#STELLAN IS SO TINY

[i-will-always-love-the-jedi]

Elzar Mann shortest firebrand confirmed

(I passed the first half of the final two years of school, so this is my celebration I guess)

whole panel:

Anyways we stan tall lady Avar Kriss, who btw is way too tired to put up with her best friends bullshit

...

[andy-the-8th]

Given everyone's now grown taller since the story started, about how tall are Sam, Jess, and Cody?

This is a fun ask!

Putting things under a cut just because spoilers (kind of)

(The spoiler in question being that despite the bleak end of Season 4, things do turn out OK)

So as of where we're at in the story (going into senior year of high school):

Jess is 5' 2.5" (but rounds it up to 5'3" if you ask him)

Cody and Sam are both around 5'9" (Cody maybe closer to 5' 9.5" in human form)

With his tail, Cody is well over 6' long, probably closer to 7' from the top of his head to the tips of his fluke

Tbh a lot of this was based on the fact that Whit (David Coulier) is 5'11" and then basing everyone off of that. Cody's much shorter than him in the movie

Like look at him, he's so little, easily only about 5'5" or so, and Sam's around the same height, whereas Jess is exceptionally short by comparison in the movie. I imagined their height proportions would generally stay similar as they grew up.

Not that you asked, but Sean's a little taller, he's around 6'1" by now. He and Cody are around the same height in the movie. Sean and Sam will be 18 in October and September of senior year respectively, so have pretty much hit their adult heights

(not that anyone asked, again, but Sam's birthday is September 17, Sean's is October 12, both 1985 - Sam is getting a birthday episode this season!)

Jess and Cody are only 16 where we're at, but both are pretty close to adult-height as well (they've had birthday episodes - in Cody's case, the whole movie was essentially a birthday episode lol - but for a reminder, Jess is March 2, Cody is May 15, both 1986)

The two slightly-weird height cases (I am turning this into an essay about character heights lol) are actually John Wheatley and Mats Neslund. Brent Briscoe was only 5'9" but I've chosen to write John more like 6'2" or 6'3" if we're using Whit/Dave Coulier as our cast yardstick. Neslund, of course, isn't *actually* Stellan Skarsgard since that was just an actor reference, but if he was, Skarsgard is quite tall at 6'3." Neslund I imagined being somewhat shorter than John, probably more like 6' even.

A word on actor reference photos, I like them to help give characters a general face/appearance to imagine, but they're often still just more of an overview in most cases. The main exceptions to that - as in, I do think that the actor selected would be ideal to play the character as written - would be Stellan Skarsgard for Neslund, Gillian Anderson for Lindsey, Brenda Song for Meredith, and Corbin Bleu for Alex/Sandstorm

I'll also share this screenshot because it really shows how tiny movie-Jess was and also because it's one of my absolute favorite shots in the film :D

[spookyvalentine]

made a lil height comparison for my sheps 😈

[billxharry]

Why is the cast trying to kill me via instagram lately. 

[curiouscompanions]

👀 + "Do you actually understand the severity of your behavior? Am I going to get a genuine apology or not?" (Marlise)

‘’I understand that my behavior was severe to you, I understand that you weren’t just ‘offended’ but were damaged by my words because you are deeply traumatized and miserable. I refused to admit it, I refused to see that my words could have such a power for some people. I just wanted to push you away. It…. it was easier for me to hurt people before they hurt me, it was much simpler for me to make them hate me— I believed in this, I kept behaving this way for many many years as I switched timelines over and over again. Even after I met Stellan, even after I started to care- at times I still couldn’t help myself but behaved this way. I would rather keep pretending I don’t give a single fuck, keep trolling people like nothing happened at all and never be serious about anything I babble about. It’s hard to snap out of it fully, it’s really fucking hard. I need years, can’t you all get it.I know your case is my own fault, no one else’s. I can’t cancel the damage. I am sorry. I am not going to ask for your forgiveness. I am not going to ask you about anything. Like I told before, I understand everything perfectly well nowadays. I promise I’ll keep trying to be better and work on my insecurities no matter what and I hope you will keep doing it too- you have been great on it so far, I am sorry I closed my eyes on it before.That’s as much as I can do. I can’t exactly turn back into- into a nice polite Cornelius I used to be once upon a time.If you want me— ….if you will instist on me changing drastically in a short time, maybe… maybe you should just ask me to wipe my whole existence out of your mind and then never interact with you again.’’

[lihikainanea]

That image of Bill in the tiny swim trunks on the pool float with the straw hat and booze…vacation Bill vibes! What does Tiger think?

I mean, we all know how much I love this concept of Bill, with his RayBans on, his long legs splayed off the edge of a giant inflatable swan as it floats out to sea.

But also, forgive me for a moment here sweet nani but my mind drifted (no pun intended) to something else--I promise I'll keep it vacation Bill related.

We talk often about how tiger can definitely struggle with how she looks. She can sometimes get real down on herself, she's very self conscious about her stretch marks or just in general her...lack of celebrity looks. Especially when she compares herself to Bill, and the women in his world. Tiger can really dig herself into a hole of self-loathing.

But what if--ohhh god this is delicious--what if Bill is the one struggling a bit with how he looks, these days?

Hear me out.

Bill is definitely not a chonky boy, but his weight does seem to fluctuate a lot--he goes from rather gaunt-like thin, to having a bit more of a dad bod. That photo from Clark on the boat in the rain is just glorious--you see his soft handles at his hips, a bit of a pooch in front. He's got a bit of a soft, paunchy belly that's a little more to hold onto than usual.

And what if he's noticing, and he's feeling a little self-conscious about it all? Maybe some of the tabloids are commenting, and the brothers are being thrust into the spotlight together a bit more than usual because Alex has that big Northman movie coming out, and Bill has his big Netflix series. Stellan is even riding the wave after Dune. The entertainment industry suddenly has Skarsgard fever and everywhere they look, seemingly every magazine cover is talking about the Swedish dynasty and plastering photos all over.

And the problem is, Alex gained 20lbs of muscle for his role in the Northman. And while Alex is one of the more muscular of the brothers anyway, that's certainly not the way he normally looks. But every single magazine cover is plastering them side by side-- Alex, screaming and covered in dirt, every muscle rippling in a still of the Northman--and Bill, a candid, walking around New York City, a little paunchy belly showing in his tight shirt, sipping an iced coffee with extra whipped cream.

And it's making him a little self-conscious.

He knows what his brother went through to get like that. They had frequent late night calls where Bill would hand the phone to tiger and Alex would make her detail every single thing she ate that day, in the greatest of detail--and Alex would be drooling on the other end. He'd send screenshots in the family chat of him working out basically every second of the day, hating his life. Alex didn't put a single thing in his mouth that wasn't chicken, broccoli or brown rice for 6 months. His cheat meal once a month was salmon, instead of chicken.

Bill knows his brother doesn't naturally look like the chiseled god he transformed into for the movie, but everyone else is sure acting like he does.

And then there's Bill, who's naturally skinny but who has maybe gotten a bit of a dad bod in recent months after some well deserved time off. He was never one for the gym anyway, but now that he's in his thirties his metabolism is slowing down a bit and he's not quite the lithe, stick figure he always was.

And listen, tiger loves it. She loves the soft handful she can now grab at his hip. She loves that he has the tiniest, every so small protrusion of a belly that sticks out from tight shirts or over the top of his belt.

But he's self-conscious of it. And every time tiger tries to grab a little handful or rub it--or in general really anytime she passes her hand over his midsection--he flinches, gets uncomfortable, moves away. Tiger notices that on vacation he's wearing his shirt a lot more which is weird because Bill would basically walk around naked all the time if he could. But on the beach he keeps it on, shrugs when she pulls at it and just says he doesn't want to get a sunburn. He wears a t-shirt to bed which is like, devastating because his warm chest and the smell of soap when she nuzzles his skin there is her favourite thing in the world.

And Bill is pretty sensitive about it all, and tiger isn't used to seeing him be anything but confident and self-assured so it takes a bit of time before she's actually able to get it out of him. But she draws the line one morning at an ungodly hour on vacation, when Bill has the audacity to leave the bed and try and go out for a run. Tiger sits up, makes an incredulous noise, and then wrangles him back into bed like she's an octopus and he's a drowning alligator.

"God what the fuck," he shrieks, "How many fucking arms do you have?!"

He shrieks when he feels teeth dig into his peachy backside.

"Stop you beast," he swats at her. But she wins, pins him down, then just lies on his chest and pulls the blankets back over her.

"We're going to talk about this," she mumbles, "But at a more pleasant hour."

"Talk about what," he grumbles.

"About why you do this," tiger reaches a hand down to palm at his tummy and he flinches, grabs her wrist quickly and moves it. He sighs heavily.

"Go to sleep," he says gruffly. She does. And then she picks her moments.

Maybe it’s muuuuch later on, quite late that night actually, as the both of them are in their private pool on the balcony. Tiger was the one to throw off her swimsuit first, and after much more convincing than is usually necessary--she finally got Bill to ditch his shirt and swim trunks. She wraps her legs around his waist as he floats on his back, paddling slowly.

“What’s up with you?” she asks gently.

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean,” she says with a soft kiss, “You’re not yourself.”

“What’s myself?” he bristles, “An eight-pack yielding, chiseled demi god that looks like he can bench press an elephant? Because wrong brother, kid.”

“Okay wow,” she says, and she can’t even hide the surprise, “Yeah, see, that right there. What is that?”

“Nothing,” he dismisses.

“Billy come on,” she coaxes with a kiss to his nose, “Talk to me.”

He sighs heavily, and pushes her off of him.

“Everybody is acting like he looks like that naturally,” he huffs, “And meanwhile, they’re all publishing photos of me sucking down an 8000-calorie coffee with a big buddha belly.”

He slaps his gut at the last word.

“Bill, nobody looks like that naturally. Especially not Alex. I’ve seen Alex chug an entire 12-pack of beer in the time it takes me to drink one,” she says.

“I know that,” he snaps, “You know that. But the contrast is still rather fucking apparent.”

He goes silent and she lets it hang there for a second, and sure enough after a brief pause, he sighs.

“I’m not in my twenties anymore,” he says, “I’m not as thin as I was. And I feel like it’s showing everywhere. I never used to have this,” another grab at his belly, “Or...or these. What the hell are these?”

He grabs at his hips, and the ever so tiny soft palmfuls he can feel there.

“Okay first of all,” tiger says as she wades back over to him, “Bill, you were on drugs in your 20s. Lots of them. Nobody is as thin as they were in their 20s and nobody is supposed to be.”

“Second of all, quite frankly--I find it hot as hell. It’s straight up fire bud, it gets me going,” she tells him, “You got something to hold onto. And I happen to love holding onto it.”

“Tiger,” he whines.

“No fuck you,” she cuts him off, “I mean it. You were a rake, pal. You looked like Slenderman. Now you have...you have girth. You’re wide as a fucking doorframe. You filled out and it’s glorious.”

He huffs, embarrassed. She doesn’t let up.

“I would have been terrified to climb on top of you in your early 20s for fear I’d snap you like a fucking twig. And now I ride you like a fucking stallion and you slap my ass and ask me if that’s all I’ve got.”

He fidgets awkwardly, his eyes flitting to hers, but tiger can see the small hint of a smile tilt his lips up.

“I don’t have a dad bod?” he asks lowly.

“Of course you do, and it’s fucking hot as sin,” she says, “Now you’re a whole ass daddy. I love it bud, I really, really fucking do.”

“I don’t feel like you do,” he says cheekily, and he wades away from her. “I don’t know, doesn’t seem very heartfelt.”

Tiger knows what he wants. And if he wants her to make him feel good, oh hell, she’s all in. She swims to the edge of the pool.

“Give me 10 minutes and then come in,” she says, “If your dumb skinny ass doesn’t believe me, then I’ll show you.”

She steps out of the pool and Bill grins.

“Watch your fuckin’ mouth kid,” he warns dangerously. Tiger just turns, her whole body illuminated in the moonlight.

“Fucking make me,” she challenges.

[neverendingparable]

Neil: *looks down at his shoes* Neil: I knew it all this time. Stellan: ........ Stellan: .....I know Neil: ................................ Neil: *blinks* Stellan: I just thought I'd officially say it Stellan: ....sometime Stellan: *didnt plan for it to be today* Neil: .... Stellan: ..... Stellan: Neil Stellan: I know you like to call me a Dummy all the time but Stellan: I'm not dense Neil: *shivers a bit* Stellan: These last few months, I mean- Stellan: ....... Neil: .... Stellan: ....are you cold? Stellan: *grabs the blanket he left here a while back* Neil: *in a flat tone* ...No. Don't pay attention, it's just the body's subconscious reaction. Stellan: ......... Stellan: Reaction to what?

