#and she was taught by some very good martial arts instructers as well as her dad

[friendofthecrows]

they gotta make nap-length sleep mediations. Also ones where the speaker doesn't sound like the world's most annoying yoga intructer or perhaps therapist.

[sketchfanda]

Kirishima's Mystique:Kung Fu Tigress!!

We come to find our resident Red Riot standing outside looking in awe at the sight before him and really who could blame the guy? Before him stood a very impressive dojo and Itsuka Kendou, Class B's resident Big Sis had invited him to come try out some personal training there if he wanted. it just so happened to be a dojo she herself had been taught at and had quite a pedigree of alumni to it. He'd been so excited that in his eagerness when he woke up, he couldn't help but come here early.

Well he figured he might as well invite himself in as he saw it wasn't locked and he was sure Kendou wouldn't mind if he made himself comfy. Entering through the doors as he took in the interior design and decor, finding this dojo was spacious and well equipped. Seeing the work-out area with all manner of training equipment and machines ranging from punch bags to power lifting weights. Only to find he wasn't alone as he spied someone on the sparring area performing the splits as they bent and stretched their upper torso. Suffice to say it was taking all his will power to not pitch a tent right then and there and with good reason.

She was 5 foot 6 work of sensual art, clad in distinct outfit modelled in the style of a Chinese Cheongsam, not unlike that of Kendou. Which of course helped to greatly display her stunning furry form and well built, honed and sculpted muscles as they flexed. She was definitely someone with a heteromorph mutation quirk which made her a full body furry tiger woman and she was definitely a woman alright. Her outfit certainly highlighting her assets splendidly as it clicked in the sturdy hero's brain why she seemed so familiar when it came to him.

This was none other than the famous Master Tigress, renowned and highly ranked martial arts heroine from China, her beauty and skill were on par with one another befitting the species she gained her namesake from. A natural wonder and equally fierce especially when ill tempered and he couldn't help but ogle away while trying to will any boners popping. Seeing her ears twitch as she sniffed the air a bit, turning to look his way as he felt like a deer in the headlights. Yeah no doubt about it, he was screwed, this woman caught him practically peeping on her and she was going to kick his ass.

Tigress:*those steely feline eyes of hers locked on him, her tone serious but non-threatening as she spoke up to break any pending awkward silence between them.*"Kendou told me we'd be having a guest over, I presume it's you? She had mentioned someone with your description...."*Kirishima could swear his brain was working overtime to keep his libido restained, the last thing he needed was to be sporting a hard-on. Especially in the presence of a woman like her who would likely think of 10 different ways to hurt him, even with his quirk. But damn her little warm-up display of her flexibility was making it a fierce challenge.*

Kirishima:"Yes ma'am! Eijiro Kirishima, Red Riot ma'am!! I'm in your care!!"*The himbo wanted to slap his own face right about now, feeling stupid for such an overly enthusiastic answer. But it seemed to work as acceptable for the veteran fighting heroine, who explained to him that Kendou was out for her morning run but she'd be more than happy to oblige him with some training and instruction. It is what he was here for after all and he was more than eager to begin. Feeling glad that he dodged a bullet and not managed to come off like a total pervert but then again when you had a classmate like Minoru Mineta, that was an easy bar to clear.*

As the trainee and veteran pair began with some basic warm-up stretches and exercises, little did he know was that Tigress' heightened senses told her all she needed to know. She could smell the scent of arousal off of him, sense a vibe that indicated that for his youth, he had been with more than a few women in sexual encounters. And she had to think to herself, it was absolutely intoxicating as she could feel her pussy twitch and quiver, juices pumping and flowing down her juicy thighs as she was turned on by the erotic beast she could sense within him. It'd been far too long since she'd enjoyed activity of the sexual persuasion and here she was now in the presence and company of a virile young stud, if ever opportunity was presenting itself to her...

Oh Kirishima wasn't aware of anything off about the kung-fu warrior woman, at first anyways as he eagerly followed her guidance and instruction. Adding to whatever basics he had on hand to hand and close quarters combat as she secretly copped a feel here and there. Her paw padded, claw tipped fingers caressing and admiring his physique, her eyes mentally undressing him as her mind ran wild with desire at wanting run wild with this alpha male before her. She was thankful for her own sense of discipline and self-control but damn if it wasn't a struggle to just cast aside her inhibitions.

Especially when watching him hit the punch bags or lift weights though she made sure to give as good as visual show as she was getting. Her luscious striped fur glistening as she'd show off her strength and flexibility, her poses seriously giving the sturdy himbo ideas for sure as she licked and bit her lips sensually smelling the scent of his increasing arousal. Until Tigress finally got an idea as to how to make a move in a way that would allow her and Kirishima to indulge in their no doubt mutual desire to, well put it bluntly, mate and fuck like a couple of animals. Keeping his attention on her as they stood across from each other in the sparring section of the dojo, as the feline woman silently purred seeing the chivalrous stud standing there awaiting like a good little soldier.

Tigress:"Alright Kirishima, good effort so far but I think we can get a better grasp of your skill and capabilities with a little practice match. Sound good to you?"*The feline ass-kicker could eat herself if she were chocolate at being so sweet and smooth with this idea. More so as Kirishima nodded, no doubt eager to experience action with a veteran pro like her. Watching as he removed his shirt and kept his baggy shorts on which made the warrior woman lick her lips with sensual anticipation as she admired the view of that sculpted work of muscular art. But oh his reaction as she in turn began to strip right in front of him, gentleman that was as she covered his eyes as she now stood naked before him, her toned and well trained furry form a work of art in its own right.*

Kirishima:"Uhm, Master Tigress?! Is there a reason for...well, ya know.."*Now you really couldn't blame the guy for being unable to complete the sentence of his inquiry. After all the exotic feline kung-fu warrior was now nude right in front his eyes. His traitorous fingers prying open to make him peek as he knew there was no way he could make himself look away. How could he when she was stretching and posing, bending in ways only a cat like her would be able to in such ways that proudly showed off displayed a body honed by good genetics and some damn intense training. For all that honed, toned muscle, Tigress was packing some voluptuous curves, especially her juicy tits and ass and that slit practically radiated such heat..*

Tigress:*Sporting a teasing grin so usually unlike her more stoic, disciplined self as she performed a downward dog pose, her legs spread with her feet planted firmly on the ground as she looked at him upside down. Her jungle cat eyes looking at him equal parts a delicious meal she was going to savor and a prime hunk of alpha male that was sure to scratch her itch. Licking her lipse sensually once more as she poke.*Oh this? I figure a specimen of Man such as yourself would be familiar with how the Ancient Greeks were said to perform the Olympics in the nude. You're free to join me if you'd like, after all whatever happens, happens, right? Feel free to look and touch all you want, if you do well enough I might grant you a prize..."*The striped cat woman spoke in a coy, husky manner as she stood and assumed her stance, Tiger style kung-fu fittingly enough, as the padded tatami floor at her feet grew a puddle from her dribbling juices.*

Kirishima:*Now he had a feeling Tigress was playing him, that much he knew. Mina and Maya and oh yes more than a few other sexy ladies in his life had always done their sexy headgames during sparring and combat practice and Tigress was definitely pushing the right buttons, not to mention this whole traditional nudist stunt. But of course what reason did he have to say no? His libido at the helm as he assumed a stance of his own, Tigress' grin widening as her sharp eagle like gaze could see the bulge forming in his shorts.*"Gonna have to get me as naked as you first, ma'am..."

Tigress was more than delighted with that answer as they began their erotic sparring session. Strikes thrown, dodges and counters made as the sturdy himbo found himself unable to help cop a feel of the Oriental feline's sexy form which she more than enjoyed of course. Especially when she gave back as good as she got, her pussy gushing as her thighs were soaked with arousal from smelling his manly musk. That no doubt immense cock hidden in those shorts just aching to be freed and rut her with the primal thrill of putting a baby inside her.

Eventually the hero in training and the Chinese pro found themselves grappling on the floor, rolling around in a tangle of limbs before Tigress managed to pin him on the floor. Shoulders held down as she straddled his waist, looming over him with her teasing smile since as far as she was concerned, this was a draw. The angelfaced, shark teethed himbo redhead not hesitating as he looked at the Jungle at with erotic determination which made her shudder as she ground and rubbed her slit against the crotch of his shorts. The pitched tent becoming soaked with a waterfall of her juices as she relished such a look, the eyes of a tiger in a sense as she leaned down and in to press her lips to his.

Their tongues mashing and dancing together as the energy of desire flowed between them in a sloppy kiss, Tigress gasping and moaning as she felt Kirishima's hands grasp her bubbly, well toned ass and gave it a firm squeeze. The kinky kung-fu feline purring sensually at such assertiveness as her hands ran down along his sculpted upper torso, paws and claws teasing those well honed muscles before grasping the waistband of his shorts, boxers and all. Suffice to say as soon as she pulled them down and laid eyes on his erect length and girth, her oh so well trained sense of pride and discipline went right out the window. Her more primal, feral instincts taking the helm as her libido called to mount that alpha male and fuck until it was all but assured she'd taking some maternity leave.

She didn't hesitate or think twice about going against her instincts and much to her thrill, the feeling was mutual with Kirishima as his hands grasped where her waist and hips met to connect while she held and aimed the tip of his fuckhammer against her soaking wet pussy. Dropping down to meet a powerful pump-thrust of his pelvis as a yowling moan mixed with a deep groan with Tigress orgasming just from the penetration alone. Her washboard abs bulging from how deep and full his cock was inside of her, balls deep and bottomed out right off the bat as the warrior woman feline wasted no time in adjusting. Her bucking hips meeting his jackhammering pelvis as they built up a nice tempo and rhythm, their deep rutting picking up speed as the walls echoed with the cries of animalistic passion and skin slapping furry skin.

Tigress was never one to kiss and tell when it came to her private and personal life especially when it came to sex but there was no doubt she was experienced enough to not be considered a virgin. Quite frankly she had to say, Kirishima was putting most any and every prior lover to shame not just in terms of his endowment but his sexual prowess. It rather reminded her of a certain panda friend of hers back home and made her have such plans in the future but for now she was finding that Kirishima proved he was a riot in the sheets as much as on the streets. Her orgasms too numerous to count but ooh the thrill of when his would hit, the pulse of his shaft erupting like a volcano as her womb became flooded and painted with his essence.

How she relished the sensation but ooh in tandem with every position they tried only made it all the more better as it was clear he was more than used to dealing with girls so limber and flexible that they could be considered contortionists. Testing her limber Amazonian form's limits as together they danced and shifted with yoga-like grace and fluidity, her body twisting itself like a pretzel which only further aroused her alpha male all the more. What would people say if they were to see of the very models of discipline in Free China herself wearing a raw ahegao as she was being fucked in a mating press or yowling like a bitch in heat as she took it doggy or rather kitty style? Eyes glowing with pink hearts of ecstasy and lust as those smooth balls smacked her clit or her jiggling asscheeks, making them clap like erotic thunder.

Just when Tigress thought that Kirishima would hit his limit and need to recover his oh so impressive stamina, he would up and use 1% of his quirk to give his cock a little more energy. Which they wasted no time in making the most as Tigress's brain flooded with sexual bliss and ecstasy from this hunk of an alpha male asserting his dominance, making even the simple missionary position a thrill ride but ooh when he would show off his strength with a standing fuck full nelson or pin her down on her sacred dojo floor with some prone boning. The mat becoming soaked with stains and puddles of their sweat and juices as they rutted like animals, lost in their own pornographic world. Unaware that there was indeed a sole witness to this explicit encounter.

Standing just outside the door around the corner, unseen and making sure her scent could be picked up by Tigress was the big sis of class B herself, Itsuka Kendou. Who had returned from her morning run just in time to witness her feline senpai and instructor strip naked and seduce Kirishima into going sexual caveman on her and she couldn't deny, it was hot as fuck!! Her sports bra lifted up to expose her firm, exquisite tits to the air as she groped them, one hand down the front of her tight spandex bicycle shorts as she shamelessly engaged in voyeurism, getting off to seeing her usually aloof stoic senior be so lewd. Oh she was going to enjoy every bit of this and soon as they were done, she'd let them be as she would pretend to act like she had just returned to join in on training.

But ooh she would keep this secret until she found a time to approach Kirishima about it. After all she had heard the gossip about him and Mina & Maya and now seeing him in action, the girl known as Battle-Fist knew she had to have herself a turn with the Tamer of Women. It was just a matter of time and there was no doubt she was going to have some sleepless nights but oh so sweet dreams. For now, on with the show....

[historicalfightingguide]

This episode goes over the complexity and simplicity of having to camp in the medieval period, how to actually organize tasks in relation to ones group’s tactics and how those dont always look the same way some of us today may think about it.

” Jess and James talk about Jess's armored adventures in the woods and some lessons we can take away from it. —-

A desire line is formed from many people over time choosing not to walk the paved paths, but instead go the way that seems most expedient to them.  they are typically formed when planners don’t account for real human behavior.

——

About us! James is the founder and principal instructor of the Goliath Historical Fencing Academy. He began fencing in 2009, after being inspired by the film Reclaiming The Blade. At Goliath, he instructs several weapons systems including longsword, rapier, dagger, unarmed combat, quarterstaff and halberd. He has taught at private seminars at major fencing events in Europe and Canada as well as across the US.

—-

Jess Finley has had a sword in her hand for the past twenty years. Her initial interest was in stage combat, but not too long after beginning that pursuit began to ask “… but how did they really fight?” From that question, she branched out to German Medieval Martial Arts after being accepted as a student by Christian Tobler, who remains her mentor to this day.  

She is the head instructor at Ritterkunst Turnhalle in Lawrence, Kansas. She has taught and competed internationally as well as private intensives at her home.

 She also has a background studying Judo under the tutelage of Arden Cowherd of Topeka Judo Club.She is a published author, having written a book entitled “Medieval Wrestling” on the fifteenth century Master Ott’s wrestling treatise of German wrestling techniques.

 She also researches medieval clothing construction and fabric armor, and has presented her findings at the International Congress on Medieval Studies at Kalamazoo and published an article in Medieval Clothing and Textiles (Boydell and Brewer) on her study of a 15th century quilted armor.

Jess’s Patreon is http://www.patreon.com/jessfinley“

This episode talks of  just how strongly shame can impact our daily training practice and that of those around us. A very interesting conversation that can help us find healthier ways to train together.

For anyone who hasn’t yet seen the following links:

Some advice on how to start studying the sources generally can be found in these older posts

Remember to check out  A Guide to Starting a Liberation Martial Arts Gym as it may help with your own club/gym/dojo/school culture and approach.

Check out their curriculum too.

Fear is the Mind Killer: How to Build a Training Culture that Fosters Strength and Resilience by Kaja Sadowski may be relevant as well.

Another useful book to check out is  The Theory and Practice of Historical European Martial Arts (while about HEMA, a lot of it is applicable to other historical martial arts clubs dealing with research and recreation of old fighting systems).

Worth checking out are this blogs tags on pedagogy and teaching for other related useful posts.

Consider getting some patches of this sort or these cool rashguards to show support for good causes or a t-shirt like to send a good message while at training.

And stay safe

[quirkyhero]

My OchaCow headcanons

___________________________________________________________________

BACKSTORY AND BACKGROUND:

Cow Ochaku: is a wild thang who is a strong heifer as well as adventurous. She was born and raised in an abusive habitat only ment to breed strong bulls for fighting rings. She's been through some shit, and learned to not take some shit because of it.

Cow Ochaku: this gal was raised and taught that she would breed with bulls when she was old enough to mate, she would be forced to submit to bulls for as long as she could and as long as they would need. She remembered being forced to "watch and learn" of what would be happening when she be came old enough to do the same thing. And them, doing things to her in order for her to get the "hands on process".

Cow Ochaku: by the age of 15 she had thankfully managed to escape thanks to her parents and the instructions they left her. Though sadly she was too weak and had no time to save any others. On her own she ran as far as she could, hiding in the city in always with a black hoodie and sweat pants she stolen from a box.

Cow Ochaku: thankfully enough she was found by a kind human who was kind enough to offer her home and shelter. Seeing as she was starving and cold and fucking exhausted, she took the humans offer, still suspicious of this person not sure weather to trust them or not.

Cow Ochaku: this was of course six years ago, and she had come to love her home with trees and forest surrounding the place. There was two male hybrids that lived beside her, their names are Monama, who's a bull and Kouda who'san ox. Monama, while a bit rude at first and Kouda who was pretty shy and skittish around her. Came to be protective of her over the years, now their all pretty close and good friends.

Cow Ochaku: after a long time of healing and bonding, she came to open up with her human farmers and two male friends. She even worked out and lifted logs and other such heavy things, which in turn gained her muscle. She also became quite the fan of martial arts due to the movies they'd watch together, learning new techniques along with the old farmer and their grandkid that was the same age as she.

Cow Ochaku: she had also come in contact with the internet. . .you can see where this is going. As she grew into a strong young lady, she came to also be comfortable with sex. . . That is to say with bottom boys. She absolutely loved her Monama and Kouda who she helped out with their ruts and explored new things (kinks) and the such together.

Cow Ochaku: threw a family doctor, who is a friend of the farmer had come to the conclusion that she may be infertile, and there was only a low chance of her having her own calf. This to her and the others was heartbreaking news, but nonetheless she still clung to hope that she would have her own calf one day. She was just relieved that the others didn't think less of her like the heifers back at the bad place would have done.

HOW SHE IS WHEN SHE GETS TO THE NEW FARM + WITH THE BULLS , HEIFERS , STAFF AND EVEN CALFS!?:

Cow Ochaku: was excited yet nervous to go on a trip to the new farm she, the bull and ox will be staying at for a year for her farmer friend that's going to be there for a study work trip.

Cow Ochaku: on one hand, she could finally make that bull harem she wanted. But on the other hand there would be thousands of new faces and in an environment thats a little similar to the bad place. In a sense that's there's quite alot of her kind there. But with the reasurement of the old farmer, the two boys and her calmed a bit.

Cow Ochaku: once on the farm and out of the moving vehicle. Ocha(Ochako), Mono(Monama) and Ko(Kouda) all went to explore once everything was signed in and registered. Only for Mono and Ocha to get whistled at and cat called by the bulls. Mono wasn't exactly the standard looking bull with him being smaller and more feminine looking with smaller horns, he was mistaken for a heifer quite alot. So them both being cat called was not a surprise.

Cow Ochaku: Kouda on the other hand, was being ogled at by the heifers that was curious about the newcomers. Kouda is pretty big, after all he is an ox, he's actually almost the same height as Kirishima, and poor baby was sticking very close behind his heifer and bull friend, not really liking the attention.

Cow Ochaku: meanwhile Ocha paid no mind to the ogling and cat calls, she was looking at the bulls that came to look at her and her friend. Debating and thinking of who she would start her "Bull Harem" plan on first.

Cow Ochaku: along they're walk they bump into a charming cowboy named Midoriya Izuku and a handsome bull named Kirishima, both kind and cute and sexy in they're own rights. . . Ocha came to terms with the idea of adding the cowboy to her bull harem plan, and let her mind run a little thinking of ways to ruin him for only a moment as to not be rude.

Cow Ochaku: after that meeting she came to see at one point, cute Little CALFS!!! OH MY GOODNESS! Ocha decided that this farm was fucking amazing. After all, it came with plenty of bulls and cute farmers for her Bull Harem plan. The staff were pretty great and there are even cute little Calfs here to watch and play with if she's aloud.

SOME EXTRA DETAILS ON COW OCHAKO:

Cow Ochaku: is a lover and fighter, this as I said came for her difficult past and trauma as well as her new beginning on her home land where she met her boys and humans. So she can be pretty intense, as well as straight forward.

Sometimes she scares the bulls with her strength and stamina, alot of them can't keep up with her during her exploration in the hay. The ones who can keep up with her are kiri and Bakugou, but even they sometimes fall victim to her brutal pace which earns her some heavy respect in their books.

Cow Ochaku: she absolutely adores sparring. At first the bulls wouldn't train with her because, "she's a heifer, she'll just get hurt" which seriously pissed her off. That is until a Bull who was messing with one of the heifers took things too far for her liking got take down by her just grabbing his horn with one hand and slamming the big bull down with just sweeping his leg out from under him and Basically making him face plant down onto the ground.

She Basically forced oversized "calf" to apologize to the heifer, and better not do that shit again. Bakugou who Basically went from not impressed and only intrigued to Having mad respect for her and now wants this woman in his harem, though he ain't the only one.

Cow Ochaku: poor baby still at times has nightmares about the bad place and will sneak into the living quarters of either of her boys or into her human friends room, or just brings all three of them to her own living quarters to cuddle and sleep together. If anything this is something her and Bakugou bond over, since he was a rescue bull from a pretty harsh place and she ran away from a bad place.

One night he just caught her awake early in the morning breathing in the cold air, with a melancholy look upon her usually smiling face. While it's a sad thing to bond about they do bond over it, and it brings them closer.

Cow Ochaku: she's love mochi treats, the kind that the old farmer made specially for hybrids. If you found a way to make them she will be your godamn best friend! Speaking of friends while she can make easy friends with any gendered human, she's not really good with other heifers for some reason. She just. . .feels nervous and a bit off around them

It could be because she has no idea on how to add the heifers in her bull harem plan, as well as the fact that she's not really. . . On the same wavelength of thinking as them at times??? Basically she wants to dominate the bulls while they want to be fucked submissive by them.

She wants to trust Said bull before EVER fucking them, while all it takes is the bull to show off how strong he is to get them wet and ready. She doesn't care for being treated frail and being taken care of while she can take care of her self. She would adore being taken care of twenty for seven by their strong bull. . .she just doesn't get them. . .at all really nonetheless she tries. . . She really tries.

Cow Ochaku: loves giving advice to the bulls about sex techniques and telling them about human sex toys. If she's close to a bull, she teach them some human tricks that she learned while surfing, "the web." She'll also be a babysitter for the heifers and bulls that want alone time at a specific moment so they can get they're grove on if you know what I mean?

___________________________________________________________________

I did my own version of an Ochako Cow! I'm pretty proud of my drawings as well as how I made her! I based her on @miggiisdumb 's Bull/Cow AU cause I'm heavily obsessed with the godamn AU and her writing, please go check out her stuff as well as art cause it's fantastic.

I'm also gonna tag @headkandies in here cause they make pretty good headcanons as well as being a fellow lover of this AU!

But anyways that's all folks be safe and have a Heroic Day! Since it's not safe out there please take a mochi loving Ochacow on your way. 🥰

[cheri-translates]

[CN] Victor’s Fencing Date (Eng Translation)

🍒 Warning: This post contains detailed spoilers for a date, 击剑约会, which has not been released in English servers! 🍒

Do note that this date features S2 Victor, but doesn’t contain S2 spoilers.

[ This date was released in CN on 28 Sep 2020 ]

The date begins on a weekend, with MC at a fencing trial class. The coach just left her to do warm ups

MC signed up for the class because she developed a sudden interest in fencing after watching a competition on television

She notes how fencing involves agility, quick judgement calls, and maintaining a knightly demeanour

Elegant. Swift. A single, certain strike...

MC: I keep thinking it’s a little bit like Victor.

I mumble aloud accidentally before hastily returning to my senses.

This fencing hall is the most professional training hall open to the public in Loveland City. In the surroundings are adept students, and the coaches give oral commands mostly in French.

Although warm ups don’t require me to don the full attire, I carefully put on the face mask since I’m a newbie and somewhat at a loss.

After a while, someone walks over to me suddenly. He’s very tall, donned in full attire, and he stands before me.

Before I can react, he speaks.

??: Hello. Coach Lin asked me to come here.

My coach’s surname happens to be Lin as well, so I make a guess that perhaps this is his assistant for today. As such, I nod amicably in acknowledgement.

For some reason, I find this person’s aura slightly familiar...

??: Etes-vous prêts?

[Note] In French, this means “Are you ready?”

His voice is slightly muffled from the mask. I freeze for a moment before realising that he seems to be asking if I’m ready.

MC: Oui.

[Note] In French, this means “Yes.”

He nods, then returns to the starting line, raising his fencing sword and saluting to me.

I tilt my head to take a look, then mimic his pose to return the salute.

In the next second, he suddenly points the fencing sword towards me, and lunges over quickly.

MC: !

A silver light flashes before me. I instinctively retract my arm to cover my face, shifting backwards by a few steps.

One second. Two seconds. Three seconds... the feeling of being hit doesn’t come.

??: Beginner?

Hearing his voice, I slowly put down my hands, nodding awkwardly.

??: Sorry, I was mistaken.

His tone once again gives me a sense of familiarity. Before I get to ask, Coach Lin returns.

When he sees our swords facing each other, he’s stunned for a while, but quickly reveals a knowing expression.

MC: Coach...

Coach Lin smiles at me, then greets the person opposite in a friendly manner.

Coach Lin: Mr Victor, you’re here.

MC: ...Mr Victor?

Could this person be...

As though the both of us are seeking to verify something, we take off our masks at the same time.

My fringe rides up along with the mask. While I hurriedly smoothen it down, I look at the person before me.

That person’s hair has also been messed up. He casually lifts his hand to pat down the slightly curled up strands, revealing the pair of eyes I’m most familiar with.

MC: Victor!

Victor: It’s you?

Coach Lin: The two of you know each other?

Victor nods, turning to Coach Lin, who is standing at the side.

Seeing that both of us have no idea what to make of this matter, Coach Lin smiles apologetically, and starts to explain.

It turns out Victor is a regular visitor here, and has always been Coach Lin’s partner.

However, as he had to take charge of the trial class, Coach Lin had arranged for another coach for Victor, who Victor had mistaken me for.

Coach Lin: There, the coach should be at the second fencing lane.

Coach Lin identifies the coach to Victor, and I follow his line of sight. It’s a young female coach.

Victor: Got it.

Although Victor says this, he doesn’t seem to have any intention of leaving. Coach Lin looks at the both of us, slightly hesitant.

I clear my throat, breaking the silence.

MC: Coach Lin, the two of you have been partners for so long. Why don’t you duel with Victor? I could have a class with that coach instead. Anyway, I’m just a student from the trial class, so there’s no need to trouble so many people.

Coach Lin: Our rules prohibit having replacement classes at short notice. She doesn't have any classes scheduled today, so...

Coach Lin seems to be in a bind.

Victor: What if it isn’t a coach?

I freeze. Victor glances at me, speaking softly to Coach Lin.

After a moment of hesitation, Coach Lin finally smiles and nods.

Coach Lin: I’ll have to trouble you then.

Coach Lin nods in my direction, leaving soon after. Puzzled, I look at Victor.

MC: Why did the coach leave? What did you say to him?

Victor: I told him that this student is difficult to teach, so I’ll do it for him.

MC: You sure know how to manipulate...

MC: Wait. Who says that I’m difficult to teach!

