#The temple at Landfall

[holy-puckslibrary]

━ 𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐬 𝐨𝐟𝐟 𝐦𝐲 𝐠𝐢𝐫𝐥.

──────────── 𝐰𝐜 — 1.9k 𝐜𝐰 — everyone is aged up / non-canon compliant ages bc i said so; rafe being an emotionally constipated, toxic douche-canoe 3000; an unhealthy dynamic; suggestive moments but not explicit; w*rd + substance mention, wheeze bein' a savage; and a potential cliffhanger? 𝐚/𝐧 — this is a lil nugget from a mini-series i have in the works :) lmk if you’d like to see more in the future! 💌 ────────────

main masterlist | MDNI

IF EVER THERE were a time when a human being might actually be capable of blowing steam from their ears, it would be this one.

Rafe Cameron has been pacing the length of the chapel's private lot since he dragged you out here who knows how long ago. Mumbling crudely configured sentences and half-baked schemes under his breath, he looks every bit the loose canon he's been branded as.

While not ideal, things could be worse—a lot worse. At the very least, he hasn't punched anything yet; concrete wall, tree trunk, or otherwise.

The "otherwise" in this situation (and most, to be frank) is JJ Maybank's pretty face.

Apparently, Rafe doesn't appreciate the way he's been touching you all afternoon.

"If that fuckin' pogue knows what's good for him, he—he'll keep his filthy hands off what's mine."

Strong words for someone who refuses to even attempt exclusivity, or make any sort of commitment whatsoever.

You gnaw on your cheek until copper stings your tongue.

JJ has to touch you, it's unavoidable.

Sarah, his younger sister and your lifelong best friend, has asked you to be her Maid of Honor and, to absolutely no one's surprise, John B, her fiancé, asked JJ Maybank to serve as his Best Man.

Sarah's older brother doesn't see it that way.

And why would he? That would involve rational thinking and a modicum of maturity—two things Rafe is allergic to.

In his perfect world, you would walk in the procession having left a him-sized gap, and, even then, he'd probably decide that wasn't enough. Knowing him, there would need to be an ocean between you two before Rafe was finally satisfied. And still, you know for certain he'd find something else to bitch about.

It's almost like he enjoys getting himself all worked up.

"Rafe, I'm not a pet or a toy to play tug-of-war with on the playground."

At your sudden burst of exasperation, the pacing comes to a screeching halt. And thank god for that; the repetition was starting to make you nauseous.

Just as firmly as his jaw, Rafe's fists clench at his sides.

"When did I say that you were?" he spews his venom at you, but his fervid attention remains fixed on the cracked pavement baking in the late afternoon rays. Rafe kicks a pebble into the side of a parked car, then continues, "—because I don't recall saying that. And you know how I feel about words being put into my mouth."

"No," you all but growl. "—but that's what you meant."

Your teeth ache from grinding them together. A migraine is forming at either temple, but you're already too exhausted by this conversation to massage it away before it takes root. You have your hands full with one headache right now, there's no room for another on your plate. But, like the eldest Cameron's emotional maelstrom, landfall is inevitable.

Rafe glares at you, but doesn't say anything to the contrary.

This begrudged acquiescence is the closest you ever come to Rafe admitting that you were right about something.

Or apologizing.

"Well, whatever you are, you're still mine. Something he doesn't respect and you seem to have forgotten—and I think we're overdue for a little reminder, sweetness."

He reaches for you, and you halfheartedly bat his hands away.

"Rafe, can we just... can we please do this some other time? I have to get back to—"

"—to your side piece from The Cut?"

"—to Sarah. Your sister. Y'know, the one who's getting married this weekend?" You cross your arms over your chest. Rafe rolls his eyes, clearly irritated you decided to cock-block his ogling. "—in case that bit of information got lost in your ego."

"Wow, you're really antsy to get back in there." His eyebrows jump, somehow unfettered by his audacity. The supplemental away from me is omitted, but deafening. "There's no need to be so defensive—if you have nothing to feel guilty for, that is."

You don't dignify his badgering with a response.

His tongue punches his cheek, and he looks away, as if depriving you of eye contact is a punishment in and of itself.

Rafe is trying to bait you into an actual fight so that he can exercise his big, bottled-up emotions without having to acknowledge their existence or their cause. There's too much left to do before the ceremony; you don't have time to spare for something as juvenile and pointless as feeding into his emotional scapegoat.

"If you're spreading 'em for Maybank, at least give me a head's up so I can get tested. It's common courtesy, sweetness."

Cold and debilitating, like a scorpion's venom, his accusation is devoid of the familiarity you've grown fond of. Under Rafe's prickly carapace of indifference, he is spiteful and chronically insecure.

This is what happens when you don't purge yourself of whatever is bothering you. Pent up, the negativity builds and builds day in and day out. The knot gets bigger, stronger, and harder to ignore the longer it's left undealt with. The conflict between inner turmoil and externalized chaos, often projected onto an underserving substitute, is harsh and bitter, persisting until there's nothing left to leverage. Denial is a dreadful opponent and an impenetrable armor.

You are the frog today, and you are more often than not. Perhaps there was a time when turns were frequently taken, but you can't remember.

In shooting to sting, he'll kill himself just the same. Yet, despite the assured detriment to your livelihood, you put your faith in rational deterrence and permit the arachnid to crawl onto your back.

A sense of duty is easily preyed upon, and a desire for benevolence can leave you blind to the true nature of things. Instinct, natural or nurtured, doesn't have to be a death sentence. Nor is it a prescription for life. Villainy, like goodness, is a choice.

The frog may not be able to sting or fight, but it can leap.

"Would you just shut up?"

You bring his mouth to yours before any more garbage can spill out.

He's keyed up on jealousy and, most likely, something else. Rafe's intent on pushing you away with tired cheap shots in a fit of anger. You've known him long enough to know that, in the absence of control, he does and says the exact opposite of what he feels.

He refuses to be vulnerable in any healthy way, instead preferring to throw double-edged rocks at your window from behind a wilting bush.

Words are incompatible with Rafe's trauma-soaked mind. He'll hear whatever it is you have to say—Hell, he might even believe it for a few minutes—but a life of too many broken promises and poorly disguised lies depreciated their value.

Action—that's what Rafe can grasp. For something to click and stick, it must be tangible. You kissed him to express your loyalty in the only way he understands.

And to make him shut up. Definitely that, too.

"I should've ignored Sarah when she said a spray bottle was a bad idea."

Your eyes are slow to open, but you jump away from Rafe anyway. As if you've been caught with your hand in the cookie jar, or like you betrayed some great conspiracy. Like he burned you.

It may not have a label, but your charged relationship with the Cameron heir is an open secret on Kiladare. Still, you're not too keen on public displays of affection—if anything you subject each other to could even be considered gentle or loving.

Intimate, sure. An attachment, definitely. The jury's still out on the health of such a volatile symbiosis, but such an entanglement is a bitch to bury.

You've tried.

Rafe's jaw clenches, annoyed by the irksome interruption now more than any slight you've perpetrated. "Wheezie, can't you see we're in the middle of something?"

"Something I saw a little too much of," she retorts with an exaggerated gag.

You bite down on your cheeks to keep your laughter at bay. You're in no mood to poke the bear further than he's already stabbed himself.

"Run along, the adults are talking."

Again, Rafe reaches for you. This time, you step out of bounds.

She means well, but the youngest Cameron has a big mouth and a propensity for gossip. She's also a compulsive eavesdropper. Wheezie might butt in and stir the pot far less now than she did a few years ago, but when it comes to Rafe, all bets are off. They may be each other's preferred sibling, bonded by their inability to best Sarah in the rat race for their father's attention and approval, but in their household, it's everyone for themselves.

And she's had her eye on the special edition Animal Crossing Switch console for weeks; she'll throw you both under the bus without a thought. Especially, if it means not waiting 'till Christmas to have it in her tween-age hands.

You throw her a bone, and yourself a lifeline. "What's up, Wheeze?"

She gives her brother a final glare, then turns to face you fully. Her features are twisted with exasperation, an understandable feeling considering who her siblings are and the family she's had the misfortune of being born into.

"Sarah wants to practice the rings. Again. So, hurry up and finish sucking face, adults. We have more important things to do."

Wheezie stomps off before either you or Rafe can get a word in. For her, the conversation ran its course. No need to stick around.

"Can I ask something stupid?" Rafe asks once his sister is out of earshot.

His voice is a bit wobbly, and while you know he'll make you regret it later, but you just can't help yourself: "Don't you always?"

Rafe clears his throat, then rubs his jaw like it might grant him the right words.

"We only... y'know with each other, right? I-I mean, I just figured since you're stuck to me like fucking velcro you're in the same boat. I mean—talk about stage five clinger. And, don't get me wrong, I would've unstuck you, but this," Rafe gestures to what little space remains between you. "—is way more convenient than all the hoops and shit of getting with someone else."

You know what he's actually asking—you've been fluent in "Rafe" since the fourth grade. Just one of the many, many joys of your fathers' life-long bromance.

He wants you to spill your guts before he does. He wants certainty; a safety net of prior knowledge.

—Rafe wants power.

"Totally," you drawl, humoring him with half the effort you normally would. Rafe squirms under your knowing gaze. "All for convenience, babe."

"Are you mocking me?" 

"Don't I always?" you counter through a smirk that makes Rafe feel as though he's staring into a splintered funhouse mirror.

Rafe watches you slip back into the chapel, wishing that he said more... wishing he'd said less. He follows your figure down the hallway until the metal door shuts with a rancorous thud.

When he shuts his eyes—a lukewarm attempt to calm his racing heart in the relentless summer sun—all Rafe can think about is your parting wink.

And the God-awful churn of emotion it triggered.

──────────── 

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[luminoustarlight]

Passionfruit | Anakin Skywalker

Ingesting a foreign fruit leaves you and Anakin feeling strange.

rating: explicit | pairing: anakin skywalker x afab!jedi!reader | wc: 2.1k | read on ao3 warnings: literally no plot, just porn, SMUT [sex pollen of sorts, mildly dub con due to sex pollen, mutual masturbation, blowjob, cum swallowing, anakin spits in readers mouth, unprotected p in v, creampie, dirty talk], swearing

kind of but not really inspired by passionfruit by drake but covered by scary pockets. i really just use song titles as my titles bc I'm uncreative and lazy.

As soon as you and Anakin reach the ship, you both know something is wrong. 

It’s in the way your conversation halts, the way Anakin looks at you with inky pupils bleeding into his blue eyes, the way you suddenly feel like you can’t breathe. Your first thought is that you’ve been drugged. You’ve been together the whole day, you haven’t encountered any suspicious beings, you’ve eaten the same things—  “The fruit…” you mumble. 

Anakin is peeling off his black robe because his skin is so hot, he feels like he’s going to burn right through the fabric. “What?”

“The fruit!” you repeat, tugging at the collar of your tunic. The symptoms wash over you like a tsunami making landfall. Instantly and violently. Sweat has formed across your brow, your entire nervous system is on fire and your cunt has started to ache. 

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Anakin shouts, now undoing his utility belt and taking off the rest of his layers. “Maker, why is it so fucking hot in here?” 

He doesn’t mean to be cross with you, he’s just so fucking confused. Nothing makes sense. He has one singular thought. I need to fuck. 

He’s so painfully hard, he’s not sure if he has ever felt this miserable. This desperate. He needs his hand around his dick or better yet, slipped inside a tight pussy. He’s pretty sure it’s the only thing that will make him feel better. 

With Anakin’s broad chest and chiseled abdomen on display, it makes it impossible for you to make sense of the mess in your mind. You feel drunk, weak knees wobbling as you literally cannot resist the urge to touch yourself. 

Before you’re even conscious of it, you’re ridding yourself of your Jedi robes and everything else except for your bandeau and underwear. It’s an out of body experience realizing that you’ve stripped yourself almost bare without consciously thinking ‘ I’m going to take my clothes off ’. 

