#and shad but we're not there yet

[shadowknightapologist]

gene saying“you have kids? i would love to have kids” was SOOO FUCKED UP (positive) especially in the context of your hc

YES ANON YOU UNDERSTAND. i am not going to lie to you guys i love evil and fucked up characters (the crowd is shocked /silly) and yeah, s3 is kind of a joke with the frankly horrible writing, but i liked gene being some sort of threat after two seasons of doing literally fuck-all (i don't honestly remember him being present in s2 AT ALL which is tragic and i think bro was just causing random chaos in s1 but maybe i'm misremembering).

i also really love to think abt dimitri and nekoette looking a lot like gene so the man is like. tweaking. this awful feeling, this abhorrent need for family that hasn't left him since he was young, could be satiated right there, right then, and so easily.

all he'd have to do is cut himself loose.

[xwinterwidowx]

i actually cried writing this so uh good luck-inspired by the repost from yesterday!!

tw: mentions of dying

Shadow and Sonic were standing in front of a balcony, looking out at the city in comfortable silence, when Shadow noticed something. A little gray quill in the middle of Sonic's.

"Hey," he said, reaching for it. "What's this?" he held it out and Sonic turned his head.

"Oh? I guess I'm getting older," Sonic snorts. Shadow's ears drooped slightly when he was hit with that reminder.

Sonic wasn't going to live forever. He was going to die someday. And Shadow would be all alone. Again. Sonic noticed how his ears drooped and his face softened. He put his paws on either side of Shadow's face.

"Hey... don't be like that, Shads. S'just a gray quill. I'm not that old yet," he tries to joke but Shadow's ears droop even more. "Hey, look at me." Shadow coaxes his face up.

"I don't want you to leave me," Shadow mumbles. He doesn't care about being needy or pathetic. He can't be alone again.

"I'm not gonna leave you, Shads. Not soon. It'll take you way longer to get rid of me."

"But someday you're..."

"Someday. It's not today, or tomorrow, or next week. We still have years together. And I'll stay by your side for all of them. I'm not leaving you, Shads." Shadow hugs him tightly and lets a small tear fall down his face. Sonic feels it instantly and looks up. "Oh, Shadow..." Sonic hugs him tighter, letting him feel that he was still there.

"You're going to be gone someday. And I'll have to live without you."

"Good things end, Shads."

"I don't want them to."

"Just close your eyes and pretend that we're young again. It feels the same when you close your eyes."

"What if I close my eyes and you're gone?" Shadow asks, hyperventilating.

"I won't be. Trust me. You can do that for me, can't you?" Shadow nods and closes his eyes.

"Are you still there?" he mumbles.

"Yep. I'm right here. I'll always be right here. You just have to look," Sonic mumbles softly, smoothing Shadow's quills back.

[saiscribbles]

Art React Stream 2pm EST

And also yes I am doing a react on my art stream today! Not Lily, not yet, but our old buddy Shad "My Wife's Face" Brooks made a short movie, and then an hour long commentary on said short movie.

So we'll be snickering at that while I work on a thumbnail for @agramuglia

[amarmeme]

Talking about drafts that'll likely never be finished in the galeheart server, and here's a little bit that I still like but probably won't turn into anything more.

An ungrateful cleric WIP

What was she to do? The more Shadowheart learned of their situation, and the people at her side, the less certain she’d become of her mission and the need for isolation. Why, only a day before, Tav had handed over an idol of Shar, and didn't shame Shadowheart to take it. She wasn't used to acceptance. Then they'd arrived here, in the shadow-cursed lands and the rightness in her belly raged as bright as her holy light through the shadow-cursed Harper Yonas.  It was as if Lady Shar had placed her here, delivered in the cup of her beautificent hand. But, if this gesture had a catch, it was the loneliness of her Lady’s blessing. No one in their ragabond party had shown any interest in Shadowheart's fortune, especially not when Tav cried out from lingering too far from her light, nor when the Harpers split off to mourn their lost colleague.  Shadowheart knew her future; she understood becoming a dark justiciar meant following a path of solitude, but still, it was as if she'd cast silence over the party and stood at the outside of the spell just yearning to be in.   So with this conflict in her mind, Shadowheart followed Tav up the stairs of the inn, watching the sway of Gale’s hips and the jaunty step of joy in Karlach’s stride. Both Gale and Karlach bore their recent bad news better than she carried her signs of portent.  Gale had been told, in no uncertain terms, to kill himself, and yet he had found enough enthusiasm after their battle with the shadowy creatures to proclaim his renewed… vigor. Shadowheart blushed to recall it, the way his eyes gleamed in the golden light of her spirit guardians, his chest heaving with recent exertion. He’d stumbled inelegantly through a way to connect his intellectual pursuits to more passionate ones, but there was no doubt the intention in his words.  I might die, but at least I can fuck again.  It was absolutely absurd, but her throat had grown terribly parched at the idea. Which was just another indication of her failure. He'd been looking at Tav anyway, which was well and good since Lady Shar’s punishment would be great indeed for bedding one of Mystra's chosen, even a disgraced one.  Thoughts wandering in dangerous places, Shadowheart ran headlong into Karlach's backside as the tiefling stopped at the threshold of the upper quarters.  “Awe, Shad,” Karlach joked, “if you wanted a hug, all you had to do is ask.”  And maybe concern was still etched across her brow, because Karlach frowned and murmured a come here, and Shadowheart did accept a warm, but not scalding, embrace from the woman.  It felt too good by far. Warmth spread bodily, and not from Karlach's infernal engine but from the part of her own heart she'd been trying desperately to ignore. Pain struck her hand near-instantly. The warmth became ice shot through her veins, her head throbbing with pressure. The pain nearly eclipsed all other sensations and Shadowheart pulled back instinctively, but with great willpower she fixed a smile to keep Karlach from realizing her struggle. The hug was kindly done. When the bite of her Lady’s ire faded, Shadowheart locked eyes with Gale entirely by accident, and looked away just as fast. Her imagination ran ahead of her, but Shadowheart thought she saw something sorrowful in his gaze. Tav broke the tension with a laugh and a jest, which was just their way. Even Lae’zel wasn’t immune to the warlock's charms.  “If we're still doing hugs, bring one over here for good measure,” Tav said to Karlach. They launched themselves at the red tiefling with abandon, and quite like a fairy tale, she caught them in her outstretched arms while barking out a surprised laugh. 

[lucindaspartnerrealandtrue]

okokok i NEED to know abt ur oc!!! im lowkey already obsessed w her whoops

We can be obsseseded with her togehter <3

I ended up properly RANTING, so I'll put it all under the cut so people won't have to scroll down a bunch of paragraphs about someone's random oc's lore

Mermaid lore

Me and a friend of mine decided that there are two types of mermaids in their universe, ignoring that there are other types of fish people. Ones that live in big lakes, these ones being bigger due to most lakes kinda being somewhat enchanted and for simplicity this is what we call sirens(even if they're basically kinda the same thing, but also sirens i don't think are even half fish but shh), and ones that live in seas/oceans, these being slightly smaller and we're just gonna refer to them as mermaids. Why's that? Good question! Fantasy reasoning I suppose, but to give an even more exact reasoning, i'd say that all waters are enchanted due to a reason or two but lakes don't have as much movement and in the ones that sirens are mostly found, the water also has a hard time reaching the sea so the magic gets to concentrate more? Anyway, even if they're cousin species, they do not fancy each other. Sirens need a big quantity of food as they're bigger(thinking something 7ft), while mermaids are smaller. Both species are somewhat hostile towards anything that comes from the surface.