Victor ignores my quibble, looking at me with his arms crossed.

Victor: Why did you think of learning fencing?

MC: I heard that fencing can train one’s reaction and judgement speed, so I wanted to give it a try.

Victor: You should train them. But these aren’t things that can be gleaned simply from sports.

MC: If you’re the teacher, I just might be able to glean them!

Victor: Looks like you have a large ambition this time.

I laugh while taking a step back, raising the fencing sword and giving him a serious salute.

MC: Is CEO Victor willing to impart his skills to me?

The corners of Victor’s lips curl as well, and a familiar phrase drifts to my ear.

Victor: It depends on how you perform.

-

Victor teaches MC some foundational moves using a dummy model

MC notes how Victor makes movements look casual even though they are very tiring

I take a breath, recalling his earlier demonstration, lunging forward in a large step.

Although my feet are slightly unsteady, the fencing sword hits the dummy model.

MC: I did it!

I turn to him happily, and happen to catch a sliver of a smile on his face which disappears in the next second.

Victor: When you strike with the sword, don’t move your wrist.

MC: ...okay.

I secretly purse my lips, and a soft laugh floats to my ear.

Victor: You weren’t bad just now. Do it again on your own three more times.

His “teaching” style and the one in my memory are exactly the same. There aren’t many pointers, but they always hit the nail on the head.

I follow his instructions obediently, the sword and the dummy’s metal attire meeting with clanging sounds.

The repeated movements are a little boring, so I try engaging Victor in a conversation while he supervises me from the side.

MC: Victor, Coach Lin mentioned that you’re a regular visitor. Have you been practicing for long?

Victor: I guess so. When I have time, I’ll come by once every week.

MC: No wonder you’re so professional.

Victor: It’s just a pastime, so it doesn’t count as being professional. Although when it comes to teaching you, it’s something I’ve done more than enough times.

I meet his teasing gaze, and stop my actions in defiance. 

MC: Don’t underestimate me too much. Who knows, I might have "peculiar bones”, and might discover your weak points!

[Note] I translated “unique skeleton” from 骨骼清奇 (“gu ge qing qi”), which is part of a quote from an action-comedy movie called Kung Fu Hustle. The full quote is: “I think your bones are peculiar. You are a martial arts prodigy.”

Victor: Looks like you’re very confident now. I wonder how you’ll fare in the next test.

Victor walks across the middle line, puts on his mask, then lifts his sword. 

Victor: If you want to find my weak spots, try scoring some points from me. Once you’re ready, we’ll begin. 

I gulp, slightly nervous. But this time, Victor doesn’t advance for a long time. He simply waits at the other end. 

Perhaps due to my reaction being overly exaggerated when faced with his attack earlier, he is exceptionally patient this time.

As a “student” who was carefully taught by him, I’m determined not to disappoint him.

I take aim at potential areas of attack, then lunge forward, crossing the middle line.

As though wanting to exert more pressure on me, he takes a few steps forward.

The few seconds seem to become infinitely long as the distance lessens, causing his smooth movements to slow down.

He bends his arm, ready to strike. In the moment before he straightens his arm, I act first, lunging towards his elbow.

MC: I hit it!

Victor: Very good. Continue. 

After experiencing it once, Victor no longer waits at his original spot to wait for me.

He doesn’t take large strides, but still easily blocks my way, and I have no choice but to pull back. 

Guessing that I’d be stepping out of the boundary if I keep retreating, I grit my teeth, taking a few frantic steps towards him.

Victor seems to freeze for a moment, but very quickly shifts backwards to avoid my threat.

Victor: You’re very bold in taking risks. 

MC: Haha, it’s more like sinking my own boat...

Victor: In that case, don’t waste this opportunity. 

I try to settle myself, my vision gradually becoming clearer with our ever increasing proximity. 

Victor maintains a defensive posture as he faces me, but his abdomen area below his arm doesn’t seem to be guarded.

Perhaps this was a weak spot he specially left open for me, and I just happened to notice it. 

But a faraway memory suddenly surfaces in my mind, resulting in a headache. Although I know that it’s unrelated to the current situation, it leaves me halting in my footsteps. 

Victor: What are you hesitating about? 

Victor suddenly speaks up. Startled, it’s as though I’m jolted from a dream. 

The distance between us has closed. Based on a conditioned reflex, I instantly step backwards, but am too late.

With a slight tap on my chest, a tiny hollow appears on the fabric. 

Victor: You lost.

I lift my head, and can vaguely make out his brilliant gaze from the holes in the mask. 

He moves the sword away very quickly, but my heart beat doesn’t calm down.

Several emotions are blending together. Together with the echo left in my heart from the hit, I’m left frozen to the spot for a very long time. 

Seeing that I’m not speaking, Victor removes his mask, bending over to observe my expression. 

Victor: What’s wrong? 

MC: ...nothing. My mind accidentally wandered off earlier. 

Victor: There’s no need to be too apprehensive. You’re just following the rules.

I nod. Victor hesitates for a moment, then pats the top of my head, which is separated by the mask. 

Victor: You need to be more resolute. Opportunities and risks co-exist. Don’t let it slip away to your opponent.

His tone becomes more gentle. His dark coloured eyes reflect my profile.

Even when he’s consoling people, he remains deadpan. But precisely because of this, his consolation is all the more effective. 

I adjust the mask, pumping myself up again. 

MC: I’ve got it. Could Teacher Victor give me another chance? 

Victor laughs, putting on his mask again. 

Victor: Just this once. 

He gives her some advice and she tries it out, poking his outfit with the sword timidly

MC: Like this?

Just as I’m about to ask if I’m doing it correctly, I lift my head to find that we are standing very close to each other.

The soft laugh and slightly lilted tone initially hidden behind the mask finally drift to my ear clearly.

Victor: This time, I’ll consider it as you scoring the point. 

-

The class experience is over. While I’m wiping my sweat with a towel, Coach Lin walks over. 

Coach Lin: Are the two of you taking a break? 

Victor nods. He receives the bottles of water from Coach Lin, then hands me one. 

Coach Lin: Thank you for your help today, Mr Victor. Shall we have a match before you leave?

Victor turns to me, giving me a look over. 

Victor: I won’t trouble you today. We’ll leave it till next time. A certain student is too physically weak, so she has to return early to rest.

I frantically tuck strands of sweat drenched hair behind my ear. 

MC: It’s just that the masks made it a little warm earlier. I’ll be fine after resting at the side for a while. It must have been slightly boring having to teach me all this time. Have a good duel - I can observe and learn from your example.

Victor stares at me for another moment. He sighs lightly, then hands me the bottle of water in his hand. 

Victor: Since you want to learn, watch carefully. Your mind isn’t allowed to wander.

The duel commences

MC never takes her eyes off him

Elegant. Swift. A single, certain strike...

This sport really suits him.

The spectating students comment on the match

As compared to the Victor who accompanied me to practice, the him before my eyes seems to have become a completely different person. 

Although the mask and attire serve to conceal his features...

I can still sense the strength underneath the wrinkles of his fabric, and the pressure exerted when he made his quick assault.

So this is what a true confrontation looks like. 

If he were to have free rein in his assault, he wouldn’t lose at all.

The scoreboard buzzes again. Victor and Coach Lin look at it, then shake hands.

After the two men part from the middle line, I finally look at the scores. 

MC: He won!

Although he won by only a few points, the spectators and I can't help but applaud. 

Cheers resound. Victor removes his mask, walking straight towards me. 

Drops of sweat glide off the side of his face, the tips of his hair sticking onto his forehead. 

At this moment, the eyes that are always cold and restrained have become illuminated by the lights. They radiate with an impressive light.

When I gaze at him, I can’t help but laugh even more happily.

Victor: What’s with your foolish laughter?

MC: Because you’ve won!

Victor: I recall you mentioning that you’d be observing and and learning from example. What did you learn?

I’m rendered speechless. From a technique point of view, I didn’t observe any tricks...

MC: At least I could tell that this match was very exciting. It makes one...

Want to cheer for you.

I don’t say the second half of the sentence aloud. But from the smile in Victor’s eyes, I know he definitely understands what I mean. 

He takes the bottle of water in my hands naturally, and I take the sword in his.

Amid the clamour in our surroundings, his deliberately lowered voice drifts to my ears. 

Victor: Being able to understand the match - to you, it’s not an easy feat. But, thank you.

After changing out of our attire, Victor and I head to the front counter to return the equipment.

He converses with the staff in a familiar manner, while my mind keeps returning to the earlier match.

I rarely see such a nimble and driven Victor. But that profile overlaps with several moments in my memory.

When he rejected my application for an investment. When he kicked open the door when I was trapped in the darkness. When he calmly held onto my hand when faced with difficulties...

He has never changed. No matter what identity he takes on, he’s competent in all of them. 

No matter what, he seems to always be running ahead of me.

At this moment, the staff returns our cash deposit, and Victor hands me my bag.

Victor: What are you thinking about?

I turn to look at him.

MC: I always feel like as long as you put your mind to it, there doesn’t seem to be anything that can defeat you.

Victor: Not necessarily. Didn’t you “defeat” me just now? 

MC: That’s only because you lost intentionally...

Victor: I won’t lose intentionally to any opponents. I just made some adjustments according to your standard. 

MC: ...does this mean I still have some hidden potential? In that case, could Teacher Victor continue teaching me?

Victor: There is no such thing as a free lunch.

I think deeply on what I could offer as remuneration.

MC: If I manage to learn it properly, I can help you “attack” next time, and shoulder more burdens for you.

Victor glances at me with surprise, but he quickly smoothens his expression.

Victor: If you want to share burdens with me, this meagre effort won’t suffice.

MC: ?

Victor arches his brows. 

Victor: Or were you just full of hot air earlier?

I look into his eyes. As though wanting to prove something, I straighten my back.

MC: Of course it’s not just hot air. I’ll come here to practice often. Someday, I’ll be like Coach Lin, becoming your genuine opponent. Maybe I’ll triumph over you even when you don’t lose intentionally.

Victor glances at me, the corners of his lips lifting upwards. 

Victor: This declaration - I’ll remember it. I’ll wait for you to surpass me.

We walk towards the entrance of the hall together, the sunlight outside encasing us.

Time seems to slow down, enabling me to distinctly remember how it feels like to walk next to him.

We still have countless tomorrows, allowing me to tread in his shadow, step by step, returning to his side.

[zabrak-show]

Plant Magick | Maul x Reader

Setting: Dathomir and Zanbar

Summary: Reader is a nightsister from Dathomir sent to Zanbar by Mother Talzin to help Maul and the Shadow Collective. Based on the prompt from @botherbother-blog​ , “ Can I ask something about a witchy reader (maybe a Nightsister?) teaching Maul magick and Maul teaching her martial arts... and the things start getting steamy? I haven’t ever asked a request and I’m not sure if that’s okay, too much or too little, sorry!”

Warnings: Ok, this was my attempt at writing smut, but it’s really just super poetic and not that graphic, because i am the way that i am. and lots of consent cuz that’s what gets me hot. So very fluffy and soft Maul etc.  also, the nightsister/nightbrother thing does not make them brother and sister so no incest here.

Word count: 2.4k

Sweat ran down the middle of your chest and pooled where the fabric of your red sleeveless tunic tightened at your breastbone. It was a hot day for Dathomir standards and you were crouched over picking herbs for magick potions. This was a part of the forest to which you were very acclimated, having come here since you were very small. You had learned from an early age to have an appreciation of all the living things around you, there was magick in everything, it was only a matter of learning how to tap into it all. 

Mother Talzin was an exceptional teacher, but sometimes you felt like there must be more to life, at least more to learn than what she taught you and all your sisters. You did your best to never let these feelings show. Mother would not appreciate your wandering thoughts. You wiped the sweat from your brow and packed up all your herbs to head back to your clan, making your way down the meandering wooded path, wisps of mist gently caressing you on your bare skin. These small moments all to yourself brought you clarity and peace of mind.

It did not take long to get back to the clan and at once you went into the temple where a foreboding tall figure clad in all red stood over a cauldron.

“Mother, the herbs you needed.” you held up the bag of herbs to the towering pale woman with an oversized forehead and black tattoos accenting her face. She clutched the bag of herbs from your hand at once, held it to her face and breathed deep.

“Yes, I think this should do nicely. Well done, sister (y/n).” she spoke aphrodisiacal as she exhaled. You smiled slightly and started to turn and leave.

“Wait, Sister (y/n). I have a new mission for you.” You turned back to listen to your new instructions.

“Whatever it is, you know I am at your service, Mother.” you lightly bowed as you declared your subservience. 

“Yes, there is someone who is in need of our aid. In need of our magicks. I am sending you as you have proven time and time again your loyalty, dedication to the craft, and independence.” her hoarse voice rang out in your ears like the most beautiful melody you’d ever heard. To get such high praise and honor from Mother was unheard of, and to finally be sent on a mission outside of Dathomir. A real purpose to your life at last.

“I am beyond honored.” your inflection was stoic, but you were brimming with joy inside.

Aboard the transport vessel to Zanbar, you learned that you were sent as a mercenary to help defend an organization called the Shadow Collective. Mother did not give you a great deal of information other than you were to find and meet up with a former nightbrother Lord Maul, once you arrived. Your head swam with the possibilities of this mission. You had never left Dathomir and you had never been without your nightsisters presence for more than a few days. It was exciting and terrifying and you couldn’t be more thrilled.

You recognized the nightbrother Maul almost as soon as your feet hit the pavement of the ships’ hangar in Zanbar. Of course you had never met him, but he stuck out like a sore thumb to you, with his unique crimson skin, intricate black tattoos, and crown of horns. As happy as you were to leave home, it was also nice to know you’d be around someone who understood where you came from and your culture. 

The other passengers and crew milled about picking up their baggage, meeting up with old friends or scurrying off to maker knows where. You slung your simple black woven bag containing mostly weapons and Dathomirian herbs, across your back to head straight towards the shirtless nightbrother, Maul. Even from a distance you couldn’t help but admire his tattoos. You had a few tattoos as well, as was your culture, but nowhere near the scope of his. 

He walked up to meet you halfway and as soon as you were close enough to see just how handsome and chiseled he was, you felt dizzy with desire. You had never quite felt so attracted to someone, but then you had barely met anyone besides your fellow nightsisters and the occasional nightbrother ritualistic mating encounter. His odour was intoxicating, you could smell the Dathomirian magic in his blood, but there was something else darker and stronger with notes of roasted coffee and cedar. Maker, how could he smell so damn good?!

“Sister (y/n). Mother tells me you are one of her strongest witches.” His voice thick like honeyed wine seeping into your ears. You felt yourself blush and wished your skin was as crimson as his to hide your body’s emotional betrayal. 

“Yes, well I am at your service now, Lord Maul.” you declared with full confidence, attempting to brush the lustful feelings aside for now.

The atmosphere of Zanbar was not too different from Dathomir, but it lacked the magick lifeblood you were so used to coursing through everything. There were swamps all around the settlement you were staying in and you had decided to venture around to see if you could find any plants to weaponize for Lord Maul. It was a challenge without the help of Dathomir’s magick at your disposal, but you were still able to identify several helpful plants and you busied yourself plucking them from the swamp, humming a little tune as you worked.

A shadowy figure stole your light and you looked back to see who it was. The sun was beaming around them like a hologram making you squint, but the crimson skin could still be easily seen.

“Lord Maul,” you greeted as you stood to face him, still slightly squinting from the sun in your face. He took note and rotated himself to the side of you so that you would not have to stare into the sun to talk to him.

“Are you finding what you need here?” he questioned with genuine curiosity.

“Yes, well, I am finding some things. It’s harder to feel the magick here, I feel like my senses are dulled.” you admitted to him looking into his dynamic golden eyes.

“Hmm.. yes your power does come from Dathomir, it will be hard for you to be away from that. You must learn other ways of fighting and surviving.” his eyes stared deep into your own, not breaking away for a lifetime it felt.

“Mother taught me how to survive.” you said defensively breaking the gaze to look beyond him and crossing your arms in front of your chest.

“She taught you how to survive in her world, yes. There is much yet for you to learn. I can teach you Teräs Käsi, an invaluable combat skill. As a trade... for you teaching me about your magick.” he cocked his head slightly to the side and raised an eyebrow ridge as he waited for your approval. You found it hard to refuse teaching him your magick and you had desperately wanted to learn new things before coming here after all.

“Oh, alright,” you gave in with a smile, “what could it hurt?” This seemed to please him greatly as a sinister smile spread across his face.

“I promise not to make it hurt too much” he jeered and you both made your way back to the settlement.

The next day you met Maul for your first Teräs Käsi lesson in a small training room. You were no stranger to physical exertion and thank the maker for that, because it was a more physically demanding sport than you were expecting. You were dripping with sweat almost immediately, doing everything from push ups, planks, sit ups, fast feet, jumping jacks, and squats. In between each drill, teaching you a new attack and having you try it out on the punching bags and then him. You felt yourself getting dizzy, but you dare not let him show you were tired or wanting to give up.

“Keep fighting! Keep fighting!” he’d yell prompting you to punch him or the bags. You felt your arms get noodley, but you kept throwing punches as hard as you could, pure grit and determination painted on your face. 

At last he brought you some water signifying that today’s lesson was over.

“You did very well. You still have much to learn and much strength to gain, but you are a natural fighter.” he sat down next to your sweaty form as you stretched out your sore muscles.

“I did not realize you were going to work me so hard,” you said, still slightly panting from the workout.

“In a fight, you do not get to decide how tired or well rested you are. You do not get to decide when your attacker will stop. You have to keep fighting through it all. Through all the pain, all the weariness, your mind will tell you you can’t go on, but you must. You must train hard so as to not let that voice creep in and tell you to give up. Your body is stronger than your mind will let on.” he lectured as he stared deep into your eyes and studied your face while you took in everything he said and saved it to your brain’s data bank. Not only for the inspiration and wisdom, but how he said it. His voice was smooth and theatrical, emanating a great power and sensitivity. You wished you could sit there all day and listen to his proclamations.

“What kind of magick do you want me to teach you first?” you finally inquired, now that you had cooled down a bit and your breathing was back to normal. He looked at you thoughtful for a moment before answering, 

“Teach me about all the herbs you pick and how to make potions from them.”

You found it hard to hide your excitement at teaching Maul about herbs and potions. You took him out to the edge of the swamp to begin your lesson. It was a cloudy day and the swamp was buzzing with life from bugs and small critters that scampered away as soon as they heard both of you coming. You settled on a small clearing above the swamp’s water level so you could sit without getting wet and go over your lessons. 

“How do you know what plants will work for what?” He asked before you could even begin. 

“Well it’s harder for me here. On Dathomir I knew all the flora and fauna already so I could feel the kind of magic each life held just being near it. The plants don’t have Dathomirian magick here, but I can still sense different properties they hold.” You explained as you noticed Maul’s skeptical look. You held yourself back from scoffing at him for being a typical dense nightbrother and instead offered, “Here, I’ll show you.” 

You grabbed your small knife from your belt and carefully cut a few different small plants near you. You held one plant in one hand and with your other grabbed Maul’s hand. He raised a tattooed eyebrow and you simply nodded and closed your eyes. He followed suit and you bore your energy into the plant, a green mist now surrounding the both of you. You held it for a moment and let go opening your eyes, Maul’s eyes still closed and holding your hand. He looked so peaceful and innocent in that moment. You hesitated before letting him know he could open his eyes you wanted to let him remain so pure. 

“Could you feel the power of the plant?” You finally asked him, still holding his hand. 

“Hmm yes… I sensed it was poisonous in high doses, but medicinal in very small doses.” He carefully answered, looking down at your hands still clasped together. 

“Yes! Could you sense what kinds of things it could treat as a medicine?” Your eyes got big as you looked at him with wonder awaiting his response. He squeezed your hand and replied in his cool deep honeyed voice, “heartache.” You couldn’t help but giggle as you squeezed his hand back.

“Well heartburn, but close!” You reassured him. 

You spent the afternoon talking plants and potions and magick with the crimson nightbrother. Your face began to hurt from smiling all day, a happier moment in your life you couldn’t recall. The thick fog began to roll in and you started to pack up your books and herb jars. Maul laid back and stared straight up at the sky watching the fog swirl around as it slowly enveloped you both. 

You laid back next to him staring up at the fog as it thickened like gravy around you. A hand grasped yours and you wove your fingers between his and lightly squeezed. Your body ached with desire, but you froze to the ground afraid to make a move. The night brother leaned up and over you placing a hand on your face. 

“May I?” He practically whispered. 

“Yes,” you closed your eyes and met his lips with your own, kissing him deep and passionate. He crawled on top of you, his metal legs cold and harsh against your soft warm legs. You wrapped your legs around his middle pulling him in closer to you and he continued kissing you with a frenzied gusto. You wanted to touch him everywhere and be touched everywhere by him. Your frantic hands caressed his head around his horns, resulting in a purr emanating from his chest and vibrating into your frame, overwhelming your body with pleasure and desire.

He ran his hands all over your body, his strong hands grasping and massaging your sore body. His intoxicating scent of coffee, cedar, and petrol mixed with the plant and soil odors of the swamp in an orgasmic medley. You moaned in pleasure and he started to reach down to your core, but stopped to ask your consent once again.

“Yes!” you breathed into his ear and wriggled out of your clothes. The moss was soft, cool, and gentle against your bare skin and you laid back and guided him into you. He started off slow and rhythmic both of you moaning and grunting with each thrust. You felt yourself melting into him and into your surroundings, becoming the fog or the fog becoming you. Wrapping yourself around your lover, around yourself and everything in between; becoming the earth, the sky, the galaxy all at once. A perfect moment of ecstasy and bliss, you never wanted it to end.

You both lay on the moss bed, bodies entangled, breathing and moving as one, dozing in and out of sleep. Oh to be with this handsome nightbrother forever in a secluded swamp with no one else to answer to or deal with ever again.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

hey thanks again for reading. it means more to me than you’ll know. 

toss a heart to your witcher o’ tumblr of thirst

tag list: @brilliantbutbatty​ @maulieber​ @emissarydecksetter​

masterlist

[flourchildwrites]

One is All, All is One

Izumi Curtis:  Passing Housewife, Master Alchemist and... Teacher?  It's more likely than you think.

Fandom:  Fullmetal Alchemist:  Brotherhood & Manga

Relationships & Characters:  Izumi Curtis/Sig Curtis, Pinako Rockbell, Edward Elric, Alphonse Elric

Genre:  Family Feels, Alchemy Training, TW Canonical Reference to Child Loss

Rating:  Teen And Up Audiences

Word Count:  3,076 words

A/N:  Happy (belated) holidays, @ratsbys!  I'm your pinch-hitter for the @fmasecretsanta2020.  When I saw that you liked Izumi Curtis, I couldn't help myself.  She's my favorite character (hence my AO3 pseud). Thank you for waiting so patiently for your gift.  I hope you enjoy this fic as much as I enjoyed creating it for you.

Read on AO3

“How can I say no to that?  Of course, they may go.”

Izumi is almost taken aback by the ease of Pinako Rockbelk’s answer, but there seems to be a lot of that reasoning going around today.  Perhaps, this is just the effect that the Elric brothers have on ordinarily reasonable people.  Housewives suddenly agree to become teachers, and trusted guardians allow their wards to live with strangers while studying alchemy.

“My husband and I run a butcher shop in Dublith,” Izumi explains. “If the boys pass a preliminary test, they would live there with us while I teach them.  I would also insist they train in martial arts to provide a practical application for their skills.  Both aspects of the training are rigorous.  Many pupils wait until they are older to learn.”

Pinako smiles congenially. “Dublith sounds like a nice place, and I think you will find both boys are ready to learn what you have to teach, especially if they are allowed to do it together.”

The short, elderly mechanic sits opposite Izumi and puffs happily on her long pipe.  She answers each question with ease, and the passing housewife realizes that Pinako’s demeanor is unshakable. She might be doing something as mundane as ordering breakfast at her favorite local restaurant, not handing over custody of two young boys to complete strangers.

The thought almost makes Izumi smirk before she remembers where they are, a small farming town named Resembool that sits precariously close to the troubled Ishvalan territory.  In this town, the sheep outnumber the people, and though there might have been charming restaurants dotting the streets surrounding a bustling train station in the past, this progress was wiped away by the 1907 terrorist attack.  Resembool, much like their residents, gives the appearance of a pastoral paradise, but beneath the pretty picture, there lies loss and hardship.  Honestly, Izumi isn’t surprised that Alphonse and Edward want to travel for alchemy lessons; however, she is wary of the fact that Pinako, their guardian, will so casually allow it.

“Dr. Rockbell,” Izumi entreats, mindful of automail textbooks lining a nearby bookcase that prominently bear the elderly doctor’s honorific on their spine.

“It’s Pinako, dear,” she corrects with gentle (but firm) intonation.

Izumi grins awkwardly in reply and sets down the tea that young Winry served them earlier.  It smells divine—ginger tea with a hint of lemon and mint, but she has no stomach for it.

“Pinako, the training I specialize in can be physically and spiritually trying, especially for children.  Unfortunately, I can’t make exceptions.”

“Nor would I ask you to,” Pinako is quick to respond. “The boys’ father was an accomplished alchemist, and they’ve been playing around with it ever since they were old enough to read.  I would rather them learn under the guidance of a master.  Forgive me for being blunt, dear, but I believe the real question is if you think you are ready for students.”

Pinako takes a drag from the end of her pipe and exhales in a steady stream.  Izumi is grateful for the warm smoke clouding the sunny sitting room as the old woman peers through the glasses perched on the bridge of her nose.  Her question cuts dangerously close to the quick.  The Flamel on the left side of Izumi’s chest pulses when she hears the word “master” and thinks of the boys as they are:  alchemy students, perhaps, but first and foremost, they are children—something Izumi has too little and too much experience with.

Is she ready?  For children under her roof?  For students eager to learn a skill that left her marred?

The grandfather clock on the sitting room wall counts three seconds before Izumi is pulled out of the mire of her mind by the comforting pressure of Sig’s hand on her knee, and when he speaks, it is with a gruff softness that makes her heart swell.

“We would have no trouble looking after the boys, though I think my wife wouldn’t want to deprive the boys’ father the opportunity to train them.”

At the mention of the absent man, Pinako tilts her chin downward; shadows deepen her wrinkles. “I’m told he has his reasons.  Still, Edward and Alphone’s father deprives himself of the opportunity to train his sons well enough on his own without anyone else helping him.  You would not be intruding.”

Her short arm leans toward the coffee table separating the couple, and she places her pipe in a metal ashtray before bringing her hands to rest in her lap.

“I never was an overbearing parent,” she states, “and I am also not as young as I once was.  Some days, these old bones feel too tired to look after three children. Winry’s interest in automail is something I can manage, but alchemy is beyond my field of expertise.  Edward and Alphonse would greatly benefit from some vigorous direction to channel their passion, and I sense in Izumi a tireless spirit.”