You’ve read about certain flora and fauna like this in the library at the Temple. Certain foods and flowers are known aphrodisiacs, containing a chemical that puts the person who is exposed to it in the mood. However, there are some that are so potent, it quite literally makes the person so aroused, the only way to remedy the symptoms is to orgasm. If you try to explain all of that to your Jedi companion, the one you’ve known since you were younglings, the words would come out as mush. 

“Fruit… horny… we need to-fuck,” your already weak train of thought gets even more derailed once Anakin starts palming himself over his pants. 

Anakin’s brow furrows but he doesn’t stop running his hand over his bulging dick. I want it in my mouth, you think. Although the fruit has left you and Anakin with the insatiable need to fuck, you feel a pit of shame in your stomach. Sex is not forbidden as a Jedi, but it’s not something you regularly practice. You usually take care of it yourself, as you’re too afraid to partake in something so intimate with a stranger. It makes you wonder if Anakin simply uses his hand or goes out of his way to find someone to have sex with… 

Possession quickly swallows up all of the shame you were feeling. Imagining Anakin with his lips on someone else, his cock inside someone else, making someone else cum— it makes you want to puke. You want him all to yourself. He’s your best friend, you’ve saved each other’s skin countless times, your bond is like no other. And now it’s going to be irrevocably changed because of something you ingested. Not because you finally acted on your true feelings for him. 

“The- the fruit made us… fuck,” Anakin groans. “I need to take my cock out, it hurts so much.” 

“I know, Ani,”  you watch him intently, impulses absolutely impossible to ignore. As he removes his pants and takes a firm hold of his cock, your hand slips beneath the waistband of your underwear and you begin rubbing quick circles over your clit. “Oh…” you whimper, even though you’ve barely scratched the surface of satisfaction. 

“Take it off,” he says darkly. His dick is throbbing and leaking an obscene amount of precum. His hand moves up and down with ease, brushing his thumb over his tip with each upward stroke. “Take off the rest of your fucking clothes, Y/N. I need to see you.” 

You nod, wriggling out of your underwear and slipping your bandeau over your head. Your fingers are back inside of you, prodding as deep as you can go. Anakin is going feral watching you fuck yourself with your fingers. Pretty tits on display for him, even more perfect than he imagined. 

Maker, he’s in awe of you. He always thought you were cute growing up. But then you seemed to blossom overnight and suddenly you were a woman. He wants to worship every inch of you, run his hands over the hills and valleys of your body, and then he wants to fuck you stupid. To fuck you so hard you’re screaming nothing but his name and seeing stars. 

“Keep touching yourself, Ani. It’s the only way we’ll feel better.” 

The wet sounds of both of your sexes fill the hull of the ship and you think briefly, that this is one of the worst places to experience the effects of a foreign fruit. At least it’s just the two of you on this mission. Just the two of you, the most mischievous Jedi pair the Order has ever seen, mutually masturbating in a Republic commissioned ship. And it’s not enough. Your fingers have never felt so pointless and disappointing in your entire life.

 “More…” you mumble, pulling your fingers from your cunt as they were doing you no good. “Anakin, I need more.” 

“Fuck,” he breathes, bottom lip catching between his teeth. Your pussy clenches pitifully as you imagine what it’d feel like to be filled with Anakin’s cock. He’s thick and long, and you’ve never particularly thought of dicks as pretty, but Stars, if Anakin’s isn’t the definition of pretty then you don’t know what is. “I’m gonna cum- I can’t help it, angel. It’s- fuckfuckfuck-” 

You’re in front of Anakin in a flash, dropping to your knees and throwing your mouth over his cock just as he begins to cum. Anakin can’t help but push you further down his length, groaning loudly when you choke on him. “Shit- that’s it, choke on my cock, baby.” Anakin pushes your hair away from your face to see you looking up at him with the wickedest eyes. He knows you need more and even though he’s just cum himself, he doesn’t feel too much better. It’s a good thing he was going to fuck you regardless. 

Your nose is nuzzled against his tuft of hair and the musky scent of him makes you dizzy. You’re rubbing your clit again, but it’s no use. Nothing is going to make you feel better but Anakin. You’d settle for his fingers or even his mouth. You just need him. 

Once Anakin is sure he’s milked everything out, he pulls his cock out of your mouth. There’s still cum on your tongue when he leans down to kiss you, pulling you up from the ground with just his hand around your neck. Your tongues dance around each other briefly before Anakin breaks away. “Open.” 

You open your mouth and Anakin spits the cocktail of your saliva and his cum back into your mouth. It’s the most erotic thing you’ve ever experienced. It makes your whole predicament worse. It’s actually cruel that Anakin has already cum and you’re still miserable. You’re still suffering the effects of the fruit. “Ani, please. I need to-” 

“Get on the floor,” he orders. “On your back.” 

You don’t need to be told twice. You hiss at the cool metal flooring of the ship, but it’s honestly like an ice pack on a battle wound. It feels amazing against the burning inferno you’re feeling from the inside out. This isn’t how Anakin imagined ravishing you. Ideally, he’d make you writhe against the mattress with his fingers, then with his mouth. It isn’t until you’ve cum at least twice, does he go about making you cum around his cock. But unfortunately, urgency is of the utmost importance. 

As he lifts your leg over his shoulder, his cock brushes against your folds. You whimper at the all-too-brief contact with his weeping tip. He’s going to stretch you out, going to hit so deeply you won’t be able to fucking walk for a day. “Oh my Gods, Anakin, please. I feel like I’m dying.” 

His perfect pink lips form a devilish smirk before he finally, finally pushes himself into you. Immediately, the fire feels like it’s beginning to extinguish. He hasn’t even begun to move yet. “Need my cock to save you, baby?” 

Your eyes roll to the back of your head and you wish you cared enough to come up with a retort but it just feels so good to have Anakin inside of you. “Sh-shut up,” you clench your walls to tease him back. “Fuck me, Anakin. Hard.” 

“You’re gonna get it hard for being a little bitch just then.” Anakin nips at your ankle as he draws his cock almost entirely out of your cunt before ramming back in so forcefully it makes you scream. Like, bloody murder scream. “Louder, honey. I can’t hear you,” he taunts.

“Fuck!” Your arms stretch above your head, gripping onto the grated floor so you aren’t pushed away with each demanding thrust Anakin delivers. There’s no finesse to it, really, he’s just fucking you hard like you asked. His knees are probably aching from the uncomfortable surface of the floor but he doesn’t seem to give it much attention. 

“Is this how you wanted it, then? To be fucked so hard you’re basically just a toy?” Anakin leans down, which makes your hamstring stretch and sting as your knee is practically next to your face. The new angle with which Anakin’s cock is entering you is divine. You feel like he’s in your stomach with how deep the tip of him is hitting. 

“Mmmm,” you murmur, wrapping your arms around Anakin’s neck. You tug at his grown-out hair, bringing him down to your mouth. He still tastes a bit like his cum, along with the salty sweat that has formed over the top of his lip. You drag your hands down the expanse of his back, muscles tensing under you with each thrust. 

He’s driving into you with strong, punctuated movements. He kisses along your neck, over your racing pulse, and bites down. He hollows his cheeks to leave a mark that will remind both of you of the time you ate a fruit that made you carnal for each other. He soothes his tongue over your new bruise before leaving a butterfly kiss on your jaw. When his mouth settles over your ear, his hot breath sends a new wave of tingles down to your toes. “Feels so good, angel. Maker, your cunt is perfect. Just the tightest little hole for me to use.” 

“All yours, Ani-” your thought is cut off when Anakin’s gloved hand presses against your clit. Your back arches off of the floor and you know it’s only a matter of seconds before you finally reach your peak. Anakin knows just how to rub you so it pushes you along. Your long-awaited orgasm explodes like a firecracker. It jolts through your body, your pussy pulsates rapidly around Anakin and that sends him over the edge, too. He’s cumming for a second time and thankfully, he actually feels satiated. He just hopes you do too, because he’s exhausted and aching. 

It takes you several moments to calm down from your orgasm but the fog has finally begun to dissipate from your head. Anakin pulls his softening dick from you and collapses next to you on the floor. His chest is heaving from the exertion, which is understandable. But then he just starts laughing. 

You turn to look at him, totally puzzled. “What?” you can’t help but smile too, because his laugh is just that infectious. 

“I just can’t believe it took eating a fruit for us to finally make a move.” 

“We kind of didn’t have a choice.” 

“Yeah,” Anakin sighs. 

“Wait,” you prop your head up on your elbow. “You wanted to… you know…with me before eating the fruit?” 

Anakin mirrors you. “Well, yeah. Didn’t you?” 

You roll your eyes. “Could you be any more conceited, Anakin Skywalker?” 

“Actually, I could.” 

Yeah, he could. That was a stupid question. So your suspicions were right, after all. 

You and Anakin have always been close. A bit too close for the Council’s liking if we’re being honest. They would be lying if they said they weren’t worried about the two of you. 

It’s a good thing they will never know about the mess you two made in this Republic star ship.

◂ anakin masterlist ▸ main masterlist

[flowers-of-io]

XXXV

Read on Ao3

Xivu's soul is peeled apart violently, in a single, rapid strike. Her other half, the Ascendant one, shrinks and rolls up like paper in flames, and its scream is terrible, ear-splitting and bloodcurdling and enough to make her see stars. That's some damn great power, she thinks. Rage and pain blind her like blood streaming over her eyes. She lands hard, face down, on the surface of Crota's warmoon, and now the blood is in her mouth as well, rushing out through the teeth and chitin-cracks and between broken bones.

She needs a moment to collect herself. Every part of her is howling—her flesh, her worm, her soul ripped in twain, the cacophony rolling over her like a landfall as she lies struggling for breath. Oh, she will kill her for this. She isn't even sure which sister she is thinking of; and that's of little matter, really, she'll kill both of them, for the gall and audacity and sheer foolishness. She already feels the influx of tribute: the power drawn from that act of war upon her, the entire weight of her throne world being ripped away from her, returning twofold and rushing back down her veins like the sweetest nectar. The sheer force of it is enough to keep her pressed to the ground, straining and trembling with newfound strength. She laughs shakily, and spits out five teeth.

Shutting her out of her throne world, really now. She had an unfinished dice game with Haroktha. The flow of tribute shuts her parasite up, but there is still a cacophony of voices yelling in her head; worms her gods and the Deep Itself and her confused adjutants all screaming like thrall set on fire and asking how, HOW, how did she do it and how did you let it happen and how could you not see this coming. The constant noise blinds her almost as much as the pain does. It is harder to tune them out now that she is locked out from her own mind palace.

They do not ask the useless question of Why—it is useless when Savathûn is involved, they've learned, with her lies and tricks and imbaru-schemes serving no other purpose than sustenance and her own amusement. She likes to pretend to have reasons for her foolishness, but it is results moreso than motives that speak volumes about her actions, and her erstwhile gods consider managing the former to be far more efficient than wondering about the latter. The only thing that concerns them now is Xivu's failure to contain her.

But Xivu Arath has never been able to keep from asking the useless question.

So why would her sister do something so stupid?

It is always like that with Savathûn. A victory that is a defeat that is a half-truce that is a means to an end, the paths branching out like chemical blooms and blending into each other, until it is impossible to map them, and the strategist in Xivu screams in fury. Eris Morn is different—clever, yes, but a lot like Oryx, knowing the value of power and impatient to cut down to the core of things. She was single-minded in her goal, sword-sharp: to defeat, or to die trying. No; this plan, this defeat-that-is-a-victory is Savathûn's language, a coded message, and admission of something too delicate or too dangerous to speak aloud.

Her worm gnaws at her impatiently. It too is sword-sharp in its pursuits, demanding either victory or defeat and never an ambivalence, and it cannot stand those two mutually exclusive concepts twining. You lost, it hisses, you gained power, but you lost, you lost, and you must never lose, you must never fail to be the strongest, even if the price is power. It thrashes and shouts furiously. Xivu Arath ignores it, and scrambles to sit up.