Backstory

Manya was born in a group of sirens originally, residing in a lake, but she got lost when she was still very small and ended up in the sea(The Gal'ruk Sea, to be more specific). Now, she gets adopted by another shoal of mers that think she's one of their own, but as she grows up, they start realising that she's different, and by different I mean that she's a siren. So she ends up exiled from the only home she ever knew, as a teenager basically. That, of course leaves her bitter. She was kicked out even though she did nothing. Just because she's different. No one wants her around, and no other group would accept her. The thought of trying and find her way back to a lake does cross her mind, but, even if she does, then what? Will she really be truly accepted? So she doesn't do anything. Basically just decides that she'll remain on her own. Regardless, as any respectable mermaid, she spends her time by tricking sailors to their death. Easy lunch. (Not that food helps too much).

'Present' times

Now, she'd be appearing in season 3. Picking up from where it last left us, Aphmau, Lucinda and Lo are in the The Gal'ruk Region, and the girls went to search through Enki's library(if i remember correctly). Well, at this point I decided that SOMEONE from the main cast is coming for them to warn them about some big danger(probably Shad, or the Shadow Knights in general, i do not have this part entirely decided). And that someone i decided would be Katelyn(and Travis). Manya ends up stalking this exact boat, awaiting a new meal. She takes Aphmau's form. And now, well, I have a very specific imagine in my head; Katelyn leaning over the boat's fence, probably slightly sea sick, a rock gets thrown towards her, and she looks downwards and just sees this...head peaking out of the water, familiar orange eyes looking at her. Black hair framing them. And she's just like '????'. Manya gets out of the water, they talk. Things feel off but for SOME reason Kate can't put her finger on what exactly it is(she's in a trance that's why). 'Aphmau' gets on board(on suspiciously shaky legs)...Kate does realise that this Aphmau...doesn't have her markings/tattoos. She's starting to think it's just a weird dream. But before things can get worse, Travis interrupts.

From this point onwards, I do not have any SPECIFIC ideas for her YET except concepts...I know they take her with them and for a while she resides in a huge aquarium on the Phoenix Alliance island(she does not appreciate that, for multiple reasons). And she keeps stealing people's forms to mess with them. She does befriend them. Eventually. She becomes friends with Vylad first tho, somehow(they eat together in comfortable silence)...I have some imagines in my head of her and Zoey ahem.. And she does get freed later in the season after all the disaster happening around them starts getting easier to handle. But she hangs around because she will finally find her crowd. She's not that important to the lore as much as she is a plot B, but she does help with coordination. After they start getting on her good side.

Anyway, this is the story summarised as much as I could! Thank you for actually going through my rambling if you read this and I tried to keep it as organised as I could ^^

[gonedreaminggg]

Alright.

Council, we've got some work to do.

@laurencezvahlslefteyebrow @xerith-42 @cinnamontoastcroonch

I've been thinking about all of our shadow knights headcanons, and how they make sense in the grand scheme of things. Because right now, we are a bit disorganized.

We've taken bits and pieces from canon and fanon and smushed into this little autism creature. But if we want our headcanons to work, they have to work cohesively.

We're starting from the beginning, folks.

This whole shitstorm started with the doll headcanon. The mighty titan that got us to where we are now. We tossed around a lot of ideas, but I'll sum it up.

It all began with that fateful anon ask...

Mutually, I think we've decided that the doll headcanon can be boiled down to a symptom of the Shadow Knight transformation. No matter what kind of SK you are, you show symptoms. It's worse in premature SKs, and SKs who are farther from or trying to rebel against Shad. Seeing as the symptoms are part of the Spirit Magicks used on SKs, it makes sense that their condition also depends on distance. The symptoms also depend on Shad's power. While he doesn't have his physical form, his control over the SKs is more widespread, but not as strong. Once he has a physical form, his power is condensed, yet multiplied. Those closest to Shad have no control over themselves, but those farther are as free as ever.

The general doll symptoms are...

an uncanny valley appearance

episodes of paralysis, whether in certain limbs or the whole body

physical marks, in the form of whatever doll the SK most resembles (Gene with porcelain cracks, Zenix with strings on his wrists)

jerking, seizure-y episodes (either mentally present or not)

symptoms get worse the longer they resist. if they resist for too long, they succumb to complete paralysis, even if they're still sentient. since this only happens to premature SKs, they will still die eventually.

the progression of the symptoms stops when the SK completes their transformation.

This is where we sort of floated into the next idea.

What happens when Shad dies?

Since we decided that Shad's control over the shadow knights is an immensely powerful form of Spirit Magicks, we have to know what happens when he's gone.

Many ideas were tossed around for this one. Mostly because some of us want to save our favorite characters, and others will succumb to the whump.

What we (for the most part) decided on was that full SKs pass on into the next life, rid of the burden that's plagued them for centuries. One last gift from Shad for answering the calling. And premature shadow knights are done for. They succumb to their symptoms entirely, imprisoned in a body that they can't move, with a mind going 100 miles an hour.

With Aphmau's determined nature, and the extremely powerful friends she's made on her journey, she'd find a way to get them back. Specifically, Laurance and Vylad. However, they're husks of their former selves. They're not shadow knights anymore, but they certainly aren't human. They have episodes akin to what they've experienced from the doll symptoms. Staring off into space, pure catatonia and dissociation. These episodes can last from seconds to days. And they have no recollection of what's happened in between.

Basically, they lost the parts that Shad took from them. Then, they were replaced with Shad's Spirit Magicks. And finally, it was all stripped away one last time, turning them into these subhuman husks.

This was all wrapped up neatly, with a bow on top to seal the deal. You can see where things connect and how the two ideas relate. There's a clear stream of thought.

And then, we get into Xavier.

Oh my, Xavier...

You guys have completely sold me on Xavier being the first shadow knight. Like, this is canon, no one can say otherwise. I am putting my foot down.

However, we know he founded the Jury of Nine. But when did this happen? Before or after his transformation? And also, what type of SK is he? He couldn't be a full SK, because Irene would be the one he'd have to kill. Theoretically, Xavier gets killed and Shad resurrects him to experiment with minions and whatnot. So, he's probably the most rudimentary SK you could get. So, does the calling even exist yet? Because it doesn't have to.

This is the timeline I've come up with.

Xavier dies, either protecting Irene or fighting against her. Shad, who's already been banished to the nether, has a spiritual connection to Xavier. So he's able to resurrect him, even if he died in the overworld. Shad experiments with his Spirit Magicks, killing and resurrecting Xavier until he has the perfect monster.

But in this time, he gets so used to having Xavier around. And Xavier's so used to being in the nether, like there was nothing before it. Plus, with the constant resurrections, his mind is pretty scrambled.

Eventually, he gains a part of himself back. He remembers what's out there waiting for him. And he prays and prays to Irene to bring him back. And she answers.

He lives in the overworld for a while, already having the immortality of a full SK. His friends pass on, Irene hides away in her dimension. And Xavier finds purpose in the Jury of Nine. But he'll always be a failed shadow knight. At some point, something does him in and the world goes on without him.

We've also agreed that Laurance is Xavier's descendant. And sometimes, their memories bleed together. During Laurance's imprisonment in the nether, he has flashes of Xavier's long talks with Shad. Or fighting with Aphmau, he remembers arguments that they've never had, but Xavier sure did.

And this. This is the turning point.

This is where we get into the blue flames. And the rebellion.

Xavier was the first to rebel. I mean, there really was nothing holding him back. His blue flames come from his spirit, because he's still holding on to what's left. He uses his spirit to push through, and create the Jury of Nine, and help those in need. And also, give Shad a big fuck you.

Then, after Xavier's big show of rebellion, Shad invokes the calling. He inflicts every shadow knight with this, to give them incentive to stay. Because he gave them too much autonomy.

The blue flames become even more noble after this. Because it's a display of spirit, and strong will. And as time goes on... a display of anger.

As a shadow knight; to have control, you need to supress your emotions. Almost completely. This is what Vylad has been able to do. But in the process, he's bottled it all up. Then, the blue flames started to show.