Sig beams down at his wife in agreement.

“If dear Trisha, their mother, were here, I believe she would agree.  They are determined to learn alchemy, and they have the gift to perform it.  But they can’t do that properly in Resembool, so I will allow the boys to train with you if you are agreeable.”

Izumi isn’t sure what persuades her, be it a reason or a feeling, but her resolve requires nothing more than her husband’s agreement.  Likewise, when she looks to Sig and finds his burly face full of admiration, she knows they are of the same mind.  The boys will return to Dublith with them, and if they pass the test, Izumi will teach them the art of alchemy.

“I will consider them as students,” Izumi announces, “provided they have the perseverance to learn alchemy.  They may not be ready, but there’s only one way to be certain.  I will test them as I was tested. We’ll see where they stand after a month.”

To the couple’s surprise, Pinako chuckles at the prospect of Edward and Alphonse not being ready as if she knows something Izumi and Sig do not.  With business concluded, the three adults rise from their seats and prepare themselves for the short walk to the nearby Elric family home to tell Edward and Alphonse the good news.

...

One is all; all is one.

This is the basis of alchemy.  It is a lesson that the boys must learn, divined in isolation through the cycle of life itself.  And until her new apprentices speak this law into being, Izumi cannot teach them.  They must figure it out by themselves.

She takes Pinako’s words to heart and does not shy away from the vigorous direction the good Dr. Rockbell prescribed.  Edward and Alphonse will be instructed in the same manner Izumi was taught.  They land upon a nearby island with soft sand, warm water and lush greenery that teems with life.  The passing housewife breathes in the humid air and pushes the last of the city smog from her lungs.  She doesn’t think about the ache in her belly during moments like these.  It is all part of the same alchemical cycle.  Each end engenders a new beginning.

And honestly, this new beginning on a beautiful island is a far cry from her first alchemy trial at frigid Briggs. Izumi’s methods may be bold, but she is hardly cruel.  Edward and Alphonse are, after all, still children.  Children stranded on a deserted island, but children nonetheless.

“You two are on your own,” she announces to a slightly bewildered Edward and Alphonse.

The boys stare back in surprise, and Izumi grins with confidence.  She places her hands squarely on her hips, and her voice swells with conviction. It’s been quite a while since she felt this sort of rush.  To be needed and valued.  And to be seen as both a housewife and a master alchemist.

It’s nice, very nice.  But that won’t soften Izumi’s resolve as a teacher.  She owes her students this much.

“If you do well, you will move on to the main training phase.  During this first stage, the use of alchemy is totally forbidden.”

But one little clue is in order, she thinks.  That is only fair.

“One is all, and all is one.  You have one month to figure out what that means.  You better find the answer in the allotted time, or else you are headed back to Resembool.”

To underscore her point, Izumi tosses a knife at the boy’s feet. It’s another gift, though they may not see it that way until later.  To be talented alchemists, they must understand the value of sacrifice.  They discard their daily comforts for the benefit of knowledge, and to sustain their lives, they must know what has been taken firsthand.  A knife is, simply put, essential to that task.

With one arm raised and a grin on her face, Izumi bids her pupils a fond farewell, almost wishing she could travel back through the threads of time to complete her own training again. “Bye,” she says confidently before the boys can respond.

As Sig paddles back toward the shore, he hums thoughtfully under his breath.

“A clue and a knife,” he observes.

“Too much?” Izumi asks.  The bridge of her nose wrinkles playfully with indecision.

Sig chuckles. “I think it’s just enough.”

...

Four days.

It’s been four days since she marooned abandoned purposefully left Edward and Alphonse on a nearby island in the name of introductory alchemy training (with a knife!).  Outwardly, Izumi is the picture of levelheaded confidence.  She says loud and proud that her pupils will have an abundant supply of food and water when her husband questions her methods.

But inwardly, she’s forever grateful that Sig chose to check in on them this morning.

He set off with a small knapsack after closing the butcher shop early.  And when she told him to “do what he felt he had to” with a stiff upper lip, Sig smiled so softly in return as if he knew what she really meant was, 'thank you.'

Now that she is alone, nervousness twists her belly into knots.  With her work in the butcher shop done for the day, the housewife wanders from room to room in her home, wondering how the boys might spend their days and taking note of her furniture’s construction.  No doubt, a few pieces are bound to be destroyed during their training.  Rigorous martial arts training requires an ambush or two.  Broken furniture is a fair trade for solid combat skills.

Yet, Izumi finds herself drawn to the details in each room:  family photos filled by two and fragile mementos from her travels around Amestris.  When she reaches the spare room at the end of the hall, she notices that the doorknob looks just like new, and indeed, this room is not a place she likes to dwell.  Though it is now filled with odds and ends that have no place in her home, it was once a nursery.

Soon, if Edward and Alphonse pass their test, it will be a student dormitory of sorts.

Izumi doesn’t know how to feel about this change.  Nevertheless, she chooses to focus on the new beginning laid at her feet rather than the dream of motherhood that slipped between her fingers.

It takes her hours to transmute the old furniture into a set of twin beds with a matching nightstand placed in between.  She dusts and busies herself into the evening, finding new places for old keepsakes and cleaning off an old desk at the far side of the room.  By the time Sig returns, Izumi has made a list of supplies the boys will need and has scoured the house for suitable fabric for new curtains.

It is only when she sees Sig’s dirt clad knees and windswept hair that Izumi realizes she might have acted too soon.

“How are they?” she asks, trying to summon her earlier confidence.

Sig smiles reassuringly, and her heart beats faster in relief.

“They’re doing ok,” he says. “I was close to calling off the exercise, but Edward decided to eat some ants.  Strange choice, but shortly after, they were setting traps for rabbits and making fishing poles.  I think they’re starting to understand your lesson.”

Amusement painted Izumi’s features. “Of all the things to eat on that island, he ate ants?”

“Everyone has to start somewhere,” Sig responds gently. “Maybe we should set aside some time to take the boys camping during their training.  Survival tactics are essential.”

A picturesque image burns itself into the housewife's mind before she can curb her enthusiasm—Izumi and Sig with Edward and Alphonse, camping under the stars.  She would like to teach them how to transmute shelter while Sig cooks a delicious meal over a modest campfire. Indeed, there’s an element of training in that activity, but there’s also a feeling of blissful domesticity that Izumi doesn’t want to put a name to.  At least, not yet.

“I’ll consider putting survival training in my curriculum,” Izumi announces as she turns on her heel and heads back down the hallway. “Now, I need to show you where the boys will be staying. I’m torn between two fabrics for the curtains, and we’ll need to go shopping for a few more things before they return.”

She doesn’t turn to see Sig’s expression, but somehow, Izumi knows he is also smiling.

...

There’s an impressive spread laid out on the table when the Elric brothers return from the island. It’s a feast for the senses, and the boys do not hesitate to tuck in.  They load their plates with thick cuts of beef, potatoes and a few spoonfuls of veggies.  Each dish is topped with a river of gravy and a crusty slice of buttered bread.

Izumi can’t remember the last time her kitchen felt so full, and she grins to herself when she thinks no one is watching.  Edward and Alphonse adapt to their new surroundings quickly. The boys eat exuberantly as they tell Sig about their time on the island.  The burly bear of a man listens intently to Edward’s exaggerated account of their time as if he hadn’t secretly checked in on the boys every few days. As she finishes serving her own plate and sits down to dinner, Izumi mentally confirms her plans to take her students camping sometime.

For survival training purposes, of course.

“You should have seen us, teacher!” Ed exclaims. “We made traps and fishing poles without alchemy.”

Izumi checks her enthusiasm despite the way her heart jumps at the name they’ve given her: teacher.

“You did well, boys, but the real work begins tomorrow. You’ll need to study and practice to learn alchemy.”

Alphonse perks up. “Oh, we will, teacher. We’ll be the best students you’ve ever had.”

She begins to say that they’re the only students she’s ever taken on, but something about the way their golden eyes gleam with passion and pride causes Izumi to pause.  Her introduction to alchemy was nothing like theirs.  Her reception was cold; her preliminary test was colder.  And she cannot recall such a fine meal shared with her master.

“Honey,” Sig interrupts.  His timing is impeccable as always. “Why don’t you tell them about your test and how you had to fight a bear.”

Izumi can’t help the confident smirk that settles on her mouth.  As Edward and Alphonse hang on her every word, she recounts her experiences in Briggs with as much fearsome detail as she can remember.  The children lean in to listen while they continue to shove heaping spoonfuls of mashed potatoes in their mouths.  By the time their plates are cleared, Izumi feels as if she is a living, breathing legend, an all-powerful alchemist that has much to teach her students.

It occurs to Izumi, sometime between dinner and dessert, that Edward and Alphonse need more than an alchemy education.  These orphans from Resembool need guidance in all things.  They need care and concern from people not spread so thin as Pinako.  The phrase ‘role models’ burrows its way into Izumi’s mind, and as she watches Sig help the boys set dessert plates around their small table, she begins to understand what Pinako might have seen in the passing husband and wife from Dublith.

It’s too soon to say they are a family and too much to call the warm, tight feeling in her chest ‘love.’ But there is something wonderful about the easy way the Elrics belong in this home, like puzzle pieces tailor-made for empty spaces that Izumi once believed could never be filled.

After dinner, Edward and Alphonse wash up and tuck themselves in bed.  Their tired bodies sprawl out over the new sheets.  They sleep soundly on a pair of soft mattresses that cushion their ambitious dreams.  Sig busies himself cleaning up the kitchen while Izumi settles at her desk in the study.  She selects a recipe for breakfast alongside her lesson plans for the boys’ first formal alchemy instruction when an idea strikes her.

Izumi isn’t entirely sure why she feels compelled to write Pinako a letter, but the delicate fibers of her favorite stationery are pressed underneath her pen before she can second guess herself.  She shares the good news about the brothers passing their preliminary exam with Pinako and thanks the doctor for the opportunity to nurture their talent.  In the last paragraph, the housewife makes a small request for recipes that the boys favor to make their stay more comfortable.  

Lastly, Izumi’s pen hovers over the signature line for a moment, wondering which phrase to use in closing.  She goes with her instinct and writes the first thing that comes to mind.

‘One Is All, All Is One,’ she pens in the space above her signature block.

Perhaps, the perceptive Granny will know the phrase’s meaning, or maybe she’ll consider the odd saying little more than a mantra Izumi favors.  Both are true.  Still, the concept of a beginning within an end, of equivalent exchange and interconnectivity of all things, seems particularly poignant tonight.

Izumi sits back in her desk chair and sighs softly to herself.  She knew that the next few months would be life-changing for the two boys occupying the room at the far end of the hall.  Until this moment, she had not expected how impactful their presence would be for her in return.

[puttingfingerstokeys]

Where is your love?

Dedicated, first and foremost, to @sxvethelastdance, whose dreams inspired this. I’ve been sitting on this for ages. It’s a crime that I’ve not posted it yet. 

Warring exes, Caged Heat (aged heat, tbh), ft. Thunder God Johnny Cage~

The atmosphere is somber, solemn, and respectful as they—the very few who are in attendance—gather themselves upon finely-carved chairs facing a beautifully peaceful, tree-filled grotto. In it, a small waterfall plays down the rocks and catches silvery white moonlight, sparkling like a thousand diamonds and pearls. Fire God Liu Kang, seated near the right side of the grotto, shifts in his seat and turns his glowing eyes upon his small pantheon. Fujin, Kung Lao, Kitana, and Johnny Cage all are seated in similar chairs. He makes eye contact with the latter, who gives an “okay” sign, more subtle than his usual finger guns, and then elbows Kung Lao, who is speaking quietly with Kitana. They both shift and turn their attention to Liu Kang, who makes meaningful eye contact with each. Fujin is the only one who is still facing forward, hardly having moved since his arrival.

 There are other seats and soon, they are filled—some faces are familiar, hauntingly so—and some are wholly new. Kung Lao sees this timeline’s version of his ancestor, rightful winner of several consecutive tournaments and still looking young and spry, like a man of twenty, though he is far older. Kitana sees her clone sister—or the woman who might have been her clone sister. Mileena Kahn has taken the throne from her treacherous “father” who, similar to Kitana’s recollection, stole Jerrod’s throne and wife, leaving Edenia a smoking husk; that Quan-Chi was her creator rather than Shang Tsung seems to have made little difference in appearance, though perhaps it has in personality. 

 Johnny watches for any hint of what his family might have become in this timeline and sees nothing, thinking it may be for the best, though he recognizes the uniforms of Scorpion and Sub-Zero, looking just as ornery as they do in his timeline. Some things never change. Fujin, whose gaze finally strays, catches sight of Rain, who, as the demigod son of Argus of Edenia, is acting as a diplomatic liaison between the restored realm and Outworld. Mileena Kahn is evidently a just ruler, which has surprised everyone, though they cannot show it. A few more trickle in and are strangers, but must have been involved, in some way, with the events which take place on this island once a generation.

 The mortals in attendance seem to want to move and pay respects to the pantheon sitting clustered in a small group, but the occasion is so unique, nobody seems to know what the protocol might be. Before anyone can make a social blunder, however, a flash of green light and the distinct whiff of fairly dark magic fills the grove. Liu’s gaze snaps forward first, though Fujin’s is not far behind. Only the gods seem disturbed by this, however, as the other guests remain silent and somber. Johnny feels a hand moving to where his mortal heart used to be. He curls his lip a little, but stows the urge to offer comment—a gargantuan effort—when a woman appears from the green stuff, her sharp, angular face set with glittering eyes that seem to catch the moon light and are framed by glossy, Stygian hair: Shang Liu Kang.

 “Too long has it been since I have had the pleasure of hosting so many venerable guests,” she said, lifting her arms. “I, and my parents, thank you for coming.”

 The applause is quiet and polite. She follows it with her eyes, almost gauging when it will subside before putting her hands up. She moves with the grace of a jungle cat, or a serpent, not unlike her “Baba”, Shang Tsung. With that same liquid grace, she gestures to the tiny, sparkling pool and, with an almost casual wave of her beautiful, bejeweled hand, summons from it a slab of what looks to be pure obsidian, shot through with lightning-bolt shapes of gold.

 “My Baba—Shang Tsung—led a strange life… but what I experienced, that for which I was fortunate to be present, was good,” she says, turning her wrist a little and then flicking her hand, as if freeing it from some tendril. The slab continues to float, unhindered. “He taught me magic, martial arts, fashion, how to get more of my food into my mouth than on my clothing—which may also count as fashion.”

 The laughter is quiet, but present, and genuine. She smiles and, rather than sinister, her smile is radiant, lighting up her entire face, her whole countenance. Her eyes sparkle with the well of tears that is hidden so well just behind them. She draws herself up and nods, as if reassuring herself that going on is acceptable, that it is the appropriate way and not just the only way. Her throat clicks audibly as she swallows and breathes deeply.

 “I am a scholar and an engineer, thanks to him,” Liu Kang continues, “and so much more than that.

 “You know, he left me this island… well, of course you know; many of you have attended the tournaments since I began hosting them. It is… a tremendous effort, I assure you, but worth every moment. Is there anything more beautiful than testing one’s might against warriors from other realms?”

 The question rolls out over the small crowd and there are murmurs of approval in the responses. She smiles. There is bloodlust in them yet, civil as even the gods in attendance pretend to be. There is purity in it, she thinks, pitting one against the other.

 “I am honored to carry that tradition and, as I am Edenian, you can be certain I will be here a while longer.” Again, there are murmurs of laughter and even a few smiles. She smiles as well, reassuring the attendees that it is quite all right to celebrate the life of someone who has passed, right alongside his beloved daughter.

 “Baba was not Edenian,” Liu Kang continues, “so his time was more limited, but I think we can all agree that a few dozen centuries is a long, fulfilling life for any mortal.” She does not pause for any response here, but moves on, her focus now upon some space behind them, as if looking into anyone’s eyes will bring tears to hers. This one thing, she cannot bear.

 “He always joked that it would be his luck to outlive my father—you can imagine his heartbreak when he was right.” Tenacity keeps her going and little else. “He wanted so desperately to follow father… he swore to me… ‘child,’ he said, ‘I cannot live this way, without him, so forgive me if I do not try’… and it broke my heart—which of course he could not bear, so he said just this one last thing, gave one single request: ‘Do not bury me with him; I was not worthy to share his space when he was alive and I will not become worthy in death’.”

 She turns, gesturing to the pool and then throws her arms out in a wide, gentle arc to indicate the trees. “This place,” she says, “is a replica of the grove in the foothills of a certain mountain range where he first met my father—and you, Lord Liu Kang, for whom I am named—and he had it constructed shortly after my father passed.”

 Shang Tsung had, of course, not needed a reminder of his lover’s radiance, but he had taken much time in this grove, sitting quietly and meditating, or speaking to Raiden, always holding one of his beautifully-worked, ornate hats, clutching it tightly and choking back tears. During these times, Liu Kang recalls, she would leave her father be, posting silent guards all about to ensure no disturbance. 

 She had once asked him why he did not go speak to Raiden directly; his resting place is within the palace itself, at the highest tower, far above even the sorcerer’s throne room and the chambers he had long shared with the god of thunder. He had not answered her. She supposes now that he had not needed to and that her asking was a strangely childish cruelty on her part, striking out at him because she would visit him alone, almost every day.

 “We grieve in different ways,” she continues, “and I think that coming here was his way of mourning my father’s passage and also celebrating his life—the life they made together. Father was enigmatic, but Baba always craved a puzzle, a new challenge and he remained fascinated until the day he… left me.” She swallows hard. “I believe the fascination has not ended.”

 She is no longer facing the small throng, instead watching the reflection of the slab and the moon in the dark pool whose stirred waters toss the images about like a kaleidoscope. She breathes deeply and lowers her head, sighing. The grove is still and quiet, reverential for several minutes and in that silence, Liu Kang feels the wind pick up around her, shaking the leaves of the trees. Distant wind chimes respond to the breeze and ring out softly. In a place that may not be this nexus of realms, but an echo of others, thunder rumbles, far off and quietly, barely a whisper. She hears it and only then do the tears begin to fall. Her shoulders shake and, though her jaw is tight, they sag and soon, her whole body feels as if it might collapse and she will join her beloved parents.

 All at once, however, there is a powerful arm about her shoulders. It buzzes strangely, almost familiarly, with a strong current just under the skin. Without thinking, she turns her body in toward the owner of that arm and allows him to envelop her. “Easy kiddo, I get it…” Johnny’s voice is soft, soothing, and fatherly. It carries none of the pontificating authority of his predecessor, but that is not what she needs right now anyway. She is sobbing against his shoulder, hard, her body at once tight with rage and frustration and threatening to go slack and collapse.

 “The mistress of the island would like a few minutes alone,” Lady Kitana instructs, standing from her seat and herding the attendees gently toward the path which will lead away from the grove and to the palace, where a feast has been prepared. No one seems to object. Mileena, bowing deeply, speaks to her twin from another timeline; it is like looking into a mirror, but with a few more teeth.

 “Outworld mourns his passage, Lady Kitana; please express my condolences to Mistress Shang.”

 “The Shirai-Ryu and Lin Kuei grieve with Mistress Shang, as well,” this world’s Sub-Zero adds. Johnny has not spent much time—any, if he is being honest—in this timeline, preferring to leave Liu Kang to his own devices here, helping where he is needed, but not really interfering, but he knows Kuai Liang’s voice when he hears it, even from a distance. Johnny finds himself wondering just how similar this timeline is to his own. He then begins to do the math and realizes why he has seen none of his family or people resembling them. This saddens him greatly, but now is not the time to consider his grief. 

 Kitana nods solemnly to both, her silence appearing deified, but really, she is shocked at this parallel “sister” and her mannerisms. If Mileena has noticed any kind of resemblance, she does not make it known, likely chalking it up to Quan-Chi’s hubris. She turns then and moves to join her small retinue further up the path. 

 Lord Liu Kang hesitates a moment before leaving to join the Great Kung Lao, his chosen, as well. Take care, Johnny, he thinks, this is the daughter of our greatest adversary. Since becoming keeper of time, the crown has never lain heavier. He now thinks of the realms in terms of epochs and eons, though among these, there are certain individuals and strokes of the cosmic brush which must be maintained.

 When the grove is silent but for the murmur of water and Liu Kang’s soft sobbing, Johnny relaxes a little. She is still crying on him, but he no longer feels all those eyes on the two of them. For being a man of the stage, accustomed to the limelight, he had not wanted to be observed comforting this woman in her time of mourning; something about it feels too intimate and he is uncomfortable with the idea that others might simply look on, even respectfully.

 “You,” she rasped hoarsely, sniffing like a child, “called me ‘kiddo’… But I am ancient, Lord Johnny Cage.”

 “I’ll never get used to that,” he says, responding in his usual, casual manner, not at all like a god of any kind. “Listen, when you get to be my age, everyone’s a kid, even people who aren’t kids—they’re kids. I don’t make the rules… and you’re a kid who just lost her dads.”

 “You are a god,” she reminds him, pulling away and, like a child once more, wiping her eyes with a fine silk sleeve. Only now does Johnny notice the beautiful damascened embroidery upon her clothing. “Do you not make the rules?”

 “The ah… universe makes its own rules, Liu Kang,” he says, the name sounding funny in his head, as he is not addressing the chesty monk-turned-god, but a beautiful, dragon-like woman with glittering, somehow serpent-like eyes, reddened from tears of grief. I’d kiss her if this was one of my movies—thank GOD it isn’t. “We’re just here to… y’know make sure people don’t break ‘em.”

 She nods, finding this acceptable an answer as she is bound to receive from a deity. He had been in attendance at her fathers’ wedding, and at Raiden’s funeral—she recalls him being quiet, but inconsolable the entire night—but she does not know Lord Johnny Cage well. She knows none of the gods terribly well—after all, how well can gods be known? Very well, if one asked my Baba, she reminds herself. She has her suspicions about her father and has had them for quite some time, though out of respect for them both, she has held her tongue. Now might be her only chance to ask, and she cannot even form the words.

 “I am glad you came,” she says, whispering hoarsely and turning toward the hovering monument to her Baba’s life. “And I have… a favor to ask of you.”

 “Shoot.”

 A brow rises, though she understands the parlance. She has heard people who speak like him, but not for some time. Liu Kang is no fool, noting everything about everyone upon her island. She has more suspicions than ever about the current pantheon, but at the moment, is too focused upon her grief to satisfy that curiosity either. It is a good thing for Johnny Cage, who would fold like a cheap suit, if pressed, thought one he currently wears is Versace.

 “I wish to carve something… an epitaph upon this stone—it is not that I lack the means, but…” She trails off, pausing to think. “I wanted it to be carved by my father’s hand—by his thunder.”

 It is Johnny’s turn to raise a brow, understanding, at least in part, that the unspoken words are: And I know you have it.

 “When I was a child, I would ask Baba where he kept all his love for Father—you know, as children do, I could not understand the abstract concept of love and when Baba said he had so much to give, I wondered how he might give it, and where he kept it in the meantime; I could not have been more than four.”

 Johnny envisioned a tiny Liu Kang—this one—running barefoot about the palace, clad in finery, her hair done up with gold and jewels, terrorizing the serving staff. He is hilariously close to the truth.

 “And what’d he tell you?” The idea of Shang Tsung loving something or someone other than his vicious ambition had been unconscionable to more than just Johnny Cage before the spectacular ceremony that had been the sorcerer’s wedding to the guy Johnny thought of as the “real” god of thunder. Seeing the way they looked at each other had utterly sold him and he never questioned again.

 “He said ‘my love is where the lightning strikes’,” says Liu Kang simply, and then gestures toward the tallest tower of the palace. Atop it, Johnny now notices a rod that must be at least ten feet high, topped with some ornament he cannot see. Once more, distant thunder rumbles and Johnny resists the urge to insist it is not him. Weather control is, of course, well within his abilities, but this one is simply whipping itself up naturally. Or supernaturally. Big guy, if you’re up there, you’re the most dramatic sonuvabitch I’ve ever met.

 “You want that on your rock here?” Johnny gestures toward the floating tablet. Liu Kang summons it closer, the glossy black and gold surface begging to be written upon. She nods.

 “Please,” she says, with no pleading in her voice. She has no doubt he will do it. The asking is a courtesy.

 “Y’know, I didn’t… really know your… err Shang Tsung well—but I knew Raiden,” he says, pressing one sparking finger to the stone. “He saw somethin’ in this guy, in his heart—he wasn’t stupid, Raiden… he was… honestly the best of us, I think. It’s… hard to believe he’s gone. That they’re both… Feels like the end of an era.” He presses the final curve of the ‘s’ at the end of the phrase and pushes the hovering tablet so that it faces Liu Kang. “How’sat?”

 Without thinking, Johnny stretches a canopy of electricity over their heads so they stay dry. Only Liu Kang’s hand upon his stops him completing it and it falters, the rain splattering them and soaking them instantly.

 The letters catch the moonlight, sparkling subtly, and perhaps glowing a bit, written by the finger of a god. She nods and sends it back to its position, hovering over the pool. As it reaches the center of the pond, thunder roars almost over their heads. Johnny and Liu Kang both look up and then toward the palace instinctively. A single bolt of lightning hits the rod at the top of the highest tower. My love is where the lightning strikes, Johnny thinks. A gale must have pushed the storm in quickly off the sea and it is now roiling over them. In the distance, a sheet of rain comes pelting toward the pair in the grove, making a mist of anything behind it.

 “My father once told me that life is not about waiting for the storm to pass, but finding contentment walking in the rain. Walk with me, Lord Johnny Cage, to the home of my fathers.” She offers her arm. He looks at her, meets her eyes, which, now that they have emerged from the dim haze of desolation and grief, are actually a beautiful hazel. He takes her arm and she smiles. “He chose well, I think.”

 “Wh?” Johnny’s stutter is so far from godlike, it makes her laugh. She shakes her head.

 “Your secret is safe with the Shang family,” Liu Kang assures him, moving forward and leading him. “Baba always knew what father was, perhaps what he had been… To Baba, he never wasn’t a god; certainly, he worshipped him as one.” The thunder murmurs overhead, almost like a distant, deep belly laugh. The rain disguises their tears as they join it, nodding and smiling. Their grief is real, palpable, directed this way and that, her for Shang Tsung, Johnny for the era this death represents, but united, at least, in this space and time.

 When the servants open the great doors for Lord Johnny Cage and Mistress Shang Liu Kang, both are soaked to the bone and smiling ear-to-ear. The other gods look between themselves in bafflement, but Lord Liu Kang meets Johnny’s eyes and with a minute nod, the new god of thunder reassures his friend that all is well—very well, indeed.

