieljones @thevikingwoman @queen-kass-the-writer @laraslandlockedblues @kunstpause @cartadwarfwithaheartofgold @dismalzelenka ​

[thingwithfeathers]

tag 9 people to learn more about their interests

tagged by: @enniomorricone :)

MUSIC

fave genre? indie/alternative rock, and pop but not really current pop more like 80s/90s.

fave artist? bastille, twenty one pilots, fleetwood mac, the clash, the smiths, abba, probably a lot more i can’t think of right now.

fave song? my joint favourite songs are ‘with or without you — u2′ and ‘landslide — fleetwood mac’

most listened song recently? 'song for zula — phosphorescent’ it’s become one of my favoure songs ever.

song currently stuck in your head?  any abba song because i was listening to them a lot earlier.

5 fave lyrics?

“It’s a hell of a long way to fall just to learn to get up” — the mess, the naked and famous.

“But now it’s just another show / and you leave them laughing when you go / and if you care, don’t let them know / don’t give yourself away / i’ve looked at love from both sides now / from give and take and still somehow / it’s loves illusions that i recall / i really don’t know love at all.” — both sides now, joni mitchell (this entire song though! really hard to choose lyrically because it’s a masterpiece).

“See, honey, i saw love / you see it came to me / it put it’s face up to my face so i could see / yeah then i saw love, disfugure me / into something i am not recognising / see the cage, it called, i said come on in / i will not open myself up this way again / but my heart is wild and my bones are steel / and i could kill you with my bare hands if i was free.” — song for zula, phosphorescent.

"Oh, mirror in the sky, what is love? / can the child within my heart rise above? / can i sail through the changing ocean tides? / can i handle the seasons of my life? / well, i’ve been afraid of changing / ‘cause i’ve built my life around you / but time makes you bolder / even children get older / and i’m getting older too.” — landslide, fleetwood mac.

“And then you put your hand in mine / and pulled me back from things divine / stop looking up for heaven / waiting to be buried / and all their words for glory / they always sounded empty / when we’re looking up for heaven.” — bastille, glory.

radio or your own playlist | solo artists or bands | pop or indie (depends!) | loud or silent volume in-between! I slow or fast songs | music video or lyrics video | speakers or headset | riding a bus in silence or while listening to music | driving in silence or with radio on.

BOOKS

fav book genre? just fiction in general. i’ve kind of grown out of young adult so i don’t really read a lot of that, and have been reading classics lately. just any books that make you really think and are written so beautifully that you can highlight quote after quote. i’ve also been reading a lot of non fiction spiritual books lately.

fav writer? recently, taylor jenkins reid. i’ve read two of her books and they’re incredibly gripping. love the simplicity and warmth of benjamin alire saenz as well, the care that ari & dante was written with. and also emily dickinson, especially her letters in particular to susan are just gorgeous.

fav book? aristotle & dante discover the secrets of the universe, wuthering heights, little women, a little life, and recently the seven husbands of evelyn hugo.

fav book series? i don’t really read book series, so the only thing coming to mind is harry potter which i only read for the first time about five years ago now.

comfort book? little women and aristotle & dante.

perfect book to read on a rainy day? any easy read, probably several i listed above.

fave characters? aristotle & dante, jo & beth march (little women), mina murray (dracula).

5 quotes from your fave books that you know by heart?

“You teach me now how cruel you’ve been — cruel and false. why did you despise me? why did you betray your own heart, cathy? i have not one word of comfort. you deserve this. you have killed yourself. yes, you may kiss me, and cry; and wring out my kisses and tears: they’ll blight you — they’ll damn you. you loved me — what right had you to leave me? what right — answer me — for the poor fancy you felt for linton? because misery and degradation, and death, and nothing that god or satan could inflict would have parted us, you, of your own will did it. i have not broken your heart — you have broken it; and in breaking it, you have broken mine. so much the worse for me that i am strong. do i want to live? what kind of living will it be when you — oh god! would you like to live with your soul in the grave?”  — wuthering heights, emily bronte (i could choose so many from this book but this is the most underrated one in my opinion and deserves more recognition).

“I will love you forever, whatever happens. ‘til i die and after i die, and when i find my way out of the land of the dead i’ll drift about forever, all my atoms, ‘till i find you again. i’ll be looking for you, will, every moment, evert single moment. and when we do find each other again we’ll cling together so tight that nothing and no one’ll ever tear us apart. every atom of me and every atom of you... we’ll live in the birds and the flowers, and the dragonflies and pine trees, and in the clouds and in those little specks of light you see floating in sunbeams... and when they use our atoms to make new lives, they won’t just be able to take one, they’ll have to take two, one of you and one of me, we’ll be joined so tight...” — his dark materials (amber spyglass), philip pullman. (don’t talk to me, this quote makes me actually ache)

“I wanted to tell them that i’d never had a friend, not ever, not a real one. until dante. i wanted to tell them that i never knew that people like dante existed in the world, people who looked at the stars, and knew the mysteries of water, and knew enough to know that birds belonged to the heavens and weren’t meant to be shot down from their graceful flights by mean and stupid boys. i wanted to tell them that he had changed my life and that i would never be the same, not ever. and that somehow it felt like it was dante who had saved my life and not the other way around. i wanted to tell them that he was the first human being aside from my mother who had ever made me want to talk about the things that scared me. i wanted to tell them so many things and yet i didn’t have the words. so, i just stupidly repeated myself, “dante’s my friend.”” — aristotle & dante discover the secrets of the universe, benjamin alire saenz.

“There are many beths in the world, shy and quiet, sitting in corners till needed, and living for others so cheerfully that no one sees the sacrifices till the little cricket on the hearth stops chirping, and the sweet, sunshiny presence vanishes, leaving silence and shadow behind.”— little women, louisa may alcott.

“And so i try to be kind to everything i see and in everything i see, i see him.”— a little life, hanya yanagihara.

hardcover or paperback (paperback for general reading and hardback for special editions!) | buy or rent | standalone novels or book series | ebook or physical copy | reading at night or during the day | reading at home or in nature (i love nature and want to be able to read outside but i cannot be in nature without being hypervigilent of bugs so wouldn’t be able to concentrate) | listening to music while reading or reading in silence | reading in order or reading the ending (i also used to read the last line of a book first for a long time but i started to piss myself off when it wasn’t vague enough) | reliable or unreliable narrator  | realism or fantasy | one or multiple POVS | judging by the covers or by the summary (i can’t help it, i love pretty covers) | rereading or reading just once.

TV AND MOVIES

fave tv/movie genre? disaster/post apocalyptic, drama, sci-fi, documentary, occasional fantasy. i’m pretty on board with most things, other than horror but even that has some exceptions.

fave movie? titanic, shaun of the dead, little women (1994), eternal sunshine of the spotless mind, wuthering heights (2009 tv movie), portrait of a lady on fire, practical magic, the greatest showman, finding nemo, the grinch (2000).

comfort movie? finding nemo, little women (1994), shaun of the dead, all my favourite christmas movies which are too many to list.

fave tv show? friends, charmed, golden girls, gilmore girls, the walking dead, new girl. currently: 911.

most rewatched tv show? friends. i watch it almost every day and it would be impossible for me to count just how many times i’ve watched it from start to finish.

5 fave characters? all the friends on friends, piper halliwell (charmed), tara chambler (twd), glenn rhee (twd), maddie buckley (911).

tv shows or movies | short seasons (8-13 episodes) or full seasons (22 episodes or more) | one episode a week or binging (i’m conflicted because i miss the event of catching a show every week but at the same time once you binge watch you can’t go back) | one season or multiple seasons (but shows need to know when to stop) | one part or saga | half hour or one hour long episodes (depends on my mood) | subtitles on or off | rewatching or watching just once.

tagging: @bettyhofstadtdraper / @kubrickking / @koningen / @urispatty / @marmaladepotion / @mixye + anyone else that wants to do this, feel free to tag me to read :) !

[evelynsfics]

Of curiosity and knowledge.

Ayame stumbles upon Felix in the library, the countless, unique books lining the walls catch her attention quite quickly.

Ayame walked down the old, stone hallways. The walls felt cold, yet safe beneath her fingertips. A gentle breeze wrapped her in it's gentle embrace, the pale moonlight illuminated the crumbling floors as she walked around aimlessly.

The only sound to echo was her humming, a melody ancient and lost to sand and sea alike. A crown stained by crimson and ash, a kingdom far beyond wandering ghosts and unfathomable wonder.

Her footsteps barely made any noise, the hushed yet sweet scent of caramel followed her as if it was her own shadow, mimicking her movements like a mirror soon to fall shattered.

In her heart she knew the drums of war always accompanied the soft melody, yet here, standing pale and alone, it felt peaceful.

The dim, golden candlelight coming from the library caught her eye, she stopped humming as she poked her head through the heavy, wooden doorway.

There, she saw Felix, slumped over his desk, scrolls of old, yellowed paper and books big and small, in languages new and old, forgotten to time's hand lay scattered. A few raven quills had fallen to the floor by his feet, spilling small droplets of ink onto the wooden floor.

His hands messily ran through his dark hair, a small sigh of frustration escaped his lips as he closed his eyes.

"Hey, is everything alright?" Ayame spoke, shattering the silence like delicate ice. A few more seconds and a spiderweb of cracks would have already formed around her.

Felix's eyes snapped open at the sound of her voice, surprise filled his pale green irises as he turned to look at her.

"Oh, it's you." she heard relief flood his voice, his eyes softened once they locked with hers.

A thought crossed her mind, but before she could say it aloud, she stopped. Bitting her tongue, she forced herself to let go of the lingering doubt that haunted her darkest of nightmares.

Like a lightless dawn, she slightly furrowed her eyebrows, looking down at his desk, the mess she saw sparked a dying ember of curiosity.

"What's wrong? You seem stressed." her voice was laced heavy with concern, he stared at her for a moment, thinking of what to say.

She knew the answer, yet she wanted to hear it from him.

"Like I've told you in the past, magic takes a toll on people. The price one pays is far too expensive to carry alone." she saw a woeful blight peak behind his eyes, recognising her own within his.

Felix, in a way, reminded her of herself. And she hated seeing him like this, exhausted and sad. Ayame slightly opened her mouth to say something, but soon closed it again.

She heard the crack of angry thunder as the dark clouds gave way to the pouring rain. The droplets fell one after another, like breathless tears they brushed against one another, hitting the ground and turning to thousand of glistening gems before vanishing, remaining as only a memory.

The silence that followed felt like more than an eternity, yet it only lasted a few minutes.

A slim, worn out book with elegant writing on the front drew Ayame's attention. She looked at the bookcase with wonder and curiosity morphing together behind her gaze. She realised it was some kind of diary and quickly lost interest in it.

"What are you doing up so late anyway?" Felix's tired voice pushed her out of her thoughts, she made a "huh?" noise before realising she must've lost track of time while exploring all the secret passages.

"I couldn't sleep. Usually I stay up all night so I'm used to it by now." It wasn't exactly a lie, yet she didn't reveal the whole truth. Parts of it, buried alongside her own memories.

Another book, now heavy and dusty filled her vision. This one was different though, within it, a strange magic lay sealed.

Felix noticed her staring at the bookshelf, her cold, hard stare returning to cling upon her pale features. He traced her gaze with his own, and once his eyes fell upon the book that caused her such a reaction, he realised why she seemed so guarded all of a sudden.

"That's a grimoire," he said, walking over and picking it up. He tunrned it over in his hand, looking at the carved symbols on the back cover.

"Oh, I see." she blinked, looking away. The magic in that book called out to her, their tricks failing as her name sounded distorted from the thousands of voiceless whispers.

"Do you even know what's in there?" Her teasing tone returned, drowning out the worry that fell heavy upon her heart as Felix blushed at her words, averting his eyes and avoiding hers, too embarrassed to admit that he only had a sneaking suspicion.

"I'm just kidding, unless?" she said the last part quietly, barely above a whisper, confusing Felix beyond all seven Hells.

Her smug smile disappeared in seconds as her brown eyes fell upon another one of Felix's magical books.

"ooh, what about this one? Or this? Or-" she gasped slightly, pointing at a few books before stopping on a dull plum, leather notebook. "This."

Felix explained each book's purpose, Ayame just nodded and pointed to another one each time.

Soon, Felix had forgotten all about the growing pile of burnt letters from his father, the harmless green embers burnt out and snuffed themselves to nothing but ash. The endless stack of spells yet to be deciphered didn't seem as impossibly tall anymore.

And so, they both stayed up till the morning's first rays, when the sun shyly peaked behind the horizon, bringing with it serene, ethereal colors that spilled into the sky like a beautiful painting.

They talked about the tomes and old diaries that decorated the shelves, reading some of Felix's favourite novels and stories. Old, feverish poetry of mages long dead yet still present within the words they wrote in fascinating tongues.

That night, the bond they shared bloomed into a pure, delicate flower, it's shining petals made of hardship and compassion. A strong feeling of something more than friendship blossomed within its core, rooted deep within the way they both drew even, rhythmic breaths as they fell asleep next to each other, huddled close under a soft, comfy blanket.

The chirping of birds woke them, bright sunlight crept from the windows, filling the room with a calm, tranquil light.

Felix slowly opened his eyes, looking down to the sleeping woman next to him. She looked so peaceful, curled up to his side.

He thought about getting up to pick up all the melted candles all around them from reading all throughout the dead of night, but when she snuggled closer, he blushed a deep color. Then, a soft smile graced his lips as he closed his eyes again.

Five more minutes wouldn't hurt.

[trickster-4]

Chapter 2

Lilith stood there paralyzed as the demon in child form walked towards her sister. Her magic was gone snuffed out like a candle. Lilith couldn’t even a cast a spell to warm her body and she felt so.. cold.

“Such a monstrous creature .. I should make this permanent.. No, I won’t do that, it’s not what Eda would want..”

”That voice.... Her entire presence feels so dark...” Lilith felt horrified at the feeling of the human’s mind..

Warmth began to return to Lilith’s body and she slowly began to recover. Just in time to see a human child undoing her curse with ease.. Seconds after she begins to gawk at Luz who had reclaimed Eda’s staff and began to fly away.

Thirty minutes later…

“She is to be left alone..”

“Sir?”

“She altered the flow of your magic twisted it with ease..” Emperor Belos sat in the chair with a cold demeanor.. “Luz or whatever the entity wishes to call itself could have stripped the magic from your body as easily as breathing..”

“But isn’t she a danger?”

“Immensely so.. Nevertheless the power she possess though infinite could be taxing on her mind. Notice the duality she struggled with after casting such a spell.. The more power she accesses the more memories there is of this Shabragnido in her mind..” The Emperor shook his head at the idea of that. This entity was an unknown. Letting it loose was dangerous, but provoking it when it proved capable of damaging his palace despite his best spell? That was foolish..

“And my sister?”

“The same.. Keep your distance until this creature is gone or weakened..”

“.. Yes my lord..”

“The Human is dangerous, but can be maneuvered around... The instincts of this entity however.. It’s an animal it craves destruction...” The Emperor seemed fascinated and yet repulsed as he continued to described her true nature.. “And the scale of it’s appetite are for lack of a better word far reaching… I have never felt such sadism from any being.. She wanted you dead Lilith in a way a mere mortal cannot desire.. The only thing that held her back from finishing you off is Amity Blight..”

“Amity?”

“Love…” Bellow began to laugh cruelly.. His head shook with cruel mirth.. “Such a novel thing.. And so easily twisted.. Hard to believe such a malicious thing like Luz Noceda could love..”

There was a cruel cackle of laughter that echoed from the throne room. And all across the palace even the servants of the emperor shivered in fear.