Blue-flamed soldiers run hot, even hotter than regular shadow knights. When their rage is almost bubbling over, they would probably burn you if you touched them. We see Vylad and Laurance on the beach a lot, near the water. If they jump in to cool down, the water would start to boil.

Over time, the blue flames have become a symbol of rebellion. Something that shows you've overcome Shad's control. And then, the actual rebellion forms. With Laurance and Zenix leading the charge. Zenix, already branded with the blue flame, calls the rebellion Api Biru (blue lava). Informally, they're known as The Blue Flame.

Now, how do all of these things connect?

Shad's life energy.

Every shadow knight is endowed with part of Shad. It's the only way he knows how to gain control of the SKs. And all of our headcanons depend on how much control Shad has over someone.

The doll symptoms are worse when Shad has less control.

He'll let you pass on into the next life if you were loyal to him.

He didn't have enough control over Xavier, so he created the calling.

The blue flames being a symbol of rebellion against Shad's control.

IT'S. ALL. FUCKING. CONNECTED.

[agent-stone]

shads is u gay for sonic?

What kind of question is this?

We're not even friends. What I've learned from Stone is that being gay for someone happens for a long time, and it hasn't happened yet.

-- Shadow

[blackjackkent]

OK, so turned out we weren't as far from progressing further into the city as we thought. I seem to have explored all the available shops in the Wyrm's Crossing area, which means we're currently roadblocked by these lovely people at the far end:

Hector has already reached the point where seeing the Flaming Fist puts an immediate damper on his day.

This, it turns out, is the gate leading into Wyrm's Rock fortress. (I was a little worried this might be taking us down a point of no return path, but I checked and we don't get to the Lower City without getting past the fortress first.) The guards here at the bridge are preventing the riff-raff from getting past because this is where Gortash's ordination as Archduke is supposed to be happening.

Luckily, Hector has an invitation to the ordination, which he stole off the ceremorphosized Flaming Fist in Sharess's Caress.

The guard was somewhat surprised:

"I'll be. You don't look the posh sort."

I have to imagine all three companions with him laugh a little bit at this because Hector is so incredibly out of place in this city at literally all times that the guard's comment is something of an understatement.

However, the invitation is judged sufficient, the bridge comes down, and in we go into Wyrm's Rock...

...and are immediately accosted by yet another Steel Watcher.

"Halt. We do not know how you gained entry, but your trespass shall not be punished. Lord Gortash has been expecting you."

Hm. In retrospect, Hector thinks, they really should have tried to be more subtle about this, given that it has already been made clear that all the Steel Watchers can recognize them on sight. On the other hand, though, what other option did they have? He's a terrible liar and a worse sneak, and there was no other obvious path forward anyway.

And on some level, the only plan they have is "Find Gortash and kill him," and perhaps there is no better way to do that than simply showing their faces and waiting for Gortash to show his.

So he doesn't flinch from this greeting, but stands perfectly still and steady, watching the metallic creature and waiting for the next step.

It comes almost at once. The Watcher's body suddenly twists, spasms, jerks away from him and then back with a squealing screech of metal on metal.

Narrator: The Watcher's presence fades, but another takes its place. Confident. Dominant. Commanding.

"My most esteemed guest. We meet at least." The voice is familiar. Hector remembers it from those terrible hours in the base of Moonrise. "I am Lord Enver Gortash. You are the Prism-bearer, slayer of the dread General Ketheric Thorm. I welcome you to Baldur's Gate. My city."

No pretense, then. No point in pretending he is anyone other than who he is - which suits him just fine. Better that way. There is relief, he is finding, in the occasional moments where there is only one way forward.

"A pleasure to meet you," he says. In spite of the immediate flash of fear at being spotted, his voice is calm, deliberately controlled. "Could we talk face to face?"

"Of course, of course!" Gortash's voice, filtered mechanically through the Watcher's mouth, is disconcertingly jovial. He sounds as conversational as if Hector had asked for a moment of his time at a social gathering - which, he supposes, in a way he has. "My Steel Watchers are rather adept at keeping the peace, but not entirely suitable for polite conversation. Allow me to formally invite you to my inauguration! Make your way to the ceremonial hall."

The Watcher turns and stalks away, and Hector huffs out a heavy breath, rattling his lips. "A personal invitation from Gortash. We shouldn't have any more trouble from the guards."

------

"I don't like this, Hec," Karlach mutters. "He's making this too easy. There's a trap, or a trick, or... something coming down at us."

"Oh, I'm sure of it," Hector says grimly. "I'm open to another more nuanced suggestion if anyone has one."

"I would have encouraged keeping to the dark corners of the place," Shadowheart says. "But those Watchers do seem to live up to their name, don't they? I'm not sure there was a shadow we could have hidden in to get this far."

"It makes no difference now," Jaheira puts in sharply. "We are here, and so is he, and there the matter rests. We will keep our eyes open and meet the threats as they come - as we always do."

Hector smiles slightly. "Wisely spoken," he murmurs.

[legacyoftheogres]

7. The Needle

[Written by my DM, the first time Thalanthe and Izura met, 6 years prior to current date]

It was always so warm down here in the bowels. Warm and dark. She was not comforted by the troupe of maned shock troopers at her side either -- far from it. They laughed and joked loudly as they marched, armor clattering like spilled plates. Perhaps it was alright, to be expected. It was rare to have a guest and they went out of their way to invite her to the various gatherings in the city of Durong.

What a city it was. Far from the coziness she had grown to know in Kuotay, Durong was a loud city. Blaring lights, screaming vendors and drunks and children in the street falling over each other and the crying children above the old lantern shop next door to the den she was staying in. The Segmentary where she stayed back home was far more collected.

Yet there was an allure to this city. The colored lanterns hung above the streets well into the night. Buzzbear honey available into the morn. Painted alleys inviting the eye and the mind and even the spirit. Durong was alive. The Legion of Wounded Leopards welcomed her and her familiarity on this subject. Familiarity at least, with the scattered shreds of Elysium and the secrets within them.

The Needle was unlike the broken crenellations and odd flora that the expeditions returned to her Segment. Those were sometimes almost whimsical, although often marred by some infernal alteration, a twist or skew or untrait that was dissected and recorded in the analects.

This was different. Hands on. The Needle was a complete mystery in the discussions of the Centipede. A broken blade fallen from the stars over five decades ago, piercing through the aging castle-shrine that had long overlooked the river. The rumors about the jet black spike circulated endlessly, calling it a pin in the cosmic thread or pressure-release valve replugged. It was never clear, and the scrollkeepers were tight lipped. In person would be different.

***

The shadow black glass chandelier crashed to the floor with deafening scream as vents began to belch white steam. Some swords were drawn, others drawing rags to block mouths and shelter lungs. The room that had suddenly come alive was a trap for them, a snare sprung and gaping gas and... nothing happened.

"Anyone feel anything different?" Abavantres barked and time was unfrozen. The pridesmen drew blades and dashed to paired up to cover entrances. Thalanthe dropped into formation around the banner captain of the pride and surveyed the room. Wire and adamantine barding harnessed over oddly bubbling walls, a demonstrably horrifying chamber that had the whole troupe on edge. Vaulted ceilings full of stale air that choked cloying and muffled footsteps.

As the seconds turned to a minute, unease began to set in. Thalanthe was the first to notice it. The way out had been sealed. Only a few rooms of the emergent architecture could be explored in a single day's work for fear that this would occur. The rear watch would already be en route to dispatch a search party.

"We're sealed in!" She informed the others. Claustrophobia was immediate. Arguing. Curses and thrown blame. Abavantres hissed. Silence again. She led them all creeping, back to that room. The mass grave. There could be no other name for this place.

The smell of rot was an assault. Mulched corpse soil in an urn that had broken and spilled before them. Silver liquor leaking from gouts across the buried towers and causeways that somehow existed in this place and pooling in great silts iridescent with the shine of a light that only they could see, an unlight reflection of the eyes that gave the whole room a shimmer that startled, lunging out from the periphery of vision.