 Later that evening, they join each other on one of Shang Tsung’s many ornate balconies. Lord Liu Kang lifts one hand to the skies and Johnny mirrors it. The storm has passed and the heavens above are clear, save for the weird aurorae of many worlds clashing overhead. 

 “They will be remembered,” says Liu quietly, forming one half of a two-part constellation, his free hand clasping Johnny’s. As Johnny’s half of their work joins his, the former Hollywood superstar adds:

“In every realm.”

[comicgeekscomicgeek]

Their Hero Academia -- Chapter 79: Drop the Bomb

Presenting the next installment of my on-going, nextgen, MHA fic! Earlier chapters can be found here

A snout pressed to the ground along the side of the road, where the highway gave way to more densely wooded country. Yes, that was the scent they were after, no mistaking it. Less than another day’s travel ahead. Lips curled back past sharp teeth, releasing a low growl of satisfaction. They had missed the departure of the students, all nestled into their transport and none the wiser that something was just behind them. It wasn’t a short journey from the school to their destination, but traveling cross country, a nearly straight line whenever they didn’t have to stop to find the scent again, made up considerable time. They did not tire. This terrain was what they were bred to cross. They moved back into the cover of the trees as they followed the smaller road, claws digging into the dirt as they pushed forward.

They’d be at the camp soon.

***

“Ooooh, that had to hurt,” Isamu winced.  

“I’ve told him he relies on his Quirk too much,” Midoriya replied, gazing at the scene before them through his fingers.  “Tell me he’s still breathing?”

“He’s groaning, Toshi,” Tokoyami said.  “He’ll be fine.”  She chirped a few times.  “I think.”

“She really hit him hard!” Frog-Shadow said, adding her own opinion from Tokoyami’s shoulder.

“Poor Shota,” Izumi said. “Still, he lasted longer than I expected him to.”

“Well… that was definitely something,” Boost-Rush said.  “Where’d you learn a move like that, Kaniyashiki?”

Kaniyashiki was busy helping Shinso back to his feet, but she looked over in the Rookie’s direction. “My Aunt Monika’s a police officer, sir,” she said, tossing off a salute with her free hand, before turning it into a crab-claw V.  “She taught me a lot of self-defense stuff.”

“Well, tell her she did a good job,” Boost-Rush said.  He looked to the larger group of U.A. and Shiketsu students.  “And I think that’s our best example so far of why being able to fight without your Quirk is important.  Shinso here has one of the most powerful Quirks in either class, and Kaniyashiki laid him out in two moves.”

The morning’s instruction had largely been focused on Quirkless exercises, directed by Boost-Rush. The powerfully-built Rookie was an extremely good hand-to-hand combatant, though he’d admitted that Doc Clock was even better than he was, something which had gotten Aizawa beaming with pride for all of about three seconds before his natural resting grump face had taken back over.  Boost-Rush had put them through a number of exercises, before he’d set them up sparring. Eventually, they’d break off into pairs, but for now, they were also getting a bit of a show out of it, as he called different combinations to spar against each other and demonstrate what they’d learned so far.  

A few students, mostly those with heavy mutation-type Quirks like Shoji and Bondo, had largely been exempted, and would get some other specialized instruction, since their Quirks were more innate Mutant types.  Ground Zero, Aizawa, and a couple of the other Rookies were with them.  Some of the others had also been peeled off for other types of training with some of the other Rookies.

He had to admit, though, it had been especially exciting when Boost-Rush had opened it with Kana against Kimiko Ojiro.  As the two best martial arts in any of the classes, it had made sense.  It hadn’t been one hundred percent Quirkless, since Ojiro couldn’t turn off her invisibility, but she’d wrapped her arms and legs, donned gloves, and wore the visor from her costume so that Kana would have a decent idea of where her limbs and face were.

It had been, in a word, spectacular.  And not in a “two attractive girls fighting” sort of way (Though he’d be lying if he completely denied that part.  His girlfriend was very hot.  And also very scary when she went full out like that.  He was starting to realize the comparisons to Kirishima-Bakugo weren’t entirely inaccurate.), but also in a “two incredibly skilled people giving it their all” sort of way.  Kana’s style was more aggressive than Ojiro’s, focusing on powerful strikes and kicks, while Ojiro focused on speed and repeated strikes to confuse and disorient. Both of them were absolutely on the top of their game and on a completely different level than just about anyone else.  Shiro Monoma had watched the whole thing with rapt attention.

“That,” Shinso said, “was so cool!  She just grabbed my wrist, and the next thing you know, bam!  I’m on the ground!”   He stared at the 1-B girl with wide eyes.  “You’ve got to teach me how to do that!”

That got a groan from Isamu, Midoriya, and Tokoyami.  That would be Shinso all over.  The kid was trying really hard lately, had been ever since the end of their Internships, but at that end of the day, he was still a ray of sunshine fanboy.  Somethings just never changed.  

Kaniyashiki threw back her head and let out a laugh.  “Sure thing, shorty.”

“Hey!” Shinso said, crossing his arms as a grumpy look spread across his face.  “I’m not that short!”  Of course, he was the shortest one in the class, but he was also several months younger than most of them too…

“Anyway,” Boost-Rush went on, “next up, we’ve got… Haimawari against Awase!”

“Oh boy…”

***

Since he was dating their Class Representative, Isamu had gotten to know several of the members of Class 1-B reasonable well, and several more of them in passing.  Bondo, Kaniyashiki, and Fukidashi were some of Kana’s best friends. The first two were a terrible twosome, usually cracking jokes and up to some small measure of no good, and both of them really loved antagonizing Monoma.  And he had yet to determine whether or not Fukidashi was legitimately crazy or just extremely differently wired. He’d been surprised, though, to learn her mother was the support equipment designer, Bibimi Kenranzaki. Though honestly, that may have explained some of her more extreme tendencies.

He’d had several pleasant and lengthy conversations with the bat-like Koumori about music.  Koumori’s musical choices tended themselves more to rock than pop, but they’d found some common ground in that both of them had an appreciate for the horse-headed American rock duo, Wild Stallions.  And the giant Fukui seemed to be able to get along well with anyone.  He’d even managed to make sure there were no hard feelings with the force field generating Kido, even after he’d bested him at the Sports Festival.

Hell, he’d even managed to have a couple civil conversations with Monoma.  Even if the blond also did a lot of “I’m watching you” gestures at him when he thought no one else was looking.

Awase, on the other hand, he didn’t really know.  The Vice Class Representative was studious and not particularly talkative.  He’d probably said hello to him in passing, but beyond that, he didn’t know him.  Awase was dark-haired and athletically built and, if Isamu remembered right, his Quirk had something to do with being able to fuse his molecules with other substances, taking on their properties.  Not that that would matter much in a Quirkless spar.

He stepped into the circle that had been set up for sparring, watching Awase as he did the same.

“You can do it!” he heard Shinso call out, bringing a smile to his face.

“Show them what 1-B’s made of, Awase!” And that would be Monoma, as expected.

“You’ve got this, Isamu!” He heard Kana call out.  Followed by, “What?  He’s my boyfriend.  I’ve got to support him.”  Which was probably her defending herself against Monoma.

Awase dropped into a fighting stance, hands up, bouncing lightly on the balls of his feet.   Isamu on the other hand, dropped lower, legs spread wide, arms flared out to his sides.  Even without his Quirk, his style was never going to be about all out brawling. Keep it fast and loose.  He didn’t have the raw strength to do otherwise.

“Are you both ready?” Boost-Rush asked.

“Yes, Sensei,” Awase said simply.

“I’m ready,” he agreed.

“Then begin!”

Awase didn’t make any sounds as he charged forward, but he was telegraphing his right hook pretty badly. Isamu dropped all the way to the ground, like he would when using his Quirk and pivoted, swinging his leg out. It connected solidly with Awase’s leg, tripping him up and knocking him down.

But Awase was just as quick to spring back up, and Isamu got back to his feet, back-peddling away from a flurry of punches.  “Oooffff!” All the air got knocked out of him as one of Awase’s punches connected with his stomach.  Guy definitely had a lot of power behind him, even without his Quirk.

Isamu wasn’t completely helpless though, and he managed to get his hands up and ward off the next punch, just like Midoriya had taught him before the Sports Festival.  He managed to fire off a few rapid fire punches of his own, putting Awase back on the defensive.  Isamu had a few inches on the other boy and his arms and legs were longer too.  It gave him a reach advantage that he pressed, throwing a couple more strikes to unbalance him.

Unfortunately, Awase was quicker on the recovery than he expected, delivering a punch that set his head spinning back around.  He blinked rapidly, trying to clear his blurring vision as Awase came in for another round of strikes.  

This time, Isamu was able to dodge, bobbing this way and that, leaning and ducking out of reach of Awase’s blows.  When he was fighting with his Quirk, he relied on movement, keeping out of the way, and staying just long enough to get a couple of hits in.  There was no reason not to apply the same principle to Quirkless fighting.

“Stand still, dang it!” Awase shouted, after he’d missed with yet another blow.

“Ah,” Isamu said, “how about no?”  He dodged again, ducking under another blow.  His picked up his speed a little, so that he continued to circle Awase, letting him wear himself out trying to keep up and throwing blows.  The other boy should have been aiming for where he was going to be, but instead kept trying to catch him, which resulted in most of his blows being too slow to hit anything or only scoring a glancing hit.

So he kept it up, dodging several more blows that way.  Awase was definitely slowing down, starting to tire.  So when he launched his next blow, Isamu moved as though to duck and dodge to the left, but instead came up with an uppercut, knocking Awase down once more (And ow, ow, ow, boy did that leave his hand smarting!).

“He did it!  He did it!”  Isamu heard Shinso shout, before hearing Tokoyami try to quiet him.

Awase let out a groan, before slowly getting back up to his feet.  “Dang,” he grunted.  “You’re fast as heck even without your Quirk.”  Isamu could already see a bruise forming where he’d punched him.  For a moment, things seemed like they were going to get tense, but Awase nodded decisively.  “Good job.  Easy to see why you won the Sports Festival.”

He offered a hand, and Isamu took and shook it, trying very hard to take the praise.  He still had a lot of trouble believing his own win, even months out.  But he was getting that self-confidence up.  “Thanks,” he said.

The sound of applause broke the moment.  “Good job, both of you,” Boost-Rush said.  “Go see Bioshock if you feel like you need it.”

The Hero looked down at his clipboard.  “Okay, next… Let’s have Kirishima-Bakugo and Tatsuma.”

***

Katsumi may not have had Papa’s shark-teeth, but she’d been told that her grin was very frightening indeed. Right now, her grin seemed to be so scary that several of her classmates and 1-B students were actively backing away from her.  Sero had, in fact, let out a rather high-pitched shriek and leaped into Tensei Iida’s arms.   At least Izzy had stayed by her side.

“You’re being deliberately frightening again,” Izzy said.  There was a disapproving tone in her voice and Katsumi did feel a little bad about that.  Disappointing Izzy was not something she liked doing.  Maybe she could live with it for this the chance to teach the Shiketsu girl a lesson.

The giant girl was giving her a look that seemed to match her own.  She stepped into the ring and for the smallest of moments, Katsumi wondered if she wasn’t biting off more than she could chew.  Tatsuma’s overall build was comparable to her own.  Both of them were muscular, especially for women, though Katsumi’s build was the result of rigorous training and hard work.  She couldn’t tell it that was the case for Tatsuma or if it was related to her Quirk, not that she knew what that was. But Tatsuma had considerable height, reach, and weight on her.  Katsumi was the second shortest person in the class, only barely taller than the Loud Kid. But it wouldn’t be Womanly to step away from a fight, no matter how big the other person was.

She didn’t know what Tatsuma’s deal was, why she thought she was so much better than U.A. students. Izzy had said something about Tatsuma having a good reason, but she also didn’t especially care.  You disrespect her, you disrespect her friends, her school, she’d kick your ass, plain and simple.

“I look forward to educating you,” Tatsuma said.  She cracked her knuckles.  It was noisy. Definitely a show of intimidation. Katsumi approved of the strategy. If she was anyone else, it might have worked.  But she was too damn tough to be scared by some wannabe from some pretentious school like Shiketsu.  

“You can try,” Katsumi shot back. She rolled her neck casually, tensing the muscles in her arms. No backing down.  Never let them think they can intimidate you.  And give back as good as you got.  She shot back with a glare of her own.  It’d be a lot more satisfying to unleash some explosive hell on her, but punching would do pretty nicely.

“Oh hell no, this isn’t happening.”

Katsumi spun around, realizing it was Vanish Veil who had spoken.  What the hell?  This was like the time Toshi had tried to tell her that picking her battles didn’t mean she could pick all of them.  Why were people so opposed to her using violence on the deserving?

“You two’ll kill each other and nobody’ll learn anything,” Vanish Veil said, crossing her arms.  She sounded more annoyed than anything, but there was a little of what sounded like concern in her voice too.

“Don’t think I can take her, Old Lady?” Katsumi snapped.

“I told your dad I wouldn’t let you cause a scene, Brat,” Vanish Veil snapped back.  Katsumi’s usually ability to wind Mahoro up was failing her here, it seemed.  Damn it.

“You have a problem with my teaching choices?” Boost-Rush asked, approaching Vanish Veil. Katsumi could nearly hear the sneer in his voice. If she didn’t already know he was a Monoma, that would have confirmed it.

“Only when you don’t get the memo,” Vanish Veil told him flatly.  She walked over and poked him hard in the chest with a finger.  Her twintails swayed with the motion.  “Pick somebody else, you sanctimonious ass.”

Boost-Rush just laughed at that.  He was wearing his helmet, but Katsumi could hear the smugness in his voice.  “Oh, if you insist,” he said, sounding as though he was the one doing Vanish Veil a favor.  “Still… how about Park?”

Vanish Veil seemed to be weighing her options there, her mouth set in a frown.  “Yeah, okay… that’ll probably be all right…”

***

Well, at least she’d get to show up one of those Shiketsu kids, Katsumi thought.  Windbag was all right in extremely small doses, but the rest of them could go hang. Definitely time someone knocked one of them down a peg and she was very good at knocking.  Didn’t really matter which.   Could have just as easily been the pretty boy cat guy.  He’d have probably been real satisfying to punch.

Park…  Hmm.   Katsumi considered herself pretty decent at reading people.  Tatsuma was simmering fury, waiting to erupt, buried just barely below the surface.  A lot like herself, really.  Not that she’d admit that to anyone.  She went from zero to one hundred in no time, even when the situation didn’t really call for it.  It was pretty much a family trait.  She had it, Dad had it, the Hag had it.

Park, though, Park was a quieter kind of angry.  A cold one. As Katsumi began sizing her up, she wondered, possibly for the first time in her life, if she hadn’t bitten off more than she could chew.

“And begin!” Boost-Rush called out.

Katsumi got her hands up and she and Park circled each other cautiously, both looking for an opening. She’d taken some different martial arts classes as a kid and she had had plenty of instruction from Dad and Papa, Uncle Deku, and even Ojiro’s dad.  But overall, her style mostly focused on single, powerful moves, putting someone down with just a punch or two.  It was best to take them out before they had a chance to be a threat.  

“DIE!” she bellowed, throwing the first punch, a powerful left handed strike that had a lot of her weight behind it.  

Park sidestepped her blow and came in close.  Her hand snapped out and grabbed into the shirt of Katsumi’s gym uniform.  Before she could even react, Park’s leg shot up, slamming into her side several times in rapid succession.  Katsumi let out a growl and managed to shove her away, buying herself a little space.

“Okay,” she snarled.  Her side was protesting furiously as she kept moving. “You got one in. Congratulations.  But that’s all you’re going to get.”

Park’s expression didn’t change much, but one eyebrow raised slightly, as if to say I disagree.  She calmly took a couple side steps, her eyes maintaining that cold indifference. “Angry already? If being struck upsets you, then you’re aspiring to the wrong profession.”

Katsumi knew the other girl was trying to get in her head.  But knowing that didn’t make her any less angry about it.  “I don’t know about you,” she growled, “but I was born to fight.”  She shouldn’t have been talking either, she knew.  Wasted breath.  Maybe it worked for some people, like Horse Girl.  Katsumi would, under duress, admit that Mineta had made provocation a weapon she could use.  But that wasn’t her.

She charged, throwing a right hook at Park’s head.  Park’s head shot to the left, her hand coming up and grabbing Katsumi’s wrist. In a single fluid motion, she bent and twisted it. Pain shot up her arm light a bolt of lightning, overriding her rage, overriding everything except for the white-hot sensation of pain.  It felt like her wrist was one small increment of pressure away from snapping like a twig.

“I’m aware this would likely not work if you could use your Quirk, but since our esteemed instructors insist on this human cockfighting, I might as well emphasize their point. Though I suppose with your Sports Festival, you’re used to bread and circuses.” She twisted it more. “Perhaps if they bothered with a more extensive self-defense course this wouldn’t be necessary.”

Pain shot up Katsumi’s arm so intensely that she had to grind her teeth hard to keep from crying out. No way she’d give Park the satisfaction of hearing her scream.  What the hell kind of fighting style was this?  Aunt Ochaco had done a lot of the grab and flip stuff, but…

At least she still had her other hand free.  With Park’s attention on her other arm, Katsumi brought her left hand in low for a body blow.

Park saw the blow coming and released the hold, but she wasn’t not fast enough to dodge all of it. She let out a small growl as Katsumi’s strike connected, though it was more of a solid graze than a full hit. She moved with the dodge, twisting and sending a kick up at Katsumi’s head.

Even if she wasn’t using a Quirk, Katsumi had to admit that Park was fast.  Deceptively powerful too.  She might have been impressed, if she wasn’t so damned angry.  She saw the blow coming, fortunately, moving out of the way.  Her right arm still hurt from the wrist grab, meaning her options were limited, but she knew how to play through the pain.  She faked left, throwing a couple blows to try and get Park moving the way she wanted, then followed up with a roundhouse kick from the right.

Park had obviously been expecting punches, and hadn’t expected Katsumi to throw a proper kick. As she made to defend against the punches, the kick sent her down. She gathered herself quickly and rolled so that she came to be resting on the soles of her feet.

“That had to have been learned outside class.”  Her look was harsh, judgmental somehow. “Makes sense with the amount of enemies the child of a pro hero has.”

Park got up, her eyes narrowing. “But how will that do against someone who’s had enemies the moment they were born?” She darted toward Katsumi, looking to launch a kick, but instead threw a straight-forward punch like something out of a street fight.

Okay, what the hell was that supposed to mean?!  And sure, they’d all had some basic self-defense lessons, some of them more than others.  You heard horror stories about the kids of Pro-Heroes being threatened or kidnapped. A few of them had even come damn close to it.

The punch hurt, leaving Katsumi seeing stars, her vision swimming.  “You haven’t rung my bell yet,” she growled in the direction of what she hoped was the actual Park.  The world was spinning and it felt like a struggle to stay upright, but she forced herself to keep fighting.

She moved quickly this time, throwing one punch after another.  Not too much style, but plenty of power.  Park was good and, as much as it pained her to admit it, more technically proficient than she was.  But she had more raw power than the other girl.  She just needed one really good punch to make an end of it.

Park dodged the punches, attempting to once more grab and twist Katsumi’s arms. This time, she was ready for that crap and kept herself moving too quickly to be caught. Katsumi’s style may have been straightforward, but the speed was forcing Park to stay on the defensive.

***

‘This is stupid. Beating each other for the sake of some trite lesson that could easily be fixed with a proper martial training program. Look at them: So self-important while others are thrown aside.’ Park’s thoughts raged through her mind. She cast a glimpse once more at Boost-Rush. ‘Alright you son of a bitch. You put a child in this situation.  Don’t whine at me when the expected happens.’

***

Park darted as if dodging again, but grabbed the waistband of Katsumi’s pants, using the leverage to throw her down. It was a hard, bone rattling impact that knocked her senseless for a moment.  Katsumi’s first instinct, drilled into her, is to protect her head, but Park snarled and instead threw a kick at her back.

The kick hurts, Katsumi’s damn sure that was one of her kidneys.  The pain kept her down even as she tried to get herself back up.  There wasno way she’s going to let herself be beaten like this.  She’s one of the toughest damn U.A. students there is.  Daughter of two Top Ten Heroes.  Practitioner of the Art of Womanly Living.  And when it comes to a fight, she doesn’t quit.  Ever.

“You’re going down!” she screams, forcing herself back to her feet, swinging wildly.

“That’s my line.” Park dodged to the side again.  Her arm shot out like a stone from a sling and grabbed Katsumi’s arm, wrapping her fingers around it in an iron grip.  She twisted it, and used the momentum to drive Katsumi into the ground. Park hung onto her arm this time, pulling it back and locking in her grip behind Katsumi’s back.

***

A little more torque and she could easily break it. For a moment she felt herself wanting to. To share even a small ounce of the suffering. She looked into the crowd, and saw the kind rock girl who shared her faith. Akaya. She looked concerned and scared for her classmate.

“I’m not as good a Christian as I’d like to be.” She had told Akaya that. She turned away from her, looked at Katsumi’s struggling face, then looked back at the U.A. students and Rookies. She let go of Katsumi.

***

“This is stupid. Find another pawn.” Park then got up and walked toward her classmates, then past them entirely.   Tatsuma tried to stop her, but she brushed her off.

Katsumi forced herself to her feet, her limbs absolutely aching.  “Get… get back here,” she started to growl, eyes locked on Park’s retreating form.  “I… I can do this… all day…”

She couldn’t lose to some pretentious Shiketsu brat.  And she definitely wasn’t losing to someone who wouldn’t even stick around to assure their victory.  Who just gave up in the middle of a fight like that?  Especially one they were winning?  None of it added up.

Wasn’t she worthy of fighting?  Or finishing off?  

What the hell was wrong with Park?!

Someone helped her to her feet.  It was the Old Lady.  Of course. “I’m fine,” she grunted.  A lie.  She was not fine.  She didn’t think anything was broken, but she could practically feel the bruises growing in all kinds of uncomfortable places.  There was still pain radiating from where she’d been kicked and she was still seeing double.  

“You’re not fine,” Vanish-Veil said, sounding guilty.  “C’mon. We’ll get you to my brother. Hopefully before your dad finds out about this…”

***

“She… she lost,” Toshi said, the words tumbling out of his mouth before he could stop them.  The fight had been incredibly short, but incredibly brutal. It’d been deeply uncomfortable, even unsettling to watch. He’d wanted to intervene, no matter how much Katsumi would have yelled at him for it, but the sheer brutality had left him paralyzed where he stood.  He was sure if it hadn’t been so quick, the Rookies surely would have intervened…/

It was only then that he realized that his arm was hurting and had been for some time. “Izumi…?”

“What?  Oh!  Oh my…!” Izumi quickly released her death grip on his arm and he could feel the circulation returning to it. Izumi was willowy and often looked like she’d blow over in a strong breeze, but she apparently had ferocious grip strength.  “I’m so sorry, Toshi…”

He shook his head. “It’s okay.  I think we were all a little shellshocked.”

“I don’t believe it,” Haimawari said.  He was shivering, Toshi realized, and then realized he was too.  Izumi must have been drawing in heat as she’d grown more and more frightened for Katsumi.  “I saw it, but I still don’t believe it.”

Toshi never would have thought it possible either.  He’d seen Katsumi lose, of course.  The two of them were about evenly matched when they’d sparred in the past and he’d won about as many as he lost.  And, of course, Katsumi had lost against Izumi during the Sports Festival.  But those had been friendly competitions, between people who had known each other for years.  This had been different.  This had been a beating.

Both Katsumi and Park had been looking to prove something, even if he wasn’t entirely sure what it was for Park.  He knew already, that Tatsuma didn’t think especially high of them.  But it didn’t look like Park did either.  He’d spent of a lot of time thinking over Tatsuma’s reasons for disliking the Hero System and what this class represented, and was still grappling with those.  But he didn’t know what drove Park, not yet.  

Katsumi, he knew, just wanted to prove she was better than the Shiketsu students. They’d gone after her pride and she really wasn’t the best decision maker where that was concerned.

He was also fairly certain this wasn’t something he could fix, wasn’t something he could make right. That was a hard admission for him to make.  Dad had always said you couldn’t save everyone but that you still had to try. He’d thought maybe he could still try here, but after this…

Katsumi was his friend. And she was confident and powerful. She was one of the best fighters in the class, with a strong Quirk and an iron will.  Even in friendly sparring with him, she just took every loss as a way to get stronger still.  To see her humbled like that…

“Is it over?”  Shota asked.  Toshi looked over and jerked with surprise as he saw that Shota had his eyes scrunched up tight, with his hands over his ears.

Asuka put a reassuring arm around his shoulders.  “It’s all right,” she told Shota, gently removing his hand from over his right ear with her other hand.  “You can look now.”

“She didn’t win, did she?”

“I am afraid not,” Asuka replied.  

“This will not be good,” Izumi said, worry filling her soft voice.  “Even though her injuries can be treated, Katsumi will treat this as a grievous wound to her pride and a personal insult besides.  She won’t let that go any time soon.  And I fear what she may try in retaliation.”

“She’s right,” Asuka said. She chirped softly and worriedly. “Izumi, Toshi, you know her the best. What do we do?”

Toshi frowned. Tatsuma and Katsumi had been ready to tear each other apart, before Aunt Mahoro had intervened.  She hadn’t objected to Park, but…

If they didn’t do something to try and buy a little peace with the Shiketsu students, then someone was just going to get hurt worse.  

Looking around, he could see, not just the concern, but the anger, on so many of his classmates’ faces. Even many of the 1-B students looked disturbed by it, especially Monoma and Kana.  

Of the Shiketsu students, only Tatsuma and Yoarashi were there.  Park had walked off somewhere, and Tsuchikawa and the spider-girl were with one of the other training groups.  Tatsuma was looking vaguely smug and satisfied, though Toshi couldn’t help but notice that she was also looking off in the direction Park had left. Yoarashi had gone pale and oddly quiet. Toshi didn’t know him as well as some of his friends, but he’d still known him for years.  Yoarashi didn’t do quiet.

If they didn’t do something to try and make peace with the Shiketsu students, someone was going to get hurt.

Get hurt worse, he realized, as Aunt Mahoro led Katsumi away.

“Oookay,” Boost-Rush said, much of his earliest bravado gone.  “That’s… that’s enough direct sparring for today.  Why don’t we break into small groups to work on what’ve learned so far.”

A stupid, desperate plan dropped into his mind.  He couldn’t exactly slip away, but… “I hate to ask you to lie,” Toshi whispered to Izumi, “but…”

Izumi nodded.  She grasped his plan without him having to even say it.  They’d been friends a long time.  He wasn’t as close to her as Katsumi was, he wasn’t sure anyone could be as close as the two of them were, but Izumi was still one of his best friends.  Hell, after a hopeless childhood crush on Nejire Togata, he’d had a crush on Izumi for a little while too, though he’d never worked up the courage to ask her out or anything.  If nothing else, Katsumi’s looming presence in both their lives had made it clear if anyone really loved Izumi, it was her.