Her head flares up with white hot pain, a cascade and then a string of pulses in her temples. Her broken ribs and barked skin pulsate along. Blood crusts at the edges of wounds, coalescing in the cold thin air, and every movement pulls at the scabs and tears them open anew.

And through the ache and the cries of her worm, Xivu Arath smiles.

She smiles, because Savathûn her Sister loves her, and this love is war.

[jeskaim]

Murders at Karlov Manor

What's up everyone? It's been a while since I did a set review and I figure Murders at Karlov Manor has enough interesting cards in it for me to write about so here it is.

I'm SUPER excited for this card. You can't go to Ravnica and not have Aurelia show up. Aurelia, The Warleader was my first ever commander because my cousin has a daughter named Aurelia. I'm definitely adding this one because it's a perfect fit for extra combats and with enough of them she can cause some serious damage.

This has to be one of the best cards in the set if you ask me. I wasn't expecting to see a mechanic like wither appear in a standard-legal set but here it is on Massacre Girl. I've played some games with Scorpion God and some of the cards underperform so I'm definitely adding this one to my Scorpion God deck.

You can't have a set in Ravnica without some sort of fetchable dual-land cycle. I still have my fingers crossed that we'll get the enemy cycle of the lands from BFZ that come into play untapped if you control two or more basic lands but these ones aren't bad. They're definitely better than the Temples because these ones are fetchable and instead of putting the top card of your library if you don't like it you can put it in your graveyard where it could be more useful. I can definitely see these replacing Temples in commander.

Cases are interesting to say the least. It's not the first time we've seen a new type of Enchantment introduced but these ones are like Sagas that stay on the field after their last chapter resolves. I can't wait to see how these do in constructed formats. For most of them they suit specific decks like Case of the Ransacked Lab suiting spellslinger decks.

Here are other cards I think are interesting and noteworthy. For Undergrowth Recon I can see it being used in Landfall decks. For me it stands out because the artwork is the same as the promotional art when the 2024 release schedule was revealed. Anzrag is insane. Just the extra combat ability makes this card powerful but the activated ability to make your opponent block it with whatever they have can come in handy to get rid of problematic creatures. Trostani I'm including because (spoiler alert) the middle one is the killer and the flavor text and card itself doesn't even hint at it. Leyline of the Guildpact I can definitely see being used in 60-card constructed but not commander because the chances of getting it in your opening hand is pretty small. The new Niv-Mizzet is good but only if you can get as many different color pairs as you can get out. I can see it being a popular commander though.

Next week is prerelease and I don't know if I'll go or not. I already preordered the new Aurelia, Massacre Girl, and some of the Surveil lands for my commander decks. Next is Outlaws of Thunder Junction which I'm excited for because there's a chance that Oko will return as hinted by the artwork.

[myinventoryisfull]

So I'm doing Pandaria Remix like everyone else, and started Landfall on my Alliance hunter because she was my first to 70. I got to the point where Tyrande is attacking (the orcs) at Chi-ji's temple, and just...

My "Can we not?" levels hit their max. I had LITERALLY just cleared the Temple of the Red Crane of Sha, I did NOT want to go back there to make things Worse.™️

So I'm like fine. Whatever. Fuck it, I'll do it on the Horde when I get there.

And then Garrosh shows up.

"Oh, there is no way I'm gonna enjoy this questline, is there?"

I was think close to just bailing when Vol'jin showed up. Instant relief. Mentally my Forsaken is excitedly climbing all over Vol'jin. I am so glad Troll Husband is here to save my sanity.

[the-strength-of-the-wolffe]

Wolffe’s Story

Intro  Pt1  Pt2  Pt3  Pt4  Pt5

Part 6: The General’s Secret

The 104th’s experience of the war has been an unusual one. The observant and canny among them can point out multiple examples, but most have at least taken notice of their combat record.

Whenever they make landfall, they’re never encamped for long. Their missions inalterably comprise of swift hard-hitting attacks devised and led by General Plo. The objectives vary, but each battle, or their role in it, is straightforward enough to finish in days, if not hours. Then they’re cruiser-bound again, taking a backseat to navy operations.

It’s not a bad life, just not what many of them were expecting. Their upbringing put images of epic months-long campaigns in their heads (which were definitely romanticized). In a battalion like the 104th, they feel ineffective, underused, like they’re stuck on light duty.

Wolffe doesn’t share their restiveness (his contentment firmly secured by his new lease on life), but privately he has bought into the speculation of a handicap, which doesn’t sit well with his proud spirit. If any higher-ups have concerns about him or his battalion, he wants to know why.

His assumptions turn out to be way off the mark.

A relief mission on the edge of a warzone goes sideways when Separatist forces capture several anti-aircraft batteries, trapping the 104th on the surface and halting any air support. With the region under enhanced threat, General Plo marshals all available troops to counter the droid offensive, and after nine days of relentless fighting they succeed. It's the longest, most rip-roaring conflict the 104th has participated in so far; they fought well and they know it. Fired by their success, nobody but Wolffe notices that their general has disappeared.

Through a confidential summons, he finds General Plo sequestered with a medic. The Jedi is obviously unwell, but he takes pains to answer Wolffe’s questions, thus divulging a long-kept secret:

As a Kel Dor far from his homeworld, he can’t remove his breathing apparatus, not even to eat, except within specially designed chambers installed in the Jedi Temple and on his flagship. His body is accustomed to lengthy fasting between visits (he takes injections to maintain hydration), but it suffered immense strain from the prolonged exertion of the battle. Although he toughed it out to the end, he’s utterly drained now and can’t make it back alone.

I actually researched this topic (a bit) but couldn’t find anything official on how Plo sustains himself. The chamber idea I borrowed from Star Trek; I assumed there’s a Star Wars equivalent. Also, this is my explanation for why he’s so thin.

He isn’t insecure about it, and he’s averse to deception, but he thought it best to keep his men in the dark so that they wouldn’t lose confidence in his ability to lead. However, in case of emergency, he entrusted one medic with the secret (this is Corporal Shepherd).

The Jedi Council is careful about which deployments they choose for him lest they send him somewhere too remote or volatile for timely extraction. Being the best judge of his stamina, he has the final say. This is the first time their collective planning went awry.

With his condition on the verge of being discovered, Plo accepted it was time to bring Wolffe into the circle; his assistance would be less conspicuous than Shepherd’s.

Wolffe didn’t know. Out of respect for General Plo’s rank and privacy, he never pried. He feels foolish now, but he gets a grip on himself to focus on their immediate predicament. Under the pretense of being called away, he puts Captain Midnight in charge of wrapping up while he and the General take an empty gunship back to the fleet, where he sees the Jedi safely to his quarters to recover.

In defense of Wolffe’s (and the 104th’s) ignorance, meals aren’t fixed or formal events, especially on deployments; everyone eats when they can, with high-ranking officers often supping in their quarters/tents. In any case, he and Plo spent enough time apart to allay any suspicion.

Although initially ruffled, Wolffe adjusts readily. As a clone commander, he’s expected to adapt to his Jedi general—their fighting style, their temperament, or in this case their physiology—if that means sticking to short-term missions, that’s fine with him (he’s just glad to know the reason). Furthermore, he understands the necessity of keeping secrets as a leader; he made the same call when he concealed his navy background from the 104th. Of course, his deep personal loyalty eclipses everything else. General Plo has done so much for him, and now shown him great trust. To let him down would be the height of dishonor.

He wants to believe the 104th would be equally accepting (he’d bet on Sinker, Boost, and Captain Roan at least), but they aren’t bound by the same duty and history, so he can’t be sure. When the General asks for his silence, he agrees.

The secret stays safe until their next stopover on Coruscant. A mortified Midnight shows up with a report that Wolffe, who takes pride in his men’s professionalism, thought he’d never receive: while on shore leave, one of their squads overheard some disparaging comments being aired about the 104th by another battalion (they’re soft, they haven’t seen real action, etc.) and retaliated, resulting in damaged property and a couple of broken noses. Astute in emotional matters, Midnight sums up the problem: having generated and absorbed falsehoods for some time, the men are losing confidence in themselves.

Clearly, keeping the 104th in the dark about their missions is doing more harm than good now. The best course, General Plo concludes, is honesty. Wolffe stands with him, albeit less serenely, as the whole battalion is called to assembly. The General is gambling his standing for their morale; it’s an uncomfortable tipping point.

An absolute stillness falls over the flight deck as General Plo lays out the facts. Then he puts an offer on the table that staggers everyone, including Wolffe: any trooper who feels truly unhappy with his lot is free to transfer—no fuss, no hard feelings. Military decorum crumbles into something close to bedlam, but their various reactions coalesce into a unanimous sentiment: they’re not going anywhere. They’ll serve wherever and whenever the General can.

They’re a better bunch than Wolffe gave them credit for (to his quick regret). Likewise, General Plo was wrong. Learning about his limitations doesn’t diminish his personhood or authority in their eyes—in fact, it humanizes him: he’s not some mystical invincible being or aloof superior but a mortal like them, a brother-in-arms who’s willing to be real with them. Naturally, they’re also enormously cheered by the affirmation of their competence and worth.

Knowing the truth has remarkable far-reaching effects on the 104th. They become self-assured and focused (if a bit smug); doubts and naysayers have no power over them anymore. They grow more unified as a battalion (although a touch exclusive) and embrace General Plo as part of their family. Critically, they don’t just tolerate their deployments, they strive to become specialists (particularly in rescues, one of the more exciting types of short-term missions) with each captain honing his company’s skills to fulfill a specific role. It’s not long before their hard work earns them repute in the GAR and beyond.

Ironically, Wolffe is the one who ends up worse off. He can’t shake the feeling of negligence nor the memory of General Plo in the gunship: wan and wasted, head bowed, arm-in-arm with him to brace against turbulence. It sharpens his awareness and apprehension, compels him to be more proactive and protective. From now on, he’s reluctant to be removed from the Jedi’s side.

It’s around this time that his dreams take a disturbing turn.

[ladyhoneydee]

30 Day Song(fic) Challenge: Day 3

The prompt for today's Song(fic) Challenge is “a song by your favorite band". To be honest, I don't listen to very many bands, so there was one very obvious choice for me: BTS. I went with the song "Hold Me Tight", from their ineffable "Most Beautiful Moment in Life" album. Fun fact: this is my only fic I've ever written to end truly angstily! I hope my angst-loving friends are proud.

Riptide

Game: Twilight Princess, after the final fight but before the final cutscene

Pairing: Midlink

Word Count: 1595 (these just keep getting longer, sheesh!)

Keywords: angst, romance, desperate hugging

Read on Ao3 or under the cut!

The mattresses of the inn-quarters above Telma’s Bar were stuffed with straw and wrapped in soft cotton. To the princesses Link accompanied, they might have seemed humble, simple, low-brow. They were nicer than anything Link had ever sat on, much less slept on. Ever, but especially in the last year of camping out on the stone floor of temples, the dirt of the roads of Hyrule, the shifting sands of the desert. The comfort made his spine ache. 

He slid off the bed, with only the thick quilt between him and the worn floorboards. 

It was the first time he’d been alone in a year. Midna had always, always been by his side, tied together first by a mutual burden and then by mutual care. But it was over now—Ganondorf’s blood still crusted beneath his fingers, even after the attempts to clean himself in Telma’s washbasin—and he had deferred to give his companion some well-earned privacy. Her room was right across the hall. 

It would take him two paces to cross to his door; two to cross the hall; two to reach her own bed. Fewer if he ran, although running wouldn’t be a good idea, with his wounds. Six paces. 

Six paces had never felt so wide a gulf. 

This…was what it would be like. 

What his life would be like. 