Neil: *feels like numbness takes another step back* Neil: *the effects of alcohol and the potion fade away completely* Stellan: ...... Neil: *his mind is filled with the sea of thoughts and ghostly feelings* Neil: ..... Neil: ......... Neil: I... Neil: *wraps his arms around himself* Neil: *looks up at him* Neil: *seems 100% calm and indifferent, but keeps shivering* Stellan: *has the urge to wrap him into a hug* Neil: *feelings become less ghostly* Stellan: ..... Neil: *one of them gives him a soft kick* Neil: *it's shame* Neil: *ignores it though* Neil: ......... Neil: A-alright. Fine. Neil: I'll tell it. Neil: .... Stellan: *theres no way he'll say what i think he'll say* Neil: I am afraid. Stellan: ................... Stellan: *drapes the blanket over Neil's shoulders carefully* Neil: *whisper* I am scared. Because every time when I open myself to someone. Every fucking time when I let myself to love and be loved... Neil: ...I always know- no, I am sure I will lose them. Stellan: ..... Neil: *buries his face into his hands* Stellan: ....... Stellan: *leans in* Stellan: *takes him into his arms, gently* Neil: ......... Stellan: *cradles him as if he were made out of glass*  Stellan: .... Stellan: ....I know you're scared and unsure Stellan: I'm not asking you to take any big steps tonight, or to rush into whatever this is going to be Stellan: ...... Neil: ..... Stellan: I-.... Stellan: .... Stellan: *takes a breath* You know, so far, I've always managed to find a way back to you Stellan: Whether that was- *chuckles awkwardly* Making a reckless deal with the MiW or crawling through a keyhole....or um Stellan: Trying to follow you in a stolen spaceship Stellan: *clears his throat* Stellan: Anyway- Stellan: As far as I'm concerned, I'm not going to leave you Stellan: Out of everyone I've ever had a romantic thing with, you're the first and only person worth holding onto  Neil: *murmurs, hiding his face and clinging to him* ....Even though I am a huge asshole? Stellan: ..... Stellan: *smiles* Stellan: Yeah Stellan: You might also be the biggest asshole I've ever liked, but I dont...love you any less for it Stellan: ...... Stellan: *hugs him tighter* Neil: *chuckles quietly*

Neil: You really are a Dummy. But Neil: You are so good. Neil: *And I am nothing like you* Stellan: ..... Stellan: *kisses his forehead* Neil: .... Neil: *mutters* I promise, I'll get over my fear. I-if you won't let someone to kill you, don't leave just yet or whatever. Stellan: ..... Stellan: I'll stick around Stellan: I promise Neil: Thank you. Neil: *gains back his composure and stops shivering, finally* Neil: ...Now that's quite fair. Because I stuck around as well. Stellan: ...... Stellan: *releases him* Stellan: *keeps an arm wrapped around his waist* Stellan: ...well, yeah Stellan: ....... Stellan: ..... Stellan: *smiles a bit* Stellan: Hey Stellan: Does that mean now you no longer quote 'to your great frustration and annoyance, maybe care only a little' about me? Stellan: As you so elegantly put a few weeks ago Neil: ...................... Neil: *NOMYSTYLEE* Neil: *blushes a tiny bit* Neil: *le perfect poker face* Stellan: ....... Stellan: *smile widens* Neil: *reluctantly* ...No, I am no longer quote this. I suppose. Neil: Ahem. So. I think. Stellan: ....... Neil: I think now it's more like. More like 'I care about you.' And, probably, 'a lot'. Neil: *le perfect poker face [2]* Stellan: ......... Neil: *is embarrassed slightly* Stellan: *puts on a rather terrible pokerface in return* Stellan: *hes more amused, really* Stellan: Of course Stellan: Probably Neil: .... Neil: .................. Neil: *in a loud whisper* ...I CARE FOR YOU A LOT. BECAUSE YOU ARE SUCH A SWEET GOOD DUMMY. Neil: >x\ Neil: ..... Neil: >x\\T Stellan: ........ Stellan: Hmm Stellan: I think you said something right there but I couldnt hear it because you were whispering Stellan: ....... Stellan: I'm joking Stellan: *kisses his cheek* I care for you as well Stellan: And I am quite sure about this fact x3 Neil: *has been overtrolled* Neil: ........................... Neil: *grabs him by the shoulders* Neil: *and kisses him gently* Stellan: ...... Stellan: *wraps his arms around him and kisses him back* Neil: *<3* Stellan: *<3*

[aph-honk-kong]

Sylfiden - Akt I

Alastair should be grateful that his future is secure - he has a large house, bountiful crops and will soon be married to the prettiest girl in the village. But on the morning of his wedding day, a sylph appears in his living room and dismantles every aspect of his perfectly-planned life.

[Written for day three of @aphrarepairweek2021​ with the prompt “culture” - granted, this is kind of inaccurate since the source this was based on was produced by a Dane in 1836, but I guess it still kind of shows Scottish culture]

This fic was based on the Romantic ballet Sylfiden, choreographed by August Bournonville of the Royal Danish Ballet. 

Here’s what Alastair should look like:

(This is Jon Axel Fransson, photographed by Per Morten Abrahamsen)

And here is the sylph, though you can always imagine them wearing something else:

(This is Ida Praetorius, also photographed by Per Morten Abrahamsen)

...

  Alastair awoke to whiteness.

  At first he thought it was another of Dillon’s pranks, and there was cotton over his face again, but he looked longer and found the tint before his eyes resembling fabric a little more. Had he somehow fallen asleep over Marianne’s wedding dress? No, that couldn’t be, for was it not bad luck to see the bride’s gown before the ceremony? Then Alastair looked up and saw a face.

  He was as regal as he was pale, snowy cheeks dusted with the faintest pink that mirrored the shade of his lips. He was not smiling, at least not with his mouth, but his eyes — blue eyes, Alastair noticed — held laughter. And he was so close that his white-gold hair was tickling his cheek.

  He jolted to his feet. The man moved backwards, too, and stopped by the living room window with his arms poised delicately. “Good morning.”

  “I — ” Alastair looked him up and down again. The white he saw turned out to not be from a gown, but a thin white blouse that floated whenever he moved. “What are you doing here?”

  “To visit you,” he replied. Then he turned around, and he saw on his back a pair of small, translucent wings. A sylph, he realised. A wind spirit was in his house. “I hear you are getting married today, and I wanted to wish you luck.” 

  “Oh.” The sylph moved away when he tried to get close; well, “moved” was hardly the right word for it. He glided across the floor, it seemed, wings fluttering softly each time he evaded Alastair’s grasp. “Thank you, er…?”

  “Stellan.” The sylph leapt away once more. “That is my name.”

  And a peculiar one too, Alastair was tempted to say. But he kept his mouth shut and merely watched, entranced, as Stellan drifted past the chair he had fallen asleep on. He did not seem entirely real. 

  “I wanted to look at you, I suppose,” he sing-songed, “before you got married. Some say that the hours before a wedding are a man’s last moments of freedom. Do you agree?”

  For some reason, the question made his ears prickle with heat. Was he implying that he did not want to get married? Indignantly, Alastair opened his mouth to reply when Stellan elegantly hopped away from the chair. “I must go now. I will see you again soon.”

  He stepped backwards into the fireplace, and the flames rose higher. When they faded, Stellan was gone.

  Not a minute after Stellan disappeared, Dillon stamped into the room with a grin. “My, you’re already awake!” He exclaimed. “After all the planning last night I expected you to be out ‘til noon.” He lowered his voice. “Best look presentable, now. Marianne will be here to get ready soon.”

  “Wait, really?” His hands flew to his head and began trying to flatten his hair, which was probably a rat’s nest after just waking up. “Goodness, I’m still in my clothes from yesterday.” Something white flashed in his vision, and he started. Had Stellan returned?

  “You alright there?”

  “Just thought I saw something,” Alastair said tiredly. “Did you see a sylph last night? I swore one came to visit me when I first awoke.”

  Dillon stared at him as though he had grown another head. “Have you been drinking already?”

  “No?”

  “Of course I haven’t seen a sylph!” With a bark of laughter, he clapped Alastair on the back. “And neither should you. It’s probably just cold feet. Have some breakfast and warm yourself up, and you ought to be alright.”

  He glanced at the window once more. Nothing. “Yes,” he settled, “I was probably just a bit delirious.”

  His cottage door opened again and in flowed distant giggles. Breaking away from her mother, Marianne swept into the living room and into his arms. “Good morning, dear.”

  “Good morning.” Alastair kissed her forehead. She smelled like heather. “How did you sleep?”

  “Very well.” Marianne rested her head against his chest, smiling contentedly. “Dreamt of you all night long.”

  He leant down, ready to kiss her, when a shadow moved near the fireplace. He broke away and ran towards it, ignoring his bride-to-be’s indignant huff, and bent down. Had Stellan returned to offer more blessings? Would he wish him luck again with his soft, sweet voice? Alastair searched the figure, ready to look into blue eyes —

  They were green.

  “What the Hell are you doing here?”

  Dressed slightly less odiously, scowling as usual, Arthur glared back at him. “Ah, it’s the inattentive groom. Are you leaving lovely Marianne for me?”

  Dillon snorted behind him.

  “I am not, and I find it insulting that you would even think I would,” he replied furiously. “And you are not attending my wedding. I don’t need somebody to perform magic tricks.”

  Arthur scowled even deeper in response. He was constantly trying to convince the village that he was, in fact, a witch with the ability to do magic, but everyone had come to the conclusion that he was probably a raving fool who had been exiled from England for some reason, hence his name. “I wouldn’t disrespect my craft, if I were you.”

  “It isn’t disrespectful if it’s true.” Alastair rolled his eyes. “As if you can really cast spells. Will you leave, please?”

  Now he looked positively murderous. “Don’t you dare talk to — ”

  Marianne reached the fireplace before Arthur could finish his sentence. “Why don’t you predict our fortunes?” She asked with a pacifying smile. “If your predictions are good enough, we’ll let you stay.“

  Arthur stared at her for a moment, then rolled his eyes. “All right. Gather your ladies.”

  The first of Marianne’s friends came forward, and the witch took her hand roughly. After peering at her palm for a moment, he proclaimed, “you will find love soon.”

  “You will lose something dear to you,” he informed another. 

  The third fortune he whispered in the girl’s ear, and when she turned away she had tears in her eyes. Arthur watched her leave with a smug smile forming.

  “Hey!” A little boy Alastair recognised as Dillon’s nephew ran forward. “Look at mine next!”

  He had barely touched the boy’s hand when Dillon reached them, scooping him cleanly off his feet and carrying him away. “Don’t you talk to him, Peter! You will take part in none of this nonsense!”

  Marianne went to Arthur next. He took one look at her palm, and his smile grew. “There is love in your future.”

  She stretched her other hand to hold Alastair’s, and he leant down to kiss her once more. “I already know that.”

  “But!” And now he looked positively gleeful. “That love will have nought to do with your dear fiancé. He will leave you for someone else!”

  He frowned. “That isn’t true, and you know it.”

  “Say, look at my palm.” Dillon strode forward, having deposited Peter as far away from Arthur as possible. He winked at Alastair. “Maybe I’ll turn into a frog tomorrow.”

  Arthur took one look at his hand and gave a short laugh. “You will find love very soon, too,” he cackled. “In fact, you will marry lovely Marianne!”

  Irritation flickered deep within him, only growing as Dillon stared at Marianne in shock, pink creeping across his cheeks. “I will what?”

  “You will not fall for Marianne, that’s what you’ll do.” Alastair pulled her into his arms, glowering first at Arthur then at Dillon. “I’m the one getting married to her.”

  “Or so it is now,” Arthur mused. “Who knows what will happen at the end of today?”

  The tiny sparks of annoyance turned into mild anger and he left Marianne’s side, leaning down to grab Arthur by the arm. “You are going to get out,” he retorted, voice growing in volume, “and you are going to stay out. First for slandering me by implying that I am — that I am attracted to men, and more so for accusing my best friend of stealing my bride!” He ignored his yelp of pain, dragged him out of the living room, opened the door and quite literally threw him out of the house. 