“I do believe I’m feeling a bit of a flare up,” she said, stretching exaggeratedly.  I should probably go get checked out.”

***

Izumi arrived at the first aid station that Bioshock had set up.  The Metabolic Hero was laying hands on Katsumi as she approached and she could see her friend’s bruises start to fade already and a bit of her color return. Bioshock’s Quirk was not quite the cure-all that Doctor Izumi’s was, but it was still very effective.  She knew now, from what she had read, that he had run himself ragged during Plague’s assault on Japan, pushing himself nearly to death’s door until Uncle Izuku and his sister had literally had to drag him away from the hospital wards.  

“Okay,” Bioshock told Katsumi, “I think that should be good.  Nothing broken, thank goodness.”  His features darkened.  “What the hell was Boost-Rush thinking?  Dammit…”

He shook his head, his eyes going wide as he realized he’d spoken out loud.  “My apologies.  That was unprofessional.”

Katsumi waved him off. “Eh, you said what you said, Doc. Own it.”  Her red eyes had locked with Izumi’s.  For all the fierceness and bravado Katsumi put on for the rest of the world, Izumi could easily tell when she was faking it.  Such as now.

“Oh, hey, Todoroki,” Bioshock said when he noticed her.  “Everything all right?”

“I’m feeling a bit fatigued,” Izumi told him.  She spoke each word carefully, trying to project some measure of exhaustion into her voice.  She was tired, but not that tired.  “I fear this new schedule is playing havoc with my body.”

Bioshock looked between her and Katsumi for a moment, then his expression changed ever so slightly. “Oh, sure,” he said.  “Let me go check the coolers, see if we’ve got anything with some electrolytes for you.  Why don’t you keep Kirishima-Bakugo company while I’m gone?”  He gave them a little wave as he walked off.

Katsumi just gave her a look as she took a seat next to her, in one of the small folding chairs.  It wasn’t especially comfortable, but that was of little importance.  “You are the worst liar I have ever met, Iz.”

“What?” Izumi asked. “But Bioshock…”

“He was humoring you, Iz.”

Oh.  Well.  She supposed that was all right.  She was still able to achieve her goal of getting to talk to Katsumi.  Though perhaps she could work on the lying? Heroes did need to sometimes, well, not exactly lie, but certainly project more hope and certainty than they might have been otherwise feeling.

“Are you all right?” she asked instead.  “Not physically,” she added quickly.  “That much I could see.”

Katsumi looked down at the dirt.  “That wasn’t a fight, Iz.”  The words were said so quietly that Izumi could barely hear her.  

“That level of brutality was well outside the bounds of a friendly spar,” she agreed.  “Though you too were quite ready to rise to violence.”

Katsumi’s head snapped up, a snarl starting to pull at her lips.  “Damn right I was.  Did you see the way that giant was looking down her nose at us?  She disrespected me and she disrespected the school.  I had to teach one of them a lesson.”

“Did you?” Izumi asked, when she was certain Katsumi’s rant had finished.  “Or were you just seeking conflict?”

“So I like a good fight,” Katsumi replied, looking rather annoyed still.  “Is that a crime?”

“How badly would you have hurt one of them?” Izumi asked instead.  Answering Katsumi’s question would do no good to anyone, and likely lead to a very circular conversation.  Sometimes you had to point Katsumi in the direction you wanted her to go. Even if you usually had to make her think it was her idea.

“Broken nose, maybe,” Katsumi said, shrugging.  “I just really wanted to punch one of them.”

She sighed.  “But that wasn’t a fight, Iz.  That was a damned beatdown.  She was toying with me.  Whatever damn style she was practicing, it’s damn good at causing a lot of pain.  And… she’s better than me.”

Katsumi trailed off. She’d said something, but so softly that Izumi couldn’t hear it.  “I’m sorry,” she said, “what?”

“I said she’s better than me!” Katsumi snapped.  “She could have kicked my ass from here back to U.A., up and down both sides of the street, easy.  But she wanted to make it hurt and she wanted to make sure everybody saw it.”  Her fists were clenched hard, her knuckles going white.  “This wasn’t even about putting me in my place.  She was making a damned statement.  Hell if I know what it was though…”

Katsumi bolted up out of her chair suddenly, grabbing it and spinning around sharply, letting it go flying through the air.  It landed several feet away, bouncing a few times before it finally stopped.   Izumi would give her friend credit: she’d expected it to explode.

Katsumi was visibly shaking and Izumi rose to embrace her.  Katsumi’s strong arms soon found their way around her and Katsumi’s head came to rest against her.  As Izumi held her, Katsumi’s shaking began to subside.  

“I’m supposed to be the toughest woman around here, Iz,” Katsumi said quietly, but there was a growing fire to her words.  “This isn’t over.”

Katsumi was right. For more reasons than she thought. If they didn’t do something soon, to try and bridge the gap between the two schools, things could very likely explode, in more ways than one.

[martialartsschoolgambrills]

How to Choose a Martial Arts School

Have you seen the number of fighting styles institutions are in your neighborhood phone book? How do you understand if you're selecting the ideal school? In this short article, we will certainly feature recommendations on picking the appropriate martial arts school for your youngster.

All over you transform there's a martial arts school! It is approximated there is 20,000 fighting styles school in the U.S. alone. Chances are you contend the very least one school within a few miles of your home. Today's fighting styles schools vary from garage-based schools to elegant mega-schools with numerous training floors as well as observation lounges. Based upon nationwide averages, martial arts institutions charge concerning $125 per month, yet institutions can be discovered billing anywhere from $35.00 to more than $200/month.

Because a lot of parents are not specialists in martial arts they will commonly choose a martial arts school based upon either cost or convenience of the location. Unfortunately, picking a martial arts school is not as easy as contrasting prices or the distance from your home. It may be saying, yet if you contrast fighting styles schools, you're comparing apples to oranges. If you plan to enroll your kid in martial arts school to build his/her self-worth or equip him/her with the capacity to protect his/herself it may take a minimum of one year of training, however likely a lot more. That being claimed, selecting the incorrect school can result in your youngster wanting to stop before the goal is achieved. Selecting the ideal school can have a life-changing effect on your child.

Fighting style professional, as well as an experienced school owner, Tom Callos, claims, "You evaluate a martial arts school the same way you would review any kind of school you would take your kid to. Just because you're considering signing up with a school that teaches the "old art of self-defense," does not mean you don't use contemporary scrutiny to their expertise, educators, as well as centers."

Right here are 6 tips to discovering the best martial arts school:

The Instructor

This must be your leading emphasis when selecting the best school like Martial Arts School Gambrills, MD . A few qualities to seek in a teacher are a person that possesses confidence, politeness, a favorable perspective, as well as professionalism, and trust. Try to find a teacher that deals with his/her students with respect, as you would like your youngster to treat you. Gone are the days of regard from scare tactics. The teacher will ideally be wearing a black belt, which needs to show that he/she has achieved a top-level of proficiency within their school. The belt does not always equate that she or he will certainly be a fantastic teacher. See a course or better yet have your kid participate in a test lesson to see how the trainer communicates with the pupils and/or your youngster. Not obtaining an excellent ambiance, perhaps this is not the school for you.

The Curriculum

Over 93% of moms and dads questioned in a nationwide study indicated they wanted their child to be a lot more certain, focused, disciplined and respectful. Do you want the very same for your child? These life skills are what most martial arts colleges tell you they instruct. However exactly how do they show it? Ask to see exactly how the school instructs personality growth. In some institutions, the process happens by osmosis. There is no set curriculum and it either occurs or not. The leading colleges fighting styles schools purchase a system for mentor individual development that makes certain all students are geared up with the same worths, no matter which teacher is showing the course. Make sure the personality education and learning program deal with your child's learning style. If the lessons are all auditory (i.e. checking out stories in the course) that may not function best for children that are a lot more aesthetic or kinesthetic (action-based) learners. If the school has no "system" for showing character education after that there are no assurances your kid will certainly acquire the values you want.

The Students

Exist a lot of intermediate and sophisticated trainees in classes? Opportunities are you've discovered a school that knows exactly how to enlist and also keeps its trainees; that's a good sign! If you go to a school that's been in business for a year or longer and it's still empty, something's wrong with the school. A lot of martial arts teachers believe their classes are the very best classes-- the way that a lot of restaurateurs assume that their food is the best. If the car park is vacant, it's an indication that the consumers have a different point of view. On a side note, largely does not constantly equivalent ideal. See to it that your child will get the personal focus that she or he would get in school. The student to instructor proportion should not exceed 25 to 1.

The Style

When looking for the right fighting styles school, the "design" the school shows is not almost as crucial as that instructs the course. A good instructor will certainly influence your kid to be their best. No one style is best for children. Each style will use something various. One might concentrate on kicks and also strikes, one may stress tosses, as well as rolls, as well as another, may focus on ground protection. A competent trainer will not instruct your youngster self-offense. Each style needs to and will, if taught by a great trainer, educate protection; so there is no requirement to worry that your youngster will certainly end up being the following play area bully.

The Commitment

Many colleges will certainly offer you and/or your child a chance to attempt martial arts before committing. Fighting-style colleges usually will use a free class, a cost-free private lesson, or an introductory course. This gives you a possibility to evaluate the teacher as well as program and also identify if what they assure and also what they provide are coinciding. If there appears to be an inconsistency from what you've been promised or the trainer doesn't appear to "measure up to the hype"; maybe it's time to proceed. If the school doesn't offer a test program as well as wishes to authorize you up on a long-lasting dedication that ought to be a certain warning.

Do Your Research

Many colleges will certainly have information that you can peruse on the net that ought to outline the trainer, and also the features and advantages of the school. The theme and material of the website might offer you a good indicator of whether this is a school you may wish to take into consideration. Remember why you intend to enlist your youngster in martial arts and also see if the website web content addresses those needs. If instead the site is a lot more focused on flaunting the achievements of the trainer has won several champions, damaging blocks with the touch of his/her hand, or the trainer has high ranking degrees in several various fighting styles, you might wish to proceed with care. Remember this quote, "People don't care just how much you recognize, up until they recognize just how much you care." Be thrilled by the trainer, not the qualifications.

[hattercatsparadise]

[Biographical information]

Name:

Inara Horologium

Age:

17

Birthday:

December 1st

Sign:

Sagittarius

Height:

209 cm / 6’10 ’’

Appearance:

Inara is a young teenage of above average height in addition to a voluminous body with apparent muscles, she has wavy hair up to just below the hips in a beige tone with some mossy green hair with a hairstyle on the left side of the shaved head forming a sidecut hairstyle besides the bangs that refers to the jaw of a crocodile, the beige eyebrows with small details in moss green, the eyes orange like amber stones, the skin naturally tanned. The most notorious of its appearance is in addition to inhuman and sharp teeth are its slightly pointed ears adorned with various piercings and hidden by the hair and the long crocodile tail in light beige green with mossy green stripes.

She wears the almost complete standard uniform: She’s usually wearing a moss green tank top under her uniform blouse completely unbuttoned, without the vest and blazer, motorcycle gloves and the armband casually attached to the right side of one of the multiple belts she wears, the standard uniform pants plus punk boots.

As a Savanaclaw uniform she wears a leather cord choker with the fang of a monster defeated by Inara, a blouse with thin straps that run through the metal ring on the front of the blouse where it is also attached to another part of the fabric in tone dark gray yellow with geometric patterns in black, the leather vest, the scarf with the emblem of the dormitory adorning the left arm, tight jeans and torn in a blue gray tone besides being adorned with a chain made of beads in blue, green, yellow and red with a claw given by her mentor hanging from the end, wearing leather gloves, boots of the same material above the knees and adorned with leather straps and metal rings around the ankles and heels.

Homeland:

Afterglow Savanna (former)

Land of Pyroxene (current)

[Personal information]

Personality:

Inara is tough and speaks her mind, even if it causes confrontation and she respects those who do the same. Inara believes that weak people who join a leader are cowards, since they may just be relying on the strength of others instead of their own and conform to it.

Inara embraces life-threatening situations with a bright smile and is constantly looking for the next big adrenaline kick, smiling in the face of danger. She does not back down, even when she is dominated by stronger opponents, claiming to be just warming up. Inara also seems to take every day of her life to the extreme and without regrets, admitting that she would rather have never been born than to die with regrets. Despite her rude personality she would not hesitate to risk her life for the sake of her loved ones.

Likes:

Extreme sports, martial arts, skateboarding, boxing, hip hop, street dance, breaking dance, DJing, diving, swimming, climbing, trail, mountaineering, automotive mechanics, motorcycle, motocross, car racing, rock music, punk rock fashion, playing guitar, guitar, drums, bass, any cooking with cod.

Dislikes:

Wearing very feminine clothes (mostly pink), taking orders, people feeling sorry for themselves or cowards, people who use the skills of others as an excuse to become dependent, people who cannot do anything for themselves, deformists, cheating, who criticize her dress style and say that she needs to act in a “feminine way”.

Hobbies:

Extreme sports, martial arts, skateboarding, boxing, hip hop, street dance, breaking dance, DJing, diving, swimming, climbing, trail, mountaineering, automotive mechanics, motorcycle, motocross, car racing, rock music, punk rock fashion, playing guitar, guitar, drums, bass, any cooking with cod.

Biography:

A native of Afterglow Savanna, more precisely from the slums, Inara did not have a good relationship with her abusive parents and forced her to bring home from a young age as they conformed and mourned the misery they lived.

One night shortly after she turned six, a serious argument broke out in her home and she confronted the parents who enraged her physically before throwing her out in the open and throwing her out of the house, by some miracle someone was walking recklessly on the streets of slums late at night and by their presence them seemed to be someone noble and powerful.

Inara was questioned by the mysterious person about that deplorable and pathetic state, the crocodile girl with arrogance and contempt responded with irony and insults and countered by questioning why someone of apparent nobility did in a filthy place like the slums.

Sarcastically the person scoffed at the young woman's sordid and miserable fate, but the only answer she got from the petulant crocodile girl is that she didn't believe in something as stupid as fate and that it was for weak fools.

The mysterious person became interested in the sassy and crocodile girl and the person reveals themself to be a supernatural creature from another world, presenting himself under the name Yua a beautiful fox with nine tails that was suddenly brought to this world centuries ago and this being offered to Inara power so that she can change that miserable life and take revenge on that stupid fate.

Seeing that she had nothing to lose between dying in this sordid place or following that strange fox, she became a disciple, as promised, the fox taught everything she knew while longing insatiably to learn more about Twisted Wonderland until one day their paths parted in Land of Pyroxene when Inara turned 14 when Yua disappeared and the young crocodile had already achieved an independent and well-structured life with the instructions of her mentor she managed to open her business: a Motorcycle Cafeteria and also a very popular workshop among various types of auto racers and one day she was accepted into a prestigious girls' magic school until suddenly the Mirror of Darkness took her to Night Raven College.

[Professional information]

Dorm:

Savanaclaw

Year:

Second year

Class:

D

Club:

Pop music

Best subject:

Summoning and Ancient Curses

[Unique magic]

Wild Mother: Inara becomes one with nature and natural forces, her soul can feel much peace and contentment. Animals are less hostile or will even lose their aggression against her entirely. She can feel the living creatures and their emotions from the entire planet. It will also have some empathic connection with the plants, felt when it is time to plant them, when to water them and knowing what they exactly need. It can also make plants grow, regress, regenerate or heal when damaged or diseased and the same can apply to animals.

Once fully unified with nature, Inara can control nature and all its aspects: elements, environment, animals, etc. and using them in different ways as well as nature itself can manifest itself in Inara's aid.

[Relationships]

Family:

Father

Mother

Friends:

Aiyra Ferox

Chiba Harumi

Emily Hellscales

Mirella Hellscales

Deuce Spade

Ruggie Bucchi

Cater Diamond

Others:

Yua (magic mentor)

[Fun facts]

Favorite food:

Dishes with cod

Less favorite food:

Bubble gum

Talent:

Automotive Mechanical Maintenance

Dominant hand:

Ambidextrous

Trivia:

Her name means "lady of the waters", "mother of water", "the beauty of the waters" or "dominatrix" and Horologium "watch";

Inara adopted Horologium as her surname as a way of remembering one of her mentor's teachings: “Time is something that strengthens us, as it is proof of our evolution in this place that we call the world during this journey that we call life ”;

Inara is a species of marine crocodile;

Because of an accident caused by an error while she was learning magic, a clock melted into her body;

There is a curious fact resulting from this accident: every time the tip of her tail wags when she is irritated or impatient, it ends up producing the ticking tone of a watch;

She has a personalized motorcycle and created by herself for her height above her average and also with a special system to help balance.

Inara has a choker and she wears an amulet that helps her hide her long tail when she needs a "more human appearance";

Inara received a nodachi (a longer version of a katana) from her master who taught her the art of handling that sword;

Despite her habit of hating taking orders, she only obeys her mentor's orders as a way of showing her respect for Yua.

[Informação Biográfica]

Nome:

Inara Horologium

Idade:

17

Aniversário:

Primeiro de dezembro

Signo:

Sagitário

Altura:

209 cm / 6’10’’

Aparência:

Inara é uma jovem de estatura acima da média além de um corpo volumoso com músculos aparentes, ela possui cabelos ondulados até um pouco abaixo dos quadris em um tom bege com algumas mexas verde musgo com um penteado do lado esquerdo da cabeça raspado formando um penteado sidecut além da franja que remete a mandíbula de um crocodilo, as sobrancelhas beges com pequenos detalhes em verde musgo, os olhos alaranjados como pedras de âmbar, a pele naturalmente bronzeada. O mais notório de sua aparência é além de dentes inumanos e afiados são seus ouvidos levemente pontudos adornado com vários piercings e escondidos pelo cabelo e a longa cauda de crocodilo em verde bege claro com listras verdes musgos.

Ela usa o uniforme padrão quase completo: Normalmente está usando uma regata verde musgo sob a blusa do uniforme completamente desabotoada, sem o colete e o blazer, luvas de motoqueiro e a braçadeira casualmente presa na lateral direita de um dos múltiplos cintos que ela usa, a calça padrão além de coturnos punk.

Como uniforme de Savanaclaw ela usa um choker em cordão de couro com uma presa de um monstro derrotado por Inara, uma blusa com alças finas que transpassam a argola de metal na parte da frente da blusa onde também está preso a outra parte do tecido em tom amarelo cinza escuro com os padrões geométricos em preto, o colete de couro, o lenço com o emblema do dormitório adornando o braço esquerdo, calças jeans justas e rasgada em um tom azul cinzento além de estar adornado com uma corrente feita de miçangas em azul, verde, amarelo e vermelho com uma garra dada por sua mentora pendurado na ponta, usando luvas de couro, botas do mesmo material acima dos joelhos e adornadas com tiras e argolas de metal na região dos tornozelos e calcanhares.

Terra Natal:

Afterglow Savanna (anterior)

Land of Pyroxene (atual)

 [Informação pessoal]

Personalidade:

Inara é dura e fala o que pensa, mesmo que cause confronto e ela respeita aqueles que fazem o mesmo. Inara acredita que pessoas fracas que se aliam um líder são covardes, já que eles podem estar apenas contando com a força dos outros ao invés de sua própria e se conformam com isso.

Inara abraça situações de risco de vida com um sorriso brilhante e está constantemente em busca da próxima grande descarga de adrenalina, sorrindo diante do perigo. Ela não recua, mesmo quando é dominada por oponentes mais fortes, alegando estar apenas se aquecendo. Inara também parece levar todos os dias de sua vida ao extremo e sem arrependimentos, admitindo que preferia nunca ter nascido do que morrer com arrependimentos. Apesar de sua personalidade rude ela não hesitaria em arriscar a própria vida pelo bem de seus entes queridos.

Gosta:

Esportes radicais, artes marciais, skateboarding, box, hip hop, street dance, breaking dance, DJing, mergulhar, nadar, escalada, trilha, montanhismo, mecânica automotiva, motorcycle, motocross, corrida de carros, música rock, moda punk rock, tocar guitarra, violão, bateria, baixo, qualquer culinária com bacalhau.

Desgosta:

Usar roupas muito femininas (principalmente cor de rosa), receber ordens, pessoas com pena de si mesma ou covardes, pessoas que usam habilidades dos outros como desculpas para ficar dependente, pessoas que não podem fazer nada por si mesmas, comformistas, trapaças, que critiquem seu estilo de vestir e que digam que ela precisa agir de “forma feminina”.

Hobbies:

Esportes radicais, artes marciais, skateboarding, box, hip hop, street dance, breaking dance, DJing, mergulhar, nadar, escalada, trilha, montanhismo, mecânica automotiva, motorcycle, motocross, corrida de carros, música rock, moda punk rock, tocar guitarra, violão, bateria, baixo, qualquer culinária com bacalhau.

Biografia:

Nativa de Afterglow Savanna, mais exatamente das favelas, Inara não tinha um bom relacionamento com seus pais que eram abusivos e a forçavam a trazer o sustento para casa desde a tenra idade enquanto eles se conformavam e lamentavam da miséria que viviam.

Em uma noite pouco depois de completar seis anos uma discussão séria estourou em sua casa e ela confrontou os pais que enfurecidos a agrediram fisicamente antes de jogá-la ao relento e expulsá-la de casa, por algum milagre havia alguém caminhando imprudentemente nas ruas das favelas tarde da noite e por sua presença parecia ser alguém nobre e poderoso.

Inara foi questionada pela pessoa misteriosa sobre aquele estado deplorável e patético, a garota crocodilo com arrogância e desprezo respondeu com ironia e insultos e rebateu questionando sobre porque alguém de aparente nobreza fazia em um lugar imundo como as favelas.

Sarcasticamente a pessoa zombou sobre esse destino sórdido e miserável da jovem, mas a única resposta que teve da garota crocodilo petulante é que a ela não acreditava em algo tão estúpido quanto destino e que isso era para tolos fracos.

A misteriosa pessoa se interessou na garota crocodilo e atrevida e a pessoa se revela ser uma criatura sobrenatural de outro mundo, se apresentando sob o nome Yua uma bela raposa com nove caudas que repentinamente foi trazida a este mundo séculos atrás e este ser ofereceu a Inara poder para que ela tenha poder mudar aquela vida miserável e se vingar dessa estupidez de destino.

Inara vendo que não tinha nada a perder entre morrer nesse lugar sórdido ou seguir essa estranha raposa se tornou discípula, como prometido a raposa ensinou tudo que sabia enquanto ansiava insaciavelmente aprender mais sobre Twisted Wonderland até que um dia os caminhos delas se separaram em Land of Pyroxene quando Inara completou 14 anos quando Yua desapareceu e a jovem crocodilo já havia conseguido uma vida independente e bem estruturada com as instruções de sua mentora ela conseguiu realizar a abertura de seu negócio: uma Cafeteria de motocicletas e também oficina bastante popular entres vários tipos de corredores automobilísticos e um dia ela foi aceita em uma prestigiada escola de magia para garotas até que repentinamente o Espelho das Trevas a levou para Night Raven College.

 [Informação profissional]

Dormitório:

Savanaclaw

Ano:

Segundo ano

Classe:

D

Clube:

Música pop

Melhor assunto:

Invocação e Maldições antigas

 [Magia única]

Mãe Selvagem: Inara se torna uma com a natureza e as forças naturais, sua alma podendo sentir muita paz e contentamento. Os animais são menos hostis ou até perderão totalmente a agressividade contra ela.

Ela pode sentir as criaturas vivas e suas emoções do planeta inteiro. Ela também terá alguma conexão empática com as plantas, sentido quando é o momento de plantá-las, quando regá-las e sabendo o que elas exatamente necessitam. Ela também pode fazer plantas crescer, regredir, regenerar ou curar quando danificadas ou doentes e o mesmo pode se aplicar aos animais.

Uma vez unificada plenamente com a natureza, Inara pode controlar a natureza e todos os seus aspectos: elementos, ambiente, animais, etc. e os utilizando de diversas maneiras como também a própria natureza pode se manifestar em auxílio de Inara.

 [Relacionamentos]

Família:

Pai

Mãe

Amigos:

Aiyra Ferox

Chiba Harumi

Emily Hellscales

Mirella Hellscales

Deuce Spade

Ruggie Bucchi

Cater Diamond

Outros:

Yua (mentora de magia)

 [Fatos divertidos]

Comida favorita:

Pratos com bacalhau

Comida menos favorita:

Chiclete

Talento:

Manutenção mecânica automotiva

Mão dominante:

Ambidestra

 Trivia:

Seu nome significa "senhora das águas", "mãe d'água", "a beleza das águas" ou "dominadora" e Horologium “relógio”;

Inara adotou Horologium como seu sobrenome como uma forma de se lembrar de um dos ensinamentos de sua mentora: “O tempo é algo que nos fortalece, pois ele é a prova de nossa evolução neste lugar que chamamos de mundo durante esta jornada que chamamos de vida”;

Inara é uma espécie de crocodilo marinho;

Por causa de um acidente provocado por um erro enquanto ela aprendia magia, um relógio se fundiu em seu corpo;

Há um fato curioso resultante desse acidente: toda vez que a ponta da cauda dela balança quando está irritada ou impaciente acaba produzindo o tom de tique taque de um relógio;

Ela possui uma moto personalizada e criada por ela mesma para a estatura acima da média dela e também com um sistema especial para ajudar no equilíbrio.

Inara possui uma gargantilha e ela usa é um amuleto que a ajuda a esconder sua longa cauda quando ela precisa de uma “aparência mais humana”;

Inara recebeu uma nodachi (uma versão mais longa de uma katana) de sua mestra que lhe ensinou a arte do manejo dessa espada;

Apesar de seu habito de odiar receber ordens, ela apenas obedece às ordens de sua mentora como forma de demonstrar seu respeito a Yua.

[Información biográfica]

Nombre:

Inara Horologium

Años:

17

Cumpleaños:

Primero de diciembre

Signo Astrológico: 

Sagitario

Altura:

209 cm / 6'10 "

Apariencia:

Inara es una mujer joven de estatura superior a la media además de un cuerpo voluminoso con músculos aparentes, tiene el cabello ondulado hasta justo debajo de las caderas en tono beige con algo de cabello verde musgo con un peinado en el lado izquierdo de la cabeza rapada formando un peinado de corte lateral. además del flequillo que hace referencia a la mandíbula de un cocodrilo, las cejas beige con pequeños detalles en verde musgo, los ojos naranjas como piedras de ámbar, la piel bronceada naturalmente. Lo más notorio de su apariencia es que además de unos dientes inhumanos y afilados son sus orejas ligeramente puntiagudas adornadas con varios piercings y ocultas por el pelo y la larga cola de cocodrilo en color verde beige claro con rayas verde musgo.