"Search the room." Abavantres was flat, her eyes closed to rely only on sound and her third eye sensibility. They had been selected for their ability to navigate the pitch black environment and she was no different. Thalanthe was moving as a shadow now, ready to pounce at a moment's notice, coiled in communion with her growling allies.

"Hold on, this one's alive." It was Fisher. His eyes were wide and he covered his mouth, blade brandished in a prayer. Thalanthe made to approach but the captain stopped her.

"Careful honored guest, you should keep your distance. This one is like you, or perhaps not. They are from behind the stars." Her eyes widened.

"Extra careful now! This room is stricken with it. Phage." Thalanthe had to stop herself from gasping in the air certain to be laden with Elfplague. She bit into the rag, a gift from Abavantres, dipped in the water of a divine spring to ward off the ossifiying spores, willing herself to stay strong and not succumb to the call of daemon madness

Across the room she saw him lifted for the first time, the live one, held by the ruster with no fear.

[hellsitesonlybookclub]

It Can't Happen Here, Sinclair Lewis

Chapter 23-24

CHAPTER XXIII

DOREMUS was nervous. The Minute Men had come, not with Shad but with Emil and a strange battalion-leader from Hanover, to examine the private letters in his study. They were polite enough, but alarmingly thorough. Then he knew, from the disorder in his desk at the Informer, that someone had gone over his papers there. Emil avoided him at the office. Doremus was called to Shad's office and gruffly questioned about correspondence which some denouncer had reported his having with the agents of Walt Trowbridge.

So Doremus was nervous. So Doremus was certain that his time for going to concentration camp was coming. He glanced back at every stranger who seemed to be following him on the street. The fruitman, Tony Mogliani, flowery advocate of Windrip, of Mussolini, and of tobacco quid as a cure for cuts and burns, asked him too many questions about his plans for the time when he should "get through on the paper"; and once a tramp tried to quiz Mrs. Candy, meantime peering at the pantry shelves, perhaps to see if there was any sign of their being understocked, as if for closing the house and fleeing.... But perhaps the tramp really was a tramp.

In the office, in mid-afternoon, Doremus had a telephone call from that scholar-farmer, Buck Titus:

"Going to be home this evening, about nine? Good! Got to see you. Important! Say, see if you can have all your family and Linda Pike and young Falck there, too, will you? Got an idea. Important!"

As important ideas, just now, usually concerned being imprisoned, Doremus and his women waited jumpily. Lorinda came in twittering, for the sight of Emma always did make her twitter a little, and in Lorinda there was no relief. Julian came in shyly, and there was no relief in Julian. Mrs. Candy brought in unsolicited tea with a dash of rum, and in her was some relief, but it was all a dullness of fidgety waiting till Buck slammed in, ten minutes late and very snowy.

"Sorkeepwaiting but I've been telephoning. Here's some news you won't have even in the office yet, Dormouse. The forest fire's getting nearer. This afternoon they arrested the editor of the Rutland Herald—no charge laid against him yet—no publicity—I got it from a commission merchant I deal with in Rutland. You're next, Doremus. I reckon they've just been laying off you till Staubmeyer picked your brains. Or maybe Ledue has some nice idea about torturing you by keeping you waiting. Anyway, you've got to get out. And tomorrow! To Canada! To stay! By automobile. No can do by plane any more—Canadian government's stopped that. You and Emma and Mary and Dave and Sis and the whole damn shooting-match— and maybe Foolish and Mrs. Candy and the canary!"

"Couldn't possibly! Take me weeks to realize on what investments I've got. Guess I could raise twenty thousand, but it'd take weeks."

"Sign 'em over to me, if you trust me—and you better! I can cash in everything better than you can—stand in with the Corpos better— been selling 'em horses and they think I'm the kind of loud-mouthed walking gent that will join 'em! I've got fifteen hundred Canadian dollars for you right here in my pocket, for a starter."

"We'd never get across the border. The M.M.'s are watching every inch, just looking for suspects like me."

"I've got a Canadian driver's license, and Canadian registration plates ready to put on my car—we'll take mine—less suspicious. I can look like a real farmer—that's because I am one, I guess—I'm going to drive you all, by the way. I got the plates smuggled in underneath the bottles in a case of ale! So we're all set, and we'll start tomorrow night, if the weather isn't too clear—hope there'll be snow."

"But Buck! Good Lord! I'm not going to flee. I'm not guilty of anything. I haven't anything to flee for!"

"Just your life, my boy, just your life!"

"I'm not afraid of 'em."

"Oh yes you are!"

"Oh—well—if you look at it that way, probably I am! But I'm not going to let a bunch of lunatics and gunmen drive me out of the country that I and my ancestors made!"

Emma choked with the effort to think of something convincing; Mary seemed without tears to be weeping; Sissy squeaked; Julian and Lorinda started to speak and interrupted each other; and it was the uninvited Mrs. Candy who, from the doorway, led off: "Now isn't that like a man! Stubborn as mules. All of 'em. Every one. And show-offs, the whole lot of 'em. Course you just wouldn't stop and think how your womenfolks will feel if you get took off and shot! You just stand in front of the locomotive and claim that because you were on the section gang that built the track, you got more right there than the engine has, and then when it's gone over you and gone away, you expect us all to think what a hero you were! Well, maybe some call it being a hero, but—"

"Well, confound it all, all of you picking on me and trying to get me all mixed up and not carry out my duty to the State as I see it—"

"You're over sixty, Doremus. Maybe a lot of us can do our duty better now from Canada than we can here—like Walt Trowbridge," besought Lorinda. Emma looked at her friend Lorinda with no particular affection.

"But to let the Corpos steal the country and nobody protest! No!"

"That's the kind of argument that sent a few million out to die, to make the world safe for democracy and a cinch for Fascism!" scoffed Buck.

"Dad! Come with us. Because we can't go without you. And I'm getting scared here." Sissy sounded scared, too; Sissy the unconquerable. "This afternoon Shad stopped me on the street and wanted me to go out with him. He tickled my chin, the little darling! But honestly, the way he smirked, as if he was so sure of me—I got scared!"

"I'll get a shotgun and—" "Why, I'll kill the dirty—" "Wait'll I get my hands on—" cried Doremus, Julian, and Buck, all together, and glared at one another, then looked sheepish as Foolish barked at the racket, and Mrs. Candy, leaning like a frozen codfish against the door jamb, snorted, "Some more locomotive-batters!"

Doremus laughed. For one only time in his life he showed genius, for he consented: "All right. We'll go. But just imagine that I'm a man of strong will power and I'm taking all night to be convinced. We'll start tomorrow night." What he did not say was that he planned, the moment he had his family safe in Canada, with money in the bank and perhaps a job to amuse Sissy, to run away from them and come back to his proper fight. He would at least kill Shad before he got killed himself.

It was only a week before Christmas, a holiday always greeted with good cheer and quantities of colored ribbons in the Jessup household; and that wild day of preparing for flight had a queer Christmas joyfulness. To dodge suspicion, Doremus spent most of the time at the office, and a hundred times it seemed that Staubmeyer was glancing at him with just the ruler-threatening hidden ire he had used on whisperers and like young criminals in school. But he took off two hours at lunch time, and he went home early in the afternoon, and his long depression was gone in the prospect of Canada and freedom, in an excited inspection of clothes that was like preparation for a fishing trip. They worked upstairs, behind drawn blinds, feeling like spies in an E. Phillips Oppenheim story, beleagured in the dark and stone-floored ducal bedroom of an ancient inn just beyond Grasse. Downstairs, Mrs. Candy was pretentiously busy looking normal—after their flight, she and the canary were to remain and she was to be surprised when the M.M.'s reported that the Jessups seemed to have escaped.