  He slammed the door before he could get back in, and stamped back into the living room. “Well then.” He announced, trying to sound cheerful, “shall we continue preparing?”

…

  Once Marianne had left to get dressed and her bridesmaids had finished preparing, Alastair was once again left alone. He stared at his wedding suit, which he had yet to change into, and sighed. Today was supposed to be the happiest day of his life, the day he had been poised for since childhood, and that wretched witch had to try and ruin it.

  The whole village had known that he and Marianne would be wed for practically a decade. She was one of his closest, dearest friends, and he couldn’t imagine himself getting married to anyone else. Alastair ran his thumb over his engagement ring. This was his duty, and he would stick to it, no matter what Arthur’s idiotic palm-reading had predicted.

  The window creaked open.

  Feather-light, Stellan hopped from his perch on the windowsill onto the floor. He was smiling now, if one could call that tiny curve of his lips a smile. “Nervous?”

  “A little bit.”

  “I hope you considered my question.”

  He sighed; why were these strange magical fellows so determined to aggravate him on his wedding day? “I find it rather insulting that you think I’m being forcibly chained to Marianne.”

  Soft eyelashes fluttered. Stellan leapt again; he seemed incapable of staying in one place for long. “That was not what I meant. I simply want you to consider this question: are you getting married because you truly love the lady, or because you feel obligated to?”

  “Are you accusing me of not loving her?”

  His eyes flashed; his wings fluttered. Something about him, ethereal and soft, made Alastair feel warm. “No, not at all. I can see that Marianne is very dear to you, as a friend. But is she really somebody you wish to be wed to?”

  “Y-Yes,” he said instinctively.

  Stellan raised an eyebrow. “Can you imagine yourself kissing her in the years to come? Waking up every morning next to her? Raising children with her? With her?”

  With her?

  And suddenly Alastair was six years old again, playing family with Dillon. “I’m going to marry you when we grow up,” he’d declared. “I’ll put a ring on your finger and we’ll have lots of children!”

  He had not understood why his mother had run to shush him, informing him with a tight smile that he ought to marry a lady instead.

  Then he was fourteen, learning to dance for a festival. His friend had laughed, watching him blunder, and grabbed his hands to place them in the right positions. His skin had tingled, and his heart raced in a way that had nothing to do with his performance.

  And then he was nineteen, running to the market to sell the week’s produce when he bowled into somebody — a newcomer to the village, supposedly an Englishman. He’d looked into grass-green eyes and pouting lips and pushed him away with a shout, but his gaze burned into him forevermore.

  “No!” Alastair said aloud, a strange heat pricking at his eyes. “That is not the man I am anymore. This marriage is proof of that.”

  Stellan was quiet for a while, and he saw a tear roll down his cheek.

  His heart sank. “Why are you crying?”

  He breathed out shakily; a delicate white hand moved to wipe the tear away. “I am reminded, once again, how little freedom humans have,” he whispered. “How can you live knowing that you cannot truly be yourself?”

  “I am myself,” Alastair insisted. “I know who I want to be, and it is not —” He could not even say that word — “Not whatever you think I am.”

  Those lovely blue eyes glimmered, as though there were more tears to shed. Stellan blinked hard, approaching a chair and scooping up a scarf that was resting upon it. “Will you be truly happy hiding who you are for the rest of your life?” He unfolded the scarf and draped it over himself, blue tartan over ghostly pale tulle. Alastair realised that it was Marianne’s scarf, which made it a strange sight indeed — here was a beautiful, knowing man who had fluttered his way into his life just this morning dressed in his betrothed’s clothing.

  “Today’s marriage is my duty.” He could not tear his eyes away from Stellan, who was pacing around the room, snuggling into the scarf. “I have known this would happen for many years now.”

  Those beguiling eyes caught him then; triumph shimmered in them. “So it is something you must do, but not something you want to do.”

  “Why do you care?” Alastair questioned brusquely. “It is not as though you are jealous of Marianne, and would marry her instead.”

  Stellan glided towards him once more. His cheeks were slightly more flushed now, making him look more like an actual human being rather than a fleeting spirit. “Because, as the winds blow past the fields you work in, I have watched you. Day in, day out, you live as dictated.” Stellan’s blush deepened more so, and he pursed his lips. “And I came to grow fond of you.” He gently twisted the scarf. “Very fond.

  “How could I bear to see somebody I am fond of so caged in?”

  Suddenly, Alastair’s ears felt rather warm. So that was why Stellan was so against all of this. “So you have that sort of feeling for me. What makes you so sure that I am like you?”

  Stellan neared Alastair, though he dodged playfully when he reached out to try and touch him. “Because,” he said, voice much lighter now, “I saw your face when you first laid eyes on me. I doubt you have ever looked at Marianne that way. At the very least, I have never seen you do so.”

  His breath caught. “Did I really look… lovestruck, or something-or-other?”

  “Yes, you did.”

  Now the heat had spread from his ears to his entire face, and Alastair prayed that his cheeks were not as red as his hair. “I don’t think I meant it.” Then Stellan neared, and he leant forward to try and catch him once more, suddenly wondering what his touch felt like. 

  The door creaked open, and from the doorway came, “Alastair?”

  The shock cut through the rest of his battling thoughts, and he ran towards Stellan. “You have to go.”

  He tugged the scarf off himself, glancing at the door. “What is happening?”

  “They cannot see you!” Alastair nudged him to the window. “Go now, please, I will meet you again soon.”

  Dillon burst into the room, seeing Stellan in all his beauty by the window, and froze. 

  Before he could stop him, he rushed out of the room, and Alastair whirled to Stellan. “Please. I don’t know what they will do to you, I don’t want you to get hurt — ”

  “There!”

  He spun to see Dillon back in the room, alongside Marianne and her mother. “I saw him there, with a man in white.”

  “Don’t be silly now.” Marianne sailed to the window. “All I see is my scarf. I think you’re just taking Arthur’s fortunes a bit too seriously.”

  Alastair’s shoulders sagged in relief, realising that Stellan had flown away just in time. “I do hope you do not actually believe that lunatic’s words.”

  Marianne’s mother laughed. “I think he’s just jealous that his best friend got the loveliest girl in the village.”

  “Mother!” She laughed, high and sweet, though it did not warm Alastair’s heart the way he thought it would. “Dillon will find a wife of his own soon, I just know it. There is no need to fight over me.”

  “I wasn’t planning to,” Dillon said gruffly.

  Marianne wrapped her scarf around her neck and gave him a chaste kiss on the cheek. “Come on, now. Let Alastair get changed. Go outside and wait for everyone else to show up.”

  Bride-to-be and mother-in-law watched him like a hawk as he changed into his wedding suit, then led him outside where the many wedding guests were assembled. Standing aside was a cluster of bards, bagpipes at the ready. Dillon came up to him, all shock and envy from before gone, and grabbed his shoulder. “It’s your last hour as an unmarried man. We ought to celebrate!”

  The bards began their playing, Marianne pulled him into the crowd and he began to dance.

  It was freeing, for a while, to lose himself in the wild blur of limbs and laughter and simply move without thinking. Alastair had danced this way before, and it would never stop being exciting to him. He laughed, hooking an arm around Marianne’s waist and spinning her ‘round. Little Peter danced in front of him and nearly tripped over his uncle’s shoes.

  They danced, carefree and jolly, and Alastair nearly felt ready for the wedding. But then he saw white again.

  Once more he released her, searching the crowd of people for the one man he knew would stand out. He saw nothing. She took hold of him again, and they continued dancing.

  The next time he slipped away, it was a pair of gossamer wings he saw. Stellan glanced back at him, cheeks pink once more as he sailed elegantly past the partygoers. Unthinking, Alastair reached a hand out, a part of him perhaps hoping to touch his soft hair, but Marianne grabbed his wrist and he was tugged back.

  Throughout the song they played their silent, musical game of cat-and-mouse. Stellan wove in between the dancers, somehow evading notice, while Alastair tried to catch glimpses of him without arousing any more suspicion. Occasionally, when he got bored of spinning and gliding, Stellan flapped his wings a few times to make his jumps higher. His slender arms stretched out in front of him, flowing like a scarf in the wind. In his white clothes, dancing something entirely different, Alastair had never seen someone so graceful.

  When the dancing ended, and Stellan had vanished once more, he was given the ring that would adorn Marianne’s fingers during the ceremony and left alone once more. Alastair ran his fingers over the bronze band, watching it glint in the faint sunlight. Less than an hour later, he would slip this ring on her fourth finger, and she would do the same to him, and that would be it. They would be bound to each other for as long as they lived, and what was left of his nameless, forbidden love would be stamped out for good. But that was what he wanted, wasn’t it? For his desire to finally be suppressed? In that case, the rings would be less like rings and more like shackles.

  Dillon and Marianne’s mother were keeping an eye on him from his spot by the hedges, though they didn’t know he could see them. With his parents no longer with him and her father gone too, her mother was the one who had held fast to the arranged marriage. She wanted security for her daughter, and how better to achieve that than marrying a young, well-off farmer? Alastair clenched his fist around the ring, Stellan’s words were really getting to him.

  A white-clothed figure was lingering behind a tree, peering out at him.

  Speak of the devil.

  Stellan poked his head out, looking so sweet and curious that Alastair nearly laughed. He had woven himself a circlet of white heather, as though fancying himself the one to marry him. He nodded at his hand and tilted his head.

  Oh. Alastair pinched the ring between his thumb and index finger and lifted it up. The sylph raised an eyebrow and pointed at his ring finger in question.

  He nodded.

  Quicker than he had ever seen him before, Stellan leapt out from behind his tree towards him, wings spurring him forward so he was nearly a blur. He grabbed the ring, admired it for a moment, then swiftly fled before he could catch him. “Hey!”

  He slipped the ring on his own finger, glanced back at him and smiled teasingly. Hopping lithely onto his garden fence, he perched on top of it for a moment, winked, then tumbled off and made his escape. Alastair could hear someone yelling at him from behind, but did not turn back. Before he could stop himself, he raced after Stellan into the forest beyond.

[new-sandrafilter]

Behold Dune: An Exclusive Look at Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Oscar Isaac, and More  

Timothée Chalamet remembers the darkness. It was the summer of 2019, and the cast and crew of Dune had ventured deep into the sandstone and granite canyons of southern Jordan, leaving in the middle of the night so they could catch the dawn on camera. The light spilling over the chasms gave the landscape an otherworldly feel. It was what they had come for.

“It was really surreal,” says Chalamet. “There are these Goliath landscapes, which you may imagine existing on planets in our universe, but not on Earth.”

They weren’t on Earth anymore, anyway. They were on a deadly, dust-dry battleground planet called Arrakis. In Frank Herbert’s epic 1965 sci-fi novel, Arrakis is the only known location of the galaxy’s most vital resource, the mind-altering, time-and-space-warping “spice.” In the new film adaptation, directed by Arrival and Blade Runner 2049 filmmaker Denis Villeneuve, Chalamet stars as the young royal Paul Atreides, the proverbial stranger in a very strange land, who’s fighting to protect this hostile new home even as it threatens to destroy him. Humans are the aliens on Arrakis. The dominant species on that world are immense, voracious sandworms that burrow through the barren drifts like subterranean dragons.

For the infinite seas of sand that give the story its title, the production moved to remote regions outside Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, where the temperatures rivaled the fiction in Herbert’s story. “I remember going out of my room at 2 a.m., and it being probably 100 degrees,” says Chalamet. During the shoot, he and the other actors were costumed in what the world of Dune calls “stillsuits”—thick, rubbery armor that preserves the body’s moisture, even gathering tiny bits from the breath exhaled through the nose. In the story, the suits are life-giving. In real life, they were agony. “The shooting temperature was sometimes 120 degrees,” says Chalamet. “They put a cap on it out there, if it gets too hot. I forget what the exact number is, but you can’t keep working.” The circumstances fed the story they were there to tell: “In a really grounded way, it was helpful to be in the stillsuits and to be at that level of exhaustion.”

It wouldn’t be Dune if it were easy. Herbert’s novel became a sci-fi touchstone in the 1960s, heralded for its world-building and ecological subtext, as well as its intricate (some say impenetrable) plot focusing on two families struggling for supremacy over Arrakis. The book created ripples that many see in everything from Star Wars to Alien to Game of Thrones. Still, for decades, the novel itself has defied adaptation. In the ’70s, the wild man experimental filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky mounted a quest to film it, but Hollywood considered the project too risky. David Lynch brought Dune to the big screen in a 1984 feature, but it was derided as an incomprehensible mess and a blight on his filmography. In 2000, a Dune miniseries on what’s now the SyFy channel became a hit for the cable network, but it is now only dimly remembered.

