#and twilight princess bridges never worked when you needed

[bigsoftmarshmallow]

Continuation of the Ghost SO AU: Ghost SO following the Demon King where ever he goes, basically… lecturing him? They are the same as ever, loving him deeply, ensuring he takes care of himself, giving him the same attention as they did alive. They are not sure why they are still around, but by the goddesses, they will not allow their husband to become a shell of himself! How would the Ganondorfs (Wind Waker, Ocarina of Time, Twilight Princess, Hyrule Warriors, and Tears of the Kingdom) & Demise react?

The Ganondorfs and Demise would react with a mix of frustration, confusion, and a touch of warmth at having their SO continue to care for them even after death. Their ghostly presence would be both a comfort and a constant reminder of their loss, making it difficult for them to move on, yet impossible for them to turn away from the love they still feel.

Wind Waker Ganondorf

Reaction: Wind Waker Ganondorf would be deeply conflicted. On one hand, he would appreciate the care and concern his SO shows, as it reminds him of the warmth he once had in his life. On the other hand, he would find their lectures and constant presence irritating, especially as it forces him to confront emotions he prefers to bury.

Scene: Ganondorf is on the bridge of his ship, staring out at the endless ocean, his mind consumed by thoughts of conquest. His SO’s ghost appears beside him, a familiar presence he’s come to expect.

“You need to eat something,” they chide, their voice filled with the same loving concern as when they were alive. “You’ve been out here for hours.”

He grunts, not looking at them. “I have work to do.”

“Work can wait,” they insist. “You can’t conquer anything if you collapse from exhaustion.”

Ganondorf feels a flash of irritation but also a pang of something softer—gratitude, perhaps. He knows they’re right, but admitting that feels like a weakness. Still, he finds himself turning away from the ocean, heading below deck.

“I’m not doing this because you told me to,” he mutters.

His SO only smiles, their ghostly form following him. “Of course not, dear.”

Ocarina of Time Ganondorf

Reaction: Ocarina of Time Ganondorf would be frustrated by his SO’s persistence, especially when they lecture him about taking care of himself or not letting his anger consume him. However, deep down, he would feel a strange sense of comfort knowing that they still care for him, even in death.

Scene: Ganondorf is in his throne room, pouring over maps and battle plans. His SO’s ghost floats nearby, watching him with a concerned expression.

“You’re pushing yourself too hard,” they say, their voice gentle but firm. “You need to rest.”

“I don’t need rest,” Ganondorf snaps, not looking up from his work. “I need to win.”

His SO sighs, their ghostly form drifting closer. “You won’t win if you’re dead on your feet. Please, take care of yourself.”

He finally looks up at them, frustration clear in his eyes. “Why are you still here? You should have moved on by now.”

They smile sadly, reaching out as if to touch him. “Maybe I’m still here because you need me.”

Ganondorf feels a sharp pang in his chest at their words. He turns back to his maps, trying to ignore the way his heart aches. “Fine. I’ll rest. But only because you’re being insufferable.”

His SO chuckles, their presence a small comfort in the dark room. “Whatever you say, dear.”

Twilight Princess Ganondorf

Reaction: Twilight Princess Ganondorf would be outwardly annoyed by his SO’s ghostly presence, especially when they nag him about his health or decisions. However, he would secretly be relieved that they’re still with him, even if he’d never admit it. Their lectures would serve as a reminder of the humanity he tries to suppress.

Scene: Ganondorf stands in the twilight of the desert, his mind lost in dark thoughts. His SO’s ghost appears beside him, their voice breaking through his reverie.

“You’re brooding again,” they observe, their tone gentle but firm. “You know that never leads anywhere good.”

He huffs, not looking at them. “I have a right to brood.”

“You have a right to take care of yourself too,” they counter. “When was the last time you slept?”

“I don’t need sleep,” he mutters, but his SO isn’t having it.

“You need to take care of yourself, Ganondorf. I’m not going to stop nagging you until you do.”

He glares at them, but there’s no real heat in it. “You’re dead. Shouldn’t you be resting?”

They smile, their expression soft. “I’ll rest when you do.”

Ganondorf sighs, the weight of their concern pressing down on him. “Fine. But only because you’re irritating.”

His SO chuckles, their ghostly form staying close. “Whatever helps you sleep at night, dear.”

Hyrule Warriors Ganondorf

Reaction: Hyrule Warriors Ganondorf would be visibly annoyed by his SO’s ghostly presence, especially when they interrupt his plotting or training with lectures about self-care. However, he would also feel a strange sense of solace knowing they’re still with him, even if it’s as a ghost. Their persistent care would keep him grounded, preventing him from completely losing himself to his darker instincts.

Scene: Ganondorf is in his training hall, swinging his sword with fury, his mind focused on nothing but his power. His SO’s ghost appears at the edge of the room, watching him with concern.

“You’re overdoing it,” they say, their voice carrying across the hall. “You’re going to hurt yourself.”

Ganondorf stops mid-swing, glaring at them. “I am not some weakling who needs to be coddled.”

“I’m not coddling you,” they respond, floating closer. “I’m making sure you don’t destroy yourself in the process of destroying everything else.”

He grits his teeth, annoyed but unable to ignore the truth in their words. “Why are you still here? Shouldn’t you have moved on by now?”

They give him a soft, sad smile. “Maybe I’m here because you need me.”

Ganondorf feels a flicker of something—something he’d rather not name. He lowers his sword, turning away from them. “Fine. I’ll stop. But only because you’re a nuisance.”

His SO laughs softly, their presence a small comfort in the dark hall. “Whatever you say, dear.”

Tears of the Kingdom Ganondorf

Reaction: Tears of the Kingdom Ganondorf would be both frustrated and comforted by his SO’s ghostly presence. He would be deeply affected by their continued care, even in death, and their persistent lectures would serve as a reminder of the love they shared. He would struggle with the guilt of their loss but would also feel a sense of duty to honor their memory by heeding their advice.

Scene: Ganondorf sits on his throne, staring out at the desolate landscape. His mind is filled with thoughts of power and revenge, but he’s distracted by the familiar presence of his SO’s ghost.

“You’re thinking too much,” they say, their voice gentle but firm. “You need to take a break.”

“I don’t need breaks,” he responds, his voice low. “I need to win.”

“You can’t win if you’re too tired to fight,” they counter, their ghostly form floating closer. “Please, take care of yourself.”

Ganondorf closes his eyes, the weight of their concern pressing down on him. “Why are you still here? You should have moved on by now.”

They smile sadly, their presence a small comfort in the darkness. “Maybe I’m still here because you need me.”

He opens his eyes, looking at them with a mix of frustration and longing. “Fine. I’ll rest. But only because you’re being insufferable.”

His SO chuckles, their ghostly form staying close. “Whatever you say, dear.”

Demise

Reaction: Demise would be furious at first, both at himself for letting his SO die and at their ghost for not moving on. However, as time goes on, he would come to appreciate their presence, even if he never admits it. Their lectures would be a constant annoyance, but also a reminder of the love they shared, a love that even death couldn’t destroy.

Scene: Demise is in the heart of his dark domain, flames flickering around him as he broods. His SO’s ghost appears beside him, their voice breaking through his dark thoughts.

“You’re letting your anger consume you again,” they say, their tone gentle but firm.

“I am anger,” he growls, not looking at them. “It’s what drives me.”

“It’s also what destroys you,” they counter, their ghostly form floating closer. “You need to take care of yourself.”

Demise grits his teeth, furious at their persistence. “Why are you still here? You should have moved on by now.”

They give him a soft, sad smile. “Maybe I’m still here because you need me.”

He feels a flicker of something—something he doesn’t want to name. He turns away from them, his anger simmering. “Fine. I’ll stop. But only because you’re a nuisance.”

His SO chuckles softly, their presence a small comfort in the dark domain. “Whatever helps you sleep at night, dear.”

In each case, the Ganondorfs and Demise struggle with the presence of their SO’s ghost, finding it both a source of frustration and comfort. Their SO’s continued care and love keep them grounded, preventing them from fully succumbing to their darker impulses, even as they wrestle with the pain of their loss.

[ask-de-writer]

FIENDSHIP IS MAGIC  (Part 56 of ?)  

18+ readers only  (sex scenes)

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FIENDSHIP IS MAGIC

or

Making Fiends and Influencing Ponies

An Anthro *Tail* of the Mane Six

Part 56 of ? (Work in Progress)

by

De Writer

61697 words (story in progress)

© 2022 by Glen Ten-Eyck

All rights reserved.  This document may not be copied or distributed on   or to any medium or placed in any mass storage system except by the express written consent of the author.

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Ex officer Overmark snarled, “This ain't fair at all! Got you looking for any little mistakes and THAT so called pony reading my mind!”

Princess Twilight quietly reminded him, “You were directly instructed to say only whether what Kin said was true or not. Shall we add a charge of perjury by refusal to answer truly in a trial under the Royal Wing?

“The purpose of this whole trial is to find the entire truth and also any mitigation that there may be. Restrict your answers to the truth and you have no need to worry about either Princess Luna's Bridge of Dream or Kin's rather unique abilities.

“Now a clear and simple answer to the question. Is what Kin said the true reason that you were not there when the fires started?”

Overmark glanced fearfully at Kin, who smiled angelically at him. “Yes, Your Highnesses. It was set so that it would not start a blaze for like a half hour.

“Princess Twilight mentioned mitigation. The reason that I did it was orders from Priest Sunshine. He was really angry at Minty. Not only would she not pay for the Blessing, she would not sew up their priestly outfits as a donation. She might not look it but she is really strong! She chucked him out of her shop and told him what she thought of the whole church scam.”

Kin was chuckling at his oration. Nodding her head, she offered, “Not only true, he was there and saw it happen!”

Priest Sunshine snapped, “That vile mare had no respect for a Pony of the Cloth! She laid violent hands upon me! It was not to be born!”

Reverend Tightcollar actually looked at Priest Sunshine in dismay. “You really did that without consulting the cooler heads of the rest of us?”

Turning to face his judges, he pointed to Kin and said, “We have, as you have already proved, done many things that we should not. Of this arson, however, the rest of us are innocent. Ask the mare there who reads our minds. She will tell you so.”

A smiling Luna replied, “No need. The Bridge of Dream shows clearly the truth of what you said. This actually surprised you. We will accept that and release you from the arson charge, which will be laid only to Priest Sunshine and your minions.”

Pinkie Pie spoke up, “I've known Minty for a long time. Her place was insured but she never got a dime.” She looked expectantly at Kin.

Kin nodded. “Now that its been brought up, Pinkie is right. Judge Horsefry was in on the scam. He got a double indemnity payment made to the court and counterfeited a rendering to Minty. He passed the money on to the Dawnguard.”

Priest Afternoon nodded thoughtfully, “So that is where that big anonymous donation that Priest Sunshine gave me came from. Your Highnesses will find it listed on page six of ledger two.”

Luna gave the others a nonplussed look. “Bridge of Dream confirms that. Only priest Sunshine was in on the arson. The other priests are innocent of that particular crime. He, Judge Horsefry and mister Overmark are guilty of both the arson and insurance fraud.”

Twilight nodded smiling, which caused some obvious nervousness among the assorted priesthood of the Dawnguard. “Well, that about wraps things up except for the tiny problem of how they could pay that Secure Gold Transfer. I mean, it is for more than the total of all of the church's assets, buildings and lands as declared on their last Principality Tax forms.

“I will be most interested to know how they are going to explain why it is not Prima Facie tax evasion.”

Priest Afternoon squirmed uncomfortably in his seat. He gave both Princess Luna and Kin uneasy glances and finally replied, “If you trace the accounts that much of the Secure Gold Transfer is drawn upon, you will find that they are not ours as such. Certain of the high nobility sympathetic to our Church and cause have created accounts that we have access to. They can be drawn upon as needful but are not technically ours. The SGT nearly depleted them.”

Princess Twilight quietly ruffled papers and withdrew several sheets. “This is your filed taxation form for the Dawnguard. It is formally signed by all seven of you, as Senior Officers of the Church. On the second to last line it states under penalties of purgery that you have listed the value of all properties, goods and accounts AVAILABLE to the Church. These funds, which we have verified, are not listed.”

“Um, Princess, Duke Edgecliff of the Exchequer himself told me that it was not needful to list them. He stated that so long as we helped the Ducal Council in their goal, we would not have to.”

Princess Luna looked over to Kin as she offered, “Bridge of Dream confirms the source and reason of the tax evasion. Sadly, they are actually innocent of anything but needing to make up the arrears. Kin? Have you more to add?”

Kin nodded, “I am afraid so, your Highnesses. The Ducal Council, the same ones behind the attempted Summons of Princess Luna to hear their Requirements and do their bidding, do not exactly want to replace your Royal selves on the Thrones. They wish instead to install a King upon the Empty Throne of the Queen, sitting above you both. He will Rule, able to override your Royal decisions, but leaving the difficult running of the nation to you. Oh, and he will sire foals from you both to insure the PROPER SUCCESSION.”

Twilight nodded to herself and muttered, “Sedition. Absolutely sedition. The whole Ducal Council?” Turning to Princess Luna with a sweet smile that clashed with her words, “Any ideas for filling all those suddenly Vacant Duchies? I suspect that the Thrones Room won't be popular with the Dukes, containing as it does the Traitor's Drop.”

Celestia interrupted crisply, “Princess Twilight, dear, this is the wrong court and venue for that discussion. Luna needs to brief me on Kin in better detail than I presently have. Do join that discussion after we adjourn this court. I gather that it will be most illuminating.”

TO BE CONTINUED

<==PREVIOUS ~ NEXT==>

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[akocomyk]

XII

A master of the magical arts. An overseer of souls. A bridge to the spirits that surrounded the world.

The Gazer was the protector of the kingdom, an agent of peace, and he tended to all its wrongs. Most people weren’t aware of the reason for his existence, and all they knew was that he’s a great wizard. Despite all his efforts to help anyone he could, most people were fazed by him.

An obvious reason would be . . . Is that he appeared as if he was a looming shadow of death. Anyone who laid their eyes on him would shiver at the sight. Another would be the way he worked his magic. It was often misunderstood. Nevertheless, underneath the darkness that surrounded him lay a heart that was pure.

No one knew of his story. He was the king less than a thousand years ago, and though the blood of royalty flowed in his veins, he also practiced the magical arts for which he was heavily gifted at.

In one fateful night, a prophecy came to him in a dream. It was a vision of the kingdom in irrevocable darkness and turmoil.

To stop these dreams from coming true, he gave up his throne and pursued his talents in magic. He casted upon himself a curse that would allow him to live longer, with the hope of protecting the kingdom in the next few hundred years. Over time, this curse manifested physically and made him the gruesome image that everyone now saw. He lived in silence, did his deeds in secret, and only appeared to people when it was necessary.

However, the people detested him…

For his ways of teaching others, sharing his wisdom, and protecting the kingdom were as queer as anyone could think. No one could ever understand his ways of teaching. He hurt the people, wounded them, and left a scar that would last forever. He believed that scars would never be erased, meaning the lessons that they’ve learned from it will never be forgotten.

Although people hated him, they were still inclined to like him regardless, because of what he had done for them. Especially for the king who now sat on the throne. He summoned him every time he needed something that couldn’t be done by human hands. Unwillingly, the Gazer responded to him as always even if he disliked him.

The King and the Gazer had come a long way. Having lived for hundreds of years, he had witnessed the king grow from a young prince who played with snakes to the powerful monarch he was that day. When everyone saw the king as their ruler, the wizard saw him for person that he was.

The King also saw the other as more than a mentor and adviser. He saw him as a friend, perhaps? A very special friend?

One day, when The Gazer was in the castle to aid the King, a certain magic revealed the magician’s human form—and the King was in complete awe of what he saw. Slowly, the wizard’s gnarly face and lackluster robes melted away in shimmering dusts, and in its place was a young man, elegant and princely, wearing a tunic in the color of morning twilight, embellished with an embroidery of threads that sparkled like evening stars. He looked at him closely and he was struck, and in that spur of the moment, the King uttered the words, “I love you,” to which the Gazer only replied with a kind smile.

After that confession, they grew apart but still worked together for the betterment of the Kingdom, and never again did he see the young prince the wizard once was. Soon, the King would meet the Queen. The Gazer and the Queen, due to their similar interests in the magical arts and their shared relationship with her lunatic husband, also grew close—so close that the King would envy their relationship. He did love his Queen, but he was jealous of how close she was to the magician. Was he jealous that the Queen was spending her time with a different person? Jealous that he didn’t receive the same love from the wizard? No one could tell.

After several years, the Queen had grown tired of being with the King and sought for the Gazer’s help. She had already raised three wonderful princesses, so she desired to live away from the toxicities of the kingdom. She was aware that her decisions would have dire consequences, but she paid them no mind.

As a result, the two wielders of magic faked the Queen’s death as an exchange for the King’s request to make the youngest princess the heir to the throne.

Only the Gazer knew where the former Queen lived after these events. Only he knew that she now fulfilled her desire to live a life that she sorely missed—healing and helping other people.

The Gazer’s curse was subsiding. The spell that allowed his soul to stay in its unearthly form will leave its unkind abode, and only the memory of his existence would be left in this mortal world. No elixir would lengthen his stay, and even if there was he wouldn’t take it. At the very least, he made sure that he would not be forgotten. The stain of his uncannily bizarre magic would always be there.

☆ ☆ ★ ☆ ☆

[sapientiiae]

Perhaps it had not been the wisest idea to actually speak the Usurper King’s name aloud when they both already knew who the players had been on the opposite end of the chessboard. Saying his name was likely prone to bring up bad memories, worse than discussing the topic already did, if Midna’s reaction was any indicator. At least her Twilight companion had been able to dismiss the topic easily enough, and Zelda thought it might be best to avoid such subject matters altogether, now that they’d established the people of their kingdom were safe and recovering.

Instead, the Princess of Hyrule wished to pivot her focus entirely to Midna — more specifically to her stay in the kingdom of light that began….now, apparently. Not that the Hylian was opposed to the Twili woman’s sudden appearance. It was, however, a bit peculiar that Midna had not sent word of her arrival in advance, though she supposed communication between their two realms would be hampered now that the Mirror of Twilight had been shattered.

Which also brought the most important question….how had Midna managed to traverse back to the other side of the coin? Zelda had believed all portals between their realms had been eradicated with the breaking of the ancient mirror, but to learn some path still remained? It seemed the goddesses were granting her some small gift.

And the Hylian monarch would be patient with her questions; it would be rude to bombard her fellow noble with so many queries when she’d only just arrived.

“Please do—“ The two words are blurted from rouged lips before she can reign them back in. She’d been so flustered with the way Midna’s sky blue fingers skimmed over her shoulder and threaded through her auburn locks that she hadn’t been able to get a grasp on the thoughts her brain intended to vocalize. Was that, however, a bad thing? Was it not fair to the other woman to be open with her thoughts after she’d worked so hard to make it back to Hyrule?

She found she didn’t want to dwell on such ideas.

Instead, eyes a bit wide after her blunder, Zelda cleared her throat as she peered up at the taller woman, smile a bit tight as she attempted to find a way to appropriately navigate this topic. “What I mean is….though it would be lovely to have you stay for eternity, I know your people would be amiss without you to guide them,” she finally answered, feeling a faint heat to her cheeks as she carefully sorted through her thoughts. “But we need not rush to come up with a definitive answer so quickly. A decision can be reached as the next few days indicate how much time is needed, and we shall not fear not possessing enough time, as the bridge between our two worlds still exists.”

Even if the princess doubted her own words — she might never feel as if there was enough time to be spent with the Twilight Princess.

" Zant... that fool. Things could have been so much different... so much BETTER if he had not... tch. "

Midna had been so resentful towards him for a long, LONG while, even after he'd been taken down, but when finally she returned to the throne after the dust had settled, she realized he was as much a victim of all this as she was. She cannot claim she wouldn't have been BITTER, as well, had she been in his shoes... the people hadn't wanted him as a ruler, for his ways were EXTREME and his actions hardly befitting of a king, but one could not deny that he had worked HARD for a crown he would never come to wear, or a throne he would never be seated upon.

He'd brought his demise on himself, yes, but... his hand hadn't been the one to initially guide him there, and Midna, wholly and truly, FELT for him. Hopefully, wherever he ended up, he was happier.

He... deserved that much, despite it all.

The Twilight Princess, again, chuckles, likely to mask her RELIEF that Zelda was not put off by the plan. As the other royal had stated, there was no reason for there to be ANIMOSITY betwixt them, but there was a difference between supporting one another in saving their homes as designated rulers, and BONDING outside of that heavy obligation. With Midna staying here for a presently undetermined amount of time, they would surely be seeing each other quite often, if not majority of everyday. It would be... INTERESTING to see just how different, and just how ALIKE they truly were.

" Mmmm... how long would you desire that I stay? " There is a cheekiness to her gaze as she closes the distance betwixt her and the monarch, fingers now raising to ghost 'long her shoulders and weave through her beautiful, brown hair. " I will stay however long you want for my company... dare I say, FOREVER, even, ahahaha! " Is she teasing, or is she SERIOUS? That all depends on how Zelda responds.

[gatitopicante]

Where is the destination? I am unsure. If there is trouble, I'll cross that bridge when I get there.

[five-rivers]

Three Twilights

Can be considered a loose sequel to Deep Sea Diver (same vibes).

Warnings: Soft body horror, Danny totally ignoring objectively horrifying things

.

.

.

“I was thinking,” started Maddie over breakfast, “we could start observations of that island that came into view last week, the blue one.”

Danny shook his head. “You’ll have to use the Speeder, then,” he said. “I’ve got an errand to run.”

There was a pause as both of Danny’s parents looked at him, confused. He didn’t blame them. Danny rarely went out as a human anymore, and certainly not for anything like errands. Looking like he was still fourteen after all this time made doing anything even remotely official difficult.

But this wasn’t a human errand. “Yeah,” said Danny. “In the Ghost Zone. I’ve got to go to Three Twilights.”

“Where?” asked Jack.

“It’s, um, a city,” said Danny. “Well, three cities, I suppose, depending on how you want to group them. One Realm. On the shores of the Celestial Sea. I’m sure I’ve put it in your files.” Probably a direct copy from his files from before he came clean to them, but still. He stirred his cereal counterclockwise, letting his ice powers chill the milk.

“Yes,” said Maddie, “but there are a lot of places in there. I’m not sure we’ve had a chance to properly look at them all, much less memorize them.”

“Okay, yeah,” said Danny. “I guess that makes sense.”

“What kind of errand are you running, Danno?”

“I’m picking something up for a friend. A book,” he clarified. “They lent it to someone there, but they need it back.”

“A book,” said Maddie. “For the Library of Tongues?”

“No, they’ve got a contract service for overdue loans.”

“Contract service?” asked Jack.

“Yeah. Moonlighting bounty hunters mostly.”

“For a library?”

“I don’t know what to tell you,” said Danny, shrugging. “They’re really serious about their work.”

“If it isn’t for them, who is it for?” asked Maddie. “The princess? Wulf?” Wulf had actually been over a few times, and his parents had… Well, saying they got along would be an overstatement, they didn’t really have anything in common beyond ripping portals in the fabric of the universe, but everyone had been civil. “The boy at the school?”

“No,” said Danny. “Wulf would just get it himself.”

“Who, then?” pressed Maddie.

Danny put a spoonful of cereal in his mouth, delaying. Maddie hadn’t eaten anything since Danny had mentioned the errand. The errand was, in fact, for Clockwork. Danny was always more than happy to do anything for Clockwork. The older ghost had saved him too many times for him to be otherwise. But Jack and Maddie were wary of Clockwork. Danny didn’t get it, but talking about it hadn’t been productive so far.

He didn’t want to lie to his parents. Not ever again.

“It’s for Clockwork,” he said.

Ah, yes, there were those suspicious looks. The ones Danny could have interpreted even without being able to almost literally taste emotions.

“I see,” said Maddie.

“Anyway,” said Danny, quickly, “if I haven’t shown you Three Twilights yet, it’s really cool. I don’t want to take the full rig, but maybe the little ectocam would be okay? The one that I can clip on.”

“Why not the normal camera with an ectofilter?” asked Jack. “That has more features, and it’s easier for us to get data from.”

“Three Twilights. It’s dark there,” said Danny. “It might work in Civila, but not so much in Naŭtika and Astronomia, and I sort of want to go down to the beach and see if I can find any star pearls, and that’s really dark, so if you want to see anything properly, it’ll have to be the sonar setup, which I’m not doing, the noises that thing makes are offensive, or the ectocam.”

“And the Fenton Phones?” asked Maddie.

“Sure,” said Danny. “But I always bring those.”

“Yes,” said Maddie, after a moment. “You do.”

“Great. It’s settled, then.”

.

Most of the journey to Three Twilights could be made by air. Or, rather, what passed for air in the Infinite Realms. But when the rocky edge of an island came into view, Danny touched down. Further in was a blue wood, and Danny walked under its inviting branches.

The atmosphere started sunny, summery. The leaves and needles of the trees were the color of a clear blue sky. But as he got deeper, the leaves were touched with sunset colors: golds, reds, oranges, purples, and pinks. They fell to the ground, crunching beneath Danny’s feet. The sunset grew longer, deeper. The leaves on the trees grew sparser, revealing patches of sky.

By the time only bare branches framed the sky, it was a dusky, dim, purple. A few lonely stars twinkled in the sky.

He passed out of the forest. The city of Civila rose above him. Windows glowed in the near dark like eyes.

Danny had changed, too. His aura had dimmed. The whites of his suit were now dark gray, and patterns swirled on its surface like camouflage, like wind-twisted clouds, like nebulae.

Shadows bled around the corners of the city buildings like ink in water. Will-o-the-wisps bobbed, casting pools of illumination in lieu of streetlamps. Ghosts walked up and down the streets, or floated only a few meters up.

The buildings glittered. Everything was dark, vibrant, colors. A sharp, sweet scent filled the air, something dark and rich beneath it.

The canals in the center of the street were filled with flashing fish. Or perhaps serpents. Or perhaps worms. Between how fast they moved and the dimness of the light, it was difficult to tell.

Danny could feel his irises contracting, shrinking down to needle-thin rings. His teeth were sharp. He matched the other ghosts around him. This was how the Civila liked it, how things were in this part of Three Twilights.

Everything in order. Everything peaceful. Everything civil.

Danny walked through the market square, and bought some charcoal-colored cherry pastries from a vendor who looked like someone’s nightmare demon with a chip of ghost ice.

Much to his parents’ protests. They didn’t care for him eating ghost food.

There were seven bridges to Naŭtika, which was built half underwater and half on boats that floated both on the water and in the air. As the dark waters of the inlet lapped at his feet, Danny felt the changes ripple across his skin. To a human, he would look pure black, except for the faintest glimmer of rim lighting and the stars of his eyes. He and the other ghosts moved silently, cutting through the waters like shadows.

To Danny’s ghostly senses, the place was alive with emotion and force, energy loud and crackling against his senses.

“We’re solely on the ectocam, now,” said Maddie. “You were right about that.”

“Mhm,” said Danny, half distracted by a whispered sea-shanty backed by a choir of not-voices and not-sound that wove together with the mastery of a hundred years of practice.

He glided up a rope net, and began to navigate the ropes to the taller ships. The very tallest, the ones that scraped the ever-darkening sky and blotted out uneven sections of stars, moored the glass-like ships that floated above. He’d need to reach them, to get to Astronomia.

“What’s that?” asked Maddie, breaking his concentration on his path.

“What’s what?” asked Danny, whisper soft, drawing some looks. He turned, slowly, on the spot, planks barely creaking under his steps. A gentle wind ruffled his hair.

“There,” said Maddie. “By the ghost that’s registering red.”

It had taken Danny a long time to learn what color on the ectocam’s artificial sensor signified what, but he had, if only to reduce the guessing when they played this game.

“Star pearls,” said Danny, eyeing the ropes of stone that glimmered brighter than his eyes currently did. They were one of the only reliable forms of light, out on the Celestial Sea, although they were valued for other things, too.

“They’re putting out a massive amount of energy,” said Maddie.

“You mentioned them before,” said Jack. “You wanted to look for some?”

“On the shore,” said Danny. “Out past Astronomia.” He wanted to find his own, rather than buy them.

Partially because they were expensive. He didn’t really want to think about how much unmelting ice he’d have to conjure up to equal one of them. They were usually bartered in exchange for… more significant things.

The ghost by the pearls beckoned him closer, clearly hoping to make a sale. Danny shook his head, broadcasting regret and admiration for his wares. Speech might be faster but, under these circumstances, it would not be polite.

When Danny left, the social rules of Three Twilights would only leave the faintest impression on his mind. But, for now, they were a heavy, but not uncomfortable weight. One he could shrug off if necessary, but which was currently useful.

“What are they?” asked Maddie, as Danny turned away.

“They happen when big enough things fall into stars,” said Danny. “They’re all the memories of what they used to be… and the imagination of what they could become, when the star dies. Well, that’s what they’re supposed to be. I don’t think anyone really knows for sure.”

“And you can just… find these? Lying around?”

“Not… not really,” said Danny, slowly drifting towards a crow’s nest. “It’s like that one national park. That one where you can collect diamonds? You never really find anything good, but you can look.”

“I see,” said Maddie. “So, you don’t expect to find one?”

“Yes and no,” said Danny. “If I don’t expect to find one, I probably won’t. Unless the sea is feeling ironic, which it usually is, apparently. I mean, it’s an ocean and the stars. And prophecy is, like, ninety percent irony, but mostly for an outside observer. Which honestly makes sense, I think. An observer, not an Observant. Those are different things.”

The kind of silence on the other side of the line was the one that emerged when Danny used too much ghost logic.

“Anyway,” he continued as he scaled the crow’s nest and started traversing the glass ropes and chains to the all-but-invisible glass ships, “no, I don’t really expect to.”

The path to Astronomia was a staircase carved from moonstone harvested in October, when the moon was full and orange-red. It burned Danny’s eyes to look at and feet to walk upon. Like many ghosts who fixated on things like astronomy, he adapted quickly and thoroughly to the spiritual dark.

This darkest twilight was built of delicate bubbles, whorls, and arches of glass, any of which could cradle a ghost, all of which could be phased through with impunity. There were no true roads here, but certain places were easier to travel through. Addresses were carved in the glass in glimmering, holographic sigils made from glass-caught starlight that humans would never be able to read, but Danny could understand with a glance. It was not silent in Astronomia, the high wind sung through the glass like the immense instrument it was, playing ethereal and eternal music that mirrored heaven.

As always, Danny was enraptured. Perhaps the stars here were not true stars, only their memory and imagination (or simulacra made from stripped ghost cores, he remembered with a shudder), but he felt so close here.

“Danny? Are you still with us?”

Danny started to reply, but realized he had forgotten, once again, that he had no mouth here.

A phantabulist played a story for a group of not-quite-children, characters made of carefully constructed light chasing each other about with vigour. Danny stopped for a while to watch the story, a parable about spiders and fish. They were common here, storytellers who plied their craft this way. The stories could be pressed into glass prisms and orbs that served as books and viewed even in other environs of the Ghost Zone.

He moved on, passing through a glass bubble full of ghosts that snatched at and stroked him as he passed by, leaving stars and dark clouds to swirl across his skin. His suit had long since smoothed over and sunk in. His skin was a thin surface, a membrane holding in liquid night. He was like smoke, like vapour, thin and easily overlooked.

The places he passed were homes, places of business, warehouses, and hotels, organized without any apparent reason. A phantabularium glowed like a struck match, snatches of story visible inside its walls. He walked by.

Eventually, he reached the palace at the city center.

The ghost who lived there was old. Older, perhaps, than Pandora. She filled the vessels of her palace in placid pools connected by crystalized threads and looping tubes. Seven round-bottom flasks, radiating outward, like the spheres of heaven. The music here was almost deafening.

This was Urania, Muse of Astronomy. Astronomia was her city, and subordinate to her will before all else.

Danny resisted the urge to kneel. He was not here as a supplicant, and they both knew it.

The lowest pool bubbled, and slowly a glass prism, a dodecahedron, floated to the top. Danny took it with careful hands and left Urania’s direct presence as quickly as possible.

Being near her was always difficult. She was the Muse of Astronomy, and she felt he did not indulge his second Obsession as much as was proper.

Indeed, she thought it should be his first.

(The starlight inside him pulsed. He was never sure how much influence Urania could exert on him when he visited Three Twilights, never sure how much the relationship between his passions shifted when he was here. He loved it here too much to stay away forever.)

Astronomia did not end all at once. Instead, as one walked farther from the palace, the delicate, clear glass was replaced by black sand. When Danny had feet again, and could feel the grains beneath them, he knew he was no longer in Astronomia, but on the Shores of Night. The Isles of the Moon were faintly visible in the distance, sea-spray framing them in silvery halos.

He felt human here. His breath moved in his lungs, and his skin rose in goosebumps, the sleeves of his t-shirt fluttering in the wind. The sea and the sky were the same, and twice as beautiful for it.

“Sorry for going silent on you there,” said Danny. “I keep forgetting I don’t have a mouth there.”

“How do you forget that?” asked Jack.

“I don’t know.” Danny shrugged, even though he knew Jack couldn’t see him. “Do you think the ectocam might be able to spot buried star pearls?”

[yellowocaballero]

Fox & Leia's Star Wars Holiday Special

SUBJECT: Office Party

BODY:

This is a notice to all guardsmen that next Zhellsday during night shift we will have a short holiday celebration. As the Senate building will be closed, we may hold it in Conference Room A (location subject to change - discussions on choosing our least favorite senator’s office welcome). As this gathering and its funding may fall outside of official SOP, I urge all guardsmen to only discuss the manner in private. Attendance is optional.

FOX

ADDENDUM: This is not because I’m getting laid.

ADDENDUM: I’m not getting laid.

EXTREMELY goofy...fluff AU of Twilight On Owl Creek Bridge. Technically speaking you don't need to read that in order to read this, but I will say that it will probably be extremely bugfuck if you don't.

Call it a 'mistaken for dating when in reality we're partners in crime for a murder plot'. But a Christmas Special. That ended up a lot longer than intended.

CW for discussion/suspicion of coerced sex. 28k of stupidity under the cut. I'm very sorry.

“I’m just not certain that a sniper’s the best assasination method.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Leia said brusquely. She closed the manila folder, tapping it professionally on the desk to settle out the flimsi. “It’s subtle. It’s tasteful. He’ll never see it coming.”

“Is it important that the assasination’s tasteful?” Fox asked, slightly aghast. This woman’s priorities. “You’re the one who said that Force sensitives can sense danger and intention through the Force. A sniper’s too much buildup. It has to be instant.”

“As if planning to stab him in the back isn’t too much buildup?”

“Not if we know he can’t read you in the Force and he never bothers to read me.” Fox pinched the bridge of his nose, settling back in the comfortable leather office chair. “You’re the one who says poison won’t work.”

