#and it's three for the fire that burns in the hull
Explore tagged Tumblr posts
itstimeforstarwars · 8 months ago
Text
The sea shanties have gotten to me again.
8 notes · View notes
saphronethaleph · 3 months ago
Text
Wooden Ships and Obscure Disney Films
The RLS Warrior was three days out of Montressor, sails full of the solar wind, and her commander closed his eyes and felt the Etherium around him.
For a number of reasons – not least his old ties with Admiral Amelia – Jim had been heavily involved with the design of the ship, as well as the tradeoffs involved. For all that he wasn’t even twenty-five, yet, the ship was built as much to his ideas as to those of anyone else in the Navy, and after three days he was really starting to get a feel for her.
And he was proud of the work.
The yards had done right by them, and no mistake. She sailed the winds as sweetly as the old Legacy, and if that was partly due to her studdingsails to give her extra sail area – they’d calculated it out a dozen times, even getting Doppler involved, and every time it had come out that the sails were worth the hassle. And the engines sang a fine note, while the treated timbers making up her hull were finely seasoned and showed no sign of weakness or wear.
“Captain?” a nervous voice said, then the voice’s owner corrected herself. “I mean – Commander?”
“Captain is preferred,” Jim replied. “Can’t have more than one captain on a ship.”
Then he opened his eyes, and grinned at the young woman who was nervously clinging to the ropes around the mainmast crow’s nest. “But since there doesn’t seem to be anyone else up here, you can call me Jim if you want.”
“I couldn’t do that!” the woman said, astonished, and her ears flicked down. “You’re – you’re the Captain! And you’re a hero of the Second Procyon War…”
Jim chuckled.
“Midshipwoman Brooks, ten years ago I was a complete tearaway,” he said. “So, did our other midshipmen and women put you up to coming to ask the scary captain about his past? Or is this you personally with a question?”
He shrugged. “I don’t mind either way, I’m just curious. And come on, sit – it’s good you’re comfortable in the shrouds, but there’s no reason to hang there while we’re talking.”
“Right,” Brooks said, still sounding nervous, and clambered into the lookout spot.
For a long moment, there was silence.
“It was just me,” she said. “I was… I suppose I wondered about something, and – I wanted to ask, but it feels like a silly question now.”
“Take it from me, sometimes a silly question is just the question that needs asking,” Jim replied. “Or answering.”
The Warrior shivered a little as they came about, turning six degrees port and adjusting their vector four down as the helmsman pointed them at a different star.
“Well-” the midshipwoman said. “I… why are we on a ship like this?”
Jim raised an eyebrow, something he’d been practising, and Brooks flushed.
“I don’t mean that as a criticism,” she added. “It’s a good ship, of course! I’m just thinking of…”
“The ironclads?” Jim replied.
“The ironclads,” Brooks agreed. “I know they were important in the Procyon war. I also know the Procyons lost, but… the ironclads were so difficult to damage. It feels like even sailing ships like these is a strange choice, let alone building new ones.”
Jim nodded, doing a quick assessment of the girl.
She was… definitely less delinquent than he’d been. She sounded curious, and… realistically speaking, this wasn’t going to stay a secret for long anyway.
It was his decision, and… in this case, he was going to nurture the young officer.
“You’re not wondering anything that we didn’t,” he said. “I was heavily involved in the discussions, actually… perhaps we will end up building the same kind of ironclads as the Procyons were building – I wouldn’t be involved in those decisions, because they’re going on right now and I’m not exactly there.”
He stood, and looked out over the sails of the Warrior. They glowed with inner fire, both directly propelling the ship by catching the wind and also providing the power that let her engines burn at high power for long periods of time.
“I’ve already given you the answer,” he added, glancing at Brooks. “Your academy scores show you’re a bright young woman, midshipwoman – what do you think it is?”
Brooks frowned, and her tail twitched as she thought.
“I think…” she began. “You said… the same kind of ironclads. What other kinds of ironclads are there?”
Jim patted the royal mast, the highest of the four huge cylinders making up Warrior’s mainmast.
“You’re sailing on one,” he answered.
Brooks looked confused, then stood up herself to look down at the sails.
“...how?” she asked. “Ironclads – they don’t look like this!”
“What makes an ironclad?” Jim asked. “It’s the iron, that’s what… experiments showed that it’s actually helpful to have the iron backed by wood, that makes it more resistant to attack. So that’s what Warrior is. She’s a test ship, all right – an ironclad cruiser, with the masts and sails to travel long distances on patrol in a way the Procyon War ironclads never could, and with armour that’s almost as strong.”
He tilted his head, a little. “Midshipwoman, have you ever used a solar sailer?”
Brooks looked a little thrown by the sudden change of topic.
“...no,” she admitted. “I’ve sailed a cutter before, but those have a proper keel and mast… solar sailers seem too dangerous to me. They’re not much more than a board, an engine and a sail, aren’t they?”
“That’s right,” Jim agreed. “And they’re very able to manoeuvre, in ways you can’t even manage by just welding an engine directly to a board. The key is the sail – you’ve done vectors in your classes, the key point here is that you can combine the vectors from the sail and the engine, and the transverse resistance from the sail if you push it to go in a direction against the one it’s meant to go. You can pull some incredibly tight turns.”
Brooks was frowning, clearly processing that information.
“That sounds like it’s personal experience, Captain,” she said. “You’ve done that?”
“I’ve done both,” Jim agreed. “And I’ve captained wooden ships against ironclads… ironclads struggle to turn fast, because they only have differential thrust, and they struggle to move quickly as well. And the former is what let us run circles around them… and strategically, they were dependent on covert support ships carrying fuel. Do you think the Warrior is the same?”
Brooks shook her head.
“No,” she replied, then frowned. “So you’re saying that… the sails are an advantage?”
“They might not be forever,” Jim conceded. “Maybe some day all our line warships will have to be full ironclads, where even the risk of mast damage is too much. But I think even then there’ll be a place for cruisers to have sails, for some years longer.”
He clapped her on the shoulder. “And maybe we’ll both see that day – but right now, if we ran into an ironclad from the Procyon Wars, I’m sure we’d clean their clock. Because this is the finest ship and crew I’ve yet seen, and I’ve seen a few crews.”
Then he looked slightly awkward. “Admittedly, my first one had about ninety percent of it be pirates…”
“Pardon?” Brooks asked. “Was that during the war?”
“Before,” Jim replied. “During my misspent youth. Though… you may as well tell the others this, Miss Midshipwoman – I think I’m going to have all of you young officers, and perhaps the rest of the crew, have at least one go each on a solar sailer. I believe there’s four in one of the holds, and it’s a useful skill… once you’ve flown one, not much else can scare you.”
The feline midshipwoman looked at her captain, still not sure how to take the oddly informal conversation.
“Should I be worried?” she asked.
Jim shrugged.
“That’s more BEN’s department than mine,” he admitted. “He flat out refuses to come up to the crow’s nest, though, so I’ll have to ask him on deck…”
86 notes · View notes
happy-beeeps · 10 months ago
Text
Darling, I Would Do it Again
Tumblr media
Pairing: Hunter x reader
Warnings: canon typical violence, injury, angst with a happy ending, language
Summary: After a mission goes south, Hunter risks it all to get you back.
Thanks @starboytech for the request! Birthday requests still open!❤️🥰🫶
Four walls, one floor, one metal slab you assume is a bed, one small chamber pot you’ve decided not to investigate.
One broken rib, three gashes, one puffy lip, one bruised ego.
You’ve been itemizing your surroundings, counting your affects, trying to keep some semblance of composure. It’s what you’d learned in med training, the effects of shock can be the sneakiest killer in a crisis. From the moment that Trandoshan had grabbed you, you’d been doing your best to keep yourself on the other side of a panic attack.
To say the mission had gone sideways would’ve been a colossal understatement. It was well and properly fucked. Truly FUBAR as Wrecker would say. What was supposed to be a simple grab and go of some cargo (and information) from a small collection of pirates had turned into the squad attempting to infiltrate a fully operational pirate base, who dabbled in trading and selling live cargo. CID’s intel had been dated at best, or designed for failure at worst. The last thing you remembered was pushing Omega towards Wreckers outstretched hands, as Hunter screamed, clamoring for you as the squad ran towards the exit they had blasted open. You were running, legs striding, until you felt a singe, then burning pain in your calf. The tranq was fast, your vision fading to black before you even knew what had hit you. 
That was, by your count, three rotations ago. The pirates had scarcely been by, only to throw food at your cell and offer vulgar remarks. From what you had gathered, you were the only live cargo aboard this section of the ship. There was no way of knowing where you were going, and no way of knowing what awaited you when you got there.
Honestly, you hoped Hunter and the rest of the batch had figured you a lost cause. You were vastly underprepared for any siege, and the danger these pirates posed to Omega made you sick. You had looked hell in the eyes before, and you’d do it again to keep them safe.
Hunter was, in Tech’s words, displaying the worst show of territorial protectiveness a clone had shown in his memory. In Echo’s words, he was kriffing irate. He hadn’t spoken since you were taken, instead pacing aimlessly through the hull of the Marauder, eyes glazed over, jaw tightened. Not even Omega had dared speak to him in this state, instead coloring pictures of their small family to give you when you returned. Tech had warned them that even with the tracker Wrecker had chucked onto the ship, they needed to be practical, but the look that flashed across Hunter’s eyes had softened the rest of the statement into a whisper. He was going to get you back, non debatable. Even as the ship blurred through hyperspace, tailing the ship to the best of their abilities, he had willed a thought to you. I’m coming for you cyar’ika.
One broken rib, one gash, two cuts, one broken heart.
You knew that even as the ship touched down, there was no way they were coming, you had hoped that even. Still, the thought that you’d never see them again, never lay in Hunter’s arms again, had you fighting back tears. A different pirate, a human man with a cybernetic eye that reminded you all too well of a clone you had befriended so many moons ago, had warned you that when they had completed inventory, you’d be taken to the highest bidder.
You hadn’t shown any crack of emotion the whole time, but wept the moment he left. It had all gone so wrong, so fast.
The ship rocked for a moment, a commotion coming from far down the hall.  You had seen large crates of merchandise when you had first snuck aboard, and figured something had merely snapped loose. It wasn’t until the telltale sounds of blaster fire that you had even begun to think about this hell coming to an end.
It was coming closer, moving towards you. The sounds of yelling and blaster fire and body after body hitting the floor. In a flash, the door was flung open, and you caught sight of the silhouette of Hunter, Echo, and Wrecker standing against the smoke and sparks in the air. 
Echo had moved to a panel near you, where you assumed the controls to the cells were held, and Wrecker stood near the door, ready for incoming threats. Echo had gotten the door opened in a mater of moments, and was now working on closing the main blast door to the detention area. Hunter had moved in immediately, taking one, two, three, big steps and closing the gap between you, careful to press you against his chest on the opposite side of your break.
“You came for me.” You wept, tears flooding from your eyes freely, “but Omega, the squad,”
“There is nothing in any system that could ever keep me from you, you understand? I would never stop looking for you, whoever had you would never know peace.” His words were rushed, angry, but his smoothing hands against your hair told you all you needed to know. Hunter was terrified, terrified that they’d have come all this way for you to already be gone, or worse, come to collect your corpse. You wanted to badly to rip off his helmet and kiss him, but given the circumstances, held back.
“This is cute and all, but we gotta move!” Wrecker’s voice came in loud as Echo managed to get the opposite blast door open. The four of you took off running, Hunter pressing against you as he cushioned any impact on your already aching body. It was working, you thought, whatever distraction Wrecker had planned and whatever interference Tech was running was working. You’d nearly made your way to the door Echo had opened, to what you assumed the rendezvous point was, when you were met with company. Most shots were met with a fast response from the batch, but a few were close for comfort. It was like deja vous, you were so close to freedom.
In a moment that had to have lasted no longer than four seconds, you heard Hunter turn around, before yelling “no!” And sidestepping in front of you.
The shot that landed in his chest would have hit you squarely, with no armor. You screamed his name, and Wrecker wasted no time picking up his downed brother, tossing him over his shoulder as if he was weightless. Echo slid into Hunter’s spot, urging you forward as you all moved to where the Marauder was waiting, engines already firing as Omega motioned you all foreword, eyes wide.
One shattered chest plate, one nasty bruise, two broken ribs. He was alive. He wasn’t wounded. You tried to repeat these truths to yourself as you worked on him on the tiny pull down stretcher the Marauder had. All your years as a med never made caring for those you loved any easier. You shakily applied bacta patches to the angry bruised spot on his chest, anxious to heal it before any internal bleeding caused irreparable damage. Tech is expertly piloting the ship away from danger, and last you saw Omega was tucked snuggle between Wrecker’s arms as he attempted to distract her from any negative thinking with Lula. Echo was up front with Tech, so it left you alone with Hunter.
You knew he’d pull through the second you removed the plastoid. Sure, his chest plate had been shot to smithereens, but it had done it’s job. Your own chest ached at the reality of how much danger you’d actually been in. How much danger he had risked just to bring you home. 
His wounds were patched, bacta slowly working its way through his body. All that was left to do was wait.
You weren’t sure how long had passed, the inhabitants of the Marauder had moved to a restful sleep while you were keeping a vigil for Hunter. He woke up with a shaking breath, eyes wide, hand shooting out to grip the side of the stretcher, your name breathing from his lips like a desperate prayer.
“Shh, I’m here, I’m here,” you crooned, leaping up from your chair and moving to stand next to him, hands running across his sweat-damp face and hair. Your own wounds had been patched in the meantime, and your sudden movement had made you wince, but it didn’t matter now that you had tangible proof he was okay.
“Couldn’t leave you, had to come back for you,” he breathed, his eyes settling as he locked with yours. He pushed up a bit, leaning against the metal wall of the ship while he focused on you. “I couldn’t live with myself knowing I was the reason you were hurt.”
“Hunter, with all my love, how do you think I’ve felt waiting for you to wake up?”
“I’d take a blaster shot for you for less, you know that,” he sighed, but offered you an apologetic smile. The two of you settled into silence for a beat, you simply tracing your fingers over his knuckles while he watched you, content to see you alive and in his arms.
“I’d do all of this again, you know. Wouldn’t change a thing.”
Your brows furrowed as you looked at him, “What do you mean?”
“You know, to end up with you, to have you with me,” he brought your hand to his face, lips pressing sweetly on each of your knuckles, “I’d go through any kind of hell just for, just for the chance to have you in my life. Every banthashit choice, I’d do it all for you ten more times, cyar'ika.”
You had no words at first, just leaned over to him and tried to channel all of your possible love into a kiss along his hairline. The words came to you, slowly, and you murmured back, “I’d have them put me back in it. All for you.”
252 notes · View notes
hopestrope · 4 months ago
Text
Poll of the Dragon #21
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
"Dragons are not horses. They do not easily accept men upon their backs, and when angered or threatened, they attack. Munkun’s True Telling tells us that sixteen men lost their lives during the Sowing. Three times that number were burned or maimed. Steffon Darklyn was burned to death whilst attempting to mount the dragon Seasmoke. Lord Gormon Massey suffered the same fate when approaching Vermithor. A man called Silver Denys, whose hair and eyes lent credence to his claim to be descended from a bastard son of Maegor the Cruel, had an arm torn off by Sheepstealer. As his sons struggled to staunch the wound, the Cannibal descended on them, drove off Sheepstealer, and devoured father and sons alike.
Yet Seasmoke, Vermithor, and Silverwing were accustomed to men and tolerant of their presence. Having once been ridden, they were more accepting of new riders. Vermithor, the Old King’s own dragon, bent his neck to a blacksmith’s bastard, a towering man called Hugh the Hammer or Hard Hugh, whilst a pale-haired man-at-arms namedUlf the White (for his hair) or Ulf the Sot (for his drinking) mounted Silverwing, beloved of Good Queen Alysanne. And Seasmoke, who had once borne Laenor Velaryon, took onto his back a boy of ten-and-five known as Addam of Hull, whose origins remain a matter of dispute amongst historians to this day."
-Fire and Blood, George R.R. Martin
+Nettles🤎
78 notes · View notes
halcyone-of-the-sea · 2 years ago
Note
i absolutely fell in LOVE with your price fic holy shit. your writing is spectacular. then i read your request info and saw that you love keegan as well and my soul left my body.
So this is me requesting a keegan x reader fic bc i love this underrated man SO much!! maybe some enemies to lovers where one of them gets injured in the field and, thinking they're dying, a teary desperate confession ensues? lol im not good with prompts i just wanna see my man 🤧 thanks in advance i love ur work
(Don't) Go to War
Tumblr media
Pairing: Keegan P. Russ x F!Reader
Synopsis: Some days it became impossible not to lose your tempers with each other. Being enemies was easier than admitting you cared.
Word Count: 12.3k
Warnings: Angst, enemies to lovers, blood & gore, vulgar language, fluff & comfort eventually, suggestive (just a tiny bit)
A/N: Just a few more requests to get done, and then my inbox should be open again. I'm thinking I might do an independent Gaz fic too...but idk yet. Enjoy, Love!
*I do not give others permission to translate and/or re-publish my works on this or any other platform*
Some days it became impossible not to yell at him.
“I had the shot, Keegan!” Your voice carries over the hull of C-23 Sherpa, and you didn’t bother to stay strapped into your seat as the aircraft levels out around you. Thrusting your body up, your feet slam to the floor as you stalk over to the silent man who watches you with burning blue eyes, “If you hadn’t gotten in the way the target would be six feet under by now!” 
Your face was twisted with rage, and a need for justice laced your brain like an inextinguishable blaze of fire. 
Keegan and you had a violent streak of not getting along - to the point where Elias was close to separating the two of you permanently. It wasn’t entirely your fault, the man just got on your nerves when he acted like he could boss you around. No Man’s Land was your playground; you knew the trails, where to take shelter when needed, and what towns and backroads to avoid because of Federation occupation. You spent most of your time beyond the walls of Fort Santa Monica just like Keegan and the other Ghosts did – he had no right to lecture you out here. 
He had no right to fuck up the mission.
“Kid,” The man in question warns, his form tense from where it leans against the wall. Around the two of you, the aircraft shakes from turbulence. Keegan’s eyes narrowed to slits, and behind the cloth over his face you see his lips thin dangerously, “I’d be careful what you say next.” 
“Oh, shut the hell up!” You growl. The dirt and blood sticking to your skin makes you want to scratch at yourself with blunt nails; rip away the grime. Stomping up to Keegan you stand directly in front of him, a sneer heavy on your lips. Your body is shaking with adrenaline, “You have no right to tell me that. I worked my ass off getting that intel on Vidal Teo for months just for you to mess up my shot in no less than three seconds. What the fuck?!” 
Keegan’s dead eyes glare from behind the stain of his black eye paint, the custom balaclava shifting as his hidden face moves. Over his arms, his fingers tense and tighten; a pulsing atmosphere begins to perforate the hull. The already strained rope was snapping.
Vidal Teo was a high-ranking commander for the Federation soldiers stationed in a large portion of No Man’s Land. He was instrumental in leading the frontal assault on the Fort – which had been getting steadily worse as the years went on. Vidal was a man marked for death, and your bullet had his name carved into the silver grooves. 
He was yours. 
“I don’t like your tone, Princess,” Keegan hisses down at you, but his intimidation tactics don’t work. He was large, sure, with a gargantuan build that made your shoulders square, but the anger in your blood pumped with vengeance, “I’m in command of the mission, don’t go mixing it around. You listen to me.”