Elsewhere…

Luz looked in the mirror trying to find anymore demonic features staring back.. She finally sighed in relief. Besides her red eyes and her shadow occasionally flickering between a demonic figure or a girl; Luz still looked human for the most part.

“What am I gonna do?”

“Kid don’t worry.. Word up the grapevine is that you’re not to be crossed..” Eda patted Luz on the shoulder trying her best to comfort the young girl.. “Apparently whatever show you put on has them spooked..”

“Great..” Luz smiled sarcastically.. “Hexside is gonna be awesome..”

The following day…

Luz was not used to being avoided like this. The countless eyes staring at her with fear and trepidation were unsettling. More so was the reverence some of the faculty and the older students were showing..

“Lord Ruby Eyes….” Principal Bump gave a bow as he passed Luz by. “We’ll attempt to keep classes normal as per your desires..”

“Thanks…” Luz continued to walk through the hallways only to come across Willow and Gus. She smiled at the sight of them and approached them. “Hey guys how are you doing?”

“Oh hey Luz.. We’re doing fine..” Willow seemed rather unsure of herself. Her family were of the old worshipers devoted to the first dragons. They knew of the battles between Ruby Eye and her Lord.. “I’m glad you made it out in one piece.”

“Thanks I’m glad you’re doing good as well..” Luz hugged Willow who was caught off guard but she embraced her friend tightly.. “You guys didn’t get in trouble did you?”

“Nope..”

“Our parents.. were concerned but they’re holding off judgment…”

“Judgment?”

“You’re kinda a religious figure in Old Witch lore..” Amity walked in with a small smile. She held several books upon approaching Luz.. “You made combat magic, curses, hexes, transformation magic, we owe you much and it’s terrifying having your legends walking among you.. Especially when there’s a lot of evidence you are who you say you are.. Your aura is old, ageless, and dark and you matched Emperor Bellows easily despite being a “human”.. No one wants to make a god angry.”

“But I’m not a god it’s just me..” Luz protested even as her shadow shifted once again to the notice of Willow and Guz.. She muttered annoyed and was about to protest. Suddenly it felt like static in her brain and there was the taste of copper in her mouth. Then Luz looked at her hands and saw they were soaked in blood.. “No…..” The girl couldn’t believe what she was seeing and was distrusted by it.. “No No No No NO NO NO..”She ran towards the water fountain.

The girl scrubbed and scrubbed trying to get the blood off. She heard the crying of children and death screams of countless people. It hurt, it hurt so much and to feel that to understand that was absolute torture..

“Please stop it Luz!!”

You gotta stop Luz..”

“Luz!”

How many people did she kill as Shabragnido? How many jealous husband cursed their wives using her spells? How many kings sacrificed their children for power in her name. How many civilizations did she lay to waste just because she enjoyed doing it?

“Please stop Luz!”

“Your hurting yourself please stop Luz!!”

“LUZ!!”

Luz finally stopped scrubbing. There was never any blood she finally realized that. Though her hands was heavily rubbed raw and shaking. “Amity…” She grabbed her friend tightly and began to cry..

“It’s going to be okay Luz..” Amity promised..

The classes were thankfully over quickly though Luz had to lean on Amity constantly for her support.

That Afternoon..

“Well I figured something like this could happen.. Luz’s old life is ancient. And reawakening her powers has caused those memories to unspool. It’s not gonna be an easy job.”

“But you can do it right?” Amity looked at her crush’s mentor.

“Of course I can, best witch on the boiling isles here..” Eda boasted before sighing looking tired. Despite the fact that physically she felt great and had even regained her red hair; the witch was exhausted after making this artifact. Hopefully this would block out her old memories for a short time.. “Now once the spells have set this will keep your past from rearing it’s ugly head during the day. But you need to take it off later after school it has to recharge after eight hours.. Also your mind needs to deal with these memories Luz..”

A black head band glowed yellow mysteriously in Eda’s hands..

“Are you sure!?”

“Yes and I’m serious this could cause damage to your mind..” Eda gave her apprentice a stern no nonsense gaze. She wouldn’t budge on this in the slightest and upon seeing the over enthusiasm for the artifact put it into a jewelry box and locked it.. “You’ll take it off after school and you’ll be doing mental exercises with Amity and me for a few months..”

“Exercises?”

“Excuse me?”

“After your little excursion last time into Willow’s mind. I think you get the gist of it..” Eda leaned down to Luz and hugged her tightly for a moment. “It’s something similar but you two are gonna do deep diving and organizing of Luz’s old memories.. It’s going to be hard.. But, it’ll get easier and eventually you won’t need those little tuneups..”

“So this is not a permanent thing?”

“No it’s just a matter of helping Luz’s mind deal with the impending shift in gears.. Once that’s done she can heal naturally..”

“Oh thank goodness…”

“Why? Are you worried about seeing your crush’s mind?”

“Shh Luz doesn’t know that!!” Amity blushed angrily as she looked towards Luz who still seemed to be stuck in her thoughts. Thankfully she heard nothing.. “She’s going through a lot right now!! Luz can hear about that later..”

“Sure just don’t wait too long. Last thing we really need is a love triangle..”

Amity glared at Eda even as she fought to keep her face from blushing hard. She couldn’t believe her teacher and this woman were related..

“There’s something that I’m wondering about… Is Shabragnido really me?” Luz looked towards her shoes trying to avoid seeing what form her shadow was taking on at the moment. ”Part of me says yes…Or am I just a vessel for him? I feel things he felt, remember things he experienced. But, this goes beyond just sympathy or empathy doesn’t it?”

“There’s no one else in there Luz..” Eda waved off her concerns of identity.. She held her apprentice’s gaze with a compassionate smile. For a brief moment her eyes glowed yellow for a few seconds. “Frankly your soul looks different.. At some angles it looks human, and others it looks like an overpowered demon.. But, it’s just you Luz.. There’s just more to you than you actually knew about.”

“What if I go full demon? What I get swallowed up in all these memories..” Luz’s eyes began to tear up only for Amity to take hold of her shoulder and smile. “Thank you Amity..”

“No problem it’s what friends are for..”

“Now then let’s get started.. Here’s hoping you kids don’t land into one of Luz’s fantasies..”

“What?!” The two girls screamed before they both faded into Luz’s mind. Eda shook her head laughing to herself. There was a sudden knock at the door she tensed for a moment before summoning her staff. The Elder Witch opened the door slightly.

“Who’s there?”

“H-Hello… Eda..”

“Leave Lilith.. You weren’t welcome here, but now my policy is shoot to kill on sight..” Eda glared at her sister with a cold unfeeling stare. She felt her mind shift to a number of deadly spells. “You’re dead to me.. Get away from my house. Go wherever you want to go, but to me Lilith Clawthorne died at age fourteen..”

“Eda..”

“I will never forgive you..”

Lilith’s head began to ring as those words rippled through her mind. The words that she never wanted to hear from her sister and haunted her darkest dreams.. Those words that were never spoken until today. I will never forgive you. I will never forgive. I will never forgive you. I will never forgive you. I WILL NEVER FORGIVE YOU!!!

Luz’s mind...

Luz and Amity slammed the door on the door. They were both blushing heavily and sweating while they walked away unable to look each other in the eye. Amity never knew Luz had such an attentive and creative imagination when it came to those things..

“Okay...” Amity looked a thousand miles away her face was blushing pink. She stared blankly ahead trying not to remember that vivid scene. Nope we are not thinking about. It’s Luz’s fantasy and I am not going to comment about it!! “Let’s just try to get into your memories and put things in order..”

“Soooo let’s get started..” Luz looked ahead towards a greek looking door.. She felt that it was new a recent emergence into her mind. “That place looks like a good place to start.”

“Ancient Atlantis… Whoa..”

“What?”

“Sorry it’s just a bit of a sore spot for witches one of the most magically developed civilizations.. Now we’re getting a look at those days..” Amity smiled excitedly. She took Luz’s hand into her own. “It’s a huge deal think of the discoveries that we can make..”

“I can’t believe that Atlantis actually real..”

They walked into the streets of an Grecian like city. Luz and Amity were in awe of the architecture. Water flowed through various aqueducts buildings were being built in seconds through magic. They were quickly approaching a black stone temple. Luz flinched at the sight of Shabragnido’s statues..

“Huh, I’ve never actually seen what Lord Ruby Eyes looked like ..”

“… So where is he? I mean where am I?”

The two girls suddenly heard the sound of laughter in the streets below the temple. They followed the sound until they saw a little girl playing with a strange horned brown rabbit with ruby eyes.. The rabbit was glumly silently even as he was forced into an embrace by the child. For a moment they actually saw a glimmer of enjoyment in it’s eyes..

“Damn my idiot of a brother..”

“Wait is that supposed to be me!? Why am I so adorable?!!”

[eternal-reverie]

Ventus is heavily implied to be involved in Strelitzia’s disappearance, but I think it’s safe to say that he wouldn’t have willingly helped get rid of her and this all a trick of this “Darkness.” Even Brain is aware of this entity existing in human form somehow, along with Ephemer sensing that the darkness in their current Daybreak Town is different. Throughout the series, darkness is a force that exists in people’s hearts and it can be manifested into power. It only exists externally as a physical force when Heartless are created of a person’s lost heart. The only exception is Vanitas... 

I’m wondering if Ven pulled a Sora and refuged Darkness within his own Heart, a being so heavily maligned and feared in the KHX era.  This could make a bigger case of Vanitas existing as his own person prior to being a part of Ven’s heart. I think it’s implied in the post kh3 materials released that Vanitas holds Ven’s forgotten memories of his khux past and seeing this update it would seem those dark actions that Ven is involved in would reside in an unconscious, rejected part of himself. An almost alien part, to another being? So far, we just see Darkness pushing Maleficent to leave because she knows too much? We still don’t know what their intentions are, but even then the price of them manipulating events involve swapping Strelitzia for Ven in a highly damaging way. Are they trying to make sure the future as we see it in the games released so far, happen? 

Seeing as how memory loss looks to be involved, it’s so ironic how in future events, Ven sleeps in the same place where Marluxia becomes obsessed with manipulating them. If Lauriam recovers and becomes informed of all this, will he insist and prod at Ven’s weak memory? There must be a way to manipulate them prior to Namine in this time period, since the Dandelions there had their memories wiped of the war by some sort of means at the hands of the Union leaders. 

Ven’s arc in Union Cross is also so interesting this far. This new situation mirrors so much with Terra’s conflict of being manipulated and possessed through naivety and being so trusting. Combined with his confidence issues concerning his skills and his place with the union leaders, the connections and parallels to the storylines in Birth by Sleep becomes more reinforced. His conflict there is being left behind by his friends and fear of seeing them change beyond recognition. Not to also mention that in both situations he is the youngest, in the weakest position. Will it escalate to the point where he’ll request that the other leaders get rid of him like in Birth by Sleep? Then, this eventually all leads to Xehanort crossing paths with Ven... Was it Xehanort’s hope to get this boy to release an ancient dark force sealed inside him, rather simply being a convenient heart to divide for the x-blade?

Missing Ache is also such an apt keyblade for Ven to have, with it being so aligned with reverse medals in the game. He doesn’t remember, so there’s no pain of guilt. Actually, if you look up Roxas’s keyblades from Days... a lot of them feel very applicable to Ven’s situation (for example, pain of solitude, sign of innocence, crown of guilt, silent dirge, ominous blight which means threatening plant disease) It feels more and more that Roxas is much as Ven’s nobody along with Sora. Actually this situation also reminds me of the time where Roxas and Xion are forced to fight each other unknowingly before Axel breaks it up. If Ven was involved with the end of Strelitzia, was it because he was tricked into seeing a threat?

This whole disguising bit also circles back to Ava, we’ve seen her shape-shift into another foreteller. But if Darkness is the one pretending to be her in case of passing the rulebook to Ven, then the blame shifts to them yet again. I wonder if Ava being the traitor, the one fated to trigger the keyblade war, was because of Darkness being present within her. The whole reason why the foretellers became hostile to each other was that there was knowledge of a traitor hosting it. For a keyblade wielder to manifest darkness, they must channel rage, which Ava does when confronting Luxu.  If Ava is the one, could Darkness only be limited to possessing her? There’s the theory of a Brain impersonator too...Darkness could be doing that body-jumping that Luxu and Xehanort do later on. Perhaps Darkness is so indistinguishable from the darkness within a person’s heart, they’ll confuse their own will for Darkness’s. They then spread to other people just like in the fairy tale about the x-era, all for keeping the light safe by breeding contempt.

Darkness existing as its own entity walking around is so novel, I wonder if it’s possible that we only see it this way since they are in a data world instead of the real one. Chirithy exist in the real world despite being dream eaters or the “real” world is a dream world all along. This whole “darkness” thing started within a chirithy too, an innocent being much like Ven. 

[buzzdixonwriter]

Super Duper Supermen

This will be a long one, so pour yourself a cuppa and settle down.   We may seem to meander, but we’ve got a destination.

. . .

I’m tired of superheroes.

I’m tired of a lot of genre fiction.

Part of the reason is that too much of the current material is ugly and loud, but the real reason is it isn’t fresh, it isn’t fun.

I tried watching The Boys.  I got to the end of the second scene of episode one and realize, “This ain’t for me” and turned it off and went over to YouTube and watched guys build model airplanes.

At least they look like they’re having fun.

. . .

Look, superheroes are a power fantasy and they’re okay for little kids who want to believe there’s always going to be a mommy or daddy who will protect them, but they’re an absurd genre at best and when you start taking them seriously -- and recently even the funny parodies and spoofs take themselves Too Damn Seriously -- they become horrific.

What prompted me to realize this is an article posted on The Vulcan by Abraham Riseman “The Boys Is the End of the Superhero As We Know It.”

Highly recommended, by the way.

. . .

It’s not like Riseman was the first to make this observation.

30+ years ago Gary Groth observed:

“Superman is one version of the hero with a thousand faces -- to employ the title of Joseph Cambell's excellent book on the subject -- and his appeal should therefore not surprise us.  But Superman is a crude version of the hero; if you will, an elementary one.  Unlike his more developed analogues in all the world's great religions, Superman does not offer love or goodwill, self-knowledge or contemplation as keys to man's salvation.  He offers his own physical powers.”

And he ain’t the only one.

Alan Moore recently chimed in:

“They have blighted cinema and also blighted culture to a degree. Several years ago I said I thought it was a really worrying sign, that hundreds of thousands of adults were queuing up to see characters that were created 50 years ago to entertain 12-year-old boys. That seemed to speak to some kind of longing to escape from the complexities of the modern world and go back to a nostalgic, remembered childhood. That seemed dangerous; it was infantilizing the population.

“This may be entirely coincidence, but in 2016 when the American people elected a National Socialist satsuma and the U.K. voted to leave the European Union, six of the top 12 highest-grossing films were superhero movies.  Not to say that one causes the other, but I think they’re both symptoms of the same thing — a denial of reality and an urge for simplistic and sensational solutions.”

. . .

I don’t like cruelty.

I used to enjoy old weird horror films back in the day -- movies like The Reanimator -- because I appreciated their absurdity and never took them seriously.

When the torture porn sub-genre came along, I lost interest in horror films.  

The Babadook is the only modern one I’ve seen in the last 5 years and I enjoy it because like earlier horror films (and here I include both classic Universal / RKO movies and the artistry of Mario Bava and Dario Argento) it’s essentially a very dark fairy tale, not an exercise in cruelty for the sake of cruelty.  

Violence doesn’t turn me off.

Sadism does.

And sadism is all about power and fascism is all about power, so when I remark on modern superhero and thriller and horror stories as being fascist, I know whereof I speak.

. . .

Superhero stories may not necessarily be tales told by idiots, but they are full of sound and fury, and signify nothing.