Doremus had drawn five hundred from each of the local banks, late that afternoon, telling them that he was thinking of taking an option on an apple orchard. He was too well-trained a domestic animal to be raucously amused, but he could not help observing that while he himself was taking on the flight to Egypt only all the money he could get hold of, plus cigarettes, six handkerchiefs, two extra pairs of socks, a comb, a toothbrush, and the first volume of Spengler's Decline of the West—decidedly it was not his favorite book, but one he had been trying to make himself read for years, on train journeys—while, in fact, he took nothing that he could not stuff into his overcoat pockets, Sissy apparently had need of all her newest lingerie and of a large framed picture of Julian, Emma of a kodak album showing the three children from the ages of one to twenty, David of his new model aeroplane, and Mary of her still, dark hatred that was heavier to carry than many chests.

Julian and Lorinda were there to help them; Julian off in corners with Sissy.

With Lorinda, Doremus had but one free moment... in the old-fashioned guest-bathroom.

"Linda. Oh, Lord!"

"We'll come through! In Canada you'll have time to catch your breath. Join Trowbridge!"

"Yes, but to leave you—I'd hoped somehow, by some miracle, you and I could have maybe a month together, say in Monterey or Venice or the Yellowstone. I hate it when life doesn't seem to stick together and get somewhere and have some plan and meaning."

"It's had meaning! No dictator can completely smother us now! Come!"

"Good-bye, my Linda!"

Not even now did he alarm her by confessing that he planned to come back, into danger.

Embracing beside an aged tin-lined bathtub with woodwork painted a dreary brown, in a room which smelled slightly of gas from an old hot-water heater—embracing in sunset-colored mist upon a mountain top.

Darkness, edged wind, wickedly deliberate snow, and in it Buck Titus boisterously cheerful in his veteran Nash, looking as farmer-like as he could, in sealskin cap with rubbed bare patches and an atrocious dogskin overcoat. Doremus thought of him again as a Captain Charles King cavalryman chasing the Sioux across blizzard-blinded prairies.

They packed alarmingly into the car; Mary beside Buck, the driver; in the back, Doremus between Emma and Sissy; on the floor, David and Foolish and the toy aeroplane indistinguishably curled up together beneath a robe. Trunk rack and front fenders were heaped with tarpaulin-covered suitcases.

"Lord, I wish I were going!" moaned Julian. "Look! Sis! Grand spy-story idea! But I mean seriously: Send souvenir postcards to my granddad—views of churches and so on—just sign 'em 'Jane'—and whatever you say about the church, I'll know you really mean it about you and—Oh, damn all mystery! I want you, Sissy!"

Mrs. Candy whisked a bundle in among the already intolerable mess of baggage which promised to descend on Doremus's knees and David's head, and she snapped, "Well, if you folks must go flyin' around the country—It's a cocoanut layer cake." Savagely: "Soon's you get around the corner, throw the fool thing in the ditch if you want to!" She fled sobbing into the kitchen, where Lorinda stood in the lighted doorway, silent, her trembling hands out to them.

The car was already lurching in the snow before they had sneaked through Fort Beulah by shadowy back-streets and started streaking northward.

Sissy sang out cheerily, "Well, Christmas in Canada! Skittles and beer and lots of holly!"

"Oh, do they have Santa Claus in Canada?" came David's voice, wondering, childish, slightly muffled by lap robe and the furry ears of Foolish.

"Of course they do, dearie!" Emma reassured him and, to the grown-ups, "Now wasn't that the cutest thing!"

To Doremus, Sissy whispered, "Darn well ought to be cute. Took me ten minutes to teach him to say it, this afternoon! Hold my hand. I hope Buck knows how to drive!"

Buck Titus knew every back-road from Fort Beulah to the border, preferably in filthy weather, like tonight. Beyond Trianon he pulled the car up deep-rutted roads, on which you would have to back if you were to pass anyone. Up grades on which the car knocked and panted, into lonely hills, by a zigzag of roads, they jerked toward Canada. Wet snow sheathed the windshield, then froze, and Buck had to drive with his head thrust out through the open window, and the blast came in and circled round their stiff necks.

Doremus could see nothing save the back of Buck's twisted, taut neck, and the icy windshield, most of the time. Just now and then a light far below the level of the road indicated that they were sliding along a shelf road, and if they skidded off, they would keep going a hundred feet, two hundred feet, downward—probably turning over and over. Once they did skid, and while they panted in an eternity of four seconds, Buck yanked the car up a bank beside the road, down to the left again, and finally straight— speeding on as if nothing had happened, while Doremus felt feeble in the knees.

For a long while he kept going rigid with fear, but he sank into misery, too cold and deaf to feel anything except a slow desire to vomit as the car lurched. Probably he slept—at least, he awakened, and awakened to a sensation of pushing the car anxiously up hill, as she bucked and stuttered in the effort to make a slippery rise. Suppose the engine died—suppose the brakes would not hold and they slid back downhill, reeling, bursting off the road and down—A great many suppositions tortured him, hour by hour.

Then he tried being awake and bright and helpful. He noticed that the ice-lined windshield, illuminated from the light on the snow ahead, was a sheet of diamonds. He noticed it, but he couldn't get himself to think much of diamonds, even in sheets.

He tried conversation.

"Cheer up. Breakfast at dawn—across the border!" he tried on Sissy.

"Breakfast!" she said bitterly.

And they crunched on, in that moving coffin with only the sheet of diamonds and Buck's silhouette alive in all the world.

After unnumbered hours the car reared and tumbled and reared again. The motor raced; its sound rose to an intolerable roaring; yet the car seemed not to be moving. The motor stopped abruptly. Buck cursed, popped his head back into the car like a turtle, and the starter ground long and whiningly. The motor again roared, again stopped. They could hear stiff branches rattling, hear Foolish moaning in sleep. The car was a storm-menaced cabin in the wilderness. The silence seemed waiting, as they were waiting.

"Strouble?" said Doremus.

"Stuck. No traction. Hit a drift of wet snow—drainage from a busted culvert, I sh' think. Hell! Have to get out and take a look."

Outside the car, as Doremus crept down from the slippery running-board, it was cold in a vicious wind. He was so stiff he could scarcely stand.

As people do, feeling important and advisory, Doremus looked at the drift with an electric torch, and Sissy looked at the drift with the torch, and Buck impatiently took the torch away from them and looked twice.

"Get some—" and "Brush would help," said Sissy and Buck together, while Doremus rubbed his chilly ears.

They three trotted back and forth with fragments of brush, laying it in front of the wheels, while Mary politely asked from within, "Can I help?" and no one seemed particularly to have answered her.

The headlights picked out an abandoned shack beside the road; an unpainted gray pine cabin with broken window glass and no door. Emma, sighing her way out of the car and stepping through the lumpy snow as delicately as a pacer at a horse show, said humbly, "That little house there—maybe I could go in and make some hot coffee on the alcohol stove—didn't have room for a thermos. Hot coffee, Dormouse?"

To Doremus she sounded, just now, not at all like a wife, but as sensible as Mrs. Candy.

When the car did kick its way up on the pathway of twigs and stand panting safely beyond the drift, they had, in the sheltered shack, coffee with slabs of Mrs. Candy's voluptuous cocoanut cake. Doremus pondered, "This is a nice place. I like this place. It doesn't bounce or skid. I don't want to leave this place."

He did. The secure immobility of the shack was behind them, dark miles behind, and they were again pitching and rolling and being sick and inescapably chilly. David was alternately crying and going back to sleep. Foolish woke up to cough inquiringly and returned to his dream of rabbiting. And Doremus was sleeping, his head swaying like a masthead in long rollers, his shoulder against Emma's, his hand warm about Sissy's, and his soul in nameless bliss.

He roused to a half-dawn filmy with snow. The car was standing in what seemed to be a crossroads hamlet, and Buck was examining a map by the light of the electric torch.

"Got anywhere yet?" Doremus whispered.

"Just a few miles to the border."

"Anybody stopped us?"

"Nope. Oh, we'll make it, all right, o' man."