He knew it was coming. It had been an ugly truth clouding his horizon since the first time they’d entered the desert and he’d learned the true identity of the little imp that had always perched so puckishly on his furry back. He’d pretended he didn’t see it, that the faraway storm couldn’t reach him. But it had blown in on winds undeniable, and here they were. Days, weeks maybe, away from landfall. 

He loved her. He had fallen in love with the person she was, her strength and determination, her selfish selflessness. It could have been purely romantic, for her soul alone and not her physical form, but then, of course, she’d risen from the muddy field gowned in the beauty he’d always glimpsed beneath her skin, and he’d been struck with it like an arrow to the heart. She was the sun at twilight, and though he knew it could still hurt his eyes to stare, he couldn’t tear them away. 

And here he was, alone. 

Link was a skilled warrior, but the battle between the urge to curl into the fetal position on Telma’s floor and lie there until the foundation crumbled beneath him, and the craving to sprint right across that Din-damned hallway and to her side was the hardest he’d ever fought. 

He lied there. He cried there. 

And then—

A knock on his door. 

Just a rapping of knuckles, soft enough that had he been sleeping instead of bleeding out, he might never have heard it, even with his battle-stirred awareness that made it so difficult these days to sleep a whole night through. 

He stood, and the candle on the nightstand behind him cast his shadow towards the awaiting door.

“Come in,” he whispered. 

The door didn’t open. The latch didn’t click. But he felt her. The familiar chill of her walking in his shadow. She crossed the two paces with tantalizing slowness, and if she’d been in front of him, tangible, he may have reached out and pulled her in. Of course, she never gave him that chance. Always three steps ahead of him. He hated and adored it in equal measure. 

She materialized before him at last, shadows made flesh. First her eyes, those burning embers that had branded his heart. Then the tall, willowy form he had yet to become accustomed to, clothed in inky satin. Then the familiar orange of her hair, even if the scraggly, damaged ponytail of times past had been replenished into long, healthy locks—and oh Nayru, she was wearing it loose, and he’d never seen her hair down before in all this time, and he desired nothing more than for it to hang down around their heads like a curtain against the world that wanted so badly to tear them apart as she perched atop him on his bed and leaned down to press her lips—

“I’d say my eyes are up here, wolfie, but given that you’re staring at my hair, I’m not sure that applies. You know, that’s not what most people are drawn to in a woman.” She smirked, that single fang poking over her bottom lip. “Is it because you’re a dog?”

There was nothing sweeter than the affectionate sting of her teasing. “What’s your excuse, then? After all the times you cuddled up to me because I was ‘so soooft’, and the times you asked to braid my hair?”

“Now that was because I wanted it back out of your fool face before some dynalfos cut off your nose,” she sniffed. “Honestly, what would you do without me to take care of—” her eyes widened at her own words, and the pain splashed across his face like acid, but it was too late, “—you.”

His line was ‘Die, probably’, but he couldn’t follow the script. The banter was old hat, but it was one he could no longer rest on his brow. He stood, silent. Studied the shadows from the candlelight and her own emotions as they flickered across her face.

He wasn’t sure who reached out first. Maybe him, fueled by desperate impatience, as always. Maybe her, unable to resist their skewed center of gravity that led only back to one another. Whichever it was, it led to arms clamped around one another, shaking hands grasping at the hair they’d bantered about only moments before, the press of warm on warm in the heavenly dark. 

They stumbled backwards, unable to hold themselves up on four legs alone. Link’s back hit the bedroom wall with a dull thud, and he gratefully let it take his weight as he pulled Midna even closer. 

He felt her breath, hot and humid, on the top of his head, and her arms squeeze him tighter in return. A gasp tore from his lips at the sharp pang of pressure against the wounds on his abdomen, and she started to pull away from his embrace until he clawed her closer. He didn’t want a single breath of air separating them. He didn’t want a single moment where his lungs weren’t full of the spice and musk and night-blooming flower of her scent. 

Trust me, he wanted to whisper. Trust me to be with you. To be right for you. To stay by your side, so you don’t have to leave first. But he said nothing.

It couldn’t be called a hug, really. More accurately, it was an attempt to absorb the other right into their abdominal cavity, to linger right next to their heart and go nowhere else. There was too much desperate passion in the embrace to compare to a simple, comfort-giving, gentle ‘hug’. If it had only been a hug, perhaps his legs would’ve taken longer to begin to quiver with exhaustion, but as it was, Midna walked them backwards until the backs of her legs bumped against the bedframe, and then lowered them down to that mattress that he’d left before.

With her in his arms, it felt just right. 

The night passed in a sleepy-yet-sleepless haze. He could’ve sworn that they kissed. Maybe he was kissing her right now, mouth to collarbone. Or was that an hour ago? He couldn’t tell. They didn’t once release one another. The bedding grew claustrophobic from their shared heat, and they simply tossed it half-off to let the air cool their sweaty skin. 

The candle burned low, until its flame guttered out against its pool of wax. He despised it for giving up the ghost. How dare he be deprived of the solar eclipse of her face for even a moment?

He found himself murmuring into her hair, hands tracing symbols of adoration into her skin. He thought that she might be doing the same. Her humming words went quiet, though, when his began to swell.

“We don’t need to—you don’t need to—you don’t,” he whispered. “I know I’d be a wolf, but. But maybe Princess Zelda would let me take the Master Sword with me. I could return it after a while. Maybe you could figure out a way…maybe you could harness Zelda’s light. Your people are strong and smart. As strong and smart as you. We could find something. Couldn’t we? And you could come back, could visit, at least…”

He ached to hear her voice crooning reassurances. But that had seldom been her way, even in the most risky of moments during their quest, and it wasn’t her way now. She lay there, silent, the only answer in the way her arms tightened around him for a moment. 

Tightened, the way one does in the last moment of an embrace, before succumbing to farewell.

“Don’t…don’t say anything.” His throat closed around the words of surrender, but he forced them out through tear-mucus folds. “Just hold me.”

She let out a damask sigh, and wrapped her left leg around his right hip, sealing their bodies together like a kiss. 

He had been wrong when he’d compared her coming absence to a storm on the horizon. It was a high tide, a riptide, threatening to drag him under when it finally rose to meet him. He could sense the coldest currents he’d ever felt, there below the surface. Waiting.

But for tonight, he could hold her tight. 

[theblackbookofarkera]

Morahan’s stones

Morahan’s Stones bear the name of Donnel Morahan, companion of Robinson Yardley during his exploration of Junis. Located in the deep forests on the east coast close to where the expedition made landfall, Morahan's Stones were the first sign of a civilized presence on the continent. The creators of the trapezoidal stone structures had long disappeared taking with them the knowledge of the purpose of the structures.

The trapezoidal structures are made of a locally sourced stone, hard and black-green in color. Donnel Morahan speculated the structures were temples of some sort given the presence of stone pews, ceremonial altars and statues dedicated to hybrid animal human beings. Extensive sketches exist of these structures but no relics to validate their existence.

[sunseekerdeluxe]

Tunesday 5

Also heard this week:

BIG|BRAVE - nature morte Carnosus - Visions of Infinihility Darkthrone - Goatlord: Original Dire Peril - The Extraterrestrial Compendium Djunah - Femina Furens Dokken - Beast from the East Dungeon - Rising Power FM - Only the Strong: The Very Best Of Peter Gabriel - Hit Headless - Square One Heads for the Dead - The Great Conjuration Ice Age - The Great Divide Judiciary - Flesh + Blood Killing Joke - Full Spectrum Dominance King Buffalo - Dead Star Landfall - Elevate Leatherwolf - Kill the Hunted Lefay - S.O.S. Machine Head - Of Kingdom and Crown Night Demon - Curse of the Damned Pale Divine - Cemetery Earth The Temple - Of Solitude Triumphant Viita - I Wintersun - Warning

Backlog: 147.

[crumbledstatues]

@worthyheir sent: REUNION : for one muse to run into the other again after a long time. | LUCERYS

BORN OF THE SEA, RETURNED TO THE SEA. Somehow, born again. Gifted another chance. Half of himself lost, yet he persisted, pushed through the chills and the salt sinking into his skin and burning his eyes. Chest heaved searching for breath, soaked and chilled to the bone clutching a jutted foreign stern after what seemed like floating forever. When asked of his identity, the quick response led to "no one". Who could he be when hunted? Some questioned, others did not. Ample time gave way to grow into a name that rolled easy off his tongue for as long as he could hide.

Stomach had subsided with the rock of the sea in due time, marine and fish merging with his pores as hands passed fish to hand and hand to fish. Life along the coast had been unlike anything he believed he would experience. But upon landfall one fruitful evening, whispers lingered of a cause not heard of in quite some time. Born of the sea with blood of the dragon finally beckoned him home.

It was a shock to all, the announcement of the arrival of the dead Prince, thought to be one with the sea for all eternity. First, doubt, but with a string of hope and a confirmation -- the sweetest chaos. Chairs scraped on stone, feet pounding against the floor in a rush. He had grown taller, stronger, yet the embrace of his mother bruised him all the same. Tears streaked both cheeks, arms aching and then numb in their embrace until both pulled away.

Almost-identical eyes flickered behind his mother's shoulder, lump growing in his throat he could not seem to swallow down. Guttural, in how he screamed for his brother.

"JACE! JACE!" Like he had been that small boy again, like he had never left. Feet propelled him through wet, then dry sand, kicking up behind him as he barreled towards his brother, almost bringing him down in a bone-crushing embrace. He dared not let go, forehead resting against the eldest's temple as they rocked together. "I have missed you, brother."

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 6.5 (after 1960)

1960 – The Lake Bodom murders occur in Finland. 1963 – The British Secretary of State for War, John Profumo, resigns in a sex scandal known as the "Profumo affair". 1963 – Movement of 15 Khordad: Protests against the arrest of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini by the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. In several cities, masses of angry demonstrators are confronted by tanks and paratroopers. 1964 – DSV Alvin is commissioned. 1967 – The Six-Day War begins: Israel launches surprise strikes against Egyptian air-fields in response to the mobilisation of Egyptian forces on the Israeli border. 1968 – Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy is assassinated by Sirhan Sirhan. 1975 – The Suez Canal opens for the first time since the Six-Day War. 1975 – The United Kingdom holds its first country-wide referendum on membership of the European Economic Community (EEC). 1976 – The Teton Dam in Idaho, United States, collapses. Eleven people are killed as a result of flooding. 1981 – The Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that five people in Los Angeles, California, have a rare form of pneumonia seen only in patients with weakened immune systems, in what turns out to be the first recognized cases of AIDS. 1983 – More than 100 people are killed when the Russian river cruise ship Aleksandr Suvorov collides with a girder of the Ulyanovsk Railway Bridge. The collision caused a freight train to derail, further damaging the vessel, yet the ship remained afloat and was eventually restored and returned to service. 1984 – Operation Blue Star: Under orders from India's prime minister, Indira Gandhi, the Indian Army begins an invasion of the Golden Temple, the holiest site of the Sikh religion. 1989 – The Tank Man halts the progress of a column of advancing tanks for over half an hour after the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. 1991 – Space Shuttle Columbia is launched on STS-40, the fifth spacelab mission. 1993 – Portions of the Holbeck Hall Hotel in Scarborough, North Yorkshire, UK, fall into the sea following a landslide. 1995 – The Bose–Einstein condensate is first created. 1997 – The Second Republic of the Congo Civil War begins. 1998 – A strike begins at the General Motors parts factory in Flint, Michigan, that quickly spreads to five other assembly plants. The strike lasts seven weeks. 2000 – The Six-Day War in Kisangani begins in Kisangani, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, between Ugandan and Rwandan forces. A large part of the city is destroyed. 2001 – Tropical Storm Allison makes landfall on the upper-Texas coastline as a strong tropical storm and dumps large amounts of rain over Houston. The storm causes $5.5 billion in damages, making Allison the second costliest tropical storm in U.S. history. 2002 – Space Shuttle Endeavour launches on STS-111, carrying the Expedition 5 crew to the International Space Station to replace the Expedition 4 crew. Astronaut Franklin Chang-Díaz becomes the second person to have flown on seven spaceflights. 2003 – A severe heat wave across Pakistan and India reaches its peak, as temperatures exceed 50 °C (122 °F) in the region. 2004 – Noël Mamère, Mayor of Bègles, celebrates marriage for two men for the first time in France. 2006 – Serbia declares independence from the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro. 2009 – After 65 straight days of civil disobedience, at least 31 people are killed in clashes between security forces and indigenous people near Bagua, Peru. 2015 – An earthquake with a moment magnitude of 6.0 strikes Ranau, Sabah, Malaysia, killing 18 people, including hikers and mountain guides on Mount Kinabalu, after mass landslides that occurred during the earthquake. This is the strongest earthquake to strike Malaysia since 1975. 2016 – Two shootings in Aktobe, Kazakhstan, kill six people. 2017 – Montenegro becomes the 29th member of NATO. 2022 – A constitutional referendum is held in Kazakhstan following violent protests and civil unrest against the government.