Ultimately superheroes fail because:

they can’t lose

they can’t win

There is no finality in the superhero genre.  The damn Joker keeps crawling back, Les Luthor constantly schemes, Dr. Doom and Galactus pop up whenever things lag in the sales department.

Superheroes as a genre are failures insofar as they can’t permanently deal with these existentialist threats, nor can they step out of the way to let others deal with them.

Superheroes promise salvation but deliver bupkis, slapping a band-aid on a cancer and telling us it’s all better.

They can’t permanently defeat their greatest threats, yet neither can they be truly harmed by them.

I’ll grant you the occasional Captain Mar-Vel but they are very minor exceptions to the rule.  Gwen Stacy was bumped off in The Amazing Spider-Man #121 in June 1973, first reappeared as a clone in May 1975 then several times thereafter, and most recently shows up as Spider-Gwen in Edge of Spider-Verse #2 (September 2014).  

As Roy Thomas aptly observed:  “In comics they’re only dead if you have a body and even then only maybe.” 

(In fairness, there’s no finality in most formula / genre fiction either, but we’ll get to that in a bit.)

. . . 

Before we delve deeper, let’s be clear as to what we’re discussing when we say “superheroes”.  

They don’t need to possess “powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men”.

As noted above, they just have to be:

always victorious

never in real danger

You can bash ‘em / trash ‘em / slash ‘em / smash ‘em and they still bounce back -- heroically -- to save the day.

Break both legs, riddle them with machine gun bullets, hit them with a car, cave in their skulls with sledgehammers, and yet somehow they summon up the super-human reserves needed to keep in the fight.

Mind you, in the real world there are people who display super-human endurance in horrific situations and not merely survive but go on to achieve incredible success.  They don’t do such things every year (as do heroes in movies), much less every month (comics) or every week (television). They sure as hell don’t make a career out of it.

Let’s veer away from brightly colored naked people flying & fighting to superheroes in a different genre than costumed crime fighters.

Mike Hammer is a superhero.

Sherlock Holmes is a superhero.

Philip Marlow might actually be a literary character.

Look at the criteria:  Can they lose?

Never in Hammer’s case.

Rarely for Holmes (and when he does, it’s always with bittersweet irony).

Frequently enough with Marlowe that one can’t anticipate if any of his stories will end with him victorious (yeah, he solves mysteries, but always at profound personal cost, and in more than one novel he ends up realizing he’s been a sucker all along).

Here’s another example that snaps the dichotomy into ever sharper relief:  

Samuel L. Jackson’s Shaft is a superhero.

Richard Roundtree’s Shaft is just a hero.

Roundtree’s Shaft is aware he can fail.

No “macho bullshit irony” as they say over at the Church of the Sub-Genius.

. . .

Superheroes don’t grow -- they decay.

They never truly use their power for good (because that would involve changing the world) nor do they adequately protect the innocent.

They serve no true function except to entertain and to be exploited.

Series novels and television shows can feature character growth, but the concept has to be baked in from the beginning (Jan Karon’s Mitford series and Armistead Maupin’s Tales Of The City books are two examples that spring immediately to mind).*

More typically, in series fiction the character/s show little actual growth; they are more or less the same at the end of their adventures as they were at the beginning, maybe a little greyer, maybe a little creakier, but essentially the same person.

Sometimes, particularly in military or nautical or police series, they may start out as a callow cadet but soon wise up to the stalwart hero we want to see.

As perfect an example of superhero decay can be found in the Die Hard movies.

The original’s superhero character, Detective John McClane, implausibly goes through a night of hell yet actually shows some character growth:  By the end of the film he’s able to swallow his pride and admit to his wife he was wrong.

A very farfetched movie but an emotionally satisfying one.  We’ll overlook a multitude of injuries that would have rendered him hors de combat in reality in exchange for the movie actually being about something.

All that gets chucked out in the first sequel, Die Hard 2, where the characters are thrown into a contrived situation to mirror the first film without the satisfying emotional growth but with far more ridiculous action;  Die Hard With A Vengeance jettisons McClane’s marital relationship except as an afterthought and ups the absurdity of the story (indeed, it’s best viewed as an action comedy); Live Free Or Die Hard totally trashes all the character growth before it; and A Good Day To Die Hard not only trashed previous character growth but went so badly over the top that it and the star’s aging out hopefully are the one-two punch needed to end the series once and for all.

. . . 

Look at non-superpowered / non-comic book superheroes and see how they fare.

D’Artagnan and the Three Musketeers are superheroes (conversely, Cyrano de Bergerac is not because the focus of his story is on who he is and not the what but the why of his actions; all the cool sword fighting is just bonus material).

Natty Bumpo is a superhero; anybody who can jump into a birchbark canoe from a tree branch 30 feet overhead without crashing through is a superhero because that character simple Can Not Lose.  

For that matter, most 1950s TV cowboys and virtually all Italian Western protagonists are superheroes.

Tarzan is a superhero. 

James Bond is a superhero (the SPECTRE / Blofeld arc in the novels and short stories actually do end up with him going through significant growth and personal change, ending with Smersh brainwashing him and sending him back to assassinate M…but then the British Secret Service intercepts him and a couple of paragraphs later he’s all better and off after The Man With The Golden Gun).

Modesty Blaise is a superhero.

Claire Starling is not a superhero, but Hannibal Lecter is (don’t give me that; even if you’re evil, when you’re the central character of a series of books / movies / TV shows you’re a damn superhero).

They’re all superheroes because they can’t lose and they can’t change their world and more importantly they can’t change themselves.

. . .

There is one exception to the above re superheroes, and that’s in the realm of sci- fi and fantasy stories.

Occasionally we find a character who becomes a king (viz Howard’s Kull) or a demi-god (viz Herbert’s Paul Atreides) and does alter their world for good or ill.

That, of course, is the ultimate power fantasy.

. . .

Fascism focuses on the Will and the Act.

It is a philosophy of movement.

It’s a philosophy that attracts the weak and the sadistic, because it promises protection from and power over others.

It’s a philosophy that actively seeks conflict, not necessarily overt violence, but the promise of same is always there.

. . . 

A brief sidebar to the other side of the comic book spinner rack.

Funny animals are essentially anti-authoritarian.

From Aesop forward to Carl Barks, their characters, filled with all too human foibles, can and do fail.

And when they win?

Ah, then it’s almost never by force or action, but by cleverness.

Funny animals are tricksters, accurately sussing out a situation and maneuvering to gain the best outcome for themselves without obtaining dominance over their opponent.

Bre’r Rabbit and Bugs Bunny.

Ducks Donald, Daffy, and Howard.

Superhero stories seems obsessed with keeping everything orderly and in continuity.

Without continuity, anything goes, and that’s fatal to the superhero trope as it annihilates authority.

Funny animal stories rarely feature continuity and when they do, it’s rarely rigorous.  If Porky Pig needs to be a businessman or a farmer or a studio executive or a traveling salesman, so be it.

He’ll be something else in the next story.

As tricksters, funny animals are bounded by one rule: They may save themselves and seek justice, but they will pay a penalty if they try to use trickery for selfish gain.

Howard the Duck -- “trapped alone and afraid / in a world he never made” -- is just trying to stay survive.

Daffy Duck -- greedy little miser that he is -- inevitably gets it in the neck when he tries to cheat someone.

Donald Duck -- floating somewhere between Howard and Daffy in his motivations -- finds no guarantee of success and reward, yet achieves success often enough to keep striving.  

He may battle mummies or a reluctant coke machine, his stories may take him around the world on an adventure or no further than his kitchen to fix dinner.

It doesn’t matter.

Who he is makes his stories compelling far more than what he does.

He’s not on a power trip.

He doesn’t feel he has to win every time.

And as a result, he has a much richer life than Bruce Wayne or Tony Stark.

. . . 

“So whaddya sayin’, Buzz?  ‘Superheroes is bad’?”

No.

I deny no one their pleasure.

But I also think there are times when we have to demand not just more of creators but of ourselves as an audience with the media we consume.

I only saw the first two scenes of the first episode of The Boys.

That was all it took to convince me not to watch it anymore.

For similar reasons, I have no desire to watch Mad Men or Breaking Bad or Better Call Saul or Game Of Thrones.  

I’ve picked up a strong enough vibe from each to know I’m not going to connect with them.

I’m certainly not saying you can’t enjoy them if you like.

Bu I am saying we’re cheating ourselves by not demanding more.

And until we start demanding more, the studios and streamers are only going to offer us less and less variety.

C’mon, people, we deserve more than that.

  © Buzz Dixon

  *  I’m sparing you a whole long analysis of The Mary Tyler Moore Show because frankly it goes too far afield of this essay’s central thesis and besides I can use it for another blog post in the future.

[pilferingapples]

Hello! I was wondering if you might be able to give me your thoughts on Montparnasse? Its been 15+ years since i've read the brick, so I'm a bit spotty. I know fanon likes to turn him into a 'morally ambiguous but good underneath' type character, and I've read theories on him and Eponine's relationship in canon, but what do you think? Do you think he's canonically morally ambiguous (as opposed to straight-up Murderer), or even just is possibly redeemable?

Hi!:D

I’m going to put this under a cut for discussion of abuse, violence, and all those other cheery things that Les Mis has so much of! 

(and standard Disclaimers that this is just My Take on Montparnasse in the original text, and not meant to be some sort of marching order for How To Fandom about him)

While I think probably everyone in Les Mis (except maybe Thenardier) has to be considered potentially  redeemable as part of the novel’s whole central message, we’re given no indicator that Montparnasse is pointed in that direction–exactly the opposite. He has some good qualities–he’s genuinely loyal to the men (the men  part of this should probably be emphasized) who he considers comrades, and he’s clever enough , with skills he could  put to some use besides theft and murder. 

But he is  a murderer, with a long line of corpses already behind him.  His ‘romance’ with Eponine is established via his association with her horrifyingly abusive father, and is marked by Montparnasse himself threatening her with violence and bragging about how willingly he’d kill her, when even other members of the Patron Minette don’t want to.   

As they went, Montparnasse muttered:–“Never mind! if they had wanted, I’d have cut her throat.”Babet responded “I wouldn’t. I don’t hit a lady." 4.8.4

Gavroche sasses him with apparent confidence–but Gavroche banters with cannons and armies trying to kill him. We see in the attempted robbery of Valjean that Gavroche is certain that Montparnasse would never spare a life on his account, and would kill him if he interfered with the murders he doesn’t want to see: 

Montparnasse on the hunt at such an hour, in such a place, betokened something threatening. Gavroche felt his gamin’s heart moved with compassion for the old man.

What was he to do? Interfere? One weakness coming to the aid of another! It would be merely a laughing matter for Montparnasse. Gavroche did not shut his eyes to the fact that the old man, in the first place, and the child in the second, would make but two mouthfuls for that redoubtable ruffian eighteen years of age. (4.4.2)

While Gavroche was deliberating, the attack took place, abruptly and hideously. The attack of the tiger on the wild ass, the attack of the spider on the fly. Montparnasse suddenly tossed away his rose, bounded upon the old man, seized him by the collar, grasped and clung to him, and Gavroche with difficulty restrained a scream. A moment later one of these men was underneath the other, groaning, struggling, with a knee of marble upon his breast. Only, it was not just what Gavroche had expected. The one who lay on the earth was Montparnasse; the one who was on top was the old man. All this took place a few paces distant from Gavroche.

Gavroche almost screams  at the work Montparnasse does, and has to force himself to keep silent to keep safe.  Gavroche deals with Montparnasse casually, because that’s part of his world, murder and abuse are just in his environment-but he hates it, and he doesn’t feel safe with Montparnasse.  Again: Montparnasse is loyal to men  he considers comrades; women and children, less so. And this isn’t a book that thinks particularly well of men who aren’t kind to women and children.

I think Montparnasse is a bit of a tragic character in that he represents a failing of society; he’s so young--it’s likely that most of his crimes were committed before he would be legally considered an adult by most modern standards-- and already his life is blighted by genuinely horrible crimes that have caused real human loss, and his course is pretty much set for the gallows. He’s done this in pursuit of a specific social ideal–to have the kind of lifestyle that marks an idle rich gentleman– and in that sense he is perhaps a comment on the warped roles that society glamorizes and holds up for emulation. There’s perhaps a sense of him being the inevitable end result of a society that’s glorifying exploitation and cruelty, of him being someone mutated by the fallout of the same energy that helps people like Tholomyes grow powerful.

But however Montparnasse got where he is, and whatever he reflects about society, in his present state he’s murderously awful and, importantly, content to be so.  It’s as close to his dream job as he can get. Valjean’s attempt to Myrielize with him fails entirely. As prudencepaccard discusses, Hugo describes Montparnasse as almost supernaturally horrifying--like a vampire, like a zombie, a spiritless monster that exists only to prey on the living even while he technically is  one of the living. Whatever good may still be in Montparnasse, whatever salvation is possible for him, it needs not just  rescue but a resurrection.  

So I guess that’s my thoughts on Montparnasse!

...oh also in case you’re wondering if you’ve forgotten something from the book: no, he and the Amis never interact or show any signs of knowing each other aside from Courfeyrac giving Marius a general warning about Patron Minette. 

Some links and longer (sometimes much longer) discussions about Montparnasse and his context!

The Devil’s Dandy: some commentary on Montparnasse-as-Dandy by @prudencepaccard​ , who has definitely done the research on the topic, and a conversation with @edwarddespard​:

One

Two 

My own thoughts on Montparnasse and some of the other Men of Leisure in the novel

Montparnasse as a dark mirror for Marius, and how Hugo uses them both to discuss his concepts of Idleness-as-fatal-flaw

@perlumi-delirium​‘s  excellent post on how Montparnasse may have been inspired by the murderous Pop Phenom of the day, Lacenaire

a conversation with @needsmoreresearch​  about the role the PM plays as actual assassins and agents of government oppression; more about the rest of the Patron Minette, but still relevant for context

[hollywoodgothique]

House Of Spirits: A Haunted Cocktail Soirée is a true original, unlike anything else we have experienced in Halloween 2019. Though the name would suggest a themed popup bar, House of Spirits is quite a bit more than that. It incorporates eclectic elements: performance, immersive experience, interactive costume party, and even haunted house walk-through. However, in the end, House of Spirits is none of those things but rather its own unique combination.

The premise is that you are attending a party in a house cursed by the macabre art of a grieving painter, created in the final desperate days of his life, which opened a portal not to his lost love but to dark realms whose denizens now haunt the premises, blighting all who live there. How closely you encounter these beings depends on which activities you choose to participate in, the sheer variety of which is guaranteed to satisfy the cravings of even the most omnivorous Halloween enthusiasts.

House Of Spirits Halloween Review: Ghost Ship on Land?

House of Spirits is set in the mansion that used to house Delusion Interactive Theatre.

House Of Spirits: A Haunted Cocktail Soirée is the creation of Meyer 2 Meyer Entertainment, whose personnel formerly ran the Los Angeles Haunted Hayride and currently produce Rated R: A Horror Speakeasy. House of Spirits might sound like juiced-up version of the latter, rebranded and moved to a new location for Halloween, but it actually has more in common with a nearly forgotten one-shot that the Haunted Hayride creators produced in 2011: Ghost Ship.

Ghost Ship was not a hit with the public; it was a great idea that failed to live up to its potential, offering a three-level experience – one for each deck aboard harbor cruise yacht, with ghostly hosts and entertainers on the main deck, a show on the upper deck, and a scary maze on the lower deck. The problem was twofold: the yacht did not provide a sufficiently spooky setting, and it was impossible to fit enough entertainment into its hull to fill the ninety-minute cruise.