Lleva el uniforme estándar casi completo: por lo general, lleva una camiseta sin mangas verde musgo debajo de la blusa del uniforme completamente desabrochada, sin el chaleco y la chaqueta, los guantes de motociclista y el brazalete unido casualmente al lado derecho de uno de los múltiples cinturones que usa. los pantalones estándar más botas punk.

Como uniforme de Savanaclaw luce una gargantilla de cordón de cuero con el colmillo de un monstruo derrotado por Inara, una blusa con tirantes finos que recorren el aro de metal en la parte delantera de la blusa donde también se une a otra parte de la tela en tono. amarillo gris oscuro con motivos geométricos en negro, el chaleco de cuero, la bufanda con el emblema del dormitorio adornando el brazo izquierdo, jeans ajustados y rasgados en un tono gris azulado además de estar adornado con una cadena de abalorios en azul, verde, amarillo y rojo con una garra cedida por su mentor colgando del extremo, vistiendo guantes de cuero, botas del mismo material por encima de las rodillas y adornadas con correas de cuero y argollas de metal alrededor de los tobillos y talones.

Tierra natal:

Afterglow Savanna (antes)

Land of Pyroxene (actual)

[Información personal]

Personalidad:

Inara es dura y dice lo que piensa, incluso si causa confrontación y respeta a quienes hacen lo mismo. Inara cree que las personas débiles que se unen a un líder son cobardes, ya que pueden depender de la fuerza de los demás en lugar de la suya propia y conformarse a ella.

Inara abraza las situaciones que amenazan la vida con una sonrisa brillante y está constantemente buscando la próxima gran descarga de adrenalina, sonriendo ante el peligro. No retrocede, incluso cuando está dominado por oponentes más fuertes, diciendo que solo está calentando. Inara también parece llevar cada día de su vida al extremo y sin remordimientos, admitiendo que preferiría no haber nacido nunca antes que morir arrepentida. A pesar de su personalidad grosera, no dudaría en arriesgar su vida por el bien de sus seres queridos.

Gustos:

Deportes extremos, Artes marciales, Skateboarding, Boxeo, Hip hop, Street Dance, Breaking Dance, Pinchar, Buceo, Natación, Escalada, Sendero, Montañismo, Mecánica automotriz, Motocicleta, Motocross, Carreras de autos, Música rock, Moda punk rock, jugando guitarra, guitarra, batería, bajo, cualquier cocina con bacalao.

No le gusta:

Usar ropa muy femenina (en su mayoría rosa), recibir órdenes, personas que se compadecen de sí mismas o cobardes, personas que usan las habilidades de los demás como excusa para volverse dependientes, personas que no pueden hacer nada por sí mismas, deformistas, tramposos, que criticar su estilo de vestir y decir que necesita actuar de “manera femenina”.

Aficiones:

Deportes extremos, Artes marciales, Skateboarding, Boxeo, Hip hop, Street Dance, Breaking Dance, Pinchar, Buceo, Natación, Escalada, Sendero, Montañismo, Mecánica automotriz, Motocicleta, Motocross, Carreras de autos, Música rock, Moda punk rock, jugando guitarra, guitarra, batería, bajo, cualquier cocina con bacalao.

Biografía:

Originaria de Afterglow Savanna, más precisamente de las favelas, Inara no tenía una buena relación con sus padres abusivos y la obligó a traer a casa desde muy joven mientras se conformaban y lloraban la miseria que vivían.

Una noche, poco después de cumplir seis años, estalló una seria discusión en su casa y se enfrentó a los padres que la enfurecieron físicamente antes de echarla y echarla de la casa, por algún milagro alguien caminaba imprudentemente por las calles de barrios bajos a altas horas de la noche y por su presencia parecía ser alguien noble y poderoso.

Inara fue interrogada por la persona misteriosa sobre ese estado deplorable y patético, la niña cocodrilo con arrogancia y desprecio respondió con ironía e insultos y contrarrestó cuestionando por qué alguien de aparente nobleza lo hacía en un lugar sucio como los barrios bajos.

Sarcásticamente la persona se burló del sórdido y miserable destino de la joven, pero la única respuesta que obtuvo de la petulante niña cocodrilo es que no creía en algo tan estúpido como el destino y que era para débiles tontos.

La persona misteriosa se interesó en la chica cocodrilo descarada y la persona se revela como una criatura sobrenatural de otro mundo, presentándose bajo el nombre de Yua, un hermoso zorro con nueve colas que de repente fue traído a este mundo hace siglos y que se le ofreció a Inara. poder para poder cambiar esa miserable vida y vengarse de ese estúpido destino.

Al ver que no tenía nada que perder entre morir en ese sórdido lugar o seguir a esa extraña zorra, se convirtió en discípula, como prometió, la zorra enseñó todo lo que sabía mientras anhelaba insaciablemente aprender más sobre Twisted Wonderland hasta que un día sus caminos se separaron en Land of Pyroxene cuando Inara cumplió 14 años cuando Yua desapareció y la joven cocodrilo ya había logrado una vida independiente y bien estructurada con las instrucciones de su mentora logró abrir su negocio: una Cafetería de Motos y también un taller muy popular entre varios tipos de corredores de autos y un día fue aceptada en una prestigiosa escuela de magia para niñas hasta que de repente el Espejo de la Oscuridad la llevó a Night Raven College.

[Información profesional]

Dormitorio:

Savanaclaw

Año:

Segundo año

Clase:

D

Club:

Música pop

Mejor asignatura:

Invocaciones antiguas y maldiciones

[Magia única]

Madre salvaje: Inara se vuelve una con la naturaleza y las fuerzas naturales, su alma puede sentir mucha paz y alegría. Los animales son menos hostiles o incluso perderán su agresión por completo.

Ella puede sentir a las criaturas vivientes y sus emociones de todo el planeta. También tendrá cierta conexión empática con las plantas, sentirá cuándo es el momento de plantarlas, cuándo regarlas y saber qué necesitan exactamente. También puede hacer que las plantas crezcan, retrocedan, se regeneren o se curen cuando están dañadas o enfermas y lo mismo puede aplicarse a los animales.

Una vez completamente unificado con la naturaleza, Inara puede controlar la naturaleza y todos sus aspectos: elementos, medio ambiente, animales, etc. y usarlos de diferentes maneras, así como la naturaleza misma, puede manifestarse en la ayuda de Inara.

[Relaciones]

Familia:

Padre

Madre

Amigos:

Yandra

Chiba Harumi

Emily Hellscales

Mirella Hellscales

Deuce Spade

Ruggie Bucchi

Cater Diamond

Otros:

Yua (mentor mágico)

[Hechos graciosos]

Comida favorita:

Platos con bacalao

Comida menos favorita:

chicle

Talento:

Mantenimiento mecánico automotriz

Mano dominante:

Ambidextro

Trivialidades:

Su nombre significa "dama de las aguas", "madre de las aguas", "la belleza de las aguas" o "dominatrix" y Horologium "vigilar";

Inara adoptó Horologium como su apellido como una forma de recordar una de las enseñanzas de su mentora: “El tiempo es algo que nos fortalece, ya que es una prueba de nuestra evolución en este lugar que llamamos mundo durante este viaje que llamamos vida. ”;

Inara es una especie de cocodrilo marino;

Debido a un accidente causado por un error mientras estaba aprendiendo magia, un reloj se fundió en su cuerpo;

Hay un hecho curioso resultante de este accidente: cada vez que la punta de su cola se mueve cuando está irritada o impaciente, termina produciendo el tono de tic-tac de un reloj;

Tiene una moto personalizada y creada por ella misma para la altura por encima de su media y también con un sistema especial para ayudar al equilibrio.

Inara tiene una gargantilla y lleva un amuleto que la ayuda a esconder su larga cola cuando necesita una "apariencia más humana";

Inara recibió un nodachi (una versión más larga de una katana) de su maestro, quien le enseñó el arte de manejar esa espada;

A pesar de su hábito de odiar recibir órdenes, solo obedece las órdenes de su mentor como una forma de mostrar su respeto por Yua.

[aarafox]

super detailed oc questions for at least em, bella, robin, freylic: 5, 4, 9, 15, 22, 38 (u can answer for others too if u wanna but i wanna know at least for those four!! ^^)

Ahh, fun!! I’ll put it under a read more bc it’s gonna be long ^^ thanks so much for asking! ❤️❤️

OC asks

Emily

4: What is their relationship with their parents? What’s a good and bad memory with them? Did they know both parents?

She has a good relationship with her parents! They’ve always been close and can talk about pretty much everything. She has a few really good memories of her parents helping her figure out her powers; since she has so many, it was always a wild ride discovering how each one worked. Some really fun things happened when they helped her, like she accidentally splashed water in her dad’s face and accidentally created a small pit that her mother fell into. She never actually hurt them though, which is why she can think back to those moments with fondness.

However those powers came with a downside: because there were so many, her energy level was always really high. She fainted several times as a child, immensely worrying her parents. When they brought her to the Tree of Healing they were told that Em’s body just needed time to get used to the energy, but knowing there was nothing they could do to help her made them feel really bad. The last time it happened was when she was ten years old so it’s been a while, but her parents will always be afraid that something happens that’ll make her faint again (which may or may not happen in the story…).

5: Do they have any siblings? What’s their names? What is their relationship with them? Has their relationship changed since they were kids to adults?

She’s an only child!

9: Do animals like them? Do they get on well with animals?

I guess they do! Em really loves animals though she doesn’t engage with many. But she finds them cute and lovely and they enjoy her company and attention.

15: Are they good at cooking? Do they enjoy it? What do others think of their cooking?

She doesn’t cook very often, usually only with her family or friends (which she loves doing!!). She’s not particularly good at it but she has a few recipes that she’s absolutely owned. On top of this she’s always willing to learn more, and when she receives instructions on how to help make something she’s certain to follow them without fault. People generally like what she makes. ^^

22:  What are their favourite insults to use? What do they insult people for? Or do they prefer to bitch behind someone’s back?

She doesn’t often insult people, but when she does she probably only uses “idiot” or “stupid”. She only insults people when they are being absolute morons or just plain assholes. She doesn’t shy away from a fight though she doesn’t enjoy having them. She’d only bitch about people behind their backs when they truly deserve it.

38: What do they admire in others? What talents do they wish they had?

She admires people really quickly! But not in a jealous kinda way. She’s truthfully excited when someone’s good at something and will support them a lot. Her best friend Lucy is a master in a particular martial arts form and Emily wishes she could fight as well as her friend! But mainly she’s just really proud that Lucy’s such a great fighter.

Bella

4: What is their relationship with their parents? What’s a good and bad memory with them? Did they know both parents?

She has a good relationship with her dads (I don’t really like writing family drama so most families I write are close or at least somewhat loving). She inherited her bubbly character from one of the two, which is why they vibe really well. Good memories were made when her dads took her and her sister to the annual feasts held in the city! Her dads know a lot of things and were great storytellers, so she loved listening to everything they told her about the city. Once she was old and independent enough, she went to those feasts with her friends.

One particularly bad memory happened when she was pretty young. She got angry and accidentally used her powers, nearly hitting her dads. Though no one was hurt that day, she’ll never forget the terrified expressions on their faces. She’ll always feel guilty about it, but they reassured her many times that it was alright and so she’s learned to let it go.

5: Do they have any siblings? What’s their names? What is their relationship with them? Has their relationship changed since they were kids to adults?

She has an older sister named Zellány. Though she has an alright bond with her sister, the two girls don’t always completely see eye-to-eye, and this is purely because they’re very different. Bella has magic, Zella doesn’t; Bella is extremely extroverted, Zella is way more introverted; Bella doesn’t really like stuyding, Zella loves it, is good at it and can be a bit of a know-it-all bc of it; Bella can be a scaredy-cat while Zella doesn’t get what she’s afraid of sometimes. They used to be closer as kids but their differences became a bit too big for them to get along too well. Though they care for each other a great deal!! Zella expresses her worries for Bella’s wellbeing and when Zella is hurt in one of the battles Bella can’t stop crying.

9: Do animals like them? Do they get on well with animals?

Bella LOVES animals herself, but her excitement can chase them away sometimes :’)

15: Are they good at cooking? Do they enjoy it? What do others think of their cooking?

She’s… not that good at cooking haha, she’s screwed up several recipes in the past but there are a few small things she can make well. It’s safer when she isn’t the one in control of dinner lmao, but when she’s assisting someone things won’t go wrong, probably.

22:  What are their favourite insults to use? What do they insult people for? Or do they prefer to bitch behind someone’s back?

She loves to use “piss beetle” lol. Bella doesn’t shy away from confrontation and can be really fiery especially to people who hurt her friends. She also won’t mind bitching about someone behind their back as long as she isn’t friends with them. Bella’s strength when it comes to standing up for herself or her friends is pretty admirable, though she can go a bit too far sometimes and say things she doesn’t really mean; her friends need to calm her down when that happens.

38: What do they admire in others? What talents do they wish they had?

Bella doesn’t really think about it very deeply, but in insecure moments she can wish she had her sister’s intelligence or her friends’ bravery. She doesn’t really specifically admire certain aspects of people, but she does admire people generally.

Robin

4: What is their relationship with their parents? What’s a good and bad memory with them? Did they know both parents?

Robin also has a good relationship with his parents! His moms are incredibly king and basically taught him how to treat the world with kindness (though it would’ve likely come naturally to him as well). He looks up to his moms and greatly admires them. He has great memories of strolls through the city during which they played with him and taught him about the world, and of course the birth of his little brother was a great memory too.

One bad memory was when one of his moms was working so hard that she was barely home, which greatly saddened his other mom. When the first mom came home at some point and basically collapsed from exhaustion, it was up to Robin and his magical power to make her better. From that moment on his mom took it more easily and it didn’t happen again, but he doesn’t like remembering that day.

5: Do they have any siblings? What’s their names? What is their relationship with them? Has their relationship changed since they were kids to adults?

He has a little brother named Piag. He’s an adorable little shit haha, and is so good at deciphering Robin that it can annoy his older bro. The two generally get along well, but Piag is pretty stubborn and can be really outspoken about his opinions, sometimes treating Robin a bit harsher than necessary. But Piag has the power of Emotions and can accurately sense when his words actually hurt Robin, so he can make it up to him immediately. Robin isn’t easily hurt by Piag’s words, though, they’re good for each other! But Robin can be a bit too concerned about Piag’s wellbeing; when the little boy feels too many negative emotions, he can fall really ill. That’s why Robin is a bit overprotective, which annoys Piag to no end.

9: Do animals like them? Do they get on well with animals?

Probably! He’s a kind fella. But he doesn’t really engage with animals a lot to know for sure.

15: Are they good at cooking? Do they enjoy it? What do others think of their cooking?

He’s good at cooking, but he’s better at baking! Since they were young, Robin and Piag have baked many kinds of pies so he’s become a really skilled baker. You can be sure though that whenever he cooks something, it will turn out well too.

22:  What are their favourite insults to use? What do they insult people for? Or do they prefer to bitch behind someone’s back?

He doesn’t really insult others, though he can get really mad at people when they hurt his loved ones. In those cases he’ll bring rhetoric to bring people down. He also rarely bitches about someone behind their back, unless it’s 100% deserved. He’s prone to get a bit upset with his loved ones when they don’t take good care of themselves; his behaviour can come across as anger but it’s really pure concern.

38: What do they admire in others? What talents do they wish they had?

Like Emily, Robin admires others easily! He doesn’t usually wish he had other people’s talents; he knows he’ll likely never be as good at things as others and he has peace with that. Though he probably wishes he was a better singer :D

Freylic

4: What is their relationship with their parents? What’s a good and bad memory with them? Did they know both parents?

Of all the OCs you asked me, Freylic probably has the least close bond with his parents. This is because he’s the prince of the planet and his relationship with his parents has become more professional than personal. He doesn’t really mind it, though I can imagine he sometimes wishes it were different. His good memories come from the times they travelled together and met many subjects. Bad memories were formed when meeting his pushy family members who wouldn’t leave him alone. His upbringing was a bit restricting so he often tried to escape the palace or family gatherings, which led him to meet the two people he became closest with: his best friend Lucy and his to-be boyfriend Din.

5: Do they have any siblings? What’s their names? What is their relationship with them? Has their relationship changed since they were kids to adults?

He’s an only child!

9: Do animals like them? Do they get on well with animals?

Animals LOVE Freylic, like seriously. But he’s an angel so he attracts people as well as all kinds of creatures. They love following him everywhere lol. Maybe I should give him a majestic pet of some kind! It’d suit his character!

15: Are they good at cooking? Do they enjoy it? What do others think of their cooking?

He doesn’t really cook much! But when he does, it’s probably alright. He prefers eating other people’s cooking so that he can compliment them on their culinary skills and make them happy that way.

22:  What are their favourite insults to use? What do they insult people for? Or do they prefer to bitch behind someone’s back?

He doesn’t insult people fjshbd I wonder if he even knows how! If he were to insult anyone, it’d be his teachers in the past or his parents, but his insults would be really lame and not hurtful at all haha. Now he doesn’t even think of insulting anyone, let alone bitch behind their backs.

38: What do they admire in others? What talents do they wish they had?

Freylic has a lot of admiration for basically everyone he meets, because everyone has a story to tell and their own struggles they need to overcome or have overcome. There’s not much he wishes for, though (and this isn’t really a talent) he sometimes wonders what it would be like to not be the prince and be a normal Neflora like the others. This becomes especially strong when he falls in love with Din and wonders whether it’d be easier to be together if he wasn’t the prince. (Everything works out perfectly though!)

Oof, that was a long one ^^ hope you like the answers ❤️ I accidentally deleted them the first time and had to start all over again D:

[thegodshavehorns]

Capture the Wind (2/5)

Chapter 2: Prophylaxis

The next week, you meet the Seer again. You’ve taken the bus home from school, skipping the weekly church group. You open your door, and there she is, smiling at you from the couch.

“Good afternoon, John,” she says. “Come have a seat.”

“Oh, hi,” you reply. “You came back.”

She smiles, and lifts a can of cherry coke in the air, as if toasting. You walk over to sit on the reclining chair, and you both sit there for several long moments, her sipping a coke and occasionally flipping a coin, and you twiddling your thumbs.

“So-” you start to speak, but she interrupts.

“John, you have never had any martial training, correct? Of course that's correct. The reason I’m here today is to address this lamentable gap in your education.”

You blink. “Martial training? You mean martial arts? Fighting?”

“Yes, John, that is what I mean.”

Your eyes widen. “You mean like The Karate Kid? That’s so sweet, so you’re going to be like Mr. Miyagi to my Ralph Macchio?”

“Like that, except real.” The goddess stands up and makes a motion that you can’t quite make out, and then there is a large duffel bag in her arms. It looks like something you could get at REI.

She puts it down and unzips it, and you see a sharp-looking metal edge.

“Because you have absolutely zero previous experience, I have selected a variety of potential weapons for you to take up.” She removes a sword from the bag and lays it down on the floor, then takes out an axe. “Of course, I know what you are going to choose. But the impression of free will is important.” She takes out several knives, then a long spear, then a heavy, spiked club, laying each one next to the other. “But keep in mind: you can only choose one. Just pick a weapon up, and it will be yours.” She reaches back in for another item and-

Oh shit. That’s a gun.

You’re staring. “You uh, want me to choose? Why? How do I know which would be best for me? Maybe I should try out a few first, to see what fits?”

“No, John. That’s not how we're doing this. Consider it a test of your resolve and perseverance.” She finishes arranging the weapons, straightens up, and steps back. “Now, choose wisely.”

You stare down at the assortment of deadly armaments. She said she already knew which one you’re going to choose, so why is she doing this? But she also said last time that you sometimes did unexpected things, so…

“Okay,” you say, after thinking a moment. “So whatever I pick up will be my weapon forever?”

The Seer smiles. “Yes, that is correct.”

You look at the vicious implements spread out on the floor, and then your eyes wander over to your dad’s toolkit. He must have left it out, after hanging up the latest clown painting. You take a step towards it. When the Seer doesn’t stop you, you close the distance and, with a broad grin, pluck the hammer out from the box.

You hold it up proudly at the Seer. “Ta da! There! I followed your instructions! You were not expecting that, huh?”

The Seer’s expression is impassive. “Very well, you have chosen your weapon.” She nonchalantly kicks the deadly weapons on the floor away, clearing a space. Then, she makes that motion again, and there is a long, tapering, wooden cane in her hand. “Time to see if you can use it.”

------------

That night, you retire to your room early, avoiding your dad's questions and nursing the bruises on your back and sides. When you sit down at your computer, you wince.

That really smarts.

Land a hit on me, the Seer had said. Land a hit! As if you ever could, when she knows what you’re thinking of doing before you do it! By the end of the hour, you were absolutely sure that the Seer was attempting to sign her name onto your skin in bruises. Being taught martial arts by an ancient goddess isn’t nearly as awesome or non-painful as you would have expected.

You have a message on Pesterchum. It’s Anna.

-- harmoniusDithering [HD] began pestering ghostlyTrickster [GT] at 17:34 --

HD: sorry that you missed today's meeting, hope you're feeling well!

HD: and that you’re not sick or anything

HD: we signed up for the field trip today. I got a ticket! I’ll see if I can get the Sylph to autograph something for you.

HD: you like movies, right? I don’t have any movie posters, but if you bring me one at the next meeting I’ll see if she can autograph that!

HD: anyway I’ll see you next week. Take care.

You look at the messages for a long time, thinking of what to say.

-- ghostlyTrickster [GT] began pestering harmoniusDithering [HD] at 20:11 --

GT: i am sorry, but i can’t come to the youth group meetings anymore

GT: i told my dad about it and he said i can’t go at all

GT: i am grounded for life or something

You don’t feel good about this. This isn’t a joke. This is lying, to a friend, and you feel terrible.

She replies a few minutes later.

HD: oh that’s awful! I’m so sorry! Your dad is a jerk!

HD: you should call social services on him or something.

HD: I don’t know. I guess this isn’t illegal. But it’s so unfair.

HD: I can’t believe he’d do that.

GT: yes it is very dumb and lame

GT: i am not happy about it

HD: Well I’m angry about it!

GT: you don’t have to be angry

GT: he is my stupid dad

GT: i guess i will figure it out

GT: have a good time at the museum, i hope you meet lots of rad people

You sign off. You don’t like this at all, it makes you feel like you’re in the wrong. But you can’t be in the wrong if you’re doing what a goddess is telling you to do, right? Isn’t that kind of the definition of right and wrong?

You don’t know.

Bruises aching, you go to bed.

Next week, while practice-strifing in the living room, the Seer smacks your hand with her cane, and the hammer goes flying. You hear a crash, and you turn in horror to see pottery shards and Nanna’s ashes all over the mantelpiece and floor.

“Oh shit,” you say, and glance back at the goddess.

“John,” she says, and raises her cane. “Don’t turn your back on your opponent.”

“No, wait! Just wait,” you say. “Those are my Nanna’s ashes, I can’t just leave them there while we strife.”

And to your relief, she gives you a moment to get a dustpan and a broom and sweep up the ashes. Not knowing where else to put them, you get a mixing bowl from the kitchen and dump them in. “Augh,” you say. “How am I gonna explain this to my dad?”

The goddess takes a coin from nowhere and flips it. “You need to come clean and take responsibility.”

“But-”

“That is what is just, John. And if your father punishes you, that is also just.”

But it’s your fault, kind of, is what you want to say, but you don’t. You look at the bowl of ashes and pottery shards in your hands.

“John," she says again. “Learn from your mistakes. What have you learned?”

“Don’t strife inside the house?”

She smiles, and smacks her cane into her palm. “That, and protect your grip.”

------------

“Son, I am disappointed in you.”

“I’m sorry,” you say. “It was an accident.” You do not look your dad in the face.

He sighs and adjusts his hat. “Sit and talk with me for a moment, Son.”

Oh gods, not a talk.

You sit, and your dad leans forward. “Is everything alright at school, Son?”

That’s not what you expected. “Huh? It’s fine. I’m fine.”

“You haven’t been getting into fights?”

You shoot a fearful glance in his direction. It hasn’t even been a month, this can’t be the reveal that the Seer mentioned…

“No.”

“Son,” your dad puts a very patriarchal hand on your shoulder, but you’re bruised there so you try not to wince. “What happened to your hand?”

“Oh, that was an accident,” you say, looking down at the swelling across your knuckles. Your dad would not be okay with ‘a living goddess hit me with a cane’ on several different levels.

You decide to go on the offensive. “It’s none of your business anyway, Dad. I’m fine.”

“Son, I only have your best interests at heart. You know that.”

“You don’t know what my best interests are! For, for all you know, I have some sort of destiny that’s completely different from what you think I should be!”

“Don’t give me that talkback, Son,” there is an edge to your dad’s voice now. “I can see you’ve been having a hard time lately, but don’t take it out on your old man!”

“You don’t see anything! You don’t know anything!” Your voice is rising high above your regular indoor volume. Your gambit at pretending to be angry has backfired, and you actually are angry now.

Your dad shakes his head. “I know some things, Son. Like the fact that you don’t actually go to bowling club after school.”

Your mouth goes dry, and you look away. “I- I quit.”

“Do you need more extracurriculars? I think piano lessons might not be enough.”

“Augh, gods, I can’t believe this!” you exclaim, and immediately regret it.

“Language, John,” says your dad, his voice low.

“Sorry, Dad, I’m fine,” you say, trying to calm down. You remember the breathing exercises you did in the youth group, and try to emulate those without the prayer part.

“Son,” your dad uses his patriarchal hand again. “I think more extracurricular activities would do you some good. Keep you out of trouble.” You are about to object, but he goes on.

“There are lots of good options, why don’t you look into it? Is there something you’d like to learn to do?”

“I’ll think about it,” you mumble.

“Good,” he continues. “Your chore load will also double for the next month.”

“Dad!”

He gives your shoulder a patriarchal squeeze, and you really do flinch this time. “You’ll survive, Son. What doesn’t kill you makes you a stronger man.”

You are not so sure you agree.

------------

HD: and you won’t believe it, but this high school kid was totally flirting with me.

HD: I mean it.

HD: he was like sixteen or something

HD: so awkward.

GT: ok

HD: I dunno though, maybe I should have gone out with him?

HD: he was kind of cute

GT: ok

HD: or maybe I should have painted my face green and done the hokey pokey

GT: ok

HD: are you okay, john?

GT: huh?

GT: i am fine.

GT: if you had to learn some totally new skill, what would it be?

HD: inuit throat singing

GT: ha ha ha what?

HD: no it’s amazing.

HD: the inuit people can sing with like, their throats.

GT: what else would they sing with? their eyeballs?

HD: oh shut up

HD: i mean like, with their throat and their mouth separately. Two tones at once!

HD: isn’t that just amazing? I wish I could do that.

HD: well

HD: either that or something useful. Like computer programming.