[ayeathelas]

[Chapter 3: Landfall] Lost - One Piece and Naruto Crossover

(UPDATED: 03/22/23)

Sarutobi Hiruzen holds his head in his hands wearily. His eyes are heavy and circled with a lack of sleep, and if he has to tell everyone to be quiet one more time, he’s going to lose it. 

In this room, right now, are gathered representatives from every hidden village among the elemental nations (save those of Iwagakure, Kumogakure, and Kirigakure, who refused to send anyone because they believed it was a trap) for one purpose— to discuss the being who had managed to breach the divide that is isolating the nations from the rest of the world. 

“Hokage-sama,” one interrupts, clasping his hands together and setting them on the round table where they were sitting. “What do we know about the person who did this?”

Hiruzen rubs his temples tiredly, his wrinkled hands growing numb from the repeated movement. “According to the report we received from the Daimyo, the person who breached the divide came alone. He also stated that they are currently somewhere in the Land of Fire, but further intelligence proves this to be incorrect. They have not reached the mainland, as far as we know.”

A murmur of discontent breaks out amongst the assembled representatives, who seem to unanimously agree that the report was incomplete at best.

“So where does that leave us?” someone asks. “We have no leads as of yet.”

“I believe we need to assume they are heading straight to the land of the Fire Nation,” Hiruzen states matter of factly. “Which is why we must act quickly. I have already put out an S-rank mission regarding the presence of said individual. We will attempt to capture them without incident.”

“Dead,” a representative from Suna asks, steeling her gaze, “or alive?”

Hiruzen closes his eyes. “Alive. For now, that is all we know,” he answers gravely. “As of now, all attempts will be made to capture and interrogate said individual. Once they are captured we will interrogate and question them thoroughly.”

“We could put them in the bingo books,” a shinobi from Kusa, dressed in dark colors, suggests. 

“And how would we do that?” a Yuki-nin retorts, throwing his hands up. “We don’t even know what they look like, much less their name or anything about them!”

The debate continues for quite some time.  Most of the officials present want nothing more than to capture the intruder immediately and throw them into a cell, preferably one filled with chains. However, some want to wait for them to appear first and see what their intention is with entering the elemental nations. 

A quiet shinobi from Ame speaks up. “And what if this individual doesn’t even possess chakra? What if they’re innocent?”

A few murmurs go around the room at the suggestion, though none agree with her statement. 

After a couple of seconds, the Hokage sighs heavily. “Let us hope such a thing is true,” he admits quietly. “For the sake of our people. But at the moment, our only option is to wait for these individuals to make contact. As such, we need to remain vigilant. If anything should happen, we will need to act quickly and decisively to resolve this matter. Do you all understand?"

Various responses of assent ring throughout the room. What a miracle— a consensus between most of the nations has been reached, and it only took an impending disaster to unite them. 

Finally, the council members decide to adjourn, promising to send an update as soon as possible. 

Hiruzen stays behind to finish up with reading some reports in his office. It’s not often he finds the time to read these things. In fact, most people don’t know that he has his assistants and secretaries review most of them, only flagging the ones that need his review. It certainly makes his job easier at the very least. 

However, there’s something odd about having a C-ranked mission flagged. He relaxes in his chair, opens the scroll with the mission report, and reads it thoroughly. Nothing seems to be amiss. Just an average mission report (except for the off-track comments. Who taught this guy how to write a report?) 

His eyes scan over the paper until they stop, his gaze hovering over a paragraph. 

“We saw a man with bright green hair at the tavern. He had a massive scar on his chest, and he carried three swords. His clothing was odd. I can’t tell if he has a terrible sense of fashion or if he’s just some foreigner. He called himself a pirate, and offered the bartender some foreign gold coins, which she refused to accept.”

What.

Hiruzen slowly gets up from his chair, his mouth opening and closing slightly, before turning towards the secretary. 

“Are the representatives gone yet?” he asks, a little shaken.

“Yes,” he replies, “although not for long.”

“Send someone to bring them back. I think we have found our man,” he commands sharply, before exiting through the door. 

At least, I hope. 

Elsewhere, Zoro is hit with a sneezing fit. It’s rather embarrassing, especially given the fact that Zabuza keeps smirking about it. 

He coughs violently while rubbing his nose. A bit annoyed, he stands up from the log they were sitting on and turns to the swordsman. “What’s so funny?”

The other male chuckles, flicking at a blade of grass that had stubbornly decided to stick to his skin. “Nothing, I was just thinking about how stupid you look.”

He scowls at the swordsman and turns his attention back to the horizon. "Hey."

"Huh?"

"Where’s the kid?” 

“Hnn,” Zabuza grunts before yawning widely. “He went to go get you a boat. You know, since you couldn’t figure out how to walk on water.”

“Shut up,” Zoro mutters under his breath, though Zabuza can still hear it perfectly clearly.

Zabuza smirks again, shaking his head. “Come on then,” he says in between yawns as he stands up and stretches a bit. “Let’s go to the docks.”

“Alright,” Zoro says, getting onto his feet. “Lead the way, old man.”

Zoro and the missing-nin begin making their way toward the dock that was supposed to hold the ticket to their next destination. The duo eventually find themselves standing near the edge of a wooden platform, overlooking the ocean. An unfinished bridge stretches into the horizon. 

At the end of the dock, there’s a small boat with a green sail resting against its railing.

Zoro takes notice of it. "It’s a small boat," he observes. “There won’t be much room for you guys if you get tired."

"It's a small dinghy," Haku responds, walking towards them, having paid off the fisherman who owned the boat. "And as for us, we’re fine. Crossing the channel should be simple enough. Let’s get going before you attract too much attention.”

"Right." With that, the green-haired man hops into the boat. He grabs the oars, and the other two help push him off the shore and into the water. 

Crossing the channel isn’t much of a hassle. Zoro’s been around boats long enough to know how to make them work, and Zabuza and Haku are right next to him, guiding him to shore as they run over the water to keep up with Zoro’s rowing. 

For a place called the land of waves, the waters are fairly calm today, and there’s a slight breeze that carries the salty air along, blowing against their faces as the boat passes through the gap between the island and the main continent. There are plenty of small islands dotted here and there among the cerulean waters, and Zoro admits to himself that this place isn’t all that bad. 

Eventually, after some time, they approach land again. Zabuza and Haku don’t even seem to be tired, though they do look a bit winded after running on such infirm ground. You know, the way your ankles and heels start to hurt when you’re wearing bad shoes? 

As they near the shore and docks, a man awaits them, his arms crossed behind his back.  When he spots them approaching the docks, he smiles broadly, but there is also a suspicious glint in his blue eyes.

“You there!” he begins. “You must pay a tax if you wish to disembark.” 

“Tax?” Zoro questions with confusion, looking at Zabuza. What the hell has he gotten them into? “We weren’t aware of a tax.”

“Oh yes,” he continues, with the energy of a crazed chicken. “It is absolutely imperative that you pay the tax.”

“But I don’t have any money,” Zoro counters. 

“Alright then— you must answer a riddle!” the man exclaims, stabbing his index finger in the green-haired swordsman’s direction. “What disappears as soon as you say its name?”

“Money?” Zoro asks, tightening his grip on the oars. This man is really starting to piss him off.

The man just giggles, his hands flying to cover his mouth. “Wrong. You have two more guesses.”

“Food?” Zabuza asks, his arms crossed in front of his chest as he stands on the water. It seems the ninja has an appetite. 

“Wrong again!” the strange man says as he bursts into another flurry of giggles. “Last try!”

The swordsmen stare blankly at the man, unsure of what kind of riddles this guy is trying to give them. And frankly, Zoro doesn’t care anymore. 

“Nothingness,” Haku answers for them, giving a sage nod. 

The man gasps dramatically, clutching his chest. “You…. are…. incorrect! The answer was silence! Goodbye!” Conversation over, he shoots the boat twice as he bursts into crazed chortles. 

The boat starts taking on water, and Zoro grabs his swords before they can sink too. 

Zabuza and Haku lunge for the man, the bigger missing-nin knocking him onto his back on the rough, wooden floor of the docks. The man cowers in fear, his hands held up in surrender as he tries to stutter out some kind of explanation. Before he could do so, however, there comes a loud shout. 

“Kaizuko!” a man yells. “He’s here!”

The people of the small fishing village begin to panic, their voices filling with concern as they call their children away from the docks.

“Kaizuko,” the cowardly man whimpers. “He’s going to have my hide!” 

“Not before you pay for our boat!” Zabuza barks at him.

As if a switch has been flipped, the man scrambles across the floor, standing up and dusting himself. 

A large shadow looms over Zabuza and Haku, and Zoro (who is wringing out the water from his shirt for the second day in a row) turns around to be met with the hull of a metal ship right in front of his nose. 

A sudden chill tickles its way down his spine. Zoro sneezes again. 

[LOST masterlist]

[bouwrites]

Those Warm and Halcyon Days: Chapter 49

Gifts From the Spirits

Ao3.

First, Previous, Next.

Story under read-more.

The next island on the list is Immram. General Kaia, rescued from the camp on Míor Mór and stone-facedly marching towards battle, takes a detachment of Brigid soldiers to the southern Imperial camp, leaving the northern Immram camp to Petra, her retainers, and the Fódlander group.

Míor Mór being the largest island, and now completely free from Imperial control, plus the king fully at their backs now means that they have enough soldiers even to split their force like this. Granted, they can only pull it off because of the Empire’s skeleton crew presence here, but they can pull it off.

They have to keep their momentum. Following the victories on Scylla and Míor Mór, the plan is to keep going as quickly as their own stamina lets them to boot the Adrestian Empire out of Brigid in one fell swoop.

But Immram is… different from the other islands. The first and most obvious clue is how the air seems to get thicker as they approach. Veery’s fur rises on end, and his skin crawls. Sadi openly shivers as well, and even Hoarvug makes a face as they glide through the water.

“What in the world…?” Lysithea murmurs, frowning at the approaching landmass. Dorothea likewise fidgets uneasily.

This is a land of magic. There is no mistaking it. Even those not sensitive to it are reacting now. The power, the magic, is so heavy in the air here that it’s hard to breathe. Until now, the magic pervading Brigid always saturates, but doesn’t oppress like it does in the Holy Tomb back at Garreg Mach.

This? This is worse. This is difficult to move under, difficult to comprehend. It’s dominating life in a way that Veery’s brain can’t handle. He can’t be sure if it’s because he’s used to such scarcity in Albinea, but it’s like the land itself is demanding vigor.

And Immram reflects that.

Beyond the jagged, rocky coasts so unlike the pristine sand of the last two islands is a dense, dense jungle thicker than Veery can imagine will sustain life. Surely, if everything grows too close to each other, one will outcompete another and only the victor will remain. No shrubs can grow too close to a tree’s roots, because the tree steals all the sunlight and soil from it.