Villeneuve intends to create a Dune that has so far only existed in the imagination of readers. The key, he says, was to break the sprawling narrative in half. When Dune hits theaters on December 18, it will only be half the novel, with Warner Bros. agreeing to tell the story in two films, similar to the studio’s approach with Stephen King’s It and It Chapter Two. “I would not agree to make this adaptation of the book with one single movie,” says Villeneuve. “The world is too complex. It’s a world that takes its power in details.”

For Villeneuve, this 55-year-old story about a planet being mined to death was not merely a space adventure, but a prophecy. “No matter what you believe, Earth is changing, and we will have to adapt,” he says. “That’s why I think that Dune, this book, was written in the 20th century. It was a distant portrait of the reality of the oil and the capitalism and the exploitation—the overexploitation—of Earth. Today, things are just worse. It’s a coming-of-age story, but also a call for action for the youth.”

Chalamet’s character, Paul, thinks he’s just a boy struggling to find a place in the world, but he actually possesses the ability to change it. He has a supernatural gift to harness and unleash energy, lead others, and meld with the heart of his new home world. Think Greta Thunberg, only she’s a Jedi with a degree from Hogwarts. Paul comes from a powerful galactic family with a name that sounds like a constellation—the House Atreides. His father and mother, Duke Leto (played by Oscar Isaac) and Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), take their son from their lush, Scandinavian-like home world to preside over spice extraction on Arrakis. What follows is a clash with the criminal, politically connected House Harkonnen, led by the monstrous Baron Vladimir (Stellan Skarsgård), a mammoth with merciless appetites. The baron, created with full-body prosthetics, is like a rhino in human form. This version of the character is less of a madman and more of a predator. “As much as I deeply love the book, I felt that the baron was flirting very often with caricature,” says Villeneuve. “And I tried to bring him a bit more dimension. That’s why I brought in Stellan. Stellan has something in the eyes. You feel that there’s someone thinking, thinking, thinking—that has tension and is calculating inside, deep in the eyes. I can testify, it can be quite frightening.”

The director has also expanded the role of Paul’s mother, Lady Jessica. She’s a member of the Bene Gesserit, a sect of women who can read minds, control people with their voice (again, a precursor to the Jedi mind trick), and manipulate the balance of power in the universe. In the script, which Villeneuve wrote with Eric Roth and Jon Spaihts, she is even more fearsome than before. The studio’s plot synopsis describes her as a “warrior priestess.” As Villeneuve jokes, “It’s better than ‘space nun.’ ”

Lady Jessica’s duty is to deliver a savior to the universe—and now she has a greater role in defending and training Paul too. “She’s a mother, she’s a concubine, she’s a soldier,” says Ferguson. “Denis was very respectful of Frank’s work in the book, [but] the quality of the arcs for much of the women have been brought up to a new level. There were some shifts he did, and they are beautifully portrayed now.”

In an intriguing change to the source material, Villeneuve has also updated Dr. Liet Kynes, the leading ecologist on Arrakis and an independent power broker amid the various warring factions. Although always depicted as a white man, the character is now played by Sharon Duncan-Brewster (Rogue One), a black woman. “What Denis had stated to me was there was a lack of female characters in his cast, and he had always been very feminist, pro-women, and wanted to write the role for a woman,” Duncan-Brewster says. “This human being manages to basically keep the peace amongst many people. Women are very good at that, so why can’t Kynes be a woman? Why shouldn’t Kynes be a woman?”

 As fans will know, there’s a vast menagerie of other characters populating Dune. There are humans called “mentats,” augmented with computerlike minds. Paul is mentored by two of them. There are also the bravado warriors Duncan Idaho and Gurney Halleck, played by Jason Momoa and Josh Brolin. Dave Bautista plays a sinister Harkonnen enforcer Glossu Rabban, and Charlotte Rampling has a key role as the Bene Gesserit reverend mother. The list goes on. In the seemingly unlivable wilds of Arrakis, Javier Bardem leads the Fremen tribe as Stilgar, and Zendaya costars as a mystery woman named Chani, who haunts Paul in his dreams as a vision with glowing blue eyes.

The breadth of Dune is what has made it so confounding for others to adapt. “It’s a book that tackles politics, religion, ecology, spirituality—and with a lot of characters,” says Villeneuve. “I think that’s why it’s so difficult. Honestly, it’s by far the most difficult thing I’ve done in my life.” After finishing this first movie, he’ll just have to do it all over again.

[geekiary]

I have to admit that I was in awe for the whole duration of Dune. I haven't read the book so I'm gonna speak about the movie experience itself, and the visual is crazy. I love how they use scaling frame; where they showed huge space ship next to a human so the space ship looks extra huge and the human looks extra tiny. That kind of frame gives me the feeling that my existence is no bigger than a speck of dust in the entire universe and I'd like to be reminded of that fact through the beautiful frames of this movie.

From scoring itself, it's Hans Zimmer so there is no doubt about the quality but holy hell. The way they play the scoring gives so much goosebumps.

The story itself is interesting; drama, tragedy, politics, such a field for amazing character development and they played it all nicely, I think.

All the A-list actors; Timothée Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Oscar Isaac, Zendaya, Josh Brolin, Jason Momoa, Javier Bardem, Stellan Skarsgård, Dave Bautista, David Dastmalchian, etc presented an amazing performance and I thoroughly enjoyed it all.

Looking forward for part 2.

[shhhhhskars]

The night was full of with small talk, too much alcohol and Alexander constantly gripping at your waist and squeezing everytime someone said something cringe worthy. It was one of those nights, socialites gathering for a charitable gala, a buzzing dimly lit ball room with no where to run. Alex would much rather be at home, but Papa Stellan had specifically requested his presence and he of course he had to drag you along with him for good measure. He loved the food, though, and helped himself to whatever they waltzed around on the porcelain dishes as well as shamelessly attacking the appetizers on your plate. When it was finally time for you two to head out, he was like a small child- grabbing for your hand, needy almost- wanting to feel you close to him. You had one too many and he was gently helping you into the escalade, making sure to lift your dress so it didn’t cling to your thin, high heels. Once you guys were securely inside, he made sure to take your hand in his, your hands tiny compared to his huge palm. He closed his eyes briefly, letting his head fall rest back on the leather seat, a small breath escaping his slightly parted lips. “Long night, lover?” you were still holding his hand when you asked, your voice barely above a whisper. “Very.” his voice was a barely above a murmur, you could feel the exhaustion radiating from him. Your eyes travelled down his face, to his neck, his shoulders, tensed up in his fitted suit jacket. “When we get home. I need you.” He said it cooly, like it was something he read about and wanted to share it with you. You paused, wondering where you wanted this to go tonight...

[drowning-in-dennor]

Locking Gazes

While his older brother struggles with lessons and rivalries, Berwald spends his time idling away in the theatre where the Prix de Lausanne is held. He didn’t expect this boring trip to be suddenly made interesting when a dancer catches his eye.

  Whatever peace and quiet Berwald experienced when class was in progress is abruptly shattered when Henrik bounds up to him, soaked in sweat, and demands, “where’s the water?”

  He passes his brother a bottle of water. “How was class?”

  “Really fun.” Henrik drains half the bottle. “The teacher was amazing, too. I feel like I’m going to keel over, but in a good way. Oh, oh, and the other dancers are okay. My barre-mates are mostly great.”

  “Mostly?” Berwald repeats.

  “Yeah mostly.” His expression darkens slightly. “Except for him.”

  Berwald follows Henrik’s finger and spots dancer 407, a delicate wisp of a boy with a slight frame and soft blond hair. He flips his catalogue open and looks him up. “Stellan Grieg, from Norway.”

  “That’s him.” Henrik takes another swig from the bottle. “He’s an absolute showoff, I tell you. A stuck-up little prince who thinks he’s better than us. He’s so... so... argh!” He nearly whacks Berwald as he throws his hands up.

  Henrik always turns into a short-tempered gremlin when faced with a rival. Berwald shrugs. “I’m sure you’re just as good.”

  “Just as good? I’m better than him!”

  “Yeah, yeah,” he mumbles. “When’s your next class?”

  “I have contemporary coaching in five minutes.” Henrik wipes some sweat off his brow and stretches. “It isn’t open to the public, so you’ll have to stay here. Or leave to get some food, I don’t know. I’ll be back after class.”

  And with that, Henrik is off. Berwald takes a sip of his own iced coffee and looks at the studio, where a group of people are moving barres onto the glossy grey floor. The labels on their T-shirts have numbers on them, all of them starting with the number 2. It has to be the boy’s junior class, consisting of dancers slightly younger than those in Henrik’s group. The oldest should be sixteen, like him.

  His eyes stray towards a group of three boys at the back of the studio, or more specifically, the one dead in the middle of his barre. He’s fixing his shoe, and his honey-gold hair is falling into his eyes. When he straightens up, Berwald catches sight of a wide, sweet smile. The boy’s gentle-looking hand reaches up and be brushes his hair away with nimble fingers. The label on his pearly-white T-shirt reads 206.

  The catalogue informs Berwald that this boy is Timo Väinämöinen, who is from Finland. It has a photo of him smiling at the camera, and that’s when Berwald notices that Timo has brown eyes.

  Soon, class starts. As the pianist plays her tune and the teacher calls out corrections to the boys, Berwald watches Timo. That mesmerising smile is ever-present as he goes through jêtes, rond-de-jambes and fondus, and even as half the class is tight-lipped and sweaty during the adagio, that smile remains.

  Timo lifts his leg up with his fellow dancers, hooking it in front of him in an attitude that makes Berwald aware of every muscle moving in his leg, working like a well-oiled machine. It must take a great amount of effort to hold such a position, and all but one of the dancers show that on their faces. Of course, the only exception is sweetly-smiling Timo.

  Berwald is captivated, watching beautiful 206 in all his glory. His arm is raised above his head, leg so high to the side his thigh is close to touching his toned bicep. His leg moves behind him, hooked again and held up by sheer strength. Timo stretches his arm out, lifts his head and for a moment the harsh studio light makes his blond hair glow like a halo.

  When the dancers move on to the centre, Berwald gets an even-clearer view of Timo, who is now no longer concealed by the barre and other, taller boys. During the centre adage, his actions are slow, almost soft, and his smile becomes downright sleepy. He moves in perfect harmony with the music, arms as fluid as scarves in the wind.

  His movements are practically hypnotic, somehow transforming the mundane, assuming steps into a beautiful dance. Then he turns around, muscles rippling beneath his tight clothing, and Berwald gets a glimpse of the backside of his powerful legs. He can’t help blushing.

  Even after the adage ends, he’s still staring. Timo wipes away a bead of sweat cris-crossing down his neck and stares up at the spectators, as though searching for someone. He gives a tiny wave to the bespectacled boy sitting across Berwald.

  Then his eyes shift. They lock gazes, brown against blue. Timo smiles slightly, knowingly. Berwald flushes harder.

  But as quickly as it started, their meeting of eyes is over. Timo breaks away.

[tabletopjourneys]

Session 35 Notes

The Silver Scale Pack get to know various members of Rana's immediate family, get woken by draconic-speaking rodents, find out more about their quest, and hit a few stores on their way back through Longview, headed for one of the local taverns.

@gher-bear @aradow @telurin @epimetala

On this day we have a nice visit with Rana's mother, Romy, stay over and find out Anesh, for as long as anyone can remember, has a population of tiny animals that speak draconic. They all speak draconic and have infected our rats with the same! It's totally normal guys! And no, Diem, it is not because one of the town's people is secretly a dragon. We'd know. For sure.

The next day we move on to meet Rana's brother, sister-in-law, niece, and niephew. We find out a little more about Haldric and Phi's daggers, which she hides in her pack and displays her common daggers in their place instead. Ixayl'anu gets her platinum ring made, Diem gives the kids their putty vivis as a gift. On our way toward the tavern, we hit a general supply store and maaaybe one other??? Dried fruits and granola were purchased along Phi's medical supplies at any rate.

(Read More)

Session 35 Notes

Notes!

(Chillin’ with Rana’s mom)

When we go in Rana’s home, Phi becomes a wandering cat who helps herself to exploration, comes back and says “There’s a hot tub!”

Mom: You’re welcome to borrow it.

Phi: Is this where you grew up?