GT: those are two very different things.

HD: so? People are allowed to have diverse interests.

GT: i guess so

------------

“I would like to take a computer programming class,” you tell your dad. “And karate.”

------------

The Seer of Mind cracks you over the back with her cane. You sprawl onto your belly on the ground, but manage to roll away before the second blow comes. You could swear the canes she uses are slightly harder and heavier each time. Thank goodness she never goes for your head.

The cane’s coming again, and you try to swipe with your hammer, but it’s really too short.

Her cane has a longer reach, and she can knock you four ways to Saturn before you’re close enough to even poke her with the hammer.

So she goes and knocks you four ways to Saturn, and while you’re gasping for air she flips you onto your back and points the tip of the cane at your throat.

“You’re dead again.”

“Augh,” you respond. “Can’t you use a shorter cane?”

“Your enemies will not use shorter canes just because you want them to, John.”

You sit up and push the cane away. “What enemies? I don’t have enemies!”

“John,” she says, her voice dead serious. “You have enemies you don’t even know about.”

You get to your feet. “Who, then?”

Her face is inscrutable. “You’ll know them when you see them.”

“Augh, this is so frustrating!” You are on the verge of tearing your hair out. She’s the Seer, she knows everything, so why isn’t she telling you anything? “I don’t even know what my ‘Grand Destiny’ is! You said I was going to save comedy, but all you do is strife with me!”

“John.” Her voice is incredibly condescending. “This is all an important part of your training.”

“But what am I training for?”

“You are training for your destiny, John. You will need these skills I am teaching you, in order to succeed.”

“What, ‘how to get beaten up 101’?”

She nods. “Endurance in the face of pain and damage will serve you well.”

You really want to know what you’ll be doing that requires you to be beat up so much, but then the Seer is swinging her cane at you again, and you have to pick up the hammer to block before she thwacks you in the stomach again.

“You must become hard and unyielding,” she says, and takes another swipe. “When I am through with you, John, you will be like steel.”

You have no idea what that means, but it sounds cool.

------------

At school, in the gym’s locker room, the other boys notice your bruises. They whisper and gossip at the cane marks across your back and sides.

You’re a freak.

------------

-- harmoniusDithering [HD] began pestering ghostlyTrickster [GT] at 18:54 --

HD: hey! I haven’t heard from you in a while!

HD: i thought you would ask about the museum trip.

HD: because that is a thing that happened.

HD: it was pretty awesome.

HD: they didn’t have any movie posters for sale.

HD: but I did think of you.

GT: what do you mean?

HD: what do you think I mean? :)

GT: i do not know what you are talking about

HD: you can be really thick sometimes

GT: that’s what she said!

HD: that is not a proper thing to say to a lady

GT: bluh

HD: kidding!

HD: so are you still grounded?

HD: John?

-- ghostlyTrickster [GT] has signed off --

------------

It’s been a month now, and you think maybe you’re getting better. That you can maybe go 30 seconds now without getting whacked by the cane. You want to think it’s the karate lessons, but all your fellow students are like, eight, so it's not like you're a karate master yet.

The Seer has been coming more often, three times a week now at least. But at least her “lessons” are relatively short in duration.

“John,” she says, and her cane disappears into wherever the objects she carries always go. “Let’s take a break.”

You put down the hammer with a sigh of relief, then quickly shoot a look in the Seer’s direction to see if she heard you. But, of course she heard you.

She’s sitting down, and you wonder for a moment if you’re going to meditate, the way you did in Church. But instead, she takes out a chessboard.

“You know this game, John.” It’s not a question. “Play it with me.”

It’s less painful than the strife, but just as humiliating. She trounces you, then again and again. Of course she does. She can read your mind. This whole thing is an exercise in futility.

“Are you trying to teach me to give up?” you gripe, after the fifth defeat in a row. “This is not exactly great for my self-confidence.”

“You must learn to lose, before you can learn to win,” she says. “Learn when you are outclassed, and when you can turn your situation into an advantage.”

The Seer alternates your lessons between strifing and chess, and beats you every time. You play white. She plays black. After a few lessons this way, though, the playing gets… weird. The Seer seems to think that the pieces have their own personalities and motivations. She even names them.

“Watch out for the Black King, John. He is more powerful than you might think.”

“Take shelter in the castle, sure. But that rook is going to turn on you if you’re not careful.”

“This pawn is Jack. Don’t let him, or his allies, take your queen.”

The Seer changes the board up, when you play. Sometimes you play with nothing but queens and pawns, sometimes with nothing but rooks and knights. She sets up the board in specific arrangements, ahead of time, and makes you play.

“You can win,” she says. “But you must make no mistakes.”

You don’t know anything about chess. You look up strategies online. You still lose.

You can’t strategize against her, you can’t plan. So you move your pieces erratically, and lose every time.

------------

About two months after meeting the Seer, you get a package in the mail. For you. You never get packages, unless you order something online. You don’t recognize the return address, but your name is on it. Handwritten.

It’s a long, skinny tube. Maybe it has a golf club in it or something. You wouldn’t put it past your dad, getting you a golf club even though you don’t play golf.

You open the tube, and there’s a paper roll. A poster. As you unroll it, you can see it’s some kind of abstract artsy print, with streaks of red and yellow paint over light brown. On the bottom, white text reads “Northwest Museum of Art and Culture.” You can only imagine that it’s some kind of famous painting, but you don’t recognize it.

And as you finish unrolling, you see in the upper corner, written in jade green ink:

To John,

Keep The Faith. We Are Here For You.

Kanaya Maryam

The Sylph of Space. You have the autograph of the Sylph of Space. Her true name and everything.

There’s a letter.

Dear John,

Surprise! Sorry it’s not a movie poster, they only had art prints for sale in the museum gift shop. This piece is called “Welcome to Denmother,” and it’s by an Enfleífrit artist from the Norma Arm of the Milky Way. I have no idea what it’s supposed to represent, but I think it's a really important piece in Enfleífrit culture? Like the Mona Lisa or something. Go figure. There’s more info about the picture on the back of the poster.

And I’m sure you’ve seen the signature already! She was really nice, said “what’s your friend’s name” and signed it! There were like a BAZILLION people, I was waiting in line for hours!

Did you know the Sylph really glows? You can’t see it so clearly in the daytime, but it makes Her shadows very weird.

Anyway, I hope you get un-grounded soon. I miss you seeing you in person! Let me know, and maybe we can hang out sometime? Like, not in church, I mean.

Best wishes, and Gods bless!

-Anna

Aw, crap.

You can’t keep this. If your dad found out, he’d FREAK. And if the Seer found it? She’d freak too. You have to throw it away.

It’ll be easy, just go up to the trash can and throw it out.

Just go.

John. Go.

You don’t go. You can’t. You look at the letter again.

Everyone else in the youth group forgot about you, but Anna still cares. Even though you barely talk to her anymore. You have a friend. You can’t just throw that away.

You don’t hang up the poster, but you don’t throw it away, either. You fold it up and tuck it, with the letter, under your mattress. It’s a perfect hiding place. No one will ever find it.

[historicalfightingguide]

” James and Jess discuss online communities, parasocial relationships, and fashion of movement.

Murder Hobos:  https://www.audible.com/pd/Murderhobos-Podcast/B09YJZ261X                           https://sites.libsyn.com/411899/ —-

A desire line is formed from many people over time choosing not to walk the paved paths, but instead go the way that seems most expedient to them.  they are typically formed when planners don’t account for real human behavior.

——

About us! James is the founder and principal instructor of the Goliath Historical Fencing Academy. He began fencing in 2009, after being inspired by the film Reclaiming The Blade. At Goliath, he instructs several weapons systems including longsword, rapier, dagger, unarmed combat, quarterstaff and halberd. He has taught at private seminars at major fencing events in Europe and Canada as well as across the US.

—-

Jess Finley has had a sword in her hand for the past twenty years. Her initial interest was in stage combat, but not too long after beginning that pursuit began to ask “… but how did they really fight?” From that question, she branched out to German Medieval Martial Arts after being accepted as a student by Christian Tobler, who remains her mentor to this day.  

She is the head instructor at Ritterkunst Turnhalle in Lawrence, Kansas. She has taught and competed internationally as well as private intensives at her home.

 She also has a background studying Judo under the tutelage of Arden Cowherd of Topeka Judo Club.She is a published author, having written a book entitled “Medieval Wrestling” on the fifteenth century Master Ott’s wrestling treatise of German wrestling techniques.

 She also researches medieval clothing construction and fabric armor, and has presented her findings at the International Congress on Medieval Studies at Kalamazoo and published an article in Medieval Clothing and Textiles (Boydell and Brewer) on her study of a 15th century quilted armor.

Jess’s Patreon is http://www.patreon.com/jessfinley“

This episode talks of  just how strongly shame can impact our daily training practice and that of those around us. A very interesting conversation that can help us find healthier ways to train together.

For anyone who hasn’t yet seen the following links:

Some advice on how to start studying the sources generally can be found in these older posts

Remember to check out  A Guide to Starting a Liberation Martial Arts Gym as it may help with your own club/gym/dojo/school culture and approach.

Check out their curriculum too.

Fear is the Mind Killer: How to Build a Training Culture that Fosters Strength and Resilience by Kaja Sadowski may be relevant as well.

Another useful book to check out is  The Theory and Practice of Historical European Martial Arts (while about HEMA, a lot of it is applicable to other historical martial arts clubs dealing with research and recreation of old fighting systems).

Worth checking out are this blogs tags on pedagogy and teaching for other related useful posts.

Consider getting some patches of this sort or these cool rashguards to show support for good causes or a t-shirt like to send a good message while at training.

And stay safe

[mbti-notes]

Would you mind explaining why you see Rey as ESFJ and Kylo Ren as INTP from the new Star Wars? I've always seen Rey as a stereotypical ISFP action hero (quick to adapt to new situations, hands on, a fierce sense of 'moral right' borne of self), and I'm undecided on Kylo, but thought he exhibited FP tendencies -- a struggle between self-identity and rationality, that indicates a F/T imbalance.

[con’t: In reading Leonore Thomson’s book on personalities, the Fi-dom section brought Kylo to mind – unless prone to developing Se/Ne, the IFP fiercely guards their sense of ‘identity’ / self against outside influences and becomes rigid. Isn’t that what he’s doing, in differentiating himself from his parents and refusing to see reality any other way than what he has decided it is, based on his feelings / experiences?]

Judging by the debates I saw online, there doesn’t seem to be any general consensus on either character, which is interesting. It’s a trilogy and the character development beats are scattered and difficult to piece together. And there were several blanks that I had to fill with my own speculation. I didn’t really enjoy the process of typing these characters, but I did it because I kept on receiving requests week after week ever since the first movie came out. I found the character development arcs shallow and poorly paced, and the resolutions were too pat to be very interesting. I reviewed the Kylo and Rey scenes several times, with different personality types in focus each time, in order to ensure that the function pieces fit together to my satisfaction.

      ***** Major spoilers ahead! ******

Kylo

Although I think there are weak points in her book, I don’t take issue with Thomson’s description of Fi doms. I mainly disagree with the motive that you ascribe to Kylo. I don’t think he’s being protective of his identity, I don’t think he cares about identity, in the way that Fi doms do. I will concede that he gives the impression of being a rebellious teenager in defying his parents/mentor/birthright, but defiance alone does not make him Fi dom. Pretty much everyone (even some animal species) goes through a stupid teenage phase of rebellion at some point in their life, and some people never properly get past it. To me, he looks like a stuck-in-adolescence INTP: entirely too full of himself and blind to everything else.

One little point made it difficult for me to settle on a type. Leia was absolutely convinced that Kylo was “manipulated” by Snoke/Palpatine to join the dark side, but there was little indication from Kylo, Luke, and Han that this was actually the case. Should we trust Leia, since the movie portrayed her as being much more powerful than meets the eye, or should we trust Kylo’s subjective experience of himself as being fully and completely the master of his own fate? I go for the latter. If anyone’s going to be prone to blind belief, it’s a mom who doesn’t want to admit that she’s lost her son to her enemies. And I see no compelling evidence that he is a person who’s easily manipulated, emotionally or otherwise, which is a big strike against F. If you see such evidence, please present it.

The most revealing aspect of Kylo’s development was found in the conflicting and exaggerated accounts about what happened with Luke that led to the destruction of the Jedi academy. If you grow up being fed a constant diet of legends about galactic warfare from the Alliance, you’re naturally going to think of the Jedi as the good guys and the Empire as the bad guys (as we, the audience, are supposed to). However, if you’re Ben Solo, you don’t experience the Jedi as good guys, at all. He was “abandoned” by parents who were too busy/neglectful/high-minded to properly care for him and he was “abandoned” by a supposedly saintly mentor/uncle who wanted to kill him (even if the urge was fleeting). Additionally, Jedi training is essentially martial arts training in that you’re not supposed to use it violently unless you absolutely have to, which leaves the Jedi looking like total wusses much of the time, politically, always leading from behind and allowing evil to get a foothold over and over again.

Therefore, my theory is that Kylo turned, completely willingly, because he saw nothing but pathetic posturing and hypocrisy around him. It was an extremely deep cynicism (the belief that “good”, “love”, “happiness”, or anything that makes humans noble, don’t really exist) that allowed him to fully embrace his own darkness to very powerful effect - no manipulation necessary. This wouldn’t work with Fi-Te but fits with Ti-Fe. I postulate that his conception of morality was extremely reductive and childish. Essentially, “good guys should be totally free of bad”, so any whiff of anyone feeling conflicted or making dumb choices and they no longer get the privilege of being labeled as a “good” person. Accordingly, any hint of conflict in himself cements the fact that he is bad, irredeemably bad, because he’s full of conflict. 

But I argue that the reason he’s full of conflict is not because he’s bad or a Feeler, it’s because the way he was being taught was not well-suited to his personality at all, in fact, it was quite damaging to him, which pushed him into skepticism and alienation. Here’s the blank I’m filling in: Luke is Fi dom. Fi and Ti do not communicate easily. Being forced or shamed into being good with no proper reasoning process by Fs tends to really aggravate inferior Fe grip problems in young Ti doms (it’s a common relationship dynamic). Fi doms construct beliefs from their feelings and it’s easy for them to expect that everyone should feel-believe the same. How is a person supposed to react when you keep telling them to Fi everything but they simply can’t or have no idea what the fuck you’re talking about? External manipulation or not, I speculate that Kylo was already in a deep state of doubt about whether he was in the right place. Luke’s intense fear and disgust in that fateful moment only confirmed Kylo’s suspicions that he didn’t belong there, and that Luke was no “good” guy. 

Seeing oneself as irredeemably bad is a big blow to the ego, so one must engage in self-defense. The fact that turning dark allowed him to realize the full potential of his force capabilities, to him, meant that the Jedi were completely wrong in their conception of what is “good”. Therefore, he doesn’t consider himself to be bad per se, rather, he believes that he has discovered the truth about what it means to be great - being great via T is better than being good via F. He was trying to discover his true self through dominant Ti, perfectly normal part of development, but he chose the wrong path, because it was a reactionary decision that was merely rebelling against all the people who were trying to force him into being F. This poor choice meant that he had to keep trying to sever his connection to everything good in himself = disowning F. In his mind, the Jedi were stupid, weak, and deluding themselves all along, but he knows what’s up, and that granted him a high degree of confidence in his decisions. He saw himself as the real deal because he was smart enough and strong enough to be brutally honest about what he is. In essence, he’s no faker, and that makes him superior. These mental gymnastics happen with Ti, not Fi. 

When Fi doms (even just start to) see themselves as bad, it ruins them and renders them impotent and dysfunctional (see previous post about Zuko from Avatar: The Last Airbender as a great example). Yet I see no compelling evidence that Kylo’s identity, feelings, or conflicts held him back, rather, they only served to fuel his rise. Despite appearances, he didn’t lust for power and validation like Te loop/grip, rather, he was only interested in self-mastery, and was willing to do whatever it took to achieve it, because he had no other ideal outside of himself to believe in. Nothing could really stop him unless he decided to stop. When he was frustrated, he would let it out in a quick burst, and then continued on as though it never happened (Fe). He was actually very disciplined in growing his abilities by setting consistent and logical challenges for himself to overcome (Ti), and he always succeeded in achieving his goals and reaching whatever potential he had envisioned for himself (Ne). Furthermore, someone who is very “defensive of their identity” wouldn’t be able to change themselves on a dime, as he did at the end. When faced with the right counter-evidence, he did a whiplash 180 without hemming or hawing or performative self-flagellation or whining about “losing myself”, etc. Would that be possible for Fi-Te?

Rey

Is she introverted? She is unapologetically assertive, she gets involved even when it doesn’t/shouldn’t involve her, she never balks at interacting with people/objects, she always faces situations immediately, she has trouble holding her tongue, she has difficulty introspecting (as evidenced from Luke’s training sessions), and most importantly, she exhibits no sign of needing a lot of down time to recharge. I’ve never known an introvert like that, let alone an ISFP, as they often dwell in their feelings away from the world and dislike taking on too much responsibility due to inferior Te. If she’s introverted, provide me with evidence, since I seem to have missed it.

I don’t think that there’s any evidence of N. She’s resourceful to a certain extent, but she seems to rely very heavily on other people to generate positive ideas and possibilities for reassurance, because she starts to panic when thinking on her own about “what could happen” (low Ne). She doesn’t easily come to intuitive insights about anything, let alone the future (no Ni). One scene in particular made me LOL. Luke was training her and asked her to close her eyes to meditate. He instructed her to “reach out” (to feel the energy of the force), and she extended her hand out physically into the air. That is the exemplar of being too literal. Furthermore, she spent how many freakin’ years following the same set routine day after day, in the same crap dump of a town, waiting obediently for her parents to pick her up? That’s the exemplar of Si discipline. Would SPs be capable of that patience or living in the dreary past for so long? 

I agree that she is primarily motivated by her feelings when making judgments and decisions, which means F. She had to fend for herself since childhood, so her skills are unsurprising. Yet she irrationally lacks self-confidence despite the fact that she’s proven over and over again to be quite scrappy and capable, and people even tell her as much all the time - this is likely to indicate an inferior T insecurity. She has great difficulty (i.e. is unconsciously resistant to) probing around within herself, which is common for inferior Ti in not wanting to feel one’s own darkness. The fact that introspection results in her discovering that her deepest, darkest fear is being completely and utterly “alone” as a “nothing” in “nothingness” is very compelling evidence for inferior Ti.

If inferior Ti, then dominant Fe is a must. I see lots of evidence. She is inexplicably able to communicate with anyone, of any species of bot or animal, with effortless empathic understanding? Her first stance is to give people the benefit of the doubt, no matter how strange or wayward they seem. She has a very naive trust in the goodness of people despite dealing with crooks all the time. She takes it upon herself to bring out the good in people whenever she is in a position to. I don’t think she’s always sure of her feelings (Fi-Ni), rather, she’s always sure that there is goodness to be found if one only looks hard enough (Fe-Ne). A lot of people have strong moral feelings and values, so I’m a bit tired of the lazy stereotype that Fi doms have the monopoly on morality. If you’re going to reference a person’s morality, go deeper to see what exactly it is they believe, how they came to those beliefs, and how they express those beliefs in detail, as that would be more revealing of their functions.

For such a goody-goody-two-shoes, her response to Kylo wasn’t the judgmental disgust that Luke barfed up (Fi-Te) but rather a scary desire to figure him out (Fe-Ti). She seemed quite UNcertain about her personal feelings about him (not Fi), which made their relationship one-sided for quite some time, as she struggled with the push-pull dynamic. ESFJs are often attracted to “dark and mysterious” people due to the unconscious yearnings of inferior Ti, even when Si-Ne warns them that these people are bad news. And it doesn’t get more mysterious than some powerful dude dressed in black donning a mask that shows up in random visions. When avoiding him was no longer possible, she made an admirable effort to dive deeper into his perspective, even when she rightfully feared losing herself in the process. She felt compelled to “get both sides of the story” in typical diplomat fashion before deciding what to do, in hopes of “fixing” Kylo through repairing his relationship with Luke.

Although there seemed to be constant teasing about the possibility of Rey turning dark, I never really saw any possibility. She gave no major indication of being afraid of turning, and it seemed that she never lost touch with her strong desire to be good. She only ever indicated a fear of failing to perform her duty capably (Si) and of failing all the people who were relying upon her powers to succeed (Fe). Discovering her true lineage didn’t really shake her because her parents were good in spite of their bloodline, so there was already an “exception to the rule” for her to follow and emulate. Turning dark would sever and betray her emotional connection to her parents - totally out of the question.

As far as I can tell, the only reason she survived her horrible childhood relatively unscathed was because she held on to the belief that her parents loved her enough to come back, i.e., emotional connection to others is her lifeline. I don’t think it’s an accident that, in her moment of greatest need, it was the connection to past Jedi and their encouragement that saved her butt. She was existentially SHOOK when Kylo claimed that her parents were horrible and abandoned her. And she was only able to find her footing again by inserting herself (i.e. “belonging” to) the Skywalker clan, essentially by being the model of a kid that Ben should’ve been. What self-respecting ISFP would be happy latching on to someone else’s mom, riding someone else’s coattails, and literally defining their identity through someone else’s name and legacy? 

I’ve heard some people critique Rey as a flat mary sue character, and I see where they’re coming from. But which type is most likely to resemble a mary sue at first glance? She is supposed to be the hero in a fairy tale after all, so one would expect her flawedness to be minimized.

Relationship Dynamics

In the final movie, the audience is bludgeoned over and over again with the claim that Kylo and Rey are meant to be a dyad. This all but guarantees that they will be exact functional opposites, otherwise, there would be no strong sense of complementary forces pulling them together into one perfectly harmonized and united front. Although the chemistry between them wasn’t properly developed IMO, I think I saw on paper what was meant to be happening in terms of the writer’s intentions.

Luke was unsuited to helping either of them with questions of identity and morality because, being Fi dom, he took these things for granted, presumptive, already settled non-issues, which amounts to him being closed to any real questioning and discussion. As a result of lacking good guidance, what drew Kylo and Rey together was an underlying need to help each other make sense of themselves, with the unconscious suspicion that the other person held the missing piece of the puzzle. 

Rey was only able to reach her potential by confronting the full extent of her own darkness within (inferior Ti), which was what Kylo forced her to do in incremental steps, as he kept nudging her to question her fundamental beliefs about who she is and what she stands for, presumably in the same way that he had done for himself. But it’s not as easy to twist someone’s sense of morality when F is at the top and healthy versus the bottom of the stack. By making it through his gauntlet of tests and critiques and facing down her fears, she was able to develop into a stronger and more self-assured person to eventually achieve inferior Ti closure. Don’t forget how her eyes would light up when hearing stories of Jedi masters and their achievements. It is mainly EJs who run headfirst toward responsibility rather than away from it. We see, in the end, a picture of Rey as a beaming, confident, and self-possessed person who feels like the world is her oyster, fully inhabiting her role in the hero story that she had always wished to be a part of. The audience is meant to believe that she’s the rightful heir when she finally believes in herself.

By questioning Rey’s identity, Kylo eventually had to question his own as well, since he was the one who wanted to believe that they shared a similar path to feeling lost. Kylo is stuck in adolescent cynicism as explained above, with Si loop resentment from the past preventing him from seeing other, better possibilities for himself. Late in the trilogy, I see in his face that he’s probably suffering from the sunk cost fallacy of thinking that he is past the point of no return. Perhaps he believes that he has no choice but to resign himself to the fate he has chosen (parallel to Vader) since Ti doms strongly believe in personal responsibility. He’s not wrong. If he wasn’t irredeemable at first, he certainly was after the profound destruction he had wrought. Ti doms are rarely wrong as their logic is usually impeccable, but they tend to lack perspective. E.g. He’s not wrong in believing that people are hypocritical because they really are (Ti factual judgment is spot on), but then he defines his terms too narrowly in dismissing all people as unworthy of being called “good” (Fe value judgment is very immature).

What finally broke the mental confinement of Si loop? IMO, three contributing factors: 1) He started to suffer the same skepticism about the dark side as he had with the Jedi, since Ti promotes impartial judgment, which opened him up somewhat to questioning his choices. INTPs deeply dislike sheep mentality and blind ideology, so being constantly asked to prove his “allegiance” and quietly “submit” all the time by his superiors only served to reveal their flawed mentality in the same vein as Luke, which gave him the logical justification he needed for eliminating one boss after another. 2) He was drawn deeper and deeper into Rey’s psychology, which backfired on him, because it proved to him, again and again, every which way, that goodness is indeed possible, as Rey easily aced every temptation and challenge that he was able to fling at her. For NPs(Ne), believing in possibility can’t help but create a strong desire to actualize it. 3) Leia intervened with what I’m assuming was one last-ditch attempt to communicate how much she truly loves him despite what he’s become, which perhaps served to expand his thinking about what it means to love. 

In the end, he redeemed himself on his own terms (even if he was not fully redeemed for the audience). As a result, he discovered something resembling happiness in his last moments of connection with Rey. You can’t tell a Ti dom to be good “just because”, or take goodness as default without question, or present a fake and idealized image of goodness for them to live up to, because that will never satisfy Ti. At the same time, morality cannot remain an abstract concept or else it is very easy to twist upside down. Goodness must be deeply FELT in order to be a motivating force, and he, at long last, felt goodness in his bones, through his decision to place the greater good above himself - inferior F often means arriving very late to the feeling party. He finally caught a glimpse of what he could be and should be through Rey’s, and possibly his mother’s, eyes, which allowed for inferior Fe closure. He had always gotten by okay without love and only believing and trusting in himself, but he realized that he was far better off for opening himself up to something more. 

That’s my take anyway. Or perhaps that’s what I needed to see to make the story more interesting for myself, lol.

[thesalemsaga]

𝟭 — 𝗰𝗼𝗹𝗱 𝘄𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗿

—  𝙛𝙞𝙧𝙨𝙩 𝙘𝙝𝙖𝙥𝙩𝙚𝙧 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙨𝙖𝙡𝙚𝙢 𝙨𝙖𝙜𝙖.