“Not when Teo was right fucking in front of me,” Your head whips to the side, hands clenched as you point a single finger into the man’s chest. The two of you were so close you could feel his gear brush against yours when he breathed. Inside your form, your pulse sings, “If you hadn't fired that shot all of this would have been finished. Now,” You lower your voice as his enraged eyes bore into you, “He’s off in the damn wind. We’ll never get an opportunity like that again.” 
“Back up.” Keegan stands straighter, arms falling to his sides, and at that moment a sliver of hesitance makes its way into your heart as his shadow looms over you, “Now. Before you do something you’ll regret.”
Clenching your jaw, your finger falls. No matter how pissed off you were at the Ghost, one thing he said was right. Keegan was in control of this mission – technically he was your superior at the moment. You should listen to him. 
Listen? Your eyes flash, Like he listened to me? I told him to not fire while I lined my scope up…Why the hell did he do that?
“The sooner you’re out of my life,” Growling, you stare deep into Keegan’s eyes and only slightly shiver at the intensity. You could feel his breath coming out in strained puffs, wafting over your face, “The better. This is on you…All of my goddamn work down the drain…” 
Jerking back as you grumble the last sentence under your breath, you storm past the Ghost’s stone-still figure and enter the cockpit, feeling his locked gaze on you the entire time. You slam the door shut, only serving to make the pilots snap their attention to you, mouths slack and optics wide.
“What?” You growl, glaring and practically releasing steam out of your ears. Damn that man and his stupidly handsome face…What?
The pilots quickly stutter back to their controls, backs straight, and heads forward. 
Blinking, you scrunch your lips; your sense coming back to you as your shoulders deflate. 
“Fuck,” Grumbling, you bring your hands up and place them on top of your head, lacing the fingers together as your elbows stick out. You glance remorsefully at the two stiff profiles, “Sorry, boys. Long day.” 
Elias was going to lecture you again. 
He always did when you and Keegan got into fights – they were becoming more and more recent in the past few months. From common disagreements about misplaced knives or weapons to full-blown yelling matches over accidents on missions, the recurring bouts of thrown words never seemed to end. 
You were so incredibly sick of it. 
Why were you always fighting with him? Why did every action strike you in the heart like a blade? You were always tense around Keegan, sending sharp glances at him every time he was in the vicinity and sharper words a second later. He did the same in return, it wasn’t like this was one-sided. The man was determined to push every button in the book, and damn it if you didn’t do that as well. 
Keegan was a man on a high horse; arrogant, hard-headed, rude, and held authority like a stick you could beat someone over the head with. He demanded utter perfection. 
Sighing violently, you lean back against the door and shove your palms into your eye sockets; head tilting back to rest on the cool metal and soothe the growing headache.
The problem was, most of the time the man was right when he told you something – whether work-related or not. 
“Tango to the left – weapons hot.”
“Contact Scarecrow, Exfil in five. We have a group just above the pharmacy building.”
“West, Kid. Snipers scope, take ‘em down.”
No Man’s Land was supposed to be your playground and all of a sudden some other kid comes along; starts throwing rocks at the equipment with a damn painted balaclava over his face. You didn’t want someone telling you how to do your job. 
Frowning, your teeth nash in annoyance. 
This flight back to Santa Monica couldn't end soon enough, and now you had months of Recon intel sitting in your office to throw into the trash.
You grabbed at the pinned-up files with paper-cut fingertips, looking over the contents before frowning. Tossing them to the side, your ears twitch at the flopping sound of them flying into the garbage bin at your feet. 
The bulletin board was bare of all the red yarn, maps, and intel that you had once hung up with pride. Vidal Teo was gone, and just so the board was once more empty. It was hard not to feel cheated, angry, but maybe a part of you felt emptiness as well. 
All of that work… just for one shot to mess it up. And the bullet wasn’t even from your own gun. 
“I swear,” You whisper, itching at your nose, “If I ever get up on a team with him again…” 
Trailing off, your legs shift and carry you to your desk where you throw yourself down into the chair. Thoughts of Keegan made your brain race, mind going to try and understand why. Even if you didn’t like the man, at least on the surface, you still respected him. 
So, why? None of it made sense. Why fire off into the city at an unidentified target and send Teo rushing for cover? Why not explain to you what had happened when you were back on the plane? If he had made a mistake and admitted that, you would have accepted it… eventually, of course, but you still would have accepted it regardless. You would have had to.
Licking your lips, you tap your knuckles onto the metal of your desk, playing a long-forgotten tune. You never heard the door open.
“Heard the Op didn’t go as planned, but at least the two of you didn’t kill each other. I’d have a helluva a lot of paperwork to do if you put a bullet in his ass,” Sitting up straighter your head snaps to the open doorway, seeing the stocky stature of Thomas Merrick with his arms crossed over his chest, “Still, though, heard ya’ nearly made those pilots piss their pants when you yelled at ‘em.”
“Merrick,” You groan out, tipping your head past the chair’s backing, your neck digging into the wood, “You’re acting like I try to be a bitch.” 
“Are you not,” When you glare at him, the man’s dark eyebrow raises slightly, “Because you’re failing at it – often. Elias’s at the end of his rope with you two.”
Grumbling, your nose scrunches, lips pulling back in a small snarl. 
“It’s not my fault. Keegan hates me just the same.” 
“That any excuse to yell at a superior?” Merrick sighs, shaking his bald head and walking forward, “Thought I trained you better than that?” 
Your eyes flicker to his own, but seeing the blatant disappointment in them, you find it better to look at the empty bulletin board. Swallowing stiffly, your feet shuffle on the floor. 
“Look at all my work, Thomas,” Shoving yourself to your feet, you walk to the small garbage bin and pick it up; holding it aloft, you watch the Ghost’s Field Officer's lips thin. There was a mass amount of wasted paper, pictures, and yarn that caught his eye. You go and slam it onto your desk, hearing the clatter as the pencil holder falls to its side, “Wasted. Because of one man’s actions – how many people are going to die now because I couldn’t make the shot? Ten, twenty, thirty…?” 
“Kid–” Merrick begins, but you cut him off – still angry at Keegan and trying to strangle down the guilt of pushing it onto Thomas.
“If you don’t mind, Merrick, I have a shit-ton of reports to sign and no time to do them,” Once more flopping back into your chair, you rub your hands over your face and feel the skin pull. If you were anyone other than yourself, you would be getting a reprimand for interrupting a superior like that but Merrick was something of a friend to you. 
Closing your eyes, you let the darkness behind your lids flood you as you take a deep breath. 
The Ghost leaves after a moment without noise or a sound of encouragement, but that was just how he was. You feel his dark eyes on you, lingering, before he closes the door behind him and stalks away. 
Finally left alone in silence, you let your thoughts run to try and answer the age-old question that ravaged your mind.
“What happened to make us like this?” You whisper, hands falling to your lap as you stare off into the distance with blank eyes. 
You had never given it much thought – sometimes people just didn’t like each other. Ingrained enemies written into the annals of time and cursed to forever be at each other's throats like rabid animals. But then you realized that this wasn’t high school and you were an adult living in a fucked up world full of death and war. Coworkers no longer had the privilege to talk shit about the other behind their backs or not communicate their problems; being out in No Man’s Land forced people to compromise and work together like a well-oiled machine. 
And well-oiled was not the way to describe yours and Keegan's relationship…more like a run-down and rusty car that screams every time you turn the key; practically begging someone to put it out of its misery. 
Blinking, you realize, perhaps for the first time, how much of a problem this predicament with Keegan really was. 
This could kill us both.
All of this began, you knew, a long time back, and, as it usually did, it had started out beyond the Fort before bleeding back into the ramshackle place you called home. The both of you were enemies far longer than you had been friends.
Your body was hot, sweat dripping down your temple and slipping the expanse of your chin, but still, you stood outside Elias Walker’s door with a tense jaw; fingers itching to rip into Keegan’s flesh. They were speaking inside, their voices hushed as your boots pooled mud and dirt onto the floor like a brand. 
“She…went over the ridge?” Elias asks, voice deep, “And she’s alive?”
“Hm,” Keegan makes a savage noise in the back of his throat, and you have to hide your panting breaths to hear it. The damn bastard was always so silent any sound would perk your ears, even if they were ringing with reverberations of spent bullets.
“Then I don’t exactly see what the problem is, Keegan.”
A pause.
“...She’s impulsive. Combative. Doesn’t listen,” There was an inhaled breath, and you feel your face burn at the profound gravel-toned words, lungs making your chest tighten as they zip closed as a bag would. But those next comments make you growl in the back of your throat, rage like fire in your heart, “I don’t want her. Kid’ll get the people she’s placed with killed if she’s allowed to do that again!”
A sigh through the shocked silence. 
“Then what do you suggest I do? She’s a valuable asset, I can’t just ground her – the Recon work she does is vital to finding Federation strongholds.”
“I don’t care what you do with her, Elias. Just keep her far away from me and the boys. Kid’s not my problem. Never want her to be again.”
Whatever harsh words are uttered next are lost to you, because your legs are already carrying you down the corridor with brimming tears stuck in the corners of your eyes. 
It was more the way he said it than the contents of the clipped sentences. Like you were less than him, pathetic, and unworthy. Nothing more than a rookie holding a gun and parading off into the wilderness to have a good time. That was what wrecked you.
The next time you saw Keegan it was only narrowed glances and clenched fists; terse words. When you snapped at him for the first time, you swear his eyes slightly widened, cold blue one second then boiling bright the next.
You liked that look on him – shocked into a different type of silence. A type of anger you could meet head-on.
Fighting with Keegan soon became too addicting to ignore, a constant activity that never changed like the destroyed world always did. A failsafe at the end of the day. 
 The anger had never dimmed, infecting you like a poisoned worm stuck in your veins and weaseling its way to your heart. It had only grown the longer you let it sit, and at the end of the day, you festered over the image of the Ghost’s face with his eyes digging into your skin. You stayed awake at night mulling over the arguments, taking the insults and words like bullet wounds to your heart with barely restrained tears; feeling guilty because you threw some back as well. 
But what hurt you the most was that, before the hushed meeting in Elias’s office, you had looked up to him. To Keegan. Perhaps you had even enjoyed his quiet company at one point when the loneliness of No Man’s Land got to you. The terrain was incredibly quiet in between the violent hails of gunfire and, on occasion, it would make paranoia infect your bones like a cancer; producing shaking limbs and tense fingers. When Keegan was with you…you hated to admit this, but he made the silence better. More survivable compared to when you were alone doing Recon with only a gun and a combat knife as deadly companions. 
Your narrowed lids flicker to the trash bin on the desk. 
There was still a small pinch of anger – resentment for the waste and for words spoken in haste – but your mind pulsed to find an explanation. A reason. 
There must be a reason that Keegan would fire off a shot into the city prematurely…obviously it was to hit a target, but why? And why hadn’t he told you the reason? 
I’m gonna rip my head apart if I keep thinking this over, You warn yourself, huffing under your breath. 
You had reports to write up – tell of your failure to kill Vidal Teo and how many lives that will ultimately cost in the future. While you were stuck with a pen in your hand, scribbling away even as the sun had set outside, you had no idea of the stare-down going on in Elias’s office one floor up.
Elias’s eyes are sharp, a wave of dark anger deep in the iris as he stands with his arms crossed behind his desk, “Why’d you fire?”
Keegan's feet are shoulder length apart and his arms are clenched behind his back, spine straight; a deep tension lives in the thick air, bearing down weight on the men. The Ghost was still in his gear, the balaclava and black face paint in all its glory situated over his head. That was his best form of armor, allowing him to hide the deep sneer over his cruelly scared lips. 
“Tango. Off in the next building,” Keegan’s voice was low, harsh, and cut to a point. He didn’t want to be there – there were many more important things to be done than getting a lecture like a five-year-old. 
His sniper rifle needed cleaning, rookies needed to be disciplined, and the treadmills were calling his name. He had to work off all the bullshit in his head.
“The Girl had the shot. Vidal Teo needed to die, Russ – she knew that well enough. I want an explanation as to why a high-priority target is still up and walking.” 
The silent beast of a man keeps his body still, even if his head is pounding. Hot adrenaline was still in his veins from how you were yelling at him in the Sherpa, the memory of your rage-twisted face burning into the back of his eyes. He had never seen you that angry before; shaking with the need to release your displeasure onto him. It had slightly taken him aback. 
Fighting with you was predictable. You’d both throw insults, get into each other's faces and cruelly break down each other's psyche piece by piece – the man knew what to say and where the unspoken line was just as you did. Fighting was easier than admitting there was something deeper going on, something that you two were hesitant to even speak of. 
But, hell, you had never gotten that upset at him previously. And, problem was, even if he wanted to deny it, Keegan knew he fucked up. Bad. 
There wasn’t a way in hell that he was going to tell you that, though. He wasn’t going to tell you that his finger had moved before his mind could, pulling down on the hair-trigger of his prized rifle like a fucking novice. Even now self-resentment was worming into him.
He had never felt that to this degree before. He didn’t like it – couldn’t afford to acknowledge it.
What gave you the right to provoke those emotions from him? Maybe I need to ask to have her transferred. Brat’s messin’ with my head.
“Miscalculation. Won’t happen again.” His feet shuffle, boots shifting silently over the floor like that of his title. Miscalculation – he doesn’t make those. Never had after ODIN hit the US. There wasn’t any room for them. 
Keegan was a master of taking lives with a swift movement and a pull of a trigger; no one had ever known him to be reckless. 
They had you for that.
Elias narrowed his eyes, head tilting, as a tightness is seen rippling through his jaw, “You’re going to have to lie better than that, Son.”
Keegan stilled, dead eyes boring into the other man’s. The sharp blue deepens, darkens. His shoulders set themselves, but the ingrained looseness is still there if someone looks close enough and spies it. Instinct is hard to fight. 
“Elias?” He asks from behind the fabric of his face covering but utters no more. 
Keegan was a man of few words – very few. Actions served him better, but in this room, there was no point to them. Walker was his superior; his Captain, but more so the closest thing to a brother Keegan would ever have. There wasn’t a choice in this, even if the men had gone through hell together as Ghosts. 
“Don’t play me for a fool, Keegan,” The graying man mutters out, shaking his head and going to rest his hands on the top of his desk, “I’ve known you a long time. You don’t fuck up something like this. Never have. So don’t insult me with that half-assed answer.” 
Elias pauses, sighing when Keegan just stares at him with blank, black-laced, hard eyes. The man was a damn empty slate, never moving, never giving away anything to betray his emotions.  
“I want a full report on my desk in a week. I’m sure the Kid’ll have hers done in a day, but I want you to explain yourself. In detail. You hear?”
“Copy.” 
“Dismissed.”
Keegan turns and leaves without another word, just a burning in his gut and a righteous sense of surety in his bloodstream. Your face slashes over his vision as he exits the room, he closes the door behind him and thumps down the halls. People move out of his way quickly, sending glances with pupils so tiny they practically disappear altogether; Keegan knew he was intimidating, especially with all his gear and smelling like gunpowder and blood. Didn’t bother him much. 
It seemed like it didn’t bother you either, judging by how you were in his face screaming all the time. 
Damn brat, Keegan thinks, itching at his nose bridge and sending stiff glances at the rows and rows of closed doors and windows, She doesn’t know anything.
Before long his feet had carried him down corners and hallways as his head pounded, and it wasn’t a surprise that when he shook himself out of his trance the entire make-up of the floors and walls had changed. 
Wait…where was he? 
His pace slows to a stop, and his eyebrows furrow in confusion. Where had he ended up while his mind was running at the thought of you? This had never happened before – the Ghost’s head was all out of sorts if he was talking walks around the Fort without a destination. Every action of his had a purpose, why was that now becoming anything less than fact? 
Annoyance plagued him.
Sliding his eyes around, a certain office window catches his viper-like attention. It was the only one with a light still on, warm rays shining out into the hallway, and the shuffling of paper and manila folders flowing to his ears. The door was only minutely ajar, a sliver, and nothing more. About to turn around and leave the area, Keegan halts at the sound of a familiar voice grumbling. His heart jerks.
Blue eyes narrow, and that annoyance at himself grows to find an external outlet.
The hell is this Kid doin’ up so late? Doesn’t she know when lights out is? Fuck, looks like she can’t follow simple guidelines either.
With shuffling feet, he takes a step forward and has every intention to bust down the door and force you to the barracks; lecturing you on the importance of rest when he suddenly realizes something.
Why does he care if you get a good night's sleep? 
Growling under his breath, he happens to get a glimpse of a moving shadow through the window that gives him pause with one gloved hand on the woodgrain of the door. If possible, he feels his body completely stop at the scene; his eyes flickering into a widened look. 
And what was that tightening in his chest?
You were staring at the hung-up bulletin board, having dragged your desk chair over and situated it right in front of the bare rectangle that once held an innumerable amount of papers and information. 
Keegan had seen it himself right before the mission had started. Your eyes lit up when you could tell him everything you knew about the target from his schedule to what he ate in the mornings.
Eggs with a protein bar. Two cups of milk.
You had gathered all of that info yourself – countless trips into Federation-occupied territory that left you coming back with bruises and deep lacerations. Keegan knew; he had watched you limping back through the gate with a shielded look in his eyes. But now the board was blank and useless, holding nothing but your knowledge that it was once filled with your labors. 
The Ghost’s hand on the door loosens, and he takes a slow inhalation of breath as your tired eyes get glossy. When had you gotten those bags under your eyes? Keegan’s lips pull thin behind his balaclava. Had…had you always looked that tired? 
Had you both really been fighting so much that he had stopped noticing the most basic parts of you that he had watched so closely before?
“I had it…” Keegan’s shoulders tense when he hears you speak, but he doesn’t move. A needle of guilt moved to dig deeper. Your hopeless sigh leaves him gritting his teeth, “Fuck.” 
Digging your palms into your eyes, he watches you shake, limbs tense and hunched over nearly into a ball. He has the sudden urge to push the door open, not to scold you but to simply stand by your side. Tell you the truth. 
Keegan’s eyebrows pull together, gaze flicking away from you so his brain can focus. But it was like a magnet was stuck behind his optics because it wasn’t long before his eyes flowed back to the small figure. 
He stays there for a good while, watching, with a weighted chest and pounding heart. Keegan couldn’t really say what he was thinking about, but all of it certainly involved you. So why couldn’t he open the door?
When your head jerks back up, his eyes widen, body swiftly moving back. 
By the time you look out the office window, his shadow is already disappearing down the hallway. 
You nearly lose your cool when Elias tells you Keegan was accompanying you out into No Man’s Land once more. The bags under your eyes burned – weeks had passed since the fight, and you had gotten little sleep since then. 
“Teo was sighted by one of the drones near an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of San Francisco. I want you and Keegan on the trail, and, hopefully,” Elias mutters as Merrick and Ajax listen in the background. Your apparent partner stands behind you, leaning back on the wall with his arms crossed, “We can put this to rest.”
Standing rail-straight, your face is twisted but you keep yourself under control. Even being in the same room with Keegan made you want to lash out. At your sides, your hands slowly clench into tight fists, and behind you, a sharp gaze digs its claws into your skull.
He’s watching you. Studying like he always does when he thinks you don’t notice. 
“Sir,” You answer the older Ghosts blankly, lips stiff, “If you think that’s best.” 
“I do,” Merrick raises a brow behind Elias, and you pretend not to notice as Ajax’s shoulders shake, “That going to be a problem?”
Ironically, Keegan and you both answer at the same time, a strangling silence before a snarled, “No, Sir.” 
The pair of you shipped out in thirty minutes, but neither of you bothered to look at the other as you gathered supplies in the armory; grabbing magazine after magazine and strapping knives to thighs, arms padded with thick clothes and heavy black combat vests. Keegan was applying his face paint despite the dark color already stained into his eye sockets. You doubted it could come off anymore – the skin was probably so damaged by the chemicals it was pointless to try. Like some brutal birthmark. He slipped the balaclava over soon after.