House of Spirits takes this clever template and ingeniously applies it to an ominous mansion* in the West Adams neighborhood of Los Angeles, bringing to fruition everything that Ghost Ship sought to achieve. With the atmosphere and square footage Ghost Ship lacked, this magnificent venue houses an amazing three-level event in and around the building. On the ground floor, guests can mingle with their ghoulish host and hostess, listen to music, watch a puppet show, and imbibe a half-dozen cocktails (included with the price of admission). Upstairs, there is a strange sort of scavenger hunt of a most morbid nature. And in the basement are not one but two scare experiences. Additionally, there are gathering places outdoors, along with a strange little hovel where you will learn the secret responsible for the curse upon the haunted house.

Add it all up, and House of Spirits provides multifarious forms of malevolent entertainment nook and cranny of its haunted house – more than enough to justify the recommended two-hour stay.

House Of Spirits Halloween Review: Arrival

An outdoor lounge where guests relax before their appointed entrance time.

House Of Spirits: A Haunted Cocktail Soirée offers two arrival times on weeknights and three on weekends: 6:30pm, 9pm, and 11:30pm. It is not necessary to arrive precisely on time, but it’s a good idea if you want to see everything. The event can be crowded, with a line on the sidewalk to get through the security search and another line in the front yard to validate tickets.

If you happen to get in before your appointed time, there is a “lounge” (a small mobile bar beneath an awning, with some limited seating), where you can wait. This is one of two cash bars on the outside grounds, where you can pay for drinks above and beyond the half-dozen that come included with admission.

Eventually, you ghoulish host, Raul, shows up and fills you in on whatever details you need to know about the “party” he is throwing inside the house, whetting your anticipation with a promise of drunken revelry on the main floor and terrifying demonic encounters in the basement.

Perhaps most important, you receive a punch card for the six bars inside the house, where you will spend most of the ensuing two hours. Though it is easy to overlook in the excitement of the night’s debauchery, this card includes suggestions and questions that will assist your exploration of the mysteries haunting the House of Spirits.

House Of Spirits Halloween Review: Ground Floor

On this level, spirits both ectoplasmic and alcoholic flow freely, creating a gay and magnificent revel, with the help of six bars offering free drinks. Both Raul’s wife and his mistress float about, engaging their party guests in conversation and dropping suggestions about what parts of the house they may wish to explore. There is no preferred order to the evening’s diversions and delights, but there are lines to get both upstairs and downstairs, so it’s a good idea to divide your time wisely.

An invisible hand answers your questions.

Pastimes on the ground floor include a giant ouija board, with a planchette moved by an invisible hand spelling out answers in responses to spoken questions. (Sadly, the ghost’s identify seems to be that of Anton, the hosts’ recently deceased child.) There is an out-of-tune piano, but we wouldn’t recommend playing it, since there is entertaining live music in the next room from a variety of performers, on electric guitar or accordion.

Best of all is the macabre puppet show, in a small room just off the main entrance. While a ghoul-faced narrator recites grim and grisly ghost stories, two sinister puppeteers – their dark, skull-like visages almost invisible against the black backdrop behind them – enact the action, the movement of the puppets enhanced with novel sound effects: liquid poured from a cocktail shaker to simulate vomit, a plastic bottle crushed to simulate broken bones. Don’t miss your chance to enjoy at least one of these short performances.

This malevolent mistress of the house invites you inside.

Party Guests

Great party, isn’t it?

House Of Spirits: A Haunted Cocktail Soirée Halloween Review

Out of tune piano

Your Ghostly Hostess

Ghostly Accordion Player

Your Ghostly Hostess

House Of Spirits Halloween Review: Macabre Artists Named Francisco

Goya’s Saturn Devours His Son

There is one more important element of the ground floor presentation. In the gruesome Goya Gallery, art lovers may peruse a handful of disturbing canvases, such as Saturn Devouring His Son, one of fourteen “Black Paintings” created by Francisco Goya (1746-1828) during the final years of his life – a series which also included “Witches’ Sabbath.”

Though not on display here, one of Goya’s most famous works is The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters (1799), which depicts a sleeping artist tormented tormented by nightmarish visions of bats and owls, as if these apparitions will soon enter our world via the medium of the artist – a theme evoked in the back story of House of Spirits, which seems loosely inspired by Goya’s “Black Paintings.”

However, when you leave the ground floor to explore upstairs, you will learn that the artist whose work doomed the House of Spirits is Francisco Vega – not the renowned Spanish painter Francisco Preciado de la Vega (1713-1789) but a fictional character whose work was even more demented than that of Goya.

House Of Spirits Halloween Review: Upstairs

The staircase leads to a bizarre scavenger hunt.

On the second floor, a servant will inform you of the final, fateful days of Francisco Vega, who crafted six ghastly canvases shortly before his death. These Spirit Paintings, on display, contain clues to Six Keys, which may unlock the mystery of the House of Spirits.

After perusing the small gallery of horrors, you explore six rooms, each inhabited by someone or something depicted by the artist. These spectral phantoms (including a ghastly pregnant woman hoovering over crib containing a tiny skeleton- presumably Anton) may aid your in your search, but they will demand that you perform unpleasant actions to retrieve the keyes (reaching into bathwater for a rib bone is the least of it).

Some keys may not be easy to find, but if you persist in your quest, you will succeed, whereupon you deliver them to a strange character who marks you with a cryptic insignia on your hand or forehead, initiating you into the elite of the households inhabitants. Exactly what “benefits” accrue from this are unclear, but you may be sure they are of a nefarious nature.

Vega’s paintings hold clues to the Six Keys.

Expect to meet this creature in the flesh.

House Of Spirits Halloween Review: The Basement

After the upstairs scavenger hunt, there is nowhere to go but down – into the basement – where the true terrors lurk.

There are two attractions in the basement, each with its own entrance. One is a brief and eerie pantomime performance depicting  Vega – deranged and eventually nude – creating his final work, a life-sized painting that opens a portal enabling a visitor from the other side to enter the earthly plane. Is this being angel or demon or neither? The answer to that question can be found elsewhere.

The second descent into darkness is the closest House of Spirits comes to offering a haunted house walk-through. Groups of half-a-dozen or so party guests are given mirrors and instructions to stand in pools of dim light, chanting “Molly Magpie, Molly Magpie, how did you die?”

This ritual extinguishes the light, allowing some denizen of darkness to manifest; then another pool of light appears, farther along, drawing your group deeper into the basement, where the ritual is repeated, again and again, each time with nightmarish results. There terrors invoked are all the more disturbing because they have materialized at your bidding, and the demons are not necessarily happy to answer your call.

Both experiences are delicious creepy, evincing the sort of demented artistry one used to see at the L.A. Haunted Hayride – less crude shock than carefully choreographed grotesquerie.

House Of Spirits Halloween Review: Exterior

The Mystery Solved

Exiting either basement attraction leads to the outside grounds, where you will find a second cash bar, a food vendor, and the Garden of Anguish, where you can relax among strange flora before reentering the House of Spirits.

Most important is a small hovel, easy to overlook in the darkness. An attendant should be outside to explain why you should explore its interior.

The entrance leads down to a confined space where you will see the pages of Francisco Vega’s diary projected on the wall, detailing the anguish that drove him to create his final sextet of uncanny masterworks and revealing the true nature of the being he inadvertently unleashed upon our world, dooming all future inhabitants of the House of Spirits.

House Of Spirits Halloween Review: Cocktails

Great party, isn’t it?

Six Spirit Paintings, Six Keys, Six Cocktails.

A key ingredient to the success of House of Spirits is the half-dozen miniature drinks included with admission. Guests receive one free drink at each bar inside the house, a bartender punching your card at each stop.

Offerings range from Goya’s Ghost (ginger, black currant, fire bitters, orange bitters) to Magpie (passion fruit puree, lime, agave, grapefruit, bitters. Each drink features a product by Don Julio, with guests choosing one of two options, such as tequila or vodka.

Though individually small, the creepy cocktails are collectively intoxicating, altering human consciousness to a level where it is more open to the contact with the spirit realm. By the end of the evening, contact with ghosts will seem like the norm.

Creepy Cocktails

Creepy Cocktails

Creepy Cocktails

Creepy Cocktails

House Of Spirits Halloween Review: conclusion

In case you have yet to unravel the mystery at the heart of this review, we had a supernaturally grand experience at House Of Spirits: A Haunted Cocktail Soirée. The $65 price tag may seem steep, but it is actually a bargain in terms of cost-benefit ratio. The myriad elements excel on their own terms, combining to form an amazing Halloween event unlike any other.

Footnote:

This is the same location used by Delusion Interactive Theatre on several occasions.

House Of Spirits: A Haunted Cocktail Soirée (Review) House Of Spirits: A Haunted Cocktail Soirée is a true original, unlike anything else we have experienced in Halloween 2019.

[theinvulnerabletide]

Headcanon meme: (answer for whoever you can think of things for I guess) 1, 8, 11, 12, 23, 26, 29, 30, 34 :3

Okay okay okay. This got long because some of them turned into vignettes, so it’s gonna be under thecut.

1.) Love

Forsomeone who professed to be a loner, Lyra has loved so many people in her life.Her mother, first and brightest and most dearly, murdered on her way back fromher shift at the pub, the Stone Crows, her gang growing up, including her bestfriend Kora, who got scooped off the streets when some passing mage saw her set something on fire with her mind (which now strikes Lyra as ironic, consideringher current travelling companions, and her own predicament).

And then her newfound family,her Magpies. The ones that were murdered so cruelly in front of her.

Love and loss are intertwinedfor Lyra, the brilliance of lightning followed by world-shaking thunder. Whichis why she has, wholeheartedly, decided to stop caring about people. They won’tleave if she doesn’t get attached, and even if they do, well, she won’t feelanything right? Win win.

8.) DreamsIt’s not uncommon for Whisperto dream of water. Even if it wasn’t literally her element,she spent so much of her life surrounded by it; snow and rain pattering on thestone, the underground inlet, the blighted mermaid tank, that it of course itwould enter her dreams at some point.

Tonight though, tonight isdifferent. Tonight she dreams of depths, of an ocean so deep there is nogranulated sunlight to illuminate it, and even her comfort with the dark isn’tenough to make it feel less… crushing. She sees in staticky black and whitehere, feels the way the currents tug insistently at her. She has to remindherself that she can breathe.

There’s movement there, in thedepths. It takes up the whole of her vision. It’s just the suggestion of agreat thing slowly winding and unwinding, pulsing slightly as if with laboredbreath. It does not move against the current. It directs it, and it makes herown breath catch in her throat. Not with fear, but with excitement. 

When she wakes, she swears shecan still feel it, the current tugging at her, the great thing directing herforwards. The letter appears the next day, and the day after that, she isgone. 

12.) Worst Enemy

According to Az’ar, her worst enemies are the Godsthemselves.

The Gods are arbitrary and cruel things, starting and endinglife as it pleases them, for mere entertainment. They set up laws,contradictory and unforgiving, a universe full of pain and misery, and createdsentient creatures to wade through the mud and experience every bit of it.Growing up in the Shadowfell, Az’ar has witnessed it all, and grew to despisethe traditions of the Shadar’kai, the same traditions that honor Hala by tryingto protect the living things she holds so dear, especially from the unnaturalundead things she abhors, the traditions that pretend to honor Her brother bysending them back to His domain, and by dying well.

She left her people, somethingelse that was forbidden, and fought and killed far too many of them in order tocross over to the Prime Material Plane, the tear she made between worldsallowing a few of those undead monstrosities to cross with her. It was aregrettable loss, ones that she lays again at the feet of the Gods; if herpeople had not been obsessed with their supposed sacred duties, they would nothave needed to die.

Az’ar intends to wrest their claws from her chest, by making itso she can never die, and then, she will end their grip on the rest of thePlanes, even if it means killing them. She hope it does. That would be a sweetirony indeed.

23.) Romance

Orianais a romantic. Probably in the classical movement sense as well as in thehopeless romantic sense. She has this ideal of herself: knight in shiningarmor, a blazing paragon of Wahreight’s mercy and light, beating back thedarkness and protecting the innocent.

She also is kind of obsessedwith romance novels, and novels that we might consider romance novels due tothe way books are sold, but, unlike Whisper, prefers the ones that hold a highideal of love than the vulgar. Which isn’t to say she won’t read books with sexin them, only that she prefers more comedies of manners. Jehanne Augere’s Dignityand Discrimination remains her favorite novel (and she finally got a copyof her own the last time we visited Fantasy Half Price Books), and she’s morelikely to blush at the scene where the elven hero confesses his love for thevery human Elisabet. 26.) Beauty

Thecostume is… well. It’s tight. And barely there. Whisper runs her hands thelength of her torso, fingers skimming cut-outs in the shimmering golden fabricat her sides where her midnight skin provides contrast, and she lets out ashuddering breath. She doesn’t know whether its nerves or awe that’s making herstomach clench uncomfortably but… either way.

She sneaks a peak in themirror and looks away almost immediately. Salt and storm, she is glad hermother will never see her in this, or she’d be dead. Brutally and messily andall over the place.

She sneaks another look, outof the corner of her eye at first, then straight on. The leotard is almostblinding in the way the golden cloth catches the light (Ignatius’ choice, nodoubt), small black stitching and sequins giving the illusion of scales downher stomach. At her hips is this strange, diaphanous half-skirt, more like thefrills of a tiger fish than an actual garment. The neckline—if it can be calledthat— plunges far deeper than anything she’s ever worn, and she mutters a quickprayer that she won’t spill out of this thing at an inopportune moment. Or anopportune one. She is not being paid enough for that.

But the effect… She takes astep back, so she can see the whole effect, the golden ribbons wrapped aroundher horns and pinned in her hair, the ridiculous amount of eyeshadow, thestreaks of gold shimmer on her cheeks, she looks… ethereal. Magical. Shestretches one indigo hand out, and her reflection does the same, lightlymeeting her in the mirror. She watches herself smile.

“It looks beautiful on you,”comes a voice from behind her, wobbling like the owner is about to burst intotears. “You look beautiful, Whisper. Just brilliant…”

She whirls around, a scowlslotting into place. “I can’t believe he wants me to wear this, Terrance!”  

The huge man doesn’t seem tohear her, dabbing at his eyes with a handkerchief. “Oh, I outdid myself. Just wait until the audience see you. You’re going to dazzle them.”

Whisper laughs under herbreath, and sneaks another look at herself. Okay. Maybe it’s not so bad afterall.

29.) Bedroom (and 11.) Best Friend).

She wasclose, she was so freaking close! If she could just figure out thethaumodynamic stabilizers and the aetheric channels and how to connect them tothe theurgic couplings, then the armor would definitely be finished beforeschool started. Her tongue peaked out of the corner of her mouth as sheconcentrated, wand on one hand, tweezers in the other, a soldering ironfloating above her, held by her mage hand. 

The workbench in front of heris littered with such tools, awl and a few other small sharp blades and hergrindstone, linen thread and an assortment of needles, little colored glass ballsshe’d spent weeks making and enchanting so they wouldn’t break when she used them,and small gems that had cost quite a chunk of the money she made from selling herclockwork toys, not to mention all the other tools she didn’t currently needfor this project. The bed next to her, on the other side, had the rest of thearmor, chest plate and second gauntlet, both nearly finished save for the collectorsthat would collect the untethered thaumic energy from the aether.  

She’s so close. She can feelit.

“Celandine!” her mother calledfrom downstairs, “Celandine, your friend is here!” 

“What?” she freezes, and thewand released the spell it was holding… at the wrong part of the gauntlet. Andsomething started smoking. “Shit!”“Celandine?”

A quick prestidigitation puts the fire out but it definitely smelt like magic gone wrong and scorched leather.“Oh, hell. Coming Mom!”