“Too much buildup,” Leia said firmly. Fox rolled his eyes. She squinted above his head, looking at the large silver Alderanian style clock above the door. It was completely indecipherable to Fox and seemed to rely on the reflection of the light on Mt. Aldera, but it seemed to make sense to Leia. “You realize it’s 0100. Don’t you have the first shift at 0600?”

“We’re actually engineered to only need around four hours of sleep a night.” But Fox stood up anyway, grabbing his bucket from the floor next to the chair. “Try not to stab Senator K’lun during the special committee meeting tomorrow.”

“Really?” Leia asked with abject interest. Fox very, very rarely told that sort of clone secrets, and she was always interested each time. “Then why do you all drink so much caff?”

“Life’s little joys.” They were also all very sensitive to caffeine, and at this rate it was a psychological dependence. “Goodnight, Senator.”

“Goodnight, Captain.”

They didn’t smile at each other, but Fox and Leia were not smiling people. Leia said it gave her hives and Fox got self-conscious about public displays of emotion. But he liked to think their stilted goodbyes were just a little warm, and when he exited Junior Senator Leia Organa’s office at 0100 hours with his bucket tucked under his arm he was smiling just a little. Just to himself.

Stone stood frozen in front of him, rifle half-hoisted over his shoulder.

Fox stared at him.

Stone stared at his bucket.

Fox stared at Stone staring at his bucket.

Stone squinted at Fox’s smile.

Fox quickly dropped the smile.

“Goodnight, Lieutenant.”

“Uh,” Lieutenant said.

Fox took the last trolley back to the barracks, staring out the window the entire time.

*********

Admittedly, Fox had been a little more tired than usual lately.

The whole ‘time traveling senator slash Rebel Princess’ situation was stressful, as were their continued assasination plots. Senator Bail Organa was doing a relatively successful job of both flying Leia under the radar (as much as one ever could with Leia) and keeping her from going after the Chancellor with a knife immediately, but Fox had already been sent on a bit of a personal and emotional journey vis a vis his place in the galaxy and it had left him with the desire to sleep for the next decade in the hopes that he’d wake up to a refreshing lack of totalitarianism.

Fox was well aware that recruiting him to the assasination mission made the most objective sense. He was probably the life form closest to the Chancellor, and completely above (or below) suspicion. He had complete control over the police, the judicial system, government security, and he could swing jurisdiction over a significant percentage of the military. Most importantly, Fox could do just about anything and put it in the name of ‘government security’. These useful attributes explained why Leia sought him out for help, while also explaining why it had been such a completely fucking awful idea to seek him out for help that it had convinced him of her incompetence for weeks.

“You realize that it is a miracle I didn’t turn you in, right?” Fox had said, roughly a dozen times post voyage of self discovery. “You took the most dangerous gamble possible on the highest stakes mission possible.”

“The Force led me to you,” Leia had said breezily, “and I always play to win.”

And there was no argument to be made against that.

Leia had been in the past for a little less than three months, in the Senate around two months, and a pain in Fox’s ass for six weeks. He did not realize they were friends until Leia had breezily said something about how friends help each other crawl into these ventilation shafts, so hop to it. He had felt weirded out, somewhat used, and a little bit of what felt like pleasant indigestion. He could not identify it, and Leia kept him busy and stressed enough that he didn’t have time to figure it out.

As both a cause, side-effect, symptom, and consequence, it took Fox a solid five minutes to realize that the breakroom had fallen completely silent when he walked in. He got his caff in a haze, knocking it back like engine room moonshine as the room reluctantly kicked back into quiet conversation. A record number of officers were looking at him out of the corner of their eyes. Stone was flipping through his datapad at record speed while holding it upside down.

Fox sighed and put his cup down. “Who broke it.”

The room erupted into furious protests - the first stage of grief, denial. A third of the room were looking into their cups and avoiding eye contact, another third were swearing up and down that nothing was broken, and another confused third were proclaiming that they didn’t do it!

“If I have to find out for myself instead of receiving a confession,” Fox said, leaving unsaid the fact that he will find out, “the punishment will be three times as severe.”

Two thirds of the room were now swearing up and down that they didn’t do it (whatever it was)! Yet none were confessing. Hm. Inconvenient - Fox would also like to know what was broken.

Strangely, the only person who approached him was Stone. Who did look nervous, but almost more uncomfortable than nervous.

“Uh, Captain - can I talk to you? In private?” Fox narrowed his eyes. “Nothing’s broken, I swear.” Fox glared. “Nothing’s wrong, just - come on, please?”

Fox went, and they both walked awkwardly down the hall to Fox’s office. Fox realized too late that he had forgotten his coffee in the break room, and was left collapsing in abject despair onto his office chair. His expressions of abject despair were identical to every other expression he made, but there was a reason for that.

“Look, uh, Captain.” Stone leaned against the wall, before thinking better of it and moving to sit in Fox’s visitor chair. He leaned forward, folding his hands on the desk. “You know you can tell me anything, right?”

“Nothing above your clearance level.”

“Right, right - I mean, you know, even stuff that isn’t - classified.”

Fox began to worry that Stone knew about the assasination plot against the Chancellor.

He had to fight to keep himself from looking or sounding defensive. He kept his shoulders straight and his glower on his face, but he couldn’t stop himself from over-arranging his stacks of flimsi. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Stone opened his mouth, then closed it. A series of complex expressions crossed his face before he steeled himself, leaning forward. “I’m not going to make you tell me. It’s none of my business.”

“Whatever you’re thinking of, it definitely isn’t,” Fox said. He arranged his flimsi faster. Stone’s eyes followed the motion.

“Look, I just…” Stone pulled another few uncomfortable faces before he steeled himself, falling into a serious and professional calm. “Is Junior Senator Organa acting inappropriately towards you?”

Fox stared at him. He furiously tried to work out if plotting to assassinate your boss was inappropriate for the workplace.

“Uh,” Fox said, abruptly sweating a bit. “Can you specify?”

Stone kept his face calm, almost reassuring. “Is Junior Senator Organa asking you to do things that are not within your job description?”

Fox vividly remembered her asking him to hoist her into the ventilation shaft. Is that what he meant? How much did they know? He trusted his men to follow his lead and back him up on his decisions, but this was a large ask. It was unlikely enough that Leia got through to him - he couldn’t take a chance on her getting through to Stone. Even if, strictly, Stone was halfway seditious already.

But he couldn’t throw her under the bus like this. He had accepted his role as an accomplice a long time ago. He was relatively certain that Leia would manage to extract him before the execution, but Fox always took responsibility for his own actions. He wasn’t ashamed of any of them.

“She’s not asking me to do anything I don’t want to do,” Fox said firmly. Stone’s eyes widened. “I take full responsibility for this. I have to request that you and the men don’t interrogate the matter any further.”

Very slowly, Stone said, “So we don’t need to arrange any ‘accidents’.”

Fox’s hand jerked, spilling the stack of flimsi over his desk. Crap. They definitely knew. They couldn’t know about the assasination thing, they would have turned him in by now. But his behavior was suspicious. Shit. Of course it was suspicious - Fox had been voluntarily interacting with a natborn. He had thought he had kept it under the radar by making sure only to really interact in private, but in retrospect maybe that was even more suspicious -

“No accidents,” Fox said. He aimed for firm, but maybe he landed a little closer to frantic. “Absolutely none. If anybody’s suggesting accidents, tell them that I’ve banned them.” The thought of his guard bumping off Leia - and they could find a dozen ways to get it done completely legally - stressed him out. He’d invested way too much time in the assasination thing to do it by himself. Fox knew himself, or at least he’s learned recently. He’d completely give up the minute she wasn’t around to nag him. “In fact, I don’t want anything happening to her at all. She’s completely off-limits.”

Stone’s eyes narrowed. “Is she.”

“That means no search and seizures.” That was probably the first time Fox had ever said that sentence. “If that’s all, Lieutenant, you’re dismissed. I have back to back meetings today and I’m very busy.”

“Uh huh,” Stone said slowly, standing up as ordered. “I’ll just get the Junior Senator on special protection detail, then.”

“Yes, that works,” Fox said, barely even listening in favor of booting up his datacom and looking very busy. “Can you get me my cup back? You made me leave it.”

Stone left, leaving Fox with a sense of both anxiety and satisfaction. At least that problem was resolved. Fox held a strict ‘take care of a problem once so you didn’t have to take care of it again’ policy, and he decided that this definitely counted.

Maybe.

**********

“Well, that’s mysterious.”

“I know,” Fox said grimly. “I might have to take suppressive action.”

“Suppress the knowledge of sentient rights abuses all you want,” Leia pointed out, delicately tearing a corner of a savory pastry before stuffing it in her mouth. “You can’t suppress office gossip. Trust me. When I was sixteen I led a whisper campaign against another senior aide I didn’t like. In a month she was out of there in disgrace with a probation order.��

“Do you think we’re soulmates?” Fox asked her seriously. “Like, born to meet?”

“I don’t see why not,” the time traveling murderous princess said frankly.

The Liberty sculpture loomed down above them.

They were sitting in the park across the street from the Senate building. Like every other park on Coruscant, it was more of a rooftop affair: an artificially constructed paradise, its plastic nature allowing it to attain heights of beauty and low maintenance that an organic garden could never achieve. Fox related.

Also like most Coruscant parks, it was the 1,400th floor of a 1,600 floor building - which was extremely high for Coruscant, and a prime show of the Senate district’s prime location. As such, and yet in tasteful deference to the sprinkle of nature in duracrete hell, there was a faux ‘sky’ three stories above them, complete with fake clouds and a sun. Artistic sculptures, meant to enrich the mind, dotted the gardens. The Liberty sculpture - portrayed by a Toydarian in flight arching high towards the sky - provided a semi-ironic backdrop to their conversation on a wrought durasteel bench. Leia’s lunch separated them, a neat four tiered bento. Fox had wondered if her father’s servant staff packed it for her before he saw that it was bought from the convenience store. Leia claimed that she had lost the taste for anything without preservatives.

It was a very nice space, and as such it had four entrances highly guarded by Fox’s men. You had to show a Senate badge for entry, and Fox’s men regularly patrolled the space. Fox had bullshitted something about how spaces just outside government buildings were hotspots for assassinations, but in reality it was just good/bad for morale for the senators to feel constantly watched even during their break times.

He had already seen two of his men patrolling through the small area he and Leia were in. They had both moved on very quickly.

“At any rate,” Leia said, after heroically swallowing her bread, “I am content to play the long game. We still have a year and a half left, and my time table more than accommodates for any delays. However, if suspicions are already rising, we might have to accelerate the schedule.”

“You know what would help accelerate our schedule,” Fox said seriously.

“No.”

“I have an idea for something that would really get this over with quicker.”

“I said no.”

“The convenience would be unmatched.”

“I’ve already said no!”

“I hate the Jedi as much as the next programmed Jedi subordinate with sleeper programming to mass-murder them,” Fox said aggressively, or as aggressive as Fox ever got, “but they are objectively our best bet. He has stupid magic. They have stupid magic. He can backflip five times in the air. They can backflip five times in the air.” Fox really fucking hated Obi-Wan Kenobi, who felt the need to demonstrate this whenever he was drunk. Which was all the time. “They would be highly invested in not being murdered. They’re the most skilled soldiers for this mission, which is their specialty. And neither of us can backflip five times in the air, Leia!”

“And there is still one problem with that.” Leia crammed the rest of the bread in her mouth aggressively, reaching out to unscrew the last tier of her bento - milky, creamy soup. Fox had recently learned that Alderaanians exclusively ate bread and dairy. He was allergic to dairy, found bread too soft and mashy, and did not understand the appeal. “The Emperor can sense every Jedi in this time period completely, and he’s more than aware of their identities. He would be able to sense any hostility or murderous intentions from them perfectly well.”

“They would have the element of surprise -”

“The only ones who would truly have the element of surprise are you and me.” Leia jabbed her wide, shallow spoon at him. “Which is why we are the ones who are doing it. We can’t afford to take any chances.”

“Oh, because you’ve been so careful.”

“Was learning sarcasm quite necessary?” Leia asked waspishly.

“I work a service position,” Fox panned. “I learned sarcasm my second week here.”

Despite herself, Leia smiled. “I learned them from princess lessons. Did you know that Alderaanian princesses are supposed to be polite?”

“Really.” Out of the corner of Fox’s eye, he saw two of his men enter on their regular patrol. “And are Alderaanian princesses supposed to yell like a ship engine?”

“I’m the only Alderaanian princess you know.” Leia stuck her nose in the air, a smile creeping across her face. “You can’t prove that they don’t.”

Despite himself, Fox smiled too. It felt freakish, and it seemed to give him indigestion. Was laughter supposed to do that? He’d have to ask Stone. “If I didn’t know any better, Princess, I’d say that you were raised on Mandalore.”

Two more guards poked their heads in. They were all staring at Fox and Leia.

Leia lightly punched him on the arm, making him thankful for the armor. Leia ‘lightly’ punched you very frequently, which was problematic considering the way she unconsciously used the Force to augment her body. “Mandalore doesn’t teach diplomacy, thank you.”

“And Princess lessons don’t teach you that aim, but you’re a great shot anyway.”

Then they were both smiling at each other, and two more troopers skidded into view at the entrance on the other side of the clearing. It was only at that moment that Fox realized six of his men were gawking at him.

Fox stood up, making all six troopers jerk to attention. “Is there an emergency, men?”

Indigo, suddenly abandoned at the head of the pack by his compatriot, saluted sharply. “No, sir!”

“Do you need me for something?”

Leia sipped loudly at her soup.

“No, sir!”

“Then why aren’t you on your patrol routes?”

“Yes, sir!”

“As an answer, that doesn’t make a lot of sense,” Leia said unnecessarily.

“I fail to see what any of this has to do with you,” Fox told her. He turned back to his men, who were now both standing at attention and faintly goggling. Or maybe they had always been goggling. Fox has been too busy imagining Leia in beskar’gam. Terrifying, and far inferior to Jedi Leia. It also mentally connected her with Jango Fett, which he objectively hated very much. “If you have nothing useful to say then get back to work!”

The men helpfully got back to work.

Leia sipped loudly at her soup.

“Office gossip,” she said wisely, putting her spoon down into her bowl. “You’ll never stop it.”

“Well, let me know if the senators start noticing any strange behavior between us,” Fox said, aggravated beyond all measure. And a little stressed out - something about plotting to murder your psychic, mind reading boss right under his nose left you on edge. “We can’t afford for everyone to be suspicious. Or for anybody to be suspicious, but it seems that ship has left atmo.”

“Oh, relax,” Leia said. “None of the senators realize you exist, much less are capable of picking your armor out of a lineup. They won’t notice a thing.”

“Hm,” Fox said. “Out of curiosity, during your time as Senator how much of the Empire knew perfectly well that you were a prominent figure in the Rebellion?”

Leia sipped her soup loudly.

*********

The situation only grew more dire.

Fox had no idea that agreeing to the assasination of a Sith Lord would cause so many problems - or, at least, he’d anticipated that the main problem would take up most of his attention. Instead, he found himself desperately trying to dodge his subordinates, who suddenly seemed to be absolutely everywhere and in every location where he’d prefer that they weren’t.

He barely even had an excuse to bitch them out over it. They always found a perfectly good explanation for popping up at his elbow, or suddenly being in the same location as him and Leia. It was putting a crimp in their plotting and Leia had a tendency to backseat Captain. Apparently she had been a general of her Rebellion (“And a political leader - we were short staffed”), which Fox fully believed and left him with a great deal of confidence that she was a thousand times more competent than those idiot Jedi, but they had opposing philosophies on leadership and her comments were usually unhelpful.

“Will you at least tell them to give it a rest?” Leia said, interrupting their very important conversation about Senator Hu’lun’s abysmal love life. “They’re everywhere. As someone who grew up with Stormtroopers, it’s almost anxiety provoking.”

“Almost?”

“I don’t experience stress,” Leia said, with a completely straight face. “Yesterday Senator Julep was flirting with me again, quite atrociously -”

“He was what?” Fox cried, outraged. “With that hygiene?”

“I know! And suddenly one of your men was right there, with some made-up summon from my father! It was ridiculous.” Leia narrowed her eyes at him. “Of course, you didn’t give them orders to do that.”

“Not that I recall,” Fox said honestly.

“So, naturally, you’ll tell them to cut it out.”

Fox vaguely implied he might do as such, and then completely failed to do that. Leia doubtlessly would not appreciate it, but Kenobi hadn’t appreciated Cody giving him a bedtime either. Leia, of course, was much more competent than the average incompetent Jedi, much less the gratuitously incompetent Kenobi, but that didn’t account for the incompetence of others around her. Or her reckless idiot streak.

The entire situation made it difficult to focus on work. Fox’s focus had already been comprimised vis a vis the identity crisis, the political and ideological shift, the stress of interacting with a natborn, the introduction of a friend to his existence, and the murder thing, but the sudden unpredictable behavior didn’t help.

The fact that work had been in a bit of a frenzy lately didn’t help either. A new Sith Lord had burst onto the scene, and reports from the front suggested that they were a terrifying menace who commanded armies with ease. When Fox bothered to listen to what the senators were saying, he heard a lot of fear mongering: that the Sith would just keep coming and coming, what were those Jedi doing, wasn’t this supposed to be their job, why are we fighting their battles?

This was ironic for more than one reason. Fox was also somewhat curious about the Sith Lord - Lord Sidious hadn’t even mentioned him or claimed him as his apprentice in their weekly meetings, and Fox personally considered himself the expert in evil - but Leia told him not to worry about it. Sometimes Fox had the opinion that Leia should worry about more things.

What did help was Leia’s genius suggestion that he stop caring about his work. Fox had too many responsibilities to start slacking off, and they had designed his workload with the expectation that he work fifteen hour days, and like it or not they still had prison riots to quash, etc, but Fox found a subtle and sublime joy in simply no longer caring. His police chief, military chief, and prison head could take care of things. All they needed from him was validation and forwarding mailcoms. These meetings weren’t necessary. This micromanaging wasn’t necessary. When he killed his boss and Leia hired him to be a secret service agent in her palace he wouldn’t have to worry about any of this.

Or something. Fox didn’t know what would happen to Leia after she averted her future. He wasn’t thinking about it. Fox was quite adept at avoiding thinking about things he didn’t want to think about.

After a particularly aggravating day, Fox finally utilized his hard-fought independence and responded to an extremely rude mailcom by the ‘Chief of Police’ by turning his computer off. They wouldn’t completely take over the police until the third year, but Fox was counting down the days already. Leia would probably call that ‘bad’ or something, but she didn’t have to deal with middle aged men throwing a tantrum.

He checked her schedule and saw that she would be in her office for the next hour until her next special committee meeting for diplomatic missions to war-torn planets, which was the exact kind of useless thing Leia was always doing. Fox breezed past useless people wanting useless things from him in the hallway, finally stopping at the humble office next to Bail Organa’s and throwing the door open.

“Leia, you will not believe the shit -”

Bail Organa and Padme Amidala stopped short, slowly turning their heads in sync to stare at Fox. Fox froze in the doorway. Bail froze halfway through pouring himself a cup of wine. Padme froze half-way through her drink.

Fox, a genetically engineered super soldier trained to have unnatural reflexes in the battlefield, did not miss a beat. “Good evening, Senator Organa. Is Junior Senator Organa present?”

Amidala opened her mouth, then closed it.

Bail’s drink spilled over his hands and he jerked back, cursing. He quickly righted the bottle, screwing the cap back on with one finger and replacing it on the sideboard. “I - I’m sorry, Captain, did you say something?”

“Is Junior Senator Organa present, sir?” Fox repeated obediently.

“I - the other thing.”

“Sir?”

“You said something when you walked in,” Amidala said, wearing a unique kind of stressed expression - as if objects on Coruscant were dropping upwards, or Mace Windu was smiling. “What was it?”

“I’m sorry, ma’am, I don’t understand the question.”

“I - I’m sorry, I must have…” Amidala shook herself. Fox internally congratulated himself. The ‘play dumb clone’ gambit always worked. “Never mind. I’m afraid Leia just stepped out for a moment for some food.”

“Just a social call,” Bail assured Fox, as if Fox was suddenly concerned that the whole time travel jig was up. “Is there anything you need from her?” Fox stared at Bail very pointedly, inclining his head. Bail’s eyes widened. “Right, of course. I forgot. She needs her…security updated. Completely blew my mind.”

“She needs her security updated,” Amidala slowly repeated. She was staring at Bail, her expression growing more and more unimpressed. Fox was also growing unimpressed. “Leia’s security clearance is already very high for a Junior Senator, Bail.”

Bail laughed awkwardly. Fox silently wished that Obi-Wan Kenobi, that incompetent asshole, had better taste in adopted fathers. “She’s a very promising up and comer! Isn’t that right, Captain?”

Idiot. “Yes, sir. If she’ll be back momentarily, I can wait for her.”

Fox moved to stand by the door. He waited. Bail and Amidala abruptly looked extremely awkward. That was the problem with that group - the ones that Leia called the ‘clone rights activists’ with a certain begrudging fondness, and a small amount of surprise. They always acted as if he was there. And they were slightly more reluctant to believe he was stupid.

Amidala tilted an eyebrow at Bail. From sheer association with both Leia and Bail, Fox read very clearly ‘is this fascist stooge onto us?’. Bail’s eyebrow just twitched as he took a sip of his drink, which effectively communicated ‘don’t worry about him and forget he exists ha ha ha’.

Bail was periodically updated on the Plot. He was fully aware of it, and he was also unfortunately aware of Fox’s involvement. For his own safety - and, more importantly, Leia and Fox’s safety - they told him the absolute minimum. Fox hadn’t yet privileged the man with knowledge that he had a personality. If he had his way it would stay that way.

“So,” Amidala said, who was not privileged with jack shit, slowly turning back to Bail, “How did Leia come to the Senate, anyway? It feels like she burst onto the scene.”

“It was certainly explosive,” Bail said wryly. “She’s Breha’s cousin. Pure nepotism, I’m afraid, but she’s the only feasible heir to the throne right now and Breha wanted her to gain some political experience in case anything happened. She’s had years of unofficial experience in Alderaanian government, but this is her first true galactic position. I’d say she’s risen to the task admirably.”

“Is this really her first political experience?” Amidala asked, shocked. Bail made a ‘so-so’ movement with his hand. “She’s a natural, then. I’ve never met such a passionate and astute senator. Breha must be very proud of her.”

“Yes,” Bail said, smile tugging at his lips, “we are.”

The man was about as subtle as his daughter. Fox was slightly disgusted by how trusting the man was. A few little state secrets about the Alderaanian royal house and both he and Queen Organa folded like a house of regicidal cards.

He still looked at her with a certain shock sometimes - as if he discovered her again every time she spoke. It was more than surprise or bewilderment. Fox saw a strange kind of awe in him whenever he looked at Leia. As if he never knew that the galaxy could produce this, and he had never expected that it could be his.

“Are you all going back to Alderaan for Life Day?” Amidala asked, pulling Fox back to attention. “I hear your snow festivals are stunning.”

The fuck was ‘Life Day’.

“Not as stunning as Naboo’s waterfall art,” Bail demurred. Fox rolled his eyes. “But yes, I’m flying back in three days to spend the holidays with Breha. And my inlaws.” Amidala laughed, as if she also had to deal with inlaws. She did not. Fox dealt with her inlaws. “I’m trying to convince Leia to come back with us, but I think she might want to stay here. Young politicians, you know.”

Amidala made a sympathetic noise. “I didn’t see my family for all four years I was Queen. I know they aren’t happy they missed out on my teenage years.” What the fuck. This explained so many of her shit decisions. “I hope she’s able to spend the holidays with you.”

Fox still did not know what ‘Life Day’ was, and he wouldn’t care if it wasn’t for the fact that it seemed to be a) important and b) related to Leia. Come to think of it, the Senate had been closed at around this time last year. Maybe that had something to do with it.

“Yeah,” Bail said lowly, “hate to miss out on anything…what about you, Padme? Are you returning home to Naboo?”

But Amidala just smiled, a little sadly. It looked like Leia’s sad smile. For some reason, Fox didn’t like that. What was wrong with her life? She had a planet and everything. “I’m afraid my parents are also missing out on my twenties. I’ll see them when I retire.”

Bail opened his mouth to say something - hopefully not inspirational about family, and hopefully no suggestions about her family on Coruscant - when the door banged open. Bail and Amidala started, but it was just Leia striding into the room.

“Fox, you won’t believe the shit - oh, you two are still here.” Leia stopped short, ignoring Bail’s raised eyebrow and Amidala’s slight shock. She turned to Fox, who was still doing his wall impression. “You won’t believe the shit I ran into on the way back here. Senator Kira’s hat has an entire bird on it, and I think it’s alive.”

“That’s very interesting, ma’am.” Fox radiated the thoughts ‘We are in mixed company’ as loudly as he physically could. Leia grimaced, smelling his displeasure. “I hoped to speak with you regarding your security clearance. It’s nonurgent.”

Which meant, of course, that Fox had also come here to bitch and he had grown trapped in a natborn web. Fox and Leia understood each other like this. Bail Organa, judging by his panicked looks, probably thought that Fox had come to talk about secret future business. He did not understand either of them, although he obviously yearned for Leia’s hard-won approval. He seemed relatively oblivious to the fact that Leia worshiped him, which always brought up the adage ‘any adult who thinks their father is perfect is a crazy person’. Granted, Leia’s worship looked very much like unbridled hostility.

“I see duty calls yet again,” Bail said quickly, downing the rest of his drink very fast and placing it back on the sideboard. “Padme and I will get out of your hair, Leia. We’ll see you at the vote tomorrow. Have a nice night.” He paused, just for a second. “Have you considered my invitation for Life Day?”

Leia just stared at him, face blank, before abruptly looking away. Finally, she said, “Maybe. Goodnight, Senators.”

Amidala looked at Bail, hoping for a compatriot in her confusion, only to be met with a badly hidden sadness. She looked at Fox, who realized only too late that Leia had automatically stood right next to him. Most people stayed away from the fuck-off big rifle.

“If it’s not too much trouble, Captain Fox,” Amidala said slowly, “would it be possible for you to walk me to my car service? It’s grown dark out.”

The path to the car service was excruciatingly well-lit, covered, and in one of the safest districts of Coruscant. “Of course, ma’am.” Fox inclined his head at Bail, then Leia. “Senator Organa. Junior Senator Organa.”

“Come right back here afterwards,” Leia said, folding her arms. “We still have to talk about my security clearance.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Fox opened the door for Amidala, ushering her though. “I’ll be back momentarily.”

The last thing he saw before the door closed was Leia’s slightly disturbed face.

He and Amidala walked in silence down the quiet halls. It was late, but that never disturbed the Senate. You didn’t make it to senator by going home at 1700, and the junior aides were lucky if they went home at all. But the sessions were over with, and people rarely had anyplace urgent to be, and Fox and Amidala walked down the halls with only the clicks of his heel to accentuate the silence.

It was only once they reached the outside docks to the car services that Amidala stopped. The glowing white lights of the city painted her face, giving her perfect make-up an ethereal glow. They gave her heavy robes a strange, dramatic quality, as if she was spreading her wings. Senator Amidala always looked like an angel, and she always carried herself as such. It was a fair contrast to Leia, who was beautiful until she opened her mouth.

“Captain Fox, may I ask you a question?”

Fox stopped next to her. Under no circumstances may she ask him a question. “Of course.”

Amidala pressed her thumb to a beautiful silver ring on her finger, curving and delicate. “Leia seems quite fond of you.”

Shit. Not this again. It had spread to the natborns? How? His men weren’t snitches. “Why would you say so?”

“Oh, lots of reasons.” Amidala began twisting the ring on her finger. One sharp turn clockwise, another counterclockwise. “I have some professional working relationships with the military.” Read: her very unprofessional relationship had been gossiping with Rex. Great. That was really what Fox needed. He loved this. How did this get to Rex? “But I thought it might be helpful to both you and Leia to give my support. However much that would mean to the both of you.”

Okay. Wow! How many other senators secretly wanted to kill the Chancellor? Could this be a coup situation?

“It’s…appreciated, ma’am,” Fox said slowly. “But I’m not sure what…”

“You don’t have to talk about it. It’s probably best if I don't know the details. I just wanted to say…” Amidala took a deep breath, heart-shaped face intent and focused. “I think it’s a beautiful thing. In a place like this, in a time like this…in a galaxy that feels like it wants to stifle everything genuine and good…no matter what others try to tell you, Captain, it’s a beautiful thing. Alright?”

Wow. Fox had been under the impression the Chancellor was a mentor to Amidala. It had prompted some serious concern from both him and Leia regarding Padme Amidala’s potential evilness. He had no idea that she supported this.

He also had no idea what she was supporting. Did she know what she was supporting? Did Bail tell her? Wouldn’t Bail at least ask Leia before telling her? He was a surprisingly discrete person. Maybe she just knew that Fox and Leia had turned their mutual focus towards crime. Maybe she knew that the plan was to assassinate the Chancellor in order to prevent several genocides and a despotic dictatorship. Maybe she had a different, third misconception.

Did Amidala find murder beautiful? She didn’t seem the type, but Leia had to have gotten it from somewhere. And it wasn’t from Bail or Breha. He had figured perhaps her birth father, but it was downright insulting to insinuate that she had inherited anything from the man. Worse deadbeat than Jango, which was sincerely saying something.

Out of lack of anything better to say, Fox went with the tried and true, “Yes, ma’am. Have a nice night.”

Amidala looked disappointed, which made Fox reflexively uncomfortable, but she nodded and stepped away anyway. Fox carefully watched her to make sure that she reached the waiting car, waiting alone underneath the glowing white lights of the city, before turning around and diving back into the glimmering Senate halls. Where everything was perfectly lit, and so the evil things had to hide in plain sight.

When Fox made it back to Leia’s office, he made sure to knock first this time. He heard the sound of faint voices behind the door, but his knock cut them off shortly. He waited for Leia’s military grunt of acknowledgement before stepping back inside, nodding his head at Leia and Bail as he locked the door securely behind him. They were awkwardly looking away from each other - Leia at the ground, Bail at the ceiling.

“Senators.” Fox nodded at both of them, ignoring Leia’s moue of distaste. “Senator Amidala’s gone home. I should return to my post.”

“Oh, honestly, Fox, we’re not in mixed company anymore,” Leia snapped. It was the end of a long day, and her elaborate fishtail braid was frizzing just a little at the edges. “You can shut it off.”

“Of course,” Fox said stiffly, not shutting it off whatsoever. Bail Organa was still looking at him, and he could feel the back of his neck prickling. “If you don’t need me for anything, Junior Senator, I will leave you and Senator Organa to your work.”

Leia looked downright offended. Her soft fabric blazer with the long split train was draped over the back of her office chair, leaving her in the sharply cut pants and the long Alderaanian tunic split at the thigh. With her heeled boots and the sleeves rolled up to her elbow, she looked almost casual. Almost. “Fox. It’s just my father. Go ahead and take off the bucket, we may as well talk coups.”

Completely automatically and instinctively, Fox reached up his hand to his bucket latch.

His mind didn’t stop him, but his body did. His hand froze halfway up, hovering at his chest. For some strange reason, his heart had sped up.

Just do it. A senator requested you to do it, and it wasn’t against any regulations. Just do it. A Jedi wanted you to. Just…

Just what? It was Leia. She wasn’t either of those things. Or she wasn’t only those things. Or she was more than those things - if there was any Jedi who was worth the loyalty and trust Kamino had forced into them, wasn’t it Leia?

She must have picked something up, because Leia’s eyes abruptly widened. “Forget about it, Captain. I have to wrap things up with my father anyway. Go ahead and wait for me outside.”

Thank the god of mercy. Fox relaxed immediately. “Yes, ma’am.”

He stood alone in the hallway, ramrod straight.

After a few minutes, he looked around. Nobody was coming down the hallway. He checked his maps, and saw that there was nobody in the hallways in the wing.

Keeping a careful eye on the maps and live tracking of the senators, Fox carefully leaned against the wall.

Finally, after muted conversation punctuated by Leia’s characteristic loud noises, Bail Organa exited the office. He smiled awkwardly at Fox, who had straightened the second he heard the hinges of the door creak.

“Have a good night, Captain.” He paused for a second, staring at Fox. Fox stared back. Abruptly, he said, “So, you and my daughter…”

Fox stared blankly at him. He already knew about the coup thing. There was no confusion here. “Sir?”

Bail gave him another strange look before shaking his head abruptly. “Never mind. Good night.”

“Good night, sir.”

Leia emerged soon after, expression a little more troubled than before. She stopped at the doorway, the door wide open and allowing soft yellow light to stream outwards from her office. She frowned at Fox, who felt deeply as if he had done something wrong. Her expression cleared immediately, as if she had heard his feelings. Damn Jedi magic.

Fox opened his mouth to say something, but Leia beat him to it.

“I’m sorry.” Leia’s mouth was pulled tight, serious and solemn, and Fox fought the urge to recoil in shock. “I didn’t account for your discomfort. I should be more sensitive to your feelings when you aren’t in a position to tell me what you want.”

Fox mumbled something that may have been a derogatory statement about feelings.

“I think I forgot that it wasn’t all an act.” Leia stepped out from inside her office, moving to lean against the wall next to him. Her fishtail braid brushed the edge of his armor, wispy brown strands clinging to the red. “Or - well, it is, but you know what I mean.”

“I don’t,” Fox said stiffly.

“I’m still learning the whole situation, obviously. But it’s evident that there are two Foxes, aren’t there?” Leia turned a keen eye on him, and Fox felt the back of his neck prickle again. Damn Jedi magic. “There’s the way you are forced to act in front of the other senators, and there’s the way you act in front of your men and me. It’s the dark and light sides of the mountain. I thought my father ought to fall into the second category, but I suppose I misjudged - perhaps it’s the royalty…”

“You know you’re a senator, right?” Fox said, cutting her off without a twinge of guilt. “You’re royalty. You’re the Jedi.” (“I am not -”). “What makes you so different from the rest of them? The programming doesn’t exempt you. That righteousness doesn’t erase that.”

Leia stared very hard at the ground in thought. Fox let her, knowing that once in a while she had to think hard about what to say, and let himself relax against the wall. The aircon hummed, a steady and omnipresent sound adding another note to the choir of soft steps and voices in the distance.

Finally, she said, “But I am different.”

And, of course, she was right: for all that Leia was the same as the others, she wasn’t the same at all. And for all that natborns freaked him out, Leia never did. Maybe there were three Foxes, because Fox sure as hell didn’t show his subordinates the face he showed Leia.

“Yes, you are.”

“What is it about me,” Leia asked, “that makes me different?”

Fox didn’t know.

What didn’t make her different? She was a fake senator, a Jedi-that-never-was. She would be born several years from now and the nature of the timelines was uncertain. Two of her parents didn’t know what to do with her and the other two barely knew she existed. There was nothing about Leia that made her different save for her sheer and overwhelming difference; save for how she was nobody at all; save for how she was the only natborn who had ever truly felt real to Fox. Maybe even one of the few clones.

It was as if she was no different from Fox, not really. Not in any way that mattered.