The fabric covered the dark hair and strong jaw, slightly marred with stubble – long scars that grew harsher when his skin twisted; the angled lips below a sharp nose that had captured your attention the first time you had seen them. Keegan was undoubtedly handsome, carved from stone and silver – the remnants of that artistry only now glimpsed in his eyes as a cold reminder. It was funny, you thought, that someone so beautiful could be such an ass. You watched him, terse-like, and grabbed a revolver hanging from the rack, shoving it into your thigh holster. 
He was acting off. 
Keegan was more silent than he usually was; at this point, he would at least make a quick quip about your annoying habit of packing extra ration bars in your front pouch. 
‘Gonna weigh you down, Kid, if you stuff one more of those damn things into your vest.’
But the more you sneaked glances, the more your feet started to shuffle in unease. The Ghost wouldn’t even look at you. 
“You sick or something?” Your voice carries, echoing off the walls as you tighten the vest strap on your side. You had never bothered to be subtle when talking to the man – he appreciated bluntness, and that was one thing you could get behind. 
“No,” Keegan slips past, suddenly colder than ever before, and disappears without another word. 
Watching his back shift as he strides off, your eyebrows furrowed in confusion and perhaps a bit of shock. 
What the hell was that? You ask yourself, hands falling to your sides where they twitch. Keegan was damn confusing, but he had never been outright numb like that to you besides when you both first met. Your resentment flares in your breast, but with a shake of your head, you force it down. That wouldn’t help anyone, and you still wanted answers. 
If this was how Keegan wanted to be then fine, you’d just have to ask Elias for his report when you got back and figure out for yourself why he had ruined the previous mission. 
You grabbed a canteen of water and shuffled out the door, flicking off the light with a heavy finger and followed after the Ghost’s footsteps; dreading the Op but feeling your pulse beat at the thought of nabbing Teo once and for all. 
This was ending. Today. 
The aircraft landed just far enough away to be unseen by Federation soldiers and on the line of being annoyingly distant from the target. The hike would be through mountainous terrain – the land ravaged by the remnants of ODIN’s destruction and just beginning to heal. On top of steep cliffs, and sharp rocks, there would also be rampaging streams and thick foliage. Speaking from experience, you knew it was going to be a sweat-inducing mission…and that was before you got to the main point of it all. 
Both of you disappear into the treeline after the pilot tells you the future Evac Point, hoofing it at a jog into the shadows and blending in like animals. Under your feet, the leaves crush, telling stories of where you placed your weight as the packs over your body jump with every jerk forward. Keegan takes the lead, silently expecting you to follow as your eyes stare into his back. 
He still hadn’t talked to you. It made your skin crawl.
Watching his gait, you frown and clench your jaw. Why did it bother you so much? Wasn’t this what you wanted all along…for him to leave you alone? 
Sighing, you hop over a downed log, seeing Keegan quickly send a look behind him at your form before snapping his head forward. 
“There’s an old structure west of the Warehouse – a hunting lodge still standing from before ODIN was fired, I found it on one of my other Ops,” You call, moving faster to run side-by-side with the man. Dodging a tree, your tongue runs over your lips, “We should set up there – we’d have a clear shot.”
For a moment there was only the sound of shoved foliage, steady breaths, and clinking gear before Keegan replies. 
“Affirm.” 
He pulls ahead, and you’re left widely watching his shoulders, seeing the muscles under his attire ripple as they propel him faster away. Your eyelids narrow, a thin sneer flickering over your lips.
Keep your cool, You follow after, careful where you place your feet as the ground begins to ascend, If I get him in a good mood, maybe he’ll answer my questions later. 
It was easier said than done, of course, and although your efforts were valiant, none of your plans to get him to speak to you landed. The hike ended with panted breaths and a setting sun, mist seeping like snakes over the rocks under your feet; the world was quiet, and try as you might you found a deep sense of loneliness in that. The pair of you were on top of a ridge, surrounded by deep green and gray. No birds sang, and no animals trampled the land – it was just the harsh wind and the creak of stretching metal from far ahead. The occasional smell of dirt that left your nose full of particles and led to coughing fits.
Perhaps Keegan had the right idea for a face covering, even if it was never intended for the reason of keeping the elements out.
The Warehouse was near a crater, one of the places ODIN had struck directly into the Earth, and teetered on the edge of oblivion as it was half-falling apart and drenched in red rust. Occasionally, as a tremor rolled through, pieces of it would fall off and slam to the ground a million miles away, deep into the crust of what was left. 
Definitely a place for a safe house. No one would bother to look here unless you already knew about it or were hiding something.
Thinking to yourself, you rub the sweat off your nose with the back of your hand, eyes flickering to the hole in the Earth with shielded disgust. It had been over ten years, but the horror was still there. All of those innocent people… 
“Here,” The smooth voice startles you, but your attention diverts quickly to the man at your side. His hands hold out a red cloth in his first and second fingers and pointedly avoids sneaking a peak at your shocked expression. Your mouth opens and closes, optics bouncing back and forth between the gift and the strange Ghost. 
You could hear a pin drop if you had one to throw.
“The fuck are you doing?” 
“Your stench is going to alert the guards – wipe yourself off. I need to repeat myself, Princess?” With an unamused face, you snatch the textile and rub it over your heated skin, reveling in the dismissal of layers of salt. 
“Asshole,” You mutter, “You better not have used this before me; if I get acne I’m shaving your head in your sleep and siccing Riley on you.” 
“Sounds fun. Better make sure I’m dead by the end of it.”
“Trust me, I will. I’ll make sure to chuck your body from the Fort wall, too,” Sliding past him, you toss the cloth at his chest, “Hunting lodge is this way.” 
You get so close your shoulders lightly brush, and although you hate the implications, the action leaves your chest tight as you inhale his scent of blood and shrill chemicals. Clenching your jaw, you don’t take in the way his warmth floods your veins or the cold gaze that follows your back as you walk away; briefly softening around the edges like a blunt blade before being sharpened once more under stone and rock.
Hearing his feet lightly caress the ground behind you, you let out a slow breath, shoving away a branch of a low tree and peeping back. Keegan's gaze locks on your own as if he was waiting for this, and you curse not being able to see his expression – but it wasn’t like that would give away anything either. The Ghost was blank, much like the bulletin board had been when you ripped your work from it.
Raising a dark brow, the man grunts under his breath in question as his large shadow leeks over your form. 
“Nothin,’” You mutter and turn back, fixing the strap of your rifle and side step a piece of cut wood, looking like it was the remains of a windowsill that had been broken during the shockwave and flung from a house, “Thanks for the rag. Even if it did smell like Gun Oil.”
Blinking down at the forgotten object, your arms push through one more set of fauna and huff when you lay eyes on the run-down lodge that would be Base Camp. Rushing up the decaying steps, you push the paint-peeing door open and throw your hands out.
“And here we are,” Walking with acute familiarity into the one-room area, “Home sweet home,” You nod your head to the left, where a large window gives a clear view of the Warehouse down below, “We’ll take the shot from over there, but…here…where did I…?” 
Stumbling to a stop, you take one step back and ignore the narrowed eyes on your back.
“The hell you looking for, Kid?” 
“Shh,” You snap your fingers at a loose board near a broken-down TV stand, “There we go!” Jogging over, you place your foot on one end of the board and grab the now-propped-up opposite side with a heavy hand. Like a teeter-totter. 
Tossing the wood away, you grab the stash you had hidden years ago and hold it aloft near your head as you turn around.
Keegan watches with small eyes, head tilted, and feeling a bit curious about where this was going. What were you holding in your hand…? Was that…?
“Chocolate bars? I thought those were under strict ration laws?” His booted feet carry him closer to you and the plastic bag holding three bars of the old treat, “Damn, Kid.” 
The man didn’t ask how you knew they were there – at least, yet – but he had an idea. You had logged more hours outside than anyone else besides the Ghosts, and with your affinity to keep to your own, it was only common sense that you had stashes all over California.
“Special occasion,” You mutter, opening the bag and tossing him one. Of course, he catches it, flipping it over in his hands and rubbing a thumb over the wrapper. Keegan’s eyes filter back to yours slowly, and under him, his feet shuffle to shift his weight. 
“Y’know these things are probably older than Fort Santa Monica, right? It’ll give you gut rot.”
“God, I hope so,” You rip the wrapper open and snap off a piece as you hear crinkling from the other bar being opened; you toss yours into your mouth and smirk, “Maybe Ajax’ll finally lend me his alcohol stash to help me out for once. Bastard keeps making excuses.”
The bar was a bit stale if you were being honest, but it was still chocolate in your books. Stuffing the rest of it in your side pocket, you slip the rifle from around your back and head to the window, with the butt of the gun you raise it up and bring it down. A corner of the glass shatters into a million pieces, falling to the ground outside like tiny stars and reflecting the dying light. 
Far below, miles away, the Warehouse seems dead to the world, but your and Keegan’s trained eyes spy the microscopic shadows in the rust-strangled metal walls, slipping past like rats over the holes and windows. 
“Visual?” The man next to you asks, pulling back down his balaclava, and your ears twitch as you gaze through your scope; watching with perfected focus. Pulling back with a grunt, you flip the gun and rest the barrel against the wall, sighing.
“Negative. There won’t be until the sun sets fully,” Keegan turns to look down at you, and the fabric around his mouth shifts into a frown. You raise a brow and explain, not needing him to ask his question, “I‘ve tracked this guy like a teenager on the internet who has a crush. I know his routine. When the sun sets he checks the perimeter with two of his guards, Fabián Julieta and Santos Rosa – I have reason to believe they’re his cousins, but it’s never been confirmed.”
“You sure he’ll do that?” Keegan scoffs, looking back out and tapping his fingers over his thigh holster, “There was just an attempt on his life. Not exactly the time to follow procedure.”
“Well, I suppose I’ll have to leave it to fate. Plus,” You can’t help but mutter, “We wouldn’t have been in this situation if you hadn’t messed up.”
The air thickens.
Keegan’s body stills, frozen like his bones had just been covered in frost and doused in frigid waters. Out of the corner of your eye, you watch with bated breath. But he notices the trap, it seems, because his neck never enters the snare laid out. The tension that had lived over you both like a dark cloud suddenly gained lighting, quick flashes of light over the sky.
“It’ll be too dark by then,” Is his only response – even if it’s clipped and growled out like a man ready to snap. He wanted to start an argument, you could tell with growing amusement. Keegan’s arms clench at his sides into shaking fists.
“Then it’s a good thing Ghosts can see in the dark,” You smirk, tilting your head to the side and beginning to reach for the rest of the chocolate bar resting in your pocket, “Isn’t that right? Make sure not to freak out and fire at the birds–!” 
The hand latches onto your shoulder before you can process the man had even moved; eyes widening to the size of plates as the pressure snaps your body to face forward. You let out a light yip as your feet drag. Despite the hold being firm, Keegan’s fingers never dig too tight.
Your eyes level on his, gazing deep into his boiling blues that shimmer the longer you stare. Had the middle always had flecks of green? Inside your chest, your heart pounds like a drum as, behind the balaclava, his jaw clenches. Keegan’s breath is like a breeze over your hair, rustling it. 
“Don’t…do that,” He says slowly. You just watch, wide-eyed, “Don’t speak on shit you have no idea about.” 
Whatever had made your lungs constrict fled in an instant.
“What?” Your lips twist, “You mind telling me how I’d have ‘no idea’ about an Op I was supposed to come back with a confirmation of death on?” 
You shove his arm off your shoulder and hate the way the chill of the air overtakes his warmth. 
Keegan’s shoulders set, “Kid, I’m ordering you to–”
“Cut the shit!” You yell, finger going to shove into his face and watching his head whip to it before wafting back to your visage. If possible his shoulders widen even farther, legs tense and straight. This was it – your confusion would go no further, you decided, “You’re going to explain all of this, Keegan–!” 
“Watch the damn volume–”
“Explain why I’m out here, why you messed up the mission–!”
“Listen to me. I need you to–”
“Why my fucking work was all wasted because you pulled the damn trigger and I’m reaping the consequences like an idiot with a guy who hates my guts–!”
“There was a sniper on the roof.”
Your rampage stops just as you were about to open your mouth once more. You stare at him at the bombshell, not even able to process it for a moment. Blinking, you realize you had moved Keegan backward so his back was pressed into the opposite wall; your body was pressed tightly up next to his. With every fast breath, you could feel your chest connect with his, and your finger was still against his peck, digging into the gear. 
Sucking in a quick breath, you gathered what little courage you had gained and looked up into his face with a fire lit in your blood. 
“...W-what?” Keegan’s body shifts and his arms go to grab your elbows. 
He doesn’t move you, just gives them a firm squeeze and explains as his heart pounds in his chest. Under the cloth, his mouth is slightly parted, and his pupils are wide.
“Federation sniper,” He utters, blinking as your face goes void of emotion, “I didn’t know if he’d seen you yet, but I…” 
The Ghost trails off as his thigh brushes yours, all of the pouches uncomfortable to feel digging into his skin, but worth it if he can make this right.
“Why…Why didn’t you tell me?” You whisper out, the skin of your eyebrows moving to press the tiny hairs closer together. This changed everything, “Why did you…?”
Keegan’s face is so close to yours that he can smell your shampoo through the dark fabric over his nose, suddenly suffocating on the comfort the covering usually brought him. Why was his heart racing in his chest? You were being irresponsible, yelling like that, and stubborn, hard-headed. 
But, damn, if anger wasn’t a good look on you. Your body heat was leaking into him, making him swallow heavily.
“Because…knew you’d blame yourself,” He said simply, staring at you deeply as your expression softens just as Keegan’s body does against the wall; you lean in deeper to his hold, “Just didn’t expect you to take it all so hard.”
“What? You just wanted me to let it go?” You utter, feeling and finally admitting how addicting it felt to be this close to him. For the life of you, you can’t find it in yourself to look away from him. What was happening?
“Again, didn’t know you’d take it so hard,” He raises a brow, grip falling from your elbows to lightly grab your hips. You force down a shiver, veins alight with molten lava at the strange contact. The Ghost continues, “Where’d you get the idea I hated you?”
Your throat swallows down saliva, not understanding the feeling in your gut. 
Shit, You think, Maybe that chocolate was bad – my head’s spinning…All I can smell is Keegan. But why am I not trying to leave?
Just a moment ago you were angry at him, but now everything made sense. A sniper, God, he could have just told you. It would have fixed a lot of things.
You mull over his question; do you answer it honestly? But for some odd reason, your mouth runs faster than your mind – it always had, and certainly always would. At least around Keegan, that is.
A breaking point had been reached, wherever you went from here was entirely up to the two of you.
“You said you didn’t want me,” The man’s breath stills, and you feel it just as you hear it; his scanning optics halt their study of your features, as if he had been seeing them for the first time in this light, “That I’d get people killed…why…why do you think I always work by myself nowadays?” Your nose begins to hurt, eyes falling to Keegan’s chest. You try to shove it down, but your hand over his vest shakes slightly. Where was this coming from? Why were you telling him this? The source of your animosity, how you two became, at least in your mind, enemies, “I just didn’t want to be a problem.”
Muttering out the last sentence, you swear Keegan’s chest hitches, heart kickstarting. 
“I…” He begins after a long moment of mutually avoiding eye contact. If you look into those beautifully cold blues you might break. 
But voices from below snap whatever the both of you would externally loathe but internally revel in; the longing in the two pairs of eyes is replaced by duty and unsaid words. The action was mechanical, and both parties rushed to the window, with your fingers grasping the rifle and Keegan grabbing the binoculars from his largest pouch. 
Like birds of prey, the two work in such sync that others would question if they even hated each other at all – and if they had seen the scene just moments prior the thoughts of denial would have been strengthened ten-fold. 
Did you hate Keegan? Or did you hate what he had done? Now really wasn’t the time to question it, but as the Ghost called out the distance and spotted Vidal Teo in pitch darkness, you can’t help but mutter, “Knew you could see in the dark, Kee,” And lined up the shot. 
Your finger pulls the trigger with little more than a second thought, and your shoulder catches the recoil with a grunt leaving your lips. 
“Direct hit. Target down,” A soft hand squeezes your shoulder as you watch the body drop from the scope. Grim satisfaction breeds in your heart. Your eye roves to Keegan’s face, who nods his head at you, “It was a good shot, Princess.”
Face heating, all you do is scoff, rolling your eyes, “Yeah, well…I suppose you called it.”
“Really, you can’t just take the compliment?“
“Do you want me to beat you over the head with this rifle?”
You both stand up and send coded glances to the other, and where the backhanded comments would usually be hostile, the small differences in presentation lean more toward teasing than anything. 
It was…nice. Foreign, but nice.
Chuckling, you toss the rifle around your back and listen to panicked voices echoing out from the warehouse. Keegan still stands near the window, with his back to it, while you inch to the door and itch at the back of your neck. He stares at you strangely, no doubt thinking about what you had confessed prior.
He had no idea you had heard the conversation with Elias. The Ghost’s chest constricts, remembering the words he had said in concern and anger. Had you really heard all of it? That would explain the sudden cold attitude that was mirrored back to him all those months ago.
Damn, Keegan blinks, and his head tilts as you stare back at him with a questioning expression. Your face was innocent with sweaty flesh filled with dust and grime. His fingers itched to wipe away the slash of black dirt from your forehead and, against his will, his stone blue softened to water in his eye sockets.
Your lips twitch at the rare expression. You had a lot to talk about when you both get back to base. 
“We should get going before–” 
Glass shatters, and a loud pop like an opening soda can startles you so bad you swore your heart stopped. Two things happen in that instance that will be ingrained into your head forever, carved like a scar in the fine tissue and tender to the touch.
One, his blood splattered your face, making you blink rapidly and reel back.
Two, the sound of Keegan’s hitting the floor – deadweight – and the loud gasp that exits his mouth, all the air expelled from his lungs not allowing him to even scream.
“Keegan!” You yell, rushing over and grabbing onto his shoulders, flipping him over with a grunt and panicked breath as you brush away the crimson from your eye sockets with a fast hand, “Shit!”
His body slams once more to the old wood, this time his back now on the floor. Blood pools down from a gunshot wound over his right abdomen, and your eyes land on it immediately, lungs struggling to suck down air.
Below you, Keegan lets out a wheezing sound, arm coming half-up to clench in the space above him, shaking violently. 
“Fucken’...” The man gasps, and his body jerks, trying to move despite the hole in his side. Your fingers rip open your medical pouch, eyes darting back to the window. You lightly stand up, frantic eyes darting and freezing. Spying a glint of light reflected from the moon, you quickly dip back to the floor.
Sniper scope. 
Rushing to grab Keegan under the shoulders, he yells out curses as you drag him to the side and out of the line of sight of the window. Tearing out a rag and a roll of gauze from your stash, you look at his face as you shove the cloth against the leaking wound, bunching the fabric and working it into the crater. 
Keegan snarls, head going back to slam to the floor as his eyes flutter. Those blues of his were wide and whizzing back and forth in a primal display, and behind the balaclava, you could see his throat bob with strangled, open-mouthed, breaths. Fuck, fuck, fuck…!
“Hey!” You shout, bringing up one hand and lightly slapping his cheek as you lean your body weight into his side. Your heart was going too fast, it was going to break out of your chest if you didn’t get a grip. But…Keegan’s blood was staining your hands; leaking down your face to drip from your chin. And the fact remained that the Federation soldiers now knew your position and were rushing to the dilapidated lodge. You needed to get him out of here, “Keep your damn eyes open – the only person who gets to kill you is me!”