”I’m sending her up!”  

“Shit!” Celandine cast a lookabout her room. Her chairs were full of clothes and her bed was covered in armorand there was spare leather and clothes and books all over the floor and why hadn’tshe learned the invisible servant spell.

“Hey, Celandine? Your Momsaid—” Caela pauses in the doorway, the top of her head nearly brushing thetop of the doorframe. Her eyes widen as she takes in the state of the room. 

“I know! It’s messy I’m sorry.I got uh…” she looks down at the gauntlet and then back up at her best friend,smiling weakly. “I forgot you were coming over. I’m sorry.” She puts the gauntleton the workbench and reaches over the small space to her bed, which at leastonly had the breastplate and the other gauntlet on it. “Sit down and give me asecond, I’ll have this place tidied up in a…”

But Caela is already bendingover, gathering up the nearest books that had fallen over. “It’s okay. I’llhelp. Why don’t you tell me what you were working on?”And Celandine beams.  

30.) Sex

Oriana pressesthe pillow harder over her head, trying to block out the sound from the onlyother bed in the room. Since she’d been knighted in the service of Wahreight,she’d been moved out of the general barracks and into a shared room;unfortunately, her roommate decided that that was enough privacy in order tocarry on her… assignations with one of the paladins still in training. And theidea of actually talking to Ritika about it was blighted mortifying, so hereshe lies, pillows piled on her head, face burning as she tried to pretend shewas not hearing what she was hearing.

34.) AffectionIt’s not that Whisper’s family was not affectionate. Sheremembers her father’s hand on her head, her mother’s approving smile. Hugsfrom her brothers, kisses on her forehead from the governess. But compared tothe carnival, her family was as touched-starved as any dwarf.

Affection wasphysical and platonic and above all, free among them, holding hands and huggingfor no reason, kisses on cheeks and foreheads and lips, giant cuddle piles inone of the main tents the afternoon after a big show, all of them just waitingfor the inevitable cry to start packing up. 

And the sex. Oh, seaand storms, the sex. There was just so much of it. After the first year she’dgone from having sex once in her entire life to having had more partners thanshe could count, of so many genders, in several different… permutations. Things would just…escalate. Someone would be feeling bad and a cuddle pile or a platonic kisswould turn into make-you-feel-better sex, someone would decide that they wereboard and seek someone out, or two people would be fighting and suddenly they’dbe up against the wall (that happened with Ignatius and a few of the othersmore than she would care to admit), or they’d be coming down off a high of asuccessful heist or a show, adrenaline still singing high gospel within them,and next thing you knew you’d be tearing off someone’s clothes. Maybeseveral someone’s.

But the real world doesn’twork that way. And after a bad experience or two on her way to Hazelscar, she isthoroughly aware of that. Most people don’t like being touched.

She meets Adoraor and Keithiafirst, and she makes sure to keep her hands to herself. Even when Adoraor isbleeding out and she has the stupid idea to stick a knife in his chest to seeif it’ll heal him, because, hey, it worked on that orc, or when Keithia (notThia, not yet) places a hand on her shoulder to press healing magic, warm andtingling, into her skin. Not even when they’re barring the door of a cold stonechamber and waiting out the night, and she knows she could stop them both fromshivering. 

She’s almost starving from it,achingly aware of where people are in relation to her at all times. She finallygives in and hugs Keithia about two weeks in. She feels Keithia freeze up for ahalf a second and she closes her eyes, waiting for the rejection, before Keithiasqueezes back, just for a second, before she eases back. Whisper has to forceherself not to cling, to let her new friend go. 

Oriana, she learns, hatesbeing touched at all and the boys are weird about it, so she has to make ithigh fives and playful slaps and punches to the arm. She can hug Frank, atleast, he’s not strange about it. Sing-songtoo, until he vanishes. 

She nearly cries when it getscold enough that they have to huddle in the Magnificent Bubble (also screw Leomund,she’s the one casting the spell, she’ll call it what she wants), and the Bubbleis just big enough for them. If they huddle. It’s almost like the piles she’sused to, and she plays it off with a few sighs and rolled eyes, but when sheends up cuddled next to Twiggy and Isao of all people, she has to bury her headin her arms, so no one will see her face. It’s almost good enough.

[lesbiankoby]

i have a lot of fucking....dragon age trollhunters au thoughts but im trying to get the mental rpg party in order 

kanjigar was duncan and now he’s dead lmao

jim lake jr:

player character, elf (dalish origin), warden

he’s a rogue with the duelist specialization but im fond of the idea that he’s like, a spirit warrior? spirit rogue? because then he can name his duel spirit daggers (like the inquisition knight enchanter sword) sunlight and eclipse and have this weird....duel class thing going for him 

jim and toby find the mirror but only jim got tainted 

barb is the keeper ? i dunno if jim was the first, though. its an interesting angle but......i dunno....probably just a hunter (and the best chef in the clan, a position he appreciated). 

sylaise vallaslin

toby

warrior, city elf that joined the arcadian clan when his parents died (his grandmother is the halla keeper), ...not a warden? probably not. hm. 

joined jim’s journey to get “cured” of the taint at ostagar, wrapped up in Blight(tm) shit 

WARR HAMMER motherfuckers toby is buff as hell 

did not have his vallaslin yet at the point of leaving. prefers not to discuss this. 

his companion gifts are cool rocks and pulp novels

blinky

dwarf lmao. he’s a lover not a fighter

(he and aaarrrgghh are the bodahn and sandle of the party except aaarrrgghh is also a party member and blinky stays back at the camp and enchants items/ peddles shit maybe?)

he and dictatious both used to be ex merchant class shapers of the stone until dictatious took advantage of blinky’s “theft” of aaarrrgghh (aaarrrgghh is a golem and fully capable of making his own decisions lmao) and political maneuvering to get him kicked out of orzammar

the casteless brand still stings but he’s made a life up here 

blinky and aaarrrgghh got themselves picked up by kanjigar (dwarven, warrior caste, grey warden) and spent many years at his side as his companion.

adopted all these young adult losers 

he’s got a set of like...steampunky magnification goggles with multiple lenses that he switches between, creating the profile of “multiple eyes”. 

companion gifts are history books and things that remind him of orzammar

AAARRRGGHH!!!

the “shale” of the party 

golem who’s been traveling with blinky for a very long time 

they’re married bc blinky isnt a coward 

i think his control rod got picked up by a particularly clever darkspawn in the deep roads for a while (to the point its the only life aaarrrgghh could really remember) until aaarrrgghh broke it? or was hit hard enough as to become self aware again? something 

the ultimate point is he walked himself down into orzammar eventually which kicked off the series of events that left blinky casteless and exiled and running off with aaarrrgghh

eventually he unlocks his own tragic backstory and remembers he was a dwarf named Aarghaumont, once (a casteless criminal that was apprehended and turned against his will into a golem). 

one of his companion gifts is an uncrushable cat 

claire

human blood mage, probably a noble. possibly another warden. 

she’s got some unholy combination of the player character mage origin and morrigan’s plotline going for her i think? mostly bc i suspect the pale lady is flemeth. 

which would make NotEnrique the jowan of the dynamic and, i think? enrique the conner. yikes. 

she.......................................dabbles. but totally knows what she’s doing, guys. 

she’s one of the most promising mages in the tower but whomstever the head enchanter is he doesn’t know what she was up too on the side. 

she likes evil looking magical trinkets and flowers 

angor rot 

i think he’s a spirit of.....something that morrigan keeps bound to the mortal plane lmao

i cant tell if he fills a rogue spot in the group or another mage...?

i dunno im thinking this isnt nearly all of my Thoughts(tm)

might be a qunari 

he likes worry stones and things to whittle with

he was ordered along by morrigan and spends a lot of his time not quietly watching talking to claire, for some reason. 

draal

dwarf! warrior! probably an axe guy tbh. he is a warden eventually.

orzammar dwarf specifically, warrior caste 

has been trying to enlist with the wardens for YEARS but nobody in their right mind would actually do it 

kanjigar would have killed them 

draal blames jim for kanjigar’s death and his recruitment quest is in several parts

he challenges jim to fight him at the proving grounds 

ends up joining the legion of the dead 

ends up ultimately recruited into the wardens FROM the legion of the dead, at the end, reluctantly

not even close to all of it i just like throwing ideas out 

darcy is probably a party member (another rogue? bard?)

[dirthera-blog]

how much would you hate me if i lovingly said to do all of them? : 3 do all that meme. do eet.

romance ll accepting.

ilu. u complete me.

🌟 What is my muse’s sexual/romantic orientation?

Demi on both counts, with little regard for a partner’s gender.

💦 At what age did my muse lose their virginity?

She’s in her twenties when it happens. She made it through the Blight with her virginity intact, and then honestly who knows. I have to work out a better timeline of ‘Aria’s Romantic and Sexual Conquests.’ It’ll be super easy, there’s only one feathery apostate thread to follow.

😘 Would my muse have sex on the first date?

Nope. That makes Mythal cry. Or something. Really it’s just that her orientation is incompatible with quickly getting into bed with someone.

😊 Would my muse ever ask someone on a date?

I think she’d prefer it, in fact.A chance to show off and be clever in how she asks, to try and charm the object of her affections into agreeing.

👍 Does my muse prefer to be asked on a date, or would they rather do the asking?

See above! Aria definitely prefers to do the asking, but is not put off if someone asks her first.

😉 What are my muse’s fetishes/kinks?

Answered!

💬 When did my muse go on their first date?

Sometime after the Blight, probably. She’s kind of a late bloomer about relationships, but that’s okay!

💯 What is my muse’s ideal date?

Answered!

💗 Has my muse ever been in love?

Answered!

👠 What was my muse’s last serious relationship like?

Childhood friends and partners in crime growing into that couple everyone thought would have happily ever after. Just because she and Tamlen never quite made it into romantic commitment does not mean their feelings weren’t serious. There are reasons Ashalle implies she thought the two of them might one day be together in full.

👰 Would my muse ever get married?

The Wardens say no, but her own desires and her culture say yes. She’s not above eloping just to make that commitment where certain duties demand she surrender the opportunity to do so. Even if it’s just she and her partner making their own vows, without anyone else around, it would be good enough for her with the right partner – like Anders in Discord RP.

🌼 Would my muse prefer a big wedding or a small wedding?

Small. Please, everything she does is a spectacle, let her have some understated wedding be it with just the person she loves or their loved ones.

🍬 Is my muse a sub, dom, or switch?

Switch, though she has a slight preference for letting her partner be more in control.

🏩 What was my muse’s first time like?

As soon as I know anything myself, you guys will be the first to know.

🎆 Is my muse into monogamy?

Absolutely. I’m not saying it would be an end all be all for her, if both she and a lover can agree to open things up a little to allow in a third partner, but I don’t think it’s anything she really thinks about. Monogamy is just her default.

💕 Would my muse ever be in a polyamorous relationship?

If the right person came along and both she and her initial partner felt strongly enough, sure, but the newcomer would have to be really extraordinary. I imagine the Dalish might have been a little looser with the idea of polyamory than a lot of societies seen in-game, given their dwindling numbers, so Aria’s only real hesitation is her own personal preference.

🔥 Would my muse ever be up for a threesome?

Going by the same disclaimers as above about her own reservations, sure.

👮 Has my muse ever had sex in public?

I’m not saying it’s unlikely, I’m just saying a lot of her sex life is a big old question mark at this stage. I think as long as no one was around she might get a kick out of screwing somewhere more public, but I don’t know that she’s actually ever done it.

💔 What was my muse’s first heartbreak?

Tamlen. For a long time she thought it was the cave and the mirror, the lack of closure, no body to bury, that hurt her the most.That was before he found his way back to her, there at the end.

💑 What are my muse’s requirements for a potential partner?

Someone brave, someone who also works or speaks out against the status qup. She needs someone just as willing to defy convention and right injustices as herself – it was pretty inevitable that she end up with Anders, even if I never considered it as a ship before Rea seduced Aria with her amazing writing. So long as her partner knows how to live and isn’t a prick, she could make it work. In addition, she gravitates more towards outsiders, those who understand what it is to be a stranger in a strange land. What I’m getting at is Aria is not really an ‘Opposites Attract’ kind of girl when she looks for love, she wants someone who can complement her even when they challenge her or her notions. 

💋 How many people has my muse slept with?

One (1) bird-man apostate probably.

👀 Is my muse the type to sleep around?

Nope. Not unless some big beefy Kossith boy swept in and made her life like all of those smut novels about the months she spent in Seheron.

👎 Would my muse ever cheat on their partner?

Jokes about her inexplicable attraction to Qunari aside, never. She’s been hurt by the loss of too many people to ever hurt a partner so selfishly.

😳 What was my muse’s worst romantic/sexual relationship?

The one that never started and left her would-be boyfriend a fucking GHOUL.

💲Would my muse ever date/marry/sleep with someone because they were rich?

I mean she’s a rogue. That screams doing underhanded bullshit to get ahead. It’s practically the first thing they learn to do. So I mean, she’s not going to sleep with a mark but she might be persuaded to toy with a noble’s affections to get something out of them if the situation called for it.

👓 Would my muse ever lie for sex?

That���s gross, no.

👿 Would my muse ever blackmail someone into sex?

THAT’S GROSS, NO.

🎥 Who is my muse’s celebrity crush?

I guess in-setting this would translate to another important and well-known character in terms of setting. Most of whom are people she actually knows, which makes it all a little awkward. All she knows is if that Varric Tethras looks as good as he writes, she’s in trouble.

Yes, she has never seen Our Father of Hot Dwarves, but she’s pretty sold on his writing. Creators know if the idea she has of him would ever live up to the Dwarf, the Myth, the Legend.

🎀 Who would my muse sleep with if nobody ever had to know?

The Arishok. Any Arishok. Just for bragging rights. Just as long as we’re entertaining what ifs that will never come to be.

💍 Has my muse ever had a one-night stand?

No, and likely never will.

💝 Does my muse like Valentine’s Day?

The Dalish have no equivalent, so she’s not entirely sure what to make of any other culture’s holiday that might correspond to our Valentine’s Day. Why not just show every day how much you love someone? Shemlen are baffling.

💘 What are the ways my muse says ‘I love you’ without actually saying it? 

I like to think a lot of it is what’s shown in game – being there for others, helping them with their problems, giving people things that make her think of them. She shows her love more through care than the word itself, always supporting the people who are important to her and offering a sympathetic ear. There’s also this part of her where if she does love you, she’s more honest with you, even a touch snarky. She doesn’t have to put up a wall with those she loves. That, however, might be trickier to discern unless someone has known her a while.

Basically, if she treats you as a member of her community, she’s giving you love.

[sekhmetanders]

Cell Bound

Title: My Lioness: Cell Bound

Author: MelpomeneTears

Game: Dragon Age 2

Characters/Pairing: Sekhmet Hawke, Bethany Hawke, Varric, Anders, Cullen

Disclaimer: Violence, Spoilers, Strong Language

As they walked around the bend Anders saw Cullen or as he was now known, Knight Captain Cullen.  Of course, they would promote Cullen of all people. And interestingly enough he seemed to be attacking a young recruit.  Kid couldn’t have been more than Bethany’s age and looked scared.

“So now the Templars even beat their new recruits, a novel approach.  I suppose since beating mages into doing what you tell them has worked so well you’ve decided it should work on recruits too.”  Hawke was already clutching both of her daggers.  

Anders tried to relax and pushed down Justice’s rage.  He thought it might be a good idea to keep Justice in check for a few days after what happened.  Justice wasn’t making it easy though, he’d been getting louder and louder since Hawke told him they were looking for a Templar.  Anders hadn’t been too keen on the idea either, but Hawke had convinced him to help by telling him they were just looking for a lost kid, not even a full Templar yet.  Judging from the young age of Wilmod she’d been right.