Fox opened his mouth to answer her - to tell her that she wasn’t as different from the others as she liked to think, to say that if she was truly from this time then she wouldn’t be different at all. To say that he didn’t know what made her different: only that she was, and that didn’t change the reality of their lives and situations. To ask her what would happen once they killed the Chancellor. But the last thought made the words stop in his throat, hard and fast and immobile. He couldn’t force them out. He didn’t even want to try. And, as always, Fox retreated.

“What’s Life Day?”

Leia blinked, thrown a little by the hard left turn of the conversation. “Did they not tell you what holidays are?” Fox gave her a flat, unimpressed look. “Right. Well, it’s just some important holiday in human cultures. Some alien cultures celebrate it too, occasionally as a result of colonialism. I believe the Wookies are enthusiastic practitioners.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I believe it’s a standardized synthesis of hundreds of different human wintertime festivals,” Leia said thoughtfully, unintentionally flexing the princess education. “That sort of standardization was very common under the early days of the Republic, as its denizens attempted to form some sort of unified galactic identity. Of course, that galactic identity often just meant human identity, but it’s hardly as if humans are homogenous either. Present company excluded.”

“Thanks.”

“It’s really nothing exciting. Holidays that every culture celebrates are so over-generalized that they’re insufferably bland. Still, they’re the holidays that galactic employees get off, so we celebrate them.” Leia waved a dismissive hand. “Outdoors art, snow and candle festivals, family togetherness, a great deal of food. The usual.”

“Your father wants you to go home for Life Day,” Fox said slowly, and Leia’s lips thinned. “But you don’t want to.”

“Well, I hardly want to make things awkward,” Leia said waspishly. “Or see Aunt Marha twenty years younger.”

“You haven’t celebrated a Life Day on Alderaan in four years.” Leia winced, but Fox didn’t let up. “And you probably haven’t seen your family in that long. You should go. This is a rare opportunity.”

“You sound like my father,” Leia snapped. She crossed her arms, leaning against the wall next to him. Their shoulders brushed - or, Leia’s shoulder and his upper arm brushed. “I’ve had my Life Days. That well’s run dry. I’m not going to go home and pantomime festivities just so I can pretend to have it again.”

“You know this is real life, right?” Fox asked, exasperated. Apparently it had taken a week on Alderaan before Leia stopped thinking it was some sort of Force and grief induced hallucination. “It’s hardly you indulging in hallucinations. Look, you’ll regret it if you don’t go.” For some obscure reason, he added, “If I could see my brothers who marched away again I would. Even if it isn’t the kind of reunion I wanted.”

“I know, I know.” Leia looked away from him, shoulders drawn up to her ears. “I’d just feel like a ghost. Pretending I don’t know them, pretending they know me. It’s nothing but a haunting. Frankly, it’d just be too strange giving Cousin Hale a pacifier for a present.”

“A present? Is that an Alderaanian thing?”

“Goodness, no. It’s the most annoying part of Life Day. You make your secretary buy everybody presents and you’re a bad person if you don’t.” Leia rolled her eyes. “If you don’t get any presents you might as well not be loved.”

She stopped short, eyes widening. Fox tilted his head. “Princess?”

“Spirits, I have to get you a Life Day present.”

“Princess, you…really don’t have to do that, no.”

“Nobody else is going to get you one!” Leia pushed off the wall, unfolding her arms in favor of waving them around. “Never getting a Life Day present like some tragic orphan - are you even allowed to own things? Is that illegal or something?”

Fox shrugged uncomfortably. “There’s no rules for or against it. In Kamino they used to sweep our bunks once every few months and throw out our possessions, so we got into the habit of hiding the one or two things we do have.”

“That’s fucking pathetic! Spirits, you have to have something now.” Leia chewed hard on her lip, already beginning to ignore him. “Clone rights legislation? No, that would never be ready in three days. Palpatine’s head? Same issue. Do you have a senator you really dislike -”

“Wait. Do I have to get you a present now too?”

“With what paycheck?” Leia asked dismissively, and Fox conceded the point. “Don’t worry, I’ll figure it out. Don’t worry about exchanging presents, I have this covered.” Under her breath, Fox heard her mumble, “Watch the other senators or the Jedi get you Life Day gifts…”

“Do you have something to prove?” Fox asked curiously.

“No! And good night, Captain!”

“Good night, Leia.”

And Fox watched her stride off, not so much furious as furiously intent, with the slow and dawning realization that he now had to get Leia something for Life Day.

*********

The next day, Fox was interrupted in the middle of his peak productivity hours by an unexpected source.

He recognized the intruder by their knock: not the polite 1-2-3 of his guardsmen, or the rap of the other Senate staff with a fire for him to put out. It was heavy and decisive, a rough double-tap that proclaimed loudly that he didn’t need anything more to catch your attention.

“Just get in here!” Fox yelled, and when the door swung open to reveal the man on the other side he couldn’t help but smile. “Don’t waste my time, Wolffe.”

Wolffe froze. His organic eye widened. Fox’s smile froze on his face, replaced by confusion. They stared at each other.

“I don’t believe it.” Wolffe leaned back a little, as if in fear of Fox’s office and the sludgy cup of caff on his desk. “They were right.”

“I’m not interested in the second half of that.” But Fox stood up anyway, offering a hand, and Wolffe dumbly stepped forward to shake it. “What’s got you planetside again? You hate stepping foot in here.”

“Anybody with an ounce of sense hates stepping foot in here,” Wolffe said automatically. Fox rolled his eyes - he’d heard it a million times. Apparently the Senate was ‘creepy’ (Ponds) or ‘stunk with a malevolent air’ (Bly). “I’m here because of you, asshole. We’ve been trying to get in touch with you for weeks.”

“What?” Shit, was communication down? “Is my comm insecure? That’s a major security breach -”

“If we tried to talk to you about this on a work comm you’d hang up in one second,” Wolffe said. “We’ve been calling your personal comm.”

Fox stared at him blankly. “The one I turned off months ago?”

They stared at each other. Wolffe wore ‘Wolffe vs. Fox Expression No. 34 [Est. Age 3]: You’re Lucky I Haven’t Told Anyone Else You’re Oblivious As Hell’. Fox squinted at him.

Very slowly and excruciatingly, as if Fox was a vod’ika instead of a batchmate, Wolffe said, “Turn on your personal comm.”

It took Fox a solid two minutes of rooting through his desk, and the extraction of a worrying amount of Leia’s hair accessories - Wolffe’s eyebrows rose higher - before Fox fished out his personal comm. He blew the dust off it, checked the battery, and powered it up.

He watched as fifty two different missed calls and hundreds of messages lit up the display screen.

“Hm,” Fox said. “And how much of this could be said in an email?”

“None of it. Check the groupchat.” Wolffe grabbed Fox’s bucket off the floor, tucking it under his armpit. It was the kind of casual invasion of privacy only a close batchmate would ever show. Maybe it was the kind of liberties that Fox would have only ever allowed Wolffe to take. “I’m taking you to 79’s. You have shit to explain. Now let’s get out of here, this place is giving me bad juju.”

“I’m in the middle of work -”

“It’s 0100.”

“Prime productivity hours.”

“Open up the fucking groupchat.”

Fox opened up the groupchat. He scrolled through the group chat for almost a minute, his brain taking a second to click back into the Mando’a. It had been almost a year since he had spoken it, and it took a few more seconds of re-reading to guarantee that he wasn’t mistranslating.

“What?!”

Cody: Independent verification provided by Stuart, Tuco, and Longstreet. However, the reliability of sources is dubious.

Ponds: Lieutenant Jyl has received confirmation by Lieutenant Stone. Sources very reliable.

Bly: OK Great Received. Do you believe me now.

Wolffe: Can you blame us for NOT BELIEVING YOU?

Wolffe: @ FOX

Bly: I’d prefer he not know that I spilled to you guys actually.

Ponds: No, I need fucking answers.

Ponds: @ FOX @ FOX @ FOX

Cody: Please stop spamming the chat, this is meant for informal internal communications. It’s not a gossip chamber.

Wolffe: Shit, it’s not? I assumed ���informal internal communications’ was what the word ‘gossip’ sounded like when you had a massive stick up your ass.

Wolffe: @ FOX

Bly: We don’t have to jump down his throat

Bly: Fox’s, I mean. Nobody can jump down Cody’s throat.

Bly: How would they miss the stick?

Wolffe: I actually just desperately need to know why my best friend is fucking a senator.

Wolffe: @ FOX

Cody: Don’t be crude. I think the Mando’a term is ‘sharing weaponry’.

Ponds: You are all so boring @ FOX @ FOX @ FOX WHY ARE YOU FUCKING THE NATBORN @ FOX @ FOX WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS IT IS SO GROSS

Bly: Does this mean y’all’ll stop making fun of me for being a natbornfucker?

Cody: No. @ FOX

Bly: @ FOX Back me up please we’re on the same side now

Ponds: @ FOX

Wolffe: @ FOX

***********

As a rule, Fox did not go to 79’s.

The primary reason was that he did not have time. He had a planet to run and totalitarianism to implement, he didn’t have time for drinks. The secondary reason was that he hated loud noise, drunk people, and darts games - something all bars had in excess. The tertiary reason was that Fox had definitely executed some of the friends of at least one clone in any given room, and seeing The Man (™) show up and order a whiskey fresher on the stool next to you tended to interrupt a good time. This was why he only hung out with Leia - he hadn’t killed any of her friends yet.

But Wolffe wasn’t taking no for an answer, and Fox was too flabbergasted to do much arguing. He couldn’t tear himself from the group chat on the speeder ride over, staring fixedly at the screen and asking Wolffe increasingly panicked questions roughly once every five minutes. It was once every five minutes because Fox needed five minutes per question to digest the answer.

Apparently a significant percentage of the GAR was laboring under a misapprehension that made Fox want to die. The only upside to this was that it recontextualized a lot of the last few weeks - and it didn’t say much that the positive of a terrible life event was the fact that you now understood it was happening.

“I need to call Leia,” Fox said, dizzy. Coruscant whipped around them as Wolffe displayed his usual piloting skill. “She’s going to want to know about this.”

“Because you aren’t fucking,” Wolffe said, insultingly incredulous. “I thought you never used your personal comm.”

Fox stared at him blankly. “I don’t. I use the secure comm to talk to Leia.”

“Because you aren’t fucking.”

“You were trained to understand mission briefings the first time.”

“You were trained not to fuck senators -”

“You were trained to collect reliable intel -”

By the time they got to the bar Wolffe was fuming and Fox was freaking. Their only saving grace was the fact that Wolffe permanently looked angry and that Fox’s freak-outs resembled every other emotion he had, i.e. they didn’t strictly resemble anything.

The bar didn’t stop and stare at them as they walked in - no matter how good they were at recognizing each other, they weren’t that good - but as they navigated the crowd clones absolutely turned to stare. Fox scowled at them until they suddenly found their drinks fascinating, but Wolffe’s distinctive eye and scar kept on turning heads. Even if it was Fox they stared at. He could only glare at so many people.

Sure enough, Fox was brought before his own firing squad. Fox couldn’t let a Commander manhandle him on his own planet, if only because Fox’s position in the chain of command was ambiguous off Coruscant and absolute on it. One of them would be embarrassed. So he was forced to trail after Wolffe at brotherly gunpoint, whose keen eye made it very clear that he was more than willing to drag Fox by his heels, until he dropped into a booth at a table populated by the three people on Coruscant he wanted to see the least.

“I can’t believe it,” Cody said. “You actually dragged him here.”

“It’s great to see you, Fox!” Bly said. “Ha ha, just a few questions -”

Cody’s chronic tag-along took a long drag of his drink. “What the fuck is happening.”

“The situation’s fucking nuclear!” Wolffe hissed, dropping down heavily next to Fox and effectively trapping him. “He smiled at me!”

The other inhabitants of the table stared at Fox in abject shock and disbelief.

It almost made Fox feel self-conscious. Wolffe had been his best friend as a cadet. If there was anybody in the galaxy Fox would even consider smiling at, it would be Wolffe. But he hadn’t considered smiling at anybody in a while. Not that he had decided against it, it just - hadn’t crossed his mind.

It crossed his mind to smile at Leia frequently. Once he had begun working through the evil fascist Sith brainwashing, he had even started doing it. It wasn’t that bad. It made him think of doing it more often. To Wolffe and to Stone, to a bright sky or a funny joke. Like a Mando’a word almost forgotten, yet rolling familiar off his tongue.

“For the record,” Fox said testily, both nervous and aggravated, “I have no idea how certain rumors -”

“He’s denying it,” Rex muttered to Cody. “Told you he would deny it.”

“Shut it, Captain. I’m denying them because they’re untrue. I don’t want to hear any more about this.” Fox stared threateningly at the bartender droid until it rushed to make him a drink. “I’m having one drink and then I’m leaving. I’m not answering any more questions. You get as long as my drink lasts to bother me.”

“Oh, no. No, no, no. You are not getting out of this one.” Wolffe gripped Fox’s collar and shook him slightly, eliciting a growl that did not deter him in the slightest. “A senator? I thought you hated every last one of the bastards!”

“Leia wasn’t a senator when I said that. Their average intelligence has gone up.” Fox shook Wolffe off him, scowling fiercely as he arranged his collar back in order. One of Wolffe’s many charming habits he had forgotten. “But that’s irrelevant, because Leia and I aren’t sleeping together. That’s disgusting.”

“He calls her Leia,” Rex whispered to Cody, very loudly. “This is insane.”

But Cody just leaned forward, elbows on the table. He steepled his fingers, the dim yellow lighting giving his eyes a strange and cold glint. “Junior Senator Organa has been an elected member of the Galactic Senate for more than two months. She was first reported interacting with Commander Fox two weeks into her tenure at the Senate. After a short period of mutual tension -”

“Romantic tension?” Bly whispered, almost vibrating.

“ - they begin engaging in surreptitious behavior. Several eyewitnesses report Commander Fox entering Organa’s office after hours, being seen together in unlikely locations, and voluntarily interacting with her. Two weeks ago, Commander Fox verbally confirmed with Lieutenant Stone that he and Senator Organa were involved. The evidence is overwhelming. Simply put, Commander, I don’t understand why you’re denying it.”

“I didn’t know that’s what he was asking,” Fox hissed. Cody just leaned back and crossed his arms, fixing Fox with a cool look. As if he had already won, and Fox was just the prisoner protesting as he was led away in cuffs. Asshole. “I thought he was talking about - about - uh -”

“You can’t even think of a defense,” Rex condemned, crossing his arms in an imitation of Cody that had been far more adorable when he was five. “This is real weak, Fox.”

“It’s okay, Fox,” Bly jumped in - the one person whose help actively decimated his case. “I think it’s really romantic! And, you know, it really normalizes the whole thing.”

“This is actively something we need to discourage,” Cody said flatly. “We can’t let the men think this is ethical behavior.” Bly opened his mouth, outraged. “I don’t care if General Secura ‘isn’t like the other ones’.” The air quotes were evident, and Bly deflated slightly. “Regulations aren’t a judgment call. They exist to protect the men. Having two high level officers acting inappropriately sets a bad example. And a politician is just bad taste.”

“She’s not like the other ones,” Fox protested. Bly pointed at him empathetically. Fox realized what he just said. “I mean - we’re just friends. Your informants are seeing us together because we are friends. I am hanging out with her because we are friends. It is that simple. You’re all just bored and - and looking for drama.”

But they all just stared at him - disbelieving, joyfully disbelieving, skeptical, incredulous. As if the idea of Fox having a friend was far more impossible than the most torrid love affair. As if Fox didn’t have friends, and the fact didn’t even need to be stated.

It didn’t. Fox didn’t have friends. He had subordinates and he had natborns. He had the Chancellor and he had his somewhat ambiguous place in the military structure - which was doubtlessly on purpose. He had batchmates, who had been so inseparable the Kaminoans had frowned upon it, and once upon a time he had a teacher who taught them Mando’a personally.

A teacher who refused to be anything more than that. Batchmates who he hadn’t spoken to in months. A best friend who was nothing more than a cadet’s refuge in the storm. Nothing suitable for an adult. At the very least, nothing suitable for a captain with better things to do and an Empire to create. Nothing suitable for Fox.

He could tell them that she was a Jedi. That would explain everything, even to himself. It wasn’t true, but the truth was fickle and easily created. But that would compromise the mission. He couldn’t exactly tell them, ‘She harassed me until I stopped being a fascist and now we’re plotting to muder my boss so that’s why we hang out’, mostly due to mission integrity but partly because it really wouldn’t explain anything. Any true explanation couldn’t be said, and any false explanation would fail to explain why Fox felt this strange churn in his gut and twist in his heart. It would fail to explain the weird hurt in his chest - a hurt that couldn’t be said, for fear of it coming true.

But maybe Fox wasn’t half as clever as he thought he was, because something strange seemed to pass over Wolffe. His expression twitched a little, as if he was caught off-balance. “Small gods, you actually like her.”

“I can think of about ten gods for this situation,” Fox muttered. The bartender droid shuffled over and slid his drink onto the table, and Fox aggressively grabbed the cool glass and took a long drag from it. Chandrila knew kombucha. “If I hear anything more about this I’m breaking Rex’s fingers.” (“Why mine -”). “Feel free to not believe me, but I’m telling the truth. We’re just friends. She has commitment issues anyway. Childhood trauma.”

“Uh huh,” Cody said.

“She has difficulties opening up,” Fox elaborated. Bly nodded fastidiously, which he interpreted as him caring. “It’s the isolating nature of political and military command. She recently lost one of her best friends - he turned out to be her brother - so I think she’s second guessing herself. She was a general of a paramilitary terrorist group before she retired and moved to politics, you know. More battle experience than any Jedi.”

“My Jedi was the general of a paramilitary terrorist group,” Cody said, unnecesarily aggressively.

“Yeah, when he was fourteen. That’s not impressive. I bet he wasn’t even good at it.”

“General Kenobi’s the best tactician in the Order!”

“Excuse me?” Wolffe said, effortlessly catching the whiskey slid onto the table without looking. Fox didn’t even see him order anything. “General Koon didn’t even need to be a terrorist to be the best tactician in the Order.”

“I don’t judge Aayla’s worth on her military prowess,” Bly felt the need to add uselessly. “Her value lies in her courage and kind heart.”

“You’re just saying that because the 327th lost the skirmith on Onderon,” Rex said, taking a long sip of his drink. Cody kicked him. “What? I have nothing to prove. My general’s the Order superstar. I’m not insecure like you guys.”

“My general trained -”

“Your general’s an old man.”

“At least Leia’s not a deadbeat father,” Fox hissed. Rex squinted at him, baffled. Cody opened his mouth, looking smug and ready to agree with Fox no matter how little context he had for the statement. “And Leia doesn’t have shit taste in foster parents, so don’t you start either.”

“Why is this even a competition?” Wolffe asked, looking increasingly weirded out by the second. “Senator Organa��s not even a Jedi. She automatically loses the best Jedi contest.”

The best Jedi contest was incessant, unending, constant, sycophantic, inane, and had a tournament board on a chalkboard pinned to the 79’s wall. Fox craned his head to check it. It appeared the Jedi of the week was Mace Windu. That was a surprise. Mace Windu was a controversial subject among clones. Nobody knew if they needed to swear revenge like that brat Boba or if they should shake his hand. The ingrained respect for Jedi versus the enforced respect for Jango fought hard battles.

“Maybe she wins the best Jedi contest because she’s too smart to be a Jedi.” Identical expressions of outrage bloomed on everybody’s face, and Fox abruptly cut himself off. He had faint memories of feeling the same way about Jedi as they did, but ever since he took his posting at the Senate the endless sycophantic adoration of the Jedi had become grating. He liked to think of this as him being a free-thinker. “I’m not getting into this argument again. Leia and I are none of your business. Change subjects or Rex’s trigger finger gets it.”

“Why mine -”

“Do you guys want to hear about the date Aayla and I went on yesterday?” Bly asked, as if anybody did. “It was really fun, we went to one of the Life Day sculpture events and looked at all of the cool art -”

“Did everybody know about Life Day except for me?” Fox cried. He even knew the sculpture events that Bly was talking about, but he had dismissed it as one of the garbage cultural enrichment events the Parks and Recreation bozos wasted money on. Fox was trying to defund their departments and move the money to his militarized Rangers instead. “Does it have a point?”

“You mean a meaning?” Bly asked, signaling the bartender for four hard shots of malt liquor. “Are you looking for the meaning of Life Day?”

“No, I’m looking for a fucking point.”

“Shoot me if I know,” Wolffe grunted. He filched Fox’s drink, ignoring his scowl and sniffing it cautiously. He made a face and returned it to Fox. “Jedi don’t celebrate it either. They have like a holiday a month but all they do is meditate six hours longer than usual.”

“The Wookie Life Day specials have a lot of messages on family togetherness and community,” Bly volunteered, displaying a disappointing proclivity for media consumption. “And anti-consumerism!”

“The Wookies don’t even have an economy,” Fox said flatly.

“The specials must really be doing their job!”

“None of you read, do you?” Cody said.

No, and it was a virtue. Fox took a sip of his drink. “Reading rots the brain.”

Cody sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “There’s no meaning to Life Day. There’s a meaning to the thousands of different winter festivals across the galaxy, but the Republicans decided a government needs a holiday. So they picked a date during a typical Core World’s winter and created a soulless, homogenized celebration of nothing. There’s not even a religion attached to it. It’s sponsored by brands. None of the Jedi care about it and neither should we.”

“But that’s not what I asked,” Fox cried. Disturbingly, Cody said almost the exact same thing that Leia did, furthering Fox’s resolve that they shouldn’t meet. “I asked what the point is.”

The clones looked at each other. Of course, they couldn’t know.

Finally, after a long moment of silence, Bly volunteered, “When Aayla and I went to see the lights…it just seemed like an excuse to spend time together. It made her happy.”

“It’s why I’m on planet,” Cody said grudgingly. “General Kenobi moved things around so Commander Tano could do all the festivities with her friends. We were - he’s worried about her development. She was so happy about it, too.”

“So’s General Skywalker,” Rex said. “He kept on talking about how Kenobi’s making time for them and everything. Apparently he never makes time.”

That was unexpectedly mature. Fox would worry for Tano if he cared about her at all. Between Skywalker and Rex, her only adult supervision were man-children who mistook the ability to scrap a droid for intelligence. If it wasn’t for Kenobi then Cody might have felt the need to step in, which was the only reason Fox was ever glad that Kenobi existed.

Fox struggled with this. His mind almost didn’t want to accept it. He kept on staring at it, desperately searching for some common thread of reason that made sense. How could somebody like Fox understand - what was it he was trying to understand?

“So…what?” Fox asked. He didn’t even have an answer. Every time he tried to grip onto it, it slipped away. “It’s just…something?”

The other clones glanced at each other before eventually shrugging.

“It’s just something,” Rex agreed. “Everyone needs something, right?”

“We don’t,” Cody said curtly. “We have all we need.”

Bly blinked, and maybe it was only Bly and Fox who realized that Cody had misunderstood the question. “Do we?”

Silence reigned over the table. Around them, clones talked and chatted and shoved each other. They dared each other to drink more and more, and others took advantage of their loosened tongues to vent and yell.

Was ‘79 their something? The Jedi of the Week wall, their impassioned arguments - was that something? The belief in the small and large Mandalorian gods, in the scraps of ancient rituals - that wasn’t anything else other than a strange and scavenged something.

Did Fox have something?

He knew what Leia would say, even if he didn’t agree with her. She would say that the something was hope, and that all these little things gave hope and spirit to their short lives. Leia mentioned her own military sometimes, and Fox knew that they eked out the same small comforts the clones did. They had a budget for parties and painted ships and what joy they could spare, because citizens under the Empire had so little.

We had nothing else, Leia would say grandly, but we had each other. Was that true? Now that she had ‘won’, that her New Republic had bloomed - did they still have each other? Had they lost that something?

An idea began to slowly coalesce in Fox’s mind - a desire that could be possible if Fox was careful enough about it. He was still surprised to see a desire every time it appeared. He hadn’t even been able to recognize them at first - confused by the endless intrusive thoughts about a happy situation that gave him a pull in his gut, as if his body was stretching towards that happiness. His legs had stayed frozen where he stood for so long, and it was only recently that Fox had begun to reluctantly walk as far as he could to that happiness.

It was only a few steps at best. Some of the time it was only one. Most of the time his feet stayed frozen no matter how hard he tried, and all Fox could do was look towards that happiness - suffocating that longing, stealing it from himself.

But this was something he could do, wasn’t it?

The conversation raged on above his head, even as Fox started failing to pay attention. He could never really focus in recreational group conversations anyway - his brain usually started to fuzz out about five minutes in and all noise was replaced with static. He listened to the conversation ebb and flow with half an ear, and when the group broke up to hustle at pool (Rex), stop others from hustling at pool (Cody), and focus on getting insanely drunk (Bly), Fox found himself standing up too.

He pushed past the crowd and broke into the smoking area outside, only to find it generously populated by clones smoking and shooting the shit. They froze when they saw him, eyes widening, and Fox rolled his eyes. Every one of those smokes were contraband. The clone smuggling ring was robust - Fox had heard whispers that Vos was involved somehow, reinforcing Fox’s desire to find a charge against the man and make it stick.

The men all found something very interesting and mysteriously urgent to do inside, and Fox didn’t bother disabusing them of the notion that he gave a shit. He leaned up against the wall of the bar instead, watching two clones frantically stuff gambling dice back inside their pockets as subtly as they could, and stared up at the skyscrapers towering above them in a claustrophobic cage.

Fox saw other planets, but it was rare. He didn’t envy the soldiers who were shuttled between planet after planet in skirmish after skirmish, but he had always secretly wanted to see a desert planet. He had read reports from desert planets, and had been strangely captured by the details of cruel and mindless sandstorms. He had always loved every Kamino hurricane, and he always wondered what water that bit and tore would feel like.

Natural disasters hurt mindlessly. They were not cruel, because they acted with no intention. They were not good or bad, virtuous or sinful - they simply were, and they hurt through their existence.

Some part of Fox wanted to stand in the middle of one and melt into it. He wanted to surround himself with the biting sand and see if there was any difference between him and it; if like recognized like; if violence recognized violence. If violence and violence could combine, and become nothing. If nothing could recognize nothing, and become…

The door creaked, and Fox glanced to the side as he saw Wolffe emerge with the heavy waft of alcohol and the sounds of yells over music. He looked around the smoking area, surprised to see it empty, until his eye rested on Fox. Fox blinked in greeting before returning to staring at the sky.

“What are you looking at?”

“Just thinking.”

Wolffe raised an eyebrow, even as he moved to lean against the wall next to him. “You said thinking is a nasty habit.”

“We all have our vices,” Fox said ruefully. The lights of the speeders flashed in and out before them, leaving streaks of light behind like stars in hyperspace. 79’s platform was large, and you couldn’t see the railing from where they stood. You had to look far above yourself to realize you weren’t on solid ground. “Why aren’t you inside?”

“Looking for you.”

‘ “You’re always looking for me.”

“Yeah,” Wolffe said, “I am.” He paused a beat, then two. He looked at the ground, trying hard to pull his face into something harsh but not quite managing it. Wolffe wasn’t a harsh person. “I haven’t been able to find you.”

“I’m at the Senate seventy percent of the time,” Fox said. “If you try before 1000 and after 2200 I’m usually there.”

“That you are.” Wolffe’s voice was dull. He stared at the ground hard, and for some reason Fox got the impression that he wasn’t truly talking to him. “It’s not like I visit you. That’s worse. Looking at you and not finding you is a lot worse than not seeing you.”

“What are you talking about?” Fox asked, baffled. “I’m right here. I’ve been right here the entire time.”

“You haven’t been here since we were cadets.” Wolffe straightened, and for the first time he looked Fox in the eyes. It was strangely intense, almost searching - as if he was searching for Fox. “You have something behind your eyes, Fox. You haven’t had anything behind your eyes for years. Every time I’ve tried to talk to you for the last year it’s been like I’ve been speaking to…you’re still in there. But you’ve been quiet. And something else has been loud.”

Fox stared at him.

Had it been that obvious? Had anybody else seen? How many of the people around him had seen but rationalized it away, blamed him? How many of his batchmates had known but didn’t want to bring it up? How many of his friends had seen it, seen all of it, but knew that nothing they could do would change it?

Maybe it had hurt too much. The thought was strange - that who Fox was, or who he had been for the last few years, had hurt the people around him. He hadn’t thought of them at all. He hadn’t even known that he was hurting himself.

“You’re telling me this because you think I can hear you.”

Wolfe grunted in agreement, turning away to stare at the brick wall in front of them and steadily avoid Fox’s eyes. “You’re different. I haven’t seen you like this since…I don’t know if I’ve ever seen you like this. You still aren’t back to normal. But it’s better than…that.”

Fox stayed silent for a long second. Finally, he said, “I’m sorry. You deserved better than that.”

“Stop talking, you’re making this worse.”

“I didn’t want this to happen to me either,” Fox snapped. Wolffe looked abjectly relieved that Fox was being mean again. “I - I’m not going to say that I can ever go back to normal. I can’t even say that I’m happy. But…but I can feel something. It’s awful, but it’s great too. I hadn’t known that.”

“And now you’re talking about your feelings!” Wolffe’s lips twisted in a sneer, the idea anathema for its strangeness. “It’s insane! At least when I lose my men I don’t see them executing my brothers every month!”

“I’m not dead, idiot.” Fox ignored the strange twist of hurt in his chest. There was no reason for it - Wolffe wasn’t wrong. “Look, I just - I’ve made a change. I’m going to do better from now on. As much as I can, I will. I’m sorry that they took me from you, Wolffe, but I’m trying to come back, and -”

“How come she could do it, and I couldn’t?”

Fox stopped short, the words taking a second to process. Wolffe was growing steadily angrier, for reasons that Fox struggled to understand, and Fox watched him with a numb confusion as he pushed himself off the wall. Fox hadn’t cared about people’s feelings for long enough to successfully interpret them.

“Do you mean Leia?”

“Leia! He calls her Leia!” Was he angry? Why was he angry? “What, you start getting laid and suddenly you’re a new man? You’re cured? Is that all it took?”

“We aren’t sleeping together!” Fox cried, stunned that he even still had to say this - say it to Wolffe, who should know better. Shouldn’t best friends know if you were lying or not? “We’re just friends - and she didn’t cure me, she just…talked me out of it. Look, Wolffe -”

“Talked you out of it?” Wolffe barked a laugh, cold and harsh. “I tried to talk you out of it, and you shut off your comm!” Was that why Fox had turned off his personal comm? It sounded familiar. “I tried being your friend, and you didn’t let me! Or couldn’t, or - or whatever. Why is a natborn more important to you than your own brothers, Fox?”

Fox faltered.

She wasn’t. Of course she wasn’t. No natborn could ever - but Leia was different, wasn’t she? She was a Jedi, or the closest thing. Clones put Jedi above their brothers all the time. Without thinking, without flinching. Clones didn’t protect their brothers, and they didn’t save them.

Everybody hated Fox for executing their brothers. But none of them tried to stop him. None of them ever called it unfair. They just hated that the Republic used a brother’s face to do it. They hated that they had picked Fox to do it, and that Fox didn’t even care. Couldn’t even care.

Fox put everything above his brothers. He felt more comfortable with Leia then he did with most of them, because with Leia he was stripped of all artifice. With Wolffe, with Cody and Bly and Ponds and maybe that tag-along Rex, he was stripped of artifice.

Fox couldn’t tell Wolffe the truth now. He couldn’t explain everything, give his excuses as to why he was a terrible person. He couldn’t explain how the Chancellor was a Sith Lord who had fucked with Fox’s brain, who had turned him into nothing. He couldn’t explain that Leia was a Jedi, and that her strange talent with the Force had helped him break free of the impossible. He couldn’t tell Wolffe that he was making up for it, that he was going to make it right - make everything right. He couldn’t tell him the good news: that they would all be free of this hell soon, and that either Fox would be alive to see the freed galaxy or he would finally achieve the dignity of death. Wolffe wouldn’t have to see a dead man’s face executing his brothers anymore.

It was just another little lie thrown onto the gigantic pile that served as the foundation of their lives. Every aspect of their lives was a lie. It was just one more. It just hurt more than the others.

“I love her, Wolffe,” Fox said, and he didn’t realize it was true until he said it. Even if it wasn’t in the way that Wolffe thought, even if it wasn’t in a way that even Fox understood - he did. It had saved him. “She makes me happy. But she’s not my brother.”

And, of course, that didn’t fix anything. Only the truth could have helped, and Fox couldn’t give that. All he could offer Wolffe, the man he had once been closest to in the world, was a platitude.

Wolffe backed up a step, then another. Fox couldn’t interpret the expression on his face. Maybe Wolffe couldn’t either - couldn’t understand the strange sting of betrayal he felt. Finally, he said, “Then I’m happy for you. Whoever you are.”

When he left, he slammed the door behind him. But Wolffe always slams the door when he’s in a huff. He had done it ever since they were kids, and he would probably continue to do it until he got killed.

Fox didn’t remember how he used to slam doors. He didn’t remember how he used to smile at Wolffe, the classes he liked the least, the way they would all bully the younger cadets as the older cadets had once bullied them. Wolffe probably remembered it all better than he did - holding tightly onto those memories, the only proof he had left that his brother had once been somebody other than this. Other than Fox.

Fox could change who he was. He was working pretty fucking hard at it, actually. But he couldn’t be the person Wolffe wanted, the child that he missed.

Maybe that was why Leia didn’t go home for Life Day. There was no home to return to.

Fox’s idea solidified, and he made a decision.

*************

SUBJECT: Office Party

BODY:

This is a notice to all guardsmen that next Zhellsday during night shift we will have a short holiday celebration. As the Senate building will be closed, we may hold it in Conference Room A (location subject to change - discussions on choosing our least favorite senator’s office welcome). As this gathering and its funding may fall outside of official SOP, I urge all guardsmen to only discuss the manner in private. Attendance is optional.

FOX

ADDENDUM: This is not because I’m getting laid.

ADDENDUM: I’m not getting laid.

********

“Apparently Stone’s had ten guardsmen ask if he’s hacked into my mailcom.”

“Fascinating.” Leia delicately spread some strange melty cheese onto her stick of bread before swallowing it whole like a guppy. She squinted at the datapad again, chewing. “And - to be clear - everyone thinks we’re fucking?”

“Everyone,” Fox confirmed, desolate and devoid of hope. He leaned back in his chair, taking a small sip of the caff. He had to hand it to these fancy Alderaanian restaurants - they knew their caff. “I realized the situation too late to suppress it. It’s probably burned through the entire Coruscant guard and all my batchmates. The situation’s just too scandalous.”

There were flecks of cheese in Leia’s braids, two cute loops around her ears with the rest pinned back. It was bothering Fox tremendously, so he cautiously leaned forward and picked them out of her hair. She ignored him. “Well, I’ve spent the entirety of my professional career under constant speculation of who I was fucking, so I can’t say this is a surprise. At least this one will likely be less disgusting in hindsight.”