“What…what the fuck, Princess?”
“You heard me!” Your body was shaking just as much as Keegans as you gnash your teeth together, “‘Doesn’t listen,’ my ass, your ears work less than mine do.” 
You’re panicking; using born and breed sarcasm and clipped words to ease you back into focus.
You had to move him – had to get him out of here. But would you be able to? He was big; far larger than you and weighed twice as much in muscle alone, not to mention the gear... Your mind did the math even as you pleaded with it not to. 
He would have to help you on his own if this was going to work. And that meant keeping him conscious.
Keegan lets out a loud cough, and your fingers itch to move his face-covering so he can breathe better. But you unravel the gauze instead, going to shift his body to wrap it around the rag – holding it in place. 
“Gotta’ move,” He snarls at you, trying to keep the pain at bay as it sweeps over him like waves of water, in and out, in and out.
“Working on it.” 
Right as you tie off a tight knot on the already bloody wrappings, the Ghost tries to get up, an arm turning to slam to the floor behind him and vibrate as he forces his weight on it. Knowing that was a bad idea but not having another choice, you loop one of his arms over your shoulders and grunt. Bearing the brunt of his weight you hold your breath and angle your feet; shoving with all of your strength and gasping out. 
“What the hell do you eat, man? Rocks?” As you grip with your free hand at his limp wrist, you take a quick glance at Keegan when you don’t hear a response. When he’s up, one of your hands goes to wrap around his waist. 
The man’s eyes were fluttering fast, pupils retracted in pain. The blood leaking from him stains your body as you hike his form closer to you, feeling the warmth of the flesh enter your skin like a candle’s flame. 
“Keegan!” You call, shaking his body. The man lets out a low groan, sharp eyes snapping to yours. You're taken aback when you see them immediately soften as they land on your panic-laced form, “You’ve gotta help me, okay?”
Speaking slowly, you hope he listens as he blinks at the blood on your face, eyebrows tensing.
“Copy,” He mutters and sends about the closest he can to a stiff nod your way. 
Immediately all weight is taken from your hold and he stumbles to stand up straight, a hand snapping to his side as his feet drag.
“Not all of it! Idiot!” Growling, you rip him back to you, hissing in disapproval as he lets out a deep curse; nearly falling into you. Forcing him forward, you go as fast as you’re able to the entrance door and already a sheen of exertion is falling over your face. How the hell is he so heavy?
“Fuckin’ confusing, Kid…Just tell me what you– what you want, I’m bleeding out here,” Keegan barks, annoyance falling from him onto you. Was it really that impossible for the two of you to get along that you were fighting while he was seeping crimson all over you? You were getting along just a second ago.
“You’re impossible, Keegan Russ,” You lock onto him in the corner of your eye as you practically drag him to the door, shoving it open with your shoulder. Your fingers dig into his side and his wrist, trying not to get distracted by the strong muscle you feel writhing under your touch. Without meaning to, your grip had gravitated under his shirt, touching bare skin littered with scars and burns – hot and pulsing with life.
Your grip goes deeper, nails creating crescent moons in his flesh as you, somehow, get him down the stairs without falling flat on your face.
Did he just shiver?
“Evac point,” Muttering to yourself, you move faster, heart beating as shouts echo out over the hills, “Shit.”
“Focus,” Keegan utters to your side, “Don’t think about it. What…what’ll happen will happen.”
“Bullshit,” You growl and glance back to see the trail of blood over the ground. Shaking your head you stumble into the treeline, mouth open to help you suck down more air into your lungs, “If you expect me to believe that, you’re a fool.”
“..Maybe,” He coughs, and you have to pause for a moment and look in concern as dark phlegm splatters to the ground. No, you think, no not yet. He can’t do this to you, “Maybe I have been.”
“What,” You attempt a wet chuckle, not liking the conversation but if it kept him awake you would entertain it, “It only took you taking a shot to the side to realize that? There’s no hope for you, Kee.”
“Like when you call me that,” Lips thinning, you work your legs faster, dodging a rock and shimmying past a tree, “Sounds nice.” 
Your face heats at the shock-induced confession, breath inhaled in a sharp breath. 
You look at him, only to find his eyes already locked on your visage. The unrelenting optics ripped you open with how lucid they looked, even if his mouth seemed to have lost its filter. Taking it as a good sign, you tear your head back to the front, biting into your lips as your legs shake.
“You don’t know what you’re saying,” You whisper, clearing your throat as Keegan lets out a small strangled sound from the back of his mouth as you stumble over a log on the ground, “But keep talking to me, yeah?”
“I don’t hate you,” He confessed with a soft voice, “...Was jus’ worried you would hurt yourself. Too hard-headed for your own good.”
“Could say the same thing about you,” Your lungs are burning, but you remind yourself it’s not even half as much pain as Keegan is going through. He carries himself so well, even holding some of his own weight to help you. How was he even still standing? If you had gotten shot like that, you’d be screaming your head off.
He’s a Ghost, You remind yourself, They defy all laws of nature and common sense.
“I’m sorry, Kid,” That makes you stop, body halting halfway through a step as your face blanks, panting out air and eyes popping out at the weak words, “You didn’t deserve to hear that.”
Swallowing down saliva into your dry throat, your mind tells you to keep moving. The meeting in Elias’s office…he was…he was apologizing to you? Stuttering only a moment, you resume your break-neck journey with a burning face and jumping heart. 
“Apology not accepted,” You growl, sending a sharp glance his way. Keegan’s eyes widen in surprise – but they look slightly buggy, “When we get back to the Fort, you’re saying it again…When you’re not getting me all covered in your fluids.”
The chuckle he lets out startles you, but you resist the urge to bring him even closer to your form and bask in his heat. He was…nice to feel against you, you admitted. Strong. Comforting in a rabid dog sort of way.
“Yeah, but you’d like…like that wouldn’t you, Princess?”
…Did he just..? When your jaw drops in shock, he lets out another gasping chuckle that divulges into a coughing fit. Getting your bearing back, you roll your eyes above the embarrassment in your blood even as your lower body pulses. Your legs shuffle as your breath goes thin.
“Let’s keep the dirty jokes under wraps, too, okay?... Who knew blood loss made you into a fucking comedian? Mr. Stand-Up over here.”
“Hm,” Keegan grunts, wheezing in a breath. You watch a dribble of blood fall from the side of his mouth with a grim face, mind running. 
He can’t die, You shake with nerves and adrenaline, I won’t let him. 
There was a brimming affection for the man you had been forcing down like a mouthful of food, and his drunk honestly right now was throwing you for a loop.
“I’ll get you to the Evac point, Keegan, I promise,” The shouts were getting closer, and the Ghost’s eyes were falling closed once more. 
You wanted to see his face – make him stare at you.
“Know you will,” His eyes clenched closed and you felt his weight fall more over you. Groaning breathily, you take it and continue onward with little concern for how your nerves tingle, “Y’know,” The next words he says are so muffled you barely hear them, but when your brain processes the gravel and sifts through the depth of it, you feel tears wet the sides of your vision, “I think I a-actually like you, Kid.”
Keegan goes slack, and the sounds of shouting grow ever closer. It takes everything in you not to scream out.
He wakes up with a buzzing in his ears and a bright light assaulting his eyes. It takes Keegan a good while to fully open his eyelids, flinching as the bulbs set into the ceiling seem to only get more violent as his senses come back to him. 
A groan exits his lips, and the scent of bleach and sterile air makes his head rove on the hard pillow under it.
“Well,” A masculine voice results in Keegan jolting up like he was hit with an electrical current, body spasming at him to stay still but not able to stop the ingrained instincts in his head, “Took you long enough. Ajax was just about losing his mind for one of you two to wake up. Had to order him to go run laps.”
“Merrick,” Keegan clenches his hands in pain, but his eyes fall to the man sitting in one of the visitor chairs at the door. The Medical Ward's familiar walls soon entered his sight, and ignoring the flair of agony in his bandaged side, the dark-haired man brought a hand to his face. Keegan takes a deep breath and flinches, “Explain.”
“What happened,” Standing, the stocky man cracks his neck, rolling his shoulders before glancing down to his side. Merrick points over Keegan's shoulder and nods his head, “Is that the girl dragged your limp ass all the way to the Evac point with a bullet wound in ‘er shoulder. Took out a few soldiers as well – one helluva hot exit.”
Sneaking a peak back, Keegan was stunned to find a matching hospital bed not a few feet from his own, a rack for a curtain drawn back to allow a view of a woman asleep; her right arm was in a sling and heavily bandaged, the covers pulled back to her midsection. You. His eyes stay locked on your form, momentarily forgetting the pulling of sutures in his side. 
You had…gotten shot. Protecting him.
“How bad,” His lips move faster than his head, a trait he was beginning to pick up and associate with only you.
“You needed to go into surgery–”
“Not me,” Keegan growled, itching at the gown that had been put on him. His eyes never left you, the peaceful expression on your face he had never seen before leaving a warm feeling in his gut. With a sigh, he mutters out with a tone far softer than it had been before, “Her.”
Merrick smirks, watching the rise and fall of your chest and seeing Keegan doing the same, just far more closely. 
“Prescribed pain meds and on leave for two months. It was a clean shot – lucky for her.”
Keegan nods his head stiffly, moving the pillows up on the elevated mattress and leaning back with a throaty groan. 
“I’ll go tell Elias you’re awake,” Merrick swiftly turns and opens the door, but pauses in the opening. The other man watches closely with a frown. Without turning around, Thomas utters, “Kid was pretty shook up when you wouldn’t come ‘round. You should fix that.”
The Ghost disappears and closes the door behind him. 
Blinking at the wooden barrier, Keegan wastes no time in pushing back the covers of his bed and pressing his feet to the floor; hissing at the chill but only running a hand through his hair in retaliation. His dark eyes watched you as he gritted his teeth at the strain in his side, the faint ripping of stitches. 
The pain didn’t bother him, didn’t sway his actions. His socked feet move over the floor to stand above you. He breathes slowly, sucking down cool air as he pauses for a minute or two.
“You’re something else, Kid,” Keegan whispers, cold eyes narrowing as his thumb goes to swipe away the dirt smudge on your forehead with delicate movements. He didn’t want to wake you. 
The mirror across the room shows a beast of a man carefully cleaning the face of a woman who murmurs to herself, shifting closer to the hold with a small sigh. Keegan, whose lips quirk in a small smile that pulls at scars and black, irreversible, face paint, finds the warmth in his blood addicting. His heart slowly speeds up, and although crimson was staining his bandages, he couldn’t find it in him to go back to bed. 
“If you keep doing that,” Your voice snaps him out of his stupor, and his hand is snatched back to his side in an instant; feet shoulder length apart and tense, “I just might die on you.”
The light above you plays in your eyes, bouncing off the color and reflecting it directly into Keegan’s iris as the skin of your eyelids peel back. You blink up at him, vision coming back into focus as you stretch your legs out under the covers. 
Sending a small smile to his blank face, you chuckle, “What?” You groan, “I was being sarcastic.”
A smirk is all you get, a slight twitching at the side of his lips at the fatigue in your tone.
“How long?” Keegan asks, raising a dark brow. Knowing what he’s asking, you scoff, face bright.
“Only about five minutes. I caught the end of Merricks conversation,” You reply.
“Hm.”
“Don’t give me that look – I’m in the room, what do you want me to do…not listen? Tch,” Your hand presses into the mattress, shoving you up. 
A hand splays over your back immediately to help. 
Goosebumps litter your arms as Keegan’s grip lightly digs into your gown, assisting you where your other arm can’t. Sparing him a glance, you watch with heat on your ears and neck as his attention remains solely fixated on you. Blue breaks open your skin and infects you with its chill. Liking the feel of it, you let it in and embrace it. 
When you’re sitting up, silence ensues, with Keegan’s eyes studying your body as you do the same. His hand remained on your back. 
Does he remember what he said? You wonder, locking on the thick wrappings under the man’s gown with a frown, Or was he too out of it?
“Feelin’ alright, Princess?” Your eyebrows raise as he tilts his head.
“I should be asking you that.”
“We both got shot,” Keegan shoots back, and the black around his eyes creases as he deadpans at you.
“You passed out – I didn’t. Don’t blame me because you decided to take a nap, Big Guy.”
“So, you’re just full of nicknames now, are you?” 
“Hm,” You smirk, voice low and teasing, “Perhaps…Raccoon Eyes.”
Keegan scoffs, turning his head away in exasperation. You were both the same people from hours ago, but something felt different – the air was lighter, bordering on sacred. Looking at each other with hesitant vulnerability, hearts yearning but not quite certain where to begin. So many jagged pieces of glass to buffer out, smooth along the edges, and pray that they became mosaics of brightly colored perfection that glittered in the sunlight. But you could still slice your fingers open, despite the years of practice and knowledge of that sacred art, feel the blood splatter the table and leak into the fine lines of your palm.
But, perhaps, it was time to try. 
“I guess I owe you one,” You admit awkwardly, suddenly avoiding eye contact and feeling sheepish. This was new to you, “You saved me from a sniper but I couldn’t see the one behind you.”
“You owe me twice, then,” When you send him a scalding look, he puffs out a breath to show it was a joke and continues as you roll your eyes and smile softly, “..but, uh,” Keegan clears his throat, “Don’t…worry about it, Kid,” Your eyes snap to his side profile, blinking in shock as his eyes rove the room, watching the cracks in the floors as you gape at him. Why…why did he sound like that? Like the gravel in his words had smoothed over and was suddenly a paved road with moss along the edges; gentle to the touch. And why did your heart skip a beat at it, “Forget about it.” 
“...What?” Your voice is small, genuine confusion whispered out as you watch the muscles in his face move. Keegan’s jaw was clenched, his nose scrunching as he rolled it and fixed his stance. It was adorable the way he was trying not to face you.
His head turns to his gear that Merrick had placed on the large table across the room. You watch him lightly limp to it, mind still trying to think through what was going on. His shredded hand goes to the back pocket of his folded cargo pants, and your ears twitch at a crinkling nose. The Ghost pulls out an empty chocolate wrapper and you feel your heart stop all together when he holds it aloft. He shuffles back over. 
“It was alright, little stale, but not bad,” Those steel blue eyes slide to yours, and your face heats; throat tightens. Since when has your pulse rampaged like that outside of a gun battle? Keegan’s lips quirk into a slow smirk at your expression, “Not bad at all. I’m sorry that I ate it all.”
You have to look away before you pass out, all confidence now gone and dignity stomped on when you realized that you liked when he looked at you with those eyes of his. Your hand clenches over the covers, finding that double meaning with brimming affection.
Oh, you just hated him…but your breath still gets stolen all the same.
“Yeah, well,” Your hand goes to scratch at the back of your neck to ground yourself, “Don’t get used to it, Kee. That bar was worth like fifty bucks if we’d have just sold it.”
You decide his laugh is better than any old chocolate bar, and that you wanted to taste it on your tongue until the very sun died out. Until your bones were bleach white from age.
There was no doubt he remembered what he had told you as you dragged him along, scared and wishing he would stay awake; that was simply judging by the sparkle in his pupil and the way he was facing you now. 
Smirking, you raise a brow and grab the man by the collar of his gown. 
Ah, what the hell. Better to start strong.
When you smash his lips to yours, you decide right then and there when Keegan melts into you, his hand going to grip the back of his head, that maybe being enemies wasn’t so bad at all.
2K notes · View notes
jonsnowunemploymentera · 7 months ago
Text
So I don't really have a concrete theory or anything, but...
Dany dreams she is fighting the "usurper's rebel host" (aka Robert Baratheon's army) but these icy enemies are obviously Others; see how they melt away the way Ser Puddles did when Sam killed him.
That night she dreamt that she was Rhaegar, riding to the Trident. But she was mounted on a dragon, not a horse. When she saw the Usurper’s rebel host across the river they were armored all in ice, but she bathed them in dragonfire and they melted away like dew and turned the Trident into a torrent. Some small part of her knew that she was dreaming, but another part exulted. This is how it was meant to be. The other was a nightmare, and I have only now awakened. She woke suddenly in the darkness of her cabin, still flush with triumph. Balerion seemed to wake with her, and she heard the faint creak of wood, water lapping against the hull, a footfall on the deck above her head. And something else.
Dany III, ASOS
In a later Jon chapter, in the very same book, an "enemy" bursts into the fray to scatter the wildlings. This enemy is a Baratheon king - Stannis. This Baratheon king claims to be the legendary Azor Ahai, but he's not (Dany is, "the dragons prove it").
Trumpets were blowing all around, loud and brazen. The wildlings have no trumpets, only warhorns. They knew that as well as he did; the sound sent free folk running in confusion, some toward the fighting, others away. A mammoth was stomping through a flock of sheep that three men were trying to herd off west. The drums were beating as the wildlings ran to form squares and lines, but they were too late, too disorganized, too slow. The enemy was emerging from the forest, from the east, the northeast, the north; three great columns of heavy horse, all dark glinting steel and bright wool surcoats. Not the men of Eastwatch, those had been no more than a line of scouts. An army. The king? Jon was as confused as the wildlings. Could Robb have returned? Had the boy on the Iron Throne finally bestirred himself?
Jon X, ASOS
I find it interesting that Jon initially thinks it's his brother, a military commander with a near spotless record, coming to rescue him. Then thinks that it should be the king on the iron throne; he's expecting a boy, but it's wasn't a boy who came.
I think that we're going to see a repeat of this in ADOS, with Dany as the real Azor Ahai and king coming to rescue Jon. Upon hearing that the Others have come and receiving Watch's call for aid, Dany will immediately choose to go North. Think of Stannis saying:
"Yes, I should have come sooner. If not for my Hand, I might not have come at all. Lord Seaworth is a man of humble birth, but he reminded me of my duty, when all I could think of was my rights. I had the cart before the horse, Davos said. I was trying to win the throne to save the kingdom, when I should have been trying to save the kingdom to win the throne.” Stannis pointed north. “There is where I’ll find the foe that I was born to fight.”
Jon XI, ASOS
Also notice how Dany's Trident dream alludes to a fated battle involving icy monsters.
This is all just conjecture right now but, Jon's chapter has Stannis breaking the wildling siege on Castle Black. In Jon's (obviously prophetic) ADWD dream, he's besieged by a wildling host who turn out to be Others/wights - this dream is literally a play by play of the battle at Castle Black; like to a tee, it's crazy. Jon is fighting alone in that dream, just as he was alone among the wildlings before Stannis came.
So my thinking is Jon gets besieged and he is fighting alone, in need of a helper.....
They are all gone. They have abandoned me. Burning shafts hissed upward, trailing tongues of fire. Scarecrow brothers tumbled down, black cloaks ablaze. “Snow,” an eagle cried, as foemen scuttled up the ice like spiders. Jon was armored in black ice, but his blade burned red in his fist. As the dead men reached the top of the Wall he sent them down to die again.
Jon XII, ADWD
...then enter Daenerys, who is above all a savior.
“But,” Prince Aegon said, “without Daenerys and her dragons, how could we hope to win?” “You do not need to win,” Tyrion told him. “All you need to do is raise your banners, rally your supporters, and hold, until Daenerys arrives to join her strength to yours.” “You said she might not have me.” “Perhaps I overstated. She may take pity on you when you come begging for her hand.” The dwarf shrugged. “Do you want to wager your throne upon a woman’s whim? Go to Westeros, though … ah, then you are a rebel, not a beggar. Bold, reckless, a true scion of House Targaryen, walking in the footsteps of Aegon the Conqueror. A dragon. “I told you, I know our little queen. Let her hear that her brother Rhaegar’s murdered son is still alive, that this brave boy has raised the dragon standard of her forebears in Westeros once more, that he is fighting a desperate war to avenge his father and reclaim the Iron Throne for House Targaryen, hard-pressed on every side … and she will fly to your side as fast as wind and water can carry her. You are the last of her line, and this Mother of Dragons, this Breaker of Chains, is above all a rescuer.