Rana: Yep! (pulls out duck sauce, honey, apple jam etc. - giving it to her mom).

Phi sees this and pulls out her very expired mixed fruit to hand over, along with her gummy owlbears.

Mom: Oh no dear, that’s fine, you don’t have to start pulling supplies out of your pack.

Phi drops the gummy owlbears into the pile anyway.

Rana: Really sorry to barge in like this, but we just needed a couple of days, we’ve run into some situations and I’m looking for someone in Bouldergap - wanted to see if Stell knew anything about them.

Romy tells us we’re welcome anyway, stresses that this is still Rana’s home too and says something about friends that I missed for note-taking.

Rana pulls out the silver scale and letter from Retin and talks about him, says she’s pretty sure the guy Retin is sending us to is a dwarf. We were told he might be helpful, but we weren’t told where he was. She figured Bouldergap was the place to look and knows it’s a long shot her mom or brother would know him but we also needed a place to stay on the way, so thought she thought she might as well ask.

Romy: I can’t be sure but I feel like Stell has mentioned a Haldric in passing but I certainly don’t have a whole lot of communication with anybody of that name.

Rana: No ironbands as customers then?

Romy: No

Rana: It’s a weird thing, handed us this dragon scale gave us that name and sent us this way.

We’ve noticed Romy has a bone of contention with Rana over the news about shadowood travelling.

With prompting Diem remembers they’re the story teller and should tell it, 13 performance, gets smoother as they go on. However, to their friends, who have heard Diem tell this particular story among others many times, they definitely seem off their game a little.

When we get to fighting the dragon, Romy is worried, Diem insists healers were on standby so nobody died

Rana: We almost had him.

Diem: Well I mean technically one of us did get him later that night…

Phi cracks up laughing

After stories Rana says something about the meteor

Mom says something I missed for note-taking, GM is telling us about blacksmiths/nosy customers (so maybe something about that?).

Through conversation we gather that Grismor is innkeeper/tavern keeper of The Smiling Dragon - one of 2 inns who trades in gossip. Smiling Dragon is better for gossip, better drink, does his own ale, seasonal brews, jolly little dwarf who is as tall as he is round. Square dwarf.

Rana tells us about her messages to her brother which provided a nice distraction about meteor news for Longview.

Rana offers her mother the camels then belated asks us if that’s alright.

Diem says that they can’t obviously take the camels everywhere they go after this anyway.

There’s some talk about whether they’re needed for the trip further North.

Romy: Lets see how they do with the sheep

Rana: Elk’s in with the sheep and they’re doing fine (I think we ended up deciding ooc that it’s in a separate paddock though).

Rana is playing with the silver dragon scale while making small talk which eventually includes Farford gossip too - specifically the mention of a firecat.

Romy: Yeah someone was talking about seeing one here too.

Rana: No one saw the person it was with so I’m thinking it’s just a stray

Romy: We do have a lot of flame point cats in the area so it’s possible I suppose.

Ixayl’anu: Is it the same type of cat?

Conversation about them being wild cats vs tame, a specific species, etc continues.

Rana: No like flame point siamese not actual fire

DM: these are not just cats they are more akin to avatars of The Candace

We find out the entire town is talking about firecats too

Rana: How’s Stell (Stellan) doing? I picked up a few things for the kids, so hopefully they’ll like it.

Romy: Good

Rana: Nothing alive

Romy: I’m sure Stell will appreciate that.

Diem asks about the kids so we find out Rana has a niece and niephio (I have no idea on the spelling for this and a google search turned up only nibling as a suggestion for enby niece/nephew). Diem grins further to learn of the niephio in particular.

Rana (upon mention of the niece): She big enough to help with the forge yet?

Romy: She’s big enough to do the bellows and help out

Rana: We will hunt them down tomorrow

Phi: Yay!

At some point Phi would say “So your brother only has two kids?”

Rana: Yeah just two kids

Phi: Oh, so they’re just starting?

Rana: No I get the impression they might be done

Phi: Interesting...

Rana: At least he doesn’t (something I missed)

Phi: Well, that’s why you have more, so they can be together.

Rana: I’ll mention it to him...better yet you could mention it to him

Phi: This is the starter pack right?

Romy is extremely amused by this conversation.

(Dinner prep and additional conversations)

There are dress mannequins and clothes everywhere, fabrics everywhere.

Diem and Romy eventually start talking about the tailoring and different fabrics and fashions etc.

As they talk about that, Rana wanders off to make food for everyone.

Phi goes to help cook.

Diem wanders off with Romy to talk about fabrics and fashion some more (Rana will throw them out the second story window if they do more than that lol).

Rana was half sorting her bag and still has her rocks and stuff spread out on the rug even as she’s making dinner now.

Romy gifts Diem an outfit by the end of their conversation, still so happy this is the first time Rana’s brought anyone home. As she’s got Diem pulled aside though, she asks for more details about everything that happened, worried and just making sure everything’s truly good, and how is Rana really doing?

Diem spins it well about how capable Rana is.

Her mom def agrees and looks worried, but noticeably less so.

While waiting for dinner we all talk more, telling Romy about how we saved Perfection. She does not look ready to come to terms that her daughter is an adventurer now, but accepts it.

Part 16 of Rana rumors according to the other townsfolk who saw us all: “Yeah we knew something like this was gonna happen eventually”

Rana brings up the thunderbird and we talk about that.

Food got delivered, rats were introduced, how Rana and Phi have been training them to spy, rat race story from the Harvest festival gets told as well.

Rana notes that she is actually showing us off to her mom <3

Rana prompts us to talk about ourselves to her mom.

Phi happily tells her whole life story, or at least all the things she’s said to us as a group.

Ixyal’anu talks a little about herself as well.

Diem hangs back and doesn’t say much during this portion as they already talked pretty extensively with Romy already.

Rana: And Ixayl'anu’s on a task for her god but she doesn’t have a fire cat, she has vague dreams.

Romy asks about Ixayl’anu’s deity, pleasant ‘mom questions.’

As things wind down, Diem remembers the find familiar spell and asks if they have a moment, whether it would be alright to summon them while they’re here - noting it would listen to their directions and not make a mess or break anything. They get permission, but never end up doing the spell before bed.

Phi takes her hot tub bath, Diem takes one after.

After Rana gets us settled to bed in the guest room, she goes out and takes a point of exhaustion spending 8 hours to cast enriching the land again since she’s been gone a few years and it only lasts a year, then she goes and sits with the sheep, all of the sheep bed down next to her in a sea of white around her and she leans back against the nearest sheep for a nap/meditation during the spell. They remember her and know she’s the source of the good food.

(Mice vs. Rats: Draconic edition)

During the night, in the wee hours of the morning Ixayl’anu wakes up hearing some very high squeaky voices arguing “This is our territory”

“No, we were invited,” back and forth half awake-half asleep and thinking “what is this? Oh...this is real, this is something that is happening here.”

Very tiny angry voices continue.

Investigation check for more details 15: It’s dark in the room, she can kinda see in the shadows, she doesn’t see anyone. At the foot of Ixayl'anu’s bed is Horatio, four little house mice are around him being territorial against him, and the strange thing is they are all speaking draconic, including Horatio.

Ixayl'anu: What...what?

When Phi wakes up she doesn’t understand her rat any more, but she does hear the rat and mice speaking draconic.

Ixayl’anu: What?

The four mice squeak in a mousy scream

Horatio: Yeah you better run (turns to Ixayl'anu): Thanks!

Ixayl’anu: What? Why? Why are you speaking draconic?

Horatio: Is that what this is? I don’t know I was just suddenly able to and these mice were speaking a weird dialect and I found I could speak back in it as well.

Ixayl’anu: What...okay...and you’re still speaking it, who were they what were you fighting about?

Horatio: They live here and were being territorial and I was telling them I was an invited guest ‘cause I’m with you all.

(I am dead to the world as Phi wakes up)

Phi: Why are you talking to yourself?

Ixayl’anu gestures at the rat

Phi: Have you been teaching my rat that...?

Ixayl’anu: No…. Do you think that’s just something you can teach a rat?

Phi to Horatio: How are you doing that?

Horatio: I don’t know it just happened!

Phi: You’re still doing it…

There is conversation back and forth as its established among the three characters that Horatio still understands Phi, but since he is no longer speaking rat, she can’t understand him, but now Ixayl’anu can both understand and speak with him through draconic.

Ixayl’anu says something I missed.

Phi: what are you saying to my rat?

Ixayl’anu says something else I missed.

Horatio: You all can just decide what language to speak in? That’s weird.

Ixayl’anu: Yeah it is weird

Horatio: It’s a weird dialect and apparently it’s infectious.

Hamlet is mentioned in the back and forth and Phi, recognizing the name, wonders aloud if Hamlet is like this now as well. She tells Horatio he’s changed and she hopes it’s not permanent

Ixayl’anu tries to stop her to ask about that back and forth but Phi slips out of the guest room.

Phi 25 stealths through the house looking for Rana. From a window she sees an odd clump of sheep in the field. She goes out outside and climbs the fence.

Rana is deep in meditation.

Phi: Hamlet, wake up Hamlet…

Rat wakes up and cleans his face but says something back in draconic that she can’t understand.

Phi in common: Oh my god.

Phi uses her stone to let Ixayl'anu know not only this, but what she can see out here around Rana (visible plant growth around her - she’s decided to sleep on her sheep in the field which is weirdly moving and Hamlet’s doing the same thing, Rana’s not moving, I feel like I’m dreaming I don’t know about you…)

In squeakish Phi tells Hamlet that she can’t understand him but she knows he can understand her so “If you want to find out what’s going on you have to talk to Ixayl'anu about it because she’ll understand you. So I’m going to go now.”

Hamlet is irritated and goes back to sleep. All the sheep watch her. One sheep baas at her, then they all start baaing for food, none of them were speaking draconic.

Ixayl’anu to horatio while Phi’s gone: They just walked up to you and started talking to you and that was it?

Horatio: They tried to fight me!

Ixayl’anu: like biting and scratching?

Horatio: Yeah, look at this wet spot! And I’m an invited guest!

Ixayl’anu: That’s rude!

Horatio: That’s very rude, yeah! I’m an invited guest *stamps tiny rat feet*!

Together Ixayl’anu and Horatio determine they probably live in the roof or something, not pets.

Ixayl’anu casts detect magic. She sees the faintest little glow around Horatio. So faint you may think it’s not there and the only reason she sees it is because the lights are off, a wisp of power with the vaguest sense of magic. The source of it is nowhere nearby and the magic itself is so barely there she can’t even see the mice in the walls like she should have if they were properly bespelled in some way. It’s not any specific school for it. Mostly all she really sees is the glow of our various magic items.

At this point Phi returns

(Diem’s perception rolls were 2, 3, and now 0 lol. It is at this point we determine Diem is actually being held in sleep by their patron, catching up, talking about the familiar, and the follower and the spells and just having tea and a lovely bonding time. Probably when they were Tarma out in the desert, they did less communicating)

I missed some back and forth between Ixayl’anu, Phi, and Horatio.

Phi: They were being aggressive and picking on him?

Ixayl’anu to Horatio: Would you be willing to see where these mice have gone?

Horatio: You want me to bring one back to you? Yeah I can do that.

Ixayl’anu: You don’t have to but it’d be nice, I can give you food for it, *looks at her supplies*

Horatio: What kind of treat do I get, what’s in it for me?

Ixayl’anu: Nope no that’s not food I have nope that’s not food. *pauses in her rummaging* Well, what do you want, I suppose we can find something for you?

*thinks on it* A gummy owlbear?

Ixayl’anu: Oh I have some of those. Sure. *finds her little package of them*.

Horatio: Okay! *scurries off and disappears*

About two minutes later she hears furious squeak yelling, Horatio reappears holding a mouse by the scruff of its neck in his mouth “I found one!”

Ixayl’anu: Where’s the cage you keep the rats from? To put the mouse in?

Phi: We sold the cages, the carrier is Horatio’s home...there’s this box?

Ixayl’anu: Yeah that’ll do.

They find a box of rocks to gently empty real quick and put the mouse in it/close the lid (15 animal handling check).

As soon as Horatio had dropped the mouse: “Gummy owlbear please.”

Phi: He knows fetch now!

Ixayl’anu: All that training you’ve been doing with him is paying off! *taps box* Hello?

Phi: Ask if it if it talks like that if it knows it’s doing it or ask if it knows any dragons? I don’t know?

Ixayl’anu: Right?