Yet that isn’t the case here. Here, trees are growing on top of each other, tangling with each other. Roots and branches, vines, shrubs, ferns, and grasses all grow on and around each other. Veery can even see plants that don’t touch the earth at all! Their roots are entirely tangled up in the canopy with other plants, and it gets no thinner down towards the ground like it should. It’s just a massive, gnarled, uncontained wall of green.

“Much of Immram is inaccessible, even to us,” Petra says. “It’s one of the larger islands in Brigid but has one of the lowest populations because the jungle is too dense to navigate.”

“Because of the magic here,” Lysithea says.

It’s not really a question. That much is obvious to everyone, probably even to the utterly unmagical, like Leonie.

“Yes,” says Petra. “Immram is sacred to the spirits of Brigid. They bring great life, and so we do not try to cut through the jungle to make space. It is left to the spirits to tend.”

The life, the heat, the presence of the place… it’s the exact opposite of Albinea. It makes Veery nervous.

They make landfall on the northern coast. Because Immram is so dense, the only Imperial presence is in a camp in the south and a temple up here in the north. According to Petra, who, unlike Veery, is familiar with Brigid’s particular form of religion, it’s not really a temple in the same sense that Fódlanders will interpret it.

In Fódlan, the religion centers around worship of the goddess. In Brigid, it’s not like that at all. If anything, it’s most similar to Veery’s religion, insomuch as Veery considers acknowledging the gods as a religion. The spirits are there, and Brigid’s religion revolves around communicating with them. In that sense, it’s not too different from speaking to the goddess. But there’s no worship like in Fódlan. The relationship is more on even ground, built on actual respect.

At least, from the outside. Veery is the first to admit that he doesn’t understand this religion any more than he does Fódlan’s. He does know, however, that it’s intimately linked to Brigid’s magic, and practitioners of that magic, who commune regularly with spirits, sometimes make the trip to Immram.

Some stay here for a while, some bring patients here, where the magical energies and spirits are strongest, and that all leads to this temple, as far as Veery understands it, being something more akin to a library and hospital in one, where people come to heal, and where practitioners come to learn, than a place of worship.

Though Brigid lacks the quick mending of Fódlan’s Faith magic, so does Albinea. That doesn’t stop Albinea from being a raiding nation, dependent on fighting, nor does it mean Albinean seers or these shamans here in Brigid should be overlooked. Veery suspects he can learn a great deal from them. He speaks with Yrsa a grand total of once, after all, and he learns a great deal from her – if mostly through Caub.

Everyone needs healers, even the faithless. Faithless healing relies more on medicine, for obvious reasons, but with magic serving as a supplement at best, Veery finds their medicine is a step or two above Fódlan’s. At least, Albinea’s is. He won’t be surprised if the same holds true here, despite Brigid’s less… aggressive culture.

Veery considers it a good mark on his character that the only part of this that he’s looking forward to is getting the chance to explore this temple. It is a sacred site, though, so when he’s not fighting the Empire in it, he should at least try to have a native guide to make sure he doesn’t wander somewhere he shouldn’t be.

Having a guide will help him learn more, anyway. The biggest question is whether he’ll find anyone there who knows the temple and healing that also speaks Common and is willing to help him.

Dorothea hugs his arm as they sail, in a similar position as they were last time on approach to Míor Mór, and Veery doesn’t need to be able to listen to her heart to know that she’s as excited as he is to enter one of Brigid’s effective hospitals.

To think, at one point, neither of them even consider that they can become healers. In fact, both are quite convinced that it’s impossible. Now, they’re chomping at the bit to learn something new and become that much better. Sometime after they get back to Fódlan, Veery needs to remember to thank Professor Byleth for pushing him into it. It’s… actually one of the better things he learns, which is saying a lot, he thinks. Useful, too.

Speaking of learning about healing, Celica has quite a few of her own tips to share. Veery gets a little tingle in his chest at the thought of learning practices from before the great extinction, even if he keeps that theory to himself.

Of particular note is what Veery can only describe as Faith healing, that is, the mending of wounds in miraculous fashion which seems thus far to be exclusive to Fódlan, but in Albinean style. (Celica calls it “White Magic” but after she calls Nosferatu “Black Magic” it soon becomes clear that in Celica’s time, magic is classified by effect rather than how it’s cast. Which is good for memory, but not so much for theory.)

Veery doesn’t use Albinean magic because hurting himself is counter-intuitive to survival, but that injury can, mostly, be healed by magic, so using the much more energy-efficient Albinean style to heal means that two skilled healers working together can go on nearly in perpetuity, keeping their patients and each other healthy throughout the procedure.

They’ll be sore like they can’t believe after it’s all over, but if they’re tough enough to take it, it’s a perfectly feasible strategy.

Veery wonders if Caub will be willing to try that. He probably will. Caub likes trying new things like that. The bigger question is if Veery is willing to do that. He doesn’t like Albinean magic for a reason, after all.

Either way, Veery is strangely excited, even with how the oppressive atmosphere and dense jungle looms over him.

The heat, however, does manage to mar Veery’s excitement. After they land on Immram and set off on a narrow, half-overgrown trail that funnels them, to Veery’s nerves’ great dismay, in single file (The only comfort in walking blindly like sheep after only the person directly ahead of them is that the jungle is so thick, they cannot possibly be attacked from the sides. Veery needs merely to watch his step so he does not follow Kieran off of a cliff. The view is nice, too. Kieran is still cute.), Veery is sharply reminded just how effectively plant growth holds heat in.

A jungle this dense? It’s worse than Garreg Mach’s sauna. Veery enters the sauna a total of one time during his stay at Garreg Mach – Lorenz’ fault – and swiftly vows to do so never again. And that is during an actual winter, or at least Fódlan’s best approximation of it, which is still dangerous, not this farce of a winter that Brigid has.

Veery suffers the march, though, because he wants to see the temple. And he is not disappointed.

The temple is an impressive circular tower. So impressive that, if it’s true that no jungle is cut away for it, it surprises Veery that it is this large. Half-reclaimed by the jungle, with plush moss blanketing it in full and vines in every nook, some even piercing the stone itself, Veery thinks that it should be collapsed by now. The jungle must be holding up the walls just as much as the stone is, at this point.

That’s not to say that it’s in disrepair, though. While it’s clearly a part of the jungle, it’s also clearly regularly cleaned and patched up. Human hands guide the growth here. They do not impede it, if possible, but they do all they can to ensure that the structure of the building remains sound.

It’s kind of pretty, in that overgrown ruin kind of way. It’s the kind of place Veery would hide away in, a temporary shelter as he’s on his way this way or that. Except maybe it’s a little large for that, but it’s just as practical as napping atop the Goddess Tower at Garreg Mach.

…Although, Veery never does do that. He would, though.

Regardless, he shifts when they get close, and then the climb begins.

Just like in the castle on Míor Mór, no one from Brigid makes a move to stop them. They just keep moving almost as if they are not there, and swiftly disappear before the fighting can break out. Not that there is much fighting.

Veery does more healing than fighting in this tower, and most of that is in the rooms where native people are recovering from their ailments. At no point on their sweep of the tower do they encounter Imperial soldiers in large enough numbers that those on the front line of their march, Petra, Acis, Vanora, and Lysithea, do not take them out so swiftly that the rest of their group so much as needs to ready their weapons.

In fact, Veery has half a mind to just shift back. His thick winter coat is torturous enough in this heat that if he’s not actually going to be fighting, he’d rather be in his other form.

He doesn’t. He’s not stupid enough to shift back on an active battlefield without good reason, even if the battlefield is a bit of a joke. But he’s tempted.

Cramped in the sweltering tower, Veery pads along the short circular pathway and pokes his head into room after room. On occasion, he, Dorothea, or Caub will stop to heal someone they find in those rooms, but for the most part they save their magic.

“I never imagined I would return here…” Celica murmurs as they continue the march. Her eyes are transfixed on the stone, looking past the overgrowth, and Veery wonders if she knows this place from when it was built.

If that’s true, then this tower likely predates Brigid. It would explain why it’s as large as it is, if the people of Brigid don’t clear space on this island. But is it truly that old, or is it simply similar to something Celica recognizes?

Petra might know, but Veery doesn’t think he’ll ask. He definitely won’t while she’s still cutting through the Empire ahead of them.

They’re nearing the top. It’s thankfully nothing like Conand Tower, where the climb itself is so long and exhausting that simply sitting up there is a feasible strategy for tiring an enemy. Instead, it’s only five floors. Still impressive, especially considering where it is, but not a pain to climb.

Here on the fourth floor, though, Veery takes a moment to inspect a room off the main hallway to ensure there are no Imperial soldiers occupying it.

There is. Just one. He readies his spear, so Caub uses his Freeze spell. Veery makes the defenseless man’s death quick.

The room is much like all the others. Sparse but for the supplies in a corner and a small decoration or two. Most of the color in the room is from the green mosses and branches that work in from outside. Aside from a small protrusion from one wall, some kind of featureless platform with no discernable purpose, which Veery sees a few times before in other areas of the tower, the only thing of note in the room is a single prisoner.

Well, if they’re locked up, they’re probably on Petra’s side. There is a person of interest here who hasn’t been found yet – a powerful shaman named Ambrose. Veery tilts his head and sniffs curiously at the man chained to the wall, hands bound with palms flat together – the way to bind a mage, or at least a Fódlander one – who looks back at Veery with a composure and curiosity that doesn’t fit his position.

The man has the same dark skin as most Brigidans, but more importantly has such a myriad of tattoos visible across his face and bare torso that there is no doubt in Veery’s mind of who this is. Veery may not know Brigidan culture well, but he talks at length with Petra about her tattoos, and he knows they are prayers to the spirits. A shaman who works extensively with spirits would naturally have more than people like Kieran or Vanora, who have only a few.

Veery isn’t sure why he expects Ambrose to be older. This guy looks to be in his prime, maybe around the same age as Claude, or perhaps Shamir.

“You…” Ambrose squints just a little, eyes fixed solely on Veery, as he speaks, in a gentle, quiet voice, surprisingly smooth Church Common. “You have… no. It is close, but different. There is the power of a spirit within you, but it is no longer one with you.”

What is it with Brigid and immediately recognizing the spark of Sothis she leaves in him? Veery himself can’t even feel her power in him, so why?

At least this guy has it right. Not like Acis or the king.

“Or perhaps… not a spirit at all.” He glances to Hoarvug and Sadi in turn, then says, “Perhaps your people simply have a power beyond our understanding, and that ember in you makes it more obvious to us humans.”

Veery, unsure, shares a look with his friends.

“You, red one, you are a mountain. That spirit in you is a spirit of flame, but you are a mountain. How curious.”

Caub steps between them. “You know something about Veery?”

Veery huffs and tugs on Caub’s shirt. He understands being defensive and confused, but this guy is literally chained up right now. There’s no sense in posturing. Caub looks to Veery, hesitates, then nods and steps back again.

Ambrose smiles at them both but doesn’t seem to really look at them. His eyes are focused elsewhere, past them or near them, and it makes Veery’s fur bristle. “You… forgive me, I do not know what you call your kind. You cats, you excite the spirits.”

“Agell,” Caub says sharply, expression displeased.

There is no real offense to being called a cat – Veery calls himself a cat as much if not more often than he calls himself a man. Mostly, Veery wonders why, if Ambrose doesn’t know about the agell, he thinks to address them directly, speaking Church Common no less. He clearly has some idea of their intelligence.

Sadi rumbles quietly, looking to Veery. Veery isn’t sure what to do, either. Exciting spirits doesn’t strike him as a particularly good thing.

“Agell.” Ambrose says it like he’s tasting the word, savoring it. “Ha. Haha! Wonderful. You are wonderful.” Ambrose’s countenance remains politely curious, and neither does he sound at all unstable when he speaks, but except to devour their image, he refuses to look at them. Veery is confident enough now in reading people that he believes Ambrose is not simply shy. It makes Veery feel like Ambrose sees something he doesn’t. Something all around them.