Fox shuddered, reflexively looking around the restaurant. It had dim, atmospheric lighting, with tables placed a healthy distance from each other for privacy. It wasn’t quite Fox’s preferred ‘restaurant used only to conduct business deals’ atmosphere, but Leia was incapable of picking a restaurant that was either reasonably priced or served anything but Alderaanian food. If she couldn’t have a conversation with the hostess in Alderaanian she turned around and left. Fox hadn’t even known that they had a native language.

She hadn’t bothered changing clothing for the occasion, her pure white number with a boxy blazer, her silk shirt with a ruffled collar complementing the well-fitted white slacks and white heeled boots. She was the least messy eater Fox had ever met, although since he had grown up in the military that meant roughly nothing.

She had, however, forced Fox into civilian clothes. It was terrible. They were hideously loose, very soft, and it took thirty minutes of bargaining and an outright exertion of his autonomy to wear his bodysuit underneath the loose fabric. Fox looked like her father. Worst case scenario.

They weren’t even serving them real food. It was just an endless round of little slices of bread with things on them. Leia had ordered them for him - ‘here’s the tough, tasteless consistency you yearn for, Captain - scrape the actual flavor off if you wish’. It was very thoughtful, or as thoughtful as Leia ever got.

“It doesn’t bother you?” Fox asked cautiously. “I mean, it - it may affect your professional reputation. With a guard…”

“Relax. Only a senator who spends far too much time with the Jedi would catch clone gossip, which leaves us safe from everybody but women who don’t use birth control.” Leia popped another slice of bread smeared with cheese and jam into her mouth, yet again swallowing it whole. How did she do these things? “If anything, I’m only bothered by the insinuation that I would abuse that power dynamic.”

For some reason, Fox felt the need to establish, “I can have you killed at any time.”

“Yes, and the Chancellor would likely give you a medal. But it would be embarrassing to last an entire war avoiding death via Stormtrooper only to fall at the hands of protective clones. And I’d hate for your brothers to worry about you.”

Fox sagged a little. He put an elbow on the table, rubbing hard at his eyes. He had already detailed the conversation with Wolffe on their way over, which had been met with Leia’s usual amount of sympathy (“That sucks”) and thoughtful resolution to the problem (“Well, nothing you can do about it now”). “It never even crossed my mind that any of them worried about me. They never crossed my mind at all. The minute this is over, I’ll explain. I’ll…make up for it. Somehow.”

“Since when do you feel guilt?” Leia asked curiously. “Is this new?”

“Yes,” Fox said, depressed beyond all measure. “It’s terrible. How do people deal with this.”

Leia thought hard, having never experienced the emotion. Fox was slowly learning that Leia’s talent at repressing her Force sensitivity so completely may have had unintentional side effects for the rest of her personality. “I suppose it must be very difficult. Definitely a waste of time.”

“Agreed. We’ll worry about useless things after we kill the Emperor.” Fox straightened, experimentally shoving a whole slice of bread in his mouth too. The flavors burst on his tongue, all fruity and creamy, and his eyes widened as he swallowed it. “Hey, this is good!”

“I’d call killing the Emperor the ultimate apology,” Leia said wisely. “We’re making good track on that, by the way. My operative with the Separatists is proving far more effective than I dared to hope for. Last time I heard he was making good headway with Count Dooku.”

“Are you ever going to tell me who your operative is?” Fox asked, still slightly wounded. He was used to knowing everything. “I won’t tell.”

Leia shrugged, taking a dainty sip from her giant glass of wine. Alderaanians could pack that wine away. “Best that you don’t know every detail of the plan in the event of your capture. Don’t worry. They’re basically competent. Some of the time. They’re ridiculous and incompetent the rest of the time.”

“That was the highest praise I’ve seen you give anybody,” Fox said flatly. “And it’s about your friend pretending to be a Sith as they infiltrate the Separatists. It’s not Ventress, is it?”

“It’s not Ventress.”

“If it’s Ventress you have to tell me.”

“I don’t, actually. And it’s not Ventress.”

“You would not make a good girlfriend,” Fox said, with a completely straight face.

Leia didn’t miss a beat. “That’s what I keep telling Han, but his obsession with commitment and the nuclear family is downright obnoxious. He just won’t give up on it, but I’ve never seen that sleezeball give up on anything.”

Wait. Fox blinked hard. “Han? Did you actually trick a man into dating you?”

Leia threw a crumb of bread at his head, forcing him to dodge. “More like he tricked me. I finally gave up and started having sex with him, and now he won’t stop bothering me.”

“What a way to phrase that.”

“He would marry me if I let him,” Leia complained, leaning back in her chair and crossing her arms. “It’s incredibly annoying. We aren’t dating. We aren’t even exclusive. How can he waltz around, still fucking two of his exes, and tell me that he wants to be exclusive? Go be exclusive with Lando, he needs a trophy wife!”

“Does everybody in the future live like this?” Fox asked, with a kind of sick fascination.

“It’s downright suicidal,” Leia bitched. “The minute he marries me he’d die in a tragic speeder bike accident. I’d have a rosy cheeked baby that would die immediately of consumption. Palpatine would return, somehow. He’s just courting disaster.”

Somehow, Fox felt sad. Leia frowned as she sensed it, deflating slightly. “Sounds like he’s courting you.”

“That’s what I said.”

“Leia -”

“I don’t need something permanent,” Leia said, cutting him off - once again choosing nothing over the possibility of losing everything. “I just need - I just need something. Something real. Even if it’s only for a little while.”

Fox didn’t know what to say. Her eyebrows were pulled tight, and she was studiously looking away from him. “Leia. You’ll get more than that someday.”

“I don’t even know if I’ll be able to go back to my -”

Leia stopped short suddenly, eyes widening. Fox immediately sharpened, sitting up straight and letting his hand drift to his waist. She whipped her head over to look at the door, where regally dressed people filtered in two by two. The sounds of people talking and eating loomed loudly in the sudden silence, the sputtering candles providing a soft glow around the room, and Fox craned his head to see what Leia had sensed.

It was, of course, the two people Fox and Leia wanted to see the least. Probably below the Chancellor and Mas Amedda. Above Ventress and Count Dooku. Probably the most embarrassing. Definitely the couple that would end up with the highest chances of Leia spearing someone through the eye with a salad fork.

Unfortunately, both of their unabashed staring caught the attention of the couple. One half of the couple stopped in their tracks, staring unabashedly at them.

Everybody stared at each other but Padme Amidala, who just looked confused. She followed her husband’s gaze to Fox and Leia, and she blinked in hard surprise.

Skywalker immediately bee-lined for them. Fox slipped a knife into his sleeve, and he saw Leia do the same. Amidala’s tiny yet dignified legs rushed to keep up with him, barely stopping him from appearing overly strange in public.

A buzzer in Fox’s brain went off, and when Skywalker approached he automatically stood up and saluted. “Sir!”

“At ease,” Skywalker said, as automatically as Fox had saluted. He visibly did a double-take at the sight of Fox, who admittedly did still look like Leia’s father. “Captain Fox, is that you?”

Fox sat back down, ignoring Leia’s tight expression. “Yes, sir. I’m off the clock.”

“Yeah, uh - so are we. Senator Amidala and I.” But Skywalker was already dismissing Fox, moving to just staring at Leia. Leia stared back, and only Fox could have seen how hard she fought to keep her expression blank and polite. “Do I know you?”

Amidala finally caught up with them, tugging pointedly at Skywalker’s sleeve. Any other wife who caught their husband staring at a woman like Skywalker was staring at Leia would have been pretty peeved, but Amidala just looked confused - as if the concept of Skywalker showing any interest at all in other women was completely out of the question, and she was left with no explanation for her husband’s interest. Fox, who did have an explanation, was jealous.

“I’m Junior Senator Leia Organa of Alderaan,” Leia said tartly. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.” It was not a pleasure to meet him. “I’ve never had the pleasure of your acquaintance.” Burn. “Perhaps you’ve seen me at the Senate.”

But Skywalker just cocked his head, expression growing more and more intense. A particular crease developed at the corners of Leia’s eyes, and Fox wondered if she was fending off some sort of…psychic attack. Maybe she was just hiding under the metaphorical bed. “You just…seem like you’re from where I’m from. What planet were you born on?”

“I was born on a satellite in deep space.” Fox hadn’t known that - but maybe she was just lucky it hadn’t been a volcano or something. “Which my astrology chart has always told me was exceptionally unlucky. Hello, Padme.”

“Hello, Leia. It’s lovely to see you. And it’s wonderful to see…” Padme stared blankly at Fox, who let himself be stared at. He refused to help. “I’m very sorry. Would this be Captain Fox?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Fox felt excessively awkward and resented the situation. He could ma’am her all day with the bucket on, but her seeing his bare face as he did it…it made his gut twist. He didn’t really know why. “It’s a pleasure.”

Both Amidala and Skywalker looked at Leia, then looked at Fox. They looked at the bread and cheese. They looked at the wine. They looked at Fox. They looked at Leia.

Finally, Amidala worked up the courage to ask, “Are you two…having an outing?”

Fox and Leia exchanged glances. Fox sent strong psychic waves of ‘please make this stop happening’. Unfortunately, Fox was not psychic, but he read Leia’s eyebrow tilt as ‘I wish to the heavenly mountains that I could’.

Fox blinked hard at her, very clearly conveying that Padme ‘Projection’ Amidala clearly thought they were on a date. Leia’s lips pursed in confirmation of the point and the rebuttal that dates did not typically include assasination plots.

“Yes,” Leia said slowly, willing to swallow any indignity for the sake of the mission, “one could…say that. Are you two also…on an…outing?”

Skywalker and Amidala traded glances before embarking on a complex series of psychic wavelengths from Amidala and pointed facial expressions from Skywalker. Leia looked infuriated that her parents did anything resembling anything she did. Fox had seen her fly into a rage after she and Amidala accidentally both reached for the same cake in the Senate cafeteria.

Finally, Amidala said, “Yes, we are. It’s very nice! How we’re both on outings.”

“Sure love me some outings,” Leia said.

“Yeah, this is great,” Skywalker said.

Fox sat very still, in hopes that they would not see him.

“Well!” Amidala said, the utter picture of faux-brightness. Beside her, Skywalker had yet to stop staring at Leia. He had an incredibly intense stare, and it was making Fox’s uselessly protective Clone Instincts go crazy. “Maybe we could join you two? Since we’re both on outings?”

Fox and Leia froze.

Even worse, their only hope betrayed them. “That sounds like a great idea,” Skywalker said, far too quickly. “If we wouldn’t be intruding.”

They would very much be intruding. They would be intruding to an unimaginable degree. There were no words for how deeply they would be intruding, or how thoroughly Fox did not want them there.

But Amidala was smiling at Leia, half-hopeful, and Fox saw that Leia couldn’t look away from her. There was something deep and raw buried within her - unshown, unheeded, but a yearning that persisted through years of frantic suffocation.

Fox knew what it was like to hear that voiceless cry, and how it felt to finally understand the words it said. Leia wanted something very much, but she would never ask and she would never allow it. Leia didn’t allow herself luxuries like wanting.

So Fox did something he did not want to do, because Leia would not. That was what friendships were all about.

He stood up, nodding briskly at Skywalker. “Of course, General. I’ll fetch some chairs.”

Leia’s head jerked towards him, eyes widening, and Fox just spared her a very pointed look before stepping over to drag over two extra chairs. She barely had time to frantically slide her plate and wine glass over before Fox deposited Amidala’s chair in front of her, holding it out so she could sit down and placing Skywalker’s chair next to him.

Something seemed to occur to Amidala as she was smoothing her skirts, far too late. She looked up abruptly, eyes widening as Fox took his seat. “I’m sorry, I know we technically outrank both of you - please don’t feel obligated to agree. Especially you, Captain Fox. We’re all - ah, very off the clock, aren’t we?”

“Of course, ma’am,” Fox said. “It’s no trouble.”

“You can relax, Fox,” Darth Vader, scourge of the galaxy, said. “Really, any of my men can tell you that I hate that shit.”

So Fox had heard. Repeatedly. Apparently Skywalker had banned most of the 501st’s pointless military formalities within a week of their assignment. Rex bragged about it - “he has his boots on the ground, our General!” - while it drove Cody crazy - “it’s about respect!”.

It wasn’t about respect for Fox. It was just something you did. But showing the due respect to Skywalker as the greatest Jedi General, as the Emperor’s hand-picked apprentice…it made something hard and harsh grind inside his chest, metal screeching against metal.

When Fox spoke, the words were ash in his mouth. “Yes, sir.”

A loose, cool pressure enveloped his wrist, and Fox looked down in surprise to see that Leia had placed her hand on his wrist. Small and light, but with Leia’s familiar tight grip. He looked at her in surprise, but her expression was just sad. Her big brown eyes were crumpled a little at the edges, and Fox felt the slight pressure of her fingernail scrape against his skin. She shook her head, just a little - a signal that she would get rid of them in a second if Fox even secretly wanted them gone.

She didn’t say anything, but she didn’t need to. Fox wasn’t psychic, and he could never know what she was feeling. He couldn’t even imagine having parents. But if he ever introduced Leia to Wolffe, he would want them both to be themselves. He would want them to truly meet, even if it was in a strange and sideways way.

Maybe there was more to it than that - maybe it had to do with Leia’s discomfort every time she saw him interacting with other natborns, or with the fact that he was only letting them stay for Leia’s benefit. Maybe she just really hated her dad and didn’t want Fox to give him the royal treatment any more than he wanted to give it. Maybe she knew how much Fox didn’t want to give it. Fox wouldn’t know. He wasn’t the psychic one. But he knew what she was asking.

So Fox relaxed, and nodded at Leia. “Sure.” She withdrew her hand, and Fox looked back at the irresponsible couple. “It’s fine. Leia’s been talking nonstop about your new bill, Senator.”

Amidala lit up - at both Fox’s semi-honest words and Leia’s interest. “It’s a pet project of mine. I’m afraid it won’t get through the committee, but I’m choosing to remain optimistic.”

“Of course it’ll get through, it’s genius.” Leia aggressively sloshed much more wine into her cup, ignoring Skywalker’s impressed look. “I saw you trap Senator Hu’lun in the bathroom until he agreed to vote for it. I was inspired.”

“Oh, I try not to rely on physical intimidation too much!” The absolutely miniature woman laughed. “But you’ve been such an inspiration to me in that regard. I saw how you stapled Senator Yuu’s sleeve to their podium!”

“They’re lucky it wasn’t their hand, right?”

They both laughed uproariously. Horrifically, in the worst moment of his life, Fox and Skywalker shared identical glances of unsettled fear.

Fox was fully content to sit there in silence, but Skywalker clearly got antsy if nobody was talking about him and Fox had promised Leia to interact with ‘people’ as if he was a ‘person’, trapping him thoroughly. Skywalker raised a finger at a waitress, asking for another menu, as Fox desperately wished that he wouldn’t talk to him. It was in vain.

“So, Captain Fox.” Skywalker squinted around the table in search of wine, finding only Leia’s tightly maintained bottle. “That’s…what you look like, huh? I mean, I know what you look like, hard not to - but you know. What I mean.”

“I don’t make an effort to be distinctive,” Fox said. His only consolation was that the small talk was physically paining Skywalker as much as it was paining him. “Waste of energy.”

It was true, even if there were a few more reasons than that. Fox had no distinguishing visual characteristics, and he didn’t go out of his way to create any. He had a regulation buzz cut and a regulation face. The distinctive armor was a matter of practicality, as his life was easiest when people could immediately identify him. There was no need for anybody to identify his bare face, so he had never bothered.

“Normal as always,” Skywalker muttered. Fox graciously let it go. “So, uh…you watched the game last night?”

“Game of what?” Fox asked, confused.

“...yeah, me neither.”

Both of them sat in mutual recognition that they talked to nobody but their Jedi Council assigned family and clones (Skywalker) or a timeline refugee and clones (Fox). And spending too much time with clones actively destroys your social skills.

The waiter put another bottle of wine on the table, which Amidala attacked with the swift grace of a nexu. Fox took advantage of the confusion to stuff another one of the surprisingly good bread slices in his mouth - and, in a moment of supreme charity, pushed the board over to Skywalker.

Without hesitation or pause, he took an excruciatingly polite bite out of one. Fox watched with bated breath as Skywalker slowly chewed, then swallowed.

He looked down at the food, surprised. “Hey, this is good!”

Fox suddenly understood how Leia felt. “It’s Alderaanian. Leia refuses to eat anything else.” He jerked his head at Leia, who had launched into a highly technical and jargon-filled discussion about urban planning with Amidala. “Royalty, you know.”

“Padme hates eating the same type of food twice. She’s adventurous.” Skywalker rolled his eyes, as if Amidala’s definition of adventurous did not quite match up with his own. “Royalty, huh? So how did you two meet?”

Alarm bells started flashing in Fox’s head. “Senate.”

Skywalker stared at him blankly. Fox kept his expression very earnest and blank, in a specially modified version of the ‘dumb clone’ routine that accomodated for actual conversation. “I…figured, yeah, but how’d all of that…” He waved a hand at Fox and Leia, who had finally noticed that her father was asking invasive questions. “Happen?”

“It’s a long story,” Fox said.

Leia delicately wiped her mouth with a napkin, mindful of her lipstick. “Blackmail.”

“Yeah,” Fox said, “long story.” He made a vague gesture to Skywalker and the suddenly attentive Amidala, desperate to change the subject. “So, how did that…happen?”

Amidala perked up, even as Skywalker froze. “It’s actually a wonderful story! Neither of you probably remember, but around eleven years ago the Trade Federation blockaded Naboo. I was Queen at the time, and it was a diplomatic nightmare. A pair of Jedi were dispatched to help navigate Naboo’s diplomatic overtures with the Trade Federation. Of course, the Jedi were Qui-Gon Jinn and -”

“I’d say it actually started a few years back,” Skywalker interrupted, cutting the excited Amidala off completely. “I was put on her bodyguard duty, stuff happened, you know how it is.”

“Anakin,” Amidala said, slightly reproachful. “It was more than that.”

“Bodyguard duty?” Fox asked, confused beyond measure. “How does that happen from bodyguard duty? Bodyguard duty is boring.”

“You think everything’s boring,” Leia said.

“Have you ever done bodyguard duty?”

“None of my bodyguards have ever said I was boring.”

But Amidala and Skywalker were having a hushed sort-of argument, and Fox saw Leia’s attention drifting back to them. He wondered why Skywalker didn’t want them to know the story of how he and Amidala met. Maybe it featured baby’s first massacre or something.

Somehow, for some reason, Leia broke in, “I’ve heard about that blockade. My - Senator Organa’s told me of it. Your bravery and - and strength, Padme, it was incredible. He always told me what a hero you were.” She faltered, just a little. “That’s how you two met…I had no idea. He never mentioned that.”

Amidala flushed, embarrassed. “Bail talks me up. Honestly, he shouldn’t be spreading that around…”

But Skywalker just nodded fervently, leaning forward. “She was a hero! I’ve never seen a politician stand up to those goons like she did.”

“I once saw Satine throw a shoe at Death Watch. And I think Senator Binks went on to liberate five planetary systems from oppression.”

Skywalker ignored her. “Nobody cares like Padme. Nobody’s ever cared like her. It’s because she knows - we both know - what it’s like to have powerful people step on you just because they can.” He stared at Leia, long and hard, not blinking. “Padme talks about you all the time. She says you have that spirit too. You get it, right? That’s why you and Captain Fox are - you know. Because you get what it’s like.”

“Yes,” Leia said, “I’m acquainted with suffering.”

They stared at each other, hard and unblinking. Fox and Amidala exchanged embarrassed glances.

Slowly, yet with great care, Leia said, “How did you meet Padme eleven years ago, Knight Skywalker? You must have just been a child.”

Without missing a beat - maybe too quickly, maybe too eagerly - Skywalker said, “My mother ran a mechanic shop. Master Qui-Gon asked her to help fix Padme’s ship. That’s how we met.”

Something in Leia sparked, hot and bright. She leaned forward, but Skywalker didn’t lean away. “You were living with your mother? You must have come to the Temple late.”

“Almost too late,” Skywalker said wryly. Padme squeezed his arm. “It’s fine. Obi-Wan really fought for me. I owe him everything.” Leia almost choked on her food. “His master died, he liberated a planet, he was knighted, and he took a padawan practically on the same day. I was too young to be a padawan but he taught and raised me anyway. I know I couldn’t have done it.”

“Sounds like he sacrificed a lot for you,” Fox said, as Leia coughed.

A strange expression crossed Skywalker’s face, half thoughtful and half disturbed. “He did. Not like my mother, I suppose, but…”

“What was your mother like?” Leia leaned in closer, eyes wide and gaze intense. Amidala stiffened, lips thinning as she glanced at Skywalker - that wasn’t fear, was it? - but he didn’t notice her. He was looking at Leia too, as intently as she looked at him.

“She was - she was amazing. The best person in the galaxy. Coruscant combined wasn’t worth half of her.” Skywalker couldn’t tear his eyes away from Leia. Could he see his mother in her eyes? Even Fox could tell that Leia had gotten her eyes from Amidala, but the strange connection between Leia and Skywalker seemed to run deeper than that. “She always - uh, she always said that the biggest problem in the galaxy was that nobody helps each other. She always put everybody else above herself. I always came first.”

“She sounds like a very impressive woman,” Leia said quietly. “I’m sure she’d be very proud of you. And everything you’ve accomplished.”

“Yeah.” Skywalker finally broke away from her gaze, looking down to fiddle with his forks. Amidala put a hand on his forearm, brow furrowed. “Well…it’s always too late to know, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Leia said, staring daggers into her father, “it is.”

“So how did you two meet?” Amidala asked Fox desperately. They were both as Force sensitive as a rock, but she was obviously picking up on the weird intensity. “If we’re sharing stories.”

“Senate.”

Amidala’s smile stayed fixed to her face. “Is that so.”

“He’s not going to say anything more,” Skywalker told her flatly. “All of his brothers are terrified of him. I think it’ll remain a mystery.”

Leia drew herself up in indignation, and Fox quickly kicked her in the shin. She huffed, but she settled on reaching for her wine instead. Fox was glad - he really didn’t want Leia defending his honor. Instead, she settled on saying, “I think Fox is worth the other half of Coruscant. Certainly the top half.”

“I’m afraid I’m worth less than the art in Senator Organa’s office,” Fox told Leia. “Maybe about as much as the piece on the back wall.”

“Oh, goodness. Yes, I read that report. This war is such a waste of money.” Leia took a long drag from her wine. “How much do you cost again, Captain?” Fox told her the number. “That seems both very high and far too low.”

“Is it? I have no idea how it works.” Fox shrugged. “I’ve never had money, I have no frame of reference.”

“Maybe I can start embezzling -”

A crack rang through the table.

Fox’s body moved before his mind did. His hand shot out, right in front of Leia, and he immediately felt a piercing pain shoot through his palm. Leia had already jerked back, shards of crystal skittering over the table, and a cloud of light crystal dust showered their food.

“Fox, are -”

“Anakin, what -”

“Sorry, sorry! I’m sorry, I don’t - sorry, that didn’t - sorry!” Skywalker’s glove was coated in crystal shards and dust, clutching a broken stem where a wine glass used to be. Servers were already bee-lining towards them, armed with towels and complimentary desserts. Skywalker stood, dusting off his glove onto the small ceramic plate and the ruined bread. “That was the metal hand, sorry, must be an issue with the hydraulics - it got banged up on Ryloth last week, that has to be it.”

But Leia was ignoring him completely. She carefully grabbed Fox’s hand, inspecting the slivers of crystal. Thank the god of mercy for exercising his autonomy, because the bodysuit had saved his palm from almost all of them. Only his exposed fingers were cut, with thin trails of red dripping down his fingers.

“I don’t think any crystal’s stuck inside, but I’m worried about the - oh, shut it, Skywalker - worried about the dust. Let’s get you a med droid.”

“I’m fine,” Fox said gruffly. “It is literally a scratch.”

“Look, Leia, I’m really sorry -”

“Sorry?” Leia didn’t even honor Skywalker with a snarl or a sneer. She just stared at him, as if her contempt was too obvious even to show. “I’m sorry, Knight Skywalker, but I would have assumed that an adult Jedi Knight had no need to say sorry for losing control like a toddler. I would have also assumed that an apology would be due to Captain Fox, and not myself!”

Amidala carefully dusted the crystal dust off her dress, expression almost suspiciously blank. “Captain Fox, we’re truly sorry about this. Anakin’s hydraulics have been malfunctioning for a while, we should have fixed them weeks ago.”

Leia froze, her fingers tightening on Fox’s wrist. She looked at her mother, face almost white. When she spoke she didn’t sound like Leia at all, her words quiet and forceful and strangely horrified.

“Did you always cover for him?”

Amidala paled. A strange expression crossed Skywalker’s face - anger, or maybe fear. Or maybe both, indistinguishable from each other. Amidala’s eyes darted from him to Leia.

A million alarm bells went off in Fox’s head, and he let them. He gently extricated himself from Leia immediately, standing up from his seat. “Forgive me, General. It’s my fault. I believe the Senator is rattled. With your leave, I’ll see her home.”

“That seems like it’s for the best,” Amidala said quickly. “It’s best we get going too. Thank you, Captain.”

“Yeah, you’re dismissed,” Skywalker said. It had worked - he reluctantly calmed down, safe again in the knowledge that nobody was about to criticize him. That Amidala wouldn’t, that Fox couldn’t, and that Fox would do his job and make sure that Leia didn’t. “It was nice to meet you guys and everything.”

“It’s always such a pleasure,” Leia said tartly. Fox subtly pulled her upwards, taking her coat and pushing his chair back in. “Excuse us, I ought to find a droid immediately.”

And, without any further ado, Leia paid the check and swept both of them out of the restaurant.

The Senate district was dappled in soft lights. The night cycle had begun, and the young people eager to cruise the high-class restaurants were out in well-cut dresses and fine tunics. Fox and Leia melted almost invisibly into the growing crowd, and Fox felt the bizarre-familiar sensation of being just another face in a crowd.

It was a short walk back to the Senate building, if a slightly depressed one.They both had more work to do. It was only 1900, and Fox and Leia would work for three more hours at least. The Senate had a small medbay, and they could check for crystal shards there.

Leia didn’t say a single word on the way there. She just stuck close to Fox, elbowing aside the people pushing past her, and it wasn’t until they got to the building that Leia grabbed his elbow and tugged Fox’s towards the guard’s entrance.

This was not going to help any rumors whatsoever, but Fox followed her anyway. He let them in through the guard’s entrance, and let Leia lead them down the hallways in stops, starts, and random left turns that she would chalk up to her sense of smell and that was definitely the Force.

It was a short path to Fox’s office from the guard entrance - which was why she had chosen it. Fox silently opened the door for her as she called for a med droid, flipping on the lights and letting the sickly fluorescent lighting illuminate the pale, washed out nothing that was his office.

Datapads and a desk. A personal caff machine in the back was the only nonregulation item. Fox expected Leia to beeline for his chair and throw herself down on it, but somehow she only stood there- not looking at anything, barely even registering their surroundings.

Finally, now that they were in absolute private, Leia said, “I hate him.”

What was there to say to this? There was nothing. Fox could try to fix it for her, but they were both already doing their best. The path to salvation wasn’t Anakin Skywalker, and neither of them particularly wanted to try.

Instead, Fox just said, “I know.”

“I hate him,” Leia whispered. She was grinding her teeth together, her left hand clutching her own wrist tightly. “I hate him, I hate him…”

“I know,” Fox said, impossibly tired. “We’re taking care of it.”

“He - he -” Leia fell silent. She opened her mouth, then closed it, then opened it again. “I didn’t tell you how Padme died.”

She hadn’t. She had told Fox almost everything, but she hadn’t told him that. “You don’t have to,” Fox said carefully. Truthfully, looking at Skywalker and Amidala’s faces and knowing how it would all end was strange enough for him. “We shouldn’t reminisce on things that haven’t happened yet.”

“General Kenobi told me she lost the will to live.” Leia took a deep breath, keeping her lips pressed tightly together. “What - what does that even mean? What does that mean? He choked her out and she lost the will to live? I’ve met her, Fox. That woman’s will can burn down a world. I don’t believe him anymore. I think - I think he -”

It wasn’t Fox’s parents, and he could never understand. Fox was the family who hurt family, but he had never pretended to love them. He didn’t know what to do.

Slowly, awfully, Fox put a hand on her shoulder. His fingers had stopped bleeding, but they smeared bright red blood on her pure white outfit anyway. His brain twitched at the sight, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. “It’ll be okay. That will never happen now.”

“I don’t get it,” Leia hissed. She almost shook in anger. Her hand raised to clench at Fox’s wrist, and Fox let her grip him impossibly tight. “Luke told me she knew about the Tuskens, but I couldn’t - it didn’t make any sense. How could such a bright, amazing woman - Daddy always said I was just like her, Fox, he always did - how could she cover for him? How could she excuse that? I don’t get it. How…”

“Because you would never do it.” Leia’s blazer was smooth as silk, but the red trails from his blood soaked in immediately and didn’t smear. “You don’t understand because you cannot tolerate injustice or evil. Amidala does. It’s that simple.”

Leia’s expression twisted. “If Dad and Mom knew, they would have turned him in.”

“Yes, they would have.” He paused a beat, uncomfortable with the prospect of changing an opinion. “Kenobi did a good job choosing parents for you.”

“Please, Fox, I’m not blaming her. I - I just -”

“You thought she was perfect, and she’s not. I know.”

“Luke told me what Skywalker meant,” Leia whispered, and Fox stopped short. He heard a crash in his ears, and the echo of a shooting pain. “His uncle wanted to change the name. It’s a dirty name on Tatooine, one of the ten or so that they assign slaves. It’s common and - and meaningless. But Luke’s aunt convinced his uncle and General Kenobi to keep it. Did you know that? Because Luke shouldn’t forget where he came from. If he forgot, then maybe - maybe he’d grow up to tolerate great evil. And Luke’s not that kind of boy.”

Fox didn’t say anything.

“He knows,” Leia whispered harshly. “He knows as well as I do. But he can’t. So he doesn’t. So he waltzes around, buying into everything they’re selling, believing anything that’ll keep the wolf from his door. And anything that threatens his delusions is a threat.”

His other hand was on Leia’s other shoulder. When did that happen? Fox didn’t remember moving. “I was the same way,” Fox said bluntly. “I believed what I had to in order to survive. I couldn’t do anything about it. I had no choice. So I made myself into the kind of person who could survive the next day. Skywalker, he has more freedom than I do - but I don’t think he’s any more free.” He paused a beat, working his jaw. “That’s what the Emperor does to you. You freed me, but nobody’s freed him. Not yet.”

“Oh, as if he’s such a victim,” Leia snapped. “He’s one of the most powerful men in the galaxy now and he’ll be one of the two most powerful men in the future. He made his own decisions, and I don’t care why, he can have all of the reasons and excuses and whys he wants, I just don’t care - he murdered his wife, he killed my family, he wasted Luke’s valuable time, I hate him, I hate him -”

“He’s a great man, Leia,” Fox said, supremely exhausted. Leia’s blazer was stiff but soft, and the cuts from his other hand began to run down in red trails down the back. It was very ruined. Whatever. “And I’m not much better than he is right now.”

“Oh, do not give me that,” Leia snapped. “The minute you had a choice you made the right one. I didn’t save you, Captain, I just gave you an opportunity. You’re the one who took it. You are a thousand times braver and stronger than he is, and it makes me want to kill something when you have to act like you aren’t, and I swear the minute we assassinate that old man I am embezzling all of his money and buying you a cottage in Stewjon so you can retire and keep those insipid bees.”

“I like the bees,” Fox said, with a perfectly straight face.

“Then you will have your bees! You can live in the thrice-damned woods for all I care, but you are getting something better than this garbage and that’s final!”

And, for some reason, Fox found himself hugging her. Tightly, but excruciatingly careful not to hurt her. He needn’t have worried - Leia was hugging him back, just as tight.

Maybe it was the supreme surrealism of physical affection, or the insanity that was building in his chest right now, but Fox felt a unique and stupid emotion. In the midst of the Clone Wars, in the twilight of the Republic, directly in the center of the Sith Lord’s seat of supreme power, Fox felt perfectly safe. So long as he was with Leia, Fox felt safe.

“Hey, Captain, got those - never mind, not important, bye!”

The door to his office shut at lightspeed, as quickly as it opened. Fox groaned and dropped his forehead on the top of Leia’s head, who promptly began cackling.

*********

Fox hadn’t meant to attend the party.

He left most of the arrangements to Stone, who actually enjoyed doing that shit, and let him decide everything. He’d show up for five minutes at the beginning of the party, guarantee that it was happening and let the men see that nobody had hacked into his mailcom, and then disappear. He didn’t do parties, and no amount of personality changes would change him into someone who enjoyed fun.

But he received the updated invitation in his mailcom inbox five hours before the party anyway. It was from Stone, sent via the encrypted line and featuring a very polite threat regarding his mandatory attendance.

He couldn’t even pretend he had too much work to do. The Life Day holidays had begun. Tomorrow was apparently the first day, and they would extend for three more days until the actual ‘Life Day’ on the third day, with some sort of additional after-day tacked on at the end. Or something. Fox hadn’t listened to any explanations. All he knew was that the Senate building was deserted completely except for him and his men, for only the second time that Fox could remember.

He hadn’t really noticed last year, beyond appreciation that there wasn’t any stupid Senate to get in the way of making sure the Senate ran smoothly. He noticed this year - acutely aware of the empty echo of his footsteps on the tile, matched and joined by nothing.

It was even stranger to meet some of his men in the lobby, who smiled and waved when they saw him. They forced him into small talk as they left the building, breaking into the equally quiet Senate district, and Fox ignored them for favor of triple checking their perimeter and making sure that they weren’t being followed. Practically the entire district was shut down for Life Day, but Fox always felt watched.

Was the Chancellor watching him now? Did he suspect? Or was the thought of Fox betraying him unimaginable?

Maybe he thought that a single clone wanting a single holiday party meant nothing. Fox could have just been mindlessly copying it from media and other life forms. He could even be doing his job, propping up the facade of a functioning society and normal government by implementing useless little things like holiday parties. Maybe he didn’t know and didn’t care. Maybe he didn’t know a single goddamn thing.

Maybe he didn’t know Fox at all.

The men standing guard to the gardens bitched goodnaturedly about missing out on the first hour of the party, but a single head tilt from Fox shut them up. They disappeared into the enclosed gardens, the high shrubs and thick foliage hiding them from view, and Fox watched as his men popped off their helmets with a sigh of relief.

They blinked around the gardens with new eyes, wrinkling their noses at the smell or blinking away spots. They had probably never taken their buckets off in here, only ever stepping inside the area for patrol duty or to spy on Fox’s lunch meetings. Fox took off his bucket too, ignoring his subordinate’s exaggerated exclamations of surprise. Longstreet loudly expressed surprise that he had a face. Stuart elbowed Tuco, pretending to be surprised that Fox was so ugly.