Tyrion VI, ADWD
Dany dreams her fight is for the iron throne, but she is obviously fighting the Others. Tyrion thinks Dany is coming to rescue Rhaegar's son in his bid for the Iron Throne, but she will rescue him as he fights to save the world (and not doom it with more war). Notice how Jon atop the Wall dons house Targaryen's colors. Notice how he too is symbolized with Azor Ahai imagery, waving a beacon to light Dany's way. It's Aegon the Conqueror reversed. Dany's not here not for the throne. She's here to fulfill a prophecy, which Aegon never did.
TL;DR
Dany will save Jon while he's besieged by the Others :)
(small rant below)
This initially started as a post talking about Dany the war commander and kinda morphed into something else....
But it's funny to me that when people talk about the war for the dawn, it's always Jon and/or Bran who are made to be the natural war commanders or battle planners. And that's not a bad thing...but neither one of them has experience planning for and staging pitched battles. Bran has zero military experience to begin with and didn't receive the same education that Robb did. People assume that he'll be the commander because his skinchanging can be used for reconnaissance and thus battle command, but the one who canonically uses their skinchanging to spy on enemy troops and use the intel is Jon.
Jon, on the other hand, has battle experience but he was defending against a siege and not leading a fight in an open field. And that's not to say that he would be a bad tactician. He did an incredible job in ASOS defending the wall and ADWD also shows us that he can come up with intelligent plans on the fly. Anyway, aren't we told that people get stuck in their castles starving and with nowhere to go? Jon has experience leading sieges so he's the most suited for that. But he's not the most suited for breaking sieges and leading open battles because he doesn't have experience doing so.
DANY is the one who actually has experience as a more well rounded military commander. It's literally in her name: Daenerys, the sacker of cities. She has a spotless record as a military/war leader in Essos. That's Robb Stark level of prodigious ability, yet she does not get nearly enough respect in fandom. Robb will often get touted as one of the top commanders, even making top three/five for a lot of people, but doesn't Dany have similar stats and way more disadvantages? Shouldn't she be up there too? So out of anyone, shouldn't she be the war commander?
I was just annoyed that she has this insane record overturning enemy lines and breaking sieges and no ever talks about how that invaluable skill can be used against the Others. It's always "someone else will command her to go here and do this and do that". When talking about what looks like a war of attrition, why is no one mentioning the human battering ram being the key to success?? Feelsbadman :(
88 notes · View notes
dindjarindiaries · 2 years ago
Text
What Sits in the Silence
Tumblr media
summary: Your bounty-hunting rival turns to you in his time of need and brings along more baggage than you planned on handling.
pairing: din djarin (the mandalorian) x reader
includes: enemies to lovers, injuries, hurt/comfort, angst, fluff
rating: T
word count: 4.469k
main masterlist • din djarin masterlist
Tumblr media
Stay in one place for too long and a new threat will be just around the corner. No one has to be a hunter for long to figure that out. Yet this past job’s given you no such regard for the unspoken golden rule. The jungles of the treacherous planet that you trekked through for at least two days and nights on your latest job left you hungering for warmth and comfort the hull of your ship isn’t well-known for. That had only made the inn that sits on the outskirts of the planet’s urban sector even more alluring.
The warm, artificial fire radiating from the room’s small hearth has already swept a wave of peace through you. Luxury is costly for any hunter, especially those who wish to stay under the radar, but this is a pretty damn good deal. It’s another job done, more credits in your pocket, and a night of rest to recharge for the next one. The only thing you need to keep quiet is your own mind, something you’ve already been doing for many years in this troubled galaxy.
Then, there’s three solid knocks on the door.
You tense and turn your head over your shoulder. Your hand’s already on your blaster as your survival instincts go to work, any sense of peace now lost just as swiftly as it was gained. A true threat wouldn’t have knocked; no, their presence would’ve wanted to go unnoticed. But more than one threat, a team with one looking to distract and the other to attack. . . it could be more than likely. So much for a relaxing night.
Three more knocks. You stand up from the chair in front of the hearth and thank the stars when it makes no sound. Your blaster is lifted in the ready position as you make your way to the door, not so much fearful as anticipatory. Once you’re in front of the door, you take a deep breath and finalize the plan within your mind. You’ve done this plenty of times before.
But when you open the door, it’s not a threat that awaits you. It’s a nuisance.
“Mando?” You huff and lower your blaster. “What the hell are you doing here?”
Your rival sways on his feet for a moment and catches himself with one hand on the open threshold. Mando attempts to stand up straighter and instead releases a terse sound of pain, something between a grunt and a growl. You give him a once-over and notice his other gloved hand grasping his side, a deep scarlet now painting his orange fingertips. He shakes his helmet, weary. “I . . . didn’t know where else to go.”
You holster your blaster, the idea of a threat now vanished. With so many questions running through your mind, only one can make it to the surface. “What happened to you?”
Mando tightens his fist on the threshold. He tilts his helmet and attempts a chuckle. “Long story.”
You sigh and look around before you gesture with your head to the room behind you. “I’ve got time.”
Mando waits for you to step aside before he stumbles into the room. You secure the door closed and guide him to the chair in front of the hearth. He all but collapses into it, thanking you between a few heavy breaths of pain.
“I would say this is another scheme of yours to slow me down,” you say while you retrieve your medpac from your overnight bag, “but the blood looks pretty real.”
Mando holds his wound with both hands and looks down at it. “It feels pretty real.”
You kneel beside the chair and help him get to work. “How’d you even find me?”
“We’re hunters.” Mando remains unfazed as he removes his cuirass. “I know you’ve found a way to track me down before.” His visor finds your gaze. “Let’s not play coy.”
You hold back a snarl when your face starts to burn hot. “Do you want me to help you, or do you want me to kick your ass? Because that’s what you deserve for disturbing my peace.”
Mando huffs and continues to remove his armor. You take each piece and set it aside on the floor. “I’m sorry for . . .” a grunt of pain as he starts to free his arms from his flight suit, “intruding on your evening.”
Your anger attempts to outweigh your observation of the Mandalorian hunter’s scarred skin with your rebuttal. “The least you owe me is an explanation.” Mando gets the top half of his flight suit lowered to his waist and, in doing so, exposes the fiery-red wound in his side. “I thought you were somewhat decent at your job.”
“This wasn’t work related.” Mando’s all business as the two of you exchange medical supplies to tend to his wound, as if he isn’t appearing the most human he ever has in front of you. You set your jaw in irritation. “It was a personal matter.”
You raise an eyebrow. “One that happened to be exactly where I am?”
Mando exhales and shifts in the chair, reaching for something on his belt. He lifts his gloved hand and reveals a cauterizer.
Before he can go on, you grab his wrist and stop him. Mando tilts his helmet as you scoff. “You’re gonna cauterize it? Are you insane?”
Mando gestures to the plethora of both long and small scars on his upper half. “That’s what I’ve always done. It’s fast and effective.”
“Well, I’m not letting you do that.” Your free hand takes a hold of your bacta spray. “You’re gonna make the whole room smell like burnt flesh.”
You let Mando’s wrist go. He holds his hand closer to himself, his grasp on the cauterizer fidgeting. “I’ve never used that before.” His helmet nods towards the bacta spray.
“I’ll take care of it.” You lift the spray and point at the cauterizer. “Just put that thing away.” Mando obeys, setting the cauterizer back on his belt and gripping his armored thighs with his blood-stained gloves. You adjust your grip on the bacta and sigh. “Now, tell me this ‘long story’ of yours.”
Mando wastes no time complying with your order. “I was finishing my last job when I got into a run-in with another hunter. I’ve seen him at Karga’s before, but I—.”
Mando stops himself when you start to spray his wound. He growls in pain and grasps your wrist before uttering a tight-lipped curse.
“Shit.” All it takes is a moment for him to recover and retract his hand. “Sorry.” He takes a deep breath while you finish with the spray and start to bandage the wound. “I . . . don’t know the name. He insisted he was there to recruit me for some side-job to remove some of the competition.”
You stop your work, your fingers lingering on Mando’s bandage as you process his words. “What competition?”
“I got here as fast as I could, once I realized where they were headed.”
You frown and pull your hands back towards yourself. Your body starts to lean away from Mando’s. “So, this is a setup.”
“No.” Mando’s response comes out quick and almost breathless. He sits up and raises both his hands towards you in surrender, wincing as the motion tugs at his wound.  “No. I got to them first.” One of his hands gestures to his bandage. “There were more than I expected.”
Your heart somersaults in your chest before it soars into your throat. “You . . . fought them all? By yourself?” Mando nods, dutiful. Your brow furrows. “Why?”
Mando offers a shrug. “You don’t become the best in the parsec by killing your competition.”
The pang of disappointment his words bring is foreign. You circle your jaw in a lame attempt to dismiss it. “I have to give it to you, Mando.” You start to clean the rest of the area around his bandaged wound. “You’ve always been honorable.”
Mando’s visor falls to his gloved hands, which have since started fumbling with each other. His voice is quiet when he speaks. “This is the Way.”
“So, was it the free medical supplies that brought you here?” You set down the cleaning supplies and exchange them for a final layer of gauze. Your hand gives it a shake before you apply it.
Mando’s fingers freeze, the muscles on his upper half tensing. “What do you mean?”
“You said you didn’t know where else to go when you got here.” Your fingertips circle the bandaged area on his side. “You just knew you needed to get this fixed up, and I was nearby.” You give him a nod and put the medpac back together. “Right?”
“No.”
You stop what you’re doing, turning your head towards Mando. His hands knead his thighs and his visor looks away from you.
“I… wanted to make sure you were okay.” His helmet turns back to you and nods. “In case I missed one of them.”
You part your lips, dumbfounded. “Oh.” You look at the medpac and blink a few times in succession. “Well,” a half-hearted chuckle, “smart thinking. I owe you a favor, now.”
“Not really.” Mando waves a hand over his bandages. “Looks like there was some truth to your medical supplies idea.”
You scoff and raise your brow. “Yeah. You saved my life and I sprayed you with some bacta.” You pick up the medpac and stand on your feet. “Sounds like a fair trade-off to me.”
Mando continues his argument even as you walk away from him. “Bacta’s hard to come by these days.”
“You been to a marketplace recently, Mando?” You exchange the medpac for your canteen before you make your way over to him again. “You can find bacta practically anywhere.” You hold the canteen out for him to take.
Mando’s gloved hand rises slowly to accept your offer. His voice is low when he responds. “Only with Imperial credits.”
You turn your head to give him the necessary privacy to drink. “Credits are credits.” You cross your arms and flutter your fingers in curiosity. “You got something against Imperials?”
Silence sits between the two of you for a long moment. The water swishing against the canteen is the only sound as Mando takes a drink. “Personal preference.” He takes a deep breath, grunting as the motion tugs on his healing wound. “Thanks for the drink.”
You turn back to face him and take the canteen from his hand. “Sure,” you nod.
Mando struggles to slide his upper half back into his flight suit. “Well, I’m going to head back to my ship.” He stops for a moment to glance at you. “I still owe you one.”
Your eyes widen at him in disbelief. “You’re going right now?”
Mando slows his actions in confusion. “Why wouldn’t I?”
You release a mirthless chuckle. “Because it’s nighttime on an unknown planet and you have a gash on your side.” Before Mando can argue, you gesture to the site of his wound. “You’ve already gotten your ass kicked once today.”
Mando stops and tilts his helmet. “Your concern is touching, truly.” Your face starts to burn despite the sarcasm that drips from his words. “But I’ll be fine.”
You set your hands on your hips with an annoyed sigh. “You looked ready to pass out in my doorway, Mando.” Your gaze falls from his visor as you go on. “Plus, I . . . never got to repay you for Madurs.” Mando’s helmet straightens at that. You inhale to gain the faith to go on. “So, please, just humor me this one time.”
Mando’s chest rises and falls in careful consideration. “Fine.” He piles up his armor more neatly on the floor. “I never thought you’d be this nice to me.” He huffs to himself. “Or anyone, for that matter.”
You head back towards the bed. “Don’t get used to it.” You distract yourself by setting your weapons on the bedside shelf closest to you. “This is a one-time thing.”
Mando stands and half-walks, half-limps over to you. “Aren’t I lucky?” He stops and gestures to a blanket that’s folded on the edge of the bed. “Can I use this?”
You lift a quizzical brow. “For what?”
Mando points at the open floor behind him. “For resting.”
“You’re not sleeping on the floor with a gash on your side.”
Mando shifts his weight to one leg, his helmet tilting. “You’re actually worried about me.”
You look away from him and shrug. “‘You don’t become the best in the parsec by killing your competition.’ That’s what you said, isn’t it?”
Mando sighs, tightening his gloved hands into fists before he nods. “All right.” He gestures to the bed. “That means . . .”
“We’re adults.” You circle your jaw with an amused raise of your brow. “We can handle it.” You give him an unimpressed once-over. “At least, I know I can.”
Mando scoffs and walks around the other side of the bed. He sits on the edge of it and pauses, the back of his helmet facing you as he speaks. “Despite what your motives might be, I’m . . . very grateful for your help.” He turns his helmet over his shoulder. “Thank you. Truly.”
You nod at him and ignore the warmth that spreads like wildfire throughout you. “Don’t worry about it, Mando.” You deactivate the artificial fire with the device on your bedside shelf and turn off the light at your side.
Mando does the same alongside you. As he’s about to turn off his light, he pauses, his hesitation clear in the breath that hitches in his throat. His voice is low when he speaks. “It’s Din.”
You move your head on your pillow to look at him with bewilderment. His visor doesn’t meet your gaze, instead continuing to study the light his gloved hand is just inches away from touching.
“Din Djarin.”
There’s nothing you hate more than the way your heart’s started to race at his words. You offer a simple nod and quietly clear your throat before you turn on your side away from him. “Well . . . don't worry about it, Din.” He turns off the light and you screw your eyes shut. “Goodnight.”
Din’s response comes after a long pause, his tone only partially sardonic. “Sweet dreams.”
You have to hold back a scoff at his words. Dreams are a far fetch for your mind that’s now working overtime, despite the tempting darkness of the room and the comfort of the bed that’s certainly more luxurious than the rack on your ship. You’re aware of how dangerously close your rival is.
He hasn’t been that close since Madurs. You both had tracked a quarry to the ice moon, but once the storm had hit, the bounty didn’t matter. You were much too far from the main city and the only thing the two of you could do was hide inside a cave. The cold was so intense that you were teetering on the edge of consciousness for what felt like hours, and despite the fact his armor was completely frozen over, Din had held you close for whatever warmth he could provide.
The feeling of his touch still lingers, many standard months later.
It burns as much now as it had back then. Din had even gone to the lengths of half-carrying you back to your ship and making sure it was started up for you. It would’ve been so easy for him to leave you on your own to fend for yourself. But despite your rivalry, despite all the bickering, the injuries, the violence . . . Din had been there for you in your greatest time of need. And here he is at your side, having saved your life once again in a way that almost risked his own.
You exhale and flip onto your back. Of course it had to be him. You almost wish it was someone you could’ve taken out with your blaster instead. Then, you could’ve enjoyed the warmth of this room, and the comfort of the bed, and the peacefulness of being still and secure . . .
“You can’t sleep.” Din’s voice nearly makes you jump as you instead turn your head on your pillow to look at him. You strain your eyes to make out the edges of his helmet.
You huff. “Neither can you.”
Din shrugs, the motion visible. “I have a gash on my side. What’s your excuse?”
You take a deep breath and consider your response. If you don’t get the truth out, you’ll never be able to sleep, and you’ll be damned if you let him take a night of comfort away from you. “Madurs.”
Din’s helmet moves on his own pillow so that his visor’s now facing you. You don’t have to see it to feel the heat of his gaze. His voice is low and cautious. “We vowed to never speak of that again.”
“I heard what you called me that day.” You’re crossing into dangerous territory and you could care less. Freeing yourself from this torment is all you can focus on. “It wasn’t Basic. It was Mando’a. Cyar’ika.”
Din sits up on one of his elbows, grunting at the movement. “You don’t know Mando’a.”
You smile with amusement at his defensiveness. “You’re right, I don’t.” Your expression remains smug as you sit up and fold your hands in your lap. “So, I looked it up.”
Din freezes, his entire body going still. You don’t need a light source to notice that. His muscles are so tense you can sense it upon the material of the bed.
“You knew I wouldn’t understand it, yet you still said it. That means you meant it.”
Din continues to remain where he is. He doesn’t make so much as a single sound. Your chest flares with frustration at his silence and your amused smirk turns into a sour grimace.
“That’s why I hate you.” Your tongue becomes a flaming blade as you go on, freeing the fire from within you. “I hate you because you’re so damn hard to push away. I hate that you’re kind, and honorable, and selfless, and . . . stars, I hate that I could go on and on. I absolutely hate the fact that I was so worried when you showed up, and I . . .” you compose yourself with a shallow breath, “I hate that I can’t stop thinking about what might happen to you when you leave here by yourself.”
Din finally starts to move, his hands pushing himself just a bit closer to you.
“And now, you’ve told me your name—have you told that to anyone?—and you almost gave your life for mine, and . . . I hate you for that.” You look up at the ceiling and curse underneath your breath at the tears that threaten to blur your vision. “I hate you.”
Din’s now in easy reach, his helmet tilted at you. He remains silent.
“Of course, it had to be you.” You release a mirthless chuckle and shake your head. “It always had to be you.” You look at him and set your jaw. “I hate you for that.”
Every move Din makes is careful and cautious as he dares to lift a gloved hand toward you. You don’t flinch, instead remaining still as he brings his hand to your cheek and brushes away a tear that’s managed to escape. “Cyar’ika…”
“Don’t.” You grab his wrist and pull his hand away from your face, though you don’t release his hand. Instead, you hold it within your own, staring at it and circling your jaw. Your voice is much quieter than before. “I don’t want another person to lose.”
Din’s visor falls to your hands as he takes a deep breath. “I understand.” You lift your head and furrow your brow at him. His hand fidgets with your own before he goes on. “I’ve . . . lost many people in my life.” His modulated voice is strained in a way you’ve never heard before. “It’s easier to push people away now than it is to keep them close.”
You nod and run your thumb over the blue triangle on the back of his glove. “It is.”
Din hesitates, a breath catching in his throat. “What changed your mind?” You tilt your head, seeking clarity. “About me?” He waits a beat, and at your silence, he goes on. “Madurs?”
“It didn’t change my mind.” You swallow the lump in your throat and ignore the urge that screams at you to guard your heart. “It opened my eyes.”
Din’s visor meets your gaze with his helmet straightened in severity.
“You could’ve let me die there. It wouldn’t have been your fault. Instead, even after every vile thing I’ve ever said and done to you, you made sure I not only survived but also got away safely. I didn’t understand why at first.” You exhale and look away from him. “But, now . . .”
The two of you sit in the silence for a long moment. It’s suspended in time, a shared thought no one dares to speak on. Your hearts sit between your hands as vulnerable as ever, and you’re afraid that if you tighten your grip, you’ll risk a pain worse than any wound’s ever provided.
Din doesn’t let you go, but he gives you the choice.
“I can leave.” His words are uttered in a low tone of genuine care. “I can make it easy for you. I’d make sure you’d never have to see me again.”
The thought alone makes tears spring to your eyes again. You shake your head and tighten your jaw, cursing to yourself for letting emotions get the best of you.