The gods only know what, though. Spirits, perhaps? So literally? So physically? Veery has no idea. All he knows is that it makes his hackles stand on end and he does not like it.

…They should really unbind this guy. He’s clearly not with the Empire. It says something about how unsettling he is that no one makes a move to do that.

“Agell,” Ambrose says, watching the shadows and the moss instead of them. “You agell are older than humans, are you not? There is something more ancient about you. Something powerful. I feel it in all three of you, though you… the red one… you are even more – touched by a power not your own, even more ancient, even more potent.”

“…I don’t like this guy,” Caub says. He looks to Veery for direction, but… honestly, Ambrose isn’t wrong. He’s weird, but Veery is plenty weird himself. If only he would focus on them instead of eyeing everywhere but the actual people in the room – or even just look at the floor – Veery doesn’t think he’d mind this guy in the slightest.

“No?” Ambrose asks, alarm in his voice but not on his face. “Impressions. Warriors – threats in the snow – snow? Ah, snow. Apologies.” He clears his throat, lowers his head. “I am used to making people uncomfortable; I do not mean to unnerve you.”

Caub scoffs. “I am not frightened by you.”

“No- you are frightened, but not by me. By what? Something lurking, something… Ah, no, I am not meant to ask.”

Hoarvug moves in place, shifting his body to tell Veery just how sane he thinks this man is. Veery… can’t disagree entirely. Something is off about him, but Veery can’t yet convince himself Ambrose is simply mad. There’s too much purpose, and Petra would not name a madman as a priority in rescuing.

“Not scared- warriors are brave, fear doesn’t stop them. It wouldn’t matter if you were scared. Even now you act as if you are not. No… not me, not- a lover? Tender and warm in frozen wastes – I have never seen snow. You all carry it with you. Thank you. This is new.”

Caub sighs. “Okay, he’s definitely mad.”

“Not yet!” Ambrose says. “I apologize. I find myself… easily distracted. And you agell do so excite the spirits; there is so much to see.”

Right.

“I will try to focus. My name is Ambrose. It is a pleasure to meet guests in this land. The spirits say you are from very far away. You must be, to be snow. Snow does not come from Brigid.”

Uh-huh.

“You, the red one… you have echoes of a spirit of flame within you. The most powerful one I have ever felt. Such a small ember remains, and yet… But you do not know how to use it, do you? You are an ally of our princess, are you not? I would be happy to teach you, if you would like to learn.”

Teach him? Veery already has some idea of how Brigidan magic works – it’s necessary as a healer after Celica uses that spell that works on the same principles. From examining Caub and Celica alone, Veery gets enough to know that they draw power from the ambient magic around them. Whether that magic is assisting spirits or simply leftover power free for the taking Veery is in no position to say, but the fact remains that that power comes from outside the mage’s own reserves.

It just never occurs to him, until Ambrose points it out, that even if Veery doesn’t feel it like he feels the power that hangs over Brigid, Sothis leaves some of her power in him. It permanently changes his magical footprint, so there must be remnants of her with him. It’s not just his magic changing, it’s this same lingering effect of the magic of dragons, of gods, that is so powerful it sticks around beyond their own death, but applied to him as a person.

(That is what the people of Brigid, who are used to paying attention to the spirits, and the magic, around them, recognize in him.)

Which means that, if he can learn to draw power from outside himself, as the Brigidan shamans do, or as Celica does, and he can learn to pinpoint that leftover power within him, he can use that small fraction of Sothis’ power.

Such techniques like Celica’s Ragnarok would not be feasible outside of Brigid or some other notable place of power. Small curses and the like are possible, but when they draw power from the outside, they are subject to the conditions of their environment.

But if someone carries that power with them… it’s certainly nowhere near enough to power a spell like Ragnarok, nor would it give him special abilities like Professor Byleth’s time manipulation, but it’s not unreasonable to think that Veery might find himself capable of astonishing feats of magic.

Miracles, from one whose soul has touched the goddess’, however more minor they may be than that day in the Sealed Forest.

Veery does not know if he wants to learn that or not.

Obviously, any skill he can learn and any tool at his disposal is good for keeping him alive, if he can use them right, and good for Claude, if he can utilize them in this war, but… taking even a fraction of the power of the gods for himself feels a little… larger than him.

Veery does not want power. He does not want to be any more than exactly what he is. While he’s fairly certain Sothis won’t mind him using the power she leaves behind, he has more than enough problems with being raised to divine levels already with the cat saint thing.

…But is he really going to let humans looking for something to follow stop him from learning everything he can that might keep him alive? Of course not.

That said, Veery is certain he can learn to access that power from Celica. She’ll probably be around until they leave Brigid, which is when he would part with Ambrose anyway, so it’s not as if he’s losing time. Plus, as an einherjar tied to Caub, Veery knows that Celica will not do anything Caub will not approve of. He’s not even sure if she can.

Ambrose, meanwhile, is unsettling and possibly just a little bit mad, so Veery isn’t sure he’s the best teacher for this kind of thing.

“Veery? Oh! You are here!” He turns at the sound of Kieran’s voice. It has been a little too long, hasn’t it? The others must be missing them. Nonetheless, Kieran takes in the room and grins. “You are finding a prisoner! Good. We should be freeing him.”

“Freedom,” Ambrose says. “Flying. Feeling – cats don’t have wings – a memory? A gift? A dream. Cute.” Ambrose’s eyes land on Kieran. “You are cute, but not like a kitten. In the way humans should not be to agell. But why not? This is flying, too.”

And Veery is suddenly very thankful for his thick fur. It is impossible to blush visibly like this. Alas, Kieran does not have such a buffer, and turns redder than Veery’s fur, blushing from his ears to his shoulders.

Sadi laughs at Veery. Caub narrows his eyes at Kieran. Veery frantically wonders what in the world Ambrose is doing. Kieran being cute isn’t exactly a secret, but Ambrose should not be able to call out Veery’s feelings so accurately so quickly. Not to mention, Veery doesn’t tell anyone about that dream. Flying, which Veery both doesn’t remember but also does. It’s like his body remembers the feeling of soaring but he can’t recall the dream save that Sothis bestows it upon him and that he, occasionally, has the same dream even to this day.

Not that that’s a secret, either, but it is irrelevant, so he never bothers sharing it, which means Ambrose has no way of knowing about it. But he does. Is it because of the spirits? Can the spirits read his mind? Or… his heart?

“I’ve made things awkward again,” Ambrose says, lowering his head but eyeing Caub. “My apologies, I did not mean to imply you have anything to be jealous of.”

Caub sputters. “Jealous? Listen here, guy-”

“J-jealous?” Kieran squeaks. “I am not understanding. What is happening?”

“You know things you can’t know,” Caub continues, “and I don’t trust it. I want to know how.”

“Who is being jealous? And why?”

Ambrose looks up at Caub with wide eyes. “I know things… yes. You see fate. You know things, too. Things you do not- no- it’s that- we do not speak of that. It is not mine to ask or to know, but yours. Fear burns, then burns out, but there is no fuel in the snow. Snow numbs. That can stop the flame, but it is not always good.”

As if he’s stricken, Caub reels back. “You are peering into our heads,” he growls. “Stop now.”

“I cannot,” Ambrose says, sounding sincerely regretful. “The spirits peer into you, I merely observe the spirits. I cannot control what they see and closing my eyes does not hide me from them. If it helps, he does love you.”

If anything, that only makes Caub’s glare icier. “You think I do not know that? Do not patronize me. You steal from our minds through your spirits, but do not forget that you lack context. Do not assume you know me, or my life.”

With Caub over him, Ambrose cows. “I apologize. It is easy to forget, but… you are right. Of course, the one who sees fate knows when not to trust one’s eyes.”

“More importantly,” Caub says, softening just a little, “you must know when to stay silent. You see much, but it is not yours to share.”

“I say only what is not secret,” Ambrose says, “though I know not if it is shared.”

Caub sighs heavily. “You lack tact. Some things cannot be said whether they are known or not.”

“What is already known will not change fate.”

“Fate does not care for us. It is not a matter of fate, but a matter of feeling. You do not have any friends, do you?”

Ambrose flinches. “You see that? Do the spirits tell you that? Or do you glimpse it in fate?”

“No one needs magic to see what is plainly in front of them.” Caub shakes his head, pinching the bridge of his nose.

Ambrose’s gaze finally settles. On the floor. “Sorry. I tell, you withhold, but it should be opposite. I- sorry.”

“Keep your wits about you. You should know that is even more important for those who can see more than most.”

“I do not mind. The spirits are good company and have little wit.”

“You are not a spirit, and neither am I.” Caub sighs. “Come on, let’s get you unbound.” As gentle as he ever is with Veery, Caub carefully fiddles with Ambrose’s restraints.

Kieran awkwardly clears his throat. “I… am not understanding what is happening, but we should be rejoining the others.”

That’s a good point. Veery still isn’t sure what he thinks about Ambrose, so he’s more than happy to let Caub handle freeing him. With one last hesitant look to his companions, and a soft meow to Caub, Veery turns to follow Kieran back to the group.

Veery meditates.

For all that Ambrose lacks tact – Veery may not be so odd about it, maybe, but he can’t honestly say he’s better in that regard – he makes a very compelling point. Veery is already working through the magical theory with Lysithea, and has been since Celica’s show of power, to puzzle out how to draw magic from the environment. If he can call upon Sothis’ power, he’ll be that much more effective at staying alive.

Between Lysithea, Celica, and, surprisingly, Petra, Brigidan spellcasting isn’t completely outside of Veery’s ability. There’s… something, a connection to the spirits, most likely, since Lysithea faces the same trouble, that Veery lacks that means he can’t use curses even the way that someone generally unmagical like Petra can. (Should he get a tattoo? No, that’s stupid.) But he can use Brigid’s excessive ambient magic as a component in his spells.

It’s not even that hard once he hammers out the theory with Lysithea – he’s halfway there after examining Caub and Celica after Míor Mór, anyway. It just won’t be very useful. Even here in Brigid where there’s just so much magic around, it amounts to little more than a small power boost. Back in Fódlan or Albinea, where such magic is not so omnipresent, Veery doubts it’ll be of any use at all.

But what of Sothis? That’s the trick. Outside of places of power, this technique is near useless, but Veery, at least in theory, carries a place of power around with him. If he can only tap into that, then even if it ultimately results in nothing more than a minor power boost, or a slightly increased magic pool, that is still an advantage to his survival.

And that’s the part that Veery can’t figure out. Anyone else examining him, from Lysithea, to Dorothea, to even Caub, who never knows him without that ember of Sothis, can recognize it within him to some extent. Yet to Veery… his magic is just more muscle. It feels no different than it does before the Sealed Forest, and it feels no different from his physical form. He does not know how to identify something foreign within that if it is not blindingly obvious.

Veery catches Hoarvug’s scent on approach, before Hoarvug sits behind him and leans on him, head on Veery’s shoulder, arms around his middle.

Well, it’s interrupting Veery’s time on this vain search, but this is nice, too.

“If I thought I could suffer my fur in this heat long enough,” Hoarvug says in Ancient, “I would ask you to groom me. I feel as if I have not bathed in weeks.”

Veery chuckles. He definitely knows the feeling. Brigid is just so sticky, and if they go into the ocean to cool off, they just end up encrusted in salt – and that sucks to get out of his fur. Fresh water is a remarkably precious resource for such a wet place. For all that Albinea lacks, clean water is one thing that it has in abundance. Even if much of it is frozen.

When they do have the chance to bathe, the heat and humidity puts a swift end to Veery’s attempts to groom his fur to his liking. It’s just impossible to go around for more than a few minutes without getting sticky and gross again, so the best he can do is ensure there are no tangles.

Hoarvug is not a stickler for keeping his fur neat and clean like Veery is, so that even he is miserable over it is quite telling.