“Good enough for the - okay, wow, shutting up.”

They had seized Fox and Leia’s favorite clearing, which would have been suspicious if it wasn’t for the fact that the clearing was the most secluded area of the gardens with the best coverage. Or so Stone insisted, swearing up and down that Fox had nothing to do with it, honest, isn’t the party your idea? You don’t get to complain!

“I always get to complain,” Fox said. “Perks of command.”

“Was that a joke?”

“Is this a fucking office party or not?”

Someone had accessed the control panel and turned on the few lights in the clearing, giving them a healthy glow in the backlit foliage. Men were still filtering in, yelling loudly at each other in ridiculous excitement. Fox felt almost defensive about it. They got recreation, didn’t they? Well, maybe they didn’t - but they didn’t need it, did they?

They didn’t need anything, did they?

Someone had set up one folding table with food and three with alcohol, a clear foreshadowing to disaster. Fox made the executive decision that it wasn’t his responsibility. There was a portable speaker at the base of the Liberty statue, resting on the Toydarian’s feet, and three clones were already arguing over the station.

Most importantly, Wolffe was sitting on top of another folding table in the back, arguing easily and lazily with Nemo.

Fox promptly turned on his heel, but it was too late. Wolffe instantly grabbed the nearest projectile - his own bucket, placed next to him - and threw it directly at his head. Fox instinctively grabbed it out of the air, shooting it back at him as forcefully as he could, and he could practically hear a trainer bitch them out for playing handball in the hallways.

The closest thing to a trainer here was Fox, and they had never even told him what handball was. He had never bothered to find out. Maybe that was a better use of his time than bothering to repeat meaningless orders that had never even made sense to him.

“This is a Senate Guard party,” Fox said, picking his way from the clones already getting as drunk as possible towards the two unabashed criminals. “What are you two doing here?”

Nemo snickered, sliding a thin object wrapped in brown flimsi out of his belt. “Oh, so you don’t want this?”

Fox snatched it out of his hands, quickly stuffing it in his own belt. “We’re even. You can leave.”

“Do you have any idea how hard that thing was to steal? We are not even. I’m staying the whole damn party and drinking every beer you have.”

“You falsified some inventory reports and swiped it from an unattended room. It was not difficult.”

“It was at great personal risk to myself. I want your beer.”

It had, actually, been an unbelievably illegal thing to ask Nemo to do, so Fox grunted and let the matter drop. He turned to Wolffe instead, who was very studiously staring at the sun instead of Fox. “Why are you here? I thought you were mad at me.”

Nemo hopped off the table instantly. “Wow, look, the other side has more beer. Talk to you guys later!”

What a loss. Fox took his place, leaning against the table with his arms crossed next to Wolffe. More and more men were filtering in, the soft white lights transforming them from shadowy figures into grinning men as they stepped into the spotlight.

It was good to see, somehow. For some reason. Fox was surprised. He was still discovering the things that made him happy. He took his responsibility to his men seriously, but he hadn’t cared about their feelings or their happiness for a very long time.

“Yeah, well, I was being a dick.” Wolffe took a long drag of his beer, not looking at Fox. Fox politely didn’t look at him either. Neither of them did well with emotional conversations, so it helped to pretend that the other person wasn’t there. “It’s pretty selfish to get angry that my best friend’s happy.”

“You were angry about a lot of other things,” Fox pointed out. He paused a second, working his jaw. “Whatever I say isn’t going to mean much to you, is it.”

“Nah. Haven’t trusted a word that came out of your mouth for a year.” Wolffe glanced at him out of the corner of his eye, but Fox just shrugged. “What, that doesn’t piss you off?”

“It’s fair,” Fox said blandly. Across the clearing, men were already getting into wrestling matches with each other as others laughed and cheered them on. “I think the brothers kind of sensed it. They haven’t been treating me like a person for a while now.”

“Neither have I.” Wolffe picked at the beer, using the edge of his armor to scrape at the label. “So it’s hard to blame you for not talking to me. It just hurt. You know?”

“Are you admitting to a vulnerability?” Fox asked, incredulous. Small gods, what were they? Senators? “What’s gotten into you?”

Wolffe scratched the back of his neck, somewhat abashed. “Leia?”

“You -” Fox stopped, then started. “You talked - you talked to -”

“You mean she chased me down once she heard that we fought and interrogated me for an hour? Did a terrible job explaining to me your fucked up psychology? Yup.” Wolffe shrugged. “We’re friends now.”

“You’re friends -”

“Yeah. I even invited her to the party. See?”

And, in horror, Fox saw it - a small woman in a white dress, flanked by one of the entrance guards. They were standing just to the side of the mouth of the clearing, talking intently.

“God of natural disaster.” Fox was already pushing off the table, ready to follow his immediate instinct to run after Leia and stop her from engaging in yet another diplomatic incident. “Why would you -”

“I told you I don’t trust a word coming out of your mouth.” Wolffe huffed a laugh, draining his beer and setting it down next to him. “She’s an easy person to trust, though. I see why she got through to you.”

“You went to Senator Organa for information gathering?”

“Hey, that’s what she was doing.”

They had teamed up. Great.

Fox gave into the instinct and jogged across the clearing, bravely fighting past the few clones who were already whispering at the sight of Leia. As he drew closer, he noticed something that almost made him stop short.

Her hair was down to her shoulders. If it wasn’t for the fact that Fox recognized Leia solely by bearing, he would have passed right by her. Her dress was shorter than her usual, a tighter top with the bottom half flared around her ankles complementing her white flats. She had a red shawl draped over her shoulders. She had a small silver package tucked under her arm, narrow and about as long as his forearm. Even more unbelievably, she was speaking politely to the guard. Fox sped up, just in time to catch their conversation.

“I don’t want to intrude. I just wanted to drop this off with Captain Fox.”

“Oh, no, ma’am, it’s perfectly alright. He’s - there he is.” The guard - Fox recognized him as Jobal - saluted loosely at Fox in greeting. “Sir, the senator wishes to speak to you.” He stepped closer, lowering his voice a little. “Did you tell her…?”

“I did not,” Fox snapped. Jobal leaned back, embarrassed even for the insinuation. Even Fox didn’t spill clone secrets, and this definitely counted as one. Even if Wolffe, apparently, did. He turned to Leia, who was still standing there with completely uncharacteristic politeness. “I can’t believe Wolffe invited you here. This is private.”

The gossipy fucking clones immedietly started murmuring, many of them craning their heads back to stare at an unrepetnant Wolffe. Fox fought to keep his face from heating up. Way to be the guy who invites the natborn to a clone function, Fox - even though it was not his fault whatsoever.

“I understand completely,” Leia said immediately. “Commander Wolffe was highly insistent I come here in person to drop off my package. I asked the guard to give it to you for me, but he was insistent that I come in.”

“It might be a bomb, sir,” Jobal said gleefully. “Can’t have that.”

Fox gave him a very ‘what are you doing’ squint. Jobal pretended to look professional, which was just smarmy.

He held out his hand, and Leia obediently put the package in his outstretched hand. Fox frowned, weighing it in his hand a little. It felt oddly familiar…

Then, to Fox’s absolute shock and slight horror, Leia turned and bowed slightly to the assembled clones. It was a very Alderaanian gesture, but it was one Fox had never seen from Leia before. Mostly because it was polite.

“I’m very sorry for interrupting,” Leia said. “I’ll take my leave now.”

Three clones surrounding Jobal immediately started shoving at him, and he immediately broke the shocked silence. “Princess, there’s really no need to apologize -”

“Yeah, Princess,” another clone said heatedly, “it’s good to see you!”

“How’s the vote go, Princess?” The clone next to him asked, shoving himself forward. “Did you win?”

“Hey, Princess, I never thanked you for that armor polish -”

“I still have to give you those magazines back, right?”

In slow, dawning horror, Fox turned to Leia. She was smiling gently at the men, who were suddenly pushing amongst themselves to say hello or talk to her. “You’re friends with the guards.”

“Of course I am,” Leia said cheerfully. “They’re very nice people.”

“You’re…nice…to…my…guards…”

“Oh, honestly, Fox,” Leia said, “I only give a hard time to the people that deserve it.”

“You give everyone a hard time!”

“I give other politicians a hard time.”

“You give me a hard time!”

Leia smiled at him, and in the soft white light she looked like nothing more than a happy young woman. “You deserve it.”

Fox stared at her, speechless.

A nearby clone tapped at Fox’s armor, making him jump. “Hey, Captain, can’t the Princess stay? We don’t mind.”

“Yeah, she won’t snitch!”

“The Princess is cool, let her stick around!”

A natborn. Invited to a clone…

“Hey!” Fox cried, outraged. “Why are you nice to my guards and I’m not?”

“Well, damn, Fox, want me to wipe your ass for you too?”

The clones around them burst out laughing as Fox abruptly gave up. He waved a hand at Jobal, his eyes threatening murder but his gesture announcing that she was safe. “We are never talking about this again.”

He couldn’t tell if this was a victory for Leia or not. It seemed in character for her to try and infiltrate Fox’s life and utterly destroy it, but instead she just seemed surprised. The feeling faded in an instant, and when she looked to the men she simply seemed very professional and kind.

“Then please call me Leia tonight! I’m just here as a friend.”

The men cheered, caught up in the familiar mass hysteria that clones had a proclivity towards. And, for just a second, Fox saw something strange in Leia’s eyes. He only recognized it because he had seen an identical copy in a face that looked very different than hers. It was a strange kind of awe, she had never known that the galaxy could produce this, and she had never expected to witness it.

The expression didn’t change when she looked back at Fox. He didn’t know why he expected it to. It only softened, and for the first time in Fox’s life he wondered what she saw when she looked at him.

She didn’t say. Instead, she only said, “You should open your gift.”

It was only then Fox realized that Leia had, in fact, given him a present for Life Day.

It took him a second to figure out the packaging, which was some very nice silver flimsi that had a strange iridescent effect in the light. Almost every clone at the party was far, far too invested in the proceedings, craning over each other’s heads to look.

Finally, Fox managed to reveal a thin durasteel box. He unlatched the lid and flipped it open, squinting uncertainly at the object inside.

It was a dagger. Clearly antique, but with a sharp edge and strong craftsmanship that suggested it would hold up well in a pinch. The blade was white but the hilt was pure silver, with a curved and lattice shape that was laced with a single blood red mineral vein. The gentle, elegant lines marked it undoubtedly as Alderaanian, and everything else marked it as very expensive.

“It’s very practical,” Leia said eagerly. “And hideously expensive, it’s some antique I liberated from my family’s vaults ages ago. You can sell it for money! Which you could use to buy something else practical and needed. I can give you the name of a good antiquer who will give you a very fair price. I didn’t want to give you money outright, it seemed very impersonal, and I know it being a gift would somewhat ruin the spirit of the whole ‘having money’ thing. How is it?”

Fox stared down at the present blankly.

Leia’s smile began to falter a little. “Is it a bad gift? Was I being tacky? I’m sorry, I usually make my assistants buy the Life Day gifts. I can buy you a gun instead, but I figured that you probably had enough guns and I didn’t know your favorite types. A gift card?”

Finally, Fox found his voice. “Are you friends with any Mandalorians?”

Behind them, the men were still going insane.

Leia didn’t miss a beat. “They’re usually too busy killing each other to stop and chat, why?”

“So you aren’t fucking with me on purpose.”

“If I was fucking with you then you’d know about it.” Leia chanced a glance at the men, who were still going insane. “Why are they doing that.”

“I cannot believe that you keep doing this by accident.”

“Doing what by accident?”

“The good news is that our cover is very secure.” Very, very carefully, Fox took the dagger and secured it onto his belt. “The bad news is that it was a marriage proposal.”

Leia buried her face in her hands.

“Only on one planet,” Fox felt the need to clarify. “And only culturally.”

Leia muttered something into her hands that may have been “your culture”.

“I’d have to give you a weapon back for us to be engaged.”

Leia muttered something about how this did not stop her embarrassment.

“You can take it back.”

Leia muttered something into her hands that may have been a request for him to go fuck himself.

“If it makes you feel any better,” Fox said, “it’s the best Life Day present I’ve ever gotten.”

Leia looked up at him. “Give me the dagger.”

“Can’t, it’s mine.”

“Give me it, I need a weapon.”

“But I like it!”

She lunged for it, making Fox step away, and the other clones didn’t stop laughing as Fox worked hard to dodge Leia’s incessant fight for her life.

********

The party raged.

Fox, anti-social to the last, stayed perched on the back table with Wolffe shooting the shit. Apparently he and Leia really did know each other, and the minute they caught sight of each other they engaged in an immediate shouting match. Fox was on her side. Wolffe deserved it.

After ten ridiculous minutes, Wolffe had finally hopped off the table and clapped Fox on the shoulder. Leia stuck her tongue out at him in an extremely mature move before flouncing off to go dance with an extremely flustered clone.

“Keep your personal comm on,” he said. “So I know you’re doing alright.”

“You’re beginning to sound a lot like Cody.”

“Insulting the man who arranged your engagement. No love between brothers.”

“I hope Plo Koon tells you that you’re nothing to him,” Fox said pleasantly.

“I hope you have to talk to a senator tomorrow.”

“I hope you have to talk to Kenobi tomorrow -”

“Way too far.” But Wolffe smiled anyway, and Fox nodded back. “I have a gym calling my name. See you later, Fox.”

For some reason, strange and obscure and foreign, Fox missed him the minute he turned his back. Sometimes he didn’t like all these new emotions. Guess he’d have to actually start talking in the groupchat.

He went back to watching the crowd instead. The men were growing drunker and drunker, but they weren’t too rowdy. It was now the depths of night, and Coruscant had quieted just a little. The neon lights still lit up the world far above them, but through the thick canopy of trees and foliage it was nothing more than a backlit glow. The soft white lights inside the clearing felt far more real, something just to the right of organic, and the men’s laughter rang just a little louder and looser than usual. It even sounded different from the laughter at the bar, or from the barrack shittalk. It was a strange, out of breath laugh, the kind that wheezed from your chest after too long talking and dancing and drinking.

Leia was a decent dancer. With her impressive Force-given stamina, she had barely bothered to take a break since she began. You could barely tell that she had been classically trained in princess school. She kept it loose, matching the other clone’s steps and taking the lead if he felt unsure. She was clearly unused to the heavier, more expressive style of Mandalorian dancing that they had bribed out of drunk trainers years ago, but she adapted quickly. Her hair flew long and wild, growing more and more frazzled as she danced. She didn’t touch any drinks, but her laughs came easier as the night drew on.

And there was a strange feeling in Fox’s chest, growing more familiar by the day. A strange kind of happy indigestion. It didn’t even feel like happiness. It felt like her happiness was his, that her joy blew on his own smothered embers and reignited it into a flickering star.

“You know what they say. Love can reignite the stars.”

Fox almost fell off the table.

There was a man sitting next to him. A natborn, about Fox and Leia’s age, with sandy blonde hair and a round face. He was dressed in all black, his simple clothing sleek and tight, but he wore a billowing black hooded cloak draped carefully over the side of the table. Fox’s eyes hitched onto the lightsaber on his hip, and he couldn’t tear them away.

He just sat there, posture loose and relaxed, legs swinging slightly above the ground. Fox looked around quickly, but nobody else seemed to find the man’s instant appearance strange - or maybe nobody else noticed. He’d have to fucking kill Jubal, what kind of guard - but Fox hasn’t seen him either, had he? How could he have not seen him? The man’s presence was tangible, heavy and thick in a stomach-churning and familiar way.

Fox’s first wild thought was that the man felt like Lord Sidious. They had the same overwhelming presence, permeating every inch of your body while bearing down heavily on your shoulders. They always froze every inch of you - not just your muscles, but your throat and lungs and gut.

But there was something different about it. Instead of oppressive and suffocating, it was soft and bright. It made him breathe easier, and for just a second his tongue tasted fresh and natural air. Frankly and simply, the man was not the single most evil thing in the known galaxy. Maybe he wasn’t even evil at all.

He didn’t feel like any Jedi Fox knew. There was something muddled and confused about all of them, like a sun hidden behind dark gray clouds. He barely felt like a Jedi at all, because he scorched.

The address rose instantly to Fox’s tongue, completely without thought. “My lord, how may I help you?”

The man’s eyebrows tilted upwards in surprise, and Fox saw for the first time how pale and blue his eyes were. “No need for that. I’m only a part time Sith Lord.”

“I - sir, how did -”

“I didn’t want to make anybody uncomfortable, so I tried to slip in quietly. I’m very sorry for the intrusion.” The worst part was that he did genuinely seem sorry, as if Fox’s comfort was important to him. “You’re very sensitive to the Force, aren’t you? I wonder if it’s your exposure to Sidious. Like…rubbing sandsheets on your skin every day. That must be awful.”

A Jedi. He had to be. Fox saluted, embarrassingly late, and the man quickly waved him at ease. “No need for that either. Man, I really am being rude…” He straightened, sticking out a hand. Fox eyed it, terrified. “Knight Luke Skywalker. Grandmaster of the New Jedi Order. Please relax, it’s weird when I’m not undercover. Nobody back home’s scared of me.” For a bizarre second, he even looked a little put out. “You’d think that calling yourself the last knight of a mythical monastic order of warrior monks would inspire a little more respect. But everyone just thinks I’m a myth. Isn’t that weird?”

“Very weird, sir,” Fox said, dizzy. A great deal of conclusions rammed him in the head at once. “Sir, you wouldn’t happen to be…”

“That cannot be my loser brother.”

Said loser brother perked up, hopping off the table immediately. Fox backed up respectfully, just as he opened his arms in clear expectation of a lovely embrace from the twin sister rushing over to meet him.

Leia tried to kick him in the ribs, her flats grinding on the soft grass as Luke barely dodged. “You asshole! What are you doing here! You’re supposed to be undercover!”

“I wanted to see my lovely sister for Life Day!” Luke announced, dodging her melee attacks with some difficulty. “Nineteen years of separation, I didn’t want to be gone for a second longer! And none of the droids laugh at my jokes.”

“Nobody laughs at your jokes, sand for brains.” But Leia stopped trying to kill him just long enough to hug him, and Luke gleefully hugged her back. “Will being here compromise your cover? Fox and I have been maintaining opsec very carefully, and I won’t have you ruining this.”

But Luke just straightened his cloak, letting it billow around him in an easy grace. Leia rolled her eyes. “What makes you think I am even truly here?”

“You’re an idiot.”

“I could be a Force ghost.”

“And I could be a Wookie, but you don’t see me with fur.”

Cover. Part time Sith Lord. Fox inhaled a sharp breath before even thinking about it. “You’re the other mystery time traveler!” Luke and Leia stared at him blankly, and Fox immediately realized what he had just said. “I - I mean, sir, I didn’t realize you were the other operative on this mission.”

Leia rounded on Luke before he could even open his mouth. Fox instantly checked their surroundings, fully aware that a true Leia yell could shatter eardrums and pull a lot of attention to them. But nobody else even seemed to notice them. Force magic. Incredible.

“Do not tell me you bullied Fox into that sir crap. If you gave him even one ounce of your ridiculous ‘last knight of a mythical monastic order of warrior monks’ bantha shit I’m shoving your tongue into your ear. You will not believe how useless the Jedi are. All General Kenobi does is drink and lose his clothing everywhere.”

“I did not need to know that! And I’m perfectly aware how great and amazing he is, Leia, as you’ve detailed. Exhaustively.” Luke rolled his shoulders, bringing the cloak to roll over his front and obscure the lightsaber hilt. He smiled apologetically at Fox, who froze. “I’ve never seen Leia actually say nice things about somebody before. It’s been hard for her to make friends since she lost her best friend - that’s me, I ended up being her brother.”

“I can’t believe we’re related,” Leia said flatly.

But it made perfect sense to Fox. The brightest will and the greatest power on Coruscant would, of course, go onto create two children who overwhelmed themselves with their own incredible feelings. Who wanted too much, fought too hard, and held on too fiercely.

Fox stared at the man blankly. “I’m sorry for not recognizing you, sir, but - your sister claimed her brother was a ridiculous incompetent.”

“I’ll admit to the ridiculous,” Luke said cheerfully, “but I’m only incompetent sometimes. Besides, Leia says that about everyone.”

“That was before I met clones.” Leia propped her hands on her hip, mock-glaring at Luke. “Clones are among the most competent people I’ve ever met. It’s a breath of natural air in this useless time period full of useless people. I wish I’d met Captain Fox years ago. We would have wrapped up the war months ahead of schedule.”

“When you think about it, you have met Fox years ago. And I’d say we’re wrapping up the war many years ahead of schedule.” Luke turned to Leia as Fox fought mortification. “Count Dooku has come around to our point of view, more or less. I think the Separatists will be able to negotiate for their rights quite well once the war is over. Honestly, once you root out the Sith and corporate interests from the Seperatist Senate, they’re all very nice people. And recognizable!”

At Fox’s confused look, Leia sighed. “Most of the founding members of the Rebellion were Seperatist during the Clone Wars. Something about trying to dissociate yourself from a large government taking further and further extremist powers makes you unwilling to accept an even worse government. Ex-Seperatist planets were also much better off financially than the Republic, thanks to the corporate interests and the Emperor’s bankrolling.”

“I’m looking forward to the government these good people will come together to make.” Luke looked around the assembly - at the clones laughing and talking, at the dancing in the center of the field underneath the Liberty statue. “And I’m excited to see the future you and your brothers will have. I think it’ll be a kind one. Don’t you?”

Fox’s breath caught. Something about Luke’s simple words hit something deep in his gut. He was terrified of the future, and he had always known that it only held bad things. He had always known that he would never see it. Excitement for a kind future…the thought was overwhelming. “I hope so, sir.”

Leia elbowed him, quite rudely.“If you call my brother sir one more time I’ll slug you.”

Fox elbowed her back, leaning in to hiss in her ear. “That is a real Jedi! Shut up!”

“Oh, you’re surrounded by Jedi all damn day, get over it.”

“Not real Jedi,” Fox said, and he didn’t know it was true until he said it. “Jedi like that haven’t existed for a long time.” Maybe they’d never existed. Fox had thought that the myth of the Jedi spread throughout the Kamino barracks was a fiction, meant to propagandize and indoctrinate, but something in Luke’s bearing made the fairy tales seem real. Something in… “Jedi like you and the Grandmaster.”

Leia stepped away from him, crossing her arms tightly. Luke politely looked between Fox and Leia, sensing that he was missing something. “For the last damn time, sweeping at sabacc does not a Jedi make. I don’t know the first thing about being a Jedi. And he’s the Grandmaster of, like, five people.”

“There’s a lot of backflips,” Luke said seriously. “And riddles.”

“I hate riddles.”

“That’s the point! I thought they were some ancient wisdom thing at first too.” Luke nodded solemnly, as if he was impairing a secret of the universe. “But it’s just about being annoying. I’ve been trying out the whole thing, but I think it suits me better to be annoying in a completely different way. I’m thinking about acting oblivious.”

“What’s the point of being annoying?”

“It makes them think you have some ancient wisdom thing going on.”

“I’m sorry,” Fox cut in, raising a hand and halting them both in their tracks. “You’re saying being a Jedi is more about acting like you know what’s going on than…actually knowing what’s going on?”

Luke just shrugged at him, offering a lopsided half-smile. “Who really knows what’s going on? Anyone who thinks they’re wise enough to always know the correct course of action isn’t wise enough to admit when they’re wrong.”

“Do you need a clone commander, sir?” Fox asked, completely serious. Leia squawked. “It would be my honor.”

“You said that you were my second in command! Luke, don’t you dare poach my subordinates!”

“I’m afraid I’m still a Sith Lord right now,” Luke said apologetically, “but get back to me if my school ever ends up existing in this timeline. Do you know how to write syllabi?”

“And you call us real Jedi?” Leia cried, gesturing empathetically with both hands to a serene Luke. It saved Fox from having to admit that he’s actually completely fine with the Sith Lord thing. There was a precedent. “He’s a moron! I’m a bitch! He’s a farm boy, I’m a senator, and our parental figures have a 400% mortality rate! We voluntarily associate with Han Solo!”

“He’s not that bad once you get to know him,” Luke told Fox. “Even if he does get gross with my sister.”

“For goodness’ sake, just call it sex -”

“It is pretty gross,” Fox told Luke.

“Thank you!”

“He calls sex gross and I’m having sex with Han Solo! What about us is Jedi material, Fox!”

“You asked what made you different, Leia,” Fox said, and Leia stopped short. “You - you’re not a real senator, the Jedi would throw you out in a day, and you’re born in more than a year. But that’s not why you’re different.” He looked significantly at Luke, who was standing very still. “I - forgive me for saying so, Grandmaster, but you could never have been a Republican Jedi either. You’re too…”

“I’ve heard it all before,” Luke said wryly. Fox grimaced, hoping that it didn’t sound like a criticism. “I suppose it means that I’ll have to figure out what being a Jedi means for myself. It’s a pity. I would have liked some easy answers.”

“It’s not easy,” Fox agreed. “But take it from the lackey of a Sith Lord. I know good when I see it.” He carefully withdrew a short and slim package from the back of his belt, wrapping his fingers around it. “I got you a Life Day present too. I don’t think you’ll want it. But…it would make me feel better if you had it. And I think it’ll increase chances of mission success.” He nervously glanced at Luke, whose face was carefully impassive, and Fox realized for the first time that he may slightly disapprove of how Fox had obtained it. Or the present in general. “I - if the Grandmaster gives me leave…”

“I am not getting in the middle of this,” Luke said. “Maybe you’ll succeed where I failed.”

“Oh, give me that.” Leia snatched it out of his hands, immediately ripping open the brown flimsi. “As if Luke gets to decide what presents I do and don’t get - if he’s not a real Jedi then stop acting as if he’s so great, I swear to the heavenly mountains. Why’s it -”

Leia stopped short. She stared down at the lightsaber in her hands.

It was just a training saber. Thanks to Nemo, Fox knew that the only thing that differentiated a training saber from a real saber was a few extra components on the end that could easily be screwed off. It was intended for older padawans, which put it at about the right size and weight for Leia’s absolutely tiny hands.

“I hate you,” Leia said.

Fox kept his face impassive. “Nemo wouldn’t steal Mace Windu’s no matter how hard I asked, so you’ll have to settle with a blue one.”

“Die.”

“It’s not from a corpse or anything,” Fox felt the need to add, somewhat anxiously. “It’s just from the Temple stores. They have everything down there.”

“I see no problem with it,” Luke said cheerfully, making Fox exhale with relief. “I steal tons of things from the old Jedi Temples. Call this preemptive scavenging.”

“That’s just theft,” the head of the police department felt the need to say.

But Leia was still staring at it, face blank. Her hand clenched tightly around the hilt, her knuckles turning white.

“You aren’t a Jedi,” Fox said slowly. “I know you don’t want to be. But I think a politician uses every weapon at her disposal. And…I took that from you.” Leia looked up sharply, mouth opening, but Fox just shook his head. “The Emperor, Nemo, and I took that lightsaber from you. This Republic did. It’s your birthright, as much as it is the Grandmaster’s. You can decide what to do with it. Throw it away if you like. But I wanted to give it to you. That’s all.”

A long silence stretched between them. Luke stared steadily at Leia, frowning slightly, before his expression cleared in surprise.

Finally, with excruciating slowness, Leia said, “Fox.”

His breath caught in his chest, and he saw Luke’s eyes slowly widen. “Yes, Princess?”

“You realize this means you accepted my marriage proposal, right?”

“Okay,” Luke said loudly, as Fox groaned and buried his head in his hands. Leia immediately began hooting with victory, “did I miss something important? Not that I don’t think it’s great, I’m happy for your happiness, but I could have sworn -”

She kept the lightsaber. Fox was glad her practical side won out: there were many uses to a plasma sword, up to and including assasination.

The party wouldn’t wind down for a while, no matter how many best friends he reconciled with or mystery brothers he met. The speaker had petered out, but some enterprising partygoers had dragged their hand-drum sets in from their barracks, and they had started banging out some traditional Mandalorian song that Fox distantly recognized from long camping trips with Jango Fett.

He did remember it. The more he thought about it, the more he remembered. They had been around seven or eight. Wilderness training, one of the exciting field trips that made every other clone jealous of the CCs. It had been the highlight of all their lives.

Jango had been better with them than he had given himself credit for, or allowed himself to understand. They had all been ridiculously antsy and on edge, vibrating with barely suppressed teenage energy, and after a long day of backpacking and trekking he had given up and taught them some common Mandalorian songs. The singing had worn them out enough to sleep.

Who had taught them to the other men? It hadn’t been Fox. Or maybe it had. The sight of the dancing was familiar, in the distant and aching way that happiness was.

Luke and Leia had quietly pulled away ten minutes ago, standing at the entrance to the clearing and talking quietly. They didn’t seem to realize it, but they often spoke without words. But Leia never realized anything like that. Where Luke was overwhelming, Leia was nothing. She was practically invisible, and it was only the odd rigor of her invisibility that tuned Fox into her. It was strangely ironic - that the loud and explosive Leia was packed away so tight, and that the mild and friendly Luke overflowed.

He clasped her on the shoulder tightly, and Leia lightly rested her forehead against his shoulder. They stayed like that for one second, then two, before separating. Luke turned away from her, flipping his hood over his head and letting his cloak billow out, and he disappeared out of the clearing without another word.

Leia stayed there, staring blankly after him, and Fox found himself navigating the drunken crowd to walk over to her. She seemed almost uncertain, arms crossed tightly and defensively across her chest as she stared out into the black tunnel.

Fox stood next to her silently, waiting for when she was ready. It took a while. She wouldn’t stop tapping her fingers on her arm, or drawing herself in tighter.

Finally, she said, “My parents didn’t return to Alderaan for Life Day.”

Fox started in surprise. “Are they -”

“They’re fine,” Leia said dismissively. “They’re skipping out on every family function, of course. They’ll be hell to pay for it later from Mother’s great-aunts. They’ll likely show up on the last day of the celebrations and do the ceremonial queen and king shit. But for the first two celebration days, they’re here.” She fell silent again, tapping again and again on her arm. “Luke said it’s for me. He said they’re in the Senate, looking for me. They want to…celebrate. With me.”

That was it. Fox let her stew, watching her mind work itself around in circles. The lightsaber was clipped to her belt, with her dress artfully arranged to hide it, but Fox could still see glimpses of metal behind cloth. It gave her an oddly grounded air, as if she now possessed a great responsibility.

Jango had always called a weapon a tool, not a responsibility. People were a responsibility. Your brothers, the GAR, the Jedi were a responsibility. Fox wondered what Leia was.

Finally, he said, “You’ve never had a Life Day on Coruscant before.”

Leia waited a long moment before grudgingly admitting, “No.”

“You won’t have to lie to anybody, or pretend it’s normal. You could make new memories.”

“I guess.”

“Sounds nice to me,” Fox said lightly. He carefully put a hand on her back. “More of a first chance than a second chance, I think.”

Leia’s expression crumpled a little, but she leaned into the touch. “Something’s better than nothing, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know,” Fox said lightly, “I think I like something the best.”

They stood in silence for a little while longer. But maybe Fox and Leia were like Luke and Leia, even if only in that way: they never needed that many words to say what they meant.

Finally, Leia reached out and slid Fox’s hand into hers. She tugged him forward, making him slip his hand from her back as he struggled to right himself. “You haven’t danced tonight, and I’m sick of looking at your tragic ass in the corner. Come dance with me and pretend you’re having fun.”

“You know,” Fox said, “I think your brother’s very impressive. You could learn something from him.”

The crowd parted for them as Leia forced them into the small area in front of the Liberty statue that served as the impromptu dance floor. Everybody was stomping and clapping, holding each other’s hands and swinging in perfect rounds. The clones around them scrambled out of the way, already grinning at the sight of Leia forcing Fox into something resembling a social activity.

“I thought there was absolutely nothing worse than hearing you pretend to respect the dipshits we’re surrounded by.” Leia tugged Fox into position, seizing both his hands in hers. “I was wrong.”

“Wow,” Fox said, and somehow he felt himself relaxing. As if they weren’t being watched, and there was no lightsaber attached to Leia’s hip or armor strapped to Fox’s chest. “I thought they could fire a senator for admitting that.”

“Because hearing you genuinely respect my absolute idiot brother is a thousand times worse. He did absolutely nothing. He does not deserve it.”

Fox stepped forward, and for the first time Leia let him lead. He stepped forward and she stepped back, and then they stepped back together before jumping forward. The drum beats reverberated loudly through Fox’s chest, through his sternum, through everything. They shook something loose, and Fox never wanted to put himself in order again.

“Really?” Fox asked, stomping left as she stomped with him. “I heard he killed his royal majesty the Emperor.”

“Not this time.” Leia stomped right, and he stomped with her, and they separated to clap with the motion. “I think we can take credit. It’s about time we get a little respect around here.”

“Yeah?” Fox asked, heart pounding. “What’ll happen after that?”

Will you stay? Will you disappear? Will your timeline be erased, or will mine? Will you wake up in the future, and will I stay in the past? Or will we still know each other, wherever we end up, in whatever improbable way Fox and Leia could ever understand each other so completely?

“I don’t know,” Leia said, reaching towards him, “isn’t that a problem for tomorrow?”

And it was.

Fox laughed and grabbed Leia’s hands, spinning her around to the beat of the drums and his beating heart, living in time with her.

[reignoctis]

the first true time she saw the mare in front of her was blurry. she had been small and pale, confused and scared. recognizing little except bright white looming over her. it had been so quiet in her head it had been deafening. nothing mattered except celestia extending a hoof, almost burning warm after the cold of moon. she'd recognizes the elements, those wearing them were insignificant other than her sheer embarrassment at having tried to harm them.

they had been true friends once. twilight was the one who helped bridge a thousand year gap. showed her all things new, showed that she had changed, that she could be loved without fear. though luna never really did like nightmare night, there were much better things ponies had invented to do under her starry sky. she had disagreed with celestia's decision to ascend her pupil much as she disagreed about her decision to rely so much on six ponies who may as well have been fillies compared to them. now, she has no idea what she would do without the younger alicorn. cadance had her own empire to run. how celestia ran equestria alone for so long is a mystery.

when they'd been younger, the title of princess had seemed fitting. after a few hundred years of outliving the rest, growing more and more confident more powerful, queen was better. luna should ask where twilight fits in that. a part of her bristles at making them equals in rank when her sister hadn't even been gone a century. some had spoken about twilight claiming herself empress. with how the purple alicorn had militarized unicorns against everfree, commander or general seemed more appropriate.