“Or,” Din continues, adding another one of his hands on top of yours, “I . . . can hold you like I did on Madurs, and you can make your decision in the morning.”
You study him the best you can in the darkness of the room. The beskar barrier doesn’t hide the honesty that oozes in his every word and action. This isn’t the armored man you’ve shared banter with ever since you both started going head-to-head within the Nevarro Guild. No, this is the man that’s kept himself hidden underneath his armor, willingly peeling it away for only you to see. This is the man you’ve both tried to avoid and haven’t been able to stop thinking of ever since Madurs.
His armor was physically compromised once today on your behalf, and now, he’s doing the very same in an emotional way.
The choice is clear for you. You nod and separate your hand from his only to move closer to him, just as he’d done to you before. You ease yourself down on the pillows as Din mirrors the movement, though this time, you turn yourself towards him. With one gentle and cautious arm secured over your waist, Din lets you rest against his chest, a safe haven you didn’t know you needed until you close your eyes and drown in the very same warmth he’d provided all those months ago.
Needless to say, it’s the best rest you’ve had in a long, long time.
You wake in a different position. You’re faced away from Din, your back nestled against his chest and your hands entwined in front of you. You release a soft breath, content to keep yourself where you are for as long as you can.
But Din takes a hesitant breath of his own and starts to lift his hand from yours.
You tighten your grasp on him and pull your entwined hands against your chest. The action draws you even closer to him, until you can feel the lip of his helmet tucking your head beneath his chin. As unfamiliar as this should be, it’s as fitting as the feeling of his hand entwined with your own. You use your thumb to brush his sleeve down and set your lips upon the skin of his wrist. Din inhales, though his exhale is as sweet as the gentle squeeze his hand gives your own.
When you finally speak, your voice is a delicate whisper. “This wasn’t supposed to happen. You weren’t supposed to do this to me.” Din tenses against you for a moment. “But, now?” You give your head an aimless shake. “Don’t let me lose another person.”
Din relaxes, aside from the additional squeeze he gives your hand. “I won’t. You have my word.”
You smile, a gesture that contains some of your usual smugness. “Good thing I actually trust your word, now.”
Din huffs, an amused sound that’s nearly a chuckle. “You’re not an easy one to convince. Though, I have to say . . .” he pauses and urges you to turn on your side so that you’re now facing him, “I love that you hate me.”
You try to hide the way your smile grows as you lift a hand to run along the curve in his beskar cheek. “And I hate that I love you.”
You earn a full chuckle from Din at that. He shrugs and sets his hand over yours. “Well, I despise that I love you.”
You roll your eyes and firmly set your hand on the side of his helmet. “Must you argue with me about everything?”
Din takes your hand from his helmet and entwines your fingers with his as he rests the metal against your forehead. “Who said we had to give up our rivalry?”
You shake your head and circle your jaw, despite the grin that’s still fighting to spread over your lips. “Maybe, just maybe, let me have this one.”
Din heaves a dramatic breath as he pulls your head underneath his chin, encouraging you to take the same position you had when you first fell asleep. His hand brushes a circle over your back before he nods decisively. “Sure.” His tone becomes thick with amusement. “Just don’t get used to it. This is a one-time thing.”
You audibly sigh. “Seriously?”
Din laughs, a sweet sound that makes a pleasurable shockwave of radiant joy bathe over you like warm sunlight. From the bone-chilling cold of Madurs to the pure warmth you’re immersed in now, Din’s been a constant reminder of the parts of life in this galaxy you never knew you wanted to enjoy. You’re more than content to argue with him over petty things if it means you can hear just one more smile in his voice with a certainty as secure as his hold on you now.
At least this is a luxury that doesn’t cost you a single thing, and that’s as good a deal as any hunter could ever get.
Tumblr media
main masterlist • din djarin masterlist
all star wars characters: @hugmekenobi​​​ @themarvelousbee​​​ @nembees​​​ @amneris21​​​@wildmoonflower​​​ @bombshe77​​​ @harriedandharassed​​​ @againstacecilia​​​ @ladykatakuri​​​ @bludyl​​​ @erin-is-sky​​​ @tanzthompson​​​​ @murdertoothpick​​​​ @mandoloriancookie​​​​
din djarin: @swol-bear​​​ @notagamersdey​​​ @les-ingenue​​​ @booksaremyyoga​​​ @hp-hogwartsexpress​​​ @dheet​​​ @mccn-bcys​​​ @alwaysdjarin​​​ @reader-without-a-story​​​ @cyaredindjarin​​​ @toobsessedsstuff​​​ @unofficialavenger90​​​ @tizylish​​​ @your-slutty-gf​​​ @untitledarea​​​ @pedropascalmyloveee​​​ @mildlyhopeless​​​ @lexloon​​​ @jellybeanstacey0519​​​ @uwiuwi​​​​ @lake-145​​​​ @burningcoffeetimetravel​​​​ @hello-th3r3​​​​ @jackiereadsfics​
​​​↳ add yourself to a taglist here!
499 notes · View notes
alwaysdaenerys · 28 days ago
Text
Tumblr media
Jonerys Falling For You 2024 | Day 1: Cursed
Teaser and moodboard for my new fic, “burn under the same sky”
After a three-day storm blew their cargo ship off course, Captain Jon Snow and his crew were stranded on a deserted island somewhere in the Narrow Sea. With rapidly diminishing provisions, the desperate sailors could find no animals to hunt while they repaired their broken hull, just tropical plants and insects to forage for sustenance in the vast forest. On the third week of isolation, a starving Ghost returned from one of his nightly roamings, snow-white tail burnt blacker than coal. Donning battle armor, Jon went to investigate who or what could have possibly done this much damage to his beloved companion. At the center of the forest, he and a wary Grenn happened upon a hollowed-out rock formation, filled with the charred bones of a variety of woodland creatures. It was no wonder the men were unable to find fresh meat of any kind: there was a wild dragon here.
Venturing further into the fathomless darkness, Jon’s sturdy boatswain grabbed his arm. “I don’t like the look of this place, captain.”
“There,” the black-haired seafarer shone his lantern over a trail of sooty footprints on the ground. “Those are human, and a small one at that. We assumed ourselves alone on this island, Grenn, but it seems we are decidedly not.”
The skeleton pieces became increasingly numerous as they continued forward with hesitation, the most brittle of them crunching loudly with each step, some turning to ash under the weight of their boots. Even with all the fire damage scorching the walls and ceiling, the deep cavern was ice cold, though Jon wasn’t sure this fact inspired confidence.
“Hello?” he shouted, lifting his meager light.
A startled, high-pitched yelp answered him, and the young northerner sprinted towards the sound, concerned. His friend lagged, surely fearful of what lay ahead. But they would have been able to hear the dragon’s distinct breathing if it was truly inside.
“Please, we mean you no harm! My crew and I have been ship-wrecked a few miles east,” Jon explained, heart thrumming rhythmically, like a snare drum. “Do you require assistance?”
No further communication from the disembodied voice was uttered, but he was not deterred. A ringing silence followed, but soon after taking a sharp left turn, his lamp suddenly caught on a bright white-blonde mange of hair, matted and filthy from lack of bathing. Completely naked and shivering in a small crevasse located at the far side of the cave, a woman came into view.
“Gods…” Grenn swore before dropping his shortsword with a loud clatter.
Jon immediately shed his thick sable cloak and wrapped it around the stranger, meaning to carry her delicate body to warmth and safety. She was saturated with the heady scent of smoke: he didn’t think it came from a mere wood fire, just with the amount of burned carnage piled around them, and Jon was intimately acquainted with the smell of tobacco—his first mate always had a brandy pipe between his teeth—therefore that could be ruled out too. It was clearly a dragon’s lair, ample proof surrounding them from every side: so where was the creature?
“Are you real?” she inhaled raggedly, coiling as close to him as possible.
Captain Snow blushed to feel the heat of her breath on his bare neck. “I am fairly certain, yes.”
The girl raised her head slightly, trying to make him out in the shadows. With no warning, a pair of glowing amethyst eyes somehow locked in on his gaze and Jon almost dropped her in shock.
“I have dreamt of this moment a thousand times, brave son of the First Men: of my savior battling the unknown winds and currents of the Sunset Sea to break the crone’s spell.”
Confused by the vast majority of her statement, Jon glanced in the direction of a mute Grenn. “Wait, what do you mean, the Sunset Sea?”
“A red witch expelled me to the furthest edge of the world when I ignited the Fourteen Flames.”
She was obviously delirious, speaking of events that had occurred countless millennia ago. And they were marooned nowhere near the Sunset Sea, because the Lady Lyarra had been journeying from White Harbor to the Bleeding Tower of Tyrosh to transport a load of textiles and blackbelly rum. But the peculiar lady was lucid enough to have guessed his Westerosi lineage, even specifying that he was of the North. Perhaps she was as lost as Jon and his fellow sailors, left here to die by someone who viewed her as a threat. Left here to be devoured by a dragon most likely.
“Does my illustrious deliverer have a name?” she asked softly upon exiting the cave in his arms, mouth right next to Jon’s ear.
In the waning afternoon sun, Snow finally got a proper look at the girl, and the air was promptly seized from his throat, as if he had been pushed from the bow of a ship and into the tumultuous sea. She was quite possibly the most beautiful thing he had ever seen before: no more than eight and ten, the porcelain skin of her arms and legs was pristine, unblemished from the elements; her eyelashes, lush and pale, framed the roundest of pupils and piercing purple irises, so supernaturally expressive and boundless, more hypnotizing than the rest of her; a subtle swathe of tan freckles graced the attractive slope of her nose and noble cheekbones; and finally, her heart-shaped features were perfected by a plump set of baby pink lips that were practically begging to be sampled. Shaking his head from its daze, Jon coughed uneasily: he had encountered many a Lysene lady in his two years as part of Her Majesty’s navy, but they were disgusting trolls compared to her. Based on her story though, the implication was that she was native to Valyria, which was impossible: only the Targaryens remained of that lost city. If the situation wasn’t so out of the ordinary, the girl could be considered a cannibalistic siren of maritime legend.
“You may call me Jon,” he replied, voice husky with awe. “Jon Snow of Winterfell.”
“Jon Snow,” a glistening smile graced her already gorgeous face as she traced the pad of her index finger along his jaw, slow and deliberate. “I was baptized as Daenerys, for the Valyrian moon goddess. But to you, I am ‘Dany’.”
Dany pressed her lips, plusher than the finest velvet, to the corner of Jon’s mouth and then buried her pert nose into the nape of his neck with a relieved sigh. Seemingly unable to resist the temptation, he tightened his hold on the girl protectively as he stumbled back towards camp, Grenn in his wake.
@iceandfirejonerysdiscord
23 notes · View notes
severedfromthesource · 3 months ago
Text
Heart of the Forge
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3
Adam's heart keeps the Pennydurren running-Tav keeps Adam's heart running. Original concept by @emptycalories-splitlip. This part features stething, mild cardiophilia, semi visible hearts. It's a lot of set up for resus and whump down the line.
Lives depend on you.
The little note greeted Gustav every morning, and every morning, he lay in his bunk to stare at it, taped to the ceiling above him. Some days he greeted it with more resentment than others, but most days it was just reiterating what he already felt deep down. The weight of at least a thousand workers, families, and passengers depended on him keeping the Forge going. So he did.
He scrubbed at his hair and slid into his work jumpsuit, his work boots, and slipped a cigarette between his lips as he left his quarters. His bedroom was nearest the engine room, so it was always muggy and damp with heat, the kind that not even sweat could fully cool off. They were in the bowels of the Pennydarren, tucked under the first link of the chain of cabs that, to Gustav, seemed to go on forever. It was impossible to tell really; only fog divers were allowed outside the train. Not unlike saturation divers of old, they had to be acclimated to survive out in the dense fog outside the reinforced steel walls of the Pennydarren in order to patch holes in her hull. Again, he thought of the poor shmucks going crazy in the diving bells, and again he was thankful for the job he had in engineering.
He waved and greeted the others working on the machinery, the walls tens of feet high, some with tall enough components a man had to be hoisted by a pulley to work on the mechanisms. Another job he didn’t envy. They all nodded respectfully back. Another perk of the job compared to others. Folks knew their lives depended on him too. If the engine went dark, they’d be swallowed up in the fog.
Adam was already on the walker as he drew nearer the panel of glass separating them. “Good morning, Tav,” he said, a little out of breath. Tav checked his watch. Adam's skin glistened with sweat, and judging by the time he was nearing the end of his mandatory exercise routine. “What’s so good about it?” he said, stubbing his cigarette out on the wall, scorched black in one spot from this ritual of his. The door slid open between them and he stepped through as Adam flashed him that warm smile. “We could be in the back of the train shoveling shit.” “Fair enough.” He grabbed his tattered wheelie chair and rolled it over to the other man’s side. “Tell me a joke,” Adam said as the walker under his feet slowed and finally stopped, a panel sliding back over it.
He retrieved a small spiral notebook from his breast pocket and a pen, clicking it a few times. “Why was the politician out of breath?” He said as a metal chair, or throne, as it had always seemed to him, shaped out of riveted paneling in the floor underneath the other man and Adam sat as well. “I don’t know,” he said, already smiling. “He was running for office.” said Tav.
Adam laughed, a good natured laugh that wrinkled his eyes to slits and showed off his pearly teeth. “I like that one.” “You always like them.” Tav turned to his equipment laid out nearby. He rolled over behind Adam and began checking the ports protruding from his back. Six of them, three on each side, starting at his shoulder blades and going down in tighter circles to the small of his back. From these, huge ropes of cable hung up into the engine, which hummed with orange and yellow fire from the ever burning fuel within. The fire was mimicked in Adam’s chest, which glowed bright as an xray. His ribs, cartilage, and organs cast shadows, along with the webbing of nerves and veins where the glow turned sort of reddish from the thin tissue. His heart was a flashlight burning from inside his body. It was Tav’s job to keep that heart in good order. Adam, similarly, had only one job: keep his heart beating strongly.
Being that this was entirely an unconscious matter he had no real control over, he did as he was asked. He allowed himself to be poked and prodded. He did his cardio every day without fail, as well as strength exercises to keep his body in peak form, though it had once seemed a waste to have a perfect body when one was relegated to however long the cables reached. He ate the disgusting nutrient slurry they provided which kept his every hormonal and blood level in balance. He read when there was downtime.
Mostly, he watched Tav. He was the only one allowed inside the inner chamber of the Forge, outside of skittish Fetchers who brought him his meals and supplies and the engineer who sometimes worked on the engine. On his birthday, they let his mother visit.
Where Adam was all tone and muscle from a life where his every physical need was met, Tav was scrawny and underfed. His head was shaved on the sides, and tattoos of every shape and color peeked out from the edges of his clothes. He was literally stamped by an existence outside the walls of the chamber which had been most of Adam’s life. He drank. He smoked. He lived beyond the twenty feet of cable tethering Adam to the life of a Forge. He was not stuck with an umbilical cord to an unfeeling mother made of bolts and steel.
He went through his checklist (Shortness of breath? No. Deficiency cravings? No. Muscle cramps or weakness? No. Fatigue? Always, he’d secretly wanted to say. No.) and when he was done, he retrieved his stethoscope. He rolled the chair close enough their knees touched and Adam suppressed a shiver at the minor point of contact. The bell was warm where it had sat between Tav’s palms and he gave the diaphragm one last warm breath before settling the circular piece of metal under his nipple, at the apex of his heart. He pressed two fingers against his throat to feel the pulse at his carotid. This was the part he liked the best, never knowing that Tav liked it too. He lingered always a bit too long when he had the excuse to touch him.
Tav’s eyes flicked up to watch his heart moving, silhouetted by the light behind his ribs. There was a small surgical scar down his sternum, the only mark on his body, from where he had been implanted with the spark that made him a Forge. He’d been a child, picked out of many, to serve as the new heart of the train. Tav had been in that crop of children too, but he was always skinny and too sickly to be of any use. Once, he’d envied that Adam had been made special. After years as his Keeper, he no longer envied him. He situated it over the tricuspid point between the swell of Adam's pectorals. His heart beat steadily against the steth, louder in his ears now that he was closer to a valve as it opened and closed with each pulse of blood. He watched the shadow of his heart as it moved in his chest, contracting and expanding in tandem with the beat he heard swelling in his ears.
"What's new topside?" he asked as Tav lifted the bell to reposition again. He sat the diaphragm against the aortic site near his collarbone, his hand drifting down to touch the pulse at his wrist as well. "Well," sighed Tav, "Nothing, as per the usual. Some weirdo zealots have been tagging the mess hall again. Separatists or whatever." "The radio was talking about them." "It's all the radio is talking about because it's the only thing happening. The people in the lower cars are having a tizzy about it because they're told it's this big uprising, but it's nothing. Couple kids getting a hold of spray paint. Deep breath." Adam obliged. Then he said, "Do they really think we could survive out there? In the fog?" "Who knows what they believe. Kooky shit, mostly. Bet none of them have spoken to any of the divers. Stick any one of them in one of those diving bells for an hour, they'll stop yapping about leaving the trains pretty quickly."
Adam looked around at his chambers and wondered if the diving bells were much smaller, or much more claustrophobic than his own living quarters. It was hard to imagine a place being smaller. He was quiet as the stethoscope was pressed to both sides of his neck and the sequence repeated with the bell of the stethoscope. When Tav made a 'come here' gesture with two fingers at the end of it, he sat up. His head settled in against the smaller man's shoulder as he stethed points around his ribs and his back. He breathed in steadily and deeply, and if he noticed Tav turning his face in towards his neck to soak in his body heat, even in the sweltering humidity of the engine room, neither of them said anything. He didn't want to bring attention to it and break the spell. Tav smelled like whiskey and smoke. He turned in towards him as well. "Deep breath for me." Adam drew it in through his nose, so close now to Tav's skin he was almost touching his cheek.
"It's picking up a bit," said the Keeper, bringing his other hand up to touch Adam's shoulder. "Try to relax." How could he? There was no hiding how the other man affected him. His traitorous heart wanted to bust from his chest and leap into his hands. Do something with me, do anything, I'm yours. Just make me useful to you. He swallowed in a dry throat. Behind them, the engine's cradle glowed a little bit brighter. In the other cars, the lights warmed and brightened, and a few people had to shield their eyes for a moment before the regulators kicked in and diverted the unexpected power surge into other channels. He hated knowing every denizen of the Pennydurren knew when his heart was speeding up. During his exercise sessions, the engineers knew to be on the lookout for surges, but outside of those allotted times, it was a cause of concern. More often than not it ended with his Keeper being sent in, and how was he supposed to explain himself to the man responsible for his racing heart? How could he look at Tav and confess he had been curled on his side in his simple cot, taking himself into his hand, thinking of those inked hands roaming over his body and auscultating his pounding heart?
He squeezed his eyes shut and imagined the bulbs in the third car market glowing hot, imagined that everyone knew his thoughts as soon as they looked at the little suns above their heads, and he took a series of deep breaths. Eventually, his heartrate steadied.
"There we go," Tav said softly, his fingers curling in against Adam's waves of dark brown hair. "Much better." Adam's hands itched to be around him. Instead they hung at his sides. His head laid fully against his Keeper's narrow shoulder. He thought again of all the time Tav spent with him. Not just these checkups, but most times he was the one to bring him meals. The one who doled out his medication. The one who talked him down from panic attacks and nightmares. He'd soothe him and stroke his brow until his heart no longer felt like it was going to pop, and he had never asked for anything from him. Could ask nothing of him, really. What more could Adam give him than a working train? He'd given him his heart; to the Pennydurren, that was all he could give.