Out of East Berkshire, Buck took not the main road to the border but an old wood lane so little used that the ruts were twin snakes. Though Doremus said nothing, the others felt his intensity, his anxiety that was like listening for an enemy in the dark. David sat up, the blue motor robe about him. Foolish started, snorted, looked offended but, catching the spirit of the moment, comfortingly laid a paw on Doremus's knee and insisted on shaking hands, over and over, as gravely as a Venetian senator or an undertaker.

They dropped into the dimness of a tree-walled hollow. A searchlight darted, and rested hotly on them, so dazzling them that Buck almost ran off the road.

"Confound it," he said gently. No one else said anything.

He crawled up to the light, which was mounted on a platform in front of a small shelter hut. Two Minute Men stood out in the road, dripping with radiance from the car. They were young and rural, but they had efficient repeating rifles.

"Where you headed for?" demanded the elder, good-naturedly enough.

"Montreal, where we live." Buck showed his Canadian license.... Gasoline motor and electric light, yet Doremus saw the frontier guard as a sentry in 1864, studying a pass by lantern light, beside a farm wagon in which hid General Joe Johnston's spies disguised as plantation hands.

"I guess it's all right. Seems in order. But we've had some trouble with refugees. You'll have to wait till the Battalion-Leader comes—maybe 'long about noon."

"But good Lord, Inspector, we can't do that! My mother's awful sick, in Montreal."

"Yuh, I've heard that one before! And maybe it's true, this time. But afraid you'll have to wait for the Bat. You folks can come in and set by the fire, if you want to."

"But we've got to—"

"You heard what I said!" The M.M.'s were fingering their rifles.

"All right. But tell you what we'll do. We'll go back to East Berkshire and get some breakfast and a wash and come back here. Noon, you said?"

"Okay! And say, Brother, it does seem kind of funny, your taking this back road, when there's a first-rate highway. S' long. Be good.... Just don't try it again! The Bat might be here next time—and he ain't a farmer like you or me!"

The refugees, as they drove away, had an uncomfortable feeling that the guards were laughing at them.

Three border posts they tried, and at three posts they were turned back.

"Well?" said Buck.

"Yes. I guess so. Back home. My turn to drive," said Doremus wearily.

The humiliation of retreat was the worse in that none of the guards had troubled to do more than laugh at them. They were trapped too tightly for the trappers to worry. Doremus's only clear emotion as, tails between their legs, they back-tracked to Shad Ledue's sneer and to Mrs. Candy's "Well, I never!" was regret that he had not shot one guard, at least, and he raged:

"Now I know why men like John Brown became crazy killers!"

CHAPTER XXIV

HE could not decide whether Emil Staubmeyer, and through him Shad Ledue, knew that he had tried to escape. Did Staubmeyer really look more knowing, or did he just imagine it? What the deuce had Emil meant when he said, "I hear the roads aren't so good up north— not so good!" Whether they knew or not, it was grinding that he should have to shiver lest an illiterate roustabout like Shad Ledue find out that he desired to go to Canada, while a ruler-slapper like Staubmeyer, a Squeers with certificates in "pedagogy," should now be able to cuff grown men instead of urchins and should be editor of the Informer! Doremus's Informer! Staubmeyer! That human blackboard!

Daily Doremus found it more cramping, more instantly stirring to fury, to write anything mentioning Windrip. His private office— the cheerfully rattling linotype room—the shouting pressroom with its smell of ink that to him hitherto had been like the smell of grease paint to an actor—they were hateful now, and choking. Not even Lorinda's faith, not even Sissy's jibes and Buck's stories, could rouse him to hope.

He rejoiced the more, therefore, when his son Philip telephoned him from Worcester: "Be home Sunday? Merilla's in New York, gadding, and I'm all alone here. Thought I'd just drive up for the day and see how things are in your neck of the woods."

"Come on! Splendid! So long since we've seen you. I'll have your mother start a pot of beans right away!"

Doremus was happy. Not for some time did his cursed two-way-mindedness come to weaken his joy, as he wondered whether it wasn't just a myth held over from boyhood that Philip really cared so much for Emma's beans and brown bread; and wondered just why it was that Up-to-Date Americans like Philip always used the long-distance telephone rather than undergo the dreadful toil of dictating a letter a day or two earlier. It didn't really seem so efficient, the old-fashioned village editor reflected, to spend seventy-five cents on a telephone call in order to save five cents' worth of time.

"Oh hush! Anyway, I'll be delighted to see the boy! I'll bet there isn't a smarter young lawyer in Worcester. There's one member of the family that's a real success!"

He was a little shocked when Philip came, like a one-man procession, into the living room, late on Saturday afternoon. He had been forgetting how bald this upstanding young advocate was growing even at thirty-four. And it seemed to him that Philip was a little heavy and senatorial in speech and a bit too cordial.

"By Jove, Dad, you don't know how good it is to be back in the old digs. Mother and the girls upstairs? By Jove, sir, that was a horrible business, the killing of poor Fowler. Horrible! I was simply horrified. There must have been a mistake somewhere, because Judge Swan has a wonderful reputation for scrupulousness."

"There was no mistake. Swan is a fiend. Literally!" Doremus sounded less paternal than when he had first bounded up to shake hands with the beloved prodigal.

"Really? We must talk it over. I'll see if there can't be a stricter investigation. Swan? Really! We'll certainly go into the whole business. But first I must just skip upstairs and give Mammy a good smack, and Mary and Little Sis."

And that was the last time that Philip mentioned Effingham Swan or any "stricter investigation" of the acts thereof. All afternoon he was relentlessly filial and fraternal, and he smiled like an automobile salesman when Sissy griped at him, "What's the idea of all the tender hand-dusting, Philco?"

Doremus and he were not alone till nearly midnight.

They sat upstairs in the sacred study. Philip lighted one of Doremus's excellent cigars as though he were a cinema actor playing the role of a man lighting an excellent cigar, and breathed amiably:

"Well, sir, this is an excellent cigar! It certainly is excellent!"

"Why not?"

"Oh, I just mean—I was just appreciating it—"

"What is it, Phil? There's something on your mind. Shoot! Not rowing with Merilla, are you?"

"Certainly not! Most certainly not! Oh, I don't approve of everything Merry does—she's a little extravagant—but she's got a heart of gold, and let me tell you, Pater, there isn't a young society woman in Worcester that makes a nicer impression on everybody, especially at nice dinner parties."

"Well then? Let's have it, Phil. Something serious?"

"Ye-es, I'm afraid there is. Look, Dad.... Oh, do sit down and be comfortable!... I've been awfully perturbed to hear that you've, uh, that you're in slightly bad odor with some of the authorities."

"You mean the Corpos?"

"Naturally! Who else?"

"Maybe I don't recognize 'em as authorities."

"Oh, listen, Pater, please don't joke tonight! I'm serious. As a matter fact, I hear you're more than just 'slightly' in wrong with them."

"And who may your informant be?"

"Oh, just letters—old school friends. Now you aren't really pro- Corpo, are you?"

"How did you ever guess?"

"Well, I've been—I didn't vote for Windrip, personally, but I begin to see where I was wrong. I can see now that he has not only great personal magnetism, but real constructive power—real sure-enough statesmanship. Some say it's Lee Sarason's doing, but don't you believe it for a minute. Look at all Buzz did back in his home state, before he ever teamed up with Sarason! And some say Windrip is crude. Well, so were Lincoln and Jackson. Now what I think of Windrip—"

"The only thing you ought to think of Windrip is that his gangsters murdered your fine brother-in-law! And plenty of other men just as good. Do you condone such murders?"

"No! Certainly not! How can you suggest such a thing, Dad! No one abhors violence more than I do. Still, you can't make an omelet without breaking eggs—"

"Hell and damnation!"

"Why, Pater!"