Bethany took a step backwards, “Sekhmet, that’s the Knight Captain, shut up, please.”  The poor girl looked terrified, just the sight of Cullen striking fear into her.  

Cullen turned away from the recruit to look at Hawke, his face looking surprisingly worn.  “This is no business of yours, stranger.  I suggest you move along.”

Anders expected an angry response from Hawke or at least another snark but she was quiet.  She studied Cullen for a few moments before she jerked her head, looking at Wilmod as she took several quick steps backward. He was confused when she looked back to Cullen and raised her voice in warning.  “I suggest you move, Templar.”

Cullen opened his mouth again but didn’t manage to get anything out before Wilmod gave a dark and wild laugh all trace of fear evaporating in a blink.  A sickly yellowish light swirled around the young man, and Justice growled “demon” in Anders’ head.  As Wilmod’s feet left the ground he hissed at Cullen, “You have struck me for the last time you pathetic human…to me”

Hawke rolled her shoulders and tightened her grip on her blades a little, “Ready yourselves, we’re about to have company.”

He still needed to have a talk with Hawke about how she could possibly detect magic; she always seemed busy whenever he was free though.  And now, she’d felt a demon’s presence before even Justice.  It was upsetting the spirit enough that he was demanding to know what Hawke was, as if she was not exactly human.  Anders ignored him and focused on what was going on around him.

Cullen’s eyes widened in horror as shades, abominations and demons cropped up around them.  “Maker preserve us.”

If the fool only knew, he wouldn’t waste his breath.  The demons as well as the Wilmod abomination all went down easily and soon it was just the four of them with Cullen again, he refused to call that bastard Knight Captain. He relished Cullen’s confused and horrified face, it was always satisfying to see Templars looking completely lost.

The Templar raked his gauntlet back through his hair staring at the former recruit’s body, “How is this even possible?”

Hawke, darling woman that she was, rolled her eyes at Cullen like he was an idiot.  “He was possessed.”

Slowly, Cullen’s eyes pulled from the body and finally looked to Hawke’s face, “We don’t worry about Templars being possessed.”

“Yes, well Templars aren’t known for being particularly smart or rational.  As a whole, they make a lot of assumptions.  Besides, with half the shit I’ve seen in Kirkwall, nothing really surprises me anymore.”  She gave a little shrug even as Bethany inhaled sharply behind them.

Cullen scowled, for a moment he looked as if he was going to argue with her; instead he let out a long slow breath and gave a slight bow, “I am Knight Captain Cullen, I thank you for your assistance.  As of late, I have been conducting an investigation regarding several of our recruits who have gone missing.  Wilmod was the first to return.  I had hoped to confront him quietly out of sight, try to ascertain what was going on.”

Hawke let out a sharp bark of laughter, “So, you had no idea whether there was really a problem or not, but drew your sword on a fresh recruit anyway?”

Anders’ attention started faltering.  His head was pounding as Justice screamed and raged wanting to tear Cullen apart. Justice remembered who Cullen was from Anders’ memories of the tower and wanted to punish him for what he considered Anders’ incarceration and mistreatment in the Ferelden Circle.  He had to admit, it was tempting to let Justice run riot on the Templar, but they still had a missing boy to find.

Hawke kept looking at him, concern on her face even as she spoke with Cullen, “Do you have any idea where he might have been while he was gone?”  Her eyes flicked to him again before looking back at Cullen.

Cullen shrugged, “I thought perhaps he was meeting with some friends who had escaped the Circle.  He never really understood that mages cannot be our friends, they must always be watched.”

Anders closed his eyes for a few moments as Justice’s screams devolved into growls and waves of anger that pulsed through him in a staccato rhythm.  It would be a miracle if he made it out of here without killing Cullen where he stood.  Killing a Templar was one thing, but taking out the Knight Captain of Kirkwall would draw more attention than he was ready for just yet.  

Seeing an actual Templar who had been part of Anders’ time in the Circle had Justice beyond anger. As Justice struggled and fought for control his skin began to feel too tight and his sight went a bit hazy. Staying calm was getting harder and harder.  Justice’s anger mirrored his own, was created by his own and it was hard to fight its seductive call.  He needed to think about something else.  A boy, a boy, we’re here to save a boy as young as little Beth.  Concentrate, Focus.

Hawke didn’t bother to battle her anger, she snapped at Cullen, “Can’t be our friends?  I happen to have mage friends, who I trust with my life.”  

Cullen’s eyes swept to Anders for a moment before returning to Hawke.  “Yeah, she’s talking about me you jackass.”  Part of him wanted to scream it at Cullen, but he couldn’t indulge his anger like that and expect to retain control.  It was a close thing as it was.

“Though I suppose if the Chantry ever decided it was against slavery, cruelty and oppression you’d be out of a job, Knight Captain.”  His title crossed Hawke’s lips like the vilest of epithets.

Cullen’s jaw tightened and Anders enjoyed the man’s anger.  Templars so rarely came across people who were willing to tell them what a bunch of hypocrites they were; this was obviously a new experience for the man. And it seemed Cullen didn’t take criticism well.

His gauntlet closed into a tight fist before he spoke again.  “I was at the Circle Tower in Ferelden during the Blight.  I saw firsthand how Templar’s trust and leniency can be rewarded.”

Fury swept through Anders burning like a firestorm, licking through his veins like acid.  He stepped forward looming over the Templar, “Trust and leniency, you dare use those words? With me standing right here?  A year you heartless fuck, a godsdamned year!”  The last word came out as a yell with overtones of Justice threaded through it.  He felt a small hand on his back, Hawke’s, no doubt meant to soothe him.  He drew a deep breath and slowly relaxed back into her touch as he a stepped away from Cullen, who at least had the decency to look ashamed.

“Anders?”  Hawke’s voice was quiet and sweet.  

Her sweet voice, tinged with concern for him made him ache, a gnawing in his chest for what he wanted and couldn’t have.  After a moment he was surprised when he realized not only did he fell calmer just from her touch but Justice seemed to have quieted a bit as well.  Anders gave her a slight nod to let her know he was alright, Maker knew she had enough to worry about.

Cullen watched the two of them with interest for a moment but Anders didn’t care, or rather he did but he didn’t want Cullen to know he cared.  Ever a Templar, he was looking for a weakness he could use against Anders. And if he had one, it was definitely Hawke.  If Cullen hurt her Anders would make him pay for it slowly for weeks.  

He put the idea out of his head not wanting to squander the curious reprieve from Justice’s angry ranting that Hawke’s concern had afforded him.  He was curious why it had affected Justice at all, usually he hated it when Anders was touched and could care less about how people felt about Anders.  It was something new he’d have to think about.

Cullen finally spoke again, his voice bordering on tremulous, “I still have nightmares of Uldred’s depravities.”  He was still trying to play the victim apparently.

Was the man really that obtuse, that blind?  “And how many mages have nightmares of you Cullen?”

He looked shocked, like Anders’ words had never occurred to him.  Anders had firsthand experience of Cullen’s enormous capability to turn a blind eye to the worst of Templar behavior, to convince himself that whatever was being done was the right thing.  He’d heard from others about Cullen’s cruelty after the Blight.  

He’d even heard about the poor girl the Templar had once had a painfully obvious crush on before the Blight and how after the Blight Cullen had terrorized her until she had killed herself.  Which was why Anders had been shocked to learn of the man’s transfer and promotion in Kirkwall.  

Silence fell over them all for several minutes before Hawke spoke up again.  “We were looking for a recruit named Keran, he was Wilmod’s friend. Do you know where we might find him?”

Cullen tore his gaze away from Anders to answer her.  He gave a brief shake of his head.  “No, I fear he might have met the same fate as Wilmod as they were both last seen together at the Blooming Rose.”  He flushed a little, “I’ve had no luck interrogating the …uh…young ladies there. Though, I doubt they know anything of magic or demons.”

Hawke smiled at Cullen, a soft teasing smile.  “Hmm, the Rose, I should have no problem speaking with them.  Pillow talk can be very productive.”

Anders grit his teeth in an effort to try to keep silent, he didn’t like her smiling at Cullen like that and he liked the idea of her getting answers from pillow talk even less. It surprised him that even the thought of Hawke with another woman was enough to stir jealousy inside of him.  “I’m going with you.”  The words were sharp, he wasn’t going to argue with her about it, he was going and that was all there was too it.

A look of surprise touched her face for only a split second, “Of course.”

Cullen watched them both for a moment, searching their faces and Anders carefully kept his blank.  A skill he hadn’t used in a while, but one that was essential when dealing with Templars.  He needed to get his emotions under better control if he was going to convince Cullen there was no leverage to be gained from Hawke.

At length Cullen spoke again, “The Order would appreciate your assistance in this matter.”

Hawke’s eyes narrowed, “I’m not doing this to help you or the Templars.  There’s a woman who is scared for her missing brother.  I’m helping her.”

Cullen’s look soured, “Nonetheless.”

Hawke scowled at the Knight Captain before she turned to face Anders keeping her voice a quiet whisper, “What do you want to do with him?  If he hurt you I’ll gut him and he can sit in a pile of his own intestines while he waits for death to claim him.”

He loved her, he really did, he loved her as much as he hated fate for bringing them together. How could he not love her when she said things like that?  And he knew she meant every word of it.  “He never touched me, now let’s find the boy.”  Maybe letting Cullen live was a mistake, time would tell.  Right now all he wanted was to be away from the man.

********

Bethany bit her tongue to keep herself from laughing; somehow she doubted Anders would appreciate it. The moment they stepped inside the brothel he had moved between her and Sekhmet and glared at anyone who even looked at them.  Sure, his interests in keeping men away from Sekhmet were personal, but it was his protective nature that had him looking over Bethany.  For a moment it was like having Carver back.  Although, Carver would have been running his mouth as well as glaring.

Anders apparently didn’t see the humor in his actions though.  He caught Varric smirking and snapped at him.  “You have something to say, dwarf?”

Varric chuckled, “Not at all, I just had no idea you were so gallant, Blondie.”

Sekhmet paused and turned to look at Anders, “What’s going on?”

His scowl deepened and he answered her brusquely.  “Nothing, let’s just take care of this and get out of here.”  

Sekhmet nodded and looked briefly around the main room.  A plain looking woman with short brown hair walked up to her, “Do you need something honey?”

“I’m looking for information.”  

A quick conversation sent them to a room on the second floor belonging to a woman named Idunna.  As they entered the room Bethany was nearly overwhelmed with the heavy perfume in the air, it was so sweet it almost made her gag.  Anders glanced at Idunna but looked away almost looking bored.

Bethany thought she was kind of pretty, her make-up was a little heavy, but her dress was pretty and her hair looked soft.  Her skin was clear and smooth, lighter than her own but darker that Sekhmet’s by far. She noticed her sister fidgeting out of the corner of her eye and looked to see what exactly she was doing.

Sekhmet’s hand fiddled with her armor for a second before she brushed a few hairs off her forehead. Bethany watched her curiously was she primping to meet this woman?  She wasn’t the only one that noticed either; Anders was watching her looking as confused as Bethany felt.

He leaned over and whispered to her, “What’s she doing?”

Bethany shook her head and shrugged, she really had no idea.

“She’s not seriously worried about how she looks is she?”  He had dropped his voice even lower; she had to strain to hear him.

She didn’t get a chance to answer him because Sekhmet spoke up, “You are Idunna?”

The woman turned unhurriedly to look at the four of them, a slow smile spreading across her over painted lips.  “Who’s asking?”  

Sekhmet wasn’t looking at Idunna as she spoke, her eyes taking in the room around them instead. “I’m looking for a Templar recruit named Keran, do you remember entertaining him or perhaps his friend Wilmod?”

A long painted fingernail tapped against Idunna’s bottom lip.  “Wilmod…Keran…hmm, no I’m sorry.  It doesn’t sound familiar, but I do see a lot of men.”

Sekhmet’s gaze finally landed on Idunna, looking as if she were just casually observing her but Bethany knew all her attention was sharply focused now and the smile on her lips was a ruse.  “You would think a woman of your trade would want to remember the name of a client as faithful as Wilmod.  Just courtesy to remember the man’s name who thinks you’re worth all that repeat business.”

Idunna gave a nonchalant shrug and wandered to sit on the bed.  She patted the mattress beside herself, “Surely, there are more interesting things we could be doing.”

“I just want answers, tell me about the boys.”  She still sounded friendly but her posture had stiffened a little and Bethany felt herself tensing in response.  Long years of working together taught her to pay close attention when Sekhmet became uneasy.

Varric brushed past her and Anders to stand at the end of the bed, his eyes staring adoringly at Idunna. “Hawke, go easy on this lovely creature.”

Idunna gave them a saccharine smile, “You should listen to your friend.”

Sekhmet’s smile disappeared and she growled at Idunna.  “I don’t know what it is you’re casting, but you can stop it now.  Your magic is thick like fog in here.”  

Bethany didn’t even notice it until Sekhmet said something.  It was so thick and heavy she wondered how she missed it.  She looked to Anders and saw that he was uneasy as well, though whether it was because of the magic or because Sekhmet had sensed it she didn’t know.  For some reason Sekhmet’s ability to detect magic bothered him.  Beth thought he should be grateful; Sekhmet’s gift saved their lives numerous times.

Idunna looked scared for a moment before she stood again, advancing on the four of them.  Anders closed his eyes and turned away for some reason. Varric’s eyes became vacant and a moment later she felt as if she had been wrapped in thick blankets and given a sleeping potion.  She felt groggy and out of sorts, her head swimming.  She heard Idunna speaking but only vaguely and didn’t feel like she had the energy to look at the woman.  

“ I was going to ask you who told you about me, but I see we’ll have to skip the games and get right to wrapping up.  So, my white haired darling, do me a little favor.”  Bethany heard the rustling of her dress as she moved closer to them but still couldn’t look up from the floor for whatever reason.   “Draw one of those wicked looking blades,” the sound of metal being slipped free of its sheath rang through the room.

Bethany’s thoughts felt fuzzy, she knew she should look up to see what was happening but couldn’t seem to compel herself to move.  She felt so tired and worn she could barely keep her eyes open.  Whatever spell Idunna was using it was surprisingly strong. Her mind barely wrapped around the idea that she was under a spell than the thought was slipping away again.

“Now draw it gently across your your pale little throat.”  Idunna’s voice was filled with feigned sweetness.

Silence fell over the room and moments passed slowly.  Why couldn’t she make herself move?  Was Sekhmet going to hurt herself?  Why wasn’t anyone speaking, or trying to stop Idunna?  Eventually, her sister made an irritated snarl then another few minutes of silence slipped by.  Bethany felt like she was floating above herself.

Her sister’s voice was strained; she was obviously trying hard to fight whatever was happening to her, to all of them.  “Bethany,” a long silence and a strangled whimper before she spoke again, “stop her.”

She struggled for a moment but it was no use, she couldn’t move.  She almost gave up when she seized onto a thought.  “I couldn’t save Carver, but I can save Sekhmet.”  Almost immediately she felt the compulsion begin to lighten.

A heartbeat after she grabbed onto that thought she heard Anders grit out next to her.  “Please help her Beth.”

It suddenly felt like a heavy weight had been pushed off, a wash of cool air brushed over her clearing her head almost completely.  She wasted a half second, astounded at Anders’ strength even in his current state, before she focused her attention on Idunna.  She gathered her power focusing on burning away the magic Idunna had cast. She shook with the strain of lifting her arm, “Let…go…of…” a loud crack rang through the room as the spell was broken. Her hand slipped easily through the air as she finished, my sister.”