Mouse is bouncing around in the box trying to get out.

Rana head canoned the rats as 400-550 grams

Horatio is gaming the system a little bit and only found a wine gummy to eat, never officially given one (Phi bought fancy rat treats for him)

(More things I missed and wrote down as “Talking to mouse ah 2”)

The mouse is screaming obscenities at Ixayl’anu.

Horatio is on his back in 7th heaven and suggests she should also give the mouse a gummy owlbear, maybe it’ll talk then.

Ixayl’anu sneaks in a smaller portion and it takes awhile for it to calm down and then it’s quiet for a little bit after until... “This doesn’t make us friends!”

Ixayl’anu: You want more? I’ve got more.

Mouse: I mean...yes

Ixayl’anu: I’m not planning on keeping you here I just want to ask a few questions

Mouse: More first

Ixayl’anu: Okay *puts in other half of gummy*

Mouse is very very quiet

Ixayl’anu taps the box: Hello?

Mouse (slurred): What do you want?

Ixayl’anu: Where’d you learn to talk like that

Mouse: I always talk like this this is how mice talk

Some similar back and forth about this.

Mouse (when asked about dragonborn/people like Ixayl’anu): People like you don’t come around here.

Ixayl’anu: Really? Oh… (to Phi in common now) I don’t this is how they talk, this is weird.

Phi: I think they just don’t know, they don’t know that they’re weird, you know

Ixayl’anu: But horatio thinks it’s a weird dialect

Phi: Did you ask if it if they saw any dragonborn? Or dragons?

Ixayl’anu: Well they haven’t seen anything like me (then to the mouse in draconic) Have you seen anything big with wings?

Mouse: Yeah outside but I live in this house I don’t have to worry about that

Ixayl’anu: Are there any mice that you can’t talk to?

Mouse: Everybody kinda talks like this around here

Ixayl’anu: Kind of or they do?

Mouse: They do?

Ixayl’anu: They all speak this...they all...speak this...I’m really confused.

They decide to try and wake Diem up for a third opinion, and it takes awhile before Diem’s patron allows it, letting Diem know that their friends need them for a moment, so they will have to continue catching up later.

Ixayl’anu as Diem finally starts waking up out of sorts: Weird things are happening

Diem continues to be out of it enough for a bit until eventually Phi catches them up - including the detail about Rana meditating in a cloud of sheep.

Phi (to Diem about the mouse in the box: It’s drunk

Diem: Are you guys sure you’re not drunk?

Phi: I’m not sure we’re not dreaming

Ixayl’anu: This isn’t dreaming not even close.

(I didn’t tag these two responses so the first might be Ixayl’anu and the 2nd Phi)

Too tired to bother with ritual magic, Diem uses a slot to cast comprehend languages.

Mouse asks if we’ve got more of those treats, which Horatio hears and says “Yeah! I’ll eat another!” *perks up*

Diem translates for phi who turns sharply to Horatio to talk about how many he’s already eaten and how he got one in the first place to ask Ixayl’anu for another, etc.

Horatio looks sheepish: Weeeellll sometimes you don’t secure your bag very good and I was hungry and they smelled good.

Phi smirks and retrieves Ixayl’anu’s package of owl gummies, then gives half to Horatio, and half to the mouse.

Horatio: YES! (helping her), I want this one I want the bigger section ‘cause I’m bigger and I get the big one (little grabby rat hands)

Diem does a history check on any stories they might have heard about talking animals like this (21). There are plenty of fairy tales with talking animals, sometimes it’s afey kind of thing - playing a prank on people. They’ve heard of similar events happening before, pretty disparate not tied to one physical location. Sometimes they’ve heard stories of animals in an area like within a mile circle will be able to speak draconic or sometimes other languages, not really a pattern to it. Sometimes it’s little towns, other times it’s connected to a whole city. Might be a natural phenomena. Specifically tiny beasts/birds/lizards are usually the type able to speak.

They also know various fae and wish spells can make this happen, but still they’re just random.

Diem shares this with Phi and Ixayl’anu.

(Insert missed conversation here)

Horatio or the mouse (not sure which): Yeah sure sometimes you say words that are funny and I don’t really understand what they are and they kinda sound like that and I don’t know what they are.

?: All the fangs or one specific thing? (I have no idea who said this or where fangs come into play)

We discover the mouse once met a gopher, stuck his nose in its burrow and it yelled at him back in draconic.

Diem to Ixayl’anu: Ask the mouse if it knows any fae in the area

Mouse makes an intelligence check when she asks, but does not know what she is talking about.

We confirm the mouse has always spoken draconic

Diem tells a quick rendition of cinderella as an example of fae meddling with small creatures where dress making is also involved (theorizing that perhaps Rana’s mother gets help from the mice as well)

We’re fairly certain it’s a normal mouse though and it’s now snoring softly so we’re not getting any more info.

Horatio by now is sprawled out on the bed, Phi cuddled around him while Diem gives him scritches. At a loss, we all go back to sleep for now, planning to ask Rana more in the morning.

(Good Morning!)

In the morning Phi will figure out the coffee situation and make some for everyone.

Romy (waking up to this): This is such a nice change of pace, somebody making the coffee for a change, and friends Rana brings in not destroying the house by the time I get up.

Phi: It’s no problem, I was just watching Rana from the window and figured she’d really like some, she’s gonna be tired so I can make sure coffee is waiting for her. We do have quite a story to tell her though.

Romy shows Phi where the biscotti is and such.

Rana is just now getting up and plucks Hamlet up.

Elk: something happened something happened something happened

Rana is feeding the sheep and clearly thinks the elk just wants some too

Elk: Oh is it breakfast? I’d like breakfast too!

Diem, after sleeping on it, performs a new arcana check on what sort of spells and effects cause draconic-speaking critters (21 again). They know now it can be caused by fae, wish spells, high level wizarding things will happen, and that similar strange effects happen around ancient dragon lairs (a little nugget buried in all their Miova dragon research they’d forgotten about), and that sometimes it’s just random without no discernible cause.

Rana comes in covered in sheep wool, hay, butt and legs wet, but she’s happy. Everything outside is noticeably green and lush.

Phi: We made coffee

Rana is super grateful and makes a beeline to grab a cup.

Rana: I took care of the plants and the animals

Ixayl’anu comes down around this time with the mouse in the box.

Romy: Your friend made coffee and something happened last night they were just about to tell me about.

Rana statues over her mother’s words with an ‘oh no what kind of things?’ sort of reaction.

Phi we’ll explain: Where’s Hamlet? Is he in your bag? Wait I’ll go get Horatio (who is snuggling Diem upstairs still)

Rana scritches Hamlet who asks “Oh is it breakfast time?” (in draconic) She’s tired enough she just hands it the biscotti without thinking.

When Phi returns she gets down on her knees in front of hamlet with horatio

Phi: What about today? What are you speaking today?

Speaking to her around his mouth of biscotti “I dunno what am I speaking today?”

This pings for Rana like hey…

Diem comes down as Ixayl'anu is talking about what happened.

Rana healing words the mouse. 7 pts healing. He immediately wakes up and feels great.

Mouse while cleaning his face: I feel really great?!

Ixayl'anu: You want some biscotti?

Mouse (very distrusting): Yes...

She sets the biscotti down. After awhile she’s half grinning and looking at her mom now.

Rana to the group: They just do that around here, always have.

Romy: That’s why the rumor mill here is so lively.

Diem: Why draconic?

(missed conversation)

Rana: Most people understand at least a few words.

Diem: What’s the local lore on it all? I mean...there’s gotta be stories involved?

Romy: The local lore - I did ask around since I’m not from here, it was very strange at the beginning but the townspeople didn’t seem to be bothered, the general consensus is that it’s a blessing of Vkandis.

Diem gets us all talking about maybe the silver scale dragon living nearby as they also share what they remembered about such events after they woke up.

Rana insists she would’ve seen it

Romy thinks you would know though, Diem mentions that they slept with one and didn’t know until the next day though so...

Romy: Rana you did see those kites though (a local cryptid)…?

Rana: That was definitely not a dragon.

Ixayl’anu: Birds? What?

Rana: They almost look like a roc but they’re definitely not rocs (some people write them off as rocs or pterodactyls but the markings are different they are an air cryptid - Ropen from New Guinea).

We get enough from context to realize this is an unusual sighting, but we are not outright told it’s a local cryptid, like spotting bigfoot.

We are told to watch what we say because the bakers bribe the birds and the whole town will end up knowing.

Rana: That thing is def not a dragon though.

Romy admits she’s never even seen a dragon before.

Rana: Diem rode it

Diem (laughing): In more ways than one

Phi laughs too

Rana still insists she would know if one of the townspeople were a dragon though while Diem insists you really couldn’t know that for sure, what if they just enjoyed a simple life and to avoid discovery they just chose a form that aged with the town, no one the wiser. Rana still insists it’s not possible.

Diem: So sure you’d know? We’ve traveled a month together on the road practically living together. How do you actually know I’m not a dragon?

Rana: I don’t.

Prepared for a similar pushback, this admission clearly surprises Diem. “And yet you’re this sure about people you haven’t spent every waking moment with?”

Rana says she thinks if you are not living time people need to know they need to know they will find out what you are doing.

Ixayl'anu: It could just be sleeping somewhere.

Rana: Either way this is just a normal thing

Ixayl’anu: Sure not really but sure.

Diem: Could be the innkeeper and has always been an innkeeper because they enjoy it. Everybody needs a hobby.

Ixayl'anu wants to know if V’kandis has anything to do with dragons.

(It is at this point we are informed that we’ve seen Romy has a shrine to V’kandis in the house as we’ve ignored this fact in favor of being like oh no, it’s not ‘cause a god blessed your town, it’s because of a secret dragon!).

Ixayl'anu scoots the mouse on his way and turns the topic of discussion toward our reasons for being in Longview and Anesh: So we’re looking for this dwarf?

Rana: No we’re looking for my brother

Ixayl’anu: Does he know where he is?

Rana: Maybe.

Phi: How old is he?

Rana: Older than I am

Phi: Oh, so definitely should’ve had more kids by now

Diem: Wait, Phi how many kids do you have then?

Phi (mishearing): Ooooh lemme get back to you on that...between 80 and 50.

Diem: You have at least 50 kids?

Phi: Oh no I have 0 kids, I don’t have that kind of life.

Rana herds us out the door, she leaves most of her heavier stuff at home.

(To Stellan’s house we go)

For some reason we established Diem definitely gets changed under an illusion of Ixayl'anu ever since using her image as a changing screen back in Budelia. Ixayl’anu has no problem with that, but they’ve all probably seen flashes of Diem’s side and leg tattoos anyway over the month we’ve been together.

Before we leave the house Diem casts comprehend languages as ritual. The birds quiet as we approach, but then the chattering starts up and we catch names and normal gossip presumably about people around town.

Ixayl’anu and Diem have a bit of a side chat about this in the RP text snippets section.

We have an uneventful walk over.

We walk in without knocking - Stell is clearly working on a sword or piece of armor.

Amira (the little girl def notices our presence, specifically Rana’s)

Rana quietly holds out her arms for a hug and Amira runs over squealing with excitement.

Diem: That is so adorable.

Rana scoops her up and has her on her hip now.

Amira looks at us and her eyes get really big - like who are you all? With continued excitement.

Stellan takes notice, surprised Rana brought friends, but still busy hammering out the sword.

Rana: Did you get your pigeons?

Stellan (withering look at his sister): I got THREE pigeons, yes.

Rana grins even bigger at his tone and expression.

Stellan is still working on whatever he’s hammering into during this exchange.

Rana: I was worried they wouldn’t get through so I had to send 3 of them.

Stellan: Well they all got here - first one was very surprising, after 3 though...

Phi: What was the message again Rana?

Rana: Oh, I sent him pigeons telling him about the meteorites and that we knew they were going to hit Anesh but we didn’t know where.

Stellan lets us know the meteors have been diverted and are scheduled to hit somewhere in the desert where there are no people.

Rana nods

Diem: Did they use magic to divert them?

Stell: You’re not from around here are you? Must suck to be from a place without a god that cares what happens to you.

He is a BIG guy. He stops hammering to shake our hands

Phi shakes with both hands to see how much she can get them around one of his (she can’t, there’s a gap between her fingertips).

He is very amused to have Phi forcibly shaking his hand with both of hers.

Meanwhile, Hamlet pokes out and gets on Rana’s shoulder to investigate the new passenger on Rana’s hip.