"Don't call me 'Pater'! If I ever hear that 'can't make an omelet' phrase again, I'll start doing a little murder myself! It's used to justify every atrocity under every despotism, Fascist or Nazi or Communist or American labor war. Omelet! Eggs! By God, sir, men's souls and blood are not eggshells for tyrants to break!"

"Oh, sorry, sir. I guess maybe the phrase is a little shopworn! I just mean to say—I'm just trying to figure this situation out realistically!"

"'Realistically'! That's another buttered bun to excuse murder!"

"But honestly, you know—horrible things do happen, thanks to the imperfection of human nature, but you can forgive the means if the end is a rejuvenated nation that—"

"I can do nothing of the kind! I can never forgive evil and lying and cruel means, and still less can I forgive fanatics that use that for an excuse! If I may imitate Romain Rolland, a country that tolerates evil means—evil manners, standards of ethics—for a generation, will be so poisoned that it never will have any good end. I'm just curious, but do you know how perfectly you're quoting every Bolshevik apologist that sneers at decency and kindness and truthfulness in daily dealings as 'bourgeois morality'? I hadn't understood that you'd gone quite so Marxo- materialistic!"

"I! Marxian! Good God!" Doremus was pleased to see that he had stirred his son out of his if-your-honor-please smugness. "Why, one of the things I most admire about the Corpos is that, as I know, absolutely—I have reliable information from Washington—they have saved us from a simply ghastly invasion by red agents of Moscow—Communists pretending to be decent labor-leaders!"

"Not really!" (Had the fool forgotten that his father was a newspaperman and not likely to be impressed by "reliable information from Washington"?)

"Really! And to be realistic—sorry, sir, if you don't like the word, but to be—to be—"

"In fact, to be realistic!"

"Well, yes, then!"

(Doremus recalled such tempers in Philip from years ago. Had he been wise, after all, to restrain himself from the domestic pleasure of licking the brat?)

"The whole point is that Windrip, or anyway the Corpos, are here to stay, Pater, and we've got to base our future actions not on some desired Utopia but on what we really and truly have. And think of what they've actually done! Just, for example, how they've removed the advertising billboards from the highways, and ended unemployment, and their simply stupendous feat in getting rid of all crime!"

"Good God!"

"Pardon me—what y' say, Dad?"

"Nothing! Nothing! Go on!"

"But I begin to see now that the Corpo gains haven't been just material but spiritual."

"Eh?"

"Really! They've revitalized the whole country. Formerly we had gotten pretty sordid, just thinking about material possessions and comforts—about electric refrigeration and television and air- conditioning. Kind of lost the sturdiness that characterized our pioneer ancestors. Why, ever so many young men were refusing to take military drill, and the discipline and will power and good-fellowship that you only get from military training—Oh, pardon me! I forgot you were a pacifist."

Doremus grimly muttered, "Not any more!"

"Of course there must be any number of things we can't agree on, Dad. But after all, as a publicist you ought to listen to the Voice of Youth."

"You? Youth? You're not youth. You're two thousand years old, mentally. You date just about 100 B.C. in your fine new imperialistic theories!"

"No, but you must listen, Dad! Why do you suppose I came clear up here from Worcester just to see you?"

"God only knows!"

"I want to make myself clear. Before Windrip, we'd been lying down in America, while Europe was throwing off all her bonds—both monarchy and this antiquated parliamentary-democratic-liberal system that really means rule by professional politicians and by egotistic 'intellectuals.' We've got to catch up to Europe again— got to expand—it's the rule of life. A nation, like a man, has to go ahead or go backward. Always!"

"I know, Phil. I used to write that same thing in those same words, back before 1914!"

"Did you? Well, anyway—Got to expand! Why, what we ought to do is to grab all of Mexico, and maybe Central America, and a good big slice of China. Why, just on their own behalf we ought to do it, misgoverned the way they are! Maybe I'm wrong but—"

"Impossible!"

"—Windrip and Sarason and Dewey Haik and Macgoblin, all those fellows, they're big—they're making me stop and think! And now to come down to my errand here—"

"You think I ought to run the Informer according to Corpo theology!"

"Why—why yes! That was approximately what I was going to say. (I just don't see why you haven't been more reasonable about this whole thing—you with your quick mind!) After all, the time for selfish individualism is gone. We've got to have mass action. One for all and all for one—"

"Philip, would you mind telling me what the deuce you're really heading toward? Cut the cackle!"

"Well, since you insist—to 'cut the cackle,' as you call it—not very politely, seems to me, seeing I've taken the trouble to come clear up from Worcester!—I have reliable information that you're going to get into mighty serious trouble if you don't stop opposing—or at least markedly failing to support—the government."

"All right. What of it? It's my serious trouble!"

"That's just the point! It isn't! I do think that just for once in your life you might think of Mother and the girls, instead of always of your own selfish 'ideas' that you're so proud of! In a crisis like this, it just isn't funny any longer to pose as a quaint 'liberal.'"

Doremus's voice was like a firecracker. "Cut the cackle, I told you! What you after? What's the Corpo gang to you?"

"I have been approached in regard to the very high honor of an assistant military judgeship, but your attitude, as my father—"

"Philip, I think, I rather think, that I give you my parental curse not so much because you are a traitor as because you have become a stuffed shirt! Good-night."

[fiaxsouza]

"Thanks," she muttered as she stepped into his home. Gosh did this feel so surreal. Could this have been her place she called her own too? With him? It sent a chill up her spine to think of all the what-ifs but Fia was so sure it was the best decision for herself at the time. Even up until she came into town there wasn't a doubt of hesitancy. Yet, seeing him face to face after some times has pass has her questioning everything. "So, um...I guess we should skip all the pleasantries, right?" She didn't want to waste his time and Fia figured it'd be best to get everything out while she could. At least he didn't slam the door on her face which was a scenario shad played in her head.

"I'm here because someone is snooping around and caught wind of the fact that we're legally married. It was supposed to be a piece about you I guess and they're digging." It wasn't privy information to anybody. How they had even found out was beyond her. Granted it was somewhat public knowledge if you went through the right track, most of society did not. "I figured it was worth that you knew to do whatever you need to do to garner and protect your image." Fia wasn't obtuse. She knew how well of a player Chase had turned out to be. In a sense she kept tabs on him subtly through the years. "I'm also here because if you want to amend the marriage, then we can," she rushed. Fia could feel the paperwork singing through her bag. "I know this a lot I'm throwing at you at once after not hearing from for years and total respect if you need the time to process, but I just couldn't wait any longer."

Chase turns his head away from his television, holding his playstation controller in his hand. He couldn't imagine who would be at the door at this time that he didn't invite over. He stands up from the couch and puts the remote down, walking over to the front door. He reaches out and grabs the doorknob, turning it and pulling the door open. He allows his gaze to take her in. It's been like six years since he last laid eyes on her, sometimes he can't believe those three days happened.

"Fia..." He whispers, still trying to wrap his mind around her standing at his front door. All those years of radio silence, of trying to reach out to her through friends and all of her friends ignoring him. He clears his throat as he presses his lips together as he tilts his head down to look at his shoes. He knows the two of them need to have a conversation. He's not sure what she would want after all this time. He inhales deeply as he turns to the side, gesturing to the inside of his house.

"Yeah, come in."

[t4tmetalsonic]

📓Cause I can!

👁👁

Ok so if u follow my art blog u may have seen me talk about my eggson au. Well I'm not gonna be talking about that rn LOL

Another idea that's been festering for a while and I really actually want to write is smth I've dubbed "swap au" in my head. Basically due to some Eggman shenanigans, a future version of modern Shadow (34, married to Sonic) ends up swapping places with boom Shadow (19, tried to blow up the world a few months ago). No one is happy about this.