"we have not yet begun our duties." if she was even going to. the night had been quieter than ever. as if their enemies stalking around her dream realm, their borders knew luna had become far more dangerous. an unprecedented time of peace excluding the forest. one ear twitches as she waits for twilight to gather herself. green eyes are out of tears. crying, sobbing, wailing, destroying stone under hooves took so much energy. energy that was better spent protecting the nation luna had worked so hard to establish and protect with her sister.

summer sun celebration. festival of the two sister. day of mourning. how strange - awfully ironic - that it had gone from missing one alicorn to the other. again, it was a bad political move to remove herself from such a public event. equestria deserved a leader that could face them not one who hid in the shadows. "the longest day of the thousandth year," she murmurs, withers shivering and feathers fluffing. "i'm so sorry-"

i miss you so much big sister.

her breath hitches with a terrible shuddering gasp almost as if she'd been stabbed. the loss felt that way sometimes. a knife to the gut, horn to the heart. luna turns away, gaze on the arching ceiling carved with meticulous flowery detail. "would cadance like to join us? she was...is our-my niece." maybe she could stand it if all remaining alicorns were there. maybe then luna could bear to take the sun and moon as celestia once had, cross them in the sky the last time they would be together at the same time until the next year.

it's not fair to put so much on a young mare, alicorn or not. she should do better. needs to do better. celestia would be so disappointed. "forgive us, twilight sparkle...you had her longer than we were back. our...nothing is okay without her. we were meant to rule together."

twilight startles when the mare's voice sounds from the shadows. eyes widen as she turns her gaze to the pony, her tone just low enough that she believes another soul occupies the space she stands within. the purple alicorn's expression falls, as do her ears, when she sees how the queen of the night looks, even from here. she clears her throat, feeling the full force of grief as it wafts from the blue alicorn. it makes her coat prickle with discomfort.

for a moment, she believes it would've been better if she had turned and left much earlier. but, she is already here. she does not want to waste time, neither hers nor the queen of the night's. she does it enough to know when it is an issue.

" queen luna, " she corrects herself after luna's firm reminder. " a-apologies... "

that was just one of the other things she was not yet used to, something else that had changed in the recent years. twilight had never felt like she was truly ready to take up the position of ruler of equestria, and she felt even less ready now. the way that queen luna stared at her only furthered this thought, and deepened the space that had grown between them since celestia's demise decades ago.

luna didn't want to see her, but she was already here.

...

" i... wanted to check up on you, " she says hesitantly, tossing aside her curiosities for the time being. " i apologize if i've interrupted your work, i-i knew you would be awake at this time, so i just thought... "

twilight stutters and stumbles. she shakes her head, eyes glossy as moonlight cascades over the tears that bubble within them. she lowers her snout, shutting her eyes tight, breathing in deeply to still herself and the heartbeat that beats up into her eardrums. her ears fully flatten to the sides of her head as she lifts it again, eyes soft as she stares up at the queen.

" equestria's day of mourning is soon. " luna knew that, she remembered. it was she that had suggested the idea in replacement of the summer sun celebration, even if her version of mourning was putting distance between herself and others. " i... i-i just wanted to... y-you've never been the front of the crowd sort of pony, and since then... the distance between you, equestria, cadance and i... it has grown further the longer time has passed. you've yet to join us for the ceremony, a-and i can understand why... "

" before the day arrives, i... thought it may be best if i came to ask if you were okay, " twilight says, and quickly catches herself. " i-i mean... i know well that you aren't; the nights have been ever darker since, and i haven't seen much change, but i-i want to help somehow, i... "

twilight trails off, attempting to find the right words. she trails off because she isn't sure what to say. she feels like she's stepping between landmines, and one wrong move will set them all off. she isn't sure if her broken thoughts are making any sort of sense.

her eyes wander, tracing the queen's figure ahead of her. the slow wave of her starry mane, the dark ichor of a black sky still draping over her coat, the glistening of her prosthetic in the dull moon's glow. she had grown familiar with these features in these years. but in moments like these, it felt as though she were staring at a stranger.

she felt that she was to blame for things getting this way. when she had been equestria's heir to the throne, it very well may have been. and it very well may be now.

[powdermelonkeg]

Hyrule Brochure: A Potential for BotW’s Future

Hyrule’s map in BotW is pretty sparse as far as cities go. Yes, it’s got more than any other Zelda game, but it also has like, 90% of its map being pure dead space.

So I decided to play around and make what I imagine Hyrule would look like, as far as cities go, if it were allowed to properly rebuild and not get totally wrecked by Ganon again.

Credit to Eragon2589 on DeviantArt for the free-to-use map icons. I love these little buttons so much.

So, these are the canon towns we get in BotW; Hateno, Lurelin, Tarrey, Zora’s Domain, Goron City, Korok Forest, Rito Village, Yiga Hideout, and Gerudo Town. I’m counting Yiga Hideout as a town because if the Yiga were a little nicer, it WOULD be marked one.

Adding the various stables on makes the place look MUCH less empty, but still; what can we do with this?

Well, I’ve spent the last several days locating all the significant ruins and landmarks, with one or two extra things thrown in, that I think would make this place much more populated.

Maps are free to use if you want them, btw. Have fun!

As a general rule of thumb, I want to make the towers and stables their own cities. The towers are a good landmark and beacon of safety, and the stables have all the building blocks to start building up a village.

If I’m particularly inspired, I’ll give some background on what the town is/does!

Starting off with the Rito! Their village has grown into a town, and the stable at its foothill is its own village now. I called it “fledgeling” because that’s where the Rito and Hylians would intermingle most, so the Rito aren’t exactly flying around here.

Beacon City is built around Tabantha Tower; the Rito have turned it into a sort of lighthouse, reflecting light off into the distance to help guide nighttime fliers home. Because of this, it’s a very popular stop for mail carriers, and where they go, development and cultural mixing follows.

Kaysa Town is built around Great Fairy Kaysa’s fountain; it’s a popular tourist attraction, and she gets plenty of offerings, so win-win!

For the Gorons, we’ve only got two more cities: Silversmith Village and Din’s Spire. Silversmith is built around the culture in the southern mines, and it has down-the-road access to the Goron Hot Springs. Din’s Spire is less of a town and more of a landmark, due to the sheer cliffs all around it, but the huge (and notably not in the burning death zone) hot spring lake makes it a popular rest stop for people on their way through.

I decided not to rebuild the northern mines; they’re pretty busted up and lava soaked, so my assumption is that they were abandoned either due to hazards or due to the ore being stripped out.

Korok Forest wouldn’t change much, besides the Royal Family declaring it a protected area. The Koroks don’t seem to have much interest in expansion, and they, as far as I know, don’t live in houses.

Gerudo Territory is MUCH more expansive than the others so far, and with good reason.

Gerudo Town itself is now Gerudo City, and the Kara Kara Bazaar has grown into a town. Canyon Stable has developed a village (mostly full of Gerudo husbands so they don’t have to travel a million miles just to see their families).

The Gerudo have control of one of the towers in their region, and the town built around it is Overlook Town. It mostly serves as a training grounds for young Gerudo warriors.

The City of the Seven developed when the Seven Heroine statues were recovered and restored; the town around them was built to honor them, and then it got a LOT of foot traffic from those wanting to see the legendary statues.

Tera Town rose up much in the same way Kaysa Town did up in Rito territory, centered around the Great Fairy Fountain.

Mesa Village and West Gerudo Town are both smaller Gerudo settlements; West Gerudo sprung up out of access to snowmelt from the Gerudo Highlands, and Mesa Village, because of its relative safety from Molduga and access to oasis water.

Finally, Gerudo Valley, in reference to Ocarina of Time. This town is a Gerudo-only zone, and is more a fortress than a town. It exists both to keep an eye on the Yiga and to gain control of the mountain pass, making people go through Canyon Village to get to Gerudo instead of avoiding Gerudo customs.

Speaking of the Yiga, they’ve taken two new spots for themselves; Gerudo Tower, which they’ve renamed Kohga Tower in honor of their late Master, and Banana Labyrinth, which serves as their highest security area. Imagine if you’d had to go through the LABYRINTH to get the Thunder Helm back.

Up next we’ve got the Zora. Truthfully, their territory spans as long as Zora river and WELL into the ocean, but these are the only cities that, technically, a Hylian with adequate gear can enter.

Mipha’s Landing is an above-water city built expressly for doing trade. It got its name from the late Mipha; since the tower reaches up into the sky, it was hoped that someday, her spirit would sit atop it for a rest and see all that her people had been able to do thanks to her sacrifice.

Lakebed Village is in Lake Hylia, and it’s actually a slowly-repopulating Lakebed Temple, from Twilight Princess. Meanwhile, Great Bay City is a port town above water and an aquatic metropolis below, full of music and dance and exotic wares.

And finally, Hylians.

Hoo boy.

I’ve split this up region by region but

THIS is how many living spots they’ve got.

Silver stars indicate military towns. Red stars indicate military outposts.

I USE THE TERM MILITARY VERY LOOSELY HERE. Hyrule, since it doesn’t interact with its neighbors, only has the Yiga and the various monsters to fight against. Anything labeled “military” means that it’s staffed by royal employ, meaning knights and Sheikah and the like.

Let’s start with Akkala. The northeast labyrinth has been converted into an emergency bunker, in case Calamity strikes and people need a safe place to hide. Not only is it difficult to break into, it also has a completely empty lower level that’s PERFECT for long-term seige.

City Tempest got its name for being near-constantly wracked by storms. Despite this, though, it remains a popular vacation spot for people who don’t mind a little rain; the Skull Lake and the giant flowers are worth it.

Valley Town rose up out of both East Akkala Stable and Robbie’s workshop. It doesn’t get too much foot traffic, but it doesn’t really need to.

Midna Village, I built where the ruins of Shadow Hamlet are. I figured it was a fitting name, and the area is almost constantly covered in the shadow of Death Mountain.

Four Brothers’ Base is a knight outpost that’s up extremely high, spanning huge bridges between the four Tingle isles.

Then Parapa Palace, in reference to Zelda II: Adventure of Link, was built in place of the Akkala Citadel and functions as a mini Hyrule Castle + Castle Town. In real life, monarchs would have several palaces to go between, kind of like how well-off people nowadays would have a summer home. So, I followed that trend! This is Zel’s summer palace.

And you guys know what Tarrey Town is. Although interestingly, as it expands, it goes vertical into the stone column it was built on.

Onto Central Hyrule.

Camp Rauru is training camp and lodging for new knights. Rebonae Village and Kasuto City were made out of the Wetland and Riverside stables respectively, though Kasuto (also an Adventure of Link reference) gets substantially more foot traffic due to being on the way from Castle Town to Dueling Peaks.

Outset Town got its name, lore-wise, from the fact that it’s the first bit of land Link from BotW visited after leaving the Great Plateau, and meta-wise, because it’s the starting point for Wind Waker Link.

Aquame City surrounds the Coliseum, which is how it grew to be so popular. The grand stage holds sparring matches and various other shows regularly, and it’s a pleasant boat trip from Castle Town to get there.

Saria Town was built out of the old exchange ruins, and it’s in walking distance of the ruined Sage Temple—which, at this point in time, would have been rebuilt—and its existence is both an AoL reference and an OoT one (but mostly AoL, I’ve kind of fallen in love with its map).

New Mabe is where you can find the new Lon Lon Ranch! The ruins there are actually called the Mabe Town Ruins in game, and they’re right by the Ranch Ruins!

Eldin’s pretty sparse as far as Hylian towns go. It’s got Gut Check Camp, where Sheikah train for endurance and elemental resistance, and Windfall Town, a place that sees a LOT of gemstones pass through, freshly mined. That includes rupee ore, mind you!

Faron Province is a little more spaced out, due to the nature of the region. Lurelin’s grown since BotW, becoming a trading bay; meanwhile Cora Lake’s Sheikah Tower has expanded into Parache Town, and the Highland Stable has become Malanya Village. Both of those locations are VERY fond of horses, and they’re a bit competitive, especially during archery season.

Ordona Hamlet is a tiny village tucked away into the middle of Faron. It came about due to the Lakeside Stable, and it’s named that because I am STILL salty that the Zeldevs didn’t put an Ordon Village reference in the game.

Eventide Outpost is more of a testing ground for boats than anything particularly significant, population-wise. The even tides that gave the isle its name make it an ideal location to work out the kinks in new watercraft (and occasionally, the lieutenant in charge of that base demonstrates how to launch a raft into the sky with octo balloons).

Hebra’s the most militarized area of Hyrule, and ideally, it functions as a reserve of men and tech in case Calamity rises again. If there’s anything that BotW’s era learned, it’s to never underprepare for Gann’s return.

Fort Lomei is a converted base, just like the Banana Labyrinth is to the Yiga. This one, though, is patrolled diligently by knights who use daily-changing codes, and it’s impossible to navigate without the locals’ help.

Fort Pikida is situated in that weird stone cavern-y area, and it’s a supply stach and Hebran monster patrol site. It’s the soldiers there’s job to make sure that the Lynels that like to roam the region don’t get too close to residential areas.

Hia Miu Outpost is a training spot for knights sent to the Hebra region; any new soldier to the area has to prove they can handle themselves by going into the Hia Miu shrine and taking on the Major Test of Strength Trial. (Fun fact, did you know that the X-test-of-strength trials reset themselves every blood moon?)

Snowpeak Fortress exists both because it makes a fantastic secondary base for the Hyrulean royals to plan, and because i am once again salty about the lack of Twilight Princess in this game.

Sturnida Resort is built around hot springs! It’s a nice spot for people living around Rito Town and Fledgling Village to take a vacation without having to trek all the way across the country to do it.

Snowfield City came from Snowfield Stable, and it’s the Windfall of Hebra; it sees a LOT of people coming in and out of the region, and the view of the northern lights you can get from there? You’d be hard-pressed to find a Hylian that didn’t have it on their bucket list.

New Tabantha was built on the ruined spot of the original Tabantha Village; you can visit there in-game! It’s a quiet town that raises highland sheep for a living, and its team won the Hebran Triathlon three whole years in a row.

Then, the Tanagar Restricted Zone. If you’ve ever been there, you know EXACTLY why it’s restricted.

Most of the Guardians inside have been dealt with, but the ruined temple remains a hazard testing ground for new tech. It’s off limits to everyone but those with the HIGHEST clearance; I’m talking a direct letter from Zelda herself.

The Thyphlo Secret Camp is exactly what it says on the tin. It’s a place for Hyrulean lieutenants to meet for top-secret missions, and it’s one of those places that you need to be SERIOUSLY high rank to even KNOW about.

Over on the edge of Lanayru, we’ve got New Goponga, built where the old Goponga ruins are, and the Crenel Garrison. The Garrison was built to take care of the Lizalfos problems in the waterways, keeping it safe for Hylians and Zora travelers alike. Goponga, on the other hand, is what Lurelin was in game; nice, friendly, and centered around fishery.

In Necluda, we’ve got New Deya where old Deya was ruined (I think BotW Link was born in old Deya!), Watchtower Village built around the lakeside of the Dueling Peaks tower, and then Dueling Peaks City, a HUGE trade hub that was once the Dueling Peaks stable.

Kakariko Village is now a Town, Hateno has grown into a full blown trade harbor, and a tiny village has started to form around the Hateno Tower, making Firly Overlook.

But what I most love is the City of Hylanay.

Back in the game, it was the ruins of the Lanayru Promenade. So I had the promenade rebuilt, then people moved in around it, and now, Hylanay’s basically Hyrulean Venice! I want to visit it.

On the Great Plateau, we’ve got Aboda Town, named after Spirit Tracks’ Aboda Village in reference to the starting point in each game. This Town has access to the original Temple of Time, but because of the nature of the isolated plateau, it doesn’t see a lot of new faces often.

Over around Thundra, we’ve got Tanagar Village overlooking the canyon, built out of the old Tabantha Stable. The village actually builds downwards into the canyon; people have windows carved right out of the cliff face!

Thundra Village is built into the rocky slopes surrounding Thundra Plateau and the Ridgeland Tower. Their houses are built in the shelter of the giant mushroom things that grow so well in the area, and they’re famous for their signature dish of escargot.

The Serenne Exchange is up north, encompassing both the old Serenne Stable and the Maritta exchange ruins. You can buy practically ANYTHING there; if ever there was a supermarket in Hyrule, it would be right there.

The Royal Lab was rebuilt out of its ruins post Calamity, and it’s directed by Purah, who still hasn’t cured her immortality yet. It’s not uncommon to hear explosions as you pass by that place.

And then Camp Rutile is a small observational outpost, meant to keep track of the activity on Satori Mountain. Supposedly, the mountain’s health reflects the state of the rest of the kingdom, so the researchers assigned there are tasked with monitoring it EXTREMELY closely.

And Hyrule Castle. It’s Hyrule Castle.

Now completely bolted into the ground! :D

If we put all these locations together, we get a very nice, very well populated Hyrule, with LOTS to see. This is how I would design the future of BotW’s Hyrule.

Thanks for reading!

[oceanera12]

Linked Wilderness (Part 1)

More Linked Universe featuring Wild and his sister! ... Wait, what sister?

I was going to do Sky next but this idea popped into my head and I couldn’t type it fast enough. Whoops?

“Soooo...” Twilight tapped his foot impatiently, “Are we in your world or not, cub?”

Wild frowned, trying his Sheikah slate for the hundredth time. “I mean, that’s Twin Peaks and that certainly looks like my Hyrule Castle in the distance.” He slammed his hand against the tablet, “But this thing isn’t working and there should be a shrine right there,” he pointed at an empty clearing near their current stable. “Also, I don’t recognize anyone here.”

“And that’s odd because...?” Sky asked.

Wild blushed. “Well, I’m pretty sure I’ve talked to everyone in existence in my Hyrule. Usually the strangers are Yiga in disguise. But even the stable owner is different!”

“So...” Time stood up from sharpening his blade. He slung the sword on his back and then crossed his arms, “This Hyrule could be yours in the future. So... a new hero?”

Legend rolled his eyes, “Seriously? We haven’t had a new member in months!”

“But it is a possibility,” Four replied, his eyes flashing violet for a second. “Maybe we should talk to someone?”

Wild hesitated. “Stables have people that come and go. The owner might have sold the place to another person. Not to mention that many people are coming back to Hyrule because the Calamity is gone. Let’s head to Hateno. It’s only half a day from here. We can figure it out from there.”

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Wild was very confused. On one hand, this was very much his Hyrule. On the other, there were too many differences to ignore.

The ruins looked “newer”, there were less travelers (and those that were traveling were very suspicious of the nine-band group), it felt like there were more enemies, and there were guardians.

Full-working guardians that wanted nothing more than to kill Wild again.

He really hated guardians.

Therefore the alleged “half-day” turned into a full day, with the battered and beaten group grumbling up to Hateno. No serious injuries (Four had most likely broken his ankle) but a night of rest sounded much too nice after the insanity of the day.

A blonde woman stood guard at the foot of town. Wild frowned at the sight of her. He did not recognize her. She wore a light pink tunic, tied with a turquoise sash. There was some old knight armor on her right arm and a light chainmail skirt that went to her knees. Under the mail, she wore simple trousers and boots. A sword was strapped to her side, along with a quiver and bow on her back.

The blonde watched the group approach, clearly on guard. “Halt and state your business!” She called out when they reached a respectful distance.

Wild stepped forward, “We’re looking for a place to rest.” He was not sure if he should bring up the fact that he owned a house in the village. He was not even sure if the house would be his, at this point.

The girl’s eyes widened at Wild. Her mouth dropped open and the color drained from her skin. Her drawn sword dropped every so slightly. She did not speak for a moment, only gaping is shock. 

Wild shifted uncomfortably. “Uh... are you alright, miss?”

Her expression turned hard, her next words a hiss. “How dare you.”

Wild flinched, despite himself. Something inside his gut twisted into tight knots. He didn’t like the girl upset. He wanted her to smile. His words were stuck in his throat and when he opened his mouth, nothing came out.

The girl brandished her sword at the group, her intentions very clear. “Leave now and I’ll grant you your lives you filthy traitors!”

Time put out his hands in surrender. “We’re not here to fight, nor do we wish you harm. But we have injured and need--”

“We don’t help Yiga here,” the girl hissed, her sword raising again. “Go back to your filth.”

Wild’s brain was too confused to make sense of what was happening.

Twilight stepped forward, “We’re no Yiga.” His gaze was suspicious. “Although, I’m beginning to suspect you are.”

The girl physically recoiled at the accusation. “I’m not the one with a fake hero!”

Legend and Twilight both growled in anger at that comment, the latter stepping in front of Wild in a protective matter. Several of the other Links came to the immediate defense of Wild, and at least one of them drew a sword.

“Link has given more--”

“--you little--”

“--dare you insinuate something so--”

“Wild is a good man!”

The girl was practically radiating anger now, her sword replaced with a bow at the blink of the eye. She roared, “MY BROTHER IS DEAD!” then loosed a warning shot that missed Hyrule by an inch. “NOW LEAVE BEFORE I CHANGE MY MIND!”

Wild’s scrambling mind came to a screeching halt at that.

Brother?

The rest of the group had a similar reaction, with most of them stepping back a few paces. Wind looked like he had been slapped, “You never said you had a sister!”

Wild’s head was starting to hurt. He squeezed his eyes shut and heard his current sword slam into the ground. “I... I don’t...” His hands came up and grasped his hair, “I don’t... I don’t... I don’t.” The headache suddenly spiked into a piercing flare. He dropped to his knees and actually screamed at the white, hot, dagger that was attempting to cut through the memory fog.

Someone was talking but all Wild could see was white and pain. This wasn’t right. Nothing was right. What in Hylia’s name was happening to him?

The last thing he remembered before succumbing to the white was a very soft voice.

“Big brother?”

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

It took much too long to get Wild inside his house.

Wind was helping the injured Four hobble across the wooden bridge to the very familiar house in Hateno... only this one did not have a sign that labeled the owner. In fact, this one had a horse in the stables.

Said horse cried out at the sight of the unconscious Wild. She trotted forward and blocked the path, licking and nuzzling his face in concern.

The sister hadn’t said a word since the gates, but she did so now. “Epona, dear, we need to get him inside.”

Wind suspected he wasn’t the only one who’s eyebrows shot up at that name, but no one said anything about it.

Epona nuzzled Wild one more time before trotting back her food.

“Good girl,” the sister smiled. She opened the front door. “Lay him near the fireplace. I’ll start up a fire.”

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

It took time to explain the group to Wild’s sister. She hadn’t interrupted once during the tale, nor had she stopped dabbing Wild’s forehead with a wet cloth. Time took point on the story, with people chiming in when they thought it important. Twilight explained what he knew about Wild’s adventure, including the amnesia thing.

The sister had taken it all in, in silence. When the tale finally ended, she remained silent for a long time. Gentle hands traced the scars on Wild’s face, tears filling her eyes. “So... my brother is somewhere in a cave right now on the Great Plateau... asleep?”

Time hesitated for a moment, cursing whoever made the portals and Hylia who had dropped them in Wild’s world. They had just gone back about a hundred years. It explained the increased Guardian activity, the lack of Shekiah technology, and, of course, the long forgotten sister. “I would assume so, miss. Yes.”

She closed her eyes and breathed out slowly. Tears streamed freely down her cheeks and a few broken sobs broke free.

Wind stood up and pulled the girl into a hug. She buried her face in his tunic and cried. The rest of the group quietly tended to Four’s leg and let her mourn.

The sobs slowed and she gently pulled back from Wind, a soft smile on her face. “Thank you... um...”

“Wind,” the boy smiled back. “I have a little sister too.”

“Oh!” the girl leaped to her feet. “Where are my manners, you all must be hungry! And I haven’t even introduced myself or asked for your names or--” she cut herself off, blushing furiously. “I’m Rhea**.”

The Links introduced themselves while Rhea started on dinner. Good cooking skills appeared to run in the family because Rhea’s stew smelled heavenly. Legend commented on this and Rhea smiled. “Mother taught Link, who then taught me.” Her smiled died a little. “I’m glad to hear he remembers some things...”

“What was Wild like? As a child?” Warriors leaned forward, eager.

Rhea thought for a moment. “Well... he’s always been a bit wild.” She laughed, “Did you know he was appointed as the princess’s knight because he deflected a laser from a runaway guardian with a pot lid?”

Twilight coughed up his stew. “He what???”

“It’s true!” Rhea laughed. “Link has always had an affinity for turning cooking tools into weapons.”

“Oh Hylia,” Legend groaned into his hands. “Please tell me the ladle thing hasn’t always been around?”

“It’s one of my first memories,” Rhea giggled. “Big brother Link keeping a stray moblin at bay with nothing but a wooden ladle... at least until father came in with his actual sword.”

Several Links groaned in annoyance. 

Perhaps it was the familiar sound that stirred Wild. He moaned loudly, causing a hush to fall over the group. Rhea grabbed a bowl of the stew and hurried to his side.

Wild opened his eyes, blinking into the fire. He jolted back from it out of pure instinct.

Rhea did not say anything, but put a hand on his shoulder. When Wild looked at her, she smiled and then gave him the bowl of stew. He looked at it suspiciously, before taking a small sip. His eyes widened and he quickly downed the rest of it.

Rhea appeared pleased. ‘I take that you like it?’

Wild started at the sign. It took a moment for the motions to process before nodding. ‘Yes.Thank you, ma’am.’

Rhea’s smile fell.

No one knew what to say. Wild looked around “his” house, clearly confused. The table was shoved in the corner, two beds were shoved against the wall, and there was no weapon displays on the walls.

“Where are we?” he asked no one in particular.

Twilight felt a stab of sympathy for Rhea. He knew all to well the pains of a sibling not recognizing you. “Cub... there’s no easy way to say this.” He pointed at the girl. “This is Rhea. Do you recognize her?”

Wild tilted his head and narrowed his eyes, clearly concentrating. “You were the guard at the gate.”

Rhea nodded, the expression stiff.

“Good,” Twilight encouraged. “Anything else about her seem... familiar?”

Wild squinted even harder. He rubbed his temples. After a long silence he finally sighed. “No.” He looked guilty. “Should I?”

Wind jumped up, clearly angry. “She’s your little sister, Wild! How could you ever forget her?”

“Wind!” Time reprimanded.

Wild blinked, looking back at Rhea. She waved, timidly before slipping into sign. ‘They told me what happened to you. I am sorry.’

“Are... are you really my sister?”

‘Yes,’ Rhea sighed heavily. ‘Although, it has been several years since your... disappearance. I have grown since then.’ She smiled. ‘I was only this tall when you last saw me.’ She held up her hand about a foot lower then her current height. ‘I was only eight. Now I am seventeen.’

Wild scrunched up his face again. He thought and thought and thought, before sighing. “I don’t remember... I’m sorry. Truely, I am.”

‘It’s fine,’ Rhea’s smile looked forced, but she did not appear angry. ‘I’ll go get more firewood. You rest.’ Then she turned and left the house.

Wild buried his face in his hands and moaned.

Twilight quickly sat down next to him. “It is okay, Wild. It is not your fault. She does not blame you for what happened.” He glared in the direction of Wind, “You have no control over your memories.”

Wind was receiving a very harsh and very quiet reprimand from both Warriors and Time. He looked sorry and had his head down in shame. The kid really needed to learn to think before he spoke.

Twilight turned his attention back to his prodege. “Think about it this way: now you can learn things about your past that you didn’t even know. Maybe the memories will come back, maybe they won’t. But do not give up hope. Alright?”

Wild looked down at his hands. He slowly looked up to reveal the tiniest of smiles. “Alright... Her name was Rhea, right?”

“Right,” Twilight smiled. “And you taught her to be an excellent cook.”

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

**-Okay, so I didn’t want to go with Linkle as the name (because who names their kids Link and Linkle. Seriously?) and I thought Aryll was the generic fall back for Wild’s sister’s name (just because Link’s spirit is reborn and always named Link does not mean his sister suffers the same fate). I did look into a few fanfictions to see what they went (and didn’t like any that I found), so I looked up names that meant something to do with nature. Rhea was the Greek goddess of “the mountain wilds” and I thought it suited her well enough.

On a semi-random note: did you all know that “Zelda” is a an old German name that means “dark battle”??? At least, according to the website I was on.

Also, stayed tuned for part 2!

Also part 3...

[dangerouslysmartslime]

My Little Pony The New Generation

Seems like the things that remembering of what happened in Generation 4 waws the olden times where the pony kinds were friends and didn’t use magic against each other. IE Generation 4 of the Friendship Pope. That the main character is a girl obsessed with the era of Generation. A lighthouse and Sunny will know, you stand up for what you believe in. Show everypony that we’re friends. That maybe today is that day! A father that loves his daughter with all his heart~! And the two colts that she was playing with, one of them she will see as an adult on her adventures as shown by the trailers and the other had the depressing note of wanting to be Sheriff, and everyone knows that Police Officers are reviled for keeping people in line, especially colored by their own bigotry, so insert the “Lois and Clark” Yikes. Sunny and her father write a letter to the unicorns and pegasi only to tell the story of Generation 4 to Sunny. A friend to fly around or float things, why can’t we be friends anymore? That is a great question, but we’ll figure it out together. And the drawings that she has as well as all the things she has of Generation 4 is so adorable!! Only to flash to when she’s an adult and the movie actually starts~! Sunny gets herself dressed with the same sort of pins I use on my hat. She gets ready her bag and she looks at pictures of her father in a way that mean it seems like he’s dead… And the movie goes into the first musical number. “Canter Logic” She goes on a ice cream run for a job, only for that colt who said he’s be a Sheriff to chase after her… And steal somepony’s milkshake and cookies… She gives a balloon to someone who wanted one, only for that one colt to continue being the worst pony in the movie so far in terms of douchbaggery. She is going and showing her enthusiasm for life while the colt continues to chase after her cleaning up all the kindness she wishes to do and come to University. A squad of critters like Fluttershy only he doesn’t actually like it. Annual presentation at Canterlot. Hey, come on! Sprout was actually just doing his job when Hitch was giving him orders. “Every year you sneak in and every year you try” As a friend not as a Sheriff, don’t? Someone litters and Sprout is continuing to be an asshole so I was right. So Sunny is mischevious only to find that this is a factory much like the memed on Rainbow Factory… Canter Logic is Phyllis Clovery, the mother of Sprout, and the actual biggest asshole. Oh wait, she actually is the main antagonist because she’s a bigot. Yep, markets her products for bigotry and wha… Ant-mind reading? And keeping eye on the sky doesn’t make sense… The earth pony balloon escape pack doesn’t work. Only for Sunny to try to protest it and she does it in a dumb way and her friend who is the Sheriff stops it by pulling the plug. “Aren’t you tired of being scared all the time? The truth is, we’re not in danger! We don’t need any of this Canter Logic junk!” Just imagine if you had a friend who could fly or do magic. That everything you hear is wrong when they could be friends and still could be! And “Phyllis is still a bigot.” To uphold it? Everypony includes Pegasi and Unicorns, “Then prove it” means she’s going to be go on an adventure. And the one friend that she has is an asshole to her because due to propaganda he says that it’s just an old filly story concocted by her father. She then looks to the sky and mourns her father once again, wishing he was here. Only for… Izzy Moonbow the Unocnr meets Sunny and all the bigots (IE everyone except Sunny) panics as the bigots… Really? That seems a little harsh. Well yeah, they’re bigots, what do you expect Izzy! Izzy plays it like a game of hopscotch only to get trapped by a trap because she was looking at Terminator Judgment Day. Hitch then lectures her. So, you’re named Sunny? Bye! Nice to meet you now! Hitch acts like he’s the only sane man, but in reality Izzy is just as enthusiastic as Sunny as being a silly dork. Nooo, I can’t make it float but I can open cans! Tada! No magic…  So the bigots keep being bigots and they flee. No magic? But we did have magic and that was many moons ago and everyone is racist because the magic leaves. Unicorn with no magic and everyone is a bigot. Earth ponies have a lot of bigoted stories while only 3 stories unicorns. What if they don’t! And then there’s the musical number 2. Neat… Two folks becoming friends who are looking out for each other like Sunny is friggin friendship pope with Pinkie Pie. So they get an apple to have a snack and continue trotting along to try to get to the land of Pegasi. Hitch is the “perfect guy” in terms of taking care of himself and Sprout is now the Interim Sheriff. Still think Phyllis is the villain. Only to find that yes, everyone is bigoted against each other because they think everyone else did something bad. And… Can Pegasi not fly? No, the butch pegasus is here “there’s no way we could, there’s no way we could!” The shield is.. Can you fly to the moon? Well I do like sneakers. And then modern Americana appears in Zephyr Heights… Royal bash for Queen Haven and Princess Pip the influencer. Of course… Pip Pip Hooray? Pegasi do have a Castle, and it even looks like they stole Canterlot and renamed it. And… Both of the Pegasi are royalty. Earth Pony and Unicorn in Zephyr Heights, and no, not an attack ya silly. And Hitch goes after them and… Sprout is here but people are revolting? Wait, no they aren’t. “We need a real Sheriff!” Only for him to get all fearmongerin. I see… Whispering danger danger.. Generation 1 is shown… “Follow me mindlessly!” Angry Mob ANGRY ANGRY. Influencer advertisments and… “We haven’t seen a single pony flying except the royal family. Only for a princess to.. Just call me Zip.Izzy Moonbow. Important about magic? How does your work? The unicorns lost theirs. No magic. “Well, that changes things. Her father’s journal, and that star is actually like Twilight Sparkle’s journal. “Only royals can fly because for some reason they have magic. Nicorn hair and Pegasi! Hitch is looking for them only to find that the Pegasi captured them. When unicorns and Earth Ponies visited Zephyr Heights and the Wonderbolts were seen in a picture. The truth is they can’t fly either but just faking by… Wires and good lighting… A “ridiculous lie.” To… Soar using a fan. A bright sparkle, says Izzy. Canterlot’s old Stained Glass. It’s seen right there and now each one is placed in order, fitting. The Crystals go together united. So if they put them back together magic would return… The unicorn crystal Bridlewood is had. The Queen never takes her crown off… Swap real crown with decoy. Stealthy and stealing the crown. Paying a guest a visit and Pip is told. No one can fly, it is just a stage show… Because of course, Pip is just an influencer using a stage show and of course aother song… While Sunny and Moonbow are doing the plot~… But the dog happens, where the small dog is like a guard dog. And Hitch is also finding them, then the recording staff is like “Prisoners have escaped!” And Hitch is put on stage… “What is happening. The Royals are revealed to not be able to fly either, and they accidentally drop the Crystal… “Arresting you and saving you.” The Queen’s daughter, oh the Sheriff just became detective. The models of the characters look so much like the toys, Pip and Hitch join the party! Meanwhile… Canter Logic creates war machines complete with Sprout sounding like Vader when he’s really just drinking a milkshake. “Just make it work, okay!” “My town mommy” And that he is “Now Emperor” From Defense to Offense. “All thanks to encouragement” Hitch and Pip whining about being in the party. Look, once everyone gets magic back they’ll be heroes! Crystal clear and he deodorant have his badge. Between you an d me, the badge was creating an unhealthy power dynamic. Fair point. And they start giving up at a bridge being broken, only for Izzy opening the entrance because she knows the way. Breaking open a tree using her horn. They make a fire only for Hitch to be a whiny man lighting a fire “come on, don’t be a hero dude, just come here by the fire.” And they’re good to be a team, just like the Mane 6 of Generation 4. Only for Izzy to look down that the idea of being together is the best thing to happen, that getting friends is better than just getting magic. From Sunny there was that friends in Maritime Bay. That someday they’d prove that all ponies are meant to be friends. That Hitch wants to do his part, “what do we have to lose, right!” Not far from all the SIGNS OF DEATH LIKE THIS IS THE EVERFREE FOREST. “The Villa Izzy~” And all the silly things that she made like Izzy’s friendship bracelets and a tea set… Only for Izzy to be sad for not having a tea party and… A glow up? Although they’re difference races they should unite like the ancient politics of the Friendship Pope~! Comes another song. And it was a fun song so I sang along. Unicorns are very superstitious as to have magic, feather, wing, and mayonnaises. No forbidden words like Mayonnaise. The Unicorn Crystal is owned by Alphabettle, and he can smell fear. “Tea” Hold, the milk, quite the game player I see, why, do you play? I don’t play I win?” Just Dance! Both ponies agree, best out of three! Only need to win one out three for Sunny. Round 3… Here that sunny, feel the Rhythm take you over! I’m feeling it, go Sunny! And she wins with some hype from Pip! Only for the horn to fall off! And a Unicorn! Which you knew already! No, stop… No, don’t. It’s time to run… No pony has magic, but we’re here to bring it back! It can sound unbelievable, but trying is best.  But nooo she needs the 2 out of 3. SHE NEEDS THE 2 out of 3!!! Ye, they don’t have to fight! Sprout makes a tank and he cackles menacingly. That they can be separated by gear and distrust, or there can be friendship and love between the races, like her father. Like her loving father. SO they unite and the reincarnation of the Friendship Pope. The reincarnation of the Friendship Pope has brought the Magic of Friendship to Equestria again.