She felt more than saw Anders moving out of the corner of her eye and heard him swear softly, “Holy shit, Beth.”

Sekhmet dropped the hand holding her knife to her throat as Idunna wheeled backwards away from them, stumbling in her rush.  She stared at Bethany with wide terrified eyes, “How did you…” she scrabbled even further away from Bethany, “oh shit.”

Sekhmet responded, “You can say that again.  You’re in quite of bit of trouble little girl.”

She raised her hands in supplication in front of her face.  “Spare me, messere.”

Bethany saw Anders’ eyes flash pale blue beside her.  He closed his eyes and walked away from them.  She thought about following him to see if he was alright, but he seemed embarrassed when anyone besides Sekhmet saw Justice take over.  Varric stood on her other side and flashed her a sheepish smile when she looked at him.  Poor guy must have felt guilty about defending Idunna.

Her sister hissed at Idunna, “What foul magic was that?”

Clearly, Bethany’s show of power had cowed Idunna, or at least Bethany hoped that was what did it. Idunna answered all of Sekhmet’s questions including where she had sent Keran and the others as well as how she had enchanted them.  Apparently, there was a cabal of bloodmages in the Undercity led by a bloodmage called Tarohne.

And at the end of her questioning Sekhmet was clearly not in a forgiving mood.  Idunna begged for her life but was answered with nothing but a sweet smile and a knife between the ribs.  As the woman crumpled into a heap on the floor Sekhmet turned away from her already dismissing the woman’s corpse.

Wiping the knife off on her leather she spoke “Let’s get the fuck out of here.  We have a boy to save.”  She stopped next to Anders who was leaning against the door with his eyes closed.  “You okay?”

It was funny how nice Sekhmet always was to him.  She was never that nice to anyone and the two of them still ended up fighting half the time. He opened his eyes and nodded before looking at Beth.  “That was really impressive work, Beth.”

She shrugged feeling a little self conscious, “You helped.”

He shook his head, “Barely. I was just hoping we could break the spell’s control on you.  You broke it’s hold on all of us.”  He shook his head in disbelief, “Absolutely amazing.”  He looked back to Sekhmet, “Your sister has one heck of an iron will. It must run in the family, eh? Did you girls get that from your father or your mother?”

Bethany smiled, pleased that Anders had been so impressed with her.  It meant a lot from him, he was a far more experienced mage than she was, if he was impressed maybe her father hadn’t been just trying to make her feel good about herself when he was teaching her.  “From father.”

Sekhmet shook her head, “No, I think it’s a little of each, but let’s talk about it some other time. We should get going.“  They followed her as she strode from the room with quick steps, headed directly for the Undercity, clearly still spitting mad.

********

More shades and abominations as well as rage demons greeted them in Tahrone’s sanctuary.  Even still, they made good time clearing it out.  As they descended another set of stairs there was a young man held about twelve feet in the air, white light swirling around him seemingly holding him in place.  The four of them approached carefully, unsure of what exactly the light was.

“Do you think that’s Keran?” Bethany’s voice was barely above a whisper.

“What have they done to him?”  Hawke’s fingers stretched out towards the young man encased in light.

“Hawke, I wouldn’t touch him.  We don’t know what kind of spell that might be.”  If she became immobile like the young man she might be in danger if they were attacked again.  He used a few soft tendrils of magic to feel the edges of the spell and try to discern exactly what spell was holding the poor kid.

His attention was drawn to three people walking casually into the room.  Two masked mages and a woman, dressed all in white, even her make-up was a pristine white color.  Anders thought she looked mad before she even opened her mouth.  He rubbed his neck and took a deep breath.  This needed to end soon, Justice was becoming more and more angry about helping a Templar and he didn’t care that the Templar in question was only a boy.

The woman gave a low laugh, “How wonderful for you all to come.  We needed more vessels for our experiments.”

“Save your ramblings, just tell me where Keran is.”  Hawke moved closer to her, dagger held in front of her ready to strike.

The woman in white ignored Hawke, “Perhaps the demons will find one of you suitable.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Hawke lashed out lightning quick and decapitated the woman.  The other mages stared on in horror.  “Varric?”

“My pleasure,” rapid fire both mages were struck down with bolts from Bianca.

He was almost disappointed that there was no real fight.  It was a testament to how angry Hawke was about the whole situation though. She didn’t even want to hear any excuses or ramblings from anyone.   Usually, it took a lot longer for her to get to the point of where she just couldn’t even be bothered to pretend to listen.

As the second mage hit the floor the white light surrounding the young boy disappeared and he tumbled to the ground.  Hawke bent and reached out a hand to help the boy up and Justice snarled inside Anders’ head, not even words just the sound of an angry beast  He rubbed his temples trying to assuage some of the pain.  The spirit was still furious they had been so easily controlled at the brothel.  

Anders was just as angry at himself.  Hawke had nearly killed herself and he hadn’t been able to do anything about it.  It kind of put a kink in his whole theory that he travelled with her to protect her, a fact Justice was more than happy to point out between angry rants about helping the Templars.

The boy stood on shaky legs, his eyes clearly frightened, “Is it…is it over or are you more visions?”

Hawke’s face relaxed for the first time in hours, “Are you Keran?”

“Yes, I am Keran.”  He glanced down at himself, running his fingers over his chest as if to make sure he was all in one piece.

“Hawke, after the other recruit we met perhaps you don’t want to stand so close to him.  What if he’s possessed?”  Varric held Bianca, pointing her steadily at the young Templar.

“Varric,” the word was an admonishment but Anders stopped her.

“Actually, Varric has a valid point, step back for a minute; I promise I won’t hurt the boy.”  A short blast of spirit magic should determine if he was a danger or not.

Hawke stared at him for a moment, but when he didn’t back down she gave a faint nod and stepped away. “Fine, if you feel it’s necessary.”

He walked closer to the fair haired boy, feeling the kid’s uneasy gaze as he loomed closer. “M…mister?”

As fast as he could he pulled up energy and shot a spirit bolt through the boy’s middle, strong enough to provoke a response from anything that might be residing inside Keran. The boy reeled backwards, hand flying to his chest again before he looked up at Anders with an accusatory expression.

“What was that?”  A whine from the would-be Templar.

Anders turned away, “He’s clear, if there was a demon it would have protected itself.”  He kept walking until he was behind Bethany and closed his eyes, rubbing his temples again.  He knew rubbing them wouldn’t relief the pressure and pain of Justice’s angry screams but it was habit.  Justice please, we’re almost done. The damned spirit didn’t seem inclined to listen.

“Go find your sister Keran, she’s worried for you.”  Hawke gave him a small smile.  

“What about the Templars? What will you tell them?  I worry what they might do to me.  Please don’t tell them.”  He voice was tinged with fear once again.

“I have to tell them something Keran.  People’s lives might be in danger.”  

Keran looked hurt but he turned and ran from the sanctuary without another word.  He obviously wanted out of the pit he had suffered in for Maker knew how long.  Hawke re-sheathed her weapons and bent to go through the pockets of the three dead mages.

Anders needed to get back to his clinic; he could barely see straight his head throbbed so badly from Justice’s non-stop barrage.  The issue of speaking to the Templars needed to be addressed though.  “Do you really need to speak to the Templars?  Cullen said Wilmod was the first to return and he’s dead.  We’ve come across no other recruits and we verified that Keran is demon free.”

“Don’t you think they need to know?  What if there were others but Cullen just didn’t realize it?”  She stood, wiping her hands on her armor before turning to look at him.

Anders blinked clutching his head as Justice screamed that Hawke was still helping the Templars, that the day hadn’t been about just saving a boy.  Justice was enraged and trying to get through.  He couldn’t even respond to Hawke, the words couldn’t seem to get past his lips.  Justice had worn him down.  Fighting him all day had been a nightmare and now he was going to lose his hold.

Hawke seemed oblivious to his internal struggle, walking past the others to stand just a couple feet in front of him.  “I have to tell the Templars about the blood mages and what they did.  If Templars are possessed by demons people’s lives are in danger including mages.”

He tried to see her reasoning, logically it made sense but all he could think about was that Meredith would clamp down even harder on mages and the Tranquil would gain more emotionless zombies to their deadened throng.  He was losing control of his temper and control in general.  His skin shimmered blue and he stepped away from Hawke, he was going to lose this one.  “Hawke,” he ground out, voice already tinged at the edges with Justice’s rich baritone.  “You need to get out of here.”

Confusion crossed her face, “Anders, are you alright?”  She closed the gap between them.

Justice’s fury was carrying him away on a strong current.  Anders’ control slipped and with his last moment of control he shouted at Hawke, his voice more Justice than Anders, “Get away from me!”  And that was it, he slipped into blackness, Justice was so completely in control that he couldn’t even see what was happening for several minutes.

********

The flash of blue fire that heralded Justice’s arrival was hot this time instead of cool.  She barely had the chance to process that before she felt his burning fingers clamp around her throat, searing her flesh. “He never should have trusted you. You conspire with the Templars.”

She heard Varric fire Bianca and caught the quick shimmer of blue before the bolt fell harmlessly to the floor.   Justice had put up a shield.  Right on the heels of the bolt a blast of fire jetted around them, flowing harmlessly around the shield.

Justice snarled like an animal, magic coiling around his arm.  Her heart was pounding, that was Anders’ lightning coiling and sparking around his arm now and it was stronger than anything she had ever felt Anders cast.

She yanked at his hand around her throat and screamed as loud as she could, “Varric, get her out of here right now!”

“Hawke…”

She cut him off, “Now!”

Bethany screamed, her voice full of fear, “No Sekhmet, I won’t go.”  But Varric was already pulling her towards the door.

“Come on Sunshine, don’t make me carry you out of here.”

Sekhmet was still struggling against Justice’s grip.  She didn’t see it but she heard an angry yell followed by the noise of two people hitting the floor just a split second just before Justice let loose his spell.  The air hissed and crackled around her.  She nearly screamed when a peripheral crackle hit her in the side.

Justice’s fingers, still as hot as a brand, clenched digging deeper into her throat, almost completely cutting off her air supply as he started lifting her off her feet.  She clutched onto his arm with both hands trying to relieve some of the strain to her neck and jaw.

Bethany was sobbing from somewhere behind her, “Anders, that’s Sekhmet you don’t want to hurt her. Stop him Anders, please.”

The hair on her arms stood up as Justice started gathering power for another bolt of lightning. She’d never been this close to him when Justice was in control.  Heat baked off his body, which was odd, she didn’t remember Anders’ body getting hot like this in the past when Justice took control.  The sheer amount of magic washing over her body was astonishing, she’d never felt anything like it.  If Justice wasn’t looking to punish her or possibly kill her she might have even liked it.

She kicked him and jerked her arms trying to get free or at least to get his grip loose enough that she could warn Varric and Bethany.  But she couldn’t get his grip loosened even a little bit.  He barely seemed to be noticing her at all.

From behind her she heard Varric speak softly, his voice strained.  “Sorry about this Sunshine.”  Glass broke and she realized he had used one of his flasks to daze her sister so he could get her out of there and to safety, away from her and Justice. “I’ll keep her safe, Hawke.”  His heavy tread moved quickly away as he spoke.

Justice was apparently content to let them go, he released the power he had been building for another lightning spell.  Now that Bethany was safe it was time to concentrate on Justice.  Her life might be pointless but she wasn’t ready to die just yet.  Not when Bethany still had no protection against the Templars.

She planted one of her feet against his hip then pulled the other foot back and nailed him square between the legs.  He didn’t even react.  She tried to rasp out his name, tried to focus him, to bring his attention to her to get him to think and not just blindly strangle her in anger. “Jus…tice.”  His fingers tightened again and now she couldn’t breathe at all.

A cruel smile curled on Justice’s lips and she realized she couldn’t try to spare Anders anymore.  It would likely cost her life if she did. She kicked at him, foot still planted in his hip for leverage.  Using her right hand she grabbed her dagger from its sheath on her back.  Justice’s eyes glittered dangerously.  She closed her eyes repeating to herself “Not Anders, not Anders, he’s not Anders.”   She plunged the dagger into his chest, high and to the right, not a killing blow, but close.

She opened her eyes to see that Justice’s expression hadn’t even changed.  She wanted to laugh, she was going to die, killed by the man she was in love with, which in her life made perfect sense.  “Coming to see you soon Carver so you can tell me how worthless I am, how I couldn’t even save you or make Bethany safe.”

She yanked her dagger downwards and kicked at him again, he was like a column of steel, his body not giving at all.  For just a moment she thought she had seen a flash of emotion in his eyes, a look filled with anguish but then it was gone.  It was hard to focus, her lungs were burning and she could feel consciousness slipping away.

She dragged downward on the dagger one last time, her legs still, too weak to move.  She was ready to die she decided, Varric would protect Bethany.  In truth, she had been ready for years.  She was tired and ready to be with papa, she missed him so much.  She could tell him about the man she loved and the spirit that possessed his body that had killed her.

Her vision dim and fading she raised her fingers to her mouth and placed a soft kiss on them before touching them to Justice’s cheek.  His eyes flared bright but she hardly noticed.  She dropped her hands and closed her eyes trying to focus on ignoring the burning in her lungs and her body’s need to fight back.  She welcomed the darkness.

Her body was falling, was this what death felt like?  The illusion shattered when she hit the ground, her legs folding awkwardly under her before she fell backwards.  The hard floor hurting her upper back as it slammed into the ground and finally her head smacked against it sending pain though her head and neck.

She heard a loud grunt followed by a short bark of pain.  Metal hitting the ground and a rustle of clothes then long fingers were brushing her hair from her face, Anders’ soft, gentle fingers.  She wanted to open her eyes and look at him, to see for herself that his eyes were no longer glowing blue, but couldn’t seem to pry them open.  And really there was no need to, Justice would never touch her with the kind of tenderness that Anders did.

“Maker’s breath, Justice was killing you and you give him a kiss?  You’re crazy, you know that?”  Cool magic washed over her body soothing her pains and pushing away the fog in her mind.

She took long slow breaths, for some reason she didn’t feel like moving.  Warm, soft lips pressed against her forehead.

“Open those pretty blue eyes, please.”  The words were murmured against her forehead as he pulled away.

She opened them, blinking several times.   Anders’ warm brown eyes were watching her.  They were glistening with tears and a wet track down his cheek showed he’d been shedding those tears.  He was bleeding from where she stabbed Justice, the wound clearly not healed. Slowly, she sat up, still feeling a bit dazed.  He backed away from her as if he were afraid to be near her.

“You’re bleeding.”  It was the only thing she could think of to say. She felt confused about what had just happened.  Anders had been afraid Justice would hurt her; he’d tried to warn her away.  And obviously he’d wrested back control and saved her, but Justice wore Anders’ face.  She felt numb about the whole thing, not mad or worried just kind of blank, like “oh, so that happened.” There was no emotion attached to it.

“Are you still hurt? Did I miss anything?”  He seemed to be having a hard time looking at her.

“I’m tired and a little out of sorts, but no other injuries.”  She gestured to the blood soaking the front of his coat.  “Heal that, will you, before you bleed to death?”

His eyes slipped closed and his hand hovered over his chest as he healed it.  When he finished Hawke pushed to her feet, walking the few steps to pick up her dagger.  Her stomach did a little flip and her chest tightened.  It was Anders’ blood coating the blade, the blood of the man she loved and had stabbed.  Pushing the thought away she wiped the blood off on her leathers before slipping the blade back into its sheath.

“Guess I should be glad you used your right hand.  If it had been your left I’d be dead for sure.”  His voice was tight and so sad it made her heart ache.

“I missed on purpose.” She murmured then headed for the door. She needed to let Varric and Bethany know that she was alright.