Amira: You have a new pet?

Rana: Yes, but this one is coming with me - you can still play with him for a bit.

Hamlet: What?

Amira in draconic: Wanna be my friend and play?

Hamlet: Okay!

Diem said some things during the exchange I forgot to note (probably a few cool stories about auntie Rana idk, asking about her speaking draconic?) that resulted in Amira excitedly adopting them for a tour of the house/playing with Hamlet. They follow Amira’s excited lead to do just that, but not before stopping near the next doorway for introductions to Adri, her mother.

Diem to Adri: She’s very adorable

Amira (talking about Aunt Rana): Look! She has a pet rat can we have a pet rat too?

Rana: I could probably get them a pet rat?

Adri: I could probably also get them one, if they’re responsible enough and can prove they’re ready to take care of it.

Some possible missed conversation before Adri, Amira, Diem, and Hamlet head deeper into the house while Rana continues talking to her brother.

Rana asks about the dwarf and shows him both the letter and silver scale, which he looks at while listening to the story about the wizard in the shadowoods

Stell: Are you sure it was Haldric that they wanted?

Rana: Yes (she double checks letter)

Stell: I know a Haldric Ironband but he’s a master blacksmith, but I...he...he’s never mentioned anything about wizards or honestly going anywhere so far away?

Rana: To be fair the wizard seemed to know who I was so maybe Haldric never met him either.

Stell: I don’t know this sounds like destiny hero bullshit

Phi is internally happy screaming about oh my god this actually works (it’s just as well that I never noted what actually works since the rest of us might only notice Phi’s happy scream state, rather than mind-reading the reason for it)!

Everyone but Diem learns this shorthand info I can’t entirely follow after the fact. My shorthand is awful and I’ve discovered I am unlikely to remember how to coherently type it later: Bhuxodihr for some reason you do want to mention t by the proper name he’s mostly retired, teaches to a select few, not stellan’s master. Haldric was stellan’s master’s master

Rana holds up the silver scale (again? I guess? lol) “You know what this would signify?” she hands it over to him. “Retin said we could use this, that it would give us legitimacy”

Stellan tests the hardness of it, getting higher and higher and Rana lets him and still nothing happens “Uh…(hands it back) I’m pretty sure this is the real thing.”

Rana: Real dragon scale?

Stellan: Mhm

Rana: Well that’s interesting

Stellan: Who did you say gave this to you again?

Rana: Retin, a wizard who lives in the Rethwellian Shadowoods

Stellan: I think Haldric knew someone down there but they weren’t genasi

Phi and Ixayl’anu tell him that we had a whole argument about it and deduced that Retin takes on the form of whatever will make you feel connected/more at home.

Phi or Ixayl’anu bring up how weird it is that all the animals here speak draconic.

Stellan, however, has hit his limit for weird shit, though not animals speaking draconic - that is a thing that’s completely normal.

Phi awkwardly: You should come visit us some time too, was great meeting you...or...yeah.

Ixayl’anu: Where would he meet us?

Phi: I have a home

Ixayl’anu: But you’re not really there

Phi: Well we can arrange it ahead of time.

Rana: She does have connections in Miova if you every go out that way.

Stellan says some things to Phi about all this, but as he’s talking he looks at her and she sees the moment when he notices her daggers and stops.

Stellan: Where did you get those?

Phi: They’re family heirlooms

Stellan: Nooo….where did you really get those? You can’t take those into stone roost or even bouldergap, not displayed on your hips like that.

Phi: Interesting you say that I was already thinking I should hide them because we found them on the skeleton of a dwarf in a cave in the woods

Ixayl'anu: No it was a corpse

Rana statues a little bit (which Stellan would notice)

Phi: There was a dwarf corpse, yes…

Stellan holds his hands up like ‘I don’t want to hear it’ and points at Phi: You cannot wear those, they’re only given to an elite group of dwarves and they do NOT give them to gnomes, you have to keep them hidden.

A few questions are asked about that. As far as Stellan knows, they’re assassins of some kind.

Phi: So do they have other weapons with the same characteristics?

Stellan: Sometimes they have short swords but not any arrows or large blades - just the small bladed weapons and it was a thing he wasn’t allowed to learn because he’s not a dwarf.

Phi: Do you know anybody who was in this group?

Stellan: No mostly these guys are like--

Rana (talking over him): I don’t think my brother knows any dwarvish assassins

Phi: If I were to return them to the right people, who would I talk to?

Stellan just looks at her for a few seconds: I don’t know if you just heard me but these guys don’t really advertised themselves

Ixayl’anu: Is this a group we wanna have anything to do with or just avoid them?

Stellan: If you’re really determined to get them back to someone, you might try Haldric, but I wouldn’t lead with that.

Ixayl’anu: Are they better to just be avoided?

Stellan: I wouldn’t wanna mess with them but you’re all out there dealing with meteors and who knows what else so maybe that’s what you do now, I don’t know.

Rana: This dwarf found the meteor too and turned into a mushroom

Stellan takes a deep breath.

Rana is enjoying making him uncomfortable now

They all talk about our bag of holding and hiding the weapons, Phi stashes them and pulls out her ordinary daggers to secure in their place.

Rana as they talk about possibly disguising Phi’s daggers: Oh mom has some camels now if you need one, there’re 3

Stellan: Okay I’ll take care of them for you

Rana: Do you want them to talk? I can make them talk.

Stellan (not amused): No, the pigeons are enough.

Phi: Thank you for the information

Rana: Yeah, I would like to not get killed by the people we were looking for

Phi: Yeah that would not be good

Rana: I’m gonna go corrupt tanny for a bit

Stellan: Yeah i’m gonna go back over here and...think about things

Rana: I let mom know everything so you can talk to her later.

At some point before they finish talking to Stellan, Ixayl'anu was looking for signs of jewelry in Stellan’s forge. She saw some platinum but didn’t really see any jewelry (because she needs a platinum ring). She asks him about it anyway while we’re there and it’s simple enough he melts down two platinum coins to make a simple ring for her out of it. He doesn’t even charge her for them since he already has the forge fired up.

He does have Amira help him since he rarely works with platinum and it makes a good teachable moment that takes about 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, Adri has been following Amira and Diem around, Diem gets introduced to Taniel, 10, who probably is working on magic homework, they got really into potion making because they fan Rana and Rana brings herbs back - real into that right now.

Taniel gets up to see Aunt Rana, but Adri warns her to wait a bit they’re talking about tense things right now.

Through conversation along the tour Diem gets that Adri speaks draconic and has been teaching her kids.

Diem makes casual conversation that includes whether or not Adri grew up here and when/why she learned draconic.

About that time Rana walks in and Taniel gives her a big hug and tells her about her new obsession

Adri answers Diem that it makes sense from a guard’s stand point so she learned it, birds are awfully helpful

Diem: Oh yeah that makes sense

Rana: Yeah, Adri is very good at her job

Diem: You look it, you are killing it in that outfit (she is amused), I’m...yeah, not surprising I wouldn’t make a good guard, I even need help when we take watches (said in good humor)

Ixayl'anu stands awkwardly in the door until Adri invites her in properly (because she’s secretly a vampire! shhh)

Rana: We’re not gonna be in town for terribly long, I was just hoping Stellan had some of the info I needed and he did.

Adri: What info?

Rana: Oh I was sent by a wizard to find someone named Haldric who might be in stone roost and I thought Stellan might know him.

Adri takes it in stride “Well, be safe.”

Rana drops in that it has to do with the meteor.

Nearing the end of the conversation and visit, Phi asks if we can run by a general store to get medical kit supplies to complete her partial kit.

When we have to leave Amira is sad about the rat having to go and starts asking for a rat again in super sad puppy fashion.

Adri tells her they’ll still have to see and Diem distracts both children by pulling out the self-animating putty to give them as a gift, telling them how they can shape their own rat or whatever they like and it moves (makes a little rat and sets it down to walk around on the table and lick a paw clean) see?

Their imaginations take off with excited chatter about making tiny dragons and more, once again happy.

(A trip to the general store)

Rana takes us to Bafor’s general store (Bafor is a dragonborn).

Phi tells us that we would have noticed how Phi progressively jumped on this field medic train and as things have gotten dangerous and sketchy. Phi realized it would be handy to have some skills in healing just in case - more so ever since Phi found the medical supplies in Budelia and ever since Averni she’s been doing a little research here and there, including medical knowledge heading out into the new terrain of Anesh, like what to do for heatstroke and working on more survival skills. Over the journey she’s brought it up a few times to Rana and Edea, and Rana readily taught her some of her new feat requirements from her similar healer feat. Phi wants to eventually learn to make her own poisons too for maybe a damage over time, but also poison check and knowing what to do about poisons in order to help heal them.

Phi’s medicine check will also apply to her background skills, diagnosing a wound, how they died (starving, madness, dehydration, container recently held poison, blood spatter analysis, forensic stuff is part of her past).

Combat triage is cool and useful.

Ruled that with her medical proficiency feat she can diagnose poisons and such, but she would have to take a separate feat to make a poison and do dmg over time.

Phi walks into the store and admits she’s filling out the healer’s kit.

Rana says she has those items already and they have this conversation in the store. All along though she and Rana have talked about this over the month we’ve known each other.

Bafor: Yeah I have the little items, but you could also just buy a new healer’s kit already filled.

Phi: Yeah why don’t I just do that.

Bafor: Tell you what, you buy a whole healer’s kit and I will fill out your other one for free.

I think we hit a fruit stand or a different store where the vendor is gruff but warms up as we spend money (because that was a note for the vendor attached to all these dried fruits, but Bafor seemed pretty amenable from the start).

Phi and Diem also buy a big bag of granola for a silver each, and some dried fruits (Anesh grows pomegranate, apricots, olives)

Diem also buys a bag of mixed dried fruit, dried apricots, and a pomegranate (for a silver each)

[novarin]

The Fox & The Crow.

                                                    - Music -  

Midnight.

The slow lull in the constant onslaught of attacks had been a welcome respite to the ragtag Merc crew that had gathered under men that went by Talon and Stellan. While Novarin originally had intentions of his own, he could not deny when Jackary approached him to repay a favour that he go in the Mage’s stead... For now.

That had been days ago, nearly a week and there had been radio silence from the Kirin Tor Archmage since then.

On top of that, Nova had also been asked to drag along a tiny Vulpera, a runt even amongst the society of fox people and blind on top of that. What Jack had seen in this little thing was beyond Novarin but he hadn’t been in the position to argue - he owed Jackary that much. It was no secret that many had begun to baby the Vulpera and Nova was less than thrilled to have a blind snack on the field.

‘Oh, please! Let me take night watch... You need rest and I can do it! I really can!’ 

Kou had begged him... Pleaded with him to take over the night watch in his stead and to let Novarin have a bit of rest. Reluctantly, he had agreed, only because others would also be there. What could a blind fox honestly do? 

‘Stay low n’ stay outta trouble, ain’ need none o’ th’ figh’ers in danger jus’ t’ save ya. Ya hear some’n, ya call f’er help.’

Perhaps he had been too hard. Those thoughts slipped through Nova’s mind as eyes had finally begun to close and drift off into his first nap in what seemed like days. 

Until...

“Multiple frostwyrms incoming from the west, at least 5 spotted, accompanied by scourge and cultist ground troops - ETA 15 minutes.  Everyone to arms, we’re going to intercept them just outside the Crossroads. Work together, have each other’s backs, and don’t die. Booze is on me afterwards.”

Nova sprang awake from the incoming message, Talon’s voice echoed hard into his ears and in the process of trying to awaken from his groggy sleep, Nova’s white eyes snapped open in the hard realization that not only were they under attack... but Kou was right in the middle of it all and likely making a nuisance of himself. Such thoughts spurred him further into action, pushing himself from place he had come to rest. When Nova snagged his blades, both hissing wildly at him upon reconnecting to their cursed owner.

“Fuck fuck fuck fuck...!” Strapping both to the harness on his back, the Shadowblade leaped forward to sprint towards where he had last left the fox in the midst of the forming chaos. Everywhere and all around, people were getting ready, the call to arms nothing shy of phenomenal. They’d all worked together very well thus far and though Nova kept his distance as a scout, the now underlying problem was that the blind Vulpera was likely going to be a sitting duck in the midst of a heated battle.