[queenof-literature]

I absolutely loved the gerudo story a lot! If you are still taking ideas/suggestions may you please continue on with wild telling them about the others? I liked medoh and the rito the most lol but any will be awesome I loved how happy wild and the others were while hearing the story of Riju and nabrois.. thanks 💚💜

Thank you for your kind words! I turned this into a series on my AO3 (queenofliterature) since it has gotten multiple requests. I hope you enjoy and your cosplay is super cool!

“Pleeeeeease!” Wind continued to beg Wild over dinner. It had been a couple of days since Wild told the story about his time with the Gerudo, and Wind was desperate for Wild to tell more, as he had made very clear. Since the first story, they had traveled to Twilight’s Hyrule, although no villages were close enough to get to tonight.

“Dear Hylia. Wild please tell him another story before he explodes.” Legend yelled from across camp.

“Wind, Wild doesn’t need to tell us anything else if he doesn’t want to.” Time lectured Wind, who was attached to Wild’s back, arms wrapped around him like a stationary piggyback ride. Wild didn’t find himself minding. Ever since he had returned Wind’s hug the first night he told a story, the kid had seemed comfortable with attaching himself to Wild like he would Hyrule and Warriors. It was surprising at first, but Wild got used to it, and kinda liked it.

“Um that’s okay. I can tell more stories. I just don’t want them to be boring or anything. There’s no more dressing as a woman and seducing people for items or sneaking into Yiga bases.” Wild joked although he was slightly nervous about his other stories not measuring up.

“But you still have three more divine beats to go right?” Sky voiced curiously.

“And your fight against Ganon!” Warriors called.

“And all your crazy ideas along the way!” Hyrule finished as the rest of the group laughed, Wild included.

“Okay, just let me pass out dinner.”

Once again, the group was all gathered around the campfire, eyes on Wild. Wild still found it intimidating, but it was far less scary this time.

“Well… I guess I could tell you about the Rito?” There were some questions and confused murmurs among the group, except Wind, who lit up at the mention of the birds who lived on Dragon Roost Island.

“You have Rito in your Hyrule too?” Wind questioned excitedly.

“Yeah I do. Do the rest of you not?” There were ripples of no’s throughout the camp.

“Oh, well they’re basically really big, talking birds? That might be an offensive way to describe them. They’re like Zora are to fish I guess.” Wild stated awkwardly. He didn’t really expect to have to explain what a Rito was.

“I can just show you!” Wild remembered he had a picture of Kass and his children on his slate. When they first saw the Sheikah Slate, all five of the girls had crowded around him and demanded to see it. When they saw the photo rune, they wanted him to take a picture of them and their mother and father. He told them he had no way to let them have a copy or anything, but they just wanted to be with him in his travels. It was a very sweet sentiment and Wild absolutely loved that picture.

“Oh wow, you weren’t kidding about them being giant birds.” Hyrule commented when Wild flipped his slate around for them to see.

“They look a bit different from the Rito from my Hyrule but that’s kinda been a common theme among all of us.” Wind noted.

“They’re very nice and welcoming people.” Wild confirmed as he put the slate back on his hip. “When I first got to the village, I had to walk up a whole bunch of bridges that just kept getting higher and higher. The Rito were really upset and worried, since the Divine Beast, Vah Medoh, was causing chaos and shooting anyone down that flew up too high.” Wild remembered the ear-piercing screech that greeted him when he first arrived. All of the Divine Beasts had a call, but none were quite like Medoh’s.

“Oh no that’s awful! The Rito love to fly! Was anyone hurt?” Wind questioned, genuinely concerned for the villagers.

“Unfortunately yes. Some men went up to try and defeat Medoh, but one got shot down and hurt his wing, his name is Harth. He’s alright now. The Rito that went with him, Teba, got him to safety and was planning to face Medoh once again. I spoke with the chief of the village, named Kaneli. He’s very kind, and he has a very deep and hearty laugh.” That was one thing about Wild the group had noticed. He always remembered odd or specific details of people. It may be connected to his loss of memory, but that was simply the person he was. He wanted to get to know as many people as he could and help them when needed.

“So do any of the leaders know that you’re the hero from 100 years earlier?” Four questioned. He really hoped he wasn’t crossing a line by asking, he was just truly curious.

“It kinda depends. The Zora live to be centuries old, so most of them knew me, well… the old me.” Wild stated uncertainly. The rest of camp knew Wild’s struggles with his past self, almost seeing him as a different person than the one they knew now. They were slightly curious about what Wild was like before. They would never trade Wild for anything, but it would be interesting to see how much he had changed. Twilight, who was sitting on Wild’s left, put a gentle hand on his shoulder, while Legend scooted a little closer on Wild’s right, almost unnoticeable to everyone but Wild.

“The Gorons didn’t care all that much, just as long as I could board Rudania. Riju knew that I was friends with Urbosa, or that she at least sent me. And the Rito thought I was the champion’s descendant.” Some snickers left the group at that.

“Hey, I tried to tell him it was really me, but I didn’t have the Master Sword yet. Even then, I’m not sure if he would have believed I was the actual champion, but he was worried for his people. He asked me to help them with the Divine Beast since I was the only one who could board it.”

“Why are you the only one who can board it?” Warriors asked.

“Well, I don’t have a solid answer for you, but it’s because I’m the Hylian Champion.” Wild answered. There wasn’t a scientific answer he could really give, that’s all he really knew.

“Wait, since you’re a champion, do you have a Divine Beast too?” Hyrule exclaimed, eyes shining with anticipation and mischief. Oh Hylia, if WIld had one of those things and he and Hyrule teamed up... Please say no, please say no, please say-

“Well, sorta.” Wild rubbed the back of his neck as gasps (and some groans) arose around him. “It’s very small, smaller than a horse. But it has two wheels and it’s faster than anything I’ve ever ridden. It’s loud though and has to be powered by materials. I’ll show you when we get back to my Hyrule, I’ve tried summoning it here and it doesn’t work.” Wild wished he had a picture of it, but he would show them the real thing soon.

“That sounds amazing!” Surprisingly Hyrule didn’t yell this, but Legend did. He blushed, realizing how loud it was. The rest of the group chuckled. Legend could pretend to be snarky and cool all he wanted, he was such a nerd for new items.

“It really is. I can run over so many monsters, and jump off so many cliffs without getting hurt! And it goes over pretty much any terrain! I just have to be careful not to fall backward down a hill or something. But that doesn’t happen often and-” Wild rambled on, oblivious to the look of horror on Twilight’s face.

“Um, Cub. We love hearing about your Hyrule but… I think you’re going to give Twilight a heart attack.” Time teased, looking at his protege’s face.

“Hehe. Whoops.” Wild laughed, the rest of the heroes joining in, except for Twilight of course who simply glared at his mentor.

“Anyway.” Wild continued, still giggling a little. “The elder sent me to Teba’s wife and child, who begged me to go to the Flight Range and stop him. She said that I could just jump off the Revali’s Landing, a platform named after the Rito Champion from a hundred years ago.”

“Did you remember him at this point?” Sky questioned reluctantly. Like Four, he was nervous about crossing a line.

“I actually remembered him when I looked at the landing.” Wild’s eyes grew slightly distant. “Revali was a complete and utter asshole.” There were surprised huffs of laughter from around the group. That certainly wasn’t what they were expecting. “But… I understood why.” Wild stared into the fire. “He was hurting I think. I got to read his journal and he worked really hard to develop Revali’s Gale, the wind I use now. He worked to become the best archer and protect his village. And then, some random Hylian kid comes and takes the Master Sword and becomes the princess’ appointed knight. He always taunted me, kinda telling me that I was only getting to fight Ganon because of the sword, while he had to sit in his Divine Beast. But I got the sword when I was twelve, and my training started long before that from what I can remember. And I don’t - I don’t think I ever wanted that.” Wild’s breathing hitched the tiniest bit. Not enough to be noticed by anyone who didn’t know him, but this group knew him well.

Twilight instantly pulled him into a hug, and Wild didn’t fight it. He didn’t cry or feel a huge panic coming on, but the hug felt nice all the same.

“It sucks that Revali went through that Wild.” Warriors stated, smiling at the teen gently. “But that is not your fault. You didn’t choose the sword, the sword chose you.” Wild nodded from where his head was on Twilight’s shoulder, before pulling himself away gently. Meanwhile, Time cursed Hylia in his mind, again. Twelve… He understood there was a fight coming, he really did, but this boy was only twelve. No, he was younger when he was forced into training. Wild mentioned to Time when talking about Mipha that he traveled there with knights as a child. He was a child. He still was a child… Time pulled himself out of his own head. There was no changing Wild’s past. That was over one hundred years ago. They could help him now.

“I’m sorry, Wild.” Wind sighed out. “I didn’t mean to bring out bad memories.”

“You didn’t, bud.” Wild reassured. “Sometimes memories just come into my head, even if I’ve seen them before. I wouldn’t tell you if I didn’t trust you.” That halted the camp entirely. Wild had made a lot of progress in trusting them, but they were happy to hear him say it. Before they could dwell too much on what Wild said, he continued his story.

“So anyway, I talked to Harth, the Rito that broke his wing, and a couple of other Rito. Including the girls you all saw in the picture. They’re Kass’ daughters!” Wild stated excitedly. He told them previously about Kass and how much he adored hearing his songs. Wind once asked Wild to sing one, but he blushed a bright red and furiously refused. Wind bet Wild had a pretty voice and he was just embarrassed about it…

“Their mother was worried sick for her children, along with the other parents in the village, and the children were all disappointed they couldn’t fly and play. Well one didn’t want to go to singing practice, but I still had to get the Divine Beast under control as fast as possible. So I bought the Snowquill Set that keeps you really toasty and rushed to the Flight Range to help Teba. When I got there, Teba said he didn’t need any help but I insisted. So he told me that he would challenge my archery skills.” The group leaned in, what sort of test? “He made me shoot five targets in three minutes with my paraglider.” Wild stated in a deadpan voice. The boys froze, then burst out laughing. Wild could shoot three arrows at once, sometimes five with the proper bow! Five targets in three minutes were nothing! Wild chuckled along with the group. He wasn’t arrogant with his archery, but five targets in three minutes was a little too easy. He expected Teba to continue challenging him, but he never did.

“So he gave me some bomb arrows and told me to jump on his back, we were gonna go defeat the Divine Beast.” Wild continued.

“Woah wait, already? Didn’t the other Divine Beasts take you a little time to get too?” Warriors questioned.

“Well Naboris took a little more time since the Yiga clan were causing trouble, but there was nothing else I could do to prepare.” Wild shrugged. “So we flew up into the clouds, Vah Medoh was huge up close! It had a giant courtyard type structure on its back! And it could shoot lasers and had a shield around it! So while Teba distracted it, I used the updrafts to shoot at all four points the shield was powered by. Unfortunately, Teba got grazed by the lasers. He was okay, but he had to land. So I started the puzzles in Vah Medoh. They were so fun! There was one where I had to get in this ride on a track and tilt the beast so I got to ride to the other side! And I was so high up!” Wild continued rambling on about the puzzles he had to solve.

The other boys in the group smiled softly. One of the reasons they enjoyed Wild telling stories was because of how excited he would get while telling the parts that didn't haunt him. The others sometimes struggle with Wild’s Hyrule because of the ruins of the structures they know, but Wild truly loved it, which made sense, it was just like the hero who came from it, wild and untamed.

“So finally all the puzzles were done and all the terminals were unlocked, and the main control unit was unlocked. Like the others, when I put my slate up the control unit, a Ganon Blight came out. This time it was Windblight Ganon. He was easier than the others, but still hard. He could summon tornados! And I had to rely on arrows a lot since he flew out where I couldn’t reach him. But eventually, I got his health down enough for the final blow. When I activated the main control unit, Revali appeared.” Wild smile became bittersweet like it did when he talked about any of his friends from one hundred years ago. “He teased me again, but this time, it seemed more friendly and less bitter. He gave me Revali’s Gale so I wouldn’t always have to rely on cliffs and high places for my paraglider. I went back to see Harth and Teba, and they and their families were fine! The elder thanked me a lot and gave me Revali’s old bow. It’s in my house with the rest of the champion’s items. I used them against Ganon. A little bit to avenge the other champions. You know?” Wild looked to find them all staring at him. “Uh… The end?” Wild ended awkwardly, not knowing what else to say. The rest of the group seemed to snap out of it. Wild was amazing. And highly intelligent. His stories of battles and puzzles and shrines only proved that. Once again, just like when he ended the first story, Wind crashed into Wild and knocked the breath out of his lungs.

“You’re a great storyteller Wild!” Wind cried happily.

“The sailor’s right, Cub.” Twilight smirked, but the kind look in his eyes betrayed his teasing lilt.

“Well, that was a perfect little bedtime story.” Legend yawned and clapped Wild on the back.

“Legend is right, it’s getting a little late. Warriors, you have first watch right.”

“Yeah, yeah. I know Old Man.” Warriors huffed but smiled and ruffled Wild’s hair as he passed, earning a lot of protests to which Warriors just laughed at.

The rest of the group thanked Wild for the story and headed to their bedrolls. The Links were happy that Wild was talking more, and didn't want to make a huge deal out of it and scare him into science once again. But they also wanted him to know they appreciate him trusting them enough to tell them of his trials.

After making sure no one needed his help with anything, Wild collapsed into his bedroll. He enjoyed telling the others his stories, but he still wasn’t used to talking for long amounts of time.

A couple of minutes later, Twilight, who was preparing his own bedroll, realized he hadn’t heard Wild shuffling about like he normally did. He turned around to ask if he was okay, only to see him completely conked out on top of the blankets, apparently tired from talking so much in one night. He snorted softly at the smaller teen, before slowly going over and tucking him in. If Wild wasn’t completely passed out, he would have denied what he called being treated like a child, but there wasn’t a single protest as Twilight lifted Wild slightly and put him under the covers, tucking them around him. There was only a small sound that Twilight absolutely would not admit not to find adorable, as Wild snuggled into the blankets covering him. Time hummed slightly, making Twilight turn around.

“He was too young.” Time said solemnly, referring to what Wild told them earlier that night. Twilight had similar thoughts. Wild had told him after a memory that he was only twelve when he got the Master Sword. Twilight knew he was too young. A lot of the group was.

“Yeah… But he has us now.” Twilight smiled at Time, who looked at his pup with pride in his eyes. Those who weren’t asleep or didn’t have the first watch were soon wrapped in their bedrolls peacefully, the only sound being crickets chirping around them.

[star-mum]

LIVE REACTION TO NIGHTMARE TIME EP 1

Idk if anyone would even be interested in reading this but as I was watching the show last night I kept writing down my reactions on my notes so here we are

*this is all in caps idk why just roll with it*

THE OPENING SONG IS SUCH A BOP OMG NICK LANG HIMSELF ?????? MONSTER FUCKER RIGHTS ???? HIDGENS ENTRANCE HOW ICONIC "LUCY IS HAVING NONE OF IT" I LOVE THAT OMG JOEY PLAYING KONK (?) IS SUCH A POWER MOVE I LOVE THAT THE BEGGINING IS JUST TARZAN FANFIC SKSKSKSKS MARIAH IS TEXTING JOHN (?) AND HES LAUGHING SM WE LOVE A COMEDY QUEEN I LOVE THEM USING THE ZOOM BACKGROUNDS SKSKSKS KONK IS AWFULLY CLOSE TO COCK AND I THINK ITS ON PURPOSE ?? SPECIALLY WITH THE LAG I HAD TO DO A DOUBLE TAKE SOMETIMES SKSKSKS SOMEONE JUST SAID "TED'S ORIGIN STORY" ON CHAT AND I LOST IT !!!!! COULD YOU IMAGINE ???? HANDSOME LADY ? I MEAN SURE TIGHT JOHN IS LOSING IT FUCK MAN, SAME CURT OMG THAT ACCENT OOOOOOOOHHHH BOY I KNEW IT WAS HER FIANCEE SHIIIIT WE CANNOT TRUST HIM I KNOW THIS !!! "ENTAGLED" SKSKS WHAT SIR HES GAY CHILL OUT WHATS THE YEAR, IT FEELS SO OLD TIMEY "I'D SAY YOU HAD FEELINGS FOR THIS APEMAN" OOOOOOOHHHH DONT U SAY JONATHAN IS A PUSSY BITCH I CAN TELL LUCY JUST DROP IT OH SHE ACTUALLY DID ????? FUCK IT UP BABE

(I JUST ACIDENTALY DELETE HALF OF WHAT I WROTE SHIT, ILL HAVE TO REWRITE IT FROM MEMORY) WHAT THE FUCK THEY WERE TRICKING US??? THEY CALLED IT, WHAAAAAAAAT WDYM "PLAY THE PROFESSOR" IS HE NOT A PROFESSOR WHAT ALTERNATE REALITY IS THIS I NEED TO KNOW

ARE THEY GONNA FUCKING KILL HIM WHAT??? SINGING LONDON BRIDGE WHILE CHASING SOMEONE IS MY FAV SCARY TROP HAHAHHA YEEEEESSS "TOOK OFF WDYM" GIRL HE IS HOLDING A GUN WHAT DO YOU THINK "WDYM" WHY DID HE KEEP THE KONK ACT AFTER LUCY LEFT SKSKSKSKS TED WTF SKSKSKS "I DO SOME OF MY BEST THINKING WHEN IM ERECT" HAHAHAHA TED LIKES TO BE A HIMBO THATS GREAT IS HE GOING TO KILL TED ?? AAAAAAAHHHHHH TED HE HAS A GUN PLZ DONT TEST HIM HE HAS ALREADY KILLED A MAN OOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHH FUUUUUUUUCK RECAST???? WHO IS TAKING TED'S ROLE ????? OH SO ITS NOT OLD TIMEY AFTER ALL RED SOMETHING???? OH TED'S GONNA PROPOSE IS SHE GONNA SAY NO? SHES GONNA SAY NO RIGHT ? FUUUUUUUUCK HAHAHHAHA WHY IS HE NAKED ??? JAHAHHAHA WHAT WHAT IS HAPPENING TED WHAT ? "PROFESSOR SHOULD GO FUCK HIMSELF" HAHAHAHA PORNHUB PREMIUM ACCOUNT HAHAHAH "OOOoooOOoOoOoOoOohhHhhHh BUT IT IS" FUCK NO DONT KILL HER OOOOOOOOOHHHH TED'S DEAD SHIT OOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHH ROBERT'S ACTING IS *CHEF'S KISS* DAMN OH SHIT TED *NOW* TED IS DEAD FUCK HIDGENS IS HERE NOOOOOOOOOOO IS HE GONNA KILL HER ??? OH SHIT OH FUCK LUCY'S CAUGHT IN  A BEAR TRAP WHY ARE PPL SAYING WORKING BOYS IN THE CHAT ??? OH THATS WHY !!!!!! YEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAHHH MINE IS A LITTLE BEHIND IS SHE BROKE ??????? OOOOOOOOHHHHHHHH HAHAHAHAHA I KNEW IT HIDGENS GOT PLAYED THATS ON YOU BUDDY OH FUCK HIM UP LUCY ! BECKY BARNES ????? HATCHFIELD LORE ???? WAS SHE RUNNING AWAY FROM HIS HUSBAND IS THAT WHY SHE CLIMBED A TREE APE MAN SHOW UP PLZ WHO IS IT THO ?????? JEFF HELL YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH FUUUUUUUUUUUUCK JESUS CHRIST APE MAN YEEEEAAAHHH WOOLY FOOT ?????? IS IT CHUMBY???? OOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHH HAHAHA YEEEEAAHHH HOW DID HIDGENS KNOW ????? OH IS IT OVER ?????? NOOOOOOOOOOOO I WANTED MORE ;-----; THIS WAS SO GOOD THO OOOHHH FUCK ANOTHER MUSIC NUMBER JAMIE YOU LOOK AMAZING !!!!!!!!!! I CANT WAIT FOR THESE SONGS TO BE AVAILABLR FOR US (IN LIKE 3 YEARS CAUSE IM BROKE SKSKSKSK) HE DANCES THE CAN CAN ?????? OKAY I SKIPPED A BIT TO BE ON TIME WITH EVERYBODY "ARE YOU FUCKKING HIGH????" YEEEEEEEEEAH PART 2 BABEY !!!!! NICK'S HAIR LOOKS AMAZING OMG OH ???????? BILL AND ALICE !!!!!!!!!!!!!! GOD I MISSED THEM !!!!!!!!! OH THE TEEN ANGST I LOVE BILL SM HE'S SUCH A GOOD DAD DEB ????WHY WOULD U HURT BABY ALICE LIKE THIS ???? "I MIGHT NEVER SEE DEB AGAIN" GOD ALICE CHILL OUT LET HER BE A PLAY WRITER BILL CMON "MY BUDDY PAUL" AAAAAAHHHHHHHHH BLINKY ??? I DONT TRUST THAT AT ALL FUCK NO JOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHNNNN I DONT TRUST HES CHARACTER THO OOOOHHH LOVE DISCOUNTS I DIDNT LIKE THE WORKER CALLING HER PRINCESS THO, SHES BILL'S DAUGHTER NOT YOURS OOOOOOHHHHHH NO OH NONONONOONO BILL IS GOING TO DIE I JUST KNOW IT BLINKY IS EVIL I CAN FEEL IT ALICE NO NO LITTERING WHORE JAMES !!!!!!!!!! ALICE IS ALSO GOING TO DIE MAYBE RIGHT NOW WHO KNOWS BLNKY WTF SHE IS A MINOR WTF AAAAAH I DONT LIKE IT HERE JAMES ILY BUT THIS CHARACTER IS CREEPY AS SHIT I DONT LIKE IT HAHAHAH TIGHT LOVE THEME PARK STUPID SHIRTS "I DIDNT KNOW YOU WERE FUNNY" HAHAHAHAH DROWSY TOWN ? THE CHAT PULLED MY ATTENTION TO THAT BUT I DONT GET WHY ? IS THIS BAD "I'D FOLLOW YOU ANYWHERE" THIS IS SUCH A DAD THING TO SAY OH ALICE CMON DONT SAY THAT BILL CUT IT OUT WITH DECIDING YOUR KIDS FUTURE THATS NOT FUN OH GOD I DONT TRUST THAT NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO NO NO NO NO "AHOY BOYS AND GIRLS" NO NONONONONO UNCLE WILEY FUCK OFF THE SNIGGLES NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO FUUUUUUUUUCK NOOOOO AHHHHHHHHHHHHH "WE'RE THE SNIGGLES DONT BE SCARED" YOU KNOW WHAT SNIGGLES I AM SCARED BUT HELL YEAH SONG TIME OOOOOOOHHH FUCK IT UP JAMES OH ARE THEY GONNA LIKE GIVE THE AUDIENCE A SLEEP INDUCING DRUG OR SOMETHING ??????? "DONT BLINK" AHAHAHA I DONT TRUST THAT AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH "GREAT WE'RE DEAD" HAHAHAH THE SONG WAS A BOP THO "WHAT ARE THE SNIGGLES?" GREAT QUESTION ALICE "NOW U KNOW HOW I FELT WHEN I HAD TO SEAT THROUGH DEH" HAHHAHAHA "SEE U IN A SNIG" HAHAHA SNIGGLETTE ???U OKAY BBY??? OOOOOOOOHHH MORE SONGS HELL YEAH I LOVE ANGELA'S VOICE SM THE SNIGGLE PUNS ARE KINDA CONFUSING ME NGL WHY WAS THAT SO SAD OMG OOOOOOOH SHIT OH FUCK THEYRE GONNA KILL HER I JUST KNOW IT OMG "PRAISE THE WATCHER" OH MY GOD PLZ DONT KILL HER "UNTIL HE'S SEEN EVERYTHING" W H A T LAUREN'S VOICE SKSKSK SO CUTE PAPA SNIGGLE I DO NOT TRUST YOU THOSE ARE ALIVE ARENT THEY ????? OH FUCK SNIGGLETTE IS SHE OKAY ????????? "ANGELA R U ALRIGYT" WHAT "SHUT UP JEFF" OH MY GOD I DONT LIKE WHEN THEYRE SELF AWARE SKSKSKSK " U CAN SHUT THE HELL UP LAUREN" HAHAHAHA BILL OMG HE'S SUCH A DAD HAHAHAHAH ALICE IS SO NICE DO THEY NOT KNOW "ARON AROOON" HAHHAHA OH CHURROS I LOVE THOSE THE GIRL SHE DOESNT LIKE ?????? OH NON BINARY RIGHTS LOVE IT "IS THIS A FRIEND OF ZIGS" OH LOVE RESPECTFUL DAD DEB NOT COOL OH ALICE SHIT ALICE BBY IF SHES CHEATING ON YOU THATS NOT ON UR DAD STOP SHITTING ON HIM LIKE THIS "ITS UR MOTHERS FAULT" OH MY GOD HAHAHHAHA GREG AND ALISON ? AND BETH ?? DOES BETH LIKE HER ????OH NOOOOOO GREG NO U SHITTY SON OF A BITCH GOD FUCKING PUNCH HIM OH  NO HAHAHA FUCK NO THEYRE ALL POSESSED ARENT THEY THATS THE TEEN FROM THE MOVIE THEATER HAHAHHA "it lagged ;-; now we wait" A MAN IN A HURRY HAHAHAHHA OH SHIT BILL IS MAD IS HE POSESSED TOO ??????? OH SHIT WHATS HAPPENING BLINKY ????????? OH NO OH NO SHES GONNA HAVE A PANIC ATTACK THEYRE GONNA BE FINE RIGTH ??????? RIGHT ???? BREATHING EXERCISES BABY CMON OH NO PLZ DONT DO ANYTHING STUPID BILL NOOOOOOOOOOO BILL PLZ DONT DIE AGAIN I LOVE YOU SM PUT UR SEATBELT BACK ON PLZ NOOOOOOOOO OH THEYRE BOTH GOING TO FALL ARENT THEY OH NO OH MY GOD OH SHIT PHONE IS BROKEN OOPS AWN IM GONNA CRY PLZ LET THEM SURVIVE I BEG YOU NICK LANG OOOOOOOOH TWILIGHT BUT GAY I AM *HERE* FOR IT OOOOOH THANK GOD THEYRE SAFE THANK YOU NICK LANG BILL YOURE SUCH A GOOD DAD OH GOD SHIT ALICE CHILL OUT ITS JUST A PHONE BABE "SHE KNOWS IM WATCHING HER" I DONT TRUST THAT IS *SHE* POSESSED OR IS THIS JUST TEEN ANGST ALICE UR DAD IS TRYING HIS BEST PLZ CUT HIM SOME SLACK OH MARIAH TURNED HER CAMERA OFF OH DEAR GOD WHAT DOES THAT MEAN HAHAH I LOVE LIVE BLOOPS OH MY GOD BLINKY IS TERRIFYING FUCK NO DO NOT GET THAT WIGGLY JUNIOR BILL DONT HOW ??????? OH MARIAH IS BACK WHAT DOES THIS MEAN ??????? WHY CANT BILL GET THE MALLET THING DONT TAKE IT YES SMART LAUREN ? SKSKKSS WHAT MADAM IRIS I DO NOT TRUST YOU WHAT ?????? IS THAT ALICE'S PHONE ???? BILL DONT GET SCAMMED OH ITS AN ALL SEEING IPHONE ALICE CHILL PLZ IS HE GONNA DIE ????? PLZ NICK DONT DO THAT ALICE DONT DONT KILL UR DAD 49.95 AGAIN BILL PLZ TRY ANOTHER GAME JAMES DAMN THATS RUTHLESS BILL WHAT AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH IS THAT REAL ???????? IT CANT BE ??????? OH ITS NOT REAL ARE THEY MAKING THEM HATE THEIR FAMILIES AND KILL EACH OTHER ?? A TENDER KISS ON THE CHEEK FROM A DEMON HOW NICE GUYS PLZ JUST GO TO THERAPY I BEG U WHAT ARE U GONNA DO BILL? KICK HER HEAD ??????? (SORRY I HAD TO) BLINKY'S FUNHOUSE THAT SOUNDS WARM AND COMFORTING THIS IS LIKE THE OPPOSITE OF NOT UR SEED FIGHTING IN THE MIRROR PART OF A FUN HOUSE IS ALWAYS A GOOD HORROR MOVIE TROPE OH FUCK ARE THEY GONNA WAKE UP OH FUCK PLZ WAKE UP ESCAPE THIS ALIVE YEEEEAAAAAAHHHHH OH SHES GONNA SHOOT HIM ISNT SHE ????? SHES GONNA SHOOT HIM I JUST KNOW IT HES AWAKE SHES NOT IS BLINKY GONNA KILL THEM ?? OOOOOOOOHHHHHH FUCK I KNEW IT OH HELL YEAH ALICE FUCK IT UP ARE THEY GONNA DROW ?? OH NO OKAY DID THEY SURVIVE ???? IS SHARED TRAUMA GONNA SAVE THEIR RELATIONSHIP SKSKSKKS THEY SURVIVED !!!!!!!!! THANK YOU NICK LANG (AGAIN) WAIT HOW DID SHE GET HER PHONE BACK ? OH MADAM IRIS DID GIVE HER PHONE BACK AWWNNNNNNNN ALICE THIS ONE HAD A HAPPY ENDING YAY WELL IG THE OTHER DID TOO BUT NOT FOR THE CHARACTERS WE KNEW

THIS WAS SO GOOD I LOVER STAKID !!!!!!!!!!! I JUST WISHED I WASNT BROKE SO I COULD PAY FOR THE NEXT ONES KSKSKSKSK WILL BE WAITING FOR YOU GUYS TO DO YOUR REACTIONS FOR THE NEXT ONES !!!

I HEARD GREG AND IT WAS CRAIG SKSKKSSK OOPS

*from this part on is reactions from after the show when starkid was answering questions from the chat*

YEEAAH VOTE FOR BIDEN HELL YEAH STARKID

"THE WITCH IN THE WEB" WEBBY ???????? DO WE GET TO SEE HANNAH AGAIN ?????

A THEORY ON TUMBLR FROM REDDIT ON A INSTAGRAM ACC ON YT OH MY GOD SKSKSKSKKS

THE STORIES ARE CANON !!!!!!!!! THEORIES LETS GO GANG

STARKID FANS WHO CAN DONATE TO STARKID PLZ DO I WISH I COULD DONATE TO THESE TALENTED PPL G O D

I WAS CORRECT IT WAS KONK WITH A K

NERDY PRUDES MUST DIE YES!!!!!! WORKING BOYS !!!!

"NICK LANG IS A BOSS"

MARIAH: SAYS FUCK AS ALICE ALSO MARIAH: GEEKED THE *FREAKED* OUT

TIP JAR HAS BEEN OUT FOR 11 YEARS HELL YEAH

HOW TF DO YOU SPELL ZIGGS BTW

OOOHHH THEYRE FAKE THAT MAKES SENSE OK NOT FAKE COMFIRMED BUT PROBABLY FAKE LETS HOPE DEB DIDNT ACTUALLY CHEAT

"WELL I WAS BORN IN 1989" HAHAHAHA

BECKY CLIMBED WHILE RUNNING FROM HER HUSBAND I FEEL LIKE THATS WHAT THATS ABOUT

OH GOODIE I GET TO WATCH THEM LATER IDK WHEN BUT AT LEAST IK SOMEDAY

BLINKY VS WIGGLY

OH CMON NICK I WANTED TO KNOW ;-;

THIS WAS SO NICE I MISSED THEM ;-;

[the-siren-and-the-sailor]

    It is the middle of spring, and a party is in full swing at twilight. The setting sun creates a backdrop for the island where a glowing tent buzzes with music. Dancing silhouettes can be seen playing across the canvas; a husband and wife waltz, a group of women twirl in intricate patterns, and a man with hooves stamps his feet to the beat with the crowd. Every pairing imaginable is present for the festivities. Well... All except one.

   “We really shouldn’t be doing this...”

   “What are you, a pussy? Just help me with this.”

   “Mother and Father will be so upset!”

   “C’mon Enny, you know I don’t care. Now come and be my eyes already!”

   Tokos is, as per usual, staring ahead blankly, with the largest, dopiest grin known to man spread across his face. His brother Enoch, on the other hand, looks around worriedly, in part for the candle they sought, but mostly for their parents.

   “What’s the hold up? Your sunlight won’t stick around forever. We gotta do this, now or never!”

   As much as it pains him to admit it, Enoch, too, is curious. Their parents had always told them to stay away from the island cave, the one whose caverns were said to stretch far down underground, deep beneath the sea. They had never heard of anyone going in before, and in classic adolescent fashion, decided that they would be the first (well, Tokos decided, or so Enoch likes to tell himself).

   But at last, the candle is found, and Enoch’s hope of behaving properly- despite his brother, for once- quickly dwindles.

   “What’s it matter to you if we have light, anyway?”

   “It doesn’t. But it does to you, that’s why I timed the sunset just right, so you’d have plenty. And the candle will help you when we go further in. See how smart I am, Enny? Aren’t I a genius?”

   “Alright, Tokos, I get it. Can we just go now?”

   “After you, princess!”

   Enoch rolls his eyes and swats his brother on the head before making his way to the entrance of the cave. It looms before them, a foreboding gap in the hill that seems for all the world like a rite of passage, just waiting to be conquered. They arrive at it’s mouth and Enoch looks to his brother for reassurance, finding the same unseeing, milky grey eyes he’s always known. Both draw in deep breaths, take one another’s hands, and take their first steps into oblivion’s maw.