𝙬𝙤𝙧𝙙 𝙘𝙤𝙪𝙣𝙩 : 6.8k words

𝙨 : salem, the mistress of evil, has been made aware of a resistance group being made within the walls of the empire academy, valhalla. meanwhile, young seren has a bit of an epiphany.

the most unfortunate thing about the mistress’s palace, is that nobody will ever hear you scream.

in the black mountain, the darkness hardly distinguishes day from night. and they say that after losing a track of time, of days, going on without gazing at a clock or a calendar or even getting a peek at the stars, can drive a person to mere insanity. that was what many claimed happened to the witch when she was confined into this palace and was left to her own accord.

although light never shone once through those tainted, ebony windows, life still continued within the monolith. although not the healthy life that one might expect, not the life with clear morals or allowing a faith to carry you through your good doings, not even that flicker of passion towards pass-times and careers that keep you up and moving, nothing of the sort was ever seen in these walls. rather, it seemed like everything about humanity had abandoned the creatures from within. 

the seemingly natural and human way of living had been lost within their countless decades here. time was not even a concept, they weren’t sure what use it was to count the hours and days and years you spend there, you’d just make it worse for yourself within the hope that tomorrow you will escape. and if not tomorrow, then in a week. and if not in a week, then in a month, two months, three. upon realizing that time might never come, you peer at those tallies drawn on the dark cobble walls and sneer and scream into an empty vacuum of space where nobody will hear you and save you.

it’s no use getting out either, not without the witch’s permission.

but even if you go out and are asked to return, you must pray to whatever deity remains on this cracked crater of a planet, in hopes that you return with good news. if not good news, decent news. but never bad news. bad news like, the fact that soldiers from the empire front seemed to have located the traces of one of salem’s henchmen.

yeah, good luck getting out of something like that.

inside one of the many halls of the dead palace, a sudden sound erupted. the scout wheezed and coughed as his head was lifted from the pool of water. tangled through raven locks and pulling and yanking, the gloved hands of the witch minded him like a puppet. they leaned over what could have been a pool, but the water was far from pristine or blue, it was a sea-weed green and at certain times, you might just spot a fin breaking through the surface before submerging once more.

this had been going on for nearly five minutes, but it felt like hours. having your head being forced down this certain pool would attract something ugly that lies in the deep end, the mere scent of your blood will put you in danger. but one could hardly care for the life of a mere scout when the mistress of evil has some minor, and by that, major problems on her hands.

“ m-my lady, please, show mercy! ”.

when she forced his head back down, salem’s eyes appeared fit to kill. two vermilion spots lacking any source of previous humanity, but even with the eyes, you wouldn’t take her for having been once a beautiful woman. the horns on her head were curled with ends as sharp as a double edged sword. her complexion was as lifeless as ash clouds summoned by an erupting volcano. salem hardly looked like a witch, she seemed fit to be a demon, a horned one, at that. and perhaps a part of her had some relation to the beings dwelling in the fiery pits below, especially once glancing at the limits of her ire.

minutes prior to this, the same scout she had sent out with about a dozen goblins had returned with news she had not been expecting. news regarding the empire, the people who have tried to take her down for the past two decades. there had been no success although salem was hardly an idiot, she was not one to underestimate the passion of vengeful humans, she was a vengeful human herself. it wouldn’t be long before they charged in with torches and pitch-forks to burn the witch.

resistance groups were growing within the walls, according to the chatter of some military men wandering between the boarder of what was the ukraine. the scout, a good fighter as well as an idiot, could have escaped without alerting the men of his presence and that of the dozen goblins he had brought with him, but he did not. the mere rustle in the bushes alerted the soldiers of a darker presence listening into their banter, and although killing was not on salem’s demand, it had to be done.

what could have been tyrants avoiding giving their status and identity away instead became an altercation that left one soldier cubed to pieces whilst the other fled, and to add salt to the wound, a stupid goblin who went after him was seen by the patrol ship they had parked in the area. checkmate for the empire soldiers.

to make a long story short, salem was fucked.

salem’s berserk force yanked the man’s head out from the mermaid pit and just a small flicker of pleasure manifested in those dead eyes. if there was one thing that she did love doing ( and she doesn’t love many things ) it was ensuing a well-taught lesson on consequences. and she was a rather strict teacher when it came to that.

“ listen to me, you filthy pig ”, she spat, sneering as the man found to catch his breath. her grip on his hair only tightened. “ you had clear instructions. you had them fucking written down, i even took some remorse since you have a god-awful memory and you want to tell me to have mercy, when you just fucking gave a major clue away to those empire fuckers?! ”.

the man continued to cough and wheeze as salem’s spat pure venom, “ what is it with you men, huh? can’t take orders from a woman? is your superiority alarm blaring so hard that you just won’t adhere to the fucking orders because a woman gave them to you? answer me, you pig! ”. he couldn’t. “ d-do you know how fucked i am? well not in the best way, i’ll tell you that. all of my efforts to make my location have gone to shit because you couldn’t keep your lousy ass out of trouble for five minutes. five years! five years stuck in this cold shithole and you gave it all away, you filthy animal. oh, i’m not going to show any mercy at all. ”

although the currents were disturbed by the abuse brought upon the scout, the waves did not fail to suddenly grow rampant, as if enraged. and around the same time, salem shoved his head down far enough for the water to engulf his shoulders. and it was not her who pushed him into the water, rather it was an unseen force yanking him into the depths. 

as the witch rose and paid one last glance at the pool over her shoulder, she took note of a red hue that rose to the surface. after that, silence.

elsewhere . . .

principal arthur armsend was a man of honor.

being a principal and leader to a new era of the world, leading boys and girls and what lies in between into a new age, a renaissance period that would take the world from being a dark and bleak place that they were no longer familiar with, into the peaceful planet they had known it to be a hundred years ago. and he did so by a sharp discipline he gave to all of his students.

classes started at eight o’clock and go on until about four, and every day, something new is taught. from alchemy and martial arts, to care of mythical creatures and history. three meals were held every day at the immense cafeteria, free time started after classes in which students were able to enjoy the open-air yards of this floating monolith in the sky. in fact, they were so high up that you might reach over the edge and touch a cloud.

 as opposed to many schools, the academy of valhalla was not one to waste time fooling around. third-year students and first-year students alike worked around the clock in order to harness the best skills in their arsenal in case the possibility of being sent out into missions came. and usually, when you were prepared, you might end up having the best results. students were told to be precise, to never make foolish mistakes, and to always remember why they were here.

although, nobody got it as bad as the principal’s daughter.

you’d expect the privilege to be very obvious; the ability to skip classes, to get out of trouble, to be an immediate social magnet, to be allowed out of the school and into the city to enjoy what it means to be young. any good parent with a somewhat loose way of raising their kids would spoil their child when they had the position they had. but for her, it was anything but that.

“ back straight, seren! ”.

she’s been at this for three hours. not joining her peers in the usual classes would mean that she would have to be doing something a little more different, a little more suited for her, and whilst many might role her eyes, they’d feel their stomach drop when they see the state that seren armsend is reduced to when brought into these private lessons.

at this point, her knees scrapped and legs clearly trembling, fatigued to the core, anyone could tell that seren was going through hell. these lessons tended to last three to four hours, but every time she so dared to look at the digital clock on the wall, her tutor would threaten to extend the time to fifteen minutes. ‘you wouldn’t take your eyes off your target in a real fight to see how long you’ve been at it’, he had said many times. and although it pained her, she had to agree.

her tutor, however, was none other than her old man. at the age of fifty, arthur still managed to maintain a certain posture to his stand whilst in battle that would trick anyone into aging him down a couple of years. he was a petite man, shorter than his daughter by two inches, and that most definitely did not stop him from butchering his daughter and bringing her to her limits in these training lessons.

how many times would seren have to be here a week, you ask? five times. fridays were generally the days in which she would have two of these sessions, one in the morning and the other placed right after lunch and she would only be back in her dorm at seven o’clock in order to crash, rest, and prepare for more lessons on a saturday morning.

iron thorn was clasped in her hand, arms tensing and aching to rest, her entire body ready to collapse the mere snap of the man’s fingers when he allowed her to rest but it wouldn’t be anytime soon. her training gear made her feel ten times heavier, and it was hot, boiling hot. but an armsend does not show struggle in the midst of a duel, they prefer to keep their enemies unsure of their condition to scare them or taunt them. you could only collapse once you’d finished what you started.

privilege, my ass. this is torture.

the clock was ticking towards the final bell which would dismiss all students but the ones in detention, and seren. “ finish what you started, come on. gaze up, for god’s sake fix that shoulder, and stop shaking your leg, you’ll stumble as soon as you lunge forward ”, she was used to receiving these comments, and she would take the feedback in an instant, because she knew arthur armsend when he was angry, a burden she shared in being his daughter.

iron thorn gave a minor whistle as she prepared to lunge once more, no essences were allowed to be used for the time being. if she did use something, the room might collapse. but she was tempted, oh young seren was tempted on pulling the trigger against the handle of her rapier and bring the ceiling to the ground. it would give her at least a minute to escape through the debris and run. 

even upon lunging with a perfect posture and speed, the blade clashed against the cane her father wielded. stabbing, withdrawing, lunging, withdrawing, flicking and withdrawing. each set of movement took a mere second because of her semblance, yet her father caught everything and she was beginning to grow slightly discouraged. although not as many could fight as well as him, she knew that there would be someone out there who could. one person. and if she were to cross paths with that person, she cannot steer to being passive. even though it was meagre simulation of a fight, seren was asked to treat it like a reality. and that, she did.

arthur bore a sudden attack that left seren scrambling to get out of her thoughts, darting in withdrawal with a backwards somersault and landing clumsily on her feet, her legs nearly rendering her weak enough to collapse yet she still had a bit of sharpness left in her to know that landing on your ass would certainly mean a scolding from your father later. 

this time, however, she did not have energy to raise her weapon to him as he pointed the end of his cane against her neck. she merely lifted her head and glanced upon his gaze that seemed rid of any emotion, meaning he was thinking, analyzing, arthur just wasn’t the type of man to wear his feelings on his face. he knew better than that.

seren didn’t. “ what was with that frown i saw? you know how many times i’ve taught you not to make your thoughts and emotions obvious on your face, your face has to be a blank canvas ��, he went on to say, lowering his cane and pressing the end against the ground. his posture straightened and he seemed to have dropped his defenses. she was not going to attack, however. “ seren. ”

“ m-my apologies, father ”, the girl gasped softly and blinked, verging dangerously close to the point of collapsing. something kept her awake, a part of her subconscious that wanted to keep her alive, her fight response. if not for it, then she would have perhaps been disowned or sent away just like her older sister.

now the only capable of heir in the family with the ripe age of eighteen, soon graduating from the academy, seren would have to carry the legacy of the cold armsend women who never once brought themselves close to failure. she would have to probably join the military route upon parting ways from valhalla, leading young soldiers to restore their lost land. although, if you ask her, if she had the choice, she would have picked the exploration route. unfortunately, being born in this family means that your fate is already decided for you from the moment your presence in your mother’s belly is announced.

needless to say, you have to stay on the route of perfection.

arthur sighed, it was clear he wasn’t happy. “ we’ll cut the lesson short today. you will make up for it with an extra hour tomorrow after class ”, he decided, and in order to avoid angering the man, the girl pursed her lips together and nodded. if one stared for just a moment, they would notice the trepidation in her eyes.

her tutor, father, and principal turned and left the training chamber they had been in for the past four hours. now vacant, the only sound echoing being the pants emanating from her cracked lips and although she wanted nothing more but to lay down on the floor, seren only averted her tired gaze to the immense windows giving her perhaps the best view she’s had of the world outside in a while.

although the empire had seen better days, the mountain of crete was a good place to re-build a city and make the public feel safer inside the walls. there weren’t many who wanted to venture out, probably because they had everything they could ever want in here. technology meant that they could produce food by cloning and distributing it to millions, money never seemed to be an issue as there were jobs for everyone, though it was said that there lived some people outside of the walls, in mainland greece who took care of farms and cattle and had a somewhat older way of living that would have been seen in the medieval times. they were closer to the truth of the world, and the fact that at least a dozen would apply annually to move within the walls said something.

but the talk of the wild never petrified seren as it did to others. they had returned to a time where they believed society was safer, and as soon as you stepped into a zone with no laws or mentions of morals, you’d be in danger. yet she’s read stories of people who lived just fine in these conditions, monsters or no monsters. and though she shared some fears with the general public, the wild was not one of them.

if anything, seren was infatuated with the idea of going outside, of seeing the world for what it was and not for what others claimed it to be. they hardly showed images captured by the military when they leave the walls and attend an expedition, only returning in a week after taking geographical calculations and hurriedly leaving. hardly the military you want protecting you.

seren claimed that with her father in line, things would change. the third year graduates from the year before had gotten good results, one of them had succeeded in establishing a base in almost every continent that remained. and although hardly anyone visited those bases, they were there in case you found yourself lost and in serious need of help. many other alumni valhalla students made technological advancements towards transport and population control, others went more of a political way and started working alongside governors to change the shape of their monarchy. 

it was almost a guarantee that those who leave valhalla are destined for good things, but it felt as if seren would not be able to join her peers in that sense and it pained her to such an extreme where she wanted to jump out from those balconies, land in cold water and swim her way out of the city. yet she would have to return at some point, there is always a way back home after an adventure, even if it’s a short one.

seren looked down at her sword and tapped the floor with the tip for a moment, the blade had never once been blunt and yet it seemed like it was in desperate need of a recovery. it must have been caused by the countless daily training that hardly left her any time to catch up with her other subjects. her father was tempted on making a fighting machine out of her, and although she loved a good duel, seren was not a natural fighter. she was more of a diplomat, if you ask her.

lost in her thoughts, seren didn’t exactly hear the beeping sounds emitting from the door of the training chamber until it had come to her side and then began to feel a sensation against her leg. upon looking down, her frown disappeared and her eyes turned to crescents.

“ hi, ted. “

valhalla was known for having ‘familiars’, little creatures often used to advise students and although you couldn’t own them, you could befriend them. seren had known ted since he was made, which was roughly twelve years ago. he has been her friend long before he got signed up to be a companion to her school. at the age of six, ted was the robot she played with when she was alone.

smart, short and oh so adorable, ted-ee 012 mostly helped doctor lin with matters in computing lessons for those who lean more towards the technology route. but he was far from the war machine the school fabricated and more of a health robot, charged by water and able to detect sadness from students. it was probably why he had approached seren to begin with, pulling at her leg with his small hands.

he let out a happy beep as he waved at her, his eyes as pleasant and polite as always. “ i wasn’t sad, you know, i was just thinking ”, she said, crouching to his level. he stared at her, blinking for a couple of seconds with a disapproving sound. “ what, don’t believe me? ”. and then it clicked. “ oh, you got upgraded, didn’t you? ”.

ted hardly got any enhancements done to his figure, as he didn’t really have any flaws and his feedback from the students was always exemplar. but this time around, it was useful. because the upgrade enabled him to tell whether people were lying or not and it worked well during exam season where many would be asked whether they cheated or not.

seren let out a minor chuckle and shook her head, “ well there’s no point lying to you. but you never tell anyone, so i suppose it’s fine. ” she patted the top of his smooth head and then stood, holding iron thorn to her and then tucking it back into its sheath. “ care to get some fresh air? ”. on a happy note, seren left the chamber, ted hovering after her.

the halls of valhalla would usually be empty after classes were over, most students tended to flee outside and look for something fun to do, which was mostly seen in throwing frisbees, playing chess, going sunbathing. some returned to the lounge and played games or watched movies. others returned to their dorms to rest, and a small percentage fled to the library for some extra time studying.

a part of seren was almost glad that there weren’t many people to see her tired state. ted had offered her a mirror through his digital face and she was quick enough to adjust her cotton candy hair and adjust the blue bow pushing the locks of her hair back. she was boiling under this training gear, but she would be out of it sooner as her lesson was cut short, but it was clear she was going to owe her father an apology afterwards for her wandering mind. little things upset her father, but what majorly puts him off is when seren is not focused. it was the reason for most of their arguments and disagreements.

the dorms were in the lower parts of valhalla though the girl took a small detour outside to catch her breath. in the midst of a sunny afternoon, the sky was beginning to turn into hues of pink, purples and oranges as the sun thought about setting. the wind batting against her skin was all that she needed, especially as she neared to the open air yards with artificial grass, smooth concrete paths leading students around the perimeter of the entire yard that seemed to go on for miles and miles. some benches and picnic tables were scattered, mostly occupied by first years who wanted to catch up after their lessons.

seren hardly steps outside, held inside by her tasks, but stepping outside was a freeing sensation, her arms folded and rested against the balcony railings, the wind was best from where she stood and she could have stood there for hours if she didn’t keep telling herself to return to her dorm and get as much rest as she could.

out of everything that caught seren’s attention, a game of football stole it in the end. most of the boys tended to be relatively active and sporty, that was a given as they had to be active if they wanted to carry heaven guns or broadswords with them in battle. seren became immersed in it for a moment, not the type of person to find kicking a ball around for ninety minutes particularly interesting but this time around, she couldn’t really help it.

what mostly caught her attention was one of the boys playing, and as far as she was concerned, she knew who he was. not the person to read the ranks too deeply, seren would only glance at the names and the pictures and this one was one she recognized. kailen cassius, rank number six, an archer. perhaps the most remarkable thing about him, however, what his height.

he had an air to him, though, that of someone who could handle things himself but also relied on teamwork and seemed to be about unity and working things out in a more collective fashion rather than being selfish all the time. he seemed like a good person, she thought. someone she’d definitely befriend and would be able to trust when faced with danger, but being alone didn’t permit her to join any teams. her father said that the only time she’d ever really join her peers in something of the sort was if she served as a tutor.

seeing as how so many of the students were set into groups, she wandered whether being in one would ensure that she would leave and tread beyond the walls, but she doubted anyone would really want to be in a team with her unless if they wanted extra credit or wanted to dump all the work onto her. and since seren wasn’t one to say no to people so easily, she might have to deal with being the one carrying all the work since she had the skills and smile as everyone got the best results despite having done nothing. it happened once in her primary school, and it was what shaped her into the timid, goody-two-shoes of a person that she is.

but say if she were to tutor a group. she’s seen third-year students do it mostly with second-year students who needed some help, but it would work and be the only time where seren might be able to use her position to get what she wants. it might make her father trust her just a tiny bit more, but she never knew exactly when it came to arthur armsend, he wasn’t one to be pleased so easily.

still, she was willing to give it a go.

when ted suddenly beeped, seren was drawn out of her thoughts once more only to realize that she had potentially been staring at kailen based on the way that well, he was looking right back at her. she had totally zoned out and had not managed to snap out of it when she felt the confused gaze of the boy on her. thank god for ted, otherwise she would have made much more of a fool of herself than she already had.

seren blinked and leaned away from the railings as soon as she began to feel her ears and cheeks burning pink. ted let out a confused noise, “ why didn’t you snap me out of it as soon as i started staring? ”. the robot tilted his head to the side with a level of confusion. “ he probably thinks i’m a total weirdo now! ”.

when ted let out an apologetic sound, seren sighed and risked a look back at the boy who had returned to his game, seeming more carefree but not before their eyes locked for a moment and she felt a wave of realization.

seren is hardly one to have an epiphany, but what she will tell you is that the feeling cannot easily be described. connecting the dots, her blank expression was replaced by that of surprise as her eyes grew in size and her pursed lips parted only for her to turn on her heel and start pacing quickly back inside, ted following in suit with some confused beeps.

the top six students are all third-years, and although the top student was often taken out of lessons to engage in more practical work outside of valhalla, that still left five people who were very capable of what she had in mind. she thought the tutoring idea would be pointless, but after her thoughts rang in that training chamber, after she stepped outside and looked towards the walls, after realizing that the world might end up caving in on itself if nothing was done, after such an epiphany, she couldn’t possibly sit there and do nothing.

seren knew her father would never let her out to do something like this on her own, but she knew she could perhaps impose an idea he could not deny. he wanted a daughter that would make changes, and after the death of one possible heir and the marriage of another, the fate settled on seren when she did not wish for it. but she could not change this about herself. but she knew that if good results came out of this, if her epiphany was right and she had perhaps hit the gold mine, that the world would somehow improve. and that was something she was taught from a young age.

her mother left when she was eight but the moral lessons stuck with her for ten years and it is probably why her thirst for knowledge of the outside world and the drive to better things was not leaving her anytime soon. the action of doing good things was deeply embedded into her, perhaps it was a genetic thing or the way her mother shortly raised her. she was a rebel without a cause, a woman who ventured out and never cared for the warnings she got or the many injuries she returned with. because at least she was helping. 

so perhaps it was time to start being a little selfish on her end. seren knew her father wouldn’t be in the best of moods after their lesson that afternoon, yet her blood remained boiling, adrenaline causing her heart to race after and her steps to quicken until ted stopped following her and let her run off on her own.

her father’s office was at the top floor, and after a long elevator ride to the top, seren stumbled into the room.

the porcelain tiles she stepped in were drawn with art she had never quite been able to name before. perhaps it was a renaissance-style painting, what with the figures and halos and clouds. every time she entered her father’s room, it felt like entering a museum. he was an archaic man with older, more traditional principles despite being inclusive. but he was one to separate his inclusiveness from his professional way of working, because no matter what you were, he still extended a hero out of you.

the mahogany desk was usually empty as he would have meetings on a friday evening but she had caught him seemingly before he could prepare for said meeting. he seemed to have turned on his record player, appearing blissful whilst listening to an opera piece seren has heard all too many times. the china cup in his gloved hands saw steam rising from what seemed to be his usual chamomile tea. three cubes of sugar, no less. 

the minor ding of the elevator made him raise his head when seren approached his desk. he paid her a mere glance, raising a brow. “ why are you not changed? i thought we’d be having dinner together ”, he stated, blowing the steam from his cup gently. “ don’t waste time, seren. ”

“ i need your permission for something, father. ”

arthur let out a sigh. when seren approaches him with a request as such, he often knows what it will be. permission to head to town for the weekend, permission to continue her tap lessons, permission to head to the beach. almost all of those requests were never really granted for the mere reason that he did not want her attention diverting to something else when so much had to be done. but he seemed to sense something was different, he knew his daughter well known and one thing he was unfamiliar with was the glistening pair of eyes like his wife’s staring back at him.

“ although i may be only seven in the ranks, i feel like . . . i-i feel like i know what i want to do before i graduate ”. she quickly took her seat in one of the chairs facing him across his desk. she took notice of his cane resting on the side and gulped.

days ago, he had mentioned that her older sister had one final act as a valhalla student that marked her as a significant alumni. although she married shortly after, she still made history by being the student who uncovered many lost articles and items in other continents, items rich in cultural value as they carried history of their dying planet. and she had done this before graduating. arthur imposed the idea that seren should do something similar.

seren proceeded, “ might i suggest gathering the top five students and allowing me to tutor them? ”.

“ seren. ”

“ let me finish, p-please! ”.

the girl clasped her hands together and forced a meek gaze down, “ i have all these skills in my arsenal and i highly doubt i’ll ever be able to use them because i can’t apply them to the world outside like the others. but perhaps i can let someone else take the lead for me. i-i could teach them what i’ve been taught and hope that they’ll carry it on, l-like a legacy if they choose to step outside of the walls. ”

arthur put his cup down, clearing his throat. “ is this just a reason for you to step outside? you know what i’m going to say, seren ”, his tone appeared highly disinterested, but she was not going to be discouraged this time around.

“ father . . . you and i both know that we have the people needed to do something about what’s happening to the world outside ”, she inquired, still no response. silence lingered until the apprehension faded. “ you found salem’s whereabouts, did you not? ”.

the principal, although he didn’t appear shocked, gave it all away through the way he dropped his spoon into his cup. he rose his gave with a clenched jaw and peered at her, possibly questioning how she’d come to such a conclusion. but it was no rumor, it was true. the general said the men found one of her scouts spying on them near the ukraine, meaning she couldn’t be too far. five years of hunting salem after her escape, only to finally discover the continent she hid in.

“ seren, listen to me closely ”, he warned, leaning over his desk slightly with a grave tone. “ i understand you wish to be a hero. but you will not be the hero who died trying to kill the witch that brought the world to its end. no daughter of mine will do something of the sort. ”

seren continued to fight back, “ but i won’t be the one doing it, it’ll be five qualified people doing it on my behalf because i taught them what other teachers do not. ”

“ seren. ”

“ and you act as if the years of training has been for no reason. what, am i just going to have these skills at my disposal and never use them? did i just waste nearly sixteen years of my life being taught something in case there’s a war? ”, she spat. she had never spoken to her father like this, and in a dark corner of her mostly innocent mind, she was enjoying it. she felt like her mother. “ father, there will be a war regardless. especially if we stick around doing nothing about the clear danger. i’m going to have to use these skills but i could also use them to prevent it all. ”

the man grew quiet. somewhere in his mind, he probably felt something similar. she had heard the stories, her father wanted to be the valiant one in his family to carry the armsend name, but he was the one who deeply injured himself to the point where he had to give up his heroic hopes and let it become mere fable. he didn’t want the same thing happening to seren, but he knew that this time, matters would be different. she would have help.

and sending your kid into a world that is unknown to even the smartest men in the world was a horrifying thought, but it is in like every tale, the one holding the hero back will always have to let them go. that is how the best heroes are made, the ones who were given the chance to chase after their happy ending, not he ones ho were held back. what good is a sheltered hero?

besides, she might end up finding the worthy opponent she had always dreamed of meeting. and if it was salem, so be it. call her reckless or obsessed with heroism, but seren knew she wouldn’t be able to stay within these walls for much longer.

her father knew this as well, even if it was clear he didn’t want to.

“ are you certain about this, seren? ”.

no, she wanted to say. she had hardly given any logic aside from her own hopes and expectations which could be mistaken as mere childish fantasy and desperation to be outside, but it is better not to ask her how she knew it would work out. she just knew.

“ yes ”, the girl breathed and bit her lip slightly. “ i think mother would have wanted to me to do this. i’m an explorer just like her, father. you know that very well. ”

arthur chortled, glancing bitterly at his cup of tea. “ i wish you weren’t. i wish you were more like your older sister, at least you’d stay out of trouble. but you’re the only heir. after ophelia, i’m highly uncertain that there’ll be anyone else ”, he spoke. she felt her blood run cold. but when he looked up at her, he grunted. “ but you don’t have a single cowardly bone in your body. you’re not like isabella and not like me. you’re an explorer, as you’ve stated. ”

“ father . . . ”.

arthur rose a hand and stood, cup in hand and cane in another. he brought himself up from his chair and moved steadily towards the tinted windows, peering outside into a twilight sky. “ you ask a lot of me, seren. not only might i lose my daughter, but i might also lose five innocent lives if all of this goes wrong. and i will not let it be for your fantasy and mere childish heroism. and yet, a part of me knows that soon, salem is going to find a way to harm everyone . . .”

the indecisiveness from the man was making the girl think much more deeply about the matter than she was intending. if someone got hurt, it would be her fault mainly for putting them in danger, but that was why she planned on training them. they were capable fighters, whoever they were. it was a matter of luck and precision, two opposing forces that might have to work together to make all of this work.

“ seren. ”

the girl lifted her gaze to see the man she so dearly admired and loved, the father who was a professor as well as a friend and a leader. she loved him so dearly that she would not think to ask something like this unless if she one hundred percent meant it. and she did.

“ if you can convince them to join you, i will grant your request. but be weary of the time, because it has become of the essence.”

and so, her adventure begins.