“You can’t pretend this didn’t happen.  I nearly killed you.”  Such anguish in his voice.

She paused but didn’t turn to look at him.  “No, Justice tried to kill me.  You tried to warn me and then ended up saving me.”

“Talk to me.”  It killed her to hear him begging.

She was so damned tired she just wanted to sleep for a month.  She couldn’t deny Anders though, especially when he sounded so heartbroken. “We can talk, just not here. Let’s go to your clinic, okay?”

“Alright.”

She started walking out not waiting to see if he would follow, she knew he would.  He wouldn’t be happy until he had spent a good hour explaining in detail that she should stay away from him.  They both knew it was pointless.  She was convinced he could learn to control Justice better if he just wasn’t so scared all the time and Anders was of course convinced that the rest of his life needed to be filled with loneliness and self-flagellation.

“Hey, I thought we were going to the clinic?”  Anders sped up and was now striding beside her.

“We will, but first I need to see Bethany and Varric and let them know everything is fine.”  Bethany would hit the roof if Sekhmet didn’t go to her immediately.

Anders’ steps slowed, “Maybe I should wait in the clinic.”

“No, you’re going with me to show them everything is fine.  Let’s just wrap this up, then I promise, I’m all yours.”  She jogged up the steps, trying not to break out into a run. She hoped Bethany had been wise enough to stay with Varric and hadn’t run home to tell their mother what happened.

“Hawke,” Anders tone was admonishing and she really didn’t want to hear it.

She turned and shoved him against the wall of the stairwell.  “You want to talk to me, want to rehash every single detail of what happened then you come with me.  I have no interest in watching you put yourself through a self-torture session Anders. We’re friends though and if you need to talk, then fine we’ll talk as long as you want, about anything you want, when we’ve let Bethany and Varric know we’re alright and have given the Templars a heads up about their recruits possibly being possessed.”

“I don’t think going to the Gallows right now is a good idea for me.”  His eyes darkened and he turned his head away from her as he spoke.

She watched him for a moment, confused.  He didn’t sound like he was pleading like he had before, or even angry so why wouldn’t he look at her.  “Anders?”

His eyes slipped closed like he was in pain, “What?”  He growled before taking a deep breath and slowly opening his eyes.

“Are you still hurting? I didn’t push you that hard, did I?” She was frustrated with him, but had no desire to hurt him.

He slid along the wall a little until he could turn and head back up the stairs, “No, I’m fine.  Do you think they’ll be at The Hanged Man?”

“Probably,” she walked behind him trying to figure out if he was just upset with her, or if he was lying and was still in pain.  She watched him closely and as they reached the top of the stairs he tried to subtly adjust himself and she laughed.  

Anders cringed but kept walking.  

She caught up to him, “Well, that’s certainly interesting.”

He didn’t respond or slow down.

“So, we can’t pretend Justice trying to kill me didn’t happen, but pretending me shoving you against the wall didn’t turn you on is fine?  That hardly seems fair, or any fun.”  She waited for a response but still didn’t get one, unless you counted him quickening his pace.  “If you need a woman to rough you up to get you in the mood, I’m more than happy to oblige, Anders.”

He stopped and looked at her, scowling with a muscle twitching along his jaw, in other words he was furious…again.  “Just because it’s the only way you’ve managed to get me aroused doesn’t mean I need it.”

She felt like he’d slapped her.  Her cheeks flamed red and couldn’t stop it.  It was her turn to turn away and rush ahead.  She headed for The Hanged Man, wanting nothing more than to disappear and be left alone.  Her eyes stung and she realized she was on the brink of crying.  She really was pathetic.

“Hawke, I’m sorry, that was uncalled for.”  His voice was soft, all traces of anger gone.

She forced herself to laugh and kept her voice light.  “No need to apologize.  I crossed the line.”

“You were just teasing.” He fell into step beside her again.

She kept moving, taking deep breaths to keep herself calm.  “Let’s just forget it.  Besides, we’re almost at the tavern.  We don’t want to still be arguing when we find Beth and Varric.  They might take it the wrong way.”

So they walked into Varric’s rooms with smiles on their faces.  Bethany jumped out of the chair she had been sitting in and ran across the room, almost tackling Sekhmet.  Varric was silent as he watched them for several long seconds.  Sekhmet glanced up and gave him a nod to let him know she was fine.

The dwarf seemed to finally relax and walked across the room and clapped Anders on the back.  “Feeling more like yourself now are we?”

Before he could answer Sekhmet chimed in, “Everything is fine, turns out Justice is just jealous of all the time I’ve been spending with Anders.  He wanted to make sure he had my undivided attention.  I had to promise him several sexual favors to be redeemed at the time and place of his choice, but he’s happy now.”

Varric laughed but Bethany gave her a look that spoke volumes.  And though Anders didn’t say anything he shut his eyes and sighed in obvious frustration.  She didn’t want things to be awkward between anyone so she realized she had to get things rolling, get things back to as normal as possible as quickly as possible.

“Now that you two have finished lazing about, how about we get to the Gallows and let them know what we found.  The sooner we’re done dealing with them the better.”  She left the room not giving anyone a chance to argue.

********

Anders walked up to Hawke as she stood at the front of the ferry.  He’d finally managed to tactfully get away from Varric who had been trying very hard to act like everything was normal.  The dwarf had a hard time keeping his gaze off the large bloodstain on the front of Anders’ coat.  Bethany had gradually relaxed and had even interjected a few times, but Varric was clearly not as alright with everything that happened as he tried to pretend.  It was almost a relief to have at least one person who wasn’t able to so easily pretend everything was fine, that nothing had changed.

“Have you thought about what you’ll say to Cullen?”  He didn’t want to fight with her, especially not after what he’d done to her, but it wasn’t like he could stop worrying about mages.

She gave him a small smile which was surprisingly genuine.  “Is this your subtle way of telling me my normal sparkling personality might not be the best approach?”

He thought about it for a second wondering how exactly to phrase it, at length he nodded, “I think an attempt at humor would just upset him and end up making things worse for the recruits as well as the mages.  I think straight forward without too much detail would be the better option.”

“Sadly, I can promise nothing.  As you have no doubt noticed, my mouth often runs without my consent.”  She looked at him guiltily.

“I suppose it’s a good thing you’re so damn cute then.”  It immediately got the response he had been hoping for.  She smiled at him small white even teeth, purple painted lips and all, a smile showing her pleasant surprise.  He was glad to have made her smile, but didn’t want to get into another disagreement about what could never be.  So, before she had a chance to respond he gestured to the dock, “We’re ready to dock, let’s go.”

She looked like she would say something but just nodded and headed off the ferry.  He followed her off the ferry and took a deep breath though his nose trying to steel himself for entering the Gallows.  At least he had that smile to hold onto, something he could picture to try to keep calm.  As they crossed through the gate and into the courtyard each step became increasingly difficult.  

There were Tranquil everywhere selling goods and cleaning the area.  Templars were stationed throughout, like the Gallows was a military installation.  Each mage he saw that was not Tranquil walked with quickened steps, eyes cast down at their feet giving the Templars a wide berth.

Thankfully, Justice was still quiet after his attack on Hawke.  He was lost in his own thoughts, trying to figure out why Hawke had kissed him while he was strangling the life out of her.  But, Anders didn’t need Justice to be angry at what he saw.  Was there ever a clearer example of oppressed mages?

“Ser Cullen, I’m afraid I have some good news as well as some bad news.”  Hawke nodded to Keran when the boy turned at the sound of her voice.

Cullen’s gaze flicked to Anders and his expression darkened before he turned back to Hawke.  “What did you find?”

She gestured to the young recruit, “Obviously, we found Keran and he is fine.  However, there is a chance other recruits might be possessed like Wilmod was.”

A young woman he figured was likely Keran’s sister looked at Keran her eyes going wide.  She took several steps backwards away from her brother, “Possessed…by demons?”

Keran turned to her, worry etched on his young face.  The poor kid had been through the Void and back and now his own sister was looking at him with fear.  “I’m sorry Masha, I didn’t want to tell you so you wouldn’t worry.”  He turned and looked at Hawke, “Thank the Maker for you messere, those mages see the rest of us as ants to be crushed.  I don’t think they’ll stop until the Templars and the Chantry are destroyed forever.”

Anders watched Hawke’s whole posture change.  She stood taller, her shoulders pushed back and it looked like her muscles tensed, like she was ready to pounce.  He even thought he heard her grinding her teeth for a brief second.  “Your precious Templars have caged, tortured and heaped abuses far worse on mages for a thousand years.  Is it any wonder they want to see the end of their tormentors?”

Cullen’s heavy footsteps resounded on the stone around them as he moved closer to Hawke, standing almost nose to nose with her, or rather chest to nose, as she was so much shorter than Cullen.  Did the man have a death wish?  As careful as Hawke and her companions were the Templars still knew Hawke was a very dangerous woman.  

“How can you possibly say that after what you’ve seen and heard today?  These mages,” The word a curse on his lips, “cannot be treated like people.   No matter what you think, they are not like you and me.”

Keran’s sister, Masha, looked at Cullen with shock on her face.  “Surely that’s a little harsh.”

Anders more than a little surprised to find an ally in the sister of a Templar.  

Bethany, stepping forward and clamping her hand onto Hawke’s shoulder, dragged his attention to the Hawke sisters again.  The younger Hawke’s voice was little more than a whisper.  “Sekhmet, please don’t argue with the Templar, not here of all places.”

But the fire in Hawke’s eyes didn’t die, if anything it blazed brighter.  

Cullen tried again to sway her, “Mages are not people.  They are weapons, created for destruction.  They have the power to raze a city to the ground in a fit of pique. Weapons that deadly must be kept in check.”

Anders watched Hawke clench her fists.  Would she lose her temper completely and behead the Knight Captain as she did so many other Templars.  He almost hoped she would.  He glanced around them quickly trying to determine the fastest and safest route out if they should need to run.  They were formidable together, but he doubted even the four of them could take on all the Templars in the tower.

“Take a look around you. Mages are humans and elves just like the rest of us.  They deserve the same courtesy and respect that,” she reached out and poked Cullen in the chest to emphasize her words, the metal of his armor made a faint noise as she did “you do.  They cure the sick and heal the injured; they create things that make our lives easier. The protect us against all sorts of disasters including the Blight.  And how do you repay them?  You lock them in cages until the next time you need them to save you.”  She spit on the ground at his feet.  

Cullen had watched her whole tirade with his mouth gaping open.  

“Still think she’s working with Templars, Justice?”  The spirit was silent but Anders was sure that he got the message all the same.  

Cullen suddenly regained himself.  His haughty air firmly back in place, his words and tone were beyond condescending. “Many people may go their whole lives thinking that, but if even one in ten mages falls to the lure of blood magic they could destroy this world.”  He turned towards Keran as if to speak but Hawke stopped him again.

“The Qunari could destroy the world, an Exalted March can destroy world and nearly has in the past. Even an army of ordinary men can destroy the world.  And, just how many mages do fall to the lure of blood magic?  One in one hundred, less?  How many of those who turn to blood magic do so after you have caged and tormented them?”  Her voice hadn’t gotten any louder but with each word her voice became sharper and sharper, the sound of it hurting Anders’ ears.

Even so he was astounded at her restraint.  Perhaps he shouldn’t have been.  Bethany’s hand was still clamped onto her shoulder, the girl’s knuckles white from how hard she was gripping Hawke.  

Cullen started to speak and stopped several times, Anders thought it was probably safest if the Knight Captain just kept his mouth shut.  Hawke was on the verge of snapping, in fact Anders was more than a little surprised that even sweet Bethany still had any sway with the elder Hawke.  If Hawke had been a mage she would have been sparking.  Eventually the man seemed to give up on trying to convince Hawke to his way of thinking and instead turned his attention to Keran once more.

He approached the young recruit, probably glad to be away from Hawke’s rage.  “Keran, I fear I must strip you of your commission immediately unless it is proven that you are free of demons.”  

His sister clutched Keran’s arm, her nails digging deep into the sleeve of his uniform, “No, please ser, you can’t really think that he’s possessed.  He’s fine; he’s safe look at him.”

Bethany, to Anders astonishment released Hawke and stepped forward moving close to the Knight Captain. “Keran deserves mercy, what happened to him wasn’t his fault.”

The young recruit looked like he was ready to cry, “Please ser, I tried to resist, I never took anything they offered.  I…I need this position or my sister can’t eat.  I’ve been training for five years.”

Cullen seemed to think it over for a minute before turning to look at Hawke.  Anders bit his tongue, it was funny, the Knight Captain had been arguing with her only moments before and now he was looking to her for advice? What was the man playing at?

She used a civil tone, but by her rigid posture she was still furious with the Knight Captain. “Keran isn’t possessed.  We conducted tests on him to be sure, so it’s safe for him to stay in the order.  And Bethany is right; he deserves a little mercy and compassion.”

Cullen gave her a sour look, was he seriously disappointed that she disagreed with him?  He wasn’t really surprised was he?  “I hesitate to ask what methods you could have possibly used that you are so certain.  However, you have done much for the Templars by stopping the activities of these blood mages.  So, I shall heed your request.  If Keran has shown no signs of demonic possession in ten years time, he will become eligible for full knighthood.”

Hawke snapped at him, “Ten years?  That’s not necessary and you know it.  There is no sound reasoning behind an arbitrary number that far in the future. He’s not possessed.  Why are you punishing him?  Is it because he was kidnapped and subjected to torture and therefore might feel some compassion for others in the same circumstance?  Or perhaps it’s because he had the audacity to seek the company of a woman?”  Hawke shook her head, gritting her teeth in obvious frustration.

“Serrah Hawke, the fact that I am allowing Keran to stay at all is by-passing some major rules of the order.  If there is even the slightest chance that he could be possessed he should be discharged immediately.  In this situation I need to be prudent.  Besides, this is not really any of your concern.”  Cullen, of course, made a big show of his explanation, as if it were a child he were speaking to rather than a group of adults.

Anders watched Hawke to see if she would push the issue but she didn’t.  She just gave a heavy sigh and started to move away.  As angry and frustrated as she was, he wasn’t sure if talking with her now was such a good idea.  Though, it might make it easier to tell her they couldn’t work together anymore. He pushed the thought away for now, it just hurt too much and he would have time to dwell, time to ache later, after he’d told her.

Masha hurried after her. “Serrah, I just wanted to thank you for saving my brother, but without a full knighthood Keran gets paid so little, I cannot reward you as you deserve.”

Cullen pushed her gently aside, arrogant and authoritative, “I will handle that miss.”  He loosened a pouch on his belt and pulled out several coins. He quickly dropped them into Hawke’s hand, “You have done the order a great service, we will not forget it.”

Hawke tucked the coins into her own coin purse without responding.  She turned on her heel and headed out of the Gallows.  Bethany and Varric were both quick to follow but Anders held back for a moment.  He and Cullen stood watching each other for another minute before Cullen spoke.

“You know we’ll find you sooner or later, Anders.”  Cullen’s eyes glared fire at him.

He gave the Templar a smile, “Not if I find you first.”

Cullen shook his head, “Your magic is useless against me, I would not risk it if I were you.”

There was no need to let the Templar know that he didn’t necessarily need magic to beat him. “I’ll be seeing you Knight Captain.” He turned away with a smirk heading back to where the ferry awaited.  He climbed back on and Hawke waived him over.

“Did you have fun playing with the Knight Captain?”  Hawke’s voice was as sweet as the smile she tilted up to him.  She always had a smile for him, even after he had nearly killed her.

Which was yet another reason to stay far from her, but for now, “One does not play with Cullen.  Did I enjoy making him wonder a little?  Yes, immensely.”  He gave her a smile, small but genuine.