"Do you resent me?" he asked suddenly. He felt Tav stiffen a bit under him and the other man shouldered an earpiece out. "Do I what?" Adam squeezed his eyes shut. He wanted to swallow those words the moment they'd hit the air. But they couldn't be retrieved now. He took a shaky breath and asked again, "Do you resent me? You... you're always at my beck and call. You have to take care of me more than anyone else. You can't really live your life, you're... leashed to me."
Tav leaned back, taking him by the shoulders. "Adam. The hell are you talking about?" When he opened his mouth to answer, he shook his head, taking him by the chin to make him look up. "No. No, of course I don't resent you. I could never. You think I'm stuck here?" He scoffed. "Buddy, I pop pills in your mouth and listen to your heart once a week. I'm not so irreplaceable I couldn't ask for a different station." "But-" Tav squeezed his cheeks towards his mouth before he could protest. "I like taking care of you. I like talking with you. You're my friend. You're..." He looked down into those twinkling doe eyes and his breath faltered a bit. Adam had the most open, earnest eyes of anyone he had ever met. He didn't know how to lie. He had never been hurt and he had never hurt anyone in turn. And yes, he was more than a friend. But Tav wasn't like him. He hurt people, people he even cared about. He didn't want Adam to be one of those people. So he smoothed his hair away from his forehead and said in a low voice, "You're my best friend. And I'll be pissed if you think otherwise again. So... stop acting like you're some burden on me."
He pressed his forehead against Tav's palm, nodding. "Okay..." He pushed his head back a bit until their eyes met. "Hey," said Tav, "What do you get from a pampered cow?" The corners of the Forge's lips turned up and he shrugged wordlessly. He scrubbed his hand over his hair. "Spoiled milk." Adam scoffed, "That one's stupid." "They're all stupid."
But he liked them anyway.
As their session for the day came to a close, Adam leaned back in his chair, the cables running from his back slotting easily into the grooves cut into the back, and watched his Keeper leave. Tav gave him a little wave over the shoulder. Neither said what was really on their mind. As one went to sulk in his bunk and the other leaned his head back to run every touch over in his mind, neither could imagine the turmoil brewing in the lower cars. They couldn't know how far some people were willing to go to try and escape the confines of the Pennydurren.
They didn't see a boy smuggled into the Fetchers, who ferried the Forge food and any other amenity he would need. Nor could they see the little package of white powder he surreptitiously slipped into Adam's usual medication for that evening.
31 notes · View notes
thevelaryons · 6 months ago
Text
Addam’s bond with Seasmoke is so powerful that from the very beginning, his feelings become in tune with his dragon.
When Sheepstealer, a much larger and more formidable dragon, attempts to kill Addam’s little brother, he is stopped by Seasmoke:
Sheepstealer proved easier to flush out, but he remained a vicious, ill-tempered beast, who killed more seeds than the three castle dragons together. One who hoped to tame him (after his quest for Grey Ghost proved fruitless) was Alyn of Hull. Sheepstealer would have none of him. When he stumbled from the dragon’s lair with his cloak aflame, only his brother’s swift action saved his life. Seasmoke drove the wild dragon off as Addam used his own cloak to beat out the flames.
— Fire & Blood, The Dying of the Dragons
Addam was surely able to act so quickly because Seasmoke was so responsive to his will. Time and time again, it’s shown that dragons respond to the emotions of their riders. Seasmoke would have felt Addam’s intent to protect Alyn and so he reacted accordingly.
Like I’ve mentioned before, Addam has a very careful control over how he uses his dragon to enact violence. Seasmoke is never shown going out of his way to burn anyone because that is simply not his rider’s wish. The only time he acts to kill is in the two big battles he participates in: The Gullet and Second Tumbleton. Both these times, the acts of violence are deliberate.
Apart from those instances, Addam just uses his dragon as a means to protect others.
Collectively, rider and dragon are positioned as shields. From the very first moment he was claimed to the moment of their deaths, Seasmoke responds to his rider’s will with a swiftness to protect others from harm:
Almost a hundred years old and as large as the two young dragons put together, the bronze dragon with the great tan wings was in a rage as he took flight, with blood smoking from a dozen wounds. Riderless, he knew not friend from foe, so he loosed his wroth on all, spitting flame to right and left, turning savagely on any man who dared to fling a spear in his direction. One knight tried to flee before him, only to have Vermithor snatch him up in his jaws, even as his horse galloped on. Lords Piper and Deddings, seated together atop a low rise, burned with their squires, servants, and sworn shields when the Bronze Fury chanced to take note of them.
An instant later, Seasmoke fell upon him.
Alone of the four dragons on the field that day, Seasmoke had a rider. Ser Addam Velaryon had come to prove his loyalty by destroying the Two Betrayers and their dragons, and here was one beneath him, attacking the men who had joined him for this fight. He must have felt duty bound to protect them, though surely he knew in his heart that his Seasmoke could not match the older dragon.
— Fire & Blood, The Dying of the Dragons
39 notes · View notes
ride-thedragon · 1 year ago
Text
THE STORY OF DRAGONS.
The Last Dragon Riders & Daenerys Stormborn of House Targaryen.
Tumblr media
I've had discussions before about taking away either of these girls from the narrative and how bad it would be when it comes to the thematic story of the Dragons. This post is more in-depth about that idea and how it concludes with the mother of Dragons.
Hatching and Bonding
Nettles is a dragon seed with the strangest relationship to her dragon. Her claiming him was dependent on her slaughtering sheep and feeding him every day for a prolonged period of time in order to bond with him.
Rhaena takes three dragon eggs with her when she is sent away, eventually, towards the end of the dance, one hatches in the Vale, giving us Morning. In the show, so far, we see that she holds dragon eggs to the fire, trying to hatch it.
Dany is given three fossilized eggs at the beginning of her marriage. After her husband and baby die, she commits a blood sacrifice using blood magic and a funeral pyre to hatch the three dragons she's breastfeeding by the end of it. Establishing the strangest bond we've seen with dragons and their riders.
Urchin and Lady
Nettles grows up on the streets of Spice Town and Hull alone, being visually marred from an incident, with an alleged scar across her nose.
Rhaena is raised in Pentos with her parents and sister and later on Dragonstone with her stepmother, father, 3 step brothers, and two half brothers. She was betrothed to the heir to Drifmark.
Dany grows up with the understanding that she might marry Viserys. She is raised first in a house in Pentos and soon after from house to house until people get tired of them. Eventually, they meet Illyrio, but not before Viserys earns the title of The Beggar King.
George has issues (love)
One of them sees a 32 year old at 16 and his two daughters and decideds to marry him out of all possible options.
The other is 16 with the 49 year old prince consort and has an assassination attempt placed on her for it.
Dany is married off to a 31 year old at 13 who abuses her. After a while, she 'falls in love'.
Magic and Blood
The Valyrians used blood magic to bind themselves to their dragons. It's a trait passed down and kept pure with the incestuous practices of all the dragonlords. It's the reason that Rhaena hatches her Dragon.
Nettles call this into question when taming a wild dragon. Rather than relying on the same blood link she should have, she uses sheep to bond with Sheepstealer every day until he allows her to become his rider. This is in the aftermath of him killing every Valyrian bastard before her.
Dany's magic is both types of blood magic. The sacrifice of herself, her husband and child on the pyre to hatch her eggs, and the fact that she's a Targaryen all tie into her ability to hatch her dragons.
Where we are and Where we go
Rhaena hatches morning out of three dragon eggs in the Vale. She has Morning on her shoulders at the end of her war, being able to fly her all over the realm as a Targaryen Princess after the war. She becomes the darling of the city. A vision of hope for her house.
Nettles is taken away from politics and to safety by her dragon. For years, she's alone in the Vale mountains with her dragon, becoming a deity for the burned men.
At the end of A Game of Thrones, Dany has hatched 3 dragons from her eggs, and by the end of the last book so far Drogon has taken her away from all the politics of Meeren.
Darling and Fire Witch
A beacon of hope in the idea of Targaryen restoration. Darling of the city alongside her sister. Beloved by artists and designers alike.
She forms a religion around her dragon. Creating the most dangerous tribe in the Mountains of the Vale. With ceremonies of burning the men attached in exchange for gifts.
Dany is the idea of the Targaryen restoration when she hatches her Dragons. Drogo's Khalesar starts to follow her after this feat, she is the Unburnt.
Dany and her girls
All of this is to allude to the idea that the differences in these girls' lives allow for a parallel with Daenerys. Nettles doesn't hatch dragons, and Rhaena doesn't use any type of sacrifice to hatch hers.
Nettles grows up on the streets, but Rhaena has siblings and is raised in Essos.
No one in the narrative has any expectation for Nettles until she claims dragon. Rhaena is born as close to a princess as one can be without being one.
Nettles, on Driftmark, is raised on the shadow of the dynasty of the great house, Targaryen. Rhaena is a dragonless girl at the height of the house Targaryen's power, again in the shadow.
They both establish differing parallels and middle grounds for her character, all while Daenerys herself is her own person with traits distinctly apart from these two girls. She's the fire in A Song of Ice and Fire. George wrote Fire and Blood after we met Daenerys. The fun with that is that he can make these parallels tying her to the world and giving her character relationships in history.
Bride, Daughter, and Mother of Dragons.
Tumblr media
Nettles is the bride of dragons in this concept. She rides a male dragon who gives her power and acclaim. One of five women to do so and the only one still alive alongside her dragon that ties her into the main plot. She is also the last lover of Daemon Targaryen. The man tied thematically to the last dragon of the conquest. I think she is the bride within this idea, married to dragons because it wasn't something inherited, it was something she chose to tie herself to and allegedly with either man or dragon spent the rest of her days alongside.
Rhaena, as the daughter of Dragons, seems really obvious. Her mother was the rider of Vhagar, and her father was Daemon. At the end of the war she is one of the three women of house Targaryen still alive and the only dragon rider with her dragon. She becomes a Princess after the war. She is the daughter of Dragons.
Daenerys is the Mother of Dragons. She hatches her three dragons from stone eggs and breast feeds them as they are hatched. Obviously, she is also the bride and daughter, but due to the power of three, I think I'm gonna take the stand and say she's the Mother.
The power of three
These three are the story of the death and return of dragons in Westeros and to their world. Without Nettles or Rhaena in their exact plots, only half of the story is told. They both leave the world without Dragons, a torch lit again by Daenerys. Within this series and the idea of the power of three, why wouldn't the last of the dragon riders be connected?
Brave girls who, through various means, carry distinctive lights in the story of dragons. It's my personal opinion that the intention is never to give the title to either Nettles or Rhaena but to have them serve as different sides to Daenerys. Her story intertwined with them both to continue the story of Dragons.
Tumblr media
'To go north, you must journey south, to reach the west you must go east. To go forward, you must go back and to touch the light you must pass beneath the shadow.'
—Quaithe to Daenerys Targaryen
98 notes · View notes
omniblades-and-stars · 4 months ago
Note
ANY ship with Zaeed + #20 I am nothing if not predictable
From this ask meme here.
CW: Brief mention of suicidal threats/ideation.
Blue light seeped in underneath the curtains.
One. Two. Three seconds.
She had been counting since the first rumbling warning. And still, the thunder made her jump.
The nights with the storms were the worst. When thunder boomed and the echoes of it bounced between mountain peaks, nestling into the valleys just as lightning illuminated the night sky with the kind of intensity only available to it by the total lack of light pollution. No city lights to dampen the way it seared her vision, leaving a lasting impression in auras that remained even when she closed her eyes tight against it.
The distant rumbling was a threat. It pulled her away from her home, to where thunder became the explosive cacophony of anti-aircraft artillery and that guttural and unnatural growl of Reaper destroyers. Lightning transformed into devastating laser canon fire and that horrible, bright-burning beam that by all rights should have led her to her death. But the galaxy didn't see fit to give in to her exhaustion and let her go to her final rest just yet.
On nights like this, she wished it had.
Jane sat in the night dark living room, curtains drawn and head buried in her hands because her skull felt like it was in a vice. She hated how something so simple, so natural as a thunderstorm turned her into a quaking, crying child. Like her legendary courage turned heel and ran - not so courageous after all in the face of nature. But she couldn't shoot at a storm, couldn't direct a counter attack from within the safety of the Normandy's hull and shields.
Blue light splashed across her hunched back and shaking shoulders.
One. Two seconds.
Jane jumped again.
She tried it once, shooting at the storm. Terrified and angry that she was scared, she found her old Predator and unloaded an entire thermal clip into the clouds, screaming her rage and desperation to just not feel fucking scared anymore as she did so. It was stupid. And worse, it didn't even make her feel better.
Being soaked in the torrential downpour made it easier for her and Zaeed to both hold onto the fiction that she wasn't crying when he rushed outside, fearing something much worse than that display of Shepard's rapidly declining mental state.
Jane didn't know where any of the guns were anymore. For all she knew, Zaeed got rid of every last one, even Jesse. He never said as much, but she knew he worried that the next thing she pointed a gun at when this happened would be herself.
Jane wanted to be angry about it. She wanted to turn the storm raging against her own chest and unleash it at Zaeed in a gale force torrent for daring to show concern so quietly. It should have been a blowout, heated words to each other they couldn't take back so she could justify the way she hated herself at times. If he hated her for being weak and scared too, then at least there was a reason for the heat in her lungs, the monster with angry claws scraping grooves in the bone inside her skull - trapped in a casket of its own making.
Blue light flashed twice, visible now from the little window in the kitchen, lighting up the sink beneath it, banishing the darkness for only a moment.
One second.
Jane jumped to her feet.
Knowing the storm was getting closer did not make up for how much louder it was in the holler. It was no longer over the ridge where the low mountain peak would dampen the sound. The aftershocks grumbled out across the shallow river down the hill as if the storm was somehow inconvenienced by the geography it found itself hanging over.
It shook the floor as she turned for the steps that would lead up to her own bedroom. The place that was meant to be her solace, her solitude. In the dark, it was a yawning cavern, the echoes of her worst memories bounced off the walls, the walls that seemed to shift with the distant flash of far off lightning. The warped shadows played too many tricks with her mind when she was there alone.
There was a different door, an open threshold only a few short steps away, an offer of comfort, even if a quiet, unspoken one. There was a barrier there, visible only to herself. Timid footsteps brought her to it, stopping just shy of the frame.
Electric blue filled the room, framing a specter in the doorway with an otherworldly glow. A wraith lingered there, thinner than she'd ever been, hair tangled, no longer bound by regulations or the need for practicality, she was an echo herself, wreathed so briefly in that eerie light.
The resounding bang rattled the creaking bones of a house and a woman in concert.
Jane trembled.
"You're not a ghost, Janey. Stop looming like one and get in bed already," Zaeed's characteristically prodding words belied the quiet, gentle way he only ever spoke when she had one boot on the battleground again. Jarring, not because they were rough words, but because they weren't.
She hesitated.
Before, when life wasn't assured, when her entire universe was cut down to two possibilities, win or everything ends, it had been easy to fall into his bed. Easier for both of them. It wasn't serious they told themselves. Stress relief, entertainment, a warm fucking body to sleep next to on the rare occasion more than a couple of hours of sleep was to be had between battles and negotiations and chasing lead after lead while barreling head first into oblivion. A body who knew the flashbacks, the paranoia, the changes, and didn't make a fuss about it. It wasn't supposed to be serious. Wasn't supposed to be anything more than it was on the outside - comfort when there wasn't any to be had anywhere else.
An illusion.
After? When she woke up with new scars, new ghosts, and the closest thing to a guarantee of a naturally long life as she was likely to get? Everything was changed all at once. She held onto the narrative that there wasn't anything else because it felt safer than ... what?
Another streak of light filtered in through half-drawn blinds.
One second.
The rumbling ground urged her feet forward, past her imaginary barrier, a staggering rhythm that shattered her precious illusion. Cracks formed in the fragile shell she built up around herself, fault lines growing in her one-sided resolve to close herself away.
It was stupid.
And worse, it didn't even make her feel better.
Blue light flickered long shadows across the bed as she gracelessly struck her knee on the simple wooden frame and fell forward, blinded by the spots burned in her vision.
One. Two seconds.
She froze, eyes clenched tight against the retreating but noisome onslaught of Mother Nature. A warm hand wrapped over her shoulder, guiding her under the blanket, an offering of shelter. Her earlier hesitation fallen by the wayside as she scrambled towards safety, not unlike rolling for cover under fire. If cover was a warm, breathing man that she'd lived with for months pretending that also didn't mean anything.
He'd provided cover under fire for her before, and that made this whole endeavor feel so ridiculous that if she'd been in a better mind state, she might have laughed. As it was, she allowed Zaeed to pull her in tight against his chest, closing her eyes in a vain attempt to keep tears of relief from streaking down already glistening cheeks.
Fainter now, flickers of light played shadow puppet branches across the wall.
One. Two. Three seconds.
She felt, as much as could through the scarring left behind when that horrible inferno blast hit her face, replacing the intricate webs left behind by Cerberus with thick welts, rough lips press against her cheek.
"Storm's almost gone, Janey. Get some sleep."
Jane exhaled, letting free the breath she hadn't even realized she'd been holding.
The flash was fainter now, doubtless the storm had moved further over the ridge.
One. Two. Three. Four seconds.
Jane slept.
28 notes · View notes
saphronethaleph · 5 months ago
Text
Totenritt
“What’s she doing?” Poe asked, looking back at the Raddus.
Holdo had fallen back a little, once the rest of the crew were away, and now the cruiser was swinging around. Banking, engines flaring back to full power, and Poe frowned as he did a mental calculation.
She couldn’t have the fuel to last more than five or ten minutes like that. Maybe less, as the engine glow went from steady to a brighter stuttering.
“She’s going to burn out the engine liners if she keeps that up for long,” C’ai Threnalli muttered.
“I don’t think she’s got much reason to care about the liners,” Nien Nunb said, as the Raddus finished her turn and began plunging straight towards the First Order fleet.
Turbolaser fire lashed out at the Resistance ship, scoring first one hit and then another as it continued on a doomed voyage, and Poe frowned.
“Something’s not right,” he said.
“We know that much,” Goode said. “What’s going on?”
“I thought Holdo was-” Poe began, then chopped off the words; they all knew what he thought. “But why is she doing this? She can’t achieve-”
Another blast hit the shields, and in reply they flared up – not the pale white from before, but a brilliant blue.
“The hypercharge coils,” Nunb explained.
“What are hypercharge coils?” Poe asked, glancing back at the long-time Resistance member.
“It’s the augmented shield system,” Threnalli said, the abednedo pointing. “You remember?”
“Yeah, I know, I was wondering why she refused to turn the shields to full power,” Poe agreed. “There’s a whole shield bank she didn’t turn on, that’s how Leia got so badly hurt – that’s part of why-”
He bit the words off.
“I didn’t understand, and she didn’t explain,” he said.
“She’s turned them on now,” Threnalli told him, as sparks flashed from the shields of the cruiser.
It was plunging in closer and closer, now, on a direct reciprocal of the First Order fleet’s course, and the guns were giving it a fearsome battering – but the shields repulsed every shot, and by now they were glowing a continuous blue like a sapphire.
“-wait,” Poe said, softly. “There’s no way – that ship’s taking an impossible amount of punishment.”
He looked at Nunb and Threnalli. “What’s going on?” he said. “There’s no way – something like that, there has to be a price!”
“There is,” Nunb said, nodding. “The hypercharge coils don’t last long before they burn out yet. A minute, maximum – then they explode.”
It looked like whoever was commanding the Supremacy had realized what was going on, now, and that they weren’t going to be able to stop the Raddus. But their turn was late, and the Supremacy was a giant and sluggish ship, and Holdo rode her Star Cruiser like a snubfighter.