I don't have a concrete plot yet, but I just love the ideas of a Shadow who has mellowed out and knows his place in the world interacting with a younger Sonic who finds the publicity of being a hero uncomfortable, AND a Shadow who has never had the support of friends like Rouge and Omega discover that actually he has likeable qualities and his company can be enjoyable to others. I also have some ideas for boom Shadow's backstory, which is... very different to his game counterpart's fjfhddg

Also the two Shadows meeting the other versions of Tails and being like "haha how are you so small"/"YOU'RE SO TALL???" respectively... there's just a LOT of fun interactions this concept brings up and I rotate them in my mind daily

[viacursecasting]

Sonadow Scenario #68

{ Requested by anonymous }

The ominous sky flashed with bolts of crimson lightning, rumbling with a tumultuous thunder that racked one's core. Infinite was likely in the eye of the storm, bending reality to his twisted will.

On land, Sonic closed his eyes in concentration, feeling energy surge through his limbs like a rush of wind. Gold painted his fur, making him shine like a star against the blanket of night.

Shadow watched in awe—the transformation took his breath away no matter how many times he witnessed it. Yet as magnificent as the sight was, he wished it weren't under these circumstances as the hero's golden aura reflected against his shimmering ruby eyes.

Just as Sonic was about to take off into the void, he felt something grab his wrist, holding him back. He looked toward the source in bewilderment. "Shadow?"

"Don't." Shadow's tongue was dry as a bone. He recalled the last time the speedster fought the jackal, thinking it was the last time as he also recalled his disappearance...

The image of the hero chained up, beaten and bruised, invaded Shadow's mind. He shook it away. "What if he captures you again?"

Sonic turned to face him, his voice a reassuring melody. "I won't let that happen." He cupped the lifeform's cheek. "Not when I have something to fight for."

Shadow desperately folded his fingers over the hedgehog's. "Then let me come with you. It's my fault Infinite is the monster he is today."

Sonic was already shaking his head, clutching both of the agent's hands in his. "I need you here, to help the others fight his army. You're the only one powerful enough to stop your clones."

Shadow hated that his counterpart had a point. "If anything were to happen to you because of me..." He shut his eyes. He couldn't bear the thought.

"Hey." Sonic urged him to lock gazes by lifting his muzzle with a curled finger. "None of this is your fault." He gave his trademark grin. "I'll be fine, Shads. I promise." He then craned his neck to give the agent's forehead a gentle kiss.

Though it was a lovely gesture, Shadow felt numb to it. "I expected you would say that, but please..." He took a deep, shuddered breath, tinting slightly. "At least give me a proper farewell."

Shadow was glad the hero seemed to catch on. He let Sonic take his chin and tilt it, feeling the hedgehog's warm breath on his lips, feeling life radiate from his ethereal aura. While the storm that raged was deafening, it was nothing compared to Shadow's racing heart.

When Sonic read the lifeform's scarlet eyes, he saw a broken being, which made the pit of his chest ache. The last thing he wanted was to cause pain to the person he cared about more than anything, more than life itself. He could only think of one thing that could ease the pain.

Sonic closed his eyes, that shattered expression burning the back of his eyelids, as he leaned in for a—

Suddenly Shadow gave Sonic's gut a bruising punch, knocking the wind out of him as well as his Emeralds. Sonic gasped from the force as well as the shock of the blow, crumpling to the concrete, but not before Shadow caught him, gingerly setting him down.

Sonic clutched his abdomen in agony—Was it possible for organs to be bruised?—as he struggled to catch his breath. "Shadow—! The hell—!"

Shadow picked up an Emerald, its glow illuminating his solemn face. "Apologies, Sonic. But I can't have you pay for my mistakes."

Sonic watched helplessly as Shadow's fur faded from ebony to platinum, a refulgent aura trapping his flowing quills. The lifeform was a beacon, yet Sonic was still lost in a sea of despair, confusion, and betrayal.

Sonic weakly propped himself up on one elbow, seething as the agent turned his back to him, preparing to take off. "If you leave..." Sonic warned, "we're through."

Shadow seemed to hesitate, but he glanced over his shoulder without meeting the hero's gaze in fear of changing his mind. He stated plainly, "So be it."

The lifeform then shot toward the heavens like a bullet, heading into the depths of the malevolent storm, leaving Sonic to wonder if that would be their last exchange, to wish he had the chance to savor that last kiss.

[wereh0gz]

I don't like how some people are treating shadow's age as some kinda debate. It really shouldn't be.

I see posts about it arguing shadow's 50 years old using faulty logic and "proof" like the VERY RECENT removal of sonic characters' ages from their sonic channel profiles or like. A single google search result. Not even going into the page and reading the whole article or whatever. Just the search result.

I don't like seeing misconceptions spread around. My original post was me wanting to clear it up, but even though I knew there was proof of it and had seen it before I couldn't find it. I didn't even put it in the main tags or anything originally because at the time I couldn't back it up. Now that I was able to, and the post gained a bit more traction... I see posts saying "no, shadow's actually 50 years old"

And like. Maybe I'm just being a bit paranoid, but I feel like those posts were made because of mine? They probably weren't because I've seen others like mine, but I feel like I may have played a part in keeping this whole dumb "debate" going when all I wanted to do was correct a misconception

Like. If you wanna ignore canon or whatever go ahead. Make shads an old man. I don't care and nobody can really stop you. We're all strangers on the internet, we can't reach through the screen to physically stop you from doing it.

I just don't get why are people wanna dispute him being a teenager so bad. Is it because they dislike sonadow and wanna make it hashtag problematique so they have a moral reason to dislike it? Or can they just not see shadow as a kid because of the way he acts? Or (and I really hope this isn't it) they just want an excuse to sexualize him without being seen as weirdos for sexualizing a kid?

(Not saying that's for sure the reason why, I'm just trying to think of possibilities here)

Why is shadow's age specifically being debated when characters like aang from atla went through a similar situation (hell he was even frozen for longer than shadow was, twice as long I think) yet are still considered the age they were frozen at?

I just. Don't get it? I'm very confused about this whole thing. It shouldn't be as big of a deal as it seems to be turning into, and I don't want it to be a big deal.

Just, like. Chill, please.

[ask-sunshine-the-hedgehog]

"I-I can't do this anymore! I c-can't! Too tired..." Sunshine cries out in exhausted frustration. It was nearing early afternoon and Molly had yet to make any more progress in her entrance into the world and the hedgehog family were beginning to worry about the well-being of both father and daughter.

"Maybe we should get you to a hospital, Sunny. This shouldn't be taking so long..." Manic suggests, concern lacing his voice.

"N-No! No hospitals, please...I-I don't trust hospitals...they'll take them away..." Sunshine whimpers weakly, arms wrapped protectively around his stomach as he curls up around Ariel as much as he could to keep her close as she slept beside him on a small blanket, now dressed in a tiny yellow onesie.

"No they won't, Shads. Everything will be alright, we won't let anyone take either of the twins" Starlight assures his distressed husband, gently stroking his disheveled quills and firmly squeezing his hand to give him something else to focus on other than the pain and worry. "We're all here to protect you and them, Sun. Nothing will happen to them or to you, I promise," He says softly, trying to hide his own nervousness so he could help Sunshine calm down.

[verity-hats-emporium]

"We're bonding over both being in recovery!" And back to his Poke he went. He knew when to not interfere, especially in matters or romance. Alfie was not ready to address Shad about it yet, and he was not about to force it on him.

verity-hats-emporium​:

child-of-the-west​:​

“That…” Okay that does sound a bit accurate. But then again, who would want him to begin with?? “Doesn’t prove anything.” Was he attracted to his friend? Maybe a little…but that doesn’t mean he felt the same. He was being a cool friend, after all. 

The way he reacted said it all “, Ah! So I was correct on how you find attraction, but prove what exactly? That you like Shad, or that he likes you?”

“Both.” He shrugs his shoulders. “Just because you guessed what fancy word described my sexuality doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t matter at all. Look at him.” His doctor constantly tells him to stop being so negative about himself. Its much harder than he thinks.