   Their steps are tentative at first, but they soon trek forward a little ways more, neither saying a thing. Enoch holds the candle low at his side out of a lack of need, until he realizes he isn’t anymore and is relying on it’s light alone to guide him.

   “Tokos, how far would you say we’ve gone by now?”

   “I dunno, further than anyone else ever has. Why?”

   “There’s no more sunlight. We must’ve been on a downward slope without realizing it...”

   “Well, do ya still have the candle?”

   “Well, yes, but-” Enoch stops and lets go of Tokos’ hand. What was this on the wall, here? “Tokos. Tokos, I’ve found something!”

   “What? What is it?” He sounds excited. 

   “It’s an inscription, carved into the rock. Not our language, but it is our letter system. I’ll try to read it...” Enoch struggles his way through the foreign words, doing his best to pronounce each one correctly. He slowly gets through each sentence, working his way through every word, before finally reaching the last one.

   But just as soon as he finishes, a strong gust of wind blows through the cave, snuffing out the light of the candle and leaving them in complete darkness. Enoch yelps in surprise, dropping the candle and grabbing Tokos’ hand.

   “What is it? What’s wrong?”

   “Didn’t you feel that wind? It smothered the flame, and now I can’t see a thing!”

   “Wow, that must be so hard for you.”

   “You said you needed me to be your eyes and I was!” Enoch’s voice raises in frustration. He huffs. “Now neither of us can see.”

   They quiet down after their moment of alarm, both rooted in place and thinking hard. An instant passes and Tokos sniffs the air and trudges his feet in place.

   “Well, I smell water up ahead, not dirt, so our backs must be facing the entrance. I also feel a bit of mud, so if we want out we’d have to go backwards until we feel dry ground again.”

   “Oh, now you want to leave? You’re the one who dragged us into this in the first place. Now we might not find our way out...”

   Tokos pulls his hand away from Enoch’s. “What are you talking about? I just told you a way! What, you don’t trust me?”

   “No, that’s not it! Besides, even if we do get out, Mother and Father will be furious. And, they’ll know it was you who wanted to go here from the start!”

   “And you who went along with me! Besides, ‘even if’? I’ve been getting around this way my whole life and now you doubt me? And anyways, name one time Mama and Papa have been cross with us.” There is now a trace of venom to Tokos’ words. “You’re just being a pussy again.”

   Before Enoch can quip back, however, he is stopped by a sound from deep within the cave. Not a sudden shriek, but a low, subtle, almost faint, guttural noise. The boys stop, stand still, and hold their breaths. The noise rumbles on for a time before slowing to a halt.

   “Tokos... what was that,” Enoch whispers to his brother.

   “Oh, now you want me to help you? Gimme a break,” Tokos’ voice is disdainful as he whispers back.

   “Tokos, what if we’re in actual danger?” Enoch’s voice is still frustrated, but now somewhat strained. “What if Father told us not to go in here because...”

   The sound returns and both boys strain their ears to try and identify it’s cause and location. It sounds distinctly wet, and is accompanied by a sound like rocks splashing into water.

   “Father must’ve wanted to keep us out of here for a reason... It must have something to do with the inscription. Maybe it’s a curse and we’ve summoned whatever evil it speaks of!”

   “That’s stupid. If there were a curse, we would’ve heard something about it by now. Now le-”

   “Exactly. Remember what the people in Mother’s stories said? Dead men tell no tales. They were trying to keep us out of here so we wouldn’t be next!”

   The noise once again rumbles through the cave, followed by the sound of rushing water. Enoch gulps before continuing to speak. “Okay, well... Let’s just keep our heads and-”

   “Hey, I’ve been keeping my head. You’re the one acting like a coward.”

   Enoch huffs again, ignoring his brother. “We should figure out what’s going on here. I know Father has said something-”

   “We need to get out of here, and I already told you how.”

   “You go ahead. I’m going to figure out what’s going on.”

   “You don’t know what’s in there. We have to stick together!”

   “Ha! I knew it. You’re showboating. Now look who’s being the coward!”

   “I’m not being a coward, I’m making sure you don’t do something stupid to screw me over while I leave.”

   “All I want is to find out more, I’m not gonna do anything!”

   “Yes, you will! You always do! And then your curiosity will end up getting me into more trouble!”

   “Excuse me, I’m the one who gets you in trouble? Just who pressured me into going in here in the first place?”

   The sound booms now, silencing them both. The boys suddenly feel freezing water touch their toes. They jump back, only to have the water rise to touch them again. But the sound once again slows to a grinding stop and the water stands still, allowing the boys to turn from their fear back to their anger.

   Tokos is the first to speak, his voice icy and quiet. “They say Father murdered his brother when they were young. Maybe I should do the same to you.”

   “How dare you! You insult Father and you insult me, too.  No wonder he prefers me over you!”

   “Mother and Father don’t play favorites and you know it!”

   “They do. They began to favor me the moment they saw you but you couldn’t see them,” Enoch spits back spitefully.

   “Well it’s not like I asked for this! It’s not like I asked to always be missing a piece of the world. And I certainly didn’t ask for pussies like you to keep on telling me that I need them! That I need you!”

   Enoch takes a breath to shout back, but stops short. He is quickly overcome by a wave of guilt and he hangs his head. The sound thunders past them again and the water now flows up around their ankles. Enoch thinks over everything that had just been said and feels a terrible remorse. Tokos is right after all, about everything.

   And they do need to leave.

   The sound quiets down some after a few minutes but doesn’t go away entirely. The water continues to creep up their legs as they continue to shuffle backwards. At last Enoch lets go of his pride and speaks up.

   “Alright. We’ll do it your way, okay? We’ll leave.” He almost has to shout to be heard over the sound.

   Tokos hesitates for a moment before grabbing his brother’s arm and begins to pull him backwards. “Now you realize,” he grumbles after a moment.

   They slowly wade their way through the now waist- deep water, speeding up their way as the water level lowers the further they go. Part way along, Enoch stops Tokos.

   “What?” Tokos’ voice is testy.

   Enoch hesitates. “Look, I’m... I’m sorry. I really am. I have no excuse. Will you forgive me?”

   Tokos hesitates and lets go of Enoch’s arm. It seems for a moment that he is going to run off and leave Enoch behind (or follow through on his earlier threat), but instead he sighs and takes Enoch’s hand instead.

   “I... I don’t know yet. Let’s just get out of here.”

   And get out they did. With Tokos’ expert guidance through the dark, they eventually find their way back to the entrance of the cave. They whoop and holler under the stars before quickly shushing each other for fear that the party is still going and someone would see them.

   But the party isn’t still going. In fact, the tent and everyone in it is gone, leaving only the embers of long-doused bonfire. Enoch looks around; the only life around is a few wandering goats. Nobody is in sight.

   “Where’d everybody go?”

   “Maybe they went back to the palace?”

   The boys look up to their city across the waters, and to the palace, their home, which sat high atop everything else. They stay in place for a moment before beginning their trek across the bridge and into the capital.

   Their walk is sullen and silent for a while, and they both simply listen to the sound of water dripping off their clothes. But after some time, Tokos decides to speak up.

   “What did you mean by curse?”

   “I don’t know. Maybe there is one, who knows? But you’re right. Father would’ve told us if something like that was going on. He’s told us about plenty of other things.”

   “Yeah,” Tokos pauses. “Sorry for threatening you. And for dragging you into all this in the first place.”

   “And I’m sorry for everything else. I shouldn’t have been so high and mighty, and I shouldn’t have insinuated you were less capable than everyone else, either.”

   “Well. Better blind than paralyzed.”

   Enoch chuckles. “Isn’t that kind of missing the point?”

   Tokos laughs in return. “Maybe. And anyway, that story about Papa is a load of dung anyway.”

   “Are you sure? Then why do we know about his siblings without actually knowing his siblings?”

   “I dunno, they probably just live really far away.”

   “That’s fair. Hey, what do you think that sound was anyway?”

   “Eh, probably the Scarlet King.”

   Enoch stumbles and stops. “Are you serious?"

   “Oh, sure, we were both getting pretty nervous. ‘Fear alone feeds the beast,’ remember? Makes sense to me.”

   “Uhh... You’re joking, right?”

   “Of course I’m joking! What are you, a pussy?”

   Enoch smiles. Unlike the last few times he has said it, Tokos’ voice has returned to it’s usual playful tone.

   “I forgive you, by the way.”

   “So do I.”

   The rest of their walk is peaceful, and they talk more along the way. That is, until, the palace doors come into view and their anxieties abruptly spike.

   “Well, guess we should start with the meeting room...”

   They slowly make their way there, making sure to stay out of sight of the servants and the guests, all the while whispering their plans to explain themselves.

   But these plans are quickly flattened as they approach the doors right as they were opened. A servant walked out and walked away, leaving the boys staring their shocked mother and father in the face. They stand like this for a moment, awkwardly shuffling in place as their parents looked at them in disbelief.

   This disbelief is soon suspended as they run around the table that they and a variety of maps had been situated at. Their mother quickly sweeps them into her arms, and their father soon follows.

   “Enoch! Tokos! Where have you been, are you hurt? What were you thinking!”

   “No, Mama, we’re not hurt. And, I, uh, dunno. We, uh...” Tokos’ hand searches for Enoch’s hand and swats it.

   Enoch takes the hint. “We, well... went in the cave.” Their parents share a look before Enoch continues. “It was Tokos’ idea to go in-”

   “Hey!”

   “-but I’m the one who made him stay.”

   The sharing of the blame doesn’t go unnoticed.

   “But you both got out safe, correct?” their father asks, eyeing their still soaked sandals and trousers.

   Both boys nod, and sheepishly tell of their misadventure.

   Their father sighs. “Boys, we told you not to go in there because it floods easily. That inscription you read is an old warning; it’s how we knew to keep you and everyone else out. Those sounds you heard were likely a sea wall collapsing and water rushing in.”

   This makes the boys feel rather stupid.

   “Are you sure you’re not hurt?” their mother says.

  “Nah. Now are you gonna throw us a party for being back or what?” Tokos grins his classic grin.

   “Actually, I was thinking something more along the lines of several restrictions,” their father says in a stern yet fond tone. The boys groan. “Now go take baths, both of you, and then it’s straight to bed.”

   The boys mumble their affirmations and begin shuffling off towards their rooms. 

   “Boys?”

   They turn around and run back into their parent’s arms. Their mother strokes their hair as their father rubs their backs.

   “It’s good to have you back.”

[xpuriity]

         GOLDEN  SKIES  BECOME  BLINDING  IN  THE  MIDST  OF  A  SETTING  SUN,  shimmering  blankets  of  gold  now  pierced  by  anchors  as  a  whale  of  a ship  halts  at  the  port  of  a  quiet  island,  seemingly  empty  of  inhabitants  ——–  A  world  of  overgrown ivy  crawling  along  stone  walls  and  rotting  wood  resembling what  looked  to  have  been  a  sign  now  much  too  obscure  to decipher  the  use  for.  Perhaps  a  world  untouched  in  many decades;  abandoned  for  reasons  unknown  to  the  group  of  pirates  freely  roaming  the  site  today.

         It had  been  perhaps,  months  in  the  making  since  discovering  the vacant  island.  Having  embarked  solo  on  a  journey  one  day,  the  Fire  Fist  stumbled  upon  the  potential  fruits  the  island  could  provide  him,  that  is  to  say,  had  the  right  person  decided  to  plant  the  seeds  and  put  in  the  labor.

         A  vision  was  formulated  and  put  into  action  in  secrecy.  Days he  would  keep  from  his  beloved  hummingbird  as  he  ventured  off  with  a  select  few  others  when  the  need  of  assistance  caught  up  with  one  ever  so  typically  determined  to  work  independently  on  his  project  ——–  Physical  work  he was  always  more  than  capable  of,  but  what  could  one  man  achieve  within  a  set  deadline  and  without  the  tools  and brains  required  to  make  his  vision  come  to  fruition?

         ❛❛    I’ve  got  you,  Rosa.    ❜❜    he  speaks  softly  whilst  guiding  the  hand  so  much  more  softer and  smaller  in  comparison  to  his  own.  Doe-eyed  indigo  blues ensured  to  be  blinded  temporarily;  petite  digits  having  been  instructed  to  hold  in  place  the  tilting  of  his signature  hat  over  delicate  features  until  given  a  signal.

         A  pathway  was  cleared  prior  to  this  special  day,  ensuring  it to  be  nonhazardous  for  the  very  person  he  bothered  creating  this  for  at  all  ——–  but  useless  it was,  really.  Especially  when  impatience  got  the  better  of  him quarter  of  their  journey  through  overgrown  green.  Ace backpedals  in  a  manner  quite  abrupt,  releasing  of  her  hand momentarily  before  sweeping  the  petite  off  her  feet  entirely  ——–  and  readily,  after  giving  a  quick  word  of  warning,  the  male springs  through  the  forest  with  quick  ease,  holding  tightly onto  his  princess  in  arms,  of  course.

         It  is  only  once  he  slows  (  which  doesn’t  necessarily  take  long  considering  his  speed  ),  that  the  birthday  girl  is  carefully  placed  back  onto  her  own  footing  and  that  the  very  hat  serving  to  conceal  of  her sight  was  finally  retrieved  by  the  owner.

         ❛❛    You..  like  this  sort  of  thing,  right?    ❜❜

        Before  indigo  irises,  there  stood  a  bridge  of  stone  above  a  running  river,  as  if  a  scene  stolen  from  right  out  of  a  fairy  tale.  One  leading  out  to  a  clearing,  contrasting  the  messy  forest  behind  them.

        Beyond  the  bridge  was  where  the  magic  truly  began  ——–  Soft  lights  of  pink  and  redish  hues  decorated  the  scene.  Few  shipmates  caught  enjoying  the  little  wonderland  in  the distance,  having  already  prepared  a  banquet  of  sorts  (  including  a  grand  table  of  luxurious  desserts  for  hers  truly  )  and  awaiting  for  the  rest  of  the  party  to  arrive;  particularly  the  princess  of  the  very  world  Ace  worked  so  hard  to  create  ——–  but  the  most  brilliant,  most  magical  of  the  scene?  There  stood in  the  very  center  a  carousel  of  vibrant  colors,  emitting  music  so  nostalgic,  so  similar  to  what  you  would  so  often  hear  from  a  music  box.

         ❛❛    I  found  it  abandoned  a  little  while  ago..  It  was  in  rough  shape,  but  for  some  reason  I  couldn’t  leave  it  alone  out  here.    ❜❜    A  heartfelt  smile  is  presented  to  her,  speaking  as  if  the  ride  itself  was  alive.  The  truth  being  he  couldn’t  so  much  as  ignore  it  when  the  vision  of  her  smile  had  followed  him  everywhere  just  simply  entertaining  the  possibility  that  he  had  he  could  actually  bring  it  back  to  life.

         A  hand  swiftly  catches  her  own,  wanting  to  simply  join  her  across  the bridge  before  she  proceeded  on  her  own  towards  the  scene resembling  the  pictures  inside  the  fairy  tales  he  always  knew his  girl  loved  so  much.

         The  others merely  observed  in  delight  when  the  couple  made  their  way towards  them.  A  few  cheers  towards  the  birthday  girl  before it  was  her  partner  that  gingerly,  however  swiftly  seats  her upon  the  back  of  a  glowing  hummingbird.  One  not  originally  there,  but  crafted  just  for  hers  truly.

         ❛❛    It’s  a  little  stubborn,  this  one..  Hold  on.    ❜❜    He  explains,  half  circling  the  carnival  ride  of  restructured  and  repainted animals.  The  mechanics  behind  it  having  been  inspired,  and   therefore  similar  to  his  Striker.  Meaning  a  line  of  wild  fire  would  be  needed  to  be  lit  so  as  to  propel  the  acceleration  of  the  carousel  itself  ——–  it  quite  irritated  Ace  initially  to  learn  it  couldn’t  so  much  as  run  without  his flames,  thus  a  brief,  disappointed  frown  is  visible  across  freckled  features  at  the  reminder  before  brushing  such  off  once  the  ride began.

         Lights  danced,  as  did  the animals  of  various  colors.  To  witness  of  any  expressed  happiness  from  his  beloved  delighted  him  immensely.  In  fact,  the  pace  of  which  the  carousel  spun  was  dependent  on  the  strength  of  his  wild  flames.  And  during  the  fun,  he would  be  laughing,  either  accelerating  the  ride  or  the complete  opposite,  simply  for  the  birthday  girl’s  entertainment.

         Sooner  or  later,  after  the  first  ride,  the  rest  of  the  party  would  join  in  on  the  fun.  Some  either  complaining  of  the nauseating  spinning  or  thriving  off  it.  Eventually,  as  the  golden  skies  transformed  into  a  night  of  glowing  stars,  the  crowd finally  dispersed,  leaving  the  two  alone  once  more.

        This  time,  the  male  spent  his  first  and  Rosa’s  final  ride  right  along  with  her.  Both  perched  upon  the  back  of  the  hummingbird  with  his  arms  laced  around  her  petite  waist  protectively,  as though  she  were  treasure.  And  tiredly,  his  chin  would  lean  upon  a  crown  of  strawberry  blond  curls  whilst  a  soft  tune  follows  the  couple,  his  tamed  fire  visibly  glowing  as  they  propel  the  carousel  from  beneath.

         ❛❛    Never  thought  I’d  ride  something  like  this,  even  as  a  kid.    ❜❜    Being  that  as  a  child,  he  didn’t  have  the  luxury  to  do  so.  Nor did  he  ever  want  to  entertain  the  thought  due  to  the  ride  being  deemed  only  for  girls  by  a  ten  year  old  boy  ——–  To  think,  several  years  later,  that  same  aggressive  child  now  a  grown  man  would   willingly  rebuild  one  for  the  sake  of  a  woman’s  smile.

         Cue  a  loving  smile  of  his  own,  silver  irises  ever  so  gentle   beneath  the  moonlight  as  a  hand  gingerly  guides  feminine features  to  one  side,  himself  moving  in  ever  so  slowly  to  place  a  kiss  upon  what  was  deemed  the  softest,  most  delicate  and  most  heavenly  touch  he’d  ever  been  given  the  luxury  to  taste.

         ❛❛    Happy  birthday,  Rosa..    ❜❜

        VACANT  LAND  BATHED  IN  WARM  TWILIGHT  HUES,  light  bouncing  off  the  stone  walls  resembling  picturesque  images  straight  from  worn  out  pages  of  ancient  fairy  tales  and  stories  from  untouched  worlds  of  fantasy  —  an  enchanting  view  but  one  which  is  as  quickly  taken  away  from  mesmerized  and  blinking  indigo  blues  as  instructed  by  her  most  beloved  to  temporarily  conceal  of  her  vision.

        His  signature  hat  he  entrusts  the  petite  with  and  she  clings  to  it  protectively  over  strawberry  blonde  waves,  not  daring  for  a  moment  to  steal  a  single  peak  ——  all  the  while  digits  interlock  with  the  one  she  trusted  to  always  keep  her  safe  and  guide  her  way,  a  promise  she  knew  to  be  as  true  as  the  ring  he  adorned  around  her  finger.

        Peacefully  they  march  together,  when  an  abrupt  halt  draws  confusion,  his  name  echoed  through  the  vast  space  in  question.  ❝Ace?❞  she  softly  inquiries  but  the  answer  is  given  before  she  could  even  ponder  on  it  ——  in  swift  movements,  the  ground  is  taken  from  below  her  feet,  instead  replaced  with  the  feel  of  strong  arms  securing  her  tightly  within  their  hold  prompting  a  loud  squeal  to  escape  in  surprise,  however,  almost  instantly  it  is  followed  by  timid  giggles  and  ecstatic  laughter.  

        Rosa  had  been  no  princess  and  her  man  no  royal  prince,  rather  both  but  mere  pirates  yet  in  his  arms,  she  could  almost  swear  she  had  been  one  ——  rather  more  than  any  princess,  she  had  been  certain,  no  girl  in  the  history  of  time  had  ever  been  as  blessed  as  she  is,  simply  to  have  him  be  the  love  of  her  life.

        A  short  journey  it  had  been,  but  finally  indigo  hues  are  granted  their  sight  again,  and  they  couldn’t  have  possibly  unveiled  to  a  more  breathtaking  view;  a  gasp  escapes  glossy  lips,  clumsily  losing  her  footing  in  all  her  awe  as  she  clings  to  him  for  support.  ❝Ace,  it’s…  —  ❞  lost  for  words,  she  turns  to  freckled  features  and  the  stunned  expression  upon  her  own  delicate  ones  say  it  all  as  she  vigorously  nods  to  the  query  voiced.

        ❝I  do  ——  ❞  more  than  simply  like  ❝It’s  like  a  fairy-tale  ——  I  love  it  so  much❞

        For  long  months,  days  in  and  out  would  be  spent  occasionally  deprived  of  her  firefly’s  warmth  with  no  hint  nor  clue  where  his  adventures  would  take  him,  only  that  it  had  been  far  away  from  herself  —  perhaps  a  cause  for  concern  when  particularly  seeking  the  company  of  a  select  few  individuals  but  never  her  among  them,  however,  Rosa  had  not  been  of  little  faith  for  her  man  and  any  worries  which  may  arise  are  almost  instantly  forgotten  the  second  he  is  back  safe  into  her  loving  arms.  

        Now  before  her,  stood  in  luminous  vibrant  colors  the  source  of  her  king’s  distraction  and  absence  all  this  time,  emitting  melodies  so  soothing  to  the  hummingbird’s  heart  which  had  been  about  to  burst  in  joy,  unable  to  quite  contain  its  excitement.  

        ❝That’s..  that’s  where  you’ve  been  going,  all  this  time  —  ❞  she  speaks  softly  as  realization  slowly  sunk  in  —  indigo  glistening  with  love,  touched  beyond  words.  ❝You  fixed  it  up..  all  for  me?❞  the  hand  she  is  holding  is  given  a  gentle  squeeze  before  her  gaze  is  redirected  to  the  ride  he  had  worked  hard  to  prepare,  just  for  her.  

        Grateful  loving  words  would  undoubtedly  follow  had  the  petite  not  been  too  taken  by  the  scene  to  rush  on  with  innocent  enthusiasm  ——  so  much  she  resembled  no  more  than  a  little  girl,  the  very  same  one  to  spend  years  coped  up  inside  her  small  room  keeping  busy  with  picture  perfect  fairy  tales  yet  now  they  paled  in  comparison  to  the  real  thing  surrounding  her.  

        Cheers  of  their  loving  family  drew  shy  giggles  from  the  musician  as  she  hides  of  embarrassed  rosy  features  in  her  lover’s  chest  but  it  is  not  enough  to  conceal  of  her  happy  giggles  and  laughter,  evidently  thankful  for  everyone’s  love  and  hard-work,  before  she  is  but  swiftly  carried  away  by  her  prince  again,  this  time  guided  to  her  throne,  or  rather  what  resembled  it  to  her  ——  a  seat  evidently  made  just  for  her.  

        ❝It’s  a  hummingbird..❞  she  states  the  obvious  in  awe,  soft  digits  gently  touching  of  its  glowing  surface  as  she  did  not  for  a  moment  believe  this  particular  seat  could  have  been  here  out  of  mere  coincidence  ——  a  realization  prompting  her  to  lean  in  and  greedily  steal  a  loving  kiss  then  another  from  his  lips  just  before  his  flames  could  bring  the  wonderland  to  life.  

        After  that  it  had  been  nothing  but  innocent  laughter  bubbling  through  the  clearing  all  the  ride  long  ——  her  heart  held  by  none  other  than  him  as  though  through  his  flames  not  only  did  he  control  the  carousel  but  her  happiness  as  well,  at  which  at  some  point  she’d  clearly  voice.  ❝I  feel  like  a  princess..❞  one  riding  in  her  own  kingdom  —  or  rather  the  little  piece  of  heaven  her  prince  had  constructed  for  her.

        With  the  royal  couple  of  the  day  left  alone,  basking  in  the  starlight,  Rosa  rests  her  head  against  his  chest,  listening  to  his  heartbeat  in  the  silence  of  the  night,  only  pulling  away  when  hearing  of  what  had  been  deemed  the  most  adorable  confession.  It  prompts  the  softest  smile  to  her  lips.  ❝Me  neither..❞  she  confides  slowly;  growing  up  to  sounds  of  gunfire  and  explosives,  it  had  been  difficult  for  her  to  so  much  as  believe  in  the  possibility,  but  she  could  only  ever  fantasize  about  a  better  life,  one  of  bright  colors  and  happiness  as  the  one  he  showed  her  today,  or  rather  every  day  of  her  life  since  coming  into  it.  ❝—  I  never  thought  it  could  be  possible..  but  I’ve  always  dreamed  of  it…  every  day  reading  those  stories..❞

        Captivated  by  the  beauty  of  silver  brighter  than  the  moonlight  above,  she  gently  leans  into  his  touch,  welcoming  the  delicate  kiss  of  the  only  lips  she’d  ever  touched  yet  forever  the  only  ones  she’d  ever  crave  ——  deepening  it  further  until  he  could  taste  her  overwhelming  emotions  of  rapture  through  tears  of  joy.

                        ❝  Ace,  YOU  were  my  dream  come  true..  ❞

[wild-blue-sonder]

Tips for Breath of the Wild Newbies

Or anyone who may be as obsessed with the game as me.

I’ve officially done five playthroughs of Breath of the Wild since I got the game and Switch last year. Even though I’m on my sixth now, I’m still somehow discovering things while playing it! That goes to show how expansive and utterly amazing it is. If I had to choose just one game to play for the rest of my life, it’d be Breath of the Wild without hesitation. It has officially dethroned Twilight Princess as my favorite Zelda title which I never thought would happen. Anyway, if you’re a new player like I was just last year, or a veteran looking to critique some hints and tips, I hope this post doesn’t disappoint!

1: Thoroughly explore the Great Plateau This area is the beginning of your journey, and methodically running all over it will equip you for the rest of your adventure. There are some weapons lying around other than weak Traveler’s and Boko gear, such as a Soldier’s Bow at the top of the Temple of Time (which you literally can’t miss after the first major cutscene), a Throwing Spear in the Bokoblin camp behind the Temple, and a Soldier’s Broadsword under the waterfall of the snowy area. Raiding all the Bokoblin camps will reward you with a few ambers and opals you can sell for rupees early on. Keep the Iron Sledgehammer you get in the Owa Daim shrine and use it to defeat the Stone Talus near Hopper Pond instead of expending precious, expensive Bomb Arrows. Make it a habit to use Magnesis near any body of water, especially bogs. Comb the Forest of Spirits for all its insect and food resources. Lastly, there are eighteen Korok seeds to be found around the Plateau which gives you a good start to upgrading your inventory.

2: Gather Korok seeds early and efficiently Most new players probably want to know how they can carry more gear since it breaks. Hestu provides the solution to that issue and you can’t miss him if you follow the main questline. There are 900 Korok seeds in the whole game but you only need 441 to max out your gear slots. My favorite areas for getting a lot of seeds early on are the Dueling Peaks and Hateno regions (combined to form Necluda), the Lake region, and north-northwestern Faron. You can easily glide to many seed locations from the Lake tower and the top of Dueling Peaks. Zelda Dungeon is the best resource for finding seeds.

3: Embrace the durability system Something I hear from many players is their hatred for weapons breaking, but that system is in place for a reason! There’s tons of gear scattered all over Hyrule and breaking it gives you the opportunity to try out everything. I’m sure you will come to favor certain items as you progress. I hate finding a chest with a good weapon or shield in it that I can’t carry because my inventory is full, so I have to throw something on the ground ‘cause I’m too impatient to come back and get the better thing later. I’d rather break weapons by fighting enemies and gathering resources instead of letting them poof. You will also get the most mileage out of your gear by using it appropriately. Instead of running into monster camps and breaking all your swords and spears on tough enemies, take some of them out with bow headshots. Instead of trying to melee certain enemies, use shield parries to deflect their projectiles and kill them. And don’t use your claymores to smash ore. One last aspect of the durability system is to learn where certain weapons spawn, providing you with an endless supply. For instance, there will always be Iron Sledgehammers leaning against Link’s house in Hateno and a Silver Longsword behind the Ne’ez Yohma shrine in Zora’s Domain.

4: Save Guardian gear for Guardians Guardian gear is most effective against the various types of Guardians loitering around Hyrule. After passing some Minor or Moderate Tests of Strength, hang onto those weapons for Guardian Scouts you’ll encounter in certain shrines, Decayed Guardians posted around certain areas, and Guardian Stalkers which yield the highest amount of ancient materials. You can use Guardian gear against regular monsters, but it’s not as efficient. Shock Arrows are also effective against Guardians if you need something in a pinch.

5: Ignore Yiga Footsoldiers If you see random people on the side of the main roads in Hyrule either whimpering or standing around like creeps, they turn out to be Yiga assassins 99% of the time. I personally find them annoying so I just ignore them. They won’t pursue you unlike the archers and blademasters that poof in to disrupt your questing later on.

6: Use Dragonbone Moblin Clubs to defeat Taluses Dragonbone Moblin Clubs are highly effective and extremely common two-handed weapons that work well for dispatching Taluses in the early stages of the game. The easiest way to get these clubs is to run around at night and wait for Stalmoblins to pop out of the ground; they are commonly found in the Gerudo mountains. It should be noted that these clubs aren’t as effective against Igneo Taluses due to catching on fire. But Frost and Stone Taluses of the plain, rare, and luminous ore varieties will fall quickly beneath the might of the Dragonbone Moblin Club, especially if you hold a charge attack after climbing onto them. It should also be noted that Boulder Breaker is actually the best weapon in the game for farming ore from Taluses, so you can just use that after you get it. I still hang onto Spiked and Dragonbone Moblin Clubs for smashing regular ore if my sledgehammers break.

7: Do not fear Hinoxes, Moldugas, and Lynels These are the three most intimidating monsters in the game, but engaging them is entirely optional. You can hear Hinoxes snoring from a mile away so they’re easy to stroll past or ignore altogether. After a certain heart count they’ll almost always have boosted weapons around their necks, usually Royal gear, and there are three methods for gathering them. You can sneak onto their hand and wait for them to drop you onto their belly, then nab the weapons and carefully jump off. You can engage them, shoot them in the eye once, and grab the weapons while they’re sitting on the ground before running away. Or you can just kill them which is easy if you have Urbosa’s Fury and hold a charge attack with any two-handed weapon. This method will even kill red and blue Hinoxes in one go with a strong Royal Claymore! Moldugas only spawn in specific areas of the Gerudo Desert and you can see their sand ripples from far away, so you can give them a wide berth if you want. But they’re worth engaging for the good weapons in their treasure chests. Again, the best method for defeating them is to use a strong two-handed weapon (Royal Claymores are my personal favorite for their abundance and high durability), hold a charge attack, and make sure Urbosa’s Fury is active. Lynels are obnoxious to fight due to how much they dick around. The key to defeating them is to master perfect dodging because their attack patterns are extremely predictable. Use a combination of high durability and high damage one-handed weapons, such as Royal Broadswords and Lizal Tri-Boomerangs, paired with strong shields. Always try to swoop in on Lynels with the Paraglider from a high point because if they spot you from afar they’ll shoot you with elemental arrows. Speaking of which, Lynels are immune to elemental arrows and weapons so don’t waste them. Just go toe to hoof and have good reaction time.

8: Learn the best locations for farming resources After five playthroughs I’m still working on this one, but here are some tips I can share. Razorshrooms and Zapshrooms are commonly found all over Akkala. Rhino beetles are best gathered in Faron. Equip the Sheikah set, start in Lurelin Village, and run along the beach checking palm trees along the way. Hearty Lizards are also commonly found in Faron. For gathering Rushrooms with minimal climbing, stay in Necluda. Naydra Snowfield yields more Chillshrooms than you’ll know what to do with. To get Gourmet Meat either to sell to Trott or make expensive kebabs, hunt Tabantha Moose and Great Horned Rhinoceros in Hebra; wolves and coyotes tend to yield Prime Meat. Avoid bears because they’re jerks. If you’re in need of the three varieties of Safflina, you can’t do better than farming the Ruins and Great Fairy Fountain of Gerudo. Lastly, if you want a lot of ore for upgrading clothes or selling to get rich, turn on your Sheikah Sensor in Eldin. Of course I wouldn’t leave out the dragons. Farming parts from them can be frustrating because of the elements that hurt you, but you need horn shards for upgrading the Champion’s Tunic. It is easiest to fly at them head-on and use either a Golden or Phrenic Bow, or the Ancient Bow since it shoots straight, then stay in the updraft so you can see where the part lands. In my experience, the best spot for Farosh is on Floria Bridge in Faron. Hylia Bridge and the Gerudo Summit are good second and third areas. The best spot for Dinraal is Tabantha Great Bridge; the second best is near the Eldin Great Skeleton. Climb one of the rock spikes along the edge of the map or up the mountain to catch an updraft and shoot him. My favorite spot to farm Naydra is in Lanayru Promenade. Climb up either of the dilapidated sides and wait for her to come down. You might also catch her while gliding southeast from Vah Ruta.

9: Explore one region at a time I started doing this during my most recent playthrough. Previously I would go around activating each tower as soon as possible to fill in the map, but exploring each area as I reveal it has led to some fun discoveries, like a big stash of gear just north of the Gerudo tower, and certain side quests I’d never done before such as A Parent’s Love. Methodical searching is also the best way to find Korok seeds if you don’t want to use a guide. There are so many secrets in Hyrule that you’ll definitely miss stuff when you have the whole map laid out before you, so consider exploring one region at a time!

10: Try the Expansion Pass content Master Mode is probably the best offering from both DLCs. It does ramp up the difficulty to a certain degree and is worth a full playthrough even though the base game stays the same. There are no red enemies, you start facing off against the blue versions of each monster type. In addition to black and silver, you will fight golden enemies which are quite tough. Monsters also regenerate health which can be frustrating. However, there are way more and better weapons to be found! Floating alongside most bridges and waterfalls will be Bokoblins and Lizalfos guarding treasure chests. Master Mode also gives you much more rare ore. The Champion’s Ballad is enjoyable and has three main parts. First, you run around with the One Hit Obliterator and if the name of that weapon doesn’t sell you, then don’t buy the content. Second, the shrines you must beat to complete each champion song are difficult, good for anyone who complained about a lack of a challenge. Third, the final dungeon is like a fifth Divine Beast and the boss fight is kind of easy compared to everything you had to do to get to that point. But the Master Cycle is worth it. Think “steampunk unicorn dirt bike” and if you have no desire to drive Link around Hyrule on such a vehicle, then you are playing the wrong video game. I can’t talk about the Master Trials since I have yet to complete it, but I loved going on a treasure hunt for all of the EX armors, the Royal Guard uniform being the best. They can’t be upgraded, though, which is a bit disappointing.

Was this post helpful to you? Am I completely wrong about something? Do you have anything to add? Feel free to reblog with your own hints and tips! And let’s all hope that Breath of the Wild 2 measures up to the awesomeness of the first game!