“Laying on me is not helping the heat, you know,” Veery murmurs. He has half a mind to simply push Hoarvug off of him, but since Veery is already in the coolest place around, it’s tolerable for now.

Hoarvug huffs. “I know. Sadi will not put up with it. But I cannot suffer so long without your touch.” Veery can’t relate, though he understands the sentiment. “…It is easier to be alone when you are not within arm’s reach.” Strong arms tighten around Veery. “How can I see my Veery every day and not cuddle?”

Veery smiles, deciding with that to allow this, no matter how the heat may discomfort them both. He reaches up to fondle Hoarvug’s torn ear. “You were lonely?”

A deep rumbling, somewhere between a purr and a laugh. “Of course. You know my heart as well as I. In battle or peace, I am not made for distance.”

That’s true. There’s nothing like getting up close and personal. Hoarvug is the kind of cat who is happy in a big pile, all cuddling in a muddle. He would probably enjoy pets very much, were he not so prideful that he would never allow a human to pet him.

Veery hums, then purrs some, and smiles when Hoarvug purrs in return. “Tell you what. When we are finally safe from this climate, I will groom us all. How’s that sound?”

“Perfect,” Hoarvug sighs. “I look forward to it. You have a very skilled tongue.”

Veery snorts. While the innuendo is less common in their native language, that doesn’t mean Hoarvug doesn’t still perpetually fall into it. It’s funny when it’s not being shouted for everyone to hear. “I have a lot of practice.” Practice that, at first, he’s unsure translates well to grooming anyone but himself, but Hoarvug obviously enjoys it.

It probably shouldn’t make Veery as happy as it does to know that his grooming is so appreciated. Still, it’s something he does for himself that, by pure chance, ends up making someone else happy. There’s something very nice about that.

They both sag a little, simply relaxing, content with the company. “What were you doing?” Hoarvug asks.

“Hm? Oh, just trying to find that piece of Sothis’ power everyone keeps pointing out in me. I know it’s there; I just can’t feel it.”

Hoarvug rumbles. “Bah. I know nothing of magic.”

“What we do is magic, you know,” Veery says.

“Perhaps. But it is like breathing. Magic that is a part of us is no more a mystery than our own claws. Your foreign magic baffles me.”

Veery giggles. “That’s fair enough. I spent a long time confused, too, but Lysithea took the time to teach me all about it.”

After a quiet moment, Veery feels Hoarvug’s invitation, the opening of his heart for Veery to share with him. Veery smiles and opens his heart in turn, listening, resonating, with the cat still holding him from behind. “I prefer this magic,” Hoarvug says, little more than a breath into Veery’s ear, as the contentment of the moment slips through their bond to them both.

There’s plenty of frustration, too, and discomfort especially from the heat, and something somber, and that loneliness Hoarvug so readily admits to, which is something Veery has little experience with himself, but mostly they both are just content.

This magic makes sense to Veery. It’s a part of him like shifting is. He does it instinctually, never needing to be taught. As his soul mingles with Hoarvug’s, Veery is careful to distinguish between himself and his friend, but… he thinks he prefers this magic, too.

No theory, no equations, no power limitations or concerns, not even any conflict. This is magic that exists simply as part of who the agell are, not something crafted by hand to serve a purpose. It is as much a part of him as his muscles, and in that visceral way, makes sense to him.

And isn’t that nice? To let it be, without thinking or worrying over what it is or how to use it? To simply exist because it does, with no obligation or expectation to be anything but what it is?

Isn’t that Veery’s ultimate goal for himself in the first place? No wonder his own magic will always be so comfortable.

[weirdfishlittlepond]

I grew up in the evangelical Christian faith tradition. And now I’m an openly and happily queer person who doesn’t feel the word Christian is a complete descriptor of their spirituality. If you've spent any time in the evangelical church you’ve probably at least heard of someone like me, if not known, or been one yourself. But this story isn’t about the leaving, about sitting silently through town halls and sermons discussing whether or not God would let me use his bathrooms or teach his children; it’s not about me throwing up in the bathroom the Sunday my home church voted to codify anti-queer discrimination in their bylaws. No, it’s about after that. When I left the only community I’d ever known, where most of my friends and acquaintances were still living. This is the poem I wrote the first Palm Sunday after my apostasy.

It is Holy Week

but I, disconnected, afraid of stepping into a church

am not feeling very holy

What once was home feels distant

and I, a traveler floating through space

alight every so often on some potentially habitable place

which is not home

not yet

I carry what remains in my heart

making a temple out of the hollow place between my ribs

but the light is dim at times

without the mirror of my family to reflect it back to me

Carried on solar winds

I am a sapling waiting for landfall

waiting to sink my torn roots into the soil of a new home

where I do not fear the light of the sun

I think of that poem as a prayer and it was answered almost a month later when I tried a church a friend had told me about: “One Church”. The pastor who spoke that first Sunday was a lesbian and her sermon was about religious trauma. It was the first place I used my new name and not a single person knew the dead one. It became my home, a gentle and courageous place for my unfurling and then the pandemic hit.

At first we were online, meeting in zoom calls and Facebook pages, but as our numbers dwindled and our beloved pastor’s health began to decline, we shuttered. By the divine’s grace and care of her doctors on this day she is still with us and ministering with her spirituality in new ways. But there I was, alone again trying to weather the isolating storm of the pandemic. I had not stopped having thoughts about god, the soul, the nature of good and evil, and so on and so forth so I still craved a spiritual community. And it was Holy Week 2021 when I wrote this poem. An unforeseen part 2.

It is Holy Week

and I, disconnected, feeling the pangs of too long spent under the withering gaze of an unfeeling sun

am trying to find my way back to church

When in this time of solitude my back porch has been my cathedral

with weed my communion and the birds my choir

when the black mirrored screen has been my sanctuary

my way to pass the time, to create, to connect, my way to feel a little less alone

the people I love are all there

a tap away

when in-person contact might be minutes, months, or years out

I am overcome with my need for humanity

for the touch of skin

for the vibration of their laughter in my bones

for the soft and silent sitting of two souls

or more

A quiet murmuration of friends, talking late into the night of the ways we are learning to love ourselves

because I am

For the first time in ages beginning to approach that raw and haunted child with nothing in my heart but love

No shame, no judgment, only forgiveness

and as fragile as it is, I yearn to bear this new understanding of myself into the world

to see if it can take the weight of this life

because I am not in the life I wanted

but I want to live it like I’m most ideal self in an isekai,

a warrior poet dropped into a world beset on all sides by death and despair

and make this word my home, fight for it with every everyday motion

with every kindness to a stranger

with every kindness to myself

and who else is there but myself and strangers

who I know more dearly every day though our selves and perceptions can never be one

though I can hear you in my head as reactions to the events of my day

my memories of your words providing a comforting staccato

as if you were experiencing these long moments with me

where I am known by no one

and no one is known by me

This is a poem without an answer

a hurt without a cure

an aching longing for banter

an emptiness to endure

My friends, I wish I could tell you that Holy Week 2022 brought with it a tender telling about how I had begun to go to a Methodist church called City Square. That I had spent more time in person with friends in a month than I had in two years. That my peace was beginning to unfold again in unexpected ways. Because those things are true. And I have been writing poems, more poems than I have in years but I could not write another Holy Week that year because my little sister committed suicide on Maundy Thursday.

And since that time I have been filled with little else but words of her loss. And I am reminded that for every step I take forward there are those I must take back. So I do not have a Holy Week part 3. But I do have the first poem from the series of poems I have written about my sister’s death.

Long story short my sister died right before Easter

On Maundy Thursday to be precise

Or not

Long story short we don’t know when my sister died

We found her

I found her on Maundy Thursday

That’s the day the Christian tradition commemorates the last supper, the last meal Jesus shared with his friends before he was arrested

For posing too big of a threat to an empire that sought to legislate its religion and culture as far as its armies could reach

But that day I was not thinking of empire, at least, not more than usual, I was barely thinking about Jesus

I’ve never been to a church that celebrated the day

Good Friday and Easter were work enough for the pastors and their staff

But I had the day off from my job

So I went to the movies and when I got home, smoked pot and in a surge of drug-fueled optimism, signed up for a virtual singles mixer that Holy Saturday

I emerged from my insecurities and hopes roaring in my ears to see my mother putting dinner almost directly from the oven into the fridge

And hear my father ask if we were going to *her* apartment

I remembered that my sister was supposed to meet my dad for a movie Tuesday but didn’t show

That was normal

And she didn’t show up to therapy on Thursday, that day

Also normal

But what wasn’t normal was that when her therapist texted her about doing a wellness check if he didn’t hear from her

She didn’t respond with a flurry of texts cussing him out

Sorry

Long story short

My sister and I had a complicated relationship

And I haven’t been able to stop writing and drawing and being so awake and so sleepy and thinking and thinking and thinking

I feel like I did after major surgery

Too tired at times to do anything but lay down

And imagining what I’ll do tomorrow is as easy as imagining what I’ll do in twenty years

Long story short I’ve got a lot to say with my work to come and I hope you enjoy it or find meaning in it or something

But in the end that doesn’t matter to me

Because I’m tired of holding all this blood inside of my mouth

[don-lichterman]

On This Day, Oct. 29: Hurricane Sandy makes landfall in New Jersey

On This Day, Oct. 29: Hurricane Sandy makes landfall in New Jersey

Oct. 29 (UPI) — On this date in history: In 1618, Sir Walter Raleigh was beheaded in London. He had been accused of plotting against King James I. In 1787, Don Giovanni by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, had its first performance. In 1901, Leon Czolgosz was electrocuted for the assassination of President William McKinley inside the Temple of Music at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, N.Y. In…

[importanttigercreation]

Welcome to the news channel of the Angry Nature,Today we will tell you about India avalanche, An avalanche occurred in the catchment of Chorabari Glacier at Kedarnath Dham on Thursday, said the Rudraprayag administration. The incident took place on Thursday evening. No damage has been registered due to this, the official said adding that they are keeping an eye on the area and monitoring it. Chorabari Glacier is situated at a distance of about 5 km behind Kedarnath temple. It is raining heavily in the state for the last few days. National Highway (NH)- 109 at Rudraprayag was blocked on Thursday, with long queues of vehicles after a sudden landslide led to the roll down of debris from the hill near Tarsali village in Rudraprayag. The blockage of the NH lead to long queues of vehicles being formed on both sides of the road. Senior scientist of India Metrological Department (IMD), RK Jenamani informed about an orange alert for very heavy rainfall in Uttarakhand for the upcoming two days. "Orange alert for very heavy rainfall issued for Uttarakhand from 23rd to 25th Sept. Rain is expected to increase over western UP tomorrow," said RK Jenamani, senior scientist, IMD. The weather forecasting agency in its All India Weather Summary and Forecast Bulleting by the IMD this morning said, "a western disturbance as a trough in mid-tropospheric westerlies run roughly, under whose influence, the current spell of rainfall is likely to continue over northwest India for next few days followed by a reduction thereafter." #india_avalanche #glaciar_avalanche #angry_nature #chorabari_avalanche #kedarnath_avalanche ________________________________ The channel lists such natural disasters as: 1) Geological emergencies: #earthquake  #volcanic_eruption  mudflow, #landslide landfall, avalanche; 2) Hydrological emergencies:  #flash_flood #tsunami  Limnological catastrophe, floods, flooding; 3) Fires: Forest fire, Peat fire, Glass Fire, Wildfire; 4) Meteorological emergencies: #tornado, #cyclone #blizzard  Hail, Drought, Hail, #hurricane #storm, Thunderstorm, typhoon Tempest, Lightning. ATTENTION: All videos are taken from open sources. The selection is based on publication date, title, description, and venue. Sometimes, due to unfair posting of news on social networks, the video may contain frames that do not correspond to the date and place. It is not always possible to check all videos. We apologize for any errors! Thank you for watching, don't forget to subscribe our channel, We Wish you good Weather,