“KOU!” Spotting the Vulpera who had indeed just been standing in the middle of everyone running around him, the way the little creature had his head tilted up in the exact direction that Talonoa had called out was something to be marveled. For the briefest moment, Nova almost swore that the whole blindness had been a lie... That was until Kou twitched an ear and glanced over his shoulder to try and hear who was calling for him.

“Nova? You should be resting—” Kou tried to smile, cheerful as ever in such a chaotic situation. The roars echoed through the sky of the approaching madness like thunder crackling and ripping across the sky.

“Kou, listen t’ me, ya need t’ go back t’ camp, alrigh’? I ain’ fuckin’ playin’ this cute lil’ game anymore where ya think ya coul’ be useful in this situation.”

“But... I can be. I can fight.” Kou’s bright smile began to falter into a look of concern, perhaps a bit downtrodden that Nova truly felt so little of him. It even showed when those adorable ears wilted, drooping from the tiniest of pouts.

Before the pair could even remotely finish their argument, the bestial roars were at their doorstep and a wave of ice had been blown right at them. Nova dove forward with every intention of trying to at least block it and protect Kou but before he could even move, his eyes snapped wide, watching the little fox simply raise a paw to the air.

Without even seeing the breath, a wave of warm light caressed over the pair like a shield, deflecting the would be attack and almost instantly melting it away, sparing them from being frozen in place. Others close within the vicinity had been blessed with such but it wasn’t akin to the Holy Light of Azeroth at all, it was simply a mimic of it, an illusion to fit in.

“You—...”

“We can discuss this later, but Mister Talon has said that if we stop the Frostwyrms, we get free alcohol.” That ever peppy tone returned and soon so did the waggle of that fluffed tail at the proposition of free things.

How could Novarin argue with that logic?

“Fine..! But we’re ‘avin’ a serious fuckin’ discussion ‘bout you leavin’ this t’ th’ professionals when we’re done. I won’ force ‘em t’ babysit ya!” Growling in frustration, the Shadowblade withdrew one of his blades to brace himself for the impact that had begun to turn around and come back for them. Already he could see one of the Frostwyrms arch back to fly directly towards the unlikely pair.

“I wish you would relax more, yes yes. Maybe get some therapy for that pent up anger. Are you missing someone, Mister Nova?” Kou questioned, still not even facing the beast that was coming right at them.

“FOCUS YA LIL’ FURBALL! ‘FORE I PUNT YA BACK T’ CAMP!”

Helplessly shrugging, a certain dark aura gathered at the Vulpera’s feet, within moments it quickly took over his entire body. “Just get its attention and bring it down closer, yes yes?” Was the only reply Kou gave as tiny claws raised up to the sky again, allowing a bit of his own power to reach out in a wave of unity, a feeling of Fortitude rushed through the Crossroads, blessing his allies with a sudden sense of adrenaline and power.  The sensation alone was cause for Nova to pause and bring his free hand up to his own chest, surprised at the sensation coursing through his veins.

Perhaps... Just perhaps this little beastie wasn’t as useless as Novarin thought him to be.

Seeing the skeletal dragon finally come close enough, Novarin reached to his hip to grab the small contraption on his belt and aimed it upward to pull the trigger - the grappling hook shot out at blinding speed to latch onto the bones and pull the rogue with it. Scaling up with the retraction of his handy gizmo, the Shadowblade landed as best he could, hanging on for dear life when the wyrm took such as a signal to retract and fly higher into the air.

“No no! I SAID BRING IT DOWN NOT MAKE IT GO UP!! YOU ARE GOING THE WRONG WAY!” Kou yelped, speaking into the comm for Novarin to hear him.

How could those milky eyes see that? How did he know the dragon was going up? Was Kou faking it this entire time?

Turning his attention upwards to watch the rogue’s energy tangle with the Frostwyrm, Kou waited patiently on the ground, knowing full well he could trust his teammates to handle the others that were in mid attack. A hand reached behind him to pull his staff free of it’s strap and with a slow inhale, the serpent’s skull atop it seemed to open when whispered incantations escaped the Vulpera’s tiny muzzle. The eye sockets lit up with a brilliant white glow, clearing the fox’s vision to reveal the luminescent gold hues below. The tiniest little smirk twitched and with a swipe of his hand, a torrent of shadows swirled around him from the skull of his staff, rendering the creation of a fully formed serpent and hovering shark beast to flank either side of him.

It seemed Kou’s outlandish stories may have held some sort of merit.

Novarin noticed the spike of energy below and with a renewed sense of possible hope that the fox was indeed capable of combat, he started the climb, hanging on for dear life when the Frostwyrm he was attached to began to spin and roll to try and shake the rogue free. Much to its dismay, Nova remained tightly latched, faltering only on his foothold for a brief moment.

Once close enough to the bony structure of the dragon’s neck, the cursed blade Nova had been holding onto was slammed in between the bones to help give him a handle to hold onto and brace himself for his next crazy idea. The same grappling hook he had used earlier was aimed and fired, latching the claw of it into the back of the Frostwyrm’s jaw and instead of following it with the retraction, Novarin yanked hard, forcing the beast’s head down and to turn hard right, guiding it back directly towards the little fox and his shadowy figures.

“If you have a fuckin’ plan, I SUGGES’ YA DO IT NOW!” Nova called out through the comm, the wind torrent causing quite a bit of static on his end. They were going to crash at this rate and at such a momentum, Novarin knew he’d be flung off.

“Yes yes, big plan, much surprise, very soon.” Kou teased in reply, chipper through the drastic attacks they were suffering. Once Novarin and the dragon were within casting range, Kou shot out his claws, outstretched towards Nova with all of his might. The serpent shot forward, fangs bared. The biting shadow sank hard into Novarin’s torso, not painfully but the life grip was certainly attached and with minimal effort, Kou yanked the rogue, blade, grappling hook, and some bone back to his side to free the Shadowblade of the crashing dragon. 

It didn’t stop there. 

The Vulpera swung his staff up in an arching motion and soon the shark took its own bite but not into Novarin, into the dragon instead, splattering the darkness onto the bones to create a tether and slow the beast down considerably as it was trying to pull itself back up to avoid crashing. Guiding the dragon as best he could, Kou braced himself for impact, forcing the beast to hit the ground.

The agonizing roar echoed out and as a claw swiped angrily at the two attackers, Kou and Novarin both dodged out of the way - Nova far more out of shock than he should have been. In truth, they needed a better plan, not just the dodge fest that was coming out of the pair trying to keep the wyrm’s attention.

“Get t’ th’ side!” Nova called out but just as he did, a single swat of that tail slammed into Kou, knocking the tiny fox several yards and gashing his soft white fur open from the sharp bones. The loudest, most pitiful yip sounded when he rolled in the dirt, the crimson already began to stain the white fur. Kou curled up a moment to apply a firm amount of pressure to the wound as if it would help stop the pain, the very wind knocked from him.

Novarin narrowed his eyes, reaching back to unsheathe his second blade, letting the whispers of the cursed objects further incite chaos into his ears.  Squeezing the blades tightly, the spikes within the handles ejected, piercing his palms in the now scarred holes, the curse he had tried to avoid using at all costs but now? Now it was personal. No one got to kick the fox but him.

Both swords ignited into a bright glow once fed the droplets of blood, causing a burst of power to course through the Shadowblade. He calmed, eerily so, and with a single kick off the ground, Novarin vanished in thin air. When he returned, he was above the dragon to swipe down with both swords in a devastating blow and just as the blades connected, he vanished again. Novarin was a flurry of blood soaked rage, the disappearing act was a sequence of particularly hard strikes in a killing spree, each time reappearing in a different direction.

This distraction was enough to give the Vulpera time to pull himself up and wheeze, shaking off the glancing blow. His paw reached for the staff not far away and with another soft mutter of words, the serpent and shark made their way back to his side again. It took little convincing to let the specters avenge the wounded Vulpera and with another spike of energy, both rushed towards the flailing dragon, coiling around the beast until they dove into the ground, hiding for a blink of an eye.

With absolutely no warning, dark chains shot up from the ground to attach themselves to the dragon, coiling around the limbs and locking the beast in place, all easily controlled by a single paw in the air and a panting fox who wasn’t wearing his usual smile but instead, a frown of pain. The milky clouds had already begun to return to the glowing gold eyes but he wouldn’t let that deter him from getting the job finished.

“Anytime, Mister Nova!” Kou called out as he held the vice grip on the beast with all of his might. He was struggling to contain a dragon that could have had him as a snack but for his new friends? He used all of his might to restrain the Frostwyrm.

Upon command, Novarin reappeared from the shadows, diving down into a full evisceration with both blades crossed to snap through the Frostwyrm’s neck like a pair of scissors. With ferocious velocity, the Rogue went straight through, decapitating the beast and severing the Lich ties that brought it to life. He landed in the pile of the skeleton that began to collapse, struggling as the last of the Lichfire faded from the heart chamber of the fallen creature.

Once slain, Kou exhaled the breath he had been holding and stumbled back to collapse in a sitting position and press his palm to his side. Ears folded back a moment, frustrated at himself for getting hurt. The shadows recoiled back into him and faded away, leaving the tiny fox alone.

In realization that the Vulpera had collapsed, Novarin pushed himself up from the rubble to sprint over. He knelt down, intent to search and see just how badly it was. “Hey, ya alrigh’?”

The clouded vision raised towards Novarin’s voice but the roars of more dragons were deafening to those overly large audits. “I will be.. But the others need our help! No time to sit, yes yes!” Giving the best smile he could muster, Kou pushed himself to stand, shaking off the small gash in his side in favour of finding the others to assist.

“Mm...” Nodding, Nova offered two quick pats to Kou’s head and stood up, turning to face the others that were in their own battles. “Shall we?”

“For Azeroth!” Kou chirped, running as best he could with the tiniest of limps, ready to jump right in.

“F’er Azeroth.”

> @koukikai <

>Mention: @talonoa @inistellan <

[chernoblank]

YES HELLO, welcome to a new entry of What is Ulana Wearing?

source: this excellent video

I know I’m very late to the party with this behind the scenes but I just saw it today. It’s apparently an alternate take of the school scene? I could see it also being an earlier school scene, as in this is where Ulana, Boris and Valery meet to discuss things when it’s not winter yet.  yes ok it’s probably a picture of the actual actors and not a deleted scene, because Stellan is so relaxed

I’m half surprised half endeared that Ulana chose to wear PINK, it’s so deceptively soft and... casual? the hoodie is something that could be worn at home, so that’s what makes me wonder if this was an earlier scene where they were all just hanging out well before the winter. The pink hoodie reminds me of her wonderful orange cardigan thing in that it shouldn’t work but it somehow does. She is also wearing knee-tall brown boots and a lovely checkered brown+yellow skirt. I love that skirt. I love that Ulana dresses in skirts and dresses. 

If this is what they were always wearing under their heavy coats for the school scene (it doesn’t look like the same type of boots for her but I could wrong?), idk if I should be horrified or even more in love that underneath Ulana’s BEST OUTFIT DRESSED TO SLAY is that uhh ultra casual at-home-cozy-vaguely-unmatched look.

No surprise here if you know me but may I wave my tiny, lonely Uloris flag for the first pic? Why are they standing so close like it’s them vs Valery? Why is Boris dressed just as casually, like they are both receiving Valery for tea in their cozy home 😍? And in the second one, she’s arguing with Valery and Boris is just listening calmly and it’s been like a century but I just love this OT3 like the first day ok

[lihikainanea]

You talk about Tiger’s families opinion of Bill, but what about Bill’s families opinion of Tiger? We know his siblings opinions, but what about his mom? What does she think of Tiger? What questions does she ask him about their relationship? What about his dad?

Oh man, I low key love thinking about this.

I feel like I’ve covered how most of the brothers feel about her, like she’s the tiny small angry hamster that they all never knew they needed in their lives, to fret over.

I love the idea that maybe Papa Stellan treats her like the second daughter he maybe always wished he had. Maybe they cook together, because that’s sweet. Other than Gustaf, maybe Papa Skars is the only one tiger likes to ask about what Bill was like when he was a kid, hear funny stories about his childhood. There’s something in papa Skars, a mischief, that maybe remind tiger of Granny.

I think My is a tricky one. So many of her sons/family are famous that she has sort of resigned herself to the fact that she needs to let them live, let them make mistakes, let them learn. Maybe Bill was on a destructive path a bit before tiger, and while tiger wasn’t really around to straighten him out then, maybe she definitely kept him on a right path after, kept him happy, made him laugh and smile, made just a bit of his darkness fade into light. That’s something that isn’t lost on any mother.