It hit the shields of the massive capital ship with a white flash of lightning, one that made Poe flinch away from the viewport, and violent backlash energy crackled over the whole of the Supremacy’s hull. Several towers and systems on the surface of the capital ship blew up, and it shuddered in space.
Then, now invisible inside, the Raddus reached the heart of her prey.
Whether the hypercharge coils failed at that point, or seconds later, was academic. The power system for hundreds of cubic kilometres of Star Destroyer had a cruiser-sized hole in it, and the hypermatter reactor ruptured cataclysmically.
The hull rippled, gouts of flame and smoke issuing forth, and hundred-metre long sections of superstructure flew through space like shrapnel. Secondary explosions lit the entire craft from wing to wing, fragments caught at least three of the escorting Star Destroyers with enough force to wreck them as well, and when the explosions faded it was clear that the Supremacy had been outright split in half by the explosion.
Poe’s mouth worked soundlessly for a moment.
“May the Force be with her,” Nunb said, bowing his head.
“Yeah,” Poe agreed. “And – yeah.”
25 notes · View notes
evidence-of-the-unknown · 3 months ago
Text
Tumblr media
[ID: Page 15 of Evidence of the Unknown. It is in greyscale with a pinkish red spot color. Panel 1: Murphy standing, smiling and wide-eyed with scrapes on her face. She says, “Heh… Hehehe! I can’t believe it- a real close encounter of the second kind!” Panel 2: Similar medium shot of Murphy, now panicking and shoving a hand into her pocket. “Oh shit, it’s disintegrating!” she says. “I need to get evidence- I swear I put it in here… Ah!”Panel 3: A super close shot of Murphy’s hand, holding up a handheld mini cassette recorder. Click SFX. Panel 5: A wide shot showing the burning spacecraft from overhead. Three moments in time are composited together with accompanying close up shots. Murphy taking a picture with a polaroid camera, measuring the fire with an infrared thermometer, and collecting ashes in a bag. She gives a voice over narration of the montage. “December 28th, 2022. 9:32- no, 33 PM, mountain time. It’s finally happened. Alien craft crashed between Meteor Flats and Carrion, New Mexico. A few miles east of the highway, will measure later. Craft is obviously non-human in origin, and has some writing on the hull… Perhaps a name? A model number? Very difficult to see, especially through the flames. Craft is quickly disintegrating despite low burning temperature, leaving slightly glittery dust behind. Could this be a self destruct mechanism to keep scrap from falling into the hands of lower life forms? No sign of a pilot. Unsure if it had one, but I fear it may have died on impact…” End ID.]
14 notes · View notes
bomberqueen17 · 8 months ago
Text
archaeology report snippets
So I'm still chewing through Vol II of the Must Farm Site Reports. Vol I was a bit dry but comparatively breezy, like 350 pages of summary. Vol II is the specialist reports, broken out by topic, and it is. Well. Dense. (I'm on page 1189 of Vol II, and have just reached the section on coprolites, LOL.)
But. I printed off a map of the site while reading Vol I, and have been notating things on it as I read. And so I can do things like. Well, I got to the bit about the beads, and noted down the findspot of the one assemblage of beads that very, very likely was a strung necklace (including the large amber bead, the photo of which in the fingers of a finder is the main image on the post I reblogged about the whole thing)-- and was able to put together that this necklace was probably dropped very close to the likely location of an exit door from the structure. Some of the beads were shattered by the heat, but the amber bead was only slightly charred-- and amber burns very well and readily, as I found out when I had my own house fire some years ago. (RIP those earrings I loved)
More random observations under the cut, and I do mean random. I should write up a proper summary sometime, and maybe I will, but I'm still going through the first readthrough. So this is just scattershot Things I Care Deeply About.
Among the textile finds was a lot of flax. Flax seeds, in caches-- some near the food but others not, likely seeds for replanting the next year. Flax stalks, unprocessed. Flax fiber, processed. Flax spun into thread. Linen fabric.
There was also a lot of flax debris all over the floor. They'd rippled, broken, and scutched the flax indoors. Flax seeds and chaff everywhere! But the floors seem to have been covered in grass and reed mats, largely. And there were live sheep in the houses, who left shit scattered around, much of which charred and was preserved. So I suppose a few flax seeds and some chaff wasn't going to add a great deal to the assemblage that wasn't already there.
The flax wasn't retted.
The wheat had been picked by hand, and then the wheat straw had been uprooted to harvest it in as long a length as possible. The straw was woven into mats and some might have been roof thatch.
They ate wheat prepared several ways, and they seem to have stored it still in the hulls, then threshed a few days' supply at once, then roughly ground it, and only finished grinding it more finely into flour right before using it. In a wet environment this made the most sense to keep it from spoiling. They made the wheat into porridge, dough, and also several pots were found with mixtures that included a lot of unpalatable chaff-- possibly they were brewing this mixture, as the chaff would give the necessary breathing room for fermentation to take place.
The textile remnants were all preserved by charring, so there's no information remining about color. No evidence of dyeing exists in the region until a bit later, the Iron Age. But there were roots of yellow iris in the corner of the building where the loom probably was, and one had been neatly cut in half: yellow iris is occasionally used in medicine, but is also a decent yellow dye.
It was the Bronze Age, and there were many bronze tools discovered-- a sort of "set" in each of the households, like everyone had around the same quantity of tools for various purposes. But there were also a bunch of flint tools discovered. Bronze Age worked flints aren't anything on the artistry of those of earlier eras, but the basic functional knowledge was obviously retained, and I feel like the little flint knives were like shitty plastic-handled scissors of today, you'd get one and use it until it broke and toss it and then go whack another flake off the household flint core. There were flint "querns" in three of the houses, similar in shape to the stone querns used to grind grains, but the flint ones would leave dangerous razor-sharp shards if they were used for food, and in other contexts have baffled archaeologists-- why would you make a quern out of a dangerous material? Here's the answer: They were used as sandpaper. If you had a wooden item you wanted to sand smooth, you used the flint block for it. You also, in a pinch, could flake yourself a new cheap little knife off the side of it.
There were a few human bones discovered and all of them were old. Most of them were in the mud under the houses, as if they'd been deposited just before the houses were built. One was a near-complete skull that was worn smooth with handling, and possibly had been worked immediately after its owner (a young probably woman)'s death to make the base flat so it could sit on a shelf or table. One was an arm bone with butchering marks on it, gnawed by dogs at some past point. There was a vertebra, in one of the houses there was somebody's adult canine tooth, and outside the wall of the settlement there was a bit of a femur that had been roughly handled (possibly deposited from the earlier causeway there, which the settlement had been built overtop the ruins of). Only one bone had charring to suggest it had been in the conflagration, it was a bit of a skull and had apparently been somewhere in one of the houses as it burned-- maybe in the roof rafters. So it seems like there was some practice with dedicating a site with human remains? It doesn't read like ancestor worship, which had been my first thought, but those descriptions-- well obviously their ideas of what was suitable or respectful were different than mine but. They read more like offerings, perhaps. Impossible to know! But fascinating. None of the human remains are of the people who lived there, that's fairly certain given the age of the bones and the contexts. (Another bit of analysis: isotopes of the bones suggest their owners had eaten highly terrestrial diets, while we know from coprolites and fish bones that the people in the pile dwellings were eating fish.)
Most of the collapsed buildings lie in such a way that it's clear they were not disturbed after the burning, no attempts were made at salvage, the site was not interfered with. Except for one of the buildings, Structure 3, which was damaged in the 1970s so we don't have much of it-- but of what's there, several of the timbers are disarranged in a way that doesn't make sense for how the building would have collapsed, and one of the beams especially looks as though someone flung it aside sometime after the building collapsed-- possibly much later-- but before the site was buried in sediment. Either a survivor coming back just to look for one important thing, or a much later scavenger poking around? Impossible to say. But it wasn't beavers, and no other animals would bother with timbers like that. And whatever they were looking for, they didn't disturb any of the other ruins-- at least, not of the ones that survived to be excavated. It is important to remember, as we discuss the site, that given the shape of the palisade and the extent of the quarrying nearby, there were probably originally twice as many buildings at least, if not more, and no trace survives of the rest.
While there's no evidence of bronze casting at the site, suggesting all the bronze implements would have been imported from elsewhere (and their somewhat-diverse origins don't contradict this, though many of them are similar/of similar material), the pottery does seem to be local. The assemblage of pots also all have a fairly strong stylistic resemblance to one another, but are not all made with the same level of skill. It seems very likely that within the community were several potters, some more experienced and some novices, and the work was shared among them, but they clearly worked in close proximity and shared stylistic preferences and techniques. One pot in particular is rather lopsided and there's a lump where the clearly-novice maker thinned the wall too much and had to glob more clay on to fix the hole. They broke a lot of pots-- estimates put it at a pot per week across the whole settlement, a pot per month per house-- and it was mostly the cooking pots that got broken. It's possible to estimate how many people were eating in each house by counting how many eating bowls and drinking cups there were.
Piece after piece of evidence tells us this settlement didn't last long-- the wood was green when it burned, and oak seasons in a year or two; there are no signs of nuts or fruit which ripen in late autumn; the wood was all cut at once sometime between March and September given the state of the sap in it, and the pilings were certainly driven when the water was at its lowest in the winter; the articulated lamb skeletons totally free of any evidence of butchery were probably live lambs when the fire started and given their age and the time lambs are born it was late summer or early autumn when they died.
To that I'll add that I know flax ripens in high summer and the debris of processing it was all over the floors.
Piece after piece of evidence suggests these people were farming on dry land, had largely terrestrial diets. But they were also eating fish, we know from the arcs of pike bones scattered outside the footprints of the houses. There's very little residue of fish in their cooking pots, but we also know they were eating it, and eating it undercooked or raw in some instances, because of the parasite eggs in their coprolites. And the absence of roundworm eggs suggests they did not spend much time in terrestrial living settings; many of those sites when explored show evidence of roundworm infestations. I haven't seen this conclusion drawn yet in the literature but that suggests to me that they came to this pile-driven settlement from another one, if they only spent at most a year here. But that's just my concusion.
I keep not looking at the index of Vol II so I keep thinking I'm at the end and then there's another chapter. The joys of reading a PDF rather than a paper book, LOL. Oh I'm almost at the end! OK let me read this last chapter then. Oh it's a report on the mechanics of the conflagration. Okay. This is the central mystery! Well they say up front they can't possibly tell what caused it.
Other pile-driven lake-dwelling settings from similar eras are known to have been burned down, possibly deliberately, and then rebuilt over the top of the ruins, probably because the buildings would be so difficult to maintain and it would be easier to reuse the prime settlement spot without the debris of old, failing buildings. This was very, very clearly not that.
"The presence of so many items of apparent value and use within the conflagration debris, and the deep, localized char patterns on timbers left to smoulder for many hours undisturbed, when a person present could have easily separated them to extinguish the last burning elements and to save useful timbers from destruction, suggest the inhabitants were either unwilling or unable to respond to the fire, or else unaware of the destruction." (p. 1264)
They think it started in the southeast-middle of Structure 1, and collapsed the roof of it rather quickly but not before spreading to the others. But there are no signs of any attempts to put it out. The smoke would have been visible for miles, even if by some weird chance everyone in the settlement was out doing something like tending the dryland fields their crops were obviously in (there's no way this would be true for a routine reason, you just can't leave premodern houses untended like that, somebody is home to tend the fire and start dinner, that's just got to be how it works, but even if everyone had gone out they would see the smoke and come back!); it's not like there wasn't water all around to use to put out a fire. It starting in one place not many, with no sign of accelerants or fuel caches placed around to speed it, is a sign that it wasn't intentionally set, but it's just plain bizarre that nobody tried to put it out, or tried to salvage anything from the houses, or even just set loose the live animals that were in the houses who surely would have fled (they weren't tiny lambs, they were a few months old, well old enough to run).
Something happened, but we just can't know what. The fire burned unattended, un-interfered-with: nobody was inside. We simply can't know why.
25 notes · View notes
niqhtlord01 · 1 year ago
Text
Tumblr media
Humans are weird: The Spacer’s Creed
 ( Please come see me on my new patreon and support me for early access to stories and personal story requests :D https://www.patreon.com/NiqhtLord Every bit helps)       “Abandon ship, abandon ship; this is not a drill.”
The speaker cut out as the wall it was mounted to burst out in violent flames sending Zengul tumbling to the floor. He tried to get back to his feet but felt a stream of warm green blood run down his face and momentarily blinding him. He wiped his uniform sleeve across his face but a new stream just came down.
He could feel the heat from the flames on the back of his neck as he unsteadily got back to his feet when a pair of hands grabbed each of his arms and hoisted him up.
“Almost there Zengul!” he heard one of his rescuers shout. He tried to look up at his saviors but his eyes were now blurry from the blood still running down his face. Opening his mouth to say something he was surprised to find all that would come out was nothing more than coughs and gasps.
The trio made their way down the corridor as the ship shuddered again. Several pipes came loose and fell next to them but by then the motley group had made it to the escape pod. Zengul heard the door being closed behind them followed shortly by the pressure seal engaging. No sooner had the door sealed was the pod shot out of the escape tunnel and ejected into space.
Zengul could feel his hearts pounding out of his chest as one of the other survivors broke out the medkit from a storage locker.
“Here ya go.” They said as they bandaged up his head and the stream of blood finally subsided allowing him to see again.
“First class engineer Zengul,” he introduced himself to his saviors. The one who had been bandaging him nodded a greeting in return.
“Security officer Muck, deck three.”
The pair looked over at the third member of the escape pod who was cradling their head between their talons.
“What about you?” Zengul asked.
“You will remain silent unless addressed directly.” The third member said rather harshly as they snapped their head around.
Zengul and Muck cast a look between each other as they saw the uniform and rank insignia of the third figure. Unlike their uniforms showing yellow for engineering and grey for security, the third figure wore a bright blue uniform signifying that they were officer class.
With nothing left to say the pair looked out the viewport. The space outside may have been cold, but it was far from empty.
The battle between their fleet and the humans still raged all around them. Energy lances shot out back and forth tearing great chasms in metal hulls while the trails of missiles decorated the space between the two war fleets like the strokes of a painters brush. Zengul watched the engagement quietly when a rather dark notion slowly started creeping into his mind.
“I only count fifteen ships.”
“What?” Muck asked. Zengul pointed to their fleet.
“I only count fifteen ships.” He repeated.
“A good fighting number.” Muck replied, unsure of where his fellow crewman was going with this statement.
Zengul shook his head. “When we started fighting we had twenty seven.”
Hearing this, the security officer looked back at their fleet and silently counted the remaining ships to himself. He did this several times before he too shared the dark thoughts now manifesting.
“Stow your belly aching.” The officer cut in as they pushed Zengul and Muck away from the window. “Our ships will still carry the day and pick us up as soon as the last human ship is a burning husk.”
“They’re turning around.” Zengul spoke up. He pointed at a line of their battleships, several on fire and visibly leaking atmosphere, turning around and beginning to depart the battlefield.
“No.” the officer stammered as more and more of their ships began fleeing the battlefield. “NO!!!!!!”
As the officer smashed his hands against the window in dismay a large shadow passed overhead. The trio retreated away from the window in surprise as the entire escape pod began to shake and rattle as whatever it was had enough mass to have a small gravity field.
Zengul leaned forward and looked up to see the underside of a human warship passing over them in hot pursuit of their retreating fleet. The glare from their engines made him squint in pain as it flared and several plasma lances shot out into the distance. Looking to either side Zengul could see several dozen more human ships all arrayed in a line formation pressing their advantage and firing on the exposed rears of their enemy.
“Stand and fight damn your eyes!” the officer shouted as he worked up enough of a spine to return to the window and push Zengul out of the way. “Do your duty!”
As if in reply to his outcry one of their warships exploded in a violent fireball as its shields collapsed and a plasma lance tore through the engines. Zengul wagered that they had been spinning up their jump engines and the strike from the plasma had destabilized the jump drive setting off a cataclysmic event.
One by one their battleships activated their jump drives and fled the system in bright flashes of light until finally only the human ships remained to sift through what had once been a great navy.
The officer slumped to the floor while Zengul and Muck looked watched the human warships slowly begin turning around and make their way back to the debris field.
“Do you think we can get the micro jets working?” Muck asked. Zengul laughed beside himself and shook his head. “Do you really think an escape pod can outrun a warship?”
Muck opened his mouth but said nothing as he realized the futility of their situation.
“All we can do now is make peace with ourselves and hope our ancestors are ready to receive us.”
The trio sat in silence as the warships drew ever closer until once more the shadow crossed over them. Zengul could not help but feel though that this time it was the shadow of death itself. He closed his eyes waiting for the plasma lances to destroy them.
Seconds passed, then minutes; and yet still nothing came.
Instead of a fiery death Zengul felt the entire escape pod jolt to the side and begin moving.
“What’s happening?”
Looking out the window the crew members saw that the escape pod was now surrounded by a thick green light. While this was concerning, Zengul was more concerned with the fact that they were being pulled through the debris field towards the closest human ship.
“Why aren’t they destroying us?”
“Because they’re savages!” the officer shouted.
They stood back up and began searching the escape pod for something. “They’re going to bring us onboard and kill us in close quarters combat, but we shall fight them until the very end!”
Zengul turned and watched the officer as they ripped a piece of metal off the walls and began swinging it like club. “Do you know how stupid that sounds? Why would they want to do it in person when they can just use their guns?”
“What part of “savages” did you not understand!?!” the officer retorted. “They’ll want to run us through and string us up like wild animals.”
Muck and Zengul exchanged a glance that doubted this notion, but it didn’t matter as the escape pod was finally pulled within the human ship. Looking out the window it appeared to be some sort of large hangar bay. On the far side of the bay Zengul could see rows of fighter craft stowed and ready for use while a growing crowd of humans started to assemble.
“So that’s what they look like.” Muck said as if confirming something. “I always thought they would have been taller.”
While the group was distracted with looking out the window the sudden and loud clanging from the door to the escape pod almost went unnoticed. Zengul turned around at the sound and saw a pair of humans standing outside the pod with plasma rifles trained on them.
Slowly raising his hands to show he wasn’t a threat, Muck and the officer turned around at the confusing gesture and finally noticed the humans themselves.
“By order of the terran military, you all are hereby ordered to surrender.” The lead human said.
“So you’re not going to kill us?” Muck asked hesitantly.
The humans looked between each other confused by the question then back at the group of aliens. “If you surrender you will be treated well as prisoners of war.”
“Lies!” the officer shouted. They brought their makeshift weapon up and both humans shifted their aim to cover him. “We are your sworn enemies! We know you’ll just kill us the first chance you get.”
“Why did you save us anyway?” Zengul asked the humans as they kept their weapons trained on the officer. “You could have just left us out there to die.”
“It goes against the creed.” One of the humans answered.
“The creed?”
The human nodded. “The Spacer’s Creed.”
As if quoting a line of text the human continued “Friend or foe it matters not; left in space to die they shall not.”
“Though if your friend doesn’t put down his weapon we’ll put him down for good.” The other officer spoke up as their trigger finger was centimeters from the trigger.
“Oh him you should kill.” Muck replied dryly, much to the officer’s surprise. Zengul nodded in agreement. “He was just telling us how he wanted to fight you all to the death before surrendering.”
The officer’s eyes went wide in disbelief at the sudden betrayal. It was a moment he did not have long to ponder on as the human weapons opened fire and tore fist sized chunks out of the officer’s body before collapsing to the ground with a wet thud.
“So,” Zengul said as he slowly rose to his feet, “do we need to sign something or will you just take us as prisoners now?”
119 notes · View notes